But now we were nearly all talking about nearly everything except politics and religion, for we had come past the years when one takes such things earnestly and had not come to the years when one takes them practically. Furthermore we had all read at least a couple of French novels and so had got over all naïveté. But we touched on the subject of hypnotism, very carefully with a general feeling that “there was something in it.” Literature we gripped by the throat and said rough things to her face, thrusting at her a word sharp as a needle, the word “style.” That was what she lacked, style. It is a splendid word, this; one can hide as much or as little as one will behind it, and as an accusation it is almost instantly condemnatory. And so we talked about pictures and busts and verse, of synthesis and analysis, of symbolism and realism. We were all idealists and wrapped ourselves in the very newest imperial robes with genuine spangles of brass.
I don’t know exactly what we were driving at, the utterances were so varied, but it came out clearly from the total that we had the deuce knows what resources within us and were some day going to shake new artistic tendencies out of our sleeves as easily as the trick man does rabbits. Among some of us there was a general flair for the joy of living, which was taken up most seriously and discussed—a bit tediously—as a settled duty; how one should attain to it was left to one’s own free discretion and it was assumed that he who went to sleep over “Hans Alienus” had a satisfactory private reason for his conduct and might take up gymnastics instead.
But above everything we were zealous for “the new”; we held our fingers on the pulse of the time with the solemnity of one who had universal pills to sell, and were only afraid that others would get ahead of us in guessing its complaints, or that these would change, since everything progresses so fast now.
Leo had then walked about a while, taken an oblique stand where he cut diagonals across the room, and snapped his fingers at every æsthetic dogma that had ever been devised—lively, indefatigable Leo, with his sharp, somewhat affected painter’s glance from behind his glasses, and his handsome, exalted countenance as of a patentee of ideas; Leo, who talked the most of all and made the greatest effect.
“Oh, the devil take it!” he had cried—his accent was half that of a Parisian and half that of a mountaineer—“I’ve a pain in the head. I beg leave to take the air a bit.”
A moment later the door had slammed, and one might as well have tried to catch the shadow of a bird as get hold of him. Also, no one else cared to go, since it was snowing outside, and furthermore the day was so gray, so strikingly empty and melancholy; the sort of day that stares at one searchingly, haunting one like a question to which one can find no answer. But Leo went out in all weathers, distance had no meaning to him; he walked so fast that the cold could not bite through his thin overcoat, and besides he swore himself warm at it, fighting it as if it was a personal enemy and keeping his brain ready to note every beautiful composition of lines that he passed.
We knew that in a short while he might be back with us again after he had hurried almost around the city, his headache gone and his buoyant figure full of nervous energy, with fresh air in his clothes, his glasses damp with cold, and a new theory of chiaroscuro in his head. We therefore continued meanwhile to discuss along the same line as before. The question rose of what the soul of a masterpiece consisted, to what degree it should be manifest, and what share emotion should play. We agreed that the artist’s feeling should be suppressed and only reveal its immeasurable power in lines of form; otherwise it might destroy the proper effect, and a tendency toward declamation could not be tolerated under any condition. We said a number of very telling things, but nevertheless felt a bit weary, either from the yellow lamplight or because the air was a trifle close.
Thereupon we heard Leo talking outside the front door. He had someone with him, then. But whom, since we were all here? We turned inquisitively in the direction of the door. It opened and over the threshold stepped a little, dark figure with an ugly black hat on her head, a summer hat whose brim was bent with age and cast a grotesque shadow on the wall. She was a little girl, but what sort of girl?
A strange girl, to be sure. Without hesitating a moment and before anyone said anything, she came into the middle of the room, stood still and looked about her with a reposeful movement of the head, her hands in the pockets of her cape, her whole slender figure wonderfully composed and firm, her motion somewhat like a figure in a dream, when one all the while thinks: just so, that’s what she ought to do,—and yet feels with mysterious uneasiness that every gesture has meaning, every step hides the significance of coming events.
While she stood there close to the hanging lamp, which threw a sharp, dark shadow across her face, Leo explained hurriedly: “I met her by the street-car line. She was walking and staring up at the snow just as you see her with her head thrown back, walking slowly in all the cold. I saw she was pretty with a well-formed head and wanted to find out who she was. She wasn’t at all afraid to come along.”