Читать книгу The World Of Chance - William Dean Howells - Страница 12

" Oh, indeed! " said Mr. Brandreth, with a change in his voice, too, which Ray might well have interpreted as a tone of disappointment and injury. " Just at present, Mr. Ray, trade is rather quiet, you know."

" Yes, I know," said Ray, though he thought he had been told the contrary. He felt very mean and guilty; the blood went to his head, and his face burned,

" Our list for the fall trade is full, as I was saying, and we couldn't really touch anything till next spring."

" Oh, I didn't suppose it would be in time for the fall trade," said Ray, and in the sudden loss of the easy terms which he had been on with the publisher, he could not urge anything further.

Mr. Brandreth must have felt their estrangement too, for he said, apologetically: " Of course it's our business to examine manuscripts for publication, and I hope it's going to be our business to publish more and more of them, but an American novel by an unknown author, as long as we have the competition of these pirated English novels — If we can only get the copyright bill through, we shall be all right."

Ray said nothing aloud, for he was busy reproaching himself under his breath for abusing Mr. Brandreth's hospitality.

" What is the — character of your novel? " asked Mr. Brandreth, to break the painful silence, apparently, rather than to inform himself.

" The usual character," Ray answered, with a listlessness which perhaps passed for careless confidence with the young publisher, and piqued his interest. " It's a love-story."

" Of course. Does it end well? A great deal depends upon the ending with the public, you know."

" I suppose it ends badly. It ends as badly as it can," said the author, feeling that he had taken the bit in his teeth. " It's unrelieved tragedy."

" That isn't so bad, sometimes," said Mr. Brandreth. " That is, if the tragedy is intense enough. Sometimes a thing of that kind takes with the public, if the love part is good and strong. Have you the manuscript here in New York with you? "

" I have it here in my lap with me," said Ray, with a desperate laugh.

Mr. Brandreth cast his eye over the package. " What do you call it? So much depends upon a title with the public."

" I had thought of several titles: the hero's name for one; the heroine's for another. Then I didn't know but A Modern Romeo would do. It's very much on the lines of the play."

" Indeed! " said Mr. Brandreth, with a sudden interest that flattered Ray with fresh hopes. " That's very curious. I once took part in an amateur performance of Romeo myself. We gave it in the open air. The effect was very novel."

" I should think it might be," said Ray, He hastened to add, " My story deals, of course, with American life, and the scene is laid in the little village where I grew up,"

" Our play," said Mr. Brandreth, " was in a little summer place in Massachusetts. One of the ladies gave us her tennis-ground, and we made our exits and our entrances through the surrounding shrubbery. You've no idea how beautiful the mediaeval dresses looked in the electric light. It was at night."

" It must have been beautiful," Ray hastily admitted. " My Juliet is the daughter of the village doctor, and my Romeo is a young lawyer, who half kills a cousin of hers for trying to interfere with them."

" That's good," said Mr. Brandreth. " I took the part of Romeo myself, and Mrs. Brandreth — she was Miss Chapley, then — was cast for Juliet; but another girl who had refused the part suddenly changed her mind and claimed it, and we had the greatest time to keep the whole affair from going to pieces. I beg your pardon; I interrupted you."

"Not at all," said Ray. "It must have been rather difficult. In my story there has been a feud between the families of the lovers about a land boundary; and both families try to break off the engagement."

"That's very odd," said Mr. Brandreth. "The play nearly broke off my acquaintance with Mrs. Brandreth, Of course she was vexed — as anybody would be — at having to give up the part at the eleventh hour, when she'd taken so much trouble with it; but when she saw my suffering with the other girl, who didn't know half her lines, and walked through it all like a mechanical doll, she forgave me. Romeo is my favorite play. Did you ever see Julia Marlowe in it?"

" No."

"Then you never saw Juliet! I used to think Margaret Mather was about the loveliest Juliet, and in fact she has a great deal of passion " —

"My Juliet," Ray broke in, "is one of those impassioned natures. When she finds that the old people are inexorable, she jumps at the suggestion of a secret marriage, and the lovers run off and are married, and come back and live separately. They meet at a picnic soon after, where Juliet goes with her cousin, who makes himself offensive to the husband, and finally insults him. They happen to be alone together near the high bank of a river, and the husband, who is a quiet fellow of the deadly sort, suddenly throws the cousin over the cliff. The rest are dancing —

" We introduced a minuet in our theatricals," Mr. Brandreth interposed, " and people said it was the best thing in it. I beg your pardon! "

" Not at all. It must have been very picturesque. The cousin is taken up for dead, and the husband goes into hiding until the result of the cousin's injuries can be ascertained. They are searching for the husband everywhere, and the girl's father, who has dabbled in hypnotism, and has hypnotized his daughter now and then, takes the notion of trying to discover the husband's whereabouts by throwing her into a hypnotic trance and questioning her: he believes that she knows. The trance is incomplete, and with what is left of her consciousness the girl suffers tremendously from the conflict that takes place in her. In the midst of it all, word comes from the room where the cousin is lying insensible that he is dying. The father leaves his daughter to go to him, and she lapses into the cataleptic state. The husband has been lurking about, intending to give himself up if it comes to the worst. He steals up to the open window — I forgot to say that the hypnotization scene takes place in her father's office, a little building that stands apart from the house, and of course it's a ground floor — and he sees her stretched out on the lounge, all pale and stiff, and he thinks she is dead."

Mr. Brandreth burst into a laugh. " I must tell you what our Mercutio said — he was an awfully clever fellow, a lawyer up there, one of the natives, and he made simply a perfect Mercutio. He said that our Juliet was magnificent in the sepulcher scene; and if she could have played the part as a dead Juliet throughout, she would have beat us all! "

" Capital! " said Ray. " Ha, ha, ha! "

" Well, go on," said Mr. Brandreth.

"Oh! Well, the husband gets in at the window and throws himself on her breast, and tries to revive her. She shows no signs of life, though all the time she is perfectly aware of what is going on, and is struggling to speak and reassure him. She recovers herself just at the moment he draws a pistol and shoots himself through the heart. The shot brings the father from the house, and as he enters the little office, his daughter lifts herself, gives him one ghastly stare, and falls dead on her husband's body."

" That is strong," said Mr. Brandreth. " That is a very powerful scene."

" Do you think so? " Ray asked. He looked flushed and flattered, but he said: " Sometimes I've been afraid it was overwrought, and improbable — weak. It's not, properly speaking, a novel, you see. It's more in the region of romance."

" Well, so much the better. I think people are getting tired of those commonplace, photographic things. They want something with a little more imagination," said Mr. Brandreth.

" The motive of my story might be called psychological," said the author. " Of course I've only given you the crudest outline of it, that doesn't do it justice " —

" Well, they say that roman psychologique is superseding the realistic novel in France. Will you allow me?"

He offered to take the manuscript, and Ray eagerly undid it, and placed it in his hands. He turned over some pages of it, and dipped into it here and there.

" Yes," he said. " Now I'll tell you what we'll do, Mr. Ray. You leave this with us, and we'll have our readers go over it, and report to us, and then we'll communicate with you about it. What did you say your New York address was? "

"I haven't any yet," said Ray; but I'll call and leave it as soon as I've got one." He rose, and the young publisher said:

" Well, drop in any time. We shall always be glad to see you. Of course I can't promise you an immediate decision."

" Oh, no; I don't expect that. I can wait. And I can't tell you how much — how much I appreciate your kindness."

" Oh, not at all. Ah! " The boy came back with a type-written sheet in his hand; Mr. Brandreth took it and gave it to Ray. " There! You can get some idea from that of what we're going to do. Take it with you. It's manifolded, and you can keep this copy. Drop in again when you're passing."

They shook hands, but they did not part there. Mr. Brandreth followed Ray out into the store, and asked him if he would not like some advance copies of their new books; he guessed some of them were ready. He directed a clerk to put them up, and then he said, " I'd like to introduce you to one of our authors. Mr. Kane! " he called out to what Ray felt to be the gentleman's expectant back, and Mr. Kane promptly turned about from his bookshelf and met their advance half-way. "I want to make you acquainted with Mr. Ray."

" Fortune," said Mr. Kane, with evident relish of his own voice and diction, "had already made us friends, in the common interest we took in a mistaken fellow-man whom we saw stealing a bag to travel with instead of a road to travel on. Before you came in, we were street intimates of five minutes' standing, and we entered your temple of the Muses together. But I am very glad to know my dear friend by name." He gave Ray the pressure of a soft, cool hand. " My name is doubtless familiar to you, Mr. Ray. We spell it a little differently since that unfortunate affair with Abel; but it is unquestionably the same name, and we are of that ancient family. Am I right," he said, continuing to press the young man's hand, but glancing at Mr. Brandreth for correction, with ironical deference, "in supposing that Mr. Ray is one of us? I was sure," he said, letting Ray's hand go, with a final pressure, " that it must be so from the first moment! The signs of the high freemasonry of letters are unmistakable! "

" Mr. Ray," said Mr. Brandreth, " is going to cast his lot with us here in New York. He is from Midland, and he is still connected with one of the papers there."

" Then he is a man to be cherished and avoided," said Mr. Kane. " But don't tell me that he has no tenderer, no more sacred tie to literature than a meretricious newspaper connection! "

Ray laughed, and said from his pleased vanity, " Mr. Brandreth has kindly consented to look at a manuscript of mine."

" Poems? " Mr. Kane suggested.

" No, a novel," the author answered, bashfully.

" The great American one, of course? "

" We are going to see," said the young publisher gaily.

" Well, that is good. It is pleasant to have the old literary tradition renewed in all the freshness of its prime, and to have young Genius coming up to New York from the provinces with a manuscript under its arm, just as it used to come up to London, and I've no doubt to Memphis and to Nineveh, for that matter; the indented tiles must have been a little more cumbrous than the papyrus, and Were probably conveyed in an ox-cart. And when you offered him your novel, Mr. Ray, did Mr. Brandreth say that the book trade was rather dull, just now? "

"Something of that kind," Ray admitted, with a laugh; and Mr. Brandreth laughed too.

" I'm glad of that," said Mr. Kane. " It would not have been perfect without that. They always say that I've no doubt the publishers of Memphis and Nineveh said it in their day. It is the publishers' way with authors. It makes the author realize the immense advantage of getting a publisher on any terms at such a disastrous moment, and he leaves the publisher to fix the terms. It is quite right. You are launched, my dear friend, and all you have to do is to let yourself go. You will probably turn out an ocean greyhound; we expect no less when we are launched. In that case, allow an old water-logged derelict to hail you, and wish you a prosperous voyage to the Happy Isles." Mr. Kane smiled blandly, and gave Ray a bow that had the quality of a blessing.

" Oh, that book of yours is going to do well yet, Mr. Kane," said Mr. Brandreth, consolingly. " I believe there's going to be a change in the public taste, and good literature is going to have its turn again."

" Let us hope so," said Mr. Kane, devoutly. " We will pray that the general reader may be turned from the error of his ways, and eschew fiction and cleave to moral reflections. But not till our dear friend's novel has made its success! " He inclined himself again towards Ray. " Though, perhaps," he suggested, "it is a novel with a purpose? "

" I'm afraid hardly " — Ray began; but Mr. Brandreth interposed.

" It is a psychological romance — the next thing on the cards, I believe! "

" Indeed! " said Mr. Kane. " Do you speak by the card, now, as a confidant of fate; or is this the exuberant optimism of a fond young father? Mr. Ray, I am afraid you have taken our friend when he is all molten and fluid with happiness, and have abused his kindness for the whole race to your single advantage! "

" No, no! Nothing of the kind, I assure you! " said Mr. Brandreth, joyously. "Everything is on a strict business basis with me, always. But I wish you could see that little fellow, Mr. Kane. Of course it sounds preposterous to say it of a child only eight days old, but I believe he begins to notice already."

" You must get him to notice your books. Do get him to notice mine! He is beginning young, but perhaps not too young for a critic," said Mr. Kane, and he abruptly took his leave, as one does when he thinks he has made a good point, and Mr. Brandreth laughed the laugh of a man who magnanimously joins in the mirth made at his expense.

Ray stayed a moment after Mr. Kane went out, and Brandreth said, "There is one of the most puzzling characters in New York. If he could put himself into a book, it would make his fortune. He's a queer genius. Nobody knows how he lives; but I fancy he has a little money of his own; his book doesn't sell fifty copies in a year. What did he mean by that about the travelling-bag? "

Ray explained, and Mr. Brandreth said: "Just like him! He must have spotted you in an instant. He has nothing to do, and he spends most of his time wandering about. He says New York is his book, and he reads it over and over. If he could only work up that idea, he could make a book that everybody would want. But he never will. He's one of those men whose talk makes you think he could write anything; but his book is awfully dry — perfectly crumby. Ever see it? Hard Sayings f Well, goodbye! I wish I could ask you up to my house; but you see how it is! "

" Oh, yes! I see," said Ray. " You're only too good as it is, Mr. Brandreth."