Blue Voyage: A Novel (30 page)

It is to this awful dilemma that my failure with you has brought me. Of this schism in my nature, which has always been known to me, I have now become acutely and horribly and unintermittently conscious … What shall I do? Shall I go on, half-civilized liar that I am, and add a few more reefs of flowery coral to my already disgracefully massive production, and thus help deluded mankind to add delusion to delusion? Or shall I turn back, and do my best to destroy this terrible structure of hypocrisy?… I think, Cynthia, I will turn back. I think I must turn my back on you. I think I must decide, once and for all, that though you are beautiful, and though I have fixed my heart on you as on nothing and no one else, you are a sham, a fraud, an exquisite but baseless, or nearly baseless, work of art. A living lie. A beautiful betrayal of nature. A delicious fake … I remember that you refused to have tea with me, at a Lyons or A.B.C., because they were “such grubby little places” … But as for me, I like them; and the grubbier the better.

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THREE

D
EAR
M
ISS
B
ATTILORO:

To say that I am astonished by what has occurred is to put it mildly. What have I done which could so offend you that you must “cut” me? Heaven knows I have enough “inferiority complex” to enable me to supply my own explanations—as far as
that
is concerned, I could find sufficient excuse for it were the whole world to conspire against me. But that is not the same thing. I should prefer to know—if you could bring yourself to tell me—what it is that has moved
you
to this sudden action. Do I, in asking this, expect too much? Perhaps I do. I remember only too well—as I remember every episode of our brief acquaintance—how, as we left the Wig-more Hall, after the concert, you made me run with you, positively
run,
so that you could avoid someone by whom you didn’t wish to be seen. This, at the time, rather disconcerted me. It brought pretty sharply before my eyes a feature in your character which alternately frightened, attracted, and repelled me, and which I had taken some care not to examine too closely. This was—is—your snobbishness. Well—now
I
am to be sacrificed on this exquisite altar, in this exquisite pre-Raphaelite boudoir-chapel of yours! Is that it? Perhaps you think I have been remiss in not coming to see you, or in failing to salute you yesterday morning? But I
have
tried, several times, to find you, in vain. I am in the second cabin, and therefore I cannot too freely wander about in your precincts. As for the other matter, I am simply too shy.

I mention these points in the very faint hope that the whole thing may have been an unfortunate misunderstanding. If that is the case, I am heartily sorry. But I know, at the bottom of my heart, that it is something more than that. It may even be—why in Heaven’s name not?—that you have taken a dislike to me. But if you consider—no, there is no use in considering. I was on the point of advancing our delightful acquaintance of last summer as a kind of claim upon you, and suggesting that, these things being so, it would be only decent of you to give me some hint of an explanation. But, as I abruptly see, one does not, when one decides to cut a friend, hand him a nice little note of explanation. One just cuts him; with a hard eye. Exactly as you, and your estimable mother, have done to me. And if he presume to
ask
for an explanation—as I am doing—why that only makes it more apparent that the cut was required.

But it occurs to me, belatedly, that in such a situation as this I ought to show myself possessed of a certain amount of pride. And so I am. I am not lacking in
amour-propre
. I suffer from that form of egotism which vacillates between an excessive vanity and a humility equally excessive. And as a matter of fact, the injury you have done me is so deep that even should the whole affair now turn out to be a mistake, even were you to apologize, I could never forgive you and never again quite respect you. I may not cease to love you—why need I any longer conceal this, which may have been the point from which your action has sprung—but already a profound hatred has joined itself to my love. I shall hate you, loathe you, despise you, as I have never hated before. Pride! If we encounter again, you will see that I have plenty of it. It will be Satanic. And if any smallest opportunity ever occurs, I will revenge myself upon you, “after no common action,” with the deftest psychological cruelty: for I am a master of that art, I am by nature cruel. That I will still be in love with you will not in the least prevent this. You have behaved like a charwoman. And if only once I may have the chance to treat you as such, to cut you face to face, to turn my back on you, it may be that I shall thus be able to rid myself of you forever, and recover my lost self-esteem. It may be that I——

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FOUR

I am extremely sorry that things should have turned out like this. I am sorry for any sins of omission, on my part, which may have brought it about; though I am at a loss to know what they may be. I am sorriest, however, that you should have felt it necessary to
cut
me, as if I were the most ordinary of ill-bred nuisances. Good Heavens! That is a new and illuminating experience, and one from which I hope greatly to profit. You need not have feared that I would ever become troublesome—I am sufficiently sensitive to know when others want to be rid of me, and I usually know it long before they know it themselves. To be misprized in
that
sense is an extreme surprise to me. But not so surprising, perhaps, as the finding how deeply I have misprized
you
.

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FIVE

Sick transit!

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SIX

……

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VIII

Demarest sat alone in the dim-lighted smoking room. A calf-bound octavo lay on the green table before him, opened at page 544. On the black skylight, a heavy rain rattled: drumming dripping pattering whimpering. It was not loud enough, however, to drown out the gusts of music that came upstairs fitfully from below, where the masquerade ball was in progress. In fact, he could hear Hay-Lawrence’s voice—Hay-Lawrence was now a
chef
—in shrill imitation of broken Gallic English, followed by a spate of expostulatory French. Demarest smiled. How admirable, to be able to throw oneself into a thing like that! With so little self-consciousness! He could see, in his mind’s eye, the absurd actions with which Hay-Lawrence must be accompanying that fury of sound—the shrugged shoulders, the palms lifted and narrowed, the eyebrows extravagantly arched. “
Mais oui
!” Hay-Lawrence positively squealed the
oui;
and then was heard no more, lost in a combined outrage of rain and ragtime. Of course, he must be delighted at the chance to show off his excellent French … What was that tune. An
Old-Fashioned Garden
. Modern Bach. Drumming dripping pattering whimpering. Running whipping spattering scampering. “First, for the scene” (he read, “a
landtschap
consisting of small woods, and here and there a void place filled with huntings: which falling, an artificial sea was seen to shoot forth, as if it flowed to the land, raised with waves which seemed to move, and in some places the billows to break, as imitating the orderly disorder which is common in nature. In front of this sea were placed six tritons, in moving and sprightly actions, their upper parts human, save that their hairs were blue, as partaking of the sea colour: their desinent parts fish, mounted above their heads, and all varied in dispositions. From their backs were borne out certain light pieces of taffeta, as if carried by the wind, and their music made out of wreathed shells. Behind these, a pair of sea-maids, for song, were as conspicuously seated; between which, two great seahorses, as big as the life, put forth themselves; the one mounting aloft, and writhing his head from the other, which seemed to sink forward; so intended for variation, and that the figure behind might come off better: upon their backs, Oceanus and Niger were advanced.” An admirable descriptive prose! And what impudence to assert that there was no prose before Dryden! Great sea horses as big as the life. And the orderly disorder which is common in nature …

Silberstein, in a dinner jacket, entered laconically; with a cigar, on which the red-and-gold band was intact. In a dinner jacket, with plump shirt, he looked more than ever batrachian. Brek-ek-ek-ek. He sauntered, he rolled, he twinkled, he trolled. Drumming dripping pattering whimpering. In an old-fashioned garden.

“I don’t blame you,” he said. “I never saw such a lousy collection in my life. Hay-Lawrence is pretty good, though.”

“He looks the part to a T.”

“I don’t speak French myself, but I guess he slings it about as well as the froggies do?”

“It sounds all right to me. Have you been dancing?”

“No. I gave them the up-and-down—there’s nobody there worth looking at, except that little Irish kid and Mrs. Faubion. And, of course, your friend the Welsh Rarebit. By Godfry, she’s got up fit to kill!”

Drip drop drip drop. An old-fashioned garden in the rain.

“Have you seen her?… Hello—there she is. Mrs. Davis!
Mrs. Davis
!”

Mrs. Davis, a Hawaiian clad in swishing grass, with a white rose in her black hair and a purple Japanese lantern in each hand, leaned coyly through the doorway, one leg lifted behind her. Scarlet slippers. Then she was gone again.

The glass-eyed poker player came in, looking angrily about the room, and four others. Also Smith, soft-stepping in the rear, drawing back a little to avoid getting mixed with the game. He had been out in the rain—he had on his tweed hat and a rain-splashed raincoat. After him came a trampling troup of others, refugees from the dance. The thirsty hour was beginning to summon them.

“Didn’t see you at the dance,” said Smith, dropping off his coat.

“No, I’m not a dancing man.”

“The little girl was asking me where you were—says she’s mad at you.”

“Mrs. Faubion?”

“Sure. Who’d you think? Looks nice, too. Got on one of those blue embroidered mandarin cloaks, and nice little white silk pantaloons.”

“She’s the best-looking thing there,” said Silberstein, “which isn’t saying much.”

“She’s all right! Yes, sir, she’s all right. And she can dance, too. I wish I could dance—I’m too old to learn these newfangled things. But I’d sure like to dance with her.”

“Well, gentlemen, I think I’ll slide for home. I’ll see you in the morning, if the rain doesn’t sink us. Good night.”

“Good night!”

“Good night.”

Silberstein departed in a rattle of rain:
the Long, Long Trail
came mournfully up the stairs: a cork popped.

“Have a game?” said Smith. “He makes me tired, swelling in here with his dress suit.”

“No, not tonight, thanks. I haven’t got the energy. Lazy as a nigger.”

“Lazy as a nigger! Ever seen niggers work in the gangs down South?”

“Yes, I have.”

“They sure can work—when they want to.”

“Oh, I have the greatest respect for the nigger. I’m all for him.”

“He’s all right in the fields and the servants’ quarters. Yes, siree!”

“The Negro has genius—give him a chance and he’ll prove it.”

“Genius! I never noticed it. Give him a chance, and he gets too uppish.”

“Oh, I don’t agree with you. When he’s uppish, it’s only because he imitates the bad manners with which he’s been treated.”

Smith looked astonished.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about! You ought to live down South.”

“I
have
lived down South.”

“Well then, you ought to know better. Give him an inch and he’ll take an ell.”

“Why shouldn’t he?”

“Why shouldn’t he!… Do you think he’s the equal of the white man?”

“Potentially, certainly! Good Lord, he’s only had a generation or two of freedom, scarcely any schooling, and look what he’s done already! His folk songs are the only American music, practically, that’s worth a toot.”

“Just plain savagery, that’s what it is, and I’m surprised you fall for it. You come down and live with them and look for their genius! Genius my hat! They’re black, and don’t you forget it.”

“What difference does
that
make?”

“A whole lot! You can’t let them mix. Got to keep them in their place.”

“Nonsense. They’re human beings, like any others. You can’t condemn a whole race because of their color! Good Lord, I never heard anything so childish!”

“Childish! Would you sit down to dinner with a nigger?”

“Certainly! I not only would, but I
have
.”

Smith stared.

“What! Well, no self-respecting man would. No sir.”

“I suppose you’re one of these people who feel the same way about the Chinese and Japanese.”

“Sure. To hell with them. They’re yellow—they’re not white … Good God, sitting down to dinner with a nigger! Will you listen to that!”

Smith turned his head, showing a disposition to draw in, as witnesses, the men at the next table. His voice had become louder. Demarest felt himself flushing.

“Certainly. The Negro I sat down to dinner with was a human being, and as civilized and intellectual a man as you could find. And a man very widely known.”

“Every man to his own taste, as the farmer said when he kissed the pig! I suppose next you’ll say it was an honor to sit down with him!”

“So it was.”

“You’ll have to excuse me. That’s hot air. You just fool yourself. Now look here. Suppose you had a sister——”

“I
have
a sister.”

“All right—you have a sister. Suppose she wanted to marry a coon, would you let her?… You know you wouldn’t.”

“I admit I’ve got strong enough primitive racial feelings in me to make me feel that any crossing of species is a mistake. And I’d certainly do my best to make
HER
feel this, and to make her see the social consequences of such a marriage. But if she realized all that, I don’t see that I would have any further business to interfere. No. She’s an adult, and can manage her own life. I should regret the step, for various reasons, but among them would not be any feeling that the Negro is something subhuman. Not at all!”