The Pagans by Arlo Bates

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"Upon my word," mused Herman. "A cheerful looking man for a bridegroom
he is. If he were going to the scaffold he could hardly seem more
melancholy. What in the world is the matter with him? I wonder if he
has been dragged into a marriage he doesn't like. How Mrs. Greyson
watches him."

Helen was indeed watching Fenton closely, although to a less keen
observer than Herman her surveillance would hardly have been apparent.
She, too, was thinking of Fenton's downcast air, and knowing him more
intimately than did the sculptor, she reasoned less doubtfully,
although perhaps not more accurately than the latter concerning what
was passing in the mind of her silent friend.

"He surely loves Miss Caldwell," she thought, "but he is so foolish. He
is thinking now that he will never meet these comrades again as an
unhampered man. He feels just now all he is giving up. I should like
him better to remember what he is gaining. Are all men inherently
selfish, I wonder. It is well for Miss Caldwell's peace of mind that
she cannot see him now. Perhaps when he is with her he sees only the
other side; I am sure I hope so."

She turned away with a sigh, and saw Herman looking at her. Their eyes
met in one of those brief glances of intelligence which serve as fine
fibers to knit people together.

The conversation soon turned upon the opinion a certain critic had
expressed concerning a picture then on exhibition.

"Bah!" cried Fenton suddenly; "what does he know about art?--he is
bow-legged!"

"Hallo!" exclaimed Rangely, "have you waked up? I thought we were safe
from you for the whole evening."

"It is never safe to count on his silence," Herman said. "He has
probably been meditating some stinging epigram against woman. We shall
have something wild directly."

"No; I've nothing to say against women now," Arthur returned, rising,
"for I want Mrs. Greyson to sing. I wish you'd stop poisoning the air
with those confounded cigarettes, Fred. The use of cigarettes degrades
smoking to the level of the small vices, and I object to it on
principle."

He opened the piano as he spoke, and without demur Helen allowed him to
lead her to the instrument.

"If you do not mind," she said a little diffidently, turning to her
guests after she had seated herself, "I should like to have the gas
lowered a trifle. It may seem a little sentimental, but I do not like
to be looked at too keenly when I sing."

The flames of the gas jets were dimmed, and Helen struck a few soft
chords. Herman listened intently. He had heard Fenton praise Mrs.
Greyson's singing, but he was entirely unprepared for what was to come,
and he never forgot the thrill of that experience.

An unpretending, flowing prelude; then suddenly the tones of the
singer.

Helen's voice was a rich, fibrous mezzo-soprano; and the music she
sang, half chant, half melody, was evidently an improvisation. The
words were the exquisite song which opens Shelley's _Hellas:_

I strew these opiate flowers
On thy restless pillow,--
They were plucked from Orient bowers,
By the Indian billow.
Be thy sleep
Calm and deep,
Like theirs who fell; not ours who weep.

Away, unlovely dreams!
Away, false shapes of sleep!

Be his, as Heaven seems,
Clear and bright and deep!
Soft as love and calm as death,
Sweet as summer night without a breath.

Sleep! sleep! My song is laden
With the soul of slumber;
It was sung by a Samian maiden
Whose lover was of the number
Who now keep
That calm sleep
Whence none may wake; where none shall weep.

I touch thy temples pale!
I breathe my soul on thee!
And could my prayers avail,
All my joy should be
Dead, and I would live to weep,
So thou might'st win one hour of quiet sleep!

It is difficult to convey the effect of this song upon its hearers. The
strangeness, the unconventionality of the recitative, the wonderful,
sad beauty of the poem, the dim light through which Helen's vibrating,
passionate voice thrilled, all helped to impress the hearers. There was
a personal quality about the chant which made it seem like a direct
appeal from the singer to the heart of each listener. It came to each
as a spontaneous outflowing of the singer's innermost self; a
confidence made in mystic wise, sacred and inviolable, and setting him
honored by receiving it forever from the common multitude of men. It
was an appeal to some unspoken and unspeakable bond of fealty, which
made the pulses throb and great emotions stir in the breast. Before
hearing one would be stubbornly incredulous of the possibility of his
being so deeply affected; afterward he would remember how he had been
moved with wonder and longing.

Especially was Grant Herman much moved. Thoughts came into his mind of
the old minstrels chanting to their harps; he seemed to hear Sappho
singing again in the gardens of Mytilene; this was the woman he loved,
and he felt himself as never before surrounded palpably by her
presence. The improvisation was a part of herself as no other music
could have been; and in some subtle, sensuous way, the lover seemed for
the moment to be one with his beloved. His eyes filled with tears in a
sort of ecstasy, and he shrank back into the shadow lest some of his
friends should detect the glad, salt drops which no eyes but hers had a
right to see.

XIII.

THE GREAT ASSAY OF ART.
Macbeth; iv.--3.

A hush followed the conclusion of Mrs. Greyson's song.

No one wished to speak what all felt, and when the silence was broken,
it was with talk of the poet rather than of the singer. To the singing
they came only by slow degrees, and over it, when at length their
admiration found speech, they passed lightly.

One thing which seemed to be effected by the music was the awakening of
Fenton from his gloomy reverie. He began to talk in his most
extravagant and whimsical style, answering every question instantly, if
with no especial care concerning the relevancy of his replies.

"What nonsense it is," he exclaimed, "to talk of any man's originating
any thing. Why, when even Adam couldn't be made without material, what
are we, his descendants, that we should hope to create? The authors of
this old wisdom that we revamp to-day copied somebody further back, and
those in turn put down what the masses felt; collected the foam which
gathered on the yeasty waves of their age. Every truth comes to the
people first if they could only recognize it when it comes. It is
evolved by the friction of the masses, just as a fire is set by the
rubbing together of tree-boughs in primeval forests, and the dusky
redman incontinently roasted in his uncontaminated innocence. The
longer I live the less faith I have that a man evolves any thing from
his inner consciousness. Fancies are only the lies of the mendacious
brain, which perceives one thing and declares to us another."

"Go slow, Fenton," interrupted Herman, "you know our poor wits are apt
to be dazzled by too much brilliancy."

"The age," Fenton rattled on, "blooms once into a great man as an aloe
into a crown of bloom."

"Right in there," broke in Rangely, who longed for a share in the
conversation, "just consider how necessary it is that every art
producer shall be in sympathy with the human life about him. That he
should take the best wherever it is to be found. There's a miserable
sentiment about shutting one's self up in some dark corner, and
producing some tremendous thing. Don't you know how many New York and
Boston artists have gone to Europe and hermetically sealed themselves
up somewhere to ferment into greatness like a jug of cider turning into
vinegar in a farmer's cellar?"

"That's what made Hunt such a big fellow," Herman interposed; "because
he took the good wherever it offered."

"But that depends upon whether a man goes direct to Nature for
inspiration," declared Fenton, "or sets himself to get a living by
filching the good things his neighbors have won from her."

"Hunt did go to nature; that is just where he was great."

"I think," said Fred, laughingly, "that you will appreciate the mood in
which I once wrote a preface. I planned a great metaphysical and
philosophical work--I was a good deal younger than I am now--and the
preface was to be, 'As to the originality of these ideas, I have
nothing more to say than that I do not remember that they have ever
been printed with my name on the title-page.' Of course, after that
declaration, I felt at liberty to take any thing I wanted from any
where; but, unluckily, my book never got beyond the preface."

"I'm glad you had the sense to stop there," declared Arthur. "I forgive
the preface, but I could never have forgiven the book."

Helen rose from her seat at the piano and turned up the gas a little.
The effect for which the light had been lowered was secured, and it was
better, she recognized, to give to her singing a certain isolation,
which must be done before the conversation became so general that the
change from gloom to light would not be noticed.

She wore that evening a gray silk with black lace, a slight turning
away showing the whiteness of her beautiful throat. Her jewels were
cats'-eyes.

"Do you wear your cats'-eyes in honor of the cat-headed deity of the
Pagans, Mrs. Greyson?" Rangely asked, as she paused near his chair,
watching a burner which seemed disposed to flicker.

"No," returned she, smiling. "I am no follower of your Pasht; a goddess
of 'winged-words' attracts me less than a deity whose province is the
sacred sphere of silence. My dress is of Mr. Fenton's designing. He is
deeply versed in the subject of clothes. I even suspect him of being
the true author of _'Sartor Resartus.'_"

"That brings up my pet abomination," Fenton observed, with emphasis. "I
do hate Carlyle. I've even lain awake nights to think how I'd like to
pound his head. The self-conceited, self-centered, self-adoring old
humbug! He was the sham _par excellence_ of the nineteenth
century, this century of shams."

"It's something to be at the top of the heap in anything," interpolated
Herman, "even in shams."

"The trouble with Carlyle," Fenton continued, "besides his enormous
egotism, was that he never got beyond the whim that the truth is
something absolute. He could not abide the idea that it is merely a
relative thing and must be treated as such. If he'd got above the mass
of cloudy vapor he called truth, he might have gained a glimpse of real
sunlight; but his aggressive self-conceit clogged his wings. Don't you
recognize that a lie is often truer than the truth?" he ran on, sitting
up in his chair and speaking more rapidly; "that where the truth will
often produce an erroneous impression, a lie will convey a correct one?
that to be true to the spirit it is often necessary to violate the
letter?"

"Your patron saint should be the god of falsehood," Helen said lightly.
"I fear your allegiance to Pasht is not very sincere."

"Ah! but it is," retorted he, quickly. "My allegiance is to the goddess
of 'winged words'; to the glorious mother of fictitious speech; to
Pasht, the goddess of splendid, golden lying. A lie is only the truth
agreeably and effectively told. _Vive la faussete!_"

"Doubtless each interprets Pasht's attributes according to his own
light," Herman observed, a little grimly.

He was only half-pleased with Fenton's badinage. But the latter,
apparently, did not feel the thrust.

"Let him alone," Helen said, "he believes in nothing; he is a genuine
Pagan."

"You are wrong in your idea," was Fenton's swift reply. "A true Pagan
must have a belief in some god to take from his shoulders the burden of
personal responsibility, or he cannot be joyous as a Pagan should.
However, to-night I make myself believe that I believe something, so it
comes to much the same thing."

Helen turned and looked at him, attracted by some subtle quality in his
voice.

He was sitting sidewise in his chair, holding an ivory paper-knife in
his slender fingers. His cheeks burned, his eyes were bright, his lips
red. He had shaken off the depression which oppressed him earlier in
the evening. An air of joyous, quivering excitement pervaded him. He
threw up his head with a characteristic gesture, and looked about him
like one who has conquered in some desperate conflict.

"Come," the hostess said, wondering in what inward struggle he had come
off victor; "you promised to assist me with the coffee. I make no boast
of my house or my hospitality, gentlemen," she added, with a charming
glance around, "but I warn you in advance that not to admire my coffee
is to lose my friendship forever."

In answer to her ring, a servant brought in a small mortar and a pretty
little bowl of whole coffee, delicately browned, and scarcely cold from
its roasting. Arthur, who seemed acquainted with Mrs. Greyson's methods
of procedure, began to pound the berries, roasted to perfect crispness,
in the ebony mortar, reducing them to an almost impalpable powder,
which diffused upon the air the entrancing odor dear to the nostrils of
all artists.

The servant meantime had provided tiny cups, a little copper ibrik and
an alcohol lamp over which simmered a vessel of boiling water.

"Coffee should be prepared only over coals of perfumed wood," Helen
remarked as she measured into the ibrik the small spoonful of coffee
dust designed for a single cup. "But alcohol is the next best thing, it
burns with such a supernatural flame."

She put into the ibrik a measure of boiling water, rested it an instant
over the flame to restore the heat lost in the cooler copper, and then
poured the beverage into the egg-shell cup destined for it.

"To my master first," she said, presenting the steaming cup to Herman,
who received it much as one might a gift from the skies. "I learned my
coffee making," she continued, "from an old Arab at Cairo, who used to
say that it was one of the only two things in life worth doing, the
other being the duties of religion; and it therefore should be
perfectly done."

"It is simply divine," the sculptor said. "I have never really tasted
coffee before. Only if it is made like this your Arab might have said
there was but one thing in life, for this becomes a religious duty."
One by one with equal care were prepared cups for the others, who were
neither slow nor perfunctory in their endorsement of the sculptor's
praise.

XIV.

THIS IS NOT A BOON.
Othello; iii.--3.

"'I strew these opiate flowers
On thy restless pillow;'"

Hummed Grant Herman to himself, taking his lonely way down the dim and
dingy streets leading to the wharves where he had his abode:

"'I strew these opiate flowers--'

Oh, what a woman she is! She might be Brunhilde, or she might be Burd
Helen;

'I strew these--'

I wonder what she had to say to Fenton that she made him stay. Confound
that fellow! I'm not more than half sure that I'm fond of him; though I
can't bring myself fairly and squarely to dislike him. But I wish he
didn't know Mrs. Greyson quite so well; he's going to be married, too.
I wonder how he came to know her, any how. It is strange she doesn't
wear black if she is a widow. I'd like to learn something more definite
about her, but Fenton's the only one who would be likely to know, and I
certainly will not ask him. I suppose he is there yet, lounging in some
sort of an outlandish shape."

Arthur was indeed still in Helen's parlor, and in as crooked an
attitude as a man ever compassed. He had so managed to dispose of
himself over three chairs as to give the general effect of having been
suddenly arrested in the midst of an acrobatic feat of unusual
difficulty, and with a cigar in his long, nervous fingers, was watching
Mrs. Greyson, who occupied herself in tidying the room a little.

"We have been too good friends," she said, "to say good-by in public.
The old days have been pleasant, and it is hard to give them up."

"You have insisted upon it that they are gone forever," he returned,
"until I almost begin to believe you. But it is no matter. _Che sara
sara_."

"Yes; _che sara sara_," she echoed. "But now are you willing to do
me a favor? I haven't asked many of you."

"You certainly deserve that I should say yes without a quibble,"
replied Fenton, "but your air is so serious that I do not dare run the
risk; so I will merely answer,--I would like to do you a favor if I
may."

She came and sat down near him, a beautiful woman, flushed and tender.
It arose perhaps from the delicate sensitiveness of both that they had
always instinctively avoided those chance contacts which between lovers
become so significant, confining themselves to rare hand-shakes at
meeting and parting; and it may be that their very scrupulousness in
this matter proves how near they had been to more emotional relations
than those of simple friendship. Now when Helen laid her hand upon her
friend's arm it marked an earnestness which showed how much she felt
what she was about to say.

"I want you to give me something that Will gave you the other day."

Fenton's first feeling was one of annoyance, but this was quickly
replaced by a desire to fathom the motives which prompted her request.

"How did you know of it?" he asked.

"By divination," she answered, with a faint smile. "Will you give it to
me?"

"Why should I?"

"Because I ask you."

"To go back to that, then, why do you ask me?"

"Because I cannot bear to think of your going to be married with that
in your possession. Because it is cruel for you so to wrong Miss
Caldwell as to marry her while you find it possible to think it may
lead you to--to use that. How can you do it! You know I've no sympathy
with those who call it cowardly to take one's life. I think we've a
right to do that sometimes, perhaps. But it is cowardly to many a woman
with the deliberate idea of escaping her if you are not happy; of
deserting her after you have inextricably involved her life in yours.
You've no right to do that if you mean to make it a tragedy."

"She is involved in my life already," he returned gravely; "and it is a
tragedy. But I am not so wholly selfish as you assume. Honestly, Helen,
it is for her sake as much, at least, as my own that I wanted that
vial. It is all like a scene in _The City of Dreadful Night_. I
cannot be sure that I may not have to kill myself for her happiness.
Heaven knows I have not found myself so good company as to have very
strong reasons to suppose that any body else will."

"No," Helen said. "That is sophistry. I am a woman and I have been a
wife. I know what I say. You have no right to marry any woman and allow
the existence of such a possibility. It may not be logic, but it is
true."

"But she will not know."

"She may not know, but she will feel. You are too finely strung not to
discover to a delicate ear any discord, no matter how hard you try to
conceal it; and the ear of a woman who loves is sensitive to the
slightest changes. No, Arthur, if you have any love for her, any
friendship for me, any respect for yourself, give me that vial."

He made no answer to her appeal for a moment, although she clasped his
arm more tightly and looked beseechingly into his face. It was one of
those moments when he gave way to his best impulses; when he indulged
in the pleasure of letting his higher nature vibrate in response to
appeals addressed to it, and for the instant tasted the intoxicating
pleasure of conscious virtue. He turned to scrutinize her more closely.

"But what would you do with it, Helen?"

She started a little. She had not been without a half-formed thought
that she should be glad to have the deadly gift with its power of swift
oblivion in her possession, although until now she had scarcely been
conscious of it. But she saw that some suspicion of this was present in
Arthur's mind, and must be allayed before she could hope to accomplish
her purpose.

"You are wrong," she said quickly. "It is for your own sake that I want
you to give it up. I will do whatever you like with it. I pledge you my
word that I will never use it myself."

He still made no movement to surrender the vial, but she held out her
hand.

"Come," she pleaded. "I appeal to your best self. For the sake of your
mother, Arthur,--you have told me you could refuse her nothing she
asked, and she would surely ask this if she were alive and knew. Give
it to me."

He slowly drew from some inner pocket the little morocco case and held
it in both hands looking at it.

"It is a comfort to me," he said. "It means an end of every thing. It
means annihilation; it means getting rid of this nightmare of
existence. I can remember when I dreaded the idea of annihilation, but
I have come to feel that it is the only good to be desired. To be done
with every thing and to forget every thing! Don't you see, Helen; I
should never be satisfied with any thing short of omnipotence and
omniscience, and annihilation is the only refuge for a nature like
that. I want to be everything; to feel the joy of the conqueror and yet
not miss the keen, fine pang of the conquered--Lowell says it
somewhere; to be

'Both maiden and lover'--

I forget it--'bee and clover, you know; to be the 'red slayer' and 'the
slain' both. Do you wonder I want to keep this?"

A feeling of helplessness and hopelessness came over Helen. Only half
consciously she spoke a thought aloud:

"You are half mad from introspection."

He turned upon her a quizzical smile.

"I dare say," said he. "It isn't a comfortable process either. If a man
has lived twenty-five years, Helen, and has not so entangled his life
in a web of circumstances that no power will ever be able to
extricate it, he may consider his first quarter century of existence a
success."

He spoke with a bitter good humor not uncommon with him, and he
believed himself sincere. He even mentally applauded himself for the
justness of the sentiment, and was not untouched with pity for a being
in whom such sadness was possible. It may have been this secret
complacency that Helen detected in his face and fancied it a sign of
relenting. She put out her hand and took hold of the morocco case.
Arthur did not release his hold, yet neither did his grasp tighten, and
she drew the dangerous gift out of his fingers.

She sprang up and locked it away in a cabinet.

"There!" she exclaimed, standing before him in a sudden revulsion of
feeling, her face flushed and her eyes shining. "Now I will tell you
what I think of you. I think you mean to be good to others, but--"

"You always think better of me than I deserve," he interrupted; "at
least you treat me better."

"That does not necessarily indicate any leniency of judgment," retorted
Helen. "I think you are self-centered, and morbid; and if marriage
doesn't reform you, I give you up, for nothing will. Suffering is only
an effect, the cause is sensibility; and you keep yourself abnormally
sensitive by having yourself always upon the vivisection table."

She turned and walked away from him. Her emotion was getting beyond her
control. Her friendships were keen with the intensity of her passionate
nature; she had not passed through this struggle lightly, and perhaps
the victory unnerved her more than defeat would have done. On his part
he endeavored to turn every thing off as usual with a jest.

"Have I told you Bently's latest?" he began. "He--"

"It is of no use," she said, returning to him, tears overflowing her
eyes. "You cannot help my making a spectacle of myself; and you had
better go. Oh, Arthur, I hope so much for you; I do so hope for
happiness coming to you out of this marriage; but I shall be so
lonely."

Her voice broke despite her effort. She came nearer, she hesitated an
instant; then she bent over and kissed his forehead. A hot tear
splashed upon his hand.

"There," she said. "Good night, and good-by. When you come back you
will see what a fine steady old lady I have become."

He got on to his feet, confused, troubled, pitying her profoundly and
commiserating himself upon the awkwardness of the situation. He tried
to frame some sentence which might bridge the distance that seemed
suddenly to have opened between them. Like a farewell, a renunciation
or a dedication, that kiss impressed upon him a certain remoteness new
and oppressive.

"Bah!" he broke off. "I can say nothing, Helen. I have thus far served
in an already sufficiently unhappy world only to make people more
miserable still. I'm not worth a faintest regret. Good-night. If I can
ever serve you--Good-by!"

XV.

'TWAS WONDROUS PITIFUL.
Othello; i--3.

Helen's first conscious sensation next morning was a feeling of loss,
which resolved itself into a deep sadness when she was fairly awake and
realized that Arthur had gone. She had not Considered how much his
companionship and friendliness had been to her until now, when she felt
them lost. A woman so lonely yet so affectionate as Helen could not
spare from her life a friend so dear as Fenton had been without being
much moved. So strong had been her attachment, and so intimate had been
the acquaintance between herself and Arthur, that Dr. Ashton had
believed his wife to love the artist; but Helen, closely questioning
her heart, was able to assure herself that warm as had been her regard
for Fenton, he had never awakened in her bosom a single thrill of love.
She was sad this morning with the sorrow of a broken friendship, not of
a blighted passion.

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