Extradited from Bohemia

by O. Henry

　　

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From near the village of Harmony, at the footof the Green Mountains, came Miss Medora Martinto New York with her color-box and easel. Miss Medora resembled the rose which the autum-nal frosts had spared the longest of all her sisterblossoms. In Harmony, when she started alone tothe wicked city to study art, they said she was a mad,reckless, headstrong girl. In New York, when shefirst took her seat at a West Side boardinghousetable, the boarders asked: "Who is the nice-lookingold maid?" Medora took heart, a cheap hall bedroom and twoart lessons a week from Professor Angelini, a retiredbarber who had studied his profession in a Harlemdancing academy. There was no one to set her right,for here in the big city they do it unto all of us.How many of us are badly shaved daily and taughtthe two-step imperfectly by ex-pupils of Bastien LePage and Gerome? The most pathetic sight in NewYork -- except the manners of the rush-hour crowds-- is the dreary march of the hopeless army of Me-diocrity. Here Art is no benignant goddess, buta Circe who turns her wooers into mewing Toms andTabbies who linger about the doorsteps of her abode,unmindful of the flying brickbats and boot-jacks ofthe critics. Some of us creep back to our native vil-lages to the skim-milk of "I told you so"; but mostof us prefer to remain in the cold courtyard of ourmistress's temple, snatching the scraps that fall fromher divine table d'hote. But some of us grow wearyat last of the fruitless service. And then there aretwo fates open to us. We can get a job driving agrocer's wagon, or we can get swallowed up in theVortex of Bohemia. The latter sounds good; but theformer really pans out better. For, when the grocerpays us off we can rent a dress suit and -- the cap-italized system of humor describes it best -- Get Bo-hemia On the Run. Miss Medora chose the Vortex and thereby fur-nishes us with our little story. Professor Angelini praised her sketches excessively.Once when she had made a neat study of a horse-chestnut tree in the park he declared she would be-come a second Rosa Bonheur. Again -- a great art-ist has his moods -- he would say cruel and cuttingthings. For example, Medora had spent an after-noon patiently sketching the statue and the archi-tecture at Columbus Circle. Tossing it aside witha sneer, the professor informed her that Giotto hadonce drawn a perfect circle with one sweep of hishand. One day it rained, the weekly remittance from Har-mony was overdue, Medora had a headache, the pro-fessor had tried to borrow two dollars from her, herart dealer had sent back all her water-colors unsold,and -- Mr. Binkley asked her out to dinner. Mr. Binkley was the gay boy of the boarding-house. He was forty-nine, and owned a fishstall ina downtown market. But after six o'clock he worean evening suit and whooped things up connectedwith the beaux arts. The young men said he was an"Indian." He was supposed to be an accomplishedhabitue of the inner circles of Bohemia. It was nosecret that he had once loaned $10 to a young manwho had had a drawing printed in Puck. Often hasone thus obtained his entree into the charmed circle,while the other obtained both his entree and roast. The other boarders enviously regarded Medora asshe left at Mr. Binkley's side at nine o'clock. Shewas as sweet as a cluster of dried autumn grassesin her pale blue -- oh -- er -- that very thin stuff-- in her pale blue Comstockized silk waist and box-pleated voile skirt, with a soft pink glow on her thincheeks and the tiniest bit of rouge powder on herface, with her handkerchief and room key in herbrown walrus, pebble-grain band-bag. And Mr. Binkley looked imposing and dashing withhis red face and gray mustache, and his tight dresscoat, that made the back of his neck roll up justlike a successful novelist's. They drove in a cab to the Cafe Terence, just offthe most glittering part of Broadway, which, asevery one knows, is one of the most popular andwidely patronized, jealously exclusive Bohemian re-sorts in the city. Down between the rows of little tables trippedMedora, of the Green Mountains, after her escort.Thrice in a lifetime may woman walk upon cloudsonce when she trippeth to the altar, once when shefirst enters Bohemian halls, the last when she marchesback across her first garden with the dead hen of herneighbor in her band. There was a table set, with three or four about it.A waiter buzzed around it like a bee, and silver andglass shone upon it. And, preliminary to the meal,as the prehistoric granite strata heralded the pro-tozoa, the bread of Gaul, compounded after the for-mula of the recipe for the eternal bills, was there setforth to the hand and tooth of a long-suffering city,while the gods lay beside their nectar and home-madebiscuits and smiled, and the dentists leaped for joyin their gold-leafy dens. The eye of Binkley fixed a young man at his tablewith the Bobemian gleam, which is a compound ofthe look of the Basilisk, the shine of a bubble ofWurzburger, the inspiration of genius and the plead-ing of a panhandler. The young man sprang to his feet. "Hello, Bink,old boy! be shouted. "Don't tell me you were go-ing to pass our table. Join us -- unless you've an-other crowd on hand." "Don't mind, old chap," said Binkley, of the fish-stall. "You know how I like to butt up against thefine arts. Mr. Vandyke -- Mr. Madder -- er --Miss Martin, one of the elect also in art -- er -- " The introduction went around. There were alsoMiss Elise and Miss 'Toinette. Perhaps they weremodels, for they chattered of the St. Regis decora-tions and Henry James -- and they did it not badly. Medora sat in transport. Music -- wild, intoxi-eating music made by troubadours direct from a rearbasement room in Elysium -- set her thoughts todancing. Here was a world never before penetratedby her warmest imagination or any of the lines con-trolled by Harriman. With the Green Mountains'external calm upon her she sat, her soul flaming inher with the fire of Andalusia. The tables were filledwith Bohemia. The room was full of the fragranceof flowers -- both mille and cauli. Questions andcorks popped; laughter and silver rang; champagneflashed in the pail, wit flashed in the pan. Vandyke ruffled his long, black locks, disarrangedhis careless tie and leaned over to Madder. "Say, Maddy," he whispered, feelingly, "some-times I'm tempted to pay this Philistine his ten dol-lars and get rid of him." Madder ruffled his long, sandy locks and disar-ranged his careless tie. "Don't think of it, Vandy," he replied. "We areshort, and Art is long."Medora ate strange viands and drank elderberrywine that they poured in her glass. It was just thecolor of that in the Vermont home. The waiterpoured something in another glass that seemed tobe boiling, but when she tasted it it was not hot.She had never felt so light-hearted before. Shethought lovingly of the Green Mountain farm and itsfauna. She leaned, smiling, to Miss Elise. "If I were at home," she said, beamingly, "Icould show you the cutest little calf! " "Nothing for you in the White Lane," said MissElise. "Why don't you pad? The orchestra played a wailing waltz that Medorahad learned from the hand-organs. She followedthe air with nodding head in a sweet soprano hum.Madder looked across the table at her, and wonderedin what strange waters Binkley had caught her inhis seine. She smiled at him, and they raised glassesand drank of the wine that boiled when it was cold.Binkley had abandoned art and was prating of theunusual spring catch of shad. Miss Elise arrangedthe palette-and-maul-stick tie pin of Mr. Vandyke.A Philistine at some distant table was maunderingvolubly either about Jerome or Gerome. A famousactress was discoursing excitably about monogrammedhosiery. A hose clerk from a department store wasloudly proclaiming his opinions of the drama. Awriter was abusing Dickens. A magazine editor anda photographer were drinking a dry brand at a re-served table. A 36-25-42 young lady was saying toan eminent sculptor: "Fudge for your Prax Italys!Bring one of your Venus Anno Dominis down toCohen's and see bow quick she'd be turned down fora cloak model. Back to the quarries with yourGreeks and Dagos!" Thus went Bohemia. At eleven Mr. Binkley took Medora to the board-ing-bouse and left her, with a society bow, at the footof the hall stairs. She went up to her room and litthe gas. And then, as suddenly as the dreadful genie arosein vapor from the copper vase of the fisherman,arose in that room the formidable shape of the NewEngland Conscience. The terrible thing thatMedora had done was revealed to her in its fullenormity. She had sat in the presence of the un-godly and looked upon the wine both when it was redand effervescent. At midnight she wrote this letter: "Mr. BERLAH HOSKINS, Harmony, Vermont. "Dear Sir: Henceforth, consider me as dead toyou forever. I have loved you too well to blight yourcareer by bringing into it my guilty and sin-stainedlife. I have succumbed to the insidious wiles of thiswicked world and have been drawn into the vortex ofBohemia. There is scarcely any depth of glitteringiniquity that I have not sounded. It is hopeless tocombat my decision. There is no rising from thedepths to which I have sunk. Endeavor to forgetme. I am lost forever in the fair but brutal maze ofawful Bohemia. Farewell. "ONCE YOUR MEDORA." On the next day Medora formed her resolutions.Beelzebub, flung from heaven, was no more cast down.Between her and the apple blossoms of Harmonythere was a fixed gulf. Flaming cherubim wardedher from the gates of her lost paradise. In oneevening, by the aid of Binkley and Mumm, Bohemiahad gathered her into its awful midst. There remained to her but one thing -- a life ofbrilliant, but irremediable error. Vermont was ashrine that she never would dare to approach again.But she would not sink -- there were great and com-pelling ones in history upon whom she would modelher meteoric career -- Camille, Lola Montez, RoyalMary, Zaza -- such a name as one of these would thatof Medora Martin be to future generations For two days Medora kept her room. On thethird she opened a magazine at the portrait of theKing of Belgium, and laughed sardonically. If thatfar-famed breaker of women's hearts should cross herpath, he would have to bow before her cold and im-perious beauty. She would not spare the old orthe young. All America -- all Europe should dohomage to her sinister, but compelling charm. As yet she could not bear to think of the life shehad once desired -- a peaceful one in the shadow ofthe Green Mountains with Beriah at her side, andorders for expensive oil paintings coming in by eachmail from New York. Her one fatal misstep hadshattered that dream. On the fourth day Medora powdered her face androuged her lips. Once she had seen Carter in"Zaza." She stood before the mirror in a recklessattitude and cried: "Zut! zut!" She rhymed itwith "nut," but with the lawless word Harmonyseemed to pass away forever. The Vortex had her.She belonged to Bohemia for evermore. And neverwould Beriah -- The door opened and Beriah walked in. "'Dory," said he, "what's all that chalk and pinkstuff on your face, honey? Medora extended an arm. "Too late," she said, solemnly. The die is cast.I belong in another world. Curse me if you will --it is your right. Go, and leave me in the path Ihave chosen. Bid them all at home never to men-tion my name again. And sometimes, Beriah, prayfor me when I am revelling in the gaudy, but hol-low, pleasures of Bohemia." "Get a towel, 'Dory," said Beriah, "and wipethat paint off your face. I came as soon as I gotyour letter. Them pictures of yours ain't amount-ing to anything. I've got tickets for both of usback on the evening train. Hurry and get yourthings in your trunk." "Fate was too strong for me, Beriah. Go whileI am strong to bear it." "How do you fold this easel, 'Dory? -- now beginto pack, so we have time to eat before train time.The maples is all out in full-grown leaves, 'Dory --you just ought to see 'em! "Not this early, Beriah? "You ought to see 'em, 'Dory; they're like anocean of green in the morning sunlight." "Oh, Beriah!" On the train she said to him suddenly: "I wonder why you came when you got my let-ter." "Oh, shucks! " said Beriah. "Did you think youcould fool me? How could you be run away to thatBohemia country like you said when your letter waspostmarked New York as plain as day?"

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