Where savage beasts through forest midnight roam,Seeking in sorrow for each other's joy!
I sit alone and think of these things, until my breath comes hard with rage. I say: “It is these that I serve—it is these who own the fruits of my toil—it is these for whom I am starved and crushed—it is these by whom my God-given power is trampled into annihilation!”
March 4th.
I gave the place up this morning. I have thirty-one dollars. I think such a sum of money never made me less happy.
I have nothing to do but drag myself back to my room and wait there until the eighth, to take back my manuscript. It will be five weeks that he has kept me—I suppose that is not his fault.
And then I say: “Fool, to torment yourself with such hopes! Don't youknowthat he will say what all the rest have said? He is a clever man, and he knows everything; but what use is he going to have for your poetry?”
I wandered about almost all of to-day, or sat stupid in my room. I have lost all my habits of effort—I have forgotten all that I ever knew, all my hopes, all my plans. I said: “I will study!” But then I added: “Why should I? Shall I not only make myself miserable, get myself full of emotion, and to no purpose but the carrying of dishes?”
It is terrible to me to have to acknowledge any change in my way of living—I never did that before. Compromises! Concessions! Surrenders!—words such as those set me mad. But what am I to do? WhatcanI do? I writhe and twist, but there is no escape. I struggle upward, but I am only beaten back and back? How should I not stop striving?
Circumstances made no difference to a man. So I used to prate!
No difference! Why, I was a giant in my soul, swift and terrible as the lion. I leaped upon my task, I seized upon everything that came my way. I passed whole classes of men at a bound, I saw, I felt—I bore the world in my soul. I would dare everything, learn everything, live everything—take it all into myself. And every day I was stronger, every day I was more!—
And now see me! You have penned me here, you have starved me, stunted me, crushed me—I sit shivering and staring at my own piteousness! Why, I can not even be angry any more—I am too shrunken, too impotent for that! And was it my fault? Have I not fought till I was ill?
—But never did I put forth a hope that it was not withered in the bud! My every enthusiasm you stamped into the ground; every advance that I made—why you smote me in the face! And all my ardor, my confidence, my trust—has it ever met with anything but jeers?
—Yes, and now you turn away—this revolts you! This is bare, painful egotism—this is whining—this is querulous misery. It offends you like the sight of raw flesh!
—It is my raw soul. My poor little naked, pitiful, beaten soul!—groveling, and begging, too!
—But whose fault is it—merciful Heaven, whose fault is it? It is my nature to live in myself—to live from myself. And this that is unbearable egotism, why, it would have been exulting power! Joy in a vision! Mastery of a life and an art!
But here you shut me up! You crush me down! I try to escape—I cry out: “I amnotan egotist—I am a worshiper! I want nothing in the world so much as to forget myself—my rights, my claims, my powers, my talents! I want to think of God! Only give me a chance—only give me a chance to do that, and I care not what you do with me! Here I stand with my poor little work, begging, pleading for some one to heed it! Thinking of it only, living for it only, insisting upon it day and night! But do you think that I do that of choice? My God, no—you are mad—I only want to go on! Give me but the chance to go on—and do you think that I would care whether any man admired my work?”
—Why, I would not even know it—I would be out in the mountains alone!
“But for what had you your pride in the morning, and in the evening your submission?”
Can you guess how that jeer rings in my ears, how it goads me?
March 5th.
Sinking down! Sinking down! To see yourself one of the losing creatures, to know that there is no help for you in this world—that no one will heed you, no one will stretch out a hand! To see yourself with every weakness, to see yourself as everything that you hate—to be mad with rage against yourself, and still to be able to do nothing!
—Understand what I mean—poor fools, do not think it is for myself that I fear. If I wanted to fight a way for myself—I could do it yet—never fear. But ah, you will save the mother and not her child! What I weep for, what I die for, is my ART!
My vision, my life, my joy, my fire! These are the things that are dying! And when the soul is dead do you think that I shall care about the body? Do you think that I will stay in this world a shell, a mockery, a corpse? Stay either to putrefy with pleasure or to be embalmed in dulness? Nay, you do not know me!
—I said to myself to-night, “If I perish in this world it will be because I was too far ahead of my environment—that and that only. It will be because I was pure, single-hearted, consecrated, and because of such you neither know nor care.” Do I fear to say that? I am done with shame—I think that I am dying—let me speak the truth.
—And I have really said the word then—the word that can not be recalled—that my hope is dead, that I give up—that I can not live my life? Nay—I do not have to say the word, the word says itself.
March 6th.
To-day I shook myself together. I could not stand such wretchedness. I said, I will get a novel, and I will put myself into it—grimly—I will read in spite of everything.
And such a book as I lighted on by chance!—Once I had whole yawning vistas of books toward which I stretched out my arms; but somehow I had forgotten them all to-day. I could do no better than pick up a book by chance.—
I picked up Tess of the D'Urbervilles, and I found myself in the midst of the same misery that haunts me here. I read it, but it did not help me.
—It is strange what poverty has ground into my soul. I find myself reading such a book with but one feeling, one idea crying out in me. I discover that my whole being is reduced to the great elemental, primitive instinct of self-preservation. Love is dead in me, generosity, humanity, imagination is dead,—everything but one wild-beast passion; and I find myself panting as I read: “Get some money! Get some money! Hold on to it!”
—After a while I think suddenly: “And I am a poet!” That brings a moan from me and I sit shuddering.
March 7th.
Tess of the D'Urbervilles is one of the most unconvincing books I ever read. I neither believed in it nor cared about it in the slightest.
I am shown a “pure woman,” and by and by I learn, to my perplexity, that she has been seduced; after which she continues the “pure woman” again, and I am asked to agonize over her troubles! But all the time I keep saying, “This is not a woman that you are showing me at all—a woman with a soul; it is a puppet figure that you suppose 'seduced' for the sake of the story.”
It is our absurd English ideas of “propriety” that make possible such things. If the author had had to show the seduction of “Tess” the weakness of the thing would have been plain in an instant. That he did not show it was his lack of conscience. There is no propriety in art but truth.
March 8th.
I took the manuscript to the editor again to-day. He told me to come in on Monday.
Deep in my soul I can have no more disappointments about it. I take it about from habit. I sat and looked it over last night, but one can not read emotional things in cold blood. I said, Is this true? Is it natural? Is there anyusein it?
I was tempted to cut out one or two things; but I decided to let it stay as it was.
March 10th.
I have been sitting to-night in my room, half-dazed, or pacing about the streets talking to myself in a frenzy. I can hardly believe that it is true, I can hardly realize it! I laugh with excitement, and then I cry.
I went to-day to get back my manuscript. And the editor said: “Mr. Stirling, it is a most extraordinary piece of work. It is a most interesting thing, I like it very much.”
I stared at him gasping. Then I waited to hear him say—“But I regret”—But he didn't!
“I can't tell you anything definite about it,” he said. “I want to submit it to the firm. I wouldn't undertake to accept any such unusual thing for the magazine without consulting them, and especially seeing if they will bring it out afterward—”
“You are thinking of using it in the magazine!” I cried.
“As I tell you, I can't say positively. I can only tell you what I think of it. I will have them read it at once—”
“I will take it to them to-day!” I put in.
“No,” he said, “you need not, for I am going there this afternoon, and I will take it, and ask them to read it immediately.”
I can't remember what else he said. I was deaf, crazy! I rushed home, talking to myself incoherently. I remember sitting here in a chair and saying aloud, “Oh, it can't be! It is impossible! That it should be good enough to publish in a magazine like that! It is some mistake—it will all come to nothing. It's absurd!”
So I sat, and I thought what such a thing would mean to me—it would make my reputation in a day—I should be free—free! But I thought of it and it did not make me happy; I only sat staring at myself, shuddering. The endless mournfulness that is in my heart surged up in me like a tide, and suddenly I began to cry like a child.
“It has come to me too late,” I exclaimed, “too late! I can't believe it—it doesn't mean anything to me. I don't care anything about it—I mean the poem!I don't believe in it myself!”
God, do you know I said that, andmeantit? I said more—I sat and whispered it to myself: “Let them take it, yes, let them! I don't care—it will set me free—I shall have some money! But they're fools to do it, they're fools!”
March 11th.
I tremble with excitement all the day, dreaming about that thing. I go about half-mad. “Oh, just think of it,” I whisper, “just think of it!”
I linger about it hungrily! He spoke as if he really meant to make them take it.
March 13th.
I went to see him to-day to ask. No, they had not let him know yet, but they had the manuscript. He would write me.
I made up my mind that I would not bother him again. I will wait, hard as it is.
I sat asking myself to-day, “Do you really mean that you believe that poem is going to stir the world—this huge, heedless world you see about you? Have you truly that blind, unreasoning faith that you try to persuade yourself you have?”
Ah, I don't know what I believe now. Only, once I had my young courage,—I feared not the world, I could do anything. Now I am but one among a million.
March 16th.
I force myself to read these things that half-interest me; but I think I spend a quarter of my time wandering about whispering that they are going to publish it. I cry out, “Oh, they must!” I go into the library and stare at the magazine and think of it there. I walk past the publishers', and think of it there! I have been inquiring all about publishing, about terms and all that sort of thing. It makes my brain reel—why, they might pay me five hundred dollars for it! Think of it—five hundred dollars!—I could go crazy with such a thought as that.
And then I think what the reviews will say of it, and I cry, “Oh, no, it can't be true!”
Again I find myself saying, “Only let them take it! I don't care about the rest, whether it succeeds or not—let them take it!”
March 18th.
I walked past the editor's office to-day. It took just every bit of will that I had, not to go in. I said: “He might know even now, and I wouldn't hear till to-morrow!”
But I didn't do it. I said I would wait a week, anyhow.
March 20th.
I don't know what in the world to make of it.
The week ended to-day, and nothing yet; and I hit upon another scheme, I went to the publishers. I said: “I will ask them, and he needn't know anything about it and it won't bother him.” So I went in and they referred me to the manuscript clerk. She said she had never heard of The Captive.
“But it's here somewhere,” I said, “the editor brought it here.”
“There is no manuscript ever comes here,” she answered, “that is not entered on my books.”
“But,” I said, “some member of the firm must have it.”
“If any member of the firm got it,” she said, smiling, “the first thing he would do would be to bring it to me to enter in the books.”
I insisted. I wanted to see somebody in the firm, but she answered me there was no use. Finally she suggested that they might know something about it up in the offices of the magazine. I went there, but no, no one had ever heard of it there.
I came home dazed. I don't know what in the world to make of it. He certainly said that the firm was reading it. I wrote to-night to ask him about it.
March 23d.
I have waited day by day in the utmost perplexity to hear from him about that. I should have heard from him yesterday. I don't know what in the world to make of it. Can he have gone in to them privately? Or can he have forgotten it—he is so busy!
I dread the latter circumstance—but I dread as much to anger him in the other case.
March 27th.
I waited four days more. I went up to see him. Just as I feared. I have annoyed him. I could see it. I know he must be tired of seeing my face.
“Mr. Stirling,” he said, “I have told you that the poem is being read by the firm, and that I will let you know the moment I hear from them.”
“I only came,” I said, “because the clerk told me—”
“There are some things clerks don't know,” he put in.
I tremble at the thought of making him angry. I will not go near him again.
March 30th.
I am doing my best to keep my mind on some reading, so as not to make the agony unbearable. But it is very hard—the mails disturb you. I can only read in the middle of the day, and at night. In the morning I expect the first mail, trembling; but after that I know a city letter can't come till afternoon, so I can read. Then again at night I know it can't come.
—I am reading The Ring and the Book. I have always found that it doesn't do to take vulgar opinions. I had supposed I should find The Ring and the Book hard reading.
Itisskippable—the consequence of having a foolish scheme to fill out. But the story of Pompilia and Giuseppi is one of the finest things I know of anywhere.
April 3d.
It has been another week. I could not stand it any more. I am going over to the publishers' again this afternoon.
—What in Heaven's name does this thing mean? I met the satisfied smile of the clerk again. “We have never seen the manuscript, Mr. Stirling!”
If you could only see how positive she is! “I don't know anything about what the editor told you, I can only tell you positively that he has never submitted any such manuscript to the firm, or to anybody connected with the firm.”
That thing drove me wild. I don't know what to make of it. Surely he's given it to some one, for he told me so.
I went up to the magazine rooms, and he was in his office; but he had left word that he would not see any one, and they would not even take in my name.
April 4th.
I can do nothing but haunt that place till I find out what it means! It has been three weeks and a half since he gave it to them, and he said I would hear at once. What in the world does he think it means to me? Can't I presume the slightest gleam of interest, of care, on his part?
April 5th.
To-day I could not stand it any longer. I went to the place again. I saw the manuscript clerk once more—the same answer. I went upstairs; he was there again, but busy. I wrote a note and left it. I explained that I did not in the least wish to trouble him, but that the thing meant a great deal to me, and that I had the utmost need of promptness; that it had been almost four weeks since he gave it to the firm, and that nobody there seemed to know anything about it.
April 7th.
He did not answer my letter! I thought I should hear to-day. O God, this is the most tormenting thing! Think what it means! And what in Heaven's name has he done? Surely some one—he must have given it to some one!
Only why in the world doesn't he understand my perplexity and explain?
April 9th.
No letter yet. I went back to the publishers' again this morning. I have been wandering by the place every day since. They had not seen it yet. She said she'd have the firm inquire, but I said not to, as it might annoy him. “He surely has given it to some one, you know.”—She laughed at me.
I went up to the magazine office again. He was not there, but I saw his associate. The associate did not know anything about it either.
April 10th.
I waited one day more and no answer. I wrote to him again to-night, begging him to please reply.
—I have begun several novels, but I can't get interested in them. I am simply sick. I came out of that horrible restaurant with money enough to do me for ten weeks, and here are over five of them gone in this hideous way. Oh, it is monstrous!
It has been nine weeks and a half since I gave him that poem in the beginning! I never spent nine such weeks of horror in my life.
April 12th.
“In answer to your letter I beg to inform you that the manuscript of The Captive is now in the hands of the firm, and that you may expect a decision in about a week.”
So! It is a relief at any rate to know that the thing is all right. I can wait a little better now.
Of course I knew it must be there. A plague on that foolish clerk!
April 14th.
All the while that I am writing about this thing I keep up my courage by thinking what it will mean to me. It is something so immense that I can hardly realize it. I shall be famous!—And he really liked it, there can be no doubt about that! He was too busy to talk much, but he showed he liked it.
April 17th.
Oh my soul, I think this is the most frightful thing—is it not simply a nightmare? I have been pacing the floor to-night in an agony.They have never seen that manuscript!
I was going by there to-day, and I couldn't withstand the temptation; the week was not up, but I said: “If I inquire, there's no reason why he should know about it.” I went in.
And that terrible clerk—she smiled at me still! The more I talked, the more she shook her head. “There's no such manuscript ever been seen here,” she said. I showed her the letter, and that decided her to go in and see the firm. They sent out word that neither they nor their readers had ever heard of it, but that they would write to the editor at once.
Oh, I think this is horrible—horrible! And then just guess what I did! I couldn't bear the agony—I went to the other place, and he wasn't there, and so at last I went to his club.
He wasn't at the club, but they told me where he was; and I spent ten cents telephoning him. At this place they said he had an engagement to be there later, so I spent another ten cents, and that time I found him. I told him who I was. “The week isn't up yet,” I said, “but the firm say they have never received the manuscript.”
“So?” he said; his voice sounded hard, I thought, and it made me shudder. “You come up to see me the day after to-morrow at ten o'clock, and you'll hear about your manuscript.”
And that is all. And I walked out of the great, rich club, and I have been pacing up and down in my own garret ever since. I am almost too ill with anxiety to stand.
April 18th.
And to-day I can only wait. Once I lay down upon the bed and cried.
April 19th.
I don't know how to tell this thing. I am simply dazed. I had an experience to-day—the most hideous thing that I think ever happened to me in my life. Oh, I have been like a madman ever since—I lost my head—I did not know what I was doing. I was really crazy—it is three o'clock in the morning, now, but I shall write it down—I can not sleep.
To-day I went up to see that man as he told me to. I went trembling with suspense—just think, it has been eleven weeks since this agony began. And I went into his office—he was alone; and when he saw me he sprang to his feet—my soul, he looked like a tiger. He stood there in the middle of the room fairly gasping with rage.
“So,” he cried, “you've come, have you! I tell you, young man, I have never been subjected to such an outrage as this in my life! I would not read another manuscript for you—why, I wouldn't stand for such an imposition from Balzac or Thackeray—no, sir, I wouldn't!”
I stared at the man simply speechless with astonishment. “Why,” I panted, “what do you mean?”
“What do I mean? Why, you have hounded me about this city until I'm crazy. There's no place I can go to escape you. You come to my office, you come here, you come to my club! You have made yourself a perfect pest at the publishers to every one! Why—”
He stopped out of breath. Of course I have no courage or head with men—I was ready to grovel at his feet. “My dear sir,” I pleaded, “I assure you I didn't mean to do anything of the kind—it was only that the clerk kept telling me—”
“I don't care what the clerk kept telling you! I tell you that that manuscript has been in the hands of the company since the day I told you I would leave it there. Of course there have been delays, there is all sorts of routine to go through with; but suppose all our contributors did the same thing—what would we do?”
He was talking at me as if expecting a reply. Fortunately the right words came to my lips—I was really ready to cry with shame and perplexity.
“I don't think it is quite the same with all your contributors,” I said, with a trembling voice. “While I have been waiting I have been simply starving.”
It seemed to clear the atmosphere. He stared at me, and then he sat down. He was ashamed of himself, I could see. “Why,” he said, “you couldn't have been paid anything for months.”
“I didn't know,” I said, “I didn't know anything about it. But I have been starving.”
He spoke more quietly. “Mr. Stirling,” he said, “I'm very sorry about this, the whole thing has been unfortunate. Excuse me that I spoke angrily; let us not think any more about it.”
I stood there, feeling almost like crying, I was so nervous.
“Now, about that manuscript,” he went on, “I'm doing what I can to learn about it. It's been there all along, as I told you, and you will hear about it soon. Why, Mr. Stirling, I even took the trouble to send my secretary down there yesterday to make sure that it was all right.”
“I did not want you to go to any such trouble,” I stammered.
“That's all right,” he said, “don't mention it. Now they will have decided in a few days, and I will write you—”
“No, please do not,” I said, still with my abject humility. “Don't take any more trouble—let me go there and find out—”
“By no means!” said he. “Take my advice and don't go near there again under any circumstances. You can't tell how much an author hurts himself by troubling a publisher as you have done. Don't go near there—let me write to you.”
I promised that I would; and then with more abjectness I got myself out of that room, and I went out and sat down upon a step near by, simply shaking like a leaf.
“Oh, heavens!” I gasped. “That was horrible! Horrible!”
I sat dazed—thinking about it—thinking it over and over—I couldn't understand it, try as I might. Why should he have been so angrythatday—had he not told me to come there? And had he not said I should have a report?
—And then suddenly something flashed over me that made me leap! That firm had written him a letter the day before yesterday asking about the manuscript, andthatwas why he was angry! And he had sent his secretary down to inquire!—But why in Heaven's name should he send his secretary down to inquirewhen he had a telephone connecting with the firm right there in his office!
And so I saw it—all in one instant the thing flashed over me!
I was so wild I paid a car-fare—I rode straight as a die down to that place, and I went in and saw the clerk.
“He has sent the manuscript now,” I said, “hasn't he?”
“Yes,” she said.
“He sent it in yesterday?” I said.
“Yes.”
“He sent it by his secretary, didn't he?”
“Yes,” she said again.
“Thank you,” I answered, and went out.
Is not that simply monstrous, simply awful beyond words? I have been beside myself tonight with rage, with amazement, with perplexity. Oh, think what I have suffered at the hands of that frightful man! And what have Idoneto him—why should he have treated me so? What does it mean? I am baffled every way I turn.
The thing is like flame in my blood—like acid in my veins. It makes me hysterical with pain. I cry aloud.
—What do you mean by it, you monster, you wretch? Why, here for eleven weeks I have been hanging upon your every word—eleven weeks of my life spent in torment—absolutely flung away!Eleven weeks!And you have lied to me—and you have kicked me about like a dog!
What do you mean? What do you mean? Tell me, above all,whyyou did it! Were you torturing me on purpose? Or did you simply forget it? But then, how could you forget it when you had to tell me all those miserable falsehoods? And when you had to write me those letters?
And then to-day!
That is the thing that goads me most—to-day! I stood there cringed before you like a beaten cur—you kicked me—you spit upon me! And it was every bit of it a lie! That insolent rage of yours—why, it wasn't even genuine! You weren't even angry—you knew that you had no reason to be angry—that you had treated me as if I were a worm to tread on! And yet you stood there and abused me!
Oh—why, the thing is madness to think of! It is more madness the more you realize it! I have never known anything like it before in my life.
Yes—actually—it is something quite new to me. I have met blind people—people who would not heed me—but a really evil person I have never known before! A person who has no respect for another's rights—who would trample upon another! Oh, you miserable wretch—and the lies—the lies! The hateful sneaking of it—you black-hearted, insolent man! The manuscript had been there all the time!The delays, the routine! And you had sent your secretary down to inquire! And above all—oh, above all—the prince of them—I must not go near there lest I should injure myself! I must not go near them—they were so weary of seeing me! And I never saw a single soul there in my life but one clerk!
I never suffered such a thing as this before in all my days—deliberate, brutal injustice! And that I should be so placed as to be a victim of such a thing—that I should have to hang upon your words and to be at your mercy for eleven weeks of agony! You are a great editor, a clubman, a rich man! You have fame and power and wealth—and you stand up there and scald me with your rage—and with your heart a mess of lies all the time!
—Butwhydid you do it? That is the thing I ask myself in consternation. Why?Why?—Were you not interested in my work? If you weren't—why didn't you give it back to me, and let me go my way? And if you were—if you had any idea of publishing it—then why did you use me in this way? Where was the manuscript all this time? What did you mean to do with it? How long did you expect me to wait? And what object did you have in telling me untruths about it meanwhile?
—The whole thing is as blank to me as night. That a man should have in him so much infinite indifference about another as to leave that manuscript in a drawer, and write me that I was to “have a report on it within a week”! Why, it is something of which I can not even think. And then to get out of it by that sham anger and that sneaking!—
April 20th.
I have done absolutely nothing but brood over this thing and rage all day. What am I to do?—I sat and wondered if there was anything I could do but go and shoot that man. And I asked myself: Ought I not at least to go and get the manuscript from that accursed place this instant? Ought I not to have taken it then and there? But see the utter misery of my situation, the abject shame of it—suppose they were to take the thing! It is my one hope in this world—I dare not lose it—I have to leave it there!
But then, what hope is there now? I ask. Why, he was going to urge it upon them! And now, of course, he's simply sent it in there without a word!
Don't you see what it was—it was that letter of inquiry they wrote him! He paid no more attention to me than if I were a hound; but he had to send it when they wrote! And perhaps they said something about carelessness and that made him wild.
Oh, the thing is an endless spring of gall to me! I am all raw with it—I have to rush out on the street and walk away my passion. I never saw my situation so plainly—the horrible impotence of it! Just see what I struggle against, the utter insane futility of everything I do! Why, I beat my wings in a void, I hammer my head against a wall!
—And now I must wait for that thing to come back—don't I know that it will come back? And don't I know that that will be the end of me?
A black, horrible gloom has settled down upon me. I am utterly lost in despair.
April 21st.
I will write no more about that man—my whole being is turned to bitterness. I wonder at myself—I have no longer one feeling left in this world except a black brooding hatred of him!
—And all the time the thing haunts me like a detective story—I can't find the solution! What does it mean? Why did he do it? It is so irrational—so impossible—so utterly incomprehensible! And shall Ineverknow the truth about it?
April 24th.
“We regret that we are not advised to undertake the publication of The Captive. We return the manuscript by express.”
There it is! I read that thing, and I felt my whole being sinking down as if into hell. There it is! And that is the end of it all! Oh, merciful Providence, is it not simply too cruel to be believed! Eleven weeks!Eleven weeks!
—I can do no more—I do not know where to turn. I believe I shall go mad with my misery.
April 25th.
To-day I thought I would go up and see him—I thought I could not live until I knew what this thing meant. I heard myself saying, “Idemandto know why you treated me thus? I say I demand it! Before God, howdaredyou—or don't you believe in a God?”
—Then again I thought, I will plead with him. It must be some mistake—I can't believe that it is all over. Why, he liked it! And now perhaps it was only looked over by some careless reader and flung aside!
But no—I could not go near the place! I could not face that man again. The memory of his look as he stood there in his insolence is so hateful to me that it makes me tremble.
April 26th.
I see myself crying this out from the housetops. I even wrote a letter to a newspaper, but I did not send it.
I went to a lawyer, a man I used to know. I told him I had no money—I asked him to help me. But I can not sue him—he was under no obligations, it seems; and I can not prove that the manuscript was injured in value by the delay.
So there is nothing that I can do. He will go his way—he will never think of me again. He is rich and famous.—
—I have just nine dollars left of my money. I can not possibly make it do more than three or four weeks; and meanwhile I sit and brood and watch them go by in blank despair.
April 28th.
I fight with myself—I must get that hellish thing out of my head! I went to a publisher's to-day—I didn't have the heart to go in, but I gave it to the clerk.
It will take two or three weeks. This will be the eighth publisher.
I said to-day: “I will force myself to read, I will get myself together; I will not let myself be stamped to the mud by this man.”
There is nothing I can do about it—I only poison my whole soul thinking of it. I must put it out of my mind—I must work!
May 1st.
I said to myself to-day: “Do you really believe that the world would heed that poem? Do you think that if any publisher published it, he could sell it?” I answered, “No, I do not.”
If one took it I should think I was making a fool of him. I offer it on that chance!
—What am I going to do? I do not know. I must try to find some work that does not tear me to pieces; and then perhaps some day I shall be able to write something different.
May 3d.
My whole soul is in a turmoil these days. I struggle,—I can not give up while I live; but for what do I struggle? I am a man journeying in a thicket; I can not see one step before me.
—I try to forget myself—I try to get interested in a book. But I never had but one kind of interest. I can not get used to living without a purpose, without enthusiasm, without morality.
I have no ideas any more. My whole life is shrunken and contracted. It is all stagnant—the garden of my soul is full of weeds. The broad fields that I used to cover, the far-off things I used to strive for—what have they to do with me now?
—I heard a gull to-day—far, far up—a mere speck in the sky. I started, as I watched him vanish. Then I said: “But you, too, will have to come down and mingle in the turmoil and the danger!”
May 6th.
I go over into the Park—the springtime is in full glory, all the sights that used to thrill my heart are there; the splendor of new verdure and young flowers, the birds that I love rioting in song. But it moves me not in the least, it only makes me ten times more mournful. I turn away.
Why, once an apple spray in blossom was to me a drunken ecstasy.
—Shall I ever know what it is to be generous, and rich and royal in my heart again? To know that surging fulness of emotion that makes you think of gold and purple and regal pomp?
I tell you the whole thing is a question of money with me. I have come down to the bare bed-rock of sordidness—I must have money—money!—It is everything in this world to me. I can never think of anything else again until I have it.
I see myself going out into the world and fighting as other men fight, and making a place in it for myself.
May 8th.
I am getting down again; my poor hoard is going! I sit and count it—I calculate it—I lay out my bill of fare. Oh, where shall I go, whatcanI do? Can I write anything? I ask. I have nothing in me but a naked, shivering longing.
I dread to be in the desperate fix I was the last time I could find no work. And yet I can not make up my mind to do anything until I hear from this one publisher more.
May 9th.
I walked over there to-day to save a postage-stamp. They had not heard from the reader yet.
—I sit down and try to study. Then I get up and say I ought not to put it off any longer. Then again I think: “Wait until to-morrow, at any rate.”
May 10th.
I was looking at that man's magazine to-day. What thoughts it brought to me—what agonies, what longings, what despair! And, above all, what ocean-floods of bitterness!
I walked all the way down to the wholesale-paper store. I thought I would prefer that to evils that I know not of. I have almost a terror of having to come into contact with new people.
But my place was filled. I trudged home again. I went to the publisher's too; nothing yet. The three weeks were up to-day.
May 12th.
I dared not wait any more to-day. I had just three dollars and ten cents left. And my rent is due the day after to-morrow. I have answered every sort of advertisement, from dishwashing to tutoring a boy. I guess I looked too seedy for the latter.
—Sometimes when I am wandering around in all this misery, still yearning for what I might have been, the thought comes across my mind: “And in this huge world there might yet be some one who would understand the thing! Some one who would help me! Some one by whom it would be an honor to be helped—if I could only find him.”
And here I am, having my life beaten out of me, spark by spark,—and I can't find him—Ican't!
I cry out for money—for money!
But no, it is others who have it.—And the way that they use it—O God, the way that they use it!
If all the world were poor, it would not be so bad; but the sight of wealth—of infinite oceans of it squandered in perfect frenzies of ostentation! The sight of this “world”—this world, which they take quite as a matter of course!
I have seen a good deal of this world myself, and I at least do not take it thus. I gaze upon the men and women who do take it thus, and I say, “Are you men and women really? Or are you not some strange, un-Godmade creatures, without ever a thought about justice, without ever a gleam of reason or purpose or sense?”
May 14th.
I have tramped the streets for two days more. I was made so ill by my anxiety last time that I made up my mind I would not risk it again. I asked my landlady to-night to wait a while, as I was looking for some work. She was ungracious enough, but I have no longer any sensibilities—I only want to be safe. She can wait—she has my trunk, as I told her.
Probably she wouldn't even be as willing, if she could see what is in it! I have no longer anything to sell. I had to exchange my waiter's costume for a pair of trousers, for mine were all in rags.
I have two dollars and seventy cents. I imagine that is a safe margin.
There are no words that can tell what an absolutely deadening thing it is to be wandering about the city looking for work. It turns you into a log of wood—you not only no longer have an idea, you have not a thought of an idea. You simply drag on and on until the thing becomes a habit, and you go without even thinking of that.
May 15th.
“Our readers have examined with a great deal of interest the unusual piece of work which you have sent us. But it has been our experience that poetry proves such a distressing adventure commercially, that we are forced to decline the offer which you have so kindly made us. We wish, however, to assure you of our desire to see anything else which you may have on hand, or may have at any time in future.”
That is about the way the letter ran—I tore it up. I did not read it but once. I took the thing to another firm—it can't do any harm.
I have not been able to find anything to-day.
May 16th.
So long as I have thoughts I can write a journal; but while my life is that of an animal, it doesn't seem very necessary. I have always felt myself an outcast—a poet has to be that; but I never felt it quite so much as at present. I wander around from door to door; and those who have homes and money and power—they simply order me out of the way.
May 18th.
I do not think I can stand this much longer. I never had such a time before finding anything. I think my state must be written in my face—men no longer have any use for me.
I fear my coat is seedy. And I know my collar is soiled; but the two I left at the laundry won't be done till to-morrow.
I have broken my last two-dollar bill. I watch in terror for the next week—I can not face that woman again. I must save enough for that.
May 19th.
I applied for a position as office-boy to-day—I was desperate. I have not enough to last me through a week, if I pay the woman anything.
But they said I was too old.
My feet are most horribly sore. I can hardly walk. And I have the strangest ringing in my head. I could not eat any supper—and the milk won't keep in this warm weather, either.
May 22d.
The day before yesterday, when I woke up in the morning, I could hardly stand. My head was on fire, and I do not think I have ever been so sick before. I got around to a drug-store—the man said he would give me some powders; he said they were forty cents, but I dared not pay it. He gave them to me for a quarter. He said I should have a tonic, but I haven't had it.
I was too ill to move all day yesterday. I am better to-day, but still I daren't go out. I have only eighty-five cents left.
I must manage to get out and get some work to-morrow, or I shall go mad.
I had a scene with that horrible creature yesterday. It was the second week—she thought I was shamming, I know. She said she never allowed her “roomers” to get behindhand—it was her invariable rule. O God, I was so sick I could scarcely see—I did not care what she did. I told her that I had no money; that I was waiting to get some work; that I would pay her the first moment I could.
“Why don't you keep work when you get it?” she demanded. “You have been idle nearly all the whole time you've been here.”
I could not argue with her; she can turn me out when she likes.
May 24th.
I dragged myself out to-day. I feel better except for the blisters on my feet. But nothing to do! Nothing to do! Oh, I am half mad.
I thought to-day I would call upon some of my relatives. But I bit my lips together—no, I will not ever do that!
It is the ghastly heat that kills me. Yesterday was almost stifling, I thought I could not bear it. I never knew it to be so hot so early.
May 26th.
I have got but thirty-five cents, and to-day I was so tired I had to rest for two hours nevertheless. Oh, merciful heavens, but this is fiery torture!
It is half a week again. I know she will not let me stay another week. I did a strange thing—I wrapped up all my papers and carried them out under my coat. She can keep everything else I have, but my papers are mine. I took them to the grocery-store where I buy things and asked the man to keep them for me.
May 27th.
What does a man do when he wants to work and can't find anything? Does he really starve? Or does he get locked up? Or what?
I said to-day: I will eat nothing but bread and oatmeal till I get something to do.
May 29th.
It was just as I thought. She has demanded her money—and I have but fifteen cents! I helped a man up with a trunk and got ten.—She told me that I would have to get out. It is clear to-night. I shall sleep somewhere in the Park. I can not write any more.
May 31st.
I got some work to do after all—at the height of my despair. I am giving out samples of a hitherto unequaled brand of soap.
It was yesterday morning, I met one of the men and asked him where he got the job. He said they wanted more men, so I got on a car and rode down there in haste. I made fifty cents yesterday, for half a day, and a dollar to-day. Thank God!
I spent the night before last in the Park, and last night in the room where I am writing. It is in a tenement-house. I paid fifty cents a week for it, and there is a drunken man snoring on the other side of a board partition.
I sha'n't go back to the other place, of course, until I get more money. Besides, she has probably rented the room.
I am so relieved at having gotten something to do. I believe I am even proud of the soap.
I am getting used to walking all day; anything so long as one doesn't have the agonizing worry about starvation. I am ill, but I shall keep at it, and answer advertisements meanwhile by mail, till I get something better.
I am going out to sit by the river. I can not stand the heat and stench in this room. To-morrow is Sunday. I shall have a long rest.
June 2d.
I did not go back to distribute soap to-day. I have given up the work. I have just seventy cents left in my pocket. The rent of this room is up on June 6th, and the money will last me until then.
On June 6th I am going to die.
—To-day I went to the publisher's. I said: “On June 6th I am going out of town. (Grim humor, that!) On June 6th you will have had the manuscript three weeks and more. I shall have to ask you to have a report by that date, or to return it to me now.” He said: “You shall have the report.”
If they will publish the poem, I shall wait. If not, I shall die on June 6th. That is settled.