Idolatry: A Romance

Chapter 6

THE VAGARIES OF HELWYSE.

Balder Helwyse was a man full of natural and healthy instincts: he was

not afraid to laugh uproariously when so inclined; nor apt to

counterfeit so much as a smile, only because a smile would look well.

What showed a rarer audacity,--he had more than once dared to weep! To

crush down real emotions formed, in short, no part of his ideal of a

man. Not belonging to the Little-pot-soon-hot family, he had, perhaps,

never found occasion to go beyond the control of his temper, and blind

rage he would in no wise allow himself; but he delighted in

antagonisms, and though it came not within his rules to hate any man,

he was inclined to cultivate an enemy, as more likely to be

instructive than some friends. His love of actual battle was intense:

he had punched heads with many a hard-fisted school-boy in England; he

bore the scar of a German _schl***_ high up on his forehead; and

later, in Paris, he had deliberately invaded the susceptibilities of a

French journalist, had followed him to the field of honor, and been

there run through the body with a small-sword, to the satisfaction of

both parties. He was confined to his bed for a while; but his

overflowing spirits healed the wound to the admiration of his doctors.

These examples of self-indulgence have been touched upon only by way

of preparing the gentle reader for a shock yet more serious. Helwyse

was a disciple of Brillat-Savarin,--in one word, a gourmand! His

appetite never failed him, and, he knew how wisely to direct it. He

never ate a careless or thoughtless meal, be its elements simple as

they might. He knew and was loved by the foremost cooks all over

Europe. Never did he allow coarseness or intemperance to mar the

refinement of his palate.

"Man," he was accustomed to say, "is but a stomach, and the cook is

the pope of stomachs, in whose church are no respectable heretics. Our

happiness lies in his saucepan,--at the mercy of his spit. Eating is

the appropriation to our needs of the good and truth of life, as

existing in material manifestation: the cook is the high-priest of

that symbolic ceremony! I, and kings with me, bow before him! But his

is a responsibility beneath which Atlas might stagger; he, of all men,

must be honest, warm-hearted, quick of sympathy, full of compassion

towards his race. Let him rejoice, for the world extols him for its

well-being;--yet tremble! lest upon his head fall the curse of its

misery!"

This speech was always received with applause; the peroration being

delivered with a vast controlled emphasis of eye and voice; and it was

followed by the drinking of the cook's health. "The generous virtues,"

Mr. Helwyse would then go on to say, "arise from the cultivation of

the stomach. From man's very earthliness springs the flower of his

spiritual virtue. We affect to despise the flesh, as vile and

unworthy. What, then, is flesh made of? of nothing?--let who can,

prove that! No, it is made of spirit,--of the divine, everlasting

substance; it is the wall which holds Heaven in place! If there be

anything vile in it, it is of the Devil's infusion, and enters not

into the argument."

A man who had expressed such views as these at the most renowned

tables of France and England was not likely to forget his principles

in the United States. Accordingly, he arose early, as we have seen, on

the morning after his arrival, and forced an astonished waiter to

marshal him to the kitchen, and introduce him to the cook. The cook of

the Granite Hotel at that time was a round, red-lipped Italian, an

artist and enthusiast, but whose temper had been much tried by lack of

appreciation; and, although his salary was good, he contemplated

throwing it over, abandoning the Yankee nation to its fate, and

seeking some more congenial field. Balder, who, when the mood was on

him, could wield a tongue persuasive as Richard the Third's, talked

to this man, and in seven minutes had won his whole heart. The

immediate result was a delectable breakfast, but the sequel was a

triumph indeed. It seems that the ******* Italian had for several

days been watching over a brace of plump, truffled partridges. This

day they had reached perfection, and were to have been eaten by no

less a person than the cook himself. These cherished birds did he now

actually offer to make over to his eloquent and sympathetic

acquaintance. Balder was deeply moved, and accepted the gift on one

condition,--that the donor should share the feast! "When a man serves

me up his own heart,--truffled, too,--he must help me eat it," he

said, with emotion. The condition imposed was, after faint resistance,

agreed to; the other episodes of the bill of fare were decided upon,

and the Italian and the Scandinavian were to dine together that

afternoon.

It still lacked something of the dinner-hour when Mr. Helwyse came out

through the dark passage-way of the Beacon Hill Bank, and paused for a

few moments on the threshold, looking up and down the street. Against

the dark background he made a handsome picture,--tall, gallant,

unique. The May sunshine, falling, athwart the face of the gloomy old

building, was glad to light up the waves of his beard and hair, and

to cast the shadow of his hat-brim over his forehead and eyes. The

picture stays just long enough to fix itself in the memory, and then

the young man goes lightly down the worn steps, and is lost along the

crowded street. Such as he is now, we shall not see him standing in

that dark frame again!

Wherever he went, Balder Helwyse was sure to be stared at; but to this

he was admirably indifferent. He never thought of speculating about

what people thought of Mr. Helwyse; but to his own approval--something

not lightly to be had--he was by no means indifferent. Towards mankind

at large he showed a kindly but irreverent charity, which excused

imperfection, not so much from a divine principle of love as from

scepticism as to man's sufficient motive and faculty to do well. Of

himself he was a blunt and sarcastic critic, perhaps because he

expected more of himself than of the rest of the world, and fancied

that that person only had the ability to be his censor!

If the Christian reader regards this mental attitude as unsound, far

be it from us to defend it! It must, nevertheless, be admitted that

whoever feels the strong stirring of power in his head and hands will

learn its limits from no purely subjective source. The lesson must

begin from without, and the only argument will be a deadly struggle.

Until then, self-esteem, however veiled beneath self-criticism, cannot

but increase. And if the man has had wisdom and strength to abstain

from vulgar self-pollution, Satan must intrust his spear to no

half-fledged devil, but grasp it in his own hand, and join battle in

his own person.

Undismayed by this fact, Helwyse reached Washington Street, and

followed its westerly meanderings, meaning to spend part of the

interval before dinner in exploring Boston. He walked with an easy

sideways-swaying of the shoulders, whisking his cane, and smiling to

himself as he recalled the points of his interview with the President.

"Just the thing, to make MacGentle tutelary divinity of so elusive a

matter as money! Wonder whether the Directors ever thought of that?

For all his unreality, though, he has something more real in him than

the heaviest Director on the Board!

"How composedly he took me for my father! and when he discovered his

mistake, how composedly he welcomed me in my own person! Was that the

extreme of senility? or was it a subtile assertion of the fact, that

he who keeps in the vanguard of the age in a certain sense contains

his father--the past--within himself, and is a distinct person chiefly

by virtue of that containing power?

"Why didn't I ask him more about my foster-cousin Manetho? Egyptians

are more astute than affectionate. Would he cleave to my poor uncle

for these last eighteen years merely for love? Why did he transfer

that money so soon after we sailed? Ten to one, he has in his own

hands the future as well as the present disposal of Doctor Hiero

Glyphic's fortune! The old gentleman has had time to make a hundred

wills since the one he showed my father, twenty years ago!

"Well, and what is that to you? Ah, Balder Helwyse, you lazy impostor,

you are pining for Egyptian flesh-pots! Don't tell me about civility

to relatives, and the study of human nature! You are as bad as you

accuse your poor cousin of being,--who may be dead, or pastor of a

small parish, for all you know. And yet every school-girl can prattle

of the educational uses of poverty, and of having to make one's own

living! I have a good mind to take your thousand pounds sterling out

of your pocket and throw them into Charles River,--and then begin at

the beginning! By the time I'd learnt what poverty can teach, it would

be over,--or I am no true man! Only they who are ashamed of

themselves, or afraid of other people, need to start rich."

Nevertheless, he could not do otherwise than hunt up the only relative

he had in America. Subsequent events did not convict him of being a

mere egotist, swayed only by the current of base success. He did not

despise prosperity, but he cared yet more to find out truths about

things and men. This is not the story of a fortune-hunter; not, at all

events, of a hunter of such fortunes as are made and lost nowadays.

But, when one half of a man detects unworthy motives in the other

half, it is embarrassing. He acts most wisely, perhaps, who drops

discussion, and lets the balance of good and bad, at the given moment,

decide. Our compound life makes many compromises, whereby our

progress, whether heavenward or hellward, is made slow--and sure!

Here, or hereabouts, Balder lost his way. When thinking hard, he was

beside himself; he strode, and tossed his beard, and shouldered

inoffensive people aside, and drew his eyebrows together, or smiled.

Then, by and by, he would awake to realities, and find himself he knew

not where.

This time, it was in an unsavory back-street; some dirty children were

playing in the gutters, and a tall, rather flashily dressed man was

walking along some distance ahead, carrying something in one hand.

Helwyse at first mended his pace to overtake the fellow, and ask the

way to the hotel. But he presently changed his purpose, his attention

being drawn to the oddity of the other's behavior.

The man was evidently one of those who live much alone, and so

contract unconscious habits, against which society offers the only

safeguard. He was absorbed in some imaginary dialogue; and so

imperfectly could his fleshly veil conceal his mental processes, that

he gesticulated everything that passed through his mind. These

gestures, though perfectly apparent to a steady observer, were so far

kept within bounds as not to get more than momentary notice from the

passers-by, who, indeed, found metal more attractive to their gaze in

Helwyse.

Now did the man draw his head back and spread out his arms, as in

surprise and repudiation; now his shoulders rose high, in deprecation

or disclaimer. Now his forefinger cunningly sought the side of his

nose; now his fist shook in an imaginary face. At times he would

stretch out a pleading arm and neck; the next moment he was an

inflexible tyrant, spurning a suppliant. Again he would break into a

soundless chuckle; then, raising his hand to his forehead, seem

overwhelmed with despair and anguish. Occasionally he would walk some

distance quite passively, only glancing furtively about him; but

erelong he would forget himself again, and the dialogue would begin

anew.

Balder watched the man curiously, but without seeming to perceive the

rather grisly similitude between the latter's vagaries and his own.

"What an ugly thing the inside of this person seems to be!" he said.

"But then, whose thoughts and emotions would not render him a

laughing-stock if they could be seen? If everybody looked, to his

fellow, as he really is, or even as he looks to himself, mankind would

fly asunder, and think the stars hiding-places not remote enough! How

many men in the world could walk from one end of the street they live

in to the other, talking and acting their inmost thoughts all the way,

and retain a bit of anybody's respect or love afterwards? No wonder

Heaven is pure, if, our spiritual bodies are only thoughts and

feelings! and a Hell where every devil saw his fellow's deformity

outwardly manifested would be Hell indeed!

"But that can't be. Angels behold their own loveliness, because doing

so makes them lovelier; but no devil could know his own vileness and

live. They think their hideousness charming, and, when the darkness is

thickest about them, most firmly believe themselves in Heaven. But the

light of Heaven would be real darkness to them, for a ray of it would

strike them blind!"

Helwyse was too prone to moralizing. It shall not be our cue to quote

him, save when to do so may seem to serve an ulterior purpose.

"I would like to hear the story that fellow is so exercised about,"

muttered his pursuer. "How do I know it doesn't concern me? That

violin-box he carries is very much in his way; shall I offer to carry

it for him, and, in return, hear his story? If the music soothes his

soul as much as the box moderates his gestures--"

Here the man abruptly turned into a doorway, and was gone. On coming

up, Helwyse found that the doorway led in through a pair of green

folding-doors to some place unseen. The house had an air of villanous

respectability,--a gambling-house air, or worse. Did the musician live

there? Helwyse paused but a moment, and then walked on; and thus,

sagacious reader, the meeting was for the second time put off.

When he reached his hotel, he had only half an hour to dress for

dinner in; but he prepared himself faultlessly, chanting a sort of

hymn to Appetite the while. "Hunger," quoth he, "is mightiest of

magicians; breeds hope, energy, brains; prompts to love and

friendship. Hunger gives day and night their meaning, and makes the

pulse of time beat; creates society, industry, and rank. Hunger moves

man to join in the work of creation,--to harmonize himself with the

music of the universe,--to feel ambition, joy, and sorrow. Hunger

unites man to nature in the ever-recurring inspiration to food,

followed by the ever-alternating ecstasy of digestion. Morning tunes

his heart to joy, for the benison of breakfast awaits him. The sun

scales heaven to light him to his noonday meal. Evening wooes him

supperwards, and night brings timeless sleep, to waft him to another

dawn. Eating is earth's first law, and heaven itself could not subsist

without it!"

So Balder Helwyse and the cook feasted gloriously that afternoon, in

the back pantry, and they solemnly installed the partridges among the

constellations!