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Title: Studying the short-story
Author: Esenwein, J. Berg (Joseph Berg)
Language: English
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SHORT-STORY ***
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
In the plain text version text in italics is enclosed by underscores
(_italics_), and small capitals are represented in upper case as in
SMALL CAPS.
The book cover was modified by the transcriber and has been added to
the public domain.
A number of words in this book have both hyphenated and non-hyphenated
variants. For the words with both variants present the one more used
has been kept.
Obvious punctuation and other printing errors have been corrected.
* * * * *
Studying the Short-Story
SIXTEEN SHORT-STORY CLASSICS
WITH INTRODUCTIONS, NOTES AND
A NEW LABORATORY STUDY METHOD
FOR INDIVIDUAL READING AND
USE IN COLLEGES AND SCHOOLS
BY
J. BERG ESENWEIN, A.M., LIT.D.
EDITOR OF THE WRITER’S MONTHLY
REVISED EDITION
THE WRITER’S LIBRARY
EDITED BY J. BERG ESENWEIN
HINDS, HAYDEN & ELDREDGE, INC.
NEW YORK PHILADELPHIA CHICAGO
Copyright 1912
BY J. BERG ESENWEIN
Copyright 1918
BY J. BERG ESENWEIN
TO
MOTHER
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
TO TEACHERS AND STUDENTS vii
PUBLISHERS’ NOTE xi
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF THE
SHORT-STORY xiii
I. STORIES OF ACTION AND ADVENTURE 1
MÉRIMÉE AND HIS WRITINGS 4
“Mateo Falcone,” _Prosper Mérimée_ 8
STEVENSON AND HIS WRITINGS 29
“A Lodging for the Night,” _Robert Louis Stevenson_ 34
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS FOR STUDY 67
TEN REPRESENTATIVE STORIES OF ACTION AND ADVENTURE 68
II. STORIES OF MYSTERY AND FANTASY 69
POE AND HIS WRITINGS 72
“The Purloined Letter,” _Edgar Allan Poe_ 76
JACOBS AND HIS WRITINGS 108
“The Monkey’s Paw,” _W. W. Jacobs_ 111
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS FOR STUDY 129
TEN REPRESENTATIVE STORIES OF MYSTERY AND FANTASY 130
III. STORIES OF EMOTION 131
DAUDET AND HIS WRITINGS 135
“The Last Class,” _Alphonse Daudet_ 139
KIPLING AND HIS WRITINGS 147
“Without Benefit of Clergy,” _Rudyard Kipling_ 151
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS FOR STUDY 189
TEN REPRESENTATIVE STORIES OF EMOTION OR SENTIMENT 190
IV. HUMOROUS STORIES 191
HENRY AND HIS WRITINGS 194
“The Ransom of Red Chief,” _O. Henry_ 198
BARRIE AND HIS WRITINGS 215
“The Courting of T’Nowhead’s Bell,” _James M. Barrie_ 219
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS FOR STUDY 249
TEN REPRESENTATIVE HUMOROUS STORIES 250
V. STORIES OF SETTING 251
HARTE AND HIS WRITINGS 255
“The Outcasts of Poker Flat,” _Bret Harte_ 259
MAUPASSANT AND HIS WRITINGS 277
“Moonlight,” _Guy de Maupassant_ 281
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS FOR STUDY 290
TEN REPRESENTATIVE STORIES OF SETTING 290
VI. IMPRESSIONISTIC STORIES 291
HAWTHORNE AND HIS WRITINGS 297
“The White Old Maid,” _Nathaniel Hawthorne_ 302
“The Fall of the House of Usher,” _Edgar Allan Poe_ 320
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS FOR STUDY 351
TEN REPRESENTATIVE IMPRESSIONISTIC STORIES 352
VII. CHARACTER STUDIES 353
“The Piece of String,” _Guy de Maupassant_ 356
COPPÉE AND HIS WRITINGS 368
“The Substitute,” _François Coppée_ 371
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS FOR STUDY 388
TEN REPRESENTATIVE CHARACTER STUDIES 389
VIII. PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES 390
“Markheim,” _Robert Louis Stevenson_ 394
MORRISON AND HIS WRITINGS 422
“On the Stairs,” _Arthur Morrison_ 425
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS FOR STUDY 431
TEN REPRESENTATIVE PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES 432
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 433
INDEX 437
TO TEACHERS AND STUDENTS
Growing out of my former volume, _Writing the Short-Story_, appeared
the use for a new book that should contain a large number of
short-stories arranged and annotated in form suitable for school or
private study. Accordingly, the unique marginal arrangement for notes,
which was first used in the study of Maupassant’s “The Necklace,”
in the earlier work, was also adopted in this, with the addition of
exhaustive critical introductions and comments. Further study, whether
by classes or by individuals, has been facilitated by the reading
references upon the authors represented, and--arranged under each
of the eight type-groups--the explicit lists of ten representative
short-stories available for reading and analysis.
Five points were had in mind as a basis for the selection of the
stories included in this collection: First, the real merit of the
story, as illustrating the short-story structurally perfect, or as
nearly perfect as could be found in combination with the other points
desired; second, the typical qualities of the story, as standing
for the class it was to represent; third, its intrinsic literary
interest for the general reader; fourth, its representative quality as
illustrating the author’s tone and style; fifth, its suitability for
class and private study and analysis.
Other stories are equally brilliant and equally representative,
but some are too long to fit into such a selection; others are not
available because of publishers’ rules; still others are morally
unsuitable for the uses of mixed classes of young people; while
many capital stories are the work of authors who have not produced
consistently good work.
The tone of many of the stories included is sad, and their endings
tragic; this is accidental and has not at all governed the selection
from my belief that stories of tragic quality are necessarily the
greatest; though the tragic phases of life, being the most intense,
are the most likely to offer attractive themes to authors who prefer
to deal with strong and subtle situations. The same is true of stories
dealing with sex problems, but these have been excluded for obvious
reasons. Livelier and more cheerful stories either were not as
representative of the types I desired to exhibit, or were rejected from
other motives. Those who study these selections with a view to writing
the short-story will do well to bear in mind that fiction of gloomy
tone must be very well written and on themes of unusual power to atone
for their depressing qualities.
For the use of teachers and their pupils, a series of general questions
has been prepared (p. xxxi), besides questions at the end of each
section. Of course these will be regarded as suggestive rather than
exhaustive.
The margins left blank in the stories marked “For Analysis” may be used
for pencil notes, at the option of the teacher. For further study,
strips of writing paper may be attached to the margins of stories
cut from the magazines and full notes added by the pupil. _Writing
the Short-Story_ will be found an especially practical adjunct in
making the marginal analyses and notes, as that work gives much space
to the general structure of the short-story and an analysis of its
parts. The nomenclature of _Writing the Short-Story_ has been observed
in this volume, as well as the typographical arrangement, where
practicable--especially the practise of indicating short-stories by
quotation marks, while printing book-titles in italics.
I venture to hope that the present work may prove helpful in disclosing
to lovers of the short-story, as well as to those who wish merely
to study its technique, the means by which authors of international
distinction have secured their effects.
J. BERG ESENWEIN
Philadelphia, June 8, 1912.
NOTE TO REVISED EDITION
The only changes made in the original text are such typographical
corrections as were needed and a considerable addition to the
bibliography.
J. B. E.
Springfield, Mass., May 1, 1918.
PUBLISHERS’ NOTE
The wide usefulness of _Writing the Short-Story_, by the author of this
volume, as evidenced by its adoption for class use in the foremost
American universities, colleges, and schools, and by the many thousands
of well-known writers and younger aspirants who have found it so
helpful in their craft, has encouraged the author to undertake the
present work. Mere collections of short-stories are not lacking, but no
other volume presents an authoritative international selection, with
comprehensive classifications under leading short-story types, critical
and biographical introductions, illuminating marginal notes, and
opportunities for original study afforded by margins for the student’s
notes, together with questions and lists of stories for examination and
study. Whether used singly or as a companion volume with _Writing the
Short-Story_, it is confidently believed that the present work will
prove a notable contribution to the literature of this most popular and
significant literary form.
THE PUBLISHERS
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF THE SHORT-STORY
Fiction as an art has made more progress during the last hundred years
than any other literary type. The first half of the nineteenth century
especially developed a consciousness of subject matter and form in both
the novel and the short-story which has created an epoch as notable in
the history of fiction as was the age of Shakespeare in the progress of
the drama. In Great Britain, France, Russia, Germany, and America arose
fictional artists of distinguished ability, while in other nations
writers of scarcely less merit soon followed.
The novel demands a special study, so even for its relation to our
theme--the short-story--the reader must be referred to such works as
specialize on the longer form.[1]
A comprehensive treatment of the short-story would include an inquiry
into the origins of all short fictional forms, for every story that
is short is popularly known as a short story. The fullest and best
guide for such a study is Henry Seidel Canby’s historical and critical
treatise, _The Short Story in English_.
Naturally, an inquiry into origins would prove to be measurably
profitless and certainly dry for the general student were it not
supplemented by the reading of a great many stories--preferably in the
original--which illustrate the steps in short-story development from
earliest times.[2]
A further field for a comprehensive survey would be a critical
comparison of the modern form with its several ancestral and
contributory forms, from original sources.
A third examen would be devoted to the characteristics and tendencies
of the present-day short-story as presented in volume form and,
particularly, in the modern magazine.
A fourth, would undertake to study the rhetoric of the form.[3]
None of these sorts of study can be exhaustively presented in this
volume, yet all are touched upon so suggestively and with such full
references that the reader may himself pursue the themes with what
fullness he elects. The special field herein covered will be, I
believe, sufficiently apparent as the reader proceeds.
Let it be understood from the outstart that throughout this volume
the term short-story is used rather loosely to cover a wide variety of
short fiction; yet presently it will be necessary to show precisely
how the modern form differs from its fictive ancestors, and that
distinction will assume some importance to those who care about
recognizing the several short fictional forms and who enjoy calling
things by their exact names.
* * * * *
The first story-teller was that primitive man who in his
wanderings afield met some strange adventure and returned to his
fellows to narrate it. His narration was a true story. The first
fictionist--perhaps it was the same hairy savage--was he who, having
chosen to tell his adventure, also resolved to add to it some details
wrought of his own fancy. That was fiction, because while the story was
compounded of truth it was worked out by the aid of imagination, and
so was close kin to the story born entirely of fancy which merely uses
true-seeming things, or veritable contributory facts, to make the story
“real.”
Egyptian tales, recorded on papyrus sheets, date back six thousand
years. Adventure was their theme, while gods and heroes, beasts
and wonders, furnished their incidents. When love was introduced,
obscenities often followed, so that the ancient tales of pure adventure
are best suited to present-day reading.
What is true of Egypt 4000 B. C. is equally true of Greece many
centuries later. The Homeric stories will serve as specimens of
adventure narrative; and the Milesian tales furnish the erotic type.
As for the literary art of these early fictions, we need only refer
to ancient poetry to see how perfect was its development two thousand
and more years ago; therefore--for the poets were story-tellers--we
need not marvel at the majestic diction, poetic ideas, and dramatic
simplicity of such short-stories as the Egyptian “Tales of the
Magicians,”[4] fully six thousand years old; the Homeric legends, told
possibly twenty-five hundred years ago;[5] “The Book of Esther,”[6]
written more than twenty-one hundred years ago; and the stories by
Lucius Apuleius, in _The Golden Ass_,[7] quite two thousand years old.
In form these ancient stories were of three types: the anecdote (often
expanded beyond the normal limits of anecdote); the scenario, or
outline of what might well have been told as a longer story; and the
tale, or straightforward chain of incidents with no real complicating
plot.
Story-telling maintained much the same pace until the early middle
ages, when the sway of religious ideas was felt in every department
of life. Superstition had always vested the forces of nature with
more than natural attributes, so that the wonder tale was normally
the companion of the war or adventure story. But now the power of the
Christian religion was laying hold upon all minds, and the French
_conte dévot_, or miracle story, recited the wonderful doings of the
saints in human behalf, or told how some pious mystic had encountered
heavenly forces, triumphed over demons and monsters of evil, and
performed prodigies of piety.
These tales were loosely hung together, and exhibited none of the
compression and sense of orderly climax characteristic of the
short-story to-day. In style the early medieval stories fell far
below classic models, naturally enough, for language was feeling the
corrupting influences of that inrush of barbarian peoples which at
length brought Rome to the dust, while culture was conserved only in
out-of-the-way places. In form these narratives were chiefly the tale,
the anecdote, and the episode, by which I mean a fragmentary part of a
longer tale with which it had little or no organic connection.
The _conte dévot_ in England was even more crude, for Old English was
less polished than the speech of France and its people more heroic than
literary.
When we come to the middle of the fourteenth century we find in two
great writers a marked advancement: Chaucer’s _Canterbury Tales_
and Boccaccio’s _Decameron_--the former superior to the latter in
story-telling art--opened up rich mines of legend, adventure, humor,
and human interest. All subsequent narrators modeled their tales
after these patterns. Chaucer’s “The Pardoner’s Tale” has many
points in common with the modern short-story, and so has Boccaccio’s
_novella_, “Rinaldo,” but these approaches to what we now recognize
as the short-story type were not so much by conscious intention as
by a groping after an ideal which was only dimly existent in their
minds--so dimly, indeed, that even when once attained it seems not to
have been pursued. For the most part the _fabliaux_[8] of Chaucer and
the _novelle_[9] of Boccaccio were rambling, loosely knit, anecdotal,
lacking in the firmly fleshed contours of the modern short-story. Even
the _Gesta Romanorum_, or _Deeds of the Romans_--181 short legends and
stories first printed about 1473--show the same ear marks.
About the middle of the sixteenth century appeared _The Arabian
Nights_, that magic carpet which has carried us all to the regions of
breathless delight. The story of “Ali Baba and The Forty Thieves,”
for one, is as near an approach to our present-day short-story as was
Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle,” and quite unsurpassed in all the literature
of wonder-tales.
Thus for two thousand years--yes, for six thousand years--the
essentials of short story narration were unchanged. What progress had
been made was toward truth-seeming, clearer characterization, and a
finer human interest, yet so surpassing in these very respects are some
of the ancient stories that they remain models to-day. Chiefly, then,
the short fiction of the eighteenth century showed progress over that
of earlier centuries in that it was much more consistently produced by
a much greater number of writers--so far as our records show.
Separately interesting studies of the eighteenth-century essay-stories
of Addison, Steele, Johnson and others in the English periodicals,
the _Spectator_, _Tatler_, _Rambler_, _Idler_, and _Guardian_ might
well be made, for these forms lead us directly to Hawthorne and
Irving in America. Of almost equal value would be a study of Defoe’s
ghost stories (1727) and Voltaire’s development of the protean French
detective-story, in his “Zadig,” twenty years later.
With the opening of the nineteenth century the marks of progress
are more decided. The first thirty years brought out a score of the
most brilliant story-tellers imaginable, who differ from Poe and his
followers only in this particular--they were still perfecting the tale,
the sketch, the expanded anecdote, the episode, and the scenario, for
they had neither for themselves nor for their literary posterity set up
a new standard, as Poe was to do so very soon.
Of this fecund era were born the German weird tales of Ernst Amadeus
Hoffmann and J. L. Tieck; the _Moral Tales_ of Maria Edgeworth, and
the fictional episodes of Sir Walter Scott in Scotland; the anecdotal
tales and the novelettes of Prosper Mérimée and Charles Nodier in
France; the tales of Pushkin, the father of Russian literature; and
the tale-short-stories of Washington Irving and Nathaniel Hawthorne
in America. Here too lies a fascinating field of study, over which
to trace the approach towards that final form, so to call it, which
was both demonstrated and expounded by Poe. It must suffice here to
observe that Irving preferred the easy-flowing essay-sketch, and the
delightful, leisurely tale (with certain well-marked tendencies toward
a compact plot), rather than the closely organized plot which we
nowadays recognize as the special possession of the short-story.
In France, from 1830 to 1832, Honoré de Balzac produced a series of
notable short-stories which, while marvels of narration, tend to be
condensed novels in plot, novelettes in length, or expanded anecdotes.
However, together with the stories of Prosper Mérimée, they furnish
evidence for a tolerably strong claim that the modern short-story
was developed as a fixed form in France before it was discovered in
America--a claim, however, which lacks the elements of entire solidity,
as a more critical study would show.
From 1830 on, it would require a catalogue to name, and volumes to
discuss, the array of European and American writers who have produced
fictional narratives which have more or less closely approached the
short-story form. Until 1835, when Edgar Allan Poe wrote “Berenice” and
“The Assignation,” the approaches to the present form were sporadic
and unsustained and even unconscious, so far as we may argue from the
absence of any critical standard. After that year both Poe and others
seemed to strive more definitely for the close plot, the repression of
detail, the measurable unity of action, and the singleness of effect
which Poe clearly defined and expounded in 1842.
Since Poe’s notable pronouncement, the place of the short-story as a
distinctive literary form has been attested by the rise and growth of
a body of criticism, in the form of newspaper and magazine articles,
volumes given broadly to the consideration of fiction, and books
devoted entirely to the short-story. Many of these contributions to
the literature of criticism are particularly important because their
authors were the first to announce conclusions regarding the form which
have since been accepted as standard; others have traced with a nice
sense of comparison the origin and development of those earlier forms
of story-telling which marked the more or less definite stages of
progress toward the short-story type as at present recognized; while
still others are valuable as characterizing effectively the stories of
well-known writers and comparing the progress which each showed as the
short-story moved on toward its present high place.
Some detailed mention of these writings, among other critical and
historical productions, may be of value here, without at all attempting
a bibliography, but merely naming chronologically the work of those
critics who have developed one or more phases of the subject with
particular effectiveness.[10]
Interesting and informing as all such historical and comparative
research work certainly is, it must prove to be of greater value to
the student than to the fiction writer. True, the latter may profit by
a profound knowledge of critical distinctions, but he is more likely,
for a time at least, to find his freedom embarrassed by attempting to
adhere too closely to form, whereas in fiction a chief virtue is that
spontaneity which expresses _itself_.
But there would seem to be some safe middle-ground between a flouting
of all canons of art, arising from an utter ignorance and contempt of
the history of any artistic form, and a timid and tied-up unwillingness
to do anything in fiction without first inquiring, “Am I obeying the
laws as set forth by the critics?” The short-story writer should be
no less unhampered because he has learned the origin and traced the
growth of the ancient fiction-forms and learned to say of his own work,
or that of others, “Here is a fictional sketch, here a tale, and here
a short-story”--if, indeed, he does not recognize in it a delightful
hybrid.
By far the most important contribution to the subject of short-story
criticism was made by Edgar Allan Poe, when in May, 1842, he published
in _Graham’s Magazine_ a review of Hawthorne’s _Tales_, in which he
announced his theory of the short-story--a theory which is regarded
to-day as the soundest of any yet laid down.
In 1876, Friedrich Spielhagen pointed out in his _Novelle oder Roman_
the essential distinction between the novel and the short-story.[11]
In 1884, Professor Brander Matthews published in the _Saturday Review_,
London, and in 1885 published in _Lippincott’s Magazine_, “The
Philosophy of the Short-story,” in which, independently of Spielhagen,
he announced the essential distinction between the novel and the
short-story, and pointed out its peculiarly individual characteristics.
In a later book-edition, he added greatly to the original essay by
a series of quotations from other critics and essayists, and many
original comparisons between the writings of master short-story tellers.
In March 11, 1892, T. W. Higginson contributed to _The Independent_
an article on “The Local Short-Story,” which was the first known
discussion of that important type.
In 1895, Sherwin Cody published anonymously in London the first
technical treatise on the rhetoric of the short-story, “The Art of
Story Writing.”
In 1896, Professor E. H. Lewis instituted in Chicago University the
first course of instruction in the art of story-writing.
In 1898, Charles Raymond Barrett published the first large work on
_Short Story Writing_, with a complete analysis of Hawthorne’s “The
Ambitious Guest,” and many important suggestions for writers.
In the same year Charity Dye first applied pedagogical principles to
the study of the short story, in _The Story-Teller’s Art_.
In 1902, Professor Lewis W. Smith published a brochure, _The Writing of
the Short Story_, in which psychological principles were for the first
time applied to the study and the writing of the short-story.
In 1902, Professor H. S. Canby issued _The Short Story_, in which the
theory of impressionism was for the first time developed. In 1903, this
essay was included in _The Book of the Short Story_, Alexander Jessup
collaborating, together with specimens of stories from the earliest
times and lists of tales and short-stories arranged by periods.
In 1904, Professor Charles S. Baldwin developed a criticism of
_American Short Stories_ which has been largely followed by later
writers.
In 1909, Professor H. S. Canby produced _The Short Story in English_,
the first voluminous historical and critical study of the origins,
forms, and content of the short-story.
* * * * *
I have dwelt upon the history of the short-story thus in outline
because we often meet the inquiry--sometimes put ignorantly, sometimes
skeptically--What is a short-story? Is it anything more than a story
that is short?
The passion for naming and classifying all classes of literature
may easily run to extreme, and yet there are some very great values
to be secured by both the reader and the writer in arriving at some
understanding of what literary terms mean. To establish distinctions
among short fictive forms is by no means to assert that types which
differ from the technical short-story are therefore of a lower order
of merit. Many specimens of cognate forms possess an interest which
surpasses that of short-stories typically perfect.
Ever since Poe differentiated the short-story from the mere short
narrative we have come to a clearer apprehension of what this form
really means. I suppose that no one would insist upon the standards
of the short-story as being the criterion of merit for short
fiction--certainly I should commit no such folly in attempting to
establish an understanding, not to say a definition, of the form. More
than that: some short-stories which in one or more points come short of
_technical_ perfection doubtless possess a human interest and a charm
quite lacking in others which are technically perfect--just as may be
the case with pictures.
Some things, however, the little fiction must contain to come
technically within the class of perfect short-stories. It must be
centralized about one predominating incident--which may be supported
by various minor incidents. This incident must intimately concern one
central character--and other supporting characters, it may be. The
story must move with a certain degree of directness--that is, there
must be a thorough exclusion of such detail as is needless. This
central situation or episode or incident constitutes, in its working
out, the plot; for the plot must not only have a crisis growing out of
a tie-up or crossroads or complication, but the very essence of the
plot will consist in the resolution or untying or denouement of the
complication.
Naturally, the word plot will suggest to many a high degree of
complexity; but this is by no means necessary in order to establish the
claims of a fictitious narrative to being a short-story. Indeed, some
of the best short-stories are based upon a very slender complication;
in other words, their plots are not complex.
Elsewhere[12] I have defined the short-story, and this statement
may serve to crystallize the foregoing. “A short-story is a brief,
imaginative narrative, unfolding a single predominating incident and a
single chief character; it contains a plot, the details of which are
so compressed, and the whole treatment so organized, as to produce a
single impression.”
But some of these points need to be amplified.
A short-story is brief not merely from the fact that it contains
comparatively few words, but in that it is so compressed as to omit
non-essential elements. It must be the narration of a single incident,
supported, it may be, by other incidents, but none of these minor
incidents must rival the central incident in the interest of the
reader. A single character must be preëminent, but a pair of characters
coördinate in importance may enjoy this single preëminence in the
story, yet no minor characters must come to overshadow the central
figure. The story will be imaginative, not in the sense that it must
be imaginary, or that the facts in the story may not be real facts,
but they must be handled and organized in an imaginative way, else it
would be plain fact and not fiction. The story must contain a plot;
that is to say, it must exhibit a character or several characters in
crisis--for in plot the important word is crisis--and the denouement is
the resolution of this crisis. Finally, the whole must be so organized
as to leave a unified impression upon the mind of the reader--it must
concentrate and not diffuse attention and interest.
All of the same qualities that inhere in the short-story may also
be found in the novelette, except that the novelette lacks the
compression, unity and simplicity of the short-story and is therefore
really a short novel. Both the novel and the novelette admit of
sub-plots, a large number of minor incidents, and even of digressions,
whereas these are denied to the short-story, which throws a white light
on a single crucial instance of life, some character in its hour of
crisis, some soul at the crossroads of destiny.
There is a tendency nowadays to give a mere outline of a story--so to
condense it, so to make it swift, that the narration amounts to merely
an outline without the flesh and blood of the true short-story. In
other words, there is a tendency to call a scenario of a much longer
story--for instance the outline of a novelette--a short-story. This
extreme is as remote from the well-rounded short-story form as the
leisurely novelette, padded out with infinite attention to detail.
The tale differs from the short-story in that it is merely a succession
of incidents without any real sense of climax other, for example, than
might be given by the close of a man’s life, the ending of a journey,
or the closing of the day. The tale is a chain; the short-story is a
tree. The links of the chain may be extended indefinitely, but there
comes a time when the tree can grow no longer and still remain a
perfect tree. The tale is practically without organization and without
plot--there is little crisis, and the result of the crisis, if any
there be, would be of no vital importance to the characters, for no
special change in their relations to each other grows out of the crisis
in the tale.
A sketch is a lighter, shorter, and more simple form of fiction
than the short-story. It exhibits character in a certain stationary
situation, but has no plot, nor does it disclose anything like a crisis
from which a resolution or denouement is demanded. It might almost be
called a picture in still life were it not that the characters are
likely to live and to move.
In these introductory pages I have emphasized and reëmphasized these
distinctions in various ways, because to me they seem to be important.
But after all they are merely historical and technical. A man may be
a charming fellow and altogether admirable even if his complexion
quarrels with his hair and his hands do not match his feet in relative
size.
* * * * *
The present tendency of the British and American short-story is a
matter of moment because no other literary form commands the interest
of so many writers and readers. All literature is feeling the hand of
commerce, but the short-story is chiefly threatened. The magazine is
its forum, and the magazine must make money or suspend. Hence the chief
inquiry of the editor is, What stories will make my magazine sell? And
this is his attitude because his publisher will no longer pay a salary
to an editor whose magazine must be endowed, having no visible means of
support.
These conditions force new standards to be set up. The story must have
literary merit, it must be true to life, it must deal sincerely with
great principles--up to the limit of popularity. Beyond that it must
not be literary, truthful, or sincere. Popularity first, then the
rest--if possible.
All this is a serious indictment of the average magazine, but it is
true. Only a few magazines regard their fiction as literature and not
as merely so much merchandise, to be cut to suit the length of pages,
furnish situations for pictures, and create subscriptions by readers.
Yet somehow this very commercialized standard is working much good in
spite of itself. It is demanding the best workmanship, and is paying
bright men and women to abandon other pursuits in order to master a
good story-telling method. It is directing the attention of our ablest
literators to a teeming life all about them when otherwise they might
lose themselves in abstractions “up in the air.” It is, for business
reasons, insisting upon that very compression to which Maupassant
attained in the pursuit of art. It is building up a standard of precise
English which has already advanced beyond the best work of seventy
years ago--though it has lost much of its elegance and dignity.
In a word, the commercialized short-story is a mirror of the times--it
compasses movement, often at the expense of fineness, crowds incidents
so rapidly that the skeleton has no space in which to wear its flesh,
and prints stories mediocre and worse because better ones will not be
received with sufficient applause.
But while the journalized short-story adopts the hasty standards of the
newspaper because the public is too busy to be critical, in some other
respects it mirrors the times more happily. The lessons of seriousness
it utters with the lips of fun. Its favorite implement is a rake, but
it does uncover evils that ought not to remain hidden. Finally, it
concerns itself with human things, and tosses speculations aside; it
carefully records our myriad-form local life as the novel cannot; and
it has wonderfully developed in all classes the sense of what is a good
story, and that is a question more fundamental to all literature than
some critics might admit.
* * * * *
Here then is a new-old form abundantly worth study, for its
understanding, its appreciation, and its practise. If there is on one
side a danger that form may become too prominent and spirit too little,
there are balancing forces to hold things to a level. The problems,
projects and sports of the day are, after all, the life of the day, and
as such they furnish rightful themes. Really, signs are not wanting
that point to the truth of this optimistic assertion: The mass of the
people will eventually do the right, and they will at length bring out
of the commercialized short-story a vital literary form too human to be
dull and too artistic to be bad.
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES FOR CLASS OR INDIVIDUAL STUDY OF A
SHORT-STORY
1. Estimating from an average page, how many words has this story?
2. What type of story is it chiefly?
3. Does it subordinately illustrate any other types also? If so, which?
4. Is the title adequate?
5. What is its theme?
6. Write out a brief scenario of the plot.
7. Are the incidents arranged in effective order?
8. How many characters (a) speak, (b) are present but do not speak, (c)
are referred to but are not present?
9. Are the characters idealized, or are they quite true to life?
10. Are the characters individualized? Point out how the author
accomplishes this result.
11. What is the author’s attitude toward his characters?
12. What is the proportion of dialogue to description and comment?
13. What do you think of the dialogue?
14. Do you regard this story as being realistic, romantic, idealistic,
or composite?
15. Is the author’s purpose apparent? If so, what is it?
16. Are there any weak points in the plot?
17. Is the introduction interesting and clear?
18. Does the story end satisfactorily?
19. Is the conclusion either too long or too short?
20. Would any parts of the story be improved either by shortening or by
expanding? Be specific.
21. Does the story arouse in you any particular feeling, or mood?
22. What are the especially strong points of the story?
23. Write a general appreciation, using about two hundred words.
24. What is the final impression the story makes upon you?
NOTE
Nine distinct methods for the study of a novel are outlined in the
appendix to _The Study of a Novel_, by Selden L. Whitcomb. Some of
these may be applied to the short-story. Some excellent study methods
and questions are given in _The Writing of the Short Story_, by Lewis
Worthington Smith.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Excellent and comprehensive works, dealing more especially with the
English novel, are: _The English Novel_, Sidney Lanier (_Scribners_,
1883, 1897); _The Development of the English Novel_, Wilbur L. Cross
(_Macmillan_, 1899); _The Evolution of the English Novel_, Francis
Hovey Stoddard (_Macmillan_, 1900); _A Study of Prose Fiction_, Bliss
Perry (Houghton-Mifflin, 1902); _The Study of A Novel_, Selden L.
Whitcomb (Heath, 1905); _The Technique of the Novel_, Charles F. Horne
(_Harpers_, 1908); _Materials and Methods of Fiction_, Clayton Hamilton
(Baker-Taylor, 1908).
[2] Good collections arranged historically are, _The Book of the Short
Story_, Alexander Jessup and Henry Seidel Canby; and _The Short-story_,
Brander Matthews. The former contains lists of stories short and long
grouped by periods.
[3] A full study of this character has been attempted in the present
author’s _Writing The Short-Story_, Hinds, Hayden and Eldredge. New
York, 1909.
[4] _Egyptian Tales_, W. M. Flinders Petrie.
[5] _Stories from Homer_, Church.
[6] _The Bible as English Literature_, J. H. Gardiner.
[7] _A History of Latin Literature_, George A. Simcox.
[8] The _fabliau_, a French form adopted by the English, is an amusing
story told in verse, generally of eight-syllable line. Another poetic
form of the period is the _lai_, a short metrical romance.
[9] The Italian _novella_ was popular in England down to the late
Elizabethan period. It is a diverting little story of human interest
but told with no moral purpose, even when it is reflective. In purpose
it is the direct opposite of the _exemplum_, which is a moral tale told
to teach a lesson, and may be compared to the “illustration” which the
exhorter repeats in the pulpit to-day.
[10] For a fuller examination of the bibliography of the subject refer
to the bibliographical notes in the books by Matthews, Baldwin, Perry,
Jessup and Canby, Canby, Dye, C. A. Smith, and the editor of this
volume--all referred to in detail elsewhere herein. A supplementary
bibliographical note will also be found on p. 433.
[11] For this important record of the discriminations of a critic
little known in America, we are indebted to Professor C. Alphonso
Smith’s work on _The American Short Story_.
[12] _Writing the Short-Story_, p. 30.
I
STORIES OF ACTION AND ADVENTURE
_Mateo Falcone._--PROSPER MÉRIMÉE.
_A Lodging for the Night._--ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
But the great majority of novels and plays represent human life in
nothing more faithfully than in their insistence upon deeds. It is
through action--tangible, visible action upon the stage, or, in the
novel, action suggested by the medium of words--that the characters
of the play and the novel are ordinarily revealed. In proportion as
high art is attained in either medium of expression this action is
marked by adequacy of motive, by conformity to the character, by
progression and unity.--BLISS PERRY, _A Study of Prose Fiction_.
Studying The Short-Story
STORIES OF ACTION AND ADVENTURE
Few words are needed to set forth the meaning of this caption, for
the designation is sufficiently explicit. One point, however, it will
be well to emphasize: In fiction all action worthy of the name is
the outward manifestation of an inward condition. There is a sense,
therefore, in which all stories that are not mere pictures of internal
states are stories of action; just as it may be said that all stories
are stories of thought, feeling, and resolve. The point of distinction
lies here: in which direction does the story tend?
In one class, outward action is seen to work profoundly upon the
inward life, and the story shows us the workings of this influence in
its final effect upon the inward man and his character. In another,
an inward state is the basis, the premise, the initial force, in the
story, and from that beginning the story goes on to show by a series of
outward movements just how this great inward force operates in and upon
conduct. In a third class, outward and inward action balance.
Now when the outward or visible action, prominently displaying physical
movement, becomes paramount, whether shown as cause or as effect,
we have the action-story, and sometimes the adventure-story. And in
proportion as the interest of the reader centers in what the characters
_do_ instead of in what they _are_, the story departs from the subtler
forms, such as the character-study and the psychological-study, and
action or adventure becomes the type. Reverse these conditions, and
another sort is the result.
Naturally, many variations are possible with these two chief
ingredients ready for use. One story may begin with soul action,
then proceed to show us bodily action with great vividness, and end
by taking us back into the man’s inner life. Another may progress on
contrary lines; and so on, in wide variety. The final test as to what
is the predominating type lies in the appeal to the interest of the
reader: is it based chiefly on what the characters are or on what they
do? Is it the why, or the how, the motive or the happening, that is
most absorbing? The best stories, even the best action and adventure
yarns, are likely to show a fair proportion of both.
MÉRIMÉE AND HIS WRITINGS
Prosper Mérimée was born in Paris, September 28, 1803. His father,
a Norman, was a professor in the _École des Beaux-Arts_, and his
mother, Anne Moreau, who had English blood in her veins, was also an
artist. Prosper attended the _Collège Henri IV_, and in the home of
his parents met the _literati_ of the day. He undertook the study of
law, but soon abandoned it, and spent some years in observing life
while journeying abroad. He made much of ancient and modern languages,
becoming especially proficient in Spanish. Upon his return to Paris
he served in public office, and held the post of Inspector General of
Public Monuments until declining health compelled him to retire. He
was elected to several learned societies and became a commander of the
Legion of Honor, and, in 1844, a member of the French Academy. Nine
years later he was made a Senator of France, an honor he owed to the
friendship of the Empress Eugénie. He died at Cannes on the 23rd of
September, 1870, at the age of sixty-seven.
Prosper Mérimée was a successful poet, translator, novelist, and
short-story writer. His translations of the Russian novelists have been
pronounced excellent. “Colomba” is a romantic novelette of singular
power and charm. His most famous short-stories are “The Taking of the
Redoubt,” “Tamango,” “Federigo,” “The Etruscan Vase,” “The Vision of
Charles XI,” “The Venus of Ille,” “The Pearl of Toledo,” “Carmen” (on
which Bizet’s opera is founded), “Arsène Guillot,” and “Mateo Falcone”;
which follows, in a translation by the editor of this volume. It was
first published in the _Revue de Paris_, May, 1829.
* * * * *
Among French masters of the short-story, Mérimée easily holds place
in the first rank. Both personality and genius are his, and both
well repay careful study. He was an alert student of history,
to whom its anecdotal side made strongest appeal. The detached,
impersonal, unprejudiced attitude of the historian is seen in his
short-stories, for he tells his narrative impartially, with a sort of
take-it-or-leave-it air, allowing the story to make its own appeal
without any special pleading on his part. His story-telling manner is,
therefore, one of ironical coldness. He delighted to tell his tales
in the matter-of-fact manner of the casual traveller who has picked
up a good yarn and passes it on just as it was told him. And this
literary attitude was a reflex of his personality. To him, to love
deeply was to endure pain, to follow impulse was to court trouble, to
cherish enthusiasms was to delude the mind, so he schooled himself to
appear impassive. Yet now and then in his lucid and clear-cut stories,
as in his urbane life, a certain sweetness is revealed which speaks
alluringly of the tender spirit within.
All my life I have sought to free myself from prejudices, to
be a citizen of the world before being a Frenchman, but now
all these garments of philosophy are nothing to me. To-day I
bleed for the wounds of the foolish French, I mourn for their
humiliations, and, however ungrateful and absurd they may be, I
love them still.--PROSPER MÉRIMÉE, _letter to Madame de
Beaulaincourt_ (Marquise de Castellane), written, ten days before
his death, on hearing from his friend Thiers that the disaster of
Sedan was irreparable and that the Empire was a thing of the past.
A gallant man and a gentleman, he has had the reward he would have
wished. He has been discreetly and intimately enjoyed by delicate
tastes.... It was his rare talent to give us those limpid, rapid,
full tales, that one reads in an hour, re-reads in a day, which
fill the memory and occupy the thoughts forever.--ÉMILE FAGUET,
quoted by GRACE KING, in C. D. WARNER’S _Library of the World’s
Best Literature_.
_Colomba_, _Mateo Falcone_, _La Double Méprise_, _La Vénus d’Ille_,
_L’Enlèvement de la Redoute_, _Lokis_, have equals, but no
superiors, either in French prose fiction or in French prose. Grasp
of human character, reserved but masterly description of scenery,
delicate analysis of motive, ability to represent the supernatural,
pathos, grandeur, simple narrative excellence, appear turn by
turn in these wonderful pieces, as they appear hardly anywhere
else.--GEORGE SAINTSBURY, _A Short History of French Literature_.
While inferior to Stendhal as a psychologist, notwithstanding
the keenness of his analysis, he excels him in opening out and
developing action, and in composing a work whose parts hang well
together. In addition he possesses a “literary” style,--not the
style of an algebraist, but that of an exact, self-sustained
writer. He attains the perfection of form in his particular
line. Nearly all his stories are masterpieces of that rather dry
and hard, though forceful, nervous, and pressing style, which
constitutes him one of the most original and most characteristic
novelists of the century.--GEORGES PELLISSIER, _The Literary
Movement in France_.
I do not scruple to apply the word _great_ to Mérimée, a word
which is not to be used lightly, but of which he is thoroughly
deserving. His style is the purest and clearest of our century; no
better model could possibly be found for our present generation.
His prose, to my mind, together with that of Musset, Fromentin,
and Renan, is the most beautiful modern prose which has ever been
written in the French language. Like the great classics of the 17th
century, he never wrote a passage merely to please the eye or the
ear; his sole aim was to express thought, and the colour of his
language, which is so pre-eminently true to nature, is of a rare
sobriety; he never studies effect, and, nevertheless, invariably
attains it.--EDOUARD GRENIER, _Literary Reminiscences_.
FURTHER REFERENCES FOR READING ON MÉRIMÉE
_Miscellaneous Studies_, Walter Pater (1895); _Modern French
Literature_, Benjamin W. Wells (1896); _Contes et Nouvelles, by
Prosper Mérimée_, edited by J. E. Michell (1907); _A Century of French
Fiction_, Benjamin W. Wells (1898); _Prosper Mérimée_, Arthur Symonds,
in _A Century of French Romance_, edited by Edmund W. Gosse (1901);
_Six Masters in Disillusion_, Algar Therold (1909).
MATEO FALCONE
BY PROSPER MÉRIMÉE
_Translation by The Editor_
NOTE: The technical terms used in the marginal notes explanatory of
the short-stories throughout this work follow the terminology used and
treated fully in the present author’s _Writing the Short-Story_.
[Sidenote: A story of local-color because the Corsican customs
determine the destinies of the characters. It is equally a
character-study and a psychological study. Note how characters
harmonize with setting, throughout.]
[Sidenote: Setting is minutely given, yet not diffusely.]
As one comes out of Porto-Vecchio, and turns northwest toward the
center of the island, the ground is seen to rise quite rapidly, and
after three hours’ walk by tortuous paths, blocked by large masses of
rocks, and sometimes cut by ravines, the traveler finds himself on
the edge of a very extensive _maquis_. This bush is the home of the
Corsican shepherds, and of whomsoever has come into conflict with the
law. It is well known that the Corsican laborer, to spare himself the
trouble of fertilizing his lands, sets fire to a certain stretch of
forest; so much the worse if the flames spread further than is needed;
whatever happens, he is sure to have a good harvest by sowing upon
this ground, enriched by the ashes of the very trees which it grows.
When the corn is plucked, he leaves the straw, because it is too much
trouble to gather it. The roots, which have remained in the ground
without being harmed, sprout in the following spring into very thick
shoots, which in a few years attain a height of seven or eight feet.
This sort of underwood it is that they call _maquis_. It is composed
of different kinds of trees and shrubs, all mixed and tangled, just as
they were planted by God. Only with the hatchet in hand can a man open
a passage, and there are _maquis_ so dense and so tufted that even the
wild sheep can not penetrate them.
[Sidenote: One of Mérimée’s deft personal touches, as though he were
telling the story to Corsicans.]
[Sidenote: Why “brown”?]
[Sidenote: The vendetta. See Mérimée’s novelette _Colomba_.]
2. If you have killed a man, go into the _maquis_ of Porto-Vecchio, and
with a good gun and powder and ball, you will live there in safety. Do
not forget a brown cloak with a hood, which serves as a coverlet and a
mattress. The shepherds will give you milk, cheese, and chestnuts, and
you will have nothing to fear from justice, nor from the relatives of
the dead man, unless it be when you have to go down into the town to
renew your munitions.
[Sidenote: Sense of reality. Setting becomes specific. Begins with
social characterization.]
[Sidenote: Note force of “nobly.”]
[Sidenote: Proceeds to physical characterization.]
[Sidenote: Hint of climax.]
[Sidenote: Illustrative anecdotes.]
3. The house of Mateo Falcone, when I was in Corsica in 18--, was half
a league from this _maquis_. He was a comparatively rich man for that
country, living nobly, that is to say, without doing anything, on
the products of his herds, which the shepherds, a species of nomads,
led to pasture here and there on the mountains. When I saw him, two
years after the event which I am about to relate, he seemed to me
about fifty years of age at the most. Picture a small, but robust man,
with curly hair black as jet, and aquiline nose, lips thin, large and
animated eyes, and a deeply tanned complexion. His skill in shooting
was considered extraordinary, even in his country, where there were so
many good shots. For example, Mateo would never fire on a sheep with
buckshot, but at a hundred and twenty paces he would bring it down with
a bullet in its head, or in the shoulder, as he chose. At night he
could use his gun as easily as by day, and they told me the following
example of his skill, which will perhaps seem incredible to those who
have not traveled in Corsica. At eighty paces, a lighted candle was
placed behind a transparent piece of paper as large as a plate. He took
aim, then the candle was extinguished, and after a moment in the most
complete darkness, he shot and pierced the transparency three times out
of four.
[Sidenote: Advances to moral characterization.]
[Sidenote: Further anecdote.]
4. With a talent so surpassing, Mateo Falcone had gained a great
reputation. He was said to be as loyal a friend as he was dangerous
an enemy. Otherwise obliging and charitable, he lived at peace with
everyone in the district of Porto-Vecchio. But they tell of him that
when at Corte, where he had gotten a wife, he had very vigorously freed
himself of a rival who was reputed to be as redoubtable in war as in
love; at all events, people attributed to Mateo a certain gunshot which
surprised this rival as he was shaving before a small mirror hung in
his window.
[Sidenote: Primitive ideals.]
[Sidenote: Central character introduced unobtrusively.]
[Sidenote: Vendetta and clan spirit.]
[Sidenote: Introduction ends.]
5. The affair having been hushed up, Mateo married. His wife Giuseppa
had first presented him with three daughters (which enraged him), but
finally a son came, whom he named Fortunato: he was the hope of the
family, the inheritor of the name. The girls were well married; their
father could reckon, in case of need, upon the poniards and rifles of
his sons-in-law. The son was only ten years old, but he was already
showing signs of a promising disposition.
[Sidenote: ACTION BEGINS. Foundation for crisis.]
[Sidenote: FIRST PLOT INCIDENT. (A plot incident is essential to a
plot; to change it would be to alter the plot materially.)]
[Sidenote: An old-style literary device.]
6. On a certain day in autumn, Mateo and his wife set out early to
visit one of their flocks in a clearing of _maquis_. Little Fortunato
wished to accompany them, but the clearing was too far away; besides,
someone must stay to guard the house; so the father refused: we shall
soon see if he had no occasion to repent.
[Sidenote: Setting in contrast with crisis about to appear.]
[Sidenote: All the footnotes are by Mérimée.]
[Sidenote: Action now supersedes setting.]
[Sidenote: Note force of “irregular.”]
[Sidenote: Dramatic introduction of a leading character, and
preparation for first crisis.]
[Sidenote: SECOND PLOT INCIDENT.]
7. He had been gone for some hours, and little Fortunato was tranquilly
stretched out in the sunshine, looking at the blue mountains, and
thinking that on the next Sunday he would be going to town to dine
with his uncle the corporal,[13] when he was suddenly interrupted in
his meditations by the firing of a gun. He got up and turned toward
that side of the plain from which the sound had come. Other gunshots
followed, fired at irregular intervals, and each time they came nearer
and nearer. At last on the path which led from the plain to Mateo’s
house, appeared a man wearing a cap pointed like those worn by the
mountaineers. He was bearded and covered with rags, and dragged himself
along with difficulty by leaning on his gun. He had just received a
gunshot wound in the thigh.
8. This man was a bandit,[14] who having set out at night to get some
powder from the town, had fallen on the way into an ambush of Corsican
soldiers.[15] After a vigorous defense he had succeeded in making his
retreat, hotly pursued and skirmishing from rock to rock. But he had
gained only a little on the soldiers, and his wound made it hopeless
for him to reach the _maquis_ before being overtaken.
9. He approached Fortunato and said to him:
[Sidenote: Crisp dialogue gives feeling of intensity.]
10. “You are the son of Mateo Falcone?”
11. “Yes.”
12. “I am Gianetto Sanpiero. I am pursued by the yellow collars.[16]
Hide me, for I can go no further.”
13. “And what will my father say if I hide you without his permission?”
14. “He will say that you have done right.”
15. “How do you know?”
16. “Hide me quickly; they are coming.”
17. “Wait till my father comes.”
18. “How can I wait! A curse upon it! They will be here in five
minutes. Come, hide me, or I will kill you.”
[Sidenote: Note the lad’s constant coolness, and sly calculation.]
19. Fortunato answered him with the utmost coolness:
20. “Your gun is empty, and there are no more cartridges in your
_carchera_.”[17]
21. “I have my stiletto.”
22. “But could you run as fast as I can?”
23. He gave a leap, and put himself out of reach.
24. “You are no son of Mateo Falcone! Will you then allow me to be
taken in front of your home?”
[Sidenote: The right of asylum to kin is sacred to primitive peoples.]
[Sidenote: Note force of “seemed.”]
25. The child seemed to be touched.
26. “What will you give me if I hide you?” he asked him, drawing nearer.
[Sidenote: Crisis particularized.]
[Sidenote: PLOT INCIDENT PARTICULARIZED.]
[Sidenote: Shows value of the reward.]
27. The fugitive felt in the leather pouch that hung at his belt, and
took out a five-franc piece, which he had reserved, no doubt, for
powder. Fortunato smiled at sight of the piece of money, and seizing
hold of it, he said to Gianetto:
[Sidenote: Revelation of character.]
28. “Fear nothing!”
[Sidenote: RESOLUTION OF FIRST CRISIS.]
[Sidenote: Author’s real estimate of the boy.]
29. He quickly made a large hole in a haystack which stood near by the
house, Gianetto crouched down in it, and the child covered him up in
such a way as to leave a little space for breathing, without making
it possible for any one to suspect that the hay concealed a man. He
acted, still further, with the cunning of a tricky savage. He went and
brought a cat and her kittens, and set them on top of the haystack to
make believe that it had not been recently touched. Then noticing the
blood-stains on the path near the house, he carefully covered them with
dust. This done, he lay down again in the sun with the utmost calmness.
[Sidenote: THIRD PLOT INCIDENT. See ¶12.]
[Sidenote: A deputy in command.]
[Sidenote: Note complication by this relationship.]
30. Some minutes later six men in brown uniforms with yellow collars,
commanded by an adjutant, stood before Mateo’s door. This adjutant was
a distant relative of Falcone--for in Corsica more remote degrees of
relationship are recognized than elsewhere. His name was Tidora Gamba;
he was an energetic man, greatly feared by the banditti, many of whom
he had already hunted down.
[Sidenote: Crisis recurs.]
31. “Good day, little cousin,” he said, coming up to Fortunato. “How
you have grown! Have you seen a man passing just now?”
[Sidenote: Cunning in character further revealed.]
32. “Oh, I am not so tall as you, Cousin,” the child replied with a
foolish look.
33. “That time’s coming. But have you not seen a man pass by?--Tell me.”
34. “If I have seen a man pass by?”
35. “Yes, a man with a pointed cap and a waistcoat embroidered in red
and yellow?”
36. “A man with a pointed cap and a waistcoat embroidered in red and
yellow?”
37. “Yes; answer quickly, and don’t repeat my questions.”
38. “This morning Monsieur le Curé passed our door on his horse Piero.
He asked me how papa was, and I told him--”
[Sidenote: Suspense.]
39. “Ah, you little rascal, you are making game of me! Tell me at once
which way Gianetto went, for it is he that we are after, and I am
certain he took this path.”
40. “How do you know that?”
41. “How do I know that? I know you have seen him.”
[Sidenote: Child’s crafty nature increasingly disclosed.]
42. “Does one see passers-by when one is asleep?”
43. “You were not asleep, you little demon; the gunshots would have
waked you.”
44. “You think, then, Cousin, that your guns make a great noise? My
father’s rifle makes much more.”
45. “May the devil confound you, you young scamp! I am sure enough
that you have seen Gianetto. Perhaps you have even hidden him. Here,
comrades, go into this house, and see if our man is not there. He could
walk only on one foot, and he has too much good sense, the rascal, to
have tried to reach the _maquis_ limping. Besides, the marks of blood
stop here.”
[Sidenote: Sly appeal to the fear inspired by Mateo’s reputation.]
46. “Whatever will papa say!” asked Fortunato, with a chuckle; “what
will he say when he finds out that his house has been entered while he
was away!”
[Sidenote: Note use of suspense throughout. The story is one long
crisis.]
47. “Good-for-nothing!” cried the adjutant Gamba, taking him by the
ear, “do you know that I am able to make you change your tune? Perhaps
when I have given you a score or more thwacks with the flat of a sword,
you will speak at last!”
48. But Fortunato still laughed derisively.
49. “My father is Mateo Falcone!” he said with energy.
50. “Do you know, you little rogue, that I can carry you off to Corte,
or to Bastia? I’ll make you sleep in a dungeon, on a pallet of straw,
your feet in irons, and I’ll have you guillotined, if you don’t tell
me where Gianetto Sanpiero is.”
51. The child burst out laughing at this foolish threat. He only
repeated:
52. “My father is Mateo Falcone!”
[Sidenote: Compare with ¶4 and ¶49.]
53. “Adjutant,” whispered one of the _voltigeurs_, “we’d better not
embroil ourselves with Mateo.”
[Sidenote: Setting is thus interwoven with the story, though slightly.]
[Sidenote: Character revelation.]
54. Gamba seemed evidently embarrassed. He talked in a low voice with
his soldiers, who had already been through the house. It was not a
lengthy operation, for the cabin of a Corsican consists of only a
single square room. The furniture comprises a table, some benches,
a few boxes, and utensils for hunting and housekeeping. Meanwhile,
little Fortunato caressed his cat, and seemed maliciously to enjoy the
embarrassment of the _voltigeurs_ and his cousin.
[Sidenote: Suspense augmented.]
55. One soldier came up to the haystack. He looked at the cat and
carelessly gave a dig at the hay with his bayonet, shrugging his
shoulders as if he thought the precaution were ridiculous. Nothing
stirred, and the face of the child did not betray the least emotion.
[Sidenote: More crafty coolness.]
[Sidenote: The turn in the plot.]
[Sidenote: FOUNDATION FOR MAIN CRISIS.]
56. The adjutant and his troop were in despair; they were looking
seriously toward the edge of the plain, as though disposed to return
the way they had come; when their chief--convinced that threats would
produce no effect upon the son of Falcone--thought he would make one
last effort by trying the power of cajoleries and presents.
57. “Little Cousin,” he said, “you seem to be a wide-awake young fellow
enough. You will get on! But you play a mean trick with me; and, if I
did not fear to give pain to my cousin Mateo, devil take me, I’d carry
you off with me!”
58. “Bah!”
59. “But, when my cousin returns I shall relate to him the whole
affair, and for your having gone to the trouble to tell me a lie, he
will give you the whip till he draws blood.”
60. “Do you know that?”
61. “You’ll find out! But, see here--be a good lad, and I’ll give you
something.”
62. “I, my Cousin, will give you some advice--it is, that if you delay
any more Gianetto will reach the _maquis_, then it will take a cleverer
fellow to go and hunt for him.”
[Sidenote: Main crisis augmented.]
[Sidenote: PLOT INCIDENT PARTICULARIZED.]
63. The adjutant drew from his pocket a silver watch worth quite ten
crowns; and seeing how the little Fortunato’s eyes sparkled when he
looked at it, he said, as he held the watch suspended at the end of its
steel chain:
[Sidenote: Character appeal.]
64. “You rogue! you would like very well to have such a watch as
this hung round your neck, and to go and promenade the streets of
Porto-Vecchio, proud as a peacock; people would ask you, ‘What time is
it?’ and you would reply, ‘Look at my watch!’”
65. “When I am grown up, my uncle the corporal will give me a watch.”
66. “Yes; but your uncle’s son has one already--not such a fine one as
this, it is true--of course, he is younger than you.”
67. The child sighed.
68. “Well, would you like this watch, little Cousin?”
[Sidenote: Suspense.]
[Sidenote: Illustration.]
69. Fortunato, ogling the watch out of the corner of his eyes, looked
just as a cat does when they suddenly offer it a chicken. Because it is
afraid a joke is being played on it, it dares not pounce upon its prey,
and from time to time it turns away its eyes so as not to succumb to
the temptation; but it constantly licks its chops, as if to say to its
master, “But your joke is a cruel one!”
70. However, the adjutant Gamba seemed to be offering the watch in good
faith. Fortunato did not hold out his hand, but he said to him with a
bitter smile:
71. “Why do you jest with me?”
72. “By Heaven, I am not joking! Only tell me where Gianetto is and
this watch is yours.”
[Sidenote: Compare with ¶67.]
73. Fortunato allowed an incredulous sigh to escape him; and, fixing
his black eyes on those of the adjutant, he sought to find in them the
faith he wished to have in his words.
[Sidenote: A typical Latin protest.]
74. “May I lose my epaulets,” cried the adjutant, “if I do not give you
the watch on these terms! My comrades are witnesses, and I cannot go
back on my word!”
[Sidenote: A key to the plot.]
[Sidenote: MAIN CRISIS.]
75. So speaking, he held the watch nearer and nearer until it almost
touched the pale cheeks of the child, whose face showed plainly the
combat going on in his heart between covetousness and his respect
for the laws of hospitality. His bare breast heaved violently, and
he seemed to be almost stifling. All the time the watch dangled and
turned, and sometimes grazed the tip of his nose. At length, little by
little, his right hand lifted toward the watch, the ends of his fingers
touched it, and it rested wholly on his palm, except that the adjutant
still loosely held the end of the chain. The face was blue, the case
was newly polished--in the sunshine it seemed to be all afire. The
temptation was too strong.
[Sidenote: CRISIS RESOLVED AND DOWNWARD ACTION BEGINS. HENCEFORWARD WE
SEE THE RESULTS OF CRISIS, LEADING TO THE CLIMAX.]
[Sidenote: Still sly.]
76. So Fortunato raised his left hand and with his thumb pointed
over his shoulder to the haystack against which he was standing. The
adjutant understood him immediately. He let go the end of the chain;
Fortunato felt himself sole possessor of the watch. He jumped up with
the agility of a deer, and moved ten paces away from the stack, which
the _voltigeurs_ at once began to overturn.
77. It was not long before they saw the hay move, and a bleeding man,
poniard in hand, came forth. But when he tried to rise to his feet,
his stiffening wound would not permit him to stand. He fell down.
The adjutant threw himself upon him and snatched away his stiletto.
Speedily, he was securely bound, in spite of his resistance.
78. Gianetto, laid on the ground and tied like a bundle of fagots,
turned his head toward Fortunato, who had drawn nearer.
79. “Son of--,” he said to him with more contempt than anger.
[Sidenote: FIRST CONTRIBUTORY INCIDENT. (A contributory incident might
be changed or even omitted without vitally changing the plot.)]
[Sidenote: Tardy attempt to appear sincere.]
[Sidenote: His contempt is all for Fortunato.]
80. The boy threw to him the silver-piece that he had received from
him, feeling conscious that he no longer merited it; but the outlaw
seemed not to notice this action. He said to the adjutant in a
perfectly cool voice:
[Sidenote: SECOND CONTRIBUTORY INCIDENT.]
81. “My dear Gamba, I am not able to walk; you will be obliged to carry
me to the town.”
82. “You could run as fast as a kid just now,” retorted his cruel
captor. “But be easy, I am so glad to have caught you that I could
carry you for a league on my own back without being tired. All the
same, my friend, we are going to make a litter for you out of some
branches and your cloak, and at the farm at Crespoli we shall find some
horses.”
[Sidenote: Character revelation.]
[Sidenote: Let-down in tension.]
83. “Good!” said the prisoner. “You had better also put a little straw
on your litter that I may travel more easily.”
[Sidenote: NEW AND RESULTANT CRISIS. FOURTH PLOT INCIDENT.]
[Sidenote: Contrast to tragic spirit of the story.]
[Sidenote: Local color.]
84. While the _voltigeurs_ were occupied, some making a sort of
stretcher out of chestnut boughs, and others dressing Gianetto’s wound,
Mateo Falcone and his wife suddenly appeared in a bend of the path
which led from the _maquis_. The wife advanced, bending laboriously
under an enormous bag of chestnuts, while her husband came up jauntily,
carrying in his hand only a gun, while another was slung over his
shoulder, for it is unworthy of a man to carry any other burden than
his weapons.
[Sidenote: “Bagatelle” discloses the Corsican attitude.]
85. At sight of the soldiers, Mateo’s first thought was that they had
come to arrest him. But why that idea? Had he any quarrel with the law?
No. He bore a good reputation. He was, as they say, particularly well
thought of; but he was a Corsican, a mountaineer, and there are but
few Corsican mountaineers who, if they scrutinize their memories well,
cannot find some pecadillo--some gunshot, some dagger thrust, or some
similar bagatelle. Mateo, more than most, had a clear conscience, for
it was fully ten years since he had pointed his gun against a man; but
all the same he was prudent, and he put himself in position to make a
good defense, if need be.
[Sidenote: To reload his weapons, as appears in ¶87.]
86. “Wife,” said he to Giuseppa, “put down your sack and keep yourself
in readiness.”
[Sidenote: Suspense.]
[Sidenote: Local color.]
87. She obeyed on the instant. He gave her the gun that was slung
over his shoulder, and which would likely cause him inconvenience.
He cocked the one he had in his hand and advanced slowly toward the
house, skirting the trees which bordered the path, and ready at the
least hostile demonstration to throw himself behind the largest
trunk, whence he could fire from cover. His wife walked close behind
him, holding his spare gun and his cartridge box. The duty of a good
housewife, in case of conflict, is to reload her husband’s weapons.
[Sidenote: Development of fourth incident.]
88. On the other side, the adjutant was very uneasy at sight of Mateo
advancing thus upon them with measured steps, his gun forward and his
finger on the trigger.
[Sidenote: Key.]
[Sidenote: A fight would ensue.]
89. “If it should chance,” thought he, “that Gianetto is related to
Mateo, or that he is his friend, and he intends to protect him, the
bullets of his two guns will come to two of us as sure as a letter to
the post, and if he should aim at me, good-bye to our kinship!”
[Sidenote: Note force of “alone.”]
90. In this perplexity, he put on a courageous front and went forward
alone toward Mateo to tell him of the matter, while greeting him like
an old acquaintance; but the brief space that separated him from Mateo
seemed to him terribly long.
[Sidenote: Note constraint.]
91. “Hello! Ah! my old comrade,” he called out. “How are you, old
fellow? It’s I, Gamba, your cousin.”
[Sidenote: Resolution of suspense.]
92. Mateo, without replying a word, stopped, and while the other was
speaking he imperceptibly raised the muzzle of his rifle in such a
manner that it was pointing heavenward by the time the adjutant came up
to him.
93. “Good day, brother,”[18] said the adjutant, holding out his hand.
“It’s a very long time since I’ve seen you.”
94. “Good day, brother.”
[Sidenote: Diminutive for Giuseppa.]
[Sidenote: There is something manlike in most of Mérimée’s female
characters.]
95. “I just came in, while passing, to say ‘good day’ to you and
my cousin Pepa. We have had a long journey to-day; but we must not
complain of fatigue, for we have taken a famous prize. We have just got
hold of Gianetto Sanpiero.”
96. “God be praised!” exclaimed Giuseppa. “He stole one of our milch
goats last week.”
[Sidenote: Character contrast.]
97. These words rejoiced Gamba.
98. “Poor devil!” said Mateo. “He was hungry.”
[Sidenote: New crisis. PREPARATION FOR CLIMAX.]
99. “The fellow defended himself like a lion,” pursued the adjutant,
slightly mortified. “He killed one of the men, and, not content with
that, he broke Corporal Chardon’s arm; but that is not such a great
disaster, for he is nothing but a Frenchman.... Then he hid himself so
cleverly that the devil would not have been able to find him. Without
my little cousin Fortunato, I should never have discovered him.”
100. “Fortunato!” cried Mateo.
101. “Fortunato!” repeated Giuseppa.
102. “Yes, Gianetto was hidden way down in your haystack; but my little
cousin showed me his trick. So I will speak of him to his uncle the
corporal, that he may send him a fine present for his trouble. And his
name and yours will be in the report which I shall send to _Monsieur
l’avocat général_.”
103. “Malediction!” said Mateo under his breath.
[Sidenote: Misunderstanding adds to complication.]
104. They had now rejoined the detachment. Gianetto was already laid
on the litter and they were ready to leave. When he saw Mateo in the
company of Gamba, he smiled a strange smile; then, turning himself
toward the door of the house, he spat on the threshold as he cried out:
[Sidenote: Key to plot. FIFTH PLOT INCIDENT.]
105. “House of a traitor!”
106. No one but a man who had made up his mind to die would have dared
to utter the word “traitor” as applying to Falcone. One good stroke of
the dagger, which would not need to be repeated, would have immediately
repaid the insult. But Mateo made no other gesture than that of putting
his hand to his head like a dazed man.
[Sidenote: THIRD CONTRIBUTORY INCIDENT.]
[Sidenote: Is this repentance, fear, hypocrisy, or an attempt to
placate his father?]
107. Fortunato had gone into the house upon seeing his father come
up. He reappeared shortly with a jug of milk, which he offered with
downcast eyes to Gianetto. “Keep away from me!” cried the outlaw in a
voice of thunder.
108. Then turning to one of the _voltigeurs_,
109. “Comrade, give me a drink of water,” he said.
[Sidenote: Delineation of mood by suggestion.]
110. The soldier placed the gourd in his hands, and the bandit drank
the water given him by a man with whom he had just exchanged gunshots.
He then asked that they would tie his hands across his breast instead
of having them behind his back.
111. “I prefer,” he said, “to lie down at my ease.”
[Sidenote: FOURTH CONTRIBUTORY INCIDENT.]
112. When they had adjusted them to his satisfaction, the adjutant
gave the signal to start, said adieu to Mateo--who answered never a
word--and went down at a quick pace toward the plain.
[Sidenote: Suspense.]
113. Some ten minutes passed before Mateo opened his mouth. The child
looked with an uneasy eye first at his mother, then at his father, who,
leaning on his gun, was gazing at him with a gaze of concentrated wrath.
[Sidenote: PREPARATION FOR CLIMAX.]
[Sidenote: SIXTH AND FINAL PLOT INCIDENT.]
114. “You begin well,” said Mateo at last, in a voice calm but
terrifying to those who knew the man.
115. “Father!” exclaimed the child with tears in his eyes, drawing near
as if to fall upon his knees.
116. But Mateo only cried out:
117. “Away from me!”
118. The child stopped and began to sob, standing motionless a few
steps from his father.
119. Giuseppa came near. She had just perceived the chain of the watch
dangling about from Fortunato’s blouse.
[Sidenote: Contrast with ¶114.]
120. “Who gave you that watch?” she asked him severely.
[Sidenote: Note the sly use of “cousin.”]
121. “My cousin the adjutant.”
[Sidenote: FIFTH CONTRIBUTORY INCIDENT.]
122. Falcone seized the watch, and, throwing it violently against a
stone, broke it into a thousand pieces.
123. “Woman,” he said, “this child--is he mine?”
124. Giuseppa’s brown cheeks flamed brick-red.
125. “What are you saying, Mateo? Do you know to whom you are speaking?”
[Sidenote: Key.]
126. “Well, this child is the first of his race who has committed a
treason.”
[Sidenote: Decision, and foundation for final crisis.]
[Sidenote: FULL RESULTANT CRISIS.]
127. Fortunato’s sobs and hiccoughs redoubled, and Falcone kept his
lynx-eyes always fixed upon him. At length he struck the ground with
the butt of his gun; then he flung it across his shoulder and, calling
to Fortunato to follow him, retook the way to the _maquis_. The child
obeyed.
128. Giuseppa ran after Mateo, and seized him by the arm.
129. “He is your son,” she said to him in a trembling voice, fixing her
black eyes on those of her husband, as though to read what was passing
through his mind.
[Sidenote: Note the double meaning.]
130. “Let me go,” replied Mateo: “I am his father.”
131. Giuseppa embraced her son, and went back crying into the hut. She
threw herself on her knees before an image of the Virgin, and prayed
with fervor.
[Sidenote: Forecast.]
132. Meanwhile, Falcone had walked about two-hundred yards along the
path, and stopped at a little ravine, which he descended. He sounded
the earth with the butt of his gun and found it soft and easy to dig.
The spot seemed suitable for his design.
[Sidenote: Suspense.]
133. “Fortunato, go near to that large rock.”
134. The boy did as he was commanded, then he knelt down.
135. “Say your prayers.”
136. “Father, Father, do not kill me!”
137. “Say your prayers!” repeated Mateo in a terrible voice.
[Sidenote: “Our Father, etc.,” “I believe in God, etc.”]
138. The child, all stammering and sobbing, repeated the _Pater_ and
the _Credo_. The father, in a firm voice responded Amen at the close of
each prayer.
139. “Are those all the prayers that you know?”
[Sidenote: “Hail Mary, etc.” A liturgical prayer.]
140. “I also know the _Ave Maria_, and the _Litany_ that my aunt taught
me, Father.”
141. “It is rather long, but it doesn’t matter.”
[Sidenote: Note force of “achieved.”]
142. The child achieved the _Litany_ in a faint voice.
143. “Have you finished?”
[Sidenote: Contrast with his former vicious “coolness.”]
144. “Oh, Father, Father, mercy! Pardon me! I will never do it again!
I will beg my cousin the corporal with all my might for mercy for
Gianetto!”
145. He went on speaking; Mateo loaded his rifle and took aim as he
said:
146. “May God forgive you!”
[Sidenote: FULL CLIMAX AND DENOUEMENT.]
147. The boy made a desperate effort to get up and clasp his father’s
knees, but he had not time. Mateo fired, and Fortunato fell dead.
[Sidenote: Note force of “throwing.”]
148. Without throwing a single glance at the body, Mateo returned to
his house to fetch a spade with which to bury his son. He had taken but
a few steps when he met Giuseppa, who had run out, alarmed by the sound
of the firing.
149. “What have you done?”
150. “Justice!”
151. “Where is he?”
[Sidenote: SIXTH CONTRIBUTORY INCIDENT.]
[Sidenote: Swift conclusion.]
[Sidenote: Character revelation.]
152. “In the ravine; I am going to bury him. He died a Christian; I
shall have a mass sung for him. Let some one tell my son-in-law Tiodoro
Bianchi to come and live with us.”
STEVENSON AND HIS WRITINGS
Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson, as he was baptized, was born November
13, 1850, at Edinburgh, Scotland, of Scotch parents. He entered
Edinburgh University when he was seventeen, intending to learn his
father’s profession, civil engineering--though he had always longed
to be a writer, having dictated books at the precocious ages of six,
seven, and nine. At twenty-one he decided to study law, and four years
later passed the bar examination in his native city. In 1880 he married
Mrs. Osbourne, with whose son, Lloyd, he collaborated in the writing
of several stories. Stevenson’s health, which was never robust, sent
him on many journeys in search of strength--to the European continent,
several times to the United States, and once on a two years’ voyage to
the South Seas. In 1890 he finally settled in Samoa, where he died at
his home, Vailima, December 3, 1894. He was buried on the nearby summit
of Mount Vaea.
Stevenson was a brilliant novelist, essayist, poet, and short-story
writer. _Treasure Island_, _Kidnapped_, _The Master of Ballantrae_,
and _Weir of Hermiston_--the last of which he left unfinished--are
his best novels. His journeys were chronicled by such delightful
travel-sketches as _An Inland Voyage_, _Travels With a Donkey_, and
_The Silverado Squatters_. _A Child’s Garden of Verse_ contains his
best poems. His most noteworthy essays are found in _Memories and
Portraits_, and _Familiar Studies of Men and Books_. Most famous among
his short-stories are “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”
(a novelette in length), “The Pavilion on the Links,” “Thrawn Janet,”
“Will o’ the Mill,” “The Sire de Malétroit’s Door,” “The Merry Men,”
“Markheim,” published first in _Unwin’s Annual_, London, 1885, and
given in this volume in full, and “A Lodging for the Night,” which
follows entire. It was first published in _The Temple Bar_ magazine,
October, 1877.
* * * * *
Stevenson was a supreme craftsman. No writer of the short-story in
English, except Edgar Allan Poe, was so conscious of his art and
so gifted to create up to the measure of his orderly knowledge. In
criticism of the story-teller’s art, Poe was the greater originator,
Stevenson the more brilliant generalizer; Poe was the deeper,
Stevenson the broader; Poe’s opinions as to form grew largely out of
his own consciousness, and shaped his practices--they were arrived
at deductively: Stevenson’s standards grew as his creations shaped
themselves, and were measurably molded by his own writings--they were
examples of inductive reasoning. Thus Stevenson was doubly equipped to
produce incomparably the greatest group of short-stories ever written
by a Briton before the days of Kipling, and some sound critics will
dispute even this reservation. In charm, in dash of style, in a sense
of form, in pure romantic spirit, and in penetrating human interest,
Stevenson ranks among the ten greatest short-story-tellers of his era.
I wonder if any one had ever more energy upon so little
strength?--R. L. STEVENSON, _Vailima Letters_.
In the highest achievements of the art of words, the dramatic and
the pictorial, the moral and romantic interest, rise and fall
together by a common and organic law. Situation is animated with
passion, passion clothed upon with situation. Neither exists
for itself, but each inheres indissolubly with the other. This
is high art; and not only the highest art possible in words,
but the highest art of all, since it combines the greatest mass
and diversity of the elements of truth and pleasure. Such are
epics, and the few prose tales that have the epic weight.--R. L.
STEVENSON, _A Gossip on Romance_.
The stories of Stevenson exhibit a double union, as admirable as it
is rare. They exhibit the union of splendid material with the most
delicate skill in language; and they exhibit the union of thrilling
events with a remarkable power of psychological analysis.--WILLIAM
LYON PHELPS, _Essays on Modern Novelists_.
Mr. Stevenson enjoys the reputation of being the modern
representative of the romantic school of fiction. There are others
of high repute, for romanticism is now the vogue, but there is
hardly any other whose name we would care to link with that of
Walter Scott.--WILLIAM H. SHERAN, _Handbook of Literary Criticism_.
Perhaps the first quality in Mr. Stevenson’s works, now so many
and so various, which strikes a reader, is the buoyancy, the
survival of the child in him. He has told the world often, in
prose and verse, how vivid are his memories of his own infancy....
The peculiarity of Mr. Stevenson is not only to have been a
fantastic child, and to retain, in maturity, that fantasy ripened
into imagination: he has also kept up the habit of dramatising
everything, of playing, half consciously, many parts, of making
the world “an unsubstantial fairy place....” It is the eternal
child that drives him to seek adventures and to sojourn among
beach-combers and savages.--ANDREW LANG, _Essays in Little_.
It has been stated that the finer qualities of Stevenson are
called out by the psychological romance on native soil. He did
some brilliant and engaging work of foreign setting and motive....
Judged as art, “The Bottle Imp” and “The Beach of Falesa” are
among the triumphs of ethnic interpretation, let alone their more
external charms of story. And another masterpiece of foreign
setting, “A Lodging for the Night,” is further proof of Stevenson’s
ability to use other than Scotch motives for the materials of his
art.... Few novelists of any race have beaten this wandering Scot
in the power of representing character and envisaging it, and there
can hardly be successful characterization without this allied power
of creating atmosphere.--RICHARD BURTON, _Masters of the English
Novel_.
Not until 1877, and Robert Louis Stevenson’s first published
narrative, does any Englishman of real caliber show both desire and
ability to do something _new_ with the short story. This narrative
was “A Lodging for the Night,” published in _Temple Bar_ for
October.... “A Lodging for the Night” is as clearly and consciously
an impressionistic short story as George Meredith’s contemporary
novelettes are not of that category; the two stories which followed
(“Will o’ the Mill” and “The Sire de Malétroit’s Door”) would
assure the most timid critic of our generation that here was a
master in this department of fiction.... There is “The Strange Case
of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” that short story thrown over into the
form of a detective romance.... Or there is “Markheim,” a story
less powerful in execution, but more excellent in workmanship,
and an almost ideal example of the impressionistic short story.
Flaubert might have written the description of the curiosity
shop as the murderer saw it, with its accusing clock-voices, its
wavering shadows, from the inner door “a long slit of daylight like
a pointing finger.” And Flaubert would have praised the skilful
gradation of incident and description, whereby conscience gains
and gains in the struggle for Markheim’s mind. But Hawthorne would
have been prouder still of the plot--a weak man with a remnant of
high ideals suddenly realizing that his curve is plotted and can
lead him only downwards.... How like to Hawthorne’s usual way is
Stevenson’s determination to make, at all costs, a moral issue the
outcome of his story!... “Will o’ the Mill” is like a twice-told
tale not only in theme; its whole effect is Hawthornesque. “A
Lodging for the Night” has for its kernel a question of ethics.--H.
S. CANBY, _The Short Story in English_.
FURTHER REFERENCES FOR READING ON STEVENSON
_Mr. Stevenson’s Methods in Fiction_, A. Conan Doyle (1890); _Robert
Louis Stevenson, An Elegy_, Richard Le Gallienne (1895); _Robert
Louis Stevenson_, Walter Raleigh (1895); _Vailima Letters_, to
Sidney Colvin (1895); _Adventures in Criticism_, A. T. Quiller-Couch
(1896); _Critical Kit-Kats_, Edmund W. Gosse (1896); _Studies in Two
Literatures_, Arthur Symons (1897); _Life of Robert Louis Stevenson_,
Graham Balfour (1901); _Stevenson’s Attitude to Life_, J. F. Genung
(1901); _Memories of Vailima_, Isobel Strong and Lloyd Osbourne (1903);
_Robert Louis Stevenson_, W. R. Nicoll and G. K. Chesterton.
FOR ANALYSIS
A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT
BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
It was late in November, 1456. The snow fell over Paris with rigorous,
relentless persistence; sometimes the wind made a sally and scattered
it in flying vortices; sometimes there was a lull, and flake after
flake descended out of the black night air, silent, circuitous,
interminable. To poor people, looking up under moist eyebrows, it
seemed a wonder where it all came from. Master Francis Villon had
propounded an alternative that afternoon, at a tavern window; was
it only Pagan Jupiter plucking geese upon Olympus? or were the holy
angels moulting? He was only a poor master of arts, he went on; and as
the question somewhat touched upon divinity, he durst not venture to
conclude. A silly old priest from Montargis, who was among the company,
treated the young rascal to a bottle of wine in honor of the jest and
grimaces with which it was accompanied, and swore on his own white
beard that he had been just such another irreverent dog when he was
Villon’s age.
2. The air was raw and pointed, but not far below freezing; and the
flakes were large, damp, and adhesive. The whole city was sheeted
up. An army might have marched from end to end and not a footfall
given the alarm. If there were any belated birds in heaven, they saw
the island like a large white patch, and the bridges like slim white
spars, on the black ground of the river. High up overhead the snow
settled among the tracery of the cathedral towers. Many a niche was
drifted full; many a statue wore a long white bonnet on its grotesque
or sainted head. The gargoyles had been transformed into great false
noses, drooping toward the point. The crockets were like upright
pillows swollen on one side. In the intervals of the wind, there was a
dull sound of dripping about the precincts of the church.
3. The cemetery of St. John had taken its own share of the snow. All
the graves were decently covered; tall white housetops stood around
in grave array; worthy burghers were long ago in bed, be-nightcapped
like their domiciles; there was no light in all the neighborhood but
a little peep from a lamp that hung swinging in the church choir, and
tossed the shadows to and fro in time to its oscillations. The clock
was hard on ten when the patrol went by with halberds and a lantern,
beating their hands; and they saw nothing suspicious about the cemetery
of St. John.
4. Yet there was a small house, backed up against the cemetery wall,
which was still awake, and awake to evil purpose, in that snoring
district. There was not much to betray it from without; only a stream
of warm vapor from the chimney-top, a patch where the snow melted
on the roof, and a few half-obliterated footprints at the door. But
within, behind the shuttered windows, Master Francis Villon, the poet,
and some of the thievish crew with whom he consorted, were keeping the
night alive and passing round the bottle.
5. A great pile of living embers diffused a strong and ruddy glow
from the arched chimney. Before this straddled Dom Nicolas, the
Picardy monk, with his skirts picked up and his fat legs bared to the
comfortable warmth. His dilated shadow cut the room in half; and the
firelight only escaped on either side of his broad person, and in a
little pool between his outspread feet. His face had the beery, bruised
appearance of the continual drinker’s; it was covered with a network of
congested veins, purple in ordinary circumstances, but now pale violet,
for even with his back to the fire the cold pinched him on the other
side. His cowl had half fallen back, and made a strange excrescence on
either side of his bull neck. So he straddled, grumbling, and cut the
room in half with the shadow of his portly frame.
6. On the right, Villon and Guy Tabary were huddled together over
a scrap of parchment; Villon making a ballad which he was to call
the “Ballad of Roast Fish,” and Tabary spluttering admiration at his
shoulder. The poet was a rag of a man, dark, little, and lean, with
hollow cheeks and thin black locks. He carried his four-and-twenty
years with feverish animation. Greed had made folds about his eyes,
evil smiles had puckered his mouth. The wolf and pig struggled together
in his face. It was an eloquent, sharp, ugly, earthly countenance. His
hands were small and prehensile, with fingers knotted like a cord;
and they were continually flickering in front of him in violent and
expressive pantomime. As for Tabary, a broad, complacent, admiring
imbecility breathed from his squash nose and slobbering lips: he
had become a thief, just as he might have become the most decent of
burgesses, by the imperious chance that rules the lives of human geese
and human donkeys.
7. At the monk’s other hand, Montigny and Thevenin Pensete played a
game of chance. About the first there clung some flavor of good birth
and training, as about a fallen angel; something long, lithe, and
courtly in the person; something aquiline and darkling in the face.
Thevenin, poor soul, was in great feather: he had done a good stroke
of knavery that afternoon in the Faubourg St. Jacques, and all night
he had been gaining from Montigny. A flat smile illuminated his face;
his bald head shone rosily in a garland of red curls; his little
protuberant stomach shook with silent chucklings as he swept in his
gains.
8. “Doubles or quits?” said Thevenin.
9. Montigny nodded grimly.
10. “Some may prefer to dine in state,” wrote Villon, “On bread and
cheese on silver plate. Or, or--help me out, Guido!”
11. Tabary giggled.
12. “Or parsley on a golden dish,” scribbled the poet.
13. The wind was freshening without; it drove the snow before it, and
sometimes raised its voice in a victorious whoop, and made sepulchral
grumblings in the chimney. The cold was growing sharper as the night
went on. Villon, protruding his lips, imitated the gust with something
between a whistle and a groan. It was an eerie, uncomfortable talent of
the poet’s, much detested by the Picardy monk.
14. “Can’t you hear it rattle in the gibbet?” said Villon. “They
are all dancing the devil’s jig on nothing, up there. You may
dance, my gallants, you’ll be none the warmer! Whew! what a gust!
Down went somebody just now! A medlar the fewer on the three-legged
medlar-tree!--I say, Dom Nicolas, it’ll be cold to-night on the St.
Denis Road?” he asked.
15. Dom Nicolas winked both his big eyes, and seemed to choke upon his
Adam’s apple. Montfaucon, the great grisly Paris gibbet, stood hard by
the St. Denis Road, and the pleasantry touched him on the raw. As for
Tabary, he laughed immoderately over the medlars; he had never heard
anything more light-hearted; and he held his sides and crowed. Villon
fetched him a fillip on the nose, which turned his mirth into an attack
of coughing.
16. “Oh, stop that row,” said Villon, “and think of rhymes to ‘fish.’”
17. “Doubles or quits,” said Montigny, doggedly.
18. “With all my heart,” quoth Thevenin.
19. “Is there any more in that bottle?” asked the monk.
20. “Open another,” said Villon. “How do you ever hope to fill that
big hogshead, your body, with little things like bottles? And how do
you expect to get to heaven? How many angels, do you fancy, can be
spared to carry up a single monk from Picardy? Or do you think yourself
another Elias--and they’ll send the coach for you?”
21. “_Hominibus impossible_,” replied the monk, as he filled his glass.
22. Tabary was in ecstasies.
23. Villon filliped his nose again.
24. “Laugh at my jokes, if you like,” he said.
25. “It was very good,” objected Tabary.
26. Villon made a face at him. “Think of rhymes to ‘fish,’” he
said. “What have you to do with Latin? You’ll wish you knew none
of it at the great assizes, when the devil calls for Guido Tabary,
_clericus_--the devil with the humpback and red-hot finger-nails.
Talking of the devil,” he added, in a whisper, “look at Montigny!”
27. All three peered covertly at the gamester. He did not seem to be
enjoying his luck. His mouth was a little to a side; one nostril nearly
shut, and the other much inflated. The black dog was on his back, as
people say in terrifying nursery metaphor; and he breathed hard under
the grewsome burden.
28. “He looks as if he could knife him,” whispered Tabary, with round
eyes.
29. The monk shuddered, and turned his face and spread his open hands
to the red embers. It was the cold that thus affected Dom Nicolas, and
not any excess of moral sensibility.
30. “Come, now,” said Villon--“about this ballad. How does it run so
far?” And beating time with his hand he read it aloud to Tabary.
31. They were interrupted at the fourth rhyme by a brief and fatal
movement among the gamesters. The round was completed, and Thevenin
was just opening his mouth to claim another victory, when Montigny
leaped up, swift as an adder, and stabbed him to the heart. The blow
took effect before he had time to move. A tremor or two convulsed his
frame; his hands opened and shut, his heels rattled on the floor; then
his head rolled backward over one shoulder with the eyes wide open; and
Thevenin Pensete’s spirit had returned to Him who gave it.
32. Everyone sprung to his feet; but the business was over in two
twos. The four living fellows looked at each other in rather a ghastly
fashion; the dead man contemplating a corner of the roof with a
singular and ugly leer.
33. “My God!” said Tabary; and he began to pray in Latin.
34. Villon broke out into hysterical laughter. He came a step forward
and ducked a ridiculous bow at Thevenin, and laughed still louder.
Then he sat down suddenly, all of a heap, upon a stool, and continued
laughing bitterly as though he would shake himself to pieces.
35. Montigny recovered his composure first.
36. “Let’s see what he has about him,” he remarked; and he picked the
dead man’s pockets with a practiced hand, and divided the money into
four equal portions on the table. “There’s for you,” he said.
37. The monk received his share with a deep sigh, and a single stealthy
glance at the dead Thevenin, who was beginning to sink himself and
topple sideways off the chair.
38. “We’re all in for it,” cried Villon, swallowing his mirth. “It’s
a hanging job for every man jack of us that’s here--not to speak of
those who aren’t.” He made a shocking gesture in the air with his
raised right hand, and put out his tongue and threw his head on one
side, so as to counterfeit the appearance of one who has been hanged.
Then he pocketed his share of the spoil, and executed a shuffle with
his feet as if to restore the circulation.
39. Tabary was the last to help himself; he made a dash at the money,
and retired to the other end of the apartment.
40. Montigny stuck Thevenin upright in the chair, and drew out a
dagger, which was followed by a jet of blood.
41. “You fellows had better be moving,” he said, as he wiped the blade
on his victim’s doublet.
42. “I think we had,” returned Villon, with a great gulp. “Damn his fat
head!” he broke out. “It sticks in my throat like phlegm. What right
has a man to have red hair when he is dead?” And he fell all of a heap
again upon the stool, and fairly covered his face with his hands.
43. Montigny and Dom Nicolas laughed aloud, even Tabary feebly chiming
in.
44. “Cry baby,” said the monk.
45. “I always said he was a woman,” added Montigny, with a sneer. “Sit
up, can’t you?” he went on, giving another shake to the murdered body.
“Tread out that fire, Nick!”
46. But Nick was better employed; he was quietly taking Villon’s purse,
as the poet sat, limp and trembling, on the stool where he had been
making a ballad not three minutes before. Montigny and Tabary dumbly
demanded a share of the booty, which the monk silently promised as
he passed the little bag into the bosom of his gown. In many ways an
artistic nature unfits a man for practical existence.
47. No sooner had the theft been accomplished than Villon shook
himself, jumped to his feet, and began helping to scatter and
extinguish the embers. Meanwhile Montigny opened the door and
cautiously peered into the street. The coast was clear; there was no
meddlesome patrol in sight. Still it was judged wiser to slip out
severally; and as Villon was himself in a hurry to escape from the
neighborhood of the dead Thevenin, and the rest were in a still greater
hurry to get rid of him before he should discover the loss of his
money, he was the first by general consent to issue forth into the
street.
48. The wind had triumphed and swept all the clouds from heaven. Only a
few vapors, as thin as moonlight, fleeted rapidly across the stars. It
was bitter cold; and by a common optical effect, things seemed almost
more definite than in the broadest daylight. The sleeping city was
absolutely still; a company of white hoods, a field full of little
alps, below the twinkling stars. Villon cursed his fortune. Would it
were still snowing! Now, wherever he went, he left an indelible trail
behind him on the glittering streets; wherever he went he was still
tethered to the house by the cemetery of St. John; wherever he went
he must weave, with his own plodding feet, the rope that bound him to
the crime and would bind him to the gallows. The leer of the dead man
came back to him with a new significance. He snapped his fingers as if
to pluck up his own spirits, and choosing a street at random, stepped
boldly forward in the snow.
49. Two things preoccupied him as he went; the aspect of the gallows
at Montfaucon in this bright, windy phase of the night’s existence,
for one; and for another, the look of the dead man with his bald head
and garland of red curls. Both struck cold upon his heart, and he kept
quickening his pace as if he could escape from unpleasant thoughts by
mere fleetness of foot. Sometimes he looked back over his shoulder with
a sudden nervous jerk; but he was the only moving thing in the white
streets, except when the wind swooped round a corner and threw up the
snow, which was beginning to freeze, in spouts of glittering dust.
50. Suddenly he saw, a long way before him, a black clump and a couple
of lanterns. The clump was in motion, and the lanterns swung as though
carried by men walking. It was a patrol. And though it was merely
crossing his line of march, he judged it wiser to get out of eyeshot
as speedily as he could. He was not in the humor to be challenged, and
he was conscious of making a very conspicuous mark upon the snow. Just
on his left hand there stood a great hotel, with some turrets and a
large porch before the door; it was half-ruinous, he remembered, and
had long stood empty; and so he made three steps of it, and jumped into
the shelter of the porch. It was pretty dark inside, after the glimmer
of the snowy streets, and he was groping forward with outspread hands,
when he stumbled over some substance which offered an indescribable
mixture of resistances, hard and soft, firm and loose. His heart gave
a leap, and he sprung two steps back and stared dreadfully at the
obstacle. Then he gave a little laugh of relief. It was only a woman,
and she dead. He knelt beside her to make sure upon this latter point.
She was freezing cold, and rigid like a stick. A little ragged finery
fluttered in the wind about her hair, and her cheeks had been heavily
rouged that same afternoon. Her pockets were quite empty; but in her
stocking, underneath the garter, Villon found two of the small coins
that went by the name of whites. It was little enough, but it was
always something, and the poet was moved with a deep sense of pathos
that she should have died before she had spent her money. That seemed
to him a dark and pitiful mystery; and he looked from the coins in his
hand to the dead woman, and back again to the coins, shaking his head
over the riddle of man’s life.
51. Henry V. of England, dying at Vincennes just after he had conquered
France, and this poor jade cut off by a cold draught in a great man’s
doorway, before she had time to spend her couple of whites--it seemed
a cruel way to carry on the world. Two whites would have taken such
a little while to squander; and yet it would have been one more good
taste in the mouth, one more smack of the lips, before the devil got
the soul, and the body was left to birds and vermin. He would like
to use all his tallow before the light was blown out and the lantern
broken.
52. While these thoughts were passing through his mind, he was feeling,
half mechanically, for his purse. Suddenly his heart stopped beating; a
feeling of cold scales passed up the back of his legs, and a cold blow
seemed to fall upon his scalp. He stood petrified for a moment; then
he felt again with one feverish movement; and then his loss burst upon
him, and he was covered at once with perspiration. To spend-thrifts
money is so living and actual--it is such a thin veil between them
and their pleasures! There is only one limit to their fortune--that
of time; and a spendthrift with only a few crowns is the Emperor of
Rome until they are spent. For such a person to lose his money is to
suffer the most shocking reverse, and fall from heaven to hell, from
all to nothing, in a breath. And all the more if he has put his head in
the halter for it; if he may be hanged to-morrow for that same purse,
so dearly earned, so foolishly departed! Villon stood and cursed; he
threw the two whites into the street; he shook his fist at heaven;
he stamped, and was not horrified to find himself trampling the poor
corpse. Then he began rapidly to retrace his steps toward the house
beside the cemetery. He had forgotten all fear of the patrol, which was
long gone by at any rate, and had no idea but that of his lost purse.
It was in vain that he looked right and left upon the snow; nothing
was to be seen. He had not dropped it in the streets. Had it fallen in
the house? He would have liked dearly to go in and see; but the idea
of the grisly occupant unmanned him. And he saw besides, as he drew
near, that their efforts to put out the fire had been unsuccessful; on
the contrary, it had broken into a blaze, and a changeful light played
in the chinks of door and window, and revived his terror for the
authorities and Paris gibbet.
53. He returned to the hotel with the porch, and groped about upon the
snow for the money he had thrown away in his childish passion. But he
could only find one white; the other had probably struck sideways and
sunk deeply in. With a single white in his pocket, all his projects
for a rousing night in some wild tavern vanished utterly away. And
it was not only pleasure that fled laughing from his grasp; positive
discomfort, positive pain, attacked him as he stood ruefully before the
porch. His perspiration had dried upon him, and although the wind had
now fallen, a binding frost was setting in stronger with every hour,
and he felt benumbed and sick at heart. What was to be done? Late as
was the hour, improbable as was success, he would try the house of his
adopted father, the chaplain of St. Benoit.
54. He ran there all the way, and knocked timidly. There was no answer.
He knocked again and again, taking heart with every stroke; and at last
steps were heard approaching from within. A barred wicket fell open in
the iron-studded door, and emitted a gush of yellow light.
55. “Hold up your face to the wicket,” said the chaplain, from within.
56. “It’s only me,” whimpered Villon.
57. “Oh, it’s only you, is it?” returned the chaplain; and he cursed
him with foul unpriestly oaths for disturbing him at such an hour, and
bade him be off to hell, where he came from.
58. “My hands are blue to the wrist,” pleaded Villon; “my feet are dead
and full of twinges; my nose aches with the sharp air; the cold lies
at my heart. I may be dead before morning. Only this once, father, and
before God, I will never ask again!”
59. “You should have come earlier,” said the ecclesiastic coolly.
“Young men require a lesson now and then.” He shut the wicket and
retired deliberately into the interior of the house.
60. Villon was beside himself; he beat upon the door with his hands and
feet, and shouted hoarsely after the chaplain.
61. “Wormy old fox!” he cried. “If I had my hand under your twist, I
would send you flying headlong into the bottomless pit.”
62. A door shut in the interior, faintly audible to the poet down long
passages. He passed his hand over his mouth with an oath. And then the
humor of the situation struck him, and he laughed and looked lightly up
to heaven, where the stars seemed to be winking over his discomfiture.
63. What was to be done? It looked very like a night in the frosty
streets. The idea of the dead woman popped into his imagination, and
gave him a hearty fright; what had happened to her in the early night
might very well happen to him before morning. And he so young! and with
such immense possibilities of disorderly amusement before him! He felt
quite pathetic over the notion of his own fate, as if it had been some
one else’s, and made a little imaginative vignette of the scene in the
morning when they should find his body.
64. He passed all his chances under review, turning the white between
his thumb and forefinger. Unfortunately he was on bad terms with some
old friends who would once have taken pity on him in such a plight. He
had lampooned them in verses; he had beaten and cheated them; and yet
now, when he was in so close a pinch, he thought there was at least
one who might perhaps relent. It was a chance. It was worth trying at
least, and he would go and see.
65. On the way two little accidents happened to him which colored his
musings in a very different manner. For, first he fell in with the
track of a patrol, and walked in it for some hundred yards, although
it lay out of his direction. And this spirited him up; at least he
had confused his trail; for he was still possessed with the idea of
people tracking him all about Paris over the snow, and collaring him
next morning before he was awake. The other matter affected him quite
differently. He passed a street corner, where, not so long before, a
woman and her child had been devoured by wolves. This was just the
kind of weather, he reflected, when wolves might take it into their
heads to enter Paris again; and a lone man in these deserted streets
would run the chance of something worse than a mere scare. He stopped
and looked upon the place with an unpleasant interest--it was a center
where several lanes intersected each other; and he looked down them
all, one after another, and held his breath to listen, lest he should
detect some galloping black things on the snow or hear the sound of
howling between him and the river. He remembered his mother telling
him the story and pointing out the spot, while he was yet a child. His
mother! If he only knew where she lived, he might make sure at least
of shelter. He determined he would inquire upon the morrow; nay, he
would go and see her too, poor old girl! So thinking, he arrived at his
destination--his last hope for the night.
66. The house was quite dark, like its neighbors; and yet after a few
taps, he heard a movement overhead, a door opening, and a cautious
voice asking who was there. The poet named himself in a loud whisper,
and waited, not without some trepidation, the result. Nor had he
to wait long. A window was suddenly opened, and a pailful of slops
splashed down upon the doorstep. Villon had not been unprepared for
something of the sort, and had put himself as much in shelter as the
nature of the porch admitted; but for all that, he was deplorably
drenched below the waist. His hose began to freeze almost at once.
Death from cold and exposure stared him in the face; he remembered he
was of phthisical tendency, and began coughing tentatively. But the
gravity of the danger steadied his nerves. He stopped a few hundred
yards from the door where he had been so rudely used, and reflected
with his nose. He could only see one way of getting a lodging, and that
was to take it. He had noticed a house not far away, which looked as if
it might be easily broken into, and thither he betook himself promptly,
entertaining himself on the way with the idea of a room still hot, with
a table still loaded with the remains of supper, where he might pass
the rest of the black hours and whence he should issue, on the morrow,
with an armful of valuable plate. He even considered on what viands
and what wines he should prefer; and as he was calling the roll of his
favorite dainties, roast fish presented itself to his mind with an odd
mixture of amusement and horror.
67. “I shall never finish that ballad,” he thought to himself; and
then, with another shudder at the recollection, “Oh, damn his fat
head!” he repeated fervently, and spat upon the snow.
68. The house in question looked dark at first sight; but as Villon
made a preliminary inspection in search of the handiest point of
attack, a little twinkle of light caught his eye from behind a
curtained window.
69. “The devil!” he thought. “People awake! Some student or some
saint, confound the crew! Can’t they get drunk and lie in bed snoring
like their neighbors! What’s the good of curfew, and poor devils of
bellringers jumping at a rope’s end in bell-towers? What’s the use of
day, if people sit up all night! The gripes to them!” He grinned as he
saw where his logic was leading him. “Every man to his business, after
all,” added he, “and if they’re awake, by the Lord, I may come by a
supper honestly for once, and cheat the devil.”
70. He went boldly to the door and knocked with an assured hand. On
both previous occasions, he had knocked timidly and with some dread
of attracting notice; but now, when he had just discarded the thought
of a burglarious entry, knocking at a door seemed a mighty simple and
innocent proceeding. The sound of his blows echoed through the house
with thin, phantasmal reverberations, as though the house were empty;
but these had scarcely died away before a measured tread drew near,
a couple of bolts were withdrawn, and one wing was opened broadly, as
though no guile or fear of guile were known to those within. A tall
figure of a man, muscular and spare, but a little bent, confronted
Villon. The head was massive in bulk, but finely sculptured; the nose
blunt at the bottom, but refining upward to where it joined a pair of
strong and honest eyebrows; the mouth and eyes surrounded with delicate
markings, and the whole face based upon a thick white beard, boldly
and squarely trimmed. Seen as it was by the light of a flickering
hand-lamp, it looked, perhaps, nobler than it had a right to do; but it
was a fine face, honorable rather than intelligent, strong, simple, and
righteous.
71. “You knock late, sir,” said the old man, in resonant, courteous
tones.
72. Villon cringed, and brought up many servile words of apology; at a
crisis of this sort, the beggar was uppermost in him, and the man of
genius hid his head with confusion.
73. “You are cold,” repeated the old man, “and hungry? Well, step in.”
And he ordered him into the house with a noble enough gesture.
74. “Some great seigneur,” thought Villon, as his host, setting down
the lamp on the flagged pavement of the entry, shot the bolts once more
into their places.
75. “You will pardon me if I go in front,” he said, when this was
done; and he preceded the poet up-stairs into a large apartment,
warmed with a pan of charcoal and lit by a great lamp hanging from
the roof. It was very bare of furniture; only some gold plate on a
sideboard; some folios; and a stand of armor between the windows.
Some smart tapestry hung upon the walls, representing the crucifixion
of our Lord in one piece, and in another a scene of shepherds and
shepherdesses by a running stream. Over the chimney was a shield of
arms.
76. “Will you seat yourself,” said the old man, “and forgive me if I
leave you? I am alone in my house to-night, and if you are to eat I
must forage for you myself.”
77. No sooner was his host gone than Villon leaped from the chair on
which he had just seated himself, and began examining the room, with
the stealth and passion of a cat. He weighed the gold flagons in his
hand, opened all the folios, and investigated the arms upon the shield,
and the stuff with which the seats were lined. He raised the window
curtains, and saw that the windows were set with rich stained glass
in figures, so far as he could see, of martial import. Then he stood
in the middle of the room, drew a long breath, and, retaining it with
puffed cheeks, looked round and round him, turning on his heels, as if
to impress every feature of the apartment on his memory.
78. “Seven pieces of plate,” he said. “If there had been ten, I would
have risked it. A fine house, and a fine old master, so help me all the
saints!”
79. And just then, hearing the old man’s tread returning along the
corridor, he stole back to his chair, and began humbly toasting his wet
legs before the charcoal pan.
80. His entertainer had a plate of meat in one hand and a jug of wine
in the other. He sat down the plate upon the table, motioning Villon
to draw in his chair, and, going to the sideboard, brought back two
goblets, which he filled.
81. “I drink your better fortune,” he said, gravely touching Villon’s
cup with his own.
82. “To our better acquaintance,” said the poet, growing bold. A mere
man of the people would have been awed by the courtesy of the old
seigneur, but Villon was hardened in that matter; he had made mirth for
great lords before now, and found them as black rascals as himself. And
so he devoted himself to the viands with a ravenous gusto, while the
old man, leaning backward, watched him with steady, curious eyes.
83. “You have blood on your shoulder, my man,” he said.
84. Montigny must have laid his wet right hand upon him as he left the
house. He cursed Montigny in his heart.
85. “It was none of my shedding,” he stammered.
86. “I had not supposed so,” returned his host, quietly. “A brawl?”
87. “Well, something of that sort,” Villon admitted with a quaver.
88. “Perhaps a fellow murdered?”
89. “Oh, no, not murdered,” said the poet, more and more confused.
“It was all fair play--murdered by accident. I had no hand in it, God
strike me dead!” he added, fervently.
90. “One rogue the fewer, I dare say,” observed the master of the house.
91. “You may dare to say that,” agreed Villon, infinitely relieved.
“As big a rogue as there is between here and Jerusalem. He turned up
his toes like a lamb. But it was a nasty thing to look at. I dare say
you’ve seen dead men in your time, my lord?” he added, glancing at the
armor.
92. “Many,” said the old man. “I have followed the wars, as you
imagine.”
93. Villon laid down his knife and fork, which he had just taken up
again.
94. “Were any of them bald?” he asked.
95. “Oh, yes, and with hair as white as mine.”
96. “I don’t think I should mind the white so much,” said Villon.
“His was red.” And he had a return of his shuddering and tendency to
laughter, which he drowned with a great draught of wine. “I’m a little
put out when I think of it,” he went on. “I knew him--damn him! And
then the cold gives a man fancies--or the fancies give a man cold, I
don’t know which.”
97. “Have you any money?” asked the old man.
98. “I have one white,” returned the poet, laughing. “I got it out of a
dead jade’s stocking in a porch. She was as dead as Cæsar, poor wench,
and as cold as a church, with bits of ribbon sticking in her hair. This
is a hard world in winter for wolves and wenches and poor rogues like
me.”
99. “I,” said the old man, “am Enguerrand de la Feuillee, seigneur de
Brisetout, bailly du Patatrac. Who and what may you be?”
100. Villon rose and made a suitable reverence. “I am called Francis
Villon,” he said, “a poor master of arts in this university. I know
some Latin, and a deal of vice. I can make chansons, ballads, lais,
virelais, and roundels and I am very fond of wine. I was born in a
garret and I shall not improbably die upon the gallows. I may add, my
lord, that from this night forward I am your lordship’s very obsequious
servant to command.”
101. “No servant of mine,” said the knight; “my guest for this evening,
and no more.”
102. “A very grateful guest,” said Villon, politely, and he drank in
dumb show to his entertainer.
103. “You are shrewd,” began the old man, tapping his forehead, “very
shrewd; you have learning; you are a clerk; and yet you take a small
piece of money off a dead woman in the street. Is it not a kind of
theft?”
104. “It is a kind of theft much practiced in the wars, my lord.”
105. “The wars are the field of honor,” returned the old man, proudly.
“There a man plays his life upon the cast; he fights in the name of his
lord the king, his Lord God, and all their lordships the holy saints
and angels.”
106. “Put it,” said Villon, “that I were really a thief, should I not
play my life also, and against heavier odds?”
107. “For gain, but not for honor.”
108. “Gain?” repeated Villon, with a shrug. “Gain! The poor fellow
wants supper, and takes it. So does the soldier in a campaign. Why,
what are all these requisitions we hear so much about? If they are not
gain to those who take them, they are loss enough to the others. The
men-at-arms drink by a good fire, while the burgher bites his nails to
buy them wine and wood. I have seen a good many plowmen swinging on
trees about the country; ay, I have seen thirty on one elm, and a very
poor figure they made; and when I asked some one how all these came to
be hanged, I was told it was because they could not scrape together
enough crowns to satisfy the men-at-arms.”
109. “These things are a necessity of war, which the low-born must
endure with constancy. It is true that some captains drive overhard;
there are spirits in every rank not easily moved by pity; and indeed
many follow arms who are no better than brigands.”
110. “You see,” said the poet, “you cannot separate the soldier
from the brigand; and what is a thief but an isolated brigand with
circumspect manners? I steal a couple of mutton chops, without so much
as disturbing people’s sleep; the farmer grumbles a bit, but sups none
the less wholesomely on what remains. You come up blowing gloriously
on a trumpet, take away the whole sheep, and beat the farmer pitifully
into the bargain. I have no trumpet; I am only Tom, Dick, or Harry; I
am a rogue and a dog, and hanging’s too good for me--with all my heart;
but just ask the farmer which of us he prefers, just find out which of
us he lies awake to curse on cold nights.”
111. “Look at us two,” said his lordship. “I am old, strong, and
honored. If I were turned from my house to-morrow, hundreds would be
proud to shelter me. Poor people would go out and pass the night in
the streets with their children, if I merely hinted that I wished to
be alone. And I find you up, wandering homeless, and picking farthings
off dead women by the wayside! I fear no man and nothing; I have
seen you tremble and lose countenance at a word. I wait God’s summons
contentedly in my own house, or, if it please the king to call me out
again, upon the field of battle. You look for the gallows; a rough,
swift death, without hope or honor. Is there no difference between
these two?”
112. “As far as to the moon,” Villon acquiesced. “But if I had been
born Lord of Brisetout, and you had been the poor scholar Francis,
would the difference have been any the less? Should I not have been
warming my knees at this charcoal pan, and would not you have been
groping for farthings in the snow? Should not I have been the soldier
and you the thief?”
113. “A thief?” cried the old man. “I a thief! If you understood your
words you would repent them.”
114. Villon turned out his hands with a gesture of inimitable
impudence. “If your lordship had done me the honor to follow my
argument!” he said.
115. “I do you too much honor in submitting to your presence,” said
the knight. “Learn to curb your tongue when you speak with old and
honorable men, or some one hastier than I may reprove you in a sharper
fashion.” And he rose and paced the lower end of the apartment,
struggling with anger and antipathy. Villon surreptitiously refilled
his cup, and settled himself more comfortably in the chair, crossing
his knees and leaning his head upon one hand and the elbow against the
back of the chair. He was now replete and warm, and he was in nowise
frightened for his host, having gauged him as justly as was possible
between two such different characters. The night was far spent, and in
a very comfortable fashion after all; and he felt morally certain of a
safe departure on the morrow.
116. “Tell me one thing,” said the old man, pausing in his walk. “Are
you really a thief?”
117. “I claim the sacred rights of hospitality,” returned the poet. “My
lord, I am.”
118. “You are very young,” the knight continued.
119. “I should never have been so old,” replied Villon, showing his
fingers, “if I had not helped myself with these ten talents. They have
been my nursing mothers and my nursing fathers.”
120. “You may still repent and change.”
121. “I repent daily,” said the poet. “There are few people more given
to repentance than poor Francis. As for change, let somebody change my
circumstances. A man must continue to eat, if it were only that he may
continue to repent.”
122. “The change must begin in the heart,” returned the old man
solemnly.
123. “My dear lord,” answered Villon, “do you really fancy that I
steal for pleasure? I hate stealing, like any other piece of work or
of danger. My teeth chatter when I see a gallows. But I must eat, I
must drink, I must mix in society of some sort. What the devil! Man
is not a solitary animal--_Cui Deus fœminam tradit_. Make me king’s
pantler--make me abbot of St. Denis; make me bailly of the Patatrac;
and then I shall be changed indeed. But as long as you leave me the
poor scholar Francis Villon, without a farthing, why, of course, I
remain the same.”
124. “The grace of God is all-powerful.”
125. “I should be a heretic to question it,” said Francis. “It has
made you lord of Brisetout and bailly of the Patatrac; it has given
me nothing but the quick wits under my hat and these ten toes upon my
hands. May I help myself to wine? I thank you respectfully. By God’s
grace, you have a very superior vintage.”
126. The lord of Brisetout walked to and fro with his hands behind
his back. Perhaps he was not yet quite settled in his mind about the
parallel between thieves and soldiers; perhaps Villon had interested
him by some cross-thread of sympathy; perhaps his wits were simply
muddled by so much unfamiliar reasoning; but whatever the cause, he
somehow yearned to convert the young man to a better way of thinking,
and could not make up his mind to drive him forth again into the
street.
127. “There is something more than I can understand in this,” he said
at length. “Your mouth is full of subtleties, and the devil has led you
very far astray; but the devil is only a very weak spirit before God’s
truth, and all his subtleties vanish at a word of true honor, like
darkness at morning. Listen to me once more. I learned long ago that a
gentleman should live chivalrously and lovingly to God, and the king,
and his lady; and though I have seen many strange things done, I have
still striven to command my ways upon that rule. It is not only written
in all noble histories, but in every man’s heart, if he will take care
to read. You speak of food and wine, and I know very well that hunger
is a difficult trial to endure; but you do not speak of other wants;
you say nothing of honor, of faith to God and other men, of courtesy,
of love without reproach. It may be that I am not very wise--and yet
I am--but you seem to me like one who has lost his way and made a
great error in life. You are attending to the little wants, and you
have totally forgotten the great and only real ones, like a man who
should be doctoring toothache on the Judgment Day. For such things as
honor and love and faith are not only nobler than food and drink, but
indeed I think we desire them more, and suffer more sharply for their
absence. I speak to you as I think you will most easily understand me.
Are you not while careful to fill your belly, disregarding another
appetite in your heart, which spoils the pleasure of your life and
keeps you continually wretched?”
128. Villon was sensibly nettled under all this sermonizing. “You think
I have no sense of honor!” he cried. “I’m poor enough, God knows! It’s
hard to see rich people with their gloves, and you blowing in your
hands. An empty belly is a bitter thing, although you speak so lightly
of it. If you had had as many as I, perhaps you would change your tune.
Any way, I’m a thief--make the most of that--but I’m not a devil from
hell, God strike me dead. I would have you to know I’ve an honor of my
own, as good as yours, though I don’t prate about it all day long, as
if it was a God’s miracle to have any. It seems quite natural to me; I
keep it in its box till it’s wanted. Why, now, look you here, how long
have I been in this room with you? Did you not tell me you were alone
in the house? Look at your gold plate! You’re strong, if you like, but
you’re old and unarmed, and I have my knife. What did I want but a jerk
of the elbow and here would have been you with the cold steel in your
bowels, and there would have been me, linking in the streets, with an
armful of golden cups! Did you suppose I hadn’t wit enough to see that?
And I scorned the action. There are your damned goblets as safe as in a
church, there are you with your heart ticking as good as new, and here
am I, ready to go out again as poor as I came in, with my one white
that you threw in my teeth! And you think I have no sense of honor--God
strike me dead!”
129. The old man stretched out his right arm. “I will tell you what you
are,” he said. “You are a rogue, my man, an impudent and black-hearted
rogue and vagabond. I have passed an hour with you. Oh! believe me, I
feel myself disgraced! And you have eaten and drunk at my table. But
now I am sick at your presence; the day has come, and the night-bird
should be off to his roost. Will you go before, or after?”
130. “Which you please,” returned the poet, rising. “I believe you to
be strictly honorable.” He thoughtfully emptied his cup. “I wish I
could add you were intelligent,” he went on, knocking on his head with
his knuckles. “Age! age! the brains stiff and rheumatic.”
131. The old man preceded him from a point of self-respect; Villon
followed, whistling, with his thumbs in his girdle.
132. “God pity you!” said the lord of Brisetout at the door.
133. “Good-bye, papa,” returned Villon, with a yawn. “Many thanks for
the cold mutton.”
134. The door closed behind him. The dawn was breaking over the white
roofs. A chill, uncomfortable morning ushered in the day. Villon stood
and heartily stretched himself in the middle of the road.
135. “A very dull old gentleman,” he thought. “I wonder what his
goblets may be worth.”
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS FOR STUDY
1. Briefly write out the plot of the story.
2. Which incidents are essential to the story (plot incidents)?
3. Which incidents could be altered without vitally changing the story
(developing incidents)? For a discussion of these types of incidents
see the present author’s _Writing the Short-Story_, pp. 174-181.
4. Show how one such change could be made.
5. Does the external (visible or bodily) action stand out as clearly as
the internal (invisible or soul) action?
6. (a) Is the story probable? (b) Usual? (c) Convincing?--That is, does
it seem real?
7. What are its strongest points, to you?
8. Criticise its weak points, if any.
9. Can you suggest any improvements?
10. (a) Do you know any stories similar in theme? (b) If so, which is
the better story, to you, and why?
11. Briefly write out the plots of three stories of action or
adventure, taken from any book or magazine.
12. Compare one of them with one of these two stories.
TEN REPRESENTATIVE STORIES OF ACTION AND ADVENTURE
“After He was Dead,” Melville Davisson Post. _Atlantic Monthly_,
April, 1911.
“The Attack on the Mill,” Émile Zola. Translated in _Great Short
Stories_.
“The Taking of the Redoubt,” Prosper Mérimée. Translated in
_Short-Story Masterpieces_.
“The Man Who Would be King,” Rudyard Kipling. In _The Phantom
Rickshaw_ (and other stories).
“The Sire de Malétroit’s Door,” Robert Louis Stevenson. In _New
Arabian Nights_.
“The Diamond Lens,” Fitz-James O’Brien. In _Short Story Classics,
American_.
“The Young Man in a Hurry,” Robert W. Chambers. _Harper’s
Magazine_, Aug., 1903.
“A Fight for the Tsarina,” Maurus Jókai. Translated in
_Masterpieces of Fiction_.
“The Window that Monsieur Forgot,” Mary Imlay Taylor. _The
Booklovers Magazine_, Jan., 1904.
“Blood o’ Innocence,” George W. Knapp. _Lippincott’s Magazine_,
Nov., 1907.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] AUTHOR’S NOTE.--Corporals were formerly the chief officers of the
Corsican communes after they had rebelled against their feudal lords.
To-day they still occasionally give the name to a man who--because of
his property, his relationships, and his business--commands a certain
influence, and a sort of effective magistracy over a parish or a
canton. The Corsicans divide themselves, after ancient custom, into
five castes: gentlemen (of whom some, _magnifiques_, are of higher
estate, and some of lower, _signori_), corporals, citizens, plebeians,
and foreigners.
[14] AUTHOR’S NOTE.--This word is synonymous with outlaw.
[15] AUTHOR’S NOTE.--_Voltigeurs_, that is, a body raised by the
government of late years which acts in conjunction with the police to
maintain order.
[16] AUTHOR’S NOTE.--The uniform of the _voltigeurs_ was at that period
brown, with a yellow collar.
[17] AUTHOR’S NOTE.--A leather belt which served the joint purpose of a
cartridge box and pocket for dispatches and orders.
[18] AUTHOR’S NOTE.--_Buon giorno, fratello_--the ordinary salutation
of the Corsicans.
II
STORIES OF MYSTERY AND FANTASY
_The Purloined Letter._--EDGAR ALLAN POE
_The Monkey’s Paw._--W. W. JACOBS
The fact is ... that, in the riddle story, the detective was an
after-thought, or, more accurately, a _deus ex machina_ to make
the story go. The riddle had to be unriddled; and who could do
it so naturally and readily as a detective? The detective, as
Poe saw him, was a means to this end; and it was only afterwards
that writers perceived his availability as a character. Lecoq
accordingly becomes a figure in fiction, and Sherlock, while he was
as yet a novelty, was nearly as attractive as the complications in
which he involved himself.--JULIAN HAWTHORNE, Introduction to _The
Lock and Key Library_.
The literature of ghosts is very ancient. In visions of the night,
and in the lurid vapors of mystic incantations, figures rise and
smile, or frown and disappear. The Witch of Endor murmurs her
spell, and “an old man cometh up, and he is covered with a mantle.”
Macbeth takes a bond of fate, and from Hecate’s caldron, after
the apparition of an armed head and that of a bloody child, “an
apparition of a child crowned, with a tree in his hand, rises.” The
wizard recounts to Lochiel his warning vision, and Lochiel departs
to his doom. There are stories of the Castle of Otranto and of The
Three Spaniards, and the infinite detail of “singular experiences,”
which make our conscious daily life the frontier and border-land of
an impinging world of mystery.--GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS, Introduction
to _Modern Ghosts_.
STORIES OF MYSTERY AND FANTASY
Even more deeply seated and elemental than our love for the mysterious
is our passion for undertaking its solution. It is this, doubtless,
that challenges us to match our wits with the clever rogues of fiction,
and to pit our resources of detection against the forces seen and
unseen which play in tales of the weird, the mysterious, and the
unexplained.
Such stories readily fall into two classes, with as many sub-sorts as
the invention of man may compass--those which are soluble and those
which are not. Of the former, the detective story is the more common,
followed at no very great distance by the tale which seems to involve
the supernatural, but whose mystery transpires quite plainly in the
end. Of the latter are all those inexplicable wonder-fictions dealing
with shapes that haunt the dream-dusk, the whole shadow-land of wraiths
and spirits and presences and immaterialities which cross the borders
of experience at the call of fantasy. They are all the inheritance
of the credulous age in which romance was born, and few of us are
so engirded with the armor of stoicism that we cannot enjoy their
gathering goose-flesh and creeping spinal chill. Hawthorne and Poe and
Irving were masters here.
The processes of inductive reasoning by which Voltaire’s Zadig
reconstructed actual occurrences from trivial clues have developed into
modern detective stories of uncounted variety, in which the criminal is
hunted down by a professional sleuth. Then, too, the “clever amateur”
often takes a hand in the game, and even accident plays at times,
until there is no end to the possible combinations growing out of pure
reasoning employed to unravel the tangle.
Much the same processes are employed to discover the
pseudo-supernatural mystery, like Fitz-James O’Brien’s solved
ghost-story, “What Was It? A Mystery.” But when we enter the domain
of the unexplained, the story tends to become a study of fear and of
pure mystery, like Marion Crawford’s “The Upper Berth,” and “The Damned
Thing,” by Ambrose Bierce.
Poe was the great American originator of the detective story, and
to-day his “Purloined Letter,” reproduced here in full, “The Mystery of
Marie Rogêt,” and “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” are unsurpassed.
POE AND HIS WRITINGS
Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, January 19, 1809. His father, of
a good Maryland family, was an actor, and his mother an actress of
English extraction. Both parents dying before Edgar was three, he,
with his brother William and sister Rosalie, was left homeless in
Richmond, where each found a protector. Mrs. Allan adopted Edgar,
giving him his middle name, and bestowing at the same time every
opportunity that wealth could offer. He was sent to school at Stoke
Newington, England, attended a private school in Richmond, and entered
the University of Virginia, but remained there less than a year, for
his reckless and erratic temperament champed under the restraints of
routine. He was placed in Mr. Allan’s counting-room, but ran away to
enlist in the United States Army as “Edgar Allan Perry.” After the
death of Mrs. Allan, her husband secured Poe’s discharge from the army
and his appointment to West Point as a cadet, July 1, 1830; but after
six months Poe contrived to be dismissed. He had already published
his poems successfully, so he went to New York, in the early part of
1831, to begin his professional literary life. For four years--1833
to 1837--he wrote brilliantly for _The Southern Literary Messenger_,
in Baltimore. Then he went successively to New York and Philadelphia,
where he worked on various literary enterprises for six years. In 1844
he returned to New York, and became assistant to N. P. Willis, in whose
journal, _The Mirror_, “The Raven” appeared in 1845. Poe’s literary
reputation was now established both in America and abroad, most of his
masterpieces having been created during the turbulent years of his
wanderings. In 1835 he had been married to Virginia Clemm, his cousin,
and her early death in 1847 broke his spirit. His health had already
succumbed to his morbid temperament--which magnified every sorrow of
his chaotic career--and to the excesses of drugs and drink. He died
most unhappily, October 7, 1849, at the age of forty--a master spirit
pitifully wrecked before his prime.
Poe was a remarkable poet, essayist, critic, and short-story writer.
“The Raven,” “Lenore,” “Ulalume,” “The Bells,” “Annabel Lee,”
“Israfel,” and “To One in Paradise” are among his best poems. Probably
the greatest of his stories are, “MS. Found in A Bottle,” “The
Assignation,” “Ligeia,” “The Murders in The Rue Morgue,” “The Mystery
of Marie Rogêt,” “A Descent into The Maelstrom,” “The Masque of The Red
Death,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” “The Gold Bug,” “The Black Cat,”
“The Cask of Amontillado,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” first
published in _Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine_, September, 1839--and “The
Purloined Letter,” first published in _The Gift_, an “annual,” in 1845.
Poe was the greatest conscious artist that American literature has
ever known. He not only looked backward upon his own work and, as
did Stevenson, clearly traced the operations of his mind in its
production, but he built up a structure of literary theory which has
been powerfully attacked, indeed, but whose walls remain substantially
whole to-day. To his constructive criticism of the short-story is
directly due its present advanced form, for while current practice
has widely departed from Poe’s morbid, gloomy, extravagant themes and
formal, abundant diction, his stories are still unsurpassed for vigor,
atmosphere, invention, and thrill, and his laws of composition are read
everywhere with the respect due authority.
Ah, dream too bright to last!
Ah, starry Hope, that didst arise
But to be overcast!
A voice from out the Future cries,
“Onward!”--but o’er the Past
(Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies,
Mute--motionless--aghast!
EDGAR ALLAN POE, _The Assignation_.
Had you lived a generation later, honor, wealth, applause, success
in Europe and at home, would all have been yours.--ANDREW LANG,
_Letters to Dead Authors_.
There are literary evolutionists who, in their whim of seeing in
every original writer a copy of some predecessor, have declared
that Hawthorne is derived from Tieck, and Poe from Hoffmann....
If the adjective American has any meaning at all, it qualifies
Poe and Hawthorne. They were American to the core. They both
revealed the curious sympathy with Oriental moods of thought
which is often an American characteristic. Poe, with his cold
logic and his mathematical analysis, and Hawthorne, with his
introspective conscience and his love of the subtle and the
invisible, are representative of phases of American character not
to be mistaken by any one who has given thought to the influence
of nationality.... Nothing better of its kind has ever been done
than the “Pit and the Pendulum,” or than the “Fall of the House
of Usher” (which has been compared aptly with Browning’s “Childe
Roland to the Dark Tower Came” for its power of suggesting
intellectual desolation). Nothing better of its kind has ever been
done than the “Gold Bug,” or than the “Purloined Letter,” or than
the “Murders in the Rue Morgue.”--BRANDER MATTHEWS, _The Philosophy
of the Short-story_.
The conception of gloomy terror which impregnates “The House of
Usher” is as complete as the idea of medieval chivalry underlying
_Ivanhoe_.... To be sure, the terror in his stories, so he said in
his preface to the _Tales of the Grotesque and the Arabesque_, was
“not of Germany, but of the soul....” Yet one can readily believe
that his Roderick in “The House of Usher,” who pored over books
which had the “character of phantasm,” Morella, who was interested
in the transcendentalism of Schelling and Fichte, Ægæus, whom “the
realities of the world affected--as visions,” are all identical
with the Young Poe when he freed his mind and later his fancy in
the fields where Novalis sought the blue flower and all the German
romanticists wandered.... To say that Poe was a creature of German
influence would be absurd. To say that German thought and fancy
were sympathetic to his genius, would be putting it too mildly.
Between these extremes the truth must lie.--H. S. CANBY, _The Short
Story in English_.
FURTHER REFERENCES FOR READING ON POE
_Prose Writers of America_, Rufus W. Griswold (1870); _Short Studies
of American Authors_, Thomas W. Higginson (1880); _Letters to Dead
Authors_, Andrew Lang (1886); _Criticisms on Contemporary Thought_,
Richard H. Hutton (1894); _American Lands and Letters_, Donald G.
Mitchell (1897-99); _Life of Edgar Allan Poe_, R. H. Stoddard (1899);
_Poe and Some of His Critics_, C. W. Hubner (1906); _Life of Edgar
Allan Poe, Personal and Literary_, George E. Woodberry (1909); _Edgar
Allan Poe, A Critical Study_, Arthur Ransome (1910).
THE PURLOINED LETTER
Nil sapientiae odiosius acumina nimio.--_Seneca._
(Nothing is more odious to wisdom than too great acumen.)
BY EDGAR ALLAN POE
[Sidenote: FORMAL INTRODUCTION.]
[Sidenote: Dupin appears as the detective in Poe’s other mystery
stories, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” and “The Mystery of Marie
Rogêt.”]
[Sidenote: _Au troisième_--third flight, or fourth floor.]
[Sidenote: Compare this story with Sardou’s “A Scrap of Paper.”]
[Sidenote: G---- also appears in “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt.”]
At Paris, just after dark one gusty evening in the autumn of 18--, I
was enjoying the twofold luxury of meditation and a meerschaum, in
company with my friend C. Auguste Dupin, in his little back library,
or book closet, _au troisième, No. 33 Rue Dunôt, Faubourg St.
Germain_. For one hour at least we had maintained a profound silence;
while each, to any casual observer, might have seemed intently and
exclusively occupied with the curling eddies of smoke that oppressed
the atmosphere of the chamber. For myself, however, I was mentally
discussing certain topics which had formed matter for conversation
between us at an earlier period of the evening; I mean the affair of
the Rue Morgue, and the mystery attending the murder of Marie Rogêt. I
looked upon it, therefore, as something of a coincidence, when the door
of our apartment was thrown open and admitted our old acquaintance,
Monsieur G----, the Prefect of the Parisian police.
[Sidenote: Careless English.]
2. We gave him a hearty welcome; for there was nearly half as much
of the entertaining as of the contemptible about the man, and we had
not seen him for several years. We had been sitting in the dark, and
Dupin now arose for the purpose of lighting a lamp, but sat down again,
without doing so, upon G----'s saying that he had called to consult
us, or rather to ask the opinion of my friend, about some official
business which had occasioned a great deal of trouble.
3. “If it is any point requiring reflection,” observed Dupin, as he
forbore to enkindle the wick, “we shall examine it to better purpose
in the dark.”
[Sidenote: Later writers of detective stories follow Poe’s lead in
showing contempt for police officials.]
4. “That is another of your odd notions,” said the Prefect, who had a
fashion of calling everything “odd” that was beyond his comprehension,
and thus lived amid an absolute legion of “oddities.”
5. “Very true,” said Dupin, as he supplied his visitor with a pipe, and
rolled towards him a comfortable chair.
6. “And what is the difficulty now?” I asked. “Nothing more in the
assassination way, I hope?”
7. “Oh, no; nothing of that nature. The fact is, the business is _very_
simple, indeed, and I make no doubt that we can manage it sufficiently
well ourselves; but then I thought Dupin would like to hear the details
of it, because it is so excessively _odd_.”
8. “Simple and odd,” said Dupin.
[Sidenote: Poe makes G---- to serve as a foil for Dupin, while the
narrator plays Watson to Dupin’s Sherlock--but Poe came first!]
9. “Why, yes; and not exactly that, either. The fact is, we have all
been a good deal puzzled because the affair is so simple, and yet
baffles us altogether.”
[Sidenote: Forecast of denouement. Note how this point is emphasized.]
10. “Perhaps it is the very simplicity of the thing which puts you at
fault,” said my friend.
11. “What nonsense you _do_ talk!” replied the Prefect, laughing
heartily.
12. “Perhaps the mystery is a little _too_ plain,” said Dupin.
13. “Oh, good Heavens! who ever heard of such an idea?”
14. “A little _too_ self-evident.”
[Sidenote: Later imitators freely use this scheme of the superior pose
of the police.]
15. “Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ho! ho! ho!” roared our visitor,
profoundly amused. “Oh, Dupin, you will be the death of me yet!”
16. “And what, after all, is the matter on hand?” I asked.
[Sidenote: This device has since been much overworked.]
17. “Why, I will tell you,” replied the Prefect, as he gave a long,
steady, and contemplative puff, and settled himself in his chair. “I
will tell you in a few words; but, before I begin, let me caution you
that this is an affair demanding the greatest secrecy, and that I
should most probably lose the position I now hold were it known that I
confided it to any one.”
[Sidenote: LENGTHY INTRODUCTION ENDS. Note that this is one unified
story, with much philosophising, but no minor episodes.]
18. “Proceed,” said I.
19. “Or not,” said Dupin.
[Sidenote: The foundation laid; SUMMARY OF PROBLEM.]
20. “Well, then; I have received personal information from a very
high quarter that a certain document of the last importance has been
purloined from the royal apartments. The individual who purloined it is
known; this beyond a doubt; he was seen to take it. It is known, also,
that it still remains in his possession.”
21. “How is this known?” asked Dupin.
[Sidenote: Development of problem.]
22. “It is clearly inferred,” replied the Prefect, “from the nature
of the document, and from the non-appearance of certain results which
would at once arise from its passing out of the robber’s possession;
that is to say, from his employing it as he must design in the end to
employ it.”
23. “Be a little more explicit,” I said.
24. “Well, I may venture so far as to say that the paper gives its
holder a certain power in a certain quarter where such power is
immensely valuable.” The Prefect was fond of the cant of diplomacy.
25. “Still I do not quite understand,” said Dupin.
[Sidenote: Importance of problem.]
26. “No? well; the disclosure of the document to a third person, who
shall be nameless, would bring in question the honor of a personage of
most exalted station; and this fact gives the holder of the document an
ascendency over the illustrious personage whose honor and peace are so
jeopardized.”
[Sidenote: Philosophy of problem.]
27. “But this ascendency,” I interposed, “would depend upon the
robber’s knowledge of the loser’s knowledge of the robber. Who would
dare--”
[Sidenote: Unique situation: the thief is known.]
[Sidenote: Method and circumstances of the theft related.]
[Sidenote: See note on ¶115, p. 104.]
[Sidenote: Note “the”.]
28. “The thief,” said G----, “is the Minister D----, who dares all
things, those unbecoming as well as those becoming a man. The method of
the theft was not less ingenious than bold. The document in question--a
letter, to be frank--had been received by the personage robbed while
alone in the royal _boudoir_. During its perusal she was suddenly
interrupted by the entrance of the other exalted personage, from
whom especially it was her wish to conceal it. After a hurried and
vain endeavor to thrust it in a drawer, she was forced to place it,
open as it was, upon a table. The address, however, was uppermost,
and, the contents thus unexposed, the letter escaped notice. At this
juncture enters the Minister D----. His lynx eye immediately perceives
the paper, recognizes the handwriting of the address, observes the
confusion of the personage addressed, and fathoms her secret. After
some business transactions, hurried through in his ordinary manner,
he produces a letter somewhat similar to the one in question, opens
it, pretends to read it, and then places it in close juxtaposition to
the other. Again he converses for some fifteen minutes upon the public
affairs. At length in taking leave he takes also from the table the
letter to which he had no claim. Its rightful owner saw, but of course
dared not call attention to the act, in the presence of the third
personage, who stood at her elbow. The minister decamped, leaving his
own letter--one of no importance--upon the table.”
29. “Here, then,” said Dupin to me, “you have precisely what you demand
to make the ascendency complete--the robber’s knowledge of the loser’s
knowledge of the robber.”
[Sidenote: Results of theft.]
[Sidenote: End of statement of case as a problem.]
30. “Yes,” replied the Prefect; “and the power thus attained has, for
some months past, been wielded, for political purposes, to a very
dangerous extent. The personage robbed is more thoroughly convinced,
every day, of the necessity of reclaiming her letter. But this, of
course, cannot be done openly. In fine, driven to despair, she has
committed the matter to me.”
[Sidenote: Character development.]
[Sidenote: Satire supports his attitude toward the police.]
31. “Than whom,” said Dupin, amid a perfect whirlwind of smoke, “no
more sagacious agent could, I suppose, be desired, or even imagined.”
[Sidenote: Character delineation.]
32. “You flatter me,” replied the Prefect; “but it is possible that
some such opinion may have been entertained.”
33. “It is clear,” said I, “as you observe, that the letter is still in
possession of the minister; since it is this possession, and not any
employment of the letter, which bestows the power. With the employment
the power departs.”
[Sidenote: ATTEMPTS AT RECOVERY OF THE PURLOINED LETTER. SECOND STAGE
OF THE PLOT.]
34. “True,” said G----, “and upon this conviction I proceeded. My first
care was to make thorough search of the minister’s hotel; and here
my chief embarrassment lay in the necessity of searching without his
knowledge. Beyond all things, I have been warned of the danger which
would result from giving him reason to suspect our design.”
[Sidenote: _Au fait_--to the point; therefore, at home.]
35. “But,” said I, “you are quite _au fait_ in these investigations.
The Parisian police have done this thing often before.”
36. “Oh, yes; and for this reason I did not despair. The habits of the
minister gave me, too, a great advantage. He is frequently absent from
home all night. His servants are by no means numerous. They sleep at a
distance from their master’s apartment, and being chiefly Neapolitans,
are readily made drunk. I have keys, as you know, with which I can
open any chamber or cabinet in Paris. For three months, a night has
not passed during the greater part of which I have not been engaged,
personally, in ransacking the D---- Hotel. My honor is interested, and,
to mention a great secret, the reward is enormous. So I did not abandon
the search until I had become fully satisfied that the thief is a more
astute man than myself. I fancy that I have investigated every nook and
corner of the premises in which it is possible that the paper can be
concealed.”
37. “But is it not possible,” I suggested, “that although the letter
may be in possession of the minister, as it unquestionably is, he may
have concealed it elsewhere than upon his own premises?”
[Sidenote: Inferential reasoning.]
38. “This is barely possible,” said Dupin. “The present peculiar
condition of affairs at court, and especially of those intrigues
in which D---- is known to be involved, would render the instant
availability of the document--its susceptibility of being produced
at a moment’s notice--a point of nearly equal importance with its
possession.”
39. “Its susceptibility of being produced?” said I.
[Sidenote: Note the distinction.]
40. “That is to say, of being _destroyed_,” said Dupin.
[Sidenote: A just inference.]
41. “True,” I observed; “the paper is clearly then upon the premises.
As for its being upon the person of the minister, we may consider that
as out of the question.”
42. “Entirely,” said the Prefect. “He has been twice waylaid, as if by
footpads, and his person rigorously searched under my own inspection.”
43. “You might have spared yourself this trouble,” said Dupin. “D----,
I presume, is not altogether a fool, and, if not, must have anticipated
these waylayings as a matter of course.”
44. “Not _altogether_ a fool,” said G----; “but then he’s a poet, which
I take to be only one remove from a fool.”
45. “True,” said Dupin, after a long and thoughtful whiff from his
meerschaum, “although I have been guilty of certain doggerel myself.”
46. “Suppose you detail,” said I, “the particulars of your search.”
[Sidenote: The thoroughness of the search tends to interest the reader
in the problem as a difficult one.]
[Sidenote: On Poe’s “police methods” most modern detective writers have
drawn for material.]
47. “Why, the fact is, we took our time, and we searched _everywhere_.
I have had long experience in these affairs. I took the entire
building, room by room, devoting the nights of a whole week to each.
We examined, first, the furniture of each apartment. We opened every
possible drawer; and I presume you know that, to a properly trained
police agent, such a thing as a _secret_ drawer is impossible. Any
man is a dolt who permits a ‘secret’ drawer to escape him in a search
of this kind. The thing is _so_ plain. There is a certain amount of
bulk--of space--to be accounted for in every cabinet. Then we have
accurate rules. The fiftieth part of a line could not escape us. After
the cabinets we took the chairs. The cushions we probed with the fine
long needles you have seen me employ. From the tables we removed the
tops.”
48. “Why so?”
[Sidenote: Doubtless the narrator speaks.]
49. “Sometimes the top of a table, or other similarly arranged piece
of furniture, is removed by the person wishing to conceal an article;
then the leg is excavated, the article deposited within the cavity, and
the top replaced. The bottoms and tops of bed-posts are employed in the
same way.”
50. “But could not the cavity be detected by sounding?” I asked.
[Sidenote: Note improper shifting of tenses in question and answer.]
51. “By no means, if, when the article is deposited, a sufficient
wadding of cotton be placed around it. Besides, in our case we were
obliged to proceed without noise.”
52. “But you could not have removed--you could not have taken to pieces
_all_ articles of furniture in which it would have been possible to
make a deposit in the manner you mention. A letter may be compressed
into a thin spiral roll, not differing much in shape or bulk from a
large knitting-needle, and in this form it might be inserted into
the rung of a chair, for example. You did not take to pieces all the
chairs?”
[Sidenote: Note how ingeniously Poe weaves his knowledge of detective
methods into the actual search of the story.]
53. “Certainly not; but we did better--we examined the rungs of every
chair in the hotel, and indeed, the jointings of every description of
furniture, by the aid of a most powerful microscope. Had there been any
traces of recent disturbance we should not have failed to detect it
instantly. A single grain of gimlet-dust, for example, would have been
as obvious as an apple. Any disorder in the gluing--any unusual gaping
in the joints--would have sufficed to insure detection.”
54. “I presume you looked to the mirrors, between the boards and the
plates, and you probed the beds and the bed-clothes, as well as the
curtains and carpets?”
55. “That, of course; and when we had absolutely completed every
particle of the furniture in this way, then we examined the house
itself. We divided its entire surface into compartments, which we
numbered, so that none might be missed; then we scrutinized each
individual square inch throughout the premises including the two houses
immediately adjoining, with the microscope, as before.”
[Sidenote: This seems to be a break in the chain of probability, as
G---- has already carefully explained how he was able to go over D----'s
house with impunity.]
56. “The two houses adjoining!” I exclaimed; “you must have had a great
deal of trouble.”
57. “We had; but the reward offered is prodigious.”
58. “You include the _grounds_ about the houses?”
59. “All the grounds are paved with brick. They gave us comparatively
little trouble. We examined the moss between the bricks, and found it
undisturbed.”
60. “You looked among D---- 's papers, of course, and into the books of
the library?”
[Sidenote: Note unusual word.]
61. “Certainly; we opened every package and parcel; we not only
opened every book, but we turned over every leaf in each volume, not
contenting ourselves with a mere shake, according to the fashion of
some of our police officers. We also measured the thickness of every
book-_cover_, with the most accurate admeasurement, and applied to each
the most jealous scrutiny of the microscope. Had any of the bindings
been recently meddled with, it would have been utterly impossible that
the fact should have escaped observation. Some five or six volumes,
just from the hands of the binder, we carefully probed, longitudinally,
with the needles.”
62. “You explored the floors beneath the carpets?”
63. “Beyond doubt. We removed every carpet, and examined the boards
with the microscope.”
64. “And the paper on the walls?”
65. “Yes.”
66. “You looked into the cellars?”
67. “We did.”
[Sidenote: Dupin would not have said this.]
68. “Then,” I said, “you have been making a miscalculation, and the
letter is _not_ on the premises, as you suppose.”
[Sidenote: FIRST DEDUCTION REJECTED.]
69. “I fear you are right there,” said the Prefect. “And now, Dupin,
what would you advise me to do?”
[Sidenote: THIRD STAGE OF PLOT.]
70 “To make a thorough research of the premises.”
71. “That is absolutely needless,” replied G----. “I am not more sure
that I breathe than I am that the letter is not at the Hotel.”
[Sidenote: Preparation for denouement.]
72. “I have no better advice to give you,” said Dupin. “You have, of
course, an accurate description of the letter?”
[Sidenote: Attempt to mislead reader.]
[Sidenote: Note the patronizing “good gentleman.”]
73. “Oh, yes.” And here the Prefect, producing a memorandum-book,
proceeded to read aloud a minute account of the internal, and
especially of the external, appearance of the missing document. Soon
after finishing the perusal of this description, he took his departure,
more entirely depressed in spirits than I had ever known the good
gentleman before.
74. In about a month afterwards he paid us another visit, and found us
occupied very nearly as before. He took a pipe and a chair, and entered
into some ordinary conversation. At length I said:
75. “Well, but G----, what of the purloined letter? I presume you have
at last made up your mind that there is no such thing as overreaching
the minister?”
76. “Confound him, say I--yes; I made the reëxamination, however, as
Dupin suggested--but it was all labor lost, as I knew it would be.”
77. “How much was the reward offered, did you say?” asked Dupin.
78. “Why, a very great deal--a _very_ liberal reward--I don’t like to
say how much precisely; but one thing I _will_ say, that I wouldn’t
mind giving my individual check for fifty thousand francs to any one
who would obtain me that letter. The fact is, it is becoming of more
and more importance every day; and the reward has been lately doubled.
If it were trebled, however, I could do no more than I have done.”
79. “Why, yes,” said Dupin drawlingly, between the whiffs of his
meerschaum, “I really--think, G----, you have not exerted yourself--to
the utmost in this matter. You might--do a little more, I think, eh?”
80. “How?--in what way?”
[Sidenote: FOURTH STAGE OF PLOT.]
[Sidenote: Illustrative anecdote of Dr. John Abernethy, the English
surgeon.]
81. “Why [puff, puff], you might [puff, puff] employ counsel in the
matter, eh? [puff, puff, puff] Do you remember the story they tell of
Abernethy?”
82. “No; hang Abernethy!”
83. “To be sure! hang him and welcome. But once upon a time, a certain
rich miser conceived the design of sponging upon this Abernethy for a
medical opinion. Getting up, for this purpose, an ordinary conversation
in a private company, he insinuated his case to the physician as that
of an imaginary individual.”
84. “‘We will suppose,’ said the miser, ‘that his symptoms are such
and such; now, doctor, what would _you_ have directed him to take?’”
85. “‘Take!’ said Abernethy, ‘why, take _advice_, to be sure.’”
86. “But,” said the Prefect, a little discomposed, “I am _perfectly_
willing to take advice, and to pay for it. I would _really_ give fifty
thousand francs to any one who would aid me in the matter.”
[Sidenote: MINOR CLIMAX.]
87. “In that case,” replied Dupin, opening a drawer, and producing
a check-book, “you may as well fill me up a check for the amount
mentioned. When you have signed it, I will hand you the letter.”
[Sidenote: Character delineation.]
[Sidenote: CLIMAX.]
[Sidenote: The plot _seems_ to end here, for long reasoning and
explanation follow. There is, however, a second climax as Dupin’s story
reaches its denouement.]
88. I was astounded. The Prefect appeared absolutely thunderstricken.
For some minutes he remained speechless and motionless, looking
incredulously at my friend with open mouth, and eyes that seemed
starting from their sockets; then, apparently recovering himself in
some measure, he seized a pen, and after several pauses and vacant
stares, finally filled up and signed a check for fifty thousand
francs, and handed it across the table to Dupin. The latter examined
it carefully and deposited it in his pocket; then, unlocking an
_escritoire_, took thence a letter and gave it to the Prefect. This
functionary grasped it in a perfect agony of joy, opened it with
a trembling hand, cast a rapid glance at its contents, and then,
scrambling and struggling to the door, rushed at length unceremoniously
from the room and from the house, without having uttered a syllable
since Dupin had requested him to fill up the check.
89. When he had gone, my friend entered into some explanations.
[Sidenote: FIRST STAGE OF DUPIN’S ACCOUNT. This account places Dupin’s
methods in artistic contrast with those of the Prefect.]
90. “The Parisian police,” he said, “are exceedingly able in their
way. They are persevering, ingenious, cunning, and thoroughly versed
in the knowledge which their duties seem chiefly to demand. Thus, when
G---- detailed to us his mode of searching the premises at the Hotel
D----, I felt entire confidence in his having made a satisfactory
investigation--so far as his labors extended.”
91. “So far as his labors extended?” said I.
[Sidenote: Not a precise statement.]
92. “Yes,” said Dupin. “The measures adopted were not only the best of
their kind, but carried out to absolute perfection. Had the letter been
deposited within the range of their search, these fellows would, beyond
a question, have found it.”
93. I merely laughed, but he seemed quite serious in all that he said.
[Sidenote: Illustrative anecdote.]
[Sidenote: Joint inductive-deductive method of reasoning.]
[Sidenote: Inductive reasoning.]
94. “The measures, then,” he continued, “were good in their kind, and
well executed; their defect lay in their being inapplicable to the
case, and to the man. A certain set of highly ingenious resources are,
with the Prefect, a sort of Procrustean bed to which he forcibly adapts
his designs. But he perpetually errs by being too deep or too shallow
for the matter in hand; and many a schoolboy is a better reasoner than
he. I knew one about eight years of age, whose success at guessing in
the game of ‘even and odd’ attracted universal admiration. This game
is simple, and is played with marbles. One player holds in his hand a
number of these toys, and demands of another whether that number is
even or odd. If the guess is right, the guesser wins one; if wrong,
he loses one. The boy to whom I allude won all the marbles of the
school. Of course he had some principle of guessing; and this lay in
mere observation and admeasurement of the astuteness of his opponents.
For example an arrant simpleton is his opponent, and, holding up his
closed hand asks, ‘Are they even or odd?’ Our schoolboy replies, ‘Odd,’
and loses; but upon the second trial he wins, for he then says to
himself, ‘The simpleton had them even upon the first trial, and his
amount of cunning is just sufficient to make him have them odd upon
the second; I will therefore guess odd;’ he guesses odd, and wins.
Now, with a simpleton a degree above the first, he would have reasoned
thus: ‘This fellow finds that in the first instance I guessed odd,
and in the second he will propose to himself, upon the first impulse,
a simple variation from even to odd, as did the first simpleton; but
then a second thought will suggest that this is too simple a variation,
and finally he will decide upon putting it even as before. I will
therefore guess even;’ he guesses even, and wins. Now this mode of
reasoning in the schoolboy, whom his fellows term ‘lucky’--what, in its
last analysis, is it?”
[Sidenote: Reduced to untechnical language.]
95. “It is merely,” I said, “an identification of the reasoner’s
intellect with that of his opponent.”
[Sidenote: Compare with Barrie’s statement on p. 217.]
[Sidenote: 1 and 2, French authors and moralists; 3, astute Italian
statesman; 4, Italian thinker.]
96. “It is,” said Dupin; “and, upon inquiring of the boy by what
means he effected the _thorough_ identification in which his success
consisted, I received answer as follows: ‘When I wish to find out how
wise, or how stupid, or how good, or how wicked is any one, or what are
his thoughts at the moment, I fashion the expression of my face, as
accurately as possible, in accordance with the expression of his, and
then wait to see what thoughts or sentiments arise in my mind or heart,
as if to match or correspond with the expression.’ This response of the
schoolboy lies at the bottom of all the spurious profundity which has
been attributed to Rochefoucauld, to La Bruyère, to Machiavelli, and to
Campanella.”
97. “And the identification,” I said, “of the reasoner’s intellect with
that of his opponent’s, depends, if I understand you aright, upon the
accuracy with which the opponent’s intellect is admeasured.”
[Sidenote: Analysis.]
[Sidenote: Observe how fond Poe is of long paragraphs.]
[Sidenote: Astute comment.]
[Sidenote: Note the length of this paragraph.]
[Sidenote: A cumbersomely long sentence.]
[Sidenote: _Recherchés_--carefully sought out.]
[Sidenote: Note force of “hidden.”]
[Sidenote: “The undistributed middle” is a form of logical fallacy.]
98. “For its practical value it depends upon this,” replied Dupin,
“and the Prefect and his cohort fail so frequently, first, by default
of this identification, and secondly, by ill-admeasurement, or
rather through non-admeasurement, of the intellect with which they
are engaged. They consider only their _own_ ideas of ingenuity; and,
in searching for anything hidden, advert only to the modes in which
_they_ would have hidden it. They are right in this much--that their
own ingenuity is a faithful representative of that of _the mass_; but
when the cunning of the individual felon is diverse in character from
their own, the felon foils them, of course. This always happens when
it is above their own, and very usually when it is below. They have no
variation of principle in their investigations; at best, when urged
by some unusual emergency, by some extraordinary reward, they extend
or exaggerate their old modes of _practice_, without touching their
principles. What, for example, in this case of D----, has been done to
vary the principle of action? What is all this boring, and probing,
and sounding, and scrutinizing with the microscope, and dividing the
surface of the building into registered square inches--what is it all
but an exaggeration _of the application_ of the one principle or set
of principles of search, which are based upon the one set of notions
regarding human ingenuity, to which the Prefect, in the long routine
of his duty, has been accustomed? Do you not see he has taken it for
granted that _all_ men proceed to conceal a letter--not exactly in a
gimlet-hole bored in a chair leg--but, at least, in _some_ out of the
way hole or corner suggested by the same tenor of thought which would
urge a man to secrete a letter in a gimlet-hole bored in a chair leg?
And do you not see, also, that such _recherchés_ nooks for concealment
are adapted only for ordinary occasions and would be adopted only by
ordinary intellects; for, in all cases of concealment, a disposal of
the article concealed--a disposal of it in this _recherché_ manner--is,
in the very first instance, presumable and presumed; and thus its
discovery depends, not at all upon the acumen, but altogether upon the
mere care, patience, and determination of the seekers; and where the
case is of importance--or, what amounts to the same thing in policial
eyes, when the reward is of magnitude--the qualities in question have
_never_ been known to fail. You will now understand what I meant in
suggesting that, had the purloined letter been hidden anywhere within
the limits of the Prefect’s examination--in other words, had the
principle of its concealment been comprehended within the principles of
the Prefect, its discovery would have been a matter altogether beyond
question. This functionary, however, has been thoroughly mystified;
and the remote source of his defeat lies in the supposition that the
minister is a fool because he has acquired renown as a poet. All fools
are poets; this the Prefect _feels_; and he is merely guilty of a _non
distributio medii_ in thence inferring that all poets are fools.”
[Sidenote: Note the following series of unusual statements.]
99. “But is this really the poet?” I asked. “There are two brothers,
I know; and both have attained reputation in letters. The minister, I
believe, has written learnedly on the Differential Calculus. He is a
mathematician and no poet.”
100. “You are mistaken; I know him well; he is both. As poet _and_
mathematician he would reason well; as mere mathematician he could not
have reasoned at all, and thus would have been at the mercy of the
Prefect.”
101. “You surprise me,” I said, “by these opinions, which have been
contradicted by the voice of the world. You do not mean to set at
naught the well-digested idea of centuries. The mathematical reason has
long been regarded as _the_ reason _par excellence_.”
[Sidenote: “It may be said that every public idea, every received
convention, is a piece of stupidity, for it has suited the greater
number.”--NICOLAS CHAMFORT.]
[Sidenote: This whole section of the story triumphs notwithstanding
its undue length of learned discussion and its formal diction. It
must be admitted that in these respects the present-day short-story
is in advance of Poe. A number of paragraphs here fail to advance the
narration _as fiction_.]
102. “‘_Il y a à parier_,’” replied Dupin, quoting from Chamfort,
“‘_que toute idée publique, toute convention reçue, est une sottise,
car elle a convenu au plus grand nombre_.’ The mathematicians, I grant
you, have done their best to promulgate the popular error to which
you allude, and which is none the less an error for its promulgation
as truth. With an art worthy a better cause, for example, they have
insinuated the term ‘analysis’ into application to algebra. The French
are the originators of this practical deception; but if a term is of
any importance--if words derive any value from applicability--then
‘analysis’ conveys ‘algebra,’ about as much as, in Latin, ‘_ambitus_’
implies ‘ambition,’ ‘_religio_,’ ‘religion,’ or ‘_homines honesti_,’ a
set of _honorable_ men.”
103. “You have a quarrel on hand, I see,” said I, “with some of the
algebraists of Paris; but proceed.”
[Sidenote: Unusual form. Throughout, note Poe’s unusual choice of
words.]
[Sidenote: As a piece of pure reasoning this long treatise is not
without its defects, but it does bring out--though too laboriously to
please--the point at which Dupin is driving.]
[Sidenote: Jacob Bryant.]
[Sidenote: He speaks figuratively.]
[Sidenote: A striking satire.]
[Sidenote: More satire.]
104. “I dispute the availability, and thus the value of that reason
which is cultivated in any especial form other than the abstractly
logical. I dispute, in particular, the reason educed by mathematical
study. The mathematics are the science of form and quantity;
mathematical reasoning is merely logic applied to observation upon form
and quantity. The great error lies in supposing that even the truths
of what is called _pure_ algebra are abstract or general truths. And
this error is so egregious that I am confounded at the universality
with which it has been received. Mathematical axioms are _not_ axioms
of general truth. What is true of _relation_--of form and quantity--is
often grossly false in regard to morals, for example. In this latter
science it is very usually _un_true that the aggregated parts are
equal to the whole. In chemistry, also, the axiom fails. In the
consideration of motive it fails; for two motives, each of a given
value, have not, necessarily, a value when united equal to the sum of
their values apart. There are numerous other mathematical truths which
are only truths within the limits of _relation_. But the mathematician
argues, from his _finite truths_, through habit, as if they were of an
absolutely general applicability--as the world indeed imagines them
to be. Bryant, in his very learned ‘Mythology,’ mentions an analogous
source of error, when he says that ‘although the Pagan fables are not
believed, yet we forget ourselves continually, and make inferences
from them as existing realities.’ With the algebraists, however, who
are Pagans themselves, the ‘Pagan fables’ _are_ believed and the
inferences are made, not so much through lapse of memory as through an
unaccountable addling of the brains. In short, I never yet encountered
the mere mathematician who could be trusted out of equal roots, or one
who did not clandestinely hold it as a point of his faith that _x_^2
+ _px_ was absolutely and unconditionally equal to _q_. Say to one of
these gentlemen, by way of experiment, if you please, that you believe
occasions may occur where _x_^2 + _px_ is not altogether equal to _q_,
and, having made him understand what you mean, get out of his reach as
speedily as convenient, for beyond doubt he will endeavor to knock you
down.”
[Sidenote: Note the force of “last.”]
[Sidenote: A return from the special argument to the practical.]
[Sidenote: Application of the foregoing principles.]
[Sidenote: A difficult point explained.]
[Sidenote: Note the unusual use of “to,” instead of “at.”]
[Sidenote: Is this probable?]
[Sidenote: Compare ¶95.]
[Sidenote: Key. Compare ¶10.]
105. “I mean to say,” continued Dupin, while I merely laughed at his
last observations, “that if the minister had been no more than a
mathematician the Prefect would have been under no necessity of giving
me this check. I knew him, however, as both mathematician and poet,
and my measures were adapted to his capacity with reference to the
circumstances by which he was surrounded. I knew him as courtier, too,
and as a bold _intriguant_. Such a man, I considered, could not fail
to be aware of the ordinary policial modes of action. He could not
have failed to anticipate--and events have proved that he did not fail
to anticipate--the waylayings to which he was subjected. He must have
foreseen, I reflected, the secret investigations of his premises. His
frequent absences from home at night, which were hailed by the Prefect
as certain aids to his success, I regarded only as ruses, to afford
opportunity for thorough search to the police, and thus the sooner to
impress them with the conviction to which G----, in fact, did finally
arrive--the conviction that the letter was not upon the premises. I
felt, also, that the whole train of thought, which I was at some pains
in detailing to you just now, concerning the invariable principle of
policial action in searches for articles concealed--I felt that this
whole train of thought would necessarily pass through the mind of the
minister. It would imperatively lead him to despise all the ordinary
_nooks_ of concealment. _He_ could not, I reflected, be so weak as not
to see that the most intricate and remote recess of his hotel would be
as open as his commonest closets to the eyes, to the probes, to the
gimlets, and to the microscopes of the Prefect. I saw, in fine, that
he would be driven, as a matter of course, to _simplicity_, if not
deliberately induced to it as a matter of choice. You will remember,
perhaps, how desperately the Prefect laughed when I suggested, upon our
first interview, that it was just possible this mystery troubled him so
much on account of its being so _very_ self-evident.”
106. “Yes,” said I, “I remember his merriment well. I really thought he
would have fallen into convulsions.”
[Sidenote: A return to philosophising.]
[Sidenote: Force of inertia.]
[Sidenote: This inquiry is the heart of the inference.]
107. “The material world,” continued Dupin, “abounds with very strict
analogies to the immaterial; and thus some color of truth has been
given to the rhetorical dogma, that metaphor, or simile, may be made
to strengthen an argument, as well as to embellish a description. The
principle of the _vis inertiæ_, for example, seems to be identical in
physics and metaphysics. It is not more true in the former, that a
large body is with more difficulty set in motion than a smaller one,
and that its subsequent momentum is commensurate with this difficulty,
than it is, in the latter, that intellects of the vaster capacity,
while more forcible, more constant, and more eventful in their
movements than those of inferior grade, are yet the less readily moved,
and more embarrassed and full of hesitation in the first few steps of
their progress. Again: have you ever noticed which of the street signs
over the shop doors are the most attractive of attention?”
108. “I have never given the matter a thought,” I said.
[Sidenote: Illustrative example.]
[Sidenote: Note the diction.]
[Sidenote: Compare ¶94 and ¶98.]
[Sidenote: Summary of ”accusation” against the Prefect’s sagacity.]
109. “There is a game of puzzles,” he resumed, “which is played upon
a map. One party playing requires another to find a given word--the
name of town, river, state, or empire--any word, in short, upon the
motley and perplexed surface of the chart. A novice in the game
generally seeks to embarrass his opponents by giving them the most
minutely lettered names; but the adept selects such words as stretch in
large characters from one end of the chart to the other. These, like
the over-largely lettered signs and placards of the street, escape
observation by dint of being excessively obvious; and here the physical
oversight is precisely analogous with the moral inapprehension by which
the intellect suffers to pass unnoticed those considerations which are
too obtrusively and too palpably self-evident. But this is a point, it
appears, somewhat above or beneath the understanding of the Prefect.
He never once thought it probable, or possible, that the minister had
deposited the letter immediately beneath the nose of the whole world,
by way of best preventing any portion of that world from perceiving it.
[Sidenote: Note the alliteration.]
[Sidenote: Climax of Dupin’s inferential reasoning.]
[Sidenote: BEGINNING OF REAL PLOT.]
[Sidenote: INCIDENT OF DUPIN’S STORY.]
[Sidenote: From this point the narration is free from the formalities
of expression which mar the central section of the story. These,
however, were a characteristic of Poe and his era.]
[Sidenote: Note the use of “now.”]
110. “But the more I reflected upon the daring, dashing, and
discriminating ingenuity of D----; upon the fact that the document must
always have been _at hand_, if he intended to use it to good purpose;
and upon the decisive evidence, obtained by the Prefect, that it was
not hidden within the limits of that dignitary’s ordinary search--the
more satisfied I became that, to conceal this letter, the minister had
resorted to the comprehensive and sagacious expedient of not attempting
to conceal it at all.
111. “Full of these ideas, I prepared myself with a pair of green
spectacles, and called one fine morning, quite by accident, at the
ministerial hotel. I found D---- at home, yawning, lounging, and
dawdling, as usual, and pretending to be in the last extremity of
_ennui_. He is, perhaps, the most really energetic human being now
alive--but that is only when nobody sees him.
112. “To be even with him, I complained of my weak eyes, and lamented
the necessity of the spectacles, under cover of which I cautiously and
thoroughly surveyed the whole apartment, while seemingly intent only
upon the conversation of my host.
113. “I paid especial attention to a large writing-table near which he
sat, and upon which lay confusedly some miscellaneous letters and other
papers, with one or two musical instruments and a few books. Here,
however, after a long and very deliberate scrutiny, I saw nothing to
excite particular suspicion.
[Sidenote: Dupin’s reasoning sustained.]
114. “At length my eyes, in going the circuit of the room, fell upon a
trumpery filigree card-rack of paste-board, that hung dangling, by a
dirty blue ribbon, from a little brass knob just beneath the middle of
the mantelpiece. In this rack, which had three or four compartments,
were five or six visiting cards and a solitary letter. This last
was much soiled and crumpled. It was torn nearly in two, across the
middle--as if a design, in the first instance, to tear it entirely up
as worthless had been altered, or stayed, in the second. It had a large
black seal, bearing the D---- cipher _very_ conspicuously, and was
addressed, in a diminutive female hand, to D----, the minister himself.
It was thrust carelessly, and even, as it seemed, contemptuously, into
one of the uppermost divisions of the rack.
[Sidenote: Throughout, Poe used punctuation more freely than is now the
custom.]
[Sidenote: It was the custom in earlier times simply to fold a letter,
seal it with a wafer, and address it on the back, which was allowed to
remain otherwise blank. This accounts for there being no reference to
an envelope, and also for the refolding of the letter.]
115. “No sooner had I glanced at this letter than I concluded it to be
that of which I was in search. To be sure, it was, to all appearance,
radically different from the one of which the Prefect had read us so
minute a description. Here the seal was large and black, with the D----
cipher; there it was small and red, with the ducal arms of the S----
family. Here the address, to the minister, was diminutive and feminine;
there, the superscription, to a certain royal personage, was markedly
bold and decided; the size alone formed a point of correspondence. But,
then, the _radicalness_ of these differences, which was excessive;
the dirt, the soiled and torn condition of the paper, so inconsistent
with the _true_ methodical habits of D----, and so suggestive of a
design to delude the beholder into an idea of the worthlessness of the
document; these things, together with the hyper-obtrusive situation
of this document, full in the view of every visitor, and thus exactly
in accordance with the conclusions to which I had previously arrived;
these things, I say, were strongly corroborative of suspicion, in one
who came with the intention to suspect.
[Sidenote: Note use of “fold” and its derivatives.]
[Sidenote: A good device.]
116. “I protracted my visit as long as possible, and while I maintained
a most animated discussion with the minister, upon a topic which I knew
well had never failed to interest and excite him, I kept my attention
really riveted upon the letter. In this examination, I committed to
memory its external appearance and arrangement in the rack; and also
fell, at length, upon a discovery which set at rest whatever trivial
doubt I might have entertained. In scrutinizing the edges of the paper,
I observed them to be more _chafed_ than seemed necessary. They
presented the _broken_ appearance which is manifested when a stiff
paper, having been once folded and pressed with a folder, is refolded
in a reversed direction, in the same creases or edges which had formed
the original fold. This discovery was sufficient. It was clear to me
that the letter had been turned, as a glove, inside out, re-directed,
and re-sealed. I bade the minister good-morning, and took my departure
at once, leaving a gold snuff-box upon the table.
[Sidenote: APPARENT FULL CLIMAX.]
117. “The next morning I called for the snuff-box, when we resumed,
quite eagerly, the conversation of the preceding day. While thus
engaged, however, a loud report, as if of a pistol, was heard
immediately beneath the windows of the hotel, and was succeeded by a
series of fearful screams, and the shoutings of a mob. D---- rushed to
a casement, threw it open, and looked out. In the meantime, I stepped
to the card-rack, took the letter, put it in my pocket, and replaced it
by a _facsimile_ (so far as regards externals) which I had carefully
prepared at my lodgings--imitating the D---- cipher very readily by
means of a seal formed of bread.
[Sidenote: Concluding explanations.]
[Sidenote: Note how the climax of Dupin’s story also serves as the
climax of the Prefect’s earlier statement of the problem and his
efforts to solve it.]
118. “The disturbance in the street had been occasioned by the frantic
behavior of a man with a musket. He had fired it among a crowd of women
and children. It proved, however, to have been without ball, and the
fellow was suffered to go his way as a lunatic or a drunkard. When
he had gone, D---- came from the window, whither I had followed him
immediately upon securing the object in view. Soon afterwards I bade
him farewell. The pretended lunatic was a man in my own pay.”
119. “But what purpose had you,” I asked, “in replacing the letter by a
_facsimile_? Would it not have been better, at the first visit, to have
seized it openly and departed?”
[Sidenote: In the interest in Dupin’s reasoning and its results we have
lost sight of the real importance of the letter.]
[Sidenote: Is “was” correct?]
[Sidenote: The descent to Avernus (the fabled entrance to the Infernal
Regions) is easy.]
[Sidenote: Monster to be shuddered at.]
120. “D----,” replied Dupin, “is a desperate man, and a man of nerve.
His hotel, too, is not without attendants devoted to his interest.
Had I made the wild attempt you suggest I might never have left the
ministerial presence alive. The good people of Paris might have heard
of me no more. But I had an object apart from these considerations. You
know my political prepossessions. In this matter I act as a partisan
of the lady concerned. For eighteen months the minister has had her
in his power. She has now him in hers--since, being unaware that the
letter is not in his possession, he will proceed with his exactions
as if it was. Thus will he inevitably commit himself at once to his
political destruction. His downfall, too, will not be more precipitate
than awkward. It is all very well to talk about the _facilis descensus
Averni_; but in all kinds of climbing, as Catalani said of singing, it
is far more easy to get up than to come down. In the present instance
I have no sympathy--at least no pity--for him who descends. He is
that _monstrum horrendum_, an unprincipled man of genius. I confess,
however, that I should like very well to know the precise character
of his thoughts, when, being defied by her whom the Prefect terms ‘a
certain personage,’ he is reduced to opening the letter which I left
for him in the card-rack.”
121. “How? Did you put anything particular in it?”
[Sidenote: REAL CLIMAX.]
122. “Why, it did not seem altogether right to leave the interior
blank--that would have been insulting. D----, at Vienna, once did me an
evil turn, which I told him, quite good-humoredly, I should remember.
So, as I knew he would feel some curiosity in regard to the identity of
the person who had outwitted him, I thought it a pity not to give him
a clew. He is well acquainted with my MS., and I just copied into the
middle of the blank sheet the words:--
‘---- Un dessein si funeste, S’il n’est digne d’Atrée, est digne de
Thyeste.’
[Sidenote: A design so baleful, if not worthy of Atreus, is worthy of
Thyestes.]
They are to be found in Crébillon’s ‘Atrée.’”
JACOBS AND HIS WRITINGS
William Wymark Jacobs was born in London, September 8, 1863, the son of
William Gage Jacobs. He was educated at private schools, and entered
the employ of the Post Office Savings Bank at sixteen. Four years
later he secured a regular clerkship there. He began his literary
career at the age of twenty-one with a contribution to the _Blackfriars
Magazine_, a publication conducted by the clerks at the Post Office,
and from that he was led to contributing articles to various London
papers, though he retained his Civil Service position until 1899. His
remarkable acquaintance with nautical subjects, and characters of the
coasting trade and seaport wharves, was acquired during several years
spent in Wapping, while his father was wharfinger there, as during
that period the younger Jacobs was brought into contact with many
seamen and wharf hands, and came to know many of them very well. In
1900 he married Agnes Eleanor Williams. Some of Jacobs’ most popular
collections of stories are _Many Cargoes_; _More Cargoes_; _Short
Cruises_; _Odd Craft_; _Captains All_; _Light Freights_; and _The
Lady of the Barge_. His longer stories include _A Master of Craft_,
_Dialstone Lane_; _Salthaven_, and _At Sunwich Port_.
Mr. Jacobs is known mostly by his delightfully quaint and humorous
character delineations of river, shore, and sea-faring folk. The
remarkable short-story given herewith, however, is of a very different
sort and discloses a mastery of the weird, of the supernatural, which
is not surpassed in the whole short-story field. With a sureness of
character-drawing which is nothing short of amazing in a humorist,
he outlines scene and actors, and when the crises are reached--so
completely is all visualized--we are able to infer the swift-moving
climax with scarce the need of a word. “The Monkey’s Paw” is one of the
most dramatically poignant stories of the supernatural ever written,
and invites us to a closer study of its gifted and versatile author.
It [a sea-life] is a man’s life. It teaches self-restraint and
discipline and the art of governing men. It is a fine, healthy
life that breeds men. All that I mean to say is that distance
lends enchantment to the view, and that the essential romance and
comedy of the life of those who go down to the sea in ships are
intensified in the perspective of years.--W. W. JACOBS, _London
Daily Chronicle_.
Londoners, in particular, should hail him with applause, for he has
done more than make them laugh; he has added character to their
river. Henceforward no one who has read _Many Cargoes_ will look
at a passing barge with an apathetic gaze. He will see before him
not merely a vehicle of porterage, but a hot-bed of liquorish and
acceptable sarcasm.--_Academy_ (London).
Mr. Jacobs has two great gifts: one is the power to place a
simple-minded man in a corner, excite our sympathies for him,
magnify his embarrassments, and keep us engrossed all the time....
But we do not consider that herein lies Mr. Jacobs’s special
distinction.... It is in his eye for character, his knowledge of a
certain kind of human nature, his genius for the little touches, as
we prefer to call them, that Mr. Jacobs stands out so notably. No
one now writing can manage the little touches as Mr. Jacobs can, at
once so naturally, so truthfully, so usefully, and so joyously....
None of them actually helps the plot, but every one of them is so
much added to the characters and conditions of the story.--IBID.
We cannot think of any other books with which to compare Mr.
Jacobs’s, because there are none just like them. To-day a number
of the best and brightest English and American writers seem to
be getting their inspiration from the sea.... Each one of these
has his own particular field, and in presenting the humour
of the sailor’s life and environment no one approaches Mr.
Jacobs.--BOOKMAN (New York).
We are acquainted with one pronounced pessimist, who maintains
defiantly and aggressively that he never reads anything in the
nature of modern fiction. “Except, of course,” he adds, “the short
stories of W. W. Jacobs, which certainly make me laugh....” We are
inclined to believe that there are a number of men who are of the
same mind in regard to the work of Mr. Jacobs. Yet we do not think
that his most ardent admirer, after having laid aside one of his
books for three days, would be able to give more than the vaguest
description of the tales contained therein. To this rule there are,
however, several exceptions. “The Monkey’s Paw,” as grewsome a
story as has appeared for years, was one.--IBID.
FURTHER REFERENCES FOR READING ON JACOBS
_Sketch of W. W. Jacobs_, _Current Literature_, vol. 26, 117; His
_Work_, _Academy_, vol. 52, 496; _Living Age_, vol. 218, 366; _Strand_,
vol. 16, 676; _W. W. Jacobs_, _Book News_, vol. 19; _The Little
Touches_ (Review of _A Master of Craft_), _Academy_, vol. 59; _A New
Humorist_, _Spectator_, vol. 78; _More Cargoes_ (Review), _Public
Opinion_, vol. 25; _The Skipper’s Wooing_ (Review), _Saturday Review_,
vol. 84.
FOR ANALYSIS
THE MONKEY’S PAW[19]
BY W. W. JACOBS
I
Without, the night was cold and wet, but in the small parlour of
Laburnam Villa the blinds were drawn and the fire burned brightly.
Father and son were at chess, the former, who possessed ideas about the
game involving radical changes, putting his king into such sharp and
unnecessary perils that it even provoked comment from the white-haired
old lady knitting placidly by the fire.
2. “Hark at the wind,” said Mr. White, who having seen a fatal mistake
after it was too late, was amiably desirous of preventing his son from
seeing it.
3. “I’m listening,” said the latter, grimly surveying the board as he
stretched out his hand. “Check.”
4. “I should hardly think that he’d come to-night,” said his father,
with his hand poised over the board.
5. “Mate,” replied the son.
6. “That’s the worst of living so far out,” bawled Mr. White, with
sudden and unlooked-for violence; “of all the beastly, slushy,
out-of-the-way places to live in, this is the worst. Pathway’s a bog,
and the road’s a torrent. I don’t know what people are thinking about.
I suppose because only two houses in the road are let, they think it
doesn’t matter.”
7. “Never mind, dear,” said his wife, soothingly; “perhaps you’ll win
the next one.”
8. Mr. White looked up sharply, just in time to intercept a knowing
glance between mother and son. The words died away on his lips, and he
hid a guilty grin in his thin grey beard.
9. “There he is,” said Herbert White, as the gate banged to loudly and
heavy footsteps came toward the door.
10. The old man rose with hospitable haste, and opening the door, was
heard condoling with the new arrival. The new arrival also condoled
with himself, so that Mrs. White said, “Tut, tut!” and coughed gently
as her husband entered the room, followed by a tall, burly man, beady
of eye and rubicund of visage.
11. “Sergeant-Major Morris,” he said, introducing him.
12. The sergeant-major shook hands, and taking the proffered seat
by the fire, watched contentedly while his host got out whiskey and
tumblers and stood a small copper kettle on the fire.
13. At the third glass his eyes got brighter, and he began to talk,
the little family circle regarding with eager interest this visitor
from distant parts, as he squared his broad shoulders in the chair and
spoke of wild scenes and doughty deeds; of wars and plagues and strange
peoples.
14. “Twenty-one years of it,” said Mr. White, nodding at his wife and
son. “When he went away he was a slip of a youth in the warehouse. Now
look at him.”
15. “He don’t look to have taken much harm,” said Mrs. White, politely.
16. “I’d like to go to India myself,” said the old man, “just to look
round a bit, you know.”
17. “Better where you are,” said the sergeant-major, shaking his head.
He put down the empty glass, and sighing softly, shook it again.
18. “I should like to see those old temples and fakirs and jugglers,”
said the old man. “What was that you started telling me the other day
about a monkey’s paw or something, Morris?”
19. “Nothing,” said the soldier, hastily. “Leastways nothing worth
hearing.”
20. “Monkey’s paw?” said Mrs. White, curiously.
21. “Well, it’s just a bit of what you might call magic, perhaps,” said
the sergeant-major, offhandedly.
22. His three listeners leaned forward eagerly. The visitor
absentmindedly put his empty glass to his lips and then set it down
again. His host filled it for him.
23. “To look at,” said the sergeant-major, fumbling in his pocket,
“it’s just an ordinary little paw, dried to a mummy.”
24. He took something out of his pocket and proffered it. Mrs. White
drew back with a grimace, but her son, taking it, examined it curiously.
25. “And what is there special about it?” inquired Mr. White as he took
it from his son, and having examined it, placed it upon the table.
26. “It had a spell put on it by an old fakir,” said the
sergeant-major, “a very holy man. He wanted to show that fate ruled
people’s lives, and that those who interfered with it did so to their
sorrow. He put a spell on it so that three separate men could each have
three wishes from it.”
27. His manner was so impressive that his hearers were conscious that
their light laughter jarred somewhat.
28. “Well, why don’t you have three, sir?” said Herbert White, cleverly.
29. The soldier regarded him in the way that middle age is wont to
regard presumptuous youth. “I have,” he said, quietly, and his blotchy
face whitened.
30. “And did you really have the three wishes granted?” asked Mrs.
White.
31. “I did,” said the sergeant-major, and his glass tapped against his
strong teeth.
32. “And has anybody else wished?” persisted the old lady.
33. “The first man had his three wishes. Yes,” was the reply; “I don’t
know what the first two were, but the third was for death. That’s how I
got the paw.”
34. His tones were so grave that a hush fell upon the group.
35. “If you’ve had your three wishes, it’s no good to you now, then,
Morris,” said the old man at last. “What do you keep it for?”
36. The soldier shook his head. “Fancy, I suppose,” he said, slowly.
“I did have some idea of selling it, but I don’t think I will. It has
caused enough mischief already. Besides, people won’t buy. They think
it’s a fairy tale, some of them; and those who do think anything of it
want to try it first and pay me afterward.”
37. “If you could have another three wishes,” said the old man, eyeing
him keenly, “would you have them?”
38. “I don’t know,” said the other. “I don’t know.”
39. He took the paw, and dangling it between his forefinger and thumb,
suddenly threw it upon the fire. White, with a slight cry, stooped down
and snatched it off.
40. “Better let it burn,” said the soldier, solemnly.
41. “If you don’t want it, Morris,” said the other, “give it to me.”
42. “I won’t,” said his friend doggedly. “I threw it on the fire. If
you keep it, don’t blame me for what happens. Pitch it on the fire
again like a sensible man.”
43. The other shook his head and examined his new possession closely.
“How do you do it?” he inquired.
44. “Hold it up in your right hand and wish aloud,” said the
sergeant-major, “but I warn you of the consequences.”
45. “Sounds like the Arabian Nights,” said Mrs. White, as she rose and
began to set the supper. “Don’t you think you might wish for four pairs
of hands for me?”
46. Her husband drew the talisman from his pocket, and then all three
burst into laughter as the sergeant-major, with a look of alarm on his
face, caught him by the arm.
47. “If you must wish,” he said, gruffly, “wish for something sensible.”
48. Mr. White dropped it back in his pocket, and placing chairs,
motioned his friend to the table. In the business of supper the
talisman was partly forgotten, and afterward the three sat listening
in an enthralled fashion to a second installment of the soldier’s
adventures in India.
49. “If the tale about the monkey’s paw is not more truthful than those
he has been telling us,” said Herbert, as the door closed behind their
guest, just in time for him to catch the last train, “we shan’t make
much out of it.”
50. “Did you give him anything for it, father?” inquired Mrs. White,
regarding her husband closely.
51. “A trifle,” said he, colouring slightly. “He didn’t want it, but I
made him take it. And he pressed me again to throw it away.”
52. “Likely,” said Herbert, with pretended horror. “Why, we’re going to
be rich, and famous and happy. Wish to be an emperor, father, to begin
with; then you can’t be hen-pecked.”
53. He darted round the table, pursued by the maligned Mrs. White armed
with an antimacassar.
54. Mr. White took the paw from his pocket and eyed it dubiously. “I
don’t know what to wish for, and that’s a fact,” he said, slowly. “It
seems to me I’ve got all I want.”
55. “If you only cleared the house, you’d be quite happy, wouldn’t
you?” said Herbert, with his hand on his shoulder. “Well, wish for two
hundred pounds, then; that’ll just do it.”
56. His father, smiling shamefacedly at his own credulity, held up the
talisman, as his son, with a solemn face, somewhat marred by a wink at
his mother, sat down at the piano and struck a few impressive chords.
57. “I wish for two hundred pounds,” said the old man distinctly.
58. A fine crash from the piano greeted the words, interrupted by a
shuddering cry from the old man. His wife and son ran toward him.
59. “It moved,” he cried, with a glance of disgust at the object as it
lay on the floor.
60. “As I wished, it twisted in my hand like a snake.”
61. “Well, I don’t see the money,” said his son as he picked it up and
placed it on the table, “and I bet I never shall.”
62. “It must have been your fancy, father,” said his wife, regarding
him anxiously.
63. He shook his head. “Never mind, though; there’s no harm, but it
gave me a shock all the same.”
64. They sat down by the fire again while the two men finished their
pipes. Outside, the wind was higher than ever, and the old man started
nervously at the sound of a door banging up-stairs. A silence unusual
and depressing settled upon all three, which lasted until the old
couple rose to retire for the night.
65. “I expect you’ll find the cash tied up in a big bag in the middle
of your bed,” said Herbert, as he bade them good-night, “and something
horrible squatting up on top of the wardrobe watching you as you pocket
your ill-gotten gains.”
66. He sat alone in the darkness, gazing at the dying fire, and seeing
faces in it. The last face was so horrible and so simian that he gazed
at it in amazement. It got so vivid that, with a little uneasy laugh,
he felt on the table for a glass containing a little water to throw
over it. His hand grasped the monkey’s paw, and with a little shiver he
wiped his hand on his coat and went up to bed.
II
67. In the brightness of the wintry sun next morning as it streamed
over the breakfast table he laughed at his fears. There was an air
of prosaic wholesomeness about the room which it had lacked on the
previous night, and the dirty, shrivelled little paw was pitched on the
sideboard with a carelessness which betokened no great belief in its
virtues.
68. “I suppose all old soldiers are the same,” said Mrs. White. “The
idea of our listening to such nonsense! How could wishes be granted in
these days? And if they could, how could two hundred pounds hurt you,
father?”
69. “Might drop on his head from the sky,” said the frivolous Herbert.
70. “Morris said the things happened so naturally,” said his father,
“that you might if you so wished attribute it to coincidence.”
71. “Well, don’t break into the money before I come back,” said Herbert
as he rose from the table. “I’m afraid it’ll turn you into a mean,
avaricious man, and we shall have to disown you.”
72. His mother laughed, and following him to the door, watched him
down the road; and returning to the breakfast table, was very happy at
the expense of her husband’s credulity. All of which did not prevent
her from scurrying to the door at the postman’s knock, nor prevent her
from referring somewhat shortly to retired sergeant-majors of bibulous
habits when she found that the post brought a tailor’s bill.
73. “Herbert will have some more of his funny remarks, I expect, when
he comes home,” she said, as they sat at dinner.
74. “I dare say,” said Mr. White, pouring himself out some beer; “but
for all that, the thing moved in my hand; that I’ll swear to.”
75. “You thought it did,” said the old lady soothingly.
76. “I say it did,” replied the other. “There was no thought about it;
I had just--What’s the matter?”
77. His wife made no reply. She was watching the mysterious movements
of a man outside, who, peering in an undecided fashion at the house,
appeared to be trying to make up his mind to enter. In mental
connection with the two hundred pounds, she noticed that the stranger
was well dressed, and wore a silk hat of glossy newness. Three times he
paused at the gate, and then walked on again. The fourth time he stood
with his hand upon it, and then with sudden resolution flung it open
and walked up the path. Mrs. White at the same moment placed her hands
behind her, and hurriedly unfastening the strings of her apron, put
that useful article of apparel beneath the cushion of her chair.
78. She brought the stranger, who seemed ill at ease, into the room. He
gazed at her furtively, and listened in a preoccupied fashion as the
old lady apologized for the appearance of the room, and her husband’s
coat, a garment which he usually reserved for the garden. She then
waited as patiently as her sex would permit, for him to broach his
business, but he was at first strangely silent.
79. “I--was asked to call,” he said at last, and stooped and picked a
piece of cotton from his trousers. “I come from Maw and Meggins.”
80. The old lady started. “Is anything the matter?” she asked,
breathlessly. “Has anything happened to Herbert? What is it? What is
it?”
81. Her husband interposed. “There, there, mother,” he said, hastily.
“Sit down, and don’t jump to conclusions. You’ve not brought bad news,
I’m sure, sir;” and he eyed the other wistfully.
82. “I’m sorry--” began the visitor.
83. “Is he hurt?” demanded the mother, wildly.
84. The visitor bowed in assent. “Badly hurt,” he said, quietly, “but
he is not in any pain.”
85. “Oh, thank God!” said the old woman, clasping her hands. “Thank
God for that! Thank--”
86. She broke off suddenly as the sinister meaning of the assurance
dawned upon her and she saw the awful confirmation of her fears in
the other’s averted face. She caught her breath, and turning to her
slower-witted husband, laid her trembling old hand upon his. There was
a long silence.
87. “He was caught in the machinery,” said the visitor at length in a
low voice.
88. “Caught in the machinery,” repeated Mr. White, in a dazed fashion,
“yes.”
89. He sat staring blankly out at the window, and taking his wife’s
hand between his own, pressed it as he had been wont to do in their old
courting-days nearly forty years before.
90. “He was the only one left to us,” he said, turning gently to the
visitor. “It is hard.”
91. The other coughed, and rising, walked slowly to the window. “The
firm wished me to convey their sincere sympathy with you in your great
loss,” he said, without looking round. “I beg that you will understand
I am only their servant and merely obeying orders.”
92. There was no reply; the old woman’s face was white, her eyes
staring, and her breath inaudible; on the husband’s face was a look
such as his friend the sergeant might have carried into his first
action.
93. “I was to say that Maw and Meggins disclaim all responsibility,”
continued the other. “They admit no liability at all, but in
consideration of your son’s services, they wish to present you with a
certain sum as compensation.”
94. Mr. White dropped his wife’s hand, and rising to his feet, gazed
with a look of horror at his visitor. His dry lips shaped the words.
“How much?”
95. “Two hundred pounds,” was the answer.
96. Unconscious of his wife’s shriek, the old man smiled faintly, put
out his hands like a sightless man, and dropped, a senseless heap, to
the floor.
III
97. In the huge new cemetery, some two miles distant, the old people
buried their dead, and came back to a house steeped in shadow and
silence. It was all over so quickly that at first they could hardly
realize it, and remained in a state of expectation as though of
something else to happen--something else which was to lighten this
load, too heavy for old hearts to bear.
98. But the days passed, and expectation gave place to resignation--the
hopeless resignation of the old, sometimes miscalled, apathy. Sometimes
they hardly exchanged a word, for now they had nothing to talk about,
and their days were long to weariness.
99. It was about a week after that the old man, waking suddenly in the
night, stretched out his hand and found himself alone. The room was in
darkness, and the sound of subdued weeping came from the window. He
raised himself in bed and listened.
100. “Come back,” he said, tenderly. “You will be cold.”
101. “It is colder for my son,” said the old woman, and wept afresh.
102. The sound of her sobs died away on his ears. The bed was warm, and
his eyes heavy with sleep. He dozed fitfully, and then slept until a
sudden wild cry from his wife awoke him with a start.
103. “The paw!” she cried wildly. “The monkey’s paw!”
104. He started up in alarm. “Where? Where is it? What’s the matter?”
105. She came stumbling across the room toward him. “I want it,” she
said, quietly. “You’ve not destroyed it?”
106. “It’s in the parlour, on the bracket,” he replied marvelling.
“Why?”
107. She cried and laughed together, and bending over, kissed his cheek.
108. “I only just thought of it,” she said, hysterically. “Why didn’t I
think of it before? Why didn’t you think of it?”
109. “Think of what?” he questioned.
110. “The other two wishes,” she replied, rapidly. “We’ve only had one.”
111. “Was not that enough?” he demanded, fiercely.
112. “No,” she cried, triumphantly; “we’ll have one more. Go down and
get it quickly, and wish our boy alive again.”
113. The man sat up in bed and flung the bed-clothes from his quaking
limbs. “Good God, you are mad!” he cried, aghast.
114. “Get it,” she panted; “get it quickly, and wish--Oh, my boy, my
boy!”
115. Her husband struck a match and lit the candle. “Get back to bed,”
he said, unsteadily. “You don’t know what you are saying.”
116. “We had the first wish granted,” said the old woman, feverishly;
“why not the second?”
117. “A coincidence,” stammered the old man.
118. “Go and get it and wish,” cried his wife, quivering with
excitement.
119. The old man turned and regarded her, and his voice shook. “He has
been dead ten days, and besides he--I would not tell you else, but--I
could only recognize him by his clothing. If he was too terrible for
you to see then, how now?”
120. “Bring him back,” cried the old woman, and dragged him toward the
door. “Do you think I fear the child I have nursed?”
121. He went down in the darkness, and felt his way to the parlour, and
then to the mantelpiece. The talisman was in its place, and a horrible
fear that the unspoken wish might bring his mutilated son before him
ere he could escape from the room seized upon him, and he caught his
breath as he found that he had lost the direction of the door. His brow
cold with sweat, he felt his way round the table, and groped along the
wall until he found himself in the small passage with the unwholesome
thing in his hand.
122. Even his wife’s face seemed changed as he entered the room. It was
white and expectant, and to his fears seemed to have an unnatural look
upon it. He was afraid of her.
123. “Wish!” she cried in a strong voice.
124. “It is foolish and wicked,” he faltered.
125. “Wish!” repeated his wife.
126. He raised his hand. “I wish my son alive again.”
127. The talisman fell to the floor, and he regarded it fearfully. Then
he sank trembling into a chair as the old woman, with burning eyes,
walked to the window and raised the blind.
128. He sat until he was chilled with the cold, glancing occasionally
at the figure of the old woman peering through the window. The
candle-end, which had burned below the rim of the china candle-stick,
was throwing pulsating shadows on the ceilings and walls, until, with
a flicker larger than the rest, it expired. The old man, with an
unspeakable sense of relief at the failure of the talisman, crept back
to his bed, and a minute or two afterward the old woman came silently
and apathetically beside him.
129. Neither spoke, but lay silently listening to the ticking of the
clock. A stair creaked, and a squeaky mouse scurried noisily through
the wall. The darkness was oppressive, and after lying for some time
screwing up his courage, he took the box of matches, and striking one,
went downstairs for a candle.
130. At the foot of the stairs the match went out, and he paused to
strike another; and at the same moment a knock, so quiet and stealthy
as to be scarcely audible, sounded on the front door.
131. The matches fell from his hand and spilled in the passage. He
stood motionless, his breath suspended until the knock was repeated.
Then he turned and fled swiftly back to his room, and closed the door
behind him. A third knock sounded through the house.
132. “What’s that?” cried the old woman, starting up.
133. “A rat,” said the old man in shaking tones--“a rat. It passed me
on the stairs.”
134. His wife sat up in bed listening. A loud knock resounded through
the house.
135. “It’s Herbert!” she screamed, “It’s Herbert!”
136. She ran to the door, but her husband was before her, and catching
her by the arm, held her tightly.
137. “What are you going to do?” he whispered hoarsely.
138. “It’s my boy; it’s Herbert!” she cried, struggling mechanically.
“I forgot it was two miles away. What are you holding me for? Let go. I
must open the door.”
139. “For God’s sake don’t let it in,” cried the old man, trembling.
140. “You’re afraid of your own son,” she cried, struggling. “Let me
go. I’m coming, Herbert; I’m coming.”
141. There was another knock, and another. The old woman with a sudden
wrench broke free and ran from the room. Her husband followed to the
landing, and called after her appealingly as she hurried downstairs.
He heard the chain rattle back and the bottom bolt drawn slowly and
stiffly from the socket. Then the old woman’s voice, strained and
panting.
142. “The bolt,” she cried, loudly. “Come down. I can’t reach it.”
143. But her husband was on his hands and knees groping wildly on the
floor in search of the paw. If he could only find it before the thing
outside got in. A perfect fusillade of knocks reverberated through the
house, and he heard the scraping of a chair as his wife put it down in
the passage against the door. He heard the creaking of the bolt as it
came slowly back, and at the same moment he found the monkey’s paw, and
frantically breathed his third and last wish.
144. The knocking ceased suddenly, although the echoes of it were
still in the house. He heard the chair drawn back, and the door
opened. A cold wind rushed up the staircase, and a long loud wail of
disappointment and misery from his wife gave him courage to run down
to her side, and then to the gate beyond. The street lamp flickering
opposite shone on a quiet and deserted road.
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS FOR STUDY
1. Does it add to the interest of a story, for you, when you are
baffled by its mystery up to the very end?
2. What author’s detective stories do you consider the best? Why?
3. If possible, secure a copy of Voltaire’s “Zadig,” and write a short
paper on Zadig’s reasoning.
4. Does the introduction of an element of the supernatural increase or
lessen the interest of a story, for you?
5. Write about two-hundred words comparing (a) the work of Poe’s Dupin
with Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes; (b) with that of any other fictional
detective--Chesterton’s Father Brown, for example.
6. Explain what is meant by _inductive_ reasoning.
7. Select from some magazine (a) a good detective story, and (b) a good
story of the unexplained, or supernatural. (c) Discuss the relative
merits of each.
8. Do you prefer Jacobs as a writer of humorous stories of sea-faring
folk or as a writer of the weird?
9. Which of Poe’s stories do you like best, and why?
TEN REPRESENTATIVE STORIES OF MYSTERY AND FANTASY
“The Horla,” Guy de Maupassant, translated in _Modern Ghosts_.
“The Lost Duchess,” Anonymous, in _The Lock and Key Library_.
“The Golden Ingot,” Fitz-James O’Brien, in _The Lock and Key Library_.
“The Gold Bug,” Edgar Allan Poe, in _Tales_.
“The Black Spaniel,” Robert Hichens, in volume of same title.
“The Upper Berth,” F. Marion Crawford, in _Short-Story Classics,
American_.
“The Adventure of the Dancing Men,” A. Conan Doyle, in _The Return of
Sherlock Holmes_.
“The Venus of Ille,” Prosper Mérimée, translated in _Little French
Masterpieces_.
“The Pavilion on the Links,” Robert Louis Stevenson, in _New Arabian
Nights_.
“The Damned Thing,” Ambrose Bierce, in _Short-Story Classics, American_.
FOOTNOTES:
[19] Copyright, 1902, by Dodd, Mead & Co., in the collection of
short-stories, _The Lady of the Barge_. Used by permission.
III
STORIES OF EMOTION
_The Last Class._--ALPHONSE DAUDET
_Without Benefit of Clergy._--RUDYARD KIPLING
In painting we may represent any fine figure we please; but we
never can give it those enlivening touches which it may receive
from words. To represent an angel in a picture, you can only draw
a beautiful young man winged: but what painting can furnish out
any thing so grand as the addition of one word, “the angel of the
_Lord_?...” Now, as there is a moving tone of voice, an impassioned
countenance, an agitated gesture, which affect independently of
the things about which they are exerted, so there are words, and
certain dispositions of words, which being peculiarly devoted to
passionate subjects, and always used by those who are under the
influence of any passion, touch and move us more than those which
far more clearly and distinctly express the subject-matter. We
yield to sympathy what we refuse to description.--EDMUND BURKE, _On
the Sublime and Beautiful_.
STORIES OF EMOTION
Fictional plots deal with the inner man quite as often as with the
outer. Indeed, the action of the soul is more real, intense and
interesting than mere visible action could possibly be. For this
reason the master story-tellers nearly always interpret the inner
life--whether of thought, of emotion, or of decision--by displaying
the outer, instead of by merely analyzing and discussing the thoughts,
feelings and decisions of their characters. The more clearly this outer
action pictures the inner man, the more real does the character become
to us and the more perfectly do we grasp the whole story.
As a universal human experience, emotion[20] mingles with all
manifestations of life. In the short-story it finds various expression
in the hilarious fun of “Pigs is Pigs,” by Butler; the character humor
of Barrie’s “Thrums” stories; the mingled humor and pathos of Harte’s
“The Luck of Roaring Camp”; the patriotic sentiment of Daudet’s “The
Siege of Berlin”; the mystic sympathy of Kipling’s “They”; the idyllic
love of the Book of Ruth; the incomparable psychological insight of
Maupassant’s “A Coward”; the cold, revengeful jealousy of Balzac’s “La
Grande Bretêche”; the choking, supernatural terror of Poe’s “The Pit
and the Pendulum”; the tragic passion of Mérimée’s “Mateo Falcone,” and
all the myriad shades and combinations of shades which lie between.
Naturally, each story in this entire collection illustrates one or
another emotional phase, as even a cursory reading will make clear.
What, for example, could be more intense than the emotions of those
two parents, as depicted in “The Monkey’s Paw?” But for this group
two stories have been selected as being typical examples of emotional
expression, because in them human feeling predominates over all other
characteristics and really makes the story.
“The Last Class,” which is here presented in a translation by the
editor of this volume, is rich in local color, in impressionism, and in
character drawing, but as an unaffected picture of patriotic feeling
it is unsurpassed in the literature of the short-story. There is not a
single jarring emotional tone, not the slightest exaggeration of true
emotional values. With singular repression, Daudet secures his effects
by suggesting rather than fully expressing the profound feelings of the
school-master, his pupils, and the visitors; and when the majestically
simple climax is reached, we have accepted the reality of it all and
have received a single effective and lasting impression.
“Without Benefit of Clergy,” the second specimen, is left for the
reader to analyze and discuss. Surely this most sadly touching of all
love-stories presents the poignant pity, the inevitable disaster, the
final heart-break of unsanctified love, as never before or since in
the pages of fiction.
DAUDET AND HIS WRITINGS
Alphonse Daudet was born at Nîmes, France, May 13, 1840. Here and at
Lyons he received his education. At the age of seventeen he and his
brother Ernest went to Paris, where Alphonse published his first long
poem two years later. This began his literary success. From 1860 to
1865 he served as secretary in the Cabinet of the Duke de Morny, and at
the early age of twenty-five was decorated with the Cross of the Legion
of Honor. He was profoundly impressed by the memories of his early life
and frequently revisited his native Provence. The South-of-France tone
is distinguishable in much of his work, just as the powerful feelings
called forth by the Franco-Prussian war find expression in other of his
writings. He died in Paris, December 16, 1897.
Alphonse Daudet was a dramatist, poet, novelist, and short-story
writer. _The Nabob_, _Sappho_, _Jack_, _Kings in Exile_, _Numa
Roumestan_, _Fromont and Risler_, _The Evangelist_, and the “Tartarin”
books are his best known novels. Among his best short-stories are “The
Pope’s Mule,” “The Death of the Dauphin,” “The Three Low Masses,”
“The Elixir of the Reverend Father Gaucher,” “Old Folks,” and “Master
Cornille’s Secret”--all from the collection, _Letters from My Mill_.
The following little masterpieces are from his _Monday Tales_: “The
Game of Billiards,” “The Child Spy,” “The Little Pies,” “Mothers,”
“The Siege of Berlin,” and “The Last Class.”
At the close of the Franco-Prussian war, in 1871, France was forced to
cede to Germany almost all of Alsace, about nine thousand square miles
of territory, in addition to an indemnity of one billion dollars. “The
Last Class” was held, therefore, about 1872, and the story was first
published in 1873.
* * * * *
Daudet’s literary genius sounded every note, from farce, delicate
humor, and satire, to poetic pathos, dramatic action, character
analysis, and social criticism. He resembled Dickens in his humor,
but displayed more emotional tenderness, and, in his later work,
more satire, than did the English writer. Though he may be called
the literary descendant of Balzac, whose novels systematically
depicted French society in all its phases, Daudet was less a social
philosopher and more a man expressing his own personality through his
work. Comparing him with Maupassant, we find his stories less perfect
in form, but far richer in human feeling. Though at times he dealt
with subjects which English readers consider broad, his sympathy
unmistakably appears to be with his nobler characters.
When only ten years of age, I was already haunted at times by the
desire to lose my own personality, and incarnate myself in other
beings; the mania was already laying hold of me for observing and
analyzing, and my chief amusement during my walks was to pick out
some passerby, and to follow him all over Lyons, through all his
idle strollings or busy occupations, striving to identify myself
with his life, and to enter into his innermost thoughts.--ALPHONSE
DAUDET, _Thirty Years of Paris_.
Daudet expresses many things; but he most frequently expresses
himself--his own temper in the presence of life, his own feeling on
a thousand occasions.--HENRY JAMES, _Partial Portraits_.
Life, as he knows it, is sad, full of disappointment, bitterness,
and suffering; and yet the conclusion he draws from experience is
that this life, with all its sadness, is well worth living.--RENÉ
DOUMIC, _Contemporary French Novelists_.
The short stories are Daudet at his best, a style tense, virile,
full of suppressed energy.... There is a nobler strain in these
stories than speaks from the pages of _Le Petit Chose_ [“Little
What’s-His-Name”],--the ring of passionate patriotism, no longer
the voice of Provence, or of Paris, but the voice of France....
The touching story, _La Dernière Classe_, might have come from the
lips of an Alsatian, so true is it to the spirit of Alsace during
those sorrowful days that followed the Franco-Prussian War.--MARION
MCINTYRE, Introduction to _Works_.
Daudet’s two main series of stories (_Letters from My Mill_ and
_Monday Tales_) contain between sixty and seventy pieces.... They
represent Daudet the poet, with his exquisite fancy, his winning
charm, his subtle, indescribable style, his susceptibility to all
that is lovely and joyous in nature and in human life; in short,
in his sunny, mercurial Provençal temperament.... But there was
another Daudet more or less superimposed upon this sunny, poetic
Daudet, true child of Provence. Upon few Frenchmen of a generation
ago did the terrible years of the Franco-Prussian War and the
Commune produce a more sobering impression. The romanticist and
poet deepened into a realistic observer of human life in all its
phases.--W. P. TRENT, Introduction to the volume on Daudet, in
_Little French Masterpieces_.
The charm reflected in his works lay in the man himself, and
earned for him a host of friends and an unclouded domestic life--it
lay in his open, sunny, inconsequent, southern nature, with his
quick sympathies, his irony at once forcible and delicate, his
ready tears. It lay in the spontaneousness of his talent, in his
Provençal gift of improvisation.... And it lay, too, in what was
an essential characteristic of his nature, his rapid alternation
of mood. Take even the slightest of his _Contes_ [stories]....
Within a few pages he is in turn sad, gay, sentimental, ironical,
pathetic, and one mood glides into the next without jar or
friction.--V. M. CRAWFORD, _Studies in Foreign Literature_.
His stories first of all amuse, excite, distress himself....
He never could, indeed, look on them disinterestedly, either
while they were making or when they were made. He made them with
actual tears and laughter; and they are read with actual tears
and laughter by the crowd.... But he had no philosophy behind
his fantastic and yet only too probable creations. Caring, as he
thought, supremely for life, he cared really for that surprising,
bewildering pantomime which life seems to be to those who watch its
coloured movement, its flickering lights, its changing costumes,
its powdered faces, without looking through the eyes into the
hearts of the dancers. He wrote from the very midst of the human
comedy; and it is from this that he seems at times to have caught
the bodily warmth and the taste of the tears and the very ring of
the laughter of men and women....--ARTHUR SYMONS, _Studies in Prose
and Verse_.
FURTHER REFERENCES FOR READING ON DAUDET
_Chats about Books_, Mayo W. Hazeltine (1883); _French Fiction of
To-day_, M. S. Van de Velde (1891); _Alphonse Daudet; a Biographical
and Critical Study_, R. H. Sherard (1894); _The Literary Movement
in France_, Georges Pellissier (1897); _Literary Likings_, Richard
Burton (1898); _The Historical Novel_, Brander Matthews (1901); _French
Profiles_, Edmund W. Gosse (1905); _Short-Story Masterpieces_, J. Berg
Esenwein (1912).
THE LAST CLASS
(La Dernière Classe)
THE STORY OF A LITTLE ALSATIAN
BY ALPHONSE DAUDET
_Translation by The Editor_
[Sidenote: INTRODUCTION plunges us at once into the action. There is
one main incident throughout. The narrator is immediately seen to be a
child, and surmised to be a boy.]
That morning I was very late for school, so I was terribly afraid of
a scolding--particularly since Master Hamel had said that he would
examine us on participles, and I knew not the first word about them!
For a little while I thought of playing truant and wandering the fields.
2. The day was so warm, so clear!
[Sidenote: Setting. Note how the rural community is suggested.]
3. I could hear the blackbirds whistling on the border of the wood; and
back of the sawmill, in the Rippert field, the Prussian soldiers were
drilling. All of this was much more tempting to me than participial
rules--but I was strong enough to resist and away to school I ran, as
fast as I could.
[Sidenote: Small municipalities have mayors, in France.]
[Sidenote: The tone is struck here. Forecast of crisis.]
[Sidenote: Franco-Prussian War.]
4. As I passed by the mayor’s office, I observed that a number of
people were assembled before the little board on which notices were
generally posted. For two years every piece of bad news had come
from that board--defeats in battle, conscriptions, orders from
headquarters--and, without stopping, I wondered:
[Sidenote: Forecasts a crisis.]
5. “What can it be this time!”
[Sidenote: Note the Prussian name. Alsace was a border province.]
6. Just then, as I was running across the square, Wachter the
blacksmith, who with his apprentice stood reading the placard, called
after me:
[Sidenote: Hint of crisis to come. CONTRIBUTORY INCIDENT.]
7. “You needn’t hurry so fast, my lad, you’ll get to school soon
enough!”
[Sidenote: The school was held in the master’s house.]
8. I thought he was making game of me, and I kept right on, reaching
Master Hamel’s little yard quite out of breath.
[Sidenote: Unusual air depicted by contrast.]
[Sidenote: The story proper begins.]
[Sidenote: An old custom.]
9. Ordinarily, as school was opening, the uproar was so great that it
could be heard clear out on the street--desk-lids opening and shutting,
lessons droned aloud in unison, pupils holding their ears shut to learn
their lessons easier, while the master’s great ferrule beat upon the
desks:
10. “A little quietness!”
[Sidenote: Contrast.]
11. I had counted on all this noise to enable me to reach my seat
unnoticed; but on that particular day everything was as quiet as a
Sabbath morning. Through the open window I saw my schoolmates already
ranged in their places, and Master Hamel pacing to and fro, his
formidable iron ferrule under his arm. In the midst of that complete
silence I had to open the door and go in! You can well imagine whether
I blushed and was afraid!
[Sidenote: Contrast.]
12. But, quite to the contrary, Master Hamel looked at me with no sign
of anger, and then very gently said:
[Sidenote: Evidently a small school.]
13. “Go directly to your seat, my little Frantz--we were about to begin
without you.”
[Sidenote: At which others were also seated.]
[Sidenote: All the contrasts prepare us for the crisis.]
[Sidenote: Prussian name.]
[Sidenote: Dazed.]
14. Immediately I stepped over the bench and sat down at my desk. Only
then, when I had partly gotten over my fright, did I observe that our
master was wearing his handsome blue riding-coat, his plaited ruff,
and his black silk embroidered breeches--worn only on inspection
days or when prizes were awarded. Furthermore, there was something
extraordinary, something solemn, about the whole school. But what
astounded me more than anything else was to see a number of people from
the village sitting, as silent as we, on the usually empty benches at
the back of the room: old Father Hauser with his three-cornered hat,
the ex-mayor, the former postman, besides a number of others. All
seemed cast down, and Father Hauser had brought with him an old primer,
with chewed up leaves, which he held wide-open up-side-down on his
knees, and lying on it his huge spectacles.
15. While I was marvelling at all this, Master Hamel had mounted his
platform, and in the same gentle and serious voice with which he had
greeted me, he said to us:
[Sidenote: FOUNDATION OF CLIMAX. Summary of the theme. Compare with
Longfellow’s _Evangeline_.]
[Sidenote: This law went into effect July 1, 1870.]
16. “My children, this is the last day that I shall keep school. The
order has come from Berlin that nothing but German shall be taught in
the schools of Alsace and Lorraine. The new school-master will arrive
to-morrow. This is the last class in French--I beg of you to be very
attentive!”
17. His simple words overwhelmed me. This, then, was the notice they
had posted at the mayor’s office. Oh, the scoundrels!
[Sidenote: The crisis becomes personal.]
18. My last lesson in French!
[Sidenote: Scarcely a paragraph but appeals to emotion in some form.]
[Sidenote: The _Saar_ flows northward into the _Moselle_.]
19. And I was scarcely able to write! Then I was never to learn! I
must stop short just where I was! How angry with myself it made me to
remember the time I had frittered away, and the lessons I had missed
while hunting birds’ nests or sliding on the Saar! My books now seemed
to me like old comrades from whom it broke my heart to part, and only a
moment since I had found them--my grammar, my sacred history--so dull,
and so heavy to carry! It was just the same when I thought of Master
Hamel. He was going away. I should never see him again--the thought
made me forget all his punishments and strokes with the ferrule.
[Sidenote: Shift to interest in the Master.]
[Sidenote: Now to the villagers.]
[Sidenote: Age indicated, thus adding to the pathos.]
[Sidenote: THESE ARE THE KEY WORDS.]
20. Poor old man! So it was in honor of that last lesson in French that
he had donned his Sunday best--and now I understood why those old folks
from the village were seated at the back of the room. It seemed to say
they regretted that they had not visited the school oftener. Besides,
it was a sort of way of thanking our teacher for his forty years of
devoted service, and of showing their love for the fatherland which was
passing away.
[Sidenote: Note how Daudet arouses our sympathies by avoiding
generalities and centering our interest upon persons.]
21. Just at this point in my reflections I heard my name called--it was
my turn to recite. Oh, I would have given anything to be able to recite
without a slip, in a strong, clear voice, that celebrated rule about
participles; but at the very first words I grew confused and I only
stood there at my bench swaying back and forward, my heart swelling,
not daring to lift my head. At length I heard Master Hamel saying to me:
[Sidenote: Ordinary rebuke is swallowed up in the great common sorrow.]
[Sidenote: Daudet here teaches all France a lesson--and all nations as
well.]
22. “My little Frantz, I shall not scold you; you are punished enough,
I think. It is so with all of us; every day we reassure ourselves:
‘Bah! I have plenty of time. To-morrow I shall learn.’ Then you see
what happens. Alas! it has ever been the great misfortune of our
Alsace to defer its lessons until the morrow. And now these people are
justified in saying to us, ‘What, you pretend to be French, and you are
able neither to speak nor to write your language!’ But in all this you
are not the most guilty one, my poor Frantz--we are all worthy of a
full measure of self-reproach.
[Sidenote: Note M. Hamel’s simple sincerity.]
23. “Your parents have not taken enough care to see that you got an
education. They preferred to save a few more sous by putting you to
work in the fields or in the factories. And I--have I nothing for
which to blame myself? Have I not frequently sent you to water my
garden instead of keeping you at your books? Or have I ever hesitated
to dismiss school when I wanted to go trout-fishing?”
24. So Master Hamel, passing from one theme to another, began to speak
to us about our French language. He said that it was the most beautiful
language in the whole world--the most clear, the most substantial; that
we must ever cherish it among ourselves, and never forget it, for when
a nation falls into bondage, just so long as it clings to its language,
it holds the key of its prison.[21]
[Sidenote: The attention follows the lead of the emotions.]
[Sidenote: So does the teacher’s skill.]
25. Then he took a grammar and read us our lesson. I was astonished
to see how readily I understood! Everything he said seemed to me so
easy--so very easy. I believe that never before had I listened so
attentively, and that he, in turn, had never explained things with such
infinite patience. It almost seemed as though the poor fellow wished to
impart all his knowledge to us before he left us--to drive it all into
our heads with one blow.
[Sidenote: A proof of unusual absorption.]
[Sidenote: Note the pathos of the appeal.]
26. The lesson ended, we went on to the exercises in penmanship. For
that day Master Hamel had gotten ready some entirely new copies on
which he had written in a neat, round hand: “France, Alsace, France,
Alsace.” The slips of paper looked like tiny flags, waving all
about the room and hanging from the rods of our desks. You should
have seen how diligently everyone worked, and how quiet it was! Only
the scratching of the pens over the paper could be heard. Once some
beetles flew in, but nobody paid any attention to them--not even the
very smallest chaps, who were struggling to draw their oblique lines
with a will and an application as sincere as though even the lines
themselves were French.... Pigeons cooed in low tones on the roof of
the schoolhouse, and as I listened to them I thought to myself:
27. “I wonder if they are going to make them coo in German too!”
[Sidenote: A picture. All of these contributory pictures stand in lieu
of contributory incidents. The whole is highly unified.]
[Sidenote: The lad reasons as a lad--to him the pathos is not for
himself but for the old man.]
28. Now and then, as I lifted my eyes from my task, I saw Master Hamel
seated motionless in his chair, and staring at things about him as
though in that look he would carry away with him the whole of his
little schoolhouse. Think of it! For forty years he had occupied that
same place, his yard in front of him, and his school always unchanged.
Only the benches and desks were rubbed by use until they were polished;
the walnuts in the yard had grown large, and the hop-vine he himself
had planted now hung in festoons from the windows clear to the roof.
How heartbreaking it must have been for that poor man to leave all
this--to hear his sister moving to and fro in the room overhead as
she packed their trunks! Next day they were going away--to leave the
fatherland forever.
29. All the same, he had the courage to keep the school to the very
closing minute. The writing over, we had our lesson in history. Then
the little ones sang in unison their _ba, be, bi, bo, bu_. Yonder, at
the back of the room, old Father Hauser was holding his spelling-book
with both hands, and with the aid of his great spectacles he spelled
out the letters--one could see that even he too was applying himself.
Emotion shook his voice, and to hear him was so droll that we all
wanted to laugh--and to cry. Ah! I shall always remember that last
class.
[Sidenote: PREPARATION FOR CLIMAX.]
[Sidenote: FORMAL CRISIS--the end approaches.]
[Sidenote: Note the force of this.]
[Sidenote: Moral qualities affect the physical.]
30. Suddenly the church clock sounded twelve. Then the Angelus. At the
same instant were heard under our very windows the trumpets of the
Prussians returning from drill. Pale as death, Master Hamel rose from
his chair. Never had he seemed so large.
31. “My friends,” he began; “my friends, I--I--”
32. But something choked him. He could not end the sentence.
[Sidenote: Note the intensity.]
33. Then he turned to the blackboard, seized a piece of chalk, and,
bearing with all his strength, he wrote in the largest letters he could
make:
[Sidenote: FULL CLIMAX.]
34. “VIVE LA FRANCE!”
35. Then he stood there, his head leaning against the wall, and
without a word he signed to us with his hand:
36. “It is the end ... go!”
KIPLING AND HIS WRITINGS
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay, India, December 30, 1865,
of English parents, his father, J. Lockwood Kipling, an artist of
ability, having been in the colonial Civil Service. He was educated
at the United Services College, Devon, but returned to India in 1882
and became an editorial writer and correspondent. In 1889 he began
extensive travels. For several years he resided in Brattleboro,
Vermont, but returned to England and settled in Rottingdean, Sussex.
Rudyard Kipling has attained celebrity as poet, novelist, and
short-story writer. His best-known poems are found in the collections
entitled _Departmental Ditties_, _Barrack-Room Ballads_, _The Seven
Seas_, and _The Five Nations_. _Kim_ is his ablest novel. The two
“Jungle Books” constitute a remarkable collection of connected tales
of the jungle folk. His best short-stories are found in the following
volumes: _Soldiers Three_ (the “Mulvaney” stories, “The Man Who
Was,” etc.), _The Phantom Rickshaw_ (“The Man Who Would be King,”
“The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes,” etc.), _Wee Willie Winkie and
Other Stories_ (“The Drums of the Fore and Aft,” “Under the Deodars,”
etc.), _The Day’s Work_ (“The Bridge Builders,” “The Brushwood Boy,”
etc.), and _Traffic and Discoveries_ (“They,” etc.). “Without Benefit
of Clergy” first appeared in _Macmillan’s Magazine_ (London) in
June, 1890, and in the June 7th and 14th, 1890, numbers of _Harper’s
Weekly_ (New York). In the same year it was published in the volume,
_The Courting of Dinah Shadd, and Other Stories_, but in 1891 it was
included in the volume _Life’s Handicap: being Stories of Mine Own
People._
* * * * *
Rudyard Kipling is without doubt the greatest of living short-story
writers, though in interest his later fiction does not equal his
productions of the early nineties. His journalistic work drilled him in
compression; his precocious intuitions and personal experience of life
in India opened up a fresh and fascinating field; his genius taught him
how to tell his stories with unfailing variety, a robust humor, and
an understanding of the human heart quite uncanny in one so young. In
style, he is a master of the unexpected; in narration, he is by turns
deliberate and swift; in atmospheric painting, he transports us to real
places, wherein real folk do real things.
Tell them first of those things that thou hast seen and they
have seen together. Thus their knowledge will piece out thy
imperfections. Tell them of what thou alone hast seen, then what
thou hast heard, and since they be children tell them of battles
and kings, horses, devils, elephants, and angels, but omit not to
tell them of love and such like. All the earth is full of tales to
him who listens and does not drive away the poor from his door.
The poor are the best of tale-tellers; for they must lay their ear
to the ground every night.--RUDYARD KIPLING, Preface to _Life’s
Handicap_.
The tremulous passion of Ameera, her hopes, her fears, and her
agonies of disappointment, combine to form by far the most tender
page which Mr. Kipling has written.--EDMUND GOSSE, _Questions at
Issue_.
... The truly appreciative reader should surely have no quarrel
with the primitive element in Mr. Kipling’s subject-matter, or with
what, for want of a better name, I may call his love of low life.
What is that but essentially a part of his freshness? And for what
part of his freshness are we exactly more thankful than for just
this smart jostle that he gives the old stupid superstition that
the amiability of a story-teller is the amiability of the people
he represents--that their vulgarity, or depravity, or gentility,
or fatuity are tantamount to the same qualities in the painter
himself?--HENRY JAMES, Introduction to _Works_.
It was not until “Without Benefit of Clergy” that he came to his
full strength in pathetic prose. The history of Ameera is one of
the triumphs of the short story. Its characterization is vivid; its
progress direct and poignant. I do not wish even for an instant to
seem to cheapen one of the most touching and beautiful stories in
the world when I call it journalism. But the voice of the desolate
mother breaking into the nursery rime of the wicked crow,
“And the wild plums grow in the jungle, only a penny a pound,
Only a penny a pound, baba--only--,”
and every pathetic moment, is chosen by an inspired sense for what
would most feelingly grasp the interest of the reader. This is high
art, with intense feeling behind it--otherwise it would not be so
excellent. But it is also good journalism.--HENRY SEIDEL CANBY,
_The Short-Story in English._
For Mr. Kipling to write a story without some firm human touch,
however slight, would be impossible.... In his effects Mr.
Kipling is usually photographic (“cinematographic” is better),
but his methods are almost invariably, for want of a better word,
“artistic.” I mean that whereas the principle of selection,
which is a vital principle of art, can operate but little in
photography, it is seen to be remarkably active in all Mr.
Kipling’s best work. His stories, so to speak, represent the
epigram of action, the epigram of a given situation.... It is from
the lives of such Englishmen ... that Mr. Kipling has gathered so
many of his vivid anecdotes. A great number of them ... are the
lesser lights and darks contributing to such more serious elements
of the general picture as “At the End of the Passage,” “Without
Benefit of Clergy,” “In Flood Time,” “The Man Who Was,” behind
which looms vast in the background the image of that old Sphinx of
the Plains complete in mystery as no other writer has ever been
able to suggest her.... Also he had written at least one love-story
(“Without Benefit of Clergy”) that broke one’s heart.... For all
the humour and buoyancy of his writings, Mr. Kipling is at heart
a pessimist, and, perhaps, his sincerest expression of opinion in
regard to the government of the universe is contained in the fierce
Omarian exclamation of Holden in “Without Benefit of Clergy,”
addressed to no one in particular, but evidently meant to reach far
up into the skies: “O you brute! You utter brute!” So Omar bade
Allah “man’s forgiveness give and take.”--RICHARD LE GALLIENNE,
_Rudyard Kipling: A Criticism_.
FURTHER REFERENCES FOR READING ON KIPLING
_Essays in Little_, Andrew Lang (1894); _Cervantes, Zola, Kipling
& Co._, in _Aspects of Modern Fiction_, Brander Matthews (1896);
_My Contemporaries in Fiction_, J. D. C. Murray (1897); _A Ken of
Kipling_, Will M. Clemens (1899); _Victorian Novelists_, James Oliphant
(1899); _A Kipling Primer_, F. L. Knowles (1899); _The Religion of
Mr. Kipling_, W. B. Parker (1899); _Rudyard Kipling, A Biographical
Sketch_, C. E. Norton (1899).
FOR ANALYSIS
WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY
BY RUDYARD KIPLING
Before my Spring I garnered Autumn’s gain,
Out of her time my field was white with grain,
The year gave up her secrets to my woe.
Forced and deflowered each sick season lay,
In mystery of increase and decay;
I saw the sunset ere men saw the day,
Who am too wise in that I should not know.
_Bitter Waters._
I
“But if it be a girl?”
2. “Lord of my life, it cannot be. I have prayed for so many nights,
and sent gifts to Sheikh Badl’s shrine so often, that I know God will
give us a son--a man-child that shall grow into a man. Think of this
and be glad. My mother shall be his mother till I can take him again,
and the mullah of the Pattan mosque shall cast his nativity--God send
he be born in an auspicious hour!--and then, thou wilt never weary of
me, thy slave.”
3. “Since when hast thou been a slave, my queen?”
4. “Since the beginning--till this mercy came to me. How could I be
sure of thy love when I knew that I had been bought with silver?”
5. “Nay, that was the dowry. I paid it to thy mother.”
6. “And she has buried it, and sits upon it all day long like a hen.
What talk is yours of dower! I was bought as though I had been a
Lucknow dancing-girl instead of a child.”
7. “Art thou sorry for the sale?”
8. “I have sorrowed; but to-day I am glad. Thou wilt never cease to
love me now?--answer, my king.”
9. “Never--never. No.”
10. “Not even though the _mem-log_--the white women of thy own
blood--love thee? And remember, I have watched them driving in the
evening; they are very fair.”
11. “I have seen fire-balloons by the hundred. I have seen the moon,
and--then I saw no more fire-balloons.”
12. Ameera clapped her hands and laughed. “Very good talk,” she said.
Then with an assumption of great stateliness: “It is enough. Thou hast
my permission to depart--if thou wilt.”
13. The man did not move. He was sitting on a low red-lacquered couch
in a room furnished only with a blue and white floor-cloth, some rugs,
and a very complete collection of native cushions. At his feet sat
a woman of sixteen, and she was all but all the world in his eyes.
By every rule and law she should have been otherwise, for he was an
Englishman, and she a Mussulman’s daughter bought two years before from
her mother, who, being left without money, would have sold Ameera
shrieking to the Prince of Darkness if the price had been sufficient.
14. It was a contract entered into with a light heart; but even before
the girl had reached her bloom she came to fill the greater portion
of John Holden’s life. For her, and the withered hag, her mother, he
had taken a little house overlooking the great red-walled city, and
found--when the marigolds had sprung up by the well in the courtyard
and Ameera had established herself according to her own ideas of
comfort, and her mother had ceased grumbling at the inadequacy of the
cooking-places, the distance from the daily market, and at matters
of housekeeping in general--that the house was to him his home. Any
one could enter his bachelor’s bungalow by day or night, and the life
that he led there was an unlovely one. In the house in the city his
feet only could pass beyond the outer courtyard to the women’s rooms;
and when the big wooden gate was bolted behind him he was king in his
own territory, with Ameera for queen. And there was going to be added
to this kingdom a third person whose arrival Holden felt inclined to
resent. It interfered with his perfect happiness. It disarranged the
orderly peace of the house that was his own. But Ameera was wild with
delight at the thought of it, and her mother not less so. The love
of a man, and particularly a white man, was at the best an inconstant
affair, but it might, both women argued, be held fast by a baby’s
hands. “And then,” Ameera would always say, “then he will never care
for the white _mem-log_. I hate them all--I hate them all.”
15. “He will go back to his own people in time,” said the mother; “but
by the blessing of God that time is yet afar off.”
16. Holden sat silent on the couch thinking of the future, and his
thoughts were not pleasant. The drawbacks of a double life are
manifold. The Government, with singular care, had ordered him out of
the station for a fortnight on special duty in the place of a man who
was watching by the bedside of a sick wife. The verbal notification
of the transfer had been edged by a cheerful remark that Holden ought
to think himself lucky in being a bachelor and a free man. He came to
break the news to Ameera.
17. “It is not good,” she said slowly, “but it is not all bad. There
is my mother here, and no harm will come to me--unless indeed I die of
pure joy. Go thou to thy work and think no troublesome thoughts. When
the days are done I believe ... nay, I am sure. And--and then I shall
lay _him_ in thy arms, and thou wilt love me forever. The train goes
to-night, at midnight is it not? Go now, and do not let thy heart be
heavy by cause of me. But thou wilt not delay in returning? Thou wilt
not stay on the road to talk to the bold white _mem-log_. Come back to
me swiftly, my life.”
18. As he left the courtyard to reach his horse that was tethered
to the gate-post, Holden spoke to the white-haired old watchman who
guarded the house, and bade him under certain contingencies despatch
the filled-up telegraph-form that Holden gave him. It was all that
could be done, and with the sensations of a man who has attended his
own funeral Holden went away by the night mail to his exile. Every hour
of the day he dreaded the arrival of the telegram, and every hour of
the night he pictured to himself the death of Ameera. In consequence
his work for the state was not of first-rate quality, nor was his
temper towards his colleagues of the most amiable. The fortnight ended
without a sign from his home, and, torn to pieces by his anxieties,
Holden returned to be swallowed up for two precious hours by a dinner
at the club, wherein he heard, as a man hears in a swoon, voices
telling him how execrably he had performed the other man’s duties, and
how he had endeared himself to all his associates. Then he fled on
horseback through the night with his heart in his mouth. There was no
answer at first to his blows on the gate, and he had just wheeled his
horse round to kick it in when Pir Khan appeared with a lantern and
held his stirrup.
19. “Has aught occurred?” said Holden.
20. “The news does not come from my mouth, Protector of the Poor,
but--” He held out his shaking hand as befitted the bearer of good news
who is entitled to a reward.
21. Holden hurried through the courtyard. A light burned in the upper
room. His horse neighed in the gateway, and he heard a shrill little
wail that sent all the blood into the apple of his throat. It was a new
voice, but it did not prove that Ameera was alive.
22. “Who is there?” he called up the narrow brick staircase.
23. There was a cry of delight from Ameera, and then the voice of the
mother, tremulous with old age and pride--“We be two women and--the
man--thy--son.”
24. On the threshold of the room Holden stepped on a naked dagger, that
was laid there to avert ill-luck, and it broke at the hilt under his
impatient heel.
25. “God is great!” cooed Ameera in the half-light. “Thou hast taken
his misfortunes on thy head.”
26. “Ay, but how is it with thee, life of my life? Old woman, how is it
with her?”
27. “She has forgotten her sufferings for joy that the child is born.
There is no harm; but speak softly,” said the mother.
28. “It only needed thy presence to make me all well,” said Ameera. “My
king, thou hast been very long away. What gifts hast thou for me? Ah,
ah! It is I that bring gifts this time. Look, my life, look! Was there
ever such a babe? Nay, I am too weak even to clear my arm from him.”
29. “Rest then, and do not talk. I am here, _bachari_ [little woman].”
30. “Well said, for there is a bond and a heel-rope [_peecharee_]
between us now that nothing can break. Look--canst thou see in this
light? He is without spot or blemish. Never was such a man-child. _Ya
illah!_ he shall be a pundit--no, a trooper of the Queen. And, my life,
dost thou love me as well as ever, though I am faint and sick and worn?
Answer truly.”
31. “Yea. I love as I have loved, with all my soul. Lie still, pearl,
and rest.”
32. “Then do not go. Sit by my side here--so. Mother, the lord of this
house needs a cushion. Bring it.” There was an almost imperceptible
movement on the part of the new life that lay in the hollow of Ameera’s
arm. “Aho!” she said, her voice breaking with love. “The babe is a
champion from his birth. He is kicking me in the side with mighty
kicks. Was there ever such a babe! And he is ours to us--thine and
mine. Put thy hand on his head, but carefully, for he is very young,
and men are unskilled in such matters.”
33. Very cautiously Holden touched with the tips of his fingers the
downy head.
34. “He is of the faith,” said Ameera; “for lying here in the
night-watches I whispered the Call to Prayer and the Profession of
Faith into his ears. And it is most marvellous that he was born upon a
Friday, as I was born. Be careful of him, my life; but he can almost
grip with his hands.”
35. Holden found one helpless little hand that closed feebly on his
finger. And the clutch ran through his body till it settled about his
heart. Till then his sole thought had been for Ameera. He began to
realise that there was some one else in the world, but he could not
feel that it was a veritable son with a soul. He sat down to think, and
Ameera dozed lightly.
36. “Get hence, _sahib_,” said her mother under her breath. “It is not
good that she should find you here on waking. She must be still.”
37. “I go,” said Holden submissively. “Here be rupees. See that my
_baba_ gets fat and finds all that he needs.”
38. The chink of the silver roused Ameera. “I am his mother, and no
hireling,” she said weakly. “Shall I look to him more or less for the
sake of money? Mother, give it back. I have borne my lord a son.”
39. The deep sleep of weakness came upon her before the sentence was
completed. Holden went down to the courtyard very softly, with his
heart at ease. Pir Khan, the old watchman, was chuckling with delight.
“This house is now complete,” he said, and without further comment
thrust into Holden’s hands the hilt of a sabre worn many years ago when
he, Pir Khan, served the Queen in the police. The bleat of a tethered
goat came from the well-curb.
40. “There be two,” said Pir Khan, “two goats of the best. I bought
them, and they cost much money; and since there is no birth-party
assembled their flesh will be all mine. Strike craftily, _sahib_! ’Tis
an ill-balanced sabre at the best. Wait till they raise their heads
from cropping the marigolds.”
41. “And why?” said Holden, bewildered.
42. “For the birth-sacrifice. What else? Otherwise the child being
unguarded from fate may die. The Protector of the Poor knows the
fitting words to be said.”
43. Holden had learned them once with little thought that he would ever
speak them in earnest. The touch of the cold sabre-hilt in his palm
turned suddenly to the clinging grip of the child up-stairs--the child
that was his own son--and a dread of loss filled him.
44. “Strike!” said Pir Khan. “Never life came into the world but life
was paid for it. See, the goats have raised their heads. Now! With a
drawing cut!”
45. Hardly knowing what he did, Holden cut twice as he muttered the
Mohammedan prayer that runs: “Almighty! In place of this my son I offer
life for life, blood for blood, head for head, bone for bone, hair
for hair, skin for skin.” The waiting horse snorted and bounded in
his pickets at the smell of the raw blood that spirted over Holden’s
riding-boots.
46. “Well smitten!” said Pir Khan, wiping the sabre. “A swordsman was
lost in thee. Go with a light heart, heaven-born. I am thy servant, and
the servant of thy son. May the Presence live a thousand years and ...
the flesh of the goats is all mine?” Pir Khan drew back richer by a
month’s pay. Holden swung himself into the saddle and rode off through
the low-hanging wood-smoke of the evening. He was full of riotous
exultation, alternating with a vast vague tenderness directed towards
no particular object, that made him choke as he bent over the neck of
his uneasy horse. “I never felt like this in my life,” he thought.
“I’ll go to the club and pull myself together.”
47. A game of pool was beginning, and the room was full of men. Holden
entered, eager to get to the light and the company of his fellows,
singing at the top of his voice:
“‘In Baltimore a-walking, a lady I did meet!’”
48. “Did you?” said the club-secretary from his corner. “Did she happen
to tell you that your boots were wringing wet? Great goodness, man,
it’s blood!”
49. “Bosh!” said Holden, picking his cue from the rack. “May I cut in?
It’s dew. I’ve been riding through high crops. My faith, my boots are
in a mess, though!”
50. “‘And if it be a girl she shall wear a wedding-ring,
And if it be a boy he shall fight for his king,
With his dirk, and his cap, and his little jacket blue,
He shall walk the quarter-deck--’”
51. “Yellow on blue--green next player,” said the marker monotonously.
52. “_He shall walk the quarter-deck_'--Am I green, marker?--_He
shall walk the quarter-deck_'--eh! that's a bad shot--‘_As his daddy
used to do_!’”
53. “I don’t see that you have anything to crow about,” said a zealous
junior civilian acidly. “The Government is not exactly pleased with
your work when you relieved Sanders.”
54. “Does that mean a wigging from headquarters?” said Holden with an
abstracted smile. “I think I can stand it.”
55. The talk beat up round the ever-fresh subject of each man’s work,
and steadied Holden till it was time to go to his dark empty bungalow,
where his butler received him as one who knew all his affairs. Holden
remained awake for the greater part of the night, and his dreams were
pleasant ones.
II
56. “How old is he now?”
57. “_Ya illah!_ What a man’s question! He is all but six weeks old;
and on this night I go up to the housetop with thee, my life, to count
the stars. For that is auspicious. And he was born on a Friday under
the sign of the Sun, and it has been told to me that he will outlive us
both and get wealth. Can we wish for aught better, beloved?”
58. “There is nothing better. Let us go up to the roof, and thou shalt
count the stars--but a few only, for the sky is heavy with cloud.”
59. “The winter rains are late, and maybe they come out of season.
Come, before all the stars are hid. I have put on my richest jewels.”
60. “Thou hast forgotten the best of all.”
61. “_Ai!_ Ours. He comes also. He has never yet seen the skies.”
62. Ameera climbed the narrow staircase that led to the flat roof.
The child, placid and unwinking, lay in the hollow of her right arm,
gorgeous in silver-fringed muslin with a small skull-cap on his head.
Ameera wore all that she valued most. The diamond nose-stud that takes
the place of the Western patch in drawing attention to the curve of
the nostril, the gold ornament in the centre of the forehead studded
with tallow-drop emeralds and flawed rubies, the heavy circlet of
beaten gold that was fastened round her neck by the softness of the
pure metal, and the chinking curb-patterned silver anklets hanging
low over the rosy ankle-bone. She was dressed in jade-green muslin as
befitted a daughter of the Faith, and from shoulder to elbow and elbow
to wrist ran bracelets of silver tied with floss silk, frail glass
bangles slipped over the wrist in proof of the slenderness of the hand,
and certain heavy gold bracelets that had no part in her country’s
ornaments but, since they were Holden’s gift and fastened with a
cunning European snap, delighted her immensely.
63. They sat down by the low white parapet of the roof, overlooking the
city and its lights.
64. “They are happy down there,” said Ameera. “But I do not think that
they are as happy as we. Nor do I think the white _mem-log_ are as
happy. And thou?”
65. “I know they are not.”
66. “How dost thou know?”
67. “They give their children over to the nurses.”
“I have never seen that,” said Ameera with a sigh, “nor do I wish
to see. _Ahi!_”--she dropped her head on Holden’s shoulder--“I have
counted forty stars, and I am tired. Look at the child, love of my
life, he is counting too.”
68. The baby was staring with round eyes at the dark of the heavens.
Ameera placed him in Holden’s arms, and he lay there without a cry.
69. “What shall we call him among ourselves?” she said. “Look! Art thou
ever tired of looking? He carries thy very eyes. But the mouth--”
70. “Is thine, most dear. Who should know better than I?”
71. “’Tis such a feeble mouth. Oh, so small! And yet it holds my heart
between its lips. Give him to me now. He has been too long away.”
72. “Nay, let him lie; he has not yet begun to cry.”
73. “When he cries thou wilt give him back--eh? What a man of mankind
thou art! If he cried he were only the dearer to me. But, my life, what
little name shall we give him?”
74. The small body lay close to Holden’s heart. It was utterly helpless
and very soft. He scarcely dared to breathe for fear of crushing it.
The caged green parrot that is regarded as a sort of guardian spirit
in most native households moved on its perch and fluttered a drowsy
wing.
75. “There is the answer,” said Holden. “Mian Mittu has spoken. He
shall be the parrot. When he is ready he will talk mightily and run
about. Mian Mittu is the parrot in thy--in the Mussulman tongue, is it
not?”
76. “Why put me so far off?” said Ameera fretfully. “Let it be like
unto some English name--but not wholly. For he is mine.”
77. “Then call him Tota, for that is likest English.”
78. “Ay, Tota, and that is still the parrot. Forgive me, my lord, for
a minute ago, but in truth he is too little to wear all the weight of
Mian Mittu for name. He shall be Tota--our Tota to us. Hearest thou, O
small one? Littlest, thou art Tota.” She touched the child’s cheek, and
he waking, wailed, and it was necessary to return him to his mother,
who soothed him with the wonderful rhyme of “_Aré koko, Jaré koko!_”
which says:
“Oh, crow! Go crow! Baby’s sleeping sound,
And the wild plums grow in the jungle, only a penny a pound,
Only a penny a pound, _baba_, only a penny a pound.”
79. Reassured many times as to the price of those plums, Tota cuddled
himself down to sleep. The two sleek, white well-bullocks in the
courtyard were steadily chewing the cud of their evening meal; old
Pir Khan squatted at the head of Holden’s horse, his police sabre
across his knees, pulling drowsily at a big water-pipe that croaked
like a bull-frog in a pond. Ameera’s mother sat spinning in the lower
veranda, and the wooden gate was shut and barred. The music of a
marriage-procession came to the roof above the gentle hum of the city,
and a string of flying-foxes crossed the face of the low moon.
80. “I have prayed,” said Ameera, after a long pause, “I have prayed
for two things. First that I may die in thy stead if thy death is
demanded, and in the second that I may die in the place of the child.
I have prayed to the Prophet and to Beebee Miriam [the Virgin Mary].
Thinkest thou either will hear?”
81. “From thy lips who would not hear the lightest word?”
82. “I asked for straight talk, and thou hast given me sweet talk. Will
my prayers be heard?”
83. “How can I say? God is very good.”
84. “Of that I am not sure. Listen now. When I die, or the child dies,
what is thy fate? Living, thou wilt return to the bold white _mem-log_,
for kind calls to kind.”
85. “Not always.”
86. “With a woman, no; with a man it is otherwise. Thou wilt in this
life, later on, go back to thine own folk. That I could almost endure
for I should be dead. But in thy very death thou wilt be taken away to
a strange place and a paradise that I do not know.”
87. “Will it be paradise?”
88. “Surely, for who would harm thee? But we two--I and the
child--shall be elsewhere, and we cannot come to thee, nor canst thou
come to us. In the old days, before the child was born, I did not think
of these things; but now I think of them always. It is very hard talk.”
89. “It will fall as it will fall. To-morrow we do not know, but to-day
and love we know well. Surely we are happy now.”
90. “So happy that it were well to make our happiness assured. And thy
Beebee Miriam should listen to me; for she is also a woman. But then
she would envy me! It is not seemly for men to worship a woman.”
91. Holden laughed aloud at Ameera’s little spasm of jealousy.
92. “Is it not seemly? Why didst thou not turn me from worship of thee,
then?”
93. “Thou a worshipper! And of me? My king, for all thy sweet words,
well I know that I am thy servant and thy slave, and the dust under thy
feet. And I would not have it otherwise. See!”
94. Before Holden could prevent her she stooped and touched his feet;
recovering herself with a little laugh she hugged Tota close to her
bosom. Then, almost savagely:
95. “Is it true that the bold white _mem-log_ live for three times the
length of my life? Is it true that they make their marriages not before
they are old women?”
96. “They marry as do others--when they are women.”
97. “That I know, but they wed when they are twenty-five. Is that true?”
98. “That is true.”
99. “_Ya illah!_ At twenty-five! Who would of his own will take a wife
even of eighteen? She is a woman--aging every hour. Twenty-five! I
shall be an old woman at that age, and--those _mem-log_ remain young
forever. How I hate them!”
100. “What have they to do with us?”
101. “I cannot tell. I know only that there may now be alive on this
earth a woman ten years older than I who may come to thee and take thy
love ten years after I am an old woman, gray-headed, and the nurse of
Tota’s son. That is unjust and evil. They should die too.”
102. “Now, for all thy years thou art a child, and shalt be picked up
and carried down the staircase.”
103. “Tota! Have a care for Tota, my lord! Thou at least art as foolish
as any babe!” Ameera tucked Tota out of harm’s way in the hollow of her
neck, and was carried downstairs laughing in Holden’s arms, while Tota
opened his eyes and smiled after the manner of the lesser angels.
104. He was a silent infant, and almost before Holden could realise
that he was in the world, developed into a small gold-coloured little
god and unquestioned despot of the house overlooking the city. Those
were months of absolute happiness to Holden and Ameera--happiness
withdrawn from the world, shut in behind the wooden gate that Pir Khan
guarded. By day Holden did his work with an immense pity for such as
were not so fortunate as himself, and a sympathy for small children
that amazed and amused many mothers at the little station gatherings.
At nightfall he returned to Ameera--Ameera, full of the wondrous doings
of Tota; how he had been seen to clap his hands together and move his
fingers with intention and purpose--which was manifestly a miracle;
how, later, he had of his own initiative crawled out of his low
bedstead on to the floor and swayed on both feet for the space of three
breaths.
105. “And they were long breaths, for my heart stood still with
delight,” said Ameera.
106. Then Tota took the beasts into his councils--the well-bullocks,
the little gray squirrels, the mongoose that lived in a hole near the
well, and especially Mian Mittu, the parrot, whose tail he grievously
pulled, and Mian Mittu screamed till Ameera and Holden arrived.
107. “O villain! Child of strength! This to thy brother on the
housetop! _Tobah, tobah!_ Fie! Fie! But I know a charm to make him wise
as Suleiman and Aflatoun [Solomon and Plato]. Now look,” said Ameera.
She drew from an embroidered bag a handful of almonds. “See! we count
seven. In the name of God!”
108. She placed Mian Mittu, very angry and rumpled, on the top of his
cage, and seating herself between the babe and the bird she cracked
and peeled an almond less white than her teeth. “This is a true charm,
my life, and do not laugh. See! I give the parrot one half and Tota
the other.” Mian Mittu with careful beak took his share from between
Ameera’s lips, and she kissed the other half into the mouth of the
child, who ate it slowly with wondering eyes. “This I will do each
day of seven, and without doubt he who is ours will be a bold speaker
and wise. Eh, Tota, what wilt thou be when thou art a man and I am
gray-headed?” Tota tucked his fat legs into adorable creases. He could
crawl, but he was not going to waste the spring of his youth in idle
speech. He wanted Mian Mittu’s tail to tweak.
109. When he was advanced to the dignity of a silver belt--which, with
a magic square engraved on silver and hung round his neck, made up the
greater part of his clothing--he staggered on a perilous journey down
the garden to Pir Khan and proffered him all his jewels in exchange
for one little ride on Holden’s horse, having seen his mother’s mother
chaffering with peddlers in the veranda. Pir Khan wept and set the
untried feet on his own gray head in sign of fealty, and brought the
bold adventurer to his mother’s arms, vowing that Tota would be a
leader of men ere his beard was grown.
110. One hot evening, while he sat on the roof between his father and
mother watching the never-ending warfare of the kites that the city
boys flew, he demanded a kite of his own with Pir Khan to fly it,
because he had a fear of dealing with anything larger than himself,
and when Holden called him a “spark” he rose to his feet and answered
slowly in defence of his new-found individuality: _“Hum 'park nahin
hai. Hum admi hai_ [I am no spark, but a man].”
111. The protest made Holden choke and devote himself very seriously
to a consideration of Tota’s future. He need hardly have taken the
trouble. The delight of that life was too perfect to endure. Therefore
it was taken away as many things are taken away in India--suddenly and
without warning. The little lord of the house, as Pir Khan called him,
grew sorrowful and complained of pains who had never known the meaning
of pain. Ameera, wild with terror, watched him through the night,
and in the dawning of the second day the life was shaken out of him
by fever--the seasonal autumn fever. It seemed altogether impossible
that he could die, and neither Ameera nor Holden at first believed the
evidence of the little body on the bedstead. Then Ameera beat her head
against the wall and would have flung herself down the well in the
garden had Holden not restrained her by main force.
112. One mercy only was granted to Holden. He rode to his office in
broad daylight and found waiting him an unusually heavy mail that
demanded concentrated attention and hard work. He was not, however,
alive to this kindness of the gods.
III
113. The first shock of a bullet is no more than a brisk pinch. The
wrecked body does not send in its protest to the soul till ten or
fifteen seconds later. Holden realised his pain slowly, exactly as he
had realised his happiness, and with the same imperious necessity for
hiding all traces of it. In the beginning he only felt that there had
been a loss, and that Ameera needed comforting where she sat with her
head on her knees shivering as Mian Mittu from the housetop called:
_Tota! Tota! Tota!_ Later, all his world and the daily life of it rose
up to hurt him. It was an outrage that any one of the children at the
band-stand in the evening should be alive and clamorous, when his own
child lay dead. It was more than mere pain when one of them touched
him, and stories told by over-fond fathers of their children’s latest
performances cut him to the quick. He could not declare his pain. He
had neither help, comfort, nor sympathy; and Ameera at the end of each
weary day would lead him through the hell of self-questioning reproach
which is reserved for those who have lost a child, and believe that
with a little--just a little--more care it might have been saved.
114. “Perhaps,” Ameera would say, “I did not take sufficient heed. Did
I, or did I not? The sun on the roof that day when he played so long
alone and I was--ahi! braiding my hair--it may be that the sun then
bred the fever. If I had warned him from the sun he might have lived.
But oh, my life, say that I am guiltless! Thou knowest that I loved him
as I love thee. Say that there is no blame on me, or I shall die--I
shall die!”
115. “There is no blame--before God, none. It was written, and how
could we do aught to save? What has been, has been. Let it go, beloved.”
116. “He was all my heart to me. How can I let the thought go when
my arm tells me every night that he is not here? _Ahi! Ahi!_ O Tota,
come back to me--come back again, and let us be all together as it was
before!”
117. “Peace, peace! For thine own sake, and for mine also, if thou
lovest me--rest.”
118. “By this I know thou dost not care; and how shouldst thou? The
white men have hearts of stone and souls of iron. Oh, that I had
married a man of mine own people--though he beat me--and had never
eaten the bread of an alien!”
119. “Am I an alien--mother of my son?”
120. “What else--_sahib_?... Oh, forgive me--forgive! The death has
driven me mad. Thou art the life of my heart, and the light of my eyes,
and the breath of my life, and--and I have put thee from me, though
it was but for a moment. If thou goest away, to whom shall I look for
help? Do not be angry. Indeed, it was the pain that spoke and not thy
slave.”
121. “I know, I know. We be two who were three. The greater need
therefore that we should be one.”
122. They were sitting on the roof as of custom. The night was a warm
one in early spring, and sheet-lightning was dancing on the horizon to
a broken tune played by far-off thunder. Ameera settled herself in
Holden’s arms.
123. “The dry earth is lowing like a cow for the rain, and I--I am
afraid. It was not like this when we counted the stars. But thou lovest
me as much as before, though a bond is taken away? Answer!”
124. “I love more because a new bond has come out of the sorrow that we
have eaten together, and that thou knowest.”
125. “Yea, I knew,” said Ameera in a very small whisper. “But it is
good to hear thee say so, my life, who art so strong to help. I will
be a child no more but a woman and an aid to thee. Listen! Give me my
_sitar_ and I will sing bravely.”
126. She took the light silver-studded _sitar_ and began a song of
the great hero Rajah Rasalu. The hand failed on the strings, the tune
halted, checked, and at a low note turned off to the poor little
nursery-rhyme about the wicked crow:
“‘And the wild plums grow in the jungle, only a penny a pound,
Only a penny a pound, _baba_--only....’”
127. Then came the tears and the piteous rebellion against fate till
she slept, moaning a little in her sleep, with the right arm thrown
clear of the body as though it protected something that was not there.
It was after this night that life became a little easier for Holden.
The ever-present pain of loss drove him into his work, and the
work repaid him by filling up his mind for nine or ten hours a day.
Ameera sat alone in the house and brooded, but grew happier when she
understood that Holden was more at ease, according to the custom of
women. They touched happiness again, but this time with caution.
128. “It was because we loved Tota that he died. The jealousy of God
was upon us,” said Ameera. “I have hung up a large black jar before our
window to turn the evil eye from us, and we must make no protestations
of delight, but go softly underneath the stars, lest God find us out.
Is that not good talk, worthless one?”
129. She had shifted the accent on the word that means “beloved,” in
proof of the sincerity of her purpose. But the kiss that followed the
new christening was a thing that any deity might have envied. They went
about henceforward saying: “It is naught, it is naught”; and hoping
that all the Powers heard.
130. The Powers were busy on other things. They had allowed thirty
million people four years of plenty wherein men fed well and the crops
were certain, and the birth-rate rose year by year; the districts
reported a purely agricultural population varying from nine hundred
to two thousand to the square mile of the overburdened earth; and
the Member for Lower Tooting, wandering about India in pot-hat
and frock-coat, talked largely of the benefits of British rule and
suggested as the one thing needful the establishment of a duly
qualified electoral system and a general bestowal of the franchise. His
long-suffering hosts smiled and made him welcome, and when he paused
to admire, with pretty picked words, the blossom of the blood-red
dhak-tree that had flowered untimely for a sign of what was coming,
they smiled more than ever.
131. It was the Deputy Commissioner of Kot-Kumharsen, staying at the
club for a day, who lightly told a tale that made Holden’s blood run
cold as he overheard the end.
132. “He won’t bother any one any more. Never saw a man so astonished
in my life. By Jove, I thought he meant to ask a question in the House
about it. Fellow passenger in his ship--dined next him--bowled over by
cholera and died in eighteen hours. You needn’t laugh, you fellows.
The Member for Lower Tooting is awfully angry about it; but he’s more
scared. I think he’s going to take his enlightened self out of India.”
133. “I’d give a good deal if he were knocked over. It might keep a
few vestrymen of his kidney to their own parish. But what’s this about
cholera? It’s full early for anything of that kind,” said the warden of
an unprofitable salt-lick.
134. “Don’t know,” said the Deputy Commissioner reflectively. “We’ve
got locusts with us. There’s sporadic cholera all along the north--at
least we’re calling it sporadic for decency’s sake. The spring crops
are short in five districts, and nobody seems to know where the rains
are. It’s nearly March now. I don’t want to scare anybody, but it seems
to me that Nature’s going to audit her accounts with a big red pencil
this summer.”
135. “Just when I wanted to take leave, too!” said a voice across the
room.
136. “There won’t be much leave this year, but there ought to be a
great deal of promotion. I’ve come in to persuade the Government to put
my pet canal on the list of famine-relief works. It’s an ill wind that
blows no good. I shall get that canal finished at last.”
137. “Is it the old programme then,” said Holden; “famine, fever, and
cholera?”
138. “Oh, no. Only local scarcity and an unusual prevalence of seasonal
sickness. You’ll find it all in the reports if you live till next year.
You’re a lucky chap. _You_ haven’t got a wife to send out of harm’s
way. The hill stations ought to be full of women this year.”
139. “I think you’re inclined to exaggerate the talk in the _bazars_,”
said a young civilian in the secretariat. “Now I have observed--”
140. “I daresay you have,” said the Deputy Commissioner, “but you’ve
a great deal more to observe, my son. In the meantime, I wish to
observe to you--” and he drew him aside to discuss the construction of
the canal that was so dear to his heart. Holden went to his bungalow
and began to understand that he was not alone in the world, and
also that he was afraid for the sake of another--which is the most
soul-satisfying fear known to man.
141. Two months later, as the Deputy had foretold, Nature began to
audit her accounts with a red pencil. On the heels of the spring
reapings came a cry for bread, and the Government, which had decreed
that no man should die of want, sent wheat. Then came the cholera from
all four quarters of the compass. It struck a pilgrim-gathering of half
a million at a sacred shrine. Many died at the feet of their god; the
others broke and ran over the face of the land carrying the pestilence
with them. It smote a walled city and killed two hundred a day. The
people crowded the trains, hanging on to the foot-boards and squatting
on the roofs of the carriages, and the cholera followed them, for at
each station they dragged out the dead and the dying. They died by the
roadside, and the horses of the Englishmen shied at the corpses in the
grass. The rains did not come, and the earth turned to iron lest man
should escape death by hiding in her. The English sent their wives away
to the hills and went about their work, coming forward as they were
bidden to fill the gaps in the fighting-line. Holden, sick with fear of
losing his chiefest treasure on earth, had done his best to persuade
Ameera to go away with her mother to the Himalayas.
142. “Why should I go?” said she one evening on the roof.
143. “There is sickness, and people are dying, and all the white
_mem-log_ have gone.”
144. “All of them?”
145. “All--unless perhaps there remain some old scald-head who vexes
her husband’s heart by running risk of death.”
146. “Nay; who stays is my sister, and thou must not abuse her, for I
will be a scald-head too. I am glad all the bold _mem-log_ are gone.”
147. “Do I speak to a woman, or a babe? Go to the hills and I will
see to it that thou goest like a queen’s daughter. Think, child. In a
red-lacquered bullock-cart, veiled and curtained, with brass peacocks
upon the pole and red cloth hangings. I will send two orderlies for
guard, and--”
148. “Peace! Thou art the babe in speaking thus. What use are those
toys to me? _He_ would have patted the bullocks and played with the
housings. For his sake, perhaps--thou hast made me very English--I
might have gone. Now, I will not. Let the _mem-log_ run.”
149. “Their husbands are sending them, beloved.”
150. “Very good talk. Since when hast thou been my husband to tell me
what to do? I have but borne thee a son. Thou art only all the desire
of my soul to me. How shall I depart when I know that if evil befall
thee by the breadth of so much as my littlest finger-nail--is that not
small?--I should be aware of it though I were in paradise. And here,
this summer thou mayest die--_ai, janee_, die! and in dying they might
call to tend thee a white woman, and she would rob me in the last of
thy love!”
151. “But love is not born in a moment or on a death-bed!”
152. “What dost thou know of love, stone-heart? She would take thy
thanks at least and, by God and the Prophet and Beebee Miriam the
mother of thy Prophet, that I will never endure. My lord and my love,
let there be no more foolish talk of going away. Where thou art, I am.
It is enough.” She put an arm round his neck and a hand on his mouth.
153. There are not many happinesses so complete as those that are
snatched under the shadow of the sword. They sat together and laughed,
calling each other openly by every pet name that could move the wrath
of the gods. The city below them was locked up in its own torments.
Sulphur fires blazed in the streets; the conches in the Hindu temples
screamed and bellowed, for the gods were inattentive in those days.
There was a service in the great Mohammedan shrine, and the call to
prayer from the minarets was almost unceasing. They heard the wailing
in the houses of the dead, and once the shriek of a mother who had lost
a child and was calling for its return. In the gray dawn they saw the
dead borne out through the city gates, each litter with its own little
knot of mourners. Wherefore they kissed each other and shivered.
154. It was a red and heavy audit, for the land was very sick and
needed a little breathing space ere the torrent of cheap life should
flood it anew. The children of immature fathers and undeveloped mothers
made no resistance. They were cowed and sat still, waiting till the
sword should be sheathed in November if it were so willed. There
were gaps among the English, but the gaps were filled. The work of
superintending famine-relief, cholera-sheds, medicine-distribution, and
what little sanitation was possible, went forward because it was so
ordered.
155. Holden had been told to keep himself in readiness to move to
replace the next man who should fall. There were twelve hours in each
day when he could not see Ameera, and she might die in three. He was
considering what his pain would be if he could not see her for three
months, or if she died out of his sight. He was absolutely certain that
her death would be demanded--so certain that when he looked up from the
telegram and saw Pir Khan breathless in the doorway, he laughed aloud.
“And?” said he--
156. “When there is a cry in the night and the spirit flutters into the
throat, who has a charm that will restore? Come swiftly, heaven-born!
It is the black cholera.”
157. Holden galloped to his home. The sky was heavy with clouds, for
the long-deferred rains were near and the heat was stifling. Ameera’s
mother met him in the courtyard, whimpering: “She is dying. She is
nursing herself into death. She is all but dead. What shall I do,
_sahib_?”
158. Ameera was lying in the room in which Tota had been born. She made
no sign when Holden entered, because the human soul is a very lonely
thing and, when it is getting ready to go away, hides itself in a misty
border-land where the living may not follow. The black cholera does its
work quietly and without explanation. Ameera was being thrust out of
life as though the Angel of Death had himself put his hand upon her.
The quick breathing seemed to show that she was either afraid or in
pain, but neither eyes nor mouth gave any answer to Holden’s kisses.
There was nothing to be said or done. Holden could only wait and
suffer. The first drops of the rain began to fall on the roof, and he
could hear shouts of joy in the parched city.
159. The soul came back a little and the lips moved. Holden bent down
to listen. “Keep nothing of mine,” said Ameera. “Take no hair from my
head. _She_ would make thee burn it later on. That flame I should feel.
Lower! Stoop lower! Remember only that I was thine and bore thee a son.
Though thou wed a white woman to-morrow, the pleasure of receiving in
thy arms thy first son is taken from thee forever. Remember me when
thy son is born--the one that shall carry thy name before all men. His
misfortunes be on my head. I bear witness--I bear witness”--the lips
were forming the words on his ear--“that there is no God but--thee,
beloved!”
160. Then she died. Holden sat still, and all thought was taken from
him--till he heard Ameera’s mother lift the curtain.
161. “Is she dead, _sahib_?”
162. “She is dead.”
163. “Then I will mourn, and afterwards take an inventory of the
furniture in this house. For that will be mine. The _sahib_ does not
mean to resume it? It is so little, so very little, _sahib_, and I am
an old woman. I would like to lie softly.”
164. “For the mercy of God be silent a while. Go out and mourn where I
cannot hear.”
165. “_Sahib_, she will be buried in four hours.”
166. “I know the custom. I shall go ere she is taken away. That matter
is in thy hands. Look to it, that the bed on which--on which she lies--”
167. “Aha! That beautiful red-lacquered bed. I have long desired--”
168. “That the bed is left here untouched for my disposal. All else
in the house is thine. Hire a cart, take everything, go hence, and
before sunrise let there be nothing in this house but that which I have
ordered thee to respect.”
169. “I am an old woman. I would stay at least for the days of mourning
and the rains have just broken. Whither shall I go?”
170. “What is that to me? My order is that there is a going. The
house-gear is worth a thousand rupees, and my orderly shall bring thee
a hundred rupees to-night.”
171. “That is very little. Think of the cart-hire.”
172. “It shall be nothing unless thou goest, and with speed. O woman,
get hence and leave me with my dead!”
173. The mother shuffled down the staircase, and in her anxiety to
take stock of the house-fittings forgot to mourn. Holden stayed by
Ameera’s side and the rain roared on the roof. He could not think
connectedly by reason of the noise, though he made many attempts to
do so. Then four sheeted ghosts glided dripping into the room and
stared at him through their veils. They were the washers of the dead.
Holden left the room and went out to his horse. He had come in a
dead, stifling calm through ankle-deep dust. He found the courtyard a
rain-lashed pond alive with frogs; a torrent of yellow water ran under
the gate, and a roaring wind drove the bolts of the rain like buckshot
against the mud walls. Pir Khan was shivering in his little hut by the
gate, and the horse was stamping uneasily in the water.
174. “I have been told the _sahib’s_ order,” said Pir Khan. “It is
well. This house is now desolate. I go also, or my monkey face would
be a reminder of that which has been. Concerning the bed, I will bring
that to thy house yonder in the morning; but remember, _sahib_, it will
be to thee a knife turning in a green wound. I go upon a pilgrimage,
and I will take no money. I have grown fat in the protection of the
Presence whose sorrow is my sorrow. For the last time I hold his
stirrup.”
175. He touched Holden’s foot with both hands, and the horse sprang out
into the road, where the creaking bamboos were whipping the sky and
all the frogs were chuckling. Holden could not see for the rain in his
face. He put his hands before his eyes and muttered:
176. “Oh, you brute! You utter brute!”
177. The news of his trouble was already in his bungalow. He read the
knowledge in his butler’s eyes when Ahmed Khan brought in food, and
for the first and last time in his life laid a hand upon his master’s
shoulder, saying: “Eat, _sahib_, eat. Meat is good against sorrow. I
also have known. Moreover the shadows come and go, _sahib_; the shadows
come and go. These be curried eggs.”
178. Holden could neither eat nor sleep. The heavens sent down eight
inches of rain in that night and washed the earth clean. The waters
tore down walls, broke roads, and scoured open the shallow graves on
the Mohammedan burying-ground. All next day it rained, and Holden sat
still in his house considering his sorrow. On the morning of the third
day he received a telegram which said only: “Ricketts, Myndonie. Dying.
Holden relieve. Immediate.” Then he thought that before he had departed
he would look at the house wherein he had been master and lord. There
was a break in the weather, and the rank earth steamed with vapour.
179. He found that the rains had torn down the mud pillars of the
gateway, and the heavy wooden gate that had guarded his life hung
lazily from one hinge. There was grass three inches high in the
courtyard; Pir Khan’s lodge was empty, and the sodden thatch sagged
between the beams. A gray squirrel was in possession of the veranda,
as if the house had been untenanted for thirty years instead of three
days. Ameera’s mother had removed everything except some mildewed
matting. The _tick-tick_ of the little scorpions as they hurried
across the floor was the only sound in the house. Ameera’s room and
the other one where Tota had lived were heavy with mildew; and the
narrow staircase leading to the roof was streaked and stained with
rain-borne mud. Holden saw all these things, and came out again to meet
in the road Durga Dass, his landlord--portly, affable, clothed in white
muslin, and driving a C-spring buggy. He was overlooking his property
to see how the roofs stood the stress of the first rains.
180. “I have heard,” said he, “you will not take this place any more,
_sahib_?”
181. “What are you going to do with it?”
182. “Perhaps I shall let it again.”
183. “Then I will keep it on while I am away.”
184. Durga Dass was silent for some time. “You shall not take it on,
_sahib_,” he said. “When I was a young man I also--But to-day I am a
member of the Municipality. Ho! Ho! No. When the birds have gone, what
need to keep the nest? I will have it pulled down--the timber will sell
for something always. It shall be pulled down, and the Municipality
shall make a road across as they desire, from the burning-ghaut to the
city wall, so that no man may say where this house stood.”
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS FOR STUDY
1. Using the term “Emotion”[22] broadly, make a list of all the
emotions you can.
2. Which of these are displayed in “The Last Class”?
3. Which in “Without Benefit of Clergy”?
4. Cite different passages, by referring to the numbered paragraphs, in
which certain specific emotions are displayed.
5. Do you notice any emotional expressions which seem to you to be
either extravagant, or weak, or in any way untrue to life?
6. Point out how the author conveys the ideas of emotion, such as by
emotional words, gestures, attitudes, etc.
7. Write five short original paragraphs expressing five different
emotions, using varied means of conveying the impressions of strong
feeling.
8. Select from some magazine a story of the emotional type, and point
out in a few words why you consider it to be a typically emotional
story.
TEN REPRESENTATIVE STORIES OF EMOTION OR SENTIMENT
“A Doctor of The Old School,” Ian Maclaren, in _The Days of Auld
Lang Syne_.
“A Descent into the Maelstrom,” Edgar Allan Poe, in _Tales_.
“The Duchess at Prayer,” Edith Wharton, in _Crucial Instances_.
“A Lear of the Steppes,” Ivan Turgeneff, translated in _The Book of
The Short-Story_. Jessup and Canby.
“The Death of the Dauphin,” Alphonse Daudet, translated in _Little
French Masterpieces_.
“The Birthmark,” Nathaniel Hawthorne, in _Mosses From an Old Manse_.
“Tennessee’s Partner,” Bret Harte, in _The Luck of Roaring Camp and
Other Stories_.
“The Death of Olivier Becaille,” Émile Zola, translated in
_Masterpieces of Fiction_.
“They,” Rudyard Kipling, in _Traffic and Discoveries_.
“Juggler to ‘Our Lady,’” Anatole France, in _Short-Story
Masterpieces_.
FOOTNOTES:
[20] Emotion is a broad word loosely used to embrace all the tones of
inner feeling, from the palest sentiment depicted by a Jane Austen, to
the darkest passion of a Werther.--_Writing the Short-Story_, p. 181,
which see for a fuller discussion of emotion in the short-story.
[21] “S’il tient sa langue, il tient la clé qui de ses chaînes le
délivre.”--FREDERIC MISTRAL, a poet friend of Daudet’s.
[22] NOTE.--Any good psychology is likely to help you understand the
nature of emotion in general.
IV
HUMOROUS STORIES
_The Ransom of Red Chief._--O. HENRY
_The Courting of T’Nowhead’s Bell._--J. M. BARRIE
Sydney Smith uses this word [humor] to cover any thing that
is ridiculous and laughable. So the epithet _comic_ is quite
indiscriminately applied. But we ought not to submit to this
loose application; for there are plenty of other words to make
proper distinctions for us amid our pleasurable moods, and permit
us to reserve humor for something which is neither punning, wit,
satire, nor comedy. Humor may avail itself of all these mental
exercises, but only as a manager casts his stock company to set
forth the prevailing spirit of a play. Comedy, for instance,
represents sorrows, passions, and annoyances, but shows them
without the sombre purpose of tragedy to enforce a supreme will
at any cost. All our weaknesses threaten in comedy to result in
serious embarrassments, but there is such inexhaustible material
for laughter in the whims and follies with which we baffle
ourselves and others, that the tragic threat is collared just in
time and shaken into pleasure. All kinds of details of our life
are represented, which tragedy could never tolerate in its main
drift towards the pathos of defeated human wills and broken hearts.
Tricks, vices, fatuities, crotchets, vanities, play their game for
a stake no higher than the mirth of outwitting each other; and
they all pay penalties of a light kind which God exacts smilingly
for the sake of keeping our disorders at a minimum. Comedy also
finds a great deal of its charm in the unconsciousness of an
infirmity. We exhibit ourselves unawares: each one is perfectly
understood by everybody but himself; so we plot and vapor through
an intrigue with placards on each back, where all but the wearers
can indulge their mirth at seeing us parading so innocently with
advertisements of our price and quality.--JOHN WEISS, _Wit, Humor,
and Shakespeare_.
HUMOROUS STORIES
There are as many kinds of humorous stories as there are kinds of
humor, ranging from gentle mirth, comedy, fun, and farce, to burlesque,
ridicule, satire and irony. Some stories are typically humorous in
their central situation, as Mark Twain’s “The Celebrated Jumping
Frog of Calaveras County”; others abound in a whole series of funny
situations, as “The King of Boyville,” by William Allen White; others,
again, are rich in the humorous sayings by the writer, rather than
revealed in humorous plot, as in Artemus Ward’s sketch, “Horace
Greeley’s Ride to Placerville”; still others put the humor into the
speech of the characters, as in “The Phonograph and the Graft,” by O.
Henry; while yet others exhibit two or more of the foregoing kinds, and
are by turns gay, or whimsical, or satirical, as the characters and
happenings may permit, mingling humor of plot with mirth of word and
incident.
The two chief ingredients of humor--though for the most part it defies
analysis--are surprise, and a feeling of incongruity. But these must
be accompanied by no higher emotion. It would surprise us to meet the
incongruous sight of a half-clad child struggling in the snow, but
the vision would not be humorous--the higher emotion of pity would
preclude that. But to see an arrogant fop stripped of his finery and
floundering and spluttering in a snow drift into which he had been
tossed, _would_ be funny--to others.
Merely for a story to possess humor would not warrant our classing it
as a humorous story, for humor is a sunny ray gleaming often through
literature and life, but when the typical spirit and prevailing
treatment of the story are humorous, it may properly be so entitled.
HENRY AND HIS WRITINGS
William Sidney Porter, otherwise known as “O. Henry,” was born in
1867, in Greensboro, N. C.--the descendant of several governors of
that state, it may be remarked in passing. While still very young he
went to Texas and received his education at an academy there. Because
of poor health he was unable to attend college, so he spent two and
a half years of his early manhood on a cattle ranch. Following that
period came his journalistic work on the Houston _Post_, and a little
ten-page weekly story-paper of his own, _The Iconoclast_--afterwards
renamed _The Rolling Stone_--most of the stories for which he wrote
himself. After several years in Houston, he visited Central America
with a friend--a trip which, later, yielded rich material for his first
book. Then followed a short period as a drug clerk in Austin, Texas.
Next we see him in New Orleans, again embarked upon literary work;
and there it was that he first showed real promise as a short-story
writer, and there also that he adopted his unique pseudonym--the
surname of which was selected at random from a newspaper account of a
social function, and the initial letter because it was the “easiest
letter written.” About eight years before his death he came to New
York, in response to an offer from one of the magazine editors there,
and after that his name became well-known and his success assured.
He died in New York City, June 5, 1910, at the age of forty-two. His
three earliest books are perhaps the ones by which he is best known;
_Cabbages and Kings_, _The Four Million_, and _The Trimmed Lamp_.
Eleven volumes of short-stories comprise his literary output. The later
stories do not enhance his reputation, though some of them are in his
best vein--notably “The Ransom of Red Chief,” contained in the volume
_Whirligigs_, published the year of his death. His last book, _Sixes
and Sevens_, was issued posthumously, in 1911.
* * * * *
Of all short-story writers O. Henry was easily first as a master of
surprise. The sudden and often astounding reversals at the end of his
stories became delightfully characteristic, and the reader with the
O. Henry habit played a happy though always losing game with himself
in trying to forecast the denouement of each new story. Sometimes the
yarn-spinner would delight in leading us to curl our lip, and say,
“Pshaw, O. Henry is employing a rather old device--in fact, this is
quite trite--” and then all in an instant the sly phrase would peep
forth to show that we had been caught from ambush; for O. Henry had
scant reverence for the reader’s dignity--he poked fun at him as
laughingly as could Shakespeare himself, on occasion.
No other writer ever made slang so really funny, yet few knew better
the richness of serious English diction for really literary ends. Not
that he embellished his sentences, but that he appraised every word
at its true value before uttering it as literary coin. When he said
that one of his characters was “denounced by the name of----” (I have
forgotten what), he extracted the full essence from those six words,
and that is art.
Other short-story writers have been as trenchant in wit, others
as keen in observation, but none has known so wide a variety of
common-folk as O. Henry. Four great types he understood with rare
completeness: the Texan (_Heart of the West_), the Central American
(_Cabbages and Kings_), the middle-and lower-class New Yorker (_The
Four Million_),--and Everybody Else (_all of his eleven books of
short-stories_).
O. Henry’s advice to young writers as to the secret of short-story
writing is well known. “There are two rules,” he said. “The first
rule is to write stories that please yourself. There is no second
rule.” He was once facetiously asked if there were a second rule,
what that rule would be. “Sell the story,” he answered.--G. J.
NATHAN, _O. Henry in His Own Bagdad_. _The Bookman_, vol. 31.
O. Henry has often been called “the Yankee Maupassant,” and up to
a certain point the characterization is suggestive. His stories
have the swiftness and point of the anecdote, as Maupassant’s
have. He employs just enough art to keep alive the reader’s
interest for the laugh or the gasp to which everything else leads
up.... As a humorist he was American to the finger tips. That is
to say, he secured his effects by over-statement, which is the
salient characteristic of American humor.... Mark Twain was a world
humorist; O. Henry was an American humorist.--_A Typically American
Short-Story Writer_ (_Current Literature_, vol. 49).
The author seems to know almost every type of man--the rich and
portly financier, the “fly” newsboy or district messenger, the
denizens of the great hotels, the “salesladies,” the chorus girls,
the women in the shop, the raffish hangers-on of the saloons, the
gamblers, and the grafters.... Mr. Porter is a real _flâneur_ of
the American type, only, he confines himself to no boulevard, to
no city, to no state, nor even to a single country. The world,
in fact, is his oyster, and he has learned almost unconsciously
to open it and to extract from it alike the meat and the salty
juices.... He gets down to the very heart of things. He sees the
humour and the pathos blended; yet, on the whole, he is an optimist
... who believes that in every human being there is to be found
something good, however mixed it may be with other qualities;
and, like a true American, he can see and chuckle at the humour
of it all.--HARRY THURSTON PECK, _Some Representative American
Story-Tellers_, _The Bookman_, vol. 31.
FURTHER REFERENCES FOR READING ON O. HENRY
_Some American Story-Tellers_, Frederic Taber Cooper (1911); _Life of
O. Henry_, Peyton Steger (1911); _O. Henry Biography_, C. Alphonso
Smith (1916). Magazine articles: _The Bookman: The Personal O. Henry_,
29, 345; 29, 579; _O. Henry’s Shorter Stories_, Justus Miles Forman,
31, 131; _Sketch of O. Henry_, 31, 456; _Representative American
Story-Tellers_, Harry Thurston Peck, 31, 477; _O. Henry in His Own
Bagdad_, G. J. Nathan, 31, 477. _North American Review_, 187, 781.
THE RANSOM OF RED CHIEF[23]
BY O. HENRY
[Sidenote: INTRODUCTION.]
[Sidenote: Setting and characters.]
[Sidenote: A favorite form of humor with O. Henry.]
It looked like a good thing; but wait till I tell you. We were down
South, in Alabama--Bill Driscoll and myself--when this kidnapping idea
struck us. It was, as Bill afterward expressed it, “during a moment of
temporary mental apparition”; but we didn’t find that out till later.
[Sidenote: Setting more specific.]
[Sidenote: Satire of contrast--frequent with author.]
2. There was a town down there, as flat as a flannel-cake, and called
Summit, of course. It contained inhabitants of as undeleterious and
self-satisfied a class of peasantry as ever clustered around a Maypole.
[Sidenote: The narrator is not consistently ungrammatical.]
[Sidenote: The introduction develops the foundation of the PLOT
SITUATION gradually.]
3. Bill and me had a joint capital of about six hundred dollars, and we
needed just two thousand dollars more to pull off a fraudulent town-lot
scheme in Western Illinois with. We talked it over on the front steps
of the hotel. Philoprogenitiveness, says we, is strong in semi-rural
communities; therefore, and for other reasons, a kidnapping project
ought to do better there than in the radius of newspapers that send
reporters out in plain clothes to stir up talk about such things. We
know that Summit couldn’t get after us with anything stronger than
constables and, maybe, some lackadaisical blood-hounds and a diatribe
or two in the Weekly Farmers’ Budget. So, it looked good.
[Sidenote: The humor takes the form of situation, diction, satire, and
sly little surprises throughout.]
4. We selected for our victim the only child of a prominent citizen
named Ebenezer Dorset. The father was respectable and tight, a mortgage
fancier and a stern, upright collection-plate passer and forecloser.
The kid was a boy of ten, with bas-relief freckles, and hair the color
of the cover of the magazine you buy at the news-stand when you want to
catch a train. Bill and me figured that Ebenezer would melt down for a
ransom of two thousand dollars to a cent. But wait till I tell you.
[Sidenote: Setting for main action.]
5. About two miles from Summit was a little mountain, covered with a
dense cedar brake. On the rear elevation of this mountain was a cave.
There we stored provisions.
[Sidenote: MAIN ACTION BEGINS: FIRST PLOT INCIDENT.]
6. One evening after sundown, we drove in a buggy past old Dorset’s
house. The kid was in the street, throwing rocks at the kitten on the
opposite fence.
7. “Hey, little boy!” says Bill, “would you like to have a bag of candy
and a nice ride?”
[Sidenote: CONTRIBUTORY INCIDENT.]
[Sidenote: As a matter of technique, note that contributory incidents
might be varied or omitted without altering the plot _essentially_.
These are not all specifically noted in this story.]
8. The boy catches Bill neatly in the eye with a piece of brick.
9. “That will cost the old man an extra five hundred dollars,” says
Bill, climbing over the wheel.
10. That boy put up a fight like a welterweight cinnamon bear; but, at
last, we got him down in the bottom of the buggy and drove away. We
took him up to the cave, and I hitched the horse in the cedar brake.
After dark I drove the buggy to the little village, three miles away,
where we had hired it, and walked back to the mountain.
[Sidenote: “Bill” and “the Kid” serve as the contesting characters.]
11. Bill was pasting court-plaster over the scratches and bruises on
his features. There was a fire burning behind the big rock at the
entrance of the cave, and the boy was watching a pot of boiling coffee,
with two buzzard tail-feathers stuck in his red hair. He points a stick
at me when I come up, and says:
[Sidenote: Note title of the story.]
[Sidenote: “Bill” never smiles.]
12. “Ha! cursed paleface, do you dare to enter the camp of Red Chief,
the terror of the plains?”
[Sidenote: Note how the author uses swift changes to humorous effect.]
13. “He’s all right now,” says Bill, rolling up his trousers and
examining some bruises on his shins. “We’re playing Indian. We’re
making Buffalo Bill’s show look like magic-lantern views of Palestine
in the town hall. I’m Old Hank, the Trapper, Red Chief’s captive, and
I’m to be scalped at daybreak. By Geronimo! that kid can kick hard.”
[Sidenote: ESSENTIAL, or PLOT, SITUATION.]
14. Yes, sir, that kid seemed to be having the time of his life. The
fun of camping out in a cave had made him forget that he was a captive
himself. He immediately christened me Snake-eye, the Spy, and announced
that, when his braves returned from the warpath, I was to be broiled
at the stake at the rising of the sun.
15. Then we had supper; and he filled his mouth full of bacon and bread
and gravy, and began to talk. He made a during-dinner speech something
like this:
[Sidenote: Somewhat overdone, but we must judge the story not as comedy
but as farce, which blithely assumes the improbable as true.]
16. “I like this fine. I never camped out before; but I had a pet
'possum once, and I was nine last birthday. I hate to go to school.
Rats ate up sixteen of Jimmy Talbot’s aunt’s speckled hen’s eggs. Are
there any real Indians in these woods? I want some more gravy. Does the
trees moving make the wind blow? We had five puppies. What makes your
nose so red, Hank? My father has lots of money. Are the stars hot? I
whipped Ed Walker twice, Saturday. I don’t like girls. You dasent catch
toads unless with a string. Do oxen make any noise? Why are oranges
round? Have you got beds to sleep on in this cave? Amos Murray has got
six toes. A parrot can talk, but a monkey or a fish can’t. How many
does it take to make twelve?”
[Sidenote: ESSENTIAL SITUATION.]
17. Every few minutes he would remember that he was a pesky red-skin,
and pick up his stick rifle and tip-toe to the mouth of the cave to
rubber for the scouts of the hated paleface. Now and then he would let
out a war-whoop that made Old Hank the Trapper, shiver. That boy had
Bill terrorized from the start.
18. “Red Chief,” says I to the kid, “would you like to go home?”
[Sidenote: KEY.]
[Sidenote: Use of the unexpected.]
19. “Aw, what for?” says he. “I don’t have any fun at home. I hate to
go to school. I like to camp out. You won’t take me back home again,
Snake-eye, will you?”
20. “Not right away,” says I. “We’ll stay here in the cave a while.”
21. “All right!” says he. “That’ll be fine. I never had such fun in all
my life.”
[Sidenote: A tribute throughout to the dime dreadful.]
[Sidenote: Narrator lapses now and then into “better” language.]
22. We went to bed about eleven o’clock. We spread down some wide
blankets and quilts and put Red Chief between us. We weren’t afraid
he’d run away. He kept us awake for three hours, jumping up and
reaching for his rifle and screeching: “Hist! pard,” in mine and Bill’s
ears, as the fancied crackle of a twig or the rustle of a leaf revealed
to his young imagination the stealthy approach of the outlaw band.
At last, I fell into a troubled sleep, and dreamed that I had been
kidnapped and chained to a tree by a ferocious pirate with red hair.
[Sidenote: Contrast.]
23. Just at daybreak, I was awakened by a series of awful screams from
Bill. They weren’t yells, or howls, or shouts, or whoops, or yawps,
such as you’d expect from a manly set of vocal organs--they were simply
indecent, terrifying, humiliating screams, such as women emit when
they see ghosts or caterpillars. It’s an awful thing to hear a strong,
desperate, fat man scream incontinently in a cave at daybreak.
24. I jumped up to see what the matter was. Red Chief was sitting
on Bill’s chest, with one hand twined in Bill’s hair. In the other
he had the sharp case-knife we used for slicing bacon; and he was
industriously and realistically trying to take Bill’s scalp, according
to the sentence that had been pronounced upon him the evening before.
[Sidenote: PLOT SITUATION.]
[Sidenote: Note that the author develops his story by the use of
progressive plot _situations_ and contributory (non-essential)
incidents.]
25. I got the knife away from the kid and made him lie down again. But,
from that moment, Bill’s spirit was broken. He laid down on his side
of the bed, but he never closed an eye again in sleep as long as that
boy was with us. I dozed off for a while, but along toward sun-up I
remembered that Red Chief had said I was to be burned at the stake at
the rising of the sun. I wasn’t nervous or afraid; but I sat up and lit
my pipe and leaned against a rock.
26. “What you getting up so soon for, Sam?” asked Bill.
27. “Me?” says I. “Oh, I got a kind of a pain in my shoulder. I thought
sitting up would rest it.”
28. “You’re a liar!” says Bill. “You’re afraid. You was to be burned at
sunrise, and you was afraid he’d do it. And he would, too, if he could
find a match. Ain’t it awful, Sam? Do you think anybody will pay out
money to get a little imp like that back home?”
29. “Sure,” said I. “A rowdy kid like that is just the kind that
parents dote on. Now, you and the Chief get up and cook breakfast,
while I go up on the top of this mountain and reconnoitre.”
[Sidenote: Note the humorous use of the language of
“literature”--sparingly.]
[Sidenote: PLOT SITUATION.]
[Sidenote: KEY.]
30. I went up on the peak of the little mountain and ran my eye over
the contiguous vicinity. Over toward Summit I expected to see the
sturdy yeomanry of the village armed with scythes and pitchforks
beating the country-side for the dastardly kidnappers. But what I saw
was a peaceful landscape dotted with one man ploughing with a dun
mule. Nobody was dragging the creek; no couriers dashed hither and
yon, bringing tidings of no news to the distracted parents. There was
a sylvan attitude of somnolent sleepiness pervading the section of
the external outward surface of Alabama that lay exposed to my view.
“Perhaps,” says I to myself, “it has not yet been discovered that the
wolves have borne away the tender lambkin from the fold. Heaven help
the wolves!” says I, and I went down the mountain to breakfast.
31. When I got to the cave I found Bill backed up against the side of
it, breathing hard, and the boy threatening to smash him with a rock
half as big as a cocoanut.
[Sidenote: Contrast of unexpected.]
32. “He put a red-hot boiled potato down my back,” explained Bill, “and
then mashed it with his foot; and I boxed his ears. Have you got a gun
about you, Sam?”
33. I took the rock away from the boy and kind of patched up the
argument. “I’ll fix you,” says the kid to Bill. “No man ever yet struck
the Red Chief but what he got paid for it. You better beware!”
[Sidenote: Return to first style of narration.]
34. After breakfast the kid takes a piece of leather with strings
wrapped around it out of his pocket and goes outside the cave unwinding
it.
[Sidenote: A Frank R. Stockton expression.]
35. “What’s he up to now?” says Bill, anxiously. “You don’t think he’ll
run away, do you, Sam?”
36. “No fear of it,” says I. “He don’t seem to be much of a home body.
But we’ve got to fix up some plan about the ransom. There don’t seem
to be much excitement around Summit on account of his disappearance;
but maybe they haven’t realized yet that he’s gone. His folks may think
he’s spending the night with Aunt Jane or one of the neighbors. Anyhow,
he’ll be missed to-day. To-night we must get a message to his father
demanding the two thousand dollars for his return.”
[Sidenote: Plot situation hidden, action halts.]
37. Just then we heard a kind of war-whoop, such as David might have
emitted when he knocked out the champion Goliath. It was a sling that
Red Chief had pulled out of his pocket, and he was whirling it around
his head.
38. I dodged, and heard a heavy thud and a kind of a sigh from Bill,
like a horse gives out when you take his saddle off. A niggerhead
rock the size of an egg had caught Bill just behind the left ear. He
loosened himself all over and fell in the fire across the frying pan
of hot water for washing the dishes. I dragged him out and poured cold
water on his head for half an hour.
[Sidenote: This expression is more clever than natural to “Bill.”]
39. By and by, Bill sits up and feels behind his ear and says: “Sam, do
you know who my favorite Biblical character is?”
40. “Take it easy,” says I. “You’ll come to your senses presently.”
[Sidenote: Slaughter of the Innocents.]
41. “King Herod,” says he. “You won’t go away and leave me here alone,
will you, Sam?”
[Sidenote: See ¶4.]
42. I went out and caught that boy and shook him until his freckles
rattled.
[Sidenote: Note the use of the incongruous.]
43. “If you don’t behave,” says I, “I’ll take you straight home. Now,
are you going to be good, or not?”
44. “I was only funning,” says he sullenly. “I didn’t mean to hurt Old
Hank. But what did he hit me for? I’ll behave, Snake-eye, if you won’t
send me home, and if you’ll let me play the Black Scout to-day.”
45. “I don’t know the game,” says I. “That’s for you and Mr. Bill to
decide. He’s your playmate for the day. I’m going away for a while, on
business. Now, you come in and make friends with him and say you are
sorry for hurting him, or home you go, at once.”
[Sidenote: PLOT INCIDENT.]
46. I made him and Bill shake hands, and then I took Bill aside and
told him I was going to Poplar Cove, a little village three miles from
the cave, and find out what I could about how the kidnapping had been
regarded in Summit. Also, I thought it best to send a peremptory letter
to old man Dorset that day, demanding the ransom and dictating how it
should be paid.
[Sidenote: Do these men seem like actual criminals? See comment on ¶
16.]
47. “You know, Sam,” says Bill, “I’ve stood by you without batting an
eye in earthquakes, fire and flood--in poker games, dynamite outrages,
police raids, train robberies and cyclones. I never lost my nerve yet
till we kidnapped that two-legged skyrocket of a kid. He’s got me
going. You won’t leave me long with him, will you, Sam?”
[Sidenote: Irony.]
48. “I’ll be back some time this afternoon,” says I. “You must keep the
boy amused and quiet till I return. And now we’ll write the letter to
old Dorset.”
[Sidenote: KEY.]
49. Bill and I got paper and pencil and worked on the letter while
Red Chief, with a blanket wrapped around him, strutted up and down,
guarding the mouth of the cave. Bill begged me tearfully to make the
ransom fifteen hundred dollars instead of two thousand. “I ain’t
attempting,” says he, “to decry the celebrated moral aspect of parental
affection, but we’re dealing with humans, and it ain’t human for
anybody to give up two thousand dollars for that forty-pound chunk of
freckled wildcat. I’m willing to take a chance at fifteen hundred
dollars. You can charge the difference up to me.”
[Sidenote: PREPARATION FOR CRISIS.]
50. So, to relieve Bill, I acceded, and we collaborated a letter that
ran this way:
[Sidenote: In intelligence of expression, does this letter correspond
to the general style of the narrator?]
_Ebenezer Dorset, Esq.:_
We have your boy concealed in a place far from Summit. It is
useless for you or the most skilful detectives to attempt to find
him. Absolutely, the only terms on which you can have him restored
to you are these: We demand fifteen hundred dollars in large bills
for his return; the money to be left at midnight at the same spot
and in the same box as your reply--as hereinafter described. If you
agree to these terms, send your answer in writing by a solitary
messenger to-night at half-past eight o’clock. After crossing Owl
Creek, on the road to Poplar Cove, there are three large trees
about a hundred yards apart, close to the fence of the wheat field
on the right-hand side. At the bottom of the fence-post, opposite
the third tree, will be found a small paste-board box.
The messenger will place the answer in this box and return
immediately to Summit.
If you attempt any treachery or fail to comply with our demand as
stated, you will never see your boy again.
If you pay the money as demanded, he will be returned to you safe
and well within three hours. These terms are final, and if you do
not accede to them no further communication will be attempted.
TWO DESPERATE MEN.
51. I addressed this letter to Dorset, and put it in my pocket. As I
was about to start, the kid comes up to me and says:
[Sidenote: Character delineation and by-play.]
52. “Aw, Snake-eye, you said I could play the Black Scout while you was
gone.”
53. “Play it, of course,” says I. “Mr. Bill will play with you. What
kind of a game is it?”
54. “I’m the Black Scout,” says Red Chief, “and I have to ride to the
stockade to warn the settlers that the Indians are coming. I’m so tired
of playing Indian myself. I want to be the Black Scout.”
55. “All right,” says I. “It sounds harmless to me. I guess Mr. Bill
will help you foil the pesky savages.”
56. “What am I to do?” says Bill, looking at the kid suspiciously.
57. “You are the hoss,” says Black Scout. “Get down on your hands and
knees. How can I ride to the stockade without a hoss?”
58. “You’d better keep him interested,” said I, “till we get the scheme
going. Loosen up.”
59. Bill gets down on his all fours, and a look comes in his eye like a
rabbit’s when you catch it in a trap.
[Sidenote: The two are typically in character in these paragraphs.]
60. “How far is it to the stockade, Kid?” he asks, in a husky manner of
voice.
61. “Ninety miles,” says the Black Scout. “And you have to hump
yourself to get there on time. Whoa, now!”
62. The Black Scout jumps on Bill’s back and digs his heels in his side.
63. “For Heaven’s sake,” says Bill, “hurry back, Sam, as soon as you
can. I wish we hadn’t made the ransom more than a thousand. Say, you
quit kicking me or I’ll get up and warm you good.”
[Sidenote: PLOT SITUATION.]
64. I walked over to Poplar Cove and sat around the post-office
and store, talking with the chawbacons that came in to trade. One
whiskerando says that he hears Summit is all upset on account of Elder
Ebenezer Dorset’s boy having been lost or stolen. That was all I wanted
to know. I bought some smoking tobacco, referred casually to the price
of black-eyed peas, posted my letter surreptitiously and came away. The
postmaster said the mail-carrier would come by in an hour to take the
mail on to Summit.
65. When I got back to the cave Bill and the boy were not to be found.
I explored the vicinity of the cave, and risked a yodel or two, but
there was no response.
66. So I lighted my pipe and sat down on a mossy bank to await
developments.
67. In about half an hour I heard the bushes rustle, and Bill wabbled
out into the little glade in front of the cave. Behind him was the
kid, stepping softly like a scout, with a broad grin on his face. Bill
stopped, took off his hat and wiped his face with a red handkerchief.
The kid stopped about eight feet behind him.
[Sidenote: Typical O. Henry speech in this paragraph.]
68. “Sam,” says Bill, “I suppose you’ll think I’m a renegade, but I
couldn’t help it. I’m a grown person with masculine proclivities and
habits of self-defence, but there is a time when all systems of egotism
and predominance fail. The boy is gone. I have sent him home. All is
off. There was martyrs in old times,” goes on Bill, “that suffered
death rather than give up the particular graft they enjoyed. None of
’em ever was subjugated to such supernatural tortures as I have been. I
tried to be faithful to our articles of depredation; but there came a
limit.”
69. “What’s the trouble, Bill?” I asks him.
70. “I was rode,” says Bill, “the ninety miles to the stockade, not
barring an inch. Then, when the settlers was rescued, I was given oats.
Sand ain’t a palatable substitute. And then, for an hour I had to try
to explain to him why there was nothin’ in holes, how a road can run
both ways and what makes the grass green. I tell you, Sam, a human can
only stand so much. I takes him by the neck of his clothes and drags
him down the mountain. On the way he kicks my legs black-and-blue from
the knees down; and I’ve got to have two or three bites on my thumb and
hand cauterized.
[Sidenote: Note the stage trick of a character in ignorance while the
audience enjoys his delusion. The surprise is his, not ours.]
71. “But he’s gone”--continues Bill--“gone home. I showed him the road
to Summit and kicked him about eight feet nearer there at one kick. I’m
sorry we lose the ransom; but it was either that or Bill Driscoll to
the madhouse.”
72. Bill is puffing and blowing but there is a look of ineffable peace
and growing content on his rose-pink features.
73. “Bill,” says I, “there isn’t any heart disease in your family, is
there?”
74. “No,” says Bill, “nothing chronic except malaria and accidents.
Why?”
75. “Then you might turn around,” says I, “and have a look behind you.”
[Sidenote: Suggestion.]
[Sidenote: Straight delineation. The former is the better art.]
[Sidenote: PLOT SITUATION.]
76. Bill turns and sees the boy, and loses his complexion and sits down
plump on the ground and begins to pluck aimlessly at grass and little
sticks. For an hour I was afraid for his mind. And then I told him
that my scheme was to put the whole job through immediately and that
we would get the ransom and be off with it by midnight if old Dorset
fell in with our proposition. So Bill braced up enough to give the kid
a weak sort of a smile and a promise to play the Russian in a Japanese
war with him as soon as he felt a little better.
[Sidenote: PLOT INCIDENT.]
77. I had a scheme for collecting that ransom without danger of being
caught by counterplots that ought to commend itself to professional
kidnappers. The tree under which the answer was to be left--and the
money later on--was close to the road fence with big, bare fields on
all sides. If a gang of constables should be watching for any one to
come for the note they could see him a long way off crossing the fields
or in the road. But no sirree! At half-past eight I was up in that tree
as well hidden as a tree toad, waiting for the messenger to arrive.
78. Exactly on time, a half-grown boy rides up the road on a bicycle,
locates the paste-board box at the foot of the fence-post, slips a
folded piece of paper into it and pedals away again back toward Summit.
79. I waited an hour and then concluded the thing was square. I slid
down the tree, got the note, slipped along the fence till I struck the
woods, and was back at the cave in another half an hour. I opened the
note, got near the lantern and read it to Bill. It was written with a
pen in a crabbed hand, and the sum and substance of it was this:
[Sidenote: MAIN PLOT INCIDENT.]
[Sidenote: CLIMAX.]
_Two Desperate Men._
Gentlemen: I received your letter to-day by post, in regard to the
ransom you ask for the return of my son. I think you are a little
high in your demands, and I hereby make you a counter-proposition,
which I am inclined to believe you will accept. You bring Johnny
home and pay me two hundred and fifty dollars in cash, and I agree
to take him off your hands. You had better come at night for the
neighbors believe he is lost, and I couldn’t be responsible for
what they would do to anybody they saw bringing him back.
Very respectfully,
EBENEZER DORSET.
80. “Great pirates of Penzance!” says I, “of all the impudent--”
[Sidenote: Suggestion.]
81. But I glanced at Bill, and hesitated. He had the most appealing
look in his eyes I ever saw on the face of a dumb or a talking brute.
[Sidenote: Serio-comic.]
82. “Sam,” says he, “what’s two hundred and fifty dollars, after all?
We’ve got the money. One more night of this kid will send me to a bed
in Bedlam. Besides being a thorough gentleman, I think Mr. Dorset is a
spendthrift for making us a liberal offer. You ain’t going to let the
chance go, are you?”
83. “Tell you the truth, Bill,” says I, “this little he ewe lamb has
somewhat got on my nerves, too. We’ll take him home, pay the ransom,
and make our get-away.”
[Sidenote: Extreme of contrast.]
84. We took him home that night. We got him to go by telling him that
his father had bought a silver-mounted rifle and a pair of moccasins
for him, and we were going to hunt bears the next day.
[Sidenote: DENOUEMENT.]
[Sidenote: CONTRASTING PLOT SITUATION--Summary of the plot-outcome.]
85. It was just twelve o’clock when we knocked at Ebenezer’s front
door. Just at the moment when I should have been abstracting the
fifteen hundred dollars from the box under the tree, according to the
original proposition, Bill was counting out two hundred and fifty
dollars into Dorset’s hand.
[Sidenote: Note free use of simile.]
86. When the kid found out we were going to leave him at home he
started up a howl like a calliope and fastened himself as tight as
a leech to Bill’s leg. His father peeled him away gradually, like a
porous plaster.
87. “How long can you hold him?” asks Bill.
88. “I’m not as strong as I used to be,” says old Dorset. “But I think
I can promise you ten minutes.”
[Sidenote: Humor of hyperbole.]
89. “Enough,” says Bill. “In ten minutes I shall cross the Central,
Southern and Middle Western States, and be legging it trippingly for
the Canadian border.”
[Sidenote: RESULTANT CLIMAX.]
90. And, as dark as it was, and as fat as Bill was, and as good a
runner as I am, he was a good mile and half out of Summit before I
could catch up with him.
BARRIE AND HIS WRITINGS
James Matthew Barrie was born at Kirriemuir (“Thrums”), Scotland,
on the 9th of May, 1860. He is the son of a physician, whom he has
lovingly embodied as “Dr. McQueen”; his mother and sister also will
live as “Jess” and “Leeby.” He was educated at Dumfries Academy,
entering the University of Edinburgh at eighteen, from which he was
graduated in 1882 with the degree of M.A., taking honors in English
literature. He began writing literary criticisms for the _Edinburgh
Courant_ at this period. Several months after his graduation Barrie
took a position on a Nottingham newspaper, leaving that city for
London in 1885, where his literary career commenced in earnest;
but success did not come until after the customary struggles and
hindrances to which young literary aspirants are ever subject. In
1893 he married Miss Ansell, an actress, whom he divorced in 1909.
Some of his best-known books are _Auld Licht Idylls_; _A Window in
Thrums_; _Margaret Ogilvy_; _My Lady Nicotine_; _The Little Minister_
(afterwards dramatized); _Sentimental Tommy_; _Tommy and Grizel_ (a
sequel), and _The Little White Bird_. He also wrote several plays, the
most notable of which are _The Professor’s Love Story_; _Peter Pan_ (a
partial dramatization of _The Little White Bird_); _Quality Street_;
and _What Every Woman Knows_. It is interesting to note that Mr. Barrie
did not succeed in securing the magazine publication of “The Courting
of T’Nowhead’s Bell,” which is given herewith; it was first issued
between book covers, in 1888.
* * * * *
Barrie is a versatile story-teller, though he deals mostly with Scotch
characters. His early work exhibits his short-story ability at its
best. The warm human interest of _A Window in Thrums_ and _Auld Licht
Idylls_, is matched only by Ian Maclaren’s _Beside the Bonnie Briar
Bush_ and _The Days of Auld Lang Syne_. A quaint character-humor, with
swift flashes of pathos, pervades all his work, which for local-color
and insight into the character of the Scotch rural dweller has won a
place of distinction among the stories of present-day writers. With
Barrie, realism is rarely unpleasant; he sees all things with a gentle
eye. Even when in his keen ability to penetrate to the heart of things
he discovers the weaknesses of humanity, he also finds redeeming
virtues. Thus his characters are continually disclosing their true
natures underneath the garb and custom of picturesque life, and we
feel ourselves to be kin to them, every one. His dialect in itself is
masterly and often deliciously humorous, so that actions and dialogue
in themselves common-place take on an extraordinary interest. No modern
writer has a greater gift of character-drawing, and none is more
sympathetically human in his interpretations of the Scotch commoner.
It is my contemptible weakness that if I say a character smiled
vacuously, I must smile vacuously; if he frowns or leers, I frown
or leer; if he is a coward or given to contortions, I cringe, or
twist my legs until I have to stop writing to undo the knot. I bow
with him, eat with him, and gnaw my moustache with him. If the
character be a lady with an exquisite laugh, I suddenly terrify you
by laughing exquisitely. One reads of the astounding versatility
of an actor who is stout and lean on the same evening, but what is
he to the novelist who is a dozen persons within the hour?--J. M.
BARRIE, _Margaret Ogilvy_.
There are writers who can plan out their story beforehand as
clearly as though it were a railway journey, and adhere throughout
to their original design--they draw up what playwrights call a
scenario--but I was never one of those. I spend a great deal of
time indeed in looking for the best road in the map and mark it
with red ink, but at the first bypath off my characters go. “Come
back,” I cry, “you are off the road.” “We prefer this way,” they
reply. I try bullying. “You are only people in a book,” I shout,
“and it is my book, and I can do what I like with you, so come
back!” But they seldom come, and it ends with my plodding after
them.--J. M. BARRIE, Introduction to _When a Man’s Single_.
The chief features of Barrie’s style are a quaintness of
expression, a simple directness of narrative, and an unfailing
sense of humor--often as though the author were chuckling to
himself as he wrote. His gift for descriptive writing--probably the
best test of “style”--is very marked, though he makes little of
it.--J. A. HAMMERTON, _J. M. Barrie and His Books_.
_Auld Licht Idylls_ is a set of regular descriptions of the life
of “Thrums,” with special reference to the ways and character of
the “Old Lights,” the stubborn conservative Scotch Puritans; it
contains also a most amusing and characteristic love story of the
sect (“The Courting of T’Nowhead’s Bell”), and a satiric political
skit.--CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER’S _Library of the World’s Best
Literature_.
By the time “Auld Licht Idylls” appeared, he had achieved a
reputation,--at least a local one. This book had an immediate
success, and ran rapidly through several editions. His mother had
been an Auld Licht in her youth.... Mrs. Barrie, knowing them
from the inside, could tell all sorts of quaint and marvellous
tales about them, whose humor was sure to please. It was from her
stories that the Idylls were mainly drawn, so she was in a sense a
collaborator with her son in their production.--HATTIE T. GRISWOLD,
_Personal Sketches of Recent Authors_.
As a literary artist he belongs in the foremost rank. He has that
sense of the typical in incident, of the universal in feeling, and
of the suggestive in language, which mark the chiefs of letters.
No one can express an idea with fewer strokes; he never expands a
sufficient hint into an essay. His management of the Scotch dialect
is masterly: he uses it sparingly, in the nearest form to English
compatible with retaining the flavor; he never makes it so hard as
to interfere with enjoyment; in few dialect writers do we feel so
little alienness.--CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER’S _Library of the World’s
Best Literature_.
FURTHER REFERENCES FOR READING ON BARRIE
_My Contemporaries in Fiction_, by J. D. C. Murray (1897); _Theology
of Modern Literature_, by S. Law Wilson (1899); _Fame and Fiction_, by
E. A. Bennett (1901); _J. M. Barrie and His Books_, by J. A. Hammerton
(1902).
FOR ANALYSIS
THE COURTING OF T’NOWHEAD’S BELL
BY JAMES MATTHEW BARRIE
For two years it had been notorious in the square that Sam’l Dickie
was thinking of courting T’Nowhead’s Bell, and that if little Sanders
Elshioner (which is the Thrums pronunciation of Alexander Alexander)
went in for her he might prove a formidable rival. Sam’l was a weaver
in the Tenements, and Sanders a coal-carter whose trade-mark was a bell
on his horse’s neck that told when coals were coming. Being something
of a public man, Sanders had not so high a social position as Sam’l,
but he had succeeded his father on the coal-cart, while the weaver had
already tried several trades. It had always been against Sam’l, too,
that once when the kirk was vacant he had advised the selection of the
third minister who preached for it on the ground that it came expensive
to pay a large number of candidates. The scandal of the thing was
hushed up, out of respect for his father, who was a God-fearing man,
but Sam’l was known by it in Lang Tammas’ circle. The coal-carter was
called Little Sanders to distinguish him from his father, who was
not much more than half his size. He had grown up with the name, and
its inapplicability now came home to nobody. Sam’l’s mother had been
more far-seeing than Sanders’. Her man had been called Sammy all his
life because it was the name he got as a boy, so when their eldest
son was born she spoke of him as Sam’l while still in his cradle. The
neighbours imitated her, and thus the young man had a better start in
life than had been granted to Sammy, his father.
2. It was Saturday evening--the night in the week when Auld Licht young
men fell in love. Sam’l Dickie, wearing a blue glengarry bonnet with
a red ball on the top, came to the door of a one-story house in the
Tenements and stood there wriggling, for he was in a suit of tweeds for
the first time that week, and did not feel at one in them. When his
feeling of being a stranger to himself wore off, he looked up and down
the road, which straggles between houses and gardens, and then, picking
his way over the puddles, crossed to his father’s henhouse and sat down
on it. He was now on his way to the square.
3. Eppie Fargus was sitting on an adjoining dike knitting stockings,
and Sam’l looked at her for a time.
4. “Is’t yersel, Eppie?” he said at last.
5. “It’s a’ that,” said Eppie.
6. “Hoo’s a’ wi’ ye?” asked Sam’l.
7. “We’re juist aff an’ on,” replied Eppie cautiously.
8. There was not much more to say, but as Sam’l sidled off the henhouse
he murmured politely, “Ay, ay.” In another minute he would have been
fairly started, but Eppie resumed the conversation.
9. “Sam’l,” she said, with a twinkle in her eye, “ye can tell Lisbeth
Fargus I’ll likely be drappin’ in on her aboot Munday or Teisday.”
10. Lisbeth was sister to Eppie, and wife of Tammas McQuhatty, better
known as T’Nowhead, which was the name of his farm. She was thus Bell’s
mistress.
11. Sam’l leaned against the henhouse as if all his desire to depart
had gone.
12. “Hoo d’ye kin I’ll be at the T’Nowhead the nicht?” he asked,
grinning in anticipation.
13. “Ou, I’se warrant ye’ll be after Bell,” said Eppie.
14. “Am no sure o’ that,” said Sam’l, trying to leer. He was enjoying
himself now.
15. “Am no sure o’ that,” he repeated, for Eppie seemed lost in
stitches.
16. “Sam’l--”
17. “Ay.”
[Sidenote: Asking her.]
18. “Ye’ll be spierin’ her sune noo, I dinna doot?”
19. This took Sam’l, who had only been courting Bell for a year or two,
a little aback.
20. “Hoo d’ye mean, Eppie?” he asked.
21. “Maybe ye’ll do’t the nicht.”
22. “Na, there’s nae hurry,” said Sam’l.
23. “Weel, we’re a’ coontin’ on’t, Sam’l.”
24. “Gae wa wi’ ye.”
25. “What for no?”
26. “Gae wa wi’ ye,” said Sam’l again.
27. “Bell’s gie an’ fond o’ ye, Sam’l.”
28. “Ay,” said Sam’l.
29. “But am dootin’ ye’re a fell billy wi’ the lasses.”
30. “Ay, oh, I d’na kin, moderate, moderate,” said Sam’l, in high
delight.
31. “I saw ye,” said Eppie, speaking with a wire in her mouth, “gaein’
on terr’ble wi’ Mysy Haggart at the pump last Saturday.”
32. “We was juist amoosin’ oorsels,” said Sam’l.
33. “It’ll be nae amoosement to Mysy,” said Eppie, “gin ye brak her
heart.”
34. “Losh, Eppie,” said Sam’l, “I didna think o’ that.”
35. “Ye maun kin weel, Sam’l, 'at there’s mony a lass wid jump at ye.”
36. “Ou, weel,” said Sam’l, implying that a man must take these things
as they come.
37. “For ye’re a dainty chield to look at, Sam’l.”
38. “Do ye think so, Eppie? Ay, ay; oh, I d’na kin am onything by the
ordinar.”
39. “Ye mayna be,” said Eppie, “but lasses doesna do to be ower
partikler.”
40. Sam’l resented this, and prepared to depart again.
41. “Ye’ll no tell Bell that?” he asked anxiously.
42. “Tell her what?”
43. “Aboot me an’ Mysy.”
44. “We’ll see hoo ye behave yersel, Sam’l.”
45. “No 'at I care, Eppie; ye can tell her gin ye like. I widna think
twice o’ tellin’ her mysel.”
46. “The Lord forgie ye for leein’, Sam’l,” said Eppie, as he
disappeared down Tammy Tosh’s close. Here he came upon Henders Webster.
[Sidenote: Alley, or court.]
47. “Ye’re late, Sam’l,” said Henders.
48. “What for?”
49. “Ou, I was thinkin’ ye wid be gaen the length o’ T’Nowhead the
nicht, an’ I saw Sanders Elshioner makkin’s wy there an oor syne.”
50. “Did ye?” cried Sam’l, adding craftily, “but it’s naething to me.”
51. “Tod, lad,” said Henders, “gin ye dinna buckle to, Sanders’ll be
carryin’ her off.”
52. Sam’l flung back his head and passed on.
53. “Sam’l!” cried Henders after him.
54. “Ay,” said Sam’l, wheeling round.
55. “Gie Bell a kiss frae me.”
56. The full force of this joke struck neither all at once. Sam’l began
to smile at it as he turned down the school-wynd, and it came upon
Henders while he was in his garden feeding his ferret. Then he slapped
his legs gleefully, and explained the conceit to Will’um Byars, who
went into the house and thought it over.
57. There were twelve or twenty little groups of men in the square,
which was lit by a flare of oil suspended over a cadger’s cart. Now and
again a staid young woman passed through the square with a basket on
her arm, and if she had lingered long enough to give them time, some of
the idlers would have addressed her. As it was, they gazed after her,
and then grinned to each other.
58. “Ay, Sam’l,” said two or three young men as Sam’l joined them
beneath the town clock.
59. “Ay, Davit,” replied Sam’l.
60. This group was composed of some of the sharpest wits in Thrums, and
it was not to be expected that they would let this opportunity pass.
Perhaps when Sam’l joined them he knew what was in store for him.
61. “Was ye lookin’ for T’Nowhead’s Bell, Sam’l?” asked one.
62. “Or mebbe ye was wantin’ the minister?” suggested another, the
same who had walked out twice with Christy Duff and not married her
after all.
63. Sam’l could not think of a good reply at the moment, so he laughed
good-naturedly.
64. “Ondoobtedly she’s a snod bit crittur,” said Davit archly.
65. “An’ michty clever wi’ her fingers,” added Jamie Deuchars.
66. “Man, I’ve thocht o’ makkin’ up to Bell mysel,” said Peter Ogle.
“Wid there be ony chance, think ye, Sam’l?”
67. “I’m thinkin’ she widna hae ye for her first, Pete,” replied Sam’l,
in one of those happy flashes that come to some men, “but there’s nae
sayin’ but what she micht tak ye to finish up wi’.”
68. The unexpectedness of this sally startled everyone. Though Sam’l
did not set up for a wit, however, like Davit, it was notorious that he
could say a cutting thing once in a way.
69. “Did ye ever see Bell reddin’ up?” asked Pete, recovering from his
overthrow. He was a man who bore no malice.
70. “It’s a sicht,” said Sam’l solemnly.
71. “Hoo will that be?” asked Jamie Deuchars.
[Sidenote: Little ones.]
72. “It’s well worth yer while,” said Pete, “to ging atower to the
T’Nowhead an’ see. Ye’ll mind the closed-in beds i’ the kitchen? Ay,
well, they’re a fell spoilt crew, T’Nowhead’s litlins, an’ no that
aisy to manage. Th’ither lasses Lisbeth’s hae’n had a michty trouble
wi’ them. When they war i’ the middle o’ their reddin’ up the bairns
wid come tumlin’ about the floor, but, sal, I assure ye, Bell didna
fash lang wi’ them. Did she, Sam’l?”
73. “She did not,” said Sam’l, dropping into a fine mode of speech to
add emphasis to his remark.
74. “I’ll tell ye what she did,” said Pete to the others. “She
juist lifted up the litlins, twa at a time, an’ flung them into the
coffin-beds. Syne she snibbit the doors on them, an’ keepit them there
till the floor was dry.”
75. “Ay, man, did she so?” said Davit admiringly.
76. “I’ve seen her do’t mysel,” said Sam’l.
77. “There’s no a lassie makes better bannocks this side o’ Fetter
Lums,” continued Pete.
78. “Her mither tocht her that,” said Sam’l; “she was a gran’ han’ at
the bakin’, Kitty Ogilvy.”
79. “I’ve heard say,” remarked Jamie, putting it this way, so as not
to tie himself down to anything, “'at Bell’s scones is equal to Mag
Lunan’s.”
80. “So they are,” said Sam’l, almost fiercely.
81. “I kin she’s a neat han’ at singein’ a hen,” said Pete.
82. “An’ wi’t a’,” said Davit, “she’s a snod, canty bit stocky in her
Sabbath claes.”
83. “If onything, thick in the waist,” suggested Jamie.
84. “I dinna see that,” said Sam’l.
85. “I d’na care for her hair either,” continued Jamie, who was very
nice in his tastes; “something mair yallowchy wid be an improvement.”
86. “A’body kins,” growled Sam’l, “'at black hair’s the bonniest.”
87. The others chuckled.
88. “Puir Sam’l!” Pete said.
89. Sam’l not being certain whether this should be received with a
smile or a frown, opened his mouth wide as a kind of compromise. This
was position one with him for thinking things over.
90. Few Auld Lichts, as I have said, went the length of choosing a
helpmate for themselves. One day a young man’s friends would see him
mending the washing-tub of a maiden’s mother. They kept the joke until
Saturday night, and then he learned from them what he had been after.
It dazed him for a time, but in a year or so he grew accustomed to the
idea, and they were then married. With a little help he fell in love
just like other people.
91. Sam’l was going the way of the others, but he found it difficult
to come to the point. He only went courting once a week, and he could
never take up the running at the place where he left off the Saturday
before. Thus he had not, so far, made great headway. His method of
making up to Bell had been to drop in at T’Nowhead on Saturday nights
and talk with the farmer about the rinderpest.
92. The farm kitchen was Bell’s testimonial. Its chairs, tables, and
stools were scoured by her to the whiteness of Rob Angus’s sawmill
boards, and the muslin blind on the window was starched like a child’s
pinafore. Bell was brave, too, as well as energetic. Once Thrums had
been overrun with thieves. It is now thought that there may have been
only one, but he had the wicked cleverness of a gang. Such was his
repute that there were weavers who spoke of locking their doors when
they went from home. He was not very skilful, however, being generally
caught, and when they said they knew he was a robber he gave them their
things back and went away. If they had given him time there is no
doubt that he would have gone off with his plunder. One night he went
to T’Nowhead, and Bell, who slept in the kitchen, was wakened by the
noise. She knew who it would be, so she rose and dressed herself and
went to look for him with a candle. The thief had not known what to do
when he got in, and as it was very lonely he was glad to see Bell. She
told him he ought to be ashamed of himself, and would not let him out
by the door until he had taken off his boots so as not to soil the
carpet.
93. On this Saturday evening Sam’l stood his ground in the square,
until by and by he found himself alone. There were other groups there
still, but his circle had melted away. They went separately, and no one
said good-night. Each took himself off slowly, backing out of the group
until he was fairly started.
94. Sam’l looked about him, and then, seeing that the others had gone,
walked round the townhouse into the darkness of the brae that leads
down and then up to the farm of T’Nowhead.
95. To get into the good graces of Lisbeth Fargus you had to know her
ways and humour them. Sam’l, who was a student of women, knew this, and
so, instead of pushing the door open and walking in, he went through
the rather ridiculous ceremony of knocking. Sanders Elshioner was also
aware of this weakness of Lisbeth’s, but, though he often made up his
mind to knock, the absurdity of the thing prevented his doing so when
he reached the door. T’Nowhead himself had never got used to his wife’s
refined notions, and when any one knocked he always started to his
feet, thinking there must be something wrong.
96. Lisbeth came to the door, her expansive figure blocking the way in.
97. “Sam’l,” she said.
98. “Lisbeth,” said Sam’l.
99. He shook hands with the farmer’s wife, knowing that she liked it,
but only said, “Ay, Bell,” to his sweetheart, “Ay, T’Nowhead,” to
McQuhatty, and “It’s yersel, Sanders,” to his rival.
100. They were sitting round the fire, T’Nowhead, with his feet on the
ribs, wondering why he felt so warm, and Bell darned a stocking, while
Lisbeth kept an eye on a goblet full of potatoes.
101. “Sit into the fire, Sam’l,” said the farmer, not, however, making
way for him.
102. “Na, na,” said Sam’l, “I’m to bide nae time.” Then he sat into
the fire. His face was turned away from Bell, and when she spoke he
answered her without looking round. Sam’l felt a little anxious.
Sanders Elshioner, who had one leg shorter than the other, but looked
well when sitting, seemed suspiciously at home. He asked Bell questions
out of his own head, which was beyond Sam’l, and once he said something
to her in such a low voice that the others could not catch it.
T’Nowhead asked curiously what it was, and Sanders explained that he
had only said, “Ay, Bell, the morn’s the Sabbath.” There was nothing
startling in this, but Sam’l did not like it. He began to wonder if he
was too late, and had he seen his opportunity would have told Bell of
a nasty rumour that Sanders intended to go over to the Free Church if
they would make him kirk-officer.
103. Sam’l had the good-will of T’Nowhead’s wife, who liked a polite
man. Sanders did his best, but from want of practice he constantly made
mistakes. To-night, for instance, he wore his hat in the house because
he did not like to put up his hand and take it off. T’Nowhead had not
taken his off either but that was because he meant to go out by and by
and lock the byre door. It was impossible to say which of her lovers
Bell preferred. The proper course with an Auld Licht lassie was to
prefer the man who proposed to her.
104. “Ye’ll bide a wee, an’ hae something to eat?” Lisbeth asked Sam’l,
with her eyes on the goblet.
105. “No, I thank ye,” said Sam’l, with true gentility.
106. “Ye’ll better?”
107. “I dinna think it.”
108. “Hoots aye; what’s to hender ye?”
109. “Weel, since ye’re sae pressin’, I’ll bide.”
110. No one asked Sanders to stay. Bell could not, for she was but the
servant, and T’Nowhead knew that the kick his wife had given him meant
that he was not to do so either. Sanders whistled to show that he was
not uncomfortable.
111. “Ay then, I’ll be stappin’ ower the brae,” he said at last.
112. He did not go, however. There was sufficient pride in him to get
him off his chair, but only slowly, for he had to get accustomed to the
notion of going. At intervals of two or three minutes he remarked that
he must now be going. In the same circumstances Sam’l would have acted
similarly. For a Thrums man it is one of the hardest things in life to
get away from anywhere.
113. At last Lisbeth saw that something must be done. The potatoes were
burning, and T’Nowhead had an invitation on his tongue.
114. “Yes, I’ll hae to be movin’,” said Sanders, hopelessly, for the
fifth time.
115. “Guid nicht to ye, then, Sanders,” said Lisbeth. “Gie the door a
fling-to, ahent ye.”
116. Sanders, with a mighty effort, pulled himself together. He looked
boldly at Bell, and then took off his hat carefully. Sam’l saw with
misgivings that there was something in it which was not a handkerchief.
It was a paper bag glittering with gold braid, and contained such an
assortment of sweets as lads bought for their lasses on the Muckle
Friday.
117. “Hae, Bell,” said Sanders, handing the bag to Bell in an off-hand
way as if it were but a trifle. Nevertheless he was a little excited,
for he went off without saying good-night.
118. No one spoke. Bell’s face was crimson. T’Nowhead fidgeted on his
chair, and Lisbeth looked at Sam’l. The weaver was strangely calm
and collected, though he would have liked to know whether this was a
proposal.
119. “Sit in by to the table, Sam’l,” said Lisbeth, trying to look as
if things were as they had been before.
120. She put a saucerful of butter, salt, and pepper near the fire to
melt, for melted butter is the shoeing-horn that helps over a meal of
potatoes. Sam’l, however, saw what the hour required, and jumping up,
he seized his bonnet.
121. “Hing the tatties higher up the joist, Lisbeth,” he said with
dignity; “I’se be back in ten meenits.”
122. He hurried out of the house, leaving the others looking at each
other.
123. “What do ye think?” asked Lisbeth.
124. “I d’na kin,” faltered Bell.
125. “Thae tatties is lang o’ comin’ to the boil,” said T’Nowhead.
126. In some circles a lover who behaved like Sam’l would have been
suspected of intent upon his rival’s life, but neither Bell nor Lisbeth
did the weaver that injustice. In a case of this kind it does not much
matter what T’Nowhead thought.
127. The ten minutes had barely passed when Sam’l was back in the farm
kitchen. He was too flurried to knock this time, and, indeed, Lisbeth
did not expect it of him.
128. “Bell, hae!” he cried, handing his sweetheart a tinsel bag twice
the size of Sander’s gift.
129. “Losh preserve’s!” exclaimed Lisbeth; “I’se warrant there’s a
shillin’s worth.”
130. “There’s a’ that, Lisbeth--an’ mair,” said Sam’l, firmly.
131. “I thank ye, Sam’l,” said Bell, feeling an unwonted elation as she
gazed at the two paper bags in her lap.
132. “Ye’re ower extravegint, Sam’l,” Lisbeth said.
133. “Not at all,” said Sam’l; “not at all. But I widna advise ye to
eat thae ither anes, Bell--they’re second quality.”
134. Bell drew back a step from Sam’l.
135. “How do ye kin?” asked the farmer shortly, for he liked Sanders.
136. “I spiered i’ the shop,” said Sam’l.
137. The goblet was placed on a broken plate on the table with the
saucer beside it, and Sam’l, like the others, helped himself. What he
did was to take potatoes from the pot with his fingers, peel off their
coats, and then dip them into the butter. Lisbeth would have liked to
provide knives and forks, but she knew that beyond a certain point
T’Nowhead was master in his own house. As for Sam’l, he felt victory in
his hands, and began to think that he had gone too far.
138. In the meantime Sanders, little witting that Sam’l had trumped
his trick, was sauntering along the kirk-wynd with his hat on the side
of his head. Fortunately he did not meet the minister.
139. The courting of T’Nowhead’s Bell reached its crisis one Sabbath
about a month after the events above recorded. The minister was in
great force that day, but it is no part of mine to tell how he bore
himself. I was there, and am not likely to forget the scene. It was a
fateful Sabbath for T’Nowhead’s Bell and her swains, and destined to
be remembered for the painful scandal which they perpetrated in their
passion.
140. Bell was not in the kirk. There being an infant of six months in
the house it was a question of either Lisbeth or the lassie’s staying
at home with him, and though Lisbeth was unselfish in a general way,
she could not resist the delight of going to church. She had nine
children besides the baby, and being but a woman, it was the pride of
her life to march them into the T’Nowhead pew, so well watched that
they dared not misbehave, and so tightly packed that they could not
fall. The congregation looked at that pew, the mothers enviously, when
they sang the lines--
“Jerusalem like a city is
Compactly built together.”
141. The first half of the service had been gone through on this
particular Sunday without anything remarkable happening. It was at
the end of the psalm which preceded the sermon that Sanders Elshioner,
who sat near the door, lowered his head until it was no higher than
the pews, and in that attitude, looking almost like a four-footed
animal, slipped out of the church. In their eagerness to be at the
sermon many of the congregation did not notice him, and those who did
put the matter by in their minds for future investigation. Sam’l,
however, could not take it so coolly. From his seat in the gallery he
saw Sanders disappear, and his mind misgave him. With the true lover’s
instinct he understood it all. Sanders had been struck by the fine
turn-out in the T’Nowhead’s pew. Bell was alone at the farm. What
an opportunity to work one’s way up to a proposal. T’Nowhead was so
overrun with children that such a chance seldom occurred, except on a
Sabbath. Sanders, doubtless, was off to propose, and he, Sam’l, was
left behind.
142. The suspense was terrible. Sam’l and Sanders had both known all
along that Bell would take the first of the two who asked her. Even
those who thought her proud admitted that she was modest. Bitterly the
weaver repented having waited so long. Now it was too late. In ten
minutes Sanders would be at T’Nowhead; in an hour all would be over.
Sam’l rose to his feet in a daze. His mother pulled him down by the
coat-tail, and his father shook him, thinking he was walking in his
sleep. He tottered past them, however, hurried up the aisle, which
was so narrow that Dan’l Ross could only reach his seat by walking
sideways, and was gone before the minister could do more than stop in
the middle of a whirl and gape in horror after him.
143. A number of the congregation felt that day the advantage of
sitting in the loft. What was a mystery to those downstairs was
revealed to them. From the gallery windows they had a fine open view to
the south; and as Sam’l took the common, which was a short cut though a
steep ascent, to T’Nowhead, he was never out of their line of vision.
Sanders was not to be seen, but they guessed rightly the reason why.
Thinking he had ample time, he had gone round by the main road to save
his boots--perhaps a little scared by what was coming. Sam’l’s design
was to forestall him by taking the shorter path over the burn and up
the common.
144. It was a race for a wife, and several onlookers in the gallery
braved the minister’s displeasure to see who won. Those who favoured
Sam’l’s suit exultingly saw him leap the stream, while the friends of
Sanders fixed their eyes on the top of the common where it ran into the
road. Sanders must come into sight there, and the one who reached this
point first would get Bell.
145. As Auld Lichts do not walk abroad on the Sabbath, Sanders would
probably not be delayed. The chances were in his favour. Had it
been any other day in the week Sam’l might have run. So some of the
congregation in the gallery were thinking, when suddenly they saw him
bend low and then take to his heels. He had caught sight of Sander’s
head bobbing over the hedge that separated the road from the common,
and feared that Sanders might see him. The congregation who could crane
their necks sufficiently saw a black object, which they guessed to be
the carter’s hat, crawling along the hedge-top. For a moment it was
motionless, and then it shot ahead. The rivals had seen each other.
It was now a hot race. Sam’l, dissembling no longer, clattered up the
common, becoming smaller and smaller to the onlookers as he neared the
top. More than one person in the gallery almost rose to their feet
in their excitement. Sam’l had it. No, Sanders was in front. Then
the two figures disappeared from view. They seemed to run into each
other at the top of the brae, and no one could say who was first. The
congregation looked at one another. Some of them perspired. But the
minister held on his course.
146. Sam’l had just been in time to cut Sanders out. It was the
weaver’s saving that Sanders saw this when his rival turned the
corner; for Sam’l was sadly blown. Sanders took in the situation and
gave in at once. The last hundred yards of the distance he covered at
his leisure, and when he arrived at his destination he did not go in.
It was a fine afternoon for the time of the year, and he went round to
have a look at the pig, about which T’Nowhead was a little sinfully
puffed up.
147. “Ay,” said Sanders, digging his fingers critically into the
grunting animal; “quite so.”
148. “Grumph,” said the pig, getting reluctantly to his feet.
149. “Ou ay; yes,” said Sanders, thoughtfully.
150. Then he sat down on the edge of the sty, and looked long and
silently at an empty bucket. But whether his thoughts were of
T’Nowhead’s Bell, whom he had lost for ever, or of the food the farmer
fed his pig on, is not known.
151. “Lord preserve’s! Are ye no at the kirk?” cried Bell, nearly
dropping the baby as Sam’l broke into the room.
152. “Bell!” cried Sam’l.
153. Then T’Nowhead’s Bell knew that her hour had come.
154. “Sam’l,” she faltered.
155. “Will ye hae’s, Bell?” demanded Sam’l, glaring at her sheepishly.
156. “Ay,” answered Bell.
157. Sam’l fell into a chair.
158. “Bring’s drink o’ water, Bell,” he said. But Bell thought the
occasion required milk, and there was none in the kitchen. She went out
to the byre, still with the baby in her arms, and saw Sanders Elshioner
sitting gloomily on the pigsty.
159. “Weel, Bell,” said Sanders.
160. “I thocht ye’d been at the kirk, Sanders,” said Bell.
161. Then there was a silence between them.
162. “Has Sam’l spiered ye, Bell?” asked Sanders, stolidly.
163. “Ay,” said Bell again, and this time there was a tear in her eye.
Sanders was little better than an “orra man,” and Sam’l was a weaver,
and yet--But it was too late now. Sanders gave the pig a vicious poke
with a stick, and when it had ceased to grunt, Bell was back in the
kitchen. She had forgotten about the milk, however, and Sam’l only got
water after all.
164. In after days, when the story of Bell’s wooing was told, there
were some who held that the circumstances would have almost justified
the lassie in giving Sam’l the go-by. But these perhaps forgot that
her other lover was in the same predicament as the accepted one--that
of the two, indeed, he was the more to blame, for he set off to
T’Nowhead on the Sabbath of his own accord, while Sam’l only ran after
him. And then there is no one to say for certain whether Bell heard
of her suitors’ delinquencies until Lisbeth’s return from the kirk.
Sam’l could never remember whether he told her, and Bell was not sure
whether, if he did, she took it in. Sanders was greatly in demand for
weeks after to tell what he knew of the affair, but though he was twice
asked to tea to the manse among the trees, and subjected thereafter to
ministerial cross-examinations, this is all he told. He remained at the
pigsty until Sam’l left the farm, when he joined him at the top of the
brae, and they went home together.
165. “It’s yersel, Sanders,” said Sam’l.
166. “It is so, Sam’l,” said Sanders.
167. “Very cauld,” said Sam’l.
168. “Blawy,” assented Sanders.
169. After a pause--
170. “Sam’l,” said Sanders.
171. “Ay.”
172. “I’m hearin’ yer to be mairit.”
173. “Ay.”
174. “Weel, Sam’l she’s a snod bit lassie.”
175. “Thank ye,” said Sam’l.
176. “I had ance a kin’ o’ notion o’ Bell mysel,” continued Sanders.
177. “Ye had?”
178. “Yes, Sam’l; but I thocht better o’t.”
179. “Hoo d’ye mean?” asked Sam’l, a little anxiously.
180. “Weel, Sam’l, mairitch is a terrible responsibeelity.”
181. “It is so,” said Sam’l, wincing.
182. “An’ no the thing to tak up withoot conseederation.”
183. “But it’s a blessed and honourable state, Sanders; ye’ve heard the
minister on’t.”
184. “They say,” continued the relentless Sanders, “'at the minister
doesna get on sair wi’ the wife himsel.”
185. “So they do,” cried Sam’l, with a sinking at the heart.
186. “I’ve been telt,” Sanders went on, “'at gin ye can get the upper
han’ o’ the wife for a while at first, there’s the mair chance o’ a
harmonious exeestence.”
187. “Bell’s no the lassie,” said Sam’l, appealingly, “to thwart her
man.”
188. Sanders smiled.
189. “D’ye ye think she is, Sanders?”
190. “Weel, Sam’l, I d’na want to fluster ye, but she’s been ower lang
wi’ Lisbeth Fargus no to hae learnt her ways. An a’body kins what a
life T’Nowhead has wi’ her.”
191. “Guid sake, Sanders, hoo did ye no speak o’ this afore?”
192. “I thocht ye kent o’t, Sam’l.”
193. They had now reached the square, and the U. P. kirk was coming
out. The Auld Licht kirk would be half an hour yet.
194. “But, Sanders,” said Sam’l, brightening up, “ye was on yer wy to
spier her yersel.”
195. “I was, Sam’l,” said Sanders, “and I canna but be thankfu’ ye was
ower quick for’s.”
196. “Gin’t hadna been you,” said Sam’l, “I wid never hae thocht o’t.”
197. “I’m sayin’ naething agin Bell,” pursued the other, “but, man
Sam’l, a body should be mair deleeberate in a thing o’ the kind.”
198. “It was michty hurried,” said Sam’l, woefully.
199. “It’s a serious thing to spier a lassie,” said Sanders.
200. “It’s an awfu’ thing,” said Sam’l.
201. “But we’ll hope for the best,” added Sanders, in a hopeless voice.
202. They were close to the Tenements now, and Sam’l looked as if he
were on his way to be hanged.
203. “Sam’l?”
204. “Ay, Sanders.”
205. “Did ye--did ye kiss her, Sam’l?”
206. “Na.”
207. “Hoo?”
208. “There was varra little time, Sanders.”
209. “Half an 'oor,” said Sanders.
210. “Was there? Man Sanders, to tell ye the truth, I never thoct o’t.”
211. Then the soul of Sanders Elshioner was filled with contempt for
Sam’l Dickie.
212. The scandal blew over. At first it was expected that the minister
would interfere to prevent the union, but beyond intimating from the
pulpit that the souls of Sabbath-breakers were beyond praying for, and
then praying for Sam’l and Sanders at great length, with a word thrown
in for Bell, he let things take their course. Some said it was because
he was always frightened lest his young men should intermarry with
other denominations, but Sanders explained it differently to Sam’l.
213. “I hav’na a word to say agin the minister,” he said, “they’re
gran’ prayers, but, Sam’l, he’s a mairit man himsel.”
214. “He’s a’ the better for that, Sanders, isna he?”
215. “Do ye no see,” asked Sanders, compassionately, “'at he’s tryin’
to mak the best o’t?”
216. “Oh, Sanders, man!” said Sam’l.
217. “Cheer up, Sam’l,” said Sanders, “it’ll sune be ower.”
218. Their having been rival suitors had not interfered with their
friendship. On the contrary, while they had hitherto been mere
acquaintances, they became inseparables as the wedding-day drew near.
It was noticed that they had much to say to each other, and that when
they could not get a room to themselves they wandered about together in
the churchyard. When Sam’l had anything to tell Bell he sent Sanders to
tell it, and Sanders did as he was bid. There was nothing that he would
not have done for Sam’l.
219. The more obliging Sanders was, however, the sadder Sam’l grew. He
never laughed now on Saturdays, and sometimes his loom was silent half
the day. Sam’l felt that Sanders’s was the kindness of a friend for a
dying man.
220. It was to be a penny wedding, and Lisbeth Fargus said it was
delicacy that made Sam’l superintend the fitting-up of the barn by
deputy. Once he came to see it in person, but he looked so ill that
Sanders had to see him home. This was on the Thursday afternoon, and
the wedding was fixed for Friday.
221. “Sanders, Sanders,” said Sam’l, in a voice strangely unlike his
own, “it’ll a’ be ower by this time the morn.”
222. “It will,” said Sanders.
223. “If I had only kent her langer,” continued Sam’l.
224. “It wid hae been safer,” said Sanders.
[Sidenote: Flower.]
225. “Did ye see the yallow floor in Bell’s bonnet?” asked the accepted
swain.
226. “Ay,” said Sanders, reluctantly.
227. “I’m dootin’--I’m sair dootin’ she’s but a flichty, licht-hearted
crittur after a’.”
228. “I had ay my suspeecions o’t,” said Sanders.
229. “Ye hae kent her langer than me,” said Sam’l.
230. “Yes,” said Sanders, “but there’s nae gettin’ at the heart o’
women. Man Sam’l they’re desperate cunnin’.”
231. “I’m dootin’t; I’m sair dootin’t.”
232. “It’ll be a warnin’ to ye, Sam’l, no to be in sic a hurry i’ the
futur,” said Sanders.
233. Sam’l groaned.
234. “Ye’ll be gaein up to the manse to arrange wi’ the minister the
morn’s mornin’,” continued Sanders, in a subdued voice.
235. Sam’l looked wistfully at his friend.
236. “I canna do’t, Sanders,” he said, “I canna do’t.”
237. “Ye maun,” said Sanders.
238. “It’s aisy to speak,” retorted Sam’l, bitterly.
239. “We have a’ oor troubles, Sam’l,” said Sanders, soothingly, “an’
every man maun bear his ain burdens. Johnny Davie’s wife’s dead, an’
he’s no repinin’.”
240. “Ay,” said Sam’l, “but a death’s no a mairitch. We hae haen deaths
in our family too.”
241. “It may a’ be for the best,” added Sanders, “an’ there wid be a
michty talk i’ the hale country-side gin ye didna ging to the minister
like a man.”
242. “I maun hae langer to think o’t,” said Sam’l.
243. “Bell’s mairitch is the morn,” said Sanders, decisively.
244. Sam’l glanced up with a wild look in his eyes.
245. “Sanders,” he cried.
246. “Sam’l?”
247. “Ye hae been a guid friend to me, Sanders, in this sair
affliction.”
248. “Nothing ava,” said Sanders; “dount mention’d.”
249. “But, Sanders, ye canna deny but what your rinnin oot o’ the kirk
that awfu’ day was at the bottom o’d a’.”
250. “It was so,” said Sanders, bravely.
251. “An’ ye used to be fond o’ Bell, Sanders.”
252. “I dinna deny’t.”
253. “Sanders laddie,” said Sam’l, bending forward and speaking in a
wheedling voice, “I aye thocht it was you she likeit.”
254. “I had some sic idea mysel,” said Sanders.
255. “Sanders, I canna think to pairt twa fowk sae weel suited to ane
anither as you an’ Bell.”
256. “Canna ye, Sam’l?”
257. “She wid mak ye a guid wife, Sanders. I hae studied her weel, and
she’s a thrifty, douce, clever lassie. Sanders, there’s no the like o’
her. Mony a time, Sanders, I hae said to mysel, There’s a lass ony man
micht be prood to tak. A’body says the same, Sanders. There’s nae risk
ava, man: nane to speak o’. Tak her, laddie, tak her, Sanders; it’s a
grand chance, Sanders. She’s yours for the spierin. I’ll gie her up,
Sanders.”
258. “Will ye, though?” said Sanders.
259. “What d’ye think?” said Sam’l.
260. “If ye wid rayther,” said Sanders, politely.
261. “There’s my han’ on’t,” said Sam’l. “Bless ye, Sanders; ye’ve been
a true frien’ to me.”
262. Then they shook hands for the first time in their lives; and soon
afterwards Sanders struck up the brae to T’Nowhead.
263. Next morning Sanders Elshioner, who had been very busy the night
before, put on his Sabbath clothes and strolled up to the manse.
264. “But--but where is Sam’l?” asked the minister; “I must see
himself.”
265. “It’s a new arrangement,” said Sanders.
266. “What do you mean, Sanders?”
267. “Bell’s to marry me,” explained Sanders.
268. “But--but what does Sam’l say?”
269. “He’s willin’,” said Sanders.
270. “And Bell?”
271. “She’s willin’, too. She prefers’t.”
272. “It is unusual,” said the minister.
273. “It’s a’ richt,” said Sanders.
274. “Well, you know best,” said the minister.
275. “You see the hoose was taen, at ony rate,” continued Sanders. “An
I’ll juist ging in til’t instead o’ Sam’l.”
276. “Quite so.”
277. “An’ I cudna think to disappoint the lassie.”
278. “Your sentiments do you credit, Sanders,” said the minister; “but
I hope you do not enter upon the blessed state of matrimony without
full consideration of its responsibilities. It is a serious business,
marriage.”
279. “It’s a’ that,” said Sanders, “but I’m willin’ to stan’ the risk.”
280. So, as soon as it could be done, Sanders Elshioner took to wife
T’Nowhead’s Bell, and I remember seeing Sam’l Dickie trying to dance at
the penny wedding.
281. Years afterwards it was said in Thrums that Sam’l had treated Bell
badly, but he was never sure about it himself.
282. “It was a near thing--a michty near thing,” he admitted in the
square.
283. “They say,” some other weaver would remark, “'at it was you Bell
liked best.”
284. “I d’na kin,” Sam’l would reply, “but there’s nae doot the lassie
was fell fond o’ me. Ou, a mere passin’ fancy’s ye micht say.”
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS FOR STUDY
1. In a few sentences, state whether the humor of this story centers
in the central situation, the several incidents, the dialogue, the
character, or in the climax.
2. If in more than one element, name them in the order of their
interest, or humor, to you.
3. Does the humor go to the limit of silliness at any point?
4. Point out any passages which are serio-comic.
5. Define (a) Farce, (b) Burlesque, (c) Comedy, (d) Wit, (e) Satire.
6. Point out passages in this or any other stories which illustrate the
foregoing types.
7. Name other humorous stories by O. Henry and J. M. Barrie.
8. Name the best humorous story you know.
TEN REPRESENTATIVE HUMOROUS STORIES
“The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” Mark Twain, in
_Short Stories and Sketches_, Vol. I.
“Mike Grady’s Safety,” Will Lewis, _Everybody’s Magazine_, Aug.,
1905.
“Their First Formal Call,” Grace MacGowan Cooke, in volume of same
title.
“The Day of the Dog,” George Barr McCutcheon, in volume of same
title.
“Edgar, the Choir-Boy Uncelestial,” _McClure’s Magazine_, Jan.,
1902.
“The Pope’s Mule,” Alphonse Daudet, translated in _Short-Story
Masterpieces_.
“Colonel Starbottle for the Plaintiff,” Bret Harte, _Harper’s
Magazine_, Mar., 1901.
“The Phonograph and the Graft,” O. Henry, in _Cabbages and Kings_.
“The King of Boyville,” William Allen White, in _Tales from
McClure’s_.
“The Bob-tailed Car,” Brander Matthews, in _The Family Tree_.
FOOTNOTES:
[23] Copyright, 1910, by Doubleday, Page and Co., and used by
permission.
V
STORIES OF SETTING
_The Outcasts of Poker Flat._--BRET HARTE
_Moonlight._--GUY DE MAUPASSANT
It is the habit of my imagination to strive after as full a vision
of the medium in which a character moves as of the character
itself. The psychological causes which prompted me to give such
details of Florentine life and history as I have given [in
_Romola_] are precisely the same as those which determined me in
giving the details of English village life in _Silas Marner_ or the
“Dodson” life, out of which were developed the destinies of poor
Tom and Maggie.--GEORGE ELIOT, quoted in her _Life_ by J. W. CROSS.
STORIES OF SETTING
“Setting consists of the circumstances, material and immaterial, in
which the characters are seen to move in the story. Its elements
are time, place, occupations, and (I lack a more expressive word)
conditions.”[24]
To be classified properly as a story of setting, a narrative must be
more than merely rich in local-color--as the characteristic environment
of a certain district, as set forth in fiction, is often called. The
true story of setting is one in which the setting has a vital bearing
on the natures or the destinies of the characters. To be sure, the
setting of a story, like the staging of a play, has an important part
in the realistic presentation of the scene, but setting assumes a
predominating part when it actually moves the characters to certain
deciding actions, as do the snow-storm in “The Outcasts of Poker Flat,”
and the soft light of the moon in “Moonlight.”
The local-color story is one which could not have been set elsewhere
without vitally changing, that is to say destroying, the story. For
example, Balzac’s “The Unknown Masterpiece” is set almost entirely
in an artist’s studio. The story would be slain by dragging it away
from that atmosphere. But it is also a story of setting, because,
whatever internal influences also affected the characters, the setting
influences their destinies--the men and the women live lives as
determined by their surroundings. “Mateo Falcone,” too, is a story of
setting, but not primarily so; for while it could have happened only
in Corsica, and the local-color is singularly vivid, it is primarily a
story of human motive and action.
Because of the powerful effect of environment upon character--in
fiction just as in real life--the reader often judges of coming events
by the feeling of the setting. The stage manager knows this, too, and
accompanies, or even forecasts, a moral crisis by having lights, music,
sounds, and other stage accessories harmonize with the mood of the
actors. Or, contrariwise, the tone of the piece may best be brought out
by a setting in contrast.
Observe how in the two stories illustrating this type the authors never
draw pictures of costumes and scenery just for the sake of description,
as beginners might do. The setting, to Harte and Maupassant, is vitally
a part of the story, and any unnecessary detail would mar the harmony
of the whole. Too much were worse than too little.
“When the characters live, move, and have their being in the setting,
the result is ‘atmosphere.’ Atmosphere is thus an effect. It is felt,
not seen. _Through_ its medium the reader must see all the action, yes,
all the details of the story. Atmosphere gives value to the tones of
fiction as in real life it does to landscape. The hills are actually
the same in cloud and in sunshine, but the eye sees them as different
through the mediate atmosphere. And so setting and characters,
perfectly adjusted, make the reader, that is to say the beholder, see
the story in the very tones the literary artist desires. A story of the
sea has an atmosphere of its own, but the atmosphere does not consist
merely of the accurately colored picture of sea and strand and sailor
and ship and sky. The whole story is informed with the _spirit_ of the
sea--its tang clings to the garments, its winds breathe through every
passage, its wonderful lights and glooms tone the whole story. Without
it the story would be a poor thing, bloodless and inert.”[25]
HARTE AND HIS WRITINGS
Francis Bret Harte was born in Albany, New York, August 25, 1839, of
gentle parents. Abandoning his common-school education at the age
of fifteen, he followed the lure of the gold craze to California,
but neither teaching nor mining enriched him, so in 1857 he became
a compositor on the _Golden Era_, San Francisco. He then edited the
_Californian_, and in 1864 was appointed secretary of the branch Mint,
remaining until 1870. Two years before, however, he had become editor
of the new _Overland Monthly_, where some of his best work appeared.
This position did not prove permanent, and even less so was that of the
professorship of “recent literature” in the University of California,
for in 1871 he removed to New York. In 1878 he became United States
Consul at Crefeld, Germany, and in 1880 was transferred to Glasgow,
Scotland, holding this post until 1885. His later life was spent
chiefly in London, where his brilliant talents brought him the full
recognition of _littérateurs_. He died in London, May 6, 1902.
Bret Harte was a poet, critic, novelist, and short-story writer. His
novels give him no such claim to fame as do his other writings. His
best-known dialect verses are “The Society Upon the Stanislaus,” “Jim,”
“Dickens in Camp,” “Dow’s Flat,” and “Plain Language From Truthful
James” (often called “The Heathen Chinee”). His best sketches and
short-stories include “The Luck of Roaring Camp,” “An Heiress of Red
Dog,” “Miggles,” “Tennessee’s Partner,” “M’liss,” “The Idyl of Red
Gulch,” “Brown of Calaveras,” and “The Outcasts of Poker Flat”--which
was first published in _The Overland Monthly_, January, 1869.
* * * * *
If artistic repression, dramatic feeling, mingled humor and pathos,
deft character drawing, a sure sense of a “good story,” and the ability
to win the reader in spite of himself--if the certain possession of all
these are marks of fictional genius, surely Bret Harte deserves the
name. For themes, he chose--and doubtless over-colored at times--the
people and the happenings of '49 during the gold craze, and not a few
have charged him with a fondness for heroes and heroines of undoubted
reputations--for evil. Social outcasts, they say, he treated too
tenderly. But Bret Harte himself effectively answered this criticism
when he said:
“When it shall be proven to him that communities are degraded and
brought to guilt and crime, suffering or destitution, from a
predominance of this quality [too much mercy]; when he shall see
pardoned ticket-of-leave men elbowing men of austere lives out of
situation and position, and the repentant Magdalen supplanting the
blameless virgin in society, then he will lay aside his pen and extend
his hand to the new Draconian discipline in fiction. But until then he
will, without claiming to be a religious man or a moralist, but simply
as an artist, reverently and humbly conform to the rules laid down by a
Great Poet, who created the parable of the ‘Prodigal Son’ and the ‘Good
Samaritan,’ whose works have lasted eighteen hundred years, and will
remain when the present writer and his generation are forgotten.”
The secret of the American short story is the treatment of
characteristic American life, with absolute knowledge of its
peculiarities and sympathy with its methods; with no fastidious
ignoring of its habitual expression, or the inchoate poetry that
may be found even hidden in its slang; with no moral determination
except that which may be the legitimate outcome of the story
itself; with no more elimination than may be necessary for the
artistic conception, and never from the fear of the fetich of
conventionalism. Of such is the American short story of to-day--the
germ of American literature to come.--BRET HARTE, _The Rise of the
Short Story, Cornhill Magazine_, July, 1899.
He expounds an important half-truth which has been too much
neglected: that as being is greater than seeming, appearances
are often deceitful; under the most repellent exterior a soul of
goodness may exist. But if we study him over much, we may become
victims of the delusion that any person whose dress and manners are
respectable, is, to say the least, a suspicious character, while
drunken and profane ruffians are the saints of the earth.--WALTER
LEWIN, _The Abuse of Fiction_.
Mr. Kipling is a great man at sentiment (though we hear more of
his anti-sentimental side), but has he written a child-story we
can remember as long as “The Luck of Roaring Camp,” or anything
we shall remember as long as “The Outcasts of Poker Flat,” or
“Tennessee’s Partner”? These things are not so exact in their
“business” (to borrow a term from still another art), but, perhaps
on that very account, they remain symbols of the human heart.
They have the simplicity of classics, a simplicity in which all
unnecessary subtleties are dissolved.--RICHARD LE GALLIENNE,
_Rudyard Kipling: A Criticism_.
His own style, as finally formed, leaves little to be desired;
it is clear, flexible, virile, laconic and withal graceful. Its
full meaning is given to every word, and occasionally, like all
original masters of prose, he imparts into a familiar word a
racier significance than it had possessed before. His genius is
nowhere more unmistakable than in the handling of his stories,
which is terse to the point of severity, yet wholly adequate;
everything necessary to the matter in hand is told, but with an
economy of word and phrase that betokens a powerful and radical
conception.--JULIAN HAWTHORNE and LEONARD LEMMON, _American
Literature_.
Tennessee’s Partner, John Oakhurst, Yuba Bill, Kentucky, are as
long-lived, seemingly, as any characters in nineteenth century
fiction.... What gives these characters their lasting power? Why
does that highly melodramatic tragedy in the hills above Poker
Flat, with its stagy reformations, and contrasts of black sinner
and white innocent, hold you spellbound at the thirtieth as at
the first reading? Why does Tennessee’s Partner make you wish to
grasp him by the hand? Bret Harte believed, apparently, that it
was his realism which did it.... But we do not wait to be told by
Californians, who still remember the red-shirt period, that Roaring
Camp is not realism.... Not the realism, but the idealization, of
this life of the Argonauts was the prize Bret Harte gained.--HENRY
S. CANBY, _The Short Story in English_.
FURTHER REFERENCES FOR READING ON HARTE
_Early Recollections of Bret Harte_, C. W. Stoddard, _Atlantic
Monthly_, vol. 78; _Bret Harte in California_, Noah Brooks, _Century
Magazine_, vol. 58; _American Humor and Bret Harte_, G. K. Chesterton,
_Critic_, vol. 41; _Life of Bret Harte_, T. E. Pemberton (1903); _Bret
Harte_, H. W. Boynton, in _Contemporary Men of Letters_ series (1905);
_Life of Bret Harte_, H. C. Merwin (1911).
THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT
BY BRET HARTE
[Sidenote: Central character.]
[Sidenote: Crisis at once forecasted.]
[Sidenote: Preliminary setting.]
As Mr. John Oakhurst, gambler, stepped into the main street of Poker
Flat on the morning of the twenty-third of November, 1850, he was
conscious of a change in its moral atmosphere since the preceding
night. Two or three men, conversing earnestly together, ceased as he
approached, and exchanged significant glances. There was a Sabbath lull
in the air, which, in a settlement unused to Sabbath influences, looked
ominous.
[Sidenote: Physical delineation interwoven with the progress of the
story.]
[Sidenote: Summary of tone of the fundamental situation. FOUNDATION
CRISIS.]
2. Mr. Oakhurst’s calm, handsome face betrayed small concern of these
indications. Whether he was conscious of any predisposing cause, was
another question. “I reckon they’re after somebody,” he reflected;
“likely it’s me.” He returned to his pocket the handkerchief with
which he had been whipping away the red dust of Poker Flat from his
neat boots, and quietly discharged his mind of any further conjecture.
[Sidenote: Situation explained.]
[Sidenote: FOUNDATION PLOT INCIDENT.]
[Sidenote: Euphemism.]
3. In point of fact, Poker Flat was “after somebody.” It had lately
suffered the loss of several thousand dollars, two valuable horses, and
a prominent citizen. It was experiencing a spasm of virtuous reaction,
quite as lawless and ungovernable as any of the acts that had provoked
it. A secret committee had determined to rid the town of all improper
persons. This was done permanently in regard to two men who were then
hanging from the boughs of a sycamore in the gulch, and temporarily in
the banishment of certain other objectionable characters. I regret to
say that some of these were ladies. It is but due to the sex, however,
to state that their impropriety was professional, and it was only in
such easily established standards of evil that Poker Flat ventured to
sit in judgment.
[Sidenote: Note the author’s slight ironic tone, which later gives way
to simple pathos.]
4. Mr. Oakhurst was right in supposing that he was included in this
category. A few of the committee had urged hanging him as a possible
example, and a sure method of reimbursing themselves from his pockets
of the sums he had won from them. “It’s agin justice,” said Jim
Wheeler, “to let this yer young man from Roaring Camp--an entire
stranger--carry away our money.” But a crude sentiment of equity
residing in the breasts of those who had been fortunate enough to win
from Mr. Oakhurst overruled this narrower local prejudice.
[Sidenote: Character delineation.]
5. Mr. Oakhurst received his sentence with philosophic calmness, none
the less coolly that he was aware of the hesitation of his judges. He
was too much of a gambler not to accept Fate. With him life was at best
an uncertain game, and he recognized the usual percentage in favor of
the dealer.
[Sidenote: First group of characters.]
[Sidenote: First group of characters.]
[Sidenote: Climax of first crisis.]
[Sidenote: End of Introduction and groundwork.]
6. A body of armed men accompanied the deported wickedness of Poker
Flat to the outskirts of the settlement. Besides Mr. Oakhurst, who was
known to be a coolly desperate man, and for whose intimidation the
armed escort was intended, the expatriated party consisted of a young
woman familiarly known as “The Duchess”; another, who had gained the
infelicitous title of “Mother Shipton”; and “Uncle Billy,” a suspected
sluice-robber and confirmed drunkard. The cavalcade provoked no
comments from the spectators, nor was any word uttered by the escort.
Only, when the gulch which marked the uttermost limit of Poker Flat was
reached, the leader spoke briefly and to the point. The exiles were
forbidden to return at the peril of their lives.
[Sidenote: THIRD STAGE OF FIRST PLOT INCIDENT.]
[Sidenote: Is “their” well used?]
[Sidenote: Paragraph of character delineation.]
7. As the escort disappeared, their pent-up feelings found vent in a
few hysterical tears from the Duchess, some bad language from Mother
Shipton, and a Parthian volley of expletives from Uncle Billy. The
philosophic Oakhurst alone remained silent. He listened calmly to
Mother Shipton’s desire to cut somebody’s heart out, to the repeated
statements of the Duchess that she would die in the road, and to the
alarming oaths that seemed to be bumped out of Uncle Billy as he rode
forward. With the easy good-humor characteristic of his class, he
insisted upon exchanging his own riding-horse, “Five Spot,” for the
sorry mule which the Duchess rode. But even this act did not draw the
party into any closer sympathy. The young woman readjusted her somewhat
draggled plumes with a feeble, faded coquetry; Mother Shipton eyed the
possessor of “Five Spot” with malevolence, and Uncle Billy included the
whole party in one sweeping anathema.
[Sidenote: Second preliminary setting.]
[Sidenote: FOUNDATION FOR MAIN CRISIS.]
8. The road to Sandy Bar--a camp that, not having as yet experienced
the regenerating influences of Poker Flat, consequently seemed to offer
some invitation to the emigrants--lay over a steep mountain range.
It was distant a day’s severe journey. In that advanced season, the
party soon passed out of the moist, temperate regions of the foothills
into the dry, cold, bracing air of the Sierras. The trail was narrow
and difficult. At noon the Duchess, rolling out of her saddle upon
the ground, declared her intention of going no further, and the party
halted.
[Sidenote: MAIN SETTING.]
[Sidenote: Character contrasts.]
9. The spot was singularly wild and impressive. A wooded amphitheatre,
surrounded on three sides by precipitous cliffs of naked granite,
sloped gently toward the crest of another precipice that overlooked the
valley. It was, undoubtedly, the most suitable spot for a camp, had
camping been advisable. But Mr. Oakhurst knew that scarcely half the
journey to Sandy Bar was accomplished, and the party were not equipped
or provisioned for delay. This fact he pointed out to his companions
curtly, with a philosophic commentary on the folly of “throwing up
their hand before the game was played out.” But they were furnished
with liquor, which in this emergency stood them in place of food, fuel,
rest, and prescience. In spite of his remonstrances, it was not long
before they were more or less under its influence. Uncle Billy passed
rapidly from a bellicose state into one of stupor, the Duchess became
maudlin, and Mother Shipton snored. Mr. Oakhurst alone remained erect,
leaning against a rock, calmly surveying them.
[Sidenote: Setting in harmony with tone of story.]
10. Mr. Oakhurst did not drink. It interfered with a profession which
required coolness, impassiveness and presence of mind, and, in his
own language, he “couldn’t afford it.” As he gazed at his recumbent
fellow-exiles, the loneliness begotten of his pariah-trade, his habits
of life, his very vices, for the first time seriously oppressed him.
He bestirred himself in dusting his black clothes, washing his hands
and face, and other acts characteristic of his studiously neat habits,
and for a moment forgot his annoyance. The thought of deserting his
weaker and more pitiable companions never perhaps occurred to him.
Yet he could not help feeling the want of that excitement which,
singularly enough, was most conducive to that calm equanimity for which
he was notorious. He looked at the gloomy walls that rose a thousand
feet sheer above the circling pines around him; at the sky, ominously
clouded; at the valley below, already deepening into shadow. And, doing
so, suddenly he heard his own name called.
[Sidenote: Second group of characters.]
[Sidenote: OPENING OF MAIN PLOT SITUATION.]
11. A horseman slowly ascended the trail. In the fresh, open face of
the newcomer Mr. Oakhurst recognized Tom Simson, otherwise known as
“The Innocent” of Sandy Bar. He had met him some months before over
a “little game,” and had, with perfect equanimity, won the entire
fortune--amounting to some forty dollars--of that guileless youth.
After the game was finished, Mr. Oakhurst drew the youthful speculator
behind the door and thus addressed him: “Tommy, you’re a good little
man, but you can’t gamble worth a cent. Don’t try it over again.” He
then handed him his money back, pushed him gently from the room, and so
made a devoted slave of Tom Simson.
[Sidenote: Character Contrasts.]
12. There was a remembrance of this in his boyish and enthusiastic
greeting of Mr. Oakhurst. He had started, he said, to go to Poker
Flat to seek his fortune. “Alone?” No, not exactly alone; in fact (a
giggle), he had run away with Piney Woods. Didn’t Mr. Oakhurst remember
Piney? She that used to wait on the table at the Temperance House? They
had been engaged a long time, but old Jake Woods had objected, and so
they ran away, and were going to Poker Flat to be married, and here
they were. And they were tired out, and how lucky it was they had found
a place to camp, and company. All this the Innocent delivered rapidly,
while Piney, a stout, comely damsel of fifteen, emerged from behind the
pine-tree, where she had been blushing unseen, and rode to the side of
her lover.
[Sidenote: First effect of the newcomers on the tone of the first group
of characters. This furnishes the _motif_ for the story.]
13. Mr. Oakhurst seldom troubled himself with sentiment, still less
with propriety; but he had a vague idea that the situation was not
felicitous. He retained, however, his presence of mind sufficiently
to kick Uncle Billy, who was about to say something, and Uncle Billy
was sober enough to recognize in Mr. Oakhurst’s kick a superior power
that would not bear trifling. He then endeavored to dissuade Tom Simson
from delaying further, but in vain. He even pointed out the fact that
there was no provision, nor means of making a camp. But, unluckily, the
Innocent met this objection by assuring the party that he was provided
with an extra mule loaded with provisions, and by the discovery of a
rude attempt at a log-house near the trail. “Piney can stay with Mrs.
Oakhurst,” said the Innocent, pointing to the Duchess, “and I can shift
for myself.”
[Sidenote: Further effect.]
[Sidenote: FOUNDATION FOR MAIN CRISIS--NOT YET APPARENT.]
14. Nothing but Mr. Oakhurst’s admonishing foot saved Uncle Billy
from bursting into a roar of laughter. As it was, he felt compelled
to retire up the cañon until he could recover his gravity. There he
confided the joke to the tall pine-trees, with many slaps of his
leg, contortions of his face, and the usual profanity. But when
he returned to the party, he found them seated by a fire--for the
air had grown strangely chill and the sky overcast--in apparently
amicable conversation. Piney was actually talking in an impulsive,
girlish fashion to the Duchess, who was listening with an interest and
animation she had not shown for many days. The Innocent was holding
forth, apparently with equal effect, to Mr. Oakhurst and Mother
Shipton, who was actually relaxing into amiability. “Is this yer a
d--d picnic?” said Uncle Billy, with inward scorn, as he surveyed the
sylvan group, the glancing firelight, and the tethered animals in the
foreground. Suddenly an idea mingled with the alcoholic fumes that
disturbed his brain. It was apparently of a jocular nature, for he felt
impelled to slap his leg again and cram his fist into his mouth.
[Sidenote: Local color.]
15. As the shadows crept slowly up the mountain, a slight breeze rocked
the tops of the pine-trees, and moaned through their long and gloomy
aisles. The ruined cabin, patched and covered with pine-boughs, was set
apart for the ladies. As the lovers parted, they unaffectedly exchanged
a parting kiss, so honest and sincere that it might have been heard
above the swaying pines. The frail Duchess and the malevolent Mother
Shipton were probably too stunned to remark upon this last evidence
of simplicity, and so turned without a word to the hut. The fire was
replenished, the men lay down before the door, and in a few minutes
were asleep.
[Sidenote: Change--approach of main crisis.]
16. Mr. Oakhurst was a light sleeper. Toward morning he awoke benumbed
and cold. As he stirred the dying fire, the wind, which was now blowing
strongly, brought to his cheek that which caused the blood to leave
it--snow!
[Sidenote: Forecasted in ¶14.]
17. He started to his feet with the intention of awakening the
sleepers, for there was no time to lose. But turning to where Uncle
Billy had been lying, he found him gone. A suspicion leaped to his
brain and a curse to his lips. He ran to the spot where the mules
had been tethered; they were no longer there. The tracks were already
rapidly disappearing in the snow.
[Sidenote: Tone of character.]
[Sidenote: Contrast with crisis. Note casual physical description.]
[Sidenote: MAIN PLOT INCIDENT--What follows is its outgrowth.]
[Sidenote: Crisis acute.]
18. The momentary excitement brought Mr. Oakhurst back to the fire with
his usual calm. He did not waken the sleepers. The Innocent slumbered
peacefully, with a smile on his good-humored, freckled face; the virgin
Piney slept beside her frailer sisters as sweetly as though attended
by celestial guardians, and Mr. Oakhurst, drawing his blanket over
his shoulders, stroked his mustaches and waited for the dawn. It came
slowly in a whirling mist of snow-flakes, that dazzled and confused the
eye. What could be seen of the landscape appeared magically changed. He
looked over the valley, and summoned up the present and future in two
words,--“snowed in!”
[Sidenote: As the story progresses note how the physical crises and the
moral crises keep pace.]
19. A careful inventory of the provisions, which, fortunately for the
party, had been stored within the hut, and so escaped the felonious
fingers of Uncle Billy, disclosed the fact that with care and prudence
they might last ten days longer. “That is,” said Mr. Oakhurst,
_sotto voce_ to the Innocent, “if you’re willing to board us. If you
ain’t--and perhaps you’d better not--you can wait till Uncle Billy
gets back with provisions.” For some occult reason, Mr. Oakhurst could
not bring himself to disclose Uncle Billy’s rascality, and so offered
the hypothesis that he had wandered from the camp and had accidentally
stampeded the animals. He dropped a warning to the Duchess and Mother
Shipton, who of course knew the facts of their associate’s defection.
“They’ll find out the truth about us _all_ when they find out
anything,” he added, significantly, “and there’s no good frightening
them now.”
[Sidenote: Lull in crisis.]
[Sidenote: From this point the story develops gradually and by closely
knit incidents in direct succession, all growing out of the setting,
which furnishes the physical crisis.]
[Sidenote: Pseudo crisis.]
[Sidenote: Resolution of pseudo crisis.]
20. Tom Simson not only put all his worldly store at the disposal
of Mr. Oakhurst, but seemed to enjoy the prospect of their enforced
seclusion. “We’ll have a good camp for a week, and then the snow’ll
melt, and we’ll all go back together.” The cheerful gayety of the young
man, and Mr. Oakhurst’s calm infected the others. The Innocent, with
the aid of pine-boughs, extemporized a thatch for the roofless cabin,
and the Duchess directed Piney in the rearrangement of the interior
with a taste and tact that opened the blue eyes of that provincial
maiden to their fullest extent. “I reckon now you’re used to fine
things at Poker Flat,” said Piney. The Duchess turned away sharply to
conceal something that reddened her cheek through its professional
tint, and Mother Shipton requested Piney not to “chatter.” But when Mr.
Oakhurst returned from a weary search for the trail, he heard the sound
of happy laughter echoed from the rocks. He stopped in some alarm,
and his thoughts first naturally reverted to the whiskey, which he had
prudently _cachéd_. “And yet it don’t somehow sound like whiskey,”
said the gambler. It was not until he caught sight of the blazing
fire through the still blinding storm and the group around it that he
settled to the conviction that it was “square fun.”
[Sidenote: Contrast with the actual danger.]
[Sidenote: Contrast is the author’s main reliance in this story.]
[Sidenote: Contrast with character-habits. A hint of character change.]
[Sidenote: Is “Covenanter’s” well used?]
21. Whether Mr. Oakhurst had _cachéd_ his cards with the whiskey
as something debarred the free access of the community, I cannot
say. It was certain that, in Mother Shipton’s words, he “didn’t say
cards once” during the evening. Haply the time was beguiled by an
accordion, produced somewhat ostentatiously by Tom Simson from his
pack. Notwithstanding some difficulties attending the manipulation of
his instrument, Piney Woods managed to pluck several reluctant melodies
from its keys, to an accompaniment by the Innocent on a pair of bone
castanets. But the crowning festivity of the evening was reached in
a rude camp-meeting hymn, which the lovers, joining hands, sang with
great earnestness and vociferation. I fear that a certain defiant
tone and Covenanter’s swing to its chorus, rather than any devotional
quality, caused it speedily to infect the others, who at last joined in
the refrain:--
“I’m proud to live in the service of the Lord,
And I’m bound to die in His army.”
22. The pines rocked, the storm eddied and whirled above the miserable
group, and the flames of their altar leaped heavenward, as if in token
of the vow.
[Sidenote: Hope.]
[Sidenote: Character revelation.]
23. At midnight the storm abated, the rolling clouds parted, and the
stars glittered keenly above the sleeping camp. Mr. Oakhurst, whose
professional habits had enabled him to live on the smallest possible
amount of sleep, in dividing the watch with Tom Simson, somehow
managed to take upon himself the greater part of that duty. He excused
himself to the Innocent, by saying that he had “often been a week
without sleep.” “Doing what?” asked Tom. “Poker!” replied Oakhurst,
sententiously; “when a man gets a streak of luck,--nigger-luck,--he
don’t get tired. The luck gives in first. Luck,” continued the gambler,
reflectively, “is a mighty queer thing. All you know about it for
certain is that it’s bound to change. And it’s finding out when it’s
going to change that makes you. We’ve had a streak of bad luck since
we left Poker Flat,--you come along, and slap you get into it, too. If
you can hold your cards right along, you’re all right. For,” added the
gambler, with cheerful irrelevance:--
“‘I’m proud to live in the service of the Lord,
And I’m bound to die in His army’.”
[Sidenote: Note the union of setting with the progress of the story.]
[Sidenote: Contrast.]
[Sidenote: KEY TO SETTING.]
[Sidenote: Character change--a key passage.]
[Sidenote: Contributory incident.]
24. The third day came, and the sun, looking through the
white-curtained valley, saw the outcasts divide their slowly
decreasing store of provisions for the morning meal. It was one of the
peculiarities of that mountain climate that its rays diffused a kindly
warmth over the wintry landscape, as if in regretful commiseration of
the past. But it revealed drift on drift of snow piled high around
the hut,--a hopeless, uncharted, trackless sea of white lying below
the rocky shores to which the cast-aways still clung. Through the
marvellously clear air the smoke of the pastoral village of Poker Flat
rose miles away. Mother Shipton saw it, and from a remote pinnacle of
her rocky fastness, hurled in that direction a final malediction. It
was her last vituperative attempt, and perhaps for that reason was
invested with a certain degree of sublimity. It did her good, she
privately informed the Duchess. “Just you go out there and cuss, and
see.” She then set herself to the task of amusing “the child,” as she
and the Duchess were pleased to call Piney. Piney was no chicken, but
it was a soothing and ingenious theory of the pair thus to account for
the fact that she didn’t swear and wasn’t improper.
[Sidenote: Developing or contributory incident.]
25. When night crept up again through the gorges, the reedy notes of
the accordion rose and fell in fitful spasms and long-drawn gasps by
the flickering camp-fire. But music failed to fill entirely the aching
void left by insufficient food, and a new diversion was proposed by
Piney,--story-telling. Neither Mr. Oakhurst nor his female companions
caring to relate their personal experiences, this plan would have
failed, too, but for the Innocent. Some months before he had chanced
upon a stray copy of Mr. Pope’s ingenious translation of the Iliad. He
now proposed to narrate the principal incidents of that poem--having
thoroughly mastered the argument and fairly forgotten the words--in
the current vernacular of Sandy Bar. And so for the rest of that
night the Homeric demigods again walked the earth. Trojan bully and
wily Greek wrestled in the winds, and the great pines in the cañon
seemed to bow to the wrath of the son of Peleus. Mr. Oakhurst listened
with quiet satisfaction. Most especially was he interested in the
fate of “Ash-heels,” as the Innocent persisted in denominating the
“swift-footed Achilles.”
[Sidenote: Note upward and downward movement--alternations of hope and
despair, but a gradual deepening of the crisis.]
[Sidenote: Note the contrast between the epithet “outcasts” and the
feeling with which they are now invested.]
[Sidenote: Character progress.]
[Sidenote: Hint of later character revelation.]
[Sidenote: FIRST CHARACTER CLIMAX.]
26. So with small food and much of Homer and the accordion, a week
passed over the heads of the outcasts. The sun again forsook them, and
again from leaden skies the snow-flakes were sifted over the land.
Day by day closer around them drew the snowy circle, until at last
they looked from their prison over drifted walls of dazzling white,
that towered twenty feet above their heads. It became more and more
difficult to replenish their fires, even from the fallen trees beside
them, now half hidden in the drifts. And yet no one complained. The
lovers turned from the dreary prospect and looked into each other’s
eyes, and were happy. Mr. Oakhurst settled himself coolly to the
losing game before him. The Duchess, more cheerful than she had been,
assumed the care of Piney. Only Mother Shipton--once the strongest of
the party--seemed to sicken and fade. At midnight on the tenth day
she called Oakhurst to her side. “I’m going,” she said, in a voice of
querulous weakness, “but don’t say anything about it. Don’t waken the
kids. Take the bundle from under my head and open it.” Mr. Oakhurst did
so. It contained Mother Shipton’s rations for the last week, untouched.
“Give ’em to the child,” she said, pointing to the sleeping Piney.
“You’ve starved yourself,” said the gambler. “That’s what they call
it,” said the woman, querulously, as she lay down again, and, turning
her face to the wall, passed quietly away.
[Sidenote: PLOT INCIDENT.]
27. The accordion and the bones were put aside that day, and Homer was
forgotten. When the body of Mother Shipton had been committed to the
snow, Mr. Oakhurst took the Innocent aside, and showed him a pair of
snow-shoes, which he had fashioned from the old pack-saddle. “There’s
one chance in a hundred to save her yet,” he said, pointing to Piney;
“but it’s there,” he added, pointing toward Poker Flat. “If you can
reach there in two days she’s safe.” “And you?” asked Tom Simson. “I’ll
stay here,” was the curt reply.
[Sidenote: Preparation for climax.]
28. The lovers parted with a long embrace. “You are not going, too?”
said the Duchess, as she saw Mr. Oakhurst apparently waiting to
accompany him. “As far as the cañon,” he replied. He turned suddenly,
and kissed the Duchess, leaving her pallid face aflame, and her
trembling limbs rigid with amazement.
29. Night came, but not Mr. Oakhurst. It brought the storm again and
the whirling snow. Then the Duchess, feeding the fire, found that some
one had quietly piled beside the hut enough fuel to last a few days
longer. The tears rose to her eyes, but she hid them from Piney.
[Sidenote: Characters in full change.]
[Sidenote: Note the repression of this entire climax. Simple, quiet
sentences are enough.]
30. The women slept but little. In the morning, looking into each
other’s faces, they read their fate. Neither spoke; but Piney,
accepting the position of the stronger, drew near and placed her arm
around the Duchess’s waist. They kept this attitude for the rest of
the day. That night the storm reached its greatest fury, and, rending
asunder the protecting pines, invaded the very hut.
[Sidenote: No melodrama here.]
[Sidenote: SECOND CHARACTER CLIMAX.]
31. Toward morning they found themselves unable to feed the fire, which
gradually died away. As the embers slowly blackened, the Duchess crept
closer to Piney, and broke the silence of many hours: “Piney, can you
pray?” “No, dear,” said Piney, simply. The Duchess, without knowing
exactly why, felt relieved, and putting her head upon Piney’s shoulder,
spoke no more. And so reclining, the younger and purer pillowing the
head of her soiled sister upon her virgin breast, they fell asleep.
[Sidenote: Local color in harmony with spirit of story.]
[Sidenote: Symbolism of physical nature.]
32. The wind lulled as if it feared to waken them. Feathery drifts of
snow, shaken from the long pine-boughs, flew like white-winged birds,
and settled about them as they slept. The moon through the rifted
clouds looked down upon what had been the camp. But all human stain,
all trace of earthly travail, was hidden beneath the spotless mantle
mercifully flung from above.
[Sidenote: Poetic euphemism.]
33. They slept all that day and the next, nor did they waken when
voices and footsteps broke the silence of the camp. And when pitying
fingers brushed the snow from their wan faces, you could scarcely have
told from the equal peace that dwelt upon them, which was she that had
sinned. Even the law of Poker Flat recognized this, and turned away,
leaving them still locked in each other’s arms.
[Sidenote: MAIN CHARACTER CLIMAX, AND DENOUEMENT.]
34. But at the head of the gulch, on one of the largest pine-trees,
they found the deuce of clubs pinned to the bark with a bowie-knife. It
bore the following, written in pencil, in a firm hand:--
BENEATH THIS TREE
LIES THE BODY
OF
JOHN OAKHURST,
WHO STRUCK A STREAK OF BAD LUCK
ON THE 23D OF NOVEMBER, 1850,
AND
HANDED IN HIS CHECKS
ON THE 7TH DECEMBER, 1850.
[Sidenote: SWIFT CONCLUSION.]
And pulseless and cold, with a derringer by his side and a bullet in
his heart, though still calm as in life, beneath the snow lay he who
was at once the strongest and yet the weakest of the outcasts of Poker
Flat.
MAUPASSANT AND HIS WRITINGS
Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant was born in Normandy, France, in
1850. In that picturesque region he passed his youth, and returned
thither for frequent sojourns in later life. Having finished his
studies, he became an employé in the government service in Paris.
This experience, his love for athletics, and his recollections of the
Franco-Prussian war, he turned to good account in his fictional work.
His literary education was conducted by Gustave Flaubert, his uncle and
god-father, under whom he served so rigid an apprenticeship that when
he produced his first short-story, “Tallow Ball” (_Boule de Suif_),
his preceptor pronounced it a masterpiece, as indeed it is. He died in
1893, at the age of 43, by his own hand, his reason having failed after
some years of increasing depression and gloom.
Though his productive period covered only ten years, Guy de Maupassant
has left several notable novels, some fair poetry, and a large number
of remarkable short-stories. Most of his work deals more frankly with
the sordid side of life than American society approves, but many of his
short-stories are unexceptionable. Among the best of these are “The
Necklace,” “The Horla,” “Happiness,” “Vain Beauty,” “A Coward,” “A
Ghost,” “Little Soldier,” “The Wolf,” “Moonlight,” and “The Piece of
String.”
Technically, Maupassant was the most finished short-story writer
of all; but he lacked spiritual power, and so he himself missed
much of the world’s beauty, and disclosed but little to others.
Rarely can the reader feel the least throb of sympathy of the author
for his characters. Technically flawless, his work is too often
cold, and the warm ideals of a tender heart are chiefly absent. An
inflexible realist, he pressed his method farther than did Flaubert,
a really strong novelist. From life’s raw materials Maupassant wove
incomparably brilliant fiction-fabrics, equally distinguished for plot,
characterization, and style; but it cannot be said that he interpreted
life with a wholesome, uplifting spirit.
Happy are they whom life satisfies, who can amuse themselves, and
be content ... who have not discovered, with a vast disgust, ...
that all things are a weariness.--GUY DE MAUPASSANT.
He who destroys the ideal destroys himself. In art and in life
Maupassant lived in the lower order of facts, the brutal world of
events unrelated to a spiritual order. He drained his senses of the
last power of sensation and reaction; he plunged headlong into the
sensual life upon which they opened when the luminous heaven above
the material world was obliterated. Madness always lies that way as
a matter of physiology as well as of morals, and Maupassant went
the tragic way of the sensualist since time began.--HAMILTON W.
MABIE, in _The Outlook_.
Maupassant saw life with his senses, and he reflected on it
in a purely animal revolt, the recoil of the hurt animal. His
observation is not, as it has been hastily assumed to be, cold; it
is as superficially emotional as that of the average sensual man,
and its cynicism is only another, not less superficial, kind of
feeling. He saw life in all its details, and his soul was entangled
in the details. He saw it without order, without recompense,
without pity; he saw it too clearly to be duped by appearances, and
too narrowly to distinguish any light beyond what seemed to him the
enclosing bounds of darkness.--ARTHUR SYMONS, _Studies in Prose and
Verse_.
He has produced a hundred short tales and only four regular novels;
but if the tales deserve the first place in any candid appreciation
of his talent it is not simply because they are so much the more
numerous: they are also more characteristic; they represent him
best in his originality, and their brevity, extreme in some cases,
does not prevent them from being a collection of masterpieces....
What they have most in common is their being extremely strong, and
after that their being extremely brutal.... M. de Maupassant sees
human life as a terribly ugly business relieved by the comical,
but even the comedy is for the most part the comedy of misery, of
avidity, of ignorance, helplessness, and grossness.--HENRY JAMES,
_Partial Portraits_.
His short-stories are masterpieces of the art of story-telling,
because he had a Greek sense of form, a Latin power of
construction, and a French felicity of style. They are simple,
most of them; direct, swift, inevitable, and inexorable in their
straightforward movement. If art consists in the suppression of
non-essentials, there have been few greater artists in fiction
than Maupassant. In his Short-stories there is never a word
wasted, and there is never an excursus. Nor is there any feebleness
or fumbling. What he wanted to do he did, with the unerring
certainty of Leatherstocking, hitting the bull’s-eye again and
again. He had the abundance and the ease of the very great artists;
and the half-dozen or the half-score of his best stories are among
the very best Short-stories in any language.--BRANDER MATTHEWS,
_The Philosophy of the Short-Story_.
His firm, alert prose is so profoundly French, free from
neologisms, strong in verbs, sober in adjectives, every sentence
standing out with no apparent effort, no excess, like a muscle in
the perfect body of a young athlete.... He has that sense of the
real which so many naturalists lack, and which the care for exact
detail does not replace.... His predilection for ordinary scenes
and ordinary types is everywhere evident; he uses all kinds of
settings,--a café, a furnished room, a farmyard, seen in their
actual character without poetic transfiguration, with all their
vulgarity, their poverty, their ugliness. And he uses, too, all
kinds of characters,--clerks, peasants of Normandy, petty bourgeois
of Paris and of the country. They live the empty, tragic, or
grotesque hours of their lives; are sometimes touching, sometimes
odious; and never achieve greatness either in heroism or in
wickedness.
They are not gay, these stories; and the kind of amusement they
afford is strongly mixed with irony, pity, and contempt. Gayety,
whether brutal, frank, mocking, or delicate, never leaves this
bitter taste in the heart. How pitiful in its folly, in its
vanity, in its weakness, is the humanity which loves, weeps, or
agitates in the tales of Maupassant! There, virtue if awkward is
never recompensed, nor vice if skillful punished; mothers are not
always saints, nor sons always grateful and respectful; the guilty
are often ignorant of remorse. Then are these beings immoral? To
tell the truth, they are guided by their instincts, by events,
submissive to the laws of necessity, and apparently released by the
author from all responsibility.--FIRMIN ROZ, _Guy de Maupassant_,
in WARNER’S _Library of the World’s Best Literature_.
FURTHER REFERENCES FOR READING ON MAUPASSANT
_French Fiction of To-day_, M. S. Van de Velde (1891); _Some French
Writers_, Edward Delille (1893); _Studies in Two Literatures_, Arthur
Symons (1897); _French Literature of To-day_, Yetta Blaze de Bury
(1898); _A Century of French Fiction_, Benjamin W. Wells (1898);
_Contemporary French Novelists_, René Doumic (1899).
FOR ANALYSIS
MOONLIGHT
(CLAIR DE LUNE)
BY GUY DE MAUPASSANT
_Translation by The Editor_[26]
The Abbé Marignan bore well his title of Soldier of the Church. He
was a tall priest, and spare; fanatical, perpetually in a state of
spiritual exaltation, but upright of soul. His every belief was
settled, without even a thought of wavering. He imagined sincerely that
he understood his God thoroughly, that he penetrated His designs, His
will, His purposes.
2. As with long strides he promenaded the garden walk of his little
country presbytery, sometimes a question would arise in his mind:
“Why did God create that?” And, mentally taking the place of God, he
searched obstinately for the answer--and nearly always found it.
It would not have been like him to murmur, in an outburst of pious
humility: “O Lord, thy designs are impenetrable!” Rather might he say
to himself: “I am the servant of God; I ought to know the reasons for
what He does, or, if I know them not, I ought to divine them.”
3. To him all nature seemed created with a logic as absolute as it
was admirable. The “wherefore” and the “because” always corresponded
perfectly. Dawn was made to gladden our waking, the day to ripen the
crops, the rain to water them, the evening to prepare for slumber, and
the night was darkened for sleep.
4. The four seasons met perfectly all the needs of agriculture; and
to the priest it was quite inconceivable that nature had no designs,
and that, on the contrary, all living things were subjects of the same
inexorable laws of period, climate, and matter.
5. But he did hate woman! He hated her unconscionably, and by instinct
held her in contempt. Often did he repeat the words of Christ, “Woman,
what have I to do with thee?” And he would add, “One might think that
God Himself did not feel quite content with this one work of his
hands!” To him, indeed, woman was the child twelve times unclean of
whom the poet speaks. She was the temptress who had ensnared the first
man, and who constantly kept up her work of damnation--she was a
feeble, dangerous, and mysteriously troublous creature. And even more
than her accursed body did he hate her loving spirit.
6. He had often felt that women were regarding him tenderly, and even
though he knew himself to be invulnerable, it exasperated him to
recognize that need for loving which fluttered ever-present in their
hearts.
7. In his opinion, God had created woman only to tempt man and to
test him. She should never be even approached without those defensive
measures which one would take, and those fears which one would harbor,
when nearing a trap. In fact, she was precisely like a trap, with her
lips open and arms extended towards man.
8. Only toward nuns did he exercise any indulgence, for they were
rendered harmless by their vow. But he treated them harshly just the
same, because, ever-living in the depths of their pent-up and humble
hearts, he discerned that everlasting tenderness which constantly
surged up toward him, priest though he was.
9. Of all this he was conscious in their upturned glances, more
limpid with pious feeling than the looks of monks; in the spiritual
exaltations in which their sex indulged; in their ecstasies of love
toward Christ, which made the priest indignant because it was really
woman’s love, carnal love. Of this detestable tenderness he was
conscious, too, in their very docility, in the gentleness of their
voices when they addressed him, in their downcast eyes, and in their
submissive tears when he rudely rebuked them.
10. So he would shake his cassock when he left the convent door, and
stride off, stretching his legs as if fleeing before some danger.
11. Now the abbé had a niece who lived with her mother in a little
house near by. He was determined to make of her a sister of charity.
12. She was pretty, giddy, and a born tease. When he preached at
her, she laughed; and when he became angry with her, she kissed him
vehemently, pressing him to her bosom, while he would instinctively
seek to disengage himself from this embrace--which, all the same,
gave him a thrill of exquisite joy, awaking deep within his soul that
feeling of fatherhood which slumbers in every man.
13. Often as they walked together along the foot-paths through the
fields, he would talk with her of God, of his God; but she scarcely
heard him, for she was looking at the sky, the grass, the flowers, with
a joy of life which beamed from her eyes. Sometimes she would dart away
to catch some flying creature, crying as she brought it back: “See, my
uncle, how pretty it is; I should like to kiss it.” And that passion to
kiss insects, or lilac flowers, disturbed, irritated, and repelled the
priest, who recognized even in that longing the ineradicable love which
blooms perennial in the heart of woman.
14. And now one day the sacristan’s wife, who was the Abbé Marignan’s
housekeeper, cautiously told him that his niece had a lover!
15. He was dreadfully shocked, and stood gasping for breath, lather all
over his face, for he was shaving.
16. When at length he was able to think and speak, he cried: “It is not
true. You are lying, Mélanie!”
17. But the peasant woman laid her hand over her heart: “May our Lord
judge me if I am lying, _monsieur le curé_. I tell you she goes out to
meet him every night as soon as your sister is in bed. They meet each
other down by the river. You need only go there between ten o’clock and
midnight to see for yourself.”
18. He stopped rubbing his chin and began pacing the room violently, as
was his custom in times of serious thought. When at length he did try
to finish his shaving he cut himself three times, from nose to ear.
19. All day long he was silent, though almost exploding with
indignation and wrath. To his priestly rage against the power of love
was now added the indignation of a spiritual father, of a teacher, of
the guardian of souls, who has been deceived, robbed, and trifled with
by a mere child. He felt that egotistical suffocation which parents
experience when their daughter tells them that she has selected a
husband without their advice and in defiance of their wishes.
20. After dinner he tried to read a little, but he could not--he grew
more and more exasperated. When the clock struck ten, he grasped his
cane, a formidable oaken club which he always carried when he went
out at night to visit the sick. With a smile he examined this huge
cudgel, gripped it in his solid, countryman’s fist, and flourished it
menacingly in the air. Then, suddenly, with grinding teeth, he brought
it down upon a chair-back, which fell splintered to the floor.
21. He opened his door to go out; but paused upon the threshold,
surprised by such a glory of moonlight as one rarely sees.
22. And as he was endowed with an exalted soul of such a sort as the
Fathers of the Church, those poetic seers, must have possessed, he
became suddenly entranced, moved by the grand and tranquil beauty of
the pale-faced night.
23. In his little garden, all suffused with the tender radiance,
his fruit-trees, set in rows, outlined in shadows upon the paths
their slender limbs of wood, scarce clothed with verdure. The giant
honeysuckle, clinging to the house wall, exhaled its delicious, honeyed
breath--the soul of perfume seemed to hover about in the warm, clear
night.
24. He began to breathe deep, drinking in the air as drunkards drink
their wine; and he walked slowly, ravished, amazed, his niece almost
forgotten.
25. When he reached the open country he paused to gaze upon the broad
sweep of landscape, all deluged by that caressing radiance, all drowned
in that soft and sensuous charm of peaceful night. Momently the frogs
sounded out their quick metallic notes, and distant nightingales added
to the seductive moonlight their welling music, which charms to dreams
without thought--that gossamer, vibrant melody born only to mate with
kisses.
26. The Abbé moved again, his courage unaccountably failing. He felt as
though he were enfeebled, suddenly exhausted--he longed to sit down, to
linger there, to glorify God for all His works.
27. A little farther on, following the winding of the little river,
curved a row of tall poplars. Suspended about and above the banks,
enwrapping the whole sinuous course of the stream with a sort of light,
transparent down, was a fine white mist, shot through by the moon-rays,
and transmuted by them into gleaming silver.
28. The priest paused once again, stirred to the deeps of his soul by a
growing, an irresistible feeling of tenderness.
29. And a doubt, an undefined disquietude, crept over him; he
discerned the birth of one of those questions which now and again came
to him.
30. Why had God made all this? Since the night was ordained for
slumber, for unconsciousness, for repose, for forgetfulness of
everything, why should He make it lovelier than the day, sweeter than
dawn and sunset? And that star, slow-moving, seductive, more poetic
than the sun, so like to destiny, and so delicate that seemingly it was
created to irradiate things too subtle, too refined, for the greater
orb--why was it come to illumine all the shades?
31. Why did not the most accomplished of all singing birds repose now
like the others, but sing in the unquiet dark?
32. Why was this semi-veil cast over the world? Why this sighing of the
heart, this tumult of the soul, this languor of the flesh?
33. Why this show of charms, never seen by men because they are asleep?
For whose eyes was all this sublime spectacle designed, all this wealth
of poetic loveliness diffused from heaven over the earth?
34. And the Abbé did not understand it at all.
35. But there below, at the very edge of the field, under the arching
trees wet with luminous mist, two shadows appeared, walking side by
side.
36. The man was the taller, and had his arm about his sweetheart’s
neck; and from time to time he bent to kiss her forehead. They animated
suddenly the lifeless landscape, which enveloped their figures like a
divine frame fashioned expressly for them. They seemed, those two, like
a single being, the being for whom was created this tranquil, silent
night. Like a living answer, the answer which his Master had sent to
his question, they moved toward the priest.
37. Overwhelmed, his heart throbbing, he stood still, and it seemed
as though there spread before him some Biblical scene, like the loves
of Ruth and Boaz, the working out of the Lord’s will in one of those
majestic dramas set forth in the lives of the saints. The verses of the
Song of Songs, the ardent cries, the call of the body--all the glowing
romance of that poem so aflame with tenderness and love, began to sing
itself into his mind.
38. And he said to himself: “Perhaps God made nights such as this in
order to cast the veil of the ideal over the loves of men.”
39. He withdrew before this pair, who went on arm in arm. True, it was
his niece; but now he asked himself if he had not been upon the verge
of disobeying God. And, indeed, if God did not permit love, why did he
visibly encompass it with glory such as this?
40. And he fled, bewildered, almost ashamed, as if he had penetrated in
a temple wherein he had no right to enter.
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS FOR STUDY
1. Precisely why do our surroundings affect our moods and actions? Give
examples from your own experience.
2. Which seems to you to be the more frequent in fiction: harmony, or
contrast of character with setting?
3. Which seems to you to be the more effective? Why?
4. Outline the motives which actuated at least three of the characters
in “The Outcasts of Poker Flat.”
5. Is the story overdrawn?
6. Is the influence of the moonlight enough to account for the change
in the priest in “Moonlight,” or must we allow something for romance?
7. Trace the several physical crises of Harte’s story from the very
beginning.
8. Do the same for the moral crises.
9. Show their inter-relation.
10. Select from a magazine a story in which setting influences in some
way the actions of the characters, and point out precisely how.
TEN REPRESENTATIVE STORIES OF SETTING
“A Leaf in the Storm,” Ouida, in _Stories by English Authors_.
“Mrs. Knollys,” F. J. Stimson, _Century Magazine_, Nov., 1883.
“Up the Coulée,” Hamlin Garland, in _Main Travelled Roads_.
“The Girl at Duke’s,” James W. Linn, _McClure’s Magazine_, Aug.,
1903.
“The Dancin’ Party at Harrison’s Cove,” Charles Egbert Craddock,
_Atlantic Monthly_, May, 1878.
“Twenty-Six and One,” Maxim Gorky, translated in volume of same
title.
“The Unknown Masterpiece,” Honoré de Balzac, translated in _Little
French Masterpieces, Balzac_.
“Red Bird,” Elizabeth Maury Coombs, _Lippincott’s Magazine_, Dec.,
1911.
“The Wall Opposite,” Pierre Loti, translated in _Short Story
Classics, Foreign_.
“The End of the Tether,” Joseph Conrad, in _Youth_.
FOOTNOTES:
[24] From the author’s _Writing the Short-Story_, p. 149, which see for
a chapter on “The Setting of the Story.”
[25] _Writing the Short-Story_, pp. 151-152.
[26] Copyright, 1911, by J. B. Lippincott Co., and used by permission.
VI
IMPRESSIONISTIC STORIES
_The White Old Maid._--NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
_The Fall of the House of Usher._--EDGAR ALLAN POE
I prefer commencing with the consideration of an _effect_. Keeping
originality _always_ in view--for he is false to himself who
ventures to dispense with so obvious and so easily attainable
a source of interest--I say to myself, in the first place, “Of
the innumerable effects or impressions of which the heart, the
intellect, or (more generally) the soul is susceptible, what
one shall I, on the present occasion, select?” Having chosen a
novel first, and secondly, a vivid effect, I consider whether it
can be best wrought by incident or tone, or the converse, or by
peculiarity both of incident and tone--afterwards looking about me
(or rather within) for such combinations of event or tone as shall
best aid me in the construction of the effect.--EDGAR ALLAN POE,
_The Philosophy of Composition_.
IMPRESSIONISTIC STORIES
The value of a literary term lies in the comprehensive and precise
picture which it calls up in the mind of him who reads it. So we
must seek to limit, as well as seize upon, the meaning of this word
“impressionistic.”
The first purpose in telling a story would seem to be the pleasure
or the profit of the hearer--if we exclude the bore who tells a yarn
chiefly to please himself. But a closer scrutiny of certain stories
discloses other objects of the narrator, and these may be either
subordinate or paramount to considerations of benefit or entertainment.
The most important of these artistic purposes is to reproduce in
the hearer the full effect which a certain mood, theme, character,
situation, incident, or chain of incidents, originally made upon the
story-teller himself. When he succeeds in reproducing in others his
own feeling, by such means as we shall presently study, he does so by
impressionistic means.
Poe, writing in _Graham’s Magazine_, May, 1842, says: “A skilful
literary artist has constructed a tale. If wise, he has not fashioned
his thoughts to accommodate his incidents; but having conceived, with
deliberate care, a certain unique or single _effect_ to be wrought
out, he then invents such incidents--he then combines such events--as
may best aid him in establishing the preconceived effect. If his very
initial sentence tend not to the outbringing of this effect, then he
has failed in his first step. In the whole composition there should be
no word written, of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to
the one preëstablished design.”
It does not seem probable that Poe meant to speak of impressionism
as constituting so much a distinct type of story as to point out its
importance as a method in all story-telling; and we must not overlook
its usefulness in this respect. Indeed, nearly all good short-stories
begin, in the mind of the author, and end, in the spirit of the reader,
with a more or less clear and unified impression. Still, certain little
fictions are, alike in theme and treatment, so decidedly conceived and
told with the purpose of leaving the reader under the spell of a mood,
a feeling, a character, or a situation, that they are IMPRESSIONISTIC
stories, rather than impressionistic STORIES.
The natural tendency for the impressionistic writer is to subordinate
incident and plot to tone--in a word, to emphasize a picture, whether
internal or external, rather than a set of happenings, which in dealing
with fiction we call the action. So an impressionistic narrative
may really tell a story of situation, crisis, and denouement, or,
as is more likely to be the case, it may tend decidedly toward the
sketch. All depends upon the nature of the theme. Thus, the _beauty of
sacrifice_ demands an action to illustrate that abnegation, and all
the accessories must serve as high-lights and shadows to bring out
this motive in strong relief; but the _tone of gloom_ may be conveyed
without even the semblance of a plot.
Now a story may produce a gloomy effect without deliberately picturing
an atmosphere of gloom--it may leave the reader with a vague,
pessimistic distaste for joy, and yet present no such picture. Or
it may marvellously delineate loneliness, without leaving that as
the final impression of the story. This is not impressionism, though
it may be very good story-telling. Impressionism is conscious art,
art prepense, and, as will be seen in the two stories presented as
examples in this section, subordinates everything to tonal effect; in
other words, the impressionistic story symbolizes in human action some
human mood or condition. For this reason such stories are often called
stories of symbolism.
HAWTHORNE AND HIS WRITINGS
Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts, July 4, 1804.
His New England ancestors bore the name Hathorne, as did the author’s
sea-captain father--also a Nathaniel--who died at Surinam, Dutch
Guiana, when his son was four years old. In 1818 the family moved
to Raymond, Maine, but most of the youth’s education was gotten at
Salem, and there his family returned in 1820. The following year he
entered Bowdoin College, from which he was graduated in 1825. At
this time--when he was twenty-one--he had already begun _Twice-Told
Tales_; it was then, too, that he inserted the _w_ into his name. He
was now writing industriously, often under a pseudonym; he also did
considerable hack and editorial work. During 1839 and a part of 1840
he served in the Boston Custom House; then he joined the Brook Farm
Community in 1841, but remained there only a short time. He married
Sophia Peabody in 1842. In 1846 he returned to the Customs service,
in Salem, remaining this time about three years. In 1853 he was
appointed by his classmate, President Pierce, as United States Consul
at Liverpool. During the more than three years of his consulship he
traveled widely in Great Britain, and later spent much time in Italy,
where some of his best work was accomplished. During the last years of
his life he wrote but intermittently, being a prey to depression and
ill health. He died at Plymouth, New Hampshire, May 19, 1864, and is
buried in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord, Mass.
Nathaniel Hawthorne was a remarkable novelist, essayist, and
short-story writer. _The Scarlet Letter_ and _The Marble Faun_, are his
greatest novels. _The House of the Seven Gables_ is a series of related
sketches rather than a romance. Probably his best short-stories are
“The Birthmark,” “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” and “Drowne’s Wooden Image,”
in _Mosses From An Old Manse_; “The Gray Champion,” “The Minister’s
Black Veil,” “The Gentle Boy,” “The Great Carbuncle,” “Dr. Heidegger’s
Experiment,” “The Ambitious Guest,” “Wakefield,” and “The White Old
Maid,” from _Twice-Told Tales_; and “The Great Stone Face,” “Ethan
Brand” and “The Snow-Image,” in _The Snow-Image and other Twice-Told
Tales_. These three collections contain also many charming sketches,
while _The Wonder Book_, and _Tanglewood Tales_ are rich in interest
for younger readers.
“The White Old Maid,” given herewith in full, was first published in
the _New England Magazine_ for July, 1835, and was entitled “The Old
Maid in the Winding Sheet, by the Author of The Gray Champion.”
* * * * *
Hawthorne enjoyed the distinction of winning in his day the almost
unanimous approval of critics both at home and abroad, and this in a
period when criticism was not a gentle art. Time, moreover, has only
added to his praises. As a fiction writer he had depth, breadth, and
height. Hawthorne alone among the fictionists of his era may justly be
said to have a philosophy of his own; his themes cover a wide range;
and the loftiness of his ideals is well recognized. As Longfellow
discerned, and generously announced as early as 1837, Hawthorne was a
poet who wrote prose. He knew a mood in nature to match every human
emotion, and in her multiform life he saw images to enforce a thousand
striking comparisons. He was a student of the soul, too, albeit a
gloomy one, for the most part. But while the sombreness of lives beset
by stern problems oppressed him, and but little humor brightens his
pages, one searches in vain for a pessimistic spirit--Hawthorne’s
knowledge of the human heart saddened him, but it did not make him
misanthropic. One feels the reality, the vital bearing, of the things
he writes about. It is impossible to read him appreciatively and not
realize the sincerity of the man, and the fine earnestness, the
upright though severe justness, with which he viewed life. Sweetness,
beauty--haunting beauty, indeed--and a certain airy lightness, were
not wanting in his work; but the big tones--resonant, solemn at times,
and inspiring always--were poetic insight, fervid intensity, and lofty
purpose. Hawthorne was a seer. The inside of things was disclosed to
him. That which he could not see, he felt. And with a classic purity of
style he worded the fantastic, gloomy, lightsome, or tragic pageantry
of his creations in sentences that live and live.
I wish God had given me the faculty of writing a sunshiny
book.--NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, _Letter to James T. Fields_.
Soon to be all spirit, I have already a spiritual sense of human
nature, and see deeply into the hearts of mankind, discovering what
is hidden from the wisest.... My glance comprehends the crowd, and
penetrates the breast of the solitary man.--NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE,
_My Home Return_, in _Tales and Sketches_.
He uses his characters, like algebraic symbols, to work out certain
problems with; they are rather more, yet rather less, than flesh
and blood.--H. A. BEERS, quoted in Tappan’s _Topical Notes on
American Authors_.
Hawthorne’s style, at its best, is one of the most perfect media
employed by any writer using the English language. Dealing, as it
usually does, with an immaterial subject-matter, with dream-like
impressions, and fantastic products of the imagination, it is
concrete without being opaque,--luminously concrete, one might
say. No other writer that I know of has the power of making his
fancies visible and tangible without impairing their delicate
immateriality. If any writer can put the rainbow into words, and
yet leave it a rainbow, surely that writer is Hawthorne.--RICHARD
LE GALLIENNE, _Attitudes and Avowals_.
In all his most daring fantasies Hawthorne is natural; and though
he may project his vision far beyond the boundaries of fact,
nowhere does he violate the laws of nature.... A brutal misuse of
the supernatural is perhaps the very lowest degradation of the
art of fiction. But “to mingle the marvellous rather as a slight,
delicate, and evanescent flavour than as any actual portion of
the substance,” to quote from the preface to the _House of the
Seven Gables_, this is, or should be, the aim of the writer of
Short-stories whenever his feet leave the firm ground of fact as he
strays in the unsubstantial realms of fantasy.--BRANDER MATTHEWS,
_The Philosophy of the Short-story_.
Hawthorne has been called a mystic, which he was not,--and a
psychological dreamer, which he was in very slight degree. He was
really the ghost of New England. I do not mean the “spirit,” nor
the “phantom,” but the ghost in the older sense in which that term
is used, the thin, rarefied essence which is to be found somewhere
behind the physical organization: embodied, indeed, and not by any
means in a shadowy or diminutive earthly tabernacle, but yet only
half embodied in it, endowed with a certain painful sense of the
gulf between his nature and its organization, always recognizing
the gulf, always trying to bridge it over, and always more or
less unsuccessful in the attempt. His writings are not exactly
spiritual writings, for there is no dominating spirit in them.
They are ghostly writings.... I may, perhaps, accept a phrase of
which Hawthorne himself was fond,--“the moonlight of romance,”--and
compel it to explain something of the secret of his characteristic
genius.--R. H. HUTTON, _Essays in Literary Criticism_.
This, too [“The White Old Maid”], is a story, in the sense that
something happens; and yet the real story, by which I mean the
narrative which would logically connect and develop these events,
is just hinted at, and is not very important. It is subordinated,
indeed, to a new aim. “The White Old Maid” is narrative for a
purpose, and this purpose is to suggest an impression, and to leave
us with a vivid sensation rather than a number of remembered facts.
In short, it is contrived, not to leave a record of such and such
an old woman who did this or that, but rather to stamp upon our
minds the impression of a mystery-haunted house, mysterious figures
entering, strange words, and a terrible sorrow behind all. Towards
such a result the structure of the plot, every bit of description,
every carefully chosen word, directly tends.--HENRY SEIDEL CANBY,
_The Book of the Short Story_.
FURTHER REFERENCES FOR READING ON HAWTHORNE
_Hours in a Library_, Leslie Stephen (1874); _Study of Hawthorne_,
George Parsons Lathrop (1876); _Life_, in the _English Men of Letters_
series, Henry James (1880); _Nathaniel Hawthorne and His Wife_, Julian
Hawthorne (1885); _Life_, in the _Great Writers_ series, Moncure D.
Conway (1890); _Personal Recollections of Nathaniel Hawthorne_, Horatio
Bridge (1893); _Memories of Hawthorne_, Rose Hawthorne Lathrop (1897);
_Nathaniel Hawthorne_, Anne Fields (1899); _Life_, in the _American Men
of Letters_ series, George Edward Woodberry (1902).
THE WHITE OLD MAID
BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
[Sidenote: Introduction of setting, giving atmosphere of story.]
[Sidenote: FIRST PLOT SITUATION.]
The moonbeams came through two deep and narrow windows, and showed
a spacious chamber richly furnished in an antique fashion. From one
lattice the shadow of the diamond panes was thrown upon the floor; the
ghostly light, through the other, slept upon a bed, falling between the
heavy silken curtains, and illuminating the face of a young man. But,
how quietly the slumberer lay! how pale his features! and how like a
shroud the sheet was wound about his frame! Yes; it was a corpse, in
its burial clothes.
[Sidenote: This uncertainty strikes the tone of the story, which
trembles constantly between the real and the fancied, the physical
and the spirit world, keeping the reader in doubt as to whether he is
witnessing a manifestation of the supernatural or is deceived by the
mysterious atmosphere of the unusual.]
[Sidenote: TWO MAIN CHARACTERS INTRODUCED.]
2. Suddenly, the fixed features seemed to move with dark emotion.
Strange fantasy! It was but the shadow of the fringed curtain waving
betwixt the dead face and the moonlight, as the door of the chamber
opened and a girl stole softly to the bedside. Was there delusion
in the moonbeams, or did her gesture and her eye betray a gleam of
triumph, as she bent over the pale corpse--pale as itself--and pressed
her living lips to the cold ones of the dead? As she drew back from
that long kiss, her features writhed as if a proud heart were fighting
with its anguish. Again it seemed that the features of the corpse had
moved responsive to her own. Still an illusion! The silken curtain
had waved, a second time, betwixt the dead face and the moonlight, as
another fair young girl unclosed the door, and glided, ghostlike, to
the bedside. There the two maidens stood, both beautiful, with the pale
beauty of the dead between them. But she who had first entered was
proud and stately, and the other a soft and fragile thing.
[Sidenote: Note the archaic, formal language, which sets the period in
the long ago.]
3. “Away!” cried the lofty one. “Thou hadst him living! The dead is
mine!”
[Sidenote: _Motif_ of story.]
4. “Thine!” returned the other, shuddering. “Well hast thou spoken! The
dead is thine!”
5. The proud girl started, and stared into her face with a ghastly
look. But a wild and mournful expression passed across the features of
the gentle one; and weak and helpless, she sank down on the bed, her
head pillowed beside that of the corpse, and her hair mingling with his
dark locks. A creature of hope and joy, the first draught of sorrow had
bewildered her.
6. “Edith!” cried her rival.
[Sidenote: Note “of the heart.”]
7. Edith groaned, as with a sudden compassion of the heart; and
removing her cheek from the dead youth’s pillow, she stood upright,
fearfully encountering the eyes of the lofty girl.
8. “Wilt thou betray me?” said the latter calmly.
[Sidenote: Full statement of the _motif_, ending with ¶12. FOUNDATION
OF MAIN CRISIS.]
9. “Till the dead bid me speak, I will be silent,” answered Edith.
“Leave us alone together! Go, and live many years, and then return, and
tell me of thy life. He, too, will be here! Then, if thou tellest of
sufferings more than death, we will both forgive thee.”
10. “And what shall be the token?” asked the proud girl, as if her
heart acknowledged a meaning in these wild words.
11. “This lock of hair,” said Edith, lifting one of the dark,
clustering curls that lay heavily on the dead man’s brow.
[Sidenote: End of first part of story.]
12. The two maidens joined their hands over the bosom of the corpse,
and appointed a day and hour, far, far in time to come, for their next
meeting in that chamber. The statelier girl gave one deep look at the
motionless countenance, and departed--yet turned again and trembled ere
she closed the door, almost believing that her dead lover frowned upon
her. And Edith, too! Was not her white form fading into the moonlight?
Scorning her own weakness she went forth, and perceived that a negro
slave was waiting in the passage with a wax-light, which he held
between her face and his own, and regarded her, as she thought, with
an ugly expression of merriment. Lifting his torch on high, the slave
lighted her down the staircase, and undid the portal of the mansion.
The young clergyman of the town had just ascended the steps, and bowing
to the lady, passed in without a word.
[Sidenote: Second stage.]
[Sidenote: Hawthorne’s first title for this story.]
[Sidenote: Character delineation, largely mental and moral.]
[Sidenote: Key.]
[Sidenote: Contributory incident.]
[Sidenote: Note language of symbolism.]
[Sidenote: Key.]
13. Years, many years, rolled on; the world seemed new again, so much
older was it grown since the night when those pale girls had clasped
their hands across the bosom of the corpse. In the interval, a lonely
woman had passed from youth to extreme age, and was known by all the
town as the “Old Maid in the Winding Sheet.” A taint of insanity had
affected her whole life, but so quiet, sad, and gentle, so utterly free
from violence, that she was suffered to pursue her harmless fantasies,
unmolested by the world, with whose business or pleasure she had nought
to do. She dwelt alone, and never came into the daylight, except to
follow funerals. Whenever a corpse was borne along the street in
sunshine, rain, or snow; whether a pompous train of the rich and proud
thronged after it, or few and humble were the mourners, behind them
came the lonely woman in a long white garment which the people called
her shroud. She took no place among the kindred or the friends, but
stood at the door to hear the funeral prayer, and walked in the rear of
the procession, as one whose earthly charge it was to haunt the house
of mourning, and be the shadow of affliction, and see that the dead
were duly buried. So long had this been her custom that the inhabitants
of the town deemed her a part of every funeral, as much as the coffin
pall, or the very corpse itself, and augured ill of the sinner’s
destiny unless the “Old Maid in the Winding Sheet” came gliding, like a
ghost, behind. Once, it is said, she affrighted a bridal party with her
pale presence, appearing suddenly in the illuminated hall, just as the
priest was uniting a false maid to a wealthy man, before her lover had
been dead a year. Evil was the omen to that marriage! Sometimes she
stole forth by moonlight and visited the graves of venerable Integrity,
and wedded Love, and virgin Innocence, and every spot where the ashes
of a kind and faithful heart were mouldering. Over the hillocks of
those favored dead would she stretch out her arms, with a gesture, as
if she were scattering seeds; and many believed that she brought them
from the garden of Paradise; for the graves which she had visited were
green beneath the snow, and covered with sweet flowers from April to
November. Her blessing was better than a holy verse upon the tombstone.
Thus wore away her long, sad, peaceful, and fantastic life, till few
were so old as she, and the people of later generations wondered how
the dead had ever been buried, or mourners had endured their grief,
without the “Old Maid in the Winding Sheet.”
[Sidenote: Third stage.]
[Sidenote: Preparation for main crisis.]
[Sidenote: Opening of MAIN PLOT INCIDENT.]
[Sidenote: Local-color.]
[Sidenote: Central setting; return to original setting.]
[Sidenote: Development of setting, and TONE OF AN EMPTY HOUSE.]
14. Still years went on, and still she followed funerals, and was not
yet summoned to her own festival of death. One afternoon the great
street of the town was all alive with business and bustle, though the
sun now gilded only the upper half of the church spire, having left
the housetops and loftiest trees in shadow. The scene was cheerful
and animated, in spite of the sombre shade between the high brick
buildings. Here were pompous merchants, in white wigs and laced
velvet; the bronzed faces of sea-captains; the foreign garb and air
of Spanish creoles; and the disdainful port of natives of Old England;
all contrasted with the rough aspect of one or two back settlers,
negotiating sales of timber from forests where axe had never sounded.
Sometimes a lady passed, swelling roundly forth in an embroidered
petticoat, balancing her steps in high-heeled shoes, and courtesying
with lofty grace to the punctilious obeisances of the gentlemen. The
life of the town seemed to have its very centre not far from an old
mansion, that stood somewhat back from the pavement, surrounded by
neglected grass, with a strange air of loneliness, rather deepened than
dispelled by the throng so near. Its site would have been suitably
occupied by a magnificent Exchange or a brick block, lettered all over
with various signs; or the large house itself might have made a noble
tavern, with the “King’s Arms” swinging before it, and guests in every
chamber, instead of the present solitude. But owing to some dispute
about the right of inheritance, the mansion had been long without a
tenant, decaying from year to year, and throwing the stately gloom of
its shadow over the busiest part of the town. Such was the scene, and
such the time, when a figure unlike any that have been described was
observed at a distance down the street.
[Sidenote: First main character.]
15. “I espy a strange sail, yonder,” remarked a Liverpool captain;
“that woman in the long white garment!”
16. The sailor seemed much struck by the object, as were several
others who, at the same moment, caught a glimpse of the figure that
had attracted his notice. Almost immediately the various topics of
conversation gave place to speculations, in an undertone, on this
unwonted occurrence.
17. “Can there be a funeral so late this afternoon?” inquired some.
18. They looked for the signs of death at every door--the sexton, the
hearse, the assemblage of black-clad relatives--all that makes up the
woful pomp of funerals. They raised their eyes, also, to the sun-gilt
spire of the church, and wondered that no clang proceeded from its
bell, which had always tolled till now when this figure appeared in the
light of day. But none had heard that a corpse was to be borne to its
home that afternoon, nor was there any token of funeral, except the
apparition of the “Old Maid in the Winding Sheet.”
[Sidenote: Key.]
19. “What may this portend?” asked each man of his neighbor.
[Sidenote: Contrast.]
[Sidenote: Impressionism vivid.]
[Sidenote: Direct character description.]
[Sidenote: Contrast.]
[Sidenote: Character delineation by suggestion.]
20. All smiled as they put the question, yet with a certain trouble
in their eyes, as if pestilence or some other wide calamity were
prognosticated by the untimely intrusion among the living of one
whose presence had always been associated with death and woe. What
a comet is to the earth was that sad woman to the town. Still she
moved on, while the hum of surprise was hushed at her approach, and
the proud and the humble stood aside, that her white garment might
not wave against them. It was a long, loose robe, of spotless purity.
Its wearer appeared very old, pale, emaciated, and feeble, yet glided
onward without the unsteady pace of extreme age. At one point of her
course a little rosy boy burst forth from a door, and ran, with open
arms, towards the ghostly woman, seeming to expect a kiss from her
bloodless lips. She made a slight pause, fixing her eye upon him with
an expression of no earthly sweetness, so the child shivered and stood
awe-struck, rather than affrighted, while the Old Maid passed on.
Perhaps her garment might have been polluted even by an infant’s touch;
perhaps her kiss would have been death to the sweet boy within a year.
[Sidenote: Tone of story summarized.]
21. “She is but a shadow,” whispered the superstitious. “The child put
forth his arms and could not grasp her robe!”
[Sidenote: Crisis approaches.]
[Sidenote: The house mentioned in paragraphs 1, 12 and 14.]
22. The wonder was increased when the Old Maid passed beneath the porch
of the deserted mansion, ascended the moss-covered steps, lifted the
iron knocker, and gave three raps. The people could only conjecture
that some old remembrance, troubling her bewildered brain, had impelled
the poor woman hither to visit the friends of her youth; all gone from
their home long since and forever, unless their ghosts still haunted
it--fit company for the “Old Maid in the Winding Sheet.” An elderly
man approached the steps, and, reverently uncovering his gray locks,
essayed to explain the matter.
[Sidenote: Note “None--have.”]
[Sidenote: Contributory incident.]
[Sidenote: First mention of name.]
23. “None, Madam,” said he, “have dwelt in this house these fifteen
years agone--no, not since the death of old Colonel Fenwicke, whose
funeral you may remember to have followed. His heirs, being ill agreed
among themselves, have let the mansion-house go to ruin.”
[Sidenote: Note atmosphere of vagueness.]
24. The Old Maid looked slowly round with a slight gesture of one hand,
and a finger of the other upon her lip, appearing more shadow-like than
ever in the obscurity of the porch. But again she lifted the hammer,
and gave, this time, a single rap. Could it be that a footstep was now
heard coming down the staircase of the old mansion, which all conceived
to have been so long untenanted? Slowly, feebly, yet heavily, like the
pace of an aged and infirm person, the step approached, more distinct
on every downward stair, till it reached the portal. The bar fell on
the inside; the door opened. One upward glance towards the church
spire, whence the sunshine had just faded, was the last that the people
saw of the “Old Maid in the Winding Sheet.”
[Sidenote: Tone of mystery.]
25. “Who undid the door?” asked many.
[Sidenote: See ¶12.]
26. This question, owing to the depth of shadow beneath the porch,
no one could satisfactorily answer. Two or three aged men, while
protesting against an inference which might be drawn, affirmed that
the person within was a negro, and bore a singular resemblance to old
Cæsar, formerly a slave in the house, but freed by death some thirty
years before.
27. “Her summons has waked up a servant of the old family,” said one,
half seriously.
28. “Let us wait here,” replied another. “More guests will knock at the
door, anon. But the gate of the graveyard should be thrown open!”
[Sidenote: Preparation for climax.]
[Sidenote: No indication whence it came.]
[Sidenote: Setting.]
29. Twilight had overspread the town before the crowd began to
separate, or the comments on this incident were exhausted. One after
another was wending his way homeward, when a coach--no common spectacle
in those days--drove slowly into the street. It was an old-fashioned
equipage, hanging close to the ground, with arms on the panels,
a footman behind, and a grave, corpulent coachman seated high in
front--the whole giving an idea of solemn state and dignity. There was
something awful in the heavy rumbling of the wheels. The coach rolled
down the street, till, coming to the gateway of the deserted mansion,
it drew up, and the footman sprang to the ground.
30. “Whose grand coach is this?” asked a very inquisitive body.
[Sidenote: Three raps signify a formal demand for entrance.]
31. The footman made no reply, but ascended the steps of the old house,
gave three raps with the iron hammer, and returned to open the coach
door. An old man, possessed of the heraldic lore so common in that day,
examined the shield of arms on the panel.
[Sidenote: Setting.]
32. “Azure, a lion’s head erased, between three flower-de-luces,”
said he; then whispered the name of the family to whom these bearings
belonged. The last inheritor of his honors was recently dead, after a
long residence amid the splendor of the British court, where his birth
and wealth had given him no mean station. “He left no child,” continued
the herald, “and these arms, being in a lozenge, betoken that the coach
appertains to his widow.”
[Sidenote: SECOND MAIN CHARACTER.]
[Sidenote: Contributory incident.]
33. Further disclosures, perhaps, might have been made had not the
speaker suddenly been struck dumb by the stern eye of an ancient lady
who thrust forth her head from the coach, preparing to descend. As she
emerged, the people saw that her dress was magnificent, and her figure
dignified, in spite of age and infirmity--a stately ruin but with a
look, at once, of pride and wretchedness. Her strong and rigid features
had an awe about them, unlike that of the white Old Maid, but as of
something evil. She passed up the steps, leaning on a gold-headed
cane; the door swung open as she ascended--and the light of a torch
glittered on the embroidery of her dress, and gleamed on the pillars
of the porch. After a momentary pause--a glance backwards--and then a
desperate effort--she went in. The decipherer of the coat of arms had
ventured up the lowest step, and shrinking back immediately, pale and
tremulous, affirmed that the torch was held by the very image of old
Cæsar.
[Sidenote: Subordinate character of central action.]
[Sidenote: Compare ¶12.]
34. “But such a hideous grin,” added he, “was never seen on the face of
mortal man, black or white! It will haunt me till my dying day.”
[Sidenote: Note the use of shadows and twilights as accessories.]
[Sidenote: KEY.]
[Sidenote: Atmosphere--a sense of something about to occur.]
35. Meanwhile, the coach had wheeled round, with a prodigious clatter
on the pavement, and rumbled up the street, disappearing in the
twilight, while the ear still tracked its course. Scarcely was it gone,
when the people began to question whether the coach and attendants,
the ancient lady, the spectre of old Cæsar, and the Old Maid herself,
were not all a strangely combined delusion, with some dark purport in
its mystery. The whole town was astir, so that, instead of dispersing,
the crowd continually increased, and stood gazing up at the windows of
the mansion, now silvered by the brightening moon. The elders, glad
to indulge the narrative propensity of age, told of the long-faded
splendor of the family, the entertainments they had given, and the
guests, the greatest of the land, and even titled and noble ones from
abroad, who had passed beneath that portal. These graphic reminiscences
seemed to call up the ghosts of those to whom they referred. So strong
was the impression on some of the more imaginative hearers, that two
or three were seized with trembling fits, at one and the same moment,
protesting that they had distinctly heard three other raps of the iron
knocker.
[Sidenote: Contributory material.]
36. “Impossible!” exclaimed others. “See! The moon shines beneath the
porch, and shows every part of it, except in the narrow shade of that
pillar. There is no one there!”
37. “Did not the door open?” whispered one of these fanciful persons.
38. “Didst thou see it, too?” said his companion, in a startled tone.
[Sidenote: Vagueness.]
[Sidenote: Tone.]
39. But the general sentiment was opposed to the idea that a third
visitant had made application at the door of the deserted house. A
few, however, adhered to this new marvel, and even declared that a red
gleam like that of a torch had shone through the great front window,
as if the negro were lighting a guest up the staircase. This, too, was
pronounced a mere fantasy. But at once the whole multitude started, and
each man beheld his own terror painted in the faces of all the rest.
40. “What an awful thing is this!” cried they.
[Sidenote: Minor climax--preparation for main climax.]
[Sidenote: Note shifting of tenses.]
[Sidenote: Contributory incident.]
41. A shriek too fearfully distinct for doubt had been heard within the
mansion, breaking forth suddenly, and succeeded by a deep stillness,
as if a heart had burst in giving it utterance. The people knew not
whether to fly from the very sight of the house, or to rush trembling
in, and search out the strange mystery. Amid their confusion and
affright, they are somewhat reassured by the appearance of their
clergyman, a venerable patriarch, and equally a saint, who had taught
them and their fathers the way to heaven for more than the space of an
ordinary life-time. He was a reverend figure, with long, white hair
upon his shoulders, a white beard upon his breast, and a back so bent
over his staff that he seemed to be looking downward continually, as if
to choose a proper grave for his weary frame. It was some time before
the good old man, being deaf and of impaired intellect, could be made
to comprehend such portions of the affair as were comprehensible at
all. But, when possessed of the facts, his energies assumed unexpected
vigor.
42. “Verily,” said the old gentleman, “it will be fitting that I enter
the mansion-house of the worthy Colonel Fenwicke, lest any harm should
have befallen that true Christian woman whom ye call the ‘Old Maid in
the Winding Sheet.’”
[Sidenote: Again a shift in the manner of narration.]
43. Behold, then, the venerable clergyman ascending the steps of the
mansion, with a torch-bearer behind him. It was the elderly man who had
spoken to the Old Maid, and the same who had afterwards explained the
shield of arms and recognized the features of the negro. Like their
predecessors, they gave three raps with the iron hammer.
44. “Old Cæsar cometh not,” observed the priest. “Well I wot he no
longer doth service in this mansion.”
45. “Assuredly, then, it was something worse, in old Cæsar’s likeness!”
said the other adventurer.
[Sidenote: One who ventures.]
46. “Be it as God wills,” answered the clergyman. “See! my strength,
though it be much decayed, hath sufficed to open this heavy door. Let
us enter and pass up the staircase.”
[Sidenote: Key to tone further developed.]
47. Here occurred a singular exemplification of the dreamy state of a
very old man’s mind. As they ascended the wide flight of stairs, the
aged clergyman appeared to move with caution, occasionally standing
aside, and oftener bending his head, as it were in salutation, thus
practising all the gestures of one who makes his way through a throng.
Reaching the head of the staircase, he looked around with sad and
solemn benignity, laid aside his staff, bared his hoary locks, and was
evidently on the point of commencing a prayer.
48. “Reverend Sir,” said his attendant, who conceived this a very
suitable prelude to their further search, “would it not be well that
the people join with us in prayer?”
[Sidenote: Confusion between real and unreal further illustrated by
contributory material.]
[Sidenote: Deft introduction of central character.]
49. “Welladay!” cried the old clergyman, staring strangely around him.
“Art thou here with me, and none other? Verily, past times were present
to me, and I deemed that I was to make a funeral prayer, as many a time
heretofore, from the head of this staircase. Of a truth, I saw the
shades of many that are gone. Yea, I have prayed at their burials, one
after another, and the ‘Old Maid in the Winding Sheet’ hath seen them
to their graves!”
[Sidenote: Tone.]
[Sidenote: KEY.]
50. Being now more thoroughly awake to their present purpose, he took
his staff and struck forcibly on the floor, till there came an echo
from each deserted chamber, but no menial to answer their summons. They
therefore walked along the passage, and again paused, opposite to the
great front window through which was seen the crowd, in the shadow and
partial moonlight of the street beneath. On their right hand was the
open door of a chamber, and a closed one on their left. The clergyman
pointed his cane to the carved oak panel of the latter.
[Sidenote: Foundation situation.]
51. “Within that chamber,” observed he, “a whole life-time since, did I
sit by the death-bed of a goodly young man, who, being now at the last
gasp”--
[Sidenote: Atmosphere.]
[Sidenote: Note author’s device.]
[Sidenote: The decision must be inferred.]
[Sidenote: Tone of vagueness to the end.]
52. Apparently there was some powerful excitement in the ideas which
had now flashed across his mind. He snatched the torch from his
companion’s hand, and threw open the door with such sudden violence
that the flame was extinguished, leaving them no other light than the
moonbeams, which fell through two windows into the spacious chamber. It
was sufficient to discover all that could be known. In a high-backed
oaken armchair, upright, with her hands clasped across her heart, and
her head thrown back, sat the “Old Maid in the Winding Sheet.” The
stately dame had fallen on her knees, with her forehead on the holy
knees of the Old Maid, one hand upon the floor and the other pressed
convulsively against her heart. It clutched a lock of hair, once sable,
now discolored with a greenish mould. As the priest and layman advanced
into the chamber, the Old Maid’s features assumed such a semblance
of shifting expression that they trusted to hear the whole mystery
explained by a single word. But it was only the shadow of a tattered
curtain waving betwixt the dead face and the moonlight.
[Sidenote: CLIMAX.]
[Sidenote: Vague denouement.]
53. “Both dead!” said the venerable man. “Then who shall divulge the
secret? Methinks it glimmers to and fro in my mind, like the light and
shadow across the Old Maid’s face. And now ’tis gone!”
FOR ANALYSIS
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER
BY EDGAR ALLAN POE
Son cœur est un luth suspendu;
Sitôt qu’on le touche il résonne.
BERANGER.
During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn
of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens,
I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary
tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the
evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know
not how it was, but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense
of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for
the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because
poetic, sentiment with which the mind usually receives even the
sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon
the scene before me--upon the mere house, and the simple landscape
features of the domain, upon the bleak walls, upon the vacant eye-like
windows, upon a few rank sedges, and upon a few white trunks of decayed
trees--with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no
earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveler
upon opium: the bitter lapse into everyday life, the hideous dropping
off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the
heart, an unredeemed dreariness of thought, which no goading of the
imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What was it--I
paused to think--what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation
of the House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could I
grapple with the shadow fancies that crowded upon me as I pondered. I
was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory conclusion that while,
beyond doubt, there _are_ combinations of very simple natural objects
which have the power of thus affecting us, still the analysis of this
power lies among considerations beyond our depth. It was possible, I
reflected, that a mere different arrangement of the particulars of the
scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify,
or perhaps to annihilate, its capacity for sorrowful impression, and,
acting upon this idea, I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a
black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled lustre by the dwelling, and
gazed down--but with a shudder even more thrilling than before--upon
the remodeled and inverted images of the gray sedge, and the ghastly
tree-stems, and the vacant and eye-like windows.
2. Nevertheless, in this mansion of gloom I now proposed to myself
a sojourn of some weeks. Its proprietor, Roderick Usher, had been
one of my boon companions in boyhood; but many years had elapsed
since our last meeting. A letter, however, had lately reached me in a
distant part of the country--a letter from him--which in its wildly
importunate nature had admitted of no other than a personal reply.
The MS. gave evidence of nervous agitation. The writer spoke of acute
bodily illness, of a mental disorder which oppressed him, and of an
earnest desire to see me, as his best and indeed his only personal
friend, with a view of attempting, by the cheerfulness of my society,
some alleviation of his malady. It was the manner in which all this,
and much more, was said--it was the apparent _heart_ that went with his
request--which allowed me no room for hesitation; and I accordingly
obeyed forthwith what I still considered a very singular summons.
3. Although as boys we had been even intimate associates, yet I really
knew little of my friend. His reserve had been always excessive and
habitual. I was aware, however, that his very ancient family had been
noted, time out of mind, for a peculiar sensibility of temperament,
displaying itself, through long ages, in many works of exalted art,
and manifested of late in repeated deeds of munificent yet unobtrusive
charity, as well as in a passionate devotion to the intricacies,
perhaps even more than to the orthodox and easily recognizable
beauties, of musical science. I had learned, too, the very remarkable
fact that the stem of the Usher race, all time-honored as it was, had
put forth at no period any enduring branch; in other words, that the
entire family lay in the direct line of descent, and had always, with
a very trifling and very temporary variation, so lain. It was this
deficiency, I considered, while running over in thought the perfect
keeping of the character of the premises with the accredited character
of the people, and while speculating upon the possible influence which
the one, in the long lapse of centuries, might have exercised upon
the other,--it was this deficiency, perhaps, of collateral issue,
and the consequent undeviating transmission from sire to son of the
patrimony with the name, which had at length so identified the two as
to merge the original title of the estate in the quaint and equivocal
appellation of the “House of Usher,”--an appellation which seemed to
include, in the minds of the peasantry who used it, both the family and
the family mansion.
4. I have said that the sole effect of my somewhat childish experiment,
that of looking down within the tarn, had been to deepen the first
singular impression. There can be no doubt that the consciousness of
the rapid increase of my superstition--for why should I not so term
it?--served mainly to accelerate the increase itself. Such, I have
long known, is the paradoxical law of all sentiments having terror as
a basis. And it might have been for this reason only, that, when I
again uplifted my eyes to the house itself from its image in the pool,
there grew in my mind a strange fancy,--a fancy so ridiculous, indeed,
that I but mention it to show the vivid force of the sensations which
oppressed me. I had so worked upon my imagination as really to believe
that about the whole mansion and domain there hung an atmosphere
peculiar to themselves and their immediate vicinity: an atmosphere
which had no affinity with the air of heaven, but which had reeked
up from the decayed trees, and the gray wall, and the silent tarn; a
pestilent and mystic vapor, dull, sluggish, faintly discernible, and
leaden-hued.
5. Shaking off from my spirit what _must_ have been a dream, I scanned
more narrowly the real aspect of the building. Its principal feature
seemed to be that of an excessive antiquity. The discoloration of ages
had been great. Minute fungi overspread the whole exterior, hanging in
a fine tangled web-work from the eaves. Yet all this was apart from any
extraordinary dilapidation. No portion of the masonry had fallen; and
there appeared to be a wild inconsistency between its still perfect
adaptation of parts and the crumbling condition of the individual
stones. In this there was much that reminded me of the specious
totality of old wood-work which has rotted for long years in some
neglected vault, with no disturbance from the breath of the external
air. Beyond this indication of extensive decay, however, the fabric
gave little token of instability. Perhaps the eye of a scrutinizing
observer might have discovered a barely perceptible fissure, which,
extending from the roof of the building in front, made its way down the
wall in a zigzag direction, until it became lost in the sullen waters
of the tarn.
6. Noticing these things, I rode over a short causeway to the house.
A servant in waiting took my horse, and I entered the Gothic archway
of the hall. A valet, of stealthy step, thence conducted me in silence
through many dark and intricate passages in my progress to the studio
of his master. Much that I encountered on the way contributed, I know
not how, to heighten the vague sentiments of which I have already
spoken. While the objects around me--while the carvings of the ceiling,
the sombre tapestries of the walls, the ebon blackness of the floors,
and the phantasmagoric armorial trophies which rattled as I strode,
were but matters of which, or to such as which, I had been accustomed
from my infancy,--while I hesitated not to acknowledge how familiar was
all this, I still wondered to find how unfamiliar were the fancies
which ordinary images were stirring up. On one of the staircases I
met the physician of the family. His countenance, I thought, wore a
mingled expression of low cunning and perplexity. He accosted me with
trepidation and passed on. The valet now threw open a door and ushered
me into the presence of his master.
7. The room in which I found myself was very large and lofty. The
windows were long, narrow, and pointed, and at so vast a distance
from the black oaken floor as to be altogether inaccessible from
within. Feeble gleams of encrimsoned light made their way through the
trellised panes, and served to render sufficiently distinct the more
prominent objects around; the eye, however, struggled in vain to reach
the remoter angles of the chamber, or the recesses of the vaulted
and fretted ceiling. Dark draperies hung upon the walls. The general
furniture was profuse, comfortless, antique, and tattered. Many books
and musical instruments lay scattered about, but failed to give any
vitality to the scene. I felt that I breathed an atmosphere of sorrow.
An air of stern, deep, and irredeemable gloom hung over and pervaded
all.
8. Upon my entrance, Usher arose from a sofa on which he had been
lying at full length, and greeted me with a vivacious warmth which
had much in it, I at first thought, of an overdone cordiality,--of
the constrained effort of the _ennuyé_ man of the world. A glance,
however, at his countenance, convinced me of his perfect sincerity. We
sat down; and for some moments, while he spoke not, I gazed upon him
with a feeling half of pity, half of awe. Surely man had never before
so terribly altered, in so brief a period, as had Roderick Usher! It
was with difficulty that I could bring myself to admit the identity
of the wan being before me with the companion of my early boyhood.
Yet the character of his face had been at all times remarkable. A
cadaverousness of complexion; an eye large, liquid, and luminous beyond
comparison; lips somewhat thin and very pallid, but of a surpassingly
beautiful curve; a nose of a delicate Hebrew model, but with a breadth
of nostril unusual in similar formations; a finely-moulded chin,
speaking, in its want of prominence, of a want of moral energy; hair
of a more than web-like softness and tenuity,--these features, with
an inordinate expansion above the regions of the temple, made up
altogether a countenance not easily to be forgotten. And now in the
mere exaggeration of the prevailing character of these features, and of
the expression they were wont to convey, lay so much of change that I
doubted to whom I spoke. The now ghastly pallor of the skin, and the
now miraculous lustre of the eye, above all things startled and even
awed me. The silken hair, too, had been suffered to grow all unheeded,
and as, in its wild gossamer texture, it floated rather than fell
about the face, I could not, even with effort, connect its arabesque
expression with any idea of simple humanity.
9. In the manner of my friend I was at once struck with an incoherence,
an inconsistency; and I soon found this to arise from a series of
feeble and futile struggles to overcome an habitual trepidancy, an
excessive nervous agitation. For something of this nature I had indeed
been prepared, no less by his letter than by reminiscences of certain
boyish traits, and by conclusions deduced from his peculiar physical
conformation and temperament. His action was alternately vivacious and
sullen. His voice varied rapidly from a tremulous indecision (when the
animal spirits seemed utterly in abeyance) to that species of energetic
concision--that abrupt, weighty, unhurried, and hollow-sounding
enunciation, that leaden, self-balanced, and perfectly modulated
guttural utterance--which may be observed in the lost drunkard, or the
irreclaimable eater of opium, during the periods of his most intense
excitement.
10. It was thus that he spoke of the object of my visit, of his earnest
desire to see me, and of the solace he expected me to afford him. He
entered at some length into what he conceived to be the nature of his
malady. It was, he said, a constitutional and a family evil, and one
for which he despaired to find a remedy,--a mere nervous affection, he
immediately added, which would undoubtedly soon pass off. It displayed
itself in a host of unnatural sensations. Some of these, as he detailed
them, interested and bewildered me; although, perhaps, the terms and
the general manner of the narration had their weight. He suffered much
from a morbid acuteness of the senses; the most insipid food was alone
endurable; he could wear only garments of certain texture; the odors
of all flowers were oppressive; his eyes were tortured by even a faint
light; and there were but peculiar sounds, and these from stringed
instruments, which did not inspire him with horror.
11. To an anomalous species of terror I found him a bounden slave. “I
shall perish,” said he, “I _must_ perish in this deplorable folly.
Thus, thus, and not otherwise, shall I be lost. I dread the events of
the future, not in themselves, but in their results. I shudder at the
thought of any, even the most trivial, incident, which may operate upon
this intolerable agitation of soul. I have, indeed, no abhorrence of
danger, except in its absolute effect,--in terror. In this unnerved, in
this pitiable condition, I feel that the period will sooner or later
arrive when I must abandon life and reason together in some struggle
with the grim phantasm, FEAR.”
12. I learned moreover at intervals, and through broken and equivocal
hints, another singular feature of his mental condition. He was
enchained by certain superstitious impressions in regard to the
dwelling which he tenanted, and whence for many years he had never
ventured forth, in regard to an influence whose supposititious force
was conveyed in terms too shadowy here to be restated,--an influence
which some peculiarities in the mere form and substance of his family
mansion had, by dint of long sufferance, he said, obtained over his
spirit; an effect which the physique of the gray walls and turrets, and
of the dim tarn into which they all looked down, had at length brought
about upon the morale of his existence.
13. He admitted, however, although with hesitation, that much of the
peculiar gloom which thus afflicted him could be traced to a more
natural and far more palpable origin,--to the severe and long-continued
illness, indeed to the evidently approaching dissolution, of a tenderly
beloved sister, his sole companion for long years, his last and only
relative on earth. “Her decease,” he said, with a bitterness which I
can never forget, “would leave him (him, the hopeless and the frail)
the last of the ancient race of the Ushers.” While he spoke, the lady
Madeline (for so was she called) passed slowly through a remote portion
of the apartment, and, without having noticed my presence, disappeared.
I regarded her with an utter astonishment not unmingled with dread, and
yet I found it impossible to account for such feelings. A sensation of
stupor oppressed me, as my eyes followed her retreating steps. When a
door, at length, closed upon her, my glance sought instinctively and
eagerly the countenance of the brother; but he had buried his face in
his hands, and I could only perceive that a far more than ordinary
wanness had overspread the emaciated fingers through which trickled
many passionate tears.
14. The disease of the lady Madeline had long baffled the skill of her
physicians. A settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of the person,
and frequent although transient affections of a partially cataleptical
character, were the unusual diagnosis. Hitherto she had steadily borne
up against the pressure of her malady, and had not betaken herself
finally to bed: but, on the closing-in of the evening of my arrival
at the house, she succumbed (as her brother told me at night with
inexpressible agitation) to the prostrating power of the destroyer; and
I learned that the glimpse I had obtained of her person would thus
probably be the last I should obtain,--that the lady, at least while
living, would be seen by me no more.
15. For several days ensuing, her name was unmentioned by either Usher
or myself; and during this period I was busied in earnest endeavors to
alleviate the melancholy of my friend. We painted and read together; or
I listened, as if in a dream, to the wild improvisation of his speaking
guitar. And thus, as a closer and still closer intimacy admitted me
more unreservedly into the recesses of his spirit, the more bitterly
did I perceive the futility of all attempt at cheering a mind from
which darkness, as if an inherent positive quality, poured forth upon
all objects of the moral and physical universe, in one unceasing
radiation of gloom.
16. I shall ever bear about me a memory of the many solemn hours I
thus spent alone with the master of the House of Usher. Yet I should
fail in any attempt to convey an idea of the exact character of the
studies, or of the occupations, in which he involved me, or led me the
way. An excited and highly distempered ideality threw a sulphureous
lustre over all. His long, improvised dirges will ring forever in my
ears. Among other things, I hold painfully in mind a certain singular
perversion and amplification of the wild air of the last waltz of Von
Weber. From the paintings over which his elaborate fancy brooded,
and which grew, touch by touch, into vaguenesses at which I shuddered
the more thrillingly because I shuddered knowing not why,--from these
paintings (vivid as their images now are before me) I would in vain
endeavor to educe more than a small portion which should lie within
the compass of merely written words. By the utter simplicity, by the
nakedness of his designs, he arrested and overawed attention. If ever
mortal painted an idea, that mortal was Roderick Usher. For me at
least, in the circumstances then surrounding me, there arose, out of
the pure abstractions which the hypochondriac contrived to throw upon
his canvas, an intensity of intolerable awe, no shadow of which felt I
ever yet in the contemplation of the certainly glowing yet too concrete
reveries of Fuseli.
17. One of the phantasmagoric conceptions of my friend, partaking
not so rigidly of the spirit of abstraction, may be shadowed forth,
although feebly, in words. A small picture presented the interior of an
immensely long and rectangular vault or tunnel, with low walls, smooth,
white, and without interruption or device. Certain accessory points
of the design served well to convey the idea that this excavation
lay at an exceeding depth below the surface of the earth. No outlet
was observed in any portion of its vast extent, and no torch, or
other artificial source of light, was discernible; yet a flood of
intense rays rolled throughout, and bathed the whole in a ghastly and
inappropriate splendor.
18. I have just spoken of that morbid condition of the auditory
nerve which rendered all music intolerable to the sufferer, with the
exception of certain effects of stringed instruments. It was, perhaps,
the narrow limits to which he thus confined himself upon the guitar,
which gave birth, in great measure, to the fantastic character of his
performances. But the fervid _facility_ of his impromptus could not
be so accounted for. They must have been, and were, in the notes as
well as in the words of his wild fantasias (for he not unfrequently
accompanied himself with rhymed verbal improvisations), the result of
that intense mental collectedness and concentration to which I have
previously alluded as observable only in particular moments of the
highest artificial excitement. The words of one of these rhapsodies I
have easily remembered. I was, perhaps, the more forcibly impressed
with it as he gave it, because, in the under or mystic current of its
meaning, I fancied that I perceived, and for the first time, a full
consciousness, on the part of Usher, of the tottering of his lofty
reason upon her throne. The verses, which were entitled “The Haunted
Palace,” ran very nearly, if not accurately, thus:--
I.
In the greenest of our valleys
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace--
Radiant palace--reared its head.
In the monarch Thought’s dominion,
It stood there;
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair.
II.
Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow
(This--all this--was in the olden
Time long ago),
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
A winged odor went away.
III.
Wanderers in that happy valley
Through two luminous windows saw
Spirits moving musically
To a lute’s well-tunèd law,
Round about a throne, where sitting,
Porphyrogene,
In state his glory well befitting,
The ruler of the realm was seen.
IV.
And all with pearl and ruby glowing
Was the fair palace door,
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,
And sparkling evermore,
A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty
Was but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king.
V.
But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch’s high estate;
(Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him, desolate!)
And, round about his home, the glory
That blushed and bloomed
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed.
VI.
And travellers now within that valley
Through the red-litten windows see
Vast forms that move fantastically
To a discordant melody;
While, like a ghastly rapid river,
Through the pale door,
A hideous throng rush out forever,
And laugh--but smile no more.
19. I well remember that suggestions arising from this ballad led us
into a train of thought, wherein there became manifest an opinion of
Usher’s which I mention, not so much on account of its novelty (for
other men have thought thus) as on account of the pertinacity with
which he maintained it. This opinion, in its general form, was that of
the sentience of all vegetable things. But in his disordered fancy,
the idea had assumed a more daring character, and trespassed, under
certain conditions, upon the kingdom of inorganization. I lack words
to express the full extent or the earnest _abandon_ of his persuasion.
The belief, however, was connected (as I have previously hinted) with
the gray stones of the home of his forefathers. The conditions of
the sentience had been here, he imagined, fulfilled in the method of
collocation of these stones,--in the order of their arrangement, as
well as in that of the many fungi which overspread them, and of the
decayed trees which stood around; above all, in the long undisturbed
endurance of this arrangement, and in its reduplication in the still
waters of the tarn. Its evidence--the evidence of the sentience--was to
be seen, he said (and I here started as he spoke), in the gradual yet
certain condensation of an atmosphere of their own about the waters and
the walls. The result was discoverable, he added, in that silent yet
importunate and terrible influence which for centuries had moulded the
destinies of his family, and which made _him_ what I now saw him,--what
he was. Such opinions need no comment, and I will make none.
20. Our books--the books which for years had formed no small portion
of the mental existence of the invalid--were, as might be supposed, in
strict keeping with this character of phantasm. We pored together over
such works as the Ververt and Chartreuse of Gresset; the Belphegor of
Machiavelli; the Heaven and Hell of Swedenborg; the Subterranean Voyage
of Nicholas Klimm by Holberg; the Chiromancy of Robert Flud, of Jean
D’Indaginé, and of De la Chambre; the Journey into the Blue Distance
of Tieck; and the City of the Sun of Campanella. One favorite volume
was a small octavo edition of the _Directorium Inquisitorum_, by the
Dominican Eymeric de Gironne; and there were passages in Pomponius
Mela, about the old African Satyrs and Ægipans, over which Usher would
sit dreaming for hours. His chief delight, however, was found in the
perusal of an exceedingly rare and curious book in quarto Gothic,--the
manual of a forgotten church,--the _Vigilæ Mortuorum secundum Chorum
Ecclesiæ Maguntinæ_.
21. I could not help thinking of the wild ritual of this work, and of
its probable influence on the hypochondriac, when one evening, having
informed me abruptly that the lady Madeline was no more, he stated
his intention of preserving her corpse for a fortnight (previously
to its final interment), in one of the numerous vaults within the
main walls of the building. The worldly reason, however, assigned for
this singular proceeding was one which I did not feel at liberty to
dispute. The brother had been led to his resolution (so he told me) by
consideration of the unusual character of the malady of the deceased,
of certain obtrusive and eager inquiries on the part of her medical
men, and of the remote and exposed situation of the burial-ground of
the family. I will not deny that when I called to mind the sinister
countenance of the person whom I met upon the staircase, on the day of
my arrival at the house, I had no desire to oppose what I regarded as
at best but a harmless, and by no means an unnatural, precaution.
22. At the request of Usher, I personally aided him in the arrangements
for the temporary entombment. The body having been encoffined, we two
alone bore it to its rest. The vault in which we placed it (and which
had been so long unopened that our torches, half smothered in its
oppressive atmosphere, gave us little opportunity for investigation)
was small, damp, and entirely without means of admission for light;
lying, at great depth, immediately beneath that portion of the building
in which was my own sleeping apartment. It had been used apparently,
in remote feudal times, for the worst purposes of a donjon-keep,
and in later days as a place of deposit for powder, or some other
highly combustible substance, as a portion of its floor, and the
whole interior of a long archway through which we reached it, were
carefully sheathed with copper. The door, of massive iron, had been
also similarly protected. Its immense weight caused an unusually sharp
grating sound as it moved upon its hinges.
23. Having deposited our mournful burden upon tressels within this
region of horror, we partially turned aside the yet unscrewed lid
of the coffin, and looked upon the face of the tenant. A striking
similitude between the brother and sister now first arrested my
attention; and Usher, divining, perhaps, my thoughts, murmured out some
few words from which I learned that the deceased and himself had been
twins, and that sympathies of a scarcely intelligible nature had always
existed between them. Our glances, however, rested not long upon the
dead, for we could not regard her unawed. The disease which had thus
entombed the lady in the maturity of youth, had left, as usual in all
maladies of a strictly cataleptical character, the mockery of a faint
blush upon the bosom and the face, and that suspiciously lingering
smile upon the lip which is so terrible in death. We replaced and
screwed down the lid, and having secured the door of iron, made our
way, with toil, into the scarcely less gloomy apartments of the upper
portion of the house.
24. And now, some days of bitter grief having elapsed, an observable
change came over the features of the mental disorder of my friend. His
ordinary manner had vanished. His ordinary occupations were neglected
or forgotten. He roamed from chamber to chamber with hurried, unequal,
and objectless step. The pallor of his countenance had assumed, if
possible, a more ghastly hue, but the luminousness of his eye had
utterly gone out. The once occasional huskiness of his tone was heard
no more; and a tremulous quaver, as if of extreme terror, habitually
characterized his utterance. There were times, indeed, when I thought
his unceasingly agitated mind was laboring with some oppressive secret,
to divulge which he struggled for the necessary courage. At times,
again, I was obliged to resolve all into the mere inexplicable vagaries
of madness, for I beheld him gazing upon vacancy for long hours, in
an attitude of the profoundest attention, as if listening to some
imaginary sound. It was no wonder that his condition terrified--that it
infected me. I felt creeping upon me, by slow yet certain degrees, the
wild influences of his own fantastic yet impressive superstitions.
25. It was, especially, upon retiring to bed late in the night of the
seventh or eighth day after the placing of the lady Madeline within
the donjon, that I experienced the full power of such feelings. Sleep
came not near my couch, while the hours waned and waned away. I
struggled to reason off the nervousness which had dominion over me. I
endeavored to believe that much if not all of what I felt was due to
the bewildering influence of the gloomy furniture of the room,--of the
dark and tattered draperies which, tortured into motion by the breath
of a rising tempest, swayed fitfully to and fro upon the walls, and
rustled uneasily about the decorations of the bed. But my efforts were
fruitless. An irrepressible tremor gradually pervaded my frame; and at
length there sat upon my very heart an incubus of utterly causeless
alarm. Shaking this off with a gasp and a struggle, I uplifted myself
upon the pillows, and, peering earnestly within the intense darkness
of the chamber, hearkened--I know not why, except that an instinctive
spirit prompted me--to certain low and indefinite sounds which came,
through the pauses of the storm, at long intervals, I knew not whence.
Overpowered by an intense sentiment of horror, unaccountable yet
unendurable, I threw on my clothes with haste (for I felt that I should
sleep no more during the night), and endeavored to arouse myself from
the pitiable condition into which I had fallen, by pacing rapidly to
and fro through the apartment.
26. I had taken but a few turns in this manner, when a light step on an
adjoining staircase arrested my attention. I presently recognized it as
that of Usher. In an instant afterward he rapped with a gentle touch at
my door, and entered, bearing a lamp. His countenance was, as usual,
cadaverously wan--but, moreover, there was a species of mad hilarity in
his eyes,--an evidently restrained hysteria in his whole demeanor. His
air appalled me--but anything was preferable to the solitude which I
had so long endured, and I even welcomed his presence as a relief.
27. “And you have not seen it?” he said abruptly, after having stared
about him for some moments in silence,--“you have not then seen
it?--but, stay! you shall.” Thus speaking, and having carefully shaded
his lamp, he hurried to one of the casements, and threw it freely open
to the storm.
28. The impetuous fury of the entering gust nearly lifted us from our
feet. It was, indeed, a tempestuous yet sternly beautiful night, and
one wildly singular in its terror and its beauty. A whirlwind had
apparently collected its force in our vicinity, for there were frequent
and violent alterations in the direction of the wind; and the exceeding
density of the clouds (which hung so low as to press upon the turrets
of the house) did not prevent our perceiving the life-like velocity
with which they flew careering from all points against each other,
without passing away into the distance. I say that even their exceeding
density did not prevent our perceiving this; yet we had no glimpse of
the moon or stars, nor was there any flashing forth of the lightning.
But the under surfaces of the huge masses of agitated vapor, as well
as all terrestrial objects immediately around us, were glowing in the
unnatural light of a faintly luminous and distinctly visible gaseous
exhalation which hung about and enshrouded the mansion.
29. “You must not--you shall not behold this!” said I shudderingly, to
Usher, as I led him with a gentle violence from the window to a seat.
“These appearances, which bewilder you, are merely electrical phenomena
not uncommon--or it may be that they have their ghastly origin in
the rank miasma of the tarn. Let us close this casement; the air is
chilling and dangerous to your frame. Here is one of your favorite
romances. I will read, and you shall listen;--and so we will pass away
this terrible night together.”
30. The antique volume which I had taken up was the “Mad Trist” of
Sir Launcelot Canning; but I had called it a favorite of Usher’s more
in sad jest than in earnest; for, in truth, there is little in its
uncouth and unimaginative prolixity which could have had interest for
the lofty and spiritual ideality of my friend. It was, however, the
only book immediately at hand; and I indulged a vague hope that the
excitement which now agitated the hypochondriac might find relief (for
the history of mental disorder is full of similar anomalies) even
in the extremeness of the folly which I should read. Could I have
judged, indeed, by the wild, overstrained air of vivacity with which he
hearkened, or apparently hearkened, to the words of the tale, I might
well have congratulated myself upon the success of my design.
31. I had arrived at that well-known portion of the story where
Ethelred, the hero of the Trist, having sought in vain for peaceable
admission into the dwelling of the hermit, proceeds to make good an
entrance by force. Here, it will be remembered, the words of the
narrative run thus:--
32. “And Ethelred, who was by nature of a doughty heart, and who was
now mighty withal on account of the powerfulness of the wine which he
had drunken, waited no longer to hold parley with the hermit, who, in
sooth, was of an obstinate and maliceful turn, but, feeling the rain
upon his shoulders, and fearing the rising of the tempest, uplifted
his mace outright and with blows made quickly room in the plankings of
the door for his gauntleted hand; and now, pulling therewith sturdily,
he so cracked, and ripped, and tore all asunder, that the noise of the
dry and hollow-sounding wood alarumed and reverberated throughout the
forest.”
33. At the termination of this sentence I started, and for a moment
paused; for it appeared to me (although I at once concluded that my
excited fancy had deceived me)--it appeared to me that from some very
remote portion of the mansion there came, indistinctly, to my ears,
what might have been in its exact similarity of character the echo (but
a stifled and dull one certainly) of the very cracking and ripping
sound which Sir Launcelot had so particularly described. It was, beyond
doubt, the coincidence alone which had arrested my attention; for,
amid the rattling of the sashes of the casements, and the ordinary
commingled noises of the still increasing storm, the sound, in itself,
had nothing, surely, which should have interested or disturbed me. I
continued the story:--
34. “But the good champion Ethelred, now entering within the door, was
so enraged and amazed to perceive no signal of the maliceful hermit;
but, in the stead thereof, a dragon of a scaly and prodigious demeanor,
and of a fiery tongue, which sate in guard before a palace with a floor
of silver; and upon the wall there hung a shield of shining brass with
this legend enwritten:--
Who entereth herein, a conqueror hath bin;
Who slayeth the dragon, the shield he shall win.
And Ethelred uplifted his mace, struck upon the head of the dragon,
which fell before him, and gave up his pesty breath, with a shriek so
horrid and harsh, and withal so piercing, that Ethelred had fain to
close his ears with his hands against the dreadful noise of it, the
like whereof was never before heard.”
35. Here again I paused abruptly, and now with a feeling of wild
amazement, for there could be no doubt whatever that, in this instance,
I did actually hear (although from what direction it proceeded I
found it impossible to say) a low and apparently distant, but harsh,
protracted, and most unusual screaming or grating sound,--the exact
counterpart of what my fancy had already conjured up for the dragon’s
unnatural shriek as described by the romancer.
36. Oppressed as I certainly was, upon the occurrence of this second
and most extraordinary coincidence, by a thousand conflicting
sensations, in which wonder and extreme terror were predominant, I
still retained sufficient presence of mind to avoid exciting, by any
observation, the sensitive nervousness of my companion. I was by no
means certain that he had noticed the sounds in question; although,
assuredly, a strange alteration had during the last few minutes
taken place in his demeanor. From a position fronting my own, he had
gradually brought round his chair, so as to sit with his face to the
door of the chamber; and thus I could but partially perceive his
features, although I saw that his lips trembled as if he were murmuring
inaudibly. His head had dropped upon his breast; yet I knew that he was
not asleep, from the wide and rigid opening of the eye as I caught a
glance of it in profile. The motion of his body, too, was at variance
with this idea, for he rocked from side to side with a gentle yet
constant and uniform sway. Having rapidly taken notice of all this, I
resumed the narrative of Sir Launcelot, which thus proceeded:--
37. “And now the champion, having escaped from the terrible fury of the
dragon, bethinking himself of the brazen shield, and of the breaking up
of the enchantment which was upon it, removed the carcass from out of
the way before him, and approached valorously over the silver pavement
of the castle to where the shield was upon the wall; which in sooth
tarried not for his full coming, but fell down at his feet upon the
silver floor, with a mighty great and terrible ringing sound.”
38. No sooner had these syllables passed my lips than--as if a shield
of brass had indeed, at the moment, fallen heavily upon a floor of
silver--I became aware of a distinct, hollow, metallic, and clangorous
yet apparently muffled reverberation. Completely unnerved, I leaped to
my feet; but the measured rocking movement of Usher was undisturbed.
I rushed to the chair in which he sat. His eyes were bent fixedly
before him, and throughout his whole countenance there reigned a stony
rigidity. But, as I placed my hand upon his shoulder, there came a
strong shudder over his whole person; a sickly smile quivered about his
lips; and I saw that he spoke in a low, hurried, and gibbering murmur,
as if unconscious of my presence. Bending closely over him, I at length
drank in the hideous import of his words.
39. “Not hear it?--yes, I hear it, and _have_ heard it.
Long--long--long--many minutes, many hours, many days, have I heard
it, yet I dared not--oh, pity me, miserable wretch that I am!--I
dared not--I _dared_ not speak! _We have put her living in the
tomb!_ Said I not that my senses were acute? I _now_ tell you that
I heard her first feeble movements in the hollow coffin. I heard
them--many, many days ago--yet I dared not--_I dared not speak!_ And
now--to-night--Ethelred--ha! ha!--the breaking of the hermit’s door,
and the death-cry of the dragon, and the clangor of the shield!--say
rather, the rending of her coffin, and the grating of the iron hinges
of her prison, and her struggles within the coppered archway of the
vault! Oh, whither shall I fly? Will she not be here anon? Is she not
hurrying to upbraid me for my haste? Have I not heard her footsteps
on the stair? Do I not distinguish that heavy and horrible beating
of her heart? Madman!”--here he sprang furiously to his feet, and
shrieked out his syllables, as if in the effort he were giving up his
soul--“_Madman! I tell you that she now stands without the door!_”
40. As if in the superhuman energy of his utterance there had been
found the potency of a spell, the huge antique panels to which the
speaker pointed threw slowly back, upon the instant, their ponderous
and ebony jaws. It was the work of the rushing gust--but then without
those doors there _did_ stand the lofty and enshrouded figure of the
lady Madeline of Usher! There was blood upon her white robes, and the
evidence of some bitter struggle upon every portion of her emaciated
frame. For a moment she remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon
the threshold--then, with a low moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon
the person of her brother, and, in her violent and now final death
agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to the terrors he
had anticipated.
41. From that chamber and from that mansion I fled aghast. The storm
was still abroad in all its wrath as I found myself crossing the old
causeway. Suddenly there shot along the path a wild light, and I turned
to see whence a gleam so unusual could have issued; for the vast house
and its shadows were alone behind me. The radiance was that of the
full, setting, and blood-red moon, which now shone vividly through that
once barely discernible fissure, of which I have before spoken as
extending from the roof of the building, in a zigzag direction, to the
base. While I gazed, this fissure rapidly widened--there came a fierce
breath of the whirlwind--the entire orb of the satellite burst at
once upon my sight--my brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing
asunder--there was a long, tumultuous shouting sound like the voice
of a thousand waters--and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed
sullenly and silently over the fragments of the “_House of Usher_.”
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS FOR STUDY
1. State as briefly as possible the impression made upon you by the
story under consideration.
2. Cite passages which are most effective in making this impression.
3. Do you find any jarring elements which tend to mar the single
impression?
4. Does the story approach any types besides that of the
impressionistic?
5. Mention any weak points you discover.
6. Write about three hundred words on the merits of the story.
7. Try to find an impressionistic story in some present-day magazine.
8. Criticise Poe’s language, in general and in particular.
9. Would either of these stories be popular if written to-day by an
unknown author?
10. Would cutting improve either of these stories? If so, say where.
11. Compare Hawthorne’s style with that of Poe.
12. Which story do you prefer, and why?
TEN REPRESENTATIVE IMPRESSIONISTIC STORIES
“The Luck of Roaring Camp,” Bret Harte, in _The Luck of Roaring
Camp and Other Stories_.
“The Father,” Björnstjerne Björnson, translated in _Stories by
Foreign Authors, Scandinavian_.
“A Journey,” Edith Wharton, in _The Greater Inclination_.
“The Brushwood Boy,” Rudyard Kipling, in _The Day’s Work_.
“The Great Stone Face,” Nathaniel Hawthorne, in _The Snow-Image and
Other Twice-Told Tales_.
“A Passion in the Desert,” Honoré de Balzac, translated in _Little
French Masterpieces, Balzac_.
“The Pit and the Pendulum,” Edgar Allan Poe, in _Tales_.
“The Silent Woman,” Leopold Kompert, translated in _Modern Ghosts_.
“Jesus Christ in Flanders,” Honoré de Balzac, translated in _Little
French Masterpieces, Balzac_.
“Silence,” Leonid Andreyev, translated in _Short-Story
Masterpieces_.
VII
CHARACTER STUDIES
_The Piece of String._--GUY DE MAUPASSANT
_The Substitute._--FRANÇOIS COPPÉE
Most of us, in actual life, are accustomed to distinguish people
who are worth our while from people who are not; and those of us
who live advisedly are accustomed to shield ourselves from people
who cannot, by the mere fact of what they are, repay us for the
expenditure of time and energy we should have to make to know
them. And whenever a friend of ours asks us deliberately to meet
another friend of his, we take it for granted that our friend has
reasons for believing that the acquaintanceship will be of benefit
or of interest to both. Now the novelist stands in the position
of a friend who asks us to meet certain people whom he knows; and
he runs the risk of our losing faith in his judgment unless we
find his people worth our while.... He ... owes us an assurance
that they shall be even more worth while than the average actual
person.--CLAYTON HAMILTON, _Materials and Methods of Fiction_.
CHARACTER STUDIES
A character-study, whether in the form of a sketch, a tale, or a
short-story, attempts to reveal individual human nature by the
unfolding of the story.
In the sketch it will be a photograph of character in a striking mood,
under stress of emotion, or just before, or during, or after a crisis
that is peculiarly suited to showing either the full character or one
of its interesting phases. Some photographs consist of bold masses of
light and shade, others are so handled as to bring out a multitude
of details. The sketch allows in a literary way the same methods of
treatment, but the typical sketch avoids unnecessary minutiæ.
The tale is also a photograph, but instead of being a single stationary
picture, it is a moving-picture, delineating character by a chain of
incidents which allow us to see what the characters are by what they
do. True to the type of the tale, it does not deal with character
crisis, but merely reveals character in a series of illuminating deeds.
In the character short-story the author’s method is more complicated,
for the whole mechanism of the story--introduction, plot, dialogue,
and conclusion--are designed to show us the characters under stress
of emotion and the results of that emotional arousement. We learn
the characters of the characters--for there is a distinction here--by
seeing how they act upon each other, how they solve problems, how they
meet the crises of life--what effect trouble or joy has upon them--and
the final outcome of it all. It is like studying a human being while
he is being subjected to a test, and observing the development of his
character, or its failure to stand the test, in that critical moment.
By this it will be seen that a character-study is a story with a
purpose--a purpose deeper than that of affording entertainment from the
plot. The finest stories are those which so interest us in the action,
or plot, of the story proper that the profound character disclosures
and changes are borne in upon us while we are watching the progress of
the story. It is this subtle balance of narrative and character-study
which presents the story-teller’s art at its best.
THE PIECE OF STRING
(LA FICELLE)
BY GUY DE MAUPASSANT
_Translation by The Editor_
[Sidenote: Introduction.]
[Sidenote: Establishes the general setting, and station in life of the
characters.]
[Sidenote: Minute observation.]
On all the roads around Goderville the peasants and their wives were
coming towards the town, for it was market-day. The men swung along at
an easy gait, their whole bodies swaying forward with every movement
of their long, twisted legs--legs misshapen by hard work: by holding
down the plough, which throws up the left shoulder while it deforms
the figure; by mowing grain, the effort of which spreads the knees too
wide apart to permit them to stand quite steady; by all the tedious
and laborious tasks of the fields. Their blue blouses, starched and
glossy as though varnished, and decorated at collar and cuffs with neat
designs in white stitching, puffed out about their bony forms just like
balloons all ready to rise, from which protruded a head, two arms, and
two legs.
[Sidenote: Characterization.]
[Sidenote: Local-color by character description.]
2. Some of the men were leading a cow or a calf at the end of a rope.
Following close behind, the wives switched the animals over the back
with branches still covered with leaves, in order to quicken their
pace. The women carried on their arms great baskets from which the
heads of chickens and ducks protruded, and they walked with a shorter,
quicker step than the men--each withered figure erect and wrapped in a
scanty little shawl pinned across her flat bosom, each head done up in
a white cloth, bound close about the hair and surmounted by a cap.
3. Now a wagonette passed, drawn by a nag at a fitful trot, grotesquely
shaking up the two men seated side by side, and the woman in the back
of the vehicle, who clutched its sides to lessen the rough jolting.
[Sidenote: Local-color.]
4. In the Goderville market-place there was a great crowd--a medley of
man and beast. The horns of the cattle, the high, long-napped hats of
the prosperous peasants, and the head-dresses of the women, rose above
the level of the throng. And the voices--sharp, shrill, squawking--rose
in a wild, incessant clamor, which was dominated now and then by a
great guffaw of laughter emitted from the robust chest of some sturdy
bumpkin, or by the long-drawn-out lowing of a cow tethered to the wall
of a house.
5. Everything there smelled of the stable--the milk, the manure, the
hay, the sweat, gave forth that acrid, offensive odor of man and animal
so peculiar to dwellers of the fields.
[Sidenote: CHIEF CHARACTER.]
[Sidenote: The Normans are said to be typically “ambitious, positive,
bold, tricky, economical.”]
[Sidenote: FOUNDATION PLOT INCIDENT.]
[Sidenote: CHIEF COMPLICATION.]
[Sidenote: RESULTANT COMPLICATION.]
6. Master Hauchecorne, of Bréauté, had just arrived at Goderville,
and was moving toward the square, when he observed a little piece
of string on the ground. Economical, like a true Norman, Master
Hauchecorne thought that everything which could be used was worth
saving; so he stooped down painfully, for he suffered from rheumatism,
picked up from the dirt the insignificant scrap of twine, and was
just about to roll it up with care when he noticed Master Malandin,
the harness-maker, standing on his doorstep looking at him. Once the
two men had had a difference over the matter of a halter, and ever
since they had remained angry with each other, cherishing their spite.
Master Hauchecorne was seized with a sort of shame at having his
enemy thus see him searching in the mud for a mere scrap of string.
He therefore hastily hid away his find in his blouse, and then in his
breeches-pocket. At the same time he pretended to be still searching
in the dirt for something which he had not been able to find. Finally
he moved on toward the market-place, his head thrust forward, his body
bent double by his pains.
[Sidenote: Local-color.]
[Sidenote: See note on ¶6.]
7. In a moment he was lost in the slowly shifting, noisy throng,
agitated by its own constant chafferings. The peasants felt of the
cows, turned away, came back again, much puzzled--always fearful of
being over-reached in the bargain, never reaching a decision, watching
the eye of the vendor, seeking ever to unmask the ruse of the man and
the defect in his animal.
8. The women, having set their huge baskets at their feet, took out
their poultry, which they laid on the ground with legs tied together,
terror-stricken eyes, and scarlet combs.
9. They listened to offers, maintaining their price with a keen air but
impassive face, or else suddenly deciding to take the counter offer,
crying out to the slowly retreating customer:
10. “It’s settled, Master Anthime, I’ll give them to you!”
11. At length, little by little, the square became empty, and when the
Angelus sounded noon, those who lived too far away to go home repaired
to the inns.
[Sidenote: Setting for main crisis.]
12. At Jourdain’s, the large hall was crowded with diners, while the
great courtyard was full of vehicles of every sort--carts, gigs,
wagonettes, tilburies, traps, nameless carriages, yellow with mud,
shapeless, patched, shafts pointing to heaven like two arms, or with
noses in the ground and backs in the air.
13. Right opposite the diners at table, the immense fireplace, all
brightly aflame, cast a lively warmth on the backs of those ranged
along the right. Three spits were turning, laden with chickens,
pigeons, and legs of mutton; and a delectable odor of roasting meat,
and of juices streaming over the browned skin, rose from the hearth,
kindled good humor and made everyone’s mouth water.
[Sidenote: Note how the author gathers the people to witness the
crisis.]
[Sidenote: _Maît’_--colloquial abbreviation for _Maître_, equal here to
“Mine Host.”]
14. All the aristocracy of the plough were eating there, at _Maît’
Jourdain’s_, inn-keeper and horse-trader--a sly fellow who had made
money.
15. The dishes went round, and, like the jugs of yellow cider, were
emptied. Everyone told of his affairs: his sales and his purchases.
They exchanged news of the crops--the weather was good for vegetables,
but a trifle wet for wheat.
[Sidenote: Approach of crisis.]
[Sidenote: Typical of their class.]
16. Suddenly the roll of a drum sounded in the courtyard before the
house. Instantly everyone was on his feet, save a few indifferent ones,
and ran to the door or to the windows, with mouth still full and napkin
in hand.
17. After the public crier had ended his tattoo, he shouted out in a
jerky voice, making his pauses at the wrong time:
[Sidenote: Preparation for crisis.]
18. “Be it known to the people of Goderville, and in general to
all--persons present at the market, that there was lost this morning,
upon the Beuzeville road between--nine and ten o’clock, a black leather
pocketbook, containing five hundred francs and some business papers.
You are requested to return it--to the mayor’s office, without delay,
or to Master Fortuné Houlbrèque of Manneville. There will be twenty
francs reward.”
19. Then the man went away. Once again was heard afar the muffled roll
of the drum and the faint voice of the crier.
20. Then they began to talk over the incident, estimating the
chances Master Houlbrèque had of recovering or of not recovering his
pocketbook. Meanwhile the meal went on.
21. They were finishing coffee when the corporal of gendarmes appeared
in the doorway.
22. He asked:
[Sidenote: Closer approach of crisis.]
23. “Master Hauchecorne of Bréauté--is he here?”
24. Master Hauchecorne, who was seated at the other end of the table,
replied:
25. “That’s me.”
26. And the corporal replied:
27. “Master Hauchecorne, will you have the goodness to go with me to
the mayor’s office. _Monsieur le maire_ would like to speak with you.”
[Sidenote: Note how throughout the author emphasizes physical
characteristics as indicating character.]
[Sidenote: Minute observation.]
28. The peasant--surprised, disturbed--drained his glass at a gulp,
got up, and, more doubled up than in the morning, because the first
steps after a rest were always particularly difficult, he started off,
repeating:
29. “That’s me, that’s me,” and he followed the corporal.
30. The mayor was awaiting him, seated in an armchair. He was the
notary of the place, a large man, grave, and pompous in speech.
[Sidenote: FULL CRISIS.]
31. “Master Hauchecorne,” said he, “you were seen to pick up this
morning, on the Beuzeville road, the pocketbook lost by Master
Houlbrèque, of Manneville.”
32. The countryman, speechless, stared at the mayor, already terrified
by this suspicion which rested upon him without his understanding why.
33. “Me, me, I picked up that pocketbook?”
34. “Yes, exactly you.”
35. “Word of honor, I ain’t even so much as seen it.”
36. “You were seen.”
37. “They saw me, me? Who’s it 'as seen me?”
[Sidenote: Note how the complication is involved by personal prejudice.]
38. “Monsieur Malandin, the harness-maker.”
39. Then the old man remembered, and understood. Reddening with rage,
he cried:
40. “Ah! he saw me, that cad! He saw me pick up this here string--look,
_m’sieu le maire_.”
41. And, fumbling at the bottom of his pocket, he pulled out the little
bit of cord.
42. But the mayor, incredulous, shook his head.
43. “You will not make me believe, Master Hauchecorne, that Monsieur
Malandin, who is a man worthy of belief, has mistaken that bit of
string for a pocketbook.”
44. The peasant, furious, raised his hand and spat to one side, thus to
attest his honor, repeating:
45. “All the same it’s the truth of the good God, the holy truth,
_m’sieu le maire_. There! Upon my soul and my salvation, I say it
again.”
46. The mayor replied:
[Sidenote: Circumstantial evidence. The miser’s character helps condemn
him unjustly.]
47. “After having picked the thing up, you even hunted a long time in
the mud to see if some piece of money had not fallen out.”
48. The good man choked with indignation and fear.
49. “How can anyone tell--how can anyone tell--lies like that to
misrepresent an honest man! How can anyone tell--”
50. However he might protest, no one believed him.
51. He was confronted with Monsieur Malandin, who repeated and
sustained his affirmation. They railed at each other for a whole hour.
At his own request, Master Hauchecorne was searched. They found nothing
upon him.
[Sidenote: Suspense.]
52. At last, the mayor, greatly perplexed, sent him away, with the
warning that he would advise the public prosecutor, and ask for orders.
53. The news had spread. When he came out of the mayor’s office the
old man was surrounded and questioned with a curiosity either serious
or bantering, but into which not the least indignation entered. And he
began to recount the history of the piece of string. No one believed
him. They laughed.
[Sidenote: Tone of story.]
54. He went on, halted by everyone, stopping his acquaintances,
renewing endlessly his recital and his protestations, showing his
pockets turned inside out to prove that he had nothing.
[Sidenote: Note Maupassant’s use of the short paragraph.]
55. They said to him:
56. “G’long, you old rascal!”
57. And he grew angry, working himself into exasperation, into a fever,
desperate at not being believed, not knowing what to do, and always
repeating his story.
58. Night came on. He must go home. He started out with three
neighbors to whom he showed the place where he had picked up the piece
of string; and all along the road he kept talking of his adventure.
59. That evening, he made a round of the village of Bréauté, in order
to tell everyone of the matter. He encountered none but unbelievers.
60. He was ill of it all night.
61. The next day, about one o’clock in the afternoon, Marius Paumelle,
a farm-hand of Master Breton’s, the market-gardener at Ymauville,
returned the pocketbook and its contents to Master Houlbrèque, of
Manneville.
[Sidenote: Apparent resolution of the complication.]
62. This man asserted, in substance, that he had found the article on
the road; but, not being able to read, he had carried it home and given
it to his employer.
63. The news spread to the suburbs. Master Hauchecorne was informed of
it. He set himself at once to journeying about and commenced to narrate
his story as completed by the denouement. He was triumphant.
64. “Wha’ made me feel bad,” he said, “wasn’t the thing itself, you
understand, but it was the lies. There’s nothing hurts you like being
blamed for a lie.”
[Sidenote: Tone of story.]
[Sidenote: FOUNDATION FOR CLIMAX.]
65. All day long he talked of his adventure, he recounted it on the
roadways to the people who passed, at the tavern to the folks who
drank, at the dismissal of church on the following Sunday. He even
button-holed strangers to tell it to them.
[Sidenote: RESULTANT COMPLICATION.]
Now, he was tranquil, and yet something else bothered him without his
being able to tell precisely what. People did not seem to be convinced.
He felt as if they gossiped behind his back.
66. On Tuesday of the following week, he went to the Goderville market,
solely impelled by the desire to relate his story. Malandin, standing
in his doorway, began to laugh when he saw him pass. Why?
67. He accosted a farmer of Criquetot who would not let him finish,
but giving him a dig in the pit of the stomach, cried out in his face,
“G’long, you great rogue!” Then he turned on his heel.
[Sidenote: Peasant simplicity.]
68. Master Hauchecorne stood speechless, growing more and more
disturbed. Why had he called him “great rogue”?
69. When seated at table at Jourdain’s tavern, he again began to
explain the affair.
70. A Montivilliers horse-dealer called out to him:
71. “Go on, go on, you old trickster, I know you, and your piece of
string!”
72. Hauchecorne stammered, “But--they--found it, the pocketbook!”
73. But the other retorted:
[Sidenote: DENOUEMENT AS TO THE RESULTANT COMPLICATION.]
[Sidenote: FINAL COMPLICATION.]
74. “Be quiet, daddy! There’s one who finds it, and one who takes it
back. No one sees it, no one recognizes it, no one is the wiser for it.”
75. The peasant sat dumbfounded. He understood at last. They accused
him of having returned the pocketbook by a confederate, an accomplice.
76. He tried to protest. Everyone at the table began to laugh.
77. He could not finish his dinner, and left amidst their mockeries.
[Sidenote: Key.]
78. He returned home, ashamed and indignant, strangled by his anger,
by his confusion, and all the more thunderstruck because, with his
Norman cunning, he was quite capable of having done the thing of which
they had accused him, and even of boasting of it as a good trick. It
appeared to him confusedly as impossible to prove his innocence, for
his trickery was well known. And he felt struck to the heart with the
injustice of the suspicion.
[Sidenote: Tone.]
[Sidenote: Key.]
79. Again he began to tell of his adventure, every day lengthening
his recital, advancing each time new proofs, more energetic
protestations, and more solemn oaths which he conjured up in his hours
of solitude--his mind was occupied solely by the story of the piece
of string. They believed him all the less as his defense became more
complicated and his reasoning more fine-spun.
[Sidenote: Complication summarized.]
80. “Ha, they are liar’s reasons!” they said behind his back.
81. He realized it; he fretted over it; he exhausted himself in futile
efforts.
82. He visibly wasted away.
83. The wags now made him recite “The Piece of String” for their
amusement, as one persuades a soldier who has been through a
campaign, to tell the story of his battles. His mind, attacked at its
foundations, began to totter.
84. Towards the end of December he took to his bed.
85. During the first days of January he died, and, in the delirium of
his mortal agony he protested his innocence, repeating:
[Sidenote: CLIMAX.]
86. “--a li’l’ piece of string ... a li’l’ piece of string ... see,
here it is, _m’sieu le maire_.”
COPPÉE AND HIS WRITINGS
François Edouard Joachim Coppée was born in Paris, January 12, 1842. He
was educated at the _Lycée St. Louis_, and early attracted attention
by his poetic gifts. He held office as Librarian of the Senate, and
also Guardian of the Archives at the _Comédie Française_. The honors
of membership in the French Academy and that of being decorated with
the Cross of the Legion of Honor were given him in 1883 and 1888
respectively. He died May 23, 1908.
François Coppée was a poet, dramatist, and short-story writer. The
collection _Poèmes Modernes_, published at the age of twenty-seven,
contains some remarkable work which well represents his talent. The
plays _Madame de Maintenon_ and _Le Luthier de Crémone_ rank with his
best dramatic work. Among his short-story gems are “The Sabots of
Little Wolff,” “At Table,” “Two Clowns,” “The Captain’s Vices,” “My
Friend Meurtrier,” “An Accident,” and “The Substitute.”
* * * * *
As a novelist, Coppée left no permanent mark upon his times, for in
this field he was far surpassed by his contemporaries; but as a writer
of little prose fictions, he stands well forward among that brilliant
group which includes those immortals of the short-story--Maupassant,
Daudet, and Mérimée. From the work of these masters, Coppée’s is well
distinguished. The Norman Maupassant drew his lines with a sharper
pencil, and, by the same token, an infinitely harder one; Daudet,
child of Provence though he was, dipped his stylus more often in the
acid of satire; and the Parisian Mérimée, though nearer than any other
to Coppée in his manner of work, was less in sympathy with his own
characters than the warmer-hearted author of “The Sabots of Little
Wolff” and “The Substitute”--which follows in a translation by the
author of this volume. Coppée was almost an idealist--certainly he
was quick to respond to the call of the ideal in his themes. Amidst
so much that is sordid and gross in French fiction, how refreshing
it is to read a master who could be truthful without wallowing,
moral without sermonizing, compassionate without sniveling, humorous
without buffooning, and always disclose in his stories the spirit of a
sympathetic lover of mankind. Like Dickens, he chose the lowly for his
characters, and like Dickens, he found poetry in their simple lives.
In common with other modern French writers, with Daudet,
Maupassant, and others, Coppée excels in the writing of tales.
His prose is remarkable for the same qualities that appear in his
poetical works: sympathy, tenderness, marked predilection for the
weak, the humble, and especially a masterly treatment of subjects
essentially Parisian and modern.--ROBERT SANDERSON, _François
Coppée_, in WARNER’S _Library of the World’s Best Literature_.
Compassion is the chief quality of this little
masterpiece,--compassion and understanding of a primitive type
of character. The author shows us the good in a character not
altogether bad; and he almost makes us feel that the final
sacrifice was justifiable. He succeeds in doing this chiefly
because he shows us the other characters only as they appeared to
Jean François, thus focusing the interest of the reader on this
single character.--BRANDER MATTHEWS, _The Short-story_.
More than Daudet, Coppée deserves the title of the French Dickens.
A fellow member of the French Academy, José de Heredia, calls
him “the poet of the humble, painting with sincere emotion
his profound sympathy for the sorrows, the miseries, and the
sacrifices of the meek.” As an artist in fiction, says Heredia,
“Coppée possesses preëminently the gift of presenting concrete
fact rather than abstraction,” and a “great grasp of character,”
enabling him “to show us the human heart and intellect in full
play and activity”--both of which endowments were the supreme
characteristics of the author of _Nicholas Nickleby_ and _David
Copperfield_.--MERION M. MILLER, Introduction to _The Guilty Man_.
Contrast the touching pathos of the “Substitute,” poignant in his
magnificent self-sacrifice, by which the man who has conquered
his shameful past goes back willingly to the horrible life he has
fled from, that he may save from a like degradation and from an
inevitable moral decay the one friend he has in the world, all
unworthy as this friend is--contrast this with the story of the
gigantic deeds “My Friend Meurtrier” boasts about unceasingly, not
knowing that he has been discovered in his little round of daily
domestic duties--making the coffee of his good old mother, and
taking her poodle out for a walk.... No doubt M. Coppée’s _contes_
[stories] have not the sharpness of Maupassant’s nor the brilliancy
of M. Daudet’s. But what of it? They have qualities of their own.
They have sympathy, poetry, and a power of suggesting pictures not
exceeded, I think, by those of either Maupassant or M. Daudet. M.
Coppée’s street views in Paris, his interiors, his impressionist
sketches of life under the shadow of Notre Dame, are convincingly
successful.--BRANDER MATTHEWS, _Aspects of Fiction_.
FURTHER REFERENCES FOR READING ON COPPÉE
Introduction to _Ten Tales by Coppée_, Brander Matthews (1890); _Books
and Play-Books_, Brander Matthews (1895); _Literary Movement in France
during the Nineteenth Century_, Georges Pellissier (1897); _Hours with
Famous Parisians_, Stuart Henry (1897).
FOR ANALYSIS
THE SUBSTITUTE
(LE REMPLAÇANT)
BY FRANÇOIS COPPÉE
_Translation by The Editor_[27]
He was scarcely ten years old when he was first arrested as a vagabond.
2. Thus he spoke to the judges:
3. I am called Jean François Leturc, and for six months now I’ve
been with the man who sings between two lanterns on the Place de la
Bastille, while he scrapes on a string of catgut. I repeat the chorus
with him, and then I cry out, ‘Get the collection of new songs, ten
centimes, two sous!’ He was always drunk and beat me; that’s why the
police found me the other night, in the tumble-down buildings. Before
that, I used to be with the man who sells brushes. My mother was a
laundress; she called herself Adèle. At one time a gentleman had given
her an establishment, on the ground-floor, at Montmartre. She was a
good worker and loved me well. She made money because she had the
clientele of the café waiters, and those people use lots of linen.
Sundays, she would put me to bed early to go to the ball; but week
days, she sent me to the Brothers’ school, where I learned to read.
Well, at last the _sergent-de-ville_ whose beat was up our street,
began always stopping before her window to talk to her--a fine fellow,
with the Crimean medal. They got married, and all went wrong. He didn’t
take to me, and set mamma against me. Every one boxed my ears; and it
was then that, to get away from home, I spent whole days on the Place
Clichy, where I got to know the mountebanks. My stepfather lost his
place, mamma her customers; she went to the wash-house to support her
man. It was there she got consumption--from the steam of the lye. She
died at Lariboisière. She was a good woman. Since that time I’ve lived
with the brush-seller and the catgut-scraper. Are you going to put me
in prison?”
4. He talked this way openly, cynically, like a man. He was a ragged
little rascal, as tall as a boot, with his forehead hidden under a
strange mop of yellow hair.
5. Nobody claimed him, so they sent him to the Reform School.
6. Not very intelligent, lazy, above all maladroit with his hands, he
was able to learn there only a poor trade--the reseating of chairs.
Yet he was obedient, of a nature passive and taciturn, and he did not
seem to have been too profoundly corrupted in that school of vice.
But when, having come to his seventeenth year, he was set free again
on the streets of Paris, he found there, for his misfortune, his
prison comrades, all dreadful rascals, exercising their low callings.
Some were trainers of dogs for catching rats in the sewers; some
shined shoes on ball nights in the Passage de l’Opéra; some were
amateur wrestlers, who let themselves be thrown by the Hercules of
the side-shows; some fished from rafts out in the river, in the full
sunlight. He tried all these things a little, and a few months after
he had left the house of correction he was arrested anew for a petty
theft: a pair of old shoes lifted from out an open shop-window. Result:
a year of prison at Sainte-Pélagie, where he served as valet to the
political prisoners.
[Sidenote: Revolutionary songs of 1793.]
[Sidenote: _Tu_--thou--used only in familiar address.]
7. He lived, astonished, among this group of prisoners, all very young
and negligently clad, who talked in loud voices and carried their heads
in such a solemn way. They used to meet in the cell of the eldest of
them, a fellow of some thirty years, already locked up for a long
time and apparently settled at Sainte-Pélagie: a large cell it was,
papered with colored caricatures, and from whose windows one could see
all Paris--its roofs, its clock-towers, and its domes, and far off,
the distant line of the hills, blue and vague against the sky. There
were upon the walls several shelves filled with books, and all the old
apparatus of a _salle d’armes_--broken masks, rusty foils, leather
jackets, and gloves that were losing their stuffing. It was there that
the “politicians” dined together, adding to the inevitable “soup and
beef” some fruit, cheese, and half-pints of wine that Jean François
went out to buy in a can--tumultuous repasts, interrupted by violent
disputes, where they sang in chorus at the dessert the _Carmagnole_
and _Ça ira_. They took on, however, an air of dignity on days when
they made place for a newcomer, who was at first gravely treated as
“_citizen_,” but who was the next day _tutoyed_, and called by his
nickname. They used big words there--Corporation, Solidarity, and
phrases all quite unintelligible to Jean François, such as this, for
example, which he once heard uttered imperiously by a frightful little
hunchback who scribbled on paper all night long:
8. “It is settled. The cabinet is to be thus composed: Raymond in the
Department of Education, Martial in the Interior, and I in Foreign
Affairs.”
[Sidenote: Police headquarters.]
9. Having served his time, he wandered again about Paris, under the
surveillance of the police, in the fashion of beetles that cruel
children keep flying at the end of a string. He had become one of
those fugitive and timid beings whom the law, with a sort of coquetry,
arrests and releases, turn and turn about, a little like those platonic
fishermen who, so as not to empty the pond, throw back into the water
the fish just out of the net. Without his suspecting that so much honor
was done to his wretched personality, he had a special docket in the
mysterious archives of _la rue de Jérusalem_, his name and surnames
were written in a large back-hand on the gray paper of the cover, and
the notes and reports, carefully classified, gave him these graded
appellations: “the man named Leturc,” “the prisoner Leturc,” and at
last “the convicted Leturc.”
[Sidenote: The California, a cheap eating-house in Paris.]
[Sidenote: In drawing lots for military service the higher numbers give
exemption, and this he secured by drawing “a good number.”]
[Sidenote: A receiver of stolen goods.]
10. He stayed two years out of prison, dining _à la Californie_,
sleeping in lodging-houses, and sometimes in lime-kilns, and taking
part with his fellows in endless games of pitch-penny on the
boulevards near the city gates. He wore a greasy cap on the back of his
head, carpet slippers, and a short white blouse. When he had five sous,
he had his hair curled. He danced at Constant’s at Montparnasse; bought
for two sous the jack-of-hearts or the ace-of-spades, which were used
as return checks, to resell them for four sous at the door of Bobino;
opened carriage-doors as occasion offered; led about sorry nags at the
horse-market. Of all the bad luck--in the conscription he drew a good
number. Who knows whether the atmosphere of honor which is breathed
in a regiment, whether military discipline, might not have saved
him? Caught in a haul of the police-net with the younger vagabonds
who used to rob the drunkards asleep in the streets, he denied very
energetically having taken part in their expeditions. It was perhaps
true. But his antecedents were accepted in lieu of proof, and he was
sent up for three years to Poissy. There he had to make rough toys,
had himself tattooed on the chest, and learned thieves’ slang and the
penal code. A new liberation, a new plunge into the Parisian sewer,
but very short this time, for at the end of hardly six weeks he was
again compromised in a theft by night, aggravated by violent entry,
a doubtful case in which he played an obscure rôle, half dupe and
half fence. On the whole, his complicity seemed evident, and he was
condemned to five years’ hard labor. His sorrow in this adventure was,
chiefly, to be separated from an old dog which he had picked up on a
heap of rubbish and cured of the mange. This beast loved him.
[Sidenote: Straw was stuffed into the sabots to cushion the feet.]
[Sidenote: The northwest storm-wind from the Mediterranean.]
11. Toulon, the ball on his ankle, the work in the harbor, the blows
from the staves, the wooden shoes without straw, the soup of black
beans dating from Trafalgar, no money for tobacco, and the horrible
sleep on the filthy camp-bed of the galley slave, that is what he knew
for five torrid summers and five winters blown upon by the _Mistral_.
He came out from there stunned, and was sent under surveillance
to Vernon, where he worked for some time on the river; then, an
incorrigible vagabond, he broke exile and returned again to Paris.
12. He had his savings, fifty-six francs--that is to say, time enough
to reflect. During his long absence, his old and horrible comrades
had been dispersed. He was well hidden, and slept in a loft at an old
woman’s, to whom he had represented himself as a sailor weary of the
sea, having lost his papers in a recent shipwreck, and who wished
to essay another trade. His tanned face, his calloused hands, and a
few nautical terms he let fall one time or another, made this story
sufficiently probable.
13. One day when he had risked a saunter along the streets, and
when the chance of his walk had brought him to Montmartre, where he
had been born, an unexpected memory arrested him before the door of
the Brothers’ school in which he had learned to read. Since it was
very warm, the door was open, and with a single glance the passing
incorrigible could recognize the peaceful schoolroom. Nothing was
changed: neither the bright light shining in through the large windows,
nor the crucifix over the desk, nor the rows of seats furnished with
leaden ink-stands, nor the table of weights and measures, nor the map
on which pins stuck in still pointed out the operations of some ancient
war. Heedlessly and without reflecting, Jean François read on the
blackboard these words of the Gospel, which a well-trained hand had
traced as an example of penmanship:
Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than
over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance.
14. It was doubtless the hour for recreation, for the Brother professor
had left his chair, and, sitting on the edge of a table, he seemed to
be telling a story to all the _gamins_ who surrounded him, attentive
and raising their eyes. What an innocent and gay countenance was that
of the beardless young man, in long black robe, with white necktie,
with coarse, ugly shoes, and with badly cut brown hair pushed up at the
back. All those pallid faces of children of the populace which were
looking at him seemed less childlike than his, above all when, charmed
with a candid, priestly pleasantry he had made, he broke out with a
good and frank peal of laughter, which showed his teeth sound and
regular--laughter so contagious that all the scholars broke out noisily
in their turn. And it was simple and sweet, this group in the joyous
sunlight that made their clear eyes and their blonde hair shine.
15. Jean François looked at the scene some time in silence, and, for
the first time, in that savage nature all instinct and appetite, there
awoke a mysterious and tender emotion. His heart, that rude, hardened
heart, which neither the cudgel of the galley-master nor the weight
of the watchman’s heavy whip falling on his shoulders was able to
stir, beat almost to bursting. Before this spectacle, in which he saw
again his childhood, his eyes closed sadly, and, restraining a violent
gesture, a prey to the torture of regret, he walked away with great
strides.
16. The words written on the blackboard came back to him.
17. “If it were not too late, after all!” he murmured. “If I could
once more, like the others, eat my toasted bread honestly, sleep out
my sleep without nightmare? The police spy would be very clever to
recognize me now. My beard, that I shaved off down there, has grown out
now thick and strong. One can borrow somewhere in this big ant-heap,
and work is not lacking. Whoever does not go to pieces soon in the hell
of the galleys comes out agile and robust; and I have learned how to
climb the rope-ladders with loads on my back. Building is going on all
around here, and the masons need helpers. Three francs a day,--I have
never earned so much. That they should forget me, that is all I ask.”
18. He followed his courageous resolution, he was faithful to it,
and three months afterward he was another man. The master for whom
he labored cited him as his best workman. After a long day passed on
the scaffolding, in the full sun, in the dust, constantly bending and
straightening his back to take the stones from the hands of the man
below him and to pass them to the man above him, he went to get his
soup, at the cheap eating house, tired out, his legs numb, his hands
burning, and his eyelashes stuck together by the plaster, but content
with himself, and carrying his well-earned money in the knot of his
handkerchief. He went out without fear, for his white mask made him
unrecognizable, and, then, he had observed that the suspicious glance
of the policeman seldom falls on the real worker. He was silent and
sober. He slept the sound sleep of honest fatigue. He was free.
* * * * *
19. At last--supreme recompense!--he had a friend.
20. It was a mason’s helper like himself, named Savinien, a little
peasant from Limoges, red-cheeked, who had come to Paris with his
stick over his shoulder and his bundle on the end of it, who fled from
the liquor-dealers and went to mass on Sundays. Jean François loved
him for his piety, for his candor, for his honesty, for all that he
himself had lost, and so long ago. It was a passion profound, reserved,
disclosing itself in the care and forethought of a father. Savinien,
himself easily moved and self-loving, let things take their course,
satisfied only in that he had found a comrade who shared his horror
of the wine-shop. The two friends lived together in a furnished room,
fairly clean, but their resources were very limited; they had to take
into their room a third companion, an old man from Auvergne, sombre
and rapacious, who found a way of economizing out of his meagre wages
enough to buy some land in his own province.
21. Jean François and Savinien scarcely left each other. On days of
rest they took long walks in the environs of Paris and dined in the
open air in one of those little country inns where there are plenty
of mushrooms in the sauces and innocent enigmas on the bottoms of the
plates. There Jean François made his friend tell him all those things
of which those born in the cities are ignorant. He learned the names
of the trees, the flowers, the plants; the seasons for the different
harvests; he listened avidly to the thousand details of a farmer’s
labors: the autumn’s sowing, the winter’s work, the splendid _fêtes_ of
harvest-home and vintage, and the flails beating the ground, and the
noise of the mills by the borders of the streams, and the tired horses
led to the trough, and the morning hunting in the mists, and, above
all, the long evenings around the fire of vine-branches, shortened
by tales of wonder. He discovered in himself a spring of imagination
hitherto unsuspected, finding a singular delight in the mere recital of
these things, so gentle, calm, and monotonous.
22. One anxiety troubled him, however, that Savinien should not come
to know his past. Sometimes there escaped him a shady word of thieves’
slang, an ignoble gesture, vestiges of his horrible former existence;
and then he felt the pain of a man whose old wounds reopen, more
especially as he thought he saw then in Savinien the awakening of
an unhealthy curiosity. When the young man, already tempted by the
pleasures which Paris offers even to the poorest, questioned him about
the mysteries of the great city, Jean François feigned ignorance and
turned the conversation; but he had now conceived a vague inquietude
for the future of his friend.
23. This was not without foundation, and Savinien could not long
remain the naïve rustic he had been on his arrival in Paris. If the
gross and noisy pleasures of the wine-shop always were repugnant to
him, he was profoundly troubled by other desires full of danger for
the inexperience of his twenty years. When the spring came, he began
to seek solitude, and at first he wandered before the gayly lighted
entrances to the dancing-halls, through which he saw the girls going
in couples, without bonnets--and with their arms around each other’s
waists, whispering low. Then, one evening, when the lilacs shed their
perfume, and the appeal of the quadrilles was more entrancing, he
crossed the threshold, and after that Jean François saw him change
little by little in manners and in visage. Savinien became more
frivolous, more extravagant; often he borrowed from his friend his
miserable savings, which he forgot to repay. Jean François, feeling
himself abandoned, was both indulgent and jealous; he suffered and
kept silent. He did not think he had the right to reproach; but his
penetrating friendship had cruel and insurmountable presentiments.
24. One evening when he was climbing the stairs of his lodging,
absorbed in his preoccupations, he heard in the room he was about to
enter a dialogue of irritated voices, and he recognized one as that of
the old man from Auvergne, who lodged with him and Savinien. An old
habit of suspicion made him pause on the landing, and he listened to
learn the cause of the trouble.
25. “Yes,” said the man from Auvergne angrily, “I am sure that some one
has broken open my trunk and stolen the three louis which I had hidden
in a little box; and the man who has done this thing can only be one
of the two companions who sleep here, unless it is Maria, the servant.
This concerns you as much as me, since you are the master of the house,
and I will drag you before the judge if you do not let me at once open
up the valises of the two masons. My poor hoard! It was in its place
only yesterday; and I will tell you what it was, so that, if we find
it, no one can accuse me of lying. Oh, I know them, my three beautiful
gold pieces, and I can see them as plainly as I see you. One was a
little more worn than the others, of a slightly greenish gold, and that
had the portrait of the great Emperor; another had that of a fat old
fellow with a queue and epaulets; and the third had a Philippe with
side-whiskers. I had marked it with my teeth. No one can trick me, not
me. Do you know that I needed only two others like those to pay for my
vineyard? Come on, let us look through the things of these comrades, or
I will call the police. Make haste!”
26. “All right,” said the voice of the householder; “we’ll search with
Maria. So much the worse if you find nothing, and if the masons get
angry. It is you who have forced me to it.”
27. Jean François felt his heart fill with fear. He recalled the
poverty and the petty borrowings of Savinien, the sombre manner he had
borne the last few days. Yet he could not believe in any theft. He
heard the panting of the man from Auvergne in the ardor of his search,
and he clenched his fists against his breast as if to repress the
beatings of his heart.
28. “There they are!” suddenly screamed the victorious miser. “There
they are, my louis, my dear treasure! And in the Sunday waistcoat of
the little hypocrite from Limoges. Look, landlord! they are just as I
told you. There’s the Napoleon, and the man with the queue, and the
Philippe I had dented with my teeth. Look at the mark. Ah, the little
rascal with his saintly look! I should more likely have suspected the
other. Ah, the villain! He will have to go to the galleys!”
29. At this moment Jean François heard the well-known step of Savinien,
who was slowly mounting the stairs.
30. “He is going to his betrayal,” thought he. “Three flights. I have
time!”
31. And, pushing open the door, he entered, pale as death, into the
room where he saw the landlord and the stupefied servant in a corner,
and the man from Auvergne on his knees amid the disordered clothes,
lovingly kissing his gold pieces.
32. “Enough of this,” he said in a thick voice. “It is I who have taken
the money and who have put it in my comrade’s trunk. But that is too
disgusting. I am a thief and not a Judas. Go hunt for the police. I’ll
not try to save myself. Only, I must say a word in private to Savinien,
who is here.”
33. The little man from Limoges had, in fact, just arrived, and, seeing
his crime discovered, and believing himself lost, he stood still, his
eyes fixed, his arms drooping.
34. Jean François seized him violently about the neck as though to
embrace him; he pressed his mouth to Savinien’s ear and said to him in
a voice low and supplicating:
35. “Be quiet!”
36. Then, turning to the others:
37. “Leave me alone with him. I shall not go away, I tell you. Shut us
up, if you wish, but leave us alone.”
38. And, with a gesture of command, he showed them the door. They went
out.
39. Savinien, broken with anguish, had seated himself on a bed, and
dropped his eyes without comprehending.
40. “Listen,” said Jean François, who approached to take his hands. “I
understand you have stolen three gold pieces to buy some trifle for a
girl. That would have cost six months of prison for you. But one does
not get out of that except to go back again, and you would have become
a pillar of the police tribunals and the courts of assizes. I know all
about them. I have done seven years in the Reform School, one year
at Sainte-Pélagie, three years at Poissy, and five years at Toulon.
Now, have no fear. All is arranged. I have taken this affair on my
shoulders.”
41. “Unhappy fellow!” cried Savinien; but hope was already coming back
to his cowardly heart.
42. “When the elder brother is serving under the colors, the younger
does not go,” Jean François went on. “I’m your substitute, that’s all.
You love me a little, do you not? I am paid. Do not be a baby. Do not
refuse. They would have caught me one of these days, for I have broken
my exile. And then, you see, that life out there will be less hard for
me than for you; I know it, and shall not complain if I do not render
you this service in vain and if you swear to me that you will not do it
again. Savinien, I have loved you well, and your friendship has made me
very happy, for it is thanks to my knowing you that I have kept honest
and straight, as I might have been, perhaps, if I had had, like you, a
father to put a tool in my hands, a mother to teach me my prayers. My
only regret was that I was useless to you and that I was deceiving you
about my past. To-day I lay aside the mask in saving you. It is all
right. Come, good-bye! Do not weep; and embrace me, for already I hear
the big boots on the stairs. They are returning with the police; and we
must not seem to know each other so well before these fellows.”
43. He pressed Savinien hurriedly to his breast, and then he pushed him
away as the door opened wide.
44. It was the landlord and the man from Auvergne, who were bringing
the police. Jean François started forward to the landing and held out
his hands for the handcuffs and said, laughing:
45. “Forward, bad lot!”
46. To-day he is at Cayenne, condemned for life, as an incorrigible.
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS FOR STUDY
1. Write a paragraph showing how character is affected (a) unfavorably
and (b) favorably by the two tests, as shown by these two stories.
2. In your opinion, was each character changed or merely revealed by
the crisis which occurred in each instance?
3. Which of these stories seems the more real to you?
4. Have you ever heard of a similar instance in real life? If so, cite
it.
5. Write a paragraph contrasting the trivial and the important crisis
in each story, though both led to important results.
6. Set down all the traits of character exhibited by the two leading
actors in each story.
7. Select a character-study from some book or magazine and write a
brief discussion of it.
8. Do the same for another character-study by (a) Maupassant, and (b)
Coppée.
TEN REPRESENTATIVE CHARACTER STUDIES
“The Captain’s Vices,” François Coppée, translated in _Ten Tales by
Coppée_.
“The Incarnation of Krishna Mulvaney,” Rudyard Kipling, in
_Soldiers Three_.
“A New England Nun,” Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, in volume of same
title.
“The Old Gentleman of the Black Stock,” Thomas Nelson Page,
_Harper’s Magazine_, Oct., 1894.
“The Sick-a-Bed Lady,” Eleanor Hallowell Abbott, in volume of same
title.
“The Insurgent,” Ludovic Halévy, translated in _Short-Story
Masterpieces_.
“Caybigan,” James Hopper, in volume of same title.
“The Liar,” Henry James, in _Short-Story Classics, American_.
“Editha,” W. D. Howells, in _Harper’s Novelettes_.
“Our Sermon Taster,” Ian Maclaren, in _Beside the Bonnie Briar
Bush_.
FOOTNOTES:
[27] Copyright, 1911, by J. B. Lippincott Co., and used by permission.
VIII
PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES
_Markheim._--ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
_On the Stairs._--ARTHUR MORRISON
He [the author] can sometimes rouse our intense curiosity and
eagerness by the mere depiction of a psychological state, as Walter
Pater has done in the case of Sebastian Storck and other personages
of his _Imaginary Portraits_. The fact that “nothing happens”
in stories of this kind may be precisely what most interests
us, because we are made to understand what it is that inhibits
action.--BLISS PERRY, _A Study of Prose Fiction_.
PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES
A subtle distinction is to be observed between the character-study and
the psychological study, but it will not be supposed that writers of
short-stories plainly label the distinction, or that the two types are
frequently, if ever, found entirely separate. In the character-study
more attention is paid to the true natures of the actors, and the
demonstration of their natures is shown in the action of the story; in
the psychological study more stress is laid upon the actual operation
of thought, feeling and purpose--it is a laboratory study of what goes
on in the human heart, to use a somewhat vague but necessary term,
under stress of crisis.
The psychological study is the most difficult because the most
penetrating of all short-story forms, and in consequence the most rare
in its perfect presentation. To show the processes of reasoning, the
interplay of motive, the power of feeling acting upon feeling, and
the intricate combinations of these, calls for the most clear-sighted
understanding of man, and the utmost skill in literary art, lest
the story be lost in a fog of tiresome analysis and discussion. In
“Markheim” and “On the Stairs,” two master story-tellers are easily
at their best, for they never obtrude their own opinions, but swiftly
and with a firm onward movement the stories disclose the true inward
workings of the unique characters, while from mood, speech, and action
we infallibly infer all the soul-processes by which their conclusions
are reached.
MARKHEIM
BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
[Sidenote: INTRODUCTION. Remarkable because it at once touches upon the
external crisis of the story.]
“Yes,” said the dealer, “our wind-falls are of various kinds. Some
customers are ignorant, and then I touch a dividend on my superior
knowledge. Some are dishonest,” and here he held up the candle, so
that the light fell strongly on his visitor, “and in that case,” he
continued, “I profit by my virtue.”
[Sidenote: Note double reason.]
2. Markheim had but just entered from the daylight streets, and his
eyes had not yet grown familiar with the mingled shine and darkness in
the shop. At these pointed words, and before the near presence of the
flame, he blinked painfully and looked aside.
[Sidenote: See how daringly the author plays with the reader
without arousing suspicion. Compare Stevenson’s reasoning as to the
reader’s suspicions with Dupin’s reasoning in “The Purloined Letter,”
pp. 91, 92.]
[Sidenote: Markheim has been there before.]
3. The dealer chuckled. “You come to me on Christmas-day,” he resumed,
“when you know that I am alone in my house, put up my shutters, and
make a point of refusing business. Well, you will have to pay for that;
you will have to pay for my loss of time, when I should be balancing
my books; you will have to pay, besides, for a kind of manner that I
remark in you to-day very strongly. I am the essence of discretion,
and ask no awkward questions; but when a customer can not look me in
the eye, he has to pay for it.” The dealer once more chuckled; and
then, changing to his usual business voice, though still with a note of
irony, “You can give, as usual, a clean account of how you came into
possession of the object?” he continued. “Still your uncle’s cabinet? A
remarkable collector, sir!”
4. And the little, pale, round-shouldered dealer stood almost on
tip-toe, looking over the top of his gold spectacles, and nodding his
head with every mark of disbelief. Markheim returned his gaze with one
of infinite pity, and a touch of horror.
[Sidenote: Forecast.]
[Sidenote: Insincerity evident.]
5. “This time,” he said, “you are in error. I have not come to sell,
but to buy. I have no curios to dispose of; my uncle’s cabinet is bare
to the wainscot; even were it still intact, I have done well on the
Stock Exchange, and should more likely add to it than otherwise, and my
errand to-day is simplicity itself. I seek a Christmas-present for a
lady,” he continued, waxing more fluent as he struck into the speech he
had prepared; “and certainly I owe you every excuse for thus disturbing
you upon so small a matter. But the thing was neglected yesterday; I
must produce my little compliment at dinner; and, as you very well
know, a rich marriage is not a thing to be neglected.”
6. There followed a pause, during which the dealer seemed to weigh
this statement incredulously. The ticking of many clocks among the
curious lumber of the shop, and the faint rushing of the cabs in a near
thoroughfare, filled up the interval of silence.
[Sidenote: Compare this setting, as it is gradually unfolded, with that
of Gautier’s “The Mummy’s Foot.”]
7. “Well, sir,” said the dealer, “be it so. You are an old customer
after all; and if, as you say, you have the chance of a good marriage,
far be it from me to be an obstacle. Here is a nice thing for a lady
now,” he went on, “this hand-glass--fifteenth century, warranted; comes
from a good collection, too; but I reserve the name, in the interests
of my customer, who was just like yourself, my dear sir, the nephew and
sole heir of a remarkable collector.”
[Sidenote: Analyse its nature.]
8. The dealer, while he thus ran on in his dry and biting voice, had
stooped to take the object from its place; and, as he had done so,
a shock had passed through Markheim, a start both of hand and foot,
a sudden leap of many tumultuous passions to the face. It passed as
swiftly as it came, and left no trace beyond a certain trembling of the
hand that now received the glass.
[Sidenote: Contributory incident.]
9. “A glass,” he said, hoarsely, and then paused, and repeated it more
clearly. “A glass? For Christmas? Surely not?”
10. “And why not?” cried the dealer. “Why not a glass?”
[Sidenote: Forecast.]
11. Markheim was looking upon him with an indefinable expression.
“You ask me why not?” he said. “Why, look here--look in it--look at
yourself! Do you like to see it? No! nor I--nor any man.”
12. The little man had jumped back when Markheim had so suddenly
confronted him with the mirror; but now, perceiving there was nothing
worse on hand, he chuckled. “Your future lady, sir, must be pretty hard
favoured,” said he.
[Sidenote: Note the working of Markheim’s morbid conscience, not yet
understood by himself.]
13. “I ask you,” said Markheim, “for a Christmas-present, and you give
me this--this damned reminder of years, and sins and follies--this
hand-conscience! Did you mean it? Had you a thought in your mind? Tell
me. It will be better for you if you do. Come, tell me about yourself.
I hazard a guess now, that you are in secret a very charitable man?”
[Sidenote: FIRST MORAL CRISIS.]
14. The dealer looked closely at his companion. It was very odd,
Markheim did not appear to be laughing; there was something in his face
like an eager sparkle of hope, but nothing of mirth.
15. “What are you driving at?” the dealer asked.
16. “Not charitable?” returned the other, gloomily. “Not charitable;
not pious; not scrupulous; unloving, unbeloved; a hand to get money, a
safe to keep it. Is that all? Dear God, man, is that all?”
17. “I will tell you what it is,” began the dealer, with some
sharpness, and then broke off again into a chuckle. “But I see this is
a love match of yours, and you have been drinking the lady’s health.”
18. “Ah!” cried Markheim, with a strange curiosity. “Ah, have you been
in love? Tell me about that.”
[Sidenote: Note change of attitude.]
19. “I,” cried the dealer. “I in love! I never had the time, nor have I
the time to-day for all this nonsense. Will you take the glass?”
[Sidenote: Analyse the forces back of Markheim’s parleying.]
20. “Where is the hurry?” returned Markheim. “It is very pleasant to
stand here talking; and life is so short and insecure that I would not
hurry away from any pleasure--no, not even from so mild a one as this.
We should rather cling, cling to what little we can get, like a man at
a cliff’s edge. Every second is a cliff, if you think upon it--a cliff
a mile high--high enough, if we fall, to dash us out of every feature
of humanity. Hence it is best to talk pleasantly. Let us talk of each
other; why should we wear this mask? Let us be confidential. Who knows,
we might become friends?”
21. “I have just one word to say to you,” said the dealer. “Either make
your purchase, or walk out of my shop.”
[Sidenote: Note how quickly Markheim follows the unconscious lead.]
22. “True, true,” said Markheim. “Enough fooling. To business. Show me
something else.”
[Sidenote: FIRST EXTERNAL CRISIS.]
23. The dealer stooped once more, this time to replace the glass upon
the shelf, his thin blonde hair falling over his eyes as he did so.
[Sidenote: Note all these.]
Markheim moved a little nearer, with one hand in the pocket of his
great-coat; he drew himself up and filled his lungs; at the same time
many different emotions were depicted together on his face--terror,
horror and resolve, fascination and a physical repulsion; and through a
haggard lift of his upper lip, his teeth looked out.
[Sidenote: He was prepared for the crime.]
24. “This, perhaps, may suit,” observed the dealer; and then, as he
began to re-arise, Markheim bounded from behind upon his victim. The
long, skewerlike dagger flashed and fell. The dealer struggled like a
hen, striking his temple on the shelf, and then tumbled on the floor in
a heap.
[Sidenote: FIRST MINOR CLIMAX.]
[Sidenote: Beginning of the internal action. Note how all external
things now begin to play upon the internal man.]
[Sidenote: Throughout, note Stevenson’s rich imagery, and also his
unusual vocabulary.]
[Sidenote: An unusual word.]
25. Time had some score of small voices in that shop, some stately and
slow as was becoming to their great age; others garrulous and hurried.
All these told out the seconds in an intricate chorus of tickings. Then
the passage of a lad’s feet, heavily running on the pavement, broke in
upon these smaller voices and startled Markheim into the consciousness
of his surroundings. He looked about him awfully. The candle stood
on the counter, its flame solemnly wagging in a draught; and by that
inconsiderable movement, the whole room was filled with noiseless
bustle and kept heaving like a sea: the tall shadows nodding, the gross
blots of darkness swelling and dwindling as with respiration, the faces
of the portraits and the china gods changing and wavering like images
in water. The inner door stood ajar, and peered into that leaguer of
shadows with a long slit of daylight like a pointing finger.
[Sidenote: Picture.]
[Sidenote: Evidence of premeditation.]
[Sidenote: Note the interplay of the outward picture and Markheim’s
mind. Keep before you always the double movement of this study as both
progress side by side, finally resulting in the predominance of the
spiritual.]
26. From these fear-stricken rovings, Markheim’s eyes returned to
the body of his victim, where it lay both humped and sprawling,
incredibly small and strangely meaner than in life. In these poor,
miserly clothes, in that ungainly attitude, the dealer lay like so much
sawdust. Markheim had feared to see it, and, lo! it was nothing. And
yet, as he gazed, this bundle of old clothes and pool of blood began
to find eloquent voices. There it must lie; there was none to work the
cunning hinges or direct the miracle of locomotion--there it must lie
till it was found. Found! ay, and then? Then would this dead flesh lift
up a cry that would ring over England, and fill the world with the
echoes of pursuit. Ay, dead, or not, this was still the enemy. “Time
was that when the brains were out,” he thought; and the first word
struck into his mind. Time, now that the deed was accomplished--time,
which had closed for the victim, had become instant and momentous for
the slayer.
27. The thought was yet in his mind, when, first one and then another,
with every variety of pace and voice--one deep as the bell from a
cathedral turret, another ringing on its treble notes the prelude of a
waltz--the clocks began to strike the hour of three in the afternoon.
[Sidenote: The old motive reasserts itself.]
[Sidenote: PLOT INCIDENT.]
[Sidenote: As fear subsides craft returns.]
[Sidenote: A significant expression.]
[Sidenote: Contrast physical and moral fear. Consider how the two are
related.]
28. The sudden outbreak of so many tongues in that dumb chamber
staggered him. He began to bestir himself, going to and fro with the
candle, beleaguered by moving shadows, and startled to the soul by
chance reflections. In many rich mirrors, some of home designs, some
from Venice or Amsterdam, he saw his face repeated and repeated, as it
were an army of spies; his own eyes met and detected him; and the sound
of his own steps, lightly as they fell, vexed the surrounding quiet.
And still as he continued to fill his pockets, his mind accused him,
with a sickening iteration, of the thousand faults of his design. He
should have chosen a more quiet hour; he should have prepared an alibi;
he should not have used a knife; he should have been more cautious, and
only bound and gagged the dealer, and not killed him; he should have
been more bold, and killed the servant also; he should have done all
things otherwise; poignant regrets, weary, incessant toiling of the
mind to change what was unchangeable, to plan what was now useless, to
be the architect of the irrevocable past. Meanwhile, and behind all
this activity, brute terrors, like scurrying of rats in a deserted
attic, filled the more remote chambers of his brain with riot; the
hand of the constable would fall heavy on his shoulder, and his nerves
would jerk like a hooked fish; or he beheld, in galloping defile, the
dock, the prison, the gallows, and the black coffin.
[Sidenote: Note the primary use of the word “rumor.”]
[Sidenote: Contrast.]
[Sidenote: Study of fear.]
[Sidenote: Impressionism.]
29. Terror of the people in the street sat down before his mind like
a besieging army. It was impossible, he thought, but that some rumor
of the struggle must have reached their ears and set on edge their
curiosity; and now, in all the neighboring houses, he divined them
sitting motionless and with uplifted ear--solitary people, condemned
to spend Christmas dwelling alone on memories of the past, and now
startlingly recalled from that tender exercise; happy family parties,
struck into silence round the table, the mother still with raised
finger: every degree and age and humor, but all, by their own hearths,
prying and hearkening and weaving the rope that was to hang him.
Sometimes it seemed to him he could not move too softly; the clink of
the tall Bohemian goblets rang out loudly like a bell; and alarmed by
the bigness of the ticking, he was tempted to stop the clocks. And
then, again, with a swift transition of his terrors, the very silence
of the place appeared a source of peril, and a thing to strike and
freeze the passerby; and he would step more boldly, and bustle aloud
among the contents of the shop, and imitate, with elaborate bravado,
the movements of a busy man at ease in his own house.
[Sidenote: An important observation.]
[Sidenote: Note how his reasoning becomes hyper-acute.]
[Sidenote: Forecast.]
30. But he was now so pulled about by different alarms that, while
one portion of his mind was still alert and cunning, another trembled
on the brink of lunacy. One hallucination in particular took a strong
hold on his credulity. The neighbor hearkening with white face beside
his window, the passerby arrested by a horrible surmise on the
pavement--these could at worst suspect, they could not know; through
the brick walls and shuttered windows only sounds could penetrate. But
here, within the house, was he alone? He knew he was; he had watched
the servant set forth sweethearting, in her poor best, “out for the
day” written in every ribbon and smile. Yes, he was alone, of course;
and yet, in the bulk of empty house above him, he could surely hear
a stir of delicate footing--he was surely conscious, inexplicably
conscious of some presence. Ay, surely; to every room and corner of the
house his imagination followed it; and now it was a faceless thing, and
yet had eyes to see with; and again it was a shadow of himself; and yet
again behold the image of the dead dealer, reinspired with cunning and
hatred.
31. At times, with a strong effort, he would glance at the open door
which still seemed to repel his eyes. [Sidenote: Note force of
“blind.”]
The house was tall, the skylight small and dirty, the day blind
with fog; and the light that filtered down to the ground story was
exceedingly faint, and showed dimly on the threshold of the shop. And
yet, in that strip of doubtful brightness, did there not hang wavering
a shadow?
[Sidenote: Pseudo crisis.]
[Sidenote: Contributory incident.]
32. Suddenly, from the street outside, a very jovial gentleman began
to beat with a staff on the shop-door, accompanying his blows with
shouts and railleries in which the dealer was continually called upon
by name. Markheim, smitten into ice, glanced at the dead man. But no!
he lay quite still; he was fled away far beyond earshot of these blows
and shoutings; he was sunk beneath seas of silence; and his name, which
would once have caught his notice above the howling of a storm, had
become an empty sound. And presently the jovial gentleman desisted from
his knocking and departed.
[Sidenote: Note “apparent.”]
[Sidenote: Key.]
33. Here was a broad hint to hurry what remained to be done, to get
forth from this accusing neighborhood, to plunge into a bath of London
multitudes, and to reach, on the other side of day, that haven of
safety and apparent innocence--his bed. One visitor had come: at any
moment another might follow and be more obstinate. To have done the
deed, and yet not to reap the profit, would be too abhorrent a failure.
The money, that was now Markheim’s concern; and as a means to that,
the keys.
[Sidenote: Note subsidence of acute fears and rise of his true mood.]
[Sidenote: Carefully consider the question of Markheim’s sanity,
judging only from the story as thus far told.]
[Sidenote: Reaction.]
34. He glanced over his shoulder at the open door, where the shadow
was still lingering and shivering; and with no conscious repugnance
of the mind, yet with a tremor of the belly, he drew near the body
of his victim. The human character had quite departed. Like a suit
half-stuffed with bran, the limbs lay scattered, the trunk doubled,
on the floor; and yet the thing repelled him. Although so dingy and
inconsiderable to the eye, he feared it might have more significance
to the touch. He took the body by the shoulders, and turned it on its
back. It was strangely light and supple, and the limbs, as if they had
been broken, fell into the oddest postures. The face was robbed of all
expression; but it was as pale as wax, and shockingly smeared with
blood about one temple. That was, for Markheim, the one displeasing
circumstance. It carried him back, upon the instant, to a certain fair
day in a fisher’s village: a gray day, a piping wind, a crowd upon the
street, the blare of brasses, the booming of drums, the nasal voice of
a ballad singer; and a boy going to and fro, buried over head in the
crowd and divided between interest and fear, until, coming out upon
the chief place of concourse, he beheld a booth and a great screen
with pictures, dismally designed, garishly colored: Brownrigg with
her apprentice; the Mannings with their murdered guest; Weare in the
death-grip of Thurtell; and a score besides of famous crimes. The thing
was as clear as an illusion; he was once again that little boy; he was
looking once again, and with the same sense of physical revolt, at
these vile pictures; he was still stunned by the thumping of the drums.
A bar of that day’s music returned upon his memory; and at that, for
the first time, a qualm came over him, a breath of nausea, a sudden
weakness of the joints, which he must instantly resist and conquer.
[Sidenote: Key. What caused this benumbed conscience?]
35. He judged it more prudent to confront than to flee from these
considerations; looking the more hardily in the dead face, bending
his mind to realize the nature and greatness of his crime. So little
a while ago that face had moved with every change of sentiment, that
pale mouth had spoken, that body had been all on fire with governable
energies; and now, and by his act, that piece of life had been
arrested, as the horologist, with interjected finger, arrests the
beating of the clock. So he reasoned in vain; he could rise to no more
remorseful consciousness; the same heart which had shuddered before
the painted effigies of crime, looked on its reality unmoved. At best,
he felt a gleam of pity for one who had been endowed in vain with all
those faculties that can make the world a garden of enchantment, one
who had never lived and who was now dead. But of penitence, no, not a
tremor.
[Sidenote: PLOT INCIDENT.]
[Sidenote: Forecast of moral crisis.]
36. With that, shaking himself clear of these considerations, he found
the keys and advanced toward the open door of the shop. Outside, it
had begun to rain smartly; and the sound of the shower upon the roof
had banished silence. Like some dripping cavern, the chambers of the
house were haunted by an incessant echoing, which filled the ear and
mingled with the ticking of the clocks. And, as Markheim approached the
door, he seemed to hear, in answer to his own cautious tread, the steps
of another foot withdrawing up the stair. The shadow still palpitated
loosely on the threshold. He threw a ton’s weight of resolve upon his
muscles, and drew back the door.
[Sidenote: Note harmony of setting with tone of approaching crisis.]
[Sidenote: Compare Stevenson’s combination of fact and fantasy with
Hawthorne’s in “The White Old Maid.”]
[Sidenote: Rise toward crisis.]
[Sidenote: Body and spirit.]
[Sidenote: A notable passage.]
37. The faint, foggy daylight glimmered dimly on the bare floor and
stairs; on the bright suit of armor posted, halbert in hand, upon the
landing; and on the dark wood-carvings, and framed pictures that hung
against the yellow panels of the wainscot. So loud was the beating of
the rain through all the house that, in Markheim’s ears, it began to
be distinguished into many different sounds. Footsteps and sighs, the
tread of regiments marching in the distance, the chink of money in the
counting, and the creaking of doors held stealthily ajar, appeared to
mingle with the patter of the drops upon the cupola and the gushing of
the water in the pipes. The sense that he was not alone grew upon him
to the verge of madness. On every side he was haunted and begirt by
presences. He heard them moving in the upper chambers; from the shop,
he heard the dead man getting to his legs; and as he began with a great
effort to mount the stairs, feet fled quietly before him and followed
stealthily behind. If he were but deaf, he thought, how tranquilly he
would possess his soul. And then again, and hearkening with every fresh
attention, he blessed himself for that unresisting sense which held the
outposts and stood a trusty sentinel upon his life. His head turned
continually on his neck; his eyes, which seemed starting from their
orbits, scouted on every side, and on every side were half-rewarded as
with the tail of something nameless, vanishing. The four-and-twenty
steps to the first floor were four-and-twenty agonies.
[Sidenote: Note the exception.]
[Sidenote: Note how suspense in the reader is maintained by disclosing
Markheim’s suspense.]
[Sidenote: Key.]
[Sidenote: Is this normal?]
38. On that first story, the doors stood ajar, three of them like three
ambushes, shaking his nerves like the throats of cannon. He could
never again, he felt, be sufficiently immured and fortified from men’s
observing eyes; he longed to be home, girt in by walls, buried among
bed-clothes, and invisible to all but God. And at that thought he
wondered a little, recollecting tales of other murderers and the fear
they were said to entertain of heavenly avengers. It was not so, at
least, with him. He feared the laws of nature, lest, in their callous
and immutable procedure, they should preserve some damning evidence
of his crime. He feared tenfold more, with a slavish, superstitious
terror, some scission in the continuity of man’s experience, some
willful illegality of nature. He played a game of skill, depending on
the rules, calculating consequence from cause; and what if nature, as
the defeated tyrant overthrew the chess-board, should break the mold of
their succession? The like had befallen Napoleon (so writers said) when
the winter changed the time of its appearance. The like might befall
Markheim: the solid walls might become transparent and reveal his
doings like those of bees in a glass hive; the stout planks might yield
under his foot like quicksands and detain him in their clutch; ay, and
there were soberer accidents that might destroy him; if, for instance,
the house should fall and imprison him beside the body of his victim;
or the house next door should fly on fire, and the firemen invade him
from all sides. These things he feared; and, in a sense, these things
might be called the hands of God reached forth against sin. But about
God himself he was at ease; his act was doubtless exceptional, but so
were his excuses, which God knew; it was there, and not among men,
that he felt sure of justice.
[Sidenote: Note action of auto-suggestion.]
[Sidenote: Remarkable relief in suspense period.]
39. When he had got safe into the drawing-room, and shut the door
behind him, he was aware of a respite from alarms. The room was
quite dismantled, uncarpeted besides, and strewn with packing cases
and incongruous furniture; several great pier-glasses, in which he
beheld himself at various angles, like an actor on the stage; many
pictures, framed and unframed, standing with their faces to the wall;
a fine Sheraton sideboard, a cabinet of marquetry, and a great old
bed, with tapestry hangings. The windows opened to the floor; but by
great good fortune the lower part of the shutters had been closed, and
this concealed him from the neighbors. Here, then, Markheim drew in a
packing case before the cabinet, and began to search among the keys. It
was a long business, for there were many; and it was irksome, besides;
for, after all, there might be nothing in the cabinet, and time was on
the wing. But the closeness of the occupation sobered him. With the
tail of his eye he saw the door--even glanced at it from time to time
directly, like a besieged commander pleased to verify the good estate
of his defenses. But in truth he was at peace. The rain falling in the
street sounded natural and pleasant. Presently, on the other side, the
notes of a piano were wakened to the music of a hymn, and voices of
many children took up the air and words. How stately, how comfortable
was the melody! How fresh the youthful voices! Markheim gave ear to it
smilingly, as he sorted out the keys; and his mind was thronged with
answerable ideas and images; church-going children and the pealing of
the high organ; children afield, bathers by the brookside, ramblers on
the brambly common, kite-flyers in the windy and cloud-navigated sky;
and then, at another cadence of the hymn, back again to church, and the
somnolence of summer Sundays, and the high genteel voice of the parson
(which he smiled a little to recall) and the painted Jacobean tombs,
and the dim lettering of the Ten Commandments in the chancel.
[Sidenote: Powerful contrast.]
[Sidenote: Approach of moral crisis.]
40. And as he sat thus, at once busy and absent, he was startled to his
feet. A flash of ice, a flash of fire, a bursting gush of blood, went
over him, and then he stood transfixed and thrilling. A step mounted
the stair slowly and steadily, and presently a hand was laid upon the
knob, and the lock clicked, and the door opened.
[Sidenote: Markheim perceives only a physical danger. Note how long he
remains dead to any moral judgment of himself.]
[Sidenote: Here is a real though unrecognized moral crisis. Fear
eventually leads to his moral triumph.]
41. Fear held Markheim in a vice. What to expect he knew not, whether
the dead man walking, or the official ministers of human justice, or
some chance witness blindly stumbling in to consign him to the gallows.
But when a face was thrust into the aperture, glanced round the room,
looked at him, nodded and smiled as if in friendly recognition, and
then withdrew again, and the door closed behind it, his fear broke
loose from his control in a hoarse cry. At the sound of this the
visitant returned.
[Sidenote: Note the symbolism of the closed door.]
42. “Did you call me?” he asked, pleasantly, and with that he entered
the room and closed the door behind him.
[Sidenote: KEY.]
[Sidenote: This states the problem.]
43. Markheim stood and gazed at him with all his eyes. Perhaps there
was a film upon his sight, but the outlines of the newcomer seemed to
change and waver like those of the idols in the wavering candle-light
of the shop; and at times he thought he knew him; and at times he
thought he bore a likeness to himself; and always, like a lump of
living terror, there lay in his bosom the conviction that this thing
was not of the earth and not of God.
44. And yet the creature had a strange air of the common-place, as he
stood looking on Markheim with a smile; and when he added: “You are
looking for the money, I believe?” it was in the tones of everyday
politeness.
45. Markheim made no answer.
46. “I should warn you,” resumed the other, “that the maid has left her
sweetheart earlier than usual and will soon be here. If Mr. Markheim be
found in this house, I need not describe to him the consequences.”
47. “You know me?” cried the murderer.
48. The visitor smiled. “You have long been a favorite of mine,” he
said; “and I have long observed and often sought to help you.”
49. “What are you?” cried Markheim: “the devil?”
[Sidenote: This is an important passage.]
50. “What I may be,” returned the other, “cannot affect the service I
propose to render you.”
[Sidenote: Forecast of Markheim’s struggle with his better self.]
51. “It can,” cried Markheim; “it does! Be helped by you? No, never;
not by you! You do not know me yet, thank God, you do not know me!”
52. “I know you,” replied the visitant, with a sort of kind severity or
rather firmness. “I know you to the soul.”
[Sidenote: Does Markheim really know himself?]
53. “Know me!” cried Markheim. “Who can do so? My life is but a
travesty and slander on myself. I have lived to belie my nature. All
men do; all men are better than this disguise that grows about and
stifles them. You see each dragged away by life, like one whom bravos
have seized and muffled in a cloak. If they had their own control--if
you could see their faces, they would be altogether different, they
would shine out for heroes and saints! I am worse than most; myself is
more overlaid; my excuse is known to me and God. But, had I the time, I
could disclose myself.”
54. “To me?” inquired the visitant.
[Sidenote: Note the author’s name for Markheim.]
[Sidenote: Seek a cause for such reasoning.]
55. “To you before all,” returned the murderer. “I supposed you were
intelligent. I thought--since you exist--you would prove a reader of
the heart. And yet you would propose to judge me by my acts! Think of
it; my acts! I was born and I have lived in a land of giants; giants
have dragged me by the wrists since I was born out of my mother--the
giants of circumstance. And you would judge me by my acts! But can you
not look within? Can you not understand that evil is hateful to me? Can
you not see within me the clear writing of conscience, never blurred by
any willful sophistry, although too often disregarded? Can you not read
me for a thing that surely must be common as humanity--the unwilling
sinner?”
[Sidenote: Note the distinction between the final importance of cause
and effect.]
[Sidenote: Contrast.]
[Sidenote: MINOR MORAL CRISIS.]
56. “All this is very feelingly expressed,” was the reply. “But it
regards me not. These points of consistency are beyond my province,
and I care not in the least by what compulsion you may have been
dragged away, so as you are but carried in the right direction. But
time flies; the servant delays, looking in the faces of the crowd and
at the pictures on the hoardings, but still she keeps moving nearer;
and remember, it is as if the gallows itself was striding toward you
through the Christmas streets! Shall I help you; I, who know all? Shall
I tell you where to find the money?”
[Sidenote: A test of Markheim’s consistency.]
57. “For what price?” asked Markheim.
58. “I offer you the service for a Christmas gift,” returned the other.
59. Markheim could not refrain from smiling with a kind of bitter
triumph. “No,” said he, “I will take nothing at your hands; if I were
dying of thirst, and it was your hand that put the pitcher to my lips,
I should find the courage to refuse. It may be credulous, but I will do
nothing to commit myself to evil.”
60. “I have no objection to a death-bed repentance,” observed the
visitant.
61. “Because you disbelieve their efficacy!” Markheim cried.
[Sidenote: Key.]
[Sidenote: Is this irony?]
62. “I do not say so,” returned the other; “but I look on these things
from a different side, and when the life is done my interest falls.
The man has lived to serve me, to spread black looks under color of
religion, or to sow tares in the wheat-field, as you do, in a course
of weak compliance with desire. Now that he draws so near to his
deliverance, he can add but one act of service--to repent, to die
smiling, and thus to build up in confidence and hope the more timorous
of my surviving followers. I am not so hard a master. Try me. Accept
my help. Please yourself in life as you have done hitherto; please
yourself more amply, spread your elbows at the board; and when the
night begins to fall and the curtains to be drawn, I tell you, for
your greater comfort, that you will find it even easy to compound your
quarrel with your conscience, and to make a truckling peace with God.
I came but now from such a death bed, and the room was full of sincere
mourners, listening to the man’s last words: and when I looked into
that face, which had been set as a flint against mercy, I found it
smiling with hope.”
[Sidenote: Markheim has judged the example.]
63. “And do you, then, suppose me such a creature?” asked Markheim. “Do
you think I have no more generous aspirations than to sin, and sin, and
sin, and, at last, sneak into heaven? My heart rises at the thought.
Is this, then, your experience of mankind? or is it because you find
me with red hands that you presume such baseness? and is this crime of
murder indeed so impious as to dry up the very springs of good?”
[Sidenote: Is this true reasoning?]
[Sidenote: Note the detached attitude.]
[Sidenote: Note paradox.]
64. “Murder is to me no special category,” replied the other. “All sins
are murder, even as all life is war. I behold your race, like starving
mariners on a raft, plucking crusts out of the hands of famine and
feeding on each other’s lives. I follow sins beyond the moment of their
acting; I find in all that the last consequence is death; and to my
eyes, the pretty maid who thwarts her mother with such taking graces on
a question of a ball, drips no less visibly with human gore than such
a murderer as yourself. Do I say that I follow sins? I follow virtues
also; they differ not by the thickness of a nail, they are both scythes
for the reaping angel of Death. Evil, for which I live, consists not in
action but in character. The bad man is dear to me; not the bad act,
whose fruits, if we could follow them far enough down the hurtling
cataract of the ages, might yet be found more blessed than those of the
rarest virtues. And it is not because you have killed a dealer, but
because you are Markheim, that I offered to forward your escape.”
[Sidenote: An unusual expression.]
[Sidenote: Note use of “of.”]
[Sidenote: Could that have been?]
65. “I will lay my heart open to you,” answered Markheim. “This crime
on which you find me is my last. On my way to it I have learned many
lessons; itself is a lesson, a momentous lesson. Hitherto I have been
driven with revolt to what I would not; I was a bond-slave to poverty,
driven and scourged. There are robust virtues that can stand in these
temptations; mine was not so: I had a thirst of pleasure. But to-day,
and out of this deed, I pluck both warning and riches--both the power
and a fresh resolve to be myself. I become in all things a free actor
in the world; I begin to see myself all changed, these hands the agents
of good, this heart at peace. Something comes over me out of the past;
something of what I have dreamed on Sabbath evenings to the sound of
the church organ, of what I forecast when I shed tears over noble
books, or talked, an innocent child, with my mother. There lies my
life; I have wandered a few years, but now I see once more my city of
destination.”
66. “You are to use this money on the Stock Exchange, I think?”
remarked the visitor; “and there, if I mistake not, you have already
lost some thousands?”
[Sidenote: Self-deception uncovered.]
67. “Ah,” said Markheim, “but this time I have a sure thing.”
68. “This time, again, you will lose,” replied the visitor, quietly.
69. “Ah, but I keep back the half!” cried Markheim.
70. “That also you will lose,” said the other.
[Sidenote: Moral crisis begins to appear to Markheim.]
[Sidenote: Self-deception still struggling.]
71. The sweat started upon Markheim’s brow. “Well, then, what matter?”
he exclaimed. “Say it be lost, say I am plunged again in poverty, shall
one part of me, and that the worse, continue until the end to override
the better? Evil and good run strong in me, haling me both ways. I
do not love the one thing, I love all. I can conceive great deeds,
renunciations, martyrdoms; and though I be fallen to such a crime as
murder, pity is no stranger to my thoughts. I pity the poor; who knows
their trials better than myself? I pity and help them; I prize love, I
love honest laughter; there is no good thing nor true thing on earth
but I love it from my heart. And are my vices only to direct my life,
and my virtues to lie without effect, like some passive lumber of the
mind? Not so; good, also, is a spring of acts.”
[Sidenote: Here the story is plainly didactic.]
72. But the visitant raised his finger. “For six-and-thirty years that
you have been in this world,” said he, “through many changes of fortune
and varieties of humor, I have watched you steadily fall. Fifteen years
ago you would have started at a theft. Three years back you would
have blenched at the name of murder. Is there any crime, is there any
cruelty or meanness, from which you still recoil?--five years from now
I shall detect you in the fact! Downward, downward, lies your way; nor
can anything but death avail to stop you.”
73. “It is true,” Markheim said, huskily, “I have in some degree
complied with evil. But it is so with all: the very saints, in the mere
exercise of living, grow less dainty, and take on the tone of their
surroundings.”
[Sidenote: Key.]
74. “I will propound to you one simple question,” said the other; “and
as you answer, I shall read to you your moral horoscope. You have grown
in many things more lax; possibly you do right to be so; and at any
account, it is the same with all men. But granting that, are you in any
one particular, however trifling, more difficult to please with your
own conduct, or do you go in all things with a looser rein?”
[Sidenote: MINOR MORAL CLIMAX.]
[Sidenote: Markheim at last sees himself.]
75. “In any one?” repeated Markheim, with an anguish of consideration.
“No,” he added, with despair, “in none! I have gone down in all.”
76. “Then,” said the visitor, “content yourself with what you are, for
you will never change; and the words of your part on this stage are
irrevocably written down.”
77. Markheim stood for a long while silent, and indeed it was the
visitor who first broke the silence. “That being so,” he said, “shall I
show you the money?”
78. “And grace?” cried Markheim.
79. “Have you not tried it?” returned the other. “Two or three years
ago, did I not see you on the platform of revival meetings, and was not
your voice the loudest in the hymn?”
80. “It is true,” said Markheim; “and I see clearly what remains for me
by way of duty. I thank you for these lessons from my soul: my eyes are
opened, and I behold myself at last for what I am.”
81. At this moment, the sharp note of the door-bell rang through the
house; and the visitant, as though this were some concerted signal for
which he had been waiting, changed at once in his demeanor.
[Sidenote: FULL MORAL CRISIS.]
[Sidenote: PHYSICAL RESULTANT CRISIS.]
[Sidenote: Final test.]
82. “The maid!” he cried. “She has returned, as I forewarned you, and
there is now before you one more difficult passage. Her master, you
must say, is ill; you must let her in, with an assured but rather
serious countenance--no smiles, no overacting, and I promise you
success! Once the girl within, and the door closed, the same dexterity
that has already rid you of the dealer will relieve you of this last
danger in your path. Thenceforward you have the whole evening--the
whole night, if needful--to ransack the treasures of the house and to
make good your safety. This is help that comes to you with the mask of
danger. Up!” he cried: “up, friend; your life hangs trembling in the
scales; up, and act!”
83. Markheim steadily regarded his counsellor. “If I be condemned to
evil acts,” he said, “there is still one door of freedom open--I can
cease from action. If my life be an ill thing, I can lay it down.
Though I be, as you say truly, at the beck of every small temptation,
I can yet, by one decisive gesture, place myself beyond the reach of
all. My love of good is damned to barrenness; it may, and let it, be!
But I have still my hatred of evil; and from that, to your galling
disappointment, you shall see that I can draw both energy and courage.”
[Sidenote: Who was the visitant?]
84. The features of the visitor began to undergo a wonderful and lovely
change; they brightened and softened with a tender triumph; and, even
as they brightened, faded and dislimned. But Markheim did not pause to
watch or understand the transformation. He opened the door and went
downstairs very slowly, thinking to himself. His past went soberly
before him; he beheld it as it was, ugly and strenuous like a dream,
random as chance-medley--a scene of defeat. Life, as he thus reviewed
it, tempted him no longer; but on the further side he perceived a quiet
haven for his bark. He paused in the passage, and looked into the
shop, where the candle still burned by the dead body. It was strangely
silent. Thoughts of the dealer swarmed into his mind, as he stood
gazing. And then the bell once more broke out into impatient clamor.
85. He confronted the maid upon the threshold with something like a
smile.
[Sidenote: MORAL CLIMAX. DENOUEMENT.]
86. “You had better go for the police,” said he: “I have killed your
master.”
MORRISON AND HIS WRITINGS
Arthur Morrison was born in Kent, England, in 1863. After some
experience as a clerk in the civil service, as the secretary of a
charity trust in the East End of London, and as a journalist on the
editorial staff of an evening paper, he settled down definitely to his
career as novelist and writer on oriental art. He is best known as a
journalist, however, and his familiarity with the East End has largely
contributed to his success in depicting the sordid life of London’s
“mean streets,” as the “remorseless realism” of his pictures testify.
Mr. Morrison’s literary work was in the nature of prose and verse
panegyrizing bicycles and bicycling. His principal works, apart from
several plays and magazine contributions, are _Tales of Mean Streets_;
the several _Martin Hewitt_ (detective) books; _A Child of the Jago_;
_To London Town_; _The Hole in the Wall_; _The Red Triangle_; _The
Green Eye of Goona_ (published in America as _The Green Diamond_); and
_The Painters of Japan_.
Mr. Morrison’s best fiction is not large in bulk, for his detective
stories are surpassed both in merit and in popular appeal by more than
one writer on similar themes; but in his _Tales of Mean Streets_,
which contains the appended study, “On the Stairs,” he has attained
a compressed power equalled only by the French realists and scarcely
surpassed even by them. He has brought the art of suggestion to a high
pass, his swiftness and firmness of delineation are equally effective,
and though his subjects are sordid and often depressing they live
before us as real folk.
The introduction to _Tales of Mean Streets_ appeared in
_Macmillan’s Magazine_ in October, 1891, where it was called
simply, “A Street.” This sketch attracted the attention of Mr.
W. E. Henley, who gave the young writer the benefit of his own
knowledge and criticism; and it is to Henley and to Walter Besant
that Mr. Morrison makes special acknowledgment for help in the
technicalities and mechanism of his tales. Most of these _Tales of
Mean Streets_ appeared in the _National Observer_ (while Henley was
the editor), and a few in the _Pall Mall Budget_.--_Book Buyer_
(London), vol. 12.
If the modern novel about the slums, such as novels of Mr. Arthur
Morrison, or the exceedingly able novels of Mr. Somerset Maugham,
are intended to be sensational, I can only say that that is a noble
and reasonable object, and that they attain it.... It may be ...
it is necessary to have in our fiction the image of the horrible
and hairy East-ender, merely to keep alive in us a fearful and
childlike wonder at external peculiarities.... To summarize, our
slum fiction is quite defensible as æsthetic fiction; it is not
defensible as spiritual fact.--GILBERT K. CHESTERTON, _Heretics_.
Ever seeking the clean-cut, picturesque phrase and the vivid
word, he produced a very striking picture of the East End. But,
nevertheless, it was not quite satisfactory and convincing. Human
nature does not alter so much with conditions as he seems to
think. A little less or a little more morality does not affect its
elements.... Mr. Morrison’s strongest gift in writing is a cynicism
that is almost brutal. With it he elaborates the features of all
his characters till the impression is produced that one savage,
hideous, ugly coster and one gaudy-feathered, bedizened “Jonah”
have acted as models for all his studies of Jagodom. Moreover, his
success has been achieved in pictures of the brutal.--_Academy_
(London), vol. 52.
The “mean streets” are streets in London.... [They] have found in
Arthur Morrison an interpreter who lifts them out of their meanness
upon the plane of a just claim to human sympathy. He lets us see
the relief. Bill Napper, the drunken kerb-whacker, come into
property and defending it against the rascally labor agitator,
Scuddy Lond, mixing religious fervor and till-tapping with entire
sincerity, Simmons and Ford, victims of their joint wife’s “jore”
and mania for trouser-making, even the Anarchists of the Red Cow
group, appeal to us with a sense almost of kinship because we feel
that the figures are real. They are capital character-studies
besides. Dickens never made a finer than the thief Scuddy Lond, or
than Billy Chope.... The art of these stories seems flawless. Mr.
Morrison’s gift amounts to genius.--JACOB RIIS, _Romances of “The
Other Half,” The Book Buyer_, vol. 12.
FURTHER REFERENCES FOR READING ON MORRISON
_Methods of Arthur Morrison_, _Academy_, vol. 50, 531; _His Work,
Academy_, vol. 52, 493; _Blackwood’s Magazine_, vol. 163, 734; _How to
Write a Short Story, Bookman_, vol. 5, 45; _Morrison as a Realist_,
H. D. Traill, _Fortnightly_, vol. 67, 65; _Reply_, A. Morrison, _New
Review_, vol. 16, 326; _Child of the Jago: True to Facts_, A. O. Jay,
_Fortnightly_, vol. 67, 324.
FOR ANALYSIS
ON THE STAIRS
BY ARTHUR MORRISON
The house had been “genteel.” When trade was prospering in the East
End, and the ship-fitter or block-maker thought it no shame to live in
the parish where his workshop lay, such a master had lived here. Now,
it was a tall, solid, well-bricked, ugly house, grimy and paintless in
the joinery, cracked and patched in the windows: where the front door
stood open all day long; and the womankind sat on the steps, talking
of sickness and deaths and the cost of things; and treacherous holes
lurked in the carpet of road-soil on the stairs and in the passage. For
when eight families live in a house, nobody buys a door-mat, and the
street was one of those streets that are always muddy. It smelt, too,
of many things, none of them pleasant (one was fried fish); but for all
that it was not a slum.
2. Three flights up, a gaunt woman with bare forearms stayed on her way
to listen at a door which, opening, let out a warm, fetid waft from a
close sick-room. A bent and tottering old woman stood on the threshold,
holding the door behind her.
3. “An’ is 'e no better now, Mrs. Curtis?” the gaunt woman asked, with
a nod at the opening.
4. The old woman shook her head, and pulled the door closer. Her jaw
waggled loosely in her withered chaps: “Nor won’t be; till 'e’s gone.”
Then after a certain pause, “'E’s goin’,” she said.
5. “Don’t doctor give no 'ope?”
6. “Lor’ bless ye, I don’t want to ast no doctors,” Mrs. Curtis
replied, with something not unlike a chuckle. “I’ve seed too many on
’em. The boy’s a-goin’, fast; I can see that. An’ then”--she gave the
handle another tug, and whispered--“he’s been called.” She nodded
amain; “Three seprit knocks at the bed-head las’ night; an’ I know what
_that_ means!”
7. The gaunt woman raised her brows, and nodded. “Ah, well,” she said,
“we all on us comes to it some day, sooner or later. An’ it’s often a
'appy release.”
8. The two looked into space beyond each other, the elder with a nod
and a croak. Presently the other pursued, “'E’s been a very good son,
ain’t 'e?”
9. “Ay, ay, well enough son to me,” responded the old woman, a
little peevishly; “an’ I’ll 'ave ’im put away decent, though there’s
on’y the Union for me after. I can do that, thank Gawd!” she added,
meditatively, as chin on fist she stared into the thickening dark over
the stairs.
10. “When I lost my pore 'usband,” said the gaunt woman with a certain
brightening, “I give ’im a 'ansome funeral. 'E was a Oddfeller, an’ I
got twelve pound. I 'ad a oak caufin an’ a open 'earse. There was a
kerridge for the fam’ly an’ one for 'is mates--two 'orses each, an’
feathers, an’ mutes; an’ it went the furthest way round to the cimitry.
'Wotever 'appens, Mrs. Manders,’ says the undertaker, ‘you’ll feel
as you’ve treated 'im proper; nobody can’t reproach you over that.’
An’ they couldn’t. 'E was a good 'usband to me, an’ I buried ’im
respectable.”
11. The gaunt woman exulted. The old, old story of Manders’s funeral
fell upon the other one’s ears with a freshened interest, and she
mumbled her gums ruminantly. “Bob’ll 'ave a 'ansome buryin', too,” she
said. “I can make it up, with the insurance money, an’ this, an’ that.
On’y I dunno about mutes. It’s a expense.”
12. In the East End, when a woman has not enough money to buy a thing
much desired, she does not say so in plain words; she says the thing
is an “expense,” or a “great expense.” It means the same thing, but
it sounds better. Mrs. Curtis had reckoned her resources, and found
that mutes would be an “expense.” At a cheap funeral mutes cost
half-a-sovereign and their liquor. Mrs. Manders said as much.
13. “Yus, yus, 'arf-a-sovereign,” the old woman assented. Within, the
sick feebly beat the floor with a stick. “I’m a-comin’,” she cried
shrilly; “yus, 'arf-a-sovereign, but it’s a lot, an’ I don’t see 'ow
I’m to do it--not at present.” She reached for the door-handle again,
but stopped and added, by after-thought, “Unless I don’t 'ave no
plooms.”
14. “It 'ud be a pity not to 'ave plooms. I 'ad--”
15. There were footsteps on the stairs: then a stumble and a testy
word. Mrs. Curtis peered over into the gathering dark. “Is it the
doctor, sir?” she asked. It was the doctor’s assistant; and Mrs.
Manders tramped up to the next landing as the door of the sick-room
took him in.
16. For five minutes the stairs were darker than ever. Then the
assistant, a very young man, came out again, followed by the old woman
with a candle. Mrs. Manders listened in the upper dark. “He’s sinking
fast,” said the assistant. “He _must_ have a stimulant. Dr. Mansell
ordered port wine. Where is it?” Mrs. Curtis mumbled dolorously. “I
tell you he _must_ have it,” he averred with unprofessional emphasis
(his qualification was only a month old). “The man can’t take solid
food, and his strength must be kept up somehow. Another day may make
all the difference. Is it because you can’t afford it?” “It’s a
expense--sich a expense, doctor,” the old woman pleaded. “An’ wot with
'arf-pints o’ milk an’--” She grew inarticulate, and mumbled dismally.
17. “But he must have it, Mrs. Curtis, if it’s your last shilling:
it’s the only way. If you mean you absolutely haven’t the money--” and
he paused a little awkwardly. He was not a wealthy young man--wealthy
young men do not devil for East End doctors--but he was conscious
of a certain haul of sixpences at nap the night before; and, being
inexperienced, he did not foresee the career of persecution whereon he
was entering at his own expense and of his own motion. He produced five
shillings: “If you absolutely haven’t the money, why--take this and get
a bottle--good: not at a public-house. But mind, _at once_. He should
have had it before.”
18. It would have interested him, as a matter of coincidence, to know
that his principal had been guilty of the selfsame indiscretion--even
the amount was identical--on that landing the day before. But, as Mrs.
Curtis said nothing of this, he floundered down the stair and out
into the wetter mud, pondering whether or not the beloved son of a
Congregational minister might take full credit for a deed of charity on
the proceeds of sixpenny nap. But Mrs. Curtis puffed her wrinkles, and
shook her head sagaciously as she carried in her candle. From the room
came a clink as of money falling into a teapot. And Mrs. Manders went
about her business.
19. The door was shut, and the stair a pit of blackness. Twice a lodger
passed down, and up and down, and still it did not open. Men and women
walked on the lower flights, and out at the door, and in again. From
the street a shout or a snatch of laughter floated up the pit. On the
pavement footsteps rang crisper and fewer, and from the bottom passage
there were sounds of stagger and sprawl. A demented old clock buzzed
divers hours at random, and was rebuked every twenty minutes by the
regular tread of a policeman on his beat. Finally, somebody shut the
street-door with a great bang, and the street was muffled. A key turned
inside the door on the landing, but that was all. A feeble light shone
for hours along the crack below, and then went out. The crazy old clock
went buzzing on, but nothing left that room all night. Nothing that
opened the door....
20. When next the key turned, it was to Mrs. Manders’s knock, in the
full morning; and soon the two women came out on the landing together,
Mrs. Curtis with a shapeless clump of bonnet. “Ah, 'e’s a lovely
corpse,” said Mrs. Manders. “Like wax. So was my 'usband.”
21. “I must be stirrin’,” croaked the old woman, “an’ go about the
insurance an’ the measurin’ an’ that. There’s lots to do.”
22. “Ah, there is. 'Oo are you goin’ to 'ave,--Wilkins? I 'ad Wilkins.
Better than Kedge, _I_ think: Kedge’s mutes dresses rusty, an’ their
trousis is frayed. If you was thinkin’ of 'avin’ mutes--”
23. “Yus, yus,”--with a palsied nodding,--“I’m a-goin’ to 'ave mutes: I
can do it respectable, thank Gawd!”
24. “And the plooms?”
25. “Ay, yus, and the plooms too. They ain’t sich a great expense,
after all.”
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS FOR STUDY
1. What are the points of similarity between the Character-Study and
the Psychological Study?
2. Define (a) Psychology, (b) Realism.
3. Does Markheim’s change of heart seem to you to be genuine? Give your
reasons.
4. Analyze his motives fully.
5. Is the supernatural element convincing?
6. Could conscience produce the same effect as the Visitant?
7. What impression did Stevenson seek to convey by “Markheim”?
8. Fully analyze the thoughts, feelings, and motives of the mother.
9. Can you detect Morrison’s motive in writing “On the Stairs”?
10. Fully analyze one other psychological study, from any source.
TEN REPRESENTATIVE PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES
“A Coward,” Guy de Maupassant, translated in _The Odd Number_.
“Another Gambler,” Paul Bourget, translated in _Stories by Foreign
Authors_.
“La Bretonne,” André Theuriet, translated in _Short-Story
Masterpieces_.
“The Song of Death,” Hermann Sudermann, translated in _The Indian
Lily_.
“The Recovery,” Edith Wharton, in _Crucial Instances_.
“Billy-Boy,” John Luther Long, in volume of same title.
“The Executioner,” Honoré de Balzac, translated in _Masterpieces of
Fiction_.
“The Revolt of ‘Mother,’” Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, _Harper’s
Magazine_, vol. 81, 553.
“The Lady or the Tiger,” Frank R. Stockton, in volume of same title.
“The Man Without a Country,” Edward Everett Hale, in _Short Story
Classics, American_.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
An extended list of books and magazine articles on the short-story
will be found on pages 375-378, 426-431 of the present author’s
_Writing the Short-Story_, New York, Hinds, Hayden and Eldredge
(1909), xiv+441 pp. Most of the bibliographical references here
appended also appear in the revised edition of _Writing the
Short-Story_ (1918). Magazine articles have not been included, as
they may be found listed in the cumulative periodical indexes.
For several years, _The Writer’s Monthly_, Springfield, Mass., a
periodical for literary workers, has printed monthly a list of
magazine articles of interest to writers.
_Notes on the Influence of E. T. A. Hoffman on Edgar Allan Poe_, G.
Gruener, Modern Language Association of America (1904).
_How to Write_, Charles Sears Baldwin. Macmillan (1906). Chapters
on “How to Tell a Story,” and “How to Describe.” Based upon Bible
narratives.
_The Art of the Short-Story_, George W. Gerwig. Werner (1909). A
brief general study. Out of print.
_The Short Story in English_, Henry Seidel Canby. Holt (1909). An
exhaustive examination into the origin and development of the form.
_A History of Story Telling_, Arthur Ransome. Stokes (1909).
_Studies in Several Literatures_, Harry Thurston Peck. Dodd, Mead
(1909). Chapters on “Poe,” and “The Detective Story.”
_The Art of Writing_ (also issued under the title, _The Art of
Short Story Writing_), George Randolph Chester. The Publishers
Syndicate (1910). A collection of brief notes on all phases of the
title-subject.
_The Fiction Factory_, John Milton Edwards (pseudonym). Editor Co.
(1911). “The author tells how he conceived, planned, wrote and sold
$100,000 worth of manuscripts.”
_The Craftsmanship of Writing_, Frederic Taber Cooper. Dodd, Mead
(1912). These papers appeared serially in _The Bookman_, New York.
_The Plot of the Short Story_, Henry Albert Phillips.
Stanhope-Dodge (1912). The technique and mechanics of plot.
_The American Short Story_, C. Alphonso Smith. Ginn (1912). An
American reprint of one of the author’s lectures delivered as
Roosevelt Professor at the University of Berlin.
_The Art and Business of Story Writing_, W. B. Pitkin. Macmillan
(1912).
_The American Short Story_, Elias Lieberman. Editor Co. (1912).
_The Art of Story Writing_, J. Berg Esenwein and Mary Davoren
Chambers. Home Correspondence School (1913). A study of the shorter
fictional forms--the anecdote, fable, parable, tale, sketch, and
short-story--with outlines for study and instruction.
_The Technique of the Mystery Story_, Carolyn Wells. Home
Correspondence School (1913).
_Art in Short Story Narration_, Henry Albert Phillips.
Stanhope-Dodge (1913).
_The Art of Writing_, Preface to “The Nigger of the Narcissus,”
Joseph Conrad. Doubleday (1914).
_Short Stories in the Making_, Robert Wilson Neal. Oxford
University Press (1914).
_The Author’s Craft_, Arnold Bennett. Doran (1914)
_The Art of the Short Story_, Carol Grabo. Scribner (1914).
_The Modern Short-Story_, Lilian Notestein and Waldo H. Dunn.
Barnes (1914).
_On the Art of Writing_, A. Quiller-Couch. Putnam (1916).
_The Contemporary Short Story_, Harry T. Baker. Heath (1916).
_The Short-Story_, Barry Pain. Doran (1916). Reprint of an earlier
English edition.
_The Thirty Six Dramatic Situations_, Georges Polti. Editor Co.
(1916).
_A Handbook of Story Writing_, Blanche Colton Williams. Dodd, Mead
(1917).
_Children’s Stories and How to Tell Them_, J. Berg Esenwein and
Marietta Stockard. Home Correspondence School (1917).
_Helps for Student-Writers_, Willard E. Hawkins. The Student-Writer
Press (1917).
_The Technique of Fiction Writing_, Robert Saunders Dowst. Editor
Co. (1917).
Besides the edited collections of miscellaneous short-stories
included in the first edition of _Writing the Short-Story_, which
need not be reproduced here, are the following. In most instances
the collections are prefaced by introductory notes by the editors
named.
_The Best American Tales_, W. P. Trent and John Bell Henneman.
Crowell (1907).
_International Library of Fiction_ (3 vols.), William Patten.
Collier (1910).
_The Great English Short-Story Writers_ (2 vols.), William J. and
Coningsby W. Dawson. Harper (1910).
_The Lock and Key Library_ (10 vols.), Julian Hawthorne. This is
an expansion of the six-volume edition of _Mystery and Detective
Stories_ (6 vols.). Review of Reviews Co. (1912).
_Short-Story Masterpieces, French_ (2 vols.), J. Berg Esenwein.
Home Correspondence School (1912).
_Short-Story Masterpieces, Russian_ (2 vols.), J. Berg Esenwein.
Home Correspondence School (1913).
_A Collection of Short Stories_, L. A. Pittenger. Macmillan (1913).
_A Study of the Short Story_, Henry S. Canby. Holt (1913).
_A Book of Short Stories_, Stuart P. Sherman. Holt (1914).
_Types of the Short-Story_, Benjamin A. Heydrick. Scott, Foresman
(1914).
_The Short-Story_, E. A. Cross. McClurg (1914).
_Modern Short Stories_, Margaret Ashmun. Macmillan (1914).
_Short Stories_, Leonard Moulton. Houghton, Mifflin (1915).
_Short Stories for High Schools_, Rosa M. R. Mikels. Scribner
(1915).
_Elements of the Short Story_, E. E. Hale, Jr., and F. T. Dawson.
Holt (1915).
_Short Stories from “Life,”_ T. L. Masson. Doubleday (1916).
_Short Stories and Selections, for Use in Secondary Schools_,
Emilie K. Baker. Macmillan (1916).
_Representative Short Stories_, Nina Hart and Edna M. Perry.
Macmillan (1917).
_The Best Short Stories of 1915, and The Yearbook of the American
Short Story_, E. J. O’Brien. Small, Maynard (1916).
Similar collections by the same editor have been issued for 1916
and 1917, and others for later years are to follow.
_Atlantic Narratives_, Charles Swain Thomas. Atlantic Monthly Press
(1918).
_Index to Short Stories._ Ina TenEyck Firkins. Wilson.
INDEX
In this index, names of authors are printed in small capitals and
titles of books in italics; titles of short-stories are enclosed in
quotations, and general persons and subjects are in Roman type. It
has not seemed necessary to index titles and authors which are merely
included in biographical and bibliographical notes.
A
Action, 2, 3.
ADDISON, JOSEPH, xix.
Adventure (see Action), xvi, 3.
Anecdote, xvi, xvii, xx.
_Arabian Nights_, xviii.
B
BALDWIN, CHARLES S., xxiv.
BALZAC, HONORÉ DE, xx, 134, 253.
BARRIE, JAMES M., 133, 215-249.
BARRETT, CHARLES RAYMOND, xxiii.
BEERS, H. A., 300.
BERANGER, 320.
Bibliography of Short-Story, xxi, 433.
BIERCE, AMBROSE, 72.
BOCCACCIO, xviii;
_Decameron_, xvii;
_Rinaldo_, xvii.
BURKE, EDMUND, 132.
BURTON, RICHARD, 32.
BUTLER, ELLIS PARKER, 133.
C
CANBY, H. S., xxiv, 32, 33, 75, 76, 149, 258, 301, 302.
Characters, 4, 354, 355, 356.
Character Studies, 353-389.
CHAUCER, GEOFFREY, xviii,
_Canterbury Tales_, xvii,
_Pardoner’s Tale_, xvii.
CHESTERTON, GILBERT K., 424.
CODY, SHERWIN, xxiii.
Comedy, 192.
_Conte dévot_, xvi, xvii.
Contributory incident, 21, 199.
COPPÉE, FRANÇOIS, 134, 368-388.
“Courting of T’Nowhead’s Bell, The,” 219-249.
CRAWFORD, F. MARION, 72.
CRAWFORD, V. M., 137, 138.
Crisis, xxvi, 355.
CROSS, J. W., 252.
CURTIS, GEORGE WILLIAM, 70.
D
DAUDET, ALPHONSE, 133-147.
DEFOE, DANIEL, xix.
Denouement, xxvi.
Detective Story, xix.
Developing incident (see contributory incident).
DYE, CHARITY, xxiii.
E
EDGEWORTH, MARIA, _Moral Tales_, xix.
Egyptian tales, xv, xvi.
ELIOT, GEORGE, 252.
Emotion, Stories of, 131-190.
Episode, xvii, xix.
Essay-Stories, xix.
_Esther, Book of_, xvi.
Exercises, xxxi, 67, 129, 189, 249, 290, 351, 388, 431.
F
_Fabliau_, xviii.
FAGUET, ÉMILE, 6.
“Fall of the House of Usher, The,” 320-351.
Fiction, Art of, xiii.
FLAUBERT, GUSTAVE, 32, 33.
G
Ghosts, 70.
_Golden Ass, The_, Apuleius, xvi.
_Graham’s Magazine_, xxii, 295.
GRENIER, EDOUARD, 7.
GRISWOLD, HATTIE T., 218.
_Guardian_, xix.
H
HAMILTON, CLAYTON, 354.
HAMMERTON, J. A., 218.
_Handbook of Literary Criticism_, 31.
HARTE, BRET, 133, 253, 254.
HAWTHORNE, JULIAN, 70, 258.
HAWTHORNE, NATHANIEL, xix, xxii, xxiii, 33, 71, 75, 297-319.
HENRY, O., 193-215.
HIGGINSON, THOMAS WENTWORTH, xxiii.
HOFFMAN, E. A., xix, 75.
Homeric stories, xv.
Humorous Stories, 191-250.
HUTTON, R. H., 301.
I
_Idler_, xix.
Impressionistic Stories, 293-352.
INDEPENDENT, xxiii.
IRVING, WASHINGTON, xix, 71;
_Rip Van Winkle_, xviii.
J
JACOBS, W. W., 108-129.
JAMES, HENRY, 137, 149, 279.
JESSUP, ALEXANDER, xxiv.
JOHNSON, SAMUEL, xix.
K
KING, GRACE, 6, 7.
KIPLING, RUDYARD, 31, 133, 147-189, 258.
L
LANG, ANDREW, 32, 75.
“Last Class, The,” 134, 136, 139-147.
LE GALLIENNE, RICHARD, 150, 258, 300.
LEMMON, LEONARD, 258.
LEWIN, WALTER, 257, 258.
LEWIS, E. H., xxiii.
_Lippincott’s Magazine_, xxiii.
Local color, 8, 254 (see setting).
“Lodging for the Night, A,” 32, 34-67.
LONGFELLOW, H. W., 299.
M
MABIE, HAMILTON WRIGHT, 279.
MCINTYRE, MARION, 137.
MACLAREN, IAN, 216.
“Mateo Falcone,” 8-29, 134, 254.
MATTHEWS, BRANDER, xxiii, 75, 280, 370, 371.
“Markheim,” 32, 33, 393-422.
MAUPASSANT, GUY DE, vii, xxix, 133, 196, 254, 277-290, 356-368.
MÉRIMÉE, PROSPER, xix, xx, 4, 8-29.
Milesian Tales, xvi.
MILLER, MERION M., 370.
“Moonlight,” 253, 278, 281-290.
“Monkey’s Paw, The,” 110-129, 134.
MORRISON, ARTHUR, 422-431.
Mystery and Fantasy Stories, 69-130.
N
NATHAN, G. J., 196.
NODIER, CHARLES, xix.
Novel, xiii.
Novelette, xx, xxvii.
_Novella_, xvii, xviii.
O
O’BRIEN, FITZ-JAMES, 72.
“On the Stairs,” 393, 425-431.
“Outcasts of Poker Flat, The,” 253, 258-277.
P
PATER, WALTER, 392.
PECK, HARRY THURSTON, 197.
PELLISSIER, GEORGES, 7.
PERRY, BLISS, 2, 392.
PHELPS, WILLIAM LYON, 31.
“Piece of String, The,” 356-368.
Plot, xxv.
Plot incident, 11.
POE, EDGAR ALLAN, xix, xx, xxi, xxii, xxv,
30, 72-107, 134, 294, 295, 296, 320-351.
Psychological Studies, 391-432.
“Purloined Letter, The,” 72, 75-107.
PUSHKIN, xix.
Q
Questions, see Exercises.
R
_Rambler_, xix.
“Ransom of Red Chief, The,” 198-215.
Representative Stories, Lists of, 68, 130, 190, 250, 290, 351, 389, 432.
RIIS, JACOB, 424.
Romanticism, 31.
ROZ, FIRMIN, 280.
_Ruth, Book of_, 133.
S
Sadness in Stories, viii.
SAINTSBURY, GEORGE, 7.
SANDERSON, ROBERT, 370.
_Saturday Review_, xxiii.
Scenario, xvi, xxvii.
SCOTT, SIR WALTER, xix.
Setting, Stories of, 251-290.
SHERAN, WILLIAM H., 31.
_Short History of French Literature_, 7.
Short-Story, origin of, xx;
defined, xxv, xxvi;
Study of, xiii, xiv.
Sketch, xxviii, 355.
SMITH, C. ALFONSO, xxiii.
SMITH, LEWIS W., xxiii.
_Spectator_, xix.
SPIELHAGEN, FRIEDRICH, xxiii.
STEELE, RICHARD, xix.
STEVENSON, ROBERT LOUIS, 29-67, 393-422.
Story-tellers, xv, xvi.
“Substitute, The,” 371-388.
SYMONS, ARTHUR, 138, 279.
T
Tale, xv, xvii, xx, xxvii, 355.
_Taller_, xix.
TIECK, J. L., xix, 75.
To Teachers, vii.
TRENT, W. P., 137.
TWAIN, MARK, 193.
V
VOLTAIRE, xix, 72.
W
WARD, ARTEMUS, 193.
_Warner Library_, 6, 7, 218, 280, 370.
WEISS, JOHN, 192.
“White Old Maid, The,” 302-319.
WHITE, WILLIAM ALLEN, 193.
“Without Benefit of Clergy,” 134, 148-189.
_Writing the Short-Story_, vii, ix, xi, xxvi, 133, 253, 255.
Z
_Zadig_, xix, 72.
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