“What an obnoxious human being,” thought Pauline Taylor.
Archer remained curious and open to persuasion. He regarded the apartment and saw that the furniture was worn and second-hand, making a picture of the second-hand and the used cultivated as an interesting background and decor. Against the wall stood an upright piano, next to which was a phonograph, and upon the wall was a bulletin board, tacked with newspaper clippings and letters. Archer had never seen just such a place before, but although it seemed strange to him, he recognized in it the unity which comes of the choices and habits of one human being.
Rudyard seated himself next to Archer to converse with him and Archer remarked upon his surprise that none of Rudyard’s plays had ever been produced. Rudyard told him how each month for more than a year he had submitted a new play to a famous company and received each play back before a week had passed.
“I must be on the black list. They hardly have time to get the manuscript from the top manila envelope to the enclosed one, self-addressed and stamped!” said Rudyard, with a joyous look upon his face.
“Soon I will send them a letter of resignation,” he said vivaciously, looking up at the ceiling coyly, “that will puzzle them!”
Archer laughed in relief, for here at last was a remark which he was able to understand as comical.
Edmund and Marcus were full of a story which they wished to communicate immediately. During the week they had heard a debate at Madison Square Garden about religion and Communism. The opponents had been Professor Suss, a famous teacher of Marxist doctrine, and Professor Adam, a theologian. The chief dispute had been about the authority of a socialist state to dictate or deny the teaching of religion to children. Professor Suss had affirmed the right of the socialist state to decide about religious education and Professor Adam had said that this was a denial of freedom of thought and belief, and thus fascist, declaring triumphantly that he was ninety-nine and one-half per cent Marxist, but reserved one-half of one per cent for God, for if one did not reserve anything for God, then the state became the deity.
Rudyard and Edmund were delighted with this story and interested especially in the one-half of one per cent reserved for God.
“How did he decide just how much God deserves?” asked Edmund.
“Perhaps he used a slide rule?” said Rudyard. “Or perhaps he made deductions for dependents, as when one computes the income tax?”
This analysis and commentary continued until Rudyard became aware that no attention whatever was being paid to the visitors who remained silent on the studio couch, looking uncomfortable and perplexed. He arose and went to his room to get the manuscript of a new play for his visitors to read, and when he returned, he placed himself next to Archer again and looked over his shoulder, the while he also cocked an ear to the conversation which remained concerned with the fraction reserved for God by Professor Adam.
“This passage is superb!” Rudyard said suddenly, after Archer had read for some time, and as he spoke, he grinned like a child who has just been given candy.
“Here, in this scene,” said Rudyard, after a time, “the ignorance and irony is such that I am supreme among the dramatists who write in the English tongue.” And as he spoke, he looked as if he licked an ice cream cone.
“This has not been equalled during the present century,” Rudyard said again. Pauline was annoyed by these declarations, but to Archer they seemed to be made with such certainty, such a lack of self-consciousness, such joy and aplomb, that they were delightful. It was clear that Rudyard did not expect his listener to make any comment. He enjoyed uttering such sentences for their own sake. Yet Archer thought also of how such remarks would sound to anyone who heard them apart from Rudyard’s gestures, smiles, and look of self-assurance.
“You must take this play with you,” said Rudyard, drawing forth a new manuscript, “it is to me the best play in the English language!” And then he giggled.
“To you,” said Laura, “and to no one else.” She had seen the new look of perplexity on the visitors’ faces at this fabulous superlative.
Archer looked at his wrist-watch and arose.
“He lives by the clock,” said Rudyard, as if he spoke of one who was absent. “Perhaps I will never see you again,” he giggled.
“I don’t like Rudyard Bell,” said Pauline, as the two strangers departed from the house.
“He is certainly difficult,” said Archer, “perhaps it is because he is gifted and has gained no recognition.”
But when Archer Price returned to California, he decided that he would not attempt to visit Rudyard Bell when he next came to New York. He felt in the end distressed and perplexed by the visit. It seemed to him that the human beings of this circle existed in a private realm which did not permit the visiting stranger such as himself a true view of what they were and their life. He never saw them again.
SEVEN: “THIS KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS WITHIN YOU; BUT ALSO THE KINGDOM OF HELL”
“What we need is an Ark,” said Rudyard to one and all, “not an island, not a colony, and not a city state, but an Ark.”
Once again a play to which he had devoted much thought and hope had been rejected. Silent and angry in the morning, he was full of the future by afternoon, and by night — this was a Saturday night and most of the circle had come to the apartment — he had bounced back to the attitudes he enjoyed amid the circle. But anger and disappointment remained in him like sores and were transformed and expressed by the idea of an Ark.
“It’s an ancient and classic expression,” said Rudyard, “it’s about time that we thought of it. We will get a houseboat or a barge, announcing that this society is evil and we are going to depart.”
Ferdinand, ever close to Rudyard, was delighted.
“We will say, ‘We’re through!’ ” he added in a curt tone. “We will have an enormous poster in huge capitals and on it will be printed: ‘We have had enough.’ ‘We do not like this age.’” His voice became louder and stronger, “‘We find it beneath contempt!’”
“This is a governing and master idea,” said Edmund, equally pleased, “it is a conception so inclusive that by means of it we can make clear our judgment of the past and the future, of experience and possibility.”
It was almost midnight. They sat about the midnight supper, drinking more and more coffee, and the idea of the Ark took hold of them like the excitement before a holiday.
“What will we take with us?” Rudyard continued, “I mean to say, what and who will we permit to enter the Ark?”
“Precisely,” said Francis French, “discrimination is of the essence of this idea. There is no Ark unless we exercise the most pure, exact, and exacting discrimination.”
“This is far from a joke,” said Jacob, who had remained silent, although moved, “only an absolute fool would suppose that this is a laughing matter.”
“Who will be elected,” asked Francis, “to this elite?”
“And who will be rejected,” Marcus added, “we don’t want the riff-raff, the trash, the substitutes, the second-rate, the second best, and the second-hand.”
“The best is none too good for us,” said Rudyard, “I mean, for the Ark,” he smiled with mock humility.
“It is necessary to criticize and evaluate all things,” said Edmund.
“What else do you think you have been doing all these years?” said Laura, but she too was enthralled.
“Exactly, this is exactly what we have been doing,” Rudyard replied, “and this is the fulfillment which was inevitable.”
“And what makes you think,” said Laura, “that you’re the one to be the judge and the critic? You’re no Noah.”