Part 1 (2/2)
When I look back now on the shabby, poorly-lighted, low-ceiled room to which he led irls with their white teeth and shi+ny eyes, the unexplainable, unintelligible love of rhyth of a drurateful to hithenedhiayety, his love of color and effect, and feelingwith allit intensely, I realized that I was dealing with a er” than I was in many respects, saner, reallyhis life and desires through fear--which the , vital, unafraid, and he made me so
But, lest I seem to make him low or impossible to those who instinctively cannot accept life beyond the range of their own little routine world, let me hasten to his other aspects He was not low but simple, brilliant and varied in his tastes Aious and otherwise, was si to him, not to be taken seriously He loved to contemplate man at his mysteries, rituals, secret schools He loved better yet ancient history, ular, curious and wonderful e he knew many historians and scientists (their work), alist to me--Maspero, Froude, Huxley, Darwin, Wallace, Rawlinson, Froissart, Hallam, Taine, Avebury! The list of painters, sculptors and architects hose work he was familiar and books about whoiven here His chief interest, in so far as I could y and the study of things natural and prie world
”Dreiser,” he exclai with an ihtest idea of the fascination of sonificance of a scarab in Egyptian religious worshi+p, for instance?”
”A scarab? What's a scarab? I never heard of one,” I answered
”A beetle, of course An Egyptian beetle You knohat a beetle is, don't you? Well, those things burrowed in the earth, the mud of the Nile, at a certain period of their season to lay their eggs, and the next spring, or whenever it was, the eggs would hatch and the beetles would coined that the beetle hadn't died at all, or if it had that it also had the power of restoring itself to life, possessed ian to worshi+p it,” and he would pause and survey lass beads, to see if I were properly impressed
”You don't say!”
”Sure That's where the worshi+p cao on and add a bit about monkey-worshi+p, the Zoroastrians and the Parsees, the sacred bull of Egypt, its sex power as a reason for its religious elevation, and of sex worshi+p in general; the fantastic orgies at Sidon and Tyre, where enorans were carried aloft before the norant of thesereached , I knew that it must be so It fired me with a keen desire to read--not the old orthodox emasculated histories of the schools but those other books and paerly I inquired of him where, how He told me that in some cases they were outlawed, banned or not translated wholly or fully, owing to the puritanisave ht have access, and the address of an old book-dealer or tho could get they and geology, as well as astrono phases at least), and raving, wood-carving, jewel-cutting and designing, and I know not what else, yet there was always room even in his most serious studies for hu to all but an obsession He wanted to laugh, and he found occasion for doing so under the most serious, or at least semi-serious, circumstances Thus I recall that one of the butts of his extrereatest care for points worthy his huenuinely lively mental interests, was aand co soul on the other As a newspaper artist I believe he was only a fairly respectable craftsh he deferred to dick in the h I knew he did not, that dick represented all there was to know in s at this time, the latter was, or pretended to be, i to the Chinese and to know not only soe, which he had studied a little soue nificance of their art and customs He sometimes condescended to take us about with hiarly description, and--as he wished to believe, because of the ro-outs of crooks and thieves and disreputable Tenderloin characters generally (Of such was the beginning of the Chinese restaurant in America) He would introduce us to a few of his Celestial friends, whose acquaintance apparently he had beenfor some time past and hom he was now on the best of terms He had, as Peter pointed out tohi vastly mysterious and superior about the whole Chinese race, that there was soanization known as the Six Companions, which, so far as I couldvery nearly (and secretly, of course) the entire habitable globe For one thing it had soreat constructive ventures of one kind and another in all parts of the world, supplying, as he said, thousands of Chinese laborers to any one who desired the the their throats when they failed to perfor the their reht for that purpose to the country in which they were The Chinese who had worked for the builders of the Union Pacific had been supplied by this coard to all this Peter used to analyze and dispose of dick's self-generated ro the while and yet pretending to accept it all
But there was one phase of all this which interested Peter immensely
Were there on sale in St Louis any bits of jade, silks, needlework, porcelains, basketry or figurines of true Chinese origin? He was far more interested in this than in the social and econoing dick to take hiht see for hi wonders were locally extant, leading dick in the process a 's life dick was compelled to persuade nearly all of his boasted friends to produce all they had to show Once, I recall, a collection of rare Chinese porcelains being shown at the localfor it but that dick et one or more of his Oriental friends to interpret this, that and the other sys which put hi all the local Chinese there was not one who knew anything about it, although they, dick included, were not honest enough to admit it
”You know, Dreiser,” Peter said to lea all this just to torture dick He doesn't know a da about it and neither do these Chinese, but it's fun to haul 'em out there and raph covering all this, you knoith pictures of the genuinely historic pieces and explanations of the various symbols in so far as they are known, but dick doesn't know that, and he's lying awake nights trying to find out what they're all about I like to see his expression and that of those chinks when they exas” He subsided with a low chuckle all thebecause it was so obviously the product of well-grounded knowledge
Another phase of this sarand artistic, social and other fore and which led hierness, into all sorts of exaggerations of dress, , and I know not what else He had, as I have said, a ”studio” in Broadway, an ordinary large, square upper chamber of an old residence turned commercial but which dick had decorated in the most, to hiilding iination it was packed with the rarest and s, odd bits of furniture, objects of art, pictures, books--things which the ordinary antique shop provides in plenty but which to dick, having been reared in Blooton, Illinois, were of the ut a by now composed various rondeaus, triolets, quatrains, sonnets, in addition to a number of short stories over which he had literally slaved and which, being rejected byidly and inconsequentially and seely inconspicuously about his place--the more to astonish the poor unsophisticated ”outsider” Besides it gave hilected, depressed, as becoreat schee to an heiress, one of those very hters of the new rich in the West end, and to this end he was bending all his artistic thought, writing, dressing, drea he wished I h fro from mine purely, there was this difference between us: dick being an artist, rather remote and disdainful in manner and decidedly handsome as well as poetic and better positioned than I, as I fancied, was certain to achieve this gilded and crystal state, whereas I, not being handsome nor an artist nor sufficiently poetic perhaps, could scarcely aspire to so gorgeous a goal Often, as around dinnertime he ambled from the office arrayed in the latest mode--dark blue suit, patent leather boots, a dark, round soft felt hat, loose tie blowing idly about his neck, a thin cane in his hand--I was already almost convinced that the anticipated end was at hand, this very evening perhaps, and that I should never see hiirl, never be perotten friend, and in passing! Even now perhaps he was on his way to her, whereas I, poor oaf that I ashere over soreat day never arrive? my turn? Unkind heaven!
As for Peter he was the sort of person who could swiftly detect, understand and even sympathize with a point of view of this kind the while hea fol-de-rol use of it One day he ca overwith suppressed huht of a delicious trick to play on dick! Oh, Lord!” and he stopped and surveyed me with beady eyes the while his round little body seehter ”It's too rich! Oh, if it just works out dick'll be sore!
Wait'll I tell you,” he went on ”You kno crazy he is about rich young heiresses? You kno he's always 'dressing up' and talking and writing about irls in the West end?” (dick was forever coreat artist was thus being received via love, the story being read to us nights in his studio) ”That's all bluff, that talk of his of visiting in those big houses out there All he does is to dress up every night as though he were going to a ball, and walk out that way and o over to Meret a few sheets of their best et up a letter and sign it with the most romantic name we can think of--Juanita or Cyrene or Doris--and explain who she is, the daughter of aout there, and that she's been strictly brought up but that in spite of all that she's seen his name in the paper at the bottom of his pictures and wants to est that he coate of, say, Portland Place at seven o'clock andand beautiful, and some attractive costume she's to wear, and we'll kill him He'll fall hard Then we'll happen by there at the exact tie him to come into the park with us or to dinner We'll look our worst so he'll be asha on and spoil the date for him, see? We'll insist in the letter that herecognized My God, he'll be crazy! He'll think we've ruined his life--oh, ho, ho!” and he fairly writhed with inward joy
The thing worked It was cruel in its way, but when has rieved over the humorous ills of others? The paper was secured, the letter written by a friend of Peter's in a nearby real estate office, after theon our part Extrereat mansion were all hinted at The fascination of dick as a roreen silk scarf about her waist, for it was spring, the ideal season Seven o'clock was the hour She could give hiave no address!
The letter was mailed in the West end, as was meet and proper, and in due season arrived at the office Peter, working at the next easel, observed him, as he told me, out of the corner of his eye
”You should have seen hi me up about an hour after the letter arrived ”Oh, ho! Say, you know I believe he thinks it's the real thing It seemed to make him a little sick He tried to appear nonchalant, but a little later he got his hat and went out, over to Deck's,” a nearby saloon, ”for a drink, for I followed him
He's all fussed up Wait'll we heave into view that night! I'race him Oh, Lord, he'll be crazy! He'll think we've ruined his life, scared her off There's no address He can't do a thing Oh, ho, ho, ho!”
On the appointed day--and it was a delicious afternoon and evening, aflame with sun and in May--dick left off his work at three pm, as Peter came and told me, and departed, and then ent to make our toilets At six we met, took a car and stepped down notI shall never forget the sweetness of the air, the soht of love, even in this for, as were the birds
But Peter--blessings or curses upon him!--was arrayed as only he could array hi-- out for weeks, than anything else His hair was over his eyes and ears, his face and hands dirty, his shoes ditto He had even blackened one tooth slightly He had on a collarless shi+rt, and yet he was jaunty withal and carried a cane, if you please, assu way, to be totally unconscious of the figure he cut At one angle of his multiplex character the man must have been a born actor
We waited a block away, concealed by a few trees, and at the exact hour dick appeared, hopeful and eager no doubt, and walking and looking almost all that he hoped--delicate, pale, artistic The new straw hat!
The pale green ”artists'” shi+rt! His black, wide-buckled belt! The cane!
The dark-bro shoes! The boutonniere! He was plainly ready for any fate, his greatthat his ad, we descended upon him in all our wretched nonchalance and unworthiness--out of hell, as it were We were most brisk, familiar, affectionate It was so fortunate to ht was so fine We were out for a stroll in the park, to eat afterward He