Complete Works of Frank Norris

by Frank Norris

  Doychert opened the door for me. Evidently he had not shaved that week. He was in his stocking feet. His eyes looked at me out of saucers of brown skin. The place reeked of stale tobacco smoke, and it did not need the sight of the unmade bed or the cigar stumps in the card tray to tell me that Doychert was living there alone.

  Toward two o’clock that night, over his tenth brandy and water and his last cigar, Doychert told me the tale of the things that had happened.

  “It began all of a sudden on one day,” said he, his hands on his chin, glowering into the grate fire. “Jack.”

  (that was Mrs. Doychert) “had been up about a week. I hadn’t so much as seen Emmie yet, and Jack and I had almost quarrelled about her. Jack had begged me just to look into the room while she was asleep, but I couldn’t — I mean I wouldn’t do it. One Sunday afternoon when Emmie was about three weeks old, I was stretched out on the sofa here sort of half asleep, when Jack came up to me very softly and, before I knew it, put Emmie into my arms.

  “‘Joe,’ she says, ‘look at her now, your little daughter, how can you help loving her?’ She was going to say something else, but she never got further than that. Emmie snuggled down into my neck and put her little fists into my face. I jumped up and pushed her, almost threw her, from me, recoiling as though a snake had touched me.

  “‘Take it away,’ I cried. ‘For God’s sake, take it away. I hate it and loathe it, and I always will hate it.’

  “Jack was only a week out of a bed. I don’t need to tell you how delicately poised a woman is at such times as that, how tangled and jangled her nerves are. The doctors have got names for it all. She heard what I said and saw me thrusting my little daughter away from me. Then she looked at me once in — I say she gave me — she — you see—” Doychert cleared his throat— “she gave a sigh and went down softly into a little heap on the floor.

  “She was in the sanitarium about a month, and for a time we thought she never would be right in the head again. I wasn’t allowed to see her, and her folks took Emmie. After a month’s time, though, the doctors brought her around all right; said she had pulled through sound as a nut and that I might see her. She knew I was coming. They had her propped up in a big sea chair by a window. I had sent her a lot of flowers, and she wore some of them. When I came into the room I saw her leaning back there in the sea chair. She looked up at me and smiled, happy as could be to see me. And then all at once her expression changed to one of the most abject horror and revulsion. She put up her hands to shut out the sight of me and cried out, ‘No, no, I can’t. Take him away, oh, somebody take him away.’ It was no use reasoning with her, she got hysterical, screamed, and fought from me as though I was a leper or a murderer. I had to go, and as soon as I was gone she was quiet again. Couldn’t understand herself how it had happened. The doctors said I could come the next day, and as soon as Jack heard my foot on the stairs she fainted with the pure horror of the thought of seeing me. She had forgiven me my brutality with Emmie, loved me as much as ever, mark you, longed to see me as much as I longed to see her, and yet went insane with loathing as soon as I came near. This was the one point of insanity of which the doctors could not cure her. They never have been able to cure her. We have tried everything. She can’t even see my handwriting without that horrible revulsion seizing upon her. But she can write to me and she does, and that’s how I know she is suffering as much as I. What we two have gone through with, God only knows. Can you imagine the horror of the situation? We are as dear to each other as ever — more so, my God,” he cried, digging his nails into his temples, “more so. We are here, here in the same town, where I can see her every day, and yet we are worlds apart. It’s a death in life, a death in life,” and he rocked himself to and fro in his place. “Every Sunday we have arranged that she shall go to church. She tells me where she sits, and I go up in the gallery and peep at her from behind pillars. Even that is bad for her, but she can stand it for an hour once a week. Once she caught sight of me and — —” He broke off suddenly and closed his eyes.

  “And Emmie,” said I.

  “Emmie will be eight to-morrow. Here’s a lot of pictures that Jack has sent me from time to time. Isn’t she the finest little girl you ever saw, and bright, bright as a dollar?”

  “How about her?” I asked him. “You manage to see her when her mother’s not by, I suppose?”

  I saw the knuckles of Doychert’s fist suddenly whiten.

  “Emmie is — is like — Emmie takes after her mother,” he said. “By the way, you have some little nieces, haven’t you? What do you give ’em on Christmas, and — and on their birthdays and such like? Emmie’s eight to-morrow. Books wouldn’t do, would they, hey? Is she too old for toys — or too young? Here’s what I got her. I thought I’d take the chances on toys.” He turned to the table and undid a few packages. “There’s a little doll,” he said, “and you see,” he added proudly, “she closes her eyes when you lay her down, and there’s a doll house — ain’t those little chairs and tables out of sight? I guess Emmie would like those, all right. I can just see her eyes stick out when she undoes the package. I think I’ll get a big doll house like that for my kindergarten — I’ve got a kind of a kindergarten going, down on Minna Street, that you must see. And here, look at this. Here’s another thing I am going to send to Emmie. Catch on to this. Here’s a little pump, and, by Jove, you can pump real water in it, see?” — and he showed me how it worked. “I wonder if Emmie will know that you can pump ‘truly’ water with it? Tell you what, you write it on a card and put it in, will you?”

  “Why not you?”

  “Well — you see, they might recognize my handwriting.”

  “Shan’t I say,” said I, pen in hand, “that it all comes from you, with many happy birthdays?”

  “Not that, above all things,” said Doychert.

  San Francisco Wave, September 18, 1897.

  HIS DEAD MOTHER’S PORTRAIT

  I CAME to know young Drexel because of his cleverness in making a certain kind of trout fly which he called the “Midshipman,” and which is most effective in mountain streams on very gray days. Young Drexel earned his living by making trout flies for certain sporting firms on Market Street, and after his great success with the “Midshipman” (it really is a chef d’oeuvre), everyone ceased to call him Drexel and always addressed him as Midshipman.

  The Midshipman lives in one of those very quaint and curious old houses on the corner of California and Dupont streets, at the very edge of Chinatown. There are three houses here, and they face on Dupont Street just opposite the cathedral, you must have noted them — quite above the grade, built up on bulkheads, and sporting old glass verandas. There are lots of flowers and vines in the yard, and trellises, too, where once in a while you may see a bunch of grapes.

  The Midshipman knows trout as you know your right hand. I, making inquiries for flies and tackle, was sent to find him in his room in the glass-verandahed house opposite the cathedral.

  We got to know each other very well. He was a blond, small young fellow, not over twenty-five, I believe; he wore spectacles — for the fineness of his work had told on his eyes — had the hands and fingers of a woman and also a woman’s temperament. Besides this, he was passionately fond of German music. He dodged the roughness of the world of San Francisco and lived much to himself with one or two friends, his delicate flies, an old female trout in a glass aquarium and — a small photograph of his dead mother, which he always carried with him in his pocketbook.

  It did not take me long to find out that the Midshipman’s dead mother was his religion, the one great influence of his life, that had kept him straight and fine and clean. She had passed out of his life when he was too young to remember her. However, he had her picture, which was to him — But I have no right to repeat what he used to tell me. He always kept this picture by him, used to sleep with it under his pillow, and on Sundays had a very pretty habit of writing letters to it.

  On Saturday nights the Midshipm
an and I used to dine together at the Buon Gusto, over in the Mexican Quarter, and afterward used to walk about Market and Kearny streets, seeing what we could see, much preferring that form of amusement to the best “attractions” billed at any of the theatres. For on Saturday nights Market and Kearny streets of this city of San Francisco are en fete. It is like a country fair — all the world is abroad promenading itself. On one corner the Salvation Army is booming, on another a street fakir is entertaining a crowd, the kinetoscope booths, the shooting galleries, and small auction shops are wide open, a cable car goes by with a blaring brass band that announces a suburban amusement; from Chinatown comes the reek of punk, the blink of swinging red lanterns, and the wailing of pipes and two-string fiddles; you hear the jangle of pianos coming up through the sidewalk from the dives and dance halls; for five cents you can look at Mars through a telescope, take a shock of electricity, “know your weight,” or sit for your tintype. From the Barbary Coast to Lotta’s fountain it is all gas, glitter, and gaiety. Where else but in Paris would you find the like?

  It was toward nine o’clock on that particular Saturday evening that the Midshipman and I passed down the Barbary Coast on our way from the Buon Gusto. In front of the Bella Union we were met by a group of some half-dozen fellows whom I am ashamed to say I knew. They took possession of us at once. There was nothing for me to do but to introduce the Midshipman to them.

  “Look here,” said one of these fellows, “we’re going into the Bella Union and you’re coming with us.”

  “In there? I’ll see you far first. It’s the most disreputable dive in town.”

  “Yes, but we’re going in for the fad of the thing. Let me tell you. We were there last night. Oh, it’s raw! — raw as beef! There’s an old woman there,” the young brute went on, “an old woman of forty, dressed up as a girl of fifteen, that does a song and dance. She can’t dance, and her voice is ‘hark-from-the-tombs-a-doleful-sound.’ I honestly think she’s dotty. Y’ know, she comes out and yowls and gambols, and the whole audience hiss and hoot and groan and stamp till she goes off, and then, as soon as she’s off, we all applaud and clap and shout ‘Encore! Encore!’ till we get her back. Then she’ll come out and bow and smirk, and as soon as she begins to do her turn over again we all hoot and groan till we get her off. And so on over and over again. Laugh! I nearly split my sides!”

  “I’d like to split your head,” said I.

  “Fiddlesticks! The woman’s crazy. I tell you she don’t know the difference, and she’s forty if she’s a day. It is hideous, I admit, but it’s something to see. Come in with us for ten minutes and we will go to some decent show afterwards. Leander is here; he’ll take us all to hear Nordica in Siegfried, afterwards.”

  “But such a beastly dive; don’t want to be seen going into such a hole-in-the-wall.”

  “The people whose opinion counts for anything don’t frequent the Barbary Coast.”

  I turned doubtfully to the Midshipman.

  “Shall we look in for ten minutes?”

  The Midshipman wavered. Nordica in Siegfried tempted him.

  “I don’t like such places — I’ve never been — it’s not my line, you know. Still, for ten minutes only, and you say we’ll go to the opera afterwards.”

  We moved toward the box office, and the Midshipman reached for his pocketbook. I was standing at his side at the time, and, as he fumbled in the pocketbook for the price of his admission, I noticed that his eye fell upon the portrait of his dead mother which he always carried there. He looked at it an instant and then around him at the vestibule, that sordid dive with its staring, vulgar billboards. From inside the theatre came the jangling of a cheap band and the raucous notes of a concert-hall singer.

  The Midshipman turned about with abrupt resolution.

  “No,” said he to me in a low voice so that none of the others heard. “No, I won’t go in. I — I can’t, you understand,” and with that he was gone.

  Leander came up just in time to see him go.

  “Hello,” said he, “that was young Drexel with you, wasn’t it? — the Midshipman — where did he go, what did he go for?”

  “He didn’t like the idea of going into this joint. He has pretty strict notions, you know, Leander.”

  Leander scratched his ear.

  “That’s a queer case,” he said reflectively.

  “As how? Do you know him?”

  “I know people that do. He thinks his mother died long ago.”

  “Great Scott! Didn’t she?”

  Leander put his chin in the air.

  “It would have been better if she had.”

  “Come on, you fellows,” cried the rest of the party, “come on, we’re going in.”

  “Hello, what’s this?” exclaimed Leander, stooping to pick up a photograph that lay at our feet.

  I saw what it was and tried to get it away before the others came up.

  “Give it here, Leander,” said I in a low voice. “It’s a picture of the Midshipman’s mother — he dropped it just now.”

  But I was not quick enough.

  “Hoh!” exclaimed one of the party as his eye fell upon the picture, “it’s the old woman inside who does the song-and-dance turn. Come on, let’s go in. Now all you fellows be sure to yell and groan as soon as she comes out.”

  “Let’s not go in,” said I to Leander.

  San Francisco Wave, November 13, 1897.

  MAN PROPOSES — NO. I

  IT WAS at the seaside toward the end of the season. A cruiser had anchored just opposite the hotel, and there had been a ball on board. She and her mother had left early, and, of course, there was nothing left for him to do but to come home with them.

  “If you want to very much,” said her mother, as they reached the hotel veranda, “you can go back in the next launch, and come home later with your aunt, but I wouldn’t stay much after eleven.”

  However, they didn’t do this.

  “I say,” he exclaimed, as soon as they were alone, “you don’t want to go back there, do you? — Nothing but a lot of kid ensigns.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she replied indecisively, looking vaguely toward the cruiser’s lights.

  “Well, what’s the matter with sitting out here on the porch a little while,” he went on. “I don’t think it will be cold, and there’s a moon in about ten minutes?’

  They sat down together and talked in low tones about the “master of ceremonies of the hotel,” who it was said had once been a monk in Lapland. Then the moon shrugged a red shoulder over the inky black line of the bath houses.

  “It is a little cold,” she said. “Suppose we walk?”

  There was a long board walk along the beach. It was here they found themselves in a few minutes. They walked slowly, he, bending a little forward, his hands thrust into his pockets, she, hatless, her hair a bit out of curl, her bare arms folded under her cape.

  Rarely had he seen her in better spirits. They talked and laughed incessantly, and found huge amusement in trifles. For himself he was delightedly content. It was his hour, and he had her all to himself. There were no hectoring chaperons, no jingling pianos, no Other Fellows, no constrained and prolonged silences to mar his pleasures.

  “It’s a good thing I thought to wear my thick-soled shoes to-night,” she exclaimed suddenly. “I shall catch it if they find out I didn’t go back to the cruiser, but I don’t care,” she laughed. “But isn’t this all so pretty? — the moon and the water and all — and so still. The noise of the breakers is just like part of the stillness, isn’t it? — and, oh, do look back and see how pretty the ship looks from here.”

  It was pretty. The cruiser built itself up from the water as a huge, flat shadow, indistinct and strange against the gray blur of the sea and sky, looking now less like a ship of war than like an island-built fortress, turreted and curious. The lights from her ports glowed like a row of tiny footlights, while the faint clamour of the marine band, playing a Sousa quickstep, came to their ears across t
he water, small and delicately distinct, as if heard through a telephone.

  All about them, seemingly coming from all quarters of the horizon at once, glowed the blue-white moonlight.

  “Looks like a nickel-plated landscape,” he remarked, looking toward the distant hills and promontories.

  “Say silver, do,” she answered, then suddenly interrupted herself, exclaiming, “Oh, I want to walk on the railroad track.” They had come to that point where a disused siding of the railroad began to run parallel with the board walk. She stepped upon a rail and began to walk forward, swaying and balancing. All at once, and without knowing why, he put his arm around her waist, as if to steady her.

  Then he choked down a gasp at his own temerity. It was astonishing to him how simply and naturally he had done the thing. It was as though he had done it in a dance. He had not premeditated it for a single instant, had not planned for it, had felt no hesitancy, no deliberation. Before he knew it, his arm was where it was, and the world and all things visible had turned a somersault.

  In making the motion he had somehow thought to slide his arm beneath her cape, and the sensation of his hand and forearm against her firm, well-laced waist was, he thought, the most delightful thing he had ever experienced. He believed that this was the best moment of his life.

  The question now was, would she let his arm remain where it was, or would she be angry and hurt? Had he gone too far, or did she care enough for him to allow such a liberty? Everything was happening in an instant of time. For a fraction of that instant he waited in a tremor of suspense. He felt that the next thing she should do or say would decide whether or no she was ever to care for him. One of two things, he told himself, must surely happen. Either she would resent what he had done, or plainly let him know that it was permissible.