Visionaries. James Huneker
She drew the deep breath of one in peril; this plain talk devoid of all sham mortified her exceedingly.
She was thankful that he did not attempt to play the rôle of fatherly adviser. His eyes were quite sincere when he answered her:—
"What you say, Alixe—" the familiarity brought with it no condescending reverberations—"has bothered me more than once. I shall be just as frank on my side. No, your husband has but little talent; original talent, none. He is mediocre—wait!" She started, her cheeks red with the blood that fled her heart when she heard this doleful news. "Wait! There are qualifications. In the first place, what do you expect from an American?"
"But you always write so glowingly of our composers," she interjected.
"And," he went on as if she had not spoken, "Van Kuyp is your typical countryman. He has studied in Germany. He has muddled his brain with the music of a dozen different nations; if he had had any individuality it would have been submerged. His memory has killed his imagination. He borrows his inspiration from the poets, from Liszt, Wagner, Berlioz, Richard Strauss. Anyhow, like all musicians of his country, he is too painfully self-conscious of his nationality."
"You, alone, are responsible for his present ambitions," retorted the unhappy woman.
"Quite true, my dear friend. I acknowledge it."
"And you say this to my face?"
"Do you wish me to lie?" She did not reply. After a grim pause she burst forth:—
"Oh, why doesn't he compose an opera, and make a popular name?"
"Richard Wagner Number II!" There were implications of sarcasm in this which greatly displeased Mrs. Van Kuyp. They strolled on slowly. It was a melodious summer night; mauve haze screened all but the exquisite large stars. Soothed despite rebellion, Alixe told herself sharply that in every duel with this man she was worsted. He said things that scratched her nerves; yet she forgave. He had not the slightest attraction for her; nevertheless, when he spoke, she listened, when he wrote, she read. He ruled the husband through his music; he ruled her through her husband. And what did he expect?
They retraced their way. A fantastic bridge spanning the brief marshland, frozen by the moonlight, appealed to them. They crossed. A coachman driving an open carriage hailed confidentially. Alixe entered and with a dexterous play of draperies usurped the back seat. Rentgen made no sign. He had her in full view, the moon streaking her disturbed features with its unflattering pencil.
They started bravely, the horses running for home; but the rapid gait soon subsided into a rhythmic trot. Rentgen spoke. She hardly recognized his voice, so gently monotonous were his phrases.
"Dear Alixe. It is a night for confessions. You care for your husband, you are wrapped up in his art work, you are solicitous of his future, of his fame. It is admirable. You are a model wife for an artist. But tell me frankly, doesn't it bore you to death? Doesn't all this talk of music, themes, orchestration, of the public, critics, musicians, conductors, get on your nerves? Is it any consolation for you to know that Van Kuyp will be famous? What is his fame or his failure to you? Where do you, Alixe Van Kuyp, come in? Why must your charming woman's soul be sacrificed, warped to this stunted tree of another's talent? You are silent. You say he is trying to make me deny Richard! You were never more mistaken. I am interested in you both; interested in you as a noble woman—stop! I mean it. And interested in Richard—well—because he is my own creation. … "
She watched him now with her heart in her eyes; he frightened her more with these low, purring words, than if he declared open love.
"He is my own handiwork. I have created him. I have fashioned his outlines, have wound up the mechanism that moves him to compose. Did you ever read that terrifying thought of Yeats, the Irish poet? I've forgotten the story, but remember the idea: 'The beautiful arts were sent into the world to overthrow nations, and, finally, life itself, sowing everywhere unlimited desires, like torches thrown into a burning city.' There—'like torches thrown into a burning city!' Richard Van Kuyp is one of my burning torches. In the spectacle of his impuissance I find relief from my own suffering."
The booming of the Tzigane band was no longer heard—only the horses' muffled footfalls and the intermittent chromatic drone of hidden distant tram-cars. She shivered and shaded her face with her fan. There was something remote from humanity in his speech. He continued with increasing vivacity:—
"Music is a burning torch. And music, like ideas, can slay the brain. Wagner borrowed his harmonic fire from the torch of Chopin—" She broke in:—
"Don't talk of Chopin! Tell me more of Van Kuyp. Why do you call him yours?" Her curiosity was become pain. It mastered her prudence.
"In far-away Celtic legends there may be found a lovely belief that our thoughts are independent realities, that they go about in the void seeking creatures to control. They are as bodiless souls. When they descend into a human being they possess his moods, in very existence—"
"And Richard!" she muttered. His words swayed her like strange music; the country through which they were passing was a blank; she could see but two luminous points—the nocturnal eyes of Elvard Rentgen, as he spun his cobwebs in the moonshine. She did not fear him; nothing could frighten her now. One desire held her. If it were unslaked, she felt she would collapse. It was to know the truth, to be told everything! He put restraining fingers on her ungloved hand; they seemed like cold, fat spiders. Yet she was only curious, with a curiosity that murdered the spirit within her.
"To transfuse these shadows, my dear Alixe, has been one of my delights, for I can project my futile desires into another's soul. I am denied the gift of music-making, so this is my revenge on nature for bungling its job. If Richard had genius, my intervention would be superfluous. He has none. He is dull. You must realize it. But since he has known me, has felt my influence, has been subject to my volition, my sorcery, you may call it—" his laugh was disagreeably conscious—"he has developed the shadow of a great man. He will seem a great composer. I shall make him think he is one. I shall make the world believe it, also. It is my fashion of squaring a life I hate. But if I chose to withdraw—"
The road they entered was black and full of the buzzing shadows of hot night, but she was oblivious to everything but his hallucinating voice:—
"And if you withdraw?" Her mouth echoed phrases without the complicity of her brain.
"If I do—ah, these cobweb spinners! Good-by to Richard Van Kuyp and dreams of glory." This note of harsh triumph snapped his weaving words.
"I don't believe you or your boasts," remarked Alixe, in her most conventionally amused manner. "You are trying to scare me, and with this hypnotic joke about Richard you have only hypnotized yourself. I mean to tell Mr. Van Kuyp every bit of our conversation. I'm not frightened by your vampire tales. You critics are only shadows of composers."
"Yes, but we make ordinary composers believe they are great," he replied acridly.
"I'll tell this to Richard."
"He won't believe you."
"He shall—he won't believe you! Oh, Rentgen, how can you invent such cruel things? Are you always so malicious? What do you mean? Come—what do you expect?" She closed her eyes, anticipating an avowal. Why should a man seek to destroy her faith in her husband, in love itself, if not for some selfish purpose of his own? But she was wrong, and became vaguely alarmed—at least if he had offered his service and sympathy in exchange for her friendship, she might have understood his fantastic talk. Rentgen sourly reflected—despite epigrams, women never vary. For him her sentiment was suburban. It strangled poetry. But he said nothing, though she imagined he looked depressed; nor did he open his mouth as the carriage traversed avenues of processional poplars before arriving at her door. She turned to him imploringly:—
"You must come with me. I shall never be able to go in alone, without an excuse. Don't—don't repeat to Richard what you said to me, in joke, I am sure, about his music. Heavens! What will my husband think?" There was despair in her voice, but hopefulness in her gait and gesture, when they reached the ill-lighted