Find Skull of Man Million Years Old
The fossilized skull of a man, who lived more than a million years ago, was recently unearthed in Patagonia, and it antedates by hundreds of thousands of years any human relic previously discovered. Dr. J. G. Wolfe, who brought news of the remarkable discovery to Buenos Aires, says the fossilization was that of Tertiary sandstone, and this means the man lived in the Tertiary Era, which ended before the Glacial Era began, which in turn means the skull is considerably more than a million years old. Except for the lower jaw, which is missing, the skull is almost perfect. The eye sockets and the teeth sockets in the upper jaw are well defined. The cranium is long and oval-shaped, the forehead extremely low and sloping.
Ruins of an ancient fortified town were also discovered by the scientist in the wild region north of Lake Cardiel, in the territory of Santa Cruz. This he regards as the remnants of a civilization that was perhaps even earlier than that of the Peruvian Incas. On one of the walls he found a carving of an animal that resembled the extinct glyptodon.
Anthony M. Rud’s Remarkable Story of an Insane Artist
A SQUARE of
CANVAS
“No, Madame, I am not insane! I see you hide a smile. Never mind attempting to mask the expression. You are a newcomer here and have learned nothing of my story. I do not blame any visitor—the burden of proof rests upon us, n’est-ce-pas?
“In this same ward you have met several peculiar characters, have you not? We have a motley assemblage of conquerors, diplomats, courtesans and divinities—if you’ll take their words for it. There is Alexander the Great, Richelieu, Julius Caesar, Spartacus, Cleopatra—but no matter. I have no delusion. I am Hal Pemberton.
“You start? You believe this my delusion? Look closely at me! I have aged, it is true, yet if you have glimpsed the Metropolitan gallery portrait that Paul Gauguin did of me when I visited Tahiti...?”
I gasped, and fell back a pace. This silver-haired, kindly old soul the mad genius, Pemberton? The temptation was strong to flee when I realized that he told the truth! I knew the portrait, indeed, and for an art student like myself there could be no mistaking the resemblance. I stopped, half-turned. After all, they allowed him freedom of the grounds. He could be no worse surely, than the malignant Cleopatra whom I just had left playing with her “asp”—a five-inch garter snake she had found crossing the gravel path.
“I—I believe you,” came my stammered reply.
What I meant, of course, was that no doubt could exist that he was, certainly, Hal Pemberton. His seamed face lighted up; it was plain he believed that establishment of identity made the matter of his detention absurd.
“They have me registered as Chase—John Chase,” he confided. “Come! Would a true story of an artist’s persecution interest you? It is a recital of misunderstanding, bigotry....”
He left the sentence incomplete, and beckoned with a curl of his tapered, spatulate index finger toward a bench set fair in the sunshine just beyond range of blowing mists from the fountain.
I was tempted. A guard was stationed less than two hundred feet distant. Notwithstanding the horrid and distorted legends which shrouded our memories of this man—supposed to have died in far-off Polynesia—he could not harm me easily before assistance was available. Beside, I am an active, bony woman of the grenadier type. I waited until he sat down, then placed myself gingerly upon the opposite end of the bench.
“You are the first person who has not laughed in my face when learning my true identity,” he continued then, making no attempt to close the six-foot gap between us—much to my comfort. “Ignorance placed me here. Ignorance keeps me. I shall give you every detail, Madame. Then you may inform others and procure my release. The cognoscenti will demand it, once they know of the cruel intolerance which has stolen nine years from my career and from my life. You know——” and here Pemberton glanced guardedly about before he added in a whisper, “they won’t let me paint!
“My youth and training are known in part. Alden Sefferich’s brochure dealt with the externals, at least. You have read it? Ah, yes! Dear Alden knew nothing, really. When I look at his etchings of buildings—at his word sketch of myself—I see behind the lines and letters to a great void.
“At best, he was an admirable camera equipped with focal-plane shutter and finest anastigmatic lenses depicting three dimensions faithfully in two, yet ignoring the most important fourth dimension of temperament and soul as though it were as mythical as that fourth dimension played with by mathematicians.
“It is not. Artistic inspiration—what the underworld calls yen—has been my whole life. Beyond the technique and inspiration furnished by Guarneresi, one might scrap the whole of tutelage and still have left—myself, and the divine spark!
“I was one of the Long Island Pembertons. Two sisters still are living. They are staid, respectable ladies who married well. To hell with them! They really believed that Hal Pemberton disgraced them, the nauseating prigs!
“Our mother was Sheila Varro, the singer. Father was an unimaginative sort, president of the Everest Life and Casualty Company for many years. I mention these facts merely to show you there was no hereditary taint, no connate reason for warped mentality such as they attribute to me. That I inherited the whole of my poor mother’s artistic predilection there is possibility for doubt, for she was brilliant always. I was a dullard in my youth. It was only with education and inspiration that even a spark of her divine creative fury came to me—but the story of that I shall reach later.”
“As a boy, I hated school. Before the age of ten I had been expelled from three academies, always on account of the way I treated my associates. I was cruel to other boys, because lessons did not capture my attention. Nothing quiet, static, like the pursuit of facts, ever has done so.
“When I tired of sticking pins into younger lads, or pulling their hair, I sought out one or another of my own size and fought with him. Often—usually—I was trounced, but this never bothered. Hurt, blood and heat of combat always were curiosities to me—impersonal somehow. As long as I could stand on my feet I would punch for the nose or eyes of my antagonist, for nothing delighted me like seeing the involuntary pain flood his countenance, and red blood stream from his mashed nostrils.
“Father sent me to the New York public schools, but there I lasted only six or seven weeks. I was not popular either with my playmates or with the teachers, who complained of what they took to be abnormality. I had done nothing except arrange a pin taken from the hat of one of the women teachers where I thought it would do the most good. This was in the sleeve of the principal’s greatcoat.
“When he slid in his right hand the long pin pierced his palm, causing him to cry out loudly with pain. I did not see him at the moment, but I was waiting outside his office at the time, and I gloated in my mind at the picture of his stabbed hand, ebbing drops of blood where the blue steel entered.
“I longed to rush in and view my work, but did not dare. Later, when by some shrewd deduction they fastened the blame on me, Mr. Mortenson had his right hand bandaged.
“Father gave up the idea of public school after this, and procured me a tutor. He thought me a trifle deficient, and I suppose my attitude lent color to such a theory. I tormented the three men who took me in hand, one after the other, until each one resigned. I malingered. I shirked. I prepared ‘accidents’ in which all were injured.
“It was not that I could not learn—I realized all along that simple tasks assigned me by these men could be accomplished without great effort—but that I had no desire to study algebra, geography and language, or other dull things of the kind. Only zoology tempted in the least, and none of the men I had before Jackson came was competent to do much of anything with this absorbing subject.
“Jackson was the fourth, and last. He proved himself an earnest soul, and something of a scientist. He tried patiently for a fortnight to teach me all that Dad desired, but found his pupil responsive only when he gave me animals to study. These, while alive, interested me.
“One day, after a discouraging session with my other studies, he left me with some small beetles which he intended to classify on his return. It was a hot day, and the little sheath-winged insects were stimulated out of dormance to lively movement. I had them under a glass cover to prevent their escape.
“Just to see how they acted, I took them out, one by one, and performed slight operations upon parts of their anatomy with the point of my pen-knife. One I deprived of wings, another lost two legs of many, a third was deprived of antennae, and so on. Then I squatted close with a hand-lens and eyed their desperate struggles.
“Here was life, pain, struggle—death close by, leering at the tiny creatures. It fascinated me. I watched eagerly, and then, when one of the beetles grew slower in moving, I stimulated it with the heated point of a pin.
“At the time—I was then only sixteen years of age—I had no analytical explanation of interest, but now I know that the artist in me was swept through a haze of adolescence by sight of that most sincere of all the struggles of life, the struggle against death!
“A fever raced in my blood. I knew the beetles could not last. An instinct made me wish to preserve some form of record of their supreme moment. I seized my pencil. I wrote a paragraph, telling how I would feel in case some huge, omnipotent force should put me under glass, remove my legs, stab me with the point of a great knife, a red-hot dagger, and watch my writhings.
“The description was pale, colorless, of course. It did not satisfy, even while I scribbled. As you may readily understand, I possessed no power of literary expression; crude sentences selected at random only emphasized the need of expression of a better sort. Without reasoning—indeed, many a person would have considered me quite mad at the time—I tore a clean sheet of paper from a thick tablet and fell to sketching rapidly, furiously!
“As with writing, I knew nothing of technique—I never had drawn a line before—but the impelling force was great. Before my eyes I saw the picture I wished to portray—the play of protest against death I drew the death struggle....”
“By the time Jackson returned the fire had died out of me.
“The horrid sketch was finished, and all but one of the beetles lay, legs upturned, under the glass. That one had managed to escape somehow, and was dragging itself hopelessly across the table, leaving a wet streak of colorless blood to mark its passing. Exhausted in body and mind. I had collapsed in the nearest chair, not caring whether I, myself, lived or died.
“Poor Jackson was horrified when he saw what I had done to the Coleptera, and he began reproaching me for my needless cruelty. Just as he was waxing eloquent, however, his eye caught sight of my crude sketch. He stopped speaking.
“I saw him tremble, adjust his pince-nez and stare long at the poor picture I had made, and then at the dead beetles. Finally, seeming in a torment of anger, he read the paragraph of description, turning to examine me with horror and amazement in his glance.
“Then, suddenly, he sprang to his feet, gripping the two sheets of paper in his hands, swung about, and made off before I could rouse from my lassitude sufficiently to question him. I never saw Jackson again. The poor fool.
“An hour later father sent for me. I knew that the tutor had been to see him, and I expected another of the terrible lectures I had been in habit of receiving each time a new lack or iniquity made itself apparent to others. On several occasions in the past father had flogged me, and driven himself close to the verge of apoplexy because of his extreme anger at what he deemed deliberate obstinacy. I feared whippings; they sickened me. My knees were quaking as I went to his study.
“This time, however, it was plain that father had given up. He was pale, weighed down with what must have been the great disappointment of his life; but he neither stormed nor offered to chastise me. Instead he told me quietly that Jackson had resigned, finding me impossible to instruct.
“In a few sentences father reviewed the efforts he had made for my education, then stated that all the tutors had been convinced that my lack of progress had been due more to a chronic disinclination for work rather than to any innate defect of body or mind.
“‘So far,’ he told me, ‘you have refused steadfastly to accept opportunity. Now we come to the end. Mr. Jackson has showed me a sketch made by you in which he professes to see real talent. He advises that you be sent abroad to study drawing or painting. Would you care for this last chance? Otherwise I must place you in an institution of some kind, where you no longer can bring disgrace and pain upon me—a reform school, in short. I tell you frankly, Hal, that I am ready to wash my hands of you.’
“What could I do? I chose, of course, to go to Paris. Father made the necessary arrangements for me to enter Guarneresi’s big studios as a beginner, paying for a year in advance, and making me a liberal allowance in addition.
“‘I shall not attempt to conceal from you, Hal,’ he told me at parting, ‘that I do not wish you to return. Your allowance will continue just as long as you remain abroad. If, in time, a moderate success in some line of endeavor comes to you I shall be glad to see you again, but not before. The Pembertons never were failures or parasites.’
“Thus I left him. He died while I was in my third year at the studio, and by his express wish I was not notified until after the funeral was over. I wept over the letter that came, but only because of the knowledge that now I never could make up in any way for the great sorrow I had caused my father. Had he lived only ten years longer—and this would not have been extraordinary, as he died at the age of fifty-two—I could have restored some of that lost pride to him.”
“Is it necessary to tell of my years with Guarneresi? No; you confessed some slight knowledge of me. Very well, I shall pass over them lightly. Suffice it to say that here at last I found my forte. I could paint. The maestro never valued my efforts very highly, but he taught with conscientious diligence nevertheless. In the use of sweeping line and chiaroscuro I excelled the majority of his pupils, but in color I exhibited no talent—in his estimation, at least.
“It was strange, too, for through my mind at odd intervals swept riots of crimson, orange and purple, which never could be mixed satisfactorily upon my palette for any given picture. I told myself that the fault lay as much in the subjects of my pictures as in myself—the excuse of a liar, of course.
“There was some excuse there, however. For instance, when we painted nudes Guarneresi would assemble a half-dozen old hags with yellowed skin, bony torsos and shriveled breasts, asking us to portray youth and beauty. Instead of attempting to pin a fabric of imagination upon such skeletons, I used to search out the more beautiful of the cocottes of the night cafés, and bring with me to the studio the next day memories and hurried sketches of poses in which I had seen them. This was more interesting, but unsatisfactory withal.
“I had been five years in the studio, and had traveled three winters to Sicily, Sardinia and Italy, before the first hint of a resolution of my problem came to me. It was in the month of July, when north-loving students take their vacations.
“I was alone in the vast studio one afternoon. Guarneresi himself was absent, which accounted for the holiday taken by the faithful who remained during the hot days. On one side of the room were the cages, where the maestro kept small live animals, used for models with beginners. There were a few rabbits, a dozen white mice and a red fox.
“Wandering about, near to my wits’ end for inspiration to further work, I chanced to see one of the rabbits looking in my direction. Rays of sunlight, falling through the open skylight, caught the beast’s eyes in such a manner that they showed to me as round discs of glowing scarlet.
“Never had I witnessed this phenomenon before, which I since have learned is common. It had an extraordinary effect upon me. In that second I thought of my delinquent boyhood, of dozens of cruel impulses since practically forgotten—of the mutilated, dying beetles which had been instrumental in embarking me upon an art career.
“Blood rose in torrents to my own temples. A fever consumed me. There was life and there could be death. I could renew the inspiration of those tortured beetles.”
“With agitated stealth, I glanced out into the empty hallway, locked the door of the studio, drew four shades over windows through which I might be seen, and crept to the rabbit cage.
“Opening it, I seized by the long ears the white-furred animal which had stared at me. The warm softness of its palpitating body raised my artistic desire to a frenzy. I pulled a table from the wall, and holding down the animal upon it I drew my knife. Overcoming the mad, futile struggles of the rabbit, I slit long incisions in the white back and belly. The blood welled out....
“Perfect fury of delight sent me to my canvas. My fingers trembled as I mixed the colors, but there was no indecision now, and no hint of muddiness in the result. I painted....
“You perhaps have seen a reproduction of that picture? It was called “THE LUSTS OF THE MAGI,” and now hangs in one of the Paris galleries. Some day it will grace the Louvre. And all because our white rabbit had sacrificed its heart’s blood.
“At eleven next morning Guarneresi himself, coming to the studio, found me exhausted and asleep upon the floor. When he demanded explanations, I pointed in silence to the finished picture upon my easel.
“I thought the man would go frantic. He regarded it for an instant, with intolerance fading from his bearded face. Then his mouth gaped open, and a succession of low exclamations in his native tongue came forth. His raised hands opened and shut in the gesture I knew to mean unrestrained delight.
“Suddenly he dashed to the easel, and, before I could offer resistance, he snatched down my picture and ran with it out of the studio and down the stairs into the narrow street. I followed, but I was not swift enough. He had disappeared.
“In half an hour he returned with four brother artists who had studios nearby. The others were more than lavish in their praise, terming my picture the greatest masterpiece turned out in the Quarter for years. Guarneresi himself was less demonstrative now, but I detected tears in his eyes when he turned to me.
“‘The pupil has become the master,’ he said simply. ‘Go! I did not teach you this, and I cannot teach you more. Always I shall boast, however, that Signor Pemberton painted his first great picture in my studio.’
“The next day I rented a studio of my own and moved out my effects immediately. I started to paint in earnest. There is little to relate of the next few months. A wraith of the inspiration which had given birth to my great picture still lingered, but I was no better than mediocre in my work. True the experience and accomplishment had improved me somewhat in use of color, but I learned the galling truth soon enough that never could I attain that same fervor of artistry again—unless....
“After four months of ineffectual striving—during which time I completed two unsatisfactory canvases—I yielded, and bought myself a second white rabbit. What was my horror now to discover, when I treated the beast as I had treated its predecessor, that no wild thrill of inspiration assaulted me.
“I could mix and apply colors a trifle more gaudily, yet the suffering and blood of this animal had lost its potent effect upon me. After a day or two the solution occurred. Lusts of The Magi had exhausted the stimulus which rabbits could furnish.
“Disconsolate now, I allowed my work to flag. Though I knew in my heart that the one picture I had done was splendid in its way, I hated to believe that in it I had reached the peak of artistic production. Yet I could arouse in myself no more than the puerile enthusiasm for methodical slapping on of oils I so ridiculed in other mediocre painters. Finally I stopped altogether, and gave myself over to a fit of depression, absinthe and cigarettes.
“Guarneresi visited me one day, and finding me so badly in the dumps prescribed fresh air and sunshine. As I refused flatly to travel, knowing my ailment to be of the subjective sort, not cured by glimpses of pastures new, he lent me his saddle mare, a fine black animal with white fetlocks and a star upon her forehead. I agreed listlessly to ride her each day.
“Three weeks slipped by. I had kept my promise—actually enjoying the exercise—but without any of the beneficent results appearing. I was in fair physical health—only a trifle listless—it is true, yet whenever I set myself to paint a greater inhibition of spiritual and mental weariness seemed to hold me back. Little by little, the ghastly conviction forced itself upon me that as an artist I had shot my bolt.
“One day, when I was riding a league or two beyond Passy, I had occasion to dismount and slake my thirst at a spring on which it was necessary to break a thin crust of ice. Drinking my fill I led the mare to the spot, and she drank also. In raising her head, however, a sharp edge of ice cut her tender skin the distance of a quarter inch. There, as I watched, I saw red drops of blood gather on her cheek.
“I cannot describe adequately the sensations that gripped me! In that second I remembered the beetles and the rabbit; and I knew that this splendid animal had been given to me for no purpose other than to renew the wasted inspiration within me. It was the hand of Providence.”
“Preparations soon were made. I obtained the use of a spacious well-lighted barn in the vicinity, and put the mare therein while I returned to Paris for canvases and materials. Then, when I was all ready for work, I hobbled the mare with strong ropes, and tied her so she could not budge. Then I treated her as I had treated the rabbit.
“Deep down I hated to inflict this pain, for I had grown to care for that mare almost as one cares for a dear friend; but the fury of artistic desire would not be denied.
“Next day, when all was over, I took the canvas in to Paris and showed it to Guarneresi. He went into ecstasies, proclaiming that I had reawakened, indeed. Yet when I told him of the mare and offered to pay his own price, he became very white of countenance and drew himself up, shuddering.
“‘Any but as great a man as yourself, Signor,’ he shrilled, his cracked old voice breaking with emotion, ‘I should kill for that. Yourself are without the law which would damn another, but not outside the sphere of undying hatred. You are great, but awful. Go!’
“I found, then, that no one wished to look at my picture. Guarneresi had told the story to sympathetic friends, and it had spread like a fire in spruce throughout the Quarter. I was ostracized, deserted by all who had called me their friend.
“A month later, nearly broken in spirit, I came to New York. I was done with Paris. Here in America none knew the story of my last painting, and when it was put on exhibition the critics heralded it as greater far than the finest production of any previous or contemporary American artist. I sold it for twenty thousand dollars, which was a good price in those days.
“I was swept up on a tide of popularity. As you know, in this country even the poorest works of a popular man are snatched up avidly. Criticism seems to die when once a reputation is attained. I got rid of all the canvases I had painted in Paris, and was besieged for portrait sittings by society women of the city.
“Because I had no particular idea in mind for my next painting I did allow myself to drift into this work. It was easy and paid immensely well. Also I was called upon to exercise no ingenuity or imagination. All I did was paint them as they came, two a week, and get rich, wasting five years in the process.
“Then I fell in love. Beatrice was much younger than myself, just turned nineteen at the time. I was first attracted to her because my eye always seeks out the beautiful in face and form as if I were choosing models among all the women I meet.
“She was slim of waist and of ankle, though with the soft curve of neck and shoulder which intrigues an artist instantly. She was more mature in some ways than one might have expected of her years—but the more delightful for that reason.
“Her eyes were dark pools rippled by the breeze of each passing fancy. The moment I looked into them I knew that wrench of the heart which bespeaks the advent of the one great emotion. Many times before I had thought myself in love, yet in company of Beatrice I wondered at my self-deception. In the evening, as she sat beside me in a nook of Sebastian’s Spice Gardens—you know, the great indoor reproduction of the famous gardens of Kandy, Ceylon—I gloried in her beauty, and in the way soft silk clung to her person. The desire for possession was intolerable within me. Before parting I asked her, and for answer she lifted her soft, white arms to my neck and met my lips with a caress in which I felt the whole fervor of love. That was the sweetest and happiest moment of my life.
“We married, and built ourselves a home upon Long Island. After three months of honeymoon we settled there, more than ever in love with each other if that were possible.
“A year sped by. Ten months of this I spent without lifting a brush to canvas. It was idyllic, yet toward the last a sense of shame began to pervade my mind. Was I of such weak fibre that the love of one woman must stamp out all ambition, all desire for accomplishment?
“At the end of the year I was painting again, making portraits. The long rest and happiness had made me impatient with such piffle, however. I had all the money that either of us could need in our lifetime, so I could not take the portraiture seriously. I dabbled with it another full year, without once endeavoring to start a serious piece of work.
“Then, after Beatrice bore me a daughter, I began to lay plans for continuing serious endeavor. It is useless to repeat the story of those struggles. It was the same experience I had had after that first successful picture.
“My technique now was as near perfection as I could hope to attain, and the mere matter of color mixing I had learned from those two wild flights of frenzy. I found myself, however, psychologically unable to attack a subject smacking in the least of the gruesome—and that, of course, always had been my talent and interest.”
“I rebelled against the instinct which urged me to try the experiment of the mare again. In cold blood I hated the thought of it, and also I feared, with a great sinking of the heart, that I should find no more inspiration there even if I did repeat.
“I turned to landscape painting, choosing sordid, dirty or powerful scenes. I painted the fish-and-milk carts on Hester Street, showing the hordes of dirty urchins in the background playing on the pavement. Somehow, the picture fell short of being really good, although I had no difficulty in selling it.
“I portrayed, then, a street in the Ghetto on a rainy night, with greasy mud shining on the cobblestones and the shapeless figure of a man slouched in a doorway. This was called powerful—the ‘awakening of an American Franz Hals’ one critic termed it—but I knew better. Beside the work I could do under powerful stimulus and inspiration, this was slush, slime. I hated it!
“Even waterscapes did not satisfy. I painted half of one picture depicting two sooty, straining tugs bringing a great leviathan of a steamer into harbor, but this I never finished. I felt as if I drooled at the mouth while I was working.
“Thus two more years went by, happy enough when I was with Beatrice, but sad and savage when I was by myself in the studio. My wife had blossomed early into the full beauty of womanhood, and yet she retained enough of modesty and reticence of self that I never wearied of her. Because up to this time, when I turned thirty-three years of age, the powers of both of us, physical and mental, had been on the increase, we still were exploring the delights of love and true affection.
“There was an impelling force within me, however, which would not be denied. I had been born to accomplish great things. Weak compromise, or weaker yielding to delights of the mind and body, could but heap fresh fuel on the flame which consumed me when I got off by myself. I fought against it months longer, but in the end I had to yield. With fear and trepidation struggling with ambition and lust within me, I took a trip to a distant town of New York State, procured a fine, blooded mare, and repeated the experiment which had lost me the friendship of Guarneresi and my Parisian contemporaries.
“All in vain. Out of the hideous slaughter of the animal I obtained only a single grim picture—a canvas which I painted weeks later, when the shudder of revulsion in my frame had died down somewhat. I called the picture ‘CANNIBALISM,’ for it showed African savages gorging themselves on human flesh. It never sold, for the instant I placed it on exhibition the art censors of New York threw it under ban—and, I believe, no one really wanted the thing in his house.
“I did not like it myself, and finally, after much urging by my wife, I burned it. This sacrifice, however, merely accentuated the fury in my heart. I must do better than that!
“Since I have told you of my other periods of frenzy and self-hatred, I may pass over the ensuing month. One day the inspiration for my last great picture came, and as with the second, through pure accident. Beatrice was cutting weeds in the garden with a sickle, while I sat cross-legged beside her, watching. I always could find surcease from discontent in being near her, and watching the fine play of animal forces in her supple body.
“The sickle slipped. Beatrice cried out, and I jumped to place a handkerchief over the wound that lay open on her wrist, but not before my eyes had caught the sight of the red blood bubbling out upon her satiny skin.
“A madness leaped into my soul. My fingers trembled and a throbbing made itself felt in my temples as I laved on antiseptic and bound a bandage over the wound. This was the logical, the inevitable conclusion! She was my mate; she was in duty bound to furnish inspiration for the picture I must paint, my masterpiece.
“I of course, told Beatrice nothing of what was passing in my mind, but went immediately about my preparations.
“I placed a cot in the studio, fastening strong straps to it. Then I made ready a gag, and sharpened a keen Weiss knife I possessed until its edge would cut a hair at a touch. Last I made ready my canvas.
“She came at my call. At first, when I seized her and tore off her clothing she thought me joking, and protested, laughing. When I came to placing the gag, and bound her arms and legs with strong straps, however, the terror of death began to steal into her dark eyes.
“To show her that I loved her still, no matter what duty impelled me to do, I kissed her hair, her eyes, her breast. Then I set to work....
“In a few minutes I was away and painting as I never had painted before. A red stream dripped from the steel cot, down to the floor, and ran slowly toward where I stood. It elated me. I felt the fire of a fervor of inspiration greater than ever had beset me. I painted. I painted! This was my masterpiece.
“Drunk with the fury of creation, I threw myself on the floor in the midst of the red puddle time and time again. I even dipped my brushes in it. Mad with the delight of unstinted accomplishment, I kept on and on, until late in the evening I heard my little daughter crying in her room for the dinner she had not received. Then I went downstairs, laughing at the horror I saw in the faces of the servants.
“They found Beatrice, of course. The servants ’phoned immediately for the police. I fooled them all, however. I knew that they might do something to me, such is the lack of understanding against which true artists always must labor, so I took the canvas of my masterpiece and hid it in a secret cupboard in the wall known only to myself. I did not care what they did to me, but this picture, for which Beatrice had offered up her love and life, was sacred.
“They came and took me away. Then ensued a terrible scandal, and some foolish examinations of me in which I took not the slightest interest. And then they put me here.
“I have not been in duress all the time, though. Oh, no! Three years later some of my old friends contrived at escape, and secreted me away to the South Seas. There they gave me a studio, meaning to allow me to paint. I was guarded, though. They would not allow me full freedom.
“I painted, but I have not the slightest idea what was done with those canvases. I had no interest in them personally. All I could think of now was the one great masterpiece hidden in the cupboard of my old studio. I wanted to see it, to glory in the flame of color and in the tremendous conception itself.
“At last I gave my guards the slip, and after long wandering about in native proas, made my way to this country again, to New York. I found the canvas, and, rolling it, secreted it upon my person. Then I went out and gave myself up to them. I was brought here again.
“Imprisonment was not important to me any more. I was getting old. Though I would like to be released now it is a matter of less urgency than before, because I have with me always my masterpiece. See!”
The old man tugged at something inside his blouse, and brought forth a dirtied roll which he unsnapped with fingers that trembled in eagerness.
“See, Madame!” he repeated triumphantly.
And, before my horrified eyes, he unrolled a blank square of white canvas!
Do You Want a Slice of Life from the Thirteenth Century? If so, Don’t Fail to Read
THE AFFAIR
of the
MAN in SCARLET
By JULIAN KILMAN
Two French peasants, the one young, the other old and hale and toothless, both carrying baskets and garbed in ragged breeches and tunics, gaped at the pair of horses struggling to haul the closed coach up the steep incline in Angoulème Wood.
At the instant it seemed as if the animals were about to fail. The driver, a sober youth in drab livery with undecipherable shoulder insignia, used his whip mercilessly. The lash cracked, the horses plunged frantically, while a stream of invective sped from the driver’s lips.
“You pair of oafs!” he cried, finally. “Lend a hand.”
The peasants willingly put shoulder to wheel. The coach gained way and topped the rise. As it did so, the two peasants set out at a run, their baskets bobbing, but a shout came from behind.
“’Ware the road, ye clodhoppers!”
The clatter of horse hoofs was upon them, they were just able to fling themselves to the side as three horsemen, presumably outriders of the equipage ahead, swept by.
The peasants gazed in admiration after the flashing figures.
“That’ll be good King Philippe’s riders,” announced André, the younger. “Mark ye the emblems on their jackets?”
“I do that,” returned Jacques, the light of understanding in his ancient eyes. “Methinks I know what brings them to the village of Peptonneau.”
“And, pray, what is it that brings them to the village of Peptonneau?”
“They come to the Man in Scarlet.”
At mention of the official headsman, who years before had come from near Fontainebleau to reside in Peptonneau, Jacques’ companion fell silent.
The old man chuckled.
“Ah! They were gay days when your old Jacques was a gardener at the royal palace. And be it known to you, lout of Peptonneau,” Jacques’ voice rose, “that my best friend then was old Capeluche, the very father of our neighbor headsman, who to be sure is a man of ugly temper, and hence giving easy understanding as to why he lost favor at Fontainebleau.
“Ah me!” sighed Jacques. “You, André, should have heard the rare stories told by old Capeluche, the son of the son of the son of the son of a headsman, unto four generations. A proper man with the sword, forsooth! There was the Duc de la Trémouille whom old Capeluche led to the block and permitted to begin the Lord’s prayer, but when the noble duke got as far as ‘et nos inducas intentationem’ he had drawled it so slowly that the good Capeluche, losing patience, swung his blade and made such a clean stroke of it that the head, though severed, remained in exact place while from the lips the prayer continued—‘Sed libera nos a malo’—until the faithful Capeluche nudged the body and the head toppled off.
“A wonderful arm, one may say,” continued Jacques, “but a wonderful weapon, too, and the same one now resting with the Capeluche in Peptonneau. Old Capeluche told me that on one occasion, when Madam Bonacieux, a famous lady-in-waiting—now dead, may the Saints preserve her!—brought her baby to his house, the sword rattled furiously in its closet, which was an omen that the child would some day die by the self-same sword wielded by the right arm of a Capeluche unless then and there Madam Bonacieux allowed her baby’s neck to be pricked by the point of the sword until blood showed.”
“And did Madam Bonacieux permit it?” asked André, curiously.
“That she did not,” replied Jacques. “She laughed in old Capeluche’s face and ran out of his house, and thereat the old man was furious, vowing that the child would some day have its neck severed by the famous sword.”
While thus engaged in conversation, old Jacques had steadily led the way by a short cut through the wood, which presently brought them out of breath to the village, ahead of the coach and horses.
The village of Peptonneau was small, having less than a thousand inhabitants, its houses being of stone, and built close together in the manner of the gregarious Latin. Most striking of these structures in their uniformity was one near the center square painted a brilliant red.
In the clear sunshine of that Thirteenth Century July day, the dwelling stood out like a veritable lighthouse, and thither, giving no heed to the leper who passed in the opposite direction, fingerless, noseless, the bell at his neck ringing dolefully, the two peasants complacently padded their barefoot way.
A tall, lean, but well-thewed individual in leather jerkin and girdle, lounged in front of the house of red. With cynical eyes he viewed the approach of the peasants.
“In five minutes, M. Capeluche,” announced Jacques, a trifle breathlessly, “a coach and riders will arrive.”
“And you, old cock, trot hither from your berry-picking to tell me that bit of famous gossip?”
“Ay! I’m an old cock, and many years have passed o’er my head, Monsieur, but it is a head not destined to be removed by a Capeluche, nor yet by the son of a Capeluche.”
“Sirrah! Daily I give thanks to the Holy Virgin,” retorted the headsman, “that the delicate skill of a Capeluche is not for the hairy necks of such canaille as you.”
“Who knows,” sturdily replied Jacques, “as to the quality or quantity of hair on the neck of one who draws near in yonder coach?”
The grunt that left the headsman betrayed his interest. He peered down the road.
“What do you mean by that?”
Old Jacques permitted himself a toothless grin. It was not often that a Peptonneau villager could stir the equanimity of the great one, whose prerogatives of office entitled him to tithes exacted from towns and monasteries as ruthlessly as those of prince or baron.
“The coach, Monsieur,” the loquacious Jacques continued with satisfaction, “is accompanied by three outriders; they are men of the Divine Philippe’s, Monsieur, recently returned from ‘The Foolish Wars’, and wearing on the shoulders of their tunics the sign of the cross, together with——”
“A falcon in full flight?” quickly broke in the headsman.
“Even so, M. Capeluche. A falcon in full— Now, regardez vous, the great man is himself in full flight!”
If the headsman had in truth rather precipitately taken himself into his dwelling, his absence was of short duration, for he returned in a moment, clad in a scarlet cloak that reached to his knees.
At the instant there sounded the call of a bugle, and into sight swung three horsemen, followed by the coach driven at breakneck speed.
M. Capeluche took a position midway of the road and presently caught the heads of the horses drawing the coach. His black eyes snapped fire as he noted the quivering flanks of the hard-driven animals.
“High honor you do me, M. le Headsman,” cried the driver, leaping to the ground and clapping the palms of his hands against his breeches to relieve them of perspiration.
“No honor to you, you puling son of an ass,” retorted Capeluche, crossly.
“Hear the Man in Scarlet!”
The tallest of the horsemen, a devil-may-care appearing young man whose finely-chiseled features and delicate raiment proclaimed him of noble blood, now stepped to the side of the coach and unlocked the door and opened it.
A surpassingly beautiful woman of perhaps twenty-two years, sat within. She had the totally unexpected air of pretty surprise. As she descended, accepting with dainty grace the proffer of the gallant’s arm, her wide-set blue eyes were dazzled by the brilliance of the midday light.
“Thank you, Comte de Mousqueton,” she murmured.
With his charge, the Comte then approached the headsman, who stood with arms akimbo, his sharp eyes on the newcomers.
“M. Capeluche,” said the Comte, graciously. “The Royal Master sends this day the body of Mlle. Bonacieux. These papers, sir, are your warrant. Please to scan them at once.”
“The portent! The portent!” cried a voice from the crowd of rustics.
“Who shouts?” demanded Capeluche, looking about him fiercely, while a silence fell.
With a nod that gave scant heed to the etiquette of the occasion, the headsman accepted the beribboned parchment and ripped open the cover. The writ was of interminable length and inscribed in Latin. A glance, however, at the familiar “Now, therefore,” clause at the end quickly apprised Capeluche of his commission, and without a word he turned to enter his house.
“One moment,” said the Comte.
The headsman paused, scowling.
“Where, M. Capeluche, are we to lodge the prisoner in the interim?”
A sardonic smile suddenly played on the features of Capeluche.
“In Peptonneau, Comte de Mousqueton,” he said, “you will please to understand that since the days of the plague there has been no inn.”
The glance of the Man in Scarlet now shifted to the dilapidated, unoccupied structures on either side of his own dwelling.
“These are the only vacant houses in Peptonneau, their emptiness, of a truth, due to the fact that they stand next the dwelling of red. Of these two you may choose freely, sir.”
The crowd dispersed.
“Ho! Ho!” broke in a familiar voice. “There’ll be no hair on the neck of Mlle. Bonacieux to dull the edge of M. Capeluche’s good sword.”
It was near dark before the youthful Comte, after his discourteous reception by the headsman, was able to arrange suitable quarters in one of the deserted houses for his charge. As he was leaving her for the night, he seemed to reach a decision and was about to speak when she anticipated him.
“You are kind, indeed, M. le Comte,” she exclaimed, “to one in such misfortune.”
“Kindness, Mlle. Bonacieux, comes easily when one views beauty in distress.”
Mlle. Bonacieux shook her head reprovingly.
“Ah, Comte, to one whose tenure of existence is limited by a bit of parchment to ten hours the occasion does not seem fitting for mere compliment.”
“The occasion, Mademoiselle, is not entirely unpropitious if one considers all the possibilities.”
The woman gave him a quick look.
“To just what, pray, does the Comte de Mousqueton refer?”
The young Frenchman paced the room, giving signs of a state of tension. Then he began to speak rapidly:
“The Mlle. Bonacieux, some of us feel at the court, has been ill treated both by the King and the Dauphin. The King, by his gratuitous harshness, and the Dauphin, by his, his—”
The Comte hesitated. The keenly intelligent gaze of the woman interrogated him.
“Proceed, M. le Comte,” she encouraged.
“Will it be permitted a mere Comte to speak frankly of the prince?”
“By all means.”
“Then I shall dare to say, by the lack of knowledge and perspicacity of the Dauphin.”
In spite of herself, a flush stole into the face of the woman.
“Ah! You are naïve!” she exclaimed, in pain. “Cruelly so.”
“Nay, Mademoiselle. It is not naïveté in the circumstances, for I have a definite plan to defeat the machinations of the Cardinal.”
In amazement the woman stared at her companion.
“But how—?” she began.
“Listen, Mademoiselle. Everyone, it seems, including both the King and the Dauphin, have forgotten the ancient Merovingian statute, which provides that a woman sentenced to death may, if the headsman is ‘able and willing’ to marry her, be saved. Now, M. le headsman, if a boor, has at least the temporarily strategic advantage of being a celibate. It remains merely for you to captivate the gentleman’s fancy, and—who knows?”
The Comte now glanced with interest at his beautiful prisoner. She was smiling.
“Very prettily thought M. le Comte,” she said, “and your interest in my cause is flattering. But is not death itself preferable to life with yon crimson-handed churl as a wife whose only contact with her neighbors would be in the night-time, when they came stealing to buy from her horrid amulets with which to curse their enemies?”
“Ah, but who said that Mlle. Bonacieux would be compelled to endure life with a headsman?”
“Surely it is not to be expected,” remarked the woman, “that the headsman would be gallant enough to release me immediately after the ceremony?”
A short laugh broke from the Comte.
“No fear of that. My purpose is to relieve him of his bridegroom embarrassment within ten minutes after he has a wife.”
“Ah! A rescue! You, a King’s Messenger, would dare that for me?”
“And why not?”
“But why should you?”
The Comte’s face flushed slightly.
“One who loves would not regard such an enterprise as a peril.”
The eyes of the woman kindled. She approached the Comte. He caught her hand and kissed it.
“Trust in the Comte de Mousqueton,” he breathed.
It was late when the Comte came from the prison house. The village seemed asleep, but another than himself was abroad. The figure of a man in a cloak was issuing from the neighboring house.
“You walk late, M. Capeluche,” said the Comte. “But it is well, for Mlle. Bonacieux wishes to speak with you.”
The headsman stopped abruptly to peer into the eyes of the young nobleman. The act was insolent.
“Is M. le Comte,” he inquired, coldly, “sufficiently in the confidence of his fair prisoner to advise me what it is she desires?”
“The man is steel,” thought the Comte, hotly. “I’ll kill him yet.” Aloud, he said: “I have some idea, M. Capeluche. But I may not allude to it.”
The headsman fell silent.
“Closer examination of the writ,” he went on, finally, “shows that it is curiously indefinite in its recital as to the offense of which Mlle. Bonacieux has been guilty.”
The Comte laughed easily.
“M. de Briseout will be pleased to hear that the discriminating Capeluche has so found it.”
“And who is de Briseout?”
“The ingenious special pleader employed by the Cardinal to prepare the document. It is a work of art.”
“Then I can not be mistaken in assuming that one as clever as the Comte de Mousqueton and so recently come from Fontainebleau will be able to tell me the real nature of the case.”
The young nobleman was able to smile in the dark at the discernment of this strange man of blood.
“’Tis a proper question, M. Capeluche,” he returned. “Be it known to you, therefore, that no less a person that the Dauphin himself entertains the liveliest of sentiments toward Mlle. Bonacieux. The Cardinal, however, through his spies, early learned of the infatuation of the prince and privately remonstrated with him on the score that the mesalliance would definitely imperil the consummation of his proposed nuptials with Katharine of Austria, which, in turn, might embroil the two nations in war.
“But the Dauphin resented ecclesiastical interference. This aroused the ire of His Eminence, who straightway went to King Philippe. The net result is that the Dauphin has been dispatched on a tedious expedition to Sicilia, and I am ordered to convey the pretty person of Mlle. Bonacieux to you for decapitation.”
The two men resumed their walking.
“And this, then, you think,” came from the headsman, “accounts both for the ambiguity of the writ’s phraseology as well as the fact that Mlle. Bonacieux is spirited hither instead of being left to the hand of the headsman at Fontainebleau?”
“Undoubtedly, M. Capeluche.”
The headsman started away abruptly, in the manner of a man whose mind is suddenly made up. A light still burned in Mlle. Bonacieux’s quarters and he tapped at the door.
“Who is it?” called the woman.
“One whom you wished to see.”
“Please come in, M. Capeluche.”
Mlle. Bonacieux was in truth chilled by the grim expression of the man who now stood composedly studying her; but she gave no sign. Instead, her eyes were sparkling and she was a vision of loveliness as she reclined on the couch that had been provided for her by the Comte.
“An unpleasant business—for both of us, M. le Headsman,” she commented.
“There are many persons in your position who would so regard it,” bluntly agreed the headsman.
“I shall not dissemble, M. le Headsman. I do not desire to die tomorrow.”
“Is it for this that you have sent for me?”
The woman laughed.
“Yes, and no, Monsieur,” she returned. “It has but recently been mentioned to me that an ancient law is still in effect and has a certain bearing——”
She paused, glancing with studied carelessness at the headsman.
“The Comte de Mousqueton is a very clever fellow,” remarked Capeluche, dryly. “What is it he has to say of this old law?”
“That it seems a pity to miss a perfectly legitimate opportunity both to accomplish a humanitarian act and so defeat the machinations of an interfering Italian Cardinal.”
Capeluche’s features for the first time relaxed into a smile.
“And Mlle. Bonacieux, therefore, of the two evils—death or a headsman—is willing to choose the latter?”
“You put it so bluntly, M. le Headsman,” she sighed. “There can be compensations on either hand. If, for instance, the headsman surrenders his celibacy to a pretty woman, it is not inconceivable that she may reciprocate by surrendering her jewels to him.”
“On condition?”
In sincere surprise, Mlle. Bonacieux glanced up.
“Your perspicacity is gratifying, Monsieur,” she exclaimed. “The condition, suggested by you, is that immediately after the ceremony Madam Capeluche be released and permitted to journey back to Fontainebleau with the Comte de Mousqueton.”
The gleaming eyes of the man told much—or little. He approached the reclining beauty.
“Mlle. Bonacieux,” he said. “The Merovingian statute is still law, being, in fact, the very writ that directs my hand in your case.”
For an instant he stood over her.
“The Abbé Kérouec,” he added harshly, “will wed us two tomorrow, five minutes before seven in the evening, the hour fixed by the writ for your death.”
Shortly after six o’clock next evening old Jacques stole from the Angoulème wood and fell in step immediately behind a man garbed in a long close-fitting black coat with skirts that fell to his feet. This individual was making his way with painful slowness along the road to Peptonneau.
For the space of a minute Jacques followed in silence, his old nut-cracker face full of preliminary guile. Then he pushed forward.
“It is a fine day, good father,” he shouted.
In surprise the old man surveyed him.
“Ay, a fine day, Jacques, you godless one,” he replied in the toneless voice of the deaf.
“But the clemency of the weather is not for the delectation of the young beauty from Fontainebleau now lodged in Peptonneau.”
The Abbé Kérouec inclined his head. He was exceedingly deaf and had not heard.
Jacques swore heartily. At the top of his lungs he shouted:
“Bad weather for her who dies at seven this evening by the hand of M. Capeluche.”
The light of comprehension came into the features of the ancient Abbé.
“Ah, my good fellow, you mistake. I come to M. Capeluche’s dwelling on a more gracious mission than to shrive the soul of one condemned by the King’s Writ.”
It was Jacques’ turn to be surprised.
“Ha! Say you that Mlle. Bonacieux is not to die this eve?”
The Abbé’s eyes showed that he understood.
“That I say, indeed, Jacques. You and I be old men and we have seen much, but never before has anyone in our generation in all France and her possessions witnessed that which is about to occur in modest little Peptonneau.”
“And what is that?” sharply demanded Jacques.
“The wedding of M. Capeluche, the headsman, to Mlle. Bonacieux, the condemned.”
Jacques threw back his head and laughed till the tears rolled down his cheeks.
“That indeed is droll!” he shouted. “M. le Headsman weds a woman and then immediately cuts off her head.”
The owl-like eyes of the Abbé regarded Jacques solemnly.
“You do not know the full import of what I have told you, Jacques.”
The old peasant sobered instantly.
“What’s that?”
“Then you have never heard of the Merovingian statute which provides that the headsman may marry a condemned woman, if he is able and willing, and thereby save her life?”
“Ah! Ah! Ah!” came from Jacques, his small eyes opening and shutting with lightning rapidity. “Thus it proceeds, eh? M. le Headsman surrenders to the charms of the beautiful Mlle. Bonacieux. He plans to take her to wife. Is not the situation amusing?”
Suddenly he shook the arm of the old Abbé.
“But it can not be, Abbé Kérouec,” he exclaimed vociferously. “I knew the worthy M. Capeluche at Fontainebleau. He was a friend of mine, and the father of the headsman in Peptonneau, and he confided in me that on a certain occasion a lady-in-waiting one day brought her child to the dwelling in red, whereupon the Capeluche sword rattled furiously in its closet, which meant, of an absolute surety, that the child, unless its neck was pricked by the point of the sword, would some day die by that sword. That woman bore the name of Bonacieux, and now, after eighteen years, old Jacques lives to see Mlle. Bonacieux, the child grown to womanhood, awaiting her death under the famous sword in the hands of a Capeluche.”
Jacques paused for breath. The old Abbé had endeavored to follow the harangue of the peasant.
“Understand? A portent!” shouted Jacques, in desperation. “Mlle. Bonacieux is to die tonight by the sword of the headsman, Capeluche.”
“Nay! Nay! Jacques,” in turn exclaimed the Abbé. “I know not of what you prate, save that it be Godless. But there will be a wedding in Peptonneau this eve, and no woman will die by the hand of Capeluche.”
A throng had gathered before the house in red by the time the Abbé and his companion Jacques made their way along the village street. The Comte met them. He was in doublet and hose of violet color with aiguillettes of same, having the customary slashes through which the shirt appeared. The dress was handsome, albeit it gave evidence of having been but recently taken from a traveler’s box, which had left it in creases.
“We have little time,” he said.
He left them, but returned presently with Mlle. Bonacieux, and at sight of her unusual beauty, accompanied by so graceful a figure as the Comte, a murmur of appreciation stirred the rustic spectators.
With the Abbé preceding them, the little party passed into the red dwelling. M. Capeluche, in the cloak of his office, stood awaiting them. The Abbé he treated with marked deference, a manner that sat oddly on him. As a man beyond the pale of both church and society, because of his calling, Capeluche had experienced some doubt as to whether the worthy churchman would perform the ceremony.
As affairs went forward, his face retained its customary grim composure; but his eyes, resting on the entrancing creature who stood demurely at his side, held a light that fully signified his reaction to the potentialities of the occasion.
An hour passed, and old Jacques lay on his bed. He was fully dressed and wakeful and alert, despite the fact that his retiring-time had long since gone by. Presently there came to him the sound of approaching hoofbeats.
With the restless activity of a jack-in-the-box, he ran from his house and was in time to see the horseman dash up to the dwelling of Capeluche. The riders, of whom there were seven, wore masks. They pounded for admittance.
A light showed within, and old Jacques could see, through an open window, the headsman. He was making all secure against the attack. However, a window to the right—one that had just been closed—was reopened unexpectedly, and a woman’s hand extended. From it there fluttered a handkerchief.
Two of the horsemen started toward the open window. But the hand was withdrawn swiftly, and a terrible shriek followed.
A moment later the door gave way. The attacking party hurtled into the dwelling stumbling over one another.
An appalling sight was before them. In the center of the room stood Capeluche, a scarlet Mephisto. His hands held the cleanly severed head of Mlle. Bonacieux, her beautiful tresses of hair depending almost to the floor. At his feet lay the long weapon of his office.
He extended the head before him.
“Perhaps,” he said grimly, “the Comte de Mousqueton would relish a kiss from the lips of Madame Capeluche, the wife of a headsman. She was very choice of those same lips—a Dauphin has felt them. And see! See how deliciously cupid they are!”
Suddenly Jacques’ voice broke in.
“Before God!” exclaimed the old peasant, with tremendous satisfaction. “The portent!”
The
HIDEOUS FACE
A Grim Tale of Frightful Revenge
By VICTOR JOHNS
Marseilles, one hears while traveling through Europe, is the most vicious town in France.
Whether or not this ancient seaport, whose history reaches deep into the shadows of antiquity, is deserving of a criticism so sweeping and so condemnatory, I do not know. Such, at any rate, is the reputation it suffers among travelers.
All roads in Marseilles lead to La Cannebière, a street of splendid cafés. Being a sort of hyphen that connects the waterfront with the fashionable hotels and shops of the Rue Noailles, it swarms with a curious blend of dregs and pickings. Up from the Quai de la Fraternité come sailors hungry for the pleasures a few hours’ shore leave will offer; Algerian troops, on their way to Africa, jostle English soldiers back from India; adventurers and le monde élégant, pausing in flight to or from the Riviera, and the inevitable Magdalens, spatter its length with color and charge it with restlessness.
Late one afternoon last winter I drifted through this famous thoroughfare, looking for a place among the tables that edge its pavements. It had become my habit to sit for half an hour before dinner somewhere along the street, drink an appetizer, and expect the crowd to entertain me. The rows of iron chairs were filled with earlier comers, who sat contentedly behind their apéritifs or cups of chocolate, but at last, in front of the Café de l’Univers, I found a vacant back row table, which I quickly possessed. With a glass of vermouth cassis on the table beside me, I yielded to the lure of seaport excitement.
My thoughts were soon interrupted, however, by an American voice asking in French if the other chair at my table was taken. I turned to assure the gentleman it was not, that he was in no way intruding—and I looked into the face of Lawrence Bainridge.
“Hello, Bayard,” was his casual greeting. A bit too casual, I thought, considering the fact we had not seen each other for nearly two years.
I, contrariwise, must fairly have gasped, “Good Lord! What are you doing here?” for, as he swung the unoccupied chair about and sat down, he said,
“Well, what’s so strange about meeting me on La Cannebière?”
There was nothing strange about it; and I wondered at the amazement which so energetically had voiced itself. A rich, itinerant artist, Lawrence had zig-zagged several times around the world to paint unknown by-ways and hidden corners. Astonishment at meeting him in Marseilles was therefore absurd. Also, I felt he might construe my lack of savoir faire as a blunt refusal to play up to his well-known and fondly-cherished reputation as a globe trotter. He was childish in certain respects—artists are.
The waiter quickly fetched a champagne cocktail and a package of English cigarettes. The cocktail Lawrence downed in a gulp and called for more. The second he drank with more restraint.
Though I had not seen him since two summers before—at Land’s End, an isolated village in Massachusetts—our conversation was rambling and disjointed, like that of incompatible strangers who find no ease in silence. This annoyed me, for our similarity of tastes, I felt, should more than outweigh the separation.
As the late afternoon merged into early evening, the mistral blew its cold and sinister breath out to the Mediterranean. We drank steadily, Lawrence all the while jibing at me for clinging to so impotent a mixture as vermouth, currant juice and seltzer. He had reached his fifth cocktail, but through the exercise of will, apparently, was still sober. Nevertheless, he worried me.
Furtively, almost defensively, Lawrence sat in his chair. I reacted to his attitude by bracing myself against an intangible, though imminent, danger which thickened the atmosphere. He breathed jerkily, emitting from time to time a sharp clicking sound, as though part of his breathing mechanism had suddenly refused to function. Quivers ran through his body and ended in a twitch.
But he spoke with a crisp enunciation, and so precisely that each word seemed to have been scoured and weighed before utterance. On not a syllable was the checkrein loosened. I sensed a splendid effort at self-control.
I suddenly recalled the wild absurdity of Lawrence’s recent work. In Paris, three months before, I had gone to his exhibition at the Vendome Galleries and left the place convinced that Lawrence Bainridge had gone stark mad.
“Flowers, Messieurs?” A flower girl, her wicker tray heaped with heavy-scented blossoms, paused before us. “No? Ah, Messieurs, but one little rose apiece—for luck!” she said.
Then she picked up a red rose bud and pinned it to the lapel of Lawrence’s coat.
“Ugh! Take it away!” he screamed. “I can’t stand it!” He tore the flower from his coat and hurled it into the gutter.
“Lawrence!” I reproved, “You’re drunk.”
“No, I’m not drunk,” he protested. Contrition had subdued his voice. “But—I can’t stand—the smell—of roses.”
Thinking to avoid a scene, I suggested we take a walk. He said it might be a good idea, first, though, he would fill his cigarette case. A subterfuge, I told myself, to regain composure, and an obvious one. Lawrence had never been obvious.
At that moment there passed before us on the sidewalk such a ghastly thing that my scalp tingled and the flesh on my legs seemed to shrivel and fall away.
It was a man whose face was like a hideous mask; the left side—young and unblemished; but the right half—so mutilated that description would nauseate. Fair was divided from foul by a line running down the exact center of forehead, nose and chin.
My exclamation of horror drew Lawrence’s attention to the repellent sight. At that moment the gruesome thing turned full upon us.
Lawrence fumbled with his cigarettes; the case fell from his trembling hands and clattered to the pavement. Quickly he reached down, but did not straighten up again until after the man—a sailor, to judge from his rolling gait, though he wore no uniform—had gone.
“Poor soul,” I said. “How his fingers must ache to choke the life from the Boche responsible for that.”
Lawrence made no reply. He was drained of blood. He sat rigid, petrified.
“In Paris and London,” I continued, “one sees hundreds of mutilés—the war’s driftwood—and I have trained myself to look unflinchingly into their eyes. But”—I glanced in the direction the sailor had disappeared—“my histronic ability would fail me there.”
Still Lawrence made no move or sound. That he was profoundly touched I knew, for a sensitiveness, abnormal in its refinement, had been his lifelong curse. It had prevented his marriage to a young woman in whom were combined, he thought at one time, all the qualities that appeal to a man of esthetic temperament.
In his studio, one afternoon, they were planning for the wedding. Lawrence recalled a newly-acquired object d’art and took it from a cabinet. The treasure was an exquisite bit of ancient Egyptian glass, a spherulate bowl, so delicate of line and so ethereally opalescent of color that it always made me think of a bubble poised to float away.
I can imagine how he carried it across the room—with that caressing touch of velvet-tipped fingers peculiar to artists. The young woman, in order to examine it closely, grabbed the bowl and proceeded to paw it as a prospector might a bit of rock. Lawrence said afterward that had she struck him he could not have been more shocked. He broke the engagement that afternoon.
“Come, drink up, man!” I urged. “Stop looking as though you’d seen a ghost.”
“Things other than ghosts can haunt one,” he answered in a pinched tone.
We ordered drinks again, with misgivings on my part, for I felt the trembling man opposite me already had had too much. He sat slumped in his chair, shoulders hunched forward, and stared straight before him. Reminiscent or speculative, I could not tell.
Then he began to tell me a story that explained many things. His words were no longer crisp; he now spoke in a heavy, monotonous way, with many pauses, pressing his hands together in a gesture of anguish.
“The odor of that rose,” he said, “and the sight—I can’t stand the smell of roses! Not since two summers ago. I met a Portuguese sailor on the Wharf one day—you know—in that damn place—Land’s End. Had planned a canvas, and all summer had been looking for a model—a type.
“A Portuguese Apollo he was—but a Portuguese devil, too. Didn’t find that out till later. I stopped him and asked would he pose. Conceited swine! From his smile I knew it was vanity, not industry, that made him accept.”
A venomous hate wove its way through Lawrence’s phrases. He continued:
“Well—he called at my studio—the next afternoon—and I started the picture. He was a find. Dramatic. An inspiration.
“During the rest periods Pedro—that was his name—would lie on the floor and talk about himself while I made tea. God! How vain he was! Boasted of his success with women—his affairs. They were many. Quite plausible. He spurned the Bay and its fishing, and shipped on merchant-men. The ports of the world were his haunting ground, he said. Swashbuckling bully!”
To hear Lawrence speak so bitterly of Land’s End and one of its people was puzzling, for the extraordinary note sounded in that small New England town by its so-called foreign settlement, descendants of Portuguese fishermen who came over some seventy years ago and settled along the New England coast, had appealed strongly to his artistic appreciation two years before. He had looked upon these natives as gentle, lovable folk, but to me their black eyes, heavy-lidded and drowsy, had always suggested smoldering fires, not dreams; their excessive tranquillity I thought crafty, hinting of vendettas.
Lawrence picked up the thread of his story:
“One afternoon Pedro began talking about a Portuguese funeral in town that day. A friend of his had died. I dislike funerals—corpses and such—even the mention of them. Always have. Told him to shut up. Instead, he began to tell of an interrupted funeral in Singapore he once had seen. Spared no details. Losing patience and temper, I flung a tube of paint which struck him on the head. He was furious. I told him I was sorry.
“‘Pedro,’ I explained, ‘ever since I can remember, things connected with death have been the only things I’ve feared. I have never in my life been in a cemetery—and I have never seen a dead body. Just to hear of them brings out a cold sweat.’ Pedro laughed and said cemeteries—or dead bodies—couldn’t hurt one.”
This phase of Lawrence’s susceptibility I had not known. And then his pictures in Paris danced before me. What had Pedro to do with them? What had Pedro to do with the change in my friend? But I asked no questions lest I rouse Lawrence to a stubborn silence.
I found myself fidgeting about, peering suddenly into the crowd as if to catch the gaze of hypnotic eyes. Once I saw the mutilé standing across the street beside a kiosk, watching Lawrence, or so I imagined, with ferocious intensity. My vis-a-vis and his emotional recoils had by that time become agitating companions.
Yet, in truth, there was much in his surroundings to breed thoughts of adventure, even crime. Wharf loungers and apaches were slinking among the well-dressed shoppers who drifted down from the region above. Fringing the port, only a hundred meters distant, were the dark, twisting streets of a district noted for its nefarious habits and avoided by the wary; rumors of tourists who had wandered alone at night into that abyss of lawlessness, reappearing days later on the tide, skulls crushed and pockets empty, were far too numerous to pass unheeded. Out beyond the harbor the Château d’If clung to its rocks, guarding well grim secrets of a tragic past.
But to return to Lawrence.
“To blot out the Singapore funeral,” he said, “I painted quickly. Makes me concentrate. Got so interested I stopped only on account of bad light. Put on my hat and left the studio—with Pedro—for a walk. Fresh air clears the brain. Must have been exhausted, for I walked along without seeing. Just followed Pedro, I suppose. A bend in the road—and I woke up—galvanized with terror.
“Before me stood the entrance to a graveyard. The stones bristled ghostly in the twilight. I halted—alert.”
The stem of the glass, which Lawrence nervously had been twirling, broke, and his unfinished cocktail spilled upon the table.
“I couldn’t go on—on through that forest of spectral marble. Pedro continued to walk. Was some distance ahead before he noticed I had stopped. He turned and told me to come along. I refused. He laughed—a derisive laugh—then spit out a single word—‘Coward!’
“I’ve been through jungles in India. Gone deep into China where no white man had ever been. Know Calcutta—Port Said—explored the worst slums of the world—and I had never been called a coward before.
“‘You don’t understand, Pedro—I can’t, I can’t go on!’ He laughed again—like a hyena.
“‘Yes,’ Pedro said, a coward. How they will laugh—when I tell!’
“Had never been called that before—you know. I began walking forward—slowly. My legs trembled, but I walked. Passed through the gate.
“‘That’s right,’ Pedro said. ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of.’
“‘No—nothing,’ I answered, my jaws chattering.
“Then Pedro said, ‘I’m going to the grave of my friend who was buried today and say a prayer, take a rose from his grave and dry it—to carry in a little bag—always—for good luck. No harm comes then. You’ll take a rose, too.’
“I saw a large mound of flowers. The air was strong with perfume. Roses.... We reached the grave. Pedro stopped, knelt down and said a prayer. Shadows under the trees were black and the leaves rattled like bones. I wanted to run—but I stood beside Pedro—and shivered. Pedro took a rose from the grave and put it in his pocket. Then he took another, got up and offered it to me.
“‘No!’ I cried, drawing away. ‘I won’t touch it!’
“Pedro said, ‘You’ve got to be cured.’ He pointed to a large flat stone lying flat on the ground beside him, and explained:
“‘Over a hundred years ago—you can see the date when it’s light—a funny man had this grave made. Built it like a cistern. Brick walls. Look!’ and he slid the stone to one side. Pedro was strong.
“I refused to look. Kept my eyes on the path. A gust of wind blew my hat against Pedro, and it fell to the ground.
“As I stooped to pick it up, he pushed me—into the grave!”
The horror of this piece of perversity got me.
“Lawrence!” I exclaimed. “You don’t mean it!”
“Yes,” he answered, in that new tone, so flat and spiritless. “I sank into something—soft.... Pedro’s laugh sounded far away, and he closed up the grave—with the stone.
“My throat was in a vice. Couldn’t make a sound. Tried to gather strength for one big scream—then something somewhere in me snapped. ‘Tsing!’ it went, soft and little.
“Don’t know how long I was there. It seemed an eternity. I lived on—with the dead man—and crawling things. I don’t know. There may have been nothing at all. At last I saw a rift above—the night sky—and Pedro reached down to pull me out.
“When he came the next afternoon I told him I must rest for several days. My nerves were bad. All night I lay awake—and thought—and planned. At daybreak I fell asleep. In the afternoon I went to Boston.
“Three days later, back in Land’s End, I settled my accounts. All but one. Told the neighbors I was leaving for New York next day. Gave instructions to have my things packed and shipped to me there.
“Pedro came as usual in the afternoon. I worked as though nothing had happened. He got tired and lay on the floor. I boiled some water for tea. Very, very carefully I made that tea.
“‘What kind of tea is this?’ Pedro asked. ‘It tastes so queer.’
“‘A new kind,’ I told him.
“He drank, then lay back—asleep.
“From a shelf of etching materials I took a bottle. The liquid inside was clear. So harmless it looked! Poured some into a cup. Filled the cup with water, then knelt down beside the sleeping Pedro—dipped a feather into the liquid—and painted half his handsome face. Nitric acid—bites deep....
“Pedro’s groans were silenced with a gag. More tea for rest and sleep.
“The streets that night were empty as I half carried, half dragged Pedro to the shanty where he lived alone. I threw him on the bed and looked without pity on his face.
“No—there was nothing—to be afraid of, I told him. But Pedro didn’t hear.
“Don Juan’s career was finished. Apollo had become repulsive. My last debt was paid.
“I packed two bags and caught the early train. That afternoon I said ‘Good-bye’ to the islands of Boston Harbor as I steamed out for England.”
Several minutes dragged past before either of us moved.
“Come, let’s go,” was all I could find to say.
I took Lawrence to his hotel and left him at the entrance with a promise to call the following morning. Unable to keep the appointment, I went around during the afternoon. He was not in his room and could not be located.
Deciding to take one last look about the Old Port before leaving for Paris that night, I strolled down the Rue Noailles, through La Cannebière and the Quai de la Fraternité, into the Quai de Rive Neuve, where a group of excited men were gathered at the water’s edge. As I reached the crowd two sailors with grappling hooks were laying a dripping corpse on the pavement. It was the body of Lawrence Bainridge.
The right side of his face was slashed and crushed into a shapeless mass—but the left half was untouched and fair.