The Country of Elusion

by O. Henry

The cunning writer will choose an indefinable subject, for hecan then set down his theory of what it is; and next, at length,his conception of what it is not--and lo! his paper is covered.Therefore let us follow the prolix and unmapable trail into thatmooted country, Bohemia. Grainger, sub-editor of _Doc's Magazine_, closed his roll-top desk,put on his hat, walked into the hall, punched the "down" button, andwaited for the elevator. Grainger's day had been trying. The chief had tried to ruin themagazine a dozen times by going against Grainger's ideas for runningit. A lady whose grandfather had fought with McClellan had brought aportfolio of poems in person. Grainger was curator of the Lion's House of the magazine. That dayhe had "lunched" an Arctic explorer, a short-story writer, and thefamous conductor of a slaughter-house expose. Consequently his mindwas in a whirl of icebergs, Maupassant, and trichinosis. But there was a surcease and a recourse; there was Bohemia. He wouldseek distraction there; and, let's see--he would call by for MaryAdrian. Half an hour later he threaded his way like a Brazilian orchid-hunterthrough the palm forest in the tiled entrance hall of the "Idealia"apartment-house. One day the christeners of apartment-houses and thecognominators of sleeping-cars will meet, and there will be somejealous and sanguinary knifing. The clerk breathed Grainger's name so languidly into the housetelephone that it seemed it must surely drop, from sheer inertia,down to the janitor's regions. But, at length, it soared dilatorilyup to Miss Adrian's ear. Certainly, Mr. Grainger was to come upimmediately. A colored maid with an Eliza-crossing-the-ice expression openedthe door of the apartment for him. Grainger walked sideways downthe narrow hall. A bunch of burnt umber hair and a sea-green eyeappeared in the crack of a door. A long, white, undraped arm cameout, barring the way. "So glad you came, Ricky, instead of any of the others," saidthe eye. "Light a cigarette and give it to me. Going to take meto dinner? Fine. Go into the front room till I finish dressing.But don't sit in your usual chair. There's pie in it--Meringue.Kappelman threw it at Reeves last evening while he was reciting.Sophy has just come to straighten up. Is it lit? Thanks. There'sScotch on the mantel--oh, no, it isn't,--that's chartreuse. AskSophy to find you some. I won't be long." Grainger escaped the meringue. As he waited his spirits sank stilllower. The atmosphere of the room was as vapid as a zephyr wanderingover a Vesuvian lava-bed. Relics of some feast lay about the room,scattered in places where even a prowling cat would have beensurprised to find them. A straggling cluster of deep red roses ina marmalade jar bowed their heads over tobacco ashes and unwashedgoblets. A chafing-dish stood on the piano; a leaf of sheet musicsupported a stack of sandwiches in a chair. Mary came in, dressed and radiant. Her gown was of that thin, blackfabric whose name through the change of a single vowel seems tosummon visions ranging between the extremes of man's experience.Spelled with an "e" it belongs to Gallic witchery and diaphanousdreams; with an "a" it drapes lamentation and woe. That evening they went to the Cafe Andre. And, as people wouldconfide to you in a whisper that Andre's was the only truly Bohemianrestaurant in town, it may be well to follow them. Andre began his professional career as a waiter in a Bowery ten-centeating-house. Had you seen him there you would have called himtough--to yourself. Not aloud, for he would have "soaked" you asquickly as he would have soaked his thumb in your coffee. He savedmoney and started a basement _table d'hote_ in Eighth (or Ninth)Street. One afternoon Andre drank too much absinthe. He announced tohis startled family that he was the Grand Llama of Thibet, thereforerequiring an empty audience hall in which to be worshiped. He movedall the tables and chairs from the restaurant into the back yard,wrapped a red table-cloth around himself, and sat on a step-ladderfor a throne. When the diners began to arrive, madame, in a flurry ofdespair, laid cloths and ushered them, trembling, outside. Betweenthe tables clothes-lines were stretched, bearing the family wash. Aparty of Bohemia hunters greeted the artistic innovation with shrieksand acclamations of delight. That week's washing was not taken in fortwo years. When Andre came to his senses he had the menu printed onstiffly starched cuffs, and served the ices in little wooden tubs.Next he took down his sign and darkened the front of the house.When you went there to dine you fumbled for an electric button andpressed it. A lookout slid open a panel in the door, looked at yoususpiciously, and asked if you were acquainted with Senator HerodotusQ. McMilligan, of the Chickasaw Nation. If you were, you wereadmitted and allowed to dine. If you were not, you were admitted andallowed to dine. There you have one of the abiding principles ofBohemia. When Andre had accumulated $20,000 he moved up-town, nearBroadway, in the fierce light that beats upon the thrown-down.There we find him and leave him, with customers in pearls andautomobile veils, striving to catch his excellently graduated nodof recognition. There is a large round table in the northeast corner of Andre's atwhich six can sit. To this table Grainger and Mary Adrian made theirway. Kappelman and Reeves were already there. And Miss Tooker, whodesigned the May cover for the _Ladies' Notathome Magazine_. And Mrs.Pothunter, who never drank anything but black and white highballs,being in mourning for her husband, who--oh, I've forgotten what hedid--died, like as not. Spaghetti-weary reader, wouldst take one penny-in-the-slot peep intothe fair land of Bohemia? Then look; and when you think you haveseen it you have not. And it is neither thimbleriggery norastigmatism. The walls of the Cafe Andre were covered with original sketches bythe artists who furnished much of the color and sound of the place.Fair woman furnished the theme for the bulk of the drawings. Whenyou say "sirens and siphons" you come near to estimating thealliterative atmosphere of Andre's. First, I want you to meet my friend, Miss Adrian. Miss Tooker andMrs. Pothunter you already know. While she tucks in the fingers ofher elbow gloves you shall have her daguerreotype. So faint anduncertain shall the portrait be: Age, somewhere between twenty-seven and highneck evening dresses.Camaraderie in large bunches--whatever the fearful word may mean.Habitat--anywhere from Seattle to Terra del Fuego. Temperamentuncharted--she let Reeves squeeze her hand after he recited one ofhis poems; but she counted the change after sending him out with adollar to buy some pickled pig's feet. Deportment 75 out of apossible 100. Morals 100. Mary was one of the princesses of Bohemia. In the first place, itwas a royal and a daring thing to have been named Mary. There aretwenty Fifines and Heloises to one Mary in the Country of Elusion. Now her gloves are tucked in. Miss Tooker has assumed a June posterpose; Mrs. Pothunter has bitten her lips to make the red show;Reeves has several times felt his coat to make sure that his latestpoem is in the pocket. (It had been neatly typewritten; but he hascopied it on the backs of letters with a pencil.) Kappelman isunderhandedly watching the clock. It is ten minutes to nine. Whenthe hour comes it is to remind him of a story. Synopsis: A Frenchgirl says to her suitor: "Did you ask my father for my hand at nineo'clock this morning, as you said you would?" "I did not," he.replies. "At nine o'clock I was fighting a duel with swords in theBois de Boulogne." "Coward!" she hisses. The dinner was ordered. You know how the Bohemian feast of reasonkeeps up with the courses. Humor with the oysters; wit with thesoup; repartee with the entree; brag with the roast; knocks forWhistler and Kipling with the salad; songs with the coffee; theslapsticks with the cordials. Between Miss Adrian's eyebrows was the pucker that shows the intensestrain it requires to be at ease in Bohemia. Pat must come eachsally, _mot_, and epigram. Every second of deliberation upon a replycosts you a bay leaf. Fine as a hair, a line began to curve from hernostrils to her mouth. To hold her own not a chance must be missed.A sentence addressed to her must be as a piccolo, each word of ita stop, which she must be prepared to seize upon and play. And shemust always be quicker than a Micmac Indian to paddle the lightcanoe of conversation away from the rocks in the rapids that flowfrom the Pierian spring. For, plodding reader, the handwriting onthe wall in the banquet hall of Bohemia is "_Laisser faire_." Thegray ghost that sometimes peeps through the rings of smoke is thatof slain old King Convention. Freedom is the tyrant that holds themin slavery. As the dinner waned, hands reached for the pepper cruet ratherthan for the shaker of Attic salt. Miss Tooker, with an elbow tobusiness, leaned across the table toward Grainger, upsetting herglass of wine. "Now while you are fed and in good humor," she said, "I want tomake a suggestion to you about a new cover." "A good idea," said Grainger, mopping the tablecloth with hisnapkin. "I'll speak to the waiter about it." Kappelman, the painter, was the cut-up. As a piece of delicateAthenian wit he got up from his chair and waltzed down the roomwith a waiter. That dependent, no doubt an honest, pachydermatous,worthy, tax-paying, art-despising biped, released himself fromthe unequal encounter, carried his professional smile back to thedumb-waiter and dropped it down the shaft to eternal oblivion.Reeves began to make Keats turn in his grave. Mrs. Pothunter toldthe story of the man who met the widow on the train. Miss Adrianhummed what is still called a _chanson_ in the cafes of Bridgeport.Grainger edited each individual effort with his assistant editor'ssmile, which meant: "Great! but you'll have to send them in throughthe regular channels. If I were the chief now--but you know how itis." And soon the head waiter bowed before them, desolated to relate thatthe closing hour had already become chronologically historical; soout all trooped into the starry midnight, filling the street withgay laughter, to be barked at by hopeful cabmen and enviously eyedby the dull inhabitants of an uninspired world. Grainger left Mary at the elevator in the trackless palm forest ofthe Idealia. After he had gone she came down again carrying a smallhand-bag, 'phoned for a cab, drove to the Grand Central Station,boarded a 12.55 commuter's train, rode four hours with herburnt-umber head bobbing against the red-plush back of the seat,and landed during a fresh, stinging, glorious sunrise at a desertedstation, the size of a peach crate, called Crocusville. She walked a mile and clicked the latch of a gate. A bare, browncottage stood twenty yards back; an old man with a pearl-white,Calvinistic face and clothes dyed blacker than a raven in acoal-mine was washing his hands in a tin basin on the front porch. "How are you, father?" said Mary timidly. "I am as well as Providence permits, Mary Ann. You will find yourmother in the kitchen." In the kitchen a cryptic, gray woman kissed her glacially on theforehead, and pointed out the potatoes which were not yet peeled forbreakfast. Mary sat in a wooden chair and decorticated spuds, with athrill in her heart. For breakfast there were grace, cold bread, potatoes, bacon, andtea. "You are pursuing the same avocation in the city concerning whichyou have advised us from time to time by letter, I trust," said herfather. "Yes," said Mary, "I am still reviewing books for the samepublication." After breakfast she helped wash the dishes, and then all three satin straight-back chairs in the bare-floored parlor. "It is my custom," said the old man, "on the Sabbath day to readaloud from the great work entitled the 'Apology for Authorized andSet Forms of Liturgy,' by the ecclesiastical philosopher and reveredtheologian, Jeremy Taylor." "I know it," said Mary blissfully, folding her hands. For two hours the numbers of the great Jeremy rolled forth like thenotes of an oratorio played on the violoncello. Mary sat gloatingin the new sensation of racking physical discomfort that the woodenchair brought her. Perhaps there is no happiness in life so perfectas the martyr's. Jeremy's minor chords soothed her like the music ofa tom-tom. "Why, oh why," she said to herself, "does some one notwrite words to it?" At eleven they went to church in Crocusville. The back of the pinebench on which she sat had a penitential forward tilt that wouldhave brought St. Simeon down, in jealousy, from his pillar. Thepreacher singled her out, and thundered upon her vicarious headthe damnation of the world. At each side of her an adamant parentheld her rigidly to the bar of judgment. An ant crawled upon herneck, but she dared not move. She lowered her eyes before thecongregation--a hundred-eyed Cerberus that watched the gates throughwhich her sins were fast thrusting her. Her soul was filled with adelirious, almost a fanatic joy. For she was out of the clutch ofthe tyrant, Freedom. Dogma and creed pinioned her with beneficentcruelty, as steel braces bind the feet of a crippled child. She washedged, adjured, shackled, shored up, strait-jacketed, silenced,ordered. When they came out the minister stopped to greet them.Mary could only hang her head and answer "Yes, sir," and "No, sir,"to his questions. When she saw that the other women carried theirhymn-books at their waists with their left hands, she blushed andmoved hers there, too, from her right. She took the three-o'clock train back to the city. At nine she satat the round table for dinner in the Cafe Andre. Nearly the samecrowd was there. "Where have you been to-day?" asked Mrs. Pothunter. "I 'phoned toyou at twelve." "I have been away in Bohemia," answered Mary, with a mystic smile. There! Mary has given it away. She has spoiled my climax. For Iwas to have told you that Bohemia is nothing more than the littlecountry in which you do not live. If you try to obtain citizenshipin it, at once the court and retinue pack the royal archives andtreasure and move away beyond the hills. It is a hillside that youturn your head to peer at from the windows of the Through Express. At exactly half past eleven Kappelman, deceived by a new softnessand slowness of riposte and parry in Mary Adrian, tried to kiss her.Instantly she slapped his face with such strength and cold fury thathe shrank down, sobered, with the flaming red print of a hand acrosshis leering features. And all sounds ceased, as when the shadows ofgreat wings come upon a flock of chattering sparrows. One had brokenthe paramount law of sham-Bohemia--the law of "_Laisser faire_." Theshock came not from the blow delivered, but from the blow received.With the effect of a schoolmaster entering the play-room of hispupils was that blow administered. Women pulled down their sleevesand laid prim hands against their ruffled side locks. Men looked attheir watches. There was nothing of the effect of a brawl about it;it was purely the still panic produced by the sound of the ax of thefly cop, Conscience hammering at the gambling-house doors of theHeart. With their punctilious putting on of cloaks, with their exaggeratedpretense of not having seen or heard, with their stammering exchangeof unaccustomed formalities, with their false show of a light-heartedexit I must take leave of my Bohemian party. Mary has robbed me of myclimax; and she may go. But I am not defeated. Somewhere there exists a great vault milesbroad and miles long--more capacious than the champagne caves ofFrance. In that vault are stored the anticlimaxes that should havebeen tagged to all the stories that have been told in the world. Ishall cheat that vault of one deposit. Minnie Brown, with her aunt, came from Crocusville down to the cityto see the sights. And because she had escorted me to fishless troutstreams and exhibited to me open-plumbed waterfalls and broken mycamera while I Julyed in her village, I must escort her to the hivescontaining the synthetic clover honey of town. Especially did the custom-made Bohemia charm her. The spaghettiwound its tendrils about her heart; the free red wine drowned herbelief in the existence of commercialism in the world; she wasdared and enchanted by the rugose wit that can be churned out ofCalifornia claret. But one evening I got her away from the smell of halibut andlinoleum long enough to read to her the manuscript of this story,which then ended before her entrance into it. I read it to herbecause I knew that all the printing-presses in the world wererunning to try to please her and some others. And I asked her aboutit. "I didn't quite catch the trains," said she. "How long was Mary inCrocusville?" "Ten hours and five minutes," I replied. "Well, then, the story may do," said Minnie. "But if she had stayedthere a week Kappelman would have got his kiss."

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