Linda Condon
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Joseph Hergesheimer >> Linda Condon
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Her clothes, with the entire support of Lorice, were all delicate in
fabric, mostly white with black sashes, and plainly ruffled. She
detested the gray crepe de Chine from which Judith's undergarments
were made and the colored embroidery of Pansy's; while she ignored
scented toilet-waters and extracts. Markue, in finally asking her to
a party at his rooms, said that there she would resemble an Athenian
marble, of the un-painted epoch, in the ballet of Scheherazade.
XIII
"There's nothing special to say about Markue's parties," Judith,
dressing, told Linda. "You will simply have to take what comes your
way. There is always some one serious at them, if you insist, as
usual, on dignity." She stood slim and seductive, like a perverse
pierrot, before the oppressive depths of a black mirror. Linda had
finished her preparations for the evening. There was no departure
from her customary blanched exactness. She studied her reflection
across Judith's shoulder; her intense blue eyes, under the level
blot of her bang, were grave on the delicate pallor of her face.
In the taxi, slipping rapidly down-town, Linda was conscious of a
slight unusual disturbance of her indifference. This had nothing to
do with whether or not she'd be a success; her own social demands
were so small that any considerable recognition of her was
unimportant. Her present feeling came from the fact that to-night,
practically, she was making her first grown-up appearance in the
world, the world from which she must select the materials of her
happiness and success. To-night she would have an opportunity to put
into being all that--no matter how firmly held--until now had been
but convictions.
Her interest was not in whom or what she might meet, but in herself.
Judith, smoking a cigarette in a mist of silver fox, was plainly
excited. "I like Markue awfully," she admitted.
"Does he care for you?" Linda asked.
"That," said Judith, "I can't make out--if he likes me or if it's
just anonymous woman. I wish it were the first, Linda." Her voice
was shadowed; suddenly, in spite of her youth and exhilaration, she
seemed haggard and spent. Linda recognized this in a cold scrutiny.
Privately she decided that the other was a fool--she didn't watch
her complexion at all.
The motor turned west in the low Forties and stopped before a high
narrow stone facade with a massive griffon-guarded door. Judith led
the way directly into the elevator and designated Markue's floor. It
was at the top of the building, where he met them with his
impenetrable courtesy and took them into a bare room evidently
planned for a studio. There were an empty easel, the high blank
dusty expanse of the skylight, and chairs with the somber hats and
coats of men and women's wraps like the glistening shed skins of
brilliant snakes.
They turned through the hall to an interior more remarkable than
anything Linda could have imagined; it seemed to her very high,
without windows and peaked like a tent. Draperies of intricate
Eastern color hung in long folds. There were no chairs, but low
broad divans about the walls, a thick carpet with inlaid stands in
the center laden with boxes of cigarettes, sugared exotic sweets and
smoking incense. It was so dim and full of thick scent, the shut
effect was so complete, that for a moment Linda felt painfully
oppressed; it seemed impossible to breathe in the wavering bluish
atmosphere.
Markue, who had appeared sufficiently familiar outside, now had a
strange portentous air; the gleams of his quick black eyes, the dusky
tone of his cheeks, his impassive grace, startled her. New York was
utterly removed: the taxi that had brought Judith and her, the
swirling traffic of Columbus Circle and smooth undulations of Fifth
Avenue, were lost with a different life. She saw, however, the open
door to another room full of clear light, and her self-possession
rapidly returned. Judith--as she had threatened--at once deserted
her; and Linda found an inconspicuous corner of a divan.
There were, perhaps, twenty people in the two rooms, and each one
engaged her attention. A coffee-colored woman was sitting beyond
her, clad in loose red draperies to which were sewed shining
patterns of what she thought was gold. Markue was introducing
Judith, and the seated figure smiled pleasantly with a flash of
beautiful teeth and the supple gesture of a raised brown palm. That,
Linda decided, was the way she shook hands. Two dark-skinned men,
one in conventional evening dress, were with her; they had small
fine features and hair like carved ebony.
Linda had never before been at an affair with what she was forced to
call colored people; instinctively she was antagonistic and
superior. She turned to a solemn masculine presence with a ruffled
shirt and high black stock; he was talking in a resonant voice and
with dramatic gestures to a woman with a white face and low-drawn
hair. Linda was fascinated by the latter, dressed in a soft clinging
dull garnet. It wasn't her clothes, although they were remarkable,
that held her attention, but the woman's mouth. Apparently, it had
no corners. Like a little band of crimson rubber, or a ring of vivid
flame, it shifted and changed in the oddest shapes. It was an
unhappy mouth, and made her think of pain; but perhaps not so much
that as hunger ... not for food, Linda was certain. What did she
want?
There was a light appealing laugh from another seated on the floor
in a floating black dinner dress with lovely ankles in delicate
Spanish lace stockings; her head was thrown back for the whisper of
a heavy man with ashen hair, a heavenly scarf and half-emptied
glass.
Her bare shoulders, Linda saw, were as white as her own, as white
but more sloping. The other's hair, though, was the loveliest red
possible. The entire woman, relaxed and laughing in the perfumery
and swimming shadows, was irresistible. A man with a huge nose and
blank eyes, his hands disfigured with extraordinary rings, momentarily
engaged her. Then, at the moment when she saw an inviting and
correctly conventional youth, he crossed and sat at her side.
"Quite a show," he said in the manner she had expected and approved.
The glow of his cigarette wavered over firmly cut lips. "We've just
come to New York," he continued. "I don't know any one here but
Markue, do you?" Linda explained her own limitations. "The Victory's
fine and familiar."
She followed his gaze to where a winged statue with flying drapery
was set on a stand. She had seen it before, but without interest.
Now it held her attention. It wasn't a large cast, not over three
feet high, but suddenly Linda thought that it was the biggest thing
in the room; it seemed to expand as she watched it.
Beside the Victory, in a glass case with an enclosed concealed
light, was a statue, greenish gray, a few inches tall, with a
sneering placidity of expression as notable as the sweep of the
other white fragment. "That's Chinese," her companion decided; "it
looks as old as lust." There was the stir of new arrivals--a
towering heavy man with a slight woman in emerald satin. "There's
Pleydon, the sculptor," the youth told her animatedly. "I've seen
him at the exhibitions. It must be Susanna Noda, the Russian singer,
with him. He's a tremendous swell."
XIV
Linda watched Pleydon as he met Markue in the middle of the room. He
was dressed carelessly, improperly for the evening; but she forgave
that as the result of indifference. The informal flannels and soft
collar, too, suited the largeness of his being and gestures. There
was a murmur of meeting, Susanna Noda smiled appealingly; and then,
as Pleydon found a place on a divan, she at once contentedly sat on
his lap. Watching her, Linda thought of a brilliant parrot; but that
was only the effect of her color; for her face, with a tilted nose
and wide golden eyes, generous warm lips, was charming. She lighted
a cigarette, turned her graceful back on the room and company, and
chatted in French to the composed sculptor.
Linda divined that he was the most impressive figure she had
encountered; the quality of his indifference was beautiful and could
only have come in the security of being a "tremendous swell." That
phrase described all for which she had cared most. It included
everything that her mother had indicated as desirable and a lot that
she, Linda, had added. Money, certainly, was an absolute necessity;
but there were other things now that vaguely she desired. She tried
to decide what they were.
Only the old inner confusion resulted, the emotion that might have
been born in music; however, it was sharper than usual, and bred a
new dissatisfaction with the easier accomplishments. Really it was
very disturbing, for the pressure of her entire experience, all she
had been told, could be exactly weighed and held. The term luxury,
too, was revealing; it covered everything--except her present
unformed longing.
There were still newcomers, and Linda was aware of a sudden constraint.
A woman volubly French had appeared with a long pinkish-white dog in
a blanket, and the three Arabians--she had learned that much--had
risen with a concerted expression of surprise and displeasure. Their
anxiety, though, was no more dramatic than that of the dog's proprietor.
The gesture of her hands and lifted eyebrows were keenly expressive of
her impatience with any one who couldn't accept, with her, her dog.
"Markue ought to have it out," some one murmured. "Dogs, to high
caste Mohammedans, are unclean animals." Another added, "Worse than
that, if it should touch them, they would have to make the
pilgrimage to Mecca."
Without any knowledge of the situation of Mecca, Linda yet realized
that it must be a very long journey to result from the mere touch of
a dog. She didn't wonder at the restrained excitement of the
"colored" people. The situation was reduced to a sub-acid argument
between the Frenchwoman and the Begum; Madame couldn't exist without
her "_p'tit_." The Oriental lady could not breathe a common air
with the beast. The former managed a qualified triumph--the
"_p'tit_" was caged with a chair in a corner, and the episode,
for the moment, dropped.
Soon, however, Linda saw that the dog had wriggled out of captivity.
It made a cautious progress to where the candy stood on a low stand
and ran an appreciative tongue over the exposed sweet surfaces.
Rapidly a sugared fig was snapped up. Linda held her breath; no one
had noticed the animal yet--perhaps it would reach one of the
objectors and she would have the thrill of witnessing the departure
for Mecca.
But, as always, nothing so romantic occurred; the dog was
discovered, and the Mohammedans, with a hurried politeness, made
their salaams. Instead, a man with a quizzical scrutiny through
glasses that made him resemble an owl, stopped before her.
"'Here we go 'round the mulberry-bush,'" he chanted. "Hello, Kate
Greenaway. Have you had a drink?"
"Yes, thank you," she replied sedately.
"Certified milk?"
"It was something with gin," she particularized, "and too sweet." He
took the place beside her and solemnly recited a great many nursery
rhymes. On the whole she liked him, deciding that he was very
wicked. Soon he was holding her hand in both of his. "I know you're
not real," he proceeded. "Verlaine wrote you--_'Les Ingenus':_
"'From which the sudden gleam of whiteness shed
Met in our eyes a frolic welcoming.'
"What if I'd kiss you?"
"Nothing," she returned coldly.
"You're remarkable!" he exclaimed with enthusiasm. "If you are not
already one of the celebrated beauties you're about to be. As cool
as a fish! Look--Pleydon is going to rise and spill little Russia.
Have you heard her sing Scriabine?" Linda ignored him in a sharp
return of her interest in the big carelessly-dressed man. He put
Susanna Noda aside and moved to the dim middle of the room. His
features, Linda saw, were rugged and pronounced; he was very strong.
For a moment he stood gazing at the Winged Victory, his brow
gathered into a frown, while he made a caressing gesture with his
whole hand. Then he swung about and, from the heavy shadows of his
face, he looked down at her. He was still for a disconcerting length
of time, but through which Linda steadily met his interrogation.
Then he bent over and seriously removed the man beside her.
"Adieu, Louis," he said.
The weight of Pleydon's body depressed the entire divan. "An
ordinary man," he told her, "would ask how the devil you got here.
Then he would take you to your home with some carefully chosen words
for whatever parents you had. But I can see that all this is
needless. You are an extremely immaculate person.
"That isn't necessarily admirable," he added.
"I don't believe I am admirable at all," Linda replied.
"How old are you?" he demanded abruptly.
She told him.
"Age doesn't exist for some women, they are eternal," he continued.
"You see, I call you a woman, but you are not, and neither are you a
child. You are Art--Art the deathless," his gaze strayed back to the
Victory.
As she, too, looked at it, it seemed to Linda that the cast filled
all the room with a swirl of great white wings and heroic robes. In
an instant the incense and the dark colors, the uncertain pallid
faces and bare shoulders, were swept away into a space through which
she was dizzily borne. The illusion was so overpowering that
involuntarily she caught at the heavy arm by her.
XV
"Why did you do that?" he asked quickly, with a frowning regard.
Linda replied easily and directly. "It seemed as if it were carrying
me with it," she specified; "on and on and on, without ever
stopping. I felt as if I were up among the stars." She paused,
leaning forward, and gazed at the statue. Even now she was certain
that she saw a slight flutter of its draperies. "It is beautiful,
isn't it? I think it's the first thing I ever noticed like that. You
know what I mean--the first thing that hadn't a real use."
"But it has," he returned. "Do you think it is nothing to be swept
into heaven? I suppose by 'real' you mean oatmeal and scented soap.
Women usually do. But no one, it appears, has any conception of the
practical side of great art. You might try to remember that it is
simply permanence given to beauty. It's like an amber in which
beautiful and fragile things are kept forever in a lovely glow. That
is all, and it is enough.
"When I said that you were Art I didn't mean that you were skilfully
painted and dressed, but that there was a quality in you which
recalled all the charming women who had ever lived to draw men out
of the mud--something, probably, of which you are entirely
unconscious, and certainly beyond your control. You have it in a
remarkable degree. It doesn't belong to husbands but to those who
create 'Homer's children.'
"That's a dark saying of Plato's, and it means that the
_Alcestis_ is greater than any momentary offspring of the
flesh."
Linda admitted seriously, "Of course, I don't understand, yet it
seems quite familiar--"
"Don't, for Heaven's sake, repeat the old cant about reincarnation;"
he interrupted, "and sitting together, smeared with antimony, on a
roof of Babylon."
She hadn't intended to, she assured him. "Tell me about yourself,"
he directed. It was as natural to talk with him as it was, with
others, to keep still. Her frank speech flowed on and on, supported
by the realization of his attention.
"There really isn't much, besides hotels, all different; but you'd
be surprised how alike they were, too. I mean the things to eat, and
the people. I never realized how tired I was of them until mother
married Mr. Moses Feldt. The children were simply dreadful, the
children and the women; the men weren't much better." She said this
in a tone of surprise, and he nodded. "I can see now--I am supposed
to be too old for my age, and it was the hotels. You learn a great
deal."
"Do you like Mr. Moses Feldt?"
"Enormously; he is terribly sweet. I intend to marry a man just like
him. Or, at least, he was the second kind I decided on: the first
only had money, then I chose one with money who was kind, but now I
don't know. It's very funny: kindness makes me impatient. I'm
perfectly sure I'll never care for babies, they are so mussy. I
don't read, and I can't stand being--well, loved.
"Mother went to a great many parties; every one liked her and she
liked every one back; so it was easy for her. I used to long for the
time when I'd wear a lovely cloak and go out in a little shut motor
with a man with pearls; but now that's gone. They want to kiss you
so much. I wish that satisfied me. Why doesn't it? Is there anything
the matter with me, do you think? I've been told that I haven't any
heart."
As he laughed at her she noticed how absurdly small a cigarette
seemed in his broad powerful hand. "What has happened to you is
this," he explained: "a combination of special circumstances has
helped you in every way to be what, individually, you were. As a
rule, children are brought up in a house of lies, like taking a fine
naked body and binding it into hideous rigid clothes. You escaped
the damnation of cheap ready-cut morals and education. Your mother
ought to have a superb monument--the perfect parent. Of course you
haven't a 'heart.' From the standpoint of nature and society you're
as depraved as possible. You are worse than any one else here--than
all of them rolled together."
Curiously, she thought, this didn't disturb her, which proved at
once that he was right. Linda regarded herself with interest as a
supremely reprehensible person, perhaps a vampire. The latter,
though, was a rather stout woman who, dressed in frightful lingerie,
occupied couches with her arms caught about the neck of a man
bending over her. Every detail of this was distasteful.
What was she?
Her attention wandered to the squat Chinese god in the glass case.
It was clear that he hadn't stirred for ages. A difficult thought
partly formed in her mind--the Chinese was the god of this room, of
Markue's party, of the women seated in the dim light on the floor
and the divans; the low gurgle of their laughter, the dusky
whiteness of their shoulders in the upcoiling incense, the smothered
gleams of their hair, with the whispering men, were the world of the
grayish-green image.
She explained this haltingly to Pleydon, who listened with a
flattering interest. "I expect you're laughing at me inside," she
ended impotently. "And the other, the Greek Victory," he added, "is
the goddess of the other world, of the spirit. It's quaint a heathen
woman should be that."
Linda discovered that she liked Pleydon enormously. She continued
daringly that he might be the sort of man she wanted to marry. But
he wouldn't be easy to manage; probably he could not be managed at
all. Her mother had always insisted upon the presence of that
possibility in any candidate for matrimony. And, until now, Linda's
philosophy had been in accord with her. But suddenly she entertained
the idea of losing herself completely in--in love.
A struggle was set up within her: on one hand was everything that
she had been, all her experience, all advice, and her innate
detachment; on the other an obscure delicious thrill. Perhaps this
was what she now wanted. Linda wondered if she could try it--just a
little, let herself go experimentally. She glanced swiftly at
Pleydon, and his bulk, his heavy features, the sullen mouth,
appalled her.
Men usually filled her with an unaccountable shrinking into her
remotest self. Pleydon was different; her liking for him had
destroyed a large part of her reserve; but a surety of instinct told
her that she couldn't experiment there. It was characteristic that a
lesser challenge left her cold. She had better marry as she had
planned.
Susanna Noda came up petulantly and sank in a brilliant graceful
swirl at his feet. Her golden eyes, half shut, studied Linda
intently.
XVI
"I am fatigued," she complained; "you know how weary I get when you
ignore me." He gazed down at her untouched. "I have left Lao-tze for
Greece," he replied. She found this stupid and said so. "Has he been
no more amusing than this?" she asked Linda. "But then, you are a
child, it all intrigues you. You listen with the flattery of your
blue eyes and mouth, both open."
"Don't be rude, Susanna," Pleydon commanded. "You are so feminine
that you are foolish. I'm not the stupid one--look again at our
'child.' Tell me what you see."
"I see Siberia," she said finally. "I see the snow that seems so
pure while it is as blank and cold as death. You are right, Dodge. I
was the dull one. This girl will be immensely loved; perhaps by you.
A calamity, I promise you. Men are pigs," she turned again to Linda;
"no--imbeciles, for only idiots destroy the beauty that is given to
them. They take your reputation with a smile, they take your heart
with iron fingers; your beauty they waste like a drunken Russian
with gold."
"Susanna, like all spendthrifts, is amazed by poverty."
Even in the gloom Linda could see the pallor spreading over the
other's face; she was glad that Susanna Noda spoke in Russian.
However, with a violent effort, she subdued her bitterness. "Go into
your Siberia!" she cried. "I always thought you were capable of the
last folly of marriage. If you do it will spoil everything. You are
not great, you know, not really great, not in the first rank. You've
only the slightest chance of that, too much money. You were never in
the gutter as I was--"
"Chateaubriand," he interrupted, "Dante, Velasquez."
"No, not spiritually!" she cried again. "What do you know of the
inferno! Married, you will get fat." Pleydon turned lightly to
Linda:
"As a supreme favor do not, when I ask you, marry me."
This, for Linda, was horribly embarrassing. However, she gravely
promised. The Russian lighted a cigarette; almost she was serene
again. Linda said, "Fatness is awful, isn't it?"
Pleydon replied, "Death should be the penalty. If women aren't
lovely--" he waved away every other consideration.
"And if men have fingers like carrots--" Susanna mimicked him.
Judith, flushed, her hair loosened, approached. "Linda," she
demanded, "do you remember when we ordered the taxi? Was it two or
three?" Markue, at her shoulder, begged her not to consider home.
"I'm going almost immediately," Pleydon said, "and taking your
Linda." His height and determined manner scattered all objections.
Linda, at the entrance to the apartment, found to her great
surprise--in place of the motor she had expected--a small graceful
single-horse victoria, the driver buttoned into a sealskin rug. Deep
in furs, beside Pleydon, she was remarkably comfortable, and she was
soothed by the rhythmic beat of the hoofs, the even progress through
the crystal night of Fifth Avenue.
Her companion flooded his being with the frozen air. They had, it
seemed, lost all desire to talk. The memory of Markue's party
lingered like the last vanishing odor of his incense; there was a
confused vision of the murmurous room against the lighted exterior
where the drinks sparkled on a table. Linda made up her mind that
she would not go to another. Then she wondered if she'd see Pleydon
again. The Russian singer had been too silly for words.
It suddenly occurred to her that the man now with her had taken
Susanna Noda, and that he had left her planted. He had preferred
driving her, Linda Condon, home. He wasn't very enthusiastic about
it, though; his face was gloomy.
"The truth is," he remarked at last, "that Susanna is right--I am
not in the first rank. But that was all nonsense about the necessity
of the gutter--sentimental lies."
Linda was not interested in this, but it left her free to explore
her own emotions. The night had been eventful because it had shaken
all the foundation of what she intended. That single momentary
delicious thrill had been enough to threaten the entire rest. At the
same time her native contempt of the other women, of Judith with her
tumbled hair, persisted. Was there no other way to capture such
happiness? Was it all hopelessly messy with drinks and unpleasant
familiarity?
What did Pleydon mean by spirit? Surely there must be more kinds of
love than one--he had intimated that. She gathered that "Homer's
children," those airs of Gluck that she liked so well, were works of
art, sculpture, such as he did. Yet she had never thought of them as
important, important as oatmeal or delicate soap. She made up her
mind to ask him about it, when she saw that they had reached the
Eighties; she was almost home.
"I am going away to-morrow," he told her, "for the winter, to South
America. When I come back we'll see each other. If you should change
address send me a line to the Harvard Club." The carriage had
stopped before the great arched entrance to the apartment-house,
towering in its entire block. He got out and lifted her to the
pavement as if she had been no more than a flower in his hands. Then
he walked with her into the darkness of the garden.
The fountains were cased in boards; the hedged borders, the bushes and
grass, were dead. High above them on the dark wall a window was bright.
Linda's heart began to pound loudly, she was trembling ... from the
cold. There was a faint sound in the air--the elevated trains, or
stirring wings? It was nothing, then, to be lifted into heaven. There
was the door to the hall and elevator. She turned, to thank Dodge
Pleydon for all his goodness to her, when he lifted her--was it
toward heaven?--and kissed her mouth.
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