Section 3. Robertson Jones, the great "theatrical producer", was
large and ponderous, florid of face and firm in manner--the
steam-roller type of business-man. And it became evident at once
that he had invited Thyrsis to come and be rolled.

"Miss Lewis tells me you can't agree about the play," said he.

"No," said Thyrsis, faintly.

And then Mr. Jones began. He told Thyrsis what he meant to do with
this play. Miss Lewis was one of the country's future "stars", and
he was willing to back her without stint. He had permitted her to
make her own choice of a role, and she should have her way in
everything. There were famous playwrights bidding for a chance to
write for her; but she had seen fit to choose "The Genius".

"Personally," said Mr. Jones, "I don't believe in the play. I would
never think of producing it--it's not the sort of thing anybody is
interested in. But Miss Lewis likes it; she's been reading Ibsen,
and she wants to do a 'drama of ideas', and all that sort of thing,
you know. And that's all right--she's the sort to make a success of
whatever she does. But you must do your share, and give her a part
she can make something out of--some chance to show her charm.
Otherwise, of course, the thing's impossible."

Mr. Jones paused. "I'm very sorry"--began Thyrsis, weakly.

"What's your idea in refusing?" interrupted the other.

Thyrsis tried to explain--that he had written the play to set forth
a certain thesis, and that he was asked to make changes that
directly contradicted this thesis.

"Have you ever had a play produced?" demanded the manager abruptly.

"No," said Thyrsis.

"Have you written any other plays?"

"No."

"Your first trial! Well, don't you think it a good deal to expect
that your play should be perfect?"

"I don't think"--began Thyrsis.

"Can't you see," persisted the other, "that people who have been in
this business all their lives, and have watched thousands of plays
succeed and fail, might be able to give you some points on the
matter?"--And then Mr. Jones went on to set forth to Thyrsis the
laws of the theatrical game--a game in which there was the keenest
competition, and in which the "ante" was enormously high. To produce
"The Genius" would cost ten thousand dollars at the least; and were
those who staked this to have no say whatever in the shaping of the
play? Manifestly this was absurd; and as the manager pressed home
the argument, Thyrsis felt as if he wanted to get up and run! When
Mr. Jones talked to you, he looked you squarely in the eye, and you
had a feeling of presumption, even of guilt, in standing out against
him. Thyrsis shrunk in terror from that type of personality--he
would let it have anything in the world it wanted, so only it would
not clash with him. But never before had it demanded one of the
children of his dreams!

Mr. Jones went on to tell how many things he would do for the play.
It would go into rehearsal at once, and would be seen on Broadway by
the first of February. They would pay him four, six and eight per
cent., and his profits could not be less than three hundred dollars
a week. With Ethelynda Lewis in the leading role the play might well
run until June--and there would be the road profits the next season,
in addition.

Thyrsis' brain reeled as he listened to this; it was in all respects
identical with another famous temptation--"The devil taketh him
upon a high mountain, and showeth him all the kingdoms of the
earth!"

"And then there is England"--the man was saying.

"No, no!" cried Thyrsis, wildly. "No!"

"But _why_ not?" demanded the other.

"It's impossible! I _couldn't_ do it!"

"You mean you couldn't do the writing?"

"I wouldn't know how to!"

"Well then, that's easily arranged. Let me get some one to
collaborate with you. There's Richard Haberton--you know who he
is?"

"No," said Thyrsis, faintly.

"He's the author of 'The Rajah's Diamond'--it's playing with five
companions now, and its third season. And he dramatized 'In Honor's
Cause'--you've seen that, no doubt. We have paid him some sixty
thousand dollars in royalties so far. And he'll take the play and
fix it over--you wouldn't have to stir a finger."

Thyrsis sprang up in his agitation. "Please don't ask me, Mr.
Jones," he cried. "I simply _could_ not do it!"

It seemed strange to Thyrsis, when he thought it over afterwards,
that the great Robertson Jones should have taken the trouble to
argue so long with the unknown author of a play in which he did not
believe. Was it that opposition incited him to persist? Or had he
told Ethelynda Lewis he would get her what she wanted, and was now
reluctant to confess defeat? At any rate, so it was--he went on to
drive Thyrsis into a corner, to tear open his very soul. Also, he
manifested anger; it was a deliberate affront that the boy should
stand out like this. And Thyrsis, in great distress of soul,
explained that he did not mean it that way--he apologized abjectly
for his obstinacy. It was the _ideas_ that he had tried to put into
his play, and that he could not give up!

"But," persisted the manager--"write other plays, and put your ideas
into them. If you've once had a Broadway success, then you can write
anything you please, and you can make your own terms for
production."

That thought had already occurred to Thyrsis; it was the one that
nearly broke down his resistance. He would probably have
surrendered, had the play not been so fresh from his mind, and so
dear to him; if he had had time enough to become dissatisfied with
it, as he had with his first novel--or discouraged about its
prospects, as he had with "The Hearer of Truth"! But this child of
his fancy was not yet weaned; and to tear it from his breast, and
hand it to the butcher--no, it could not be thought of!

Section 4. So he parted from Mr. Jones, and went home, to pass two
of the most miserable days of his life. He had pronounced his
"_Apage,_ _Satanas!_"--he had turned his back upon the kingdoms of
the earth. And so presumably--virtue being its own reward--he should
have been in a state of utter bliss. But Thyrsis had gone deeper
into that problem, and asked himself a revolutionary question: Why
should it always be that Satan had the kingdoms of the earth at his
bestowal? Thyrsis did not want any kingdoms--he only wanted a chance
to live in the country with his wife and child. And why, in order to
get these things, must a poet submit himself to Satan?

Then came the third morning after his interview; and Thyrsis found
in his mail another letter from Robertson Jones, Inc. It was a
letter brief and to the point, and it struck him like a thunderbolt.

"Miss Ethelynda Lewis has decided that she wishes to accept your
play as it stands. I enclose herewith a contract in duplicate, and
if the terms are acceptable to you, will you kindly return one copy
signed, and retain the other yourself."

Thyrsis read, not long after that, of a young playwright who died of
heart-failure; and he was not surprised--if all playwrights had to
go through experiences such as that. He could hardly believe his
eyes, and he read the letter over two or three times; he read the
contract, with Mr. Jones' impressive signature at the bottom. He did
not know anything about theatrical contracts, but this one seemed
fair to him. It provided for a royalty upon the gross receipts, to
be paid after the play had earned the expenses of its production.
Thyrsis had hoped that he might get some cash in advance, but that
was not mentioned. In the flush of his delight he concluded that he
would not take the risk of demanding anything additional, but signed
the contract and mailed it, and sent a telegram to acquaint Corydon
with the glorious tidings.

Section 5. One of the consequences of this triumph was that Thyrsis
purchased a new necktie and half a dozen collars; and another was
that an angry world was in some part appeased, and permitted the
struggling poet to see his wife and child once more.

They met in the park; and strange it was to him to see Corydon after
six months' absence. She was beautiful as ever, somewhat paler,
though still with the halo of motherhood about her. He could
scarcely realize that she was his; she seemed like a dream to
him--like some phantom of music, thrilling and wonderful, yet frail
and unsubstantial. She clung to his arm, trembling with delight, and
pouring out her longing and her grief. There came to them one of
those golden hours, when the deeps of their souls welled up, and
they pledged themselves anew to their faith.

Even stranger it was to see the child; to be able to look at him all
he pleased, and to speak to him, and to hold him in his arms! He was
as beautiful as Thyrsis could have wished, and the father had no
trouble at all in being interested in him; his smiles were things to
make the angels jealous. Thyrsis would push his carriage out into
the park, and they would sit upon a bench and gaze at him--each
making sure that the other had missed none of his fine points.

He was beginning to make sounds now, and had achieved the word
"puss-Г©e". This originally had signified the woolly kitten he
carried with him, but now by a metonymy it had come to include all
kinds of living things; and great was the delight of the parents
when a big red automobile flashed past, and the baby pointed his
finger, exclaiming gleefully, "Puss-Г©e!" It is an astonishing thing,
how little it takes to make parents happy; regarded, purely as an
abstract proposition, it would be difficult to explain why two
people who possessed between them a total of sixty-four teeth, more
or less, should have been so much excited by the discovery that the
baby had four.

But parenthood, as Thyrsis found, meant more than charming
baby-prattle and the counting of teeth. Little Cedric's tiny fingers
were twisted in his heart-strings--he loved him with a love the
intensity of which frightened him when he realized it. And sometimes
things went wrong, and then with a pang as from the stab of a knife
would come the thought that he might some day lose this child. So
much pain and toil a child cost, so much it took of one's strength
and power; and then, such a fragile thing it was--exposed to so many
perils and uncertainties, to the ravages of so many diseases, that
struck like a cruel enemy in the dark! Corydon and Thyrsis were so
ignorant--they were like children themselves; and where should they
turn for knowledge? There were doctors, of course; but this took so
much money--and even with all the doctors, see how many babies died!

Thyrsis was learning the bitter truth of Bacon's saying about
"giving hostages to fortune." And dearly as he loved the child, the
artist in him cried out against these ties. Where now was that
care-free outlook, that recklessness, that joy in life as a
spectacle, which made up so much of the artist's attitude? When one
had a wife and child one no longer enjoyed tragedies--one lived,
them; and one got from them, not _katharsis_, but exhaustion. One
became timid and cautious and didactic, and other inartistic things.
One learned that life was real, life was earnest, and the grave was
not its goal!

Cedric had been weaned; but still he was not growing properly. Could
it be that there was something wrong with what they fed him? Corydon
would come upon advertisements telling of wonderful newly-discovered
foods for infants, and giving pictures of the rosy and stalwart ones
who were fed upon these foods. She would take to buying them--and
they were not cheap foods either. Then, during the winter, the child
caught cold; and they took that to mean that it had been in some way
exposed--that was what everybody said, and what the name "cold"
itself suggested. So Corydon would add more flannel dresses and
blankets, until the unfortunate mite of life would be in a purple
stew. And still, apparently, these mysterious "colds" were not to be
thwarted. Thyrsis felt that in all this there must be something
radically wrong, and yet he knew not what to do. Surely it should
not have been such a task to keep life in one human infant.

Then, too, the training of the baby was going badly. He lived in
close contact with nervous people who were disturbed if he cried;
and so Corydon's energies were given to a terrified effort to keep
him from crying. He must be dandled and rocked to sleep, he must be
played with and amused, and have everything he cried for; and it was
amazing how early in life this little creature learned the hold
which he had upon his mother. His chief want had come to be to sleep
all day and lie awake half the night; and during these hours of
wakefulness he pursued the delightful pastime of holding some one's
hand and playing with it. Corydon, nervous and sick and wrestling
with melancholia, would have to lie awake for uncounted hours and
submit to this torment. The infant had invented a name for the
diversion; he called it "Hoodaloo mungie"--which being translated
signified "Hold your finger". To the mother this was like the
pass-word of some secret order of demons, who preyed upon and racked
her in the night; so that never after in her life could she hear the
phrase, even in jest, without experiencing a nervous shock.

Section 6. This was a period of great hopefulness for Thyrsis, but
also of desperate struggle. For until the production of his play in
January, he had somehow to keep alive, and that meant more
hack-work. Also he had to lay something by, for after the rehearsals
the play would go on the road for a couple of weeks, to be "tried on
the dog"; and during that period he must have money enough to
travel, and stay at hotels, and also to take Corydon with him, if
possible.

The rehearsals began an interesting experience for him; he was
introduced into a new and strange world. Thyrsis himself was shy,
and disposed to run away and hide his emotions; but here were
people--the actor-folk--whose business it was to live them in sight
of the world. And these emotions were their life; they were very
intense, yet quick both to come and to go. Such people were
intensely personal; they were like great children, vain and
sensitive, their moods and excitements not to be taken too
seriously. But it was long before Thyrsis came to realize this, and
meanwhile he had some uncomfortable times. To each of the players,
apparently, the interest of a play centered in those places in which
he was engaged in speaking his lines; and to each the author of the
play was a more or less benevolent despot, who had the happiness of
the rest of the world in his keeping. Once at a rehearsal, when
Thyrsis was engaged in cutting out one of the speeches attributed to
"Mrs. Hartman", he discovered that lady standing behind him in a
flood of tears!

In the beginning Thyrsis paid many visits to the apartment on
Riverside Drive; for Miss Lewis professed to be very anxious that he
should consult with her and tell her his ideas of her part. But
Thyrsis soon discovered that what she really wanted was to have him
listen to _her_ ideas. Miss Lewis was at war with Thyrsis' portrayal
of Helena--it was incomprehensible to her that Lloyd should not be
pursuing her, and she playing the coquette, according to all
romantic models. Particularly she could not see how Lloyd was to
resist the particularly charming Helena which she was going to make.
She was always trying to make Thyrsis realize this incongruity, and
to persuade him to put some "charming" lines into her part. "You
boy!" she would exclaim. "I believe you are as obstinate as your
hero!" Miss Lewis was only two years older than the "boy", but she
saw fit to adopt this grandmotherly attitude toward him.

And then came Robertson Jones, suggesting a man who could play the
part of Lloyd. But Miss Lewis declared indignantly that she would
not have him, because he was not handsome enough. "If," she vowed,
"I've got to make love to a man and be rejected by him, at least I'm
not going to have it an ugly man!" When an actor was finally agreed
upon and engaged, Thyrsis had a talk with him, and it seemed as if
Miss Lewis, in her preoccupation with his looks, had overlooked the
matter of his brains. But Thyrsis was so new at this game that he
did not feel capable of judging. He shrunk from the thought of
having any actor play his part--that was so precious and so full of
meaning to him.

But when the rehearsals began, Thyrsis speedily forgot this feeling.
The most sensitive poet to the contrary notwithstanding, the purpose
of a play is to be acted; and Thyrsis was like an inventor, who has
dreamed a great machine, and now sees the parts of it appearing as
solid steel and brass; sees them put together, and the great device
getting actually under way.

The rehearsals were held in a little hall on the East Side, and
thither came the company--six men and three women. There was no
furniture or setting, they all wore their street clothing, and in
the beginning they went through their parts with the manuscript in
their hands. And yet--they had been selected because they resembled
the characters in the play; and every time they went over the lines
they gave them with more feeling and understanding. So--vaguely at
first, and then more clearly--the poet began to see them as
incarnations of his vision. These characters had been creatures of
his fancy; they had lived in it, he had walked and talked and
laughed and wept with them. Now to discover them outside him--to be
able to hear them with his physical ears and see them with his
physical eyes--was one of the strangest experiences of his life. It
was so thrilling as to be almost uncanny. It was a new kind of
inspiration, of that strange "subliminal uprush" which made the
mystery of his life. And it was a kind that others could experience
with him. Corydon would come every day to the rehearsals, and for
four or five hours at a stretch they would sit and watch and listen
in a state of perfect transport.

Section 7. Also, there were things not in the manuscript which were
sources of interest and delight. There was Mr. Tapping, the stage
director, for instance; Thyrsis could see himself writing another
play, just to get Mr. Tapping in. He was a man well on in years, and
wrecked by dissipation--almost bald and toothless, and with one foot
crippled with gout. Yet he was a perfect geyser of activity--
bounding about the stage, talking swiftly, gesticulating--like some
strange gnome or cobold out of the bowels of the earth. Thyrsis was
the creator of the play, so far as concerned the words; but this man
was to be the creator of it on the stage. And that, too, required a
kind of genius, Thyrsis perceived.

Mr. Tapping had talked the problems out with him at the
beginning--talking until two o'clock in the morning, in a
super-heated office filled with the smoke of ten thousand dead
cigars. He talked swiftly, eagerly, setting forth his ideas; to
Thyrsis it was a most curious experience--to hear the vision of his
inmost soul translated into the language of the Tenderloin! "Your
fiddler's this kind of a guy," Mr. Tapping would say--"he knows
he's got the goods, and he don't care whether those old fogies think
he's dippy, or what the hell they think. Ain't that the dope, Mr.
Author?" And Thyrsis would answer faintly that he thought that was
"the dope."--This was a word that Mr. Tapping used every time he
opened his mouth, apparently; it designated all things connected
with the play--character, dialogue, action, scenery, music, costume.
"That's the way to dope it out to them!" he would cry to the actors.

Miss Lewis, and Mr. Tilford, the leading man, moved through their
parts with dignity; the stage director showed them the "business" he
had laid out, but they did not trouble to act at rehearsals, and he
did not criticize what they did. But all the other people had to be
taught their roles and drilled in them; and that meant that Mr.
Tapping had to have in him five actors and two actresses, and play
all their seven parts as they came. Marvellous it was to see him do
this; springing from place to place, and changing his whole aspect
in a flash--now scolding shrewishly in the words of Violet Hartman,
now discoursing, with the accent and manner of Prof, von Arne, upon
the _psychopathia_ _sexualis_ of Genius.

He did not know all the parts, of course; but that was never allowed
to trouble him. He would take a sentence out of the actor's lips,
and then go on to elaborate it in his Tenderloin dialect; or, if the
scene was highly emotional, and required swift speech, he would fall
back upon the phrase "and so and so, and so and so." He could run
the whole gamut of human emotions with those words, "and so and so."

"No, that's no good!" he would cry to "Mrs. Hartman." "What are
those words?--'Wretched, ungrateful son--do you care nothing at all
for your parents' feelings? Do you owe us nothing for what we have
done? And so and so? And so and so? And so and so?'" Mr. Tapping's
voice would rise to a wail; and then in a flash he would turn to
Moses Rosen (he called all the actors by their character-names).
"That's your cue, Rosen, you rush in left centre, and throw up your
hands--right here--see? And what's your dope?--oh yes--'I have
spent seven thousand dollars on this thing! You have ruined me! You
have betrayed me! And so and so! And so and so! And so and so!'--
And then you run over here to the professor--'You have trapped me!
And so and so!'"

Day by day as the work progressed, and the actors came to know their
lines, Thyrsis' excitement grew. The great machine was running, he
was getting some sense of the power of it! And new aspects of it
were revealed to him; there came the composer who was to do the
incidental music, and the orchestra-leader who was to conduct it;
there came the costume-designer and the scene-painter, and even the
press-agent who was to "boost" the play, and wanted picturesque
details about the author's life. Corydon and Thyrsis were invited to
go with Mr. Tilford to select a wig, and with Mr. Tapping to see the
carpenters who were building the various "sets", in a big loft
over near the North River. As the two walked home each day after
these adventures, it was all they could do to keep from hugging each
other on the street.

It was a thing of especial moment to Thyrsis, because it was the
first time in his life that his art had received any assistance from
the outside world--the first time this world had done anything but
scold at him and mock him. Here at last was recognition--here was
success! Here were material things submitting themselves to his
vision, coming to him humbly to be taught, and to co-operate in the
creation of beauty! So Thyrsis caught sudden glimpses of what his
life might have been. He was like a man who had been chained in a
black dungeon, and who now gets sight of the green earth and the
blue sky, and smells the perfume of the flowers and hears the
singing of the birds. With forces such as this at his command, the
power of his vision would be multiplied tenfold; and he was
transported with the delight of the discovery, he and Corydon found
their souls once more in this new hope.

So out of these moods there began the burgeoning of new plans in his
mind. Even amid the rush of rehearsals, he was dreaming of other
things to write; some time before "The Genius" had reached the
public, he had finished the writing of "The Utopians"--that fragment
of a vision which was perhaps the greatest thing he ever did, and
certainly the most characteristic.

Section 8. As usual, the immediate occasion of the writing was
trivial enough. It was his "leading lady" who was responsible for
it. Miss Lewis had taken a curious fancy to Thyrsis--he was a new
type to her, and it pleased her to explore him. "How in the world
did you ever get him to marry you?" she would exclaim to Corydon. "I
could as soon imagine a marble statue making love to me!" And she
told others about this strange poet, who was obviously almost
starving, and yet had refused to let Richard Haberton revise his
play for him, and had all but refused to let Robertson Jones Inc.,
produce it. Before long she came to Thyrsis to say that one of her
friends desired to meet him, and would he come to a supper-party.

Thyrsis heard this with perplexity.

"A supper-party!" he exclaimed. "But I can't!"

"Why not?"

"Why--I have no clothes."

"Nobody expects a poet to have clothes," laughed Miss Lewis. "Come
in the garments of your fancy. And besides, Barry's a true
Bohemian."

Barry Creston, the giver of this party, was one of the sons of "Dan"
Creston, the mine-owner and "railroad-king", who a short while
before had been elected senator from a Western state under
circumstances of great scandal. "The old man's a hard character, I
guess," said Miss Lewis; "but you must not believe all you read in
the papers about Barry."

"I never read anything about him," said the other; and so Miss Lewis
went on to explain that Griswold, the Wall Street plunger, had got a
divorce from his wife after throwing her into Barry's arms; and that
Barry's sister had married an Austrian arch-duke who had maltreated
her, and that Barry had kicked him out of a hotel-window in Paris.

This invitation was a cause of much discomfort to Thyrsis. He had
not come to the point where he was even curious about the life of
the Barry Crestons of the world; and yet he did not like to hurt
Miss Lewis' feelings. She made it evident to him that she was
determined to exhibit her "lion"; and so he said "all right."

The supper party was at the _CafГ©_ _de_ _BohГЄme_, which was an
Aladdin's palace buried underground beneath a building in the
"Tenderloin". Fountains splashed in marble basins, and birds sang
amid the branches of tropical flowering trees, while on a little
stage a man in the costume and character of a Paris _apache_ sang a
song of ferocious cynicism. And after him came a Japanese juggler of
prodigious swiftness, and then a fat German woman in peasant guise
who sang folk-songs, and wound up with "O, du lieber Augustin!"
After which the company joined in the chorus of "Funiculi, funicula"
and "Gaudeamus igitur"--for the patrons of the "Boheme" were nothing
if they were not cosmopolitan.

Cosmopolitan also was the company at Barry Creston's table. On one
side of Thyrsis was Miss Lewis, and on the other was Mlle. Armand,
the dancer who had set New York in a furore. Opposite to her was
Scarpi, the famous baritone; and then there was Massey, a sculptor
from Paris, and Miss Rita Seton, of the "Red Hussars" Company, and a
Miss Raymond, a gorgeous creature with a red flamingo feather in her
hat, who had been Massey's model for his sensational figure of
"Aurora".

Finally there was Barry Creston himself: a new type, and a
disconcerting one. He was not at all the "gilded youth" whom Thyrsis
had expected to find; he was a man of about thirty, widely cultured,
urbane and gracious in his manner, and quite evidently a man of
force. He was altogether free from that crude egotism which Thyrsis
had found to be the most prominent characteristic of the American
man of wealth. He spoke in French with Armand and in Italian with
Scarpi and in German with the head-waiter who worshipped before him;
and yet one did not feel that there was any ostentation about
it--all this was his _monde_. And although he exhaled an atmosphere
of vast wealth, this, too, seemed a matter of course; he assumed
that you also were provided with unlimited funds--that all the
world, in fact, was in the same fortunate case. Evidently he was
well-known at the "BohГЄme", for the waiters gathered like flies
around the honey-pot, and the august head-waiter himself took the
order, and beamed his approval at Barry's selections. So presently
there flowed in a stream of costly viands, served in _outrГ©_ and
fantastic fashion--many of them things not known even by name to
Thyrsis. There were costly wines as well, and at the end an ice in
the shape of a great basket of fruit, wonderfully carved and colored
like life, resting upon a slab of ice, which in turn was set in a
silver tray with handles.

Thyrsis was dazed at all this waste, and at the uproar in the place,
where dozens of other parties were squandering money in the same
blind fashion, and all laughing, chatting, joining in the choruses
with the performers on the stage. Now and then he would catch a
little of his host's conversation, which was of all the capitals of
Europe, and of art-worlds, the very existence of which was unknown
to him. And then, on his left hand, there was Mlle. Armand, deftly
picking off the leaves of an artichoke and dipping them into
_mayonnaise_, and saying in her little bird's voice, "They tell me,
Monsieur, that you have _du gГ©nie_. Oh, you should go to Paree to
live--it is not here that one appreciates _du gГ©nie_!" And, then
while Thyrsis was working out an explanation of his failure to visit
Paris, some one in the cafГ© caught sight of Scarpi, and there was a
general call for him; and according to the genial custom of the
"BohГЄme" he stood up, amid tumultuous applause, and sang one of his
own rollicking songs.

So the revelry went forward, while Thyrsis marvelled, and tried to
hide his pain. There could be no question of any enjoyment for
him--when he knew that the cost of this affair would have paid all
his expenses for a winter! Doubtless what Barry Creston spent for
his cigars would have saved Thyrsis and his family from misery all
their lives; and he wondered if the man would have cared had he
known. Barry was one of the princes of the new dispensation; and
sometimes princes were compassionate, Thyrsis reflected. Apparently
this one was all urbanity and charm, having no thought in life save
to play the perfect host to brilliant artists and _demi-mondaimes_,
and to skim the cream off the top of civilization.

But then suddenly the conversation took a new turn, and Thyrsis got
another view of the young prince. There had been trouble out in the
Western mines; and some one mentioned it--when in a flash Thyrsis
saw the set jaw and the clenched fist and the steel grey eye of old
"Dan" Creston. (Thyrsis had read somewhere a sketch of this senator,
whose fortune was estimated at fifty millions, and who ran the
governments of three states.) Barry, it seemed, had had charge of
the mines for three years--that was how he had won his spurs. In
those days, he said, there had been no unions--he told with a quiet
smile how he had broken them. Now again "agitators" had crept in, so
that in some of the camps the men were being moved out bodily, and
replaced by foreigners, who knew a good job when they had it. To
make this change had taken the militia; but it would be done
thoroughly, and afterwards there would be no more trouble.

The supper-party broke up about two o'clock, and Miss Raymond, the
lady of the flamingo hat, was the only one who showed any effects
from all the wine that had been consumed. Thyrsis, to his great
surprise discovered that his host had taken a fancy to him, and had
asked Miss Lewis to bring him out to luncheon at the Creston place
in the country. And so came the wonderful experience which brought
to him the vision of "The Utopians."

Section 9. They went, one Saturday morning, in Miss Lewis'
automobile--out to Riverside Drive, and up the valley of the Hudson.
This was in itself a Utopian experience for Thyrsis, who had never
before taken a trip in one of these magic chariots. It leaped over
the frozen roads like a thing of life, and he lay back in the
cushioned seats and closed his eyes and listened to the hum of the
machinery, imagining what life might be for him, if he could rest
like this when he was worn from overwork. It was like some great
adventure in music, like a minstrel's chanting of heroic deeds; it
was Nature with all her pageantry unrolled in a panorama before his
eyes. And meantime Miss Lewis was chattering on about the play and
its prospects; and about other plays and their prospects; and about
the people at the supper-party and their various loves and hates.

So they came to the great stone castle of the Crestons, set upon a
mountain-top overlooking the valley of this "American Rhine."
Thyrsis gasped when he saw it, and he gasped many times again while
Barry was showing them about. For this place was a triumph of a
hundred arts and sciences; into its perfections had gone all the
skill of the architects and designers, the weavers and carpenters,
the painters and sculptors of a score of centuries and climes. The
very dairies, the stables, the dog-kennels were things to be
wondered at and studied; and in the vast halls were single pictures
over which Thyrsis would fain have lingered for hours. Then, best of
all, the great portico, with its stone pillars, and its view of the
noble river, and of the snow-clad hills, dazzling in the sunlight!

They had luncheon; after which Barry played upon the organ, and Miss
Lewis sat beside him and left Thyrsis to wander at will. He made his
way out to the portico, and paced back and forth there; and while
the organ rolled and thundered to him, the majesty of the scene
swept over him, and in towering splendors his soul arose. He thought
of the wretched room in which he was pent, he thought of his starved
and struggling life; and all the rage of his defeated genius awoke
in him. In the name of that genius he uttered his defiance, and by
the title of it he took possession of this castle, and of all things
it contained. Yes--for he was the true lord and master of it--he was
the prince disinherited! And the meaning of it, its excuse for
being, was this brief hour! For this its glories had been assembled;
for this the architects and designers, the weavers and carpenters,
the painters and sculptors had labored in a score of centuries and
climes; for this the great organ had been built, and for this the
great musician had composed--that he might behold, in one hour of
transfiguration, what the life of man would be in that glad time
when all the arts of civilization were turned to the fostering of
the soul! When he who carried in the womb of his spirit the new life
of the ages, would be loved instead of being hated, would be
cherished instead of being neglected, would be reverenced instead of
being mocked! When palaces would be built for him and beauty and joy
would be gathered for him, and the paths would be made clear before
his feet! So out of boundless love and rapture would he speak to
men, and bring to them those gifts that were beyond price, the
treasures of his unfolding inspiration.

So it was that the Utopians came to Thyrsis; those men of the
future, worshippers of joy! They came to him, alive and in the
flesh, beautiful and noble, gracious and free-hearted--as some day
they will come, if so the earth endure; as they will stand upon that
portico, and listen to that music, and gaze upon the valley of that
American Rhine! And will they remember the long-dead dreamer, and
how they walked with him there and spoke with him; how they put
their arms about him, and gave him of their love and understanding?
Will they remember what shuddering rapture their touch conveyed to
him; how the tears ran down his cheeks, and he pledged his soul to
yet more years of torment, so only their glory might come to be upon
earth? Will they read the blazing words in which he pictured them,
the trumpet-blast he sounded to the dead souls of his time?

Thyrsis knew that this was the greatest hour of his life, and he
fought like mad to hold it. But that might not be--the music ceased,
and he heard the voices of his host and Miss Lewis. They came to the
door; and then Thyrsis' thoughts came back quickly to earth. For he
saw that Barry Creston's arm was about the woman, and she was
leaning upon him; nor did they separate when they saw him, but stood
there, smiling; so that at last Thyrsis had solved for him the
problem of their relationship. It was not so that the Utopians
loved, he thought, as he watched them; and found himself wondering
if young Creston was as imperious with his women as he was with the
slaves in his Western mines.

The car came to the door, and they parted from their host and sped
back to the city. "What do you think of him?" asked Miss Lewis--and
went on in a burst of confidence to tell him that it was to this
prince of the new dispensation that he owed the great chance of his
life. For it was Barry Creston who had given the Broadway
"show-girl" the start that had made her a popular _comГ©dienne_; it
was Barry Creston who had awakened in her an interest in the "drama
of ideas", and had set her to fermenting with new ambitions; and
finally it was Barry Creston who in a moment of indulgence had
promised the money which had set the managers and actors and
musicians, the stage-carpenters and scene-painters and press-agents
to work at the task of embodying "The Genius"!

Section 10. It may have been a coincidence; but from that hour dated
the process of Thyrsis' disillusionment concerning the production of
his play. Could it be, he asked himself, that such wealth as Barry
Creston's could buy true art? Could it be that forces set in motion
by it could really express his vision? "Genius surrounded by
Commercialism", had been the formula of his play; and did not the
formula describe his own position as well as Lloyd's?

A strange thing was this theatrical business--the business of
selling emotions! One had really to feel the emotions, in order to
portray them with force; yet one had at the same time to appraise
them with the eye of the business-man--one must not feel emotions
that would not pay. Also, one boomed and boosted his own particular
emotions, celebrating their merits in the language of the
circus-poster. If you had taken up a certain play, you considered it
the greatest play that had ever made its bow to Broadway; and you
actually persuaded yourself to believe it--at least those who made
the real successes were men who possessed that hypnotic power.

There was, for instance, Mr. Rosenberg, the press-agent and
advertising-man. He was certain that "The Genius" was a play of
genius, and its author a man of genius; and yet Thyrsis knew that if
it had been Meyer and Levinson, across the street, who were
producing it, Mr. Rosenberg would have called it "rot". Mr.
Rosenberg was to Thyrsis a living embodiment of Moses Rosen in the
play--so much so that he felt the resemblance in the names to be
perilous, and winced every time he heard Rosenberg speak of Rosen.
But fortunately neither Rosenberg nor Rosen possessed a sense of
irony, and so there were no feelings hurt. Thyrsis had written the
play without having met either a press-agent or the head of a
music-bureau; he had drawn the character of Moses after the fashion
of the German, evolving the idea of an elephant out of his inner
consciousness. But now that it was done, he was amazed to see how
well it was done; he was like an astronomer who works out the orbit
of a new planet, and afterwards discovers it with his telescope.

As the preparations neared completeness, Thyrsis found himself more
and more disturbed about the production. He was able to judge of the
actors now, and they seemed to him to be cheap actors--to be relying
for their effects upon exaggeration, to be making the play into a
farce. But when he pointed this out to Mr. Tapping, Mr. Tapping was
offended; and when he spoke to Mr. Jones, he was referred to Miss
Lewis. All he could accomplish with Miss Lewis, however, was to
bring up the eternal question of the lack of "charm" in her part.
Poor Ethelynda was also getting into an unhappy frame of mind; she
had begun to doubt whether the "drama of ideas" was her _forte_
after all--and whether the ideas in this particular drama were real
ideas or sham. She got the habit of inviting friends in to judge it,
and she was always of the opinion of the last friend; so the
production was like a ship whose pilot has lost his bearings.

The time drew near for the opening-performance, which was to be
given in a manufacturing city in New England. The nerves of all the
company were stretched to the breaking point; and overwrought as he
was himself, Thyrsis could not but pity the unhappy "leading lady",
who could hardly keep herself together, even with the drugs he saw
her taking.

The "dress-rehearsal" began at six o'clock on Sunday evening; and
from the very start everything went wrong. But Thyrsis did not know
the peculiar fact about dress-rehearsals, that everything always
goes wrong; and so he suffered untellable agonies at the sight of
the blundering and stupidity. Mr. Tapping stormed and fumed and
hopped about the stage, and swore, first at his gouty foot, and then
at some member of the company; and he sent them back, over and over
again through the scenes--it was midnight before they finished the
first act, and it was six o'clock in the morning before they
finished the second, and it was nearly noon of Monday before the
wretched men and women went home to sleep.

Thyrsis had left before that, partly because he could not endure to
see the mess that things were in, and partly because they told him
he would have to make a speech that night, and he had to spend two
of his hardearned dollars for the hire of a dress-suit. Here, as
always, the scarcity of dollars was like a thorn in his flesh. He
had been obliged to leave Corydon heart-broken at home, because he
had not been able to lay by enough to bring her; he had to stay at a
cheap hotel--cheaper even than any of the actors; and when Miss
Lewis and Mr. Tapping went out to lunch, he would have to say that
he was not hungry, and then go off and get something at a corner
grocery.

The hour of the performance came; and Thyrsis, like a gambler who
has staked all his possessions upon the turn of one card, sat in a
box and watched the audience and the play. The house was crowded;
and the play-wright saw with amazed relief that all his agonies of
the night before had been needless--the performance went without a
hitch from beginning to end. And also, to his unutterable delight,
the play seemed to "score". He had gazed at the rows of respectable
burghers of this prosperous manufacturing town, and wondered what
understanding they could have of his tragedy of "genius". But they
seemed to be understanding; at any rate they laughed and applauded;
and when Lloyd smashed the violin over von Arne's head and the
curtain went down, there was quite a little uproar.

Thyrsis came out and made his timid speech, which was also
applauded; and then came the last act, and the women got out their
handkerchiefs on schedule time, and Mr. Rosenberg stood behind
Thyrsis in the box, rubbing his hands together gleefully. So the
play-wright sent a telegram to his wife, saying that the play was a
certain success; and then he went to bed, assuredly the happiest man
who had ever slept in that fifty-cent hotel!

But alas--the next morning, there were the local papers; and with
one accord they all "roasted" the play! Their accounts of it sounded
for all the world like the play itself--those extracts which the two
professors had read from the criticisms of Lloyd's concert! Thyrsis
wondered if the critics must not have taken offence at the satire!

Then, going to the theatre, the first person he met was Rosenberg,
who sent another chill to his heart. "First nights are always good,"
said Mr. Rosenberg. "It was all 'paper', you know. To-night is the
real test."

And so the second performance came; and in the theatre were some two
hundred people, and the occasion was the most awful "frost" that
ever froze the heart of an unhappy partisan of the "drama of ideas".
After which, according to schedule, the play moved to another
manufacturing town; and in the theatre were some two hundred and
fifty people--and a frost some ten degrees lower yet!

Section 11. So at twelve o'clock that night there was a consultation
in a room at the hotel, attended by Thyrsis and Miss Lewis and Mr.
Tapping and Mr. Jones.

"You see," said the last named; "the play is a failure."

"Absolutely!" said Mr. Tapping.

"I knew it would be!" cried Miss Lewis.

"And you?" asked Mr. Jones of Thyrsis.

"It has not succeeded in these towns," said Thyrsis. But then--how
could it succeed, except where there are intellectual people? You
promised to take it to New York."

"It's no use!" declared Jones. "New York would laugh it dead in one
night."

"It would," said Mr. Tapping, decisively.

"I knew it all along," cried Miss Lewis.

So they went on for ten minutes; and then, "What are you going to
do?" asked Thyrsis, in terror.

"The play must be altered," said Jones.

"How altered?"

"It must be altered as Miss Lewis asked you at first."

Thyrsis sprang up. "What!" he cried.

"It must be done!" said Mr. Jones.

"It must," said Mr. Tapping.

"I knew it all along!" cried Miss Lewis again.

"But I won't stand for it!" exclaimed Thyrsis, wildly.

"It must be done!" said Mr. Jones, in his heaviest steam-roller
tone.

"But I won't have it!"

"What'll you do?"

"I'll go to law! I'll get an injunction."

"What is there in our contract to prevent our altering the play?"
demanded the man.

"What!" gasped Thyrsis. "You know what our understanding was!"

"Humph!" said the other. "Can you prove it?"

"And do you mean that you would go back on that understanding?"

"And do you mean that you expect me to see this money wasted and the
play sent to pot?"

Thyrsis, in his agony, turned to Miss Lewis. "Will you let him break
our bargain?" he cried.

"But what else is there to be done?" she answered.

"Don't you see that the play is a failure? And don't you see the
plight you've got me in?"

Thyrsis was dumb with dismay. He stared from one of these people to
another, and his heart went down--down. He saw that his case was
hopeless. He had no one to help him or to advise him, and he had
less than eleven dollars in his pocket.

"What do you propose to do?" he asked, weakly.

"I have already telegraphed to Richard Haberton," said Jones. "He
will meet us and see the next two performances; and then we'll lay
the company off until we get some kind of a practical play."

And so the steam-roller rolled and the matter was settled; and
Thyrsis, broken-hearted, bid the trio farewell, and took an early
train back to New York.

He never saw any member of the company again--and he never saw the
"practical play" which Mr. Richard Haberton made out of "The
Genius". What was done he gathered from the press-clippings that
came to him--the famous author of "The Rajah's Diamond" caused
Helena to fall into Lloyd's arms at the end of the second act, and
had them safely if not happily married at the beginning of the
third. Also he wrote several "charming" scenes for Ethelynda Lewis,
and two weeks later the play had a second opening in another
manufacturing town of New England--where the critics, awed by the
name of the distinguished dramatist upon the play-bills, were moved
to faint praise. But perhaps it was that Mr. Richard Haberton
required more than two weeks' time for the evolving of real "charm";
at any rate the audience came in no larger numbers to see this new
version, and the misbegotten production lived for another six
performances, and died a peaceful death at the very gates of the
metropolis.

And such was the end of Thyrsis' career as a play-wright. In return
for all his labors and his agonies he received some weeks later a
note from Robertson Jones, Inc., to the effect that the books of
"The Genius" showed a total deficit of six thousand seven hundred
and forty-two dollars and seventeen cents; and accordingly, under
the contract, there was nothing due to the author.






BOOK XI

THE TORTURE-HOUSE





_They sat in the darkness, watching where the starlight gleamed upon
the water.

"We had always hope," she was saying. "How endlessly we hoped!"

"Could we do it now?" he asked; and after a pause, he quoted from
the poem--

           "Unbreachable the fort
    Of the long-batter'd world uplifts its wall;
        And strange and vain the earthly turmoil grows,
        And near and real the charm of thy repose,
    And night as welcome as a friend would fall!"_

Section 1. Thyrsis came home beaten and crushed, worn out with
overwork and worry, his heart black with rage and bitterness and
despair. He met Corydon in the park, and she listened to his story,
white and terrified. She had swallowed all her disappointment, had
stayed at home with the baby while he went with the play; and now
the outcome of it all was this!

"What are you going to do?" she whispered; and he answered, "I don't
know. I don't know."

She saw the terrible state he was in, and she dared not utter a
single word of her own grief. She bit her lip, and choked back her
tears. "This is my life," she thought to herself; "I must endure,
endure--that is all!"

He could not afford even to sit and talk with her very long; there
was no time to indulge in the luxury of despair. His money was gone,
and he was in debt for some that he had borrowed. Since irregular
eating had been telling upon him again, he had been getting his
meals with an acquaintance of the family, who kept a boarding-house
uptown. On the strength of his prospects, she had trusted him for
four dollars a week; and now the play had failed, and he had to go
and tell her, and listen to new protests as to his folly in refusing
to "get a position". But in the end she bade him stay on; and so he
was divided between his shame, and the need of something to eat day
by day.

Time dragged on, and still there was no gleam of light. There were
shameful hours in these weeks--he touched the lowest point yet in
his life. This was a typical cheap boarding-house, a place where the
drudges of trade were herded; it was a home of sordidness and
ugliness--to Thyrsis its people seemed like carefully selected types
of all things that he hated in the world. There was a young broker's
clerk, whose patter was of prices, and of fortunes made without
service. There was a grey-haired bookkeeper for a giant "trust", a
man who could not have had more pride in that great engine of
exploitation, or more contempt for its victims, had he been the
president and chief owner thereof. There was a young divinity-student,
who made greedy reaches for the cake-plate, and who summed up for
Thyrsis all the cant and commonness of the church. There was a
dry-goods clerk, who wore flaring ties, and who played the role of
a "masher" upon the avenue every evening. And finally there was a
red-faced Irish-man who wore large shiny cuffs and a false diamond,
and who held some political job, and was voluble in behalf of "the
organization".