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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
77 views100 pagesThe Project
Uploaded by
Diana PimentãoCopyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF or read online on Scribd
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© HENRY ~ 100 SELECTED STORIES 337
‘The two experimenters in Art left the Square and hurried east-
ward and then to the south until they arrived in the Gramercy
neighbourhood. Within its high iron railings the lite park had put
‘on its smart cout of vernal green, and was admiring itself in its foun-
tain mirror. Outside the railings the hollow square of crumbling
houses, shells ofa bygone gentry, leaned as if in ghostly gossip over
the forgotten doings ofthe vanished quality. Sic transit gloria nrbis.
A block or two north of the Park, Dawe steered the editor again
easeward, then, after covering a short distance, into a lofty but
narrow flathouse burdened with a floridly over-decorated facade.
To the fifth story they toiled, and Dawe, panting, pushed his
latch-key into the door of one of the front fats.
‘When the door opened Editor Westbrook saw, with feelings of
pity, how meanly and meagrely the rooms were furnished.
“Get a chair, if you can find ong,’ said Dawe, ‘while I hunt up
pen and ink. Hallo, whar’s this? Here's a note from Louise. She
must have left it there when she went out this morning.”
He picked up an envelope that lay on the centre-table and tore
it open. He began to read the letter that he drew out of it; and
‘once having begun it aloud he so read it through to the end.
These are the words that Editor Westbrook heard:
DEAR SHACKLEFORD, ~
‘By the time you get this I will be about a hundred miles away
and still a-going. I've got a place in the chorus of the Occidental
‘Opera Co., and we start on the road to-day at twelve o’clock. I
didn’t want to starve to death, and so T decided to make my own
living. 'm not coming back. Mrs. Westbrook is going with me.
She said she was tired of living with a combination phonograph,
iceberg and dictionary, and she’s not coming back, either. We've
been practising the songs and dances for two months on the quiet.
Thope you will be successful, and get along all right. Good-bye.
“Louse.”
Dawe dropped the lexter, covered his face with his trembling
hands, and cried out in a deep vibrating voice:
‘My God, why bart Thou given me this cup to drink? Since she is
false, then let Thy Heaven's fairest gifts, faith and love, become the
aes Of wits oad Fiend
Editor Westbrook’s glasses fell o the floor. The fingers of one
Bess Seetid slorenn one eoc os Be bared bern 336 © HENRY ~ 100 SELECTED STORIES
T'm the only genuine preparation on che market thar bears the old
doctor's signature. She’s been fonder and more faithful than ever,
since I've been cast for the neglected genius part.
‘Indeed, she is a charming and admirable life companion,’
agreed the editor. ‘I remember what inseparable friends she and
Mrs. Westbrook once were. We are both lucky chaps, Shack, to
have such wives. You must bring Mrs. Dawe up some evening
soon, and we'll have one of those informal chafing-dish suppers
that we used to enjoy so much.”
‘Later,’ said Dawe. ‘When I get another shirt. And now I'l cell
you my scheme. When I was about to leave home after breakfast -
if you can call tea and oatmeal breakfast - Louise told me she was
going to visit her aunt in Eighty-ninth Sereet. She said she would
recurn home at three o'clock. She is always on time to a minute. It
isnow—
Dawe glanced toward the editor’s watch pocket.
‘Twenty-seven minutes to three,’ said Westbrook, scanning his
timepiece.
“We have just enough time,’ said Dawe. ‘We will go to my flat
at once. I will write a note, address it to her and leave it on the
table where she will see it as she enters the door. You and I will be
in the dining-room concealed by the portieres. In that note I'll say
that Ihave fled from her for ever with an affinity who understands
the needs of my artistic soul as she never did. When she reads it
we will observe her actions and hear her words. Then we will
know which theory isthe correct one ~ yours or mine.”
“Oh, never!” exclaimed the editor, shaking his head. “That would
be cet cint cai et caret See Dawe's
feelings played upon in such a manner.’
“Brace up,’ said the writer. ‘I guess I think as much of her as you
don Seve ber bones os gel sates, Foe gues pn stants br
my stories in some way. It won't hurt Louise, She’s healthy and
sound. Her heart goes as strong as a ninety-cight-cent watch. [ell
last for only a minute, and then I'l step out and explain to her.
‘You really owe it to me to give me the chance, Westbrook.”
Editor Westbrook at length yielded, though but half willingly.
And in the half of him that consented lurked the vivisectionist that
is in all of us.
Let him who has not used the scalpel rise and stand in his place.
Pity ‘tis that there are not enough rabbits and guinea-pigs to go
around. © HENRY ~ 100 SELECTED STORIES 335
“And again,’ continved the editor, without pausing for argu-
ment, ‘when Berenice opens the letter from her husband inform-
ing her that he has fled with the manicure girl, her words are ~ let
me see
“She says,’ interposed the author: ‘ “Well, what do you think of
that!”?
‘Absurdly inappropriate words,’ said Westbrook, ‘presenting
sn anti-climax ~ plunging the story into hopeless bathos. Worse
yet; they mirror life falsely. No human being ever uttered banal
colloquialisms when confronted by sudden tragedy.”
‘Wrong,’ said Dawe, closing his unshaven jaws doggedly. ‘I say
no man or woman ever spouts highfalutin talk when they go up
against a real climax. They talk naturally, and a lite worse.”
“The editor rose from the bench with his air of indulgence and
inside information.
‘Say, Westbrook,’ said Dawe, pinning him by the lape!, ‘would
‘you have accepted “The Alarum of the Soul” if you had believed
that the actions and words of the characters were true to life in the
pares of the story that we discussed?”
‘Ic is very likely that I would, if I believed that way,’ said the
editor. ‘Bat I have explained to you that I do not.”
‘If coald prove to you that Iam right?”
‘Tm sorry, Shack, but I'm afraid I haven't time to argue any
further just now.”
‘I don’e want to argue,’ said Dawe. ‘I want to demonstrate to
‘you from life itself that my view is the correct one.”
“How could you do that?” asked Westbrook in a surprised tone.
‘Listen,’ said the writer seriously. ‘I have hough of a way. Te is
important to me that my theory of true-to-life fiction be recog-
nized as correct by the magazines. I've fought for it for three
years, and I'm down to my last dollar, with two months’ rent dae.”
“Ihave applied the opposite of your theory,’ said the editor, ‘in
selecting the fiction for the Mineroa Magazine. The citculation has
‘gone up from ninety thousand to ~”
“Four hundred thousand," said Dawe. ‘Whereas it should have
been boosted co a milion.”
“You said something to me just now about demonstrating your
pet theory.
‘L will. If you'll give me about half an hour of your time I'l
prove to you that I am right. I'l prove it by Louise.”
“Your wife!” exclaimed Westbrook. ‘How?’
“Well, not exactly by her, but with her,’ said Dawe. ‘Now, you 334 © HENRY ~ 100 SELECTED STORIES
uunarrived fictionist to dictate words to be uttered by the heroes and
heroines of the Mineros Magezine, contrary to the theories of the
editor thereof.
“My dear Shack,’ said he, ‘if I know anything of life I know that
every sudden, deep and tragic emotion in the human heart calls,
forth an apposite, concordant, conformable, and proportionate
expression of feeling? How much of this inevitable accord between
expression and feeling should be attributed to nature, and how
‘much to the influence of art, it would be difficult to say. The sub-
limely terrible roar of the lioness that has been deprived of her
‘cubs is dramatically as far above her customary whine and purr as
the kingly and transcendent utterances of Lear are above the level
of his senile vapourings. But itis also true that all men and women
have what may be called a subconscious dramatic sense that is
awakened by a sufficiently deep and powerful emotion — a sense
‘unconsciously acquired from literature and the stage that prompts
them to express those emotions in language befitting their impor-
tance and histrionic value.’
‘And in the name of seven sacred saddle-blankets of Sagittarius,
where did the stage and literatace get the scunt?* asked Dawe.
“From life,’ answered the editor erit
“The story-writer rose from the bench and gesticulated elo-
bbut dumbly. He was beggared for words with which to
‘his dissent.
‘On a bench near by a frowsy loafer opened his red eyes and
Beesived tht his mora ewpport was doe wo « down-todden
Punch him one, Jack” he called hoarse to Dawe. Wat's he
‘come makin’ a noise like 2 penny arcade for amongst gen’lemen
that comes in the Square to set and chink?”
Editor Westbrook looked at his watch with an affected show of
leisure.
“Tell me,’ asked Dawe, with truculent anxiety, ‘what especial
faults in “The Alarum of the Soul” caused you to throw it down.”
“When Gabriel Murray,’ said Westbrook, ‘goes to his telephone
and is told that his fiancée has been shot by a burglar, he says ~ 1
ddo not recall the exact words, but —”
‘I do,’ said Dawe. ‘He says: “Damn Central; she always cuts me
off.” (And then to his friend): “Say, Tommy, does a thirty-two
bullet make a big hole? It’s kind of hard luck, ain’t it? Could you
‘get me a drink from the sideboard, Tommy? No; straight; nothing
‘on the side.” ” © WENRY ~ 100 SELECTED STORIES 333
and then photography, in spite of its impossible perspective, man-
ages to record a fleeting glimpse of cruth. But you spoil every
denouement by those flat, drab, obliterating strokes of your brush
that I have so often complained of. If you would rise to the liter-
ary pinnacle of your dramatic scenes, and paint them in the high
colours that art requires, the postman would leave fewer bulky,
self-addressed envelopes at your door.”
‘Oh, fiddles and footlights"” cried Dawe derisively. ‘You've got
that old sawmill drama kink in your brain yet. When the man with
the black moustache kidnaps golden-haired Bessie you ure bound
to have the mother kneel and raise her hands in the spotlight ond
say: “May high heaven witness that I will rest neither night nor
day till che heartless villain that has stolen me child feels the
weight of a mother’s vengeance!” *
Editor Westbrook conceded a smile of impervious complacency.
‘T think,’ said he, ‘that in real life the woman would express her-
self in those words or in very similar ones.”
"Not in a six hundred nights’ run anywhere but on the stage,’
said Dawe hotly. ‘I'l tell you what she'd say in real life. She'd say:
“What! Bessie led away by a strange man? Good Lord! Ie’s one
trouble after another! Get my other hat, I must hurry around to
the police-station. Why wasn’t somebody looking after her, I'd
like to know? For God's sake, get out of my way or I'l never get
ready. Not that hat ~ the brown one with the velvet bows. Bessie
must have been crazy; she’s usually shy of strangers. Is that too
much powder? Lordy! How I'm upset!”
“That's the way she'd talk,’ continued Dawe. ‘People in real life
don't fly into heroics and blank verse at emotional crises. They
simply can’t do it. If they talk at all on such occasions they draw
from the same vocabulary that they use every day, and muddle up
their words and ideas alittle more, that’s all.”
‘Shack,’ said Editor Westbrook impressively, ‘did you ever pick
‘up the mangled and lifeless form of a child from under the fender
ofa strcet-car, and earry it in your arms and lay it down before the
distracted mother? Did you ever do that and listen to the words of
srief and despair as they flowed spontaneously from her lips?”
‘Lnever did,’ said Dawe. ‘Did you"
“Well, no,’ said Féitor Westbrook, with a slight frown. “Bue T
‘an well imagine what she would say.”
“So can I,’ said Dawe.
‘And now the fitting time had come for Editor Westbrook to play
the oracle and silence his opinionated contributor. It was not for an 332 © HENRY ~ 100 SELECTED STORIES
em she cele green beach. He ebay eed grey when
yield.
Dawe snapped at the cigar as a kingfisher darts at a sunperch, o
4 girl pecks ata chocolate cream.
“Thave just’ began the editor.
“Oh, I know; don’t finish,’ said Dawe. ‘Give me a match. You
have just ten minutes to spare. How did you manage to get past
my office-boy and invade my sanctum? There he goes now,
throwing his club at a dog that couldn't read the "Keep off the
Grass” signs.’
“How goes the writing?’ asked the editor.
‘Look at me,’ said Dawe, ‘for your answer. Now don’t put on
that embarrassed, friendly-but-honest look and ask me why I
don't get a job as a wine agent or a cab-driver. I'm in the fight to
2 finish. I know I can write good fiction and I'll force you fellows
to admit it yet. Pl make you change the spelling of “regrets” to
“ceh-e-q-u-e” before I'm done with you.
Bie Wests eed rae i ose dss ih ety
sorrowful, omniscient, sympathetic, sceptical expression - the
‘copyrighted expression of the editor beleaguered by the unavailable
contributor.
“Have you read the last story I sent you ~ “The Alarum of the
Soul"? asked Dawe.
‘Carefully. I hesitated over that story, Shack, realy I did. It had
some good poins. I was writing you a letter to send with it when
it goes back to you. I regret’
‘Never mind the regrets,’ said Dawe grimly. “There’s neither
salve nor sting in ‘em any more. What I want to know is why.
Come, now; out with the good points first’
‘The story,’ said Westbrook deliberately, after a suppressed
sigh, “is written around an almost original plot. Characterization ~
the best you have done. Construction ~ almost as good, except for
a few weak joints which might be strengthened by a few changes
and touches. It was a good story, except ~’
‘Lcan write English, can’t I?’ interrupted Dawe.
‘Lhave always told you,’ said the editor, ‘that you had a style.”
“Then the trouble is the —”
“Same old thing,’ said Editor Westbrook. ‘You work up to your