The strange subtle smile I had noticed once or twice before lightened his face. “Ah, you mean to compliment me!” he said—“You like my looks,—many people do. Yet after all there is nothing so deceptive as one’s outward appearance. The reason of this is that as soon as childhood is past, we are always pretending to be what we are not,—and thus, with constant practice from our youth up, we manage to make our physical frames complete disguises for our actual selves. It is really wise and clever of us,—for hence each individual is so much flesh-wall through which neither friend nor enemy can spy. Every man is a solitary soul imprisoned in a self-made den,—when he is quite alone he knows and frequently hates himself,—sometimes he even gets afraid of the gaunt and murderous monster he keeps hidden behind his outwardly pleasant body-mask, and hastens to forget its frightful existence in drink and debauchery. That is what I do occasionally,—you would not think it of me, would you?”
“Never!” I replied quickly, for something in his voice and aspect moved me strangely—“You belie yourself, and wrong your own nature.”
He laughed softly.
“Perhaps I do!” he said carelessly—“This much you may believe of me—that I am no worse than most men! Now to return to the subject of your literary career,—you have [p 35] written a book, you say,—well, publish it and see the result—if you only make one ‘hit’ that is something. And there are ways of arranging that the ‘hit’ shall be made. What is your story about? I hope it is improper?”
“It certainly is not;”—I replied warmly—“It is a romance dealing with the noblest forms of life and highest ambitions;—I wrote it with the intention of elevating and purifying the thoughts of my readers, and wished if I could, to comfort those who had suffered loss or sorrow—”
Rimânez smiled compassionately.
“Ah, it won’t
do!” he interrupted—“I assure you it won’t
;—it doesn’t fit the age. It might go down, possibly, if you could give a ‘first-night’ of it as it were to the critics, like one of my most intimate friends, Henry Irving,—a ‘first-night’ combined with an excellent supper and any amount of good drinks going. Otherwise it’s no use. If it is to succeed by itself, it must not attempt to be literature,—it must simply be indecent. As indecent as you can make it without offending advanced women,—that is giving you a good wide margin. Put in as much as you can about sexual matters and the bearing of children,—in brief, discourse of men and women simply as cattle who exist merely for breeding purposes, and your success will be enormous. There’s not a critic living who won’t applaud you,—there’s not a school-girl of fifteen who will not gloat over your pages in the silence of her virginal bedroom!”
Such a flash of withering derision darted from his eyes as startled me,—I could find no words to answer him for the moment, and he went on—