Fiction
Symbol and Character
Mister. By F. C. Boden. (Dent. 6s.)
THE two German novelists on our list, while they are fond - occasionally of projecting their characters as shadows larger than human upon the backcloth of the universe, take extra- ordinary pains to make the detail of their stories plausible, Thus Herr Wassermann makes the central character of
• Wedlock a divorce-court lawyer, to whom the parties of various marriages naturally make the fullest possible statement of their case. When Herr Lothar's Sebastian Trux first comes to the bank, his colleagues as a hoax demand from him a state- ment of his origins, parentage, and circumstances : surely, one of the most ingenious methods ever devised by a novelist for conveying necessary information to his readers.
Wedlock is full, thoughtful, and infornied by a deep under- standing of human suffering. There are chapters which entitle it to be called great, and I hesitate only because Herr Wasser- mann seems to waver between a purely artistic presentation of life and a propaganda which makes the mind demand that, having said so much, he should say a little more. Dr. Laudin is happily married, but suffers in spirit from the factor in marriage that tends to make love a matter of routine. His feeling is strengthened by the case-histories of unhappy mar- ' sieges, of which he must hear a dozen every week. In the course of his duties, he meets a beautiful actress, Luise Dercum, and by insensible degrees becomes her slave.- Not until he r finds that she was responsible for the suicide of Nicolas, the son of his eccentric friend Fraundorfer, is the spell broken,
• Laudin returns to his wife and daughters, and, since Pia is a woman of noble nature, all is welL This ending, satisfactory to Laudin, leaves the reader with a feeling that an important point has been evaded. Marriage, says Herr Wassermann in effect, is apt to be an unhappy business. It may work out more or less all right, however, if your wife is exceptionally beautiful 'and forbearing. Still, despite this rather local and particular solution of the problem, Wedlock is an exceedingly fine' performance. The characters of Pia, Fraunclorfei, and Marlene are drawn with masterly skill, and the scene in the studio, where Fraundorfer curses the woman who has ruined his only son, will be hard to forget-
Sebastian-Trux was a new kind of clairvoyant. A piece of handwriting enabled him to see not only the character but the future of the writer. This faculty first attracted attention when he foretold the death of one. Bassan, the bulk of wage fortune had been stolen in a daring bank robbery. When, hard upon the fulfilment of this prophecy, Sebastian indicted -.Count-Gegenfeld as the thief, and it was discovered that ,the Count had fled, his name was made. Bimeter, the gillat American agent, in collusion with the lovely Fedora Hassan, set about exploiting the gifts of the huge and unsophisticated countryman. Successful appearances were staged in Vienna and Paris, an American tour was arranged ; then all was frus- trated by the flight of the prophet. Sebastian, jealous of Fedora, had found his way back to his first love, and dis- covered that she was about to have a child. The strain of public appearances, and of wrestling with his conscience, had frayed Sebastian's nerves. His fears hewn) to dramatize themselves as visions. The tragedy-he saw for Agnes never happened, and this, coupled with the faet that the unlucky Gegenfeld managed to clear himself of the charge brought
- against him, decided Sebastian to abandon his career- . .
Clairvoyant is by turns film scenario, detective story, psycho- logical treatize, and tract on sociology. Herr Lothar treats Sebastian in one chapter just as Sebastian, in the next as a symbol of rustic integrity at odds with the wickedness of cities. I put the book down with a considerable respect for its author, but with no very clear idea of his intention in writing it.
Whether Sebastian be a symbol or no, there is no doubt about Mr. Houghton's Petersteys. They not only do duty as themselves ; they symbolize the period of Chaos Is Come Again. The difficulty about treating characters as symbols is either that they are apt to run away on their own and refuse tis be good symbols, or else that their symbolism weighs them down and will not let them be good characters. The family at Grey- stones, to whom Vernon Dexter came as tutor, bear their double rile uncommonly well. Now and then they forget their lines, and Mr. Houghton is heard prompting them in a loud whisper : once or twice they rebel. This is a novel of quite unusual interest. Mr. Houghton- is an experimenter,
possessed of talent and courage. The fascination of what's difficult " rules his mind, and Chaos Is Come Again is a notable response to it. It is not a complete success, but it does its author more credit than could many a success with a less ambitious mark.
It is left to Mr. Boden to achieve the perfect- symbol, an indiVidual figure so realized as to be universal. His Danny, who goes down the mine at thirteen, pushes trucks, drives ponies, grows up, suffers a lock-out, sees men killed, and loves his Anne, is not merely a miner. The book is justly titled. Mr. Boden, whom we have admired for some years as a poet, faces horror and tragedy with a poet's indignation. His
writing is excellent. - " The darkness in front of him kept always a little ahead, and the darkness behind crept after him, pace for pace, and close on his heels. If he stopped for a moment to let one of the wagons creep by, the two darlmesses stopped with him, starting the moment he started. If he swung his lamp forward the darkness in front jumped forward as though he had frightened it, and the darkness behind would leap on as though it were glad that the darkness in front had been frightened. And always, between these two darknesses; Danny could see the tianberprops, standing on either side of him at every few feet and reaching from the ground at his feet to the roof just above his bent head."
The charge he brings is one to Which, in a sense, we must all plead guilty. I hope this- beautiful,- terrible, and quiet b.00k will be widely read. There are pages which literally Mut, but from the first to the last a poeVs sensitiveness makes it a work
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