Is he a man whose art is a trade, who paints a picture as he would daub the side of a house? Or is he the true Artist, a refined and spiritualized being, Raphael in look, Fra Angelico in life, a man in force, but with the feminine insight, — one whose labor is love, one whose every work is a poem and a prayer? Which? Shall I knock and discover? An artist generally opens his doors hospitably to an amateur.
“No,” I decided, “I will not knock. We shall meet, if Destiny has no objection. Two in the same Chrysalis, we cannot dodge each other without some trouble. If I am lonely by and by, and yearn for a friend, and he does not dance through my centre-piece, I will fire a pistol-ball through his floor. Then apology, laugh, confession, and sworn friendship, — that is, of course, if he is Raphael-Angelico, not Bohemian-Düsseldorf.”
These fancies, so long in the telling, flashed rapidly through my mind.
I turned away from the door, with its quiet announcement of the name and business of a tenant, not precisely evading, but certainly not inviting notice.
I made my way down, and up again by the other staircase to the same floor. Here I found the same arrangement of rooms, but more population and fewer cobwebs. The southern exposure was preferred to the northern, in that chilly structure.
I knocked at Mr. John Churm’s door in the southwest corner of the building.
No “Come in.” I must dine alone at the Chuzzlewit.
As I stepped from Chrysalis, I gave a look to Ailanthus Square in front.
“This will never do!” I exclaimed.
It was a wretched place, stiffly laid out, shabbily kept, planted with mean, twigless trees, and in the middle the basin of an extinct fountain filled with foul snow, through which the dead cats and dogs were beginning to sprout at the solicitation of the winter’s sunshine.
A dreary place, and drearily surrounded by red brick houses, with marble steps monstrous white, and blinds monstrous green, — all destined to be boarding-houses in a decade.
“This will never do!” I exclaimed again. “Outdoor life offers no temptation. I am forced inward to indoor duties and pleasures. Objects in America are not attractive. I must content myself with people. And what people? My first day wanes, Stillfleet is off, and I have made no acquaintance but a musical name on a door in a dusty corner of Chrysalis.’’
CHURM AGAINST DENSDETH
I had hardly taken my first spoonful of lukewarm mock soup at the long, crowded dinner-table of the Chuzzlewit, when General Blinckers, a fellow-passenger on the Arago, caught sight of me. He bowed, with a burly, pompous, militia-general manner, and sent me his sherry. It was the Chuzzlewit Amontillado, so a gorgeous label announced, and sunshine, so its date alleged, had ripened it a score of years before on an aromatic hill-side of Spain. But the bottle was very young for old wine, the label very pretentious for famous wine, and my draught, as I expected, gnawed me cruelly.
In a moment came a bow from Governor Bluffer, also fellow-passenger, and his bottle of the Chuzzlewit champagne, — label prismatic and glowing, bubbles transitory, wine sugary and vapid.
Bluffer was of Indiana, returning from a trip to Europe as a railroad-bond placer. He had placed his bonds, second mortgages of the Muddefontaine Railroad, with great success. His State would now become first in America, first in Christendom. He was sure of it. And by way of advancing the process, he had proposed to me to become “Professor of Science” in the Terryhutte University, — salary five third mortgages of the Muddefontaine per annum.
Blinckers was of Tennessee, wild-land agent. He had been urgent all the passage that I should take post as Professor in the Nolachucky State Polytechnic School, — salary a thousand acres per annum of wild land in the Cumberland Mountains.
Both of these offers I had declined; but I was obliged to the two gentlemen. I bowed back to their bows, and sipped the liquids they had sent me without mouthing.
Presently, as I glanced up and down the table, I caught sight of Densdeth’s dark, handsome face. He had turned from his companion, and was looking at me. He lifted his black moustache with a slight sneer, and pointed to untasted glasses of Blinckers and Bluffer standing before him.
“See!” his glance seemed to say. “Libations at the shrine of Densdeth, the millionnaire. Those old chaps would kiss my feet, if I hinted it.”
Then he held up his own private glass, as if to say, with Comus, —
“Behold this cordial julep here,
That flames and dances in his crystal bounds!”
CHURM AS CASSANDRA
We turned from Broadway down Cornwallis Place, parallel to Mannering Place, and entered Chrysalis by the side door upon that street.
“I have a word to say to the janitor,” said Churm.
Pretty Dora Locksley admitted us to the snuggery. Lighted up, it was even more cheerful than when I saw it with Stillfleet. The table was set for supper. The bright teapot, the bright plates, the bright knives and forks, had each its own bright reflection of the gas-light to contribute to the general illumination.
Mrs. Locksley, the bright cause of all this brilliancy, was making the first cut into a pumpkin-pie of her own confection, as we entered. It was the ideal pumpkin-pie. Its varnished surface shone with a rich, mellow glow, and all about its marge a ruffle of paste of fairest complexion lifted, like the rim of delighted hills about a happy valley. As Mrs. Locksley’s knife cleft the oil of this sweet vale, fragrant incense steamed up into the air. What nose would not sniff away all remembrance of the mephitic odors it had inhaled, to entertain this fresh, wholesome emanation? Mine did at once. I felt myself deodorized from the sour souvenirs of Towner’s slum. The moral atmosphere, too, of this honest, cheerful, simple home-scene acted as a moral disinfectant. The healthy picture hung itself up in a good light in my mental gallery. It was well it should be there. Chrysalis owed me this, as a contrast to the serious pictures awaiting me along its dusky halls, as a foil to a sombre tableau hid behind the curtain at the vista’s end.
Mrs. Locksley offered a quadrant of her pie to Churm.
“I resign in Mr. Byng’s favor,” said he.
“Hail Columbia!” cried I, accepting the resignation; and as I eat I felt my Americanism revive.
“I’ve just seen Towner again,” Churm says, “and am to sit up with him.”
“Poor fellow!” said Locksley. “Has he any chance?”
“Poor fellow, indeed!” cried Mrs. Locksley, in wrath, evidently sham. “Don’t waste ‘poors’ on him, William. Didn’t he as much as kill my poor sister, and ruin us?”
“You don’t look very ruinous, Molly. No; you’re built up fresh by losing money, and not having an Irish Biddy to feed you on mud-pies. We must not bear malice, wife!”
