So the packages went to the post-office, freighted with the burden of his hopes and longings. And two or three times a week Thyrsis went to see his publishers, and find out how the book was going. He was never able to ascertain just what they were doing with it, or how they expected to sell it; Mr. Taylor would tell him vaguely that it was doing fairly well--the season was “slow”, and he must give the book time to “catch on”.
And then came the reviews. A clipping-bureau had written, offering to furnish them at five cents apiece; and this was moderate, considering that there were only a dozen altogether. Most of these were from unimportant out-of-town papers, whose book-reviews are written by the high-school nieces and the elderly maiden-aunts of the publishers. Of the metropolitan newspapers and literary organs, only three noticed the book at all; and two of these gave perfunctory mention, evidently made up from the publisher’s statement on the cover.
The third writer had connected the book with the interview in the “Morning Howl”, and he wrote a burlesque review of it, in which he hailed it as the “Great American Novel”. His method was to retell the story, quoting the most highly-wrought passages, with just enough comment to keep it in the vein of farce. To Thyrsis this mockery came like a blast of fire in the face; he did not know that it was the regular method of the newspaper--a method by means of which it had made itself known as the cleverest and most readable paper in the country.
Section 3. All this was the harder for him, because it came at a black and spectral hour of his life. It was not enough that the book was falling flat, and that all their hopes were collapsing; a new and most terrible calamity befell them. For three months now they had been dissolved in the bliss of their young dream of love; and now suddenly had come a thunderbolt, splitting the darkness about them, and revealing the grim hand of Fate closing down!
For several years of her life Corydon had carried a trying burden--once each month she would have to lie down for three or four days and be a semi-invalid. And last month this had not happened; the time had come and gone, and she was as well as ever. She had told Thyrsis about it, and how it disturbed her; it might mean nothing, it had happened several times before to her; but then again--it might mean that she had conceived.