Fall

THE ARCH-SATIRIST

CHAPTER I

"HALF DEVIL AND HALF CHILD"

"Then the preacher preached of Sin ... fair of flower and bitter of fruit."—Juliana Horatia Ewing.

"To me the idea of slaving for a life-time in order to die rich is a pitiful sort of insanity. That's the Italian in me, I suppose. I would think it wiser to drink—drink deep and long and gloriously—and die of it—die in a ditch if necessary! Then I would have lived some sort of life, anyway, and enjoyed it after my fashion. But I'm not going to live or die that way. I'm going to take everything in life that's worth having, and I'm going to enjoy—and enjoy—and enjoy! The devil, himself, can't cheat me of it. I've long arrears of happiness to make up and by God——I'll make them!" The speaker broke off, coughing horribly; a gleam of intense rage shone in his great, wild eyes and his thin nostrils quivered, furiously. Poor slight earth-worm! caught in the whirlwind of Destiny and tossed hither and thither! compelled to falsify his weak boasts even as he uttered them! The man who sat opposite, smoking and lounging in the dim light of the studio, withdrew his gaze with an effort from his visitor's frail form and frenzied face; there seemed something indecent in gazing thus openly at the contortions of a naked soul.

"Have a little hot Scotch for the cough," he suggested, reluctantly. "What's the use? I may just as well give it to him, here," he added to himself. "The boy's trebly doomed and a drop more or less isn't going to make any difference either way." He busied himself with a spirit lamp and glasses and soon his visitor was gulping down the proffered draught, greedily.

"That's good!" he exclaimed. "That puts life in me. I feel as if I could write something now—something worth while."

"Something unfit for reading, I suppose you mean," returned his host, cheerfully.

The boy laughed easily and settled back among the cushions of his easy chair with panther-like grace.

"Not a bit of it," he answered, gaily. "I only write them after gin. The best thing I ever did was gin—'Sin's Lure.' You read it?"

"I did."

"Strong, wasn't it?"

"Strong, yes. So is a—so are various other things strong. Just the sort of thing a diseased, vice-racked, dissipated young—genius—like you might be expected to produce. What bothers me now is your prose. Anything more uncharacteristic"—

The boy laughed and gazed at the older man, intently and mischievously.

"Nothing morbid about that, is there?"

"Nothing. Bright, dainty, unerringly truthful, delightfully witty—how in thunder do you do it? You must have two souls."

"Two! I've got a dozen."

The boy lit a cigarette and puffed it, meditatively. The man smoked a well-coloured pipe and gazed steadily at his visitor. Seen thus, they were an ill-assorted pair.

Gerald Amherst, the owner of the studio, was an artist, uncursed overmuch by the artistic temperament. His strong, sane face and massive figure suggested the athlete, the pose and substance of his attitude the successful business man. Nor did the omens lie. He was an athlete in his leisure moments, a business man at all times. Art was his occupation, his delight; but he never forgot that she was also his bread-winner. Amherst painted good, sometimes exceptional pictures; and he demanded—and obtained—good, sometimes exceptional prices for them. For the rest he was thirty-four, fine-looking, well-bred, honest—and popular. Friends came to him as flies come in July to ordinary mortals.

So alien was his visitor that he hardly seemed to belong to the same world. Lithe, long-limbed, sinuous, with features of almost feminine delicacy and charm and hands that made the artist soul in Gerald vibrate pleasurably. The eyes—deep-set, hollow, passionate—were the eyes of a lost soul; impenetrable, fathomless, and lurid.

Strange, alluring, repellent personality! where the seeds of a thousand sins—sown centuries before—bore hideous fruit. Madness, vice, disease, and death—and, through them all, the golden fire of genius! This boy's age was nineteen; and no second glance was needed to tell that the fierce, straining spirit must soon leave its wretched tenement behind and fare forth into darkness. In the meantime—Amherst puffed at his pipe and thought. A year ago this boy had been a pet and idol of Montreal society; to-day his open corruptness had closed all doors to him save those of a few, who, like Amherst, forgave the madman in the genius, and the beast in the dying boy.

Then, too, our hero was an artist; and Leo Ricossia was a model such as artist seldom sees. He was graceful as some young wild animal; his delicately nervous body could form no pose that was not pleasing. As for his face—thin-lipped, wide-eyed, luminous—"Ricossia will never write a poem so wonderful as his face," a brother-artist had once remarked; and Amherst fully concurred in the opinion.

Ricossia spoke presently, his dark eyes heavy with thought.

"You think it possible that one may have ten souls?"

"I think it probable that one soul may have twenty outlooks, and all of them vile, when he has soaked in sufficient gin. But how an unhealthy mind can produce healthy stuff—that's beyond me. Your prose is healthy, and what's more, it's fine. It ranks with"—He stopped abruptly, amazed and confounded by the glitter in Ricossia's eye.

"You—you don't think it better than my poetry? You can't!"

"I think—in a sense—it is better!" Amherst spoke slowly and Ricossia leaned forward to catch his words with an avidity which seemed disproportioned to the matter in hand. "In another sense it's not so good, of course. The poems are unhealthy, feverish, abnormal—but, in their way, they're efforts of genius. The stories are simply very unusually clever prose—healthy, witty, and clean. Personally I prefer them."

"You—you miserable Philistine!"

The boy leaned back as though relieved and his scarlet lips parted in a smile of startling sweetness. The eyes had lost their wild gleam now and were simply wells of dusky kindness and fellowship; the eyes of an intelligent, friendly brute with something added. Gerald noted the change with unflagging interest; as a study the boy never palled.

"You think I'm a bad lot, don't you?"

"I think you're as bad as the worst. But a chap like you isn't to be judged by ordinary standards."

"Yet," pursued Ricossia, slowly, "you allow that I can write clean stuff. Perhaps in spite of it all, underneath it all—my soul is clean."

"I hope so; but I don't believe it for a moment. No,