Tales of Men and Ghosts | Page 5

be made to want this._ The fact
is, there isn't enough drama in your play to the allowance of poetry--the
thing drags all through. You've got a big idea, but it's not out of
swaddling clothes.
"If this was your first play I'd say: Try again. But it has been just the
same with all the others you've shown me. And you remember the
result of 'The Lee Shore,' where you carried all the expenses of
production yourself, and we couldn't fill the theatre for a week. Yet
'The Lee Shore' was a modern problem play--much easier to swing than
blank verse. It isn't as if you hadn't tried all kinds--"
Granice folded the letter and put it carefully back into the envelope.
Why on earth was he re-reading it, when he knew every phrase in it by
heart, when for a month past he had seen it, night after night, stand out
in letters of flame against the darkness of his sleepless lids?
"_It has been just the same with all the others you've shown me._"
That was the way they dismissed ten years of passionate unremitting
work!
"_You remember the result of 'The Lee Shore.'_"
Good God--as if he were likely to forget it! He re-lived it all now in a
drowning flash: the persistent rejection of the play, his sudden resolve
to put it on at his own cost, to spend ten thousand dollars of his
inheritance on testing his chance of success--the fever of preparation,
the dry-mouthed agony of the "first night," the flat fall, the stupid press,
his secret rush to Europe to escape the condolence of his friends!
"_It isn't as if you hadn't tried all kinds._"
No--he had tried all kinds: comedy, tragedy, prose and verse, the light
curtain-raiser, the short sharp drama, the bourgeois-realistic and the
lyrical-romantic--finally deciding that he would no longer "prostitute
his talent" to win popularity, but would impose on the public his own

theory of art in the form of five acts of blank verse. Yes, he had offered
them everything--and always with the same result.
Ten years of it--ten years of dogged work and unrelieved failure. The
ten years from forty to fifty--the best ten years of his life! And if one
counted the years before, the silent years of dreams, assimilation,
preparation--then call it half a man's life-time: half a man's life-time
thrown away!
And what was he to do with the remaining half? Well, he had settled
that, thank God! He turned and glanced anxiously at the clock. Ten
minutes past eight--only ten minutes had been consumed in that stormy
rush through his whole past! And he must wait another twenty minutes
for Ascham. It was one of the worst symptoms of his case that, in
proportion as he had grown to shrink from human company, he dreaded
more and more to be alone. ... But why the devil was he waiting for
Ascham? Why didn't he cut the knot himself? Since he was so
unutterably sick of the whole business, why did he have to call in an
outsider to rid him of this nightmare of living?
He opened the drawer again and laid his hand on the revolver. It was a
small slim ivory toy--just the instrument for a tired sufferer to give
himself a "hypodermic" with. Granice raised it slowly in one hand,
while with the other he felt under the thin hair at the back of his head,
between the ear and the nape. He knew just where to place the muzzle:
he had once got a young surgeon to show him. And as he found the
spot, and lifted the revolver to it, the inevitable phenomenon occurred.
The hand that held the weapon began to shake, the tremor
communicated itself to his arm, his heart gave a wild leap which sent
up a wave of deadly nausea to his throat, he smelt the powder, he
sickened at the crash of the bullet through his skull, and a sweat of fear
broke out over his forehead and ran down his quivering face...
He laid away the revolver with an oath and, pulling out a
cologne-scented handkerchief, passed it tremulously over his brow and
temples. It was no use--he knew he could never do it in that way. His
attempts at self-destruction were as futile as his snatches at fame! He
couldn't make himself a real life, and he couldn't get rid of the life he
had. And that was why he had sent for Ascham to help him...
The lawyer, over the Camembert and Burgundy, began to excuse
himself for his delay.

"I didn't like to say anything while your man was about--but the fact is,
I was sent for on a rather unusual matter--"
"Oh, it's all right," said Granice cheerfully. He