paula sees selma cross in tragedy, and in her own apartment next morning is given a reality to play
selma cross did not reach new york until the morning of the opening day at the herriot theatre. she was very tired from rehearsals and the try-outs along the string of second cities. there had been a big difference of opinion regarding the thing, among what new yorkers are pleased to call the provincial critics. from the character of the first notices, on the contrary, it was apparent that the townsmen were not a little afraid to trust such a startling play to new york. mid-forenoon of an early april day, the actress rapped upon paula's door.
"i have seen the boards," paula exclaimed. "'selma cross' in letters big as you are; and yesterday afternoon they were hanging the electric sign in front of the herriot. also i shall be there to-night—since i was wise enough to secure a ticket ten days ago. isn't it glorious?"
"yes, i am quite happy about it," selma cross said, stretching out upon the lounge. "of course, it's not over until we see the morning papers. i was never afraid—even of the vitriol-throwers, before. you see, i have to think about success for stephen cabot, too."
"is he well?" paula asked hastily.
"oh yes, though i think sometimes he's a martyr. oh, i have so much to say——"
"you said you would tell me some time how vhruebert first decided to take you on," paula urged.
"before i got to the gate where the star-stuff passes through?" selma cross answered laughingly. "that was four years ago. i had been to him many times before he let me in. his chair squeaked under him. he looked at me first as if he were afraid i would spring at him. i told him what i could do, and he kept repeating that he didn't know it and new york didn't know it. i said i would show new york, but unfortunately i had to show him first. he screwed up his face and stared at me, as if i were startlingly original in my ugliness. i know he could hear my heart beat.
"'i can't do anything for you, miss gross,' he said impatiently, but in spite of himself, he added, 'come to-morrow.' you see, i had made him think, and that hurt. he knew something of my work all right, and wondered where he would put a big-mouthed, clear-skinned, yellow-eyed amazon. the next day, he kept me waiting in the reception-room until i could have screamed at the half-dressed women on the walls.
"'i don't know exactly why i asked you to come again,' was his greeting when the door finally opened to me. 'what was it, once more, that you mean to do?'
"'i mean to be the foremost tragedienne,' i said.
"'sit down. tragedy doesn't bay.'
"'i shall make it pay.'
"'um-m. how do you know? some brivate vire of yours?'
"'i can show you that i shall make it pay.'
"'my gott, not here! we will go to the outskirts.'
"and he meant it, paula. it was mid-winter. he took me to a little summer-theatre up lenox way. the place had not been open since thanksgiving. vhruebert sat down in the centre of the frosty parquet, shivering in his great coat. you know he's a thin-lipped, smile-less little man, but not such a dead soul as he looks. he leaks out occasionally through the dollar-varnish. can you imagine a colder reception? vhruebert sat there blowing out his breath repeatedly, seemingly absorbed in the effect the steam made in a little bar of sunlight which slanted across the icy theatre. that was my try-out before vhruebert. i gave him some of sudermann, boker, and ibsen. he raised his hand finally, and when i halted, he called in a bartender from the establishment adjoining, and commanded me to give something from camille and sapho. i would have murdered him if he had been fooling me after that. the bartender shivered in the cold.
"'what do you think of that, mr. vite-apron?' vhruebert inquired at length. he seemed to be warmer.
"'hot stuff,' said the man. 'it makes your coppers sizzle.'
"the criticism delighted vhruebert. 'miss gross, you make our goppers sizzle,' he exclaimed, and then ordered wine and told me to be at his studio to-morrow at eleven. that was the real winning," selma cross concluded. "to-night i put the crown on it."
paula invariably felt the fling of emotions when selma cross was near. the latter seemed now to have found her perfect dream; certainly there was fresh coloring and poise in her words and actions. it was inspiriting for paula to think of selma cross and stephen cabot having been accepted by the hard-headed vhruebert—that such a pair could eat his bread and drink his wine with merry hearts. it was more than inspiriting for her to think of this vibrant heart covering and mothering the physically unfortunate. paula asked, as only a woman could, the question uppermost in both minds.
"love me?" selma whispered. "i don't know, dear. i know we love to be together. i know that i love him. i know that he would not ask me to take for a husband—a broken vessel——"
"but you can make him know that—to you—he is not a broken vessel!... oh, that would mean so little to me!"
"yes, but i should have to tell him—of old villiers—and the other!... oh, god, he is white fire! he is not the kind who could understand that!... i thought i could do anything, i said, 'i am case-hardened. nothing can make me suffer!... i will go my way,—and no man, no power, earthly or occult, can make me alter that way,' but stephen cabot has done it. i would rather win for him to-night, than be called the foremost living tragedienne.... i think he loves me, but there is the price i paid—and i didn't need to pay it, for i had already risen out of the depths. that was vanity. i needed no angel. i didn't care until i met stephen cabot!"
"i think—i think, if i were stephen cabot, i could forgive that," paula said slowly. she wondered at herself for these words when she was alone, and the little place of books was no longer energized by the other's presence.
selma started up from the lounge, stretched her great arm half across the room and clutched paula's hand. there was a soft grateful glow in the big yellow eyes. "do you know that means something—from a woman like you? always i shall remember that—as a fine thing from my one fine woman. mostly, they have hated me—what you call—our sisters."
"you are a different woman—you're all brightened, since you met stephen cabot. i feel this," paula declared.
"even if all smoothed out here, there is still the old covenant in kentucky," selma said, after a moment, and sprang to her feet, shaking herself full-length.
"won't you tell me about that, too?"
"yes, but not now. i must go down-town. there is a dress-maker—and we breakfast together.... root for me—for us, to-night—won't you, dear girl?"
"with all my heart."
they passed out through the hall together—just as the elevator-man tucked a letter under the door.... alone, paula read this spring greeting from quentin charter:
i look away this morning into the brilliant east. i think of you there—as glory waits. i feel the strength of a giant to battle through dragons of flesh and cataclysms of nature.... who knows what conflicts, what conflagrations, rage in the glowing distance—between you and me? not i, but that i have strength—i do know.... by the golden glory of this wondrous spring morning which spreads before my eyes a world of work and heroism blessed of the most high god, i only ask to know that you are there—that you are there.... while eternity is yet young, we shall emerge out of time and distance; though it be from a world altered by great cosmic shattering—yet shall we emerge, serene man and woman.
you are there in the brilliant east. in good time i shall go to you. meanwhile i have your light and your song. the dull dim brute is gone from me, forever. even that black prince of the blood, passion, stands beyond the magnetic circle. with you there, i feel a divine right kingship, and all the black princes of the body are afar off, herding with the beasts. i tell you, since i have heard the skylark sing—there is no death.
that day became a vivid memory. charter reached the highest pinnacle of her mind—a man who could love and who could wait. the message from the west exalted her. here, indeed, was one of the new voices. all through the afternoon, out of the hushes of her mind, would rise this pæan from the west—sentence after sentence for her.... no, not for her alone. she saw him always in the midst of his people, illustrious among his people.... she saw him coming to her over mountains—again and again, she caught a glimpse of him, configured among the peaks, and striding toward her—yet between them was a valley torn with storm.... it came to her that there must be a prophecy in this message; that he would not be suffered to come to her easily as his letters came. yet, the strength he had felt was hers, and those were hours of ecstasy—while the gray of the spring afternoon thickened into dark. only the thing could have called her out that night; for once, when it was almost time to go, the storm lifted from the valley between them. she saw his path to her, just for an instant, and she longed to see it again....
paula entered the theatre a moment before the curtain rose, but in the remaining seconds of light, discovered in the fourth aisle far to the right—"the finest, lowest head" and the long white face of stephen cabot. if a man's face may be called beautiful, his was—firm, delicate, poetic,—brilliant eyes, livid pallor. and the hand in which the thin cheek rested, while large and chalky-white, was slender as a girl's.... in the middle of the first act, a tall, elderly man shuffled down the aisle and sank into the chair in front of paula, where he sprawled, preparing to be bored. this was felix larch, one of the best known of the metropolitan critics, notorious as a play-killer.
the first-night crowd can be counted on. it meant nothing to vhruebert that the house was packed. the venture was his up to the rise of the curtain. paula was absorbed by the first two acts of the play, but did not feel herself fit to judge. she was too intensely interested in the career of selma cross; in the face of stephen cabot; in the attitudes of felix larch, who occasionally forgot to pose. it was all very big and intimate, but the bigger drama, up to the final curtain, was the battle for success against the blasé aspirations of the audience and the ultra-critical enemy personified in the man before her.
the small and excellent company was balanced to a crumb. adequate rehearsals had finished the work. then the lines were rich, forceful and flowing—strange with a poetic quality that "got across the footlights." paula noted these exterior matters with relief. unquestionably the audience forgot itself throughout the second act. paula realized, with distaste, that her own critical sense was bristling for trouble. she had hoped to be as receptive to emotional enjoyment as she imagined the average play-goer to be. though she failed signally in this, her sensibilities were in no way outraged, nor even irritated. on the contrary, she began to rise to the valor of the work and its performance. the acting of selma cross, though supreme in repression, was haunting, unforgettable. felix larch had twice disturbed her by taking his seat in the midst of the first and second acts. she had heard that he rarely sat out a whole performance, and took it therefore as a good omen when he returned, in quite a gentlemanly fashion, as the final curtain rose.
by some new mastery of style, selma cross had managed, almost throughout, to keep her profile to the audience. the last act was half gone, moreover, before the people realized that there were qualities in her voice, other than richness and flexibility. she had held them thus far with the theme, charging the massed consciousness of her audience with subtle passions. now came the rising moments. full into the light she turned her face.... she was quite alone with her tragedy. a gesture of the great bare arm, as the stage darkened, and she turned loose upon the men and women a perfect havoc of emptiness—in the shadows of which was manifesting a huge unfinished human. she made the people see how a mighty passion, suddenly bereft of its object, turns to devour the brain that held it. they saw the great, gray face of the thing slowly rubbed out—saw the mind behind it, soften and run away into chaos. there was a whisper, horrible with exhaustion—a breast beaten in the gloom.
felix larch swore softly.... the thing was laughing as the curtain crawled down over her—an easy, wind-blown, chattering laugh....
the critic grasped the low shoulders of a bald, thin-lipped acquaintance, exclaiming:
"where did you get that diadem, lucky one?"
paula heard a hoarse voice, but the words of the reply were lost.
"come over across the street for a minute. i want a stimulant and a talk with you," felix larch added, wriggling into his overcoat.
there was a low, husky laugh, and then plainly these words: "she makes your goppers sizzle—eh?... wait until i tell her she has won and i'll go with you," added the queer little man, whom paula knew now to be vhruebert....
the latter passed along the emptied aisle toward stephen cabot, who had not left his seat. paula noted with a start that the playwright's head had dropped forward in a queer way. vhruebert glanced at him, and grasped his shoulder. the old manager then cleared his throat—a sound which apparently had meaning for the nearest usher, who hurried forward to be dispatched for a doctor. it was very cleverly and quietly done.... stephen cabot, who could see more deeply than others into the art of the woman and the power of his own lines, and possibly deeper into the big result of this fine union of play and player—had fainted at the climacteric moment.... a physician now breasted his way through the crowd at the doors, and the thing suddenly appeared in the nearest box and darted forward like a rush of wind. she gathered the insensible one in her arms and repeated his name low and swiftly.
"yes," he murmured, opening his eyes at last.
they seemed alone.... presently stephen cabot laughingly protested that he was quite well, and disappeared behind the scenes, assisted by the long, bare arm that had so recently hurled havoc over the throng. paula waited for a few moments at the door until she was assured.
driving home through the park, she felt that she could not endure another emotion. for a long time she tossed restlessly in bed, too tired to sleep. a reacting depression had fallen upon her worn nerves. she could not forget the big structure of the day's joy, but substance had dropped from it.... the cold air sweeping through her sleeping-room seemed to come from desolate mountains. lost entirely was her gladness of victory in the selma cross achievement. she called herself spiteful, ungrateful, and quite miserably at last sank into sleep....
she was conscious at length of the gray of morning, a stifling pressure in her lungs, and the effort to rouse herself. she felt the cold upon her face; yet the air seemed devitalized by some exhausting voltage, she had known before. there was a horrid jangle in her brain, as of two great forces battling to complete the circuit there. a face imploring from a garret-window, a youth in a lion's skin, a rock in the desert and a rock in the park, the dim hotel parlor and the figure of yesterday among the mountain-peaks—so the images rushed past—until the tortured face of bellingham (burning eyes in the midst of ghastly pallor), caught and held her mind still. from a room small as her own, and gray like her own with morning, he called to her: "come to me.... come to me, paula linster.... i have lived for you—oh, come to me!"
she sprang out of bed, and knelt. how long it was before she freed herself, paula never knew. indeed, she was not conscious of being actually awake, until she felt the bitter cold and hurried into the heated room beyond. she was physically wretched, but no longer obsessed.... she would not believe now that the beyond-devil had called again. it was all a dream, she told herself again and again—this rush of images and the summons from the enemy. yesterday, she had been too happy; human bodies cannot endure so long such refining fire; to-day was the reaction and to-morrow her old strength and poise would come again. quite bravely, she assured herself that she was glad to pay the price for the hours of yesterday. she called for the full series of morning papers, resolving to occupy her mind with the critical notices of the new play.
these were quite remarkable in the unanimity of their praise. the cross-cabot combination had won, indeed, but paula could extract no buoyancy from the fact, nor did black coffee dispel the vague premonitive shadows which thickened in the background of her mind. the rapping of selma cross upon her door was hours earlier than ever before. she, too, had called for the morning papers. a first night is never finished until these are out. paula did not feel equal to expressing all that the play had meant to her. it was with decided disinclination that she admitted her neighbor.
selma cross had not bathed, nor dressed her hair. she darted in noiselessly in furry slippers—a yellow silk robe over her night-dress. very silken and sensuous, the huge, laughing creature appeared as she sank upon the lounge and shaded her yellow eyes from the light. so perfect was her health, and so fresh her happiness, that an hour or two of sleep had not left her eyes heavy nor her skin pallid. there was an odor of sweet clover about her silks that paula never sensed afterward without becoming violently ill. she knew she was wrong—that every fault was hers—but she could not bear the way her neighbor cuddled this morning in the fur of the couch-covering. selma had brought in every morning newspaper issued and a thick bundle of telegrams besides. paula told her, literally forcing the sentences, how splendidly the play and her own work had appealed to her. this task, which would have been a pure delight at another time, was adequately accomplished only after much effort now. it appeared that the actress scarcely heard what she was saying. the room was brightening and there was a grateful piping of steam in the heaters of the apartment.
"so glad you liked it, dear," selma said briefly. "and isn't it great the way the papers treated it? not one of them panned the play nor my work.... i say, it's queer when a thing you've dreamed of for years comes true at last—it's different from the way you've seen it come to others. i mean there's something unique and a fullness you never imagined. oh, i don't know nor care what i'm drowning to say.... please do look over these telegrams—from everybody! there's over a hundred! i had to come in here. i'd have roused you out of bed—if you hadn't been up. the telephone will be seething a little later—and i wanted this talk with you."
big theatrical names were attached to the yellow messages. it is a custom for stages-folk to speed a new star through the first performance with a line of courage—wired. you are supposed to count your real friends in those who remember the formality. it is not well to be a day late....
"and did you notice how felix larch uncoiled?"
paula looked up from the telegrams to explain how this critic had been the object of her contemplation the night before.
"he hasn't turned loose in that sort of praise this season," selma cross added. "his notice alone, dear, is enough to keep us running at the herriot until june—and we'll open there again in the fall, past doubt."
paula felt wicked in that she must enthuse artificially. she forced herself to remember that ordinarily she could have sprung with a merry heart into the very centre of the other's happiness.
"listen, love," selma resumed, ecstactically hugging her pillow, "i want to tell you things. i wanted to yesterday, but i had to hurry off. you've got so much, that you must have the rest. besides, it's in my mind this morning, because it was the beginning of last night——"
"yes, tell me," paula said faintly, bringing her a cup of coffee.
"i was first smitten with the passion to act—a gawky girl of ten at a child's party," selma began. "i was speaking a piece when the impulse came to turn loose. it may have been because i was so homely and straight-haired, or it may have been that i did the verses so differently from the ordinary routine of speaking pieces—anyway, a boy in the room laughed. another boy immediately bored in upon the scoffer, downed his enemy and was endeavoring hopefully to kill him with bare hands, when i interfered. my champion and i walked home together and left a wailing and disordered company. that's the first brush.
"my home was danube, kentucky. they had a dramatic society there. eight years after the child's party, this dramatic society gave a tribute to art. where the piece came from is forgotten. how it got its name never was known outside of the sorry brain that thrust it, deformed but palpitating, upon the world. mrs. fiske couldn't have made other than a stick of the heroine. the hero was larger timber, though too dead for vine leaves. but, i think i told you about the big sister—put there in blindness or by budding genius. there were possibilities in that character. danube didn't know it, or it wouldn't have fallen to me. indeed, i remember toward the end of the piece—a real moment of windy gloom and falling leaves, a black-windowed farmhouse on the left, the rest a desolate horizon—in such a moment the big sister plucks out her heart to show its running death.
"i had persisted in dramatic work, in and out of season, during those eight years, but it really was because the big sister didn't need to be beautiful that i got the part. i wove the lines tighter and sharpened the thing in rehearsals, until the rest of the cast became afraid, not that i would outshine them, but that i might disgrace the society on the night o' nights. you see, i was only just tolerated. poor father, he wasn't accounted much in danube, and there was a raft of us. poor, dear man!
"danube wasn't big enough to attract real shows, so the visiting drama gave expression to limited trains, trap-doors, blank cartridges and falling cliffs"—selma cross chuckled expansively at the memory—"and i plunged my fellow-townsmen into waters deeper and stormier than nobody's claim or shadows of a great city. wasn't it monstrous?"
paula inclined her head, but was not given time to answer.
"a spring night in kentucky—hot, damp, starlit—shall i ever forget that terrible night of a tribute to art? all danube somebodies were out to see the younger generation perpetuate the lofty culture of the place. grandmothers were there, who played east lynne on the same stage—before the raids of wolfert and morgan; and daddies who sat like deans, eyes dim, but artistic, you know—watched the young idea progress upon familiar paths.... the heroine did the best she could. i was a camel beside her—strode about her raging and caressing. you see how i could have spoiled the thing last night—if i had let the passion flood through me like a torrent through a broken dam? that's what i did in danube—and some full-throated baying as well. oh, it is horrible to remember.
"the town felt itself brutalized, and justly. i had left a rampant thing upon every brain, and very naturally the impulse followed to squelch the perpetrator for all time. i don't blame danube now. i had been bad; my lack of self-repression, scandalous. the part, as i had evolved it, was out of all proportion to the piece, to danube, to amateur theatricals. i don't know if i struck a false note, but certainly i piled on the feeling.
"can you imagine, paula, that it was an instant of singular glory to me—that climax?... poor danube couldn't see that i was combustible fuel, freshly lit; that i was bound to burn with a steady flame when the pockets of gas were exploded.... my dazed people did not leave the hall at once. it was as if they had taken strong medicine and wanted to study the effect upon each other. i came out from behind at last, up the aisle, sensing disorder where i had expected praise, and was joined by my old champion, calhoun knox, who had whipped the scoffer at the child's party. he pressed my hand. we had always been friends. passing around the edge of the crowd, i heard this sentence:
"'some one—the police, if necessary—must prevent selma cross from making another such shocking display of herself!'
"it was a woman who spoke, and the man at her side laughed. i had no time nor thought to check calhoun. he stepped up to the man beside the woman. 'laugh like that again,' he said coldly, 'and i'll kill you!'
"it seemed to me that all danube turned upon us. my face must have been mist-gray. i know i felt like falling. the woman's words had knifed me.
"'oh, you cat-minds!' i flung at them. calhoun knox drew me out into the dark. i don't know how far out on the lone ridge pike we walked, before it occurred to either of us to halt or speak," selma cross went on very slowly. "i think we walked nearly to the knobs. the night had cleared. it was wonderfully still out there among the hemp-fields. i knew how he was pitying me, and told him i must go away.
"'i can't stand for you to go away, selma,' calhoun said. 'i want you to stay and be mine always. we always got along together. you are beautiful enough to me!'
"i guess it was hard for him to say it," the woman finished with a laugh, "i used to wish he hadn't put in that 'enough.' but that moment—it was what i needed. there was always something big and simple about calhoun knox. my hand darted to his shoulder and closed there like a mountaineer's, 'you deserve more of a woman than i am, calhoun,' i said impetuously, 'but you can have me when i come to marry—but, god, that's far off. i like you, calhoun. i'd fight for you to the death—as you fought for me to-night and long ago. i think i'd hate any woman who got you—but there's no wife in me to-night. i have failed to win danube, kentucky, but i'll win the world. i may be a burnt-out hag then, but i'll come back—when i have won the world—and you can have me and it.... listen, calhoun knox, if ever a man means husband to me—you shall be the man, but to-night,' i ended with a flourish, and turned back home, 'i'm not a woman—just a devil at war with the world!'"
"but haven't you heard from him?" paula asked, after a moment.
"yes, he wrote and wrote. calhoun knox is the kind of stuff that remembers. the time came when i didn't have the heart to answer. i was afraid i'd ask him for money, or ask him to come to help me. help out of danube! i couldn't do that—better old villiers.... but i mustn't lie to you. i went through the really hard part alone.... so calhoun's letters were not answered, and maybe he has forgotten. anyway, before i marry—he shall have his chance. oh, i'll make it hard for him. i wouldn't open any letter from danube now—but he shall have his chance——"
"what do you mean to do?"
"why, we'll finish the season here—and vhruebert has promised us a little run in the west during june. we touch cincinnati. from there i'll take the company down to danube. i've got to win the world and danube. after the play, i'll walk out on the lone ridge pike—among the hemp-fields—with calhoun knox——"
"but he may have married——"
"god, how i hope so! i shall wish him kingly happiness—and rush back to stephen cabot."
paula could not be stirred by the story this morning. she missed, as never before, some big reality behind the loves of selma cross. there was too much of the sense of possession in her story—arm-possession. so readily, could she be transformed into the earthy female, fighting tooth and claw for her own. paula could hardly comprehend in her present depression, what she had said yesterday about stephen cabot's capacity to forgive.... she was glad, when selma cross rose, yawned, stretched, and shook herself. the odor of sweet clover was heaviness in the room.... the long, bare arm darted over the reading-table and plucked forth the book paula loved. the volume had not been hidden; there was no reason why she should not have done this, yet the action hurt the other like a drenching of icy water upon her naked heart.
"ho-ho—quentin charter! so a damsel came to peter?"
"i think—i hear your telephone,—selma!" paula managed to say, her voice dry, as if the words were cut from paper.
"yes, yes, i must go, but here's another story. a rotten cad—but how he can write! i don't mean books—but letters!... he's the one i told you about—the westerner—while the old man was in the south!"
the last was called from the hall. the heavy door slammed between them.
paula could not stand—could not keep her mouth from dropping open. her temples seemed to be cracking apart.... she saw herself in half-darkness—like the thing last night—beating her breast in the gloom. she felt as if she must laugh—in that same wind-blown, chattering way.
