III. The Story of Present Day Realism
Realism
"Realism," says Mr. Howells, "is nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material." The business of the narrator is to observe and record, he says; all that enters into fiction should be simple, natural and honest. The material must be plain, average, everyday humanity. There is no need of a hero or heroine. There is no need of a plot. The love of the passionate and heroic is a crude and unwholesome thing.
Following these tenets there has grown up a school of writers who undertake to present the world just as it is with no heightening and no lowering of color. They select bits of life and reproduce them exactly. The process is "not so much photographic as microscopic." Nothing is too inane or commonplace. All that a workman needs is a seeing eye, honesty, and a vocabulary, say they. Many of the sketches, of course, seem extremely flat, and the reader involuntarily asks, Why and wherefore? The answer is laconic—life: these are the actual problems of humanity rather than abstract moral truths or highflown idealism; the Scab and Trusty No. 49 are with us in the street; these are the Children of the Public, the Children of the Ghetto; this is the modern Jungle; these are Vignettes of Manhattan; these are the feelings of a maiden lady in a Massachusetts village; these are the happenings of a real Wedding Journey; thus the new-rich build houses in the Back Bay district and attempt to get into society; this is a Modern Instance.
For source of realistic method we shall need to notice again the audacious intimacy of the picaresque romance and the extraordinary minuteness of detail that marked the illustrations and pretended anecdotes of the controversial pamphleteers of the early eighteenth century. Take for illustration the verisimilitude of the repetitions and digressions in the "True Relation of the Apparition of Mrs. Veal," by which Defoe hoodwinked the public—so completely, in fact, that critics are even now divided on the question as to whether he was or was not reporting a real interview. Most of his contemporaries took the matter as bona fide news; their successors took it as invention; and now Mr. George Aitken comes forward with proof of its occurrence; that is, he maintains that Defoe got—in just the way he says he got it—the written report of the actual interview with the person who saw the ghost. The contention only goes to demonstrate that Defoe was a great captain of the pen who could sail extremely close to life. That he could make romance truer than fact we well know.
Added to the patient minuteness of the controversialists and the boldness of the rogue narrators who dared to take us to the back-doors and bed-rooms of the nobility and to the haunts of criminals, came later as an element of realistic method, Jane Austen's home subjects, non-partizanship, and gentle raillery.
Some realistic writers
When "Daisy Miller" was written a few decades ago, the Americans were incensed. Henry James did not care, however. Just so we appear abroad, he said, among the more restrained and more cultivated peoples. Howells's "Lady of the Aroostook" seemed a kinder if similar and no less true picture. These brief narratives are hardly novels; and though they are more than tales, they yet are not what we technically call the artistic short-story; they are surely, however, studies in realism.
It is upon this distinction,—namely, that absolute realism would naturally preclude even the slight artificiality that there must be about the truly technical short-story—that we make two divisions in our study of such work as that of Howells, James, and Mary E. Wilkins Freeman. The point is, realism may be as long-drawn out or as brief as life. The technical short-story, however, has a limit on both sides. So has the novel. Each of our great realists has attempted novels; all have written exquisite short stories.
Suggestions on characters to treat
To write a present-day realistic sketch you will not need to look far for a subject. Just divest yourself of preconceived ideas of the romantic in fiction, and begin anywhere. Everything is of interest to the realist. A butcher's boy; an octogenarian millionaire; a petty thief; a plodding, respectable, humdrum government clerk; an ordinary mother with her ordinary baby on an ordinary day; a flighty society belle, and a society belle who is not flighty; a sensible matron; an idiot child,—all are his. The interest of your sketch will be in the particularity and niceness of details. You will need to be more truthful than a camera, which always makes people and surroundings look either better or worse than they are. Color and sound and smell and atmosphere and temperature, and temperament, gesture and thought, passing impression and settled purpose, you can record. If any of your characters succeeds, it must be as in life—with half defeat; if any one is defeated, it must be as in life—with half success and a conflicting sense of shame and of relief. You must have something happening, however slight, and thus avoid a mere enumeration of characteristics. You are to show us the person in action. A mere analysis of his vices and virtues, his general mental attitude, would be pure exposition, when you want narrative.
Your diction should be as good as you can make it by care and revision. Howells and James are both stylists of the most polished kind; though Tolstoy, whom Howells recognizes as master, thirty years ago left off any concern for sentence effect. He repeats or reiterates at will. You, however, cannot afford to disregard the rules of the rhetoricians—not until you have become as famous as the Russian count or have a message as distinct as his.
Remember, then, that a good realistic sketch demands on your part an honest, and truthful purpose, a mind freed from the glamor of romance or climax, a sure eye, and exquisite workmanship, in the relation of an ordinary, every-day event.
The Piece of String
On all the roads leading to Goderville the peasants and their wives were coming to town for market day. The men shambled along at an easy-going gait, with bodies bent forward. Their long legs were deformed and twisted through hard work—from the weight of the plough, which at the same time throws the left shoulder too high and ruins the figure; from mowing the grain, which effort causes the knees to spread too far apart; and from all the other slow and painful labours of country life. Their blue blouses, starched to a sheenlike varnish and finished at collar and waistbands with little designs in white stitching, stood from their bony bodies like balloons ready for flight, with a head, two arms and two feet protruding.
Some of the men had a cow or calf in tow at the end of a rope, while their wives followed close behind the animal, switching it over the haunches with a leafy branch to hasten its pace.
The women carried large baskets, out of which stuck the heads of chickens and ducks. They took much shorter and quicker steps than the man. Their lanky, spare figures were decorated with mean little shawls pinned across their flat breasts. Each head bore a white linen cover, bound close to the hair and surmounted by a cap.
Now and then there went by a waggonette drawn by a pony on a jerky trot, which jostled the two men on the seat in a ludicrous manner and made the woman at the end of the cart hold the sides firmly for ease from the rough jolting.
In the Goderville market-place was a great crowd of men and animals. The horns of the cattle, the high, long-napped hats of the well-to-do peasants, and the head-dresses of women bobbed above the level of that crowd. Noisy voices, sharp and shrill, kept up a wild and ceaseless clamour, only outdone now and then by a great guffaw of laughter from the strong lungs of a jolly bumpkin, or a prolonged moo from a cow tied to the wall of some house.
Everywhere it smelled of stables, of milk and manure, of hay and sweat. The air was redolent with that sourish, disagreeable odour savouring of man and beast which is peculiar to the labourers of the fields.
Master Hauchecorne, of Bréauté, had just arrived at Goderville and was directing his steps to the square when he observed on the ground a little bit of string. Economical like all true Normans, Master Hauchecorne considered that anything useful was worth picking up, and he bent down painfully, for he suffered from rheumatism. He picked up the scrap of twine from the ground, and was preparing to wind it up carefully when he noticed Master Malandain, the harness-maker, looking at him from his doorway. Once they had a quarrel over a halter and had kept angry ever since, both of them holding spite. Master Hauchecorne was smitten with a certain sense of shame at being seen thus by his enemy searching in the dirt for a mere bit of string. He hastily hid his find under his blouse, then in the pocket of his breeches—after which he pretended to be still looking at his feet for something which he had not yet found. At length, he started toward the market-place, his body almost bent double by his chronic pains.
He lost himself at once in the slow, clamorous throng, which was agitated by perpetual bickerings. The prospective buyers, after looking the cows over, would go away only to return perplexed; always fearing to be taken in; never reaching a decision, but narrowly watching the seller's eyes, seeking in the end to detect the deceit of the man and the defect in his animal.
The women, having put their big baskets at their feet, had pulled out the poultry, which lay upon the ground with legs tied, with frightened eyes and scarlet combs.
They listened to offers, maintaining their prices with a sharp air and impressive face, or else at a sweep accepting a reduced price, crying after the customer who left reluctantly, "It's settled, Anthime; I'll let you have them!"
Then, by degrees, the square emptied, and, as the Angelus struck noon, those living at a distance flocked to the inns.
At Jourdain's, the dining-room was filled with guests, as full as the great courtyard was with vehicles of every description—carts, gigs, waggonettes, tilburies, nondescript jaunting cars, yellow with mud, misshapen, patched up, lifting their shafts to heaven like two arms, or else in a sorry plight with nose in the mud and back in the air.
Right opposite to where the diners were at table, the immense fireplace, all brightly aflame, imparted a genial warmth to the backs of the people ranged on the right. Three spits were turning, loaded with chickens, with pigeons, and with legs of mutton; and a delicious odour of roast meat and of gravy gushing over roast brown skin took wing from the hearth, kindled good humour, and made mouths water.
All the aristocracy of the plough were eating there at Jourdain's, the innkeeper who dealt in horses—a shrewd fellow, who had a goodish penny put by.
The dishes were passed and emptied, as were likewise huge jugs of yellow cider. Every one recounted his dealings—his buying and selling. They gave news of the crops. The weather was good for greens, but somewhat wet for wheat.
All at once a drum rolled in the court before the house. Almost everybody save the too indifferent, immediately sprang to their feet and ran to the door, or to the windows, with mouth still full and napkin in hand.
After the public crier had stopped his racket, he launched forth in a jerky voice, making his pauses at the wrong time:
"Be it known to the inhabitants of Goderville, and in general to all persons present at the market, that there was lost this morning on the Beauzeville road, between nine and ten o'clock, a black leather pocketbook containing five hundred francs and business papers. You are requested to return it to the mayor's office at once, or to Master Fortune Houlbreque, of Manneville. There will be twenty francs reward."
Then the man went away. They heard once more from afar the dull drum-beats and the fading voice of the crier.
After that, they began to discuss this event, counting the chances Master Houlbreque yet had of recovering or not recovering his pocketbook.
And the meal went on.
They were finishing their coffee when the corporal of police appeared on the threshold.
He asked:
"Master Hauchecorne, of Bréauté—is he here?"
Hauchecorne, seated at the other end of the table, answered:
"Here I am."
And the corporal resumed:
"Master Hauchecorne, will you have the kindness to come with me to the mayor's office? The mayor would like to speak to you."
The peasant, surprised and disturbed, tossed off his drink and arose, worse bent than in the morning; because the first steps after a rest were always especially difficult. He started off, repeating:
"Here I am; here I am."
And he followed the corporal.
The mayor was awaiting him, seated in his official chair. He was the notary of the place, a large, grave man of pompous speech.
"Master Hauchecorne," he said, "you were seen this morning, on the Beauzeville road, to pick up the pocket-book lost by Master Houlbreque, of Manneville."
The countryman, confused, stared at the mayor, already frightened by this suspicion attaching to him—why he could not understand.
"I—I—I picked up that pocket-book?"
"Yes, you."
"On my word of honour, I didn't even know nothing about it."
"You were seen."
"They saw me—me? Who's they what saw me?" said Master Hauchecorne.
"Master Malandain, the harness-maker."
Then the old man remembered, understood, and reddened with anger.
"Ah! he saw me, did he, the rascal? He saw me pick up this here string. Look, your worship."
And, rummaging at the bottom of his pocket, he pulled out the little piece of string.
But the incredulous mayor shook his head.
"You will not make me believe, Master Hauchecorne, that Master Malandain, who is a man worthy of all respect, has taken this bit of cord for a pocket-book."
The peasant, furious, raised his hand, and spit at his side to bear witness to his honour, repeating:
"F'r all that, it's God's truth, holy truth, your worship. There! My soul and my salvation knows it's true!"
The mayor resumed:
"After having picked the article up, you even searched also a long while in the mud to make sure if money had fallen out of it."
The good man choked with rage and terror.
"If them can say—if them can say—such lies as that to take away an honest man's name! If them can say—"
However he might protest, he was not believed.
He was confronted by Master Malandain, who repeated and supported his statement. They railed at each other for an hour. Master Hauchecorne demanded that they search his pockets. Nothing was found upon him.
Finally, the mayor, very much perplexed, let him go with the warning that he would inform the public prosecutor, and ask for orders.
The news had spread abroad. When he came out of the mayor's office, the old man was the centre of curiosity and questioning, both serious and jeering, but into which not the least resentment entered. And he began recounting the long rigmarole of the string. They did not believe him. They grinned.
He went along, stopped by every one, or accosting his acquaintances, going over and over his story and his protestations, pointing to his pockets turned inside out to prove he had nothing.
They said to him:
"Come now, you old rascal!"
And he became angry, exasperated, feverish, disconsolate at being doubted, and forever telling his story.
Night fell. It became time to go home. He started out with three of his neighbours, to whom he pointed out the spot where he had picked up the bit of string; and, all along the road, he recited his adventure.
That evening he made a round of the village of Bréauté so as to tell everyone. He found only unbelievers.
He was ill of it all through the night.
The next day about one in the afternoon, Marius Paumelle, a farm helper of Master Breton, the market-gardener at Ymauville, returned the pocket-book and its contents to Master Houlbreque of Manneville.
This man maintained he had found it on the road, but, not knowing how to read, had carried it home and turned it over to his master.
The news spread to the suburbs. Master Hauchecorne was informed. Immediately he set himself the task of going about relating his story, capping it with this climax. He was triumphant.
"What hurt me the mostest," he said, "was not the thing itself, don't you see, but the lies. Nothing hurts so as when lies 's told about you."
All day long he talked of his adventure. He told it on the roads to the people passing, at the tavern to people who were drinking, and then to the people coming out of church the next Sunday. He even stopped strangers to tell them the tale. He felt relieved by this time, yet something troubled him without his knowing just what it was. People had a mocking manner as they listened.
They did not appear convinced. He almost felt their tattle behind his back.
Tuesday of the next week, he went to the Goderville market, solely impelled by the need of recounting his affair.
Malandain, standing in his doorway, began to laugh as he saw him pass. For what?
He accosted a farmer of Criquetot who did not permit him to finish, but, landing him a thump in the pit of the stomach, cried in his face, "Get out, you great rogue!" Then he turned on his heel.
Master Hauchecorne, altogether abashed, grew more and more disturbed. Why had he been dubbed "a great rogue?"
When seated at table in Jourdain's tavern, he again began to explain the particulars.
A Montvilliers horse-dealer yelled at him:
"Don't tell me, you old fox! I know your piece of string yarn!"
Hauchecorne stammered, "B—b—but it's found, the pocket-book!"
To which the other retorted:
"That'll do, daddy! There's one who finds, and another who gives up. Neither is no one the wiser."
The peasant was choked off. At last he understood. They accused him of having had the pocket-book returned by a crony—by an accomplice.
He tried to protest. The whole table started to laugh.
He could not finish his meal, and took his leave amidst their mocking and derision.
He returned to his home, ashamed and indignant, stifled with rage, with confusion; all the more dejected because, with his Norman cunning, he was capable of having done what they accused him of, and even of bragging of it as a good trick. His innocence vaguely appeared to him as impossible to prove; his roguery was too well known. And he felt struck to the heart by the injustice of the suspicion.
Again he commenced to tell of his adventure; every day its recital lengthened, each time containing new proofs, more energetic protestations, and more solemn oaths which he prepared in his solitary hours. His mind was altogether occupied by the story of the piece of string. He was believed all the less as his defense grew more complicated and his arguments more artful.
"Now, those are the proofs of a liar," they said behind his back.
He felt this. It consumed his strength. He exhausted himself in useless efforts.
He went into a visible decline.
The jokers now made him detail the story of "The Piece of String" to amuse them, just as you persuade a soldier who has come through a campaign to tell his version of a battle. At last his mind began to give way.
Near the end of December he took to his bed.
He died the first week in January, and, in the delirium of the throes of death he protested his innocence, repeating, "A little piece of string—little piece of string—see, here it is, your worship."
—Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant.
"Little Masterpieces of Fiction," Vol. VI (Doubleday, Page & Co.).
A Social Error
The little kindergarten teacher turned hastily from the office window.
"Miss Adams," she said abruptly, "I'm worried."
The "Lady Head" looked up from her ledger.
"Worried," she repeated, with an odd little smile, "are you ever anything so plebeian?"
The other woman tossed her chin impatiently.
"Really, Miss Adams," she said stiffly, "I wish you had given that class of Italians to—well, anyone but Caroline."
The lady at the desk stiffened perceptibly.
"And why not?" she inquired tersely. "You certainly must be aware that the reason I chose Caroline to fill the vacancy was because I thought her fitted—particularly fitted," she added, with deliberate emphasis.
The little woman looked down at her excited chief with a quietly speculative smile.
"Do you think," she said slowly, "that Caroline has the real social instinct?"
The Lady Head was becoming annoyed.
"One might think," she snapped, "that the training Caroline has received in her own home would amply fit her to meet—"
"Any of the men of her own set," interrupted the other woman. "But as for managing a club of hot-headed Italians—"
"Well, doesn't she manage them?" reiterated the woman at the desk, half rising from her low chair. "I should like to have you name a club that is more orderly—more—"
"Indeed, it is orderly enough," admitted the little kindergartner.
"There!" sniffed the Lady Head triumphantly, then with a sudden change of tone, "I really do not understand your objection. As for the boys—they adore her!"
"That is where the trouble lies." The little kindergartner leaned forward over the desk and her voice was very serious. "Miss Adams," she began slowly, "you have been here five weeks—I have worked in this district for fifteen years. I know every boy and girl, every man and woman, who comes to this house. And I also know"—the speaker paused impressively—"that when a girl who is as young and as good-looking as Caroline treats the young men of her club with the same informality that she would show to the callers in her father's home—believe me, there will be disastrous consequences."
"Do you mean—Do you dare—" the Lady Head's lifted eyebrows completed her question.
This little kindergartner stood firm. "I think Caroline should be warned," she insisted quietly. "Her Italians are so young—so hot-blooded, and I'm afraid she has been encouraging them a little, too—"
"Nonsense!" the other woman sprang quickly to her feet. "I have never heard anything so ridiculous—so utterly preposterous! Do my years of experience count for nothing in comparison with yours? Am I entirely lacking in good judgment—in common sense? My dear woman, I have always made friends of my club boys, invited them to my home—even young anarchists! Falling in love with her! Preposterous!" She paused for a moment breathless, and then began a fresh onslaught.
"If Caroline has not sufficient tact—"
A girl's blonde head appeared in the office doorway.
"Did you call met?" she lisped sweetly. "I was passing through the hall and I thought I heard my name spoken." She paused, with a questioning glance at the two women.
The Lady Head was the first to recover her composure, and she rustled across the room with outstretched hands. "My dear Caroline," she said. "We were just speaking of you—and your charming little club," she added, with a side glance at her assistant.
The girl threw back her dark furs with a smile. "How good of you," she said gratefully. "I'm frightfully late to-day, but to-night is our party, and I stopped down town for the boys."
The Lady Head patted the girl's plump fingers. "Are you going to dance, too?" she inquired.
The girl laughed. "Indeed I am. But I really don't know how I'm going to manage it. The boys are all so jealous, and Tony—oh, Tony is the grandest dancer!"
She flitted out of the tiny office, and the two women watched her as she climbed the broad stairs followed closely by her chattering, gesticulating pupils.
As the last peal of laughter floated down over the balusters the little kindergartner turned to the Lady Head.
"You see?" she said simply.
The Lady Head turned upon her a sweet, uncomprehending smile. "I think it is lovely!" she breathed.
The night lamp burned steadily in the office of the settlement. The wind howled through the deserted street, flinging the rain in noisy gusts against the window panes and shrieking dismally down the empty corridors. From somewhere on the floor above came the rhythmic banging of a piano and the shuffle and stamp of dancing feet.
The Lady Head closed her book with a yawn.
"What a stupid evening," she sighed. The kindergarten teacher laid down her sewing and walked slowly to the window.
"The elements are attempting to enliven things," she remarked dryly as she lifted the heavy curtains. Even as she spoke there was a blinding flash, a click and the house was dark.
Up stairs the music ceased, there was a confused murmur of voices—a shout—a crash—and a woman's scream. The lights come on again—the two women turned, their faces ashen, and hastened up the long stairs.
A pale-faced girl was crouched against the farther wall of the big gymnasium. At her feet sprawled the limp body of a man, and behind her a swarthy black-browed girl was struggling in the grasp of two stalwart Italians who were trying to wrest something from her frantic fingers. Her hands relaxed as the two women appeared in the door, and a shining bit of steel flew across the room and tinkled on the floor at the feet of the Lady Head. She picked it up grimly and pushed her way to the center of the crowd. The girl by the wall sprang to her feet with a wild shriek, but the woman turned on her savagely.
"Hush!" she hissed, "you little fool!" Then to the crowd, "What does this mean?" she demanded sternly. "What does this mean?"
A young Italian, who stood at one side nursing his slashed knuckles, was the spokesman.
"Him—" with a wave towards the man on the floor—"he's Tony De Sil', and her"—the gesture included the hysterical girl—"She dance with Ton' all-a-time."
"And she?" The Lady Head looked toward the Italian girl whose stiletto she was holding gingerly between her fingers.
"Her?"—the narrator pointed a laconic forefinger. "She's Tony's girl."
When the weeping Caroline had been sent home in her father's carriage, and when the ambulance had creaked out through the gateway, the Lady Head turned to her little assistant.
"If there are any fatal results from this—this criminal bit of negligence," she stated coldly, "I shall hold you personally responsible. You should have informed me of this long ago. Remember, you have been here fifteen years!"
—Ida F. Treat.
The Lot of the Poor
Two women were walking with rapid but tired steps down one of the most disreputable streets in the city.
"My," said the tallest one, turning up the collar of her threadbare coat, "don't this wind make you feel like you was dressed in your bones?"
The other woman, who was, if possible, more shabby-looking, pushed her red gloveless hands deeper into her pockets.
"Yes, and I forgot to wear my sables to-day, ain't it too bad?" she returned in a dreary tone, whose irony was somewhat modified by the chattering of her teeth.
"Mary Jane, you just quit talkin' like that," burst out the other, evidently the older of the two. "You didn't never use to be that way before you commenc't workin' out by the day. Why you was the jolliest girl in the factory and allays made the best of everything; but now nothin' is ever good enough for you. Of course none of us would mind having things a little better, but as far as I can see, things have allays been this way with us and allays will be, wishin' or no wishin'."
"I ain't sayin' they won't," Mary Jane said shortly.
"Well, I know it, you ain't sayin' nothin'; that's just the trouble. I wish you'd tell me what's the matter with you, Mary Jane, 'Tain't natural for a girl like you to be so dull and sulky."
"'Tain't natural, did you say?" flared up the other. "'Tain't natural to wonder why the lady you work for wears silks and satins, while your own clothes are almost too ragged to cover you? Ain't it natural," she asked with blazing eyes, "to want to tear a few silks off of her back to cover your own? You ain't never seen nice things near you, Ann. You've allays worked in the factory; so what do you know about such things? I tell you, if you worked in one of those palaces on Fifth Avenue all day and then come back to this at night, you'd see the difference."
"Don't you s'pose I've seen swell things and people?" remonstrated the older woman. "I ain't no fool; but I've reasoned out that there's a few people meant to be rich, and the rest of us ain't, that's all!"
"But it ain't a few people, Ann. It seems like most everybody had plenty to eat and wear but us. Why ain't we in it, too? Why don't I live in that fine house where I work instead down in this hole? It seems like we'd been cheated somewhere; but I s'pose there ain't no use talkin' about it. Good-night."
Ann watched the girl as she climbed the rickety steps of the "palace" which fate had assigned to her.
"They're all that way sometimes. I remember—well, she'll get used to it like all the rest of us."
—Agnes Palmer.
Filipino Fear.
One cloudy afternoon when a heavy rain seemed swaying back and forth in a thick mist which was then lowering, and long red streaks of lightning followed by loud rolling thunder seemed trying to break the mist to let the rain fall, there were in a little nipa house in the country below, among aged cocoanut palms, two lonely persons suffering from superstition and fear of the extraordinary phenomena that surrounded them.
The house was just big enough for the two. Its roof, windows and sides were made of cogon. The floor and door were made of narrow bamboo strips nailed side by side. In one corner of the room on a bed, made also of bamboo, sat a boy of eight. There was in the expression and look of the boy a feeling of unknown fear mingled with surprise, because his father, a lusty old superstitious man, who was then holding a blunt stick, had driven their domestic creatures from the house to the open field where there was no means of securing shelter from the heavy rain, whose first large drops were now clattering on the leaves. The boy had a kind disposition, especially toward his pets—a sense that he had inherited from his father. This was the first time that he had seen his father act thus unkindly toward their animals. His surprise was much increased when he saw his father dash at the windows and doors and fling everyone of them open, then retreat to the middle and look sideways. He saw him draw a long agitated breath. Then, seeming to have recovered his wits, he hastened toward one of the windows and took from the outside a portion of a dried cocoanut leaf. He cut two long narrow strips from it and made them into loops. After placing one around his neck, he uttered a short prayer. He then handed the other loop to his still amazed child and said, "Wear this, dear child, around thy neck."
"Why, father?" inquired the innocent boy, "can this protect me?"
"Yes, child, prayer and that alone can save us."
"What has this in it, father? It seems to me to be nothing but a piece of cocoanut leaf. Isn't it?" said the boy.
"It is a strip from a cocoanut leaf, but—it has—"
"If so, then," interrupted the acute boy, "why can't these palms around us that bear these leaves protect themselves against the elements. I have often seen, father, palms burned to their very stalks, which older people told me had been struck by lightning. Where did you get this strip, father?"
"Well, I got this from a bunch of leaves which is tied just below our front window," pointing to the place, "together with some live leaves. That bunch you yourself carried to the church two years ago when your mother was yet living. You have never peeped into church since then. But once a year in town the mass of the Sunday immediately before Fast Friday is dedicated to palm and olive leaves. Hundreds of children like you crowd the church on that day carrying with them their bunch of leaves, and while the service is being celebrated they will joyfully shake them. After holy water has been sprinkled on the leaves, then they are holy, and it is not pious to play with them. After the mass the bunch of leaves is to be tied to the door or to the window of the house as a protection from thunder and lightning. On days of this kind every one wears a strip of these leaves around his neck. When you go out again, you may look at the windows of the houses to see if what I say is true."
Indeed; those bunches of palms and olive leaves are marked characteristics of typical Filipino houses. The leaves are usually tied or wound in artistic ways, with beautiful hangings on them. All the decorations, however, are composed of the same kind of leaves.
The boy was quite satisfied at his father's story. After a little reflection he remembered that he had truly carried such leaves to church. The rain was then falling fast, and the lightning and thunder still followed one another in rapid succession. The cold winds from outside and the fearful sight of the brilliant flashes made the boy shrink.
"I am cold, father, and I fear those long and fiery zigzag paths which the whip of the driver of that rolling thunder is making in heaven. I wonder why you don't shut those windows," said the boy.
"Never, my son, for there is danger in shutting them. Remember that the thunder will pass thru anything and burn that which dares obstruct its way. Besides, my grandfather told me that days of this kind are rare, for they are days for scourging foul things on earth. If we shut ourselves up here, Bathala, the ruler of the earth, who watches and sees all things done, may suspect that we are hiding something foul and so send his scourger here to punish us."
The young listener who was attentive to the story of his father started up at a sudden and astounding crash of thunder. He curled himself up in the lap of his father, folded his arms around his father's neck, and shut his eyes. After a while he continued, "And, therefore, every foul deed on earth will be punished?"
"Yes, everything foul; so runs our proverb: 'Debt must be paid.' If you commit a sin you must be punished according to the nature of your sin."
The fearful peal of thunder that had so frightened the boy was the last. It silenced the fury of the weather. The rain was falling lightly now and sheets of fire were distinguished only from afar, but no more thunder sounded. The boy was dropping off into a light slumber when he heard his kitty mew. He opened his eyes and saw his pet very wet and cold. He pitied the little creature, so he said almost with tears, "I wish, father, you had not been so unkind to our animals, our sole friends in this solitary place. See what you have done. You have driven them out in the rain where they could get no shelter; and now every one of them is wet and shivering."
"Now, don't worry about them, my boy," said his father rather moved by his filial appeal, "they are not hurt at all. I drove them away, not because I was cross or unkind, but because it is not safe to keep them inside on such a stormy day as this. For thunder is likely to strike them. Boys of your age are likely to be harmed by such animals. For to some of them thunder imparts its explosive power. And sometimes thunder takes the form of animals. Here is a story that has been told to me by many and which they believe true.
"'Once there was a boy riding on a carabao on a stormy day. He was hurrying home lest the rain should catch him, but when he was near home he caught sight of a small pig wandering aimlessly down the road. It was very fat and very tame. The boy dismounted from the carabao and tried to catch the pig, but when he was yet quite a long way off from it the animal ran against a tree and there was a loud sound of thunder. The tree ignited. The boy fell down unconscious and was slightly hurt. He recovered only at home. His story has been told and retold ever since. It was said that if that boy had caught the animal and it had received a jar while in the boy's arms it would have burst like thunder and so burned the boy. But if the boy had safely carried it home and treated it with a vinegar bath the explosive power would have been gone and the animal would have been the best kind of food on earth.' Old men say that such animals are fruits of thunder."
"Oh, then, it would not be so bad after all, father. I might try to catch one some time," said the boy.
"That you must not," said the father sternly.
"But is that true, father, that the fungi which we find abounding in bamboo groves are the flowers caused by thunder?" said the boy inquisitively.
"Yes, my son, truly, and that's why they are very delicious. You can't find them growing except after stormy days and after thunder and lightning. After days of lightning and thunder like the present, groups of women and boys may be seen roaming about the country in search of these delicious flowers for their food."
By this time the storm was over. The two prepared their supper, since it was already evening. After eating they went to bed feeling secure in the efficacy of the palm leaves hung in the door.
—Walfrido de Leon.
CHAPTER VI
THE ARTISTIC GROUP: THE REAL SHORT-STORY
The short-story as a production of an artist conscious of rules and striving for definite effects within limitations is a thing of the nineteenth century. Only gradually have writers come to the feeling for singleness and unity. It would appear that before the days of Poe and Maupassant brief narratives were brief because of their source or their type, or because the author did not happen to have a rich vein of digression and incident. They were then rather what we think of as tales than what we have come to regard as the real short-story.
We have hitherto in our study been making little or no distinction in our use of the terms narrative, story, and tale, nor have we understood the adjective short with any but its usual significance. We shall from now on, however, understand the term short-story technically, and employ the hyphen, as Matthews has employed it, to suggest the significance.
A short-story is very perceptibly shorter than a romance or a novel. It is indeed about like a chapter of one of these. In no case must the reading require more than one sitting, says Poe. On the other hand, it may not be so short as an ordinary incident or anecdote, but far longer. It is more complex, more dignified, and has distinguishing essential elements.
It is not possible, of course, to make a hard and fast definition, but there are certain qualities we pretty generally expect to find. A short-story may be of any type from a myth to a realistic sketch; it may emphasize environment, plot, or character; but it must have unity, it must have directness, it must have climax, however slight. The effect should be single, not multiple. Hence anything like digression or episode is entirely out of place. The end should not be delayed, nor yet should it be precipitated. It should come just at the right time, and be as proper as the catastrophe of a tragedy. It should be but the beginning made special and concrete, the middle continued in harmony, the conclusion come upon both inevitably. "Make another end to it?" says Stevenson[7] in answering an objection to one of his stories. "Ah, yes, but that's not the way I write; the whole tale is implied; I never use an effect when I can help it unless it prepares the effects that are to follow; that's what a story consists in. To make another end; that is to make the beginning all wrong. The dénouement of a long story is nothing, it is just 'a full close,' which you may approach and accompany as you please—it is a coda, not an essential number in the rhythm; but the body and end of a short-story is bone-of-the-bone and blood-of-the-blood of the beginning."
Students of this type of narrative find Poe the first man to reveal a consciousness of any strictly limiting tenets. Poe worked to definite rules which he himself made. He saw intrinsic reasons why a short-story should be short. His predecessors, Irving and others, had not seen them. Even Hawthorne, who fulfilled them many times, said nothing about them. But Poe both formulated and preached them. He exemplified them, too, and other men followed.
The list of good short-story writers is so great that particular mention of any seems invidious. Some of our less known men have done as good work as our best. For names by countries, you may notice the bibliography at the end of this book. Kipling's stories for a large part emphasize place; Poe's, very often plot; and Hawthorne's and Stevenson's, mostly psychological phenomena—character and whimsical expressions of it; Miss Wilkins's altogether reveal temperament and characteristics; while Maupassant's generally record events which include a stab of fate.
On the basis of artistic purpose, the short-story divides itself into three types: the weird tale, stories that emphasize environment and typical personality, stories that emphasize events and character.
Every narrator whenever he sets his pen to paper must deal with place, plot, and people; but the artistic short-story writer, because of the limitation of his form, is forced to a selection of emphasis. He can not at will, as the biographer can, dilate upon the ancestry of his hero if he means to present the personage in action; if he wants to indulge in an environment analysis, the short-story writer has not time to wind up and unwind a mystery; if he has decided to give us the crisis event of a character, he must perforce touch but lightly on place. We shall find, then, that while each good short-story has the three elements present and skilfully managed, it has also one or the other more strongly emphasized—or at most two, in practical neglect of the third.