Roderick Hudson (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907)/Chapter 15
XV
About a month later Rowland addressed to his cousin Cecilia a letter of which the following is a portion.
". . . So much for myself; yet I tell you but a tithe of my own story unless I let you know how matters stand with poor Hudson, for he gives me more to think about just now than anything else in the world. I need a good deal of courage to begin this chapter. You warned me, you know, and I made rather light of your warning. I 've had all kinds of hopes and fears, but hitherto, in writing to you, I 've resolutely put the hopes foremost. Now, however, my pride has forsaken me, and I should like hugely to give expression to a little comfortable despair. I should like to say, 'My dear wise cousin, you were right and I was wrong; you were a shrewd observer and I was a meddlesome donkey!' When I think of a certain talk we had about the 'salubrity of genius' I feel my ears tingle. If what I 've seen is salubrity give me raging disease. I 'm pestered past bearing; I go about with a chronic heartache; there are moments when I could shed salt tears. There 's a pretty portrait of your dear dull kinsman. I wish I could make you understand; or rather I wish you could make me. I don't understand a jot; it 's a hideous, mocking mystery; I give it up. I don't in the least give it up, you know; I 'm incapable of giving it up. I sit holding my head by the hour, racking my brain, wondering what to invent. You told me at Northampton that I took the thing too lightly; you 'd tell me now perhaps that I take it too hard. I do, altogether; but it can't be helped. Without flattering myself I may say that I 'm cursed with sympathy—I mean as an active faculty, the last of fond follies, the last of my own. Wiser men, before this, would have cast their worries to the winds and settled that the bel enfant of my adoption must lie on his bed as he has made it. Some people perhaps would even say I 'm making my ado about nothing, that I 'm crying out before I 'm hurt, or at least before he is; and that in short I 've only to give him rope and he 'll tire himself out. He tugs at his rope, however, much too hard for me to hold it comfortably. I certainly never pretended the thing was anything but an experiment; I promised nothing, I answered for nothing; I only said that the case was hopeful and it would be a shame not to give him a chance. I 've done my best, and if the machine 's running down I 've a right to stand aside and let it rattle. Amen, amen! No, I can write that, but I can't feel it. I can't be just; I can only be insanely romantic. I 'm too abjectly fond of the hapless youth; I can never give him up. As for understanding him, that 's another matter; nowadays I don't believe even you would. One's intelligence sometimes really ceases to serve one over here, and I 'm in the way of seeing more than one quaint specimen of human nature. Roderick and Miss Light, between them! . . . Have n't I already told you about Miss Light? Last winter everything was perfection. Roderick struck out bravely, did really great things—proved himself, as I supposed, sound all through. He was strong, he was first-rate; I felt perfectly secure, and paid myself the most fulsome compliments. We had passed at a bound into the open sea and left danger behind. But in the summer I began to be uneasy, though I succeeded in keeping down alarm. When he came back to Rome, however, I saw that the tide had turned and that we were close upon the rocks. It 's in fact another case of Ulysses and the Sirens; only Roderick refuses to be tied to the mast. He 's the most extraordinary being, the strangest mixture of the clear and the obscure. I don't understand so much power—because it is power—going with so much weakness, such a brilliant gift being subject to such lapses. The poor fellow is n't made right, and it 's really not his fault; Nature has given him his faculty out of hand and bidden him be hanged with it. It 's as if she had shied her great gold brick at him and cried 'Look out for your head!' I never knew a creature harder to advise or assist when he 's not in the mood for listening. I suppose there 's some key or other to his tangle, but I try in vain to find it; and yet I can't believe our stars so cruel as simply to have turned the lock and thrown the key away. He makes a notorious fool of me, and if he tires out my temper he does n't my attention. Sometimes I think he has n't a grain of conscience and sometimes I find him all too morbidly scrupulous. He takes things at once too easy and too hard—it depends on what they are—and has found means to be both loose and rigid, indifferent and passionate. He has developed faster even than you prophesied, and for good and evil alike he takes up a formidable space. There 's too much of him for me, at any rate. Yes, he is hard; there's no mistake about that. He's inflexible, he 's brittle; and though he has plenty of spirit, plenty of soul, he has n't what I call a heart. He has something that Miss Garland took for one, and I suppose her a judge. But she judged on scanty evidence. He has something that Christina Light, here, makes believe at times that she takes for one, but she 's no judge at all. I think it established that in the long run egotism (in too big a dose) makes a failure in conduct: is it also true that it makes a failure in the arts?... Roderick's standard is immensely high; I must do him that justice. He 'll do nothing beneath it, and while he 's waiting for the vision to descend his imagination, his nerves, his senses must have something: to amuse them. This is my elegant way of breaking it to you that he has taken to riotous living and has just been spending a month at Naples—a city where amusement is actively cultivated—in very bad company. Are they all like that, all the men of genius? There are a great many artists here who hammer away at their trade with exemplary diligence; in fact I 'm surprised at their success in reducing the matter to a virtuous habit; but I really don't think that one of them has his exquisite quality of talent. The talent's there, it 's the application that has broken down. Nothing comes out of the bottle; he turns it upside down; it refuses to flow. Sometimes he declares it 's empty — that he has done all he was made to do. This I consider great nonsense; but I would nevertheless take him on his own terms if it were only I that am concerned. But I keep thinking of those two praying, trusting neighbours of yours, and I feel like a bad bungler when I don't feel like a swindler. If his working mood came at its intervals, fixed ones, I 'd willingly wait for it and keep him on his legs somehow or other between; but that would be a sorry account to present to them! A few years of this sort of thing, moreover, would effectually settle the question. I wish, heaven forgive me, that he were less of a genius and more of a charlatan. He 's too confoundedly all of one piece; he won't throw overboard a grain of the cargo to save the rest. Fancy him thus with all his brilliant personal charm, his handsome head, his careless step, his look as of a nervous nineteenth-century Apollo, and you 'll understand that there 's mighty little comfort in seeing him spoil on the tree. He was extremely perverse last summer at Baden-Baden, but he finally pulled together and for some time was steady. Then he began to knock about again and at last toppled over. Now, literally, he 's lying prone. He came into my room last night miserably the worse for liquor. I assure you it did n't amuse me. . . . About Miss Light it 's a long story. She 's one of the great beauties of all time and worth coming barefoot to Rome, like the pilgrims of old, to see. Her complexion, her eyes, her step, the planting and the mass of her dusky tresses, may have been seen before in a goddess on a cloud or a nymph on a Greek gem, but never in a mere modern girl. And you may take this for truth, because I 'm not in love with her. On the contrary I sometimes quite detest her. Her education has been simply infernal. She is corrupt, perverse, as proud as a potentate, and a coquette of the first magnitude; but she 's intelligent and bold and free, and so awfully on the lookout for sensations that if you set rightly to work you may enlist her imagination in a good cause as well as in a bad. The other day I tried to bring it over to my side. I happened to have some talk with her to which it was possible to give a serious turn, and I boldly broke ground and begged her to suffer my poor friend to go in peace. After leading me rather a dance—in conversation—she consented, and the next day, with a single word, she packed him off to Naples to drown his humiliation in poisonous waters. I 've come to the conclusion that she 's more dangerous in her virtuous moods than in her vicious, and that she probably has a way of turning her back which is the most maddening thing in the world. She 's an actress, she could n't forego doing it with a flourish, and it was just the flourish that made it work wrong. I wished her of course to let him down easy; but she must have the curtain drop on an attitude, and her attitudes don't in the least do for inflammable natures. . . . Roderick made an admirable bust of her at the beginning of the winter, and a dozen women came rushing to him to be done, mutatis mutandis, in the same style. They were all great ladies and ready to take him by the hand, but he told them all their faces did n't interest him pour deux sous and sent them away vowing his destruction."
At this stage of his long burst of confidence Rowland had paused and put by his letter. He kept it three days and then read it over. He was disposed thereupon to destroy it, but he decided finally to keep it, in the hope that it might strike a spark of useful suggestion from the flint of Cecilia's good sense. We know he had a talent for taking advice. And then it might be, he reflected, that his cousin's answer would throw some light on Mary Garland's present vision of things. In his altered mood he added a few lines.
"I unburdened myself the other day of this monstrous load of anxiety; I think it did me good, and I now let it stand. I was in a melancholy muddle and was trying to lash myself out of it. You know I like discussion in a quiet way, and there 's no one with whom I can have it as quietly as with you, most abysmal of cousins. There 's a sharp old lady here with whom I often confer and who talks very much to the point. But Madame Grandoni has disliked Roderick from the first, and if I were to take her advice I would wash my hands of him. You would laugh at me for my long face, but you would do that in any circumstances. I 'm half ashamed of my letter, for I 've a faith in our friend that 's deeper than my doubts. He was here last evening, talking about the Naples Museum, the Aristides, the bronzes, the Pompeian frescoes, with such a beautiful intelligence that doubt of the ultimate future seemed blasphemy. I walked back to his lodging with him, and he was as mild as midsummer moonlight. He has that ineffable something that charms and convinces; my last word about him shall not be a harsh one."
Shortly after sending his letter, going one day into his friend's studio, he found Roderick suffering the honourable torture of a visit from Mr. Leavenworth. The young man submitted with extreme ill grace to being bored, and he was now evidently in a state of high exasperation. He had lately begun a representation of a lazzarone lounging in the sun; an image of serene, irresponsible, sensuous life. The real lazzarone, he had admitted, was a vile fellow; but the ideal lazzarone—and his own had been subtly idealised—was the flower of a perfect civilisation. Mr. Leavenworth had apparently just transferred his spacious gaze to the figure. "Something in the style of the Dying Gladiator?" he sympathetically observed.
"Oh no," said Roderick, seriously, "he's not dying, he 's only drunk."
"Ah, but intoxication, you know," Mr. Leavenworth rejoined, "is not a proper subject for sculpture. Sculpture should n't deal with transitory attitudes."
"Lying dead drunk 's not a transitory attitude. Nothing 's more permanent, more sculpturesque, more monumental."
"An entertaining paradox," said Mr. Leavenworth, "if we had time to exercise our wits upon it. I remember at Florence an intoxicated figure by Michael Angelo which seemed to me a deplorable aberration of a great mind. I myself touch liquor in no shape whatever. I have travelled through Europe on cold water. The most varied and attractive lists of wines are offered me, but I brush them aside. No cork has ever been drawn at my command."
"The movement of drawing a cork calls into play a very pretty set of muscles," said Roderick. "Jolly to make a figure in that position."
"A Bacchus realistically treated? My dear young friend, never trifle with your lofty mission. Spotless marble seems to me false to itself when it represents anything less than Conscious Temperance—'the golden mean' in all things." And while Mr. Leavenworth threw back his head, squared his shoulders and heaved his torso, as if to exorcise the spirit of levity, his attention broke again like a slow wave, this time on a marble replica of the bust of Christina.
"An ideal head, I presume," he went on; "a fanciful representation of one of the pagan goddesses—a Diana, a Flora, a naiad, a dryad? I often regret that our American artists should not boldly break with those artificial appellations."
"She's neither a naiad nor a dryad," said Roderick, "and her appellation 's as good as yours or mine."
"You call her—?" Mr. Leavenworth blandly enquired.
"Christina Light," Rowland interposed in charity.
"Ah, our great American beauty? Not a pagan goddess—an American Christian maiden. Yes, I 've had the pleasure of conversing with Miss Light. Her conversational powers are not quite what one might have expected, but her beauty 's of a high order. I observed her the other evening at a large party where some of the proudest members of the European aristocracy were present—duchesses, princesses, countesses and others distinguished by similar titles. But for beauty, grace and elegance our young countrywoman left them all nowhere. What woman can compare with a refined and cultivated American lady? The duchesses the other night had no attractions for my eyes; they looked coarse and bold and sensual. It seemed to me that the tyranny of class distinctions must indeed be terrible when such countenances could inspire admiration. You see more beautiful girls in an hour on Broadway than in the whole tour of Europe. Miss Light now, on Broadway, would excite no particular remark."
"Oh, damn Broadway!" Roderick murmured.
Mr. Leavenworth stared as if this were unpatriotic; then he resumed almost severely: "I suppose you 've heard the news about our lovely compatriot."
"What news?" Roderick had stood with his back turned, fiercely poking at his lazzarone; but at Mr. Leavenworth's last words he faced quickly about.
"It 's the news of the hour, I believe. Miss Light is admired by the highest people here. They tacitly recognise her superiority. She has had offers of marriage from very prominent people—as such people go in this part of the world. I was extremely glad to hear it and to learn that they had mostly been left sighing. She has not been dazzled by their titles and pedigrees and pretensions, by their gilded coronets. She has judged them simply as real men, and by that measure has found them wanting. One of them, however, a young Neapolitan prince, I believe, has, after a long probation, succeeded in making himself acceptable. Miss Light has at last smiled upon him and the engagement has just been announced. I 'm not generally a retailer of the gossip of the passing hour, but the fact was alluded to an hour ago by a lady to whom I had been presented, and subjects of interest seem scarcely numerous enough, in Europe, to dispense with the aid of these conversational futilities. I therefore suffered myself to be—as I may say—impressed. Yes, I regret that Miss Light should ally herself with a purely conventional character. Americans should stand by each other. If she wanted a brilliant match we could have organised it for her. If she wanted a fine bright fellow—a specimen of clean comfortable white humanity—I would have undertaken to find him for her without going out of my native State. And if she wanted a big fortune I would have found her twenty that she would have had hard work to make an impression on; money right there in convertible securities—not tied up in fever-stricken lands and worm-eaten villas. What 's the name of the young man? Prince Cantimasher or some such thing!" It was well for Mr. Leavenworth that he was fond of listening to his own correct periods; for the current of his eloquence floated him past the short, sharp, startled cry with which Roderick greeted his anecdote. The young man stood looking at him with parted lips and an excited eye. "The position of woman," he imperturbably resumed, "is certainly a very degraded one in these countries. I doubt if a European princess commands the true respect which in our country is exhibited to the obscurest females. The civilisation of a country should be measured by the deference shown to the weaker sex. Judged by that standard, where are they over here?"
Though Mr. Leavenworth had not observed Roderick's emotion it was not lost upon Rowland, who was making sundry uncomfortable reflexions upon it. He saw that it had instantly become one with the acute irritation produced by the poor gentleman's large inevitable oratory, and that an explosion of some sort was imminent. Mr. Leavenworth, with calm unconsciousness, proceeded to fire the mine.
"And now, please, for my Creation!" he said with the same grandiloquence, demanding by a gesture the discovery of the muffled mass that, standing somewhat apart, had represented for some time past the young sculptor's partial response to his encouraging order.
Roderick stood looking at him a moment with concentrated rancour and then strode to the indicated object and twitched off the sheet. Mr. Leavenworth settled himself into his chair with an air of flattered proprietorship and scanned the unfinished image. "I can conscientiously express myself as gratified with the general conception," he said. "The figure has considerable majesty and the countenance wears a fine open expression. The cerebral development, however, strikes me as not sufficiently emphasised. Our subject being, as we called it—did n't we?—Intellectual Refinement, there should be no mistaking the intellect, symbolised (would n't it be?) by an unmistakeably thoughtful brow. The eye should instinctively seek the frontal indications. Could n't you strengthen them a little?"
Roderick, for all answer, tossed the sheet back over the statue. "Oblige me, sir," he said, "I beg you to oblige me. Never mention that thing again."
"Never mention it? Why, my dear sir!—"
"Never mention it. It 's a base fraud."
"Base? My grand conception?"
"Yours indeed!" cried Roderick. "It's none of mine. I disown it."
"Disown it if you please," said Mr. Leavenworth, now sternly enough, "but finish it first!"
"I would much rather smash it!" Roderick returned.
"This is petulant folly, sir. You must keep your engagements."
"I made no engagement. A sculptor is n't a tailor, and I did n't measure you for a pair of trousers. Did you ever hear of inspiration? Mine's dead! And it 's no laughing matter. You yourself killed it."
"I—I—killed your inspiration?" cried Mr. Leavenworth with the accent of righteous wrath. "You're a very ungrateful young man! My desire has been that you should feel yourself encouraged and so far as possible inspired."
"I appreciate your kindness, and I don't wish to be uncivil. But your interest is somehow fatal to me. I object to your interest. I can't work for you."
"I call this gross ill-humour, my good sir!" said Mr. Leavenworth, as if he had found the damning word.
"Oh, I 'm in a perfectly infernal humour!" Roderick now quite cheerfully answered.
"Pray, sir, is it produced by my inopportune allusion to Miss Light's marriage?"
"It 's produced by your inopportune everything. I don't say that to offend you; I beg your pardon if it does. I say it by way of making our rupture complete and irretrievable."
Rowland had stood by in silence, but he now interfered. "Listen to me well," he said, laying his hand on Roderick's arm. "You're standing on the edge of a very deep sea. If you suffer this accident to put you out, you take your plunge. It 's no matter at all that you don't like your work; it's no matter at all—if he 'll magnanimously allow me to say so—that you don't even like Mr. Leavenworth: to whom it certainly is n't any matter either! You 'll do the wisest thing you ever did if you muster the resolution not to chuck up a commission so definitely accepted. Make the effort necessary at least for finishing your job. Then destroy what you 've done, if you like; but finish it first and see. I speak only the truth."
Roderick looked at him with eyes that regret for impossibility made almost tender. "You too?" he simply said.
He felt he might as well attempt to squeeze water from a polished crystal as hope to move him. He turned away and walked into the adjoining room with a sense of sickening helplessness. In a few moments he came back and found that Mr. Leavenworth had departed—he really hoped with due superiority. Roderick was sitting with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. Rowland made one more attempt. "You won't mind me the least little bit?"
"Be so good as not to mind me!"
"There 's one more point: that you should make and keep a resolve not to go back—for the present at least—to Mrs. Light's."
"I shall go back this evening."
"That too is fatal folly."
"Well," Roderick smiled, "when one's a fatalist as well as a fool—!"
"You talk like a slave, not like a free agent."
"Why then do you make me talk?"
Rowland meditated a moment. "Are your fatalism and your folly prepared to lose you the best friend you have?"
Roderick looked up; he still smiled. "I defy them to rid me—!"
His best friend clapped on that gentleman's hat and strode away; in a moment the door sharply closed.