Cape of Storms: A Novel

by Percival Pollard

It was certainly a pleasant spot. In front there stretched the broad, paved square that gave to the Old Castle of the first German Emperors on the left, to the royal stables on the right, and beyond, straight ahead, gave a glimpse of the quaint, old-fashioned architecture of the "Alte Stadt." For the Schlossplatz marks the limits of the newer portion of Berlin; beyond the bridge everything is the real Berlin, the Berlin untouched by the triumphant splendors that came after '71, the Berlin that knows but little of the passing stranger and the ways to despoil him. And that was why Dick Lancaster had chosen the spot. The passers-by were not at all cosmopolitan; there was little of that mixture of all races, all garbs, all voices, that was to be seen and heard on the "Linden." These were the real Berliners.

In the months that lay between this day and the day on which Lancaster had first felt the soil of Europe under his foot, there had come to him many experiences, many amusements. He had accepted all things. Unfettered by any restraints he had probed all the novelties that presented themselves. He had lived in alternating fevers of discriminations and hard work. For all these new aspects of life and living filled him with the old, dear mania to create. He found himself inspired by the very overflow of his sensations. From long draughts of enjoyment he plunged into as long fits of artistic energy.

He found, moreover, that the increased tension of his spiritual being put a peculiar force into his pencil. Because it was merely one way of laughter, because he began in a spirit of flippancy, the sketches all succeeded immensely. Fortune began to favor him in artistic ways. In Paris he had made a portfolio full of the most admirable sketches of types. There was a crafty cynicism about his work that gave a fascination to them; something not caricature, but finer. Now he chose as his subject the traveling millionaire, now the splendid queen of the boulevard, now the phantom of the "brasserie," and now the rag-picker. One day he had showed some sketches to a man that had begged permission to glance through the portfolio, as they sat, in a crowded café, at the same table. The man was the manager of a famous illustrated paper. He bought some of the sketches, and presently there appeared a most astonishingly eulogistic article, about this young American.

People carefully read the name. They had never heard of him. They looked at the sketches. That was certainly talent of a significant sort. The other papers followed suit. The noise of this discovery went across the channel. There came to this young man orders from London, and the newspapers of that town began to print the most extraordinary inventions, by way of personalities, about him. The world, now as ever, is always glad of a new subject. After that Parisian journal had sounded the first note, the volume of sound that had as its burden Lancaster's name, grew and grew. Of course, there were those that dissented, that took occasion to flay this young man's achievements until there seemed left only a skeleton of faults. But even that only swelled the flood.

All the while, his sketches grew in force and individuality. For, whatever else his detractors denied him, they admitted the originality of his style. It had never been done before. Some called it hideous, some grotesque; but all called it new. That was the great point.

He became the fad. The representatives of American newspapers, who had been prompt to cable home reports of the successes of this unheard-of youth, began to attempt to interview him. Whereupon, having by that time exhausted the immediate enjoyments of Paris, he fled abruptly.

His success had at first surprised, then amused him. When, presently, he found that his bank account was swelling most astonishingly, he was more entertained than ever. He laughed—that unpleasant, mirthless laugh. But he felt no duties toward his success. When Paris became tiresome, he had no hesitation about quitting it without leaving an address. For that matter, he did not, himself, know just whither he would go.

His ticket had been taken for Monaco. The life of that place fascinated him no less than that of Paris, when Paris was fresh to him. Day after day he watched the procession that filed to and from the green tables; the princes of the blood, the newest nabobs, the touring Americans, the Russians, the worldlings and half-worldlings of all nations and degrees. He watched the blue of the Mediterranean as a contrast to the blacknesses of humanity that he saw daily.

And then without an accompanying word, he sent a selection of sketches to that Parisian paper whose discovery, so to say, he was. There came another salvo of applause from the world of art. It seemed, so they all said, as if this young man was destined to show such possibilities in black-and-white as had not yet been dreampt of.

From Monaco the wanderer went to Egypt. A white-sailed fishing-smack, anchored in the bay below him, had started the thought in his mind one sunny afternoon, when the attractions of Monte Carlo were beginning to pall. He could afford extravagances now. The fisherman, when he was accosted, had smiled. Yes, he might charter the boat. But where would the gentleman wish to sail to? And it was of Egypt that Dick thought, suddenly, with a longing for the cold silences of the sands, and the pyramids, and the quaking waves of heat. And so the bargain was arranged and to Egypt went the artist.