 | CHAPTER XV.
A MORNING WITH DENSDETH. Cecil Dreeme |  |
15. CHAPTER XV.
A MORNING WITH DENSDETH.
I slept late after our gentle Orgie, my second
night on shore.
A loud rapping awoke me.
I opened. Churm was at the door, stout stick
in hand, stout shoes on his feet, stout coat on
his back, — the sturdiest man to be seen, search
a continent for his fellow! He had the Herculean
air of one who has been out giving the world a
lift by way of getting an appetite for breakfast.
“Good morning,” said he, marching in. “This
will never do, my tallish young Saxon, come
home to work!”
“What?”
“Nine A. M., and your day's task not begun!”
“I worked too late last night.”
“At the mysteries of your trade? I doubt if
you encountered a deeper one than I in my
watch.”
“Perhaps, and perhaps not. What was yours?”
“The heart of a wrong-doer.”
“That transcends my trade's methods of analysis.”
“And in this case, my powers.”
“You are speaking of your protégé, Towner,”
said I, going on with my toilette.
“Of him. He has a confession to make to
me. He dares not quite confess. He comes up
timorously, like a weak-kneed horse to his leap;
then he seems to see something on the other
side; he flinches and sheers into a Serbonian bog
of lies.”
“Afraid of the consequences of confession?”
“Not of the ordinary punishment of guilt,
nor of any ordinary revenge from his ancient
master in evil.”
“Namely, as you allege, Densdeth.”
“Densdeth.”
“I shall grow perverse enough to take Densdeth's
part, and cast my shell to de-ostracize him
from his moral ostracism, if I hear him called
The Unjust by all the world.”
“Don't be Quixotic, Byng. There is more
vanity than generosity in that.”
“And what dreadful vengeance does your weakling
fear?”
“He thinks that, if he betrays his master, he
shall never save himself from that master's clutch.
Densdeth will pursue him and debase his soul
through all the eternities, as he has done in this
life.”
“Quite a metaphysical distress!”
“Don't laugh at him! It is a real agony with
him; and who knows but the danger is real?”
“You do not get at what the poor devil has
done in which you are interested?”
“Not at all. And his moral struggle with
himself, and defeat, have plunged him back into
such pitiable weakness of body, that we have lost
all we had gained. The doctor says that it will
kill him to see me again for weeks.”
“So Densdeth is respited. Well, I will study
him in the interval, and find out for myself
whether he is `main de fer, sous patte de velours.'”
“Very well, Byng; I see you are resolved to
buy your experience. Densdeth has magnetized
you. He does most young men.”
“I don't know yet whether I shall turn to him
my positive or negative pole. He may repel,
instead of attracting, as soon as I get within his
sphere. I acknowledge that I am drawn to him.”
“Now then, enough of such topics. My vigils
have given me an appetite. I want to reverse
`qui dort dine,' and read `qui déjeune dort.'”
“Where shall we go? Chuzzlewit, Patrick
rampant, flannel cakes, and Densdeth?”
“No; a better place. The Minedurt, close by.”
“Unpropitious name!”
“Surnames go by contraries. This is old
Knickerbocker. It should read `The Grotto of
Neatness,' instead of the `Minedurt.'”
An avenue — The Avenue — flows up hill,
northward, from the middle of Ailanthus Square.
Churm conducted me a few blocks along that
channel of wealth. He stopped in front of the
Minedurt, a hotel with restaurant attached. Respectable
could not have been more distinctly
stamped upon a building, if it had been written
up in a great label across the front, and in a
hundred little labels everywhere, like the big red
Ten and the little red tens on a bank-bill.
“Notice that large house across the street,”
said Churm, halting before this respectable establishment.
“I do. It is nearer civilization than anything
I have seen. A fine house. Happy the owner!
if he appreciates architecture.”
“Happy!” said Churm, bitterly. “It is Denman's
house! He had ancestral acres here, and
was one of the first to perceive that the cream
would settle in his grandfather's cow-pasture.”
“Stop a moment! The tragedy of my old
playmate gives the house a strange sanctity in
my eyes.”
“It is cursed,” said Churm. “No happiness
to its tenants, — only harm to its friends, until
the wrong done my child there has been expiated.”
“Has not her father's grief atoned for his
error?”
“You cannot understand my feelings, Byng.
You did not know Clara Denman.”
I paused to inspect the mansion, sanctified to
me by death. Death sanctifies, birth consecrates
a home.
Sanctified? But the death here was perhaps
a suicide. So some alleged. Can a suicide sanctify?
Does it not desecrate? Do not some
churches deny the corpse, a self-slayer flung
away, its hiding-place in holy ground? No
suicide near the sleeping saints! A man may
strangle himself with good dinners, or poison
himself with fine old Madeira or coarse old Monongahela;
a bad conscience, gnawing day and
night, may eat away his heart; he may have
murdered the woman that once loved him, by
judicious slow torture; he may have murdered
the friend that trusted him, by a peevish No,
when it was help or death; no matter! He will
be allowed as comfortable a grave as a sexton can
dig, six feet by two in soft soil under green sod,
and the priest will dust his dust with all the
compliments in the burial service. But let him
have put a knife to his throat, or a bullet in his
brain, because he could not any longer face the
woman he had wronged, or the friend he had
betrayed, — what shudders then of sexton and
priest! No place for him beside the glutton and
the drunkard! The cruel husband or the false
Out with him! Out with the accursed
thing! To the dogs with the carrion!
Not sanctified, — saddened, I could, without
any one's protest, consider Mr. Denman's house.
Hundreds, no doubt, every day envied the happy
owner. How grand to possess that stately edifice
of contrasted freestones, purple and drab;
those well-cut pilasters; that dignified roof, in
the old chateau manner, fitly capping the whole;
that majestic portal; those great windows, heavily
draped, but allowing the inner magnificence
to peer through, conscious, but not ostentatious;
— how grand to stand and call this mine!
Hundreds, no doubt, envied Mr. Denman every
day. First in the morning, journeymen, hurrying
by with a poor dinner in a tin canister; next,
Tittlebat Titmouse, on his way to the counter;
then some clerk of higher degree, seller by the
piece instead of the yard, by the cargo instead of
the pound, bustling down town to his desk;
next the poor book-keeper, with twelve hundred
a year, and a mouth to every hundred; then the
broken-down merchant, who must show himself
on the Street, though the Street noted him no
more; and so on in order, the financial dignitary,
the club-man lounging to his late breakfast
or his morning stroll, the country cousin seeing
the lions, the woman of fashion driving up to
walking up town with her lover; and then at
night the night-bird skulking by; — all these
envied the tenants of the Denman mansion, or
at least fancied them fortunate. And all houses
announce as little as that the miseries that may
dwell within!
“Come, Byng,” said my friend, “you cannot
see into the heart of that house by staring at it.”
We passed in to our breakfast. Over our
coffee we glided into cheerful talk. I consulted
Churm, and he frankly advised me as to my
future.
And so, speaking of my own prospects, we
spoke of the hopes and duties of my generation
to our country.
“We are the first,” said I, “who understand
what an absolute Republic means, and what it
can do.”
“The first as a generation. Individuals have
always comprehended it,” said Churm.
“And now, acting together, on a larger scale,
with a grander co-operation, we will inaugurate
the new era for the noblest manhood and the
purest womanhood the world has ever known.”
I had spoken ardently.
At once, as if in echo to my words, I heard
Densdeth's cynic laugh behind me.
My enthusiasm perished.
I turned uneasily. Was Densdeth laughing
at my silly boyish fervors?
He was sitting two tables off, breakfasting with
a well-known man about town. Densdeth's companion
was one of those who have beauty which
they debase, talents which they bury, money
which they squander. He was a man of fine
genius, but genius under a murky cloud, flashing
out rarely in a sad or a scornful way. A
man sick of himself, sorry for himself. A wasted
life, hating itself for its waste, wearing itself out
with self-reproach that it was naught. Some
evil influence had clutched him after his first
success and his first sorrow. Thenceforth his
soul was paralyzed. The success had nurtured
a lazy pride, instead of an exalting ambition.
The sorrow had made him tender to himself and
hard to others. What was that evil influence?
Could it be in the dark face beside him?
Densdeth nodded to me familiarly, as I turned.
“Don't forget,” said he, “our appointment at
one. You know Raleigh, I believe.”
Mr. Raleigh and I bowed cordially.
We had met in Europe. We had sympathized
on art and nature. I had touched only his better
side, though I saw the worse. I liked Raleigh,
and fancied, as a boy fancies, that I had a certain
power over him, and that for good.
We all rose together after our breakfast.
“Are you killing time, or nursing it, Byng?”
said Densdeth.
“Killing it for a day or two, until I acclimate
to the atmosphere of work.”
“Unless you have something better to do, drop
over with us to the club. You must know the
men. We will have a game of billiards until
one.”
“Yes, come, Byng,” invited Raleigh's sweet
voice.
“Thank you,” I said. “Business, in the form
of Mr. Churm, deserts me. Pleasure woos. I
yield.”
“Take care!” said Churm to me, as we walked
away. “I see you insist upon personal experience.”
“O yes! Nothing vicarious for me! I will
nibble at our friend. I 'll try not to bite, for fear
of the poison you threaten.”
Churm left us, and walked across Ailanthus
Square, on his way down town.
“I must look in at my quarters for a moment,”
said I to the others; “will you lounge on, and
let me overtake you, or honor me with a visit?”
“Let us drop in, Raleigh,” said Densdeth. “I
am curious to see how the old place looks, with
Stillfleet's breezes out and Byng's calms in.”
I did the honors, and then, establishing my
guests with cigars, I excused myself, and ran upstairs
Churm's presence and a lively appetite together
had delayed this duty. Besides, I had felt that
he ought not to be disturbed too early.
I knocked, and spoke my name. The recluse
might sport oak to the knock alone.
“Coming,” responded his gentle voice.
Presently the door opened enough to admit
me, but not to display the interior of the chamber
to any inquisitive passer.
I was struck, even more than last night, by the
singular, refined beauty of the youth. And then
his body was so worn and thin, that his soul
seemed to get very close to me.
His personal magnetism — that is, the touch
of his soul on mine — affected me more keenly
than before. It was having cumulative influence.
The mighty medicines for soul and body
always do.
And so do the poisons.
“You are looking quite vigorous and cheerful
this morning,” I said, exaggerating a little. “I
congratulate you on your leap out of death into
full life.”
“It is to you I owe it,” he said, with deep
feeling.
He grasped my hand, and then dropped it
suddenly again, as if he feared he was taking
a liberty.
(How exactly I remember every word and
gesture of those first interviews! Ah, Cecil
Dreeme! how little I fancied then what salvage
you were to pay me for my succor!)
“You are hard at work again, I see.” I pointed
to his palette and brushes. “Be cautious!
Do not overdo it! You must be under my orders
for a while.”
I was conscious of claiming this power a
little timidly, such was the quiet dignity of the
young man.
“I will try to be wiser now, since I have a
friend who is willing to admonish me.”
“Now,” continued he, as if to turn attention
from himself, “look at my picture! I want
a slashing criticism. You cannot find faults
that I do not see myself.”
I stepped back to look at it. A work of
power! Crude, indeed; but with force enough
to justify any crudity.
Its deep tragedy struck me silent.
“Do not spare me,” said Dreeme. “Silence
is severer than blame. Say, at least, that it is
pretty well for a novice, — pretty well considing
my years and my practice.”
“What has happened to you?” said I, staring
at his pale, worn face. “What right have you,
in the happy days of youth, to the knowledge
that has taught you to paint tragedy thus?
Mr. Dreeme, your picture is a revelation. I
pity you from my heart.”
“You do not believe,” said he, evasively,
“that imagination can supply the want of experience?”
“Imagination must have experience to transfuse
into new facts. You, of course, have not
had an unjust father, like your Lear, nor a
disloyal sister, like your Goneril; nor have you
felt a withering curse, as your Cordelia does.
But tyranny and treachery must have touched
you. They have initiated you into their modes
of action and expression. Do not find inquisitiveness
implied in my criticism. I pity you
too much for the ability and impulse to paint
thus, to be curious how it came.”
“Believe, then,” said Dreeme, “and it may
help you to make allowances for me, that I
know in my own life what tragedy means.
That experience commands me to do violence
to my love of beauty and happy scenes, and
paint agony, as I have done there. And now,
pray let us be technical. That white drapery,
— how does it fall? Are the lines stiff? Is
there too much starch in the linen, or too little?”
“Technicality another time. I am uncivil
even in delaying so long. Two gentlemen are
waiting for me below.”
“Your friend, Mr. Churm?” he asked, looking
away.
“No. Mr. Densdeth and Mr. Raleigh.”
“Densdeth!” said he, with a slight shudder.
“You see I have the susceptible nerves of an
artist. I tremble at the mere sound of such
an ill-omened name. Should you not naturally
avoid a person called Densdeth?” And as if
the sound fascinated him, he repeated, “Densdeth!
Densdeth!”
“Name and man are repulsive; but attractive
also. Attractive by repulsion.”
“Take my advice, and obey the repulsion.
Poisons are not made bitter that we may school
ourselves to like them. If this person, with a
boding name, repels you, do not taste him, as
one tastes opium. Curiosity may make you a
slave.”
“Odd, that you, a stranger, should have the
usual prejudice against Densdeth!”
“Consider that I am as one raised from the
dead, and so perhaps clairvoyant. I use my
power to warn you, as you have saved me.”
“Thank you,” said I; “I will see you this
evening, and tell you how far I am ruined by a
morning with this bête noir. If he spoils me, you
must repair the harm.”
I walked to the door. He released me with a
cautious glance into the hall. I ran down stairs
and apologized for my delay to my guests.
“It is a privilege to wait, my dear fellow,”
said Densdeth, “in such a treasure-house. We
have been looking at these droll old tapestries of
Purgatory and a hotter place. Raleigh insists
that the seducing devil, wooing those revellers to
hell, is my precise image.”
“No doubt of it,” says Raleigh. “You must
be Mephistophiles himself. Those fifteenth-century
fellows have got your portrait to the life.
It seems you were at the same business then, as
now.”
Densdeth laughed. Raleigh and I laughed in
answer. Both had caught that mocking tone of
his.
“Not only are you the devil of the tapestry,”
said Raleigh, “but I see myself among your victims.”
“You flatter me,” said Densdeth, again with
his sinister laugh.
“Yes, and Byng too, and certain ladies we
know of. I really begin to be lazily superstitious.
Don't make it too hot for me, Densdeth,
when you get me below. I 've only been a negative
sinner in this world, — no man's enemy but
my own.”
Raleigh's jest was half earnest. That and the
demonish quality in Densdeth quickened my
glance at the old altar-cloth, which hung on the
wall, among Stillfleet's prints and pictures.
Under these impressions, I did indeed identify
Densdeth with the cloven-hoofed tempter in this
characteristic bit of mediæval art. Raleigh was
surely there, in the guise of a languid Bacchanal,
crowned with drooping vine-leaves. I myself
was also there, — a youth, only half consenting,
dragged along by an irresistible attraction. And
continuing my observations, I recognized other
friends, faintly imaged in the throng on the tapestry.
An angel, looking sadly at the evil one's
triumph and my fall, was Cecil Dreeme's very
self. And up among the judges sat Churm, majestic
as a prophet of Michael Angelo.
“Come,” said Densdeth, — he was by chance
standing in the exact attitude of the Tempter in
the tapestry, — “come; we shall have but just
time for Byng's introduction and our game of
billiards.”
“Lead on, your majesty!” said Raleigh.
“We needs must follow, — to billiards or the
bottomless pit.”
We walked to the club. It was the crack club
then. Years ago it went to pieces. Its gentlemen
have joined better. Its legs and loafers
have sunk to bar-rooms.
The loungers there were languid when we entered.
No scandal had yet come up from Wall Street;
none down from Murray Hill.
The morning was still virgin of any story of
disaster to character, financial or social.
The day had not done its duty, — a mere dies
non, and promising only to be dies perdita.
To be sure it was still a young day. It might
still ruin somebody, pocket or reputation. Somebody,
man or woman, might go to protest, and
shame every indorser, before three o'clock.
But everybody at the club had made it seven
bells; eight bells would presently strike, and no
sign of the day's ration of scandal. They could
not mumble all the afternoon over the stale crusts
of yesterday; they could not put bubble into
yesterday's heel-taps. Everybody was bored. Life
was a burden at the windows, by the fire, at the
billiard-tables, of that rotten institution.
Densdeth's arrival made a stir.
“See these gobemouches,” whispered Raleigh
to me. “They think Densdeth, the busy man,
would never come here at this hour in the morning,
unless some ill had happened, — unless there
were some new man to jeer, or woman to flout.
Now see how he will treat them.”
The languid loungers lost their air of nonchalance.
There was a general move toward
our party. The click of balls upon the tables
was still. The players came forward, cue in
hand. These unknightly knights of the Long
Table stood about us, with the blunted lances
the fate of some comrade in the dust, of some
damsel soiled with scorn. Remember, that these
were only the baser sort of the members. Heroes
may sometimes lounge. Real heroes may play
billiards, like the Phelan, and be heroes still.
Densdeth's manner with his auditory was a
study.
“Pigs,” he seemed to say, “I suppose I must
feed you. Gobble up this and this, ye rabble
rout! Take your fare and my mental kicking
with it.”
Soon he tired of the herd, and led the way to
a billiard-table, apart.
“I wanted to show you, Byng,” said he, with
an air of weary disgust, “what kind of men will
be your associates among the idlers.”
“The busy men are nobler, I hope,” said I.
“You shall see. I will give you the entrée to
the other worlds, — the business world, the literary
world, the religious world, all of them. Possibly
you may not have quite outlived your
illusions. Possibly you may have fancied that
men are to be trusted on a new continent. Possibly
you may believe in the success of a society
and polity based on the assumption that mankind
is not an ass when he is not a villain, and
vice versa.”
“I had some such fancy.”
“Better be disenchanted now, than disappointed
by and by. Apropos, don't suppose I
often degrade myself to the level of that swinish
multitude of scandal-mongers. But when I saw
them so greedy, I could not forbear giving them
diet, according to their stomachs.”
“What an infernal humbug you are, Densdeth!”
said Raleigh, marking a five-shot; “you
love to spoil those boys, and keep the men spoilt.
If you were out of the world, they would all
reform, and go to sucking honey, instead of
poison.”
“We are all humbugs,” rejoined Densdeth;
“I want to put Byng on his guard against me
and the rest. He might get some unhappy
notion, that in America men are brave and
women are pure.”
I kept my protest to myself, willing to study
Densdeth further.
Densdeth led the conversation, as indeed he
never failed to do. He was a keen, hard analyzer
of men, utterly sceptical to good motives. There
is always just such a proportion of selfishness in
every man's every act; there must be, because
there is a man in it. It may be the larger half,
the lesser half, a fraction, the mere dust of an
atom, that makes the scale descend. Densdeth
always discovered the selfish purpose, put it in
focus, held up a lens of his own before it. At
whole.
Densdeth was the Apostle of Disenchantment.
No paradisiacal innocence where he entered.
He revealed evil everywhere. That was at the
core, according to him, however smooth the surface
showed. Power over others consisted in
finding that out. And that power was the only
thing, except sensuality, worth having.
Thus I condense my impressions of him. I
did not know him, in and in, out and out, after
this first morning at the club, nor after many
such meetings. I learnt him slowly.
Yet I think I divined him from the first. I
did not state to my own mind, then, why he
captivated me, — why he sometimes terrified me,
— why I had a hateful love for his society. In
fact, the power of deeply analyzing character
comes with a maturity that I had not attained.
I was to pay price for my knowledge. Densdeth's
shadow was to fall upon me. My danger
with evil personified, in such a man as Densdeth,
was to sear into me a profound and saving horror
of evil. One does not read the moral, until the
tale is told.
We played our billiards. One o'clock struck.
We left Raleigh to be bored with the world and
sick of himself, to knock the balls about, and
wish he had been born a blacksmith or a hodcarrier.
Densdeth and I walked to the Denmans.
“You will see a very captivating young lady,”
he said, with a sharp and rapid glance at me.
I was aware of a conscious look. He caught
it also.
“Aha, Byng! a little tenderness for the old
playmate! Well, perhaps she has been waiting
for you. She has looked coldly on scores of
lovers.”
There was a familiarity in his tone which
offended me. It seemed to sneer away the delicacy
I felt towards one with whom I had childish
passages of admiration ten years ago. I was
angry at his disposing of my destiny and hers at
once. In turn, I looked sharply at him, and said,
in the same careless tone, “How does Miss Denman
compare with her sister?”
Not a spark of emotion in his impassive face.
There might have been a slight smile, as if to
say, “This boy fancies that he is able to probe
me, and learn why I courted the less beautiful
sister, and what I did to drive her mad and to
death.” But the smile vanished, and he said,
quietly: “We will not speak of the dead, if you
please. Among the living, Miss Denman stands
alone. A great prize, Byng! People that pretend
to know say that Mr. Denman is a millionnaire.
See what a grand house he lives in!”
“Grand houses sometimes make millionnaires
had told me.
“I am quite sure no pauper owns this,” Densdeth
said, measuring it with a look, as we walked
up the steps.
I remembered what Churm had said, and
fancied I saw at least mortgagee, if not proprietor,
in my companion's eye. Was he inspecting
to see if his house needed a trowelful
of mortar, or a gutter repaired?
| CHAPTER XV.
A MORNING WITH DENSDETH. Cecil Dreeme | |