THE REPAIRER OF REPUTATIONS
I
"Ne raillons pas les fous; leur folie dure plus
longtemps que la nôtre.... Voila toute la différence."
Toward the end of the year 1920 the Government of the
United States had practically completed the programme, adopted during the last
months of President Winthrop's administration. The country was apparently
tranquil. Everybody knows how the Tariff and Labour questions were settled. The
war with Germany, incident on that country's seizure of the Samoan Islands, had
left no visible scars upon the republic, and the temporary occupation of
Norfolk by the invading army had been forgotten in the joy over repeated naval
victories, and the subsequent ridiculous plight of General Von Gartenlaube's
forces in the State of New Jersey. The Cuban and Hawaiian investments had paid
one hundred per cent and the territory of Samoa was well worth its cost as a
coaling station. The country was in a superb state of defence. Every coast city
had been well supplied with land fortifications; the army under the parental
eye of the General Staff, organized according to the Prussian system, had been
increased to 300,000 men, with a territorial reserve of a million; and six
magnificent squadrons of cruisers and battle-ships patrolled the six stations
of the navigable seas, leaving a steam reserve amply fitted to control home
waters. The gentlemen from the West had at last been constrained to acknowledge
that a college for the training of diplomats was as necessary as law schools
are for the training of barristers; consequently we were no longer represented
abroad by incompetent patriots. The nation was prosperous; Chicago, for a
moment paralyzed after a second great fire, had risen from its ruins, white and
imperial, and more beautiful than the white city which had been built for its
plaything in 1893. Everywhere good architecture was replacing bad, and even in
New York, a sudden craving for decency had swept away a great portion of the
existing horrors. Streets had been widened, properly paved and lighted, trees
had been planted, squares laid out, elevated structures demolished and
underground roads built to replace them. The new government buildings and
barracks were fine bits of architecture, and the long system of stone quays
which completely surrounded the island had been turned into parks which proved
a god-send to the population. The subsidizing of the state theatre and state
opera brought its own reward. The United States National Academy of Design was
much like European institutions of the same kind. Nobody envied the Secretary
of Fine Arts, either his cabinet position or his portfolio. The Secretary of
Forestry and Game Preservation had a much easier time, thanks to the new system
of National Mounted Police. We had profited well by the latest treaties with
France and England; the exclusion of foreign-born Jews as a measure of
self-preservation, the settlement of the new independent negro state of Suanee,
the checking of immigration, the new laws concerning naturalization, and the
gradual centralization of power in the executive all contributed to national
calm and prosperity. When the Government solved the Indian problem and
squadrons of Indian cavalry scouts in native costume were substituted for the
pitiable organizations tacked on to the tail of skeletonized regiments by a
former Secretary of War, the nation drew a long sigh of relief. When, after the
colossal Congress of Religions, bigotry and intolerance were laid in their
graves and kindness and charity began to draw warring sects together, many
thought the millennium had arrived, at least in the new world which after all
is a world by itself.
But self-preservation is the first law, and the United
States had to look on in helpless sorrow as Germany, Italy, Spain and Belgium
writhed in the throes of Anarchy, while Russia, watching from the Caucasus,
stooped and bound them one by one.
In the city of New York the summer of 1899 was
signalized by the dismantling of the Elevated Railroads. The summer of 1900
will live in the memories of New York people for many a cycle; the Dodge Statue
was removed in that year. In the following winter began that agitation for the
repeal of the laws prohibiting suicide which bore its final fruit in the month
of April, 1920, when the first Government Lethal Chamber was opened on
Washington Square.
I had walked down that day from Dr. Archer's house on
Madison Avenue, where I had been as a mere formality. Ever since that fall from
my horse, four years before, I had been troubled at times with pains in the
back of my head and neck, but now for months they had been absent, and the
doctor sent me away that day saying there was nothing more to be cured in me.
It was hardly worth his fee to be told that; I knew it myself. Still I did not
grudge him the money. What I minded was the mistake which he made at first.
When they picked me up from the pavement where I lay unconscious, and somebody
had mercifully sent a bullet through my horse's head, I was carried to Dr.
Archer, and he, pronouncing my brain affected, placed me in his private asylum
where I was obliged to endure treatment for insanity. At last he decided that I
was well, and I, knowing that my mind had always been as sound as his, if not
sounder, "paid my tuition" as he jokingly called it, and left. I told
him, smiling, that I would get even with him for his mistake, and he laughed
heartily, and asked me to call once in a while. I did so, hoping for a chance
to even up accounts, but he gave me none, and I told him I would wait.
The fall from my horse had fortunately left no evil
results; on the contrary it had changed my whole character for the better. From
a lazy young man about town, I had become active, energetic, temperate, and
above all—oh, above all else—ambitious. There was only one thing which troubled
me, I laughed at my own uneasiness, and yet it troubled me.
During my convalescence I had bought and read for the
first time, The King in Yellow. I remember after finishing the first act that it
occurred to me that I had better stop. I started up and flung the book into the
fireplace; the volume struck the barred grate and fell open on the hearth in
the firelight. If I had not caught a glimpse of the opening words in the second
act I should never have finished it, but as I stooped to pick it up, my eyes
became riveted to the open page, and with a cry of terror, or perhaps it was of
joy so poignant that I suffered in every nerve, I snatched the thing out of the
coals and crept shaking to my bedroom, where I read it and reread it, and wept
and laughed and trembled with a horror which at times assails me yet. This is
the thing that troubles me, for I cannot forget Carcosa where black stars hang
in the heavens; where the shadows of men's thoughts lengthen in the afternoon,
when the twin suns sink into the lake of Hali; and my mind will bear for ever
the memory of the Pallid Mask. I pray God will curse the writer, as the writer
has cursed the world with this beautiful, stupendous creation, terrible in its
simplicity, irresistible in its truth—a world which now trembles before the
King in Yellow. When the French Government seized the translated copies which
had just arrived in Paris, London, of course, became eager to read it. It is
well known how the book spread like an infectious disease, from city to city,
from continent to continent, barred out here, confiscated there, denounced by
Press and pulpit, censured even by the most advanced of literary anarchists. No
definite principles had been violated in those wicked pages, no doctrine
promulgated, no convictions outraged. It could not be judged by any known
standard, yet, although it was acknowledged that the supreme note of art had
been struck in The King in Yellow, all felt that human nature could not bear the
strain, nor thrive on words in which the essence of purest poison lurked. The
very banality and innocence of the first act only allowed the blow to fall
afterward with more awful effect.
It was, I remember, the 13th day of April, 1920, that
the first Government Lethal Chamber was established on the south side of
Washington Square, between Wooster Street and South Fifth Avenue. The block
which had formerly consisted of a lot of shabby old buildings, used as cafés
and restaurants for foreigners, had been acquired by the Government in the
winter of 1898. The French and Italian cafés and restaurants were torn down;
the whole block was enclosed by a gilded iron railing, and converted into a
lovely garden with lawns, flowers and fountains. In the centre of the garden
stood a small, white building, severely classical in architecture, and
surrounded by thickets of flowers. Six Ionic columns supported the roof, and
the single door was of bronze. A splendid marble group of the "Fates"
stood before the door, the work of a young American sculptor, Boris Yvain, who
had died in Paris when only twenty-three years old.
The inauguration ceremonies were in progress as I
crossed University Place and entered the square. I threaded my way through the
silent throng of spectators, but was stopped at Fourth Street by a cordon of
police. A regiment of United States lancers were drawn up in a hollow square
round the Lethal Chamber. On a raised tribune facing Washington Park stood the
Governor of New York, and behind him were grouped the Mayor of New York and
Brooklyn, the Inspector-General of Police, the Commandant of the state troops,
Colonel Livingston, military aid to the President of the United States, General
Blount, commanding at Governor's Island, Major-General Hamilton, commanding the
garrison of New York and Brooklyn, Admiral Buffby of the fleet in the North
River, Surgeon-General Lanceford, the staff of the National Free Hospital,
Senators Wyse and Franklin of New York, and the Commissioner of Public Works.
The tribune was surrounded by a squadron of hussars of the National Guard.
The Governor was finishing his reply to the short
speech of the Surgeon-General. I heard him say: "The laws prohibiting
suicide and providing punishment for any attempt at self-destruction have been
repealed. The Government has seen fit to acknowledge the right of man to end an
existence which may have become intolerable to him, through physical suffering
or mental despair. It is believed that the community will be benefited by the
removal of such people from their midst. Since the passage of this law, the
number of suicides in the United States has not increased. Now the Government
has determined to establish a Lethal Chamber in every city, town and village in
the country, it remains to be seen whether or not that class of human creatures
from whose desponding ranks new victims of self-destruction fall daily will
accept the relief thus provided." He paused, and turned to the white
Lethal Chamber. The silence in the street was absolute. "There a painless
death awaits him who can no longer bear the sorrows of this life. If death is
welcome let him seek it there." Then quickly turning to the military aid
of the President's household, he said, "I declare the Lethal Chamber
open," and again facing the vast crowd he cried in a clear voice:
"Citizens of New York and of the United States of America, through me the
Government declares the Lethal Chamber to be open."
The solemn hush was broken by a sharp cry of command,
the squadron of hussars filed after the Governor's carriage, the lancers
wheeled and formed along Fifth Avenue to wait for the commandant of the
garrison, and the mounted police followed them. I left the crowd to gape and
stare at the white marble Death Chamber, and, crossing South Fifth Avenue,
walked along the western side of that thoroughfare to Bleecker Street. Then I
turned to the right and stopped before a dingy shop which bore the sign:
HAWBERK, ARMOURER.
I glanced in at the doorway and saw Hawberk busy in
his little shop at the end of the hall. He looked up, and catching sight of me
cried in his deep, hearty voice, "Come in, Mr. Castaigne!" Constance,
his daughter, rose to meet me as I crossed the threshold, and held out her
pretty hand, but I saw the blush of disappointment on her cheeks, and knew that
it was another Castaigne she had expected, my cousin Louis. I smiled at her
confusion and complimented her on the banner she was embroidering from a
coloured plate. Old Hawberk sat riveting the worn greaves of some ancient suit
of armour, and the ting! ting! ting! of his little hammer sounded pleasantly in
the quaint shop. Presently he dropped his hammer, and fussed about for a moment
with a tiny wrench. The soft clash of the mail sent a thrill of pleasure
through me. I loved to hear the music of steel brushing against steel, the
mellow shock of the mallet on thigh pieces, and the jingle of chain armour.
That was the only reason I went to see Hawberk. He had never interested me
personally, nor did Constance, except for the fact of her being in love with
Louis. This did occupy my attention, and sometimes even kept me awake at night.
But I knew in my heart that all would come right, and that I should arrange
their future as I expected to arrange that of my kind doctor, John Archer.
However, I should never have troubled myself about visiting them just then, had
it not been, as I say, that the music of the tinkling hammer had for me this
strong fascination. I would sit for hours, listening and listening, and when a
stray sunbeam struck the inlaid steel, the sensation it gave me was almost too
keen to endure. My eyes would become fixed, dilating with a pleasure that
stretched every nerve almost to breaking, until some movement of the old
armourer cut off the ray of sunlight, then, still thrilling secretly, I leaned
back and listened again to the sound of the polishing rag, swish! swish!
rubbing rust from the rivets.
Constance worked with the embroidery over her knees,
now and then pausing to examine more closely the pattern in the coloured plate
from the Metropolitan Museum.
"Who is this for?" I asked.
Hawberk explained, that in addition to the treasures
of armour in the Metropolitan Museum of which he had been appointed armourer,
he also had charge of several collections belonging to rich amateurs. This was
the missing greave of a famous suit which a client of his had traced to a
little shop in Paris on the Quai d'Orsay. He, Hawberk, had negotiated for and
secured the greave, and now the suit was complete. He laid down his hammer and
read me the history of the suit, traced since 1450 from owner to owner until it
was acquired by Thomas Stainbridge. When his superb collection was sold, this
client of Hawberk's bought the suit, and since then the search for the missing
greave had been pushed until it was, almost by accident, located in Paris.
"Did you continue the search so persistently
without any certainty of the greave being still in existence?" I demanded.
"Of course," he replied coolly.
Then for the first time I took a personal interest in
Hawberk.
"It was worth something to you," I ventured.
"No," he replied, laughing, "my
pleasure in finding it was my reward."
"Have you no ambition to be rich?" I asked,
smiling.
"My one ambition is to be the best armourer in
the world," he answered gravely.
Constance asked me if I had seen the ceremonies at the
Lethal Chamber. She herself had noticed cavalry passing up Broadway that
morning, and had wished to see the inauguration, but her father wanted the
banner finished, and she had stayed at his request.
"Did you see your cousin, Mr. Castaigne,
there?" she asked, with the slightest tremor of her soft eyelashes.
"No," I replied carelessly. "Louis'
regiment is manœuvring out in Westchester County." I rose and picked up my
hat and cane.
"Are you going upstairs to see the lunatic
again?" laughed old Hawberk. If Hawberk knew how I loathe that word
"lunatic," he would never use it in my presence. It rouses certain
feelings within me which I do not care to explain. However, I answered him
quietly: "I think I shall drop in and see Mr. Wilde for a moment or
two."
"Poor fellow," said Constance, with a shake
of the head, "it must be hard to live alone year after year poor, crippled
and almost demented. It is very good of you, Mr. Castaigne, to visit him as
often as you do."
"I think he is vicious," observed Hawberk,
beginning again with his hammer. I listened to the golden tinkle on the greave
plates; when he had finished I replied:
"No, he is not vicious, nor is he in the least
demented. His mind is a wonder chamber, from which he can extract treasures
that you and I would give years of our life to acquire."'
Hawberk laughed.
I continued a little impatiently: "He knows
history as no one else could know it. Nothing, however trivial, escapes his
search, and his memory is so absolute, so precise in details, that were it
known in New York that such a man existed, the people could not honour him
enough."
"Nonsense," muttered Hawberk, searching on
the floor for a fallen rivet.
"Is it nonsense," I asked, managing to
suppress what I felt, "is it nonsense when he says that the tassets and
cuissards of the enamelled suit of armour commonly known as the 'Prince's
Emblazoned' can be found among a mass of rusty theatrical properties, broken
stoves and ragpicker's refuse in a garret in Pell Street?"
Hawberk's hammer fell to the ground, but he picked it
up and asked, with a great deal of calm, how I knew that the tassets and left
cuissard were missing from the "Prince's Emblazoned."
"I did not know until Mr. Wilde mentioned it to
me the other day. He said they were in the garret of 998 Pell Street."
"Nonsense," he cried, but I noticed his hand
trembling under his leathern apron.
"Is this nonsense too?" I asked pleasantly,
"is it nonsense when Mr. Wilde continually speaks of you as the Marquis of
Avonshire and of Miss Constance—"
I did not finish, for Constance had started to her
feet with terror written on every feature. Hawberk looked at me and slowly
smoothed his leathern apron.
"That is impossible," he observed, "Mr.
Wilde may know a great many things—"
"About armour, for instance, and the 'Prince's
Emblazoned,'" I interposed, smiling.
"Yes," he continued, slowly, "about
armour also—may be—but he is wrong in regard to the Marquis of Avonshire, who,
as you know, killed his wife's traducer years ago, and went to Australia where
he did not long survive his wife."
"Mr. Wilde is wrong," murmured Constance.
Her lips were blanched, but her voice was sweet and calm.
"Let us agree, if you please, that in this one
circumstance Mr. Wilde is wrong," I said.
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