The desire for movement, for diversion, for anything that would keep him from thinking was not to be resisted. Vandover caught up his hat and fled from the room, not daring to look again at the easel. Once outside, he began to walk, anywhere, straight before him, going on with great strides, his head in the air.
He found Charlie Geary and took him to supper. Vandover talked continually on all sorts of subjects, speaking very rapidly. In the evening he insisted on Geary going to the theatre with him. He paid the closest attention to the play, letting it occupy his mind entirely. When the play was over and the two were about to say good night, Vandover began to urge Geary to sleep up at his rooms that night. He overrode his objections, interrupting him, taking hold of his arm, and starting off. But Geary, a little surprised at his manner, refused. There were certain law papers he had taken home with him from the office that afternoon and that it was necessary he should return in the morning. Ah, you bet, he would get it right in the neck if old Beale didn't have those depositions the first thing when the office was open. Ah, he was getting to be indispensable down there. He had had Fischer's place now for a year. Fischer had never come back, and he had the promise of being taken on as head clerk as soon as Beale Jr. went into the partnership with old Beale. "I'll make my way in this town yet," he declared. "I'll be in that partnership myself some day. You see; yes, sir; ah, you bet!"
The idea of passing the night alone terrified Vandover. He started toward home, walking up Sutter Street, proceeding slowly, his hands in his pockets. All at once he stopped, without knowing why; he roused himself and looked about him. There was a smell of eucalyptus in the air. Across the street was the huge white house, and he found that he had stopped just before the door of the building on the top floor of which his studio was situated. All day Vandover's mind had been in the greatest agitation, his ideas leaping and darting hither and thither like terrified birds in a cage. Just now he underwent a sudden reaction. It had all been a matter of fancy, nothing but nervousness; he had not drawn for some time, his hand lacked cunning from long disuse. The desire for work came upon him again overpoweringly. He wanted to see again if he could not draw just as truly and freely as in the old days. No, he could not wait till morning; he must put himself to the test again at once, at the very instant. It was a sudden feminine caprice, induced, no doubt, by the exalted, strained, and unnatural condition of his nerves, a caprice that could not be reasoned with, that could not be withstood. He had his keys with him, he opened the outside door and groped his way up the four long flights of stairs to his studio.
The studio was full of a sombre half-light, like a fog, spreading downward from the great north light in the sloping roof. The window was still wide open, the stretcher showed a pale gray blur. Vandover was about to light the gas when he checked himself, his arm still raised above his head. Ah, no; he did not dare to look at the result of his day's work. It would be better to start in afresh from the beginning. He found the chamois skin on the tray of the easel and rubbed out all the drawing on the canvas. Then he lit the gas.
As he turned to his work once more a little thrill of joy and of relief passed over him. This time his hand was sure, steady, his head was clear. It had been nervousness after all. As he picked up his charcoal he even exclaimed to himself, "Just the same, that was a curious experience this afternoon."
But the curious experience repeated itself again that night as soon as he tried to work. Once more certain shapes and figures were born upon his canvas, but they were no longer the true children of his imagination, they were no longer his own; they were changelings, grotesque abortions. It was as if the brute in him, like some malicious witch, had stolen away the true offspring of his mind, putting in their place these deformed dwarfs, its own hideous spawn.
Through the numbness and giddiness that gradually came into his head like a poisonous murk he saw one thing clearly: It was gone—his art was gone, the one thing that could save him. That, too, like all the other good things of his life, he had destroyed. At some time during those years of debauchery it had died, that subtle, elusive something, delicate as a flower; he had ruined it. Little by little it had exhaled away, wilting in the air of unrestrained debauches, perishing in the warm musk-laden atmosphere of disreputable houses, defiled by the breath of abandoned women, trampled into the spilt wine-lees of the Imperial, dragged all fouled and polluted through the lowest mire of the great city's vice.
For a moment Vandover felt as though he was losing his hold upon his reason; the return of the hysteria shook him like a dry, light leaf. He suddenly had a sensation that the room was too small to hold him; he ran, almost reeled, to the open window, drawing his breath deep and fast, inhaling the cool night air, rolling his eyes wildly.
It was night. He looked out into a vast blue-gray space sown with points of light, winking lamps, and steady slow-burning stars. Below him was the sleeping city. All the lesser staccato noises of the day had long since died to silence; there only remained that prolonged and sullen diapason, coming from all quarters at once. It was like the breathing of some infinitely great monster, alive and palpitating, the sistole and diastole of some gigantic heart. The whole existence of the great slumbering city passed upward there before him through the still night air in one long wave of sound.
It was Life, the murmur of the great, mysterious force that spun the wheels of Nature and that sent it onward like some enormous engine, resistless, relentless; an engine that sped straight forward, driving before it the infinite herd of humanity, driving it on at breathless speed through all eternity, driving it no one knew whither, crushing out inexorably all those who lagged behind the herd and who fell from exhaustion, grinding them to dust beneath its myriad iron wheels, riding over them, still driving on the herd that yet remained, driving it recklessly, blindly on and on toward some far-distant goal, some vague unknown end, some mysterious, fearful bourne forever hidden in thick darkness.
Chapter Fifteen
About a week later Hiram Wade, Ida's father, brought suit against Vandover to recover twenty-five thousand dollars, claiming that his daughter had killed herself because she had been ruined by him and that he alone was responsible for her suicide.
Vandover had passed this week in an agony of grief over the loss of his art, a grief that seemed even sharper than that which he had felt over the death of his father. For this last calamity was like the death of a child of his, some dear, sweet child, that might have been his companion throughout all his life. At times it seemed to him impossible that his art should fail him in this manner, and again and again he would put himself at his easel, only to experience afresh the return of the numbness in his brain, the impotency of his fingers.
He had begun little by little to pick up the course of his life once more, and on a certain Wednesday morning was looking listlessly through the morning paper as he sat in his window-seat. The room was delightful, flooded with the morning sun, the Assyrian bas-reliefs just touched with a ruddy light, the Renaissance portraits looking down at him through a fine golden haze; a little fire, just enough to blunt the keenness of the early morning air, snapping in the famous tiled and flamboyant stove. All about the room was a pleasant fragrance of coffee and good tobacco.
Vandover caught sight of the announcement of the suit with a sudden sharp intake of breath that was half gasp, half cry, starting up from the window-seat, reading it over again and again with staring eyes.
It was a very short paragraph, not more than a dozen lines, lost at the bottom of a column, among the cheap advertisements. It made no allusion to any former stage of the affair; from its tone Ida might have killed herself only the day before. It seemed hardly more than a notice that some enterprising reporter, burrowing in the records at the City Hall, had unearthed and brought to light with the idea that it might be of possible interest to a few readers of the paper. But there was his name staring back at him from out the gray blur of the type, like some reflection of himself seen in a mirror. Insignificant as the paragraph was, it seemed to Vandover as though it was the only item in the whole paper. One might as well have trumpeted his crime through the streets.
"But twenty-five thousand dollars!" exclaimed Vandover, terrified. "Where will I find twenty-five thousand dollars?" And at once he fell to wondering as to whether or no in default of payment he could be sent to the penitentiary. The idea of winning the suit did not enter his mind an instant; he did not even dream of fighting it.
For the moment it was like fire driving out fire. He forgot the loss of his art, his mind filled only with the sense of the last disaster. What could he do? Twenty-five thousand dollars! It would ruin him. A cry of exasperation, of rage at his own folly, escaped him. "Ah, what a fool I've been!"
For an hour he raged to and fro in the delightful sunlit room, pacing back and forth in its longest dimension between the bamboo tea-table and the low bookcase, a thousand different plans and projects coming and going in his head. As his wits steadied themselves he began to see that he must consult at once with some lawyer—Field, of course—perhaps something could be done; a clever lawyer might make out a case for him after all. But all at once he became convinced that Field would not undertake his defence; he knew he had no case; so what could Field do for him? He would have to tell him the truth, and he saw with absolute clearness that the lawyer would refuse to try to defend him. The thing could not honourably be done. But, then, what should he do? He must have legal advice from some quarter.
He was still in this state of perplexity when Charlie Geary arrived, pounding on the door and opening it immediately afterward as was his custom.
"Hello!" said Vandover, surprised. "Hello, Charlie! is that you?"
"Say," exclaimed Geary without returning his greeting, holding up his hand as if to interrupt him; "say, have you seen your lawyer yet—seen any lawyer?"
"No," answered Vandover, shaking his head gravely; "no, I've only this minute read about it in the paper." He was glad that Geary had come; at once he felt a desire to throw this burden upon his chum's shoulders, to let him assume the management of the affair, just as in the old college days he had willingly, weakly, submitted to the dictatorship of the shrewder, stronger man who smoothed out his difficulties for him, and extricated him from all his scrapes. He knew Geary to be full of energy and resource, and he had confidence in his ability as a lawyer, even though he was so young in years and experience. Besides this, he was his friend, his college chum; for all Geary's disagreeable qualities he knew he would do the right thing by him now.
"You're the one man of all others I wanted to see," he exclaimed as he gripped his hand. "By George! I'm glad you have come. Here, sit down and let's talk this over." Geary took the big leather chair behind the desk, and Vandover flung himself again upon the window-seat. It was as if the two were back in the room in Matthew's; hundreds of times in those days they had occupied precisely these positions, Geary bending over at the study table, intent, nervous, very keen, Vandover lounging idly upon the window-seat, resting easily on his elbow listening to the other man's advice.
"Now, what must I do, Charlie?" Vandover began. "See my lawyer, I suppose? But do you think a lawyer like Field would take my case? You know I haven't a leg to stand on."
"But you haven't seen him?" inquired Geary sharply. "Haven't seen anybody about it?" Vandover shook his head. "Sure?" insisted Geary anxiously.
"Why, I have only just heard about it twenty minutes ago," protested Vandover. "Why are you so particular about that?" he added. Then Geary exploded his mine.
"Because," he said, with a smile of triumph that he could not restrain, "because we are the counsel for the other side. I am on the case."
Vandover bounded from the window-seat speechless with astonishment, bitterly disappointed. "You? he shouted. Geary slowly nodded his head, enjoying Vandover's bewilderment. Vandover dropped back upon the cushions again, staring at him wildly with growing suspicion and anger. He would not have thought it possible that Geary could so sacrifice their old friendship to his own personal interest. The two continued staring at each other across the table for a moment. In the silence they heard the long rumble of a cable-car passing the house, and the persistent jangling of its bell as it approached the street crossing. A grocery wagon went up the side street, the horses' hoofs making a cadenced clapping sound upon the asphalt.
"Well," exclaimed Vandover scornfully, "I suppose that's business, but I would call it damned unkind!"
"Now, look here, old man," returned Geary consolingly. "Don't you take the monkey-wrench off the safety valve like that. What am I here for if it isn't to help you? Maybe you don't know that this is a mighty unprofessional thing to do. Ah, you bet, if old Beale knew this I would get it right in the neck. Don't you suppose I can help you more as Wade's lawyer than I could as yours? And now that's the very first thing I've got to tell you—to keep this dark, that I have seen you. I can't do anything for you if you don't promise that."
"Oh, that's all right," returned Vandover, reassured. "That's all right, you can—"
"It's not considered the right thing to do," Geary continued, not heeding Vandover's answer, "but I just do it because"—he began to make awkward gestures with both his hands—"because we're old friends, like that. That was the very first thing I thought of when Beale Jr. told me that we two had the case—that I could get you out of this hole better as Wade's lawyer than as your own. Ah, you bet, I was clever enough to see that the first thing."
"I'm sure it was awfully good of you, old man," said Vandover sincerely. "I'm in a lot of trouble nowadays!"
"Well, now don't you bother, Van," answered Geary consolingly. "I guess we can pull you out of this all right." He drew up to the table, looking about from side to side. "Got any writing paper concealed about the premises?" he asked. Vandover pushed him over his writing pad, and Geary, taking the cap from his fountain pen, began asking a series of questions, taking down his answers in shorthand. After he had asked him as to his age, length of residence in the city, his property, and some few other technical matters, he leaned back in his chair and said:
"Now, let's hear your side of the story, Van. I don't suppose you like to go over the thing again, but you see I ought to know." Vandover told of the affair, Geary making notes as he went along. It was nearly noon before their interview was at an end. Then Geary gathered up the papers and reached for his hat and stick, saying:
"Well, now, that's all we can do to-day. I think I'll be up to see you again day after to-morrow, in the afternoon. Beale Jr. and I have a date with Mr. Wade again to-morrow, I think, and I can talk to you more definitely after that. You know this is the devil of a thing to do," he suddenly exclaimed apprehensively, "this playing back and forth between the two parties like this; regularly dishonourable, don't you know?"
"If you think it's dishonourable," said Vandover as he accompanied Geary to the door, "if you think it's dishonourable, Charlie, why, don't do it! I don't want to ask you to do anything dishonourable for me."
"Oh, that's all right," replied Geary uneasily; "I had just as soon do it for you, only listen to this: don't you say a word about the case to anybody, not to your lawyer, nor to anybody. If Field should write to you, you tell him you have counsel already. And, look here! you may have the reporters up here pretty soon, and don't you open your face to them; you mind that; don't you let them get a thing out of you. And there's another thing you must understand: I'm not your lawyer, of course; you see that. I could be disbarred if I was lawyer for both sides. It's like this, you see: I'm Wade's lawyer—at least the firm I am with are his lawyers—and of course I'm acting in Wade's interest. But you're an old chum of mine, and if I can I'm going to try and make it easier for you. You understand, don't you?"
"Yes, I understand, Charlie," answered Vandover, "and you are just a brick."
Vandover passed the rest of the day in his sitting-room, the suspense of the situation slowly screwing his nerves tenser and tenser. He walked for hours back and forth, his hands clasped behind his back, his head bent down, his forehead drawn into a frown of anxiety and exasperation, or he stood for a long time at the window looking out into the street with eyes that saw nothing. At supper that night he found that his appetite had left him; the very thought of food revolted him. He returned to his room between seven and eight o'clock, his body and mind completely fagged, feeling a crying need of some diversion, some escape from the thoughts that had been hounding him all day.
He made up his mind to read a little before going to bed, and all at once remembered a book that he had once begun a long time ago but had never finished: the story of two men who had bought a wrecked opium ship for fifty thousand dollars and had afterward discovered that she contained only a few tins of the drug. He had never read on to find how that story turned out. Suddenly he found himself repeating, "Twenty-five thousand dollars, twenty-five thousand dollars—where will I find twenty-five thousand dollars?" He wondered if he would go to jail if he failed to pay. His interest in the book was gone in a moment, and he took up another of his favourite novels, the story of a boy at the time of Christ, a Jewish boy unjustly condemned to the galleys, liberated afterward, and devoting his life to the overthrow of his enemy, whom at last he overcame and humbled, fouling him in a chariot race, all but killing him.
He sat down in the huge leather chair, and, drawing it up to the piano lamp and cocking his feet upon the table, began to read. In a few moments the same numbness stole into his head like a rising fog, a queer, tense feeling, growing at the back of his forehead and at the base of his skull, a dulness, a strange stupefying sensation as of some torpid, murky atmosphere. He looked about him quickly; all the objects in the range of his vision—the corner of the desk, the corduroy couch, the low bookcase with Flossie's yellow slipper and Barye's lioness upon it—seemed to move back and stand upon the same plane; the objects themselves appeared immovable enough, but the sensation of them in his brain somewhere behind his eyes began to move about in a slow, dizzy whirl. The old touch of unreasoning terror came back, together with a sudden terror of the spirit, a sickening sinking of the heart, a loathing of life, terrible beyond words.
Vandover started up, striving to keep himself in hand, fighting against a wild desire to rush about from wall to wall, shrieking and waving his arms. Over and over again he exclaimed, "Oh, what is the matter with me?" The strangeness of the thing was what unsettled and unnerved him. He had all the sensations of terror, but without any assignable reason, and this groundless fear became in the end the cause of a new fear: he was afraid of this fear that was afraid of nothing.
Very gradually, however, the crisis passed away. He became a little calmer, and as he was mixing himself a glass of whisky and water at the sideboard he decided that he would go to bed. He was sure that he would be better for a good night's rest; evidently his nerves were out of order; it would not do for him to read late at night. He realized all at once that his mind and body alike were exhausted.
He passed a miserable night, dozing and waking at alternate hours until three o'clock, when he found it impossible to get to sleep; hour after hour he lay flat on his back staring open-eyed into the darkness, listening to the ticking of the clock, the mysterious footsteps that creaked the floors overhead, and the persistent drip of a water faucet. Outside in the street he heard at long intervals the rattling of wheels as the early milk wagons came and went; a dog began to bark, three gruff notes repeated monotonously at exact intervals; all at once there was a long muffled roll and an abrupt clacking noise; it ceased, then broke out again sharply, paused once more, then recommenced, settling to a prolonged minor hum; the cable was starting up; it was almost morning, the window of his room began to show a brighter blur in the darkness, while very far off he could hear the steady puffing of a locomotive. As the first cable-car trundled by the house he dropped off to sleep for the last time, being waked again toward nine o'clock by the sound of some one shovelling coal outside under his window, the shovel clinking and rasping upon the stone sidewalk.
He felt a little refreshed, but as he entered the dining-room for his late breakfast the smell of food repulsed him; his appetite was gone; it was impossible for him to eat. Toward eleven o'clock that same morning he was pottering idly about his sitting-room, winding his clock and shaking down the ashes in the tiled flamboyant stove; his mind was still busy going over for the hundredth time all the possibilities of Hiram Wade's suit, and he was just wondering whether something in the way of a compromise might not be arranged, when with the suddenness of a blow between the eyes the numbness in his head returned, together with the same unreasoning fear, the same depression of spirits, the same fearful sinking of the heart. What! it was coming back again, this strange attack, coming back even when his attention was not concentrated, even when there was no unusual exertion of his brain!
Then the torment began. This time the crisis did not pass off; from now on it persisted continually. Vandover began to feel strange. At first the room looked unfamiliar to him, then his own daily life no longer seemed recognizable, and, finally, all of a sudden, it was the whole world, all the existing order of things, that appeared to draw off like a refluent tide, leaving him alone, abandoned, cast upon some fearful, mysterious shore.
Nothing seemed worth while; all the thousand little trivial things that made up the course of his life and in which he found diversion and amusement palled upon him. A fearful melancholia settled over him, a despair, an abhorrence of living that could not be uttered. This only was during the day. It was that night that Vandover went down into the pit.
He went to bed early, his brain in a whirl, his frame worn out as if from long physical exertion. He was just dropping into a grateful sleep when his whole body twitched suddenly with a shock and a recoil of all his nerves; in an instant he was broad awake, panting and exhausted as if from a long run. Once more he settled himself upon the pillow, and once more the same leap, the same sharp spasm of his nerves caught him back to consciousness with the suddenness of a relaxed spring. At last sleep was out of the question; his drowsiness of the early part of the evening passed away, and he lay back, his hands clasped behind his head, staring up into the darkness, his thoughts galloping incessantly through his brain, suffering without pain as he had never imagined a human being could suffer though racked with torture from head to heel.
From time to time a slow torsion and crisping of all his nerves, beginning at his ankles, spread to every corner of his body till he had to shut his fists and teeth against the blind impulse to leap from his bed screaming. His hands felt light and, as he told himself, "jumpy." All at once he felt a peculiar sensation in them: they seemed to swell, the fingers puffing to an enormous size, the palms bulging, the whole member from the wrist to the nails distended like a glove when one has blown into it to straighten it out. Then he had a feeling that his head was swelling in the same way. He had to rub his hands together, to pass them again and again over his face to rid himself of the fancy.
But the strange numb feeling at the base of the skull did not keep him from thinking—he would have been glad if it had—and now at last when the terror overcame him it was no longer causeless; he knew now what he feared—he feared that he was going mad.
It was the punishment that he had brought upon himself, some fearful nervous disease, the result of his long indulgence of vice, his vile submission to the brute that was to destroy his reason; some collapse of all his faculties, beginning first with that which was highest, most sensitive—his art—spreading onward and downward till he should have reached the last stages of idiocy. It was Nature inexorably exacting. It was the vast fearful engine riding him down beneath its myriad spinning wheels, remorselessly, irresistibly.
The dreadful calamities that he had brought upon himself recoiled upon his head, crushing him to the dust with their weight of anguish and remorse: Ida Wade's suicide, his father's death, his social banishment, the loss of his art, Hiram Wade's lawsuit menacing him with beggary, and now this last, this approaching insanity. It was no longer fire driving out fire; the sense of all these disasters seemed to come back upon him at once, as keen, as bitter as when they had first befallen. He had told himself that he did not believe in a hell. Could there be a worse hell than this?
But all at once, without knowing why, moved by an impulse, a blind, resistless instinct, Vandover started up in bed, raising his clasped hands above him, crying out, "Oh, help me! Why don't you help me? You can if you only will!" Who was it to whom he had cried with such unerring intuition? He gave no name to this mysterious "You," this strange supernatural being, this mighty superhuman power. It was the cry of a soul in torment that does not stop to reason, the wild last hope that feels its own helplessness, that responds to an intuition of a force outside of itself—the force that can save it in its time of peril.
Trembling, his hands still clasped above him, Vandover waited for an answer, waited for the miracle. In the tortured exalted state of his nerves he seemed suddenly possessed of a sixth sense; he fancied that he would know, there in that room, in a few seconds, while yet his hands remained clasped above his head. It was his last hope: if this failed him there was nothing left. Still he waited; he felt that he should know when the miracle came, that he would suddenly be filled with a sense of peace, of quiet joy. Still he waited—there was nothing, nothing but the vast silence, the unbroken blackness of the night, a night that was to last forever. There was no answer, nothing but the deaf silence, the blind darkness. But in a moment he felt that the very silence, the very lack of answer, was answer in itself; there was nothing for him. Even that vast mysterious power to which he had cried could not help him now, could not help him, could not stay the inexorable law of nature, could not reverse that vast terrible engine with its myriad spinning wheels that was riding him down relentlessly, grinding him into the dust. And afterward? After the engine had done its work, when that strange other time should come, that other life, what then? No, not even then, nothing but outer darkness then and the gnashing of teeth, nothing but the deaf silence, nothing but the blind darkness, nothing but the unbroken blackness of an eternal night.
It was the end of everything! With a muffled cry, "Oh, I can't stand this!" Vandover threw himself from his bed, groping his way out into the sitting-room. By this time he was only conscious of a suffering too great to be borne, everything else was blurred as in a thick mist. For nearly an hour he stumbled about in the darkened room, bruising himself against the furniture, dazed, numb, trying in vain to find the drawer of the desk where he kept his father's revolver. At last his hand closed upon it, gripping it so tightly that the hundreds of little nicks and scratches made by the contact of the tacks and nails which he had hammered with it nipped and bit into his palm like the teeth of tiny mice. A vague feeling of shame overcame him at the last moment: he had no wish to be found sprawling upon the floor, dressed only in his night-gown. He lit the gas and put on his bathrobe, drawing the cords securely about his waist and neck.
When he turned about to pick up the revolver again he found that his determination had weakened considerably, and he was obliged to reflect again upon the wreck of his life and soul before he was back once more to the proper pitch of resolution. It was five minutes to two, and he made up his mind to kill himself when the clock struck the hour. He spent the intervening moments in arranging the details of the matter. At first he thought he would do it standing, but he abandoned that idea, fearing to strike his head against the furniture as he fell. He was about to decide upon the huge leather chair, when the remembrance of his father's death made that impossible. He finally concluded to sit upon the edge of his bed, leaning a little backward so as not to fall upon the floor, and he dragged the bed out into the sitting-room, preferring somehow to die there. For a moment the idea of lying at length upon the bed occurred to him, but in an instant he recoiled from it, horrified at the thought of the death that struck from above; no, it would be best to sit upon the edge of the bed, falling backward with the shot. Then he wondered as to which it should be, his heart or his head; evidently the head was the better; there upon the right side in the little hollow of the temple, and the next moment he found himself curiously touching and pressing the spot with his fingers. All at once he heard the little clicking noise that the clock makes a minute or so before the hour. It was almost two; he sat down upon the edge of the bed, cocking the revolver, waiting for the clock to strike. An idea came to him, and he looked at the calendar that stood at the right of the clock upon the top of the low bookcase. It was the twelfth of April, Thursday; that, then, was to be the date of his death—Thursday, April twelfth, at two in the morning, so it would read upon his gravestone. For an instant the awfulness of the thing he was to do came upon him, and the next instant he found himself wondering if they still coursed jack-rabbits with greyhounds down at Coronado the way they used to do when he was there. All at once the clock struck two, and at the very last instant a strange impulse to seat himself before the mirror came upon him. He drew up a chair before it, watching his reflection intently, but even as he raised the revolver he suddenly changed his purpose without knowing why, and all at once crammed the muzzle into his mouth. He drew the trigger.