A Puritan Bohemia/Chapter 12
CHAPTER XII
"Ye pilgrim folk, advancing pensively
As if in thought of distant things, I pray
Is your own land indeed so far away
As by your aspect it would seem to be? "
Bohemia had cast its spell upon Miss Wistar. She revelled in the waywardness of her new life. Lunching every day at a restaurant; breakfasting when she chose in her studio; exploring at her own will the irregular streets of the old city, this was freedom, this was reality.
"How can people go on living in stiff houses and doing the same things over every day?" she asked Anne Bradford one rainy noon, over an improvised luncheon of caraway cakes and tea.
"Giving stupid dinners and luncheons and receptions," Anne rejoined.
"And making senseless calls. Oh, this is the only life to live!"
The severity of Helen's mood abated. She was almost gay. There was an intoxicating interest in the life in this new country. Queer things happened in this queer building: theatricals, concerts, art exhibitions. Monks and satyrs and long-trained queens wandered through the corridors on the evenings of masquerade balls. College boys in feminine costumes laughed in corners between the acts of the plays they gave.
Greater than the charm of the social life that Helen watched was the social life she shared. A pleasant feeling of comradeship had grown up between the four people whose paths had crossed in Bohemia. The evenings in the studio when they sat together, discussing life and literature and art gave Helen a cheerful feeling of dissipation. Here Anne Bradford said wise things that Helen did not believe; Mrs. Kent said wise things that Helen did not understand; and Howard Stanton said wise things that
"Marked the boundary
Where men grew blind, though angels knew the rest."
The excitement of all this made Helen feel that she was at last in the great current of life. The sternness of its struggle was hers.
"Suppose we form a Round Table fellowship," said Anne Bradford one evening. "My tea-table shall be the social centre."
"I consent, with rapture," responded Howard.
"It is queer," Anne continued, "but, do you know, I cannot find any interesting people outside of Bohemia."
"Or any interesting ideas," said Helen; "but that's the same thing."
"Or any good coffee," added Howard, lifting his cup.
Snow lay on roof and on garden wall, and east winds wailed in the streets. In the Square the long willow branches waved in falling snow and fitful sunshine. But the wind in their faces, and the mud and snow of the ways they walked, were as nothing to the seekers for the ideal. Howard Stanton went on making great washes on his canvas. Anne worked with imperceptible strokes, humming sometimes,
"Point d'hiver pour les cœurs fidèles.
Ils sont toujours dans le printemps."
Under the stimulus of this new life, where hope and fear and desire chased one another in quickly shifting moods, Helen Wistar woke to a consciousness of the time already lost at twenty. Her masters were teaching her mere technique. In that which was to her the very soul of art she was making no progress. She was tired of plaster heads and of ragged models. What good could ever come of painting just what one saw? One's thought of what the world should be ought to be expressed in one's work.
She too would paint a picture, embodying her new belief. In a misguided moment she confided her idea to Anne. A belligerent intimacy had sprung up between the two girls.
Anne, after a losing struggle with her conscience, betrayed the same to Mrs. Kent.
"Helen is painting a picture," said the artist, the corners of her mouth twitching. "She calls it symbolic. It is the rich young man of the Gospels going back to his own selfish life. There's a group of ragged people in the foreground. One model posed for them all. The young man is turning away. Only, the perspective is queer, and the canvas is so crowded with the poor that there isn't going to be much room for the rich young man."
"Can the child draw?"
"No, but she can feel," said Anne slowly. "She has too much ambition in her heart, and not enough in her fingers. We women are all like that. We'd rather think how glorious our work is than do it."
"Helen is one of those whom the gods send far off to find that which lies nearest at hand," responded Mrs. Kent.
From the interesting people who had become her friends, Helen turned wistfully to those whom she wished to help. Her serious purpose had not been forgotten. She watched her fellow-Bohemians with interest as they went their way, in the city, yet not of it. Through its streets and its shops they walked with an air of seeing something a long way off. They mingled with young ladies and matrons at crowded shopping-places. But, standing by the pin, tape, and braid counter, they discussed in one breath the world-will of Schopenhauer, the spirituality of Pre-Raphaelitism, and the kind of velveteen to be used for facings. They stopped between courses in their luncheons to put down points in their notebooks. They talked Theosophy in the street cars. They argued of the ideal on muddy corners.
Reverence mingled with Helen's pity for them. Their ignoring of material comforts condemned her traditions. Their longing for the intangible roused her aspiration. But she could not reach them. All around her, they were yet remote.
Certain words of Anne Bradford filled her with vague misgiving.
"You cannot do it, my dear. Your little economies are only affectation. The real struggle you cannot possibly understand."
"But," pleaded Helen, "I am so sorry for these women."
"Doubtless they are sorry for you." The little artist set her lips firmly together. "If I have any grip on my art, it is because I have to fight for it. Thank Heaven for the things that are hard!"
Helen grieved much over Anne's lack of sympathy.
"Miss Bradford makes me feel as if nothing were worth while," she said mournfully, one day, to Mr. Stanton. He had overtaken her as she crossed the park, in the late afternoon. All about them lay deep snow. Above, the bare tree branches stood out against broken purple clouds. There were gleaming lights in far-away shop-windows, and in the crawling electric cars.
"Never mind. It is all worth while," said the young man reassuringly.
"Isn't Miss Bradford rather blind to the ideal aspects of things?"
"Some things," answered Howard grimly, "and given to over-idealizing in others."
There was one small person whom Helen was able to reach and influence. This was Annabel. The child loved Miss Wistar. The sealskin cape had touched a chord in her nature that nothing had ever touched before. Helen had begun to teach her in the evenings. Annabel cast about in her mind for some way of showing her gratitude to her benefactor.
"What do you s'pose I heard Mr. Stanton say the other day?" she asked suddenly, on the night of the third lesson. Annabel had been slightly bored, and was pining for excitement.
"How can I tell?"
"I was a-coming through the hall. My little brother was ill, and I was taking him some broth. It was chicken broth," said Annabel, with an air of giving circumstantial evidence. "Mr. Stanton's door was open, and I heard him say, 'Helen. O my Helen!'"
"Go on reading," commanded Miss Wistar.
"And then he said, 'Gracious heavens! How can I'"
Annabel was sent home in disgrace. Miss Wistar sat alone a long time, in the dark, thinking. The child was so pleased with this new bit of fiction that she stopped at Miss Bradford's studio and repeated it, with additions.