Gano knew whither one of these superannuated revellers of twenty-five or so had retired. This was a great good-looking Irishman, with an unaccountable French tongue in his rough, tawny head, the hardest worker, deepest drinker, and wildest theorist in the particular little circle that Gano had of late frequented. Dick Driscoll and he had got into the habit of coming away together from the modest café where the circle met. Now and then the older man would drag Gano off on some wild adventure, or they would scour Paris with no definite end in view, arguing, disputing, catching effects, till midnight met the dawn. From living in the same quarter they came by-and-by to live under the same roof, as a direct result of the Irishman's being as ready to discuss theories of life in general, or even Gano's work in particular, as he had been to harangue "the painter fellows" about brushwork and values.
He pronounced those early poems "most awfully good, you know," and prophesied great things for the future. But for all this, deeper and deeper the conviction cut into Gano that he was not of the stuff that "makes its way in the world." This without any of the feeling that usually accompanies it—of contempt for those who were differently constituted. He sometimes soothed his harassed spirit, and consoled himself for his failures, by an odd inversion of common hopes. He bade himself realize that success would not bring him happiness, so why join the thoughtless chorus condemning poverty, obscurity, and hard work? These last were not the heads of his indictment against life. At other times he would shut his eyes to this revelation of himself to himself. "Skin-deep! skin-deep, like yours!" he burst out at Driscoll's observation on his friend's growing dissatisfaction with the scheme of things.
The Irishman was rather proud of his Schopenhauerism. It represented to him a mere mental gymnastic. This, too, although hard work, hard living, and hard drinking had injured his health, and the fact was more and more apparent. However, it is something behind experience that determines whether a man shall be an optimist or not. Gano shrank from an imputation of pessimism, as people do in whom the tendency is inborn and inveterate. "I tell you, Driscoll, if we weren't sharing it, we would think there was some good served by the ugliness and pain in the world, just as our betters do. If we took our place again in the holiday-making class, we should be as diverted as the rest, with all the games and make-believes. We, too, should forget the essential cruelty of things." But behind the boast was a heart-sinking, and a sense that it was a lie.
He would try again: "Because life has treated me cavalierly I think I have little zest for it. If I weren't bruised from crown to toe, I'd think the world a bed of roses." And then he would remember that that was far from being the account he would ever have given of his consciousness of things.
Before he betook himself to Bohemia, Gano had spent no small portion of his time in the brilliant circle Madame Astier's grace and wit had gathered round her. The young American not only cherished an enthusiasm for his middle-aged hostess, but he discovered a deep admiration as well for the lady's husband, a distinguished advocate, whom she obviously adored. Gano's sensibilities did, it is true, shrink at first before the man's pitiless cynicism, which spared few persons and fewer ideals. But although merely dazzled at the beginning by his brilliancy, Gano came in time to be proud of his friendship, and to recognize in his point of view a wholesome, bitter tonic, a corrective to certain ills that young flesh is heir to. This man of fifty-four, who would have shrugged derisively at the notion of "teaching" anybody anything, was still in many young eyes the very type of the modern philosopher: believing blandly in the scientific point of view, unmoved by sentimentalities, unblinded by enthusiasms, keen-witted, farsighted, practising with eminent success, in the most highly civilized society in the world, the most difficult of the arts—the art of living.
Gano was very much shaken by the terrible story of the double suicide of this brilliant pair, whose marriage had been so romantic, whose life together had seemed the one ideal of the old kind that they admitted into their smiling existence.
M. Astier, as all the world was being told, had returned home as usual on this particular afternoon from the Palais de Justice. His wife had been holding a reception. One lady remained after the other visitors had gone. When at last the door closed upon her, too, Madame Astier went to her husband's library and told him that the last visitor had outstayed the others to say that her husband was going to fight a duel on her account the next day with M. Astier, with whom she (the visitor) had an intrigue of three years' standing. She had come to Madame Astier to prevent the men's meeting.
A violent scene between husband and wife.
"The end has come!'" exclaims Astier.
"Yes, yes; we can't go on living after this!" cries the distracted wife.