From the first I was enamored of the conversation of these stepchildren of Genius, and I soon began descending from the platform and mingling with the habitués of the place; for at Weinstein’s the only snobbery is of the Bohemian variety, and those who would blush to be seen dining with a prosperous bourgeois, were not at all averse to drinking with an humble member of the orchestra—for was not I, too, an artist? It was not long before I began to care more for talking of my art than for practising it, and all the time that I was playing I was impatient to be down among the tables enjoying the praise which my performance, or, as I am now inclined to suspect, the subsequent order for drinks, never failed to secure. Thus I ceased to practise and played no more except when I was at work.
Of course I did not come to realize all this in a moment.
It was some months before I woke from the daze into which I fell at the first. It came to me gradually as I began to make unpleasant discoveries. It was disconcerting to find that I had fled my own world to escape conventions only to come upon others, or rather upon the same lot, turned topsy-turvy. It annoyed me to find that to be accounted a true Bohemian one must hold only certain views, and those always opposed to the views of acknowledged authorities; that one must not dress too well, eat too well or drink too well. Which was not at all the same thing as saying too much. But this was by no means the most shocking of my disillusions. I soon learned that while the Bohemians are forever talking and thinking of success and wishing success for their friends, the moment one of them really succeeds he is no longer a member of the company; and for this reason it is said, with some truth, that there are no successful Bohemians. When one of them who has made a marked success intrudes himself into the old gathering place, he is given such a cold shoulder that he never ventures there again. A small triumph furnishes the occasion for a feast of congratulation, but a real “arrival” excites the whole company to sneers and innuendoes, so that such felicitations as are offered are bitter with envy. They have a sort of optimism of their own, but it is all a personal optimism. Each one hopes and believes that he will succeed, but each one believes and secretly hopes that the others will not. A cynical smile and a shrugging of shoulders is the tribute to the absent artist.
Well, Mr. Idler, the longer I remained among these people, the more I came to be of the mind of Alice in Wonderland, that though some may be marked off from the pack and may look like kings and queens, they are nothing but playing-cards after all.
But there was one young woman who held my waning interest and who bound me by sentimental ties to the life of which I now began to be somewhat weary. If I had not made her acquaintance I believe that I should long ago have left Bohemia and shaken the sawdust of Weinstein’s from my feet. She was a demure young person, a newcomer from the West, who was studying art. She seemed so different from the others, so fresh, so ingenuous, that I could not but believe her to be genuine. She smoked her cigarette and drank of the table d’hôte wine, it is true (she could do no less in the face of Bohemian convention), but she did it all with such a pretty air of youth and innocence as touched me greatly. For I was by now as strongly attracted by a quiet woman as I had formerly been by a lively one.
To spare you a tedious recital of my passion, I determined to ask her to marry me, thinking that she might arouse in me the old ambition to become a great musician—the ambition which my long sojourn in the Lotus land of Bohemia had all but killed. And so one night I put the question gently over our cups of black coffee, asking her, “Would you—could you—share with me my career?” Then, Sir, that happened which you will scarce believe. Yes, she said, she would be glad to share my career with me, but I must be under no misapprehension; she could not marry me; she already had a husband in the West; but inasmuch as she had not seen him in three years and had never found him very congenial in any case, he need not in any way interfere with our plans.
As you may imagine, I was thunderstruck. I concealed my confusion as best I might by pretending to choke upon a bit of cheese, and at the first opportunity I made my escape and sought the seclusion of my chamber where I faced my problem. I had striven to become a Bohemian, but I had been born a Puritan and there was a limit to my acquired unconventionality. I could not confess my prudery to the lady; could not ignore the incident. Therefore I have determined to accept the one course left open to me. I shall fly. I am now going out to pawn my fiddle and with the money I get I shall buy me a ticket to that little New England town where I first saw the light of day.
Others may seek for inspiration at the Café of the Innocents, but as for me, I am going where a modest young man may live in the protection of the old-fashioned conventions. I am going where I can be moral without being queer. I am going home. And so, Sir,
Farewell,
Timothy Timid.