A BOHEMIAN.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XX, Issue XXIII, 4 June 1898, Page 713

A BOHEMIAN.

(Dy

Walter E. Grogan.)

lie was a Bohemian—a real Bohemian. There was nothing- ideal about him. Bohemianism has had its face washed, its hair brushed, and its neekties ironed and tied in a neat manner underneath its transformed face. It hasjjteen transferred from Grub-street to Mayfair, and sips hot tea out of priceless china. All its pewter pots and briar-root pipes are taken away, and in their stead are exquisite glass and excellent cigars. But all that is left of Bohemianism in this new idealised form is the name. All its vices have been elevated, and its one virtue, honesty, has been discarded. He was a real Bohemian, and lived in Grub-street. He was a hack writer, and his friends were hack artists, men who sold their birthright, genius, talent, knack, what you will, to commercial men for a mess of pottage —that is beer and beefsteaks, and whisky and strong tobacco. He was old —over forty, and unmarried. Bohemianism rarely marries—not from matters of prudence, but from inclination. Possibly Bohemianism, without a collar and a thick, unkempt beard, is not attractive to women, and therefore a lack of opportunity unites with a lack of inclination. He did not know that he was old, for there is little account taken of age m Bohemia. From the boy who has still to pass through his schools to the old man who is almost past work, and is, pathetically enough, fullest of hope, they are all equal in age as they are in position. It is a Republic of Goodwill, and the president is often the laziest and the cleverest of them. He was, by common consent, President of their own private Republic, te was certainly clever, he was undoubtedly lazy. His articles were too wild to meet with much success. Editors had fought shy of his work because of its lurid luminosity, and now, when he wanted money, he was ‘ghost’ to sundry kid-gloved journalists and authors, who carefully adapted his work, taking out the heart of it, clothing the nakedness of its truth, and calling it their own. At which sometimes he laughed, and sometimes swore, as the mood took him, doingail things largely, standing up before ijis fellows without collar, and with

ruffled hair all spotted with the ink drops from his pen. At the New Year he often made good resolutions. Some years ha would sweep his roo-ms of rubbish, burn some pipes, and then, disgusted and uneasy at the change, go out and buy enough whisky to make him drunk. Other years he wrote articles or tales such as timid editors might not fear to take, and then, reading them over, make a funeral pyre of them.

‘lt is not life,’ he would say. ‘I cannot write of what I do not know. I have seen life as a wolf. I have seen life raging, struggling, tormenting, fighting, but the life that comes with kid gloves and a passion for bric-a--brac—l know not.’ He was not a drunkard, but often in his more reckless moods he drank too much. His language, too, was coarse —as language is apt to be in real Bohemia. Mayfair Bohemia does not understand that. When a real Bolt mian is lured .into the aesthetic drawing-rooms, and the daintily-garb-ed ladies lisp prettily of their Bohemianism, he struggles to hide a wild inclination to chuckle loudly. If they could only step into one of the haunts of the real Bohemian and see the mode of his life, they’ would draw their dainty skirts very tightly about them and step out again as quickly as they could. He was a Bohemian. No one ever questioned it, no one, perhaps, took sufficient interest in him to question. He was wild, uncouth, a man of big aims and little results—as many are in that rough kingdom. Once someone —the someone was a man who had sojourned in Bohemia in his salad days, who had drunk and cursed and worked with them when a student at the life school—made an effort at his reformation. In a weak moment he consented to go to the man’s studio, to sit and talk and drink tea before a big picture. The man hinted at soap and water, and he, swearing volubly, had dashed recklessly at it, and had even broken a comb tearing at, his beard. Then he went, rugged, queer, a huge man in shabby garments which somehow contrived to lend him some nameless, unfathomable dignity, and sat down among the inhabitants of make-believe Bohemia, and felt uncomfortable. The man—he was christened John, an honest English name, and had changed it to Clarence since the critics had increased the price of his pictures —met him at the threshold, and, half ashamed, introduced him to a few of his friends. He had been kind in his rough, uncouth wav to the lad when times were hard and the dealers were over-stocked, and Clarence had remembered —which was strange, ns memory is unstable with the successful. It. was in the nature of things that his remembrance should, in the sequel, prove the cruellest thing he could have fastened upon his former companion. Very often the best in us is the means of misery to others.

Among those to whom he was introduced was a young girl. She was young enough to have ideals. Having ideals, womanlike she looked about fci a peg upon which to bang them. The peg did not matter, for the ideals clothed it. Unluckily, she chose the roughest peg she could find, and, sitting down, worshipped the ideal she hung before her, under the impression that it and the peg were one. She was very fair to look upon. Even men who had been appraising women for years, with critical and fastidious taste, agreed upon that point. They also said she had no soul, for being soulless themselves, they allowed the possession to none but those who were like unto them. Unfortunately, she had, and in the society in which she moved it was a decided discomfort to her. It was therefore natural that she should long for a sphere beyond her own. Therefore she chose the first that touched her, as saving t rou ble. She saw that he was different. He came into the studio and went straight up to the picture and looked. For some time he said nothing, while the crowd chattered volubly about breadths, and handling, and foreshortening, matters which they did not understand. The pictures was one of Mary Magdalene. Clanence, in deference to public opinion, had suggested the features of a well-known lady who was the last sensational visitant to the Divorce Courts. The Mary was handsome, and sleek, and

contented, despite the theatrical tragedy depicted in her face. ‘You have forgotten sorrow, John,' was all he said. She asked him afterwards what he meant. ‘Sorrow gets hold of the heart,’ he answered. ‘lt pulls and pulls. The face becomes the index of the passion. Sorrow, such as hers, would burn—God, what does he mean by painting such trickery? It is cheap tragedy — the conventional sorrow which is as unreal as the world.’ ‘You know sorrow?’ she asked. ‘Know’ it?’ he blurted in answer, his hands clenching as they always clenched in the great bursts of his opinions. *1 know it through and through. So did he when he saw it daily in the streets. Then he knew life: now they have given him success, and he paints conventional things, thing’s which ha-e no meaning, and which men.cannot misunderstand. Know sorrow! I am over the edge of forty a long way, and since I was a lad—since I ran away to make a fortune, a mere boy— I have seen it every day. Gripping sorrow —sorrow which fills life and makes it black in front and behind. It's a hell, a writhing hell, and we sit and laugh lest the horror gets us by the heart!’ ‘Laugh?’ she echoed. ‘How could we live otherwise? Oh, yes, it’s their fault. They trust and believe, and we are all damned cads, everyone of us. Some of us get through and wash our garments, and —look here, I knew a woman who believed, and she found sorrow, and I was the only one at her funeral. You don’t know what that means. If you were to die —if he were to die—there would be a funeral with a string of people, who, out of common decency, would see you put under the ground. I stood by her grave alone —alone, mind you, and the gravedigger just chucked in the mould and jumped on it, grumbling that there was not enough made out of the job to get drunk on. I didn’t know her much — 1 knew her story, but not her, and I went—God knows why I went — I don’t. She drank herself to death, but before that—once she was a woman, and she found sorrow, and her face—if men painted such faces as hers was then, we could not bear it. It’s best, I suppose, to paint, this sort of thing—but it isn’t true.’ She looked up at him narrowly. He was rough, badly dressed, unconven-

tional. He seemed as much out of place in the studio as a lion in a cage. In her heart she knew that he was honest. Honesty attracted her—it does some people. The ruggedness of his speech, the directness of his words, all struck her with the force of novelty. Then she began to Worship. ‘You do not paint?’ she asked. Be looked at her good humouredly. ‘No, I don’t paint, but I have the smell of turpentine in me. I scribble, no one prints it. Perhaps it is as well. Some of the sleek journalists sub-edit my work, and are good enough not to let me starve.’ ‘Sub-edit?’ ‘Yes. Cut out the heart of it and put in sawdust. Speak not of evil, they say, only suggest it. Oh, the world is a humorous ball. I could write a book of life that would make some of you well-dressed people shudder, and, mind you, it would be life, real, seething life. No over-cultiva-tion, no forcing of sins in a hothouse. Just the pure essence of life.’ •You have seen much?’ More and more was she fascinated witu the strange, rough man. ‘Ay, life and death. Death is pretty easy if it comes in a row in a drinking" shop, or catches you by the lungs and chokes you; but life —life is so damned hard that you have just got to shut your eyes and grin. I remember being at an operation once.’ ‘You have been a medical student?’ He ran his fingers through his wild hair, and lay back laughing in his chair. The chair creaked ominously, and the people stared at the fullthroated laughter. He stopped ruefully at the creaking of the chair, but he was unconscious of the staring. She blushed hotly at it, and hated them—not him.

‘I have been most things. I studied medicine because I wanted to find out how people died. I was at an operation once. They brought in a poor devil —he was a low ruffian—with a bullet in his side. The surgeon lectured to us, and then probed for the lead, and we crowded round to see. Not one of us thought of the poor devil on the table. They did not give him chloroform because —well, because he would have gone under as sure as fate. He was strapped down so that he could not move. The pain must have been worse than hell. Yet through it all he lay with shut eyes, grinning. When the bullet was found it was not of much use to him. He was as dead as a stone, and the grin had frozen on his face. That is what 1 mean by living one’s life with shut eyes and a grin.’ She shuddered at the narrative, and he regarded her curiously. ‘I ought not to have told you —I am not used to meeting people like you. It was a mistake coming here.’ ’No, not a mistake.’ She leaned towards him. He looked at her and her eyes fell. He continued looking at her. He saw that she was very fair. Her hair curled round pink shell-like ears. He suddenly became aware of the existence of many charms. Then be rose. ‘Where are you going?’ she demanded beseechingly. ‘Out of here. lam not fit for it—it is not fit for me. It was a mistake.’ ‘Don’t go,’ she pleaded l dreamily. ‘I am interested in you—in your conversation. You go to the heart of things—these talk only of the fringe." So he stayed, and they talked. He told her much—he painted life in strong lurid pigments, he spoke of his wild experiences, he related many stories belonging to the driftwood of life. He was a man who could talk—he never made conversation. He had been in strange lands. He had seen death in strange guises. For the first time she had met someone of whom she could say, ‘This is a man.’

Thus it was that she fell under the spell, and when he went out into. the early evening air he felt a change in the atmosphere of life. He was not a boy. Years ago he had grown out of that state which wilfully abstains from thought. Day by day he resolved that, he would not see her again. Day by day the resolution was broken. Not from want of firmness, but from over modesty. When the remembrance of her soft ways and the light of her eyes was strong upon him, he felt the need of absolute severance, for her sake. When the remembrance faded a little he called himself a conceited fool, and went back to her for his own sake. For himself he never thought, and

the friendship was very dear to him. When it was an end—well, then he eould go back to the old life. His companions in Bohemia noted that he never got drunk. Beyond that he was not changed—except that when he cleared them out of his rooms in his old abrupt way it did not seem that he was suffering from the blues. At which they wondered. Some held that he was courting the Philistines, and would in due course produce a novel, conventional in its pourtrayal of life. Those who were older and knew him better spurned the idea, yet wondered all the more. The kid-glove journalists to whom he was ghost wondered at a new note in his work, which was not unlike a rough attempt at tenderness. They only smiled, however, for it saved them some labour in putting In conventional touches.

She grew more and more fascinated. They were many reasons why she should not love him, therefore she did.

She had been fashioned in that school which dwarfs all passions into emotions, and because of former repression her love was passionate. It is in the nature of love to be different to the life of its devotee. She loved him so intensely that she forgot herself in it, which was a curious thing for a young girl to do. She dressed well to please him, not to please herself, because of his admiration. If she had only known that he never took heed of what she wore it might have saved her trouble. ‘She had lace at her throat, or a handkerchief, something white,’ he said to himself one night when he was more than usually contemplative. ‘Her dress was—what does it matter? I don’t know—l can’t remember. Something that did not wholly conceal her form, and after that, her eyes —I can remember only her eyes. I wonder what they would look like with the greys of pain in them. God grant that I may never know.’

Being a man he would shield her from what he was steadily building up. Matters drifted easily for a few weeks. They met frequently—quite three times a week. At first he haunted the studio of his friend, to their mutual discomfort.. His rough, true criticism disturbed the man who worked for the critics and his patrons, both equally ignorant of Art. Fur all that it woke some echo of h< neater days, 'and his next picture was a little less conventional. Then they met in the parks at unfashionable hours when no one remarked the roughness of his garb, or the beauty of hers. They even watched the growing blurr of the evening shroud the trees and railings, and the twinkling lights dawn like living jewels bedecking a dead body. They spoke no word of love, but love was ever present. It whispered in the silence, it was an echo to his impassioned tirades against all things that be. She grew more and more to see with his eyes.' His rough outbursts were not without power, and she recognised this and disregarded the waywardness of his moods. One night he paced his shabby room with nervous energy. The room was small,and he brushed often against the few articles which were mostly congregated in inconvenient places. He seemed unconscious of the havoc of overturned furniture, and books, and pipes. His hair stood out stubbornly over his head, his shirt was unfastened at the throat, and his coat was ragged, and stained with burns, and the spilling of whisky. As he strode he muttered to himself in brief gasps, like the sharp gusts of a coming storm.

‘lt must end. It cannot go on like* this. Life is too full of ends—ends which are hopelessly final. I thought myself strong. What a fool man is when he believes in his strength! There is nothing strong but passion and—what have I taught her? Truth, the world as it is, and—it may be more. Who knows? If she has come to —to care for me! What a mockery of fate! What a tragedy! Oh, God! it would be the love of a child for a mangled toy, the love of a mother for a cripple! It must end. I must break it. I have no part in her life. We have walked a few yards together, she in the sunlight, I in the shadow of the edge of the wood, that is all. Now I must plunge back into the wood. It will be darker, but—there will be the sunshine for her. Perhaps. There is the sting. I, who have sworn by my honesty—who have called all men liars but myself —have cheated her!’ He stopped suddenly in his pacing and then laughed. It was not his usual full, ringing laugh. It was higher pitched and had a strange insistency. He threw bin-self into his arm-chair. It creaked, for it was growing old, and the springs were obtrusive. He selected a pipe, filled and lit it, laughing queerly in spasmodic bursts. ‘So I have come down to raving like the hero of a woman’s novel! What is she but an over-dressed doll? Women are dolls—some are clever enough to deceive one —but they are all dolls—no soul, no heart, only sawdust. She is the same, soulless.’ He did not believe himself, so he repeated the word ‘soulless’ with savage emphasis. ‘lt is an episode. I have strayed into the abominable temples of the

Philistines, and the cursed incense has made a fool of me. I have the smell of it in my nostrils. Gad! I must get back into the clearer, stronger air of Bohemia. I have been a fool, and the folly ’ He paused, and watched the smoke from his pipe curling upwards. Presently he became aware of a low knocking at his door. He listened absently for a few moments. Then he swore. ‘Get out!’ he cried, roughly. ‘I am wearing sackcloth and ashes, and am no decent society for any man. I cannot stand any of you to-night. Get drunk in some one else's rooms!’ The knocking went on persistently. He became curious, got up, growling and flung back the door. ‘You!’ he cried. ‘Yes, I—l have come,’ she answered, passing in. He stared at her. She was in evening dress. She wore no hat, but •» hooded opera cloak was flung round her. Her white shoes were muddied with the streets. ‘God!’ he cried. ‘Get out! Yon can’t come here.’ ‘I have come,’ she answered, calmly, slipping off the cloak. He saw that her neck was white, and her arms round and soft. ‘You don’t know what you are doing.’ He began to feel helpless and inert. He stood fronting her with his pipe in his hand, and his great brown throat swelling through the open collar of his shirt. ‘Yes, I know. I have come to you, following my heart and my soul.’ She was very beautiful, and for a moment he wavered. Then he remembered. and grew rough. ‘lt is ruin for you.’ ‘No, it is life! I have come because there is no higher law than love. I love you. You know that. So I have come.’

She looked very out of place in the shabby room. She was as incongruous as an honest man in Society. He took a deep breath and then spoke. ‘You are doing a foolish thing. You think it is heroic. That is because you are ignorant. You are throwing away all your chances of happiness in life, and the chances for the best of us are very small. You are doing just what a foolish romantic girl would do. Get out into the streets and home. You eome to me. Why? To please yourself. Because there is novelty in it. Because you are sick of security. I don’t want you. Go!’ She started, and gazed at him earnestly. ‘You don’t want me?’ she said, slowly. ‘No,’ he answered. It cost him much to utter the' lie, even though he felt; that it was honest. ‘lt is false—you love me,’ she said, but there was an uncertainty in her accent. ‘I love no woman. All women are fools—and worse. You amuse me. Go!’

She looked at him appealingly, and h e laughed. Then she gathered up her cloak mechanically and went out with bowed head and a strangled sob. For some minutes he remained standing, looking at the empty framework of the door. Then, putting his pipe into his mouth absent-mindedly, he found that it had gone out. He crossed to the fireplace and relit it. He looked at the fire with a wrinkled brow, then kicked the fender savagely. Later that evening he burst in on McPherson, who did stray articles in the evening papers, and played the violin execrably in the small hours of the morning. McPherson was spending the results of a week’s hard work in a royal supper to his section of Bohemia. The advent was hailed with riotous satisfaction. ‘Where have you been?’ cried McPherson. ‘Hovering between Hell and Paradise—places equally bad to live in. Give me strong waters to wash out the taste.’ ‘Was it a woman?’ asked a younger man, who knew him but of late. ‘A woman!’ growled the rest, incredulously. He laughed hugely at the joke—and his laughter silenced the others, for it had in it a new and a strange note. That night two of his friends carried him home dead drunk. She wept throughout the long hours, more from self-pity than from disappointed love. Yet h e remembered, and she forgot.— ‘West kind Review.’