Hudson River Bracketed · Book VI · Chapter 32 (2/2)

“Well⁠—it’s this way. I’m not a bit like that fellow in the hymn. One step isn’t enough for me. And I can’t seem to see beyond; I’m in a fog that gets thicker and thicker.”

Frenside leaned back with half-closed lids and seemed to take counsel of his pipe. “Creative or doctrinal?”

Vance smiled. “Oh, chiefly doctrinal, I guess.”

“Well, that’s not mortal. Out with your symptoms.” And Vance began.

It was his first opportunity for a quiet talk with Frenside, and he saw at once that there was nothing to fear if one really had something to say to him. Vance had plenty to say; the difficulty was that he did not quite know where to begin. But before he had done floundering Frenside had taken the words out of his mouth and was formulating his problem for him, clearly, concisely. He did not harangue him, but put a series of questions and helped Vance to answer them, so that even when Frenside was talking Vance seemed to be listening to himself.

“Yes⁠—it’s a bad time for a creator of any sort to be born, in this after-war welter, with its new recipe for immortality every morning. And I suppose, for one thing, you’re torn between the demands of your publishers, who want another Instead, and your own impulse, which is to do something quite different⁠—outside it, beyond it, away from it. And when you add to that all the critics (I believe they call themselves) knocking down their own standards once a day, and building up others to suit their purblind necessities⁠—God, yes, it’s a tough old vocation that will force its way through that yelping crowd, and I don’t wonder a youngster like you is dazed by it.”

Vance listened attentively. “I’m not dazed, though, not exactly. I said I couldn’t see around me and outside of me. But there’s a steady light somewhere inside of me.⁠ ⁠…”

“Yes, I believe there is,” Frenside nodded. He drew at his pipe, crossed one leg over another, and finally said: “I’d have given a gold mine to have that light, at your age.”

The blood rushed to Vance’s forehead. “Oh, but you⁠—”

“No, not that. But I’m straying from the subject: which is, plainly, what had you better do next?”

“Well, yes, that’s so.”

“And the obvious answer: ‘Follow your impulse,’ is no use when you have a hundred impulses tugging at you from the inside, and all that clatter of contradictory opinion from the outside, eh?” Frenside considered again. “The trouble with you is that you’re suffering from the self-distrust produced by success. Nothing is as disintegrating as success: one blurb on a book jacket can destroy a man’s soul more surely than the Quarterly killed Keats. And to young fellows like you, after you’ve made your first hit, the world is all one vast blurb. Well, you’ve got to stuff cotton in your ears and go ahead.⁠ ⁠…”

“Ahead, you say? But where? Well, Nature abhors a void, and to fill it she’s wasteful⁠—wildly wasteful. In the abstract, my advice would be: follow her example. Be as wasteful as she is. Her darlings always are. Chase after one impulse and another; try your hand at this and that; let your masterpieces die off by the dozen without seeing the light⁠ ⁠… But what’s the use of such talk nowadays? Besides, you’ve got to earn your living, haven’t you? Well, that’s not a bad thing either. You don’t want to risk getting lost in the forest of dreams. It happens. And if you once went to sleep under the deadly Tree of Alternatives you might never wake up again. So⁠—” He paused, relit his pipe, and blinked at Vance meditatively.

“As far as I can see, one trouble is this. The thing you’ve just done (yes, I’ve read it; Halo made me) well, it’s a pretty thing, exquisite, in fact, and a surprise, a novelty nowadays, as its popularity has proved. But it’s a thing that leads nowhere. An evocation⁠—an emanation⁠—something you wrought with enchantments, eh? Well, now take hold of life as it lies around you; you remember Goethe: ‘Wherever you take hold of it, it’s interesting’? So it is⁠—but only in proportion as you are. There’s the catch. The artist has got to feed his offspring out of his own tissue. Enrich that, day and night⁠—perpetually. How?⁠ ⁠… Ah, my dear fellow, that’s the question! What does the tortoise stand on⁠ ⁠… ?”

Vance sat silent. Perhaps his adviser was right. Perhaps the only really fruitful field for the artist was his own day, his own town or country, a field into which he could plunge both hands and pluck up his subjects with their live roots. Instead had charmed his readers by its difference⁠—charmed them because they were unconsciously tired of incoherence and brutality; but the spell would soon break because, as Frenside said, his tale had been an “emanation,” not a reality. He had given very little of what Frenside called his “tissue” to its making. And now his thoughts reverted to Loot, the old theme which had haunted him since his first days in New York⁠—it seemed a century ago⁠—and his imagination instantly set to work on it.

“I suppose you go out a good deal these days⁠—see a good many people? A novelist ought to, at one time or another,” Frenside continued. “Manners are your true material, after all.”

Vance hesitated. “I don’t go out much.” He could not add that Laura Lou made it impossible; but he said, with equal truth: “Fact is, I can’t afford it. I mean, the time⁠—or the money either⁠ ⁠…”

“The money?” Frenside looked surprised. “Why, you ought to be raking in royalties by now. I don’t suppose you got much out of the New Hour for your serial? No, I thought not. The highbrow papers can’t pay. But the book; why it’s been out three or four months, hasn’t it? It was a good deal talked about while it was coming out in the review, and you ought to have had a handsome sum on the advance sales, and another instalment after three months. I understand that’s the regular arrangement for fiction⁠—I wish it was for book-reviewing,” he added mournfully.

Vance was glad of the opening; but for Frenside’s question he would never have had the courage to mention his material difficulties, though it was partly with that object that he had called. But he felt the friendliness under the old man’s gruff interrogations, and his anxiety burst from him. No, he said, he’d had no such privileges. The publishers, Dreck and Saltzer, to whom Tarrant had bound him for three years for all book publication, had been visibly disappointed by Instead. They didn’t think the subject would take, and even if it did, they said the book was too short for big sales. There’s nothing a publisher so hates to handle as a book⁠—especially a novel⁠—that doesn’t fit into the regulation measures. Instead was only forty-five thousand words long, and Mr. Dreck told Vance he didn’t know a meaner length. He’d rather have an elephant to handle like Ulysses or American Tragedy, than a mouthful like that. When readers have paid their money they like to sit down to a square meal. An oyster cocktail won’t satisfy ’em. They want their money’s worth; and that’s at least a hundred thousand. And if you try charging ’em less, they say: “Hell, what’s wrong with the book for it to sell so cheap? Not an hour’s reading in it, most likely.” So Dreck and Saltzer had halved the percentage previously agreed on, on the plea that the book wasn’t a novel anyhow⁠—nothing under ninety thousand is; and there had been no advance royalties, and there would be no payment at all till June. Of course, they said, if Vance had pulled off the Pulsifer Prize it would have been different. As it was, there was nothing in it for them, and they took the book only to oblige Tarrant.

Frenside listened attentively. When Vance had ended, he said: “From a business point of view I suppose they were right⁠—before the book came out. But now? It’s had a big sale, or so they say in their advertisements; and they wouldn’t keep on advertising it if it hadn’t. Can’t you ask them to make you an advance, even if it’s not in the bond?”

Vance reddened as he said that he had asked and been turned down. The publishers claimed that they were advertising the book at a dead loss, that the sales hadn’t been much bigger than they had expected; but that they “believed” in Vance’s future, and were ready to risk some money on it⁠—a pure speculation, they declared. So they really couldn’t do more.

Frenside gave a contemptuous wave of his pipe. “That’s what the small publishers call ‘business,’ and why they never get to be big ones. Pity you’re tied up to them. However⁠—” He paused, and Vance felt that he was being searchingly scrutinized from under those jutting brows. “And you’d be glad of a loan, I gather? Have you⁠—put the matter before Tarrant?”

“Oh, no⁠—I couldn’t,” Vance interrupted in a thick voice.

Frenside nodded, as if that were not wholly a surprise. “See here, young fellow, I believe you’ve got the stuff in you, and I’d like to help you. I’m never very flush myself; I daresay my appearance and my surroundings make that fairly obvious. But if a hundred would be any good⁠—”

He made a motion to pull himself up out of his chair; but Vance raised a hand to check him. A hundred dollars⁠—any good? God⁠ ⁠… his mouth watered⁠ ⁠… But somehow he didn’t want to take the money; didn’t want their inspiriting talk to end in the awkwardness of pocketing a cheque; didn’t, above all, want to overshadow the possibility of future talks by an obligation he might be unable to meet. He must keep this spiritual sanctuary clear of the moneylenders’ booths.

“Thank you,” he stammered. “But no, honest, I couldn’t⁠ ⁠… I mean, I guess I can make out.⁠ ⁠…” He stood up, and looked Frenside in the eyes. “When I get the chance to talk to you I’d rather it was about my work. Nothing else matters, after all.⁠ ⁠…”

Frenside rose also. “Well, I’ve got to pack you off now and get into harness myself.” He pointed to the papers on his desk. “But come back when you can,” he added. “And wait a minute⁠—let me give you a cocktail⁠ ⁠… I daresay you can operate the shaker better than I can.⁠ ⁠… Here’s to your next.”