Rodney’s Magazine, too, had become interested in the young author and was going to publish a story, a chapter from the book, in their next number. This news added immensely to his excitement. He was eager to see his name in print, and in the happy interval of expectancy he felt like a kind of universal Don Juan, for he literally loved everybody — his fellow instructors at the school, his drab students, the little shopkeepers in all the stores, even the nameless hordes that thronged the streets. Rodney’s, of course, was the greatest and the finest publishing house in all the world, and Foxhall Edwards was the greatest editor and the finest man that ever was. George had liked him instinctively from the first, and now, like an old and intimate friend, he was calling him Fox. George knew that Fox believed in him, and the editor’s faith and confidence, coming as it had come, at a time when George had given up all hope, restored his self-respect and charged him with energy for new work.
Already his next novel was begun and was beginning to take shape within him. He would soon have to get it out of him. He dreaded the prospect of buckling down in earnest to write it, for he knew the agony of it. It was like demoniacal possession, driving him with an alien force much greater than his own. While the fury of creation was upon him, it meant sixty cigarettes a day, twenty cups of coffee, meals snatched anyhow and anywhere and at whatever time of day or night he happened to remember he was hungry. It meant sleeplessness, and miles of walking to bring on the physical fatigue without which he could not sleep, then nightmares, nerves, and exhaustion in the morning. As he said to Fox:
“There are better ways to write a book, but this, God help me, is mine, and you’ll have to learn to put up with it.”
When Rodney’s Magazine came out with the story, George fully expected convulsions of the earth, falling meteors, suspension of traffic in the streets, and a general strike. But nothing happened. A few of his friends mentioned it, but that was all. For several days he felt let down, but then his common sense reassured him that people couldn’t really tell much about a new author from a short piece in a magazine. The book would show them who he was and what he could do. It would be different then. He could afford to wait a little longer for the fame which he was certain would soon be his.
It was not until later, after the first excitement had worn off and George had become accustomed to the novelty of being an author whose book was actually going to be published, that he began to learn a little about the unknown world of publishing and the people who inhabit it — and not till then did he begin to understand and appreciate the teal quality of Fox Edwards. And it was through Otto Hauser — so much like Fox in his essential integrity, so sharply contrasted to him in other respects — that George got his first real insight into the character of his editor.
Hausa Was a reader at Rodney’s, and probably the best publisher’s reader in America. He might have been a publisher’s editor — a rare and good one — had he been driven forward by ambition, enthusiasm, daring, tenacious resolution, and that eagerness to seek and find the best which a great editor must have. But Hauser was content to spend his days reading ridiculous manuscripts written by ridiculous people on all sorts of ridiculous subjects “The Breast Stroke,” “Rock Gardens for Everybody,” “The Life and Times of Lydia Pinkham,” “The New Age of Plenty”— and once in a while something that had the fire of passion, the spark of genius, the glow of truth.
Otto Hauser lived in a tiny apartment near First Avenue, and he invited George to drop in one evening. George went, and they spent the evening talking. After that he returned again and again because he liked Otto, and also because he was puzzled by the contradictions of his qualities, especially by something aloof, impersonal, and withdrawing in his nature which seemed so out of place beside the clear and positive elements in his character.
Otto did all the housekeeping himself. He had tried having cleaning women in from time to time, but eventually he had dispensed entirely with their services. ‘They were not clean and tidy enough to suit him, and their casual and haphazard disarrangements of objects that had been placed exactly where he wanted them annoyed his order-loving soul. He hated clutter. He had only a few books — a shelf or two — most of them the latest publications of the house of Rodney, and a few volumes sent him by other publishers. Usually he gave his books away as soon as he finished reading them because he hated clutter, and books made clutter. Sometimes he wondered if he didn’t hate books, too. Certainly he didn’t like to have many of them around: the sight of them irritated him.
George found him a curious enigma. Otto Hauser was possessed of remarkable gifts, yet he was almost wholly lacking in those qualities which cause a man to “get on” in the world. In fact, he didn’t want to “get on”. He had a horror of “getting on”, of going any further than he bad already gone. He wanted to be a publisher’s reader, and nothing more. At James Rodney & Co. he did the work they put into his hands. He did punctiliously what he was required to do. He gave his word, when he was asked to give it, with the complete integrity of his quiet soul, the unerring rightness of his judgment, the utter finality of his Germanic spirit. But beyond that he would not go.
When one of the editors at Rodney’s, of whom there were several besides Foxhall Edwards, asked Hauser for his opinion, the ensuing conversation would go something like this:
“You have read the manuscript?”
“Yes,” said Hauser, “I have read it.”
“What did you think of it?”
“I thought it was without merit.”
“Then you do not recommend its publication?”
“No, I do not think it is worth publishing.”
Or:
“Did you read that manuscript?”
“Yes,” Hauser would say. “I read it.”
“Well, what did you think of it? (Confound it, can’t the fellow say what he thinks without having to be asked all the timer)”
“I think it is a work of genius.”
Incredulously: “You do!”
“I do, yes. To my mind there is no question about it.”
“But look here, Hauser —” excitedly —“if what you say is true, this boy — the fellow who wrote it — why, he’s just a kid — no one ever heard of him before — comes from somewhere out West — Nebraska, Iowa, one of those places — never been anywhere, apparently — if what you say is true, we’ve made a discovery!”
“I suppose you have. Yes. The book is a work of genius.”
“But —(Damn it all, what’s wrong with the man anyway? Here he makes a discovery like this — an astounding statement of this sort — and shows no more enthusiasm than if he were discussing a cabbage head!)— but, see here, then! You — you mean there’s something wrong with it?”
“No, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. I think it is a magnificent piece of writing.”
“But —(Good Lord, the fellow is a queer fish!)— but you mean to say that — that perhaps it’s not suitable for publication in its present form?”
“No. I think it’s eminently publishable.”
“But it’s overwritten, isn’t it?”
“It is overwritten. Yes.”
“I thought so, too,” said the editor shrewdly. “Of course, the fellow shows he knows very little about writing. He doesn’t know how he does it, he repeats himself continually, he is childish and exuberant and extravagant, and he does ten times too much of everything.. We have a hundred other writers who know more about writing than he does.”
“I suppose we have, yes,” Hauser agreed. “Nevertheless, he is a man of genius, and they are not. His, book is a work of genius, and theirs are not.”
“Then you think we ought to publish him?”
“I