The Beautiful and Damned
"He did! In this manner. He was an Irishman, Geraldine, a semi-fictional
Irishman--the wild sort with a genteel brogue and 'reddish hair.' He was
exiled from Erin in the late days of chivalry and, of course, crossed
over to France. Now the Chevalier O'Keefe, Geraldine, had, like me, one
weakness. He was enormously susceptible to all sorts and conditions of
women. Besides being a sentimentalist he was a romantic, a vain fellow,
a man of wild passions, a little blind in one eye and almost stone-blind
in the other. Now a male roaming the world in this condition is as
helpless as a lion without teeth, and in consequence the Chevalier was
made utterly miserable for twenty years by a series of women who hated
him, used him, bored him, aggravated him, sickened him, spent his money,
made a fool of him--in brief, as the world has it, loved him.
"This was bad, Geraldine, and as the Chevalier, save for this one
weakness, this exceeding susceptibility, was a man of penetration, he
decided that he would rescue himself once and for all from these drains
upon him. With this purpose he went to a very famous monastery in
Champagne called--well, anachronistically known as St. Voltaire's. It
was the rule at St. Voltaire's that no monk could descend to the ground
story of the monastery so long as he lived, but should exist engaged in
prayer and contemplation in one of the four towers, which were called
after the four commandments of the monastery rule: Poverty, Chastity,
Obedience, and Silence.
"When the day came that was to witness the Chevalier's farewell to the
world he was utterly happy. He gave all his Greek books to his landlady,
and his sword he sent in a golden sheath to the King of France, and all
his mementos of Ireland he gave to the young Huguenot who sold fish in
the street where he lived.
"Then he rode out to St. Voltaire's, slew his horse at the door, and
presented the carcass to the monastery cook.
"At five o'clock that night he felt, for the first time, free--forever
free from sex. No woman could enter the monastery; no monk could descend
below the second story. So as he climbed the winding stair that led to
his cell at the very top of the Tower of Chastity he paused for a moment
by an open window which looked down fifty feet on to a road below. It
was all so beautiful, he thought, this world that he was leaving, the
golden shower of sun beating down upon the long fields, the spray of
trees in the distance, the vineyards, quiet and green, freshening wide
miles before him. He leaned his elbows on the window casement and gazed
at the winding road.
"Now, as it happened, Thérèse, a peasant girl of sixteen from a
neighboring village, was at that moment passing along this same road
that ran in front of the monastery. Five minutes before, the little
piece of ribbon which held up the stocking on her pretty left leg had
worn through and broken. Being a girl of rare modesty she had thought to
wait until she arrived home before repairing it, but it had bothered her
to such an extent that she felt she could endure it no longer. So, as
she passed the Tower of Chastity, she stopped and with a pretty gesture
lifted her skirt--as little as possible, be it said to her credit--to
adjust her garter.
"Up in the tower the newest arrival in the ancient monastery of St.
Voltaire, as though pulled forward by a gigantic and irresistible hand,
leaned from the window. Further he leaned and further until suddenly one
of the stones loosened under his weight, broke from its cement with a
soft powdery sound--and, first headlong, then head over heels, finally
in a vast and impressive revolution tumbled the Chevalier O'Keefe, bound
for the hard earth and eternal damnation.
"Thérèse was so much upset by the occurrence that she ran all the way
home and for ten years spent an hour a day in secret prayer for the soul
of the monk whose neck and vows were simultaneously broken on that
unfortunate Sunday afternoon.
"And the Chevalier O'Keefe, being suspected of suicide, was not buried
in consecrated ground, but tumbled into a field near by, where he
doubtless improved the quality of the soil for many years afterward.
Such was the untimely end of a very brave and gallant gentleman. What do
you think, Geraldine?"
But Geraldine, lost long before, could only smile roguishly, wave her
first finger at him, and repeat her bridge-all, her explain-all:
"Crazy!" she said, "you cra-a-azy!"
His thin face was kindly, she thought, and his eyes quite gentle. She
liked him because he was arrogant without being conceited, and because,
unlike the men she met about the theatre, he had a horror of being
conspicuous. What an odd, pointless story! But she had enjoyed the part
about the stocking!
After the fifth cocktail he kissed her, and between laughter and
bantering caresses and a half-stifled flare of passion they passed an
hour. At four-thirty she claimed an engagement, and going into the
bathroom she rearranged her hair. Refusing to let him order her a taxi
she stood for a moment in the doorway.
"You _will_ get married," she was insisting, "you wait and see."
Anthony was playing with an ancient tennis ball, and he bounced it
carefully on the floor several times before he answered with a soupçon
of acidity:
"You're a little idiot, Geraldine."
She smiled provokingly.
"Oh, I am, am I? Want to bet?"
"That'd be silly too."
"Oh, it would, would it? Well, I'll just bet you'll marry somebody
inside of a year."
Anthony bounced the tennis ball very hard. This was one of his handsome
days, she thought; a sort of intensity had displaced the melancholy in
his dark eyes.
"Geraldine," he said, at length, "in the first place I have no one I
want to marry; in the second place I haven't enough money to support two
people; in the third place I am entirely opposed to marriage for people
of my type; in the fourth place I have a strong distaste for even the
abstract consideration of it."
But Geraldine only narrowed her eyes knowingly, made her clicking sound,
and said she must be going. It was late.
"Call me up soon," she reminded him as he kissed her goodbye, "you
haven't for three weeks, you know."
"I will," he promised fervently.
He shut the door and coming back into the room stood for a moment lost
in thought with the tennis ball still clasped in his hand. There was one
of his lonelinesses coming, one of those times when he walked the
streets or sat, aimless and depressed, biting a pencil at his desk. It
was a self-absorption with no comfort, a demand for expression with no
outlet, a sense of time rushing by, ceaselessly and wastefully--assuaged
only by that conviction that there was nothing to waste, because all
efforts and attainments were equally valueless.
He thought with emotion--aloud, ejaculative, for he was hurt and
confused.
"No _idea_ of getting married, by _God_!"
Of a sudden he hurled the tennis ball violently across the room, where
it barely missed the lamp, and, rebounding here and there for a moment,
lay still upon the floor.
SIGNLIGHT AND MOONLIGHT
For her dinner Gloria had taken a table in the Cascades at the Biltmore,
and when the men met in the hall outside a little after eight, "that
person Bloeckman" was the target of six masculine eyes. He was a
stoutening, ruddy Jew of about thirty-five, with an expressive face
under smooth sandy hair--and, no doubt, in most business gatherings his
personality would have been considered ingratiating. He sauntered up to
the three younger men, who stood in a group smoking as they waited for
their hostess, and introduced himself with a little too evident
assurance--nevertheless it is to be doubted whether he received the
intended impression of faint and ironic chill: there was no hint of
understanding in his manner.
"You related to Adam J. Patch?" he inquired of Anthony, emitting two
slender strings of smoke from nostrils overwide.
Anthony admitted it with the ghost of a smile.
"He's a fine man," pronounced Bloeckman profoundly. "He's a fine example
of an American."
"Yes," agreed Anthony, "he certainly is."
--I detest these underdone men, he thought coldly. Boiled looking! Ought
to be shoved back in the oven; just one more minute would do it.
Bloeckman squinted at his watch.
"Time these girls were showing up ..."
--Anthony waited breathlessly; it came--
"... but then," with a widening smile, "you know how women are."
The three young men nodded; Bloeckman looked casually about him, his
eyes resting critically on the ceiling and then passing lower. His
expression combined that of a Middle Western farmer appraising his wheat
crop and that of an actor wondering whether he is observed--the public
manner of all good Americans. As he finished his survey he turned back
quickly to the reticent trio, determined to strike to their very
heart and core.
"You college men? ... Harvard, eh. I see the Princeton boys beat you
fellows in hockey."
Unfortunate man. He had drawn another blank. They had been three years
out and heeded only the big football games. Whether, after the failure
of this sally, Mr. Bloeckman would have perceived himself to be in a
cynical atmosphere is problematical, for--
Gloria arrived. Muriel arrived. Rachael arrived. After a hurried "Hello,
people!" uttered by Gloria and echoed by the other two, the three swept
by into the dressing room.
A moment later Muriel appeared in a state of elaborate undress and
_crept_ toward them. She was in her element: her ebony hair was slicked
straight back on her head; her eyes were artificially darkened; she
reeked of insistent perfume. She was got up to the best of her ability
as a siren, more popularly a "vamp"--a picker up and thrower away of
men, an unscrupulous and fundamentally unmoved toyer with affections.
Something in the exhaustiveness of her attempt fascinated Maury at first
sight--a woman with wide hips affecting a panther-like litheness! As
they waited the extra three minutes for Gloria, and, by polite
assumption, for Rachael, he was unable to take his eyes from her. She
would turn her head away, lowering her eyelashes and biting her nether
lip in an amazing exhibition of coyness. She would rest her hands on her
hips and sway from side to side in tune to the music, saying:
"Did you ever hear such perfect ragtime? I just can't make my shoulders
behave when I hear that."
Mr. Bloeckman clapped his hands gallantly.
"You ought to be on the stage."
"I'd like to be!" cried Muriel; "will you back me?"
"I sure will."
With becoming modesty Muriel ceased her motions and turned to Maury,
asking what he had "seen" this year. He interpreted this as referring to
the dramatic world, and they had a gay and exhilarating exchange of
titles, after this manner:
MURIEL: Have you seen "Peg o' My Heart"?
MAURY: No, I haven't.
MURIEL: (_Eagerly_) It's wonderful! You want to see it.
MAURY: Have you seen "Omar, the Tentmaker"?
MURIEL: No, but I hear it's wonderful. I'm very anxious to see it. Have
you seen "Fair and Warmer"?
MAURY: (_Hopefully_) Yes.
MURIEL: I don't think it's very good. It's trashy.
MAURY: (_Faintly_) Yes, that's true.
MURIEL: But I went to "Within the Law" last night and I thought it was
fine. Have you seen "The Little Cafe"?...
This continued until they ran out of plays. Dick, meanwhile, turned to
Mr. Bloeckman, determined to extract what gold he could from this
unpromising load.
"I hear all the new novels are sold to the moving pictures as soon as
they come out."
"That's true. Of course the main thing in a moving picture is a strong
story."
"Yes, I suppose so."
"So many novels are all full of talk and psychology. Of course those
aren't as valuable to us. It's impossible to make much of that
interesting on the screen."