University of Virginia Library

24. CHAPTER XXIV.
FAME AWAITS DREEME.

I was indisposed next morning to face my associates
at the club, or any chance acquaintance
at the Minedurt. I went off and took a dismal,
solitary breakfast at Selleridge's. The place had
a claim on my gratitude, since it had supplied the
materials of our gentle orgie in Chrysalis.

As I walked forlornly back, I endeavored to
prepare myself for my appointed interview with
Emma Denman.

I knew that a woman may blind herself to the
measure and quality of a man's admiration; I
knew that she can even desperately accept his
heart; but I also knew that only a woman
thoroughly deteriorated by deceit can listen to a
lover's final words of trust, and still conceal from
him one single fact in all her history that might
forbid his love. She must reveal, or let her
lover know she cannot reveal. She will, unless
she has grown base and shameless, scorn to be a
lie — yes, even for a moment, after the avowal of
love — a lie to one she loves, whatever the truth

may cost. I believed that, if I went to Emma
Denman, and said, “We are before God, I love
you,” she would be true, and, if the truth commanded,
would say, “Robert, you must not.”
So waiting until our interview, I held my agony
under, as one presses a finger upon a torn artery,
while the surgeon lingers.

In the letter-box in my door at Chrysalis I
found this note: —

My finger on the bleeding artery a little longer.

While I stood reading and re-reading this billet,
in the bewilderment of one thrust back into
suspense from the brink of certainty, I heard a
knock at my door.

I opened. It was Pensal, the artist.

Pensal occupied a studio in a granite house
which continues the architecture of Chrysalis
along Mannering Place. It had once been a
residence for the President. But perhaps the
salary of that official grew contingent, — perhaps
it was paid in Muddefontaine bonds. Certain
it was that no President now dwelt in this supplementary
building; but, like the main Chrysalis,
it was let to lodgers. Among these was Pensal.

A friendship had begun to crystallize between
us. He was a profound observer, as well as a
great artist.

Pensal came in, and looked at me for a moment
in silence.

“What is it?” said I. “What new do you
find in my face?”

“Much. And you too have stepped into the
Valley of the Shadow of Death? Well, a friend
can only say, God help you! It comes to us all.”

“Yes, Pensal, the shadow is upon me.”

“It will pass away. You cannot believe it
now; but the shadow will drift away. It cannot
blight the immortal man. Be sure of that!”

“But there is immortal grief.”

“While you think so, you have a right to look
a hundred years older than you did yesterday.
But, Byng, I came to ask you a favor, not to
criticise you. I am in a sea of troubles.”

“`Take arms, and by opposing end them.'”

“Very well for you to say, who know better
this moment by your own experience. So far as
taking arms — that is towels and sponges —
against my sea can go, I have ended it; but its
wet bottom remains. The fact is, that I am suffering
from a vulgar misery. My Croton pipe
burst in the thaw last night. My studio is the
bed of a lake with all manner of drowned entomology,
looking slimy and ichthyological.”

“Do bring your work over here.”

“Thank you. You have anticipated my request.”

“You are a godsend to me. I could not tolerate
this morning a fellow with a new treasure-trove
of scandal, the last cynical joke or base
story”; — and I thought of Densdeth, and other
men, the coarsened and exaggerated shadows of
Densdeth, who sometimes lounged in upon me
for a lazy hour.

“I will be a treble godsend,” said Pensal. “I
will bring you not only myself, but two friends,
whose lips or hearts are never sullied with anything
scandalous or cynical.”

“A pair of plaster casts, — a pair of lay figures?”

“You are cynical yourself. No; two men,
fresh and pure.”

“En avant, with such sports of Nature!”

“With such types of manhood! Sion, the
sculptor, is in town for a day or two. I caught
him last night, and he promised to sit to me this
morning. Towers, also, is to come and stir up
Sion while he sits, — to put him through his paces
of expression.”

“Ah, Towers and Sion! I withdraw my doubts.
If my great barn here will serve you, pray bring
your tools and your men over at once.”

Pensal went off for his friends.

I was delighted with this interruption. It was
a tourniquet on the bleeding artery.

I had felt too forlorn to solace myself with
Cecil Dreeme's society this morning. I was conscious,
also, that I could not see him now without
pouring forth the whole story of my doubtful love
for Emma Denman, my hesitant resolve to be her
lover, the shock of last night, and the suspense
of to-day. All this, with only the name suppressed,
I knew must gush from me when I saw
my friend of friends. And yet, by a certain inexplicable
instinct, I shrank from thrusting such
confidence upon him. I loved him too much,
and with too peculiar a tenderness, to tell him
that I had fancied I loved even a woman better
than him.

I had said to myself, “I will wait for my usual
evening walk with Dreeme, and then, if my heart
opens toward him, I will let the current flow.
He cannot console; he will teach me to be patient.”

Meantime I welcomed the visit of Pensal and
our two friends, as a calm distraction in my miserable
mood. I was too much shaken and unmanned
to trust myself out in the world and at
my tasks.

Presently Pensal arrived with the two gentlemen,
and set up his easel before my window.

I need hardly describe men so well known as

the three artists, Sion, Towers, and Pensal. Indeed,
as their business in this drama is merely to
hasten one event by a few hours, it would be
impertinent to distinguish them as salient characters.
I glance at them merely, as they enter,
halt a moment, do their part and disappear.

It was a blessed relief to me that morning to
have their society. And now that I compel myself
to write this sorrowful history, the relief is
hardly less, to pause here and recall how blessed
then it was. I had never known fully until then
what it was to have the friendship of pure and
true hearts.

Pensal sat down and wielded his crayon with
a rapid hand. Each of the party, artist, sitter,
critic, began to scintillate, to flash and glow,
according to the fire that was in him.

Stillfleet's collection suggested much of our
conversation. It was, as I have said, an epitome
of all history. My three guests took the American
view of history; that, give the world results,
the means by which those results were attained
cease to be of any profound value or interest.
Everything ancient is perpetually on its trial, —
whether its day has not come to be superannuated,
and so respectably buried. Antiquity deserves
commendation and gratitude; but no peculiar
reverence or indulgence. The facts and systems
of the past are mainly rubbish now; what is

precious is the spirit of the present, which those
systems have reared, or at least failed to strangle,
and those facts have mauled strong and tempered
fine.

These three great artists act on this theory,
adapted to art. Hence their vigor. Hence also
their recognition by a nation whose principle is
faith in the present, — the only healthy faith for
a man or Man.

While the magnetic current of a lively conversation
flowed, Pensal worked away at his paper.

Presently, on the blank surface, a semblance of
a man's face began to appear, rather fancied than
distinguished, as we behold a countenance far
away, and say, “Who is it?” — the question
implying the instant answer, as we approach,
“It is he!”

Sion's head, mildly lion-like, grew forth from
the sheet, — lion-like, with its heavy mane of hair
and beard. A potent face, but gentle.

Slowly the creation grew more distinct. The
face drew near, and demanded recognition for its
spiritual traits.

It was Sion's self.

And yet it was not the Sion who sat there
before us, in high spirits, making jokes, telling
stories, laughing with a frank and almost boyish
gayety of heart, as if his life was all careless jubilee,
and never visited by those dreams of tender,

nay, of pensive and of melancholy sweetness,
which he puts into undying marble.

Yet it was this joyous companion too, and
the other and many another Sion, whom we
had always known, but never perceived that
we had known, until this moment.

In fact, Pensal, a master, had not merely seized
and combined the essence of all Sion's possible
looks in all possible moods; but he had divined
and created the inspiration the sculptor's face
would wear, if changeful mortal features could
show the calm and final beauty of the immortal
soul. The picture was Sion's apotheosis.

“Come and look at yourself, Sion,” said Towers,
as this expression at last by a subtle touch
revealed itself. “Pensal has drawn you as you
will look in Valhalla, if you are a good boy,
and don't make any bad statues, and so get your
own niche there at last.”

Sion stepped round to survey himself.

“I am lucky,” said he, “Pensal, to have
nothing to be ashamed of lurking in my heart.
You would be forced to obey your insight, drag
it out, and set it inexorably in full view, in
my portrait. It 's well for Byng, there, that
you are not doing him this morning.”

“Why?” said I.

“You look as if `Et tu, Brute?' had been
giving you a deadly stab. But what a poor

bungler, compared with Pensal, the sun is in
picturing men!” continued Sion. “To say
nothing of his swelling our noses and blubbering
our lips, spoiling our lights and blackening
our shades, he can only take us as we choose to
look while he is having his little wink at us.”

“And a man cannot choose to look his noblest
on occasion. A got-up look is generally a grimace,”
says Towers.

“Well, Pensal,” said Sion, “your picture convinces
me that I am not a miserable failure and
a humbug, who cannot see anything in marble
or out. Now let me free for a moment. I
am tired of sitting to be probed and flayed.”

Sion took his furlough, and strayed about the
room, glancing at Stillfleet's precious objects. I
stepped aside to get a cigar for Pensal.

“Ah!” cried Sion. “Here is a fresh thing.
This was never painted in Europe; and yet I
do not know any one here who could do it.”

He had found the sketch, my present from
Cecil Dreeme. In my sickness of heart last
night, I had neglected the painter's injunction,
and left it exposed on my table, half covered
by a newspaper.

Sion held it up for inspection.

Now that it had been seen, there was nothing
to do, except to get the approval of these final
authorities, and communicate it to Dreeme.

“It is a new hand,” said I, “what do you
think of it?”

“She has great power, as well as delicacy,”
said Pensal, — the others waiting for him to
speak.

“She! Who?” I asked.

“The artist.”

“Odd fancy of yours! It is a man.”

“What! and paint only a back view of a
woman? I supposed that being a woman, as
the general handling too suggests, she took less
interest in her own sex; or, on the other hand,
fancied that she could not represent it worthily.”

“O no!” said I. “He had no female model.”

“Probably,” said Towers, “he is too young
to have a woman's image in his brain, which
fevers him until he wreaks it on a canvas.”

“Man or woman,” said Sion, “and I confess
it seems to me to have a somewhat epicene
character, it is a very promising work, — a pretty
anecdote well told. I should like to see what
this C. D. — it seems to be so signed — can do
in other subjects calling for deeper feeling.”

“A friend of mine in the building has other
drawings and sketches by the same hand. I
will see if I can borrow them,” said I.

“Do,” said Sion. “If they are worthy of
this, we must know him, and have him known
at once. Fame waits him. Here is that fine
something called Genius.”

If Dreeme would only profit by this chance,
and give his fame into the hands of my friends,
his success was achieved.

I forgot my own sorrows, and ran up-stairs,
eager to persuade the recluse to seize this moment,
to terminate his exile and step forth into
the light of day.