f his unquestionable gifts. As a symbolist he is not so good, but
his drawings of the figure are not only poetic in the best sense, but struc-
turally sound and full of life. The critical introductions, compared with
the freshness of the artist's vision, seem pretentious and unimportant.
As I Like It, Second Series, by William Lyon Phelps (12mo, 282 pages;
Scribner: $2). It takes twenty pages of two columns each to contain the
index to this comparatively smallish book. Everything is mentioned, from
F. P. A.'s column in The World, to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony—and
usually with sweet commendation. Never since books began, has praise
rained down so upon the just and the unjust. But hold! There is an ex-
ception. Upon reconsulting the precious index it appears that The DIAL,
alone among things printed, has been ignored. Can it be that Prof. Phelps
disapproves of The Dial? What a unique distinction!
MAMMONART, by Upton Sinclair (8vo, 396 pages; published by the author:
$1). As a part of this chiropractic "interpretation" of the fine arts, Mr
Upton Sinclair prophesies that Mammonart will soon be a text-book in
Russia. The little Russians then, will be treated to a text-book which
proceeds for no more than two pages without making twenty-two errors
of fact. They will be informed that the “Austrian” princess, Catherine
de Medici (deceased 1589) was exiled by Richelieu at the age of one
hundred and ten; and will be edified by profound "interpretations" of
such world-luminaries as Richard Harding Davis, Jack London, Oscar
Wilde, David Graham Phillips, and Mrs Humphry Ward-intermingled
with fatuous evaluations of Sophocles, Dante, Shakespeare, Racine, and
many others. We believe it unnecessary to discuss the ethical values of
a volume which has no critical ones.
The LIFE OF Thomas Hardy, by Ernest Brennecke, Jr. (8vo, 260 pages;
Greenberg: $5). That the title of this well-bound volume should be a
misleading one was only to be expected. The time has not yet arrived
for the Lytton Stracheys of real biography to be free to get to work.
Meanwhile one learns from Mr Brennecke, Jr., that Hardy's Jersey
ancestors were of noble blood and his Wessex ancestors of yeoman blood.
We also learn that his so-called pessimism “was born of physical comfort
and reflective thought.” The book is allied to that class of discreet homage
represented by M Gsell's brochure on Anatole France. One hopes that
it will never be followed by anything resembling the malicious liveliness
of Brousson's more recent work. Biography is as different from "buskined"
adulation as it is different from “en pantoufles” gossip. It is a rare and
subtle art not yet learned either by Brousson or Mr Brennecke, Jr.


BRIEFER MENTION
263
BYRON, by Ethel Colburn Mayne (illus., 8vo, 474 pages; Scribner: $5).
It is as well that one hundred years separates Ethel Mayne from Lord
Byron, for she is as enamoured of him as any of the females who pursued
him through life; and the list of these is already long enough. The
“Adonis of the ages,” she calls him; and it is clear that, in private, she
repudiates the idea of the club foot. She repudiates none of the immo-
ralities, however, but on the contrary, gloats over each in great detail.
Byron was the child of his age and did only what everybody else did,
though doing it, of course, better. The Astarte revelations are believed
in, and it is for them that this new edition of an already lively biography
is issued. With cold but exact justice, the character of Lady Byron is
rehabilitated. She is the only one of all the personages of the story who
tells the truth and invariably tells the truth. She was a good woman
misplaced in history, the only good woman of her time. She should have
lived forty years later in New England to marry Hawthorne; though in
that case, naturally, Miss Mayne's narrative would have been much less
entertaining.
Twice Thirty, by Edward W. Bok (8vo, 539 pages; Scribner: $4.50).
Personal reminiscences and philosophy (success talks) of a man who
“kept to the middle of the road” and who has reached sixty with the glow
of a healthy liver and an even healthier purse. Mr Bok is undoubtedly
a valuable citizen, has beyond question transmitted to his children that
"strain of unsullied blood” of which he speaks, has clapped on the back
many Pathéd and syndicated frames, and has devoted much effort to what
he considers the public good—and as such he possesses all the social
benevolence and personal expansiveness of the typical "extravert.” His
book is friendly, life-loving, promoting, yea-saying-and subtly mad-
dening.
WILLIAM Austin, The CREATOR OF Peter RugG, Being a Biographical
Sketch of William Austin, together with the best of his Short Stories, col.
lected and edited by his grandson Walter Austin (8vo, 317 pages; Mar-
shall Jones : $5). That William Austin, Esq., of Dedham, Massachusetts,
should have devoted ten years of his life to historic research in con-
nexion with his grandfather is rather to be admired than regretted. The
result is agreeable and quaint. But it cannot be called critical. For,
however pleasant it may be to linger among old-fashioned ways and
leisurely lives, when one actually peruses the tale of Peter Rugg—together
with The Man With the Cloaks and Martha Gardner, Austin's other
short-stories—one does not feel prepared to agree with Colonel Higgin-
son that such work is on a level with the various versions of The Flying
Dutchman or Rip Van Winkle as have come one's way. As to any asso-
ciation between the extremely dry humour of William Austin and the
profound genius of Hawthorne, we must confess we can see nothing of
it. The history of fiction is one thing. The history of literature is quite
another thing.


COMMENT
This is perhaps our nearest approach to a definition of Beauty:
that it is a supreme instance of Order, intuitively felt, in-
stinctively appreciated.
DENMAN WALDO Ross
IN 1854, in a report made by the librarian of The Astor Library,
I New York City—we read: “The young fry of today employ
all the hours they are not in school, reading trashy current fiction
such as Scott, Cooper, Dickens, Punch, and The Illustrated News.”
From this statement it would appear that young people may be
spontaneously attracted to that which is educative, and one is
reminded that education has been defined as, "any activity which
we value not for its direct results but for its indirect effects upon
the capacity of the man who is engaged therein”—a wise version,
it is obvious, of the banal dogma that compulsory study of helpful
subjects is invariably baneful. One observes the desultoriness of
children whose adult associates are superficial and artificial. Energy
and imagination are, however, never greater than in childhood;
and it is possible to find even to-day, on the part of some children,
purposefulness and originality which are extraordinary.
The recent exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum, of work
done in the Education Department of The Worcester Art Museum,
is diverting—indeed most enriching—to those who have observed
the power implicit in the child's imagination. The work exhibited,
comprising formal and pictorial designs, is the product of children
from eight to thirteen years of age, who have come voluntarily to
The Worcester Museum–have studied there, the pottery, textiles,
and paintings, and have been instructed in accordance with the
theories of Dr Denman Waldo Ross.
A project which is aesthetic must be undertaken, Dr Ross affirms,
"just for the satisfaction, the pleasure, the delight of it,” yet he
reminds us that in the practice of pure design, the sense of order
which we all have, must be educated. “The process," he says-
to quote further from his manual, A Theory of Pure Design—"is


COMMENT
265
one of experimenting, observing, comparing, judging, arranging
and rearranging, taking no end of time and pains to achieve Order,
the utmost possible Order, if possible the Beautiful.”
To those who forget, as well as to those who remember, that at
the age of thirteen, one feels older than one can ever really be,
the stability of the work of which we have been speaking could not
be other than impressive. None of the themes upon which the
designs are based, is far fetched; indeed, the formal unit of the
printed designs is in each case, startlingly familiar, yet the result
has been personal and distinguished. The circle, the violet, the
trefoil, the Parthenon horse, have been used with the utmost exacti-
tude—the identity of the unit being revealed only upon analytic
study. Tone harmony has been heightened by the accuracy of the
printing; the feeling for scale and texture, is sure and consonant
with the best examples that one knows, of formal decoration.
The monotonous, would-be usualness of the work of children
is a byword; one cannot but abandon caution, however, in this com-
posite, yet strangely homogeneous exhibition. One is conscious of
the unstrained-for esprit, the energy, and the fertility of these
designs, the manner of which is controlled and by no means unin-
tentional or grotesquely entertaining. Again, to quote Dr Ross,
“important work comes only from important people,” yet "it con-
stantly happens that in pleasing ourselves, we please others.” The
House in the High Wood, Summer, Adventure, Excitement, Anger,
Hurry, Happiness, The Sea—these themes so evidently productive
of emotion in the designer, are in their varied interpretations, most
imaginative. It is poetically right that ducks should, in their
progress toward the water, hurry; that happiness should be sym-
bolized by flowers, red and blue; that excitement should be symbol-
ized by a purple shark with orange eyes, in pursuit of purple fish
with orange eyes, between blue rocks, through crimson water.
The tendency to multiply detail is instinctive. There is in this
work, however, a sense of simplifying rather than of complication,
of restraint rather than of "decoration.” It is evident that “addi-
tions are, as a rule, to be avoided.” The force of omission is espe-
cially felt in the design entitled The Sea—a composition, the few
lines and flat tones of which, consummately suggest, wind, weight,
and violence. The adjusting of form, tone, and sentiment, is per-


266
COMMENT
haps even more experienced in the composition called Anger;
jagged bayonets of yellow, green, black, red, and blue, having been
so used that the effect of descending force prevents all sense of
counter-movement. In these diverse designs by children of varied
association as of nationality, unanimity of accomplishment is proof
that imagination gains rather than loses by guidance and one is
assured that the creating of beauty is, like the appreciating of
beauty, in part the result of instruction.


THE DIAL
New
DODD, MEAD
Books
Selected Works of
ANATOLE
FRANCE
GLORIOUS
APOLLO
By E. BARRINGTON
Author of
"The Divine Lady," etc.
New titles for 1925
MOTHER OF PEARL
MY FRIEND's Book
CRAINQUEBILLE
THE BRIDE OF CORINTH
PIERRE NOZIÈRE
In Handy Volume Size, 4} * 7.
Master Edition, genuine limp leather
with gold stamping, per vol., $2.50.
Tours Edition, cloth with gold stamp-
ing, per volume, $1.75.
The amazing career of the poet Byron, whose
genius and unearthly beauty, coupled with his
strange passions and cruelties, form a tale "more
couching, more exciting, more thrilling than any-
one could ever invent."—Chicago Tribune. Fourth
large printing. Uniform with •*The Divine Lady."
$2.50
THE
GREAT PANDOLFO
MASTERS OF
MODERN ART
By WILLIAM J. LOCKE
Author of "The Beloved Vagabond," etc.
Locke has drawn his most romantic character in
The Great Pandolfo, a genius in love with a
beautiful but unmanageable lady, in an irresist.
ible novel packed with unusual situations and
handled with the author's characteristic whimsy
and charm.
$2.00
New Titles for 1925
MANET
By J. E. BLANCHB
PISSARRO
By A. TABARANT
Each volume in this popular series
on notable artists was written by
an authority. A sound introduc-
tion to each artist's work, with
biographical sketch, critical esti-
mates, bibliography and forty il-
lustrations in colotype.
Per volume, $1.75
Titles already published
RENOIR
By FRANÇOIS Fosca
GAUGUIN
By ROBERT REY
CÉZANNE
By Tristan KLINGSOR
CLAUDE MONET
By Camille MAUCLAIR
THE RELUCTANT
DUCHESS
By ALICE DUER MILLER
Author of "Manslaughter," etc.
Jacqueline was quite willing to marry the Duke,
until she learned that the match had been actu-
ally planned by her family and his. What she
does about it makes a gay and sprightly romance.
$1.75
THE JOURNAL OF
A JEWISH TRAVELLER
By ISRAEL COHEN
Author of "Jewish Life in Modern Times," etc.
This lively account of the author's visits to the
new colonies near Jerusalem and Jewish centers in
all parts of the world, forms a complete study of
the Jewish racč of today. Illustrated with photo-
graphs and maps.
$4.00
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
443 Fourth Avenue
New York
MADE BY THE HAIOISON CRUTTSMEN AT
HAPPON , ., PT--


THE DIAL
The Winner of the
HARPER PRIZE NOVEL CONTEST for 1925
THE
PERENNIAL BACHELOR
By Anne PARRISH
By the Author of
“THE ABLE MCLAUGHLINS"
Winner of the 1923 Pulitzer
Prize and the Harper Prize
Novel Contest for 1922-23

This award and the publication
of this book are of great interest to
all who are eager to keep abreast of
the younger American writers. It
is Anne Parrish's third novel and it
fulfills the promise of her earlier
delightful work.
From among the many hundreds
of manuscripts received, the judges,
Stuart P. Sherman, Henry Seidel
Canby and Jesse Lynch Williams,
awarded the prize of $2,000.00 to
this genuinely distinguished story.
“The Perennial Bachelor" is im-
portant as a book of the day because
it is so essentially American in its
fibre. Also because it is that rare
thing-a natural, human, moving
story so true and so vivid that it
comes alive in the reading.
Cloth, Post 8vo. $2.00
THE KENWORTHYS
By Margaret Wilson
Differing from Miss Wilson's first
book in that it deals with the urgencies
of modern life, “The Kenworthys" is
yet written in the same direct, straight-
forward manner. Of the brave, tem-
pestuous lives of the Kenworthys is
fashioned a story of deftly turned hu-
mor, of comedy and tragi-comedy,
which is a worthy successor to “The
Able McLaughlins" and a most dis-
tinguished book in its own right.
Cloth, Post 8vo. $2.00
AT THE SIGN OF THE
GOAT AND COMPASSES
By Martin Armstrong
Significant in its cool, detached view
and written with irony and beauty and
strength, this novel of the intensities
and tumultuous emotions underlying
the tranquil surface of village life is the
work of one of the most brilliant young
English writers.
Cloth, Post 8vo. $2.00
HARPER & BROTHERS ... Publishers Since 1817 . New York
See Harper's Magazine for Announcements of the better Schools and Colleges



2 desk
SEP 30 1925
THE
DIAL
OCTOBER 1925
Landscape Oil
André Derain
Harmony
Count Eduard von Keyserling 267
Count Eduard von Keyserling Oil
Lovis Corinth
A Poem
E. E. Cummings 304
Two Drawings
E. E. Cummings
The Religion of Culture
Roger Fry 305
Chanson Banale
Scofield Thayer 310
Two Etchings
Wilhelm Lehmbruck
Unconquered
Max Robin 311
A Drawing Pen and Ink
Edward Nagle
Remote
Robert Hillyer 328
Paris Letter
Paul Morand 329
Heinrich Mann Oil
Willi Geiger
German Letter
Thomas Mann 333
Book Reviews:
A Pagan Chorale
Charles K. Trueblood 339
To Be Baroque
Henry McBride 342
"Literature, the Noblest of the Arts" Marianne Moore 345
A Mendicant of Sorrow
Alyse Gregory 348
Briefer Mention
350
Comment
The Editors 354
VOLUME LXXIX NUMBER 4
50 cents a copy


THE DIAL
Scofield THAYER
Editor
MARIANNE MOORE
Acting Editor
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
A brother of the philosopher, Count Hermann von Keyserling,
COUNT EDUARD VON KEYSERLING was born on May 15, 1858
in the province of Kurland and died September 30, 1918-
having lived in Vienna, in Kurland, in Italy, and in Munich.
AMY WESSELHOEFT VON ERDBERG was born in Cambridge, Massa-
chusetts, in March 1876. She now lives in Germany, in which
country she has spent the greater part of her life.
Max Robin has contributed to The Double Dealer, The Menorah
Journal, The Smart Set, S4N, and other publications. He was
born in the Ukraine in 1899, and now lives in New York.
Willi Geiger, who was born 1878 in Landshut, Bavaria, is an
instructor in the Kunstgewerbeschule in Munich. He has
studied at the Academy in Munich, later in Rome, in Florence,
and in Spain.
VOL. LXXIX. No. 4. OCTOBER, 1925.
The Dial (founded in 1880 by Francis F. Browne) is published monthly at Camden,
New Jersey, by The Dial Publishing Company, Inc.-J. S. Watson, Jr., President
Lincoln MacVeagh, Secretary-Treasurer. Entered as second class matter at Post
Office, Camden, N. J. Publication Office, 19th and Federal Streets, Camden, N. J.
Editorial and Business Offices at 152 West 13th Street, New York, N. Y. Copyright,
1925, by The Dial Publishing Company, Inc.
$5 a year
Foreign Postage 60 cents. 50 cents a copy






The Dial Collection
LANDSCAPE. BY ANDRÉ DERAIN



THE UY
XXIII
ES
DIAL
OCTOBER 1925
HARMONY
BY COUNT EDUARD VON KEYSERLING
Translated from the German by Amy Wesselhoeft von Erdberg
DROM the station to the manor house it was a five mile drive.
T As Felix von Bassenow seated himself in his carriage the
sun was setting. He settled back comfortably into the corner of
the carriage and pulled the lap-robe up over his knees. The
northern spring air seemed a bit sharp after the sunshine down
in the south. “But look-look there!” he thought, "there is
colour for you, too.” The clouds in Amalfi were not shinier than
these, that last evening as he stood on the hotel verandah, and the
little English girl beside him kept saying, “Look, look," and turn-
ing her peculiar water-green eyes on him as though she meant him
to look at her rather than the sky. But it's quieter here, and then
this fragrance! Hang it! You hardly dare light a cigar.
The carriage was passing through fields. Level, bright green
country over which silky blue shadows trailed. Labourers were
on their way home from work. Probably they had been sowing
barley. One after another the grey figures trooped along, the low
sunlight reddening their faces. The women, stolid and bright in
their coloured jackets, stopped by the roadside. Shading their eyes
with their hands, they looked after the carriage with vacant smiles
on their faces. Felix was glad to see all this again. But it was
odd—he had only to shut his eyes and it all vanished, and very
different pictures crowded in upon him. Fragments of pictures,
restless, sharply bright little visions fluttered confusedly back and
forth in his mind.


268
HARMONY
a
CO
oy.
S
Deep blue in intense light and against it massive, unrelenting
lines. A red flowering branch against the yellow_satin of a rocky
wall. The touch of a woman's body, skin that shimmered with
amber lights. The discordant, passionate cry of a camel in the
stillness of a clear blue night.
When he opened his eyes again the green country with the
red evening light reaching out over it, seemed unreal in its cool-
ness and silence. He could not help smiling at the way all these
different pictures seemed striving to prove themselves realities.
The evening light faded. The road now ran through the woods.
Darkness lay beneath the big trees. Here and there a white birch
tree shone out amidst the black of the pines, and above, the sky
grew colourless and glassy.
The pale twilight of the spring night sank over the dark tree-
tops. It was very restful. And yet in this wood the air seemed too
excitingly full of the bitter odours of buds and leaves for the
inhabitants to settle down to sleep. A faint rush of wings. The
drowsy mating-call of a bird. In the darkness mysterious cracklings
and whisperings. High up in the white sky the ghostly laughter
of a loon still rang out, and suddenly two owls began to call to
each other passionately, plaintively.
All this breathed hints of secret desires. The two fair-haired
young fellows on the box whose very red ears stuck out under their
d laced caps began to whisper and giggle together. Far off
behind the wood a man's voice started to sing, a monotonous tune,
a long drawn out, lonely calling.
Felix sat motionless. Through half-opened lips he drew in
deep breaths. Everything exotic, unfamiliar, had vanished. He
was at home. At every turn of the road he knew beforehand what
was coming, and knew too that he had been longing for this. He
was tired of travelling about through the world, a mere vessel
for strange impressions, of being crammed with things of beauty
which did not greatly concern him, of having only that which
everyone else had, never to be the chief person. He wanted work
again, responsibility—to give orders-be master again—just a little
like God-wanted to startle the big blond young peasants with his
great voice.
In a clearing of the wood stood the public house. Through the
little dingy window panes, a sinister red light squinted out into
was


COUNT EDUARD VON KEYSERLING 269
nom
the May night. The tavern-keeper and his wife sat on a bench
before the door, their hands flat on their knees. A wild cherry
tree bloomed in the garden. Its fragrance was overpowering.
The carriage drew up before the inn. The horses were to rest
here and the coachman and groom were given beer. This was an
ancient prerogative.
The innkeeper's wife brought the beer. She stood near the
carriage waiting, a young woman large as a man. She was far
advanced in pregnancy and laid her hands flat across her great
stomach staring at Felix drowsily out of her blue eyes, as though
he were merely an object.
The host came up. Yellow stubble bristled over his red face-
he greeted the young nobleman and gave an account of his affairs.
Yes, he had married the daughter of the former innkeeper. The
latter was now dead. The mother-in-law was still alive, but of
no more use. The soil was poor. Deer injured the crops. What
could you do?
Felix listened to the creaking voice absent-mindedly as it went
on and on, and watched a swing that hung near the inn. On the
narrow board stood a girl and a young man, breast to breast,
swinging.
Ever and again the two slight, black figures flew up into the
twilight sky, sinking down again into the darkness, restless, silent.
As Felix drove on he tried to keep this picture in his mind.
It was soothing and made him a little sleepy, but other thoughts
came. Thoughts that had been waiting all the while for their
turn.
It was in just such spring days that he had begun his young
married life. He had always thought of marriage as a pleasant
affair, but had never dreamed that it could be so delightfully
entertaining. It really was extraordinary always to have this little
girl with the slender, thoughtful face beside him, to observe how,
though still half a child, she nevertheless contrived to bend life
into a shape to suit herself, thrusting aside what did not please
her, knowing exactly how she wanted life to be: "No, thank you,
not for me.” With that Annemarie put aside everything that was
not in perfect harmony with herself. The genuine, last flower of a
race convinced that it had the right to enjoy only the cream of
life. Nothing for instance could have induced His Excellency,


270
HARMONY
Annemarie's father, to drink wine which had the slightest per-
ceptible taste of the cork, and he very easily tasted the cork in
wine.
Of her husband, too, Annemarie demanded the cream. She
singled out in him those qualities which appealed to her and the
rest she set aside with that slight, almost cruel pursing of the lips
that he so dreaded. Heaven knows, he had often enough had to
pull himself together for all he was worth, in order to be as she
saw him.
Between the high fir trees all was dark and solemnly still. In
this darkness he saw Annemarie as clearly as in a vision, the little
white figure with the sloping shoulders, the slender wrists and
ankles, the small, pointed breasts, the skin pale and smooth as
the petals of flowers that grow in shady places.
Pictures had never particularly interested him. You stand in
front of them a moment and that's enough. But in Rome there
was one picture to which he often went. It depicted just such
a slender little girl sitting on a blue couch. The catalogue said
A Danaë. On her fragile limbs was the same cool mother-of-
pearl shimmer, and moreover she accepted the passionate devotion
of the God with the same superior gesture as though receiving a
pretty thing merely her due. This picture always made him think
of Annemarie.
It was warmer here between the black walls of the fir trees.
The air was heavy with spring odours. Felix's lips grew warm,
in his blood glowed that same exquisite feeling which always came
over him when he took Annemarie in his arms—the feeling of
holding something very rare and immensely exciting.
But there had been a sudden change. The child, its death, and
then the terrible illness. Annemarie crouched on her bed, her eyes
wide with fear and listening out into the darkness; she heard
things that frightened her—things from which she wanted him to
protect her, and he did not know how. Or she sat for hours at a
time indifferent to everything else, toying with little bright objects,
tiny mother-of-pearl boxes, or penknives—the things could not be
white or polished enough to suit her. She was sent to a sana-
torium and Felix spent the time travelling. It was perhaps heart-
less of him to travel, but he felt that he must get away from this
sense of pity which consumed him like a sickness. It is one thing
to bear pain yourself, but there is no defending oneself against pity.
es
C1


COUNT EDUARD VON KEYSERLING
271
Now Annemarie was well again. Frau von Malten, her old
friend and companion, had written: "She is our sweet angel again.
Somewhat fragile and irritable, but how gladly we guard her
from anything that could distress her.”
The lights of the manor house already shimmered through the
trees of the park. The freshly strewn gravel crunched pleasantly
beneath the wheels. Over the main doorway of the house hung
an illuminated “Welcome,” and in the darkness outside, figures
drew together and chanted a choral-hymn. Felix was pleased. A
pleasant feeling of being the lord and master tickled his heart.
Frau von Malten, in her long, trailing black dress, a black lace
scarf around her sharp, sallow face, stood in the white doorway
of the dining-room and greeted Felix with her discreet and slightly
doleful voice, “Welcome home! God bless you.” Behind her the
room was brightly lighted; the gilding shimmered in the white
panelling.
"And Annemarie?” he asked.
"Annemarie is already asleep,” reported the discreet voice. "She
is not yet allowed to stay up so late. Oh, yes indeed, she is doing
well. Thank Heaven for that.”
"Hm-hm-"
While he was waiting for dinner to be announced, Felix walked
back and forth through the rooms. Everywhere a great deal of
light and white lace curtains. The fragrance of hyacinths and
narcissus greeted him. On all the tables bowls of spring flowers.
And all this stood and waited for him. In a corner by the window
something moved. A girl reclining there looked up at him
curiously with bright shining eyes. Heavy black hair about a
warm, swarthy face that blushed violently. A red dress in which
rounded limbs moved as though impatient. “Ah," said Felix,
"you are, I suppose, Mila–Mila, Frau von Malten's adopted
daughter?" Mila bowed hastily.
“Yes, yes I know," Felix continued. "It is you who have the
agreeable voice. My wife has written of you. You read aloud
to her. Do say something and give me a chance to hear this
celebrated voice.” Mila laughed and held the back of her hand
before her mouth, as village children do. "Well, well.” Felix
continued to pace up and down. It was gratifying to have this
girl in the window to observe him. He rubbed his hands cheer-
fully and made the inlaid floor creak beneath his elastic step. He


272
HARMONY
really felt in a decidedly festive mood. During the meal Frau
von Malten sat with him and entertained him. “Naples. Oh,
yes! It must be beautiful. That would do Annemarie good. She
needs plenty of light. The wainscoting was too dark for her.
We had it changed to white. I wrote you about it. Old Heinrich?
Oh, he had to be dismissed. His eyes had become inflamed and
watered at times. It annoyed Annemarie. Oh, he is quite happy.
He lives in the little house beyond the park. You have seen my
Mila? Yes, a good child. She has an agreeable voice. She is
sometimes a little noisy, and distresses Annemarie. Dear me, one
would gladly pad the whole world for her.” Frau von Malten
raised her eyebrows slightly and looked at Felix gravely with her
dim, grey eyes. Oh, yes, Felix knew from experience that behind
the plaintive speeches of the good lady there was always a moral.
She regarded Annemarie as a church and herself as the sexton whose
business it was to remind everyone that he was in a sacred place.
And then the door opened and silently on little white bedroom
slippers Annemarie glided into the room. In the long pale blue
dressing-gown she looked taller than Felix remembered her. Her
long golden brown braids hung down her back.
She must have slept, for her eyes had the brightness of eyes just
opened after sleep.
Felix jumped to his feet very much agitated and a little em-
barrassed. "Annemarie," he cried. He heard the tremor of
emotion in his voice, and it was agreeable to open his arms pas-
sionately. He took the little pale blue figure gently in his arms.
Annemarie bent her head back and allowed him to kiss her on
the lips.
“Malten wanted to keep me out,” she said and leaned lightly
against his arm. "I'm supposed to be asleep, but I heard your
voice. It's a long time since we've heard a lord-and-master voice
in this house."
Frau von Malten put her head on one side and smiled, giving
the narrow line of her lips a slight twist.
“Now you must eat, you poor dear,” said Annemarie.
Felix sat down and ate. Annemarie rested her elbows on the
table and her head on her hands and watched him. Felix felt
the attentive glance of her blue eyes passing slowly over him. She
looked at his hair, his eyebrows, his lips.


COUNT EDUARD VON KEYSERLING 273
en
“Oh, you wear your beard cut pointed,” she remarked.
"Yes, do you like it?”
“Yes. It's very nice. And the same lovely long eyelashes."
He blinked a little in order to feel the long lashes. Then he
began to speak of indifferent matters, of trains and difficulties with
baggage, of wily cabmen. He hardly listened to himself. The
wine imparted a pleasant feeling of warmth to his limbs, which
were somewhat heavy with fatigue. He felt inclined to be demon-
strative, seized Annemarie's hand, lying cool and patient, in his
own; he bent down to draw in the perfume of the golden brown
hair, which had the fine, fresh fragrance of flowers growing under
pine trees.
“And you,” he said, “tell about yourself.” Instantly Anne-
marie's eyelids drooped and her eyes became fixed like children's
when they are sleepy. “I? Oh, I'm very well. But go on and
tell about these bright things, railroad trains and baggage and
people. I can see all that as if it were way, way off, and I like
to have it so far away.”
Felix laughed: “Yes, it is nice and-and”—he wanted to say
something poetical "and to have the aquamarine eyes so near.”
"Aquamarine ?” asked Annemarie.
"Yes. With little gold lights in them.” “Oh, yes, that is
very sweet.” Annemarie brought the conversation to a close.
“Let's go to bed. I will go with you to your room.”
At the door of his room he took Annemarie in his arms. “Now,”
he said, “we are going to be very happy.” And there was really
something warm and ardent in his tone.
"Oh, yes. Of course we are going to be very happy,” Anne-
marie answered. “Good-night-dear.”
Felix lay awake awhile after getting to bed. He had imagined
that they would be more excited, more moved at being together
again. Nevertheless he had a festive, cozy feeling. At home, after
all, you were quite a different person from abroad. It was as if
he had crawled into just such a lovely mother-of-pearl shell as
Annemarie liked. To be sure one sometimes lapsed into vulgarity
or triviality when travelling or at the club—but he really belonged
here. He could tell that by the pleasant, clean thoughts that
gently lulled him as he stretched himself out between the lavender-
scented sheets.


274
HARMONY
He could still hear soft foot-falls through the house. The
servants were putting out the lights. In the corridor the train of a
dress rustled and Frau von Malten whispered to someone. At last
all was quite still. Outside a heavy spring rain was falling. Its
rustling passed into Felix's dreams and filled them with a white
shining downpour, that had the cool fragrance of wild flowers grow-
ing under pine trees.
The next morning before leaving his room Felix went to the
window and looked out. The garden was all damp and shiny in
bright yellow sunshine. In the rich earth of the flowerbeds stood
bright yellow crocuses and thick blue hyacinths. A slight breeze
brought him the odour of the wet earth and of moist buds.
Women's voices could be heard. Annemarie on Frau von Malten's
arm, hatless under a blue sunshade, came down the garden path.
They stopped at the different flowerbeds, bent low over the flowers,
spoke or laughed occasionally, as though some flower had been
amusing. The old gardener approached them. Annemarie called
to him, raising her clear, well-rested voice.
“Good morning, gardener. Was there a frost last night?"
The gardener mumbled something in his beard about roses and
mice. It was a long time since Felix had thought of such things
as roses and mice, but now it seemed pleasant and fitting that these
things should be considered.
At breakfast Annemarie remarked meditatively: "You'll spend
the morning in your big grey felt hat and high boots looking after
the farm, won't you? When you pass the window, raise your
voice. You might even scold someone. It will be so nice to hear
you. And then you will join us—” Gravely she assigned him
his place in the scheme of her life. “Later Papa and Uncle Thilo
will come—and then—".
"The curate was to come to dinner to-day," announced Frau
von Malten softly. “Oh, no, Annemarie did not want him; curates
have moist hands and cuffs that button on.”
Felix laughed loudly at this.
“It is really horrid of me to ask, but do you always laugh that
way now?"
“Why, hang it! Just as I happen to feel,” answered Felix,
annoyed.
Annemarie laughed, the laughter that passes blithely over a


COUNT EDUARD VON KEYSERLING 275
face without disturbing its classic serenity of line. “Of course, you
can laugh here any way you like. I merely asked. But the curate
is not to come. To-day we shall have crawfish soup, moor-cock,
and pan d'ananas, and we shall drink champagne. Later, in the
blue room, in the twilight you will tell about foreign countries. The
nightingale will sing, we shall open the windows and listen. That
is my plan for to-day.”
Frau von Malten stopped in her adjustment of the flowers
and listened attentively, as though receiving so many orders for
game, champagne, twilight, and a nightingale.
Felix put on his grey felt hat, drew on his boots, and went
out to the farmyard. There he planted himself, slashed the puddles
with his cane, and looked back at the house. It stood out very
white in the noonday light with its somewhat pretentious gable.
The rows of windows glittered. He saw Frau von Malten passing
from window to window drawing the white curtains. Yes, that's
the way it always was. Living with Annemarie meant living
apart in quite another world—a world made especially for her;
and Frau von Malten was always there to draw the curtains
between it and the outside world. Well, he for his part was
proud to belong to that especial world behind the curtains. He
had always had leanings towards that. The Bassenows, to be sure,
had preferred the plain country gentleman style. But his mother
being a Raafs-Pelschock had often had differences with his father
because nothing was ever quite distinguished and elegant enough
to suit her taste.
For this very reason he had promptly fallen in love with Anne-
marie. The Elmts were such a very distinguished family that they
were almost unfit for life. In fact they really were on the point
of dying out.
Uncle Thilo gave up marrying in order to be the last Count of
Elmt. It is very distinguished to die out. It seemed to Felix
that at this hour he was quite justified in taking the Bassenow in
himself out for an airing. Later would come the pleasant day
which Annemarie had arranged—for the Raafs-Pelschock.
Pitke, the old overseer of the estate, approached. His nose shone
out very red between the white wisps of his hair. Felix was in
high spirits. "Hello, Pitke, old fellow! We're getting greyer
every day! Oh, well, we're none of us growing younger.”
ma
S


276
HARMONY
Sc
They went along to the stables. The cow-barns were full of the
warm steam of the big quiet animals. The yellow straw piled
about took on a metallic glint in the sunlight. The great jaws
could be heard munching and chewing as the milk streamed into
the milk-pails. For it was milking time. Beside the cows squatted
the mildmaids, heavy and hot like the cows, and grasping the swell-
ing udders with strong, broad hands.
“There are aristocrats for you,” said Pitke, pointing to the
Cows— eating their heads off and expecting to be waited on.”
The heavy air of the cow-barns laid hold of Felix, warm and
enervating as it was with the milk, the cattle, and the human
beings. How quiet it was here! You almost wished that you
could stand stolidly and stare out on the world with large in-
different eyes chewing cud like the cows. As the girls passed
Felix with their full milk pails and swaying breasts he remarked,
“There are thoroughbreds for you, too."
“Slatterns!” said Pitke, “they're that lazy it's no wonder they
grow fat."
But Felix liked them nevertheless. Strange! In the midst of
all this latent strength he felt how strong he was himself. He was
conscious of the breadth of his chest and of the tenseness of his
muscles.
When they came out again into the sunlight Felix stamped
more heavily through the puddles with his legs further apart. He
felt the weight of his body. Pitke spoke of the fields and pointed
toward their green surfaces.
“Damn you, Mischka! You Polish devil!” Not far from them
a stocky black fellow was drawing a wagon loaded with tiles over
the wet road. One of the wheels was stuck in a deep rut. The
horses tried in vain to get it started. In a blind rage the fellow
was flogging the animals with the stock of his whip.
Felix felt the blood run hot through his veins. The next moment
he was beside the fellow, seized him, held him in the air, shook
him. It was a positive pleasure to shake this heavy body, to feel
its vain efforts to free itself. Then he let go. “Go and get help!”
he said, "Go!” he shouted at him.
Pitke laughed. “That's the way! He's found out who's his
master.”
Felix laughed, flattered. He rubbed his hands. His fingers still


COUNT EDUARD VON KEYSERLING
277
felt the rough cloth of the coat and the rock-hard muscles of the
man.
At lunch Felix gave a full account of the Mischka incident, a
vivid, lively account. “I seized hold of him and held him like
this.” Suddenly he broke off. His story was apparently not
making the desired impresssion. Annemarie bent over her plate
and remarked, “Did you have to do that yourself? Couldn't
Pitke - ?" At the same time she looked at his hands as
though at that moment they were not altogether agreeable to her.
Felix shrugged his shoulders in annoyance. “Deuce take it, I
like to do it myself sometimes.”
"Oh, of course that is quite another matter," Annemarie ad-
mitted politely. “It must, of course, be a strange feeling to be
so strong. You sit there quietly and all of a sudden it occurs to
you: my arm is very strong, and then you have to lift something, a
table or a man or something. Thilo says that some people look
as though they were thinking only of their beautiful beards, but
some look as though they were only thinking of their muscles,
don't they?"
Felix was not inclined to take up this last remark. He said
sarcastically: “Thilo—Oh, he has nothing else in the world to
do but talk.”
Annemarie's colour rose. “Why, what do you mean? He is a
member of the Diet.”
"Well, people only go into politics anyway in order to talk.”
An embarrassed silence followed, until Frau von Malten re-
marked that the barouche of the Countess Prosek had been seen
to pass by the park that morning. Could the Countess herself have
been in the carriage? And where was she likely to be going?
The question was left undecided.
Lunch was soon over.
"You know,” said Annemarie to Felix, “that you'll have to
dance now?"
“Dance?"
Yes, the doctor had ordered her to take exercise and therefore
she was accustomed to dance every day for a while with Mila.
Frau von Malten played for them. But now they had a gentleman.
"Mila, fetch our fans and we shall sit in the ballroom.” The ball-
room was full of sunshine. The light broke into colours on the
ce


278
HARMONY
prisms of the great crystal chandelier and strewed little broken
rainbows along the wall.
Annemarie and Mila sat in the yellow satin arm-chairs bathed
in golden light. Felix danced first with Annemarie. It was de-
lightful to feel how the music took possession of her, how her
whole being swayed to the rhythm, and how even her quickened
breath and the rise and fall of her bosom seemed moving in waltz
time. Then it was Mila's turn. She danced a little heavily; but
once in motion it was hard to stop her.
"Le dos, Mila, tenez vous droite," cried Frau von Malten from
the piano. But who could hope to regulate these untamed limbs?
Later in his room Felix sat idly listening to the sparrows. He
had intended to look through the farm accounts, but now it seemed
a matter of indifference how much milk the cows gave. To be
active and do things—anybody could do that and could spend
a whole day at it. But sitting still and thinking of bright, lovely
things—that is culture.
The evening light lay like reddish dust over the tree tops of the
park. Starlings kept up an excited calling. It was strangely warm
for this time of year. The glass doors of the drawing-room stood
open.
They were all walking up and down on the verandah waiting
for dinner to be announced. The ladies were charmingly attired.
Annemarie wore a light silk, of a pale tea rose colour, with a crim-
son rose in her belt. Mila was in white with a wide lace collar
such as children wear. Felix leaned against the railing. “Do go on
walking,” he said, “do. You've no idea how charming that looks."
They walked slowly up and down before him.
"It's not hard to be attractive to-day, is it, Mila?” Annemarie
remarked. “To-day there is something festive in the air. I can
always tell just by drawing a long breath whether a day is festive
or not.” In the distance home-faring labourers sang. Annemarie
stopped to listen.
“Now they are happy too.” She said it with a slight impatience
in her voice as though contradicting someone.
“Why shouldn't they be ?” replied Felix absently.
“There, I knew it. Come, let's go in to dinner.”
Frau von Malten in her black satin dress served the soup
decorously.
vera
vera


COUNT EDUARD VON KEYSERLING
279
mo
"Really, Frau von Malten knows how to make every meal a
festive occasion,” remarked Felix politely.
“Malten, oh, yes indeed,” Annemarie agreed, “and it's really
necessary too. Eating is so easily a bore or worse. I love to hear
Malten speak of the housekeeping. She never mentions anything
disagreeable like stealing and that sort of thing. I think Mozart
must have spoken of his compositions in just the way Malten speaks
of her household.”
"Really,” said Felix as he lifted a morsel of crawfish on his
fork and made eyes at it. “There are perhaps some people who
are not so easily bored when it comes to eating, as are some others.
Annemarie had finished and leaned back contentedly.
“Oh, yes! The poor people who have very little to eat. Of
course! I know that. But otherwise—as a child, when my mother
and father were out and Mrs Flemmers, the English housekeeper,
was in authority, she used to like to order spiced beef and pickles.
That tastes well enough, but it's depressing. To this day spiced
beef and pickles always make me melancholy.”
After the champagne the ladies had bright spots on their cheeks
and laughed at the slightest provocation. It was easy enough for
Felix to be witty to-day.
In the blue drawing-room a small open fire was burning. There
were big arm-chairs in which to take one's ease.
"Malten has been reading aloud to us in the evening from the
Kreuzzeitung. It's always very interesting, as she knows all the
family connexions when we read the social items," Annemarie
chattered on thus a little sleepily. “Oh, darling, do get yourself
elected to the Diet. When Malten reads the accounts of Uncle
Thilo's speeches and it says, 'Laughter among the radicals, she
always says, quite angrily:
'Ils rient, ils ne savent pas de quoi.'”
Frau von Malten announced: “The nightingale has begun.”
In the adjoining room the window was opened, the butler was
admonished to be very quiet, and all listened.
Annemarie lay motionless in her chair, her hands folded in her
lap. Mila shut her eyes and opened her moist lips, as though she
were dreaming of something exciting. What a passionate night-
ingale this one was! When its voice rose as though the little heart
were over-full the notes were almost harsh, and then again they


280
HARMONY
were sweet, appealing. Felix stretched himself in his chair, in
the full enjoyment of his emotion. He had hardly believed him-
self capable of so much feeling. Mila opened her eyes and said
fiercely, “I see her.” All were now eager to see the dark spot in
the lilac bush. The garden was white with moonlight.
marie insisted that she must go out. Wraps were sent for. When
Annemarie wanted to do anything it always had to be done very
quickly. There was an eager haste as though she feared that some-
thing unforeseen might come between. She took Felix's arm and
they walked along the garden path. The night was unusually
warm. Over the meadows rose a wall of clouds in which there
was a constant play of lightning. “Our first thunder-storm,” Felix
remarked. Yes, Annemarie felt a slight feverishness-golden
flashes in her veins like those in the clouds. Ah! she threw her
head back and drew in a deep breath. “To-morrow all the trees
will be in full bloom, all snow-white."
“And you love that, don't you, dear?” asked Felix. He felt a
tenderness growing in him, till like compassion it was almost pain.
“Yes, it does me no end of good. This has been a delightful
day. I was really dreading it.”
"Dreading me?” “Perhaps you too a little. One never knows.
Suddenly something comes it's there and you simply don't want
to live any more!” Annemarie laughed quietly to herself. “It is
curious to look right in among the stars. It makes you dizzy. I
can see how they hang there and swing. It makes me thirsty too.
I should like to drink it. Wouldn't it be delicious if there really
were such a drink? Blue and gold and cool. I shall ask Malten,
she knows every sort of a recipe.”
Felix bent over the face that looked up to the stars and kissed
it. Behind the Barberry hedge over toward the farm-hands'
quarters a girl's laugh rang out. A man's followed. Annemarie
shuddered.
"The stablemen and the milkmaids," Felix explained. “They
enjoy a night like this as much as we do. It excites them too.”
"Too?" Annemarie drew herself up. “Oh, yes, of course, they
have their own customs. Shall we go farther into the park,
it will be quieter there?”
In the park the net of shadows thrown over the moonlit paths
grew denser. The pond slept smooth and silent. Moonlight swam
OIICS


COUNT EDUARD VON KEYSERLING 281
n
on the black water like golden oil. “There must be violets here,
don't you smell them?” asked Annemarie.
“Yes,” said Felix, although he smelt nothing. A whisper ran
through the foliage and a sudden gust of wind lashed the tree-
tops. Felix gave Annemarie his arm and ran with her toward
the house. The storm. Annemarie lay quite still-only once she
spoke: “That's so good.”
When later Felix passed through the quiet, dark house to Anne-
marie, he found her in the white chamber sitting on her bed
under a white hanging lamp. She herself was all white, only her
eyes seemed almost black in the whiteness and looked out at him
quiet and thoughtful.
“Danaë," he thought. Then he wondered if he looked
ridiculous to her in his white flannel pajamas with his yellow
Turkish slippers.
It was ten o'clock at night. The others had gone to bed earlier.
Felix went back to his room, threw the window open, and whistled
a melancholy tune out into the moonlight.
"It's all pretty, very pretty, but the devil take it,” he muttered.
“It's like living in a glass case!"
Always the same thing! This evening he had been in the
best of spirits, had teased Mila, told anecdotes, felt cozy, and let
himself go a little until he observed that Frau von Malten was
looking resignedly into her lap and Annemarie wore her bored,
contemptuous expression. What it was they did not like about
him he could not for the life of him see. They broke up earlier
than usual and he felt out of sorts.
Everything, everyone, hereabouts had nerves, the people, the fur-
niture, the flowers. He himself was developing nerves. Was it.
really conceivable that he should be sitting here now thinking
of his own wife with the same feelings that he had when as a
love-sick boy he used to climb out of the window, slip into the
dark garden, and crouch under the plum trees, eating the cold,
dewy plums? This was unnatural—-unbelievable, and must be
changed. He shut the window angrily.
When Felix came home in the evening from snipe shooting, he
found his father-in-law and Uncle Thilo there. The stout old
gentleman, His Excellency, with pink face and curled brown wig,
greeted him as though he had seen him the day before. Thilo
Was


282
HARMONY
women
n
a
V
was formal as usual. He looked superb with his classic profile
and silky blond beard. Leaning back in his arm-chair, he dropped
his heavy eyelids and in a low voice related a story to Annemarie.
Annemarie listened very attentively, her cheeks had a heightened
colour. The room smelt of delicate perfume and English cigarettes.
At table His Excellency told anecdotes of Bismarck that every-
one already knew. Thilo talked with Frau von Malten about a
Malten who had been ambassador at Bukarest. After dinner the
ladies left the dining-room and the gentlemen drank very old port
wine. They always followed this English custom when Thilo was
there.
His Excellency began to talk of women in a very low voice.
“One should make distinctions. There were three dancers: Pepita,
Petitpas, and Petitita. I used to know all three. Petitpas was
particularly fond of shell fish. She said these creatures gave a
particular transparent quality to the skin. When you went to her
you were expected to take her soft-shell crabs."
Thilo stroked his whiskers meditatively. “Dancers," he re-
marked, "are all very well on the stage, or when they're tying their
shoes behind the scenes, or practising. Pretty bits of flesh at work,
but when that sort of thing begins to eat or talk—no."
Felix now related his experiences with dancers, but his tales
did not interest Thilo, who rose and joined the ladies.
When later Felix and his father-in-law followed, Thilo was
already seated between Annemarie and Frau von Malten, and was
telling them stories in his low, singing voice. The two ladies hung
on his words, wholly absorbed. They looked up as the gentlemen
entered with an expression as though they had been disturbed at
prayer. His Excellency laid his cards for a game of patience.
Felix seated himself somewhat apart. He felt distinctly irritated.
"Well, and how about your trip?'' Thilo asked him. “Oh,
very agreeable.” Felix launched forth on his own account.
"Just at this time a year ago in Capri. Full moon on the one
side, Vesuvius on the other with a huge plume of flame waving
from it, the sea, Naples with its lights—marvellous!"
"Capri,” said Thilo, “is like a box at the theatre. What we
see from there never seems real.”
"Very good,” whispered Frau von Malten.
"I prefer Amalfi, myself,” Felix continued. He did not intend
to allow any one to wrest his narrative from him.



ON
.
RE
O
'
COUNT EDUARD VON KEYSERLING. BY LOVIS CORINTH


sire


COUNT EDUARD VON KEYSERLING
283
"You ought to take your wife to Amalfi,” Thilo interrupted
him. “As I sat on the hotel terrace there-Annemarie was just
what was lacking. She belongs there, that is her proper back-
ground, the blue silk sea-and-well—”
"Only on account of the background?” asked Felix sneeringly.
“Why not?" said Thilo. “If you buy your wife a beautiful
gown you might as well take a trip to give her the proper back-
ground. I really missed you there very much,” he said turning
to Annemarie, who fushed slightly.
"There are women enough there," Felix muttered half audibly,
perfectly aware that he was being rude.
Thilo raised his eyebrows.
"Right you are! When I saw those women about I thought
to myself, they are indeed a bit too bold when they exhibit them-
selves here!"
Felix lay back in his chair and pulled at his cigar. All right,
if Thilo really knew it all, then good, he could do the talking.
Frau von Malten announced that the nightingale had begun and
all settled back to listen. His Excellency clapped his hands from
time to time and said, “Brava—brava!"
“A remarkable nightingale,” Thilo declared. “She sings as
though she had a past.”
"Matrimonial troubles," tittered His Excellency. Felix laughed
so loud and suddenly that they all turned toward him.
“I think,” he said, “that it is lucky we don't have to perch
in the lilac bushes after matrimonial troubles and sing all night
long.” The only one who really laughed heartily at this was
Mila.
“There is something very moving to me about it,” Annemarie
said. “She sings as though she were afraid of something that
might happen—something that might happen when all was silent
and dark and she alone."
"Shall we go out and bear her company ?" asked His Excellency.
Felix laughed ironically. “Oh, we are so tender-hearted here
that we shall soon be hanging a night lamp beside each bird's nest,
lest the birds should be afraid of the dark.”
After the others had withdrawn, Felix and Thilo sat for a
while smoking together. They had not much to say to each other.
“You must be glad to be at home again,” Thilo remarked.
“Yes—Oh, certainly.” He was suddenly moved to go on. He


284
HARMONY
wanted to talk to this man whom they all so much admired, whom
all considered infallible, wanted to talk about himself.
“Although,” he went on hesitatingly, "when your life has once
been so completely upset, it doesn't easily return to its simple
matter-of-courseness.”
Thilo threw his cigarette into the fire and stood up.
“Matter-of-courseness ?” he repeated. "No, hardly. And why
should it? Good-night.”
“Disagreeable old croaker,” Felix muttered after him.
To Felix it seemed as though he were becoming further and
further removed from the intimate life of his home. When he
came in from out-of-doors he found the others enjoying themselves.
Annemarie played piano duets with her father, or he found them
all sitting on the verandah continuing a conversation of which
he had not heard the beginning, and laughing over jokes made
when he was not there. In the morning Annemarie and Thilo
always read Dante together in the blue room. When he came
in they stopped reading and he was asked about the farm, about
the weather. Annemarie was amiable as we are when we are
happy. “Why are you not with us, dear? Oh, of course, the
stupid farm!” she said absently. The meal times came and went,
the patiences, the nightingale. Felix hardly opened his mouth.
What was the use of saying anything when Thilo was sure to
interrupt him with something that the others thought very much
better.
When he was out on his rounds inspecting the farm, he felt
himself constantly drawn toward the gate of the flower garden.
He saw Annemarie and Thilo walking along the paths, stopping
before the flowers. Thilo talked, Annemarie raised her face to
look at him. They laughed together. Felix tried to get nearer,
to hear what they were saying. He stood behind bushes, aston-
ished that he should be capable of such a thing. Annemarie
stood under blossoming fruit trees, that arched themselves like
alabaster domes above her. She smiled light-heartedly, swaying
slightly as though intoxicated by all the whiteness. "Now it's
coming!” cried Thilo. It was the wind that came. It rushed
into the white tree tops. The petals fell in showers about Anne-
marie. She lifted her head and gave a little cry. The petals fell
onto her face, into her hair. Thilo stood near, his beard full


COUNT EDUARD VON KEYSERLING
285
of cherry blossoms. Lifting his heavy eyelids he looked at the
picture before him in dreamy contentment. He had invented this
game and called it flower baths that he had ordered for Annemarie.
Felix turned away and went out into the fields. He sat down
on the grass by the edge of the path. In front of him an old man
was ploughing a bean field with an old horse. Shining and heavy
the glebe turned over. Wearily, lazily, the horse and man went
up and down, up and down. The countryside lay silent under
the midday sun. In the middle of the field stood a willow tree
covered with yellow and white tufts, fragrant with the scent of
warm honey. The tree was full of bees, and seemed singing
sleepily to itself.
Felix felt miserable. He felt miserable all over, in his head,
his heart, in his throat. He could not bear to think. What funny
faces they'd all make at home if they knew that he was sitting
here and-and-was jealous. His father-in-law would chuckle
silently. Thilo would raise his eyebrows as though to say, “This
sort of thing is beneath my notice.” And Annemarie? Oh, there
was no question of her attitude. He would just like to strike a
note in this lovely smooth life they were all leading, so loud
that they would all have to sit up and listen.
VSC
“We must make the most of all these rural joys,” said His
Excellency. “We have had the nightingale, and milk warm from
the cow. The next thing to look forward to is snipe-shooting and
wet feet.”
Seated on the long Bankdroschke the hunting party drove
through the wood. The sun shone red through the spruce trees.
The wood was like a quiet twilight room in which there has been
smoking.
They stopped at a little swamp. Last year's grass stood here,
bristled yellow between the black pools that lay under the crippled
pines and little milk-white birches.
They had to jump carefully from one hummock to another.
Felix placed the different members of the party. His Excellency
stayed with Frau von Malten, Annemarie with Thilo, and Mila
with Felix. With hands thrust deep into her coat pockets, a
white sport hat on her head and her feet rather far apart, Mila
stood looking up into the sky waiting for the snipe. She looked


286
HARMONY
like a pretty, impetuous boy. She thrust her lower jaw out fiercely.
"If they talk so loud over there,” she remarked, "the snipe will
fly higher.”
Nearby Thilo and Annemarie were talking and laughing. Felix
shrugged his shoulders, but he listened intently in their direction.
The sky grew rose-coloured. The birds all around set up a lively
twittering. Everyone seemed excited by the red light. The dogs
at the neighbouring farms began to bark. Not the melancholy
barking of night hours, but a cheerful talkative barking. The
boys and girls tending sheep yelled at the top of their lungs.
Then—all was silent.
“It's coming,” Mila announced.
From the wood came the plaintive, oily notes. The snipe flew
very black against the pale sky over the top of a birch tree.
Felix's shot brought it down. From afar off a second note. Felix
turned toward it. When he had fired his shot and was about to
reload he saw Mila holding the wounded snipe in her hand.
Thrusting the broad fingers of the other hand under its wings, she
pressed its breast together, quiet and attentive. The little snipe's
face with its bead-like eyes and long bill looked on unchanged,
almost contented. Gradually the eyes closed and the head drooped
with a weary, hopeless movement.
"What are you doing?" asked Felix.
“That's the way it should be done,” Mila replied, threw the
dead bird aside, thrust her hands into her pockets again, and looked
up, alert as a pointer.
Felix looked at the girl. Damned hot blood, he thought. And
no trouble about understanding her either. Mila noticed that his
eyes rested on her. She threw him a quick gleaming look, showing
her brilliant white teeth in a short laugh. “Here comes another,"
she announced.
It was already growing dark. The party broke up. Mist
flowed over the swamp. Crickets set up their monotonous tinkling
beside the black water. In the top of the birch tree swung a
bit of moon.
“Come,” said Felix. He gave Annemarie his arm and led her
over the swamp.
Annemarie was much elated.
"It is too sweet,” she said, “the way they all go to bed here


COUNT EDUARD VON KEYSERLING 287
in the white mist! And the little creatures that sing by the
waters!”
“You did a lot of laughing." Felix remarked.
“Oh, yes! Thilo really was delicious!" answered Annemarie.
They drove home through the wood as though between high
black walls. Mila sat next to Felix and pressed her round
shoulder well against his arm. "Shameless hussy," he thought.
But at least here was someone who was not always waiting for
Thilo's next brilliant remark. So he did not withdraw his shoulder.
Thilo's soft voice, so entirely in harmony with the spring night,
began:
"A strange death, this of the snipe! Flying to a rendezvous
through a rosy sky, a shot and there's the end of it all.”
"Oh, death isn't so bad,” Annemarie's quiet musing voice
answered into the darkness. “Curtains that are tightly drawn-
so much is certain, and perhaps—"
His Excellency tittered. This turn of the conversation was
altogether too solemn for him. “The young snipe bridegroom
would probably prefer to be shot on his way back from the
rendezvous—"
"Why that?” asked Thilo. "Perhaps he is thus spared a disap-
pointment. The lady is not always sitting and waiting."
“Very pretty,” declared Frau von Malten. The conversation
died out. Each sat dreaming out into the scented darkness.
wn
Felix wanted to go to town. There was a horse-fair on and
this meant a chance to discuss the elections.
"You are quite right,” said his father-in-law, “it is a wholesome
thing to hobnob with one's brother barons over protective tariff
for grain.”
Felix looked forward to this expedition. It had been raining.
Now the sun came out. The market place was wet and shiny
and the horses shone as though freshly varnished. Everywhere
Felix met people he knew. “The devil! You back again, Bas-
senow!” “Ha, Bassenow, the deserter! Well, we've got you
hard and fast now!” It was pleasant to slap the silken flanks
of the horses, to look into their mouths, to jerk their tails and twit
the Jewish vendors. Later there was lunch at the Crown Prince
Inn. Politics were loudly discussed, there was much pounding on
wer
e was n


288
HARMONY
the table and one grew heated in smart controversy. After the
older men had gone the younger ones remained for champagne.
Their cigars between their teeth, elbows on the table, they talked
about women, talked very freely and laughed very loud. Felix
told tales of his travels, very broad stories which staggered even
Pankow who in this field had always regarded himself as the
gayest dog of the crowd. But when they were sitting down to jeu
it was time for Felix to start for home.
Taking the reins himself he urged the horses forward. The
champagne had gone to his head. He had drunk a great deal
and hastily, and was still chuckling to himself over the stories he
had told. He felt merry and light-hearted. Life seemed a simple
and wholly satisfactory matter.
Arrived at home he took a cold shower-bath. He wondered if
he had been quite natural as he got out of the carriage and greeted
the family. "Well—what did it matter anyway!”
During dinner he was in high spirits, told stories, laughed -
quite naturally and at his ease, only somehow the others didn't
seem to him to be quite so natural. They agreed with everything
that he said so readily and answered so soothingly that they
seemed to want to accentuate the fact that there was nothing in
the least unusual in his behaviour. Annemarie pushed her plate
from her. Her lips twitched contemptuously. She exchanged
furtive glances with Frau von Malten. When he ceased speaking
the others talked of commonplace matters which did not seem to
interest them. One of the men-servants dropped a dish of pre-
serves. Felix sprang to his feet, very red in the face. “What do
you mean?” he cried. “Have you been drinking ?” and he snapped
his table napkin in the air like a whip. Frau von Malten signed
to the servant to withdraw.
“What a fellow!” said Felix and sat down again.
"A bit awkward yet,” whispered Frau von Malten.
A pause followed which Frau von Malten finally broke with
the news that her sister had written that it was raining in Mecklen-
burg. Then His Excellency began a familiar tale of a Polish count
who lost all his money at cards and then staked his ear and after
he won that still went on playing.
“How dreadful,” said Frau von Malten. Mila laughed so
extravagantly that it was plain that she was not laughing at the
tale of the Polish count, but with pent up mirth.


COUNT EDUARD VON KEYSERLING 289
“Unheard of! Just to throw a dish down!” Felix heard him-
self say. He knew that this was ridiculous, but it just slipped
out by itself. Nobody answered. Annemarie bit her lip. Her
face wore an expression as though she were enduring physical pain,
and she made the move to leave the table.
Around the fire in the blue drawing-room things were no better.
The conversation passed quietly over Felix's head as though he
were a patient and the others were saying things calculated not
to excite him. Annemarie was pale and silent, the cool, proud
expression on her face which said “Oh, no—thank you—not for
me.” The air too seemed hot and oppressive, and the odour of
Thilo's English cigarettes got on Felix's nerves. He sat there
thinking up some excuse for leaving the room. At last he rose
to his feet. “I wonder if it is still raining,” he remarked casually.
“Oh, I wonder-really,” said Frau von Malten.
“I'll take a look”-and with that he strolled out.
The night was clear and starry. The narcissus beds gleamed
white in the moonlight. The nightingale was singing away. Some-
one stood in front of the lilac bush, a black figure that stooped
down, picked something up, and threw it at the bush. The night-
ingale stopped her song and flew off on hasty wings into the
darkness. The figure turned away and walked down the garden
path. That was Mila's long stride, the careless swing of the hips
in which she indulged whenever Frau von Malten was not looking.
What was she up to? Felix followed. At the top of a bank
she stopped, lay down flat on the grass, and rolled down the slope.
At the same time she emitted little high shrill cries like the
whistling of a bat.–Arrived at the bottom she got up and ran
up the bank again. Felix walked to meet her.
"Are you going to roll down again ?” he asked.
Mila stopped breathless, her teeth glistened in the starlight.
“Yes,” she said.
"Is it fun?"
“Yes, it just does you good, and in there ..."
"It's suffocating—” Felix suggested.
“It feels as if ants were running all over your legs when you
have to sit still so long ” Mila ventured.
"I should like to roll down myself,” said Felix meditatively.
"You”-Mila held the back of her hand to her mouth and
laughed.
Vas
20


290
HARMONY
“Come,” said Felix. Mila walked obediently beside him. “Do
you often come here to roll?” he asked.
Mila swung her arms as she walked as though she could not
get exercise enough. "Often? Oh, no, I can't get off very often.
But to-night the old lady is going to sleep downstairs with her.”
She talks as though we understood each other pretty well-
Felix thought-like two servants when the family is out. "And
the nightingale, what had she done to you?” he asked.
"She? Oh, I can't bear her, and this everlasting sitting still
to listen to her.”
They turned into the great chestnut avenue. Here it was quite
dark. Felix stopped, seized the girl's arm quickly and firmly and
pressed it to him. Mila's breath came faster and louder, but she
permitted herself to be clasped, indeed she ducked almost like a
wild fowl.
They sat down on the grass together. Felix drew the girl to
him with a fierce desire, as though he wanted her to pay the
penalty—that he could be so—10—.
DIV
.
e
One evening before the fire His Excellency said: “Well, Thilo
so you are not going with me to-morrow?"
Thilo stroked his beard ever so lightly. “No-Annemarie has
asked me to prolong my stay a little. If you really want me
to stay—”
"Oh, yes,” cried Annemarie and Frau von Malten in one breath.
"We should be very glad”-murmured Felix, but a great bitter-
ness welled up in him. Why did he want to stay? Felix turned
his head away. He knew that he was making a queer face. But
no one noticed him except Mila who looked at him with her bright
eyes. The girl had begun to give him such hungry looks that it
embarrassed him. He pulled himself together. He wanted to
make some commonplace remark.
"I saw Pankow to-day,” he finally said. “He drove past the
park.”
“Really,” said His Excellency. “What did he have to say?"
Felix laughed, “Oh, got off a lot of his mad tales, of course.
He's a nice chap. He said he'd be in to see us soon.”
"Oh, he,” said Annemarie, bored. “I can't bear him. His
stories are endless and not always quite proper either and he
always has to laugh so loud at them himself.”


COUNT EDUARD VON KEYSERLING 291
S as
as
“Yes,” said Thilo, “people like that who sit in their stories as
if they were in a warm bath they don't want to get out of, are
immeasurably tiresome.”
Felix grew angry. "Pankow's a good fellow. I'd like to know
who there is, anyway, to come to us? It's as if we lived in an
enchanted castle. This one must not be allowed to come to the
house because he wears cuffs that button on, that one because his
stories are too long. Herman may not wait on table because his
eyes are red. Before we know it everyone who crosses our threshold
will be supposed first to pass an examination in aesthetics. It's
absurd! Pankow's my friend and shall come here if he likes.”
It did him good to blurt this out in a loud, angry voice.
"Certainly he shall come,” said Annemarie with a slight tremor
in her voice. “I was merely saying whether I liked him or not.”
Frau von Malten blew her nose loudly. Thilo leaned his head
back and closed his eyes. Annemarie rose and left the room
followed by Frau von Malten. Mila slipped to the door and
looked as though she wanted to give Felix a sign. There was
silence in the room. His Excellency went on with his game of
patience. The slapping down of the cards was for a while the
only sound to be heard in the room. At last Thilo raised his eyes
and said, “I think your wife left the room in some agitation. Don't
you want to look after her?”
That was just what Felix wanted. “Surely,” he cried fiercely.
“But one ought to be able to speak out frankly from time to time.
And what's more I was in the right.”
"Perhaps you were,” suggested Thilo, “but that is after all of
no great consequence.”
“Of no consequence?" Felix rose and paced the floor excitedly.
“This is my house. But I hardly dare open my mouth here any
more. Everything I say gives offence. I can't say a word with-
out being misunderstood.”
“Yes, that is the old story,” Thilo remarked. "We marry these
exquisite creatures—as—as we buy a rare instrument that we do
not know how to play. It's the same with all of us.”
"All of us?”' Felix stopped in front of Thilo and looked down
at him angrily. “You don't—"
"Heavens!” said Thilo, bored. "It would be just the same if
I'were to marry. Women are once for all on a higher plane of
culture than men."


292
HARMONY
“Poor creatures! They would probably be less misunderstood
if they could be married to highly sensitive bachelors.” Felix was
astonished at the bitterness of his own words. Thilo smiled wanly.
“I beg your pardon,” muttered Felix, "I didn't mean to be
rude ..."
“Oh,” replied Thilo,"you needn't apologize. Your remark
was very witty. It is I who should beg your pardon for mixing
in your affairs."
“Anyway,” said Felix, “I was in the right. A man must be
able to discuss things frankly with his wife.”
“That is, I suppose, what is meant by the much extolled sharing
of joy and sorrow?” asked Thilo.
“Certainly!”
“It really is strange!" Thilo mused on, in a low, drawling voice.
“Our women are brought up to have everything passed to them
first and we expect them to take the titbits. That is the way
we want them to be, and then suddenly we want to share with
them what doesn't taste good to us."
"Oh, nonsense,” said Felix who had not been listening. "I
don't care about most titbits anyway." He was wondering if Anne-
marie were crying in her room, crying on his account? Ought he
to go to her? There would perhaps be some agitated words between
them. That sort of thing brings people nearer to one another.
"I'll go and look after Annemarie,” he said.
“That's one of your relics of barbarism," murmured Thilo as
Felix left the room. “This everlasting dwelling on being in the
right. As if it were not just as pleasant at times to be in the
wrong."
His Excellency laughed into himself silently until his shoulders
shook.
At the door of Annemarie's room Felix heard Annemarie and
Frau von Malten chatting and laughing. There did not seem
to be any weeping going on here. He was disappointed. He
found Annemarie sitting in her dressing-gown before the mirror.
Frau von Malten stood behind her combing her long gold brown
hair. In the looking-glass Annemarie saw him come in. Her face
which had just been all laughter took on a quiet, weary look. “Oh.
it's you,” she said.
Felix was somewhat embarrassed.


COUNT EDUARD VON KEYSERLING 293
“Yes, I thought I'd come,” he said. He sat down. Frau von
Malten vanished noiselessly. "You were distressed,” he went on.
“I wanted to come to you. Have I offended you?”
Annemarie smiled. "No, it was nothing. I ought not to have
spoken as I did. But now it is a thing of the past. We needn't
speak of Herr von Pankow any more.”
“Pankow is a secondary matter," Felix burst out. "What
matters to me is that it seems to me that—that I am being com-
pletely set aside. I apparently don't count here any more. I am
of course neither as elegant nor as brilliant as Thilo. But, after
all, one doesn't marry in order to be brilliant and elegant.”
“Thilo—why Thilo?” Annemarie looked at her reflection in
the glass, and both she and the reflection blushed.
"Who else than Thilo?” said Felix, hoarse with excitement.
"It is perhaps absurd and tactless that I feel as I do, but it makes
me very unhappy to go on living this way. And I have a right
to be happy here—as no one else-and-and in my own way.”
Felix was silent and looked at Annemarie helplessly.
“You poor dear,” Annemarie said into the looking-glass, and
as she spoke she and the reflection looked at each other as though
to say: "Nowe can have nothing to do with this matter."
"What is to be done?” she said plaintively. She seized her
hair with both hands and drew it forward over her shoulder, cross-
ing it over her breast, as though she wanted to wrap herself up in
this golden brown brocade.
Felix was silent a moment, as though he could not quite make
up his mind to say something. Then, feeling very small, he said,
“Thilo could go away,”
"Yes—that will probably be the best," admitted Annemarie.
Her voice was low and weary.
They were both silent now. Annemarie drew her hair closer
around her and looked into the looking-glass as though she were
expecting something. “She's waiting for me to go," thought
Felix. He got up and tried to give his voice a cheery note as
he said, “Everything will be right again. It is better to speak
frankly. Don't you think so? You must be tired!” He bent over
her and kissed her cool white forehead. "Good-night.”
When he came out into the anteroom he found Frau von
Malten mixing a soothing drink.


294
HARMONY
What was to be done now? He was dissatisfied with himself
and with Annemarie. She, looking at her reflection in the glass,
so serious and haughty, seemed further removed from him than
ever, and yet the longing in his heart to belong to her wholly and
entirely was unendurable. He could not sleep. He was afraid
of the silence in his bedroom. He did not want to go to Mila
in the Park-no—not now! He took his gun and set out for
the wood.
The country sleeping in the starlight, the breeze coming over
damp meadows, soothed him. He turned into the wood and walked
through the darkness. The dewy beards of the old spruce trees
brushed against his face. A badger panted by him. From a thicket
the forester Peter, stepped out to greet him.
"Ah, my lord! Does my lord want to take a shot at the moor-
cock that come out over there on the meadow ?”
“Yes,” Felix remembered that Peter had mentioned them. The
blond giant with the round childish face walked along beside him
and spoke about the moor-cock. They were quite mad this year,
he said.
"Didn't I hear you'd married ?" asked Felix.
“Yes—Marie. She used to be at the manor-house where she
learned to bake good bread.”
Felix remembered her—"A big, handsome girl.”
"So far I've not much to complain of,” said Peter. “But she has
a bit of a temper."
"Well, well. And do you beat her from time to time?”
Peter laughed, “As it happens. You can't always get along
without that.”
Felix was interested. “And—how—whereabouts do you strike
her?"
“Oh, just as it comes, my lord.”
"And then ?"
“Well, she howls—and then afterward she's as pleasant as you
please. They're all the same."
“Yes, all the same,”-repeated Felix thoughtfully.
Felix crawled into the little hut of twisted juniper boughs that
stood on the edge of the meadow.
“This is where they always come,” said Peter and went off.
no


COUNT EDUARD VON KEYSERLING
295
Twilight still hovered over the meadow. In the East a light
strip of sky hung above the horizon; from the wood nearby came
a low monotonous rustling. Felix stretched himself out. A slight
drowsiness made his eyelids heavy. Moths brushed his cheeks
with their cool velvet wings. High above his head he heard
the plaintive note of the morning snipe. Heavens, how remote,
how remote and impersonal home seemed to him-his room—the
night table with the lamp; and the white room with the white
hanging lamp. All that was far, far away. Who knew anything
about it here? Here you could rest, half drunk with the still-
ness, and draw in deep breaths. What more could you want?
The twilight grew more transparent. Cobwebs covered the
meadow with grey cloths. Somewhere nearby a magpie began to
chatter. Then the moor-cock on the spruce trees by the edge of
the forest woke up and began to hiss.
One sat right before the hut and, puffing himself out, turned
himself about, gobbling eagerly and incessantly. Finally his mate
appeared waiting till it should be her turn to take part in this
remarkable dance.
From all sides other moor-cock answered. The quaint little
figures turning untiringly were scattered over the whole meadow.
Felix did not shoot. He liked to look on, and listen to this
monotonous but passionate music. It was all so very natural, so
a matter of course. The clouds turned to rose colour. The first
sunbeams fell aslant over the meadow. Dew-drops hanging on the
grasses began to glitter.
Suddenly there was silence. Then a rustling nearby. The wood-
cock flew up. What was it? Felix looked out over the meadow.
On the opposite side stood a bright coloured little figure, a
peasant girl. She held her light cotton dress high over her red
petticoat and walked across the meadow lifting her legs in their
white stockings high above the dewy grass. Her broad, rosy face
shone in the early sunlight.
"It is Sunday,” Felix remembered. “She is on her way to
church.”
Out of the wood stepped a young fellow also dressed in his
Sunday clothes, his cap pushed back on his head, his face red from
the washing he had given it. Both the girl and the man stopped,
looked at each other, walked toward each other—now they met


296
HARMONY
and the broad laughing faces were pressed each to each. The young
fellow seized the girl with quiet determined hands as though he
were about to pluck a fruit. The girl struck at him, but never-
theless they marched off to the wood together, their arms closely
entwined, and vanished among the spruce trees.
"They're not going to church to-day,” said Felix to himself.
He started for home. The night had quieted him down and
strengthened him. Ah well! Life was really a simple matter.
You just had to grasp it firmly, as the youth grasped the breast
of his sweetheart. He would speak frankly with Thilo. When
people wear masks it suffocates them. This idea of masks appealed
to him uncommonly. He would use it in speaking to Thilo,
who liked such comparisons.
The windows of the manor-house glittered in the sun. The
garden was full of tulips and narcissus. Very straight too they
stood in the flowerbeds—very clean-very much perfumed. They
never let themselves go. And they had been standing that way
all night waiting for the day to come. That was the sort of
thing Annemarie demanded. But then he was really not a nar-
cissus. She would have to make up her mind to that.
Once in his room he went to bed and slept till the day was
already advanced.
It was past noon when Felix got up. From his window he saw
Thilo and Annemarie playing battledore and shuttlecock on the
lawn. Thilo had introduced this instead of the dancing after
breakfast. “Dancing doesn't seem to suit him any more," Felix
thought. He stretched himself. He felt pleasantly young and
energetic to-day.
Later he found Thilo on the verandah musing over his cigar.
He asked Felix casually about his shooting expedition. Felix
leaned against the railing and looked down into the garden.
"I have something I want to talk to you about,” he began.
His tone was distinct and energetic. “It isn't quite easy. But
you won't take it amiss. It's always better to be frank.”
He looked up. Thilo looked down at the long ash at the
end of his cigar. At last he said, drawling the words out care-
lessly, “I really do not think it advisable. This sort of dis-
cussion and openness is always unpleasant to recall later on.”


COUNT EDUARD VON KEYSERLING 297
CIC
Felix flushed; now he must bring in that about the masks. “On
the contrary. If you go on wearing a mask for ever, it finally
suffocates you.”
Thilo smiled. “I think myself that masks are not so bad,” he
said, as though this were a common, everyday conversation. “I
always felt that the Greeks were right in masking their actors.
There was never any danger of Oedipus looking like the gentle-
man who was enjoying beer and radishes in the restaurant the
other day, nor of Antigone looking like the lady who sat smoking
with her elbows on the table.”
“That's all really of no account-” Felix burst out. “I have
something to say to you which concerns me very closely-some-
thing of which I wish to speak openly to you as to a member
of the family. It is not an easy matter, but ...".
“I always advise against these confidences,” Thilo interrupted
him.
Felix was silent. He was not prepared for this. He grasped
the top of the iron railing so tightly that his hands hurt. What
was he to say now?
Thilo finally made up his mind to knock off the long ash
from his cigar with his little finger, and said in his composed,
discreet voice. "Last night various matters came to my mind that
are in need of my attention. I am sorry that this will prevent
me from accepting your kind invitation to continue my visit. I
am leaving to-day with your father-in-law. I am truly sorry—
but-"
"O really. It—it is really too bad,” Felix stammered. He
assumed an expression of disappointment. Then all was as it
should be, and he might have spared himself all this fuss. Thilo
suggested a clearing in a certain direction through the park trees
which would be effective. Felix entered into the matter with
eagerness.
Annemarie and Thilo walked slowly and silently down the
garden path to the arbour among the lilacs. Here they sat down.
“Where do you intend to go?" asked Annemarie.
"I shall find a ship somewhere and cruise about for a while.
That will be the best thing." He looked at Annemarie thought-
fully as we look at a picture that absorbs us. She shut her
as
.


298
HARMONY
e
eyes, and sat as still under his gaze as though it were a caress.
“Those of us who have reached the age of forty," Thilo went on,
"handle our feelings with care. If we come into the possession
of a very precious one we go off with it-into some lonely region,
seeking out the perfect environment.”
"I can see you distinctly,” said Annemarie, “sitting alone on
the ship and looking out over the twilight waters.”
Thilo nodded. “Yes, that's just how it will be,” he said. “It's
strange what vivid forms our visions take on, when we look out
through evening light on darkening seas. ... Priceless hours.
You remember:
"_lora che volge il desio
Ai naviganti e intenerisce il cuore."
Annemarie smiled, one of those touching smiles which women smile
who would fain excuse the tears that are kept back.
"And you?” asked Thilo and bent forward.
Her shoulders heaved slightly. “Desio—can one not live on
that too ?”
Thilo lifted Annemarie's hand carefully from the back of the
bench and laid it on the palm of his own.
“You,” he said, "you must above all things always be your-
self. Keep out everything in the least foreign to your own nature.
You happen to be a perfect inspiration of the Creator and such
perfection can bear no added accents." He looked out thought-
fully for a moment and then stroked lightly the hand that lay
motionless in his own. “Could you,” he said hesitatingly, "could
you take upon yourself something like a sin—the symbol of a
sin-for-for my sake? I think—that to share something like a
sin together binds closer than a mere exchange of rings." He had
spoken in that low voice of his with its peculiar singing quality.
Now he was silent. As Annemarie did not answer he drew her
gently toward him, bent over her, and touched ever so lightly her
tightly closed lips with his own. Hastily they drew apart again.
“Something for the vision to feed on," said Thilo and smiled. Then
he looked at his watch, rose: “I must go—your father is easily im-
patient. You are going to stay here?”


COUNT EDUARD VON KEYSERLING 299
Annemarie nodded. When Thilo had gone she let the tears
flow unhindered over her white, motionless face.
The gravel crunched. Felix came hurriedly.
"Where have you been ?” he called. “They are already leaving.
What-you've been crying?"
“Oh yes—a little,” said Annemarie. “I am so sorry that they
are going away.”
"Of course. It's too bad.” Felix gulped hastily. He was
disheartened. “But what's to be done! Come now. They are
waiting."
The field was clear. Life would begin anew. Felix gave free
rein to his happy mood. At dinner he was very talkative, teased
Mila and Frau von Malten, stroked Annemarie's hand tenderly.
He noticed, of course, that this happy mood was not finding
response, but he was determined not to let himself be disturbed
in it. This, however, was really not particularly easy in the draw-
ing-room after dinner. Frau von Malten read the paper aloud.
Annemarie sat with an expression of quiet happiness on her face
and seemed very far away with her thoughts. This room, this
hour, both were still so full of Thilo's presence. Mila seized the
opportunity of fastening her hot gaze on Felix; and Felix puffed
at his cigar and thought of foolish, violent things. How would
it be to say something—or do something now that would strike
like a thunderbolt into all this quiet, something that nobody ex-
pected, that would startle Annemarie and make her cry, that would
shatter the glass walls which separated one from another here.
The windows were open. The night breathed sweetly through
the rooms. A soft rustling came and went in the linden just
outside. Frau von Malten had now reached the social chronicle
and let the great names ring out solemnly.
ames
Meanwhile a mad riot of blossoming swept over the world. The
lilacs encircled the house as with a rampart of pale violet-coloured
gauze. Tulips in rows leaped like little flames along the edges
of the garden paths. At every hour of the day Annemarie might
be seen passing down these paths, her face calm and happy. She
sang softly to herself or stopped to listen to some distant sound.
“She is always with him, always,” Felix said to himself. When


300
HARMONY
- he joined her she nodded absently, spoke of indifferent matters, of
his farming, of the garden, entertained him kindly and politely as
we do a caller who will we hope soon take his leave.
"The lilac is particularly beautiful this year. Don't you
think so ?”
“That makes you happy ?”
“Yes I can positively hear it! I have always noticed that
colours have sounds. Thilo says he can hear them too."
“Oh, he, of course,” Felix grunted.
“He says,” Annemarie went on, “the sound of lilac is like the
sound of a choir of children's voices singing in a distant church
at Whitsuntide.”
"Really! I can't hear a thing." Felix ended the conversation
and turned to go. Annemarie gave him a cheerful nod and turned
into a side path hurriedly as though someone were waiting for
her there.
Or else it was morning and he came in to see her. He wanted
to do as others do. A man comes in between his duties in his high
boots for a moment to chat with his wife, has a glass of cognac,
speaks of this or that.
In the anteroom Frau von Malten was instructing one of the
younger men-servants. She kept entering the room and he had
to announce her to the big arm-chair. Or she sat down and he
had to come again and again and announce dinner.
Annemarie sat in her room. She had taken off the string of
pearls which she usually wore and let it slip through her fingers.
“Oh! it's you,” she said as Felix entered. "Have you had your
cognac?” She listened to what he had to say. She acted exactly
as though it were a matter of course that he should be there.
But Felix was aware that he had disturbed her, had interrupted her
at something. And knew that as soon as he went away she would
begin her real life again. Mila came to read to her. Annemarie
looked down at the pearls and said shortly:
“No thank you, no reading.”
Felix was astonished at the look of repugnance on her face as
she spoke. Mila turned and departed so abruptly that her skirts
swished.
"Don't you keep up the reading aloud? Has Mila's voice
ceased to be agreeable?" Felix asked.


COUNT EDUARD VON KEYSERLING 301
“No,” Annemarie replied, “her voice is no longer agreeable
to me."
"Oh," said Mila that evening in the Park, "the old lady hasn't
noticed a thing, but she, she can't bear the sight of me. When
I come into the room she sends me out again and when I kiss
her hand she acts as if a dog were licking it."
“Don't speak of her-ever—" Felix flared out at her. He
took her by the shoulder and shook her. Mila cried. She bent
her face bright with tears down to his and kissed him as though
she wanted to throw all the heat of her indignation into these
kisses.
“There is no getting hold of this life,” thought Felix as he
stood again by the bean-field, and watched the old man and his
white horse and the shining glebe—“No getting hold of it,”
But both he and she knew better. Something went on of which
the day with its charming order knew nothing whatever—no word,
no glance recalled it. But the picture of it was always present
to Felix's mind. At night, when all was still, when the furniture
in the dark rooms slept under its white covers, when the flowers
wilted in the vases, when Frau von Malten's pretty clockwork
had stopped—there under the white hanging lamps in the white
room the little white figure crouched on the bed. The eyes very
dark in all the whiteness looked at him wide and frightened and
the slender, cool body lay motionless in his arms; on the pale face
was an expression of contempt and the endurance of torture. After
such nights his heart was sore within him with a sense of bitter,
cruel power, and yet he needs must experience it again and again.
A strange unrest took possession of Felix. He could not sleep.
He wandered about the roads at night. These white nights at the
beginning of summer cast a ghostly shimmer over the country-
side and are heavy with dreams. From the peasants' huts came
now and then the sound of a sleepy but restless accordion sing-
ing its jerky little tune out into the twilight.
On the edge of the field a peasant boy lay stretched out in
the grass, his face turned upward to the stars, and slept. Felix
walked along the road a stranger to himself. Thus we see our-
selves sometimes in dreams, a stranger in a strange dream-world.
Behind him lay the manor-house between its hedges of lilac. In
the white room crouched the white figure listening anxiously into


302
HARMONY
the night lest a step—his step-should draw near. In the Park
sat Mila crying because he did not come, and here was he straying
along the silent roads. Why—why must all this be? He could
not understand it.
He stretched himself out by the wayside. He too wanted to
lie there like the young fellow yonder lulled to sleep by the weary
dance tune of the distant accordion.
Again a bit of moon hung in the tree-tops of the Park. Felix
lay on the close cropped lawn under the chestnut trees. Mila
sat beside him, held his hand, and kissed it with regular, short
kisses.
"My lord-my lord,” she repeated.
Before them lay the pond. Over it spread a light green coverlet
of water plants. Shave-grass and water-plantain had shot up and
caught the moonlight as in lattice-work.
"My lord-my lord,” Mila repeated in her soft voice. Felix
listened as in a dream. Then another sound reached him, a clear
voice singing—drawing nearer. He felt Mila press his hand, he
sat up quickly. The voice was quite near: “Annemarie," he
thought. At that moment she passed them slowly. She held a
branch of lilac bloom in her hand and moved it slowly up and
down, as though keeping time to her song. The train of the
white muslin dress rustled softly on the gravel. She seemed for
a moment to turn her head in the direction where the two sat in
the shadow. Felix saw distinctly the slender face, calm and aloof,
the lips parted in singing. Thus she passed them. The song grew
fainter and fainter. Then it came again, clearer, over the water,
like a lullaby sung by a mother in the dim lamp-light beside a
white cradle as her eyes grow heavy with sleep.
Now she had reached the further side of the pond. The
shining figure walked out on the little landing that jutted out into
the water. At the end of the landing she stopped, waved the
flowery branch, and sang. Felix jumped to his feet.
But the white figure was gone. A sound on the water. Wild
ducks flew up from the reeds. The moonlight on the water yonder
moved back and forth in crooked lines.
“Go-call for help!” gasped Felix. He rushed to the pond,
threw off his coat, and sprang into the water. He would have to
cross the pond. With a silky rustle the green coverlet pushed back


COUNT EDUARD VON KEYSERLING
303
mon
before him. The water was luke-warm. In the middle of the pond
floated an island of water-plantain. Felix had to get through
this. The tiny, upright flowers threw pollen in his face that had
a faint odour of honey. Now he was in the midst of it. Some-
thing held his foot fast. He struck out vigorously with his arms.
Now it seized hold of his arm, and as he tried to free himself it
closed in on him from all sides, clasped him with soft, cool fingers.
Breathless he struggled in this net that parted and closed in on
him again. He thrust his hands into it as into a tangle of cold,
silky limbs. He tore them apart, and heard them moan faintly.
Everything else was forgotten in the frenzy of this fight with
the silent, evasive life around him. And when he stopped for a
moment to get his breath, he saw the pond around him silent and
moonlit. Only the great leaves of the water lilies rocked gently.
A last desperate effort, and he was free, about him clear water.
Then he saw the landing and knew again why he was there: “She
is waiting—she is in danger.” Hastily he swam to the other
shore. This must be the place. The water was deep and clear.
On it floated a spray of lilac. Felix dived; dived again. Now
he seemed to grasp a dress—an arm—a hand. He swam to shore,
the little cold hand held fast in his own.
He lifted Annemarie ashore, bent over her, tore the clothing
from her body, knelt beside her and looked down upon her. Her
breast, her limbs were shiny with water and transparently white.
The face strange and severe in its utter calm; the lips half opened.
The bluish whiteness of the teeth glittered from between them. The
upper lip was drawn up a little, proud and aloof. It was as though
Annemarie, tired, had lain down and said:
“Oh, no-thank you—not for me.”
va


A POEM
BY E. E. CUMMINGS
Nobody wears a yellow
flower in his buttonhole
he is altogether a queer fellow
as young as he is old
when autumn comes,
who twiddles his white thumbs
and frisks down the boulevards
without his coat and hat
-(and i wonder just why that
should please him or i wonder what he does)
and why (at the bottom of this trunk,
under some dirty collars) only a
moment
(or
was it perhaps a year) ago i found staring
me in the face a dead yellow small rose


NDRE
A
A DRAWING. BY E. E. CUMMINGS


-----
-


A DRAWING. BY E. E. CUMMINGS





THE RELIGION OF CULTURE
BY ROGER FRY
IT is a nice point, and one on which I have never yet been
1 able to make up my mind, whether culture is more inimical
to art than barbarism, or vice versa. Culture, no doubt, tends to
keep a tradition in existence, but just when the tradition thus
carefully tended through some winter of neglect begins to show
signs of life by putting out new shoots and blossoms, culture must
needs do its best to destroy them. As the guardian and wor-
shipper of the dead trunk, it tries to wipe off such impertinent
excrescences, unable as it is to recognize in them the signs of
life.
The late Sir Claude Phillips, for instance, in his book Evolution
in Art,' pays tribute to the greatest achievements of the art of the
past; he exalted and kept alive the memory of Titian and
Giorgione, but when he comes to talk of his contemporaries he
makes us wonder what he found to admire in the old masters by
speaking in almost the same glowing terms of Böcklin and Fritz
von Uhde; he alludes to Monet, but he is silent about Seurat and
Sisley and Cézanne, not to mention those more modern artists
whom also he had every opportunity to appraise.
For this book of reprinted articles makes it quite clear that Sir
Claude was a very distinguished High Priest of Culture. The
unction of his style was as oil to feed the undying flame in the
Temple, and the savour of his epithets rose like incense before its
altars. Like many great ecclesiastics, he was also an accomplished
man of the world; neither an ascetic nor a prude, like them he
enjoyed polished society, good wine, good food, and good stories.
He was a charming and witty companion, whose good things were
drawn from the vast store of learning and experience which his
wonderful memory retained. But like other ecclesiastics, when
he entered the Temple invested with his priestly garments, his
whole manner changed. His language took on the peculiar unction
1 Evolution in Art. By Claude Phillips. Edited by Maurice W. Brock-
well. Heinemann. 155.
LS


306
THE RELIGION OF CULTURE
101
of almost all devotional writing, and he bowed perpetually before
the great gods of his Temple and rarely alluded to one of them
without some time-honoured and sanctifying epithet. The very
quality of his phrases changed; they took on the liturgical reso-
nance which relegates sense to a subsidiary position. Perhaps
Ruskin had showed the way, but it was Phillips more than any one
else who framed and consolidated the ritual and liturgical use
of the great Temple of Culture. He borrowed, no doubt, from
other religions, but he adapted with extraordinary tact and skill.
Thus it was that he came week after week to intone in the columns
of the Daily Telegraph those reverential, decorous, and richly
adorned services, some of which are reprinted here. Throughout
these pages we hear “the blessed mutter of the Mass”—a Mass
in which the names of all the deities and saints and all their
great works are brought up in succession. It hardly matters
whether Sir Claude Phillips says anything about their works or
not; the main purpose is served if one after another, their glorious
names are brought to the worshipper's mind, in order to arouse
his reverent awe and conduce to his edification. As we read these
pages we are conscious of the presence of the Thrones, Dominions,
Principalities, and Powers of the realm of art; we share humbly
and at a distance in that new communion of the Saints. Almost
infallibly Sir Claude strikes the right devotional attitude and finds
the edifying epithet.
One of the well-known signs of this attitude is the reference
to holy beings by some allusive circumlocution. A well-trained
ecclesiastic having once named Elijah could hardly fail after-
wards to refer to him as the “indomitable Tishbite.” The effect of
this is admirable, it assumes that reverent familiarity on the wor-
shipper's part which is so desirable. Thus, Sir Claude has his
repertory of allusions, "the gentle Urbinate," "the bee of Urbino,"
"the divine Sanzio,” “the faultless Andrea,” “the Frate," "the
poet-painter of Valenciennes," "the great Cadorine,” by which we
are, as it were, made free of the mysteries. Still more significant
is the fact that not even the objects that have to do with the cult
may be left without their appropriate adjective. I quote a passage
in which he speaks of dancing in art: “Akin to these, but perhaps
more vigorous still, and with less of cosmic suavity, are the child-
angels who in joyous procession pass dancing along the front and


ROGER FRY
307
sides of Donatello's 'Cantoria,' once in the Cathedral of Santa
Maria del Fiori at Florence, but now in the little museum at the
back of that mighty church.” Here the information given in the
last phrase is, of course, quite irrelevant to the argument, but it
seems to bring up vague memories of holy things, and, what reveals
most this attitude, even this little scrap of topography helps to
elevate us by reason of the insertion of the word "mighty.” The
true devotional touch is revealed by this almost unconscious gesture.
But let me quote another passage where the fervour of Sir Claude's
Apostolate has more scope:
"And Mantegna, harsh and tender, severe with a more than
Roman severity, and yet of a mysticism in devotion as intense as
that of any contemporary master, maintains the beholder in realms
where the spirit droops and can hardly follow. The sublimity of
Michelangelo himself is equalled in a 'Sybil and Prophet' of very
moderate dimensions, formerly in the collection of the Duke of
Buccleugh; the 'Infant Christ, as Ruler of the World,' of the
Mond collection, stands apart in the quiet intensity with which it
expresses worship on the one hand, and, on the other, the irradia-
tion of the universe by Divine Love. The 'Madonnas' of the Poldi-
Pezzoli Museum at Milan and the Gallery at Bergamo express,
as by hardly any other master they have been expressed, the sub-
lime devotion, the tragic apprehension, of maternal love that is all
human and yet in its immensity Divine. Face to face with his
'Adoration of the Magi' (formerly in the Ashburton collection),
we experience the feeling of religious awe, almost of terror, that
possessed the Wise Men of the East when, though royal still in
splendour and in gravity, they knelt subdued and prostrate in
worship at the feet of the Divine Babe.”
numan
There surely is the full organ roll of the Anglican liturgy at its
best; see how the very names of Italian towns and of Ducal col-
lectors help to swell the diapason, and urge the worshipper to
fresh ecstasies of acquiescence.
Decidedly Sir Claude Phillips was a great High Priest in that
religion of culture which is so well adapted to the emotional needs
of polite societies, and let me add that he had to the full the
sense of his sacerdocy. He was the first to denounce any act of


308
THE RELIGION OF CULTURE
Vandalism, he was the most scrupulous in avoiding any hint of
mercenary dealings, the most punctilious in the assertion of
the claims of his religion, and the most conscientious in their
observance.
There remains, of course, the question with which I started:
what relation, if any, has this religion of culture to art? Some
connexion it surely has. It would be impossible for any one to
have written these glowing pages unless he had looked long and
with some genuine emotion at the innumerable masterpieces whose
images he recalls and whose glories he recounts. But so far as
I can find, there is no single piece of strictly aesthetic appreciation
in the whole of this book. Not once does Sir Claude come into
contact with the actual vision of the artist. So far indeed does
his habit of day-dreaming about pictures instead of looking at them
go, that in an essay on "what the brush cannot paint,” he actually
says that "the word-painting of the poet gives as definite a vision
as that which arises from the brush-work of the painters.” The
word “definite” here is, of course, the exact opposite of the truth-
the essence, and to a great extent the value, of the poet's image
lying precisely in its indefiniteness.
But Sir Claude did not accept definite images from pictures. He
allowed the vision to set up in his mind an emotional state in
which the vision itself was lost in the vague overtones of asso-
ciated ideas and feelings. He shows his method when he says:
"Not Millais in his 'Chill October,' not even Theodore Rousseau
or Diaz, painting the festering herbage on some dank pool of the
forest, walled in by the trees from which the last sere leaves drop
in the silence, one by one.” It matters little how poor the quality
of the painting is (and how poor are these he cites!) when this
agreeable day-dream with its soothing verbal accompaniment
replaces so rapidly the painter's vision.
It is to this that we must look for the explanation of the strange
paradox of this fervent hierodule of Raphael, Titian, and Poussin
giving his priestly blessing to Böcklin and Fritz von Uhde, and
turning aside from the more sincere efforts of modern art to write
long rhapsodies over sentimental war-pictures which have already
passed into Time's rubbish heap.
No doubt, then, Sir Claude derived a very genuine enjoyment
from works of art, but I think that enjoyment was obtained with-


ROGER FRY
309
out any direct communion with the artists' sensibility; what he
saw and felt was the dramatic interpretation of the scene and its
decorative setting, but most of all he felt the status of the work
in question in the hierarchy of art, its cultural value, the exact
degree of reverence which it might rightly claim from the devout.
Reverence is indeed the key to all such religious attitudes, and
reverence is, of course, as inimical to true aesthetic experience as
it is to the apprehension of truth. Reverence, and that goodwill
which belongs to edification, may be perhaps of use to help the
beginner to overcome the first difficulties of approach to what is
finest in art, but, if he is to get any real aesthetic experience, he
must learn to eschew reverence and to distrust his goodwill.
This is the greatest difficulty of criticism, for past aesthetic
experiences always tend to stereotype themselves in our minds
and set up within us the religious attitude. Sir Claude Phillips
not only did not understand this, but would have looked upon such
an attempt to react purely and freely in each case as a blasphemy
against the whole religion of culture.
I still find I must leave the question open. Picture galleries
and museums are Temples of Culture, not of Art. The artist
and the aesthete use them, no doubt: indeed, they depend on them;
they would, none the less, never have had the social prestige, nor,
perhaps, the energy, to have created them. The artist's debt to
culture in that respect is immense, but he pays it in full when he
discovers that the same social prestige of Culture will turn upon
him the moment he tries to create along the lines of the tradition
which culture preserved. To the cultured man the unpardonable
sin is the creation of just those works which will become the ark
of the covenant to some succeeding generation of cultured men.
Sd


CHANSON BANALE
BY SCOFIELD THAYER
I had a love once on a time
(I have forgotten when)
And she was very jocund there,
And she was lovely then.
I gave her of a cake to eat,
She answered me with tears,
And when I laid me at her feet
She watered so my fears.
She spoke of things I had forgot,
And told me odd replies,
She told me things were better not
Beneath the broken skies,
How in their ailing was a spot
I saw not in her eyes.
I sit and answer the dull women
Who carry on this world,
And in a corner of my sorrow
My Dearest Love lies furled.



RECLINING NUDE. BY WILHELM LEHMBRUCK






DAS EINSAME WEIB. BY WILHELM LEHMBRUCK





UNCONQUERED
BY MAX ROBIN
| KEPT lodging that year in the home of the Shishkins, who
1 were a small family of three, with a father, a mother, and
a son, Volodia. A strange home it was, with strange people, and
a still stranger son.
When I first came to know him, Volodia Petrovich Shishkin-
to give him his full name—was already a man of twenty-nine-
thirty. He was then tall, lithe, and square-shouldered, probably
at his best physically with sharp, clear-cut features, a light mous-
tache, and trim, yellow little beard, his manner from afar care-
free, breezy-refreshing and inspiring, admired by men and wor-
shipped by women. His gait was upright, and he walked briskly,
with firm steps. His vitality did not forsake him even when he
ate, his animated forehead glowing with intensity, and his hat,
shoved far to the back of his head, fairly dancing in accompani-
ment to the steady grinding of his hard jaws.
It took us months to get acquainted. We would see little of
each other, I being kept mostly on the go and Volodia artfully
avoiding, if not simply ignoring, me. He would show himself,
flit by, and disappear.
He was generally out. For long intervals at a stretch he would
also stay closeted in his room. It was tempting to find out what
he could be doing there. I, as a rule, sensed when he was in, for
with Volodia's arrival, all about took on a peculiar dismal air.
Silence reigned. Always Volodia's presence made itself felt
throughout the house.
As to Shishkin senior, he was of negligible quality altogether.
He was seldom home, with no one taking notice of his comings
and goings. In time even I learned to disregard him. Volodia
absolutely ignored him, while to his wife I never saw him speak.
But Olga Michailovna—she was always in. Alone she inhabited
that cold little house. Grown old together, they had finally become
inseparable; and a similarity, a sort of kinship, now existed
between them.
na


312
UNCONQUERED
Sometimes I would join Olga Michailovna for tea.
"Well, what, shall we drink a small glass ?” would be her cus-
tomary way of inviting me; and, invariably, I would accept. We
would then naturally drift into a chat.
On these occasions, the mother at first acted with reserve. She
served tea with an ease and pleasantness not unlike that of my
grandmother, whom I delighted to visit in her distant country-place
almost every year in midsummer. But while I, in the broad Rus-
sian manner, was leisurely sipping the tea, Volodia's mother oppo-
site me sat staring listlessly through the window. And as she stared,
her head shaking, there was an inscrutable look of sorrow in her
eyes. I had come to regard this as the pose most truly characteristic
of Olga Michailovna.
At times she let fall a question. My answer would solicit
another. A conversation would develop.
Once I started one with an enquiry concerning Volodia.
“Where is your son keeping himself?” I asked.
Startled, she in turn queried:
"How am I to know, little dove?”
“He is difficult to approach-what?"
“Not that." Following a pause, the mother, upon reflection,
continued: “A person as he is: whom has he and whom does
he need? For days you will find him stretched across his bed.
And what does he do? He stares. He stares; does he know at
what he is staring? And what will come of it? He waits; maybe
one day a holy spirit, catching sight of him, will fly in and show
him his way."
It was a most painful recitation, yet one positively monotonous.
It only made me side with the son, and at the moment I felt but
scant sympathy for the mother's grievances.
Out of pity, I declared:
"Strange. He must always have been such ?”
“Always,” confirmed the mother. She sighed; and while I never
could endure to hear one sigh, it seemed to me appropriate this time,
and I readily forgave Olga Michailovna. She proceeded, in an
outpouring of lamentation: “God, is it right to make one suffer
as much as I am suffering? No husband, no son. Where are
my hopes? I waited, and am still waiting. It's necessary to
believe, it's necessary to hope. If deep in you there is faith, no
S
a
n
IO
nous.
CIVIC


MAX ROBIN
313
010
one will ever be able to destroy it-no one!” she asserted in a
most admirable burst of animation. That quickly subsiding, she
went on: “I thought Volodia would grow up. There were others,
and they died. The oldest, the first-born, remained. Now—Is he
my son? Do you know him?—so much do I know him. All his
life he has been going about as you see him now, alone, in the same
worn suit, his shoes torn, and not a kopeck in his pocket. Or he
lies in bed, yawns, and does not speak. Why? Why should my
own son despise me and never favour me even with a glance? The
harm that his mother has done him! Is he not aware that he is
all that I own in the world? Here you are studying. You will
soon be a doctor. You will have a home, a wife, children. People
will respect you. While he—and could not he have been a doctor?
There is such a head on him! You don't know that he left school
with books and honours. Then something happened, and it all
turned over in his mind. What is he doing now? He is not
living. And we—what will become of us here? Only one son.
When a mother has ten she worries for ten. But it's the same
whether the whole hand hurts or only a part of the little finger.
Does not the pain of one finger cause as much agony as the pain
of five?”
Yes; I agreed. What else was I to do? I cautioned the mother
about her health and tried to impress her with the benefits of
rest, good food, and fresh air. Above all I implored her not to
worry—not to worry.
Ours.
Call
My examinations then came along. I was kept busy; while
far, far in the distance, hidden by the soft spring night, was the
Dnieper, the Ukraine, with nature and youth in their glorious
yearly efflorescence.
Volodia at this time was away. For fully a week I did not see
him. Where could my landlady's son be? I made enquiry of her.
"He is about the villages,” explained Olga Michailovna.
“How about the villages ? What is he doing there?”
“Doing? He never does anything. He walks. Didn't you
know? He does this every year. Walks from one village to
another. Our peasants are kind, and he has a way of pleasing
them, so they feed him.”
So Volodia had gone out to meet the spring!


314
UNCONQUERED
ras
OW.
"And when does he come back ?” I asked.
“How am I to know?” asked back Olga Michailovna with a
shrug. “He will come back. He never gets lost.”
Volodia returned earlier than I had expected and looked cheer-
ful. He had a buoyant mien, his eyes agleam with sprightliness—
Volodia had brought with him the expanse and freedom of the
immense Russian steppe.
The manner which he had acquired was also more friendly.
Obviously he could afford it now. And I rejoiced at Volodia's
change of attitude toward me.
Once I recognized him with a gang of labourers, shovelling sand
on the banks of the Dnieper. He waved his hand and smiled
familiarly on catching sight of me. And I felt sorry for Volodia
then. I felt sorry for him because I liked him. Yes, I liked him.
He did something unusual one morning.
He came and knocked at my door, entering before I had time
to call him. He had never before been in my room, so I stared,
agreeably surprised.
Barefoot, with neither hat nor coat on, he looked even taller
and more of a romantic figure than he did ordinarily. On the
whole, though, he seemed boyish rather than manly. He was
probably just up, as he was both unwashed and uncombed.
I offered Volodia a seat and asked:
“How did you find your way here?”
To my delight he appreciated this modest pleasantry and
laughed.
“Any objection to my sitting on your bed?” he then asked,
good-humouredly.
"None whatever!" I hastened to assure him. .
“That's good. I like a soft place. And you need not worry;
my trousers are brushed.”
He ensconced himself conveniently, while I closed my text-book.
“Eh, your room is much nicer than mine," he next observed,
with a pleasant air of envy, scratching his dishevelled mass of hair
and glancing amusedly around. “You are fixed up well here,
aren't you?"
“Quite so.”
“And what are you going to be?”
I answered this also, reluctantly.
was


MAX ROBIN
315
IT
“That's good,” declared Volodia, reclining back comfortably
and pausing to gaze ceilingward, as was his wont. “The thing is
simple. What you will have to do in time is learn how quickest
to dispose of our poor peasant-folk hereabout. Well, what's the
difference? The privilege is yours. So.”
He spoke mildly, slightingly; and when I attempted to protest
this, he promptly forestalled me, putting his hand up, palm thrust
out forward, saying:
"Wait a minute—wait a minute! We shan't bother to argue
with you. Have it your way. It would be hardly a calamity if
I myself were to take up doctoring for a little year or so. And
isn't the weather delightful? A truly magnificent morning—no?"
“Yes, magnificent," I agreed, regarding my visitor with mistrust.
“And you—you are for ever learning and learning ?” he asked,
scrutinizing me from a distance and at ease, critically nodding his
head. “But tell me, doctor: what is it all for? And is it not
strange that you manage to find room for all of it in your cranium-
such, I believe, being the scientific term you use for head? Now,
now-don't take offence! We are merely jesting. I am in jovial
spirits. And you, doctor, are you also feeling fine?”
"Volodia Petrovich," I threw in, the first chance I could grasp;
“I beg your pardon! Look here: why can't we both get on nat-
urally? Are you not aware that you are awfully conceited? I
am interested in you, as you can see. I feel that I would be
able to understand you. Why, then, wear a mask before me, as
you do before everyone else ?”
This outburst, which had cost me a considerable effort, was
rewarded with a round of mirthless laughter.
"How wise and merciful of you!” Volodia, totally unaffected,
then rejoined. “One may safely predict another Dostoevsky for
Russia. And now, doctor, since you are so noble-hearted and well-
disposed”—he shifted positions, with an exaggerated demonstra-
tion of the difficulty which this involved—“I am going to lay
down before you the following proposition.”
So sustainedly composed and cynical was his air and so com-
plete my suspense under the spell of his steady, inescapable gaze,
that my poise nearly gave way before an impulse urging me to rush
forward and hurl upon Volodia the epithet “Mephistopheles!"
For in my eyes at that moment he was indeed the devil incarnate.


316
UNCONQUERED
non
"Now how would it be,” he proceeded, "if we, that is, you and
I, my dear friend, should of a sudden betake ourselves from here-
and away over our wide mother-Russia !_Well, what-agreed?''
He ended, as he had begun, jauntily, a mischievous smile still
playing over his features. While I turned, cringed, faltered.
“I should like to, but you know, my examinations,”
“Oh, confound your examinations!” impatiently exclaimed
Volodia, raising himself up a bit. “What are those examinations
for? What will they avail you?—Live!"
I was glad, indeed, to see Volodia enthusiastic and so much in
earnest over something, and had begun telling him, “You must re-
member, Volodia Petrovich, that you and I are” when he, divin-
ing my thought, in exaltation concluded for me:
“_different people-eh! There, you see, it's not so difficult
to probe your mode of reasoning after all. But all this is sheer
nonsense, I assure you. The difference between you and myself—
if a comparison must be formed—is this, that I am more of a think-
ing animal than you are. I have studied fewer books, but I know
life infinitely better. Of course! I've lived. I have paid; but
I've lived. I am still living.–Well, now, what's the use? Are
you going?”
Still I hesitated.
“What if-”
"I would go alone,” resumed Volodia, ignoring me, “but you
are such a benevolent Christian soul. You insist on doing good.
I know, besides, that you don't detest me. Well, here's your
chance. We will go and—Say now !-were you ever in the Crimea
in spring?"
I was obliged to admit that I had never been in the Crimea
in spring
"Well-well!” Volodia caught up. “If you went there now
you would derive a more permanent benefit than from all your
feeble professors and stale books, more than you would from half
a dozen universities in three times the period it requires to go
through them. Damned be schools and education, and even doctors,
doctor!” he ejaculated in somewhat of a fury. “People forget to
live-forget how to live. And this alone is essential. Yes.”
Volodia's intensity approached on inspiration; and I was still
more delighted. As I did not respond, he stood up.


MAX ROBIN
317
"I take it, therefore, that you are not going?” he asked, half
turning toward me.
"Wait till my examinations are over," I answered, when almost
on the point of yielding.
“Well, we may wait,” muttered Volodia in parting.
Smiling mysteriously, but in a manner as ever devoid of the ex-
pression of genuine joy, he went out of the room.
It was on a bright Sunday morning that Volodia and I took
leave of Kiev. As I faced about and lifted my hat for the last
time, I saw Olga Michailovna at the gate, standing as we had
left her, with hands clasped in resignation, and motionless, except
that her head still seemed to be shaking, wearily, in reproach; and
from afar she appeared even more solitary and pathetic.
We traversed the Ukraine. We saw the Crimea in spring. We
then turned back in the direction of my home.
It is a matter too intricate to relate how Volodia and I man-
aged to get along on our journey. We certainly were not meant
to be friends, and our relations were at times strained to the break-
ing point. There was no friendship possible with Volodia, who
was the self-sufficient, thoroughly self-satisfied, unconcernedly-
and yet sternly—domineering type that one either takes to imme-
diately and then follows worshipfully to the end, or, without un-
derstanding, nor ever being able or willing to profess the true
reason for it, but out of fear most likely, shuns outright in con-
tempt. Half ways were not even to be thought of. Still it hap-
pened that, surroundings getting the better of us, we would let
ourselves go, as Russians so well know how; and on such occa-
sions, when they fell out on an evening, with the peace of night
enfolding us, and a great sky spreading overhead, we would be
brought very close to each other, and we would indeed feel like
friends.
We reached my place.
“Now we may settle here for a while—or shall I proceed by
myself ?”' asked Volodia.
He stood, deliberating this question with himself, when I pro-
posed, calmly, so as not to reveal my eagerness:
"Why not stay with us? We have plenty of room at my
house."


318
UNCONQUERED
som
"Really!" picked up Volodia. “Well, this small favour we
shan't grant you. I can see where it would tickle your vanity
to have me placed under some obligation to you. But the less
you will do for me the more you will like me—true?”
"Volodia Petrovich "
“Just a minute!” he intercepted me with a curtness which I
had learned to admire and respect in him. “You know that I
am not good at haggling. And what would be the use? I am
going to look over this town, and perhaps, if I find it to my liking,
I shall pitch camp here for a while. Nowhere to hurry, is there?”
I asked:
“Where am I going to see you?”
Volodia grinned. “Look around. I suppose you will find me
if I am still in the neighbourhood.”
Plainly put! And with this he departed.
I walked a few steps, then stopped to look back after the reced-
ing tall figure; and I realized now how firmly attached I had grown
to this solitary, strong man. But was Volodia strong? Perhaps it
was not that in him which fascinated me so much? What, then,
was it? ...
We had continuous rainy weather, and I wondered where Volodia
could be, alone, without money. A man was deliberately choosing
to make his life harsh and disagreeable, not being content with
the havoc unavoidably wrought upon it by the event of natural
circumstances. What hidden object was there in that, an object
hidden probably also from Volodia ?-I could only keep on won-
dering; and as I wondered, I admired my hero still more.
One day, on a whimsical rambling, I went as far as the out-
skirts of our town. Brilliant sunshine had come to us in showers
after those endless heavy rains; and it was good to go around and
feel oneself young and powerful again in a world of sweet creative
harmony and peace.
Our main bridge, badly damaged by the ice-floes of early spring
(this being almost a yearly affliction on our impoverished munici-
pality) was then still under repair. And as I approached the river
that morning, there came to me a chorus of voices, that sounded
like an echo reverberating from the woods and from the sky. I
drew nearer—and behold!
High up on platforms, men, little men and active as bees, stood
perched, dangerously, fearlessly perched, and while hammering


MAX ROBIN
319
away, merrily, ever merrily and ceaselessly, they sang their beloved
plaintive "Dubinushka.”
Listening to that song, as it is wafted from afar amid a ring-
ing of hammers, the heart fills with a silent, undefinable yearning,
tears swim into the eyes, and the whole being vibrates with mem-
ories, long dead, now reviving, slowly, but ever incompletely, to
vanish like shadows again. ....
Long I stood. The song continued, but it was becoming less
and less audible, till, gradually, it seemed to have altogether ceased.
And while I stood, I listened, listened to that deep silence within
me, listened to the dull echoes of the past and the baffling whis-
perings of the future. . . . And once more the clanging and sing-
ing began to mount, began to rise, higher and higher, imperceptibly
penetrating my consciousness ... till again it lifted me out of
the trance in which I was immersed. ...
Reanimated, I started for the luring scene of toil and activity.
The “Dubinushka” came louder. The hammering followed
faster and more resounding, a symphony of creation chiming
rhythmically in the mellow air of late morning. Against the far-
away sky I saw the shirts of the workmen swell on their backs and
futter in the breeze.
And as I stood admiring it all, a lusty, resonant voice came
calling:
"Hey, Mitka, you cross-eyed frog-catch!”
I started. On a top platform was a man standing and leaning
well over, with one hand holding on to the slender support, while
in the other he had a coiled rope, which he was jauntily flourish-
ing; and as the same robust voice, its sprightliness undiminished,
once again rose hailing, I recognized Volodia.
My first impulse was to call to him, but without a second thought
I turned and took to the road instead. I came to a near-by woods
and went roaming there, obliged now and then to pause and listen
to the oft-repeated strains of the “Dubinushka.” And never was
there a song of labour heard mightier than that which reached me
here in the dusky depths of the forest.
When the whistle blew for dinner, I went back to look for
Volodia. He was now the one friend I had or cared to have-
if I needed one at all.
I found him stretched comfortably on a pile of logs, with more
men about, all sitting and eating. But Volodia's voice was heard
TI
reson
ice came


320
UNCONQUERED
above the others. And how I envied and admired him then!
Everywhere, whatever the circumstances or people, this man man-
aged to make himself at home. What a rare, cherishable gift!
“Sit down,” he called familiarly to me as I approached.
Confused by the general attention, I stood undecided. And
Volodia, evidently with a view of relieving my embarrassment,
turned to one of the company and asked:
“Why did you stop there, Stepan? Go ahead.”
When I later moved to go, Volodia, who, as was his habit, might
have disconcerted me with an untoward remark, slowly lifted him-
self and accompanied me, arms folded on his chest, across the
clearing. And again I envied him-envied him his muscles, his
stature, his poise. We took the spacious, sandy road.
"What are you doing these long days?” he enquired. “Don't
you feel fine?”
I was far from feeling fine just then, and experienced a tinge
of pleasure in imparting this to Volodia. It was perhaps my aim
to gain his sympathy.
“That's bad,” he observed; and it indeed seemed as if a friendly
strain had found its way into that usually harsh and mocking
voice. "Your health must be in poor condition,” he continued.
“If you did a little hard work, as one ought to be doing, you would
learn to eat more, and—”
"It's not that," I interrupted him.
"Not that?” he picked up alertly. “Then it can't mean any-
thing.”
A while later he amplified:
“The trouble must be with your imagination. So-called unhap-
piness is as a rule conceived there, when the mental state, due to a
general condition of impotence, or plain idleness, has been allowed
to deteriorate. Now some, like myself, strong enough to indulge
and resist all vices and used to facing life calmly, regardless of
time and circumstances, are immune from such dangers. But
you, being different, must be doing something, in order to be well.
If I had my way about it, I would force work upon you.”
It was gratifying to see Volodia show even so much concern
in my welfare.
But almost in the same breath he brought out, quite casually:
“You can spit on all philosophies, mine as well as others.”
We walked in silence. The sun drifted in and out among the


MAX ROBIN
321
multitude of fluffy little clouds, and the shadows of the trees
bordering the road kept appearing and disappearing on the deep,
clean sand.
We were expecting the whistle; and when it came, a hoarse,
jarring screech, Volodia and I turned back.
"Where do you keep yourself ?" I asked him.
“Under the sky.”
“I may come to you. It's lonesome, being alone."
“Come,” he dropped indifferently, and left me with a nod.
That entire day I was drooping, melancholy, in a state from
which escape seemed impossible. At night I could not fall asleep.
The moon, round and listless, stood far in the sky, and again and
again, as I put my head out of the window, I was met by its cold,
blank stare. A mysterious, dull silence hung in the air, a silence
intensified by its own immensity. I held my breath; I listened;
I listened persistently, expecting that out of this impenetrable,
milky vastness something would break presently, break, snap, or
scream out resonantly, relieving the night of its tenseness and
void. But still the silence lay; it lay heavy, insupportable, crush-
ing. And from the depths of the illumined endless space, a breath,
like a drawn-out, inarticulate Ha-a-a— was being heaved upon me.
I knew that I would not sleep; so dressing undecidedly, I tiptoed
out of the house.
Our town slumbered. The moon glared, abandoned and unseen.
How near to oneself one is, walking alone in the stillness of a
white night!
Volodia had not yet gone to bed. From afar I recognized him,
leaning in his full height against a pile of lumber; and I was given
to taste all the delights of vindication in finding him thus out.
It must have been at sight of me that he raised his arm, with
a calculated, slow motion, and on drawing near I perceived the
flare of a cigarette in his mouth. Volodia appeared inordinately
tall, thoughtful.
"Still up!" I greeted him.
He did not at once answer. When he spoke, it was in a trifling
tone.
“You can't sleep out these nights,” he said. “Poets maybe
could. For prosaic people like ourselves a roof is needed overhead.”
It slipped from me, unguardedly:
"What a night!"


322
UNCONQUERED
“This!" I felt Volodia glaring upon me. “Rot!” he then
ejaculated.
"Really—” I attempted.
“Oh, stop it!” he cut me short in indignation. “You are as
sentimental as a girl!"
He withdrew from the lumber-pile, and with an angry gesture
threw away the cigarette. We confronted each other awkwardly.
His head lifted, and I was charmed to see Volodia smile.
“Do you play any instrument?” he asked.
“You know—the mandoline.”
“That's good,” he affirmed. "Why didn't you fetch it along?
Music—well, there is sense in that.”
Again the situation became embarrassing, with the silence, the
moon, the brooding river and woods enhancing our embarrassment.
"Well, for what are we going to stand here ?” asked Volodia.
“Let us walk. The air is fresh-ah! And you will agree that
we are hardly a pair.” He laughed. "Well, well, what's the
difference, what's the difference?”
He had delivered this last broadly, in the good-natured manner
of the peasant. But always this unanswerable "What's the differ-
ence!" An incurable scepticism—or what was it?
“I think that it is time for us to retire,” he concluded abruptly.
I believe he bowed—it must have been slightly; while I stood
back and watched his vanishing form, listened to his rhythmic
tread upon the sand.
· So again he had failed to speak! He had succeeded in main-
taining his rigidity. All praise to him for that! But I could
no more regard Volodia as an enigma; although he was now more
than ever a hero in my eyes. I had learned to know him. I
had learned to “feel” him, as beast feels beast. I thought again
that he had betrayed himself in moments when off guard, betrayed
failings, weaknesses, common human weaknesses, which in him,
as in all men, lay hidden not so deep beneath the skin. So I
thought.
And often, often, in my mind, Volodia appeared as a man who,
very much uncertain of his ground, was, for safety's sake, trying
to imitate someone; but just as his ground appeared uncertain,
so was his emulation not entirely successful. And I had decided
that he would not last long: that his frail hold on life, devoid
III
W
Ore


MAX ROBIN
323
of substantiality, would cease to sustain that unique individuality
of his; and he would then have to give up. The prospects could
only gratify me. I visualized Volodia subdued, crushed. Life,
in its ruthlessness, would break this sturdy, inflexible man, as it
had broken others of his kind in the past. For surely the world
had known its Volodias. And none can be so original, so strong,
as to flourish in defiance of life's grim laws.
Such were the predictions which I forecast, and as such they
gratified me.
But the futility of predicting! The fallacy of attempting to
generalize!
I left Russia; left Russia and went to America. And in a short
while, I was well established here. Doctors make themselves
established everywhere.
And, one day—picture my surprise !—a letter came to me from
Volodia! Yes, Volodia! And what did he write?
“Dear doctor. How many people did you kill, how many did
you cure by now? Are you gaining weight fast, and do you still
suffer from your fits of unhappiness? Poor doctor! As to the
object of my writing, it is this. If you have any good money to
throw away and wish to see my like in America, send for me, and
like a bird in spring I shall fly to you. We shall take a peek
at your little world there, and we shall then make up our mind
as to our future activity. Well, what, doctor-yes or no?-we
are waiting here."
So this was Volodia—still in the air! And-a remarkable
thing! I conceived a violent longing for the fellow. Here was
I, submerged in my practice, absorbed, forgotten. Something-
what?—had happened to me during this endless, tiresome process
of living. Something—precious, beautiful, irreplaceable—had
gone from me—a light, a hope, the gaiety and mirth of wellbeing.
My vision, my outlook upon things, had been steadily narrowing,
shrinking; I felt myself enveloped by a cloud, which was growing
more dense, with my flashes of penetrability ever less frequent.
Life was appearing more and more in the nature of a tragedy. I
was alone, cringingly sensitive and in dread-in dread of a fearful
naTTO


324
UNCONQUERED
shadow menacing me. While there in Russia, he was still free,
as I had known him. ....
I determined at once to take Volodia out here. Let his spirit
be crushed, even as mine was. Let life distort, subdue, vanquish
him!
I sent for him. And he came. Came to New York! What
could be more improbable, more unimaginable, than Volodia in
New York! Well, he was here.
And—Volodia shocked me. He came—and with him his own
peculiar spirit: the spirit of him whom I had met in Kiev, with
whom I had been through that great spring wandering over the
Ukraine and Crimea. Volodia had not changed. His rigidity, his
poise, was still intact, his powers unimpaired; the scorn, the
mockery, the contempt, the dignity, the curtness—it was all the
same, unaffected, undiminished. He was tall, graceful, energetic,
alert. He smiled, he grinned, he scowled and sneered. And his
hat still danced on his head when he ate. A fierce pain-half
joyous, half malicious—gripped me at sight of him. I felt my
life gone; I felt shattered, resourceless, disillusioned, without any-
thing to sustain me, without anything to strive for—with him
before me still untouched by all that had taken place in the in-
tervening years!
• What did he do here? Nothing—of course! Volodia did not
work. And to accept aid from me, he was as reluctant as in those
days of the dimmed past. It was I, nevertheless, who kept him
up; and in return the rogue never condescended to show me even
the slightest gratitude.
But who cared! I liked Volodia. Oh, how I liked him—after
all, in spite of all! Why?-Yes, why? ...
I would say to him:
"Volodia Petrovich (his name stubbornly resisted being Amer-
icanized) go ahead, live. Live on my account. I can't. I hadn't
the necessary courage—or was it the strength that I lacked? But
you can live. You must. You were made for that. Go ahead.”
Volodia, laughing, would slap my back familiarly. And I
wonder now whether my admiration of him was not really an
admiration, as well as lamentation, in him for my own lost individ-
uality—whatever I had possessed of that; a lamentation for my
lost freedom, my lost life and youth and dreams. ...
V
.


MAX ROBIN
325
It was not long before New York had exhausted itself for
Volodia. And here he was, stranded in a foreign land. I was
beginning to feel anxious about him.
And he left me with my New York, where I had been now
for a number of years, without once venturing out—and called
this being in America! Here he would go through America, North,
Central, South-all over.
And he started.
I had two cards from him, both from the Dakotas. He had
come across some Russian organizations and had stopped with them
for a while. Now he was heading further.
He next wrote to me from Texas, about to cross into Mexico.
No obstacles, no hindrances for Volodia. The world was every-
where his home, everywhere accessible to him. He would see it
all, go through it all, live all over it.
It was the last I heard from Volodia.
No—not the last. But I did not hear from him. I read of
him. I saw his picture—saw him, Volodia Petrovich Shishkin-
saw his face in the papers! And he was a hero! A hero! He had
risked his life to rescue others, having saved five from drown-
ing. Yes; he, that man, was a hero! And the world was writing
of him, reading of him, praising him, who was so bitterly anti-social.
And then I also met him. Volodia had arrived with his ship,
aboard which he was a sailor. And he came and entered my
doctor's office, unexpected and unannounced.
But what a change I witnessed! Ah, Volodia had changed!
And I hadn't the presence of mind to rejoice in what I should at
once have regarded as my personal triumph. Volodia looked old,
shrivelled, tired. Life had taken its toll after all; and I felt too
sick at heart to rejoice.
But soon it became apparent that I had no cause for rejoicing.
Volodia had changed only in body, while in spirit he was still
the Volodia Petrovich of old: a rover, a vagabond, a part of the
immense, inconsistent and insoluble life and nature about.
We spoke. We laughed. I said to him:
"It has been my conviction that you hate humanity; and here,
at the risk ”
"Well, doctor, you are as ever a fool!” he broke ir, almost
exultant. I waited, and he stood contemplating me, smiling. "You


326
UNCONQUERED
e
are a fool, and so is your humanity foolish, to ascribe to all of
men's deeds one motive-love. Now remember: we save people,
we destroy people, we struggle, hate, love, not out of any mystical
love for humankind, but, simply, for our own enjoyment, for the
sake of indulging our animal vanity and satisfaction. This is not
all there is to the subject—but eh, what's the difference? ..."
Still "What's the difference?'' The same Volodia; old now;
but as ever the same.
He was again leaving me.
"Whither bound?” I asked him.
“Oh, we'll take another trip,” answered Volodia.
And he remained smiling. Why was he smiling? ...
"Where are you going though, you old tramp?” I persisted,
smiling with him.
I felt like crying, and yet I managed to keep smiling.
"About that we shall see," he remarked coolly.
“But the end—the end! You are growing old—”
"Old!” A tragic shadow flitted across Volodia's countenance.
"And is it not natural to grow old ?” he demanded, at once recov-
ering his habitual poise. “You don't expect me to grow younger?
Really, now, doctor, you are not wise!” he declared emphatically,
but with an amused air, which could not offend. “Consider. Here
you have lived and I have lived. Two lives—true? Well, soon
we shall both depart—and it won't matter much. I feel no regrets
about the business. When my time comes, I shall probably betake
myself out of people's way. I may then select an attractive spot
under a tree, there stretch myself full length on my back, and
expire, at peace with you, doctor, with myself, with this life which
I believe I have lived my own way-at peace even with death!
"What seems to matter—if anything does matter-is this:
while living, who had gotten more out of life? Now, it's childish
to compare, is it not, doctor? And it may portray me as growing
somewhat conciliatory and aesthetic toward the end. Well, any-
way-I, as you know, have run my designated course—I am be-
coming a firm believer in the determinism of fate-I have run my
designated course now full speed, now quite at leisure. And, if
I must recite my past more fully, I shall state that I have tasted
life in its full sweetness and bitterness, tasted it even in its taste-
lessness. I have never been afraid to live. Is it not heroic? I


MAX ROBIN
327
have squeezed the lemon dry of juice. And now, having been
everywhere, having tried everything, I can't expect to find much
more that is new either in myself or in others, nor for that matter
in those luring places which many will for ever pine to see. At
least the illusion which I have created for myself is such; and
we can neither live nor die without some kind of illusion.” Volodia
paused, glanced at me, dramatically, and concluded—“While you,
doctor—"
I stood fascinated-helpless-pervaded with the tragedy and
regret which, his assertion to the contrary notwithstanding, seemed
to be consuming this friendless, lonely man. Had life, then,
sobered Volodia at last? Else why his loquacity, which in its
essence seemed apologetic? ...
Having checked himself, he now cried out, jocularly enough:
"Am I not a fool! What difference does it all make-really!"
I walked over and took Volodia's arm. I looked into his eyes,
squinting mine. He laughed out.
"Pitying me, eh!” he exclaimed.
No, I wasn't pitying him. I just loved him, as one can pos-
sibly love another. To throw myself upon him, to somehow bore
my way into the man and feel the warmth of his blood, feel the
human contact of that throbbing old heart of his. ...
“Come,” I said, blushing. “Let us embrace—in the old Russian
manner.”
No, I did not feel Volodia's arm around my shoulder. He
stood firm, unmoved.
"Well, good-bye, doctor," he said.
We shook hands, with my heart on springs. I was unable to
bring out a word.
Volodia went out.
I stood gazing after him through the window. I stood long,
long after he was gone, till I became conscious of a dense film
over my eyes. And I then walked away. But my heart was a
void, and I could no more be a doctor that day. ...
And in spite of the dejection in which I was cast, it still appeared
to me that life, for all its ruthlessness, had failed to bend this man.
Volodia had gone his way unconquered.


REMOTE
BY ROBERT HILLYER
The farthest country is Tierra del Fuego,
That is the bleakest and the loneliest land;
There are the echoing mountains of felspar,
And salt winds walking the empty sand.
This country remembers the birth of the moon
From a rocky rib of the young earth's side;
It heard the white-hot mountains bellow
Against the march of the first flood tide.
I lifted a shell by the glass-green breakers
And heard what no man has heard before,
The whisper of steam in the hot fern forest
And slow feet crunching the ocean floor.
I saw the slanted flash of a seagull
When a sheaf of light poured over a cloud,
I heard the wind in the stiff dune grasses,
But I saw no sail and heard no shroud.
To a promontory of Tierra del Fuego
I climbed at noon and stretched my hand
Toward another country, remoter and bleaker.


NAGLE
A DRAWING. BY EDWARD NAGLE





PARIS LETTER
September, 1925
I TE have in the International Exhibition of Decorative Arts
now being held in Paris, an indication of greater indus-
trial, financial, and aesthetic energy than has been evident in
Europe since 1914; for France it is significant of effort to recover
lost unity and traditions and to fix upon common principles which
shall be lasting.
Has such an end been attained?
With the whole rest of the world, at the beginning of the nine-
teenth century, France lost her aesthetic tradition. Towards 1900.
international rivalry was resumed in the field of industrial art.
France found herself handicapped by an outmoded teaching method
and mechanistic equipment and a past so sumptuous and so rich
that she was doomed to purvey to the whole world, replicas of
old models which were in modern life mere anachronisms.
In the beginning, in the time of William Morris, the English;
then about 1895 under Munich impulse, the Germans; finally,
in the neighbourhood of 1910, the Russians took the lead. The
great hiatus of 1914-1918 had unsettled everything. After-
wards there was nothing; such anarchy, such a burst of individual
experiments, that a general inventory was necessary, a kind of
universal Olympic meet of the Decorative Arts, to determine
whether or no the modernism of our age would come out, intact.
Let us look at the results.
As for architecture, its pre-eminence over the other arts is so
self-evident that someone objects to the exhibition, calling it an
exhibition of Architecture rather than one of Decorative Arts. And
so it is. Building conditions due to the high cost of labour account
for the fact that to avoid extinction the architects have taken
things into their own hands with rather questionable results. The
large entrance doors are on the whole mediocre, the actual mate-
rials poor and temporary; as for the new materials used, rein-
forced cement and its modifications are most conspicuous. The
United States, Germany, Italy-nearly all other countries have
T
me


330
PARIS LETTER
been using them, and France is merely making up for lost time.
There are some structures unique in their daring, like those fur-
naces which adorn the entrance to the Place de la Concorde which
have no connexion with the Exhibition; also imitations of iron-
work in painted plaster. The great towers of the Wines of France,
by Plumet, are more successful from either side of the Invalides.
I like best the Tourist Pavilion, with stylizations of aeroplane
designs and steamer corridors, by the architect Mallet-Stevens.
The theatre and the Salle des Fêtes by Jaulmes with its immense
stairway inside the Grand Palace are a success. But the decora-
tion of the Pont Alexandre, embellished with shops, a kind of
modern Ponte Vecchio, is, everyone agrees, a failure. The theatre
by Messieurs Granet and Perret makes possible the simultaneous
use of three scenes, a dramatic feat of which the Russians and the
Germans have for twenty years been master and which cannot be
regarded as an innovation.
The French Village, in which the various districts of France are
represented by a pavilion, is surely mediocre. The cemetery, alas,
is here overly insistent as in life itself. The Church with the
lovely designs by Maurice Denis and by Deval, is beautiful. But
the peasant Inns, the trades-buildings, are comic-opera scenery.
The colonial buildings, of French Asia and Africa, are good, but
are a repetition of what we have already seen at the Colonial
Exhibition of Marseilles in 1923. I must, however, say in this
connexion that the use of colonial subjects and an adapting of
indigenous styles to the styles of the metropolis, place at the dis-
posal of modern French art, resources of which it has not failed
to make use.
Among the foreign pavilions I like Denmark's best—a sort of
cube of bicoloured bricks with glass inserts, resulting in a power-
ful and sombre effect; Czecho-Slovakia's, Austria's, and Poland's,
are covered with tiles of deliciously acute Chinese vermilion. The
pavilion of the Soviets is a pleasing abstraction, but its boldness
is perhaps without import inasmuch as it is almost the only build-
ing which the U. S. S. R. has produced since the revolution of
1917. The palm for ugliness must be awarded to the English
pavilion, which breaks every record including that of pretentious-
ness, a fault which is after all so rare among the English. As for
the Italian pavilion, it is modern in the manner of the fifth
century B. C.
ire 2


PAUL MORAND
331
I must call attention to the very good treatment of gardens
and floral decorations, for the most part erected over nothing.
The credit must be given to a great French artist, M Forestier,
commissioner of the Bois de Boulogne, who ought to be called the
Le Nôtre of 1925 and to whom one already owes the restoring of
such cities as Barcelona and Seville, whose parks he created.
The national French Sèvres factory's showing makes one, alas,
regret that the French Government continues to subsidize enter-
prises which, with the Gobelins, are conservatories of ugliness and
should again be put in the hands of private persons.
The best thing, though quite monotonous, is the display of minor
arts, that is to say the decorative arts proper. Magnificent marbles.
A gallery made from specimens of all the marbles of France and
her colonies, is an absolute wonder. Lalique's art is confirmed
as that of the greatest living glass worker. His luminous foun-
tain ornamented with fish, his dining-room all in glass, are un-
forgettable. Ruhlmann's experiments in furniture, rugs, and the
goldsmith's art, those of Sue and Thare who present us with a
modern embassy, Francis Jordain in the cheap peasant style, are
of first merit. The Austrian section with its glass works; the art
of propaganda and the poster in which, as is known, the Soviets
are past masters; and the Polish decorative arts—are remarkable.
Finally as to the results. Does the Modern Style emerge from
all this miscellany? No. We are present at a fair of samples,
diverse, without unity. No harmony, aesthetic or supra-aesthetic-
that is to say moral—is manifest. Continually one is arrested and
fascinated by individual finds which are only disappointing in
the absence of total effect. Therefore it is not the directors who
are responsible, but the age. We have wanted to be modern at any
price, as we tried to be in the Exhibition of 1900. (Everyone
knows what remains of and what we think now of the style of
1900.) In art, the will is not everything; it is almost nothing.
They decided that there was to be an exhibition of decorative
arts: then they set out to find it. To tell the truth, there is none.
In France no more than abroad. Of course the non-participation
of the United States, and Germany's not being represented, impair
and greatly weaken any final judgement proffered. I cannot speak
for the United States, but for Germany I can say that nothing of
importance is to be noted. The whole world believed, about 1905,
that modernism was definitely going to be launched by Germany.


332
PARIS LETTER
Far from it; the impulse ceased and the war definitely crushed it.
And the philosophy to be derived from the Exhibition is not com-
forting. To a public soon tired of everything, are proffered auda-
cious, very intelligent abstractions, assisted by new materials
but too hasty, not studied enough—already outmoded even be-
fore they have been completed. To have a style of its own, a
period must have an inner harmony, as the Greeks had, a faith
such as animated the builders of Cathedrals, a doctrine of world
politics like that of France in the time of Louis XIV-in a word,
an ideal. But what can one expect from the world of 1925, which
is nothing but chaos, a cosmos in transition, impatient for the
morrow, divided between sterile regret and the fever for destruc-
tion? There certainly is here no modern European style. This
is the only lesson to be learned from the Exhibition. Paris must
be thanked, however, for maintaining its rôle of clearing house
for contemporary ideas, and for having allowed us once more to
find a stopping place before setting out again in search of uncer-
tainty vaguer than any we have known before.
Paul MORAND



HEINRICH MANN. BY WILLI GEIGER





GERMAN LETTER
September, 1925
T AM sorry to give The DIAL occasion to complain that its
1 German contributor has been remiss. Since I last had the
honour of reporting upon matters of cultural interest here, more
months have passed than an intentionally thoughtful reserve would
necessitate. I beg the indulgence of my readers, overwhelmed as
I have been, with present obligations. Your correspondent has
also been travelling more than is propitious to serious writing-
partly for pleasure and instruction; partly (as a delegate to Flor-
ence and Vienna for instance) in the interest of that highly im-
portant matter, general European intellectual association and
intercourse.
As for Florence, I need speak merely of an International Kultur-
woche, the notable feature of which was an exhibition of beautiful
books from Italy, England, France, and Germany, shown in sepa-
rate national pavilions. A noble contest of craftsmanship in which
supreme works of the imagination have here a technically appro-
priate complement. My country, it may be said, honourably held
its own. All our important publishing houses exerted themselves
to display their best and most precious work—to outdo themselves
in the matter of fine printing and well tooled, whole sets. Indeed,
in our section there were so many examples of sound tasteless
conservative than the French and English, yet by a safe margin
avoiding eccentricity—that other countries seemed inclined to give
German bookmaking, the prize. In connexion with the exhibition,
moreover, there were lectures which happily attracted not only the
various national colonies, but Italians as well. Your correspondent
was honouringly placed in competition with a notable scientist and
speaker of high attainments, the famous philologist and translator
of ancient tragedies, His Excellency von Willamowitz-Möllendorf.
Turning to Vienna—I was there, a guest of the P. E. N. Club,
as I had been a year before, its guest in London. In London, John
Galsworthy is at the head of this organization; in Vienna it is
presided over by Arthur Schnitzler, whose name is so well known
to American readers. I had the good fortune at table, to be placed


334
GERMAN LETTER
next to this delightful person and extraordinary artist; while simul-
taneously, as representative of its German branch, my brother
Heinrich was attending the international congress of the Club in
Paris.
Apropos of this, the Berlin organization had not been sure that
the international situation justified the sending of delegates to
Paris. There was active opposition, in counteracting which your
correspondent may boast of having had a part. The result was
most fortunate: not only was vigorously spontaneous applause
accorded Heinrich Mann's address—which this student of Stendhal
and Zola was courteous enough to deliver in French—but a choice
was made by a large majority, of Berlin as the meeting-place of
the next congress, despite the Belgian plea for Brussels. This was
a friendly requital, and we are hoping that the French speaker in
our capital will decide to speak in German.
By reason of significant newly published work, Arthur Schnitzler
and Heinrich Mann are at the moment, again prominent in the
literary world. The English translation of Fräulein Else is, I
suppose, already in progress; if not, it ought to be begun with-
out delay. Undoubtedly abroad, the story will be found as divert-
ing and engrossing as it is here. In his sixties, its author writes
with an intensive concentration which puts to shame a whole
generation whose acknowledged ambition runs in the same
channel. Dispensing with all customary narrative methods and
comprising little more than a hundred pages, his new work is a
kind of monodrama. It presents no more than the inner life of
a young girl who, suffering a profound psychic shock in the ex-
cruciating conflict between her purity and an immoral, covetous
environment, kills herself with veronal. The setting is a sophis-
ticated health resort in the mountains; and everything objective,
an entire picture of society, is reflected merely in the continuous
inner monologue of the heroine. Schnitzler's handling of this
shows him to be more the dramatist when he writes fiction than
others are when they turn to the drama. Fräulein Else is one
of the greatest literary triumphs of recent years.
A contrast to Schnitzler's moral intimacy, Heinrich Mann's new
novel, Der Kopf, discloses a wide historical and political pano-
rama. It is the work of many years, a work rich in character and
plot—and is withal only the third part although a totally separate
and independent part, of an epic trilogy which bears the general
na.
lew


THOMAS MANN
335
CC
title, The Empire: Novels of German Society in the Times of
William II, the other two volumes being the world-famous Unter-
tan (novel of the bourgeoisie, published in English as The
Patrioteer); and Die Armen (novel of the proletariate). This new
volume is the novel of the leaders, and my judgement is free from
personal bias when I say that it marks by far the highest point
in this series of social criticisms; further, it belongs among the
strongest and most beautiful attainments of this brilliant and, in
the best sense of the word, sensational author, ranking in my mind
with his masterpieces Die Kleine Stadt and Professor Unrat.
Of all German writers, Heinrich Mann is the most social-minded,
a man whose interests are social and political to an extent which,
while not unusual in Western-European, and especially Latin,
countries, is unheard-of among us (although, thanks to the heavy
blows of fortune which have befallen us, it is now very timely).
The rest of us are closest to metaphysical, moral, and pedagogic
motives and problems—those in short which concern the inner man:
the novel of growth, education, confession, has always been the
particular German variety of this species of art. This author's
development is almost without parallel; and, when such artistic
brilliance is taken into account, it is without parallel: from the
beginning, the moral element in him manifested itself not as "inner-
worldly askesis” (to borrow a term from religious philosophy) but
as political and socio-critical expansion. It was he who, while we
still lived in splendour, suffered most deeply from the basic stag-
nation of our political life; and, in literary manifestos the ful-
minant injustice of which sprang from a higher justice, he dragged
our leaders into the forum of the intellect. At the end of that
novel in which he savagely caricatures the German "Patrioteer,"
he prophesied symbolically the collapse of imperial Germany. And
he tells us now, in a free artistic rearrangement, the story of this
decline-tells it is a prose work which is neither more nor less than
a German counterpart of La Débâcle.
It is a book written in his fifty-fourth year, by a man who has
ripened and mellowed. It is far removed in temper from the biting
satire of its predecessors, fairer in every way, and penetrated with
human warmth. The particular genius of this author consists in
his so allowing the poetic and the human to grow out of the social,
that they gain from it, weight and significance; while correspond-
ingly, it gains from them, increased depth and poetic feeling. The
1 man


336
GERMAN LETTER
metamorphosis of individual destiny into the tragedy of the times—
and simultaneously with the transition of the novel from pro-
vincial intimacy into subjects broadly European—the heightened
pathos and heightened artistic instrumentation, are magnificent. I
regret that I have not space in which to give a real analysis and
description of this extraordinary book; but I do truly hope that an
interest in it need not be restricted to the country of its origin.
The most accomplished thing in it is the story of the friendship
of two men whose interlocking destinies are infected with the
melancholy of contradictory ideas and of human shortcomings.
A few brilliant scenes are devoted to William II himself—in
which the hysteria and perilous half-genius of this puffed-up and
lamentable sovereign are perfectly depicted. They take place in
the house of Prince Lana, a character which, based more or less
upon Prince von Bülow, becomes the most significant figure of the
book, partly by reason of his shrewdness and hard-headedness,
partly by reason of a flaccid concessiveness which makes him in
the last analysis unable really, to come to grips with evil.
Whatever one may think in the abstract of an aesthetic hierarchy,
the novel is that literary art-form in which the plastic and the
critical, the imaginative and the practical, the "naïve” and the
"sentimental" elements interpenetrate each other in the easiest and
happiest manner. No wonder that in these times of turbulence
and spiritual impoverishment the prose epic has become the really
modern, prevailing form of literary self-expression—even in Ger-
many, where theoretically and thanks to the propaganda of two
imposing and triumphant theatrical geniuses (Schiller and Wag-
ner) the drama had passed until recently for the leading literary
art. As a result of all the mental upheavals, all the social and
moral reverses to which we have been exposed, the novelist can
now occupy among us, a position which until a short time ago,
was reserved for the dramatist alone. When, before the war, I
anticipated and described in Death in Venice, national great-
ness on the part of a prose writer, it was pointed out to me that
my concept was not plausible, since in Germany the novelist, the
"poet's half-brother” as Schiller puts it, could never enjoy a posi-
tion of honour such as I have ascribed to Gustav von Aschenbach.
To-day this possibility has become a reality—the concomitant of
1 Published in The Dial in March, April, and May, 1924.
00


THOMAS MANN
337
a democracy which, though undesired and unrecognized-never-
theless exists. The novel predominates—even the mere produc-
tion in this field easily surpassing in importance, that of the drama.
In its concept and effect, no contemporary theatrical production can
be compared with a novel like Der Kopf—and I venture to name
also its brother-piece, Der Zauberberg—or with the great books
of Alfred Döblin, which last I reproach myself for not having
mentioned here.
Publishers have by no means overlooked this turn of events.
They are exploring the past in order to satisfy fully the demands
of the times and to complete the triumph of the epic. Balzac's
complete works, in several translations, are going through one
edition after another. A series of books is now appearing, of which
I should particularly like to speak. It is entitled Epikon, A Collec-
tion of Classical Novels, and comprises thirty works of world
literature, a true epic pantheon in which the publisher, Paul List
in Leipzig, "wishes to include everything great and enduring in
human experience, which has been embodied during the last hun-
dred years, in the literature of the novel.” The selection, made by
a young Austrian poet, E. A. Reinhardt, is excellent. Among Ger-
man authors, we have Immermann, Jean Paul, Goethe, Keller,
and Stifter; among English authors, Meredith, Dickens, Thack-
eray, Fielding, and Defoe. We have Stendhal, Balzac, Flaubert,
and Victor Hugo; Turgenev, Tolstoy, Gogol, and Goncharov; the
Italian authors, Manzoni and Fogazzaro; nor have Don Quixote,
Nils Lyne, and the immortal Ulenspiegel of De Coster been
omitted. The translators have been carefully chosen and their
work is extraordinary. Writers of the distinction of Gerhart
Hauptmann, Hermann Hesse, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Rudolf
Kassner, Count Hermann Keyserling, Heinrich Mann, Rudolf
Borchardt, and Jacob Wassermann have added their support to
the plan by providing individual comments to precede or follow
the various works. Your correspondent himself was given the
disconcerting yet inspiriting task of writing the introduction to
Goethe's Die Wahlverwandtschaften—and he speaks of it with
a personal satisfaction which is not, however, without its imper-
sonal justification. Also, this collection may be recommended to
foreigners. It is a beautiful monument—this survey of the world's
literature-after Goethe's own heart. The format is simple and
Inn


338
GERMAN LETTER
distinguished; the books are bound in flexible linen which was
obtained through a special competition, and are printed in beautiful
Roman type on glazed paper thin enough for a work of a thousand
or more pages to be compressed into one handy volume.
In closing, I should like to speak briefly of a publication, as
curious as it is impressive, which might have some interest for
Americans. For some time I have been guarding a treasure: it
is a veritable copy of the score of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde!
It was given to me on my birthday; daily I do it reverence. I
will not say it is the one genuine original score of this highly devel-
oped opera—for that is in Bayreuth. But, in a magnificent bind-
ing, contrived with the aid of the most refined technique, it is so
perfect a facsimile of Wagner's minute-colossal manuscript that
one needs no imagination to accept without effort, its authenticity
and originality and to feel himself bewilderingly in the possession
of something holy. These scattered groups of precise Gothic notes
signify something ultimate, supreme, profoundly precious—some-
thing to which Nietzsche bade for us a final farewell, a farewell
until death: they signify a world which, for reasons of conscience,
we Germans of the present are forbidden to love over much.
This is the pinnacle, the consummation, of romanticism, its fur-
thest artistic expansion, the imperialism of a world-conquering
oblivion-of an intoxicating self-annihilation. And all of this is
uncongenial to the soul of Europe which, if it is to be saved to life
and reason, requires some hard work and some of that self-conquest
which Nietzsche upheld with heroism and exemplariness. Never,
to those at least who were born to love that world which the
younger men hardly know-has the contrast between aesthetic
charm and ethical responsibility been greater than to-day. Let us
acknowledge it as the source of irony! A love of life defends
itself ironically against the fascination of death; but in art it is
uncertain whether an irony which turns against life and virtue
and knows how to treasure the allurements of forbidden love is not
indeed a more religious thing. And so it happens, that we in our
work-room, have formally made of the facsimile of the original
score of Tristan, a melancholy and ironic cult.
The Drei-Masken-Verlag in Munich is the publisher of these
remarkable editions. A reproduction of the Meistersinger manu-
script preceded Tristan, and a Parsifal is soon to follow.
Thomas MANN


BOOK REVIEWS
A PAGAN CHORALE
THE HERETIC OF SOANA. By Gerhart Hauptmann.
Translated by Bayard Quincy Morgan. B. W.
Huebsch. $1.50.
ITAUPTMANN—the Ibsenist, the Zolaist, the psychologist-
11 lover of man-is also a Nietzschean and a great lyric pagan.
The two latter have joined minds, in The Heretic of Soana, to
write in a great round hand what might seem to be a foot-note to
Der Anti-Christ, or a tremendous hymn to Pan. It is both and
neither. Hauptmann, by what may be rather provident use of a
familiar narrative device, has made it simply the autobiography
of the heretic's heart, and a Novelle of force and charm, which has
been competently rendered by the translator.
One can hardly recollect the psychology of the Fall more ably
studied in brief compass than in this tale of Francesco Vela, some-
time priest, all but saint of Monte Generoso. It is a series of
pictures of a man's heart, each melting imperceptibly into the other;
and thus a development of that novel actualistic psychology which
Hauptmann was studying in Before Dawn, The Weavers, and
Rose Bernd, and for which he has been blamed as a weakener
of dramatic technique. The kernel of the method lies less in the
thoroughness with which it dredges up each detail—however trivial,
however squalid, if only pertinent—than in the effort to reach
vraisemblance by presenting the facts of a psychological situation
as gradually as they would be presented by life itself. This method
has been denounced as too snail-like for drama, though there seems
to have been little question of its potency in The Weavers. In
the present story it is velvety and inimitable. The intensification
is accomplished with such skill that although Francesco Vela begins
as a delicately cultivated young man, of the most genuine priestly
promise, and ends as utmost anathema, each slope of his decline
has a curious stealth, it so little increases the gradient of that above.
ers


340
A PAGAN CHORALE
.
0
He comes upon his destiny in the noblest of business: the de-
feating hell of souls. It is characteristic of the stealing subtlety
of the story that the young man is far gone upon the journey to
a wild conclusion, before his undertaking ceases for him, to wear
the fine smile of altruism, or justly to merit the blessings of holy
church. Such were the arts of the then devil that, even when the
young priest began to feel the sweet philtres of passion working
in him, and vehemently prayed to be delivered from the fluent
sorcery that set his blood-beats racing, and when he confessed the
state of his feelings with literal exactness to his churchly superiors,
he not only was freely absolved by these smiling, somnolent fathers,
but received their command to proceed with what still seemed to
them to be but the high and holy, though sorely beset, ransoming
of souls. His prayers at first were for deliverance and purification,
but not for long. There gradually slips into them a beseeching
cry that the Holy Mother forgive, understand-approve. Once he
thought of asking that his spiritual fathers send another priest,
but the idea gained no ground. And imperceptibly we are made
to know that had they really taken alarm from his later confessions
and turned his mission over to another, the result upon his feelings
would have but hurried the inevitable.
The pagan undersong which soon seizes and possesses the tale
begins even before the telling. In the short prelude, before the
actual story of Francesco has commenced, the author has inter-
views with the mountain heretic, Ludovico, and notices the expert
care he takes in the procreation of his flocks, and his antique joy
in the sturdiness and the fine, flashing, devilish eyes of his buck
goats.
The tale has its first motion in Francesco's initial journey up
the mountain to the stone hut of the wretched and iniquitous
goatherds, the Scarabotas. Even before he has left the village, our
attention is pointed to certain marble sarcophagi in the village
square, into which a mountain stream pours, and where the village
wives and girls carry their washing. These sarcophagi are but
pointed out on his first journey. On the second we learn that their
marble bas-reliefs display a procession of frantic maenads and
contortive satyrs, and the tigers and chariot of Dionysus. Such
hints would amount to nothing if the theme of passion did not
promptly come to the surface to seize and be seized; to be elab-
vals.


CHARLES K. TRUEBLOOD
341
orated in great eager lover phrases by the author's lyricism and
his exquisite sense of beauty. We are soon impressed by the
universal implications of the story; and the vast scene of it seems
to become an echoing chamber for the thrill and resonance of the
words. It is set among mountains, which we soon know he loves
more than anything else in nature. It is set too, amid the leafy
glory and ebullience of spring, which few are better able than
he to render.
So, one by one, perhaps in spite of himself, he pulls out the
stops upon an irresistible pagan diapason. The chords that are
melted into this magnificence are without number, and are both
heroic and exquisite. They range from the charm of immense
landscape, of snowy peaks and battlements, and the majestic
sky-circling of the fisher-hawks, to the vivid sleeping blue in the
flowers of the mountain gentian. They vary from the dull
thunder of the spring avalanches, and the sounding waterfalls,
to the hum of bees about the shrines of the Virgin, the eloquence
of birds, and the splendid soft singing of Agata, the mountain
shepherd Eve, for whom the priest of God forswore his vows,
and was driven with stones from his parish, and became a
shepherd Adam.
One wonders if so much lover's gold does not make the tale
somewhat more pagan than the author intended. However, if
the song of songs come up in the throat it will be sung. So
perhaps the great lover in Hauptmann-who could not see his
eternal pair go down to darkness and the end, after their mountain
Eden—played into the hands of the Nietzschean in him. And
the latter turned the frail priest, Francesco, into that determined
heretic who, in the prelude to the tale, gave his name as Ludo-
vico; who firmly cherished his hardy and lovely Eve; who was,
into the bargain, a thorough-paced Zarathustran, genuinely
caring nothing for the chattering curses of his fellows.
CHARLES K. TRUEBLOOD


TO BE BAROQUE
Southern Baroque Art. By Sacheverell Sitwell.
12m0. 319 pages. Alfred A. Knopf. $6.
UTHERN
e
C
IT took Mr Sacheverell Sitwell two and a half years to write
This treatise on Southern Baroque Art, and it took me two and
a half weeks to read it. The reading was as difficult as the writ-
ing. Some people, many people, will find it impossible; so in-
volved and self-conscious is the style; and this is all the more
odd in that the writer has evidently meant to put himself and
the reader into baroque moods. Now baroque art itself is a
thing you may like or dislike, according to your taste, but with
all its complexities it makes no great strain upon the mind; and
when Mr Sitwell, who is clever enough, fails himself to be baroque,
it suggests that the fears of those critics who hold that the times
have become again altogether rococo are slightly premature. Or
it may mean simply that not everyone can be baroque in a baroque
period.
My sense of frustration began not only with the first chapter,
but with the very first words. “Six o'clock in the morning and
already the heat of Naples was such that it required confidence to
believe in any hours of darkness. Most of the houses were still
latticing the light with barred shutters, and as, one by one, the
windows were thrown back, so that the shutters threw their
shadows on the wall, the very strings of this fluttering music
were visible, lying there as plain as anything for skilled fingers.”
Smart and irrelevant phrases that scarcely repay the pains of
decipherment, for they lead to nothing. There follows a glimpse
of a fountain in a public square "playing with molten, malleable
stone” that suggests the Marco Polo fountain that played with
force enough to balance a metal ball three feet above its brim;
and several pages further there is mention of Solimena working
on his fresco of the Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple,
and one gathers that it was for him that the heat of Naples at
six a.m. was evoked, but one is not quite sure. One is not sure
of anything. The “he's" and "which's" are so reckless that one
e
were
1 as


HENRY MCBRIDE
343
is obliged to turn back constantly to reread whether it be Solimena
or Marco Polo that is intended; and one is not even sure of one's
Naples, for Solimena is no sooner introduced than abandoned,
and the amazed reader finds himself confronting the Certosa of
Bagheria in Sicily and the amusing it is true) villa of the
strange Prince Palagonia. All this hints that the author has been
unwilling to sacrifice any of the notes he compiled during his
two and a half arduous years of research and which are lugged
in à tout propos. The chapter works up by way of peroration to
a description of a grand open-air concert given at Caserta, we are
back in Naples ere this, during the residence there of Ferdinand
I and IV. The festival is indicated for the most part by a
fanciful transcript from a set of Domenico Tiepolo's frescos,
helped out with a few facts. One gets all the effect of the pseudo-
Louis Quatorze touch in the life at Caserta without, however, being
entertained much. The unwieldy preparation for the scene lends
its clumsiness to the scene itself. The picture is undoubtedly
the most complicated in recent literature; and also the most futile.
If this were all there were to be said it would not be worth
saying, since there is no use and little pleasure in damning a book
which is so dangerously likely to damn itself. But in the middle
of the volume Mr Sitwell reforms and becomes readable with a
really pleasing version of the cure of the Spanish Philip V's
melancholia by the singing of Farinelli, the most famous of
eighteenth-century castrati; and finally puts us under genuine
obligation by an account of Mexico's baroque architecture that is
vivid enough to start a furore among the more northern Ameri-
cans of taste. We are continually being waked up in this fashion
by Europeans discovering us and our environs, before we discover
ourselves and them; and in this case the essay upon Mexico is so
alluring that it would not surprise one in the least to see it issued
shortly as a separate booklet by the Mexican Government for
purposes of propagandism. Mexico is always for us one of those
things we are going to do, but which we never do do, and now
here it is very well done indeed by an Englishman. Not only
the ravishing architecture itself, but living glimpses of the mys-
terious architects, Tresguerras and Gutierrez, who so quietly
accomplished what the vast wealth of our mid-western cities seems
powerless to achieve! To be sure, for the life down there, Mr Sit-


344
TO BE BAROQUE
well had the captivating diary of the famous Madame de la
Barca to draw upon, but most would-be tourists, seduced by that
tale, have always been deterred by the idea that everything she
extolled has long since been destroyed in the wars. Certainly the
mediaeval system by which a gentleman-traveller lodged at the
house of any other gentleman (and beautifully) must have van-
ished years ago. Mr Sitwell remains silent upon the subject of
hotel accommodation; but, gracious heaven, the enthusiasm he
invokes for Mexico is such that even gourmets will put their
passions aside and book passages south instanter.
The pleasure the undersigned took in this reading led me to
hope that I had gradually become accustomed to the author's
peculiar style and that perhaps the two early divisions of the
book were better than I had supposed. No, on trying them over,
I found them too tortured. I advise all lovers of the baroque to
hurdle these formidable barriers and begin resolutely in the middle.
Then, like myself, they must decide to give the volume permanent
shelf room, since there are, after all, many valuable nuggets re-
lating to Luca Giordano, Churriquerra, and Zarcillo the sculptor,
embedded in these unlikely ores.
Henry McBRIDE


1
"LITERATURE, THE NOBLEST OF THE ARTS”
THE COLLECTED ESSAYS AND PAPERS OF GEORGE
SAINTSBURY, 1875-1920. 3 Volumes. 1174 pages.
E. P. Dutton and Company. $12.50.
ries a
M-
THROUGHOUT these essays and papers, two of which have
I never before been printed, certain idiosyncrasies assert them-
selves. Inescapably apparent is “the old gay pugnacity' of one
not thus far “disabled,” as a corollary to which, we have an im-
penitent Toryism so opposed in every nerve to “the washy semi-
Socialism, half sentimental, half servile, which is the governing
spirit of all but a few politicians to-day,” that it would seem in
its own right at all events, to exemplify "that single-hearted and
single-minded insanity of genius which carries a movement com-
pletely to its goal.”
In the expert and so humorous biographical summaries, and
paraphrases of plot, in the statement that the Cyropaedia “is a
philosophical romance for which its author has chosen to borrow
a historic name or two,” in the critic's understanding of "the very
important division of human sentiment, which is called for short-
ness love,” we feel the ardour of the novelist. We feel the in-
stinctiveness of experienced criticism when he exclaims, upon read-
ing that Dickens' Agnes “is perhaps the most charming character
in the whole range of fiction,” “Agnes! No decent violence of
expletive, no reasonable artifice of typography, could express the
depths of my feelings at such a suggestion”; and the relish for
life which results in the projecting of it, is nowhere more engag-
ingly apparent than in the elaborating of the Ettrick Shepherd's
statement that “A' contributors are in a manner fierce.” “The
contributor who is not allowed to contribute,” says Mr Saintsbury,
"is fierce, as a matter of course; but not less fierce is the contributor
who thinks himself too much edited, and the contributor who im-
peratively insists that his article on Chinese metaphysics shall go
in at once, and the contributor who, being an excellent hand at the
currency, wants to be allowed to write on dancing; and, in short,
as the Shepherd says, all contributors."


346 "LITERATURE, THE NOBLEST OF THE ARTS”
It is the author's firm conviction that “the greatest part, if not
the whole of the pleasure-giving appeal of poetry lies in its sound
rather than in its sense”—that "no ‘chain of extremely valuable
thoughts' is poetry in itself.” Objections occur to one, and one
receives accordingly with satisfaction the comment upon Matthew
Arnold: "I cannot quite make out why the critic did not say to
the poet, 'It will never do to publish verse like this and this and
this and this,' or why the poet did not say to the critic, 'Then we
will make it worth publishing,' and proceed to do so.”
Despite trifling divagations from impartiality contained in an
appeal to "any fit reader,” to “any competent judge,” to “any
tolerably intelligent critic,” one cannot but be lessoned and ex-
hilarated in these papers, by the beneficent presence of equity as
of law; equity being nowhere more apparent than in the statement
"that it will be only in a way for [a man's] greater glory if you
find out where and wherefore he is sometimes wrong.” Essentially
a thoughtful person” in the desire to give facts without violating
the sanctity of private life,” Mr Saintsbury admits that he "may
have 'most politely, most politely made some authors uncom-
fortable,” but reminds one that in reviewing, “Stiletto and pole-
axe, sandbag and scavenger-shovel are barred”-that one "can
administer sequins as well as lashes, and send a man to ride round
the town in royal apparel as well as despatch him to the gallows."
We are aware of the writer's contempt for “twentieth hand
learning"-of a voracity that has "grappled with whole libraries."
"I have seen disdainful remarks,” says Mr Saintsbury "on those
critics who, however warily, admire a considerable number of
authors, as though they were coarse and omnivorous persons. ...
A man need not be a Don Juan of letters to have a list of almost
mille e tre loves in that department.” His impassioned absorption
in the particular phase of genius which he is pleased to contem-
plate, appears in his refulgent terminology; as when he says
Macaulay was thought to be "not only 'cocksure' but cock-a-hoop"
and that "the average mid-century Liberal” regarded Carlyle as
"a man whose dearest delight it was to gore and toss and trample
the sweetest and most sacred principles of the Manchester School.”
He recalls to us, "the massive common sense and nervous diction”
of Dryden whom he denominates “a poetical schoolman”; “the ex-
traordinary command of metre which led Swinburne to plan sea-


MARIANNE MOORE
347
row
snes
serpents in verse in order to show how easily and gracefully he
can make them coil and uncoil their enormous length"; and admir-
ing Trollope's "economy and yet opulence of material,” says of
Mr Scarborough's Family, “If you have any sense of the particular
art you can't help feeling the skill with which the artist wheels
you along till he feels inclined to turn you out of his barrow and
then deposits you at his if not your destination.”
It would be “some task” as Mr Saintsbury "says the Americans
say,” to correct the speech of those who make our speech correct,
but the "Heaven knows” of the British littérateur-of Mr Saints-
bury, indeed—does seem to the untutored American, a superlative
upon that which is complete. “With the imperiousness natural to
all art,” however, "style absolutely refuses to avail itself of, or to
be found in company with anything that is ready made,” and it is
not surprising that in the work of one who has written a History
of English Prose Rhythm, we should have "style”—a style, more-
over, in which there should often be “a perfection of expression
which transmutes the subject.” Mr Saintsbury's concept of style
as the incarnation of thought is conspicuous in his presentation of
the work of others; as when he says, “There is no wing in Crabbe,
there is no transport.” Critics dare not, for the most part, exact
excellences, standing themselves conspicuously in need of such.
In these essays, however, dissatisfaction is offset by opulence; there
is in them, abundance of “wing," grace being lent it very obviously
by traces of an admiration for the Bible, for Cicero, for the seven-
teenth century, and for the engaging idiom of the Gaul.”
Of Carlyle's Sterling, says Mr Saintsbury, "I have seldom been
able to begin it again or even to consult it for a casual reference,
without following it right through.” Space is lacking in which
to name the essays in these volumes, of which one can speak with
similar conviction. But if one were to begin, it would be with the
essay on Lockhart, or that entitled Some Great Biographies, fol-
lowed by those on the grand style, by those on Macaulay, and by
Bolshevism in its Cradle—The Life and Opinions of William
Godwin.
MARIANNE MOORE


A MENDICANT OF SORROW
THE STORY OF A Novel and Other Stories. By
Maxim Gorky. Translated by Marie Zakrevsky.
12mo. 273 pages. Lincoln MacVeagh: The Dial
Press. $2.50.
TIKE an inspired vagrant journeying through the country-side
U peering with sad, quick, understanding eyes into the se-
crets of each new soul he encounters, Maxim Gorki translates
for us in tough and luminous prose the story of his wayfaring.
When one recalls the oppression and poverty of his early years,
his recurring ill health, the endless quarrels which eddied about his
exposed nerves like blustering gales about a house with shattered
casements, one marvels that so sensitive and desperate a nature
should ever have survived at all; and still more how it came to
develop a style as potent and punctual as a midday sun recumbent
on a field of ripe wheat, and at the same time as haunting as the
notes of an old song drifting back to us from some fishing boat on
the stream of the Volga. Maxim Gorki is surely an example, if
there ever was one, of the fact that writers are born and not made.
His similes fall as swiftly and lightly, as naturally indeed, from
his pen as rain drops shaken from the wet leaves of an ailanthus
tree, rain drops which wash away the dust and stains on the city
pavements leaving the granite surface firm and immaculate.
Less subtly cerebral, perhaps, than Chekhov, less massive than
Tolstoy, less morbidly probing in his inquests of the soul than
Dostoevsky, he yet, like these three great masters of a common
heritage, is able to portray tenderness without sentimentality, bit.
terness without cynicism, and simplicity which is as complicated,
as unfathomable, as the alchemy from which springs the first April
flower.
The Story of a Novel is a collection of five short stories; and if
there are not among these narratives any which seem to the present
reviewer to reach quite the height of rounded perfection of one
or two of his earlier tales, notably Twenty-six of Us and One
Other, still every page demonstrates the fact that they are written
by a man of letters whose power in his fifty-sixth year is quite as


ALYSE GREGORY
349
vigorous as it ever was, and whose sophistication has ripened with
time. We are reminded in his tale, An Incident, of The Death of
Ivan Ilyitch, for both stories depict the encroachment of mortality
upon victims sensible of their fate, and the bitter revolt which
this enemy arouses in the souls of the sufferers. But of the two
treatments Tolstoy's is the more powerful, for he does not permit
himself to be turned aside from his major theme into those meta-
physical and sociological speculations so beloved by Russians. One
follows step by step with fascinated dismay and overwhelming
belief the futile resistance of Ivan Ilyitch, up to the very last in-
flexible word on the page, while An Incident lacks focus and con-
trol, and when it comes off, as it does, with a sudden snap in the
end, it leaves one still uncertain and unconvinced. Yet within its
small compass this story contains all that is most characteristic of
Russian writing: intellectual fervour, the hesitant advance and
retreat of the soul in fright, brooding suspicion, passionate interest
in ideas, frustration, and vibrating through all, the sense of an
inevitable and tragic doom.
Perhaps none of these short stories can be classified with either
of the two great opposing schools of short story writing of which
de Maupassant and Chekhov are the masters. They seem rather
to fall between these two patterns, for they are often dramatic
as de Maupassant is dramatic, yet they lack the lucid control of
the Frenchman, nor are they limited as his sometimes are by an
artfully contracted simplicity. On the other hand, although they
are sometimes episodic and infused with a kind of mental radiance,
they have not the fastidious symmetry of his compatriot. They
do not give one, as do certain of Chekhov's, the sense of a moment
arrested in flux and for ever crystallized into a gem that may
be turned at every angle toward the light without detriment to
any of its edges.
But truly these comparisons are irrelevant, and odious when
no word written by Maxim Gorki could ever be either dull, unim-
passioned, or lacking in poetry. And so if there yet remains any
one of literary pretensions who is not acquainted with the work
of this proud and winnowed mendicant of deepest sorrow, whose
welcome to our singular shores once caused so much merriment to
our European neighbours, we advise him to read immediately this
last example of his mature years.
ALYSE GREGORY


BRIEFER MENTION
THE GEORGE AND THE Crown, by Sheila Kaye-Smith (12mo, 361 pages;
Dutton : $2). This book, we think, will be found to take a place midway
among the works of its author. Inferior to Green Apple Harvest or
Joanna Godden, it is a good deal superior to The End of the House of
Alard. By removing the background to and fro between Sussex and
Sark, the writer relinquishes the advantage of a single deep local concen-
tration. Both hero and heroine, however, are once more constructed out
of that picturesque assembling of vivid personal eccentricities which it is
the author's special felicity to evoke. The symbolic difference between
the two hostelries is well worked out; but the plot is rather weakened
than strengthened by the extreme contrast between soil-tilling and sea-
faring.
Sixty-Four Ninety-Four! by R. H. Mottram (12mo, 363 pages ; Lincoln
MacVeagh, Dial Press: $2.50) is a cross-section in narrative of what
happens to men in war-waiting, fighting, loafing, working. The author
of The Spanish Farm has rounded out that expert piece of writing by
another which surveys much the same ground, only from another angle-
a living panorama of moods loosely linked together, but dominated by
one force—the force which endlessly became vocal in "an unforgettable
sound, as though the heavens, made of cheap calico, were being torn to
lengths by some demoniac draper.” Many such vivid figures leap from
these pages of close-cropped prose, effortless yet intensive. Mr Mottram
has fully encompassed what he set out to do"to set down what can be
remembered, before it becomes too dim—to set it down with the least
official, personal or imaginative bias.”
TALES OF HEARSAY, by Joseph Conrad (12mo, 135 pages ; Doubleday, Page;
$1.50). These Tales by a master technician are beautifully fitted mosaics
of words. The book is particularly interesting in that it illustrates dif-
ferent periods in Conrad's work, and unlike many posthumous books is
not filled with papers which were obviously not meant to be published.
Altogether it satisfyingly heightens our concept of Joseph Conrad's genius.
FRANKLIN WINSLOW KANE, by Anne Douglas Sedgwick (12mo, 369 pages;
Houghton Mifflin : $2). This is a book that comes near persuading a
judicious reader to believe in something almost like progress in modern
aesthetic taste; for one cannot any longer regard literary craftsmanship
of this kind, so deft, so smooth, but so entirely lacking in creative imagina-
tion, as anything else than superficial and unimportant. Never for one
moment does the inherent mysteriousness of human nature take on flesh
and blood in this clever ethical study of opposing types. Sans tragedy,
sans comedy, these smoothly carved puppets are propelled forward to their
appointed climax, a climax brought about, neither by fate nor by chance,
but by the premeditated purpose of a popular story-teller.


BRIEFER MENTION
351
THE TREE OF THE FOLKUNGS, by Verner Von Heidenstam, translated by
Arthur J. Chater (12mo, 364 pages; Knopf: $3). Almost every oppor-
tunity for the kind of romance that appeals to the Saxon or Celtic or
Latin mind is starkly neglected in this characteristic Scandinavian prose-
epic. The persons of the story are handled neither heroically nor
realistically, but in a stubborn, heavy, clumsy manner; so that their very
voices reach us, harsh and husky, as if out of a bitter fog. The most
thrilling passage in the book is when Ingevald, with his Finn mother at
Jorgrimme's cave, lifts up the cry "Stone God, Stone Brow, Umasumbla,
God of the Fosse, help us !" but this wild mystic note is not often re-
peated; and the blending of love and war throughout the story is naïve,
crude, violent, barbarous, something that leaves us completely cold.
THE GRAND INQUISITOR, by Donald Douglas (12mo, 319 pages; Boni &
Liveright: $2.50) is a nightmare novel partaking of the natures of both
the Gothic romances of the early nineteenth century and the modern
psychological horrors of Dostoevsky. In its romantic phase, the old-
fashioned grandiloquent mood seems a little preposterous; but, when
Mr Douglas strikes his more modern vein, he achieves some really remark-
able effects of hysterical intensity. Especially is this true of the New
York scenes, in which the panic, the vertigo, and the nervous desperation
of the city are carried to their furthest possible pitch. The story consists
in the parallel tragedies of two protagonists: one—a respectable business
man-reacts against a life of repression and overwork by taking to sailors'
bawdy-houses, where he finally murders one of the girls; the other-a
literary man, who has presumably been free to live as he pleases—is none
the less doomed to the same fate, for he strangles the woman he loves.
The significance of this parable is not made quite clear; but in the first
of these stories, which is the more convincing, Mr Douglas has written
some almost unbearably vivid pages on the hallucinations of tortured
nerves and divided personality. The violence of his imagination, moving
in the region between madness and reality, carries off the confusion of his
artistic purpose and some vices of style.
Eastward, by Louis Couperus, translated by J. Menzies-Wilson and C. C.
Crispin (8vo, 286 pages; Doran: $5). This charming and smoothly-
flowing narrative of the writer's impressions in his favourite Dutch Indies
will have a thrilling interest for the devotees of this secretive and elusive
genius. How many of the peculiar Couperus “notes,” such as have sub-
tilized the culture of all intellectually inquisitive Europeans, reappear in
these nonchalant and easy pages! That cool, clear, indulgent, pastel-
like irony, that water-colour mysticism, that faint death-lily morbidity, that
convalescent penetration, all recur here; and with them, most character-
istic “note” of all, that curious mania for the sense of the presence of
"the little gods,” that animistic attitude to life and nature that has always
shadowed the psychological insight of this original story-teller with some-
thing of the insatiable aesthetic superstition which dominated the work
of Apuleius! Lovers of Couperus will find their especial account in this
voluble book; but strangers to his talent will certainly receive new ideas
as to the possibilities of human life in Java and Sumatra.


352
BRIEFER MENTION
Mrs DALLOWAY, by Virginia Woolf (12mo, 296 pages ; Harcourt, Brace:
$2.50). The animation of Mrs Woolf's mind often disturbs a design
which seems based on nothing more than that animation. The book is
a portrait of a woman, framed by the concentric circles of her daily life;
but the sobrieties of portraiture are forgotten in the festivity of the
authoress's avid sensibility and wit. Mrs Dalloway has character; and
it does not discredit that character to say that one would realize it more
clearly if its charm were not overshadowed by Mrs Woolf's almost incom-
parable charm.
POEMS FOR YOUTH, an American Anthology, compiled with preface and
introduction by William Rose Benét (12mo, 512 pages; Dutton : $3).
Assuming the work of certain poets to be not within the understandings
of average young people in their late 'teens and early twenties,” omitting
John Burroughs' My Own Shall Come to Me, and certain household
favourites, Mr Benét presents in this anthology many narrative poems of
personal prowess, ballads, poems in dialect, certain masterpieces of
emotion and description, and directs the reader's judgement with a bio-
graphical critical note upon each author.
Poems, by Ralph Hodgson (12mo, 64 pages; Macmillan: $1.25). The
device which in one instance dazzles—in another disappoints—and a
manner sometimes perhaps too self-perpetuating, infinitesimally discount
Mr Hodgson's genius. Imaginatively contrived as conceived-deft, sud-
den, and sane like many of the creatures human and other which are
embodied in them—these poems could, one feels, charm even the confirmed
poet-hater.
Poets OF AMERICA, by Clement Wood (12mo, 392 pages; Dutton: $3)
is a series of quotations pieced together with biographical data and the
author's comments. The latter have the virtue of being frank. Except
in the section devoted to his colleagues of The Poetry Society (the chapter
is entitled Sappho's Cousins) Mr Wood speaks his mind forthrightly, but
he says little that is either profound or final. A critic who can find
nothing in Eliot but a subject for clumsy satire, or who attacks H. D.
because her metaphors are "remote and, as images go, mediocre," should
at least endeavour to sharpen his own metaphors. “A feigned madness,”
he says in passing judgement on these poets, "earns the mushroom plaudits
of mushroom souls; but shrewder Time bares soon enough to scorn the
sham Abraham.”
The Peal of Bells, by Robert Lynd (12mo, 223 pages; Appleton: $2)
is a collection of essays which reveal how an alert mind functions at the
relaxation point. Starting with a familiar idea or with an incident on
the level of the commonplace, he entrusts it to a nimble fancy and an
easy style, without much concern as to its ultimate fate, so long as the
expansion process shows no indication of flagging. Sometimes the out-
come is merely amusing; at others, speculative or tinged with philosophy.
Mr Lynd's interests are broad and unacademic; his talk is well-seasoned
and easily digested.


BRIEFER MENTION
353
A HISTORY OF SCULPTURE, by George Henry Chase and Chandler Rathfon
Post (8vo, 582 pages; Harper: $4.75) embodies so much erudition, data,
and commendable research that it is hard to set it down as a failure.
Yet failure it is—for any attempt to write the history of the sculpture of
all lands and times in one volume is obviously impossible. Archaeological
facts, names, and periods—all huddled together in a cold, synoptical
treatise— leave the reader exhausted and unedified. There is not a
breath, not a hint of the animating creative spirit behind the chiselled
marble—all facts-professorial diligence to no purpose. The authors
have no prejudices and no preferences; nor have they literary skill or
capacity for emotional experience. The illustrations do somewhat relieve
the monotony.
WILLIAM BLAKE IN THIS WORLD, by Harold Bruce (12mo, 218 pages;
Harcourt Brace: $3). The value of this concise and sturdy book lies
in the fact of its scrupulous avoidance of vague idealism and the careful
manner in which it has followed Blake's own pronounced preference
for “minute particulars” as over against rhetorical generalizations. The
vigorously sketched word-pictures of the poet's various patrons and dis-
ciples are both humorous and shrewd, while certain doubtful points in
his career are discussed with a very satisfactory thoroughness. The book
is a remarkable evidence of Blake's unconquerable power; for Mr Bruce
has evidently a "tough” mind, not easily roused to enthusiasm, not easily
fooled.
LEON TROTSKY: The Portrait of a Youth, by Max Eastman (12mo, 181
pages; Greenberg: $2) is an interpretation of the forces which moulded
the man, rather than of the man himself. Mr Eastman, out of his first-
hand knowledge of Russia, has sought to recreate the mood of that
political and social evangelism—a "going to the people”—from which
sprang the seeds of Bolshevism. It is a story of development rather than
of achievement; the latter is reserved for another book. “If,” says the
author, "we can understand how Trotsky became a Bolshevik, we shall
have some human understanding of what Bolshevism is.” And this pur-
pose he has accomplished with earnestness, good temper, and brevity.
These UNITED States, Second Series, edited by Ernest Gruening (12mo,
438 pages; Boni & Liveright: $3). In any number of manners from the
pure jeremiad to the pure real estate boom, whether "selling" resources
and natural scenery or exposing political, social, and even bodily corrup-
tion, these articles testify to an aggregate of power which, when considered
as a unit, affects one like the talk of stellar distances. The book as a
whole would indicate that the era of absolute intellectual defeatism is
passing into one of Messianic expectancy, even the sheer absence of culture
being in some cases taken as the first symptom of a possible cultural
reaction. ... The mere data are enough to make this symposium an
engrossing spectacle; and if the authors occasionally mislead, it is not
that they credit their states with conditions which do not exist, but that
they inevitably, by the nature of a summary, throw certain conditions too
exclusively into relief.
whole would one of Messianic exphe firsť symptom be this sympo


COMMENT
GENTLEMAN who has lived abroad considers that the two
books most talked of in Germany since the war are The
Downfall of Western Civilization, by Oswald Spengler and
Hermann Keyserling's Travel Diary of a Philosopherº-books,
that is, written in German and published recently—talked of, that
is, by the public "which corresponds to the American public of
H. G. Wells.” Indeed our informant has been heard to refer to
Count Keyserling as the German H. G. Wells, by which he meant
perhaps that Wells, brought up as a nobleman of Eastern Europe,
could have become Keyserling. On the other hand it seems un-
likely that Count Keyserling brought up in England would have
become as breezy as all that, and it would perhaps be more rea-
sonable to compare him to Havelock Ellis, with whom he shares
not only optimism and a complete indifference to the terrors of
platitude, but a wonderfully fluent habit of generalizing
Count Keyserling prefaces his diary by saying that he has no
talent for detail: it is useless to expect from him a book of brilliant
sensuous impressions. Instead he is an impressionist of the world
of principles. In each country along his journey he tries to think
and feel himself into the profoundest spirit of that country. Thus
he is able to look back as though from successive new centres of
consciousness. While in India, to give one example of his trans-
formations, he bitterly accuses the Englishman of being the most
superficial thinker of the Occident. In China, where moral culture
is more important than knowledge of the self, he admires the
English judicial system. In Japan, in the shadow of the Samurai,
he writes, though tentatively, of the English gentleman as the sole
inheritor of the virtues of the European knight.
Toward the middle of the second volume, his cultured prag-
matism, his belief in the superior destiny of the wrong-headed but
1 To be published by Alfred A. Knopf. Introduction appeared