Walt Kuhn

WALT KUHN, veteran American artist, died in New York July 13 at the age of 71. He had suffered a nervous breakdown some time ago and was recovering, when a sudden internal physical failure caused his death in the Westchester Division of the New York Hospital. It ended a half century career of one of the most forceful, independent and self-disciplined painters of our time.

His development was long and arduous, yet orderly and in a straight line. At 30 he sold his first canvas, but not until 40 was he convinced in his own mind that he had a chance as a creative artist. Recognition came later as collectors and museums found in his work a sturdy new classicism of impeccable craftsmanship.

Walt helped to formulate and carried out most of the work on the 1913 Armory Show. He advised such collectors and benefactors as the late John Quinn, Miss Lizzie Bliss and the Averell Harrimans. He promoted the work of other artists, but deplored the use of prizes and juries at art exhibitions, and he never entered his own work in competition. Walt competed only with other Walt Kuhn paintings.

Tall and raw-boned with the mien of an American eagle, Walt was gruff and dogmatic, but cultured, modest and with great reverence for good things. He had infinite patience except with people who wanted pity. Show people he liked best—"the bravest in the world."

Walt defined art as "arrested ecstasy" and he believed in a perfection wherein a successful painting flutters between its pigment-and canvas reality and a higher, metaphorical reality. He loved humanity but used none of the outworn tricks of iconography. His images of circus clowns and costumed show girls are projected forthright on murky backgrounds of high surface tension ... figures plucked out of their environmental irrelevancies and placed always with great dignity, alone on a canvas.

He is survived by his two constant teammates, Vera, his wife, and Brenda, his daughter. And by his art, which I consider the best of our day.

—PAUL BIRD.

WALT KUHN

August 1, 1949

## Varied Group

THERE is a pleasant variation in the summer show at Ferargil's. Some of the finest of the early group first introduced by Director Fred Price are present, the group which belongs in the annals of American art, R. Sloan Brechin, Barse Miller, John Steuart Curry, Childe Hassam, Arthur B. Davies are among them, with interesting examples. Davies' *Balance of the Golden Scale* is one of the romantic, imaginative series of canvases for which he was known as an early modern and which are now regaining their place in the sun, as more and more of the best painting of the period is being appreciated, relative to present-day trends.

As contrast, George Constant's *Empire*, reminiscent of Mayan design, De Diego's *June Arabesque* with its eerie-eyed humming bird pattern, and Jean Xceron's abstracted *Composition* command attention, as well as the fine spotting of Josef Foshko's *Flowers*. Old trouter of the daily drama, Everett Shinn, makes a bow with *Ventriloquist*, and John Pike presents the night life of the city reflected in the wet pavements of *Small Hours*. Among the watercolors, John Carroll, Hobart Nichols, Grandma Moses, John Groth, Arthur Sudler, Nura and Jean de Botton are responsible for more pleasing works. (Through August.)

—M. L.

## Contemporary Arts Tour

The Contemporary Arts exhibition of 25 paintings has completed a successful tour of universities and art associations through the Southern states. Another tour through the South has been requested for next season, and two or three western and mid-western centers have evinced interest in it. Mrs. Judith Kaye Reed of the ART DIGEST will supervise the selection for the next show. Interested centers wishing to participate in the southern and western tours should send for information immediately, stating open dates, to Emily A. Francis, Contemporary Arts, Inc., 106 East 57th Street, New York 22, N. Y. The exhibitions are sent out at cost on a pro-rata basis.

*Small Hours: JOHN PIKE*

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PRAIRIE

Edited by Samuel Pessin

MARCH-APRIL, 1923

Vol. 1

No. v

CONTENTS

The Sleeping Girl: Painting Walt Kuhn 8

Two Metropolitans Samuel Pessin 9

The Matin of a Maiden-Lady Albert T. Finkler 13

Blood-Burning Moon Jean Toomer 18

Portrait: Sculpture Girolamo Piccoli 19

Figure: Sculpture Alfeo Faggi 25

Two Poems (in German) Kurt Baum 27

Days: a Novel Charles Cain 28

Denver Curls A. A. Rosenthal 34

Buonarroti Alfred Kreyborg 34

Blond: Painting Walt Kuhn 35

Walt Kuhn Blanche Matthias 37

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THE SLEEPING GIRL
Walt Kuhn

PRAIRIE

TWO METROPOLITANS

Samuel Pessin

“A book’s a book, although there’s nothing in ’t.”

THE voice of the Eastern Prophet was heard in the land and as a lasting proof that gullibility is not confined to shopkeepers, Chicago assumed the role of the Literary Capital with pompous seriousness. Perhaps the claim should not be disputed; for Chicago is truly as representative of artistic and literary America as Washington is representative of political America. No more can be expected of a capital than that it should be representative of the widest level.

And in that middle western salon two figures tower above all the rest and demand attention, Capital or no Capital. They are, to wit: Sherwood Anderson and Ben Hecht. I do not forget Maxwell Bodenheim’s boast that he is the greatest master of prose as well as poetry writing in English. But since the advent of *Blackguard*, our suspicion has been confirmed that Bodenheim is a truly great master of unique phrases, with a genius for kaleidoscopic verbosity, but a mediocre thinker in whom prejudice overbalances all reason.

Anderson and Hecht are the cocks of the walk—two personalities as antagonistic in their Weltanschauung and as much at variance in the nature of their work as ever two contemporaries were. But these two antipodal writers merge into an ironic and depressing Absolutely: that a people can become old without acquiring wisdom and that a dexterously sophisticated vocabulary is neither a sign of rejuvenation, nor a mirror of a sound and alert intellect.

II

There is a notion current in certain literary circles that Sherwood Anderson is the voice of primitive America, a notion that is not logically deducted and which cannot be substantiated by his work. That there is such a thing as a primitive America is a romantic illusion. America, a young nation, is peopled by the descendants of the oldest races in the world. Its dullness, its elemental naivette, its Leyendecker aesthetica are not signs of undeveloped powers, but rather the hard facts of degeneration. By some strange, miraculous process the American has picked up somewhere in his bio-logical past a suicidal aptitude for platitudes and puerility that has made him the perfect example of mental perversity to the entire world.

Sherwood Anderson is the prophet of a race that has grown old in stupidity. His so-called epics of "primitive" America are clumsy rhapsodies of senile dumbness. His books are peopled with characters that express the ideas and impulses of half-wit chil-dren. There is seldom a character that rises to the normal intelligence of the full-grown adolescent. The simplicity of his characters is not the simplicity of the primi-tive man, but deranged, grotesque and depressing. His prophetic efforts are the heavy-footed creatures that live in an unshakable state of semi-consciousness.

And as Sherwood Anderson is the prophet of intellectually paralyzed America, Ben Hecht symbolizes the triumph of American Journalism. In his ordinary moods he is an ironical police court reporter, and in unusual moments, an adolescent Juvenal

Nineteen

arranging a puppet show with malicious forethought for the gratification of his own delight in satire. Ben Hecht is well on the way to become the Zola of Alienism. That he is a keen observer cannot be denied; that indeed is his greatest asset. But that Catholicism of mind and spirit which enables the artist to rearrange the human comedy with the detached humor of complete understanding is significantly lacking in his work. He sees and, he more than any other American writer, creates the illusion of "destroying the obscurity of things." But after all he merely sees and fails in the understanding, making his articulateness a process of reflex action. He reminds one of a giant sponge that absorbs everything about it without taste and without discrimination. Ideas, people, prejudices, skyscrapers, mobs, war—all are absorbed in the same process and then are spewed forth in a black, chaotic stream. His characters live so long as he parades through the book with a pointer and marks their wishes and behavior. When the voice of Ben Hecht does not protrude itself upon the book, his characters fade into vague shadows.

### III

*Many Marriages* is Sherwood Anderson's most recent contribution to the dilemma of America's inveterate illiterateness. There is not a more inanely extravagant novel in all of contemporary fiction. Its subject matter is the love of an hypersexual manufacturer of washing machines and its particular problem is marriage.

The tendency of native novelists to patch together plots out of the insignificant problems of insignificant and dull people is an inevitable expression of our democratic era and must be regarded and dismissed finally as such. What other explanation can be found for the boring histories of third rate middlings that our scribes insist on placing in the limelight of heroism. *Many Marriages* is not an exception to the rule. John Webster, the hero, is a manufacturer of washing machines living in a small Wisconsin town with his wife and seventeen-year-old daughter Jane. His life as a manufacturer is no different than the life of thousands of other such small manufacturers. Also his earlier career as a traveling salesman is marked by the same sensuality and the same sexual experiences that one may hear on any Pullman whenever any traveling salesmen meet. The episodes that led to his marriage are not important. Sensual by nature, his first sight of a nude woman aroused his passion which, in his lonely trips, assumed the guise of love. By persistent letters he won the woman and she became his wife. Their clumsiness during the first few days together has been immortalized generations ago by the general store humorists.

But Mrs. Webster is puritanical by nature and John Webster is forced to accept the alternative of "spiritual" love in place of the physical gratification he had hoped to achieve by marriage. At thirty-seven he finds the constant hampering of his sexual impulses unbearable and simultaneously falls in love with his stenographer, Natalie. In an erotic moment he returns to his office to find Natalie bathed and in a clean dress. He is moved strongly and the result is the consummation of their mutual desire of each other. And John Webster the revolter, like all middle-class revolters, dramatizes his part to a sickening strain of sentimental rubbish and century old platitudes.

And here begins the most extravagant of orgies.

John Webster decided to flee with Natalie, but his desire for self-justification induces him to tell his wife and daughter of his decision. He prepares to set the stage for the confession and the parting. For some time past he had gotten into the habit of locking himself away in his room and parading stark naked before the mirror. As a background he now added a painting of the Virgin, which he placed on the dresser, with a lighted candle on each side. One night while he was thus giving expression to his rebellious mood his wife and daughter entered, and a naked Demosthenes literally "poured out his heart" to the two women.

The love scenes of the dime novels are less difficult to read than the scene of the naked man condemning his wife with a garrulous that is in itself obscene and simultaneously carrying on a sort of mental incest with his daughter. It is so unbelievably extravagant, so blatantly childish. One is held spell-bound by the amazing

Ten

stupidity of the situation. For a hundred pages John Webster parades his nakedness and his platitudes, his morbid sensuality and elated slush. When at last he leaves, Mrs. Webster commits suicide and Jane is prostrated in an hysterical condition, recounting silently, the sexual symbolism of some of her past dreams. John Webster and Natalie flee, while his faithful housekeeper and daughter plan to keep the knowledge of the suicide from the police until they are safely out of town.

Were we to study intimately the lives of our manufacturers and business men we would find innumerable such situations less clumsily handled in real life, and the problem solved with no maudlin torrents of yokery and fewer tragic climaxes.

The irony of the book lies in the fact that Sherwood Anderson suggests quite plainly that he is under the impression of having created an unusual type, half poet and half philosopher. John Webster himself gives voice to the idea that he may be after all a poet. And John Webster is neither a poet nor a philosopher, but an oversexed manufacturer of washing machines, a hundred-per-center in his sentimentality and a staunch slow-thinking native.

### IV

From Sherwood Anderson to Ben Hecht is a startling shifting of ground. Where the one is deliberately naive, the other is scintillating with sophistication. Where Anderson voices a stolid faith, Hecht's characterizations sparkle with the illusion of complete disillusionment. His images race across the page in sketchy suggestions and staccato sharpness. There is what one might call a high-brow, Gumpish loquaciousness in his style.

Hecht marshalls his doomed characters into one door and through the opposite door looms the gallows of his merciless cynicism. The puppet will wriggle through several postures in the course of his journey, showing in each case his perversity, his meanness, his lewdness, his profound human foolhardiness and ultimately he will be hung. The drama of Ben Hecht's novels is not the classical drama of will against limitations. His characters destroy themselves in no such grandiose manner, but rather:

> The story of George Basine, the hero of *Gargoyles*, is a theorem that the tendency towards the idealization of one's motives increases in direct ratio to the growing consciousness of one's perversity. The reader is introduced to Basine on an early Sunday morning just as he and his friend Hugh Keegan emerge from a brothel, a situation that at once condems the character and recommends him to the reader. In the events of the single morning we realize that Basine is destined to rise to a high position in political life, for he is a man whose idealistic concept of himself is never allowed to be polluted by the memory or consciousness of sin. In a quiet way he manages to gratify his vices, but insures his psychic integrity by never permitting his conscience to register any significant breaches against him. So much we realize in the first chapter and the prophecy proves fatal. Family, love, marriage, political offices, vice crusades, a senatorial position and the war are introduced merely as means to hammer home the original idea. Basine never changes. The more questionable his political dealings become the greater his tendency towards spread-eagle oratory, and the more sensitive he becomes to anything that might challenge his self-assurance. And equally ironclad are the moulds of the other characters. Lindsturm, the poet, in his passionate sympathy for the mob, moves in a single track to the very end: nothing can sway him from his destiny. The melancholy and neurotic Doris Basine goes insane. And so one might enumerate all of the characters in the book and find them all moving through a single definite groove, from the moment they are introduced to the end.

In *Gargoyles* Ben Hecht has truly succeeded in destroying every character. The story and the people are familiar parts of our lives and for that reason are plausible enough, but the opaque and unvarying parallels of Hecht's destructivism do not

Eleven

carry conviction. In the end Ben Hecht has succeeded in creating a pantomme of surfaces, and in the sacrificial rites of the procession from the first chapter to the last his constant opinionating destroys the character as much for the reader as his cynical pose will destroy it in the end for himself.

Perhaps there is no better picture of Hecht's literary mind than his own description of Levine.

"There was a man named Levine with whom she discussed matters of this sort, exchanging definitions with him of such things as life, love and art. He was a Jew and worked on a newspaper. Lean, vicious-tongued and unempt, the fantastic skepticism of this man attracted her. He was a man without principles, ideas, prejudices. His attitude towards life she sensed to be a pose. But he had been completely consumed by this pose and the pose was one of superiority. His brain was like a magician. It waved words over ideas or problems and they turned inside out. Or they vanished and reappeared again as their opposites. He appeared to be devoting himself with a mysterious enthusiasm to proving everyone but himself in the wrong. When he read editorials in the newspaper, he would comment, 'They say this. But they means this.' And he grew elated explaining the low, sordid motives which inspired the noble-phrased pronouncements in the press and elsewhere."

And the last sentence expresses deftly Ben Hecht's inspiration in *Gargoyles*. He grows "elated explaining the low sordid motives," and all of his sophistication does not save his elation from a certain sordidness which destroys him as well. That *Gargoyles* is a picture of the times is not worth disputing or affirming. Art is not made or saved by timeliness. That Ben Hecht is a keen observer may also be true, as it is true that he is a super-reporter with a superiority pose, cultivated by associations in a city of middlings whose smug complacency is never disturbed; Chicago's so-called critics praise anything that is Chicago's in a manner that must fill a corporation advertising manager with envy. As his works are episodes of the times, so is Ben Hecht a product of the times; the epitome of jazzy and sparkling superficiality.

V.

Sherwood Anderson's development is marked by a progression of short stories that are more or less on the same level and a number of novels that are neither good nor bad. In *Many Marriages*, however, his limitations are too obviously sketched. What redeems Sherwood Anderson's bad artistry from complete mediocrity is his sincerity and strong human sympathy. These qualities transform his works and make them palatable to a degree.

Ben Hecht is a much cleverer man, but judging from Eric Dorn, Gargoyles and Fantazius Mallare, he will undoubtedly develope into America's greatest manufacturer of best sellers.

Twelve

## THE MATIN OF A MAIDEN-LADY

A PSYCHO-SATIRICAL SHORT STORY

Albert T. Finkler

I came upon a dark monster stone—

lying prone
scarcely a human figure

more like a loaf of quartered gingerbread
with the joints crumbled to a roundness:

six times my size—
this then was the Atlantide

I had heard, helped bear
the temple's entablature.

Was it a figure?

I climbed upon it:
there was the navel well preserved
the head—

though like an orchard boulder adorned by the mind with human resemblance
did have eyes,
crumbling eyes, a child might have made

long ago
with a spike and a rock
there the lips—

kissed by centuries to a grinning groove.
At a distance I sat at its feet,

where I suddenly became aware
of the female gland
darkest and best defined—

became aware of an immense inner warmth
an instant fire—

and it gave me pleasure to imagine
that Jove

would make me a giant and bring this figure
to life

to show that he was still
a God.

Was it a female?

I examined it more closely:
the stone's crumbling at the joints
might have altered the figure's sex
for, see—

it had no breasts
and I hurried away
trembling—

away from this clump of stones that had moved me so
tremendously—

moved me as much as
anything—

I can remember.

I turned away and climbed the jumbled ruins
to an overlooking point

the corner of a pediment pointing to the sky

Thirteen

not to die of what it sees;—
and yet we have more in common than might be supposed
both of us lacking what we want most
and I confess, shamefully, enough
(for I am already eighteen)
I am still a virgin and you
even if you are lying
have had a long and religious holiday
no doubt
and are anxious to break your
fasting;—
but, alas, I might be
both your son
and your lover.
Was there ever such luck?
I thought this
I said nothing.
Presently she said:
m-m-m—this odour:
it is like a-a—(she was always looking for
the right word)
I found it for her:—
like some wonderful French shaving soap
I bought,
called Crème d'Amandes Amères
Crème d'Amandes Amères;
words of endearment, almost.
She payed no more attention to me
after that—
and started tra-la-ing
a minuet—
then to herself:
I wish Jupiter would pour
emeralds and sapphires and rubies and diamonds and pearls
on me—
and agates and tourmaline and rose-quartz, I added
with a cabbage too
if I had one.
Yes even a cabbage, I'm hungry;
I'd like to lie here in the sun and have someone feed me,
she droned with sun-dreaminess.
I commenced
ruthlessly—
to explain according to precepts
psychological
the meaning of her last two wishes and my addition.
she trembled
as one who is suddenly discovered
trembles—
she turned pale and flushed and turned pale
and flushed and stayed pale.
I laughed and darted down from my seat—
she after-groaning;
I'll kill you
I'll kill you

Sixteen

If you don't stop laughing
I'll kill you
Ah—
don't you know what these ruins do to a woman?
And she mutterèd words—
psychological
about old old places and primal passions.
by the grinning figure I flew.
Jove—! and she
after!
Hotel-ward:
through the almond trees like flaring white peacocks
through the giant cactus thickets
with their vermilion fruit, the fainting geranium.
I no longer laughed
but paused occasionally
to see
that she got along without accident as she
panted up the hill, holding her bouquet
of lavender lemon and asphodel
and orange her favorite flower,
through the flaring peacock
and the scarlet cactus:
we reached the terrace
together—
where guests were assembled.
To them we looked the same two they saw at breakfast
together—
and at dinner as we poked our Escaloppe de Vea,
together—
and our acanthine artichoke fried in olive oil,
I noticed her bouquet on the table:
lavender lemon and asphodel
the bitter-sweet of almond
the blue anemone
and orange her favorite flower
together—with
purple violets
added in spite of the garden sign:
E vietato prendere i fiori.
She hastened to explain
something—
about the manager's *especial* permission for
purple violets: the Parma and the Prince de Galles,
there on the table between us
together—with talk about old old places,
with bitter-sweet of almond
and orange
her favorite flower.
There, on the table
between us.

Seventeen

BLOOD-BURNING MOON

Jean Toomer

UP from the skeleton stone walls, up from the rotting floor boards and the solid hand-hewn beams of oak of the pre-war cotton factory, dusk came. Up from the dusk the full moon came. Glowing like a fired pine-knot it illumined the great door and soft showered the Negro shanties aligned along the single street of factory town. The full moon in the great door was an omen. Negro women improvised songs against its spell.

Louisa sang as she came over the crest of the hill from the white folk's kitchen. Her skin was the color of oak leaves on young trees in fall. Her breasts, firm and up-pointed like ripe acorns. And her singing had the low murmur of winds in fig trees. Bob Stone, younger son of the people she worked for, loved her. By the way the world reckons things he had won her. By measure of that warm glow which came into her mind at thought of him, he had won her. Tom Burwell whom the whole town called Big Boy, also loved her. But working in the fields all day, and far away from her, gave him no chance to show it. Though often enough of evenings he had tried to. Somehow, he never got along. Strong as he was with hands upon the axe or plow, he found it difficult to hold her. Or so he thought. But the fact was that he held her to factory town more firmly than he thought for. His black balanced, and pulled against the white of Stone, when she thought of them. And her mind was vaguely upon them as she came over the crest of the hill, coming from the white folk's kitchen. As she sang softly at the veil face of the full moon.

A strange stir was in her. Indolently she tried to fix upon Bob or Tom as the cause of it. To meet Bob in the canebrake as she was going to do an hour or so later, was nothing new. And Tom's proposal which she felt on its way to her could be indefinitely put off. Separately, there was no unusual significance to either one. But for some reason they jumbled when her eyes gazed vacantly at the rising moon. And from the jumble came the stir that was strangely within her. Her lips trembled. Hounds, lying in the dark corners of porches or prowling around back yards, put their noses in the air and caught its tremor. They began to plaintively yelp and howl. And roosters crowed as if heralding a wierd dawn or some ungodly awakening. The women sang lustily. Their songs were cottonwads to stop their ears. Louisa came down into factory town and sank wearily upon the step before her home. The moon was rising towards a thick cloud-bank which soon would hide it.

Red nigger moon. Sinner!

Blood-burning moon. Sinner!

Come out that fact'ry door.

2.

Up from the deep dusk of a cleared spot on the edge of the forest a mellow glow arose and spread fan-wise into the low-hanging heavens. And all around the air shadows upon the ground. A mule, harnessed to a pole, trudged lazily round and round the pivot of the grinder. Beneath a swaying oil lamp, a Negro alternately of fresh ground juice between the grinder and the boiling stove. Steam came from the forest and the hill that sloped to factory town, beneath its fragrance. It drenched the men in circle seated round the stove. Some of them chewed at the white pulp cane. One tasted it in factory town. And from factory town one could see the soft haze thrown by the glowing stove upon the low-hanging heavens.

Eighteen

PORTRAIT OF SAMUEL PESSIN

Girolamo Piccoli

Old David Georgia stirred the thickening syrup with a long ladle, and ever so often drew it off. Old David Georgia tended his stove and told tales about the white folks, about moonshining and cotton picking and about sweet nigger gals, to the men who sat there about his stove to listen to him. Tom Burwell chewed cane-stalk and laughed with the others till someone mentioned Louisa. Till someone said something about Louisa and Bob Stone, about the silk stockings she must have gotten from him. Blood ran up Tom's neck hotter than the glow that flooded from the stove. He sprang up. Glared at the men and said, "She's my gal." Will Manning laughed. Tom strode over to him. Yanked him up, and knocked him to the ground. Several of Manning's friends got up to fight for him. Tom whipped out a long knife and would have cut them to shreds if they hadn't ducked into the woods. Tom had had enough. He nodded to old David Georgia and swung down the path to factory town. Just then, the dogs started barking and the roosters began to crow. Tom felt funny. Away from the fight, away from the stove, chill got to him. He shivered. He shuddered when he saw the full moon rising towards the cloud-bank. He who didn't give a godam for the fears of old women. He forced his mind to fasten on Louisa. Bob Stone. Better not be. He turned into the street and saw Louisa sitting before her home. He went towards her, ambling, touched the brim of a marvelously shaped, spotted, felt hat, said he wanted to say something to her, and then found that he didn't know what he had to say, or if he did, that he couldn't say it. He shoved his big fists in his overalls, grinned, and started to move off.

"Youall want me, Tom?"

"That's what us wants sho, Louisa."

"Well, here I am—"

"An' here I is, but that aint ahelpin' none, all th' same."

"You wanted to say something...?"

"I did that, sho. But words is like th' spots on dice; no matter how y' fumbles 'em there's times when they jes won't come. I dunno why. Seems like th' love I feels fo' yo' done stole m' tongue. I got it now. Whee! Louisa, honey, I oughtn't tell y', I feel I oughtn't cause yo' is young an' goes t' church an' I has had other gals, but Louisa I sho do love y'. Lil' gal I'se watched y' from them first days when youall sat right here befo' yo' door befo' th' well an' sang sometimes in a way that like t' broke m' heart. I'se carried y' with me into th' fields, day after day, an' after that, an' I sho can plow when yo' is ther, an' I can pick cotton. Yassur! Come near beatin' Barlo yesterday. I sho did. Yassur! An' next year if ol' Stone'll trust me, I'll have a farm. My own. My bales will buy yo' what y' gets from white folks now. Silk stockings, an' purple dresses—course I don't believe what some folks been whisperin' as t'how y' gets them things now. White folks always did do for niggers what they likes. An' they jes can't help alikin' yo, Louisa. Bob Stone like y.' Course he does. But not th' way folks is awhisperin'. Does he, hon?"

"I don't know what you mean, Tom."

"Course y' don't. I'se already cut two niggers. Had t' hon, t' tell 'em so. Niggers always tryin' t' make somethin' out a'nothin'. An' then besides, white folks aint up t' them tricks so much nowadays. Godam better not be. Leastwise not with yo'. Cause I wouldn't stand f' it. Nassur."

"What would you do Tom?"

"Cut him jes like I cut a nigger."

"No, Tom—"

"I said I would an' there aint no mo' to it. But that aint th' talk f' now. Sing, honey Louisa, an' while I'm listenin' t' y' I'll be makin' love."

Tom took her hand in his. Against the rough thickness of his own, her's felt soft and small. His huge body slipped down to the step beside her. The full moon sank upward into the deep purple of the cloud-bank. An old woman brought a lighted lamp and hung it on the common well whose bulky shadow squatted in the middle of the road, oppositie Tom and Louisa. The old woman lifted the well-lid,

Fourteen-Ours

took hold the chain, and began drawing up the heavy bucket. As she did so, she sang. The figures shifted, restless-like, between lamp and window in the front rooms of the shanties. Shadows of the figures fought each other on the grey dust of the road. Figures raised the windows and joined the old woman in song. Louisa and Tom, the whole street, singing:

Bob Stone sauntered from his veranda out into the gloom of fir trees and magnolias. The clear white of his skin pale, and the flush of his cheeks turned purple. As if to balance this outer change, his mind became consciously a white man's. He passed the house with its huge open hearth which in the days of slavery was the plantation cookery. He saw Louisa bent over that hearth. He went in as a master should, and took her. Direct, honest, bold. None of this sneaking that he had to go through now. The contrast was repulsive to him. His family had lost ground. Hell no, his family still owned the niggers, practically. Damned if they did, or he wouldn't have to duck around so. What would they think if they knew? His mother? His sister? He shouldn't mention them, shouldn't think of them in this connection. There in the dusk he blushed at doing so. Fellows about town were all right, but how about his friends up north? He could see them incredible, repulsed. They didn't know. The thought first made him laugh. Then, with their eyes still upon him, he began to feel embarrassed. He felt the need of explaining things to them. Explain hell. They wouldn't understand, and moreover who ever heard of a Southerner getting on his knees to any Yankee, or anyone. No sir. He was going to see Louisa to-night, and love her. She was lovely—in her way. Nigger way. What way was that? Damned if he knew. Must know. He'd known her long enough to know. Was there something about niggers that you couldn't know? Listening to them at church didn't tell you anything. Looking at them didn't tell you anything. Talking to them didn't tell you anything,—unless it was gossip, unless they wanted to talk. Of course about farming, and licker, and craps,—but those weren't niggers. Nigger was something more. How much more? Something to be afraid of, more? Hell no. Who ever heard of being afraid of a nigger? Tom Burwell, Cartwell had told him that Tom went with Louisa after she reached home. No sir. No nigger had ever been with his girl. He'd like to see one try. Some position for him to be in. Him, Bob Stone, of the old Stone family, in a scrap with a nigger over a nigger girl. In the good old days . . . Ha! Those were the days. His family had lost ground. Not so much though. Enough for him to have to cut through old Lemon's canefield by way of the woods, that he might meet her. She was worth it. Beautiful nigger gal. Why nigger? Why not, just gal? No, it was because she was nigger that he went to her. Sweet . . The scent of boiling cane came to him. Then he saw the rich glow of the stove. He heard the voices of the men circled round it. He was about to skirt the clearing when he heard his own name mentioned. He stopped. Quivering. Leaning against a tree, he listened.

"Bad nigger. Yassur he sho' is one bad nigger when he gets started."

"Tom Burwell's been on th' gang three times fo' cuttin' men."

"What y' think he's agwine t' do t' Bob Stone?"

"Dunno yet. He aint found out. When he does—Baby!"

"Aint no tellin,"

"Young Stone aint no quitter an' I ken tell y' that. Blood of th' old uns in his veins."

"That's right. He'll scrap sho."

"Be gettin' too hot f' niggers 'round this away."

"Shut up nigger. Y' don't know what y' talking 'bout."

Bob Stone's ears burnt like he had been holding them over the stove. Sizzling heat welled up within him. His feet felt as if they rested on red hot coals. They stung him to quick movement. He circled the fringe of the glowing. Not a twig cracked beneath his feet. He reached the path that led to factory town. Plunged furiously down it. Half way along, a blindness within him veered him aside. He crashed into the bordering cranebrake. Cane leaves cut his face and lips. He tasted cool. Cane-roots took the fever from his hands. After a long while, or so it seemed to him, the thought came to him that it must be time to see Louisa. He got to his feet, and walked calmly to his meeting place. No Louisa. Tom Burwell had her. Veins in his forehead bulged and distended. Saliva moistened the dried blood on his lips. He bit down on his lips. He tasted blood. Not his own blood; Tom Burwell's blood. Bob drove through the cane, and out again upon the road. A hound swung down the path before him towards factory town. Bob couldn't see it. The dog loped aside to let him pass. Bob's blind rushing made him stumble over it. He fell with a thud that dazed him. The hound yelped. Answering yelps came from all over the country-side. Chickens cackled. Roosters crowed, heralding the blood-shot eyes of southern awakening. Singers in the town were silenced. They shut their windows down. Palpitant between the rooster crows, a chill hush settled upon the huddled forms of Tom and Louisa. A figure rushed from the shadow and stood before them Tom popped to his feet.

"What's y' want?"

"I'm Bob Stone."

"Yassur—an' I'm Tom Burwell. What's y' want?"

Bob lunged at him. Tom side stepped, caught him by the shoulder, and flung him to the ground. Straddled him.

"Let up."

"Yassur—but watch yo' doin' Bob Stone."

A few dark figures, drawn by the sound scuffle, stood about them. Bob sprang to his feet.

"Fight like a man Tom Burwell an' I'll lick y."

Again he lunged. Tom side stepped and flung him to the ground. Straddled him.

"Get off me you godam nigger you."

"Yo' ho! She started somethin' now. Get up."

Tom yanked him up and began hammering at him. Each blow sounded as if it smashed into a precious, irreplacable soft something. Beneath them, Bob staggered back. He reached in his pocket and whipped out a knife.

"That's my game, sho." Blue flashed, a steel blade slashed across Bob Stone's throat. He had a sweetish sick feeling. Blood began to flow. Then he felt a sharp twitch of pain. He let his knife drop. He slapped one hand against his neck. He pressed the other on top his head as if to hold it down. He groaned. He turned, and staggard toward the crest of the hill in the direction of white town. Negroes who had seen the fight went indoors. She slipped, crumbled, her body loosely propped against the wood-work of the well. Tom Burwell leaned against it. He seemed rooted there.

Bob reached Broad Street. White men rushed up to him. He collapsed in their arms.

"Tom Burwell . . ." White men like ants upon a forage rushed about. Except for the taut hum of their moving, all was silent. Shotguns, revolvers, rope, kerosene, torches. Two high powered cars with glaring search lights. They came together. The taut hum rose to a low roar. Then nothing could be heard but the flop of their feet in the thick dust of the road. The moving body of their silence preceded them over the crest of

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Two

Gerlan swallows; his throat is dry. Looking in a mirror, he is reminded of cracked shoes, of stained unpressed trousers that chafe his sweaty legs, of his wilted collar and his slouch; he straightens, adjusts shabby clothing, stretches toes bent three days in the same position; his feet slap on, his body floats above them. His mind, as散散as a wisp of smoke, is filled with some sign, *Real Estate-Loans*, and stretched upon the air of Le Pont d'Avignon, a little of which comes with each breath his feet jolt out of him.

## II

Gerlan's elbow is sore and stiff. He has been leaning on it here in the late afternoon sun. He knows without looking that the grass of Grant Park has marked deep red lines on his flesh.

A long time his mind has been swimming in thick dusty sunlight, and has dozed, waking now and then to stare at grotesque fat and thin importances in skirts and trousers, dozing again under the buzz of voices and the wheelhum. His fingers have tickled the earth and torn up grass. Grass is not a carpet; it is blades, alive, tough, and individual. They bathe with him here in the intimate warm earthsmell, in the little near clear nearness unfilmed with Chicago sunglitter. He has hummed, and rested.

But it is not so warm now. A light breeze from the lake feels Gerlan under his clothing and tells him his underwear is damp on his sore sweat-salt skin. The sun is low; long majestic rays reach above the skyscrapers to the west. "Swordsmen of prophecy," Gerlan mutters, and wonders why. He rises stiffly, pulls his garments loose from his sore skin, moves his feet in the sticky shoes, then, after several experiments, settles the toes in the least uncomfortable position, stretches his knees and steps out, with a spiteful pleasure in the conquest of his lumpy feet.

Finding a drinking fountain, he wets a vile handkerchief, rubs his grasy face and sticky eyelids, drinks, takes a cool breath, and strides off with a near-swagger, fancying martial music.

On the South Side are the Greek's thrown-out pears. But he will not go for them now. His blood is moving more freely, he is warm; the world is a fresh problem, a toy which he tosses about in his mind while he decides what to do with it. And what a joke: Gerlan, the someday famous Gerlan, wandering hungry and unnoticed in Chicago. Black letters on a newspaper wink at him from a gutter: WU ENTERS PEKIN. Other headlines blacken Gerlan's mind: WAR!—JAPS LAND ON U. S. COAST; FRISCO SACKED; (pause to contemplate wholesale rape); YANK FORCES CRUSHED; DENVER FALLS; KANSAS CITY A SHAMBLES; CHICAGO DOOMED; GERLAN ROUTS ORIENTALS—

Here is a lavatory; he enters, glancing first at the women's side and skimming over the possibilities of life in woman's clothing. Down in the coolness and disinglectant he feigns leisure and assurance; here all men are equal. Angry at the thought of Gerlan pleading equality, he jerks his collar off in a huff, and washes. How pale that face in the mirror looks, how ascetic; what nobility and suffering are, marked thereon. With a longer beard he would be Christlike, not merely unshaven.

He lingers over the towels, puts his collar on in a leisurely manner, loiters a moment. A soured attendant eyes him. Slowly, with infinite scorn, Gerlan saunters out, crushing the boor with unspoken phrases of superb contempt.

With a smoldering anger he clumps through the almost-quiet Sunday Loop, re calling old grudges. Once teacher deprived him of the floor in an argument, and there was a sergeant who swore at him in ranks, and a girl who accused him, falsely of washing. All these he curses . . . But there is, somewhere, comforting thought, a pleasant stream of thought . . . Oh yes, Japs Bombarding Chicago, Gerlan Rac ing to Front. Chicago Sacked, Gerlan saves girl from assault: Chief Meets Old Sweetheart. Eleanor! Gerlan forgives long neglect, but once more I-could-not-love thee-dear-so-much; renunciation scene; she weeps; "Guerlan s'en va-t'en guerre" . .

Thirty

Gerlan, the generous victor, rebuilds fallen empires, restores and reorganizes the world; retires, writes masterpieces; becomes solacer of humanity, consoler of war/zow; is called from private life to assume presidency of world; drives down Michigan Boulevard with his beautiful bride, Eleanor; sees the sergeant, the girl, the lavatory attendant, the teacher, in the cheering throng . . .

But where is Eleanor now? She has moved no doubt in these years, but he will see. The pears? Later; may not need them. He walks on again, with new interest. He is again a part of the city, dynamic, no longer a nonentity; he feels like smiling at these gesticulating, Italians, these Jewish children he finds west of the Loop; but ah, what a wild-goose chase! And here a dirty-faced boy, who looks at him with that, remote brown-eyed speculativeness, is eating an ice cream cone; you do not need that, boy! A Greek butters popcorn; Gerlan musters saliva for the white salt flakes, but two heavy strange feet plod, plod, carrying protesting Gerlan from food. An apple core; perhaps . . too many people. South, the brown pears. But I am not hungry, dammit; not hungry . .

## III.

This is Eleanor's street. Just two blocks now . . . . It is nine years ago; he Gerlan walks more slowly. He has a pleasing fancy: must wash off nine years of accumulated experience. That is hard, hard; he must walk back three or four blocks, slowly; then return, slowly. He turns back . . .

Triumph of mind over matter; concentration; that sort of thing. It is young night now, moonlit, and the night is cooling. The night is a bath; it washes off the nine years, it washes off these garments, washes the sweat away; it is balm for the arms and the crotch, for the bloody-sticky feet; it is wine and food and clothing for the body. "I am young, young," Gerlan's spirit whispers to his mind. "I am clean, I am clean for an evening with Eleanor. I have just finished dinner and come up here on the car. I am late. I must hurry."

He turns again toward the house, and pulls his feet with new energy. Just two blocks. Two blocks. A block and eleven twelfths, eleven twelfths. Eleven twelfths, ten elelvments, elelvments, ni-ine te-enths, eight-ninths, ninths; sev-ven-ei-eighths, one and seven eighths . . .

Now it is only half a block. The big house, the apartment building that stands high and black against the sky, that is it. Has she moved? No no no No; this is nine years ago. Third floor; it is very near now. There is a light—just one light. Her mother's room? Perhaps he is late; perhaps he is late; perhaps she has gone out with some one else! He smiles at his imagination; he was angry a moment; he suspected her of being untruer!

But here is the house. And it is not nine years ago. "O God," he says suddenly, "I will go in," but pauses on the steps. He has walked too fast; his heart will shake him apart; his eyes will pop, his head will float away. He pants; he leans against the wall, and pants.

Maybe Eleanor's mother is upstairs alone; there is one light. She has a cupboard, a pantry. She knows Edwin Gerlan and often she has talked and laughed and smiled with him. She has brought him little thin sandwiches which he—damn fool!—ate perfunctorily, with teeth and manners. Now he would live in them, take them to his very soul! He has little cakes and chocolate. Up three flights, and there is friendship, a welcome, and little cakes.

Ah, but there are also questions, and questioning looks . . . . Gerlan hears footsteps. A man is approaching. He does not notice Gerlan; he is contented, a little stout; and he is picking his teeth, the yokel. Gerlan watches him pass. That man, so near, is secreting juices, digesting food . . .

His mind struggles to rereach some old thought-current. Eleanor; he drifts with thoughts of Eleanor. He is clean, clean; the night has washed him, he is fragrant and fresh. Old dreams unfulfilled, of Eleanor, all fluffy white . . .

There are light quick footsteps, very near; he sees a grotesque dancing shadow; a woman rounds a near corner. Phrases of greeting fly through Gerlan's brain. He

Thirty-One

steps out to speak, but his lips stick together and he cannot clear his throat. The woman swerves and runs out into the street. Gerlan, abashed, looks round quickly, then slinks back to the shadows and leans against the wall.

How silly of her to run! Gerlan's mind forms polite phrases, every one of which reveals his culture, his gentlemanliness. "For references, Madam, step upstairs and inquire of Mrs. Banner, or of Miss Eleanor Banner." Oh hell, that sounds like a floor-walker; still she was a fool to run.

He might go upstairs and tell Mrs. Banner that girl had fled from him. How she would laugh! But no, he will wait. Eleanor must be out. She will come back; we shall go up together.

"I am clean, I am fresh and fragrant and well-fed. This is my wedding night. I am about to lead Eleanor to the altar. I am a younger man; it is nine years ago. No, I am rather gray; the conqueror of Japan; I am leading virginal repentant Eleanor to the altar. Soon . . ."

He drifts on pleasant thoughts. Sometimes he dozes . . .

He shivers. The moon is high, and there is a little chill in the air. Now and then a car rumbles somewhere, now and then distant footsteps sound; but the city is slumbering. He stretches, sighs. He starts. It is late!

To warm himself, to stir his blood a little, he steps out boldly, if a little unsteadily, to walk around the block. He must not go far; he might miss Eleanor. He But he is all shaky. He cannot speak.

The one light is out, and there is no other. He feels a slight looks at the windows. The night is cool. "Man is a little boy," he reflects wearily. He stops at a corner and looks up and down the street. South there is a woman. "There will not be many more," he reflects half-consciously, and walks South.

The woman seems heavy; she has a firm decided tread. Gerlan straightens his head. He is very near. He swerves toward her and raises his hand toward his hat.

Hello! She has stopped. She has drawn herself up.

"What do you mean, you low-down scoundrel?" she barks with a crisp enunciation, in a male voice with overtones hinting of battlejoy. "You insignificant whippinger of a moron! You—"

But Gerlan is fleeing. His body is many lightnesses shaken apart by the pounding of his heart. He is suffocating. The drumming in his ears swells above the imprecations that follow him down the street. He tries to run, but his running is a succession of falls . . .

No one has seen him turn the corner, except the woman. He is indignant. He gestures to himself, rehearsing arguments. "Nonsense. One cannot argue with a woman like that."

But look! A car is swinging up to the Kerb in front of Eleanor's house. Is Eleanor there? He will see her. He will have a talk, and cake, and sandwiches; he will tell about the silly he-woman who called him a moron, and they will all laugh. "Why, I didn't say a word to her." He has confused visions of Eleanor, purity; Virtue Rewarded . . .

He halts panic-stricken; what shall he say of his appearance? The car has stopped; a man alights, assists a girl, pays the driver; the car departs; the couple run upstairs.

Gerlan, motionless in shadow, wonders blankly. Then his brain functions; he steps back to watch the windows. After a few long seconds? minutes? there is a light; shadows pass. He strains his eyes, but can make out no forms. But it is the Banner apartment. What are they doing? Is she serving refreshments? Oh God! He will take them casually, perfECTly, and go home to his undeserved bed . . .

Someone draws the shade. The light goes out. The man should be downstairs now . . . Another light; her bedroom! The shade is drawn. Gerlan's eyes are aflame, but he sees nothing but flitting shapeless shadows. The light is out . .

Thirty-Two

Gerlan is flabby. He has laid himself against a wall. His checks flush, his eyes burn, Now, now, up there, so close, she is in the dark with that man, her man; what is he doing? What *has* he done? This must be stopped. What right has that stranger to take this girl in marriage, this part of Gerlan, this soul of Gerlan? This is immoral, this marriage, it is iniquitous! A thousand streams of beauty enclose Eleanor with Gerlan; their souls have merged, on moonlit evenings, in lovely converse.

He becomes angry; he calls her vile names, in tense whispers; he watches the window; perhaps they are talking a moment in the dark, and the man will come down shortly; perhaps that room is no longer a bedroom. But is he kissing her goodbye, on the lips; the full, not too full, vermilion wet-velvet lips, that he, Eleanor, has never touched; has always saved, are they being puckered and gathered up and smeared and chewed by this vulgar brute of a stranger? Ah, but there is no new light, there is no one coming downstairs; it is not only the lips . . .

Gerlan tries to weep, but his eyes only sting dryly. He leans inert against the wall. It is a great pity, he reflects; so true a lover, so perfect a love . . .

Gerlan has walked, oh, a long time, a long time. He has walked this way, toward the spoiled pears, and that way, toward the loop, and other ways; but always he stumbles back to the Banner neighborhood. The night is shimmery now, very light; he walks queerly, dreaming songs, house-numbers, fame, women, corn beef and cabbage, pates de fois gras, . His feet still move on independently, but his body does not float as well as it did; his knees bend quickly sometimes, and the dip wakes him.

Once he stumbled out of near-sleep and a policeman looked at him sharply. Then, one Gerlan, by an admirable effort, spoke crisply, drawing loose lips into certain action to the amazement of other Gerlans.

"Damn near knocked the sole off my shoe," said this admirable Gerlan jovially. And the policeman laughed a short "Hahh!" and twirled his club, and looked dubiously but less sharply as Gerlan strode away. Gerlan tried to whistle, but his lips hung dry and shapeless.

The city is very, very still now. It floats disturbingly, though; it is a great swelling silvery sea. Sometimes a wave of sidewalks slaps Gerlan's great foot, sometimes he steps far away into a deep trough. Spoiled pears, Eleanor spread out for a vulgar stranger, insolent lavatory attendant; Real Estate-state—Loans; Here is a vacant lot. It is wavy I am turning into it. Why does it bump my feet so hard? I'm to be queen of the May. This relief's; done, at last; oh the spoiled pears, can wait, wait. Who's on post number nine? "Friend" A little farther over, Snookums, that's right, the door is locked, Farewell my blue bell . . groundswell; it is an apple, it is a girl-breast.

The bed is hard, Gerlan has a cinder in his hand. A board fence is swaying above him and the sky is a dark blue plumsoup bubbling silver and new-sugared with stars the fence is stirr . . ingg . . . . . it . . . . .

[ To Be Continued ]

Thirty-Three

WALT KUHN

Blanche Matthias

"WALT Kuhn will be in Chicago Saturday. Knows more about modern art than anyone in America. Have asked him to call you."

This telegram came to me from one of the foremost art critics in the east about a week before Kuhn's exhibition was to open at the Arts Club. I waited expectantly for the promised call.

I waited.

The day of the opening arrived. There was the usual reception which I attended, half hoping to find Kuhn wandering about among the sandwiches and tea cups. He wasn't there—none had heard a word from him. I wired back to the east. "Walt Kuhn lost or stolen. Must see him. Exhibition causing an awful fuss." The answer came. "Kuhn some place in Chicago."

After ten days of waiting, during which time the "Annual Show of the Artists of Chicago and Vicinity" was making the front page of some of our Chicago dailies read like a Diamond Dick serial, Kuhn telephoned. "Where have you been?" I asked, as soon as the "pleased to meet you's" were over.

"Busy every minute with "The Lilies"" he answered in an amused voice.
"The Lilies?" Is that a new picture?

"Nope—a new skit for Hitchy's Follies. Great fun that—going to rehearsal every day. But I don't want to talk about my work. I want to talk about the Art Institute and the show that is on there, and the first thing to say is this—your Chicago Art Institute should receive a paramount credit for what it is doing. There isn't a museum in America which has a broader view-point. I believe the chance to play, which means the chance to show, is responsible for the development and remarkable improvement in the work of the younger Chicago artists."

The conversation did not end there. Kuhn talked for three hours on modern art, but side-stepped each time I tried the interruption of his own work. Modesty seems to be the great insincerity of really great and really sincere people. They can't seem to arrive at the point of being impersonal as regards themselves. They are credited with a modesty which perhaps is not that at all, but a lack of simplicity or a fear of being misunderstood. Yesterday I talked with a young poet who assured me so insistently that he possessed ability, power, and an unlimited imagination that I did not need to read his verse in order to know he did not belong to the elect. Is there no middle way—no chance to re-establish the attitude of impersonal simplicity, once a fine work is finished, without which it never could have been created?

But returning to Kuhn, whose wish to be "let alone" is on a par with his over six feet of height, whose humor is as ruthless as the principles governing party politics, but who, for all his unconscious "front" is as eager as a child and as enthusiastic over life and beauty as one said to be a cynic dare be. His desire to grasp the fundamental is almost a bias. He wants art shorn of its artificialities and superficialities. In other words, he would create with line and color a new thing—a thing of his own, even as Burbank creates new fruits and vegetables. But because his medium is a brush and canvas affair, he is tabulated, catalogued, and judged in accordance with the accepted art standards of modern civilization.

Could one forget every cromo as well as every Greek statue and approach Kuhn's work immediately after contact with old Egyptian and Chinese art, it would be understood more readily. There is the same attempt to translate mood rather than

Thirty-Seven

to copy line. "The Sleeping Girl" for example—was there ever so pathetic a crea-
ture? It is not that she slumps in her chair and that her eyes are closed, that the
ballet slippers have been kicked from off a pair of tired feet. That is a matter of
imagination and skillful drawing. But the ability to express such utter pathos—to
communicate the *mood* of the Sleeping Girl—gives the artist a right to be called by
a new name, since we have so long used this term to designate the expert craftsman
who copies the thus and so of things that be, and people that are.

Kuhn likes curved lines—great lunging curves. Why not let him indulge—such
Why restrict him to copying when he would be a creator?

The sincerity of purpose which braved America's laughter and scorn when Kuhn brought the International Exhibition of Modern Art to Chicago in 1913 has not deserted him during the intervening ten years. He has kept going straight ahead into the sun, stopping now and then to play, setting straight the wig of "Hitchy" with the same intent interest that he expends upon the youthful artists who besiege him night and day.

There is something of the pioneer in Walt Kuhn. The fearlessness which leaves
civilization behind and enters the wilderness alone. But before and after these
expeditions Kuhn has had vital meetings with his fellows—has realized their needs,
spiritual and mental—has cursed their cringing tolerance of sham and sentimentality.

The depth of degradation to which men and women sometimes fall who are
caught in the vice of a city had led him to paint a great ugly woman with bloated
face and body—an uncompromising portrait of corruption which he titles “The City.”

Sensitive too to the gentleness and fineness that exist, he embodies his under-
standing by a charming way of painting flowers.

There you have Walt Kuhn as man and as artist—a cynic, an iconoclast, a
visionary, an uplifter, but always a worker—and as American as—Carl Sandburg.

Thirty Eight