Complete Works of Frank Norris

by Frank Norris

  At once I remembered where I had heard it before, because, having once heard the hiss of an aroused and angry serpent, no child of Eve can ever forget it.

  The sound that now came from between Toppan’s teeth and that filled the arena from wall to wall, was the sound that I had heard once before in the Paris Jardin des Plantes at feeding-time — the sound made by the great constrictors, when their huge bodies are looped and coiled like a reata for the throw that never misses, that never relaxes, and that no beast of the field is built strong enough to withstand. All the filthy wickedness and abominable malice of the centuries since the Enemy first entered into that shape that crawls, was concentrated in that hoarse, whistling hiss — a hiss that was cold and piercing like an icicle-made sound. It was not loud, but had in it some sort of penetrating quality that cut through the waves of horrid sounds about us, as the snake-carved prow of a Viking galley might have cut its way through the tumbling eddies of a tide-rip.

  At the second repetition the lions paused. None better than they knew what was the meaning of that hiss. They had heard it before in their native hunting-grounds in the earlier days of summer, when the first heat lay close over all the jungle like the hollow of the palm of an angry god. Or if they themselves had not heard it, their sires before them had, and the fear of the thing bred into their bones suddenly leaped to life at the sound and gripped them and held them close.

  When for a third time the sound sung and shrilled in their ears, their heads drew between their shoulders, their great eyes grew small and glittering, the hackles rose, and stiffened on their backs, their tails drooped, and they backed slowly to the further side of the cage and cowered there, whining and beaten.

  Toppan wiped the sweat from the inside of his hands and went into the cage with the keepers and gathered up the panting, broken body, with its twitching fingers and dead, white face and ears, and carried it out. As they lifted it, the handful of pitiful medals dropped from the shredded grey coat and rattled down upon the floor. In the silence that had now succeeded, it was about the only sound one heard.

  As we sat that evening on the porch of Toppan’s house, in a fashionable suburb of the city, he said, for the third time: “I had that trick from a Mpongwee headman,” and added: “It was while I was at Victoria Falls, waiting to cross the Kalahari Desert.”

  Then he continued, his eyes growing keener and his manner changing: “There is some interesting work to be done in that quarter by some one. You see, the Kalahari runs like this” — he drew the lines on the ground with his cane— “coming down in something like this shape from the Orange River to about the twentieth parallel south. The aneroid gives its average elevation about six hundred feet. I didn’t cross it at the time, because we had sickness and the porters cut. But I made a lot of geological observations, and from these I have built up a theory that the Kalahari is no desert at all, but a big, well-watered plateau, with higher ground on the east and west. The tribes, too, thereabout call the place Linoka-Noka, and that’s the Bantu for rivers upon rivers. They’re nasty, though, these Bantu, and gave us a lot of trouble. They have a way of spitting little poisoned thorns into you unawares, and your tongue swells up and turns blue and your teeth fall out and—”

  His wife Victoria came out to us in evening dress.

  “Ah, Vic,” said Toppan, jumping up, with a very sweet smile, “we were just talking about your paper-german next Tuesday, and I think we might have some very pretty favours made out of white tissue-paper — roses and butterflies, you know.”

  THIS ANIMAL OF A BULDY JONES

  We could always look for fine fighting at Julien’s of a Monday morning, because at that time the model was posed for the week and we picked out the places from which to work. Of course the first ten of the esquisse men had first choice. So, no matter how early you got up and how resolutely you held to your first row tabouret, chaps like Rounault, or Marioton, or the little Russian, whom we nicknamed “Choubersky,” or Haushaulder, or the big American— “This Animal of a Buldy Jones” — all strong esquisse men, could always chuck you out when they came, which they did about ten o’clock, when everything had quieted down. When two particularly big, quick-tempered, obstinate, and combative men try to occupy, simultaneously, a space twelve inches square, it gives rise to complications. We used to watch and wait for these fights (after we had been chucked out ourselves), and make things worse, and hasten the crises by getting upon the outskirts of the crowd that thronged about the disputants and shoving with all our mights. Then one of the disputants would be jostled rudely against the other, who would hit him in the face, and then there would be a wild hooroosh and a clatter of overturned easels and the flashing of whitened knuckles and glimpses of two fierce red faces over the shoulders of the crowd, and everything would be pleasant. Then, perhaps, you would see an allusion in the Paris edition of the next morning’s “Herald” to “the brutal and lawless students.”

  I remember particularly one fight — quite the best I ever saw at Julien’s or elsewhere, for the matter of that. It was between Haushaulder and Gilet. Haushaulder was a Dane, and six feet two. Gilet was French, and had a waist like Virginie’s. But Gilet had just come back from his three years’ army service, and knew all about the savate. They squared off at each other, Gilet spitting like a cat, and Haushaulder grommelant under his mustache. “This Animal of a Buldy Jones,” the big American, bellowed to separate them, for it really looked like a massacre. And then, all at once, Gilet spun around, bent over till his finger-tips touched the floor, and balancing on the toe, lashed out backwards with his leg at Haushaulder, like any cayuse. The heel of his boot caught the Dane on the point of the chin. An hour and forty minutes later, when Haushaulder recovered consciousness and tried to speak, we found that the tip of his tongue had been sliced off between his teeth as if by a pair of scissors. It was a really unfortunate affair, and the government very nearly closed the atelier because of it. But “This Animal of a Buldy Jones” gave us all his opinion of the savate, and announced that the next man who savated from any cause whatever “aurait affaire avec lui, oui, avec lui, cre nom!”

  Heavens! No one aimerait avoir affaire avec cette animal de Buldy Jones. He was from Chicago (but, of course, he couldn’t help that!), and was taller than even Haushaulder, and much broader. The desire for art had come upon him all of a sudden while he was studying law at Columbia. For “This Animal of a Buldy Jones” had gone into law after leaving Yale. Here we touch his great weakness. He was a Yale man! Why, he was prouder of that fact than he was of being an American, or even a Chicagoan — and that is saying much. Why, he couldn’t talk of Yale without his face flushing. Why, Yale was almost more to him than his mother. I remember, at the students’ ball at Bulliers, he got the Americans together, and with infinite trouble taught us all the Yale “yell”, which he swore was a transcript from Aristophanes, and for three hours he gravely headed a procession that went the rounds of a hall howling “Brek! Kek! Kek! Kek! Co-ex!” and all the rest of it.

  More than that, “This Animal of a Buldy Jones” had pitched on his Varsity baseball nine. In his studio — quite the swellest in the Quarter, by the way — he had a collection of balls that he had pitched in match games at different times, and he used to show them to us reverently, and if we were his especial friends, would allow us to handle them. They were all written over with names and dates. He would explain them to us one by one.

  “This one,” he would say, “I pitched in the Princeton game, and here’s two I pitched in the Harvard game — hard game that — our catcher gave out — guess he couldn’t hold me” (with a grin of pride), “and Harvard made it interesting for me until the fifth inning; then I made two men fan out one after the other, and then, just to show ’em what I could do, filled the bases, got three balls called on me, and then pitched two inshoots and an outcurve, just as hard as I could deliver. Printz of Harvard was at the bat. He struck at every one of them — and fanned out. Here’s the ball I did it with. Yes, sir. Oh, I
can pitch a ball all right.”

  Now think of that! Here was this man, “This Animal of a Buldy Jones,” a Beaux Arts man, one of the best colour and line men on our side, who had three esquisses and five figures “on the wall” at Julien’s (any Paris art student will know what that means), and yet the one thing he was proud of, the one thing he cared to be admired for, the one thing he loved to talk about, was the fact that he had pitched for the Yale ‘varsity baseball nine.

  All this by way of introduction.

  I wonder how many Julien men there are left who remember the affaire Camme? Plenty, I make no doubt, for the thing was a monumental character. I heard Roubault tell it at the “Dead Rat” just the other day. “Choubersky” wrote to “The Young Pretender” that he heard it away in the interior of Morocco, where he had gone to paint doorways, and Adler, who is now on the “Century” staff, says it’s an old story among the illustrators. It has been bandied about so much that there is danger of its original form being lost. Wherefore it is time that it should be brought to print.

  Now Camme, be it understood, was a filthy little beast — a thorough-paced, blown-in-the-bottle blackguard with not enough self-respect to keep him sweet through a summer’s day — a rogue, a bug — anything you like that is sufficiently insulting; besides all this, and perhaps because of it, he was a duelist. He loved to have a man slap his face — some huge, big-boned, big-hearted man, who knew no other weapons but his knuckles. Camme would send him his card the next day, with a message to the effect that it would give him great pleasure to try and kill the gentleman in question at a certain time and place. Then there would be a lot of palaver, and somehow the duel would never come off, and Camme’s reputation as a duelist would go up another peg, and the rest of us — beastly little rapins that we were — would hold him in increased fear and increased horror, just as if he were a rattler in coil.

  Well, the row began one November morning — a Monday — and, of course, it was over the allotment of seats. Camme had calmly rubbed out the name of “This Animal of a Buldy Jones” from the floor, and had chalked his own in its place.

  Now, Bouguereau had placed the esquisse of “This Animal of a Buldy Jones” fifth, the precedence over Camme.

  But Camme invented reasons for a different opinion, and presented them to the whole three ateliers at the top of his voice and with unclean allusions. We were all climbing up on the taller stools by this time, and Virginie, who was the model of the week, was making furtive signs at us to give the crowd a push, as was our custom.

  Camme was going on at a great rate.

  “Ah, farceur! Ah, espece de volveur, crapaud, va; c’est a moi cette place la Saligaud va te prom’ner, va faire des copies au Louvre.”

  To be told to go and make copies in the Louvre was in our time the last insult. “This Animal of a Buldy Jones,” this sometime Yale pitcher, towering above the little frog-like Frenchman, turned to the crowd, and said, in grave concern, his forehead puckered in great deliberation:

  “I do not know, precisely, that which it is necessary to do with this kind of a little toad of two legs. I do not know whether I should spank him or administer the good kick of the boot. I believe I shall give him the good kick of the boot. Hein!”

  He turned Camme around, held him at arm’s length, and kicked him twice severely. Next day, of course, Camme sent his card, and four of us Americans went around to the studio of “This Animal of a Buldy Jones” to have a smoke-talk over it. Robinson was of the opinion to ignore the matter.

  “Now, we can’t do that,” said Adler; “these beastly continentals would misunderstand. Can you shoot, Buldy Jones?”

  “Only deer.”

  “Fence?”

  “Not a little bit. Oh, let’s go and punch the wadding out of him, and be done with it!”

  “No! No! He should be humiliated.”

  “I tell you what — let’s guy the thing.”

  “Get up a fake duel and make him seem ridiculous.”

  “You’ve got the choice of weapons, Buldy Jones.”

  “Fight him with hat-pins.”

  “Oh, let’s go punch the wadding out of him — he makes me tired.”

  “Horse” Wilson, who hadn’t spoken, suddenly broke in with:

  “Now, listen to me, you other fellows. Let me fix this thing. Buldy Jones, I must be one of your seconds.”

  “Soit!”

  “I’m going to Camme, and say like this: ‘This Animal of a Buldy Jones’ has the naming of weapons. He comes from a strange country, near the Mississippi, from a place called Shee-ka-go, and there it is not considered etiquette to fight either with a sword or pistol; it is too common. However, when it is necessary that balls should be exchanged in order to satisfy honour, a curious custom is resorted to. Balls are exchanged, but not from pistols. They are very terrible balls, large as an apple, and of adamantine hardness. ‘This Animal of a Buldy Jones,’ even now has a collection. No American gentleman of honour travels without them. He would gladly have you come and make first choice of a ball while he will select one from among those you leave. Sur le terrain, you will deliver these balls simultaneously toward each other, repeating till one or the other adversary drops. Then honour can be declared satisfied.”

  “Yes, and do you suppose that Camme will listen to such tommy rot as that?” remarked “This Animal of a Buldy Jones.” “I think I’d better just punch his head.”

  “Listen to it? Of course he’ll listen to it. You’ve no idea what curious ideas these continentals have of the American duel. You can’t propose anything so absurd in the dueling line that they won’t give it serious thought. And besides, if Camme won’t fight this way we’ll tell him that you will have a Mexican duel.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Tie your left wrists together, and fight with knives in your right hand. That’ll scare the tar out of him.”

  And it did. The seconds had a meeting at the cafe of the Moulin Rouge, and gave Camme’s seconds the choice of the duel Yale or the duel Mexico. Camme had no wish to tie himself to a man with a knife in his hand, and his seconds came the next day and solemnly chose a league ball — one that had been used against the Havard nine.

  Will I — will any of us ever forget that duel? Camme and his people came upon the ground almost at the same time as we. It was behind the mill of Longchamps, of course. Roubault was one of Camme’s seconds, and he carried the ball in a lacquered Japanese tobacco-jar — gingerly as if it were a bomb. We were quick getting to work. Camme and “This Animal of a Buldy Jones” were each to take his baseball in his hand, stand back to back, walk away from each other just the distance between the pitcher’s box and the home plate (we had seen to that), turn on the word, and — deliver their balls.

  “How do you feel?” I whispered to our principal, as I passed the ball into his hands.

  “I feel just as if I was going into a match game, with the bleachers full to the top and the boys hitting her up for Yale. We ought to give the yell, y’ know.”

  “How’s the ball?”

  “A bit soft and not quite round. Bernard of the Harvard nine hit the shape out of it in a drive over our left field, but it’ll do all right.”

  “This Animal of a Buldy Jones” bent and gathered up a bit of dirt, rubbed the ball in it, and ground it between his palms. The man’s arms were veritable connecting-rods, and were strung with tendons like particularly well-seasoned rubber. I remembered what he said about few catchers being able to hold him, and I recalled the pads and masks and wadded gloves of a baseball game, and I began to feel nervous. If Camme was hit on the temple or over the heart —

  “Now, say, old man, go slow, you know. We don’t want to fetch up in Mazas for this. By the way, what kind of ball are you going to give him? What’s the curve?”

  “I don’t know yet. Maybe I’ll let him have an up-shoot. Never make up my mind till the last moment.”

  “All ready, gentlemen!” said Roubault, coming up.

  Camme had rem
oved coat, vest, and cravat. “This Animal of a Buldy Jones” stripped to a sleeveless undershirt. He spat on his hands, and rubbed a little more dirt on the ball.

  “Play ball!” he muttered.

  We set them back to back. On the word they paced from each other and paused. “This Animal of a Buldy Jones” shifted his ball to his right hand, and, holding it between his fingers, slowly raised both his arms high above his head and a little over one shoulder. With his toe he made a little depression in the soil, while he slowly turned the ball between his fingers.

  “Fire!” cried “Horse” Wilson.

  On the word “This Animal of a Buldy Jones” turned abruptly about on one foot, one leg came high off the ground till the knee nearly touched the chest — you know the movement and position well — the uncanny contortions of a pitcher about to deliver.

  Camme threw his ball overhand — bowled it as is done in cricket, and it went wide over our man’s shoulder. Down came Buldy Jones’ foot, and his arm shot forward with a tremendous jerk. Not till the very last moment did he glance at his adversary or measure the distance.

  “It is an in-curve!” exclaimed “Horse” Wilson in my ear.

  We could hear the ball whir as it left a grey blurred streak in the air. Camme made as if to dodge it with a short toss of head and neck — it was all he had time for — and the ball, faithful to the last twist of the pitcher’s fingers, swerved sharply inward at the same moment and in the same direction.

  When we got to Camme and gathered him up, I veritably believed that the fellow had been done for. For he lay as he had fallen, straight as a ramrod and quite as stiff, and his eyes were winking like the shutter of a kinetoscope. But “This Animal of a Buldy Jones,” who had seen prize-fighters knocked out by a single blow, said it was all right. An hour later Camme woke up and began to mumble in pain through his clenched teeth, for the ball, hitting him on the point of the chin, had dislocated his jaw.