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diff --git a/15385.txt b/15385.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fe918fb --- /dev/null +++ b/15385.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2499 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Cathedral Singer, by James Lane Allen + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Cathedral Singer + +Author: James Lane Allen + +Release Date: March 16, 2005 [EBook #15385] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CATHEDRAL SINGER *** + + + + +Produced by Kentuckiana Digital Library, David Garcia, Chuck Greif +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + + + + + +A Cathedral Singer + +[Illustration] + + + + +A Cathedral Singer + +BY JAMES LANE ALLEN + +Author of "The Sword of Youth," "The Bride of the Mistletoe," "The +Kentucky Cardinal," "The Choir Invisible," etc. + +WITH FRONTISPIECE BY SIGISMOND DE IVANOWSKI + +NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1916 Copyright, 1914, 1916, by THE CENTURY CO. + +_Published, March, 1916_ + + + + +TO PITY AND TO FAITH + + + + +A Cathedral Singer + + + + + +I + +Slowly on Morningside Heights rises the Cathedral of St. John the +Divine: standing on a high rock under the Northern sky above the long +wash of the untroubled sea, above the wash of the troubled waves of men. + +It has fit neighbors. Across the street to the north looms the +many-towered gray-walled Hospital of St. Luke--cathedral of our ruins, +of our sufferings and our dust, near the cathedral of our souls. + +Across the block to the south is situated a shed-like two-story building +with dormer-windows and a crumpled three-sided roof, the studios of the +National Academy of Design; and under that low brittle skylight youth +toils over the shapes and colors of the visible vanishing paradise of +the earth in the shadow of the cathedral which promises an unseen, an +eternal one. + +At the rear of the cathedral, across the roadway, stands a low stone +wall. Just over the wall the earth sinks like a precipice to a green +valley bottom far below. Out here is a rugged slope of rock and verdure +and forest growth which brings into the city an ancient presence, +nature--nature, the Elysian Fields of the art school, the potter's field +of the hospital, the harvest field of the church. + +This strip of nature fronts the dawn and is called Morningside Park. +Past the foot of it a thoroughfare stretches northward and southward, +level and wide and smooth. Over this thoroughfare the two opposite-moving +streams of the city's traffic and travel rush headlong. Beyond the +thoroughfare an embankment of houses shoves its mass before the eyes, +and beyond the embankment the city spreads out over flats where human +beings are as thick as river reeds. + +Thus within small compass humanity is here: the cathedral, the hospital, +the art school, and a strip of nature, and a broad highway along which, +with their hearth-fires flickering fitfully under their tents of stone, +are encamped life's restless, light-hearted, heavy-hearted Gipsies. + + * * * * * + +It was Monday morning and it was nine o'clock. Over at the National +Academy of Design, in an upper room, the members of one of the women's +portrait classes were assembled, ready to begin work. Easels had been +drawn into position; a clear light from the blue sky of the last of +April fell through the opened roof upon new canvases fastened to the +frames. And it poured down bountifully upon intelligent young faces. The +scene was a beautiful one, and it was complete except in one particular: +the teacher of the class was missing--the teacher and a model. + +Minutes passed without his coming, and when at last he did enter the +room, he advanced two or three steps and paused as though he meant +presently to go out again. After his usual quiet good-morning with his +sober smile, he gave his alert listeners the clue to an unusual +situation: + +"I told the class that to-day we should begin a fresh study. I had not +myself decided what this should be. Several models were in reserve, any +one of whom could have been used to advantage at this closing stage of +the year's course. Then the unexpected happened: on Saturday a stranger, +a woman, came to see me and asked to be engaged. It is this model that I +have been waiting for down-stairs." + +Their thoughts instantly passed to the model: his impressive manner, his +respectful words, invested her with mystery, with fascination. His +countenance lighted up with wonderful interest as he went on: + +"She is not a professional; she has never posed. In asking me to engage +her she proffered barely the explanation which she seemed to feel due +herself. I turn this explanation over to you because she wished, I +think, that you also should not misunderstand her. It is the fee, then, +that is needed, the model's wage; she has felt the common lash of the +poor. Plainly here is some one who has stepped down from her place in +life, who has descended far below her inclinations, to raise a small sum +of money. Why she does so is of course her own sacred and delicate +affair. But the spirit in which she does this becomes our affair, +because it becomes a matter of expression with her. This self-sacrifice, +this ordeal which she voluntarily undergoes to gain her end, shows in +her face; and if while she poses, you should be fortunate enough to see +this look along with other fine things, great things, it will be your +aim to transfer them all to your canvases--if you can." + +He smiled at them with a kind of fostering challenge to their +over-confident impulses and immature art. But he had not yet fully +brought out what he had in mind about the mysterious stranger and he +continued: + +"We teachers of art schools in engaging models have to take from human +material as we find it. The best we find is seldom or never what we +would prefer. If I, for instance, could have my choice, my students +would never be allowed to work from a model who repelled the student or +left the student indifferent. No students of mine, if I could have my +way, should ever paint from a model that failed to call forth the finest +feelings. Otherwise, how can your best emotions have full play in your +work; and unless your best emotions enter into your work, what will your +work be worth? For if you have never before understood the truth, try to +realize it now: that you will succeed in painting only through the best +that is in you; just as only the best in you will ever carry you +triumphantly to the end of any practical human road that is worth the +travel; just as you will reach all life's best goals only through your +best. And in painting remember that the best is never in the eye, for +the eye can only perceive, the eye can only direct; and the best is +never in the hand, for the hand can only measure, the hand can only +move. In painting the best comes from emotion. A human being may lack +eyes and be none the poorer in character; a human being may lack hands +and be none the poorer in character; but whenever in life a person lacks +any great emotion, that person is the poorer in everything. And so in +painting you can fail after the eye has gained all necessary knowledge, +you can fail after your hand has received all necessary training, either +because nature has denied you the foundations of great feeling, or +because, having these foundations, you have failed to make them the +foundations of your work. + +"But among a hundred models there might not be one to arouse such +emotion. Actually in the world, among the thousands of people we know, +how few stir in us our best, force us to our best! It is the rarest +experience of our lifetimes that we meet a man or a woman who literally +drives us to the realization of what we really are and can really do +when we do our best. What we all most need in our careers is the one who +can liberate within us that lifelong prisoner whose doom it is to remain +a captive until another sets it free--our best. For we can never set our +best free by our own hands; that must always be done by another." + +They were listening to him with a startled recognition of their inmost +selves. He went on to drive home his point about the stranger: + +"I am going to introduce to you, then, a model who beyond all the others +you have worked with will liberate in you your finer selves. It is a +rare opportunity. Do not thank me. I did not find her. Life's storms +have blown her violently against the walls of the art school; we must +see to it at least that she be not further bruised while it becomes her +shelter, her refuge. Who she is, what her life has been, where she comes +from, how she happens to arrive here--these are privacies into which of +course we do not intrude. Immediately behind herself she drops a curtain +of silence which shuts away every such sign of her past. But there are +other signs of that past which she cannot hide and which it is our +privilege, our duty, the province of our art, to read. They are written +on her face, on her hands, on her bearing; they are written all over +her--the bruises of life's rudenesses, the lingering shadows of dark +days, the unwounded pride once and the wounded pride now, the +unconquerable will, a soaring spirit whose wings were meant for the +upper air but which are broken and beat the dust. All these are sublime +things to paint in any human countenance; they are the footprints of +destiny on our faces. The greatest masters of the brush that the world +has ever known could not have asked for anything greater. When you +behold her, perhaps some of you may think of certain brief but eternal +words of Pascal: 'Man is a reed that bends but does not break.' Such is +your model, then, a woman with a great countenance; the fighting face of +a woman at peace. Now out upon the darkened battle-field of this +woman's face shines one serene sun, and it is that sun that brings out +upon it its marvelous human radiance, its supreme expression: the love +of the mother. Your model is the beauty of motherhood, the sacredness of +motherhood, the glory of motherhood: that is to be the portrait of her +that you are to paint." + +He stopped. Their faces glowed; their eyes disclosed depths in their +natures never stirred before; from out those depths youthful, tender +creative forces came forth, eager to serve, to obey. He added a few +particulars: + +"For a while after she is posed you will no doubt see many different +expressions pass rapidly over her face. This will be a new and painful +experience to which she will not be able to adapt herself at once. She +will be uncomfortable, she will be awkward, she will be embarrassed, +she will be without her full value. But I think from what I discovered +while talking with her that she will soon grow oblivious to her +surroundings. They will not overwhelm her; she will finally overwhelm +them. She will soon forget you and me and the studio; the one ruling +passion of her life will sweep back into consciousness; and then out +upon her features will come again that marvelous look which has almost +remodeled them to itself alone." + +He added, "I will go for her. By this time she must be waiting +down-stairs." + +As he turned he glanced at the screens placed at that end of the room; +behind these the models made their preparations to pose. + +"I have arranged," he said significantly, "that she shall leave her +things down-stairs." + +It seemed long before they heard him on the way back. He came slowly, as +though concerned not to hurry his model, as though to save her from the +disrespect of urgency. Even the natural noise of his feet on the bare +hallway was restrained. They listened for the sounds of her footsteps. +In the tense silence of the studio a pin-drop might have been +noticeable, a breath would have been audible; but they could not hear +her footsteps. He might have been followed by a spirit. Those feet of +hers must be very light feet, very quiet feet, the feet of the +well-bred. + +He entered and advanced a few paces and turned as though to make way for +some one of far more importance than himself; and there walked forward +and stopped at a delicate distance from them all a woman, bareheaded, +ungloved, slender, straight, of middle height, and in life's middle +years--Rachel Truesdale. + +She did not look at him or at them; she did not look at anything. It was +not her role to notice. She merely waited, perfectly composed, to be +told what to do. Her thoughts and emotions did not enter into the scene +at all; she was there solely as having been hired for work. + +One privilege she had exercised unsparingly--not to offer herself for +this employment as becomingly dressed for it. She submitted herself to +be painted in austerest fidelity to nature, plainly dressed, her hair +parted and brushed severely back. Women, sometimes great women, have in +history, at the hour of their supreme tragedies, thus demeaned +themselves--for the hospital, for baptism, for the guillotine, for the +stake, for the cross. + +But because she made herself poor in apparel, she became most rich in +her humanity. There was nothing for the eye to rest upon but her bare +self. And thus the contours of the head, the beauty of the hair, the +line of it along the forehead and temples, the curvature of the brows, +the chiseling of the proud nostrils and the high bridge of the nose, the +molding of the mouth, the modeling of the throat, the shaping of the +shoulders, the grace of the arms and the hands--all became conspicuous, +absorbing. The slightest elements of physique and of personality came +into view powerful, unforgetable. + +She stood, not noticing anything, waiting for instructions. With the +courtesy which was the soul of him and the secret of his genius for +inspiring others to do their utmost, the master of the class glanced at +her and glanced at the members of the class, and tried to draw them +together with a mere smile of sympathetic introduction. It was an +attempt to break the ice. For them it did break the ice; all responded +with a smile for her or with other play of the features that meant +gracious recognition. With her the ice remained unbroken; she withheld +all response to their courteous overtures. Either she may not have +trusted herself to respond; or waiting there merely as a model, she +declined to establish any other understanding with them whatsoever. So +that he went further in the kindness of his intention and said: + +"Madam, this is my class of eager, warm, generous young natures who are +to have the opportunity of trying to paint you. They are mere beginners; +their art is still unformed. But you may believe that they will put +their best into what they are about to undertake; the loyalty of the +hand, the respect of the eye, the tenderness of their memories, +consecration to their art, their dreams and hopes of future success. Now +if you will be good enough to sit here, I will pose you." + +He stepped toward a circular revolving-platform placed at the focus of +the massed easels: it was the model's rack of patience, the mount of +humiliation, the scaffold of exposure. + +She had perhaps not understood that this would be required of her, this +indignity, that she must climb upon a block like an old-time slave at an +auction. For one instant her fighting look came back and her eyes, +though they rested on vacancy, blazed on vacancy and an ugly red rushed +over her face which had been whiter than colorless. Then as though she +had become disciplined through years of necessity to do the unworthy +things that must be done, she stepped resolutely though unsteadily upon +the platform. A long procession of men and women had climbed thither +from many a motive on life's upward or downward road. + +He had specially chosen a chair for a three-quarter portrait, stately, +richly carved; about it hung an atmosphere of high-born things. + +Now, the body has definite memories as the mind has definite memories, +and scarcely had she seated herself before the recollections of former +years revived in her and she yielded herself to the chair as though she +had risen from it a moment before. He did not have to pose her; she had +posed herself by grace of bygone luxurious ways. A few changes in the +arrangement of the hands he did make. There was required some separation +of the fingers; excitement caused her to hold them too closely together. +And he drew the entire hands into notice; he specially wished them to be +appreciated in the portrait. They were wonderful hands: they looked +eloquent with the histories of generations; their youthfulness seemed +centuries old. Yet all over them, barely to be seen, were the marks of +life's experience, the delicate but dread sculpture of adversity. + +For a while it was as he had foreseen. She was aware only of the +brutality of her position; and her face, by its confused expressions and +quick changes of color, showed what painful thoughts surged. Afterward a +change came gradually. As though she could endure the ordeal only by +forgetting it and could forget it only by looking ahead into the +happiness for which it was endured, slowly there began to shine out upon +her face its ruling passion--the acceptance of life and the love of the +mother glinting as from a cloud-hidden sun across the world's storm. +When this expression had come out, it stayed there. She had forgotten +her surroundings, she had forgotten herself. Poor indeed must have been +the soul that would not have been touched by the spectacle of her, +thrilled by her as by a great vision. + +There was silence in the room of young workers. Before them, on the face +of the unknown, was the only look that the whole world knows--the love +and self-sacrifice of the mother; perhaps the only element of our better +humanity that never once in the history of mankind has been misunderstood +and ridiculed or envied and reviled. + +Some of them worked with faces brightened by thoughts of devoted mothers +at home; the eyes of a few were shadowed by memories of mothers +alienated or dead. + + + + +II + +That morning on the ledge of rock at the rear of the cathedral Nature +hinted to passers what they would more abundantly see if fortunate +enough to be with her where she was entirely at home--out in the +country. + +The young grass along the foot of this slope was thick and green; +imagination missed from the picture rural sheep, their fleeces wet with +April rain. Along the summit of the slope trees of oak and ash and maple +and chestnut and poplar lifted against the sky their united forest +strength. Between the trees above and the grass below, the embankment +spread before the eye the enchantment of a spring landscape, with late +bare boughs and early green boughs and other boughs in blossom. + +The earliest blossoms on our part of the earth's surface are nearly +always white. They have forced their way to the sun along a frozen path +and look akin to the perils of their road: the snow-threatened lily of +the valley, the chill snowdrop, the frosty snowball, the bleak hawtree, +the wintry wild cherry, the wintry dogwood. As the eye swept the park +expanse this morning, here and there some of these were as the last +tokens of winter's mantle instead of the first tokens of summer's. + +There were flushes of color also, as where in deep soil, on a projection +of rock, a pink hawthorn stood studded to the tips of its branches with +leaf and flower. But such flushes of color were as false notes of the +earth, as harmonies of summer thrust into the wrong places and become +discords. The time for them was not yet. The hour called for hardy +adventurous things, awakened out of their cold sleep on the rocks. The +blue of the firmament was not dark summer blue but seemed the sky's +first pale response to the sun. The sun was not rich summer gold but +flashed silver rays. The ground scattered no odors; all was the budding +youth of Nature on the rocks. + +Paths wind hither and thither over this park hillside. Benches are +placed at different levels along the way. If you are going up, you may +rest; if you are coming down, you may linger; if neither going up nor +coming down, you may with a book seek out some retreat of shade and +coolness and keep at a distance the millions that rush and crush around +the park as waters roar against some lone mid-ocean island. + +About eleven o'clock that morning, on one of these benches placed where +rock is steepest and forest trees stand close together and vines are +rank with shade, a sociable-looking little fellow of some ten hardy +well-buffeted years had sat down for the moment without a companion. He +had thrown upon the bench beside him his sun-faded, rain-faded, +shapeless cap, uncovering much bronzed hair; and as though by this +simple act he had cleared the way for business, he thrust one +capable-looking hand deep into one of his pockets. The fingers closed +upon what they found there, like the meshes of a deep-sea net filled +with its catch, and were slowly drawn to the surface. The catch +consisted of one-cent and five-cent pieces, representing the sales of +his morning papers. He counted the coins one by one over into the palm +of the other hand, which then closed upon the total like another net, +and dropped the treasure back into the deep sea of the other pocket. + +His absorption in this process had been intense; his satisfaction with +the result was complete. Perhaps after every act of successful banking +there takes place in the mind of man, spendthrift and miser, a momentary +lull of energy, a kind of brief _Pax vobiscum_ my soul and stomach, +my twin masters of need and greed! And possibly, as the lad deposited +his earnings, he was old enough to enter a little way into this adult +and despicable joy. Be this as it may, he was not the next instant up +again and busy. He caught up his cap, dropped it not on his head but on +one of his ragged knees; planted a sturdy hand on it and the other +sturdy hand on the other knee; and with his sturdy legs swinging under +the bench, toe kicking heel and heel kicking toe, he rested briefly +from life's battle. + +The signs of battle were thick on him, unmistakable. The palpable sign, +the conqueror's sign, was the profits won in the struggle of the +streets. The other signs may be set down as loss--dirt and raggedness +and disorder. His hair might never have been straightened out with a +comb; his hands were not politely mentionable; his coarse shoes, which +seemed to have been bought with the agreement that they were never to +wear out, were ill-conditioned with general dust and the special grime +of melted pitch from the typical contractor's cheapened asphalt; one of +his stockings had a fresh rent and old rents enlarged their grievances. + +A single sign of victory was better even than the money in the +pocket--the whole lad himself. He was strongly built, frankly +fashioned, with happy grayish eyes, which had in them some of the cold +warrior blue of the sky that day; and they were set wide apart in a +compact round head, which somehow suggested a bronze sphere on a column +of triumph. Altogether he belonged to that hillside of nature, himself a +human growth budding out of wintry fortunes into life's April, opening +on the rocks hardy and all white. + +But to sit there swinging his legs--this did not suffice to satisfy his +heart, did not enable him to celebrate his instincts; and suddenly from +his thicket of forest trees and greening bushes he began to pour forth a +thrilling little tide of song, with the native sweetness of some human +linnet unaware of its transcendent gift. + +Up the steep hill a man not yet of middle age had mounted from the +flats. He was on his way toward the parapet above. He came on slowly, +hat in hand, perspiration on his forehead; that climb from base to +summit stretches a healthy walker and does him good. At a turn of the +road under the forest trees with shrubbery alongside he stopped +suddenly, as a naturalist might pause with half-lifted foot beside a +dense copse in which some unknown species of bird sang--a young bird +just finding its notes. + +It was his vocation to discover and to train voices. His definite work +in music was to help perpetually to rebuild for the world that +ever-sinking bridge of sound over which Faith aids itself in +walking-toward the eternal. This bridge of falling notes is as Nature's +bridge of falling drops: individual drops appear for an instant in the +rainbow, then disappear, but century after century the great arch +stands there on the sky unshaken. So throughout the ages the bridge of +sacred music, in which individual voices are heard a little while and +then are heard no longer, remains for man as one same structure of rock +by which he passes over from the mortal to the immortal. + +Such was his life-work. As he now paused and listened, you might have +interpreted his demeanor as that of a professional musician whose ears +brought tidings that greatly astonished him. The thought had at once +come to him of how the New York papers once in a while print a story of +the accidental finding in it of a wonderful voice--in New York, where +you can find everything that is human. He recalled throughout the +history of music instances in which some one of the world's famous +singers had been picked up on life's road where it was roughest. Was +anything like this now to become his own experience? Falling on his ear +was an unmistakable gift of song, a wandering, haunting, unidentified +note under that early April blue. He had never heard anything like it. +It was a singing soul. + +Voice alone did not suffice for his purpose; the singer's face, +personality, manners, some unfortunate strain in the blood, might debar +the voice, block its acceptance, ruin everything. He almost dreaded to +walk on, to explore what was ahead. But his road led that way, and three +steps brought him around the woody bend of it. + +There he stopped again. In an embrasure of rock on which vines were +turning green, a little fellow, seasoned by wind and sun, with a +countenance open and friendly, like the sky, was pouring out his full +heart. + +The instant the man came into view, the song was broken off. The sturdy +figure started up and sprang forward with the instinct of business. When +any one paused and looked questioningly at him, as this man now did, it +meant papers and pennies. His inquiry was quite breathless: + +"Do you want a paper, Mister? What paper do you want? I can get you one +on the avenue in a minute." + +He stood looking up at the man, alert, capable, fearless, ingratiating. +The man had instantly taken note of the speaking voice, which is often a +safer first criterion to go by than the singing voice itself. He +pronounced it sincere, robust, true, sweet, victorious. And very quickly +also he made up his mind that conditions must have been rare and +fortunate with the lad at his birth: blood will tell, and blood told +now even in this dirt and in these rags. + +His reply bore testimony to how appreciative he felt of all that faced +him there so humanly on the rock. + +"Thank you," he said, "I have read the papers." + +Having thus disposed of some of the lad's words, he addressed a pointed +question to the rest: + +"But how did you happen to call me mister? I thought boss was what you +little New-Yorkers generally said." + +"I'm not a New-Yorker," announced the lad, with ready courtesy and good +nature. "I don't say boss. We are Southerners. I say mister." + +He gave the man an unfavorable look as though of a mind to take his true +measure; also as being of a mind to let the man know that he had not +taken the boy's measure. + +The man smiled at being corrected to such good purpose; but before he +could speak again, the lad went on to clinch his correction: + +"And I only say mister when I am selling papers and am not at home." + +"What do you say when not selling papers and when you are at home?" +asked the man, forced to a smile. + +"I say 'sir,' if I say anything," retorted the lad, flaring up, but +still polite. + +The man looked at him with increasing interest. Another word in the +lad's speech had caught his attention--Southerner. + +That word had been with him a good deal in recent years; he had not +quite seemed able to get away from it. Nearly all classes of people in +New York who were not Southerners had been increasingly reminded that +the Southerners were upon them. He had satirically worked it out in his +own mind that if he were ever pushed out of his own position, it would +be some Southerner who pushed him. He sometimes thought of the whole New +York professional situation as a public wonderful awful dinner at which +almost nothing was served that did not have a Southern flavor as from a +kind of pepper. The guests were bound to have administered to them their +shares of this pepper; there was no getting away from the table and no +getting the pepper out of the dinner. There was the intrusion of the +South into every delicacy. + +"We are Southerners," the lad had announced decisively; and there the +flavor was again, though this time as from a mere pepper-box in a school +basket. Thus his next remark was addressed to his own thoughts as well +as to the lad: + +"And so _you_ are a Southerner!" he reflected audibly, looking down at +the Southern plague in small form. + +"Why, yes, Mister, we are Southerners," replied the lad, with a gay and +careless patriotism; and as giving the handy pepper-box a shake, he +began to dust the air with its contents: "I was born on an old Southern +battle-field. When Granny was born there, it had hardly stopped smoking; +it was still piled with wounded and dead Northerners. Why, one of the +worst batteries was planted in our front porch." + +This enthusiasm as to the front porch was assumed to be acceptable to +the listener. The battery might have been a Cherokee rose. + +The man had listened with a quizzical light in his eyes. + +"In what direction did you say that battery was pointed?" + +"I didn't say; but it was pointed up this way, of course." + +The man laughed outright. + +"And so you followed in the direction of the deadly Southern shell and +came north--as a small grape-shot!" + +"But, Mister, that was long ago. They had their quarrel out long ago. +That's the way we boys do: fight it out and make friends again. Don't +you do that way?" + +"It's a very good way to do," said the man. "And so you sell papers?" + +"I sell papers to people in the park, Mister, and back up on the avenue. +Granny is particular. I'm not a regular newsboy." + +"I heard you singing. Does anybody teach you?" + +"Granny." + +"And so your grandmother is your music teacher?" + +It was the lad's turn to laugh. + +"Granny isn't my grandmother; Granny is my mother." + +Toppling over in the dust of imagination went a gaunt granny image; in +its place a much more vital being appeared just behind the form of the +lad, guarding him even now while he spoke. + +"And so your mother takes pupils?" + +"Only me." + +"Has any one heard you sing?" + +"Only she." + +It had become more and more the part of the man during this colloquy to +smile; he felt repeatedly in the flank of his mind a jab of the comic +spur. Now he laughed at the lad's deadly preparedness; business +competition in New York had taught him that he who hesitates a moment is +lost. The boy seemed ready with his answers before he heard the man's +questions. + +"Do you mind telling me your name?" + +"My name is Ashby. Ashby Truesdale. We come from an old English family. +What is your name, and what kind of family do you come from, Mister?" + +"And where do you live?" + +The lad wheeled, and strode to the edge of the rock,--the path along +there is blasted out of solid rock,--and looking downward, he pointed to +the first row of buildings in the distant flats. + +"We live down there. You see that house in the middle of the block, the +little old one between the two big ones?" + +The man did not feel sure. + +"Well, Mister, you see the statue of Washington and Lafayette?" + +The man was certain he saw Washington and Lafayette. + +"Well, from there you follow my finger along the row of houses till you +come to the littlest, oldest, dingiest one. You see it now, don't you? +We live up under the roof." + +"What is the number?" + +"It isn't any number. It's half a number. We live in the half that isn't +numbered; the other half gets the number." + +"And you take your music lessons in one half?" + +"Why, yes, Mister. Why not?" + +"On a piano?" + +"Why, yes, Mister; on _my_ piano." + +"Oh, you have a piano, have you?" + +"There isn't any sound in about half the keys. Granny says the time has +come to rent a better one. She has gone over to the art school to-day to +pose to get the money." + +A chill of silence fell between the talkers, the one looking up and the +other looking down. The man's next question was put in a more guarded +tone: + +"Does your mother pose as a model?" + +"No, Mister, she doesn't pose as a model. She's posing as herself. She +said I must have a teacher. Mister, were _you_ ever poor?" + +The man looked the boy over from head to foot. + +"Do you think you are poor?" he asked. + +The good-natured reply came back in a droll tone: + +"Well, Mister, we certainly aren't rich." + +"Let us see," objected the man, as though this were a point which had +better not be yielded, and he began with a voice of one reckoning up +items: "Two feet, each cheap at, say, five millions. Two hands--five +millions apiece for hands. At least ten millions for each eye. About +the same for the ears. Certainly twenty millions for your teeth. Forty +millions for your stomach. On the whole, at a rough estimate you must +easily be worth over one hundred millions. There are quite a number of +old gentlemen in New York, and a good many young ones, who would gladly +pay that amount for your investments, for your securities." + +The lad with eager upturned countenance did not conceal his amusement +while the man drew this picture of him as a living ragged gold-mine, as +actually put together and made up of pieces of fabulous treasure. A +child's notion of wealth is the power to pay for what it has not. The +wealth that childhood _is_, escapes childhood; it does not escape the +old. What most concerned the lad as to these priceless feet and hands +and eyes and ears was the hard-knocked-in fact that many a time he +ached throughout this reputed treasury of his being for a five-cent +piece, and these reputed millionaires, acting together and doing their +level best, could not produce one. + +Nevertheless, this fresh and never-before-imagined image of his +self-riches amused him. It somehow put him over into the class of +enormously opulent things; and finding himself a little lonely on that +new landscape, he cast about for some object of comparison. Thus his +mind was led to the richest of all near-by objects. + +"If I were worth a hundred million," he said, with a satisfied twinkle +in his eyes, "I would be as rich as the cathedral." + +A significant silence followed. The man broke it with a grave surprised +inquiry: + +"How did you happen to think of the cathedral?" + +"I didn't happen to think of it; I couldn't help thinking of it." + +"Have you ever been in the cathedral?" inquired the man more gravely +still. + +"Been in it! We go there all the time. It's our church. Why, good Lord! +Mister, we are descended from a bishop!" + +The man laughed outright long and heartily. + +"Thank you for telling me," he said as one who suddenly feels himself to +have become a very small object through being in the neighborhood of +such hereditary beatitudes and ecclesiastical sanctities. "Are you, +indeed? I am glad to know. Indeed, I am!" + +"Why, Mister, we have been watching the cathedral from our windows for +years. We can see the workmen away up in the air as they finish one +part and then another part. I can count the Apostles on the roof. You +begin with James the Less and keep straight on around until you come out +at Simon. Big Jim and Pete are in the middle of the row." He laughed. + +"Surely you are not going to speak of an apostle as Pete! Do you think +that is showing proper respect to an apostle?" + +"But he was Pete when he was little. He wasn't an apostle then and +didn't have any respect." + +"And you mustn't call an apostle Big Jim! It sounds dreadful!" + +"Then why did he try to call himself James the Greater? That sounds +dreadful too. As far as size is concerned he is no bigger than the +others: they are all nine and a half feet. The Archangel Gabriel on the +roof, he's nine and a half. Everybody standing around on the outside of +the roof is nine and a half. If Gabriel had been turned a little to one +side, he would blow his trumpet straight over our flat. He didn't blow +anywhere one night, for a big wind came up behind him and blew him down +and he blew his trumpet at the gutter. But he didn't stay down," boasted +the lad. + +Throughout his talk he was making it clear that the cathedral was a +neighborhood affair; that its haps and mishaps possessed for him the +flesh and blood interest of a living person. Love takes mental +possession of its object and by virtue of his affection the cathedral +had become his companion. + +"You seem rather interested in the cathedral. Very much interested," +remarked the man, strengthening his statement and with increased +attention. + +"Why, of course, Mister. I've been passing there nearly every day since +I've been selling papers on the avenue. Sometimes I stop and watch the +masons. When I went with Granny to the art school this morning, she told +me to go home that way. I have just come from there. They are building +another one of the chapels now, and the men are up on the scaffolding. +They carried more rock up than they needed and they would walk to the +edge and throw big pieces of it down with a smash. The old house they +are using for the choir school is just under there. Sometimes when the +class is practising, I listen from the outside. If they sing high, I +sing high; if they sing low, I sing low. Why, Mister, I can sing up +to--" + +He broke off abruptly. He had been pouring-out all kinds of confidences +to his new-found friend. Now he hesitated. The boldness of his nature +deserted him. The deadly preparedness failed. A shy appealing look came +into his eyes as he asked his next question--a grave question indeed: + +"_Mister, do you love music?_" + +"Do I love music?" echoed the startled musician, pierced by the +spear-like sincerity of the question, which seemed to go clean through +him and his knowledge and to point back to childhood's springs of +feeling. "Do I love music? Yes, some music, I hope. Some kinds of music, +I hope." + +These moderate, chastened words restored the boy's confidence and +completely captured his friendship. Now he felt sure of his comrade, +and he put to him a more searching question: + +"Do _you_ know anything about the cathedral?" + +The man smiled guiltily. + +"A little. I know a little about the cathedral," he admitted. + +There was a moment of tense, anxious silence. And now the whole secret +came out: + +"Do you know how boys get into the cathedral choir school?" + +The man did not answer. He stood looking down at the lad, in whose eyes +all at once a great baffled desire told its story. Then he pulled out +his watch and merely said: + +"I must be going. Good morning." He turned his way across the rock. + +Disappointment darkened the lad's face when he saw that he was to +receive no answer; withering blight dried up its joy. But he recovered +himself quickly. + +"Well, I must be going, too," he said bravely and sweetly. "Good +morning." He turned his way across the rock. But he had had a good time +talking with this stranger, and, after all, he _was_ a Southerner; and +so, as his head was about to disappear below the cliff, he called back +in his frank human gallant way: + +"I'm glad I met you, Mister." + +The man went up and the boy went down. + +The man, having climbed to the parapet, leaned over the stone wall. The +tops of some of the tall poplar-trees, rooted far below, were on a level +with his eyes. Often he stopped there to watch them swaying like upright +plumes against the wind. They swayed now in the silvery April air with a +ripple of silvery leaves. His eyes sought out intimately the barely +swollen buds on the boughs of other forest trees yet far from leaf. They +lingered on the white blossoms of the various shrubs. They found the +pink hawthorn; in the boughs of one of those trees one night in England +in mid-May he had heard the nightingale, master singer of the non-human +world. Up to him rose the enchanting hillside picture of grass and moss +and fern. It was all like a sheet of soft organ music to his +nature-reading eyes. + +While he gazed, he listened. Down past the shadows and the greenness, +through the blossoms and the light, growing fainter and fainter, went a +wandering little drift of melody, a haunting, unidentified sound under +the blue cathedral dome of the sky. He reflected again that he had never +heard anything like it. It was, in truth, a singing soul. + +Then he saw the lad's sturdy figure bound across the valley to join +friends in play on the thoroughfare that skirts the park alongside the +row of houses. + +He himself turned and went in the direction of the cathedral. + +As he walked slowly along, one thing haunted him remorsefully--the +upturned face of the lad and the look in his eyes as he asked the +question which brought out the secret desire of a life: "Do you know how +boys get into the cathedral choir school?" Then the blight of +disappointment when there was no answer. + +The man walked thoughtfully on, seemingly as one who was turning over +and over in his mind some difficult, delicate matter, looking at it on +all sides and in every light, as he must do. + +Finally he quickened his pace as though having decided what ought to be +done. He looked the happier for his decision. + + + + +III + +That night in an attic-like room of an old building opposite Morningside +Park a tiny supper-table for two stood ready in the middle of the floor; +the supper itself, the entire meal, was spread. There is a victory which +human nature in thousands of lives daily wins over want, that though it +cannot drive poverty from the scene, it can hide its desolation by the +genius of choice and of touch. A battle of that brave and desperate kind +had been won in this garret. Lacking every luxury, it had the charm of +tasteful bareness, of exquisite penury. The supper-table of cheap wood +roughly carpentered was hidden under a piece of fine long-used +table-linen; into the gleaming damask were wrought clusters of +snowballs. The glare of a plain glass lamp was softened by a too costly +silk shade. Over the rim of a common vase hung a few daffodils, too +costly daffodils. The supper, frugal to a bargain, tempted the eye and +the appetite by the good sense with which it had been chosen and +prepared. Thus the whole scene betokened human nature at bay but +victorious in the presence of that wolf, whose near-by howl startles the +poor out of their sleep. + +Into this empty room sounds penetrated through a door. They proceeded +from piano-keys evidently so old that one wondered whether possibly they +had not begun to be played on in the days of Beethoven, whether they +were not such as were new on the clavichord of Bach. The fingers that +pressed them were unmistakably those of a child. As the hands wandered +up and down the keyboard, the ear now and then took notice of a broken +string. There were many of these broken strings. The instrument plainly +announced itself to be a remote, well-nigh mythical ancestor of the +modern piano, preternaturally lingering on amid an innumerable deafening +progeny. It suggested a superannuated human being whose loudest +utterances have sunk to ghostly whispers in a corner. + +Once the wandering hands stopped and a voice was heard. It sounded as +though pitched to reach some one in an inner room farther away, possibly +a person who might just have passed from a kitchen to a bedroom to make +some change of dress. It was a very affectionate voice, very true and +sweet, very tender, very endearing. + +"Another string snapped to-day. There's another key silent. There won't +be any but silent keys soon." + +There must have been a reply. Responding to it, the voice at the piano +sounded again, this time very loyal and devoted to an object closer at +hand: + +"But when we do get a better one, we won't kick the old one down-stairs. +It has done _its_ best." + +Whereupon the musical ancestor was encouraged to speak up again while he +had a chance, being a very honored ancestor and not by any means dead in +some regions. Soon, however, the voice pleaded anew with a kind of +patient impatience: + +"I'm awfully hungry. Aren't you nearly ready?" + +The reply could not be heard. + +"Are you putting on the dress _I_ like?" + +The reply was not heard. + +"Don't you want me to bring you a daffodil to wear at your throat?" + +The reply was lost. For a few minutes the progenitor emptied his ancient +lungs of some further moribund intimations of tone. Later came another +protest, truly plaintive: + +"You couldn't look any nicer! I'm awfully hungry!" + +Then all at once there was a tremendous smash on the keys, a joyous +smash, and a moment afterward the door was softly opened. + +Mother and son entered the supper-room. One of his arms was around her +waist, one of hers enfolded him about the neck and shoulders; they were +laughing as they clung to one another. + +The teacher of the portrait class and his pupils would hardly have +recognized their model; the stranger on the hillside might not at once +have identified the newsboy. For model and newsboy, having laid aside +the masks of the day which so often in New York persons find it +necessary to wear,--- the tragic mask, the comic mask, the callous, +coarse, brutal mask, the mask of the human pack, the mask of the human +sty,--model and newsboy reappeared at home with each other as nearly +what in truth they were as the denials of life would allow. + +There entered the room a woman of high breeding, with a certain +Pallas-like purity and energy of face, clasping to her side her only +child, a son whom she secretly believed to be destined to greatness. She +was dressed not with the studied plainness and abnegation of the model +in the studio, but out of regard for her true station and her motherly +responsibilities. Her utmost wish was that in years to come, when he +should look back upon his childhood, he would always remember with +pride his evenings with his mother. During the day he must see her +drudge, and many a picture of herself on a plane of life below her own +she knew to be fastened to his growing brain; but as nearly as possible +blotting these out, daily blotting them out one by one, must be the +evening pictures when the day's work was done, its disguises dropped, +its humiliations over, and she, a serving-woman of fate, reappeared +before him in the lineaments of his mother, to remain with him +throughout his life as the supreme woman of the human race, his idol +until death, his mother. + +She now looked worthy of such an ideal. But it was upon him that her +heart lavished every possible extravagance when nightly he had laid +aside the coarse half-ragged fighting clothes of the streets. In those +after years when he was to gaze backward across a long distance, he must +be made to realize that when he was a little fellow, it was his mother +who first had seen his star while it was still low on the horizon; and +that from the beginning she had so reared him that there would be +stamped upon his attention the gentleness of his birth and a mother's +resolve to rear him in keeping with this through the neediest hours. + +While he was in his bath, she, as though she were his valet, had laid +out trim house shoes and black stockings; and as the spring-night had a +breath of summer warmth, of almost Southern summer warmth, she had put +out also a suit of white linen knickerbockers. Under his broad sailor +collar she herself had tied a big, soft, flowing black ribbon of the +finest silk. Above this rose the solid head looking like a sphere on a +column of triumph, with its lustrous bronzed hair, which, as she brushed +it, she had tenderly stroked with her hands; often kissing the bronzed +face ardent and friendly to the world and thinking to herself of the +double blue in his eyes, the old Saxon blue of battle and the old Saxon +blue of the minstrel, also. + +It was the evening meal that always brought them together after the +separation of the day, and he was at once curious to hear how everything +had gone at the art school. With some unsold papers under his arm he had +walked with her to the entrance, a new pang in his breast about her that +he did not understand: for one thing she looked so plain, so common. At +the door-step she had stopped and kissed him and bade him good-by. Her +quiet quivering words were: + +"Go home, dear, by way of the cathedral." + +If he took the more convenient route, it would lead him into one of the +city's main cross streets, beset with dangers. She would be able to sit +more at peace through those hours of posing if she could know that he +had gone across the cathedral grounds and then across the park as along +a country road bordered with young grass and shrubs in bloom and forest +trees in early leaf. She wished to keep all day before her eyes the +picture of him as straying that April morning along such a country +road--sometimes the road of faint far girlhood memories to her. + +Then with a great incomprehensible look she had vanished from him. But +before the doors closed, he, peering past her, had caught sight of the +walls inside thickly hung with portraits of men and women in rich +colors and in golden frames. Into this splendid world his mother had +vanished, herself to be painted. + +Now as he began ravenously to eat his supper he wished to hear all about +it. She told him. Part of her experience she kept back, a true part; the +other, no less true, she described. With deft fingers she went over the +somberly woven web of the hours, and plucking here a bright thread and +there a bright thread, rewove these into a smaller picture, on which +fell the day's far-separated sunbeams; the rays were condensed now and +made a solid brightness. + +This is how she painted for him a bright picture out of things not many +of which were bright. The teacher of the portrait class, to begin, had +been very considerate. He had arranged that she should leave her things +with the janitor's wife down-stairs, and not go up-stairs and take them +off behind some screens in a corner of the room where the class was +assembled. That would have been dreadful, to have to go behind the +screens to take off her hat and gloves. Then instead of sending word for +her to come up, he himself had come down. As he led the way past the +confusing halls and studios, he had looked back over his shoulder just a +little, to let her know that not for a moment did he lose thought of +her. To have walked in front of her, looking straight ahead, might have +meant that he esteemed her a person of no consequence. A master so walks +before a servant, a superior before an inferior. Out of respect for her, +he had even lessened the natural noisiness of his feet on the bare +floor. If you put your feet down hard in the house, it means that you +are thinking of yourself and not of other people. He had mounted the +stairs slowly lest she get out of breath as she climbed. When he +preceded her into the presence of the class, he had turned as though he +introduced to them his own mother. In everything he did he was really a +man; that is, a gentleman. For being a gentleman is being really a man; +if you are really a man, you _are_ a gentleman. + +As for the members of the class, they had been beautiful in their +treatment of her. Not a word had been exchanged with them, but she could +_feel_ their beautiful thoughts. Sometimes when she glanced at them, +while they worked, such beautiful expressions rested on their faces. +Unconsciously their natures had opened like young flowers, and as at the +hearts of young flowers there is for each a clear drop of honey, so in +each of their minds there must have been one same thought, the +remembrance of their mothers. Altogether it was as though they were +assembled there in honor of her, not to make use of her. + +As to posing itself, one had not a thing to do but sit perfectly still! +One got such a good rest from being too much on one's feet! And they had +placed for her such a splendid carved-oak chair! When she took her seat, +all at once she had felt as if at home again. There were immense +windows; she had had all the fresh air she wished, and she did enjoy +fresh air! The whole roof was a window, and she could look out at the +sky: sometimes the loveliest clouds drifted over, and sometimes the +dearest little bird flew past, no doubt on its way to the park. Last, +but not least, she had not been crowded. In New York it was almost +impossible to secure a good seat in a public place without being nudged +or bumped or crowded. But that had actually happened to her. She had had +a delightful chair in a public place, with plenty of room in every +direction. How fortunate at last to remember that she might pose! It +would fit in perfectly at times when she did not have to go out for +needlework or for the other demands. Dollars would now soon begin to be +brought in like their bits of coal, by the scuttleful! And then the +piano! And then the teacher and the lessons! And _then_, and _then_-- + +Her happy story ended. She had watched the play of lights on his face as +sometimes he, though hungry, with fork in the air paused to listen and +to question. Now as she finished and looked across the table at the +picture of him under the lamplight, she was rewarded, she was content; +while he ate his plain food, out of her misfortunes she had beautifully +nourished his mind. He did not know this; but she knew it, knew by his +look and by his only comment: + +"You had a perfectly splendid time, didn't you?" + +She laughed to herself. + +"Now, then," she said, coming to what had all along been most in her +consciousness--"now, then, tell me about _your_ day. Begin at the moment +_you_ left _me_." + +He laid down his napkin,--he could eat no more, and there was nothing +more to eat,--and he folded his hands quite like the head of the house +at ease after a careless feast, and began his story. + +Well, he had had a splendid day, too. After he had left her he had gone +to the dealer's on the avenue with the unsold papers. Then he had +crossed over to the cathedral, and for a while had watched the men at +work up in the air. He had walked around to the choir school, but no one +was there that morning, not a sound came from the inside. Then he had +started down across the park. As he sat down to count his money, a man +who had climbed up the hillside stopped and asked him a great many +questions: who taught him music and whether any one had ever heard him +sing. This stranger also liked music and he also went to the cathedral, +so he claimed. From that point the story wound its way onward across the +busy hours till nightfall. + +It was a child's story, not an older person's. Therefore it did not draw +the line between pleasant and unpleasant, fair and unfair, right and +wrong, which make up for each of us the history of our checkered human +day. It separated life as a swimmer separates the sea: there is one +water which he parts by his passage. So the child, who is still wholly a +child, divides the world. + +But as she pondered, she discriminated. Out of the long, rambling +narrative she laid hold of one overwhelming incident, forgetting the +rest: a passing stranger, hearing a few notes of his voice, had stopped +to question him about it. To her this was the first outside evidence +that her faith in his musical gift was not groundless. + +When he had ended his story she regarded him across the table with +something new in her eyes--something of awe. She had never hinted to him +what she believed he would some day be. She might be wrong, and thus +might start him on the wrong course; or, being right, she might never +have the chance to start him on the right one. In either case she might +be bringing to him disappointment, perhaps the failure of his whole +life. + +Now she still hid the emotion his story caused. But the stranger of the +park had kindled within her that night what she herself had long tended +unlit--the alabaster flame of worship which the mother burns before the +altar of a great son. + +An hour later they were in another small attic-like space next to the +supper-room. Here was always the best of their evening. No matter how +poor the spot, if there reach it some solitary ray of the great light of +the world, let it be called your drawing-room. Where civilization sends +its beams through a roof, there be your drawing-room. This part of the +garret was theirs. + +In one corner stood a small table on which were some tantalizing books +and the same lamp. Another corner was filled by the littlest, oldest +imaginable of six-octave pianos, the mythical piano ancestor; on it were +piled some yellowed folios, her music once. Thus two different rays of +civilization entered their garret and fell upon the twin mountain-peaks +of the night--books and music. + +Toward these she wished regularly to lead him as darkness descended over +the illimitable city and upon its weary grimy battle-fields. She liked +him to fall asleep on one or the other of these mountain-tops. When he +awoke, it would be as from a mountain that he would see the dawn. From +there let him come down to the things that won the day; but at night +back again to things that win life. + +They were in their drawing-room, then, as she had taught him to call it, +and she was reading to him. A knock interrupted her. She interrogated +the knock doubtfully to herself for a moment. + +"Ashby," she finally said, turning her eyes toward the door, as a +request that he open it. + +The janitor of the building handed in a card. The name on the card was +strange to her, and she knew no reason why a stranger should call. Then +a foolish uneasiness attacked her: perhaps this unwelcome visit bore +upon her engagement at the studio. They might not wish her to return; +that little door to a larger income was to be shut in their faces. +Perhaps she had made herself too plain. If only she had done herself a +little more justice in her appearance! + +She addressed the janitor with anxious courtesy: + +"Will you ask him to come up?" + +With her hand on the half-open door, she waited. If it should be some +tradesman, she would speak with him there. She listened. Up the steps, +from flight to flight, she could hear the feet of a man mounting like a +deliberate good walker. He reached her floor. He approached her door and +she stepped out to confront him. A gentleman stood before her with an +unmistakable air of feeling himself happy in his mission. For a moment +he forgot to state this mission, startled by the group of the two. His +eyes passed from one to the other: the picture they made was an unlooked +for revelation of life's harmony, of nature's sacredness. + +"Is this Mrs. Truesdale?" he asked with appreciative deference. + +She stepped back. + +"I am Mrs. Truesdale," she replied in a way to remind him of his +intrusion; and not discourteously she partly closed the door and waited +for him to withdraw. But he was not of a mind to withdraw; on the +contrary, he stood stoutly where he was and explained: + +"As I crossed the park this morning I happened to hear a few notes of a +voice that interested me. I train the voice, Madam. I teach certain +kinds of music. I took the liberty of asking the owner of the voice +where he lived, and I have taken the further liberty of coming to see +whether I may speak with you on that subject--about his voice." + +This, then, was the stranger of the park whom she believed to have gone +his way after unknowingly leaving glorious words of destiny for her. +Instead of vanishing, he had reappeared, following up his discovery into +her very presence. She did not desire him to follow up his discovery. +She put out one hand and pressed her son back into the room and was +about to close the door. + +"I should first have stated, of course," said the visitor, smiling +quietly as with awkward self-recovery, "that I am the choir-master of +the Cathedral of St. John the Divine." + +Stillness followed, the stillness in which painful misunderstandings +dissolve. The scene slowly changed, as when on the dark stage of a +theater an invisible light is gradually turned, showing everything in +its actual relation to everything else. In truth a shaft as of celestial +light suddenly fell upon her doorway; a far-sent radiance rested on the +head of her son; in her ears began to sound old words spoken ages ago to +another mother on account of him she had borne. To her it was an +annunciation. + +Her first act was to place her hand on the head of the lad and bend it +back until his eyes looked up into hers; his mother must be the first to +congratulate him and to catch from his eyes their flash of delight as he +realized all that this might mean: the fulfilment of life's dream for +him. + +Then she threw open the door. + +"Will you come in?" + +It was a marvelous welcome, a splendor of spiritual hospitality. + +The musician took up straightway the purpose of his visit and stated it. + +"Will you, then, send him to-morrow and let me try his voice?" + +"Yes," she said as one who now must direct with firm responsible hand +the helm of wayward genius, "I will send him." + +"And if his voice should prove to be what is wanted," continued the +music-master, though with delicate hesitancy, "would he be--free? Is +there any other person whose consent--" + +She could not reply at once. The question brought up so much of the +past, such tragedy! She spoke with composure at last: + +"He can come. He is free. He is mine--wholly mine." + +The choir-master looked across the small room at his pupil, who, upon +the discovery of the visitor's identity, had withdrawn as far as +possible from him. + +"And you are willing to come?" he asked, wishing to make the first +advance toward possible acquaintanceship on the new footing. + +No reply came. The mother smiled at her awe-stricken son and hastened to +his rescue. + +"He is overwhelmed," she said, her own faith in him being merely +strengthened by this revelation of his fright. "He is overwhelmed. This +means so much more to him than you can understand." + +"But you will come?" the choir-master persisted in asking. "You _will_ +come?" + +The lad stirred uneasily on his chair. + +"Yes, sir," he said all but inaudibly. + +His inquisitive, interesting friend of the park path, then, was himself +choir-master of St. John's! And he had asked him whether _he_ knew +anything about the cathedral! Whether _he_ liked music! Whether _he_ +knew how boys got into the school! He had betrayed his habit of idly +hanging about the old building where the choir practised and of singing +with them to show what he could do and would do if he had the chance; +and because he could not keep from singing. He had called one of the +Apostles Jim! And another Apostle Pete! He had rejoiced that Gabriel had +not been strong enough to stand up in a high wind! + +Thus with mortification he remembered the day. Then his thoughts were +swept on to what now opened before him: he was to be taken into the +choir, he was to sing in the cathedral. The high, blinding, stately +magnificence of its scenes and processions lay before him. + +More than this. The thing which had long been such a torture of desire +to him, the hope that had grown within him until it began to burst open, +had come true; his dream was a reality: he was to begin to learn music, +he was to go where it was being taught. And the master who was to take +him by the hand and lead him into that world of song sat there quietly +talking with his mother about the matter and looking across at him, +studying him closely. + +No; none of this was true yet. It might never be true. First, he must be +put to the test. The man smiling there was sternly going to draw out of +him what was in him. He was going to examine him and see what he +amounted to. And if he amounted to nothing, then what? + +He sat there shy, silent, afraid, all the hardy boldness and business +preparedness and fighting capacity of the streets gone out of his mind +and heart. He looked across at his mother; not even she could help him. + +So there settled upon him that terror of uncertainty about their gift +and their fate which is known only to the children of genius. For +throughout the region of art, as in the world of the physical, nature +brings forth all things from the seat of sensitiveness and the young of +both worlds appear on the rough earth unready. + +"You _do_ wish to come?" the choir-master persisted in asking. + +"Yes, sir," he replied barely, as though the words sealed his fate. + +The visitor was gone, and they had talked everything over, and the +evening had ended, and it was long past his bedtime, and she waited for +him to come from the bedroom and say good night. Presently he ran in, +climbed into her lap, threw his arms around her neck and pressed his +cheek against hers. + +"Now on this side," he said, holding her tightly, "and now on the other +side, and now on both sides and all around." + +She, with jealous pangs at this goodnight hour, often thought already of +what a lover he would be when the time came--the time for her to be +pushed aside, to drop out. These last moments of every night were for +love; nothing lived in him but love. She said to herself that he was the +born lover. + +As he now withdrew his arms, he sat looking into her eyes with his face +close to hers. Then leaning over, he began to measure his face upon her +face, starting with the forehead, and being very particular when he got +to the long eyelashes, then coming down past the nose. They were very +silly and merry about the measuring of the noses. The noses would not +fit the one upon the other, not being flat enough. He began to indulge +his mischievous, teasing mood: + +"Suppose he doesn't like my voice!" + +She laughed the idea to scorn. + +"Suppose he wouldn't take me!" + +"Ah, but he _will_ take you." + +"If he wouldn't have me, you'd never want to see me any more, would +you?" + +She strained him to her heart and rocked to and fro over him. + +"This is what I could most have wished in all the world," she said, +holding him at arm's-length with idolatry. + +"Not more than a fine house and servants and a greenhouse and a carriage +and horses and a _new_ piano--not more than everything you used to +have!" + +"More than anything! More than anything in this world!" + +He returned to the teasing. + +"If he doesn't take me, I'm going to run away. You won't want ever to +see me any more. And then nobody will ever know what becomes of me +because I couldn't sing." + +She strained him again to herself and murmured over him: + +"My chorister! My minstrel! My life!" + +"Good night and pleasant dreams!" he said, with his arms around her neck +finally. "Good night and sweet sleep!" + + * * * * * + +Everything was quiet. She had tipped to his bedside and stood looking at +him after slumber had carried him away from her, a little distance away. + +"My heavenly guest!" she murmured. "My guest from the singing stars of +God!" + +Though worn out with the strain and excitements of the day, she was not +yet ready for sleep. She must have the luxuries of consciousness; she +must tread the roomy spaces of reflection and be soothed in their +largeness. And so she had gone to her windows and had remained there +for a long time looking out upon the night. + +The street beneath was dimly lighted. Traffic had almost ceased. Now and +then a car sped past. The thoroughfare along here is level and broad and +smooth, and being skirted on one side by the park, it offers to speeding +vehicles the illusive freedom of a country road. Across the street at +the foot of the park a few lights gleamed scant amid the April foliage. +She began at the foot of the hill and followed the line of them upward, +upward over the face of the rock, leading this way and that way, but +always upward. There on the height in the darkness loomed the cathedral. + +Often during the trouble and discouragement of years it had seemed to +her that her own life and every other life would have had more meaning +if only there had been, away off somewhere in the universe, a higher +evil intelligence to look on and laugh, to laugh pitilessly at every +human thing. She had held on to her faith because she must hold on to +something, and she had nothing else. Now as she stood there, following +the winding night road over the rock, her thoughts went back and +searched once more along the wandering pathway of her years; and she +said that a Power greater than any earthly had led her with her son to +the hidden goal of them both, the cathedral. + +The next day brought no disappointment: he had rushed home and thrown +himself into her arms and told her that he was accepted. He was to sing +in the choir. The hope had become an actuality. + +Later that day the choir-master himself had called again to speak to her +when the pupil was not present. He was guarded in his words but could +not conceal the enthusiasm of his mood. + +"I do not know what it may develop into," he said,--"that is something +we cannot foretell,--but I believe it will be a great voice in the +world. I do know that it will be a wonderful voice for the choir." + +She stood before him mute with emotion. She was as dry sand drinking a +shower. + +"You have made no mistake," she said. "It is a great voice and he will +have a great career." + +The choir-master was impatient to have the lessons begin. She asked for +a few days to get him in readiness. She reflected that he could not make +his first appearance at the choir school in white linen knickerbockers. +These were the only suitable clothes he had. + +This school would be his first, for she had taught him at home, haunted +by a sense of responsibility that he must be specially guarded. Now just +as the unsafe years came on for him, he would be safe in that fold. When +natural changes followed as follow they must and his voice broke later +on, and then came again or never came again, whatever afterward befell, +behind would be the memories of his childhood. And when he had grown to +full manhood, when he was an old man and she no longer with him, +wherever on the earth he might work or might wander, always he would be +going back to those years in the cathedral: they would be his safeguard, +his consecration to the end. + + * * * * * + +Now a few days later she stood in the same favorite spot, at her +windows; and it was her favorite hour to be there, the coming on of +twilight. + +All day until nearly sundown a cold April rain had fallen. These +contradictory spring days of young green and winter cold the pious folk +of older lands and ages named the days of the ice saints. They really +fall in May, but this had been like one of them. So raw and chill had +been the atmosphere of the grateless garret that the window-frames had +been fastened down, their rusty catches clamped. + +At the window she stood looking out and looking up toward a scene of +splendor in the heavens. + +It was sunset, the rain was over, the sky had cleared. She had been +tracing the retreating line of sunlight on the hillside opposite. First +it crossed the street to the edge of the park, then crossed the wet +grass at the foot of the slope; then it passed upward over the bowed +dripping shrubbery and lingered on the tree-tops along the crest; and +now the western sky was aflame behind the cathedral. + +It was a gorgeous spectacle. The cathedral seemed not to be situated in +the city, not lodged on the rocks of the island, but to be risen out of +infinite space and to be based and to abide on the eternity of light. +Long she gazed into that sublime vision, full of happiness at last, full +of peace, full of prayer. + +Standing thus at her windows at that hour, she stood on the pinnacle of +her life's happiness. + +From the dark slippery street shrill familiar sounds rose to her ear and +drew her attention downward and she smiled. He was down there at play +with friends whose parents lived in the houses of the row. She laughed +as those victorious cries reached the upper air. Leaning forward, she +pressed her face against the window-pane and peered over and watched +the group of them. Sometimes she could see them and sometimes not as +they struggled from one side of the street to the other. No one, whether +younger or older, stronger or weaker, was ever defeated down there; +everybody at some time got worsted; no one was ever defeated. All the +whipped remained conquerors. Unconquerable childhood! She said to +herself that she must learn a lesson from it once more--to have always +within herself the will and spirit of victory. + +With her face still against the glass she caught sight of something +approaching carefully up the street. It was the car of a physician who +had a patient in one of the houses near by. This was his hour to make +his call. He guided the car himself, and the great mass of tons in +weight responded to his guidance as if it possessed intelligence, as if +it entered into his foresight and caution: it became to her, as she +watched it, almost conscious, almost human. She thought of it as being +like some great characters in human life which need so little to make +them go easily and make them go right. A wise touch, and their enormous +influence is sent whither it should be sent by a pressure that would not +bruise a leaf. + +She chid herself once more that in a world where so often the great is +the good she had too often been hard and bitter; that many a time she +had found pleasure in setting the empty cup of her life out under its +clouds and catching the showers of nature as though they were drops of +gall. + +All at once her attention was riveted on an object up the street. Around +a bend a few hundred yards away a huge wild devil of a thing swung +unsteadily, recklessly, almost striking the curb and lamp-post; and +then, righting itself, it came on with a rush--a mindless destroyer. Now +on one side of the street, now in the middle, now on the other side; +gliding along through the twilight, barely to be seen, creeping nearer +and nearer through the shadows, now again on the wrong side of the +street where it would not be looked for. + +A bolt of horror shot through her. She pressed her face quickly against +the window-panes as closely as possible, searching for the whereabouts +of the lads. As she looked, the playing struggling mass of them went +down in the road, the others piled on one. She thought she knew which +one,--he was the strongest,--then they were lost from her sight, as they +rolled in nearer to the sidewalk. And straight toward them rushed that +destroyer in the streets. She tried to throw up the sashes. She tried to +lean out and cry down to him, to wave her hands to him with warning as +she had often done with joy. She could not raise the sashes. She had not +the strength left to turn the rusty bolts. Nor was there time. She +looked again; she saw what was going to happen. Then with frenzy she +began to beat against the window-sashes and to moan and try to stifle +her own moans. And then shrill startled screams and piteous cries came +up to her, and crazed now and no longer knowing what she did, she struck +the window-panes in her agony until they were shattered and she thrust +her arms out through them with a last blind instinct to wave to him, to +reach him, to drag him out of the way. For some moments her arms hung +there outside the shattered window-glass, and a shower of crimson drops +from her fingers splashed on the paving-stones below. She kept on waving +her lacerated hands more and more feebly, slowly; and then they were +drawn inward after her body which dropped unconscious to the garret +floor. + + + + +IV + +It was a gay scene over at the art school next morning. Even before the +accustomed hour the big barnlike room, with a few prize pictures of +former classes scattered about the walls, and with the old academy +easels standing about like a caravan of patient camels ever loaded with +new burdens but ever traveling the same ancient sands of art--even +before nine o'clock the barnlike room presented a scene of eager healthy +animal spirits. On the easel of every youthful worker, nearly finished, +lay the portrait of the mother. In every case it had been differently +done, inadequately done; but in all cases it had been done. Hardly could +any observer have failed to recognize what was there depicted. Beyond +smearings and daubings of paint, as past the edges of concealing clouds, +one caught glimpses of a serene and steadfast human radiance. There one +beheld the familiar image of that orb which in dark and pathless hours +has through all ages been the guardian light of the world--the mother. + +The best in them had gone into the painting of this portrait, and the +consciousness of our best gives us the sense of our power, and the +consciousness of our power yields us our enthusiasm; hence the +exhilaration and energy of the studio scene. + +The interest of the members of the class was not concerned solely with +the portrait, however: a larger share went to the model herself. They +had become strongly bound to her. All the more perhaps because she held +them firmly to the understanding that her life touched theirs only at +the point of the stranger in need of a small sum of money. Repulsed and +baffled in their wish to know her better, they nevertheless became aware +that she was undergoing a wonderful transformation on her own account. +The change had begun after the ordeal of the first morning. When she +returned for the second sitting, and then at later sittings, they had +remarked this change, and had spoken of it to one another--that she was +as a person into whose life some joyous, unbelievable event has fallen, +brightening the present and the future. Every day some old cloudy care +seemed to loose itself from its lurking-place and drift away from her +mind, leaving her face less obscured and thus the more beautifully +revealed to them. Now, with the end of the sittings not far off, what +they looked forward to with most regret was the last sitting, when she, +leaving her portrait in their hands, would herself vanish, taking with +her both the mystery of her old sorrows and the mystery of this new +happiness. + +Promptly at nine o'clock the teacher of the class entered, greeted them, +and glanced around for the model. Not seeing her, he looked at his +watch, then without comment crossed to the easels, and studied again the +progress made the previous day, correcting, approving, guiding, +encouraging. His demeanor showed that he entered into the mounting +enthusiasm of his class for this particular piece of work. + +A few minutes were thus quickly consumed. Then, watch in hand once more, +he spoke of the absence of the model: + +"Something seems to detain the model this morning. But she has sent me +no word and she will no doubt be here in a few minutes." + +He went back to the other end of the studio and sat down, facing them +with the impressiveness which belonged to him even without speech. They +fixed their eyes on him with the usual expectancy. Whenever as now an +unforeseen delay occurred, he was always prompt to take advantage of the +interval with a brief talk. To them there were never enough of these +brief talks, which invariably drew human life into relationship to the +art of portraiture, and set the one reality over against the other +reality--the turbulence of a human life and the still image of it on the +canvas. They hoped he would thus talk to them now; in truth he had the +air of casting about in his mind for a theme best suited to the moment. + + * * * * * + +That mother, now absent, when she had blindly found her way to him, +asking to pose, had fallen into good hands. He was a great teacher and +he was a remarkable man, remarkable even to look at. Massively built, +with a big head of black hair, olive complexion, and bluntly pointed, +black beard, and with a mold of countenance grave and strong, he looked +like a great Rembrandt; like some splendid full-length portrait by +Rembrandt painted as that master painted men in the prime of his power. +With the Rembrandt shadows on him even in life. Even when the sun beat +down upon him outdoors, even when you met him in the blaze of the city +streets, he seemed not to have emerged from shadow, to bear on himself +the traces of a human night, a living darkness. There was light within +him but it did not irradiate him. + +Once he had been a headlong art student himself, starting out to become +a great painter, a great one. After years abroad under the foremost +masters and other years of self-trial with every favorable circumstance +his, nature had one day pointed her unswerved finger at his latest +canvas as at the earlier ones and had judged him to the quick: you will +never be a great painter. If you cannot be content to remain less, quit, +stop! + +Thus youth's choice and a man's half a lifetime of effort and ambition +ended in abandonment of effort not because he was a failure but because +the choice of a profession had been a blunder. A multitude of men topple +into this chasm and crawl out nobody. Few of them at middle age in the +darkness of that pit of failure can grope within themselves for some +second candle and by it once more become illumined through and through. +He found _his_ second candle,--it should have been his first,--and he +lighted it and it became the light of his later years; but it did not +illumine him completely, it never dispelled the shadows of the flame +that had burned out. What he did was this: having reached the end of his +own career as a painter, he turned and made his way back to the fields +of youth, and taking his stand by that ever fresh path, always, as +students would rashly pass him, he halted them like a wise monitor, +describing the best way to travel, warning of the difficulties of the +country ahead, but insisting that the goal was worth the toil and the +trouble; searching secretly among his pupils year after year for signs +of what he was not, a great painter, and pouring out his sympathies on +all those who, like himself, would never be one. + +Now he sat looking across at his class, the masterful teacher of them. +They sat looking responsively at him. Then he took up his favorite +theme: + +"Your work on this portrait is your best work, because the model, as I +stated to you at the outset would be the case, has called forth your +finer selves; she has caused you to _feel_. And she has been able to do +this because her countenance, her whole being, radiates one of the great +passions and faiths of our common humanity--the look of reverent +motherhood. You recognize that look, that mood; you believe in it; you +honor it; you have worked over its living eloquence. Observe, then, the +result. Turn to your canvases and see how, though proceeding +differently, you have all dipped your brushes as in a common medium; +how you have all drawn an identical line around that old-time human +landmark. You have in truth copied from her one of the great +beacon-lights of expression that has been burning and signaling through +ages upon ages of human history--the look of the mother, the angel of +self-sacrifice to the earth. + +"While we wait, we might go a little way into this general matter, since +you, in the study of portraiture, will always have to deal with it. This +look of hers, which you have caught on your canvases, and all the other +great beacon-lights of human expression, stand of course for the inner +energies of our lives, the leading forces of our characters. But, as +ages pass, human life changes; its chief elements shift their relative +places, some forcing their way to the front, others being pushed to the +rear; and the prominent beacon-lights change correspondingly. Ancient +ones go out, new ones appear; and the art of portraiture, which is the +undying historian of the human countenance, is subject to this shifting +law of the birth and death of its material. + +"Perhaps more ancient lights have died out of human faces than modern +lights have been kindled to replace them. Do you understand why? The +reason is this: throughout an immeasurable time the aim of nature was to +make the human countenance as complete an instrument of expression as it +could possibly be. Man, except for his gestures and wordless sounds, for +ages had nothing else with which to speak; he must speak with his face. +And thus the primitive face became the chronicle of what was going on +within him as well as of what had taken place without. It was his +earliest bulletin-board of intelligence. It was the first parchment to +bear tidings; it was the original newspaper; it was the rude, but vivid, +primeval book of the woods. The human face was all that. Ages more had +to pass before spoken language began, and still other ages before +written language began. Thus for an immeasurable time nature developed +the face and multiplied its expressions to enable man to make himself +understood. At last this development was checked; what we may call the +natural occupation of the face culminated. Civilization began, and as +soon as civilization began, the decline in natural expressiveness began +with it. Gradually civilization supplanted primeval needs; it contrived +other means for doing what the face alone had done frankly, +marvelously. When you can print news on paper, you may cease to print +news on the living countenance. Moreover, the aim of civilization is to +develop in us the consciousness not to express, but to suppress. Its aim +is not to reveal, but to conceal, thought and emotion; not to make the +countenance a beacon-light, but a muffler of the inner candle, whatever +that candle for the time may be. All our ruling passions, good or bad, +noble or ignoble, we now try publicly to hide. This is civilization. And +thus the face, having started out expressionless in nature, tends +through civilization to become expressionless again. + +"How few faces does any one of us know that frankly radiate the great +passions and moods of human nature! What little is left of this ancient +tremendous drama is the poor pantomime of the stage. Search crowds, +search the streets. See everywhere masked faces, telling as little as +possible to those around them of what they glory in or what they suffer. +Search modern portrait galleries. Do you find portraits of either men or +women who radiate the overwhelming passions, the vital moods, of our +galled and soaring nature? It is not a long time since the Middle Ages. +In the stretch of history centuries shrink to nothing, and the Middle +Ages are as the earlier hours of our own historic day. But has there not +been a change even within that short time? Did not the medieval +portrait-painters portray in their sitters great moods as no painter +portrays them now? How many painters of to-day can find great moods in +the faces of their sitters? + +"And so I come again to your model. What makes her so remarkable, so +significant, so touching, so exquisite, so human, is the fact that her +face seems almost a survival out of a past in which the beacon-lights of +humanity did more openly appear on the features. In her case one +beacon-light most of all,--the greatest that has ever shone on the faces +of women,--the one which seems to be slowly vanishing from the faces of +modern women--the look of the mother: that transfiguration of the +countenance of the mother who believed that the birth of a child was the +divine event in her existence, and the emotions and energies of whose +life centered about her offspring. How often does any living painter +have his chance to paint that look now! Galleries are well filled with +portraits of contemporary women who have borne children: how often among +these is to be found the portrait of the mother of old?" + +He rose. The talk was ended. He looked again at his watch, and said: + +"It does not seem worth while to wait longer. Evidently your model has +been kept away to-day. Let us hope that no ill has befallen her and that +she will be here to-morrow. If she is here, we shall go on with the +portrait. If she should not be here, I shall have another model ready, +and we shall take up another study until she returns. Bring fresh +canvases." + +He left the room. They lingered; looking again at their canvases, +understanding their own work as they had not hitherto and more strongly +than ever drawn toward their model whom that day they missed. Slowly and +with disappointment and with many conjectures as to why she had not +come, they separated. + + + + +V + +It was Sunday. All round St. Luke's Hospital quiet reigned. The day was +very still up there on the heights under the blue curtain of the sky. + +When he had been hurled against the curb on the dark street, had been +rolled over and tossed there and left there with no outcry, no movement, +as limp and senseless as a mangled weed, the careless crowd which +somewhere in the city every day gathers about such scenes quickly +gathered about him. In this throng was the physician whose car stood +near by; and he, used to sights of suffering but touched by that tragedy +of unconscious child and half-crazed mother, had hurried them in his +own car to St. Luke's--to St. Luke's, which is always open, always +ready, and always free to those who lack means. + +Just before they stopped at the entrance she had pleaded in the doctor's +ear for a luxury. + +"To the private ward," he said to those who lifted the lad to the +stretcher, speaking as though in response to her entreaty. + +"One of the best rooms," he said before the operation, speaking as +though he shouldered the responsibility of the further expense. "And a +room for her near by," he added. "Everything for them! Everything!" + + * * * * * + +So there he was now, the lad, or what there was left of him, this quiet +Sunday, in a pleasant room opposite the cathedral. The air was like +early summer. The windows were open. He lay on his back, not seeing +anything. The skin of his forehead had been torn off; there was a +bandage over his eyes. And there were bruises on his body and bruises on +his face, which was horribly disfigured. The lips were swollen two or +three thicknesses; it was agony for him to speak. When he realized what +had happened, after the operation, his first mumbled words to her were: + +"They will never have me now." + +About the middle of the forenoon of this still Sunday morning, when the +doctor left, she followed him into the hall as usual, and questioned him +as usual with her eyes. He encouraged her and encouraged himself: + +"I believe he is going to get well. He has the will to get well, he has +the bravery to get well. He is brave about it; he is as brave as he can +be." + +"Of course he is brave," she said scornfully. "Of course he is brave." + +"The love of such a mother would call him back to life," he added, and +he laid one of his hands on her head for a moment. + +"Don't do that," she said, as though the least tenderness toward herself +at such a moment would unnerve her, melt away all her fortitude. + +Everybody had said he was brave, the head nurse, the day nurse, the +night nurse, the woman who brought in the meals, the woman who scrubbed +the floor. All this had kept her up. If anybody paid any kind of tribute +to him, realized in any way what he was, this was life to her. + +After the doctor left, as the nurse was with him, she walked up and down +the halls, too restless to be quiet. + +At the end of one hall she could look down on the fragrant leafy park. +Yes, summer was nigh. Where a little while before had been only white +blossoms, there were fewer white now, more pink, some red, many to match +the yellow of the sun. The whole hillside of swaying; boughs seemed to +quiver with happiness. Her eyes wandered farther down to the row of +houses at the foot of the park. She could see the dreadful spot on the +street, the horrible spot. She could see her shattered window-panes up +above. The points of broken glass still seemed to slit the flesh of her +hands within their bandages. + +She shrank back and walked to the end of the transverse hall. Across the +road was the cathedral. The morning service was just over. People were +pouring out through the temporary side doors and the temporary front +doors so placidly, so contentedly! Some were evidently strangers; as +they reached the outside they turned and studied the cathedral curiously +as those who had never before seen it. Others turned and looked at it +familiarly, with pride in its unfolding form. Some stopped and looked +down at the young grass, stroking it with the toes of their fine shoes; +they were saying how fresh and green it was. Some looked up at the sky; +they were saying how blue it was. Some looked at one another keenly; +they were discussing some agreeable matter, being happy to get back to +it now after the service. Not one of them looked across at the hospital. +Not a soul of them seemed to be even aware of its existence. Not a soul +of them! + +Particularly her eyes became riveted upon two middle-aged ladies in +black who came out through a side door of the cathedral--slow-paced +women, bereft, full of pity. As they crossed the yard, a gray squirrel +came jumping along in front of them on its way to the park. One stooped +and coaxed it and tried to pet it: it became a vital matter with both of +them to pour out upon the little creature which had no need of it their +pent-up, ungratified affection. With not a glance to the window where +she stood, with her mortal need of them, her need of all mothers, of +everybody--her mortal need of everybody! Why were they not there at his +bedside? Why had they not heard? Why had not all of them heard? Why had +anything else been talked of that day? Why were they not all massed +around the hospital doors, tearful with their sympathies? How could they +hold services in the cathedral--the usual services? Why was it not +crowded to the doors with the clergy of all faiths and the laymen of +every land, lifting one outcry against such destruction? Why did they +not stop building temples to God, to the God of life, to the God who +gave little children, until they had stopped the massacre of children, +His children in the streets! + +Yes; everybody had been kind. Even his little rivals who had fought with +him over the sale of papers had given up some of their pennies and had +bought flowers for him, and one of them had brought their gift to the +main hospital entrance. Every day a shy group of them had gathered on +the street while one came to inquire how he was. Kindness had rained on +her; there was that in the sight of her that unsealed kindness in every +heart. + +She had been too nearly crazed to think of this. Her bitterness and +anguish broke through the near cordon of sympathy and went out against +the whole brutal and careless world that did not care--to legislatures +that did not care, to magistrates that did not care, to juries that did +not care, to officials that did not care, to drivers that did not care, +to the whole city that did not care about the massacre in the streets. + +Through the doors of the cathedral the people streamed out unconcerned. +Beneath her, along the street, young couples passed, flushed with their +climb of the park hillside, and flushed with young love, young health. +Sometimes they held each other's hands; they innocently mocked her agony +with their careless joy. + +One last figure issued from the side door of the cathedral hurriedly and +looked eagerly across at the hospital--looked straight at her, at the +window, and came straight toward the entrance below--the choir-master. +She had not sent word to him or to any one about the accident; but he, +when his new pupil had failed to report as promised, had come down to +find out why. And he, like all the others, had been kind; and he was +coming now to inquire what he could do in a case where nothing could be +done. She knew only too well that nothing could be done. + + * * * * * + +The bright serene hours of the day passed one by one with nature's +carelessness about the human tragedy. It was afternoon and near the hour +for the choral even-song across the way at the cathedral, the temporary +windows of which were open. + +She had relieved the nurse, and was alone with him. Often during these +days he had put out one of his hands and groped about with it to touch +her, turning his head a little toward her under his bandaged eyes, and +apparently feeling much mystified about her, but saying nothing. She +kept her bandaged hands out of his reach but leaned over him in response +and talked ever to him, barely stroking him with the tips of her +stiffened fingers. + +The afternoon was so quiet that by and by through the opened windows a +deep note sent a thrill into the room--the awakened soul of the organ. +And as the two listened to it in silence, soon there floated over to +them the voices of the choir as the line moved slowly down the aisle, +the blended voices of the chosen band, his school-fellows of the altar. +By the bedside she suddenly rocked to and fro, and then she bent over +and said with a smile in her tone: + +"_Do you hear? Do you hear them?_" + +He made a motion with his lips to speak but they hurt him too much. So +he nodded: that he heard them. + +A moment later he tugged at the bandage over his eyes. + +She sprang toward him: + +"O my precious one, you must not tear the bandage off your eyes!" + +"I want to see you!" he mumbled. "It has been so long since I saw you! +What's the matter with you? Where are your hands? Why don't you put your +arms around me?" + + + + +VI + +The class had been engaged with another model. Their work was forced and +listless. As days passed without the mother's return, their thought and +their talk concerned itself more and more with her disappearance. Why +had she not come back? What had befallen her? What did it all mean? +Would they ever know? + +One day after their luncheon-hour, as they were about to resume work, +the teacher of the class entered. He looked shocked; his look shocked +them; instant sympathy ran through them. He spoke with difficulty: + +"She has come back. She is down-stairs. Something had befallen her +indeed. She told me as briefly as possible and I tell you all I know. +Her son, a little fellow who had just been chosen for the cathedral +choir school was run over in the street. A mention of it--the usual +story--was in the papers, but who of us reads such things in the papers? +They bore us; they are not even news. He was taken to St. Luke's, and +she has been at St. Luke's, and the end came at St. Luke's, and all the +time we have been here a few yards distant and have known nothing of it. +Such is New York! It was to help pay for his education in music that she +first came to us, she said. And it was the news that he had been chosen +for the choir school that accounts for the new happiness which we saw +brighten her day by day. Now she comes again for the same small wage, +but with other need, no doubt: the expenses of it all, a rose-bush for +his breast. She told me this calmly as though it caused her no grief. It +was not my privilege, it is not our privilege, to share her unutterable +bereavement. + +"She has asked to go on with the sittings. I have told her to come +to-morrow. But she does not realize all that this involves with the +portrait. You will have to bring new canvases, it will have to be a new +work. She is in mourning. Her hands will have to be left out, she has +hurt them; they are bandaged. The new portrait will be of the head and +face only. But the chief reason is the change of expression. The light +which was in her face and which you have partly caught upon your +canvases, has died out; it was brutally put out. The old look is gone. +It is gone, and will never come back--the tender, brooding, reverent +happiness and peace of motherhood with the child at her knee--that +great earthly beacon-light in women of ages past. It was brutally put +out but it did not leave blankness behind it. There has come in its +place another light, another ancient beacon-light on the faces of women +of old--the look of faith in immortal things. She is not now the mother +with the tenderness of this earth but the mother with the expectation of +eternity. Her eyes have followed him who has left her arms and gone into +a distance. Ever she follows him into that distance. Your portrait, if +you can paint it, will be the mother with the look of immortal things in +her face." + + * * * * * + +When she entered the room next morning, at the sight of her in mourning +and so changed in every way, with one impulse they all rose to her. She +took no notice,--perhaps it would have been unendurable to notice,--but +she stepped forward as usual, and climbed to the platform without +faltering, and he posed her for the head and shoulders. Then, to study +the effect from different angles, he went behind the easels, passing +from one to another. As he returned, with the thought of giving her +pleasure, he brought along with him one of the sketches of herself and +held it out before her. + +"Do you recognize it?" he asked. + +She refused to look at first. Then arousing herself from her +indifference she glanced at it. But when she beheld there what she had +never seen--how great had been her love of him; when she beheld there +the light now gone out and realized that it meant the end of happy days +with him, she shut her eyes quickly and jerked her head to one side +with a motion for him to take the picture away. But she had been +brought too close to her sorrow and suddenly she bent over her hands +like a snapped reed and the storm of her grief came upon her. + +They started up to get to her. They fought one another to get to her. +They crowded around the platform, and tried to hide her from one +another's eyes, and knelt down, and wound their arms about her, and +sobbed with her; and then they lifted her and guided her behind the +screens. + +"Now, if you will allow them," he said, when she came out with them, one +of them having lent her a veil, "some of these young friends will go +home with you. And whenever you wish, whenever you feel like it, come +back to us. We shall be ready. We shall be waiting. We shall all be +glad." + +On the heights the cathedral rises--slowly, as the great houses of man's +Christian faith have always risen. + +Years have drifted by as silently as the winds since the first rock was +riven where its foundations were to be laid, and still all day on the +clean air sounds the lonely clink of drill and chisel as the blasting +and the shaping of the stone goes on. The snows of winters have drifted +deep above its rough beginnings; the suns of many a spring have melted +the snows away. Well nigh a generation of human lives has already +measured its brief span about the cornerstones. Far-brought, +many-tongued toilers, toiling on the rising walls, have dropped their +work and stretched themselves in their last sleep; others have climbed +to their places; the work goes on. Upon the shoulders of the images of +the Apostles, which stand about the chancel, generations of +pigeons--the doves of the temple whose nests are in the niches--upon the +shoulders of the Apostles generations of pigeons born in the niches have +descended out of the azure as with the benediction of shimmering wings. +Generations of the wind-borne seeds of wild flowers have lodged in low +crevices and have sprouted and blossomed, and as seeds again have been +blown further on--harbingers of vines and mosses already on their +venerable way. + +A mighty shape begins to answer back to the cathedrals of other lands +and ages, bespeaking for itself admittance into the league of the +world's august sanctuaries. It begins to send its annunciation onward +into ages yet to be, so remote, so strange, that we know not in what +sense the men of it will even be our human brothers save as they are +children of the same Father. + +Between this past and this future, the one of which cannot answer +because it is too late and the other of which can not answer because it +is too soon--between this past and this future the cathedral stands in a +present that answers back to it more and more. For a world of living-men +and women see kindled there the same ancient flame that has been the +light of all earlier stations on that solitary road of faith which runs +for a little space between the two eternities--a road strewn with the +dust of countless wayfarers bearing each a different cross of burden but +with eyes turned toward the same Cross of hope. + +As on some mountain-top a tall pine-tree casts its lengthened shadow +upon the valleys far below, round and round with the circuit of the sun, +so the cathedral flings hither and thither across the whole land its +spiritual shaft of light. A vast, unnumbered throng begin to hear of it, +begin to look toward it, begin to grow familiar with its emerging form. +In imagination they see its chapels bathed in the glories of the morning +sun; they remember its unfinished dome gilded at the hush of sunsets. +Between the roar of the eastern and of the western ocean its organ +speaks of a Divine peace above mortal storm. Pilgrims from afar, known +only to themselves as pilgrims, being pilgrim-hearted but not +pilgrim-clad, reach at its gates the borders of their Gethsemane. Bowed +as penitents, they hail its lily of forgiveness and the resurrection. + +Slowly the cathedral rises, in what unknown years to stand finished! +Crowning a city of new people, let it be hoped, of better laws. Finished +and standing on its rock for the order of the streets, for order in the +land and order throughout the world, for order in the secret places of +the soul. Majestical rebuker of the waste of lives, rebuker of a country +which invites all lives into it and wastes lives most ruthlessly--lives +which it stands there to shelter and to foster and to save. + +So it speaks to the distant through space and time; but it speaks also +to the near. + +Although not half risen out of the earth, encumbering it rough and +shapeless, already it draws into its service many who dwell around. +These seek to cast their weaknesses on its strength, to join their brief +day to its innumerable years, to fall into the spiritual splendor of it +as out in space small darkened wanderers drop into the orbit of a sun. +Anguished memories begin to bequeath their jewels to its shrine; dimmed +eyes will their tears to its eyes, its windows. Old age with one foot in +the grave drags the other resignedly about its crypt. In its choir sound +the voices of children herded in from the green hillside of life's +April. + + * * * * * + +Rachel Truesdale! Her life became one of these near-by lives which it +blesses, a darkened wanderer caught into the splendor of a spiritual +sun. It gathered her into its service; it found useful work for her to +do; and in this new life of hers it drew out of her nature the last +thing that is ever born of the mother--faith that she is separated a +little while from her children only because they have received the gift +of eternal youth. + +Many a proud happy thought became hers as time went on. She had had her +share in its glory, for it had needed him whom she had brought into the +world. It had called upon him to help give song to its message and to +build that ever-falling rainbow of music over which human Hope walks +into the eternal. + +Always as the line of white-clad choristers passed down the aisle, among +them was one who brushed tenderly against her as he walked by, whom no +one else saw. Rising above the actual voices and heard by her alone, up +to the dome soared a voice dearer, more thrilling, than the rest. + +Often she was at her window, watching the workmen at their toil as they +brought out more and more the great shape on the heights. Often she +stood looking across at the park hillside opposite. Whenever spring came +back and the slope lived again with young leaves and white blossoms, +always she thought of him. Always she saw him playing in an eternal +April. When autumn returned and leaves withered and dropped, she thought +of herself. + +Sometimes standing beside his piano. + +Having always in her face the look of immortal things. + + * * * * * + +The cathedral there on its rock for ages saying: + +"_I am the Resurrection and the Life_." + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Cathedral Singer, by James Lane Allen + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CATHEDRAL SINGER *** + +***** This file should be named 15385.txt or 15385.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/3/8/15385/ + +Produced by Kentuckiana Digital Library, David Garcia, Chuck Greif +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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