Part 38 (1/2)
”The other cheek,” he answered. ”Which do you mean? He's all cheek, all over himself, and it offers itself, whichever way he turns. Have you seen Thayer lately, Arlt?”
”Yesterday afternoon. He came down to my room to rehea.r.s.e the songs he is to sing, next Sat.u.r.day.”
”What is Sat.u.r.day? You fellows are going ahead at such a rate that I can't keep track of you, unless I have an engagement book for your especial benefit.”
”Bobby!” Sally expostulated. ”Mr. Arlt's suite is to be played, Sat.u.r.day, and Mr. Thayer is to be the soloist for the concert. You oughtn't to have forgotten that, especially when you asked me to go with you.”
”Oh, yes; I do remember now,” Bobby replied serenely. ”I knew I had some duty on hand for Sat.u.r.day, just when I wanted to run up to Englewood for a little golf. What makes you do music in pleasant weather, Arlt? It's mean to keep a fellow in-doors at this season.”
”It is our last appearance,” Arlt answered.
Bobby raised his brows in feigned terror.
”Nothing mortal, I hope.”
”No. We are going abroad, early in June.”
”Just the other fellow's luck! I wish I were a genius, to go frisking about Europe instead of inking my fingers at home.”
Arlt shook his head.
”No frisking for us. We are going to study.”
With characteristic prompt.i.tude, Bobby dragged out his hobby, mounted it and was off at a gallop.
”That's always the way with you musicians! You work till you are tired of it; then you go off and s.h.i.+rk, and call it studying. I used to think you were the elect of the earth. Now I doubt it.”
”Have some more tea, Bobby,” Miss Gannion suggested.
Bobby waved her aside.
”Am I a child, to be diverted with soothing drinks? Never! I must have my cry out, Miss Gannion. You and Sally can be talking about the last fas.h.i.+on in peignoirs, if you wish. I don't know what they are; but I did a scarehead about them for the Sunday fas.h.i.+on page, last week. The woman who generally sees to it had mumps, and I subst.i.tuted. I thought I did it superbly: _Death to Decollete: Peignoirs Popular for Suburban Suppers_. That was the way I did it, and I was sure she would be pleased; but she cut me dead on the stairs, the first day she convalesced enough to be out. Arlt, musicians are second-rate beings, at best.”
”I am sorry. Perhaps you can suggest a remedy,” Arlt replied literally.
”Cast off your leading strings, and work out your own theories to suit yourselves,” Bobby answered unhesitatingly. ”Now look here, I used to think that it was greater to create music than to evolve literature; now I know more, I know it isn't. When a man writes a book, he goes ahead and does it according to the light of nature and the sense that is in him. Sometimes it is good; mostly it isn't, but at least he has done it out of himself and by himself. When you write a symphony, you do it out of yourself, but not by yourself. You do it by the exact rules that somebody else before you has laid down. You can have just so many themes and so many episodes, though it would puzzle the _Concertmeister_ of the heavenly choir to tell where the themes leave off and the episodes begin. You know you have got those rules to hang on to, and they are a great support in seasons of mental famine. Two themes and a subsidiary, and a lot of episodes for padding: that's all you need, and they are bound to come on in just a given order. Can you imagine a novelist sitting down and fitting his work neatly into a box measured off into compartments: one hero, one heroine, one extra, plus episodic sunsets and moonbeams galore? Not much! He makes his rules as he goes along.
Sally, which is greater, to create a gown, or to cut it out by a paper pattern?”
”To cut it out, of course,” Sally answered unexpectedly. ”The patterns never fit, and it is more work to bring them into the shape of any human being than it is to start out with a free hand, in the first place.”
But Miss Gannion challenged her.
”Sally, did you ever make a gown?”
”Never; but that doesn't prevent my having theories,” Sally replied airily.
”And I have had practice. I attempted once, when my years were less and my zeal more, to clothe an orphan with the work of my own hands. I thought I would operate free hand, as you call it, and I wish you could have beheld the result. The orphan's own mother would never have recognized her babe in the midst of the strange, polyangular bundle of cloth. I suspect that the same might be said of a good many novelists, and that a judicious tr.i.m.m.i.n.g of the seams according to some established pattern might improve their work.”
Arlt nodded approvingly.