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diff --git a/22705-8.txt b/22705-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3cbc09c --- /dev/null +++ b/22705-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1067 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Summer Evening's Dream, by Edward Bellamy + +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 Summer Evening's Dream + 1898 + +Author: Edward Bellamy + +Release Date: September 21, 2007 [EBook #22705] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SUMMER EVENING'S DREAM *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +A SUMMER EVENING'S DREAM + +By Edward Bellamy + +1898 + + +It is a village street, with great elms on either side, while along the +middle stands another row set in a narrow strip of grassy common, so +that the street and roadway are in reality double. The dwellings on +either side are not only widely parted by the broad street, but are +still further isolated, each in its large garden of ancient fruit +trees. It is four o'clock of a sunny August afternoon, and a quiet, +Sabbath-like but for its lazy voluptuousness, broods over the scene. +No carriage, or even pedestrian, has passed for an hour. The occasional +voices of children at play in some garden, the latching of a gate far +down the street, the dying fall of a drowsy chanticleer, are but the +punctuation of the poem of summer silence that has been flowing on all +the afternoon. Upon the tree-tops the sun blazes brightly, and between +their stems are glimpses of outlying meadows, which simmer in the heat +as if about to come to a boil. But the shadowed street offers a cool +and refreshing vista to the eye, and a veritable valley of refuge to the +parched and dusty traveler along the highway. + +On the broad piazza of one of the quaint old-fashioned houses, behind +a needless screen of climbing woodbine, two girls are whiling away the +afternoon. One of them is lounging in a lassy rocking-chair, while the +other sits more primly and is industriously sewing. + +"I suppose you 'll be glad enough to see George when he comes to-night +to take you back to the city? I'm afraid you find it pretty dull +here," said the latter, with an intonation of uneasy responsibility +sufficiently attesting that the brilliant-looking girl opposite was a +guest. + +That young lady, when addressed, was indulging in a luxurious country +yawn, an operation by no means to be hurried, but to be fully and lazily +enjoyed in all its several and long-drawn stages, and as thus practiced +a wonderfully calming and soporific relaxation wholly unknown to the +fretted denizens of cities, whose yawn is one of irritation and not of +rest. "I do so enjoy your Plainfield yawns, Lucy," she said when she +had quite finished. "Were you saying that it was a little dull? Well, +perhaps it is, but then the trees and things seem to be' enjoying +themselves so hugely that it would be selfish to make a fuss, even if it +is n't exactly my kind of fun." + +"Your kind of fun is due by the six-o'clock stage, I believe." + +The other laughed and said, "I wish you would n't make another allusion +to George. I think of him so much that I 'm ashamed, as it is. +I 'm sure this is a very aggravating place for an engaged girl to be +at. One gets so dreadfully sentimental with nothing to take up the +mind, especially with such monstrous moons as you have. I got fairly +frightened of the one last night. It drew me out through my eyes like a +big plaster." + +"Mabel French!" + +"I don't care; it did. That was just the feeling." + +There was no hurry about talking, for the rich, mellow summer silence +had a body to it that prevented pauses from seeming empty, and it might +have been half an hour afterward that Mabel suddenly leaned forward, +putting her face close to the vine-trellis, and cried in a low voice, +"Who's that? Po tell me! They're the very first persons who have gone by +this afternoon, I do believe." + +A pretty phaeton was slowly passing, containing an elderly gentleman and +lady. + +"Oh, that is only Lawyer Morgan and old Miss Rood," replied Lucy, just +glancing up, and then down again. "They go out driving once a week +regularly, and always at about this time in the afternoon." + +"They look like afternoon sort of people," said Mabel. "But why does n't +Lawyer Morgan take out his wife?" + +"He has n't got any. Miss Rood comes nearest to that. Oh, no, you +needn't open your eyes; there's not a properer old maid in town, or old +bachelor either, for that matter." + +"Are they relatives?" + +"No, indeed." + +"How long has this Platonic romance been going on, pray?" + +"Oh, ever since they were young,--forty years, perhaps. I only know by +tradition, you see. It began ages before my day. They say she was very +pretty once. Old Aunty Perkins remembers that she was quite the belle of +the village as a girl. It seems strange, does n't it?" + +"Tell me the whole story," said Mabel, turning round so as to face Lucy +as the phaeton passed out of sight. + +"There's not much to tell. Mr. Morgan has always lived here, and so has +Miss Rood. He lives alone with a housekeeper in that fine house at the +end of the street, and she entirely alone in that little white house +over there among the apple-trees. All the people who knew them when they +were young are dead, gone away, or moved off. They are relics of a +past generation, and are really about as much shut up to each other for +sympathy as an old married couple." + +"Well, why on earth are n't they married?" + +"People hereabouts got tired of asking that full thirty years ago," +replied Lucy, with a little shrug. "Even the gossips long since wore +out the subject, and I believe we have all of us forgotten that there +is anything peculiar about their relations. He calls on her two or three +times a week, and takes her out driving on pleasant days; escorts her +to places of amusement or social gatherings when either of them cares +to go, which is n't often; and wherever they are, people take it for +granted they will pair off together. He is never seen with any other +lady." + +"It's very strange," said Mabel thoughtfully, "and I'm sure it's very +romantic. Queer old couple! I wonder how they really feel toward each +other, and whether they would n't like to be married?" + +Awhile after she suddenly demanded, "Don't you think Miss Rood looks +like me?" + +Lucy laughed at first, but upon closer inspection of the fair questioner +admitted that there might be some such resemblance as the shriveled +apples brought up from the cellar in spring bear to the plump, +rosy-cheeked beauties that went down in October. + +If Mr. Morgan and Miss Rood, as they rode past, had chanced to overhear +Mabel's question why they had not married, it would have affected them +very differently. He would have been startled by the novelty of an idea +that had not occurred to him in twenty years, but the blush on her cheek +would have been one of painful consciousness. + +As boy and girl they had been each other's chosen companion, and as +young man and maiden their childish preference had bloomed into a +reciprocal love. Thanks to the freedom and simplicity of village +life, they enjoyed as lovers a constant and easy familiarity and daily +association almost as complete in sympathy of mind and heart as anything +marriage could offer. There were none of the usual obstacles to incite +them to matrimony. They were never even formally engaged, so wholly did +they take it for granted that they should marry. It was so much a matter +of course that there was no hurry at all about it; and besides, so +long as they had it to look forward to, the foreground of life +was illuminated for them: it was still morning. Mr. Morgan was +constitutionally of a dreamy and unpractical turn, a creature of habits +and a victim of ruts; and as years rolled on he became more and more +satisfied with these half-friendly, half-loverlike relations. He never +found the time when it seemed an object to marry, and now, for very many +years, the idea had not even occurred to him as possible; and so far +was he from the least suspicion that Miss Rood's experience had not been +precisely similar to his own, that he often congratulated himself on the +fortunate coincidence. + +Time cures much, and many years ago Miss Hood had recovered from the +first bitterness of discovering that his love had become insensibly +transformed into a very tender but perfectly peaceful friendship. No +one but him had ever touched her heart, and she had no interest in life +besides him. Since she was not to be his wife, she was glad to be his +lifelong, tender, self-sacrificing friend. So she raked the ashes over +the fire in her heart, and left him to suppose that it had gone out as +in his. Nor was she without compensation in their friendship. It was +with a delightful thrill that she felt how fully in mind and heart he +leaned and depended upon her, and the unusual and romantic character of +their relations in some degree consoled her for the disappointment of +womanly aspirations by a feeling of distinction. She was not like other +women: her lot was set apart and peculiar. She looked down upon her sex. +The conventionality of women's lives renders their vanity peculiarly +susceptible to a suggestion that their destiny is in any respect unique, +--a fact that has served the turn of many a seducer before now. To-day, +after returning from his drive with Miss Rood, Mr. Morgan had walked +in his garden, and as the evening breeze arose, it bore to his nostrils +that first indescribable flavor of autumn which warns us that the soul +of Summer has departed from her yet glowing body. He was very sensitive +to these changes of the year, and, obeying an impulse that had been +familiar to him in all unusual moods his life long, he left the house +after tea and turned his steps down the street. As he stopped at Miss +Rood's gate, Lucy, Mabel, and George Hammond were under the apple-trees +in the garden opposite. + +"Look, Mabel! There's Mr. Morgan going to call on Miss Rood," said Lucy +softly. + +"Oh, do look, George!" said Mabel eagerly. "That old gentleman has been +paying court to an old maid over in that little house for forty years. +And to think," she added in a lower tone, intended for his private ear, +"what a fuss you make about waiting six months!" + +"Humph! You please to forget that it's easier to wait for some things +than for others. Six months of my kind of waiting, I take it, require +more patience than forty years of his--or any other man's," he added, +with increased emphasis. + +"Be quiet, sir!" replied Mabel, answering his look of unruly admiration +with one of half pique. "I 'm not a sugar-plum, that's not enjoyed till +it's in the mouth. If you have n't got me now, you 'll never have me. If +being engaged isn't enough, you don't deserve to be married." And then, +seeing the blank expression with which he looked down at her, she +added with a prescient resigned-ness, "I 'm afraid, dear, you 'll be so +disappointed when we 're married, if you find this so tedious." + +Lucy had discreetly wandered away, and of how they made it up there were +no witnesses. But it seems likely that they did so, for shortly after +they wandered away together down the darkening street. + +Like most of the Plainfield houses, that at which Mr. Morgan turned +in stood well back from the street. At a side window, still further +sheltered from view by a gyringa-bush at the house corner, sat a little +woman with a small, pale face, the still attractive features perceptibly +sharpened by years, of which the half-gray hair bore further testimony. +The eyes, just now fixed absently upon the dusking landscape, were light +gray and a little faded, while around the lips there were crow's-feet, +especially when they were pressed together, as now, in an unsatisfied, +almost pathetic look, evidently habitual to her face when in repose. +There was withal something in her features that so reminded you of Mr. +Morgan that any one conversant with the facts of his life-romance would +have at once inferred--though by just what logic he might not be +able to explain--that this must be Miss Eood. It is well known that +long-wedded couples often gain at length a certain resemblance in +feature and manner; and although these two were not married, yet their +intimacy of a lifetime was perhaps the reason why her face bore when in +repose something of that seer-like expression which communion with the +bodiless shapes of memory had given to his. + +The latching of the gate broke up her depressing reverie, and banished +the pinched and pining look from her features. Among the neighbors Miss +Rood was sometimes called a sour old maid, but the face she kept for +Mr. Morgan would never have suggested that idea to the most ill-natured +critic. + +He stopped at the window, near which the walk passed to the doorway, and +stood leaning on the sill,--a tall, slender figure, stooping a +little, with smooth, scholarly face, and thin iron-gray hair. His +only noticeable feature was a pair of eyes whose expression and glow +indicated an imaginative temperament. It was pleasant to observe the +relieved restlessness in the look and manner of the two friends, as if +at the mere being in each other's presence, though neither seemed in any +haste to exchange even the words of formal greeting. + +At length she said, in a tone of quiet satisfaction, "I knew you +would come, for I was sure this deathly autumn's flavor would make you +restless. Is n't it strange how it affects the nerves of memory, and +makes one sad with thinking of all the sweet, dear days that are dead?" + +"Yes, yes," he answered eagerly; "I can think of nothing else. Do they +not seem wonderfully clear and near to-night? To-night, of all nights +in the year, if the figures and scenes of memory can be reëmbodied in +visible forms, they ought to become so to the eyes that strain and yearn +for them." + +"What a fanciful idea, Robert!" + +"I don't know that it is; I don't feel sure. Nobody understands the +mystery of this Past, or what are the conditions of existence in that +world. These memories, these forms and faces, that are so near, so +almost warm and visible that we find ourselves smiling on the vacant air +where they seem to be, are they not real and living?" + +"You don't mean you believe in ghosts?" + +"I am not talking of ghosts of the dead, but of ghosts of the past,-- +memories of scenes or persons, whether the persons are dead or not-- +of our own selves as well as others. Why," he continued, his voice +softening into a passionate, yearning tenderness, "the figure I would +give most to see just once more is yourself as a girl, as I remember you +in the sweet grace and beauty of your maidenhood. Ah, well! ah, well!" + +"Don't!" she cried involuntarily, while her features contracted in +sudden pain. + +In the years during which his passion for her had been cooling into a +staid friendship, his imagination had been recurring with constantly +increasing fondness and a dreamy passion to the memory of her +girlhood. And the cruelest part of it was that he so unconsciously and +unquestioningly assumed that she could not have identity enough with +that girlish ideal to make his frequent glowing references to it even +embarrassing. Generally, however, she heard and made no sign, but the +suddenness of his outburst just now had taken her off her guard. + +He glanced up with some surprise at her exclamation, but was too much +interested in his subject to take much notice of it. "You know," he +said, "there are great differences in the distinctness with which we +can bring up our memories. Very well! The only question is, What is the +limit to that distinctness, or is there any? Since we know there are +such wide degrees in distinctness, the burden of proof rests on those +who would prove that those degrees stop short of any particular point. +Don't you see, then, that it might be possible to see them?" And to +enforce his meaning he laid his hand lightly on hers as it rested on the +window-seat. + +She withdrew it instantly from the contact, and a slight flush tinged +her sallow cheeks. The only outward trace of her memory of their +youthful relations was the almost prudish chariness of her person by +which she indicated a sense of the line to be drawn between the former +lover and the present friend. + +"Something in your look just now," he said, regarding her musingly, as +one who seeks to trace the lineaments of a dead face in a living one, +"reminds me of you as you used to sit in this very window as a girl, +and I stood just here, and we picked out stars together. There! now it's +gone;" and he turned away regretfully. + +She looked at his averted face with a blank piteousness which revealed +all her secret. She would not have had him see it for worlds, but it was +a relief just for a moment to rest her features in the sad cast which +the muscles had grown tired in repressing. The autumn scent rose +stronger as the air grew damp, and he stood breathing it in, and +apparently feeling its influence like some Delphian afflatus. + +"Is there anything, Mary,--is there anything so beautiful as that +light of eternity that rests on the figures of memory? Who that has once +felt it can care for the common daylight of the present any more, or +take pleasure in its prosaic groups?" + +"You'll certainly catch cold standing in that wet grass; do come in and +let me shut the blinds," she said, for she had found cheerful lamplight +the best corrective for his vagaries. + +So he came in and sat in his special arm-chair, and they chatted about +miscellaneous village topics for an hour. The standpoint from which they +canvassed Plainfield people and things was a peculiarly outside one. +Their circle of two was like a separate planet from which they observed +the world. Their tone was like, and yet quite unlike, that in which +a long-married couple discuss their acquaintances; for, while their +intellectual intimacy was perfect, their air expressed a constant mutual +deference and solicitude of approbation not to be confounded with the +terrible familiarity of matrimony; and at the same time they constituted +a self-sufficient circle, apart from the society around them, as man and +wife cannot. Man and wife are so far merged as to feel themselves a unit +over against society. They are too much identified to find in each other +that sense of support and countenance which requires a feeling of the +exteriority of our friend's life to our own. If these two should +marry, they would shortly find themselves impelled to seek refuge in +conventional relations with that society of which now they were calmly +independent. + +At length Mr. Morgan rose and threw open the blinds. The radiance of the +full harvest-moon so flooded the room that Miss Eood was fain to blow +out the poor lamp for compassion. "Let us take a walk," he said. + +The streets were empty and still, and they walked in silence, spelled by +the perfect beauty of the evening. The dense shadows of the elms lent a +peculiarly rich effect to the occasional bars and patches of moonlight +on the street floor; the white houses gleamed among their orchards; and +here and there, between the dark tree-stems, there were glimpses of +the shining surface of the broad outlying meadows, which looked like a +surrounding sea. + +Miss Rood was startled to see how the witchery of the scene possessed +her companion. His face took on a set, half-smiling expression, and he +dropped her arm as if they had arrived at the place of entertainment to +which he had been escorting her. He no longer walked with measured pace, +but glided along with a certain stealthiness, peering on this side and +that down moony vistas and into shadow-bowers, as if half-expecting, +if he might step lightly enough, to catch a glimpse of some sort of +dream-people basking there. + +Nor could Miss Rood herself resist the impression the moony landscape +gave of teeming with subtle forms of life, escaping the grosser senses +of human beings, but perceptible by their finer parts. Each cosy nook of +light and shadow was yet warm from some presence that had just left it. +The landscape fairly stirred with ethereal forms of being beneath the +fertilizing moon-rays, as the earth-mould wakes into physical life under +the sun's heat. The yellow moonlight looked warm as spirits might count +warmth. The air was electric with the thrill of circumambient existence. +There was the sense of pressure, of a throng. It would have been +impossible to feel lonely. The pulsating sounds of the insect world +seemed the rhythm to which the voluptuous beauty of the night had +spontaneously set itself. The common air of day had been transmuted +into the atmosphere of reverie and Dreamland. In that magic medium the +distinction between imagination and reality fast dissolved. Even Miss +Bood was conscious of a delightful excitement, a vague expectancy. Mr. +Morgan, she saw, was moved quite beyond even his exaggerated habit of +imaginative excitement. His wet, shining, wide-opened eyes and ecstatic +expression indicated complete abandonment to the illusions of the scene. + +They had seated themselves, as the concentration of the brain upon +imaginative activity made the nerves of motion sluggish, upon a rude +bench formed by wedging a plank between two elms that stood close +together. They were within the shadow of the trees, but close up to +their feet rippled a lake of moonlight. The landscape shimmering before +them had been the theatre of their fifty years of life. Their history +was written in its trees and lawns and paths. The very air of the place +had acquired for them a dense, warm, sentient feeling, to which that of +all other places was thin and raw. It had become tinctured by their own +spiritual emanations, by the thoughts, looks, words and moods of which +it had so long received the impression. It had become such vitalized +air, surcharged with sense and thought, as might be taken to make souls +for men out of. + +Over yonder, upon the playground, yet lingered the faint violet +fragrance of their childhood. Beneath that elm a kiss had once touched +the air with a fire that still warmed their cheeks in passing. Yonder +the look of a face was cut on the viewless air as on marble. Surely, +death does but touch the living, for the dead ever keep their power over +us; it is only we who lose ours over them. Each vista of leafy arch and +distant meadow framed in some scene of their youth-time, painted in the +imperishable hues of memory that borrow from time an ever richer and +more glowing tint. It was no wonder that to these two old people, +sitting on the bench between the elms, the atmosphere before them, +saturated with associations, dense with memories, should seem fairly +quivering into material forms, like a distant mist turning to rain. + +At length Miss Rood heard her companion say, in a whisper of tremulous +exultation, "Do you know, Mary, I think I shall see them very soon." + +"See whom?" she asked, frightened at his strange tone. + +"Why, see us, of course, as I was telling you," he whispered,--"you +and me as we were young,--see them as I see you now. Don't you remember +it was just along here that we used to walk on spring evenings? We walk +here no more, but they do evermore, beautiful, beautiful children. I +come here often to lie in wait for them. I can feel them now; I can +almost, almost see them." His whisper became scarcely audible and the +words dropped slowly. "I know the sight is coming, for every day they +grow more vivid. It can't be long before I quite see them. It may come +at any moment." + +Miss Rood was thoroughly frightened at the intensity of his excitement, +and terribly perplexed as to what she should do. + +"It may come at any time; I can almost see them now," he murmured. +"A--h! look!" With parted lips and unspeakably intense eyes, as if his +life were flowing out at them, he was staring across the moonlit paths +before them to the point where the path debouched from the shadow. + +Following his eyes, she saw what for a moment made her head swim with +the thought that she too was going mad. Just issuing from the shadows, +as if in answer to his words, were a young man and a girl, his arm upon +her waist, his eyes upon her face. At the first glance Miss Rood was +impressed with a resemblance to her own features in those of the girl, +which her excitement exaggerated to a perfect reproduction of them. +For an instant the conviction possessed her that by some impossible, +indescribable, inconceivable miracle she was looking upon the +resurrected figures of her girlish self and her lover. + +At first Mr. Morgan had half started from his seat, and was between +rising and sitting. Then he rose with a slow, involuntary movement, +while his face worked terribly between bewilderment and abandonment to +illusion. He tottered forward a few steps to the edge of the moonlight, +and stood peering at the approaching couple with a hand raised to shade +his eyes and a dazed, unearthly smile on his face. The girl saw him +first, for she had been gazing demurely before her, while her lover +looked only at her. At sight of the gray-haired man suddenly confronting +them with a look of bedlam, she shrieked and started back in terror. +Miss Rood, recalled to her senses, sprang forward, and catching Mr. +Morgan's arm endeavored with gentle force to draw him away. + +But it was too late for that. The young man, at first almost as +much startled as his companion at the uncanny apparition, naturally +experienced a revulsion of indignation at such an extraordinary +interruption to his tête-à-tête, and stepped up to Mr. Morgan as if +about to inflict summary chastisement. But perceiving that he had to do +with an elderly man, he contented himself with demanding in a decidedly +aggressive tone what the devil he meant by such a performance. + +Mr. Morgan stared at him without seeing him, and evidently did not take +in the words. He merely gasped once or twice, and looked as if he had +fainted away on his feet. His blank, stunned expression showed that his +faculties were momentarily benumbed by the shock. Miss Rood felt as if +she should die for the pity of it as she looked at his face, and her +heart was breaking for grief as she sought to mollify the young man with +some inarticulate words of apology, meanwhile still endeavoring to draw +Mr. Morgan away. But at this moment the girl, recovering from her panic, +came up to the group and laid her hand on the young man's arm, as if to +check and silence him. It was evident that she saw there was something +quite unusual in the circumstances, and the look which she bent upon Mr. +Morgan was one of sympathy and considerate interrogation. But Miss +Rood could see no way out of their awkward situation, which grew more +intolerable every moment as they thus confronted each other. It was +finally Mr. Morgan's voice, quite firm, but with an indescribable +sadness in the tones, which broke the silence: "Young people, I owe you +an apology, such as it is. I am an old man, and the past is growing so +heavy that it sometimes quite overbalances me. My thoughts have been +busy to-night with the days of my youth, and the spell of memory has +been so strong that I have not been quite myself. As you came into view +I actually entertained the incredible idea for a moment that somehow I +saw in you the materialized memories of myself and another as we once +walked this same path." + +The young man bowed, as Mr. Morgan ended, in a manner indicating his +acceptance of the apology, although he looked both amazed and amused. +But the explanation had a very different effect upon the girl at his +side. As she listened, her eyes had filled with tears, and her face had +taken on a wonderfully tender, pitiful smile. When he ended speaking, +she impulsively said, "I 'm so sorry we were not what you thought us! +Why not pretend we are, to-night at least? We can pretend it, you know. +The moonlight makes anything possible;" and then glancing at Miss Rood, +she added, as if almost frightened, "Why, how much we look alike! I 'm +not sure it isn't true, anyway." + +This was, in fact, an unusually marked example of those casual +resemblances between strangers which are sometimes seen. The hair of the +one was indeed gray and that of the other dark, but the eyes were of the +same color by night, and the features, except for the greater fullness +of the younger face, were cast in the same mould, while figure and +bearing were strikingly similar, although daylight would doubtless have +revealed diversities, enough that moonlight refused to disclose. + +The two women looked at each other with an expression almost of +suspicion and fear, while the young man observed, "Your mistake was +certainly excusable, sir." + +"It will be the easier to pretend," said the girl, as with a +half-serious, half-sportive imperiousness she laid her hand on Mr. +Morgan's arm. "And now it is thirty years ago, and we are walking +together." He involuntarily obeyed the slight pressure, and they walked +slowly away, leaving the other two, after an embarrassed pause, to +follow them. + +For some time they walked in silence. He was deliberately abandoning +himself to the illusion, supported as it was by the evidence of his +senses, that he was wandering in some of the mysterious be-tween-worlds +which he had so often dreamed of, with the love of his youth in her +youth-time charm. Did he really believe it to be so? Belief is a term +quite irrelevant to such a frame as his, in which the reflective +and analytical powers are for a time purposely held in abeyance. The +circumstances of her introduction to him had dropped from his mind as +irrelevant accidents, like the absurdities which occur in our sweetest +and most solemn dreams without marring their general impression in our +memories. Every glance he threw upon his companion, while on the one +hand it shocked his illusion in that she seemed not likely to vanish +away, on the other strengthened it with an indescribable thrill by the +revelation of some fresh trait of face or figure, some new expression, +that reproduced the Miss Rood of his youth. Not, indeed, that it +is likely his companion was thus perfectly the double of that lady, +although so much resembling her, but the common graces of maidenhood +were in Mr. Morgan's mind the peculiar personal qualities of the only +woman he had ever much known. + +Of his own accord he would not have dared to risk breaking the charm by +a word. But his companion--who, as is tolerably evident by this time, +was Mabel French--had meanwhile formed a scheme quite worthy of her +audacious temper. She had at once recognized both Mr. Morgan and Miss +Rood, and had gone thus far from a mere romantic impulse, without +definite intentions of any sort. But the idea now came into her head +that she might take advantage of this extraordinary situation to try a +match-making experiment, which instantly captivated her fancy. So she +said, while ever so gently pressing his arm and looking up into his face +with an arch smile (she was recognized as the best amateur actress in +her set at home), "I wonder if the moon will be so mellow after we are +married?" + +His illusion was rudely disturbed by the shock of an articulate voice, +softly and low as she spoke, and he looked around with a startled +expression that made her fear her rôle was ended. But she could not +know that the eyes she turned to his were mirrors where he saw his dead +youth. The two Miss Roods--the girl and the woman, the past and the +present--were fused and become one in his mind. Their identity flashed +upon him. + +An artesian well sunk from the desert surface through the underlying +strata, the layers of ages, strikes some lake long ago covered over, and +the water welling up converts the upper waste into a garden. Just so +at her words and her look his heart suddenly filled, as if it came from +afar, with the youthful passion he had felt toward Miss Bood, but which, +he knew not exactly when or how, had been gradually overgrown with the +dullness of familiarity and had lapsed into an indolent affectionate +habit. The warm, voluptuous pulse of this new feeling--new, and yet +instantly recognized as old--brought with it a flood of youthful +associations, and commingled the far past with the present in a +confusion more complete and more intoxicating than ever. He saw double +again. "Married!" he murmured dreamily. "Yes, surely, we will be +married." + +And as he spoke, he looked at her with such a peculiar expression that +she was a little frightened. It looked like a more serious business than +she had counted on, and for a moment, if she could have cut and run, +perhaps she would have done so. But she had a strain of the true +histrionic artist about her, and with a little effort rose to the +difficulty of the rôle. "Of course we will be married," she replied, +with an air of innocent surprise. "You speak as if you had just thought +of it." + +He turned toward her as if he would sober his senses by staring at her, +his pupils dilating and contracting in the instinctive effort to clear +the mind by clearing the eyes. + +But with a steady pressure on his arm she compelled him to walk on by +her side. Then she said, in a soft, low voice, as if a little awed by +what she were telling, while at the same time she nestled nearer his +side, "I had such a sad dream last night, and your strange talk reminds +me of it. It seemed as if we were old and white-haired and stooping, +and went wandering about, still together, but not married, lonely and +broken. And I woke up feeling you can't think how dreary and sad,-- +as if a bell had tolled in my ears as I slept; and the feeling was so +strong that I put my fingers to my face to find if it was withered; and +when I could not tell certainly, I got up and lit my lamp and looked in +the glass; and my face, thank God! was fresh and young; but I sat on my +bed and cried to think of the poor old people I had left behind in my +dream." + +Mabel had so fallen into the spirit of her part that she was really +crying as she ended. Her tears completed Mr. Morgan's mental confusion, +and he absolutely did not know whom he was addressing or where he was +himself, as he cried, "No, no, Mary! Don't cry! It shall not be; it +shall never be." + +Lightly withdrawing her hand from his arm, she glided like a sprite from +his side, and was lost in the shadows, while her whispered words still +sounded in his ear, "Good-by for thirty years!" + +A moment after, three notes, clear as a bird's call, sounded from the +direction whither she had vanished, and Miss Rood's companion, breaking +off short a remark on the excessive dryness of the weather, bowed +awkwardly and also disappeared among the shadows. + +When Miss Rood laid her hand on Mr. Morgan's arm to recall him to the +fact that they were now alone together, he turned quickly, and his +eyes swept her from head to foot, and then rested on her face with an +expression of intense curiosity and a wholly new interest, as if he were +tracing out a suddenly suggested resemblance which overwhelmed him with +emotion. And as he gazed, his eyes began to take fire from the faded +features on which they had rested so many years in mere complacent +friendliness, and she instinctively averted her face. + +Long intimacy had made her delicately sensitive to his moods, and when +he drew her arm in his and turned to walk, although he had not uttered a +word, she trembled with agitation. + +"Mary, we have had an extraordinary experience to-night," he said. +The old dreaminess in his voice, as of one narcotized or in a trance, +sometimes a little forced, as of one trying to dream, to which she had +become accustomed, and of which in her heart of hearts she was very +weary, was gone. In its place she recognized a resonance which still +further confused her with a sense of altered relations. His polarity had +changed: his electricity was no longer negative, but positive. + +Her feminine instinct vaguely alarmed, she replied, "Yes, indeed, but +it is getting late. Had n't we better go in?" What lent the unusual +intonation of timidity to her voice? Certainly nothing that she could +have explained. + +"Not quite yet, Mary," he answered, turning his gaze once more fully +upon her. + +Her eyes dropped before his, and a moment after fluttered up to find an +explanation for their behavior, only to fall again in blind panic. +For, mingling unmistakably with the curiosity with which he was still +studying her features, was a newborn expression of appropriation and +passionate complacency. Her senses whirled in a bewilderment that had +a suffocating sweetness about it. Though she now kept her eyes on the +ground, she felt his constant sidewise glances, and, desperately seeking +relief from the conscious silence that enveloped them like a vapor of +intoxicating fumes, she forced herself to utter the merest triviality +she could summon to her lips: "See that house." The husky tones betrayed +more agitation than the ruse concealed. + +He answered as irrelevantly as she had spoken, "Yes, indeed, so it is." +That was their only attempt at conversation. + +For a half hour--it might have been much more or much less--they +walked in this way, thrilling with the new magnetism that at once +attracted and estranged them with an extraordinary sense of strangeness +in familiarity. At length they paused under the little porch of Miss +Rood's cottage, where he commonly bade her good-evening after their +walks. The timidity and vague alarms that had paralyzed her while +they were walking disappeared as he was about to leave her, and she +involuntarily returned his unusual pressure of her hand. + +A long time after, behold her still encircled in his arms, not blushing, +but pale and her eyes full of a soft, astonished glow! "Oh, Robert!" was +all she had said after one first little gasp. + +They never met George or Mabel again. Mrs. Morgan learned subsequently +that two young people from the city answering their description had been +guests at the opposite house, and had left Plainfield the morning after +the events hereinbefore set forth, and drew her conclusions accordingly. +But her husband preferred to cherish the secret belief that his theory +that memories might become visible had proved true in one instance at +least. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's A Summer Evening's Dream, by Edward Bellamy + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SUMMER EVENING'S DREAM *** + +***** This file should be named 22705-8.txt or 22705-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/7/0/22705/ + +Produced by David Widger + +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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