choked the gutters, dove into the underground, or scampered homeward pitter-patter to bury themselves again, not in grandiose tombs now but, like the worn, haggard, defeated wretches they were, in shacks and rabbit warrens which they called “home.” By day the graveyard of senseless sweat and toil; by night the cemetery of love and despair. And these creatures who had so faithfully learned to run, to beg, to sell themselves and their fellow men, to dance like bears or perform like trained poodles, ever and always belying their own nature, these same wretched creatures broke down now and then, wept like fountains of misery, crawled like snakes, uttered sounds which only wounded animals are thought to emit. What they meant to convey by these horrible antics was that they had come to the end of their rope, that the powers above had deserted them, that unless someone spoke to them who understood their language of distress they were forever lost, broken, betrayed. Someone had to respond, someone recognizable, someone so utterly inconspicuous that even a worm would not hesitate to lick his boots.
And I was that kind of worm. The perfect worm. Defeated in the place of love, equipped not to do battle but to suffer insult and injury, it was I who had been chosen to act as Comforter. What a mockery that I who had been condemned and cast out, I who was unfit and altogether devoid of ambition, should be alloted the judge’s seat, made to punish and reward, to act the father, the priest, the benefactor—or the executioner! I who had trotted up and down the land always under the sting of the lash, I who could take the Woolworth stairs at a gallop—if it was to bum a free lunch—I who had learned to dance to any tune, to pretend all abilities, all capabilities, I who had taken so many kicks in the pants only to return for more, I who understood nothing of the crazy setup except that it was wrong, sinful, insane, I now of all men was summoned to dispense wisdom, love and understanding. God himself could not have picked a better goat. Only a despised and lonely member of society could have qualified for this delicate role. Ambition did I say a moment ago? At last it came to me, the ambition to save what I could from the wreck. To do for these miserable wretches what had not been done for me. To breathe an ounce of spirit into their deflated souls. To set them free from bondage, honor them as human beings, make them my friends.
And while these thoughts (as of another life) were crowding my head, I could not help but compare that situation, so difficult as it then seemed, with the present one. Then my words had weight, my counsels were listened to; now nothing I said or did carried the least weight. I had become the fool incarnate. Whatever I attempted, whatever I proposed, fell to dust. Even were I to writhe on the floor protestingly, or foam at the mouth like an epileptic, it would be to no avail. I was but a dog baying at the moon.
Why had I not learned to surrender utterly, like Ricardo? Why had I failed to reach a state of complete humility? What was I holding out for in this lost battle?
As I sat watching this farce which the two of them were enacting for Ricardo’s benefit, I became more and more aware of the fact that he was not the least taken in. My own attitude I made clear each time I addressed him. It was hardly necessary, indeed, for I could sense that he knew I had no desire to deceive him. How little he suspected, Mona, that it was our mutual love for her which united us and which made this game ridiculously absurd.
The hero of love, I thought to myself, can never be deceived or betrayed by his bosom friend. What have they to fear, two brotherly spirits? It is the woman’s own fear, her own selfdoubt, which alone can jeopardize such a relation. What the loved one fails to comprehend is that there can be no taint of treachery or disloyalty on the part of her lovers. She fails to realize that it is her own feminine urge to betray which unites her lovers so firmly, which holds their possessive egos in check, and permits them to share what they never would share were they not swayed by a passion greater than the passion of love. In the grip of such a passion the man knows only total surrender. As for the woman who is the object of such love, to uphold this love she must exercise nothing short of spiritual legerdemain. It is her inmost soul which is called upon to respond. And it grows, her soul, in the measure that it is inspired.
But if the object of this sublime adoration be not worthy! Seldom is it the man who is afflicted by such doubts. Usually it is the one who inspired this rare and overpowering love who falls victim to doubt. Nor is it her feminine nature which is solely at fault, but rather some spiritual lack which, until subjected to the test, had never been in evidence. With such creatures, particularly when endowed with surpassing beauty, their real powers of attraction remain unknown: they are blind to all but the lure of the flesh. The tragedy, for the hero of love, resides in the awakening, often a brutal one, to the fact that beauty, though an attribute of the soul, may be absent in everything but the lines and lineaments of the loved one.
6
For days the aftereffects of Ricardo’s visit hung over me. To add to my distress, Christmas was almost upon us. It was the season of the year I not only loathed but dreaded. Since attaining manhood I had never known a good Christmas. No matter how I fought against it, Christmas Day always found me in the bosom of the family—the melancholy knight wrapped in his black armor, forced like every other idiot in Christendom to stuff his belly and listen to the utterly empty babble of his kin.
Though I had said nothing as yet about the coming event—if only it were the celebration of the birth of a free spirit!—I kept wondering under what circumstances, in what condition of mind and heart, the two of us would find ourselves on that festive doomsday.
A most unexpected visit from Stanley, who had discovered our whereabouts by accident, only increased my distress, my inner uneasiness. True, he hadn’t stayed long. Just long enough, however, to leave a few lacerating barbs in my side.
It was almost as if he had come to corroborate the picture of failure which I always presented to his eyes. He didn’t even bother to inquire what I was doing, how we were getting on, Mona and I, or whether I was writing or not writing. A glance about the place was sufficient to tell him the whole story. “Quite a comedown!” was the way he summed it up.
I made no attempt to keep the conversation alive. I merely prayed that he would leave as quickly as possible, leave before the two of them arrived in one of their pseudo-ecstatic moods.
As I say, he made no attempt to linger. Just as he was about to leave, his attention was suddenly arrested by a large sheet of wrapping paper which I had tacked on the wall near the door. The light was so dim that it was impossible to read what was written.
“What’s that?” he said, moving closer to the wall and sniffing the paper like a dog.
“That? Nothing,” I said. “A few random ideas.”
He struck a match to see for himself. He lit another and then another. Finally he backed away.
“So now you’re writing plays. Hmmm.”
I thought he was going to spit.
“I haven’t even begun,” I said shamefacedly. “I’m just toying with the idea. I’ll probably never write it.”
“My thought exactly,” he said, assuming that ever-ready look of the gravedigger. “You’ll never write a play or anything else worth talking about. You’ll write and write and never get anywhere.”
I ought to have been furious but I wasn’t. I was crushed. I expected him to throw a little fat on the fire—a remark or two about the new “romance” he was writing. But no, nothing of the sort. Instead he said: “I’ve given up writing. I don’t even read anymore. What’s the use?” He shook a leg and started for the door. Hand on the knob, he said solemnly and pompously: “If I were in your boots I’d never give up, not if everything was against me. I don’t say you’re a writer, but. . . .” He hesitated a second, to frame it just right. “But Fortune’s
