Anthony The Absolute. Merwin Samuel
wrinkles.
Now that I had the floor, it seemed worth while to make a thorough job of it, so I swept on:
“You make the piano the test of civilization. Greece had a civilization – where were the pianos of Greece? Oh, I am tired of your talk. I have listened to you for twelve long days and nights. I have suspected your accuracy, but I could not be sure, for you luckily avoided my subject. But now I have you! And I know you for a fraud on all subjects! I see confusion in your face. You are groping for something to say about the music of Greece. Very well; I will say it for you. The Greeks had no piano, because they had no harmony. They did not know that harmony was possible. And if they had heard it, they would not have liked it.”
“Ah,” cried Sir Robert, flushing under the parchment of his skin, and (I must say) taking up the gage of battle, “but Greece gave us our diatonic system. The root of our scale, the tetrachord, came to us from the Greeks.”
I laughed him down. The intervals of that Greek tetrachord were not the same as ours. They used intervals that actually can not be written in our notation – three quarter tones, one and a quarter tones. Pythagoras states, ‘The intervals in music are rather to be judged intellectually through numbers than sensibly through the ear.’ For they followed the acoustic laws, like the Chinese! The fragments we have of the worship of Apollo are more nearly like the ancient Confucian hymn than like anything known in modern music. “Tell me, sir, did you know that? And tell me this – does not the quality you call ‘culture’ imply that we should seek sympathetically for the standpoint of other minds? Has it never occurred to you that when Oriental music sounds absurd and out of key to you, it is your own ear that is at fault – that the intervals are too fine and true for your false, piano-trained sense? For such is the fact.”
I was shaking my finger under his nose, so closely that he had to lean back.
“And I will tell you,” I added, standing right over him, “that the Chinese sheng has seventeen pipes, not twelve.”
“Ah,” he broke in, “but the other pipes are mute.”
“Two are mute,” I replied triumphantly. “And two are duplicates of others. The correct number of speaking pipes is fifteen.”
His eyes were kindling now. “See here!” he cried. “Who and what are you?”
“I am a banker!” I shouted – the first thing that came to my tongue. Then I turned and walked straight out on deck. It was precisely the moment for leaving; even the weak-minded could see that their oracle was tripped. Besides, I had to be alone. For I was breaking into a profuse sweat. The drops were running down my forehead into my eyes and clouding my spectacles; I had to take them off and carry them in my hand.
My under lip was quivering so that my teeth chattered. And my heart was palpitating, and skipping beats.
It was wet and wild and dark out there on deck; but in my intense moods I like the rough, elemental thing.
I stood right up to the storm, clinging to the weather-rail. The ship rolled away down, then away up, until I could see only the dim, scurrying clouds. The rain beat into my face. I felt happy, in a way.
A hand came down on my shoulder. I sprang away, and turned. I dislike exceedingly to have any one lay hands on me.
It was the Port Watch. He had put on a long raincoat, and a cap that was pulled low on his forehead. Under it I could see his eyes shining in a nervous, excited way. He certainly is a wild man, if there ever was one. But then I saw that he was grinning at me, and felt relieved.
“You sure did hand it to the old cock,” he said, shouting against the storm. “It was great. I don’t know a dam’ thing about music. But I know when a bluff is called. He’s gone below.”
“Well,” said I, for there was no need of being uncivil to the man, “I got sick of his voice. And then, he was wrong.”
“Any one could see that,” chuckled the Port Watch.
We walked around together to the lee side of the ship, so that he could light a cigar. And while I did not like his taking my arm, still he seems to be a decent fellow enough, after all. We exchanged cards. He is connected with a Stock Exchange house in New York. He is a big, vigorous man, surely not past his middle thirties. I rather envy him his strength, I am so thin and frail myself. He is one of those who know nothing of what we weaker ones go through who have to husband our energies. A rather primitive person, I should say. He occupies one of the high-priced cabins on the promenade-deck, with a private bath. It must be pleasant to travel that way.
When we parted at the after stairway, I said: “I did n’t think I should like you. Shall I tell you why?”
“Yes,” said he.
“Because you drink too much.”
At this he stood still, his hands plunged into the pockets of his raincoat, chewing his under lip. Finally he said, with a break in his voice:
“You’re right there. I am drinking too much. But – God, if you knew!”
Then, without so much as a good night, he plunged off down the passage toward that comfortable room of his, with bath. And I went below to my stuffy cabin, where the port has been screwed fast for a week.
His name is Crocker, Archibald Crocker, Jr., son of the well-known and, truth to tell, rather infamous millionaire and manipulator of stocks. Our worlds lie wide apart, his and mine. I realized that much when he looked at my card. The name of Anthony Ives Eckhart conveyed nothing to him – the name that is known and respected by Boag and the great von Stumbostel of Berlin, by de Musseau, Ramel, and Fourmont at Taris, by Sir Frederick Rhodes of Cambridge; the name that spells anathema to that snarling charlatan, von Westfall, of Bonn.
Crocker has offered to guide me through the Yoshiwara district at Yokohama to-morrow evening. He says that the music will interest me.
I think I shall go with him. He says that every traveled white man in the world has been to “Number Nine” – that it is a legitimate, even necessary part of a man’s experience. Certainly I do not wish to appear unmanly.
My room proved intolerable, and I was still too excited to rest; so I came back to the deserted smoking-room to write up my journal.
It is very late. The steward is hovering anxiously about, yawning now and then. I may as well let the poor fellow get to his berth. God knows, he sees little enough of it.
But first I will have him fetch me a mug of their wonderful English stout. I find that this is even better than ale for inducing sleep. At least, in my own case.
Yokohama, Grand Hotel, March 20th
IT was past three o’clock to-day when the ship came to anchor and the steam tender brought us ashore. It interested me to see the rickshaws with their bare-legged coolies. By the time we had ridden along the Bund to the hotel and secured our rooms it was four o’clock. We went down to the “lounge,” Crocker and I, and had tea brought in. Or I did. He drank a whisky and Tan San. Then pretty soon he drank another.
Several couples from the ship were about, but not many of the men who were traveling alone.
“Where are they all?” I asked.
“Who?” said he.
“The men from the ship. Have they gone to other hotels?”
“Some of them – perhaps,” he replied. Then he looked away and smiled.
Sometimes, when I talk with a hard, practical man of the world, I find myself feeling vaguely out of it all. My life, devoted as it is to the discovery and classification of facts, is certainly a practical life; yet I seem to dwell aside from the main current. I do not quite catch the point of view of a rough-handed rich man like Crocker. And when I speak my mind, as I always endeavor to do, men do not resent it. I do not understand this. Come to think of it, I was decidedly outspoken last night with Sir Robert. He should have struck me; at least, he should have exhibited some anger. He would have struck Crocker, I think, in such a case – or jailed him for contempt.
We lingered nearly