Part 25 (1/2)

Their month is up. I walked down there to-day and saw them. ”The ma.n.u.script is now being read--we are awaiting a second report.”

A second! That made my heart go like mad. ”Does that mean that the first is favorable?” I asked.

”It means that we are interested in it,” the man answered; ”we will let you know shortly.”

Oh this waiting, this waiting!

October 8th.

Ah, G.o.d! I came home from the Park tonight, and I saw something that made my heart go down like lead. It hurt me so that I cried out!

My ma.n.u.script! It was back again!

O Christ! How the sight of it hurt me! There was a letter with it, and my hand shook as I opened it:

”We are returning you the ma.n.u.script of The Captive by messenger herewith, regretting exceedingly that we can not make you a publis.h.i.+ng offer upon it.”

Is not this awful? Oh, it is terrible! It is beyond belief! A whole month gone, and only a note like that to show for it! Four weeks of yearning and hoping--of watching the mail in agony--of struggling and toiling to forget!

And then a note like this!

Oh, it drives me wild! I sat to-night in a chair motionless, forgetting that I was hungry, forgetting everything. I looked to the future; I had a feeling that I do not think I ever had in my life before--a horrible, black, yawning despair--a thing so fearful that it took my breath away.

Suppose you were standing on a bridge over an abyss, and that suddenly it gave way, and in one dreadful instant you realized that you were going down--down like a flash--and that nothing could save you!

So it is to be this, so this is to be my life! I am to send this book to publisher after publisher, and have it come back like this! And meanwhile to spend my time alternating between this room--and the wholesale-paper business!

Yes, I am getting to see the truth! I am a helpless atom, struggling to survive--a glimmering light in the darkness--and I am going out! I am losing--and what shall I do! Who will save me--who will help me?

I was talking to a friend yesterday; he predicted just what happened. ”Make one rule,” he said, ”expect nothing of the world. When you send out a ma.n.u.script, _know_ that it is coming back!--Otherwise you go mad.”

But I should go mad _that_ way. Why, what am I to do? How am I to work unless I can get free? I can not live a single day unless I have that hope.

And if these blind creatures that make money out of books keep on sending my poem back--why, it will kill me--it will turn me into a fool!

October 9th.

I did not go to bed last night until nearly daylight. I was desperate--I was crazy with perplexity. This thing had never occurred to me as the wildest possibility.