The Lives and Times of Archy and Mehitabel

by Don Marquis

of those quaint

  places boss and all those

  quaint places have to

  be ye instead of the

  in a ye place you can

  serve almost anything

  and get away

  with it but in a

  the place you have to

  have a certain amount

  of eats and drinks

  and that increases the

  expense of operation

  enormously i am no

  pig but i do wish to

  make enough money once in

  my life to be

  among the

  excess prophets or the

  excise profits or

  what ever you call

  them

  For our part, we shall never eat goulash in a place that is conducted by Archy—so many of these Greenwich Village artists are always Putting Themselves Into Their Work.

  the artist

  i called on some friends in a

  studio building the other evening and

  while we were foraging about

  for something to eat

  we got caught on a

  palette smeared over with all

  the colors there are

  leaping from this danger seven

  or eight of us

  landed upon an untouched canvas

  that stood upon an easel

  nearby waiting for the masters hand

  and we walked across the

  canvas on our way out of that

  place it seems that we builded

  better than we knew before

  we could get to any safer place

  than a spot behind a

  gas radiator we heard human footsteps

  approaching and an

  instant later two men entered the

  studio one of them switched on

  the lights and the

  other gave an exclamation of

  pleasure and astonishment by jove

  tommy he said to the owner of

  the studio what is this new thing

  of yours on the easel it is

  the best thing you have done yet

  i thought you were against

  modernism and all

  the new fangled stuff but i see

  that you have come over to the new

  school your style has

  loosened up wonderfully old kid

  i always said that if you

  could only get away from the stiffness

  and absurdity of the

  conventional schools you had the

  makings of a great painter in

  you what do you call this

  picture tommy

  well said tommy with rare

  presence of mind i have not

  named it yet it is not altogether in

  the newer mode you will observe i

  have been struggling for a

  compromise between the two methods

  that would at the same time

  allow me to express my

  individuality on canvas i do

  think myself that i have got more

  freshness and directness into this

  thing you have said his friend

  it has the direct and naive approach

  of the primitives and it

  also has all that is

  worthy to be retained of the

  reticent sophistication of

  the post pre raphaelites but what

  do you say you are going to

  call it it is said tommy as

  you see a nocturne i have

  been thinking of calling it

  impressions of brooklyn

  bridge in a fog and when his

  friend went out he stood and looked at

  the picture for a long time and

  said now i wonder who in

  hell slipped in here and did that it

  is nothing short of genius could

  i have done it myself when i

  was drunk i must have done so

  anyhow i will sign it and

  taking up a brush he did so well i

  stole a look at the canvas

  myself and it looked like nothing

  on earth to me but a canvas over

  which a lot of cockroaches had

  walked i may be a

  critic but still i know what i

  dont like yours for another

  renaissance of the arts every

  spring and every autumn

  archy

  the suicide club

  boss i ran onto a queer bunch

  in the back room of a saloon on william street

  the other night there were six of them

  two cockroaches

  a grass hopper

  a flea

  and two crickets

  they have what they call a suicide club

  not the sort our old

  friend r l s made famous

  the members of which intend to kill

  themselves but each member of this

  club has committed suicide already

  they were once humans

  as i was myself

  at least i was a poet

  after they killed themselves their souls

  transmigrated into the bodies

  of the insects mentioned

  and so they have got together and

  formed a club the other night the grass

  just as i got my shoe off we passed a glue factory

  hopper told why he had killed himself

  it was a misunderstanding

  with one i loved he said

  which impelled me to the rash act

  she and i were walking down a country

  road and i got some gravel in one

  of my shoes shortly afterward we

  boarded a trolley car would you

  mind i asked her if i took my shoe off

  and shook out the gravel

  help yourself she said

  just as i got my shoe off we passed

  a glue factory

  i hastily put the shoe on again by the

  time it was on again we were well past

  the glue factory

  the period during which the shoe was off

  and the period during which we

  were passing the glue factory exactly

  synchronized

  she did not see the glue factory

  and refused to believe there had been

  one in the neighborhood i could

  never explain a month later

  i killed myself tough luck

  old top said the flea i will now

  tell you why i took the fatal

  plunge i will

  tell you how it was i

  committed suicide and transmigrated

  into the body of an insect i was

  the india rubber man in a circus side

  show and fell in love with a

  pair of beautiful Siamese twins

  public opinion was against

  me marrying both of them

  although both of them loved me as i

  loved them both you

  must choose between them said the

  manager what god has joined together

  let no man put asunder i said but

  public opinion was too much for me

  but the surgical operation which

  severed them changed their

  dispositions you cant fool with

  a freak without running some such

  risk when they were cut apart one of

  them eloped with the surgeon

  who had done the work and the other

  married an interne in the

  hospital they had a double

  wedding and i slew myself that night

  well said one of the crickets i will

  now tell you how i shuffled off

  this mortal coil and

  transmigrated into the

  body of a cricke
t and became a

  member of this has been club my father

  belonged to a religious sect which

  forbids shaving and i was

  brought up in that way no

  razor ever touched my face when i was

  forty years old i had a beard that hung

  down to my knees it was red and

  glossy i went around the country

  posing as a doctor for a medicine

  company hitting the tank towns in a

  wagon and giving a spiel and

  playing on the banjo i did well as

  my beard attracted

  crowds and was happy and

  prosperous until one day a

  malignant old man who

  had just bought six bottles of tonic

  for five dollars made of roots herbs

  and natures own remedies

  containing no

  mineral ingredients and brewed from

  juniper leaves hazel roots choke

  cherries and the bark of the

  wild cohosh exactly

  as the indians made it for a

  thousand years

  in the unpathed forests before the

  pale face came said to me mister

  can i ask you a question yes i

  said i have nothing to conceal i am on

  the level if one wine glass full before

  meals does not give you an appetite

  take two or three

  mister he says the question is

  personal go ahead i says i am the

  seventh son

  of a seventh son a soothsayer and a

  seer i can tell by the way

  you chew tobacco you have liver

  trouble i will make a

  special price to you fourteen

  bottles for ten dollars cash no he said

  it is about your beard it grew i told

  him through using this medicine

  my chin was bald at

  birth it is a specific for erysipelas

  botts neuralgia stomach trouble loss

  of appetite hearts disease dandruff and

  falling hair thirty bottles to you

  for twenty dollars and i will throw

  in an electric belt

  mister he said i only want to ask

  you if you sleep

  with all your beard outside

  of the covers or

  under the covers when you go to

  bed at night and he gave me an evil

  grin and went on i

  never thought of it

  before i had just gone to bed and slept

  as a rule but that night when i

  climbed into bed i thought of the old

  mans question i spread all my

  beard outside of the covers and it

  was immediately apparent to me

  that i did not have the habit of

  sleeping with it that way then i put it

  under the covers and was

  no less certain that i did not

  sleep with it that way i worried

  about it till morning and each way i

  put it seemed at

  once to be the wrong way

  the next night it was the same

  thing i could not keep from

  thinking about it i got no sleep at all

  and became the mere shadow of my

  former self it so preyed upon me

  that at last i saw i must either

  shave off the beard or end it all but i

  could not shave off the beard

  without deserting the religious principles

  instilled into me by my father and so i

  took the fatal plunge hard lines said the

  second cricket the way i happened to

  commit suicide and undergo

  transmigration and

  thus qualify for a member of this club

  was this when i was a

  human i was wedded to a lady whose

  mother had a very strong

  and domineering character she

  lived with us night after

  night i would lie awake thinking

  up schemes to get even

  with her i thought up

  some lovely schemes but when

  morning came my nerve would

  leave i never had the courage to

  put them into execution finally

  the thought came to me that if i was

  a ghost i could haunt her and

  she would have no come back i slew

  myself but alas my soul transmigrated

  into the body of a cricket and

  if you had ever seen that strong and

  bitter old woman slaying spiders and

  crickets you could realize

  the despair that has settled down on me

  since too bad said one

  of the cockroaches i will now narrate the

  events which led up to my

  determination to

  take the leap into the

  darkness

  i cant say that i

  had any good reason for

  slaying myself i had done everything

  else at least once i was a

  young man possessed of a

  considerable fortune which it was my only

  occupation to dissipate when

  everything else palled i

  took up theology i made a bet

  with another student that the soul

  was not immortal the only way to

  settle it was to die and find out we both

  did well fellows we both lost mine

  proved to be immortal for here i am but his

  was not it completely disappeared and

  has never been heard of again

  which shows you never can tell and

  yet i am still interested in

  games of chance

  archy

  psychic

  boss i have had a terrible time

  since i last wrote you as i

  told you long ago i was originally a

  vers libre poet and my

  soul after leaving that body

  migrated into the

  body of a cockroach before that

  happened i did not believe in the

  doctrine of transmigration of

  souls but after it happened

  how could i refuse to credit it well

  it gave me a great deal of interest

  in all psychic matters and it

  struck me not many weeks ago that

  if it were possible for a soul

  to leave a poet that way and go into

  the body of a cockroach

  at the poets death it might be

  possible to manage it without death the

  truth is that i got tired of being a

  cockroach and wanted to be

  human again i practised and practised

  until i found myself able to get out

  of the cockroach body and

  naked on the air of heaven ride but it

  is not all that it is cracked up to be

  there is nothing that can get so

  cold as a soul these autumn nights

  when it has no body and no blankets

  and in winter it is worse yet after i

  had gained proficiency i began

  to look around for a human to

  get into but as far as i could

  learn every human was filled with

  a soul already but i began to

  make longer and longer trips away from

  my cockroach body imagine my

  consternation and surprise one day

  some weeks ago upon returning to the

  cockroach body which i had left to find

  that it had been squashed and swept out

  with a broom i looked at the fragments

  with horror it was a very discouraged

  looking se
t of remains but there i

  was out in the world with

  no shelter all sould up as you might

  say and no place to go it may strike you

  as nothing to worry about and it

  wasnt so bad for a day or two but there

  is a horrid sense of helplessness

  about it if you are interested in

  psychic research and that

  sort of thing you can get a

  little fun for a while appearing in

  seances and balling up the messages

  but believe me psychic research is more

  interesting when you are the human calling

  up the spirits than when you

  are the ghost too often

  they make you the goat that

  soon palled on me and i wandered for

  weeks the most lonely thing in new york

  city at last in despair i

  got into the carcase of another cockroach

  again of about the same size and

  general appearance of my old frame but

  the whole affair has had a most

  depressing effect on me imagine taking

  all that trouble to get away from

  being a cockroach and then get

  shoved back into one by

  fate again i think i will

  stick to the old homestead for a

  while how do i know but what the next

  time i might get into the body of a

  flea or a communist

  archy

  destiny

  well boss here i

  am a cockroach still boss

  i have often been disgusted

  with life but now i am

  even more disgusted

  with death and transmigration i

  would rather not inhabit

  any body at all than

  inhabit a cockroachs

  body but it seems i

  cant escape it that

  is my destiny my doom my

  punishment

  when you struck me that

  terrific blow a few

  days ago and i

  died there at

  your feet my first

  sensation was one of glad

  relief what body will

  the soul of archy transmigrate

  into now i asked

  myself will i go

  higher in the scale of

  life and inhabit the

  body of a butterfly

  or a dog or a

  bird or will i sink

  lower and go into the

  carcase of a poison

  spider or a politician

  i sat on a blade of

  grass and waited and wondered

  what it would be i

  hoped it wouldnt be

  anything at all too soon

  because if you remember

  it was a hot

  day and as i sat

  on that blade of grass

  in my naked soul and

  let my feet hang over i

  was deliciously

  cool try it some of

  these hot nights leave

  your body in the