Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  Bartlett.— “Ah, I thought so. Then you believe that a good big canvas and a good big subject would be the making of me? Well, I’ve come round to that idea myself. I used to think that if there was any greatness in me, I could get it into a small picture, like Meissonier or Corot. But I can’t. I must have room, like the Yellowstone and Yo-Semite fellows. Don’t you think Miss Wyatt is looking wonderfully improved?”

  Cummings.— “Wonderfully! And how beautiful she is! She looked lovely that first day, in spite of her ghostliness; but now” —

  Bartlett.— “Yes; a phantom of delight is good enough in its way, but a well woman is the prettiest, after all. Miss Wyatt sketches, I think I told you.”

  Cummings.— “Yes, you mentioned it.”

  Bartlett.— “Of course. Otherwise, I couldn’t possibly have thought of her while I was at work on a great picture like this. She sketches” — Bartlett puts his nose almost on the canvas in the process of bestowing a delicate touch— “she sketches about as badly as any woman I ever saw, and that’s saying a good deal. But she looks uncommonly well while she’s at it. The fact is, Cummings,” — Bartlett retires some feet from the canvas and squints at it,— “this very picture which you approve of so highly is — Miss Wyatt’s. I couldn’t attempt anything of the size of Ponkwasset! But she allows me to paint at it a little when she’s away.” Bartlett steals a look of joy at his friend’s vexation, and then continues seriously: “I’ve been having a curious time, Cummings.” The other remains silent. “Don’t you want to ask me about it?”

  Cummings.— “I don’t know that I do.”

  Bartlett.— “Why, my dear old fellow, you’re hurt! It was a silly joke, and I honestly ask your pardon.” He lays down his brush and palette and leaves the easel. “Cummings, I don’t know what to do. I’m in a perfect deuce of a state. I’m hit — awfully hard; and I don’t know what to do about it. I wish I had gone at once — the first day. But I had to stay, — I had to stay.” He turns and walks away from Cummings, whose eyes follow him in pardon and sympathy.

  Cummings.— “Do you really mean it, Bartlett? I didn’t dream of such a thing. I thought you were still brooding over that affair with Miss Harlan.”

  Bartlett.— “Oh, child’s-play! A prehistoric illusion! A solar myth! The thing never was.” He rejects the obsolete superstition with a wave of his left hand. “I’m in love with this girl, and I feel like a sneak and a brute about it. At the very best it would be preposterous. Who am I, a poor devil of a painter, the particular pet of Poverty, to think of a young lady whose family and position could command her the best? But putting that aside, — putting that insuperable obstacle lightly aside, as a mere trifle, — the thing remains an atrocity. It’s enormously indelicate to think of loving a woman who would never have looked twice at me if I hadn’t resembled an infernal scoundrel who tried to break her heart; and I’ve nothing else to commend me. I’ve the perfect certainty that she doesn’t and can’t care anything for me in myself; and it grinds me into the dust to realise on what terms she tolerates me. I could carry it off as a joke at first; but when it became serious, I had to look it in the face; and that’s what it amounts to, and if you know of any more hopeless and humiliating tangle, I don’t.” Bartlett, who has approached his friend during this speech, walks away again; and there is an interval of silence.

  Cummings, at last, musingly.— “You in love with Miss Wyatt; I can’t imagine it!”

  Bartlett, fiercely.— “You can’t imagine it? What’s the reason you can’t imagine it? Don’t be offensive, Cummings!” He stops in his walk and lowers upon his friend. “Why shouldn’t I be in love with Miss Wyatt?”

  Cummings.— “Oh, nothing. Only you were saying” —

  Bartlett.— “I was saying! Don’t tell me what I was saying. Say something yourself.”

  Cummings.— “Really, Bartlett, you can’t expect me to stand this sort of thing. You’re preposterous.”

  Bartlett.— “I know it! But don’t blame me. I beg your pardon. Is it because of the circumstances that you can’t imagine my being in love with her?”

  Cummings.— “Oh, no; I wasn’t thinking of the circumstances; but it seemed so out of character for you” —

  Bartlett, impatiently.— “Oh, love’s always out of character, just as it’s always out of reason. I admit freely that I’m an ass. And then?”

  Cummings.— “Well, then, I don’t believe you have any more reason to be in despair than you have to be in love. If she tolerates you, as you say, it can’t be because you look like the man who jilted her.”

  Bartlett.— “Ah! But if she still loves him?”

  Cummings.— “You don’t know that. That strikes me as a craze of jealousy. What makes you think she tolerates you for that reason or no-reason?”

  Bartlett.— “What makes me think it? From the very first she interpreted me by what she knew of him. She expected me to be this and not to be that; to have one habit and not another; and I could see that every time the fact was different, it was a miserable disappointment to her, a sort of shock. Every little difference between me and that other rascal gave her a start; and whenever I looked up I found her wistful eyes on me as if they were trying to puzzle me out; they used to follow me round the room like the eyes of a family portrait. You wouldn’t have liked it yourself, Cummings. For the first three weeks I simply existed on false pretences, — involuntary false pretences, at that. I wanted to explode; I wanted to roar out. If you think I’m at all like that abandoned scoundrel of yours in anything but looks, I’m not! But I was bound by everything that was decent, to hold my tongue, and let my soul be rasped out of me in silence and apparent unconsciousness. That was your fault. If you hadn’t told me all about the thing, I could have done something outrageous and stopped it. But I was tied hand and foot by what I knew. I had to let it go on.”

  Cummings.— “I’m very sorry, Bartlett, but” —

  Bartlett.— “Oh, I dare say you wouldn’t have done it if you hadn’t had a wild ass of the desert to deal with. Well, the old people got used to some little individuality in me, by-and-by, and beyond a suppressed whoop or two from the mother when I came suddenly into the room, they didn’t do anything to annoy me directly. But they were anxious every minute for the effect on her; and it worried me as much to have them watching her as to have her watching me. Of course I knew that she talked this confounded resemblance over with her mother every time I left them, and avoided talking it over with the father.”

  Cummings.— “But you say the trouble’s over now.”

  Bartlett.— “Oh — over! No, it isn’t over. When she’s with me a while she comes to see that I am not a mere doppelgänger. She respites me to that extent. But I have still some small rags of self-esteem dangling about me; and now suppose I should presume to set up for somebody on my own account; the first hint of my caring for her as I do, if she could conceive of anything so atrocious, would tear open all the old sorrows. Ah! I can’t think of it. Besides, I tell you, it isn’t all over. It’s only not so bad as it was. She’s subject to relapses, when it’s much worse than ever. Why” — Bartlett stands facing his friend, with a half-whimsical, half-desperate smile, as if about to illustrate his point, when Constance and her mother enter the parlour.

  Aftermath.

  II.

  Constance, Mrs. Wyatt, Bartlett, and Cummings.

  Constance, with a quick violent arrest.— “Ah! Oh!”

  Mrs. Wyatt.— “Constance, Constance, darling! What’s the matter?”

  Constance.— “Oh, nothing — nothing.” She laughs, nervously. “I thought there was nobody — here; and it — startled me. How do you do, Mr. Cummings?” She goes quickly up to that gentleman, and gives him her hand. “Don’t you think it wonderful to find such a day as this, up here, at this time of year?” She struggles to control the panting breath in which she speaks.

  Cummings.— “Yes, I supposed I had come quite too late for anything of the sort. You must make haste wit
h your Ponkwasset, Miss Wyatt, or you’ll have to paint him with his winter cap on.”

  Constance.— “Ah, yes! My picture. Mr. Bartlett has been telling you.” Her eyes have already wandered away from Cummings, and they now dwell, with a furtive light of reparation and imploring upon Bartlett’s disheartened patience: “Good morning.” It is a delicately tentative salutation, in a low voice, still fluttered by her nervous agitation.

  Bartlett, in dull despair: “Good morning.”

  Constance.— “How is the light on the mountain this morning?” She drifts deprecatingly up to the picture, near which Bartlett has stolidly kept his place.

  Bartlett, in apathetic inattention.— “Oh, very well, very well indeed, thank you.”

  Constance, after a hesitating glance at him.— “Did you like what I had done on it yesterday?”

  Bartlett, very much as before.— “Oh, yes; why not?”

  Constance, with a meek subtlety.— “I was afraid I had vexed you — by it.” She bends an appealing glance upon him, to which Bartlett remains impervious, and she drops her eyes with a faint sigh. Then she lifts them again: “I was afraid I had — made the distance too blue.”

  Bartlett.— “Oh, no; not at all.”

  Constance.— “Do you think I had better try to finish it?”

  Bartlett.— “Oh, certainly. Why not? If it amuses you!”

  Constance, perplexedly.— “Of course.” Then with a sad significance: “But I know I am trying your patience too far. You have been so kind, so good, I can’t forgive myself for annoying you.”

  Bartlett.— “It doesn’t annoy me. I’m very glad to be useful to you.”

  Constance, demurely.— “I didn’t mean painting; I meant — screaming.” She lifts her eyes to Bartlett’s face, with a pathetic, inquiring attempt at lightness, the slightest imaginable experimental archness in her self-reproach, which dies out as Bartlett frowns and bites the corner of his moustache in unresponsive silence. “I ought to be well enough now to stop it: I’m quite well enough to be ashamed of it.” She breaks off a miserable little laugh.

  Bartlett, with cold indifference.— “There’s no reason why you should stop it — if it amuses you.” She looks at him in surprise at this rudeness. “Do you wish to try your hand at Ponkwasset this morning?”

  Constance, with a flash of resentment.— “No; thanks.” Then with a lapse into her morbid self-abasement: “I shall not touch it again. Mamma!”

  Mrs. Wyatt.— “Yes, Constance.” Mrs. Wyatt and Cummings, both intent on Bartlett and Constance, have been heroically feigning a polite interest in each other, from which pretence they now eagerly release themselves.

  Constance.— “Oh — nothing. I can get it of Mary. I won’t trouble you.” She goes toward the door.

  Mrs. Wyatt.— “Mary isn’t up from her breakfast yet. If you want anything, let me go with you, dear.” She turns to follow Constance. “Good morning, Mr. Cummings; we shall see you at dinner. Good morning,” — with an inquiring glance at Bartlett. Constance slightly inclines towards the two gentlemen without looking at them, in going out with her mother; and Cummings moves away to the piano, and affects to examine the sheet-music scattered over it. Bartlett remains in his place near the easel.

  III.

  Bartlett and Cummings.

  Bartlett, harshly, after a certain silence which his friend is apparently resolved not to break.— “Sail in, Cummings!”

  Cummings.— “Oh, I’ve got nothing to say.”

  Bartlett.— “Yes, you have. You think I’m a greater fool and a greater brute than you ever supposed in your most sanguine moments. Well, I am! What then?”

  Cummings, turning about from the music at which he has been pretending to look, and facing Bartlett, with a slight shrug.— “If you choose to characterise your own behaviour in that way, I shall not dispute you at any rate.”

  Bartlett.— “Go on!”

  Cummings.— “Go on? You saw yourself, I suppose, how she hung upon every syllable you spoke, every look, every gesture?”

  Bartlett.— “Yes, I saw it.”

  Cummings.— “You saw how completely crushed she was by your tone and manner. You’re not blind. Upon my word, Bartlett, if I didn’t know what a good, kind-hearted fellow you are, I should say you were the greatest ruffian alive.”

  Bartlett, with a groan.— “Go on! That’s something like.”

  Cummings.— “I couldn’t hear what was going on — I’ll own I tried — but I could see; and to see the delicate amende she was trying to offer you, in such a way that it should not seem an amende, — a perfect study of a woman’s gracious, unconscious art, — and then to see your sour refusal of it all, it made me sick.”

  Bartlett, with a desperate clutch at his face, like a man oppressed with some stifling vapour.— “Yes, yes! I saw it all, too! And if it had been for me, I would have given anything for such happiness. Oh, gracious powers! How dear she is! I would rather have suffered any anguish than give her pain, and yet I gave her pain! I knew how it entered her heart: I felt it in my own. But what could I do? If I am to be myself, if I am not to steal the tenderness meant for another man, the love she shows to me because I’m like somebody else, I must play the brute. But have a little mercy on me. At least, I’m a baited brute. I don’t know which way to turn, I don’t know what to do. She’s so dear to me, — so dear in every tone of her voice, every look of her eyes, every aspiration or desire of her transparent soul, that it seems to me my whole being is nothing but a thought of her. I loved her helplessness, her pallor, her sorrow; judge how I adore her return to something like life! Oh, you blame me! You simplify this infernal perplexity of mine and label it brutality, and scold me for it. Great heaven! And yet you saw, you heard how she entered this room. In that instant the old illusion was back on her, and I was nothing. All that I had been striving and longing to be to her, and hoping and despairing to seem, was swept out of existence; I was reduced to a body without a soul, to a shadow, a counterfeit! You think I resented it? Poor girl, I pitied her so; and my own heart all the time like lead in my breast, — a dull lump of ache! I swear, I wonder I don’t go mad. I suppose — why, I suppose I am insane. No man in his senses was ever bedevilled by such a maniacal hallucination. Look here, Cummings: tell me that this damnable coil isn’t simply a matter of my own fancy. It’ll be some little relief to know that it’s real.”

  Cummings.— “It’s real enough, my dear fellow. And it is a trial, — more than I could have believed such a fantastic thing could be.”

  Bartlett.— “Trial? Ordeal by fire! Torment! I can’t stand it any longer.”

  Cummings, musingly.— “She is beautiful, isn’t she, with that faint dawn of red in her cheeks, — not a colour, but a coloured light like the light that hangs round a rose-tree’s boughs in the early spring! And what a magnificent movement, what a stately grace! The girl must have been a goddess!”

  Bartlett.— “And now she’s a saint — for sweetness and patience! You think she’s had nothing to suffer before from me? You know me better! Well, I am going away.”

  Cummings.— “Perhaps it will be the best. You can go back with me to-morrow.”

  Bartlett.— “To-morrow? Go back with you to-morrow? What are you talking about, man?” Cummings smiles. “I can’t go to-morrow. I can’t leave her hating me.”

  Cummings.— “I knew you never meant to go. Well, what will you do?”

  Bartlett.— “Don’t be so cold-blooded! What would you do?”

  Cummings.— “I would have it out somehow.”

  Bartlett.— “Oh, you talk! How?”

  Cummings.— “I am not in love with Miss Wyatt.”

  Bartlett.— “Oh, don’t try to play the cynic with me! It doesn’t become you. I know I’ve used you badly at times, Cummings. I behaved abominably in leaving you to take the brunt of meeting General Wyatt that first day; I said so then, and I shall always say it. But I thought you had forgiven that.”

  Cummings, with a laugh
.— “You make it hard to treat you seriously, Bartlett. What do you want me to do? Do you want me to go to Miss Wyatt and explain your case to her?”

  Bartlett, angrily.— “No!”

  Cummings.— “Perhaps to Mrs. Wyatt?”

  Bartlett, infuriate.— “No!”

  Cummings.— “To the General?”

  Bartlett, with sudden quiet.— “You had better go away from here, Cummings — while you can.”

  Cummings.— “I see you don’t wish me to do anything, and you’re quite right. Nobody can do anything but yourself.”

  Bartlett.— “And what would you advise me to do?”

  Cummings.— “I’ve told you that I would have it out. You can’t make matters worse. You can’t go on in this way indefinitely. It’s just possible that you might find yourself mistaken, — that Miss Wyatt cares for you in your own proper identity.”

  Bartlett.— “For shame!”

  Cummings.— “Oh, if you like!”

  Bartlett, after a pause.— “Would you — would you see the General?”

  Cummings.— “If I wanted to marry the General. Come, Bartlett; don’t be ridiculous. You know you don’t want my advice, and I haven’t any to give. I must go to my room a moment.”

  Bartlett.— “Well, go! You’re of no advantage here. You’d have it out, would you? Well, then, I wouldn’t. I’m a brute, I know, and a fool, but I’m not such a brute and fool as that!” Cummings listens with smiling patience, and then goes without reply, while Bartlett drops into the chair near the easel, and sulkily glares at the picture. Through the window at his back shows the mellow Indian summer landscape. The trees have all dropped their leaves, save the oaks which show their dark crimson banners among the deep green of the pines and hemlocks on the hills; the meadows, verdant as in June, slope away toward the fringe of birches and young maples along the borders of the pond; the low-blackberry trails like a running fire over the long grass limp from the first frosts, which have silenced all the insect voices. No sound of sylvan life is heard but the harsh challenge of a jay, answered from many trees of the nearest wood-lot. The far-off hill-tops are molten in the soft azure haze of the season; the nearer slopes and crests sleep under a greyer and thinner veil. It is to this scene that the painter turns from the easel, with the sullen unconsciousness in which he has dwelt upon the picture. Its beauty seems at last to penetrate his mood; he rises and looks upon it; then he goes out on the gallery, and, hidden by the fall of one of the curtains, stands leaning upon the rail and rapt in the common reverie of the dreaming world. While he lingers there, Cummings appears at the door, and looks in; then with an air of some surprise, as if wondering not to see Bartlett, vanishes again, to give place to General Wyatt, who after a like research retires silently and apparently disconcerted. A few moments later Mrs. Wyatt comes to the threshold, and calling gently into the room, “Constance!” waits briefly and goes away. At last, the young girl herself appears, and falters in the doorway an instant, but finally comes forward and drifts softly and indirectly up to the picture, at which she glances with a little sigh. At the same moment Bartlett’s voice, trolling a snatch of song, comes from the gallery without: —