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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/346-0.txt b/346-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..01b58db --- /dev/null +++ b/346-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8908 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Troll Garden and Selected Stories, by Willa Cather + +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: The Troll Garden and Selected Stories + +Author: Willa Cather + +Release Date: October, 1995 [Etext #346] +Posting Date: November 10, 2009 +Last Updated: March 9, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TROLL GARDEN *** + + + + +Produced by Judith Boss + + + + + +THE TROLL GARDEN + +AND + +SELECTED STORIES + +By Willa Cather + + +Contents + + + +_Selected Stories_ + + On the Divide + Eric Hermannson's Soul + The Enchanted Bluff + The Bohemian Girl + + +_The Troll Garden_ + + Flavia and Her Artists + The Sculptor's Funeral + “A Death in the Desert” + The Garden Lodge + The Marriage of Phaedra + A Wagner Matinee + Paul's Case + + + + +SELECTED STORIES + + + + +On the Divide + + +Near Rattlesnake Creek, on the side of a little draw stood Canute's +shanty. North, east, south, stretched the level Nebraska plain of long +rust-red grass that undulated constantly in the wind. To the west the +ground was broken and rough, and a narrow strip of timber wound along +the turbid, muddy little stream that had scarcely ambition enough to +crawl over its black bottom. If it had not been for the few stunted +cottonwoods and elms that grew along its banks, Canute would have shot +himself years ago. The Norwegians are a timber-loving people, and if +there is even a turtle pond with a few plum bushes around it they seem +irresistibly drawn toward it. + +As to the shanty itself, Canute had built it without aid of any kind, +for when he first squatted along the banks of Rattlesnake Creek there +was not a human being within twenty miles. It was built of logs split +in halves, the chinks stopped with mud and plaster. The roof was covered +with earth and was supported by one gigantic beam curved in the shape of +a round arch. It was almost impossible that any tree had ever grown in +that shape. The Norwegians used to say that Canute had taken the log +across his knee and bent it into the shape he wished. There were +two rooms, or rather there was one room with a partition made of ash +saplings interwoven and bound together like big straw basket work. In +one corner there was a cook stove, rusted and broken. In the other a +bed made of unplaned planks and poles. It was fully eight feet long, and +upon it was a heap of dark bed clothing. There was a chair and a bench +of colossal proportions. There was an ordinary kitchen cupboard with +a few cracked dirty dishes in it, and beside it on a tall box a tin +washbasin. Under the bed was a pile of pint flasks, some broken, +some whole, all empty. On the wood box lay a pair of shoes of almost +incredible dimensions. On the wall hung a saddle, a gun, and some ragged +clothing, conspicuous among which was a suit of dark cloth, apparently +new, with a paper collar carefully wrapped in a red silk handkerchief +and pinned to the sleeve. Over the door hung a wolf and a badger skin, +and on the door itself a brace of thirty or forty snake skins whose +noisy tails rattled ominously every time it opened. The strangest things +in the shanty were the wide windowsills. At first glance they looked as +though they had been ruthlessly hacked and mutilated with a hatchet, but +on closer inspection all the notches and holes in the wood took form and +shape. There seemed to be a series of pictures. They were, in a rough +way, artistic, but the figures were heavy and labored, as though they +had been cut very slowly and with very awkward instruments. There were +men plowing with little horned imps sitting on their shoulders and on +their horses' heads. There were men praying with a skull hanging over +their heads and little demons behind them mocking their attitudes. There +were men fighting with big serpents, and skeletons dancing together. All +about these pictures were blooming vines and foliage such as never grew +in this world, and coiled among the branches of the vines there was +always the scaly body of a serpent, and behind every flower there was +a serpent's head. It was a veritable Dance of Death by one who had felt +its sting. In the wood box lay some boards, and every inch of them +was cut up in the same manner. Sometimes the work was very rude and +careless, and looked as though the hand of the workman had trembled. It +would sometimes have been hard to distinguish the men from their evil +geniuses but for one fact, the men were always grave and were either +toiling or praying, while the devils were always smiling and dancing. +Several of these boards had been split for kindling and it was evident +that the artist did not value his work highly. + +It was the first day of winter on the Divide. Canute stumbled into his +shanty carrying a basket of cobs, and after filling the stove, sat +down on a stool and crouched his seven foot frame over the fire, staring +drearily out of the window at the wide gray sky. He knew by heart every +individual clump of bunch grass in the miles of red shaggy prairie that +stretched before his cabin. He knew it in all the deceitful loveliness +of its early summer, in all the bitter barrenness of its autumn. He had +seen it smitten by all the plagues of Egypt. He had seen it parched by +drought, and sogged by rain, beaten by hail, and swept by fire, and in +the grasshopper years he had seen it eaten as bare and clean as bones +that the vultures have left. After the great fires he had seen it +stretch for miles and miles, black and smoking as the floor of hell. + +He rose slowly and crossed the room, dragging his big feet heavily as +though they were burdens to him. He looked out of the window into the +hog corral and saw the pigs burying themselves in the straw before the +shed. The leaden gray clouds were beginning to spill themselves, and the +snow flakes were settling down over the white leprous patches of frozen +earth where the hogs had gnawed even the sod away. He shuddered and +began to walk, trampling heavily with his ungainly feet. He was the +wreck of ten winters on the Divide and he knew what that meant. Men fear +the winters of the Divide as a child fears night or as men in the North +Seas fear the still dark cold of the polar twilight. His eyes fell upon +his gun, and he took it down from the wall and looked it over. He +sat down on the edge of his bed and held the barrel towards his face, +letting his forehead rest upon it, and laid his finger on the trigger. +He was perfectly calm, there was neither passion nor despair in his +face, but the thoughtful look of a man who is considering. Presently +he laid down the gun, and reaching into the cupboard, drew out a pint +bottle of raw white alcohol. Lifting it to his lips, he drank greedily. +He washed his face in the tin basin and combed his rough hair and +shaggy blond beard. Then he stood in uncertainty before the suit of dark +clothes that hung on the wall. For the fiftieth time he took them in +his hands and tried to summon courage to put them on. He took the paper +collar that was pinned to the sleeve of the coat and cautiously slipped +it under his rough beard, looking with timid expectancy into the +cracked, splashed glass that hung over the bench. With a short laugh he +threw it down on the bed, and pulling on his old black hat, he went out, +striking off across the level. + +It was a physical necessity for him to get away from his cabin once in a +while. He had been there for ten years, digging and plowing and sowing, +and reaping what little the hail and the hot winds and the frosts left +him to reap. Insanity and suicide are very common things on the Divide. +They come on like an epidemic in the hot wind season. Those scorching +dusty winds that blow up over the bluffs from Kansas seem to dry up the +blood in men's veins as they do the sap in the corn leaves. Whenever the +yellow scorch creeps down over the tender inside leaves about the ear, +then the coroners prepare for active duty; for the oil of the country is +burned out and it does not take long for the flame to eat up the wick. +It causes no great sensation there when a Dane is found swinging to his +own windmill tower, and most of the Poles after they have become too +careless and discouraged to shave themselves keep their razors to cut +their throats with. + +It may be that the next generation on the Divide will be very happy, but +the present one came too late in life. It is useless for men that have +cut hemlocks among the mountains of Sweden for forty years to try to be +happy in a country as flat and gray and naked as the sea. It is not easy +for men that have spent their youth fishing in the Northern seas to be +content with following a plow, and men that have served in the Austrian +army hate hard work and coarse clothing on the loneliness of the plains, +and long for marches and excitement and tavern company and pretty +barmaids. After a man has passed his fortieth birthday it is not easy +for him to change the habits and conditions of his life. Most men bring +with them to the Divide only the dregs of the lives that they have +squandered in other lands and among other peoples. + +Canute Canuteson was as mad as any of them, but his madness did not +take the form of suicide or religion but of alcohol. He had always taken +liquor when he wanted it, as all Norwegians do, but after his first year +of solitary life he settled down to it steadily. He exhausted whisky +after a while, and went to alcohol, because its effects were speedier +and surer. He was a big man and with a terrible amount of resistant +force, and it took a great deal of alcohol even to move him. After nine +years of drinking, the quantities he could take would seem fabulous to +an ordinary drinking man. He never let it interfere with his work, he +generally drank at night and on Sundays. Every night, as soon as his +chores were done, he began to drink. While he was able to sit up he +would play on his mouth harp or hack away at his window sills with his +jackknife. When the liquor went to his head he would lie down on his bed +and stare out of the window until he went to sleep. He drank alone and +in solitude not for pleasure or good cheer, but to forget the awful +loneliness and level of the Divide. Milton made a sad blunder when he +put mountains in hell. Mountains postulate faith and aspiration. All +mountain peoples are religious. It was the cities of the plains that, +because of their utter lack of spirituality and the mad caprice of their +vice, were cursed of God. + +Alcohol is perfectly consistent in its effects upon man. Drunkenness is +merely an exaggeration. A foolish man drunk becomes maudlin; a bloody +man, vicious; a coarse man, vulgar. Canute was none of these, but he was +morose and gloomy, and liquor took him through all the hells of Dante. +As he lay on his giant's bed all the horrors of this world and every +other were laid bare to his chilled senses. He was a man who knew no +joy, a man who toiled in silence and bitterness. The skull and the +serpent were always before him, the symbols of eternal futileness and of +eternal hate. + +When the first Norwegians near enough to be called neighbors came, +Canute rejoiced, and planned to escape from his bosom vice. But he was +not a social man by nature and had not the power of drawing out the +social side of other people. His new neighbors rather feared him because +of his great strength and size, his silence and his lowering brows. +Perhaps, too, they knew that he was mad, mad from the eternal treachery +of the plains, which every spring stretch green and rustle with the +promises of Eden, showing long grassy lagoons full of clear water +and cattle whose hoofs are stained with wild roses. Before autumn the +lagoons are dried up, and the ground is burnt dry and hard until it +blisters and cracks open. + +So instead of becoming a friend and neighbor to the men that settled +about him, Canute became a mystery and a terror. They told awful stories +of his size and strength and of the alcohol he drank. + +They said that one night, when he went out to see to his horses just +before he went to bed, his steps were unsteady and the rotten planks +of the floor gave way and threw him behind the feet of a fiery young +stallion. His foot was caught fast in the floor, and the nervous horse +began kicking frantically. When Canute felt the blood trickling down +into his eyes from a scalp wound in his head, he roused himself from his +kingly indifference, and with the quiet stoical courage of a drunken man +leaned forward and wound his arms about the horse's hind legs and held +them against his breast with crushing embrace. All through the darkness +and cold of the night he lay there, matching strength against strength. +When little Jim Peterson went over the next morning at four o'clock to +go with him to the Blue to cut wood, he found him so, and the horse was +on its fore knees, trembling and whinnying with fear. This is the story +the Norwegians tell of him, and if it is true it is no wonder that they +feared and hated this Holder of the Heels of Horses. + +One spring there moved to the next “eighty” a family that made a great +change in Canute's life. Ole Yensen was too drunk most of the time to be +afraid of any one, and his wife Mary was too garrulous to be afraid of +any one who listened to her talk, and Lena, their pretty daughter, was +not afraid of man nor devil. So it came about that Canute went over to +take his alcohol with Ole oftener than he took it alone, After a while +the report spread that he was going to marry Yensen's daughter, and the +Norwegian girls began to tease Lena about the great bear she was going +to keep house for. No one could quite see how the affair had come about, +for Canute's tactics of courtship were somewhat peculiar. He apparently +never spoke to her at all: he would sit for hours with Mary chattering +on one side of him and Ole drinking on the other and watch Lena at her +work. She teased him, and threw flour in his face and put vinegar in +his coffee, but he took her rough jokes with silent wonder, never even +smiling. He took her to church occasionally, but the most watchful and +curious people never saw him speak to her. He would sit staring at her +while she giggled and flirted with the other men. + +Next spring Mary Lee went to town to work in a steam laundry. She came +home every Sunday, and always ran across to Yensens to startle Lena +with stories of ten cent theaters, firemen's dances, and all the other +esthetic delights of metropolitan life. In a few weeks Lena's head was +completely turned, and she gave her father no rest until he let her go +to town to seek her fortune at the ironing board. From the time she came +home on her first visit she began to treat Canute with contempt. She had +bought a plush cloak and kid gloves, had her clothes made by the dress +maker, and assumed airs and graces that made the other women of the +neighborhood cordially detest her. She generally brought with her a +young man from town who waxed his mustache and wore a red necktie, and +she did not even introduce him to Canute. + +The neighbors teased Canute a good deal until he knocked one of them +down. He gave no sign of suffering from her neglect except that he drank +more and avoided the other Norwegians more carefully than ever, He lay +around in his den and no one knew what he felt or thought, but little +Jim Peterson, who had seen him glowering at Lena in church one Sunday +when she was there with the town man, said that he would not give an +acre of his wheat for Lena's life or the town chap's either; and Jim's +wheat was so wondrously worthless that the statement was an exceedingly +strong one. + +Canute had bought a new suit of clothes that looked as nearly like the +town man as possible. They had cost him half a millet crop; for +tailors are not accustomed to fitting giants and they charge for it. He +had hung those clothes in his shanty two months ago and had never put +them on, partly from fear of ridicule, partly from discouragement, and +partly because there was something in his own soul that revolted at the +littleness of the device. + +Lena was at home just at this time. Work was slack in the laundry and +Mary had not been well, so Lena stayed at home, glad enough to get an +opportunity to torment Canute once more. + +She was washing in the side kitchen, singing loudly as she worked. Mary +was on her knees, blacking the stove and scolding violently about the +young man who was coming out from town that night. The young man had +committed the fatal error of laughing at Mary's ceaseless babble and had +never been forgiven. + +“He is no good, and you will come to a bad end by running with him! I do +not see why a daughter of mine should act so. I do not see why the Lord +should visit such a punishment upon me as to give me such a daughter. +There are plenty of good men you can marry.” + +Lena tossed her head and answered curtly, “I don't happen to want to +marry any man right away, and so long as Dick dresses nice and has +plenty of money to spend, there is no harm in my going with him.” + +“Money to spend? Yes, and that is all he does with it I'll be bound. You +think it very fine now, but you will change your tune when you have been +married five years and see your children running naked and your cupboard +empty. Did Anne Hermanson come to any good end by marrying a town man?” + +“I don't know anything about Anne Hermanson, but I know any of the +laundry girls would have Dick quick enough if they could get him.” + +“Yes, and a nice lot of store clothes huzzies you are too. Now there is +Canuteson who has an 'eighty' proved up and fifty head of cattle and--” + +“And hair that ain't been cut since he was a baby, and a big dirty +beard, and he wears overalls on Sundays, and drinks like a pig. Besides +he will keep. I can have all the fun I want, and when I am old and ugly +like you he can have me and take care of me. The Lord knows there ain't +nobody else going to marry him.” + +Canute drew his hand back from the latch as though it were red hot. He +was not the kind of man to make a good eavesdropper, and he wished he +had knocked sooner. He pulled himself together and struck the door like +a battering ram. Mary jumped and opened it with a screech. + +“God! Canute, how you scared us! I thought it was crazy Lou--he has been +tearing around the neighborhood trying to convert folks. I am afraid as +death of him. He ought to be sent off, I think. He is just as liable as +not to kill us all, or burn the barn, or poison the dogs. He has been +worrying even the poor minister to death, and he laid up with the +rheumatism, too! Did you notice that he was too sick to preach last +Sunday? But don't stand there in the cold, come in. Yensen isn't here, +but he just went over to Sorenson's for the mail; he won't be gone long. +Walk right in the other room and sit down.” + +Canute followed her, looking steadily in front of him and not noticing +Lena as he passed her. But Lena's vanity would not allow him to pass +unmolested. She took the wet sheet she was wringing out and cracked him +across the face with it, and ran giggling to the other side of the room. +The blow stung his cheeks and the soapy water flew in his eyes, and +he involuntarily began rubbing them with his hands. Lena giggled with +delight at his discomfiture, and the wrath in Canute's face grew blacker +than ever. A big man humiliated is vastly more undignified than a little +one. He forgot the sting of his face in the bitter consciousness that +he had made a fool of himself He stumbled blindly into the living room, +knocking his head against the door jamb because he forgot to stoop. +He dropped into a chair behind the stove, thrusting his big feet back +helplessly on either side of him. + +Ole was a long time in coming, and Canute sat there, still and silent, +with his hands clenched on his knees, and the skin of his face seemed to +have shriveled up into little wrinkles that trembled when he lowered his +brows. His life had been one long lethargy of solitude and alcohol, +but now he was awakening, and it was as when the dumb stagnant heat of +summer breaks out into thunder. + +When Ole came staggering in, heavy with liquor, Canute rose at once. + +“Yensen,” he said quietly, “I have come to see if you will let me marry +your daughter today.” + +“Today!” gasped Ole. + +“Yes, I will not wait until tomorrow. I am tired of living alone.” + +Ole braced his staggering knees against the bedstead, and stammered +eloquently: “Do you think I will marry my daughter to a drunkard? a man +who drinks raw alcohol? a man who sleeps with rattle snakes? Get out +of my house or I will kick you out for your impudence.” And Ole began +looking anxiously for his feet. + +Canute answered not a word, but he put on his hat and went out into the +kitchen. He went up to Lena and said without looking at her, “Get your +things on and come with me!” + +The tones of his voice startled her, and she said angrily, dropping the +soap, “Are you drunk?” + +“If you do not come with me, I will take you--you had better come,” said +Canute quietly. + +She lifted a sheet to strike him, but he caught her arm roughly and +wrenched the sheet from her. He turned to the wall and took down a hood +and shawl that hung there, and began wrapping her up. Lena scratched +and fought like a wild thing. Ole stood in the door, cursing, and Mary +howled and screeched at the top of her voice. As for Canute, he +lifted the girl in his arms and went out of the house. She kicked and +struggled, but the helpless wailing of Mary and Ole soon died away in +the distance, and her face was held down tightly on Canute's shoulder so +that she could not see whither he was taking her. She was conscious only +of the north wind whistling in her ears, and of rapid steady motion and +of a great breast that heaved beneath her in quick, irregular breaths. +The harder she struggled the tighter those iron arms that had held the +heels of horses crushed about her, until she felt as if they would crush +the breath from her, and lay still with fear. Canute was striding across +the level fields at a pace at which man never went before, drawing the +stinging north winds into his lungs in great gulps. He walked with his +eyes half closed and looking straight in front of him, only lowering +them when he bent his head to blow away the snow flakes that settled +on her hair. So it was that Canute took her to his home, even as his +bearded barbarian ancestors took the fair frivolous women of the South +in their hairy arms and bore them down to their war ships. For ever and +anon the soul becomes weary of the conventions that are not of it, and +with a single stroke shatters the civilized lies with which it is unable +to cope, and the strong arm reaches out and takes by force what it +cannot win by cunning. + +When Canute reached his shanty he placed the girl upon a chair, where +she sat sobbing. He stayed only a few minutes. He filled the stove +with wood and lit the lamp, drank a huge swallow of alcohol and put the +bottle in his pocket. He paused a moment, staring heavily at the weeping +girl, then he went off and locked the door and disappeared in the +gathering gloom of the night. + +Wrapped in flannels and soaked with turpentine, the little Norwegian +preacher sat reading his Bible, when he heard a thundering knock at his +door, and Canute entered, covered with snow and his beard frozen fast to +his coat. + +“Come in, Canute, you must be frozen,” said the little man, shoving a +chair towards his visitor. + +Canute remained standing with his hat on and said quietly, “I want you +to come over to my house tonight to marry me to Lena Yensen.” + +“Have you got a license, Canute?” + +“No, I don't want a license. I want to be married.” + +“But I can't marry you without a license, man, it would not be legal.” + +A dangerous light came in the big Norwegian's eye. “I want you to come +over to my house to marry me to Lena Yensen.” + +“No, I can't, it would kill an ox to go out in a storm like this, and my +rheumatism is bad tonight.” + +“Then if you will not go I must take you,” said Canute with a sigh. + +He took down the preacher's bearskin coat and bade him put it on while +he hitched up his buggy. He went out and closed the door softly after +him. Presently he returned and found the frightened minister crouching +before the fire with his coat lying beside him. Canute helped him put it +on and gently wrapped his head in his big muffler. Then he picked him +up and carried him out and placed him in his buggy. As he tucked the +buffalo robes around him he said: “Your horse is old, he might flounder +or lose his way in this storm. I will lead him.” + +The minister took the reins feebly in his hands and sat shivering with +the cold. Sometimes when there was a lull in the wind, he could see the +horse struggling through the snow with the man plodding steadily beside +him. Again the blowing snow would hide them from him altogether. He had +no idea where they were or what direction they were going. He felt as +though he were being whirled away in the heart of the storm, and he said +all the prayers he knew. But at last the long four miles were over, and +Canute set him down in the snow while he unlocked the door. He saw the +bride sitting by the fire with her eyes red and swollen as though +she had been weeping. Canute placed a huge chair for him, and said +roughly,-- + +“Warm yourself.” + +Lena began to cry and moan afresh, begging the minister to take her +home. He looked helplessly at Canute. Canute said simply, + +“If you are warm now, you can marry us.” + +“My daughter, do you take this step of your own free will?” asked the +minister in a trembling voice. + +“No, sir, I don't, and it is disgraceful he should force me into it! I +won't marry him.” + +“Then, Canute, I cannot marry you,” said the minister, standing as +straight as his rheumatic limbs would let him. + +“Are you ready to marry us now, sir?” said Canute, laying one iron hand +on his stooped shoulder. The little preacher was a good man, but like +most men of weak body he was a coward and had a horror of physical +suffering, although he had known so much of it. So with many qualms of +conscience he began to repeat the marriage service. Lena sat sullenly in +her chair, staring at the fire. Canute stood beside her, listening with +his head bent reverently and his hands folded on his breast. When the +little man had prayed and said amen, Canute began bundling him up again. + +“I will take you home, now,” he said as he carried him out and placed +him in his buggy, and started off with him through the fury of the +storm, floundering among the snow drifts that brought even the giant +himself to his knees. + +After she was left alone, Lena soon ceased weeping. She was not of a +particularly sensitive temperament, and had little pride beyond that of +vanity. After the first bitter anger wore itself out, she felt nothing +more than a healthy sense of humiliation and defeat. She had no +inclination to run away, for she was married now, and in her eyes +that was final and all rebellion was useless. She knew nothing about +a license, but she knew that a preacher married folks. She consoled +herself by thinking that she had always intended to marry Canute +someday, anyway. + +She grew tired of crying and looking into the fire, so she got up and +began to look about her. She had heard queer tales about the inside of +Canute's shanty, and her curiosity soon got the better of her rage. +One of the first things she noticed was the new black suit of clothes +hanging on the wall. She was dull, but it did not take a vain woman long +to interpret anything so decidedly flattering, and she was pleased in +spite of herself. As she looked through the cupboard, the general air of +neglect and discomfort made her pity the man who lived there. + +“Poor fellow, no wonder he wants to get married to get somebody to wash +up his dishes. Batchin's pretty hard on a man.” + +It is easy to pity when once one's vanity has been tickled. She looked +at the windowsill and gave a little shudder and wondered if the man were +crazy. Then she sat down again and sat a long time wondering what her +Dick and Ole would do. + +“It is queer Dick didn't come right over after me. He surely came, for +he would have left town before the storm began and he might just as +well come right on as go back. If he'd hurried he would have gotten here +before the preacher came. I suppose he was afraid to come, for he +knew Canuteson could pound him to jelly, the coward!” Her eyes flashed +angrily. + +The weary hours wore on and Lena began to grow horribly lonesome. It was +an uncanny night and this was an uncanny place to be in. She could +hear the coyotes howling hungrily a little way from the cabin, and more +terrible still were all the unknown noises of the storm. She remembered +the tales they told of the big log overhead and she was afraid of those +snaky things on the windowsills. She remembered the man who had been +killed in the draw, and she wondered what she would do if she saw crazy +Lou's white face glaring into the window. The rattling of the door +became unbearable, she thought the latch must be loose and took the +lamp to look at it. Then for the first time she saw the ugly brown snake +skins whose death rattle sounded every time the wind jarred the door. + +“Canute, Canute!” she screamed in terror. + +Outside the door she heard a heavy sound as of a big dog getting up and +shaking himself. The door opened and Canute stood before her, white as a +snow drift. + +“What is it?” he asked kindly. + +“I am cold,” she faltered. + +He went out and got an armful of wood and a basket of cobs and filled +the stove. Then he went out and lay in the snow before the door. +Presently he heard her calling again. + +“What is it?” he said, sitting up. + +“I'm so lonesome, I'm afraid to stay in here all alone.” + +“I will go over and get your mother.” And he got up. + +“She won't come.” + +“I'll bring her,” said Canute grimly. + +“No, no. I don't want her, she will scold all the time.” + +“Well, I will bring your father.” + +She spoke again and it seemed as though her mouth was close up to the +key-hole. She spoke lower than he had ever heard her speak before, so +low that he had to put his ear up to the lock to hear her. + +“I don't want him either, Canute,--I'd rather have you.” + +For a moment she heard no noise at all, then something like a groan. +With a cry of fear she opened the door, and saw Canute stretched in the +snow at her feet, his face in his hands, sobbing on the doorstep. + + + + + +Eric Hermannson's Soul + + +It was a great night at the Lone Star schoolhouse--a night when the +Spirit was present with power and when God was very near to man. So +it seemed to Asa Skinner, servant of God and Free Gospeller. The +schoolhouse was crowded with the saved and sanctified, robust men +and women, trembling and quailing before the power of some mysterious +psychic force. Here and there among this cowering, sweating multitude +crouched some poor wretch who had felt the pangs of an awakened +conscience, but had not yet experienced that complete divestment of +reason, that frenzy born of a convulsion of the mind, which, in the +parlance of the Free Gospellers, is termed “the Light.” On the floor +before the mourners' bench lay the unconscious figure of a man in whom +outraged nature had sought her last resort. This “trance” state is the +highest evidence of grace among the Free Gospellers, and indicates a +close walking with God. + +Before the desk stood Asa Skinner, shouting of the mercy and vengeance +of God, and in his eyes shone a terrible earnestness, an almost +prophetic flame. Asa was a converted train gambler who used to run +between Omaha and Denver. He was a man made for the extremes of life; +from the most debauched of men he had become the most ascetic. His was a +bestial face, a face that bore the stamp of Nature's eternal injustice. +The forehead was low, projecting over the eyes, and the sandy hair was +plastered down over it and then brushed back at an abrupt right angle. +The chin was heavy, the nostrils were low and wide, and the lower lip +hung loosely except in his moments of spasmodic earnestness, when it +shut like a steel trap. Yet about those coarse features there were +deep, rugged furrows, the scars of many a hand-to-hand struggle with the +weakness of the flesh, and about that drooping lip were sharp, strenuous +lines that had conquered it and taught it to pray. Over those seamed +cheeks there was a certain pallor, a greyness caught from many a vigil. +It was as though, after Nature had done her worst with that face, some +fine chisel had gone over it, chastening and almost transfiguring it. +Tonight, as his muscles twitched with emotion, and the perspiration +dropped from his hair and chin, there was a certain convincing power +in the man. For Asa Skinner was a man possessed of a belief, of that +sentiment of the sublime before which all inequalities are leveled, that +transport of conviction which seems superior to all laws of condition, +under which debauchees have become martyrs; which made a tinker an +artist and a camel-driver the founder of an empire. This was with Asa +Skinner tonight, as he stood proclaiming the vengeance of God. + +It might have occurred to an impartial observer that Asa Skinner's God +was indeed a vengeful God if he could reserve vengeance for those of +his creatures who were packed into the Lone Star schoolhouse that night. +Poor exiles of all nations; men from the south and the north, peasants +from almost every country of Europe, most of them from the mountainous, +night-bound coast of Norway. Honest men for the most part, but men with +whom the world had dealt hardly; the failures of all countries, men +sobered by toil and saddened by exile, who had been driven to fight for +the dominion of an untoward soil, to sow where others should gather, the +advance guard of a mighty civilization to be. + +Never had Asa Skinner spoken more earnestly than now. He felt that +the Lord had this night a special work for him to do. Tonight Eric +Hermannson, the wildest lad on all the Divide, sat in his audience with +a fiddle on his knee, just as he had dropped in on his way to play for +some dance. The violin is an object of particular abhorrence to the Free +Gospellers. Their antagonism to the church organ is bitter enough, but +the fiddle they regard as a very incarnation of evil desires, singing +forever of worldly pleasures and inseparably associated with all +forbidden things. + +Eric Hermannson had long been the object of the prayers of the +revivalists. His mother had felt the power of the Spirit weeks ago, and +special prayer-meetings had been held at her house for her son. But +Eric had only gone his ways laughing, the ways of youth, which are short +enough at best, and none too flowery on the Divide. + +He slipped away from the prayer-meetings to meet the Campbell boys in +Genereau's saloon, or hug the plump little French girls at Chevalier's +dances, and sometimes, of a summer night, he even went across the dewy +cornfields and through the wild-plum thicket to play the fiddle for Lena +Hanson, whose name was a reproach through all the Divide country, where +the women are usually too plain and too busy and too tired to depart +from the ways of virtue. On such occasions Lena, attired in a pink +wrapper and silk stockings and tiny pink slippers, would sing to him, +accompanying herself on a battered guitar. It gave him a delicious sense +of freedom and experience to be with a woman who, no matter how, had +lived in big cities and knew the ways of town folk, who had never worked +in the fields and had kept her hands white and soft, her throat fair +and tender, who had heard great singers in Denver and Salt Lake, and who +knew the strange language of flattery and idleness and mirth. + +Yet, careless as he seemed, the frantic prayers of his mother were not +altogether without their effect upon Eric. For days he had been fleeing +before them as a criminal from his pursuers, and over his pleasures had +fallen the shadow of something dark and terrible that dogged his steps. +The harder he danced, the louder he sang, the more was he conscious that +this phantom was gaining upon him, that in time it would track him down. +One Sunday afternoon, late in the fall, when he had been drinking beer +with Lena Hanson and listening to a song which made his cheeks burn, a +rattlesnake had crawled out of the side of the sod house and thrust its +ugly head in under the screen door. He was not afraid of snakes, but he +knew enough of Gospellism to feel the significance of the reptile lying +coiled there upon her doorstep. His lips were cold when he kissed Lena +goodbye, and he went there no more. + +The final barrier between Eric and his mother's faith was his violin, +and to that he clung as a man sometimes will cling to his dearest sin, +to the weakness more precious to him than all his strength, In the great +world beauty comes to men in many guises, and art in a hundred forms, +but for Eric there was only his violin. + +It stood, to him, for all the manifestations of art; it was his only +bridge into the kingdom of the soul. + +It was to Eric Hermannson that the evangelist directed his impassioned +pleading that night. + +“_Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?_ Is there a Saul here tonight +who has stopped his ears to that gentle pleading, who has thrust a spear +into that bleeding side? Think of it, my brother; you are offered this +wonderful love and you prefer the worm that dieth not and the fire which +will not be quenched. What right have you to lose one of God's precious +souls? _Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?_” + +A great joy dawned in Asa Skinner's pale face, for he saw that Eric +Hermannson was swaying to and fro in his seat. The minister fell upon +his knees and threw his long arms up over his head. + +“O my brothers! I feel it coming, the blessing we have prayed for. I +tell you the Spirit is coming! just a little more prayer, brothers, a +little more zeal, and he will be here. I can feel his cooling wing upon +my brow. Glory be to God forever and ever, amen!” + +The whole congregation groaned under the pressure of this spiritual +panic. Shouts and hallelujahs went up from every lip. Another figure +fell prostrate upon the floor. From the mourners' bench rose a chant of +terror and rapture: + + + “Eating honey and drinking wine, + _Glory to the bleeding Lamb!_ + I am my Lord's and he is mine, + _Glory to the bleeding Lamb!”_ + + +The hymn was sung in a dozen dialects and voiced all the vague yearning +of these hungry lives, of these people who had starved all the passions +so long, only to fall victims to the barest of them all, fear. + +A groan of ultimate anguish rose from Eric Hermannson's bowed head, +and the sound was like the groan of a great tree when it falls in the +forest. + +The minister rose suddenly to his feet and threw back his head, crying +in a loud voice: + +“_Lazarus, come forth!_ Eric Hermannson, you are lost, going down at +sea. In the name of God, and Jesus Christ his Son, I throw you the life +line. Take hold! Almighty God, my soul for his!” The minister threw his +arms out and lifted his quivering face. + +Eric Hermannson rose to his feet; his lips were set and the lightning +was in his eyes. He took his violin by the neck and crushed it to +splinters across his knee, and to Asa Skinner the sound was like the +shackles of sin broken audibly asunder. + + + + II + +For more than two years Eric Hermannson kept the austere faith to which +he had sworn himself, kept it until a girl from the East came to spend +a week on the Nebraska Divide. She was a girl of other manners and +conditions, and there were greater distances between her life and Eric's +than all the miles which separated Rattlesnake Creek from New York City. +Indeed, she had no business to be in the West at all; but ah! across +what leagues of land and sea, by what improbable chances, do the +unrelenting gods bring to us our fate! + +It was in a year of financial depression that Wyllis Elliot came to +Nebraska to buy cheap land and revisit the country where he had spent +a year of his youth. When he had graduated from Harvard it was still +customary for moneyed gentlemen to send their scapegrace sons to rough +it on ranches in the wilds of Nebraska or Dakota, or to consign them to +a living death in the sagebrush of the Black Hills. These young men did +not always return to the ways of civilized life. But Wyllis Elliot had +not married a half-breed, nor been shot in a cowpunchers' brawl, nor +wrecked by bad whisky, nor appropriated by a smirched adventuress. He +had been saved from these things by a girl, his sister, who had been +very near to his life ever since the days when they read fairy tales +together and dreamed the dreams that never come true. On this, his +first visit to his father's ranch since he left it six years before, he +brought her with him. She had been laid up half the winter from a sprain +received while skating, and had had too much time for reflection during +those months. She was restless and filled with a desire to see something +of the wild country of which her brother had told her so much. She was +to be married the next winter, and Wyllis understood her when she +begged him to take her with him on this long, aimless jaunt across the +continent, to taste the last of their freedom together. It comes to all +women of her type--that desire to taste the unknown which allures and +terrifies, to run one's whole soul's length out to the wind--just once. + +It had been an eventful journey. Wyllis somehow understood that strain +of gypsy blood in his sister, and he knew where to take her. They had +slept in sod houses on the Platte River, made the acquaintance of the +personnel of a third-rate opera company on the train to Deadwood, dined +in a camp of railroad constructors at the world's end beyond New Castle, +gone through the Black Hills on horseback, fished for trout in Dome +Lake, watched a dance at Cripple Creek, where the lost souls who hide +in the hills gathered for their besotted revelry. And now, last of all, +before the return to thraldom, there was this little shack, anchored on +the windy crest of the Divide, a little black dot against the flaming +sunsets, a scented sea of cornland bathed in opalescent air and blinding +sunlight. + +Margaret Elliot was one of those women of whom there are so many in this +day, when old order, passing, giveth place to new; beautiful, talented, +critical, unsatisfied, tired of the world at twenty-four. For the moment +the life and people of the Divide interested her. She was there but a +week; perhaps had she stayed longer, that inexorable ennui which travels +faster even than the Vestibule Limited would have overtaken her. The +week she tarried there was the week that Eric Hermannson was helping +Jerry Lockhart thresh; a week earlier or a week later, and there would +have been no story to write. + +It was on Thursday and they were to leave on Saturday. Wyllis and his +sister were sitting on the wide piazza of the ranchhouse, staring out +into the afternoon sunlight and protesting against the gusts of hot wind +that blew up from the sandy riverbottom twenty miles to the southward. + +The young man pulled his cap lower over his eyes and remarked: + +“This wind is the real thing; you don't strike it anywhere else. You +remember we had a touch of it in Algiers and I told you it came from +Kansas. It's the keynote of this country.” + +Wyllis touched her hand that lay on the hammock and continued gently: + +“I hope it's paid you, Sis. Roughing it's dangerous business; it takes +the taste out of things.” + +She shut her fingers firmly over the brown hand that was so like her +own. + +“Paid? Why, Wyllis, I haven't been so happy since we were children and +were going to discover the ruins of Troy together some day. Do you know, +I believe I could just stay on here forever and let the world go on its +own gait. It seems as though the tension and strain we used to talk of +last winter were gone for good, as though one could never give one's +strength out to such petty things any more.” + +Wyllis brushed the ashes of his pipe away from the silk handkerchief +that was knotted about his neck and stared moodily off at the skyline. + +“No, you're mistaken. This would bore you after a while. You can't shake +the fever of the other life. I've tried it. There was a time when the +gay fellows of Rome could trot down into the Thebaid and burrow into the +sandhills and get rid of it. But it's all too complex now. You see +we've made our dissipations so dainty and respectable that they've +gone further in than the flesh, and taken hold of the ego proper. You +couldn't rest, even here. The war cry would follow you.” + +“You don't waste words, Wyllis, but you never miss fire. I talk more +than you do, without saying half so much. You must have learned the art +of silence from these taciturn Norwegians. I think I like silent men.” + +“Naturally,” said Wyllis, “since you have decided to marry the most +brilliant talker you know.” + +Both were silent for a time, listening to the sighing of the hot wind +through the parched morning-glory vines. Margaret spoke first. + +“Tell me, Wyllis, were many of the Norwegians you used to know as +interesting as Eric Hermannson?” + +“Who, Siegfried? Well, no. He used to be the flower of the Norwegian +youth in my day, and he's rather an exception, even now. He has +retrograded, though. The bonds of the soil have tightened on him, I +fancy.” + +“Siegfried? Come, that's rather good, Wyllis. He looks like a +dragon-slayer. What is it that makes him so different from the others? I +can talk to him; he seems quite like a human being.” + + “Well,” said Wyllis, meditatively, “I don't read Bourget +as much as my cultured sister, and I'm not so well up in analysis, but +I fancy it's because one keeps cherishing a perfectly unwarranted +suspicion that under that big, hulking anatomy of his, he may conceal a +soul somewhere. _Nicht wahr?_” + +“Something like that,” said Margaret, thoughtfully, “except that it's +more than a suspicion, and it isn't groundless. He has one, and he makes +it known, somehow, without speaking.” + +“I always have my doubts about loquacious souls,” Wyllis remarked, with +the unbelieving smile that had grown habitual with him. + +Margaret went on, not heeding the interruption. “I knew it from the +first, when he told me about the suicide of his cousin, the Bernstein +boy. That kind of blunt pathos can't be summoned at will in anybody. The +earlier novelists rose to it, sometimes, unconsciously. But last night +when I sang for him I was doubly sure. Oh, I haven't told you about that +yet! Better light your pipe again. You see, he stumbled in on me in the +dark when I was pumping away at that old parlour organ to please Mrs. +Lockhart It's her household fetish and I've forgotten how many pounds of +butter she made and sold to buy it. Well, Eric stumbled in, and in some +inarticulate manner made me understand that he wanted me to sing for +him. I sang just the old things, of course. It's queer to sing familiar +things here at the world's end. It makes one think how the hearts of men +have carried them around the world, into the wastes of Iceland and the +jungles of Africa and the islands of the Pacific. I think if one lived +here long enough one would quite forget how to be trivial, and would +read only the great books that we never get time to read in the world, +and would remember only the great music, and the things that are really +worth while would stand out clearly against that horizon over there. And +of course I played the intermezzo from _Cavalleria Rusticana_ for him; +it goes rather better on an organ than most things do. He shuffled his +feet and twisted his big hands up into knots and blurted out that he +didn't know there was any music like that in the world. Why, there were +tears in his voice, Wyllis! Yes, like Rossetti, I _heard_ his tears. +Then it dawned upon me that it was probably the first good music he had +ever heard in all his life. Think of it, to care for music as he does +and never to hear it, never to know that it exists on earth! To long +for it as we long for other perfect experiences that never come. I +can't tell you what music means to that man. I never saw any one so +susceptible to it. It gave him speech, he became alive. When I had +finished the intermezzo, he began telling me about a little crippled +brother who died and whom he loved and used to carry everywhere in his +arms. He did not wait for encouragement. He took up the story and told +it slowly, as if to himself, just sort of rose up and told his own woe +to answer Mascagni's. It overcame me.” + +“Poor devil,” said Wyllis, looking at her with mysterious eyes, “and so +you've given him a new woe. Now he'll go on wanting Grieg and +Schubert the rest of his days and never getting them. That's a girl's +philanthropy for you!” + +Jerry Lockhart came out of the house screwing his chin over the unusual +luxury of a stiff white collar, which his wife insisted upon as a +necessary article of toilet while Miss Elliot was at the house. Jerry +sat down on the step and smiled his broad, red smile at Margaret. + +“Well, I've got the music for your dance, Miss Elliot. Olaf Oleson +will bring his accordion and Mollie will play the organ, when she isn't +lookin' after the grub, and a little chap from Frenchtown will bring his +fiddle--though the French don't mix with the Norwegians much.” + +“Delightful! Mr. Lockhart, that dance will be the feature of our trip, +and it's so nice of you to get it up for us. We'll see the Norwegians in +character at last,” cried Margaret, cordially. + +“See here, Lockhart, I'll settle with you for backing her in this +scheme,” said Wyllis, sitting up and knocking the ashes out of his pipe. +“She's done crazy things enough on this trip, but to talk of dancing all +night with a gang of half-mad Norwegians and taking the carriage at four +to catch the six o'clock train out of Riverton--well, it's tommyrot, +that's what it is!” + +“Wyllis, I leave it to your sovereign power of reason to decide whether +it isn't easier to stay up all night than to get up at three in the +morning. To get up at three, think what that means! No, sir, I prefer to +keep my vigil and then get into a sleeper.” + +“But what do you want with the Norwegians? I thought you were tired of +dancing.” + +“So I am, with some people. But I want to see a Norwegian dance, and I +intend to. Come, Wyllis, you know how seldom it is that one really wants +to do anything nowadays. I wonder when I have really wanted to go to a +party before. It will be something to remember next month at Newport, +when we have to and don't want to. Remember your own theory that +contrast is about the only thing that makes life endurable. This is my +party and Mr. Lockhart's; your whole duty tomorrow night will consist in +being nice to the Norwegian girls. I'll warrant you were adept enough +at it once. And you'd better be very nice indeed, for if there are many +such young Valkyries as Eric's sister among them, they would simply tie +you up in a knot if they suspected you were guying them.” + +Wyllis groaned and sank back into the hammock to consider his fate, +while his sister went on. + +“And the guests, Mr. Lockhart, did they accept?” + +Lockhart took out his knife and began sharpening it on the sole of his +plowshoe. + +“Well, I guess we'll have a couple dozen. You see it's pretty hard to +get a crowd together here any more. Most of 'em have gone over to the +Free Gospellers, and they'd rather put their feet in the fire than shake +'em to a fiddle.” + +Margaret made a gesture of impatience. “Those Free Gospellers have just +cast an evil spell over this country, haven't they?” + +“Well,” said Lockhart, cautiously, “I don't just like to pass judgment +on any Christian sect, but if you're to know the chosen by their works, +the Gospellers can't make a very proud showin', an' that's a fact. +They're responsible for a few suicides, and they've sent a good-sized +delegation to the state insane asylum, an' I don't see as they've made +the rest of us much better than we were before. I had a little herdboy +last spring, as square a little Dane as I want to work for me, but after +the Gospellers got hold of him and sanctified him, the little beggar +used to get down on his knees out on the prairie and pray by the hour +and let the cattle get into the corn, an' I had to fire him. That's +about the way it goes. Now there's Eric; that chap used to be a hustler +and the spryest dancer in all this section-called all the dances. Now +he's got no ambition and he's glum as a preacher. I don't suppose we can +even get him to come in tomorrow night.” + +“Eric? Why, he must dance, we can't let him off,” said Margaret, +quickly. “Why, I intend to dance with him myself.” + +“I'm afraid he won't dance. I asked him this morning if he'd help us out +and he said, 'I don't dance now, any more,'” said Lockhart, imitating +the laboured English of the Norwegian. + +“'The Miller of Hofbau, the Miller of Hofbau, O my Princess!'” chirped +Wyllis, cheerfully, from his hammock. + +The red on his sister's cheek deepened a little, and she laughed +mischievously. “We'll see about that, sir. I'll not admit that I am +beaten until I have asked him myself.” + +Every night Eric rode over to St. Anne, a little village in the heart +of the French settlement, for the mail. As the road lay through the most +attractive part of the Divide country, on several occasions Margaret +Elliot and her brother had accompanied him. Tonight Wyllis had business +with Lockhart, and Margaret rode with Eric, mounted on a frisky little +mustang that Mrs. Lockhart had broken to the sidesaddle. Margaret +regarded her escort very much as she did the servant who always +accompanied her on long rides at home, and the ride to the village was +a silent one. She was occupied with thoughts of another world, and Eric +was wrestling with more thoughts than had ever been crowded into his +head before. + +He rode with his eyes riveted on that slight figure before him, as +though he wished to absorb it through the optic nerves and hold it in +his brain forever. He understood the situation perfectly. His brain +worked slowly, but he had a keen sense of the values of things. This +girl represented an entirely new species of humanity to him, but he knew +where to place her. The prophets of old, when an angel first appeared +unto them, never doubted its high origin. + +Eric was patient under the adverse conditions of his life, but he +was not servile. The Norse blood in him had not entirely lost its +self-reliance. He came of a proud fisher line, men who were not afraid +of anything but the ice and the devil, and he had prospects before him +when his father went down off the North Cape in the long Arctic night, +and his mother, seized by a violent horror of seafaring life, had +followed her brother to America. Eric was eighteen then, handsome as +young Siegfried, a giant in stature, with a skin singularly pure and +delicate, like a Swede's; hair as yellow as the locks of Tennyson's +amorous Prince, and eyes of a fierce, burning blue, whose flash was most +dangerous to women. + +He had in those days a certain pride of bearing, a certain confidence of +approach, that usually accompanies physical perfection. It was even said +of him then that he was in love with life, and inclined to levity, a +vice most unusual on the Divide. But the sad history of those Norwegian +exiles, transplanted in an arid soil and under a scorching sun, had +repeated itself in his case. Toil and isolation had sobered him, and +he grew more and more like the clods among which he laboured. It was as +though some red-hot instrument had touched for a moment those delicate +fibers of the brain which respond to acute pain or pleasure, in which +lies the power of exquisite sensation, and had seared them quite away. +It is a painful thing to watch the light die out of the eyes of those +Norsemen, leaving an expression of impenetrable sadness, quite passive, +quite hopeless, a shadow that is never lifted. With some this change +comes almost at once, in the first bitterness of homesickness, with +others it comes more slowly, according to the time it takes each man's +heart to die. + +Oh, those poor Northmen of the Divide! They are dead many a year before +they are put to rest in the little graveyard on the windy hill where +exiles of all nations grow akin. + +The peculiar species of hypochondria to which the exiles of his people +sooner or later succumb had not developed in Eric until that night at +the Lone Star schoolhouse, when he had broken his violin across his +knee. After that, the gloom of his people settled down upon him, and the +gospel of maceration began its work. + +_“If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out,”_ et cetera. The pagan smile +that once hovered about his lips was gone, and he was one with sorrow. +Religion heals a hundred hearts for one that it embitters, but when it +destroys, its work is quick and deadly, and where the agony of the cross +has been, joy will not come again. This man understood things literally: +one must live without pleasure to die without fear; to save the soul, it +was necessary to starve the soul. + +The sun hung low above the cornfields when Margaret and her cavalier +left St. Anne. South of the town there is a stretch of road that runs +for some three miles through the French settlement, where the prairie +is as level as the surface of a lake. There the fields of flax and +wheat and rye are bordered by precise rows of slender, tapering Lombard +poplars. It was a yellow world that Margaret Elliot saw under the wide +light of the setting sun. + +The girl gathered up her reins and called back to Eric, “It will be safe +to run the horses here, won't it?” + +“Yes, I think so, now,” he answered, touching his spur to his pony's +flank. They were off like the wind. It is an old saying in the West that +newcomers always ride a horse or two to death before they get broken +in to the country. They are tempted by the great open spaces and try to +outride the horizon, to get to the end of something. Margaret galloped +over the level road, and Eric, from behind, saw her long veil fluttering +in the wind. It had fluttered just so in his dreams last night and the +night before. With a sudden inspiration of courage he overtook her and +rode beside her, looking intently at her half-averted face. Before, he +had only stolen occasional glances at it, seen it in blinding flashes, +always with more or less embarrassment, but now he determined to let +every line of it sink into his memory. Men of the world would have said +that it was an unusual face, nervous, finely cut, with clear, elegant +lines that betokened ancestry. Men of letters would have called it a +historic face, and would have conjectured at what old passions, long +asleep, what old sorrows forgotten time out of mind, doing battle +together in ages gone, had curved those delicate nostrils, left their +unconscious memory in those eyes. But Eric read no meaning in these +details. To him this beauty was something more than colour and line; +it was a flash of white light, in which one cannot distinguish colour +because all colours are there. To him it was a complete revelation, an +embodiment of those dreams of impossible loveliness that linger by a +young man's pillow on midsummer nights; yet, because it held something +more than the attraction of health and youth and shapeliness, it +troubled him, and in its presence he felt as the Goths before the white +marbles in the Roman Capitol, not knowing whether they were men or gods. +At times he felt like uncovering his head before it, again the fury +seized him to break and despoil, to find the clay in this spirit-thing +and stamp upon it. Away from her, he longed to strike out with his arms, +and take and hold; it maddened him that this woman whom he could break +in his hands should be so much stronger than he. But near her, he never +questioned this strength; he admitted its potentiality as he admitted +the miracles of the Bible; it enervated and conquered him. + +Tonight, when he rode so close to her that he could have touched her, he +knew that he might as well reach out his hand to take a star. + +Margaret stirred uneasily under his gaze and turned questioningly in her +saddle. + +“This wind puts me a little out of breath when we ride fast,” she said. + +Eric turned his eyes away. + +“I want to ask you if I go to New York to work, if I maybe hear music +like you sang last night? I been a purty good hand to work,” he asked, +timidly. + +Margaret looked at him with surprise, and then, as she studied the +outline of his face, pityingly. + +“Well, you might--but you'd lose a good deal else. I shouldn't like you +to go to New York--and be poor, you'd be out of atmosphere, some +way,” she said, slowly. Inwardly she was thinking: _There he would be +altogether sordid, impossible--a machine who would carry one's trunks +upstairs, perhaps. Here he is every inch a man, rather picturesque; why +is it?_ “No,” she added aloud, “I shouldn't like that.” + +“Then I not go,” said Eric, decidedly. + +Margaret turned her face to hide a smile. She was a trifle amused and a +trifle annoyed. Suddenly she spoke again. + +“But I'll tell you what I do want you to do, Eric. I want you to dance +with us tomorrow night and teach me some of the Norwegian dances; they +say you know them all. Won't you?” + +Eric straightened himself in his saddle and his eyes flashed as they had +done in the Lone Star schoolhouse when he broke his violin across his +knee. + +“Yes, I will,” he said, quietly, and he believed that he delivered his +soul to hell as he said it. + +They had reached the rougher country now, where the road wound through +a narrow cut in one of the bluffs along the creek, when a beat of hoofs +ahead and the sharp neighing of horses made the ponies start and Eric +rose in his stirrups. Then down the gulch in front of them and over the +steep clay banks thundered a herd of wild ponies, nimble as monkeys and +wild as rabbits, such as horse-traders drive east from the plains of +Montana to sell in the farming country. Margaret's pony made a shrill +sound, a neigh that was almost a scream, and started up the clay bank to +meet them, all the wild blood of the range breaking out in an instant. +Margaret called to Eric just as he threw himself out of the saddle and +caught her pony's bit. But the wiry little animal had gone mad and was +kicking and biting like a devil. Her wild brothers of the range were all +about her, neighing, and pawing the earth, and striking her with their +forefeet and snapping at her flanks. It was the old liberty of the range +that the little beast fought for. + +“Drop the reins and hold tight, tight!” Eric called, throwing all his +weight upon the bit, struggling under those frantic forefeet that now +beat at his breast, and now kicked at the wild mustangs that surged and +tossed about him. He succeeded in wrenching the pony's head toward him +and crowding her withers against the clay bank, so that she could not +roll. + +“Hold tight, tight!” he shouted again, launching a kick at a snorting +animal that reared back against Margaret's saddle. If she should lose +her courage and fall now, under those hoofs--He struck out again and +again, kicking right and left with all his might. Already the negligent +drivers had galloped into the cut, and their long quirts were whistling +over the heads of the herd. As suddenly as it had come, the struggling, +frantic wave of wild life swept up out of the gulch and on across the +open prairie, and with a long despairing whinny of farewell the pony +dropped her head and stood trembling in her sweat, shaking the foam and +blood from her bit. + +Eric stepped close to Margaret's side and laid his hand on her saddle. +“You are not hurt?” he asked, hoarsely. As he raised his face in the +soft starlight she saw that it was white and drawn and that his lips +were working nervously. + +“No, no, not at all. But you, you are suffering; they struck you!” she +cried in sharp alarm. + +He stepped back and drew his hand across his brow. + +“No, it is not that,” he spoke rapidly now, with his hands clenched at +his side. “But if they had hurt you, I would beat their brains out with +my hands. I would kill them all. I was never afraid before. You are the +only beautiful thing that has ever come close to me. You came like an +angel out of the sky. You are like the music you sing, you are like the +stars and the snow on the mountains where I played when I was a little +boy. You are like all that I wanted once and never had, you are all +that they have killed in me. I die for you tonight, tomorrow, for all +eternity. I am not a coward; I was afraid because I love you more than +Christ who died for me, more than I am afraid of hell, or hope for +heaven. I was never afraid before. If you had fallen--oh, my God!” He +threw his arms out blindly and dropped his head upon the pony's mane, +leaning limply against the animal like a man struck by some sickness. +His shoulders rose and fell perceptibly with his laboured breathing. The +horse stood cowed with exhaustion and fear. Presently Margaret laid her +hand on Eric's head and said gently: + +“You are better now, shall we go on? Can you get your horse?” + +“No, he has gone with the herd. I will lead yours, she is not safe. +I will not frighten you again.” His voice was still husky, but it was +steady now. He took hold of the bit and tramped home in silence. + +When they reached the house, Eric stood stolidly by the pony's head +until Wyllis came to lift his sister from the saddle. + +“The horses were badly frightened, Wyllis. I think I was pretty +thoroughly scared myself,” she said as she took her brother's arm and +went slowly up the hill toward the house. “No, I'm not hurt, thanks to +Eric. You must thank him for taking such good care of me. He's a mighty +fine fellow. I'll tell you all about it in the morning, dear. I was +pretty well shaken up and I'm going right to bed now. Good night.” + +When she reached the low room in which she slept, she sank upon the bed +in her riding dress, face downward. + +“Oh, I pity him! I pity him!” she murmured, with a long sigh of +exhaustion. She must have slept a little. When she rose again, she took +from her dress a letter that had been waiting for her at the village +post-office. It was closely written in a long, angular hand, covering a +dozen pages of foreign note-paper, and began: + +My Dearest Margaret: if I should attempt to say _how like a winter hath +thine absence been_, I should incur the risk of being tedious. Really, +it takes the sparkle out of everything. Having nothing better to do, and +not caring to go anywhere in particular without you, I remained in the +city until Jack Courtwell noted my general despondency and brought me +down here to his place on the sound to manage some open-air theatricals +he is getting up. _As You Like It_ is of course the piece selected. Miss +Harrison plays Rosalind. I wish you had been here to take the part. Miss +Harrison reads her lines well, but she is either a maiden-all-forlorn or +a tomboy; insists on reading into the part all sorts of deeper meanings +and highly coloured suggestions wholly out of harmony with the pastoral +setting. Like most of the professionals, she exaggerates the emotional +element and quite fails to do justice to Rosalind's facile wit and +really brilliant mental qualities. Gerard will do Orlando, but rumor +says he is _epris_ of your sometime friend, Miss Meredith, and his +memory is treacherous and his interest fitful. + +My new pictures arrived last week on the _Gascogne_. The Puvis de +Chavannes is even more beautiful than I thought it in Paris. A pale +dream-maiden sits by a pale dream-cow and a stream of anemic water flows +at her feet. The Constant, you will remember, I got because you admired +it. It is here in all its florid splendour, the whole dominated by a +glowing sensuosity. The drapery of the female figure is as wonderful as +you said; the fabric all barbaric pearl and gold, painted with an easy, +effortless voluptuousness, and that white, gleaming line of African +coast in the background recalls memories of you very precious to me. But +it is useless to deny that Constant irritates me. Though I cannot prove +the charge against him, his brilliancy always makes me suspect him of +cheapness. + +Here Margaret stopped and glanced at the remaining pages of this strange +love-letter. They seemed to be filled chiefly with discussions of +pictures and books, and with a slow smile she laid them by. + +She rose and began undressing. Before she lay down she went to open the +window. With her hand on the sill, she hesitated, feeling suddenly as +though some danger were lurking outside, some inordinate desire waiting +to spring upon her in the darkness. She stood there for a long time, +gazing at the infinite sweep of the sky. + +“Oh, it is all so little, so little there,” she murmured. “When +everything else is so dwarfed, why should one expect love to be great? +Why should one try to read highly coloured suggestions into a life like +that? If only I could find one thing in it all that mattered greatly, +one thing that would warm me when I am alone! Will life never give me +that one great moment?” + +As she raised the window, she heard a sound in the plum bushes outside. +It was only the house-dog roused from his sleep, but Margaret started +violently and trembled so that she caught the foot of the bed for +support. Again she felt herself pursued by some overwhelming longing, +some desperate necessity for herself, like the outstretching of +helpless, unseen arms in the darkness, and the air seemed heavy with +sighs of yearning. She fled to her bed with the words, “I love you more +than Christ who died for me!” ringing in her ears. + + + III + +About midnight the dance at Lockhart's was at its height. Even the old +men who had come to “look on” caught the spirit of revelry and stamped +the floor with the vigor of old Silenus. Eric took the violin from the +Frenchmen, and Minna Oleson sat at the organ, and the music grew more +and more characteristic--rude, half mournful music, made up of the +folksongs of the North, that the villagers sing through the long night +in hamlets by the sea, when they are thinking of the sun, and the +spring, and the fishermen so long away. To Margaret some of it sounded +like Grieg's _Peer Gynt_ music. She found something irresistibly +infectious in the mirth of these people who were so seldom merry, and +she felt almost one of them. Something seemed struggling for freedom +in them tonight, something of the joyous childhood of the nations +which exile had not killed. The girls were all boisterous with delight. +Pleasure came to them but rarely, and when it came, they caught at it +wildly and crushed its fluttering wings in their strong brown fingers. +They had a hard life enough, most of them. Torrid summers and freezing +winters, labour and drudgery and ignorance, were the portion of +their girlhood; a short wooing, a hasty, loveless marriage, unlimited +maternity, thankless sons, premature age and ugliness, were the dower +of their womanhood. But what matter? Tonight there was hot liquor in the +glass and hot blood in the heart; tonight they danced. + +Tonight Eric Hermannson had renewed his youth. He was no longer the big, +silent Norwegian who had sat at Margaret's feet and looked hopelessly +into her eyes. Tonight he was a man, with a man's rights and a man's +power. Tonight he was Siegfried indeed. His hair was yellow as the heavy +wheat in the ripe of summer, and his eyes flashed like the blue water +between the ice packs in the north seas. He was not afraid of Margaret +tonight, and when he danced with her he held her firmly. She was tired +and dragged on his arm a little, but the strength of the man was like +an all-pervading fluid, stealing through her veins, awakening under her +heart some nameless, unsuspected existence that had slumbered there all +these years and that went out through her throbbing fingertips to his +that answered. She wondered if the hoydenish blood of some lawless +ancestor, long asleep, were calling out in her tonight, some drop of +a hotter fluid that the centuries had failed to cool, and why, if this +curse were in her, it had not spoken before. But was it a curse, this +awakening, this wealth before undiscovered, this music set free? For the +first time in her life her heart held something stronger than herself, +was not this worthwhile? Then she ceased to wonder. She lost sight of +the lights and the faces and the music was drowned by the beating of her +own arteries. She saw only the blue eyes that flashed above her, felt +only the warmth of that throbbing hand which held hers and which the +blood of his heart fed. Dimly, as in a dream, she saw the drooping +shoulders, high white forehead and tight, cynical mouth of the man she +was to marry in December. For an hour she had been crowding back the +memory of that face with all her strength. + +“Let us stop, this is enough,” she whispered. His only answer was to +tighten the arm behind her. She sighed and let that masterful strength +bear her where it would. She forgot that this man was little more than +a savage, that they would part at dawn. The blood has no memories, no +reflections, no regrets for the past, no consideration of the future. + +“Let us go out where it is cooler,” she said when the music stopped; +thinking, _I am growing faint here, I shall be all right in the open +air_. They stepped out into the cool, blue air of the night. + +Since the older folk had begun dancing, the young Norwegians had been +slipping out in couples to climb the windmill tower into the cooler +atmosphere, as is their custom. + +“You like to go up?” asked Eric, close to her ear. + +She turned and looked at him with suppressed amusement. “How high is +it?” + +“Forty feet, about. I not let you fall.” There was a note of +irresistible pleading in his voice, and she felt that he tremendously +wished her to go. Well, why not? This was a night of the unusual, when +she was not herself at all, but was living an unreality. Tomorrow, yes, +in a few hours, there would be the Vestibule Limited and the world. + +“Well, if you'll take good care of me. I used to be able to climb, when +I was a little girl.” + +Once at the top and seated on the platform, they were silent. Margaret +wondered if she would not hunger for that scene all her life, through +all the routine of the days to come. Above them stretched the great +Western sky, serenely blue, even in the night, with its big, burning +stars, never so cold and dead and far away as in denser atmospheres. The +moon would not be up for twenty minutes yet, and all about the horizon, +that wide horizon, which seemed to reach around the world, lingered a +pale white light, as of a universal dawn. The weary wind brought up to +them the heavy odours of the cornfields. The music of the dance sounded +faintly from below. Eric leaned on his elbow beside her, his legs +swinging down on the ladder. His great shoulders looked more than ever +like those of the stone Doryphorus, who stands in his perfect, reposeful +strength in the Louvre, and had often made her wonder if such men died +forever with the youth of Greece. + +“How sweet the corn smells at night,” said Margaret nervously. + +“Yes, like the flowers that grow in paradise, I think.” + +She was somewhat startled by this reply, and more startled when this +taciturn man spoke again. + +“You go away tomorrow?” + +“Yes, we have stayed longer than we thought to now.” + +“You not come back any more?” + +“No, I expect not. You see, it is a long trip halfway across the +continent.” + +“You soon forget about this country, I guess.” It seemed to him now +a little thing to lose his soul for this woman, but that she should +utterly forget this night into which he threw all his life and all his +eternity, that was a bitter thought. + +“No, Eric, I will not forget. You have all been too kind to me for that. +And you won't be sorry you danced this one night, will you?” + +“I never be sorry. I have not been so happy before. I not be so happy +again, ever. You will be happy many nights yet, I only this one. I will +dream sometimes, maybe.” + +The mighty resignation of his tone alarmed and touched her. It was as +when some great animal composes itself for death, as when a great ship +goes down at sea. + +She sighed, but did not answer him. He drew a little closer and looked +into her eyes. + +“You are not always happy, too?” he asked. + +“No, not always, Eric; not very often, I think.” + +“You have a trouble?” + +“Yes, but I cannot put it into words. Perhaps if I could do that, I +could cure it.” + +He clasped his hands together over his heart, as children do when they +pray, and said falteringly, “If I own all the world, I give him you.” + +Margaret felt a sudden moisture in her eyes, and laid her hand on his. + +“Thank you, Eric; I believe you would. But perhaps even then I should +not be happy. Perhaps I have too much of it already.” + +She did not take her hand away from him; she did not dare. She sat still +and waited for the traditions in which she had always believed to speak +and save her. But they were dumb. She belonged to an ultra-refined +civilization which tries to cheat nature with elegant sophistries. Cheat +nature? Bah! One generation may do it, perhaps two, but the third--Can +we ever rise above nature or sink below her? Did she not turn on +Jerusalem as upon Sodom, upon St. Anthony in his desert as upon Nero +in his seraglio? Does she not always cry in brutal triumph: “I am here +still, at the bottom of things, warming the roots of life; you cannot +starve me nor tame me nor thwart me; I made the world, I rule it, and I +am its destiny.” + +This woman, on a windmill tower at the world's end with a giant +barbarian, heard that cry tonight, and she was afraid! Ah! the terror +and the delight of that moment when first we fear ourselves! Until then +we have not lived. + +“Come, Eric, let us go down; the moon is up and the music has begun +again,” she said. + +He rose silently and stepped down upon the ladder, putting his arm about +her to help her. That arm could have thrown Thor's hammer out in the +cornfields yonder, yet it scarcely touched her, and his hand trembled +as it had done in the dance. His face was level with hers now and the +moonlight fell sharply upon it. All her life she had searched the faces +of men for the look that lay in his eyes. She knew that that look had +never shone for her before, would never shine for her on earth again, +that such love comes to one only in dreams or in impossible places like +this, unattainable always. This was Love's self, in a moment it would +die. Stung by the agonized appeal that emanated from the man's whole +being, she leaned forward and laid her lips on his. Once, twice and +again she heard the deep respirations rattle in his throat while +she held them there, and the riotous force under her head became +an engulfing weakness. He drew her up to him until he felt all the +resistance go out of her body, until every nerve relaxed and yielded. +When she drew her face back from his, it was white with fear. + +“Let us go down, oh, my God! let us go down!” she muttered. And the +drunken stars up yonder seemed reeling to some appointed doom as she +clung to the rounds of the ladder. All that she was to know of love she +had left upon his lips. + +“The devil is loose again,” whispered Olaf Oleson, as he saw Eric +dancing a moment later, his eyes blazing. + +But Eric was thinking with an almost savage exultation of the time when +he should pay for this. Ah, there would be no quailing then! if ever a +soul went fearlessly, proudly down to the gates infernal, his should go. +For a moment he fancied he was there already, treading down the tempest +of flame, hugging the fiery hurricane to his breast. He wondered whether +in ages gone, all the countless years of sinning in which men had sold +and lost and flung their souls away, any man had ever so cheated Satan, +had ever bartered his soul for so great a price. + +It seemed but a little while till dawn. + +The carriage was brought to the door and Wyllis Elliot and his sister +said goodbye. She could not meet Eric's eyes as she gave him her hand, +but as he stood by the horse's head, just as the carriage moved off, she +gave him one swift glance that said, “I will not forget.” In a moment +the carriage was gone. + +Eric changed his coat and plunged his head into the water tank and went +to the barn to hook up his team. As he led his horses to the door, a +shadow fell across his path, and he saw Skinner rising in his stirrups. +His rugged face was pale and worn with looking after his wayward flock, +with dragging men into the way of salvation. + +“Good morning, Eric. There was a dance here last night?” he asked, +sternly. + +“A dance? Oh, yes, a dance,” replied Eric, cheerfully. + +“Certainly you did not dance, Eric?” + +“Yes, I danced. I danced all the time.” + +The minister's shoulders drooped, and an expression of profound +discouragement settled over his haggard face. There was almost anguish +in the yearning he felt for this soul. + +“Eric, I didn't look for this from you. I thought God had set his mark +on you if he ever had on any man. And it is for things like this that +you set your soul back a thousand years from God. O foolish and perverse +generation!” + +Eric drew himself up to his full height and looked off to where the new +day was gilding the corn-tassels and flooding the uplands with light. +As his nostrils drew in the breath of the dew and the morning, something +from the only poetry he had ever read flashed across his mind, and he +murmured, half to himself, with dreamy exultation: + +“'And a day shall be as a thousand years, and a thousand years as a +day.'” + + + + +The Enchanted Bluff + +We had our swim before sundown, and while we were cooking our supper the +oblique rays of light made a dazzling glare on the white sand about +us. The translucent red ball itself sank behind the brown stretches +of cornfield as we sat down to eat, and the warm layer of air that had +rested over the water and our clean sand bar grew fresher and smelled of +the rank ironweed and sunflowers growing on the flatter shore. The river +was brown and sluggish, like any other of the half-dozen streams that +water the Nebraska corn lands. On one shore was an irregular line of +bald clay bluffs where a few scrub oaks with thick trunks and flat, +twisted tops threw light shadows on the long grass. The western shore +was low and level, with cornfields that stretched to the skyline, and +all along the water's edge were little sandy coves and beaches where +slim cottonwoods and willow saplings flickered. + +The turbulence of the river in springtime discouraged milling, and, +beyond keeping the old red bridge in repair, the busy farmers did not +concern themselves with the stream; so the Sandtown boys were left in +undisputed possession. In the autumn we hunted quail through the miles +of stubble and fodder land along the flat shore, and, after the winter +skating season was over and the ice had gone out, the spring freshets +and flooded bottoms gave us our great excitement of the year. The +channel was never the same for two successive seasons. Every spring the +swollen stream undermined a bluff to the east, or bit out a few acres of +cornfield to the west and whirled the soil away, to deposit it in spumy +mud banks somewhere else. When the water fell low in midsummer, new sand +bars were thus exposed to dry and whiten in the August sun. Sometimes +these were banked so firmly that the fury of the next freshet failed to +unseat them; the little willow seedlings emerged triumphantly from the +yellow froth, broke into spring leaf, shot up into summer growth, and +with their mesh of roots bound together the moist sand beneath them +against the batterings of another April. Here and there a cottonwood +soon glittered among them, quivering in the low current of air that, +even on breathless days when the dust hung like smoke above the wagon +road, trembled along the face of the water. + +It was on such an island, in the third summer of its yellow green, that +we built our watch fire; not in the thicket of dancing willow wands, but +on the level terrace of fine sand which had been added that spring; +a little new bit of world, beautifully ridged with ripple marks, and +strewn with the tiny skeletons of turtles and fish, all as white and dry +as if they had been expertly cured. We had been careful not to mar the +freshness of the place, although we often swam to it on summer evenings +and lay on the sand to rest. + +This was our last watch fire of the year, and there were reasons why I +should remember it better than any of the others. Next week the other +boys were to file back to their old places in the Sandtown High School, +but I was to go up to the Divide to teach my first country school in the +Norwegian district. I was already homesick at the thought of quitting +the boys with whom I had always played; of leaving the river, and going +up into a windy plain that was all windmills and cornfields and +big pastures; where there was nothing wilful or unmanageable in the +landscape, no new islands, and no chance of unfamiliar birds--such as +often followed the watercourses. + +Other boys came and went and used the river for fishing or skating, +but we six were sworn to the spirit of the stream, and we were friends +mainly because of the river. There were the two Hassler boys, Fritz and +Otto, sons of the little German tailor. They were the youngest of us; +ragged boys of ten and twelve, with sunburned hair, weather-stained +faces, and pale blue eyes. Otto, the elder, was the best mathematician +in school, and clever at his books, but he always dropped out in the +spring term as if the river could not get on without him. He and Fritz +caught the fat, horned catfish and sold them about the town, and they +lived so much in the water that they were as brown and sandy as the +river itself. + +There was Percy Pound, a fat, freckled boy with chubby cheeks, who took +half a dozen boys' story-papers and was always being kept in for reading +detective stories behind his desk. There was Tip Smith, destined by +his freckles and red hair to be the buffoon in all our games, though he +walked like a timid little old man and had a funny, cracked laugh. Tip +worked hard in his father's grocery store every afternoon, and swept it +out before school in the morning. Even his recreations were laborious. +He collected cigarette cards and tin tobacco-tags indefatigably, and +would sit for hours humped up over a snarling little scroll-saw which he +kept in his attic. His dearest possessions were some little pill bottles +that purported to contain grains of wheat from the Holy Land, water from +the Jordan and the Dead Sea, and earth from the Mount of Olives. His +father had bought these dull things from a Baptist missionary who +peddled them, and Tip seemed to derive great satisfaction from their +remote origin. + +The tall boy was Arthur Adams. He had fine hazel eyes that were almost +too reflective and sympathetic for a boy, and such a pleasant voice that +we all loved to hear him read aloud. Even when he had to read poetry +aloud at school, no one ever thought of laughing. To be sure, he was +not at school very much of the time. He was seventeen and should +have finished the High School the year before, but he was always off +somewhere with his gun. Arthur's mother was dead, and his father, who +was feverishly absorbed in promoting schemes, wanted to send the boy +away to school and get him off his hands; but Arthur always begged off +for another year and promised to study. I remember him as a tall, brown +boy with an intelligent face, always lounging among a lot of us little +fellows, laughing at us oftener than with us, but such a soft, satisfied +laugh that we felt rather flattered when we provoked it. In after-years +people said that Arthur had been given to evil ways as a lad, and it is +true that we often saw him with the gambler's sons and with old Spanish +Fanny's boy, but if he learned anything ugly in their company he never +betrayed it to us. We would have followed Arthur anywhere, and I am +bound to say that he led us into no worse places than the cattail +marshes and the stubble fields. These, then, were the boys who camped +with me that summer night upon the sand bar. + +After we finished our supper we beat the willow thicket for driftwood. +By the time we had collected enough, night had fallen, and the pungent, +weedy smell from the shore increased with the coolness. We threw +ourselves down about the fire and made another futile effort to show +Percy Pound the Little Dipper. We had tried it often before, but he +could never be got past the big one. + +“You see those three big stars just below the handle, with the bright +one in the middle?” said Otto Hassler; “that's Orion's belt, and the +bright one is the clasp.” I crawled behind Otto's shoulder and sighted +up his arm to the star that seemed perched upon the tip of his steady +forefinger. The Hassler boys did seine-fishing at night, and they knew a +good many stars. + +Percy gave up the Little Dipper and lay back on the sand, his hands +clasped under his head. “I can see the North Star,” he announced, +contentedly, pointing toward it with his big toe. “Anyone might get lost +and need to know that.” + +We all looked up at it. + +“How do you suppose Columbus felt when his compass didn't point north +any more?” Tip asked. + +Otto shook his head. “My father says that there was another North Star +once, and that maybe this one won't last always. I wonder what would +happen to us down here if anything went wrong with it?” + +Arthur chuckled. “I wouldn't worry, Ott. Nothing's apt to happen to it +in your time. Look at the Milky Way! There must be lots of good dead +Indians.” + +We lay back and looked, meditating, at the dark cover of the world. The +gurgle of the water had become heavier. We had often noticed a mutinous, +complaining note in it at night, quite different from its cheerful +daytime chuckle, and seeming like the voice of a much deeper and more +powerful stream. Our water had always these two moods: the one of sunny +complaisance, the other of inconsolable, passionate regret. + +“Queer how the stars are all in sort of diagrams,” remarked Otto. “You +could do most any proposition in geometry with 'em. They always look +as if they meant something. Some folks say everybody's fortune is all +written out in the stars, don't they?” + +“They believe so in the old country,” Fritz affirmed. + +But Arthur only laughed at him. “You're thinking of Napoleon, Fritzey. +He had a star that went out when he began to lose battles. I guess the +stars don't keep any close tally on Sandtown folks.” + +We were speculating on how many times we could count a hundred before +the evening star went down behind the cornfields, when someone cried, +“There comes the moon, and it's as big as a cart wheel!” + +We all jumped up to greet it as it swam over the bluffs behind us. It +came up like a galleon in full sail; an enormous, barbaric thing, red as +an angry heathen god. + +“When the moon came up red like that, the Aztecs used to sacrifice their +prisoners on the temple top,” Percy announced. + +“Go on, Perce. You got that out of _Golden Days_. Do you believe that, +Arthur?” I appealed. + +Arthur answered, quite seriously: “Like as not. The moon was one of +their gods. When my father was in Mexico City he saw the stone where +they used to sacrifice their prisoners.” + +As we dropped down by the fire again some one asked whether the +Mound-Builders were older than the Aztecs. When we once got upon the +Mound-Builders we never willingly got away from them, and we were still +conjecturing when we heard a loud splash in the water. + +“Must have been a big cat jumping,” said Fritz. “They do sometimes. They +must see bugs in the dark. Look what a track the moon makes!” + +There was a long, silvery streak on the water, and where the current +fretted over a big log it boiled up like gold pieces. + +“Suppose there ever _was_ any gold hid away in this old river?” Fritz +asked. He lay like a little brown Indian, close to the fire, his chin on +his hand and his bare feet in the air. His brother laughed at him, but +Arthur took his suggestion seriously. + +“Some of the Spaniards thought there was gold up here somewhere. Seven +cities chuck full of gold, they had it, and Coronado and his men came up +to hunt it. The Spaniards were all over this country once.” + +Percy looked interested. “Was that before the Mormons went through?” + +We all laughed at this. + +“Long enough before. Before the Pilgrim Fathers, Perce. Maybe they came +along this very river. They always followed the watercourses.” + +“I wonder where this river really does begin?” Tip mused. That was an +old and a favorite mystery which the map did not clearly explain. On the +map the little black line stopped somewhere in western Kansas; but since +rivers generally rose in mountains, it was only reasonable to suppose +that ours came from the Rockies. Its destination, we knew, was the +Missouri, and the Hassler boys always maintained that we could embark +at Sandtown in floodtime, follow our noses, and eventually arrive at +New Orleans. Now they took up their old argument. “If us boys had grit +enough to try it, it wouldn't take no time to get to Kansas City and St. +Joe.” + +We began to talk about the places we wanted to go to. The Hassler boys +wanted to see the stockyards in Kansas City, and Percy wanted to see +a big store in Chicago. Arthur was interlocutor and did not betray +himself. + +“Now it's your turn, Tip.” + +Tip rolled over on his elbow and poked the fire, and his eyes looked +shyly out of his queer, tight little face. “My place is awful far away. +My Uncle Bill told me about it.” + +Tip's Uncle Bill was a wanderer, bitten with mining fever, who had +drifted into Sandtown with a broken arm, and when it was well had +drifted out again. + +“Where is it?” + +“Aw, it's down in New Mexico somewheres. There aren't no railroads or +anything. You have to go on mules, and you run out of water before you +get there and have to drink canned tomatoes.” + +“Well, go on, kid. What's it like when you do get there?” + +Tip sat up and excitedly began his story. + +“There's a big red rock there that goes right up out of the sand for +about nine hundred feet. The country's flat all around it, and this here +rock goes up all by itself, like a monument. They call it the Enchanted +Bluff down there, because no white man has ever been on top of it. The +sides are smooth rock, and straight up, like a wall. The Indians say +that hundreds of years ago, before the Spaniards came, there was a +village away up there in the air. The tribe that lived there had some +sort of steps, made out of wood and bark, bung down over the face of the +bluff, and the braves went down to hunt and carried water up in big jars +swung on their backs. They kept a big supply of water and dried meat up +there, and never went down except to hunt. They were a peaceful tribe +that made cloth and pottery, and they went up there to get out of the +wars. You see, they could pick off any war party that tried to get up +their little steps. The Indians say they were a handsome people, and +they had some sort of queer religion. Uncle Bill thinks they were +Cliff-Dwellers who had got into trouble and left home. They weren't +fighters, anyhow. + +“One time the braves were down hunting and an awful storm came up--a +kind of waterspout--and when they got back to their rock they found +their little staircase had been all broken to pieces, and only a few +steps were left hanging away up in the air. While they were camped at +the foot of the rock, wondering what to do, a war party from the north +came along and massacred 'em to a man, with all the old folks and women +looking on from the rock. Then the war party went on south and left the +village to get down the best way they could. Of course they never got +down. They starved to death up there, and when the war party came back +on their way north, they could hear the children crying from the edge +of the bluff where they had crawled out, but they didn't see a sign of a +grown Indian, and nobody has ever been up there since.” + +We exclaimed at this dolorous legend and sat up. + +“There couldn't have been many people up there,” Percy demurred. “How +big is the top, Tip?” + +“Oh, pretty big. Big enough so that the rock doesn't look nearly as tall +as it is. The top's bigger than the base. The bluff is sort of worn away +for several hundred feet up. That's one reason it's so hard to climb.” + +I asked how the Indians got up, in the first place. + +“Nobody knows how they got up or when. A hunting party came along once +and saw that there was a town up there, and that was all.” + +Otto rubbed his chin and looked thoughtful. “Of course there must be +some way to get up there. Couldn't people get a rope over someway and +pull a ladder up?” + +Tip's little eyes were shining with excitement. “I know a way. Me and +Uncle Bill talked it over. There's a kind of rocket that would take a +rope over--lifesavers use 'em--and then you could hoist a rope ladder +and peg it down at the bottom and make it tight with guy ropes on the +other side. I'm going to climb that there bluff, and I've got it all +planned out.” + +Fritz asked what he expected to find when he got up there. + +“Bones, maybe, or the ruins of their town, or pottery, or some of their +idols. There might be 'most anything up there. Anyhow, I want to see.” + +“Sure nobody else has been up there, Tip?” Arthur asked. + +“Dead sure. Hardly anybody ever goes down there. Some hunters tried to +cut steps in the rock once, but they didn't get higher than a man can +reach. The Bluff's all red granite, and Uncle Bill thinks it's a boulder +the glaciers left. It's a queer place, anyhow. Nothing but cactus and +desert for hundreds of miles, and yet right under the Bluff there's good +water and plenty of grass. That's why the bison used to go down there.” + +Suddenly we heard a scream above our fire, and jumped up to see a dark, +slim bird floating southward far above us--a whooping crane, we knew by +her cry and her long neck. We ran to the edge of the island, hoping we +might see her alight, but she wavered southward along the rivercourse +until we lost her. The Hassler boys declared that by the look of the +heavens it must be after midnight, so we threw more wood on our fire, +put on our jackets, and curled down in the warm sand. Several of us +pretended to doze, but I fancy we were really thinking about Tip's Bluff +and the extinct people. Over in the wood the ring doves were calling +mournfully to one another, and once we heard a dog bark, far away. +“Somebody getting into old Tommy's melon patch,” Fritz murmured +sleepily, but nobody answered him. By and by Percy spoke out of the +shadows. + +“Say, Tip, when you go down there will you take me with you?” + +“Maybe.” + +“Suppose one of us beats you down there, Tip?” + +“Whoever gets to the Bluff first has got to promise to tell the rest of +us exactly what he finds,” remarked one of the Hassler boys, and to this +we all readily assented. + +Somewhat reassured, I dropped off to sleep. I must have dreamed about a +race for the Bluff, for I awoke in a kind of fear that other people were +getting ahead of me and that I was losing my chance. I sat up in my +damp clothes and looked at the other boys, who lay tumbled in uneasy +attitudes about the dead fire. It was still dark, but the sky was blue +with the last wonderful azure of night. The stars glistened like crystal +globes, and trembled as if they shone through a depth of clear water. +Even as I watched, they began to pale and the sky brightened. Day came +suddenly, almost instantaneously. I turned for another look at the blue +night, and it was gone. Everywhere the birds began to call, and all +manner of little insects began to chirp and hop about in the willows. +A breeze sprang up from the west and brought the heavy smell of ripened +corn. The boys rolled over and shook themselves. We stripped and plunged +into the river just as the sun came up over the windy bluffs. + +When I came home to Sandtown at Christmas time, we skated out to +our island and talked over the whole project of the Enchanted Bluff, +renewing our resolution to find it. + + +Although that was twenty years ago, none of us have ever climbed the +Enchanted Bluff. Percy Pound is a stockbroker in Kansas City and will go +nowhere that his red touring car cannot carry him. Otto Hassler went +on the railroad and lost his foot braking; after which he and Fritz +succeeded their father as the town tailors. + +Arthur sat about the sleepy little town all his life--he died before he +was twenty-five. The last time I saw him, when I was home on one of my +college vacations, he was sitting in a steamer chair under a cottonwood +tree in the little yard behind one of the two Sandtown saloons. He was +very untidy and his hand was not steady, but when he rose, unabashed, +to greet me, his eyes were as clear and warm as ever. When I had talked +with him for an hour and heard him laugh again, I wondered how it was +that when Nature had taken such pains with a man, from his hands to the +arch of his long foot, she had ever lost him in Sandtown. He joked about +Tip Smith's Bluff, and declared he was going down there just as soon +as the weather got cooler; he thought the Grand Canyon might be worth +while, too. + +I was perfectly sure when I left him that he would never get beyond +the high plank fence and the comfortable shade of the cottonwood. And, +indeed, it was under that very tree that he died one summer morning. + +Tip Smith still talks about going to New Mexico. He married +a slatternly, unthrifty country girl, has been much tied to a +perambulator, and has grown stooped and grey from irregular meals and +broken sleep. But the worst of his difficulties are now over, and he +has, as he says, come into easy water. When I was last in Sandtown I +walked home with him late one moonlight night, after he had balanced his +cash and shut up his store. We took the long way around and sat down on +the schoolhouse steps, and between us we quite revived the romance of +the lone red rock and the extinct people. Tip insists that he still +means to go down there, but he thinks now he will wait until his boy +Bert is old enough to go with him. Bert has been let into the story, and +thinks of nothing but the Enchanted Bluff. + + + + + + +The Bohemian Girl + +The transcontinental express swung along the windings of the Sand River +Valley, and in the rear seat of the observation car a young man sat +greatly at his ease, not in the least discomfited by the fierce sunlight +which beat in upon his brown face and neck and strong back. There was +a look of relaxation and of great passivity about his broad shoulders, +which seemed almost too heavy until he stood up and squared them. He +wore a pale flannel shirt and a blue silk necktie with loose ends. His +trousers were wide and belted at the waist, and his short sack coat hung +open. His heavy shoes had seen good service. His reddish-brown hair, +like his clothes, had a foreign cut. He had deep-set, dark blue eyes +under heavy reddish eyebrows. His face was kept clean only by close +shaving, and even the sharpest razor left a glint of yellow in the +smooth brown of his skin. His teeth and the palms of his hands were very +white. His head, which looked hard and stubborn, lay indolently in the +green cushion of the wicker chair, and as he looked out at the ripe +summer country a teasing, not unkindly smile played over his lips. +Once, as he basked thus comfortably, a quick light flashed in his eyes, +curiously dilating the pupils, and his mouth became a hard, straight +line, gradually relaxing into its former smile of rather kindly mockery. +He told himself, apparently, that there was no point in getting excited; +and he seemed a master hand at taking his ease when he could. Neither +the sharp whistle of the locomotive nor the brakeman's call disturbed +him. It was not until after the train had stopped that he rose, put on +a Panama hat, took from the rack a small valise and a flute case, and +stepped deliberately to the station platform. The baggage was already +unloaded, and the stranger presented a check for a battered sole-leather +steamer trunk. + +“Can you keep it here for a day or two?” he asked the agent. “I may send +for it, and I may not.” + +“Depends on whether you like the country, I suppose?” demanded the agent +in a challenging tone. + +“Just so.” + +The agent shrugged his shoulders, looked scornfully at the small trunk, +which was marked “N.E.,” and handed out a claim check without further +comment. The stranger watched him as he caught one end of the trunk and +dragged it into the express room. The agent's manner seemed to remind +him of something amusing. “Doesn't seem to be a very big place,” he +remarked, looking about. + +“It's big enough for us,” snapped the agent, as he banged the trunk into +a corner. + +That remark, apparently, was what Nils Ericson had wanted. He chuckled +quietly as he took a leather strap from his pocket and swung his valise +around his shoulder. Then he settled his Panama securely on his head, +turned up his trousers, tucked the flute case under his arm, and started +off across the fields. He gave the town, as he would have said, a wide +berth, and cut through a great fenced pasture, emerging, when he rolled +under the barbed wire at the farther corner, upon a white dusty road +which ran straight up from the river valley to the high prairies, where +the ripe wheat stood yellow and the tin roofs and weathercocks were +twinkling in the fierce sunlight. By the time Nils had done three miles, +the sun was sinking and the farm wagons on their way home from town came +rattling by, covering him with dust and making him sneeze. When one of +the farmers pulled up and offered to give him a lift, he clambered in +willingly. The driver was a thin, grizzled old man with a long lean +neck and a foolish sort of beard, like a goat's. “How fur ye goin'?” he +asked, as he clucked to his horses and started off. + +“Do you go by the Ericson place?” + +“Which Ericson?” The old man drew in his reins as if he expected to stop +again. + +“Preacher Ericson's.” + +“Oh, the Old Lady Ericson's!” He turned and looked at Nils. “La, me! If +you're goin' out there you might a' rid out in the automobile. That's a +pity, now. The Old Lady Ericson was in town with her auto. You might 'a' +heard it snortin' anywhere about the post-office er the butcher shop.” + +“Has she a motor?” asked the stranger absently. + +“'Deed an' she has! She runs into town every night about this time for +her mail and meat for supper. Some folks say she's afraid her auto won't +get exercise enough, but I say that's jealousy.” + +“Aren't there any other motors about here?” + +“Oh, yes! we have fourteen in all. But nobody else gets around like +the Old Lady Ericson. She's out, rain er shine, over the whole county, +chargin' into town and out amongst her farms, an' up to her sons' +places. Sure you ain't goin' to the wrong place?” He craned his neck and +looked at Nils' flute case with eager curiosity. “The old woman ain't +got any piany that I knows on. Olaf, he has a grand. His wife's musical: +took lessons in Chicago.” + +“I'm going up there tomorrow,” said Nils imperturbably. He saw that the +driver took him for a piano tuner. + +“Oh, I see!” The old man screwed up his eyes mysteriously. He was a +little dashed by the stranger's noncommunicativeness, but he soon broke +out again. + +“I'm one o' Miss Ericson's tenants. Look after one of her places. I did +own the place myself once, but I lost it a while back, in the bad years +just after the World's Fair. Just as well, too, I say. Lets you out o' +payin' taxes. The Ericsons do own most of the county now. I remember +the old preacher's favorite text used to be, 'To them that hath shall be +given.' They've spread something wonderful--run over this here country +like bindweed. But I ain't one that begretches it to 'em. Folks is +entitled to what they kin git; and they're hustlers. Olaf, he's in the +Legislature now, and a likely man fur Congress. Listen, if that ain't +the old woman comin' now. Want I should stop her?” + +Nils shook his head. He heard the deep chug-chug of a motor vibrating +steadily in the clear twilight behind them. The pale lights of the car +swam over the hill, and the old man slapped his reins and turned clear +out of the road, ducking his head at the first of three angry snorts +from behind. The motor was running at a hot, even speed, and passed +without turning an inch from its course. The driver was a stalwart woman +who sat at ease in the front seat and drove her car bareheaded. She left +a cloud of dust and a trail of gasoline behind her. Her tenant threw +back his head and sneezed. + +“Whew! I sometimes say I'd as lief be _before_ Mrs. Ericson as behind +her. She does beat all! Nearly seventy, and never lets another soul +touch that car. Puts it into commission herself every morning, and keeps +it tuned up by the hitch-bar all day. I never stop work for a drink +o' water that I don't hear her a-churnin' up the road. I reckon her +darter-in-laws never sets down easy nowadays. Never know when she'll pop +in. Mis' Otto, she says to me: 'We're so afraid that thing'll blow up +and do Ma some injury yet, she's so turrible venturesome.' Says I: 'I +wouldn't stew, Mis' Otto; the old lady'll drive that car to the funeral +of every darter-in-law she's got.' That was after the old woman had +jumped a turrible bad culvert.” + +The stranger heard vaguely what the old man was saying. Just now he was +experiencing something very much like homesickness, and he was wondering +what had brought it about. The mention of a name or two, perhaps; +the rattle of a wagon along a dusty road; the rank, resinous smell of +sunflowers and ironweed, which the night damp brought up from the draws +and low places; perhaps, more than all, the dancing lights of the motor +that had plunged by. He squared his shoulders with a comfortable sense +of strength. + +The wagon, as it jolted westward, climbed a pretty steady up-grade. The +country, receding from the rough river valley, swelled more and more +gently, as if it had been smoothed out by the wind. On one of the last +of the rugged ridges, at the end of a branch road, stood a grim square +house with a tin roof and double porches. Behind the house stretched a +row of broken, wind-racked poplars, and down the hill slope to the left +straggled the sheds and stables. The old man stopped his horses where +the Ericsons' road branched across a dry sand creek that wound about the +foot of the hill. + +“That's the old lady's place. Want I should drive in?” “No, thank you. +I'll roll out here. Much obliged to you. Good night.” + +His passenger stepped down over the front wheel, and the old man drove +on reluctantly, looking back as if he would like to see how the stranger +would be received. + +As Nils was crossing the dry creek he heard the restive tramp of a horse +coming toward him down the hill. Instantly he flashed out of the road +and stood behind a thicket of wild plum bushes that grew in the sandy +bed. Peering through the dusk, he saw a light horse, under tight +rein, descending the hill at a sharp walk. The rider was a slender +woman--barely visible against the dark hillside--wearing an +old-fashioned derby hat and a long riding skirt. She sat lightly in the +saddle, with her chin high, and seemed to be looking into the distance. +As she passed the plum thicket her horse snuffed the air and shied. +She struck him, pulling him in sharply, with an angry exclamation, +_“Blazne!”_ in Bohemian. Once in the main road, she let him out into +a lope, and they soon emerged upon the crest of high land, where they +moved along the skyline, silhouetted against the band of faint colour +that lingered in the west. This horse and rider, with their free, +rhythmical gallop, were the only moving things to be seen on the face of +the flat country. They seemed, in the last sad light of evening, not to +be there accidentally, but as an inevitable detail of the landscape. + +Nils watched them until they had shrunk to a mere moving speck against +the sky, then he crossed the sand creek and climbed the hill. When +he reached the gate the front of the house was dark, but a light was +shining from the side windows. The pigs were squealing in the hog +corral, and Nils could see a tall boy, who carried two big wooden +buckets, moving about among them. Halfway between the barn and the +house, the windmill wheezed lazily. Following the path that ran around +to the back porch, Nils stopped to look through the screen door into +the lamplit kitchen. The kitchen was the largest room in the house; Nils +remembered that his older brothers used to give dances there when he was +a boy. Beside the stove stood a little girl with two light yellow braids +and a broad, flushed face, peering anxiously into a frying pan. In the +dining-room beyond, a large, broad-shouldered woman was moving about the +table. She walked with an active, springy step. Her face was heavy and +florid, almost without wrinkles, and her hair was black at seventy. +Nils felt proud of her as he watched her deliberate activity; never a +momentary hesitation, or a movement that did not tell. He waited until +she came out into the kitchen and, brushing the child aside, took her +place at the stove. Then he tapped on the screen door and entered. + +“It's nobody but Nils, Mother. I expect you weren't looking for me.” + +Mrs. Ericson turned away from the stove and stood staring at him. “Bring +the lamp, Hilda, and let me look.” + +Nils laughed and unslung his valise. “What's the matter, Mother? Don't +you know me?” + +Mrs. Ericson put down the lamp. “You must be Nils. You don't look very +different, anyway.” + +“Nor you, Mother. You hold your own. Don't you wear glasses yet?” + +“Only to read by. Where's your trunk, Nils?” + +“Oh, I left that in town. I thought it might not be convenient for you +to have company so near threshing-time.” + +“Don't be foolish, Nils.” Mrs. Ericson turned back to the stove. “I +don't thresh now. I hitched the wheat land onto the next farm and have +a tenant. Hilda, take some hot water up to the company room, and go call +little Eric.” + +The tow-haired child, who had been standing in mute amazement, took up +the tea-kettle and withdrew, giving Nils a long, admiring look from the +door of the kitchen stairs. + +“Who's the youngster?” Nils asked, dropping down on the bench behind the +kitchen stove. + +“One of your Cousin Henrik's.” + +“How long has Cousin Henrik been dead?” + +“Six years. There are two boys. One stays with Peter and one with +Anders. Olaf is their guardeen.” + +There was a clatter of pails on the porch, and a tall, lanky boy peered +wonderingly in through the screen door. He had a fair, gentle face and +big grey eyes, and wisps of soft yellow hair hung down under his cap. +Nils sprang up and pulled him into the kitchen, hugging him and slapping +him on the shoulders. “Well, if it isn't my kid! Look at the size of +him! Don't you know me, Eric?” + +The boy reddened tinder his sunburn and freckles, and hung his head. “I +guess it's Nils,” he said shyly. + +“You're a good guesser,” laughed Nils giving the lad's hand a swing. To +himself he was thinking: “That's why the little girl looked so friendly. +He's taught her to like me. He was only six when I went away, and he's +remembered for twelve years.” + +Eric stood fumbling with his cap and smiling. “You look just like I +thought you would,” he ventured. + +“Go wash your hands, Eric,” called Mrs. Ericson. “I've got cob corn for +supper, Nils. You used to like it. I guess you don't get much of that in +the old country. Here's Hilda; she'll take you up to your room. You'll +want to get the dust off you before you eat.” + +Mrs. Ericson went into the dining-room to lay another plate, and the +little girl came up and nodded to Nils as if to let him know that his +room was ready. He put out his hand and she took it, with a startled +glance up at his face. Little Eric dropped his towel, threw an arm about +Nils and one about Hilda, gave them a clumsy squeeze, and then stumbled +out to the porch. + +During supper Nils heard exactly how much land each of his eight grown +brothers farmed, how their crops were coming on, and how much livestock +they were feeding. His mother watched him narrowly as she talked. +“You've got better looking, Nils,” she remarked abruptly, whereupon he +grinned and the children giggled. Eric, although he was eighteen and as +tall as Nils, was always accounted a child, being the last of so many +sons. His face seemed childlike, too, Nils thought, and he had the open, +wandering eyes of a little boy. All the others had been men at his age. + +After supper Nils went out to the front porch and sat down on the step +to smoke a pipe. Mrs. Ericson drew a rocking-chair up near him and began +to knit busily. It was one of the few Old World customs she had kept up, +for she could not bear to sit with idle hands. + +“Where's little Eric, Mother?” + +“He's helping Hilda with the dishes. He does it of his own will; I don't +like a boy to be too handy about the house.” + +“He seems like a nice kid.” + +“He's very obedient.” + +Nils smiled a little in the dark. It was just as well to shift the line +of conversation. “What are you knitting there, Mother?” + +“Baby stockings. The boys keep me busy.” Mrs. Ericson chuckled and +clicked her needles. + +“How many grandchildren have you?” + +“Only thirty-one now. Olaf lost his three. They were sickly, like their +mother.” + +“I supposed he had a second crop by this time!” + +“His second wife has no children. She's too proud. She tears about on +horseback all the time. But she'll get caught up with, yet. She sets +herself very high, though nobody knows what for. They were low enough +Bohemians she came of. I never thought much of Bohemians; always +drinking.” + +Nils puffed away at his pipe in silence, and Mrs. Ericson knitted on. In +a few moments she added grimly: “She was down here tonight, just before +you came. She'd like to quarrel with me and come between me and Olaf, +but I don't give her the chance. I suppose you'll be bringing a wife +home some day.” + +“I don't know. I've never thought much about it.” + +“Well, perhaps it's best as it is,” suggested Mrs. Ericson hopefully. +“You'd never be contented tied down to the land. There was roving blood +in your father's family, and it's come out in you. I expect your own +way of life suits you best.” Mrs. Ericson had dropped into a blandly +agreeable tone which Nils well remembered. It seemed to amuse him a +good deal and his white teeth flashed behind his pipe. His mother's +strategies had always diverted him, even when he was a boy--they were so +flimsy and patent, so illy proportioned to her vigor and force. “They've +been waiting to see which way I'd jump,” he reflected. He felt that Mrs. +Ericson was pondering his case deeply as she sat clicking her needles. + +“I don't suppose you've ever got used to steady work,” she went on +presently. “Men ain't apt to if they roam around too long. It's a pity +you didn't come back the year after the World's Fair. Your father picked +up a good bit of land cheap then, in the hard times, and I expect maybe +he'd have give you a farm, it's too bad you put off comin' back so long, +for I always thought he meant to do something by you.” + +Nils laughed and shook the ashes out of his pipe. “I'd have missed a lot +if I had come back then. But I'm sorry I didn't get back to see father.” + +“Well, I suppose we have to miss things at one end or the other. Perhaps +you are as well satisfied with your own doings, now, as you'd have been +with a farm,” said Mrs. Ericson reassuringly. + +“Land's a good thing to have,” Nils commented, as he lit another match +and sheltered it with his hand. + +His mother looked sharply at his face until the match burned out. “Only +when you stay on it!” she hastened to say. + +Eric came round the house by the path just then, and Nils rose, with a +yawn. “Mother, if you don't mind, Eric and I will take a little tramp +before bedtime. It will make me sleep.” + +“Very well; only don't stay long. I'll sit up and wait for you. I like +to lock up myself.” + +Nils put his hand on Eric's shoulder, and the two tramped down the hill +and across the sand creek into the dusty highroad beyond. Neither spoke. +They swung along at an even gait, Nils puffing at his pipe. There was no +moon, and the white road and the wide fields lay faint in the starlight. +Over everything was darkness and thick silence, and the smell of dust +and sunflowers. The brothers followed the road for a mile or more +without finding a place to sit down. Finally, Nils perched on a stile +over the wire fence, and Eric sat on the lower step. + +“I began to think you never would come back, Nils,” said the boy softly. + +“Didn't I promise you I would?” + +“Yes; but people don't bother about promises they make to babies. Did +you really know you were going away for good when you went to Chicago +with the cattle that time?” + +“I thought it very likely, if I could make my way.” + +“I don't see how you did it, Nils. Not many fellows could.” Eric rubbed +his shoulder against his brother's knee. + +“The hard thing was leaving home you and father. It was easy enough, +once I got beyond Chicago. Of course I got awful homesick; used to cry +myself to sleep. But I'd burned my bridges.” + +“You had always wanted to go, hadn't you?” + +“Always. Do you still sleep in our little room? Is that cottonwood still +by the window?” + +Eric nodded eagerly and smiled up at his brother in the grey darkness. + +“You remember how we always said the leaves were whispering when they +rustled at night? Well, they always whispered to me about the sea. +Sometimes they said names out of the geography books. In a high wind +they had a desperate sound, like someone trying to tear loose.” + +“How funny, Nils,” said Eric dreamily, resting his chin on his hand. +“That tree still talks like that, and 'most always it talks to me about +you.” + +They sat a while longer, watching the stars. At last Eric whispered +anxiously: “Hadn't we better go back now? Mother will get tired waiting +for us.” They rose and took a short cut home, through the pasture. + + + II + +The next morning Nils woke with the first flood of light that came with +dawn. The white-plastered walls of his room reflected the glare that +shone through the thin window shades, and he found it impossible to +sleep. He dressed hurriedly and slipped down the hall and up the back +stairs to the half-story room which he used to share with his little +brother. Eric, in a skimpy nightshirt, was sitting on the edge of the +bed, rubbing his eyes, his pale yellow hair standing up in tufts all +over his head. When he saw Nils, he murmured something confusedly and +hustled his long legs into his trousers. “I didn't expect you'd be up so +early, Nils,” he said, as his head emerged from his blue shirt. + +“Oh, you thought I was a dude, did you?” Nils gave him a playful tap +which bent the tall boy up like a clasp knife. “See here: I must teach +you to box.” Nils thrust his hands into his pockets and walked about. +“You haven't changed things much up here. Got most of my old traps, +haven't you?” + +He took down a bent, withered piece of sapling that hung over the +dresser. “If this isn't the stick Lou Sandberg killed himself with!” + +The boy looked up from his shoe-lacing. + +“Yes; you never used to let me play with that. Just how did he do it, +Nils? You were with father when he found Lou, weren't you?” + +“Yes. Father was going off to preach somewhere, and, as we drove along, +Lou's place looked sort of forlorn, and we thought we'd stop and cheer +him up. When we found him father said he'd been dead a couple days. He'd +tied a piece of binding twine round his neck, made a noose in each end, +fixed the nooses over the ends of a bent stick, and let the stick spring +straight; strangled himself.” + +“What made him kill himself such a silly way?” + +The simplicity of the boy's question set Nils laughing. He clapped +little Eric on the shoulder. “What made him such a silly as to kill +himself at all, I should say!” + +“Oh, well! But his hogs had the cholera, and all up and died on him, +didn't they?” + +“Sure they did; but he didn't have cholera; and there were plenty of +hogs left in the world, weren't there?” + +“Well, but, if they weren't his, how could they do him any good?” Eric +asked, in astonishment. + +“Oh, scat! He could have had lots of fun with other people's hogs. He +was a chump, Lou Sandberg. To kill yourself for a pig--think of that, +now!” Nils laughed all the way downstairs, and quite embarrassed little +Eric, who fell to scrubbing his face and hands at the tin basin. While +he was parting his wet hair at the kitchen looking glass, a heavy tread +sounded on the stairs. The boy dropped his comb. “Gracious, there's +Mother. We must have talked too long.” He hurried out to the shed, +slipped on his overalls, and disappeared with the milking pails. + +Mrs. Ericson came in, wearing a clean white apron, her black hair +shining from the application of a wet brush. + +“Good morning, Mother. Can't I make the fire for you?” + +“No, thank you, Nils. It's no trouble to make a cob fire, and I like to +manage the kitchen stove myself” Mrs. Ericson paused with a shovel full +of ashes in her hand. “I expect you will be wanting to see your brothers +as soon as possible. I'll take you up to Anders' place this morning. +He's threshing, and most of our boys are over there.” + +“Will Olaf be there?” + +Mrs. Ericson went on taking out the ashes, and spoke between shovels. +“No; Olaf's wheat is all in, put away in his new barn. He got six +thousand bushel this year. He's going to town today to get men to finish +roofing his barn.” + +“So Olaf is building a new barn?” Nils asked absently. + +“Biggest one in the county, and almost done. You'll likely be here for +the barn-raising. He's going to have a supper and a dance as soon as +everybody's done threshing. Says it keeps the voters in good humour. I +tell him that's all nonsense; but Olaf has a head for politics.” + +“Does Olaf farm all Cousin Henrik's land?” + +Mrs. Ericson frowned as she blew into the faint smoke curling up about +the cobs. “Yes; he holds it in trust for the children, Hilda and her +brothers. He keeps strict account of everything he raises on it, and +puts the proceeds out at compound interest for them.” + +Nils smiled as he watched the little flames shoot up. The door of the +back stairs opened, and Hilda emerged, her arms behind her, buttoning +up her long gingham apron as she came. He nodded to her gaily, and she +twinkled at him out of her little blue eyes, set far apart over her wide +cheekbones. + +“There, Hilda, you grind the coffee--and just put in an extra handful; +I expect your Cousin Nils likes his strong,” said Mrs. Ericson, as she +went out to the shed. + +Nils turned to look at the little girl, who gripped the coffee grinder +between her knees and ground so hard that her two braids bobbed and her +face flushed under its broad spattering of freckles. He noticed on her +middle finger something that had not been there last night, and that had +evidently been put on for company: a tiny gold ring with a clumsily set +garnet stone. As her hand went round and round he touched the ring with +the tip of his finger, smiling. + +Hilda glanced toward the shed door through which Mrs. Ericson had +disappeared. “My Cousin Clara gave me that,” she whispered bashfully. +“She's Cousin Olaf's wife.” + + + III + +Mrs. Olaf Ericson--Clara Vavrika, as many people still called her--was +moving restlessly about her big bare house that morning. Her husband had +left for the county town before his wife was out of bed--her lateness +in rising was one of the many things the Ericson family had against her. +Clara seldom came downstairs before eight o'clock, and this morning +she was even later, for she had dressed with unusual care. She put +on, however, only a tight-fitting black dress, which people thereabouts +thought very plain. She was a tall, dark woman of thirty, with a rather +sallow complexion and a touch of dull salmon red in her cheeks, where +the blood seemed to burn under her brown skin. Her hair, parted evenly +above her low forehead, was so black that there were distinctly blue +lights in it. Her black eyebrows were delicate half-moons and her lashes +were long and heavy. Her eyes slanted a little, as if she had a strain +of Tartar or gypsy blood, and were sometimes full of fiery determination +and sometimes dull and opaque. Her expression was never altogether +amiable; was often, indeed, distinctly sullen, or, when she was +animated, sarcastic. She was most attractive in profile, for then one +saw to advantage her small, well-shaped head and delicate ears, and felt +at once that here was a very positive, if not an altogether pleasing, +personality. + +The entire management of Mrs. Olaf's household devolved upon her aunt, +Johanna Vavrika, a superstitious, doting woman of fifty. When Clara +was a little girl her mother died, and Johanna's life had been spent +in ungrudging service to her niece. Clara, like many self-willed and +discontented persons, was really very apt, without knowing it, to do +as other people told her, and to let her destiny be decided for her +by intelligences much below her own. It was her Aunt Johanna who had +humoured and spoiled her in her girlhood, who had got her off to Chicago +to study piano, and who had finally persuaded her to marry Olaf Ericson +as the best match she would be likely to make in that part of the +country. Johanna Vavrika had been deeply scarred by smallpox in the old +country. She was short and fat, homely and jolly and sentimental. +She was so broad, and took such short steps when she walked, that her +brother, Joe Vavrika, always called her his duck. She adored her niece +because of her talent, because of her good looks and masterful ways, but +most of all because of her selfishness. + +Clara's marriage with Olaf Ericson was Johanna's particular triumph. She +was inordinately proud of Olaf's position, and she found a sufficiently +exciting career in managing Clara's house, in keeping it above the +criticism of the Ericsons, in pampering Olaf to keep him from finding +fault with his wife, and in concealing from every one Clara's domestic +infelicities. While Clara slept of a morning, Johanna Vavrika was +bustling about, seeing that Olaf and the men had their breakfast, and +that the cleaning or the butter-making or the washing was properly begun +by the two girls in the kitchen. Then, at about eight o'clock, she would +take Clara's coffee up to her, and chat with her while she drank it, +telling her what was going on in the house. Old Mrs. Ericson frequently +said that her daughter-in-law would not know what day of the week it +was if Johanna did not tell her every morning. Mrs. Ericson despised and +pitied Johanna, but did not wholly dislike her. The one thing she hated +in her daughter-in-law above everything else was the way in which Clara +could come it over people. It enraged her that the affairs of her son's +big, barnlike house went on as well as they did, and she used to feel +that in this world we have to wait overlong to see the guilty punished. +“Suppose Johanna Vavrika died or got sick?” the old lady used to say to +Olaf. “Your wife wouldn't know where to look for her own dish-cloth.” + Olaf only shrugged his shoulders. The fact remained that Johanna did not +die, and, although Mrs. Ericson often told her she was looking poorly, +she was never ill. She seldom left the house, and she slept in a little +room off the kitchen. No Ericson, by night or day, could come prying +about there to find fault without her knowing it. Her one weakness was +that she was an incurable talker, and she sometimes made trouble without +meaning to. + +This morning Clara was tying a wine-coloured ribbon about her throat +when Johanna appeared with her coffee. After putting the tray on a +sewing table, she began to make Clara's bed, chattering the while in +Bohemian. + +“Well, Olaf got off early, and the girls are baking. I'm going down +presently to make some poppy-seed bread for Olaf. He asked for prune +preserves at breakfast, and I told him I was out of them, and to bring +some prunes and honey and cloves from town.” + +Clara poured her coffee. “Ugh! I don't see how men can eat so much sweet +stuff. In the morning, too!” + +Her aunt chuckled knowingly. “Bait a bear with honey, as we say in the +old country.” + +“Was he cross?” her niece asked indifferently. + +“Olaf? Oh, no! He was in fine spirits. He's never cross if you know how +to take him. I never knew a man to make so little fuss about bills. I +gave him a list of things to get a yard long, and he didn't say a word; +just folded it up and put it in his pocket.” + +“I can well believe he didn't say a word,” Clara remarked with a shrug. +“Some day he'll forget how to talk.” + +“Oh, but they say he's a grand speaker in the Legislature. He knows +when to keep quiet. That's why he's got such influence in politics. The +people have confidence in him.” Johanna beat up a pillow and held it +under her fat chin while she slipped on the case. Her niece laughed. + +“Maybe we could make people believe we were wise, Aunty, if we held our +tongues. Why did you tell Mrs. Ericson that Norman threw me again last +Saturday and turned my foot? She's been talking to Olaf.” + +Johanna fell into great confusion. “Oh, but, my precious, the old lady +asked for you, and she's always so angry if I can't give an excuse. +Anyhow, she needn't talk; she's always tearing up something with that +motor of hers.” + +When her aunt clattered down to the kitchen, Clara went to dust the +parlour. Since there was not much there to dust, this did not take very +long. Olaf had built the house new for her before their marriage, but +her interest in furnishing it had been short-lived. It went, indeed, +little beyond a bathtub and her piano. They had disagreed about almost +every other article of furniture, and Clara had said she would rather +have her house empty than full of things she didn't want. The house was +set in a hillside, and the west windows of the parlour looked out above +the kitchen yard thirty feet below. The east windows opened directly +into the front yard. At one of the latter, Clara, while she was dusting, +heard a low whistle. She did not turn at once, but listened intently as +she drew her cloth slowly along the round of a chair. Yes, there it was: + +I dreamt that I dwelt in ma-a-arble halls. + +She turned and saw Nils Ericson laughing in the sunlight, his hat in his +hand, just outside the window. As she crossed the room he leaned against +the wire screen. “Aren't you at all surprised to see me, Clara Vavrika?” + +“No; I was expecting to see you. Mother Ericson telephoned Olaf last +night that you were here.” + +Nils squinted and gave a long whistle. “Telephoned? That must have been +while Eric and I were out walking. Isn't she enterprising? Lift this +screen, won't you?” + +Clara lifted the screen, and Nils swung his leg across the window-sill. +As he stepped into the room she said: “You didn't think you were going +to get ahead of your mother, did you?” + +He threw his hat on the piano. “Oh, I do sometimes. You see, I'm ahead +of her now. I'm supposed to be in Anders' wheat-field. But, as we were +leaving, Mother ran her car into a soft place beside the road and sank +up to the hubs. While they were going for the horses to pull her out, +I cut away behind the stacks and escaped.” Nils chuckled. Clara's dull +eyes lit up as she looked at him admiringly. + +“You've got them guessing already. I don't know what your mother said +to Olaf over the telephone, but be came back looking as if he'd seen +a ghost, and he didn't go to bed until a dreadful hour--ten o'clock, I +should think. He sat out on the porch in the dark like a graven image. +It had been one of his talkative days, too.” They both laughed, easily +and lightly, like people who have laughed a great deal together; but +they remained standing. + +“Anders and Otto and Peter looked as if they had seen ghosts, too, over +in the threshing field. What's the matter with them all?” + +Clara gave him a quick, searching look. “Well, for one thing, they've +always been afraid you have the other will.” + +Nils looked interested. “The other will?” + +“Yes. A later one. They knew your father made another, but they never +knew what he did with it. They almost tore the old house to pieces +looking for it. They always suspected that he carried on a clandestine +correspondence with you, for the one thing he would do was to get his +own mail himself. So they thought he might have sent the new will to +you for safekeeping. The old one, leaving everything to your mother, was +made long before you went away, and it's understood among them that it +cuts you out--that she will leave all the property to the others. Your +father made the second will to prevent that. I've been hoping you +had it. It would be such fun to spring it on them.” Clara laughed +mirthfully, a thing she did not often do now. + +Nils shook his head reprovingly. “Come, now, you're malicious.” + +“No, I'm not. But I'd like something to happen to stir them all up, just +for once. There never was such a family for having nothing ever happen +to them but dinner and threshing. I'd almost be willing to die, just to +have a funeral. _You_ wouldn't stand it for three weeks.” + +Nils bent over the piano and began pecking at the keys with the finger +of one hand. “I wouldn't? My dear young lady, how do you know what I can +stand? _You_ wouldn't wait to find out.” + +Clara flushed darkly and frowned. “I didn't believe you would ever come +back--” she said defiantly. + +“Eric believed I would, and he was only a baby when I went away. +However, all's well that ends well, and I haven't come back to be a +skeleton at the feast. We mustn't quarrel. Mother will be here with a +search warrant pretty soon.” He swung round and faced her, thrusting his +hands into his coat pockets. “Come, you ought to be glad to see me, if +you want something to happen. I'm something, even without a will. We can +have a little fun, can't we? I think we can!” + +She echoed him, “I think we can!” They both laughed and their eyes +sparkled. Clara Vavrika looked ten years younger than when she had put +the velvet ribbon about her throat that morning. + +“You know, I'm so tickled to see mother,” Nils went on. “I didn't know +I was so proud of her. A regular pile driver. How about little pigtails, +down at the house? Is Olaf doing the square thing by those children?” + +Clara frowned pensively. “Olaf has to do something that looks like the +square thing, now that he's a public man!” She glanced drolly at Nils. +“But he makes a good commission out of it. On Sundays they all get +together here and figure. He lets Peter and Anders put in big bills for +the keep of the two boys, and he pays them out of the estate. They are +always having what they call accountings. Olaf gets something out of +it, too. I don't know just how they do it, but it's entirely a family +matter, as they say. And when the Ericsons say that--” Clara lifted her +eyebrows. + +Just then the angry _honk-honk_ of an approaching motor sounded from +down the road. Their eyes met and they began to laugh. They laughed as +children do when they can not contain themselves, and can not explain +the cause of their mirth to grown people, but share it perfectly +together. When Clara Vavrika sat down at the piano after he was gone, +she felt that she had laughed away a dozen years. She practised as if +the house were burning over her head. + +When Nils greeted his mother and climbed into the front seat of the +motor beside her, Mrs. Ericson looked grim, but she made no comment +upon his truancy until she had turned her car and was retracing her +revolutions along the road that ran by Olaf's big pasture. Then she +remarked dryly: + +“If I were you I wouldn't see too much of Olaf's wife while you are +here. She's the kind of woman who can't see much of men without getting +herself talked about. She was a good deal talked about before he married +her.” + +“Hasn't Olaf tamed her?” Nils asked indifferently. + +Mrs. Ericson shrugged her massive shoulders. “Olaf don't seem to have +much luck, when it comes to wives. The first one was meek enough, but +she was always ailing. And this one has her own way. He says if he +quarreled with her she'd go back to her father, and then he'd lose the +Bohemian vote. There are a great many Bohunks in this district. But when +you find a man under his wife's thumb you can always be sure there's a +soft spot in him somewhere.” + +Nils thought of his own father, and smiled. “She brought him a good deal +of money, didn't she, besides the Bohemian vote?” + +Mrs. Ericson sniffed. “Well, she has a fair half section in her own +name, but I can't see as that does Olaf much good. She will have a good +deal of property some day, if old Vavrika don't marry again. But I don't +consider a saloonkeeper's money as good as other people's money.” + +Nils laughed outright. “Come, Mother, don't let your prejudices carry +you that far. Money's money. Old Vavrika's a mighty decent sort of +saloonkeeper. Nothing rowdy about him.” + +Mrs. Ericson spoke up angrily. “Oh, I know you always stood up for them! +But hanging around there when you were a boy never did you any good, +Nils, nor any of the other boys who went there. There weren't so many +after her when she married Olaf, let me tell you. She knew enough to +grab her chance.” + +Nils settled back in his seat. “Of course I liked to go there, Mother, +and you were always cross about it. You never took the trouble to find +out that it was the one jolly house in this country for a boy to go to. +All the rest of you were working yourselves to death, and the houses +were mostly a mess, full of babies and washing and flies. Oh, it was all +right--I understand that; but you are young only once, and I happened +to be young then. Now, Vavrika's was always jolly. He played the violin, +and I used to take my flute, and Clara played the piano, and +Johanna used to sing Bohemian songs. She always had a big supper for +us--herrings and pickles and poppy-seed bread, and lots of cake and +preserves. Old Joe had been in the army in the old country, and he could +tell lots of good stories. I can see him cutting bread, at the head of +the table, now. I don't know what I'd have done when I was a kid if it +hadn't been for the Vavrikas, really.” + +“And all the time he was taking money that other people had worked hard +in the fields for,” Mrs. Ericson observed. + +“So do the circuses, Mother, and they're a good thing. People ought to +get fun for some of their money. Even father liked old Joe.” + +“Your father,” Mrs. Ericson said grimly, “liked everybody.” + +As they crossed the sand creek and turned into her own place, Mrs. +Ericson observed, “There's Olaf's buggy. He's stopped on his way from +town.” Nils shook himself and prepared to greet his brother, who was +waiting on the porch. + +Olaf was a big, heavy Norwegian, slow of speech and movement. His head +was large and square, like a block of wood. When Nils, at a distance, +tried to remember what his brother looked like, he could recall only his +heavy head, high forehead, large nostrils, and pale blue eyes, set far +apart. Olaf's features were rudimentary: the thing one noticed was the +face itself, wide and flat and pale; devoid of any expression, betraying +his fifty years as little as it betrayed anything else, and powerful by +reason of its very stolidness. When Olaf shook hands with Nils he looked +at him from under his light eyebrows, but Nils felt that no one could +ever say what that pale look might mean. The one thing he had always +felt in Olaf was a heavy stubbornness, like the unyielding stickiness of +wet loam against the plow. He had always found Olaf the most difficult +of his brothers. + +“How do you do, Nils? Expect to stay with us long?” + +“Oh, I may stay forever,” Nils answered gaily. “I like this country +better than I used to.” + +“There's been some work put into it since you left,” Olaf remarked. + +“Exactly. I think it's about ready to live in now--and I'm about ready +to settle down.” Nils saw his brother lower his big head (“Exactly like +a bull,” he thought.) “Mother's been persuading me to slow down now, and +go in for farming,” he went on lightly. + +Olaf made a deep sound in his throat. “Farming ain't learned in a day,” + he brought out, still looking at the ground. + +“Oh, I know! But I pick things up quickly.” Nils had not meant to +antagonize his brother, and he did not know now why he was doing it. “Of +course,” he went on, “I shouldn't expect to make a big success, as you +fellows have done. But then, I'm not ambitious. I won't want much. A +little land, and some cattle, maybe.” + +Olaf still stared at the ground, his head down. He wanted to ask Nils +what he had been doing all these years, that he didn't have a business +somewhere he couldn't afford to leave; why he hadn't more pride than to +come back with only a little sole-leather trunk to show for himself, and +to present himself as the only failure in the family. He did not ask one +of these questions, but he made them all felt distinctly. + +“Humph!” Nils thought. “No wonder the man never talks, when he can butt +his ideas into you like that without ever saying a word. I suppose he +uses that kind of smokeless powder on his wife all the time. But I guess +she has her innings.” He chuckled, and Olaf looked up. “Never mind +me, Olaf. I laugh without knowing why, like little Eric. He's another +cheerful dog.” + +“Eric,” said Olaf slowly, “is a spoiled kid. He's just let his mother's +best cow go dry because he don't milk her right. I was hoping you'd take +him away somewhere and put him into business. If he don't do any good +among strangers, he never will.” This was a long speech for Olaf, and as +he finished it he climbed into his buggy. + +Nils shrugged his shoulders. “Same old tricks,” he thought. “Hits from +behind you every time. What a whale of a man!” He turned and went round +to the kitchen, where his mother was scolding little Eric for letting +the gasoline get low. + + + IV + +Joe Vavrika's saloon was not in the county seat, where Olaf and Mrs. +Ericson did their trading, but in a cheerfuller place, a little Bohemian +settlement which lay at the other end of the county, ten level miles +north of Olaf's farm. Clara rode up to see her father almost every day. +Vavrika's house was, so to speak, in the back yard of his saloon. The +garden between the two buildings was inclosed by a high board fence +as tight as a partition, and in summer Joe kept beer tables and wooden +benches among the gooseberry bushes under his little cherry tree. At +one of these tables Nils Ericson was seated in the late afternoon, three +days after his return home. Joe had gone in to serve a customer, and +Nils was lounging on his elbows, looking rather mournfully into his +half-emptied pitcher, when he heard a laugh across the little garden. +Clara, in her riding habit, was standing at the back door of the house, +under the grapevine trellis that old Joe had grown there long ago. Nils +rose. + +“Come out and keep your father and me company. We've been gossiping all +afternoon. Nobody to bother us but the flies.” + +She shook her head. “No, I never come out here any more. Olaf doesn't +like it. I must live up to my position, you know.” + +“You mean to tell me you never come out and chat with the boys, as you +used to? He _has_ tamed you! Who keeps up these flower-beds?” + +“I come out on Sundays, when father is alone, and read the Bohemian +papers to him. But I am never here when the bar is open. What have you +two been doing?” + +“Talking, as I told you. I've been telling him about my travels. I find +I can't talk much at home, not even to Eric.” + +Clara reached up and poked with her riding-whip at a white moth that was +fluttering in the sunlight among the vine leaves. “I suppose you will +never tell me about all those things.” + +“Where can I tell them? Not in Olaf's house, certainly. What's the +matter with our talking here?” He pointed persuasively with his hat +to the bushes and the green table, where the flies were singing lazily +above the empty beer glasses. + +Clara shook her head weakly. “No, it wouldn't do. Besides, I am going +now.” + +“I'm on Eric's mare. Would you be angry if I overtook you?” + +Clara looked back and laughed. “You might try and see. I can leave you +if I don't want you. Eric's mare can't keep up with Norman.” + +Nils went into the bar and attempted to pay his score. Big Joe, six feet +four, with curly yellow hair and mustache, clapped him on the shoulder. +“Not a Goddamn a your money go in my drawer, you hear? Only next time +you bring your flute, te-te-te-te-te-ty.” Joe wagged his fingers in +imitation of the flute player's position. + +“My Clara, she come all-a-time Sundays an' play for me. She not like to +play at Ericson's place.” He shook his yellow curls and laughed. “Not a +Goddamn a fun at Ericson's. You come a Sunday. You like-a fun. No forget +de flute.” Joe talked very rapidly and always tumbled over his English. +He seldom spoke it to his customers, and had never learned much. + +Nils swung himself into the saddle and trotted to the west of the +village, where the houses and gardens scattered into prairie land and +the road turned south. Far ahead of him, in the declining light, he saw +Clara Vavrika's slender figure, loitering on horseback. He touched his +mare with the whip, and shot along the white, level road, under the +reddening sky. When he overtook Olaf's wife he saw that she had been +crying. “What's the matter, Clara Vavrika?” he asked kindly. + +“Oh, I get blue sometimes. It was awfully jolly living there with +father. I wonder why I ever went away.” + +Nils spoke in a low, kind tone that he sometimes used with women: +“That's what I've been wondering these many years. You were the last +girl in the country I'd have picked for a wife for Olaf. What made you +do it, Clara?” + +“I suppose I really did it to oblige the neighbours”--Clara tossed her +head. “People were beginning to wonder.” + +“To wonder?” + +“Yes--why I didn't get married. I suppose I didn't like to keep them in +suspense. I've discovered that most girls marry out of consideration for +the neighbourhood.” + +Nils bent his head toward her and his white teeth flashed. “I'd have +gambled that one girl I knew would say, 'Let the neighbourhood be +damned.'” + +Clara shook her head mournfully. “You see, they have it on you, Nils; +that is, if you're a woman. They say you're beginning to go off. That's +what makes us get married: we can't stand the laugh.” + +Nils looked sidewise at her. He had never seen her head droop before. +Resignation was the last thing he would have expected of her. “In your +case, there wasn't something else?” + +“Something else?” + +“I mean, you didn't do it to spite somebody? Somebody who didn't come +back?” + +Clara drew herself up. “Oh, I never thought you'd come back. Not after +I stopped writing to you, at least. _That_ was all over, long before I +married Olaf.” + +“It never occurred to you, then, that the meanest thing you could do to +me was to marry Olaf?” + +Clara laughed. “No; I didn't know you were so fond of Olaf.” + +Nils smoothed his horse's mane with his glove. “You know, Clara Vavrika, +you are never going to stick it out. You'll cut away some day, and I've +been thinking you might as well cut away with me.” + +Clara threw up her chin. “Oh, you don't know me as well as you think. I +won't cut away. Sometimes, when I'm with father, I feel like it. But I +can hold out as long as the Ericsons can. They've never got the best of +me yet, and one can live, so long as one isn't beaten. If I go back to +father, it's all up with Olaf in politics. He knows that, and he never +goes much beyond sulking. I've as much wit as the Ericsons. I'll never +leave them unless I can show them a thing or two.” + +“You mean unless you can come it over them?” + +“Yes--unless I go away with a man who is cleverer than they are, and who +has more money.” + +Nils whistled. “Dear me, you are demanding a good deal. The Ericsons, +take the lot of them, are a bunch to beat. But I should think the +excitement of tormenting them would have worn off by this time.” + +“It has, I'm afraid,” Clara admitted mournfully. + +“Then why don't you cut away? There are more amusing games than this in +the world. When I came home I thought it might amuse me to bully a few +quarter sections out of the Ericsons; but I've almost decided I can get +more fun for my money somewhere else.” + +Clara took in her breath sharply. “Ah, you have got the other will! That +was why you came home!” + +“No, it wasn't. I came home to see how you were getting on with Olaf.” + +Clara struck her horse with the whip, and in a bound she was far ahead +of him. Nils dropped one word, “Damn!” and whipped after her; but she +leaned forward in her saddle and fairly cut the wind. Her long riding +skirt rippled in the still air behind her. The sun was just sinking +behind the stubble in a vast, clear sky, and the shadows drew across the +fields so rapidly that Nils could scarcely keep in sight the dark figure +on the road. When he overtook her he caught her horse by the bridle. +Norman reared, and Nils was frightened for her; but Clara kept her seat. + +“Let me go, Nils Ericson!” she cried. “I hate you more than any of +them. You were created to torture me, the whole tribe of you--to make me +suffer in every possible way.” + +She struck her horse again and galloped away from him. Nils set his +teeth and looked thoughtful. He rode slowly home along the deserted +road, watching the stars come out in the clear violet sky. + +They flashed softly into the limpid heavens, like jewels let fall into +clear water. They were a reproach, he felt, to a sordid world. As he +turned across the sand creek, he looked up at the North Star and smiled, +as if there were an understanding between them. His mother scolded him +for being late for supper. + + + V + +On Sunday afternoon Joe Vavrika, in his shirt sleeves and carpet +slippers, was sitting in his garden, smoking a long-tasseled porcelain +pipe with a hunting scene painted on the bowl. Clara sat under the +cherry tree, reading aloud to him from the weekly Bohemian papers. She +had worn a white muslin dress under her riding habit, and the leaves +of the cherry tree threw a pattern of sharp shadows over her skirt. The +black cat was dozing in the sunlight at her feet, and Joe's dachshund +was scratching a hole under the scarlet geraniums and dreaming of +badgers. Joe was filling his pipe for the third time since dinner, +when he heard a knocking on the fence. He broke into a loud guffaw and +unlatched the little door that led into the street. He did not call Nils +by name, but caught him by the hand and dragged him in. Clara stiffened +and the colour deepened under her dark skin. Nils, too, felt a little +awkward. He had not seen her since the night when she rode away from him +and left him alone on the level road between the fields. Joe dragged him +to the wooden bench beside the green table. + +“You bring de flute,” he cried, tapping the leather case under Nils' +arm. “Ah, das-a good' Now we have some liddle fun like old times. I got +somet'ing good for you.” Joe shook his finger at Nils and winked his +blue eye, a bright clear eye, full of fire, though the tiny bloodvessels +on the ball were always a little distended. “I got somet'ing for you +from”--he paused and waved his hand--“Hongarie. You know Hongarie? You +wait!” He pushed Nils down on the bench, and went through the back door +of his saloon. + +Nils looked at Clara, who sat frigidly with her white skirts drawn +tight about her. “He didn't tell you he had asked me to come, did he? +He wanted a party and proceeded to arrange it. Isn't he fun? Don't be +cross; let's give him a good time.” + +Clara smiled and shook out her skirt. “Isn't that like Father? And he +has sat here so meekly all day. Well, I won't pout. I'm glad you came. +He doesn't have very many good times now any more. There are so few of +his kind left. The second generation are a tame lot.” + +Joe came back with a flask in one hand and three wine glasses caught by +the stems between the fingers of the other. These he placed on the table +with an air of ceremony, and, going behind Nils, held the flask between +him and the sun, squinting into it admiringly. “You know dis, Tokai? A +great friend of mine, he bring dis to me, a present out of Hongarie. You +know how much it cost, dis wine? Chust so much what it weigh in gold. +Nobody but de nobles drink him in Bohemie. Many, many years I save him +up, dis Tokai.” Joe whipped out his official corkscrew and delicately +removed the cork. “De old man die what bring him to me, an' dis wine he +lay on his belly in my cellar an' sleep. An' now,” carefully pouring +out the heavy yellow wine, “an' now he wake up; and maybe he wake us +up, too!” He carried one of the glasses to his daughter and presented it +with great gallantry. + +Clara shook her head, but, seeing her father's disappointment, relented. +“You taste it first. I don't want so much.” + +Joe sampled it with a beatific expression, and turned to Nils. “You +drink him slow, dis wine. He very soft, but he go down hot. You see!” + +After a second glass Nils declared that he couldn't take any more +without getting sleepy. “Now get your fiddle, Vavrika,” he said as he +opened his flute case. + +But Joe settled back in his wooden rocker and wagged his big carpet +slipper. “No-no-no-no-no-no-no! No play fiddle now any more: too much +ache in de finger,” waving them, “all-a-time rheumatic. You play de +flute, te-tety-tetety-te. Bohemie songs.” + +“I've forgotten all the Bohemian songs I used to play with you and +Johanna. But here's one that will make Clara pout. You remember how her +eyes used to snap when we called her the Bohemian Girl?” Nils lifted his +flute and began “When Other Lips and Other Hearts,” and Joe hummed the +air in a husky baritone, waving his carpet slipper. “Oh-h-h, das-a fine +music,” he cried, clapping his hands as Nils finished. “Now 'Marble +Halls, Marble Halls'! Clara, you sing him.” + +Clara smiled and leaned back in her chair, beginning softly: + + “I dreamt that I dwelt in ma-a-arble halls, + With vassals and serfs at my knee,” + +and Joe hummed like a big bumblebee. + +“There's one more you always played,” Clara said quietly, “I remember +that best.” She locked her hands over her knee and began “The Heart +Bowed Down,” and sang it through without groping for the words. She was +singing with a good deal of warmth when she came to the end of the old +song: + + “For memory is the only friend + That grief can call its own.” + +Joe flashed out his red silk handkerchief and blew his nose, shaking his +head. “No-no-no-no-no-no-no! Too sad, too sad! I not like-a dat. Play +quick somet'ing gay now.” + +Nils put his lips to the instrument, and Joe lay back in his chair, +laughing and singing, “Oh, Evelina, Sweet Evelina!” Clara laughed, too. +Long ago, when she and Nils went to high school, the model student of +their class was a very homely girl in thick spectacles. Her name was +Evelina Oleson; she had a long, swinging walk which somehow suggested +the measure of that song, and they used mercilessly to sing it at her. + +“Dat ugly Oleson girl, she teach in de school,” Joe gasped, “an' she +still walks chust like dat, yup-a, yup-a, yup-a, chust like a +camel she go! Now, Nils, we have some more li'l drink. Oh, +yes-yes-yes-yes-yes-yes-_yes_! Dis time you haf to drink, and Clara she +haf to, so she show she not jealous. So, we all drink to your girl. You +not tell her name, eh? No-no-no, I no make you tell. She pretty, eh? She +make good sweetheart? I bet!” Joe winked and lifted his glass. “How soon +you get married?” + +Nils screwed up his eyes. “That I don't know. When she says.” + +Joe threw out his chest. “Das-a way boys talks. No way for mans. Mans +say, 'You come to de church, an' get a hurry on you.' Das-a way mans +talks.” + +“Maybe Nils hasn't got enough to keep a wife,” put in Clara ironically. +“How about that, Nils?” she asked him frankly, as if she wanted to know. + +Nils looked at her coolly, raising one eyebrow. “Oh, I can keep her, all +right.” + +“The way she wants to be kept?” + +“With my wife, I'll decide that,” replied Nils calmly. “I'll give her +what's good for her.” + +Clara made a wry face. “You'll give her the strap, I expect, like old +Peter Oleson gave his wife.” + +“When she needs it,” said Nils lazily, locking his hands behind his head +and squinting up through the leaves of the cherry tree. “Do you remember +the time I squeezed the cherries all over your clean dress, and Aunt +Johanna boxed my ears for me? My gracious, weren't you mad! You had both +hands full of cherries, and I squeezed 'em and made the juice fly all +over you. I liked to have fun with you; you'd get so mad.” + +“We _did_ have fun, didn't we? None of the other kids ever had so much +fun. We knew how to play.” + +Nils dropped his elbows on the table and looked steadily across at her. +“I've played with lots of girls since, but I haven't found one who was +such good fun.” + +Clara laughed. The late afternoon sun was shining full in her face, +and deep in the back of her eyes there shone something fiery, like the +yellow drops of Tokai in the brown glass bottle. “Can you still play, or +are you only pretending?” + +“I can play better than I used to, and harder.” + +“Don't you ever work, then?” She had not intended to say it. It slipped +out because she was confused enough to say just the wrong thing. + +“I work between times.” Nils' steady gaze still beat upon her. “Don't +you worry about my working, Mrs. Ericson. You're getting like all the +rest of them.” He reached his brown, warm hand across the table and +dropped it on Clara's, which was cold as an icicle. “Last call for play, +Mrs. Ericson!” Clara shivered, and suddenly her hands and cheeks grew +warm. Her fingers lingered in his a moment, and they looked at each +other earnestly. Joe Vavrika had put the mouth of the bottle to his lips +and was swallowing the last drops of the Tokai, standing. The sun, just +about to sink behind his shop, glistened on the bright glass, on his +flushed face and curly yellow hair. “Look,” Clara whispered, “that's the +way I want to grow old.” + + + VI + +On the day of Olaf Ericson's barn-raising, his wife, for once in a way, +rose early. Johanna Vavrika had been baking cakes and frying and boiling +and spicing meats for a week beforehand, but it was not until the day +before the party was to take place that Clara showed any interest in it. +Then she was seized with one of her fitful spasms of energy, and took +the wagon and little Eric and spent the day on Plum Creek, gathering +vines and swamp goldenrod to decorate the barn. + +By four o'clock in the afternoon buggies and wagons began to arrive at +the big unpainted building in front of Olaf's house. When Nils and his +mother came at five, there were more than fifty people in the barn, and +a great drove of children. On the ground floor stood six long tables, +set with the crockery of seven flourishing Ericson families, lent for +the occasion. In the middle of each table was a big yellow pumpkin, +hollowed out and filled with woodbine. In one corner of the barn, behind +a pile of green-and-white striped watermelons, was a circle of chairs +for the old people; the younger guests sat on bushel measures or +barbed-wire spools, and the children tumbled about in the haymow. The +box stalls Clara had converted into booths. The framework was hidden by +goldenrod and sheaves of wheat, and the partitions were covered 'With +wild grapevines full of fruit. At one of these Johanna Vavrika watched +over her cooked meats, enough to provision an army; and at the next her +kitchen girls had ranged the ice-cream freezers, and Clara was already +cutting pies and cakes against the hour of serving. At the third stall, +little Hilda, in a bright pink lawn dress, dispensed lemonade throughout +the afternoon. Olaf, as a public man, had thought it inadvisable to +serve beer in his barn; but Joe Vavrika had come over with two demijohns +concealed in his buggy, and after his arrival the wagon shed was much +frequented by the men. + +“Hasn't Cousin Clara fixed things lovely?” little Hilda whispered, when +Nils went up to her stall and asked for lemonade. + +Nils leaned against the booth, talking to the excited little girl and +watching the people. The barn faced the west, and the sun, pouring in +at the big doors, filled the whole interior with a golden light, +through which filtered fine particles of dust from the haymow, where the +children were romping. There was a great chattering from the stall where +Johanna Vavrika exhibited to the admiring women her platters heaped with +fried chicken, her roasts of beef, boiled tongues, and baked hams +with cloves stuck in the crisp brown fat and garnished with tansy and +parsley. The older women, having assured themselves that there were +twenty kinds of cake, not counting cookies, and three dozen fat pies, +repaired to the corner behind the pile of watermelons, put on their +white aprons, and fell to their knitting and fancywork. They were a fine +company of old women, and a Dutch painter would have loved to find them +there together, where the sun made bright patches on the floor and sent +long, quivering shafts of gold through the dusky shade up among the +rafters. There were fat, rosy old women who looked hot in their best +black dresses; spare, alert old women with brown, dark-veined hands; and +several of almost heroic frame, not less massive than old Mrs. Ericson +herself. Few of them wore glasses, and old Mrs. Svendsen, a Danish +woman, who was quite bald, wore the only cap among them. Mrs. Oleson, +who had twelve big grandchildren, could still show two braids of yellow +hair as thick as her own wrists. Among all these grandmothers there were +more brown heads than white. They all had a pleased, prosperous air, as +if they were more than satisfied with themselves and with life. Nils, +leaning against Hilda's lemonade stand, watched them as they sat +chattering in four languages, their fingers never lagging behind their +tongues. + +“Look at them over there,” he whispered, detaining Clara as she passed +him. “Aren't they the Old Guard? I've just counted thirty hands. I guess +they've wrung many a chicken's neck and warmed many a boy's jacket for +him in their time.” + +In reality he fell into amazement when he thought of the Herculean +labours those fifteen pairs of hands had performed: of the cows they +had milked, the butter they had made, the gardens they had planted, the +children and grandchildren they had tended, the brooms they had worn +out, the mountains of food they had cooked. It made him dizzy. Clara +Vavrika smiled a hard, enigmatical smile at him and walked rapidly away. +Nils' eyes followed her white figure as she went toward the house. +He watched her walking alone in the sunlight, looked at her slender, +defiant shoulders and her little hard-set head with its coils of +blue-black hair. “No,” he reflected; “she'd never be like them, not if +she lived here a hundred years. She'd only grow more bitter. You can't +tame a wild thing; you can only chain it. People aren't all alike. I +mustn't lose my nerve.” He gave Hilda's pigtail a parting tweak and +set out after Clara. “Where to?” he asked, as he came upon her in the +kitchen. + +“I'm going to the cellar for preserves.” + +“Let me go with you. I never get a moment alone with you. Why do you +keep out of my way?” + +Clara laughed. “I don't usually get in anybody's way.” + +Nils followed her down the stairs and to the far corner of the cellar, +where a basement window let in a stream of light. From a swinging shelf +Clara selected several glass jars, each labeled in Johanna's careful +hand. Nils took up a brown flask. “What's this? It looks good.” + +“It is. It's some French brandy father gave me when I was married. Would +you like some? Have you a corkscrew? I'll get glasses.” + +When she brought them, Nils took them from her and put them down on +the window-sill. “Clara Vavrika, do you remember how crazy I used to be +about you?” + +Clara shrugged her shoulders. “Boys are always crazy about somebody or +another. I dare say some silly has been crazy about Evelina Oleson. You +got over it in a hurry.” + +“Because I didn't come back, you mean? I had to get on, you know, and it +was hard sledding at first. Then I heard you'd married Olaf.” + +“And then you stayed away from a broken heart,” Clara laughed. + +“And then I began to think about you more than I had since I first went +away. I began to wonder if you were really as you had seemed to me when +I was a boy. I thought I'd like to see. I've had lots of girls, but no +one ever pulled me the same way. The more I thought about you, the +more I remembered how it used to be--like hearing a wild tune you +can't resist, calling you out at night. It had been a long while since +anything had pulled me out of my boots, and I wondered whether anything +ever could again.” Nils thrust his hands into his coat pockets and +squared his shoulders, as his mother sometimes squared hers, as Olaf, in +a clumsier manner, squared his. “So I thought I'd come back and see. Of +course the family have tried to do me, and I rather thought I'd bring +out father's will and make a fuss. But they can have their old land; +they've put enough sweat into it.” He took the flask and filled the +two glasses carefully to the brim. “I've found out what I want from the +Ericsons. Drink _skoal_, Clara.” He lifted his glass, and Clara took +hers with downcast eyes. “Look at me, Clara Vavrika. _Skoal!_” + +She raised her burning eyes and answered fiercely: “_Skoal!_” + + +The barn supper began at six o'clock and lasted for two hilarious +hours. Yense Nelson had made a wager that he could eat two whole fried +chickens, and he did. Eli Swanson stowed away two whole custard pies, +and Nick Hermanson ate a chocolate layer cake to the last crumb. There +was even a cooky contest among the children, and one thin, slablike +Bohemian boy consumed sixteen and won the prize, a gingerbread pig +which Johanna Vavrika had carefully decorated with red candies and burnt +sugar. Fritz Sweiheart, the German carpenter, won in the pickle contest, +but he disappeared soon after supper and was not seen for the rest of +the evening. Joe Vavrika said that Fritz could have managed the pickles +all right, but he had sampled the demijohn in his buggy too often before +sitting down to the table. + +While the supper was being cleared away the two fiddlers began to tune +up for the dance. Clara was to accompany them on her old upright piano, +which had been brought down from her father's. By this time Nils had +renewed old acquaintances. Since his interview with Clara in the cellar, +he had been busy telling all the old women how young they looked, and +all the young ones how pretty they were, and assuring the men that +they had here the best farmland in the world. He had made himself so +agreeable that old Mrs. Ericson's friends began to come up to her and +tell how lucky she was to get her smart son back again, and please to +get him to play his flute. Joe Vavrika, who could still play very well +when he forgot that he had rheumatism, caught up a fiddle from Johnny +Oleson and played a crazy Bohemian dance tune that set the wheels going. +When he dropped the bow every one was ready to dance. + +Olaf, in a frock coat and a solemn made-up necktie, led the grand march +with his mother. Clara had kept well out of _that_ by sticking to the +piano. She played the march with a pompous solemnity which greatly +amused the prodigal son, who went over and stood behind her. + +“Oh, aren't you rubbing it into them, Clara Vavrika? And aren't you +lucky to have me here, or all your wit would be thrown away.” + +“I'm used to being witty for myself. It saves my life.” + +The fiddles struck up a polka, and Nils convulsed Joe Vavrika by leading +out Evelina Oleson, the homely schoolteacher. His next partner was a +very fat Swedish girl, who, although she was an heiress, had not been +asked for the first dance, but had stood against the wall in her tight, +high-heeled shoes, nervously fingering a lace handkerchief. She was soon +out of breath, so Nils led her, pleased and panting, to her seat, +and went over to the piano, from which Clara had been watching his +gallantry. “Ask Olena Yenson,” she whispered. “She waltzes beautifully.” + +Olena, too, was rather inconveniently plump, handsome in a smooth, heavy +way, with a fine colour and good-natured, sleepy eyes. She was redolent +of violet sachet powder, and had warm, soft, white hands, but she danced +divinely, moving as smoothly as the tide coming in. “There, that's +something like,” Nils said as he released her. “You'll give me the next +waltz, won't you? Now I must go and dance with my little cousin.” + +Hilda was greatly excited when Nils went up to her stall and held out +his arm. Her little eyes sparkled, but she declared that she could not +leave her lemonade. Old Mrs. Ericson, who happened along at this moment, +said she would attend to that, and Hilda came out, as pink as her pink +dress. The dance was a schottische, and in a moment her yellow braids +were fairly standing on end. “Bravo!” Nils cried encouragingly. “Where +did you learn to dance so nicely?” + +“My Cousin Clara taught me,” the little girl panted. + +Nils found Eric sitting with a group of boys who were too awkward or too +shy to dance, and told him that he must dance the next waltz with Hilda. + +The boy screwed up his shoulders. “Aw, Nils, I can't dance. My feet are +too big; I look silly.” + +“Don't be thinking about yourself. It doesn't matter how boys look.” + +Nils had never spoken to him so sharply before, and Eric made haste to +scramble out of his corner and brush the straw from his coat. + +Clara nodded approvingly. “Good for you, Nils. I've been trying to +get hold of him. They dance very nicely together; I sometimes play for +them.” + +“I'm obliged to you for teaching him. There's no reason why he should +grow up to be a lout.” + +“He'll never be that. He's more like you than any of them. Only he +hasn't your courage.” From her slanting eyes Clara shot forth one of +those keen glances, admiring and at the same time challenging, which she +seldom bestowed on any one, and which seemed to say, “Yes, I admire you, +but I am your equal.” + +Clara was proving a much better host than Olaf, who, once the supper was +over, seemed to feel no interest in anything but the lanterns. He had +brought a locomotive headlight from town to light the revels, and he +kept skulking about as if he feared the mere light from it might set his +new barn on fire. His wife, on the contrary, was cordial to every one, +was animated and even gay. The deep salmon colour in her cheeks burned +vividly, and her eyes were full of life. She gave the piano over to the +fat Swedish heiress, pulled her father away from the corner where he +sat gossiping with his cronies, and made him dance a Bohemian dance with +her. In his youth Joe had been a famous dancer, and his daughter got +him so limbered up that every one sat around and applauded them. The old +ladies were particularly delighted, and made them go through the dance +again. From their corner where they watched and commented, the old women +kept time with their feet and hands, and whenever the fiddles struck up +a new air old Mrs. Svendsen's white cap would begin to bob. + +Clara was waltzing with little Eric when Nils came up to them, brushed +his brother aside, and swung her out among the dancers. “Remember how +we used to waltz on rollers at the old skating rink in town? I suppose +people don't do that any more. We used to keep it up for hours. You +know, we never did moon around as other boys and girls did. It was dead +serious with us from the beginning. When we were most in love with each +other, we used to fight. You were always pinching people; your fingers +were like little nippers. A regular snapping turtle, you were. Lord, how +you'd like Stockholm! Sit out in the streets in front of cafes and talk +all night in summer, just like a reception--officers and ladies and +funny English people. Jolliest people in the world, the Swedes, once you +get them going. Always drinking things--champagne and stout mixed, +half-and-half, serve it out of big pitchers, and serve plenty. Slow +pulse, you know; they can stand a lot. Once they light up, they're +glowworms, I can tell you.” + +“All the same, you don't really like gay people.” + +“_I_ don't?” + +“No; I could tell that when you were looking at the old women there this +afternoon. They're the kind you really admire, after all; women like +your mother. And that's the kind you'll marry.” + +“Is it, Miss Wisdom? You'll see who I'll marry, and she won't have a +domestic virtue to bless herself with. She'll be a snapping turtle, +and she'll be a match for me. All the same, they're a fine bunch of old +dames over there. You admire them yourself. + +“No, I don't; I detest them.” + +“You won't, when you look back on them from Stockholm or Budapest. +Freedom settles all that. Oh, but you're the real Bohemian Girl, Clara +Vavrika!” Nils laughed down at her sullen frown and began mockingly to +sing: + + “Oh, how could a poor gypsy maiden like me + Expect the proud bride of a baron to be?” + +Clara clutched his shoulder. “Hush, Nils; every one is looking at you.” + +“I don't care. They can't gossip. It's all in the family, as the +Ericsons say when they divide up little Hilda's patrimony amongst them. +Besides, we'll give them something to talk about when we hit the +trail. Lord, it will be a godsend to them! They haven't had anything so +interesting to chatter about since the grasshopper year. It'll give +them a new lease of life. And Olaf won't lose the Bohemian vote, either. +They'll have the laugh on him so that they'll vote two apiece. They'll +send him to Congress. They'll never forget his barn party, or us. +They'll always remember us as we're dancing together now. We're making +a legend. Where's my waltz, boys?” he called as they whirled past the +fiddlers. + +The musicians grinned, looked at each other, hesitated, and began a new +air; and Nils sang with them, as the couples fell from a quick waltz to +a long, slow glide: + + “When other lips and other hearts + Their tale of love shall tell, + In language whose excess imparts + The power they feel so well.” + +The old women applauded vigorously. “What a gay one he is, that Nils!” + And old Mrs. Svendsen's cap lurched dreamily from side to side to the +flowing measure of the dance. + + “Of days that have as ha-a-p-py been, + And you'll remember me.” + + + VII + +The moonlight flooded that great, silent land. The reaped fields lay +yellow in it. The straw stacks and poplar windbreaks threw sharp black +shadows. The roads were white rivers of dust. The sky was a deep, +crystalline blue, and the stars were few and faint. Everything seemed to +have succumbed, to have sunk to sleep, under the great, golden, tender, +midsummer moon. The splendour of it seemed to transcend human life and +human fate. The senses were too feeble to take it in, and every time one +looked up at the sky one felt unequal to it, as if one were sitting deaf +under the waves of a great river of melody. Near the road, Nils Ericson +was lying against a straw stack in Olaf's wheat field. His own life +seemed strange and unfamiliar to him, as if it were something he had +read about, or dreamed, and forgotten. He lay very still, watching the +white road that ran in front of him, lost itself among the fields, and +then, at a distance, reappeared over a little hill. At last, against +this white band he saw something moving rapidly, and he got up and +walked to the edge of the field. “She is passing the row of poplars +now,” he thought. He heard the padded beat of hoofs along the dusty +road, and as she came into sight he stepped out and waved his arms. +Then, for fear of frightening the horse, he drew back and waited. Clara +had seen him, and she came up at a walk. Nils took the horse by the bit +and stroked his neck. + +“What are you doing out so late, Clara Vavrika? I went to the house, but +Johanna told me you had gone to your father's.” + +“Who can stay in the house on a night like this? Aren't you out +yourself?” + +“Ah, but that's another matter.” + +Nils turned the horse into the field. + +“What are you doing? Where are you taking Norman?” + +“Not far, but I want to talk to you tonight; I have something to say to +you. I can't talk to you at the house, with Olaf sitting there on the +porch, weighing a thousand tons.” + +Clara laughed. “He won't be sitting there now. He's in bed by this time, +and asleep--weighing a thousand tons.” + +Nils plodded on across the stubble. “Are you really going to spend the +rest of your life like this, night after night, summer after summer? +Haven't you anything better to do on a night like this than to wear +yourself and Norman out tearing across the country to your father's +and back? Besides, your father won't live forever, you know. His little +place will be shut up or sold, and then you'll have nobody but the +Ericsons. You'll have to fasten down the hatches for the winter then.” + +Clara moved her head restlessly. “Don't talk about that. I try never to +think of it. If I lost Father I'd lose everything, even my hold over the +Ericsons.” + +“Bah! You'd lose a good deal more than that. You'd lose your race, +everything that makes you yourself. You've lost a good deal of it now.” + +“Of what?” + +“Of your love of life, your capacity for delight.” + +Clara put her hands up to her face. “I haven't, Nils Ericson, I haven't! +Say anything to me but that. I won't have it!” she declared vehemently. + +Nils led the horse up to a straw stack, and turned to Clara, looking +at her intently, as he had looked at her that Sunday afternoon at +Vavrika's. “But why do you fight for that so? What good is the power +to enjoy, if you never enjoy? Your hands are cold again; what are you +afraid of all the time? Ah, you're afraid of losing it; that's what's +the matter with you! And you will, Clara Vavrika, you will! When I used +to know you--listen; you've caught a wild bird in your hand, haven't +you, and felt its heart beat so hard that you were afraid it would +shatter its little body to pieces? Well, you used to be just like that, +a slender, eager thing with a wild delight inside you. That is how I +remembered you. And I come back and find you--a bitter woman. This is +a perfect ferret fight here; you live by biting and being bitten. Can't +you remember what life used to be? Can't you remember that old delight? +I've never forgotten it, or known its like, on land or sea.” + +He drew the horse under the shadow of the straw stack. Clara felt him +take her foot out of the stirrup, and she slid softly down into his +arms. He kissed her slowly. He was a deliberate man, but his nerves were +steel when he wanted anything. Something flashed out from him like a +knife out of a sheath. Clara felt everything slipping away from her; she +was flooded by the summer night. He thrust his hand into his pocket, +and then held it out at arm's length. “Look,” he said. The shadow of the +straw stack fell sharp across his wrist, and in the palm of his hand she +saw a silver dollar shining. “That's my pile,” he muttered; “will you go +with me?” + +Clara nodded, and dropped her forehead on his shoulder. + +Nils took a deep breath. “Will you go with me tonight?” + +“Where?” she whispered softly. + +“To town, to catch the midnight flyer.” + +Clara lifted her head and pulled herself together. “Are you crazy, Nils? +We couldn't go away like that.” + +“That's the only way we ever will go. You can't sit on the bank and +think about it. You have to plunge. That's the way I've always done, +and it's the right way for people like you and me. There's nothing so +dangerous as sitting still. You've only got one life, one youth, and +you can let it slip through your fingers if you want to; nothing easier. +Most people do that. You'd be better off tramping the roads with me than +you are here.” Nils held back her head and looked into her eyes. “But +I'm not that kind of a tramp, Clara. You won't have to take in sewing. +I'm with a Norwegian shipping line; came over on business with the New +York offices, but now I'm going straight back to Bergen. I expect +I've got as much money as the Ericsons. Father sent me a little to get +started. They never knew about that. There, I hadn't meant to tell you; +I wanted you to come on your own nerve.” + +Clara looked off across the fields. “It isn't that, Nils, but something +seems to hold me. I'm afraid to pull against it. It comes out of the +ground, I think.” + +“I know all about that. One has to tear loose. You're not needed here. +Your father will understand; he's made like us. As for Olaf, Johanna +will take better care of him than ever you could. It's now or never, +Clara Vavrika. My bag's at the station; I smuggled it there yesterday.” + +Clara clung to him and hid her face against his shoulder. “Not tonight,” + she whispered. “Sit here and talk to me tonight. I don't want to go +anywhere tonight. I may never love you like this again.” + +Nils laughed through his teeth. “You can't come that on me. That's not +my way, Clara Vavrika. Eric's mare is over there behind the stacks, and +I'm off on the midnight. It's goodbye, or off across the world with me. +My carriage won't wait. I've written a letter to Olaf, I'll mail it +in town. When he reads it he won't bother us--not if I know him. He'd +rather have the land. Besides, I could demand an investigation of his +administration of Cousin Henrik's estate, and that would be bad for a +public man. You've no clothes, I know; but you can sit up tonight, and +we can get everything on the way. Where's your old dash, Clara Vavrika? +What's become of your Bohemian blood? I used to think you had courage +enough for anything. Where's your nerve--what are you waiting for?” + +Clara drew back her head, and he saw the slumberous fire in her eyes. +“For you to say one thing, Nils Ericson.” + +“I never say that thing to any woman, Clara Vavrika.” He leaned back, +lifted her gently from the ground, and whispered through his teeth: “But +I'll never, never let you go, not to any man on earth but me! Do you +understand me? Now, wait here.” + +Clara sank down on a sheaf of wheat and covered her face with her hands. +She did not know what she was going to do--whether she would go or stay. +The great, silent country seemed to lay a spell upon her. The ground +seemed to hold her as if by roots. Her knees were soft under her. She +felt as if she could not bear separation from her old sorrows, from her +old discontent. They were dear to her, they had kept her alive, they +were a part of her. There would be nothing left of her if she were +wrenched away from them. Never could she pass beyond that skyline +against which her restlessness had beat so many times. She felt as if +her soul had built itself a nest there on that horizon at which +she looked every morning and every evening, and it was dear to her, +inexpressibly dear. She pressed her fingers against her eyeballs to shut +it out. Beside her she heard the tramping of horses in the soft earth. +Nils said nothing to her. He put his hands under her arms and lifted her +lightly to her saddle. Then he swung himself into his own. + +“We shall have to ride fast to catch the midnight train. A last gallop, +Clara Vavrika. Forward!” + +There was a start, a thud of hoofs along the moonlit road, two dark +shadows going over the hill; and then the great, still land stretched +untroubled under the azure night. Two shadows had passed. + + + VII + +A year after the flight of Olaf Ericson's wife, the night train was +steaming across the plains of Iowa. The conductor was hurrying through +one of the day coaches, his lantern on his arm, when a lank, fair-haired +boy sat up in one of the plush seats and tweaked him by the coat. + +“What is the next stop, please, sir?” + +“Red Oak, Iowa. But you go through to Chicago, don't you?” He looked +down, and noticed that the boy's eyes were red and his face was drawn, +as if he were in trouble. + +“Yes. But I was wondering whether I could get off at the next place and +get a train back to Omaha.” + +“Well, I suppose you could. Live in Omaha?” + +“No. In the western part of the State. How soon do we get to Red Oak?” + +“Forty minutes. You'd better make up your mind, so I can tell the +baggageman to put your trunk off.” + +“Oh, never mind about that! I mean, I haven't got any,” the boy added, +blushing. + +“Run away,” the conductor thought, as he slammed the coach door behind +him. + +Eric Ericson crumpled down in his seat and put his brown hand to his +forehead. He had been crying, and he had had no supper, and his head was +aching violently. “Oh, what shall I do?” he thought, as he looked dully +down at his big shoes. “Nils will be ashamed of me; I haven't got any +spunk.” + +Ever since Nils had run away with his brother's wife, life at home had +been hard for little Eric. His mother and Olaf both suspected him of +complicity. Mrs. Ericson was harsh and faultfinding, constantly wounding +the boy's pride; and Olaf was always setting her against him. + +Joe Vavrika heard often from his daughter. Clara had always been fond of +her father, and happiness made her kinder. She wrote him long accounts +of the voyage to Bergen, and of the trip she and Nils took through +Bohemia to the little town where her father had grown up and where she +herself was born. She visited all her kinsmen there, and sent her father +news of his brother, who was a priest; of his sister, who had married a +horse-breeder--of their big farm and their many children. These letters +Joe always managed to read to little Eric. They contained messages for +Eric and Hilda. Clara sent presents, too, which Eric never dared to take +home and which poor little Hilda never even saw, though she loved to +hear Eric tell about them when they were out getting the eggs together. +But Olaf once saw Eric coming out of Vavrika's house--the old man had +never asked the boy to come into his saloon--and Olaf went straight to +his mother and told her. That night Mrs. Ericson came to Eric's room +after he was in bed and made a terrible scene. She could be very +terrifying when she was really angry. She forbade him ever to speak to +Vavrika again, and after that night she would not allow him to go to +town alone. So it was a long while before Eric got any more news of his +brother. But old Joe suspected what was going on, and he carried Clara's +letters about in his pocket. One Sunday he drove out to see a German +friend of his, and chanced to catch sight of Eric, sitting by the cattle +pond in the big pasture. They went together into Fritz Oberlies' barn, +and read the letters and talked things over. Eric admitted that things +were getting hard for him at home. That very night old Joe sat down and +laboriously penned a statement of the case to his daughter. + +Things got no better for Eric. His mother and Olaf felt that, however +closely he was watched, he still, as they said, “heard.” Mrs. Ericson +could not admit neutrality. She had sent Johanna Vavrika packing back to +her brother's, though Olaf would much rather have kept her than Anders' +eldest daughter, whom Mrs. Ericson installed in her place. He was not +so highhanded as his mother, and he once sulkily told her that she might +better have taught her granddaughter to cook before she sent Johanna +away. Olaf could have borne a good deal for the sake of prunes spiced in +honey, the secret of which Johanna had taken away with her. + +At last two letters came to Joe Vavrika: one from Nils, enclosing a +postal order for money to pay Eric's passage to Bergen, and one from +Clara, saying that Nils had a place for Eric in the offices of his +company, that he was to live with them, and that they were only waiting +for him to come. He was to leave New York on one of the boats of Nils' +own line; the captain was one of their friends, and Eric was to make +himself known at once. + +Nils' directions were so explicit that a baby could have followed them, +Eric felt. And here he was, nearing Red Oak, Iowa, and rocking backward +and forward in despair. Never had he loved his brother so much, and +never had the big world called to him so hard. But there was a lump in +his throat which would not go down. Ever since nightfall he had been +tormented by the thought of his mother, alone in that big house that +had sent forth so many men. Her unkindness now seemed so little, and her +loneliness so great. He remembered everything she had ever done for him: +how frightened she had been when he tore his hand in the corn-sheller, +and how she wouldn't let Olaf scold him. When Nils went away he didn't +leave his mother all alone, or he would never have gone. Eric felt sure +of that. + +The train whistled. The conductor came in, smiling not unkindly. +“Well, young man, what are you going to do? We stop at Red Oak in three +minutes.” + +“Yes, thank you. I'll let you know.” The conductor went out, and the boy +doubled up with misery. He couldn't let his one chance go like this. +He felt for his breast pocket and crackled Nils' letter to give him +courage. He didn't want Nils to be ashamed of him. The train stopped. +Suddenly he remembered his brother's kind, twinkling eyes, that always +looked at you as if from far away. The lump in his throat softened. “Ah, +but Nils, Nils would _understand_!” he thought. “That's just it about +Nils; he always understands.” + +A lank, pale boy with a canvas telescope stumbled off the train to the +Red Oak siding, just as the conductor called, “All aboard!” + +The next night Mrs. Ericson was sitting alone in her wooden +rocking-chair on the front porch. Little Hilda had been sent to bed and +had cried herself to sleep. The old woman's knitting was on her lap, but +her hands lay motionless on top of it. For more than an hour she had not +moved a muscle. She simply sat, as only the Ericsons and the mountains +can sit. The house was dark, and there was no sound but the croaking of +the frogs down in the pond of the little pasture. + +Eric did not come home by the road, but across the fields, where no one +could see him. He set his telescope down softly in the kitchen shed, and +slipped noiselessly along the path to the front porch. He sat down on +the step without saying anything. Mrs. Ericson made no sign, and the +frogs croaked on. At last the boy spoke timidly. + +“I've come back, Mother.” + +“Very well,” said Mrs. Ericson. + +Eric leaned over and picked up a little stick out of the grass. + +“How about the milking?” he faltered. + +“That's been done, hours ago.” + +“Who did you get?” + +“Get? I did it myself. I can milk as good as any of you.” + +Eric slid along the step nearer to her. “Oh, Mother, why did you?” he +asked sorrowfully. “Why didn't you get one of Otto's boys?” + +“I didn't want anybody to know I was in need of a boy,” said Mrs. +Ericson bitterly. She looked straight in front of her and her mouth +tightened. “I always meant to give you the home farm,” she added. + +The boy stared and slid closer. “Oh, Mother,” he faltered, “I don't care +about the farm. I came back because I thought you might be needing me, +maybe.” He hung his head and got no further. + +“Very well,” said Mrs. Ericson. Her hand went out from her suddenly +and rested on his head. Her fingers twined themselves in his soft, pale +hair. His tears splashed down on the boards; happiness filled his heart. + + + + +THE TROLL GARDEN + + + + +Flavia and Her Artists + +As the train neared Tarrytown, Imogen Willard began to wonder why she +had consented to be one of Flavia's house party at all. She had not felt +enthusiastic about it since leaving the city, and was experiencing a +prolonged ebb of purpose, a current of chilling indecision, under +which she vainly sought for the motive which had induced her to accept +Flavia's invitation. + +Perhaps it was a vague curiosity to see Flavia's husband, who had been +the magician of her childhood and the hero of innumerable Arabian fairy +tales. Perhaps it was a desire to see M. Roux, whom Flavia had announced +as the especial attraction of the occasion. Perhaps it was a wish to +study that remarkable woman in her own setting. + +Imogen admitted a mild curiosity concerning Flavia. She was in the habit +of taking people rather seriously, but somehow found it impossible to +take Flavia so, because of the very vehemence and insistence with which +Flavia demanded it. Submerged in her studies, Imogen had, of late years, +seen very little of Flavia; but Flavia, in her hurried visits to New +York, between her excursions from studio to studio--her luncheons with +this lady who had to play at a matinee, and her dinners with that singer +who had an evening concert--had seen enough of her friend's handsome +daughter to conceive for her an inclination of such violence and +assurance as only Flavia could afford. The fact that Imogen had shown +rather marked capacity in certain esoteric lines of scholarship, and +had decided to specialize in a well-sounding branch of philology at +the Ecole des Chartes, had fairly placed her in that category of +“interesting people” whom Flavia considered her natural affinities, and +lawful prey. + +When Imogen stepped upon the station platform she was immediately +appropriated by her hostess, whose commanding figure and assurance of +attire she had recognized from a distance. She was hurried into a high +tilbury and Flavia, taking the driver's cushion beside her, gathered up +the reins with an experienced hand. + +“My dear girl,” she remarked, as she turned the horses up the street, “I +was afraid the train might be late. M. Roux insisted upon coming up by +boat and did not arrive until after seven.” + +“To think of M. Roux's being in this part of the world at all, and +subject to the vicissitudes of river boats! Why in the world did he come +over?” queried Imogen with lively interest. “He is the sort of man who +must dissolve and become a shadow outside of Paris.” + +“Oh, we have a houseful of the most interesting people,” said Flavia, +professionally. “We have actually managed to get Ivan Schemetzkin. He +was ill in California at the close of his concert tour, you know, and he +is recuperating with us, after his wearing journey from the coast. Then +there is Jules Martel, the painter; Signor Donati, the tenor; Professor +Schotte, who has dug up Assyria, you know; Restzhoff, the Russian +chemist; Alcee Buisson, the philologist; Frank Wellington, the novelist; +and Will Maidenwood, the editor of _Woman_. Then there is my second +cousin, Jemima Broadwood, who made such a hit in Pinero's comedy last +winter, and Frau Lichtenfeld. _Have_ you read her?” + +Imogen confessed her utter ignorance of Frau Lichtenfeld, and Flavia +went on. + +“Well, she is a most remarkable person; one of those advanced German +women, a militant iconoclast, and this drive will not be long enough to +permit of my telling you her history. Such a story! Her novels were the +talk of all Germany when I was there last, and several of them have been +suppressed--an honor in Germany, I understand. 'At Whose Door' has been +translated. I am so unfortunate as not to read German.” + +“I'm all excitement at the prospect of meeting Miss Broadwood,” + said Imogen. “I've seen her in nearly everything she does. Her stage +personality is delightful. She always reminds me of a nice, clean, +pink-and-white boy who has just had his cold bath, and come down all +aglow for a run before breakfast.” + +“Yes, but isn't it unfortunate that she will limit herself to those +minor comedy parts that are so little appreciated in this country? One +ought to be satisfied with nothing less than the best, ought one?” The +peculiar, breathy tone in which Flavia always uttered that word “best,” + the most worn in her vocabulary, always jarred on Imogen and always made +her obdurate. + +“I don't at all agree with you,” she said reservedly. “I thought +everyone admitted that the most remarkable thing about Miss Broadwood is +her admirable sense of fitness, which is rare enough in her profession.” + +Flavia could not endure being contradicted; she always seemed to regard +it in the light of a defeat, and usually colored unbecomingly. Now she +changed the subject. + +“Look, my dear,” she cried, “there is Frau Lichtenfeld now, coming to +meet us. Doesn't she look as if she had just escaped out of Valhalla? +She is actually over six feet.” + +Imogen saw a woman of immense stature, in a very short skirt and a +broad, flapping sun hat, striding down the hillside at a long, swinging +gait. The refugee from Valhalla approached, panting. Her heavy, Teutonic +features were scarlet from the rigor of her exercise, and her hair, +under her flapping sun hat, was tightly befrizzled about her brow. She +fixed her sharp little eyes upon Imogen and extended both her hands. + +“So this is the little friend?” she cried, in a rolling baritone. + +Imogen was quite as tall as her hostess; but everything, she reflected, +is comparative. After the introduction Flavia apologized. + +“I wish I could ask you to drive up with us, Frau Lichtenfeld.” + +“Ah, no!” cried the giantess, drooping her head in humorous caricature +of a time-honored pose of the heroines of sentimental romances. “It has +never been my fate to be fitted into corners. I have never known the +sweet privileges of the tiny.” + +Laughing, Flavia started the ponies, and the colossal woman, standing +in the middle of the dusty road, took off her wide hat and waved them +a farewell which, in scope of gesture, recalled the salute of a plumed +cavalier. + +When they arrived at the house, Imogen looked about her with keen +curiosity, for this was veritably the work of Flavia's hands, the +materialization of hopes long deferred. They passed directly into a +large, square hall with a gallery on three sides, studio fashion. This +opened at one end into a Dutch breakfast room, beyond which was the +large dining room. At the other end of the hall was the music room. +There was a smoking room, which one entered through the library +behind the staircase. On the second floor there was the same general +arrangement: a square hall, and, opening from it, the guest chambers, +or, as Miss Broadwood termed them, the “cages.” + +When Imogen went to her room, the guests had begun to return from their +various afternoon excursions. Boys were gliding through the halls with +ice water, covered trays, and flowers, colliding with maids and valets +who carried shoes and other articles of wearing apparel. Yet, all this +was done in response to inaudible bells, on felt soles, and in hushed +voices, so that there was very little confusion about it. + +Flavia had at last built her house and hewn out her seven pillars; there +could be no doubt, now, that the asylum for talent, the sanatorium of +the arts, so long projected, was an accomplished fact. Her ambition +had long ago outgrown the dimensions of her house on Prairie Avenue; +besides, she had bitterly complained that in Chicago traditions were +against her. Her project had been delayed by Arthur's doggedly standing +out for the Michigan woods, but Flavia knew well enough that certain of +the _rarae aves_--“the best”--could not be lured so far away from the +seaport, so she declared herself for the historic Hudson and knew no +retreat. The establishing of a New York office had at length overthrown +Arthur's last valid objection to quitting the lake country for three +months of the year; and Arthur could be wearied into anything, as those +who knew him knew. + +Flavia's house was the mirror of her exultation; it was a temple to the +gods of Victory, a sort of triumphal arch. In her earlier days she had +swallowed experiences that would have unmanned one of less torrential +enthusiasm or blind pertinacity. But, of late years, her determination +had told; she saw less and less of those mysterious persons with +mysterious obstacles in their path and mysterious grievances against the +world, who had once frequented her house on Prairie Avenue. In the stead +of this multitude of the unarrived, she had now the few, the select, +“the best.” Of all that band of indigent retainers who had once fed at +her board like the suitors in the halls of Penelope, only Alcee Buisson +still retained his right of entree. He alone had remembered that +ambition hath a knapsack at his back, wherein he puts alms to oblivion, +and he alone had been considerate enough to do what Flavia had expected +of him, and give his name a current value in the world. Then, as +Miss Broadwood put it, “he was her first real one,”--and Flavia, like +Mohammed, could remember her first believer. + +“The House of Song,” as Miss Broadwood had called it, was the outcome +of Flavia's more exalted strategies. A woman who made less a point of +sympathizing with their delicate organisms, might have sought to plunge +these phosphorescent pieces into the tepid bath of domestic life; +but Flavia's discernment was deeper. This must be a refuge where the +shrinking soul, the sensitive brain, should be unconstrained; where +the caprice of fancy should outweigh the civil code, if necessary. She +considered that this much Arthur owed her; for she, in her turn, had +made concessions. Flavia had, indeed, quite an equipment of epigrams +to the effect that our century creates the iron genii which evolve its +fairy tales: but the fact that her husband's name was annually painted +upon some ten thousand threshing machines in reality contributed very +little to her happiness. + +Arthur Hamilton was born and had spent his boyhood in the West Indies, +and physically he had never lost the brand of the tropics. His father, +after inventing the machine which bore his name, had returned to the +States to patent and manufacture it. After leaving college, Arthur had +spent five years ranching in the West and traveling abroad. Upon his +father's death he had returned to Chicago and, to the astonishment of +all his friends, had taken up the business--without any demonstration +of enthusiasm, but with quiet perseverance, marked ability, and amazing +industry. Why or how a self-sufficient, rather ascetic man of thirty, +indifferent in manner, wholly negative in all other personal relations, +should have doggedly wooed and finally married Flavia Malcolm was a +problem that had vexed older heads than Imogen's. + +While Imogen was dressing she heard a knock at her door, and a young +woman entered whom she at once recognized as Jemima Broadwood--“Jimmy” + Broadwood she was called by people in her own profession. While there +was something unmistakably professional in her frank _savoir-faire_, +“Jimmy's” was one of those faces to which the rouge never seems to +stick. Her eyes were keen and gray as a windy April sky, and so far from +having been seared by calcium lights, you might have fancied they had +never looked on anything less bucolic than growing fields and country +fairs. She wore her thick, brown hair short and parted at the side; and, +rather than hinting at freakishness, this seemed admirably in keeping +with her fresh, boyish countenance. She extended to Imogen a large, +well-shaped hand which it was a pleasure to clasp. + +“Ah! You are Miss Willard, and I see I need not introduce myself. Flavia +said you were kind enough to express a wish to meet me, and I preferred +to meet you alone. Do you mind if I smoke?” + +“Why, certainly not,” said Imogen, somewhat disconcerted and looking +hurriedly about for matches. + +“There, be calm, I'm always prepared,” said Miss Broadwood, checking +Imogen's flurry with a soothing gesture, and producing an oddly +fashioned silver match-case from some mysterious recess in her dinner +gown. She sat down in a deep chair, crossed her patent-leather Oxfords, +and lit her cigarette. “This matchbox,” she went on meditatively, “once +belonged to a Prussian officer. He shot himself in his bathtub, and I +bought it at the sale of his effects.” + +Imogen had not yet found any suitable reply to make to this rather +irrelevant confidence, when Miss Broadwood turned to her cordially: “I'm +awfully glad you've come, Miss Willard, though I've not quite decided +why you did it. I wanted very much to meet you. Flavia gave me your +thesis to read.” + +“Why, how funny!” ejaculated Imogen. + +“On the contrary,” remarked Miss Broadwood. “I thought it decidedly +lacked humor.” + +“I meant,” stammered Imogen, beginning to feel very much like Alice +in Wonderland, “I meant that I thought it rather strange Mrs. Hamilton +should fancy you would be interested.” + +Miss Broadwood laughed heartily. “Now, don't let my rudeness frighten +you. Really, I found it very interesting, and no end impressive. You +see, most people in my profession are good for absolutely nothing else, +and, therefore, they have a deep and abiding conviction that in some +other line they might have shone. Strange to say, scholarship is the +object of our envious and particular admiration. Anything in type +impresses us greatly; that's why so many of us marry authors or +newspapermen and lead miserable lives.” Miss Broadwood saw that she had +rather disconcerted Imogen, and blithely tacked in another direction. +“You see,” she went on, tossing aside her half-consumed cigarette, “some +years ago Flavia would not have deemed me worthy to open the pages of +your thesis--nor to be one of her house party of the chosen, for that +matter. I've Pinero to thank for both pleasures. It all depends on the +class of business I'm playing whether I'm in favor or not. Flavia is +my second cousin, you know, so I can say whatever disagreeable things I +choose with perfect good grace. I'm quite desperate for someone to laugh +with, so I'm going to fasten myself upon you--for, of course, one can't +expect any of these gypsy-dago people to see anything funny. I don't +intend you shall lose the humor of the situation. What do you think of +Flavia's infirmary for the arts, anyway?” + +“Well, it's rather too soon for me to have any opinion at all,” said +Imogen, as she again turned to her dressing. “So far, you are the only +one of the artists I've met.” + +“One of them?” echoed Miss Broadwood. “One of the _artists_? My offense +may be rank, my dear, but I really don't deserve that. Come, now, +whatever badges of my tribe I may bear upon me, just let me divest you +of any notion that I take myself seriously.” + +Imogen turned from the mirror in blank astonishment and sat down on the +arm of a chair, facing her visitor. “I can't fathom you at all, +Miss Broadwood,” she said frankly. “Why shouldn't you take yourself +seriously? What's the use of beating about the bush? Surely you know +that you are one of the few players on this side of the water who have +at all the spirit of natural or ingenuous comedy?” + +“Thank you, my dear. Now we are quite even about the thesis, aren't +we? Oh, did you mean it? Well, you _are_ a clever girl. But you see it +doesn't do to permit oneself to look at it in that light. If we do, we +always go to pieces and waste our substance astarring as the unhappy +daughter of the Capulets. But there, I hear Flavia coming to take you +down; and just remember I'm not one of them--the artists, I mean.” + + +Flavia conducted Imogen and Miss Broadwood downstairs. As they reached +the lower hall they heard voices from the music room, and dim figures +were lurking in the shadows under the gallery, but their hostess led +straight to the smoking room. The June evening was chilly, and a fire +had been lighted in the fireplace. Through the deepening dusk, the +firelight flickered upon the pipes and curious weapons on the wall and +threw an orange glow over the Turkish hangings. One side of the smoking +room was entirely of glass, separating it from the conservatory, which +was flooded with white light from the electric bulbs. There was about +the darkened room some suggestion of certain chambers in the Arabian +Nights, opening on a court of palms. Perhaps it was partially this +memory-evoking suggestion that caused Imogen to start so violently when +she saw dimly, in a blur of shadow, the figure of a man, who sat smoking +in a low, deep chair before the fire. He was long, and thin, and brown. +His long, nerveless hands drooped from the arms of his chair. A brown +mustache shaded his mouth, and his eyes were sleepy and apathetic. When +Imogen entered he rose indolently and gave her his hand, his manner +barely courteous. + +“I am glad you arrived promptly, Miss Willard,” he said with an +indifferent drawl. “Flavia was afraid you might be late. You had a +pleasant ride up, I hope?” + +“Oh, very, thank you, Mr. Hamilton,” she replied, feeling that he did +not particularly care whether she replied at all. + +Flavia explained that she had not yet had time to dress for dinner, +as she had been attending to Mr. Will Maidenwood, who had become faint +after hurting his finger in an obdurate window, and immediately excused +herself As she left, Hamilton turned to Miss Broadwood with a rather +spiritless smile. + +“Well, Jimmy,” he remarked, “I brought up a piano box full of fireworks +for the boys. How do you suppose we'll manage to keep them until the +Fourth?” + +“We can't, unless we steel ourselves to deny there are any on the +premises,” said Miss Broadwood, seating herself on a low stool by +Hamilton's chair and leaning back against the mantel. “Have you seen +Helen, and has she told you the tragedy of the tooth?” + +“She met me at the station, with her tooth wrapped up in tissue paper. +I had tea with her an hour ago. Better sit down, Miss Willard;” he rose +and pushed a chair toward Imogen, who was standing peering into the +conservatory. “We are scheduled to dine at seven, but they seldom get +around before eight.” + +By this time Imogen had made out that here the plural pronoun, third +person, always referred to the artists. As Hamilton's manner did not +spur one to cordial intercourse, and as his attention seemed directed +to Miss Broadwood, insofar as it could be said to be directed to anyone, +she sat down facing the conservatory and watched him, unable to decide +in how far he was identical with the man who had first met Flavia +Malcolm in her mother's house, twelve years ago. Did he at all remember +having known her as a little girl, and why did his indifference hurt her +so, after all these years? Had some remnant of her childish affection +for him gone on living, somewhere down in the sealed caves of her +consciousness, and had she really expected to find it possible to be +fond of him again? Suddenly she saw a light in the man's sleepy eyes, +an unmistakable expression of interest and pleasure that fairly startled +her. She turned quickly in the direction of his glance, and saw Flavia, +just entering, dressed for dinner and lit by the effulgence of her most +radiant manner. Most people considered Flavia handsome, and there was +no gainsaying that she carried her five-and-thirty years splendidly. Her +figure had never grown matronly, and her face was of the sort that does +not show wear. Its blond tints were as fresh and enduring as enamel--and +quite as hard. Its usual expression was one of tense, often strained, +animation, which compressed her lips nervously. A perfect scream of +animation, Miss Broadwood had called it, created and maintained by +sheer, indomitable force of will. Flavia's appearance on any scene +whatever made a ripple, caused a certain agitation and recognition, and, +among impressionable people, a certain uneasiness, For all her sparkling +assurance of manner, Flavia was certainly always ill at ease and, even +more certainly, anxious. She seemed not convinced of the established +order of material things, seemed always trying to conceal her feeling +that walls might crumble, chasms open, or the fabric of her life fly +to the winds in irretrievable entanglement. At least this was the +impression Imogen got from that note in Flavia which was so manifestly +false. + +Hamilton's keen, quick, satisfied glance at his wife had recalled to +Imogen all her inventory of speculations about them. She looked at him +with compassionate surprise. As a child she had never permitted herself +to believe that Hamilton cared at all for the woman who had taken him +away from her; and since she had begun to think about them again, it +had never occurred to her that anyone could become attached to Flavia in +that deeply personal and exclusive sense. It seemed quite as irrational +as trying to possess oneself of Broadway at noon. + +When they went out to dinner Imogen realized the completeness of +Flavia's triumph. They were people of one name, mostly, like kings; +people whose names stirred the imagination like a romance or a melody. +With the notable exception of M. Roux, Imogen had seen most of them +before, either in concert halls or lecture rooms; but they looked +noticeably older and dimmer than she remembered them. + +Opposite her sat Schemetzkin, the Russian pianist, a short, corpulent +man, with an apoplectic face and purplish skin, his thick, iron-gray +hair tossed back from his forehead. Next to the German giantess sat the +Italian tenor--the tiniest of men--pale, with soft, light hair, much +in disorder, very red lips, and fingers yellowed by cigarettes. Frau +Lichtenfeld shone in a gown of emerald green, fitting so closely as to +enhance her natural floridness. However, to do the good lady justice, +let her attire be never so modest, it gave an effect of barbaric +splendor. At her left sat Herr Schotte, the Assyriologist, whose +features were effectually concealed by the convergence of his hair and +beard, and whose glasses were continually falling into his plate. +This gentleman had removed more tons of earth in the course of his +explorations than had any of his confreres, and his vigorous attack upon +his food seemed to suggest the strenuous nature of his accustomed toil. +His eyes were small and deeply set, and his forehead bulged fiercely +above his eyes in a bony ridge. His heavy brows completed the leonine +suggestion of his face. Even to Imogen, who knew something of his work +and greatly respected it, he was entirely too reminiscent of the Stone +Age to be altogether an agreeable dinner companion. He seemed, indeed, +to have absorbed something of the savagery of those early types of life +which he continually studied. + +Frank Wellington, the young Kansas man who had been two years out of +Harvard and had published three historical novels, sat next to Mr. Will +Maidenwood, who was still pale from his recent sufferings and carried +his hand bandaged. They took little part in the general conversation, +but, like the lion and the unicorn, were always at it, discussing, +every time they met, whether there were or were not passages in Mr. +Wellington's works which should be eliminated, out of consideration +for the Young Person. Wellington had fallen into the hands of a great +American syndicate which most effectually befriended struggling authors +whose struggles were in the right direction, and which had guaranteed +to make him famous before he was thirty. Feeling the security of his +position he stoutly defended those passages which jarred upon the +sensitive nerves of the young editor of _Woman_. Maidenwood, in the +smoothest of voices, urged the necessity of the author's recognizing +certain restrictions at the outset, and Miss Broadwood, who joined the +argument quite without invitation or encouragement, seconded him with +pointed and malicious remarks which caused the young editor manifest +discomfort. Restzhoff, the chemist, demanded the attention of the entire +company for his exposition of his devices for manufacturing ice cream +from vegetable oils and for administering drugs in bonbons. + +Flavia, always noticeably restless at dinner, was somewhat apathetic +toward the advocate of peptonized chocolate and was plainly concerned +about the sudden departure of M. Roux, who had announced that it would +be necessary for him to leave tomorrow. M. Emile Roux, who sat at +Flavia's right, was a man in middle life and quite bald, clearly without +personal vanity, though his publishers preferred to circulate only those +of his portraits taken in his ambrosial youth. Imogen was considerably +shocked at his unlikeness to the slender, black-stocked Rolla he had +looked at twenty. He had declined into the florid, settled heaviness of +indifference and approaching age. There was, however, a certain look of +durability and solidity about him; the look of a man who has earned the +right to be fat and bald, and even silent at dinner if he chooses. + +Throughout the discussion between Wellington and Will Maidenwood, though +they invited his participation, he remained silent, betraying no sign +either of interest or contempt. Since his arrival he had directed most +of his conversation to Hamilton, who had never read one of his twelve +great novels. This perplexed and troubled Flavia. On the night of his +arrival Jules Martel had enthusiastically declared, “There are schools +and schools, manners and manners; but Roux is Roux, and Paris sets +its watches by his clock.” Flavia had already repeated this remark to +Imogen. It haunted her, and each time she quoted it she was impressed +anew. + +Flavia shifted the conversation uneasily, evidently exasperated and +excited by her repeated failures to draw the novelist out. “Monsieur +Roux,” she began abruptly, with her most animated smile, “I remember so +well a statement I read some years ago in your 'Mes Etudes des Femmes' +to the effect that you had never met a really intellectual woman. May I +ask, without being impertinent, whether that assertion still represents +your experience?” + +“I meant, madam,” said the novelist conservatively, “intellectual in +a sense very special, as we say of men in whom the purely intellectual +functions seem almost independent.” + +“And you still think a woman so constituted a mythical personage?” + persisted Flavia, nodding her head encouragingly. + +“_Une Meduse_, madam, who, if she were discovered, would transmute us +all into stone,” said the novelist, bowing gravely. “If she existed at +all,” he added deliberately, “it was my business to find her, and +she has cost me many a vain pilgrimage. Like Rudel of Tripoli, I have +crossed seas and penetrated deserts to seek her out. I have, indeed, +encountered women of learning whose industry I have been compelled +to respect; many who have possessed beauty and charm and perplexing +cleverness; a few with remarkable information and a sort of fatal +facility.” + +“And Mrs. Browning, George Eliot, and your own Mme. Dudevant?” queried +Flavia with that fervid enthusiasm with which she could, on occasion, +utter things simply incomprehensible for their banality--at her feats of +this sort Miss Broadwood was wont to sit breathless with admiration. + +“Madam, while the intellect was undeniably present in the performances +of those women, it was only the stick of the rocket. Although this +woman has eluded me I have studied her conditions and perturbances as +astronomers conjecture the orbits of planets they have never seen. +if she exists, she is probably neither an artist nor a woman with a +mission, but an obscure personage, with imperative intellectual needs, +who absorbs rather than produces.” + +Flavia, still nodding nervously, fixed a strained glance of +interrogation upon M. Roux. “Then you think she would be a woman whose +first necessity would be to know, whose instincts would be satisfied +only with the best, who could draw from others; appreciative, merely?” + +The novelist lifted his dull eyes to his interlocutress with an +untranslatable smile and a slight inclination of his shoulders. “Exactly +so; you are really remarkable, madam,” he added, in a tone of cold +astonishment. + +After dinner the guests took their coffee in the music room, where +Schemetzkin sat down at the piano to drum ragtime, and give his +celebrated imitation of the boardingschool girl's execution of Chopin. +He flatly refused to play anything more serious, and would practice only +in the morning, when he had the music room to himself. Hamilton and M. +Roux repaired to the smoking room to discuss the necessity of extending +the tax on manufactured articles in France--one of those conversations +which particularly exasperated Flavia. + +After Schemetzkin had grimaced and tortured the keyboard with malicious +vulgarities for half an hour, Signor Donati, to put an end to his +torture, consented to sing, and Flavia and Imogen went to fetch Arthur +to play his accompaniments. Hamilton rose with an annoyed look and +placed his cigarette on the mantel. “Why yes, Flavia, I'll accompany +him, provided he sings something with a melody, Italian arias or +ballads, and provided the recital is not interminable.” + +“You will join us, M. Roux?” + +“Thank you, but I have some letters to write,” replied the novelist, +bowing. + +As Flavia had remarked to Imogen, “Arthur really played accompaniments +remarkably well.” To hear him recalled vividly the days of her +childhood, when he always used to spend his business vacations at her +mother's home in Maine. He had possessed for her that almost hypnotic +influence which young men sometimes exert upon little girls. It was a +sort of phantom love affair, subjective and fanciful, a precocity of +instinct, like that tender and maternal concern which some little girls +feel for their dolls. Yet this childish infatuation is capable of +all the depressions and exaltations of love itself, it has its bitter +jealousies, cruel disappointments, its exacting caprices. + +Summer after summer she had awaited his coming and wept at his +departure, indifferent to the gayer young men who had called her their +sweetheart and laughed at everything she said. Although Hamilton never +said so, she had been always quite sure that he was fond of her. When +he pulled her up the river to hunt for fairy knolls shut about by low, +hanging willows, he was often silent for an hour at a time, yet she +never felt he was bored or was neglecting her. He would lie in the sand +smoking, his eyes half-closed, watching her play, and she was always +conscious that she was entertaining him. Sometimes he would take a copy +of “Alice in Wonderland” in his pocket, and no one could read it as he +could, laughing at her with his dark eyes, when anything amused him. +No one else could laugh so, with just their eyes, and without moving a +muscle of their face. Though he usually smiled at passages that seemed +not at all funny to the child, she always laughed gleefully, because he +was so seldom moved to mirth that any such demonstration delighted her +and she took the credit of it entirely to herself Her own inclination +had been for serious stories, with sad endings, like the Little Mermaid, +which he had once told her in an unguarded moment when she had a cold, +and was put to bed early on her birthday night and cried because she +could not have her party. But he highly disapproved of this preference, +and had called it a morbid taste, and always shook his finger at her +when she asked for the story. When she had been particularly good, or +particularly neglected by other people, then he would sometimes melt +and tell her the story, and never laugh at her if she enjoyed the “sad +ending” even to tears. When Flavia had taken him away and he came no +more, she wept inconsolably for the space of two weeks, and refused +to learn her lessons. Then she found the story of the Little Mermaid +herself, and forgot him. + +Imogen had discovered at dinner that he could still smile at one +secretly, out of his eyes, and that he had the old manner of outwardly +seeming bored, but letting you know that he was not. She was intensely +curious about his exact state of feeling toward his wife, and more +curious still to catch a sense of his final adjustment to the conditions +of life in general. This, she could not help feeling, she might get +again--if she could have him alone for an hour, in some place where +there was a little river and a sandy cove bordered by drooping willows, +and a blue sky seen through white sycamore boughs. + +That evening, before retiring, Flavia entered her husband's room, where +he sat in his smoking jacket, in one of his favorite low chairs. + +“I suppose it's a grave responsibility to bring an ardent, serious young +thing like Imogen here among all these fascinating personages,” she +remarked reflectively. “But, after all, one can never tell. These grave, +silent girls have their own charm, even for facile people.” + +“Oh, so that is your plan?” queried her husband dryly. “I was wondering +why you got her up here. She doesn't seem to mix well with the faciles. +At least, so it struck me.” + +Flavia paid no heed to this jeering remark, but repeated, “No, after +all, it may not be a bad thing.” + +“Then do consign her to that shaken reed, the tenor,” said her husband +yawning. “I remember she used to have a taste for the pathetic.” + +“And then,” remarked Flavia coquettishly, “after all, I owe her mother a +return in kind. She was not afraid to trifle with destiny.” + +But Hamilton was asleep in his chair. + + +Next morning Imogen found only Miss Broadwood in the breakfast room. + +“Good morning, my dear girl, whatever are you doing up so early? They +never breakfast before eleven. Most of them take their coffee in their +room. Take this place by me.” + +Miss Broadwood looked particularly fresh and encouraging in her blue +serge walking skirt, her open jacket displaying an expanse of stiff, +white shirt bosom, dotted with some almost imperceptible figure, and +a dark blue-and-white necktie, neatly knotted under her wide, rolling +collar. She wore a white rosebud in the lapel of her coat, and decidedly +she seemed more than ever like a nice, clean boy on his holiday. Imogen +was just hoping that they would breakfast alone when Miss Broadwood +exclaimed, “Ah, there comes Arthur with the children. That's the reward +of early rising in this house; you never get to see the youngsters at +any other time.” + +Hamilton entered, followed by two dark, handsome little boys. The girl, +who was very tiny, blonde like her mother, and exceedingly frail, he +carried in his arms. The boys came up and said good morning with an ease +and cheerfulness uncommon, even in well-bred children, but the little +girl hid her face on her father's shoulder. + +“She's a shy little lady,” he explained as he put her gently down in her +chair. “I'm afraid she's like her father; she can't seem to get used to +meeting people. And you, Miss Willard, did you dream of the White Rabbit +or the Little Mermaid?” + +“Oh, I dreamed of them all! All the personages of that buried +civilization,” cried Imogen, delighted that his estranged manner of the +night before had entirely vanished and feeling that, somehow, the old +confidential relations had been restored during the night. + +“Come, William,” said Miss Broadwood, turning to the younger of the two +boys, “and what did you dream about?” + +“We dreamed,” said William gravely--he was the more assertive of the two +and always spoke for both--“we dreamed that there were fireworks hidden +in the basement of the carriage house; lots and lots of fireworks.” + +His elder brother looked up at him with apprehensive astonishment, while +Miss Broadwood hastily put her napkin to her lips and Hamilton dropped +his eyes. “If little boys dream things, they are so apt not to come +true,” he reflected sadly. This shook even the redoubtable William, and +he glanced nervously at his brother. “But do things vanish just because +they have been dreamed?” he objected. + +“Generally that is the very best reason for their vanishing,” said +Arthur gravely. + +“But, Father, people can't help what they dream,” remonstrated Edward +gently. + +“Oh, come! You're making these children talk like a Maeterlinck +dialogue,” laughed Miss Broadwood. + +Flavia presently entered, a book in her hand, and bade them all good +morning. “Come, little people, which story shall it be this morning?” + she asked winningly. Greatly excited, the children followed her into +the garden. “She does then, sometimes,” murmured Imogen as they left the +breakfast room. + +“Oh, yes, to be sure,” said Miss Broadwood cheerfully. “She reads a +story to them every morning in the most picturesque part of the garden. +The mother of the Gracchi, you know. She does so long, she says, for the +time when they will be intellectual companions for her. What do you say +to a walk over the hills?” + +As they left the house they met Frau Lichtenfeld and the bushy +Herr Schotte--the professor cut an astonishing figure in golf +stockings--returning from a walk and engaged in an animated conversation +on the tendencies of German fiction. + +“Aren't they the most attractive little children,” exclaimed Imogen as +they wound down the road toward the river. + +“Yes, and you must not fail to tell Flavia that you think so. She will +look at you in a sort of startled way and say, 'Yes, aren't they?' and +maybe she will go off and hunt them up and have tea with them, to fully +appreciate them. She is awfully afraid of missing anything good, is +Flavia. The way those youngsters manage to conceal their guilty presence +in the House of Song is a wonder.” + +“But don't any of the artist-folk fancy children?” asked Imogen. + +“Yes, they just fancy them and no more. The chemist remarked the other +day that children are like certain salts which need not be actualized +because the formulae are quite sufficient for practical purposes. I +don't see how even Flavia can endure to have that man about.” + +“I have always been rather curious to know what Arthur thinks of it +all,” remarked Imogen cautiously. + +“Thinks of it!” ejaculated Miss Broadwood. “Why, my dear, what would any +man think of having his house turned into an hotel, habited by freaks +who discharge his servants, borrow his money, and insult his neighbors? +This place is shunned like a lazaretto!” + +“Well, then, why does he--why does he--” persisted Imogen. + +“Bah!” interrupted Miss Broadwood impatiently, “why did he in the first +place? That's the question.” + +“Marry her, you mean?” said Imogen coloring. + +“Exactly so,” said Miss Broadwood sharply, as she snapped the lid of her +matchbox. + +“I suppose that is a question rather beyond us, and certainly one which +we cannot discuss,” said Imogen. “But his toleration on this one point +puzzles me, quite apart from other complications.” + +“Toleration? Why this point, as you call it, simply is Flavia. Who could +conceive of her without it? I don't know where it's all going to end, +I'm sure, and I'm equally sure that, if it were not for Arthur, +I shouldn't care,” declared Miss Broadwood, drawing her shoulders +together. + +“But will it end at all, now?” + +“Such an absurd state of things can't go on indefinitely. A man isn't +going to see his wife make a guy of herself forever, is he? Chaos +has already begun in the servants' quarters. There are six different +languages spoken there now. You see, it's all on an entirely false +basis. Flavia hasn't the slightest notion of what these people are +really like, their good and their bad alike escape her. They, on the +other hand, can't imagine what she is driving at. Now, Arthur is worse +off than either faction; he is not in the fairy story in that he sees +these people exactly as they are, _but_ he is utterly unable to see +Flavia as they see her. There you have the situation. Why can't he see +her as we do? My dear, that has kept me awake o' nights. This man who +has thought so much and lived so much, who is naturally a critic, really +takes Flavia at very nearly her own estimate. But now I am entering upon +a wilderness. From a brief acquaintance with her you can know nothing of +the icy fastnesses of Flavia's self-esteem. It's like St. Peter's; you +can't realize its magnitude at once. You have to grow into a sense of +it by living under its shadow. It has perplexed even Emile Roux, that +merciless dissector of egoism. She has puzzled him the more because he +saw at a glance what some of them do not perceive at once, and what will +be mercifully concealed from Arthur until the trump sounds; namely, that +all Flavia's artists have done or ever will do means exactly as much to +her as a symphony means to an oyster; that there is no bridge by which +the significance of any work of art could be conveyed to her.” + +“Then, in the name of goodness, why does she bother?” gasped Imogen. +“She is pretty, wealthy, well-established; why should she bother?” + +“That's what M. Roux has kept asking himself. I can't pretend to analyze +it. She reads papers on the Literary Landmarks of Paris, the Loves of +the Poets, and that sort of thing, to clubs out in Chicago. To Flavia +it is more necessary to be called clever than to breathe. I would give a +good deal to know that glum Frenchman's diagnosis. He has been +watching her out of those fishy eyes of his as a biologist watches a +hemisphereless frog.” + +For several days after M. Roux's departure Flavia gave an embarrassing +share of her attention to Imogen. Embarrassing, because Imogen had the +feeling of being energetically and futilely explored, she knew not for +what. She felt herself under the globe of an air pump, expected to yield +up something. When she confined the conversation to matters of general +interest Flavia conveyed to her with some pique that her one endeavor +in life had been to fit herself to converse with her friends upon those +things which vitally interested them. “One has no right to accept their +best from people unless one gives, isn't it so? I want to be able to +give--!” she declared vaguely. Yet whenever Imogen strove to pay her +tithes and plunged bravely into her plans for study next winter, Flavia +grew absent-minded and interrupted her by amazing generalizations or +by such embarrassing questions as, “And these grim studies really have +charm for you; you are quite buried in them; they make other things seem +light and ephemeral?” + +“I rather feel as though I had got in here under false pretenses,” + Imogen confided to Miss Broadwood. “I'm sure I don't know what it is +that she wants of me.” + +“Ah,” chuckled Jemima, “you are not equal to these heart to heart talks +with Flavia. You utterly fail to communicate to her the atmosphere of +that untroubled joy in which you dwell. You must remember that she gets +no feeling out of things herself, and she demands that you impart yours +to her by some process of psychic transmission. I once met a blind girl, +blind from birth, who could discuss the peculiarities of the Barbizon +school with just Flavia's glibness and enthusiasm. Ordinarily Flavia +knows how to get what she wants from people, and her memory is +wonderful. One evening I heard her giving Frau Lichtenfeld some random +impressions about Hedda Gabler which she extracted from me five years +ago; giving them with an impassioned conviction of which I was never +guilty. But I have known other people who could appropriate your stories +and opinions; Flavia is infinitely more subtle than that; she can +soak up the very thrash and drift of your daydreams, and take the very +thrills off your back, as it were.” + +After some days of unsuccessful effort, Flavia withdrew herself, and +Imogen found Hamilton ready to catch her when she was tossed afield. +He seemed only to have been awaiting this crisis, and at once their +old intimacy reestablished itself as a thing inevitable and beautifully +prepared for. She convinced herself that she had not been mistaken in +him, despite all the doubts that had come up in later years, and this +renewal of faith set more than one question thumping in her brain. “How +did he, how can he?” she kept repeating with a tinge of her childish +resentment, “what right had he to waste anything so fine?” + +When Imogen and Arthur were returning from a walk before luncheon one +morning about a week after M. Roux's departure, they noticed an absorbed +group before one of the hall windows. Herr Schotte and Restzhoff sat +on the window seat with a newspaper between them, while Wellington, +Schemetzkin, and Will Maidenwood looked over their shoulders. They +seemed intensely interested, Herr Schotte occasionally pounding his +knees with his fists in ebullitions of barbaric glee. When imogen +entered the hall, however, the men were all sauntering toward the +breakfast room and the paper was lying innocently on the divan. During +luncheon the personnel of that window group were unwontedly animated and +agreeable all save Schemetzkin, whose stare was blanker than ever, as +though Roux's mantle of insulting indifference had fallen upon him, in +addition to his own oblivious self-absorption. Will Maidenwood seemed +embarrassed and annoyed; the chemist employed himself with making polite +speeches to Hamilton. Flavia did not come down to lunch--and there was +a malicious gleam under Herr Schotte's eyebrows. Frank Wellington +announced nervously that an imperative letter from his protecting +syndicate summoned him to the city. + +After luncheon the men went to the golf links, and Imogen, at the first +opportunity, possessed herself of the newspaper which had been left on +the divan. One of the first things that caught her eye was an article +headed “Roux on Tuft Hunters; The Advanced American Woman as He Sees +Her; Aggressive, Superficial, and Insincere.” The entire interview was +nothing more nor less than a satiric characterization of Flavia, aquiver +with irritation and vitriolic malice. No one could mistake it; it was +done with all his deftness of portraiture. Imogen had not finished the +article when she heard a footstep, and clutching the paper she started +precipitately toward the stairway as Arthur entered. He put out his +hand, looking critically at her distressed face. + +“Wait a moment, Miss Willard,” he said peremptorily, “I want to see +whether we can find what it was that so interested our friends this +morning. Give me the paper, please.” + +Imogen grew quite white as he opened the journal. She reached forward +and crumpled it with her hands. “Please don't, please don't,” she +pleaded; “it's something I don't want you to see. Oh, why will you? it's +just something low and despicable that you can't notice.” + +Arthur had gently loosed her hands, and he pointed her to a chair. He +lit a cigar and read the article through without comment. When he had +finished it he walked to the fireplace, struck a match, and tossed the +flaming journal between the brass andirons. + +“You are right,” he remarked as he came back, dusting his hands with his +handkerchief. “It's quite impossible to comment. There are extremes of +blackguardism for which we have no name. The only thing necessary is to +see that Flavia gets no wind of this. This seems to be my cue to act; +poor girl.” + +Imogen looked at him tearfully; she could only murmur, “Oh, why did you +read it!” + +Hamilton laughed spiritlessly. “Come, don't you worry about it. You +always took other people's troubles too seriously. When you were little +and all the world was gay and everybody happy, you must needs get the +Little Mermaid's troubles to grieve over. Come with me into the music +room. You remember the musical setting I once made you for the Lay of +the Jabberwock? I was trying it over the other night, long after you +were in bed, and I decided it was quite as fine as the Erl-King music. +How I wish I could give you some of the cake that Alice ate and make you +a little girl again. Then, when you had got through the glass door into +the little garden, you could call to me, perhaps, and tell me all the +fine things that were going on there. What a pity it is that you ever +grew up!” he added, laughing; and Imogen, too, was thinking just that. + +At dinner that evening, Flavia, with fatal persistence, insisted upon +turning the conversation to M. Roux. She had been reading one of his +novels and had remembered anew that Paris set its watches by his clock. +Imogen surmised that she was tortured by a feeling that she had not +sufficiently appreciated him while she had had him. When she first +mentioned his name she was answered only by the pall of silence that +fell over the company. Then everyone began to talk at once, as though +to correct a false position. They spoke of him with a fervid, defiant +admiration, with the sort of hot praise that covers a double purpose. +Imogen fancied she could see that they felt a kind of relief at what the +man had done, even those who despised him for doing it; that they felt +a spiteful hate against Flavia, as though she had tricked them, and a +certain contempt for themselves that they had been beguiled. She was +reminded of the fury of the crowd in the fairy tale, when once the child +had called out that the king was in his night clothes. Surely these +people knew no more about Flavia than they had known before, but the +mere fact that the thing had been said altered the situation. Flavia, +meanwhile, sat chattering amiably, pathetically unconscious of her +nakedness. + +Hamilton lounged, fingering the stem of his wineglass, gazing down the +table at one face after another and studying the various degrees +of self-consciousness they exhibited. Imogen's eyes followed his, +fearfully. When a lull came in the spasmodic flow of conversation, +Arthur, leaning back in his chair, remarked deliberately, “As for M. +Roux, his very profession places him in that class of men whom society +has never been able to accept unconditionally because it has never been +able to assume that they have any ordered notion of taste. He and +his ilk remain, with the mountebanks and snake charmers, people +indispensable to our civilization, but wholly unreclaimed by it; people +whom we receive, but whose invitations we do not accept.” + +Fortunately for Flavia, this mine was not exploded until just before the +coffee was brought. Her laughter was pitiful to hear; it echoed through +the silent room as in a vault, while she made some tremulously light +remark about her husband's drollery, grim as a jest from the dying. No +one responded and she sat nodding her head like a mechanical toy and +smiling her white, set smile through her teeth, until Alcee Buisson and +Frau Lichtenfeld came to her support. + +After dinner the guests retired immediately to their rooms, and Imogen +went upstairs on tiptoe, feeling the echo of breakage and the dust of +crumbling in the air. She wondered whether Flavia's habitual note of +uneasiness were not, in a manner, prophetic, and a sort of unconscious +premonition, after all. She sat down to write a letter, but she found +herself so nervous, her head so hot and her hands so cold, that she +soon abandoned the effort, just as she was about to seek Miss Broadwood, +Flavia entered and embraced her hysterically. + +“My dearest girl,” she began, “was there ever such an unfortunate and +incomprehensible speech made before? Of course it is scarcely necessary +to explain to you poor Arthur's lack of tact, and that he meant nothing. +But they! Can they be expected to understand? He will feel wretchedly +about it when he realizes what he has done, but in the meantime? And M. +Roux, of all men! When we were so fortunate as to get him, and he made +himself so unreservedly agreeable, and I fancied that, in his way, +Arthur quite admired him. My dear, you have no idea what that speech has +done. Schemetzkin and Herr Schotte have already sent me word that they +must leave us tomorrow. Such a thing from a host!” Flavia paused, choked +by tears of vexation and despair. + +Imogen was thoroughly disconcerted; this was the first time she had ever +seen Flavia betray any personal emotion which was indubitably genuine. +She replied with what consolation she could. “Need they take it +personally at all? It was a mere observation upon a class of people--” + +“Which he knows nothing whatever about, and with whom he has no +sympathy,” interrupted Flavia. “Ah, my dear, you could not be _expected_ +to understand. You can't realize, knowing Arthur as you do, his entire +lack of any aesthetic sense whatever. He is absolutely _nil_, stone deaf +and stark blind, on that side. He doesn't mean to be brutal, it is +just the brutality of utter ignorance. They always feel it--they are so +sensitive to unsympathetic influences, you know; they know it the moment +they come into the house. I have spent my life apologizing for him and +struggling to conceal it; but in spite of me, he wounds them; his very +attitude, even in silence, offends them. Heavens! Do I not know? Is +it not perpetually and forever wounding me? But there has never been +anything so dreadful as this--never! If I could conceive of any possible +motive, even!” + +“But, surely, Mrs. Hamilton, it was, after all, a mere expression of +opinion, such as we are any of us likely to venture upon any subject +whatever. It was neither more personal nor more extravagant than many of +M. Roux's remarks.” + +“But, Imogen, certainly M. Roux has the right. It is a part of his +art, and that is altogether another matter. Oh, this is not the only +instance!” continued Flavia passionately, “I've always had that narrow, +bigoted prejudice to contend with. It has always held me back. But +this--!” + +“I think you mistake his attitude,” replied Imogen, feeling a flush that +made her ears tingle. “That is, I fancy he is more appreciative than he +seems. A man can't be very demonstrative about those things--not if he +is a real man. I should not think you would care much about saving the +feelings of people who are too narrow to admit of any other point of +view than their own.” She stopped, finding herself in the impossible +position of attempting to explain Hamilton to his wife; a task which, +if once begun, would necessitate an entire course of enlightenment which +she doubted Flavia's ability to receive, and which she could offer only +with very poor grace. + +“That's just where it stings most”--here Flavia began pacing the +floor--“it is just because they have all shown such tolerance and have +treated Arthur with such unfailing consideration that I can find no +reasonable pretext for his rancor. How can he fail to see the value of +such friendships on the children's account, if for nothing else! What +an advantage for them to grow up among such associations! Even though he +cares nothing about these things himself he might realize that. Is there +nothing I could say by way of explanation? To them, I mean? If someone +were to explain to them how unfortunately limited he is in these +things--” + +“I'm afraid I cannot advise you,” said Imogen decidedly, “but that, at +least, seems to me impossible.” + +Flavia took her hand and glanced at her affectionately, nodding +nervously. “Of course, dear girl, I can't ask you to be quite frank with +me. Poor child, you are trembling and your hands are icy. Poor Arthur! +But you must not judge him by this altogether; think how much he misses +in life. What a cruel shock you've had. I'll send you some sherry, Good +night, my dear.” + +When Flavia shut the door Imogen burst into a fit of nervous weeping. + +Next morning she awoke after a troubled and restless night. At eight +o'clock Miss Broadwood entered in a red and white striped bathrobe. + +“Up, up, and see the great doom's image!” she cried, her eyes sparkling +with excitement. “The hall is full of trunks, they are packing. What +bolt has fallen? It's you, _ma cherie_, you've brought Ulysses +home again and the slaughter has begun!” she blew a cloud of smoke +triumphantly from her lips and threw herself into a chair beside the +bed. + +Imogen, rising on her elbow, plunged excitedly into the story of the +Roux interview, which Miss Broadwood heard with the keenest interest, +frequently interrupting her with exclamations of delight. When Imogen +reached the dramatic scene which terminated in the destruction of the +newspaper, Miss Broadwood rose and took a turn about the room, violently +switching the tasselled cords of her bathrobe. + +“Stop a moment,” she cried, “you mean to tell me that he had such a +heaven-sent means to bring her to her senses and didn't use it--that he +held such a weapon and threw it away?” + +“Use it?” cried Imogen unsteadily. “Of course he didn't! He bared his +back to the tormentor, signed himself over to punishment in that speech +he made at dinner, which everyone understands but Flavia. She was here +for an hour last night and disregarded every limit of taste in her +maledictions.” + +“My dear!” cried Miss Broadwood, catching her hand in inordinate delight +at the situation, “do you see what he has done? There'll be no end to +it. Why he has sacrificed himself to spare the very vanity that devours +him, put rancors in the vessels of his peace, and his eternal jewel +given to the common enemy of man, to make them kings, the seed of Banquo +kings! He is magnificent!” + +“Isn't he always that?” cried Imogen hotly. “He's like a pillar of +sanity and law in this house of shams and swollen vanities, where people +stalk about with a sort of madhouse dignity, each one fancying himself a +king or a pope. If you could have heard that woman talk of him! Why, +she thinks him stupid, bigoted, blinded by middleclass prejudices. She +talked about his having no aesthetic sense and insisted that her artists +had always shown him tolerance. I don't know why it should get on my +nerves so, I'm sure, but her stupidity and assurance are enough to drive +one to the brink of collapse.” + +“Yes, as opposed to his singular fineness, they are calculated to do +just that,” said Miss Broadwood gravely, wisely ignoring Imogen's tears. +“But what has been is nothing to what will be. Just wait until Flavia's +black swans have flown! You ought not to try to stick it out; that would +only make it harder for everyone. Suppose you let me telephone your +mother to wire you to come home by the evening train?” + +“Anything, rather than have her come at me like that again. It puts me +in a perfectly impossible position, and he _is_ so fine!” + +“Of course it does,” said Miss Broadwood sympathetically, “and there +is no good to be got from facing it. I will stay because such things +interest me, and Frau Lichtenfeld will stay because she has no money to +get away, and Buisson will stay because he feels somewhat responsible. +These complications are interesting enough to cold-blooded folk +like myself who have an eye for the dramatic element, but they are +distracting and demoralizing to young people with any serious purpose in +life.” + +Miss Broadwood's counsel was all the more generous seeing that, for her, +the most interesting element of this denouement would be eliminated by +Imogen's departure. “If she goes now, she'll get over it,” soliloquized +Miss Broadwood. “If she stays, she'll be wrung for him and the hurt may +go deep enough to last. I haven't the heart to see her spoiling things +for herself.” She telephoned Mrs. Willard and helped Imogen to pack. She +even took it upon herself to break the news of Imogen's going to Arthur, +who remarked, as he rolled a cigarette in his nerveless fingers: + +“Right enough, too. What should she do here with old cynics like you and +me, Jimmy? Seeing that she is brim full of dates and formulae and other +positivisms, and is so girt about with illusions that she still casts +a shadow in the sun. You've been very tender of her, haven't you? I've +watched you. And to think it may all be gone when we see her next. 'The +common fate of all things rare,' you know. What a good fellow you +are, anyway, Jimmy,” he added, putting his hands affectionately on her +shoulders. + +Arthur went with them to the station. Flavia was so prostrated by the +concerted action of her guests that she was able to see Imogen only +for a moment in her darkened sleeping chamber, where she kissed her +hysterically, without lifting her head, bandaged in aromatic vinegar. +On the way to the station both Arthur and Imogen threw the burden of +keeping up appearances entirely upon Miss Broadwood, who blithely rose +to the occasion. When Hamilton carried Imogen's bag into the car, Miss +Broadwood detained her for a moment, whispering as she gave her a large, +warm handclasp, “I'll come to see you when I get back to town; and, in +the meantime, if you meet any of our artists, tell them you have left +Caius Marius among the ruins of Carthage.” + + + + +The Sculptor's Funeral + +A group of the townspeople stood on the station siding of a little +Kansas town, awaiting the coming of the night train, which was already +twenty minutes overdue. The snow had fallen thick over everything; in +the pale starlight the line of bluffs across the wide, white meadows +south of the town made soft, smoke-colored curves against the clear sky. +The men on the siding stood first on one foot and then on the other, +their hands thrust deep into their trousers pockets, their overcoats +open, their shoulders screwed up with the cold; and they glanced from +time to time toward the southeast, where the railroad track wound along +the river shore. They conversed in low tones and moved about restlessly, +seeming uncertain as to what was expected of them. There was but one of +the company who looked as though he knew exactly why he was there; and +he kept conspicuously apart; walking to the far end of the platform, +returning to the station door, then pacing up the track again, his chin +sunk in the high collar of his overcoat, his burly shoulders drooping +forward, his gait heavy and dogged. Presently he was approached by a +tall, spare, grizzled man clad in a faded Grand Army suit, who shuffled +out from the group and advanced with a certain deference, craning his +neck forward until his back made the angle of a jackknife three-quarters +open. + +“I reckon she's agoin' to be pretty late ag'in tonight, Jim,” he +remarked in a squeaky falsetto. “S'pose it's the snow?” + +“I don't know,” responded the other man with a shade of annoyance, +speaking from out an astonishing cataract of red beard that grew +fiercely and thickly in all directions. + +The spare man shifted the quill toothpick he was chewing to the other +side of his mouth. “It ain't likely that anybody from the East will come +with the corpse, I s'pose,” he went on reflectively. + +“I don't know,” responded the other, more curtly than before. + +“It's too bad he didn't belong to some lodge or other. I like an +order funeral myself. They seem more appropriate for people of some +reputation,” the spare man continued, with an ingratiating concession +in his shrill voice, as he carefully placed his toothpick in his vest +pocket. He always carried the flag at the G. A. R. funerals in the town. + +The heavy man turned on his heel, without replying, and walked up the +siding. The spare man shuffled back to the uneasy group. “Jim's ez full +ez a tick, ez ushel,” he commented commiseratingly. + +Just then a distant whistle sounded, and there was a shuffling of feet +on the platform. A number of lanky boys of all ages appeared as suddenly +and slimily as eels wakened by the crack of thunder; some came from the +waiting room, where they had been warming themselves by the red stove, +or half-asleep on the slat benches; others uncoiled themselves from +baggage trucks or slid out of express wagons. Two clambered down from +the driver's seat of a hearse that stood backed up against the siding. +They straightened their stooping shoulders and lifted their heads, and +a flash of momentary animation kindled their dull eyes at that cold, +vibrant scream, the world-wide call for men. It stirred them like the +note of a trumpet; just as it had often stirred the man who was coming +home tonight, in his boyhood. + +The night express shot, red as a rocket, from out the eastward marsh +lands and wound along the river shore under the long lines of shivering +poplars that sentineled the meadows, the escaping steam hanging in gray +masses against the pale sky and blotting out the Milky Way. In a moment +the red glare from the headlight streamed up the snow-covered track +before the siding and glittered on the wet, black rails. The burly man +with the disheveled red beard walked swiftly up the platform toward +the approaching train, uncovering his head as he went. The group of +men behind him hesitated, glanced questioningly at one another, and +awkwardly followed his example. The train stopped, and the crowd +shuffled up to the express car just as the door was thrown open, +the spare man in the G. A. B. suit thrusting his head forward with +curiosity. The express messenger appeared in the doorway, accompanied by +a young man in a long ulster and traveling cap. + +“Are Mr. Merrick's friends here?” inquired the young man. + +The group on the platform swayed and shuffled uneasily. Philip Phelps, +the banker, responded with dignity: “We have come to take charge of the +body. Mr. Merrick's father is very feeble and can't be about.” + +“Send the agent out here,” growled the express messenger, “and tell the +operator to lend a hand.” + +The coffin was got out of its rough box and down on the snowy platform. +The townspeople drew back enough to make room for it and then formed a +close semicircle about it, looking curiously at the palm leaf which lay +across the black cover. No one said anything. The baggage man stood by +his truck, waiting to get at the trunks. The engine panted heavily, and +the fireman dodged in and out among the wheels with his yellow torch and +long oilcan, snapping the spindle boxes. The young Bostonian, one of +the dead sculptor's pupils who had come with the body, looked about him +helplessly. He turned to the banker, the only one of that black, +uneasy, stoop-shouldered group who seemed enough of an individual to be +addressed. + +“None of Mr. Merrick's brothers are here?” he asked uncertainly. + +The man with the red heard for the first time stepped up and joined the +group. “No, they have not come yet; the family is scattered. The body +will be taken directly to the house.” He stooped and took hold of one of +the handles of the coffin. + +“Take the long hill road up, Thompson--it will be easier on the horses,” + called the liveryman as the undertaker snapped the door of the hearse +and prepared to mount to the driver's seat. + +Laird, the red-bearded lawyer, turned again to the stranger: “We didn't +know whether there would be anyone with him or not,” he explained. “It's +a long walk, so you'd better go up in the hack.” He pointed to a single, +battered conveyance, but the young man replied stiffly: “Thank you, but +I think I will go up with the hearse. If you don't object,” turning to +the undertaker, “I'll ride with you.” + +They clambered up over the wheels and drove off in the starlight tip the +long, white hill toward the town. The lamps in the still village were +shining from under the low, snow-burdened roofs; and beyond, on every +side, the plains reached out into emptiness, peaceful and wide as the +soft sky itself, and wrapped in a tangible, white silence. + +When the hearse backed up to a wooden sidewalk before a naked, +weatherbeaten frame house, the same composite, ill-defined group that +had stood upon the station siding was huddled about the gate. The front +yard was an icy swamp, and a couple of warped planks, extending from the +sidewalk to the door, made a sort of rickety footbridge. The gate hung +on one hinge and was opened wide with difficulty. Steavens, the young +stranger, noticed that something black was tied to the knob of the front +door. + +The grating sound made by the casket, as it was drawn from the hearse, +was answered by a scream from the house; the front door was wrenched +open, and a tall, corpulent woman rushed out bareheaded into the snow +and flung herself upon the coffin, shrieking: “My boy, my boy! And this +is how you've come home to me!” + +As Steavens turned away and closed his eyes with a shudder of +unutterable repulsion, another woman, also tall, but flat and angular, +dressed entirely in black, darted out of the house and caught Mrs. +Merrick by the shoulders, crying sharply: “Come, come, Mother; you +mustn't go on like this!” Her tone changed to one of obsequious +solemnity as she turned to the banker: “The parlor is ready, Mr. +Phelps.” + +The bearers carried the coffin along the narrow boards, while the +undertaker ran ahead with the coffin-rests. They bore it into a large, +unheated room that smelled of dampness and disuse and furniture polish, +and set it down under a hanging lamp ornamented with jingling glass +prisms and before a “Rogers group” of John Alden and Priscilla, +wreathed with smilax. Henry Steavens stared about him with the sickening +conviction that there had been some horrible mistake, and that he had +somehow arrived at the wrong destination. He looked painfully about +over the clover-green Brussels, the fat plush upholstery, among the +hand-painted china plaques and panels, and vases, for some mark of +identification, for something that might once conceivably have belonged +to Harvey Merrick. It was not until he recognized his friend in the +crayon portrait of a little boy in kilts and curls hanging above the +piano that he felt willing to let any of these people approach the +coffin. + +“Take the lid off, Mr. Thompson; let me see my boy's face,” wailed +the elder woman between her sobs. This time Steavens looked fearfully, +almost beseechingly into her face, red and swollen under its masses +of strong, black, shiny hair. He flushed, dropped his eyes, and then, +almost incredulously, looked again. There was a kind of power about +her face--a kind of brutal handsomeness, even, but it was scarred and +furrowed by violence, and so colored and coarsened by fiercer passions +that grief seemed never to have laid a gentle finger there. The long +nose was distended and knobbed at the end, and there were deep lines +on either side of it; her heavy, black brows almost met across her +forehead; her teeth were large and square and set far apart--teeth that +could tear. She filled the room; the men were obliterated, seemed tossed +about like twigs in an angry water, and even Steavens felt himself being +drawn into the whirlpool. + +The daughter--the tall, rawboned woman in crepe, with a mourning comb in +her hair which curiously lengthened her long face sat stiffly upon the +sofa, her hands, conspicuous for their large knuckles, folded in her +lap, her mouth and eyes drawn down, solemnly awaiting the opening of the +coffin. Near the door stood a mulatto woman, evidently a servant in +the house, with a timid bearing and an emaciated face pitifully sad and +gentle. She was weeping silently, the corner of her calico apron lifted +to her eyes, occasionally suppressing a long, quivering sob. Steavens +walked over and stood beside her. + +Feeble steps were heard on the stairs, and an old man, tall and frail, +odorous of pipe smoke, with shaggy, unkept gray hair and a dingy beard, +tobacco stained about the mouth, entered uncertainly. He went slowly up +to the coffin and stood, rolling a blue cotton handkerchief between his +hands, seeming so pained and embarrassed by his wife's orgy of grief +that he had no consciousness of anything else. + +“There, there, Annie, dear, don't take on so,” he quavered timidly, +putting out a shaking hand and awkwardly patting her elbow. She turned +with a cry and sank upon his shoulder with such violence that he +tottered a little. He did not even glance toward the coffin, but +continued to look at her with a dull, frightened, appealing expression, +as a spaniel looks at the whip. His sunken cheeks slowly reddened and +burned with miserable shame. When his wife rushed from the room her +daughter strode after her with set lips. The servant stole up to the +coffin, bent over it for a moment, and then slipped away to the kitchen, +leaving Steavens, the lawyer, and the father to themselves. The old man +stood trembling and looking down at his dead son's face. The sculptor's +splendid head seemed even more noble in its rigid stillness than in +life. The dark hair had crept down upon the wide forehead; the face +seemed strangely long, but in it there was not that beautiful and chaste +repose which we expect to find in the faces of the dead. The brows were +so drawn that there were two deep lines above the beaked nose, and the +chin was thrust forward defiantly. It was as though the strain of life +had been so sharp and bitter that death could not at once wholly relax +the tension and smooth the countenance into perfect peace--as though he +were still guarding something precious and holy, which might even yet be +wrested from him. + +The old man's lips were working under his stained beard. He turned to +the lawyer with timid deference: “Phelps and the rest are comin' back to +set up with Harve, ain't they?” he asked. “Thank 'ee, Jim, thank 'ee.” + He brushed the hair back gently from his son's forehead. “He was a good +boy, Jim; always a good boy. He was ez gentle ez a child and the kindest +of 'em all--only we didn't none of us ever onderstand him.” The tears +trickled slowly down his beard and dropped upon the sculptor's coat. + +“Martin, Martin. Oh, Martin! come here,” his wife wailed from the top of +the stairs. The old man started timorously: “Yes, Annie, I'm coming.” He +turned away, hesitated stood for a moment in miserable indecision; then +he reached back and patted the dead man's hair softly, and stumbled from +the room. + +“Poor old man, I didn't think he had any tears left. Seems as if his +eyes would have gone dry long ago. At his age nothing cuts very deep,” + remarked the lawyer. + +Something in his tone made Steavens glance up. While the mother had been +in the room the young man had scarcely seen anyone else; but now, from +the moment he first glanced into Jim Laird's florid face and bloodshot +eyes, he knew that he had found what he had been heartsick at not +finding before--the feeling, the understanding, that must exist in +someone, even here. + +The man was red as his beard, with features swollen and blurred by +dissipation, and a hot, blazing blue eye. His face was strained--that of +a man who is controlling himself with difficulty--and he kept plucking +at his beard with a sort of fierce resentment. Steavens, sitting by +the window, watched him turn down the glaring lamp, still its jangling +pendants with an angry gesture, and then stand with his hands locked +behind him, staring down into the master's face. He could not help +wondering what link there could have been between the porcelain vessel +and so sooty a lump of potter's clay. + +From the kitchen an uproar was sounding; when the dining-room door +opened the import of it was clear. The mother was abusing the maid for +having forgotten to make the dressing for the chicken salad which had +been prepared for the watchers. Steavens had never heard anything in +the least like it; it was injured, emotional, dramatic abuse, unique and +masterly in its excruciating cruelty, as violent and unrestrained as had +been her grief of twenty minutes before. With a shudder of disgust the +lawyer went into the dining room and closed the door into the kitchen. + +“Poor Roxy's getting it now,” he remarked when he came back. “The +Merricks took her out of the poorhouse years ago; and if her loyalty +would let her, I guess the poor old thing could tell tales that would +curdle your blood. She's the mulatto woman who was standing in here a +while ago, with her apron to her eyes. The old woman is a fury; there +never was anybody like her for demonstrative piety and ingenious +cruelty. She made Harvey's life a hell for him when he lived at home; +he was so sick ashamed of it. I never could see how he kept himself so +sweet.” + +“He was wonderful,” said Steavens slowly, “wonderful; but until tonight +I have never known how wonderful.” + +“That is the true and eternal wonder of it, anyway; that it can come +even from such a dung heap as this,” the lawyer cried, with a sweeping +gesture which seemed to indicate much more than the four walls within +which they stood. + +“I think I'll see whether I can get a little air. The room is so close +I am beginning to feel rather faint,” murmured Steavens, struggling with +one of the windows. The sash was stuck, however, and would not yield, so +he sat down dejectedly and began pulling at his collar. The lawyer came +over, loosened the sash with one blow of his red fist, and sent the +window up a few inches. Steavens thanked him, but the nausea which had +been gradually climbing into his throat for the last half-hour left him +with but one desire--a desperate feeling that he must get away from this +place with what was left of Harvey Merrick. Oh, he comprehended well +enough now the quiet bitterness of the smile that he had seen so often +on his master's lips! + +He remembered that once, when Merrick returned from a visit home, he +brought with him a singularly feeling and suggestive bas-relief of a +thin, faded old woman, sitting and sewing something pinned to her knee; +while a full-lipped, full-blooded little urchin, his trousers held up +by a single gallows, stood beside her, impatiently twitching her gown to +call her attention to a butterfly he had caught. Steavens, impressed by +the tender and delicate modeling of the thin, tired face, had asked him +if it were his mother. He remembered the dull flush that had burned up +in the sculptor's face. + +The lawyer was sitting in a rocking chair beside the coffin, his head +thrown back and his eyes closed. Steavens looked at him earnestly, +puzzled at the line of the chin, and wondering why a man should conceal +a feature of such distinction under that disfiguring shock of beard. +Suddenly, as though he felt the young sculptor's keen glance, he opened +his eyes. + +“Was he always a good deal of an oyster?” he asked abruptly. “He was +terribly shy as a boy.” + +“Yes, he was an oyster, since you put it so,” rejoined Steavens. +“Although he could be very fond of people, he always gave one the +impression of being detached. He disliked violent emotion; he was +reflective, and rather distrustful of himself--except, of course, as +regarded his work. He was surefooted enough there. He distrusted men +pretty thoroughly and women even more, yet somehow without believing ill +of them. He was determined, indeed, to believe the best, but he seemed +afraid to investigate.” + +“A burnt dog dreads the fire,” said the lawyer grimly, and closed his +eyes. + +Steavens went on and on, reconstructing that whole miserable boyhood. +All this raw, biting ugliness had been the portion of the man whose +tastes were refined beyond the limits of the reasonable--whose mind was +an exhaustless gallery of beautiful impressions, and so sensitive that +the mere shadow of a poplar leaf flickering against a sunny wall would +be etched and held there forever. Surely, if ever a man had the magic +word in his fingertips, it was Merrick. Whatever he touched, he revealed +its holiest secret; liberated it from enchantment and restored it to its +pristine loveliness, like the Arabian prince who fought the enchantress +spell for spell. Upon whatever he had come in contact with, he had left +a beautiful record of the experience--a sort of ethereal signature; a +scent, a sound, a color that was his own. + +Steavens understood now the real tragedy of his master's life; neither +love nor wine, as many had conjectured, but a blow which had fallen +earlier and cut deeper than these could have done--a shame not his, and +yet so unescapably his, to bide in his heart from his very boyhood. And +without--the frontier warfare; the yearning of a boy, cast ashore upon a +desert of newness and ugliness and sordidness, for all that is chastened +and old, and noble with traditions. + +At eleven o'clock the tall, flat woman in black crepe entered, announced +that the watchers were arriving, and asked them “to step into the dining +room.” As Steavens rose the lawyer said dryly: “You go on--it'll be a +good experience for you, doubtless; as for me, I'm not equal to that +crowd tonight; I've had twenty years of them.” + +As Steavens closed the door after him be glanced back at the lawyer, +sitting by the coffin in the dim light, with his chin resting on his +hand. + +The same misty group that had stood before the door of the express car +shuffled into the dining room. In the light of the kerosene lamp they +separated and became individuals. The minister, a pale, feeble-looking +man with white hair and blond chin-whiskers, took his seat beside a +small side table and placed his Bible upon it. The Grand Army man sat +down behind the stove and tilted his chair back comfortably against the +wall, fishing his quill toothpick from his waistcoat pocket. The two +bankers, Phelps and Elder, sat off in a corner behind the dinner table, +where they could finish their discussion of the new usury law and its +effect on chattel security loans. The real estate agent, an old man +with a smiling, hypocritical face, soon joined them. The coal-and-lumber +dealer and the cattle shipper sat on opposite sides of the hard +coal-burner, their feet on the nickelwork. Steavens took a book from +his pocket and began to read. The talk around him ranged through various +topics of local interest while the house was quieting down. When it +was clear that the members of the family were in bed the Grand Army man +hitched his shoulders and, untangling his long legs, caught his heels on +the rounds of his chair. + +“S'pose there'll be a will, Phelps?” he queried in his weak falsetto. + +The banker laughed disagreeably and began trimming his nails with a +pearl-handled pocketknife. + +“There'll scarcely be any need for one, will there?” he queried in his +turn. + +The restless Grand Army man shifted his position again, getting his +knees still nearer his chin. “Why, the ole man says Harve's done right +well lately,” he chirped. + +The other banker spoke up. “I reckon he means by that Harve ain't asked +him to mortgage any more farms lately, so as he could go on with his +education.” + +“Seems like my mind don't reach back to a time when Harve wasn't bein' +edycated,” tittered the Grand Army man. + +There was a general chuckle. The minister took out his handkerchief and +blew his nose sonorously. Banker Phelps closed his knife with a snap. +“It's too bad the old man's sons didn't turn out better,” he remarked +with reflective authority. “They never hung together. He spent money +enough on Harve to stock a dozen cattle farms and he might as well have +poured it into Sand Creek. If Harve had stayed at home and helped nurse +what little they had, and gone into stock on the old man's bottom +farm, they might all have been well fixed. But the old man had to trust +everything to tenants and was cheated right and left.” + +“Harve never could have handled stock none,” interposed the cattleman. +“He hadn't it in him to be sharp. Do you remember when he bought +Sander's mules for eight-year-olds, when everybody in town knew that +Sander's father-in-law give 'em to his wife for a wedding present +eighteen years before, an' they was full-grown mules then.” + +Everyone chuckled, and the Grand Army man rubbed his knees with a spasm +of childish delight. + +“Harve never was much account for anything practical, and he shore was +never fond of work,” began the coal-and-lumber dealer. “I mind the last +time he was home; the day he left, when the old man was out to the barn +helpin' his hand hitch up to take Harve to the train, and Cal Moots was +patchin' up the fence, Harve, he come out on the step and sings out, in +his ladylike voice: 'Cal Moots, Cal Moots! please come cord my trunk.'” + +“That's Harve for you,” approved the Grand Army man gleefully. “I kin +hear him howlin' yet when he was a big feller in long pants and his +mother used to whale him with a rawhide in the barn for lettin' the +cows git foundered in the cornfield when he was drivin' 'em home from +pasture. He killed a cow of mine that-a-way onc't--a pure Jersey and the +best milker I had, an' the ole man had to put up for her. Harve, he was +watchin' the sun set acros't the marshes when the anamile got away; he +argued that sunset was oncommon fine.” + +“Where the old man made his mistake was in sending the boy East to +school,” said Phelps, stroking his goatee and speaking in a deliberate, +judicial tone. “There was where he got his head full of traipsing to +Paris and all such folly. What Harve needed, of all people, was a course +in some first-class Kansas City business college.” + +The letters were swimming before Steavens's eyes. Was it possible that +these men did not understand, that the palm on the coffin meant nothing +to them? The very name of their town would have remained forever buried +in the postal guide had it not been now and again mentioned in the world +in connection with Harvey Merrick's. He remembered what his master had +said to him on the day of his death, after the congestion of both lungs +had shut off any probability of recovery, and the sculptor had asked +his pupil to send his body home. “It's not a pleasant place to be lying +while the world is moving and doing and bettering,” he had said with a +feeble smile, “but it rather seems as though we ought to go back to the +place we came from in the end. The townspeople will come in for a look +at me; and after they have had their say I shan't have much to fear from +the judgment of God. The wings of the Victory, in there”--with a weak +gesture toward his studio--“will not shelter me.” + +The cattleman took up the comment. “Forty's young for a Merrick to cash +in; they usually hang on pretty well. Probably he helped it along with +whisky.” + +“His mother's people were not long-lived, and Harvey never had a robust +constitution,” said the minister mildly. He would have liked to say +more. He had been the boy's Sunday-school teacher, and had been fond of +him; but he felt that he was not in a position to speak. His own sons +had turned out badly, and it was not a year since one of them had made +his last trip home in the express car, shot in a gambling house in the +Black Hills. + +“Nevertheless, there is no disputin' that Harve frequently looked upon +the wine when it was red, also variegated, and it shore made an oncommon +fool of him,” moralized the cattleman. + +Just then the door leading into the parlor rattled loudly, and everyone +started involuntarily, looking relieved when only Jim Laird came out. +His red face was convulsed with anger, and the Grand Army man ducked +his head when he saw the spark in his blue, bloodshot eye. They were all +afraid of Jim; he was a drunkard, but he could twist the law to suit his +client's needs as no other man in all western Kansas could do; and +there were many who tried. The lawyer closed the door gently behind him, +leaned back against it and folded his arms, cocking his head a little +to one side. When he assumed this attitude in the courtroom, ears were +always pricked up, as it usually foretold a flood of withering sarcasm. + +“I've been with you gentlemen before,” he began in a dry, even tone, +“when you've sat by the coffins of boys born and raised in this town; +and, if I remember rightly, you were never any too well satisfied when +you checked them up. What's the matter, anyhow? Why is it that reputable +young men are as scarce as millionaires in Sand City? It might almost +seem to a stranger that there was some way something the matter with +your progressive town. Why did Ruben Sayer, the brightest young lawyer +you ever turned out, after he had come home from the university as +straight as a die, take to drinking and forge a check and shoot himself? +Why did Bill Merrit's son die of the shakes in a saloon in Omaha? Why +was Mr. Thomas's son, here, shot in a gambling house? Why did young +Adams burn his mill to beat the insurance companies and go to the pen?” + +The lawyer paused and unfolded his arms, laying one clenched fist +quietly on the table. “I'll tell you why. Because you drummed +nothing but money and knavery into their ears from the time they wore +knickerbockers; because you carped away at them as you've been carping +here tonight, holding our friends Phelps and Elder up to them for their +models, as our grandfathers held up George Washington and John Adams. +But the boys, worse luck, were young and raw at the business you put +them to; and how could they match coppers with such artists as Phelps +and Elder? You wanted them to be successful rascals; they were only +unsuccessful ones--that's all the difference. There was only one boy +ever raised in this borderland between ruffianism and civilization who +didn't come to grief, and you hated Harvey Merrick more for winning out +than you hated all the other boys who got under the wheels. Lord, Lord, +how you did hate him! Phelps, here, is fond of saying that he could buy +and sell us all out any time he's a mind to; but he knew Harve wouldn't +have given a tinker's damn for his bank and all his cattle farms put +together; and a lack of appreciation, that way, goes hard with Phelps. + +“Old Nimrod, here, thinks Harve drank too much; and this from such as +Nimrod and me!” + +“Brother Elder says Harve was too free with the old man's money--fell +short in filial consideration, maybe. Well, we can all remember the +very tone in which brother Elder swore his own father was a liar, in +the county court; and we all know that the old man came out of that +partnership with his son as bare as a sheared lamb. But maybe I'm +getting personal, and I'd better be driving ahead at what I want to +say.” + +The lawyer paused a moment, squared his heavy shoulders, and went on: +“Harvey Merrick and I went to school together, back East. We were dead +in earnest, and we wanted you all to be proud of us some day. We +meant to be great men. Even I, and I haven't lost my sense of humor, +gentlemen, I meant to be a great man. I came back here to practice, and +I found you didn't in the least want me to be a great man. You wanted me +to be a shrewd lawyer--oh, yes! Our veteran here wanted me to get him +an increase of pension, because he had dyspepsia; Phelps wanted a new +county survey that would put the widow Wilson's little bottom farm +inside his south line; Elder wanted to lend money at 5 per cent a month +and get it collected; old Stark here wanted to wheedle old women up in +Vermont into investing their annuities in real estate mortgages that are +not worth the paper they are written on. Oh, you needed me hard enough, +and you'll go on needing me; and that's why I'm not afraid to plug the +truth home to you this once. + +“Well, I came back here and became the damned shyster you wanted me +to be. You pretend to have some sort of respect for me; and yet you'll +stand up and throw mud at Harvey Merrick, whose soul you couldn't dirty +and whose hands you couldn't tie. Oh, you're a discriminating lot of +Christians! There have been times when the sight of Harvey's name in +some Eastern paper has made me hang my head like a whipped dog; and, +again, times when I liked to think of him off there in the world, away +from all this hog wallow, doing his great work and climbing the big, +clean upgrade he'd set for himself. + +“And we? Now that we've fought and lied and sweated and stolen, and +hated as only the disappointed strugglers in a bitter, dead little +Western town know how to do, what have we got to show for it? Harvey +Merrick wouldn't have given one sunset over your marshes for all you've +got put together, and you know it. It's not for me to say why, in the +inscrutable wisdom of God, a genius should ever have been called from +this place of hatred and bitter waters; but I want this Boston man to +know that the drivel he's been hearing here tonight is the only +tribute any truly great man could ever have from such a lot of sick, +side-tracked, burnt-dog, land-poor sharks as the here-present financiers +of Sand City--upon which town may God have mercy!” + +The lawyer thrust out his hand to Steavens as he passed him, caught up +his overcoat in the hall, and had left the house before the Grand Army +man had had time to lift his ducked head and crane his long neck about +at his fellows. + + +Next day Jim Laird was drunk and unable to attend the funeral services. +Steavens called twice at his office, but was compelled to start East +without seeing him. He had a presentiment that he would hear from him +again, and left his address on the lawyer's table; but if Laird found +it, he never acknowledged it. The thing in him that Harvey Merrick had +loved must have gone underground with Harvey Merrick's coffin; for it +never spoke again, and Jim got the cold he died of driving across the +Colorado mountains to defend one of Phelps's sons, who had got into +trouble out there by cutting government timber. + + + + + +“A Death in the Desert” + +Everett Hilgarde was conscious that the man in the seat across the +aisle was looking at him intently. He was a large, florid man, wore a +conspicuous diamond solitaire upon his third finger, and Everett judged +him to be a traveling salesman of some sort. He had the air of an +adaptable fellow who had been about the world and who could keep cool +and clean under almost any circumstances. + +The “High Line Flyer,” as this train was derisively called among +railroad men, was jerking along through the hot afternoon over the +monotonous country between Holdridge and Cheyenne. Besides the blond +man and himself the only occupants of the car were two dusty, +bedraggled-looking girls who had been to the Exposition at Chicago, +and who were earnestly discussing the cost of their first trip out of +Colorado. The four uncomfortable passengers were covered with a sediment +of fine, yellow dust which clung to their hair and eyebrows like gold +powder. It blew up in clouds from the bleak, lifeless country through +which they passed, until they were one color with the sagebrush and +sandhills. The gray-and-yellow desert was varied only by occasional +ruins of deserted towns, and the little red boxes of station houses, +where the spindling trees and sickly vines in the bluegrass yards made +little green reserves fenced off in that confusing wilderness of sand. + +As the slanting rays of the sun beat in stronger and stronger through +the car windows, the blond gentleman asked the ladies' permission to +remove his coat, and sat in his lavender striped shirt sleeves, with a +black silk handkerchief tucked carefully about his collar. He had seemed +interested in Everett since they had boarded the train at Holdridge, and +kept glancing at him curiously and then looking reflectively out of +the window, as though he were trying to recall something. But wherever +Everett went someone was almost sure to look at him with that curious +interest, and it had ceased to embarrass or annoy him. Presently the +stranger, seeming satisfied with his observation, leaned back in his +seat, half-closed his eyes, and began softly to whistle the “Spring +Song” from _Proserpine_, the cantata that a dozen years before had made +its young composer famous in a night. Everett had heard that air on +guitars in Old Mexico, on mandolins at college glees, on cottage organs +in New England hamlets, and only two weeks ago he had heard it played on +sleighbells at a variety theater in Denver. There was literally no way +of escaping his brother's precocity. Adriance could live on the other +side of the Atlantic, where his youthful indiscretions were forgotten in +his mature achievements, but his brother had never been able to outrun +_Proserpine_, and here he found it again in the Colorado sand hills. Not +that Everett was exactly ashamed of _Proserpine_; only a man of genius +could have written it, but it was the sort of thing that a man of genius +outgrows as soon as he can. + +Everett unbent a trifle and smiled at his neighbor across the aisle. +Immediately the large man rose and, coming over, dropped into the seat +facing Hilgarde, extending his card. + +“Dusty ride, isn't it? I don't mind it myself; I'm used to it. Born and +bred in de briar patch, like Br'er Rabbit. I've been trying to place you +for a long time; I think I must have met you before.” + +“Thank you,” said Everett, taking the card; “my name is Hilgarde. You've +probably met my brother, Adriance; people often mistake me for him.” + +The traveling man brought his hand down upon his knee with such +vehemence that the solitaire blazed. + +“So I was right after all, and if you're not Adriance Hilgarde, you're +his double. I thought I couldn't be mistaken. Seen him? Well, I guess! +I never missed one of his recitals at the Auditorium, and he played +the piano score of _Proserpine_ through to us once at the Chicago Press +Club. I used to be on the _Commercial_ there before I began +to travel for the publishing department of the concern. So you're +Hilgarde's brother, and here I've run into you at the jumping-off place. +Sounds like a newspaper yarn, doesn't it?” + +The traveling man laughed and offered Everett a cigar, and plied him +with questions on the only subject that people ever seemed to care to +talk to Everett about. At length the salesman and the two girls alighted +at a Colorado way station, and Everett went on to Cheyenne alone. + +The train pulled into Cheyenne at nine o'clock, late by a matter of four +hours or so; but no one seemed particularly concerned at its tardiness +except the station agent, who grumbled at being kept in the office +overtime on a summer night. When Everett alighted from the train he +walked down the platform and stopped at the track crossing, uncertain as +to what direction he should take to reach a hotel. A phaeton stood near +the crossing, and a woman held the reins. She was dressed in white, and +her figure was clearly silhouetted against the cushions, though it was +too dark to see her face. Everett had scarcely noticed her, when the +switch engine came puffing up from the opposite direction, and the +headlight threw a strong glare of light on his face. Suddenly the woman +in the phaeton uttered a low cry and dropped the reins. Everett started +forward and caught the horse's head, but the animal only lifted its +ears and whisked its tail in impatient surprise. The woman sat perfectly +still, her head sunk between her shoulders and her handkerchief pressed +to her face. Another woman came out of the depot and hurried toward the +phaeton, crying, “Katharine, dear, what is the matter?” + +Everett hesitated a moment in painful embarrassment, then lifted his +hat and passed on. He was accustomed to sudden recognitions in the most +impossible places, especially by women, but this cry out of the night +had shaken him. + +While Everett was breakfasting the next morning, the headwaiter leaned +over his chair to murmur that there was a gentleman waiting to see him +in the parlor. Everett finished his coffee and went in the direction +indicated, where he found his visitor restlessly pacing the floor. His +whole manner betrayed a high degree of agitation, though his physique +was not that of a man whose nerves lie near the surface. He was +something below medium height, square-shouldered and solidly built. His +thick, closely cut hair was beginning to show gray about the ears, and +his bronzed face was heavily lined. His square brown hands were +locked behind him, and he held his shoulders like a man conscious of +responsibilities; yet, as he turned to greet Everett, there was an +incongruous diffidence in his address. + +“Good morning, Mr. Hilgarde,” he said, extending his hand; “I found your +name on the hotel register. My name is Gaylord. I'm afraid my sister +startled you at the station last night, Mr. Hilgarde, and I've come +around to apologize.” + +“Ah! The young lady in the phaeton? I'm sure I didn't know whether I +had anything to do with her alarm or not. If I did, it is I who owe the +apology.” + +The man colored a little under the dark brown of his face. + +“Oh, it's nothing you could help, sir, I fully understand that. You see, +my sister used to be a pupil of your brother's, and it seems you favor +him; and when the switch engine threw a light on your face it startled +her.” + +Everett wheeled about in his chair. “Oh! _Katharine_ Gaylord! Is it +possible! Now it's you who have given me a turn. Why, I used to know her +when I was a boy. What on earth--” + +“Is she doing here?” said Gaylord, grimly filling out the pause. “You've +got at the heart of the matter. You knew my sister had been in bad +health for a long time?” + +“No, I had never heard a word of that. The last I knew of her she was +singing in London. My brother and I correspond infrequently and seldom +get beyond family matters. I am deeply sorry to hear this. There are +more reasons why I am concerned than I can tell you.” + +The lines in Charley Gaylord's brow relaxed a little. + +“What I'm trying to say, Mr. Hilgarde, is that she wants to see you. I +hate to ask you, but she's so set on it. We live several miles out of +town, but my rig's below, and I can take you out anytime you can go.” + +“I can go now, and it will give me real pleasure to do so,” said +Everett, quickly. “I'll get my hat and be with you in a moment.” + +When he came downstairs Everett found a cart at the door, and Charley +Gaylord drew a long sigh of relief as he gathered up the reins and +settled back into his own element. + +“You see, I think I'd better tell you something about my sister before +you see her, and I don't know just where to begin. She traveled +in Europe with your brother and his wife, and sang at a lot of his +concerts; but I don't know just how much you know about her.” + +“Very little, except that my brother always thought her the most gifted +of his pupils, and that when I knew her she was very young and very +beautiful and turned my head sadly for a while.” + +Everett saw that Gaylord's mind was quite engrossed by his grief. He was +wrought up to the point where his reserve and sense of proportion had +quite left him, and his trouble was the one vital thing in the world. +“That's the whole thing,” he went on, flicking his horses with the whip. + +“She was a great woman, as you say, and she didn't come of a great +family. She had to fight her own way from the first. She got to Chicago, +and then to New York, and then to Europe, where she went up like +lightning, and got a taste for it all; and now she's dying here like a +rat in a hole, out of her own world, and she can't fall back into ours. +We've grown apart, some way--miles and miles apart--and I'm afraid she's +fearfully unhappy.” + +“It's a very tragic story that you are telling me, Gaylord,” said +Everett. They were well out into the country now, spinning along over +the dusty plains of red grass, with the ragged-blue outline of the +mountains before them. + +“Tragic!” cried Gaylord, starting up in his seat, “my God, man, nobody +will ever know how tragic. It's a tragedy I live with and eat with and +sleep with, until I've lost my grip on everything. You see she had made +a good bit of money, but she spent it all going to health resorts. It's +her lungs, you know. I've got money enough to send her anywhere, but the +doctors all say it's no use. She hasn't the ghost of a chance. It's just +getting through the days now. I had no notion she was half so bad before +she came to me. She just wrote that she was all run down. Now that she's +here, I think she'd be happier anywhere under the sun, but she won't +leave. She says it's easier to let go of life here, and that to go East +would be dying twice. There was a time when I was a brakeman with a run +out of Bird City, Iowa, and she was a little thing I could carry on my +shoulder, when I could get her everything on earth she wanted, and she +hadn't a wish my $80 a month didn't cover; and now, when I've got a +little property together, I can't buy her a night's sleep!” + +Everett saw that, whatever Charley Gaylord's present status in the world +might be, he had brought the brakeman's heart up the ladder with him, +and the brakeman's frank avowal of sentiment. Presently Gaylord went on: + +“You can understand how she has outgrown her family. We're all a pretty +common sort, railroaders from away back. My father was a conductor. He +died when we were kids. Maggie, my other sister, who lives with me, was +a telegraph operator here while I was getting my grip on things. We had +no education to speak of. I have to hire a stenographer because I can't +spell straight--the Almighty couldn't teach me to spell. The things that +make up life to Kate are all Greek to me, and there's scarcely a point +where we touch any more, except in our recollections of the old times +when we were all young and happy together, and Kate sang in a church +choir in Bird City. But I believe, Mr. Hilgarde, that if she can see +just one person like you, who knows about the things and people she's +interested in, it will give her about the only comfort she can have +now.” + +The reins slackened in Charley Gaylord's hand as they drew up before a +showily painted house with many gables and a round tower. “Here we are,” + he said, turning to Everett, “and I guess we understand each other.” + +They were met at the door by a thin, colorless woman, whom Gaylord +introduced as “my sister, Maggie.” She asked her brother to show Mr. +Hilgarde into the music room, where Katharine wished to see him alone. + +When Everett entered the music room he gave a little start of surprise, +feeling that he had stepped from the glaring Wyoming sunlight into some +New York studio that he had always known. He wondered which it was of +those countless studios, high up under the roofs, over banks and +shops and wholesale houses, that this room resembled, and he looked +incredulously out of the window at the gray plain that ended in the +great upheaval of the Rockies. + +The haunting air of familiarity about the room perplexed him. Was it +a copy of some particular studio he knew, or was it merely the studio +atmosphere that seemed so individual and poignantly reminiscent here +in Wyoming? He sat down in a reading chair and looked keenly about him. +Suddenly his eye fell upon a large photograph of his brother above the +piano. Then it all became clear to him: this was veritably his brother's +room. If it were not an exact copy of one of the many studios that +Adriance had fitted up in various parts of the world, wearying of them +and leaving almost before the renovator's varnish had dried, it was at +least in the same tone. In every detail Adriance's taste was so manifest +that the room seemed to exhale his personality. + +Among the photographs on the wall there was one of Katharine Gaylord, +taken in the days when Everett had known her, and when the flash of her +eye or the flutter of her skirt was enough to set his boyish heart in a +tumult. Even now, he stood before the portrait with a certain degree +of embarrassment. It was the face of a woman already old in her first +youth, thoroughly sophisticated and a trifle hard, and it told of +what her brother had called her fight. The camaraderie of her frank, +confident eyes was qualified by the deep lines about her mouth and the +curve of the lips, which was both sad and cynical. Certainly she had +more good will than confidence toward the world, and the bravado of +her smile could not conceal the shadow of an unrest that was almost +discontent. The chief charm of the woman, as Everett had known her, lay +in her superb figure and in her eyes, which possessed a warm, lifegiving +quality like the sunlight; eyes which glowed with a sort of perpetual +_salutat_ to the world. Her head, Everett remembered as peculiarly +well-shaped and proudly poised. There had been always a little of the +imperatrix about her, and her pose in the photograph revived all his old +impressions of her unattachedness, of how absolutely and valiantly she +stood alone. + +Everett was still standing before the picture, his hands behind him +and his head inclined, when he heard the door open. A very tall woman +advanced toward him, holding out her hand. As she started to speak, she +coughed slightly; then, laughing, said, in a low, rich voice, a trifle +husky: “You see I make the traditional Camille entrance--with the cough. +How good of you to come, Mr. Hilgarde.” + +Everett was acutely conscious that while addressing him she was not +looking at him at all, and, as he assured her of his pleasure in coming, +he was glad to have an opportunity to collect himself. He had not +reckoned upon the ravages of a long illness. The long, loose folds +of her white gown had been especially designed to conceal the sharp +outlines of her emaciated body, but the stamp of her disease was +there; simple and ugly and obtrusive, a pitiless fact that could not be +disguised or evaded. The splendid shoulders were stooped, there was a +swaying unevenness in her gait, her arms seemed disproportionately +long, and her hands were transparently white and cold to the touch. The +changes in her face were less obvious; the proud carriage of the head, +the warm, clear eyes, even the delicate flush of color in her cheeks, +all defiantly remained, though they were all in a lower key--older, +sadder, softer. + +She sat down upon the divan and began nervously to arrange the pillows. +“I know I'm not an inspiring object to look upon, but you must be quite +frank and sensible about that and get used to it at once, for we've no +time to lose. And if I'm a trifle irritable you won't mind?--for I'm +more than usually nervous.” + +“Don't bother with me this morning, if you are tired,” urged Everett. “I +can come quite as well tomorrow.” + +“Gracious, no!” she protested, with a flash of that quick, keen humor +that he remembered as a part of her. “It's solitude that I'm tired to +death of--solitude and the wrong kind of people. You see, the minister, +not content with reading the prayers for the sick, called on me this +morning. He happened to be riding by on his bicycle and felt it his +duty to stop. Of course, he disapproves of my profession, and I think +he takes it for granted that I have a dark past. The funniest feature +of his conversation is that he is always excusing my own vocation to +me--condoning it, you know--and trying to patch up my peace with my +conscience by suggesting possible noble uses for what he kindly calls my +talent.” + +Everett laughed. “Oh! I'm afraid I'm not the person to call after such +a serious gentleman--I can't sustain the situation. At my best I don't +reach higher than low comedy. Have you decided to which one of the noble +uses you will devote yourself?” + +Katharine lifted her hands in a gesture of renunciation and exclaimed: +“I'm not equal to any of them, not even the least noble. I didn't study +that method.” + +She laughed and went on nervously: “The parson's not so bad. His English +never offends me, and he has read Gibbon's _Decline and Fall_, all five +volumes, and that's something. Then, he has been to New York, and that's +a great deal. But how we are losing time! Do tell me about New York; +Charley says you're just on from there. How does it look and taste and +smell just now? I think a whiff of the Jersey ferry would be as flagons +of cod-liver oil to me. Who conspicuously walks the Rialto now, and what +does he or she wear? Are the trees still green in Madison Square, or +have they grown brown and dusty? Does the chaste Diana on the Garden +Theatre still keep her vestal vows through all the exasperating changes +of weather? Who has your brother's old studio now, and what misguided +aspirants practice their scales in the rookeries about Carnegie Hall? +What do people go to see at the theaters, and what do they eat and drink +there in the world nowadays? You see, I'm homesick for it all, from the +Battery to Riverside. Oh, let me die in Harlem!” She was interrupted +by a violent attack of coughing, and Everett, embarrassed by her +discomfort, plunged into gossip about the professional people he had met +in town during the summer and the musical outlook for the winter. He was +diagraming with his pencil, on the back of an old envelope he found in +his pocket, some new mechanical device to be used at the Metropolitan in +the production of the _Rheingold_, when he became conscious that she was +looking at him intently, and that he was talking to the four walls. + +Katharine was lying back among the pillows, watching him through +half-closed eyes, as a painter looks at a picture. He finished his +explanation vaguely enough and put the envelope back in his pocket. As +he did so she said, quietly: “How wonderfully like Adriance you are!” + and he felt as though a crisis of some sort had been met and tided over. + +He laughed, looking up at her with a touch of pride in his eyes that +made them seem quite boyish. “Yes, isn't it absurd? It's almost as +awkward as looking like Napoleon--but, after all, there are some +advantages. It has made some of his friends like me, and I hope it will +make you.” + +Katharine smiled and gave him a quick, meaning glance from under her +lashes. “Oh, it did that long ago. What a haughty, reserved youth you +were then, and how you used to stare at people and then blush and look +cross if they paid you back in your own coin. Do you remember that night +when you took me home from a rehearsal and scarcely spoke a word to me?” + +“It was the silence of admiration,” protested Everett, “very crude and +boyish, but very sincere and not a little painful. Perhaps you suspected +something of the sort? I remember you saw fit to be very grown-up and +worldly. + +“I believe I suspected a pose; the one that college boys usually affect +with singers--'an earthen vessel in love with a star,' you know. But it +rather surprised me in you, for you must have seen a good deal of your +brother's pupils. Or had you an omnivorous capacity, and elasticity that +always met the occasion?” + +“Don't ask a man to confess the follies of his youth,” said Everett, +smiling a little sadly; “I am sensitive about some of them even now. But +I was not so sophisticated as you imagined. I saw my brother's pupils +come and go, but that was about all. Sometimes I was called on to play +accompaniments, or to fill out a vacancy at a rehearsal, or to order a +carriage for an infuriated soprano who had thrown up her part. But they +never spent any time on me, unless it was to notice the resemblance you +speak of.” + +“Yes”, observed Katharine, thoughtfully, “I noticed it then, too; but it +has grown as you have grown older. That is rather strange, when you have +lived such different lives. It's not merely an ordinary family likeness +of feature, you know, but a sort of interchangeable individuality; +the suggestion of the other man's personality in your face like an air +transposed to another key. But I'm not attempting to define it; it's +beyond me; something altogether unusual and a trifle--well, uncanny,” + she finished, laughing. + +“I remember,” Everett said seriously, twirling the pencil between his +fingers and looking, as he sat with his head thrown back, out under the +red window blind which was raised just a little, and as it swung back +and forth in the wind revealed the glaring panorama of the desert--a +blinding stretch of yellow, flat as the sea in dead calm, splotched here +and there with deep purple shadows; and, beyond, the ragged-blue outline +of the mountains and the peaks of snow, white as the white clouds--“I +remember, when I was a little fellow I used to be very sensitive about +it. I don't think it exactly displeased me, or that I would have had it +otherwise if I could, but it seemed to me like a birthmark, or something +not to be lightly spoken of. People were naturally always fonder of +Ad than of me, and I used to feel the chill of reflected light pretty +often. It came into even my relations with my mother. Ad went abroad to +study when he was absurdly young, you know, and mother was all broken +up over it. She did her whole duty by each of us, but it was sort of +generally understood among us that she'd have made burnt offerings of us +all for Ad any day. I was a little fellow then, and when she sat alone +on the porch in the summer dusk she used sometimes to call me to her and +turn my face up in the light that streamed out through the shutters and +kiss me, and then I always knew she was thinking of Adriance.” + +“Poor little chap,” said Katharine, and her tone was a trifle huskier +than usual. “How fond people have always been of Adriance! Now tell me +the latest news of him. I haven't heard, except through the press, for +a year or more. He was in Algeria then, in the valley of the Chelif, +riding horseback night and day in an Arabian costume, and in his +usual enthusiastic fashion he had quite made up his mind to adopt the +Mohammedan faith and become as nearly an Arab as possible. How many +countries and faiths has he adopted, I wonder? Probably he was playing +Arab to himself all the time. I remember he was a sixteenth-century duke +in Florence once for weeks together.” + +“Oh, that's Adriance,” chuckled Everett. “He is himself barely long +enough to write checks and be measured for his clothes. I didn't hear +from him while he was an Arab; I missed that.” + +“He was writing an Algerian suite for the piano then; it must be in +the publisher's hands by this time. I have been too ill to answer his +letter, and have lost touch with him.” + +Everett drew a letter from his pocket. “This came about a month ago. +It's chiefly about his new opera, which is to be brought out in London +next winter. Read it at your leisure.” + +“I think I shall keep it as a hostage, so that I may be sure you will +come again. Now I want you to play for me. Whatever you like; but if +there is anything new in the world, in mercy let me hear it. For nine +months I have heard nothing but 'The Baggage Coach Ahead' and 'She Is My +Baby's Mother.'” + +He sat down at the piano, and Katharine sat near him, absorbed in his +remarkable physical likeness to his brother and trying to discover in +just what it consisted. She told herself that it was very much as though +a sculptor's finished work had been rudely copied in wood. He was of +a larger build than Adriance, and his shoulders were broad and heavy, +while those of his brother were slender and rather girlish. His face was +of the same oval mold, but it was gray and darkened about the mouth by +continual shaving. His eyes were of the same inconstant April color, +but they were reflective and rather dull; while Adriance's were always +points of highlight, and always meaning another thing than the thing +they meant yesterday. But it was hard to see why this earnest man should +so continually suggest that lyric, youthful face that was as gay as his +was grave. For Adriance, though he was ten years the elder, and though +his hair was streaked with silver, had the face of a boy of twenty, so +mobile that it told his thoughts before he could put them into words. A +contralto, famous for the extravagance of her vocal methods and of her +affections, had once said to him that the shepherd boys who sang in the +Vale of Tempe must certainly have looked like young Hilgarde; and the +comparison had been appropriated by a hundred shyer women who preferred +to quote. + + +As Everett sat smoking on the veranda of the Inter-Ocean House that +night, he was a victim to random recollections. His infatuation for +Katharine Gaylord, visionary as it was, had been the most serious of his +boyish love affairs, and had long disturbed his bachelor dreams. He was +painfully timid in everything relating to the emotions, and his hurt +had withdrawn him from the society of women. The fact that it was all so +done and dead and far behind him, and that the woman had lived her +life out since then, gave him an oppressive sense of age and loss. He +bethought himself of something he had read about “sitting by the hearth +and remembering the faces of women without desire,” and felt himself an +octogenarian. + +He remembered how bitter and morose he had grown during his stay at his +brother's studio when Katharine Gaylord was working there, and how he +had wounded Adriance on the night of his last concert in New York. He +had sat there in the box while his brother and Katharine were called +back again and again after the last number, watching the roses go up +over the footlights until they were stacked half as high as the piano, +brooding, in his sullen boy's heart, upon the pride those two felt in +each other's work--spurring each other to their best and beautifully +contending in song. The footlights had seemed a hard, glittering line +drawn sharply between their life and his; a circle of flame set about +those splendid children of genius. He walked back to his hotel alone +and sat in his window staring out on Madison Square until long after +midnight, resolving to beat no more at doors that he could never enter +and realizing more keenly than ever before how far this glorious world +of beautiful creations lay from the paths of men like himself. He told +himself that he had in common with this woman only the baser uses of +life. + +Everett's week in Cheyenne stretched to three, and he saw no prospect of +release except through the thing he dreaded. The bright, windy days of +the Wyoming autumn passed swiftly. Letters and telegrams came urging +him to hasten his trip to the coast, but he resolutely postponed his +business engagements. The mornings he spent on one of Charley Gaylord's +ponies, or fishing in the mountains, and in the evenings he sat in his +room writing letters or reading. In the afternoon he was usually at his +post of duty. Destiny, he reflected, seems to have very positive notions +about the sort of parts we are fitted to play. The scene changes and the +compensation varies, but in the end we usually find that we have played +the same class of business from first to last. Everett had been a +stopgap all his life. He remembered going through a looking glass +labyrinth when he was a boy and trying gallery after gallery, only at +every turn to bump his nose against his own face--which, indeed, was not +his own, but his brother's. No matter what his mission, east or west, +by land or sea, he was sure to find himself employed in his brother's +business, one of the tributary lives which helped to swell the shining +current of Adriance Hilgarde's. It was not the first time that his duty +had been to comfort, as best he could, one of the broken things his +brother's imperious speed had cast aside and forgotten. He made no +attempt to analyze the situation or to state it in exact terms; but +he felt Katharine Gaylord's need for him, and he accepted it as a +commission from his brother to help this woman to die. Day by day he +felt her demands on him grow more imperious, her need for him grow more +acute and positive; and day by day he felt that in his peculiar relation +to her his own individuality played a smaller and smaller part. His +power to minister to her comfort, he saw, lay solely in his link with +his brother's life. He understood all that his physical resemblance +meant to her. He knew that she sat by him always watching for some +common trick of gesture, some familiar play of expression, some illusion +of light and shadow, in which he should seem wholly Adriance. He knew +that she lived upon this and that her disease fed upon it; that it sent +shudders of remembrance through her and that in the exhaustion which +followed this turmoil of her dying senses, she slept deep and sweet and +dreamed of youth and art and days in a certain old Florentine garden, +and not of bitterness and death. + +The question which most perplexed him was, “How much shall I know? How +much does she wish me to know?” A few days after his first meeting with +Katharine Gaylord, he had cabled his brother to write her. He had merely +said that she was mortally ill; he could depend on Adriance to say the +right thing--that was a part of his gift. Adriance always said not +only the right thing, but the opportune, graceful, exquisite thing. His +phrases took the color of the moment and the then-present condition, so +that they never savored of perfunctory compliment or frequent usage. He +always caught the lyric essence of the moment, the poetic suggestion +of every situation. Moreover, he usually did the right thing, the +opportune, graceful, exquisite thing--except, when he did very cruel +things--bent upon making people happy when their existence touched his, +just as he insisted that his material environment should be beautiful; +lavishing upon those near him all the warmth and radiance of his rich +nature, all the homage of the poet and troubadour, and, when they were +no longer near, forgetting--for that also was a part of Adriance's gift. + +Three weeks after Everett had sent his cable, when he made his daily +call at the gaily painted ranch house, he found Katharine laughing like +a schoolgirl. “Have you ever thought,” she said, as he entered the +music room, “how much these seances of ours are like Heine's 'Florentine +Nights,' except that I don't give you an opportunity to monopolize the +conversation as Heine did?” She held his hand longer than usual, as +she greeted him, and looked searchingly up into his face. “You are the +kindest man living; the kindest,” she added, softly. + +Everett's gray face colored faintly as he drew his hand away, for +he felt that this time she was looking at him and not at a whimsical +caricature of his brother. “Why, what have I done now?” he asked, +lamely. “I can't remember having sent you any stale candy or champagne +since yesterday.” + +She drew a letter with a foreign postmark from between the leaves of a +book and held it out, smiling. “You got him to write it. Don't say you +didn't, for it came direct, you see, and the last address I gave him was +a place in Florida. This deed shall be remembered of you when I am with +the just in Paradise. But one thing you did not ask him to do, for you +didn't know about it. He has sent me his latest work, the new sonata, +the most ambitious thing he has ever done, and you are to play it for me +directly, though it looks horribly intricate. But first for the letter; +I think you would better read it aloud to me.” + +Everett sat down in a low chair facing the window seat in which she +reclined with a barricade of pillows behind her. He opened the letter, +his lashes half-veiling his kind eyes, and saw to his satisfaction that +it was a long one--wonderfully tactful and tender, even for Adriance, +who was tender with his valet and his stable boy, with his old gondolier +and the beggar-women who prayed to the saints for him. + +The letter was from Granada, written in the Alhambra, as he sat by the +fountain of the Patio di Lindaraxa. The air was heavy, with the warm +fragrance of the South and full of the sound of splashing, running +water, as it had been in a certain old garden in Florence, long ago. +The sky was one great turquoise, heated until it glowed. The wonderful +Moorish arches threw graceful blue shadows all about him. He had +sketched an outline of them on the margin of his notepaper. The +subtleties of Arabic decoration had cast an unholy spell over him, +and the brutal exaggerations of Gothic art were a bad dream, easily +forgotten. The Alhambra itself had, from the first, seemed perfectly +familiar to him, and he knew that he must have trod that court, +sleek and brown and obsequious, centuries before Ferdinand rode into +Andalusia. The letter was full of confidences about his work, and +delicate allusions to their old happy days of study and comradeship, and +of her own work, still so warmly remembered and appreciatively discussed +everywhere he went. + +As Everett folded the letter he felt that Adriance had divined the thing +needed and had risen to it in his own wonderful way. The letter was +consistently egotistical and seemed to him even a trifle patronizing, +yet it was just what she had wanted. A strong realization of his +brother's charm and intensity and power came over him; he felt the +breath of that whirlwind of flame in which Adriance passed, consuming +all in his path, and himself even more resolutely than he consumed +others. Then he looked down at this white, burnt-out brand that lay +before him. “Like him, isn't it?” she said, quietly. + +“I think I can scarcely answer his letter, but when you see him next you +can do that for me. I want you to tell him many things for me, yet they +can all be summed up in this: I want him to grow wholly into his best +and greatest self, even at the cost of the dear boyishness that is half +his charm to you and me. Do you understand me?” + +“I know perfectly well what you mean,” answered Everett, thoughtfully. +“I have often felt so about him myself. And yet it's difficult to +prescribe for those fellows; so little makes, so little mars.” + +Katharine raised herself upon her elbow, and her face flushed with +feverish earnestness. “Ah, but it is the waste of himself that I mean; +his lashing himself out on stupid and uncomprehending people until they +take him at their own estimate. He can kindle marble, strike fire from +putty, but is it worth what it costs him?” + +“Come, come,” expostulated Everett, alarmed at her excitement. “Where is +the new sonata? Let him speak for himself.” + +He sat down at the piano and began playing the first movement, which was +indeed the voice of Adriance, his proper speech. The sonata was the most +ambitious work he had done up to that time and marked the transition +from his purely lyric vein to a deeper and nobler style. Everett played +intelligently and with that sympathetic comprehension which seems +peculiar to a certain lovable class of men who never accomplish anything +in particular. When he had finished he turned to Katharine. + +“How he has grown!” she cried. “What the three last years have done for +him! He used to write only the tragedies of passion; but this is the +tragedy of the soul, the shadow coexistent with the soul. This is the +tragedy of effort and failure, the thing Keats called hell. This is my +tragedy, as I lie here spent by the racecourse, listening to the feet of +the runners as they pass me. Ah, God! The swift feet of the runners!” + +She turned her face away and covered it with her straining hands. +Everett crossed over to her quickly and knelt beside her. In all +the days he had known her she had never before, beyond an occasional +ironical jest, given voice to the bitterness of her own defeat. Her +courage had become a point of pride with him, and to see it going +sickened him. + +“Don't do it,” he gasped. “I can't stand it, I really can't, I feel it +too much. We mustn't speak of that; it's too tragic and too vast.” + +When she turned her face back to him there was a ghost of the old, +brave, cynical smile on it, more bitter than the tears she could not +shed. “No, I won't be so ungenerous; I will save that for the watches +of the night when I have no better company. Now you may mix me another +drink of some sort. Formerly, when it was not _if_ I should ever sing +Brunnhilde, but quite simply when I _should_ sing Brunnhilde, I was +always starving myself and thinking what I might drink and what I might +not. But broken music boxes may drink whatsoever they list, and no +one cares whether they lose their figure. Run over that theme at the +beginning again. That, at least, is not new. It was running in his head +when we were in Venice years ago, and he used to drum it on his glass at +the dinner table. He had just begun to work it out when the late autumn +came on, and the paleness of the Adriatic oppressed him, and he decided +to go to Florence for the winter, and lost touch with the theme during +his illness. Do you remember those frightful days? All the people who +have loved him are not strong enough to save him from himself! When +I got word from Florence that he had been ill I was in Nice filling +a concert engagement. His wife was hurrying to him from Paris, but I +reached him first. I arrived at dusk, in a terrific storm. They had +taken an old palace there for the winter, and I found him in the +library--a long, dark room full of old Latin books and heavy furniture +and bronzes. He was sitting by a wood fire at one end of the room, +looking, oh, so worn and pale!--as he always does when he is ill, you +know. Ah, it is so good that you _do_ know! Even his red smoking jacket +lent no color to his face. His first words were not to tell me how ill +he had been, but that that morning he had been well enough to put the +last strokes to the score of his _Souvenirs d'Automne_. He was as I +most like to remember him: so calm and happy and tired; not gay, as he +usually is, but just contented and tired with that heavenly tiredness +that comes after a good work done at last. Outside, the rain poured +down in torrents, and the wind moaned for the pain of all the world and +sobbed in the branches of the shivering olives and about the walls of +that desolated old palace. How that night comes back to me! There were +no lights in the room, only the wood fire which glowed upon the hard +features of the bronze Dante, like the reflection of purgatorial flames, +and threw long black shadows about us; beyond us it scarcely penetrated +the gloom at all, Adriance sat staring at the fire with the weariness +of all his life in his eyes, and of all the other lives that must aspire +and suffer to make up one such life as his. Somehow the wind with all +its world-pain had got into the room, and the cold rain was in our eyes, +and the wave came up in both of us at once--that awful, vague, universal +pain, that cold fear of life and death and God and hope--and we were +like two clinging together on a spar in midocean after the shipwreck of +everything. Then we heard the front door open with a great gust of wind +that shook even the walls, and the servants came running with lights, +announcing that Madam had returned, _'and in the book we read no more +that night.'_” + +She gave the old line with a certain bitter humor, and with the hard, +bright smile in which of old she had wrapped her weakness as in a +glittering garment. That ironical smile, worn like a mask through so +many years, had gradually changed even the lines of her face completely, +and when she looked in the mirror she saw not herself, but the scathing +critic, the amused observer and satirist of herself. Everett dropped +his head upon his hand and sat looking at the rug. “How much you have +cared!” he said. + +“Ah, yes, I cared,” she replied, closing her eyes with a long-drawn sigh +of relief; and lying perfectly still, she went on: “You can't imagine +what a comfort it is to have you know how I cared, what a relief it is +to be able to tell it to someone. I used to want to shriek it out to the +world in the long nights when I could not sleep. It seemed to me that I +could not die with it. It demanded some sort of expression. And now that +you know, you would scarcely believe how much less sharp the anguish of +it is.” + +Everett continued to look helplessly at the floor. “I was not sure how +much you wanted me to know,” he said. + +“Oh, I intended you should know from the first time I looked into your +face, when you came that day with Charley. I flatter myself that I have +been able to conceal it when I chose, though I suppose women always +think that. The more observing ones may have seen, but discerning people +are usually discreet and often kind, for we usually bleed a little +before we begin to discern. But I wanted you to know; you are so like +him that it is almost like telling him himself. At least, I feel now +that he will know some day, and then I will be quite sacred from his +compassion, for we none of us dare pity the dead. Since it was what my +life has chiefly meant, I should like him to know. On the whole I am not +ashamed of it. I have fought a good fight.” + +“And has he never known at all?” asked Everett, in a thick voice. + +“Oh! Never at all in the way that you mean. Of course, he is accustomed +to looking into the eyes of women and finding love there; when he +doesn't find it there he thinks he must have been guilty of some +discourtesy and is miserable about it. He has a genuine fondness for +everyone who is not stupid or gloomy, or old or preternaturally ugly. +Granted youth and cheerfulness, and a moderate amount of wit and some +tact, and Adriance will always be glad to see you coming around the +corner. I shared with the rest; shared the smiles and the gallantries +and the droll little sermons. It was quite like a Sunday-school picnic; +we wore our best clothes and a smile and took our turns. It was his +kindness that was hardest. I have pretty well used my life up at +standing punishment.” + +“Don't; you'll make me hate him,” groaned Everett. + +Katharine laughed and began to play nervously with her fan. “It wasn't +in the slightest degree his fault; that is the most grotesque part of +it. Why, it had really begun before I ever met him. I fought my way to +him, and I drank my doom greedily enough.” + +Everett rose and stood hesitating. “I think I must go. You ought to be +quiet, and I don't think I can hear any more just now.” + +She put out her hand and took his playfully. “You've put in three weeks +at this sort of thing, haven't you? Well, it may never be to your glory +in this world, perhaps, but it's been the mercy of heaven to me, and it +ought to square accounts for a much worse life than yours will ever be.” + +Everett knelt beside her, saying, brokenly: “I stayed because I wanted +to be with you, that's all. I have never cared about other women since I +met you in New York when I was a lad. You are a part of my destiny, and +I could not leave you if I would.” + +She put her hands on his shoulders and shook her head. “No, no; don't +tell me that. I have seen enough of tragedy, God knows. Don't show me +any more just as the curtain is going down. No, no, it was only a boy's +fancy, and your divine pity and my utter pitiableness have recalled it +for a moment. One does not love the dying, dear friend. If some fancy of +that sort had been left over from boyhood, this would rid you of it, +and that were well. Now go, and you will come again tomorrow, as long as +there are tomorrows, will you not?” She took his hand with a smile that +lifted the mask from her soul, that was both courage and despair, and +full of infinite loyalty and tenderness, as she said softly: + + For ever and for ever, farewell, Cassius; + If we do meet again, why, we shall smile; + If not, why then, this parting was well made. + +The courage in her eyes was like the clear light of a star to him as he +went out. + +On the night of Adriance Hilgarde's opening concert in Paris Everett sat +by the bed in the ranch house in Wyoming, watching over the last battle +that we have with the flesh before we are done with it and free of it +forever. At times it seemed that the serene soul of her must have left +already and found some refuge from the storm, and only the tenacious +animal life were left to do battle with death. She labored under a +delusion at once pitiful and merciful, thinking that she was in the +Pullman on her way to New York, going back to her life and her work. +When she aroused from her stupor it was only to ask the porter to waken +her half an hour out of Jersey City, or to remonstrate with him about +the delays and the roughness of the road. At midnight Everett and the +nurse were left alone with her. Poor Charley Gaylord had lain down on a +couch outside the door. Everett sat looking at the sputtering night lamp +until it made his eyes ache. His head dropped forward on the foot of the +bed, and he sank into a heavy, distressful slumber. He was dreaming of +Adriance's concert in Paris, and of Adriance, the troubadour, smiling +and debonair, with his boyish face and the touch of silver gray in +his hair. He heard the applause and he saw the roses going up over the +footlights until they were stacked half as high as the piano, and the +petals fell and scattered, making crimson splotches on the floor. Down +this crimson pathway came Adriance with his youthful step, leading his +prima donna by the hand; a dark woman this time, with Spanish eyes. + +The nurse touched him on the shoulder; he started and awoke. She +screened the lamp with her hand. Everett saw that Katharine was awake +and conscious, and struggling a little. He lifted her gently on his arm +and began to fan her. She laid her hands lightly on his hair and looked +into his face with eyes that seemed never to have wept or doubted. “Ah, +dear Adriance, dear, dear,” she whispered. + +Everett went to call her brother, but when they came back the madness of +art was over for Katharine. + +Two days later Everett was pacing the station siding, waiting for the +westbound train. Charley Gaylord walked beside him, but the two men had +nothing to say to each other. Everett's bags were piled on the truck, +and his step was hurried and his eyes were full of impatience, as he +gazed again and again up the track, watching for the train. Gaylord's +impatience was not less than his own; these two, who had grown so close, +had now become painful and impossible to each other, and longed for the +wrench of farewell. + +As the train pulled in Everett wrung Gaylord's hand among the crowd of +alighting passengers. The people of a German opera company, en route +to the coast, rushed by them in frantic haste to snatch their breakfast +during the stop. Everett heard an exclamation in a broad German dialect, +and a massive woman whose figure persistently escaped from her stays in +the most improbable places rushed up to him, her blond hair disordered +by the wind, and glowing with joyful surprise she caught his coat sleeve +with her tightly gloved hands. + +“_Herr Gott_, Adriance, _lieber Freund_,” she cried, emotionally. + +Everett quickly withdrew his arm and lifted his hat, blushing. “Pardon +me, madam, but I see that you have mistaken me for Adriance Hilgarde. +I am his brother,” he said quietly, and turning from the crestfallen +singer, he hurried into the car. + + + + +The Garden Lodge + +When Caroline Noble's friends learned that Raymond d'Esquerre was to +spend a month at her place on the Sound before he sailed to fill his +engagement for the London opera season, they considered it another +striking instance of the perversity of things. That the month was May, +and the most mild and florescent of all the blue-and-white Mays the +middle coast had known in years, but added to their sense of wrong. +D'Esquerre, they learned, was ensconced in the lodge in the apple +orchard, just beyond Caroline's glorious garden, and report went that +at almost any hour the sound of the tenor's voice and of Caroline's +crashing accompaniment could be heard floating through the open windows, +out among the snowy apple boughs. The Sound, steel-blue and dotted with +white sails, was splendidly seen from the windows of the lodge. The +garden to the left and the orchard to the right had never been so +riotous with spring, and had burst into impassioned bloom, as if to +accommodate Caroline, though she was certainly the last woman to whom +the witchery of Freya could be attributed; the last woman, as her +friends affirmed, to at all adequately appreciate and make the most of +such a setting for the great tenor. + +Of course, they admitted, Caroline was musical--well, she ought to +be!--but in that, as in everything, she was paramountly cool-headed, +slow of impulse, and disgustingly practical; in that, as in everything +else, she had herself so provokingly well in hand. Of course, it would +be she, always mistress of herself in any situation, she, who would +never be lifted one inch from the ground by it, and who would go on +superintending her gardeners and workmen as usual--it would be she who +got him. Perhaps some of them suspected that this was exactly why she +did get him, and it but nettled them the more. + +Caroline's coolness, her capableness, her general success, especially +exasperated people because they felt that, for the most part, she +had made herself what she was; that she had cold-bloodedly set about +complying with the demands of life and making her position comfortable +and masterful. That was why, everyone said, she had married Howard +Noble. Women who did not get through life so well as Caroline, who could +not make such good terms either with fortune or their husbands, who did +not find their health so unfailingly good, or hold their looks so well, +or manage their children so easily, or give such distinction to all they +did, were fond of stamping Caroline as a materialist, and called her +hard. + +The impression of cold calculation, of having a definite policy, which +Caroline gave, was far from a false one; but there was this to be said +for her--that there were extenuating circumstances which her friends +could not know. + +If Caroline held determinedly to the middle course, if she was apt to +regard with distrust everything which inclined toward extravagance, it +was not because she was unacquainted with other standards than her own, +or had never seen another side of life. She had grown up in Brooklyn, +in a shabby little house under the vacillating administration of her +father, a music teacher who usually neglected his duties to write +orchestral compositions for which the world seemed to have no especial +need. His spirit was warped by bitter vindictiveness and puerile +self-commiseration, and he spent his days in scorn of the labor that +brought him bread and in pitiful devotion to the labor that brought him +only disappointment, writing interminable scores which demanded of the +orchestra everything under heaven except melody. + +It was not a cheerful home for a girl to grow up in. The mother, who +idolized her husband as the music lord of the future, was left to a +lifelong battle with broom and dustpan, to neverending conciliatory +overtures to the butcher and grocer, to the making of her own gowns +and of Caroline's, and to the delicate task of mollifying Auguste's +neglected pupils. + +The son, Heinrich, a painter, Caroline's only brother, had inherited all +his father's vindictive sensitiveness without his capacity for slavish +application. His little studio on the third floor had been much +frequented by young men as unsuccessful as himself, who met there to +give themselves over to contemptuous derision of this or that artist +whose industry and stupidity had won him recognition. Heinrich, when he +worked at all, did newspaper sketches at twenty-five dollars a week. He +was too indolent and vacillating to set himself seriously to his art, +too irascible and poignantly self-conscious to make a living, too much +addicted to lying late in bed, to the incontinent reading of poetry, and +to the use of chloral to be anything very positive except painful. At +twenty-six he shot himself in a frenzy, and the whole wretched affair +had effectually shattered his mother's health and brought on the decline +of which she died. Caroline had been fond of him, but she felt a certain +relief when he no longer wandered about the little house, commenting +ironically upon its shabbiness, a Turkish cap on his head and a +cigarette hanging from between his long, tremulous fingers. + +After her mother's death Caroline assumed the management of that +bankrupt establishment. The funeral expenses were unpaid, and Auguste's +pupils had been frightened away by the shock of successive disasters and +the general atmosphere of wretchedness that pervaded the house. Auguste +himself was writing a symphonic poem, Icarus, dedicated to the memory +of his son. Caroline was barely twenty when she was called upon to face +this tangle of difficulties, but she reviewed the situation candidly. +The house had served its time at the shrine of idealism; vague, +distressing, unsatisfied yearnings had brought it low enough. Her +mother, thirty years before, had eloped and left Germany with her music +teacher, to give herself over to lifelong, drudging bondage at the +kitchen range. Ever since Caroline could remember, the law in the house +had been a sort of mystic worship of things distant, intangible and +unattainable. The family had lived in successive ebullitions of generous +enthusiasm, in talk of masters and masterpieces, only to come down to +the cold facts in the case; to boiled mutton and to the necessity of +turning the dining-room carpet. All these emotional pyrotechnics had +ended in petty jealousies, in neglected duties, and in cowardly fear of +the little grocer on the corner. + +From her childhood she had hated it, that humiliating and uncertain +existence, with its glib tongue and empty pockets, its poetic ideals and +sordid realities, its indolence and poverty tricked out in paper roses. +Even as a little girl, when vague dreams beset her, when she wanted to +lie late in bed and commune with visions, or to leap and sing because +the sooty little trees along the street were putting out their first +pale leaves in the sunshine, she would clench her hands and go to +help her mother sponge the spots from her father's waistcoat or press +Heinrich's trousers. Her mother never permitted the slightest question +concerning anything Auguste or Heinrich saw fit to do, but from the +time Caroline could reason at all she could not help thinking that many +things went wrong at home. She knew, for example, that her father's +pupils ought not to be kept waiting half an hour while he discussed +Schopenhauer with some bearded socialist over a dish of herrings and a +spotted tablecloth. She knew that Heinrich ought not to give a dinner on +Heine's birthday, when the laundress had not been paid for a month and +when he frequently had to ask his mother for carfare. Certainly Caroline +had served her apprenticeship to idealism and to all the embarrassing +inconsistencies which it sometimes entails, and she decided to deny +herself this diffuse, ineffectual answer to the sharp questions of life. + +When she came into the control of herself and the house she refused +to proceed any further with her musical education. Her father, who had +intended to make a concert pianist of her, set this down as another +item in his long list of disappointments and his grievances against +the world. She was young and pretty, and she had worn turned gowns and +soiled gloves and improvised hats all her life. She wanted the luxury of +being like other people, of being honest from her hat to her boots, of +having nothing to hide, not even in the matter of stockings, and she was +willing to work for it. She rented a little studio away from that house +of misfortune and began to give lessons. She managed well and was the +sort of girl people liked to help. The bills were paid and Auguste went +on composing, growing indignant only when she refused to insist that +her pupils should study his compositions for the piano. She began to +get engagements in New York to play accompaniments at song recitals. +She dressed well, made herself agreeable, and gave herself a chance. +She never permitted herself to look further than a step ahead, and set +herself with all the strength of her will to see things as they are and +meet them squarely in the broad day. There were two things she feared +even more than poverty: the part of one that sets up an idol and the +part of one that bows down and worships it. + +When Caroline was twenty-four she married Howard Noble, then a widower +of forty, who had been for ten years a power in Wall Street. Then, for +the first time, she had paused to take breath. It took a substantialness +as unquestionable as his; his money, his position, his energy, the big +vigor of his robust person, to satisfy her that she was entirely safe. +Then she relaxed a little, feeling that there was a barrier to be +counted upon between her and that world of visions and quagmires and +failure. + +Caroline had been married for six years when Raymond d'Esquerre came +to stay with them. He came chiefly because Caroline was what she was; +because he, too, felt occasionally the need of getting out of Klingsor's +garden, of dropping down somewhere for a time near a quiet nature, a +cool head, a strong hand. The hours he had spent in the garden lodge +were hours of such concentrated study as, in his fevered life, he seldom +got in anywhere. She had, as he told Noble, a fine appreciation of the +seriousness of work. + +One evening two weeks after d'Esquerre had sailed, Caroline was in the +library giving her husband an account of the work she had laid out for +the gardeners. She superintended the care of the grounds herself. Her +garden, indeed, had become quite a part of her; a sort of beautiful +adjunct, like gowns or jewels. It was a famous spot, and Noble was very +proud of it. + +“What do you think, Caroline, of having the garden lodge torn down and +putting a new summer house there at the end of the arbor; a big rustic +affair where you could have tea served in midsummer?” he asked. + +“The lodge?” repeated Caroline looking at him quickly. “Why, that seems +almost a shame, doesn't it, after d'Esquerre has used it?” + +Noble put down his book with a smile of amusement. + +“Are you going to be sentimental about it? Why, I'd sacrifice the whole +place to see that come to pass. But I don't believe you could do it for +an hour together.” + +“I don't believe so, either,” said his wife, smiling. + +Noble took up his book again and Caroline went into the music room to +practice. She was not ready to have the lodge torn down. She had gone +there for a quiet hour every day during the two weeks since d'Esquerre +had left them. It was the sheerest sentiment she had ever permitted +herself. She was ashamed of it, but she was childishly unwilling to let +it go. + +Caroline went to bed soon after her husband, but she was not able to +sleep. The night was close and warm, presaging storm. The wind had +fallen, and the water slept, fixed and motionless as the sand. She rose +and thrust her feet into slippers and, putting a dressing gown over +her shoulders, opened the door of her husband's room; he was sleeping +soundly. She went into the hall and down the stairs; then, leaving the +house through a side door, stepped into the vine-covered arbor that led +to the garden lodge. The scent of the June roses was heavy in the still +air, and the stones that paved the path felt pleasantly cool through the +thin soles of her slippers. Heat-lightning flashed continuously from the +bank of clouds that had gathered over the sea, but the shore was flooded +with moonlight and, beyond, the rim of the Sound lay smooth and shining. +Caroline had the key of the lodge, and the door creaked as she opened +it. She stepped into the long, low room radiant with the moonlight which +streamed through the bow window and lay in a silvery pool along the +waxed floor. Even that part of the room which lay in the shadow was +vaguely illuminated; the piano, the tall candlesticks, the picture +frames and white casts standing out as clearly in the half-light as +did the sycamores and black poplars of the garden against the still, +expectant night sky. Caroline sat down to think it all over. She had +come here to do just that every day of the two weeks since d'Esquerre's +departure, but, far from ever having reached a conclusion, she had +succeeded only in losing her way in a maze of memories--sometimes +bewilderingly confused, sometimes too acutely distinct--where there was +neither path, nor clue, nor any hope of finality. She had, she realized, +defeated a lifelong regimen; completely confounded herself by falling +unaware and incontinently into that luxury of reverie which, even as +a little girl, she had so determinedly denied herself, she had been +developing with alarming celerity that part of one which sets up an idol +and that part of one which bows down and worships it. + +It was a mistake, she felt, ever to have asked d'Esquerre to come +at all. She had an angry feeling that she had done it rather in +self-defiance, to rid herself finally of that instinctive fear of him +which had always troubled and perplexed her. She knew that she had +reckoned with herself before he came; but she had been equal to so much +that she had never really doubted she would be equal to this. She had +come to believe, indeed, almost arrogantly in her own malleability and +endurance; she had done so much with herself that she had come to think +that there was nothing which she could not do; like swimmers, overbold, +who reckon upon their strength and their power to hoard it, forgetting +the ever-changing moods of their adversary, the sea. + +And d'Esquerre was a man to reckon with. Caroline did not deceive +herself now upon that score. She admitted it humbly enough, and since +she had said good-by to him she had not been free for a moment from +the sense of his formidable power. It formed the undercurrent of her +consciousness; whatever she might be doing or thinking, it went on, +involuntarily, like her breathing, sometimes welling up until suddenly +she found herself suffocating. There was a moment of this tonight, +and Caroline rose and stood shuddering, looking about her in the blue +duskiness of the silent room. She had not been here at night before, and +the spirit of the place seemed more troubled and insistent than ever it +had in the quiet of the afternoons. Caroline brushed her hair back from +her damp forehead and went over to the bow window. After raising it +she sat down upon the low seat. Leaning her head against the sill, and +loosening her nightgown at the throat, she half-closed her eyes +and looked off into the troubled night, watching the play of the +heat-lightning upon the massing clouds between the pointed tops of the +poplars. + +Yes, she knew, she knew well enough, of what absurdities this spell was +woven; she mocked, even while she winced. His power, she knew, lay not +so much in anything that he actually had--though he had so much--or +in anything that he actually was, but in what he suggested, in what he +seemed picturesque enough to have or be and that was just anything +that one chose to believe or to desire. His appeal was all the more +persuasive and alluring in that it was to the imagination alone, in that +it was as indefinite and impersonal as those cults of idealism which +so have their way with women. What he had was that, in his mere +personality, he quickened and in a measure gratified that something +without which--to women--life is no better than sawdust, and to the +desire for which most of their mistakes and tragedies and astonishingly +poor bargains are due. + +D'Esquerre had become the center of a movement, and the Metropolitan +had become the temple of a cult. When he could be induced to cross the +Atlantic, the opera season in New York was successful; when he +could not, the management lost money; so much everyone knew. It was +understood, too, that his superb art had disproportionately little to do +with his peculiar position. Women swayed the balance this way or that; +the opera, the orchestra, even his own glorious art, achieved at such a +cost, were but the accessories of himself; like the scenery and costumes +and even the soprano, they all went to produce atmosphere, were the mere +mechanics of the beautiful illusion. + +Caroline understood all this; tonight was not the first time that she +had put it to herself so. She had seen the same feeling in other people, +watched for it in her friends, studied it in the house night after night +when he sang, candidly putting herself among a thousand others. + +D'Esquerre's arrival in the early winter was the signal for a feminine +hegira toward New York. On the nights when he sang women flocked to +the Metropolitan from mansions and hotels, from typewriter desks, +schoolrooms, shops, and fitting rooms. They were of all conditions +and complexions. Women of the world who accepted him knowingly as they +sometimes took champagne for its agreeable effect; sisters of charity +and overworked shopgirls, who received him devoutly; withered women who +had taken doctorate degrees and who worshipped furtively through prism +spectacles; business women and women of affairs, the Amazons who dwelt +afar from men in the stony fastnesses of apartment houses. They all +entered into the same romance; dreamed, in terms as various as the hues +of fantasy, the same dream; drew the same quick breath when he stepped +upon the stage, and, at his exit, felt the same dull pain of shouldering +the pack again. + +There were the maimed, even; those who came on crutches, who were pitted +by smallpox or grotesquely painted by cruel birth stains. These, too, +entered with him into enchantment. Stout matrons became slender girls +again; worn spinsters felt their cheeks flush with the tenderness of +their lost youth. Young and old, however hideous, however fair, they +yielded up their heat--whether quick or latent--sat hungering for the +mystic bread wherewith he fed them at this eucharist of sentiment. + +Sometimes, when the house was crowded from the orchestra to the last row +of the gallery, when the air was charged with this ecstasy of fancy, +he himself was the victim of the burning reflection of his power. They +acted upon him in turn; he felt their fervent and despairing appeal to +him; it stirred him as the spring drives the sap up into an old tree; +he, too, burst into bloom. For the moment he, too, believed again, +desired again, he knew not what, but something. + +But it was not in these exalted moments that Caroline had learned to +fear him most. It was in the quiet, tired reserve, the dullness, even, +that kept him company between these outbursts that she found that +exhausting drain upon her sympathies which was the very pith +and substance of their alliance. It was the tacit admission of +disappointment under all this glamour of success--the helplessness of +the enchanter to at all enchant himself--that awoke in her an illogical, +womanish desire to in some way compensate, to make it up to him. + +She had observed drastically to herself that it was her eighteenth year +he awoke in her--those hard years she had spent in turning gowns and +placating tradesmen, and which she had never had time to live. After +all, she reflected, it was better to allow one's self a little youth--to +dance a little at the carnival and to live these things when they are +natural and lovely, not to have them coming back on one and demanding +arrears when they are humiliating and impossible. She went over tonight +all the catalogue of her self-deprivations; recalled how, in the light +of her father's example, she had even refused to humor her innocent +taste for improvising at the piano; how, when she began to teach, after +her mother's death, she had struck out one little indulgence after +another, reducing her life to a relentless routine, unvarying as +clockwork. It seemed to her that ever since d'Esquerre first came into +the house she had been haunted by an imploring little girlish ghost that +followed her about, wringing its hands and entreating for an hour of +life. + +The storm had held off unconscionably long; the air within the lodge was +stifling, and without the garden waited, breathless. Everything seemed +pervaded by a poignant distress; the hush of feverish, intolerable +expectation. The still earth, the heavy flowers, even the growing +darkness, breathed the exhaustion of protracted waiting. Caroline felt +that she ought to go; that it was wrong to stay; that the hour and the +place were as treacherous as her own reflections. She rose and began to +pace the floor, stepping softly, as though in fear of awakening someone, +her figure, in its thin drapery, diaphanously vague and white. Still +unable to shake off the obsession of the intense stillness, she sat down +at the piano and began to run over the first act of the _Walkure_, the +last of his roles they had practiced together; playing listlessly and +absently at first, but with gradually increasing seriousness. Perhaps it +was the still heat of the summer night, perhaps it was the heavy odors +from the garden that came in through the open windows; but as she played +there grew and grew the feeling that he was there, beside her, standing +in his accustomed place. In the duet at the end of the first act she +heard him clearly: _“Thou art the Spring for which I sighed in Winter's +cold embraces.”_ Once as he sang it, he had put his arm about her, +his one hand under her heart, while with the other he took her right +from the keyboard, holding her as he always held _Sieglinde_ when he +drew her toward the window. She had been wonderfully the mistress of +herself at the time; neither repellent nor acquiescent. She remembered +that she had rather exulted, then, in her self-control--which he had +seemed to take for granted, though there was perhaps the whisper of a +question from the hand under her heart. _“Thou art the Spring for which +I sighed in Winter's cold embraces.”_ Caroline lifted her hands quickly +from the keyboard, and she bowed her head in them, sobbing. + +The storm broke and the rain beat in, spattering her nightdress until +she rose and lowered the windows. She dropped upon the couch and began +fighting over again the battles of other days, while the ghosts of the +slain rose as from a sowing of dragon's teeth, The shadows of things, +always so scorned and flouted, bore down upon her merciless and +triumphant. It was not enough; this happy, useful, well-ordered life +was not enough. It did not satisfy, it was not even real. No, the other +things, the shadows--they were the realities. Her father, poor Heinrich, +even her mother, who had been able to sustain her poor romance and keep +her little illusions amid the tasks of a scullion, were nearer happiness +than she. Her sure foundation was but made ground, after all, and the +people in Klingsor's garden were more fortunate, however barren the +sands from which they conjured their paradise. + +The lodge was still and silent; her fit of weeping over, Caroline +made no sound, and within the room, as without in the garden, was the +blackness of storm. Only now and then a flash of lightning showed a +woman's slender figure rigid on the couch, her face buried in her hands. + +Toward morning, when the occasional rumbling of thunder was heard no +more and the beat of the raindrops upon the orchard leaves was steadier, +she fell asleep and did not waken until the first red streaks of dawn +shone through the twisted boughs of the apple trees. There was a moment +between world and world, when, neither asleep nor awake, she felt her +dream grow thin, melting away from her, felt the warmth under her heart +growing cold. Something seemed to slip from the clinging hold of her +arms, and she groaned protestingly through her parted lips, following +it a little way with fluttering hands. Then her eyes opened wide and she +sprang up and sat holding dizzily to the cushions of the couch, staring +down at her bare, cold feet, at her laboring breast, rising and falling +under her open nightdress. + +The dream was gone, but the feverish reality of it still pervaded her +and she held it as the vibrating string holds a tone. In the last hour +the shadows had had their way with Caroline. They had shown her the +nothingness of time and space, of system and discipline, of closed doors +and broad waters. Shuddering, she thought of the Arabian fairy tale in +which the genie brought the princess of China to the sleeping prince +of Damascus and carried her through the air back to her palace at dawn. +Caroline closed her eyes and dropped her elbows weakly upon her knees, +her shoulders sinking together. The horror was that it had not come +from without, but from within. The dream was no blind chance; it was the +expression of something she had kept so close a prisoner that she had +never seen it herself, it was the wail from the donjon deeps when the +watch slept. Only as the outcome of such a night of sorcery could the +thing have been loosed to straighten its limbs and measure itself with +her; so heavy were the chains upon it, so many a fathom deep, it was +crushed down into darkness. The fact that d'Esquerre happened to be on +the other side of the world meant nothing; had he been here, beside her, +it could scarcely have hurt her self-respect so much. As it was, she was +without even the extenuation of an outer impulse, and she could scarcely +have despised herself more had she come to him here in the night three +weeks ago and thrown herself down upon the stone slab at the door there. + +Caroline rose unsteadily and crept guiltily from the lodge and along the +path under the arbor, terrified lest the servants should be stirring, +trembling with the chill air, while the wet shrubbery, brushing against +her, drenched her nightdress until it clung about her limbs. + +At breakfast her husband looked across the table at her with concern. +“It seems to me that you are looking rather fagged, Caroline. It was a +beastly night to sleep. Why don't you go up to the mountains until this +hot weather is over? By the way, were you in earnest about letting the +lodge stand?” + +Caroline laughed quietly. “No, I find I was not very serious. I haven't +sentiment enough to forego a summer house. Will you tell Baker to come +tomorrow to talk it over with me? If we are to have a house party, I +should like to put him to work on it at once.” + +Noble gave her a glance, half-humorous, half-vexed. “Do you know I am +rather disappointed?” he said. “I had almost hoped that, just for once, +you know, you would be a little bit foolish.” + +“Not now that I've slept over it,” replied Caroline, and they both rose +from the table, laughing. + + + + +The Marriage of Phaedra + +The sequence of events was such that MacMaster did not make his +pilgrimage to Hugh Treffinger's studio until three years after that +painter's death. MacMaster was himself a painter, an American of the +Gallicized type, who spent his winters in New York, his summers in +Paris, and no inconsiderable amount of time on the broad waters between. +He had often contemplated stopping in London on one of his return trips +in the late autumn, but he had always deferred leaving Paris until the +prick of necessity drove him home by the quickest and shortest route. + +Treffinger was a comparatively young man at the time of his death, and +there had seemed no occasion for haste until haste was of no avail. +Then, possibly, though there had been some correspondence between them, +MacMaster felt certain qualms about meeting in the flesh a man who in +the flesh was so diversely reported. His intercourse with Treffinger's +work had been so deep and satisfying, so apart from other appreciations, +that he rather dreaded a critical juncture of any sort. He had always +felt himself singularly inept in personal relations, and in this case he +had avoided the issue until it was no longer to be feared or hoped for. +There still remained, however, Treffinger's great unfinished picture, +the _Marriage of Phaedra_, which had never left his studio, and of which +MacMaster's friends had now and again brought report that it was the +painter's most characteristic production. + +The young man arrived in London in the evening, and the next morning +went out to Kensington to find Treffinger's studio. It lay in one of the +perplexing bystreets off Holland Road, and the number he found on a +door set in a high garden wall, the top of which was covered with broken +green glass and over which a budding lilac bush nodded. Treffinger's +plate was still there, and a card requesting visitors to ring for the +attendant. In response to MacMaster's ring, the door was opened by a +cleanly built little man, clad in a shooting jacket and trousers that +had been made for an ampler figure. He had a fresh complexion, eyes of +that common uncertain shade of gray, and was closely shaven except for +the incipient muttonchops on his ruddy cheeks. He bore himself in +a manner strikingly capable, and there was a sort of trimness and +alertness about him, despite the too-generous shoulders of his coat. In +one hand he held a bulldog pipe, and in the other a copy of _Sporting +Life_. While MacMaster was explaining the purpose of his call he noticed +that the man surveyed him critically, though not impertinently. He was +admitted into a little tank of a lodge made of whitewashed stone, the +back door and windows opening upon a garden. A visitor's book and a pile +of catalogues lay on a deal table, together with a bottle of ink and +some rusty pens. The wall was ornamented with photographs and colored +prints of racing favorites. + +“The studio is h'only open to the public on Saturdays and Sundays,” + explained the man--he referred to himself as “Jymes”--“but of course we +make exceptions in the case of pynters. Lydy Elling Treffinger 'erself +is on the Continent, but Sir 'Ugh's orders was that pynters was to 'ave +the run of the place.” He selected a key from his pocket and threw open +the door into the studio which, like the lodge, was built against the +wall of the garden. + +MacMaster entered a long, narrow room, built of smoothed planks, painted +a light green; cold and damp even on that fine May morning. The room was +utterly bare of furniture--unless a stepladder, a model throne, and a +rack laden with large leather portfolios could be accounted such--and +was windowless, without other openings than the door and the skylight, +under which hung the unfinished picture itself. MacMaster had never +seen so many of Treffinger's paintings together. He knew the painter +had married a woman with money and had been able to keep such of +his pictures as he wished. These, with all of his replicas and +studies, he had left as a sort of common legacy to the younger men of +the school he had originated. + +As soon as he was left alone MacMaster sat down on the edge of the model +throne before the unfinished picture. Here indeed was what he had come +for; it rather paralyzed his receptivity for the moment, but gradually +the thing found its way to him. + +At one o'clock he was standing before the collection of studies done for +_Boccaccio's Garden_ when he heard a voice at his elbow. + +“Pardon, sir, but I was just about to lock up and go to lunch. Are +you lookin' for the figure study of Boccaccio 'imself?” James queried +respectfully. “Lydy Elling Treffinger give it to Mr. Rossiter to take +down to Oxford for some lectures he's been agiving there.” + +“Did he never paint out his studies, then?” asked MacMaster with +perplexity. “Here are two completed ones for this picture. Why did he +keep them?” + +“I don't know as I could say as to that, sir,” replied James, smiling +indulgently, “but that was 'is way. That is to say, 'e pynted out very +frequent, but 'e always made two studies to stand; one in watercolors +and one in oils, before 'e went at the final picture--to say nothink +of all the pose studies 'e made in pencil before he begun on the +composition proper at all. He was that particular. You see, 'e wasn't so +keen for the final effect as for the proper pyntin' of 'is pictures. 'E +used to say they ought to be well made, the same as any other h'article +of trade. I can lay my 'and on the pose studies for you, sir.” He +rummaged in one of the portfolios and produced half a dozen drawings, +“These three,” he continued, “was discarded; these two was the pose he +finally accepted; this one without alteration, as it were.” + +“That's in Paris, as I remember,” James continued reflectively. “It went +with the _Saint Cecilia_ into the Baron H---'s collection. Could you +tell me, sir, 'as 'e it still? I don't like to lose account of them, but +some 'as changed 'ands since Sir 'Ugh's death.” + +“H---'s collection is still intact, I believe,” replied MacMaster. “You +were with Treffinger long?” + +“From my boyhood, sir,” replied James with gravity. “I was a stable boy +when 'e took me.” + +“You were his man, then?” + +“That's it, sir. Nobody else ever done anything around the studio. +I always mixed 'is colors and 'e taught me to do a share of the +varnishin'; 'e said as 'ow there wasn't a 'ouse in England as could +do it proper. You ayn't looked at the _Marriage_ yet, sir?” he asked +abruptly, glancing doubtfully at MacMaster, and indicating with his +thumb the picture under the north light. + +“Not very closely. I prefer to begin with something simpler; that's +rather appalling, at first glance,” replied MacMaster. + +“Well may you say that, sir,” said James warmly. “That one regular +killed Sir 'Ugh; it regular broke 'im up, and nothink will ever convince +me as 'ow it didn't bring on 'is second stroke.” + +When MacMaster walked back to High Street to take his bus his mind was +divided between two exultant convictions. He felt that he had not +only found Treffinger's greatest picture, but that, in James, he had +discovered a kind of cryptic index to the painter's personality--a clue +which, if tactfully followed, might lead to much. + +Several days after his first visit to the studio, MacMaster wrote to +Lady Mary Percy, telling her that he would be in London for some time +and asking her if he might call. Lady Mary was an only sister of Lady +Ellen Treffinger, the painter's widow, and MacMaster had known her +during one winter he spent at Nice. He had known her, indeed, very well, +and Lady Mary, who was astonishingly frank and communicative upon +all subjects, had been no less so upon the matter of her sister's +unfortunate marriage. + +In her reply to his note Lady Mary named an afternoon when she would be +alone. She was as good as her word, and when MacMaster arrived he +found the drawing room empty. Lady Mary entered shortly after he was +announced. She was a tall woman, thin and stiffly jointed, and her body +stood out under the folds of her gown with the rigor of cast iron. +This rather metallic suggestion was further carried out in her heavily +knuckled hands, her stiff gray hair, and her long, bold-featured face, +which was saved from freakishness only by her alert eyes. + +“Really,” said Lady Mary, taking a seat beside him and giving him a sort +of military inspection through her nose glasses, “really, I had begun to +fear that I had lost you altogether. It's four years since I saw you +at Nice, isn't it? I was in Paris last winter, but I heard nothing from +you.” + +“I was in New York then.” + +“It occurred to me that you might be. And why are you in London?” + +“Can you ask?” replied MacMaster gallantly. + +Lady Mary smiled ironically. “But for what else, incidentally?” + +“Well, incidentally, I came to see Treffinger's studio and his +unfinished picture. Since I've been here, I've decided to stay the +summer. I'm even thinking of attempting to do a biography of him.” + +“So that is what brought you to London?” + +“Not exactly. I had really no intention of anything so serious when I +came. It's his last picture, I fancy, that has rather thrust it upon me. +The notion has settled down on me like a thing destined.” + +“You'll not be offended if I question the clemency of such a destiny,” + remarked Lady Mary dryly. “Isn't there rather a surplus of books on that +subject already?” + +“Such as they are. Oh, I've read them all”--here MacMaster faced Lady +Mary triumphantly. “He has quite escaped your amiable critics,” he +added, smiling. + +“I know well enough what you think, and I daresay we are not much on +art,” said Lady Mary with tolerant good humor. “We leave that to peoples +who have no physique. Treffinger made a stir for a time, but it +seems that we are not capable of a sustained appreciation of such +extraordinary methods. In the end we go back to the pictures we find +agreeable and unperplexing. He was regarded as an experiment, I fancy; +and now it seems that he was rather an unsuccessful one. If you've come +to us in a missionary spirit, we'll tolerate you politely, but we'll +laugh in our sleeve, I warn you.” + +“That really doesn't daunt me, Lady Mary,” declared MacMaster blandly. +“As I told you, I'm a man with a mission.” + +Lady Mary laughed her hoarse, baritone laugh. “Bravo! And you've come to +me for inspiration for your panegyric?” + +MacMaster smiled with some embarrassment. “Not altogether for that +purpose. But I want to consult you, Lady Mary, about the advisability +of troubling Lady Ellen Treffinger in the matter. It seems scarcely +legitimate to go on without asking her to give some sort of grace to my +proceedings, yet I feared the whole subject might be painful to her. I +shall rely wholly upon your discretion.” + +“I think she would prefer to be consulted,” replied Lady Mary +judicially. “I can't understand how she endures to have the wretched +affair continually raked up, but she does. She seems to feel a sort of +moral responsibility. Ellen has always been singularly conscientious +about this matter, insofar as her light goes,--which rather puzzles me, +as hers is not exactly a magnanimous nature. She is certainly trying to +do what she believes to be the right thing. I shall write to her, and +you can see her when she returns from Italy.” + +“I want very much to meet her. She is, I hope, quite recovered in every +way,” queried MacMaster, hesitatingly. + +“No, I can't say that she is. She has remained in much the same +condition she sank to before his death. He trampled over pretty much +whatever there was in her, I fancy. Women don't recover from wounds of +that sort--at least, not women of Ellen's grain. They go on bleeding +inwardly.” + +“You, at any rate, have not grown more reconciled,” MacMaster ventured. + +“Oh I give him his dues. He was a colorist, I grant you; but that is +a vague and unsatisfactory quality to marry to; Lady Ellen Treffinger +found it so.” + +“But, my dear Lady Mary,” expostulated MacMaster, “and just repress me +if I'm becoming too personal--but it must, in the first place, have been +a marriage of choice on her part as well as on his.” + +Lady Mary poised her glasses on her large forefinger and assumed an +attitude suggestive of the clinical lecture room as she replied. “Ellen, +my dear boy, is an essentially romantic person. She is quiet about it, +but she runs deep. I never knew how deep until I came against her on the +issue of that marriage. She was always discontented as a girl; she found +things dull and prosaic, and the ardor of his courtship was agreeable +to her. He met her during her first season in town. She is handsome, and +there were plenty of other men, but I grant you your scowling brigand +was the most picturesque of the lot. In his courtship, as in everything +else, he was theatrical to the point of being ridiculous, but Ellen's +sense of humor is not her strongest quality. He had the charm of +celebrity, the air of a man who could storm his way through anything +to get what he wanted. That sort of vehemence is particularly effective +with women like Ellen, who can be warmed only by reflected heat, and she +couldn't at all stand out against it. He convinced her of his necessity; +and that done, all's done.” + +“I can't help thinking that, even on such a basis, the marriage should +have turned out better,” MacMaster remarked reflectively. + +“The marriage,” Lady Mary continued with a shrug, “was made on the basis +of a mutual misunderstanding. Ellen, in the nature of the case, believed +that she was doing something quite out of the ordinary in accepting him, +and expected concessions which, apparently, it never occurred to him to +make. After his marriage he relapsed into his old habits of incessant +work, broken by violent and often brutal relaxations. He insulted her +friends and foisted his own upon her--many of them well calculated to +arouse aversion in any well-bred girl. He had Ghillini constantly at the +house--a homeless vagabond, whose conversation was impossible. I don't +say, mind you, that he had not grievances on his side. He had probably +overrated the girl's possibilities, and he let her see that he was +disappointed in her. Only a large and generous nature could have borne +with him, and Ellen's is not that. She could not at all understand that +odious strain of plebeian pride which plumes itself upon not having +risen above its sources.” + +As MacMaster drove back to his hotel he reflected that Lady Mary Percy +had probably had good cause for dissatisfaction with her brother-in-law. +Treffinger was, indeed, the last man who should have married into +the Percy family. The son of a small tobacconist, he had grown up a +sign-painter's apprentice; idle, lawless, and practically letterless +until he had drifted into the night classes of the Albert League, where +Ghillini sometimes lectured. From the moment he came under the eye and +influence of that erratic Italian, then a political exile, his life +had swerved sharply from its old channel. This man had been at once +incentive and guide, friend and master, to his pupil. He had taken the +raw clay out of the London streets and molded it anew. Seemingly he had +divined at once where the boy's possibilities lay, and had thrown aside +every canon of orthodox instruction in the training of him. Under +him Treffinger acquired his superficial, yet facile, knowledge of the +classics; had steeped himself in the monkish Latin and medieval romances +which later gave his work so naive and remote a quality. That was the +beginning of the wattle fences, the cobble pave, the brown roof beams, +the cunningly wrought fabrics that gave to his pictures such a richness +of decorative effect. + +As he had told Lady Mary Percy, MacMaster had found the imperative +inspiration of his purpose in Treffinger's unfinished picture, +the _Marriage of Phaedra_. He had always believed that the key to +Treffinger's individuality lay in his singular education; in the _Roman +de la Rose_, in Boccaccio, and Amadis, those works which had literally +transcribed themselves upon the blank soul of the London street boy, +and through which he had been born into the world of spiritual things. +Treffinger had been a man who lived after his imagination; and his mind, +his ideals and, as MacMaster believed, even his personal ethics, had to +the last been colored by the trend of his early training. There was in +him alike the freshness and spontaneity, the frank brutality and the +religious mysticism, which lay well back of the fifteenth century. In +the _Marriage of Phaedra_ MacMaster found the ultimate expression of +this spirit, the final word as to Treffinger's point of view. + +As in all Treffinger's classical subjects, the conception was wholly +medieval. This Phaedra, just turning from her husband and maidens to +greet her husband's son, giving him her first fearsome glance from +under her half-lifted veil, was no daughter of Minos. The daughter of +_heathenesse_ and the early church she was; doomed to torturing visions +and scourgings, and the wrangling of soul with flesh. The venerable +Theseus might have been victorious Charlemagne, and Phaedra's maidens +belonged rather in the train of Blanche of Castile than at the Cretan +court. In the earlier studies Hippolytus had been done with a more pagan +suggestion; but in each successive drawing the glorious figure had been +deflowered of something of its serene unconsciousness, until, in the +canvas under the skylight, he appeared a very Christian knight. +This male figure, and the face of Phaedra, painted with such magical +preservation of tone under the heavy shadow of the veil, were plainly +Treffinger's highest achievements of craftsmanship. By what labor he had +reached the seemingly inevitable composition of the picture--with its +twenty figures, its plenitude of light and air, its restful distances +seen through white porticoes--countless studies bore witness. + +From James's attitude toward the picture MacMaster could well conjecture +what the painter's had been. This picture was always uppermost in +James's mind; its custodianship formed, in his eyes, his occupation. +He was manifestly apprehensive when visitors--not many came +nowadays--lingered near it. “It was the _Marriage_ as killed 'im,” he +would often say, “and for the matter 'o that, it did like to 'av been +the death of all of us.” + +By the end of his second week in London MacMaster had begun the notes +for his study of Hugh Treffinger and his work. When his researches +led him occasionally to visit the studios of Treffinger's friends and +erstwhile disciples, he found their Treffinger manner fading as the +ring of Treffinger's personality died out in them. One by one they were +stealing back into the fold of national British art; the hand that +had wound them up was still. MacMaster despaired of them and confined +himself more and more exclusively to the studio, to such of Treffinger's +letters as were available--they were for the most part singularly +negative and colorless--and to his interrogation of Treffinger's man. + +He could not himself have traced the successive steps by which he was +gradually admitted into James's confidence. Certainly most of his adroit +strategies to that end failed humiliatingly, and whatever it was that +built up an understanding between them must have been instinctive and +intuitive on both sides. When at last James became anecdotal, personal, +there was that in every word he let fall which put breath and blood into +MacMaster's book. James had so long been steeped in that penetrating +personality that he fairly exuded it. Many of his very phrases, +mannerisms, and opinions were impressions that he had taken on like wet +plaster in his daily contact with Treffinger. Inwardly he was lined +with cast-off epitheliums, as outwardly he was clad in the painter's +discarded coats. If the painter's letters were formal and perfunctory, +if his expressions to his friends had been extravagant, contradictory, +and often apparently insincere--still, MacMaster felt himself not +entirely without authentic sources. It was James who possessed +Treffinger's legend; it was with James that he had laid aside his pose. +Only in his studio, alone, and face to face with his work, as it seemed, +had the man invariably been himself. James had known him in the one +attitude in which he was entirely honest; their relation had fallen +well within the painter's only indubitable integrity. James's report +of Treffinger was distorted by no hallucination of artistic insight, +colored by no interpretation of his own. He merely held what he +had heard and seen; his mind was a sort of camera obscura. His very +limitations made him the more literal and minutely accurate. + +One morning, when MacMaster was seated before the _Marriage of Phaedra_, +James entered on his usual round of dusting. + +“I've 'eard from Lydy Elling by the post, sir,” he remarked, “an' she's +give h'orders to 'ave the 'ouse put in readiness. I doubt she'll be 'ere +by Thursday or Friday next.” + +“She spends most of her time abroad?” queried MacMaster; on the subject +of Lady Treffinger James consistently maintained a very delicate +reserve. + +“Well, you could 'ardly say she does that, sir. She finds the 'ouse a +bit dull, I daresay, so durin' the season she stops mostly with Lydy +Mary Percy, at Grosvenor Square. Lydy Mary's a h'only sister.” After a +few moments he continued, speaking in jerks governed by the rigor of his +dusting: “H'only this morning I come upon this scarfpin,” exhibiting a +very striking instance of that article, “an' I recalled as 'ow Sir 'Ugh +give it me when 'e was acourting of Lydy Elling. Blowed if I ever see a +man go in for a 'oman like 'im! 'E was that gone, sir. 'E never went in +on anythink so 'ard before nor since, till 'e went in on the _Marriage_ +there--though 'e mostly went in on things pretty keen; 'ad the measles +when 'e was thirty, strong as cholera, an' come close to dyin' of 'em. +'E wasn't strong for Lydy Elling's set; they was a bit too stiff for +'im. A free an' easy gentleman, 'e was; 'e liked 'is dinner with a few +friends an' them jolly, but 'e wasn't much on what you might call big +affairs. But once 'e went in for Lydy Elling 'e broke 'imself to new +paces; He give away 'is rings an' pins, an' the tylor's man an' the +'aberdasher's man was at 'is rooms continual. 'E got 'imself put up +for a club in Piccadilly; 'e starved 'imself thin, an' worrited 'imself +white, an' ironed 'imself out, an' drawed 'imself tight as a bow string. +It was a good job 'e come a winner, or I don't know w'at'd 'a been to +pay.” + +The next week, in consequence of an invitation from Lady Ellen +Treffinger, MacMaster went one afternoon to take tea with her. He was +shown into the garden that lay between the residence and the studio, +where the tea table was set under a gnarled pear tree. Lady Ellen rose +as he approached--he was astonished to note how tall she was--and greeted +him graciously, saying that she already knew him through her sister. +MacMaster felt a certain satisfaction in her; in her reassuring poise +and repose, in the charming modulations of her voice and the indolent +reserve of her full, almond eyes. He was even delighted to find her +face so inscrutable, though it chilled his own warmth and made the open +frankness he had wished to permit himself impossible. It was a long +face, narrow at the chin, very delicately featured, yet steeled by an +impassive mask of self-control. It was behind just such finely cut, +close-sealed faces, MacMaster reflected, that nature sometimes hid +astonishing secrets. But in spite of this suggestion of hardness he +felt that the unerring taste that Treffinger had always shown in larger +matters had not deserted him when he came to the choosing of a wife, and +he admitted that he could not himself have selected a woman who looked +more as Treffinger's wife should look. + +While he was explaining the purpose of his frequent visits to the studio +she heard him with courteous interest. “I have read, I think, everything +that has been published on Sir Hugh Treffinger's work, and it seems to +me that there is much left to be said,” he concluded. + +“I believe they are rather inadequate,” she remarked vaguely. She +hesitated a moment, absently fingering the ribbons of her gown, then +continued, without raising her eyes; “I hope you will not think me too +exacting if I ask to see the proofs of such chapters of your work as +have to do with Sir Hugh's personal life. I have always asked that +privilege.” + +MacMaster hastily assured her as to this, adding, “I mean to touch on +only such facts in his personal life as have to do directly with his +work--such as his monkish education under Ghillini.” + +“I see your meaning, I think,” said Lady Ellen, looking at him with +wide, uncomprehending eyes. + +When MacMaster stopped at the studio on leaving the house he stood for +some time before Treffinger's one portrait of himself, that brigand of +a picture, with its full throat and square head; the short upper lip +blackened by the close-clipped mustache, the wiry hair tossed down over +the forehead, the strong white teeth set hard on a short pipestem. He +could well understand what manifold tortures the mere grain of the man's +strong red and brown flesh might have inflicted upon a woman like Lady +Ellen. He could conjecture, too, Treffinger's impotent revolt against +that very repose which had so dazzled him when it first defied his +daring; and how once possessed of it, his first instinct had been to +crush it, since he could not melt it. + +Toward the close of the season Lady Ellen Treffinger left town. +MacMaster's work was progressing rapidly, and he and James wore away +the days in their peculiar relation, which by this time had much of +friendliness. Excepting for the regular visits of a Jewish picture +dealer, there were few intrusions upon their solitude. Occasionally +a party of Americans rang at the little door in the garden wall, +but usually they departed speedily for the Moorish hall and tinkling +fountain of the great show studio of London, not far away. + +This Jew, an Austrian by birth, who had a large business in Melbourne, +Australia, was a man of considerable discrimination, and at once +selected the _Marriage of Phaedra_ as the object of his especial +interest. When, upon his first visit, Lichtenstein had declared the +picture one of the things done for time, MacMaster had rather warmed +toward him and had talked to him very freely. Later, however, the man's +repulsive personality and innate vulgarity so wore upon him that, the +more genuine the Jew's appreciation, the more he resented it and the +more base he somehow felt it to be. It annoyed him to see Lichtenstein +walking up and down before the picture, shaking his head and blinking +his watery eyes over his nose glasses, ejaculating: “Dot is a chem, a +chem! It is wordt to gome den dousant miles for such a bainting, eh? To +make Eurobe abbreciate such a work of ardt it is necessary to take it +away while she is napping. She has never abbreciated until she has lost, +but,” knowingly, “she will buy back.” + +James had, from the first, felt such a distrust of the man that he would +never leave him alone in the studio for a moment. When Lichtenstein +insisted upon having Lady Ellen Treffinger's address James rose to the +point of insolence. “It ayn't no use to give it, noway. Lydy Treffinger +never has nothink to do with dealers.” MacMaster quietly repented his +rash confidences, fearing that he might indirectly cause Lady Ellen +annoyance from this merciless speculator, and he recalled with chagrin +that Lichtenstein had extorted from him, little by little, pretty much +the entire plan of his book, and especially the place in it which the +_Marriage of Phaedra_ was to occupy. + +By this time the first chapters of MacMaster's book were in the hands +of his publisher, and his visits to the studio were necessarily less +frequent. The greater part of his time was now employed with the +engravers who were to reproduce such of Treffinger's pictures as he +intended to use as illustrations. + +He returned to his hotel late one evening after a long and vexing day at +the engravers to find James in his room, seated on his steamer trunk by +the window, with the outline of a great square draped in sheets resting +against his knee. + +“Why, James, what's up?” he cried in astonishment, glancing inquiringly +at the sheeted object. + +“Ayn't you seen the pypers, sir?” jerked out the man. + +“No, now I think of it, I haven't even looked at a paper. I've been at +the engravers' plant all day. I haven't seen anything.” + +James drew a copy of the _Times_ from his pocket and handed it to him, +pointing with a tragic finger to a paragraph in the social column. It +was merely the announcement of Lady Ellen Treffinger's engagement to +Captain Alexander Gresham. + +“Well, what of it, my man? That surely is her privilege.” + +James took the paper, turned to another page, and silently pointed to +a paragraph in the art notes which stated that Lady Treffinger had +presented to the X--gallery the entire collection of paintings and +sketches now in her late husband's studio, with the exception of his +unfinished picture, the _Marriage Of Phaedra_, which she had sold for +a large sum to an Australian dealer who had come to London purposely to +secure some of Treffinger's paintings. + +MacMaster pursed up his lips and sat down, his overcoat still on. +“Well, James, this is something of a--something of a jolt, eh? It never +occurred to me she'd really do it.” + +“Lord, you don't know 'er, sir,” said James bitterly, still staring at +the floor in an attitude of abandoned dejection. + +MacMaster started up in a flash of enlightenment, “What on earth have +you got there, James? It's not-surely it's not--” + +“Yes, it is, sir,” broke in the man excitedly. “It's the _Marriage_ +itself. It ayn't agoing to H'Australia, no'ow!” + +“But man, what are you going to do with it? It's Lichtenstein's property +now, as it seems.” + +“It ayn't, sir, that it ayn't. No, by Gawd, it ayn't!” shouted James, +breaking into a choking fury. He controlled himself with an effort +and added supplicatingly: “Oh, sir, you ayn't agoing to see it go to +H'Australia, w'ere they send convic's?” He unpinned and flung aside the +sheets as though to let _Phaedra_ plead for herself. + +MacMaster sat down again and looked sadly at the doomed masterpiece. +The notion of James having carried it across London that night rather +appealed to his fancy. There was certainly a flavor about such a +highhanded proceeding. “However did you get it here?” he queried. + +“I got a four-wheeler and come over direct, sir. Good job I 'appened to +'ave the chaynge about me.” + +“You came up High Street, up Piccadilly, through the Haymarket and +Trafalgar Square, and into the Strand?” queried MacMaster with a relish. + +“Yes, sir. Of course, sir,” assented James with surprise. + +MacMaster laughed delightedly. “It was a beautiful idea, James, but I'm +afraid we can't carry it any further.” + +“I was thinkin' as 'ow it would be a rare chance to get you to take the +_Marriage_ over to Paris for a year or two, sir, until the thing blows +over?” suggested James blandly. + +“I'm afraid that's out of the question, James. I haven't the right stuff +in me for a pirate, or even a vulgar smuggler, I'm afraid.” MacMaster +found it surprisingly difficult to say this, and he busied himself with +the lamp as he said it. He heard James's hand fall heavily on the trunk +top, and he discovered that he very much disliked sinking in the man's +estimation. + +“Well, sir,” remarked James in a more formal tone, after a protracted +silence; “then there's nothink for it but as 'ow I'll 'ave to make way +with it myself.” + +“And how about your character, James? The evidence would be heavy +against you, and even if Lady Treffinger didn't prosecute you'd be done +for.” + +“Blow my character!--your pardon, sir,” cried James, starting to his +feet. “W'at do I want of a character? I'll chuck the 'ole thing, and +damned lively, too. The shop's to be sold out, an' my place is gone +any'ow. I'm agoing to enlist, or try the gold fields. I've lived too +long with h'artists; I'd never give satisfaction in livery now. You know +'ow it is yourself, sir; there ayn't no life like it, no'ow.” + +For a moment MacMaster was almost equal to abetting James in his theft. +He reflected that pictures had been whitewashed, or hidden in the crypts +of churches, or under the floors of palaces from meaner motives, and to +save them from a fate less ignominious. But presently, with a sigh, he +shook his head. + +“No, James, it won't do at all. It has been tried over and over again, +ever since the world has been agoing and pictures amaking. It was tried +in Florence and in Venice, but the pictures were always carried away in +the end. You see, the difficulty is that although Treffinger told you +what was not to be done with the picture, he did not say definitely what +was to be done with it. Do you think Lady Treffinger really understands +that he did not want it to be sold?” + +“Well, sir, it was like this, sir,” said James, resuming his seat on the +trunk and again resting the picture against his knee. “My memory is as +clear as glass about it. After Sir 'Ugh got up from 'is first stroke, 'e +took a fresh start at the _Marriage_. Before that 'e 'ad been working +at it only at night for a while back; the _Legend_ was the big picture +then, an' was under the north light w'ere 'e worked of a morning. But +one day 'e bid me take the _Legend_ down an' put the _Marriage_ in its +place, an' 'e says, dashin' on 'is jacket, 'Jymes, this is a start for +the finish, this time.' + +“From that on 'e worked at the night picture in the mornin'--a thing +contrary to 'is custom. The _Marriage_ went wrong, and wrong--an' Sir +'Ugh agettin' seedier an' seedier every day. 'E tried models an' models, +an' smudged an' pynted out on account of 'er face goin' wrong in the +shadow. Sometimes 'e layed it on the colors, an' swore at me an' things +in general. He got that discouraged about 'imself that on 'is low days +'e used to say to me: 'Jymes, remember one thing; if anythink 'appens to +me, the _Marriage_ is not to go out of 'ere unfinished. It's worth the +lot of 'em, my boy, an' it's not agoing to go shabby for lack of pains.' +'E said things to that effect repeated. + +“He was workin' at the picture the last day, before 'e went to 'is club. +'E kept the carriage waitin' near an hour while 'e put on a stroke an' +then drawed back for to look at it, an' then put on another, careful +like. After 'e 'ad 'is gloves on, 'e come back an' took away the brushes +I was startin' to clean, an' put in another touch or two. 'It's acomin', +Jymes,' 'e says, 'by gad if it ayn't.' An' with that 'e goes out. It was +cruel sudden, w'at come after. + +“That night I was lookin' to 'is clothes at the 'ouse when they brought +'im 'ome. He was conscious, but w'en I ran downstairs for to 'elp lift +'im up, I knowed 'e was a finished man. After we got 'im into bed 'e +kept lookin' restless at me and then at Lydy Elling and ajerkin' of 'is +'and. Finally 'e quite raised it an' shot 'is thumb out toward the wall. +'He wants water; ring, Jymes,' says Lydy Elling, placid. But I knowed 'e +was pointin' to the shop. + +“'Lydy Treffinger,' says I, bold, 'he's pointin' to the studio. He means +about the _Marriage_; 'e told me today as 'ow 'e never wanted it sold +unfinished. Is that it, Sir 'Ugh?' + +“He smiled an' nodded slight an' closed 'is eyes. 'Thank you, Jymes,' +says Lydy Elling, placid. Then 'e opened 'is eyes an' looked long and +'ard at Lydy Elling. + +“'Of course I'll try to do as you'd wish about the picture, 'Ugh, if +that's w'at's troublin' you,' she says quiet. With that 'e closed 'is +eyes and 'e never opened 'em. He died unconscious at four that mornin'. + +“You see, sir, Lydy Elling was always cruel 'ard on the _Marriage_. From +the first it went wrong, an' Sir 'Ugh was out of temper pretty constant. +She came into the studio one day and looked at the picture an 'asked +'im why 'e didn't throw it up an' quit aworriting 'imself. He answered +sharp, an' with that she said as 'ow she didn't see w'at there was to +make such a row about, no'ow. She spoke 'er mind about that picture, +free; an' Sir 'Ugh swore 'ot an' let a 'andful of brushes fly at 'is +study, an' Lydy Elling picked up 'er skirts careful an' chill, an' +drifted out of the studio with 'er eyes calm and 'er chin 'igh. If there +was one thing Lydy Elling 'ad no comprehension of, it was the usefulness +of swearin'. So the _Marriage_ was a sore thing between 'em. She is +uncommon calm, but uncommon bitter, is Lydy Elling. She's never come +anear the studio since that day she went out 'oldin' up of 'er skirts. +W'en 'er friends goes over she excuses 'erself along o' the strain. +Strain--Gawd!” James ground his wrath short in his teeth. + +“I'll tell you what I'll do, James, and it's our only hope. I'll see +Lady Ellen tomorrow. The _Times_ says she returned today. You take the +picture back to its place, and I'll do what I can for it. If anything is +done to save it, it must be done through Lady Ellen Treffinger herself, +that much is clear. I can't think that she fully understands the +situation. If she did, you know, she really couldn't have any motive--” + He stopped suddenly. Somehow, in the dusky lamplight, her small, +close-sealed face came ominously back to him. He rubbed his forehead +and knitted his brows thoughtfully. After a moment he shook his head +and went on: “I am positive that nothing can be gained by highhanded +methods, James. Captain Gresham is one of the most popular men in +London, and his friends would tear up Treffinger's bones if he were +annoyed by any scandal of our making--and this scheme you propose would +inevitably result in scandal. Lady Ellen has, of course, every legal +right to sell the picture. Treffinger made considerable inroads upon +her estate, and, as she is about to marry a man without income, she +doubtless feels that she has a right to replenish her patrimony.” + +He found James amenable, though doggedly skeptical. He went down into +the street, called a carriage, and saw James and his burden into it. +Standing in the doorway, he watched the carriage roll away through +the drizzling mist, weave in and out among the wet, black vehicles and +darting cab lights, until it was swallowed up in the glare and confusion +of the Strand. “It is rather a fine touch of irony,” he reflected, +“that he, who is so out of it, should be the one to really care. Poor +Treffinger,” he murmured as, with a rather spiritless smile, he turned +back into his hotel. “Poor Treffinger; _sic transit gloria_.” + +The next afternoon MacMaster kept his promise. When he arrived at Lady +Mary Percy's house he saw preparations for a function of some sort, but +he went resolutely up the steps, telling the footman that his business +was urgent. Lady Ellen came down alone, excusing her sister. She was +dressed for receiving, and MacMaster had never seen one so beautiful. +The color in her cheeks sent a softening glow over her small, delicately +cut features. + +MacMaster apologized for his intrusion and came unflinchingly to the +object of his call. He had come, he said, not only to offer her his +warmest congratulations, but to express his regret that a great work of +art was to leave England. + +Lady Treffinger looked at him in wide-eyed astonishment. Surely, she +said, she had been careful to select the best of the pictures for the +X--- gallery, in accordance with Sir Hugh Treffinger's wishes. + +“And did he--pardon me, Lady Treffinger, but in mercy set my mind at +rest--did he or did he not express any definite wish concerning this one +picture, which to me seems worth all the others, unfinished as it is?” + +Lady Treffinger paled perceptibly, but it was not the pallor of +confusion. When she spoke there was a sharp tremor in her smooth voice, +the edge of a resentment that tore her like pain. “I think his man has +some such impression, but I believe it to be utterly unfounded. I cannot +find that he ever expressed any wish concerning the disposition of the +picture to any of his friends. Unfortunately, Sir Hugh was not always +discreet in his remarks to his servants.” + +“Captain Gresham, Lady Ellingham, and Miss Ellingham,” announced a +servant, appearing at the door. + +There was a murmur in the hall, and MacMaster greeted the smiling +Captain and his aunt as he bowed himself out. + +To all intents and purposes the _Marriage of Phaedra_ was already +entombed in a vague continent in the Pacific, somewhere on the other +side of the world. + + + + +A Wagner Matinee + +I received one morning a letter, written in pale ink on glassy, +blue-lined notepaper, and bearing the postmark of a little Nebraska +village. This communication, worn and rubbed, looking as though it had +been carried for some days in a coat pocket that was none too clean, was +from my Uncle Howard and informed me that his wife had been left a small +legacy by a bachelor relative who had recently died, and that it would +be necessary for her to go to Boston to attend to the settling of +the estate. He requested me to meet her at the station and render her +whatever services might be necessary. On examining the date indicated +as that of her arrival I found it no later than tomorrow. He had +characteristically delayed writing until, had I been away from home for +a day, I must have missed the good woman altogether. + +The name of my Aunt Georgiana called up not alone her own figure, +at once pathetic and grotesque, but opened before my feet a gulf of +recollection so wide and deep that, as the letter dropped from my +hand, I felt suddenly a stranger to all the present conditions of +my existence, wholly ill at ease and out of place amid the familiar +surroundings of my study. I became, in short, the gangling farm boy +my aunt had known, scourged with chilblains and bashfulness, my hands +cracked and sore from the corn husking. I felt the knuckles of my thumb +tentatively, as though they were raw again. I sat again before her +parlor organ, fumbling the scales with my stiff, red hands, while she, +beside me, made canvas mittens for the huskers. + +The next morning, after preparing my landlady somewhat, I set out for +the station. When the train arrived I had some difficulty in finding my +aunt. She was the last of the passengers to alight, and it was not until +I got her into the carriage that she seemed really to recognize me. She +had come all the way in a day coach; her linen duster had become black +with soot, and her black bonnet gray with dust, during the journey. When +we arrived at my boardinghouse the landlady put her to bed at once and I +did not see her again until the next morning. + +Whatever shock Mrs. Springer experienced at my aunt's appearance she +considerately concealed. As for myself, I saw my aunt's misshapen figure +with that feeling of awe and respect with which we behold explorers who +have left their ears and fingers north of Franz Josef Land, or their +health somewhere along the Upper Congo. My Aunt Georgiana had been a +music teacher at the Boston Conservatory, somewhere back in the latter +sixties. One summer, while visiting in the little village among the +Green Mountains where her ancestors had dwelt for generations, she +had kindled the callow fancy of the most idle and shiftless of all the +village lads, and had conceived for this Howard Carpenter one of +those extravagant passions which a handsome country boy of twenty-one +sometimes inspires in an angular, spectacled woman of thirty. When she +returned to her duties in Boston, Howard followed her, and the upshot of +this inexplicable infatuation was that she eloped with him, eluding the +reproaches of her family and the criticisms of her friends by going with +him to the Nebraska frontier. Carpenter, who, of course, had no money, +had taken a homestead in Red Willow County, fifty miles from the +railroad. There they had measured off their quarter section themselves +by driving across the prairie in a wagon, to the wheel of which they had +tied a red cotton handkerchief, and counting off its revolutions. They +built a dugout in the red hillside, one of those cave dwellings whose +inmates so often reverted to primitive conditions. Their water they got +from the lagoons where the buffalo drank, and their slender stock of +provisions was always at the mercy of bands of roving Indians. For +thirty years my aunt had not been further than fifty miles from the +homestead. + +But Mrs. Springer knew nothing of all this, and must have been +considerably shocked at what was left of my kinswoman. Beneath the +soiled linen duster which, on her arrival, was the most conspicuous +feature of her costume, she wore a black stuff dress, whose +ornamentation showed that she had surrendered herself unquestioningly +into the hands of a country dressmaker. My poor aunt's figure, however, +would have presented astonishing difficulties to any dressmaker. +Originally stooped, her shoulders were now almost bent together over her +sunken chest. She wore no stays, and her gown, which trailed unevenly +behind, rose in a sort of peak over her abdomen. She wore ill-fitting +false teeth, and her skin was as yellow as a Mongolian's from constant +exposure to a pitiless wind and to the alkaline water which hardens the +most transparent cuticle into a sort of flexible leather. + +I owed to this woman most of the good that ever came my way in my +boyhood, and had a reverential affection for her. During the years +when I was riding herd for my uncle, my aunt, after cooking the three +meals--the first of which was ready at six o'clock in the morning-and +putting the six children to bed, would often stand until midnight at +her ironing board, with me at the kitchen table beside her, hearing me +recite Latin declensions and conjugations, gently shaking me when my +drowsy head sank down over a page of irregular verbs. It was to her, at +her ironing or mending, that I read my first Shakespeare', and her old +textbook on mythology was the first that ever came into my empty hands. +She taught me my scales and exercises, too--on the little parlor organ, +which her husband had bought her after fifteen years, during which she +had not so much as seen any instrument, but an accordion that belonged +to one of the Norwegian farmhands. She would sit beside me by the hour, +darning and counting while I struggled with the “Joyous Farmer,” but she +seldom talked to me about music, and I understood why. She was a pious +woman; she had the consolations of religion and, to her at least, her +martyrdom was not wholly sordid. Once when I had been doggedly beating +out some easy passages from an old score of _Euryanthe_ I had found +among her music books, she came up to me and, putting her hands over my +eyes, gently drew my head back upon her shoulder, saying tremulously, +“Don't love it so well, Clark, or it may be taken from you. Oh, dear +boy, pray that whatever your sacrifice may be, it be not that.” + +When my aunt appeared on the morning after her arrival she was still in +a semi-somnambulant state. She seemed not to realize that she was in the +city where she had spent her youth, the place longed for hungrily half +a lifetime. She had been so wretchedly train-sick throughout the journey +that she had no recollection of anything but her discomfort, and, to all +intents and purposes, there were but a few hours of nightmare between +the farm in Red Willow County and my study on Newbury Street. I had +planned a little pleasure for her that afternoon, to repay her for some +of the glorious moments she had given me when we used to milk together +in the straw-thatched cowshed and she, because I was more than usually +tired, or because her husband had spoken sharply to me, would tell me +of the splendid performance of the _Huguenots_ she had seen in Paris, +in her youth. At two o'clock the Symphony Orchestra was to give a Wagner +program, and I intended to take my aunt; though, as I conversed with her +I grew doubtful about her enjoyment of it. Indeed, for her own sake, +I could only wish her taste for such things quite dead, and the +long struggle mercifully ended at last. I suggested our visiting the +Conservatory and the Common before lunch, but she seemed altogether too +timid to wish to venture out. She questioned me absently about various +changes in the city, but she was chiefly concerned that she had +forgotten to leave instructions about feeding half-skimmed milk to +a certain weakling calf, “old Maggie's calf, you know, Clark,” she +explained, evidently having forgotten how long I had been away. She was +further troubled because she had neglected to tell her daughter about +the freshly opened kit of mackerel in the cellar, which would spoil if +it were not used directly. + +I asked her whether she had ever heard any of the Wagnerian operas and +found that she had not, though she was perfectly familiar with their +respective situations, and had once possessed the piano score of _The +Flying Dutchman_. I began to think it would have been best to get her +back to Red Willow County without waking her, and regretted having +suggested the concert. + +From the time we entered the concert hall, however, she was a trifle +less passive and inert, and for the first time seemed to perceive her +surroundings. I had felt some trepidation lest she might become aware +of the absurdities of her attire, or might experience some painful +embarrassment at stepping suddenly into the world to which she had been +dead for a quarter of a century. But, again, I found how superficially +I had judged her. She sat looking about her with eyes as impersonal, +almost as stony, as those with which the granite Rameses in a +museum watches the froth and fret that ebbs and flows about his +pedestal-separated from it by the lonely stretch of centuries. I have +seen this same aloofness in old miners who drift into the Brown Hotel at +Denver, their pockets full of bullion, their linen soiled, their haggard +faces unshaven; standing in the thronged corridors as solitary as though +they were still in a frozen camp on the Yukon, conscious that certain +experiences have isolated them from their fellows by a gulf no +haberdasher could bridge. + +We sat at the extreme left of the first balcony, facing the arch of our +own and the balcony above us, veritable hanging gardens, brilliant as +tulip beds. The matinee audience was made up chiefly of women. One +lost the contour of faces and figures--indeed, any effect of line +whatever--and there was only the color of bodices past counting, the +shimmer of fabrics soft and firm, silky and sheer: red, mauve, pink, +blue, lilac, purple, ecru, rose, yellow, cream, and white, all the +colors that an impressionist finds in a sunlit landscape, with here and +there the dead shadow of a frock coat. My Aunt Georgiana regarded them +as though they had been so many daubs of tube-paint on a palette. + +When the musicians came out and took their places, she gave a little +stir of anticipation and looked with quickening interest down over the +rail at that invariable grouping, perhaps the first wholly familiar +thing that had greeted her eye since she had left old Maggie and her +weakling calf. I could feel how all those details sank into her soul, +for I had not forgotten how they had sunk into mine when I came fresh +from plowing forever and forever between green aisles of corn, where, as +in a treadmill, one might walk from daybreak to dusk without perceiving +a shadow of change. The clean profiles of the musicians, the gloss of +their linen, the dull black of their coats, the beloved shapes of the +instruments, the patches of yellow light thrown by the green-shaded +lamps on the smooth, varnished bellies of the cellos and the bass viols +in the rear, the restless, wind-tossed forest of fiddle necks and bows--I +recalled how, in the first orchestra I had ever heard, those long bow +strokes seemed to draw the heart out of me, as a conjurer's stick reels +out yards of paper ribbon from a hat. + +The first number was the _Tannhauser_ overture. When the horns drew out +the first strain of the Pilgrim's chorus my Aunt Georgiana clutched +my coat sleeve. Then it was I first realized that for her this broke a +silence of thirty years; the inconceivable silence of the plains. With +the battle between the two motives, with the frenzy of the Venusberg +theme and its ripping of strings, there came to me an overwhelming sense +of the waste and wear we are so powerless to combat; and I saw again the +tall, naked house on the prairie, black and grim as a wooden fortress; +the black pond where I had learned to swim, its margin pitted with +sun-dried cattle tracks; the rain-gullied clay banks about the naked +house, the four dwarf ash seedlings where the dishcloths were always +hung to dry before the kitchen door. The world there was the flat world +of the ancients; to the east, a cornfield that stretched to daybreak; +to the west, a corral that reached to sunset; between, the conquests of +peace, dearer bought than those of war. + +The overture closed; my aunt released my coat sleeve, but she said +nothing. She sat staring at the orchestra through a dullness of thirty +years, through the films made little by little by each of the three +hundred and sixty-five days in every one of them. What, I wondered, did +she get from it? She had been a good pianist in her day I knew, and her +musical education had been broader than that of most music teachers of +a quarter of a century ago. She had often told me of Mozart's operas and +Meyerbeer's, and I could remember hearing her sing, years ago, certain +melodies of Verdi's. When I had fallen ill with a fever in her house she +used to sit by my cot in the evening--when the cool, night wind blew +in through the faded mosquito netting tacked over the window, and I lay +watching a certain bright star that burned red above the cornfield--and +sing “Home to our mountains, O, let us return!” in a way fit to break +the heart of a Vermont boy near dead of homesickness already. + +I watched her closely through the prelude to _Tristan and Isolde_, +trying vainly to conjecture what that seething turmoil of strings and +winds might mean to her, but she sat mutely staring at the violin bows +that drove obliquely downward, like the pelting streaks of rain in a +summer shower. Had this music any message for her? Had she enough left +to at all comprehend this power which had kindled the world since she +had left it? I was in a fever of curiosity, but Aunt Georgiana sat +silent upon her peak in Darien. She preserved this utter immobility +throughout the number from _The Flying Dutchman_, though her fingers +worked mechanically upon her black dress, as though, of themselves, they +were recalling the piano score they had once played. Poor old hands! +They had been stretched and twisted into mere tentacles to hold and +lift and knead with; the palms unduly swollen, the fingers bent and +knotted--on one of them a thin, worn band that had once been a wedding +ring. As I pressed and gently quieted one of those groping hands I +remembered with quivering eyelids their services for me in other days. + +Soon after the tenor began the “Prize Song,” I heard a quick drawn +breath and turned to my aunt. Her eyes were closed, but the tears were +glistening on her cheeks, and I think, in a moment more, they were in +my eyes as well. It never really died, then--the soul that can suffer so +excruciatingly and so interminably; it withers to the outward eye only; +like that strange moss which can lie on a dusty shelf half a century and +yet, if placed in water, grows green again. She wept so throughout the +development and elaboration of the melody. + +During the intermission before the second half of the concert, I +questioned my aunt and found that the “Prize Song” was not new to her. +Some years before there had drifted to the farm in Red Willow County a +young German, a tramp cowpuncher, who had sung the chorus at Bayreuth, +when he was a boy, along with the other peasant boys and girls. Of a +Sunday morning he used to sit on his gingham-sheeted bed in the hands' +bedroom which opened off the kitchen, cleaning the leather of his boots +and saddle, singing the “Prize Song,” while my aunt went about her work +in the kitchen. She had hovered about him until she had prevailed upon +him to join the country church, though his sole fitness for this step, +insofar as I could gather, lay in his boyish face and his possession of +this divine melody. Shortly afterward he had gone to town on the Fourth +of July, been drunk for several days, lost his money at a faro table, +ridden a saddled Texan steer on a bet, and disappeared with a fractured +collarbone. All this my aunt told me huskily, wanderingly, as though she +were talking in the weak lapses of illness. + +“Well, we have come to better things than the old _Trovatore_ at any +rate, Aunt Georgie?” I queried, with a well-meant effort at jocularity. + +Her lip quivered and she hastily put her handkerchief up to her mouth. +From behind it she murmured, “And you have been hearing this ever +since you left me, Clark?” Her question was the gentlest and saddest of +reproaches. + +The second half of the program consisted of four numbers from the +_Ring_, and closed with Siegfried's funeral march. My aunt wept quietly, +but almost continuously, as a shallow vessel overflows in a rainstorm. +From time to time her dim eyes looked up at the lights which studded the +ceiling, burning softly under their dull glass globes; doubtless they +were stars in truth to her. I was still perplexed as to what measure of +musical comprehension was left to her, she who had heard nothing but +the singing of gospel hymns at Methodist services in the square frame +schoolhouse on Section Thirteen for so many years. I was wholly unable +to gauge how much of it had been dissolved in soapsuds, or worked into +bread, or milked into the bottom of a pail. + +The deluge of sound poured on and on; I never knew what she found in the +shining current of it; I never knew how far it bore her, or past what +happy islands. From the trembling of her face I could well believe that +before the last numbers she had been carried out where the myriad graves +are, into the gray, nameless burying grounds of the sea; or into some +world of death vaster yet, where, from the beginning of the world, hope +has lain down with hope and dream with dream and, renouncing, slept. + +The concert was over; the people filed out of the hall chattering +and laughing, glad to relax and find the living level again, but my +kinswoman made no effort to rise. The harpist slipped its green felt +cover over his instrument; the flute players shook the water from their +mouthpieces; the men of the orchestra went out one by one, leaving the +stage to the chairs and music stands, empty as a winter cornfield. + +I spoke to my aunt. She burst into tears and sobbed pleadingly. “I don't +want to go, Clark, I don't want to go!” + +I understood. For her, just outside the door of the concert hall, lay +the black pond with the cattle-tracked bluffs; the tall, unpainted +house, with weather-curled boards; naked as a tower, the crook-backed +ash seedlings where the dishcloths hung to dry; the gaunt, molting +turkeys picking up refuse about the kitchen door. + + + + +Paul's Case + +_A Study in Temperament_ + +It was Paul's afternoon to appear before the faculty of the Pittsburgh +High School to account for his various misdemeanors. He had been +suspended a week ago, and his father had called at the Principal's +office and confessed his perplexity about his son. Paul entered the +faculty room suave and smiling. His clothes were a trifle outgrown, and +the tan velvet on the collar of his open overcoat was frayed and worn; +but for all that there was something of the dandy about him, and he +wore an opal pin in his neatly knotted black four-in-hand, and a red +carnation in his buttonhole. This latter adornment the faculty somehow +felt was not properly significant of the contrite spirit befitting a boy +under the ban of suspension. + +Paul was tall for his age and very thin, with high, cramped shoulders +and a narrow chest. His eyes were remarkable for a certain hysterical +brilliancy, and he continually used them in a conscious, theatrical sort +of way, peculiarly offensive in a boy. The pupils were abnormally large, +as though he were addicted to belladonna, but there was a glassy glitter +about them which that drug does not produce. + +When questioned by the Principal as to why he was there Paul stated, +politely enough, that he wanted to come back to school. This was a lie, +but Paul was quite accustomed to lying; found it, indeed, indispensable +for overcoming friction. His teachers were asked to state their +respective charges against him, which they did with such a rancor and +aggrievedness as evinced that this was not a usual case, Disorder and +impertinence were among the offenses named, yet each of his instructors +felt that it was scarcely possible to put into words the real cause of +the trouble, which lay in a sort of hysterically defiant manner of the +boy's; in the contempt which they all knew he felt for them, and which +he seemingly made not the least effort to conceal. Once, when he had +been making a synopsis of a paragraph at the blackboard, his English +teacher had stepped to his side and attempted to guide his hand. Paul +had started back with a shudder and thrust his hands violently behind +him. The astonished woman could scarcely have been more hurt and +embarrassed had he struck at her. The insult was so involuntary and +definitely personal as to be unforgettable. In one way and another he +had made all his teachers, men and women alike, conscious of the same +feeling of physical aversion. In one class he habitually sat with his +hand shading his eyes; in another he always looked out of the window +during the recitation; in another he made a running commentary on the +lecture, with humorous intention. + +His teachers felt this afternoon that his whole attitude was symbolized +by his shrug and his flippantly red carnation flower, and they fell +upon him without mercy, his English teacher leading the pack. He stood +through it smiling, his pale lips parted over his white teeth. (His lips +were continually twitching, and he had a habit of raising his eyebrows +that was contemptuous and irritating to the last degree.) Older boys +than Paul had broken down and shed tears under that baptism of fire, but +his set smile did not once desert him, and his only sign of discomfort +was the nervous trembling of the fingers that toyed with the buttons of +his overcoat, and an occasional jerking of the other hand that held his +hat. Paul was always smiling, always glancing about him, seeming to feel +that people might be watching him and trying to detect something. +This conscious expression, since it was as far as possible from boyish +mirthfulness, was usually attributed to insolence or “smartness.” + +As the inquisition proceeded one of his instructors repeated an +impertinent remark of the boy's, and the Principal asked him whether he +thought that a courteous speech to have made a woman. Paul shrugged his +shoulders slightly and his eyebrows twitched. + +“I don't know,” he replied. “I didn't mean to be polite or impolite, +either. I guess it's a sort of way I have of saying things regardless.” + +The Principal, who was a sympathetic man, asked him whether he didn't +think that a way it would be well to get rid of. Paul grinned and said +he guessed so. When he was told that he could go he bowed gracefully and +went out. His bow was but a repetition of the scandalous red carnation. + +His teachers were in despair, and his drawing master voiced the feeling +of them all when he declared there was something about the boy which +none of them understood. He added: “I don't really believe that smile of +his comes altogether from insolence; there's something sort of haunted +about it. The boy is not strong, for one thing. I happen to know that he +was born in Colorado, only a few months before his mother died out there +of a long illness. There is something wrong about the fellow.” + +The drawing master had come to realize that, in looking at Paul, one +saw only his white teeth and the forced animation of his eyes. One warm +afternoon the boy had gone to sleep at his drawing board, and his master +had noted with amazement what a white, blue-veined face it was; drawn +and wrinkled like an old man's about the eyes, the lips twitching even +in his sleep, and stiff with a nervous tension that drew them back from +his teeth. + +His teachers left the building dissatisfied and unhappy; humiliated to +have felt so vindictive toward a mere boy, to have uttered this feeling +in cutting terms, and to have set each other on, as it were, in the +gruesome game of intemperate reproach. Some of them remembered having +seen a miserable street cat set at bay by a ring of tormentors. + +As for Paul, he ran down the hill whistling the “Soldiers' Chorus” from +_Faust_, looking wildly behind him now and then to see whether some of +his teachers were not there to writhe under his lightheartedness. As it +was now late in the afternoon and Paul was on duty that evening as usher +at Carnegie Hall, he decided that he would not go home to supper. When +he reached the concert hall the doors were not yet open and, as it was +chilly outside, he decided to go up into the picture gallery--always +deserted at this hour--where there were some of Raffelli's gay studies +of Paris streets and an airy blue Venetian scene or two that always +exhilarated him. He was delighted to find no one in the gallery but the +old guard, who sat in one corner, a newspaper on his knee, a black patch +over one eye and the other closed. Paul possessed himself of the peace +and walked confidently up and down, whistling under his breath. After a +while he sat down before a blue Rico and lost himself. When he bethought +him to look at his watch, it was after seven o'clock, and he rose with +a start and ran downstairs, making a face at Augustus, peering out from +the cast room, and an evil gesture at the Venus de Milo as he passed her +on the stairway. + +When Paul reached the ushers' dressing room half a dozen boys were there +already, and he began excitedly to tumble into his uniform. It was one +of the few that at all approached fitting, and Paul thought it very +becoming--though he knew that the tight, straight coat accentuated his +narrow chest, about which he was exceedingly sensitive. He was always +considerably excited while he dressed, twanging all over to the tuning +of the strings and the preliminary flourishes of the horns in the music +room; but tonight he seemed quite beside himself, and he teased and +plagued the boys until, telling him that he was crazy, they put him down +on the floor and sat on him. + +Somewhat calmed by his suppression, Paul dashed out to the front of +the house to seat the early comers. He was a model usher; gracious and +smiling he ran up and down the aisles; nothing was too much trouble +for him; he carried messages and brought programs as though it were his +greatest pleasure in life, and all the people in his section thought +him a charming boy, feeling that he remembered and admired them. As +the house filled, he grew more and more vivacious and animated, and the +color came to his cheeks and lips. It was very much as though this were +a great reception and Paul were the host. Just as the musicians came out +to take their places, his English teacher arrived with checks for the +seats which a prominent manufacturer had taken for the season. She +betrayed some embarrassment when she handed Paul the tickets, and a +hauteur which subsequently made her feel very foolish. Paul was startled +for a moment, and had the feeling of wanting to put her out; what +business had she here among all these fine people and gay colors? He +looked her over and decided that she was not appropriately dressed and +must be a fool to sit downstairs in such togs. The tickets had probably +been sent her out of kindness, he reflected as he put down a seat for +her, and she had about as much right to sit there as he had. + +When the symphony began Paul sank into one of the rear seats with a long +sigh of relief, and lost himself as he had done before the Rico. It was +not that symphonies, as such, meant anything in particular to Paul, +but the first sigh of the instruments seemed to free some hilarious and +potent spirit within him; something that struggled there like the genie +in the bottle found by the Arab fisherman. He felt a sudden zest of +life; the lights danced before his eyes and the concert hall blazed into +unimaginable splendor. When the soprano soloist came on Paul forgot even +the nastiness of his teacher's being there and gave himself up to +the peculiar stimulus such personages always had for him. The soloist +chanced to be a German woman, by no means in her first youth, and the +mother of many children; but she wore an elaborate gown and a tiara, and +above all she had that indefinable air of achievement, that world-shine +upon her, which, in Paul's eyes, made her a veritable queen of Romance. + +After a concert was over Paul was always irritable and wretched until he +got to sleep, and tonight he was even more than usually restless. He had +the feeling of not being able to let down, of its being impossible to +give up this delicious excitement which was the only thing that could +be called living at all. During the last number he withdrew and, after +hastily changing his clothes in the dressing room, slipped out to the +side door where the soprano's carriage stood. Here he began pacing +rapidly up and down the walk, waiting to see her come out. + +Over yonder, the Schenley, in its vacant stretch, loomed big and square +through the fine rain, the windows of its twelve stories glowing like +those of a lighted cardboard house under a Christmas tree. All the +actors and singers of the better class stayed there when they were in +the city, and a number of the big manufacturers of the place lived there +in the winter. Paul had often hung about the hotel, watching the people +go in and out, longing to enter and leave schoolmasters and dull care +behind him forever. + +At last the singer came out, accompanied by the conductor, who +helped her into her carriage and closed the door with a cordial _auf +wiedersehen_ which set Paul to wondering whether she were not an old +sweetheart of his. Paul followed the carriage over to the hotel, walking +so rapidly as not to be far from the entrance when the singer alighted, +and disappeared behind the swinging glass doors that were opened by a +Negro in a tall hat and a long coat. In the moment that the door was +ajar it seemed to Paul that he, too, entered. He seemed to feel himself +go after her up the steps, into the warm, lighted building, into an +exotic, tropical world of shiny, glistening surfaces and basking ease. +He reflected upon the mysterious dishes that were brought into the +dining room, the green bottles in buckets of ice, as he had seen them in +the supper party pictures of the _Sunday World_ supplement. A quick +gust of wind brought the rain down with sudden vehemence, and Paul was +startled to find that he was still outside in the slush of the gravel +driveway; that his boots were letting in the water and his scanty +overcoat was clinging wet about him; that the lights in front of the +concert hall were out and that the rain was driving in sheets between +him and the orange glow of the windows above him. There it was, what +he wanted--tangibly before him, like the fairy world of a Christmas +pantomime--but mocking spirits stood guard at the doors, and, as the +rain beat in his face, Paul wondered whether he were destined always to +shiver in the black night outside, looking up at it. + +He turned and walked reluctantly toward the car tracks. The end had to +come sometime; his father in his nightclothes at the top of the stairs, +explanations that did not explain, hastily improvised fictions that +were forever tripping him up, his upstairs room and its horrible yellow +wallpaper, the creaking bureau with the greasy plush collarbox, and +over his painted wooden bed the pictures of George Washington and John +Calvin, and the framed motto, “Feed my Lambs,” which had been worked in +red worsted by his mother. + +Half an hour later Paul alighted from his car and went slowly down +one of the side streets off the main thoroughfare. It was a highly +respectable street, where all the houses were exactly alike, and +where businessmen of moderate means begot and reared large families of +children, all of whom went to Sabbath school and learned the shorter +catechism, and were interested in arithmetic; all of whom were as +exactly alike as their homes, and of a piece with the monotony in which +they lived. Paul never went up Cordelia Street without a shudder of +loathing. His home was next to the house of the Cumberland minister. He +approached it tonight with the nerveless sense of defeat, the hopeless +feeling of sinking back forever into ugliness and commonness that he had +always had when he came home. The moment he turned into Cordelia Street +he felt the waters close above his head. After each of these orgies +of living he experienced all the physical depression which follows a +debauch; the loathing of respectable beds, of common food, of a house +penetrated by kitchen odors; a shuddering repulsion for the flavorless, +colorless mass of everyday existence; a morbid desire for cool things +and soft lights and fresh flowers. + +The nearer he approached the house, the more absolutely unequal Paul +felt to the sight of it all: his ugly sleeping chamber; the cold +bathroom with the grimy zinc tub, the cracked mirror, the dripping +spiggots; his father, at the top of the stairs, his hairy legs sticking +out from his nightshirt, his feet thrust into carpet slippers. He was +so much later than usual that there would certainly be inquiries and +reproaches. Paul stopped short before the door. He felt that he could +not be accosted by his father tonight; that he could not toss again on +that miserable bed. He would not go in. He would tell his father that he +had no carfare and it was raining so hard he had gone home with one of +the boys and stayed all night. + +Meanwhile, he was wet and cold. He went around to the back of the +house and tried one of the basement windows, found it open, raised it +cautiously, and scrambled down the cellar wall to the floor. There he +stood, holding his breath, terrified by the noise he had made, but the +floor above him was silent, and there was no creak on the stairs. He +found a soapbox, and carried it over to the soft ring of light that +streamed from the furnace door, and sat down. He was horribly afraid of +rats, so he did not try to sleep, but sat looking distrustfully at the +dark, still terrified lest he might have awakened his father. In such +reactions, after one of the experiences which made days and nights out +of the dreary blanks of the calendar, when his senses were deadened, +Paul's head was always singularly clear. Suppose his father had heard +him getting in at the window and had come down and shot him for a +burglar? Then, again, suppose his father had come down, pistol in hand, +and he had cried out in time to save himself, and his father had been +horrified to think how nearly he had killed him? Then, again, suppose +a day should come when his father would remember that night, and +wish there had been no warning cry to stay his hand? With this last +supposition Paul entertained himself until daybreak. + +The following Sunday was fine; the sodden November chill was broken +by the last flash of autumnal summer. In the morning Paul had to go to +church and Sabbath school, as always. On seasonable Sunday afternoons +the burghers of Cordelia Street always sat out on their front stoops and +talked to their neighbors on the next stoop, or called to those across +the street in neighborly fashion. The men usually sat on gay cushions +placed upon the steps that led down to the sidewalk, while the women, in +their Sunday “waists,” sat in rockers on the cramped porches, pretending +to be greatly at their ease. The children played in the streets; there +were so many of them that the place resembled the recreation grounds of +a kindergarten. The men on the steps--all in their shirt sleeves, +their vests unbuttoned--sat with their legs well apart, their stomachs +comfortably protruding, and talked of the prices of things, or told +anecdotes of the sagacity of their various chiefs and overlords. They +occasionally looked over the multitude of squabbling children, listened +affectionately to their high-pitched, nasal voices, smiling to see their +own proclivities reproduced in their offspring, and interspersed their +legends of the iron kings with remarks about their sons' progress at +school, their grades in arithmetic, and the amounts they had saved in +their toy banks. + +On this last Sunday of November Paul sat all the afternoon on the lowest +step of his stoop, staring into the street, while his sisters, in their +rockers, were talking to the minister's daughters next door about how +many shirtwaists they had made in the last week, and how many waffles +someone had eaten at the last church supper. When the weather was warm, +and his father was in a particularly jovial frame of mind, the girls +made lemonade, which was always brought out in a red-glass pitcher, +ornamented with forget-me-nots in blue enamel. This the girls thought +very fine, and the neighbors always joked about the suspicious color of +the pitcher. + +Today Paul's father sat on the top step, talking to a young man who +shifted a restless baby from knee to knee. He happened to be the young +man who was daily held up to Paul as a model, and after whom it was his +father's dearest hope that he would pattern. This young man was of a +ruddy complexion, with a compressed, red mouth, and faded, nearsighted +eyes, over which he wore thick spectacles, with gold bows that curved +about his ears. He was clerk to one of the magnates of a great steel +corporation, and was looked upon in Cordelia Street as a young man with +a future. There was a story that, some five years ago--he was now barely +twenty-six--he had been a trifle dissipated, but in order to curb his +appetites and save the loss of time and strength that a sowing of +wild oats might have entailed, he had taken his chief's advice, oft +reiterated to his employees, and at twenty-one had married the first +woman whom he could persuade to share his fortunes. She happened to +be an angular schoolmistress, much older than he, who also wore thick +glasses, and who had now borne him four children, all nearsighted, like +herself. + +The young man was relating how his chief, now cruising in the +Mediterranean, kept in touch with all the details of the business, +arranging his office hours on his yacht just as though he were at home, +and “knocking off work enough to keep two stenographers busy.” His +father told, in turn, the plan his corporation was considering, of +putting in an electric railway plant in Cairo. Paul snapped his teeth; +he had an awful apprehension that they might spoil it all before he got +there. Yet he rather liked to hear these legends of the iron kings that +were told and retold on Sundays and holidays; these stories of palaces +in Venice, yachts on the Mediterranean, and high play at Monte Carlo +appealed to his fancy, and he was interested in the triumphs of these +cash boys who had become famous, though he had no mind for the cash-boy +stage. + +After supper was over and he had helped to dry the dishes, Paul +nervously asked his father whether he could go to George's to get some +help in his geometry, and still more nervously asked for carfare. This +latter request he had to repeat, as his father, on principle, did not +like to hear requests for money, whether much or little. He asked Paul +whether he could not go to some boy who lived nearer, and told him that +he ought not to leave his schoolwork until Sunday; but he gave him the +dime. He was not a poor man, but he had a worthy ambition to come up +in the world. His only reason for allowing Paul to usher was that he +thought a boy ought to be earning a little. + +Paul bounded upstairs, scrubbed the greasy odor of the dishwater from +his hands with the ill-smelling soap he hated, and then shook over his +fingers a few drops of violet water from the bottle he kept hidden in +his drawer. He left the house with his geometry conspicuously under his +arm, and the moment he got out of Cordelia Street and boarded a downtown +car, he shook off the lethargy of two deadening days and began to live +again. + +The leading juvenile of the permanent stock company which played at one +of the downtown theaters was an acquaintance of Paul's, and the boy +had been invited to drop in at the Sunday-night rehearsals whenever +he could. For more than a year Paul had spent every available moment +loitering about Charley Edwards's dressing room. He had won a place +among Edwards's following not only because the young actor, who could +not afford to employ a dresser, often found him useful, but because he +recognized in Paul something akin to what churchmen term “vocation.” + +It was at the theater and at Carnegie Hall that Paul really lived; the +rest was but a sleep and a forgetting. This was Paul's fairy tale, +and it had for him all the allurement of a secret love. The moment he +inhaled the gassy, painty, dusty odor behind the scenes, he breathed +like a prisoner set free, and felt within him the possibility of doing +or saying splendid, brilliant, poetic things. The moment the cracked +orchestra beat out the overture from _Martha_, or jerked at the serenade +from _Rigoletto_, all stupid and ugly things slid from him, and his +senses were deliciously, yet delicately fired. + +Perhaps it was because, in Paul's world, the natural nearly always wore +the guise of ugliness, that a certain element of artificiality seemed to +him necessary in beauty. Perhaps it was because his experience of +life elsewhere was so full of Sabbath-school picnics, petty economies, +wholesome advice as to how to succeed in life, and the inescapable odors +of cooking, that he found this existence so alluring, these smartly clad +men and women so attractive, that he was so moved by these starry apple +orchards that bloomed perennially under the limelight. + +It would be difficult to put it strongly enough how convincingly +the stage entrance of that theater was for Paul the actual portal of +Romance. Certainly none of the company ever suspected it, least of all +Charley Edwards. It was very like the old stories that used to float +about London of fabulously rich Jews, who had subterranean halls there, +with palms, and fountains, and soft lamps and richly appareled women +who never saw the disenchanting light of London day. So, in the midst of +that smoke-palled city, enamored of figures and grimy toil, Paul had +his secret temple, his wishing carpet, his bit of blue-and-white +Mediterranean shore bathed in perpetual sunshine. + +Several of Paul's teachers had a theory that his imagination had been +perverted by garish fiction, but the truth was that he scarcely ever +read at all. The books at home were not such as would either tempt or +corrupt a youthful mind, and as for reading the novels that some of his +friends urged upon him--well, he got what he wanted much more quickly +from music; any sort of music, from an orchestra to a barrel organ. +He needed only the spark, the indescribable thrill that made his +imagination master of his senses, and he could make plots and pictures +enough of his own. It was equally true that he was not stagestruck--not, +at any rate, in the usual acceptation of that expression. He had no +desire to become an actor, any more than he had to become a musician. He +felt no necessity to do any of these things; what he wanted was to see, +to be in the atmosphere, float on the wave of it, to be carried out, +blue league after blue league, away from everything. + +After a night behind the scenes Paul found the schoolroom more than ever +repulsive; the bare floors and naked walls; the prosy men who never wore +frock coats, or violets in their buttonholes; the women with their dull +gowns, shrill voices, and pitiful seriousness about prepositions that +govern the dative. He could not bear to have the other pupils think, for +a moment, that he took these people seriously; he must convey to them +that he considered it all trivial, and was there only by way of a jest, +anyway. He had autographed pictures of all the members of the stock +company which he showed his classmates, telling them the most incredible +stories of his familiarity with these people, of his acquaintance with +the soloists who came to Carnegie Hall, his suppers with them and the +flowers he sent them. When these stories lost their effect, and his +audience grew listless, he became desperate and would bid all the boys +good-by, announcing that he was going to travel for a while; going to +Naples, to Venice, to Egypt. Then, next Monday, he would slip back, +conscious and nervously smiling; his sister was ill, and he should have +to defer his voyage until spring. + +Matters went steadily worse with Paul at school. In the itch to let his +instructors know how heartily he despised them and their homilies, and +how thoroughly he was appreciated elsewhere, he mentioned once or twice +that he had no time to fool with theorems; adding--with a twitch of +the eyebrows and a touch of that nervous bravado which so perplexed +them--that he was helping the people down at the stock company; they +were old friends of his. + +The upshot of the matter was that the Principal went to Paul's father, +and Paul was taken out of school and put to work. The manager at +Carnegie Hall was told to get another usher in his stead; the doorkeeper +at the theater was warned not to admit him to the house; and Charley +Edwards remorsefully promised the boy's father not to see him again. + +The members of the stock company were vastly amused when some of Paul's +stories reached them--especially the women. They were hardworking women, +most of them supporting indigent husbands or brothers, and they laughed +rather bitterly at having stirred the boy to such fervid and florid +inventions. They agreed with the faculty and with his father that Paul's +was a bad case. + + +The eastbound train was plowing through a January snowstorm; the dull +dawn was beginning to show gray when the engine whistled a mile out of +Newark. Paul started up from the seat where he had lain curled in uneasy +slumber, rubbed the breath-misted window glass with his hand, and peered +out. The snow was whirling in curling eddies above the white bottom +lands, and the drifts lay already deep in the fields and along the +fences, while here and there the long dead grass and dried weed stalks +protruded black above it. Lights shone from the scattered houses, and a +gang of laborers who stood beside the track waved their lanterns. + +Paul had slept very little, and he felt grimy and uncomfortable. He +had made the all-night journey in a day coach, partly because he was +ashamed, dressed as he was, to go into a Pullman, and partly because he +was afraid of being seen there by some Pittsburgh businessman, who might +have noticed him in Denny & Carson's office. When the whistle awoke him, +he clutched quickly at his breast pocket, glancing about him with an +uncertain smile. But the little, clay-bespattered Italians were still +sleeping, the slatternly women across the aisle were in open-mouthed +oblivion, and even the crumby, crying babies were for the nonce stilled. +Paul settled back to struggle with his impatience as best he could. + +When he arrived at the Jersey City station he hurried through his +breakfast, manifestly ill at ease and keeping a sharp eye about him. +After he reached the Twenty-third Street station, he consulted a cabman +and had himself driven to a men's-furnishings establishment that was +just opening for the day. He spent upward of two hours there, buying +with endless reconsidering and great care. His new street suit he put +on in the fitting room; the frock coat and dress clothes he had bundled +into the cab with his linen. Then he drove to a hatter's and a shoe +house. His next errand was at Tiffany's, where he selected his silver +and a new scarf pin. He would not wait to have his silver marked, +he said. Lastly, he stopped at a trunk shop on Broadway and had his +purchases packed into various traveling bags. + +It was a little after one o'clock when he drove up to the Waldorf, and +after settling with the cabman, went into the office. He registered from +Washington; said his mother and father had been abroad, and that he +had come down to await the arrival of their steamer. He told his story +plausibly and had no trouble, since he volunteered to pay for them in +advance, in engaging his rooms; a sleeping room, sitting room, and bath. + +Not once, but a hundred times, Paul had planned this entry into New +York. He had gone over every detail of it with Charley Edwards, and in +his scrapbook at home there were pages of description about New York +hotels, cut from the Sunday papers. When he was shown to his sitting +room on the eighth floor he saw at a glance that everything was as it +should be; there was but one detail in his mental picture that the +place did not realize, so he rang for the bellboy and sent him down for +flowers. He moved about nervously until the boy returned, putting +away his new linen and fingering it delightedly as he did so. When the +flowers came he put them hastily into water, and then tumbled into a hot +bath. Presently he came out of his white bathroom, resplendent in his +new silk underwear, and playing with the tassels of his red robe. The +snow was whirling so fiercely outside his windows that he could scarcely +see across the street, but within the air was deliciously soft and +fragrant. He put the violets and jonquils on the taboret beside the +couch, and threw himself down, with a long sigh, covering himself with +a Roman blanket. He was thoroughly tired; he had been in such haste, +he had stood up to such a strain, covered so much ground in the last +twenty-four hours, that he wanted to think how it had all come about. +Lulled by the sound of the wind, the warm air, and the cool fragrance of +the flowers, he sank into deep, drowsy retrospection. + +It had been wonderfully simple; when they had shut him out of the +theater and concert hall, when they had taken away his bone, the +whole thing was virtually determined. The rest was a mere matter of +opportunity. The only thing that at all surprised him was his own +courage--for he realized well enough that he had always been tormented by +fear, a sort of apprehensive dread that, of late years, as the meshes of +the lies he had told closed about him, had been pulling the muscles of +his body tighter and tighter. Until now he could not remember the time +when he had not been dreading something. Even when he was a little boy +it was always there--behind him, or before, or on either side. There had +always been the shadowed corner, the dark place into which he dared not +look, but from which something seemed always to be watching him--and +Paul had done things that were not pretty to watch, he knew. + +But now he had a curious sense of relief, as though he had at last +thrown down the gauntlet to the thing in the corner. + +Yet it was but a day since he had been sulking in the traces; but +yesterday afternoon that he had been sent to the bank with Denny & +Carson's deposit, as usual--but this time he was instructed to leave the +book to be balanced. There was above two thousand dollars in checks, and +nearly a thousand in the bank notes which he had taken from the book +and quietly transferred to his pocket. At the bank he had made out a +new deposit slip. His nerves had been steady enough to permit of his +returning to the office, where he had finished his work and asked for +a full day's holiday tomorrow, Saturday, giving a perfectly reasonable +pretext. The bankbook, he knew, would not be returned before Monday or +Tuesday, and his father would be out of town for the next week. From +the time he slipped the bank notes into his pocket until he boarded the +night train for New York, he had not known a moment's hesitation. It was +not the first time Paul had steered through treacherous waters. + +How astonishingly easy it had all been; here he was, the thing done; +and this time there would be no awakening, no figure at the top of the +stairs. He watched the snowflakes whirling by his window until he fell +asleep. + +When he awoke, it was three o'clock in the afternoon. He bounded up with +a start; half of one of his precious days gone already! He spent more +than an hour in dressing, watching every stage of his toilet carefully +in the mirror. Everything was quite perfect; he was exactly the kind of +boy he had always wanted to be. + +When he went downstairs Paul took a carriage and drove up Fifth Avenue +toward the Park. The snow had somewhat abated; carriages and tradesmen's +wagons were hurrying soundlessly to and fro in the winter twilight; boys +in woolen mufflers were shoveling off the doorsteps; the avenue stages +made fine spots of color against the white street. Here and there on +the corners were stands, with whole flower gardens blooming under glass +cases, against the sides of which the snowflakes stuck and melted; +violets, roses, carnations, lilies of the valley--somehow vastly more +lovely and alluring that they blossomed thus unnaturally in the snow. +The Park itself was a wonderful stage winterpiece. + +When he returned, the pause of the twilight had ceased and the tune of +the streets had changed. The snow was falling faster, lights streamed +from the hotels that reared their dozen stories fearlessly up into +the storm, defying the raging Atlantic winds. A long, black stream of +carriages poured down the avenue, intersected here and there by other +streams, tending horizontally. There were a score of cabs about the +entrance of his hotel, and his driver had to wait. Boys in livery were +running in and out of the awning stretched across the sidewalk, up and +down the red velvet carpet laid from the door to the street. Above, +about, within it all was the rumble and roar, the hurry and toss of +thousands of human beings as hot for pleasure as himself, and on every +side of him towered the glaring affirmation of the omnipotence of +wealth. + +The boy set his teeth and drew his shoulders together in a spasm of +realization; the plot of all dramas, the text of all romances, +the nerve-stuff of all sensations was whirling about him like the +snowflakes. He burnt like a faggot in a tempest. + +When Paul went down to dinner the music of the orchestra came floating +up the elevator shaft to greet him. His head whirled as he stepped into +the thronged corridor, and he sank back into one of the chairs against +the wall to get his breath. The lights, the chatter, the perfumes, the +bewildering medley of color--he had, for a moment, the feeling of +not being able to stand it. But only for a moment; these were his own +people, he told himself. He went slowly about the corridors, through +the writing rooms, smoking rooms, reception rooms, as though he were +exploring the chambers of an enchanted palace, built and peopled for him +alone. + +When he reached the dining room he sat down at a table near a window. +The flowers, the white linen, the many-colored wineglasses, the gay +toilettes of the women, the low popping of corks, the undulating +repetitions of the _Blue Danube_ from the orchestra, all flooded Paul's +dream with bewildering radiance. When the roseate tinge of his champagne +was added--that cold, precious, bubbling stuff that creamed and foamed +in his glass--Paul wondered that there were honest men in the world at +all. This was what all the world was fighting for, he reflected; this +was what all the struggle was about. He doubted the reality of his +past. Had he ever known a place called Cordelia Street, a place where +fagged-looking businessmen got on the early car; mere rivets in a +machine they seemed to Paul,--sickening men, with combings of children's +hair always hanging to their coats, and the smell of cooking in their +clothes. Cordelia Street--Ah, that belonged to another time and country; +had he not always been thus, had he not sat here night after night, +from as far back as he could remember, looking pensively over just such +shimmering textures and slowly twirling the stem of a glass like this +one between his thumb and middle finger? He rather thought he had. + +He was not in the least abashed or lonely. He had no especial desire to +meet or to know any of these people; all he demanded was the right to +look on and conjecture, to watch the pageant. The mere stage properties +were all he contended for. Nor was he lonely later in the evening, in +his lodge at the Metropolitan. He was now entirely rid of his nervous +misgivings, of his forced aggressiveness, of the imperative desire +to show himself different from his surroundings. He felt now that his +surroundings explained him. Nobody questioned the purple; he had only to +wear it passively. He had only to glance down at his attire to reassure +himself that here it would be impossible for anyone to humiliate him. + +He found it hard to leave his beautiful sitting room to go to bed that +night, and sat long watching the raging storm from his turret window. +When he went to sleep it was with the lights turned on in his bedroom; +partly because of his old timidity, and partly so that, if he should +wake in the night, there would be no wretched moment of doubt, no +horrible suspicion of yellow wallpaper, or of Washington and Calvin +above his bed. + +Sunday morning the city was practically snowbound. Paul breakfasted +late, and in the afternoon he fell in with a wild San Francisco boy, +a freshman at Yale, who said he had run down for a “little flyer” over +Sunday. The young man offered to show Paul the night side of the town, +and the two boys went out together after dinner, not returning to the +hotel until seven o'clock the next morning. They had started out in the +confiding warmth of a champagne friendship, but their parting in the +elevator was singularly cool. The freshman pulled himself together to +make his train, and Paul went to bed. He awoke at two o'clock in the +afternoon, very thirsty and dizzy, and rang for icewater, coffee, and +the Pittsburgh papers. + +On the part of the hotel management, Paul excited no suspicion. There +was this to be said for him, that he wore his spoils with dignity and in +no way made himself conspicuous. Even under the glow of his wine he was +never boisterous, though he found the stuff like a magician's wand for +wonder-building. His chief greediness lay in his ears and eyes, and his +excesses were not offensive ones. His dearest pleasures were the +gray winter twilights in his sitting room; his quiet enjoyment of his +flowers, his clothes, his wide divan, his cigarette, and his sense of +power. He could not remember a time when he had felt so at peace with +himself. The mere release from the necessity of petty lying, lying every +day and every day, restored his self-respect. He had never lied for +pleasure, even at school; but to be noticed and admired, to assert his +difference from other Cordelia Street boys; and he felt a good deal +more manly, more honest, even, now that he had no need for boastful +pretensions, now that he could, as his actor friends used to say, “dress +the part.” It was characteristic that remorse did not occur to him. His +golden days went by without a shadow, and he made each as perfect as he +could. + +On the eighth day after his arrival in New York he found the whole +affair exploited in the Pittsburgh papers, exploited with a wealth of +detail which indicated that local news of a sensational nature was at a +low ebb. The firm of Denny & Carson announced that the boy's father had +refunded the full amount of the theft and that they had no intention of +prosecuting. The Cumberland minister had been interviewed, and expressed +his hope of yet reclaiming the motherless lad, and his Sabbath-school +teacher declared that she would spare no effort to that end. The rumor +had reached Pittsburgh that the boy had been seen in a New York hotel, +and his father had gone East to find him and bring him home. + +Paul had just come in to dress for dinner; he sank into a chair, weak +to the knees, and clasped his head in his hands. It was to be worse than +jail, even; the tepid waters of Cordelia Street were to close over him +finally and forever. The gray monotony stretched before him in +hopeless, unrelieved years; Sabbath school, Young People's Meeting, the +yellow-papered room, the damp dishtowels; it all rushed back upon him +with a sickening vividness. He had the old feeling that the orchestra +had suddenly stopped, the sinking sensation that the play was over. The +sweat broke out on his face, and he sprang to his feet, looked about him +with his white, conscious smile, and winked at himself in the mirror, +With something of the old childish belief in miracles with which he +had so often gone to class, all his lessons unlearned, Paul dressed and +dashed whistling down the corridor to the elevator. + +He had no sooner entered the dining room and caught the measure of the +music than his remembrance was lightened by his old elastic power of +claiming the moment, mounting with it, and finding it all-sufficient. +The glare and glitter about him, the mere scenic accessories had again, +and for the last time, their old potency. He would show himself that he +was game, he would finish the thing splendidly. He doubted, more than +ever, the existence of Cordelia Street, and for the first time he drank +his wine recklessly. Was he not, after all, one of those fortunate +beings born to the purple, was he not still himself and in his own +place? He drummed a nervous accompaniment to the Pagliacci music and +looked about him, telling himself over and over that it had paid. + +He reflected drowsily, to the swell of the music and the chill sweetness +of his wine, that he might have done it more wisely. He might have +caught an outbound steamer and been well out of their clutches before +now. But the other side of the world had seemed too far away and too +uncertain then; he could not have waited for it; his need had been +too sharp. If he had to choose over again, he would do the same thing +tomorrow. He looked affectionately about the dining room, now gilded +with a soft mist. Ah, it had paid indeed! + +Paul was awakened next morning by a painful throbbing in his head and +feet. He had thrown himself across the bed without undressing, and had +slept with his shoes on. His limbs and hands were lead heavy, and his +tongue and throat were parched and burnt. There came upon him one of +those fateful attacks of clearheadedness that never occurred except when +he was physically exhausted and his nerves hung loose. He lay still, +closed his eyes, and let the tide of things wash over him. + +His father was in New York; “stopping at some joint or other,” he told +himself. The memory of successive summers on the front stoop fell upon +him like a weight of black water. He had not a hundred dollars left; and +he knew now, more than ever, that money was everything, the wall that +stood between all he loathed and all he wanted. The thing was winding +itself up; he had thought of that on his first glorious day in New York, +and had even provided a way to snap the thread. It lay on his dressing +table now; he had got it out last night when he came blindly up from +dinner, but the shiny metal hurt his eyes, and he disliked the looks of +it. + +He rose and moved about with a painful effort, succumbing now and again +to attacks of nausea. It was the old depression exaggerated; all the +world had become Cordelia Street. Yet somehow he was not afraid of +anything, was absolutely calm; perhaps because he had looked into the +dark corner at last and knew. It was bad enough, what he saw there, but +somehow not so bad as his long fear of it had been. He saw everything +clearly now. He had a feeling that he had made the best of it, that he +had lived the sort of life he was meant to live, and for half an hour he +sat staring at the revolver. But he told himself that was not the way, +so he went downstairs and took a cab to the ferry. + +When Paul arrived in Newark he got off the train and took another cab, +directing the driver to follow the Pennsylvania tracks out of the town. +The snow lay heavy on the roadways and had drifted deep in the open +fields. Only here and there the dead grass or dried weed stalks +projected, singularly black, above it. Once well into the country, Paul +dismissed the carriage and walked, floundering along the tracks, his +mind a medley of irrelevant things. He seemed to hold in his brain an +actual picture of everything he had seen that morning. He remembered +every feature of both his drivers, of the toothless old woman from whom +he had bought the red flowers in his coat, the agent from whom he had +got his ticket, and all of his fellow passengers on the ferry. His mind, +unable to cope with vital matters near at hand, worked feverishly and +deftly at sorting and grouping these images. They made for him a part +of the ugliness of the world, of the ache in his head, and the bitter +burning on his tongue. He stooped and put a handful of snow into his +mouth as he walked, but that, too, seemed hot. When he reached a little +hillside, where the tracks ran through a cut some twenty feet below him, +he stopped and sat down. + +The carnations in his coat were drooping with the cold, he noticed, +their red glory all over. It occurred to him that all the flowers he had +seen in the glass cases that first night must have gone the same way, +long before this. It was only one splendid breath they had, in spite of +their brave mockery at the winter outside the glass; and it was a losing +game in the end, it seemed, this revolt against the homilies by which +the world is run. Paul took one of the blossoms carefully from his coat +and scooped a little hole in the snow, where he covered it up. Then he +dozed awhile, from his weak condition, seemingly insensible to the cold. + +The sound of an approaching train awoke him, and he started to his feet, +remembering only his resolution, and afraid lest he should be too late. +He stood watching the approaching locomotive, his teeth chattering, +his lips drawn away from them in a frightened smile; once or twice he +glanced nervously sidewise, as though he were being watched. When +the right moment came, he jumped. As he fell, the folly of his haste +occurred to him with merciless clearness, the vastness of what he had +left undone. There flashed through his brain, clearer than ever before, +the blue of Adriatic water, the yellow of Algerian sands. + +He felt something strike his chest, and that his body was being thrown +swiftly through the air, on and on, immeasurably far and fast, while his +limbs were gently relaxed. Then, because the picture-making mechanism +was crushed, the disturbing visions flashed into black, and Paul dropped +back into the immense design of things. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Troll Garden and Selected Stories, by +Willa Cather + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TROLL GARDEN *** + +***** This file should be named 346-0.txt or 346-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/346/ + +Produced by Judith Boss + +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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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/346-0.zip b/346-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..dc9ee1e --- /dev/null +++ b/346-0.zip diff --git a/346-h.zip b/346-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c62cd94 --- /dev/null +++ b/346-h.zip diff --git a/346-h/346-h.htm b/346-h/346-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b89d401 --- /dev/null +++ b/346-h/346-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,10072 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + The Troll Garden, by Willa Cather + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +Project Gutenberg's The Troll Garden and Selected Stories, by Willa Cather + +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: The Troll Garden and Selected Stories + +Author: Willa Cather + +Release Date: November 10, 2009 [EBook #346] +Last Updated: March 9, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TROLL GARDEN *** + + + + +Produced by Judith Boss, and David Widger + + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h1> + THE TROLL GARDEN <br /><br /> AND<br /><br /> SELECTED STORIES + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By Willa Cather + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h2> + Contents + </h2> + <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto"> + <tr> + <td> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <b>SELECTED STORIES</b> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> On the Divide </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> Eric Hermannson's Soul </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> The Enchanted Bluff </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> The Bohemian Girl </a> + </p> + <br /> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> <b>THE TROLL GARDEN</b> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> Flavia and Her Artists </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> The Sculptor's Funeral </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> “A Death in the Desert” </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> The Garden Lodge </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> The Marriage of Phaedra </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> A Wagner Matinee </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> Paul's Case </a> + </p> + </td> + </tr> + </table> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <h1> + SELECTED STORIES + </h1> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + On the Divide + </h2> + <p> + Near Rattlesnake Creek, on the side of a little draw stood Canute's + shanty. North, east, south, stretched the level Nebraska plain of long + rust-red grass that undulated constantly in the wind. To the west the + ground was broken and rough, and a narrow strip of timber wound along the + turbid, muddy little stream that had scarcely ambition enough to crawl + over its black bottom. If it had not been for the few stunted cottonwoods + and elms that grew along its banks, Canute would have shot himself years + ago. The Norwegians are a timber-loving people, and if there is even a + turtle pond with a few plum bushes around it they seem irresistibly drawn + toward it. + </p> + <p> + As to the shanty itself, Canute had built it without aid of any kind, for + when he first squatted along the banks of Rattlesnake Creek there was not + a human being within twenty miles. It was built of logs split in halves, + the chinks stopped with mud and plaster. The roof was covered with earth + and was supported by one gigantic beam curved in the shape of a round + arch. It was almost impossible that any tree had ever grown in that shape. + The Norwegians used to say that Canute had taken the log across his knee + and bent it into the shape he wished. There were two rooms, or rather + there was one room with a partition made of ash saplings interwoven and + bound together like big straw basket work. In one corner there was a cook + stove, rusted and broken. In the other a bed made of unplaned planks and + poles. It was fully eight feet long, and upon it was a heap of dark bed + clothing. There was a chair and a bench of colossal proportions. There was + an ordinary kitchen cupboard with a few cracked dirty dishes in it, and + beside it on a tall box a tin washbasin. Under the bed was a pile of pint + flasks, some broken, some whole, all empty. On the wood box lay a pair of + shoes of almost incredible dimensions. On the wall hung a saddle, a gun, + and some ragged clothing, conspicuous among which was a suit of dark + cloth, apparently new, with a paper collar carefully wrapped in a red silk + handkerchief and pinned to the sleeve. Over the door hung a wolf and a + badger skin, and on the door itself a brace of thirty or forty snake skins + whose noisy tails rattled ominously every time it opened. The strangest + things in the shanty were the wide windowsills. At first glance they + looked as though they had been ruthlessly hacked and mutilated with a + hatchet, but on closer inspection all the notches and holes in the wood + took form and shape. There seemed to be a series of pictures. They were, + in a rough way, artistic, but the figures were heavy and labored, as + though they had been cut very slowly and with very awkward instruments. + There were men plowing with little horned imps sitting on their shoulders + and on their horses' heads. There were men praying with a skull hanging + over their heads and little demons behind them mocking their attitudes. + There were men fighting with big serpents, and skeletons dancing together. + All about these pictures were blooming vines and foliage such as never + grew in this world, and coiled among the branches of the vines there was + always the scaly body of a serpent, and behind every flower there was a + serpent's head. It was a veritable Dance of Death by one who had felt its + sting. In the wood box lay some boards, and every inch of them was cut up + in the same manner. Sometimes the work was very rude and careless, and + looked as though the hand of the workman had trembled. It would sometimes + have been hard to distinguish the men from their evil geniuses but for one + fact, the men were always grave and were either toiling or praying, while + the devils were always smiling and dancing. Several of these boards had + been split for kindling and it was evident that the artist did not value + his work highly. + </p> + <p> + It was the first day of winter on the Divide. Canute stumbled into his + shanty carrying a basket of cobs, and after filling the stove, sat down on + a stool and crouched his seven foot frame over the fire, staring drearily + out of the window at the wide gray sky. He knew by heart every individual + clump of bunch grass in the miles of red shaggy prairie that stretched + before his cabin. He knew it in all the deceitful loveliness of its early + summer, in all the bitter barrenness of its autumn. He had seen it smitten + by all the plagues of Egypt. He had seen it parched by drought, and sogged + by rain, beaten by hail, and swept by fire, and in the grasshopper years + he had seen it eaten as bare and clean as bones that the vultures have + left. After the great fires he had seen it stretch for miles and miles, + black and smoking as the floor of hell. + </p> + <p> + He rose slowly and crossed the room, dragging his big feet heavily as + though they were burdens to him. He looked out of the window into the hog + corral and saw the pigs burying themselves in the straw before the shed. + The leaden gray clouds were beginning to spill themselves, and the snow + flakes were settling down over the white leprous patches of frozen earth + where the hogs had gnawed even the sod away. He shuddered and began to + walk, trampling heavily with his ungainly feet. He was the wreck of ten + winters on the Divide and he knew what that meant. Men fear the winters of + the Divide as a child fears night or as men in the North Seas fear the + still dark cold of the polar twilight. His eyes fell upon his gun, and he + took it down from the wall and looked it over. He sat down on the edge of + his bed and held the barrel towards his face, letting his forehead rest + upon it, and laid his finger on the trigger. He was perfectly calm, there + was neither passion nor despair in his face, but the thoughtful look of a + man who is considering. Presently he laid down the gun, and reaching into + the cupboard, drew out a pint bottle of raw white alcohol. Lifting it to + his lips, he drank greedily. He washed his face in the tin basin and + combed his rough hair and shaggy blond beard. Then he stood in uncertainty + before the suit of dark clothes that hung on the wall. For the fiftieth + time he took them in his hands and tried to summon courage to put them on. + He took the paper collar that was pinned to the sleeve of the coat and + cautiously slipped it under his rough beard, looking with timid expectancy + into the cracked, splashed glass that hung over the bench. With a short + laugh he threw it down on the bed, and pulling on his old black hat, he + went out, striking off across the level. + </p> + <p> + It was a physical necessity for him to get away from his cabin once in a + while. He had been there for ten years, digging and plowing and sowing, + and reaping what little the hail and the hot winds and the frosts left him + to reap. Insanity and suicide are very common things on the Divide. They + come on like an epidemic in the hot wind season. Those scorching dusty + winds that blow up over the bluffs from Kansas seem to dry up the blood in + men's veins as they do the sap in the corn leaves. Whenever the yellow + scorch creeps down over the tender inside leaves about the ear, then the + coroners prepare for active duty; for the oil of the country is burned out + and it does not take long for the flame to eat up the wick. It causes no + great sensation there when a Dane is found swinging to his own windmill + tower, and most of the Poles after they have become too careless and + discouraged to shave themselves keep their razors to cut their throats + with. + </p> + <p> + It may be that the next generation on the Divide will be very happy, but + the present one came too late in life. It is useless for men that have cut + hemlocks among the mountains of Sweden for forty years to try to be happy + in a country as flat and gray and naked as the sea. It is not easy for men + that have spent their youth fishing in the Northern seas to be content + with following a plow, and men that have served in the Austrian army hate + hard work and coarse clothing on the loneliness of the plains, and long + for marches and excitement and tavern company and pretty barmaids. After a + man has passed his fortieth birthday it is not easy for him to change the + habits and conditions of his life. Most men bring with them to the Divide + only the dregs of the lives that they have squandered in other lands and + among other peoples. + </p> + <p> + Canute Canuteson was as mad as any of them, but his madness did not take + the form of suicide or religion but of alcohol. He had always taken liquor + when he wanted it, as all Norwegians do, but after his first year of + solitary life he settled down to it steadily. He exhausted whisky after a + while, and went to alcohol, because its effects were speedier and surer. + He was a big man and with a terrible amount of resistant force, and it + took a great deal of alcohol even to move him. After nine years of + drinking, the quantities he could take would seem fabulous to an ordinary + drinking man. He never let it interfere with his work, he generally drank + at night and on Sundays. Every night, as soon as his chores were done, he + began to drink. While he was able to sit up he would play on his mouth + harp or hack away at his window sills with his jackknife. When the liquor + went to his head he would lie down on his bed and stare out of the window + until he went to sleep. He drank alone and in solitude not for pleasure or + good cheer, but to forget the awful loneliness and level of the Divide. + Milton made a sad blunder when he put mountains in hell. Mountains + postulate faith and aspiration. All mountain peoples are religious. It was + the cities of the plains that, because of their utter lack of spirituality + and the mad caprice of their vice, were cursed of God. + </p> + <p> + Alcohol is perfectly consistent in its effects upon man. Drunkenness is + merely an exaggeration. A foolish man drunk becomes maudlin; a bloody man, + vicious; a coarse man, vulgar. Canute was none of these, but he was morose + and gloomy, and liquor took him through all the hells of Dante. As he lay + on his giant's bed all the horrors of this world and every other were laid + bare to his chilled senses. He was a man who knew no joy, a man who toiled + in silence and bitterness. The skull and the serpent were always before + him, the symbols of eternal futileness and of eternal hate. + </p> + <p> + When the first Norwegians near enough to be called neighbors came, Canute + rejoiced, and planned to escape from his bosom vice. But he was not a + social man by nature and had not the power of drawing out the social side + of other people. His new neighbors rather feared him because of his great + strength and size, his silence and his lowering brows. Perhaps, too, they + knew that he was mad, mad from the eternal treachery of the plains, which + every spring stretch green and rustle with the promises of Eden, showing + long grassy lagoons full of clear water and cattle whose hoofs are stained + with wild roses. Before autumn the lagoons are dried up, and the ground is + burnt dry and hard until it blisters and cracks open. + </p> + <p> + So instead of becoming a friend and neighbor to the men that settled about + him, Canute became a mystery and a terror. They told awful stories of his + size and strength and of the alcohol he drank. + </p> + <p> + They said that one night, when he went out to see to his horses just + before he went to bed, his steps were unsteady and the rotten planks of + the floor gave way and threw him behind the feet of a fiery young + stallion. His foot was caught fast in the floor, and the nervous horse + began kicking frantically. When Canute felt the blood trickling down into + his eyes from a scalp wound in his head, he roused himself from his kingly + indifference, and with the quiet stoical courage of a drunken man leaned + forward and wound his arms about the horse's hind legs and held them + against his breast with crushing embrace. All through the darkness and + cold of the night he lay there, matching strength against strength. When + little Jim Peterson went over the next morning at four o'clock to go with + him to the Blue to cut wood, he found him so, and the horse was on its + fore knees, trembling and whinnying with fear. This is the story the + Norwegians tell of him, and if it is true it is no wonder that they feared + and hated this Holder of the Heels of Horses. + </p> + <p> + One spring there moved to the next “eighty” a family that made a great + change in Canute's life. Ole Yensen was too drunk most of the time to be + afraid of any one, and his wife Mary was too garrulous to be afraid of any + one who listened to her talk, and Lena, their pretty daughter, was not + afraid of man nor devil. So it came about that Canute went over to take + his alcohol with Ole oftener than he took it alone, After a while the + report spread that he was going to marry Yensen's daughter, and the + Norwegian girls began to tease Lena about the great bear she was going to + keep house for. No one could quite see how the affair had come about, for + Canute's tactics of courtship were somewhat peculiar. He apparently never + spoke to her at all: he would sit for hours with Mary chattering on one + side of him and Ole drinking on the other and watch Lena at her work. She + teased him, and threw flour in his face and put vinegar in his coffee, but + he took her rough jokes with silent wonder, never even smiling. He took + her to church occasionally, but the most watchful and curious people never + saw him speak to her. He would sit staring at her while she giggled and + flirted with the other men. + </p> + <p> + Next spring Mary Lee went to town to work in a steam laundry. She came + home every Sunday, and always ran across to Yensens to startle Lena with + stories of ten cent theaters, firemen's dances, and all the other esthetic + delights of metropolitan life. In a few weeks Lena's head was completely + turned, and she gave her father no rest until he let her go to town to + seek her fortune at the ironing board. From the time she came home on her + first visit she began to treat Canute with contempt. She had bought a + plush cloak and kid gloves, had her clothes made by the dress maker, and + assumed airs and graces that made the other women of the neighborhood + cordially detest her. She generally brought with her a young man from town + who waxed his mustache and wore a red necktie, and she did not even + introduce him to Canute. + </p> + <p> + The neighbors teased Canute a good deal until he knocked one of them down. + He gave no sign of suffering from her neglect except that he drank more + and avoided the other Norwegians more carefully than ever, He lay around + in his den and no one knew what he felt or thought, but little Jim + Peterson, who had seen him glowering at Lena in church one Sunday when she + was there with the town man, said that he would not give an acre of his + wheat for Lena's life or the town chap's either; and Jim's wheat was so + wondrously worthless that the statement was an exceedingly strong one. + </p> + <p> + Canute had bought a new suit of clothes that looked as nearly like the + town man as possible. They had cost him half a millet crop; for tailors + are not accustomed to fitting giants and they charge for it. He had hung + those clothes in his shanty two months ago and had never put them on, + partly from fear of ridicule, partly from discouragement, and partly + because there was something in his own soul that revolted at the + littleness of the device. + </p> + <p> + Lena was at home just at this time. Work was slack in the laundry and Mary + had not been well, so Lena stayed at home, glad enough to get an + opportunity to torment Canute once more. + </p> + <p> + She was washing in the side kitchen, singing loudly as she worked. Mary + was on her knees, blacking the stove and scolding violently about the + young man who was coming out from town that night. The young man had + committed the fatal error of laughing at Mary's ceaseless babble and had + never been forgiven. + </p> + <p> + “He is no good, and you will come to a bad end by running with him! I do + not see why a daughter of mine should act so. I do not see why the Lord + should visit such a punishment upon me as to give me such a daughter. + There are plenty of good men you can marry.” + </p> + <p> + Lena tossed her head and answered curtly, “I don't happen to want to marry + any man right away, and so long as Dick dresses nice and has plenty of + money to spend, there is no harm in my going with him.” + </p> + <p> + “Money to spend? Yes, and that is all he does with it I'll be bound. You + think it very fine now, but you will change your tune when you have been + married five years and see your children running naked and your cupboard + empty. Did Anne Hermanson come to any good end by marrying a town man?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know anything about Anne Hermanson, but I know any of the laundry + girls would have Dick quick enough if they could get him.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, and a nice lot of store clothes huzzies you are too. Now there is + Canuteson who has an 'eighty' proved up and fifty head of cattle and—” + </p> + <p> + “And hair that ain't been cut since he was a baby, and a big dirty beard, + and he wears overalls on Sundays, and drinks like a pig. Besides he will + keep. I can have all the fun I want, and when I am old and ugly like you + he can have me and take care of me. The Lord knows there ain't nobody else + going to marry him.” + </p> + <p> + Canute drew his hand back from the latch as though it were red hot. He was + not the kind of man to make a good eavesdropper, and he wished he had + knocked sooner. He pulled himself together and struck the door like a + battering ram. Mary jumped and opened it with a screech. + </p> + <p> + “God! Canute, how you scared us! I thought it was crazy Lou—he has + been tearing around the neighborhood trying to convert folks. I am afraid + as death of him. He ought to be sent off, I think. He is just as liable as + not to kill us all, or burn the barn, or poison the dogs. He has been + worrying even the poor minister to death, and he laid up with the + rheumatism, too! Did you notice that he was too sick to preach last + Sunday? But don't stand there in the cold, come in. Yensen isn't here, but + he just went over to Sorenson's for the mail; he won't be gone long. Walk + right in the other room and sit down.” + </p> + <p> + Canute followed her, looking steadily in front of him and not noticing + Lena as he passed her. But Lena's vanity would not allow him to pass + unmolested. She took the wet sheet she was wringing out and cracked him + across the face with it, and ran giggling to the other side of the room. + The blow stung his cheeks and the soapy water flew in his eyes, and he + involuntarily began rubbing them with his hands. Lena giggled with delight + at his discomfiture, and the wrath in Canute's face grew blacker than + ever. A big man humiliated is vastly more undignified than a little one. + He forgot the sting of his face in the bitter consciousness that he had + made a fool of himself He stumbled blindly into the living room, knocking + his head against the door jamb because he forgot to stoop. He dropped into + a chair behind the stove, thrusting his big feet back helplessly on either + side of him. + </p> + <p> + Ole was a long time in coming, and Canute sat there, still and silent, + with his hands clenched on his knees, and the skin of his face seemed to + have shriveled up into little wrinkles that trembled when he lowered his + brows. His life had been one long lethargy of solitude and alcohol, but + now he was awakening, and it was as when the dumb stagnant heat of summer + breaks out into thunder. + </p> + <p> + When Ole came staggering in, heavy with liquor, Canute rose at once. + </p> + <p> + “Yensen,” he said quietly, “I have come to see if you will let me marry + your daughter today.” + </p> + <p> + “Today!” gasped Ole. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I will not wait until tomorrow. I am tired of living alone.” + </p> + <p> + Ole braced his staggering knees against the bedstead, and stammered + eloquently: “Do you think I will marry my daughter to a drunkard? a man + who drinks raw alcohol? a man who sleeps with rattle snakes? Get out of my + house or I will kick you out for your impudence.” And Ole began looking + anxiously for his feet. + </p> + <p> + Canute answered not a word, but he put on his hat and went out into the + kitchen. He went up to Lena and said without looking at her, “Get your + things on and come with me!” + </p> + <p> + The tones of his voice startled her, and she said angrily, dropping the + soap, “Are you drunk?” + </p> + <p> + “If you do not come with me, I will take you—you had better come,” + said Canute quietly. + </p> + <p> + She lifted a sheet to strike him, but he caught her arm roughly and + wrenched the sheet from her. He turned to the wall and took down a hood + and shawl that hung there, and began wrapping her up. Lena scratched and + fought like a wild thing. Ole stood in the door, cursing, and Mary howled + and screeched at the top of her voice. As for Canute, he lifted the girl + in his arms and went out of the house. She kicked and struggled, but the + helpless wailing of Mary and Ole soon died away in the distance, and her + face was held down tightly on Canute's shoulder so that she could not see + whither he was taking her. She was conscious only of the north wind + whistling in her ears, and of rapid steady motion and of a great breast + that heaved beneath her in quick, irregular breaths. The harder she + struggled the tighter those iron arms that had held the heels of horses + crushed about her, until she felt as if they would crush the breath from + her, and lay still with fear. Canute was striding across the level fields + at a pace at which man never went before, drawing the stinging north winds + into his lungs in great gulps. He walked with his eyes half closed and + looking straight in front of him, only lowering them when he bent his head + to blow away the snow flakes that settled on her hair. So it was that + Canute took her to his home, even as his bearded barbarian ancestors took + the fair frivolous women of the South in their hairy arms and bore them + down to their war ships. For ever and anon the soul becomes weary of the + conventions that are not of it, and with a single stroke shatters the + civilized lies with which it is unable to cope, and the strong arm reaches + out and takes by force what it cannot win by cunning. + </p> + <p> + When Canute reached his shanty he placed the girl upon a chair, where she + sat sobbing. He stayed only a few minutes. He filled the stove with wood + and lit the lamp, drank a huge swallow of alcohol and put the bottle in + his pocket. He paused a moment, staring heavily at the weeping girl, then + he went off and locked the door and disappeared in the gathering gloom of + the night. + </p> + <p> + Wrapped in flannels and soaked with turpentine, the little Norwegian + preacher sat reading his Bible, when he heard a thundering knock at his + door, and Canute entered, covered with snow and his beard frozen fast to + his coat. + </p> + <p> + “Come in, Canute, you must be frozen,” said the little man, shoving a + chair towards his visitor. + </p> + <p> + Canute remained standing with his hat on and said quietly, “I want you to + come over to my house tonight to marry me to Lena Yensen.” + </p> + <p> + “Have you got a license, Canute?” + </p> + <p> + “No, I don't want a license. I want to be married.” + </p> + <p> + “But I can't marry you without a license, man, it would not be legal.” + </p> + <p> + A dangerous light came in the big Norwegian's eye. “I want you to come + over to my house to marry me to Lena Yensen.” + </p> + <p> + “No, I can't, it would kill an ox to go out in a storm like this, and my + rheumatism is bad tonight.” + </p> + <p> + “Then if you will not go I must take you,” said Canute with a sigh. + </p> + <p> + He took down the preacher's bearskin coat and bade him put it on while he + hitched up his buggy. He went out and closed the door softly after him. + Presently he returned and found the frightened minister crouching before + the fire with his coat lying beside him. Canute helped him put it on and + gently wrapped his head in his big muffler. Then he picked him up and + carried him out and placed him in his buggy. As he tucked the buffalo + robes around him he said: “Your horse is old, he might flounder or lose + his way in this storm. I will lead him.” + </p> + <p> + The minister took the reins feebly in his hands and sat shivering with the + cold. Sometimes when there was a lull in the wind, he could see the horse + struggling through the snow with the man plodding steadily beside him. + Again the blowing snow would hide them from him altogether. He had no idea + where they were or what direction they were going. He felt as though he + were being whirled away in the heart of the storm, and he said all the + prayers he knew. But at last the long four miles were over, and Canute set + him down in the snow while he unlocked the door. He saw the bride sitting + by the fire with her eyes red and swollen as though she had been weeping. + Canute placed a huge chair for him, and said roughly,— + </p> + <p> + “Warm yourself.” + </p> + <p> + Lena began to cry and moan afresh, begging the minister to take her home. + He looked helplessly at Canute. Canute said simply, + </p> + <p> + “If you are warm now, you can marry us.” + </p> + <p> + “My daughter, do you take this step of your own free will?” asked the + minister in a trembling voice. + </p> + <p> + “No, sir, I don't, and it is disgraceful he should force me into it! I + won't marry him.” + </p> + <p> + “Then, Canute, I cannot marry you,” said the minister, standing as + straight as his rheumatic limbs would let him. + </p> + <p> + “Are you ready to marry us now, sir?” said Canute, laying one iron hand on + his stooped shoulder. The little preacher was a good man, but like most + men of weak body he was a coward and had a horror of physical suffering, + although he had known so much of it. So with many qualms of conscience he + began to repeat the marriage service. Lena sat sullenly in her chair, + staring at the fire. Canute stood beside her, listening with his head bent + reverently and his hands folded on his breast. When the little man had + prayed and said amen, Canute began bundling him up again. + </p> + <p> + “I will take you home, now,” he said as he carried him out and placed him + in his buggy, and started off with him through the fury of the storm, + floundering among the snow drifts that brought even the giant himself to + his knees. + </p> + <p> + After she was left alone, Lena soon ceased weeping. She was not of a + particularly sensitive temperament, and had little pride beyond that of + vanity. After the first bitter anger wore itself out, she felt nothing + more than a healthy sense of humiliation and defeat. She had no + inclination to run away, for she was married now, and in her eyes that was + final and all rebellion was useless. She knew nothing about a license, but + she knew that a preacher married folks. She consoled herself by thinking + that she had always intended to marry Canute someday, anyway. + </p> + <p> + She grew tired of crying and looking into the fire, so she got up and + began to look about her. She had heard queer tales about the inside of + Canute's shanty, and her curiosity soon got the better of her rage. One of + the first things she noticed was the new black suit of clothes hanging on + the wall. She was dull, but it did not take a vain woman long to interpret + anything so decidedly flattering, and she was pleased in spite of herself. + As she looked through the cupboard, the general air of neglect and + discomfort made her pity the man who lived there. + </p> + <p> + “Poor fellow, no wonder he wants to get married to get somebody to wash up + his dishes. Batchin's pretty hard on a man.” + </p> + <p> + It is easy to pity when once one's vanity has been tickled. She looked at + the windowsill and gave a little shudder and wondered if the man were + crazy. Then she sat down again and sat a long time wondering what her Dick + and Ole would do. + </p> + <p> + “It is queer Dick didn't come right over after me. He surely came, for he + would have left town before the storm began and he might just as well come + right on as go back. If he'd hurried he would have gotten here before the + preacher came. I suppose he was afraid to come, for he knew Canuteson + could pound him to jelly, the coward!” Her eyes flashed angrily. + </p> + <p> + The weary hours wore on and Lena began to grow horribly lonesome. It was + an uncanny night and this was an uncanny place to be in. She could hear + the coyotes howling hungrily a little way from the cabin, and more + terrible still were all the unknown noises of the storm. She remembered + the tales they told of the big log overhead and she was afraid of those + snaky things on the windowsills. She remembered the man who had been + killed in the draw, and she wondered what she would do if she saw crazy + Lou's white face glaring into the window. The rattling of the door became + unbearable, she thought the latch must be loose and took the lamp to look + at it. Then for the first time she saw the ugly brown snake skins whose + death rattle sounded every time the wind jarred the door. + </p> + <p> + “Canute, Canute!” she screamed in terror. + </p> + <p> + Outside the door she heard a heavy sound as of a big dog getting up and + shaking himself. The door opened and Canute stood before her, white as a + snow drift. + </p> + <p> + “What is it?” he asked kindly. + </p> + <p> + “I am cold,” she faltered. + </p> + <p> + He went out and got an armful of wood and a basket of cobs and filled the + stove. Then he went out and lay in the snow before the door. Presently he + heard her calling again. + </p> + <p> + “What is it?” he said, sitting up. + </p> + <p> + “I'm so lonesome, I'm afraid to stay in here all alone.” + </p> + <p> + “I will go over and get your mother.” And he got up. + </p> + <p> + “She won't come.” + </p> + <p> + “I'll bring her,” said Canute grimly. + </p> + <p> + “No, no. I don't want her, she will scold all the time.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I will bring your father.” + </p> + <p> + She spoke again and it seemed as though her mouth was close up to the + key-hole. She spoke lower than he had ever heard her speak before, so low + that he had to put his ear up to the lock to hear her. + </p> + <p> + “I don't want him either, Canute,—I'd rather have you.” + </p> + <p> + For a moment she heard no noise at all, then something like a groan. With + a cry of fear she opened the door, and saw Canute stretched in the snow at + her feet, his face in his hands, sobbing on the doorstep. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Eric Hermannson's Soul + </h2> + <p> + It was a great night at the Lone Star schoolhouse—a night when the + Spirit was present with power and when God was very near to man. So it + seemed to Asa Skinner, servant of God and Free Gospeller. The schoolhouse + was crowded with the saved and sanctified, robust men and women, trembling + and quailing before the power of some mysterious psychic force. Here and + there among this cowering, sweating multitude crouched some poor wretch + who had felt the pangs of an awakened conscience, but had not yet + experienced that complete divestment of reason, that frenzy born of a + convulsion of the mind, which, in the parlance of the Free Gospellers, is + termed “the Light.” On the floor before the mourners' bench lay the + unconscious figure of a man in whom outraged nature had sought her last + resort. This “trance” state is the highest evidence of grace among the + Free Gospellers, and indicates a close walking with God. + </p> + <p> + Before the desk stood Asa Skinner, shouting of the mercy and vengeance of + God, and in his eyes shone a terrible earnestness, an almost prophetic + flame. Asa was a converted train gambler who used to run between Omaha and + Denver. He was a man made for the extremes of life; from the most + debauched of men he had become the most ascetic. His was a bestial face, a + face that bore the stamp of Nature's eternal injustice. The forehead was + low, projecting over the eyes, and the sandy hair was plastered down over + it and then brushed back at an abrupt right angle. The chin was heavy, the + nostrils were low and wide, and the lower lip hung loosely except in his + moments of spasmodic earnestness, when it shut like a steel trap. Yet + about those coarse features there were deep, rugged furrows, the scars of + many a hand-to-hand struggle with the weakness of the flesh, and about + that drooping lip were sharp, strenuous lines that had conquered it and + taught it to pray. Over those seamed cheeks there was a certain pallor, a + greyness caught from many a vigil. It was as though, after Nature had done + her worst with that face, some fine chisel had gone over it, chastening + and almost transfiguring it. Tonight, as his muscles twitched with + emotion, and the perspiration dropped from his hair and chin, there was a + certain convincing power in the man. For Asa Skinner was a man possessed + of a belief, of that sentiment of the sublime before which all + inequalities are leveled, that transport of conviction which seems + superior to all laws of condition, under which debauchees have become + martyrs; which made a tinker an artist and a camel-driver the founder of + an empire. This was with Asa Skinner tonight, as he stood proclaiming the + vengeance of God. + </p> + <p> + It might have occurred to an impartial observer that Asa Skinner's God was + indeed a vengeful God if he could reserve vengeance for those of his + creatures who were packed into the Lone Star schoolhouse that night. Poor + exiles of all nations; men from the south and the north, peasants from + almost every country of Europe, most of them from the mountainous, + night-bound coast of Norway. Honest men for the most part, but men with + whom the world had dealt hardly; the failures of all countries, men + sobered by toil and saddened by exile, who had been driven to fight for + the dominion of an untoward soil, to sow where others should gather, the + advance guard of a mighty civilization to be. + </p> + <p> + Never had Asa Skinner spoken more earnestly than now. He felt that the + Lord had this night a special work for him to do. Tonight Eric Hermannson, + the wildest lad on all the Divide, sat in his audience with a fiddle on + his knee, just as he had dropped in on his way to play for some dance. The + violin is an object of particular abhorrence to the Free Gospellers. Their + antagonism to the church organ is bitter enough, but the fiddle they + regard as a very incarnation of evil desires, singing forever of worldly + pleasures and inseparably associated with all forbidden things. + </p> + <p> + Eric Hermannson had long been the object of the prayers of the + revivalists. His mother had felt the power of the Spirit weeks ago, and + special prayer-meetings had been held at her house for her son. But Eric + had only gone his ways laughing, the ways of youth, which are short enough + at best, and none too flowery on the Divide. + </p> + <p> + He slipped away from the prayer-meetings to meet the Campbell boys in + Genereau's saloon, or hug the plump little French girls at Chevalier's + dances, and sometimes, of a summer night, he even went across the dewy + cornfields and through the wild-plum thicket to play the fiddle for Lena + Hanson, whose name was a reproach through all the Divide country, where + the women are usually too plain and too busy and too tired to depart from + the ways of virtue. On such occasions Lena, attired in a pink wrapper and + silk stockings and tiny pink slippers, would sing to him, accompanying + herself on a battered guitar. It gave him a delicious sense of freedom and + experience to be with a woman who, no matter how, had lived in big cities + and knew the ways of town folk, who had never worked in the fields and had + kept her hands white and soft, her throat fair and tender, who had heard + great singers in Denver and Salt Lake, and who knew the strange language + of flattery and idleness and mirth. + </p> + <p> + Yet, careless as he seemed, the frantic prayers of his mother were not + altogether without their effect upon Eric. For days he had been fleeing + before them as a criminal from his pursuers, and over his pleasures had + fallen the shadow of something dark and terrible that dogged his steps. + The harder he danced, the louder he sang, the more was he conscious that + this phantom was gaining upon him, that in time it would track him down. + One Sunday afternoon, late in the fall, when he had been drinking beer + with Lena Hanson and listening to a song which made his cheeks burn, a + rattlesnake had crawled out of the side of the sod house and thrust its + ugly head in under the screen door. He was not afraid of snakes, but he + knew enough of Gospellism to feel the significance of the reptile lying + coiled there upon her doorstep. His lips were cold when he kissed Lena + goodbye, and he went there no more. + </p> + <p> + The final barrier between Eric and his mother's faith was his violin, and + to that he clung as a man sometimes will cling to his dearest sin, to the + weakness more precious to him than all his strength, In the great world + beauty comes to men in many guises, and art in a hundred forms, but for + Eric there was only his violin. + </p> + <p> + It stood, to him, for all the manifestations of art; it was his only + bridge into the kingdom of the soul. + </p> + <p> + It was to Eric Hermannson that the evangelist directed his impassioned + pleading that night. + </p> + <p> + “<i>Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?</i> Is there a Saul here tonight + who has stopped his ears to that gentle pleading, who has thrust a spear + into that bleeding side? Think of it, my brother; you are offered this + wonderful love and you prefer the worm that dieth not and the fire which + will not be quenched. What right have you to lose one of God's precious + souls? <i>Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?</i>” + </p> + <p> + A great joy dawned in Asa Skinner's pale face, for he saw that Eric + Hermannson was swaying to and fro in his seat. The minister fell upon his + knees and threw his long arms up over his head. + </p> + <p> + “O my brothers! I feel it coming, the blessing we have prayed for. I tell + you the Spirit is coming! just a little more prayer, brothers, a little + more zeal, and he will be here. I can feel his cooling wing upon my brow. + Glory be to God forever and ever, amen!” + </p> + <p> + The whole congregation groaned under the pressure of this spiritual panic. + Shouts and hallelujahs went up from every lip. Another figure fell + prostrate upon the floor. From the mourners' bench rose a chant of terror + and rapture: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Eating honey and drinking wine, + <i>Glory to the bleeding Lamb!</i> + I am my Lord's and he is mine, + <i>Glory to the bleeding Lamb!”</i> +</pre> + <p> + The hymn was sung in a dozen dialects and voiced all the vague yearning of + these hungry lives, of these people who had starved all the passions so + long, only to fall victims to the barest of them all, fear. + </p> + <p> + A groan of ultimate anguish rose from Eric Hermannson's bowed head, and + the sound was like the groan of a great tree when it falls in the forest. + </p> + <p> + The minister rose suddenly to his feet and threw back his head, crying in + a loud voice: + </p> + <p> + “<i>Lazarus, come forth!</i> Eric Hermannson, you are lost, going down at + sea. In the name of God, and Jesus Christ his Son, I throw you the life + line. Take hold! Almighty God, my soul for his!” The minister threw his + arms out and lifted his quivering face. + </p> + <p> + Eric Hermannson rose to his feet; his lips were set and the lightning was + in his eyes. He took his violin by the neck and crushed it to splinters + across his knee, and to Asa Skinner the sound was like the shackles of sin + broken audibly asunder. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + II +</pre> + <p> + For more than two years Eric Hermannson kept the austere faith to which he + had sworn himself, kept it until a girl from the East came to spend a week + on the Nebraska Divide. She was a girl of other manners and conditions, + and there were greater distances between her life and Eric's than all the + miles which separated Rattlesnake Creek from New York City. Indeed, she + had no business to be in the West at all; but ah! across what leagues of + land and sea, by what improbable chances, do the unrelenting gods bring to + us our fate! + </p> + <p> + It was in a year of financial depression that Wyllis Elliot came to + Nebraska to buy cheap land and revisit the country where he had spent a + year of his youth. When he had graduated from Harvard it was still + customary for moneyed gentlemen to send their scapegrace sons to rough it + on ranches in the wilds of Nebraska or Dakota, or to consign them to a + living death in the sagebrush of the Black Hills. These young men did not + always return to the ways of civilized life. But Wyllis Elliot had not + married a half-breed, nor been shot in a cowpunchers' brawl, nor wrecked + by bad whisky, nor appropriated by a smirched adventuress. He had been + saved from these things by a girl, his sister, who had been very near to + his life ever since the days when they read fairy tales together and + dreamed the dreams that never come true. On this, his first visit to his + father's ranch since he left it six years before, he brought her with him. + She had been laid up half the winter from a sprain received while skating, + and had had too much time for reflection during those months. She was + restless and filled with a desire to see something of the wild country of + which her brother had told her so much. She was to be married the next + winter, and Wyllis understood her when she begged him to take her with him + on this long, aimless jaunt across the continent, to taste the last of + their freedom together. It comes to all women of her type—that + desire to taste the unknown which allures and terrifies, to run one's + whole soul's length out to the wind—just once. + </p> + <p> + It had been an eventful journey. Wyllis somehow understood that strain of + gypsy blood in his sister, and he knew where to take her. They had slept + in sod houses on the Platte River, made the acquaintance of the personnel + of a third-rate opera company on the train to Deadwood, dined in a camp of + railroad constructors at the world's end beyond New Castle, gone through + the Black Hills on horseback, fished for trout in Dome Lake, watched a + dance at Cripple Creek, where the lost souls who hide in the hills + gathered for their besotted revelry. And now, last of all, before the + return to thraldom, there was this little shack, anchored on the windy + crest of the Divide, a little black dot against the flaming sunsets, a + scented sea of cornland bathed in opalescent air and blinding sunlight. + </p> + <p> + Margaret Elliot was one of those women of whom there are so many in this + day, when old order, passing, giveth place to new; beautiful, talented, + critical, unsatisfied, tired of the world at twenty-four. For the moment + the life and people of the Divide interested her. She was there but a + week; perhaps had she stayed longer, that inexorable ennui which travels + faster even than the Vestibule Limited would have overtaken her. The week + she tarried there was the week that Eric Hermannson was helping Jerry + Lockhart thresh; a week earlier or a week later, and there would have been + no story to write. + </p> + <p> + It was on Thursday and they were to leave on Saturday. Wyllis and his + sister were sitting on the wide piazza of the ranchhouse, staring out into + the afternoon sunlight and protesting against the gusts of hot wind that + blew up from the sandy riverbottom twenty miles to the southward. + </p> + <p> + The young man pulled his cap lower over his eyes and remarked: + </p> + <p> + “This wind is the real thing; you don't strike it anywhere else. You + remember we had a touch of it in Algiers and I told you it came from + Kansas. It's the keynote of this country.” + </p> + <p> + Wyllis touched her hand that lay on the hammock and continued gently: + </p> + <p> + “I hope it's paid you, Sis. Roughing it's dangerous business; it takes the + taste out of things.” + </p> + <p> + She shut her fingers firmly over the brown hand that was so like her own. + </p> + <p> + “Paid? Why, Wyllis, I haven't been so happy since we were children and + were going to discover the ruins of Troy together some day. Do you know, I + believe I could just stay on here forever and let the world go on its own + gait. It seems as though the tension and strain we used to talk of last + winter were gone for good, as though one could never give one's strength + out to such petty things any more.” + </p> + <p> + Wyllis brushed the ashes of his pipe away from the silk handkerchief that + was knotted about his neck and stared moodily off at the skyline. + </p> + <p> + “No, you're mistaken. This would bore you after a while. You can't shake + the fever of the other life. I've tried it. There was a time when the gay + fellows of Rome could trot down into the Thebaid and burrow into the + sandhills and get rid of it. But it's all too complex now. You see we've + made our dissipations so dainty and respectable that they've gone further + in than the flesh, and taken hold of the ego proper. You couldn't rest, + even here. The war cry would follow you.” + </p> + <p> + “You don't waste words, Wyllis, but you never miss fire. I talk more than + you do, without saying half so much. You must have learned the art of + silence from these taciturn Norwegians. I think I like silent men.” + </p> + <p> + “Naturally,” said Wyllis, “since you have decided to marry the most + brilliant talker you know.” + </p> + <p> + Both were silent for a time, listening to the sighing of the hot wind + through the parched morning-glory vines. Margaret spoke first. + </p> + <p> + “Tell me, Wyllis, were many of the Norwegians you used to know as + interesting as Eric Hermannson?” + </p> + <p> + “Who, Siegfried? Well, no. He used to be the flower of the Norwegian youth + in my day, and he's rather an exception, even now. He has retrograded, + though. The bonds of the soil have tightened on him, I fancy.” + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +“Siegfried? Come, that's rather good, Wyllis. He looks like a +dragon-slayer. What is it that makes him so different from the others? I +can talk to him; he seems quite like a human being.” + + “Well,” said Wyllis, meditatively, “I don't read Bourget +as much as my cultured sister, and I'm not so well up in analysis, but +I fancy it's because one keeps cherishing a perfectly unwarranted +suspicion that under that big, hulking anatomy of his, he may conceal a +soul somewhere. <i>Nicht wahr?</i>” + </pre> + <p> + “Something like that,” said Margaret, thoughtfully, “except that it's more + than a suspicion, and it isn't groundless. He has one, and he makes it + known, somehow, without speaking.” + </p> + <p> + “I always have my doubts about loquacious souls,” Wyllis remarked, with + the unbelieving smile that had grown habitual with him. + </p> + <p> + Margaret went on, not heeding the interruption. “I knew it from the first, + when he told me about the suicide of his cousin, the Bernstein boy. That + kind of blunt pathos can't be summoned at will in anybody. The earlier + novelists rose to it, sometimes, unconsciously. But last night when I sang + for him I was doubly sure. Oh, I haven't told you about that yet! Better + light your pipe again. You see, he stumbled in on me in the dark when I + was pumping away at that old parlour organ to please Mrs. Lockhart It's + her household fetish and I've forgotten how many pounds of butter she made + and sold to buy it. Well, Eric stumbled in, and in some inarticulate + manner made me understand that he wanted me to sing for him. I sang just + the old things, of course. It's queer to sing familiar things here at the + world's end. It makes one think how the hearts of men have carried them + around the world, into the wastes of Iceland and the jungles of Africa and + the islands of the Pacific. I think if one lived here long enough one + would quite forget how to be trivial, and would read only the great books + that we never get time to read in the world, and would remember only the + great music, and the things that are really worth while would stand out + clearly against that horizon over there. And of course I played the + intermezzo from <i>Cavalleria Rusticana</i> for him; it goes rather better + on an organ than most things do. He shuffled his feet and twisted his big + hands up into knots and blurted out that he didn't know there was any + music like that in the world. Why, there were tears in his voice, Wyllis! + Yes, like Rossetti, I <i>heard</i> his tears. Then it dawned upon me that + it was probably the first good music he had ever heard in all his life. + Think of it, to care for music as he does and never to hear it, never to + know that it exists on earth! To long for it as we long for other perfect + experiences that never come. I can't tell you what music means to that + man. I never saw any one so susceptible to it. It gave him speech, he + became alive. When I had finished the intermezzo, he began telling me + about a little crippled brother who died and whom he loved and used to + carry everywhere in his arms. He did not wait for encouragement. He took + up the story and told it slowly, as if to himself, just sort of rose up + and told his own woe to answer Mascagni's. It overcame me.” + </p> + <p> + “Poor devil,” said Wyllis, looking at her with mysterious eyes, “and so + you've given him a new woe. Now he'll go on wanting Grieg and Schubert the + rest of his days and never getting them. That's a girl's philanthropy for + you!” + </p> + <p> + Jerry Lockhart came out of the house screwing his chin over the unusual + luxury of a stiff white collar, which his wife insisted upon as a + necessary article of toilet while Miss Elliot was at the house. Jerry sat + down on the step and smiled his broad, red smile at Margaret. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I've got the music for your dance, Miss Elliot. Olaf Oleson will + bring his accordion and Mollie will play the organ, when she isn't lookin' + after the grub, and a little chap from Frenchtown will bring his fiddle—though + the French don't mix with the Norwegians much.” + </p> + <p> + “Delightful! Mr. Lockhart, that dance will be the feature of our trip, and + it's so nice of you to get it up for us. We'll see the Norwegians in + character at last,” cried Margaret, cordially. + </p> + <p> + “See here, Lockhart, I'll settle with you for backing her in this scheme,” + said Wyllis, sitting up and knocking the ashes out of his pipe. “She's + done crazy things enough on this trip, but to talk of dancing all night + with a gang of half-mad Norwegians and taking the carriage at four to + catch the six o'clock train out of Riverton—well, it's tommyrot, + that's what it is!” + </p> + <p> + “Wyllis, I leave it to your sovereign power of reason to decide whether it + isn't easier to stay up all night than to get up at three in the morning. + To get up at three, think what that means! No, sir, I prefer to keep my + vigil and then get into a sleeper.” + </p> + <p> + “But what do you want with the Norwegians? I thought you were tired of + dancing.” + </p> + <p> + “So I am, with some people. But I want to see a Norwegian dance, and I + intend to. Come, Wyllis, you know how seldom it is that one really wants + to do anything nowadays. I wonder when I have really wanted to go to a + party before. It will be something to remember next month at Newport, when + we have to and don't want to. Remember your own theory that contrast is + about the only thing that makes life endurable. This is my party and Mr. + Lockhart's; your whole duty tomorrow night will consist in being nice to + the Norwegian girls. I'll warrant you were adept enough at it once. And + you'd better be very nice indeed, for if there are many such young + Valkyries as Eric's sister among them, they would simply tie you up in a + knot if they suspected you were guying them.” + </p> + <p> + Wyllis groaned and sank back into the hammock to consider his fate, while + his sister went on. + </p> + <p> + “And the guests, Mr. Lockhart, did they accept?” + </p> + <p> + Lockhart took out his knife and began sharpening it on the sole of his + plowshoe. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I guess we'll have a couple dozen. You see it's pretty hard to get + a crowd together here any more. Most of 'em have gone over to the Free + Gospellers, and they'd rather put their feet in the fire than shake 'em to + a fiddle.” + </p> + <p> + Margaret made a gesture of impatience. “Those Free Gospellers have just + cast an evil spell over this country, haven't they?” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said Lockhart, cautiously, “I don't just like to pass judgment on + any Christian sect, but if you're to know the chosen by their works, the + Gospellers can't make a very proud showin', an' that's a fact. They're + responsible for a few suicides, and they've sent a good-sized delegation + to the state insane asylum, an' I don't see as they've made the rest of us + much better than we were before. I had a little herdboy last spring, as + square a little Dane as I want to work for me, but after the Gospellers + got hold of him and sanctified him, the little beggar used to get down on + his knees out on the prairie and pray by the hour and let the cattle get + into the corn, an' I had to fire him. That's about the way it goes. Now + there's Eric; that chap used to be a hustler and the spryest dancer in all + this section-called all the dances. Now he's got no ambition and he's glum + as a preacher. I don't suppose we can even get him to come in tomorrow + night.” + </p> + <p> + “Eric? Why, he must dance, we can't let him off,” said Margaret, quickly. + “Why, I intend to dance with him myself.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm afraid he won't dance. I asked him this morning if he'd help us out + and he said, 'I don't dance now, any more,'” said Lockhart, imitating the + laboured English of the Norwegian. + </p> + <p> + “'The Miller of Hofbau, the Miller of Hofbau, O my Princess!'” chirped + Wyllis, cheerfully, from his hammock. + </p> + <p> + The red on his sister's cheek deepened a little, and she laughed + mischievously. “We'll see about that, sir. I'll not admit that I am beaten + until I have asked him myself.” + </p> + <p> + Every night Eric rode over to St. Anne, a little village in the heart of + the French settlement, for the mail. As the road lay through the most + attractive part of the Divide country, on several occasions Margaret + Elliot and her brother had accompanied him. Tonight Wyllis had business + with Lockhart, and Margaret rode with Eric, mounted on a frisky little + mustang that Mrs. Lockhart had broken to the sidesaddle. Margaret regarded + her escort very much as she did the servant who always accompanied her on + long rides at home, and the ride to the village was a silent one. She was + occupied with thoughts of another world, and Eric was wrestling with more + thoughts than had ever been crowded into his head before. + </p> + <p> + He rode with his eyes riveted on that slight figure before him, as though + he wished to absorb it through the optic nerves and hold it in his brain + forever. He understood the situation perfectly. His brain worked slowly, + but he had a keen sense of the values of things. This girl represented an + entirely new species of humanity to him, but he knew where to place her. + The prophets of old, when an angel first appeared unto them, never doubted + its high origin. + </p> + <p> + Eric was patient under the adverse conditions of his life, but he was not + servile. The Norse blood in him had not entirely lost its self-reliance. + He came of a proud fisher line, men who were not afraid of anything but + the ice and the devil, and he had prospects before him when his father + went down off the North Cape in the long Arctic night, and his mother, + seized by a violent horror of seafaring life, had followed her brother to + America. Eric was eighteen then, handsome as young Siegfried, a giant in + stature, with a skin singularly pure and delicate, like a Swede's; hair as + yellow as the locks of Tennyson's amorous Prince, and eyes of a fierce, + burning blue, whose flash was most dangerous to women. + </p> + <p> + He had in those days a certain pride of bearing, a certain confidence of + approach, that usually accompanies physical perfection. It was even said + of him then that he was in love with life, and inclined to levity, a vice + most unusual on the Divide. But the sad history of those Norwegian exiles, + transplanted in an arid soil and under a scorching sun, had repeated + itself in his case. Toil and isolation had sobered him, and he grew more + and more like the clods among which he laboured. It was as though some + red-hot instrument had touched for a moment those delicate fibers of the + brain which respond to acute pain or pleasure, in which lies the power of + exquisite sensation, and had seared them quite away. It is a painful thing + to watch the light die out of the eyes of those Norsemen, leaving an + expression of impenetrable sadness, quite passive, quite hopeless, a + shadow that is never lifted. With some this change comes almost at once, + in the first bitterness of homesickness, with others it comes more slowly, + according to the time it takes each man's heart to die. + </p> + <p> + Oh, those poor Northmen of the Divide! They are dead many a year before + they are put to rest in the little graveyard on the windy hill where + exiles of all nations grow akin. + </p> + <p> + The peculiar species of hypochondria to which the exiles of his people + sooner or later succumb had not developed in Eric until that night at the + Lone Star schoolhouse, when he had broken his violin across his knee. + After that, the gloom of his people settled down upon him, and the gospel + of maceration began its work. + </p> + <p> + <i>“If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out,”</i> et cetera. The pagan + smile that once hovered about his lips was gone, and he was one with + sorrow. Religion heals a hundred hearts for one that it embitters, but + when it destroys, its work is quick and deadly, and where the agony of the + cross has been, joy will not come again. This man understood things + literally: one must live without pleasure to die without fear; to save the + soul, it was necessary to starve the soul. + </p> + <p> + The sun hung low above the cornfields when Margaret and her cavalier left + St. Anne. South of the town there is a stretch of road that runs for some + three miles through the French settlement, where the prairie is as level + as the surface of a lake. There the fields of flax and wheat and rye are + bordered by precise rows of slender, tapering Lombard poplars. It was a + yellow world that Margaret Elliot saw under the wide light of the setting + sun. + </p> + <p> + The girl gathered up her reins and called back to Eric, “It will be safe + to run the horses here, won't it?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I think so, now,” he answered, touching his spur to his pony's + flank. They were off like the wind. It is an old saying in the West that + newcomers always ride a horse or two to death before they get broken in to + the country. They are tempted by the great open spaces and try to outride + the horizon, to get to the end of something. Margaret galloped over the + level road, and Eric, from behind, saw her long veil fluttering in the + wind. It had fluttered just so in his dreams last night and the night + before. With a sudden inspiration of courage he overtook her and rode + beside her, looking intently at her half-averted face. Before, he had only + stolen occasional glances at it, seen it in blinding flashes, always with + more or less embarrassment, but now he determined to let every line of it + sink into his memory. Men of the world would have said that it was an + unusual face, nervous, finely cut, with clear, elegant lines that + betokened ancestry. Men of letters would have called it a historic face, + and would have conjectured at what old passions, long asleep, what old + sorrows forgotten time out of mind, doing battle together in ages gone, + had curved those delicate nostrils, left their unconscious memory in those + eyes. But Eric read no meaning in these details. To him this beauty was + something more than colour and line; it was a flash of white light, in + which one cannot distinguish colour because all colours are there. To him + it was a complete revelation, an embodiment of those dreams of impossible + loveliness that linger by a young man's pillow on midsummer nights; yet, + because it held something more than the attraction of health and youth and + shapeliness, it troubled him, and in its presence he felt as the Goths + before the white marbles in the Roman Capitol, not knowing whether they + were men or gods. At times he felt like uncovering his head before it, + again the fury seized him to break and despoil, to find the clay in this + spirit-thing and stamp upon it. Away from her, he longed to strike out + with his arms, and take and hold; it maddened him that this woman whom he + could break in his hands should be so much stronger than he. But near her, + he never questioned this strength; he admitted its potentiality as he + admitted the miracles of the Bible; it enervated and conquered him. + </p> + <p> + Tonight, when he rode so close to her that he could have touched her, he + knew that he might as well reach out his hand to take a star. + </p> + <p> + Margaret stirred uneasily under his gaze and turned questioningly in her + saddle. + </p> + <p> + “This wind puts me a little out of breath when we ride fast,” she said. + </p> + <p> + Eric turned his eyes away. + </p> + <p> + “I want to ask you if I go to New York to work, if I maybe hear music like + you sang last night? I been a purty good hand to work,” he asked, timidly. + </p> + <p> + Margaret looked at him with surprise, and then, as she studied the outline + of his face, pityingly. + </p> + <p> + “Well, you might—but you'd lose a good deal else. I shouldn't like + you to go to New York—and be poor, you'd be out of atmosphere, some + way,” she said, slowly. Inwardly she was thinking: <i>There he would be + altogether sordid, impossible—a machine who would carry one's trunks + upstairs, perhaps. Here he is every inch a man, rather picturesque; why is + it?</i> “No,” she added aloud, “I shouldn't like that.” + </p> + <p> + “Then I not go,” said Eric, decidedly. + </p> + <p> + Margaret turned her face to hide a smile. She was a trifle amused and a + trifle annoyed. Suddenly she spoke again. + </p> + <p> + “But I'll tell you what I do want you to do, Eric. I want you to dance + with us tomorrow night and teach me some of the Norwegian dances; they say + you know them all. Won't you?” + </p> + <p> + Eric straightened himself in his saddle and his eyes flashed as they had + done in the Lone Star schoolhouse when he broke his violin across his + knee. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I will,” he said, quietly, and he believed that he delivered his + soul to hell as he said it. + </p> + <p> + They had reached the rougher country now, where the road wound through a + narrow cut in one of the bluffs along the creek, when a beat of hoofs + ahead and the sharp neighing of horses made the ponies start and Eric rose + in his stirrups. Then down the gulch in front of them and over the steep + clay banks thundered a herd of wild ponies, nimble as monkeys and wild as + rabbits, such as horse-traders drive east from the plains of Montana to + sell in the farming country. Margaret's pony made a shrill sound, a neigh + that was almost a scream, and started up the clay bank to meet them, all + the wild blood of the range breaking out in an instant. Margaret called to + Eric just as he threw himself out of the saddle and caught her pony's bit. + But the wiry little animal had gone mad and was kicking and biting like a + devil. Her wild brothers of the range were all about her, neighing, and + pawing the earth, and striking her with their forefeet and snapping at her + flanks. It was the old liberty of the range that the little beast fought + for. + </p> + <p> + “Drop the reins and hold tight, tight!” Eric called, throwing all his + weight upon the bit, struggling under those frantic forefeet that now beat + at his breast, and now kicked at the wild mustangs that surged and tossed + about him. He succeeded in wrenching the pony's head toward him and + crowding her withers against the clay bank, so that she could not roll. + </p> + <p> + “Hold tight, tight!” he shouted again, launching a kick at a snorting + animal that reared back against Margaret's saddle. If she should lose her + courage and fall now, under those hoofs—He struck out again and + again, kicking right and left with all his might. Already the negligent + drivers had galloped into the cut, and their long quirts were whistling + over the heads of the herd. As suddenly as it had come, the struggling, + frantic wave of wild life swept up out of the gulch and on across the open + prairie, and with a long despairing whinny of farewell the pony dropped + her head and stood trembling in her sweat, shaking the foam and blood from + her bit. + </p> + <p> + Eric stepped close to Margaret's side and laid his hand on her saddle. + “You are not hurt?” he asked, hoarsely. As he raised his face in the soft + starlight she saw that it was white and drawn and that his lips were + working nervously. + </p> + <p> + “No, no, not at all. But you, you are suffering; they struck you!” she + cried in sharp alarm. + </p> + <p> + He stepped back and drew his hand across his brow. + </p> + <p> + “No, it is not that,” he spoke rapidly now, with his hands clenched at his + side. “But if they had hurt you, I would beat their brains out with my + hands. I would kill them all. I was never afraid before. You are the only + beautiful thing that has ever come close to me. You came like an angel out + of the sky. You are like the music you sing, you are like the stars and + the snow on the mountains where I played when I was a little boy. You are + like all that I wanted once and never had, you are all that they have + killed in me. I die for you tonight, tomorrow, for all eternity. I am not + a coward; I was afraid because I love you more than Christ who died for + me, more than I am afraid of hell, or hope for heaven. I was never afraid + before. If you had fallen—oh, my God!” He threw his arms out blindly + and dropped his head upon the pony's mane, leaning limply against the + animal like a man struck by some sickness. His shoulders rose and fell + perceptibly with his laboured breathing. The horse stood cowed with + exhaustion and fear. Presently Margaret laid her hand on Eric's head and + said gently: + </p> + <p> + “You are better now, shall we go on? Can you get your horse?” + </p> + <p> + “No, he has gone with the herd. I will lead yours, she is not safe. I will + not frighten you again.” His voice was still husky, but it was steady now. + He took hold of the bit and tramped home in silence. + </p> + <p> + When they reached the house, Eric stood stolidly by the pony's head until + Wyllis came to lift his sister from the saddle. + </p> + <p> + “The horses were badly frightened, Wyllis. I think I was pretty thoroughly + scared myself,” she said as she took her brother's arm and went slowly up + the hill toward the house. “No, I'm not hurt, thanks to Eric. You must + thank him for taking such good care of me. He's a mighty fine fellow. I'll + tell you all about it in the morning, dear. I was pretty well shaken up + and I'm going right to bed now. Good night.” + </p> + <p> + When she reached the low room in which she slept, she sank upon the bed in + her riding dress, face downward. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I pity him! I pity him!” she murmured, with a long sigh of + exhaustion. She must have slept a little. When she rose again, she took + from her dress a letter that had been waiting for her at the village + post-office. It was closely written in a long, angular hand, covering a + dozen pages of foreign note-paper, and began: + </p> + <p> + My Dearest Margaret: if I should attempt to say <i>how like a winter hath + thine absence been</i>, I should incur the risk of being tedious. Really, + it takes the sparkle out of everything. Having nothing better to do, and + not caring to go anywhere in particular without you, I remained in the + city until Jack Courtwell noted my general despondency and brought me down + here to his place on the sound to manage some open-air theatricals he is + getting up. <i>As You Like It</i> is of course the piece selected. Miss + Harrison plays Rosalind. I wish you had been here to take the part. Miss + Harrison reads her lines well, but she is either a maiden-all-forlorn or a + tomboy; insists on reading into the part all sorts of deeper meanings and + highly coloured suggestions wholly out of harmony with the pastoral + setting. Like most of the professionals, she exaggerates the emotional + element and quite fails to do justice to Rosalind's facile wit and really + brilliant mental qualities. Gerard will do Orlando, but rumor says he is + <i>epris</i> of your sometime friend, Miss Meredith, and his memory is + treacherous and his interest fitful. + </p> + <p> + My new pictures arrived last week on the <i>Gascogne</i>. The Puvis de + Chavannes is even more beautiful than I thought it in Paris. A pale + dream-maiden sits by a pale dream-cow and a stream of anemic water flows + at her feet. The Constant, you will remember, I got because you admired + it. It is here in all its florid splendour, the whole dominated by a + glowing sensuosity. The drapery of the female figure is as wonderful as + you said; the fabric all barbaric pearl and gold, painted with an easy, + effortless voluptuousness, and that white, gleaming line of African coast + in the background recalls memories of you very precious to me. But it is + useless to deny that Constant irritates me. Though I cannot prove the + charge against him, his brilliancy always makes me suspect him of + cheapness. + </p> + <p> + Here Margaret stopped and glanced at the remaining pages of this strange + love-letter. They seemed to be filled chiefly with discussions of pictures + and books, and with a slow smile she laid them by. + </p> + <p> + She rose and began undressing. Before she lay down she went to open the + window. With her hand on the sill, she hesitated, feeling suddenly as + though some danger were lurking outside, some inordinate desire waiting to + spring upon her in the darkness. She stood there for a long time, gazing + at the infinite sweep of the sky. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, it is all so little, so little there,” she murmured. “When everything + else is so dwarfed, why should one expect love to be great? Why should one + try to read highly coloured suggestions into a life like that? If only I + could find one thing in it all that mattered greatly, one thing that would + warm me when I am alone! Will life never give me that one great moment?” + </p> + <p> + As she raised the window, she heard a sound in the plum bushes outside. It + was only the house-dog roused from his sleep, but Margaret started + violently and trembled so that she caught the foot of the bed for support. + Again she felt herself pursued by some overwhelming longing, some + desperate necessity for herself, like the outstretching of helpless, + unseen arms in the darkness, and the air seemed heavy with sighs of + yearning. She fled to her bed with the words, “I love you more than Christ + who died for me!” ringing in her ears. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + III +</pre> + <p> + About midnight the dance at Lockhart's was at its height. Even the old men + who had come to “look on” caught the spirit of revelry and stamped the + floor with the vigor of old Silenus. Eric took the violin from the + Frenchmen, and Minna Oleson sat at the organ, and the music grew more and + more characteristic—rude, half mournful music, made up of the + folksongs of the North, that the villagers sing through the long night in + hamlets by the sea, when they are thinking of the sun, and the spring, and + the fishermen so long away. To Margaret some of it sounded like Grieg's <i>Peer + Gynt</i> music. She found something irresistibly infectious in the mirth + of these people who were so seldom merry, and she felt almost one of them. + Something seemed struggling for freedom in them tonight, something of the + joyous childhood of the nations which exile had not killed. The girls were + all boisterous with delight. Pleasure came to them but rarely, and when it + came, they caught at it wildly and crushed its fluttering wings in their + strong brown fingers. They had a hard life enough, most of them. Torrid + summers and freezing winters, labour and drudgery and ignorance, were the + portion of their girlhood; a short wooing, a hasty, loveless marriage, + unlimited maternity, thankless sons, premature age and ugliness, were the + dower of their womanhood. But what matter? Tonight there was hot liquor in + the glass and hot blood in the heart; tonight they danced. + </p> + <p> + Tonight Eric Hermannson had renewed his youth. He was no longer the big, + silent Norwegian who had sat at Margaret's feet and looked hopelessly into + her eyes. Tonight he was a man, with a man's rights and a man's power. + Tonight he was Siegfried indeed. His hair was yellow as the heavy wheat in + the ripe of summer, and his eyes flashed like the blue water between the + ice packs in the north seas. He was not afraid of Margaret tonight, and + when he danced with her he held her firmly. She was tired and dragged on + his arm a little, but the strength of the man was like an all-pervading + fluid, stealing through her veins, awakening under her heart some + nameless, unsuspected existence that had slumbered there all these years + and that went out through her throbbing fingertips to his that answered. + She wondered if the hoydenish blood of some lawless ancestor, long asleep, + were calling out in her tonight, some drop of a hotter fluid that the + centuries had failed to cool, and why, if this curse were in her, it had + not spoken before. But was it a curse, this awakening, this wealth before + undiscovered, this music set free? For the first time in her life her + heart held something stronger than herself, was not this worthwhile? Then + she ceased to wonder. She lost sight of the lights and the faces and the + music was drowned by the beating of her own arteries. She saw only the + blue eyes that flashed above her, felt only the warmth of that throbbing + hand which held hers and which the blood of his heart fed. Dimly, as in a + dream, she saw the drooping shoulders, high white forehead and tight, + cynical mouth of the man she was to marry in December. For an hour she had + been crowding back the memory of that face with all her strength. + </p> + <p> + “Let us stop, this is enough,” she whispered. His only answer was to + tighten the arm behind her. She sighed and let that masterful strength + bear her where it would. She forgot that this man was little more than a + savage, that they would part at dawn. The blood has no memories, no + reflections, no regrets for the past, no consideration of the future. + </p> + <p> + “Let us go out where it is cooler,” she said when the music stopped; + thinking, <i>I am growing faint here, I shall be all right in the open air</i>. + They stepped out into the cool, blue air of the night. + </p> + <p> + Since the older folk had begun dancing, the young Norwegians had been + slipping out in couples to climb the windmill tower into the cooler + atmosphere, as is their custom. + </p> + <p> + “You like to go up?” asked Eric, close to her ear. + </p> + <p> + She turned and looked at him with suppressed amusement. “How high is it?” + </p> + <p> + “Forty feet, about. I not let you fall.” There was a note of irresistible + pleading in his voice, and she felt that he tremendously wished her to go. + Well, why not? This was a night of the unusual, when she was not herself + at all, but was living an unreality. Tomorrow, yes, in a few hours, there + would be the Vestibule Limited and the world. + </p> + <p> + “Well, if you'll take good care of me. I used to be able to climb, when I + was a little girl.” + </p> + <p> + Once at the top and seated on the platform, they were silent. Margaret + wondered if she would not hunger for that scene all her life, through all + the routine of the days to come. Above them stretched the great Western + sky, serenely blue, even in the night, with its big, burning stars, never + so cold and dead and far away as in denser atmospheres. The moon would not + be up for twenty minutes yet, and all about the horizon, that wide + horizon, which seemed to reach around the world, lingered a pale white + light, as of a universal dawn. The weary wind brought up to them the heavy + odours of the cornfields. The music of the dance sounded faintly from + below. Eric leaned on his elbow beside her, his legs swinging down on the + ladder. His great shoulders looked more than ever like those of the stone + Doryphorus, who stands in his perfect, reposeful strength in the Louvre, + and had often made her wonder if such men died forever with the youth of + Greece. + </p> + <p> + “How sweet the corn smells at night,” said Margaret nervously. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, like the flowers that grow in paradise, I think.” + </p> + <p> + She was somewhat startled by this reply, and more startled when this + taciturn man spoke again. + </p> + <p> + “You go away tomorrow?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, we have stayed longer than we thought to now.” + </p> + <p> + “You not come back any more?” + </p> + <p> + “No, I expect not. You see, it is a long trip halfway across the + continent.” + </p> + <p> + “You soon forget about this country, I guess.” It seemed to him now a + little thing to lose his soul for this woman, but that she should utterly + forget this night into which he threw all his life and all his eternity, + that was a bitter thought. + </p> + <p> + “No, Eric, I will not forget. You have all been too kind to me for that. + And you won't be sorry you danced this one night, will you?” + </p> + <p> + “I never be sorry. I have not been so happy before. I not be so happy + again, ever. You will be happy many nights yet, I only this one. I will + dream sometimes, maybe.” + </p> + <p> + The mighty resignation of his tone alarmed and touched her. It was as when + some great animal composes itself for death, as when a great ship goes + down at sea. + </p> + <p> + She sighed, but did not answer him. He drew a little closer and looked + into her eyes. + </p> + <p> + “You are not always happy, too?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “No, not always, Eric; not very often, I think.” + </p> + <p> + “You have a trouble?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, but I cannot put it into words. Perhaps if I could do that, I could + cure it.” + </p> + <p> + He clasped his hands together over his heart, as children do when they + pray, and said falteringly, “If I own all the world, I give him you.” + </p> + <p> + Margaret felt a sudden moisture in her eyes, and laid her hand on his. + </p> + <p> + “Thank you, Eric; I believe you would. But perhaps even then I should not + be happy. Perhaps I have too much of it already.” + </p> + <p> + She did not take her hand away from him; she did not dare. She sat still + and waited for the traditions in which she had always believed to speak + and save her. But they were dumb. She belonged to an ultra-refined + civilization which tries to cheat nature with elegant sophistries. Cheat + nature? Bah! One generation may do it, perhaps two, but the third—Can + we ever rise above nature or sink below her? Did she not turn on Jerusalem + as upon Sodom, upon St. Anthony in his desert as upon Nero in his + seraglio? Does she not always cry in brutal triumph: “I am here still, at + the bottom of things, warming the roots of life; you cannot starve me nor + tame me nor thwart me; I made the world, I rule it, and I am its destiny.” + </p> + <p> + This woman, on a windmill tower at the world's end with a giant barbarian, + heard that cry tonight, and she was afraid! Ah! the terror and the delight + of that moment when first we fear ourselves! Until then we have not lived. + </p> + <p> + “Come, Eric, let us go down; the moon is up and the music has begun + again,” she said. + </p> + <p> + He rose silently and stepped down upon the ladder, putting his arm about + her to help her. That arm could have thrown Thor's hammer out in the + cornfields yonder, yet it scarcely touched her, and his hand trembled as + it had done in the dance. His face was level with hers now and the + moonlight fell sharply upon it. All her life she had searched the faces of + men for the look that lay in his eyes. She knew that that look had never + shone for her before, would never shine for her on earth again, that such + love comes to one only in dreams or in impossible places like this, + unattainable always. This was Love's self, in a moment it would die. Stung + by the agonized appeal that emanated from the man's whole being, she + leaned forward and laid her lips on his. Once, twice and again she heard + the deep respirations rattle in his throat while she held them there, and + the riotous force under her head became an engulfing weakness. He drew her + up to him until he felt all the resistance go out of her body, until every + nerve relaxed and yielded. When she drew her face back from his, it was + white with fear. + </p> + <p> + “Let us go down, oh, my God! let us go down!” she muttered. And the + drunken stars up yonder seemed reeling to some appointed doom as she clung + to the rounds of the ladder. All that she was to know of love she had left + upon his lips. + </p> + <p> + “The devil is loose again,” whispered Olaf Oleson, as he saw Eric dancing + a moment later, his eyes blazing. + </p> + <p> + But Eric was thinking with an almost savage exultation of the time when he + should pay for this. Ah, there would be no quailing then! if ever a soul + went fearlessly, proudly down to the gates infernal, his should go. For a + moment he fancied he was there already, treading down the tempest of + flame, hugging the fiery hurricane to his breast. He wondered whether in + ages gone, all the countless years of sinning in which men had sold and + lost and flung their souls away, any man had ever so cheated Satan, had + ever bartered his soul for so great a price. + </p> + <p> + It seemed but a little while till dawn. + </p> + <p> + The carriage was brought to the door and Wyllis Elliot and his sister said + goodbye. She could not meet Eric's eyes as she gave him her hand, but as + he stood by the horse's head, just as the carriage moved off, she gave him + one swift glance that said, “I will not forget.” In a moment the carriage + was gone. + </p> + <p> + Eric changed his coat and plunged his head into the water tank and went to + the barn to hook up his team. As he led his horses to the door, a shadow + fell across his path, and he saw Skinner rising in his stirrups. His + rugged face was pale and worn with looking after his wayward flock, with + dragging men into the way of salvation. + </p> + <p> + “Good morning, Eric. There was a dance here last night?” he asked, + sternly. + </p> + <p> + “A dance? Oh, yes, a dance,” replied Eric, cheerfully. + </p> + <p> + “Certainly you did not dance, Eric?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I danced. I danced all the time.” + </p> + <p> + The minister's shoulders drooped, and an expression of profound + discouragement settled over his haggard face. There was almost anguish in + the yearning he felt for this soul. + </p> + <p> + “Eric, I didn't look for this from you. I thought God had set his mark on + you if he ever had on any man. And it is for things like this that you set + your soul back a thousand years from God. O foolish and perverse + generation!” + </p> + <p> + Eric drew himself up to his full height and looked off to where the new + day was gilding the corn-tassels and flooding the uplands with light. As + his nostrils drew in the breath of the dew and the morning, something from + the only poetry he had ever read flashed across his mind, and he murmured, + half to himself, with dreamy exultation: + </p> + <p> + “'And a day shall be as a thousand years, and a thousand years as a day.'” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Enchanted Bluff + </h2> + <p> + We had our swim before sundown, and while we were cooking our supper the + oblique rays of light made a dazzling glare on the white sand about us. + The translucent red ball itself sank behind the brown stretches of + cornfield as we sat down to eat, and the warm layer of air that had rested + over the water and our clean sand bar grew fresher and smelled of the rank + ironweed and sunflowers growing on the flatter shore. The river was brown + and sluggish, like any other of the half-dozen streams that water the + Nebraska corn lands. On one shore was an irregular line of bald clay + bluffs where a few scrub oaks with thick trunks and flat, twisted tops + threw light shadows on the long grass. The western shore was low and + level, with cornfields that stretched to the skyline, and all along the + water's edge were little sandy coves and beaches where slim cottonwoods + and willow saplings flickered. + </p> + <p> + The turbulence of the river in springtime discouraged milling, and, beyond + keeping the old red bridge in repair, the busy farmers did not concern + themselves with the stream; so the Sandtown boys were left in undisputed + possession. In the autumn we hunted quail through the miles of stubble and + fodder land along the flat shore, and, after the winter skating season was + over and the ice had gone out, the spring freshets and flooded bottoms + gave us our great excitement of the year. The channel was never the same + for two successive seasons. Every spring the swollen stream undermined a + bluff to the east, or bit out a few acres of cornfield to the west and + whirled the soil away, to deposit it in spumy mud banks somewhere else. + When the water fell low in midsummer, new sand bars were thus exposed to + dry and whiten in the August sun. Sometimes these were banked so firmly + that the fury of the next freshet failed to unseat them; the little willow + seedlings emerged triumphantly from the yellow froth, broke into spring + leaf, shot up into summer growth, and with their mesh of roots bound + together the moist sand beneath them against the batterings of another + April. Here and there a cottonwood soon glittered among them, quivering in + the low current of air that, even on breathless days when the dust hung + like smoke above the wagon road, trembled along the face of the water. + </p> + <p> + It was on such an island, in the third summer of its yellow green, that we + built our watch fire; not in the thicket of dancing willow wands, but on + the level terrace of fine sand which had been added that spring; a little + new bit of world, beautifully ridged with ripple marks, and strewn with + the tiny skeletons of turtles and fish, all as white and dry as if they + had been expertly cured. We had been careful not to mar the freshness of + the place, although we often swam to it on summer evenings and lay on the + sand to rest. + </p> + <p> + This was our last watch fire of the year, and there were reasons why I + should remember it better than any of the others. Next week the other boys + were to file back to their old places in the Sandtown High School, but I + was to go up to the Divide to teach my first country school in the + Norwegian district. I was already homesick at the thought of quitting the + boys with whom I had always played; of leaving the river, and going up + into a windy plain that was all windmills and cornfields and big pastures; + where there was nothing wilful or unmanageable in the landscape, no new + islands, and no chance of unfamiliar birds—such as often followed + the watercourses. + </p> + <p> + Other boys came and went and used the river for fishing or skating, but we + six were sworn to the spirit of the stream, and we were friends mainly + because of the river. There were the two Hassler boys, Fritz and Otto, + sons of the little German tailor. They were the youngest of us; ragged + boys of ten and twelve, with sunburned hair, weather-stained faces, and + pale blue eyes. Otto, the elder, was the best mathematician in school, and + clever at his books, but he always dropped out in the spring term as if + the river could not get on without him. He and Fritz caught the fat, + horned catfish and sold them about the town, and they lived so much in the + water that they were as brown and sandy as the river itself. + </p> + <p> + There was Percy Pound, a fat, freckled boy with chubby cheeks, who took + half a dozen boys' story-papers and was always being kept in for reading + detective stories behind his desk. There was Tip Smith, destined by his + freckles and red hair to be the buffoon in all our games, though he walked + like a timid little old man and had a funny, cracked laugh. Tip worked + hard in his father's grocery store every afternoon, and swept it out + before school in the morning. Even his recreations were laborious. He + collected cigarette cards and tin tobacco-tags indefatigably, and would + sit for hours humped up over a snarling little scroll-saw which he kept in + his attic. His dearest possessions were some little pill bottles that + purported to contain grains of wheat from the Holy Land, water from the + Jordan and the Dead Sea, and earth from the Mount of Olives. His father + had bought these dull things from a Baptist missionary who peddled them, + and Tip seemed to derive great satisfaction from their remote origin. + </p> + <p> + The tall boy was Arthur Adams. He had fine hazel eyes that were almost too + reflective and sympathetic for a boy, and such a pleasant voice that we + all loved to hear him read aloud. Even when he had to read poetry aloud at + school, no one ever thought of laughing. To be sure, he was not at school + very much of the time. He was seventeen and should have finished the High + School the year before, but he was always off somewhere with his gun. + Arthur's mother was dead, and his father, who was feverishly absorbed in + promoting schemes, wanted to send the boy away to school and get him off + his hands; but Arthur always begged off for another year and promised to + study. I remember him as a tall, brown boy with an intelligent face, + always lounging among a lot of us little fellows, laughing at us oftener + than with us, but such a soft, satisfied laugh that we felt rather + flattered when we provoked it. In after-years people said that Arthur had + been given to evil ways as a lad, and it is true that we often saw him + with the gambler's sons and with old Spanish Fanny's boy, but if he + learned anything ugly in their company he never betrayed it to us. We + would have followed Arthur anywhere, and I am bound to say that he led us + into no worse places than the cattail marshes and the stubble fields. + These, then, were the boys who camped with me that summer night upon the + sand bar. + </p> + <p> + After we finished our supper we beat the willow thicket for driftwood. By + the time we had collected enough, night had fallen, and the pungent, weedy + smell from the shore increased with the coolness. We threw ourselves down + about the fire and made another futile effort to show Percy Pound the + Little Dipper. We had tried it often before, but he could never be got + past the big one. + </p> + <p> + “You see those three big stars just below the handle, with the bright one + in the middle?” said Otto Hassler; “that's Orion's belt, and the bright + one is the clasp.” I crawled behind Otto's shoulder and sighted up his arm + to the star that seemed perched upon the tip of his steady forefinger. The + Hassler boys did seine-fishing at night, and they knew a good many stars. + </p> + <p> + Percy gave up the Little Dipper and lay back on the sand, his hands + clasped under his head. “I can see the North Star,” he announced, + contentedly, pointing toward it with his big toe. “Anyone might get lost + and need to know that.” + </p> + <p> + We all looked up at it. + </p> + <p> + “How do you suppose Columbus felt when his compass didn't point north any + more?” Tip asked. + </p> + <p> + Otto shook his head. “My father says that there was another North Star + once, and that maybe this one won't last always. I wonder what would + happen to us down here if anything went wrong with it?” + </p> + <p> + Arthur chuckled. “I wouldn't worry, Ott. Nothing's apt to happen to it in + your time. Look at the Milky Way! There must be lots of good dead + Indians.” + </p> + <p> + We lay back and looked, meditating, at the dark cover of the world. The + gurgle of the water had become heavier. We had often noticed a mutinous, + complaining note in it at night, quite different from its cheerful daytime + chuckle, and seeming like the voice of a much deeper and more powerful + stream. Our water had always these two moods: the one of sunny + complaisance, the other of inconsolable, passionate regret. + </p> + <p> + “Queer how the stars are all in sort of diagrams,” remarked Otto. “You + could do most any proposition in geometry with 'em. They always look as if + they meant something. Some folks say everybody's fortune is all written + out in the stars, don't they?” + </p> + <p> + “They believe so in the old country,” Fritz affirmed. + </p> + <p> + But Arthur only laughed at him. “You're thinking of Napoleon, Fritzey. He + had a star that went out when he began to lose battles. I guess the stars + don't keep any close tally on Sandtown folks.” + </p> + <p> + We were speculating on how many times we could count a hundred before the + evening star went down behind the cornfields, when someone cried, “There + comes the moon, and it's as big as a cart wheel!” + </p> + <p> + We all jumped up to greet it as it swam over the bluffs behind us. It came + up like a galleon in full sail; an enormous, barbaric thing, red as an + angry heathen god. + </p> + <p> + “When the moon came up red like that, the Aztecs used to sacrifice their + prisoners on the temple top,” Percy announced. + </p> + <p> + “Go on, Perce. You got that out of <i>Golden Days</i>. Do you believe + that, Arthur?” I appealed. + </p> + <p> + Arthur answered, quite seriously: “Like as not. The moon was one of their + gods. When my father was in Mexico City he saw the stone where they used + to sacrifice their prisoners.” + </p> + <p> + As we dropped down by the fire again some one asked whether the + Mound-Builders were older than the Aztecs. When we once got upon the + Mound-Builders we never willingly got away from them, and we were still + conjecturing when we heard a loud splash in the water. + </p> + <p> + “Must have been a big cat jumping,” said Fritz. “They do sometimes. They + must see bugs in the dark. Look what a track the moon makes!” + </p> + <p> + There was a long, silvery streak on the water, and where the current + fretted over a big log it boiled up like gold pieces. + </p> + <p> + “Suppose there ever <i>was</i> any gold hid away in this old river?” Fritz + asked. He lay like a little brown Indian, close to the fire, his chin on + his hand and his bare feet in the air. His brother laughed at him, but + Arthur took his suggestion seriously. + </p> + <p> + “Some of the Spaniards thought there was gold up here somewhere. Seven + cities chuck full of gold, they had it, and Coronado and his men came up + to hunt it. The Spaniards were all over this country once.” + </p> + <p> + Percy looked interested. “Was that before the Mormons went through?” + </p> + <p> + We all laughed at this. + </p> + <p> + “Long enough before. Before the Pilgrim Fathers, Perce. Maybe they came + along this very river. They always followed the watercourses.” + </p> + <p> + “I wonder where this river really does begin?” Tip mused. That was an old + and a favorite mystery which the map did not clearly explain. On the map + the little black line stopped somewhere in western Kansas; but since + rivers generally rose in mountains, it was only reasonable to suppose that + ours came from the Rockies. Its destination, we knew, was the Missouri, + and the Hassler boys always maintained that we could embark at Sandtown in + floodtime, follow our noses, and eventually arrive at New Orleans. Now + they took up their old argument. “If us boys had grit enough to try it, it + wouldn't take no time to get to Kansas City and St. Joe.” + </p> + <p> + We began to talk about the places we wanted to go to. The Hassler boys + wanted to see the stockyards in Kansas City, and Percy wanted to see a big + store in Chicago. Arthur was interlocutor and did not betray himself. + </p> + <p> + “Now it's your turn, Tip.” + </p> + <p> + Tip rolled over on his elbow and poked the fire, and his eyes looked shyly + out of his queer, tight little face. “My place is awful far away. My Uncle + Bill told me about it.” + </p> + <p> + Tip's Uncle Bill was a wanderer, bitten with mining fever, who had drifted + into Sandtown with a broken arm, and when it was well had drifted out + again. + </p> + <p> + “Where is it?” + </p> + <p> + “Aw, it's down in New Mexico somewheres. There aren't no railroads or + anything. You have to go on mules, and you run out of water before you get + there and have to drink canned tomatoes.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, go on, kid. What's it like when you do get there?” + </p> + <p> + Tip sat up and excitedly began his story. + </p> + <p> + “There's a big red rock there that goes right up out of the sand for about + nine hundred feet. The country's flat all around it, and this here rock + goes up all by itself, like a monument. They call it the Enchanted Bluff + down there, because no white man has ever been on top of it. The sides are + smooth rock, and straight up, like a wall. The Indians say that hundreds + of years ago, before the Spaniards came, there was a village away up there + in the air. The tribe that lived there had some sort of steps, made out of + wood and bark, bung down over the face of the bluff, and the braves went + down to hunt and carried water up in big jars swung on their backs. They + kept a big supply of water and dried meat up there, and never went down + except to hunt. They were a peaceful tribe that made cloth and pottery, + and they went up there to get out of the wars. You see, they could pick + off any war party that tried to get up their little steps. The Indians say + they were a handsome people, and they had some sort of queer religion. + Uncle Bill thinks they were Cliff-Dwellers who had got into trouble and + left home. They weren't fighters, anyhow. + </p> + <p> + “One time the braves were down hunting and an awful storm came up—a + kind of waterspout—and when they got back to their rock they found + their little staircase had been all broken to pieces, and only a few steps + were left hanging away up in the air. While they were camped at the foot + of the rock, wondering what to do, a war party from the north came along + and massacred 'em to a man, with all the old folks and women looking on + from the rock. Then the war party went on south and left the village to + get down the best way they could. Of course they never got down. They + starved to death up there, and when the war party came back on their way + north, they could hear the children crying from the edge of the bluff + where they had crawled out, but they didn't see a sign of a grown Indian, + and nobody has ever been up there since.” + </p> + <p> + We exclaimed at this dolorous legend and sat up. + </p> + <p> + “There couldn't have been many people up there,” Percy demurred. “How big + is the top, Tip?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, pretty big. Big enough so that the rock doesn't look nearly as tall + as it is. The top's bigger than the base. The bluff is sort of worn away + for several hundred feet up. That's one reason it's so hard to climb.” + </p> + <p> + I asked how the Indians got up, in the first place. + </p> + <p> + “Nobody knows how they got up or when. A hunting party came along once and + saw that there was a town up there, and that was all.” + </p> + <p> + Otto rubbed his chin and looked thoughtful. “Of course there must be some + way to get up there. Couldn't people get a rope over someway and pull a + ladder up?” + </p> + <p> + Tip's little eyes were shining with excitement. “I know a way. Me and + Uncle Bill talked it over. There's a kind of rocket that would take a rope + over—lifesavers use 'em—and then you could hoist a rope ladder + and peg it down at the bottom and make it tight with guy ropes on the + other side. I'm going to climb that there bluff, and I've got it all + planned out.” + </p> + <p> + Fritz asked what he expected to find when he got up there. + </p> + <p> + “Bones, maybe, or the ruins of their town, or pottery, or some of their + idols. There might be 'most anything up there. Anyhow, I want to see.” + </p> + <p> + “Sure nobody else has been up there, Tip?” Arthur asked. + </p> + <p> + “Dead sure. Hardly anybody ever goes down there. Some hunters tried to cut + steps in the rock once, but they didn't get higher than a man can reach. + The Bluff's all red granite, and Uncle Bill thinks it's a boulder the + glaciers left. It's a queer place, anyhow. Nothing but cactus and desert + for hundreds of miles, and yet right under the Bluff there's good water + and plenty of grass. That's why the bison used to go down there.” + </p> + <p> + Suddenly we heard a scream above our fire, and jumped up to see a dark, + slim bird floating southward far above us—a whooping crane, we knew + by her cry and her long neck. We ran to the edge of the island, hoping we + might see her alight, but she wavered southward along the rivercourse + until we lost her. The Hassler boys declared that by the look of the + heavens it must be after midnight, so we threw more wood on our fire, put + on our jackets, and curled down in the warm sand. Several of us pretended + to doze, but I fancy we were really thinking about Tip's Bluff and the + extinct people. Over in the wood the ring doves were calling mournfully to + one another, and once we heard a dog bark, far away. “Somebody getting + into old Tommy's melon patch,” Fritz murmured sleepily, but nobody + answered him. By and by Percy spoke out of the shadows. + </p> + <p> + “Say, Tip, when you go down there will you take me with you?” + </p> + <p> + “Maybe.” + </p> + <p> + “Suppose one of us beats you down there, Tip?” + </p> + <p> + “Whoever gets to the Bluff first has got to promise to tell the rest of us + exactly what he finds,” remarked one of the Hassler boys, and to this we + all readily assented. + </p> + <p> + Somewhat reassured, I dropped off to sleep. I must have dreamed about a + race for the Bluff, for I awoke in a kind of fear that other people were + getting ahead of me and that I was losing my chance. I sat up in my damp + clothes and looked at the other boys, who lay tumbled in uneasy attitudes + about the dead fire. It was still dark, but the sky was blue with the last + wonderful azure of night. The stars glistened like crystal globes, and + trembled as if they shone through a depth of clear water. Even as I + watched, they began to pale and the sky brightened. Day came suddenly, + almost instantaneously. I turned for another look at the blue night, and + it was gone. Everywhere the birds began to call, and all manner of little + insects began to chirp and hop about in the willows. A breeze sprang up + from the west and brought the heavy smell of ripened corn. The boys rolled + over and shook themselves. We stripped and plunged into the river just as + the sun came up over the windy bluffs. + </p> + <p> + When I came home to Sandtown at Christmas time, we skated out to our + island and talked over the whole project of the Enchanted Bluff, renewing + our resolution to find it. + </p> + <p> + Although that was twenty years ago, none of us have ever climbed the + Enchanted Bluff. Percy Pound is a stockbroker in Kansas City and will go + nowhere that his red touring car cannot carry him. Otto Hassler went on + the railroad and lost his foot braking; after which he and Fritz succeeded + their father as the town tailors. + </p> + <p> + Arthur sat about the sleepy little town all his life—he died before + he was twenty-five. The last time I saw him, when I was home on one of my + college vacations, he was sitting in a steamer chair under a cottonwood + tree in the little yard behind one of the two Sandtown saloons. He was + very untidy and his hand was not steady, but when he rose, unabashed, to + greet me, his eyes were as clear and warm as ever. When I had talked with + him for an hour and heard him laugh again, I wondered how it was that when + Nature had taken such pains with a man, from his hands to the arch of his + long foot, she had ever lost him in Sandtown. He joked about Tip Smith's + Bluff, and declared he was going down there just as soon as the weather + got cooler; he thought the Grand Canyon might be worth while, too. + </p> + <p> + I was perfectly sure when I left him that he would never get beyond the + high plank fence and the comfortable shade of the cottonwood. And, indeed, + it was under that very tree that he died one summer morning. + </p> + <p> + Tip Smith still talks about going to New Mexico. He married a slatternly, + unthrifty country girl, has been much tied to a perambulator, and has + grown stooped and grey from irregular meals and broken sleep. But the + worst of his difficulties are now over, and he has, as he says, come into + easy water. When I was last in Sandtown I walked home with him late one + moonlight night, after he had balanced his cash and shut up his store. We + took the long way around and sat down on the schoolhouse steps, and + between us we quite revived the romance of the lone red rock and the + extinct people. Tip insists that he still means to go down there, but he + thinks now he will wait until his boy Bert is old enough to go with him. + Bert has been let into the story, and thinks of nothing but the Enchanted + Bluff. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Bohemian Girl + </h2> + <p> + The transcontinental express swung along the windings of the Sand River + Valley, and in the rear seat of the observation car a young man sat + greatly at his ease, not in the least discomfited by the fierce sunlight + which beat in upon his brown face and neck and strong back. There was a + look of relaxation and of great passivity about his broad shoulders, which + seemed almost too heavy until he stood up and squared them. He wore a pale + flannel shirt and a blue silk necktie with loose ends. His trousers were + wide and belted at the waist, and his short sack coat hung open. His heavy + shoes had seen good service. His reddish-brown hair, like his clothes, had + a foreign cut. He had deep-set, dark blue eyes under heavy reddish + eyebrows. His face was kept clean only by close shaving, and even the + sharpest razor left a glint of yellow in the smooth brown of his skin. His + teeth and the palms of his hands were very white. His head, which looked + hard and stubborn, lay indolently in the green cushion of the wicker + chair, and as he looked out at the ripe summer country a teasing, not + unkindly smile played over his lips. Once, as he basked thus comfortably, + a quick light flashed in his eyes, curiously dilating the pupils, and his + mouth became a hard, straight line, gradually relaxing into its former + smile of rather kindly mockery. He told himself, apparently, that there + was no point in getting excited; and he seemed a master hand at taking his + ease when he could. Neither the sharp whistle of the locomotive nor the + brakeman's call disturbed him. It was not until after the train had + stopped that he rose, put on a Panama hat, took from the rack a small + valise and a flute case, and stepped deliberately to the station platform. + The baggage was already unloaded, and the stranger presented a check for a + battered sole-leather steamer trunk. + </p> + <p> + “Can you keep it here for a day or two?” he asked the agent. “I may send + for it, and I may not.” + </p> + <p> + “Depends on whether you like the country, I suppose?” demanded the agent + in a challenging tone. + </p> + <p> + “Just so.” + </p> + <p> + The agent shrugged his shoulders, looked scornfully at the small trunk, + which was marked “N.E.,” and handed out a claim check without further + comment. The stranger watched him as he caught one end of the trunk and + dragged it into the express room. The agent's manner seemed to remind him + of something amusing. “Doesn't seem to be a very big place,” he remarked, + looking about. + </p> + <p> + “It's big enough for us,” snapped the agent, as he banged the trunk into a + corner. + </p> + <p> + That remark, apparently, was what Nils Ericson had wanted. He chuckled + quietly as he took a leather strap from his pocket and swung his valise + around his shoulder. Then he settled his Panama securely on his head, + turned up his trousers, tucked the flute case under his arm, and started + off across the fields. He gave the town, as he would have said, a wide + berth, and cut through a great fenced pasture, emerging, when he rolled + under the barbed wire at the farther corner, upon a white dusty road which + ran straight up from the river valley to the high prairies, where the ripe + wheat stood yellow and the tin roofs and weathercocks were twinkling in + the fierce sunlight. By the time Nils had done three miles, the sun was + sinking and the farm wagons on their way home from town came rattling by, + covering him with dust and making him sneeze. When one of the farmers + pulled up and offered to give him a lift, he clambered in willingly. The + driver was a thin, grizzled old man with a long lean neck and a foolish + sort of beard, like a goat's. “How fur ye goin'?” he asked, as he clucked + to his horses and started off. + </p> + <p> + “Do you go by the Ericson place?” + </p> + <p> + “Which Ericson?” The old man drew in his reins as if he expected to stop + again. + </p> + <p> + “Preacher Ericson's.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, the Old Lady Ericson's!” He turned and looked at Nils. “La, me! If + you're goin' out there you might a' rid out in the automobile. That's a + pity, now. The Old Lady Ericson was in town with her auto. You might 'a' + heard it snortin' anywhere about the post-office er the butcher shop.” + </p> + <p> + “Has she a motor?” asked the stranger absently. + </p> + <p> + “'Deed an' she has! She runs into town every night about this time for her + mail and meat for supper. Some folks say she's afraid her auto won't get + exercise enough, but I say that's jealousy.” + </p> + <p> + “Aren't there any other motors about here?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes! we have fourteen in all. But nobody else gets around like the + Old Lady Ericson. She's out, rain er shine, over the whole county, + chargin' into town and out amongst her farms, an' up to her sons' places. + Sure you ain't goin' to the wrong place?” He craned his neck and looked at + Nils' flute case with eager curiosity. “The old woman ain't got any piany + that I knows on. Olaf, he has a grand. His wife's musical: took lessons in + Chicago.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm going up there tomorrow,” said Nils imperturbably. He saw that the + driver took him for a piano tuner. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I see!” The old man screwed up his eyes mysteriously. He was a little + dashed by the stranger's noncommunicativeness, but he soon broke out + again. + </p> + <p> + “I'm one o' Miss Ericson's tenants. Look after one of her places. I did + own the place myself once, but I lost it a while back, in the bad years + just after the World's Fair. Just as well, too, I say. Lets you out o' + payin' taxes. The Ericsons do own most of the county now. I remember the + old preacher's favorite text used to be, 'To them that hath shall be + given.' They've spread something wonderful—run over this here + country like bindweed. But I ain't one that begretches it to 'em. Folks is + entitled to what they kin git; and they're hustlers. Olaf, he's in the + Legislature now, and a likely man fur Congress. Listen, if that ain't the + old woman comin' now. Want I should stop her?” + </p> + <p> + Nils shook his head. He heard the deep chug-chug of a motor vibrating + steadily in the clear twilight behind them. The pale lights of the car + swam over the hill, and the old man slapped his reins and turned clear out + of the road, ducking his head at the first of three angry snorts from + behind. The motor was running at a hot, even speed, and passed without + turning an inch from its course. The driver was a stalwart woman who sat + at ease in the front seat and drove her car bareheaded. She left a cloud + of dust and a trail of gasoline behind her. Her tenant threw back his head + and sneezed. + </p> + <p> + “Whew! I sometimes say I'd as lief be <i>before</i> Mrs. Ericson as behind + her. She does beat all! Nearly seventy, and never lets another soul touch + that car. Puts it into commission herself every morning, and keeps it + tuned up by the hitch-bar all day. I never stop work for a drink o' water + that I don't hear her a-churnin' up the road. I reckon her darter-in-laws + never sets down easy nowadays. Never know when she'll pop in. Mis' Otto, + she says to me: 'We're so afraid that thing'll blow up and do Ma some + injury yet, she's so turrible venturesome.' Says I: 'I wouldn't stew, Mis' + Otto; the old lady'll drive that car to the funeral of every darter-in-law + she's got.' That was after the old woman had jumped a turrible bad + culvert.” + </p> + <p> + The stranger heard vaguely what the old man was saying. Just now he was + experiencing something very much like homesickness, and he was wondering + what had brought it about. The mention of a name or two, perhaps; the + rattle of a wagon along a dusty road; the rank, resinous smell of + sunflowers and ironweed, which the night damp brought up from the draws + and low places; perhaps, more than all, the dancing lights of the motor + that had plunged by. He squared his shoulders with a comfortable sense of + strength. + </p> + <p> + The wagon, as it jolted westward, climbed a pretty steady up-grade. The + country, receding from the rough river valley, swelled more and more + gently, as if it had been smoothed out by the wind. On one of the last of + the rugged ridges, at the end of a branch road, stood a grim square house + with a tin roof and double porches. Behind the house stretched a row of + broken, wind-racked poplars, and down the hill slope to the left straggled + the sheds and stables. The old man stopped his horses where the Ericsons' + road branched across a dry sand creek that wound about the foot of the + hill. + </p> + <p> + “That's the old lady's place. Want I should drive in?” “No, thank you. + I'll roll out here. Much obliged to you. Good night.” + </p> + <p> + His passenger stepped down over the front wheel, and the old man drove on + reluctantly, looking back as if he would like to see how the stranger + would be received. + </p> + <p> + As Nils was crossing the dry creek he heard the restive tramp of a horse + coming toward him down the hill. Instantly he flashed out of the road and + stood behind a thicket of wild plum bushes that grew in the sandy bed. + Peering through the dusk, he saw a light horse, under tight rein, + descending the hill at a sharp walk. The rider was a slender woman—barely + visible against the dark hillside—wearing an old-fashioned derby hat + and a long riding skirt. She sat lightly in the saddle, with her chin + high, and seemed to be looking into the distance. As she passed the plum + thicket her horse snuffed the air and shied. She struck him, pulling him + in sharply, with an angry exclamation, <i>“Blazne!”</i> in Bohemian. Once + in the main road, she let him out into a lope, and they soon emerged upon + the crest of high land, where they moved along the skyline, silhouetted + against the band of faint colour that lingered in the west. This horse and + rider, with their free, rhythmical gallop, were the only moving things to + be seen on the face of the flat country. They seemed, in the last sad + light of evening, not to be there accidentally, but as an inevitable + detail of the landscape. + </p> + <p> + Nils watched them until they had shrunk to a mere moving speck against the + sky, then he crossed the sand creek and climbed the hill. When he reached + the gate the front of the house was dark, but a light was shining from the + side windows. The pigs were squealing in the hog corral, and Nils could + see a tall boy, who carried two big wooden buckets, moving about among + them. Halfway between the barn and the house, the windmill wheezed lazily. + Following the path that ran around to the back porch, Nils stopped to look + through the screen door into the lamplit kitchen. The kitchen was the + largest room in the house; Nils remembered that his older brothers used to + give dances there when he was a boy. Beside the stove stood a little girl + with two light yellow braids and a broad, flushed face, peering anxiously + into a frying pan. In the dining-room beyond, a large, broad-shouldered + woman was moving about the table. She walked with an active, springy step. + Her face was heavy and florid, almost without wrinkles, and her hair was + black at seventy. Nils felt proud of her as he watched her deliberate + activity; never a momentary hesitation, or a movement that did not tell. + He waited until she came out into the kitchen and, brushing the child + aside, took her place at the stove. Then he tapped on the screen door and + entered. + </p> + <p> + “It's nobody but Nils, Mother. I expect you weren't looking for me.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ericson turned away from the stove and stood staring at him. “Bring + the lamp, Hilda, and let me look.” + </p> + <p> + Nils laughed and unslung his valise. “What's the matter, Mother? Don't you + know me?” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ericson put down the lamp. “You must be Nils. You don't look very + different, anyway.” + </p> + <p> + “Nor you, Mother. You hold your own. Don't you wear glasses yet?” + </p> + <p> + “Only to read by. Where's your trunk, Nils?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I left that in town. I thought it might not be convenient for you to + have company so near threshing-time.” + </p> + <p> + “Don't be foolish, Nils.” Mrs. Ericson turned back to the stove. “I don't + thresh now. I hitched the wheat land onto the next farm and have a tenant. + Hilda, take some hot water up to the company room, and go call little + Eric.” + </p> + <p> + The tow-haired child, who had been standing in mute amazement, took up the + tea-kettle and withdrew, giving Nils a long, admiring look from the door + of the kitchen stairs. + </p> + <p> + “Who's the youngster?” Nils asked, dropping down on the bench behind the + kitchen stove. + </p> + <p> + “One of your Cousin Henrik's.” + </p> + <p> + “How long has Cousin Henrik been dead?” + </p> + <p> + “Six years. There are two boys. One stays with Peter and one with Anders. + Olaf is their guardeen.” + </p> + <p> + There was a clatter of pails on the porch, and a tall, lanky boy peered + wonderingly in through the screen door. He had a fair, gentle face and big + grey eyes, and wisps of soft yellow hair hung down under his cap. Nils + sprang up and pulled him into the kitchen, hugging him and slapping him on + the shoulders. “Well, if it isn't my kid! Look at the size of him! Don't + you know me, Eric?” + </p> + <p> + The boy reddened tinder his sunburn and freckles, and hung his head. “I + guess it's Nils,” he said shyly. + </p> + <p> + “You're a good guesser,” laughed Nils giving the lad's hand a swing. To + himself he was thinking: “That's why the little girl looked so friendly. + He's taught her to like me. He was only six when I went away, and he's + remembered for twelve years.” + </p> + <p> + Eric stood fumbling with his cap and smiling. “You look just like I + thought you would,” he ventured. + </p> + <p> + “Go wash your hands, Eric,” called Mrs. Ericson. “I've got cob corn for + supper, Nils. You used to like it. I guess you don't get much of that in + the old country. Here's Hilda; she'll take you up to your room. You'll + want to get the dust off you before you eat.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ericson went into the dining-room to lay another plate, and the + little girl came up and nodded to Nils as if to let him know that his room + was ready. He put out his hand and she took it, with a startled glance up + at his face. Little Eric dropped his towel, threw an arm about Nils and + one about Hilda, gave them a clumsy squeeze, and then stumbled out to the + porch. + </p> + <p> + During supper Nils heard exactly how much land each of his eight grown + brothers farmed, how their crops were coming on, and how much livestock + they were feeding. His mother watched him narrowly as she talked. “You've + got better looking, Nils,” she remarked abruptly, whereupon he grinned and + the children giggled. Eric, although he was eighteen and as tall as Nils, + was always accounted a child, being the last of so many sons. His face + seemed childlike, too, Nils thought, and he had the open, wandering eyes + of a little boy. All the others had been men at his age. + </p> + <p> + After supper Nils went out to the front porch and sat down on the step to + smoke a pipe. Mrs. Ericson drew a rocking-chair up near him and began to + knit busily. It was one of the few Old World customs she had kept up, for + she could not bear to sit with idle hands. + </p> + <p> + “Where's little Eric, Mother?” + </p> + <p> + “He's helping Hilda with the dishes. He does it of his own will; I don't + like a boy to be too handy about the house.” + </p> + <p> + “He seems like a nice kid.” + </p> + <p> + “He's very obedient.” + </p> + <p> + Nils smiled a little in the dark. It was just as well to shift the line of + conversation. “What are you knitting there, Mother?” + </p> + <p> + “Baby stockings. The boys keep me busy.” Mrs. Ericson chuckled and clicked + her needles. + </p> + <p> + “How many grandchildren have you?” + </p> + <p> + “Only thirty-one now. Olaf lost his three. They were sickly, like their + mother.” + </p> + <p> + “I supposed he had a second crop by this time!” + </p> + <p> + “His second wife has no children. She's too proud. She tears about on + horseback all the time. But she'll get caught up with, yet. She sets + herself very high, though nobody knows what for. They were low enough + Bohemians she came of. I never thought much of Bohemians; always + drinking.” + </p> + <p> + Nils puffed away at his pipe in silence, and Mrs. Ericson knitted on. In a + few moments she added grimly: “She was down here tonight, just before you + came. She'd like to quarrel with me and come between me and Olaf, but I + don't give her the chance. I suppose you'll be bringing a wife home some + day.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know. I've never thought much about it.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, perhaps it's best as it is,” suggested Mrs. Ericson hopefully. + “You'd never be contented tied down to the land. There was roving blood in + your father's family, and it's come out in you. I expect your own way of + life suits you best.” Mrs. Ericson had dropped into a blandly agreeable + tone which Nils well remembered. It seemed to amuse him a good deal and + his white teeth flashed behind his pipe. His mother's strategies had + always diverted him, even when he was a boy—they were so flimsy and + patent, so illy proportioned to her vigor and force. “They've been waiting + to see which way I'd jump,” he reflected. He felt that Mrs. Ericson was + pondering his case deeply as she sat clicking her needles. + </p> + <p> + “I don't suppose you've ever got used to steady work,” she went on + presently. “Men ain't apt to if they roam around too long. It's a pity you + didn't come back the year after the World's Fair. Your father picked up a + good bit of land cheap then, in the hard times, and I expect maybe he'd + have give you a farm, it's too bad you put off comin' back so long, for I + always thought he meant to do something by you.” + </p> + <p> + Nils laughed and shook the ashes out of his pipe. “I'd have missed a lot + if I had come back then. But I'm sorry I didn't get back to see father.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I suppose we have to miss things at one end or the other. Perhaps + you are as well satisfied with your own doings, now, as you'd have been + with a farm,” said Mrs. Ericson reassuringly. + </p> + <p> + “Land's a good thing to have,” Nils commented, as he lit another match and + sheltered it with his hand. + </p> + <p> + His mother looked sharply at his face until the match burned out. “Only + when you stay on it!” she hastened to say. + </p> + <p> + Eric came round the house by the path just then, and Nils rose, with a + yawn. “Mother, if you don't mind, Eric and I will take a little tramp + before bedtime. It will make me sleep.” + </p> + <p> + “Very well; only don't stay long. I'll sit up and wait for you. I like to + lock up myself.” + </p> + <p> + Nils put his hand on Eric's shoulder, and the two tramped down the hill + and across the sand creek into the dusty highroad beyond. Neither spoke. + They swung along at an even gait, Nils puffing at his pipe. There was no + moon, and the white road and the wide fields lay faint in the starlight. + Over everything was darkness and thick silence, and the smell of dust and + sunflowers. The brothers followed the road for a mile or more without + finding a place to sit down. Finally, Nils perched on a stile over the + wire fence, and Eric sat on the lower step. + </p> + <p> + “I began to think you never would come back, Nils,” said the boy softly. + </p> + <p> + “Didn't I promise you I would?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; but people don't bother about promises they make to babies. Did you + really know you were going away for good when you went to Chicago with the + cattle that time?” + </p> + <p> + “I thought it very likely, if I could make my way.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't see how you did it, Nils. Not many fellows could.” Eric rubbed + his shoulder against his brother's knee. + </p> + <p> + “The hard thing was leaving home you and father. It was easy enough, once + I got beyond Chicago. Of course I got awful homesick; used to cry myself + to sleep. But I'd burned my bridges.” + </p> + <p> + “You had always wanted to go, hadn't you?” + </p> + <p> + “Always. Do you still sleep in our little room? Is that cottonwood still + by the window?” + </p> + <p> + Eric nodded eagerly and smiled up at his brother in the grey darkness. + </p> + <p> + “You remember how we always said the leaves were whispering when they + rustled at night? Well, they always whispered to me about the sea. + Sometimes they said names out of the geography books. In a high wind they + had a desperate sound, like someone trying to tear loose.” + </p> + <p> + “How funny, Nils,” said Eric dreamily, resting his chin on his hand. “That + tree still talks like that, and 'most always it talks to me about you.” + </p> + <p> + They sat a while longer, watching the stars. At last Eric whispered + anxiously: “Hadn't we better go back now? Mother will get tired waiting + for us.” They rose and took a short cut home, through the pasture. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + II +</pre> + <p> + The next morning Nils woke with the first flood of light that came with + dawn. The white-plastered walls of his room reflected the glare that shone + through the thin window shades, and he found it impossible to sleep. He + dressed hurriedly and slipped down the hall and up the back stairs to the + half-story room which he used to share with his little brother. Eric, in a + skimpy nightshirt, was sitting on the edge of the bed, rubbing his eyes, + his pale yellow hair standing up in tufts all over his head. When he saw + Nils, he murmured something confusedly and hustled his long legs into his + trousers. “I didn't expect you'd be up so early, Nils,” he said, as his + head emerged from his blue shirt. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, you thought I was a dude, did you?” Nils gave him a playful tap which + bent the tall boy up like a clasp knife. “See here: I must teach you to + box.” Nils thrust his hands into his pockets and walked about. “You + haven't changed things much up here. Got most of my old traps, haven't + you?” + </p> + <p> + He took down a bent, withered piece of sapling that hung over the dresser. + “If this isn't the stick Lou Sandberg killed himself with!” + </p> + <p> + The boy looked up from his shoe-lacing. + </p> + <p> + “Yes; you never used to let me play with that. Just how did he do it, + Nils? You were with father when he found Lou, weren't you?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. Father was going off to preach somewhere, and, as we drove along, + Lou's place looked sort of forlorn, and we thought we'd stop and cheer him + up. When we found him father said he'd been dead a couple days. He'd tied + a piece of binding twine round his neck, made a noose in each end, fixed + the nooses over the ends of a bent stick, and let the stick spring + straight; strangled himself.” + </p> + <p> + “What made him kill himself such a silly way?” + </p> + <p> + The simplicity of the boy's question set Nils laughing. He clapped little + Eric on the shoulder. “What made him such a silly as to kill himself at + all, I should say!” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, well! But his hogs had the cholera, and all up and died on him, + didn't they?” + </p> + <p> + “Sure they did; but he didn't have cholera; and there were plenty of hogs + left in the world, weren't there?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, but, if they weren't his, how could they do him any good?” Eric + asked, in astonishment. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, scat! He could have had lots of fun with other people's hogs. He was + a chump, Lou Sandberg. To kill yourself for a pig—think of that, + now!” Nils laughed all the way downstairs, and quite embarrassed little + Eric, who fell to scrubbing his face and hands at the tin basin. While he + was parting his wet hair at the kitchen looking glass, a heavy tread + sounded on the stairs. The boy dropped his comb. “Gracious, there's + Mother. We must have talked too long.” He hurried out to the shed, slipped + on his overalls, and disappeared with the milking pails. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ericson came in, wearing a clean white apron, her black hair shining + from the application of a wet brush. + </p> + <p> + “Good morning, Mother. Can't I make the fire for you?” + </p> + <p> + “No, thank you, Nils. It's no trouble to make a cob fire, and I like to + manage the kitchen stove myself” Mrs. Ericson paused with a shovel full of + ashes in her hand. “I expect you will be wanting to see your brothers as + soon as possible. I'll take you up to Anders' place this morning. He's + threshing, and most of our boys are over there.” + </p> + <p> + “Will Olaf be there?” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ericson went on taking out the ashes, and spoke between shovels. “No; + Olaf's wheat is all in, put away in his new barn. He got six thousand + bushel this year. He's going to town today to get men to finish roofing + his barn.” + </p> + <p> + “So Olaf is building a new barn?” Nils asked absently. + </p> + <p> + “Biggest one in the county, and almost done. You'll likely be here for the + barn-raising. He's going to have a supper and a dance as soon as + everybody's done threshing. Says it keeps the voters in good humour. I + tell him that's all nonsense; but Olaf has a head for politics.” + </p> + <p> + “Does Olaf farm all Cousin Henrik's land?” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ericson frowned as she blew into the faint smoke curling up about the + cobs. “Yes; he holds it in trust for the children, Hilda and her brothers. + He keeps strict account of everything he raises on it, and puts the + proceeds out at compound interest for them.” + </p> + <p> + Nils smiled as he watched the little flames shoot up. The door of the back + stairs opened, and Hilda emerged, her arms behind her, buttoning up her + long gingham apron as she came. He nodded to her gaily, and she twinkled + at him out of her little blue eyes, set far apart over her wide + cheekbones. + </p> + <p> + “There, Hilda, you grind the coffee—and just put in an extra + handful; I expect your Cousin Nils likes his strong,” said Mrs. Ericson, + as she went out to the shed. + </p> + <p> + Nils turned to look at the little girl, who gripped the coffee grinder + between her knees and ground so hard that her two braids bobbed and her + face flushed under its broad spattering of freckles. He noticed on her + middle finger something that had not been there last night, and that had + evidently been put on for company: a tiny gold ring with a clumsily set + garnet stone. As her hand went round and round he touched the ring with + the tip of his finger, smiling. + </p> + <p> + Hilda glanced toward the shed door through which Mrs. Ericson had + disappeared. “My Cousin Clara gave me that,” she whispered bashfully. + “She's Cousin Olaf's wife.” + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + III +</pre> + <p> + Mrs. Olaf Ericson—Clara Vavrika, as many people still called her—was + moving restlessly about her big bare house that morning. Her husband had + left for the county town before his wife was out of bed—her lateness + in rising was one of the many things the Ericson family had against her. + Clara seldom came downstairs before eight o'clock, and this morning she + was even later, for she had dressed with unusual care. She put on, + however, only a tight-fitting black dress, which people thereabouts + thought very plain. She was a tall, dark woman of thirty, with a rather + sallow complexion and a touch of dull salmon red in her cheeks, where the + blood seemed to burn under her brown skin. Her hair, parted evenly above + her low forehead, was so black that there were distinctly blue lights in + it. Her black eyebrows were delicate half-moons and her lashes were long + and heavy. Her eyes slanted a little, as if she had a strain of Tartar or + gypsy blood, and were sometimes full of fiery determination and sometimes + dull and opaque. Her expression was never altogether amiable; was often, + indeed, distinctly sullen, or, when she was animated, sarcastic. She was + most attractive in profile, for then one saw to advantage her small, + well-shaped head and delicate ears, and felt at once that here was a very + positive, if not an altogether pleasing, personality. + </p> + <p> + The entire management of Mrs. Olaf's household devolved upon her aunt, + Johanna Vavrika, a superstitious, doting woman of fifty. When Clara was a + little girl her mother died, and Johanna's life had been spent in + ungrudging service to her niece. Clara, like many self-willed and + discontented persons, was really very apt, without knowing it, to do as + other people told her, and to let her destiny be decided for her by + intelligences much below her own. It was her Aunt Johanna who had humoured + and spoiled her in her girlhood, who had got her off to Chicago to study + piano, and who had finally persuaded her to marry Olaf Ericson as the best + match she would be likely to make in that part of the country. Johanna + Vavrika had been deeply scarred by smallpox in the old country. She was + short and fat, homely and jolly and sentimental. She was so broad, and + took such short steps when she walked, that her brother, Joe Vavrika, + always called her his duck. She adored her niece because of her talent, + because of her good looks and masterful ways, but most of all because of + her selfishness. + </p> + <p> + Clara's marriage with Olaf Ericson was Johanna's particular triumph. She + was inordinately proud of Olaf's position, and she found a sufficiently + exciting career in managing Clara's house, in keeping it above the + criticism of the Ericsons, in pampering Olaf to keep him from finding + fault with his wife, and in concealing from every one Clara's domestic + infelicities. While Clara slept of a morning, Johanna Vavrika was bustling + about, seeing that Olaf and the men had their breakfast, and that the + cleaning or the butter-making or the washing was properly begun by the two + girls in the kitchen. Then, at about eight o'clock, she would take Clara's + coffee up to her, and chat with her while she drank it, telling her what + was going on in the house. Old Mrs. Ericson frequently said that her + daughter-in-law would not know what day of the week it was if Johanna did + not tell her every morning. Mrs. Ericson despised and pitied Johanna, but + did not wholly dislike her. The one thing she hated in her daughter-in-law + above everything else was the way in which Clara could come it over + people. It enraged her that the affairs of her son's big, barnlike house + went on as well as they did, and she used to feel that in this world we + have to wait overlong to see the guilty punished. “Suppose Johanna Vavrika + died or got sick?” the old lady used to say to Olaf. “Your wife wouldn't + know where to look for her own dish-cloth.” Olaf only shrugged his + shoulders. The fact remained that Johanna did not die, and, although Mrs. + Ericson often told her she was looking poorly, she was never ill. She + seldom left the house, and she slept in a little room off the kitchen. No + Ericson, by night or day, could come prying about there to find fault + without her knowing it. Her one weakness was that she was an incurable + talker, and she sometimes made trouble without meaning to. + </p> + <p> + This morning Clara was tying a wine-coloured ribbon about her throat when + Johanna appeared with her coffee. After putting the tray on a sewing + table, she began to make Clara's bed, chattering the while in Bohemian. + </p> + <p> + “Well, Olaf got off early, and the girls are baking. I'm going down + presently to make some poppy-seed bread for Olaf. He asked for prune + preserves at breakfast, and I told him I was out of them, and to bring + some prunes and honey and cloves from town.” + </p> + <p> + Clara poured her coffee. “Ugh! I don't see how men can eat so much sweet + stuff. In the morning, too!” + </p> + <p> + Her aunt chuckled knowingly. “Bait a bear with honey, as we say in the old + country.” + </p> + <p> + “Was he cross?” her niece asked indifferently. + </p> + <p> + “Olaf? Oh, no! He was in fine spirits. He's never cross if you know how to + take him. I never knew a man to make so little fuss about bills. I gave + him a list of things to get a yard long, and he didn't say a word; just + folded it up and put it in his pocket.” + </p> + <p> + “I can well believe he didn't say a word,” Clara remarked with a shrug. + “Some day he'll forget how to talk.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, but they say he's a grand speaker in the Legislature. He knows when + to keep quiet. That's why he's got such influence in politics. The people + have confidence in him.” Johanna beat up a pillow and held it under her + fat chin while she slipped on the case. Her niece laughed. + </p> + <p> + “Maybe we could make people believe we were wise, Aunty, if we held our + tongues. Why did you tell Mrs. Ericson that Norman threw me again last + Saturday and turned my foot? She's been talking to Olaf.” + </p> + <p> + Johanna fell into great confusion. “Oh, but, my precious, the old lady + asked for you, and she's always so angry if I can't give an excuse. + Anyhow, she needn't talk; she's always tearing up something with that + motor of hers.” + </p> + <p> + When her aunt clattered down to the kitchen, Clara went to dust the + parlour. Since there was not much there to dust, this did not take very + long. Olaf had built the house new for her before their marriage, but her + interest in furnishing it had been short-lived. It went, indeed, little + beyond a bathtub and her piano. They had disagreed about almost every + other article of furniture, and Clara had said she would rather have her + house empty than full of things she didn't want. The house was set in a + hillside, and the west windows of the parlour looked out above the kitchen + yard thirty feet below. The east windows opened directly into the front + yard. At one of the latter, Clara, while she was dusting, heard a low + whistle. She did not turn at once, but listened intently as she drew her + cloth slowly along the round of a chair. Yes, there it was: + </p> + <p> + I dreamt that I dwelt in ma-a-arble halls. + </p> + <p> + She turned and saw Nils Ericson laughing in the sunlight, his hat in his + hand, just outside the window. As she crossed the room he leaned against + the wire screen. “Aren't you at all surprised to see me, Clara Vavrika?” + </p> + <p> + “No; I was expecting to see you. Mother Ericson telephoned Olaf last night + that you were here.” + </p> + <p> + Nils squinted and gave a long whistle. “Telephoned? That must have been + while Eric and I were out walking. Isn't she enterprising? Lift this + screen, won't you?” + </p> + <p> + Clara lifted the screen, and Nils swung his leg across the window-sill. As + he stepped into the room she said: “You didn't think you were going to get + ahead of your mother, did you?” + </p> + <p> + He threw his hat on the piano. “Oh, I do sometimes. You see, I'm ahead of + her now. I'm supposed to be in Anders' wheat-field. But, as we were + leaving, Mother ran her car into a soft place beside the road and sank up + to the hubs. While they were going for the horses to pull her out, I cut + away behind the stacks and escaped.” Nils chuckled. Clara's dull eyes lit + up as she looked at him admiringly. + </p> + <p> + “You've got them guessing already. I don't know what your mother said to + Olaf over the telephone, but be came back looking as if he'd seen a ghost, + and he didn't go to bed until a dreadful hour—ten o'clock, I should + think. He sat out on the porch in the dark like a graven image. It had + been one of his talkative days, too.” They both laughed, easily and + lightly, like people who have laughed a great deal together; but they + remained standing. + </p> + <p> + “Anders and Otto and Peter looked as if they had seen ghosts, too, over in + the threshing field. What's the matter with them all?” + </p> + <p> + Clara gave him a quick, searching look. “Well, for one thing, they've + always been afraid you have the other will.” + </p> + <p> + Nils looked interested. “The other will?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. A later one. They knew your father made another, but they never knew + what he did with it. They almost tore the old house to pieces looking for + it. They always suspected that he carried on a clandestine correspondence + with you, for the one thing he would do was to get his own mail himself. + So they thought he might have sent the new will to you for safekeeping. + The old one, leaving everything to your mother, was made long before you + went away, and it's understood among them that it cuts you out—that + she will leave all the property to the others. Your father made the second + will to prevent that. I've been hoping you had it. It would be such fun to + spring it on them.” Clara laughed mirthfully, a thing she did not often do + now. + </p> + <p> + Nils shook his head reprovingly. “Come, now, you're malicious.” + </p> + <p> + “No, I'm not. But I'd like something to happen to stir them all up, just + for once. There never was such a family for having nothing ever happen to + them but dinner and threshing. I'd almost be willing to die, just to have + a funeral. <i>You</i> wouldn't stand it for three weeks.” + </p> + <p> + Nils bent over the piano and began pecking at the keys with the finger of + one hand. “I wouldn't? My dear young lady, how do you know what I can + stand? <i>You</i> wouldn't wait to find out.” + </p> + <p> + Clara flushed darkly and frowned. “I didn't believe you would ever come + back—” she said defiantly. + </p> + <p> + “Eric believed I would, and he was only a baby when I went away. However, + all's well that ends well, and I haven't come back to be a skeleton at the + feast. We mustn't quarrel. Mother will be here with a search warrant + pretty soon.” He swung round and faced her, thrusting his hands into his + coat pockets. “Come, you ought to be glad to see me, if you want something + to happen. I'm something, even without a will. We can have a little fun, + can't we? I think we can!” + </p> + <p> + She echoed him, “I think we can!” They both laughed and their eyes + sparkled. Clara Vavrika looked ten years younger than when she had put the + velvet ribbon about her throat that morning. + </p> + <p> + “You know, I'm so tickled to see mother,” Nils went on. “I didn't know I + was so proud of her. A regular pile driver. How about little pigtails, + down at the house? Is Olaf doing the square thing by those children?” + </p> + <p> + Clara frowned pensively. “Olaf has to do something that looks like the + square thing, now that he's a public man!” She glanced drolly at Nils. + “But he makes a good commission out of it. On Sundays they all get + together here and figure. He lets Peter and Anders put in big bills for + the keep of the two boys, and he pays them out of the estate. They are + always having what they call accountings. Olaf gets something out of it, + too. I don't know just how they do it, but it's entirely a family matter, + as they say. And when the Ericsons say that—” Clara lifted her + eyebrows. + </p> + <p> + Just then the angry <i>honk-honk</i> of an approaching motor sounded from + down the road. Their eyes met and they began to laugh. They laughed as + children do when they can not contain themselves, and can not explain the + cause of their mirth to grown people, but share it perfectly together. + When Clara Vavrika sat down at the piano after he was gone, she felt that + she had laughed away a dozen years. She practised as if the house were + burning over her head. + </p> + <p> + When Nils greeted his mother and climbed into the front seat of the motor + beside her, Mrs. Ericson looked grim, but she made no comment upon his + truancy until she had turned her car and was retracing her revolutions + along the road that ran by Olaf's big pasture. Then she remarked dryly: + </p> + <p> + “If I were you I wouldn't see too much of Olaf's wife while you are here. + She's the kind of woman who can't see much of men without getting herself + talked about. She was a good deal talked about before he married her.” + </p> + <p> + “Hasn't Olaf tamed her?” Nils asked indifferently. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ericson shrugged her massive shoulders. “Olaf don't seem to have much + luck, when it comes to wives. The first one was meek enough, but she was + always ailing. And this one has her own way. He says if he quarreled with + her she'd go back to her father, and then he'd lose the Bohemian vote. + There are a great many Bohunks in this district. But when you find a man + under his wife's thumb you can always be sure there's a soft spot in him + somewhere.” + </p> + <p> + Nils thought of his own father, and smiled. “She brought him a good deal + of money, didn't she, besides the Bohemian vote?” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ericson sniffed. “Well, she has a fair half section in her own name, + but I can't see as that does Olaf much good. She will have a good deal of + property some day, if old Vavrika don't marry again. But I don't consider + a saloonkeeper's money as good as other people's money.” + </p> + <p> + Nils laughed outright. “Come, Mother, don't let your prejudices carry you + that far. Money's money. Old Vavrika's a mighty decent sort of + saloonkeeper. Nothing rowdy about him.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ericson spoke up angrily. “Oh, I know you always stood up for them! + But hanging around there when you were a boy never did you any good, Nils, + nor any of the other boys who went there. There weren't so many after her + when she married Olaf, let me tell you. She knew enough to grab her + chance.” + </p> + <p> + Nils settled back in his seat. “Of course I liked to go there, Mother, and + you were always cross about it. You never took the trouble to find out + that it was the one jolly house in this country for a boy to go to. All + the rest of you were working yourselves to death, and the houses were + mostly a mess, full of babies and washing and flies. Oh, it was all right—I + understand that; but you are young only once, and I happened to be young + then. Now, Vavrika's was always jolly. He played the violin, and I used to + take my flute, and Clara played the piano, and Johanna used to sing + Bohemian songs. She always had a big supper for us—herrings and + pickles and poppy-seed bread, and lots of cake and preserves. Old Joe had + been in the army in the old country, and he could tell lots of good + stories. I can see him cutting bread, at the head of the table, now. I + don't know what I'd have done when I was a kid if it hadn't been for the + Vavrikas, really.” + </p> + <p> + “And all the time he was taking money that other people had worked hard in + the fields for,” Mrs. Ericson observed. + </p> + <p> + “So do the circuses, Mother, and they're a good thing. People ought to get + fun for some of their money. Even father liked old Joe.” + </p> + <p> + “Your father,” Mrs. Ericson said grimly, “liked everybody.” + </p> + <p> + As they crossed the sand creek and turned into her own place, Mrs. Ericson + observed, “There's Olaf's buggy. He's stopped on his way from town.” Nils + shook himself and prepared to greet his brother, who was waiting on the + porch. + </p> + <p> + Olaf was a big, heavy Norwegian, slow of speech and movement. His head was + large and square, like a block of wood. When Nils, at a distance, tried to + remember what his brother looked like, he could recall only his heavy + head, high forehead, large nostrils, and pale blue eyes, set far apart. + Olaf's features were rudimentary: the thing one noticed was the face + itself, wide and flat and pale; devoid of any expression, betraying his + fifty years as little as it betrayed anything else, and powerful by reason + of its very stolidness. When Olaf shook hands with Nils he looked at him + from under his light eyebrows, but Nils felt that no one could ever say + what that pale look might mean. The one thing he had always felt in Olaf + was a heavy stubbornness, like the unyielding stickiness of wet loam + against the plow. He had always found Olaf the most difficult of his + brothers. + </p> + <p> + “How do you do, Nils? Expect to stay with us long?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I may stay forever,” Nils answered gaily. “I like this country better + than I used to.” + </p> + <p> + “There's been some work put into it since you left,” Olaf remarked. + </p> + <p> + “Exactly. I think it's about ready to live in now—and I'm about + ready to settle down.” Nils saw his brother lower his big head (“Exactly + like a bull,” he thought.) “Mother's been persuading me to slow down now, + and go in for farming,” he went on lightly. + </p> + <p> + Olaf made a deep sound in his throat. “Farming ain't learned in a day,” he + brought out, still looking at the ground. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I know! But I pick things up quickly.” Nils had not meant to + antagonize his brother, and he did not know now why he was doing it. “Of + course,” he went on, “I shouldn't expect to make a big success, as you + fellows have done. But then, I'm not ambitious. I won't want much. A + little land, and some cattle, maybe.” + </p> + <p> + Olaf still stared at the ground, his head down. He wanted to ask Nils what + he had been doing all these years, that he didn't have a business + somewhere he couldn't afford to leave; why he hadn't more pride than to + come back with only a little sole-leather trunk to show for himself, and + to present himself as the only failure in the family. He did not ask one + of these questions, but he made them all felt distinctly. + </p> + <p> + “Humph!” Nils thought. “No wonder the man never talks, when he can butt + his ideas into you like that without ever saying a word. I suppose he uses + that kind of smokeless powder on his wife all the time. But I guess she + has her innings.” He chuckled, and Olaf looked up. “Never mind me, Olaf. I + laugh without knowing why, like little Eric. He's another cheerful dog.” + </p> + <p> + “Eric,” said Olaf slowly, “is a spoiled kid. He's just let his mother's + best cow go dry because he don't milk her right. I was hoping you'd take + him away somewhere and put him into business. If he don't do any good + among strangers, he never will.” This was a long speech for Olaf, and as + he finished it he climbed into his buggy. + </p> + <p> + Nils shrugged his shoulders. “Same old tricks,” he thought. “Hits from + behind you every time. What a whale of a man!” He turned and went round to + the kitchen, where his mother was scolding little Eric for letting the + gasoline get low. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + IV +</pre> + <p> + Joe Vavrika's saloon was not in the county seat, where Olaf and Mrs. + Ericson did their trading, but in a cheerfuller place, a little Bohemian + settlement which lay at the other end of the county, ten level miles north + of Olaf's farm. Clara rode up to see her father almost every day. + Vavrika's house was, so to speak, in the back yard of his saloon. The + garden between the two buildings was inclosed by a high board fence as + tight as a partition, and in summer Joe kept beer tables and wooden + benches among the gooseberry bushes under his little cherry tree. At one + of these tables Nils Ericson was seated in the late afternoon, three days + after his return home. Joe had gone in to serve a customer, and Nils was + lounging on his elbows, looking rather mournfully into his half-emptied + pitcher, when he heard a laugh across the little garden. Clara, in her + riding habit, was standing at the back door of the house, under the + grapevine trellis that old Joe had grown there long ago. Nils rose. + </p> + <p> + “Come out and keep your father and me company. We've been gossiping all + afternoon. Nobody to bother us but the flies.” + </p> + <p> + She shook her head. “No, I never come out here any more. Olaf doesn't like + it. I must live up to my position, you know.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean to tell me you never come out and chat with the boys, as you + used to? He <i>has</i> tamed you! Who keeps up these flower-beds?” + </p> + <p> + “I come out on Sundays, when father is alone, and read the Bohemian papers + to him. But I am never here when the bar is open. What have you two been + doing?” + </p> + <p> + “Talking, as I told you. I've been telling him about my travels. I find I + can't talk much at home, not even to Eric.” + </p> + <p> + Clara reached up and poked with her riding-whip at a white moth that was + fluttering in the sunlight among the vine leaves. “I suppose you will + never tell me about all those things.” + </p> + <p> + “Where can I tell them? Not in Olaf's house, certainly. What's the matter + with our talking here?” He pointed persuasively with his hat to the bushes + and the green table, where the flies were singing lazily above the empty + beer glasses. + </p> + <p> + Clara shook her head weakly. “No, it wouldn't do. Besides, I am going + now.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm on Eric's mare. Would you be angry if I overtook you?” + </p> + <p> + Clara looked back and laughed. “You might try and see. I can leave you if + I don't want you. Eric's mare can't keep up with Norman.” + </p> + <p> + Nils went into the bar and attempted to pay his score. Big Joe, six feet + four, with curly yellow hair and mustache, clapped him on the shoulder. + “Not a Goddamn a your money go in my drawer, you hear? Only next time you + bring your flute, te-te-te-te-te-ty.” Joe wagged his fingers in imitation + of the flute player's position. + </p> + <p> + “My Clara, she come all-a-time Sundays an' play for me. She not like to + play at Ericson's place.” He shook his yellow curls and laughed. “Not a + Goddamn a fun at Ericson's. You come a Sunday. You like-a fun. No forget + de flute.” Joe talked very rapidly and always tumbled over his English. He + seldom spoke it to his customers, and had never learned much. + </p> + <p> + Nils swung himself into the saddle and trotted to the west of the village, + where the houses and gardens scattered into prairie land and the road + turned south. Far ahead of him, in the declining light, he saw Clara + Vavrika's slender figure, loitering on horseback. He touched his mare with + the whip, and shot along the white, level road, under the reddening sky. + When he overtook Olaf's wife he saw that she had been crying. “What's the + matter, Clara Vavrika?” he asked kindly. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I get blue sometimes. It was awfully jolly living there with father. + I wonder why I ever went away.” + </p> + <p> + Nils spoke in a low, kind tone that he sometimes used with women: “That's + what I've been wondering these many years. You were the last girl in the + country I'd have picked for a wife for Olaf. What made you do it, Clara?” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose I really did it to oblige the neighbours”—Clara tossed + her head. “People were beginning to wonder.” + </p> + <p> + “To wonder?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes—why I didn't get married. I suppose I didn't like to keep them + in suspense. I've discovered that most girls marry out of consideration + for the neighbourhood.” + </p> + <p> + Nils bent his head toward her and his white teeth flashed. “I'd have + gambled that one girl I knew would say, 'Let the neighbourhood be + damned.'” + </p> + <p> + Clara shook her head mournfully. “You see, they have it on you, Nils; that + is, if you're a woman. They say you're beginning to go off. That's what + makes us get married: we can't stand the laugh.” + </p> + <p> + Nils looked sidewise at her. He had never seen her head droop before. + Resignation was the last thing he would have expected of her. “In your + case, there wasn't something else?” + </p> + <p> + “Something else?” + </p> + <p> + “I mean, you didn't do it to spite somebody? Somebody who didn't come + back?” + </p> + <p> + Clara drew herself up. “Oh, I never thought you'd come back. Not after I + stopped writing to you, at least. <i>That</i> was all over, long before I + married Olaf.” + </p> + <p> + “It never occurred to you, then, that the meanest thing you could do to me + was to marry Olaf?” + </p> + <p> + Clara laughed. “No; I didn't know you were so fond of Olaf.” + </p> + <p> + Nils smoothed his horse's mane with his glove. “You know, Clara Vavrika, + you are never going to stick it out. You'll cut away some day, and I've + been thinking you might as well cut away with me.” + </p> + <p> + Clara threw up her chin. “Oh, you don't know me as well as you think. I + won't cut away. Sometimes, when I'm with father, I feel like it. But I can + hold out as long as the Ericsons can. They've never got the best of me + yet, and one can live, so long as one isn't beaten. If I go back to + father, it's all up with Olaf in politics. He knows that, and he never + goes much beyond sulking. I've as much wit as the Ericsons. I'll never + leave them unless I can show them a thing or two.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean unless you can come it over them?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes—unless I go away with a man who is cleverer than they are, and + who has more money.” + </p> + <p> + Nils whistled. “Dear me, you are demanding a good deal. The Ericsons, take + the lot of them, are a bunch to beat. But I should think the excitement of + tormenting them would have worn off by this time.” + </p> + <p> + “It has, I'm afraid,” Clara admitted mournfully. + </p> + <p> + “Then why don't you cut away? There are more amusing games than this in + the world. When I came home I thought it might amuse me to bully a few + quarter sections out of the Ericsons; but I've almost decided I can get + more fun for my money somewhere else.” + </p> + <p> + Clara took in her breath sharply. “Ah, you have got the other will! That + was why you came home!” + </p> + <p> + “No, it wasn't. I came home to see how you were getting on with Olaf.” + </p> + <p> + Clara struck her horse with the whip, and in a bound she was far ahead of + him. Nils dropped one word, “Damn!” and whipped after her; but she leaned + forward in her saddle and fairly cut the wind. Her long riding skirt + rippled in the still air behind her. The sun was just sinking behind the + stubble in a vast, clear sky, and the shadows drew across the fields so + rapidly that Nils could scarcely keep in sight the dark figure on the + road. When he overtook her he caught her horse by the bridle. Norman + reared, and Nils was frightened for her; but Clara kept her seat. + </p> + <p> + “Let me go, Nils Ericson!” she cried. “I hate you more than any of them. + You were created to torture me, the whole tribe of you—to make me + suffer in every possible way.” + </p> + <p> + She struck her horse again and galloped away from him. Nils set his teeth + and looked thoughtful. He rode slowly home along the deserted road, + watching the stars come out in the clear violet sky. + </p> + <p> + They flashed softly into the limpid heavens, like jewels let fall into + clear water. They were a reproach, he felt, to a sordid world. As he + turned across the sand creek, he looked up at the North Star and smiled, + as if there were an understanding between them. His mother scolded him for + being late for supper. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + V +</pre> + <p> + On Sunday afternoon Joe Vavrika, in his shirt sleeves and carpet slippers, + was sitting in his garden, smoking a long-tasseled porcelain pipe with a + hunting scene painted on the bowl. Clara sat under the cherry tree, + reading aloud to him from the weekly Bohemian papers. She had worn a white + muslin dress under her riding habit, and the leaves of the cherry tree + threw a pattern of sharp shadows over her skirt. The black cat was dozing + in the sunlight at her feet, and Joe's dachshund was scratching a hole + under the scarlet geraniums and dreaming of badgers. Joe was filling his + pipe for the third time since dinner, when he heard a knocking on the + fence. He broke into a loud guffaw and unlatched the little door that led + into the street. He did not call Nils by name, but caught him by the hand + and dragged him in. Clara stiffened and the colour deepened under her dark + skin. Nils, too, felt a little awkward. He had not seen her since the + night when she rode away from him and left him alone on the level road + between the fields. Joe dragged him to the wooden bench beside the green + table. + </p> + <p> + “You bring de flute,” he cried, tapping the leather case under Nils' arm. + “Ah, das-a good' Now we have some liddle fun like old times. I got + somet'ing good for you.” Joe shook his finger at Nils and winked his blue + eye, a bright clear eye, full of fire, though the tiny bloodvessels on the + ball were always a little distended. “I got somet'ing for you from”—he + paused and waved his hand—“Hongarie. You know Hongarie? You wait!” + He pushed Nils down on the bench, and went through the back door of his + saloon. + </p> + <p> + Nils looked at Clara, who sat frigidly with her white skirts drawn tight + about her. “He didn't tell you he had asked me to come, did he? He wanted + a party and proceeded to arrange it. Isn't he fun? Don't be cross; let's + give him a good time.” + </p> + <p> + Clara smiled and shook out her skirt. “Isn't that like Father? And he has + sat here so meekly all day. Well, I won't pout. I'm glad you came. He + doesn't have very many good times now any more. There are so few of his + kind left. The second generation are a tame lot.” + </p> + <p> + Joe came back with a flask in one hand and three wine glasses caught by + the stems between the fingers of the other. These he placed on the table + with an air of ceremony, and, going behind Nils, held the flask between + him and the sun, squinting into it admiringly. “You know dis, Tokai? A + great friend of mine, he bring dis to me, a present out of Hongarie. You + know how much it cost, dis wine? Chust so much what it weigh in gold. + Nobody but de nobles drink him in Bohemie. Many, many years I save him up, + dis Tokai.” Joe whipped out his official corkscrew and delicately removed + the cork. “De old man die what bring him to me, an' dis wine he lay on his + belly in my cellar an' sleep. An' now,” carefully pouring out the heavy + yellow wine, “an' now he wake up; and maybe he wake us up, too!” He + carried one of the glasses to his daughter and presented it with great + gallantry. + </p> + <p> + Clara shook her head, but, seeing her father's disappointment, relented. + “You taste it first. I don't want so much.” + </p> + <p> + Joe sampled it with a beatific expression, and turned to Nils. “You drink + him slow, dis wine. He very soft, but he go down hot. You see!” + </p> + <p> + After a second glass Nils declared that he couldn't take any more without + getting sleepy. “Now get your fiddle, Vavrika,” he said as he opened his + flute case. + </p> + <p> + But Joe settled back in his wooden rocker and wagged his big carpet + slipper. “No-no-no-no-no-no-no! No play fiddle now any more: too much ache + in de finger,” waving them, “all-a-time rheumatic. You play de flute, + te-tety-tetety-te. Bohemie songs.” + </p> + <p> + “I've forgotten all the Bohemian songs I used to play with you and + Johanna. But here's one that will make Clara pout. You remember how her + eyes used to snap when we called her the Bohemian Girl?” Nils lifted his + flute and began “When Other Lips and Other Hearts,” and Joe hummed the air + in a husky baritone, waving his carpet slipper. “Oh-h-h, das-a fine + music,” he cried, clapping his hands as Nils finished. “Now 'Marble Halls, + Marble Halls'! Clara, you sing him.” + </p> + <p> + Clara smiled and leaned back in her chair, beginning softly: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “I dreamt that I dwelt in ma-a-arble halls, + With vassals and serfs at my knee,” + </pre> + <p> + and Joe hummed like a big bumblebee. + </p> + <p> + “There's one more you always played,” Clara said quietly, “I remember that + best.” She locked her hands over her knee and began “The Heart Bowed + Down,” and sang it through without groping for the words. She was singing + with a good deal of warmth when she came to the end of the old song: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “For memory is the only friend + That grief can call its own.” + </pre> + <p> + Joe flashed out his red silk handkerchief and blew his nose, shaking his + head. “No-no-no-no-no-no-no! Too sad, too sad! I not like-a dat. Play + quick somet'ing gay now.” + </p> + <p> + Nils put his lips to the instrument, and Joe lay back in his chair, + laughing and singing, “Oh, Evelina, Sweet Evelina!” Clara laughed, too. + Long ago, when she and Nils went to high school, the model student of + their class was a very homely girl in thick spectacles. Her name was + Evelina Oleson; she had a long, swinging walk which somehow suggested the + measure of that song, and they used mercilessly to sing it at her. + </p> + <p> + “Dat ugly Oleson girl, she teach in de school,” Joe gasped, “an' she still + walks chust like dat, yup-a, yup-a, yup-a, chust like a camel she go! Now, + Nils, we have some more li'l drink. Oh, yes-yes-yes-yes-yes-yes-<i>yes</i>! + Dis time you haf to drink, and Clara she haf to, so she show she not + jealous. So, we all drink to your girl. You not tell her name, eh? + No-no-no, I no make you tell. She pretty, eh? She make good sweetheart? I + bet!” Joe winked and lifted his glass. “How soon you get married?” + </p> + <p> + Nils screwed up his eyes. “That I don't know. When she says.” + </p> + <p> + Joe threw out his chest. “Das-a way boys talks. No way for mans. Mans say, + 'You come to de church, an' get a hurry on you.' Das-a way mans talks.” + </p> + <p> + “Maybe Nils hasn't got enough to keep a wife,” put in Clara ironically. + “How about that, Nils?” she asked him frankly, as if she wanted to know. + </p> + <p> + Nils looked at her coolly, raising one eyebrow. “Oh, I can keep her, all + right.” + </p> + <p> + “The way she wants to be kept?” + </p> + <p> + “With my wife, I'll decide that,” replied Nils calmly. “I'll give her + what's good for her.” + </p> + <p> + Clara made a wry face. “You'll give her the strap, I expect, like old + Peter Oleson gave his wife.” + </p> + <p> + “When she needs it,” said Nils lazily, locking his hands behind his head + and squinting up through the leaves of the cherry tree. “Do you remember + the time I squeezed the cherries all over your clean dress, and Aunt + Johanna boxed my ears for me? My gracious, weren't you mad! You had both + hands full of cherries, and I squeezed 'em and made the juice fly all over + you. I liked to have fun with you; you'd get so mad.” + </p> + <p> + “We <i>did</i> have fun, didn't we? None of the other kids ever had so + much fun. We knew how to play.” + </p> + <p> + Nils dropped his elbows on the table and looked steadily across at her. + “I've played with lots of girls since, but I haven't found one who was + such good fun.” + </p> + <p> + Clara laughed. The late afternoon sun was shining full in her face, and + deep in the back of her eyes there shone something fiery, like the yellow + drops of Tokai in the brown glass bottle. “Can you still play, or are you + only pretending?” + </p> + <p> + “I can play better than I used to, and harder.” + </p> + <p> + “Don't you ever work, then?” She had not intended to say it. It slipped + out because she was confused enough to say just the wrong thing. + </p> + <p> + “I work between times.” Nils' steady gaze still beat upon her. “Don't you + worry about my working, Mrs. Ericson. You're getting like all the rest of + them.” He reached his brown, warm hand across the table and dropped it on + Clara's, which was cold as an icicle. “Last call for play, Mrs. Ericson!” + Clara shivered, and suddenly her hands and cheeks grew warm. Her fingers + lingered in his a moment, and they looked at each other earnestly. Joe + Vavrika had put the mouth of the bottle to his lips and was swallowing the + last drops of the Tokai, standing. The sun, just about to sink behind his + shop, glistened on the bright glass, on his flushed face and curly yellow + hair. “Look,” Clara whispered, “that's the way I want to grow old.” + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + VI +</pre> + <p> + On the day of Olaf Ericson's barn-raising, his wife, for once in a way, + rose early. Johanna Vavrika had been baking cakes and frying and boiling + and spicing meats for a week beforehand, but it was not until the day + before the party was to take place that Clara showed any interest in it. + Then she was seized with one of her fitful spasms of energy, and took the + wagon and little Eric and spent the day on Plum Creek, gathering vines and + swamp goldenrod to decorate the barn. + </p> + <p> + By four o'clock in the afternoon buggies and wagons began to arrive at the + big unpainted building in front of Olaf's house. When Nils and his mother + came at five, there were more than fifty people in the barn, and a great + drove of children. On the ground floor stood six long tables, set with the + crockery of seven flourishing Ericson families, lent for the occasion. In + the middle of each table was a big yellow pumpkin, hollowed out and filled + with woodbine. In one corner of the barn, behind a pile of green-and-white + striped watermelons, was a circle of chairs for the old people; the + younger guests sat on bushel measures or barbed-wire spools, and the + children tumbled about in the haymow. The box stalls Clara had converted + into booths. The framework was hidden by goldenrod and sheaves of wheat, + and the partitions were covered 'With wild grapevines full of fruit. At + one of these Johanna Vavrika watched over her cooked meats, enough to + provision an army; and at the next her kitchen girls had ranged the + ice-cream freezers, and Clara was already cutting pies and cakes against + the hour of serving. At the third stall, little Hilda, in a bright pink + lawn dress, dispensed lemonade throughout the afternoon. Olaf, as a public + man, had thought it inadvisable to serve beer in his barn; but Joe Vavrika + had come over with two demijohns concealed in his buggy, and after his + arrival the wagon shed was much frequented by the men. + </p> + <p> + “Hasn't Cousin Clara fixed things lovely?” little Hilda whispered, when + Nils went up to her stall and asked for lemonade. + </p> + <p> + Nils leaned against the booth, talking to the excited little girl and + watching the people. The barn faced the west, and the sun, pouring in at + the big doors, filled the whole interior with a golden light, through + which filtered fine particles of dust from the haymow, where the children + were romping. There was a great chattering from the stall where Johanna + Vavrika exhibited to the admiring women her platters heaped with fried + chicken, her roasts of beef, boiled tongues, and baked hams with cloves + stuck in the crisp brown fat and garnished with tansy and parsley. The + older women, having assured themselves that there were twenty kinds of + cake, not counting cookies, and three dozen fat pies, repaired to the + corner behind the pile of watermelons, put on their white aprons, and fell + to their knitting and fancywork. They were a fine company of old women, + and a Dutch painter would have loved to find them there together, where + the sun made bright patches on the floor and sent long, quivering shafts + of gold through the dusky shade up among the rafters. There were fat, rosy + old women who looked hot in their best black dresses; spare, alert old + women with brown, dark-veined hands; and several of almost heroic frame, + not less massive than old Mrs. Ericson herself. Few of them wore glasses, + and old Mrs. Svendsen, a Danish woman, who was quite bald, wore the only + cap among them. Mrs. Oleson, who had twelve big grandchildren, could still + show two braids of yellow hair as thick as her own wrists. Among all these + grandmothers there were more brown heads than white. They all had a + pleased, prosperous air, as if they were more than satisfied with + themselves and with life. Nils, leaning against Hilda's lemonade stand, + watched them as they sat chattering in four languages, their fingers never + lagging behind their tongues. + </p> + <p> + “Look at them over there,” he whispered, detaining Clara as she passed + him. “Aren't they the Old Guard? I've just counted thirty hands. I guess + they've wrung many a chicken's neck and warmed many a boy's jacket for him + in their time.” + </p> + <p> + In reality he fell into amazement when he thought of the Herculean labours + those fifteen pairs of hands had performed: of the cows they had milked, + the butter they had made, the gardens they had planted, the children and + grandchildren they had tended, the brooms they had worn out, the mountains + of food they had cooked. It made him dizzy. Clara Vavrika smiled a hard, + enigmatical smile at him and walked rapidly away. Nils' eyes followed her + white figure as she went toward the house. He watched her walking alone in + the sunlight, looked at her slender, defiant shoulders and her little + hard-set head with its coils of blue-black hair. “No,” he reflected; + “she'd never be like them, not if she lived here a hundred years. She'd + only grow more bitter. You can't tame a wild thing; you can only chain it. + People aren't all alike. I mustn't lose my nerve.” He gave Hilda's pigtail + a parting tweak and set out after Clara. “Where to?” he asked, as he came + upon her in the kitchen. + </p> + <p> + “I'm going to the cellar for preserves.” + </p> + <p> + “Let me go with you. I never get a moment alone with you. Why do you keep + out of my way?” + </p> + <p> + Clara laughed. “I don't usually get in anybody's way.” + </p> + <p> + Nils followed her down the stairs and to the far corner of the cellar, + where a basement window let in a stream of light. From a swinging shelf + Clara selected several glass jars, each labeled in Johanna's careful hand. + Nils took up a brown flask. “What's this? It looks good.” + </p> + <p> + “It is. It's some French brandy father gave me when I was married. Would + you like some? Have you a corkscrew? I'll get glasses.” + </p> + <p> + When she brought them, Nils took them from her and put them down on the + window-sill. “Clara Vavrika, do you remember how crazy I used to be about + you?” + </p> + <p> + Clara shrugged her shoulders. “Boys are always crazy about somebody or + another. I dare say some silly has been crazy about Evelina Oleson. You + got over it in a hurry.” + </p> + <p> + “Because I didn't come back, you mean? I had to get on, you know, and it + was hard sledding at first. Then I heard you'd married Olaf.” + </p> + <p> + “And then you stayed away from a broken heart,” Clara laughed. + </p> + <p> + “And then I began to think about you more than I had since I first went + away. I began to wonder if you were really as you had seemed to me when I + was a boy. I thought I'd like to see. I've had lots of girls, but no one + ever pulled me the same way. The more I thought about you, the more I + remembered how it used to be—like hearing a wild tune you can't + resist, calling you out at night. It had been a long while since anything + had pulled me out of my boots, and I wondered whether anything ever could + again.” Nils thrust his hands into his coat pockets and squared his + shoulders, as his mother sometimes squared hers, as Olaf, in a clumsier + manner, squared his. “So I thought I'd come back and see. Of course the + family have tried to do me, and I rather thought I'd bring out father's + will and make a fuss. But they can have their old land; they've put enough + sweat into it.” He took the flask and filled the two glasses carefully to + the brim. “I've found out what I want from the Ericsons. Drink <i>skoal</i>, + Clara.” He lifted his glass, and Clara took hers with downcast eyes. “Look + at me, Clara Vavrika. <i>Skoal!</i>” + </p> + <p> + She raised her burning eyes and answered fiercely: “<i>Skoal!</i>” + </p> + <p> + The barn supper began at six o'clock and lasted for two hilarious hours. + Yense Nelson had made a wager that he could eat two whole fried chickens, + and he did. Eli Swanson stowed away two whole custard pies, and Nick + Hermanson ate a chocolate layer cake to the last crumb. There was even a + cooky contest among the children, and one thin, slablike Bohemian boy + consumed sixteen and won the prize, a gingerbread pig which Johanna + Vavrika had carefully decorated with red candies and burnt sugar. Fritz + Sweiheart, the German carpenter, won in the pickle contest, but he + disappeared soon after supper and was not seen for the rest of the + evening. Joe Vavrika said that Fritz could have managed the pickles all + right, but he had sampled the demijohn in his buggy too often before + sitting down to the table. + </p> + <p> + While the supper was being cleared away the two fiddlers began to tune up + for the dance. Clara was to accompany them on her old upright piano, which + had been brought down from her father's. By this time Nils had renewed old + acquaintances. Since his interview with Clara in the cellar, he had been + busy telling all the old women how young they looked, and all the young + ones how pretty they were, and assuring the men that they had here the + best farmland in the world. He had made himself so agreeable that old Mrs. + Ericson's friends began to come up to her and tell how lucky she was to + get her smart son back again, and please to get him to play his flute. Joe + Vavrika, who could still play very well when he forgot that he had + rheumatism, caught up a fiddle from Johnny Oleson and played a crazy + Bohemian dance tune that set the wheels going. When he dropped the bow + every one was ready to dance. + </p> + <p> + Olaf, in a frock coat and a solemn made-up necktie, led the grand march + with his mother. Clara had kept well out of <i>that</i> by sticking to the + piano. She played the march with a pompous solemnity which greatly amused + the prodigal son, who went over and stood behind her. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, aren't you rubbing it into them, Clara Vavrika? And aren't you lucky + to have me here, or all your wit would be thrown away.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm used to being witty for myself. It saves my life.” + </p> + <p> + The fiddles struck up a polka, and Nils convulsed Joe Vavrika by leading + out Evelina Oleson, the homely schoolteacher. His next partner was a very + fat Swedish girl, who, although she was an heiress, had not been asked for + the first dance, but had stood against the wall in her tight, high-heeled + shoes, nervously fingering a lace handkerchief. She was soon out of + breath, so Nils led her, pleased and panting, to her seat, and went over + to the piano, from which Clara had been watching his gallantry. “Ask Olena + Yenson,” she whispered. “She waltzes beautifully.” + </p> + <p> + Olena, too, was rather inconveniently plump, handsome in a smooth, heavy + way, with a fine colour and good-natured, sleepy eyes. She was redolent of + violet sachet powder, and had warm, soft, white hands, but she danced + divinely, moving as smoothly as the tide coming in. “There, that's + something like,” Nils said as he released her. “You'll give me the next + waltz, won't you? Now I must go and dance with my little cousin.” + </p> + <p> + Hilda was greatly excited when Nils went up to her stall and held out his + arm. Her little eyes sparkled, but she declared that she could not leave + her lemonade. Old Mrs. Ericson, who happened along at this moment, said + she would attend to that, and Hilda came out, as pink as her pink dress. + The dance was a schottische, and in a moment her yellow braids were fairly + standing on end. “Bravo!” Nils cried encouragingly. “Where did you learn + to dance so nicely?” + </p> + <p> + “My Cousin Clara taught me,” the little girl panted. + </p> + <p> + Nils found Eric sitting with a group of boys who were too awkward or too + shy to dance, and told him that he must dance the next waltz with Hilda. + </p> + <p> + The boy screwed up his shoulders. “Aw, Nils, I can't dance. My feet are + too big; I look silly.” + </p> + <p> + “Don't be thinking about yourself. It doesn't matter how boys look.” + </p> + <p> + Nils had never spoken to him so sharply before, and Eric made haste to + scramble out of his corner and brush the straw from his coat. + </p> + <p> + Clara nodded approvingly. “Good for you, Nils. I've been trying to get + hold of him. They dance very nicely together; I sometimes play for them.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm obliged to you for teaching him. There's no reason why he should grow + up to be a lout.” + </p> + <p> + “He'll never be that. He's more like you than any of them. Only he hasn't + your courage.” From her slanting eyes Clara shot forth one of those keen + glances, admiring and at the same time challenging, which she seldom + bestowed on any one, and which seemed to say, “Yes, I admire you, but I am + your equal.” + </p> + <p> + Clara was proving a much better host than Olaf, who, once the supper was + over, seemed to feel no interest in anything but the lanterns. He had + brought a locomotive headlight from town to light the revels, and he kept + skulking about as if he feared the mere light from it might set his new + barn on fire. His wife, on the contrary, was cordial to every one, was + animated and even gay. The deep salmon colour in her cheeks burned + vividly, and her eyes were full of life. She gave the piano over to the + fat Swedish heiress, pulled her father away from the corner where he sat + gossiping with his cronies, and made him dance a Bohemian dance with her. + In his youth Joe had been a famous dancer, and his daughter got him so + limbered up that every one sat around and applauded them. The old ladies + were particularly delighted, and made them go through the dance again. + From their corner where they watched and commented, the old women kept + time with their feet and hands, and whenever the fiddles struck up a new + air old Mrs. Svendsen's white cap would begin to bob. + </p> + <p> + Clara was waltzing with little Eric when Nils came up to them, brushed his + brother aside, and swung her out among the dancers. “Remember how we used + to waltz on rollers at the old skating rink in town? I suppose people + don't do that any more. We used to keep it up for hours. You know, we + never did moon around as other boys and girls did. It was dead serious + with us from the beginning. When we were most in love with each other, we + used to fight. You were always pinching people; your fingers were like + little nippers. A regular snapping turtle, you were. Lord, how you'd like + Stockholm! Sit out in the streets in front of cafes and talk all night in + summer, just like a reception—officers and ladies and funny English + people. Jolliest people in the world, the Swedes, once you get them going. + Always drinking things—champagne and stout mixed, half-and-half, + serve it out of big pitchers, and serve plenty. Slow pulse, you know; they + can stand a lot. Once they light up, they're glowworms, I can tell you.” + </p> + <p> + “All the same, you don't really like gay people.” + </p> + <p> + “<i>I</i> don't?” + </p> + <p> + “No; I could tell that when you were looking at the old women there this + afternoon. They're the kind you really admire, after all; women like your + mother. And that's the kind you'll marry.” + </p> + <p> + “Is it, Miss Wisdom? You'll see who I'll marry, and she won't have a + domestic virtue to bless herself with. She'll be a snapping turtle, and + she'll be a match for me. All the same, they're a fine bunch of old dames + over there. You admire them yourself. + </p> + <p> + “No, I don't; I detest them.” + </p> + <p> + “You won't, when you look back on them from Stockholm or Budapest. Freedom + settles all that. Oh, but you're the real Bohemian Girl, Clara Vavrika!” + Nils laughed down at her sullen frown and began mockingly to sing: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Oh, how could a poor gypsy maiden like me + Expect the proud bride of a baron to be?” + </pre> + <p> + Clara clutched his shoulder. “Hush, Nils; every one is looking at you.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't care. They can't gossip. It's all in the family, as the Ericsons + say when they divide up little Hilda's patrimony amongst them. Besides, + we'll give them something to talk about when we hit the trail. Lord, it + will be a godsend to them! They haven't had anything so interesting to + chatter about since the grasshopper year. It'll give them a new lease of + life. And Olaf won't lose the Bohemian vote, either. They'll have the + laugh on him so that they'll vote two apiece. They'll send him to + Congress. They'll never forget his barn party, or us. They'll always + remember us as we're dancing together now. We're making a legend. Where's + my waltz, boys?” he called as they whirled past the fiddlers. + </p> + <p> + The musicians grinned, looked at each other, hesitated, and began a new + air; and Nils sang with them, as the couples fell from a quick waltz to a + long, slow glide: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “When other lips and other hearts + Their tale of love shall tell, + In language whose excess imparts + The power they feel so well.” + </pre> + <p> + The old women applauded vigorously. “What a gay one he is, that Nils!” And + old Mrs. Svendsen's cap lurched dreamily from side to side to the flowing + measure of the dance. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Of days that have as ha-a-p-py been, + And you'll remember me.” + </pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + VII +</pre> + <p> + The moonlight flooded that great, silent land. The reaped fields lay + yellow in it. The straw stacks and poplar windbreaks threw sharp black + shadows. The roads were white rivers of dust. The sky was a deep, + crystalline blue, and the stars were few and faint. Everything seemed to + have succumbed, to have sunk to sleep, under the great, golden, tender, + midsummer moon. The splendour of it seemed to transcend human life and + human fate. The senses were too feeble to take it in, and every time one + looked up at the sky one felt unequal to it, as if one were sitting deaf + under the waves of a great river of melody. Near the road, Nils Ericson + was lying against a straw stack in Olaf's wheat field. His own life seemed + strange and unfamiliar to him, as if it were something he had read about, + or dreamed, and forgotten. He lay very still, watching the white road that + ran in front of him, lost itself among the fields, and then, at a + distance, reappeared over a little hill. At last, against this white band + he saw something moving rapidly, and he got up and walked to the edge of + the field. “She is passing the row of poplars now,” he thought. He heard + the padded beat of hoofs along the dusty road, and as she came into sight + he stepped out and waved his arms. Then, for fear of frightening the + horse, he drew back and waited. Clara had seen him, and she came up at a + walk. Nils took the horse by the bit and stroked his neck. + </p> + <p> + “What are you doing out so late, Clara Vavrika? I went to the house, but + Johanna told me you had gone to your father's.” + </p> + <p> + “Who can stay in the house on a night like this? Aren't you out yourself?” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, but that's another matter.” + </p> + <p> + Nils turned the horse into the field. + </p> + <p> + “What are you doing? Where are you taking Norman?” + </p> + <p> + “Not far, but I want to talk to you tonight; I have something to say to + you. I can't talk to you at the house, with Olaf sitting there on the + porch, weighing a thousand tons.” + </p> + <p> + Clara laughed. “He won't be sitting there now. He's in bed by this time, + and asleep—weighing a thousand tons.” + </p> + <p> + Nils plodded on across the stubble. “Are you really going to spend the + rest of your life like this, night after night, summer after summer? + Haven't you anything better to do on a night like this than to wear + yourself and Norman out tearing across the country to your father's and + back? Besides, your father won't live forever, you know. His little place + will be shut up or sold, and then you'll have nobody but the Ericsons. + You'll have to fasten down the hatches for the winter then.” + </p> + <p> + Clara moved her head restlessly. “Don't talk about that. I try never to + think of it. If I lost Father I'd lose everything, even my hold over the + Ericsons.” + </p> + <p> + “Bah! You'd lose a good deal more than that. You'd lose your race, + everything that makes you yourself. You've lost a good deal of it now.” + </p> + <p> + “Of what?” + </p> + <p> + “Of your love of life, your capacity for delight.” + </p> + <p> + Clara put her hands up to her face. “I haven't, Nils Ericson, I haven't! + Say anything to me but that. I won't have it!” she declared vehemently. + </p> + <p> + Nils led the horse up to a straw stack, and turned to Clara, looking at + her intently, as he had looked at her that Sunday afternoon at Vavrika's. + “But why do you fight for that so? What good is the power to enjoy, if you + never enjoy? Your hands are cold again; what are you afraid of all the + time? Ah, you're afraid of losing it; that's what's the matter with you! + And you will, Clara Vavrika, you will! When I used to know you—listen; + you've caught a wild bird in your hand, haven't you, and felt its heart + beat so hard that you were afraid it would shatter its little body to + pieces? Well, you used to be just like that, a slender, eager thing with a + wild delight inside you. That is how I remembered you. And I come back and + find you—a bitter woman. This is a perfect ferret fight here; you + live by biting and being bitten. Can't you remember what life used to be? + Can't you remember that old delight? I've never forgotten it, or known its + like, on land or sea.” + </p> + <p> + He drew the horse under the shadow of the straw stack. Clara felt him take + her foot out of the stirrup, and she slid softly down into his arms. He + kissed her slowly. He was a deliberate man, but his nerves were steel when + he wanted anything. Something flashed out from him like a knife out of a + sheath. Clara felt everything slipping away from her; she was flooded by + the summer night. He thrust his hand into his pocket, and then held it out + at arm's length. “Look,” he said. The shadow of the straw stack fell sharp + across his wrist, and in the palm of his hand she saw a silver dollar + shining. “That's my pile,” he muttered; “will you go with me?” + </p> + <p> + Clara nodded, and dropped her forehead on his shoulder. + </p> + <p> + Nils took a deep breath. “Will you go with me tonight?” + </p> + <p> + “Where?” she whispered softly. + </p> + <p> + “To town, to catch the midnight flyer.” + </p> + <p> + Clara lifted her head and pulled herself together. “Are you crazy, Nils? + We couldn't go away like that.” + </p> + <p> + “That's the only way we ever will go. You can't sit on the bank and think + about it. You have to plunge. That's the way I've always done, and it's + the right way for people like you and me. There's nothing so dangerous as + sitting still. You've only got one life, one youth, and you can let it + slip through your fingers if you want to; nothing easier. Most people do + that. You'd be better off tramping the roads with me than you are here.” + Nils held back her head and looked into her eyes. “But I'm not that kind + of a tramp, Clara. You won't have to take in sewing. I'm with a Norwegian + shipping line; came over on business with the New York offices, but now + I'm going straight back to Bergen. I expect I've got as much money as the + Ericsons. Father sent me a little to get started. They never knew about + that. There, I hadn't meant to tell you; I wanted you to come on your own + nerve.” + </p> + <p> + Clara looked off across the fields. “It isn't that, Nils, but something + seems to hold me. I'm afraid to pull against it. It comes out of the + ground, I think.” + </p> + <p> + “I know all about that. One has to tear loose. You're not needed here. + Your father will understand; he's made like us. As for Olaf, Johanna will + take better care of him than ever you could. It's now or never, Clara + Vavrika. My bag's at the station; I smuggled it there yesterday.” + </p> + <p> + Clara clung to him and hid her face against his shoulder. “Not tonight,” + she whispered. “Sit here and talk to me tonight. I don't want to go + anywhere tonight. I may never love you like this again.” + </p> + <p> + Nils laughed through his teeth. “You can't come that on me. That's not my + way, Clara Vavrika. Eric's mare is over there behind the stacks, and I'm + off on the midnight. It's goodbye, or off across the world with me. My + carriage won't wait. I've written a letter to Olaf, I'll mail it in town. + When he reads it he won't bother us—not if I know him. He'd rather + have the land. Besides, I could demand an investigation of his + administration of Cousin Henrik's estate, and that would be bad for a + public man. You've no clothes, I know; but you can sit up tonight, and we + can get everything on the way. Where's your old dash, Clara Vavrika? + What's become of your Bohemian blood? I used to think you had courage + enough for anything. Where's your nerve—what are you waiting for?” + </p> + <p> + Clara drew back her head, and he saw the slumberous fire in her eyes. “For + you to say one thing, Nils Ericson.” + </p> + <p> + “I never say that thing to any woman, Clara Vavrika.” He leaned back, + lifted her gently from the ground, and whispered through his teeth: “But + I'll never, never let you go, not to any man on earth but me! Do you + understand me? Now, wait here.” + </p> + <p> + Clara sank down on a sheaf of wheat and covered her face with her hands. + She did not know what she was going to do—whether she would go or + stay. The great, silent country seemed to lay a spell upon her. The ground + seemed to hold her as if by roots. Her knees were soft under her. She felt + as if she could not bear separation from her old sorrows, from her old + discontent. They were dear to her, they had kept her alive, they were a + part of her. There would be nothing left of her if she were wrenched away + from them. Never could she pass beyond that skyline against which her + restlessness had beat so many times. She felt as if her soul had built + itself a nest there on that horizon at which she looked every morning and + every evening, and it was dear to her, inexpressibly dear. She pressed her + fingers against her eyeballs to shut it out. Beside her she heard the + tramping of horses in the soft earth. Nils said nothing to her. He put his + hands under her arms and lifted her lightly to her saddle. Then he swung + himself into his own. + </p> + <p> + “We shall have to ride fast to catch the midnight train. A last gallop, + Clara Vavrika. Forward!” + </p> + <p> + There was a start, a thud of hoofs along the moonlit road, two dark + shadows going over the hill; and then the great, still land stretched + untroubled under the azure night. Two shadows had passed. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + VII +</pre> + <p> + A year after the flight of Olaf Ericson's wife, the night train was + steaming across the plains of Iowa. The conductor was hurrying through one + of the day coaches, his lantern on his arm, when a lank, fair-haired boy + sat up in one of the plush seats and tweaked him by the coat. + </p> + <p> + “What is the next stop, please, sir?” + </p> + <p> + “Red Oak, Iowa. But you go through to Chicago, don't you?” He looked down, + and noticed that the boy's eyes were red and his face was drawn, as if he + were in trouble. + </p> + <p> + “Yes. But I was wondering whether I could get off at the next place and + get a train back to Omaha.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I suppose you could. Live in Omaha?” + </p> + <p> + “No. In the western part of the State. How soon do we get to Red Oak?” + </p> + <p> + “Forty minutes. You'd better make up your mind, so I can tell the + baggageman to put your trunk off.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, never mind about that! I mean, I haven't got any,” the boy added, + blushing. + </p> + <p> + “Run away,” the conductor thought, as he slammed the coach door behind + him. + </p> + <p> + Eric Ericson crumpled down in his seat and put his brown hand to his + forehead. He had been crying, and he had had no supper, and his head was + aching violently. “Oh, what shall I do?” he thought, as he looked dully + down at his big shoes. “Nils will be ashamed of me; I haven't got any + spunk.” + </p> + <p> + Ever since Nils had run away with his brother's wife, life at home had + been hard for little Eric. His mother and Olaf both suspected him of + complicity. Mrs. Ericson was harsh and faultfinding, constantly wounding + the boy's pride; and Olaf was always setting her against him. + </p> + <p> + Joe Vavrika heard often from his daughter. Clara had always been fond of + her father, and happiness made her kinder. She wrote him long accounts of + the voyage to Bergen, and of the trip she and Nils took through Bohemia to + the little town where her father had grown up and where she herself was + born. She visited all her kinsmen there, and sent her father news of his + brother, who was a priest; of his sister, who had married a horse-breeder—of + their big farm and their many children. These letters Joe always managed + to read to little Eric. They contained messages for Eric and Hilda. Clara + sent presents, too, which Eric never dared to take home and which poor + little Hilda never even saw, though she loved to hear Eric tell about them + when they were out getting the eggs together. But Olaf once saw Eric + coming out of Vavrika's house—the old man had never asked the boy to + come into his saloon—and Olaf went straight to his mother and told + her. That night Mrs. Ericson came to Eric's room after he was in bed and + made a terrible scene. She could be very terrifying when she was really + angry. She forbade him ever to speak to Vavrika again, and after that + night she would not allow him to go to town alone. So it was a long while + before Eric got any more news of his brother. But old Joe suspected what + was going on, and he carried Clara's letters about in his pocket. One + Sunday he drove out to see a German friend of his, and chanced to catch + sight of Eric, sitting by the cattle pond in the big pasture. They went + together into Fritz Oberlies' barn, and read the letters and talked things + over. Eric admitted that things were getting hard for him at home. That + very night old Joe sat down and laboriously penned a statement of the case + to his daughter. + </p> + <p> + Things got no better for Eric. His mother and Olaf felt that, however + closely he was watched, he still, as they said, “heard.” Mrs. Ericson + could not admit neutrality. She had sent Johanna Vavrika packing back to + her brother's, though Olaf would much rather have kept her than Anders' + eldest daughter, whom Mrs. Ericson installed in her place. He was not so + highhanded as his mother, and he once sulkily told her that she might + better have taught her granddaughter to cook before she sent Johanna away. + Olaf could have borne a good deal for the sake of prunes spiced in honey, + the secret of which Johanna had taken away with her. + </p> + <p> + At last two letters came to Joe Vavrika: one from Nils, enclosing a postal + order for money to pay Eric's passage to Bergen, and one from Clara, + saying that Nils had a place for Eric in the offices of his company, that + he was to live with them, and that they were only waiting for him to come. + He was to leave New York on one of the boats of Nils' own line; the + captain was one of their friends, and Eric was to make himself known at + once. + </p> + <p> + Nils' directions were so explicit that a baby could have followed them, + Eric felt. And here he was, nearing Red Oak, Iowa, and rocking backward + and forward in despair. Never had he loved his brother so much, and never + had the big world called to him so hard. But there was a lump in his + throat which would not go down. Ever since nightfall he had been tormented + by the thought of his mother, alone in that big house that had sent forth + so many men. Her unkindness now seemed so little, and her loneliness so + great. He remembered everything she had ever done for him: how frightened + she had been when he tore his hand in the corn-sheller, and how she + wouldn't let Olaf scold him. When Nils went away he didn't leave his + mother all alone, or he would never have gone. Eric felt sure of that. + </p> + <p> + The train whistled. The conductor came in, smiling not unkindly. “Well, + young man, what are you going to do? We stop at Red Oak in three minutes.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, thank you. I'll let you know.” The conductor went out, and the boy + doubled up with misery. He couldn't let his one chance go like this. He + felt for his breast pocket and crackled Nils' letter to give him courage. + He didn't want Nils to be ashamed of him. The train stopped. Suddenly he + remembered his brother's kind, twinkling eyes, that always looked at you + as if from far away. The lump in his throat softened. “Ah, but Nils, Nils + would <i>understand</i>!” he thought. “That's just it about Nils; he + always understands.” + </p> + <p> + A lank, pale boy with a canvas telescope stumbled off the train to the Red + Oak siding, just as the conductor called, “All aboard!” + </p> + <p> + The next night Mrs. Ericson was sitting alone in her wooden rocking-chair + on the front porch. Little Hilda had been sent to bed and had cried + herself to sleep. The old woman's knitting was on her lap, but her hands + lay motionless on top of it. For more than an hour she had not moved a + muscle. She simply sat, as only the Ericsons and the mountains can sit. + The house was dark, and there was no sound but the croaking of the frogs + down in the pond of the little pasture. + </p> + <p> + Eric did not come home by the road, but across the fields, where no one + could see him. He set his telescope down softly in the kitchen shed, and + slipped noiselessly along the path to the front porch. He sat down on the + step without saying anything. Mrs. Ericson made no sign, and the frogs + croaked on. At last the boy spoke timidly. + </p> + <p> + “I've come back, Mother.” + </p> + <p> + “Very well,” said Mrs. Ericson. + </p> + <p> + Eric leaned over and picked up a little stick out of the grass. + </p> + <p> + “How about the milking?” he faltered. + </p> + <p> + “That's been done, hours ago.” + </p> + <p> + “Who did you get?” + </p> + <p> + “Get? I did it myself. I can milk as good as any of you.” + </p> + <p> + Eric slid along the step nearer to her. “Oh, Mother, why did you?” he + asked sorrowfully. “Why didn't you get one of Otto's boys?” + </p> + <p> + “I didn't want anybody to know I was in need of a boy,” said Mrs. Ericson + bitterly. She looked straight in front of her and her mouth tightened. “I + always meant to give you the home farm,” she added. + </p> + <p> + The boy stared and slid closer. “Oh, Mother,” he faltered, “I don't care + about the farm. I came back because I thought you might be needing me, + maybe.” He hung his head and got no further. + </p> + <p> + “Very well,” said Mrs. Ericson. Her hand went out from her suddenly and + rested on his head. Her fingers twined themselves in his soft, pale hair. + His tears splashed down on the boards; happiness filled his heart. + </p> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <h1> + THE TROLL GARDEN + </h1> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Flavia and Her Artists + </h2> + <p> + As the train neared Tarrytown, Imogen Willard began to wonder why she had + consented to be one of Flavia's house party at all. She had not felt + enthusiastic about it since leaving the city, and was experiencing a + prolonged ebb of purpose, a current of chilling indecision, under which + she vainly sought for the motive which had induced her to accept Flavia's + invitation. + </p> + <p> + Perhaps it was a vague curiosity to see Flavia's husband, who had been the + magician of her childhood and the hero of innumerable Arabian fairy tales. + Perhaps it was a desire to see M. Roux, whom Flavia had announced as the + especial attraction of the occasion. Perhaps it was a wish to study that + remarkable woman in her own setting. + </p> + <p> + Imogen admitted a mild curiosity concerning Flavia. She was in the habit + of taking people rather seriously, but somehow found it impossible to take + Flavia so, because of the very vehemence and insistence with which Flavia + demanded it. Submerged in her studies, Imogen had, of late years, seen + very little of Flavia; but Flavia, in her hurried visits to New York, + between her excursions from studio to studio—her luncheons with this + lady who had to play at a matinee, and her dinners with that singer who + had an evening concert—had seen enough of her friend's handsome + daughter to conceive for her an inclination of such violence and assurance + as only Flavia could afford. The fact that Imogen had shown rather marked + capacity in certain esoteric lines of scholarship, and had decided to + specialize in a well-sounding branch of philology at the Ecole des + Chartes, had fairly placed her in that category of “interesting people” + whom Flavia considered her natural affinities, and lawful prey. + </p> + <p> + When Imogen stepped upon the station platform she was immediately + appropriated by her hostess, whose commanding figure and assurance of + attire she had recognized from a distance. She was hurried into a high + tilbury and Flavia, taking the driver's cushion beside her, gathered up + the reins with an experienced hand. + </p> + <p> + “My dear girl,” she remarked, as she turned the horses up the street, “I + was afraid the train might be late. M. Roux insisted upon coming up by + boat and did not arrive until after seven.” + </p> + <p> + “To think of M. Roux's being in this part of the world at all, and subject + to the vicissitudes of river boats! Why in the world did he come over?” + queried Imogen with lively interest. “He is the sort of man who must + dissolve and become a shadow outside of Paris.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, we have a houseful of the most interesting people,” said Flavia, + professionally. “We have actually managed to get Ivan Schemetzkin. He was + ill in California at the close of his concert tour, you know, and he is + recuperating with us, after his wearing journey from the coast. Then there + is Jules Martel, the painter; Signor Donati, the tenor; Professor Schotte, + who has dug up Assyria, you know; Restzhoff, the Russian chemist; Alcee + Buisson, the philologist; Frank Wellington, the novelist; and Will + Maidenwood, the editor of <i>Woman</i>. Then there is my second cousin, + Jemima Broadwood, who made such a hit in Pinero's comedy last winter, and + Frau Lichtenfeld. <i>Have</i> you read her?” + </p> + <p> + Imogen confessed her utter ignorance of Frau Lichtenfeld, and Flavia went + on. + </p> + <p> + “Well, she is a most remarkable person; one of those advanced German + women, a militant iconoclast, and this drive will not be long enough to + permit of my telling you her history. Such a story! Her novels were the + talk of all Germany when I was there last, and several of them have been + suppressed—an honor in Germany, I understand. 'At Whose Door' has + been translated. I am so unfortunate as not to read German.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm all excitement at the prospect of meeting Miss Broadwood,” said + Imogen. “I've seen her in nearly everything she does. Her stage + personality is delightful. She always reminds me of a nice, clean, + pink-and-white boy who has just had his cold bath, and come down all aglow + for a run before breakfast.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, but isn't it unfortunate that she will limit herself to those minor + comedy parts that are so little appreciated in this country? One ought to + be satisfied with nothing less than the best, ought one?” The peculiar, + breathy tone in which Flavia always uttered that word “best,” the most + worn in her vocabulary, always jarred on Imogen and always made her + obdurate. + </p> + <p> + “I don't at all agree with you,” she said reservedly. “I thought everyone + admitted that the most remarkable thing about Miss Broadwood is her + admirable sense of fitness, which is rare enough in her profession.” + </p> + <p> + Flavia could not endure being contradicted; she always seemed to regard it + in the light of a defeat, and usually colored unbecomingly. Now she + changed the subject. + </p> + <p> + “Look, my dear,” she cried, “there is Frau Lichtenfeld now, coming to meet + us. Doesn't she look as if she had just escaped out of Valhalla? She is + actually over six feet.” + </p> + <p> + Imogen saw a woman of immense stature, in a very short skirt and a broad, + flapping sun hat, striding down the hillside at a long, swinging gait. The + refugee from Valhalla approached, panting. Her heavy, Teutonic features + were scarlet from the rigor of her exercise, and her hair, under her + flapping sun hat, was tightly befrizzled about her brow. She fixed her + sharp little eyes upon Imogen and extended both her hands. + </p> + <p> + “So this is the little friend?” she cried, in a rolling baritone. + </p> + <p> + Imogen was quite as tall as her hostess; but everything, she reflected, is + comparative. After the introduction Flavia apologized. + </p> + <p> + “I wish I could ask you to drive up with us, Frau Lichtenfeld.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, no!” cried the giantess, drooping her head in humorous caricature of + a time-honored pose of the heroines of sentimental romances. “It has never + been my fate to be fitted into corners. I have never known the sweet + privileges of the tiny.” + </p> + <p> + Laughing, Flavia started the ponies, and the colossal woman, standing in + the middle of the dusty road, took off her wide hat and waved them a + farewell which, in scope of gesture, recalled the salute of a plumed + cavalier. + </p> + <p> + When they arrived at the house, Imogen looked about her with keen + curiosity, for this was veritably the work of Flavia's hands, the + materialization of hopes long deferred. They passed directly into a large, + square hall with a gallery on three sides, studio fashion. This opened at + one end into a Dutch breakfast room, beyond which was the large dining + room. At the other end of the hall was the music room. There was a smoking + room, which one entered through the library behind the staircase. On the + second floor there was the same general arrangement: a square hall, and, + opening from it, the guest chambers, or, as Miss Broadwood termed them, + the “cages.” + </p> + <p> + When Imogen went to her room, the guests had begun to return from their + various afternoon excursions. Boys were gliding through the halls with ice + water, covered trays, and flowers, colliding with maids and valets who + carried shoes and other articles of wearing apparel. Yet, all this was + done in response to inaudible bells, on felt soles, and in hushed voices, + so that there was very little confusion about it. + </p> + <p> + Flavia had at last built her house and hewn out her seven pillars; there + could be no doubt, now, that the asylum for talent, the sanatorium of the + arts, so long projected, was an accomplished fact. Her ambition had long + ago outgrown the dimensions of her house on Prairie Avenue; besides, she + had bitterly complained that in Chicago traditions were against her. Her + project had been delayed by Arthur's doggedly standing out for the + Michigan woods, but Flavia knew well enough that certain of the <i>rarae + aves</i>—“the best”—could not be lured so far away from the + seaport, so she declared herself for the historic Hudson and knew no + retreat. The establishing of a New York office had at length overthrown + Arthur's last valid objection to quitting the lake country for three + months of the year; and Arthur could be wearied into anything, as those + who knew him knew. + </p> + <p> + Flavia's house was the mirror of her exultation; it was a temple to the + gods of Victory, a sort of triumphal arch. In her earlier days she had + swallowed experiences that would have unmanned one of less torrential + enthusiasm or blind pertinacity. But, of late years, her determination had + told; she saw less and less of those mysterious persons with mysterious + obstacles in their path and mysterious grievances against the world, who + had once frequented her house on Prairie Avenue. In the stead of this + multitude of the unarrived, she had now the few, the select, “the best.” + Of all that band of indigent retainers who had once fed at her board like + the suitors in the halls of Penelope, only Alcee Buisson still retained + his right of entree. He alone had remembered that ambition hath a knapsack + at his back, wherein he puts alms to oblivion, and he alone had been + considerate enough to do what Flavia had expected of him, and give his + name a current value in the world. Then, as Miss Broadwood put it, “he was + her first real one,”—and Flavia, like Mohammed, could remember her + first believer. + </p> + <p> + “The House of Song,” as Miss Broadwood had called it, was the outcome of + Flavia's more exalted strategies. A woman who made less a point of + sympathizing with their delicate organisms, might have sought to plunge + these phosphorescent pieces into the tepid bath of domestic life; but + Flavia's discernment was deeper. This must be a refuge where the shrinking + soul, the sensitive brain, should be unconstrained; where the caprice of + fancy should outweigh the civil code, if necessary. She considered that + this much Arthur owed her; for she, in her turn, had made concessions. + Flavia had, indeed, quite an equipment of epigrams to the effect that our + century creates the iron genii which evolve its fairy tales: but the fact + that her husband's name was annually painted upon some ten thousand + threshing machines in reality contributed very little to her happiness. + </p> + <p> + Arthur Hamilton was born and had spent his boyhood in the West Indies, and + physically he had never lost the brand of the tropics. His father, after + inventing the machine which bore his name, had returned to the States to + patent and manufacture it. After leaving college, Arthur had spent five + years ranching in the West and traveling abroad. Upon his father's death + he had returned to Chicago and, to the astonishment of all his friends, + had taken up the business—without any demonstration of enthusiasm, + but with quiet perseverance, marked ability, and amazing industry. Why or + how a self-sufficient, rather ascetic man of thirty, indifferent in + manner, wholly negative in all other personal relations, should have + doggedly wooed and finally married Flavia Malcolm was a problem that had + vexed older heads than Imogen's. + </p> + <p> + While Imogen was dressing she heard a knock at her door, and a young woman + entered whom she at once recognized as Jemima Broadwood—“Jimmy” + Broadwood she was called by people in her own profession. While there was + something unmistakably professional in her frank <i>savoir-faire</i>, + “Jimmy's” was one of those faces to which the rouge never seems to stick. + Her eyes were keen and gray as a windy April sky, and so far from having + been seared by calcium lights, you might have fancied they had never + looked on anything less bucolic than growing fields and country fairs. She + wore her thick, brown hair short and parted at the side; and, rather than + hinting at freakishness, this seemed admirably in keeping with her fresh, + boyish countenance. She extended to Imogen a large, well-shaped hand which + it was a pleasure to clasp. + </p> + <p> + “Ah! You are Miss Willard, and I see I need not introduce myself. Flavia + said you were kind enough to express a wish to meet me, and I preferred to + meet you alone. Do you mind if I smoke?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, certainly not,” said Imogen, somewhat disconcerted and looking + hurriedly about for matches. + </p> + <p> + “There, be calm, I'm always prepared,” said Miss Broadwood, checking + Imogen's flurry with a soothing gesture, and producing an oddly fashioned + silver match-case from some mysterious recess in her dinner gown. She sat + down in a deep chair, crossed her patent-leather Oxfords, and lit her + cigarette. “This matchbox,” she went on meditatively, “once belonged to a + Prussian officer. He shot himself in his bathtub, and I bought it at the + sale of his effects.” + </p> + <p> + Imogen had not yet found any suitable reply to make to this rather + irrelevant confidence, when Miss Broadwood turned to her cordially: “I'm + awfully glad you've come, Miss Willard, though I've not quite decided why + you did it. I wanted very much to meet you. Flavia gave me your thesis to + read.” + </p> + <p> + “Why, how funny!” ejaculated Imogen. + </p> + <p> + “On the contrary,” remarked Miss Broadwood. “I thought it decidedly lacked + humor.” + </p> + <p> + “I meant,” stammered Imogen, beginning to feel very much like Alice in + Wonderland, “I meant that I thought it rather strange Mrs. Hamilton should + fancy you would be interested.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Broadwood laughed heartily. “Now, don't let my rudeness frighten you. + Really, I found it very interesting, and no end impressive. You see, most + people in my profession are good for absolutely nothing else, and, + therefore, they have a deep and abiding conviction that in some other line + they might have shone. Strange to say, scholarship is the object of our + envious and particular admiration. Anything in type impresses us greatly; + that's why so many of us marry authors or newspapermen and lead miserable + lives.” Miss Broadwood saw that she had rather disconcerted Imogen, and + blithely tacked in another direction. “You see,” she went on, tossing + aside her half-consumed cigarette, “some years ago Flavia would not have + deemed me worthy to open the pages of your thesis—nor to be one of + her house party of the chosen, for that matter. I've Pinero to thank for + both pleasures. It all depends on the class of business I'm playing + whether I'm in favor or not. Flavia is my second cousin, you know, so I + can say whatever disagreeable things I choose with perfect good grace. I'm + quite desperate for someone to laugh with, so I'm going to fasten myself + upon you—for, of course, one can't expect any of these gypsy-dago + people to see anything funny. I don't intend you shall lose the humor of + the situation. What do you think of Flavia's infirmary for the arts, + anyway?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, it's rather too soon for me to have any opinion at all,” said + Imogen, as she again turned to her dressing. “So far, you are the only one + of the artists I've met.” + </p> + <p> + “One of them?” echoed Miss Broadwood. “One of the <i>artists</i>? My + offense may be rank, my dear, but I really don't deserve that. Come, now, + whatever badges of my tribe I may bear upon me, just let me divest you of + any notion that I take myself seriously.” + </p> + <p> + Imogen turned from the mirror in blank astonishment and sat down on the + arm of a chair, facing her visitor. “I can't fathom you at all, Miss + Broadwood,” she said frankly. “Why shouldn't you take yourself seriously? + What's the use of beating about the bush? Surely you know that you are one + of the few players on this side of the water who have at all the spirit of + natural or ingenuous comedy?” + </p> + <p> + “Thank you, my dear. Now we are quite even about the thesis, aren't we? + Oh, did you mean it? Well, you <i>are</i> a clever girl. But you see it + doesn't do to permit oneself to look at it in that light. If we do, we + always go to pieces and waste our substance astarring as the unhappy + daughter of the Capulets. But there, I hear Flavia coming to take you + down; and just remember I'm not one of them—the artists, I mean.” + </p> + <p> + Flavia conducted Imogen and Miss Broadwood downstairs. As they reached the + lower hall they heard voices from the music room, and dim figures were + lurking in the shadows under the gallery, but their hostess led straight + to the smoking room. The June evening was chilly, and a fire had been + lighted in the fireplace. Through the deepening dusk, the firelight + flickered upon the pipes and curious weapons on the wall and threw an + orange glow over the Turkish hangings. One side of the smoking room was + entirely of glass, separating it from the conservatory, which was flooded + with white light from the electric bulbs. There was about the darkened + room some suggestion of certain chambers in the Arabian Nights, opening on + a court of palms. Perhaps it was partially this memory-evoking suggestion + that caused Imogen to start so violently when she saw dimly, in a blur of + shadow, the figure of a man, who sat smoking in a low, deep chair before + the fire. He was long, and thin, and brown. His long, nerveless hands + drooped from the arms of his chair. A brown mustache shaded his mouth, and + his eyes were sleepy and apathetic. When Imogen entered he rose indolently + and gave her his hand, his manner barely courteous. + </p> + <p> + “I am glad you arrived promptly, Miss Willard,” he said with an + indifferent drawl. “Flavia was afraid you might be late. You had a + pleasant ride up, I hope?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, very, thank you, Mr. Hamilton,” she replied, feeling that he did not + particularly care whether she replied at all. + </p> + <p> + Flavia explained that she had not yet had time to dress for dinner, as she + had been attending to Mr. Will Maidenwood, who had become faint after + hurting his finger in an obdurate window, and immediately excused herself + As she left, Hamilton turned to Miss Broadwood with a rather spiritless + smile. + </p> + <p> + “Well, Jimmy,” he remarked, “I brought up a piano box full of fireworks + for the boys. How do you suppose we'll manage to keep them until the + Fourth?” + </p> + <p> + “We can't, unless we steel ourselves to deny there are any on the + premises,” said Miss Broadwood, seating herself on a low stool by + Hamilton's chair and leaning back against the mantel. “Have you seen + Helen, and has she told you the tragedy of the tooth?” + </p> + <p> + “She met me at the station, with her tooth wrapped up in tissue paper. I + had tea with her an hour ago. Better sit down, Miss Willard;” he rose and + pushed a chair toward Imogen, who was standing peering into the + conservatory. “We are scheduled to dine at seven, but they seldom get + around before eight.” + </p> + <p> + By this time Imogen had made out that here the plural pronoun, third + person, always referred to the artists. As Hamilton's manner did not spur + one to cordial intercourse, and as his attention seemed directed to Miss + Broadwood, insofar as it could be said to be directed to anyone, she sat + down facing the conservatory and watched him, unable to decide in how far + he was identical with the man who had first met Flavia Malcolm in her + mother's house, twelve years ago. Did he at all remember having known her + as a little girl, and why did his indifference hurt her so, after all + these years? Had some remnant of her childish affection for him gone on + living, somewhere down in the sealed caves of her consciousness, and had + she really expected to find it possible to be fond of him again? Suddenly + she saw a light in the man's sleepy eyes, an unmistakable expression of + interest and pleasure that fairly startled her. She turned quickly in the + direction of his glance, and saw Flavia, just entering, dressed for dinner + and lit by the effulgence of her most radiant manner. Most people + considered Flavia handsome, and there was no gainsaying that she carried + her five-and-thirty years splendidly. Her figure had never grown matronly, + and her face was of the sort that does not show wear. Its blond tints were + as fresh and enduring as enamel—and quite as hard. Its usual + expression was one of tense, often strained, animation, which compressed + her lips nervously. A perfect scream of animation, Miss Broadwood had + called it, created and maintained by sheer, indomitable force of will. + Flavia's appearance on any scene whatever made a ripple, caused a certain + agitation and recognition, and, among impressionable people, a certain + uneasiness, For all her sparkling assurance of manner, Flavia was + certainly always ill at ease and, even more certainly, anxious. She seemed + not convinced of the established order of material things, seemed always + trying to conceal her feeling that walls might crumble, chasms open, or + the fabric of her life fly to the winds in irretrievable entanglement. At + least this was the impression Imogen got from that note in Flavia which + was so manifestly false. + </p> + <p> + Hamilton's keen, quick, satisfied glance at his wife had recalled to + Imogen all her inventory of speculations about them. She looked at him + with compassionate surprise. As a child she had never permitted herself to + believe that Hamilton cared at all for the woman who had taken him away + from her; and since she had begun to think about them again, it had never + occurred to her that anyone could become attached to Flavia in that deeply + personal and exclusive sense. It seemed quite as irrational as trying to + possess oneself of Broadway at noon. + </p> + <p> + When they went out to dinner Imogen realized the completeness of Flavia's + triumph. They were people of one name, mostly, like kings; people whose + names stirred the imagination like a romance or a melody. With the notable + exception of M. Roux, Imogen had seen most of them before, either in + concert halls or lecture rooms; but they looked noticeably older and + dimmer than she remembered them. + </p> + <p> + Opposite her sat Schemetzkin, the Russian pianist, a short, corpulent man, + with an apoplectic face and purplish skin, his thick, iron-gray hair + tossed back from his forehead. Next to the German giantess sat the Italian + tenor—the tiniest of men—pale, with soft, light hair, much in + disorder, very red lips, and fingers yellowed by cigarettes. Frau + Lichtenfeld shone in a gown of emerald green, fitting so closely as to + enhance her natural floridness. However, to do the good lady justice, let + her attire be never so modest, it gave an effect of barbaric splendor. At + her left sat Herr Schotte, the Assyriologist, whose features were + effectually concealed by the convergence of his hair and beard, and whose + glasses were continually falling into his plate. This gentleman had + removed more tons of earth in the course of his explorations than had any + of his confreres, and his vigorous attack upon his food seemed to suggest + the strenuous nature of his accustomed toil. His eyes were small and + deeply set, and his forehead bulged fiercely above his eyes in a bony + ridge. His heavy brows completed the leonine suggestion of his face. Even + to Imogen, who knew something of his work and greatly respected it, he was + entirely too reminiscent of the Stone Age to be altogether an agreeable + dinner companion. He seemed, indeed, to have absorbed something of the + savagery of those early types of life which he continually studied. + </p> + <p> + Frank Wellington, the young Kansas man who had been two years out of + Harvard and had published three historical novels, sat next to Mr. Will + Maidenwood, who was still pale from his recent sufferings and carried his + hand bandaged. They took little part in the general conversation, but, + like the lion and the unicorn, were always at it, discussing, every time + they met, whether there were or were not passages in Mr. Wellington's + works which should be eliminated, out of consideration for the Young + Person. Wellington had fallen into the hands of a great American syndicate + which most effectually befriended struggling authors whose struggles were + in the right direction, and which had guaranteed to make him famous before + he was thirty. Feeling the security of his position he stoutly defended + those passages which jarred upon the sensitive nerves of the young editor + of <i>Woman</i>. Maidenwood, in the smoothest of voices, urged the + necessity of the author's recognizing certain restrictions at the outset, + and Miss Broadwood, who joined the argument quite without invitation or + encouragement, seconded him with pointed and malicious remarks which + caused the young editor manifest discomfort. Restzhoff, the chemist, + demanded the attention of the entire company for his exposition of his + devices for manufacturing ice cream from vegetable oils and for + administering drugs in bonbons. + </p> + <p> + Flavia, always noticeably restless at dinner, was somewhat apathetic + toward the advocate of peptonized chocolate and was plainly concerned + about the sudden departure of M. Roux, who had announced that it would be + necessary for him to leave tomorrow. M. Emile Roux, who sat at Flavia's + right, was a man in middle life and quite bald, clearly without personal + vanity, though his publishers preferred to circulate only those of his + portraits taken in his ambrosial youth. Imogen was considerably shocked at + his unlikeness to the slender, black-stocked Rolla he had looked at + twenty. He had declined into the florid, settled heaviness of indifference + and approaching age. There was, however, a certain look of durability and + solidity about him; the look of a man who has earned the right to be fat + and bald, and even silent at dinner if he chooses. + </p> + <p> + Throughout the discussion between Wellington and Will Maidenwood, though + they invited his participation, he remained silent, betraying no sign + either of interest or contempt. Since his arrival he had directed most of + his conversation to Hamilton, who had never read one of his twelve great + novels. This perplexed and troubled Flavia. On the night of his arrival + Jules Martel had enthusiastically declared, “There are schools and + schools, manners and manners; but Roux is Roux, and Paris sets its watches + by his clock.” Flavia had already repeated this remark to Imogen. It + haunted her, and each time she quoted it she was impressed anew. + </p> + <p> + Flavia shifted the conversation uneasily, evidently exasperated and + excited by her repeated failures to draw the novelist out. “Monsieur + Roux,” she began abruptly, with her most animated smile, “I remember so + well a statement I read some years ago in your 'Mes Etudes des Femmes' to + the effect that you had never met a really intellectual woman. May I ask, + without being impertinent, whether that assertion still represents your + experience?” + </p> + <p> + “I meant, madam,” said the novelist conservatively, “intellectual in a + sense very special, as we say of men in whom the purely intellectual + functions seem almost independent.” + </p> + <p> + “And you still think a woman so constituted a mythical personage?” + persisted Flavia, nodding her head encouragingly. + </p> + <p> + “<i>Une Meduse</i>, madam, who, if she were discovered, would transmute us + all into stone,” said the novelist, bowing gravely. “If she existed at + all,” he added deliberately, “it was my business to find her, and she has + cost me many a vain pilgrimage. Like Rudel of Tripoli, I have crossed seas + and penetrated deserts to seek her out. I have, indeed, encountered women + of learning whose industry I have been compelled to respect; many who have + possessed beauty and charm and perplexing cleverness; a few with + remarkable information and a sort of fatal facility.” + </p> + <p> + “And Mrs. Browning, George Eliot, and your own Mme. Dudevant?” queried + Flavia with that fervid enthusiasm with which she could, on occasion, + utter things simply incomprehensible for their banality—at her feats + of this sort Miss Broadwood was wont to sit breathless with admiration. + </p> + <p> + “Madam, while the intellect was undeniably present in the performances of + those women, it was only the stick of the rocket. Although this woman has + eluded me I have studied her conditions and perturbances as astronomers + conjecture the orbits of planets they have never seen. if she exists, she + is probably neither an artist nor a woman with a mission, but an obscure + personage, with imperative intellectual needs, who absorbs rather than + produces.” + </p> + <p> + Flavia, still nodding nervously, fixed a strained glance of interrogation + upon M. Roux. “Then you think she would be a woman whose first necessity + would be to know, whose instincts would be satisfied only with the best, + who could draw from others; appreciative, merely?” + </p> + <p> + The novelist lifted his dull eyes to his interlocutress with an + untranslatable smile and a slight inclination of his shoulders. “Exactly + so; you are really remarkable, madam,” he added, in a tone of cold + astonishment. + </p> + <p> + After dinner the guests took their coffee in the music room, where + Schemetzkin sat down at the piano to drum ragtime, and give his celebrated + imitation of the boardingschool girl's execution of Chopin. He flatly + refused to play anything more serious, and would practice only in the + morning, when he had the music room to himself. Hamilton and M. Roux + repaired to the smoking room to discuss the necessity of extending the tax + on manufactured articles in France—one of those conversations which + particularly exasperated Flavia. + </p> + <p> + After Schemetzkin had grimaced and tortured the keyboard with malicious + vulgarities for half an hour, Signor Donati, to put an end to his torture, + consented to sing, and Flavia and Imogen went to fetch Arthur to play his + accompaniments. Hamilton rose with an annoyed look and placed his + cigarette on the mantel. “Why yes, Flavia, I'll accompany him, provided he + sings something with a melody, Italian arias or ballads, and provided the + recital is not interminable.” + </p> + <p> + “You will join us, M. Roux?” + </p> + <p> + “Thank you, but I have some letters to write,” replied the novelist, + bowing. + </p> + <p> + As Flavia had remarked to Imogen, “Arthur really played accompaniments + remarkably well.” To hear him recalled vividly the days of her childhood, + when he always used to spend his business vacations at her mother's home + in Maine. He had possessed for her that almost hypnotic influence which + young men sometimes exert upon little girls. It was a sort of phantom love + affair, subjective and fanciful, a precocity of instinct, like that tender + and maternal concern which some little girls feel for their dolls. Yet + this childish infatuation is capable of all the depressions and + exaltations of love itself, it has its bitter jealousies, cruel + disappointments, its exacting caprices. + </p> + <p> + Summer after summer she had awaited his coming and wept at his departure, + indifferent to the gayer young men who had called her their sweetheart and + laughed at everything she said. Although Hamilton never said so, she had + been always quite sure that he was fond of her. When he pulled her up the + river to hunt for fairy knolls shut about by low, hanging willows, he was + often silent for an hour at a time, yet she never felt he was bored or was + neglecting her. He would lie in the sand smoking, his eyes half-closed, + watching her play, and she was always conscious that she was entertaining + him. Sometimes he would take a copy of “Alice in Wonderland” in his + pocket, and no one could read it as he could, laughing at her with his + dark eyes, when anything amused him. No one else could laugh so, with just + their eyes, and without moving a muscle of their face. Though he usually + smiled at passages that seemed not at all funny to the child, she always + laughed gleefully, because he was so seldom moved to mirth that any such + demonstration delighted her and she took the credit of it entirely to + herself Her own inclination had been for serious stories, with sad + endings, like the Little Mermaid, which he had once told her in an + unguarded moment when she had a cold, and was put to bed early on her + birthday night and cried because she could not have her party. But he + highly disapproved of this preference, and had called it a morbid taste, + and always shook his finger at her when she asked for the story. When she + had been particularly good, or particularly neglected by other people, + then he would sometimes melt and tell her the story, and never laugh at + her if she enjoyed the “sad ending” even to tears. When Flavia had taken + him away and he came no more, she wept inconsolably for the space of two + weeks, and refused to learn her lessons. Then she found the story of the + Little Mermaid herself, and forgot him. + </p> + <p> + Imogen had discovered at dinner that he could still smile at one secretly, + out of his eyes, and that he had the old manner of outwardly seeming + bored, but letting you know that he was not. She was intensely curious + about his exact state of feeling toward his wife, and more curious still + to catch a sense of his final adjustment to the conditions of life in + general. This, she could not help feeling, she might get again—if + she could have him alone for an hour, in some place where there was a + little river and a sandy cove bordered by drooping willows, and a blue sky + seen through white sycamore boughs. + </p> + <p> + That evening, before retiring, Flavia entered her husband's room, where he + sat in his smoking jacket, in one of his favorite low chairs. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose it's a grave responsibility to bring an ardent, serious young + thing like Imogen here among all these fascinating personages,” she + remarked reflectively. “But, after all, one can never tell. These grave, + silent girls have their own charm, even for facile people.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, so that is your plan?” queried her husband dryly. “I was wondering + why you got her up here. She doesn't seem to mix well with the faciles. At + least, so it struck me.” + </p> + <p> + Flavia paid no heed to this jeering remark, but repeated, “No, after all, + it may not be a bad thing.” + </p> + <p> + “Then do consign her to that shaken reed, the tenor,” said her husband + yawning. “I remember she used to have a taste for the pathetic.” + </p> + <p> + “And then,” remarked Flavia coquettishly, “after all, I owe her mother a + return in kind. She was not afraid to trifle with destiny.” + </p> + <p> + But Hamilton was asleep in his chair. + </p> + <p> + Next morning Imogen found only Miss Broadwood in the breakfast room. + </p> + <p> + “Good morning, my dear girl, whatever are you doing up so early? They + never breakfast before eleven. Most of them take their coffee in their + room. Take this place by me.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Broadwood looked particularly fresh and encouraging in her blue serge + walking skirt, her open jacket displaying an expanse of stiff, white shirt + bosom, dotted with some almost imperceptible figure, and a dark + blue-and-white necktie, neatly knotted under her wide, rolling collar. She + wore a white rosebud in the lapel of her coat, and decidedly she seemed + more than ever like a nice, clean boy on his holiday. Imogen was just + hoping that they would breakfast alone when Miss Broadwood exclaimed, “Ah, + there comes Arthur with the children. That's the reward of early rising in + this house; you never get to see the youngsters at any other time.” + </p> + <p> + Hamilton entered, followed by two dark, handsome little boys. The girl, + who was very tiny, blonde like her mother, and exceedingly frail, he + carried in his arms. The boys came up and said good morning with an ease + and cheerfulness uncommon, even in well-bred children, but the little girl + hid her face on her father's shoulder. + </p> + <p> + “She's a shy little lady,” he explained as he put her gently down in her + chair. “I'm afraid she's like her father; she can't seem to get used to + meeting people. And you, Miss Willard, did you dream of the White Rabbit + or the Little Mermaid?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I dreamed of them all! All the personages of that buried + civilization,” cried Imogen, delighted that his estranged manner of the + night before had entirely vanished and feeling that, somehow, the old + confidential relations had been restored during the night. + </p> + <p> + “Come, William,” said Miss Broadwood, turning to the younger of the two + boys, “and what did you dream about?” + </p> + <p> + “We dreamed,” said William gravely—he was the more assertive of the + two and always spoke for both—“we dreamed that there were fireworks + hidden in the basement of the carriage house; lots and lots of fireworks.” + </p> + <p> + His elder brother looked up at him with apprehensive astonishment, while + Miss Broadwood hastily put her napkin to her lips and Hamilton dropped his + eyes. “If little boys dream things, they are so apt not to come true,” he + reflected sadly. This shook even the redoubtable William, and he glanced + nervously at his brother. “But do things vanish just because they have + been dreamed?” he objected. + </p> + <p> + “Generally that is the very best reason for their vanishing,” said Arthur + gravely. + </p> + <p> + “But, Father, people can't help what they dream,” remonstrated Edward + gently. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, come! You're making these children talk like a Maeterlinck dialogue,” + laughed Miss Broadwood. + </p> + <p> + Flavia presently entered, a book in her hand, and bade them all good + morning. “Come, little people, which story shall it be this morning?” she + asked winningly. Greatly excited, the children followed her into the + garden. “She does then, sometimes,” murmured Imogen as they left the + breakfast room. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes, to be sure,” said Miss Broadwood cheerfully. “She reads a story + to them every morning in the most picturesque part of the garden. The + mother of the Gracchi, you know. She does so long, she says, for the time + when they will be intellectual companions for her. What do you say to a + walk over the hills?” + </p> + <p> + As they left the house they met Frau Lichtenfeld and the bushy Herr + Schotte—the professor cut an astonishing figure in golf stockings—returning + from a walk and engaged in an animated conversation on the tendencies of + German fiction. + </p> + <p> + “Aren't they the most attractive little children,” exclaimed Imogen as + they wound down the road toward the river. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, and you must not fail to tell Flavia that you think so. She will + look at you in a sort of startled way and say, 'Yes, aren't they?' and + maybe she will go off and hunt them up and have tea with them, to fully + appreciate them. She is awfully afraid of missing anything good, is + Flavia. The way those youngsters manage to conceal their guilty presence + in the House of Song is a wonder.” + </p> + <p> + “But don't any of the artist-folk fancy children?” asked Imogen. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, they just fancy them and no more. The chemist remarked the other day + that children are like certain salts which need not be actualized because + the formulae are quite sufficient for practical purposes. I don't see how + even Flavia can endure to have that man about.” + </p> + <p> + “I have always been rather curious to know what Arthur thinks of it all,” + remarked Imogen cautiously. + </p> + <p> + “Thinks of it!” ejaculated Miss Broadwood. “Why, my dear, what would any + man think of having his house turned into an hotel, habited by freaks who + discharge his servants, borrow his money, and insult his neighbors? This + place is shunned like a lazaretto!” + </p> + <p> + “Well, then, why does he—why does he—” persisted Imogen. + </p> + <p> + “Bah!” interrupted Miss Broadwood impatiently, “why did he in the first + place? That's the question.” + </p> + <p> + “Marry her, you mean?” said Imogen coloring. + </p> + <p> + “Exactly so,” said Miss Broadwood sharply, as she snapped the lid of her + matchbox. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose that is a question rather beyond us, and certainly one which we + cannot discuss,” said Imogen. “But his toleration on this one point + puzzles me, quite apart from other complications.” + </p> + <p> + “Toleration? Why this point, as you call it, simply is Flavia. Who could + conceive of her without it? I don't know where it's all going to end, I'm + sure, and I'm equally sure that, if it were not for Arthur, I shouldn't + care,” declared Miss Broadwood, drawing her shoulders together. + </p> + <p> + “But will it end at all, now?” + </p> + <p> + “Such an absurd state of things can't go on indefinitely. A man isn't + going to see his wife make a guy of herself forever, is he? Chaos has + already begun in the servants' quarters. There are six different languages + spoken there now. You see, it's all on an entirely false basis. Flavia + hasn't the slightest notion of what these people are really like, their + good and their bad alike escape her. They, on the other hand, can't + imagine what she is driving at. Now, Arthur is worse off than either + faction; he is not in the fairy story in that he sees these people exactly + as they are, <i>but</i> he is utterly unable to see Flavia as they see + her. There you have the situation. Why can't he see her as we do? My dear, + that has kept me awake o' nights. This man who has thought so much and + lived so much, who is naturally a critic, really takes Flavia at very + nearly her own estimate. But now I am entering upon a wilderness. From a + brief acquaintance with her you can know nothing of the icy fastnesses of + Flavia's self-esteem. It's like St. Peter's; you can't realize its + magnitude at once. You have to grow into a sense of it by living under its + shadow. It has perplexed even Emile Roux, that merciless dissector of + egoism. She has puzzled him the more because he saw at a glance what some + of them do not perceive at once, and what will be mercifully concealed + from Arthur until the trump sounds; namely, that all Flavia's artists have + done or ever will do means exactly as much to her as a symphony means to + an oyster; that there is no bridge by which the significance of any work + of art could be conveyed to her.” + </p> + <p> + “Then, in the name of goodness, why does she bother?” gasped Imogen. “She + is pretty, wealthy, well-established; why should she bother?” + </p> + <p> + “That's what M. Roux has kept asking himself. I can't pretend to analyze + it. She reads papers on the Literary Landmarks of Paris, the Loves of the + Poets, and that sort of thing, to clubs out in Chicago. To Flavia it is + more necessary to be called clever than to breathe. I would give a good + deal to know that glum Frenchman's diagnosis. He has been watching her out + of those fishy eyes of his as a biologist watches a hemisphereless frog.” + </p> + <p> + For several days after M. Roux's departure Flavia gave an embarrassing + share of her attention to Imogen. Embarrassing, because Imogen had the + feeling of being energetically and futilely explored, she knew not for + what. She felt herself under the globe of an air pump, expected to yield + up something. When she confined the conversation to matters of general + interest Flavia conveyed to her with some pique that her one endeavor in + life had been to fit herself to converse with her friends upon those + things which vitally interested them. “One has no right to accept their + best from people unless one gives, isn't it so? I want to be able to give—!” + she declared vaguely. Yet whenever Imogen strove to pay her tithes and + plunged bravely into her plans for study next winter, Flavia grew + absent-minded and interrupted her by amazing generalizations or by such + embarrassing questions as, “And these grim studies really have charm for + you; you are quite buried in them; they make other things seem light and + ephemeral?” + </p> + <p> + “I rather feel as though I had got in here under false pretenses,” Imogen + confided to Miss Broadwood. “I'm sure I don't know what it is that she + wants of me.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah,” chuckled Jemima, “you are not equal to these heart to heart talks + with Flavia. You utterly fail to communicate to her the atmosphere of that + untroubled joy in which you dwell. You must remember that she gets no + feeling out of things herself, and she demands that you impart yours to + her by some process of psychic transmission. I once met a blind girl, + blind from birth, who could discuss the peculiarities of the Barbizon + school with just Flavia's glibness and enthusiasm. Ordinarily Flavia knows + how to get what she wants from people, and her memory is wonderful. One + evening I heard her giving Frau Lichtenfeld some random impressions about + Hedda Gabler which she extracted from me five years ago; giving them with + an impassioned conviction of which I was never guilty. But I have known + other people who could appropriate your stories and opinions; Flavia is + infinitely more subtle than that; she can soak up the very thrash and + drift of your daydreams, and take the very thrills off your back, as it + were.” + </p> + <p> + After some days of unsuccessful effort, Flavia withdrew herself, and + Imogen found Hamilton ready to catch her when she was tossed afield. He + seemed only to have been awaiting this crisis, and at once their old + intimacy reestablished itself as a thing inevitable and beautifully + prepared for. She convinced herself that she had not been mistaken in him, + despite all the doubts that had come up in later years, and this renewal + of faith set more than one question thumping in her brain. “How did he, + how can he?” she kept repeating with a tinge of her childish resentment, + “what right had he to waste anything so fine?” + </p> + <p> + When Imogen and Arthur were returning from a walk before luncheon one + morning about a week after M. Roux's departure, they noticed an absorbed + group before one of the hall windows. Herr Schotte and Restzhoff sat on + the window seat with a newspaper between them, while Wellington, + Schemetzkin, and Will Maidenwood looked over their shoulders. They seemed + intensely interested, Herr Schotte occasionally pounding his knees with + his fists in ebullitions of barbaric glee. When imogen entered the hall, + however, the men were all sauntering toward the breakfast room and the + paper was lying innocently on the divan. During luncheon the personnel of + that window group were unwontedly animated and agreeable all save + Schemetzkin, whose stare was blanker than ever, as though Roux's mantle of + insulting indifference had fallen upon him, in addition to his own + oblivious self-absorption. Will Maidenwood seemed embarrassed and annoyed; + the chemist employed himself with making polite speeches to Hamilton. + Flavia did not come down to lunch—and there was a malicious gleam + under Herr Schotte's eyebrows. Frank Wellington announced nervously that + an imperative letter from his protecting syndicate summoned him to the + city. + </p> + <p> + After luncheon the men went to the golf links, and Imogen, at the first + opportunity, possessed herself of the newspaper which had been left on the + divan. One of the first things that caught her eye was an article headed + “Roux on Tuft Hunters; The Advanced American Woman as He Sees Her; + Aggressive, Superficial, and Insincere.” The entire interview was nothing + more nor less than a satiric characterization of Flavia, aquiver with + irritation and vitriolic malice. No one could mistake it; it was done with + all his deftness of portraiture. Imogen had not finished the article when + she heard a footstep, and clutching the paper she started precipitately + toward the stairway as Arthur entered. He put out his hand, looking + critically at her distressed face. + </p> + <p> + “Wait a moment, Miss Willard,” he said peremptorily, “I want to see + whether we can find what it was that so interested our friends this + morning. Give me the paper, please.” + </p> + <p> + Imogen grew quite white as he opened the journal. She reached forward and + crumpled it with her hands. “Please don't, please don't,” she pleaded; + “it's something I don't want you to see. Oh, why will you? it's just + something low and despicable that you can't notice.” + </p> + <p> + Arthur had gently loosed her hands, and he pointed her to a chair. He lit + a cigar and read the article through without comment. When he had finished + it he walked to the fireplace, struck a match, and tossed the flaming + journal between the brass andirons. + </p> + <p> + “You are right,” he remarked as he came back, dusting his hands with his + handkerchief. “It's quite impossible to comment. There are extremes of + blackguardism for which we have no name. The only thing necessary is to + see that Flavia gets no wind of this. This seems to be my cue to act; poor + girl.” + </p> + <p> + Imogen looked at him tearfully; she could only murmur, “Oh, why did you + read it!” + </p> + <p> + Hamilton laughed spiritlessly. “Come, don't you worry about it. You always + took other people's troubles too seriously. When you were little and all + the world was gay and everybody happy, you must needs get the Little + Mermaid's troubles to grieve over. Come with me into the music room. You + remember the musical setting I once made you for the Lay of the + Jabberwock? I was trying it over the other night, long after you were in + bed, and I decided it was quite as fine as the Erl-King music. How I wish + I could give you some of the cake that Alice ate and make you a little + girl again. Then, when you had got through the glass door into the little + garden, you could call to me, perhaps, and tell me all the fine things + that were going on there. What a pity it is that you ever grew up!” he + added, laughing; and Imogen, too, was thinking just that. + </p> + <p> + At dinner that evening, Flavia, with fatal persistence, insisted upon + turning the conversation to M. Roux. She had been reading one of his + novels and had remembered anew that Paris set its watches by his clock. + Imogen surmised that she was tortured by a feeling that she had not + sufficiently appreciated him while she had had him. When she first + mentioned his name she was answered only by the pall of silence that fell + over the company. Then everyone began to talk at once, as though to + correct a false position. They spoke of him with a fervid, defiant + admiration, with the sort of hot praise that covers a double purpose. + Imogen fancied she could see that they felt a kind of relief at what the + man had done, even those who despised him for doing it; that they felt a + spiteful hate against Flavia, as though she had tricked them, and a + certain contempt for themselves that they had been beguiled. She was + reminded of the fury of the crowd in the fairy tale, when once the child + had called out that the king was in his night clothes. Surely these people + knew no more about Flavia than they had known before, but the mere fact + that the thing had been said altered the situation. Flavia, meanwhile, sat + chattering amiably, pathetically unconscious of her nakedness. + </p> + <p> + Hamilton lounged, fingering the stem of his wineglass, gazing down the + table at one face after another and studying the various degrees of + self-consciousness they exhibited. Imogen's eyes followed his, fearfully. + When a lull came in the spasmodic flow of conversation, Arthur, leaning + back in his chair, remarked deliberately, “As for M. Roux, his very + profession places him in that class of men whom society has never been + able to accept unconditionally because it has never been able to assume + that they have any ordered notion of taste. He and his ilk remain, with + the mountebanks and snake charmers, people indispensable to our + civilization, but wholly unreclaimed by it; people whom we receive, but + whose invitations we do not accept.” + </p> + <p> + Fortunately for Flavia, this mine was not exploded until just before the + coffee was brought. Her laughter was pitiful to hear; it echoed through + the silent room as in a vault, while she made some tremulously light + remark about her husband's drollery, grim as a jest from the dying. No one + responded and she sat nodding her head like a mechanical toy and smiling + her white, set smile through her teeth, until Alcee Buisson and Frau + Lichtenfeld came to her support. + </p> + <p> + After dinner the guests retired immediately to their rooms, and Imogen + went upstairs on tiptoe, feeling the echo of breakage and the dust of + crumbling in the air. She wondered whether Flavia's habitual note of + uneasiness were not, in a manner, prophetic, and a sort of unconscious + premonition, after all. She sat down to write a letter, but she found + herself so nervous, her head so hot and her hands so cold, that she soon + abandoned the effort, just as she was about to seek Miss Broadwood, Flavia + entered and embraced her hysterically. + </p> + <p> + “My dearest girl,” she began, “was there ever such an unfortunate and + incomprehensible speech made before? Of course it is scarcely necessary to + explain to you poor Arthur's lack of tact, and that he meant nothing. But + they! Can they be expected to understand? He will feel wretchedly about it + when he realizes what he has done, but in the meantime? And M. Roux, of + all men! When we were so fortunate as to get him, and he made himself so + unreservedly agreeable, and I fancied that, in his way, Arthur quite + admired him. My dear, you have no idea what that speech has done. + Schemetzkin and Herr Schotte have already sent me word that they must + leave us tomorrow. Such a thing from a host!” Flavia paused, choked by + tears of vexation and despair. + </p> + <p> + Imogen was thoroughly disconcerted; this was the first time she had ever + seen Flavia betray any personal emotion which was indubitably genuine. She + replied with what consolation she could. “Need they take it personally at + all? It was a mere observation upon a class of people—” + </p> + <p> + “Which he knows nothing whatever about, and with whom he has no sympathy,” + interrupted Flavia. “Ah, my dear, you could not be <i>expected</i> to + understand. You can't realize, knowing Arthur as you do, his entire lack + of any aesthetic sense whatever. He is absolutely <i>nil</i>, stone deaf + and stark blind, on that side. He doesn't mean to be brutal, it is just + the brutality of utter ignorance. They always feel it—they are so + sensitive to unsympathetic influences, you know; they know it the moment + they come into the house. I have spent my life apologizing for him and + struggling to conceal it; but in spite of me, he wounds them; his very + attitude, even in silence, offends them. Heavens! Do I not know? Is it not + perpetually and forever wounding me? But there has never been anything so + dreadful as this—never! If I could conceive of any possible motive, + even!” + </p> + <p> + “But, surely, Mrs. Hamilton, it was, after all, a mere expression of + opinion, such as we are any of us likely to venture upon any subject + whatever. It was neither more personal nor more extravagant than many of + M. Roux's remarks.” + </p> + <p> + “But, Imogen, certainly M. Roux has the right. It is a part of his art, + and that is altogether another matter. Oh, this is not the only instance!” + continued Flavia passionately, “I've always had that narrow, bigoted + prejudice to contend with. It has always held me back. But this—!” + </p> + <p> + “I think you mistake his attitude,” replied Imogen, feeling a flush that + made her ears tingle. “That is, I fancy he is more appreciative than he + seems. A man can't be very demonstrative about those things—not if + he is a real man. I should not think you would care much about saving the + feelings of people who are too narrow to admit of any other point of view + than their own.” She stopped, finding herself in the impossible position + of attempting to explain Hamilton to his wife; a task which, if once + begun, would necessitate an entire course of enlightenment which she + doubted Flavia's ability to receive, and which she could offer only with + very poor grace. + </p> + <p> + “That's just where it stings most”—here Flavia began pacing the + floor—“it is just because they have all shown such tolerance and + have treated Arthur with such unfailing consideration that I can find no + reasonable pretext for his rancor. How can he fail to see the value of + such friendships on the children's account, if for nothing else! What an + advantage for them to grow up among such associations! Even though he + cares nothing about these things himself he might realize that. Is there + nothing I could say by way of explanation? To them, I mean? If someone + were to explain to them how unfortunately limited he is in these things—” + </p> + <p> + “I'm afraid I cannot advise you,” said Imogen decidedly, “but that, at + least, seems to me impossible.” + </p> + <p> + Flavia took her hand and glanced at her affectionately, nodding nervously. + “Of course, dear girl, I can't ask you to be quite frank with me. Poor + child, you are trembling and your hands are icy. Poor Arthur! But you must + not judge him by this altogether; think how much he misses in life. What a + cruel shock you've had. I'll send you some sherry, Good night, my dear.” + </p> + <p> + When Flavia shut the door Imogen burst into a fit of nervous weeping. + </p> + <p> + Next morning she awoke after a troubled and restless night. At eight + o'clock Miss Broadwood entered in a red and white striped bathrobe. + </p> + <p> + “Up, up, and see the great doom's image!” she cried, her eyes sparkling + with excitement. “The hall is full of trunks, they are packing. What bolt + has fallen? It's you, <i>ma cherie</i>, you've brought Ulysses home again + and the slaughter has begun!” she blew a cloud of smoke triumphantly from + her lips and threw herself into a chair beside the bed. + </p> + <p> + Imogen, rising on her elbow, plunged excitedly into the story of the Roux + interview, which Miss Broadwood heard with the keenest interest, + frequently interrupting her with exclamations of delight. When Imogen + reached the dramatic scene which terminated in the destruction of the + newspaper, Miss Broadwood rose and took a turn about the room, violently + switching the tasselled cords of her bathrobe. + </p> + <p> + “Stop a moment,” she cried, “you mean to tell me that he had such a + heaven-sent means to bring her to her senses and didn't use it—that + he held such a weapon and threw it away?” + </p> + <p> + “Use it?” cried Imogen unsteadily. “Of course he didn't! He bared his back + to the tormentor, signed himself over to punishment in that speech he made + at dinner, which everyone understands but Flavia. She was here for an hour + last night and disregarded every limit of taste in her maledictions.” + </p> + <p> + “My dear!” cried Miss Broadwood, catching her hand in inordinate delight + at the situation, “do you see what he has done? There'll be no end to it. + Why he has sacrificed himself to spare the very vanity that devours him, + put rancors in the vessels of his peace, and his eternal jewel given to + the common enemy of man, to make them kings, the seed of Banquo kings! He + is magnificent!” + </p> + <p> + “Isn't he always that?” cried Imogen hotly. “He's like a pillar of sanity + and law in this house of shams and swollen vanities, where people stalk + about with a sort of madhouse dignity, each one fancying himself a king or + a pope. If you could have heard that woman talk of him! Why, she thinks + him stupid, bigoted, blinded by middleclass prejudices. She talked about + his having no aesthetic sense and insisted that her artists had always + shown him tolerance. I don't know why it should get on my nerves so, I'm + sure, but her stupidity and assurance are enough to drive one to the brink + of collapse.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, as opposed to his singular fineness, they are calculated to do just + that,” said Miss Broadwood gravely, wisely ignoring Imogen's tears. “But + what has been is nothing to what will be. Just wait until Flavia's black + swans have flown! You ought not to try to stick it out; that would only + make it harder for everyone. Suppose you let me telephone your mother to + wire you to come home by the evening train?” + </p> + <p> + “Anything, rather than have her come at me like that again. It puts me in + a perfectly impossible position, and he <i>is</i> so fine!” + </p> + <p> + “Of course it does,” said Miss Broadwood sympathetically, “and there is no + good to be got from facing it. I will stay because such things interest + me, and Frau Lichtenfeld will stay because she has no money to get away, + and Buisson will stay because he feels somewhat responsible. These + complications are interesting enough to cold-blooded folk like myself who + have an eye for the dramatic element, but they are distracting and + demoralizing to young people with any serious purpose in life.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Broadwood's counsel was all the more generous seeing that, for her, + the most interesting element of this denouement would be eliminated by + Imogen's departure. “If she goes now, she'll get over it,” soliloquized + Miss Broadwood. “If she stays, she'll be wrung for him and the hurt may go + deep enough to last. I haven't the heart to see her spoiling things for + herself.” She telephoned Mrs. Willard and helped Imogen to pack. She even + took it upon herself to break the news of Imogen's going to Arthur, who + remarked, as he rolled a cigarette in his nerveless fingers: + </p> + <p> + “Right enough, too. What should she do here with old cynics like you and + me, Jimmy? Seeing that she is brim full of dates and formulae and other + positivisms, and is so girt about with illusions that she still casts a + shadow in the sun. You've been very tender of her, haven't you? I've + watched you. And to think it may all be gone when we see her next. 'The + common fate of all things rare,' you know. What a good fellow you are, + anyway, Jimmy,” he added, putting his hands affectionately on her + shoulders. + </p> + <p> + Arthur went with them to the station. Flavia was so prostrated by the + concerted action of her guests that she was able to see Imogen only for a + moment in her darkened sleeping chamber, where she kissed her + hysterically, without lifting her head, bandaged in aromatic vinegar. On + the way to the station both Arthur and Imogen threw the burden of keeping + up appearances entirely upon Miss Broadwood, who blithely rose to the + occasion. When Hamilton carried Imogen's bag into the car, Miss Broadwood + detained her for a moment, whispering as she gave her a large, warm + handclasp, “I'll come to see you when I get back to town; and, in the + meantime, if you meet any of our artists, tell them you have left Caius + Marius among the ruins of Carthage.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Sculptor's Funeral + </h2> + <p> + A group of the townspeople stood on the station siding of a little Kansas + town, awaiting the coming of the night train, which was already twenty + minutes overdue. The snow had fallen thick over everything; in the pale + starlight the line of bluffs across the wide, white meadows south of the + town made soft, smoke-colored curves against the clear sky. The men on the + siding stood first on one foot and then on the other, their hands thrust + deep into their trousers pockets, their overcoats open, their shoulders + screwed up with the cold; and they glanced from time to time toward the + southeast, where the railroad track wound along the river shore. They + conversed in low tones and moved about restlessly, seeming uncertain as to + what was expected of them. There was but one of the company who looked as + though he knew exactly why he was there; and he kept conspicuously apart; + walking to the far end of the platform, returning to the station door, + then pacing up the track again, his chin sunk in the high collar of his + overcoat, his burly shoulders drooping forward, his gait heavy and dogged. + Presently he was approached by a tall, spare, grizzled man clad in a faded + Grand Army suit, who shuffled out from the group and advanced with a + certain deference, craning his neck forward until his back made the angle + of a jackknife three-quarters open. + </p> + <p> + “I reckon she's agoin' to be pretty late ag'in tonight, Jim,” he remarked + in a squeaky falsetto. “S'pose it's the snow?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know,” responded the other man with a shade of annoyance, + speaking from out an astonishing cataract of red beard that grew fiercely + and thickly in all directions. + </p> + <p> + The spare man shifted the quill toothpick he was chewing to the other side + of his mouth. “It ain't likely that anybody from the East will come with + the corpse, I s'pose,” he went on reflectively. + </p> + <p> + “I don't know,” responded the other, more curtly than before. + </p> + <p> + “It's too bad he didn't belong to some lodge or other. I like an order + funeral myself. They seem more appropriate for people of some reputation,” + the spare man continued, with an ingratiating concession in his shrill + voice, as he carefully placed his toothpick in his vest pocket. He always + carried the flag at the G. A. R. funerals in the town. + </p> + <p> + The heavy man turned on his heel, without replying, and walked up the + siding. The spare man shuffled back to the uneasy group. “Jim's ez full ez + a tick, ez ushel,” he commented commiseratingly. + </p> + <p> + Just then a distant whistle sounded, and there was a shuffling of feet on + the platform. A number of lanky boys of all ages appeared as suddenly and + slimily as eels wakened by the crack of thunder; some came from the + waiting room, where they had been warming themselves by the red stove, or + half-asleep on the slat benches; others uncoiled themselves from baggage + trucks or slid out of express wagons. Two clambered down from the driver's + seat of a hearse that stood backed up against the siding. They + straightened their stooping shoulders and lifted their heads, and a flash + of momentary animation kindled their dull eyes at that cold, vibrant + scream, the world-wide call for men. It stirred them like the note of a + trumpet; just as it had often stirred the man who was coming home tonight, + in his boyhood. + </p> + <p> + The night express shot, red as a rocket, from out the eastward marsh lands + and wound along the river shore under the long lines of shivering poplars + that sentineled the meadows, the escaping steam hanging in gray masses + against the pale sky and blotting out the Milky Way. In a moment the red + glare from the headlight streamed up the snow-covered track before the + siding and glittered on the wet, black rails. The burly man with the + disheveled red beard walked swiftly up the platform toward the approaching + train, uncovering his head as he went. The group of men behind him + hesitated, glanced questioningly at one another, and awkwardly followed + his example. The train stopped, and the crowd shuffled up to the express + car just as the door was thrown open, the spare man in the G. A. B. suit + thrusting his head forward with curiosity. The express messenger appeared + in the doorway, accompanied by a young man in a long ulster and traveling + cap. + </p> + <p> + “Are Mr. Merrick's friends here?” inquired the young man. + </p> + <p> + The group on the platform swayed and shuffled uneasily. Philip Phelps, the + banker, responded with dignity: “We have come to take charge of the body. + Mr. Merrick's father is very feeble and can't be about.” + </p> + <p> + “Send the agent out here,” growled the express messenger, “and tell the + operator to lend a hand.” + </p> + <p> + The coffin was got out of its rough box and down on the snowy platform. + The townspeople drew back enough to make room for it and then formed a + close semicircle about it, looking curiously at the palm leaf which lay + across the black cover. No one said anything. The baggage man stood by his + truck, waiting to get at the trunks. The engine panted heavily, and the + fireman dodged in and out among the wheels with his yellow torch and long + oilcan, snapping the spindle boxes. The young Bostonian, one of the dead + sculptor's pupils who had come with the body, looked about him helplessly. + He turned to the banker, the only one of that black, uneasy, + stoop-shouldered group who seemed enough of an individual to be addressed. + </p> + <p> + “None of Mr. Merrick's brothers are here?” he asked uncertainly. + </p> + <p> + The man with the red heard for the first time stepped up and joined the + group. “No, they have not come yet; the family is scattered. The body will + be taken directly to the house.” He stooped and took hold of one of the + handles of the coffin. + </p> + <p> + “Take the long hill road up, Thompson—it will be easier on the + horses,” called the liveryman as the undertaker snapped the door of the + hearse and prepared to mount to the driver's seat. + </p> + <p> + Laird, the red-bearded lawyer, turned again to the stranger: “We didn't + know whether there would be anyone with him or not,” he explained. “It's a + long walk, so you'd better go up in the hack.” He pointed to a single, + battered conveyance, but the young man replied stiffly: “Thank you, but I + think I will go up with the hearse. If you don't object,” turning to the + undertaker, “I'll ride with you.” + </p> + <p> + They clambered up over the wheels and drove off in the starlight tip the + long, white hill toward the town. The lamps in the still village were + shining from under the low, snow-burdened roofs; and beyond, on every + side, the plains reached out into emptiness, peaceful and wide as the soft + sky itself, and wrapped in a tangible, white silence. + </p> + <p> + When the hearse backed up to a wooden sidewalk before a naked, + weatherbeaten frame house, the same composite, ill-defined group that had + stood upon the station siding was huddled about the gate. The front yard + was an icy swamp, and a couple of warped planks, extending from the + sidewalk to the door, made a sort of rickety footbridge. The gate hung on + one hinge and was opened wide with difficulty. Steavens, the young + stranger, noticed that something black was tied to the knob of the front + door. + </p> + <p> + The grating sound made by the casket, as it was drawn from the hearse, was + answered by a scream from the house; the front door was wrenched open, and + a tall, corpulent woman rushed out bareheaded into the snow and flung + herself upon the coffin, shrieking: “My boy, my boy! And this is how + you've come home to me!” + </p> + <p> + As Steavens turned away and closed his eyes with a shudder of unutterable + repulsion, another woman, also tall, but flat and angular, dressed + entirely in black, darted out of the house and caught Mrs. Merrick by the + shoulders, crying sharply: “Come, come, Mother; you mustn't go on like + this!” Her tone changed to one of obsequious solemnity as she turned to + the banker: “The parlor is ready, Mr. Phelps.” + </p> + <p> + The bearers carried the coffin along the narrow boards, while the + undertaker ran ahead with the coffin-rests. They bore it into a large, + unheated room that smelled of dampness and disuse and furniture polish, + and set it down under a hanging lamp ornamented with jingling glass prisms + and before a “Rogers group” of John Alden and Priscilla, wreathed with + smilax. Henry Steavens stared about him with the sickening conviction that + there had been some horrible mistake, and that he had somehow arrived at + the wrong destination. He looked painfully about over the clover-green + Brussels, the fat plush upholstery, among the hand-painted china plaques + and panels, and vases, for some mark of identification, for something that + might once conceivably have belonged to Harvey Merrick. It was not until + he recognized his friend in the crayon portrait of a little boy in kilts + and curls hanging above the piano that he felt willing to let any of these + people approach the coffin. + </p> + <p> + “Take the lid off, Mr. Thompson; let me see my boy's face,” wailed the + elder woman between her sobs. This time Steavens looked fearfully, almost + beseechingly into her face, red and swollen under its masses of strong, + black, shiny hair. He flushed, dropped his eyes, and then, almost + incredulously, looked again. There was a kind of power about her face—a + kind of brutal handsomeness, even, but it was scarred and furrowed by + violence, and so colored and coarsened by fiercer passions that grief + seemed never to have laid a gentle finger there. The long nose was + distended and knobbed at the end, and there were deep lines on either side + of it; her heavy, black brows almost met across her forehead; her teeth + were large and square and set far apart—teeth that could tear. She + filled the room; the men were obliterated, seemed tossed about like twigs + in an angry water, and even Steavens felt himself being drawn into the + whirlpool. + </p> + <p> + The daughter—the tall, rawboned woman in crepe, with a mourning comb + in her hair which curiously lengthened her long face sat stiffly upon the + sofa, her hands, conspicuous for their large knuckles, folded in her lap, + her mouth and eyes drawn down, solemnly awaiting the opening of the + coffin. Near the door stood a mulatto woman, evidently a servant in the + house, with a timid bearing and an emaciated face pitifully sad and + gentle. She was weeping silently, the corner of her calico apron lifted to + her eyes, occasionally suppressing a long, quivering sob. Steavens walked + over and stood beside her. + </p> + <p> + Feeble steps were heard on the stairs, and an old man, tall and frail, + odorous of pipe smoke, with shaggy, unkept gray hair and a dingy beard, + tobacco stained about the mouth, entered uncertainly. He went slowly up to + the coffin and stood, rolling a blue cotton handkerchief between his + hands, seeming so pained and embarrassed by his wife's orgy of grief that + he had no consciousness of anything else. + </p> + <p> + “There, there, Annie, dear, don't take on so,” he quavered timidly, + putting out a shaking hand and awkwardly patting her elbow. She turned + with a cry and sank upon his shoulder with such violence that he tottered + a little. He did not even glance toward the coffin, but continued to look + at her with a dull, frightened, appealing expression, as a spaniel looks + at the whip. His sunken cheeks slowly reddened and burned with miserable + shame. When his wife rushed from the room her daughter strode after her + with set lips. The servant stole up to the coffin, bent over it for a + moment, and then slipped away to the kitchen, leaving Steavens, the + lawyer, and the father to themselves. The old man stood trembling and + looking down at his dead son's face. The sculptor's splendid head seemed + even more noble in its rigid stillness than in life. The dark hair had + crept down upon the wide forehead; the face seemed strangely long, but in + it there was not that beautiful and chaste repose which we expect to find + in the faces of the dead. The brows were so drawn that there were two deep + lines above the beaked nose, and the chin was thrust forward defiantly. It + was as though the strain of life had been so sharp and bitter that death + could not at once wholly relax the tension and smooth the countenance into + perfect peace—as though he were still guarding something precious + and holy, which might even yet be wrested from him. + </p> + <p> + The old man's lips were working under his stained beard. He turned to the + lawyer with timid deference: “Phelps and the rest are comin' back to set + up with Harve, ain't they?” he asked. “Thank 'ee, Jim, thank 'ee.” He + brushed the hair back gently from his son's forehead. “He was a good boy, + Jim; always a good boy. He was ez gentle ez a child and the kindest of 'em + all—only we didn't none of us ever onderstand him.” The tears + trickled slowly down his beard and dropped upon the sculptor's coat. + </p> + <p> + “Martin, Martin. Oh, Martin! come here,” his wife wailed from the top of + the stairs. The old man started timorously: “Yes, Annie, I'm coming.” He + turned away, hesitated stood for a moment in miserable indecision; then he + reached back and patted the dead man's hair softly, and stumbled from the + room. + </p> + <p> + “Poor old man, I didn't think he had any tears left. Seems as if his eyes + would have gone dry long ago. At his age nothing cuts very deep,” remarked + the lawyer. + </p> + <p> + Something in his tone made Steavens glance up. While the mother had been + in the room the young man had scarcely seen anyone else; but now, from the + moment he first glanced into Jim Laird's florid face and bloodshot eyes, + he knew that he had found what he had been heartsick at not finding before—the + feeling, the understanding, that must exist in someone, even here. + </p> + <p> + The man was red as his beard, with features swollen and blurred by + dissipation, and a hot, blazing blue eye. His face was strained—that + of a man who is controlling himself with difficulty—and he kept + plucking at his beard with a sort of fierce resentment. Steavens, sitting + by the window, watched him turn down the glaring lamp, still its jangling + pendants with an angry gesture, and then stand with his hands locked + behind him, staring down into the master's face. He could not help + wondering what link there could have been between the porcelain vessel and + so sooty a lump of potter's clay. + </p> + <p> + From the kitchen an uproar was sounding; when the dining-room door opened + the import of it was clear. The mother was abusing the maid for having + forgotten to make the dressing for the chicken salad which had been + prepared for the watchers. Steavens had never heard anything in the least + like it; it was injured, emotional, dramatic abuse, unique and masterly in + its excruciating cruelty, as violent and unrestrained as had been her + grief of twenty minutes before. With a shudder of disgust the lawyer went + into the dining room and closed the door into the kitchen. + </p> + <p> + “Poor Roxy's getting it now,” he remarked when he came back. “The Merricks + took her out of the poorhouse years ago; and if her loyalty would let her, + I guess the poor old thing could tell tales that would curdle your blood. + She's the mulatto woman who was standing in here a while ago, with her + apron to her eyes. The old woman is a fury; there never was anybody like + her for demonstrative piety and ingenious cruelty. She made Harvey's life + a hell for him when he lived at home; he was so sick ashamed of it. I + never could see how he kept himself so sweet.” + </p> + <p> + “He was wonderful,” said Steavens slowly, “wonderful; but until tonight I + have never known how wonderful.” + </p> + <p> + “That is the true and eternal wonder of it, anyway; that it can come even + from such a dung heap as this,” the lawyer cried, with a sweeping gesture + which seemed to indicate much more than the four walls within which they + stood. + </p> + <p> + “I think I'll see whether I can get a little air. The room is so close I + am beginning to feel rather faint,” murmured Steavens, struggling with one + of the windows. The sash was stuck, however, and would not yield, so he + sat down dejectedly and began pulling at his collar. The lawyer came over, + loosened the sash with one blow of his red fist, and sent the window up a + few inches. Steavens thanked him, but the nausea which had been gradually + climbing into his throat for the last half-hour left him with but one + desire—a desperate feeling that he must get away from this place + with what was left of Harvey Merrick. Oh, he comprehended well enough now + the quiet bitterness of the smile that he had seen so often on his + master's lips! + </p> + <p> + He remembered that once, when Merrick returned from a visit home, he + brought with him a singularly feeling and suggestive bas-relief of a thin, + faded old woman, sitting and sewing something pinned to her knee; while a + full-lipped, full-blooded little urchin, his trousers held up by a single + gallows, stood beside her, impatiently twitching her gown to call her + attention to a butterfly he had caught. Steavens, impressed by the tender + and delicate modeling of the thin, tired face, had asked him if it were + his mother. He remembered the dull flush that had burned up in the + sculptor's face. + </p> + <p> + The lawyer was sitting in a rocking chair beside the coffin, his head + thrown back and his eyes closed. Steavens looked at him earnestly, puzzled + at the line of the chin, and wondering why a man should conceal a feature + of such distinction under that disfiguring shock of beard. Suddenly, as + though he felt the young sculptor's keen glance, he opened his eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Was he always a good deal of an oyster?” he asked abruptly. “He was + terribly shy as a boy.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, he was an oyster, since you put it so,” rejoined Steavens. “Although + he could be very fond of people, he always gave one the impression of + being detached. He disliked violent emotion; he was reflective, and rather + distrustful of himself—except, of course, as regarded his work. He + was surefooted enough there. He distrusted men pretty thoroughly and women + even more, yet somehow without believing ill of them. He was determined, + indeed, to believe the best, but he seemed afraid to investigate.” + </p> + <p> + “A burnt dog dreads the fire,” said the lawyer grimly, and closed his + eyes. + </p> + <p> + Steavens went on and on, reconstructing that whole miserable boyhood. All + this raw, biting ugliness had been the portion of the man whose tastes + were refined beyond the limits of the reasonable—whose mind was an + exhaustless gallery of beautiful impressions, and so sensitive that the + mere shadow of a poplar leaf flickering against a sunny wall would be + etched and held there forever. Surely, if ever a man had the magic word in + his fingertips, it was Merrick. Whatever he touched, he revealed its + holiest secret; liberated it from enchantment and restored it to its + pristine loveliness, like the Arabian prince who fought the enchantress + spell for spell. Upon whatever he had come in contact with, he had left a + beautiful record of the experience—a sort of ethereal signature; a + scent, a sound, a color that was his own. + </p> + <p> + Steavens understood now the real tragedy of his master's life; neither + love nor wine, as many had conjectured, but a blow which had fallen + earlier and cut deeper than these could have done—a shame not his, + and yet so unescapably his, to bide in his heart from his very boyhood. + And without—the frontier warfare; the yearning of a boy, cast ashore + upon a desert of newness and ugliness and sordidness, for all that is + chastened and old, and noble with traditions. + </p> + <p> + At eleven o'clock the tall, flat woman in black crepe entered, announced + that the watchers were arriving, and asked them “to step into the dining + room.” As Steavens rose the lawyer said dryly: “You go on—it'll be a + good experience for you, doubtless; as for me, I'm not equal to that crowd + tonight; I've had twenty years of them.” + </p> + <p> + As Steavens closed the door after him be glanced back at the lawyer, + sitting by the coffin in the dim light, with his chin resting on his hand. + </p> + <p> + The same misty group that had stood before the door of the express car + shuffled into the dining room. In the light of the kerosene lamp they + separated and became individuals. The minister, a pale, feeble-looking man + with white hair and blond chin-whiskers, took his seat beside a small side + table and placed his Bible upon it. The Grand Army man sat down behind the + stove and tilted his chair back comfortably against the wall, fishing his + quill toothpick from his waistcoat pocket. The two bankers, Phelps and + Elder, sat off in a corner behind the dinner table, where they could + finish their discussion of the new usury law and its effect on chattel + security loans. The real estate agent, an old man with a smiling, + hypocritical face, soon joined them. The coal-and-lumber dealer and the + cattle shipper sat on opposite sides of the hard coal-burner, their feet + on the nickelwork. Steavens took a book from his pocket and began to read. + The talk around him ranged through various topics of local interest while + the house was quieting down. When it was clear that the members of the + family were in bed the Grand Army man hitched his shoulders and, + untangling his long legs, caught his heels on the rounds of his chair. + </p> + <p> + “S'pose there'll be a will, Phelps?” he queried in his weak falsetto. + </p> + <p> + The banker laughed disagreeably and began trimming his nails with a + pearl-handled pocketknife. + </p> + <p> + “There'll scarcely be any need for one, will there?” he queried in his + turn. + </p> + <p> + The restless Grand Army man shifted his position again, getting his knees + still nearer his chin. “Why, the ole man says Harve's done right well + lately,” he chirped. + </p> + <p> + The other banker spoke up. “I reckon he means by that Harve ain't asked + him to mortgage any more farms lately, so as he could go on with his + education.” + </p> + <p> + “Seems like my mind don't reach back to a time when Harve wasn't bein' + edycated,” tittered the Grand Army man. + </p> + <p> + There was a general chuckle. The minister took out his handkerchief and + blew his nose sonorously. Banker Phelps closed his knife with a snap. + “It's too bad the old man's sons didn't turn out better,” he remarked with + reflective authority. “They never hung together. He spent money enough on + Harve to stock a dozen cattle farms and he might as well have poured it + into Sand Creek. If Harve had stayed at home and helped nurse what little + they had, and gone into stock on the old man's bottom farm, they might all + have been well fixed. But the old man had to trust everything to tenants + and was cheated right and left.” + </p> + <p> + “Harve never could have handled stock none,” interposed the cattleman. “He + hadn't it in him to be sharp. Do you remember when he bought Sander's + mules for eight-year-olds, when everybody in town knew that Sander's + father-in-law give 'em to his wife for a wedding present eighteen years + before, an' they was full-grown mules then.” + </p> + <p> + Everyone chuckled, and the Grand Army man rubbed his knees with a spasm of + childish delight. + </p> + <p> + “Harve never was much account for anything practical, and he shore was + never fond of work,” began the coal-and-lumber dealer. “I mind the last + time he was home; the day he left, when the old man was out to the barn + helpin' his hand hitch up to take Harve to the train, and Cal Moots was + patchin' up the fence, Harve, he come out on the step and sings out, in + his ladylike voice: 'Cal Moots, Cal Moots! please come cord my trunk.'” + </p> + <p> + “That's Harve for you,” approved the Grand Army man gleefully. “I kin hear + him howlin' yet when he was a big feller in long pants and his mother used + to whale him with a rawhide in the barn for lettin' the cows git foundered + in the cornfield when he was drivin' 'em home from pasture. He killed a + cow of mine that-a-way onc't—a pure Jersey and the best milker I + had, an' the ole man had to put up for her. Harve, he was watchin' the sun + set acros't the marshes when the anamile got away; he argued that sunset + was oncommon fine.” + </p> + <p> + “Where the old man made his mistake was in sending the boy East to + school,” said Phelps, stroking his goatee and speaking in a deliberate, + judicial tone. “There was where he got his head full of traipsing to Paris + and all such folly. What Harve needed, of all people, was a course in some + first-class Kansas City business college.” + </p> + <p> + The letters were swimming before Steavens's eyes. Was it possible that + these men did not understand, that the palm on the coffin meant nothing to + them? The very name of their town would have remained forever buried in + the postal guide had it not been now and again mentioned in the world in + connection with Harvey Merrick's. He remembered what his master had said + to him on the day of his death, after the congestion of both lungs had + shut off any probability of recovery, and the sculptor had asked his pupil + to send his body home. “It's not a pleasant place to be lying while the + world is moving and doing and bettering,” he had said with a feeble smile, + “but it rather seems as though we ought to go back to the place we came + from in the end. The townspeople will come in for a look at me; and after + they have had their say I shan't have much to fear from the judgment of + God. The wings of the Victory, in there”—with a weak gesture toward + his studio—“will not shelter me.” + </p> + <p> + The cattleman took up the comment. “Forty's young for a Merrick to cash + in; they usually hang on pretty well. Probably he helped it along with + whisky.” + </p> + <p> + “His mother's people were not long-lived, and Harvey never had a robust + constitution,” said the minister mildly. He would have liked to say more. + He had been the boy's Sunday-school teacher, and had been fond of him; but + he felt that he was not in a position to speak. His own sons had turned + out badly, and it was not a year since one of them had made his last trip + home in the express car, shot in a gambling house in the Black Hills. + </p> + <p> + “Nevertheless, there is no disputin' that Harve frequently looked upon the + wine when it was red, also variegated, and it shore made an oncommon fool + of him,” moralized the cattleman. + </p> + <p> + Just then the door leading into the parlor rattled loudly, and everyone + started involuntarily, looking relieved when only Jim Laird came out. His + red face was convulsed with anger, and the Grand Army man ducked his head + when he saw the spark in his blue, bloodshot eye. They were all afraid of + Jim; he was a drunkard, but he could twist the law to suit his client's + needs as no other man in all western Kansas could do; and there were many + who tried. The lawyer closed the door gently behind him, leaned back + against it and folded his arms, cocking his head a little to one side. + When he assumed this attitude in the courtroom, ears were always pricked + up, as it usually foretold a flood of withering sarcasm. + </p> + <p> + “I've been with you gentlemen before,” he began in a dry, even tone, “when + you've sat by the coffins of boys born and raised in this town; and, if I + remember rightly, you were never any too well satisfied when you checked + them up. What's the matter, anyhow? Why is it that reputable young men are + as scarce as millionaires in Sand City? It might almost seem to a stranger + that there was some way something the matter with your progressive town. + Why did Ruben Sayer, the brightest young lawyer you ever turned out, after + he had come home from the university as straight as a die, take to + drinking and forge a check and shoot himself? Why did Bill Merrit's son + die of the shakes in a saloon in Omaha? Why was Mr. Thomas's son, here, + shot in a gambling house? Why did young Adams burn his mill to beat the + insurance companies and go to the pen?” + </p> + <p> + The lawyer paused and unfolded his arms, laying one clenched fist quietly + on the table. “I'll tell you why. Because you drummed nothing but money + and knavery into their ears from the time they wore knickerbockers; + because you carped away at them as you've been carping here tonight, + holding our friends Phelps and Elder up to them for their models, as our + grandfathers held up George Washington and John Adams. But the boys, worse + luck, were young and raw at the business you put them to; and how could + they match coppers with such artists as Phelps and Elder? You wanted them + to be successful rascals; they were only unsuccessful ones—that's + all the difference. There was only one boy ever raised in this borderland + between ruffianism and civilization who didn't come to grief, and you + hated Harvey Merrick more for winning out than you hated all the other + boys who got under the wheels. Lord, Lord, how you did hate him! Phelps, + here, is fond of saying that he could buy and sell us all out any time + he's a mind to; but he knew Harve wouldn't have given a tinker's damn for + his bank and all his cattle farms put together; and a lack of + appreciation, that way, goes hard with Phelps. + </p> + <p> + “Old Nimrod, here, thinks Harve drank too much; and this from such as + Nimrod and me!” + </p> + <p> + “Brother Elder says Harve was too free with the old man's money—fell + short in filial consideration, maybe. Well, we can all remember the very + tone in which brother Elder swore his own father was a liar, in the county + court; and we all know that the old man came out of that partnership with + his son as bare as a sheared lamb. But maybe I'm getting personal, and I'd + better be driving ahead at what I want to say.” + </p> + <p> + The lawyer paused a moment, squared his heavy shoulders, and went on: + “Harvey Merrick and I went to school together, back East. We were dead in + earnest, and we wanted you all to be proud of us some day. We meant to be + great men. Even I, and I haven't lost my sense of humor, gentlemen, I + meant to be a great man. I came back here to practice, and I found you + didn't in the least want me to be a great man. You wanted me to be a + shrewd lawyer—oh, yes! Our veteran here wanted me to get him an + increase of pension, because he had dyspepsia; Phelps wanted a new county + survey that would put the widow Wilson's little bottom farm inside his + south line; Elder wanted to lend money at 5 per cent a month and get it + collected; old Stark here wanted to wheedle old women up in Vermont into + investing their annuities in real estate mortgages that are not worth the + paper they are written on. Oh, you needed me hard enough, and you'll go on + needing me; and that's why I'm not afraid to plug the truth home to you + this once. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I came back here and became the damned shyster you wanted me to be. + You pretend to have some sort of respect for me; and yet you'll stand up + and throw mud at Harvey Merrick, whose soul you couldn't dirty and whose + hands you couldn't tie. Oh, you're a discriminating lot of Christians! + There have been times when the sight of Harvey's name in some Eastern + paper has made me hang my head like a whipped dog; and, again, times when + I liked to think of him off there in the world, away from all this hog + wallow, doing his great work and climbing the big, clean upgrade he'd set + for himself. + </p> + <p> + “And we? Now that we've fought and lied and sweated and stolen, and hated + as only the disappointed strugglers in a bitter, dead little Western town + know how to do, what have we got to show for it? Harvey Merrick wouldn't + have given one sunset over your marshes for all you've got put together, + and you know it. It's not for me to say why, in the inscrutable wisdom of + God, a genius should ever have been called from this place of hatred and + bitter waters; but I want this Boston man to know that the drivel he's + been hearing here tonight is the only tribute any truly great man could + ever have from such a lot of sick, side-tracked, burnt-dog, land-poor + sharks as the here-present financiers of Sand City—upon which town + may God have mercy!” + </p> + <p> + The lawyer thrust out his hand to Steavens as he passed him, caught up his + overcoat in the hall, and had left the house before the Grand Army man had + had time to lift his ducked head and crane his long neck about at his + fellows. + </p> + <p> + Next day Jim Laird was drunk and unable to attend the funeral services. + Steavens called twice at his office, but was compelled to start East + without seeing him. He had a presentiment that he would hear from him + again, and left his address on the lawyer's table; but if Laird found it, + he never acknowledged it. The thing in him that Harvey Merrick had loved + must have gone underground with Harvey Merrick's coffin; for it never + spoke again, and Jim got the cold he died of driving across the Colorado + mountains to defend one of Phelps's sons, who had got into trouble out + there by cutting government timber. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + “A Death in the Desert” + </h2> + <p> + Everett Hilgarde was conscious that the man in the seat across the aisle + was looking at him intently. He was a large, florid man, wore a + conspicuous diamond solitaire upon his third finger, and Everett judged + him to be a traveling salesman of some sort. He had the air of an + adaptable fellow who had been about the world and who could keep cool and + clean under almost any circumstances. + </p> + <p> + The “High Line Flyer,” as this train was derisively called among railroad + men, was jerking along through the hot afternoon over the monotonous + country between Holdridge and Cheyenne. Besides the blond man and himself + the only occupants of the car were two dusty, bedraggled-looking girls who + had been to the Exposition at Chicago, and who were earnestly discussing + the cost of their first trip out of Colorado. The four uncomfortable + passengers were covered with a sediment of fine, yellow dust which clung + to their hair and eyebrows like gold powder. It blew up in clouds from the + bleak, lifeless country through which they passed, until they were one + color with the sagebrush and sandhills. The gray-and-yellow desert was + varied only by occasional ruins of deserted towns, and the little red + boxes of station houses, where the spindling trees and sickly vines in the + bluegrass yards made little green reserves fenced off in that confusing + wilderness of sand. + </p> + <p> + As the slanting rays of the sun beat in stronger and stronger through the + car windows, the blond gentleman asked the ladies' permission to remove + his coat, and sat in his lavender striped shirt sleeves, with a black silk + handkerchief tucked carefully about his collar. He had seemed interested + in Everett since they had boarded the train at Holdridge, and kept + glancing at him curiously and then looking reflectively out of the window, + as though he were trying to recall something. But wherever Everett went + someone was almost sure to look at him with that curious interest, and it + had ceased to embarrass or annoy him. Presently the stranger, seeming + satisfied with his observation, leaned back in his seat, half-closed his + eyes, and began softly to whistle the “Spring Song” from <i>Proserpine</i>, + the cantata that a dozen years before had made its young composer famous + in a night. Everett had heard that air on guitars in Old Mexico, on + mandolins at college glees, on cottage organs in New England hamlets, and + only two weeks ago he had heard it played on sleighbells at a variety + theater in Denver. There was literally no way of escaping his brother's + precocity. Adriance could live on the other side of the Atlantic, where + his youthful indiscretions were forgotten in his mature achievements, but + his brother had never been able to outrun <i>Proserpine</i>, and here he + found it again in the Colorado sand hills. Not that Everett was exactly + ashamed of <i>Proserpine</i>; only a man of genius could have written it, + but it was the sort of thing that a man of genius outgrows as soon as he + can. + </p> + <p> + Everett unbent a trifle and smiled at his neighbor across the aisle. + Immediately the large man rose and, coming over, dropped into the seat + facing Hilgarde, extending his card. + </p> + <p> + “Dusty ride, isn't it? I don't mind it myself; I'm used to it. Born and + bred in de briar patch, like Br'er Rabbit. I've been trying to place you + for a long time; I think I must have met you before.” + </p> + <p> + “Thank you,” said Everett, taking the card; “my name is Hilgarde. You've + probably met my brother, Adriance; people often mistake me for him.” + </p> + <p> + The traveling man brought his hand down upon his knee with such vehemence + that the solitaire blazed. + </p> + <p> + “So I was right after all, and if you're not Adriance Hilgarde, you're his + double. I thought I couldn't be mistaken. Seen him? Well, I guess! I never + missed one of his recitals at the Auditorium, and he played the piano + score of <i>Proserpine</i> through to us once at the Chicago Press Club. I + used to be on the <i>Commercial</i> there before I began to + travel for the publishing department of the concern. So you're Hilgarde's + brother, and here I've run into you at the jumping-off place. Sounds like + a newspaper yarn, doesn't it?” + </p> + <p> + The traveling man laughed and offered Everett a cigar, and plied him with + questions on the only subject that people ever seemed to care to talk to + Everett about. At length the salesman and the two girls alighted at a + Colorado way station, and Everett went on to Cheyenne alone. + </p> + <p> + The train pulled into Cheyenne at nine o'clock, late by a matter of four + hours or so; but no one seemed particularly concerned at its tardiness + except the station agent, who grumbled at being kept in the office + overtime on a summer night. When Everett alighted from the train he walked + down the platform and stopped at the track crossing, uncertain as to what + direction he should take to reach a hotel. A phaeton stood near the + crossing, and a woman held the reins. She was dressed in white, and her + figure was clearly silhouetted against the cushions, though it was too + dark to see her face. Everett had scarcely noticed her, when the switch + engine came puffing up from the opposite direction, and the headlight + threw a strong glare of light on his face. Suddenly the woman in the + phaeton uttered a low cry and dropped the reins. Everett started forward + and caught the horse's head, but the animal only lifted its ears and + whisked its tail in impatient surprise. The woman sat perfectly still, her + head sunk between her shoulders and her handkerchief pressed to her face. + Another woman came out of the depot and hurried toward the phaeton, + crying, “Katharine, dear, what is the matter?” + </p> + <p> + Everett hesitated a moment in painful embarrassment, then lifted his hat + and passed on. He was accustomed to sudden recognitions in the most + impossible places, especially by women, but this cry out of the night had + shaken him. + </p> + <p> + While Everett was breakfasting the next morning, the headwaiter leaned + over his chair to murmur that there was a gentleman waiting to see him in + the parlor. Everett finished his coffee and went in the direction + indicated, where he found his visitor restlessly pacing the floor. His + whole manner betrayed a high degree of agitation, though his physique was + not that of a man whose nerves lie near the surface. He was something + below medium height, square-shouldered and solidly built. His thick, + closely cut hair was beginning to show gray about the ears, and his + bronzed face was heavily lined. His square brown hands were locked behind + him, and he held his shoulders like a man conscious of responsibilities; + yet, as he turned to greet Everett, there was an incongruous diffidence in + his address. + </p> + <p> + “Good morning, Mr. Hilgarde,” he said, extending his hand; “I found your + name on the hotel register. My name is Gaylord. I'm afraid my sister + startled you at the station last night, Mr. Hilgarde, and I've come around + to apologize.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah! The young lady in the phaeton? I'm sure I didn't know whether I had + anything to do with her alarm or not. If I did, it is I who owe the + apology.” + </p> + <p> + The man colored a little under the dark brown of his face. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, it's nothing you could help, sir, I fully understand that. You see, + my sister used to be a pupil of your brother's, and it seems you favor + him; and when the switch engine threw a light on your face it startled + her.” + </p> + <p> + Everett wheeled about in his chair. “Oh! <i>Katharine</i> Gaylord! Is it + possible! Now it's you who have given me a turn. Why, I used to know her + when I was a boy. What on earth—” + </p> + <p> + “Is she doing here?” said Gaylord, grimly filling out the pause. “You've + got at the heart of the matter. You knew my sister had been in bad health + for a long time?” + </p> + <p> + “No, I had never heard a word of that. The last I knew of her she was + singing in London. My brother and I correspond infrequently and seldom get + beyond family matters. I am deeply sorry to hear this. There are more + reasons why I am concerned than I can tell you.” + </p> + <p> + The lines in Charley Gaylord's brow relaxed a little. + </p> + <p> + “What I'm trying to say, Mr. Hilgarde, is that she wants to see you. I + hate to ask you, but she's so set on it. We live several miles out of + town, but my rig's below, and I can take you out anytime you can go.” + </p> + <p> + “I can go now, and it will give me real pleasure to do so,” said Everett, + quickly. “I'll get my hat and be with you in a moment.” + </p> + <p> + When he came downstairs Everett found a cart at the door, and Charley + Gaylord drew a long sigh of relief as he gathered up the reins and settled + back into his own element. + </p> + <p> + “You see, I think I'd better tell you something about my sister before you + see her, and I don't know just where to begin. She traveled in Europe with + your brother and his wife, and sang at a lot of his concerts; but I don't + know just how much you know about her.” + </p> + <p> + “Very little, except that my brother always thought her the most gifted of + his pupils, and that when I knew her she was very young and very beautiful + and turned my head sadly for a while.” + </p> + <p> + Everett saw that Gaylord's mind was quite engrossed by his grief. He was + wrought up to the point where his reserve and sense of proportion had + quite left him, and his trouble was the one vital thing in the world. + “That's the whole thing,” he went on, flicking his horses with the whip. + </p> + <p> + “She was a great woman, as you say, and she didn't come of a great family. + She had to fight her own way from the first. She got to Chicago, and then + to New York, and then to Europe, where she went up like lightning, and got + a taste for it all; and now she's dying here like a rat in a hole, out of + her own world, and she can't fall back into ours. We've grown apart, some + way—miles and miles apart—and I'm afraid she's fearfully + unhappy.” + </p> + <p> + “It's a very tragic story that you are telling me, Gaylord,” said Everett. + They were well out into the country now, spinning along over the dusty + plains of red grass, with the ragged-blue outline of the mountains before + them. + </p> + <p> + “Tragic!” cried Gaylord, starting up in his seat, “my God, man, nobody + will ever know how tragic. It's a tragedy I live with and eat with and + sleep with, until I've lost my grip on everything. You see she had made a + good bit of money, but she spent it all going to health resorts. It's her + lungs, you know. I've got money enough to send her anywhere, but the + doctors all say it's no use. She hasn't the ghost of a chance. It's just + getting through the days now. I had no notion she was half so bad before + she came to me. She just wrote that she was all run down. Now that she's + here, I think she'd be happier anywhere under the sun, but she won't + leave. She says it's easier to let go of life here, and that to go East + would be dying twice. There was a time when I was a brakeman with a run + out of Bird City, Iowa, and she was a little thing I could carry on my + shoulder, when I could get her everything on earth she wanted, and she + hadn't a wish my $80 a month didn't cover; and now, when I've got a little + property together, I can't buy her a night's sleep!” + </p> + <p> + Everett saw that, whatever Charley Gaylord's present status in the world + might be, he had brought the brakeman's heart up the ladder with him, and + the brakeman's frank avowal of sentiment. Presently Gaylord went on: + </p> + <p> + “You can understand how she has outgrown her family. We're all a pretty + common sort, railroaders from away back. My father was a conductor. He + died when we were kids. Maggie, my other sister, who lives with me, was a + telegraph operator here while I was getting my grip on things. We had no + education to speak of. I have to hire a stenographer because I can't spell + straight—the Almighty couldn't teach me to spell. The things that + make up life to Kate are all Greek to me, and there's scarcely a point + where we touch any more, except in our recollections of the old times when + we were all young and happy together, and Kate sang in a church choir in + Bird City. But I believe, Mr. Hilgarde, that if she can see just one + person like you, who knows about the things and people she's interested + in, it will give her about the only comfort she can have now.” + </p> + <p> + The reins slackened in Charley Gaylord's hand as they drew up before a + showily painted house with many gables and a round tower. “Here we are,” + he said, turning to Everett, “and I guess we understand each other.” + </p> + <p> + They were met at the door by a thin, colorless woman, whom Gaylord + introduced as “my sister, Maggie.” She asked her brother to show Mr. + Hilgarde into the music room, where Katharine wished to see him alone. + </p> + <p> + When Everett entered the music room he gave a little start of surprise, + feeling that he had stepped from the glaring Wyoming sunlight into some + New York studio that he had always known. He wondered which it was of + those countless studios, high up under the roofs, over banks and shops and + wholesale houses, that this room resembled, and he looked incredulously + out of the window at the gray plain that ended in the great upheaval of + the Rockies. + </p> + <p> + The haunting air of familiarity about the room perplexed him. Was it a + copy of some particular studio he knew, or was it merely the studio + atmosphere that seemed so individual and poignantly reminiscent here in + Wyoming? He sat down in a reading chair and looked keenly about him. + Suddenly his eye fell upon a large photograph of his brother above the + piano. Then it all became clear to him: this was veritably his brother's + room. If it were not an exact copy of one of the many studios that + Adriance had fitted up in various parts of the world, wearying of them and + leaving almost before the renovator's varnish had dried, it was at least + in the same tone. In every detail Adriance's taste was so manifest that + the room seemed to exhale his personality. + </p> + <p> + Among the photographs on the wall there was one of Katharine Gaylord, + taken in the days when Everett had known her, and when the flash of her + eye or the flutter of her skirt was enough to set his boyish heart in a + tumult. Even now, he stood before the portrait with a certain degree of + embarrassment. It was the face of a woman already old in her first youth, + thoroughly sophisticated and a trifle hard, and it told of what her + brother had called her fight. The camaraderie of her frank, confident eyes + was qualified by the deep lines about her mouth and the curve of the lips, + which was both sad and cynical. Certainly she had more good will than + confidence toward the world, and the bravado of her smile could not + conceal the shadow of an unrest that was almost discontent. The chief + charm of the woman, as Everett had known her, lay in her superb figure and + in her eyes, which possessed a warm, lifegiving quality like the sunlight; + eyes which glowed with a sort of perpetual <i>salutat</i> to the world. + Her head, Everett remembered as peculiarly well-shaped and proudly poised. + There had been always a little of the imperatrix about her, and her pose + in the photograph revived all his old impressions of her unattachedness, + of how absolutely and valiantly she stood alone. + </p> + <p> + Everett was still standing before the picture, his hands behind him and + his head inclined, when he heard the door open. A very tall woman advanced + toward him, holding out her hand. As she started to speak, she coughed + slightly; then, laughing, said, in a low, rich voice, a trifle husky: “You + see I make the traditional Camille entrance—with the cough. How good + of you to come, Mr. Hilgarde.” + </p> + <p> + Everett was acutely conscious that while addressing him she was not + looking at him at all, and, as he assured her of his pleasure in coming, + he was glad to have an opportunity to collect himself. He had not reckoned + upon the ravages of a long illness. The long, loose folds of her white + gown had been especially designed to conceal the sharp outlines of her + emaciated body, but the stamp of her disease was there; simple and ugly + and obtrusive, a pitiless fact that could not be disguised or evaded. The + splendid shoulders were stooped, there was a swaying unevenness in her + gait, her arms seemed disproportionately long, and her hands were + transparently white and cold to the touch. The changes in her face were + less obvious; the proud carriage of the head, the warm, clear eyes, even + the delicate flush of color in her cheeks, all defiantly remained, though + they were all in a lower key—older, sadder, softer. + </p> + <p> + She sat down upon the divan and began nervously to arrange the pillows. “I + know I'm not an inspiring object to look upon, but you must be quite frank + and sensible about that and get used to it at once, for we've no time to + lose. And if I'm a trifle irritable you won't mind?—for I'm more + than usually nervous.” + </p> + <p> + “Don't bother with me this morning, if you are tired,” urged Everett. “I + can come quite as well tomorrow.” + </p> + <p> + “Gracious, no!” she protested, with a flash of that quick, keen humor that + he remembered as a part of her. “It's solitude that I'm tired to death of—solitude + and the wrong kind of people. You see, the minister, not content with + reading the prayers for the sick, called on me this morning. He happened + to be riding by on his bicycle and felt it his duty to stop. Of course, he + disapproves of my profession, and I think he takes it for granted that I + have a dark past. The funniest feature of his conversation is that he is + always excusing my own vocation to me—condoning it, you know—and + trying to patch up my peace with my conscience by suggesting possible + noble uses for what he kindly calls my talent.” + </p> + <p> + Everett laughed. “Oh! I'm afraid I'm not the person to call after such a + serious gentleman—I can't sustain the situation. At my best I don't + reach higher than low comedy. Have you decided to which one of the noble + uses you will devote yourself?” + </p> + <p> + Katharine lifted her hands in a gesture of renunciation and exclaimed: + “I'm not equal to any of them, not even the least noble. I didn't study + that method.” + </p> + <p> + She laughed and went on nervously: “The parson's not so bad. His English + never offends me, and he has read Gibbon's <i>Decline and Fall</i>, all + five volumes, and that's something. Then, he has been to New York, and + that's a great deal. But how we are losing time! Do tell me about New + York; Charley says you're just on from there. How does it look and taste + and smell just now? I think a whiff of the Jersey ferry would be as + flagons of cod-liver oil to me. Who conspicuously walks the Rialto now, + and what does he or she wear? Are the trees still green in Madison Square, + or have they grown brown and dusty? Does the chaste Diana on the Garden + Theatre still keep her vestal vows through all the exasperating changes of + weather? Who has your brother's old studio now, and what misguided + aspirants practice their scales in the rookeries about Carnegie Hall? What + do people go to see at the theaters, and what do they eat and drink there + in the world nowadays? You see, I'm homesick for it all, from the Battery + to Riverside. Oh, let me die in Harlem!” She was interrupted by a violent + attack of coughing, and Everett, embarrassed by her discomfort, plunged + into gossip about the professional people he had met in town during the + summer and the musical outlook for the winter. He was diagraming with his + pencil, on the back of an old envelope he found in his pocket, some new + mechanical device to be used at the Metropolitan in the production of the + <i>Rheingold</i>, when he became conscious that she was looking at him + intently, and that he was talking to the four walls. + </p> + <p> + Katharine was lying back among the pillows, watching him through + half-closed eyes, as a painter looks at a picture. He finished his + explanation vaguely enough and put the envelope back in his pocket. As he + did so she said, quietly: “How wonderfully like Adriance you are!” and he + felt as though a crisis of some sort had been met and tided over. + </p> + <p> + He laughed, looking up at her with a touch of pride in his eyes that made + them seem quite boyish. “Yes, isn't it absurd? It's almost as awkward as + looking like Napoleon—but, after all, there are some advantages. It + has made some of his friends like me, and I hope it will make you.” + </p> + <p> + Katharine smiled and gave him a quick, meaning glance from under her + lashes. “Oh, it did that long ago. What a haughty, reserved youth you were + then, and how you used to stare at people and then blush and look cross if + they paid you back in your own coin. Do you remember that night when you + took me home from a rehearsal and scarcely spoke a word to me?” + </p> + <p> + “It was the silence of admiration,” protested Everett, “very crude and + boyish, but very sincere and not a little painful. Perhaps you suspected + something of the sort? I remember you saw fit to be very grown-up and + worldly. + </p> + <p> + “I believe I suspected a pose; the one that college boys usually affect + with singers—'an earthen vessel in love with a star,' you know. But + it rather surprised me in you, for you must have seen a good deal of your + brother's pupils. Or had you an omnivorous capacity, and elasticity that + always met the occasion?” + </p> + <p> + “Don't ask a man to confess the follies of his youth,” said Everett, + smiling a little sadly; “I am sensitive about some of them even now. But I + was not so sophisticated as you imagined. I saw my brother's pupils come + and go, but that was about all. Sometimes I was called on to play + accompaniments, or to fill out a vacancy at a rehearsal, or to order a + carriage for an infuriated soprano who had thrown up her part. But they + never spent any time on me, unless it was to notice the resemblance you + speak of.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes”, observed Katharine, thoughtfully, “I noticed it then, too; but it + has grown as you have grown older. That is rather strange, when you have + lived such different lives. It's not merely an ordinary family likeness of + feature, you know, but a sort of interchangeable individuality; the + suggestion of the other man's personality in your face like an air + transposed to another key. But I'm not attempting to define it; it's + beyond me; something altogether unusual and a trifle—well, uncanny,” + she finished, laughing. + </p> + <p> + “I remember,” Everett said seriously, twirling the pencil between his + fingers and looking, as he sat with his head thrown back, out under the + red window blind which was raised just a little, and as it swung back and + forth in the wind revealed the glaring panorama of the desert—a + blinding stretch of yellow, flat as the sea in dead calm, splotched here + and there with deep purple shadows; and, beyond, the ragged-blue outline + of the mountains and the peaks of snow, white as the white clouds—“I + remember, when I was a little fellow I used to be very sensitive about it. + I don't think it exactly displeased me, or that I would have had it + otherwise if I could, but it seemed to me like a birthmark, or something + not to be lightly spoken of. People were naturally always fonder of Ad + than of me, and I used to feel the chill of reflected light pretty often. + It came into even my relations with my mother. Ad went abroad to study + when he was absurdly young, you know, and mother was all broken up over + it. She did her whole duty by each of us, but it was sort of generally + understood among us that she'd have made burnt offerings of us all for Ad + any day. I was a little fellow then, and when she sat alone on the porch + in the summer dusk she used sometimes to call me to her and turn my face + up in the light that streamed out through the shutters and kiss me, and + then I always knew she was thinking of Adriance.” + </p> + <p> + “Poor little chap,” said Katharine, and her tone was a trifle huskier than + usual. “How fond people have always been of Adriance! Now tell me the + latest news of him. I haven't heard, except through the press, for a year + or more. He was in Algeria then, in the valley of the Chelif, riding + horseback night and day in an Arabian costume, and in his usual + enthusiastic fashion he had quite made up his mind to adopt the Mohammedan + faith and become as nearly an Arab as possible. How many countries and + faiths has he adopted, I wonder? Probably he was playing Arab to himself + all the time. I remember he was a sixteenth-century duke in Florence once + for weeks together.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, that's Adriance,” chuckled Everett. “He is himself barely long enough + to write checks and be measured for his clothes. I didn't hear from him + while he was an Arab; I missed that.” + </p> + <p> + “He was writing an Algerian suite for the piano then; it must be in the + publisher's hands by this time. I have been too ill to answer his letter, + and have lost touch with him.” + </p> + <p> + Everett drew a letter from his pocket. “This came about a month ago. It's + chiefly about his new opera, which is to be brought out in London next + winter. Read it at your leisure.” + </p> + <p> + “I think I shall keep it as a hostage, so that I may be sure you will come + again. Now I want you to play for me. Whatever you like; but if there is + anything new in the world, in mercy let me hear it. For nine months I have + heard nothing but 'The Baggage Coach Ahead' and 'She Is My Baby's + Mother.'” + </p> + <p> + He sat down at the piano, and Katharine sat near him, absorbed in his + remarkable physical likeness to his brother and trying to discover in just + what it consisted. She told herself that it was very much as though a + sculptor's finished work had been rudely copied in wood. He was of a + larger build than Adriance, and his shoulders were broad and heavy, while + those of his brother were slender and rather girlish. His face was of the + same oval mold, but it was gray and darkened about the mouth by continual + shaving. His eyes were of the same inconstant April color, but they were + reflective and rather dull; while Adriance's were always points of + highlight, and always meaning another thing than the thing they meant + yesterday. But it was hard to see why this earnest man should so + continually suggest that lyric, youthful face that was as gay as his was + grave. For Adriance, though he was ten years the elder, and though his + hair was streaked with silver, had the face of a boy of twenty, so mobile + that it told his thoughts before he could put them into words. A + contralto, famous for the extravagance of her vocal methods and of her + affections, had once said to him that the shepherd boys who sang in the + Vale of Tempe must certainly have looked like young Hilgarde; and the + comparison had been appropriated by a hundred shyer women who preferred to + quote. + </p> + <p> + As Everett sat smoking on the veranda of the Inter-Ocean House that night, + he was a victim to random recollections. His infatuation for Katharine + Gaylord, visionary as it was, had been the most serious of his boyish love + affairs, and had long disturbed his bachelor dreams. He was painfully + timid in everything relating to the emotions, and his hurt had withdrawn + him from the society of women. The fact that it was all so done and dead + and far behind him, and that the woman had lived her life out since then, + gave him an oppressive sense of age and loss. He bethought himself of + something he had read about “sitting by the hearth and remembering the + faces of women without desire,” and felt himself an octogenarian. + </p> + <p> + He remembered how bitter and morose he had grown during his stay at his + brother's studio when Katharine Gaylord was working there, and how he had + wounded Adriance on the night of his last concert in New York. He had sat + there in the box while his brother and Katharine were called back again + and again after the last number, watching the roses go up over the + footlights until they were stacked half as high as the piano, brooding, in + his sullen boy's heart, upon the pride those two felt in each other's work—spurring + each other to their best and beautifully contending in song. The + footlights had seemed a hard, glittering line drawn sharply between their + life and his; a circle of flame set about those splendid children of + genius. He walked back to his hotel alone and sat in his window staring + out on Madison Square until long after midnight, resolving to beat no more + at doors that he could never enter and realizing more keenly than ever + before how far this glorious world of beautiful creations lay from the + paths of men like himself. He told himself that he had in common with this + woman only the baser uses of life. + </p> + <p> + Everett's week in Cheyenne stretched to three, and he saw no prospect of + release except through the thing he dreaded. The bright, windy days of the + Wyoming autumn passed swiftly. Letters and telegrams came urging him to + hasten his trip to the coast, but he resolutely postponed his business + engagements. The mornings he spent on one of Charley Gaylord's ponies, or + fishing in the mountains, and in the evenings he sat in his room writing + letters or reading. In the afternoon he was usually at his post of duty. + Destiny, he reflected, seems to have very positive notions about the sort + of parts we are fitted to play. The scene changes and the compensation + varies, but in the end we usually find that we have played the same class + of business from first to last. Everett had been a stopgap all his life. + He remembered going through a looking glass labyrinth when he was a boy + and trying gallery after gallery, only at every turn to bump his nose + against his own face—which, indeed, was not his own, but his + brother's. No matter what his mission, east or west, by land or sea, he + was sure to find himself employed in his brother's business, one of the + tributary lives which helped to swell the shining current of Adriance + Hilgarde's. It was not the first time that his duty had been to comfort, + as best he could, one of the broken things his brother's imperious speed + had cast aside and forgotten. He made no attempt to analyze the situation + or to state it in exact terms; but he felt Katharine Gaylord's need for + him, and he accepted it as a commission from his brother to help this + woman to die. Day by day he felt her demands on him grow more imperious, + her need for him grow more acute and positive; and day by day he felt that + in his peculiar relation to her his own individuality played a smaller and + smaller part. His power to minister to her comfort, he saw, lay solely in + his link with his brother's life. He understood all that his physical + resemblance meant to her. He knew that she sat by him always watching for + some common trick of gesture, some familiar play of expression, some + illusion of light and shadow, in which he should seem wholly Adriance. He + knew that she lived upon this and that her disease fed upon it; that it + sent shudders of remembrance through her and that in the exhaustion which + followed this turmoil of her dying senses, she slept deep and sweet and + dreamed of youth and art and days in a certain old Florentine garden, and + not of bitterness and death. + </p> + <p> + The question which most perplexed him was, “How much shall I know? How + much does she wish me to know?” A few days after his first meeting with + Katharine Gaylord, he had cabled his brother to write her. He had merely + said that she was mortally ill; he could depend on Adriance to say the + right thing—that was a part of his gift. Adriance always said not + only the right thing, but the opportune, graceful, exquisite thing. His + phrases took the color of the moment and the then-present condition, so + that they never savored of perfunctory compliment or frequent usage. He + always caught the lyric essence of the moment, the poetic suggestion of + every situation. Moreover, he usually did the right thing, the opportune, + graceful, exquisite thing—except, when he did very cruel things—bent + upon making people happy when their existence touched his, just as he + insisted that his material environment should be beautiful; lavishing upon + those near him all the warmth and radiance of his rich nature, all the + homage of the poet and troubadour, and, when they were no longer near, + forgetting—for that also was a part of Adriance's gift. + </p> + <p> + Three weeks after Everett had sent his cable, when he made his daily call + at the gaily painted ranch house, he found Katharine laughing like a + schoolgirl. “Have you ever thought,” she said, as he entered the music + room, “how much these seances of ours are like Heine's 'Florentine + Nights,' except that I don't give you an opportunity to monopolize the + conversation as Heine did?” She held his hand longer than usual, as she + greeted him, and looked searchingly up into his face. “You are the kindest + man living; the kindest,” she added, softly. + </p> + <p> + Everett's gray face colored faintly as he drew his hand away, for he felt + that this time she was looking at him and not at a whimsical caricature of + his brother. “Why, what have I done now?” he asked, lamely. “I can't + remember having sent you any stale candy or champagne since yesterday.” + </p> + <p> + She drew a letter with a foreign postmark from between the leaves of a + book and held it out, smiling. “You got him to write it. Don't say you + didn't, for it came direct, you see, and the last address I gave him was a + place in Florida. This deed shall be remembered of you when I am with the + just in Paradise. But one thing you did not ask him to do, for you didn't + know about it. He has sent me his latest work, the new sonata, the most + ambitious thing he has ever done, and you are to play it for me directly, + though it looks horribly intricate. But first for the letter; I think you + would better read it aloud to me.” + </p> + <p> + Everett sat down in a low chair facing the window seat in which she + reclined with a barricade of pillows behind her. He opened the letter, his + lashes half-veiling his kind eyes, and saw to his satisfaction that it was + a long one—wonderfully tactful and tender, even for Adriance, who + was tender with his valet and his stable boy, with his old gondolier and + the beggar-women who prayed to the saints for him. + </p> + <p> + The letter was from Granada, written in the Alhambra, as he sat by the + fountain of the Patio di Lindaraxa. The air was heavy, with the warm + fragrance of the South and full of the sound of splashing, running water, + as it had been in a certain old garden in Florence, long ago. The sky was + one great turquoise, heated until it glowed. The wonderful Moorish arches + threw graceful blue shadows all about him. He had sketched an outline of + them on the margin of his notepaper. The subtleties of Arabic decoration + had cast an unholy spell over him, and the brutal exaggerations of Gothic + art were a bad dream, easily forgotten. The Alhambra itself had, from the + first, seemed perfectly familiar to him, and he knew that he must have + trod that court, sleek and brown and obsequious, centuries before + Ferdinand rode into Andalusia. The letter was full of confidences about + his work, and delicate allusions to their old happy days of study and + comradeship, and of her own work, still so warmly remembered and + appreciatively discussed everywhere he went. + </p> + <p> + As Everett folded the letter he felt that Adriance had divined the thing + needed and had risen to it in his own wonderful way. The letter was + consistently egotistical and seemed to him even a trifle patronizing, yet + it was just what she had wanted. A strong realization of his brother's + charm and intensity and power came over him; he felt the breath of that + whirlwind of flame in which Adriance passed, consuming all in his path, + and himself even more resolutely than he consumed others. Then he looked + down at this white, burnt-out brand that lay before him. “Like him, isn't + it?” she said, quietly. + </p> + <p> + “I think I can scarcely answer his letter, but when you see him next you + can do that for me. I want you to tell him many things for me, yet they + can all be summed up in this: I want him to grow wholly into his best and + greatest self, even at the cost of the dear boyishness that is half his + charm to you and me. Do you understand me?” + </p> + <p> + “I know perfectly well what you mean,” answered Everett, thoughtfully. “I + have often felt so about him myself. And yet it's difficult to prescribe + for those fellows; so little makes, so little mars.” + </p> + <p> + Katharine raised herself upon her elbow, and her face flushed with + feverish earnestness. “Ah, but it is the waste of himself that I mean; his + lashing himself out on stupid and uncomprehending people until they take + him at their own estimate. He can kindle marble, strike fire from putty, + but is it worth what it costs him?” + </p> + <p> + “Come, come,” expostulated Everett, alarmed at her excitement. “Where is + the new sonata? Let him speak for himself.” + </p> + <p> + He sat down at the piano and began playing the first movement, which was + indeed the voice of Adriance, his proper speech. The sonata was the most + ambitious work he had done up to that time and marked the transition from + his purely lyric vein to a deeper and nobler style. Everett played + intelligently and with that sympathetic comprehension which seems peculiar + to a certain lovable class of men who never accomplish anything in + particular. When he had finished he turned to Katharine. + </p> + <p> + “How he has grown!” she cried. “What the three last years have done for + him! He used to write only the tragedies of passion; but this is the + tragedy of the soul, the shadow coexistent with the soul. This is the + tragedy of effort and failure, the thing Keats called hell. This is my + tragedy, as I lie here spent by the racecourse, listening to the feet of + the runners as they pass me. Ah, God! The swift feet of the runners!” + </p> + <p> + She turned her face away and covered it with her straining hands. Everett + crossed over to her quickly and knelt beside her. In all the days he had + known her she had never before, beyond an occasional ironical jest, given + voice to the bitterness of her own defeat. Her courage had become a point + of pride with him, and to see it going sickened him. + </p> + <p> + “Don't do it,” he gasped. “I can't stand it, I really can't, I feel it too + much. We mustn't speak of that; it's too tragic and too vast.” + </p> + <p> + When she turned her face back to him there was a ghost of the old, brave, + cynical smile on it, more bitter than the tears she could not shed. “No, I + won't be so ungenerous; I will save that for the watches of the night when + I have no better company. Now you may mix me another drink of some sort. + Formerly, when it was not <i>if</i> I should ever sing Brunnhilde, but + quite simply when I <i>should</i> sing Brunnhilde, I was always starving + myself and thinking what I might drink and what I might not. But broken + music boxes may drink whatsoever they list, and no one cares whether they + lose their figure. Run over that theme at the beginning again. That, at + least, is not new. It was running in his head when we were in Venice years + ago, and he used to drum it on his glass at the dinner table. He had just + begun to work it out when the late autumn came on, and the paleness of the + Adriatic oppressed him, and he decided to go to Florence for the winter, + and lost touch with the theme during his illness. Do you remember those + frightful days? All the people who have loved him are not strong enough to + save him from himself! When I got word from Florence that he had been ill + I was in Nice filling a concert engagement. His wife was hurrying to him + from Paris, but I reached him first. I arrived at dusk, in a terrific + storm. They had taken an old palace there for the winter, and I found him + in the library—a long, dark room full of old Latin books and heavy + furniture and bronzes. He was sitting by a wood fire at one end of the + room, looking, oh, so worn and pale!—as he always does when he is + ill, you know. Ah, it is so good that you <i>do</i> know! Even his red + smoking jacket lent no color to his face. His first words were not to tell + me how ill he had been, but that that morning he had been well enough to + put the last strokes to the score of his <i>Souvenirs d'Automne</i>. He + was as I most like to remember him: so calm and happy and tired; not gay, + as he usually is, but just contented and tired with that heavenly + tiredness that comes after a good work done at last. Outside, the rain + poured down in torrents, and the wind moaned for the pain of all the world + and sobbed in the branches of the shivering olives and about the walls of + that desolated old palace. How that night comes back to me! There were no + lights in the room, only the wood fire which glowed upon the hard features + of the bronze Dante, like the reflection of purgatorial flames, and threw + long black shadows about us; beyond us it scarcely penetrated the gloom at + all, Adriance sat staring at the fire with the weariness of all his life + in his eyes, and of all the other lives that must aspire and suffer to + make up one such life as his. Somehow the wind with all its world-pain had + got into the room, and the cold rain was in our eyes, and the wave came up + in both of us at once—that awful, vague, universal pain, that cold + fear of life and death and God and hope—and we were like two + clinging together on a spar in midocean after the shipwreck of everything. + Then we heard the front door open with a great gust of wind that shook + even the walls, and the servants came running with lights, announcing that + Madam had returned, <i>'and in the book we read no more that night.'</i>” + </p> + <p> + She gave the old line with a certain bitter humor, and with the hard, + bright smile in which of old she had wrapped her weakness as in a + glittering garment. That ironical smile, worn like a mask through so many + years, had gradually changed even the lines of her face completely, and + when she looked in the mirror she saw not herself, but the scathing + critic, the amused observer and satirist of herself. Everett dropped his + head upon his hand and sat looking at the rug. “How much you have cared!” + he said. + </p> + <p> + “Ah, yes, I cared,” she replied, closing her eyes with a long-drawn sigh + of relief; and lying perfectly still, she went on: “You can't imagine what + a comfort it is to have you know how I cared, what a relief it is to be + able to tell it to someone. I used to want to shriek it out to the world + in the long nights when I could not sleep. It seemed to me that I could + not die with it. It demanded some sort of expression. And now that you + know, you would scarcely believe how much less sharp the anguish of it + is.” + </p> + <p> + Everett continued to look helplessly at the floor. “I was not sure how + much you wanted me to know,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I intended you should know from the first time I looked into your + face, when you came that day with Charley. I flatter myself that I have + been able to conceal it when I chose, though I suppose women always think + that. The more observing ones may have seen, but discerning people are + usually discreet and often kind, for we usually bleed a little before we + begin to discern. But I wanted you to know; you are so like him that it is + almost like telling him himself. At least, I feel now that he will know + some day, and then I will be quite sacred from his compassion, for we none + of us dare pity the dead. Since it was what my life has chiefly meant, I + should like him to know. On the whole I am not ashamed of it. I have + fought a good fight.” + </p> + <p> + “And has he never known at all?” asked Everett, in a thick voice. + </p> + <p> + “Oh! Never at all in the way that you mean. Of course, he is accustomed to + looking into the eyes of women and finding love there; when he doesn't + find it there he thinks he must have been guilty of some discourtesy and + is miserable about it. He has a genuine fondness for everyone who is not + stupid or gloomy, or old or preternaturally ugly. Granted youth and + cheerfulness, and a moderate amount of wit and some tact, and Adriance + will always be glad to see you coming around the corner. I shared with the + rest; shared the smiles and the gallantries and the droll little sermons. + It was quite like a Sunday-school picnic; we wore our best clothes and a + smile and took our turns. It was his kindness that was hardest. I have + pretty well used my life up at standing punishment.” + </p> + <p> + “Don't; you'll make me hate him,” groaned Everett. + </p> + <p> + Katharine laughed and began to play nervously with her fan. “It wasn't in + the slightest degree his fault; that is the most grotesque part of it. + Why, it had really begun before I ever met him. I fought my way to him, + and I drank my doom greedily enough.” + </p> + <p> + Everett rose and stood hesitating. “I think I must go. You ought to be + quiet, and I don't think I can hear any more just now.” + </p> + <p> + She put out her hand and took his playfully. “You've put in three weeks at + this sort of thing, haven't you? Well, it may never be to your glory in + this world, perhaps, but it's been the mercy of heaven to me, and it ought + to square accounts for a much worse life than yours will ever be.” + </p> + <p> + Everett knelt beside her, saying, brokenly: “I stayed because I wanted to + be with you, that's all. I have never cared about other women since I met + you in New York when I was a lad. You are a part of my destiny, and I + could not leave you if I would.” + </p> + <p> + She put her hands on his shoulders and shook her head. “No, no; don't tell + me that. I have seen enough of tragedy, God knows. Don't show me any more + just as the curtain is going down. No, no, it was only a boy's fancy, and + your divine pity and my utter pitiableness have recalled it for a moment. + One does not love the dying, dear friend. If some fancy of that sort had + been left over from boyhood, this would rid you of it, and that were well. + Now go, and you will come again tomorrow, as long as there are tomorrows, + will you not?” She took his hand with a smile that lifted the mask from + her soul, that was both courage and despair, and full of infinite loyalty + and tenderness, as she said softly: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + For ever and for ever, farewell, Cassius; + If we do meet again, why, we shall smile; + If not, why then, this parting was well made. +</pre> + <p> + The courage in her eyes was like the clear light of a star to him as he + went out. + </p> + <p> + On the night of Adriance Hilgarde's opening concert in Paris Everett sat + by the bed in the ranch house in Wyoming, watching over the last battle + that we have with the flesh before we are done with it and free of it + forever. At times it seemed that the serene soul of her must have left + already and found some refuge from the storm, and only the tenacious + animal life were left to do battle with death. She labored under a + delusion at once pitiful and merciful, thinking that she was in the + Pullman on her way to New York, going back to her life and her work. When + she aroused from her stupor it was only to ask the porter to waken her + half an hour out of Jersey City, or to remonstrate with him about the + delays and the roughness of the road. At midnight Everett and the nurse + were left alone with her. Poor Charley Gaylord had lain down on a couch + outside the door. Everett sat looking at the sputtering night lamp until + it made his eyes ache. His head dropped forward on the foot of the bed, + and he sank into a heavy, distressful slumber. He was dreaming of + Adriance's concert in Paris, and of Adriance, the troubadour, smiling and + debonair, with his boyish face and the touch of silver gray in his hair. + He heard the applause and he saw the roses going up over the footlights + until they were stacked half as high as the piano, and the petals fell and + scattered, making crimson splotches on the floor. Down this crimson + pathway came Adriance with his youthful step, leading his prima donna by + the hand; a dark woman this time, with Spanish eyes. + </p> + <p> + The nurse touched him on the shoulder; he started and awoke. She screened + the lamp with her hand. Everett saw that Katharine was awake and + conscious, and struggling a little. He lifted her gently on his arm and + began to fan her. She laid her hands lightly on his hair and looked into + his face with eyes that seemed never to have wept or doubted. “Ah, dear + Adriance, dear, dear,” she whispered. + </p> + <p> + Everett went to call her brother, but when they came back the madness of + art was over for Katharine. + </p> + <p> + Two days later Everett was pacing the station siding, waiting for the + westbound train. Charley Gaylord walked beside him, but the two men had + nothing to say to each other. Everett's bags were piled on the truck, and + his step was hurried and his eyes were full of impatience, as he gazed + again and again up the track, watching for the train. Gaylord's impatience + was not less than his own; these two, who had grown so close, had now + become painful and impossible to each other, and longed for the wrench of + farewell. + </p> + <p> + As the train pulled in Everett wrung Gaylord's hand among the crowd of + alighting passengers. The people of a German opera company, en route to + the coast, rushed by them in frantic haste to snatch their breakfast + during the stop. Everett heard an exclamation in a broad German dialect, + and a massive woman whose figure persistently escaped from her stays in + the most improbable places rushed up to him, her blond hair disordered by + the wind, and glowing with joyful surprise she caught his coat sleeve with + her tightly gloved hands. + </p> + <p> + “<i>Herr Gott</i>, Adriance, <i>lieber Freund</i>,” she cried, + emotionally. + </p> + <p> + Everett quickly withdrew his arm and lifted his hat, blushing. “Pardon me, + madam, but I see that you have mistaken me for Adriance Hilgarde. I am his + brother,” he said quietly, and turning from the crestfallen singer, he + hurried into the car. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Garden Lodge + </h2> + <p> + When Caroline Noble's friends learned that Raymond d'Esquerre was to spend + a month at her place on the Sound before he sailed to fill his engagement + for the London opera season, they considered it another striking instance + of the perversity of things. That the month was May, and the most mild and + florescent of all the blue-and-white Mays the middle coast had known in + years, but added to their sense of wrong. D'Esquerre, they learned, was + ensconced in the lodge in the apple orchard, just beyond Caroline's + glorious garden, and report went that at almost any hour the sound of the + tenor's voice and of Caroline's crashing accompaniment could be heard + floating through the open windows, out among the snowy apple boughs. The + Sound, steel-blue and dotted with white sails, was splendidly seen from + the windows of the lodge. The garden to the left and the orchard to the + right had never been so riotous with spring, and had burst into + impassioned bloom, as if to accommodate Caroline, though she was certainly + the last woman to whom the witchery of Freya could be attributed; the last + woman, as her friends affirmed, to at all adequately appreciate and make + the most of such a setting for the great tenor. + </p> + <p> + Of course, they admitted, Caroline was musical—well, she ought to + be!—but in that, as in everything, she was paramountly cool-headed, + slow of impulse, and disgustingly practical; in that, as in everything + else, she had herself so provokingly well in hand. Of course, it would be + she, always mistress of herself in any situation, she, who would never be + lifted one inch from the ground by it, and who would go on superintending + her gardeners and workmen as usual—it would be she who got him. + Perhaps some of them suspected that this was exactly why she did get him, + and it but nettled them the more. + </p> + <p> + Caroline's coolness, her capableness, her general success, especially + exasperated people because they felt that, for the most part, she had made + herself what she was; that she had cold-bloodedly set about complying with + the demands of life and making her position comfortable and masterful. + That was why, everyone said, she had married Howard Noble. Women who did + not get through life so well as Caroline, who could not make such good + terms either with fortune or their husbands, who did not find their health + so unfailingly good, or hold their looks so well, or manage their children + so easily, or give such distinction to all they did, were fond of stamping + Caroline as a materialist, and called her hard. + </p> + <p> + The impression of cold calculation, of having a definite policy, which + Caroline gave, was far from a false one; but there was this to be said for + her—that there were extenuating circumstances which her friends + could not know. + </p> + <p> + If Caroline held determinedly to the middle course, if she was apt to + regard with distrust everything which inclined toward extravagance, it was + not because she was unacquainted with other standards than her own, or had + never seen another side of life. She had grown up in Brooklyn, in a shabby + little house under the vacillating administration of her father, a music + teacher who usually neglected his duties to write orchestral compositions + for which the world seemed to have no especial need. His spirit was warped + by bitter vindictiveness and puerile self-commiseration, and he spent his + days in scorn of the labor that brought him bread and in pitiful devotion + to the labor that brought him only disappointment, writing interminable + scores which demanded of the orchestra everything under heaven except + melody. + </p> + <p> + It was not a cheerful home for a girl to grow up in. The mother, who + idolized her husband as the music lord of the future, was left to a + lifelong battle with broom and dustpan, to neverending conciliatory + overtures to the butcher and grocer, to the making of her own gowns and of + Caroline's, and to the delicate task of mollifying Auguste's neglected + pupils. + </p> + <p> + The son, Heinrich, a painter, Caroline's only brother, had inherited all + his father's vindictive sensitiveness without his capacity for slavish + application. His little studio on the third floor had been much frequented + by young men as unsuccessful as himself, who met there to give themselves + over to contemptuous derision of this or that artist whose industry and + stupidity had won him recognition. Heinrich, when he worked at all, did + newspaper sketches at twenty-five dollars a week. He was too indolent and + vacillating to set himself seriously to his art, too irascible and + poignantly self-conscious to make a living, too much addicted to lying + late in bed, to the incontinent reading of poetry, and to the use of + chloral to be anything very positive except painful. At twenty-six he shot + himself in a frenzy, and the whole wretched affair had effectually + shattered his mother's health and brought on the decline of which she + died. Caroline had been fond of him, but she felt a certain relief when he + no longer wandered about the little house, commenting ironically upon its + shabbiness, a Turkish cap on his head and a cigarette hanging from between + his long, tremulous fingers. + </p> + <p> + After her mother's death Caroline assumed the management of that bankrupt + establishment. The funeral expenses were unpaid, and Auguste's pupils had + been frightened away by the shock of successive disasters and the general + atmosphere of wretchedness that pervaded the house. Auguste himself was + writing a symphonic poem, Icarus, dedicated to the memory of his son. + Caroline was barely twenty when she was called upon to face this tangle of + difficulties, but she reviewed the situation candidly. The house had + served its time at the shrine of idealism; vague, distressing, unsatisfied + yearnings had brought it low enough. Her mother, thirty years before, had + eloped and left Germany with her music teacher, to give herself over to + lifelong, drudging bondage at the kitchen range. Ever since Caroline could + remember, the law in the house had been a sort of mystic worship of things + distant, intangible and unattainable. The family had lived in successive + ebullitions of generous enthusiasm, in talk of masters and masterpieces, + only to come down to the cold facts in the case; to boiled mutton and to + the necessity of turning the dining-room carpet. All these emotional + pyrotechnics had ended in petty jealousies, in neglected duties, and in + cowardly fear of the little grocer on the corner. + </p> + <p> + From her childhood she had hated it, that humiliating and uncertain + existence, with its glib tongue and empty pockets, its poetic ideals and + sordid realities, its indolence and poverty tricked out in paper roses. + Even as a little girl, when vague dreams beset her, when she wanted to lie + late in bed and commune with visions, or to leap and sing because the + sooty little trees along the street were putting out their first pale + leaves in the sunshine, she would clench her hands and go to help her + mother sponge the spots from her father's waistcoat or press Heinrich's + trousers. Her mother never permitted the slightest question concerning + anything Auguste or Heinrich saw fit to do, but from the time Caroline + could reason at all she could not help thinking that many things went + wrong at home. She knew, for example, that her father's pupils ought not + to be kept waiting half an hour while he discussed Schopenhauer with some + bearded socialist over a dish of herrings and a spotted tablecloth. She + knew that Heinrich ought not to give a dinner on Heine's birthday, when + the laundress had not been paid for a month and when he frequently had to + ask his mother for carfare. Certainly Caroline had served her + apprenticeship to idealism and to all the embarrassing inconsistencies + which it sometimes entails, and she decided to deny herself this diffuse, + ineffectual answer to the sharp questions of life. + </p> + <p> + When she came into the control of herself and the house she refused to + proceed any further with her musical education. Her father, who had + intended to make a concert pianist of her, set this down as another item + in his long list of disappointments and his grievances against the world. + She was young and pretty, and she had worn turned gowns and soiled gloves + and improvised hats all her life. She wanted the luxury of being like + other people, of being honest from her hat to her boots, of having nothing + to hide, not even in the matter of stockings, and she was willing to work + for it. She rented a little studio away from that house of misfortune and + began to give lessons. She managed well and was the sort of girl people + liked to help. The bills were paid and Auguste went on composing, growing + indignant only when she refused to insist that her pupils should study his + compositions for the piano. She began to get engagements in New York to + play accompaniments at song recitals. She dressed well, made herself + agreeable, and gave herself a chance. She never permitted herself to look + further than a step ahead, and set herself with all the strength of her + will to see things as they are and meet them squarely in the broad day. + There were two things she feared even more than poverty: the part of one + that sets up an idol and the part of one that bows down and worships it. + </p> + <p> + When Caroline was twenty-four she married Howard Noble, then a widower of + forty, who had been for ten years a power in Wall Street. Then, for the + first time, she had paused to take breath. It took a substantialness as + unquestionable as his; his money, his position, his energy, the big vigor + of his robust person, to satisfy her that she was entirely safe. Then she + relaxed a little, feeling that there was a barrier to be counted upon + between her and that world of visions and quagmires and failure. + </p> + <p> + Caroline had been married for six years when Raymond d'Esquerre came to + stay with them. He came chiefly because Caroline was what she was; because + he, too, felt occasionally the need of getting out of Klingsor's garden, + of dropping down somewhere for a time near a quiet nature, a cool head, a + strong hand. The hours he had spent in the garden lodge were hours of such + concentrated study as, in his fevered life, he seldom got in anywhere. She + had, as he told Noble, a fine appreciation of the seriousness of work. + </p> + <p> + One evening two weeks after d'Esquerre had sailed, Caroline was in the + library giving her husband an account of the work she had laid out for the + gardeners. She superintended the care of the grounds herself. Her garden, + indeed, had become quite a part of her; a sort of beautiful adjunct, like + gowns or jewels. It was a famous spot, and Noble was very proud of it. + </p> + <p> + “What do you think, Caroline, of having the garden lodge torn down and + putting a new summer house there at the end of the arbor; a big rustic + affair where you could have tea served in midsummer?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “The lodge?” repeated Caroline looking at him quickly. “Why, that seems + almost a shame, doesn't it, after d'Esquerre has used it?” + </p> + <p> + Noble put down his book with a smile of amusement. + </p> + <p> + “Are you going to be sentimental about it? Why, I'd sacrifice the whole + place to see that come to pass. But I don't believe you could do it for an + hour together.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't believe so, either,” said his wife, smiling. + </p> + <p> + Noble took up his book again and Caroline went into the music room to + practice. She was not ready to have the lodge torn down. She had gone + there for a quiet hour every day during the two weeks since d'Esquerre had + left them. It was the sheerest sentiment she had ever permitted herself. + She was ashamed of it, but she was childishly unwilling to let it go. + </p> + <p> + Caroline went to bed soon after her husband, but she was not able to + sleep. The night was close and warm, presaging storm. The wind had fallen, + and the water slept, fixed and motionless as the sand. She rose and thrust + her feet into slippers and, putting a dressing gown over her shoulders, + opened the door of her husband's room; he was sleeping soundly. She went + into the hall and down the stairs; then, leaving the house through a side + door, stepped into the vine-covered arbor that led to the garden lodge. + The scent of the June roses was heavy in the still air, and the stones + that paved the path felt pleasantly cool through the thin soles of her + slippers. Heat-lightning flashed continuously from the bank of clouds that + had gathered over the sea, but the shore was flooded with moonlight and, + beyond, the rim of the Sound lay smooth and shining. Caroline had the key + of the lodge, and the door creaked as she opened it. She stepped into the + long, low room radiant with the moonlight which streamed through the bow + window and lay in a silvery pool along the waxed floor. Even that part of + the room which lay in the shadow was vaguely illuminated; the piano, the + tall candlesticks, the picture frames and white casts standing out as + clearly in the half-light as did the sycamores and black poplars of the + garden against the still, expectant night sky. Caroline sat down to think + it all over. She had come here to do just that every day of the two weeks + since d'Esquerre's departure, but, far from ever having reached a + conclusion, she had succeeded only in losing her way in a maze of memories—sometimes + bewilderingly confused, sometimes too acutely distinct—where there + was neither path, nor clue, nor any hope of finality. She had, she + realized, defeated a lifelong regimen; completely confounded herself by + falling unaware and incontinently into that luxury of reverie which, even + as a little girl, she had so determinedly denied herself, she had been + developing with alarming celerity that part of one which sets up an idol + and that part of one which bows down and worships it. + </p> + <p> + It was a mistake, she felt, ever to have asked d'Esquerre to come at all. + She had an angry feeling that she had done it rather in self-defiance, to + rid herself finally of that instinctive fear of him which had always + troubled and perplexed her. She knew that she had reckoned with herself + before he came; but she had been equal to so much that she had never + really doubted she would be equal to this. She had come to believe, + indeed, almost arrogantly in her own malleability and endurance; she had + done so much with herself that she had come to think that there was + nothing which she could not do; like swimmers, overbold, who reckon upon + their strength and their power to hoard it, forgetting the ever-changing + moods of their adversary, the sea. + </p> + <p> + And d'Esquerre was a man to reckon with. Caroline did not deceive herself + now upon that score. She admitted it humbly enough, and since she had said + good-by to him she had not been free for a moment from the sense of his + formidable power. It formed the undercurrent of her consciousness; + whatever she might be doing or thinking, it went on, involuntarily, like + her breathing, sometimes welling up until suddenly she found herself + suffocating. There was a moment of this tonight, and Caroline rose and + stood shuddering, looking about her in the blue duskiness of the silent + room. She had not been here at night before, and the spirit of the place + seemed more troubled and insistent than ever it had in the quiet of the + afternoons. Caroline brushed her hair back from her damp forehead and went + over to the bow window. After raising it she sat down upon the low seat. + Leaning her head against the sill, and loosening her nightgown at the + throat, she half-closed her eyes and looked off into the troubled night, + watching the play of the heat-lightning upon the massing clouds between + the pointed tops of the poplars. + </p> + <p> + Yes, she knew, she knew well enough, of what absurdities this spell was + woven; she mocked, even while she winced. His power, she knew, lay not so + much in anything that he actually had—though he had so much—or + in anything that he actually was, but in what he suggested, in what he + seemed picturesque enough to have or be and that was just anything that + one chose to believe or to desire. His appeal was all the more persuasive + and alluring in that it was to the imagination alone, in that it was as + indefinite and impersonal as those cults of idealism which so have their + way with women. What he had was that, in his mere personality, he + quickened and in a measure gratified that something without which—to + women—life is no better than sawdust, and to the desire for which + most of their mistakes and tragedies and astonishingly poor bargains are + due. + </p> + <p> + D'Esquerre had become the center of a movement, and the Metropolitan had + become the temple of a cult. When he could be induced to cross the + Atlantic, the opera season in New York was successful; when he could not, + the management lost money; so much everyone knew. It was understood, too, + that his superb art had disproportionately little to do with his peculiar + position. Women swayed the balance this way or that; the opera, the + orchestra, even his own glorious art, achieved at such a cost, were but + the accessories of himself; like the scenery and costumes and even the + soprano, they all went to produce atmosphere, were the mere mechanics of + the beautiful illusion. + </p> + <p> + Caroline understood all this; tonight was not the first time that she had + put it to herself so. She had seen the same feeling in other people, + watched for it in her friends, studied it in the house night after night + when he sang, candidly putting herself among a thousand others. + </p> + <p> + D'Esquerre's arrival in the early winter was the signal for a feminine + hegira toward New York. On the nights when he sang women flocked to the + Metropolitan from mansions and hotels, from typewriter desks, schoolrooms, + shops, and fitting rooms. They were of all conditions and complexions. + Women of the world who accepted him knowingly as they sometimes took + champagne for its agreeable effect; sisters of charity and overworked + shopgirls, who received him devoutly; withered women who had taken + doctorate degrees and who worshipped furtively through prism spectacles; + business women and women of affairs, the Amazons who dwelt afar from men + in the stony fastnesses of apartment houses. They all entered into the + same romance; dreamed, in terms as various as the hues of fantasy, the + same dream; drew the same quick breath when he stepped upon the stage, + and, at his exit, felt the same dull pain of shouldering the pack again. + </p> + <p> + There were the maimed, even; those who came on crutches, who were pitted + by smallpox or grotesquely painted by cruel birth stains. These, too, + entered with him into enchantment. Stout matrons became slender girls + again; worn spinsters felt their cheeks flush with the tenderness of their + lost youth. Young and old, however hideous, however fair, they yielded up + their heat—whether quick or latent—sat hungering for the + mystic bread wherewith he fed them at this eucharist of sentiment. + </p> + <p> + Sometimes, when the house was crowded from the orchestra to the last row + of the gallery, when the air was charged with this ecstasy of fancy, he + himself was the victim of the burning reflection of his power. They acted + upon him in turn; he felt their fervent and despairing appeal to him; it + stirred him as the spring drives the sap up into an old tree; he, too, + burst into bloom. For the moment he, too, believed again, desired again, + he knew not what, but something. + </p> + <p> + But it was not in these exalted moments that Caroline had learned to fear + him most. It was in the quiet, tired reserve, the dullness, even, that + kept him company between these outbursts that she found that exhausting + drain upon her sympathies which was the very pith and substance of their + alliance. It was the tacit admission of disappointment under all this + glamour of success—the helplessness of the enchanter to at all + enchant himself—that awoke in her an illogical, womanish desire to + in some way compensate, to make it up to him. + </p> + <p> + She had observed drastically to herself that it was her eighteenth year he + awoke in her—those hard years she had spent in turning gowns and + placating tradesmen, and which she had never had time to live. After all, + she reflected, it was better to allow one's self a little youth—to + dance a little at the carnival and to live these things when they are + natural and lovely, not to have them coming back on one and demanding + arrears when they are humiliating and impossible. She went over tonight + all the catalogue of her self-deprivations; recalled how, in the light of + her father's example, she had even refused to humor her innocent taste for + improvising at the piano; how, when she began to teach, after her mother's + death, she had struck out one little indulgence after another, reducing + her life to a relentless routine, unvarying as clockwork. It seemed to her + that ever since d'Esquerre first came into the house she had been haunted + by an imploring little girlish ghost that followed her about, wringing its + hands and entreating for an hour of life. + </p> + <p> + The storm had held off unconscionably long; the air within the lodge was + stifling, and without the garden waited, breathless. Everything seemed + pervaded by a poignant distress; the hush of feverish, intolerable + expectation. The still earth, the heavy flowers, even the growing + darkness, breathed the exhaustion of protracted waiting. Caroline felt + that she ought to go; that it was wrong to stay; that the hour and the + place were as treacherous as her own reflections. She rose and began to + pace the floor, stepping softly, as though in fear of awakening someone, + her figure, in its thin drapery, diaphanously vague and white. Still + unable to shake off the obsession of the intense stillness, she sat down + at the piano and began to run over the first act of the <i>Walkure</i>, + the last of his roles they had practiced together; playing listlessly and + absently at first, but with gradually increasing seriousness. Perhaps it + was the still heat of the summer night, perhaps it was the heavy odors + from the garden that came in through the open windows; but as she played + there grew and grew the feeling that he was there, beside her, standing in + his accustomed place. In the duet at the end of the first act she heard + him clearly: <i>“Thou art the Spring for which I sighed in Winter's cold + embraces.”</i> Once as he sang it, he had put his arm about her, his one + hand under her heart, while with the other he took her right from the + keyboard, holding her as he always held <i>Sieglinde</i> when he drew her + toward the window. She had been wonderfully the mistress of herself at the + time; neither repellent nor acquiescent. She remembered that she had + rather exulted, then, in her self-control—which he had seemed to + take for granted, though there was perhaps the whisper of a question from + the hand under her heart. <i>“Thou art the Spring for which I sighed in + Winter's cold embraces.”</i> Caroline lifted her hands quickly from the + keyboard, and she bowed her head in them, sobbing. + </p> + <p> + The storm broke and the rain beat in, spattering her nightdress until she + rose and lowered the windows. She dropped upon the couch and began + fighting over again the battles of other days, while the ghosts of the + slain rose as from a sowing of dragon's teeth, The shadows of things, + always so scorned and flouted, bore down upon her merciless and + triumphant. It was not enough; this happy, useful, well-ordered life was + not enough. It did not satisfy, it was not even real. No, the other + things, the shadows—they were the realities. Her father, poor Heinrich, + even her mother, who had been able to sustain her poor romance and keep + her little illusions amid the tasks of a scullion, were nearer happiness + than she. Her sure foundation was but made ground, after all, and the + people in Klingsor's garden were more fortunate, however barren the sands + from which they conjured their paradise. + </p> + <p> + The lodge was still and silent; her fit of weeping over, Caroline made no + sound, and within the room, as without in the garden, was the blackness of + storm. Only now and then a flash of lightning showed a woman's slender + figure rigid on the couch, her face buried in her hands. + </p> + <p> + Toward morning, when the occasional rumbling of thunder was heard no more + and the beat of the raindrops upon the orchard leaves was steadier, she + fell asleep and did not waken until the first red streaks of dawn shone + through the twisted boughs of the apple trees. There was a moment between + world and world, when, neither asleep nor awake, she felt her dream grow + thin, melting away from her, felt the warmth under her heart growing cold. + Something seemed to slip from the clinging hold of her arms, and she + groaned protestingly through her parted lips, following it a little way + with fluttering hands. Then her eyes opened wide and she sprang up and sat + holding dizzily to the cushions of the couch, staring down at her bare, + cold feet, at her laboring breast, rising and falling under her open + nightdress. + </p> + <p> + The dream was gone, but the feverish reality of it still pervaded her and + she held it as the vibrating string holds a tone. In the last hour the + shadows had had their way with Caroline. They had shown her the + nothingness of time and space, of system and discipline, of closed doors + and broad waters. Shuddering, she thought of the Arabian fairy tale in + which the genie brought the princess of China to the sleeping prince of + Damascus and carried her through the air back to her palace at dawn. + Caroline closed her eyes and dropped her elbows weakly upon her knees, her + shoulders sinking together. The horror was that it had not come from + without, but from within. The dream was no blind chance; it was the + expression of something she had kept so close a prisoner that she had + never seen it herself, it was the wail from the donjon deeps when the + watch slept. Only as the outcome of such a night of sorcery could the + thing have been loosed to straighten its limbs and measure itself with + her; so heavy were the chains upon it, so many a fathom deep, it was + crushed down into darkness. The fact that d'Esquerre happened to be on the + other side of the world meant nothing; had he been here, beside her, it + could scarcely have hurt her self-respect so much. As it was, she was + without even the extenuation of an outer impulse, and she could scarcely + have despised herself more had she come to him here in the night three + weeks ago and thrown herself down upon the stone slab at the door there. + </p> + <p> + Caroline rose unsteadily and crept guiltily from the lodge and along the + path under the arbor, terrified lest the servants should be stirring, + trembling with the chill air, while the wet shrubbery, brushing against + her, drenched her nightdress until it clung about her limbs. + </p> + <p> + At breakfast her husband looked across the table at her with concern. “It + seems to me that you are looking rather fagged, Caroline. It was a beastly + night to sleep. Why don't you go up to the mountains until this hot + weather is over? By the way, were you in earnest about letting the lodge + stand?” + </p> + <p> + Caroline laughed quietly. “No, I find I was not very serious. I haven't + sentiment enough to forego a summer house. Will you tell Baker to come + tomorrow to talk it over with me? If we are to have a house party, I + should like to put him to work on it at once.” + </p> + <p> + Noble gave her a glance, half-humorous, half-vexed. “Do you know I am + rather disappointed?” he said. “I had almost hoped that, just for once, + you know, you would be a little bit foolish.” + </p> + <p> + “Not now that I've slept over it,” replied Caroline, and they both rose + from the table, laughing. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Marriage of Phaedra + </h2> + <p> + The sequence of events was such that MacMaster did not make his pilgrimage + to Hugh Treffinger's studio until three years after that painter's death. + MacMaster was himself a painter, an American of the Gallicized type, who + spent his winters in New York, his summers in Paris, and no inconsiderable + amount of time on the broad waters between. He had often contemplated + stopping in London on one of his return trips in the late autumn, but he + had always deferred leaving Paris until the prick of necessity drove him + home by the quickest and shortest route. + </p> + <p> + Treffinger was a comparatively young man at the time of his death, and + there had seemed no occasion for haste until haste was of no avail. Then, + possibly, though there had been some correspondence between them, + MacMaster felt certain qualms about meeting in the flesh a man who in the + flesh was so diversely reported. His intercourse with Treffinger's work + had been so deep and satisfying, so apart from other appreciations, that + he rather dreaded a critical juncture of any sort. He had always felt + himself singularly inept in personal relations, and in this case he had + avoided the issue until it was no longer to be feared or hoped for. There + still remained, however, Treffinger's great unfinished picture, the <i>Marriage + of Phaedra</i>, which had never left his studio, and of which MacMaster's + friends had now and again brought report that it was the painter's most + characteristic production. + </p> + <p> + The young man arrived in London in the evening, and the next morning went + out to Kensington to find Treffinger's studio. It lay in one of the + perplexing bystreets off Holland Road, and the number he found on a door + set in a high garden wall, the top of which was covered with broken green + glass and over which a budding lilac bush nodded. Treffinger's plate was + still there, and a card requesting visitors to ring for the attendant. In + response to MacMaster's ring, the door was opened by a cleanly built + little man, clad in a shooting jacket and trousers that had been made for + an ampler figure. He had a fresh complexion, eyes of that common uncertain + shade of gray, and was closely shaven except for the incipient muttonchops + on his ruddy cheeks. He bore himself in a manner strikingly capable, and + there was a sort of trimness and alertness about him, despite the + too-generous shoulders of his coat. In one hand he held a bulldog pipe, + and in the other a copy of <i>Sporting Life</i>. While MacMaster was + explaining the purpose of his call he noticed that the man surveyed him + critically, though not impertinently. He was admitted into a little tank + of a lodge made of whitewashed stone, the back door and windows opening + upon a garden. A visitor's book and a pile of catalogues lay on a deal + table, together with a bottle of ink and some rusty pens. The wall was + ornamented with photographs and colored prints of racing favorites. + </p> + <p> + “The studio is h'only open to the public on Saturdays and Sundays,” + explained the man—he referred to himself as “Jymes”—“but of + course we make exceptions in the case of pynters. Lydy Elling Treffinger + 'erself is on the Continent, but Sir 'Ugh's orders was that pynters was to + 'ave the run of the place.” He selected a key from his pocket and threw + open the door into the studio which, like the lodge, was built against the + wall of the garden. + </p> + <p> + MacMaster entered a long, narrow room, built of smoothed planks, painted a + light green; cold and damp even on that fine May morning. The room was + utterly bare of furniture—unless a stepladder, a model throne, and a + rack laden with large leather portfolios could be accounted such—and + was windowless, without other openings than the door and the skylight, + under which hung the unfinished picture itself. MacMaster had never seen + so many of Treffinger's paintings together. He knew the painter had + married a woman with money and had been able to keep such of his pictures + as he wished. These, with all of his replicas and studies, he + had left as a sort of common legacy to the younger men of the school he + had originated. + </p> + <p> + As soon as he was left alone MacMaster sat down on the edge of the model + throne before the unfinished picture. Here indeed was what he had come + for; it rather paralyzed his receptivity for the moment, but gradually the + thing found its way to him. + </p> + <p> + At one o'clock he was standing before the collection of studies done for + <i>Boccaccio's Garden</i> when he heard a voice at his elbow. + </p> + <p> + “Pardon, sir, but I was just about to lock up and go to lunch. Are you + lookin' for the figure study of Boccaccio 'imself?” James queried + respectfully. “Lydy Elling Treffinger give it to Mr. Rossiter to take down + to Oxford for some lectures he's been agiving there.” + </p> + <p> + “Did he never paint out his studies, then?” asked MacMaster with + perplexity. “Here are two completed ones for this picture. Why did he keep + them?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know as I could say as to that, sir,” replied James, smiling + indulgently, “but that was 'is way. That is to say, 'e pynted out very + frequent, but 'e always made two studies to stand; one in watercolors and + one in oils, before 'e went at the final picture—to say nothink of + all the pose studies 'e made in pencil before he begun on the composition + proper at all. He was that particular. You see, 'e wasn't so keen for the + final effect as for the proper pyntin' of 'is pictures. 'E used to say + they ought to be well made, the same as any other h'article of trade. I + can lay my 'and on the pose studies for you, sir.” He rummaged in one of + the portfolios and produced half a dozen drawings, “These three,” he + continued, “was discarded; these two was the pose he finally accepted; + this one without alteration, as it were.” + </p> + <p> + “That's in Paris, as I remember,” James continued reflectively. “It went + with the <i>Saint Cecilia</i> into the Baron H—-'s collection. Could + you tell me, sir, 'as 'e it still? I don't like to lose account of them, + but some 'as changed 'ands since Sir 'Ugh's death.” + </p> + <p> + “H—-'s collection is still intact, I believe,” replied MacMaster. + “You were with Treffinger long?” + </p> + <p> + “From my boyhood, sir,” replied James with gravity. “I was a stable boy + when 'e took me.” + </p> + <p> + “You were his man, then?” + </p> + <p> + “That's it, sir. Nobody else ever done anything around the studio. I + always mixed 'is colors and 'e taught me to do a share of the varnishin'; + 'e said as 'ow there wasn't a 'ouse in England as could do it proper. You + ayn't looked at the <i>Marriage</i> yet, sir?” he asked abruptly, glancing + doubtfully at MacMaster, and indicating with his thumb the picture under + the north light. + </p> + <p> + “Not very closely. I prefer to begin with something simpler; that's rather + appalling, at first glance,” replied MacMaster. + </p> + <p> + “Well may you say that, sir,” said James warmly. “That one regular killed + Sir 'Ugh; it regular broke 'im up, and nothink will ever convince me as + 'ow it didn't bring on 'is second stroke.” + </p> + <p> + When MacMaster walked back to High Street to take his bus his mind was + divided between two exultant convictions. He felt that he had not only + found Treffinger's greatest picture, but that, in James, he had discovered + a kind of cryptic index to the painter's personality—a clue which, + if tactfully followed, might lead to much. + </p> + <p> + Several days after his first visit to the studio, MacMaster wrote to Lady + Mary Percy, telling her that he would be in London for some time and + asking her if he might call. Lady Mary was an only sister of Lady Ellen + Treffinger, the painter's widow, and MacMaster had known her during one + winter he spent at Nice. He had known her, indeed, very well, and Lady + Mary, who was astonishingly frank and communicative upon all subjects, had + been no less so upon the matter of her sister's unfortunate marriage. + </p> + <p> + In her reply to his note Lady Mary named an afternoon when she would be + alone. She was as good as her word, and when MacMaster arrived he found + the drawing room empty. Lady Mary entered shortly after he was announced. + She was a tall woman, thin and stiffly jointed, and her body stood out + under the folds of her gown with the rigor of cast iron. This rather + metallic suggestion was further carried out in her heavily knuckled hands, + her stiff gray hair, and her long, bold-featured face, which was saved + from freakishness only by her alert eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Really,” said Lady Mary, taking a seat beside him and giving him a sort + of military inspection through her nose glasses, “really, I had begun to + fear that I had lost you altogether. It's four years since I saw you at + Nice, isn't it? I was in Paris last winter, but I heard nothing from you.” + </p> + <p> + “I was in New York then.” + </p> + <p> + “It occurred to me that you might be. And why are you in London?” + </p> + <p> + “Can you ask?” replied MacMaster gallantly. + </p> + <p> + Lady Mary smiled ironically. “But for what else, incidentally?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, incidentally, I came to see Treffinger's studio and his unfinished + picture. Since I've been here, I've decided to stay the summer. I'm even + thinking of attempting to do a biography of him.” + </p> + <p> + “So that is what brought you to London?” + </p> + <p> + “Not exactly. I had really no intention of anything so serious when I + came. It's his last picture, I fancy, that has rather thrust it upon me. + The notion has settled down on me like a thing destined.” + </p> + <p> + “You'll not be offended if I question the clemency of such a destiny,” + remarked Lady Mary dryly. “Isn't there rather a surplus of books on that + subject already?” + </p> + <p> + “Such as they are. Oh, I've read them all”—here MacMaster faced Lady + Mary triumphantly. “He has quite escaped your amiable critics,” he added, + smiling. + </p> + <p> + “I know well enough what you think, and I daresay we are not much on art,” + said Lady Mary with tolerant good humor. “We leave that to peoples who + have no physique. Treffinger made a stir for a time, but it seems that we + are not capable of a sustained appreciation of such extraordinary methods. + In the end we go back to the pictures we find agreeable and unperplexing. + He was regarded as an experiment, I fancy; and now it seems that he was + rather an unsuccessful one. If you've come to us in a missionary spirit, + we'll tolerate you politely, but we'll laugh in our sleeve, I warn you.” + </p> + <p> + “That really doesn't daunt me, Lady Mary,” declared MacMaster blandly. “As + I told you, I'm a man with a mission.” + </p> + <p> + Lady Mary laughed her hoarse, baritone laugh. “Bravo! And you've come to + me for inspiration for your panegyric?” + </p> + <p> + MacMaster smiled with some embarrassment. “Not altogether for that + purpose. But I want to consult you, Lady Mary, about the advisability of + troubling Lady Ellen Treffinger in the matter. It seems scarcely + legitimate to go on without asking her to give some sort of grace to my + proceedings, yet I feared the whole subject might be painful to her. I + shall rely wholly upon your discretion.” + </p> + <p> + “I think she would prefer to be consulted,” replied Lady Mary judicially. + “I can't understand how she endures to have the wretched affair + continually raked up, but she does. She seems to feel a sort of moral + responsibility. Ellen has always been singularly conscientious about this + matter, insofar as her light goes,—which rather puzzles me, as hers + is not exactly a magnanimous nature. She is certainly trying to do what + she believes to be the right thing. I shall write to her, and you can see + her when she returns from Italy.” + </p> + <p> + “I want very much to meet her. She is, I hope, quite recovered in every + way,” queried MacMaster, hesitatingly. + </p> + <p> + “No, I can't say that she is. She has remained in much the same condition + she sank to before his death. He trampled over pretty much whatever there + was in her, I fancy. Women don't recover from wounds of that sort—at + least, not women of Ellen's grain. They go on bleeding inwardly.” + </p> + <p> + “You, at any rate, have not grown more reconciled,” MacMaster ventured. + </p> + <p> + “Oh I give him his dues. He was a colorist, I grant you; but that is a + vague and unsatisfactory quality to marry to; Lady Ellen Treffinger found + it so.” + </p> + <p> + “But, my dear Lady Mary,” expostulated MacMaster, “and just repress me if + I'm becoming too personal—but it must, in the first place, have been + a marriage of choice on her part as well as on his.” + </p> + <p> + Lady Mary poised her glasses on her large forefinger and assumed an + attitude suggestive of the clinical lecture room as she replied. “Ellen, + my dear boy, is an essentially romantic person. She is quiet about it, but + she runs deep. I never knew how deep until I came against her on the issue + of that marriage. She was always discontented as a girl; she found things + dull and prosaic, and the ardor of his courtship was agreeable to her. He + met her during her first season in town. She is handsome, and there were + plenty of other men, but I grant you your scowling brigand was the most + picturesque of the lot. In his courtship, as in everything else, he was + theatrical to the point of being ridiculous, but Ellen's sense of humor is + not her strongest quality. He had the charm of celebrity, the air of a man + who could storm his way through anything to get what he wanted. That sort + of vehemence is particularly effective with women like Ellen, who can be + warmed only by reflected heat, and she couldn't at all stand out against + it. He convinced her of his necessity; and that done, all's done.” + </p> + <p> + “I can't help thinking that, even on such a basis, the marriage should + have turned out better,” MacMaster remarked reflectively. + </p> + <p> + “The marriage,” Lady Mary continued with a shrug, “was made on the basis + of a mutual misunderstanding. Ellen, in the nature of the case, believed + that she was doing something quite out of the ordinary in accepting him, + and expected concessions which, apparently, it never occurred to him to + make. After his marriage he relapsed into his old habits of incessant + work, broken by violent and often brutal relaxations. He insulted her + friends and foisted his own upon her—many of them well calculated to + arouse aversion in any well-bred girl. He had Ghillini constantly at the + house—a homeless vagabond, whose conversation was impossible. I + don't say, mind you, that he had not grievances on his side. He had + probably overrated the girl's possibilities, and he let her see that he + was disappointed in her. Only a large and generous nature could have borne + with him, and Ellen's is not that. She could not at all understand that + odious strain of plebeian pride which plumes itself upon not having risen + above its sources.” + </p> + <p> + As MacMaster drove back to his hotel he reflected that Lady Mary Percy had + probably had good cause for dissatisfaction with her brother-in-law. + Treffinger was, indeed, the last man who should have married into the + Percy family. The son of a small tobacconist, he had grown up a + sign-painter's apprentice; idle, lawless, and practically letterless until + he had drifted into the night classes of the Albert League, where Ghillini + sometimes lectured. From the moment he came under the eye and influence of + that erratic Italian, then a political exile, his life had swerved sharply + from its old channel. This man had been at once incentive and guide, + friend and master, to his pupil. He had taken the raw clay out of the + London streets and molded it anew. Seemingly he had divined at once where + the boy's possibilities lay, and had thrown aside every canon of orthodox + instruction in the training of him. Under him Treffinger acquired his + superficial, yet facile, knowledge of the classics; had steeped himself in + the monkish Latin and medieval romances which later gave his work so naive + and remote a quality. That was the beginning of the wattle fences, the + cobble pave, the brown roof beams, the cunningly wrought fabrics that gave + to his pictures such a richness of decorative effect. + </p> + <p> + As he had told Lady Mary Percy, MacMaster had found the imperative + inspiration of his purpose in Treffinger's unfinished picture, the <i>Marriage + of Phaedra</i>. He had always believed that the key to Treffinger's + individuality lay in his singular education; in the <i>Roman de la Rose</i>, + in Boccaccio, and Amadis, those works which had literally transcribed + themselves upon the blank soul of the London street boy, and through which + he had been born into the world of spiritual things. Treffinger had been a + man who lived after his imagination; and his mind, his ideals and, as + MacMaster believed, even his personal ethics, had to the last been colored + by the trend of his early training. There was in him alike the freshness + and spontaneity, the frank brutality and the religious mysticism, which + lay well back of the fifteenth century. In the <i>Marriage of Phaedra</i> + MacMaster found the ultimate expression of this spirit, the final word as + to Treffinger's point of view. + </p> + <p> + As in all Treffinger's classical subjects, the conception was wholly + medieval. This Phaedra, just turning from her husband and maidens to greet + her husband's son, giving him her first fearsome glance from under her + half-lifted veil, was no daughter of Minos. The daughter of <i>heathenesse</i> + and the early church she was; doomed to torturing visions and scourgings, + and the wrangling of soul with flesh. The venerable Theseus might have + been victorious Charlemagne, and Phaedra's maidens belonged rather in the + train of Blanche of Castile than at the Cretan court. In the earlier + studies Hippolytus had been done with a more pagan suggestion; but in each + successive drawing the glorious figure had been deflowered of something of + its serene unconsciousness, until, in the canvas under the skylight, he + appeared a very Christian knight. This male figure, and the face of + Phaedra, painted with such magical preservation of tone under the heavy + shadow of the veil, were plainly Treffinger's highest achievements of + craftsmanship. By what labor he had reached the seemingly inevitable + composition of the picture—with its twenty figures, its plenitude of + light and air, its restful distances seen through white porticoes—countless + studies bore witness. + </p> + <p> + From James's attitude toward the picture MacMaster could well conjecture + what the painter's had been. This picture was always uppermost in James's + mind; its custodianship formed, in his eyes, his occupation. He was + manifestly apprehensive when visitors—not many came nowadays—lingered + near it. “It was the <i>Marriage</i> as killed 'im,” he would often say, + “and for the matter 'o that, it did like to 'av been the death of all of + us.” + </p> + <p> + By the end of his second week in London MacMaster had begun the notes for + his study of Hugh Treffinger and his work. When his researches led him + occasionally to visit the studios of Treffinger's friends and erstwhile + disciples, he found their Treffinger manner fading as the ring of + Treffinger's personality died out in them. One by one they were stealing + back into the fold of national British art; the hand that had wound them + up was still. MacMaster despaired of them and confined himself more and + more exclusively to the studio, to such of Treffinger's letters as were + available—they were for the most part singularly negative and + colorless—and to his interrogation of Treffinger's man. + </p> + <p> + He could not himself have traced the successive steps by which he was + gradually admitted into James's confidence. Certainly most of his adroit + strategies to that end failed humiliatingly, and whatever it was that + built up an understanding between them must have been instinctive and + intuitive on both sides. When at last James became anecdotal, personal, + there was that in every word he let fall which put breath and blood into + MacMaster's book. James had so long been steeped in that penetrating + personality that he fairly exuded it. Many of his very phrases, + mannerisms, and opinions were impressions that he had taken on like wet + plaster in his daily contact with Treffinger. Inwardly he was lined with + cast-off epitheliums, as outwardly he was clad in the painter's discarded + coats. If the painter's letters were formal and perfunctory, if his + expressions to his friends had been extravagant, contradictory, and often + apparently insincere—still, MacMaster felt himself not entirely + without authentic sources. It was James who possessed Treffinger's legend; + it was with James that he had laid aside his pose. Only in his studio, + alone, and face to face with his work, as it seemed, had the man + invariably been himself. James had known him in the one attitude in which + he was entirely honest; their relation had fallen well within the + painter's only indubitable integrity. James's report of Treffinger was + distorted by no hallucination of artistic insight, colored by no + interpretation of his own. He merely held what he had heard and seen; his + mind was a sort of camera obscura. His very limitations made him the more + literal and minutely accurate. + </p> + <p> + One morning, when MacMaster was seated before the <i>Marriage of Phaedra</i>, + James entered on his usual round of dusting. + </p> + <p> + “I've 'eard from Lydy Elling by the post, sir,” he remarked, “an' she's + give h'orders to 'ave the 'ouse put in readiness. I doubt she'll be 'ere + by Thursday or Friday next.” + </p> + <p> + “She spends most of her time abroad?” queried MacMaster; on the subject of + Lady Treffinger James consistently maintained a very delicate reserve. + </p> + <p> + “Well, you could 'ardly say she does that, sir. She finds the 'ouse a bit + dull, I daresay, so durin' the season she stops mostly with Lydy Mary + Percy, at Grosvenor Square. Lydy Mary's a h'only sister.” After a few + moments he continued, speaking in jerks governed by the rigor of his + dusting: “H'only this morning I come upon this scarfpin,” exhibiting a + very striking instance of that article, “an' I recalled as 'ow Sir 'Ugh + give it me when 'e was acourting of Lydy Elling. Blowed if I ever see a + man go in for a 'oman like 'im! 'E was that gone, sir. 'E never went in on + anythink so 'ard before nor since, till 'e went in on the <i>Marriage</i> + there—though 'e mostly went in on things pretty keen; 'ad the + measles when 'e was thirty, strong as cholera, an' come close to dyin' of + 'em. 'E wasn't strong for Lydy Elling's set; they was a bit too stiff for + 'im. A free an' easy gentleman, 'e was; 'e liked 'is dinner with a few + friends an' them jolly, but 'e wasn't much on what you might call big + affairs. But once 'e went in for Lydy Elling 'e broke 'imself to new + paces; He give away 'is rings an' pins, an' the tylor's man an' the + 'aberdasher's man was at 'is rooms continual. 'E got 'imself put up for a + club in Piccadilly; 'e starved 'imself thin, an' worrited 'imself white, + an' ironed 'imself out, an' drawed 'imself tight as a bow string. It was a + good job 'e come a winner, or I don't know w'at'd 'a been to pay.” + </p> + <p> + The next week, in consequence of an invitation from Lady Ellen Treffinger, + MacMaster went one afternoon to take tea with her. He was shown into the + garden that lay between the residence and the studio, where the tea table + was set under a gnarled pear tree. Lady Ellen rose as he approached—he + was astonished to note how tall she was—and greeted him graciously, saying + that she already knew him through her sister. MacMaster felt a certain + satisfaction in her; in her reassuring poise and repose, in the charming + modulations of her voice and the indolent reserve of her full, almond + eyes. He was even delighted to find her face so inscrutable, though it + chilled his own warmth and made the open frankness he had wished to permit + himself impossible. It was a long face, narrow at the chin, very + delicately featured, yet steeled by an impassive mask of self-control. It + was behind just such finely cut, close-sealed faces, MacMaster reflected, + that nature sometimes hid astonishing secrets. But in spite of this + suggestion of hardness he felt that the unerring taste that Treffinger had + always shown in larger matters had not deserted him when he came to the + choosing of a wife, and he admitted that he could not himself have + selected a woman who looked more as Treffinger's wife should look. + </p> + <p> + While he was explaining the purpose of his frequent visits to the studio + she heard him with courteous interest. “I have read, I think, everything + that has been published on Sir Hugh Treffinger's work, and it seems to me + that there is much left to be said,” he concluded. + </p> + <p> + “I believe they are rather inadequate,” she remarked vaguely. She + hesitated a moment, absently fingering the ribbons of her gown, then + continued, without raising her eyes; “I hope you will not think me too + exacting if I ask to see the proofs of such chapters of your work as have + to do with Sir Hugh's personal life. I have always asked that privilege.” + </p> + <p> + MacMaster hastily assured her as to this, adding, “I mean to touch on only + such facts in his personal life as have to do directly with his work—such + as his monkish education under Ghillini.” + </p> + <p> + “I see your meaning, I think,” said Lady Ellen, looking at him with wide, + uncomprehending eyes. + </p> + <p> + When MacMaster stopped at the studio on leaving the house he stood for + some time before Treffinger's one portrait of himself, that brigand of a + picture, with its full throat and square head; the short upper lip + blackened by the close-clipped mustache, the wiry hair tossed down over + the forehead, the strong white teeth set hard on a short pipestem. He + could well understand what manifold tortures the mere grain of the man's + strong red and brown flesh might have inflicted upon a woman like Lady + Ellen. He could conjecture, too, Treffinger's impotent revolt against that + very repose which had so dazzled him when it first defied his daring; and + how once possessed of it, his first instinct had been to crush it, since + he could not melt it. + </p> + <p> + Toward the close of the season Lady Ellen Treffinger left town. + MacMaster's work was progressing rapidly, and he and James wore away the + days in their peculiar relation, which by this time had much of + friendliness. Excepting for the regular visits of a Jewish picture dealer, + there were few intrusions upon their solitude. Occasionally a party of + Americans rang at the little door in the garden wall, but usually they + departed speedily for the Moorish hall and tinkling fountain of the great + show studio of London, not far away. + </p> + <p> + This Jew, an Austrian by birth, who had a large business in Melbourne, + Australia, was a man of considerable discrimination, and at once selected + the <i>Marriage of Phaedra</i> as the object of his especial interest. + When, upon his first visit, Lichtenstein had declared the picture one of + the things done for time, MacMaster had rather warmed toward him and had + talked to him very freely. Later, however, the man's repulsive personality + and innate vulgarity so wore upon him that, the more genuine the Jew's + appreciation, the more he resented it and the more base he somehow felt it + to be. It annoyed him to see Lichtenstein walking up and down before the + picture, shaking his head and blinking his watery eyes over his nose + glasses, ejaculating: “Dot is a chem, a chem! It is wordt to gome den + dousant miles for such a bainting, eh? To make Eurobe abbreciate such a + work of ardt it is necessary to take it away while she is napping. She has + never abbreciated until she has lost, but,” knowingly, “she will buy + back.” + </p> + <p> + James had, from the first, felt such a distrust of the man that he would + never leave him alone in the studio for a moment. When Lichtenstein + insisted upon having Lady Ellen Treffinger's address James rose to the + point of insolence. “It ayn't no use to give it, noway. Lydy Treffinger + never has nothink to do with dealers.” MacMaster quietly repented his rash + confidences, fearing that he might indirectly cause Lady Ellen annoyance + from this merciless speculator, and he recalled with chagrin that + Lichtenstein had extorted from him, little by little, pretty much the + entire plan of his book, and especially the place in it which the <i>Marriage + of Phaedra</i> was to occupy. + </p> + <p> + By this time the first chapters of MacMaster's book were in the hands of + his publisher, and his visits to the studio were necessarily less + frequent. The greater part of his time was now employed with the engravers + who were to reproduce such of Treffinger's pictures as he intended to use + as illustrations. + </p> + <p> + He returned to his hotel late one evening after a long and vexing day at + the engravers to find James in his room, seated on his steamer trunk by + the window, with the outline of a great square draped in sheets resting + against his knee. + </p> + <p> + “Why, James, what's up?” he cried in astonishment, glancing inquiringly at + the sheeted object. + </p> + <p> + “Ayn't you seen the pypers, sir?” jerked out the man. + </p> + <p> + “No, now I think of it, I haven't even looked at a paper. I've been at the + engravers' plant all day. I haven't seen anything.” + </p> + <p> + James drew a copy of the <i>Times</i> from his pocket and handed it to + him, pointing with a tragic finger to a paragraph in the social column. It + was merely the announcement of Lady Ellen Treffinger's engagement to + Captain Alexander Gresham. + </p> + <p> + “Well, what of it, my man? That surely is her privilege.” + </p> + <p> + James took the paper, turned to another page, and silently pointed to a + paragraph in the art notes which stated that Lady Treffinger had presented + to the X—gallery the entire collection of paintings and sketches now + in her late husband's studio, with the exception of his unfinished + picture, the <i>Marriage Of Phaedra</i>, which she had sold for a large + sum to an Australian dealer who had come to London purposely to secure + some of Treffinger's paintings. + </p> + <p> + MacMaster pursed up his lips and sat down, his overcoat still on. “Well, + James, this is something of a—something of a jolt, eh? It never + occurred to me she'd really do it.” + </p> + <p> + “Lord, you don't know 'er, sir,” said James bitterly, still staring at the + floor in an attitude of abandoned dejection. + </p> + <p> + MacMaster started up in a flash of enlightenment, “What on earth have you + got there, James? It's not-surely it's not—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, it is, sir,” broke in the man excitedly. “It's the <i>Marriage</i> + itself. It ayn't agoing to H'Australia, no'ow!” + </p> + <p> + “But man, what are you going to do with it? It's Lichtenstein's property + now, as it seems.” + </p> + <p> + “It ayn't, sir, that it ayn't. No, by Gawd, it ayn't!” shouted James, + breaking into a choking fury. He controlled himself with an effort and + added supplicatingly: “Oh, sir, you ayn't agoing to see it go to + H'Australia, w'ere they send convic's?” He unpinned and flung aside the + sheets as though to let <i>Phaedra</i> plead for herself. + </p> + <p> + MacMaster sat down again and looked sadly at the doomed masterpiece. The + notion of James having carried it across London that night rather appealed + to his fancy. There was certainly a flavor about such a highhanded + proceeding. “However did you get it here?” he queried. + </p> + <p> + “I got a four-wheeler and come over direct, sir. Good job I 'appened to + 'ave the chaynge about me.” + </p> + <p> + “You came up High Street, up Piccadilly, through the Haymarket and + Trafalgar Square, and into the Strand?” queried MacMaster with a relish. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, sir. Of course, sir,” assented James with surprise. + </p> + <p> + MacMaster laughed delightedly. “It was a beautiful idea, James, but I'm + afraid we can't carry it any further.” + </p> + <p> + “I was thinkin' as 'ow it would be a rare chance to get you to take the <i>Marriage</i> + over to Paris for a year or two, sir, until the thing blows over?” + suggested James blandly. + </p> + <p> + “I'm afraid that's out of the question, James. I haven't the right stuff + in me for a pirate, or even a vulgar smuggler, I'm afraid.” MacMaster + found it surprisingly difficult to say this, and he busied himself with + the lamp as he said it. He heard James's hand fall heavily on the trunk + top, and he discovered that he very much disliked sinking in the man's + estimation. + </p> + <p> + “Well, sir,” remarked James in a more formal tone, after a protracted + silence; “then there's nothink for it but as 'ow I'll 'ave to make way + with it myself.” + </p> + <p> + “And how about your character, James? The evidence would be heavy against + you, and even if Lady Treffinger didn't prosecute you'd be done for.” + </p> + <p> + “Blow my character!—your pardon, sir,” cried James, starting to his + feet. “W'at do I want of a character? I'll chuck the 'ole thing, and + damned lively, too. The shop's to be sold out, an' my place is gone + any'ow. I'm agoing to enlist, or try the gold fields. I've lived too long + with h'artists; I'd never give satisfaction in livery now. You know 'ow it + is yourself, sir; there ayn't no life like it, no'ow.” + </p> + <p> + For a moment MacMaster was almost equal to abetting James in his theft. He + reflected that pictures had been whitewashed, or hidden in the crypts of + churches, or under the floors of palaces from meaner motives, and to save + them from a fate less ignominious. But presently, with a sigh, he shook + his head. + </p> + <p> + “No, James, it won't do at all. It has been tried over and over again, + ever since the world has been agoing and pictures amaking. It was tried in + Florence and in Venice, but the pictures were always carried away in the + end. You see, the difficulty is that although Treffinger told you what was + not to be done with the picture, he did not say definitely what was to be + done with it. Do you think Lady Treffinger really understands that he did + not want it to be sold?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, sir, it was like this, sir,” said James, resuming his seat on the + trunk and again resting the picture against his knee. “My memory is as + clear as glass about it. After Sir 'Ugh got up from 'is first stroke, 'e + took a fresh start at the <i>Marriage</i>. Before that 'e 'ad been working + at it only at night for a while back; the <i>Legend</i> was the big + picture then, an' was under the north light w'ere 'e worked of a morning. + But one day 'e bid me take the <i>Legend</i> down an' put the <i>Marriage</i> + in its place, an' 'e says, dashin' on 'is jacket, 'Jymes, this is a start + for the finish, this time.' + </p> + <p> + “From that on 'e worked at the night picture in the mornin'—a thing + contrary to 'is custom. The <i>Marriage</i> went wrong, and wrong—an' + Sir 'Ugh agettin' seedier an' seedier every day. 'E tried models an' + models, an' smudged an' pynted out on account of 'er face goin' wrong in + the shadow. Sometimes 'e layed it on the colors, an' swore at me an' + things in general. He got that discouraged about 'imself that on 'is low + days 'e used to say to me: 'Jymes, remember one thing; if anythink 'appens + to me, the <i>Marriage</i> is not to go out of 'ere unfinished. It's worth + the lot of 'em, my boy, an' it's not agoing to go shabby for lack of + pains.' 'E said things to that effect repeated. + </p> + <p> + “He was workin' at the picture the last day, before 'e went to 'is club. + 'E kept the carriage waitin' near an hour while 'e put on a stroke an' + then drawed back for to look at it, an' then put on another, careful like. + After 'e 'ad 'is gloves on, 'e come back an' took away the brushes I was + startin' to clean, an' put in another touch or two. 'It's acomin', Jymes,' + 'e says, 'by gad if it ayn't.' An' with that 'e goes out. It was cruel + sudden, w'at come after. + </p> + <p> + “That night I was lookin' to 'is clothes at the 'ouse when they brought + 'im 'ome. He was conscious, but w'en I ran downstairs for to 'elp lift 'im + up, I knowed 'e was a finished man. After we got 'im into bed 'e kept + lookin' restless at me and then at Lydy Elling and ajerkin' of 'is 'and. + Finally 'e quite raised it an' shot 'is thumb out toward the wall. 'He + wants water; ring, Jymes,' says Lydy Elling, placid. But I knowed 'e was + pointin' to the shop. + </p> + <p> + “'Lydy Treffinger,' says I, bold, 'he's pointin' to the studio. He means + about the <i>Marriage</i>; 'e told me today as 'ow 'e never wanted it sold + unfinished. Is that it, Sir 'Ugh?' + </p> + <p> + “He smiled an' nodded slight an' closed 'is eyes. 'Thank you, Jymes,' says + Lydy Elling, placid. Then 'e opened 'is eyes an' looked long and 'ard at + Lydy Elling. + </p> + <p> + “'Of course I'll try to do as you'd wish about the picture, 'Ugh, if + that's w'at's troublin' you,' she says quiet. With that 'e closed 'is eyes + and 'e never opened 'em. He died unconscious at four that mornin'. + </p> + <p> + “You see, sir, Lydy Elling was always cruel 'ard on the <i>Marriage</i>. + From the first it went wrong, an' Sir 'Ugh was out of temper pretty + constant. She came into the studio one day and looked at the picture an + 'asked 'im why 'e didn't throw it up an' quit aworriting 'imself. He + answered sharp, an' with that she said as 'ow she didn't see w'at there + was to make such a row about, no'ow. She spoke 'er mind about that + picture, free; an' Sir 'Ugh swore 'ot an' let a 'andful of brushes fly at + 'is study, an' Lydy Elling picked up 'er skirts careful an' chill, an' + drifted out of the studio with 'er eyes calm and 'er chin 'igh. If there + was one thing Lydy Elling 'ad no comprehension of, it was the usefulness + of swearin'. So the <i>Marriage</i> was a sore thing between 'em. She is + uncommon calm, but uncommon bitter, is Lydy Elling. She's never come anear + the studio since that day she went out 'oldin' up of 'er skirts. W'en 'er + friends goes over she excuses 'erself along o' the strain. Strain—Gawd!” + James ground his wrath short in his teeth. + </p> + <p> + “I'll tell you what I'll do, James, and it's our only hope. I'll see Lady + Ellen tomorrow. The <i>Times</i> says she returned today. You take the + picture back to its place, and I'll do what I can for it. If anything is + done to save it, it must be done through Lady Ellen Treffinger herself, + that much is clear. I can't think that she fully understands the + situation. If she did, you know, she really couldn't have any motive—” + He stopped suddenly. Somehow, in the dusky lamplight, her small, + close-sealed face came ominously back to him. He rubbed his forehead and + knitted his brows thoughtfully. After a moment he shook his head and went + on: “I am positive that nothing can be gained by highhanded methods, + James. Captain Gresham is one of the most popular men in London, and his + friends would tear up Treffinger's bones if he were annoyed by any scandal + of our making—and this scheme you propose would inevitably result in + scandal. Lady Ellen has, of course, every legal right to sell the picture. + Treffinger made considerable inroads upon her estate, and, as she is about + to marry a man without income, she doubtless feels that she has a right to + replenish her patrimony.” + </p> + <p> + He found James amenable, though doggedly skeptical. He went down into the + street, called a carriage, and saw James and his burden into it. Standing + in the doorway, he watched the carriage roll away through the drizzling + mist, weave in and out among the wet, black vehicles and darting cab + lights, until it was swallowed up in the glare and confusion of the + Strand. “It is rather a fine touch of irony,” he reflected, “that he, who + is so out of it, should be the one to really care. Poor Treffinger,” he + murmured as, with a rather spiritless smile, he turned back into his + hotel. “Poor Treffinger; <i>sic transit gloria</i>.” + </p> + <p> + The next afternoon MacMaster kept his promise. When he arrived at Lady + Mary Percy's house he saw preparations for a function of some sort, but he + went resolutely up the steps, telling the footman that his business was + urgent. Lady Ellen came down alone, excusing her sister. She was dressed + for receiving, and MacMaster had never seen one so beautiful. The color in + her cheeks sent a softening glow over her small, delicately cut features. + </p> + <p> + MacMaster apologized for his intrusion and came unflinchingly to the + object of his call. He had come, he said, not only to offer her his + warmest congratulations, but to express his regret that a great work of + art was to leave England. + </p> + <p> + Lady Treffinger looked at him in wide-eyed astonishment. Surely, she said, + she had been careful to select the best of the pictures for the X—- + gallery, in accordance with Sir Hugh Treffinger's wishes. + </p> + <p> + “And did he—pardon me, Lady Treffinger, but in mercy set my mind at + rest—did he or did he not express any definite wish concerning this + one picture, which to me seems worth all the others, unfinished as it is?” + </p> + <p> + Lady Treffinger paled perceptibly, but it was not the pallor of confusion. + When she spoke there was a sharp tremor in her smooth voice, the edge of a + resentment that tore her like pain. “I think his man has some such + impression, but I believe it to be utterly unfounded. I cannot find that + he ever expressed any wish concerning the disposition of the picture to + any of his friends. Unfortunately, Sir Hugh was not always discreet in his + remarks to his servants.” + </p> + <p> + “Captain Gresham, Lady Ellingham, and Miss Ellingham,” announced a + servant, appearing at the door. + </p> + <p> + There was a murmur in the hall, and MacMaster greeted the smiling Captain + and his aunt as he bowed himself out. + </p> + <p> + To all intents and purposes the <i>Marriage of Phaedra</i> was already + entombed in a vague continent in the Pacific, somewhere on the other side + of the world. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + A Wagner Matinee + </h2> + <p> + I received one morning a letter, written in pale ink on glassy, blue-lined + notepaper, and bearing the postmark of a little Nebraska village. This + communication, worn and rubbed, looking as though it had been carried for + some days in a coat pocket that was none too clean, was from my Uncle + Howard and informed me that his wife had been left a small legacy by a + bachelor relative who had recently died, and that it would be necessary + for her to go to Boston to attend to the settling of the estate. He + requested me to meet her at the station and render her whatever services + might be necessary. On examining the date indicated as that of her arrival + I found it no later than tomorrow. He had characteristically delayed + writing until, had I been away from home for a day, I must have missed the + good woman altogether. + </p> + <p> + The name of my Aunt Georgiana called up not alone her own figure, at once + pathetic and grotesque, but opened before my feet a gulf of recollection + so wide and deep that, as the letter dropped from my hand, I felt suddenly + a stranger to all the present conditions of my existence, wholly ill at + ease and out of place amid the familiar surroundings of my study. I + became, in short, the gangling farm boy my aunt had known, scourged with + chilblains and bashfulness, my hands cracked and sore from the corn + husking. I felt the knuckles of my thumb tentatively, as though they were + raw again. I sat again before her parlor organ, fumbling the scales with + my stiff, red hands, while she, beside me, made canvas mittens for the + huskers. + </p> + <p> + The next morning, after preparing my landlady somewhat, I set out for the + station. When the train arrived I had some difficulty in finding my aunt. + She was the last of the passengers to alight, and it was not until I got + her into the carriage that she seemed really to recognize me. She had come + all the way in a day coach; her linen duster had become black with soot, + and her black bonnet gray with dust, during the journey. When we arrived + at my boardinghouse the landlady put her to bed at once and I did not see + her again until the next morning. + </p> + <p> + Whatever shock Mrs. Springer experienced at my aunt's appearance she + considerately concealed. As for myself, I saw my aunt's misshapen figure + with that feeling of awe and respect with which we behold explorers who + have left their ears and fingers north of Franz Josef Land, or their + health somewhere along the Upper Congo. My Aunt Georgiana had been a music + teacher at the Boston Conservatory, somewhere back in the latter sixties. + One summer, while visiting in the little village among the Green Mountains + where her ancestors had dwelt for generations, she had kindled the callow + fancy of the most idle and shiftless of all the village lads, and had + conceived for this Howard Carpenter one of those extravagant passions + which a handsome country boy of twenty-one sometimes inspires in an + angular, spectacled woman of thirty. When she returned to her duties in + Boston, Howard followed her, and the upshot of this inexplicable + infatuation was that she eloped with him, eluding the reproaches of her + family and the criticisms of her friends by going with him to the Nebraska + frontier. Carpenter, who, of course, had no money, had taken a homestead + in Red Willow County, fifty miles from the railroad. There they had + measured off their quarter section themselves by driving across the + prairie in a wagon, to the wheel of which they had tied a red cotton + handkerchief, and counting off its revolutions. They built a dugout in the + red hillside, one of those cave dwellings whose inmates so often reverted + to primitive conditions. Their water they got from the lagoons where the + buffalo drank, and their slender stock of provisions was always at the + mercy of bands of roving Indians. For thirty years my aunt had not been + further than fifty miles from the homestead. + </p> + <p> + But Mrs. Springer knew nothing of all this, and must have been + considerably shocked at what was left of my kinswoman. Beneath the soiled + linen duster which, on her arrival, was the most conspicuous feature of + her costume, she wore a black stuff dress, whose ornamentation showed that + she had surrendered herself unquestioningly into the hands of a country + dressmaker. My poor aunt's figure, however, would have presented + astonishing difficulties to any dressmaker. Originally stooped, her + shoulders were now almost bent together over her sunken chest. She wore no + stays, and her gown, which trailed unevenly behind, rose in a sort of peak + over her abdomen. She wore ill-fitting false teeth, and her skin was as + yellow as a Mongolian's from constant exposure to a pitiless wind and to + the alkaline water which hardens the most transparent cuticle into a sort + of flexible leather. + </p> + <p> + I owed to this woman most of the good that ever came my way in my boyhood, + and had a reverential affection for her. During the years when I was + riding herd for my uncle, my aunt, after cooking the three meals—the + first of which was ready at six o'clock in the morning-and putting the six + children to bed, would often stand until midnight at her ironing board, + with me at the kitchen table beside her, hearing me recite Latin + declensions and conjugations, gently shaking me when my drowsy head sank + down over a page of irregular verbs. It was to her, at her ironing or + mending, that I read my first Shakespeare', and her old textbook on + mythology was the first that ever came into my empty hands. She taught me + my scales and exercises, too—on the little parlor organ, which her + husband had bought her after fifteen years, during which she had not so + much as seen any instrument, but an accordion that belonged to one of the + Norwegian farmhands. She would sit beside me by the hour, darning and + counting while I struggled with the “Joyous Farmer,” but she seldom talked + to me about music, and I understood why. She was a pious woman; she had + the consolations of religion and, to her at least, her martyrdom was not + wholly sordid. Once when I had been doggedly beating out some easy + passages from an old score of <i>Euryanthe</i> I had found among her music + books, she came up to me and, putting her hands over my eyes, gently drew + my head back upon her shoulder, saying tremulously, “Don't love it so + well, Clark, or it may be taken from you. Oh, dear boy, pray that whatever + your sacrifice may be, it be not that.” + </p> + <p> + When my aunt appeared on the morning after her arrival she was still in a + semi-somnambulant state. She seemed not to realize that she was in the + city where she had spent her youth, the place longed for hungrily half a + lifetime. She had been so wretchedly train-sick throughout the journey + that she had no recollection of anything but her discomfort, and, to all + intents and purposes, there were but a few hours of nightmare between the + farm in Red Willow County and my study on Newbury Street. I had planned a + little pleasure for her that afternoon, to repay her for some of the + glorious moments she had given me when we used to milk together in the + straw-thatched cowshed and she, because I was more than usually tired, or + because her husband had spoken sharply to me, would tell me of the + splendid performance of the <i>Huguenots</i> she had seen in Paris, in her + youth. At two o'clock the Symphony Orchestra was to give a Wagner program, + and I intended to take my aunt; though, as I conversed with her I grew + doubtful about her enjoyment of it. Indeed, for her own sake, I could only + wish her taste for such things quite dead, and the long struggle + mercifully ended at last. I suggested our visiting the Conservatory and + the Common before lunch, but she seemed altogether too timid to wish to + venture out. She questioned me absently about various changes in the city, + but she was chiefly concerned that she had forgotten to leave instructions + about feeding half-skimmed milk to a certain weakling calf, “old Maggie's + calf, you know, Clark,” she explained, evidently having forgotten how long + I had been away. She was further troubled because she had neglected to + tell her daughter about the freshly opened kit of mackerel in the cellar, + which would spoil if it were not used directly. + </p> + <p> + I asked her whether she had ever heard any of the Wagnerian operas and + found that she had not, though she was perfectly familiar with their + respective situations, and had once possessed the piano score of <i>The + Flying Dutchman</i>. I began to think it would have been best to get her + back to Red Willow County without waking her, and regretted having + suggested the concert. + </p> + <p> + From the time we entered the concert hall, however, she was a trifle less + passive and inert, and for the first time seemed to perceive her + surroundings. I had felt some trepidation lest she might become aware of + the absurdities of her attire, or might experience some painful + embarrassment at stepping suddenly into the world to which she had been + dead for a quarter of a century. But, again, I found how superficially I + had judged her. She sat looking about her with eyes as impersonal, almost + as stony, as those with which the granite Rameses in a museum watches the + froth and fret that ebbs and flows about his pedestal-separated from it by + the lonely stretch of centuries. I have seen this same aloofness in old + miners who drift into the Brown Hotel at Denver, their pockets full of + bullion, their linen soiled, their haggard faces unshaven; standing in the + thronged corridors as solitary as though they were still in a frozen camp + on the Yukon, conscious that certain experiences have isolated them from + their fellows by a gulf no haberdasher could bridge. + </p> + <p> + We sat at the extreme left of the first balcony, facing the arch of our + own and the balcony above us, veritable hanging gardens, brilliant as + tulip beds. The matinee audience was made up chiefly of women. One lost + the contour of faces and figures—indeed, any effect of line + whatever—and there was only the color of bodices past counting, the + shimmer of fabrics soft and firm, silky and sheer: red, mauve, pink, blue, + lilac, purple, ecru, rose, yellow, cream, and white, all the colors that + an impressionist finds in a sunlit landscape, with here and there the dead + shadow of a frock coat. My Aunt Georgiana regarded them as though they had + been so many daubs of tube-paint on a palette. + </p> + <p> + When the musicians came out and took their places, she gave a little stir + of anticipation and looked with quickening interest down over the rail at + that invariable grouping, perhaps the first wholly familiar thing that had + greeted her eye since she had left old Maggie and her weakling calf. I + could feel how all those details sank into her soul, for I had not + forgotten how they had sunk into mine when I came fresh from plowing + forever and forever between green aisles of corn, where, as in a + treadmill, one might walk from daybreak to dusk without perceiving a + shadow of change. The clean profiles of the musicians, the gloss of their + linen, the dull black of their coats, the beloved shapes of the + instruments, the patches of yellow light thrown by the green-shaded lamps + on the smooth, varnished bellies of the cellos and the bass viols in the + rear, the restless, wind-tossed forest of fiddle necks and bows—I recalled + how, in the first orchestra I had ever heard, those long bow strokes + seemed to draw the heart out of me, as a conjurer's stick reels out yards + of paper ribbon from a hat. + </p> + <p> + The first number was the <i>Tannhauser</i> overture. When the horns drew + out the first strain of the Pilgrim's chorus my Aunt Georgiana clutched my + coat sleeve. Then it was I first realized that for her this broke a + silence of thirty years; the inconceivable silence of the plains. With the + battle between the two motives, with the frenzy of the Venusberg theme and + its ripping of strings, there came to me an overwhelming sense of the + waste and wear we are so powerless to combat; and I saw again the tall, + naked house on the prairie, black and grim as a wooden fortress; the black + pond where I had learned to swim, its margin pitted with sun-dried cattle + tracks; the rain-gullied clay banks about the naked house, the four dwarf + ash seedlings where the dishcloths were always hung to dry before the + kitchen door. The world there was the flat world of the ancients; to the + east, a cornfield that stretched to daybreak; to the west, a corral that + reached to sunset; between, the conquests of peace, dearer bought than + those of war. + </p> + <p> + The overture closed; my aunt released my coat sleeve, but she said + nothing. She sat staring at the orchestra through a dullness of thirty + years, through the films made little by little by each of the three + hundred and sixty-five days in every one of them. What, I wondered, did + she get from it? She had been a good pianist in her day I knew, and her + musical education had been broader than that of most music teachers of a + quarter of a century ago. She had often told me of Mozart's operas and + Meyerbeer's, and I could remember hearing her sing, years ago, certain + melodies of Verdi's. When I had fallen ill with a fever in her house she + used to sit by my cot in the evening—when the cool, night wind blew + in through the faded mosquito netting tacked over the window, and I lay + watching a certain bright star that burned red above the cornfield—and + sing “Home to our mountains, O, let us return!” in a way fit to break the + heart of a Vermont boy near dead of homesickness already. + </p> + <p> + I watched her closely through the prelude to <i>Tristan and Isolde</i>, + trying vainly to conjecture what that seething turmoil of strings and + winds might mean to her, but she sat mutely staring at the violin bows + that drove obliquely downward, like the pelting streaks of rain in a + summer shower. Had this music any message for her? Had she enough left to + at all comprehend this power which had kindled the world since she had + left it? I was in a fever of curiosity, but Aunt Georgiana sat silent upon + her peak in Darien. She preserved this utter immobility throughout the + number from <i>The Flying Dutchman</i>, though her fingers worked + mechanically upon her black dress, as though, of themselves, they were + recalling the piano score they had once played. Poor old hands! They had + been stretched and twisted into mere tentacles to hold and lift and knead + with; the palms unduly swollen, the fingers bent and knotted—on one + of them a thin, worn band that had once been a wedding ring. As I pressed + and gently quieted one of those groping hands I remembered with quivering + eyelids their services for me in other days. + </p> + <p> + Soon after the tenor began the “Prize Song,” I heard a quick drawn breath + and turned to my aunt. Her eyes were closed, but the tears were glistening + on her cheeks, and I think, in a moment more, they were in my eyes as + well. It never really died, then—the soul that can suffer so + excruciatingly and so interminably; it withers to the outward eye only; + like that strange moss which can lie on a dusty shelf half a century and + yet, if placed in water, grows green again. She wept so throughout the + development and elaboration of the melody. + </p> + <p> + During the intermission before the second half of the concert, I + questioned my aunt and found that the “Prize Song” was not new to her. + Some years before there had drifted to the farm in Red Willow County a + young German, a tramp cowpuncher, who had sung the chorus at Bayreuth, + when he was a boy, along with the other peasant boys and girls. Of a + Sunday morning he used to sit on his gingham-sheeted bed in the hands' + bedroom which opened off the kitchen, cleaning the leather of his boots + and saddle, singing the “Prize Song,” while my aunt went about her work in + the kitchen. She had hovered about him until she had prevailed upon him to + join the country church, though his sole fitness for this step, insofar as + I could gather, lay in his boyish face and his possession of this divine + melody. Shortly afterward he had gone to town on the Fourth of July, been + drunk for several days, lost his money at a faro table, ridden a saddled + Texan steer on a bet, and disappeared with a fractured collarbone. All + this my aunt told me huskily, wanderingly, as though she were talking in + the weak lapses of illness. + </p> + <p> + “Well, we have come to better things than the old <i>Trovatore</i> at any + rate, Aunt Georgie?” I queried, with a well-meant effort at jocularity. + </p> + <p> + Her lip quivered and she hastily put her handkerchief up to her mouth. + From behind it she murmured, “And you have been hearing this ever since + you left me, Clark?” Her question was the gentlest and saddest of + reproaches. + </p> + <p> + The second half of the program consisted of four numbers from the <i>Ring</i>, + and closed with Siegfried's funeral march. My aunt wept quietly, but + almost continuously, as a shallow vessel overflows in a rainstorm. From + time to time her dim eyes looked up at the lights which studded the + ceiling, burning softly under their dull glass globes; doubtless they were + stars in truth to her. I was still perplexed as to what measure of musical + comprehension was left to her, she who had heard nothing but the singing + of gospel hymns at Methodist services in the square frame schoolhouse on + Section Thirteen for so many years. I was wholly unable to gauge how much + of it had been dissolved in soapsuds, or worked into bread, or milked into + the bottom of a pail. + </p> + <p> + The deluge of sound poured on and on; I never knew what she found in the + shining current of it; I never knew how far it bore her, or past what + happy islands. From the trembling of her face I could well believe that + before the last numbers she had been carried out where the myriad graves + are, into the gray, nameless burying grounds of the sea; or into some + world of death vaster yet, where, from the beginning of the world, hope + has lain down with hope and dream with dream and, renouncing, slept. + </p> + <p> + The concert was over; the people filed out of the hall chattering and + laughing, glad to relax and find the living level again, but my kinswoman + made no effort to rise. The harpist slipped its green felt cover over his + instrument; the flute players shook the water from their mouthpieces; the + men of the orchestra went out one by one, leaving the stage to the chairs + and music stands, empty as a winter cornfield. + </p> + <p> + I spoke to my aunt. She burst into tears and sobbed pleadingly. “I don't + want to go, Clark, I don't want to go!” + </p> + <p> + I understood. For her, just outside the door of the concert hall, lay the + black pond with the cattle-tracked bluffs; the tall, unpainted house, with + weather-curled boards; naked as a tower, the crook-backed ash seedlings + where the dishcloths hung to dry; the gaunt, molting turkeys picking up + refuse about the kitchen door. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Paul's Case + </h2> + <h3> + <i>A Study in Temperament</i> + </h3> + <p> + It was Paul's afternoon to appear before the faculty of the Pittsburgh + High School to account for his various misdemeanors. He had been suspended + a week ago, and his father had called at the Principal's office and + confessed his perplexity about his son. Paul entered the faculty room + suave and smiling. His clothes were a trifle outgrown, and the tan velvet + on the collar of his open overcoat was frayed and worn; but for all that + there was something of the dandy about him, and he wore an opal pin in his + neatly knotted black four-in-hand, and a red carnation in his buttonhole. + This latter adornment the faculty somehow felt was not properly + significant of the contrite spirit befitting a boy under the ban of + suspension. + </p> + <p> + Paul was tall for his age and very thin, with high, cramped shoulders and + a narrow chest. His eyes were remarkable for a certain hysterical + brilliancy, and he continually used them in a conscious, theatrical sort + of way, peculiarly offensive in a boy. The pupils were abnormally large, + as though he were addicted to belladonna, but there was a glassy glitter + about them which that drug does not produce. + </p> + <p> + When questioned by the Principal as to why he was there Paul stated, + politely enough, that he wanted to come back to school. This was a lie, + but Paul was quite accustomed to lying; found it, indeed, indispensable + for overcoming friction. His teachers were asked to state their respective + charges against him, which they did with such a rancor and aggrievedness + as evinced that this was not a usual case, Disorder and impertinence were + among the offenses named, yet each of his instructors felt that it was + scarcely possible to put into words the real cause of the trouble, which + lay in a sort of hysterically defiant manner of the boy's; in the contempt + which they all knew he felt for them, and which he seemingly made not the + least effort to conceal. Once, when he had been making a synopsis of a + paragraph at the blackboard, his English teacher had stepped to his side + and attempted to guide his hand. Paul had started back with a shudder and + thrust his hands violently behind him. The astonished woman could scarcely + have been more hurt and embarrassed had he struck at her. The insult was + so involuntary and definitely personal as to be unforgettable. In one way + and another he had made all his teachers, men and women alike, conscious + of the same feeling of physical aversion. In one class he habitually sat + with his hand shading his eyes; in another he always looked out of the + window during the recitation; in another he made a running commentary on + the lecture, with humorous intention. + </p> + <p> + His teachers felt this afternoon that his whole attitude was symbolized by + his shrug and his flippantly red carnation flower, and they fell upon him + without mercy, his English teacher leading the pack. He stood through it + smiling, his pale lips parted over his white teeth. (His lips were + continually twitching, and he had a habit of raising his eyebrows that was + contemptuous and irritating to the last degree.) Older boys than Paul had + broken down and shed tears under that baptism of fire, but his set smile + did not once desert him, and his only sign of discomfort was the nervous + trembling of the fingers that toyed with the buttons of his overcoat, and + an occasional jerking of the other hand that held his hat. Paul was always + smiling, always glancing about him, seeming to feel that people might be + watching him and trying to detect something. This conscious expression, + since it was as far as possible from boyish mirthfulness, was usually + attributed to insolence or “smartness.” + </p> + <p> + As the inquisition proceeded one of his instructors repeated an + impertinent remark of the boy's, and the Principal asked him whether he + thought that a courteous speech to have made a woman. Paul shrugged his + shoulders slightly and his eyebrows twitched. + </p> + <p> + “I don't know,” he replied. “I didn't mean to be polite or impolite, + either. I guess it's a sort of way I have of saying things regardless.” + </p> + <p> + The Principal, who was a sympathetic man, asked him whether he didn't + think that a way it would be well to get rid of. Paul grinned and said he + guessed so. When he was told that he could go he bowed gracefully and went + out. His bow was but a repetition of the scandalous red carnation. + </p> + <p> + His teachers were in despair, and his drawing master voiced the feeling of + them all when he declared there was something about the boy which none of + them understood. He added: “I don't really believe that smile of his comes + altogether from insolence; there's something sort of haunted about it. The + boy is not strong, for one thing. I happen to know that he was born in + Colorado, only a few months before his mother died out there of a long + illness. There is something wrong about the fellow.” + </p> + <p> + The drawing master had come to realize that, in looking at Paul, one saw + only his white teeth and the forced animation of his eyes. One warm + afternoon the boy had gone to sleep at his drawing board, and his master + had noted with amazement what a white, blue-veined face it was; drawn and + wrinkled like an old man's about the eyes, the lips twitching even in his + sleep, and stiff with a nervous tension that drew them back from his + teeth. + </p> + <p> + His teachers left the building dissatisfied and unhappy; humiliated to + have felt so vindictive toward a mere boy, to have uttered this feeling in + cutting terms, and to have set each other on, as it were, in the gruesome + game of intemperate reproach. Some of them remembered having seen a + miserable street cat set at bay by a ring of tormentors. + </p> + <p> + As for Paul, he ran down the hill whistling the “Soldiers' Chorus” from <i>Faust</i>, + looking wildly behind him now and then to see whether some of his teachers + were not there to writhe under his lightheartedness. As it was now late in + the afternoon and Paul was on duty that evening as usher at Carnegie Hall, + he decided that he would not go home to supper. When he reached the + concert hall the doors were not yet open and, as it was chilly outside, he + decided to go up into the picture gallery—always deserted at this + hour—where there were some of Raffelli's gay studies of Paris + streets and an airy blue Venetian scene or two that always exhilarated + him. He was delighted to find no one in the gallery but the old guard, who + sat in one corner, a newspaper on his knee, a black patch over one eye and + the other closed. Paul possessed himself of the peace and walked + confidently up and down, whistling under his breath. After a while he sat + down before a blue Rico and lost himself. When he bethought him to look at + his watch, it was after seven o'clock, and he rose with a start and ran + downstairs, making a face at Augustus, peering out from the cast room, and + an evil gesture at the Venus de Milo as he passed her on the stairway. + </p> + <p> + When Paul reached the ushers' dressing room half a dozen boys were there + already, and he began excitedly to tumble into his uniform. It was one of + the few that at all approached fitting, and Paul thought it very + becoming—though he knew that the tight, straight coat accentuated his + narrow chest, about which he was exceedingly sensitive. He was always + considerably excited while he dressed, twanging all over to the tuning of + the strings and the preliminary flourishes of the horns in the music room; + but tonight he seemed quite beside himself, and he teased and plagued the + boys until, telling him that he was crazy, they put him down on the floor + and sat on him. + </p> + <p> + Somewhat calmed by his suppression, Paul dashed out to the front of the + house to seat the early comers. He was a model usher; gracious and smiling + he ran up and down the aisles; nothing was too much trouble for him; he + carried messages and brought programs as though it were his greatest + pleasure in life, and all the people in his section thought him a charming + boy, feeling that he remembered and admired them. As the house filled, he + grew more and more vivacious and animated, and the color came to his + cheeks and lips. It was very much as though this were a great reception + and Paul were the host. Just as the musicians came out to take their + places, his English teacher arrived with checks for the seats which a + prominent manufacturer had taken for the season. She betrayed some + embarrassment when she handed Paul the tickets, and a hauteur which + subsequently made her feel very foolish. Paul was startled for a moment, + and had the feeling of wanting to put her out; what business had she here + among all these fine people and gay colors? He looked her over and decided + that she was not appropriately dressed and must be a fool to sit + downstairs in such togs. The tickets had probably been sent her out of + kindness, he reflected as he put down a seat for her, and she had about as + much right to sit there as he had. + </p> + <p> + When the symphony began Paul sank into one of the rear seats with a long + sigh of relief, and lost himself as he had done before the Rico. It was + not that symphonies, as such, meant anything in particular to Paul, but + the first sigh of the instruments seemed to free some hilarious and potent + spirit within him; something that struggled there like the genie in the + bottle found by the Arab fisherman. He felt a sudden zest of life; the + lights danced before his eyes and the concert hall blazed into + unimaginable splendor. When the soprano soloist came on Paul forgot even + the nastiness of his teacher's being there and gave himself up to the + peculiar stimulus such personages always had for him. The soloist chanced + to be a German woman, by no means in her first youth, and the mother of + many children; but she wore an elaborate gown and a tiara, and above all + she had that indefinable air of achievement, that world-shine upon her, + which, in Paul's eyes, made her a veritable queen of Romance. + </p> + <p> + After a concert was over Paul was always irritable and wretched until he + got to sleep, and tonight he was even more than usually restless. He had + the feeling of not being able to let down, of its being impossible to give + up this delicious excitement which was the only thing that could be called + living at all. During the last number he withdrew and, after hastily + changing his clothes in the dressing room, slipped out to the side door + where the soprano's carriage stood. Here he began pacing rapidly up and + down the walk, waiting to see her come out. + </p> + <p> + Over yonder, the Schenley, in its vacant stretch, loomed big and square + through the fine rain, the windows of its twelve stories glowing like + those of a lighted cardboard house under a Christmas tree. All the actors + and singers of the better class stayed there when they were in the city, + and a number of the big manufacturers of the place lived there in the + winter. Paul had often hung about the hotel, watching the people go in and + out, longing to enter and leave schoolmasters and dull care behind him + forever. + </p> + <p> + At last the singer came out, accompanied by the conductor, who helped her + into her carriage and closed the door with a cordial <i>auf wiedersehen</i> + which set Paul to wondering whether she were not an old sweetheart of his. + Paul followed the carriage over to the hotel, walking so rapidly as not to + be far from the entrance when the singer alighted, and disappeared behind + the swinging glass doors that were opened by a Negro in a tall hat and a + long coat. In the moment that the door was ajar it seemed to Paul that he, + too, entered. He seemed to feel himself go after her up the steps, into + the warm, lighted building, into an exotic, tropical world of shiny, + glistening surfaces and basking ease. He reflected upon the mysterious + dishes that were brought into the dining room, the green bottles in + buckets of ice, as he had seen them in the supper party pictures of the <i>Sunday + World</i> supplement. A quick gust of wind brought the rain down with + sudden vehemence, and Paul was startled to find that he was still outside + in the slush of the gravel driveway; that his boots were letting in the + water and his scanty overcoat was clinging wet about him; that the lights + in front of the concert hall were out and that the rain was driving in + sheets between him and the orange glow of the windows above him. There it + was, what he wanted—tangibly before him, like the fairy world of a + Christmas pantomime—but mocking spirits stood guard at the doors, + and, as the rain beat in his face, Paul wondered whether he were destined + always to shiver in the black night outside, looking up at it. + </p> + <p> + He turned and walked reluctantly toward the car tracks. The end had to + come sometime; his father in his nightclothes at the top of the stairs, + explanations that did not explain, hastily improvised fictions that were + forever tripping him up, his upstairs room and its horrible yellow + wallpaper, the creaking bureau with the greasy plush collarbox, and over + his painted wooden bed the pictures of George Washington and John Calvin, + and the framed motto, “Feed my Lambs,” which had been worked in red + worsted by his mother. + </p> + <p> + Half an hour later Paul alighted from his car and went slowly down one of + the side streets off the main thoroughfare. It was a highly respectable + street, where all the houses were exactly alike, and where businessmen of + moderate means begot and reared large families of children, all of whom + went to Sabbath school and learned the shorter catechism, and were + interested in arithmetic; all of whom were as exactly alike as their + homes, and of a piece with the monotony in which they lived. Paul never + went up Cordelia Street without a shudder of loathing. His home was next + to the house of the Cumberland minister. He approached it tonight with the + nerveless sense of defeat, the hopeless feeling of sinking back forever + into ugliness and commonness that he had always had when he came home. The + moment he turned into Cordelia Street he felt the waters close above his + head. After each of these orgies of living he experienced all the physical + depression which follows a debauch; the loathing of respectable beds, of + common food, of a house penetrated by kitchen odors; a shuddering + repulsion for the flavorless, colorless mass of everyday existence; a + morbid desire for cool things and soft lights and fresh flowers. + </p> + <p> + The nearer he approached the house, the more absolutely unequal Paul felt + to the sight of it all: his ugly sleeping chamber; the cold bathroom with + the grimy zinc tub, the cracked mirror, the dripping spiggots; his father, + at the top of the stairs, his hairy legs sticking out from his nightshirt, + his feet thrust into carpet slippers. He was so much later than usual that + there would certainly be inquiries and reproaches. Paul stopped short + before the door. He felt that he could not be accosted by his father + tonight; that he could not toss again on that miserable bed. He would not + go in. He would tell his father that he had no carfare and it was raining + so hard he had gone home with one of the boys and stayed all night. + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile, he was wet and cold. He went around to the back of the house + and tried one of the basement windows, found it open, raised it + cautiously, and scrambled down the cellar wall to the floor. There he + stood, holding his breath, terrified by the noise he had made, but the + floor above him was silent, and there was no creak on the stairs. He found + a soapbox, and carried it over to the soft ring of light that streamed + from the furnace door, and sat down. He was horribly afraid of rats, so he + did not try to sleep, but sat looking distrustfully at the dark, still + terrified lest he might have awakened his father. In such reactions, after + one of the experiences which made days and nights out of the dreary blanks + of the calendar, when his senses were deadened, Paul's head was always + singularly clear. Suppose his father had heard him getting in at the + window and had come down and shot him for a burglar? Then, again, suppose + his father had come down, pistol in hand, and he had cried out in time to + save himself, and his father had been horrified to think how nearly he had + killed him? Then, again, suppose a day should come when his father would + remember that night, and wish there had been no warning cry to stay his + hand? With this last supposition Paul entertained himself until daybreak. + </p> + <p> + The following Sunday was fine; the sodden November chill was broken by the + last flash of autumnal summer. In the morning Paul had to go to church and + Sabbath school, as always. On seasonable Sunday afternoons the burghers of + Cordelia Street always sat out on their front stoops and talked to their + neighbors on the next stoop, or called to those across the street in + neighborly fashion. The men usually sat on gay cushions placed upon the + steps that led down to the sidewalk, while the women, in their Sunday + “waists,” sat in rockers on the cramped porches, pretending to be greatly + at their ease. The children played in the streets; there were so many of + them that the place resembled the recreation grounds of a kindergarten. + The men on the steps—all in their shirt sleeves, their vests + unbuttoned—sat with their legs well apart, their stomachs + comfortably protruding, and talked of the prices of things, or told + anecdotes of the sagacity of their various chiefs and overlords. They + occasionally looked over the multitude of squabbling children, listened + affectionately to their high-pitched, nasal voices, smiling to see their + own proclivities reproduced in their offspring, and interspersed their + legends of the iron kings with remarks about their sons' progress at + school, their grades in arithmetic, and the amounts they had saved in + their toy banks. + </p> + <p> + On this last Sunday of November Paul sat all the afternoon on the lowest + step of his stoop, staring into the street, while his sisters, in their + rockers, were talking to the minister's daughters next door about how many + shirtwaists they had made in the last week, and how many waffles someone + had eaten at the last church supper. When the weather was warm, and his + father was in a particularly jovial frame of mind, the girls made + lemonade, which was always brought out in a red-glass pitcher, ornamented + with forget-me-nots in blue enamel. This the girls thought very fine, and + the neighbors always joked about the suspicious color of the pitcher. + </p> + <p> + Today Paul's father sat on the top step, talking to a young man who + shifted a restless baby from knee to knee. He happened to be the young man + who was daily held up to Paul as a model, and after whom it was his + father's dearest hope that he would pattern. This young man was of a ruddy + complexion, with a compressed, red mouth, and faded, nearsighted eyes, + over which he wore thick spectacles, with gold bows that curved about his + ears. He was clerk to one of the magnates of a great steel corporation, + and was looked upon in Cordelia Street as a young man with a future. There + was a story that, some five years ago—he was now barely twenty-six—he + had been a trifle dissipated, but in order to curb his appetites and save + the loss of time and strength that a sowing of wild oats might have + entailed, he had taken his chief's advice, oft reiterated to his + employees, and at twenty-one had married the first woman whom he could + persuade to share his fortunes. She happened to be an angular + schoolmistress, much older than he, who also wore thick glasses, and who + had now borne him four children, all nearsighted, like herself. + </p> + <p> + The young man was relating how his chief, now cruising in the + Mediterranean, kept in touch with all the details of the business, + arranging his office hours on his yacht just as though he were at home, + and “knocking off work enough to keep two stenographers busy.” His father + told, in turn, the plan his corporation was considering, of putting in an + electric railway plant in Cairo. Paul snapped his teeth; he had an awful + apprehension that they might spoil it all before he got there. Yet he + rather liked to hear these legends of the iron kings that were told and + retold on Sundays and holidays; these stories of palaces in Venice, yachts + on the Mediterranean, and high play at Monte Carlo appealed to his fancy, + and he was interested in the triumphs of these cash boys who had become + famous, though he had no mind for the cash-boy stage. + </p> + <p> + After supper was over and he had helped to dry the dishes, Paul nervously + asked his father whether he could go to George's to get some help in his + geometry, and still more nervously asked for carfare. This latter request + he had to repeat, as his father, on principle, did not like to hear + requests for money, whether much or little. He asked Paul whether he could + not go to some boy who lived nearer, and told him that he ought not to + leave his schoolwork until Sunday; but he gave him the dime. He was not a + poor man, but he had a worthy ambition to come up in the world. His only + reason for allowing Paul to usher was that he thought a boy ought to be + earning a little. + </p> + <p> + Paul bounded upstairs, scrubbed the greasy odor of the dishwater from his + hands with the ill-smelling soap he hated, and then shook over his fingers + a few drops of violet water from the bottle he kept hidden in his drawer. + He left the house with his geometry conspicuously under his arm, and the + moment he got out of Cordelia Street and boarded a downtown car, he shook + off the lethargy of two deadening days and began to live again. + </p> + <p> + The leading juvenile of the permanent stock company which played at one of + the downtown theaters was an acquaintance of Paul's, and the boy had been + invited to drop in at the Sunday-night rehearsals whenever he could. For + more than a year Paul had spent every available moment loitering about + Charley Edwards's dressing room. He had won a place among Edwards's + following not only because the young actor, who could not afford to employ + a dresser, often found him useful, but because he recognized in Paul + something akin to what churchmen term “vocation.” + </p> + <p> + It was at the theater and at Carnegie Hall that Paul really lived; the + rest was but a sleep and a forgetting. This was Paul's fairy tale, and it + had for him all the allurement of a secret love. The moment he inhaled the + gassy, painty, dusty odor behind the scenes, he breathed like a prisoner + set free, and felt within him the possibility of doing or saying splendid, + brilliant, poetic things. The moment the cracked orchestra beat out the + overture from <i>Martha</i>, or jerked at the serenade from <i>Rigoletto</i>, + all stupid and ugly things slid from him, and his senses were deliciously, + yet delicately fired. + </p> + <p> + Perhaps it was because, in Paul's world, the natural nearly always wore + the guise of ugliness, that a certain element of artificiality seemed to + him necessary in beauty. Perhaps it was because his experience of life + elsewhere was so full of Sabbath-school picnics, petty economies, + wholesome advice as to how to succeed in life, and the inescapable odors + of cooking, that he found this existence so alluring, these smartly clad + men and women so attractive, that he was so moved by these starry apple + orchards that bloomed perennially under the limelight. + </p> + <p> + It would be difficult to put it strongly enough how convincingly the stage + entrance of that theater was for Paul the actual portal of Romance. + Certainly none of the company ever suspected it, least of all Charley + Edwards. It was very like the old stories that used to float about London + of fabulously rich Jews, who had subterranean halls there, with palms, and + fountains, and soft lamps and richly appareled women who never saw the + disenchanting light of London day. So, in the midst of that smoke-palled + city, enamored of figures and grimy toil, Paul had his secret temple, his + wishing carpet, his bit of blue-and-white Mediterranean shore bathed in + perpetual sunshine. + </p> + <p> + Several of Paul's teachers had a theory that his imagination had been + perverted by garish fiction, but the truth was that he scarcely ever read + at all. The books at home were not such as would either tempt or corrupt a + youthful mind, and as for reading the novels that some of his friends + urged upon him—well, he got what he wanted much more quickly from + music; any sort of music, from an orchestra to a barrel organ. He needed + only the spark, the indescribable thrill that made his imagination master + of his senses, and he could make plots and pictures enough of his own. It + was equally true that he was not stagestruck—not, at any rate, in the + usual acceptation of that expression. He had no desire to become an actor, + any more than he had to become a musician. He felt no necessity to do any + of these things; what he wanted was to see, to be in the atmosphere, float + on the wave of it, to be carried out, blue league after blue league, away + from everything. + </p> + <p> + After a night behind the scenes Paul found the schoolroom more than ever + repulsive; the bare floors and naked walls; the prosy men who never wore + frock coats, or violets in their buttonholes; the women with their dull + gowns, shrill voices, and pitiful seriousness about prepositions that + govern the dative. He could not bear to have the other pupils think, for a + moment, that he took these people seriously; he must convey to them that + he considered it all trivial, and was there only by way of a jest, anyway. + He had autographed pictures of all the members of the stock company which + he showed his classmates, telling them the most incredible stories of his + familiarity with these people, of his acquaintance with the soloists who + came to Carnegie Hall, his suppers with them and the flowers he sent them. + When these stories lost their effect, and his audience grew listless, he + became desperate and would bid all the boys good-by, announcing that he + was going to travel for a while; going to Naples, to Venice, to Egypt. + Then, next Monday, he would slip back, conscious and nervously smiling; + his sister was ill, and he should have to defer his voyage until spring. + </p> + <p> + Matters went steadily worse with Paul at school. In the itch to let his + instructors know how heartily he despised them and their homilies, and how + thoroughly he was appreciated elsewhere, he mentioned once or twice that + he had no time to fool with theorems; adding—with a twitch of the + eyebrows and a touch of that nervous bravado which so perplexed them—that + he was helping the people down at the stock company; they were old friends + of his. + </p> + <p> + The upshot of the matter was that the Principal went to Paul's father, and + Paul was taken out of school and put to work. The manager at Carnegie Hall + was told to get another usher in his stead; the doorkeeper at the theater + was warned not to admit him to the house; and Charley Edwards remorsefully + promised the boy's father not to see him again. + </p> + <p> + The members of the stock company were vastly amused when some of Paul's + stories reached them—especially the women. They were hardworking + women, most of them supporting indigent husbands or brothers, and they + laughed rather bitterly at having stirred the boy to such fervid and + florid inventions. They agreed with the faculty and with his father that + Paul's was a bad case. + </p> + <p> + The eastbound train was plowing through a January snowstorm; the dull dawn + was beginning to show gray when the engine whistled a mile out of Newark. + Paul started up from the seat where he had lain curled in uneasy slumber, + rubbed the breath-misted window glass with his hand, and peered out. The + snow was whirling in curling eddies above the white bottom lands, and the + drifts lay already deep in the fields and along the fences, while here and + there the long dead grass and dried weed stalks protruded black above it. + Lights shone from the scattered houses, and a gang of laborers who stood + beside the track waved their lanterns. + </p> + <p> + Paul had slept very little, and he felt grimy and uncomfortable. He had + made the all-night journey in a day coach, partly because he was ashamed, + dressed as he was, to go into a Pullman, and partly because he was afraid + of being seen there by some Pittsburgh businessman, who might have noticed + him in Denny & Carson's office. When the whistle awoke him, he + clutched quickly at his breast pocket, glancing about him with an + uncertain smile. But the little, clay-bespattered Italians were still + sleeping, the slatternly women across the aisle were in open-mouthed + oblivion, and even the crumby, crying babies were for the nonce stilled. + Paul settled back to struggle with his impatience as best he could. + </p> + <p> + When he arrived at the Jersey City station he hurried through his + breakfast, manifestly ill at ease and keeping a sharp eye about him. After + he reached the Twenty-third Street station, he consulted a cabman and had + himself driven to a men's-furnishings establishment that was just opening + for the day. He spent upward of two hours there, buying with endless + reconsidering and great care. His new street suit he put on in the fitting + room; the frock coat and dress clothes he had bundled into the cab with + his linen. Then he drove to a hatter's and a shoe house. His next errand + was at Tiffany's, where he selected his silver and a new scarf pin. He + would not wait to have his silver marked, he said. Lastly, he stopped at a + trunk shop on Broadway and had his purchases packed into various traveling + bags. + </p> + <p> + It was a little after one o'clock when he drove up to the Waldorf, and + after settling with the cabman, went into the office. He registered from + Washington; said his mother and father had been abroad, and that he had + come down to await the arrival of their steamer. He told his story + plausibly and had no trouble, since he volunteered to pay for them in + advance, in engaging his rooms; a sleeping room, sitting room, and bath. + </p> + <p> + Not once, but a hundred times, Paul had planned this entry into New York. + He had gone over every detail of it with Charley Edwards, and in his + scrapbook at home there were pages of description about New York hotels, + cut from the Sunday papers. When he was shown to his sitting room on the + eighth floor he saw at a glance that everything was as it should be; there + was but one detail in his mental picture that the place did not realize, + so he rang for the bellboy and sent him down for flowers. He moved about + nervously until the boy returned, putting away his new linen and fingering + it delightedly as he did so. When the flowers came he put them hastily + into water, and then tumbled into a hot bath. Presently he came out of his + white bathroom, resplendent in his new silk underwear, and playing with + the tassels of his red robe. The snow was whirling so fiercely outside his + windows that he could scarcely see across the street, but within the air + was deliciously soft and fragrant. He put the violets and jonquils on the + taboret beside the couch, and threw himself down, with a long sigh, + covering himself with a Roman blanket. He was thoroughly tired; he had + been in such haste, he had stood up to such a strain, covered so much + ground in the last twenty-four hours, that he wanted to think how it had + all come about. Lulled by the sound of the wind, the warm air, and the + cool fragrance of the flowers, he sank into deep, drowsy retrospection. + </p> + <p> + It had been wonderfully simple; when they had shut him out of the theater + and concert hall, when they had taken away his bone, the whole thing was + virtually determined. The rest was a mere matter of opportunity. The only + thing that at all surprised him was his own courage—for he realized well + enough that he had always been tormented by fear, a sort of apprehensive + dread that, of late years, as the meshes of the lies he had told closed + about him, had been pulling the muscles of his body tighter and tighter. + Until now he could not remember the time when he had not been dreading + something. Even when he was a little boy it was always there—behind + him, or before, or on either side. There had always been the shadowed + corner, the dark place into which he dared not look, but from which + something seemed always to be watching him—and Paul had done things + that were not pretty to watch, he knew. + </p> + <p> + But now he had a curious sense of relief, as though he had at last thrown + down the gauntlet to the thing in the corner. + </p> + <p> + Yet it was but a day since he had been sulking in the traces; but + yesterday afternoon that he had been sent to the bank with Denny & + Carson's deposit, as usual—but this time he was instructed to leave + the book to be balanced. There was above two thousand dollars in checks, + and nearly a thousand in the bank notes which he had taken from the book + and quietly transferred to his pocket. At the bank he had made out a new + deposit slip. His nerves had been steady enough to permit of his returning + to the office, where he had finished his work and asked for a full day's + holiday tomorrow, Saturday, giving a perfectly reasonable pretext. The + bankbook, he knew, would not be returned before Monday or Tuesday, and his + father would be out of town for the next week. From the time he slipped + the bank notes into his pocket until he boarded the night train for New + York, he had not known a moment's hesitation. It was not the first time + Paul had steered through treacherous waters. + </p> + <p> + How astonishingly easy it had all been; here he was, the thing done; and + this time there would be no awakening, no figure at the top of the stairs. + He watched the snowflakes whirling by his window until he fell asleep. + </p> + <p> + When he awoke, it was three o'clock in the afternoon. He bounded up with a + start; half of one of his precious days gone already! He spent more than + an hour in dressing, watching every stage of his toilet carefully in the + mirror. Everything was quite perfect; he was exactly the kind of boy he + had always wanted to be. + </p> + <p> + When he went downstairs Paul took a carriage and drove up Fifth Avenue + toward the Park. The snow had somewhat abated; carriages and tradesmen's + wagons were hurrying soundlessly to and fro in the winter twilight; boys + in woolen mufflers were shoveling off the doorsteps; the avenue stages + made fine spots of color against the white street. Here and there on the + corners were stands, with whole flower gardens blooming under glass cases, + against the sides of which the snowflakes stuck and melted; violets, + roses, carnations, lilies of the valley—somehow vastly more lovely + and alluring that they blossomed thus unnaturally in the snow. The Park + itself was a wonderful stage winterpiece. + </p> + <p> + When he returned, the pause of the twilight had ceased and the tune of the + streets had changed. The snow was falling faster, lights streamed from the + hotels that reared their dozen stories fearlessly up into the storm, + defying the raging Atlantic winds. A long, black stream of carriages + poured down the avenue, intersected here and there by other streams, + tending horizontally. There were a score of cabs about the entrance of his + hotel, and his driver had to wait. Boys in livery were running in and out + of the awning stretched across the sidewalk, up and down the red velvet + carpet laid from the door to the street. Above, about, within it all was + the rumble and roar, the hurry and toss of thousands of human beings as + hot for pleasure as himself, and on every side of him towered the glaring + affirmation of the omnipotence of wealth. + </p> + <p> + The boy set his teeth and drew his shoulders together in a spasm of + realization; the plot of all dramas, the text of all romances, the + nerve-stuff of all sensations was whirling about him like the snowflakes. + He burnt like a faggot in a tempest. + </p> + <p> + When Paul went down to dinner the music of the orchestra came floating up + the elevator shaft to greet him. His head whirled as he stepped into the + thronged corridor, and he sank back into one of the chairs against the + wall to get his breath. The lights, the chatter, the perfumes, the + bewildering medley of color—he had, for a moment, the feeling of not + being able to stand it. But only for a moment; these were his own people, + he told himself. He went slowly about the corridors, through the writing + rooms, smoking rooms, reception rooms, as though he were exploring the + chambers of an enchanted palace, built and peopled for him alone. + </p> + <p> + When he reached the dining room he sat down at a table near a window. The + flowers, the white linen, the many-colored wineglasses, the gay toilettes + of the women, the low popping of corks, the undulating repetitions of the + <i>Blue Danube</i> from the orchestra, all flooded Paul's dream with + bewildering radiance. When the roseate tinge of his champagne was added—that + cold, precious, bubbling stuff that creamed and foamed in his glass—Paul + wondered that there were honest men in the world at all. This was what all + the world was fighting for, he reflected; this was what all the struggle + was about. He doubted the reality of his past. Had he ever known a place + called Cordelia Street, a place where fagged-looking businessmen got on + the early car; mere rivets in a machine they seemed to Paul,—sickening + men, with combings of children's hair always hanging to their coats, and + the smell of cooking in their clothes. Cordelia Street—Ah, that + belonged to another time and country; had he not always been thus, had he + not sat here night after night, from as far back as he could remember, + looking pensively over just such shimmering textures and slowly twirling + the stem of a glass like this one between his thumb and middle finger? He + rather thought he had. + </p> + <p> + He was not in the least abashed or lonely. He had no especial desire to + meet or to know any of these people; all he demanded was the right to look + on and conjecture, to watch the pageant. The mere stage properties were + all he contended for. Nor was he lonely later in the evening, in his lodge + at the Metropolitan. He was now entirely rid of his nervous misgivings, of + his forced aggressiveness, of the imperative desire to show himself + different from his surroundings. He felt now that his surroundings + explained him. Nobody questioned the purple; he had only to wear it + passively. He had only to glance down at his attire to reassure himself + that here it would be impossible for anyone to humiliate him. + </p> + <p> + He found it hard to leave his beautiful sitting room to go to bed that + night, and sat long watching the raging storm from his turret window. When + he went to sleep it was with the lights turned on in his bedroom; partly + because of his old timidity, and partly so that, if he should wake in the + night, there would be no wretched moment of doubt, no horrible suspicion + of yellow wallpaper, or of Washington and Calvin above his bed. + </p> + <p> + Sunday morning the city was practically snowbound. Paul breakfasted late, + and in the afternoon he fell in with a wild San Francisco boy, a freshman + at Yale, who said he had run down for a “little flyer” over Sunday. The + young man offered to show Paul the night side of the town, and the two + boys went out together after dinner, not returning to the hotel until + seven o'clock the next morning. They had started out in the confiding + warmth of a champagne friendship, but their parting in the elevator was + singularly cool. The freshman pulled himself together to make his train, + and Paul went to bed. He awoke at two o'clock in the afternoon, very + thirsty and dizzy, and rang for icewater, coffee, and the Pittsburgh + papers. + </p> + <p> + On the part of the hotel management, Paul excited no suspicion. There was + this to be said for him, that he wore his spoils with dignity and in no + way made himself conspicuous. Even under the glow of his wine he was never + boisterous, though he found the stuff like a magician's wand for + wonder-building. His chief greediness lay in his ears and eyes, and his + excesses were not offensive ones. His dearest pleasures were the gray + winter twilights in his sitting room; his quiet enjoyment of his flowers, + his clothes, his wide divan, his cigarette, and his sense of power. He + could not remember a time when he had felt so at peace with himself. The + mere release from the necessity of petty lying, lying every day and every + day, restored his self-respect. He had never lied for pleasure, even at + school; but to be noticed and admired, to assert his difference from other + Cordelia Street boys; and he felt a good deal more manly, more honest, + even, now that he had no need for boastful pretensions, now that he could, + as his actor friends used to say, “dress the part.” It was characteristic + that remorse did not occur to him. His golden days went by without a + shadow, and he made each as perfect as he could. + </p> + <p> + On the eighth day after his arrival in New York he found the whole affair + exploited in the Pittsburgh papers, exploited with a wealth of detail + which indicated that local news of a sensational nature was at a low ebb. + The firm of Denny & Carson announced that the boy's father had + refunded the full amount of the theft and that they had no intention of + prosecuting. The Cumberland minister had been interviewed, and expressed + his hope of yet reclaiming the motherless lad, and his Sabbath-school + teacher declared that she would spare no effort to that end. The rumor had + reached Pittsburgh that the boy had been seen in a New York hotel, and his + father had gone East to find him and bring him home. + </p> + <p> + Paul had just come in to dress for dinner; he sank into a chair, weak to + the knees, and clasped his head in his hands. It was to be worse than + jail, even; the tepid waters of Cordelia Street were to close over him + finally and forever. The gray monotony stretched before him in hopeless, + unrelieved years; Sabbath school, Young People's Meeting, the + yellow-papered room, the damp dishtowels; it all rushed back upon him with + a sickening vividness. He had the old feeling that the orchestra had + suddenly stopped, the sinking sensation that the play was over. The sweat + broke out on his face, and he sprang to his feet, looked about him with + his white, conscious smile, and winked at himself in the mirror, With + something of the old childish belief in miracles with which he had so + often gone to class, all his lessons unlearned, Paul dressed and dashed + whistling down the corridor to the elevator. + </p> + <p> + He had no sooner entered the dining room and caught the measure of the + music than his remembrance was lightened by his old elastic power of + claiming the moment, mounting with it, and finding it all-sufficient. The + glare and glitter about him, the mere scenic accessories had again, and + for the last time, their old potency. He would show himself that he was + game, he would finish the thing splendidly. He doubted, more than ever, + the existence of Cordelia Street, and for the first time he drank his wine + recklessly. Was he not, after all, one of those fortunate beings born to + the purple, was he not still himself and in his own place? He drummed a + nervous accompaniment to the Pagliacci music and looked about him, telling + himself over and over that it had paid. + </p> + <p> + He reflected drowsily, to the swell of the music and the chill sweetness + of his wine, that he might have done it more wisely. He might have caught + an outbound steamer and been well out of their clutches before now. But + the other side of the world had seemed too far away and too uncertain + then; he could not have waited for it; his need had been too sharp. If he + had to choose over again, he would do the same thing tomorrow. He looked + affectionately about the dining room, now gilded with a soft mist. Ah, it + had paid indeed! + </p> + <p> + Paul was awakened next morning by a painful throbbing in his head and + feet. He had thrown himself across the bed without undressing, and had + slept with his shoes on. His limbs and hands were lead heavy, and his + tongue and throat were parched and burnt. There came upon him one of those + fateful attacks of clearheadedness that never occurred except when he was + physically exhausted and his nerves hung loose. He lay still, closed his + eyes, and let the tide of things wash over him. + </p> + <p> + His father was in New York; “stopping at some joint or other,” he told + himself. The memory of successive summers on the front stoop fell upon him + like a weight of black water. He had not a hundred dollars left; and he + knew now, more than ever, that money was everything, the wall that stood + between all he loathed and all he wanted. The thing was winding itself up; + he had thought of that on his first glorious day in New York, and had even + provided a way to snap the thread. It lay on his dressing table now; he + had got it out last night when he came blindly up from dinner, but the + shiny metal hurt his eyes, and he disliked the looks of it. + </p> + <p> + He rose and moved about with a painful effort, succumbing now and again to + attacks of nausea. It was the old depression exaggerated; all the world + had become Cordelia Street. Yet somehow he was not afraid of anything, was + absolutely calm; perhaps because he had looked into the dark corner at + last and knew. It was bad enough, what he saw there, but somehow not so + bad as his long fear of it had been. He saw everything clearly now. He had + a feeling that he had made the best of it, that he had lived the sort of + life he was meant to live, and for half an hour he sat staring at the + revolver. But he told himself that was not the way, so he went downstairs + and took a cab to the ferry. + </p> + <p> + When Paul arrived in Newark he got off the train and took another cab, + directing the driver to follow the Pennsylvania tracks out of the town. + The snow lay heavy on the roadways and had drifted deep in the open + fields. Only here and there the dead grass or dried weed stalks projected, + singularly black, above it. Once well into the country, Paul dismissed the + carriage and walked, floundering along the tracks, his mind a medley of + irrelevant things. He seemed to hold in his brain an actual picture of + everything he had seen that morning. He remembered every feature of both + his drivers, of the toothless old woman from whom he had bought the red + flowers in his coat, the agent from whom he had got his ticket, and all of + his fellow passengers on the ferry. His mind, unable to cope with vital + matters near at hand, worked feverishly and deftly at sorting and grouping + these images. They made for him a part of the ugliness of the world, of + the ache in his head, and the bitter burning on his tongue. He stooped and + put a handful of snow into his mouth as he walked, but that, too, seemed + hot. When he reached a little hillside, where the tracks ran through a cut + some twenty feet below him, he stopped and sat down. + </p> + <p> + The carnations in his coat were drooping with the cold, he noticed, their + red glory all over. It occurred to him that all the flowers he had seen in + the glass cases that first night must have gone the same way, long before + this. It was only one splendid breath they had, in spite of their brave + mockery at the winter outside the glass; and it was a losing game in the + end, it seemed, this revolt against the homilies by which the world is + run. Paul took one of the blossoms carefully from his coat and scooped a + little hole in the snow, where he covered it up. Then he dozed awhile, + from his weak condition, seemingly insensible to the cold. + </p> + <p> + The sound of an approaching train awoke him, and he started to his feet, + remembering only his resolution, and afraid lest he should be too late. He + stood watching the approaching locomotive, his teeth chattering, his lips + drawn away from them in a frightened smile; once or twice he glanced + nervously sidewise, as though he were being watched. When the right moment + came, he jumped. As he fell, the folly of his haste occurred to him with + merciless clearness, the vastness of what he had left undone. There + flashed through his brain, clearer than ever before, the blue of Adriatic + water, the yellow of Algerian sands. + </p> + <p> + He felt something strike his chest, and that his body was being thrown + swiftly through the air, on and on, immeasurably far and fast, while his + limbs were gently relaxed. Then, because the picture-making mechanism was + crushed, the disturbing visions flashed into black, and Paul dropped back + into the immense design of things. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Troll Garden and Selected Stories, by +Willa Cather + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TROLL GARDEN *** + +***** This file should be named 346-h.htm or 346-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/346/ + +Produced by Judith Boss, and 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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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: The Troll Garden and Selected Stories + +Author: Willa Cather + +Release Date: October, 1995 [Etext #346] +Posting Date: November 10, 2009 +[Last updated: December 14,2016] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TROLL GARDEN *** + + + + +Produced by Judith Boss + + + + + +THE TROLL GARDEN + +AND + +SELECTED STORIES + +By Willa Cather + + +Contents + + + +_Selected Stories_ + + On the Divide + Eric Hermannson's Soul + The Enchanted Bluff + The Bohemian Girl + + +_The Troll Garden_ + + Flavia and Her Artists + The Sculptor's Funeral + "A Death in the Desert" + The Garden Lodge + The Marriage of Phaedra + A Wagner Matinee + Paul's Case + + + + +SELECTED STORIES + + + + +On the Divide + + +Near Rattlesnake Creek, on the side of a little draw stood Canute's +shanty. North, east, south, stretched the level Nebraska plain of long +rust-red grass that undulated constantly in the wind. To the west the +ground was broken and rough, and a narrow strip of timber wound along +the turbid, muddy little stream that had scarcely ambition enough to +crawl over its black bottom. If it had not been for the few stunted +cottonwoods and elms that grew along its banks, Canute would have shot +himself years ago. The Norwegians are a timber-loving people, and if +there is even a turtle pond with a few plum bushes around it they seem +irresistibly drawn toward it. + +As to the shanty itself, Canute had built it without aid of any kind, +for when he first squatted along the banks of Rattlesnake Creek there +was not a human being within twenty miles. It was built of logs split +in halves, the chinks stopped with mud and plaster. The roof was covered +with earth and was supported by one gigantic beam curved in the shape of +a round arch. It was almost impossible that any tree had ever grown in +that shape. The Norwegians used to say that Canute had taken the log +across his knee and bent it into the shape he wished. There were +two rooms, or rather there was one room with a partition made of ash +saplings interwoven and bound together like big straw basket work. In +one corner there was a cook stove, rusted and broken. In the other a +bed made of unplaned planks and poles. It was fully eight feet long, and +upon it was a heap of dark bed clothing. There was a chair and a bench +of colossal proportions. There was an ordinary kitchen cupboard with +a few cracked dirty dishes in it, and beside it on a tall box a tin +washbasin. Under the bed was a pile of pint flasks, some broken, +some whole, all empty. On the wood box lay a pair of shoes of almost +incredible dimensions. On the wall hung a saddle, a gun, and some ragged +clothing, conspicuous among which was a suit of dark cloth, apparently +new, with a paper collar carefully wrapped in a red silk handkerchief +and pinned to the sleeve. Over the door hung a wolf and a badger skin, +and on the door itself a brace of thirty or forty snake skins whose +noisy tails rattled ominously every time it opened. The strangest things +in the shanty were the wide windowsills. At first glance they looked as +though they had been ruthlessly hacked and mutilated with a hatchet, but +on closer inspection all the notches and holes in the wood took form and +shape. There seemed to be a series of pictures. They were, in a rough +way, artistic, but the figures were heavy and labored, as though they +had been cut very slowly and with very awkward instruments. There were +men plowing with little horned imps sitting on their shoulders and on +their horses' heads. There were men praying with a skull hanging over +their heads and little demons behind them mocking their attitudes. There +were men fighting with big serpents, and skeletons dancing together. All +about these pictures were blooming vines and foliage such as never grew +in this world, and coiled among the branches of the vines there was +always the scaly body of a serpent, and behind every flower there was +a serpent's head. It was a veritable Dance of Death by one who had felt +its sting. In the wood box lay some boards, and every inch of them +was cut up in the same manner. Sometimes the work was very rude and +careless, and looked as though the hand of the workman had trembled. It +would sometimes have been hard to distinguish the men from their evil +geniuses but for one fact, the men were always grave and were either +toiling or praying, while the devils were always smiling and dancing. +Several of these boards had been split for kindling and it was evident +that the artist did not value his work highly. + +It was the first day of winter on the Divide. Canute stumbled into his +shanty carrying a basket of cobs, and after filling the stove, sat +down on a stool and crouched his seven foot frame over the fire, staring +drearily out of the window at the wide gray sky. He knew by heart every +individual clump of bunch grass in the miles of red shaggy prairie that +stretched before his cabin. He knew it in all the deceitful loveliness +of its early summer, in all the bitter barrenness of its autumn. He had +seen it smitten by all the plagues of Egypt. He had seen it parched by +drought, and sogged by rain, beaten by hail, and swept by fire, and in +the grasshopper years he had seen it eaten as bare and clean as bones +that the vultures have left. After the great fires he had seen it +stretch for miles and miles, black and smoking as the floor of hell. + +He rose slowly and crossed the room, dragging his big feet heavily as +though they were burdens to him. He looked out of the window into the +hog corral and saw the pigs burying themselves in the straw before the +shed. The leaden gray clouds were beginning to spill themselves, and the +snow flakes were settling down over the white leprous patches of frozen +earth where the hogs had gnawed even the sod away. He shuddered and +began to walk, trampling heavily with his ungainly feet. He was the +wreck of ten winters on the Divide and he knew what that meant. Men fear +the winters of the Divide as a child fears night or as men in the North +Seas fear the still dark cold of the polar twilight. His eyes fell upon +his gun, and he took it down from the wall and looked it over. He +sat down on the edge of his bed and held the barrel towards his face, +letting his forehead rest upon it, and laid his finger on the trigger. +He was perfectly calm, there was neither passion nor despair in his +face, but the thoughtful look of a man who is considering. Presently +he laid down the gun, and reaching into the cupboard, drew out a pint +bottle of raw white alcohol. Lifting it to his lips, he drank greedily. +He washed his face in the tin basin and combed his rough hair and +shaggy blond beard. Then he stood in uncertainty before the suit of dark +clothes that hung on the wall. For the fiftieth time he took them in +his hands and tried to summon courage to put them on. He took the paper +collar that was pinned to the sleeve of the coat and cautiously slipped +it under his rough beard, looking with timid expectancy into the +cracked, splashed glass that hung over the bench. With a short laugh he +threw it down on the bed, and pulling on his old black hat, he went out, +striking off across the level. + +It was a physical necessity for him to get away from his cabin once in a +while. He had been there for ten years, digging and plowing and sowing, +and reaping what little the hail and the hot winds and the frosts left +him to reap. Insanity and suicide are very common things on the Divide. +They come on like an epidemic in the hot wind season. Those scorching +dusty winds that blow up over the bluffs from Kansas seem to dry up the +blood in men's veins as they do the sap in the corn leaves. Whenever the +yellow scorch creeps down over the tender inside leaves about the ear, +then the coroners prepare for active duty; for the oil of the country is +burned out and it does not take long for the flame to eat up the wick. +It causes no great sensation there when a Dane is found swinging to his +own windmill tower, and most of the Poles after they have become too +careless and discouraged to shave themselves keep their razors to cut +their throats with. + +It may be that the next generation on the Divide will be very happy, but +the present one came too late in life. It is useless for men that have +cut hemlocks among the mountains of Sweden for forty years to try to be +happy in a country as flat and gray and naked as the sea. It is not easy +for men that have spent their youth fishing in the Northern seas to be +content with following a plow, and men that have served in the Austrian +army hate hard work and coarse clothing on the loneliness of the plains, +and long for marches and excitement and tavern company and pretty +barmaids. After a man has passed his fortieth birthday it is not easy +for him to change the habits and conditions of his life. Most men bring +with them to the Divide only the dregs of the lives that they have +squandered in other lands and among other peoples. + +Canute Canuteson was as mad as any of them, but his madness did not +take the form of suicide or religion but of alcohol. He had always taken +liquor when he wanted it, as all Norwegians do, but after his first year +of solitary life he settled down to it steadily. He exhausted whisky +after a while, and went to alcohol, because its effects were speedier +and surer. He was a big man and with a terrible amount of resistant +force, and it took a great deal of alcohol even to move him. After nine +years of drinking, the quantities he could take would seem fabulous to +an ordinary drinking man. He never let it interfere with his work, he +generally drank at night and on Sundays. Every night, as soon as his +chores were done, he began to drink. While he was able to sit up he +would play on his mouth harp or hack away at his window sills with his +jackknife. When the liquor went to his head he would lie down on his bed +and stare out of the window until he went to sleep. He drank alone and +in solitude not for pleasure or good cheer, but to forget the awful +loneliness and level of the Divide. Milton made a sad blunder when he +put mountains in hell. Mountains postulate faith and aspiration. All +mountain peoples are religious. It was the cities of the plains that, +because of their utter lack of spirituality and the mad caprice of their +vice, were cursed of God. + +Alcohol is perfectly consistent in its effects upon man. Drunkenness is +merely an exaggeration. A foolish man drunk becomes maudlin; a bloody +man, vicious; a coarse man, vulgar. Canute was none of these, but he was +morose and gloomy, and liquor took him through all the hells of Dante. +As he lay on his giant's bed all the horrors of this world and every +other were laid bare to his chilled senses. He was a man who knew no +joy, a man who toiled in silence and bitterness. The skull and the +serpent were always before him, the symbols of eternal futileness and of +eternal hate. + +When the first Norwegians near enough to be called neighbors came, +Canute rejoiced, and planned to escape from his bosom vice. But he was +not a social man by nature and had not the power of drawing out the +social side of other people. His new neighbors rather feared him because +of his great strength and size, his silence and his lowering brows. +Perhaps, too, they knew that he was mad, mad from the eternal treachery +of the plains, which every spring stretch green and rustle with the +promises of Eden, showing long grassy lagoons full of clear water +and cattle whose hoofs are stained with wild roses. Before autumn the +lagoons are dried up, and the ground is burnt dry and hard until it +blisters and cracks open. + +So instead of becoming a friend and neighbor to the men that settled +about him, Canute became a mystery and a terror. They told awful stories +of his size and strength and of the alcohol he drank. + +They said that one night, when he went out to see to his horses just +before he went to bed, his steps were unsteady and the rotten planks +of the floor gave way and threw him behind the feet of a fiery young +stallion. His foot was caught fast in the floor, and the nervous horse +began kicking frantically. When Canute felt the blood trickling down +into his eyes from a scalp wound in his head, he roused himself from his +kingly indifference, and with the quiet stoical courage of a drunken man +leaned forward and wound his arms about the horse's hind legs and held +them against his breast with crushing embrace. All through the darkness +and cold of the night he lay there, matching strength against strength. +When little Jim Peterson went over the next morning at four o'clock to +go with him to the Blue to cut wood, he found him so, and the horse was +on its fore knees, trembling and whinnying with fear. This is the story +the Norwegians tell of him, and if it is true it is no wonder that they +feared and hated this Holder of the Heels of Horses. + +One spring there moved to the next "eighty" a family that made a great +change in Canute's life. Ole Yensen was too drunk most of the time to be +afraid of any one, and his wife Mary was too garrulous to be afraid of +any one who listened to her talk, and Lena, their pretty daughter, was +not afraid of man nor devil. So it came about that Canute went over to +take his alcohol with Ole oftener than he took it alone, After a while +the report spread that he was going to marry Yensen's daughter, and the +Norwegian girls began to tease Lena about the great bear she was going +to keep house for. No one could quite see how the affair had come about, +for Canute's tactics of courtship were somewhat peculiar. He apparently +never spoke to her at all: he would sit for hours with Mary chattering +on one side of him and Ole drinking on the other and watch Lena at her +work. She teased him, and threw flour in his face and put vinegar in +his coffee, but he took her rough jokes with silent wonder, never even +smiling. He took her to church occasionally, but the most watchful and +curious people never saw him speak to her. He would sit staring at her +while she giggled and flirted with the other men. + +Next spring Mary Lee went to town to work in a steam laundry. She came +home every Sunday, and always ran across to Yensens to startle Lena +with stories of ten cent theaters, firemen's dances, and all the other +esthetic delights of metropolitan life. In a few weeks Lena's head was +completely turned, and she gave her father no rest until he let her go +to town to seek her fortune at the ironing board. From the time she came +home on her first visit she began to treat Canute with contempt. She had +bought a plush cloak and kid gloves, had her clothes made by the dress +maker, and assumed airs and graces that made the other women of the +neighborhood cordially detest her. She generally brought with her a +young man from town who waxed his mustache and wore a red necktie, and +she did not even introduce him to Canute. + +The neighbors teased Canute a good deal until he knocked one of them +down. He gave no sign of suffering from her neglect except that he drank +more and avoided the other Norwegians more carefully than ever, He lay +around in his den and no one knew what he felt or thought, but little +Jim Peterson, who had seen him glowering at Lena in church one Sunday +when she was there with the town man, said that he would not give an +acre of his wheat for Lena's life or the town chap's either; and Jim's +wheat was so wondrously worthless that the statement was an exceedingly +strong one. + +Canute had bought a new suit of clothes that looked as nearly like the +town man as possible. They had cost him half a millet crop; for +tailors are not accustomed to fitting giants and they charge for it. He +had hung those clothes in his shanty two months ago and had never put +them on, partly from fear of ridicule, partly from discouragement, and +partly because there was something in his own soul that revolted at the +littleness of the device. + +Lena was at home just at this time. Work was slack in the laundry and +Mary had not been well, so Lena stayed at home, glad enough to get an +opportunity to torment Canute once more. + +She was washing in the side kitchen, singing loudly as she worked. Mary +was on her knees, blacking the stove and scolding violently about the +young man who was coming out from town that night. The young man had +committed the fatal error of laughing at Mary's ceaseless babble and had +never been forgiven. + +"He is no good, and you will come to a bad end by running with him! I do +not see why a daughter of mine should act so. I do not see why the Lord +should visit such a punishment upon me as to give me such a daughter. +There are plenty of good men you can marry." + +Lena tossed her head and answered curtly, "I don't happen to want to +marry any man right away, and so long as Dick dresses nice and has +plenty of money to spend, there is no harm in my going with him." + +"Money to spend? Yes, and that is all he does with it I'll be bound. You +think it very fine now, but you will change your tune when you have been +married five years and see your children running naked and your cupboard +empty. Did Anne Hermanson come to any good end by marrying a town man?" + +"I don't know anything about Anne Hermanson, but I know any of the +laundry girls would have Dick quick enough if they could get him." + +"Yes, and a nice lot of store clothes huzzies you are too. Now there is +Canuteson who has an 'eighty' proved up and fifty head of cattle and--" + +"And hair that ain't been cut since he was a baby, and a big dirty +beard, and he wears overalls on Sundays, and drinks like a pig. Besides +he will keep. I can have all the fun I want, and when I am old and ugly +like you he can have me and take care of me. The Lord knows there ain't +nobody else going to marry him." + +Canute drew his hand back from the latch as though it were red hot. He +was not the kind of man to make a good eavesdropper, and he wished he +had knocked sooner. He pulled himself together and struck the door like +a battering ram. Mary jumped and opened it with a screech. + +"God! Canute, how you scared us! I thought it was crazy Lou--he has been +tearing around the neighborhood trying to convert folks. I am afraid as +death of him. He ought to be sent off, I think. He is just as liable as +not to kill us all, or burn the barn, or poison the dogs. He has been +worrying even the poor minister to death, and he laid up with the +rheumatism, too! Did you notice that he was too sick to preach last +Sunday? But don't stand there in the cold, come in. Yensen isn't here, +but he just went over to Sorenson's for the mail; he won't be gone long. +Walk right in the other room and sit down." + +Canute followed her, looking steadily in front of him and not noticing +Lena as he passed her. But Lena's vanity would not allow him to pass +unmolested. She took the wet sheet she was wringing out and cracked him +across the face with it, and ran giggling to the other side of the room. +The blow stung his cheeks and the soapy water flew in his eyes, and +he involuntarily began rubbing them with his hands. Lena giggled with +delight at his discomfiture, and the wrath in Canute's face grew blacker +than ever. A big man humiliated is vastly more undignified than a little +one. He forgot the sting of his face in the bitter consciousness that +he had made a fool of himself He stumbled blindly into the living room, +knocking his head against the door jamb because he forgot to stoop. +He dropped into a chair behind the stove, thrusting his big feet back +helplessly on either side of him. + +Ole was a long time in coming, and Canute sat there, still and silent, +with his hands clenched on his knees, and the skin of his face seemed to +have shriveled up into little wrinkles that trembled when he lowered his +brows. His life had been one long lethargy of solitude and alcohol, +but now he was awakening, and it was as when the dumb stagnant heat of +summer breaks out into thunder. + +When Ole came staggering in, heavy with liquor, Canute rose at once. + +"Yensen," he said quietly, "I have come to see if you will let me marry +your daughter today." + +"Today!" gasped Ole. + +"Yes, I will not wait until tomorrow. I am tired of living alone." + +Ole braced his staggering knees against the bedstead, and stammered +eloquently: "Do you think I will marry my daughter to a drunkard? a man +who drinks raw alcohol? a man who sleeps with rattle snakes? Get out +of my house or I will kick you out for your impudence." And Ole began +looking anxiously for his feet. + +Canute answered not a word, but he put on his hat and went out into the +kitchen. He went up to Lena and said without looking at her, "Get your +things on and come with me!" + +The tones of his voice startled her, and she said angrily, dropping the +soap, "Are you drunk?" + +"If you do not come with me, I will take you--you had better come," said +Canute quietly. + +She lifted a sheet to strike him, but he caught her arm roughly and +wrenched the sheet from her. He turned to the wall and took down a hood +and shawl that hung there, and began wrapping her up. Lena scratched +and fought like a wild thing. Ole stood in the door, cursing, and Mary +howled and screeched at the top of her voice. As for Canute, he +lifted the girl in his arms and went out of the house. She kicked and +struggled, but the helpless wailing of Mary and Ole soon died away in +the distance, and her face was held down tightly on Canute's shoulder so +that she could not see whither he was taking her. She was conscious only +of the north wind whistling in her ears, and of rapid steady motion and +of a great breast that heaved beneath her in quick, irregular breaths. +The harder she struggled the tighter those iron arms that had held the +heels of horses crushed about her, until she felt as if they would crush +the breath from her, and lay still with fear. Canute was striding across +the level fields at a pace at which man never went before, drawing the +stinging north winds into his lungs in great gulps. He walked with his +eyes half closed and looking straight in front of him, only lowering +them when he bent his head to blow away the snow flakes that settled +on her hair. So it was that Canute took her to his home, even as his +bearded barbarian ancestors took the fair frivolous women of the South +in their hairy arms and bore them down to their war ships. For ever and +anon the soul becomes weary of the conventions that are not of it, and +with a single stroke shatters the civilized lies with which it is unable +to cope, and the strong arm reaches out and takes by force what it +cannot win by cunning. + +When Canute reached his shanty he placed the girl upon a chair, where +she sat sobbing. He stayed only a few minutes. He filled the stove +with wood and lit the lamp, drank a huge swallow of alcohol and put the +bottle in his pocket. He paused a moment, staring heavily at the weeping +girl, then he went off and locked the door and disappeared in the +gathering gloom of the night. + +Wrapped in flannels and soaked with turpentine, the little Norwegian +preacher sat reading his Bible, when he heard a thundering knock at his +door, and Canute entered, covered with snow and his beard frozen fast to +his coat. + +"Come in, Canute, you must be frozen," said the little man, shoving a +chair towards his visitor. + +Canute remained standing with his hat on and said quietly, "I want you +to come over to my house tonight to marry me to Lena Yensen." + +"Have you got a license, Canute?" + +"No, I don't want a license. I want to be married." + +"But I can't marry you without a license, man, it would not be legal." + +A dangerous light came in the big Norwegian's eye. "I want you to come +over to my house to marry me to Lena Yensen." + +"No, I can't, it would kill an ox to go out in a storm like this, and my +rheumatism is bad tonight." + +"Then if you will not go I must take you," said Canute with a sigh. + +He took down the preacher's bearskin coat and bade him put it on while +he hitched up his buggy. He went out and closed the door softly after +him. Presently he returned and found the frightened minister crouching +before the fire with his coat lying beside him. Canute helped him put it +on and gently wrapped his head in his big muffler. Then he picked him +up and carried him out and placed him in his buggy. As he tucked the +buffalo robes around him he said: "Your horse is old, he might flounder +or lose his way in this storm. I will lead him." + +The minister took the reins feebly in his hands and sat shivering with +the cold. Sometimes when there was a lull in the wind, he could see the +horse struggling through the snow with the man plodding steadily beside +him. Again the blowing snow would hide them from him altogether. He had +no idea where they were or what direction they were going. He felt as +though he were being whirled away in the heart of the storm, and he said +all the prayers he knew. But at last the long four miles were over, and +Canute set him down in the snow while he unlocked the door. He saw the +bride sitting by the fire with her eyes red and swollen as though +she had been weeping. Canute placed a huge chair for him, and said +roughly,-- + +"Warm yourself." + +Lena began to cry and moan afresh, begging the minister to take her +home. He looked helplessly at Canute. Canute said simply, + +"If you are warm now, you can marry us." + +"My daughter, do you take this step of your own free will?" asked the +minister in a trembling voice. + +"No, sir, I don't, and it is disgraceful he should force me into it! I +won't marry him." + +"Then, Canute, I cannot marry you," said the minister, standing as +straight as his rheumatic limbs would let him. + +"Are you ready to marry us now, sir?" said Canute, laying one iron hand +on his stooped shoulder. The little preacher was a good man, but like +most men of weak body he was a coward and had a horror of physical +suffering, although he had known so much of it. So with many qualms of +conscience he began to repeat the marriage service. Lena sat sullenly in +her chair, staring at the fire. Canute stood beside her, listening with +his head bent reverently and his hands folded on his breast. When the +little man had prayed and said amen, Canute began bundling him up again. + +"I will take you home, now," he said as he carried him out and placed +him in his buggy, and started off with him through the fury of the +storm, floundering among the snow drifts that brought even the giant +himself to his knees. + +After she was left alone, Lena soon ceased weeping. She was not of a +particularly sensitive temperament, and had little pride beyond that of +vanity. After the first bitter anger wore itself out, she felt nothing +more than a healthy sense of humiliation and defeat. She had no +inclination to run away, for she was married now, and in her eyes +that was final and all rebellion was useless. She knew nothing about +a license, but she knew that a preacher married folks. She consoled +herself by thinking that she had always intended to marry Canute +someday, anyway. + +She grew tired of crying and looking into the fire, so she got up and +began to look about her. She had heard queer tales about the inside of +Canute's shanty, and her curiosity soon got the better of her rage. +One of the first things she noticed was the new black suit of clothes +hanging on the wall. She was dull, but it did not take a vain woman long +to interpret anything so decidedly flattering, and she was pleased in +spite of herself. As she looked through the cupboard, the general air of +neglect and discomfort made her pity the man who lived there. + +"Poor fellow, no wonder he wants to get married to get somebody to wash +up his dishes. Batchin's pretty hard on a man." + +It is easy to pity when once one's vanity has been tickled. She looked +at the windowsill and gave a little shudder and wondered if the man were +crazy. Then she sat down again and sat a long time wondering what her +Dick and Ole would do. + +"It is queer Dick didn't come right over after me. He surely came, for +he would have left town before the storm began and he might just as +well come right on as go back. If he'd hurried he would have gotten here +before the preacher came. I suppose he was afraid to come, for he +knew Canuteson could pound him to jelly, the coward!" Her eyes flashed +angrily. + +The weary hours wore on and Lena began to grow horribly lonesome. It was +an uncanny night and this was an uncanny place to be in. She could +hear the coyotes howling hungrily a little way from the cabin, and more +terrible still were all the unknown noises of the storm. She remembered +the tales they told of the big log overhead and she was afraid of those +snaky things on the windowsills. She remembered the man who had been +killed in the draw, and she wondered what she would do if she saw crazy +Lou's white face glaring into the window. The rattling of the door +became unbearable, she thought the latch must be loose and took the +lamp to look at it. Then for the first time she saw the ugly brown snake +skins whose death rattle sounded every time the wind jarred the door. + +"Canute, Canute!" she screamed in terror. + +Outside the door she heard a heavy sound as of a big dog getting up and +shaking himself. The door opened and Canute stood before her, white as a +snow drift. + +"What is it?" he asked kindly. + +"I am cold," she faltered. + +He went out and got an armful of wood and a basket of cobs and filled +the stove. Then he went out and lay in the snow before the door. +Presently he heard her calling again. + +"What is it?" he said, sitting up. + +"I'm so lonesome, I'm afraid to stay in here all alone." + +"I will go over and get your mother." And he got up. + +"She won't come." + +"I'll bring her," said Canute grimly. + +"No, no. I don't want her, she will scold all the time." + +"Well, I will bring your father." + +She spoke again and it seemed as though her mouth was close up to the +key-hole. She spoke lower than he had ever heard her speak before, so +low that he had to put his ear up to the lock to hear her. + +"I don't want him either, Canute,--I'd rather have you." + +For a moment she heard no noise at all, then something like a groan. +With a cry of fear she opened the door, and saw Canute stretched in the +snow at her feet, his face in his hands, sobbing on the doorstep. + + + + + +Eric Hermannson's Soul + + +It was a great night at the Lone Star schoolhouse--a night when the +Spirit was present with power and when God was very near to man. So +it seemed to Asa Skinner, servant of God and Free Gospeller. The +schoolhouse was crowded with the saved and sanctified, robust men +and women, trembling and quailing before the power of some mysterious +psychic force. Here and there among this cowering, sweating multitude +crouched some poor wretch who had felt the pangs of an awakened +conscience, but had not yet experienced that complete divestment of +reason, that frenzy born of a convulsion of the mind, which, in the +parlance of the Free Gospellers, is termed "the Light." On the floor +before the mourners' bench lay the unconscious figure of a man in whom +outraged nature had sought her last resort. This "trance" state is the +highest evidence of grace among the Free Gospellers, and indicates a +close walking with God. + +Before the desk stood Asa Skinner, shouting of the mercy and vengeance +of God, and in his eyes shone a terrible earnestness, an almost +prophetic flame. Asa was a converted train gambler who used to run +between Omaha and Denver. He was a man made for the extremes of life; +from the most debauched of men he had become the most ascetic. His was a +bestial face, a face that bore the stamp of Nature's eternal injustice. +The forehead was low, projecting over the eyes, and the sandy hair was +plastered down over it and then brushed back at an abrupt right angle. +The chin was heavy, the nostrils were low and wide, and the lower lip +hung loosely except in his moments of spasmodic earnestness, when it +shut like a steel trap. Yet about those coarse features there were +deep, rugged furrows, the scars of many a hand-to-hand struggle with the +weakness of the flesh, and about that drooping lip were sharp, strenuous +lines that had conquered it and taught it to pray. Over those seamed +cheeks there was a certain pallor, a greyness caught from many a vigil. +It was as though, after Nature had done her worst with that face, some +fine chisel had gone over it, chastening and almost transfiguring it. +Tonight, as his muscles twitched with emotion, and the perspiration +dropped from his hair and chin, there was a certain convincing power +in the man. For Asa Skinner was a man possessed of a belief, of that +sentiment of the sublime before which all inequalities are leveled, that +transport of conviction which seems superior to all laws of condition, +under which debauchees have become martyrs; which made a tinker an +artist and a camel-driver the founder of an empire. This was with Asa +Skinner tonight, as he stood proclaiming the vengeance of God. + +It might have occurred to an impartial observer that Asa Skinner's God +was indeed a vengeful God if he could reserve vengeance for those of +his creatures who were packed into the Lone Star schoolhouse that night. +Poor exiles of all nations; men from the south and the north, peasants +from almost every country of Europe, most of them from the mountainous, +night-bound coast of Norway. Honest men for the most part, but men with +whom the world had dealt hardly; the failures of all countries, men +sobered by toil and saddened by exile, who had been driven to fight for +the dominion of an untoward soil, to sow where others should gather, the +advance guard of a mighty civilization to be. + +Never had Asa Skinner spoken more earnestly than now. He felt that +the Lord had this night a special work for him to do. Tonight Eric +Hermannson, the wildest lad on all the Divide, sat in his audience with +a fiddle on his knee, just as he had dropped in on his way to play for +some dance. The violin is an object of particular abhorrence to the Free +Gospellers. Their antagonism to the church organ is bitter enough, but +the fiddle they regard as a very incarnation of evil desires, singing +forever of worldly pleasures and inseparably associated with all +forbidden things. + +Eric Hermannson had long been the object of the prayers of the +revivalists. His mother had felt the power of the Spirit weeks ago, and +special prayer-meetings had been held at her house for her son. But +Eric had only gone his ways laughing, the ways of youth, which are short +enough at best, and none too flowery on the Divide. + +He slipped away from the prayer-meetings to meet the Campbell boys in +Genereau's saloon, or hug the plump little French girls at Chevalier's +dances, and sometimes, of a summer night, he even went across the dewy +cornfields and through the wild-plum thicket to play the fiddle for Lena +Hanson, whose name was a reproach through all the Divide country, where +the women are usually too plain and too busy and too tired to depart +from the ways of virtue. On such occasions Lena, attired in a pink +wrapper and silk stockings and tiny pink slippers, would sing to him, +accompanying herself on a battered guitar. It gave him a delicious sense +of freedom and experience to be with a woman who, no matter how, had +lived in big cities and knew the ways of town folk, who had never worked +in the fields and had kept her hands white and soft, her throat fair +and tender, who had heard great singers in Denver and Salt Lake, and who +knew the strange language of flattery and idleness and mirth. + +Yet, careless as he seemed, the frantic prayers of his mother were not +altogether without their effect upon Eric. For days he had been fleeing +before them as a criminal from his pursuers, and over his pleasures had +fallen the shadow of something dark and terrible that dogged his steps. +The harder he danced, the louder he sang, the more was he conscious that +this phantom was gaining upon him, that in time it would track him down. +One Sunday afternoon, late in the fall, when he had been drinking beer +with Lena Hanson and listening to a song which made his cheeks burn, a +rattlesnake had crawled out of the side of the sod house and thrust its +ugly head in under the screen door. He was not afraid of snakes, but he +knew enough of Gospellism to feel the significance of the reptile lying +coiled there upon her doorstep. His lips were cold when he kissed Lena +goodbye, and he went there no more. + +The final barrier between Eric and his mother's faith was his violin, +and to that he clung as a man sometimes will cling to his dearest sin, +to the weakness more precious to him than all his strength, In the great +world beauty comes to men in many guises, and art in a hundred forms, +but for Eric there was only his violin. + +It stood, to him, for all the manifestations of art; it was his only +bridge into the kingdom of the soul. + +It was to Eric Hermannson that the evangelist directed his impassioned +pleading that night. + +"_Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?_ Is there a Saul here tonight +who has stopped his ears to that gentle pleading, who has thrust a spear +into that bleeding side? Think of it, my brother; you are offered this +wonderful love and you prefer the worm that dieth not and the fire which +will not be quenched. What right have you to lose one of God's precious +souls? _Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?_" + +A great joy dawned in Asa Skinner's pale face, for he saw that Eric +Hermannson was swaying to and fro in his seat. The minister fell upon +his knees and threw his long arms up over his head. + +"O my brothers! I feel it coming, the blessing we have prayed for. I +tell you the Spirit is coming! just a little more prayer, brothers, a +little more zeal, and he will be here. I can feel his cooling wing upon +my brow. Glory be to God forever and ever, amen!" + +The whole congregation groaned under the pressure of this spiritual +panic. Shouts and hallelujahs went up from every lip. Another figure +fell prostrate upon the floor. From the mourners' bench rose a chant of +terror and rapture: + + + "Eating honey and drinking wine, + _Glory to the bleeding Lamb!_ + I am my Lord's and he is mine, + _Glory to the bleeding Lamb!"_ + + +The hymn was sung in a dozen dialects and voiced all the vague yearning +of these hungry lives, of these people who had starved all the passions +so long, only to fall victims to the barest of them all, fear. + +A groan of ultimate anguish rose from Eric Hermannson's bowed head, +and the sound was like the groan of a great tree when it falls in the +forest. + +The minister rose suddenly to his feet and threw back his head, crying +in a loud voice: + +"_Lazarus, come forth!_ Eric Hermannson, you are lost, going down at +sea. In the name of God, and Jesus Christ his Son, I throw you the life +line. Take hold! Almighty God, my soul for his!" The minister threw his +arms out and lifted his quivering face. + +Eric Hermannson rose to his feet; his lips were set and the lightning +was in his eyes. He took his violin by the neck and crushed it to +splinters across his knee, and to Asa Skinner the sound was like the +shackles of sin broken audibly asunder. + + + + II + +For more than two years Eric Hermannson kept the austere faith to which +he had sworn himself, kept it until a girl from the East came to spend +a week on the Nebraska Divide. She was a girl of other manners and +conditions, and there were greater distances between her life and Eric's +than all the miles which separated Rattlesnake Creek from New York City. +Indeed, she had no business to be in the West at all; but ah! across +what leagues of land and sea, by what improbable chances, do the +unrelenting gods bring to us our fate! + +It was in a year of financial depression that Wyllis Elliot came to +Nebraska to buy cheap land and revisit the country where he had spent +a year of his youth. When he had graduated from Harvard it was still +customary for moneyed gentlemen to send their scapegrace sons to rough +it on ranches in the wilds of Nebraska or Dakota, or to consign them to +a living death in the sagebrush of the Black Hills. These young men did +not always return to the ways of civilized life. But Wyllis Elliot had +not married a half-breed, nor been shot in a cowpunchers' brawl, nor +wrecked by bad whisky, nor appropriated by a smirched adventuress. He +had been saved from these things by a girl, his sister, who had been +very near to his life ever since the days when they read fairy tales +together and dreamed the dreams that never come true. On this, his +first visit to his father's ranch since he left it six years before, he +brought her with him. She had been laid up half the winter from a sprain +received while skating, and had had too much time for reflection during +those months. She was restless and filled with a desire to see something +of the wild country of which her brother had told her so much. She was +to be married the next winter, and Wyllis understood her when she +begged him to take her with him on this long, aimless jaunt across the +continent, to taste the last of their freedom together. It comes to all +women of her type--that desire to taste the unknown which allures and +terrifies, to run one's whole soul's length out to the wind--just once. + +It had been an eventful journey. Wyllis somehow understood that strain +of gypsy blood in his sister, and he knew where to take her. They had +slept in sod houses on the Platte River, made the acquaintance of the +personnel of a third-rate opera company on the train to Deadwood, dined +in a camp of railroad constructors at the world's end beyond New Castle, +gone through the Black Hills on horseback, fished for trout in Dome +Lake, watched a dance at Cripple Creek, where the lost souls who hide +in the hills gathered for their besotted revelry. And now, last of all, +before the return to thraldom, there was this little shack, anchored on +the windy crest of the Divide, a little black dot against the flaming +sunsets, a scented sea of cornland bathed in opalescent air and blinding +sunlight. + +Margaret Elliot was one of those women of whom there are so many in this +day, when old order, passing, giveth place to new; beautiful, talented, +critical, unsatisfied, tired of the world at twenty-four. For the moment +the life and people of the Divide interested her. She was there but a +week; perhaps had she stayed longer, that inexorable ennui which travels +faster even than the Vestibule Limited would have overtaken her. The +week she tarried there was the week that Eric Hermannson was helping +Jerry Lockhart thresh; a week earlier or a week later, and there would +have been no story to write. + +It was on Thursday and they were to leave on Saturday. Wyllis and his +sister were sitting on the wide piazza of the ranchhouse, staring out +into the afternoon sunlight and protesting against the gusts of hot wind +that blew up from the sandy riverbottom twenty miles to the southward. + +The young man pulled his cap lower over his eyes and remarked: + +"This wind is the real thing; you don't strike it anywhere else. You +remember we had a touch of it in Algiers and I told you it came from +Kansas. It's the keynote of this country." + +Wyllis touched her hand that lay on the hammock and continued gently: + +"I hope it's paid you, Sis. Roughing it's dangerous business; it takes +the taste out of things." + +She shut her fingers firmly over the brown hand that was so like her +own. + +"Paid? Why, Wyllis, I haven't been so happy since we were children and +were going to discover the ruins of Troy together some day. Do you know, +I believe I could just stay on here forever and let the world go on its +own gait. It seems as though the tension and strain we used to talk of +last winter were gone for good, as though one could never give one's +strength out to such petty things any more." + +Wyllis brushed the ashes of his pipe away from the silk handkerchief +that was knotted about his neck and stared moodily off at the skyline. + +"No, you're mistaken. This would bore you after a while. You can't shake +the fever of the other life. I've tried it. There was a time when the +gay fellows of Rome could trot down into the Thebaid and burrow into the +sandhills and get rid of it. But it's all too complex now. You see +we've made our dissipations so dainty and respectable that they've +gone further in than the flesh, and taken hold of the ego proper. You +couldn't rest, even here. The war cry would follow you." + +"You don't waste words, Wyllis, but you never miss fire. I talk more +than you do, without saying half so much. You must have learned the art +of silence from these taciturn Norwegians. I think I like silent men." + +"Naturally," said Wyllis, "since you have decided to marry the most +brilliant talker you know." + +Both were silent for a time, listening to the sighing of the hot wind +through the parched morning-glory vines. Margaret spoke first. + +"Tell me, Wyllis, were many of the Norwegians you used to know as +interesting as Eric Hermannson?" + +"Who, Siegfried? Well, no. He used to be the flower of the Norwegian +youth in my day, and he's rather an exception, even now. He has +retrograded, though. The bonds of the soil have tightened on him, I +fancy." + +"Siegfried? Come, that's rather good, Wyllis. He looks like a +dragon-slayer. What is it that makes him so different from the others? I +can talk to him; he seems quite like a human being." + + "Well," said Wyllis, meditatively, "I don't read Bourget +as much as my cultured sister, and I'm not so well up in analysis, but +I fancy it's because one keeps cherishing a perfectly unwarranted +suspicion that under that big, hulking anatomy of his, he may conceal a +soul somewhere. _Nicht wahr?_" + +"Something like that," said Margaret, thoughtfully, "except that it's +more than a suspicion, and it isn't groundless. He has one, and he makes +it known, somehow, without speaking." + +"I always have my doubts about loquacious souls," Wyllis remarked, with +the unbelieving smile that had grown habitual with him. + +Margaret went on, not heeding the interruption. "I knew it from the +first, when he told me about the suicide of his cousin, the Bernstein +boy. That kind of blunt pathos can't be summoned at will in anybody. The +earlier novelists rose to it, sometimes, unconsciously. But last night +when I sang for him I was doubly sure. Oh, I haven't told you about that +yet! Better light your pipe again. You see, he stumbled in on me in the +dark when I was pumping away at that old parlour organ to please Mrs. +Lockhart It's her household fetish and I've forgotten how many pounds of +butter she made and sold to buy it. Well, Eric stumbled in, and in some +inarticulate manner made me understand that he wanted me to sing for +him. I sang just the old things, of course. It's queer to sing familiar +things here at the world's end. It makes one think how the hearts of men +have carried them around the world, into the wastes of Iceland and the +jungles of Africa and the islands of the Pacific. I think if one lived +here long enough one would quite forget how to be trivial, and would +read only the great books that we never get time to read in the world, +and would remember only the great music, and the things that are really +worth while would stand out clearly against that horizon over there. And +of course I played the intermezzo from _Cavalleria Rusticana_ for him; +it goes rather better on an organ than most things do. He shuffled his +feet and twisted his big hands up into knots and blurted out that he +didn't know there was any music like that in the world. Why, there were +tears in his voice, Wyllis! Yes, like Rossetti, I _heard_ his tears. +Then it dawned upon me that it was probably the first good music he had +ever heard in all his life. Think of it, to care for music as he does +and never to hear it, never to know that it exists on earth! To long +for it as we long for other perfect experiences that never come. I +can't tell you what music means to that man. I never saw any one so +susceptible to it. It gave him speech, he became alive. When I had +finished the intermezzo, he began telling me about a little crippled +brother who died and whom he loved and used to carry everywhere in his +arms. He did not wait for encouragement. He took up the story and told +it slowly, as if to himself, just sort of rose up and told his own woe +to answer Mascagni's. It overcame me." + +"Poor devil," said Wyllis, looking at her with mysterious eyes, "and so +you've given him a new woe. Now he'll go on wanting Grieg and +Schubert the rest of his days and never getting them. That's a girl's +philanthropy for you!" + +Jerry Lockhart came out of the house screwing his chin over the unusual +luxury of a stiff white collar, which his wife insisted upon as a +necessary article of toilet while Miss Elliot was at the house. Jerry +sat down on the step and smiled his broad, red smile at Margaret. + +"Well, I've got the music for your dance, Miss Elliot. Olaf Oleson +will bring his accordion and Mollie will play the organ, when she isn't +lookin' after the grub, and a little chap from Frenchtown will bring his +fiddle--though the French don't mix with the Norwegians much." + +"Delightful! Mr. Lockhart, that dance will be the feature of our trip, +and it's so nice of you to get it up for us. We'll see the Norwegians in +character at last," cried Margaret, cordially. + +"See here, Lockhart, I'll settle with you for backing her in this +scheme," said Wyllis, sitting up and knocking the ashes out of his pipe. +"She's done crazy things enough on this trip, but to talk of dancing all +night with a gang of half-mad Norwegians and taking the carriage at four +to catch the six o'clock train out of Riverton--well, it's tommyrot, +that's what it is!" + +"Wyllis, I leave it to your sovereign power of reason to decide whether +it isn't easier to stay up all night than to get up at three in the +morning. To get up at three, think what that means! No, sir, I prefer to +keep my vigil and then get into a sleeper." + +"But what do you want with the Norwegians? I thought you were tired of +dancing." + +"So I am, with some people. But I want to see a Norwegian dance, and I +intend to. Come, Wyllis, you know how seldom it is that one really wants +to do anything nowadays. I wonder when I have really wanted to go to a +party before. It will be something to remember next month at Newport, +when we have to and don't want to. Remember your own theory that +contrast is about the only thing that makes life endurable. This is my +party and Mr. Lockhart's; your whole duty tomorrow night will consist in +being nice to the Norwegian girls. I'll warrant you were adept enough +at it once. And you'd better be very nice indeed, for if there are many +such young Valkyries as Eric's sister among them, they would simply tie +you up in a knot if they suspected you were guying them." + +Wyllis groaned and sank back into the hammock to consider his fate, +while his sister went on. + +"And the guests, Mr. Lockhart, did they accept?" + +Lockhart took out his knife and began sharpening it on the sole of his +plowshoe. + +"Well, I guess we'll have a couple dozen. You see it's pretty hard to +get a crowd together here any more. Most of 'em have gone over to the +Free Gospellers, and they'd rather put their feet in the fire than shake +'em to a fiddle." + +Margaret made a gesture of impatience. "Those Free Gospellers have just +cast an evil spell over this country, haven't they?" + +"Well," said Lockhart, cautiously, "I don't just like to pass judgment +on any Christian sect, but if you're to know the chosen by their works, +the Gospellers can't make a very proud showin', an' that's a fact. +They're responsible for a few suicides, and they've sent a good-sized +delegation to the state insane asylum, an' I don't see as they've made +the rest of us much better than we were before. I had a little herdboy +last spring, as square a little Dane as I want to work for me, but after +the Gospellers got hold of him and sanctified him, the little beggar +used to get down on his knees out on the prairie and pray by the hour +and let the cattle get into the corn, an' I had to fire him. That's +about the way it goes. Now there's Eric; that chap used to be a hustler +and the spryest dancer in all this section-called all the dances. Now +he's got no ambition and he's glum as a preacher. I don't suppose we can +even get him to come in tomorrow night." + +"Eric? Why, he must dance, we can't let him off," said Margaret, +quickly. "Why, I intend to dance with him myself." + +"I'm afraid he won't dance. I asked him this morning if he'd help us out +and he said, 'I don't dance now, any more,'" said Lockhart, imitating +the laboured English of the Norwegian. + +"'The Miller of Hofbau, the Miller of Hofbau, O my Princess!'" chirped +Wyllis, cheerfully, from his hammock. + +The red on his sister's cheek deepened a little, and she laughed +mischievously. "We'll see about that, sir. I'll not admit that I am +beaten until I have asked him myself." + +Every night Eric rode over to St. Anne, a little village in the heart +of the French settlement, for the mail. As the road lay through the most +attractive part of the Divide country, on several occasions Margaret +Elliot and her brother had accompanied him. Tonight Wyllis had business +with Lockhart, and Margaret rode with Eric, mounted on a frisky little +mustang that Mrs. Lockhart had broken to the sidesaddle. Margaret +regarded her escort very much as she did the servant who always +accompanied her on long rides at home, and the ride to the village was +a silent one. She was occupied with thoughts of another world, and Eric +was wrestling with more thoughts than had ever been crowded into his +head before. + +He rode with his eyes riveted on that slight figure before him, as +though he wished to absorb it through the optic nerves and hold it in +his brain forever. He understood the situation perfectly. His brain +worked slowly, but he had a keen sense of the values of things. This +girl represented an entirely new species of humanity to him, but he knew +where to place her. The prophets of old, when an angel first appeared +unto them, never doubted its high origin. + +Eric was patient under the adverse conditions of his life, but he +was not servile. The Norse blood in him had not entirely lost its +self-reliance. He came of a proud fisher line, men who were not afraid +of anything but the ice and the devil, and he had prospects before him +when his father went down off the North Cape in the long Arctic night, +and his mother, seized by a violent horror of seafaring life, had +followed her brother to America. Eric was eighteen then, handsome as +young Siegfried, a giant in stature, with a skin singularly pure and +delicate, like a Swede's; hair as yellow as the locks of Tennyson's +amorous Prince, and eyes of a fierce, burning blue, whose flash was most +dangerous to women. + +He had in those days a certain pride of bearing, a certain confidence of +approach, that usually accompanies physical perfection. It was even said +of him then that he was in love with life, and inclined to levity, a +vice most unusual on the Divide. But the sad history of those Norwegian +exiles, transplanted in an arid soil and under a scorching sun, had +repeated itself in his case. Toil and isolation had sobered him, and +he grew more and more like the clods among which he laboured. It was as +though some red-hot instrument had touched for a moment those delicate +fibers of the brain which respond to acute pain or pleasure, in which +lies the power of exquisite sensation, and had seared them quite away. +It is a painful thing to watch the light die out of the eyes of those +Norsemen, leaving an expression of impenetrable sadness, quite passive, +quite hopeless, a shadow that is never lifted. With some this change +comes almost at once, in the first bitterness of homesickness, with +others it comes more slowly, according to the time it takes each man's +heart to die. + +Oh, those poor Northmen of the Divide! They are dead many a year before +they are put to rest in the little graveyard on the windy hill where +exiles of all nations grow akin. + +The peculiar species of hypochondria to which the exiles of his people +sooner or later succumb had not developed in Eric until that night at +the Lone Star schoolhouse, when he had broken his violin across his +knee. After that, the gloom of his people settled down upon him, and the +gospel of maceration began its work. + +_"If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out,"_ et cetera. The pagan smile +that once hovered about his lips was gone, and he was one with sorrow. +Religion heals a hundred hearts for one that it embitters, but when it +destroys, its work is quick and deadly, and where the agony of the cross +has been, joy will not come again. This man understood things literally: +one must live without pleasure to die without fear; to save the soul, it +was necessary to starve the soul. + +The sun hung low above the cornfields when Margaret and her cavalier +left St. Anne. South of the town there is a stretch of road that runs +for some three miles through the French settlement, where the prairie +is as level as the surface of a lake. There the fields of flax and +wheat and rye are bordered by precise rows of slender, tapering Lombard +poplars. It was a yellow world that Margaret Elliot saw under the wide +light of the setting sun. + +The girl gathered up her reins and called back to Eric, "It will be safe +to run the horses here, won't it?" + +"Yes, I think so, now," he answered, touching his spur to his pony's +flank. They were off like the wind. It is an old saying in the West that +newcomers always ride a horse or two to death before they get broken +in to the country. They are tempted by the great open spaces and try to +outride the horizon, to get to the end of something. Margaret galloped +over the level road, and Eric, from behind, saw her long veil fluttering +in the wind. It had fluttered just so in his dreams last night and the +night before. With a sudden inspiration of courage he overtook her and +rode beside her, looking intently at her half-averted face. Before, he +had only stolen occasional glances at it, seen it in blinding flashes, +always with more or less embarrassment, but now he determined to let +every line of it sink into his memory. Men of the world would have said +that it was an unusual face, nervous, finely cut, with clear, elegant +lines that betokened ancestry. Men of letters would have called it a +historic face, and would have conjectured at what old passions, long +asleep, what old sorrows forgotten time out of mind, doing battle +together in ages gone, had curved those delicate nostrils, left their +unconscious memory in those eyes. But Eric read no meaning in these +details. To him this beauty was something more than colour and line; +it was a flash of white light, in which one cannot distinguish colour +because all colours are there. To him it was a complete revelation, an +embodiment of those dreams of impossible loveliness that linger by a +young man's pillow on midsummer nights; yet, because it held something +more than the attraction of health and youth and shapeliness, it +troubled him, and in its presence he felt as the Goths before the white +marbles in the Roman Capitol, not knowing whether they were men or gods. +At times he felt like uncovering his head before it, again the fury +seized him to break and despoil, to find the clay in this spirit-thing +and stamp upon it. Away from her, he longed to strike out with his arms, +and take and hold; it maddened him that this woman whom he could break +in his hands should be so much stronger than he. But near her, he never +questioned this strength; he admitted its potentiality as he admitted +the miracles of the Bible; it enervated and conquered him. + +Tonight, when he rode so close to her that he could have touched her, he +knew that he might as well reach out his hand to take a star. + +Margaret stirred uneasily under his gaze and turned questioningly in her +saddle. + +"This wind puts me a little out of breath when we ride fast," she said. + +Eric turned his eyes away. + +"I want to ask you if I go to New York to work, if I maybe hear music +like you sang last night? I been a purty good hand to work," he asked, +timidly. + +Margaret looked at him with surprise, and then, as she studied the +outline of his face, pityingly. + +"Well, you might--but you'd lose a good deal else. I shouldn't like you +to go to New York--and be poor, you'd be out of atmosphere, some +way," she said, slowly. Inwardly she was thinking: _There he would be +altogether sordid, impossible--a machine who would carry one's trunks +upstairs, perhaps. Here he is every inch a man, rather picturesque; why +is it?_ "No," she added aloud, "I shouldn't like that." + +"Then I not go," said Eric, decidedly. + +Margaret turned her face to hide a smile. She was a trifle amused and a +trifle annoyed. Suddenly she spoke again. + +"But I'll tell you what I do want you to do, Eric. I want you to dance +with us tomorrow night and teach me some of the Norwegian dances; they +say you know them all. Won't you?" + +Eric straightened himself in his saddle and his eyes flashed as they had +done in the Lone Star schoolhouse when he broke his violin across his +knee. + +"Yes, I will," he said, quietly, and he believed that he delivered his +soul to hell as he said it. + +They had reached the rougher country now, where the road wound through +a narrow cut in one of the bluffs along the creek, when a beat of hoofs +ahead and the sharp neighing of horses made the ponies start and Eric +rose in his stirrups. Then down the gulch in front of them and over the +steep clay banks thundered a herd of wild ponies, nimble as monkeys and +wild as rabbits, such as horse-traders drive east from the plains of +Montana to sell in the farming country. Margaret's pony made a shrill +sound, a neigh that was almost a scream, and started up the clay bank to +meet them, all the wild blood of the range breaking out in an instant. +Margaret called to Eric just as he threw himself out of the saddle and +caught her pony's bit. But the wiry little animal had gone mad and was +kicking and biting like a devil. Her wild brothers of the range were all +about her, neighing, and pawing the earth, and striking her with their +forefeet and snapping at her flanks. It was the old liberty of the range +that the little beast fought for. + +"Drop the reins and hold tight, tight!" Eric called, throwing all his +weight upon the bit, struggling under those frantic forefeet that now +beat at his breast, and now kicked at the wild mustangs that surged and +tossed about him. He succeeded in wrenching the pony's head toward him +and crowding her withers against the clay bank, so that she could not +roll. + +"Hold tight, tight!" he shouted again, launching a kick at a snorting +animal that reared back against Margaret's saddle. If she should lose +her courage and fall now, under those hoofs--He struck out again and +again, kicking right and left with all his might. Already the negligent +drivers had galloped into the cut, and their long quirts were whistling +over the heads of the herd. As suddenly as it had come, the struggling, +frantic wave of wild life swept up out of the gulch and on across the +open prairie, and with a long despairing whinny of farewell the pony +dropped her head and stood trembling in her sweat, shaking the foam and +blood from her bit. + +Eric stepped close to Margaret's side and laid his hand on her saddle. +"You are not hurt?" he asked, hoarsely. As he raised his face in the +soft starlight she saw that it was white and drawn and that his lips +were working nervously. + +"No, no, not at all. But you, you are suffering; they struck you!" she +cried in sharp alarm. + +He stepped back and drew his hand across his brow. + +"No, it is not that," he spoke rapidly now, with his hands clenched at +his side. "But if they had hurt you, I would beat their brains out with +my hands. I would kill them all. I was never afraid before. You are the +only beautiful thing that has ever come close to me. You came like an +angel out of the sky. You are like the music you sing, you are like the +stars and the snow on the mountains where I played when I was a little +boy. You are like all that I wanted once and never had, you are all +that they have killed in me. I die for you tonight, tomorrow, for all +eternity. I am not a coward; I was afraid because I love you more than +Christ who died for me, more than I am afraid of hell, or hope for +heaven. I was never afraid before. If you had fallen--oh, my God!" He +threw his arms out blindly and dropped his head upon the pony's mane, +leaning limply against the animal like a man struck by some sickness. +His shoulders rose and fell perceptibly with his laboured breathing. The +horse stood cowed with exhaustion and fear. Presently Margaret laid her +hand on Eric's head and said gently: + +"You are better now, shall we go on? Can you get your horse?" + +"No, he has gone with the herd. I will lead yours, she is not safe. +I will not frighten you again." His voice was still husky, but it was +steady now. He took hold of the bit and tramped home in silence. + +When they reached the house, Eric stood stolidly by the pony's head +until Wyllis came to lift his sister from the saddle. + +"The horses were badly frightened, Wyllis. I think I was pretty +thoroughly scared myself," she said as she took her brother's arm and +went slowly up the hill toward the house. "No, I'm not hurt, thanks to +Eric. You must thank him for taking such good care of me. He's a mighty +fine fellow. I'll tell you all about it in the morning, dear. I was +pretty well shaken up and I'm going right to bed now. Good night." + +When she reached the low room in which she slept, she sank upon the bed +in her riding dress, face downward. + +"Oh, I pity him! I pity him!" she murmured, with a long sigh of +exhaustion. She must have slept a little. When she rose again, she took +from her dress a letter that had been waiting for her at the village +post-office. It was closely written in a long, angular hand, covering a +dozen pages of foreign note-paper, and began: + +My Dearest Margaret: if I should attempt to say _how like a winter hath +thine absence been_, I should incur the risk of being tedious. Really, +it takes the sparkle out of everything. Having nothing better to do, and +not caring to go anywhere in particular without you, I remained in the +city until Jack Courtwell noted my general despondency and brought me +down here to his place on the sound to manage some open-air theatricals +he is getting up. _As You Like It_ is of course the piece selected. Miss +Harrison plays Rosalind. I wish you had been here to take the part. Miss +Harrison reads her lines well, but she is either a maiden-all-forlorn or +a tomboy; insists on reading into the part all sorts of deeper meanings +and highly coloured suggestions wholly out of harmony with the pastoral +setting. Like most of the professionals, she exaggerates the emotional +element and quite fails to do justice to Rosalind's facile wit and +really brilliant mental qualities. Gerard will do Orlando, but rumor +says he is _epris_ of your sometime friend, Miss Meredith, and his +memory is treacherous and his interest fitful. + +My new pictures arrived last week on the _Gascogne_. The Puvis de +Chavannes is even more beautiful than I thought it in Paris. A pale +dream-maiden sits by a pale dream-cow and a stream of anemic water flows +at her feet. The Constant, you will remember, I got because you admired +it. It is here in all its florid splendour, the whole dominated by a +glowing sensuosity. The drapery of the female figure is as wonderful as +you said; the fabric all barbaric pearl and gold, painted with an easy, +effortless voluptuousness, and that white, gleaming line of African +coast in the background recalls memories of you very precious to me. But +it is useless to deny that Constant irritates me. Though I cannot prove +the charge against him, his brilliancy always makes me suspect him of +cheapness. + +Here Margaret stopped and glanced at the remaining pages of this strange +love-letter. They seemed to be filled chiefly with discussions of +pictures and books, and with a slow smile she laid them by. + +She rose and began undressing. Before she lay down she went to open the +window. With her hand on the sill, she hesitated, feeling suddenly as +though some danger were lurking outside, some inordinate desire waiting +to spring upon her in the darkness. She stood there for a long time, +gazing at the infinite sweep of the sky. + +"Oh, it is all so little, so little there," she murmured. "When +everything else is so dwarfed, why should one expect love to be great? +Why should one try to read highly coloured suggestions into a life like +that? If only I could find one thing in it all that mattered greatly, +one thing that would warm me when I am alone! Will life never give me +that one great moment?" + +As she raised the window, she heard a sound in the plum bushes outside. +It was only the house-dog roused from his sleep, but Margaret started +violently and trembled so that she caught the foot of the bed for +support. Again she felt herself pursued by some overwhelming longing, +some desperate necessity for herself, like the outstretching of +helpless, unseen arms in the darkness, and the air seemed heavy with +sighs of yearning. She fled to her bed with the words, "I love you more +than Christ who died for me!" ringing in her ears. + + + III + +About midnight the dance at Lockhart's was at its height. Even the old +men who had come to "look on" caught the spirit of revelry and stamped +the floor with the vigor of old Silenus. Eric took the violin from the +Frenchmen, and Minna Oleson sat at the organ, and the music grew more +and more characteristic--rude, half mournful music, made up of the +folksongs of the North, that the villagers sing through the long night +in hamlets by the sea, when they are thinking of the sun, and the +spring, and the fishermen so long away. To Margaret some of it sounded +like Grieg's _Peer Gynt_ music. She found something irresistibly +infectious in the mirth of these people who were so seldom merry, and +she felt almost one of them. Something seemed struggling for freedom +in them tonight, something of the joyous childhood of the nations +which exile had not killed. The girls were all boisterous with delight. +Pleasure came to them but rarely, and when it came, they caught at it +wildly and crushed its fluttering wings in their strong brown fingers. +They had a hard life enough, most of them. Torrid summers and freezing +winters, labour and drudgery and ignorance, were the portion of +their girlhood; a short wooing, a hasty, loveless marriage, unlimited +maternity, thankless sons, premature age and ugliness, were the dower +of their womanhood. But what matter? Tonight there was hot liquor in the +glass and hot blood in the heart; tonight they danced. + +Tonight Eric Hermannson had renewed his youth. He was no longer the big, +silent Norwegian who had sat at Margaret's feet and looked hopelessly +into her eyes. Tonight he was a man, with a man's rights and a man's +power. Tonight he was Siegfried indeed. His hair was yellow as the heavy +wheat in the ripe of summer, and his eyes flashed like the blue water +between the ice packs in the north seas. He was not afraid of Margaret +tonight, and when he danced with her he held her firmly. She was tired +and dragged on his arm a little, but the strength of the man was like +an all-pervading fluid, stealing through her veins, awakening under her +heart some nameless, unsuspected existence that had slumbered there all +these years and that went out through her throbbing fingertips to his +that answered. She wondered if the hoydenish blood of some lawless +ancestor, long asleep, were calling out in her tonight, some drop of +a hotter fluid that the centuries had failed to cool, and why, if this +curse were in her, it had not spoken before. But was it a curse, this +awakening, this wealth before undiscovered, this music set free? For the +first time in her life her heart held something stronger than herself, +was not this worthwhile? Then she ceased to wonder. She lost sight of +the lights and the faces and the music was drowned by the beating of her +own arteries. She saw only the blue eyes that flashed above her, felt +only the warmth of that throbbing hand which held hers and which the +blood of his heart fed. Dimly, as in a dream, she saw the drooping +shoulders, high white forehead and tight, cynical mouth of the man she +was to marry in December. For an hour she had been crowding back the +memory of that face with all her strength. + +"Let us stop, this is enough," she whispered. His only answer was to +tighten the arm behind her. She sighed and let that masterful strength +bear her where it would. She forgot that this man was little more than +a savage, that they would part at dawn. The blood has no memories, no +reflections, no regrets for the past, no consideration of the future. + +"Let us go out where it is cooler," she said when the music stopped; +thinking, _I am growing faint here, I shall be all right in the open +air_. They stepped out into the cool, blue air of the night. + +Since the older folk had begun dancing, the young Norwegians had been +slipping out in couples to climb the windmill tower into the cooler +atmosphere, as is their custom. + +"You like to go up?" asked Eric, close to her ear. + +She turned and looked at him with suppressed amusement. "How high is +it?" + +"Forty feet, about. I not let you fall." There was a note of +irresistible pleading in his voice, and she felt that he tremendously +wished her to go. Well, why not? This was a night of the unusual, when +she was not herself at all, but was living an unreality. Tomorrow, yes, +in a few hours, there would be the Vestibule Limited and the world. + +"Well, if you'll take good care of me. I used to be able to climb, when +I was a little girl." + +Once at the top and seated on the platform, they were silent. Margaret +wondered if she would not hunger for that scene all her life, through +all the routine of the days to come. Above them stretched the great +Western sky, serenely blue, even in the night, with its big, burning +stars, never so cold and dead and far away as in denser atmospheres. The +moon would not be up for twenty minutes yet, and all about the horizon, +that wide horizon, which seemed to reach around the world, lingered a +pale white light, as of a universal dawn. The weary wind brought up to +them the heavy odours of the cornfields. The music of the dance sounded +faintly from below. Eric leaned on his elbow beside her, his legs +swinging down on the ladder. His great shoulders looked more than ever +like those of the stone Doryphorus, who stands in his perfect, reposeful +strength in the Louvre, and had often made her wonder if such men died +forever with the youth of Greece. + +"How sweet the corn smells at night," said Margaret nervously. + +"Yes, like the flowers that grow in paradise, I think." + +She was somewhat startled by this reply, and more startled when this +taciturn man spoke again. + +"You go away tomorrow?" + +"Yes, we have stayed longer than we thought to now." + +"You not come back any more?" + +"No, I expect not. You see, it is a long trip halfway across the +continent." + +"You soon forget about this country, I guess." It seemed to him now +a little thing to lose his soul for this woman, but that she should +utterly forget this night into which he threw all his life and all his +eternity, that was a bitter thought. + +"No, Eric, I will not forget. You have all been too kind to me for that. +And you won't be sorry you danced this one night, will you?" + +"I never be sorry. I have not been so happy before. I not be so happy +again, ever. You will be happy many nights yet, I only this one. I will +dream sometimes, maybe." + +The mighty resignation of his tone alarmed and touched her. It was as +when some great animal composes itself for death, as when a great ship +goes down at sea. + +She sighed, but did not answer him. He drew a little closer and looked +into her eyes. + +"You are not always happy, too?" he asked. + +"No, not always, Eric; not very often, I think." + +"You have a trouble?" + +"Yes, but I cannot put it into words. Perhaps if I could do that, I +could cure it." + +He clasped his hands together over his heart, as children do when they +pray, and said falteringly, "If I own all the world, I give him you." + +Margaret felt a sudden moisture in her eyes, and laid her hand on his. + +"Thank you, Eric; I believe you would. But perhaps even then I should +not be happy. Perhaps I have too much of it already." + +She did not take her hand away from him; she did not dare. She sat still +and waited for the traditions in which she had always believed to speak +and save her. But they were dumb. She belonged to an ultra-refined +civilization which tries to cheat nature with elegant sophistries. Cheat +nature? Bah! One generation may do it, perhaps two, but the third--Can +we ever rise above nature or sink below her? Did she not turn on +Jerusalem as upon Sodom, upon St. Anthony in his desert as upon Nero +in his seraglio? Does she not always cry in brutal triumph: "I am here +still, at the bottom of things, warming the roots of life; you cannot +starve me nor tame me nor thwart me; I made the world, I rule it, and I +am its destiny." + +This woman, on a windmill tower at the world's end with a giant +barbarian, heard that cry tonight, and she was afraid! Ah! the terror +and the delight of that moment when first we fear ourselves! Until then +we have not lived. + +"Come, Eric, let us go down; the moon is up and the music has begun +again," she said. + +He rose silently and stepped down upon the ladder, putting his arm about +her to help her. That arm could have thrown Thor's hammer out in the +cornfields yonder, yet it scarcely touched her, and his hand trembled +as it had done in the dance. His face was level with hers now and the +moonlight fell sharply upon it. All her life she had searched the faces +of men for the look that lay in his eyes. She knew that that look had +never shone for her before, would never shine for her on earth again, +that such love comes to one only in dreams or in impossible places like +this, unattainable always. This was Love's self, in a moment it would +die. Stung by the agonized appeal that emanated from the man's whole +being, she leaned forward and laid her lips on his. Once, twice and +again she heard the deep respirations rattle in his throat while +she held them there, and the riotous force under her head became +an engulfing weakness. He drew her up to him until he felt all the +resistance go out of her body, until every nerve relaxed and yielded. +When she drew her face back from his, it was white with fear. + +"Let us go down, oh, my God! let us go down!" she muttered. And the +drunken stars up yonder seemed reeling to some appointed doom as she +clung to the rounds of the ladder. All that she was to know of love she +had left upon his lips. + +"The devil is loose again," whispered Olaf Oleson, as he saw Eric +dancing a moment later, his eyes blazing. + +But Eric was thinking with an almost savage exultation of the time when +he should pay for this. Ah, there would be no quailing then! if ever a +soul went fearlessly, proudly down to the gates infernal, his should go. +For a moment he fancied he was there already, treading down the tempest +of flame, hugging the fiery hurricane to his breast. He wondered whether +in ages gone, all the countless years of sinning in which men had sold +and lost and flung their souls away, any man had ever so cheated Satan, +had ever bartered his soul for so great a price. + +It seemed but a little while till dawn. + +The carriage was brought to the door and Wyllis Elliot and his sister +said goodbye. She could not meet Eric's eyes as she gave him her hand, +but as he stood by the horse's head, just as the carriage moved off, she +gave him one swift glance that said, "I will not forget." In a moment +the carriage was gone. + +Eric changed his coat and plunged his head into the water tank and went +to the barn to hook up his team. As he led his horses to the door, a +shadow fell across his path, and he saw Skinner rising in his stirrups. +His rugged face was pale and worn with looking after his wayward flock, +with dragging men into the way of salvation. + +"Good morning, Eric. There was a dance here last night?" he asked, +sternly. + +"A dance? Oh, yes, a dance," replied Eric, cheerfully. + +"Certainly you did not dance, Eric?" + +"Yes, I danced. I danced all the time." + +The minister's shoulders drooped, and an expression of profound +discouragement settled over his haggard face. There was almost anguish +in the yearning he felt for this soul. + +"Eric, I didn't look for this from you. I thought God had set his mark +on you if he ever had on any man. And it is for things like this that +you set your soul back a thousand years from God. O foolish and perverse +generation!" + +Eric drew himself up to his full height and looked off to where the new +day was gilding the corn-tassels and flooding the uplands with light. +As his nostrils drew in the breath of the dew and the morning, something +from the only poetry he had ever read flashed across his mind, and he +murmured, half to himself, with dreamy exultation: + +"'And a day shall be as a thousand years, and a thousand years as a +day.'" + + + + +The Enchanted Bluff + +We had our swim before sundown, and while we were cooking our supper the +oblique rays of light made a dazzling glare on the white sand about +us. The translucent red ball itself sank behind the brown stretches +of cornfield as we sat down to eat, and the warm layer of air that had +rested over the water and our clean sand bar grew fresher and smelled of +the rank ironweed and sunflowers growing on the flatter shore. The river +was brown and sluggish, like any other of the half-dozen streams that +water the Nebraska corn lands. On one shore was an irregular line of +bald clay bluffs where a few scrub oaks with thick trunks and flat, +twisted tops threw light shadows on the long grass. The western shore +was low and level, with cornfields that stretched to the skyline, and +all along the water's edge were little sandy coves and beaches where +slim cottonwoods and willow saplings flickered. + +The turbulence of the river in springtime discouraged milling, and, +beyond keeping the old red bridge in repair, the busy farmers did not +concern themselves with the stream; so the Sandtown boys were left in +undisputed possession. In the autumn we hunted quail through the miles +of stubble and fodder land along the flat shore, and, after the winter +skating season was over and the ice had gone out, the spring freshets +and flooded bottoms gave us our great excitement of the year. The +channel was never the same for two successive seasons. Every spring the +swollen stream undermined a bluff to the east, or bit out a few acres of +cornfield to the west and whirled the soil away, to deposit it in spumy +mud banks somewhere else. When the water fell low in midsummer, new sand +bars were thus exposed to dry and whiten in the August sun. Sometimes +these were banked so firmly that the fury of the next freshet failed to +unseat them; the little willow seedlings emerged triumphantly from the +yellow froth, broke into spring leaf, shot up into summer growth, and +with their mesh of roots bound together the moist sand beneath them +against the batterings of another April. Here and there a cottonwood +soon glittered among them, quivering in the low current of air that, +even on breathless days when the dust hung like smoke above the wagon +road, trembled along the face of the water. + +It was on such an island, in the third summer of its yellow green, that +we built our watch fire; not in the thicket of dancing willow wands, but +on the level terrace of fine sand which had been added that spring; +a little new bit of world, beautifully ridged with ripple marks, and +strewn with the tiny skeletons of turtles and fish, all as white and dry +as if they had been expertly cured. We had been careful not to mar the +freshness of the place, although we often swam to it on summer evenings +and lay on the sand to rest. + +This was our last watch fire of the year, and there were reasons why I +should remember it better than any of the others. Next week the other +boys were to file back to their old places in the Sandtown High School, +but I was to go up to the Divide to teach my first country school in the +Norwegian district. I was already homesick at the thought of quitting +the boys with whom I had always played; of leaving the river, and going +up into a windy plain that was all windmills and cornfields and +big pastures; where there was nothing wilful or unmanageable in the +landscape, no new islands, and no chance of unfamiliar birds--such as +often followed the watercourses. + +Other boys came and went and used the river for fishing or skating, +but we six were sworn to the spirit of the stream, and we were friends +mainly because of the river. There were the two Hassler boys, Fritz and +Otto, sons of the little German tailor. They were the youngest of us; +ragged boys of ten and twelve, with sunburned hair, weather-stained +faces, and pale blue eyes. Otto, the elder, was the best mathematician +in school, and clever at his books, but he always dropped out in the +spring term as if the river could not get on without him. He and Fritz +caught the fat, horned catfish and sold them about the town, and they +lived so much in the water that they were as brown and sandy as the +river itself. + +There was Percy Pound, a fat, freckled boy with chubby cheeks, who took +half a dozen boys' story-papers and was always being kept in for reading +detective stories behind his desk. There was Tip Smith, destined by +his freckles and red hair to be the buffoon in all our games, though he +walked like a timid little old man and had a funny, cracked laugh. Tip +worked hard in his father's grocery store every afternoon, and swept it +out before school in the morning. Even his recreations were laborious. +He collected cigarette cards and tin tobacco-tags indefatigably, and +would sit for hours humped up over a snarling little scroll-saw which he +kept in his attic. His dearest possessions were some little pill bottles +that purported to contain grains of wheat from the Holy Land, water from +the Jordan and the Dead Sea, and earth from the Mount of Olives. His +father had bought these dull things from a Baptist missionary who +peddled them, and Tip seemed to derive great satisfaction from their +remote origin. + +The tall boy was Arthur Adams. He had fine hazel eyes that were almost +too reflective and sympathetic for a boy, and such a pleasant voice that +we all loved to hear him read aloud. Even when he had to read poetry +aloud at school, no one ever thought of laughing. To be sure, he was +not at school very much of the time. He was seventeen and should +have finished the High School the year before, but he was always off +somewhere with his gun. Arthur's mother was dead, and his father, who +was feverishly absorbed in promoting schemes, wanted to send the boy +away to school and get him off his hands; but Arthur always begged off +for another year and promised to study. I remember him as a tall, brown +boy with an intelligent face, always lounging among a lot of us little +fellows, laughing at us oftener than with us, but such a soft, satisfied +laugh that we felt rather flattered when we provoked it. In after-years +people said that Arthur had been given to evil ways as a lad, and it is +true that we often saw him with the gambler's sons and with old Spanish +Fanny's boy, but if he learned anything ugly in their company he never +betrayed it to us. We would have followed Arthur anywhere, and I am +bound to say that he led us into no worse places than the cattail +marshes and the stubble fields. These, then, were the boys who camped +with me that summer night upon the sand bar. + +After we finished our supper we beat the willow thicket for driftwood. +By the time we had collected enough, night had fallen, and the pungent, +weedy smell from the shore increased with the coolness. We threw +ourselves down about the fire and made another futile effort to show +Percy Pound the Little Dipper. We had tried it often before, but he +could never be got past the big one. + +"You see those three big stars just below the handle, with the bright +one in the middle?" said Otto Hassler; "that's Orion's belt, and the +bright one is the clasp." I crawled behind Otto's shoulder and sighted +up his arm to the star that seemed perched upon the tip of his steady +forefinger. The Hassler boys did seine-fishing at night, and they knew a +good many stars. + +Percy gave up the Little Dipper and lay back on the sand, his hands +clasped under his head. "I can see the North Star," he announced, +contentedly, pointing toward it with his big toe. "Anyone might get lost +and need to know that." + +We all looked up at it. + +"How do you suppose Columbus felt when his compass didn't point north +any more?" Tip asked. + +Otto shook his head. "My father says that there was another North Star +once, and that maybe this one won't last always. I wonder what would +happen to us down here if anything went wrong with it?" + +Arthur chuckled. "I wouldn't worry, Ott. Nothing's apt to happen to it +in your time. Look at the Milky Way! There must be lots of good dead +Indians." + +We lay back and looked, meditating, at the dark cover of the world. The +gurgle of the water had become heavier. We had often noticed a mutinous, +complaining note in it at night, quite different from its cheerful +daytime chuckle, and seeming like the voice of a much deeper and more +powerful stream. Our water had always these two moods: the one of sunny +complaisance, the other of inconsolable, passionate regret. + +"Queer how the stars are all in sort of diagrams," remarked Otto. "You +could do most any proposition in geometry with 'em. They always look +as if they meant something. Some folks say everybody's fortune is all +written out in the stars, don't they?" + +"They believe so in the old country," Fritz affirmed. + +But Arthur only laughed at him. "You're thinking of Napoleon, Fritzey. +He had a star that went out when he began to lose battles. I guess the +stars don't keep any close tally on Sandtown folks." + +We were speculating on how many times we could count a hundred before +the evening star went down behind the cornfields, when someone cried, +"There comes the moon, and it's as big as a cart wheel!" + +We all jumped up to greet it as it swam over the bluffs behind us. It +came up like a galleon in full sail; an enormous, barbaric thing, red as +an angry heathen god. + +"When the moon came up red like that, the Aztecs used to sacrifice their +prisoners on the temple top," Percy announced. + +"Go on, Perce. You got that out of _Golden Days_. Do you believe that, +Arthur?" I appealed. + +Arthur answered, quite seriously: "Like as not. The moon was one of +their gods. When my father was in Mexico City he saw the stone where +they used to sacrifice their prisoners." + +As we dropped down by the fire again some one asked whether the +Mound-Builders were older than the Aztecs. When we once got upon the +Mound-Builders we never willingly got away from them, and we were still +conjecturing when we heard a loud splash in the water. + +"Must have been a big cat jumping," said Fritz. "They do sometimes. They +must see bugs in the dark. Look what a track the moon makes!" + +There was a long, silvery streak on the water, and where the current +fretted over a big log it boiled up like gold pieces. + +"Suppose there ever _was_ any gold hid away in this old river?" Fritz +asked. He lay like a little brown Indian, close to the fire, his chin on +his hand and his bare feet in the air. His brother laughed at him, but +Arthur took his suggestion seriously. + +"Some of the Spaniards thought there was gold up here somewhere. Seven +cities chuck full of gold, they had it, and Coronado and his men came up +to hunt it. The Spaniards were all over this country once." + +Percy looked interested. "Was that before the Mormons went through?" + +We all laughed at this. + +"Long enough before. Before the Pilgrim Fathers, Perce. Maybe they came +along this very river. They always followed the watercourses." + +"I wonder where this river really does begin?" Tip mused. That was an +old and a favorite mystery which the map did not clearly explain. On the +map the little black line stopped somewhere in western Kansas; but since +rivers generally rose in mountains, it was only reasonable to suppose +that ours came from the Rockies. Its destination, we knew, was the +Missouri, and the Hassler boys always maintained that we could embark +at Sandtown in floodtime, follow our noses, and eventually arrive at +New Orleans. Now they took up their old argument. "If us boys had grit +enough to try it, it wouldn't take no time to get to Kansas City and St. +Joe." + +We began to talk about the places we wanted to go to. The Hassler boys +wanted to see the stockyards in Kansas City, and Percy wanted to see +a big store in Chicago. Arthur was interlocutor and did not betray +himself. + +"Now it's your turn, Tip." + +Tip rolled over on his elbow and poked the fire, and his eyes looked +shyly out of his queer, tight little face. "My place is awful far away. +My Uncle Bill told me about it." + +Tip's Uncle Bill was a wanderer, bitten with mining fever, who had +drifted into Sandtown with a broken arm, and when it was well had +drifted out again. + +"Where is it?" + +"Aw, it's down in New Mexico somewheres. There aren't no railroads or +anything. You have to go on mules, and you run out of water before you +get there and have to drink canned tomatoes." + +"Well, go on, kid. What's it like when you do get there?" + +Tip sat up and excitedly began his story. + +"There's a big red rock there that goes right up out of the sand for +about nine hundred feet. The country's flat all around it, and this here +rock goes up all by itself, like a monument. They call it the Enchanted +Bluff down there, because no white man has ever been on top of it. The +sides are smooth rock, and straight up, like a wall. The Indians say +that hundreds of years ago, before the Spaniards came, there was a +village away up there in the air. The tribe that lived there had some +sort of steps, made out of wood and bark, bung down over the face of the +bluff, and the braves went down to hunt and carried water up in big jars +swung on their backs. They kept a big supply of water and dried meat up +there, and never went down except to hunt. They were a peaceful tribe +that made cloth and pottery, and they went up there to get out of the +wars. You see, they could pick off any war party that tried to get up +their little steps. The Indians say they were a handsome people, and +they had some sort of queer religion. Uncle Bill thinks they were +Cliff-Dwellers who had got into trouble and left home. They weren't +fighters, anyhow. + +"One time the braves were down hunting and an awful storm came up--a +kind of waterspout--and when they got back to their rock they found +their little staircase had been all broken to pieces, and only a few +steps were left hanging away up in the air. While they were camped at +the foot of the rock, wondering what to do, a war party from the north +came along and massacred 'em to a man, with all the old folks and women +looking on from the rock. Then the war party went on south and left the +village to get down the best way they could. Of course they never got +down. They starved to death up there, and when the war party came back +on their way north, they could hear the children crying from the edge +of the bluff where they had crawled out, but they didn't see a sign of a +grown Indian, and nobody has ever been up there since." + +We exclaimed at this dolorous legend and sat up. + +"There couldn't have been many people up there," Percy demurred. "How +big is the top, Tip?" + +"Oh, pretty big. Big enough so that the rock doesn't look nearly as tall +as it is. The top's bigger than the base. The bluff is sort of worn away +for several hundred feet up. That's one reason it's so hard to climb." + +I asked how the Indians got up, in the first place. + +"Nobody knows how they got up or when. A hunting party came along once +and saw that there was a town up there, and that was all." + +Otto rubbed his chin and looked thoughtful. "Of course there must be +some way to get up there. Couldn't people get a rope over someway and +pull a ladder up?" + +Tip's little eyes were shining with excitement. "I know a way. Me and +Uncle Bill talked it over. There's a kind of rocket that would take a +rope over--lifesavers use 'em--and then you could hoist a rope ladder +and peg it down at the bottom and make it tight with guy ropes on the +other side. I'm going to climb that there bluff, and I've got it all +planned out." + +Fritz asked what he expected to find when he got up there. + +"Bones, maybe, or the ruins of their town, or pottery, or some of their +idols. There might be 'most anything up there. Anyhow, I want to see." + +"Sure nobody else has been up there, Tip?" Arthur asked. + +"Dead sure. Hardly anybody ever goes down there. Some hunters tried to +cut steps in the rock once, but they didn't get higher than a man can +reach. The Bluff's all red granite, and Uncle Bill thinks it's a boulder +the glaciers left. It's a queer place, anyhow. Nothing but cactus and +desert for hundreds of miles, and yet right under the Bluff there's good +water and plenty of grass. That's why the bison used to go down there." + +Suddenly we heard a scream above our fire, and jumped up to see a dark, +slim bird floating southward far above us--a whooping crane, we knew by +her cry and her long neck. We ran to the edge of the island, hoping we +might see her alight, but she wavered southward along the rivercourse +until we lost her. The Hassler boys declared that by the look of the +heavens it must be after midnight, so we threw more wood on our fire, +put on our jackets, and curled down in the warm sand. Several of us +pretended to doze, but I fancy we were really thinking about Tip's Bluff +and the extinct people. Over in the wood the ring doves were calling +mournfully to one another, and once we heard a dog bark, far away. +"Somebody getting into old Tommy's melon patch," Fritz murmured +sleepily, but nobody answered him. By and by Percy spoke out of the +shadows. + +"Say, Tip, when you go down there will you take me with you?" + +"Maybe." + +"Suppose one of us beats you down there, Tip?" + +"Whoever gets to the Bluff first has got to promise to tell the rest of +us exactly what he finds," remarked one of the Hassler boys, and to this +we all readily assented. + +Somewhat reassured, I dropped off to sleep. I must have dreamed about a +race for the Bluff, for I awoke in a kind of fear that other people were +getting ahead of me and that I was losing my chance. I sat up in my +damp clothes and looked at the other boys, who lay tumbled in uneasy +attitudes about the dead fire. It was still dark, but the sky was blue +with the last wonderful azure of night. The stars glistened like crystal +globes, and trembled as if they shone through a depth of clear water. +Even as I watched, they began to pale and the sky brightened. Day came +suddenly, almost instantaneously. I turned for another look at the blue +night, and it was gone. Everywhere the birds began to call, and all +manner of little insects began to chirp and hop about in the willows. +A breeze sprang up from the west and brought the heavy smell of ripened +corn. The boys rolled over and shook themselves. We stripped and plunged +into the river just as the sun came up over the windy bluffs. + +When I came home to Sandtown at Christmas time, we skated out to +our island and talked over the whole project of the Enchanted Bluff, +renewing our resolution to find it. + + +Although that was twenty years ago, none of us have ever climbed the +Enchanted Bluff. Percy Pound is a stockbroker in Kansas City and will go +nowhere that his red touring car cannot carry him. Otto Hassler went +on the railroad and lost his foot braking; after which he and Fritz +succeeded their father as the town tailors. + +Arthur sat about the sleepy little town all his life--he died before he +was twenty-five. The last time I saw him, when I was home on one of my +college vacations, he was sitting in a steamer chair under a cottonwood +tree in the little yard behind one of the two Sandtown saloons. He was +very untidy and his hand was not steady, but when he rose, unabashed, +to greet me, his eyes were as clear and warm as ever. When I had talked +with him for an hour and heard him laugh again, I wondered how it was +that when Nature had taken such pains with a man, from his hands to the +arch of his long foot, she had ever lost him in Sandtown. He joked about +Tip Smith's Bluff, and declared he was going down there just as soon +as the weather got cooler; he thought the Grand Canyon might be worth +while, too. + +I was perfectly sure when I left him that he would never get beyond +the high plank fence and the comfortable shade of the cottonwood. And, +indeed, it was under that very tree that he died one summer morning. + +Tip Smith still talks about going to New Mexico. He married +a slatternly, unthrifty country girl, has been much tied to a +perambulator, and has grown stooped and grey from irregular meals and +broken sleep. But the worst of his difficulties are now over, and he +has, as he says, come into easy water. When I was last in Sandtown I +walked home with him late one moonlight night, after he had balanced his +cash and shut up his store. We took the long way around and sat down on +the schoolhouse steps, and between us we quite revived the romance of +the lone red rock and the extinct people. Tip insists that he still +means to go down there, but he thinks now he will wait until his boy +Bert is old enough to go with him. Bert has been let into the story, and +thinks of nothing but the Enchanted Bluff. + + + + + + +The Bohemian Girl + +The transcontinental express swung along the windings of the Sand River +Valley, and in the rear seat of the observation car a young man sat +greatly at his ease, not in the least discomfited by the fierce sunlight +which beat in upon his brown face and neck and strong back. There was +a look of relaxation and of great passivity about his broad shoulders, +which seemed almost too heavy until he stood up and squared them. He +wore a pale flannel shirt and a blue silk necktie with loose ends. His +trousers were wide and belted at the waist, and his short sack coat hung +open. His heavy shoes had seen good service. His reddish-brown hair, +like his clothes, had a foreign cut. He had deep-set, dark blue eyes +under heavy reddish eyebrows. His face was kept clean only by close +shaving, and even the sharpest razor left a glint of yellow in the +smooth brown of his skin. His teeth and the palms of his hands were very +white. His head, which looked hard and stubborn, lay indolently in the +green cushion of the wicker chair, and as he looked out at the ripe +summer country a teasing, not unkindly smile played over his lips. +Once, as he basked thus comfortably, a quick light flashed in his eyes, +curiously dilating the pupils, and his mouth became a hard, straight +line, gradually relaxing into its former smile of rather kindly mockery. +He told himself, apparently, that there was no point in getting excited; +and he seemed a master hand at taking his ease when he could. Neither +the sharp whistle of the locomotive nor the brakeman's call disturbed +him. It was not until after the train had stopped that he rose, put on +a Panama hat, took from the rack a small valise and a flute case, and +stepped deliberately to the station platform. The baggage was already +unloaded, and the stranger presented a check for a battered sole-leather +steamer trunk. + +"Can you keep it here for a day or two?" he asked the agent. "I may send +for it, and I may not." + +"Depends on whether you like the country, I suppose?" demanded the agent +in a challenging tone. + +"Just so." + +The agent shrugged his shoulders, looked scornfully at the small trunk, +which was marked "N.E.," and handed out a claim check without further +comment. The stranger watched him as he caught one end of the trunk and +dragged it into the express room. The agent's manner seemed to remind +him of something amusing. "Doesn't seem to be a very big place," he +remarked, looking about. + +"It's big enough for us," snapped the agent, as he banged the trunk into +a corner. + +That remark, apparently, was what Nils Ericson had wanted. He chuckled +quietly as he took a leather strap from his pocket and swung his valise +around his shoulder. Then he settled his Panama securely on his head, +turned up his trousers, tucked the flute case under his arm, and started +off across the fields. He gave the town, as he would have said, a wide +berth, and cut through a great fenced pasture, emerging, when he rolled +under the barbed wire at the farther corner, upon a white dusty road +which ran straight up from the river valley to the high prairies, where +the ripe wheat stood yellow and the tin roofs and weathercocks were +twinkling in the fierce sunlight. By the time Nils had done three miles, +the sun was sinking and the farm wagons on their way home from town came +rattling by, covering him with dust and making him sneeze. When one of +the farmers pulled up and offered to give him a lift, he clambered in +willingly. The driver was a thin, grizzled old man with a long lean +neck and a foolish sort of beard, like a goat's. "How fur ye goin'?" he +asked, as he clucked to his horses and started off. + +"Do you go by the Ericson place?" + +"Which Ericson?" The old man drew in his reins as if he expected to stop +again. + +"Preacher Ericson's." + +"Oh, the Old Lady Ericson's!" He turned and looked at Nils. "La, me! If +you're goin' out there you might a' rid out in the automobile. That's a +pity, now. The Old Lady Ericson was in town with her auto. You might 'a' +heard it snortin' anywhere about the post-office er the butcher shop." + +"Has she a motor?" asked the stranger absently. + +"'Deed an' she has! She runs into town every night about this time for +her mail and meat for supper. Some folks say she's afraid her auto won't +get exercise enough, but I say that's jealousy." + +"Aren't there any other motors about here?" + +"Oh, yes! we have fourteen in all. But nobody else gets around like +the Old Lady Ericson. She's out, rain er shine, over the whole county, +chargin' into town and out amongst her farms, an' up to her sons' +places. Sure you ain't goin' to the wrong place?" He craned his neck and +looked at Nils' flute case with eager curiosity. "The old woman ain't +got any piany that I knows on. Olaf, he has a grand. His wife's musical: +took lessons in Chicago." + +"I'm going up there tomorrow," said Nils imperturbably. He saw that the +driver took him for a piano tuner. + +"Oh, I see!" The old man screwed up his eyes mysteriously. He was a +little dashed by the stranger's noncommunicativeness, but he soon broke +out again. + +"I'm one o' Miss Ericson's tenants. Look after one of her places. I did +own the place myself once, but I lost it a while back, in the bad years +just after the World's Fair. Just as well, too, I say. Lets you out o' +payin' taxes. The Ericsons do own most of the county now. I remember +the old preacher's favorite text used to be, 'To them that hath shall be +given.' They've spread something wonderful--run over this here country +like bindweed. But I ain't one that begretches it to 'em. Folks is +entitled to what they kin git; and they're hustlers. Olaf, he's in the +Legislature now, and a likely man fur Congress. Listen, if that ain't +the old woman comin' now. Want I should stop her?" + +Nils shook his head. He heard the deep chug-chug of a motor vibrating +steadily in the clear twilight behind them. The pale lights of the car +swam over the hill, and the old man slapped his reins and turned clear +out of the road, ducking his head at the first of three angry snorts +from behind. The motor was running at a hot, even speed, and passed +without turning an inch from its course. The driver was a stalwart woman +who sat at ease in the front seat and drove her car bareheaded. She left +a cloud of dust and a trail of gasoline behind her. Her tenant threw +back his head and sneezed. + +"Whew! I sometimes say I'd as lief be _before_ Mrs. Ericson as behind +her. She does beat all! Nearly seventy, and never lets another soul +touch that car. Puts it into commission herself every morning, and keeps +it tuned up by the hitch-bar all day. I never stop work for a drink +o' water that I don't hear her a-churnin' up the road. I reckon her +darter-in-laws never sets down easy nowadays. Never know when she'll pop +in. Mis' Otto, she says to me: 'We're so afraid that thing'll blow up +and do Ma some injury yet, she's so turrible venturesome.' Says I: 'I +wouldn't stew, Mis' Otto; the old lady'll drive that car to the funeral +of every darter-in-law she's got.' That was after the old woman had +jumped a turrible bad culvert." + +The stranger heard vaguely what the old man was saying. Just now he was +experiencing something very much like homesickness, and he was wondering +what had brought it about. The mention of a name or two, perhaps; +the rattle of a wagon along a dusty road; the rank, resinous smell of +sunflowers and ironweed, which the night damp brought up from the draws +and low places; perhaps, more than all, the dancing lights of the motor +that had plunged by. He squared his shoulders with a comfortable sense +of strength. + +The wagon, as it jolted westward, climbed a pretty steady up-grade. The +country, receding from the rough river valley, swelled more and more +gently, as if it had been smoothed out by the wind. On one of the last +of the rugged ridges, at the end of a branch road, stood a grim square +house with a tin roof and double porches. Behind the house stretched a +row of broken, wind-racked poplars, and down the hill slope to the left +straggled the sheds and stables. The old man stopped his horses where +the Ericsons' road branched across a dry sand creek that wound about the +foot of the hill. + +"That's the old lady's place. Want I should drive in?" "No, thank you. +I'll roll out here. Much obliged to you. Good night." + +His passenger stepped down over the front wheel, and the old man drove +on reluctantly, looking back as if he would like to see how the stranger +would be received. + +As Nils was crossing the dry creek he heard the restive tramp of a horse +coming toward him down the hill. Instantly he flashed out of the road +and stood behind a thicket of wild plum bushes that grew in the sandy +bed. Peering through the dusk, he saw a light horse, under tight +rein, descending the hill at a sharp walk. The rider was a slender +woman--barely visible against the dark hillside--wearing an +old-fashioned derby hat and a long riding skirt. She sat lightly in the +saddle, with her chin high, and seemed to be looking into the distance. +As she passed the plum thicket her horse snuffed the air and shied. +She struck him, pulling him in sharply, with an angry exclamation, +_"Blazne!"_ in Bohemian. Once in the main road, she let him out into +a lope, and they soon emerged upon the crest of high land, where they +moved along the skyline, silhouetted against the band of faint colour +that lingered in the west. This horse and rider, with their free, +rhythmical gallop, were the only moving things to be seen on the face of +the flat country. They seemed, in the last sad light of evening, not to +be there accidentally, but as an inevitable detail of the landscape. + +Nils watched them until they had shrunk to a mere moving speck against +the sky, then he crossed the sand creek and climbed the hill. When +he reached the gate the front of the house was dark, but a light was +shining from the side windows. The pigs were squealing in the hog +corral, and Nils could see a tall boy, who carried two big wooden +buckets, moving about among them. Halfway between the barn and the +house, the windmill wheezed lazily. Following the path that ran around +to the back porch, Nils stopped to look through the screen door into +the lamplit kitchen. The kitchen was the largest room in the house; Nils +remembered that his older brothers used to give dances there when he was +a boy. Beside the stove stood a little girl with two light yellow braids +and a broad, flushed face, peering anxiously into a frying pan. In the +dining-room beyond, a large, broad-shouldered woman was moving about the +table. She walked with an active, springy step. Her face was heavy and +florid, almost without wrinkles, and her hair was black at seventy. +Nils felt proud of her as he watched her deliberate activity; never a +momentary hesitation, or a movement that did not tell. He waited until +she came out into the kitchen and, brushing the child aside, took her +place at the stove. Then he tapped on the screen door and entered. + +"It's nobody but Nils, Mother. I expect you weren't looking for me." + +Mrs. Ericson turned away from the stove and stood staring at him. "Bring +the lamp, Hilda, and let me look." + +Nils laughed and unslung his valise. "What's the matter, Mother? Don't +you know me?" + +Mrs. Ericson put down the lamp. "You must be Nils. You don't look very +different, anyway." + +"Nor you, Mother. You hold your own. Don't you wear glasses yet?" + +"Only to read by. Where's your trunk, Nils?" + +"Oh, I left that in town. I thought it might not be convenient for you +to have company so near threshing-time." + +"Don't be foolish, Nils." Mrs. Ericson turned back to the stove. "I +don't thresh now. I hitched the wheat land onto the next farm and have +a tenant. Hilda, take some hot water up to the company room, and go call +little Eric." + +The tow-haired child, who had been standing in mute amazement, took up +the tea-kettle and withdrew, giving Nils a long, admiring look from the +door of the kitchen stairs. + +"Who's the youngster?" Nils asked, dropping down on the bench behind the +kitchen stove. + +"One of your Cousin Henrik's." + +"How long has Cousin Henrik been dead?" + +"Six years. There are two boys. One stays with Peter and one with +Anders. Olaf is their guardeen." + +There was a clatter of pails on the porch, and a tall, lanky boy peered +wonderingly in through the screen door. He had a fair, gentle face and +big grey eyes, and wisps of soft yellow hair hung down under his cap. +Nils sprang up and pulled him into the kitchen, hugging him and slapping +him on the shoulders. "Well, if it isn't my kid! Look at the size of +him! Don't you know me, Eric?" + +The boy reddened tinder his sunburn and freckles, and hung his head. "I +guess it's Nils," he said shyly. + +"You're a good guesser," laughed Nils giving the lad's hand a swing. To +himself he was thinking: "That's why the little girl looked so friendly. +He's taught her to like me. He was only six when I went away, and he's +remembered for twelve years." + +Eric stood fumbling with his cap and smiling. "You look just like I +thought you would," he ventured. + +"Go wash your hands, Eric," called Mrs. Ericson. "I've got cob corn for +supper, Nils. You used to like it. I guess you don't get much of that in +the old country. Here's Hilda; she'll take you up to your room. You'll +want to get the dust off you before you eat." + +Mrs. Ericson went into the dining-room to lay another plate, and the +little girl came up and nodded to Nils as if to let him know that his +room was ready. He put out his hand and she took it, with a startled +glance up at his face. Little Eric dropped his towel, threw an arm about +Nils and one about Hilda, gave them a clumsy squeeze, and then stumbled +out to the porch. + +During supper Nils heard exactly how much land each of his eight grown +brothers farmed, how their crops were coming on, and how much livestock +they were feeding. His mother watched him narrowly as she talked. +"You've got better looking, Nils," she remarked abruptly, whereupon he +grinned and the children giggled. Eric, although he was eighteen and as +tall as Nils, was always accounted a child, being the last of so many +sons. His face seemed childlike, too, Nils thought, and he had the open, +wandering eyes of a little boy. All the others had been men at his age. + +After supper Nils went out to the front porch and sat down on the step +to smoke a pipe. Mrs. Ericson drew a rocking-chair up near him and began +to knit busily. It was one of the few Old World customs she had kept up, +for she could not bear to sit with idle hands. + +"Where's little Eric, Mother?" + +"He's helping Hilda with the dishes. He does it of his own will; I don't +like a boy to be too handy about the house." + +"He seems like a nice kid." + +"He's very obedient." + +Nils smiled a little in the dark. It was just as well to shift the line +of conversation. "What are you knitting there, Mother?" + +"Baby stockings. The boys keep me busy." Mrs. Ericson chuckled and +clicked her needles. + +"How many grandchildren have you?" + +"Only thirty-one now. Olaf lost his three. They were sickly, like their +mother." + +"I supposed he had a second crop by this time!" + +"His second wife has no children. She's too proud. She tears about on +horseback all the time. But she'll get caught up with, yet. She sets +herself very high, though nobody knows what for. They were low enough +Bohemians she came of. I never thought much of Bohemians; always +drinking." + +Nils puffed away at his pipe in silence, and Mrs. Ericson knitted on. In +a few moments she added grimly: "She was down here tonight, just before +you came. She'd like to quarrel with me and come between me and Olaf, +but I don't give her the chance. I suppose you'll be bringing a wife +home some day." + +"I don't know. I've never thought much about it." + +"Well, perhaps it's best as it is," suggested Mrs. Ericson hopefully. +"You'd never be contented tied down to the land. There was roving blood +in your father's family, and it's come out in you. I expect your own +way of life suits you best." Mrs. Ericson had dropped into a blandly +agreeable tone which Nils well remembered. It seemed to amuse him a +good deal and his white teeth flashed behind his pipe. His mother's +strategies had always diverted him, even when he was a boy--they were so +flimsy and patent, so illy proportioned to her vigor and force. "They've +been waiting to see which way I'd jump," he reflected. He felt that Mrs. +Ericson was pondering his case deeply as she sat clicking her needles. + +"I don't suppose you've ever got used to steady work," she went on +presently. "Men ain't apt to if they roam around too long. It's a pity +you didn't come back the year after the World's Fair. Your father picked +up a good bit of land cheap then, in the hard times, and I expect maybe +he'd have give you a farm, it's too bad you put off comin' back so long, +for I always thought he meant to do something by you." + +Nils laughed and shook the ashes out of his pipe. "I'd have missed a lot +if I had come back then. But I'm sorry I didn't get back to see father." + +"Well, I suppose we have to miss things at one end or the other. Perhaps +you are as well satisfied with your own doings, now, as you'd have been +with a farm," said Mrs. Ericson reassuringly. + +"Land's a good thing to have," Nils commented, as he lit another match +and sheltered it with his hand. + +His mother looked sharply at his face until the match burned out. "Only +when you stay on it!" she hastened to say. + +Eric came round the house by the path just then, and Nils rose, with a +yawn. "Mother, if you don't mind, Eric and I will take a little tramp +before bedtime. It will make me sleep." + +"Very well; only don't stay long. I'll sit up and wait for you. I like +to lock up myself." + +Nils put his hand on Eric's shoulder, and the two tramped down the hill +and across the sand creek into the dusty highroad beyond. Neither spoke. +They swung along at an even gait, Nils puffing at his pipe. There was no +moon, and the white road and the wide fields lay faint in the starlight. +Over everything was darkness and thick silence, and the smell of dust +and sunflowers. The brothers followed the road for a mile or more +without finding a place to sit down. Finally, Nils perched on a stile +over the wire fence, and Eric sat on the lower step. + +"I began to think you never would come back, Nils," said the boy softly. + +"Didn't I promise you I would?" + +"Yes; but people don't bother about promises they make to babies. Did +you really know you were going away for good when you went to Chicago +with the cattle that time?" + +"I thought it very likely, if I could make my way." + +"I don't see how you did it, Nils. Not many fellows could." Eric rubbed +his shoulder against his brother's knee. + +"The hard thing was leaving home you and father. It was easy enough, +once I got beyond Chicago. Of course I got awful homesick; used to cry +myself to sleep. But I'd burned my bridges." + +"You had always wanted to go, hadn't you?" + +"Always. Do you still sleep in our little room? Is that cottonwood still +by the window?" + +Eric nodded eagerly and smiled up at his brother in the grey darkness. + +"You remember how we always said the leaves were whispering when they +rustled at night? Well, they always whispered to me about the sea. +Sometimes they said names out of the geography books. In a high wind +they had a desperate sound, like someone trying to tear loose." + +"How funny, Nils," said Eric dreamily, resting his chin on his hand. +"That tree still talks like that, and 'most always it talks to me about +you." + +They sat a while longer, watching the stars. At last Eric whispered +anxiously: "Hadn't we better go back now? Mother will get tired waiting +for us." They rose and took a short cut home, through the pasture. + + + II + +The next morning Nils woke with the first flood of light that came with +dawn. The white-plastered walls of his room reflected the glare that +shone through the thin window shades, and he found it impossible to +sleep. He dressed hurriedly and slipped down the hall and up the back +stairs to the half-story room which he used to share with his little +brother. Eric, in a skimpy nightshirt, was sitting on the edge of the +bed, rubbing his eyes, his pale yellow hair standing up in tufts all +over his head. When he saw Nils, he murmured something confusedly and +hustled his long legs into his trousers. "I didn't expect you'd be up so +early, Nils," he said, as his head emerged from his blue shirt. + +"Oh, you thought I was a dude, did you?" Nils gave him a playful tap +which bent the tall boy up like a clasp knife. "See here: I must teach +you to box." Nils thrust his hands into his pockets and walked about. +"You haven't changed things much up here. Got most of my old traps, +haven't you?" + +He took down a bent, withered piece of sapling that hung over the +dresser. "If this isn't the stick Lou Sandberg killed himself with!" + +The boy looked up from his shoe-lacing. + +"Yes; you never used to let me play with that. Just how did he do it, +Nils? You were with father when he found Lou, weren't you?" + +"Yes. Father was going off to preach somewhere, and, as we drove along, +Lou's place looked sort of forlorn, and we thought we'd stop and cheer +him up. When we found him father said he'd been dead a couple days. He'd +tied a piece of binding twine round his neck, made a noose in each end, +fixed the nooses over the ends of a bent stick, and let the stick spring +straight; strangled himself." + +"What made him kill himself such a silly way?" + +The simplicity of the boy's question set Nils laughing. He clapped +little Eric on the shoulder. "What made him such a silly as to kill +himself at all, I should say!" + +"Oh, well! But his hogs had the cholera, and all up and died on him, +didn't they?" + +"Sure they did; but he didn't have cholera; and there were plenty of +hogs left in the world, weren't there?" + +"Well, but, if they weren't his, how could they do him any good?" Eric +asked, in astonishment. + +"Oh, scat! He could have had lots of fun with other people's hogs. He +was a chump, Lou Sandberg. To kill yourself for a pig--think of that, +now!" Nils laughed all the way downstairs, and quite embarrassed little +Eric, who fell to scrubbing his face and hands at the tin basin. While +he was parting his wet hair at the kitchen looking glass, a heavy tread +sounded on the stairs. The boy dropped his comb. "Gracious, there's +Mother. We must have talked too long." He hurried out to the shed, +slipped on his overalls, and disappeared with the milking pails. + +Mrs. Ericson came in, wearing a clean white apron, her black hair +shining from the application of a wet brush. + +"Good morning, Mother. Can't I make the fire for you?" + +"No, thank you, Nils. It's no trouble to make a cob fire, and I like to +manage the kitchen stove myself" Mrs. Ericson paused with a shovel full +of ashes in her hand. "I expect you will be wanting to see your brothers +as soon as possible. I'll take you up to Anders' place this morning. +He's threshing, and most of our boys are over there." + +"Will Olaf be there?" + +Mrs. Ericson went on taking out the ashes, and spoke between shovels. +"No; Olaf's wheat is all in, put away in his new barn. He got six +thousand bushel this year. He's going to town today to get men to finish +roofing his barn." + +"So Olaf is building a new barn?" Nils asked absently. + +"Biggest one in the county, and almost done. You'll likely be here for +the barn-raising. He's going to have a supper and a dance as soon as +everybody's done threshing. Says it keeps the voters in good humour. I +tell him that's all nonsense; but Olaf has a head for politics." + +"Does Olaf farm all Cousin Henrik's land?" + +Mrs. Ericson frowned as she blew into the faint smoke curling up about +the cobs. "Yes; he holds it in trust for the children, Hilda and her +brothers. He keeps strict account of everything he raises on it, and +puts the proceeds out at compound interest for them." + +Nils smiled as he watched the little flames shoot up. The door of the +back stairs opened, and Hilda emerged, her arms behind her, buttoning +up her long gingham apron as she came. He nodded to her gaily, and she +twinkled at him out of her little blue eyes, set far apart over her wide +cheekbones. + +"There, Hilda, you grind the coffee--and just put in an extra handful; +I expect your Cousin Nils likes his strong," said Mrs. Ericson, as she +went out to the shed. + +Nils turned to look at the little girl, who gripped the coffee grinder +between her knees and ground so hard that her two braids bobbed and her +face flushed under its broad spattering of freckles. He noticed on her +middle finger something that had not been there last night, and that had +evidently been put on for company: a tiny gold ring with a clumsily set +garnet stone. As her hand went round and round he touched the ring with +the tip of his finger, smiling. + +Hilda glanced toward the shed door through which Mrs. Ericson had +disappeared. "My Cousin Clara gave me that," she whispered bashfully. +"She's Cousin Olaf's wife." + + + III + +Mrs. Olaf Ericson--Clara Vavrika, as many people still called her--was +moving restlessly about her big bare house that morning. Her husband had +left for the county town before his wife was out of bed--her lateness +in rising was one of the many things the Ericson family had against her. +Clara seldom came downstairs before eight o'clock, and this morning +she was even later, for she had dressed with unusual care. She put +on, however, only a tight-fitting black dress, which people thereabouts +thought very plain. She was a tall, dark woman of thirty, with a rather +sallow complexion and a touch of dull salmon red in her cheeks, where +the blood seemed to burn under her brown skin. Her hair, parted evenly +above her low forehead, was so black that there were distinctly blue +lights in it. Her black eyebrows were delicate half-moons and her lashes +were long and heavy. Her eyes slanted a little, as if she had a strain +of Tartar or gypsy blood, and were sometimes full of fiery determination +and sometimes dull and opaque. Her expression was never altogether +amiable; was often, indeed, distinctly sullen, or, when she was +animated, sarcastic. She was most attractive in profile, for then one +saw to advantage her small, well-shaped head and delicate ears, and felt +at once that here was a very positive, if not an altogether pleasing, +personality. + +The entire management of Mrs. Olaf's household devolved upon her aunt, +Johanna Vavrika, a superstitious, doting woman of fifty. When Clara +was a little girl her mother died, and Johanna's life had been spent +in ungrudging service to her niece. Clara, like many self-willed and +discontented persons, was really very apt, without knowing it, to do +as other people told her, and to let her destiny be decided for her +by intelligences much below her own. It was her Aunt Johanna who had +humoured and spoiled her in her girlhood, who had got her off to Chicago +to study piano, and who had finally persuaded her to marry Olaf Ericson +as the best match she would be likely to make in that part of the +country. Johanna Vavrika had been deeply scarred by smallpox in the old +country. She was short and fat, homely and jolly and sentimental. +She was so broad, and took such short steps when she walked, that her +brother, Joe Vavrika, always called her his duck. She adored her niece +because of her talent, because of her good looks and masterful ways, but +most of all because of her selfishness. + +Clara's marriage with Olaf Ericson was Johanna's particular triumph. She +was inordinately proud of Olaf's position, and she found a sufficiently +exciting career in managing Clara's house, in keeping it above the +criticism of the Ericsons, in pampering Olaf to keep him from finding +fault with his wife, and in concealing from every one Clara's domestic +infelicities. While Clara slept of a morning, Johanna Vavrika was +bustling about, seeing that Olaf and the men had their breakfast, and +that the cleaning or the butter-making or the washing was properly begun +by the two girls in the kitchen. Then, at about eight o'clock, she would +take Clara's coffee up to her, and chat with her while she drank it, +telling her what was going on in the house. Old Mrs. Ericson frequently +said that her daughter-in-law would not know what day of the week it +was if Johanna did not tell her every morning. Mrs. Ericson despised and +pitied Johanna, but did not wholly dislike her. The one thing she hated +in her daughter-in-law above everything else was the way in which Clara +could come it over people. It enraged her that the affairs of her son's +big, barnlike house went on as well as they did, and she used to feel +that in this world we have to wait overlong to see the guilty punished. +"Suppose Johanna Vavrika died or got sick?" the old lady used to say to +Olaf. "Your wife wouldn't know where to look for her own dish-cloth." +Olaf only shrugged his shoulders. The fact remained that Johanna did not +die, and, although Mrs. Ericson often told her she was looking poorly, +she was never ill. She seldom left the house, and she slept in a little +room off the kitchen. No Ericson, by night or day, could come prying +about there to find fault without her knowing it. Her one weakness was +that she was an incurable talker, and she sometimes made trouble without +meaning to. + +This morning Clara was tying a wine-coloured ribbon about her throat +when Johanna appeared with her coffee. After putting the tray on a +sewing table, she began to make Clara's bed, chattering the while in +Bohemian. + +"Well, Olaf got off early, and the girls are baking. I'm going down +presently to make some poppy-seed bread for Olaf. He asked for prune +preserves at breakfast, and I told him I was out of them, and to bring +some prunes and honey and cloves from town." + +Clara poured her coffee. "Ugh! I don't see how men can eat so much sweet +stuff. In the morning, too!" + +Her aunt chuckled knowingly. "Bait a bear with honey, as we say in the +old country." + +"Was he cross?" her niece asked indifferently. + +"Olaf? Oh, no! He was in fine spirits. He's never cross if you know how +to take him. I never knew a man to make so little fuss about bills. I +gave him a list of things to get a yard long, and he didn't say a word; +just folded it up and put it in his pocket." + +"I can well believe he didn't say a word," Clara remarked with a shrug. +"Some day he'll forget how to talk." + +"Oh, but they say he's a grand speaker in the Legislature. He knows +when to keep quiet. That's why he's got such influence in politics. The +people have confidence in him." Johanna beat up a pillow and held it +under her fat chin while she slipped on the case. Her niece laughed. + +"Maybe we could make people believe we were wise, Aunty, if we held our +tongues. Why did you tell Mrs. Ericson that Norman threw me again last +Saturday and turned my foot? She's been talking to Olaf." + +Johanna fell into great confusion. "Oh, but, my precious, the old lady +asked for you, and she's always so angry if I can't give an excuse. +Anyhow, she needn't talk; she's always tearing up something with that +motor of hers." + +When her aunt clattered down to the kitchen, Clara went to dust the +parlour. Since there was not much there to dust, this did not take very +long. Olaf had built the house new for her before their marriage, but +her interest in furnishing it had been short-lived. It went, indeed, +little beyond a bathtub and her piano. They had disagreed about almost +every other article of furniture, and Clara had said she would rather +have her house empty than full of things she didn't want. The house was +set in a hillside, and the west windows of the parlour looked out above +the kitchen yard thirty feet below. The east windows opened directly +into the front yard. At one of the latter, Clara, while she was dusting, +heard a low whistle. She did not turn at once, but listened intently as +she drew her cloth slowly along the round of a chair. Yes, there it was: + +I dreamt that I dwelt in ma-a-arble halls. + +She turned and saw Nils Ericson laughing in the sunlight, his hat in his +hand, just outside the window. As she crossed the room he leaned against +the wire screen. "Aren't you at all surprised to see me, Clara Vavrika?" + +"No; I was expecting to see you. Mother Ericson telephoned Olaf last +night that you were here." + +Nils squinted and gave a long whistle. "Telephoned? That must have been +while Eric and I were out walking. Isn't she enterprising? Lift this +screen, won't you?" + +Clara lifted the screen, and Nils swung his leg across the window-sill. +As he stepped into the room she said: "You didn't think you were going +to get ahead of your mother, did you?" + +He threw his hat on the piano. "Oh, I do sometimes. You see, I'm ahead +of her now. I'm supposed to be in Anders' wheat-field. But, as we were +leaving, Mother ran her car into a soft place beside the road and sank +up to the hubs. While they were going for the horses to pull her out, +I cut away behind the stacks and escaped." Nils chuckled. Clara's dull +eyes lit up as she looked at him admiringly. + +"You've got them guessing already. I don't know what your mother said +to Olaf over the telephone, but be came back looking as if he'd seen +a ghost, and he didn't go to bed until a dreadful hour--ten o'clock, I +should think. He sat out on the porch in the dark like a graven image. +It had been one of his talkative days, too." They both laughed, easily +and lightly, like people who have laughed a great deal together; but +they remained standing. + +"Anders and Otto and Peter looked as if they had seen ghosts, too, over +in the threshing field. What's the matter with them all?" + +Clara gave him a quick, searching look. "Well, for one thing, they've +always been afraid you have the other will." + +Nils looked interested. "The other will?" + +"Yes. A later one. They knew your father made another, but they never +knew what he did with it. They almost tore the old house to pieces +looking for it. They always suspected that he carried on a clandestine +correspondence with you, for the one thing he would do was to get his +own mail himself. So they thought he might have sent the new will to +you for safekeeping. The old one, leaving everything to your mother, was +made long before you went away, and it's understood among them that it +cuts you out--that she will leave all the property to the others. Your +father made the second will to prevent that. I've been hoping you +had it. It would be such fun to spring it on them." Clara laughed +mirthfully, a thing she did not often do now. + +Nils shook his head reprovingly. "Come, now, you're malicious." + +"No, I'm not. But I'd like something to happen to stir them all up, just +for once. There never was such a family for having nothing ever happen +to them but dinner and threshing. I'd almost be willing to die, just to +have a funeral. _You_ wouldn't stand it for three weeks." + +Nils bent over the piano and began pecking at the keys with the finger +of one hand. "I wouldn't? My dear young lady, how do you know what I can +stand? _You_ wouldn't wait to find out." + +Clara flushed darkly and frowned. "I didn't believe you would ever come +back--" she said defiantly. + +"Eric believed I would, and he was only a baby when I went away. +However, all's well that ends well, and I haven't come back to be a +skeleton at the feast. We mustn't quarrel. Mother will be here with a +search warrant pretty soon." He swung round and faced her, thrusting his +hands into his coat pockets. "Come, you ought to be glad to see me, if +you want something to happen. I'm something, even without a will. We can +have a little fun, can't we? I think we can!" + +She echoed him, "I think we can!" They both laughed and their eyes +sparkled. Clara Vavrika looked ten years younger than when she had put +the velvet ribbon about her throat that morning. + +"You know, I'm so tickled to see mother," Nils went on. "I didn't know +I was so proud of her. A regular pile driver. How about little pigtails, +down at the house? Is Olaf doing the square thing by those children?" + +Clara frowned pensively. "Olaf has to do something that looks like the +square thing, now that he's a public man!" She glanced drolly at Nils. +"But he makes a good commission out of it. On Sundays they all get +together here and figure. He lets Peter and Anders put in big bills for +the keep of the two boys, and he pays them out of the estate. They are +always having what they call accountings. Olaf gets something out of +it, too. I don't know just how they do it, but it's entirely a family +matter, as they say. And when the Ericsons say that--" Clara lifted her +eyebrows. + +Just then the angry _honk-honk_ of an approaching motor sounded from +down the road. Their eyes met and they began to laugh. They laughed as +children do when they can not contain themselves, and can not explain +the cause of their mirth to grown people, but share it perfectly +together. When Clara Vavrika sat down at the piano after he was gone, +she felt that she had laughed away a dozen years. She practised as if +the house were burning over her head. + +When Nils greeted his mother and climbed into the front seat of the +motor beside her, Mrs. Ericson looked grim, but she made no comment +upon his truancy until she had turned her car and was retracing her +revolutions along the road that ran by Olaf's big pasture. Then she +remarked dryly: + +"If I were you I wouldn't see too much of Olaf's wife while you are +here. She's the kind of woman who can't see much of men without getting +herself talked about. She was a good deal talked about before he married +her." + +"Hasn't Olaf tamed her?" Nils asked indifferently. + +Mrs. Ericson shrugged her massive shoulders. "Olaf don't seem to have +much luck, when it comes to wives. The first one was meek enough, but +she was always ailing. And this one has her own way. He says if he +quarreled with her she'd go back to her father, and then he'd lose the +Bohemian vote. There are a great many Bohunks in this district. But when +you find a man under his wife's thumb you can always be sure there's a +soft spot in him somewhere." + +Nils thought of his own father, and smiled. "She brought him a good deal +of money, didn't she, besides the Bohemian vote?" + +Mrs. Ericson sniffed. "Well, she has a fair half section in her own +name, but I can't see as that does Olaf much good. She will have a good +deal of property some day, if old Vavrika don't marry again. But I don't +consider a saloonkeeper's money as good as other people's money." + +Nils laughed outright. "Come, Mother, don't let your prejudices carry +you that far. Money's money. Old Vavrika's a mighty decent sort of +saloonkeeper. Nothing rowdy about him." + +Mrs. Ericson spoke up angrily. "Oh, I know you always stood up for them! +But hanging around there when you were a boy never did you any good, +Nils, nor any of the other boys who went there. There weren't so many +after her when she married Olaf, let me tell you. She knew enough to +grab her chance." + +Nils settled back in his seat. "Of course I liked to go there, Mother, +and you were always cross about it. You never took the trouble to find +out that it was the one jolly house in this country for a boy to go to. +All the rest of you were working yourselves to death, and the houses +were mostly a mess, full of babies and washing and flies. Oh, it was all +right--I understand that; but you are young only once, and I happened +to be young then. Now, Vavrika's was always jolly. He played the violin, +and I used to take my flute, and Clara played the piano, and +Johanna used to sing Bohemian songs. She always had a big supper for +us--herrings and pickles and poppy-seed bread, and lots of cake and +preserves. Old Joe had been in the army in the old country, and he could +tell lots of good stories. I can see him cutting bread, at the head of +the table, now. I don't know what I'd have done when I was a kid if it +hadn't been for the Vavrikas, really." + +"And all the time he was taking money that other people had worked hard +in the fields for," Mrs. Ericson observed. + +"So do the circuses, Mother, and they're a good thing. People ought to +get fun for some of their money. Even father liked old Joe." + +"Your father," Mrs. Ericson said grimly, "liked everybody." + +As they crossed the sand creek and turned into her own place, Mrs. +Ericson observed, "There's Olaf's buggy. He's stopped on his way from +town." Nils shook himself and prepared to greet his brother, who was +waiting on the porch. + +Olaf was a big, heavy Norwegian, slow of speech and movement. His head +was large and square, like a block of wood. When Nils, at a distance, +tried to remember what his brother looked like, he could recall only his +heavy head, high forehead, large nostrils, and pale blue eyes, set far +apart. Olaf's features were rudimentary: the thing one noticed was the +face itself, wide and flat and pale; devoid of any expression, betraying +his fifty years as little as it betrayed anything else, and powerful by +reason of its very stolidness. When Olaf shook hands with Nils he looked +at him from under his light eyebrows, but Nils felt that no one could +ever say what that pale look might mean. The one thing he had always +felt in Olaf was a heavy stubbornness, like the unyielding stickiness of +wet loam against the plow. He had always found Olaf the most difficult +of his brothers. + +"How do you do, Nils? Expect to stay with us long?" + +"Oh, I may stay forever," Nils answered gaily. "I like this country +better than I used to." + +"There's been some work put into it since you left," Olaf remarked. + +"Exactly. I think it's about ready to live in now--and I'm about ready +to settle down." Nils saw his brother lower his big head ("Exactly like +a bull," he thought.) "Mother's been persuading me to slow down now, and +go in for farming," he went on lightly. + +Olaf made a deep sound in his throat. "Farming ain't learned in a day," +he brought out, still looking at the ground. + +"Oh, I know! But I pick things up quickly." Nils had not meant to +antagonize his brother, and he did not know now why he was doing it. "Of +course," he went on, "I shouldn't expect to make a big success, as you +fellows have done. But then, I'm not ambitious. I won't want much. A +little land, and some cattle, maybe." + +Olaf still stared at the ground, his head down. He wanted to ask Nils +what he had been doing all these years, that he didn't have a business +somewhere he couldn't afford to leave; why he hadn't more pride than to +come back with only a little sole-leather trunk to show for himself, and +to present himself as the only failure in the family. He did not ask one +of these questions, but he made them all felt distinctly. + +"Humph!" Nils thought. "No wonder the man never talks, when he can butt +his ideas into you like that without ever saying a word. I suppose he +uses that kind of smokeless powder on his wife all the time. But I guess +she has her innings." He chuckled, and Olaf looked up. "Never mind +me, Olaf. I laugh without knowing why, like little Eric. He's another +cheerful dog." + +"Eric," said Olaf slowly, "is a spoiled kid. He's just let his mother's +best cow go dry because he don't milk her right. I was hoping you'd take +him away somewhere and put him into business. If he don't do any good +among strangers, he never will." This was a long speech for Olaf, and as +he finished it he climbed into his buggy. + +Nils shrugged his shoulders. "Same old tricks," he thought. "Hits from +behind you every time. What a whale of a man!" He turned and went round +to the kitchen, where his mother was scolding little Eric for letting +the gasoline get low. + + + IV + +Joe Vavrika's saloon was not in the county seat, where Olaf and Mrs. +Ericson did their trading, but in a cheerfuller place, a little Bohemian +settlement which lay at the other end of the county, ten level miles +north of Olaf's farm. Clara rode up to see her father almost every day. +Vavrika's house was, so to speak, in the back yard of his saloon. The +garden between the two buildings was inclosed by a high board fence +as tight as a partition, and in summer Joe kept beer tables and wooden +benches among the gooseberry bushes under his little cherry tree. At +one of these tables Nils Ericson was seated in the late afternoon, three +days after his return home. Joe had gone in to serve a customer, and +Nils was lounging on his elbows, looking rather mournfully into his +half-emptied pitcher, when he heard a laugh across the little garden. +Clara, in her riding habit, was standing at the back door of the house, +under the grapevine trellis that old Joe had grown there long ago. Nils +rose. + +"Come out and keep your father and me company. We've been gossiping all +afternoon. Nobody to bother us but the flies." + +She shook her head. "No, I never come out here any more. Olaf doesn't +like it. I must live up to my position, you know." + +"You mean to tell me you never come out and chat with the boys, as you +used to? He _has_ tamed you! Who keeps up these flower-beds?" + +"I come out on Sundays, when father is alone, and read the Bohemian +papers to him. But I am never here when the bar is open. What have you +two been doing?" + +"Talking, as I told you. I've been telling him about my travels. I find +I can't talk much at home, not even to Eric." + +Clara reached up and poked with her riding-whip at a white moth that was +fluttering in the sunlight among the vine leaves. "I suppose you will +never tell me about all those things." + +"Where can I tell them? Not in Olaf's house, certainly. What's the +matter with our talking here?" He pointed persuasively with his hat +to the bushes and the green table, where the flies were singing lazily +above the empty beer glasses. + +Clara shook her head weakly. "No, it wouldn't do. Besides, I am going +now." + +"I'm on Eric's mare. Would you be angry if I overtook you?" + +Clara looked back and laughed. "You might try and see. I can leave you +if I don't want you. Eric's mare can't keep up with Norman." + +Nils went into the bar and attempted to pay his score. Big Joe, six feet +four, with curly yellow hair and mustache, clapped him on the shoulder. +"Not a Goddamn a your money go in my drawer, you hear? Only next time +you bring your flute, te-te-te-te-te-ty." Joe wagged his fingers in +imitation of the flute player's position. + +"My Clara, she come all-a-time Sundays an' play for me. She not like to +play at Ericson's place." He shook his yellow curls and laughed. "Not a +Goddamn a fun at Ericson's. You come a Sunday. You like-a fun. No forget +de flute." Joe talked very rapidly and always tumbled over his English. +He seldom spoke it to his customers, and had never learned much. + +Nils swung himself into the saddle and trotted to the west of the +village, where the houses and gardens scattered into prairie land and +the road turned south. Far ahead of him, in the declining light, he saw +Clara Vavrika's slender figure, loitering on horseback. He touched his +mare with the whip, and shot along the white, level road, under the +reddening sky. When he overtook Olaf's wife he saw that she had been +crying. "What's the matter, Clara Vavrika?" he asked kindly. + +"Oh, I get blue sometimes. It was awfully jolly living there with +father. I wonder why I ever went away." + +Nils spoke in a low, kind tone that he sometimes used with women: +"That's what I've been wondering these many years. You were the last +girl in the country I'd have picked for a wife for Olaf. What made you +do it, Clara?" + +"I suppose I really did it to oblige the neighbours"--Clara tossed her +head. "People were beginning to wonder." + +"To wonder?" + +"Yes--why I didn't get married. I suppose I didn't like to keep them in +suspense. I've discovered that most girls marry out of consideration for +the neighbourhood." + +Nils bent his head toward her and his white teeth flashed. "I'd have +gambled that one girl I knew would say, 'Let the neighbourhood be +damned.'" + +Clara shook her head mournfully. "You see, they have it on you, Nils; +that is, if you're a woman. They say you're beginning to go off. That's +what makes us get married: we can't stand the laugh." + +Nils looked sidewise at her. He had never seen her head droop before. +Resignation was the last thing he would have expected of her. "In your +case, there wasn't something else?" + +"Something else?" + +"I mean, you didn't do it to spite somebody? Somebody who didn't come +back?" + +Clara drew herself up. "Oh, I never thought you'd come back. Not after +I stopped writing to you, at least. _That_ was all over, long before I +married Olaf." + +"It never occurred to you, then, that the meanest thing you could do to +me was to marry Olaf?" + +Clara laughed. "No; I didn't know you were so fond of Olaf." + +Nils smoothed his horse's mane with his glove. "You know, Clara Vavrika, +you are never going to stick it out. You'll cut away some day, and I've +been thinking you might as well cut away with me." + +Clara threw up her chin. "Oh, you don't know me as well as you think. I +won't cut away. Sometimes, when I'm with father, I feel like it. But I +can hold out as long as the Ericsons can. They've never got the best of +me yet, and one can live, so long as one isn't beaten. If I go back to +father, it's all up with Olaf in politics. He knows that, and he never +goes much beyond sulking. I've as much wit as the Ericsons. I'll never +leave them unless I can show them a thing or two." + +"You mean unless you can come it over them?" + +"Yes--unless I go away with a man who is cleverer than they are, and who +has more money." + +Nils whistled. "Dear me, you are demanding a good deal. The Ericsons, +take the lot of them, are a bunch to beat. But I should think the +excitement of tormenting them would have worn off by this time." + +"It has, I'm afraid," Clara admitted mournfully. + +"Then why don't you cut away? There are more amusing games than this in +the world. When I came home I thought it might amuse me to bully a few +quarter sections out of the Ericsons; but I've almost decided I can get +more fun for my money somewhere else." + +Clara took in her breath sharply. "Ah, you have got the other will! That +was why you came home!" + +"No, it wasn't. I came home to see how you were getting on with Olaf." + +Clara struck her horse with the whip, and in a bound she was far ahead +of him. Nils dropped one word, "Damn!" and whipped after her; but she +leaned forward in her saddle and fairly cut the wind. Her long riding +skirt rippled in the still air behind her. The sun was just sinking +behind the stubble in a vast, clear sky, and the shadows drew across the +fields so rapidly that Nils could scarcely keep in sight the dark figure +on the road. When he overtook her he caught her horse by the bridle. +Norman reared, and Nils was frightened for her; but Clara kept her seat. + +"Let me go, Nils Ericson!" she cried. "I hate you more than any of +them. You were created to torture me, the whole tribe of you--to make me +suffer in every possible way." + +She struck her horse again and galloped away from him. Nils set his +teeth and looked thoughtful. He rode slowly home along the deserted +road, watching the stars come out in the clear violet sky. + +They flashed softly into the limpid heavens, like jewels let fall into +clear water. They were a reproach, he felt, to a sordid world. As he +turned across the sand creek, he looked up at the North Star and smiled, +as if there were an understanding between them. His mother scolded him +for being late for supper. + + + V + +On Sunday afternoon Joe Vavrika, in his shirt sleeves and carpet +slippers, was sitting in his garden, smoking a long-tasseled porcelain +pipe with a hunting scene painted on the bowl. Clara sat under the +cherry tree, reading aloud to him from the weekly Bohemian papers. She +had worn a white muslin dress under her riding habit, and the leaves +of the cherry tree threw a pattern of sharp shadows over her skirt. The +black cat was dozing in the sunlight at her feet, and Joe's dachshund +was scratching a hole under the scarlet geraniums and dreaming of +badgers. Joe was filling his pipe for the third time since dinner, +when he heard a knocking on the fence. He broke into a loud guffaw and +unlatched the little door that led into the street. He did not call Nils +by name, but caught him by the hand and dragged him in. Clara stiffened +and the colour deepened under her dark skin. Nils, too, felt a little +awkward. He had not seen her since the night when she rode away from him +and left him alone on the level road between the fields. Joe dragged him +to the wooden bench beside the green table. + +"You bring de flute," he cried, tapping the leather case under Nils' +arm. "Ah, das-a good' Now we have some liddle fun like old times. I got +somet'ing good for you." Joe shook his finger at Nils and winked his +blue eye, a bright clear eye, full of fire, though the tiny bloodvessels +on the ball were always a little distended. "I got somet'ing for you +from"--he paused and waved his hand--"Hongarie. You know Hongarie? You +wait!" He pushed Nils down on the bench, and went through the back door +of his saloon. + +Nils looked at Clara, who sat frigidly with her white skirts drawn +tight about her. "He didn't tell you he had asked me to come, did he? +He wanted a party and proceeded to arrange it. Isn't he fun? Don't be +cross; let's give him a good time." + +Clara smiled and shook out her skirt. "Isn't that like Father? And he +has sat here so meekly all day. Well, I won't pout. I'm glad you came. +He doesn't have very many good times now any more. There are so few of +his kind left. The second generation are a tame lot." + +Joe came back with a flask in one hand and three wine glasses caught by +the stems between the fingers of the other. These he placed on the table +with an air of ceremony, and, going behind Nils, held the flask between +him and the sun, squinting into it admiringly. "You know dis, Tokai? A +great friend of mine, he bring dis to me, a present out of Hongarie. You +know how much it cost, dis wine? Chust so much what it weigh in gold. +Nobody but de nobles drink him in Bohemie. Many, many years I save him +up, dis Tokai." Joe whipped out his official corkscrew and delicately +removed the cork. "De old man die what bring him to me, an' dis wine he +lay on his belly in my cellar an' sleep. An' now," carefully pouring +out the heavy yellow wine, "an' now he wake up; and maybe he wake us +up, too!" He carried one of the glasses to his daughter and presented it +with great gallantry. + +Clara shook her head, but, seeing her father's disappointment, relented. +"You taste it first. I don't want so much." + +Joe sampled it with a beatific expression, and turned to Nils. "You +drink him slow, dis wine. He very soft, but he go down hot. You see!" + +After a second glass Nils declared that he couldn't take any more +without getting sleepy. "Now get your fiddle, Vavrika," he said as he +opened his flute case. + +But Joe settled back in his wooden rocker and wagged his big carpet +slipper. "No-no-no-no-no-no-no! No play fiddle now any more: too much +ache in de finger," waving them, "all-a-time rheumatic. You play de +flute, te-tety-tetety-te. Bohemie songs." + +"I've forgotten all the Bohemian songs I used to play with you and +Johanna. But here's one that will make Clara pout. You remember how her +eyes used to snap when we called her the Bohemian Girl?" Nils lifted his +flute and began "When Other Lips and Other Hearts," and Joe hummed the +air in a husky baritone, waving his carpet slipper. "Oh-h-h, das-a fine +music," he cried, clapping his hands as Nils finished. "Now 'Marble +Halls, Marble Halls'! Clara, you sing him." + +Clara smiled and leaned back in her chair, beginning softly: + + "I dreamt that I dwelt in ma-a-arble halls, + With vassals and serfs at my knee," + +and Joe hummed like a big bumblebee. + +"There's one more you always played," Clara said quietly, "I remember +that best." She locked her hands over her knee and began "The Heart +Bowed Down," and sang it through without groping for the words. She was +singing with a good deal of warmth when she came to the end of the old +song: + + "For memory is the only friend + That grief can call its own." + +Joe flashed out his red silk handkerchief and blew his nose, shaking his +head. "No-no-no-no-no-no-no! Too sad, too sad! I not like-a dat. Play +quick somet'ing gay now." + +Nils put his lips to the instrument, and Joe lay back in his chair, +laughing and singing, "Oh, Evelina, Sweet Evelina!" Clara laughed, too. +Long ago, when she and Nils went to high school, the model student of +their class was a very homely girl in thick spectacles. Her name was +Evelina Oleson; she had a long, swinging walk which somehow suggested +the measure of that song, and they used mercilessly to sing it at her. + +"Dat ugly Oleson girl, she teach in de school," Joe gasped, "an' she +still walks chust like dat, yup-a, yup-a, yup-a, chust like a +camel she go! Now, Nils, we have some more li'l drink. Oh, +yes-yes-yes-yes-yes-yes-_yes_! Dis time you haf to drink, and Clara she +haf to, so she show she not jealous. So, we all drink to your girl. You +not tell her name, eh? No-no-no, I no make you tell. She pretty, eh? She +make good sweetheart? I bet!" Joe winked and lifted his glass. "How soon +you get married?" + +Nils screwed up his eyes. "That I don't know. When she says." + +Joe threw out his chest. "Das-a way boys talks. No way for mans. Mans +say, 'You come to de church, an' get a hurry on you.' Das-a way mans +talks." + +"Maybe Nils hasn't got enough to keep a wife," put in Clara ironically. +"How about that, Nils?" she asked him frankly, as if she wanted to know. + +Nils looked at her coolly, raising one eyebrow. "Oh, I can keep her, all +right." + +"The way she wants to be kept?" + +"With my wife, I'll decide that," replied Nils calmly. "I'll give her +what's good for her." + +Clara made a wry face. "You'll give her the strap, I expect, like old +Peter Oleson gave his wife." + +"When she needs it," said Nils lazily, locking his hands behind his head +and squinting up through the leaves of the cherry tree. "Do you remember +the time I squeezed the cherries all over your clean dress, and Aunt +Johanna boxed my ears for me? My gracious, weren't you mad! You had both +hands full of cherries, and I squeezed 'em and made the juice fly all +over you. I liked to have fun with you; you'd get so mad." + +"We _did_ have fun, didn't we? None of the other kids ever had so much +fun. We knew how to play." + +Nils dropped his elbows on the table and looked steadily across at her. +"I've played with lots of girls since, but I haven't found one who was +such good fun." + +Clara laughed. The late afternoon sun was shining full in her face, +and deep in the back of her eyes there shone something fiery, like the +yellow drops of Tokai in the brown glass bottle. "Can you still play, or +are you only pretending?" + +"I can play better than I used to, and harder." + +"Don't you ever work, then?" She had not intended to say it. It slipped +out because she was confused enough to say just the wrong thing. + +"I work between times." Nils' steady gaze still beat upon her. "Don't +you worry about my working, Mrs. Ericson. You're getting like all the +rest of them." He reached his brown, warm hand across the table and +dropped it on Clara's, which was cold as an icicle. "Last call for play, +Mrs. Ericson!" Clara shivered, and suddenly her hands and cheeks grew +warm. Her fingers lingered in his a moment, and they looked at each +other earnestly. Joe Vavrika had put the mouth of the bottle to his lips +and was swallowing the last drops of the Tokai, standing. The sun, just +about to sink behind his shop, glistened on the bright glass, on his +flushed face and curly yellow hair. "Look," Clara whispered, "that's the +way I want to grow old." + + + VI + +On the day of Olaf Ericson's barn-raising, his wife, for once in a way, +rose early. Johanna Vavrika had been baking cakes and frying and boiling +and spicing meats for a week beforehand, but it was not until the day +before the party was to take place that Clara showed any interest in it. +Then she was seized with one of her fitful spasms of energy, and took +the wagon and little Eric and spent the day on Plum Creek, gathering +vines and swamp goldenrod to decorate the barn. + +By four o'clock in the afternoon buggies and wagons began to arrive at +the big unpainted building in front of Olaf's house. When Nils and his +mother came at five, there were more than fifty people in the barn, and +a great drove of children. On the ground floor stood six long tables, +set with the crockery of seven flourishing Ericson families, lent for +the occasion. In the middle of each table was a big yellow pumpkin, +hollowed out and filled with woodbine. In one corner of the barn, behind +a pile of green-and-white striped watermelons, was a circle of chairs +for the old people; the younger guests sat on bushel measures or +barbed-wire spools, and the children tumbled about in the haymow. The +box stalls Clara had converted into booths. The framework was hidden by +goldenrod and sheaves of wheat, and the partitions were covered 'With +wild grapevines full of fruit. At one of these Johanna Vavrika watched +over her cooked meats, enough to provision an army; and at the next her +kitchen girls had ranged the ice-cream freezers, and Clara was already +cutting pies and cakes against the hour of serving. At the third stall, +little Hilda, in a bright pink lawn dress, dispensed lemonade throughout +the afternoon. Olaf, as a public man, had thought it inadvisable to +serve beer in his barn; but Joe Vavrika had come over with two demijohns +concealed in his buggy, and after his arrival the wagon shed was much +frequented by the men. + +"Hasn't Cousin Clara fixed things lovely?" little Hilda whispered, when +Nils went up to her stall and asked for lemonade. + +Nils leaned against the booth, talking to the excited little girl and +watching the people. The barn faced the west, and the sun, pouring in +at the big doors, filled the whole interior with a golden light, +through which filtered fine particles of dust from the haymow, where the +children were romping. There was a great chattering from the stall where +Johanna Vavrika exhibited to the admiring women her platters heaped with +fried chicken, her roasts of beef, boiled tongues, and baked hams +with cloves stuck in the crisp brown fat and garnished with tansy and +parsley. The older women, having assured themselves that there were +twenty kinds of cake, not counting cookies, and three dozen fat pies, +repaired to the corner behind the pile of watermelons, put on their +white aprons, and fell to their knitting and fancywork. They were a fine +company of old women, and a Dutch painter would have loved to find them +there together, where the sun made bright patches on the floor and sent +long, quivering shafts of gold through the dusky shade up among the +rafters. There were fat, rosy old women who looked hot in their best +black dresses; spare, alert old women with brown, dark-veined hands; and +several of almost heroic frame, not less massive than old Mrs. Ericson +herself. Few of them wore glasses, and old Mrs. Svendsen, a Danish +woman, who was quite bald, wore the only cap among them. Mrs. Oleson, +who had twelve big grandchildren, could still show two braids of yellow +hair as thick as her own wrists. Among all these grandmothers there were +more brown heads than white. They all had a pleased, prosperous air, as +if they were more than satisfied with themselves and with life. Nils, +leaning against Hilda's lemonade stand, watched them as they sat +chattering in four languages, their fingers never lagging behind their +tongues. + +"Look at them over there," he whispered, detaining Clara as she passed +him. "Aren't they the Old Guard? I've just counted thirty hands. I guess +they've wrung many a chicken's neck and warmed many a boy's jacket for +him in their time." + +In reality he fell into amazement when he thought of the Herculean +labours those fifteen pairs of hands had performed: of the cows they +had milked, the butter they had made, the gardens they had planted, the +children and grandchildren they had tended, the brooms they had worn +out, the mountains of food they had cooked. It made him dizzy. Clara +Vavrika smiled a hard, enigmatical smile at him and walked rapidly away. +Nils' eyes followed her white figure as she went toward the house. +He watched her walking alone in the sunlight, looked at her slender, +defiant shoulders and her little hard-set head with its coils of +blue-black hair. "No," he reflected; "she'd never be like them, not if +she lived here a hundred years. She'd only grow more bitter. You can't +tame a wild thing; you can only chain it. People aren't all alike. I +mustn't lose my nerve." He gave Hilda's pigtail a parting tweak and +set out after Clara. "Where to?" he asked, as he came upon her in the +kitchen. + +"I'm going to the cellar for preserves." + +"Let me go with you. I never get a moment alone with you. Why do you +keep out of my way?" + +Clara laughed. "I don't usually get in anybody's way." + +Nils followed her down the stairs and to the far corner of the cellar, +where a basement window let in a stream of light. From a swinging shelf +Clara selected several glass jars, each labeled in Johanna's careful +hand. Nils took up a brown flask. "What's this? It looks good." + +"It is. It's some French brandy father gave me when I was married. Would +you like some? Have you a corkscrew? I'll get glasses." + +When she brought them, Nils took them from her and put them down on +the window-sill. "Clara Vavrika, do you remember how crazy I used to be +about you?" + +Clara shrugged her shoulders. "Boys are always crazy about somebody or +another. I dare say some silly has been crazy about Evelina Oleson. You +got over it in a hurry." + +"Because I didn't come back, you mean? I had to get on, you know, and it +was hard sledding at first. Then I heard you'd married Olaf." + +"And then you stayed away from a broken heart," Clara laughed. + +"And then I began to think about you more than I had since I first went +away. I began to wonder if you were really as you had seemed to me when +I was a boy. I thought I'd like to see. I've had lots of girls, but no +one ever pulled me the same way. The more I thought about you, the +more I remembered how it used to be--like hearing a wild tune you +can't resist, calling you out at night. It had been a long while since +anything had pulled me out of my boots, and I wondered whether anything +ever could again." Nils thrust his hands into his coat pockets and +squared his shoulders, as his mother sometimes squared hers, as Olaf, in +a clumsier manner, squared his. "So I thought I'd come back and see. Of +course the family have tried to do me, and I rather thought I'd bring +out father's will and make a fuss. But they can have their old land; +they've put enough sweat into it." He took the flask and filled the +two glasses carefully to the brim. "I've found out what I want from the +Ericsons. Drink _skoal_, Clara." He lifted his glass, and Clara took +hers with downcast eyes. "Look at me, Clara Vavrika. _Skoal!_" + +She raised her burning eyes and answered fiercely: "_Skoal!_" + + +The barn supper began at six o'clock and lasted for two hilarious +hours. Yense Nelson had made a wager that he could eat two whole fried +chickens, and he did. Eli Swanson stowed away two whole custard pies, +and Nick Hermanson ate a chocolate layer cake to the last crumb. There +was even a cooky contest among the children, and one thin, slablike +Bohemian boy consumed sixteen and won the prize, a gingerbread pig +which Johanna Vavrika had carefully decorated with red candies and burnt +sugar. Fritz Sweiheart, the German carpenter, won in the pickle contest, +but he disappeared soon after supper and was not seen for the rest of +the evening. Joe Vavrika said that Fritz could have managed the pickles +all right, but he had sampled the demijohn in his buggy too often before +sitting down to the table. + +While the supper was being cleared away the two fiddlers began to tune +up for the dance. Clara was to accompany them on her old upright piano, +which had been brought down from her father's. By this time Nils had +renewed old acquaintances. Since his interview with Clara in the cellar, +he had been busy telling all the old women how young they looked, and +all the young ones how pretty they were, and assuring the men that +they had here the best farmland in the world. He had made himself so +agreeable that old Mrs. Ericson's friends began to come up to her and +tell how lucky she was to get her smart son back again, and please to +get him to play his flute. Joe Vavrika, who could still play very well +when he forgot that he had rheumatism, caught up a fiddle from Johnny +Oleson and played a crazy Bohemian dance tune that set the wheels going. +When he dropped the bow every one was ready to dance. + +Olaf, in a frock coat and a solemn made-up necktie, led the grand march +with his mother. Clara had kept well out of _that_ by sticking to the +piano. She played the march with a pompous solemnity which greatly +amused the prodigal son, who went over and stood behind her. + +"Oh, aren't you rubbing it into them, Clara Vavrika? And aren't you +lucky to have me here, or all your wit would be thrown away." + +"I'm used to being witty for myself. It saves my life." + +The fiddles struck up a polka, and Nils convulsed Joe Vavrika by leading +out Evelina Oleson, the homely schoolteacher. His next partner was a +very fat Swedish girl, who, although she was an heiress, had not been +asked for the first dance, but had stood against the wall in her tight, +high-heeled shoes, nervously fingering a lace handkerchief. She was soon +out of breath, so Nils led her, pleased and panting, to her seat, +and went over to the piano, from which Clara had been watching his +gallantry. "Ask Olena Yenson," she whispered. "She waltzes beautifully." + +Olena, too, was rather inconveniently plump, handsome in a smooth, heavy +way, with a fine colour and good-natured, sleepy eyes. She was redolent +of violet sachet powder, and had warm, soft, white hands, but she danced +divinely, moving as smoothly as the tide coming in. "There, that's +something like," Nils said as he released her. "You'll give me the next +waltz, won't you? Now I must go and dance with my little cousin." + +Hilda was greatly excited when Nils went up to her stall and held out +his arm. Her little eyes sparkled, but she declared that she could not +leave her lemonade. Old Mrs. Ericson, who happened along at this moment, +said she would attend to that, and Hilda came out, as pink as her pink +dress. The dance was a schottische, and in a moment her yellow braids +were fairly standing on end. "Bravo!" Nils cried encouragingly. "Where +did you learn to dance so nicely?" + +"My Cousin Clara taught me," the little girl panted. + +Nils found Eric sitting with a group of boys who were too awkward or too +shy to dance, and told him that he must dance the next waltz with Hilda. + +The boy screwed up his shoulders. "Aw, Nils, I can't dance. My feet are +too big; I look silly." + +"Don't be thinking about yourself. It doesn't matter how boys look." + +Nils had never spoken to him so sharply before, and Eric made haste to +scramble out of his corner and brush the straw from his coat. + +Clara nodded approvingly. "Good for you, Nils. I've been trying to +get hold of him. They dance very nicely together; I sometimes play for +them." + +"I'm obliged to you for teaching him. There's no reason why he should +grow up to be a lout." + +"He'll never be that. He's more like you than any of them. Only he +hasn't your courage." From her slanting eyes Clara shot forth one of +those keen glances, admiring and at the same time challenging, which she +seldom bestowed on any one, and which seemed to say, "Yes, I admire you, +but I am your equal." + +Clara was proving a much better host than Olaf, who, once the supper was +over, seemed to feel no interest in anything but the lanterns. He had +brought a locomotive headlight from town to light the revels, and he +kept skulking about as if he feared the mere light from it might set his +new barn on fire. His wife, on the contrary, was cordial to every one, +was animated and even gay. The deep salmon colour in her cheeks burned +vividly, and her eyes were full of life. She gave the piano over to the +fat Swedish heiress, pulled her father away from the corner where he +sat gossiping with his cronies, and made him dance a Bohemian dance with +her. In his youth Joe had been a famous dancer, and his daughter got +him so limbered up that every one sat around and applauded them. The old +ladies were particularly delighted, and made them go through the dance +again. From their corner where they watched and commented, the old women +kept time with their feet and hands, and whenever the fiddles struck up +a new air old Mrs. Svendsen's white cap would begin to bob. + +Clara was waltzing with little Eric when Nils came up to them, brushed +his brother aside, and swung her out among the dancers. "Remember how +we used to waltz on rollers at the old skating rink in town? I suppose +people don't do that any more. We used to keep it up for hours. You +know, we never did moon around as other boys and girls did. It was dead +serious with us from the beginning. When we were most in love with each +other, we used to fight. You were always pinching people; your fingers +were like little nippers. A regular snapping turtle, you were. Lord, how +you'd like Stockholm! Sit out in the streets in front of cafes and talk +all night in summer, just like a reception--officers and ladies and +funny English people. Jolliest people in the world, the Swedes, once you +get them going. Always drinking things--champagne and stout mixed, +half-and-half, serve it out of big pitchers, and serve plenty. Slow +pulse, you know; they can stand a lot. Once they light up, they're +glowworms, I can tell you." + +"All the same, you don't really like gay people." + +"_I_ don't?" + +"No; I could tell that when you were looking at the old women there this +afternoon. They're the kind you really admire, after all; women like +your mother. And that's the kind you'll marry." + +"Is it, Miss Wisdom? You'll see who I'll marry, and she won't have a +domestic virtue to bless herself with. She'll be a snapping turtle, +and she'll be a match for me. All the same, they're a fine bunch of old +dames over there. You admire them yourself. + +"No, I don't; I detest them." + +"You won't, when you look back on them from Stockholm or Budapest. +Freedom settles all that. Oh, but you're the real Bohemian Girl, Clara +Vavrika!" Nils laughed down at her sullen frown and began mockingly to +sing: + + "Oh, how could a poor gypsy maiden like me + Expect the proud bride of a baron to be?" + +Clara clutched his shoulder. "Hush, Nils; every one is looking at you." + +"I don't care. They can't gossip. It's all in the family, as the +Ericsons say when they divide up little Hilda's patrimony amongst them. +Besides, we'll give them something to talk about when we hit the +trail. Lord, it will be a godsend to them! They haven't had anything so +interesting to chatter about since the grasshopper year. It'll give +them a new lease of life. And Olaf won't lose the Bohemian vote, either. +They'll have the laugh on him so that they'll vote two apiece. They'll +send him to Congress. They'll never forget his barn party, or us. +They'll always remember us as we're dancing together now. We're making +a legend. Where's my waltz, boys?" he called as they whirled past the +fiddlers. + +The musicians grinned, looked at each other, hesitated, and began a new +air; and Nils sang with them, as the couples fell from a quick waltz to +a long, slow glide: + + "When other lips and other hearts + Their tale of love shall tell, + In language whose excess imparts + The power they feel so well." + +The old women applauded vigorously. "What a gay one he is, that Nils!" +And old Mrs. Svendsen's cap lurched dreamily from side to side to the +flowing measure of the dance. + + "Of days that have as ha-a-p-py been, + And you'll remember me." + + + VII + +The moonlight flooded that great, silent land. The reaped fields lay +yellow in it. The straw stacks and poplar windbreaks threw sharp black +shadows. The roads were white rivers of dust. The sky was a deep, +crystalline blue, and the stars were few and faint. Everything seemed to +have succumbed, to have sunk to sleep, under the great, golden, tender, +midsummer moon. The splendour of it seemed to transcend human life and +human fate. The senses were too feeble to take it in, and every time one +looked up at the sky one felt unequal to it, as if one were sitting deaf +under the waves of a great river of melody. Near the road, Nils Ericson +was lying against a straw stack in Olaf's wheat field. His own life +seemed strange and unfamiliar to him, as if it were something he had +read about, or dreamed, and forgotten. He lay very still, watching the +white road that ran in front of him, lost itself among the fields, and +then, at a distance, reappeared over a little hill. At last, against +this white band he saw something moving rapidly, and he got up and +walked to the edge of the field. "She is passing the row of poplars +now," he thought. He heard the padded beat of hoofs along the dusty +road, and as she came into sight he stepped out and waved his arms. +Then, for fear of frightening the horse, he drew back and waited. Clara +had seen him, and she came up at a walk. Nils took the horse by the bit +and stroked his neck. + +"What are you doing out so late, Clara Vavrika? I went to the house, but +Johanna told me you had gone to your father's." + +"Who can stay in the house on a night like this? Aren't you out +yourself?" + +"Ah, but that's another matter." + +Nils turned the horse into the field. + +"What are you doing? Where are you taking Norman?" + +"Not far, but I want to talk to you tonight; I have something to say to +you. I can't talk to you at the house, with Olaf sitting there on the +porch, weighing a thousand tons." + +Clara laughed. "He won't be sitting there now. He's in bed by this time, +and asleep--weighing a thousand tons." + +Nils plodded on across the stubble. "Are you really going to spend the +rest of your life like this, night after night, summer after summer? +Haven't you anything better to do on a night like this than to wear +yourself and Norman out tearing across the country to your father's +and back? Besides, your father won't live forever, you know. His little +place will be shut up or sold, and then you'll have nobody but the +Ericsons. You'll have to fasten down the hatches for the winter then." + +Clara moved her head restlessly. "Don't talk about that. I try never to +think of it. If I lost Father I'd lose everything, even my hold over the +Ericsons." + +"Bah! You'd lose a good deal more than that. You'd lose your race, +everything that makes you yourself. You've lost a good deal of it now." + +"Of what?" + +"Of your love of life, your capacity for delight." + +Clara put her hands up to her face. "I haven't, Nils Ericson, I haven't! +Say anything to me but that. I won't have it!" she declared vehemently. + +Nils led the horse up to a straw stack, and turned to Clara, looking +at her intently, as he had looked at her that Sunday afternoon at +Vavrika's. "But why do you fight for that so? What good is the power +to enjoy, if you never enjoy? Your hands are cold again; what are you +afraid of all the time? Ah, you're afraid of losing it; that's what's +the matter with you! And you will, Clara Vavrika, you will! When I used +to know you--listen; you've caught a wild bird in your hand, haven't +you, and felt its heart beat so hard that you were afraid it would +shatter its little body to pieces? Well, you used to be just like that, +a slender, eager thing with a wild delight inside you. That is how I +remembered you. And I come back and find you--a bitter woman. This is +a perfect ferret fight here; you live by biting and being bitten. Can't +you remember what life used to be? Can't you remember that old delight? +I've never forgotten it, or known its like, on land or sea." + +He drew the horse under the shadow of the straw stack. Clara felt him +take her foot out of the stirrup, and she slid softly down into his +arms. He kissed her slowly. He was a deliberate man, but his nerves were +steel when he wanted anything. Something flashed out from him like a +knife out of a sheath. Clara felt everything slipping away from her; she +was flooded by the summer night. He thrust his hand into his pocket, +and then held it out at arm's length. "Look," he said. The shadow of the +straw stack fell sharp across his wrist, and in the palm of his hand she +saw a silver dollar shining. "That's my pile," he muttered; "will you go +with me?" + +Clara nodded, and dropped her forehead on his shoulder. + +Nils took a deep breath. "Will you go with me tonight?" + +"Where?" she whispered softly. + +"To town, to catch the midnight flyer." + +Clara lifted her head and pulled herself together. "Are you crazy, Nils? +We couldn't go away like that." + +"That's the only way we ever will go. You can't sit on the bank and +think about it. You have to plunge. That's the way I've always done, +and it's the right way for people like you and me. There's nothing so +dangerous as sitting still. You've only got one life, one youth, and +you can let it slip through your fingers if you want to; nothing easier. +Most people do that. You'd be better off tramping the roads with me than +you are here." Nils held back her head and looked into her eyes. "But +I'm not that kind of a tramp, Clara. You won't have to take in sewing. +I'm with a Norwegian shipping line; came over on business with the New +York offices, but now I'm going straight back to Bergen. I expect +I've got as much money as the Ericsons. Father sent me a little to get +started. They never knew about that. There, I hadn't meant to tell you; +I wanted you to come on your own nerve." + +Clara looked off across the fields. "It isn't that, Nils, but something +seems to hold me. I'm afraid to pull against it. It comes out of the +ground, I think." + +"I know all about that. One has to tear loose. You're not needed here. +Your father will understand; he's made like us. As for Olaf, Johanna +will take better care of him than ever you could. It's now or never, +Clara Vavrika. My bag's at the station; I smuggled it there yesterday." + +Clara clung to him and hid her face against his shoulder. "Not tonight," +she whispered. "Sit here and talk to me tonight. I don't want to go +anywhere tonight. I may never love you like this again." + +Nils laughed through his teeth. "You can't come that on me. That's not +my way, Clara Vavrika. Eric's mare is over there behind the stacks, and +I'm off on the midnight. It's goodbye, or off across the world with me. +My carriage won't wait. I've written a letter to Olaf, I'll mail it +in town. When he reads it he won't bother us--not if I know him. He'd +rather have the land. Besides, I could demand an investigation of his +administration of Cousin Henrik's estate, and that would be bad for a +public man. You've no clothes, I know; but you can sit up tonight, and +we can get everything on the way. Where's your old dash, Clara Vavrika? +What's become of your Bohemian blood? I used to think you had courage +enough for anything. Where's your nerve--what are you waiting for?" + +Clara drew back her head, and he saw the slumberous fire in her eyes. +"For you to say one thing, Nils Ericson." + +"I never say that thing to any woman, Clara Vavrika." He leaned back, +lifted her gently from the ground, and whispered through his teeth: "But +I'll never, never let you go, not to any man on earth but me! Do you +understand me? Now, wait here." + +Clara sank down on a sheaf of wheat and covered her face with her hands. +She did not know what she was going to do--whether she would go or stay. +The great, silent country seemed to lay a spell upon her. The ground +seemed to hold her as if by roots. Her knees were soft under her. She +felt as if she could not bear separation from her old sorrows, from her +old discontent. They were dear to her, they had kept her alive, they +were a part of her. There would be nothing left of her if she were +wrenched away from them. Never could she pass beyond that skyline +against which her restlessness had beat so many times. She felt as if +her soul had built itself a nest there on that horizon at which +she looked every morning and every evening, and it was dear to her, +inexpressibly dear. She pressed her fingers against her eyeballs to shut +it out. Beside her she heard the tramping of horses in the soft earth. +Nils said nothing to her. He put his hands under her arms and lifted her +lightly to her saddle. Then he swung himself into his own. + +"We shall have to ride fast to catch the midnight train. A last gallop, +Clara Vavrika. Forward!" + +There was a start, a thud of hoofs along the moonlit road, two dark +shadows going over the hill; and then the great, still land stretched +untroubled under the azure night. Two shadows had passed. + + + VII + +A year after the flight of Olaf Ericson's wife, the night train was +steaming across the plains of Iowa. The conductor was hurrying through +one of the day coaches, his lantern on his arm, when a lank, fair-haired +boy sat up in one of the plush seats and tweaked him by the coat. + +"What is the next stop, please, sir?" + +"Red Oak, Iowa. But you go through to Chicago, don't you?" He looked +down, and noticed that the boy's eyes were red and his face was drawn, +as if he were in trouble. + +"Yes. But I was wondering whether I could get off at the next place and +get a train back to Omaha." + +"Well, I suppose you could. Live in Omaha?" + +"No. In the western part of the State. How soon do we get to Red Oak?" + +"Forty minutes. You'd better make up your mind, so I can tell the +baggageman to put your trunk off." + +"Oh, never mind about that! I mean, I haven't got any," the boy added, +blushing. + +"Run away," the conductor thought, as he slammed the coach door behind +him. + +Eric Ericson crumpled down in his seat and put his brown hand to his +forehead. He had been crying, and he had had no supper, and his head was +aching violently. "Oh, what shall I do?" he thought, as he looked dully +down at his big shoes. "Nils will be ashamed of me; I haven't got any +spunk." + +Ever since Nils had run away with his brother's wife, life at home had +been hard for little Eric. His mother and Olaf both suspected him of +complicity. Mrs. Ericson was harsh and faultfinding, constantly wounding +the boy's pride; and Olaf was always setting her against him. + +Joe Vavrika heard often from his daughter. Clara had always been fond of +her father, and happiness made her kinder. She wrote him long accounts +of the voyage to Bergen, and of the trip she and Nils took through +Bohemia to the little town where her father had grown up and where she +herself was born. She visited all her kinsmen there, and sent her father +news of his brother, who was a priest; of his sister, who had married a +horse-breeder--of their big farm and their many children. These letters +Joe always managed to read to little Eric. They contained messages for +Eric and Hilda. Clara sent presents, too, which Eric never dared to take +home and which poor little Hilda never even saw, though she loved to +hear Eric tell about them when they were out getting the eggs together. +But Olaf once saw Eric coming out of Vavrika's house--the old man had +never asked the boy to come into his saloon--and Olaf went straight to +his mother and told her. That night Mrs. Ericson came to Eric's room +after he was in bed and made a terrible scene. She could be very +terrifying when she was really angry. She forbade him ever to speak to +Vavrika again, and after that night she would not allow him to go to +town alone. So it was a long while before Eric got any more news of his +brother. But old Joe suspected what was going on, and he carried Clara's +letters about in his pocket. One Sunday he drove out to see a German +friend of his, and chanced to catch sight of Eric, sitting by the cattle +pond in the big pasture. They went together into Fritz Oberlies' barn, +and read the letters and talked things over. Eric admitted that things +were getting hard for him at home. That very night old Joe sat down and +laboriously penned a statement of the case to his daughter. + +Things got no better for Eric. His mother and Olaf felt that, however +closely he was watched, he still, as they said, "heard." Mrs. Ericson +could not admit neutrality. She had sent Johanna Vavrika packing back to +her brother's, though Olaf would much rather have kept her than Anders' +eldest daughter, whom Mrs. Ericson installed in her place. He was not +so highhanded as his mother, and he once sulkily told her that she might +better have taught her granddaughter to cook before she sent Johanna +away. Olaf could have borne a good deal for the sake of prunes spiced in +honey, the secret of which Johanna had taken away with her. + +At last two letters came to Joe Vavrika: one from Nils, enclosing a +postal order for money to pay Eric's passage to Bergen, and one from +Clara, saying that Nils had a place for Eric in the offices of his +company, that he was to live with them, and that they were only waiting +for him to come. He was to leave New York on one of the boats of Nils' +own line; the captain was one of their friends, and Eric was to make +himself known at once. + +Nils' directions were so explicit that a baby could have followed them, +Eric felt. And here he was, nearing Red Oak, Iowa, and rocking backward +and forward in despair. Never had he loved his brother so much, and +never had the big world called to him so hard. But there was a lump in +his throat which would not go down. Ever since nightfall he had been +tormented by the thought of his mother, alone in that big house that +had sent forth so many men. Her unkindness now seemed so little, and her +loneliness so great. He remembered everything she had ever done for him: +how frightened she had been when he tore his hand in the corn-sheller, +and how she wouldn't let Olaf scold him. When Nils went away he didn't +leave his mother all alone, or he would never have gone. Eric felt sure +of that. + +The train whistled. The conductor came in, smiling not unkindly. +"Well, young man, what are you going to do? We stop at Red Oak in three +minutes." + +"Yes, thank you. I'll let you know." The conductor went out, and the boy +doubled up with misery. He couldn't let his one chance go like this. +He felt for his breast pocket and crackled Nils' letter to give him +courage. He didn't want Nils to be ashamed of him. The train stopped. +Suddenly he remembered his brother's kind, twinkling eyes, that always +looked at you as if from far away. The lump in his throat softened. "Ah, +but Nils, Nils would _understand_!" he thought. "That's just it about +Nils; he always understands." + +A lank, pale boy with a canvas telescope stumbled off the train to the +Red Oak siding, just as the conductor called, "All aboard!" + +The next night Mrs. Ericson was sitting alone in her wooden +rocking-chair on the front porch. Little Hilda had been sent to bed and +had cried herself to sleep. The old woman's knitting was on her lap, but +her hands lay motionless on top of it. For more than an hour she had not +moved a muscle. She simply sat, as only the Ericsons and the mountains +can sit. The house was dark, and there was no sound but the croaking of +the frogs down in the pond of the little pasture. + +Eric did not come home by the road, but across the fields, where no one +could see him. He set his telescope down softly in the kitchen shed, and +slipped noiselessly along the path to the front porch. He sat down on +the step without saying anything. Mrs. Ericson made no sign, and the +frogs croaked on. At last the boy spoke timidly. + +"I've come back, Mother." + +"Very well," said Mrs. Ericson. + +Eric leaned over and picked up a little stick out of the grass. + +"How about the milking?" he faltered. + +"That's been done, hours ago." + +"Who did you get?" + +"Get? I did it myself. I can milk as good as any of you." + +Eric slid along the step nearer to her. "Oh, Mother, why did you?" he +asked sorrowfully. "Why didn't you get one of Otto's boys?" + +"I didn't want anybody to know I was in need of a boy," said Mrs. +Ericson bitterly. She looked straight in front of her and her mouth +tightened. "I always meant to give you the home farm," she added. + +The boy stared and slid closer. "Oh, Mother," he faltered, "I don't care +about the farm. I came back because I thought you might be needing me, +maybe." He hung his head and got no further. + +"Very well," said Mrs. Ericson. Her hand went out from her suddenly +and rested on his head. Her fingers twined themselves in his soft, pale +hair. His tears splashed down on the boards; happiness filled his heart. + + + + +THE TROLL GARDEN + + + + +Flavia and Her Artists + +As the train neared Tarrytown, Imogen Willard began to wonder why she +had consented to be one of Flavia's house party at all. She had not felt +enthusiastic about it since leaving the city, and was experiencing a +prolonged ebb of purpose, a current of chilling indecision, under +which she vainly sought for the motive which had induced her to accept +Flavia's invitation. + +Perhaps it was a vague curiosity to see Flavia's husband, who had been +the magician of her childhood and the hero of innumerable Arabian fairy +tales. Perhaps it was a desire to see M. Roux, whom Flavia had announced +as the especial attraction of the occasion. Perhaps it was a wish to +study that remarkable woman in her own setting. + +Imogen admitted a mild curiosity concerning Flavia. She was in the habit +of taking people rather seriously, but somehow found it impossible to +take Flavia so, because of the very vehemence and insistence with which +Flavia demanded it. Submerged in her studies, Imogen had, of late years, +seen very little of Flavia; but Flavia, in her hurried visits to New +York, between her excursions from studio to studio--her luncheons with +this lady who had to play at a matinee, and her dinners with that singer +who had an evening concert--had seen enough of her friend's handsome +daughter to conceive for her an inclination of such violence and +assurance as only Flavia could afford. The fact that Imogen had shown +rather marked capacity in certain esoteric lines of scholarship, and +had decided to specialize in a well-sounding branch of philology at +the Ecole des Chartes, had fairly placed her in that category of +"interesting people" whom Flavia considered her natural affinities, and +lawful prey. + +When Imogen stepped upon the station platform she was immediately +appropriated by her hostess, whose commanding figure and assurance of +attire she had recognized from a distance. She was hurried into a high +tilbury and Flavia, taking the driver's cushion beside her, gathered up +the reins with an experienced hand. + +"My dear girl," she remarked, as she turned the horses up the street, "I +was afraid the train might be late. M. Roux insisted upon coming up by +boat and did not arrive until after seven." + +"To think of M. Roux's being in this part of the world at all, and +subject to the vicissitudes of river boats! Why in the world did he come +over?" queried Imogen with lively interest. "He is the sort of man who +must dissolve and become a shadow outside of Paris." + +"Oh, we have a houseful of the most interesting people," said Flavia, +professionally. "We have actually managed to get Ivan Schemetzkin. He +was ill in California at the close of his concert tour, you know, and he +is recuperating with us, after his wearing journey from the coast. Then +there is Jules Martel, the painter; Signor Donati, the tenor; Professor +Schotte, who has dug up Assyria, you know; Restzhoff, the Russian +chemist; Alcee Buisson, the philologist; Frank Wellington, the novelist; +and Will Maidenwood, the editor of _Woman_. Then there is my second +cousin, Jemima Broadwood, who made such a hit in Pinero's comedy last +winter, and Frau Lichtenfeld. _Have_ you read her?" + +Imogen confessed her utter ignorance of Frau Lichtenfeld, and Flavia +went on. + +"Well, she is a most remarkable person; one of those advanced German +women, a militant iconoclast, and this drive will not be long enough to +permit of my telling you her history. Such a story! Her novels were the +talk of all Germany when I was there last, and several of them have been +suppressed--an honor in Germany, I understand. 'At Whose Door' has been +translated. I am so unfortunate as not to read German." + +"I'm all excitement at the prospect of meeting Miss Broadwood," +said Imogen. "I've seen her in nearly everything she does. Her stage +personality is delightful. She always reminds me of a nice, clean, +pink-and-white boy who has just had his cold bath, and come down all +aglow for a run before breakfast." + +"Yes, but isn't it unfortunate that she will limit herself to those +minor comedy parts that are so little appreciated in this country? One +ought to be satisfied with nothing less than the best, ought one?" The +peculiar, breathy tone in which Flavia always uttered that word "best," +the most worn in her vocabulary, always jarred on Imogen and always made +her obdurate. + +"I don't at all agree with you," she said reservedly. "I thought +everyone admitted that the most remarkable thing about Miss Broadwood is +her admirable sense of fitness, which is rare enough in her profession." + +Flavia could not endure being contradicted; she always seemed to regard +it in the light of a defeat, and usually colored unbecomingly. Now she +changed the subject. + +"Look, my dear," she cried, "there is Frau Lichtenfeld now, coming to +meet us. Doesn't she look as if she had just escaped out of Valhalla? +She is actually over six feet." + +Imogen saw a woman of immense stature, in a very short skirt and a +broad, flapping sun hat, striding down the hillside at a long, swinging +gait. The refugee from Valhalla approached, panting. Her heavy, Teutonic +features were scarlet from the rigor of her exercise, and her hair, +under her flapping sun hat, was tightly befrizzled about her brow. She +fixed her sharp little eyes upon Imogen and extended both her hands. + +"So this is the little friend?" she cried, in a rolling baritone. + +Imogen was quite as tall as her hostess; but everything, she reflected, +is comparative. After the introduction Flavia apologized. + +"I wish I could ask you to drive up with us, Frau Lichtenfeld." + +"Ah, no!" cried the giantess, drooping her head in humorous caricature +of a time-honored pose of the heroines of sentimental romances. "It has +never been my fate to be fitted into corners. I have never known the +sweet privileges of the tiny." + +Laughing, Flavia started the ponies, and the colossal woman, standing +in the middle of the dusty road, took off her wide hat and waved them +a farewell which, in scope of gesture, recalled the salute of a plumed +cavalier. + +When they arrived at the house, Imogen looked about her with keen +curiosity, for this was veritably the work of Flavia's hands, the +materialization of hopes long deferred. They passed directly into a +large, square hall with a gallery on three sides, studio fashion. This +opened at one end into a Dutch breakfast room, beyond which was the +large dining room. At the other end of the hall was the music room. +There was a smoking room, which one entered through the library +behind the staircase. On the second floor there was the same general +arrangement: a square hall, and, opening from it, the guest chambers, +or, as Miss Broadwood termed them, the "cages." + +When Imogen went to her room, the guests had begun to return from their +various afternoon excursions. Boys were gliding through the halls with +ice water, covered trays, and flowers, colliding with maids and valets +who carried shoes and other articles of wearing apparel. Yet, all this +was done in response to inaudible bells, on felt soles, and in hushed +voices, so that there was very little confusion about it. + +Flavia had at last built her house and hewn out her seven pillars; there +could be no doubt, now, that the asylum for talent, the sanatorium of +the arts, so long projected, was an accomplished fact. Her ambition +had long ago outgrown the dimensions of her house on Prairie Avenue; +besides, she had bitterly complained that in Chicago traditions were +against her. Her project had been delayed by Arthur's doggedly standing +out for the Michigan woods, but Flavia knew well enough that certain of +the _rarae aves_--"the best"--could not be lured so far away from the +seaport, so she declared herself for the historic Hudson and knew no +retreat. The establishing of a New York office had at length overthrown +Arthur's last valid objection to quitting the lake country for three +months of the year; and Arthur could be wearied into anything, as those +who knew him knew. + +Flavia's house was the mirror of her exultation; it was a temple to the +gods of Victory, a sort of triumphal arch. In her earlier days she had +swallowed experiences that would have unmanned one of less torrential +enthusiasm or blind pertinacity. But, of late years, her determination +had told; she saw less and less of those mysterious persons with +mysterious obstacles in their path and mysterious grievances against the +world, who had once frequented her house on Prairie Avenue. In the stead +of this multitude of the unarrived, she had now the few, the select, +"the best." Of all that band of indigent retainers who had once fed at +her board like the suitors in the halls of Penelope, only Alcee Buisson +still retained his right of entree. He alone had remembered that +ambition hath a knapsack at his back, wherein he puts alms to oblivion, +and he alone had been considerate enough to do what Flavia had expected +of him, and give his name a current value in the world. Then, as +Miss Broadwood put it, "he was her first real one,"--and Flavia, like +Mohammed, could remember her first believer. + +"The House of Song," as Miss Broadwood had called it, was the outcome +of Flavia's more exalted strategies. A woman who made less a point of +sympathizing with their delicate organisms, might have sought to plunge +these phosphorescent pieces into the tepid bath of domestic life; +but Flavia's discernment was deeper. This must be a refuge where the +shrinking soul, the sensitive brain, should be unconstrained; where +the caprice of fancy should outweigh the civil code, if necessary. She +considered that this much Arthur owed her; for she, in her turn, had +made concessions. Flavia had, indeed, quite an equipment of epigrams +to the effect that our century creates the iron genii which evolve its +fairy tales: but the fact that her husband's name was annually painted +upon some ten thousand threshing machines in reality contributed very +little to her happiness. + +Arthur Hamilton was born and had spent his boyhood in the West Indies, +and physically he had never lost the brand of the tropics. His father, +after inventing the machine which bore his name, had returned to the +States to patent and manufacture it. After leaving college, Arthur had +spent five years ranching in the West and traveling abroad. Upon his +father's death he had returned to Chicago and, to the astonishment of +all his friends, had taken up the business--without any demonstration +of enthusiasm, but with quiet perseverance, marked ability, and amazing +industry. Why or how a self-sufficient, rather ascetic man of thirty, +indifferent in manner, wholly negative in all other personal relations, +should have doggedly wooed and finally married Flavia Malcolm was a +problem that had vexed older heads than Imogen's. + +While Imogen was dressing she heard a knock at her door, and a young +woman entered whom she at once recognized as Jemima Broadwood--"Jimmy" +Broadwood she was called by people in her own profession. While there +was something unmistakably professional in her frank _savoir-faire_, +"Jimmy's" was one of those faces to which the rouge never seems to +stick. Her eyes were keen and gray as a windy April sky, and so far from +having been seared by calcium lights, you might have fancied they had +never looked on anything less bucolic than growing fields and country +fairs. She wore her thick, brown hair short and parted at the side; and, +rather than hinting at freakishness, this seemed admirably in keeping +with her fresh, boyish countenance. She extended to Imogen a large, +well-shaped hand which it was a pleasure to clasp. + +"Ah! You are Miss Willard, and I see I need not introduce myself. Flavia +said you were kind enough to express a wish to meet me, and I preferred +to meet you alone. Do you mind if I smoke?" + +"Why, certainly not," said Imogen, somewhat disconcerted and looking +hurriedly about for matches. + +"There, be calm, I'm always prepared," said Miss Broadwood, checking +Imogen's flurry with a soothing gesture, and producing an oddly +fashioned silver match-case from some mysterious recess in her dinner +gown. She sat down in a deep chair, crossed her patent-leather Oxfords, +and lit her cigarette. "This matchbox," she went on meditatively, "once +belonged to a Prussian officer. He shot himself in his bathtub, and I +bought it at the sale of his effects." + +Imogen had not yet found any suitable reply to make to this rather +irrelevant confidence, when Miss Broadwood turned to her cordially: "I'm +awfully glad you've come, Miss Willard, though I've not quite decided +why you did it. I wanted very much to meet you. Flavia gave me your +thesis to read." + +"Why, how funny!" ejaculated Imogen. + +"On the contrary," remarked Miss Broadwood. "I thought it decidedly +lacked humor." + +"I meant," stammered Imogen, beginning to feel very much like Alice +in Wonderland, "I meant that I thought it rather strange Mrs. Hamilton +should fancy you would be interested." + +Miss Broadwood laughed heartily. "Now, don't let my rudeness frighten +you. Really, I found it very interesting, and no end impressive. You +see, most people in my profession are good for absolutely nothing else, +and, therefore, they have a deep and abiding conviction that in some +other line they might have shone. Strange to say, scholarship is the +object of our envious and particular admiration. Anything in type +impresses us greatly; that's why so many of us marry authors or +newspapermen and lead miserable lives." Miss Broadwood saw that she had +rather disconcerted Imogen, and blithely tacked in another direction. +"You see," she went on, tossing aside her half-consumed cigarette, "some +years ago Flavia would not have deemed me worthy to open the pages of +your thesis--nor to be one of her house party of the chosen, for that +matter. I've Pinero to thank for both pleasures. It all depends on the +class of business I'm playing whether I'm in favor or not. Flavia is +my second cousin, you know, so I can say whatever disagreeable things I +choose with perfect good grace. I'm quite desperate for someone to laugh +with, so I'm going to fasten myself upon you--for, of course, one can't +expect any of these gypsy-dago people to see anything funny. I don't +intend you shall lose the humor of the situation. What do you think of +Flavia's infirmary for the arts, anyway?" + +"Well, it's rather too soon for me to have any opinion at all," said +Imogen, as she again turned to her dressing. "So far, you are the only +one of the artists I've met." + +"One of them?" echoed Miss Broadwood. "One of the _artists_? My offense +may be rank, my dear, but I really don't deserve that. Come, now, +whatever badges of my tribe I may bear upon me, just let me divest you +of any notion that I take myself seriously." + +Imogen turned from the mirror in blank astonishment and sat down on the +arm of a chair, facing her visitor. "I can't fathom you at all, +Miss Broadwood," she said frankly. "Why shouldn't you take yourself +seriously? What's the use of beating about the bush? Surely you know +that you are one of the few players on this side of the water who have +at all the spirit of natural or ingenuous comedy?" + +"Thank you, my dear. Now we are quite even about the thesis, aren't +we? Oh, did you mean it? Well, you _are_ a clever girl. But you see it +doesn't do to permit oneself to look at it in that light. If we do, we +always go to pieces and waste our substance astarring as the unhappy +daughter of the Capulets. But there, I hear Flavia coming to take you +down; and just remember I'm not one of them--the artists, I mean." + + +Flavia conducted Imogen and Miss Broadwood downstairs. As they reached +the lower hall they heard voices from the music room, and dim figures +were lurking in the shadows under the gallery, but their hostess led +straight to the smoking room. The June evening was chilly, and a fire +had been lighted in the fireplace. Through the deepening dusk, the +firelight flickered upon the pipes and curious weapons on the wall and +threw an orange glow over the Turkish hangings. One side of the smoking +room was entirely of glass, separating it from the conservatory, which +was flooded with white light from the electric bulbs. There was about +the darkened room some suggestion of certain chambers in the Arabian +Nights, opening on a court of palms. Perhaps it was partially this +memory-evoking suggestion that caused Imogen to start so violently when +she saw dimly, in a blur of shadow, the figure of a man, who sat smoking +in a low, deep chair before the fire. He was long, and thin, and brown. +His long, nerveless hands drooped from the arms of his chair. A brown +mustache shaded his mouth, and his eyes were sleepy and apathetic. When +Imogen entered he rose indolently and gave her his hand, his manner +barely courteous. + +"I am glad you arrived promptly, Miss Willard," he said with an +indifferent drawl. "Flavia was afraid you might be late. You had a +pleasant ride up, I hope?" + +"Oh, very, thank you, Mr. Hamilton," she replied, feeling that he did +not particularly care whether she replied at all. + +Flavia explained that she had not yet had time to dress for dinner, +as she had been attending to Mr. Will Maidenwood, who had become faint +after hurting his finger in an obdurate window, and immediately excused +herself As she left, Hamilton turned to Miss Broadwood with a rather +spiritless smile. + +"Well, Jimmy," he remarked, "I brought up a piano box full of fireworks +for the boys. How do you suppose we'll manage to keep them until the +Fourth?" + +"We can't, unless we steel ourselves to deny there are any on the +premises," said Miss Broadwood, seating herself on a low stool by +Hamilton's chair and leaning back against the mantel. "Have you seen +Helen, and has she told you the tragedy of the tooth?" + +"She met me at the station, with her tooth wrapped up in tissue paper. +I had tea with her an hour ago. Better sit down, Miss Willard;" he rose +and pushed a chair toward Imogen, who was standing peering into the +conservatory. "We are scheduled to dine at seven, but they seldom get +around before eight." + +By this time Imogen had made out that here the plural pronoun, third +person, always referred to the artists. As Hamilton's manner did not +spur one to cordial intercourse, and as his attention seemed directed +to Miss Broadwood, insofar as it could be said to be directed to anyone, +she sat down facing the conservatory and watched him, unable to decide +in how far he was identical with the man who had first met Flavia +Malcolm in her mother's house, twelve years ago. Did he at all remember +having known her as a little girl, and why did his indifference hurt her +so, after all these years? Had some remnant of her childish affection +for him gone on living, somewhere down in the sealed caves of her +consciousness, and had she really expected to find it possible to be +fond of him again? Suddenly she saw a light in the man's sleepy eyes, +an unmistakable expression of interest and pleasure that fairly startled +her. She turned quickly in the direction of his glance, and saw Flavia, +just entering, dressed for dinner and lit by the effulgence of her most +radiant manner. Most people considered Flavia handsome, and there was +no gainsaying that she carried her five-and-thirty years splendidly. Her +figure had never grown matronly, and her face was of the sort that does +not show wear. Its blond tints were as fresh and enduring as enamel--and +quite as hard. Its usual expression was one of tense, often strained, +animation, which compressed her lips nervously. A perfect scream of +animation, Miss Broadwood had called it, created and maintained by +sheer, indomitable force of will. Flavia's appearance on any scene +whatever made a ripple, caused a certain agitation and recognition, and, +among impressionable people, a certain uneasiness, For all her sparkling +assurance of manner, Flavia was certainly always ill at ease and, even +more certainly, anxious. She seemed not convinced of the established +order of material things, seemed always trying to conceal her feeling +that walls might crumble, chasms open, or the fabric of her life fly +to the winds in irretrievable entanglement. At least this was the +impression Imogen got from that note in Flavia which was so manifestly +false. + +Hamilton's keen, quick, satisfied glance at his wife had recalled to +Imogen all her inventory of speculations about them. She looked at him +with compassionate surprise. As a child she had never permitted herself +to believe that Hamilton cared at all for the woman who had taken him +away from her; and since she had begun to think about them again, it +had never occurred to her that anyone could become attached to Flavia in +that deeply personal and exclusive sense. It seemed quite as irrational +as trying to possess oneself of Broadway at noon. + +When they went out to dinner Imogen realized the completeness of +Flavia's triumph. They were people of one name, mostly, like kings; +people whose names stirred the imagination like a romance or a melody. +With the notable exception of M. Roux, Imogen had seen most of them +before, either in concert halls or lecture rooms; but they looked +noticeably older and dimmer than she remembered them. + +Opposite her sat Schemetzkin, the Russian pianist, a short, corpulent +man, with an apoplectic face and purplish skin, his thick, iron-gray +hair tossed back from his forehead. Next to the German giantess sat the +Italian tenor--the tiniest of men--pale, with soft, light hair, much +in disorder, very red lips, and fingers yellowed by cigarettes. Frau +Lichtenfeld shone in a gown of emerald green, fitting so closely as to +enhance her natural floridness. However, to do the good lady justice, +let her attire be never so modest, it gave an effect of barbaric +splendor. At her left sat Herr Schotte, the Assyriologist, whose +features were effectually concealed by the convergence of his hair and +beard, and whose glasses were continually falling into his plate. +This gentleman had removed more tons of earth in the course of his +explorations than had any of his confreres, and his vigorous attack upon +his food seemed to suggest the strenuous nature of his accustomed toil. +His eyes were small and deeply set, and his forehead bulged fiercely +above his eyes in a bony ridge. His heavy brows completed the leonine +suggestion of his face. Even to Imogen, who knew something of his work +and greatly respected it, he was entirely too reminiscent of the Stone +Age to be altogether an agreeable dinner companion. He seemed, indeed, +to have absorbed something of the savagery of those early types of life +which he continually studied. + +Frank Wellington, the young Kansas man who had been two years out of +Harvard and had published three historical novels, sat next to Mr. Will +Maidenwood, who was still pale from his recent sufferings and carried +his hand bandaged. They took little part in the general conversation, +but, like the lion and the unicorn, were always at it, discussing, +every time they met, whether there were or were not passages in Mr. +Wellington's works which should be eliminated, out of consideration +for the Young Person. Wellington had fallen into the hands of a great +American syndicate which most effectually befriended struggling authors +whose struggles were in the right direction, and which had guaranteed +to make him famous before he was thirty. Feeling the security of his +position he stoutly defended those passages which jarred upon the +sensitive nerves of the young editor of _Woman_. Maidenwood, in the +smoothest of voices, urged the necessity of the author's recognizing +certain restrictions at the outset, and Miss Broadwood, who joined the +argument quite without invitation or encouragement, seconded him with +pointed and malicious remarks which caused the young editor manifest +discomfort. Restzhoff, the chemist, demanded the attention of the entire +company for his exposition of his devices for manufacturing ice cream +from vegetable oils and for administering drugs in bonbons. + +Flavia, always noticeably restless at dinner, was somewhat apathetic +toward the advocate of peptonized chocolate and was plainly concerned +about the sudden departure of M. Roux, who had announced that it would +be necessary for him to leave tomorrow. M. Emile Roux, who sat at +Flavia's right, was a man in middle life and quite bald, clearly without +personal vanity, though his publishers preferred to circulate only those +of his portraits taken in his ambrosial youth. Imogen was considerably +shocked at his unlikeness to the slender, black-stocked Rolla he had +looked at twenty. He had declined into the florid, settled heaviness of +indifference and approaching age. There was, however, a certain look of +durability and solidity about him; the look of a man who has earned the +right to be fat and bald, and even silent at dinner if he chooses. + +Throughout the discussion between Wellington and Will Maidenwood, though +they invited his participation, he remained silent, betraying no sign +either of interest or contempt. Since his arrival he had directed most +of his conversation to Hamilton, who had never read one of his twelve +great novels. This perplexed and troubled Flavia. On the night of his +arrival Jules Martel had enthusiastically declared, "There are schools +and schools, manners and manners; but Roux is Roux, and Paris sets +its watches by his clock." Flavia had already repeated this remark to +Imogen. It haunted her, and each time she quoted it she was impressed +anew. + +Flavia shifted the conversation uneasily, evidently exasperated and +excited by her repeated failures to draw the novelist out. "Monsieur +Roux," she began abruptly, with her most animated smile, "I remember so +well a statement I read some years ago in your 'Mes Etudes des Femmes' +to the effect that you had never met a really intellectual woman. May I +ask, without being impertinent, whether that assertion still represents +your experience?" + +"I meant, madam," said the novelist conservatively, "intellectual in +a sense very special, as we say of men in whom the purely intellectual +functions seem almost independent." + +"And you still think a woman so constituted a mythical personage?" +persisted Flavia, nodding her head encouragingly. + +"_Une Meduse_, madam, who, if she were discovered, would transmute us +all into stone," said the novelist, bowing gravely. "If she existed at +all," he added deliberately, "it was my business to find her, and +she has cost me many a vain pilgrimage. Like Rudel of Tripoli, I have +crossed seas and penetrated deserts to seek her out. I have, indeed, +encountered women of learning whose industry I have been compelled +to respect; many who have possessed beauty and charm and perplexing +cleverness; a few with remarkable information and a sort of fatal +facility." + +"And Mrs. Browning, George Eliot, and your own Mme. Dudevant?" queried +Flavia with that fervid enthusiasm with which she could, on occasion, +utter things simply incomprehensible for their banality--at her feats of +this sort Miss Broadwood was wont to sit breathless with admiration. + +"Madam, while the intellect was undeniably present in the performances +of those women, it was only the stick of the rocket. Although this +woman has eluded me I have studied her conditions and perturbances as +astronomers conjecture the orbits of planets they have never seen. +if she exists, she is probably neither an artist nor a woman with a +mission, but an obscure personage, with imperative intellectual needs, +who absorbs rather than produces." + +Flavia, still nodding nervously, fixed a strained glance of +interrogation upon M. Roux. "Then you think she would be a woman whose +first necessity would be to know, whose instincts would be satisfied +only with the best, who could draw from others; appreciative, merely?" + +The novelist lifted his dull eyes to his interlocutress with an +untranslatable smile and a slight inclination of his shoulders. "Exactly +so; you are really remarkable, madam," he added, in a tone of cold +astonishment. + +After dinner the guests took their coffee in the music room, where +Schemetzkin sat down at the piano to drum ragtime, and give his +celebrated imitation of the boardingschool girl's execution of Chopin. +He flatly refused to play anything more serious, and would practice only +in the morning, when he had the music room to himself. Hamilton and M. +Roux repaired to the smoking room to discuss the necessity of extending +the tax on manufactured articles in France--one of those conversations +which particularly exasperated Flavia. + +After Schemetzkin had grimaced and tortured the keyboard with malicious +vulgarities for half an hour, Signor Donati, to put an end to his +torture, consented to sing, and Flavia and Imogen went to fetch Arthur +to play his accompaniments. Hamilton rose with an annoyed look and +placed his cigarette on the mantel. "Why yes, Flavia, I'll accompany +him, provided he sings something with a melody, Italian arias or +ballads, and provided the recital is not interminable." + +"You will join us, M. Roux?" + +"Thank you, but I have some letters to write," replied the novelist, +bowing. + +As Flavia had remarked to Imogen, "Arthur really played accompaniments +remarkably well." To hear him recalled vividly the days of her +childhood, when he always used to spend his business vacations at her +mother's home in Maine. He had possessed for her that almost hypnotic +influence which young men sometimes exert upon little girls. It was a +sort of phantom love affair, subjective and fanciful, a precocity of +instinct, like that tender and maternal concern which some little girls +feel for their dolls. Yet this childish infatuation is capable of +all the depressions and exaltations of love itself, it has its bitter +jealousies, cruel disappointments, its exacting caprices. + +Summer after summer she had awaited his coming and wept at his +departure, indifferent to the gayer young men who had called her their +sweetheart and laughed at everything she said. Although Hamilton never +said so, she had been always quite sure that he was fond of her. When +he pulled her up the river to hunt for fairy knolls shut about by low, +hanging willows, he was often silent for an hour at a time, yet she +never felt he was bored or was neglecting her. He would lie in the sand +smoking, his eyes half-closed, watching her play, and she was always +conscious that she was entertaining him. Sometimes he would take a copy +of "Alice in Wonderland" in his pocket, and no one could read it as he +could, laughing at her with his dark eyes, when anything amused him. +No one else could laugh so, with just their eyes, and without moving a +muscle of their face. Though he usually smiled at passages that seemed +not at all funny to the child, she always laughed gleefully, because he +was so seldom moved to mirth that any such demonstration delighted her +and she took the credit of it entirely to herself Her own inclination +had been for serious stories, with sad endings, like the Little Mermaid, +which he had once told her in an unguarded moment when she had a cold, +and was put to bed early on her birthday night and cried because she +could not have her party. But he highly disapproved of this preference, +and had called it a morbid taste, and always shook his finger at her +when she asked for the story. When she had been particularly good, or +particularly neglected by other people, then he would sometimes melt +and tell her the story, and never laugh at her if she enjoyed the "sad +ending" even to tears. When Flavia had taken him away and he came no +more, she wept inconsolably for the space of two weeks, and refused +to learn her lessons. Then she found the story of the Little Mermaid +herself, and forgot him. + +Imogen had discovered at dinner that he could still smile at one +secretly, out of his eyes, and that he had the old manner of outwardly +seeming bored, but letting you know that he was not. She was intensely +curious about his exact state of feeling toward his wife, and more +curious still to catch a sense of his final adjustment to the conditions +of life in general. This, she could not help feeling, she might get +again--if she could have him alone for an hour, in some place where +there was a little river and a sandy cove bordered by drooping willows, +and a blue sky seen through white sycamore boughs. + +That evening, before retiring, Flavia entered her husband's room, where +he sat in his smoking jacket, in one of his favorite low chairs. + +"I suppose it's a grave responsibility to bring an ardent, serious young +thing like Imogen here among all these fascinating personages," she +remarked reflectively. "But, after all, one can never tell. These grave, +silent girls have their own charm, even for facile people." + +"Oh, so that is your plan?" queried her husband dryly. "I was wondering +why you got her up here. She doesn't seem to mix well with the faciles. +At least, so it struck me." + +Flavia paid no heed to this jeering remark, but repeated, "No, after +all, it may not be a bad thing." + +"Then do consign her to that shaken reed, the tenor," said her husband +yawning. "I remember she used to have a taste for the pathetic." + +"And then," remarked Flavia coquettishly, "after all, I owe her mother a +return in kind. She was not afraid to trifle with destiny." + +But Hamilton was asleep in his chair. + + +Next morning Imogen found only Miss Broadwood in the breakfast room. + +"Good morning, my dear girl, whatever are you doing up so early? They +never breakfast before eleven. Most of them take their coffee in their +room. Take this place by me." + +Miss Broadwood looked particularly fresh and encouraging in her blue +serge walking skirt, her open jacket displaying an expanse of stiff, +white shirt bosom, dotted with some almost imperceptible figure, and +a dark blue-and-white necktie, neatly knotted under her wide, rolling +collar. She wore a white rosebud in the lapel of her coat, and decidedly +she seemed more than ever like a nice, clean boy on his holiday. Imogen +was just hoping that they would breakfast alone when Miss Broadwood +exclaimed, "Ah, there comes Arthur with the children. That's the reward +of early rising in this house; you never get to see the youngsters at +any other time." + +Hamilton entered, followed by two dark, handsome little boys. The girl, +who was very tiny, blonde like her mother, and exceedingly frail, he +carried in his arms. The boys came up and said good morning with an ease +and cheerfulness uncommon, even in well-bred children, but the little +girl hid her face on her father's shoulder. + +"She's a shy little lady," he explained as he put her gently down in her +chair. "I'm afraid she's like her father; she can't seem to get used to +meeting people. And you, Miss Willard, did you dream of the White Rabbit +or the Little Mermaid?" + +"Oh, I dreamed of them all! All the personages of that buried +civilization," cried Imogen, delighted that his estranged manner of the +night before had entirely vanished and feeling that, somehow, the old +confidential relations had been restored during the night. + +"Come, William," said Miss Broadwood, turning to the younger of the two +boys, "and what did you dream about?" + +"We dreamed," said William gravely--he was the more assertive of the two +and always spoke for both--"we dreamed that there were fireworks hidden +in the basement of the carriage house; lots and lots of fireworks." + +His elder brother looked up at him with apprehensive astonishment, while +Miss Broadwood hastily put her napkin to her lips and Hamilton dropped +his eyes. "If little boys dream things, they are so apt not to come +true," he reflected sadly. This shook even the redoubtable William, and +he glanced nervously at his brother. "But do things vanish just because +they have been dreamed?" he objected. + +"Generally that is the very best reason for their vanishing," said +Arthur gravely. + +"But, Father, people can't help what they dream," remonstrated Edward +gently. + +"Oh, come! You're making these children talk like a Maeterlinck +dialogue," laughed Miss Broadwood. + +Flavia presently entered, a book in her hand, and bade them all good +morning. "Come, little people, which story shall it be this morning?" +she asked winningly. Greatly excited, the children followed her into +the garden. "She does then, sometimes," murmured Imogen as they left the +breakfast room. + +"Oh, yes, to be sure," said Miss Broadwood cheerfully. "She reads a +story to them every morning in the most picturesque part of the garden. +The mother of the Gracchi, you know. She does so long, she says, for the +time when they will be intellectual companions for her. What do you say +to a walk over the hills?" + +As they left the house they met Frau Lichtenfeld and the bushy +Herr Schotte--the professor cut an astonishing figure in golf +stockings--returning from a walk and engaged in an animated conversation +on the tendencies of German fiction. + +"Aren't they the most attractive little children," exclaimed Imogen as +they wound down the road toward the river. + +"Yes, and you must not fail to tell Flavia that you think so. She will +look at you in a sort of startled way and say, 'Yes, aren't they?' and +maybe she will go off and hunt them up and have tea with them, to fully +appreciate them. She is awfully afraid of missing anything good, is +Flavia. The way those youngsters manage to conceal their guilty presence +in the House of Song is a wonder." + +"But don't any of the artist-folk fancy children?" asked Imogen. + +"Yes, they just fancy them and no more. The chemist remarked the other +day that children are like certain salts which need not be actualized +because the formulae are quite sufficient for practical purposes. I +don't see how even Flavia can endure to have that man about." + +"I have always been rather curious to know what Arthur thinks of it +all," remarked Imogen cautiously. + +"Thinks of it!" ejaculated Miss Broadwood. "Why, my dear, what would any +man think of having his house turned into an hotel, habited by freaks +who discharge his servants, borrow his money, and insult his neighbors? +This place is shunned like a lazaretto!" + +"Well, then, why does he--why does he--" persisted Imogen. + +"Bah!" interrupted Miss Broadwood impatiently, "why did he in the first +place? That's the question." + +"Marry her, you mean?" said Imogen coloring. + +"Exactly so," said Miss Broadwood sharply, as she snapped the lid of her +matchbox. + +"I suppose that is a question rather beyond us, and certainly one which +we cannot discuss," said Imogen. "But his toleration on this one point +puzzles me, quite apart from other complications." + +"Toleration? Why this point, as you call it, simply is Flavia. Who could +conceive of her without it? I don't know where it's all going to end, +I'm sure, and I'm equally sure that, if it were not for Arthur, +I shouldn't care," declared Miss Broadwood, drawing her shoulders +together. + +"But will it end at all, now?" + +"Such an absurd state of things can't go on indefinitely. A man isn't +going to see his wife make a guy of herself forever, is he? Chaos +has already begun in the servants' quarters. There are six different +languages spoken there now. You see, it's all on an entirely false +basis. Flavia hasn't the slightest notion of what these people are +really like, their good and their bad alike escape her. They, on the +other hand, can't imagine what she is driving at. Now, Arthur is worse +off than either faction; he is not in the fairy story in that he sees +these people exactly as they are, _but_ he is utterly unable to see +Flavia as they see her. There you have the situation. Why can't he see +her as we do? My dear, that has kept me awake o' nights. This man who +has thought so much and lived so much, who is naturally a critic, really +takes Flavia at very nearly her own estimate. But now I am entering upon +a wilderness. From a brief acquaintance with her you can know nothing of +the icy fastnesses of Flavia's self-esteem. It's like St. Peter's; you +can't realize its magnitude at once. You have to grow into a sense of +it by living under its shadow. It has perplexed even Emile Roux, that +merciless dissector of egoism. She has puzzled him the more because he +saw at a glance what some of them do not perceive at once, and what will +be mercifully concealed from Arthur until the trump sounds; namely, that +all Flavia's artists have done or ever will do means exactly as much to +her as a symphony means to an oyster; that there is no bridge by which +the significance of any work of art could be conveyed to her." + +"Then, in the name of goodness, why does she bother?" gasped Imogen. +"She is pretty, wealthy, well-established; why should she bother?" + +"That's what M. Roux has kept asking himself. I can't pretend to analyze +it. She reads papers on the Literary Landmarks of Paris, the Loves of +the Poets, and that sort of thing, to clubs out in Chicago. To Flavia +it is more necessary to be called clever than to breathe. I would give a +good deal to know that glum Frenchman's diagnosis. He has been +watching her out of those fishy eyes of his as a biologist watches a +hemisphereless frog." + +For several days after M. Roux's departure Flavia gave an embarrassing +share of her attention to Imogen. Embarrassing, because Imogen had the +feeling of being energetically and futilely explored, she knew not for +what. She felt herself under the globe of an air pump, expected to yield +up something. When she confined the conversation to matters of general +interest Flavia conveyed to her with some pique that her one endeavor +in life had been to fit herself to converse with her friends upon those +things which vitally interested them. "One has no right to accept their +best from people unless one gives, isn't it so? I want to be able to +give--!" she declared vaguely. Yet whenever Imogen strove to pay her +tithes and plunged bravely into her plans for study next winter, Flavia +grew absent-minded and interrupted her by amazing generalizations or +by such embarrassing questions as, "And these grim studies really have +charm for you; you are quite buried in them; they make other things seem +light and ephemeral?" + +"I rather feel as though I had got in here under false pretenses," +Imogen confided to Miss Broadwood. "I'm sure I don't know what it is +that she wants of me." + +"Ah," chuckled Jemima, "you are not equal to these heart to heart talks +with Flavia. You utterly fail to communicate to her the atmosphere of +that untroubled joy in which you dwell. You must remember that she gets +no feeling out of things herself, and she demands that you impart yours +to her by some process of psychic transmission. I once met a blind girl, +blind from birth, who could discuss the peculiarities of the Barbizon +school with just Flavia's glibness and enthusiasm. Ordinarily Flavia +knows how to get what she wants from people, and her memory is +wonderful. One evening I heard her giving Frau Lichtenfeld some random +impressions about Hedda Gabler which she extracted from me five years +ago; giving them with an impassioned conviction of which I was never +guilty. But I have known other people who could appropriate your stories +and opinions; Flavia is infinitely more subtle than that; she can +soak up the very thrash and drift of your daydreams, and take the very +thrills off your back, as it were." + +After some days of unsuccessful effort, Flavia withdrew herself, and +Imogen found Hamilton ready to catch her when she was tossed afield. +He seemed only to have been awaiting this crisis, and at once their +old intimacy reestablished itself as a thing inevitable and beautifully +prepared for. She convinced herself that she had not been mistaken in +him, despite all the doubts that had come up in later years, and this +renewal of faith set more than one question thumping in her brain. "How +did he, how can he?" she kept repeating with a tinge of her childish +resentment, "what right had he to waste anything so fine?" + +When Imogen and Arthur were returning from a walk before luncheon one +morning about a week after M. Roux's departure, they noticed an absorbed +group before one of the hall windows. Herr Schotte and Restzhoff sat +on the window seat with a newspaper between them, while Wellington, +Schemetzkin, and Will Maidenwood looked over their shoulders. They +seemed intensely interested, Herr Schotte occasionally pounding his +knees with his fists in ebullitions of barbaric glee. When imogen +entered the hall, however, the men were all sauntering toward the +breakfast room and the paper was lying innocently on the divan. During +luncheon the personnel of that window group were unwontedly animated and +agreeable all save Schemetzkin, whose stare was blanker than ever, as +though Roux's mantle of insulting indifference had fallen upon him, in +addition to his own oblivious self-absorption. Will Maidenwood seemed +embarrassed and annoyed; the chemist employed himself with making polite +speeches to Hamilton. Flavia did not come down to lunch--and there was +a malicious gleam under Herr Schotte's eyebrows. Frank Wellington +announced nervously that an imperative letter from his protecting +syndicate summoned him to the city. + +After luncheon the men went to the golf links, and Imogen, at the first +opportunity, possessed herself of the newspaper which had been left on +the divan. One of the first things that caught her eye was an article +headed "Roux on Tuft Hunters; The Advanced American Woman as He Sees +Her; Aggressive, Superficial, and Insincere." The entire interview was +nothing more nor less than a satiric characterization of Flavia, aquiver +with irritation and vitriolic malice. No one could mistake it; it was +done with all his deftness of portraiture. Imogen had not finished the +article when she heard a footstep, and clutching the paper she started +precipitately toward the stairway as Arthur entered. He put out his +hand, looking critically at her distressed face. + +"Wait a moment, Miss Willard," he said peremptorily, "I want to see +whether we can find what it was that so interested our friends this +morning. Give me the paper, please." + +Imogen grew quite white as he opened the journal. She reached forward +and crumpled it with her hands. "Please don't, please don't," she +pleaded; "it's something I don't want you to see. Oh, why will you? it's +just something low and despicable that you can't notice." + +Arthur had gently loosed her hands, and he pointed her to a chair. He +lit a cigar and read the article through without comment. When he had +finished it he walked to the fireplace, struck a match, and tossed the +flaming journal between the brass andirons. + +"You are right," he remarked as he came back, dusting his hands with his +handkerchief. "It's quite impossible to comment. There are extremes of +blackguardism for which we have no name. The only thing necessary is to +see that Flavia gets no wind of this. This seems to be my cue to act; +poor girl." + +Imogen looked at him tearfully; she could only murmur, "Oh, why did you +read it!" + +Hamilton laughed spiritlessly. "Come, don't you worry about it. You +always took other people's troubles too seriously. When you were little +and all the world was gay and everybody happy, you must needs get the +Little Mermaid's troubles to grieve over. Come with me into the music +room. You remember the musical setting I once made you for the Lay of +the Jabberwock? I was trying it over the other night, long after you +were in bed, and I decided it was quite as fine as the Erl-King music. +How I wish I could give you some of the cake that Alice ate and make you +a little girl again. Then, when you had got through the glass door into +the little garden, you could call to me, perhaps, and tell me all the +fine things that were going on there. What a pity it is that you ever +grew up!" he added, laughing; and Imogen, too, was thinking just that. + +At dinner that evening, Flavia, with fatal persistence, insisted upon +turning the conversation to M. Roux. She had been reading one of his +novels and had remembered anew that Paris set its watches by his clock. +Imogen surmised that she was tortured by a feeling that she had not +sufficiently appreciated him while she had had him. When she first +mentioned his name she was answered only by the pall of silence that +fell over the company. Then everyone began to talk at once, as though +to correct a false position. They spoke of him with a fervid, defiant +admiration, with the sort of hot praise that covers a double purpose. +Imogen fancied she could see that they felt a kind of relief at what the +man had done, even those who despised him for doing it; that they felt +a spiteful hate against Flavia, as though she had tricked them, and a +certain contempt for themselves that they had been beguiled. She was +reminded of the fury of the crowd in the fairy tale, when once the child +had called out that the king was in his night clothes. Surely these +people knew no more about Flavia than they had known before, but the +mere fact that the thing had been said altered the situation. Flavia, +meanwhile, sat chattering amiably, pathetically unconscious of her +nakedness. + +Hamilton lounged, fingering the stem of his wineglass, gazing down the +table at one face after another and studying the various degrees +of self-consciousness they exhibited. Imogen's eyes followed his, +fearfully. When a lull came in the spasmodic flow of conversation, +Arthur, leaning back in his chair, remarked deliberately, "As for M. +Roux, his very profession places him in that class of men whom society +has never been able to accept unconditionally because it has never been +able to assume that they have any ordered notion of taste. He and +his ilk remain, with the mountebanks and snake charmers, people +indispensable to our civilization, but wholly unreclaimed by it; people +whom we receive, but whose invitations we do not accept." + +Fortunately for Flavia, this mine was not exploded until just before the +coffee was brought. Her laughter was pitiful to hear; it echoed through +the silent room as in a vault, while she made some tremulously light +remark about her husband's drollery, grim as a jest from the dying. No +one responded and she sat nodding her head like a mechanical toy and +smiling her white, set smile through her teeth, until Alcee Buisson and +Frau Lichtenfeld came to her support. + +After dinner the guests retired immediately to their rooms, and Imogen +went upstairs on tiptoe, feeling the echo of breakage and the dust of +crumbling in the air. She wondered whether Flavia's habitual note of +uneasiness were not, in a manner, prophetic, and a sort of unconscious +premonition, after all. She sat down to write a letter, but she found +herself so nervous, her head so hot and her hands so cold, that she +soon abandoned the effort, just as she was about to seek Miss Broadwood, +Flavia entered and embraced her hysterically. + +"My dearest girl," she began, "was there ever such an unfortunate and +incomprehensible speech made before? Of course it is scarcely necessary +to explain to you poor Arthur's lack of tact, and that he meant nothing. +But they! Can they be expected to understand? He will feel wretchedly +about it when he realizes what he has done, but in the meantime? And M. +Roux, of all men! When we were so fortunate as to get him, and he made +himself so unreservedly agreeable, and I fancied that, in his way, +Arthur quite admired him. My dear, you have no idea what that speech has +done. Schemetzkin and Herr Schotte have already sent me word that they +must leave us tomorrow. Such a thing from a host!" Flavia paused, choked +by tears of vexation and despair. + +Imogen was thoroughly disconcerted; this was the first time she had ever +seen Flavia betray any personal emotion which was indubitably genuine. +She replied with what consolation she could. "Need they take it +personally at all? It was a mere observation upon a class of people--" + +"Which he knows nothing whatever about, and with whom he has no +sympathy," interrupted Flavia. "Ah, my dear, you could not be _expected_ +to understand. You can't realize, knowing Arthur as you do, his entire +lack of any aesthetic sense whatever. He is absolutely _nil_, stone deaf +and stark blind, on that side. He doesn't mean to be brutal, it is +just the brutality of utter ignorance. They always feel it--they are so +sensitive to unsympathetic influences, you know; they know it the moment +they come into the house. I have spent my life apologizing for him and +struggling to conceal it; but in spite of me, he wounds them; his very +attitude, even in silence, offends them. Heavens! Do I not know? Is +it not perpetually and forever wounding me? But there has never been +anything so dreadful as this--never! If I could conceive of any possible +motive, even!" + +"But, surely, Mrs. Hamilton, it was, after all, a mere expression of +opinion, such as we are any of us likely to venture upon any subject +whatever. It was neither more personal nor more extravagant than many of +M. Roux's remarks." + +"But, Imogen, certainly M. Roux has the right. It is a part of his +art, and that is altogether another matter. Oh, this is not the only +instance!" continued Flavia passionately, "I've always had that narrow, +bigoted prejudice to contend with. It has always held me back. But +this--!" + +"I think you mistake his attitude," replied Imogen, feeling a flush that +made her ears tingle. "That is, I fancy he is more appreciative than he +seems. A man can't be very demonstrative about those things--not if he +is a real man. I should not think you would care much about saving the +feelings of people who are too narrow to admit of any other point of +view than their own." She stopped, finding herself in the impossible +position of attempting to explain Hamilton to his wife; a task which, +if once begun, would necessitate an entire course of enlightenment which +she doubted Flavia's ability to receive, and which she could offer only +with very poor grace. + +"That's just where it stings most"--here Flavia began pacing the +floor--"it is just because they have all shown such tolerance and have +treated Arthur with such unfailing consideration that I can find no +reasonable pretext for his rancor. How can he fail to see the value of +such friendships on the children's account, if for nothing else! What +an advantage for them to grow up among such associations! Even though he +cares nothing about these things himself he might realize that. Is there +nothing I could say by way of explanation? To them, I mean? If someone +were to explain to them how unfortunately limited he is in these +things--" + +"I'm afraid I cannot advise you," said Imogen decidedly, "but that, at +least, seems to me impossible." + +Flavia took her hand and glanced at her affectionately, nodding +nervously. "Of course, dear girl, I can't ask you to be quite frank with +me. Poor child, you are trembling and your hands are icy. Poor Arthur! +But you must not judge him by this altogether; think how much he misses +in life. What a cruel shock you've had. I'll send you some sherry, Good +night, my dear." + +When Flavia shut the door Imogen burst into a fit of nervous weeping. + +Next morning she awoke after a troubled and restless night. At eight +o'clock Miss Broadwood entered in a red and white striped bathrobe. + +"Up, up, and see the great doom's image!" she cried, her eyes sparkling +with excitement. "The hall is full of trunks, they are packing. What +bolt has fallen? It's you, _ma cherie_, you've brought Ulysses +home again and the slaughter has begun!" she blew a cloud of smoke +triumphantly from her lips and threw herself into a chair beside the +bed. + +Imogen, rising on her elbow, plunged excitedly into the story of the +Roux interview, which Miss Broadwood heard with the keenest interest, +frequently interrupting her with exclamations of delight. When Imogen +reached the dramatic scene which terminated in the destruction of the +newspaper, Miss Broadwood rose and took a turn about the room, violently +switching the tasselled cords of her bathrobe. + +"Stop a moment," she cried, "you mean to tell me that he had such a +heaven-sent means to bring her to her senses and didn't use it--that he +held such a weapon and threw it away?" + +"Use it?" cried Imogen unsteadily. "Of course he didn't! He bared his +back to the tormentor, signed himself over to punishment in that speech +he made at dinner, which everyone understands but Flavia. She was here +for an hour last night and disregarded every limit of taste in her +maledictions." + +"My dear!" cried Miss Broadwood, catching her hand in inordinate delight +at the situation, "do you see what he has done? There'll be no end to +it. Why he has sacrificed himself to spare the very vanity that devours +him, put rancors in the vessels of his peace, and his eternal jewel +given to the common enemy of man, to make them kings, the seed of Banquo +kings! He is magnificent!" + +"Isn't he always that?" cried Imogen hotly. "He's like a pillar of +sanity and law in this house of shams and swollen vanities, where people +stalk about with a sort of madhouse dignity, each one fancying himself a +king or a pope. If you could have heard that woman talk of him! Why, +she thinks him stupid, bigoted, blinded by middleclass prejudices. She +talked about his having no aesthetic sense and insisted that her artists +had always shown him tolerance. I don't know why it should get on my +nerves so, I'm sure, but her stupidity and assurance are enough to drive +one to the brink of collapse." + +"Yes, as opposed to his singular fineness, they are calculated to do +just that," said Miss Broadwood gravely, wisely ignoring Imogen's tears. +"But what has been is nothing to what will be. Just wait until Flavia's +black swans have flown! You ought not to try to stick it out; that would +only make it harder for everyone. Suppose you let me telephone your +mother to wire you to come home by the evening train?" + +"Anything, rather than have her come at me like that again. It puts me +in a perfectly impossible position, and he _is_ so fine!" + +"Of course it does," said Miss Broadwood sympathetically, "and there +is no good to be got from facing it. I will stay because such things +interest me, and Frau Lichtenfeld will stay because she has no money to +get away, and Buisson will stay because he feels somewhat responsible. +These complications are interesting enough to cold-blooded folk +like myself who have an eye for the dramatic element, but they are +distracting and demoralizing to young people with any serious purpose in +life." + +Miss Broadwood's counsel was all the more generous seeing that, for her, +the most interesting element of this denouement would be eliminated by +Imogen's departure. "If she goes now, she'll get over it," soliloquized +Miss Broadwood. "If she stays, she'll be wrung for him and the hurt may +go deep enough to last. I haven't the heart to see her spoiling things +for herself." She telephoned Mrs. Willard and helped Imogen to pack. She +even took it upon herself to break the news of Imogen's going to Arthur, +who remarked, as he rolled a cigarette in his nerveless fingers: + +"Right enough, too. What should she do here with old cynics like you and +me, Jimmy? Seeing that she is brim full of dates and formulae and other +positivisms, and is so girt about with illusions that she still casts +a shadow in the sun. You've been very tender of her, haven't you? I've +watched you. And to think it may all be gone when we see her next. 'The +common fate of all things rare,' you know. What a good fellow you +are, anyway, Jimmy," he added, putting his hands affectionately on her +shoulders. + +Arthur went with them to the station. Flavia was so prostrated by the +concerted action of her guests that she was able to see Imogen only +for a moment in her darkened sleeping chamber, where she kissed her +hysterically, without lifting her head, bandaged in aromatic vinegar. +On the way to the station both Arthur and Imogen threw the burden of +keeping up appearances entirely upon Miss Broadwood, who blithely rose +to the occasion. When Hamilton carried Imogen's bag into the car, Miss +Broadwood detained her for a moment, whispering as she gave her a large, +warm handclasp, "I'll come to see you when I get back to town; and, in +the meantime, if you meet any of our artists, tell them you have left +Caius Marius among the ruins of Carthage." + + + + +The Sculptor's Funeral + +A group of the townspeople stood on the station siding of a little +Kansas town, awaiting the coming of the night train, which was already +twenty minutes overdue. The snow had fallen thick over everything; in +the pale starlight the line of bluffs across the wide, white meadows +south of the town made soft, smoke-colored curves against the clear sky. +The men on the siding stood first on one foot and then on the other, +their hands thrust deep into their trousers pockets, their overcoats +open, their shoulders screwed up with the cold; and they glanced from +time to time toward the southeast, where the railroad track wound along +the river shore. They conversed in low tones and moved about restlessly, +seeming uncertain as to what was expected of them. There was but one of +the company who looked as though he knew exactly why he was there; and +he kept conspicuously apart; walking to the far end of the platform, +returning to the station door, then pacing up the track again, his chin +sunk in the high collar of his overcoat, his burly shoulders drooping +forward, his gait heavy and dogged. Presently he was approached by a +tall, spare, grizzled man clad in a faded Grand Army suit, who shuffled +out from the group and advanced with a certain deference, craning his +neck forward until his back made the angle of a jackknife three-quarters +open. + +"I reckon she's agoin' to be pretty late ag'in tonight, Jim," he +remarked in a squeaky falsetto. "S'pose it's the snow?" + +"I don't know," responded the other man with a shade of annoyance, +speaking from out an astonishing cataract of red beard that grew +fiercely and thickly in all directions. + +The spare man shifted the quill toothpick he was chewing to the other +side of his mouth. "It ain't likely that anybody from the East will come +with the corpse, I s'pose," he went on reflectively. + +"I don't know," responded the other, more curtly than before. + +"It's too bad he didn't belong to some lodge or other. I like an +order funeral myself. They seem more appropriate for people of some +reputation," the spare man continued, with an ingratiating concession +in his shrill voice, as he carefully placed his toothpick in his vest +pocket. He always carried the flag at the G. A. R. funerals in the town. + +The heavy man turned on his heel, without replying, and walked up the +siding. The spare man shuffled back to the uneasy group. "Jim's ez full +ez a tick, ez ushel," he commented commiseratingly. + +Just then a distant whistle sounded, and there was a shuffling of feet +on the platform. A number of lanky boys of all ages appeared as suddenly +and slimily as eels wakened by the crack of thunder; some came from the +waiting room, where they had been warming themselves by the red stove, +or half-asleep on the slat benches; others uncoiled themselves from +baggage trucks or slid out of express wagons. Two clambered down from +the driver's seat of a hearse that stood backed up against the siding. +They straightened their stooping shoulders and lifted their heads, and +a flash of momentary animation kindled their dull eyes at that cold, +vibrant scream, the world-wide call for men. It stirred them like the +note of a trumpet; just as it had often stirred the man who was coming +home tonight, in his boyhood. + +The night express shot, red as a rocket, from out the eastward marsh +lands and wound along the river shore under the long lines of shivering +poplars that sentineled the meadows, the escaping steam hanging in gray +masses against the pale sky and blotting out the Milky Way. In a moment +the red glare from the headlight streamed up the snow-covered track +before the siding and glittered on the wet, black rails. The burly man +with the disheveled red beard walked swiftly up the platform toward +the approaching train, uncovering his head as he went. The group of +men behind him hesitated, glanced questioningly at one another, and +awkwardly followed his example. The train stopped, and the crowd +shuffled up to the express car just as the door was thrown open, +the spare man in the G. A. B. suit thrusting his head forward with +curiosity. The express messenger appeared in the doorway, accompanied by +a young man in a long ulster and traveling cap. + +"Are Mr. Merrick's friends here?" inquired the young man. + +The group on the platform swayed and shuffled uneasily. Philip Phelps, +the banker, responded with dignity: "We have come to take charge of the +body. Mr. Merrick's father is very feeble and can't be about." + +"Send the agent out here," growled the express messenger, "and tell the +operator to lend a hand." + +The coffin was got out of its rough box and down on the snowy platform. +The townspeople drew back enough to make room for it and then formed a +close semicircle about it, looking curiously at the palm leaf which lay +across the black cover. No one said anything. The baggage man stood by +his truck, waiting to get at the trunks. The engine panted heavily, and +the fireman dodged in and out among the wheels with his yellow torch and +long oilcan, snapping the spindle boxes. The young Bostonian, one of +the dead sculptor's pupils who had come with the body, looked about him +helplessly. He turned to the banker, the only one of that black, +uneasy, stoop-shouldered group who seemed enough of an individual to be +addressed. + +"None of Mr. Merrick's brothers are here?" he asked uncertainly. + +The man with the red heard for the first time stepped up and joined the +group. "No, they have not come yet; the family is scattered. The body +will be taken directly to the house." He stooped and took hold of one of +the handles of the coffin. + +"Take the long hill road up, Thompson--it will be easier on the horses," +called the liveryman as the undertaker snapped the door of the hearse +and prepared to mount to the driver's seat. + +Laird, the red-bearded lawyer, turned again to the stranger: "We didn't +know whether there would be anyone with him or not," he explained. "It's +a long walk, so you'd better go up in the hack." He pointed to a single, +battered conveyance, but the young man replied stiffly: "Thank you, but +I think I will go up with the hearse. If you don't object," turning to +the undertaker, "I'll ride with you." + +They clambered up over the wheels and drove off in the starlight tip the +long, white hill toward the town. The lamps in the still village were +shining from under the low, snow-burdened roofs; and beyond, on every +side, the plains reached out into emptiness, peaceful and wide as the +soft sky itself, and wrapped in a tangible, white silence. + +When the hearse backed up to a wooden sidewalk before a naked, +weatherbeaten frame house, the same composite, ill-defined group that +had stood upon the station siding was huddled about the gate. The front +yard was an icy swamp, and a couple of warped planks, extending from the +sidewalk to the door, made a sort of rickety footbridge. The gate hung +on one hinge and was opened wide with difficulty. Steavens, the young +stranger, noticed that something black was tied to the knob of the front +door. + +The grating sound made by the casket, as it was drawn from the hearse, +was answered by a scream from the house; the front door was wrenched +open, and a tall, corpulent woman rushed out bareheaded into the snow +and flung herself upon the coffin, shrieking: "My boy, my boy! And this +is how you've come home to me!" + +As Steavens turned away and closed his eyes with a shudder of +unutterable repulsion, another woman, also tall, but flat and angular, +dressed entirely in black, darted out of the house and caught Mrs. +Merrick by the shoulders, crying sharply: "Come, come, Mother; you +mustn't go on like this!" Her tone changed to one of obsequious +solemnity as she turned to the banker: "The parlor is ready, Mr. +Phelps." + +The bearers carried the coffin along the narrow boards, while the +undertaker ran ahead with the coffin-rests. They bore it into a large, +unheated room that smelled of dampness and disuse and furniture polish, +and set it down under a hanging lamp ornamented with jingling glass +prisms and before a "Rogers group" of John Alden and Priscilla, +wreathed with smilax. Henry Steavens stared about him with the sickening +conviction that there had been some horrible mistake, and that he had +somehow arrived at the wrong destination. He looked painfully about +over the clover-green Brussels, the fat plush upholstery, among the +hand-painted china plaques and panels, and vases, for some mark of +identification, for something that might once conceivably have belonged +to Harvey Merrick. It was not until he recognized his friend in the +crayon portrait of a little boy in kilts and curls hanging above the +piano that he felt willing to let any of these people approach the +coffin. + +"Take the lid off, Mr. Thompson; let me see my boy's face," wailed +the elder woman between her sobs. This time Steavens looked fearfully, +almost beseechingly into her face, red and swollen under its masses +of strong, black, shiny hair. He flushed, dropped his eyes, and then, +almost incredulously, looked again. There was a kind of power about +her face--a kind of brutal handsomeness, even, but it was scarred and +furrowed by violence, and so colored and coarsened by fiercer passions +that grief seemed never to have laid a gentle finger there. The long +nose was distended and knobbed at the end, and there were deep lines +on either side of it; her heavy, black brows almost met across her +forehead; her teeth were large and square and set far apart--teeth that +could tear. She filled the room; the men were obliterated, seemed tossed +about like twigs in an angry water, and even Steavens felt himself being +drawn into the whirlpool. + +The daughter--the tall, rawboned woman in crepe, with a mourning comb in +her hair which curiously lengthened her long face sat stiffly upon the +sofa, her hands, conspicuous for their large knuckles, folded in her +lap, her mouth and eyes drawn down, solemnly awaiting the opening of the +coffin. Near the door stood a mulatto woman, evidently a servant in +the house, with a timid bearing and an emaciated face pitifully sad and +gentle. She was weeping silently, the corner of her calico apron lifted +to her eyes, occasionally suppressing a long, quivering sob. Steavens +walked over and stood beside her. + +Feeble steps were heard on the stairs, and an old man, tall and frail, +odorous of pipe smoke, with shaggy, unkept gray hair and a dingy beard, +tobacco stained about the mouth, entered uncertainly. He went slowly up +to the coffin and stood, rolling a blue cotton handkerchief between his +hands, seeming so pained and embarrassed by his wife's orgy of grief +that he had no consciousness of anything else. + +"There, there, Annie, dear, don't take on so," he quavered timidly, +putting out a shaking hand and awkwardly patting her elbow. She turned +with a cry and sank upon his shoulder with such violence that he +tottered a little. He did not even glance toward the coffin, but +continued to look at her with a dull, frightened, appealing expression, +as a spaniel looks at the whip. His sunken cheeks slowly reddened and +burned with miserable shame. When his wife rushed from the room her +daughter strode after her with set lips. The servant stole up to the +coffin, bent over it for a moment, and then slipped away to the kitchen, +leaving Steavens, the lawyer, and the father to themselves. The old man +stood trembling and looking down at his dead son's face. The sculptor's +splendid head seemed even more noble in its rigid stillness than in +life. The dark hair had crept down upon the wide forehead; the face +seemed strangely long, but in it there was not that beautiful and chaste +repose which we expect to find in the faces of the dead. The brows were +so drawn that there were two deep lines above the beaked nose, and the +chin was thrust forward defiantly. It was as though the strain of life +had been so sharp and bitter that death could not at once wholly relax +the tension and smooth the countenance into perfect peace--as though he +were still guarding something precious and holy, which might even yet be +wrested from him. + +The old man's lips were working under his stained beard. He turned to +the lawyer with timid deference: "Phelps and the rest are comin' back to +set up with Harve, ain't they?" he asked. "Thank 'ee, Jim, thank 'ee." +He brushed the hair back gently from his son's forehead. "He was a good +boy, Jim; always a good boy. He was ez gentle ez a child and the kindest +of 'em all--only we didn't none of us ever onderstand him." The tears +trickled slowly down his beard and dropped upon the sculptor's coat. + +"Martin, Martin. Oh, Martin! come here," his wife wailed from the top of +the stairs. The old man started timorously: "Yes, Annie, I'm coming." He +turned away, hesitated stood for a moment in miserable indecision; then +he reached back and patted the dead man's hair softly, and stumbled from +the room. + +"Poor old man, I didn't think he had any tears left. Seems as if his +eyes would have gone dry long ago. At his age nothing cuts very deep," +remarked the lawyer. + +Something in his tone made Steavens glance up. While the mother had been +in the room the young man had scarcely seen anyone else; but now, from +the moment he first glanced into Jim Laird's florid face and bloodshot +eyes, he knew that he had found what he had been heartsick at not +finding before--the feeling, the understanding, that must exist in +someone, even here. + +The man was red as his beard, with features swollen and blurred by +dissipation, and a hot, blazing blue eye. His face was strained--that of +a man who is controlling himself with difficulty--and he kept plucking +at his beard with a sort of fierce resentment. Steavens, sitting by +the window, watched him turn down the glaring lamp, still its jangling +pendants with an angry gesture, and then stand with his hands locked +behind him, staring down into the master's face. He could not help +wondering what link there could have been between the porcelain vessel +and so sooty a lump of potter's clay. + +From the kitchen an uproar was sounding; when the dining-room door +opened the import of it was clear. The mother was abusing the maid for +having forgotten to make the dressing for the chicken salad which had +been prepared for the watchers. Steavens had never heard anything in +the least like it; it was injured, emotional, dramatic abuse, unique and +masterly in its excruciating cruelty, as violent and unrestrained as had +been her grief of twenty minutes before. With a shudder of disgust the +lawyer went into the dining room and closed the door into the kitchen. + +"Poor Roxy's getting it now," he remarked when he came back. "The +Merricks took her out of the poorhouse years ago; and if her loyalty +would let her, I guess the poor old thing could tell tales that would +curdle your blood. She's the mulatto woman who was standing in here a +while ago, with her apron to her eyes. The old woman is a fury; there +never was anybody like her for demonstrative piety and ingenious +cruelty. She made Harvey's life a hell for him when he lived at home; +he was so sick ashamed of it. I never could see how he kept himself so +sweet." + +"He was wonderful," said Steavens slowly, "wonderful; but until tonight +I have never known how wonderful." + +"That is the true and eternal wonder of it, anyway; that it can come +even from such a dung heap as this," the lawyer cried, with a sweeping +gesture which seemed to indicate much more than the four walls within +which they stood. + +"I think I'll see whether I can get a little air. The room is so close +I am beginning to feel rather faint," murmured Steavens, struggling with +one of the windows. The sash was stuck, however, and would not yield, so +he sat down dejectedly and began pulling at his collar. The lawyer came +over, loosened the sash with one blow of his red fist, and sent the +window up a few inches. Steavens thanked him, but the nausea which had +been gradually climbing into his throat for the last half-hour left him +with but one desire--a desperate feeling that he must get away from this +place with what was left of Harvey Merrick. Oh, he comprehended well +enough now the quiet bitterness of the smile that he had seen so often +on his master's lips! + +He remembered that once, when Merrick returned from a visit home, he +brought with him a singularly feeling and suggestive bas-relief of a +thin, faded old woman, sitting and sewing something pinned to her knee; +while a full-lipped, full-blooded little urchin, his trousers held up +by a single gallows, stood beside her, impatiently twitching her gown to +call her attention to a butterfly he had caught. Steavens, impressed by +the tender and delicate modeling of the thin, tired face, had asked him +if it were his mother. He remembered the dull flush that had burned up +in the sculptor's face. + +The lawyer was sitting in a rocking chair beside the coffin, his head +thrown back and his eyes closed. Steavens looked at him earnestly, +puzzled at the line of the chin, and wondering why a man should conceal +a feature of such distinction under that disfiguring shock of beard. +Suddenly, as though he felt the young sculptor's keen glance, he opened +his eyes. + +"Was he always a good deal of an oyster?" he asked abruptly. "He was +terribly shy as a boy." + +"Yes, he was an oyster, since you put it so," rejoined Steavens. +"Although he could be very fond of people, he always gave one the +impression of being detached. He disliked violent emotion; he was +reflective, and rather distrustful of himself--except, of course, as +regarded his work. He was surefooted enough there. He distrusted men +pretty thoroughly and women even more, yet somehow without believing ill +of them. He was determined, indeed, to believe the best, but he seemed +afraid to investigate." + +"A burnt dog dreads the fire," said the lawyer grimly, and closed his +eyes. + +Steavens went on and on, reconstructing that whole miserable boyhood. +All this raw, biting ugliness had been the portion of the man whose +tastes were refined beyond the limits of the reasonable--whose mind was +an exhaustless gallery of beautiful impressions, and so sensitive that +the mere shadow of a poplar leaf flickering against a sunny wall would +be etched and held there forever. Surely, if ever a man had the magic +word in his fingertips, it was Merrick. Whatever he touched, he revealed +its holiest secret; liberated it from enchantment and restored it to its +pristine loveliness, like the Arabian prince who fought the enchantress +spell for spell. Upon whatever he had come in contact with, he had left +a beautiful record of the experience--a sort of ethereal signature; a +scent, a sound, a color that was his own. + +Steavens understood now the real tragedy of his master's life; neither +love nor wine, as many had conjectured, but a blow which had fallen +earlier and cut deeper than these could have done--a shame not his, and +yet so unescapably his, to bide in his heart from his very boyhood. And +without--the frontier warfare; the yearning of a boy, cast ashore upon a +desert of newness and ugliness and sordidness, for all that is chastened +and old, and noble with traditions. + +At eleven o'clock the tall, flat woman in black crepe entered, announced +that the watchers were arriving, and asked them "to step into the dining +room." As Steavens rose the lawyer said dryly: "You go on--it'll be a +good experience for you, doubtless; as for me, I'm not equal to that +crowd tonight; I've had twenty years of them." + +As Steavens closed the door after him be glanced back at the lawyer, +sitting by the coffin in the dim light, with his chin resting on his +hand. + +The same misty group that had stood before the door of the express car +shuffled into the dining room. In the light of the kerosene lamp they +separated and became individuals. The minister, a pale, feeble-looking +man with white hair and blond chin-whiskers, took his seat beside a +small side table and placed his Bible upon it. The Grand Army man sat +down behind the stove and tilted his chair back comfortably against the +wall, fishing his quill toothpick from his waistcoat pocket. The two +bankers, Phelps and Elder, sat off in a corner behind the dinner table, +where they could finish their discussion of the new usury law and its +effect on chattel security loans. The real estate agent, an old man +with a smiling, hypocritical face, soon joined them. The coal-and-lumber +dealer and the cattle shipper sat on opposite sides of the hard +coal-burner, their feet on the nickelwork. Steavens took a book from +his pocket and began to read. The talk around him ranged through various +topics of local interest while the house was quieting down. When it +was clear that the members of the family were in bed the Grand Army man +hitched his shoulders and, untangling his long legs, caught his heels on +the rounds of his chair. + +"S'pose there'll be a will, Phelps?" he queried in his weak falsetto. + +The banker laughed disagreeably and began trimming his nails with a +pearl-handled pocketknife. + +"There'll scarcely be any need for one, will there?" he queried in his +turn. + +The restless Grand Army man shifted his position again, getting his +knees still nearer his chin. "Why, the ole man says Harve's done right +well lately," he chirped. + +The other banker spoke up. "I reckon he means by that Harve ain't asked +him to mortgage any more farms lately, so as he could go on with his +education." + +"Seems like my mind don't reach back to a time when Harve wasn't bein' +edycated," tittered the Grand Army man. + +There was a general chuckle. The minister took out his handkerchief and +blew his nose sonorously. Banker Phelps closed his knife with a snap. +"It's too bad the old man's sons didn't turn out better," he remarked +with reflective authority. "They never hung together. He spent money +enough on Harve to stock a dozen cattle farms and he might as well have +poured it into Sand Creek. If Harve had stayed at home and helped nurse +what little they had, and gone into stock on the old man's bottom +farm, they might all have been well fixed. But the old man had to trust +everything to tenants and was cheated right and left." + +"Harve never could have handled stock none," interposed the cattleman. +"He hadn't it in him to be sharp. Do you remember when he bought +Sander's mules for eight-year-olds, when everybody in town knew that +Sander's father-in-law give 'em to his wife for a wedding present +eighteen years before, an' they was full-grown mules then." + +Everyone chuckled, and the Grand Army man rubbed his knees with a spasm +of childish delight. + +"Harve never was much account for anything practical, and he shore was +never fond of work," began the coal-and-lumber dealer. "I mind the last +time he was home; the day he left, when the old man was out to the barn +helpin' his hand hitch up to take Harve to the train, and Cal Moots was +patchin' up the fence, Harve, he come out on the step and sings out, in +his ladylike voice: 'Cal Moots, Cal Moots! please come cord my trunk.'" + +"That's Harve for you," approved the Grand Army man gleefully. "I kin +hear him howlin' yet when he was a big feller in long pants and his +mother used to whale him with a rawhide in the barn for lettin' the +cows git foundered in the cornfield when he was drivin' 'em home from +pasture. He killed a cow of mine that-a-way onc't--a pure Jersey and the +best milker I had, an' the ole man had to put up for her. Harve, he was +watchin' the sun set acros't the marshes when the anamile got away; he +argued that sunset was oncommon fine." + +"Where the old man made his mistake was in sending the boy East to +school," said Phelps, stroking his goatee and speaking in a deliberate, +judicial tone. "There was where he got his head full of traipsing to +Paris and all such folly. What Harve needed, of all people, was a course +in some first-class Kansas City business college." + +The letters were swimming before Steavens's eyes. Was it possible that +these men did not understand, that the palm on the coffin meant nothing +to them? The very name of their town would have remained forever buried +in the postal guide had it not been now and again mentioned in the world +in connection with Harvey Merrick's. He remembered what his master had +said to him on the day of his death, after the congestion of both lungs +had shut off any probability of recovery, and the sculptor had asked +his pupil to send his body home. "It's not a pleasant place to be lying +while the world is moving and doing and bettering," he had said with a +feeble smile, "but it rather seems as though we ought to go back to the +place we came from in the end. The townspeople will come in for a look +at me; and after they have had their say I shan't have much to fear from +the judgment of God. The wings of the Victory, in there"--with a weak +gesture toward his studio--"will not shelter me." + +The cattleman took up the comment. "Forty's young for a Merrick to cash +in; they usually hang on pretty well. Probably he helped it along with +whisky." + +"His mother's people were not long-lived, and Harvey never had a robust +constitution," said the minister mildly. He would have liked to say +more. He had been the boy's Sunday-school teacher, and had been fond of +him; but he felt that he was not in a position to speak. His own sons +had turned out badly, and it was not a year since one of them had made +his last trip home in the express car, shot in a gambling house in the +Black Hills. + +"Nevertheless, there is no disputin' that Harve frequently looked upon +the wine when it was red, also variegated, and it shore made an oncommon +fool of him," moralized the cattleman. + +Just then the door leading into the parlor rattled loudly, and everyone +started involuntarily, looking relieved when only Jim Laird came out. +His red face was convulsed with anger, and the Grand Army man ducked +his head when he saw the spark in his blue, bloodshot eye. They were all +afraid of Jim; he was a drunkard, but he could twist the law to suit his +client's needs as no other man in all western Kansas could do; and +there were many who tried. The lawyer closed the door gently behind him, +leaned back against it and folded his arms, cocking his head a little +to one side. When he assumed this attitude in the courtroom, ears were +always pricked up, as it usually foretold a flood of withering sarcasm. + +"I've been with you gentlemen before," he began in a dry, even tone, +"when you've sat by the coffins of boys born and raised in this town; +and, if I remember rightly, you were never any too well satisfied when +you checked them up. What's the matter, anyhow? Why is it that reputable +young men are as scarce as millionaires in Sand City? It might almost +seem to a stranger that there was some way something the matter with +your progressive town. Why did Ruben Sayer, the brightest young lawyer +you ever turned out, after he had come home from the university as +straight as a die, take to drinking and forge a check and shoot himself? +Why did Bill Merrit's son die of the shakes in a saloon in Omaha? Why +was Mr. Thomas's son, here, shot in a gambling house? Why did young +Adams burn his mill to beat the insurance companies and go to the pen?" + +The lawyer paused and unfolded his arms, laying one clenched fist +quietly on the table. "I'll tell you why. Because you drummed +nothing but money and knavery into their ears from the time they wore +knickerbockers; because you carped away at them as you've been carping +here tonight, holding our friends Phelps and Elder up to them for their +models, as our grandfathers held up George Washington and John Adams. +But the boys, worse luck, were young and raw at the business you put +them to; and how could they match coppers with such artists as Phelps +and Elder? You wanted them to be successful rascals; they were only +unsuccessful ones--that's all the difference. There was only one boy +ever raised in this borderland between ruffianism and civilization who +didn't come to grief, and you hated Harvey Merrick more for winning out +than you hated all the other boys who got under the wheels. Lord, Lord, +how you did hate him! Phelps, here, is fond of saying that he could buy +and sell us all out any time he's a mind to; but he knew Harve wouldn't +have given a tinker's damn for his bank and all his cattle farms put +together; and a lack of appreciation, that way, goes hard with Phelps. + +"Old Nimrod, here, thinks Harve drank too much; and this from such as +Nimrod and me!" + +"Brother Elder says Harve was too free with the old man's money--fell +short in filial consideration, maybe. Well, we can all remember the +very tone in which brother Elder swore his own father was a liar, in +the county court; and we all know that the old man came out of that +partnership with his son as bare as a sheared lamb. But maybe I'm +getting personal, and I'd better be driving ahead at what I want to +say." + +The lawyer paused a moment, squared his heavy shoulders, and went on: +"Harvey Merrick and I went to school together, back East. We were dead +in earnest, and we wanted you all to be proud of us some day. We +meant to be great men. Even I, and I haven't lost my sense of humor, +gentlemen, I meant to be a great man. I came back here to practice, and +I found you didn't in the least want me to be a great man. You wanted me +to be a shrewd lawyer--oh, yes! Our veteran here wanted me to get him +an increase of pension, because he had dyspepsia; Phelps wanted a new +county survey that would put the widow Wilson's little bottom farm +inside his south line; Elder wanted to lend money at 5 per cent a month +and get it collected; old Stark here wanted to wheedle old women up in +Vermont into investing their annuities in real estate mortgages that are +not worth the paper they are written on. Oh, you needed me hard enough, +and you'll go on needing me; and that's why I'm not afraid to plug the +truth home to you this once. + +"Well, I came back here and became the damned shyster you wanted me +to be. You pretend to have some sort of respect for me; and yet you'll +stand up and throw mud at Harvey Merrick, whose soul you couldn't dirty +and whose hands you couldn't tie. Oh, you're a discriminating lot of +Christians! There have been times when the sight of Harvey's name in +some Eastern paper has made me hang my head like a whipped dog; and, +again, times when I liked to think of him off there in the world, away +from all this hog wallow, doing his great work and climbing the big, +clean upgrade he'd set for himself. + +"And we? Now that we've fought and lied and sweated and stolen, and +hated as only the disappointed strugglers in a bitter, dead little +Western town know how to do, what have we got to show for it? Harvey +Merrick wouldn't have given one sunset over your marshes for all you've +got put together, and you know it. It's not for me to say why, in the +inscrutable wisdom of God, a genius should ever have been called from +this place of hatred and bitter waters; but I want this Boston man to +know that the drivel he's been hearing here tonight is the only +tribute any truly great man could ever have from such a lot of sick, +side-tracked, burnt-dog, land-poor sharks as the here-present financiers +of Sand City--upon which town may God have mercy!" + +The lawyer thrust out his hand to Steavens as he passed him, caught up +his overcoat in the hall, and had left the house before the Grand Army +man had had time to lift his ducked head and crane his long neck about +at his fellows. + + +Next day Jim Laird was drunk and unable to attend the funeral services. +Steavens called twice at his office, but was compelled to start East +without seeing him. He had a presentiment that he would hear from him +again, and left his address on the lawyer's table; but if Laird found +it, he never acknowledged it. The thing in him that Harvey Merrick had +loved must have gone underground with Harvey Merrick's coffin; for it +never spoke again, and Jim got the cold he died of driving across the +Colorado mountains to defend one of Phelps's sons, who had got into +trouble out there by cutting government timber. + + + + + +"A Death in the Desert" + +Everett Hilgarde was conscious that the man in the seat across the +aisle was looking at him intently. He was a large, florid man, wore a +conspicuous diamond solitaire upon his third finger, and Everett judged +him to be a traveling salesman of some sort. He had the air of an +adaptable fellow who had been about the world and who could keep cool +and clean under almost any circumstances. + +The "High Line Flyer," as this train was derisively called among +railroad men, was jerking along through the hot afternoon over the +monotonous country between Holdridge and Cheyenne. Besides the blond +man and himself the only occupants of the car were two dusty, +bedraggled-looking girls who had been to the Exposition at Chicago, +and who were earnestly discussing the cost of their first trip out of +Colorado. The four uncomfortable passengers were covered with a sediment +of fine, yellow dust which clung to their hair and eyebrows like gold +powder. It blew up in clouds from the bleak, lifeless country through +which they passed, until they were one color with the sagebrush and +sandhills. The gray-and-yellow desert was varied only by occasional +ruins of deserted towns, and the little red boxes of station houses, +where the spindling trees and sickly vines in the bluegrass yards made +little green reserves fenced off in that confusing wilderness of sand. + +As the slanting rays of the sun beat in stronger and stronger through +the car windows, the blond gentleman asked the ladies' permission to +remove his coat, and sat in his lavender striped shirt sleeves, with a +black silk handkerchief tucked carefully about his collar. He had seemed +interested in Everett since they had boarded the train at Holdridge, and +kept glancing at him curiously and then looking reflectively out of +the window, as though he were trying to recall something. But wherever +Everett went someone was almost sure to look at him with that curious +interest, and it had ceased to embarrass or annoy him. Presently the +stranger, seeming satisfied with his observation, leaned back in his +seat, half-closed his eyes, and began softly to whistle the "Spring +Song" from _Proserpine_, the cantata that a dozen years before had made +its young composer famous in a night. Everett had heard that air on +guitars in Old Mexico, on mandolins at college glees, on cottage organs +in New England hamlets, and only two weeks ago he had heard it played on +sleighbells at a variety theater in Denver. There was literally no way +of escaping his brother's precocity. Adriance could live on the other +side of the Atlantic, where his youthful indiscretions were forgotten in +his mature achievements, but his brother had never been able to outrun +_Proserpine_, and here he found it again in the Colorado sand hills. Not +that Everett was exactly ashamed of _Proserpine_; only a man of genius +could have written it, but it was the sort of thing that a man of genius +outgrows as soon as he can. + +Everett unbent a trifle and smiled at his neighbor across the aisle. +Immediately the large man rose and, coming over, dropped into the seat +facing Hilgarde, extending his card. + +"Dusty ride, isn't it? I don't mind it myself; I'm used to it. Born and +bred in de briar patch, like Br'er Rabbit. I've been trying to place you +for a long time; I think I must have met you before." + +"Thank you," said Everett, taking the card; "my name is Hilgarde. You've +probably met my brother, Adriance; people often mistake me for him." + +The traveling man brought his hand down upon his knee with such +vehemence that the solitaire blazed. + +"So I was right after all, and if you're not Adriance Hilgarde, you're +his double. I thought I couldn't be mistaken. Seen him? Well, I guess! +I never missed one of his recitals at the Auditorium, and he played +the piano score of _Proserpine_ through to us once at the Chicago Press +Club. I used to be on the _Commercial_ there before I began +to travel for the publishing department of the concern. So you're +Hilgarde's brother, and here I've run into you at the jumping-off place. +Sounds like a newspaper yarn, doesn't it?" + +The traveling man laughed and offered Everett a cigar, and plied him +with questions on the only subject that people ever seemed to care to +talk to Everett about. At length the salesman and the two girls alighted +at a Colorado way station, and Everett went on to Cheyenne alone. + +The train pulled into Cheyenne at nine o'clock, late by a matter of four +hours or so; but no one seemed particularly concerned at its tardiness +except the station agent, who grumbled at being kept in the office +overtime on a summer night. When Everett alighted from the train he +walked down the platform and stopped at the track crossing, uncertain as +to what direction he should take to reach a hotel. A phaeton stood near +the crossing, and a woman held the reins. She was dressed in white, and +her figure was clearly silhouetted against the cushions, though it was +too dark to see her face. Everett had scarcely noticed her, when the +switch engine came puffing up from the opposite direction, and the +headlight threw a strong glare of light on his face. Suddenly the woman +in the phaeton uttered a low cry and dropped the reins. Everett started +forward and caught the horse's head, but the animal only lifted its +ears and whisked its tail in impatient surprise. The woman sat perfectly +still, her head sunk between her shoulders and her handkerchief pressed +to her face. Another woman came out of the depot and hurried toward the +phaeton, crying, "Katharine, dear, what is the matter?" + +Everett hesitated a moment in painful embarrassment, then lifted his +hat and passed on. He was accustomed to sudden recognitions in the most +impossible places, especially by women, but this cry out of the night +had shaken him. + +While Everett was breakfasting the next morning, the headwaiter leaned +over his chair to murmur that there was a gentleman waiting to see him +in the parlor. Everett finished his coffee and went in the direction +indicated, where he found his visitor restlessly pacing the floor. His +whole manner betrayed a high degree of agitation, though his physique +was not that of a man whose nerves lie near the surface. He was +something below medium height, square-shouldered and solidly built. His +thick, closely cut hair was beginning to show gray about the ears, and +his bronzed face was heavily lined. His square brown hands were +locked behind him, and he held his shoulders like a man conscious of +responsibilities; yet, as he turned to greet Everett, there was an +incongruous diffidence in his address. + +"Good morning, Mr. Hilgarde," he said, extending his hand; "I found your +name on the hotel register. My name is Gaylord. I'm afraid my sister +startled you at the station last night, Mr. Hilgarde, and I've come +around to apologize." + +"Ah! The young lady in the phaeton? I'm sure I didn't know whether I +had anything to do with her alarm or not. If I did, it is I who owe the +apology." + +The man colored a little under the dark brown of his face. + +"Oh, it's nothing you could help, sir, I fully understand that. You see, +my sister used to be a pupil of your brother's, and it seems you favor +him; and when the switch engine threw a light on your face it startled +her." + +Everett wheeled about in his chair. "Oh! _Katharine_ Gaylord! Is it +possible! Now it's you who have given me a turn. Why, I used to know her +when I was a boy. What on earth--" + +"Is she doing here?" said Gaylord, grimly filling out the pause. "You've +got at the heart of the matter. You knew my sister had been in bad +health for a long time?" + +"No, I had never heard a word of that. The last I knew of her she was +singing in London. My brother and I correspond infrequently and seldom +get beyond family matters. I am deeply sorry to hear this. There are +more reasons why I am concerned than I can tell you." + +The lines in Charley Gaylord's brow relaxed a little. + +"What I'm trying to say, Mr. Hilgarde, is that she wants to see you. I +hate to ask you, but she's so set on it. We live several miles out of +town, but my rig's below, and I can take you out anytime you can go." + +"I can go now, and it will give me real pleasure to do so," said +Everett, quickly. "I'll get my hat and be with you in a moment." + +When he came downstairs Everett found a cart at the door, and Charley +Gaylord drew a long sigh of relief as he gathered up the reins and +settled back into his own element. + +"You see, I think I'd better tell you something about my sister before +you see her, and I don't know just where to begin. She traveled +in Europe with your brother and his wife, and sang at a lot of his +concerts; but I don't know just how much you know about her." + +"Very little, except that my brother always thought her the most gifted +of his pupils, and that when I knew her she was very young and very +beautiful and turned my head sadly for a while." + +Everett saw that Gaylord's mind was quite engrossed by his grief. He was +wrought up to the point where his reserve and sense of proportion had +quite left him, and his trouble was the one vital thing in the world. +"That's the whole thing," he went on, flicking his horses with the whip. + +"She was a great woman, as you say, and she didn't come of a great +family. She had to fight her own way from the first. She got to Chicago, +and then to New York, and then to Europe, where she went up like +lightning, and got a taste for it all; and now she's dying here like a +rat in a hole, out of her own world, and she can't fall back into ours. +We've grown apart, some way--miles and miles apart--and I'm afraid she's +fearfully unhappy." + +"It's a very tragic story that you are telling me, Gaylord," said +Everett. They were well out into the country now, spinning along over +the dusty plains of red grass, with the ragged-blue outline of the +mountains before them. + +"Tragic!" cried Gaylord, starting up in his seat, "my God, man, nobody +will ever know how tragic. It's a tragedy I live with and eat with and +sleep with, until I've lost my grip on everything. You see she had made +a good bit of money, but she spent it all going to health resorts. It's +her lungs, you know. I've got money enough to send her anywhere, but the +doctors all say it's no use. She hasn't the ghost of a chance. It's just +getting through the days now. I had no notion she was half so bad before +she came to me. She just wrote that she was all run down. Now that she's +here, I think she'd be happier anywhere under the sun, but she won't +leave. She says it's easier to let go of life here, and that to go East +would be dying twice. There was a time when I was a brakeman with a run +out of Bird City, Iowa, and she was a little thing I could carry on my +shoulder, when I could get her everything on earth she wanted, and she +hadn't a wish my $80 a month didn't cover; and now, when I've got a +little property together, I can't buy her a night's sleep!" + +Everett saw that, whatever Charley Gaylord's present status in the world +might be, he had brought the brakeman's heart up the ladder with him, +and the brakeman's frank avowal of sentiment. Presently Gaylord went on: + +"You can understand how she has outgrown her family. We're all a pretty +common sort, railroaders from away back. My father was a conductor. He +died when we were kids. Maggie, my other sister, who lives with me, was +a telegraph operator here while I was getting my grip on things. We had +no education to speak of. I have to hire a stenographer because I can't +spell straight--the Almighty couldn't teach me to spell. The things that +make up life to Kate are all Greek to me, and there's scarcely a point +where we touch any more, except in our recollections of the old times +when we were all young and happy together, and Kate sang in a church +choir in Bird City. But I believe, Mr. Hilgarde, that if she can see +just one person like you, who knows about the things and people she's +interested in, it will give her about the only comfort she can have +now." + +The reins slackened in Charley Gaylord's hand as they drew up before a +showily painted house with many gables and a round tower. "Here we are," +he said, turning to Everett, "and I guess we understand each other." + +They were met at the door by a thin, colorless woman, whom Gaylord +introduced as "my sister, Maggie." She asked her brother to show Mr. +Hilgarde into the music room, where Katharine wished to see him alone. + +When Everett entered the music room he gave a little start of surprise, +feeling that he had stepped from the glaring Wyoming sunlight into some +New York studio that he had always known. He wondered which it was of +those countless studios, high up under the roofs, over banks and +shops and wholesale houses, that this room resembled, and he looked +incredulously out of the window at the gray plain that ended in the +great upheaval of the Rockies. + +The haunting air of familiarity about the room perplexed him. Was it +a copy of some particular studio he knew, or was it merely the studio +atmosphere that seemed so individual and poignantly reminiscent here +in Wyoming? He sat down in a reading chair and looked keenly about him. +Suddenly his eye fell upon a large photograph of his brother above the +piano. Then it all became clear to him: this was veritably his brother's +room. If it were not an exact copy of one of the many studios that +Adriance had fitted up in various parts of the world, wearying of them +and leaving almost before the renovator's varnish had dried, it was at +least in the same tone. In every detail Adriance's taste was so manifest +that the room seemed to exhale his personality. + +Among the photographs on the wall there was one of Katharine Gaylord, +taken in the days when Everett had known her, and when the flash of her +eye or the flutter of her skirt was enough to set his boyish heart in a +tumult. Even now, he stood before the portrait with a certain degree +of embarrassment. It was the face of a woman already old in her first +youth, thoroughly sophisticated and a trifle hard, and it told of +what her brother had called her fight. The camaraderie of her frank, +confident eyes was qualified by the deep lines about her mouth and the +curve of the lips, which was both sad and cynical. Certainly she had +more good will than confidence toward the world, and the bravado of +her smile could not conceal the shadow of an unrest that was almost +discontent. The chief charm of the woman, as Everett had known her, lay +in her superb figure and in her eyes, which possessed a warm, lifegiving +quality like the sunlight; eyes which glowed with a sort of perpetual +_salutat_ to the world. Her head, Everett remembered as peculiarly +well-shaped and proudly poised. There had been always a little of the +imperatrix about her, and her pose in the photograph revived all his old +impressions of her unattachedness, of how absolutely and valiantly she +stood alone. + +Everett was still standing before the picture, his hands behind him +and his head inclined, when he heard the door open. A very tall woman +advanced toward him, holding out her hand. As she started to speak, she +coughed slightly; then, laughing, said, in a low, rich voice, a trifle +husky: "You see I make the traditional Camille entrance--with the cough. +How good of you to come, Mr. Hilgarde." + +Everett was acutely conscious that while addressing him she was not +looking at him at all, and, as he assured her of his pleasure in coming, +he was glad to have an opportunity to collect himself. He had not +reckoned upon the ravages of a long illness. The long, loose folds +of her white gown had been especially designed to conceal the sharp +outlines of her emaciated body, but the stamp of her disease was +there; simple and ugly and obtrusive, a pitiless fact that could not be +disguised or evaded. The splendid shoulders were stooped, there was a +swaying unevenness in her gait, her arms seemed disproportionately +long, and her hands were transparently white and cold to the touch. The +changes in her face were less obvious; the proud carriage of the head, +the warm, clear eyes, even the delicate flush of color in her cheeks, +all defiantly remained, though they were all in a lower key--older, +sadder, softer. + +She sat down upon the divan and began nervously to arrange the pillows. +"I know I'm not an inspiring object to look upon, but you must be quite +frank and sensible about that and get used to it at once, for we've no +time to lose. And if I'm a trifle irritable you won't mind?--for I'm +more than usually nervous." + +"Don't bother with me this morning, if you are tired," urged Everett. "I +can come quite as well tomorrow." + +"Gracious, no!" she protested, with a flash of that quick, keen humor +that he remembered as a part of her. "It's solitude that I'm tired to +death of--solitude and the wrong kind of people. You see, the minister, +not content with reading the prayers for the sick, called on me this +morning. He happened to be riding by on his bicycle and felt it his +duty to stop. Of course, he disapproves of my profession, and I think +he takes it for granted that I have a dark past. The funniest feature +of his conversation is that he is always excusing my own vocation to +me--condoning it, you know--and trying to patch up my peace with my +conscience by suggesting possible noble uses for what he kindly calls my +talent." + +Everett laughed. "Oh! I'm afraid I'm not the person to call after such +a serious gentleman--I can't sustain the situation. At my best I don't +reach higher than low comedy. Have you decided to which one of the noble +uses you will devote yourself?" + +Katharine lifted her hands in a gesture of renunciation and exclaimed: +"I'm not equal to any of them, not even the least noble. I didn't study +that method." + +She laughed and went on nervously: "The parson's not so bad. His English +never offends me, and he has read Gibbon's _Decline and Fall_, all five +volumes, and that's something. Then, he has been to New York, and that's +a great deal. But how we are losing time! Do tell me about New York; +Charley says you're just on from there. How does it look and taste and +smell just now? I think a whiff of the Jersey ferry would be as flagons +of cod-liver oil to me. Who conspicuously walks the Rialto now, and what +does he or she wear? Are the trees still green in Madison Square, or +have they grown brown and dusty? Does the chaste Diana on the Garden +Theatre still keep her vestal vows through all the exasperating changes +of weather? Who has your brother's old studio now, and what misguided +aspirants practice their scales in the rookeries about Carnegie Hall? +What do people go to see at the theaters, and what do they eat and drink +there in the world nowadays? You see, I'm homesick for it all, from the +Battery to Riverside. Oh, let me die in Harlem!" She was interrupted +by a violent attack of coughing, and Everett, embarrassed by her +discomfort, plunged into gossip about the professional people he had met +in town during the summer and the musical outlook for the winter. He was +diagraming with his pencil, on the back of an old envelope he found in +his pocket, some new mechanical device to be used at the Metropolitan in +the production of the _Rheingold_, when he became conscious that she was +looking at him intently, and that he was talking to the four walls. + +Katharine was lying back among the pillows, watching him through +half-closed eyes, as a painter looks at a picture. He finished his +explanation vaguely enough and put the envelope back in his pocket. As +he did so she said, quietly: "How wonderfully like Adriance you are!" +and he felt as though a crisis of some sort had been met and tided over. + +He laughed, looking up at her with a touch of pride in his eyes that +made them seem quite boyish. "Yes, isn't it absurd? It's almost as +awkward as looking like Napoleon--but, after all, there are some +advantages. It has made some of his friends like me, and I hope it will +make you." + +Katharine smiled and gave him a quick, meaning glance from under her +lashes. "Oh, it did that long ago. What a haughty, reserved youth you +were then, and how you used to stare at people and then blush and look +cross if they paid you back in your own coin. Do you remember that night +when you took me home from a rehearsal and scarcely spoke a word to me?" + +"It was the silence of admiration," protested Everett, "very crude and +boyish, but very sincere and not a little painful. Perhaps you suspected +something of the sort? I remember you saw fit to be very grown-up and +worldly. + +"I believe I suspected a pose; the one that college boys usually affect +with singers--'an earthen vessel in love with a star,' you know. But it +rather surprised me in you, for you must have seen a good deal of your +brother's pupils. Or had you an omnivorous capacity, and elasticity that +always met the occasion?" + +"Don't ask a man to confess the follies of his youth," said Everett, +smiling a little sadly; "I am sensitive about some of them even now. But +I was not so sophisticated as you imagined. I saw my brother's pupils +come and go, but that was about all. Sometimes I was called on to play +accompaniments, or to fill out a vacancy at a rehearsal, or to order a +carriage for an infuriated soprano who had thrown up her part. But they +never spent any time on me, unless it was to notice the resemblance you +speak of." + +"Yes", observed Katharine, thoughtfully, "I noticed it then, too; but it +has grown as you have grown older. That is rather strange, when you have +lived such different lives. It's not merely an ordinary family likeness +of feature, you know, but a sort of interchangeable individuality; +the suggestion of the other man's personality in your face like an air +transposed to another key. But I'm not attempting to define it; it's +beyond me; something altogether unusual and a trifle--well, uncanny," +she finished, laughing. + +"I remember," Everett said seriously, twirling the pencil between his +fingers and looking, as he sat with his head thrown back, out under the +red window blind which was raised just a little, and as it swung back +and forth in the wind revealed the glaring panorama of the desert--a +blinding stretch of yellow, flat as the sea in dead calm, splotched here +and there with deep purple shadows; and, beyond, the ragged-blue outline +of the mountains and the peaks of snow, white as the white clouds--"I +remember, when I was a little fellow I used to be very sensitive about +it. I don't think it exactly displeased me, or that I would have had it +otherwise if I could, but it seemed to me like a birthmark, or something +not to be lightly spoken of. People were naturally always fonder of +Ad than of me, and I used to feel the chill of reflected light pretty +often. It came into even my relations with my mother. Ad went abroad to +study when he was absurdly young, you know, and mother was all broken +up over it. She did her whole duty by each of us, but it was sort of +generally understood among us that she'd have made burnt offerings of us +all for Ad any day. I was a little fellow then, and when she sat alone +on the porch in the summer dusk she used sometimes to call me to her and +turn my face up in the light that streamed out through the shutters and +kiss me, and then I always knew she was thinking of Adriance." + +"Poor little chap," said Katharine, and her tone was a trifle huskier +than usual. "How fond people have always been of Adriance! Now tell me +the latest news of him. I haven't heard, except through the press, for +a year or more. He was in Algeria then, in the valley of the Chelif, +riding horseback night and day in an Arabian costume, and in his +usual enthusiastic fashion he had quite made up his mind to adopt the +Mohammedan faith and become as nearly an Arab as possible. How many +countries and faiths has he adopted, I wonder? Probably he was playing +Arab to himself all the time. I remember he was a sixteenth-century duke +in Florence once for weeks together." + +"Oh, that's Adriance," chuckled Everett. "He is himself barely long +enough to write checks and be measured for his clothes. I didn't hear +from him while he was an Arab; I missed that." + +"He was writing an Algerian suite for the piano then; it must be in +the publisher's hands by this time. I have been too ill to answer his +letter, and have lost touch with him." + +Everett drew a letter from his pocket. "This came about a month ago. +It's chiefly about his new opera, which is to be brought out in London +next winter. Read it at your leisure." + +"I think I shall keep it as a hostage, so that I may be sure you will +come again. Now I want you to play for me. Whatever you like; but if +there is anything new in the world, in mercy let me hear it. For nine +months I have heard nothing but 'The Baggage Coach Ahead' and 'She Is My +Baby's Mother.'" + +He sat down at the piano, and Katharine sat near him, absorbed in his +remarkable physical likeness to his brother and trying to discover in +just what it consisted. She told herself that it was very much as though +a sculptor's finished work had been rudely copied in wood. He was of +a larger build than Adriance, and his shoulders were broad and heavy, +while those of his brother were slender and rather girlish. His face was +of the same oval mold, but it was gray and darkened about the mouth by +continual shaving. His eyes were of the same inconstant April color, +but they were reflective and rather dull; while Adriance's were always +points of highlight, and always meaning another thing than the thing +they meant yesterday. But it was hard to see why this earnest man should +so continually suggest that lyric, youthful face that was as gay as his +was grave. For Adriance, though he was ten years the elder, and though +his hair was streaked with silver, had the face of a boy of twenty, so +mobile that it told his thoughts before he could put them into words. A +contralto, famous for the extravagance of her vocal methods and of her +affections, had once said to him that the shepherd boys who sang in the +Vale of Tempe must certainly have looked like young Hilgarde; and the +comparison had been appropriated by a hundred shyer women who preferred +to quote. + + +As Everett sat smoking on the veranda of the Inter-Ocean House that +night, he was a victim to random recollections. His infatuation for +Katharine Gaylord, visionary as it was, had been the most serious of his +boyish love affairs, and had long disturbed his bachelor dreams. He was +painfully timid in everything relating to the emotions, and his hurt +had withdrawn him from the society of women. The fact that it was all so +done and dead and far behind him, and that the woman had lived her +life out since then, gave him an oppressive sense of age and loss. He +bethought himself of something he had read about "sitting by the hearth +and remembering the faces of women without desire," and felt himself an +octogenarian. + +He remembered how bitter and morose he had grown during his stay at his +brother's studio when Katharine Gaylord was working there, and how he +had wounded Adriance on the night of his last concert in New York. He +had sat there in the box while his brother and Katharine were called +back again and again after the last number, watching the roses go up +over the footlights until they were stacked half as high as the piano, +brooding, in his sullen boy's heart, upon the pride those two felt in +each other's work--spurring each other to their best and beautifully +contending in song. The footlights had seemed a hard, glittering line +drawn sharply between their life and his; a circle of flame set about +those splendid children of genius. He walked back to his hotel alone +and sat in his window staring out on Madison Square until long after +midnight, resolving to beat no more at doors that he could never enter +and realizing more keenly than ever before how far this glorious world +of beautiful creations lay from the paths of men like himself. He told +himself that he had in common with this woman only the baser uses of +life. + +Everett's week in Cheyenne stretched to three, and he saw no prospect of +release except through the thing he dreaded. The bright, windy days of +the Wyoming autumn passed swiftly. Letters and telegrams came urging +him to hasten his trip to the coast, but he resolutely postponed his +business engagements. The mornings he spent on one of Charley Gaylord's +ponies, or fishing in the mountains, and in the evenings he sat in his +room writing letters or reading. In the afternoon he was usually at his +post of duty. Destiny, he reflected, seems to have very positive notions +about the sort of parts we are fitted to play. The scene changes and the +compensation varies, but in the end we usually find that we have played +the same class of business from first to last. Everett had been a +stopgap all his life. He remembered going through a looking glass +labyrinth when he was a boy and trying gallery after gallery, only at +every turn to bump his nose against his own face--which, indeed, was not +his own, but his brother's. No matter what his mission, east or west, +by land or sea, he was sure to find himself employed in his brother's +business, one of the tributary lives which helped to swell the shining +current of Adriance Hilgarde's. It was not the first time that his duty +had been to comfort, as best he could, one of the broken things his +brother's imperious speed had cast aside and forgotten. He made no +attempt to analyze the situation or to state it in exact terms; but +he felt Katharine Gaylord's need for him, and he accepted it as a +commission from his brother to help this woman to die. Day by day he +felt her demands on him grow more imperious, her need for him grow more +acute and positive; and day by day he felt that in his peculiar relation +to her his own individuality played a smaller and smaller part. His +power to minister to her comfort, he saw, lay solely in his link with +his brother's life. He understood all that his physical resemblance +meant to her. He knew that she sat by him always watching for some +common trick of gesture, some familiar play of expression, some illusion +of light and shadow, in which he should seem wholly Adriance. He knew +that she lived upon this and that her disease fed upon it; that it sent +shudders of remembrance through her and that in the exhaustion which +followed this turmoil of her dying senses, she slept deep and sweet and +dreamed of youth and art and days in a certain old Florentine garden, +and not of bitterness and death. + +The question which most perplexed him was, "How much shall I know? How +much does she wish me to know?" A few days after his first meeting with +Katharine Gaylord, he had cabled his brother to write her. He had merely +said that she was mortally ill; he could depend on Adriance to say the +right thing--that was a part of his gift. Adriance always said not +only the right thing, but the opportune, graceful, exquisite thing. His +phrases took the color of the moment and the then-present condition, so +that they never savored of perfunctory compliment or frequent usage. He +always caught the lyric essence of the moment, the poetic suggestion +of every situation. Moreover, he usually did the right thing, the +opportune, graceful, exquisite thing--except, when he did very cruel +things--bent upon making people happy when their existence touched his, +just as he insisted that his material environment should be beautiful; +lavishing upon those near him all the warmth and radiance of his rich +nature, all the homage of the poet and troubadour, and, when they were +no longer near, forgetting--for that also was a part of Adriance's gift. + +Three weeks after Everett had sent his cable, when he made his daily +call at the gaily painted ranch house, he found Katharine laughing like +a schoolgirl. "Have you ever thought," she said, as he entered the +music room, "how much these seances of ours are like Heine's 'Florentine +Nights,' except that I don't give you an opportunity to monopolize the +conversation as Heine did?" She held his hand longer than usual, as +she greeted him, and looked searchingly up into his face. "You are the +kindest man living; the kindest," she added, softly. + +Everett's gray face colored faintly as he drew his hand away, for +he felt that this time she was looking at him and not at a whimsical +caricature of his brother. "Why, what have I done now?" he asked, +lamely. "I can't remember having sent you any stale candy or champagne +since yesterday." + +She drew a letter with a foreign postmark from between the leaves of a +book and held it out, smiling. "You got him to write it. Don't say you +didn't, for it came direct, you see, and the last address I gave him was +a place in Florida. This deed shall be remembered of you when I am with +the just in Paradise. But one thing you did not ask him to do, for you +didn't know about it. He has sent me his latest work, the new sonata, +the most ambitious thing he has ever done, and you are to play it for me +directly, though it looks horribly intricate. But first for the letter; +I think you would better read it aloud to me." + +Everett sat down in a low chair facing the window seat in which she +reclined with a barricade of pillows behind her. He opened the letter, +his lashes half-veiling his kind eyes, and saw to his satisfaction that +it was a long one--wonderfully tactful and tender, even for Adriance, +who was tender with his valet and his stable boy, with his old gondolier +and the beggar-women who prayed to the saints for him. + +The letter was from Granada, written in the Alhambra, as he sat by the +fountain of the Patio di Lindaraxa. The air was heavy, with the warm +fragrance of the South and full of the sound of splashing, running +water, as it had been in a certain old garden in Florence, long ago. +The sky was one great turquoise, heated until it glowed. The wonderful +Moorish arches threw graceful blue shadows all about him. He had +sketched an outline of them on the margin of his notepaper. The +subtleties of Arabic decoration had cast an unholy spell over him, +and the brutal exaggerations of Gothic art were a bad dream, easily +forgotten. The Alhambra itself had, from the first, seemed perfectly +familiar to him, and he knew that he must have trod that court, +sleek and brown and obsequious, centuries before Ferdinand rode into +Andalusia. The letter was full of confidences about his work, and +delicate allusions to their old happy days of study and comradeship, and +of her own work, still so warmly remembered and appreciatively discussed +everywhere he went. + +As Everett folded the letter he felt that Adriance had divined the thing +needed and had risen to it in his own wonderful way. The letter was +consistently egotistical and seemed to him even a trifle patronizing, +yet it was just what she had wanted. A strong realization of his +brother's charm and intensity and power came over him; he felt the +breath of that whirlwind of flame in which Adriance passed, consuming +all in his path, and himself even more resolutely than he consumed +others. Then he looked down at this white, burnt-out brand that lay +before him. "Like him, isn't it?" she said, quietly. + +"I think I can scarcely answer his letter, but when you see him next you +can do that for me. I want you to tell him many things for me, yet they +can all be summed up in this: I want him to grow wholly into his best +and greatest self, even at the cost of the dear boyishness that is half +his charm to you and me. Do you understand me?" + +"I know perfectly well what you mean," answered Everett, thoughtfully. +"I have often felt so about him myself. And yet it's difficult to +prescribe for those fellows; so little makes, so little mars." + +Katharine raised herself upon her elbow, and her face flushed with +feverish earnestness. "Ah, but it is the waste of himself that I mean; +his lashing himself out on stupid and uncomprehending people until they +take him at their own estimate. He can kindle marble, strike fire from +putty, but is it worth what it costs him?" + +"Come, come," expostulated Everett, alarmed at her excitement. "Where is +the new sonata? Let him speak for himself." + +He sat down at the piano and began playing the first movement, which was +indeed the voice of Adriance, his proper speech. The sonata was the most +ambitious work he had done up to that time and marked the transition +from his purely lyric vein to a deeper and nobler style. Everett played +intelligently and with that sympathetic comprehension which seems +peculiar to a certain lovable class of men who never accomplish anything +in particular. When he had finished he turned to Katharine. + +"How he has grown!" she cried. "What the three last years have done for +him! He used to write only the tragedies of passion; but this is the +tragedy of the soul, the shadow coexistent with the soul. This is the +tragedy of effort and failure, the thing Keats called hell. This is my +tragedy, as I lie here spent by the racecourse, listening to the feet of +the runners as they pass me. Ah, God! The swift feet of the runners!" + +She turned her face away and covered it with her straining hands. +Everett crossed over to her quickly and knelt beside her. In all +the days he had known her she had never before, beyond an occasional +ironical jest, given voice to the bitterness of her own defeat. Her +courage had become a point of pride with him, and to see it going +sickened him. + +"Don't do it," he gasped. "I can't stand it, I really can't, I feel it +too much. We mustn't speak of that; it's too tragic and too vast." + +When she turned her face back to him there was a ghost of the old, +brave, cynical smile on it, more bitter than the tears she could not +shed. "No, I won't be so ungenerous; I will save that for the watches +of the night when I have no better company. Now you may mix me another +drink of some sort. Formerly, when it was not _if_ I should ever sing +Brunnhilde, but quite simply when I _should_ sing Brunnhilde, I was +always starving myself and thinking what I might drink and what I might +not. But broken music boxes may drink whatsoever they list, and no +one cares whether they lose their figure. Run over that theme at the +beginning again. That, at least, is not new. It was running in his head +when we were in Venice years ago, and he used to drum it on his glass at +the dinner table. He had just begun to work it out when the late autumn +came on, and the paleness of the Adriatic oppressed him, and he decided +to go to Florence for the winter, and lost touch with the theme during +his illness. Do you remember those frightful days? All the people who +have loved him are not strong enough to save him from himself! When +I got word from Florence that he had been ill I was in Nice filling +a concert engagement. His wife was hurrying to him from Paris, but I +reached him first. I arrived at dusk, in a terrific storm. They had +taken an old palace there for the winter, and I found him in the +library--a long, dark room full of old Latin books and heavy furniture +and bronzes. He was sitting by a wood fire at one end of the room, +looking, oh, so worn and pale!--as he always does when he is ill, you +know. Ah, it is so good that you _do_ know! Even his red smoking jacket +lent no color to his face. His first words were not to tell me how ill +he had been, but that that morning he had been well enough to put the +last strokes to the score of his _Souvenirs d'Automne_. He was as I +most like to remember him: so calm and happy and tired; not gay, as he +usually is, but just contented and tired with that heavenly tiredness +that comes after a good work done at last. Outside, the rain poured +down in torrents, and the wind moaned for the pain of all the world and +sobbed in the branches of the shivering olives and about the walls of +that desolated old palace. How that night comes back to me! There were +no lights in the room, only the wood fire which glowed upon the hard +features of the bronze Dante, like the reflection of purgatorial flames, +and threw long black shadows about us; beyond us it scarcely penetrated +the gloom at all, Adriance sat staring at the fire with the weariness +of all his life in his eyes, and of all the other lives that must aspire +and suffer to make up one such life as his. Somehow the wind with all +its world-pain had got into the room, and the cold rain was in our eyes, +and the wave came up in both of us at once--that awful, vague, universal +pain, that cold fear of life and death and God and hope--and we were +like two clinging together on a spar in midocean after the shipwreck of +everything. Then we heard the front door open with a great gust of wind +that shook even the walls, and the servants came running with lights, +announcing that Madam had returned, _'and in the book we read no more +that night.'_" + +She gave the old line with a certain bitter humor, and with the hard, +bright smile in which of old she had wrapped her weakness as in a +glittering garment. That ironical smile, worn like a mask through so +many years, had gradually changed even the lines of her face completely, +and when she looked in the mirror she saw not herself, but the scathing +critic, the amused observer and satirist of herself. Everett dropped +his head upon his hand and sat looking at the rug. "How much you have +cared!" he said. + +"Ah, yes, I cared," she replied, closing her eyes with a long-drawn sigh +of relief; and lying perfectly still, she went on: "You can't imagine +what a comfort it is to have you know how I cared, what a relief it is +to be able to tell it to someone. I used to want to shriek it out to the +world in the long nights when I could not sleep. It seemed to me that I +could not die with it. It demanded some sort of expression. And now that +you know, you would scarcely believe how much less sharp the anguish of +it is." + +Everett continued to look helplessly at the floor. "I was not sure how +much you wanted me to know," he said. + +"Oh, I intended you should know from the first time I looked into your +face, when you came that day with Charley. I flatter myself that I have +been able to conceal it when I chose, though I suppose women always +think that. The more observing ones may have seen, but discerning people +are usually discreet and often kind, for we usually bleed a little +before we begin to discern. But I wanted you to know; you are so like +him that it is almost like telling him himself. At least, I feel now +that he will know some day, and then I will be quite sacred from his +compassion, for we none of us dare pity the dead. Since it was what my +life has chiefly meant, I should like him to know. On the whole I am not +ashamed of it. I have fought a good fight." + +"And has he never known at all?" asked Everett, in a thick voice. + +"Oh! Never at all in the way that you mean. Of course, he is accustomed +to looking into the eyes of women and finding love there; when he +doesn't find it there he thinks he must have been guilty of some +discourtesy and is miserable about it. He has a genuine fondness for +everyone who is not stupid or gloomy, or old or preternaturally ugly. +Granted youth and cheerfulness, and a moderate amount of wit and some +tact, and Adriance will always be glad to see you coming around the +corner. I shared with the rest; shared the smiles and the gallantries +and the droll little sermons. It was quite like a Sunday-school picnic; +we wore our best clothes and a smile and took our turns. It was his +kindness that was hardest. I have pretty well used my life up at +standing punishment." + +"Don't; you'll make me hate him," groaned Everett. + +Katharine laughed and began to play nervously with her fan. "It wasn't +in the slightest degree his fault; that is the most grotesque part of +it. Why, it had really begun before I ever met him. I fought my way to +him, and I drank my doom greedily enough." + +Everett rose and stood hesitating. "I think I must go. You ought to be +quiet, and I don't think I can hear any more just now." + +She put out her hand and took his playfully. "You've put in three weeks +at this sort of thing, haven't you? Well, it may never be to your glory +in this world, perhaps, but it's been the mercy of heaven to me, and it +ought to square accounts for a much worse life than yours will ever be." + +Everett knelt beside her, saying, brokenly: "I stayed because I wanted +to be with you, that's all. I have never cared about other women since I +met you in New York when I was a lad. You are a part of my destiny, and +I could not leave you if I would." + +She put her hands on his shoulders and shook her head. "No, no; don't +tell me that. I have seen enough of tragedy, God knows. Don't show me +any more just as the curtain is going down. No, no, it was only a boy's +fancy, and your divine pity and my utter pitiableness have recalled it +for a moment. One does not love the dying, dear friend. If some fancy of +that sort had been left over from boyhood, this would rid you of it, +and that were well. Now go, and you will come again tomorrow, as long as +there are tomorrows, will you not?" She took his hand with a smile that +lifted the mask from her soul, that was both courage and despair, and +full of infinite loyalty and tenderness, as she said softly: + + For ever and for ever, farewell, Cassius; + If we do meet again, why, we shall smile; + If not, why then, this parting was well made. + +The courage in her eyes was like the clear light of a star to him as he +went out. + +On the night of Adriance Hilgarde's opening concert in Paris Everett sat +by the bed in the ranch house in Wyoming, watching over the last battle +that we have with the flesh before we are done with it and free of it +forever. At times it seemed that the serene soul of her must have left +already and found some refuge from the storm, and only the tenacious +animal life were left to do battle with death. She labored under a +delusion at once pitiful and merciful, thinking that she was in the +Pullman on her way to New York, going back to her life and her work. +When she aroused from her stupor it was only to ask the porter to waken +her half an hour out of Jersey City, or to remonstrate with him about +the delays and the roughness of the road. At midnight Everett and the +nurse were left alone with her. Poor Charley Gaylord had lain down on a +couch outside the door. Everett sat looking at the sputtering night lamp +until it made his eyes ache. His head dropped forward on the foot of the +bed, and he sank into a heavy, distressful slumber. He was dreaming of +Adriance's concert in Paris, and of Adriance, the troubadour, smiling +and debonair, with his boyish face and the touch of silver gray in +his hair. He heard the applause and he saw the roses going up over the +footlights until they were stacked half as high as the piano, and the +petals fell and scattered, making crimson splotches on the floor. Down +this crimson pathway came Adriance with his youthful step, leading his +prima donna by the hand; a dark woman this time, with Spanish eyes. + +The nurse touched him on the shoulder; he started and awoke. She +screened the lamp with her hand. Everett saw that Katharine was awake +and conscious, and struggling a little. He lifted her gently on his arm +and began to fan her. She laid her hands lightly on his hair and looked +into his face with eyes that seemed never to have wept or doubted. "Ah, +dear Adriance, dear, dear," she whispered. + +Everett went to call her brother, but when they came back the madness of +art was over for Katharine. + +Two days later Everett was pacing the station siding, waiting for the +westbound train. Charley Gaylord walked beside him, but the two men had +nothing to say to each other. Everett's bags were piled on the truck, +and his step was hurried and his eyes were full of impatience, as he +gazed again and again up the track, watching for the train. Gaylord's +impatience was not less than his own; these two, who had grown so close, +had now become painful and impossible to each other, and longed for the +wrench of farewell. + +As the train pulled in Everett wrung Gaylord's hand among the crowd of +alighting passengers. The people of a German opera company, en route +to the coast, rushed by them in frantic haste to snatch their breakfast +during the stop. Everett heard an exclamation in a broad German dialect, +and a massive woman whose figure persistently escaped from her stays in +the most improbable places rushed up to him, her blond hair disordered +by the wind, and glowing with joyful surprise she caught his coat sleeve +with her tightly gloved hands. + +"_Herr Gott_, Adriance, _lieber Freund_," she cried, emotionally. + +Everett quickly withdrew his arm and lifted his hat, blushing. "Pardon +me, madam, but I see that you have mistaken me for Adriance Hilgarde. +I am his brother," he said quietly, and turning from the crestfallen +singer, he hurried into the car. + + + + +The Garden Lodge + +When Caroline Noble's friends learned that Raymond d'Esquerre was to +spend a month at her place on the Sound before he sailed to fill his +engagement for the London opera season, they considered it another +striking instance of the perversity of things. That the month was May, +and the most mild and florescent of all the blue-and-white Mays the +middle coast had known in years, but added to their sense of wrong. +D'Esquerre, they learned, was ensconced in the lodge in the apple +orchard, just beyond Caroline's glorious garden, and report went that +at almost any hour the sound of the tenor's voice and of Caroline's +crashing accompaniment could be heard floating through the open windows, +out among the snowy apple boughs. The Sound, steel-blue and dotted with +white sails, was splendidly seen from the windows of the lodge. The +garden to the left and the orchard to the right had never been so +riotous with spring, and had burst into impassioned bloom, as if to +accommodate Caroline, though she was certainly the last woman to whom +the witchery of Freya could be attributed; the last woman, as her +friends affirmed, to at all adequately appreciate and make the most of +such a setting for the great tenor. + +Of course, they admitted, Caroline was musical--well, she ought to +be!--but in that, as in everything, she was paramountly cool-headed, +slow of impulse, and disgustingly practical; in that, as in everything +else, she had herself so provokingly well in hand. Of course, it would +be she, always mistress of herself in any situation, she, who would +never be lifted one inch from the ground by it, and who would go on +superintending her gardeners and workmen as usual--it would be she who +got him. Perhaps some of them suspected that this was exactly why she +did get him, and it but nettled them the more. + +Caroline's coolness, her capableness, her general success, especially +exasperated people because they felt that, for the most part, she +had made herself what she was; that she had cold-bloodedly set about +complying with the demands of life and making her position comfortable +and masterful. That was why, everyone said, she had married Howard +Noble. Women who did not get through life so well as Caroline, who could +not make such good terms either with fortune or their husbands, who did +not find their health so unfailingly good, or hold their looks so well, +or manage their children so easily, or give such distinction to all they +did, were fond of stamping Caroline as a materialist, and called her +hard. + +The impression of cold calculation, of having a definite policy, which +Caroline gave, was far from a false one; but there was this to be said +for her--that there were extenuating circumstances which her friends +could not know. + +If Caroline held determinedly to the middle course, if she was apt to +regard with distrust everything which inclined toward extravagance, it +was not because she was unacquainted with other standards than her own, +or had never seen another side of life. She had grown up in Brooklyn, +in a shabby little house under the vacillating administration of her +father, a music teacher who usually neglected his duties to write +orchestral compositions for which the world seemed to have no especial +need. His spirit was warped by bitter vindictiveness and puerile +self-commiseration, and he spent his days in scorn of the labor that +brought him bread and in pitiful devotion to the labor that brought him +only disappointment, writing interminable scores which demanded of the +orchestra everything under heaven except melody. + +It was not a cheerful home for a girl to grow up in. The mother, who +idolized her husband as the music lord of the future, was left to a +lifelong battle with broom and dustpan, to neverending conciliatory +overtures to the butcher and grocer, to the making of her own gowns +and of Caroline's, and to the delicate task of mollifying Auguste's +neglected pupils. + +The son, Heinrich, a painter, Caroline's only brother, had inherited all +his father's vindictive sensitiveness without his capacity for slavish +application. His little studio on the third floor had been much +frequented by young men as unsuccessful as himself, who met there to +give themselves over to contemptuous derision of this or that artist +whose industry and stupidity had won him recognition. Heinrich, when he +worked at all, did newspaper sketches at twenty-five dollars a week. He +was too indolent and vacillating to set himself seriously to his art, +too irascible and poignantly self-conscious to make a living, too much +addicted to lying late in bed, to the incontinent reading of poetry, and +to the use of chloral to be anything very positive except painful. At +twenty-six he shot himself in a frenzy, and the whole wretched affair +had effectually shattered his mother's health and brought on the decline +of which she died. Caroline had been fond of him, but she felt a certain +relief when he no longer wandered about the little house, commenting +ironically upon its shabbiness, a Turkish cap on his head and a +cigarette hanging from between his long, tremulous fingers. + +After her mother's death Caroline assumed the management of that +bankrupt establishment. The funeral expenses were unpaid, and Auguste's +pupils had been frightened away by the shock of successive disasters and +the general atmosphere of wretchedness that pervaded the house. Auguste +himself was writing a symphonic poem, Icarus, dedicated to the memory +of his son. Caroline was barely twenty when she was called upon to face +this tangle of difficulties, but she reviewed the situation candidly. +The house had served its time at the shrine of idealism; vague, +distressing, unsatisfied yearnings had brought it low enough. Her +mother, thirty years before, had eloped and left Germany with her music +teacher, to give herself over to lifelong, drudging bondage at the +kitchen range. Ever since Caroline could remember, the law in the house +had been a sort of mystic worship of things distant, intangible and +unattainable. The family had lived in successive ebullitions of generous +enthusiasm, in talk of masters and masterpieces, only to come down to +the cold facts in the case; to boiled mutton and to the necessity of +turning the dining-room carpet. All these emotional pyrotechnics had +ended in petty jealousies, in neglected duties, and in cowardly fear of +the little grocer on the corner. + +From her childhood she had hated it, that humiliating and uncertain +existence, with its glib tongue and empty pockets, its poetic ideals and +sordid realities, its indolence and poverty tricked out in paper roses. +Even as a little girl, when vague dreams beset her, when she wanted to +lie late in bed and commune with visions, or to leap and sing because +the sooty little trees along the street were putting out their first +pale leaves in the sunshine, she would clench her hands and go to +help her mother sponge the spots from her father's waistcoat or press +Heinrich's trousers. Her mother never permitted the slightest question +concerning anything Auguste or Heinrich saw fit to do, but from the +time Caroline could reason at all she could not help thinking that many +things went wrong at home. She knew, for example, that her father's +pupils ought not to be kept waiting half an hour while he discussed +Schopenhauer with some bearded socialist over a dish of herrings and a +spotted tablecloth. She knew that Heinrich ought not to give a dinner on +Heine's birthday, when the laundress had not been paid for a month and +when he frequently had to ask his mother for carfare. Certainly Caroline +had served her apprenticeship to idealism and to all the embarrassing +inconsistencies which it sometimes entails, and she decided to deny +herself this diffuse, ineffectual answer to the sharp questions of life. + +When she came into the control of herself and the house she refused +to proceed any further with her musical education. Her father, who had +intended to make a concert pianist of her, set this down as another +item in his long list of disappointments and his grievances against +the world. She was young and pretty, and she had worn turned gowns and +soiled gloves and improvised hats all her life. She wanted the luxury of +being like other people, of being honest from her hat to her boots, of +having nothing to hide, not even in the matter of stockings, and she was +willing to work for it. She rented a little studio away from that house +of misfortune and began to give lessons. She managed well and was the +sort of girl people liked to help. The bills were paid and Auguste went +on composing, growing indignant only when she refused to insist that +her pupils should study his compositions for the piano. She began to +get engagements in New York to play accompaniments at song recitals. +She dressed well, made herself agreeable, and gave herself a chance. +She never permitted herself to look further than a step ahead, and set +herself with all the strength of her will to see things as they are and +meet them squarely in the broad day. There were two things she feared +even more than poverty: the part of one that sets up an idol and the +part of one that bows down and worships it. + +When Caroline was twenty-four she married Howard Noble, then a widower +of forty, who had been for ten years a power in Wall Street. Then, for +the first time, she had paused to take breath. It took a substantialness +as unquestionable as his; his money, his position, his energy, the big +vigor of his robust person, to satisfy her that she was entirely safe. +Then she relaxed a little, feeling that there was a barrier to be +counted upon between her and that world of visions and quagmires and +failure. + +Caroline had been married for six years when Raymond d'Esquerre came +to stay with them. He came chiefly because Caroline was what she was; +because he, too, felt occasionally the need of getting out of Klingsor's +garden, of dropping down somewhere for a time near a quiet nature, a +cool head, a strong hand. The hours he had spent in the garden lodge +were hours of such concentrated study as, in his fevered life, he seldom +got in anywhere. She had, as he told Noble, a fine appreciation of the +seriousness of work. + +One evening two weeks after d'Esquerre had sailed, Caroline was in the +library giving her husband an account of the work she had laid out for +the gardeners. She superintended the care of the grounds herself. Her +garden, indeed, had become quite a part of her; a sort of beautiful +adjunct, like gowns or jewels. It was a famous spot, and Noble was very +proud of it. + +"What do you think, Caroline, of having the garden lodge torn down and +putting a new summer house there at the end of the arbor; a big rustic +affair where you could have tea served in midsummer?" he asked. + +"The lodge?" repeated Caroline looking at him quickly. "Why, that seems +almost a shame, doesn't it, after d'Esquerre has used it?" + +Noble put down his book with a smile of amusement. + +"Are you going to be sentimental about it? Why, I'd sacrifice the whole +place to see that come to pass. But I don't believe you could do it for +an hour together." + +"I don't believe so, either," said his wife, smiling. + +Noble took up his book again and Caroline went into the music room to +practice. She was not ready to have the lodge torn down. She had gone +there for a quiet hour every day during the two weeks since d'Esquerre +had left them. It was the sheerest sentiment she had ever permitted +herself. She was ashamed of it, but she was childishly unwilling to let +it go. + +Caroline went to bed soon after her husband, but she was not able to +sleep. The night was close and warm, presaging storm. The wind had +fallen, and the water slept, fixed and motionless as the sand. She rose +and thrust her feet into slippers and, putting a dressing gown over +her shoulders, opened the door of her husband's room; he was sleeping +soundly. She went into the hall and down the stairs; then, leaving the +house through a side door, stepped into the vine-covered arbor that led +to the garden lodge. The scent of the June roses was heavy in the still +air, and the stones that paved the path felt pleasantly cool through the +thin soles of her slippers. Heat-lightning flashed continuously from the +bank of clouds that had gathered over the sea, but the shore was flooded +with moonlight and, beyond, the rim of the Sound lay smooth and shining. +Caroline had the key of the lodge, and the door creaked as she opened +it. She stepped into the long, low room radiant with the moonlight which +streamed through the bow window and lay in a silvery pool along the +waxed floor. Even that part of the room which lay in the shadow was +vaguely illuminated; the piano, the tall candlesticks, the picture +frames and white casts standing out as clearly in the half-light as +did the sycamores and black poplars of the garden against the still, +expectant night sky. Caroline sat down to think it all over. She had +come here to do just that every day of the two weeks since d'Esquerre's +departure, but, far from ever having reached a conclusion, she had +succeeded only in losing her way in a maze of memories--sometimes +bewilderingly confused, sometimes too acutely distinct--where there was +neither path, nor clue, nor any hope of finality. She had, she realized, +defeated a lifelong regimen; completely confounded herself by falling +unaware and incontinently into that luxury of reverie which, even as +a little girl, she had so determinedly denied herself, she had been +developing with alarming celerity that part of one which sets up an idol +and that part of one which bows down and worships it. + +It was a mistake, she felt, ever to have asked d'Esquerre to come +at all. She had an angry feeling that she had done it rather in +self-defiance, to rid herself finally of that instinctive fear of him +which had always troubled and perplexed her. She knew that she had +reckoned with herself before he came; but she had been equal to so much +that she had never really doubted she would be equal to this. She had +come to believe, indeed, almost arrogantly in her own malleability and +endurance; she had done so much with herself that she had come to think +that there was nothing which she could not do; like swimmers, overbold, +who reckon upon their strength and their power to hoard it, forgetting +the ever-changing moods of their adversary, the sea. + +And d'Esquerre was a man to reckon with. Caroline did not deceive +herself now upon that score. She admitted it humbly enough, and since +she had said good-by to him she had not been free for a moment from +the sense of his formidable power. It formed the undercurrent of her +consciousness; whatever she might be doing or thinking, it went on, +involuntarily, like her breathing, sometimes welling up until suddenly +she found herself suffocating. There was a moment of this tonight, +and Caroline rose and stood shuddering, looking about her in the blue +duskiness of the silent room. She had not been here at night before, and +the spirit of the place seemed more troubled and insistent than ever it +had in the quiet of the afternoons. Caroline brushed her hair back from +her damp forehead and went over to the bow window. After raising it +she sat down upon the low seat. Leaning her head against the sill, and +loosening her nightgown at the throat, she half-closed her eyes +and looked off into the troubled night, watching the play of the +heat-lightning upon the massing clouds between the pointed tops of the +poplars. + +Yes, she knew, she knew well enough, of what absurdities this spell was +woven; she mocked, even while she winced. His power, she knew, lay not +so much in anything that he actually had--though he had so much--or +in anything that he actually was, but in what he suggested, in what he +seemed picturesque enough to have or be and that was just anything +that one chose to believe or to desire. His appeal was all the more +persuasive and alluring in that it was to the imagination alone, in that +it was as indefinite and impersonal as those cults of idealism which +so have their way with women. What he had was that, in his mere +personality, he quickened and in a measure gratified that something +without which--to women--life is no better than sawdust, and to the +desire for which most of their mistakes and tragedies and astonishingly +poor bargains are due. + +D'Esquerre had become the center of a movement, and the Metropolitan +had become the temple of a cult. When he could be induced to cross the +Atlantic, the opera season in New York was successful; when he +could not, the management lost money; so much everyone knew. It was +understood, too, that his superb art had disproportionately little to do +with his peculiar position. Women swayed the balance this way or that; +the opera, the orchestra, even his own glorious art, achieved at such a +cost, were but the accessories of himself; like the scenery and costumes +and even the soprano, they all went to produce atmosphere, were the mere +mechanics of the beautiful illusion. + +Caroline understood all this; tonight was not the first time that she +had put it to herself so. She had seen the same feeling in other people, +watched for it in her friends, studied it in the house night after night +when he sang, candidly putting herself among a thousand others. + +D'Esquerre's arrival in the early winter was the signal for a feminine +hegira toward New York. On the nights when he sang women flocked to +the Metropolitan from mansions and hotels, from typewriter desks, +schoolrooms, shops, and fitting rooms. They were of all conditions +and complexions. Women of the world who accepted him knowingly as they +sometimes took champagne for its agreeable effect; sisters of charity +and overworked shopgirls, who received him devoutly; withered women who +had taken doctorate degrees and who worshipped furtively through prism +spectacles; business women and women of affairs, the Amazons who dwelt +afar from men in the stony fastnesses of apartment houses. They all +entered into the same romance; dreamed, in terms as various as the hues +of fantasy, the same dream; drew the same quick breath when he stepped +upon the stage, and, at his exit, felt the same dull pain of shouldering +the pack again. + +There were the maimed, even; those who came on crutches, who were pitted +by smallpox or grotesquely painted by cruel birth stains. These, too, +entered with him into enchantment. Stout matrons became slender girls +again; worn spinsters felt their cheeks flush with the tenderness of +their lost youth. Young and old, however hideous, however fair, they +yielded up their heat--whether quick or latent--sat hungering for the +mystic bread wherewith he fed them at this eucharist of sentiment. + +Sometimes, when the house was crowded from the orchestra to the last row +of the gallery, when the air was charged with this ecstasy of fancy, +he himself was the victim of the burning reflection of his power. They +acted upon him in turn; he felt their fervent and despairing appeal to +him; it stirred him as the spring drives the sap up into an old tree; +he, too, burst into bloom. For the moment he, too, believed again, +desired again, he knew not what, but something. + +But it was not in these exalted moments that Caroline had learned to +fear him most. It was in the quiet, tired reserve, the dullness, even, +that kept him company between these outbursts that she found that +exhausting drain upon her sympathies which was the very pith +and substance of their alliance. It was the tacit admission of +disappointment under all this glamour of success--the helplessness of +the enchanter to at all enchant himself--that awoke in her an illogical, +womanish desire to in some way compensate, to make it up to him. + +She had observed drastically to herself that it was her eighteenth year +he awoke in her--those hard years she had spent in turning gowns and +placating tradesmen, and which she had never had time to live. After +all, she reflected, it was better to allow one's self a little youth--to +dance a little at the carnival and to live these things when they are +natural and lovely, not to have them coming back on one and demanding +arrears when they are humiliating and impossible. She went over tonight +all the catalogue of her self-deprivations; recalled how, in the light +of her father's example, she had even refused to humor her innocent +taste for improvising at the piano; how, when she began to teach, after +her mother's death, she had struck out one little indulgence after +another, reducing her life to a relentless routine, unvarying as +clockwork. It seemed to her that ever since d'Esquerre first came into +the house she had been haunted by an imploring little girlish ghost that +followed her about, wringing its hands and entreating for an hour of +life. + +The storm had held off unconscionably long; the air within the lodge was +stifling, and without the garden waited, breathless. Everything seemed +pervaded by a poignant distress; the hush of feverish, intolerable +expectation. The still earth, the heavy flowers, even the growing +darkness, breathed the exhaustion of protracted waiting. Caroline felt +that she ought to go; that it was wrong to stay; that the hour and the +place were as treacherous as her own reflections. She rose and began to +pace the floor, stepping softly, as though in fear of awakening someone, +her figure, in its thin drapery, diaphanously vague and white. Still +unable to shake off the obsession of the intense stillness, she sat down +at the piano and began to run over the first act of the _Walkure_, the +last of his roles they had practiced together; playing listlessly and +absently at first, but with gradually increasing seriousness. Perhaps it +was the still heat of the summer night, perhaps it was the heavy odors +from the garden that came in through the open windows; but as she played +there grew and grew the feeling that he was there, beside her, standing +in his accustomed place. In the duet at the end of the first act she +heard him clearly: _"Thou art the Spring for which I sighed in Winter's +cold embraces."_ Once as he sang it, he had put his arm about her, +his one hand under her heart, while with the other he took her right +from the keyboard, holding her as he always held _Sieglinde_ when he +drew her toward the window. She had been wonderfully the mistress of +herself at the time; neither repellent nor acquiescent. She remembered +that she had rather exulted, then, in her self-control--which he had +seemed to take for granted, though there was perhaps the whisper of a +question from the hand under her heart. _"Thou art the Spring for which +I sighed in Winter's cold embraces."_ Caroline lifted her hands quickly +from the keyboard, and she bowed her head in them, sobbing. + +The storm broke and the rain beat in, spattering her nightdress until +she rose and lowered the windows. She dropped upon the couch and began +fighting over again the battles of other days, while the ghosts of the +slain rose as from a sowing of dragon's teeth, The shadows of things, +always so scorned and flouted, bore down upon her merciless and +triumphant. It was not enough; this happy, useful, well-ordered life +was not enough. It did not satisfy, it was not even real. No, the other +things, the shadows--they were the realities. Her father, poor Heinrich, +even her mother, who had been able to sustain her poor romance and keep +her little illusions amid the tasks of a scullion, were nearer happiness +than she. Her sure foundation was but made ground, after all, and the +people in Klingsor's garden were more fortunate, however barren the +sands from which they conjured their paradise. + +The lodge was still and silent; her fit of weeping over, Caroline +made no sound, and within the room, as without in the garden, was the +blackness of storm. Only now and then a flash of lightning showed a +woman's slender figure rigid on the couch, her face buried in her hands. + +Toward morning, when the occasional rumbling of thunder was heard no +more and the beat of the raindrops upon the orchard leaves was steadier, +she fell asleep and did not waken until the first red streaks of dawn +shone through the twisted boughs of the apple trees. There was a moment +between world and world, when, neither asleep nor awake, she felt her +dream grow thin, melting away from her, felt the warmth under her heart +growing cold. Something seemed to slip from the clinging hold of her +arms, and she groaned protestingly through her parted lips, following +it a little way with fluttering hands. Then her eyes opened wide and she +sprang up and sat holding dizzily to the cushions of the couch, staring +down at her bare, cold feet, at her laboring breast, rising and falling +under her open nightdress. + +The dream was gone, but the feverish reality of it still pervaded her +and she held it as the vibrating string holds a tone. In the last hour +the shadows had had their way with Caroline. They had shown her the +nothingness of time and space, of system and discipline, of closed doors +and broad waters. Shuddering, she thought of the Arabian fairy tale in +which the genie brought the princess of China to the sleeping prince +of Damascus and carried her through the air back to her palace at dawn. +Caroline closed her eyes and dropped her elbows weakly upon her knees, +her shoulders sinking together. The horror was that it had not come +from without, but from within. The dream was no blind chance; it was the +expression of something she had kept so close a prisoner that she had +never seen it herself, it was the wail from the donjon deeps when the +watch slept. Only as the outcome of such a night of sorcery could the +thing have been loosed to straighten its limbs and measure itself with +her; so heavy were the chains upon it, so many a fathom deep, it was +crushed down into darkness. The fact that d'Esquerre happened to be on +the other side of the world meant nothing; had he been here, beside her, +it could scarcely have hurt her self-respect so much. As it was, she was +without even the extenuation of an outer impulse, and she could scarcely +have despised herself more had she come to him here in the night three +weeks ago and thrown herself down upon the stone slab at the door there. + +Caroline rose unsteadily and crept guiltily from the lodge and along the +path under the arbor, terrified lest the servants should be stirring, +trembling with the chill air, while the wet shrubbery, brushing against +her, drenched her nightdress until it clung about her limbs. + +At breakfast her husband looked across the table at her with concern. +"It seems to me that you are looking rather fagged, Caroline. It was a +beastly night to sleep. Why don't you go up to the mountains until this +hot weather is over? By the way, were you in earnest about letting the +lodge stand?" + +Caroline laughed quietly. "No, I find I was not very serious. I haven't +sentiment enough to forego a summer house. Will you tell Baker to come +tomorrow to talk it over with me? If we are to have a house party, I +should like to put him to work on it at once." + +Noble gave her a glance, half-humorous, half-vexed. "Do you know I am +rather disappointed?" he said. "I had almost hoped that, just for once, +you know, you would be a little bit foolish." + +"Not now that I've slept over it," replied Caroline, and they both rose +from the table, laughing. + + + + +The Marriage of Phaedra + +The sequence of events was such that MacMaster did not make his +pilgrimage to Hugh Treffinger's studio until three years after that +painter's death. MacMaster was himself a painter, an American of the +Gallicized type, who spent his winters in New York, his summers in +Paris, and no inconsiderable amount of time on the broad waters between. +He had often contemplated stopping in London on one of his return trips +in the late autumn, but he had always deferred leaving Paris until the +prick of necessity drove him home by the quickest and shortest route. + +Treffinger was a comparatively young man at the time of his death, and +there had seemed no occasion for haste until haste was of no avail. +Then, possibly, though there had been some correspondence between them, +MacMaster felt certain qualms about meeting in the flesh a man who in +the flesh was so diversely reported. His intercourse with Treffinger's +work had been so deep and satisfying, so apart from other appreciations, +that he rather dreaded a critical juncture of any sort. He had always +felt himself singularly inept in personal relations, and in this case he +had avoided the issue until it was no longer to be feared or hoped for. +There still remained, however, Treffinger's great unfinished picture, +the _Marriage of Phaedra_, which had never left his studio, and of which +MacMaster's friends had now and again brought report that it was the +painter's most characteristic production. + +The young man arrived in London in the evening, and the next morning +went out to Kensington to find Treffinger's studio. It lay in one of the +perplexing bystreets off Holland Road, and the number he found on a +door set in a high garden wall, the top of which was covered with broken +green glass and over which a budding lilac bush nodded. Treffinger's +plate was still there, and a card requesting visitors to ring for the +attendant. In response to MacMaster's ring, the door was opened by a +cleanly built little man, clad in a shooting jacket and trousers that +had been made for an ampler figure. He had a fresh complexion, eyes of +that common uncertain shade of gray, and was closely shaven except for +the incipient muttonchops on his ruddy cheeks. He bore himself in +a manner strikingly capable, and there was a sort of trimness and +alertness about him, despite the too-generous shoulders of his coat. In +one hand he held a bulldog pipe, and in the other a copy of _Sporting +Life_. While MacMaster was explaining the purpose of his call he noticed +that the man surveyed him critically, though not impertinently. He was +admitted into a little tank of a lodge made of whitewashed stone, the +back door and windows opening upon a garden. A visitor's book and a pile +of catalogues lay on a deal table, together with a bottle of ink and +some rusty pens. The wall was ornamented with photographs and colored +prints of racing favorites. + +"The studio is h'only open to the public on Saturdays and Sundays," +explained the man--he referred to himself as "Jymes"--"but of course we +make exceptions in the case of pynters. Lydy Elling Treffinger 'erself +is on the Continent, but Sir 'Ugh's orders was that pynters was to 'ave +the run of the place." He selected a key from his pocket and threw open +the door into the studio which, like the lodge, was built against the +wall of the garden. + +MacMaster entered a long, narrow room, built of smoothed planks, painted +a light green; cold and damp even on that fine May morning. The room was +utterly bare of furniture--unless a stepladder, a model throne, and a +rack laden with large leather portfolios could be accounted such--and +was windowless, without other openings than the door and the skylight, +under which hung the unfinished picture itself. MacMaster had never +seen so many of Treffinger's paintings together. He knew the painter +had married a woman with money and had been able to keep such of +his pictures as he wished. These, with all of his replicas and +studies, he had left as a sort of common legacy to the younger men of +the school he had originated. + +As soon as he was left alone MacMaster sat down on the edge of the model +throne before the unfinished picture. Here indeed was what he had come +for; it rather paralyzed his receptivity for the moment, but gradually +the thing found its way to him. + +At one o'clock he was standing before the collection of studies done for +_Boccaccio's Garden_ when he heard a voice at his elbow. + +"Pardon, sir, but I was just about to lock up and go to lunch. Are +you lookin' for the figure study of Boccaccio 'imself?" James queried +respectfully. "Lydy Elling Treffinger give it to Mr. Rossiter to take +down to Oxford for some lectures he's been agiving there." + +"Did he never paint out his studies, then?" asked MacMaster with +perplexity. "Here are two completed ones for this picture. Why did he +keep them?" + +"I don't know as I could say as to that, sir," replied James, smiling +indulgently, "but that was 'is way. That is to say, 'e pynted out very +frequent, but 'e always made two studies to stand; one in watercolors +and one in oils, before 'e went at the final picture--to say nothink +of all the pose studies 'e made in pencil before he begun on the +composition proper at all. He was that particular. You see, 'e wasn't so +keen for the final effect as for the proper pyntin' of 'is pictures. 'E +used to say they ought to be well made, the same as any other h'article +of trade. I can lay my 'and on the pose studies for you, sir." He +rummaged in one of the portfolios and produced half a dozen drawings, +"These three," he continued, "was discarded; these two was the pose he +finally accepted; this one without alteration, as it were." + +"That's in Paris, as I remember," James continued reflectively. "It went +with the _Saint Cecilia_ into the Baron H---'s collection. Could you +tell me, sir, 'as 'e it still? I don't like to lose account of them, but +some 'as changed 'ands since Sir 'Ugh's death." + +"H---'s collection is still intact, I believe," replied MacMaster. "You +were with Treffinger long?" + +"From my boyhood, sir," replied James with gravity. "I was a stable boy +when 'e took me." + +"You were his man, then?" + +"That's it, sir. Nobody else ever done anything around the studio. +I always mixed 'is colors and 'e taught me to do a share of the +varnishin'; 'e said as 'ow there wasn't a 'ouse in England as could +do it proper. You ayn't looked at the _Marriage_ yet, sir?" he asked +abruptly, glancing doubtfully at MacMaster, and indicating with his +thumb the picture under the north light. + +"Not very closely. I prefer to begin with something simpler; that's +rather appalling, at first glance," replied MacMaster. + +"Well may you say that, sir," said James warmly. "That one regular +killed Sir 'Ugh; it regular broke 'im up, and nothink will ever convince +me as 'ow it didn't bring on 'is second stroke." + +When MacMaster walked back to High Street to take his bus his mind was +divided between two exultant convictions. He felt that he had not +only found Treffinger's greatest picture, but that, in James, he had +discovered a kind of cryptic index to the painter's personality--a clue +which, if tactfully followed, might lead to much. + +Several days after his first visit to the studio, MacMaster wrote to +Lady Mary Percy, telling her that he would be in London for some time +and asking her if he might call. Lady Mary was an only sister of Lady +Ellen Treffinger, the painter's widow, and MacMaster had known her +during one winter he spent at Nice. He had known her, indeed, very well, +and Lady Mary, who was astonishingly frank and communicative upon +all subjects, had been no less so upon the matter of her sister's +unfortunate marriage. + +In her reply to his note Lady Mary named an afternoon when she would be +alone. She was as good as her word, and when MacMaster arrived he +found the drawing room empty. Lady Mary entered shortly after he was +announced. She was a tall woman, thin and stiffly jointed, and her body +stood out under the folds of her gown with the rigor of cast iron. +This rather metallic suggestion was further carried out in her heavily +knuckled hands, her stiff gray hair, and her long, bold-featured face, +which was saved from freakishness only by her alert eyes. + +"Really," said Lady Mary, taking a seat beside him and giving him a sort +of military inspection through her nose glasses, "really, I had begun to +fear that I had lost you altogether. It's four years since I saw you +at Nice, isn't it? I was in Paris last winter, but I heard nothing from +you." + +"I was in New York then." + +"It occurred to me that you might be. And why are you in London?" + +"Can you ask?" replied MacMaster gallantly. + +Lady Mary smiled ironically. "But for what else, incidentally?" + +"Well, incidentally, I came to see Treffinger's studio and his +unfinished picture. Since I've been here, I've decided to stay the +summer. I'm even thinking of attempting to do a biography of him." + +"So that is what brought you to London?" + +"Not exactly. I had really no intention of anything so serious when I +came. It's his last picture, I fancy, that has rather thrust it upon me. +The notion has settled down on me like a thing destined." + +"You'll not be offended if I question the clemency of such a destiny," +remarked Lady Mary dryly. "Isn't there rather a surplus of books on that +subject already?" + +"Such as they are. Oh, I've read them all"--here MacMaster faced Lady +Mary triumphantly. "He has quite escaped your amiable critics," he +added, smiling. + +"I know well enough what you think, and I daresay we are not much on +art," said Lady Mary with tolerant good humor. "We leave that to peoples +who have no physique. Treffinger made a stir for a time, but it +seems that we are not capable of a sustained appreciation of such +extraordinary methods. In the end we go back to the pictures we find +agreeable and unperplexing. He was regarded as an experiment, I fancy; +and now it seems that he was rather an unsuccessful one. If you've come +to us in a missionary spirit, we'll tolerate you politely, but we'll +laugh in our sleeve, I warn you." + +"That really doesn't daunt me, Lady Mary," declared MacMaster blandly. +"As I told you, I'm a man with a mission." + +Lady Mary laughed her hoarse, baritone laugh. "Bravo! And you've come to +me for inspiration for your panegyric?" + +MacMaster smiled with some embarrassment. "Not altogether for that +purpose. But I want to consult you, Lady Mary, about the advisability +of troubling Lady Ellen Treffinger in the matter. It seems scarcely +legitimate to go on without asking her to give some sort of grace to my +proceedings, yet I feared the whole subject might be painful to her. I +shall rely wholly upon your discretion." + +"I think she would prefer to be consulted," replied Lady Mary +judicially. "I can't understand how she endures to have the wretched +affair continually raked up, but she does. She seems to feel a sort of +moral responsibility. Ellen has always been singularly conscientious +about this matter, insofar as her light goes,--which rather puzzles me, +as hers is not exactly a magnanimous nature. She is certainly trying to +do what she believes to be the right thing. I shall write to her, and +you can see her when she returns from Italy." + +"I want very much to meet her. She is, I hope, quite recovered in every +way," queried MacMaster, hesitatingly. + +"No, I can't say that she is. She has remained in much the same +condition she sank to before his death. He trampled over pretty much +whatever there was in her, I fancy. Women don't recover from wounds of +that sort--at least, not women of Ellen's grain. They go on bleeding +inwardly." + +"You, at any rate, have not grown more reconciled," MacMaster ventured. + +"Oh I give him his dues. He was a colorist, I grant you; but that is +a vague and unsatisfactory quality to marry to; Lady Ellen Treffinger +found it so." + +"But, my dear Lady Mary," expostulated MacMaster, "and just repress me +if I'm becoming too personal--but it must, in the first place, have been +a marriage of choice on her part as well as on his." + +Lady Mary poised her glasses on her large forefinger and assumed an +attitude suggestive of the clinical lecture room as she replied. "Ellen, +my dear boy, is an essentially romantic person. She is quiet about it, +but she runs deep. I never knew how deep until I came against her on the +issue of that marriage. She was always discontented as a girl; she found +things dull and prosaic, and the ardor of his courtship was agreeable +to her. He met her during her first season in town. She is handsome, and +there were plenty of other men, but I grant you your scowling brigand +was the most picturesque of the lot. In his courtship, as in everything +else, he was theatrical to the point of being ridiculous, but Ellen's +sense of humor is not her strongest quality. He had the charm of +celebrity, the air of a man who could storm his way through anything +to get what he wanted. That sort of vehemence is particularly effective +with women like Ellen, who can be warmed only by reflected heat, and she +couldn't at all stand out against it. He convinced her of his necessity; +and that done, all's done." + +"I can't help thinking that, even on such a basis, the marriage should +have turned out better," MacMaster remarked reflectively. + +"The marriage," Lady Mary continued with a shrug, "was made on the basis +of a mutual misunderstanding. Ellen, in the nature of the case, believed +that she was doing something quite out of the ordinary in accepting him, +and expected concessions which, apparently, it never occurred to him to +make. After his marriage he relapsed into his old habits of incessant +work, broken by violent and often brutal relaxations. He insulted her +friends and foisted his own upon her--many of them well calculated to +arouse aversion in any well-bred girl. He had Ghillini constantly at the +house--a homeless vagabond, whose conversation was impossible. I don't +say, mind you, that he had not grievances on his side. He had probably +overrated the girl's possibilities, and he let her see that he was +disappointed in her. Only a large and generous nature could have borne +with him, and Ellen's is not that. She could not at all understand that +odious strain of plebeian pride which plumes itself upon not having +risen above its sources." + +As MacMaster drove back to his hotel he reflected that Lady Mary Percy +had probably had good cause for dissatisfaction with her brother-in-law. +Treffinger was, indeed, the last man who should have married into +the Percy family. The son of a small tobacconist, he had grown up a +sign-painter's apprentice; idle, lawless, and practically letterless +until he had drifted into the night classes of the Albert League, where +Ghillini sometimes lectured. From the moment he came under the eye and +influence of that erratic Italian, then a political exile, his life +had swerved sharply from its old channel. This man had been at once +incentive and guide, friend and master, to his pupil. He had taken the +raw clay out of the London streets and molded it anew. Seemingly he had +divined at once where the boy's possibilities lay, and had thrown aside +every canon of orthodox instruction in the training of him. Under +him Treffinger acquired his superficial, yet facile, knowledge of the +classics; had steeped himself in the monkish Latin and medieval romances +which later gave his work so naive and remote a quality. That was the +beginning of the wattle fences, the cobble pave, the brown roof beams, +the cunningly wrought fabrics that gave to his pictures such a richness +of decorative effect. + +As he had told Lady Mary Percy, MacMaster had found the imperative +inspiration of his purpose in Treffinger's unfinished picture, +the _Marriage of Phaedra_. He had always believed that the key to +Treffinger's individuality lay in his singular education; in the _Roman +de la Rose_, in Boccaccio, and Amadis, those works which had literally +transcribed themselves upon the blank soul of the London street boy, +and through which he had been born into the world of spiritual things. +Treffinger had been a man who lived after his imagination; and his mind, +his ideals and, as MacMaster believed, even his personal ethics, had to +the last been colored by the trend of his early training. There was in +him alike the freshness and spontaneity, the frank brutality and the +religious mysticism, which lay well back of the fifteenth century. In +the _Marriage of Phaedra_ MacMaster found the ultimate expression of +this spirit, the final word as to Treffinger's point of view. + +As in all Treffinger's classical subjects, the conception was wholly +medieval. This Phaedra, just turning from her husband and maidens to +greet her husband's son, giving him her first fearsome glance from +under her half-lifted veil, was no daughter of Minos. The daughter of +_heathenesse_ and the early church she was; doomed to torturing visions +and scourgings, and the wrangling of soul with flesh. The venerable +Theseus might have been victorious Charlemagne, and Phaedra's maidens +belonged rather in the train of Blanche of Castile than at the Cretan +court. In the earlier studies Hippolytus had been done with a more pagan +suggestion; but in each successive drawing the glorious figure had been +deflowered of something of its serene unconsciousness, until, in the +canvas under the skylight, he appeared a very Christian knight. +This male figure, and the face of Phaedra, painted with such magical +preservation of tone under the heavy shadow of the veil, were plainly +Treffinger's highest achievements of craftsmanship. By what labor he had +reached the seemingly inevitable composition of the picture--with its +twenty figures, its plenitude of light and air, its restful distances +seen through white porticoes--countless studies bore witness. + +From James's attitude toward the picture MacMaster could well conjecture +what the painter's had been. This picture was always uppermost in +James's mind; its custodianship formed, in his eyes, his occupation. +He was manifestly apprehensive when visitors--not many came +nowadays--lingered near it. "It was the _Marriage_ as killed 'im," he +would often say, "and for the matter 'o that, it did like to 'av been +the death of all of us." + +By the end of his second week in London MacMaster had begun the notes +for his study of Hugh Treffinger and his work. When his researches +led him occasionally to visit the studios of Treffinger's friends and +erstwhile disciples, he found their Treffinger manner fading as the +ring of Treffinger's personality died out in them. One by one they were +stealing back into the fold of national British art; the hand that +had wound them up was still. MacMaster despaired of them and confined +himself more and more exclusively to the studio, to such of Treffinger's +letters as were available--they were for the most part singularly +negative and colorless--and to his interrogation of Treffinger's man. + +He could not himself have traced the successive steps by which he was +gradually admitted into James's confidence. Certainly most of his adroit +strategies to that end failed humiliatingly, and whatever it was that +built up an understanding between them must have been instinctive and +intuitive on both sides. When at last James became anecdotal, personal, +there was that in every word he let fall which put breath and blood into +MacMaster's book. James had so long been steeped in that penetrating +personality that he fairly exuded it. Many of his very phrases, +mannerisms, and opinions were impressions that he had taken on like wet +plaster in his daily contact with Treffinger. Inwardly he was lined +with cast-off epitheliums, as outwardly he was clad in the painter's +discarded coats. If the painter's letters were formal and perfunctory, +if his expressions to his friends had been extravagant, contradictory, +and often apparently insincere--still, MacMaster felt himself not +entirely without authentic sources. It was James who possessed +Treffinger's legend; it was with James that he had laid aside his pose. +Only in his studio, alone, and face to face with his work, as it seemed, +had the man invariably been himself. James had known him in the one +attitude in which he was entirely honest; their relation had fallen +well within the painter's only indubitable integrity. James's report +of Treffinger was distorted by no hallucination of artistic insight, +colored by no interpretation of his own. He merely held what he +had heard and seen; his mind was a sort of camera obscura. His very +limitations made him the more literal and minutely accurate. + +One morning, when MacMaster was seated before the _Marriage of Phaedra_, +James entered on his usual round of dusting. + +"I've 'eard from Lydy Elling by the post, sir," he remarked, "an' she's +give h'orders to 'ave the 'ouse put in readiness. I doubt she'll be 'ere +by Thursday or Friday next." + +"She spends most of her time abroad?" queried MacMaster; on the subject +of Lady Treffinger James consistently maintained a very delicate +reserve. + +"Well, you could 'ardly say she does that, sir. She finds the 'ouse a +bit dull, I daresay, so durin' the season she stops mostly with Lydy +Mary Percy, at Grosvenor Square. Lydy Mary's a h'only sister." After a +few moments he continued, speaking in jerks governed by the rigor of his +dusting: "H'only this morning I come upon this scarfpin," exhibiting a +very striking instance of that article, "an' I recalled as 'ow Sir 'Ugh +give it me when 'e was acourting of Lydy Elling. Blowed if I ever see a +man go in for a 'oman like 'im! 'E was that gone, sir. 'E never went in +on anythink so 'ard before nor since, till 'e went in on the _Marriage_ +there--though 'e mostly went in on things pretty keen; 'ad the measles +when 'e was thirty, strong as cholera, an' come close to dyin' of 'em. +'E wasn't strong for Lydy Elling's set; they was a bit too stiff for +'im. A free an' easy gentleman, 'e was; 'e liked 'is dinner with a few +friends an' them jolly, but 'e wasn't much on what you might call big +affairs. But once 'e went in for Lydy Elling 'e broke 'imself to new +paces; He give away 'is rings an' pins, an' the tylor's man an' the +'aberdasher's man was at 'is rooms continual. 'E got 'imself put up +for a club in Piccadilly; 'e starved 'imself thin, an' worrited 'imself +white, an' ironed 'imself out, an' drawed 'imself tight as a bow string. +It was a good job 'e come a winner, or I don't know w'at'd 'a been to +pay." + +The next week, in consequence of an invitation from Lady Ellen +Treffinger, MacMaster went one afternoon to take tea with her. He was +shown into the garden that lay between the residence and the studio, +where the tea table was set under a gnarled pear tree. Lady Ellen rose +as he approached--he was astonished to note how tall she was--and greeted +him graciously, saying that she already knew him through her sister. +MacMaster felt a certain satisfaction in her; in her reassuring poise +and repose, in the charming modulations of her voice and the indolent +reserve of her full, almond eyes. He was even delighted to find her +face so inscrutable, though it chilled his own warmth and made the open +frankness he had wished to permit himself impossible. It was a long +face, narrow at the chin, very delicately featured, yet steeled by an +impassive mask of self-control. It was behind just such finely cut, +close-sealed faces, MacMaster reflected, that nature sometimes hid +astonishing secrets. But in spite of this suggestion of hardness he +felt that the unerring taste that Treffinger had always shown in larger +matters had not deserted him when he came to the choosing of a wife, and +he admitted that he could not himself have selected a woman who looked +more as Treffinger's wife should look. + +While he was explaining the purpose of his frequent visits to the studio +she heard him with courteous interest. "I have read, I think, everything +that has been published on Sir Hugh Treffinger's work, and it seems to +me that there is much left to be said," he concluded. + +"I believe they are rather inadequate," she remarked vaguely. She +hesitated a moment, absently fingering the ribbons of her gown, then +continued, without raising her eyes; "I hope you will not think me too +exacting if I ask to see the proofs of such chapters of your work as +have to do with Sir Hugh's personal life. I have always asked that +privilege." + +MacMaster hastily assured her as to this, adding, "I mean to touch on +only such facts in his personal life as have to do directly with his +work--such as his monkish education under Ghillini." + +"I see your meaning, I think," said Lady Ellen, looking at him with +wide, uncomprehending eyes. + +When MacMaster stopped at the studio on leaving the house he stood for +some time before Treffinger's one portrait of himself, that brigand of +a picture, with its full throat and square head; the short upper lip +blackened by the close-clipped mustache, the wiry hair tossed down over +the forehead, the strong white teeth set hard on a short pipestem. He +could well understand what manifold tortures the mere grain of the man's +strong red and brown flesh might have inflicted upon a woman like Lady +Ellen. He could conjecture, too, Treffinger's impotent revolt against +that very repose which had so dazzled him when it first defied his +daring; and how once possessed of it, his first instinct had been to +crush it, since he could not melt it. + +Toward the close of the season Lady Ellen Treffinger left town. +MacMaster's work was progressing rapidly, and he and James wore away +the days in their peculiar relation, which by this time had much of +friendliness. Excepting for the regular visits of a Jewish picture +dealer, there were few intrusions upon their solitude. Occasionally +a party of Americans rang at the little door in the garden wall, +but usually they departed speedily for the Moorish hall and tinkling +fountain of the great show studio of London, not far away. + +This Jew, an Austrian by birth, who had a large business in Melbourne, +Australia, was a man of considerable discrimination, and at once +selected the _Marriage of Phaedra_ as the object of his especial +interest. When, upon his first visit, Lichtenstein had declared the +picture one of the things done for time, MacMaster had rather warmed +toward him and had talked to him very freely. Later, however, the man's +repulsive personality and innate vulgarity so wore upon him that, the +more genuine the Jew's appreciation, the more he resented it and the +more base he somehow felt it to be. It annoyed him to see Lichtenstein +walking up and down before the picture, shaking his head and blinking +his watery eyes over his nose glasses, ejaculating: "Dot is a chem, a +chem! It is wordt to gome den dousant miles for such a bainting, eh? To +make Eurobe abbreciate such a work of ardt it is necessary to take it +away while she is napping. She has never abbreciated until she has lost, +but," knowingly, "she will buy back." + +James had, from the first, felt such a distrust of the man that he would +never leave him alone in the studio for a moment. When Lichtenstein +insisted upon having Lady Ellen Treffinger's address James rose to the +point of insolence. "It ayn't no use to give it, noway. Lydy Treffinger +never has nothink to do with dealers." MacMaster quietly repented his +rash confidences, fearing that he might indirectly cause Lady Ellen +annoyance from this merciless speculator, and he recalled with chagrin +that Lichtenstein had extorted from him, little by little, pretty much +the entire plan of his book, and especially the place in it which the +_Marriage of Phaedra_ was to occupy. + +By this time the first chapters of MacMaster's book were in the hands +of his publisher, and his visits to the studio were necessarily less +frequent. The greater part of his time was now employed with the +engravers who were to reproduce such of Treffinger's pictures as he +intended to use as illustrations. + +He returned to his hotel late one evening after a long and vexing day at +the engravers to find James in his room, seated on his steamer trunk by +the window, with the outline of a great square draped in sheets resting +against his knee. + +"Why, James, what's up?" he cried in astonishment, glancing inquiringly +at the sheeted object. + +"Ayn't you seen the pypers, sir?" jerked out the man. + +"No, now I think of it, I haven't even looked at a paper. I've been at +the engravers' plant all day. I haven't seen anything." + +James drew a copy of the _Times_ from his pocket and handed it to him, +pointing with a tragic finger to a paragraph in the social column. It +was merely the announcement of Lady Ellen Treffinger's engagement to +Captain Alexander Gresham. + +"Well, what of it, my man? That surely is her privilege." + +James took the paper, turned to another page, and silently pointed to +a paragraph in the art notes which stated that Lady Treffinger had +presented to the X--gallery the entire collection of paintings and +sketches now in her late husband's studio, with the exception of his +unfinished picture, the _Marriage Of Phaedra_, which she had sold for +a large sum to an Australian dealer who had come to London purposely to +secure some of Treffinger's paintings. + +MacMaster pursed up his lips and sat down, his overcoat still on. +"Well, James, this is something of a--something of a jolt, eh? It never +occurred to me she'd really do it." + +"Lord, you don't know 'er, sir," said James bitterly, still staring at +the floor in an attitude of abandoned dejection. + +MacMaster started up in a flash of enlightenment, "What on earth have +you got there, James? It's not-surely it's not--" + +"Yes, it is, sir," broke in the man excitedly. "It's the _Marriage_ +itself. It ayn't agoing to H'Australia, no'ow!" + +"But man, what are you going to do with it? It's Lichtenstein's property +now, as it seems." + +"It ayn't, sir, that it ayn't. No, by Gawd, it ayn't!" shouted James, +breaking into a choking fury. He controlled himself with an effort +and added supplicatingly: "Oh, sir, you ayn't agoing to see it go to +H'Australia, w'ere they send convic's?" He unpinned and flung aside the +sheets as though to let _Phaedra_ plead for herself. + +MacMaster sat down again and looked sadly at the doomed masterpiece. +The notion of James having carried it across London that night rather +appealed to his fancy. There was certainly a flavor about such a +highhanded proceeding. "However did you get it here?" he queried. + +"I got a four-wheeler and come over direct, sir. Good job I 'appened to +'ave the chaynge about me." + +"You came up High Street, up Piccadilly, through the Haymarket and +Trafalgar Square, and into the Strand?" queried MacMaster with a relish. + +"Yes, sir. Of course, sir," assented James with surprise. + +MacMaster laughed delightedly. "It was a beautiful idea, James, but I'm +afraid we can't carry it any further." + +"I was thinkin' as 'ow it would be a rare chance to get you to take the +_Marriage_ over to Paris for a year or two, sir, until the thing blows +over?" suggested James blandly. + +"I'm afraid that's out of the question, James. I haven't the right stuff +in me for a pirate, or even a vulgar smuggler, I'm afraid." MacMaster +found it surprisingly difficult to say this, and he busied himself with +the lamp as he said it. He heard James's hand fall heavily on the trunk +top, and he discovered that he very much disliked sinking in the man's +estimation. + +"Well, sir," remarked James in a more formal tone, after a protracted +silence; "then there's nothink for it but as 'ow I'll 'ave to make way +with it myself." + +"And how about your character, James? The evidence would be heavy +against you, and even if Lady Treffinger didn't prosecute you'd be done +for." + +"Blow my character!--your pardon, sir," cried James, starting to his +feet. "W'at do I want of a character? I'll chuck the 'ole thing, and +damned lively, too. The shop's to be sold out, an' my place is gone +any'ow. I'm agoing to enlist, or try the gold fields. I've lived too +long with h'artists; I'd never give satisfaction in livery now. You know +'ow it is yourself, sir; there ayn't no life like it, no'ow." + +For a moment MacMaster was almost equal to abetting James in his theft. +He reflected that pictures had been whitewashed, or hidden in the crypts +of churches, or under the floors of palaces from meaner motives, and to +save them from a fate less ignominious. But presently, with a sigh, he +shook his head. + +"No, James, it won't do at all. It has been tried over and over again, +ever since the world has been agoing and pictures amaking. It was tried +in Florence and in Venice, but the pictures were always carried away in +the end. You see, the difficulty is that although Treffinger told you +what was not to be done with the picture, he did not say definitely what +was to be done with it. Do you think Lady Treffinger really understands +that he did not want it to be sold?" + +"Well, sir, it was like this, sir," said James, resuming his seat on the +trunk and again resting the picture against his knee. "My memory is as +clear as glass about it. After Sir 'Ugh got up from 'is first stroke, 'e +took a fresh start at the _Marriage_. Before that 'e 'ad been working +at it only at night for a while back; the _Legend_ was the big picture +then, an' was under the north light w'ere 'e worked of a morning. But +one day 'e bid me take the _Legend_ down an' put the _Marriage_ in its +place, an' 'e says, dashin' on 'is jacket, 'Jymes, this is a start for +the finish, this time.' + +"From that on 'e worked at the night picture in the mornin'--a thing +contrary to 'is custom. The _Marriage_ went wrong, and wrong--an' Sir +'Ugh agettin' seedier an' seedier every day. 'E tried models an' models, +an' smudged an' pynted out on account of 'er face goin' wrong in the +shadow. Sometimes 'e layed it on the colors, an' swore at me an' things +in general. He got that discouraged about 'imself that on 'is low days +'e used to say to me: 'Jymes, remember one thing; if anythink 'appens to +me, the _Marriage_ is not to go out of 'ere unfinished. It's worth the +lot of 'em, my boy, an' it's not agoing to go shabby for lack of pains.' +'E said things to that effect repeated. + +"He was workin' at the picture the last day, before 'e went to 'is club. +'E kept the carriage waitin' near an hour while 'e put on a stroke an' +then drawed back for to look at it, an' then put on another, careful +like. After 'e 'ad 'is gloves on, 'e come back an' took away the brushes +I was startin' to clean, an' put in another touch or two. 'It's acomin', +Jymes,' 'e says, 'by gad if it ayn't.' An' with that 'e goes out. It was +cruel sudden, w'at come after. + +"That night I was lookin' to 'is clothes at the 'ouse when they brought +'im 'ome. He was conscious, but w'en I ran downstairs for to 'elp lift +'im up, I knowed 'e was a finished man. After we got 'im into bed 'e +kept lookin' restless at me and then at Lydy Elling and ajerkin' of 'is +'and. Finally 'e quite raised it an' shot 'is thumb out toward the wall. +'He wants water; ring, Jymes,' says Lydy Elling, placid. But I knowed 'e +was pointin' to the shop. + +"'Lydy Treffinger,' says I, bold, 'he's pointin' to the studio. He means +about the _Marriage_; 'e told me today as 'ow 'e never wanted it sold +unfinished. Is that it, Sir 'Ugh?' + +"He smiled an' nodded slight an' closed 'is eyes. 'Thank you, Jymes,' +says Lydy Elling, placid. Then 'e opened 'is eyes an' looked long and +'ard at Lydy Elling. + +"'Of course I'll try to do as you'd wish about the picture, 'Ugh, if +that's w'at's troublin' you,' she says quiet. With that 'e closed 'is +eyes and 'e never opened 'em. He died unconscious at four that mornin'. + +"You see, sir, Lydy Elling was always cruel 'ard on the _Marriage_. From +the first it went wrong, an' Sir 'Ugh was out of temper pretty constant. +She came into the studio one day and looked at the picture an 'asked +'im why 'e didn't throw it up an' quit aworriting 'imself. He answered +sharp, an' with that she said as 'ow she didn't see w'at there was to +make such a row about, no'ow. She spoke 'er mind about that picture, +free; an' Sir 'Ugh swore 'ot an' let a 'andful of brushes fly at 'is +study, an' Lydy Elling picked up 'er skirts careful an' chill, an' +drifted out of the studio with 'er eyes calm and 'er chin 'igh. If there +was one thing Lydy Elling 'ad no comprehension of, it was the usefulness +of swearin'. So the _Marriage_ was a sore thing between 'em. She is +uncommon calm, but uncommon bitter, is Lydy Elling. She's never come +anear the studio since that day she went out 'oldin' up of 'er skirts. +W'en 'er friends goes over she excuses 'erself along o' the strain. +Strain--Gawd!" James ground his wrath short in his teeth. + +"I'll tell you what I'll do, James, and it's our only hope. I'll see +Lady Ellen tomorrow. The _Times_ says she returned today. You take the +picture back to its place, and I'll do what I can for it. If anything is +done to save it, it must be done through Lady Ellen Treffinger herself, +that much is clear. I can't think that she fully understands the +situation. If she did, you know, she really couldn't have any motive--" +He stopped suddenly. Somehow, in the dusky lamplight, her small, +close-sealed face came ominously back to him. He rubbed his forehead +and knitted his brows thoughtfully. After a moment he shook his head +and went on: "I am positive that nothing can be gained by highhanded +methods, James. Captain Gresham is one of the most popular men in +London, and his friends would tear up Treffinger's bones if he were +annoyed by any scandal of our making--and this scheme you propose would +inevitably result in scandal. Lady Ellen has, of course, every legal +right to sell the picture. Treffinger made considerable inroads upon +her estate, and, as she is about to marry a man without income, she +doubtless feels that she has a right to replenish her patrimony." + +He found James amenable, though doggedly skeptical. He went down into +the street, called a carriage, and saw James and his burden into it. +Standing in the doorway, he watched the carriage roll away through +the drizzling mist, weave in and out among the wet, black vehicles and +darting cab lights, until it was swallowed up in the glare and confusion +of the Strand. "It is rather a fine touch of irony," he reflected, +"that he, who is so out of it, should be the one to really care. Poor +Treffinger," he murmured as, with a rather spiritless smile, he turned +back into his hotel. "Poor Treffinger; _sic transit gloria_." + +The next afternoon MacMaster kept his promise. When he arrived at Lady +Mary Percy's house he saw preparations for a function of some sort, but +he went resolutely up the steps, telling the footman that his business +was urgent. Lady Ellen came down alone, excusing her sister. She was +dressed for receiving, and MacMaster had never seen one so beautiful. +The color in her cheeks sent a softening glow over her small, delicately +cut features. + +MacMaster apologized for his intrusion and came unflinchingly to the +object of his call. He had come, he said, not only to offer her his +warmest congratulations, but to express his regret that a great work of +art was to leave England. + +Lady Treffinger looked at him in wide-eyed astonishment. Surely, she +said, she had been careful to select the best of the pictures for the +X--- gallery, in accordance with Sir Hugh Treffinger's wishes. + +"And did he--pardon me, Lady Treffinger, but in mercy set my mind at +rest--did he or did he not express any definite wish concerning this one +picture, which to me seems worth all the others, unfinished as it is?" + +Lady Treffinger paled perceptibly, but it was not the pallor of +confusion. When she spoke there was a sharp tremor in her smooth voice, +the edge of a resentment that tore her like pain. "I think his man has +some such impression, but I believe it to be utterly unfounded. I cannot +find that he ever expressed any wish concerning the disposition of the +picture to any of his friends. Unfortunately, Sir Hugh was not always +discreet in his remarks to his servants." + +"Captain Gresham, Lady Ellingham, and Miss Ellingham," announced a +servant, appearing at the door. + +There was a murmur in the hall, and MacMaster greeted the smiling +Captain and his aunt as he bowed himself out. + +To all intents and purposes the _Marriage of Phaedra_ was already +entombed in a vague continent in the Pacific, somewhere on the other +side of the world. + + + + +A Wagner Matinee + +I received one morning a letter, written in pale ink on glassy, +blue-lined notepaper, and bearing the postmark of a little Nebraska +village. This communication, worn and rubbed, looking as though it had +been carried for some days in a coat pocket that was none too clean, was +from my Uncle Howard and informed me that his wife had been left a small +legacy by a bachelor relative who had recently died, and that it would +be necessary for her to go to Boston to attend to the settling of +the estate. He requested me to meet her at the station and render her +whatever services might be necessary. On examining the date indicated +as that of her arrival I found it no later than tomorrow. He had +characteristically delayed writing until, had I been away from home for +a day, I must have missed the good woman altogether. + +The name of my Aunt Georgiana called up not alone her own figure, +at once pathetic and grotesque, but opened before my feet a gulf of +recollection so wide and deep that, as the letter dropped from my +hand, I felt suddenly a stranger to all the present conditions of +my existence, wholly ill at ease and out of place amid the familiar +surroundings of my study. I became, in short, the gangling farm boy +my aunt had known, scourged with chilblains and bashfulness, my hands +cracked and sore from the corn husking. I felt the knuckles of my thumb +tentatively, as though they were raw again. I sat again before her +parlor organ, fumbling the scales with my stiff, red hands, while she, +beside me, made canvas mittens for the huskers. + +The next morning, after preparing my landlady somewhat, I set out for +the station. When the train arrived I had some difficulty in finding my +aunt. She was the last of the passengers to alight, and it was not until +I got her into the carriage that she seemed really to recognize me. She +had come all the way in a day coach; her linen duster had become black +with soot, and her black bonnet gray with dust, during the journey. When +we arrived at my boardinghouse the landlady put her to bed at once and I +did not see her again until the next morning. + +Whatever shock Mrs. Springer experienced at my aunt's appearance she +considerately concealed. As for myself, I saw my aunt's misshapen figure +with that feeling of awe and respect with which we behold explorers who +have left their ears and fingers north of Franz Josef Land, or their +health somewhere along the Upper Congo. My Aunt Georgiana had been a +music teacher at the Boston Conservatory, somewhere back in the latter +sixties. One summer, while visiting in the little village among the +Green Mountains where her ancestors had dwelt for generations, she +had kindled the callow fancy of the most idle and shiftless of all the +village lads, and had conceived for this Howard Carpenter one of +those extravagant passions which a handsome country boy of twenty-one +sometimes inspires in an angular, spectacled woman of thirty. When she +returned to her duties in Boston, Howard followed her, and the upshot of +this inexplicable infatuation was that she eloped with him, eluding the +reproaches of her family and the criticisms of her friends by going with +him to the Nebraska frontier. Carpenter, who, of course, had no money, +had taken a homestead in Red Willow County, fifty miles from the +railroad. There they had measured off their quarter section themselves +by driving across the prairie in a wagon, to the wheel of which they had +tied a red cotton handkerchief, and counting off its revolutions. They +built a dugout in the red hillside, one of those cave dwellings whose +inmates so often reverted to primitive conditions. Their water they got +from the lagoons where the buffalo drank, and their slender stock of +provisions was always at the mercy of bands of roving Indians. For +thirty years my aunt had not been further than fifty miles from the +homestead. + +But Mrs. Springer knew nothing of all this, and must have been +considerably shocked at what was left of my kinswoman. Beneath the +soiled linen duster which, on her arrival, was the most conspicuous +feature of her costume, she wore a black stuff dress, whose +ornamentation showed that she had surrendered herself unquestioningly +into the hands of a country dressmaker. My poor aunt's figure, however, +would have presented astonishing difficulties to any dressmaker. +Originally stooped, her shoulders were now almost bent together over her +sunken chest. She wore no stays, and her gown, which trailed unevenly +behind, rose in a sort of peak over her abdomen. She wore ill-fitting +false teeth, and her skin was as yellow as a Mongolian's from constant +exposure to a pitiless wind and to the alkaline water which hardens the +most transparent cuticle into a sort of flexible leather. + +I owed to this woman most of the good that ever came my way in my +boyhood, and had a reverential affection for her. During the years +when I was riding herd for my uncle, my aunt, after cooking the three +meals--the first of which was ready at six o'clock in the morning-and +putting the six children to bed, would often stand until midnight at +her ironing board, with me at the kitchen table beside her, hearing me +recite Latin declensions and conjugations, gently shaking me when my +drowsy head sank down over a page of irregular verbs. It was to her, at +her ironing or mending, that I read my first Shakespeare', and her old +textbook on mythology was the first that ever came into my empty hands. +She taught me my scales and exercises, too--on the little parlor organ, +which her husband had bought her after fifteen years, during which she +had not so much as seen any instrument, but an accordion that belonged +to one of the Norwegian farmhands. She would sit beside me by the hour, +darning and counting while I struggled with the "Joyous Farmer," but she +seldom talked to me about music, and I understood why. She was a pious +woman; she had the consolations of religion and, to her at least, her +martyrdom was not wholly sordid. Once when I had been doggedly beating +out some easy passages from an old score of _Euryanthe_ I had found +among her music books, she came up to me and, putting her hands over my +eyes, gently drew my head back upon her shoulder, saying tremulously, +"Don't love it so well, Clark, or it may be taken from you. Oh, dear +boy, pray that whatever your sacrifice may be, it be not that." + +When my aunt appeared on the morning after her arrival she was still in +a semi-somnambulant state. She seemed not to realize that she was in the +city where she had spent her youth, the place longed for hungrily half +a lifetime. She had been so wretchedly train-sick throughout the journey +that she had no recollection of anything but her discomfort, and, to all +intents and purposes, there were but a few hours of nightmare between +the farm in Red Willow County and my study on Newbury Street. I had +planned a little pleasure for her that afternoon, to repay her for some +of the glorious moments she had given me when we used to milk together +in the straw-thatched cowshed and she, because I was more than usually +tired, or because her husband had spoken sharply to me, would tell me +of the splendid performance of the _Huguenots_ she had seen in Paris, +in her youth. At two o'clock the Symphony Orchestra was to give a Wagner +program, and I intended to take my aunt; though, as I conversed with her +I grew doubtful about her enjoyment of it. Indeed, for her own sake, +I could only wish her taste for such things quite dead, and the +long struggle mercifully ended at last. I suggested our visiting the +Conservatory and the Common before lunch, but she seemed altogether too +timid to wish to venture out. She questioned me absently about various +changes in the city, but she was chiefly concerned that she had +forgotten to leave instructions about feeding half-skimmed milk to +a certain weakling calf, "old Maggie's calf, you know, Clark," she +explained, evidently having forgotten how long I had been away. She was +further troubled because she had neglected to tell her daughter about +the freshly opened kit of mackerel in the cellar, which would spoil if +it were not used directly. + +I asked her whether she had ever heard any of the Wagnerian operas and +found that she had not, though she was perfectly familiar with their +respective situations, and had once possessed the piano score of _The +Flying Dutchman_. I began to think it would have been best to get her +back to Red Willow County without waking her, and regretted having +suggested the concert. + +From the time we entered the concert hall, however, she was a trifle +less passive and inert, and for the first time seemed to perceive her +surroundings. I had felt some trepidation lest she might become aware +of the absurdities of her attire, or might experience some painful +embarrassment at stepping suddenly into the world to which she had been +dead for a quarter of a century. But, again, I found how superficially +I had judged her. She sat looking about her with eyes as impersonal, +almost as stony, as those with which the granite Rameses in a +museum watches the froth and fret that ebbs and flows about his +pedestal-separated from it by the lonely stretch of centuries. I have +seen this same aloofness in old miners who drift into the Brown Hotel at +Denver, their pockets full of bullion, their linen soiled, their haggard +faces unshaven; standing in the thronged corridors as solitary as though +they were still in a frozen camp on the Yukon, conscious that certain +experiences have isolated them from their fellows by a gulf no +haberdasher could bridge. + +We sat at the extreme left of the first balcony, facing the arch of our +own and the balcony above us, veritable hanging gardens, brilliant as +tulip beds. The matinee audience was made up chiefly of women. One +lost the contour of faces and figures--indeed, any effect of line +whatever--and there was only the color of bodices past counting, the +shimmer of fabrics soft and firm, silky and sheer: red, mauve, pink, +blue, lilac, purple, ecru, rose, yellow, cream, and white, all the +colors that an impressionist finds in a sunlit landscape, with here and +there the dead shadow of a frock coat. My Aunt Georgiana regarded them +as though they had been so many daubs of tube-paint on a palette. + +When the musicians came out and took their places, she gave a little +stir of anticipation and looked with quickening interest down over the +rail at that invariable grouping, perhaps the first wholly familiar +thing that had greeted her eye since she had left old Maggie and her +weakling calf. I could feel how all those details sank into her soul, +for I had not forgotten how they had sunk into mine when I came fresh +from plowing forever and forever between green aisles of corn, where, as +in a treadmill, one might walk from daybreak to dusk without perceiving +a shadow of change. The clean profiles of the musicians, the gloss of +their linen, the dull black of their coats, the beloved shapes of the +instruments, the patches of yellow light thrown by the green-shaded +lamps on the smooth, varnished bellies of the cellos and the bass viols +in the rear, the restless, wind-tossed forest of fiddle necks and bows--I +recalled how, in the first orchestra I had ever heard, those long bow +strokes seemed to draw the heart out of me, as a conjurer's stick reels +out yards of paper ribbon from a hat. + +The first number was the _Tannhauser_ overture. When the horns drew out +the first strain of the Pilgrim's chorus my Aunt Georgiana clutched +my coat sleeve. Then it was I first realized that for her this broke a +silence of thirty years; the inconceivable silence of the plains. With +the battle between the two motives, with the frenzy of the Venusberg +theme and its ripping of strings, there came to me an overwhelming sense +of the waste and wear we are so powerless to combat; and I saw again the +tall, naked house on the prairie, black and grim as a wooden fortress; +the black pond where I had learned to swim, its margin pitted with +sun-dried cattle tracks; the rain-gullied clay banks about the naked +house, the four dwarf ash seedlings where the dishcloths were always +hung to dry before the kitchen door. The world there was the flat world +of the ancients; to the east, a cornfield that stretched to daybreak; +to the west, a corral that reached to sunset; between, the conquests of +peace, dearer bought than those of war. + +The overture closed; my aunt released my coat sleeve, but she said +nothing. She sat staring at the orchestra through a dullness of thirty +years, through the films made little by little by each of the three +hundred and sixty-five days in every one of them. What, I wondered, did +she get from it? She had been a good pianist in her day I knew, and her +musical education had been broader than that of most music teachers of +a quarter of a century ago. She had often told me of Mozart's operas and +Meyerbeer's, and I could remember hearing her sing, years ago, certain +melodies of Verdi's. When I had fallen ill with a fever in her house she +used to sit by my cot in the evening--when the cool, night wind blew +in through the faded mosquito netting tacked over the window, and I lay +watching a certain bright star that burned red above the cornfield--and +sing "Home to our mountains, O, let us return!" in a way fit to break +the heart of a Vermont boy near dead of homesickness already. + +I watched her closely through the prelude to _Tristan and Isolde_, +trying vainly to conjecture what that seething turmoil of strings and +winds might mean to her, but she sat mutely staring at the violin bows +that drove obliquely downward, like the pelting streaks of rain in a +summer shower. Had this music any message for her? Had she enough left +to at all comprehend this power which had kindled the world since she +had left it? I was in a fever of curiosity, but Aunt Georgiana sat +silent upon her peak in Darien. She preserved this utter immobility +throughout the number from _The Flying Dutchman_, though her fingers +worked mechanically upon her black dress, as though, of themselves, they +were recalling the piano score they had once played. Poor old hands! +They had been stretched and twisted into mere tentacles to hold and +lift and knead with; the palms unduly swollen, the fingers bent and +knotted--on one of them a thin, worn band that had once been a wedding +ring. As I pressed and gently quieted one of those groping hands I +remembered with quivering eyelids their services for me in other days. + +Soon after the tenor began the "Prize Song," I heard a quick drawn +breath and turned to my aunt. Her eyes were closed, but the tears were +glistening on her cheeks, and I think, in a moment more, they were in +my eyes as well. It never really died, then--the soul that can suffer so +excruciatingly and so interminably; it withers to the outward eye only; +like that strange moss which can lie on a dusty shelf half a century and +yet, if placed in water, grows green again. She wept so throughout the +development and elaboration of the melody. + +During the intermission before the second half of the concert, I +questioned my aunt and found that the "Prize Song" was not new to her. +Some years before there had drifted to the farm in Red Willow County a +young German, a tramp cowpuncher, who had sung the chorus at Bayreuth, +when he was a boy, along with the other peasant boys and girls. Of a +Sunday morning he used to sit on his gingham-sheeted bed in the hands' +bedroom which opened off the kitchen, cleaning the leather of his boots +and saddle, singing the "Prize Song," while my aunt went about her work +in the kitchen. She had hovered about him until she had prevailed upon +him to join the country church, though his sole fitness for this step, +insofar as I could gather, lay in his boyish face and his possession of +this divine melody. Shortly afterward he had gone to town on the Fourth +of July, been drunk for several days, lost his money at a faro table, +ridden a saddled Texan steer on a bet, and disappeared with a fractured +collarbone. All this my aunt told me huskily, wanderingly, as though she +were talking in the weak lapses of illness. + +"Well, we have come to better things than the old _Trovatore_ at any +rate, Aunt Georgie?" I queried, with a well-meant effort at jocularity. + +Her lip quivered and she hastily put her handkerchief up to her mouth. +From behind it she murmured, "And you have been hearing this ever +since you left me, Clark?" Her question was the gentlest and saddest of +reproaches. + +The second half of the program consisted of four numbers from the +_Ring_, and closed with Siegfried's funeral march. My aunt wept quietly, +but almost continuously, as a shallow vessel overflows in a rainstorm. +From time to time her dim eyes looked up at the lights which studded the +ceiling, burning softly under their dull glass globes; doubtless they +were stars in truth to her. I was still perplexed as to what measure of +musical comprehension was left to her, she who had heard nothing but +the singing of gospel hymns at Methodist services in the square frame +schoolhouse on Section Thirteen for so many years. I was wholly unable +to gauge how much of it had been dissolved in soapsuds, or worked into +bread, or milked into the bottom of a pail. + +The deluge of sound poured on and on; I never knew what she found in the +shining current of it; I never knew how far it bore her, or past what +happy islands. From the trembling of her face I could well believe that +before the last numbers she had been carried out where the myriad graves +are, into the gray, nameless burying grounds of the sea; or into some +world of death vaster yet, where, from the beginning of the world, hope +has lain down with hope and dream with dream and, renouncing, slept. + +The concert was over; the people filed out of the hall chattering +and laughing, glad to relax and find the living level again, but my +kinswoman made no effort to rise. The harpist slipped its green felt +cover over his instrument; the flute players shook the water from their +mouthpieces; the men of the orchestra went out one by one, leaving the +stage to the chairs and music stands, empty as a winter cornfield. + +I spoke to my aunt. She burst into tears and sobbed pleadingly. "I don't +want to go, Clark, I don't want to go!" + +I understood. For her, just outside the door of the concert hall, lay +the black pond with the cattle-tracked bluffs; the tall, unpainted +house, with weather-curled boards; naked as a tower, the crook-backed +ash seedlings where the dishcloths hung to dry; the gaunt, molting +turkeys picking up refuse about the kitchen door. + + + + +Paul's Case + +_A Study in Temperament_ + +It was Paul's afternoon to appear before the faculty of the Pittsburgh +High School to account for his various misdemeanors. He had been +suspended a week ago, and his father had called at the Principal's +office and confessed his perplexity about his son. Paul entered the +faculty room suave and smiling. His clothes were a trifle outgrown, and +the tan velvet on the collar of his open overcoat was frayed and worn; +but for all that there was something of the dandy about him, and he +wore an opal pin in his neatly knotted black four-in-hand, and a red +carnation in his buttonhole. This latter adornment the faculty somehow +felt was not properly significant of the contrite spirit befitting a boy +under the ban of suspension. + +Paul was tall for his age and very thin, with high, cramped shoulders +and a narrow chest. His eyes were remarkable for a certain hysterical +brilliancy, and he continually used them in a conscious, theatrical sort +of way, peculiarly offensive in a boy. The pupils were abnormally large, +as though he were addicted to belladonna, but there was a glassy glitter +about them which that drug does not produce. + +When questioned by the Principal as to why he was there Paul stated, +politely enough, that he wanted to come back to school. This was a lie, +but Paul was quite accustomed to lying; found it, indeed, indispensable +for overcoming friction. His teachers were asked to state their +respective charges against him, which they did with such a rancor and +aggrievedness as evinced that this was not a usual case, Disorder and +impertinence were among the offenses named, yet each of his instructors +felt that it was scarcely possible to put into words the real cause of +the trouble, which lay in a sort of hysterically defiant manner of the +boy's; in the contempt which they all knew he felt for them, and which +he seemingly made not the least effort to conceal. Once, when he had +been making a synopsis of a paragraph at the blackboard, his English +teacher had stepped to his side and attempted to guide his hand. Paul +had started back with a shudder and thrust his hands violently behind +him. The astonished woman could scarcely have been more hurt and +embarrassed had he struck at her. The insult was so involuntary and +definitely personal as to be unforgettable. In one way and another he +had made all his teachers, men and women alike, conscious of the same +feeling of physical aversion. In one class he habitually sat with his +hand shading his eyes; in another he always looked out of the window +during the recitation; in another he made a running commentary on the +lecture, with humorous intention. + +His teachers felt this afternoon that his whole attitude was symbolized +by his shrug and his flippantly red carnation flower, and they fell +upon him without mercy, his English teacher leading the pack. He stood +through it smiling, his pale lips parted over his white teeth. (His lips +were continually twitching, and he had a habit of raising his eyebrows +that was contemptuous and irritating to the last degree.) Older boys +than Paul had broken down and shed tears under that baptism of fire, but +his set smile did not once desert him, and his only sign of discomfort +was the nervous trembling of the fingers that toyed with the buttons of +his overcoat, and an occasional jerking of the other hand that held his +hat. Paul was always smiling, always glancing about him, seeming to feel +that people might be watching him and trying to detect something. +This conscious expression, since it was as far as possible from boyish +mirthfulness, was usually attributed to insolence or "smartness." + +As the inquisition proceeded one of his instructors repeated an +impertinent remark of the boy's, and the Principal asked him whether he +thought that a courteous speech to have made a woman. Paul shrugged his +shoulders slightly and his eyebrows twitched. + +"I don't know," he replied. "I didn't mean to be polite or impolite, +either. I guess it's a sort of way I have of saying things regardless." + +The Principal, who was a sympathetic man, asked him whether he didn't +think that a way it would be well to get rid of. Paul grinned and said +he guessed so. When he was told that he could go he bowed gracefully and +went out. His bow was but a repetition of the scandalous red carnation. + +His teachers were in despair, and his drawing master voiced the feeling +of them all when he declared there was something about the boy which +none of them understood. He added: "I don't really believe that smile of +his comes altogether from insolence; there's something sort of haunted +about it. The boy is not strong, for one thing. I happen to know that he +was born in Colorado, only a few months before his mother died out there +of a long illness. There is something wrong about the fellow." + +The drawing master had come to realize that, in looking at Paul, one +saw only his white teeth and the forced animation of his eyes. One warm +afternoon the boy had gone to sleep at his drawing board, and his master +had noted with amazement what a white, blue-veined face it was; drawn +and wrinkled like an old man's about the eyes, the lips twitching even +in his sleep, and stiff with a nervous tension that drew them back from +his teeth. + +His teachers left the building dissatisfied and unhappy; humiliated to +have felt so vindictive toward a mere boy, to have uttered this feeling +in cutting terms, and to have set each other on, as it were, in the +gruesome game of intemperate reproach. Some of them remembered having +seen a miserable street cat set at bay by a ring of tormentors. + +As for Paul, he ran down the hill whistling the "Soldiers' Chorus" from +_Faust_, looking wildly behind him now and then to see whether some of +his teachers were not there to writhe under his lightheartedness. As it +was now late in the afternoon and Paul was on duty that evening as usher +at Carnegie Hall, he decided that he would not go home to supper. When +he reached the concert hall the doors were not yet open and, as it was +chilly outside, he decided to go up into the picture gallery--always +deserted at this hour--where there were some of Raffelli's gay studies +of Paris streets and an airy blue Venetian scene or two that always +exhilarated him. He was delighted to find no one in the gallery but the +old guard, who sat in one corner, a newspaper on his knee, a black patch +over one eye and the other closed. Paul possessed himself of the peace +and walked confidently up and down, whistling under his breath. After a +while he sat down before a blue Rico and lost himself. When he bethought +him to look at his watch, it was after seven o'clock, and he rose with +a start and ran downstairs, making a face at Augustus, peering out from +the cast room, and an evil gesture at the Venus de Milo as he passed her +on the stairway. + +When Paul reached the ushers' dressing room half a dozen boys were there +already, and he began excitedly to tumble into his uniform. It was one +of the few that at all approached fitting, and Paul thought it very +becoming--though he knew that the tight, straight coat accentuated his +narrow chest, about which he was exceedingly sensitive. He was always +considerably excited while he dressed, twanging all over to the tuning +of the strings and the preliminary flourishes of the horns in the music +room; but tonight he seemed quite beside himself, and he teased and +plagued the boys until, telling him that he was crazy, they put him down +on the floor and sat on him. + +Somewhat calmed by his suppression, Paul dashed out to the front of +the house to seat the early comers. He was a model usher; gracious and +smiling he ran up and down the aisles; nothing was too much trouble +for him; he carried messages and brought programs as though it were his +greatest pleasure in life, and all the people in his section thought +him a charming boy, feeling that he remembered and admired them. As +the house filled, he grew more and more vivacious and animated, and the +color came to his cheeks and lips. It was very much as though this were +a great reception and Paul were the host. Just as the musicians came out +to take their places, his English teacher arrived with checks for the +seats which a prominent manufacturer had taken for the season. She +betrayed some embarrassment when she handed Paul the tickets, and a +hauteur which subsequently made her feel very foolish. Paul was startled +for a moment, and had the feeling of wanting to put her out; what +business had she here among all these fine people and gay colors? He +looked her over and decided that she was not appropriately dressed and +must be a fool to sit downstairs in such togs. The tickets had probably +been sent her out of kindness, he reflected as he put down a seat for +her, and she had about as much right to sit there as he had. + +When the symphony began Paul sank into one of the rear seats with a long +sigh of relief, and lost himself as he had done before the Rico. It was +not that symphonies, as such, meant anything in particular to Paul, +but the first sigh of the instruments seemed to free some hilarious and +potent spirit within him; something that struggled there like the genie +in the bottle found by the Arab fisherman. He felt a sudden zest of +life; the lights danced before his eyes and the concert hall blazed into +unimaginable splendor. When the soprano soloist came on Paul forgot even +the nastiness of his teacher's being there and gave himself up to +the peculiar stimulus such personages always had for him. The soloist +chanced to be a German woman, by no means in her first youth, and the +mother of many children; but she wore an elaborate gown and a tiara, and +above all she had that indefinable air of achievement, that world-shine +upon her, which, in Paul's eyes, made her a veritable queen of Romance. + +After a concert was over Paul was always irritable and wretched until he +got to sleep, and tonight he was even more than usually restless. He had +the feeling of not being able to let down, of its being impossible to +give up this delicious excitement which was the only thing that could +be called living at all. During the last number he withdrew and, after +hastily changing his clothes in the dressing room, slipped out to the +side door where the soprano's carriage stood. Here he began pacing +rapidly up and down the walk, waiting to see her come out. + +Over yonder, the Schenley, in its vacant stretch, loomed big and square +through the fine rain, the windows of its twelve stories glowing like +those of a lighted cardboard house under a Christmas tree. All the +actors and singers of the better class stayed there when they were in +the city, and a number of the big manufacturers of the place lived there +in the winter. Paul had often hung about the hotel, watching the people +go in and out, longing to enter and leave schoolmasters and dull care +behind him forever. + +At last the singer came out, accompanied by the conductor, who +helped her into her carriage and closed the door with a cordial _auf +wiedersehen_ which set Paul to wondering whether she were not an old +sweetheart of his. Paul followed the carriage over to the hotel, walking +so rapidly as not to be far from the entrance when the singer alighted, +and disappeared behind the swinging glass doors that were opened by a +Negro in a tall hat and a long coat. In the moment that the door was +ajar it seemed to Paul that he, too, entered. He seemed to feel himself +go after her up the steps, into the warm, lighted building, into an +exotic, tropical world of shiny, glistening surfaces and basking ease. +He reflected upon the mysterious dishes that were brought into the +dining room, the green bottles in buckets of ice, as he had seen them in +the supper party pictures of the _Sunday World_ supplement. A quick +gust of wind brought the rain down with sudden vehemence, and Paul was +startled to find that he was still outside in the slush of the gravel +driveway; that his boots were letting in the water and his scanty +overcoat was clinging wet about him; that the lights in front of the +concert hall were out and that the rain was driving in sheets between +him and the orange glow of the windows above him. There it was, what +he wanted--tangibly before him, like the fairy world of a Christmas +pantomime--but mocking spirits stood guard at the doors, and, as the +rain beat in his face, Paul wondered whether he were destined always to +shiver in the black night outside, looking up at it. + +He turned and walked reluctantly toward the car tracks. The end had to +come sometime; his father in his nightclothes at the top of the stairs, +explanations that did not explain, hastily improvised fictions that +were forever tripping him up, his upstairs room and its horrible yellow +wallpaper, the creaking bureau with the greasy plush collarbox, and +over his painted wooden bed the pictures of George Washington and John +Calvin, and the framed motto, "Feed my Lambs," which had been worked in +red worsted by his mother. + +Half an hour later Paul alighted from his car and went slowly down +one of the side streets off the main thoroughfare. It was a highly +respectable street, where all the houses were exactly alike, and +where businessmen of moderate means begot and reared large families of +children, all of whom went to Sabbath school and learned the shorter +catechism, and were interested in arithmetic; all of whom were as +exactly alike as their homes, and of a piece with the monotony in which +they lived. Paul never went up Cordelia Street without a shudder of +loathing. His home was next to the house of the Cumberland minister. He +approached it tonight with the nerveless sense of defeat, the hopeless +feeling of sinking back forever into ugliness and commonness that he had +always had when he came home. The moment he turned into Cordelia Street +he felt the waters close above his head. After each of these orgies +of living he experienced all the physical depression which follows a +debauch; the loathing of respectable beds, of common food, of a house +penetrated by kitchen odors; a shuddering repulsion for the flavorless, +colorless mass of everyday existence; a morbid desire for cool things +and soft lights and fresh flowers. + +The nearer he approached the house, the more absolutely unequal Paul +felt to the sight of it all: his ugly sleeping chamber; the cold +bathroom with the grimy zinc tub, the cracked mirror, the dripping +spiggots; his father, at the top of the stairs, his hairy legs sticking +out from his nightshirt, his feet thrust into carpet slippers. He was +so much later than usual that there would certainly be inquiries and +reproaches. Paul stopped short before the door. He felt that he could +not be accosted by his father tonight; that he could not toss again on +that miserable bed. He would not go in. He would tell his father that he +had no carfare and it was raining so hard he had gone home with one of +the boys and stayed all night. + +Meanwhile, he was wet and cold. He went around to the back of the +house and tried one of the basement windows, found it open, raised it +cautiously, and scrambled down the cellar wall to the floor. There he +stood, holding his breath, terrified by the noise he had made, but the +floor above him was silent, and there was no creak on the stairs. He +found a soapbox, and carried it over to the soft ring of light that +streamed from the furnace door, and sat down. He was horribly afraid of +rats, so he did not try to sleep, but sat looking distrustfully at the +dark, still terrified lest he might have awakened his father. In such +reactions, after one of the experiences which made days and nights out +of the dreary blanks of the calendar, when his senses were deadened, +Paul's head was always singularly clear. Suppose his father had heard +him getting in at the window and had come down and shot him for a +burglar? Then, again, suppose his father had come down, pistol in hand, +and he had cried out in time to save himself, and his father had been +horrified to think how nearly he had killed him? Then, again, suppose +a day should come when his father would remember that night, and +wish there had been no warning cry to stay his hand? With this last +supposition Paul entertained himself until daybreak. + +The following Sunday was fine; the sodden November chill was broken +by the last flash of autumnal summer. In the morning Paul had to go to +church and Sabbath school, as always. On seasonable Sunday afternoons +the burghers of Cordelia Street always sat out on their front stoops and +talked to their neighbors on the next stoop, or called to those across +the street in neighborly fashion. The men usually sat on gay cushions +placed upon the steps that led down to the sidewalk, while the women, in +their Sunday "waists," sat in rockers on the cramped porches, pretending +to be greatly at their ease. The children played in the streets; there +were so many of them that the place resembled the recreation grounds of +a kindergarten. The men on the steps--all in their shirt sleeves, +their vests unbuttoned--sat with their legs well apart, their stomachs +comfortably protruding, and talked of the prices of things, or told +anecdotes of the sagacity of their various chiefs and overlords. They +occasionally looked over the multitude of squabbling children, listened +affectionately to their high-pitched, nasal voices, smiling to see their +own proclivities reproduced in their offspring, and interspersed their +legends of the iron kings with remarks about their sons' progress at +school, their grades in arithmetic, and the amounts they had saved in +their toy banks. + +On this last Sunday of November Paul sat all the afternoon on the lowest +step of his stoop, staring into the street, while his sisters, in their +rockers, were talking to the minister's daughters next door about how +many shirtwaists they had made in the last week, and how many waffles +someone had eaten at the last church supper. When the weather was warm, +and his father was in a particularly jovial frame of mind, the girls +made lemonade, which was always brought out in a red-glass pitcher, +ornamented with forget-me-nots in blue enamel. This the girls thought +very fine, and the neighbors always joked about the suspicious color of +the pitcher. + +Today Paul's father sat on the top step, talking to a young man who +shifted a restless baby from knee to knee. He happened to be the young +man who was daily held up to Paul as a model, and after whom it was his +father's dearest hope that he would pattern. This young man was of a +ruddy complexion, with a compressed, red mouth, and faded, nearsighted +eyes, over which he wore thick spectacles, with gold bows that curved +about his ears. He was clerk to one of the magnates of a great steel +corporation, and was looked upon in Cordelia Street as a young man with +a future. There was a story that, some five years ago--he was now barely +twenty-six--he had been a trifle dissipated, but in order to curb his +appetites and save the loss of time and strength that a sowing of +wild oats might have entailed, he had taken his chief's advice, oft +reiterated to his employees, and at twenty-one had married the first +woman whom he could persuade to share his fortunes. She happened to +be an angular schoolmistress, much older than he, who also wore thick +glasses, and who had now borne him four children, all nearsighted, like +herself. + +The young man was relating how his chief, now cruising in the +Mediterranean, kept in touch with all the details of the business, +arranging his office hours on his yacht just as though he were at home, +and "knocking off work enough to keep two stenographers busy." His +father told, in turn, the plan his corporation was considering, of +putting in an electric railway plant in Cairo. Paul snapped his teeth; +he had an awful apprehension that they might spoil it all before he got +there. Yet he rather liked to hear these legends of the iron kings that +were told and retold on Sundays and holidays; these stories of palaces +in Venice, yachts on the Mediterranean, and high play at Monte Carlo +appealed to his fancy, and he was interested in the triumphs of these +cash boys who had become famous, though he had no mind for the cash-boy +stage. + +After supper was over and he had helped to dry the dishes, Paul +nervously asked his father whether he could go to George's to get some +help in his geometry, and still more nervously asked for carfare. This +latter request he had to repeat, as his father, on principle, did not +like to hear requests for money, whether much or little. He asked Paul +whether he could not go to some boy who lived nearer, and told him that +he ought not to leave his schoolwork until Sunday; but he gave him the +dime. He was not a poor man, but he had a worthy ambition to come up +in the world. His only reason for allowing Paul to usher was that he +thought a boy ought to be earning a little. + +Paul bounded upstairs, scrubbed the greasy odor of the dishwater from +his hands with the ill-smelling soap he hated, and then shook over his +fingers a few drops of violet water from the bottle he kept hidden in +his drawer. He left the house with his geometry conspicuously under his +arm, and the moment he got out of Cordelia Street and boarded a downtown +car, he shook off the lethargy of two deadening days and began to live +again. + +The leading juvenile of the permanent stock company which played at one +of the downtown theaters was an acquaintance of Paul's, and the boy +had been invited to drop in at the Sunday-night rehearsals whenever +he could. For more than a year Paul had spent every available moment +loitering about Charley Edwards's dressing room. He had won a place +among Edwards's following not only because the young actor, who could +not afford to employ a dresser, often found him useful, but because he +recognized in Paul something akin to what churchmen term "vocation." + +It was at the theater and at Carnegie Hall that Paul really lived; the +rest was but a sleep and a forgetting. This was Paul's fairy tale, +and it had for him all the allurement of a secret love. The moment he +inhaled the gassy, painty, dusty odor behind the scenes, he breathed +like a prisoner set free, and felt within him the possibility of doing +or saying splendid, brilliant, poetic things. The moment the cracked +orchestra beat out the overture from _Martha_, or jerked at the serenade +from _Rigoletto_, all stupid and ugly things slid from him, and his +senses were deliciously, yet delicately fired. + +Perhaps it was because, in Paul's world, the natural nearly always wore +the guise of ugliness, that a certain element of artificiality seemed to +him necessary in beauty. Perhaps it was because his experience of +life elsewhere was so full of Sabbath-school picnics, petty economies, +wholesome advice as to how to succeed in life, and the inescapable odors +of cooking, that he found this existence so alluring, these smartly clad +men and women so attractive, that he was so moved by these starry apple +orchards that bloomed perennially under the limelight. + +It would be difficult to put it strongly enough how convincingly +the stage entrance of that theater was for Paul the actual portal of +Romance. Certainly none of the company ever suspected it, least of all +Charley Edwards. It was very like the old stories that used to float +about London of fabulously rich Jews, who had subterranean halls there, +with palms, and fountains, and soft lamps and richly appareled women +who never saw the disenchanting light of London day. So, in the midst of +that smoke-palled city, enamored of figures and grimy toil, Paul had +his secret temple, his wishing carpet, his bit of blue-and-white +Mediterranean shore bathed in perpetual sunshine. + +Several of Paul's teachers had a theory that his imagination had been +perverted by garish fiction, but the truth was that he scarcely ever +read at all. The books at home were not such as would either tempt or +corrupt a youthful mind, and as for reading the novels that some of his +friends urged upon him--well, he got what he wanted much more quickly +from music; any sort of music, from an orchestra to a barrel organ. +He needed only the spark, the indescribable thrill that made his +imagination master of his senses, and he could make plots and pictures +enough of his own. It was equally true that he was not stagestruck--not, +at any rate, in the usual acceptation of that expression. He had no +desire to become an actor, any more than he had to become a musician. He +felt no necessity to do any of these things; what he wanted was to see, +to be in the atmosphere, float on the wave of it, to be carried out, +blue league after blue league, away from everything. + +After a night behind the scenes Paul found the schoolroom more than ever +repulsive; the bare floors and naked walls; the prosy men who never wore +frock coats, or violets in their buttonholes; the women with their dull +gowns, shrill voices, and pitiful seriousness about prepositions that +govern the dative. He could not bear to have the other pupils think, for +a moment, that he took these people seriously; he must convey to them +that he considered it all trivial, and was there only by way of a jest, +anyway. He had autographed pictures of all the members of the stock +company which he showed his classmates, telling them the most incredible +stories of his familiarity with these people, of his acquaintance with +the soloists who came to Carnegie Hall, his suppers with them and the +flowers he sent them. When these stories lost their effect, and his +audience grew listless, he became desperate and would bid all the boys +good-by, announcing that he was going to travel for a while; going to +Naples, to Venice, to Egypt. Then, next Monday, he would slip back, +conscious and nervously smiling; his sister was ill, and he should have +to defer his voyage until spring. + +Matters went steadily worse with Paul at school. In the itch to let his +instructors know how heartily he despised them and their homilies, and +how thoroughly he was appreciated elsewhere, he mentioned once or twice +that he had no time to fool with theorems; adding--with a twitch of +the eyebrows and a touch of that nervous bravado which so perplexed +them--that he was helping the people down at the stock company; they +were old friends of his. + +The upshot of the matter was that the Principal went to Paul's father, +and Paul was taken out of school and put to work. The manager at +Carnegie Hall was told to get another usher in his stead; the doorkeeper +at the theater was warned not to admit him to the house; and Charley +Edwards remorsefully promised the boy's father not to see him again. + +The members of the stock company were vastly amused when some of Paul's +stories reached them--especially the women. They were hardworking women, +most of them supporting indigent husbands or brothers, and they laughed +rather bitterly at having stirred the boy to such fervid and florid +inventions. They agreed with the faculty and with his father that Paul's +was a bad case. + + +The eastbound train was plowing through a January snowstorm; the dull +dawn was beginning to show gray when the engine whistled a mile out of +Newark. Paul started up from the seat where he had lain curled in uneasy +slumber, rubbed the breath-misted window glass with his hand, and peered +out. The snow was whirling in curling eddies above the white bottom +lands, and the drifts lay already deep in the fields and along the +fences, while here and there the long dead grass and dried weed stalks +protruded black above it. Lights shone from the scattered houses, and a +gang of laborers who stood beside the track waved their lanterns. + +Paul had slept very little, and he felt grimy and uncomfortable. He +had made the all-night journey in a day coach, partly because he was +ashamed, dressed as he was, to go into a Pullman, and partly because he +was afraid of being seen there by some Pittsburgh businessman, who might +have noticed him in Denny & Carson's office. When the whistle awoke him, +he clutched quickly at his breast pocket, glancing about him with an +uncertain smile. But the little, clay-bespattered Italians were still +sleeping, the slatternly women across the aisle were in open-mouthed +oblivion, and even the crumby, crying babies were for the nonce stilled. +Paul settled back to struggle with his impatience as best he could. + +When he arrived at the Jersey City station he hurried through his +breakfast, manifestly ill at ease and keeping a sharp eye about him. +After he reached the Twenty-third Street station, he consulted a cabman +and had himself driven to a men's-furnishings establishment that was +just opening for the day. He spent upward of two hours there, buying +with endless reconsidering and great care. His new street suit he put +on in the fitting room; the frock coat and dress clothes he had bundled +into the cab with his linen. Then he drove to a hatter's and a shoe +house. His next errand was at Tiffany's, where he selected his silver +and a new scarf pin. He would not wait to have his silver marked, +he said. Lastly, he stopped at a trunk shop on Broadway and had his +purchases packed into various traveling bags. + +It was a little after one o'clock when he drove up to the Waldorf, and +after settling with the cabman, went into the office. He registered from +Washington; said his mother and father had been abroad, and that he +had come down to await the arrival of their steamer. He told his story +plausibly and had no trouble, since he volunteered to pay for them in +advance, in engaging his rooms; a sleeping room, sitting room, and bath. + +Not once, but a hundred times, Paul had planned this entry into New +York. He had gone over every detail of it with Charley Edwards, and in +his scrapbook at home there were pages of description about New York +hotels, cut from the Sunday papers. When he was shown to his sitting +room on the eighth floor he saw at a glance that everything was as it +should be; there was but one detail in his mental picture that the +place did not realize, so he rang for the bellboy and sent him down for +flowers. He moved about nervously until the boy returned, putting +away his new linen and fingering it delightedly as he did so. When the +flowers came he put them hastily into water, and then tumbled into a hot +bath. Presently he came out of his white bathroom, resplendent in his +new silk underwear, and playing with the tassels of his red robe. The +snow was whirling so fiercely outside his windows that he could scarcely +see across the street, but within the air was deliciously soft and +fragrant. He put the violets and jonquils on the taboret beside the +couch, and threw himself down, with a long sigh, covering himself with +a Roman blanket. He was thoroughly tired; he had been in such haste, +he had stood up to such a strain, covered so much ground in the last +twenty-four hours, that he wanted to think how it had all come about. +Lulled by the sound of the wind, the warm air, and the cool fragrance of +the flowers, he sank into deep, drowsy retrospection. + +It had been wonderfully simple; when they had shut him out of the +theater and concert hall, when they had taken away his bone, the +whole thing was virtually determined. The rest was a mere matter of +opportunity. The only thing that at all surprised him was his own +courage--for he realized well enough that he had always been tormented by +fear, a sort of apprehensive dread that, of late years, as the meshes of +the lies he had told closed about him, had been pulling the muscles of +his body tighter and tighter. Until now he could not remember the time +when he had not been dreading something. Even when he was a little boy +it was always there--behind him, or before, or on either side. There had +always been the shadowed corner, the dark place into which he dared not +look, but from which something seemed always to be watching him--and +Paul had done things that were not pretty to watch, he knew. + +But now he had a curious sense of relief, as though he had at last +thrown down the gauntlet to the thing in the corner. + +Yet it was but a day since he had been sulking in the traces; but +yesterday afternoon that he had been sent to the bank with Denny & +Carson's deposit, as usual--but this time he was instructed to leave the +book to be balanced. There was above two thousand dollars in checks, and +nearly a thousand in the bank notes which he had taken from the book +and quietly transferred to his pocket. At the bank he had made out a +new deposit slip. His nerves had been steady enough to permit of his +returning to the office, where he had finished his work and asked for +a full day's holiday tomorrow, Saturday, giving a perfectly reasonable +pretext. The bankbook, he knew, would not be returned before Monday or +Tuesday, and his father would be out of town for the next week. From +the time he slipped the bank notes into his pocket until he boarded the +night train for New York, he had not known a moment's hesitation. It was +not the first time Paul had steered through treacherous waters. + +How astonishingly easy it had all been; here he was, the thing done; +and this time there would be no awakening, no figure at the top of the +stairs. He watched the snowflakes whirling by his window until he fell +asleep. + +When he awoke, it was three o'clock in the afternoon. He bounded up with +a start; half of one of his precious days gone already! He spent more +than an hour in dressing, watching every stage of his toilet carefully +in the mirror. Everything was quite perfect; he was exactly the kind of +boy he had always wanted to be. + +When he went downstairs Paul took a carriage and drove up Fifth Avenue +toward the Park. The snow had somewhat abated; carriages and tradesmen's +wagons were hurrying soundlessly to and fro in the winter twilight; boys +in woolen mufflers were shoveling off the doorsteps; the avenue stages +made fine spots of color against the white street. Here and there on +the corners were stands, with whole flower gardens blooming under glass +cases, against the sides of which the snowflakes stuck and melted; +violets, roses, carnations, lilies of the valley--somehow vastly more +lovely and alluring that they blossomed thus unnaturally in the snow. +The Park itself was a wonderful stage winterpiece. + +When he returned, the pause of the twilight had ceased and the tune of +the streets had changed. The snow was falling faster, lights streamed +from the hotels that reared their dozen stories fearlessly up into +the storm, defying the raging Atlantic winds. A long, black stream of +carriages poured down the avenue, intersected here and there by other +streams, tending horizontally. There were a score of cabs about the +entrance of his hotel, and his driver had to wait. Boys in livery were +running in and out of the awning stretched across the sidewalk, up and +down the red velvet carpet laid from the door to the street. Above, +about, within it all was the rumble and roar, the hurry and toss of +thousands of human beings as hot for pleasure as himself, and on every +side of him towered the glaring affirmation of the omnipotence of +wealth. + +The boy set his teeth and drew his shoulders together in a spasm of +realization; the plot of all dramas, the text of all romances, +the nerve-stuff of all sensations was whirling about him like the +snowflakes. He burnt like a faggot in a tempest. + +When Paul went down to dinner the music of the orchestra came floating +up the elevator shaft to greet him. His head whirled as he stepped into +the thronged corridor, and he sank back into one of the chairs against +the wall to get his breath. The lights, the chatter, the perfumes, the +bewildering medley of color--he had, for a moment, the feeling of +not being able to stand it. But only for a moment; these were his own +people, he told himself. He went slowly about the corridors, through +the writing rooms, smoking rooms, reception rooms, as though he were +exploring the chambers of an enchanted palace, built and peopled for him +alone. + +When he reached the dining room he sat down at a table near a window. +The flowers, the white linen, the many-colored wineglasses, the gay +toilettes of the women, the low popping of corks, the undulating +repetitions of the _Blue Danube_ from the orchestra, all flooded Paul's +dream with bewildering radiance. When the roseate tinge of his champagne +was added--that cold, precious, bubbling stuff that creamed and foamed +in his glass--Paul wondered that there were honest men in the world at +all. This was what all the world was fighting for, he reflected; this +was what all the struggle was about. He doubted the reality of his +past. Had he ever known a place called Cordelia Street, a place where +fagged-looking businessmen got on the early car; mere rivets in a +machine they seemed to Paul,--sickening men, with combings of children's +hair always hanging to their coats, and the smell of cooking in their +clothes. Cordelia Street--Ah, that belonged to another time and country; +had he not always been thus, had he not sat here night after night, +from as far back as he could remember, looking pensively over just such +shimmering textures and slowly twirling the stem of a glass like this +one between his thumb and middle finger? He rather thought he had. + +He was not in the least abashed or lonely. He had no especial desire to +meet or to know any of these people; all he demanded was the right to +look on and conjecture, to watch the pageant. The mere stage properties +were all he contended for. Nor was he lonely later in the evening, in +his lodge at the Metropolitan. He was now entirely rid of his nervous +misgivings, of his forced aggressiveness, of the imperative desire +to show himself different from his surroundings. He felt now that his +surroundings explained him. Nobody questioned the purple; he had only to +wear it passively. He had only to glance down at his attire to reassure +himself that here it would be impossible for anyone to humiliate him. + +He found it hard to leave his beautiful sitting room to go to bed that +night, and sat long watching the raging storm from his turret window. +When he went to sleep it was with the lights turned on in his bedroom; +partly because of his old timidity, and partly so that, if he should +wake in the night, there would be no wretched moment of doubt, no +horrible suspicion of yellow wallpaper, or of Washington and Calvin +above his bed. + +Sunday morning the city was practically snowbound. Paul breakfasted +late, and in the afternoon he fell in with a wild San Francisco boy, +a freshman at Yale, who said he had run down for a "little flyer" over +Sunday. The young man offered to show Paul the night side of the town, +and the two boys went out together after dinner, not returning to the +hotel until seven o'clock the next morning. They had started out in the +confiding warmth of a champagne friendship, but their parting in the +elevator was singularly cool. The freshman pulled himself together to +make his train, and Paul went to bed. He awoke at two o'clock in the +afternoon, very thirsty and dizzy, and rang for icewater, coffee, and +the Pittsburgh papers. + +On the part of the hotel management, Paul excited no suspicion. There +was this to be said for him, that he wore his spoils with dignity and in +no way made himself conspicuous. Even under the glow of his wine he was +never boisterous, though he found the stuff like a magician's wand for +wonder-building. His chief greediness lay in his ears and eyes, and his +excesses were not offensive ones. His dearest pleasures were the +gray winter twilights in his sitting room; his quiet enjoyment of his +flowers, his clothes, his wide divan, his cigarette, and his sense of +power. He could not remember a time when he had felt so at peace with +himself. The mere release from the necessity of petty lying, lying every +day and every day, restored his self-respect. He had never lied for +pleasure, even at school; but to be noticed and admired, to assert his +difference from other Cordelia Street boys; and he felt a good deal +more manly, more honest, even, now that he had no need for boastful +pretensions, now that he could, as his actor friends used to say, "dress +the part." It was characteristic that remorse did not occur to him. His +golden days went by without a shadow, and he made each as perfect as he +could. + +On the eighth day after his arrival in New York he found the whole +affair exploited in the Pittsburgh papers, exploited with a wealth of +detail which indicated that local news of a sensational nature was at a +low ebb. The firm of Denny & Carson announced that the boy's father had +refunded the full amount of the theft and that they had no intention of +prosecuting. The Cumberland minister had been interviewed, and expressed +his hope of yet reclaiming the motherless lad, and his Sabbath-school +teacher declared that she would spare no effort to that end. The rumor +had reached Pittsburgh that the boy had been seen in a New York hotel, +and his father had gone East to find him and bring him home. + +Paul had just come in to dress for dinner; he sank into a chair, weak +to the knees, and clasped his head in his hands. It was to be worse than +jail, even; the tepid waters of Cordelia Street were to close over him +finally and forever. The gray monotony stretched before him in +hopeless, unrelieved years; Sabbath school, Young People's Meeting, the +yellow-papered room, the damp dishtowels; it all rushed back upon him +with a sickening vividness. He had the old feeling that the orchestra +had suddenly stopped, the sinking sensation that the play was over. The +sweat broke out on his face, and he sprang to his feet, looked about him +with his white, conscious smile, and winked at himself in the mirror, +With something of the old childish belief in miracles with which he +had so often gone to class, all his lessons unlearned, Paul dressed and +dashed whistling down the corridor to the elevator. + +He had no sooner entered the dining room and caught the measure of the +music than his remembrance was lightened by his old elastic power of +claiming the moment, mounting with it, and finding it all-sufficient. +The glare and glitter about him, the mere scenic accessories had again, +and for the last time, their old potency. He would show himself that he +was game, he would finish the thing splendidly. He doubted, more than +ever, the existence of Cordelia Street, and for the first time he drank +his wine recklessly. Was he not, after all, one of those fortunate +beings born to the purple, was he not still himself and in his own +place? He drummed a nervous accompaniment to the Pagliacci music and +looked about him, telling himself over and over that it had paid. + +He reflected drowsily, to the swell of the music and the chill sweetness +of his wine, that he might have done it more wisely. He might have +caught an outbound steamer and been well out of their clutches before +now. But the other side of the world had seemed too far away and too +uncertain then; he could not have waited for it; his need had been +too sharp. If he had to choose over again, he would do the same thing +tomorrow. He looked affectionately about the dining room, now gilded +with a soft mist. Ah, it had paid indeed! + +Paul was awakened next morning by a painful throbbing in his head and +feet. He had thrown himself across the bed without undressing, and had +slept with his shoes on. His limbs and hands were lead heavy, and his +tongue and throat were parched and burnt. There came upon him one of +those fateful attacks of clearheadedness that never occurred except when +he was physically exhausted and his nerves hung loose. He lay still, +closed his eyes, and let the tide of things wash over him. + +His father was in New York; "stopping at some joint or other," he told +himself. The memory of successive summers on the front stoop fell upon +him like a weight of black water. He had not a hundred dollars left; and +he knew now, more than ever, that money was everything, the wall that +stood between all he loathed and all he wanted. The thing was winding +itself up; he had thought of that on his first glorious day in New York, +and had even provided a way to snap the thread. It lay on his dressing +table now; he had got it out last night when he came blindly up from +dinner, but the shiny metal hurt his eyes, and he disliked the looks of +it. + +He rose and moved about with a painful effort, succumbing now and again +to attacks of nausea. It was the old depression exaggerated; all the +world had become Cordelia Street. Yet somehow he was not afraid of +anything, was absolutely calm; perhaps because he had looked into the +dark corner at last and knew. It was bad enough, what he saw there, but +somehow not so bad as his long fear of it had been. He saw everything +clearly now. He had a feeling that he had made the best of it, that he +had lived the sort of life he was meant to live, and for half an hour he +sat staring at the revolver. But he told himself that was not the way, +so he went downstairs and took a cab to the ferry. + +When Paul arrived in Newark he got off the train and took another cab, +directing the driver to follow the Pennsylvania tracks out of the town. +The snow lay heavy on the roadways and had drifted deep in the open +fields. Only here and there the dead grass or dried weed stalks +projected, singularly black, above it. Once well into the country, Paul +dismissed the carriage and walked, floundering along the tracks, his +mind a medley of irrelevant things. He seemed to hold in his brain an +actual picture of everything he had seen that morning. He remembered +every feature of both his drivers, of the toothless old woman from whom +he had bought the red flowers in his coat, the agent from whom he had +got his ticket, and all of his fellow passengers on the ferry. His mind, +unable to cope with vital matters near at hand, worked feverishly and +deftly at sorting and grouping these images. They made for him a part +of the ugliness of the world, of the ache in his head, and the bitter +burning on his tongue. He stooped and put a handful of snow into his +mouth as he walked, but that, too, seemed hot. When he reached a little +hillside, where the tracks ran through a cut some twenty feet below him, +he stopped and sat down. + +The carnations in his coat were drooping with the cold, he noticed, +their red glory all over. It occurred to him that all the flowers he had +seen in the glass cases that first night must have gone the same way, +long before this. It was only one splendid breath they had, in spite of +their brave mockery at the winter outside the glass; and it was a losing +game in the end, it seemed, this revolt against the homilies by which +the world is run. Paul took one of the blossoms carefully from his coat +and scooped a little hole in the snow, where he covered it up. Then he +dozed awhile, from his weak condition, seemingly insensible to the cold. + +The sound of an approaching train awoke him, and he started to his feet, +remembering only his resolution, and afraid lest he should be too late. +He stood watching the approaching locomotive, his teeth chattering, +his lips drawn away from them in a frightened smile; once or twice he +glanced nervously sidewise, as though he were being watched. When +the right moment came, he jumped. As he fell, the folly of his haste +occurred to him with merciless clearness, the vastness of what he had +left undone. There flashed through his brain, clearer than ever before, +the blue of Adriatic water, the yellow of Algerian sands. + +He felt something strike his chest, and that his body was being thrown +swiftly through the air, on and on, immeasurably far and fast, while his +limbs were gently relaxed. Then, because the picture-making mechanism +was crushed, the disturbing visions flashed into black, and Paul dropped +back into the immense design of things. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Troll Garden and Selected Stories, by +Willa Cather + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TROLL GARDEN *** + +***** This file should be named 346.txt or 346.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/346/ + +Produced by Judith Boss + +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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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + BANTAM CLASSIC-A BANTAM CLASSIC-A BANTAM CLASSIC-A BANTAM + + The Troll Garden + and + Selected Stories + by Willa Cather + + + Introduction by Rita Mae Brown + + + + + + + + + + BANTAM BOOKS + + NEW YORK - TORONTO - LONDON - SYDNEY - AUCKLAND + + + + THE TROLL GARDEN AND SELECTED STORIES + <i>A Bantam Classic Book / November 1990</i> + + + + + + <i>Cover art "Stone City, Iowa" by Grant Wood; + courtesy of Joselyn Art Museum</i> + + <i>All rights reserved.</i> + <i>Introduction copyright (c) 1990 by Rita Mae Brown. + No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted + in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, + including photocopying, recording, or by any information + storage and retrieval system, without permission in + writing from the publisher. + + For information address: Bantam Books.</i> + + ISBN 0-553-21385-7 + +<i>Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada</i> + +<i>Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Bantam +Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of +the words "Bantam Books" and the portrayal of a rooster, is +Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other +countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 666 Fifth Avenue, New +York, New York 10103.</i> + + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + OPM 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 + + + + Contents + +Introduction by Rita Mae Brown vii + + +<i>Selected Stories</i> + +On the Divide 1 +Eric Hermannson's Soul 15 +The Enchanted Bluff 40 +The Bohemian Girl 51 + + +<i>The Troll Garden</i> + +Flavia and Her Artists 99 +The Sculptor's Funeral 128 +"A Death in the Desert" 144 +The Garden Lodge 167 +The Marriage of Phaedra 180 +A Wagner Matinee 199 +Paul's Case 208 + + + + + + +Selected Stories + + +On the Divide + + +Near Rattlesnake Creek, on the side of a little draw stood +Canute's shanty. North, east, south, stretched the level +Nebraska plain of long rust-red grass that undulated constantly +in the wind. To the west the ground was broken and rough, and a +narrow strip of timber wound along the turbid, muddy little +stream that had scarcely ambition enough to crawl over its black +bottom. If it had not been for the few stunted cottonwoods and +elms that grew along its banks, Canute would have shot himself +years ago. The Norwegians are a timber-loving people, and if +there is even a turtle pond with a few plum bushes around it they +seem irresistibly drawn toward it. + +As to the shanty itself, Canute had built it without aid of +any kind, for when he first squatted along the banks of +Rattlesnake Creek there was not a human being within twenty +miles. It was built of logs split in halves, the chinks stopped +with mud and plaster. The roof was covered with earth and was +supported by one gigantic beam curved in the shape of a round +arch. It was almost impossible that any tree had ever grown in +that shape. The Norwegians used to say that Canute had taken the +log across his knee and bent it into the shape he wished. There +were two rooms, or rather there was one room with a partition +made of ash saplings interwoven and bound together like big straw +basket work. In one corner there was a cook stove, rusted and +broken. In the other a bed made of unplaned planks and poles. it +was fully eight feet long, and upon it was a heap of dark bed +clothing. There was a chair and a bench of colossal proportions. +There was an ordinary kitchen cupboard with a few cracked dirty +dishes in it, and beside it on a tall box a tin washbasin. Under +the bed was a pile of pint flasks, some broken, some whole, +all empty. On the wood box lay a pair of shoes of almost +incredible dimensions. On the wall hung a saddle, a gun, and +some ragged clothing, conspicuous among which was a suit of dark +cloth, apparently new, with a paper collar carefully wrapped in a +red silk handkerchief and pinned to the sleeve. Over the door hung +a wolf and a badger skin, and on the door itself a brace of thirty +or forty snake skins whose noisy tails rattled ominously every time +it opened. The strangest things in the shanty were the wide +windowsills. At first glance they looked as though they had been +ruthlessly hacked and mutilated with a hatchet, but on closer +inspection all the notches and holes in the wood took form and +shape. There seemed to be a series of pictures. They were, in a +rough way, artistic, but the figures were heavy and labored, as +though they had been cut very slowly and with very awkward +instruments. There were men plowing with little horned imps +sitting on their shoulders and on their horses' heads. There were +men praying with a skull hanging over their heads and little demons +behind them mocking their attitudes. There were men fighting with +big serpents, and skeletons dancing together. All about these +pictures were blooming vines and foliage such as never grew in this +world, and coiled among the branches of the vines there was always +the scaly body of a serpent, and behind every flower there was a +serpent's head. It was a veritable Dance of Death by one who had +felt its sting. In the wood box lay some boards, and every inch of +them was cut up in the same manner. Sometimes the work was very +rude and careless, and looked as though the hand of the workman had +trembled. It would sometimes have been hard to distinguish the men +from their evil geniuses but for one fact, the men were always +grave and were either toiling or praying, while the devils were +always smiling and dancing. Several of these boards had been split +for kindling and it was evident that the artist did not value his +work highly. + +It was the first day of winter on the Divide. Canute stumbled +into his shanty carrying a basket of. cobs, and after filling the +stove, sat down on a stool and crouched his seven foot frame over +the fire, staring drearily out of the window at the wide gray +sky. He knew by heart every individual clump of bunch grass in the +miles of red shaggy prairie that stretched before his cabin. He +knew it in all the deceitful loveliness of its early summer, in all +the bitter barrenness of its autumn. He had seen it smitten by all +the plagues of Egypt. He had seen it parched by drought, and +sogged by rain, beaten by hail, and swept by fire, and in the +grasshopper years he had seen it eaten as bare and clean as bones +that the vultures have left. After the great fires he had seen it +stretch for miles and miles, black and smoking as the floor of +hell. + +He rose slowly and crossed the room, dragging his big feet +heavily as though they were burdens to him. He looked out of the +window into the hog corral and saw the pigs burying themselves in +the straw before the shed. The leaden gray clouds were beginning +to spill themselves, and the snow flakes were settling down over +the white leprous patches of frozen earth where the hogs had gnawed +even the sod away. He shuddered and began to walk, trampling +heavily with his ungainly feet. He was the wreck of ten winters on +the Divide and he knew what that meant. Men fear the winters of +the Divide as a child fears night or as men in the North Seas fear +the still dark cold of the polar twilight. His eyes fell upon his +gun, and he took it down from the wall and looked it over. He sat +down on the edge of his bed and held the barrel towards his face, +letting his forehead rest upon it, and laid his finger on the +trigger. He was perfectly calm, there was neither passion nor +despair in his face, but the thoughtful look of a man who is +considering. Presently he laid down the gun, and reaching into the +cupboard, drew out a pint bottle of raw white alcohol. Lifting it +to his lips, he drank greedily. He washed his face in the tin +basin and combed his rough hair and shaggy blond beard. Then he +stood in uncertainty before the suit of dark clothes that hung on +the wall. For the fiftieth time he took them in his hands and +tried to summon courage to put them on. He took the paper collar +that was pinned to the sleeve of the coat and cautiously slipped it +under his rough beard, looking with timid expectancy into the +cracked, splashed glass that hung over the bench. With a short +laugh he threw it down on the bed, and pulling on his old +black hat, he went out, striking off across the level. + +It was a physical necessity for him to get away from his cabin +once in a while. He had been there for ten years, digging and +plowing and sowing, and reaping what little the hail and the hot +winds and the frosts left him to reap. Insanity and suicide are +very common things on the Divide. They come on like an epidemic in +the hot wind season. Those scorching dusty winds that blow up over +the bluffs from Kansas seem to dry up the blood in men's veins as +they do the sap in the corn leaves. Whenever the yellow scorch +creeps down over the tender inside leaves about the ear, then the +coroners prepare for active duty; for the oil of the country is +burned out and it does not take long for the flame to eat up the +wick. It causes no great sensation there when a Dane is found +swinging to his own windmill tower, and most of the Poles after +they have become too careless and discouraged to shave themselves +keep their razors to cut their throats with. + +It may be that the next generation on the Divide will be very +happy, but the present one came too late in life. It is useless +for men that have cut hemlocks among the mountains of Sweden for +forty years to try to be happy in a country as flat and gray and +naked as the sea. It is not easy for men that have spent their +youth fishing in the Northern seas to be content with following a +plow, and men that have served in the Austrian army hate hard work +and coarse clothing on the loneliness of the plains, and long for +marches and excitement and tavern company and pretty barmaids. +After a man has passed his fortieth birthday it is not easy for him +to change the habits and conditions of his life. Most men bring +with them to the Divide only the dregs of the lives that they have +squandered in other lands and among other peoples. + +Canute Canuteson was as mad as any of them, but his madness +did not take the form of suicide or religion but of alcohol. He +had always taken liquor when he wanted it, as all Norwegians do, +but after his first year of solitary life he settled down to it +steadily. He exhausted whisky after a while, and went to alcohol, +because its effects were speedier and surer. He was a big man and +with a terrible amount of resistant force, and it took a great +deal of alcohol even to move him. After nine years of drinking, +the quantities he could take would seem fabulous to an ordinary +drinking man. He never let it interfere with his work, he +generally drank at night and on Sundays. Every night, as soon as +his chores were done, he began to drink. While he was able to sit +up he would play on his mouth harp or hack away at his window sills +with his jackknife. When the liquor went to his head he would lie +down on his bed and stare out of the window until he went to sleep. +He drank alone and in solitude not for pleasure or good cheer, but +to forget the awful loneliness and level of the Divide. Milton +made a sad blunder when he put mountains in hell. Mountains +postulate faith and aspiration. All mountain peoples are +religious. It was the cities of the plains that, because of their +utter lack of spirituality and the mad caprice of their vice, were +cursed of God. + +Alcohol is perfectly consistent in its effects upon man. +Drunkenness is merely an exaggeration. A foolish man drunk becomes +maudlin; a bloody man, vicious; a coarse man, vulgar. Canute was +none of these, but he was morose and gloomy, and liquor took him +through all the hells of Dante. As he lay on his giant's bed all +the horrors of this world and every other were laid bare to his +chilled senses. He was a man who knew no joy, a man who toiled in +silence and bitterness. The skull and the serpent were always +before him, the symbols of eternal futileness and of eternal hate. + +When the first Norwegians near enough to be called neighbors +came, Canute rejoiced, and planned to escape from his bosom vice. +But he was not a social man by nature and had not the power of +drawing out the social side of other people. His new neighbors +rather feared him because of his great strength and size, his +silence and his lowering brows. Perhaps, too, they knew that he +was mad, mad from the eternal treachery of the plains, which every +spring stretch green and rustle with the promises of Eden, showing +long grassy lagoons full of clear water and cattle whose hoofs are +stained with wild roses. Before autumn the lagoons are dried up, +and the ground is burnt dry and hard until it blisters and cracks +open. + +So instead of becoming a friend and neighbor to the men that +settled about him, Canute became a mystery and a terror. They told +awful stories of his size and strength and of the alcohol he drank. + +They said that one night, when he went out to see to his horses +just before he went to bed, his steps were unsteady and the rotten +planks of the floor gave way and threw him behind the feet of a +fiery young stallion. His foot was caught fast in the floor, and +the nervous horse began kicking frantically. When Canute felt the +blood trickling down into his eyes from a scalp wound in his head, +he roused himself from his kingly indifference, and with the quiet +stoical courage of a drunken man leaned forward and wound his arms +about the horse's hind legs and held them against his breast with +crushing embrace. All through the darkness and cold of the night +he lay there, matching strength against strength. When little Jim +Peterson went over the next morning at four o'clock to go with him +to the Blue to cut wood, he found him so, and the horse was on its +fore knees, trembling and whinnying with fear. This is the story +the Norwegians tell of him, and if it is true it is no wonder that +they feared and hated this Holder of the Heels of Horses. + +One spring there moved to the next "eighty" a family that made +a great change in Canute's life. Ole Yensen was too drunk most of +the time to be afraid of any one, and his wife Mary was too +garrulous to be afraid of any one who listened to her talk, and +Lena, their pretty daughter, was not afraid of man nor devil. So +it came about that Canute went over to take his alcohol with Ole +oftener than he took it alone, After a while the report spread that +he was going to marry Yensen's daughter, and the Norwegian girls +began to tease Lena about the great bear she was going to keep +house for. No one could quite see how the affair had come about, +for Canute's tactics of courtship were somewhat peculiar. He +apparently never spoke to her at all: he would sit for hours with +Mary chattering on one side of him and Ole drinking on the other +and watch Lena at her work. She teased him, and threw flour in his +face and put vinegar in his coffee, but he took her rough jokes +with silent wonder, never even smiling. He took her to church +occasionally, but the most watchful and curious people never +saw him speak to her. He would sit staring at her while she +giggled and flirted with the other men. + +Next spring Mary Lee went to town to work in a steam laundry. +She came home every Sunday, and always ran across to Yensens to +startle Lena with stories of ten cent theaters, firemen's dances, +and all the other esthetic delights of metropolitan life. In a few +weeks Lena's head was completely turned, and she gave her father no +rest until he let her go to town to seek her fortune at the ironing +board. From the time she came home on her first visit she began to +treat Canute with contempt. She had bought a plush cloak and kid +gloves, had her clothes made by the dress maker, and assumed airs +and graces that made the other women of the neighborhood cordially +detest her. She generally brought with her a young man from town +who waxed his mustache and wore a red necktie, and she did not even +introduce him to Canute. + +The neighbors teased Canute a good deal until he knocked one +of them down. He gave no sign of suffering from her neglect except +that he drank more and avoided the other Norwegians more carefully +than ever, He lay around in his den and no one knew what he felt or +thought, but little Jim Peterson, who had seen him glowering at +Lena in church one Sunday when she was there with the town man, +said that he would not give an acre of his wheat for Lena's life or +the town chap's either; and Jim's wheat was so wondrously worthless +that the statement was an exceedingly strong one. + +Canute had bought a new suit of clothes that looked as nearly +like the town man I s as possible. They had cost him half a millet +crop; for tailors are not accustomed to fitting giants and they +charge for it. He had hung those clothes in his shanty two months +ago and had never put them on, partly from fear of ridicule, partly +from discouragement, and partly because there was something in his +own soul that revolted at the littleness of the device. + +Lena was at home just at this time. Work was slack in the +laundry and Mary had not been well, so Lena stayed at home, glad +enough to get an opportunity to torment Canute once more. + +She was washing in the side kitchen, singing loudly as +she worked. Mary was on her knees, blacking the stove and scolding +violently about the young man who was coming out from town that +night. The young man had committed the fatal error of laughing at +Mary's ceaseless babble and had never been forgiven. + +"He is no good, and you will come to a bad end by running with +him! I do not see why a daughter of mine should act so. I do not +see why the Lord should visit such a punishment upon me as to give +me such a daughter. There are plenty of good men you can marry." + +Lena tossed her head and answered curtly, "I don't happen to +want to marry any man right away, and so long as Dick dresses nice +and has plenty of money to spend, there is no harm in my going with +him." + +"Money to spend? Yes, and that is all he does with it I'll be +bound. You think it very fine now, but you will change your tune +when you have been married five years and see your children running +naked and your cupboard empty. Did Anne Hermanson come to any good +end by marrying a town man?" + +"I don't know anything about Anne Hermanson, but I know any of +the laundry girls would have Dick quick enough if they could get +him." + +"Yes, and a nice lot of store clothes huzzies you are too. Now +there is Canuteson who has an 'eighty' proved up and fifty head +of cattle and--" + +"And hair that ain't been cut since he was a baby, and a big +dirty beard, and he wears overalls on Sundays, and drinks like a +pig. Besides he will keep. I can have all the fun I want, and +when I am old and ugly like you he can have me and take care of me. + +The Lord knows there ain't nobody else going to marry him." + +Canute drew his hand back from the latch as though it were red +hot. He was not the kind of man to make a good eavesdropper, and +he wished he had knocked sooner. He pulled himself together and +struck the door like a battering ram. Mary jumped and opened it +with a screech. + +"God! Canute, how you scared us! I thought it was crazy Lou-- +he has been tearing around the neighborhood trying to convert +folks. I am afraid as death of him. He ought to be sent off, I +think. He is just as liable as not to kill us all, or burn +the barn, or poison the dogs. He has been worrying even the poor +minister to death, and he laid up with the rheumatism, too! Did +you notice that he was too sick to preach last Sunday? But don't +stand there in the cold, come in. Yensen isn't here, but he just +went over to Sorenson's for the mail; he won't be gone long. Walk +right in the other room and sit down." + +Canute followed her, looking steadily in front of him and not +noticing Lena as he passed her. But Lena's vanity would not allow +him to pass unmolested. She took the wet sheet she was wringing +out and cracked him across the face with it, and ran giggling to +the other side of the room. The blow stung his cheeks and the +soapy water flew in his eves, and he involuntarily began rubbing +them with his hands. Lena giggled with delight at his +discomfiture, and the wrath in Canute's face grew blacker than +ever. A big man humiliated is vastly more undignified than a +little one. He forgot the sting of his face in the bitter +consciousness that he had made a fool of himself He stumbled +blindly into the living room, knocking his head against the door +jamb because he forgot to stoop. He dropped into a chair behind +the stove, thrusting his big feet back helplessly on either side of +him. + +Ole was a long time in coming, and Canute sat there, still and +silent, with his hands clenched on his knees, and the skin of his +face seemed to have shriveled up into little wrinkles that trembled +when he lowered his brows. His life had been one long lethargy of +solitude and alcohol, but now he was awakening, and it was as when +the dumb stagnant heat of summer breaks out into thunder. + +When Ole came staggering in, heavy with liquor, Canute rose at +once. + +"Yensen," he said quietly, "I have come to see if you will let +me marry your daughter today." + +"Today!" gasped Ole. + +"Yes, I will not wait until tomorrow. I am tired of living alone." + +Ole braced his staggering knees against the bedstead, and +stammered eloquently: "Do you think I will marry my daughter to a +drunkard? a man who drinks raw alcohol? a man who sleeps with +rattle snakes? Get out of my house or I will kick you out +for your impudence." And Ole began looking anxiously for his feet. + +Canute answered not a word, but he put on his hat and went out +into the kitchen. He went up to Lena and said without looking at +her, "Get your things on and come with me!" + +The tones of his voice startled her, and she said angrily, +dropping the soap, "Are you drunk?" + +"If you do not come with me, I will take you--you had better +come," said Canute quietly. + +She lifted a sheet to strike him, but he caught her arm +roughly and wrenched the sheet from her. He turned to the wall and +took down a hood and shawl that hung there, and began wrapping her +up. Lena scratched and fought like a wild thing. Ole stood in the +door, cursing, and Mary howled and screeched at the top of her +voice. As for Canute, he lifted the girl in his arms and went out +of the house. She kicked and struggled, but the helpless wailing +of Mary and Ole soon died away in the distance, and her face was +held down tightly on Canute's shoulder so that she could not see +whither he was taking her. She was conscious only of the north +wind whistling in her ears, and of rapid steady motion and of a +great breast that heaved beneath her in quick, irregular breaths. +The harder she struggled the tighter those iron arms that had held +the heels of horses crushed about her, until she felt as if they +would crush the breath from her, and lay still with fear. Canute +was striding across the level fields at a pace at which man never +went before, drawing the stinging north winds into his lungs in +great gulps. He walked with his eyes half closed and looking +straight in front of him, only lowering them when he bent his head +to blow away the snow flakes that settled on her hair. So it was +that Canute took her to his home, even as his bearded barbarian +ancestors took the fair frivolous women of the South in their hairy +arms and bore them down to their war ships. For ever and anon the +soul becomes weary of the conventions that are not of it, and with +a single stroke shatters the civilized lies with which it is unable +to cope, and the strong arm reaches out and takes by force what it +cannot win by cunning. + +When Canute reached his shanty he placed the girl upon a +chair, where she sat sobbing. He stayed only a few minutes. He +filled the stove with wood and lit the lamp, drank a huge swallow +of alcohol and put the bottle in his pocket. He paused a moment, +staring heavily at the weeping girl, then he went off and locked +the door and disappeared in the gathering gloom of the night. + +Wrapped in flannels and soaked with turpentine, the little +Norwegian preacher sat reading his Bible, when he heard a +thundering knock at his door, and Canute entered, covered with snow +and his beard frozen fast to his coat. + +"Come in, Canute, you must be frozen," said the little man, +shoving a chair towards his visitor. + +Canute remained standing with his hat on and said quietly, "I +want you to come over to my house tonight to marry me to Lena +Yensen." + +"Have you got a license, Canute?" + +"No, I don't want a license. I want to be married." + +"But I can't marry you without a license, man. it would not be +legal." + +A dangerous light came in the big Norwegian's eye. "I want +you to come over to my house to marry me to Lena Yensen." + +"No, I can't, it would kill an ox to go out in a storm like +this, and my rheumatism is bad tonight." + +"Then if you will not go I must take you," said Canute with a +sigh. + +He took down the preacher's bearskin coat and bade him put it +on while he hitched up his buggy. He went out and closed the door +softly after him. Presently he returned and found the frightened +minister crouching before the fire with his coat lying beside him. +Canute helped him put it on and gently wrapped his head in his big +muffler. Then he picked him up and carried him out and placed him +in his buggy. As he tucked the buffalo robes around him be said: +"Your horse is old, he might flounder or lose his way in this +storm. I will lead him." + +The minister took the reins feebly in his hands and sat +shivering with the cold. Sometimes when there was a lull in the +wind, he could see the horse struggling through the snow with +the man plodding steadily beside him. Again the blowing snow would +hide them from him altogether. He had no idea where they were or +what direction they were going. He felt as though he were being +whirled away in the heart of the storm, and he said all the prayers +he knew. But at last the long four miles were over, and Canute set +him down in the snow while he unlocked the door. He saw the bride +sitting by the fire with her eyes red and swollen as though she had +been weeping. Canute placed a huge chair for him, and said +roughly,-- + +"Warm yourself." + +Lena began to cry and moan afresh, begging the minister to +take her home. He looked helplessly at Canute. Canute said +simply, + +"If you are warm now, you can marry us." + +"My daughter, do you take this step of your own free will?" +asked the minister in a trembling voice. + +"No, sir, I don't, and it is disgraceful he should force me +into it! I won't marry him." + +"Then, Canute, I cannot marry you," said the minister, +standing as straight as his rheumatic limbs would let him. + +"Are you ready to marry us now, sir?" said Canute, laying one +iron hand on his stooped shoulder. The little preacher was a good +man, but like most men of weak body he was a coward and had a +horror of physical suffering, although he had known so much of it. +So with many qualms of conscience he began to repeat the marriage +service. Lena sat sullenly in her chair, staring at the fire. +Canute stood beside her, listening with his head bent reverently +and his hands folded on his breast. When the little man had prayed +and said amen, Canute began bundling him up again. + +"I will take you home, now," he said as he carried him out and +placed him in his buggy, and started off with him through the fury +of the storm, floundering among the snow drifts that brought even +the giant himself to his knees. + +After she was left alone, Lena soon ceased weeping. She was +not of a particularly sensitive temperament, and had little +pride beyond that of vanity. After the first bitter anger wore +itself out, she felt nothing more than a healthy sense of +humiliation and defeat. She had no inclination to run away, for +she was married now, and in her eyes that was final and all +rebellion was useless. She knew nothing about a license, but she +knew that a preacher married folks. She consoled herself by +thinking that she had always intended to marry Canute someday, +anyway. + +She grew tired of crying and looking into the fire, so she got +up and began to look about her. She had heard queer tales about +the inside of Canute's shanty, and her curiosity soon got the +better of her rage. One of the first things she noticed was the +new black suit of clothes hanging on the wall. She was dull, but +it did not take a vain woman long to interpret anything so +decidedly flattering, and she was pleased in spite of herself. As +she looked through the cupboard, the general air of neglect and +discomfort made her pity the man who lived there. + +"Poor fellow, no wonder he wants to get married to get +somebody to wash up his dishes. Batchin's pretty hard on a man." + +It is easy to pity when once one's vanity has been tickled. +She looked at the windowsill and gave a little shudder and wondered +if the man were crazy. Then she sat down again and sat a long time +wondering what her Dick and Ole would do. + +"It is queer Dick didn't come right over after me. He surely +came, for he would have left town before the storm began and he +might just as well come right on as go back. If he'd hurried he +would have gotten here before the preacher came. I suppose he was +afraid to come, for he knew Canuteson could pound him to jelly, the +coward!" Her eyes flashed angrily. + +The weary hours wore on and Lena began to grow horribly +lonesome. It was an uncanny night and this was an uncanny place to +be in. She could hear the coyotes howling hungrily a little way +from the cabin, and more terrible still were all the unknown noises +of the storm. She remembered the tales they told of the big log +overhead and she was afraid of those snaky things on the +windowsills. She remembered the man who had been killed in the +draw, and she wondered what she would do if she saw crazy Lou's +white face glaring into the window. The rattling of the door +became unbearable, she thought the latch must be loose and took the +lamp to look at it. Then for the first time she saw the ugly brown +snake skins whose death rattle sounded every time the wind jarred +the door. + +"Canute, Canute!" she screamed in terror. + +Outside the door she heard a heavy sound as of a big dog +getting up and shaking himself. The door opened and Canute stood +before her, white as a snow drift. + +"What is it?" he asked kindly. + +"I am cold," she faltered. + +He went out and got an armful of wood and a basket of cobs and +filled the stove. Then he went out and lay in the snow before the +door. Presently he heard her calling again. + +"What is it?" he said, sitting up. + +"I'm so lonesome, I'm afraid to stay in here all alone." + +"I will go over and get your mother." And he got up. + +"She won't come." + +"I'll bring her," said Canute grimly. + +"No, no. I don't want her, she will scold all the time." + +"Well, I will bring your father." + +She spoke again and it seemed as though her mouth was close up +to the key-hole. She spoke lower than he had ever heard her speak +before, so low that he had to put his ear up to the lock to hear +her. + +"I don't want him either, Canute,--I'd rather have you." + +For a moment she heard no noise at all, then something like a +groan. With a cry of fear she opened the door, and saw Canute +stretched in the snow at her feet, his face in his hands, sobbing +on the doorstep. + + + + + +Eric Hermannson's Soul + + +It was a great night at the Lone Star schoolhouse--a night +when the Spirit was present with power and when God was very near +to man. So it seemed to Asa Skinner, servant of God and Free +Gospeller. The schoolhouse was crowded with the saved and +sanctified, robust men and women, trembling and quailing before the +power of some mysterious psychic force. Here and there among this +cowering, sweating multitude crouched some poor wretch who had felt +the pangs of an awakened conscience, but had not yet experienced +that complete divestment of reason, that frenzy born of a +convulsion of the mind, which, in the parlance of the Free +Gospellers, is termed "the Light." On the floor before the +mourners' bench lay the unconscious figure of a man in whom +outraged nature had sought her last resort. This "trance" state +is the highest evidence of grace among the Free Gospellers, and +indicates a close walking with God. + +Before the desk stood Asa Skinner, shouting of the mercy and +vengeance of God, and in his eyes shone a terrible earnestness, an +almost prophetic flame. Asa was a converted train gambler who used +to run between Omaha and Denver. He was a man made for the +extremes of life; from the most debauched of men he had become the +most ascetic. His was a bestial face, a. face that bore the stamp +of Nature's eternal injustice. The forehead was low, projecting +over the eyes, and the sandy hair was plastered down over it and +then brushed back at an abrupt right angle. The chin was heavy, +the nostrils were low and wide, and the lower lip hung loosely +except in his moments of spasmodic earnestness, when it shut like +a steel trap. Yet about those coarse features there were deep, +rugged furrows, the scars of many a hand-to-hand struggle with the +weakness of the flesh, and about that drooping lip were sharp, +strenuous lines that had conquered it and taught it to pray. Over +those seamed cheeks there was a certain pallor, a greyness caught +from many a vigil. It was as though, after Nature had done her +worst with that face, some fine chisel had gone over it, chastening +and almost transfiguring it. Tonight, as his muscles twitched with +emotion, and the perspiration dropped from his hair and chin, there +was a certain convincing power in the man. For Asa Skinner was a +man possessed of a belief, of that sentiment of the sublime before +which all inequalities are leveled, that transport of conviction +which seems superior to all laws of condition, under which +debauchees have become martyrs; which made a tinker an artist and +a camel-driver the founder of an empire. This was with Asa Skinner +tonight, as he stood proclaiming the vengeance of God. + +It might have occurred to an impartial observer that Asa +Skinner's God was indeed a vengeful God if he could reserve +vengeance for those of his creatures who were packed into the Lone +Star schoolhouse that night. Poor exiles of all nations; men from +the south and the north, peasants from almost every country of +Europe, most of them from the mountainous, night-bound coast of +Norway. Honest men for the most part, but men with whom the world +had dealt hardly; the failures of all countries, men sobered by +toil and saddened by exile, who had been driven to fight for the +dominion of an untoward soil, to sow where others should gather, +the advance guard of a mighty civilization to be. + +Never had Asa Skinner spoken more earnestly than now. He felt +that the Lord had this night a special work for him to do. Tonight +Eric Hermannson, the wildest lad on all the Divide, sat in his +audience with a fiddle on his knee, just as he had dropped in on +his way to play for some dance. The violin is an object of +particular abhorrence to the Free Gospellers. Their antagonism to +the church organ is bitter enough, but the fiddle they regard as a +very incarnation of evil desires, singing forever of worldly +pleasures and inseparably associated with all forbidden things. + +Eric Hermannson had long been the object of the prayers of the +revivalists. His mother had felt the power of the Spirit weeks +ago, and special prayer-meetings had been held at her house for her +son. But Eric had only gone his ways laughing, the ways of youth, +which are short enough at best, and none too flowery on the Divide. + +He slipped away from the prayer-meetings to meet the Campbell boys +in Genereau's saloon, or hug the plump little French girls at +Chevalier's dances, and sometimes, of a summer night, he even went +across the dewy cornfields and through the wild-plum thicket to +play the fiddle for Lena Hanson, whose name was a reproach through +all the Divide country, where the women are usually too plain and +too busy and too tired to depart from the ways of virtue. On such +occasions Lena, attired in a pink wrapper and silk stockings and +tiny pink slippers, would sing to him, accompanying herself on a +battered guitar. It gave him a delicious sense of freedom and +experience to be with a woman who, no matter how, had lived in big +cities and knew the ways of town folk, who had never worked in the +fields and had kept her hands white and soft, her throat fair and +tender, who had heard great singers in Denver and Salt Lake, and +who knew the strange language of flattery and idleness and mirth. + +Yet, careless as he seemed, the frantic prayers of his mother +were not altogether without their effect upon Eric. For days he +had been fleeing before them as a criminal from his pursuers, and +over his pleasures had fallen the shadow of something dark and +terrible that dogged his steps. The harder he danced, the louder +he sang, the more was he conscious that this phantom was gaining +upon him, that in time it would track him down. One Sunday +afternoon, late in the fall, when he had been drinking beer with +Lena Hanson and listening to a song which made his cheeks burn, a +rattlesnake had crawled out of the side of the sod house and thrust +its ugly head in under the screen door. He was not afraid of +snakes, but he knew enough of Gospellism to feel the significance +of the reptile lying coiled there upon her doorstep. His lips were +cold when he kissed Lena goodbye, and he went there no more. + +The final barrier between Eric and his mother's faith was his +violin, and to that he clung as a man sometimes will cling to his +dearest sin, to the weakness more precious to him than all his +strength, In the great world beauty comes to men in many guises, +and art in a hundred forms, but for Eric there was only his violin. + +It stood, to him, for all the manifestations of art; it was his +only bridge into the kingdom of the soul. + +It was to Eric Hermannson that the evangelist directed his +impassioned pleading that night. + +"<i>Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?</i> Is there a Saul here +tonight who has stopped his ears to that gentle pleading, who has +thrust a spear into that bleeding side? Think of it, my brother; +you are offered this wonderful love and you prefer the worm that +dieth not and the fire which will not be quenched. What right have +you to lose one of God's precious souls? <i>Saul, Saul, why +persecutest thou me?</i>" + +A great joy dawned in Asa Skinner's pale face, for he saw that +Eric Hermannson was swaying to and fro in his seat. The minister +fell upon his knees and threw his long arms up over his head. + +"O my brothers! I feel it coming, the blessing we have prayed +for. I tell you the Spirit is coming! just a little more prayer, +brothers, a little more zeal, and he will be here. I can feel his +cooling wing upon my brow. Glory be to God forever and ever, +amen!" + +The whole congregation groaned under the pressure of this +spiritual panic. Shouts and hallelujahs went up from every lip. +Another figure fell prostrate upon the floor. From the mourners' +bench rose a chant of terror and rapture: + + + "Eating honey and drinking wine, + <i>Glory to the bleeding Lamb!</i> + I am my Lord's and he is mine, + <i>Glory to the bleeding Lamb!"</i> + + +The hymn was sung in a dozen dialects and voiced all the vague +yearning of these hungry lives, of these people who had starved all +the passions so long, only to fall victims to the barest of them +all, fear. + +A groan of ultimate anguish rose from Eric Hermannson's bowed +head, and the sound was like the groan of a great tree when it +falls in the forest. + +The minister rose suddenly to his feet and threw back his +head, crying in a loud voice: + +"<i>Lazarus, come forth!</i> Eric Hermannson, you are lost, going +down at sea. In the name of God, and Jesus Christ his Son, I throw +you the life line. Take hold! Almighty God, my soul for his!" +The minister threw his arms out and lifted his quivering face. + +Eric Hermannson rose to his feet; his lips were set and the +lightning was in his eyes. He took his violin by the neck and +crushed it to splinters across his knee, and to Asa Skinner the +sound was like the shackles of sin broken audibly asunder. + + + + II + +For more than two years Eric Hermannson kept the austere faith +to which he had sworn himself, kept it until a girl from the East +came to spend a week on the Nebraska Divide. She was a girl of +other manners and conditions, and there were greater distances +between her life and Eric's than all the miles which separated +Rattlesnake Creek from New York City. Indeed, she had no business +to be in the West at all; but ah! across what leagues of land and +sea, by what improbable chances, do the unrelenting gods bring to +us our fate! + +It was in a year of financial depression that Wyllis Elliot +came to Nebraska to buy cheap land and revisit the country where he +had spent a year of his youth. When he had graduated from Harvard +it was still customary for moneyed gentlemen to send their +scapegrace sons to rough it on ranches in the wilds of Nebraska or +Dakota, or to consign them to a living death in the sagebrush of +the Black Hills. These young men did not always return to the ways +of civilized life. But Wyllis Elliot had not married a +half-breed, nor been shot in a cowpunchers' brawl, nor wrecked by +bad whisky, nor appropriated by a smirched adventuress. He had +been saved from these things by a girl, his sister, who had been +very near to his life ever since the days when they read fairy +tales together and dreamed the dreams that never come true. On +this, his first visit to his father's ranch since he left it six +years before, he brought her with him. She had been laid up half +the winter from a sprain received while skating, and had had too +much time for reflection during those months. She was restless and +filled with a desire to see something of the wild country of which +her brother had told her so much. She was to be married the next +winter, and Wyllis understood her when she begged him to take her +with him on this long, aimless jaunt across the continent, to taste +the last of their freedom together. it comes to all women of her +type--that desire to taste the unknown which allures and terrifies, +to run one's whole soul's length out to the wind--just once. + +It had been an eventful journey. Wyllis somehow understood that +strain of gypsy blood in his sister, and he knew where to take her. +They had slept in sod houses on the Platte River, made the +acquaintance of the personnel of a third-rate opera company on the +train to Deadwood, dined in a camp of railroad constructors at the +world's end beyond New Castle, gone through the Black Hills on +horseback, fished for trout in Dome Lake, watched a dance at +Cripple Creek, where the lost souls who hide in the hills +gathered for their besotted revelry. And now, last of all, before +the return to thraldom, there was this little shack, anchored on +the windy crest of the Divide, a little black dot against the +flaming sunsets, a scented sea of cornland bathed in opalescent air +and blinding sunlight. + +Margaret Elliot was one of those women of whom there are so +many in this day, when old order, passing, giveth place to new; +beautiful, talented, critical, unsatisfied, tired of the world at +twenty-four. For the moment the life and people of the Divide +interested her. She was there but a week; perhaps had she stayed +longer, that inexorable ennui which travels faster even than the +Vestibule Limited would have overtaken her. The week she +tarried there was the week that Eric Hermannson was helping Jerry +Lockhart thresh; a week earlier or a week later, and there would +have been no story to write. + +It was on Thursday and they were to leave on Saturday. Wyllis +and his sister were sitting on the wide piazza of the ranchhouse, +staring out into the afternoon sunlight and protesting against the +gusts of hot wind that blew up from the sandy riverbottom twenty +miles to the southward. + +The young man pulled his cap lower over his eyes and remarked: + +"This wind is the real thing; you don't strike it anywhere +else. You remember we had a touch of it in Algiers and I told you +it came from Kansas. It's the keynote of this country." + +Wyllis touched her hand that lay on the hammock and continued +gently: + +"I hope it's paid you, Sis. Roughing it's dangerous business; +it takes the taste out of things." + +She shut her fingers firmly over the brown hand that was so +like her own. + +"Paid? Why, Wyllis, I haven't been so happy since we were +children and were going to discover the ruins of Troy together some +day. Do you know, I believe I could just stay on here forever and +let the world go on its own gait. It seems as though the tension +and strain we used to talk of last winter were gone for good, as +though one could never give one's strength out to such petty things +any more." + +Wyllis brushed the ashes of his pipe away from the silk +handkerchief that was knotted about his neck and stared moodily off +at the skyline. + +"No, you're mistaken. This would bore you after a while. You +can't shake the fever of the other life. I've tried it. There was +a time when the gay fellows of Rome could trot down into the +Thebaid and burrow into the sandhills and get rid of it. But it's +all too complex now. You see we've made our dissipations so dainty +and respectable that they've gone further in than the flesh, and +taken hold of the ego proper. You couldn't rest, even here. The +war cry would follow you." + +"You don't waste words, Wyllis, but you never miss fire. I +talk more than you do, without saying half so much. You must have +learned the art of silence from these taciturn Norwegians. I think +I like silent men." + +"Naturally," said Wyllis, "since you have decided to marry the most +brilliant talker you know." + +Both were silent for a time, listening to the sighing of the +hot wind through the parched morning-glory vines. Margaret spoke +first. + +"Tell me, Wyllis, were many of the Norwegians you used to know +as interesting as Eric Hermannson?" + +"Who, Siegfried? Well, no. He used to be the flower of the +Norwegian youth in my day, and he's rather an exception, even now. +He has retrograded, though. The bonds of the soil have tightened +on him, I fancy." + +"Siegfried? Come, that's rather good, Wyllis. He looks like +a dragon-slayer. What is it that makes him so different from the +others? I can talk to him; he seems quite like a human being." + + "Well," said Wyllis, meditatively, "I don't read Bourget +as much as my cultured sister, and I'm not so well up in analysis, +but I fancy it's because one keeps cherishing a perfectly +unwarranted suspicion that under that big, hulking anatomy of his, +he may conceal a soul somewhere. <i>Nicht wahr?</i>" + +"Something like that," said Margaret, thoughtfully, "except +that it's more than a suspicion, and it isn't groundless. He has +one, and he makes it known, somehow, without speaking." + +"I always have my doubts about loquacious souls," Wyllis +remarked, with the unbelieving smile that had grown habitual with +him. + +Margaret went on, not heeding the interruption. "I knew it +from the first, when he told me about the suicide of his cousin, +the Bernstein boy. That kind of blunt pathos can't be summoned at +will in anybody. The earlier novelists rose to it, sometimes, +unconsciously. But last night when I sang for him I was doubly +sure. Oh, I haven't told you about that yet! Better light your +pipe again. You see, he stumbled in on me in the dark when I was +pumping away at that old parlour organ to please Mrs. Lockhart +It's her household fetish and I've forgotten how many pounds of +butter she made and sold to buy it. Well, Eric stumbled in, and in +some inarticulate manner made me understand that he wanted me to +sing for him. I sang just the old things, of course. It's queer +to sing familiar things here at the world's end. It makes one +think how the hearts of men have carried them around the world, +into the wastes of Iceland and the jungles of Africa and the +islands of the Pacific. I think if one lived here long enough one +would quite forget how to be trivial, and would read only the great +books that we never get time to read in the world, and would +remember only the great music, and the things that are really worth +while would stand out clearly against that horizon over there. And +of course I played the intermezzo from <i>Cavalleria Rusticana</i> +for him; it goes rather better on an organ than most things do. He +shuffled his feet and twisted his big hands up into knots and +blurted out that he didn't know there was any music like that in +the world. Why, there were tears in his voice, Wyllis! Yes, like +Rossetti, I <i>heard</i> his tears. Then it dawned upon me that it +was probably the first good music be had ever heard in all his +life. Think of it, to care for music as he does and never to hear +it, never to know that it exists on earth! To long for it as we +long for other perfect experiences that never come. I can't tell +you what music means to that man. I never saw any one so +susceptible to it. It gave him speech, he became alive. When I had +finished the intermezzo, he began telling me about a little +crippled brother who died and whom he loved and used to carry +everywhere in his arms. He did not wait for encouragement. He +took up the story and told it slowly, as if to himself, just sort +of rose up and told his own woe to answer Mascagni's. It overcame +me." + +"Poor devil," said Wyllis, looking at her with mysterious +eyes, "and so you've given him a new woe. Now he'll go on +wanting Grieg and Schubert the rest of his days and never getting +them. That's a girl's philanthropy for you!" + +Jerry Lockhart came out of the house screwing his chin over +the unusual luxury of a stiff white collar, which his wife insisted +upon as a necessary article of toilet while Miss Elliot was +at the house. Jerry sat down on the step and smiled his broad, red +smile at Margaret. + +"Well, I've got the music for your dance, Miss Elliot. Olaf +Oleson will bring his accordion and Mollie will play the organ, +when she isn't lookin' after the grub, and a little chap from +Frenchtown will bring his fiddle--though the French don't mix with +the Norwegians much." + +"Delightful! Mr. Lockhart, that dance will be the feature of +our trip, and it's so nice of you to get it up for us. We'll see +the Norwegians in character at last," cried Margaret, cordially. + +"See here, Lockhart, I'll settle with you for backing her in +this scheme," said Wyllis, sitting up and knocking the ashes out of +his pipe. "She's done crazy things enough on this trip, but to +talk of dancing all night with a gang of half-mad Norwegians and +taking the carriage at four to catch the six o'clock train out of +Riverton--well, it's tommyrot, that's what it is!" + +"Wyllis, I leave it to your sovereign power of reason to +decide whether it isn't easier to stay up all night than to get up +at three in the morning. To get up at three, think what that +means! No, sir, I prefer to keep my vigil and then get into a +sleeper." + +"But what do you want with the Norwegians? I thought you were +tired of dancing." + +"So I am, with some people. But I want to see a Norwegian +dance, and I intend to. Come, Wyllis, you know how seldom it is +that one really wants to do anything nowadays. I wonder when I +have really wanted to go to a party before. It will be something +to remember next month at Newport, when we have to and don't want +to. Remember your own theory that contrast is about the only thing +that makes life endurable. This is my party and Mr. Lockhart's; +your whole duty tomorrow night will consist in being nice to the +Norwegian girls. I'll warrant you were adept enough at it once. +And you'd better be very nice indeed, for if there are many such +young Valkyries as Eric's sister among them, they would simply tie +you up in a knot if they suspected you were guying them." + +Wyllis groaned and sank back into the hammock to consider his +fate, while his sister went on. + +"And the guests, Mr. Lockhart, did they accept?" + +Lockhart took out his knife and began sharpening it on the sole of +his plowshoe. + +"Well, I guess we'll have a couple dozen. You see it's pretty +hard to get a crowd together here any more. Most of 'em have gone +over to the Free Gospellers, and they'd rather put their feet in +the fire than shake 'em to a fiddle." + +Margaret made a gesture of impatience. "Those Free Gospellers +have just cast an evil spell over this country, haven't they?" + +"Well," said Lockhart, cautiously, "I don't just like to pass +judgment on any Christian sect, but if you're to know the chosen by +their works, the Gospellers can't make a very proud showin', an' +that's a fact. They're responsible for a few suicides, and they've +sent a good-sized delegation to the state insane asylum, an' I +don't see as they've made the rest of us much better than we were +before. I had a little herdboy last spring, as square a little +Dane as I want to work for me, but after the Gospellers got hold of +him and sanctified him, the little beggar used to get down on his +knees out on the prairie and pray by the hour and let the cattle +get into the corn, an' I had to fire him. That's about the way it +goes. Now there's Eric; that chap used to be a hustler and the +spryest dancer in all this section-called all the dances. Now he's +got no ambition and he's glum as a preacher. I don't suppose we +can even get him to come in tomorrow night." + +"Eric? Why, he must dance, we can't let him off," said +Margaret, quickly. "Why, I intend to dance with him myself." + +"I'm afraid he won't dance. I asked him this morning if he'd +help us out and he said, 'I don't dance now, any more,' " said +Lockhart, imitating the laboured English of the Norwegian. + +"'The Miller of Hofbau, the Miller of Hofbau, O my Princess!'" +chirped Wyllis, cheerfully, from his hammock. + +The red on his sister's cheek deepened a little, and she +laughed mischievously. "We'll see about that, sir. I'll not admit +that I am beaten until I have asked him myself." + +Every night Eric rode over to St. Anne, a little village in +the heart of the French settlement, for the mail. As the road lay +through the most attractive part of the Divide country, on several +occasions Margaret Elliot and her brother had accompanied him. +Tonight Wyllis had business with Lockhart, and Margaret rode +with Eric, mounted on a frisky little mustang that Mrs. Lockhart +had broken to the sidesaddle. Margaret regarded her escort very +much as she did the servant who always accompanied her on long +rides at home, and the ride to the village was a silent one. She +was occupied with thoughts of another world, and Eric was wrestling +with more thoughts than had ever been crowded into his head before. + +He rode with his eyes riveted on that slight figure before him, as +though he wished to absorb it through the optic nerves and hold it +in his brain forever. He understood the situation perfectly. His +brain worked slowly, but he had a keen sense of the values of +things. This girl represented an entirely new species of humanity +to him, but he knew where to place her. The prophets of old, when +an angel first appeared unto them, never doubted its high origin. + +Eric was patient under the adverse conditions of his life, but +he was not servile. The Norse blood in him had not entirely lost +its self-reliance. He came of a proud fisher line, men who were +not afraid of anything but the ice and the devil, and he had +prospects before him when his father went down off the North Cape +in the long Arctic night, and his mother, seized by a violent +horror of seafaring life, had followed her brother to America. +Eric was eighteen then, handsome as young Siegfried, a giant in +stature, with a skin singularly pure and delicate, like a Swede's; +hair as yellow as the locks of Tennyson's amorous Prince, and eyes +of a fierce, burning blue, whose flash was most dangerous to women. + +He had in those days a certain pride of bearing, a certain +confidence of approach, that usually accompanies physical +perfection. It was even said of him then that he was in love with +life, and inclined to levity, a vice most unusual on the Divide. +But the sad history of those Norwegian exiles, transplanted in an +arid soil and under a scorching sun, had repeated itself in his +case. Toil and isolation had sobered him, and he grew more and +more like the clods among which he laboured. It was as though some +red-hot instrument had touched for a moment those delicate +fibers of the brain which respond to acute pain or pleasure, in +which lies the power of exquisite sensation, and had seared them +quite away. It is a painful thing to watch the light die out of +the eyes of those Norsemen, leaving an expression of impenetrable +sadness, quite passive, quite hopeless, a shadow that is never +lifted. With some this change comes almost at once, in the first +bitterness of homesickness, with others it comes more slowly, +according to the time it takes each man's heart to die. + +Oh, those poor Northmen of the Divide! They are dead many a +year before they are put to rest in the little graveyard on the +windy hill where exiles of all nations grow akin. + +The peculiar species of hypochondria to which the exiles of +his people sooner or later succumb had not developed in Eric until +that night at the Lone Star schoolhouse, when he had broken his +violin across his knee. After that, the gloom of his people +settled down upon him, and the gospel of maceration began its work. + +<i>"If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out,"</i> et cetera. The +pagan smile that once hovered about his lips was gone, and he was +one with sorrow. Religion heals a hundred hearts for one that it +embitters, but when it destroys, its work is quick and deadly, and +where the agony of the cross has been, joy will not come again. +This man understood things literally: one must live without +pleasure to die without fear; to save the soul, it was necessary to +starve the soul. + +The sun hung low above the cornfields when Margaret and her +cavalier left St. Anne. South of the town there is a stretch of +road that runs for some three miles through the French settlement, +where the prairie is as level as the surface of a lake. There the +fields of flax and wheat and rye are bordered by precise rows of +slender, tapering Lombard poplars. It was a yellow world that +Margaret Elliot saw under the wide light of the setting sun. + +The girl gathered up her reins and called back to Eric, "It +will be safe to run the horses here, won't it?" + +"Yes, I think so, now," he answered, touching his spur to his +pony's flank. They were off like the wind. It is an old +saying in the West that newcomers always ride a horse or two +to death before they get broken in to the country. They are +tempted by the great open spaces and try to outride the horizon, to +get to the end of something. Margaret galloped over the level +road, and Eric, from behind, saw her long veil fluttering in the +wind. It had fluttered just so in his dreams last night and the +night before. With a sudden inspiration of courage he overtook her +and rode beside her, looking intently at her half-averted face. +Before, he had only stolen occasional glances at it, seen it in +blinding flashes, always with more or less embarrassment, but now +he determined to let every line of it sink into his memory. Men of +the world would have said that it was an unusual face, nervous, +finely cut, with clear, elegant lines that betokened ancestry. Men +of letters would have called it a historic face, and would have +conjectured at what old passions, long asleep, what old sorrows +forgotten time out of mind, doing battle together in ages gone, had +curved those delicate nostrils, left their unconscious memory in +those eyes. But Eric read no meaning in these details. To him +this beauty was something more than colour and line; it was a flash +of white light, in which one cannot distinguish colour because all +colours are there. To him it was a complete revelation, an +embodiment of those dreams of impossible loveliness that linger by +a young man's pillow on midsummer nights; yet, because it held +something more than the attraction of health and youth and +shapeliness, it troubled him, and in its presence he felt as the +Goths before the white marbles in the Roman Capitol, not knowing +whether they were men or gods. At times he felt like uncovering +his head before it, again the fury seized him to break and despoil, +to find the clay in this spirit-thing and stamp upon it. Away from +her, he longed to strike out with his arms, and take and hold; it +maddened him that this woman whom he could break in his hands +should be so much stronger than he. But near her, he never +questioned this strength; he admitted its potentiality as he +admitted the miracles of the Bible; it enervated and conquered him. + +Tonight, when he rode so close to her that he could have touched +her, he knew that he might as well reach out his hand to +take a star. + +Margaret stirred uneasily under his gaze and turned questioningly +in her saddle. + +"This wind puts me a little out of breath when we ride fast," +she said. + +Eric turned his eyes away. + +"I want to ask you if I go to New York to work, if I maybe +hear music like you sang last night? I been a purty good hand to +work," he asked, timidly. + +Margaret looked at him with surprise, and then, as she studied +the outline of his face, pityingly. + +"Well, you might--but you'd lose a good deal else. I shouldn't +like you to go to New York--and be poor, you'd be out of +atmosphere, some way," she said, slowly. Inwardly she was +thinking: <i>There he would be altogether sordid, impossible--a +machine who would carry one's trunks upstairs, perhaps. Here he is +every inch a man, rather picturesque; why is it?</i> "No," she +added aloud, "I shouldn't like that." + +"Then I not go," said Eric, decidedly. + +Margaret turned her face to hide a smile. She was a trifle +amused and a trifle annoyed. Suddenly she spoke again. + +"But I'll tell you what I do want you to do, Eric. I want you +to dance with us tomorrow night and teach me some of the Norwegian +dances; they say you know them all. Won't you?" + +Eric straightened himself in his saddle and his eyes flashed +as they had done in the Lone Star schoolhouse when he broke his +violin across his knee. + +"Yes, I will," he said, quietly, and he believed that he +delivered his soul to hell as he said it. + +They had reached the rougher country now, where the road wound +through a narrow cut in one of the bluffs along the creek, when a +beat of hoofs ahead and the sharp neighing of horses made the +ponies start and Eric rose in his stirrups. Then down the gulch in +front of them and over the steep clay banks thundered a herd of +wild ponies, nimble as monkeys and wild as rabbits, such as horse- +traders drive east from the plains of Montana to sell in the +farming country. Margaret's pony made a shrill sound, a neigh that +was almost a scream, and started up the clay bank to meet them, all +the wild blood of the range breaking out in an instant. Margaret +called to Eric just as he threw himself out of the saddle and +caught her pony's bit. But the wiry little animal had gone mad and +was kicking and biting like a devil. Her wild brothers of the +range were all about her, neighing, and pawing the earth, and +striking her with their forefeet and snapping at her flanks. It +was the old liberty of the range that the little beast fought for. + +"Drop the reins and hold tight, tight!" Eric called, throwing +all his weight upon the bit, struggling under those frantic +forefeet that now beat at his breast, and now kicked at the wild +mustangs that surged and tossed about him. He succeeded in +wrenching the pony's head toward him and crowding her withers +against the clay bank, so that she could not roll. + +"Hold tight, tight!" he shouted again, launching a kick at a +snorting animal that reared back against Margaret's saddle. If she +should lose her courage and fall now, under those hoofs-- He +struck out again and again, kicking right and left with all his +might. Already the negligent drivers had galloped into the cut, +and their long quirts were whistling over the heads of the herd. +As suddenly as it had come, the struggling, frantic wave of wild +life swept up out of the gulch and on across the open prairie, and +with a long despairing whinny of farewell the pony dropped her head +and stood trembling in her sweat, shaking the foam and blood from +her bit. + +Eric stepped close to Margaret's side and laid his hand on her +saddle. "You are not hurt?" he asked, hoarsely. As he raised his +face in the soft starlight she saw that it was white and drawn and +that his lips were working nervously. + +"No, no, not at all. But you, you are suffering; they struck +you!" she cried in sharp alarm. + +He stepped back and drew his hand across his brow. + +"No, it is not that," he spoke rapidly now, with his hands +clenched at his side. "But if they had hurt you, I would beat +their brains out with my hands. I would kill them all. I +was never afraid before. You are the only beautiful thing that +has ever come close to me. You came like an angel out of the sky. +You are like the music you sing, you are like the stars and the +snow on the mountains where I played when I was a little boy. You +are like all that I wanted once and never had, you are all that +they have killed in me. I die for you tonight, tomorrow, for all +eternity. I am not a coward; I was afraid because I love you more +than Christ who died for me, more than I am afraid of hell, or hope +for heaven. I was never afraid before. If you had fallen--oh, my +God!" He threw his arms out blindly and dropped his head upon the +pony's mane, leaning ]imply against the animal like a man struck +by some sickness. His shoulders rose and fell perceptibly with his +laboured breathing. The horse stood cowed with exhaustion and +fear. Presently Margaret laid her hand on Eric's head and said +gently: + +"You are better now, shall we go on? Can you get your horse?" + +"No, he has gone with the herd. I will lead yours, she is not +safe. I will not frighten you again." His voice was still husky, +but it was steady now. He took hold of the bit and tramped home in +silence. + +When they reached the house, Eric stood stolidly by the pony's +head until Wyllis came to lift his sister from the saddle. + +"The horses were badly frightened, Wyllis. I think I was pretty +thoroughly scared myself," she said as she took her brother's arm +and went slowly up the hill toward the house. "No, I'm not hurt, +thanks to Eric. You must thank him for taking such good care of +me. He's a mighty fine fellow. I'll tell you all about it in the +morning, dear. I was pretty well shaken up and I'm going right to +bed now. Good night." + +When she reached the low room in which she slept, she sank +upon the bed in her riding dress, face downward. + +"Oh, I pity him! I pity him!" she murmured, with a long sigh +of exhaustion. She must have slept a little. When she rose again, +she took from her dress a letter that had been waiting for her at +the village post-office. It was closely written in a long, +angular hand, covering a dozen pages of foreign note-paper, and +began: + +My Dearest Margaret: if I should attempt to say <i>how like +a winter hath thine absence been</i>, I should incur the risk of +being tedious. Really, it takes the sparkle out of everything. +Having nothing better to do, and not caring to go anywhere in +particular without you, I remained in the city until Jack Courtwell +noted my general despondency and brought me down here to his place +on the sound to manage some open-air theatricals he is getting up. +<i>As You Like It</i> is of course the piece selected. Miss +Harrison plays Rosalind. I wish you had been here to take the +part. Miss Harrison reads her lines well, but she is either a +maiden-all-forlorn or a tomboy; insists on reading into the part +all sorts of deeper meanings and highly coloured suggestions wholly +out of harmony with the pastoral setting. Like most of the +professionals, she exaggerates the emotional element and quite +fails to do justice to Rosalind's facile wit and really brilliant +mental qualities. Gerard will do Orlando, but rumor says he is +<i>epris</i> of your sometime friend, Miss Meredith, and his memory +is treacherous and his interest fitful. + +My new pictures arrived last week on the <i>Gascogne</i>. The +Puvis de Chavannes is even more beautiful than I thought it in +Paris. A pale dream-maiden sits by a pale dream-cow and a +stream of anemic water flows at her feet. The Constant, you +will remember, I got because you admired it. It is here in +all its florid splendour, the whole dominated by a glowing +sensuosity. The drapery of the female figure is as wonderful +as you said; the fabric all barbaric pearl and gold, painted +with an easy, effortless voluptuousness, and that white, +gleaming line of African coast in the background recalls +memories of you very precious to me. But it is useless to +deny that Constant irritates me. Though I cannot prove the +charge against him, his brilliancy always makes me suspect him +of cheapness. + +Here Margaret stopped and glanced at the remaining pages of +this strange love-letter. They seemed to be filled chiefly with +discussions of pictures and books, and with a slow smile she laid +them by. + +She rose and began undressing. Before she lay down she went +to open the window. With her hand on the sill, she hesitated, +feeling suddenly as though some danger were lurking outside, some +inordinate desire waiting to spring upon her in the darkness. She +stood there for a long time, gazing at the infinite sweep of the +sky. + +"Oh, it is all so little, so little there," she murmured. +"When everything else is so dwarfed, why should one expect love to +be great? Why should one try to read highly coloured suggestions +into a life like that? If only I could find one thing in it all +that mattered greatly, one thing that would warm me when I am +alone! Will life never give me that one great moment?" + +As she raised the window, she heard a sound in the plum bushes +outside. It was only the house-dog roused from his sleep, but +Margaret started violently and trembled so that she caught the foot +of the bed for support. Again she felt herself pursued by some +overwhelming longing, some desperate necessity for herself, like +the outstretching of helpless, unseen arms in the darkness, and the +air seemed heavy with sighs of yearning. She fled to her bed with +the words, "I love you more than Christ who died for me!" ringing +in her ears. + + + III + +About midnight the dance at Lockhart's was at its height. +Even the old men who had come to "look on" caught the spirit of +revelry and stamped the floor with the vigor of old Silenus. Eric +took the violin from the Frenchmen, and Minna Oleson sat at the +organ, and the music grew more and more characteristic--rude, half +mournful music, made up of the folksongs of the North, that the +villagers sing through the long night in hamlets by the sea, when +they are thinking of the sun, and the spring, and the fishermen so +long away. To Margaret some of it sounded like Grieg's <i>Peer +Gynt</i> music. She found something irresistibly infectious in +the mirth of these people who were so seldom merry, and she felt +almost one of them. Something seemed struggling for freedom in +them tonight, something of the joyous childhood of the nations +which exile had not killed. The girls were all boisterous with +delight. Pleasure came to them but rarely, and when it came, they +caught at it wildly and crushed its fluttering wings in their +strong brown fingers. They had a hard life enough, most of them. +Torrid summers and freezing winters, labour and drudgery and +ignorance, were the portion of their girlhood; a short wooing, a +hasty, loveless marriage, unlimited maternity, thankless sons, +premature age and ugliness, were the dower of their womanhood. But +what matter? Tonight there was hot liquor in the glass and hot +blood in the heart; tonight they danced. + +Tonight Eric Hermannson had renewed his youth. He was no +longer the big, silent Norwegian who had sat at Margaret's feet and +looked hopelessly into her eyes. Tonight he was a man, with a +man's rights and a man's power. Tonight he was Siegfried indeed. +His hair was yellow as the heavy wheat in the ripe of summer, and +his eyes flashed like the blue water between the ice packs in the +north seas. He was not afraid of Margaret tonight, and when he +danced with her he held her firmly. She was tired and dragged on +his arm a little, but the strength of the man was like an all- +pervading fluid, stealing through her veins, awakening under her +heart some nameless, unsuspected existence that had slumbered there +all these years and that went out through her throbbing fingertips +to his that answered. She wondered if the hoydenish blood of some +lawless ancestor, long asleep, were calling out in her tonight, +some drop of a hotter fluid that the centuries had failed to cool, +and why, if this curse were in her, it had not spoken before. But +was it a curse, this awakening, this wealth before undiscovered, +this music set free? For the first time in her life her heart held +something stronger than herself, was not this worthwhile? Then she +ceased to wonder. She lost sight of the lights and the faces and +the music was drowned by the beating of her own arteries. She saw +only the blue eyes that flashed above her, felt only the +warmth of that throbbing hand which held hers and which the blood +of his heart fed. Dimly, as in a dream, she saw the drooping +shoulders, high white forehead and tight, cynical mouth of the man +she was to marry in December. For an hour she had been crowding +back the memory of that face with all her strength. + +"Let us stop, this is enough," she whispered. His only answer +was to tighten the arm behind her. She sighed and let that +masterful strength bear her where it would. She forgot that this +man was little more than a savage, that they would part at dawn. +The blood has no memories, no reflections, no regrets for the past, +no consideration of the future. + +"Let us go out where it is cooler," she said when the music +stopped; thinking, <i>I am growing faint here, I shall be all +right in the open air</i>. They stepped out into the cool, blue +air of the night. + +Since the older folk had begun dancing, the young Norwegians +had been slipping out in couples to climb the windmill tower into +the cooler atmosphere, as is their custom. + +"You like to go up?" asked Eric, close to her ear. + +She turned and looked at him with suppressed amusement. "How +high is it?" + +"Forty feet, about. I not let you fall." There was a note of +irresistible pleading in his voice, and she felt that he +tremendously wished her to go. Well, why not? This was a night of +the unusual, when she was not herself at all, but was living an +unreality. Tomorrow, yes, in a few hours, there would be the +Vestibule Limited and the world. + +"Well, if you'll take good care of me. I used to be able to +climb, when I was a little girl." + +Once at the top and seated on the platform, they were silent. +Margaret wondered if she would not hunger for that scene all her +life, through all the routine of the days to come. Above them +stretched the great Western sky, serenely blue, even in the night, +with its big, burning stars, never so cold and dead and far away as +in denser atmospheres. The moon would not be up for twenty minutes +yet, and all about the horizon, that wide horizon, which +seemed to reach around the world, lingered a pale white light, as +of a universal dawn. The weary wind brought up to them the heavy +odours of the cornfields. The music of the dance sounded faintly +from below. Eric leaned on his elbow beside her, his legs swinging +down on the ladder. His great shoulders looked more than ever like +those of the stone Doryphorus, who stands in his perfect, reposeful +strength in the Louvre, and had often made her wonder if such men +died forever with the youth of Greece. + +"How sweet the corn smells at night," said Margaret nervously. + +"Yes, like the flowers that grow in paradise, I think." + +She was somewhat startled by this reply, and more startled +when this taciturn man spoke again. + +"You go away tomorrow?" + +"Yes, we have stayed longer than we thought to now." + +"You not come back any more?" + +"No, I expect not. You see, it is a long trip halfway across +the continent." + +"You soon forget about this country, I guess." It seemed to +him now a little thing to lose his soul for this woman, but that +she should utterly forget this night into which he threw all his +life and all his eternity, that was a bitter thought. + +"No, Eric, I will not forget. You have all been too kind to +me for that. And you won't be sorry you danced this one night, +will you?" + +"I never be sorry. I have not been so happy before. I not be +so happy again, ever. You will be happy many nights yet, I only +this one. I will dream sometimes, maybe." + +The mighty resignation of his tone alarmed and touched her. +It was as when some great animal composes itself for death, as when +a great ship goes down at sea. + +She sighed, but did not answer him. He drew a little closer +and looked into her eyes. + +"You are not always happy, too?" he asked. + +"No, not always, Eric; not very often, I think." + +"You have a trouble?" + +"Yes, but I cannot put it into words. Perhaps if I could do +that, I could cure it." + +He clasped his hands together over his heart, as children do when +they pray, and said falteringly, "If I own all the world, I give +him you." + +Margaret felt a sudden moisture in her eyes, and laid her hand +on his. + +"Thank you, Eric; I believe you would. But perhaps even then +I should not be happy. Perhaps I have too much of it already." + +She did not take her hand away from him; she did not dare. +She sat still and waited for the traditions in which she had always +believed to speak and save her. But they were dumb. She belonged +to an ultra-refined civilization which tries to cheat nature with +elegant sophistries. Cheat nature? Bah! One generation may do +it, perhaps two, but the third-- Can we ever rise above nature or +sink below her? Did she not turn on Jerusalem as upon Sodom, upon +St. Anthony in his desert as upon Nero in his seraglio? Does she +not always cry in brutal triumph: "I am here still, at the bottom +of things, warming the roots of life; you cannot starve me nor tame +me nor thwart me; I made the world, I rule it, and I am its +destiny." + +This woman, on a windmill tower at the world's end with a +giant barbarian, heard that cry tonight, and she was afraid! Ah! +the terror and the delight of that moment when first we fear +ourselves! Until then we have not lived. + +"Come, Eric, let us go down; the moon is up and the music has +begun again," she said. + +He rose silently and stepped down upon the ladder, putting his +arm about her to help her. That arm could have thrown Thor's +hammer out in the cornfields yonder, yet it scarcely touched her, +and his hand trembled as it had done in the dance. His face was +level with hers now and the moonlight fell sharply upon it. All +her life she had searched the faces of men for the look that lay in +his eyes. She knew that that look had never shone for her before, +would never shine for her on earth again, that such love comes to +one only in dreams or in impossible places like this, unattainable +always. This was Love's self, in a moment it would die. Stung by +the agonized appeal that emanated from the man's whole being, she +leaned forward and laid her lips on his. Once, twice and again she +heard the deep respirations rattle in his throat while she held +them there, and the riotous force under her head became an +engulfing weakness. He drew her up to him until he felt all the +resistance go out of her body, until every nerve relaxed and +yielded. When she drew her face back from +his, it was white with fear. + +"Let us go down, oh, my God! let us go down!" she muttered. +And the drunken stars up yonder seemed reeling to some appointed +doom as she clung to the rounds of the ladder. All that she was to +know of love she had left upon his lips. + +"The devil is loose again," whispered Olaf Oleson, as he saw Eric +dancing a moment later, his eyes blazing. + +But Eric was thinking with an almost savage exultation of the +time when he should pay for this. Ah, there would be no quailing +then! if ever a soul went fearlessly, proudly down to the gates +infernal, his should go. For a moment he fancied he was there +already, treading down the tempest of flame, hugging the fiery +hurricane to his breast. He wondered whether in ages gone, all the +countless years of sinning in which men had sold and lost and flung +their souls away, any man had ever so cheated Satan, had ever +bartered his soul for so great a price. + +It seemed but a little while till dawn. + +The carriage was brought to the door and Wyllis Elliot and his +sister said goodbye. She could not meet Eric's eyes as she gave +him her hand, but as he stood by the horse's head, just as the +carriage moved off, she gave him one swift glance that said, "I +will not forget." In a moment the carriage was gone. + +Eric changed his coat and plunged his head into the water tank +and went to the barn to hook up his team. As he led his horses to +the door, a shadow fell across his path, and he saw Skinner rising +in his stirrups. His rugged face was pale and worn with looking +after his wayward flock, with dragging men into the way of +salvation. + +"Good morning, Eric. There was a dance here last night?" he +asked, sternly. + +"A dance? Oh, yes, a dance," replied Eric, cheerfully. + +"Certainly you did not dance, Eric?" + +"Yes, I danced. I danced all the time." + +The minister's shoulders drooped, and an expression of profound +discouragement settled over his haggard face. There was almost +anguish in the yearning he felt for this soul. + +"Eric, I didn't look for this from you. I thought God had set +his mark on you if he ever had on any man. And it is for things +like this that you set your soul back a thousand years from God. 0 +foolish and perverse generation!" + +Eric drew himself up to his full height and looked off to +where the new day was gilding the corn-tassels and flooding the +uplands with light. As his nostrils drew in the breath of the dew +and the morning, something from the only poetry he had ever read +flashed across his mind, and he murmured, half to himself, with +dreamy exultation: + +"'And a day shall be as a thousand years, and a thousand years +as a day.'" + + + + +The Enchanted Bluff + +We had our swim before sundown, and while we were cooking our +supper the oblique rays of light made a dazzling glare on the white +sand about us. The translucent red ball itself sank behind the +brown stretches of cornfield as we sat down to eat, and the warm +layer of air that had rested over the water and our clean sand bar +grew fresher and smelled of the rank ironweed and sunflowers +growing on the flatter shore. The river was brown and sluggish, +like any other of the half-dozen streams that water the Nebraska +corn lands. On one shore was an irregular line of bald clay bluffs +where a few scrub oaks with thick trunks and flat, twisted tops +threw light shadows on the long grass. The western shore was low +and level, with cornfields that stretched to the skyline, and all +along the water's edge were little sandy coves and beaches where +slim cottonwoods and willow saplings flickered. + +The turbulence of the river in springtime discouraged milling, +and, beyond keeping the old red bridge in repair, the busy farmers +did not concern themselves with the stream; so the Sandtown boys +were left in undisputed possession. In the autumn we hunted quail +through the miles of stubble and fodder land along the flat shore, +and, after the winter skating season was over and the ice had gone +out, the spring freshets and flooded bottoms gave us our great +excitement of the year. The channel was never the same for two +successive seasons. Every spring the swollen stream undermined a +bluff to the east, or bit out a few acres of cornfield to the west +and whirled the soil away, to deposit it in spumy mud banks +somewhere else. When the water fell low in midsummer, new sand +bars were thus exposed to dry and whiten in the August sun. +Sometimes these were banked so firmly that the fury of the next +freshet failed to unseat them; the little willow seedlings emerged +triumphantly from the yellow froth, broke into spring leaf, shot up +into summer growth, and with their mesh of roots bound together the +moist sand beneath them against the batterings of another April. +Here and there a cottonwood soon glittered among them, quivering in +the low current of air that, even on breathless days when the dust +hung like smoke above the wagon road, trembled along the face of +the water. + +It was on such an island, in the third summer of its yellow +green, that we built our watch fire; not in the thicket of dancing +willow wands, but on the level terrace of fine sand which had been +added that spring; a little new bit of world, beautifully ridged +with ripple marks, and strewn with the tiny skeletons of turtles +and fish, all as white and dry as if they had been expertly cured. +We had been careful not to mar the freshness of the place, although +we often swam to it on summer evenings and lay on the sand to rest. + +This was our last watch fire of the year, and there were +reasons why I should remember it better than any of the others. +Next week the other boys were to file back to their old places in +the Sandtown High School, but I was to go up to the Divide to teach +my first country school in the Norwegian district. I was already +homesick at the thought of quitting the boys with whom I had always +played; of leaving the river, and going up into a windy plain that +was all windmills and cornfields and big pastures; where there was +nothing wilful or unmanageable in the landscape, no new islands, +and no chance of unfamiliar birds--such as often followed the +watercourses. + +Other boys came and went and used the river for fishing or +skating, but we six were sworn to the spirit of the stream, and we +were friends mainly because of the river. There were the two +Hassler boys, Fritz and Otto, sons of the little German tailor. +They were the youngest of us; ragged boys of ten and twelve, with +sunburned hair, weather-stained faces, and pale blue eyes. Otto, +the elder, was the best mathematician in school, and clever +at his books, but he always dropped out in the spring term as if +the river could not get on without him. He and Fritz caught the +fat, horned catfish and sold them about the town, and they lived +so much in the water that they were as brown and sandy as the river +itself. + +There was Percy Pound, a fat, freckled boy with chubby cheeks, +who took half a dozen boys' story-papers and was always being kept +in for reading detective stories behind his desk. There was Tip +Smith, destined by his freckles and red hair to be the buffoon in +all our games, though he walked like a timid little old man and had +a funny, cracked laugh. Tip worked hard in his father's grocery +store every afternoon, and swept it out before school in the +morning. Even his recreations were laborious. He collected +cigarette cards and tin tobacco-tags indefatigably, and would sit +for hours humped up over a snarling little scroll-saw which he kept +in his attic. His dearest possessions were some little pill +bottles that purported to contain grains of wheat from the Holy +Land, water from the Jordan and the Dead Sea, and earth from the +Mount of Olives. His father had bought these dull things from a +Baptist missionary who peddled them, and Tip seemed to derive great +satisfaction from their remote origin. + +The tall boy was Arthur Adams. He had fine hazel eves that +were almost too reflective and sympathetic for a boy, and such a +pleasant voice that we all loved to hear him read aloud. Even when +he had to read poetry aloud at school, no one ever thought of +laughing. To be sure, he was not at school very much of the time. +He was seventeen and should have finished the High School the year +before, but he was always off somewhere with his gun. Arthur's +mother was dead, and his father, who was feverishly absorbed in +promoting schemes, wanted to send the boy away to school and get +him off his hands; but Arthur always begged off for another year +and promised to study. I remember him as a tall, brown boy with an +intelligent face, always lounging among a lot of us little fellows, +laughing at us oftener than with us, but such a soft, satisfied +laugh that we felt rather flattered when we provoked it. In +after-years people said that Arthur had been given to evil ways +as a ]ad, and it is true that we often saw him with the gambler's +sons and with old Spanish Fanny's boy, but if he learned anything +ugly in their company he never betrayed it to us. We would have +followed Arthur anywhere, and I am bound to say that he led us into +no worse places than the cattail marshes and the stubble fields. +These, then, were the boys who camped with me that summer night +upon the sand bar. + +After we finished our supper we beat the willow thicket for +driftwood. By the time we had collected enough, night had fallen, +and the pungent, weedy smell from the shore increased with the +coolness. We threw ourselves down about the fire and made another +futile effort to show Percy Pound the Little Dipper. We had tried +it often before, but he could never be got past the big one. + +"You see those three big stars just below the handle, with the +bright one in the middle?" said Otto Hassler; "that's Orion's belt, +and the bright one is the clasp." I crawled behind Otto's shoulder +and sighted up his arm to the star that seemed perched upon the tip +of his steady forefinger. The Hassler boys did seine-fishing at +night, and they knew a good many stars. + +Percy gave up the Little Dipper and lay back on the sand, his +hands clasped under his head. "I can see the North Star," he +announced, contentedly, pointing toward it with his big toe. +"Anyone might get lost and need to know that." + +We all looked up at it. + +"How do you suppose Columbus felt when his compass didn't +point north any more?" Tip asked. + +Otto shook his head. "My father says that there was another +North Star once, and that maybe this one won't last always. I +wonder what would happen to us down here if anything went wrong +with it?" + +Arthur chuckled. "I wouldn't worry, Ott. Nothing's apt to +happen to it in your time. Look at the Milky Way! There must be +lots of good dead Indians." + +We lay back and looked, meditating, at the dark cover of the +world. The gurgle of the water had become heavier. We had often +noticed a mutinous, complaining note in it at night, quite +different from its cheerful daytime chuckle, and seeming like the +voice of a much deeper and more powerful stream. Our water had +always these two moods: the one of sunny complaisance, the other of +inconsolable, passionate regret. + +"Queer how the stars are all in sort of diagrams," remarked +Otto. "You could do most any proposition in geometry with 'em. +They always look as if they meant something. Some folks say +everybody's fortune is all written out in the stars, don't they?" + +"They believe so in the old country," Fritz affirmed. + +But Arthur only laughed at him. "You're thinking of Napoleon, +Fritzey. He had a star that went out when he began to lose +battles. I guess the stars don't keep any close tally on Sandtown +folks." + +We were speculating on how many times we could count a hundred +before the evening star went down behind the cornfields, when +someone cried, "There comes the moon, and it's as big as a cart +wheel!" + +We all jumped up to greet it as it swam over the bluffs behind +us. It came up like a galleon in full sail; an enormous, barbaric +thing, red as an angry heathen god. + +"When the moon came up red like that, the Aztecs used to +sacrifice their prisoners on the temple top," Percy announced. + +"Go on, Perce. You got that out of <i>Golden Days</i>. Do you +believe that, Arthur?" I appealed. + +Arthur answered, quite seriously: "Like as not. The moon was +one of their gods. When my father was in Mexico City he saw the +stone where they used to sacrifice their prisoners." + +As we dropped down by the fire again some one asked whether +the Mound-Builders were older than the Aztecs. When we once got +upon the Mound-Builders we never willingly got away from them, and +we were still conjecturing when we heard a loud splash in the +water. + +"Must have been a big cat jumping," said Fritz. "They do +sometimes. They must see bugs in the dark. Look what a track the +moon makes!" + +There was a long, silvery streak on the water, and where the +current fretted over a big log it boiled up like gold pieces. + +"Suppose there ever <i>was</i> any gold hid away in this old +river?" Fritz asked. He lay like a little brown Indian, close to +the fire, his chin on his hand and his bare feet in the air. His +brother laughed at him, but Arthur took his suggestion seriously. + +"Some of the Spaniards thought there was gold up here somewhere. +Seven cities chuck full of gold, they had it, and Coronado and his +men came up to hunt it. The Spaniards were all over this country +once." + +Percy looked interested. "Was that before the Mormons went +through?" + +We all laughed at this. + +"Long enough before. Before the Pilgrim Fathers, Perce. Maybe +they came along this very river. They always followed the +watercourses." + +"I wonder where this river really does begin?" Tip mused. +That was an old and a favorite mystery which the map did not +clearly explain. On the map the little black line stopped +somewhere in western Kansas; but since rivers generally rose in +mountains, it was only reasonable to suppose that ours came from +the Rockies. Its destination, we knew, was the Missouri, and the +Hassler boys always maintained that we could embark at Sandtown in +floodtime, follow our noses, and eventually arrive at New Orleans. +Now they took up their old argument. "If us boys had grit enough +to try it, it wouldn't take no time to get to Kansas City and St. +Joe." + +We began to talk about the places we wanted to go to. The +Hassler boys wanted to see the stockyards in Kansas City, and Percy +wanted to see a big store in Chicago. Arthur was interlocutor and +did not betray himself. + +"Now it's your turn, Tip." + +Tip rolled over on his elbow and poked the fire, and his eyes +looked shyly out of his queer, tight little face. "My place is +awful far away. My Uncle Bill told me about it." + +Tip's Uncle Bill was a wanderer, bitten with mining fever, who +had drifted into Sandtown with a broken arm, and when it was well +had drifted out again. + +"Where is it?" + +"Aw, it's down in New Mexico somewheres. There aren't no +railroads or anything. You have to go on mules, and you run out of +water before you get there and have to drink canned tomatoes." + +"Well, go on, kid. What's it like when you do get there?" + +Tip sat up and excitedly began his story. + +"There's a big red rock there that goes right up out of the +sand for about nine hundred feet. The country's flat all around +it, and this here rock goes up all by itself, like a monument. +They call it the Enchanted Bluff down there, because no white man +has ever been on top of it. The sides are smooth rock, and +straight up, like a wall. The Indians say that hundreds of years +ago, before the Spaniards came, there was a village away up there +in the air. The tribe that lived there had some sort of steps, +made out of wood and bark, bung down over the face of the bluff, +and the braves went down to hunt and carried water up in big jars +swung on their backs. They kept a big supply of water and dried +meat up there, and never went down except to hunt. They were a +peaceful tribe that made cloth and pottery, and they went up there +to get out of the wars. You see, they could pick off any war party +that tried to get up their little steps. The Indians say they were +a handsome people, and they had some sort of queer religion. Uncle +Bill thinks they were Cliff-Dwellers who had got into trouble and +left home. They weren't fighters, anyhow. + +"One time the braves were down hunting and an awful storm came +up--a kind of waterspout--and when they got back to their rock they +found their little staircase had been all broken to pieces, and +only a few steps were left hanging away up in the air. While they +were camped at the foot of the rock, wondering what to do, a +war party from the north came along and massacred 'em to a man, +with all the old folks and women looking on from the rock. Then +the war party went on south and left the village to get down the +best way they could. Of course they never got down. They starved +to death up there, and when the war party came back on their way +north, they could hear the children crying from the edge of the +bluff where they had crawled out, but they didn't see a sign of a +grown Indian, and nobody has ever been up there since." + +We exclaimed at this dolorous legend and sat up. + +"There couldn't have been many people up there," Percy demurred. +"How big is the top, Tip?" + +"Oh, pretty big. Big enough so that the rock doesn't look +nearly as tall as it is. The top's bigger than the base. The +bluff is sort of worn away for several hundred feet up. That's one +reason it's so hard to climb." + +I asked how the Indians got up, in the first place. + +"Nobody knows how they got up or when. A hunting party came +along once and saw that there was a town up there, and that was +all." + +Otto rubbed his chin and looked thoughtful. "Of course there +must be some way to get up there. Couldn't people get a rope over +someway and pull a ladder up?" + +Tip's little eyes were shining with excitement. "I know a +way. Me and Uncle Bill talked it over. There's a kind of rocket +that would take a rope over--lifesavers use 'em--and then you could +hoist a rope ladder and peg it down at the bottom and make it tight +with guy ropes on the other side. I'm going to climb that there +bluff, and I've got it all planned out." + +Fritz asked what he expected to find when he got up there. + +"Bones, maybe, or the ruins of their town, or pottery, or some +of their idols. There might be 'most anything up there. Anyhow, +I want to see." + +"Sure nobody else has been up there, Tip?" Arthur asked. + +"Dead sure. Hardly anybody ever goes down there. Some hunters +tried to cut steps in the rock once, but they didn't get higher +than a man can reach. The Bluff's all red granite, and Uncle Bill +thinks it's a boulder the glaciers left. It's a queer place, +anyhow. Nothing but cactus and desert for hundreds of miles, and +yet right under the Bluff there's good water and plenty of grass. +That's why the bison used to go down there." + +Suddenly we heard a scream above our fire, and jumped up to +see a dark, slim bird floating southward far above us--a whooping +crane, we knew by her cry and her long neck. We ran to the edge of +the island, hoping we might see her alight, but she wavered +southward along the rivercourse until we lost her. The Hassler +boys declared that by the look of the heavens it must be after +midnight, so we threw more wood on our fire, put on our jackets, +and curled down in the warm sand. Several of us pretended to doze, +but I fancy we were really thinking about Tip's Bluff and the +extinct people. Over in the wood the ring doves were calling +mournfully to one another, and once we heard a dog bark, far away. +"Somebody getting into old Tommy's melon patch," Fritz murmured +sleepily, but nobody answered him. By and by Percy spoke out of +the shadows. + +"Say, Tip, when you go down there will you take me with you?" + +"Maybe." + +"Suppose one of us beats you down there, Tip?" + +"Whoever gets to the Bluff first has got to promise to tell +the rest of us exactly what he finds," remarked one of the Hassler +boys, and to this we all readily assented. + +Somewhat reassured, I dropped off to sleep. I must have +dreamed about a race for the Bluff, for I awoke in a kind of fear +that other people were getting ahead of me and that I was losing my +chance. I sat up in my damp clothes and looked at the other boys, +who lay tumbled in uneasy attitudes about the dead fire. It was +still dark, but the sky was blue with the last wonderful azure of +night. The stars glistened like crystal globes, and trembled as if +they shone through a depth of clear water. Even as I watched, they +began to pale and the sky brightened. Day came suddenly, almost +instantaneously. I turned for another look at the blue +night, and it was gone. Everywhere the birds began to call, and +all manner of little insects began to chirp and hop about in the +willows. A breeze sprang up from the west and brought the heavy +smell of ripened corn. The boys rolled over and shook themselves. +We stripped and plunged into the river just as the sun came up over +the windy bluffs. + +When I came home to Sandtown at Christmas time, we skated out +to our island and talked over the whole project of the Enchanted +Bluff, renewing our resolution to find it. + + +Although that was twenty years ago, none of us have ever +climbed the Enchanted Bluff. Percy Pound is a stockbroker in +Kansas City and will go nowhere that his red touring car cannot +carry him. Otto Hassler went on the railroad and lost his foot +braking; after which he and Fritz succeeded their father as the +town tailors. + +Arthur sat about the sleepy little town all his life--he died +before he was twenty-five. The last time I saw him, when I was +home on one of my college vacations, he was sitting in a steamer +chair under a cottonwood tree in the little yard behind one of the +two Sandtown saloons. He was very untidy and his hand was not +steady, but when he rose, unabashed, to greet me, his eyes were as +clear and warm as ever. When I had talked with him for an hour and +heard him laugh again, I wondered how it was that when Nature had +taken such pains with a man, from his hands to the arch of his long +foot, she had ever lost him in Sandtown. He joked about Tip +Smith's Bluff, and declared he was going down there just as soon as +the weather got cooler; he thought the Grand Canyon might be worth +while, too. + +I was perfectly sure when I left him that he would never get +beyond the high plank fence and the comfortable shade of the +cottonwood. And, indeed, it was under that very tree that he died +one summer morning. + +Tip Smith still talks about going to New Mexico. He married +a slatternly, unthrifty country girl, has been much tied to a +perambulator, and has grown stooped and grey from irregular +meals and broken sleep. But the worst of his difficulties are now +over, and he has, as he says, come into easy water. When I was +last in Sandtown I walked home with him late one moonlight night, +after he had balanced his cash and shut up his store. We took the +long way around and sat down on the schoolhouse steps, and between +us we quite revived the romance of the lone red rock and the +extinct people. Tip insists that he still means to go down there, +but he thinks now he will wait until his boy Bert is old enough to +go with him. Bert has been let into the story, and thinks of +nothing but the Enchanted Bluff. + + + + + + +The Bohemian Girl + +The transcontinental express swung along the windings of the +Sand River Valley, and in the rear seat of the observation car a +young man sat greatly at his ease, not in the least discomfited by +the fierce sunlight which beat in upon his brown face and neck and +strong back. There was a look of relaxation and of great passivity +about his broad shoulders, which seemed almost too heavy until he +stood up and squared them. He wore a pale flannel shirt and a blue +silk necktie with loose ends. His trousers were wide and belted at +the waist, and his short sack coat hung open. His heavy shoes had +seen good service. His reddish-brown hair, like his clothes, had +a foreign cut. He had deep-set, dark blue eyes under heavy reddish +eyebrows. His face was kept clean only by close shaving, and even +the sharpest razor left a glint of yellow in the smooth brown of +his skin. His teeth and the palms of his hands were very white. +His head, which looked hard and stubborn, lay indolently in the +green cushion of the wicker chair, and as he looked out at the ripe +summer country a teasing, not unkindly smile played over his lips. +Once, as he basked thus comfortably, a quick light flashed in his +eves, curiously dilating the pupils, and his mouth became a hard, +straight line, gradually relaxing into its former smile of rather +kindly mockery. He told himself, apparently, that there was no +point in getting excited; and he seemed a master hand at taking his +ease when he could. Neither the sharp whistle of the locomotive +nor the brakeman's call disturbed him. It was not until after the +train had stopped that he rose, put on a Panama hat, took from the +rack a small valise and a flute case, and stepped deliberately to +the station platform. The baggage was already unloaded, and the +stranger presented a check for a battered sole-leather steamer +trunk. + +"Can you keep it here for a day or two?" he asked the agent. "I +may send for it, and I may not." + +"Depends on whether you like the country, I suppose?" demanded +the agent in a challenging tone. + +"Just so." + +The agent shrugged his shoulders, looked scornfully at the +small trunk, which was marked "N.E.," and handed out a claim check +without further comment. The stranger watched him as he caught one +end of the trunk and dragged it into the express room. The agent's +manner seemed to remind him of something amusing. "Doesn't seem to +be a very big place," he remarked, looking about. + +"It's big enough for us," snapped the agent, as he banged the +trunk into a corner. + +That remark, apparently, was what Nils Ericson had wanted. He +chuckled quietly as he took a leather strap from his pocket and +swung his valise around his shoulder. Then he settled his Panama +securely on his head, turned up his trousers, tucked the flute case +under his arm, and started off across the fields. He gave the +town, as he would have said, a wide berth, and cut through a great +fenced pasture, emerging, when he rolled under the barbed wire at +the farther corner, upon a white dusty road which ran straight up +from the river valley to the high prairies, where the ripe wheat +stood yellow and the tin roofs and weathercocks were twinkling in +the fierce sunlight. By the time Nils had done three miles, the +sun was sinking and the farm wagons on their way home from town +came rattling by, covering him with dust and making him sneeze. +When one of the farmers pulled up and offered to give him a lift, +he clambered in willingly. The driver was a thin, grizzled old man +with a long lean neck and a foolish sort of beard, like a goat's. +"How fur ye goin'?" he asked, as he clucked to his horses and +started off. + +"Do you go by the Ericson place?" + +"Which Ericson?" The old man drew in his reins as if he expected +to stop again. + +"Preacher Ericson's." + +"Oh, the Old Lady Ericson's!" He turned and looked at Nils. +"La, me! If you're goin' out there you might a' rid out in the +automobile. That's a pity, now. The Old Lady Ericson was in town +with her auto. You might 'a' heard it snortin' anywhere about the +post-office er the butcher shop." + +"Has she a motor?" asked the stranger absently. + +"'Deed an' she has! She runs into town every night about this +time for her mail and meat for supper. Some folks say she's afraid +her auto won't get exercise enough, but I say that's jealousy." + +"Aren't there any other motors about here?" + +"Oh, yes! we have fourteen in all. But nobody else gets +around like the Old Lady Ericson. She's out, rain er shine, over +the whole county, chargin' into town and out amongst her farms, an' +up to her sons' places. Sure you ain't goin' to the wrong place?" +He craned his neck and looked at Nils' flute case with eager +curiosity. "The old woman ain't got any piany that I knows on. +Olaf, he has a grand. His wife's musical: took lessons in +Chicago." + +"I'm going up there tomorrow," said Nils imperturbably. He +saw that the driver took him for a piano tuner. + +"Oh, I see!" The old man screwed up his eyes mysteriously. He +was a little dashed by the stranger's noncommunicativeness, but he +soon broke out again. + +"I'm one o' Miss Ericson's tenants. Look after one of her +places. I did own the place myself once, but I lost it a while +back, in the bad years just after the World's Fair. Just as well, +too, I say. Lets you out o' payin' taxes. The Ericsons do own +most of the county now. I remember the old preacher's favorite +text used to be, 'To them that hath shall be given.' They've spread +something wonderful--run over this here country like bindweed. But +I ain't one that begretches it to 'em. Folks is entitled to what +they kin git; and they're hustlers. Olaf, he's in the Legislature +now, and a likely man fur Congress. Listen, if that ain't the old +woman comin' now. Want I should stop her?" + +Nils shook his head. He heard the deep chug-chug of a motor +vibrating steadily in the clear twilight behind them. The pale +lights of the car swam over the hill, and the old man slapped his +reins and turned clear out of the road, ducking his head at +the first of three angry snorts from behind. The motor was running +at a hot, even speed, and passed without turning an inch from its +course. The driver was a stalwart woman who sat at ease in the +front seat and drove her car bareheaded. She left a cloud of dust +and a trail of gasoline behind her. Her tenant threw back his head +and sneezed. + +"Whew! I sometimes say I'd as lief be <i>before</i> Mrs. Ericson +as behind her. She does beat all! Nearly seventy, and never lets +another soul touch that car. Puts it into commission herself +every morning, and keeps it tuned up by the hitch-bar all day. I +never stop work for a drink o' water that I don't hear her a- +churnin' up the road. I reckon her darter-in-laws never sets +down easy nowadays. Never know when she'll pop in. Mis' Otto, +she says to me: 'We're so afraid that thing'll blow up and do Ma +some injury yet, she's so turrible venturesome.' Says I: 'I +wouldn't stew, Mis' Otto; the old lady'll drive that car to the +funeral of every darter-in-law she's got.' That was after the old +woman had jumped a turrible bad culvert." + +The stranger heard vaguely what the old man was saying. +Just now he was experiencing something very much like +homesickness, and he was wondering what had brought it about. +The mention of a name or two, perhaps; the rattle of a wagon +along a dusty road; the rank, resinous smell of sunflowers and +ironweed, which the night damp brought up from the draws and low +places; perhaps, more than all, the dancing lights of the motor +that had plunged by. He squared his shoulders with a comfortable +sense of strength. + +The wagon, as it jolted westward, climbed a pretty steady +up-grade. The country, receding from the rough river valley, +swelled more and more gently, as if it had been smoothed out by +the wind. On one of the last of the rugged ridges, at the end of +a branch road, stood a grim square house with a tin roof and +double porches. Behind the house stretched a row of broken, +wind-racked poplars, and down the hill slope to the left +straggled the sheds and stables. The old man stopped his horses +where the Ericsons' road branched across a dry sand creek that +wound about the foot of the hill. + +"That's the old lady's place. Want I should drive in?" "No, +thank you. I'll roll out here. Much obliged to you. Good +night." + +His passenger stepped down over the front wheel, and the old +man drove on reluctantly, looking back as if he would like to see +how the stranger would be received. + +As Nils was crossing the dry creek he heard the restive +tramp of a horse coming toward him down the hill. Instantly he +flashed out of the road and stood behind a thicket of wild plum +bushes that grew in the sandy bed. Peering through the dusk, be +saw a light horse, under tight rein, descending the hill at a +sharp walk. The rider was a slender woman--barely visible +against the dark hillside--wearing an old-fashioned derby hat and +a long riding skirt. She sat lightly in the saddle, with her +chin high, and seemed to be looking into the distance. As she +passed the plum thicket her horse snuffed the air and shied. She +struck him, pulling him in sharply, with an angry exclamation, +<i>"Blazne!"</i> in Bohemian. Once in the main road, she let him +out into a lope, and they soon emerged upon the crest of high land, +where they moved along the skyline, silhouetted against the band +of faint colour that lingered in the west. This horse and rider, +with their free, rhythmical gallop, were the only moving things +to be seen on the face of the flat country. They seemed, in the +last sad light of evening, not to be there accidentally, but as +an inevitable detail of the landscape. + +Nils watched them until they had shrunk to a mere moving +speck against the sky, then he crossed the sand creek and climbed +the hill. When he reached the gate the front of the house was +dark, but a light was shining from the side windows. The pigs +were squealing in the hog corral, and Nils could see a tall boy, +who carried two big wooden buckets, moving about among them. +Halfway between the barn and the house, the windmill wheezed +lazily. Following the path that ran around to the back porch, +Nils stopped to look through the screen door into the lamplit +kitchen. The kitchen was the largest room in the house; Nils +remembered that his older brothers used to give dances there when +he was a boy. Beside the stove stood a little girl with two +light yellow braids and a broad, flushed face, peering +anxiously into a frying pan. In the dining-room beyond, a large, +broad-shouldered woman was moving about the table. She walked +with an active, springy step. Her face was heavy and florid, +almost without wrinkles, and her hair was black at seventy. Nils +felt proud of her as he watched her deliberate activity; never a +momentary hesitation, or a movement that did not tell. He waited +until she came out into the kitchen and, brushing the child aside, +took her place at the stove. Then he tapped on the screen door +and entered. + +"It's nobody but Nils, Mother. I expect you weren't looking +for me." + +Mrs. Ericson turned away from the stove and stood staring at +him. "Bring the lamp, Hilda, and let me look." + +Nils laughed and unslung his valise. "What's the matter, +Mother? Don't you know me?" + +Mrs. Ericson put down the lamp. "You must be Nils. You +don't look very different, anyway." + +"Nor you, Mother. You hold your own. Don't you wear +glasses yet?" + +"Only to read by. Where's your trunk, Nils?" + +"Oh, I left that in town. I thought it might not be +convenient for you to have company so near threshing-time." + +"Don't be foolish, Nils." Mrs. Ericson turned back to the +stove. "I don't thresh now. I hitched the wheat land onto the +next farm and have a tenant. Hilda, take some hot water up to +the company room, and go call little Eric." + +The tow-haired child, who had been standing in mute +amazement, took up the tea-kettle and withdrew, giving Nils a +long, admiring look from the door of the kitchen stairs. + +"Who's the youngster?" Nils asked, dropping down on the +bench behind the kitchen stove. + +"One of your Cousin Henrik's." + +"How long has Cousin Henrik been dead?" + +"Six years. There are two boys. One stays with Peter and +one with Anders. Olaf is their guardeen." + +There was a clatter of pails on the porch, and a tall, lanky +boy peered wonderingly in through the screen door. He had a +fair, gentle face and big grey eyes, and wisps of soft yellow +hair hung down under his cap. Nils sprang up and pulled +him into the kitchen, hugging him and slapping him on the +shoulders. "Well, if it isn't my kid! Look at the size of him! +Don't you know me, Eric?" + +The boy reddened tinder his sunburn and freckles, and hung his +head. "I guess it's Nils," he said shyly. + +"You're a good guesser," laughed Nils giving the lad's hand a +swing. To himself he was thinking: "That's why the little girl +looked so friendly. He's taught her to like me. He was only six +when I went away, and he's remembered for twelve years." + +Eric stood fumbling with his cap and smiling. "You look just +like I thought you would," he ventured. + +"Go wash your hands, Eric," called Mrs. Ericson. "I've got +cob corn for supper, Nils. You used to like it. I guess you don't +get much of that in the old country. Here's Hilda; she'll take you +up to your room. You'll want to get the dust off you before you +eat." + +Mrs. Ericson went into the dining-room to lay another plate, +and the little girl came up and nodded to Nils as if to let him +know that his room was ready. He put out his hand and she took it, +with a startled glance up at his face. Little Eric dropped his +towel, threw an arm about Nils and one about Hilda, gave them a +clumsy squeeze, and then stumbled out to the porch. + +During supper Nils heard exactly how much land each of his +eight grown brothers farmed, how their crops were coming on, and +how much livestock they were feeding. His mother watched him +narrowly as she talked. "You've got better looking, Nils," she +remarked abruptly, whereupon he grinned and the children giggled. +Eric, although he was eighteen and as tall as Nils, was always +accounted a child, being the last of so many sons. His face seemed +childlike, too, Nils thought, and he had the open, wandering eves +of a little boy. All the others had been men at his age. + +After supper Nils went out to the front porch and sat down on +the step to smoke a pipe. Mrs. Ericson drew a rocking-chair up +near him and began to knit busily. It was one of the few Old World +customs she had kept up, for she could not bear to sit with idle +hands. + +"Where's little Eric, Mother?" + +"He's helping Hilda with the dishes. He does it of his own +will; I don't like a boy to be too handy about the house." + +"He seems like a nice kid." + +"He's very obedient." + +Nils smiled a little in the dark. It was just as well to +shift the line of conversation. "What are you knitting there, +Mother?" + +"Baby stockings. The boys keep me busy." Mrs. Ericson +chuckled and clicked her needles. + +"How many grandchildren have you?" + +"Only thirty-one now. Olaf lost his three. They were +sickly, like their mother." + +"I supposed he had a second crop by this time!" + +"His second wife has no children. She's too proud. She +tears about on horseback all the time. But she'll get caught up +with, yet. She sets herself very high, though nobody knows what +for. They were low enough Bohemians she came of. I never +thought much of Bohemians; always drinking." + +Nils puffed away at his pipe in silence, and Mrs. Ericson +knitted on. In a few moments she added grimly: "She was down +here tonight, just before you came. She'd like to quarrel with +me and come between me and Olaf, but I don't give her the chance. +I suppose you'll be bringing a wife home some day." + +"I don't know. I've never thought much about it." + +"Well, perhaps it's best as it is," suggested Mrs. Ericson +hopefully. "You'd never be contented tied down to the land. +There was roving blood in your father's family, and it's come out +in you. I expect your own way of life suits you best." Mrs. +Ericson had dropped into a blandly agreeable tone which Nils well +remembered. It seemed to amuse him a good deal and his white +teeth flashed behind his pipe. His mother's strategies had +always diverted him, even when he was a boy--they were so flimsy +and patent, so illy proportioned to her vigor and force. +"They've been waiting to see which way I'd jump," he reflected. +He felt that Mrs. Ericson was pondering his case deeply as she +sat clicking her needles. + +"I don't suppose you've ever got used to steady work," she went on +presently. "Men ain't apt to if they roam around too long. It's +a pity you didn't come back the year after the World's Fair. Your +father picked up a good bit of land cheap then, in the hard times, +and I expect maybe he'd have give you a farm. it's too bad you put +off comin' back so long, for I always thought he meant to do +something by you." + +Nils laughed and shook the ashes out of his pipe. "I'd have +missed a lot if I had come back then. But I'm sorry I didn't get +back to see father." + +"Well, I suppose we have to miss things at one end or the +other. Perhaps you are as well satisfied with your own doings, +now, as you'd have been with a farm," said Mrs. Ericson +reassuringly. + +"Land's a good thing to have," Nils commented, as he lit +another match and sheltered it with his hand. + +His mother looked sharply at his face until the match burned +out. "Only when you stay on it!" she hastened to say. + +Eric came round the house by the path just then, and Nils +rose, with a yawn. "Mother, if you don't mind, Eric and I will +take a little tramp before bedtime. It will make me sleep." + +"Very well; only don't stay long. I'll sit up and wait for +you. I like to lock up myself." + +Nils put his hand on Eric's shoulder, and the two tramped down +the hill and across the sand creek into the dusty highroad beyond. +Neither spoke. They swung along at an even gait, Nils puffing at +his pipe. There was no moon, and the white road and the wide +fields lay faint in the starlight. Over everything was darkness +and thick silence, and the smell of dust and sunflowers. The +brothers followed the road for a mile or more without finding a +place to sit down. Finally, Nils perched on a stile over the wire +fence, and Eric sat on the lower step. + +"I began to think you never would come back, Nils," said the +boy softly. + +"Didn't I promise you I would?" + +"Yes; but people don't bother about promises they make to +babies. Did you really know you were going away for good +when you went to Chicago with the cattle that time?" + +"I thought it very likely, if I could make my way." + +"I don't see how you did it, Nils. Not many fellows could." +Eric rubbed his shoulder against his brother's knee. + +"The hard thing was leaving home you and father. It was easy +enough, once I got beyond Chicago. Of course I got awful homesick; +used to cry myself to sleep. But I'd burned my bridges." + +"You had always wanted to go, hadn't you?" + +"Always. Do you still sleep in our little room? Is that +cottonwood still by the window?" + +Eric nodded eagerly and smiled up at his brother in the grey +darkness. + +"You remember how we always said the leaves were whispering +when they rustled at night? Well, they always whispered to me +about the sea. Sometimes they said names out of the geography +books. In a high wind they had a desperate sound, like someone +trying to tear loose." + +"How funny, Nils," said Eric dreamily, resting his chin on his +hand. "That tree still talks like that, and 'most always it talks +to me about you." + +They sat a while longer, watching the stars. At last Eric +whispered anxiously: "Hadn't we better go back now? Mother will +get tired waiting for us." They rose and took a short cut home, +through the pasture. + + + II + +The next morning Nils woke with the first flood of light that +came with dawn. The white-plastered walls of his room reflected +the glare that shone through the thin window shades, and he found +it impossible to sleep. He dressed hurriedly and slipped down the +hall and up the back stairs to the half-story room which be used to +share with his little brother. Eric, in a skimpy nightshirt, was +sitting on the edge of the bed, rubbing his eyes, his pale yellow +hair standing up in tufts all over his head. When he saw Nils, he +murmured something confusedly and hustled his long legs into +his trousers. "I didn't expect you'd be up so early, Nils," he +said, as his head emerged from his blue shirt. + +"Oh, you thought I was a dude, did you?" Nils gave him a +playful tap which bent the tall boy up like a clasp knife. "See +here: I must teach you to box." Nils thrust his hands into his +pockets and walked about. "You haven't changed things much up +here. Got most of my old traps, haven't you?" + +He took down a bent, withered piece of sapling that hung over +the dresser. "If this isn't the stick Lou Sandberg killed himself +with!" + +The boy looked up from his shoe-lacing. + +"Yes; you never used to let me play with that. Just how did +he do it, Nils? You were with father when he found Lou, weren't +you?" + +"Yes. Father was going off to preach somewhere, and, as we +drove along, Lou's place looked sort of forlorn, and we thought +we'd stop and cheer him up. When we found him father said he'd +been dead a couple days. He'd tied a piece of binding twine round +his neck, made a noose in each end, fixed the nooses over the ends +of a bent stick, and let the stick spring straight; strangled +himself." + +"What made him kill himself such a silly way?" + +The simplicity of the boy's question set Nils laughing. He +clapped little Eric on the shoulder. "What made him such a silly +as to kill himself at all, I should say!" + +"Oh, well! But his hogs had the cholera, and all up and died +on him, didn't they?" + +"Sure they did; but he didn't have cholera; and there were +plenty of bogs left in the world, weren't there?" + +"Well, but, if they weren't his, how could they do him any +good?" Eric asked, in astonishment. + +"Oh, scat! He could have had lots of fun with other people's +hogs. He was a chump, Lou Sandberg. To kill yourself for a pig-- +think of that, now!" Nils laughed all the way downstairs, and +quite embarrassed little Eric, who fell to scrubbing his face and +hands at the tin basin. While he was parting his wet hair at the +kitchen looking glass, a heavy tread sounded on the stairs. The +boy dropped his comb. "Gracious, there's Mother. We must have +talked too long." He hurried out to the shed, slipped on his +overalls, and disappeared with the milking pails. + +Mrs. Ericson came in, wearing a clean white apron, her black +hair shining from the application of a wet brush. + +"Good morning, Mother. Can't I make the fire for you?" + +"No, thank you, Nils. It's no trouble to make a cob fire, and +I like to manage the kitchen stove myself" Mrs. Ericson paused with +a shovel full of ashes in her hand. "I expect you will be wanting +to see your brothers as soon as possible. I'll take you up to +Anders' place this morning. He's threshing, and most of our boys +are over there." + +"Will Olaf be there?" + +Mrs. Ericson went on taking out the ashes, and spoke between +shovels. "No; Olaf's wheat is all in, put away in his new barn. +He got six thousand bushel this year. He's going to town today to +get men to finish roofing his barn." + +"So Olaf is building a new barn?" Nils asked absently. + +"Biggest one in the county, and almost done. You'll likely be +here for the barn-raising. He's going to have a supper and a dance +as soon as everybody's done threshing. Says it keeps the voters in +good humour. I tell him that's all nonsense; but Olaf has a head +for politics." + +"Does Olaf farm all Cousin Henrik's land?" + +Mrs. Ericson frowned as she blew into the faint smoke curling up +about the cobs. "Yes; he holds it in trust for the children, Hilda +and her brothers. He keeps strict account of everything he raises +on it, and puts the proceeds out at compound interest for them." + +Nils smiled as he watched the little flames shoot up. The +door of the back stairs opened, and Hilda emerged, her arms behind +her, buttoning up her long gingham apron as she came. He nodded to +her gaily, and she twinkled at him out of her little blue eyes, set +far apart over her wide cheekbones. + +"There, Hilda, you grind the coffee--and just put in an extra +handful; I expect your Cousin Nils likes his strong," said Mrs. +Ericson, as she went out to the shed. + +Nils turned to look at the little girl, who gripped the coffee +grinder between her knees and ground so hard that her two braids +bobbed and her face flushed under its broad spattering of +freckles. He noticed on her middle finger something that had not +been there last night, and that had evidently been put on for +company: a tiny gold ring with a clumsily set garnet stone. As her +hand went round and round he touched the ring with the tip of his +finger, smiling. + +Hilda glanced toward the shed door through which Mrs. Ericson +had disappeared. "My Cousin Clara gave me that," she whispered +bashfully. "She's Cousin Olaf's wife." + + + III + +Mrs. Olaf Ericson--Clara Vavrika, as many people still called +her--was moving restlessly about her big bare house that morning. +Her husband had left for the county town before his wife was out of +bed--her lateness in rising was one of the many things the Ericson +family had against her. Clara seldom came downstairs before eight +o'clock, and this morning she was even later, for she had dressed +with unusual care. She put on, however, only a tightfitting black +dress, which people thereabouts thought very plain. She was a +tall, dark woman of thirty, with a rather sallow complexion and a +touch of dull salmon red in her cheeks, where the blood seemed to +burn under her brown skin. Her hair, parted evenly above her low +forehead, was so black that there were distinctly blue lights in +it. Her black eyebrows were delicate half-moons and her lashes +were long and heavy. Her eyes slanted a little, as if she had a +strain of Tartar or gypsy blood, and were sometimes full of fiery +determination and sometimes dull and opaque. Her expression was +never altogether amiable; was often, indeed, distinctly sullen, or, +when she was animated, sarcastic. She was most attractive in +profile, for then one saw to advantage her small, well-shaped head +and delicate ears, and felt at once that here was a very positive, +if not an altogether pleasing, personality. + +The entire management of Mrs. Olaf's household devolved upon +her aunt, Johanna Vavrika, a superstitious, doting woman of fifty. +When Clara was a little girl her mother died, and Johanna's life +had been spent in ungrudging service to her niece. Clara, +like many self-willed and discontented persons, was really very +apt, without knowing it, to do as other people told her, and to let +her destiny be decided for her by intelligences much below her own. +It was her Aunt Johanna who had humoured and spoiled her in her +girlhood, who had got her off to Chicago to study piano, and who +had finally persuaded her to marry Olaf Ericson as the best match +she would be likely to make in that part of the country. Johanna +Vavrika had been deeply scarred by smallpox in the old country. +She was short and fat, homely and jolly and sentimental. She was +so broad, and took such short steps when she walked, that her +brother, Joe Vavrika, always called her his duck. She adored her +niece because of her talent, because of her good looks and +masterful ways, but most of all because of her selfishness. + +Clara's marriage with Olaf Ericson was Johanna's particular +triumph. She was inordinately proud of Olaf's position, and she +found a sufficiently exciting career in managing Clara's house, in +keeping it above the criticism of the Ericsons, in pampering Olaf +to keep him from finding fault with his wife, and in concealing +from every one Clara's domestic infelicities. While Clara slept of +a morning, Johanna Vavrika was bustling about, seeing that Olaf and +the men had their breakfast, and that the cleaning or the butter- +making or the washing was properly begun by the two girls in the +kitchen. Then, at about eight o'clock, she would take Clara's +coffee up to her, and chat with her while she drank it, telling her +what was going on in the house. Old Mrs. Ericson frequently said +that her daughter-in-law would not know what day of the week it was +if Johanna did not tell her every morning. Mrs. Ericson despised +and pitied Johanna, but did not wholly dislike her. The one thing +she hated in her daughter-in-law above everything else was the way +in which Clara could come it over people. It enraged her that the +affairs of her son's big, barnlike house went on as well as they +did, and she used to feel that in this world we have to wait +overlong to see the guilty punished. "Suppose Johanna Vavrika died +or got sick?" the old lady used to say to Olaf. "Your wife +wouldn't know where to look for her own dish-cloth." Olaf +only shrugged his shoulders. The fact remained that Johanna did +not die, and, although Mrs. Ericson often told her she was +looking poorly, she was never ill. She seldom left the house, +and she slept in a little room off the kitchen. No Ericson, by +night or day, could come prying about there to find fault without +her knowing it. Her one weakness was that she was an incurable +talker, and she sometimes made trouble without meaning to. + +This morning Clara was tying a wine-coloured ribbon about +her throat when Johanna appeared with her coffee. After putting +the tray on a sewing table, she began to make Clara's bed, +chattering the while in Bohemian. + +"Well, Olaf got off early, and the girls are baking. I'm +going down presently to make some poppy-seed bread for Olaf. He +asked for prune preserves at breakfast, and I told him I was out +of them, and to bring some prunes and honey and cloves from +town." + +Clara poured her coffee. "Ugh! I don't see how men can eat +so much sweet stuff. In the morning, too!" + +Her aunt chuckled knowingly. "Bait a bear with honey, as we +say in the old country." + +"Was he cross?" her niece asked indifferently. + +"Olaf? Oh, no! He was in fine spirits. He's never cross if +you know how to take him. I never knew a man to make so little +fuss about bills. I gave him a list of things to get a yard +long, and he didn't say a word; just folded it up and put it in +his pocket." + +"I can well believe he didn't say a word," Clara remarked +with a shrug. "Some day he'll forget how to talk." + +"Oh, but they say he's a grand speaker in the Legislature. +He knows when to keep quiet. That's why he's got such influence +in politics. The people have confidence in him." Johanna beat up +a pillow and held it under her fat chin while she slipped on the +case. Her niece laughed. + +"Maybe we could make people believe we were wise, Aunty, if +we held our tongues. Why did you tell Mrs. Ericson that Norman +threw me again last Saturday and turned my foot? She's been +talking to Olaf." + +Johanna fell into great confusion. "Oh, but, my precious, +the old lady asked for you, and she's always so angry if I can't +give an excuse. Anyhow, she needn't talk; she's always tearing +up something with that motor of hers." + +When her aunt clattered down to the kitchen, Clara went to +dust the parlour. Since there was not much there to dust, this did +not take very long. Olaf had built the house new for her before +their marriage, but her interest in furnishing it had been short- +lived. It went, indeed, little beyond a bathtub and her piano. +They had disagreed about almost even, other article of furniture, +and Clara had said she would rather have her house empty than full +of things she didn't want. The house was set in a hillside, and +the west windows of the parlour looked out above the kitchen yard +thirty feet below. The east windows opened directly into the front +yard. At one of the latter, Clara, while she was dusting, heard a +low whistle. She did not turn at once, but listened intently as +she drew her cloth slowly along the round of a chair. Yes, there +it was: + +I dreamt that I dwelt in ma-a-arble halls. + +She turned and saw Nils Ericson laughing in the sunlight, his +hat in his hand, just outside the window. As she crossed the room +he leaned against the wire screen. "Aren't you at all surprised to +see me, Clara Vavrika?" + +"No; I was expecting to see you. Mother Ericson telephoned +Olaf last night that you were here." + +Nils squinted and gave a long whistle. "Telephoned? That must +have been while Eric and I were out walking. Isn't she +enterprising? Lift this screen, won't you?" + +Clara lifted the screen, and Nils swung his leg across the +window-sill. As he stepped into the room she said: "You didn't +think you were going to get ahead of your mother, did you?" + +He threw his hat on the piano. "Oh, I do sometimes. You see, +I'm ahead of her now. I'm supposed to be in Anders' wheat-field. +But, as we were leaving, Mother ran her car into a soft place +beside the road and sank up to the hubs. While they were going for +the horses to pull her out, I cut away behind the stacks and +escaped." Nils chuckled. Clara's dull eyes lit up as she looked +at him admiringly. + +"You've got them guessing already. 1 don't know what your +mother said to Olaf over the telephone, but be came back looking as +if he'd seen a ghost, and he didn't go to bed until a dreadful +hour--ten o'clock, I should think. He sat out on the porch in the +dark like a graven image. It had been one of his talkative days, +too." They both laughed, easily and lightly, like people who have +laughed a great deal together; but they remained standing. + +"Anders and Otto and Peter looked as if they had seen ghosts, +too, over in the threshing field. What's the matter with them +all?" + +Clara gave him a quick, searching look. "Well, for one thing, +they've always been afraid you have the other will." + +Nils looked interested. "The other will?" + +"Yes. A later one. They knew your father made another, but +they never knew what he did with it. They almost tore the old +house to pieces looking for it. They always suspected that he +carried on a clandestine correspondence with you, for the one thing +he would do was to get his own mail himself. So they thought he +might have sent the new will to you for safekeeping. The old one, +leaving everything to your mother, was made long before you went +away, and it's understood among them that it cuts you out--that she +will leave all the property to the others. Your father made the +second will to prevent that. I've been hoping you had it. It +would be such fun to spring it on them." Clara laughed mirthfully, +a thing she did not often do now. + +Nils shook his head reprovingly. "Come, now, you're malicious." + +"No, I'm not. But I'd like something to happen to stir them +all up, just for once. There never was such a family for having +nothing ever happen to them but dinner and threshing. I'd almost +be willing to die, just to have a funeral. <i>You</i> wouldn't +stand it for three weeks." + +Nils bent over the piano and began pecking at the keys with +the finger of one hand. "I wouldn't? My dear young lady, how do +you know what I can stand? <i>You</i> wouldn't wait to find out." + +Clara flushed darkly and frowned. "I didn't believe you would +ever come back--" she said defiantly. + +"Eric believed I would, and he was only a baby when I went +away. However, all's well that ends well, and I haven't come back +to be a skeleton at the feast. We mustn't quarrel. Mother mill be +here with a search warrant pretty soon." He swung round and faced +her, thrusting his hands into his coat pockets. "Come, you ought +to be glad to see me, if you want something to happen. I'm +something, even without a will. We can have a little fun, can't +we? I think we can!" + +She echoed him, "I think we can!" They both laughed and their +eyes sparkled. Clara Vavrika looked ten years younger than when +she had put the velvet ribbon about her throat that morning. + +"You know, I'm so tickled to see mother," Nils went on. "I +didn't know I was so proud of her. A regular pile driver. How +about little pigtails, down at the house? Is Olaf doing the square +thing by those children?" + +Clara frowned pensively. "Olaf has to do something that looks +like the square thing, now that he's a public man!" She glanced +drolly at Nils. "But he makes a good commission out of it. On +Sundays they all get together here and figure. He lets Peter and +Anders put in big bills for the keep of the two boys, and he pays +them out of the estate. They are always having what they call +accountings. Olaf gets something out of it, too. I don't know +just how they do it, but it's entirely a family matter, as they +say. And when the Ericsons say that--" Clara lifted her eyebrows. + +Just then the angry <i>honk-honk</i> of an approaching motor +sounded from down the road. Their eyes met and they began to +laugh. They laughed as children do when they can not contain +themselves, and can not explain the cause of their mirth to grown +people, but share it perfectly together. When Clara Vavrika sat +down at the piano after he was gone, she felt that she had laughed +away a dozen years. She practised as if the house were burning +over her head. + +When Nils greeted his mother and climbed into the front seat +of the motor beside her, Mrs. Ericson looked grim, but she +made no comment upon his truancy until she had turned her car and +was retracing her revolutions along the road that ran by Olaf's big +pasture. Then she remarked dryly: + +"If I were you I wouldn't see too much of Olaf's wife while +you are here. She's the kind of woman who can't see much of men +without getting herself talked about. She was a good deal talked +about before he married her." + +"Hasn't Olaf tamed her?" Nils asked indifferently. + +Mrs. Ericson shrugged her massive shoulders. "Olaf don't seem +to have much luck, when it comes to wives. The first one was meek +enough, but she was always ailing. And this one has her own way. +He says if he quarreled with her she'd go back to her father, and +then he'd lose the Bohemian vote. There are a great many Bohunks +in this district. But when you find a man under his wife's thumb +you can always be sure there's a soft spot in him somewhere." + +Nils thought of his own father, and smiled. "She brought him +a good deal of money, didn't she, besides the Bohemian vote?" + +Mrs. Ericson sniffed. "Well, she has a fair half section in +her own name, but I can't see as that does Olaf much good. She +will have a good deal of property some day, if old Vavrika don't +marry again. But I don't consider a saloonkeeper's money as good +as other people's money," + +Nils laughed outright. "Come, Mother, don't let your +prejudices carry you that far. Money's money. Old Vavrika's a +mighty decent sort of saloonkeeper. Nothing rowdy about him." + +Mrs. Ericson spoke up angrily. "Oh, I know you always stood +up for them! But hanging around there when you were a boy never +did you any good, Nils, nor any of the other boys who went there. +There weren't so many after her when she married Olaf, let me tell +you. She knew enough to grab her chance." + +Nils settled back in his seat. "Of course I liked to go +there, Mother, and you were always cross about it. You never took +the trouble to find out that it was the one jolly house in this +country for a boy to go to. All the rest of you were working +yourselves to death, and the houses were mostly a mess, full +of babies and washing and flies. oh, it was all right--I understand +that; but you are young only once, and I happened to be young then. +Now, Vavrika's was always jolly. He played the violin, and I used +to take my flute, and Clara played the piano, and Johanna used to +sing Bohemian songs. She always had a big supper for us--herrings +and pickles and poppy-seed bread, and lots of cake and preserves. +Old Joe had been in the army in the old country, and he could tell +lots of good stories. I can see him cutting bread, at the head of +the table, now. I don't know what I'd have done when I was a kid +if it hadn't been for the Vavrikas, really." + +"And all the time he was taking money that other people had +worked hard in the fields for," Mrs. Ericson observed. + +"So do the circuses, Mother, and they're a good thing. People +ought to get fun for some of their money. Even father liked old +Joe." + +"Your father," Mrs. Ericson said grimly, "liked everybody." + +As they crossed the sand creek and turned into her own place, +Mrs. Ericson observed, "There's Olaf's buggy. He's stopped on his +way from town." Nils shook himself and prepared to greet his +brother, who was waiting on the porch. + +Olaf was a big, heavy Norwegian, slow of speech and movement. +His head was large and square, like a block of wood. When Nils, at +a distance, tried to remember what his brother looked like, he +could recall only his heavy head, high forehead, large nostrils, +and pale blue eyes, set far apart. Olaf's features were +rudimentary: the thing one noticed was the face itself, wide and +flat and pale; devoid of any expression, betraying his fifty years +as little as it betrayed anything else, and powerful by reason of +its very stolidness. When Olaf shook hands with Nils he looked at +him from under his light eyebrows, but Nils felt that no one could +ever say what that pale look might mean. The one thing he had +always felt in Olaf was a heavy stubbornness, like the unyielding +stickiness of wet loam against the plow. He had always found Olaf +the most difficult of his brothers. + +"How do you do, Nils? Expect to stay with us long?" + +"Oh, I may stay forever," Nils answered gaily. "I like this +country better than I used to." + +"There's been some work put into it since you left," Olaf remarked. + +"Exactly. I think it's about ready to live in now--and I'm +about ready to settle down." Nils saw his brother lower his big +head ("Exactly like a bull," he thought.) "Mother's been persuading +me to slow down now, and go in for farming," he went on lightly. + +Olaf made a deep sound in his throat. "Farming ain't learned +in a day," he brought out, still looking at the ground. + +"Oh, I know! But I pick things up quickly." Nils had not meant +to antagonize his brother, and he did not know now why he was doing +it. "Of course," he went on, "I shouldn't expect to make a big +success, as you fellows have done. But then, I'm not ambitious. +I won't want much. A little land, and some cattle, maybe." + +Olaf still stared at the ground, his head down. He wanted to +ask Nils what he had been doing all these years, that he didn't +have a business somewhere he couldn't afford to leave; why he +hadn't more pride than to come back with only a little sole-leather +trunk to show for himself, and to present himself as the only +failure in the family. He did not ask one of these questions, but +he made them all felt distinctly. + +"Humph!" Nils thought. "No wonder the man never talks, when +he can butt his ideas into you like that without ever saying a +word. I suppose he uses that kind of smokeless powder on his wife +all the time. But I guess she has her innings." He chuckled, and +Olaf looked up. "Never mind me, Olaf. I laugh without knowing +why, like little Eric. He's another cheerful dog." + +"Eric," said Olaf slowly, "is a spoiled kid. He's just let +his mother's best cow go dry because he don't milk her right. I +was hoping you'd take him away somewhere and put him into business. + +If he don't do any good among strangers, he never will." This was +a long speech for Olaf, and as he finished it he climbed into his +buggy. + +Nils shrugged his shoulders. "Same old tricks," he +thought. "Hits from behind you every time. What a whale of a +man!" He turned and went round to the kitchen, where his mother +was scolding little Eric for letting the gasoline get low. + + + IV + +Joe Vavrika's saloon was not in the county seat, where Olaf +and Mrs. Ericson did their trading, but in a cheerfuller place, a +little Bohemian settlement which lay at the other end of the +county, ten level miles north of Olaf's farm. Clara rode up to see +her father almost every day. Vavrika's house was, so to speak, in +the back yard of his saloon. The garden between the two buildings +was inclosed by a high board fence as tight as a partition, and in +summer Joe kept beer tables and wooden benches among the gooseberry +bushes under his little cherry tree. At one of these tables Nils +Ericson was seated in the late afternoon, three days after his +return home. Joe had gone in to serve a customer, and Nils was +lounging on his elbows, looking rather mournfully into his half- +emptied pitcher, when he heard a laugh across the little garden. +Clara, in her riding habit, was standing at the back door of the +house, under the grapevine trellis that old Joe had grown there +long ago. Nils rose. + +"Come out and keep your father and me company. We've been +gossiping all afternoon. Nobody to bother us but the flies." + +She shook her head. "No, I never come out here any more. Olaf +doesn't like it. I must live up to my position, you know." + +"You mean to tell me you never come out and chat with the boys, as +you used to? He <i>has</i> tamed you! Who keeps up these +flower-beds?" + +"I come out on Sundays, when father is alone, and read the +Bohemian papers to him. But I am never here when the bar is open. +What have you two been doing?" + +"Talking, as I told you. I've been telling him about my +travels. I find I can't talk much at home, not even to Eric." + +Clara reached up and poked with her riding-whip at a white +moth that was fluttering in the sunlight among the vine leaves. "I +suppose you will never tell me about all those things." + +"Where can I tell them? Not in Olaf's house, certainly. +What's the matter with our talking here?" He pointed persuasively +with his hat to the bushes and the green table, where the flies +were singing lazily above the empty beer glasses. + +Clara shook her head weakly. "No, it wouldn't do. Besides, +I am going now." + +"I'm on Eric's mare. Would you be angry if I overtook you?" + +Clara looked back and laughed. "You might try and see. I can +leave you if I don't want you. Eric's mare can't keep up with +Norman." + +Nils went into the bar and attempted to pay his score. Big +Joe, six feet four, with curly yellow hair and mustache, clapped +him on the shoulder. "Not a Goddamn a your money go in my drawer, +you hear? Only next time you bring your flute, te-te-te-te-te-ty." +Joe wagged his fingers in imitation of the flute player's position. + +"My Clara, she come all-a-time Sundays an' play for me. She not +like to play at Ericson's place." He shook his yellow curls and +laughed. "Not a Goddamn a fun at Ericson's. You come a Sunday. +You like-a fun. No forget de flute." Joe talked very rapidly and +always tumbled over his English. He seldom spoke it to his +customers, and had never learned much. + +Nils swung himself into the saddle and trotted to the west of +the village, where the houses and gardens scattered into prairie +land and the road turned south. Far ahead of him, in the declining +light, he saw Clara Vavrika's slender figure, loitering on +horseback. He touched his mare with the whip, and shot along the +white, level road, under the reddening sky. When he overtook +Olaf's wife he saw that she had been crying. "What's the matter, +Clara Vavrika?" he asked kindly. + +"Oh, I get blue sometimes. It was awfully jolly living there +with father. I wonder why I ever went away." + +Nils spoke in a low, kind tone that he sometimes used with women: +"That's what I've been wondering these many years. You were the +last girl in the country I'd have picked for a wife for Olaf. What +made you do it, Clara?" + +"I suppose I really did it to oblige the neighbours"--Clara +tossed her head. "People were beginning to wonder." + +"To wonder?" + +"Yes--why I didn't get married. I suppose I didn't like to +keep them in suspense. I've discovered that most girls marry out +of consideration for the neighbourhood." + +Nils bent his head toward her and his white teeth flashed. +"I'd have gambled that one girl I knew would say, 'Let the +neighbourhood be damned.'" + +Clara shook her head mournfully. "You see, they have it on +you, Nils; that is, if you're a woman. They say you're beginning +to go off. That's what makes us get married: we can't stand the +laugh." + +Nils looked sidewise at her. He had never seen her head droop +before. Resignation was the last thing he would have expected of +her. "In your case, there wasn't something else?" + +"Something else?" + +"I mean, you didn't do it to spite somebody? Somebody who +didn't come back?" + +Clara drew herself up. "Oh, I never thought you'd come back. +Not after I stopped writing to you, at least. <i>That</i> was all +over, long before I married Olaf." + +"It never occurred to you, then, that the meanest thing you +could do to me was to marry Olaf?" + +Clara laughed. "No; I didn't know you were so fond of Olaf." + +Nils smoothed his horse's mane with his glove. "You know, +Clara Vavrika, you are never going to stick it out. You'll cut +away some day, and I've been thinking you might as well cut away +with me." + +Clara threw up her chin. "Oh, you don't know me as well as +you think. I won't cut away. Sometimes, when I'm with father, I +feel like it. But I can hold out as long as the Ericsons can. +They've never got the best of me yet, and one can live, so long as +one isn't beaten. If I go back to father, it's all up with Olaf in +politics. He knows that, and he never goes much beyond +sulking. I've as much wit as the Ericsons. I'll never leave them +unless I can show them a thing or two." + +"You mean unless you can come it over them?" + +"Yes--unless I go away with a man who is cleverer than they +are, and who has more money." + +Nils whistled. "Dear me, you are demanding a good deal. The +Ericsons, take the lot of them, are a bunch to beat. But I should +think the excitement of tormenting them would have worn off by this +time." + +"It has, I'm afraid," Clara admitted mournfully. + +"Then why don't you cut away? There are more amusing games +than this in the world. When I came home I thought it might amuse +me to bully a few quarter sections out of the Ericsons; but I've +almost decided I can get more fun for my money somewhere else." + +Clara took in her breath sharply. "Ah, you have got the other +will! That was why you came home!" + +"No, it wasn't. I came home to see how you were getting on +with Olaf." + +Clara struck her horse with the whip, and in a bound she was +far ahead of him. Nils dropped one word, "Damn!" and whipped after +her; but she leaned forward in her saddle and fairly cut the wind. +Her long riding skirt rippled in the still air behind her. The sun +was just sinking behind the stubble in a vast, clear sky, and the +shadows drew across the fields so rapidly that Nils could scarcely +keep in sight the dark figure on the road. When he overtook her he +caught her horse by the bridle. Norman reared, and Nils was +frightened for her; but Clara kept her seat. + +"Let me go, Nils Ericson!" she cried. "I hate you more than +any of them. You were created to torture me, the whole tribe of +you--to make me suffer in every possible way." + +She struck her horse again and galloped away from him. Nils +set his teeth and looked thoughtful. He rode slowly home along the +deserted road, watching the stars come out in the clear violet sky. + +They flashed softly into the limpid heavens, like jewels let fall +into clear water. They were a reproach, he felt, to a sordid +world. As he turned across the sand creek, he looked up at +the North Star and smiled, as if there were an understanding +between them. His mother scolded him for being late for supper. + + + V + +On Sunday afternoon Joe Vavrika, in his shirt sleeves arid +carpet slippers, was sitting in his garden, smoking a long-tasseled +porcelain pipe with a hunting scene painted on the bowl. Clara sat +under the cherry tree, reading aloud to him from the, weekly +Bohemian papers. She had worn a white muslin dress under her +riding habit, and the leaves of the cherry tree threw a pattern of +sharp shadows over her skirt. The black cat was dozing in the +sunlight at her feet, and Joe's dachshund was scratching a hole +under the scarlet geraniums and dreaming of badgers. Joe was +filling his pipe for the third time since dinner, when he heard a +knocking on the fence. He broke into a loud guffaw and unlatched +the little door that led into the street. He did not call Nils by +name, but caught him by the hand and dragged him in. Clara +stiffened and the colour deepened under her dark skin. Nils, too, +felt a little awkward. He had not seen her since the night when +she rode away from him and left him alone on the level road between +the fields. Joe dragged him to the wooden bench beside the green +table. + +"You bring de flute," he cried, tapping the leather case under +Nils' arm. "Ah, das-a good' Now we have some liddle fun like old +times. I got somet'ing good for you." Joe shook his finger at +Nils and winked his blue eye, a bright clear eye, full of fire, +though the tiny bloodvessels on the ball were always a little +distended. "I got somet'ing for you from"--he paused and waved his +hand-- "Hongarie. You know Hongarie? You wait!" He pushed Nils +down on the bench, and went through the back door of his saloon. + +Nils looked at Clara, who sat frigidly with her white skirts +drawn tight about her. "He didn't tell you he had asked me to +come, did he? He wanted a party and proceeded to arrange it. +Isn't he fun? Don't be cross; let's give him a good time." + +Clara smiled and shook out her skirt. "Isn't that like +Father? And he has sat here so meekly all day. Well, I won't +pout. I'm glad you came. He doesn't have very many good times now +any more. There are so few of his kind left. The second +generation are a tame lot." + +Joe came back with a flask in one hand and three wine glasses +caught by the stems between the fingers of the other. These he +placed on the table with an air of ceremony, and, going behind +Nils, held the flask between him and the sun, squinting into it +admiringly. "You know dis, Tokai? A great friend of mine, he +bring dis to me, a present out of Hongarie. You know how much it +cost, dis wine? Chust so much what it weigh in gold. Nobody but +de nobles drink him in Bohemie. Many, many years I save him up, +dis Tokai." Joe whipped out his official corkscrew and delicately +removed the cork. "De old man die what bring him to me, an' dis +wine he lay on his belly in my cellar an' sleep. An' now," +carefully pouring out the heavy yellow wine, "an' now he wake up; +and maybe he wake us up, too!" He carried one of the glasses to +his daughter and presented it with great gallantry. + +Clara shook her head, but, seeing her father's disappointment, +relented. "You taste it first. I don't want so much." + +Joe sampled it with a beatific expression, and turned to Nils. +"You drink him slow, dis wine. He very soft, but he go down hot. +You see!" + +After a second glass Nils declared that he couldn't take any +more without getting sleepy. "Now get your fiddle, Vavrika," he +said as he opened his flute case. + +But Joe settled back in his wooden rocker and wagged his big +carpet slipper. "No-no-no-no-no-no-no! No play fiddle now any +more: too much ache in de finger," waving them, "all-a-time +rheumatic. You play de flute, te-tety-tetety-te. Bohemie songs." + +"I've forgotten all the Bohemian songs I used to play with you +and Johanna. But here's one that will make Clara pout. You +remember how her eyes used to snap when we called her the Bohemian +Girl?" Nils lifted his flute and began "When Other Lips and Other +Hearts," and Joe hummed the air in a husky baritone, waving +his carpet slipper. "Oh-h-h, das-a fine music," he cried, clapping +his hands as Nils finished. "Now 'Marble Halls, Marble Halls'! +Clara, you sing him." + +Clara smiled and leaned back in her chair, beginning softly: + + I dreamt that I dwelt in ma-a-arble halls, + With vassals and serfs at my knee," + +and Joe hummed like a big bumblebee. + +"There's one more you always played," Clara said quietly, "I +remember that best." She locked her hands over her knee and began +"The Heart Bowed Down," and sang it through without groping for the +words. She was singing with a good deal of warmth when she came to +the end of the old song: + + "For memory is the only friend + That grief can call its own." + +Joe flashed out his red silk handkerchief and blew his nose, +shaking his head. "No-no-no-no-no-no-no! Too sad, too sad! I not +like-a dat. Play quick somet'ing gay now." + +Nils put his lips to the instrument, and Joe lay back in his +chair, laughing and singing, "Oh, Evelina, Sweet Evelina!" Clara +laughed, too. Long ago, when she and Nils went to high school, the +model student of their class was a very homely girl in thick +spectacles. Her name was Evelina Oleson; she had a long, swinging +walk which somehow suggested the measure of that song, and they +used mercilessly to sing it at her. + +"Dat ugly Oleson girl, she teach in de school," Joe gasped, +"an' she still walks chust like dat, yup-a, yup-a, yup-a, chust +like a camel she go! Now, Nils, we have some more li'l drink. Oh, +yes-yes-yes-yes-yes-yes-<i>yes</i>! Dis time you haf to drink, and +Clara she haf to, so she show she not jealous. So, we all drink to +your girl. You not tell her name, eh? No-no-no, I no make you +tell. She pretty, eh? She make good sweetheart? I bet!" Joe +winked and lifted his glass. "How soon you get married?" + +Nils screwed up his eyes. "That I don't know. When she says." + +Joe threw out his chest. "Das-a way boys talks. No way for +mans. Mans say, 'You come to de church, an' get a hurry on you.' +Das-a way mans talks." + +"Maybe Nils hasn't got enough to keep a wife," put in Clara +ironically. "How about that, Nils?" she asked him frankly, as if +she wanted to know. + +Nils looked at her coolly, raising one eyebrow. "oh, I can +keep her, all right." + +"The way she wants to be kept?" + +"With my wife, I'll decide that," replied Nils calmly. "I'll +give her what's good for her." + +Clara made a wry face. "You'll give her the strap, I expect, +like old Peter Oleson gave his wife." + +"When she needs it," said Nils lazily, locking his hands +behind his head and squinting up through the leaves of the cherry +tree. "Do you remember the time I squeezed the cherries all over +your clean dress, and Aunt Johanna boxed my ears for me? My +gracious, weren't you mad! You had both hands full of cherries, +and I squeezed 'em and made the juice fly all over you. I liked to +have fun with you; you'd get so mad." + +"We <i>did</i> have fun, didn't we? None of the other kids ever +had so much fun. We knew how to play." + +Nils dropped his elbows on the table and looked steadily +across at her. "I've played with lots of girls since, but I +haven't found one who was such good fun." + +Clara laughed. The late afternoon sun was shining full in her +face, and deep in the back of her eyes there shone something fiery, +like the yellow drops of Tokai in the brown glass bottle. "Can you +still play, or are you only pretending?" + +"I can play better than I used to, and harder." + +"Don't you ever work, then?" She had not intended to say it. +It slipped out because she was confused enough to say just the +wrong thing. + +"I work between times." Nils' steady gaze still beat upon her. +"Don't you worry about my working, Mrs. Ericson. You're getting +like all the rest of them." He reached his brown, warm hand across +the table and dropped it on Clara's, which was cold as an +icicle. "Last call for play, Mrs. Ericson!" Clara shivered, and +suddenly her hands and cheeks grew warm. Her fingers lingered in +his a moment, and they looked at each other earnestly. Joe Vavrika +had put the mouth of the bottle to his lips and was swallowing the +last drops of the Tokai, standing. The sun, just about to sink +behind his shop, glistened on the bright glass, on his flushed face +and curly yellow hair. "Look," Clara whispered, "that's the way I +want to grow old." + + + VI + +On the day of Olaf Ericson's barn-raising, his wife, for once +in a way, rose early. Johanna Vavrika had been baking cakes and +frying and boiling and spicing meats for a week beforehand, but it +was not until the day before the party was to take place that Clara +showed any interest in it. Then she was seized with one of her +fitful spasms of energy, and took the wagon and little Eric and +spent the day on Plum Creek, gathering vines and swamp goldenrod +to decorate the barn. + +By four o'clock in the afternoon buggies and wagons began to +arrive at the big unpainted building in front of Olaf's house. +When Nils and his mother came at five, there were more than fifty +people in the barn, and a great drove of children. On the ground +floor stood six long tables, set with the crockery of seven +flourishing Ericson families, lent for the occasion. In the middle +of each table was a big yellow pumpkin, hollowed out and filled +with woodbine. In one corner of the barn, behind a pile of green- +and-white striped watermelons, was a circle of chairs for the old +people; the younger guests sat on bushel measures or barbed-wire +spools, and the children tumbled about in the haymow. The box +stalls Clara had converted into booths. The framework was hidden +by goldenrod and sheaves of wheat, and the partitions were covered +'With wild grapevines full of fruit. At one of these Johanna +Vavrika watched over her cooked meats, enough to provision an army; +and at the next her kitchen girls had ranged the ice-cream +freezers, and Clara was already cutting pies and cakes +against the hour of serving. At the third stall, little Hilda, in +a bright pink lawn dress, dispensed lemonade throughout the +afternoon. Olaf, as a public man, had thought it inadvisable +to serve beer in his barn; but Joe Vavrika had come over with two +demijohns concealed in his buggy, and after his arrival the wagon +shed was much frequented by the men. + +"Hasn't Cousin Clara fixed things lovely?" little Hilda +whispered, when Nils went up to her stall and asked for lemonade. + +Nils leaned against the booth, talking to the excited little +girl and watching the people. The barn faced the west, and the +sun, pouring in at the big doors, filled the whole interior with a +golden light, through which filtered fine particles of dust from +the haymow, where the children were romping. There was a great +chattering from the stall where Johanna Vavrika exhibited to the +admiring women her platters heaped with fried chicken, her roasts +of beef, boiled tongues, and baked hams with cloves stuck in the +crisp brown fat and garnished with tansy and parsley. The older +women, having assured themselves that there were twenty kinds of +cake, not counting cookies, and three dozen fat pies, repaired to +the corner behind the pile of watermelons, put on their white +aprons, and fell to their knitting and fancywork. They were a fine +company of old women, and a Dutch painter would have loved to find +them there together, where the sun made bright patches on the floor +and sent long, quivering shafts of gold through the dusky shade up +among the rafters. There were fat, rosy old women who looked hot +in their best black dresses; spare, alert old women with brown, +dark-veined hands; and several of almost heroic frame, not less +massive than old Mrs. Ericson herself. Few of them wore glasses, +and old Mrs. Svendsen, a Danish woman, who was quite bald, wore the +only cap among them. Mrs. Oleson, who had twelve big +grandchildren, could still show two braids of yellow hair as thick +as her own wrists. Among all these grandmothers there were more +brown heads than white. They all had a pleased, prosperous air, as +if they were more than satisfied with themselves and with life. +Nils, leaning against Hilda's lemonade stand, watched them +as they sat chattering in four languages, their fingers never +lagging behind their tongues. + +"Look at them over there," he whispered, detaining Clara as +she passed him. "Aren't they the Old Guard? I've just counted +thirty hands. I guess they've wrung many a chicken's neck and +warmed many a boy's jacket for him in their time." + +In reality he fell into amazement when he thought of the +Herculean labours those fifteen pairs of hands had performed: of +the cows they had milked, the butter they had made, the gardens +they had planted, the children and grandchildren they had tended, +the brooms they had worn out, the mountains of food they had +cooked. It made him dizzy. Clara Vavrika smiled a hard, +enigmatical smile at him and walked rapidly away. Nils' eyes +followed her white figure as she went toward the house. He +watched her walking alone in the sunlight, looked at her slender, +defiant shoulders and her little hard-set head with its coils of +blue-black hair. "No," he reflected; "she'd never be like them, +not if she lived here a hundred years. She'd only grow more +bitter. You can't tame a wild thing; you can only chain it. +People aren't all alike. I mustn't lose my nerve." He gave +Hilda's pigtail a parting tweak and set out after Clara. "Where +to?" he asked, as he came upon her in the kitchen. + +"I'm going to the cellar for preserves." + +"Let me go with you. I never get a moment alone with you. +Why do you keep out of my way?" + +Clara laughed. "I don't usually get in anybody's way." + +Nils followed her down the stairs and to the far corner of +the cellar, where a basement window let in a stream of light. +From a swinging shelf Clara selected several glass jars, each +labeled in Johanna's careful hand. Nils took up a brown flask. +"What's this? It looks good." + +"It is. It's some French brandy father gave me when I was +married. Would you like some? Have you a corkscrew? I'll get +glasses." + +When she brought them, Nils took them from her and put them +down on the window-sill. "Clara Vavrika, do you remember how +crazy I used to be about you?" + +Clara shrugged her shoulders. "Boys are always crazy +about somebody or another. I dare say some silly has been crazy +about Evelina Oleson. You got over it in a hurry." + +"Because I didn't come back, you mean? I had to get on, you +know, and it was hard sledding at first. Then I heard you'd +married Olaf." + +"And then you stayed away from a broken heart," Clara laughed. + +"And then I began to think about you more than I had since I +first went away. I began to wonder if you were really as you had +seemed to me when I was a boy. I thought I'd like to see. I've +had lots of girls, but no one ever pulled me the same way. The +more I thought about you, the more I remembered how it used to be-- +like hearing a wild tune you can't resist, calling you out at +night. It had been a long while since anything had pulled me out +of my boots, and I wondered whether anything ever could again." +Nils thrust his hands into his coat pockets and squared his +shoulders, as his mother sometimes squared hers, as Olaf, in a +clumsier manner, squared his. "So I thought I'd come back and see. +Of course the family have tried to do me, and I rather thought I'd +bring out father's will and make a fuss. But they can have their +old land; they've put enough sweat into it." He took the flask and +filled the two glasses carefully to the brim. "I've found out what +I want from the Ericsons. Drink <i>skoal</i>, Clara." He lifted +his glass, and Clara took hers with downcast eyes. "Look at me, +Clara Vavrika. <i>Skoal!</i>" + +She raised her burning eyes and answered fiercely: "<i>Skoal!</i>" + + +The barn supper began at six o'clock and lasted for two +hilarious hours. Yense Nelson had made a wager that he could eat +two whole fried chickens, and he did. Eli Swanson stowed away two +whole custard pies, and Nick Hermanson ate a chocolate layer cake +to the last crumb. There was even a cooky contest among the +children, and one thin, slablike Bohemian boy consumed sixteen and +won the prize, a gingerbread pig which Johanna Vavrika had +carefully decorated with red candies and burnt sugar. Fritz +Sweiheart, the German carpenter, won in the pickle contest, but he +disappeared soon after supper and was not seen for the rest of the +evening. Joe Vavrika said that Fritz could have managed the +pickles all right, but he had sampled the demijohn in his buggy too +often before sitting down to the table. + +While the supper was being cleared away the two fiddlers began +to tune up for the dance. Clara was to accompany them on her old +upright piano, which had been brought down from her father's. By +this time Nils had renewed old acquaintances. Since his interview +with Clara in the cellar, he had been busy telling all the old +women how young they looked, and all the young ones how pretty they +were, and assuring the men that they had here the best farmland in +the world. He had made himself so agreeable that old Mrs. +Ericson's friends began to come up to her and tell how lucky she +was to get her smart son back again, and please to get him to play +his flute. Joe Vavrika, who could still play very well when he +forgot that he had rheumatism, caught up a fiddle from Johnny +Oleson and played a crazy Bohemian dance tune that set the wheels +going. When he dropped the bow every one was ready to dance. + +Olaf, in a frock coat and a solemn made-up necktie, led the grand +march with his mother. Clara had kept well out of <i>that</i> +by sticking to the piano. She played the march with a pompous +solemnity which greatly amused the prodigal son, who went over and +stood behind her. + +"Oh, aren't you rubbing it into them, Clara Vavrika? And +aren't you lucky to have me here, or all your wit would be thrown +away." + +"I'm used to being witty for myself. It saves my life." + +The fiddles struck up a polka, and Nils convulsed Joe Vavrika +by leading out Evelina Oleson, the homely schoolteacher. His next +partner was a very fat Swedish girl, who, although she was an +heiress, had not been asked for the first dance, but had stood +against the wall in her tight, high-heeled shoes, nervously +fingering a lace handkerchief. She was soon out of breath, so Nils +led her, pleased and panting, to her seat, and went over to the +piano, from which Clara had been watching his gallantry. "Ask +Olena Yenson," she whispered. "She waltzes beautifully." + +Olena, too, was rather inconveniently plump, handsome in a smooth, +heavy way, with a fine colour and good-natured, sleepy eyes. She +was redolent of violet sachet powder, and had warm, soft, white +hands, but she danced divinely, moving as smoothly as the tide +coming in. "There, that's something like," Nils said as he released +her. "You'll give me the next waltz, won't you? Now I must go and +dance with my little cousin." + +Hilda was greatly excited when Nils went up to her stall and +held out his arm. Her little eyes sparkled, but she declared that +she could not leave her lemonade. Old Mrs. Ericson, who happened +along at this moment, said she would attend to that, and Hilda came +out, as pink as her pink dress. The dance was a schottische, and +in a moment her yellow braids were fairly standing on end. +"Bravo!" Nils cried encouragingly. "Where did you learn to dance +so nicely?" + +"My Cousin Clara taught me," the little girl panted. + +Nils found Eric sitting with a group of boys who were too +awkward or too shy to dance, and told him that he must dance the +next waltz with Hilda. + +The boy screwed up his shoulders. "Aw, Nils, I can't dance. +My feet are too big; I look silly." + +"Don't be thinking about yourself. It doesn't matter how boys +look." + +Nils had never spoken to him so sharply before, and Eric made +haste to scramble out of his corner and brush the straw from his +coat. + +Clara nodded approvingly. "Good for you, Nils. I've been +trying to get hold of him. They dance very nicely together; I +sometimes play for them." + +"I'm obliged to you for teaching him. There's no reason why he +should grow up to be a lout." + +"He'll never be that. He's more like you than any of them. +Only he hasn't your courage." From her slanting eyes Clara shot +forth one of those keen glances, admiring and at the same time +challenging, which she seldom bestowed on any one, and which seemed +to say, "Yes, I admire you, but I am your equal." + +Clara was proving a much better host than Olaf, who, once the +supper was over, seemed to feel no interest in anything but the +lanterns. He had brought a locomotive headlight from +town to light the revels, and he kept skulking about as if he +feared the mere light from it might set his new barn on fire. +His wife, on the contrary, was cordial to every one, was +animated and even gay. The deep salmon colour in her cheeks burned +vividly, and her eyes were full of life. She gave the piano over +to the fat Swedish heiress, pulled her father away from the corner +where he sat gossiping with his cronies, and made him dance a +Bohemian dance with her. In his youth Joe had been a famous +dancer, and his daughter got him so limbered up that every one sat +around and applauded them. The old ladies were particularly +delighted, and made them go through the dance again. From their +corner where they watched and commented, the old women kept time +with their feet and hands, and whenever the fiddles struck up a new +air old Mrs. Svendsen's white cap would begin to bob. + +Clara was waltzing with little Eric when Nils came up to them, +brushed his brother aside, and swung her out among the dancers. +"Remember how we used to waltz on rollers at the old skating rink +in town? I suppose people don't do that any more. We used to keep +it up for hours. You know, we never did moon around as other boys +and girls did. It was dead serious with us from the beginning. +When we were most in love with each other, we used to fight. You +were always pinching people; your fingers were like little nippers. + +A regular snapping turtle, you were. Lord, how you'd like +Stockholm! Sit out in the streets in front of cafes and talk all +night in summer. just like a reception--officers and ladies and +funny English people. Jolliest people in the world, the Swedes, +once you get them going. Always drinking things--champagne and +stout mixed, half-and-half, serve it out of big pitchers, and serve +plenty. Slow pulse, you know; they can stand a lot. Once they +light up, they're glowworms, I can tell you." + +"All the same, you don't really like gay people." + +"<i>I</i> don't?" + +"No; I could tell that when you were looking at the old women +there this afternoon. They're the kind you really admire, after +all; women like your mother. And that's the kind you'll marry." + +"Is it, Miss Wisdom? You'll see who I'll marry, and she +won't have a domestic virtue to bless herself with. She'll be a +snapping turtle, and she'll be a match for me. All the same, +they're a fine bunch of old dames over there. You admire them +yourself + +"No, I don't; I detest them." + +"You won't, when you look back on them from Stockholm or +Budapest. Freedom settles all that. Oh, but you're the real +Bohemian Girl, Clara Vavrika!" Nils laughed down at her sullen +frown and began mockingly to sing: + + "Oh, how could a poor gypsy maiden like me + Expect the proud bride of a baron to be?" + +Clara clutched his shoulder. "Hush, Nils; every one is looking at +you." + +"I don't care. They can't gossip. It's all in the family, as +the Ericsons say when they divide up little Hilda's patrimony +amongst them. Besides, we'll give them something to talk about +when we hit the trail. Lord, it will be a godsend to them! They +haven't had anything so interesting to chatter about since the +grasshopper year. It'll give them a new lease of life. And Olaf +won't lose the Bohemian vote, either. They'll have the laugh on +him so that they'll vote two apiece. They'll send him to Congress. +They'll never forget his barn party, or us. They'll always +remember us as we're dancing together now. We're making a legend. +Where's my waltz, boys?" he called as they whirled past the +fiddlers. + +The musicians grinned, looked at each other, hesitated, and +began a new air; and Nils sang with them, as the couples fell from +a quick waltz to a long, slow glide: + + "When other lips and other hearts + Their tale of love shall tell, + In language whose excess imparts + The power they feel so well." + +The old women applauded vigorously. "What a gay one he is, +that Nils!" And old Mrs. Svendsen's cap lurched dreamily +from side to side to the flowing measure of the dance. + + Of days that have as ha-a-p-py been, + And you'll remember me." + + + VII + +The moonlight flooded that great, silent land. The reaped +fields lay yellow in it. The straw stacks and poplar windbreaks +threw sharp black shadows. The roads were white rivers of dust. +The sky was a deep, crystalline blue, and the stars were few and +faint. Everything seemed to have succumbed, to have sunk to sleep, +under the great, golden, tender, midsummer moon. The splendour of +it seemed to transcend human life and human fate. The senses were +too feeble to take it in, and every time one looked up at the sky +one felt unequal to it, as if one were sitting deaf under the waves +of a great river of melody. Near the road, Nils Ericson was lying +against a straw stack in Olaf's wheat field. His own life seemed +strange and unfamiliar to him, as if it were something he had read +about, or dreamed, and forgotten. He lay very still, watching the +white road that ran in front of him, lost itself among the fields, +and then, at a distance, reappeared over a little hill. At last, +against this white band he saw something moving rapidly, and he got +up and walked to the edge of the field. "She is passing the row of +poplars now," he thought. He heard the padded beat of hoofs along +the dusty road, and as she came into sight he stepped out and waved +his arms. Then, for fear of frightening the horse, he drew back +and waited. Clara had seen him, and she came up at a walk. Nils +took the horse by the bit and stroked his neck. + +"What are you doing out so late, Clara Vavrika? I went to the +house, but Johanna told me you had gone to your father's." + +"Who can stay in the house on a night like this? Aren't you +out yourself?" + +"Ah, but that's another matter." + +Nils turned the horse into the field. + +"What are you doing? Where are you taking Norman?" + +"Not far, but I want to talk to you tonight; I have something to +say to you. I can't talk to you at the house, with Olaf sitting +there on the porch, weighing a thousand tons." + +Clara laughed. "He won't be sitting there now. He's in bed +by this time, and asleep--weighing a thousand tons." + +Nils plodded on across the stubble. "Are you really going +to spend the rest of your life like this, night after night, +summer after summer? Haven't you anything better to do on a night +like this than to wear yourself and Norman out tearing across the +country to your father's and back? Besides, your father won't +live forever, you know. His little place will be shut up or +sold, and then you'll have nobody but the Ericsons. You'll have +to fasten down the hatches for the winter then." + +Clara moved her head restlessly. "Don't talk about that. I +try never to think of it. If I lost Father I'd lose everything, +even my hold over the Ericsons." + +"Bah! You'd lose a good deal more than that. You'd lose +your race, everything that makes you yourself. You've lost a +good deal of it now." + +"Of what?" + +"Of your love of life, your capacity for delight." + +Clara put her hands up to her face. "I haven't, Nils +Ericson, I haven't! Say anything to me but that. I won't have +it!" she declared vehemently. + +Nils led the horse up to a straw stack, and turned to Clara, +looking at her intently, as he had looked at her that Sunday +afternoon at Vavrika's. "But why do you fight for that so? What +good is the power to enjoy, if you never enjoy? Your hands are +cold again; what are you afraid of all the time? Ah, you're +afraid of losing it; that's what's the matter with you! And you +will, Clara Vavrika, you will! When I used to know you--listen; +you've caught a wild bird in your hand, haven't you, and felt its +heart beat so hard that you were afraid it would shatter its +little body to pieces? Well, you used to be just like that, a +slender, eager thing with a wild delight inside you. That is how +I remembered you. And I come back and find you--a bitter +woman. This is a perfect ferret fight here; you live by biting +and being bitten. Can't you remember what life used to be? Can't +you remember that old delight? I've never forgotten it, or known +its like, on land or sea." + +He drew the horse under the shadow of the straw stack. +Clara felt him take her foot out of the stirrup, and she slid +softly down into his arms. He kissed her slowly. He was a +deliberate man, but his nerves were steel when he wanted +anything. Something flashed out from him like a knife out of a +sheath. Clara felt everything slipping away from her; she was +flooded by the summer night. He thrust his hand into his pocket, +and then held it out at arm's length. "Look," he said. The +shadow of the straw stack fell sharp across his wrist, and in the +palm of his hand she saw a silver dollar shining. "That's my +pile," he muttered; "will you go with me?" + +Clara nodded, and dropped her forehead on his shoulder. + +Nils took a deep breath. "Will you go with me tonight?" + +"Where?" she whispered softly. + +"To town, to catch the midnight flyer." + +Clara lifted her head and pulled herself together. "Are you +crazy, Nils? We couldn't go away like that." + +"That's the only way we ever will go. You can't sit on the +bank and think about it. You have to plunge. That's the way +I've always done, and it's the right way for people like you and +me. There's nothing so dangerous as sitting still. You've only +got one life, one youth, and you can let it slip through your +fingers if you want to; nothing easier. Most people do that. +You'd be better off tramping the roads with me than you are +here." Nils held back her head and looked into her eyes. "But +I'm not that kind of a tramp, Clara. You won't have to take in +sewing. I'm with a Norwegian shipping line; came over on +business with the New York offices, but now I'm going straight +back to Bergen. I expect I've got as much money as the Ericsons. +Father sent me a little to get started. They never knew about +that. There, I hadn't meant to tell you; I wanted you to come on +your own nerve." + +Clara looked off across the fields. "It isn't that, Nils, +but something seems to hold me. I'm afraid to pull against it. +It comes out of the ground, I think." + +"I know all about that. One has to tear loose. You're not +needed here. Your father will understand; he's made like us. As +for Olaf, Johanna will take better care of him than ever you +could. It's now or never, Clara Vavrika. My bag's at the +station; I smuggled it there yesterday." + +Clara clung to him and hid her face against his shoulder. +"Not tonight," she whispered. "Sit here and talk to me tonight. +I don't want to go anywhere tonight. I may never love you like +this again." + +Nils laughed through his teeth. "You can't come that on me. +That's not my way, Clara Vavrika. Eric's mare is over there +behind the stacks, and I'm off on the midnight. It's goodbye, or +off across the world with me. My carriage won't wait. I've +written a letter to Olaf, I'll mail it in town. When he reads it +he won't bother us--not if I know him. He'd rather have the +land. Besides, I could demand an investigation of his +administration of Cousin Henrik's estate, and that would be bad +for a public man. You've no clothes, I know; but you can sit up +tonight, and we can get everything on the way. Where's your old +dash, Clara Vavrika? What's become of your Bohemian blood? I used +to think you had courage enough for anything. Where's your +nerve--what are you waiting for?" + +Clara drew back her head, and he saw the slumberous fire in +her eyes. "For you to say one thing, Nils Ericson." + +"I never say that thing to any woman, Clara Vavrika." He +leaned back, lifted her gently from the ground, and whispered +through his teeth: "But I'll never, never let you go, not to any +man on earth but me! Do you understand me? Now, wait here." + +Clara sank down on a sheaf of wheat and covered her face +with her hands. She did not know what she was going to do-- +whether she would go or stay. The great, silent country seemed +to lay a spell upon her. The ground seemed to hold her as if by +roots. Her knees were soft under her. She felt as if she could +not bear separation from her old sorrows, from her old discontent. +They were dear to her, they had kept her alive, they were +a part of her. There would be nothing left of her if she were +wrenched away from them. Never could she pass beyond that skyline +against which her restlessness had beat so many times. She felt +as if her soul had built itself a nest there on that horizon at +which she looked every morning and every evening, and it was dear +to her, inexpressibly dear. She pressed her fingers against her +eyeballs to shut it out. Beside her she heard the tramping of +horses in the soft earth. Nils said nothing to her. He put his +hands under her arms and lifted her lightly to her saddle. Then +he swung himself into his own. + +"We shall have to ride fast to catch the midnight train. A +last gallop, Clara Vavrika. Forward!" + +There was a start, a thud of hoofs along the moonlit road, two +dark shadows going over the hill; and then the great, still land +stretched untroubled under the azure night. Two shadows had +passed. + + + VII + +A year after the flight of Olaf Ericson's wife, the night +train was steaming across the plains of Iowa. The conductor was +hurrying through one of the day coaches, his lantern on his arm, +when a lank, fair-haired boy sat up in one of the plush seats and +tweaked him by the coat. + +"What is the next stop, please, sir?" + +"Red Oak, Iowa. But you go through to Chicago, don't you?" +He looked down, and noticed that the boy's eyes were red and his +face was drawn, as if he were in trouble. + +"Yes. But I was wondering whether I could get off at the +next place and get a train back to Omaha." + +"Well, I suppose you could. Live in Omaha?" + +"No. In the western part of the State. How soon do we get +to Red Oak?" + +"Forty minutes. You'd better make up your mind, so I can +tell the baggageman to put your trunk off." + +"Oh, never mind about that! I mean, I haven't got any," the +boy added, blushing. + +"Run away," the conductor thought, as he slammed the coach +door behind him. + +Eric Ericson crumpled down in his seat and put his brown hand +to his forehead. He had been crying, and he had had no supper, and +his head was aching violently. "Oh, what shall I do?" he thought, +as he looked dully down at his big shoes. "Nils will be ashamed of +me; I haven't got any spunk." + +Ever since Nils had run away with his brother's wife, life at +home had been hard for little Eric. His mother and Olaf both +suspected him of complicity. Mrs. Ericson was harsh and +faultfinding, constantly wounding the boy's pride; and Olaf was +always setting her against him. + +Joe Vavrika heard often from his daughter. Clara had always +been fond of her father, and happiness made her kinder. She wrote +him long accounts of the voyage to Bergen, and of the trip she and +Nils took through Bohemia to the little town where her father had +grown up and where she herself was born. She visited all her +kinsmen there, and sent her father news of his brother, who was a +priest; of his sister, who had married a horse-breeder--of their +big farm and their many children. These letters Joe always managed +to read to little Eric. They contained messages for Eric and +Hilda. Clara sent presents, too, which Eric never dared to take +home and which poor little Hilda never even saw, though she loved +to hear Eric tell about them when they were out getting the eggs +together. But Olaf once saw Eric coming out of Vavrika's house-- +the old man had never asked the boy to come into his saloon--and +Olaf went straight to his mother and told her. That night Mrs. +Ericson came to Eric's room after he was in bed and made a terrible +scene. She could be very terrifying when she was really angry. +She forbade him ever to speak to Vavrika again, and after that +night she would not allow him to go to town alone. So it was a +long while before Eric got any more news of his brother. But old +Joe suspected what was going on, and he carried Clara's letters +about in his pocket. One Sunday he drove out to see a German +friend of his, and chanced to catch sight of Eric, sitting by the +cattle pond in the big pasture. They went together into Fritz +Oberlies' barn, and read the letters and talked things over. Eric +admitted that things were getting hard for him at home. That very +night old Joe sat down and laboriously penned a statement of the +case to his daughter. + +Things got no better for Eric. His mother and Olaf felt +that, however closely he was watched, he still, as they said, +"heard." Mrs. Ericson could not admit neutrality. She had sent +Johanna Vavrika packing back to her brother's, though Olaf would +much rather have kept her than Anders' eldest daughter, whom Mrs. +Ericson installed in her place. He was not so highhanded as his +mother, and he once sulkily told her that she might better have +taught her granddaughter to cook before she sent Johanna away. +Olaf could have borne a good deal for the sake of prunes spiced +in honey, the secret of which Johanna had taken away with her. + +At last two letters came to Joe Vavrika: one from Nils, +enclosing a postal order for money to pay Eric's passage to +Bergen, and one from Clara, saying that Nils had a place for Eric +in the offices of his company, that he was to live with them, and +that they were only waiting for him to come. He was to leave New +York on one of the boats of Nils' own line; the captain was one +of their friends, and Eric was to make himself known at once. + +Nils' directions were so explicit that a baby could have +followed them, Eric felt. And here he was, nearing Red Oak, +Iowa, and rocking backward and forward in despair. Never had he +loved his brother so much, and never had the big world called to +him so hard. But there was a lump in his throat which would not +go down. Ever since nightfall he had been tormented by the +thought of his mother, alone in that big house that had sent +forth so many men. Her unkindness now seemed so little, and her +loneliness so great. He remembered everything she had ever done +for him: how frightened she had been when he tore his hand in the +corn-sheller, and how she wouldn't let Olaf scold him. When Nils +went away he didn't leave his mother all alone, or he would never +have gone. Eric felt sure of that. + +The train whistled. The conductor came in, smiling not unkindly. +"Well, young man, what are you going to do? We stop at Red Oak in +three minutes." + +"Yes, thank you. I'll let you know." The conductor went out, +and the boy doubled up with misery. He couldn't let his one chance +go like this. He felt for his breast pocket and crackled Nils' +letter to give him courage. He didn't want Nils to be ashamed of +him. The train stopped. Suddenly he remembered his brother's +kind, twinkling eyes, that always looked at you as if from far +away. The lump in his throat softened. "Ah, but Nils, Nils would +<i>understand</i>!" he thought. "That's just it about Nils; he +always understands." + +A lank, pale boy with a canvas telescope stumbled off the +train to the Red Oak siding, just as the conductor called, "All +aboard!" + +The next night Mrs. Ericson was sitting alone in her wooden +rocking-chair on the front porch. Little Hilda had been sent to +bed and had cried herself to sleep. The old woman's knitting was +on her lap, but her hands lay motionless on top of it. For more +than an hour she had not moved a muscle. She simply sat, as only +the Ericsons and the mountains can sit. The house was dark, and +there was no sound but the croaking of the frogs down in the pond +of the little pasture. + +Eric did not come home by the road, but across the fields, +where no one could see him. He set his telescope down softly in +the kitchen shed, and slipped noiselessly along the path to the +front porch. He sat down on the step without saying anything. +Mrs. Ericson made no sign, and the frogs croaked on. At last the +boy spoke timidly. + +"I've come back, Mother." + +"Very well," said Mrs. Ericson. + +Eric leaned over and picked up a little stick out of the grass. + +"How about the milking?" he faltered. + +"That's been done, hours ago." + +"Who did you get?" + +"Get? I did it myself. I can milk as good as any of you." + +Eric slid along the step nearer to her. "Oh, Mother, why did you?" +he asked sorrowfully. "Why didn't you get one of Otto's boys?" + +"I didn't want anybody to know I was in need of a boy," said +Mrs. Ericson bitterly. She looked straight in front of her and her +mouth tightened. "I always meant to give you the home farm," she +added. + +The boy stared and slid closer. "Oh, Mother," he faltered, "I +don't care about the farm. I came back because I thought you might +be needing me, maybe." He hung his head and got no further. + +"Very well," said Mrs. Ericson. Her hand went out from her +suddenly and rested on his head. Her fingers twined themselves in +his soft, pale hair. His tears splashed down on the boards; +happiness filled his heart. + + + + + +The Troll Garden + + + + + +Flavia and Her Artists + +As the train neared Tarrytown, Imogen Willard began to +wonder why she had consented to be one of Flavia's house party at +all. She had not felt enthusiastic about it since leaving the +city, and was experiencing a prolonged ebb of purpose, a current +of chilling indecision, under which she vainly sought for the +motive which had induced her to accept Flavia's invitation. + +Perhaps it was a vague curiosity to see Flavia's husband, +who had been the magician of her childhood and the hero of +innumerable Arabian fairy tales. Perhaps it was a desire to see +M. Roux, whom Flavia had announced as the especial attraction of +the occasion. Perhaps it was a wish to study that remarkable +woman in her own setting. + +Imogen admitted a mild curiosity concerning Flavia. She was +in the habit of taking people rather seriously, but somehow found +it impossible to take Flavia so, because of the very vehemence +and insistence with which Flavia demanded it. Submerged in her +studies, Imogen had, of late years, seen very little of Flavia; +but Flavia, in her hurried visits to New York, between her +excursions from studio to studio--her luncheons with this lady +who had to play at a matinee, and her dinners with that singer +who had an evening concert--had seen enough of her friend's +handsome daughter to conceive for her an inclination of such +violence and assurance as only Flavia could afford. The fact +that Imogen had shown rather marked capacity in certain esoteric +lines of scholarship, and had decided to specialize in a well- +sounding branch of philology at the Ecole des Chartes, had fairly +placed her in that category of "interesting people" whom Flavia +considered her natural affinities, and lawful prey. + +When Imogen stepped upon the station platform she was immediately +appropriated by her hostess, whose commanding figure and assurance +of attire she had recognized from a distance. She was hurried into +a high tilbury and Flavia, taking the driver's cushion beside her, +gathered up the reins with an experienced hand. + +"My dear girl," she remarked, as she turned the horses up the +street, "I was afraid the train might be late. M. Roux insisted +upon coming up by boat and did not arrive until after seven." + +"To think of M. Roux's being in this part of the world at +all, and subject to the vicissitudes of river boats! Why in the +world did he come over?" queried Imogen with lively interest. +"He is the sort of man who must dissolve and become a shadow +outside of Paris." + +"Oh, we have a houseful of the most interesting people," +said Flavia, professionally. "We have actually managed to get +Ivan Schemetzkin. He was ill in California at the close of his +concert tour, you know, and he is recuperating with us, after his +wearing journey from the coast. Then there is Jules Martel, the +painter; Signor Donati, the tenor; Professor Schotte, who has dug +up Assyria, you know; Restzhoff, the Russian chemist; Alcee +Buisson, the philologist; Frank Wellington, the novelist; and +Will Maidenwood, the editor of <i>Woman</i>. Then there is my +second cousin, Jemima Broadwood, who made such a hit in Pinero's +comedy last winter, and Frau Lichtenfeld. <i>Have</i> you read +her?" + +Imogen confessed her utter ignorance of Frau Lichtenfeld, +and Flavia went on. + +"Well, she is a most remarkable person; one of those +advanced German women, a militant iconoclast, and this drive will +not be long enough to permit of my telling you her history. Such +a story! Her novels were the talk of all Germany when I was there +last, and several of them have been suppressed--an honor in +Germany, I understand. 'At Whose Door' has been translated. I +am so unfortunate as not to read German." + +"I'm all excitement at the prospect of meeting Miss +Broadwood," said Imogen. "I've seen her in nearly everything she +does. Her stage personality is delightful. She always reminds me +of a nice, clean, pink-and-white boy who has just had his cold +bath, and come down all aglow for a run before breakfast." + +"Yes, but isn't it unfortunate that she will limit herself to +those minor comedy parts that are so little appreciated in this +country? One ought to be satisfied with nothing less than the +best, ought one?" The peculiar, breathy tone in which Flavia +always uttered that word "best," the most worn in her vocabulary, +always jarred on Imogen and always made her obdurate. + +"I don't at all agree with you," she said reservedly. "I +thought everyone admitted that the most remarkable thing about Miss +Broadwood is her admirable sense of fitness, which is rare enough +in her profession." + +Flavia could not endure being contradicted; she always seemed +to regard it in the light of a defeat, and usually colored +unbecomingly. Now she changed the subject. + +"Look, my dear," she cried, "there is Frau Lichtenfeld now, +coming to meet us. Doesn't she look as if she had just escaped out +of Valhalla? She is actually over six feet." + +Imogen saw a woman of immense stature, in a very short skirt +and a broad, flapping sun hat, striding down the hillside at a +long, swinging gait. The refugee from Valhalla approached, +panting. Her heavy, Teutonic features were scarlet from the rigor +of her exercise, and her hair, under her flapping sun hat, was +tightly befrizzled about her brow. She fixed her sharp little eves +upon Imogen and extended both her hands. + +"So this is the little friend?" she cried, in a rolling baritone. + +Imogen was quite as tall as her hostess; but everything, she +reflected, is comparative. After the introduction Flavia +apologized. + +"I wish I could ask you to drive up with us, Frau Lichtenfeld." + +"Ah, no!" cried the giantess, drooping her head in humorous +caricature of a time-honored pose of the heroines of sentimental +romances. "It has never been my fate to be fitted into corners. +I have never known the sweet privileges of the tiny." + +Laughing, Flavia started the ponies, and the colossal woman, +standing in the middle of the dusty road, took off her wide hat +and waved them a farewell which, in scope of gesture, recalled +the salute of a plumed cavalier. + +When they arrived at the house, Imogen looked about her with +keen curiosity, for this was veritably the work of Flavia's +hands, the materialization of hopes long deferred. They passed +directly into a large, square hall with a gallery on three sides, +studio fashion. This opened at one end into a Dutch breakfast +room, beyond which was the large dining room. At the other end +of the hall was the music room. There was a smoking room, which +one entered through the library behind the staircase. On the +second floor there was the same general arrangement: a square +hall, and, opening from it, the guest chambers, or, as Miss +Broadwood termed them, the "cages." + +When Imogen went to her room, the guests had begun to return +from their various afternoon excursions. Boys were gliding +through the halls with ice water, covered trays, and flowers, +colliding with maids and valets who carried shoes and other +articles of wearing apparel. Yet, all this was done in response +to inaudible bells, on felt soles, and in hushed voices, so that +there was very little confusion about it. + +Flavia had at last built her house and hewn out her seven +pillars; there could be no doubt, now, that the asylum for +talent, the sanatorium of the arts, so long projected, was an +accomplished fact. Her ambition had long ago outgrown the +dimensions of her house on Prairie Avenue; besides, she had +bitterly complained that in Chicago traditions were against her. +Her project had been delayed by Arthur's doggedly standing out +for the Michigan woods, but Flavia knew well enough that certain +of the <i>rarae aves</i>--"the best"--could not be lured so far +away from the seaport, so she declared herself for the historic +Hudson and knew no retreat. The establishing of a New York office +had at length overthrown Arthur's last valid objection to quitting +the lake country for three months of the year; and Arthur could +be wearied into anything, as those who knew him knew. + +Flavia's house was the mirror of her exultation; it was +a temple to the gods of Victory, a sort of triumphal arch. In +her earlier days she had swallowed experiences that would have +unmanned one of less torrential enthusiasm or blind pertinacity. +But, of late years, her determination had told; she saw less and +less of those mysterious persons with mysterious obstacles in +their path and mysterious grievances against the world, who had +once frequented her house on Prairie Avenue. In the stead of +this multitude of the unarrived, she had now the few, the select, +"the best." Of all that band of indigent retainers who had once +fed at her board like the suitors in the halls of Penelope, only +Alcee Buisson still retained his right of entree. He alone had +remembered that ambition hath a knapsack at his back, wherein he +puts alms to oblivion, and he alone had been considerate enough +to do what Flavia had expected of him, and give his name a +current value in the world. Then, as Miss Broadwood put it, "he +was her first real one,"--and Flavia, like Mohammed, could +remember her first believer. + +"The House of Song," as Miss Broadwood had called it, was +the outcome of Flavia's more exalted strategies. A woman who +made less a point of sympathizing with their delicate organisms, +might have sought to plunge these phosphorescent pieces into the +tepid bath of domestic life; but Flavia's discernment was deeper. +This must be a refuge where the shrinking soul, the sensitive +brain, should be unconstrained; where the caprice of fancy should +outweigh the civil code, if necessary. She considered that this +much Arthur owed her; for she, in her turn, had made concessions. +Flavia had, indeed, quite an equipment of epigrams to the effect +that our century creates the iron genii which evolve its fairy +tales: but the fact that her husband's name was annually painted +upon some ten thousand threshing machines in reality contributed +very little to her happiness. + +Arthur Hamilton was born and had spent his boyhood in the +West Indies, and physically he had never lost the brand of the +tropics. His father, after inventing the machine which bore his +name, had returned to the States to patent and manufacture it. +After leaving college, Arthur had spent five years ranching in +the West and traveling abroad. Upon his father's death +he had returned to Chicago and, to the astonishment of all his +friends, had taken up the business--without any demonstration of +enthusiasm, but with quiet perseverance, marked ability, and +amazing industry. Why or how a self-sufficient, rather ascetic +man of thirty, indifferent in manner, wholly negative in all +other personal relations, should have doggedly wooed and finally +married Flavia Malcolm was a problem that had vexed older heads +than Imogen's. + +While Imogen was dressing she heard a knock at her door, and +a young woman entered whom she at once recognized as Jemima +Broadwood--"Jimmy" Broadwood she was called by people in her own +profession. While there was something unmistakably professional +in her frank <i>savoir-faire</i>, "Jimmy's" was one of those faces +to which the rouge never seems to stick. Her eyes were keen and +gray as a windy April sky, and so far from having been seared by +calcium lights, you might have fancied they had never looked on +anything less bucolic than growing fields and country fairs. She +wore her thick, brown hair short and parted at the side; and, +rather than hinting at freakishness, this seemed admirably in +keeping with her fresh, boyish countenance. She extended to +Imogen a large, well-shaped hand which it was a pleasure to +clasp. + +"Ah! You are Miss Willard, and I see I need not introduce +myself. Flavia said you were kind enough to express a wish to +meet me, and I preferred to meet you alone. Do you mind if I +smoke?" + +"Why, certainly not," said Imogen, somewhat disconcerted and +looking hurriedly about for matches. + +"There, be calm, I'm always prepared," said Miss Broadwood, +checking Imogen's flurry with a soothing gesture, and producing +an oddly fashioned silver match-case from some mysterious recess +in her dinner gown. She sat down in a deep chair, crossed her +patent-leather Oxfords, and lit her cigarette. "This matchbox," +she went on meditatively, "once belonged to a Prussian officer. +He shot himself in his bathtub, and I bought it at the sale of +his effects." + +Imogen had not yet found any suitable reply to make to this +rather irrelevant confidence, when Miss Broadwood turned to her +cordially: "I'm awfully glad you've come, Miss Willard, though I've +not quite decided why you did it. I wanted very much to meet you. +Flavia gave me your thesis to read." + +"Why, how funny!" ejaculated Imogen. + +"On the contrary," remarked Miss Broadwood. "I thought it +decidedly lacked humor." + +"I meant," stammered Imogen, beginning to feel very much +like Alice in Wonderland, "I meant that I thought it rather +strange Mrs. Hamilton should fancy you would be interested." + +Miss Broadwood laughed heartily. "Now, don't let my +rudeness frighten you. Really, I found it very interesting, and +no end impressive. You see, most people in my profession are +good for absolutely nothing else, and, therefore, they have a +deep and abiding conviction that in some other line they might +have shone. Strange to say, scholarship is the object of our +envious and particular admiration. Anything in type impresses us +greatly; that's why so many of us marry authors or newspapermen +and lead miserable lives." Miss Broadwood saw that she had rather +disconcerted Imogen, and blithely tacked in another direction. +"You see," she went on, tossing aside her half-consumed +cigarette, "some years ago Flavia would not have deemed me worthy +to open the pages of your thesis--nor to be one of her house +party of the chosen, for that matter. I've Pinero to thank for +both pleasures. It all depends on the class of business I'm +playing whether I'm in favor or not. Flavia is my second cousin, +you know, so I can say whatever disagreeable things I choose with +perfect good grace. I'm quite desperate for someone to laugh +with, so I'm going to fasten myself upon you--for, of course, one +can't expect any of these gypsy-dago people to see anything +funny. I don't intend you shall lose the humor of the situation. +What do you think of Flavia's infirmary for the arts, anyway?" + +"Well, it's rather too soon for me to have any opinion at +all," said Imogen, as she again turned to her dressing. "So far, +you are the only one of the artists I've met." + +"One of them?" echoed Miss Broadwood. "One of the <i>artists</i>? +My offense may be rank, my dear, but I really don't deserve +that. Come, now, whatever badges of my tribe I may bear upon me, +just let me divest you of any notion that I take myself seriously." + +Imogen turned from the mirror in blank astonishment and sat +down on the arm of a chair, facing her visitor. "I can't fathom +you at all, Miss Broadwood," she said frankly. "Why shouldn't +you take yourself seriously? What's the use of beating about the +bush? Surely you know that you are one of the few players on this +side of the water who have at all the spirit of natural or +ingenuous comedy?" + +"Thank you, my dear. Now we are quite even about the thesis, +aren't we? Oh, did you mean it? Well, you <i>are</i> a clever +girl. But you see it doesn't do to permit oneself to look at it +in that light. If we do, we always go to pieces and waste our +substance astarring as the unhappy daughter of the Capulets. But +there, I hear Flavia coming to take you down; and just remember +I'm not one of them--the artists, I mean." + + +Flavia conducted Imogen and Miss Broadwood downstairs. As +they reached the lower hall they heard voices from the music +room, and dim figures were lurking in the shadows under the +gallery, but their hostess led straight to the smoking room. The +June evening was chilly, and a fire had been lighted in the +fireplace. Through the deepening dusk, the firelight flickered +upon the pipes and curious weapons on the wall and threw an +orange glow over the Turkish hangings. One side of the smoking +room was entirely of glass, separating it from the conservatory, +which was flooded with white light from the electric bulbs. +There was about the darkened room some suggestion of certain +chambers in the Arabian Nights, opening on a court of palms. +Perhaps it was partially this memory-evoking suggestion that +caused Imogen to start so violently when she saw dimly, in a blur +of shadow, the figure of a man, who sat smoking in a low, deep +chair before the fire. He was long, and thin, and brown. His +long, nerveless hands drooped from the arms of his chair. A +brown mustache shaded his mouth, and his eyes were sleepy and +apathetic. When Imogen entered he rose indolently and gave her +his hand, his manner barely courteous. + +"I am glad you arrived promptly, Miss Willard," he said with +an indifferent drawl. "Flavia was afraid you might be late. You +had a pleasant ride up, I hope?" + +"Oh, very, thank you, Mr. Hamilton," she replied, feeling +that he did not particularly care whether she replied at all. + +Flavia explained that she had not yet had time to dress for +dinner, as she had been attending to Mr. Will Maidenwood, who had +become faint after hurting his finger in an obdurate window, and +immediately excused herself As she left, Hamilton turned to Miss +Broadwood with a rather spiritless smile. + +"Well, Jimmy," he remarked, "I brought up a piano box full +of fireworks for the boys. How do you suppose we'll manage to +keep them until the Fourth?" + +"We can't, unless we steel ourselves to deny there are any on the +premises," said Miss Broadwood, seating herself on a low stool by +Hamilton's chair and leaning back against the mantel. "Have you +seen Helen, and has she told you the tragedy of the tooth?" + +"She met me at the station, with her tooth wrapped up in +tissue paper. I had tea with her an hour ago. Better sit down, +Miss Willard;" he rose and pushed a chair toward Imogen, who was +standing peering into the conservatory. "We are scheduled to +dine at seven, but they seldom get around before eight." + +By this time Imogen had made out that here the plural +pronoun, third person, always referred to the artists. As +Hamilton's manner did not spur one to cordial intercourse, and as +his attention seemed directed to Miss Broadwood, insofar as it +could be said to be directed to anyone, she sat down facing the +conservatory and watched him, unable to decide in how far he was +identical with the man who had first met Flavia Malcolm in her +mother's house, twelve years ago. Did he at all remember having +known her as a little girl, and why did his indifference hurt her +so, after all these years? Had some remnant of her childish +affection for him gone on living, somewhere down in the sealed +caves of her consciousness, and had she really expected to find +it possible to be fond of him again? Suddenly she saw a light in +the man's sleepy eyes, an unmistakable expression of +interest and pleasure that fairly startled her. She turned +quickly in the direction of his glance, and saw Flavia, just +entering, dressed for dinner and lit by the effulgence of her +most radiant manner. Most people considered Flavia handsome, +and there was no gainsaying that she carried her five-and-thirty +years splendidly. Her figure had never grown matronly, and her +face was of the sort that does not show wear. Its blond tints +were as fresh and enduring as enamel--and quite as hard. Its +usual expression was one of tense, often strained, animation, +which compressed her lips nervously. A perfect scream of +animation, Miss Broadwood had called it, created and maintained +by sheer, indomitable force of will. Flavia's appearance on any +scene whatever made a ripple, caused a certain agitation and +recognition, and, among impressionable people, a certain +uneasiness, For all her sparkling assurance of manner, Flavia +was certainly always ill at ease and, even more certainly, +anxious. She seemed not convinced of the established order of +material things, seemed always trying to conceal her feeling that +walls might crumble, chasms open, or the fabric of her life fly +to the winds in irretrievable entanglement. At least this was +the impression Imogen got from that note in Flavia which was so +manifestly false. + +Hamilton's keen, quick, satisfied glance at his wife had +recalled to Imogen all her inventory of speculations about them. +She looked at him with compassionate surprise. As a child she +had never permitted herself to believe that Hamilton cared at all +for the woman who had taken him away from her; and since she had +begun to think about them again, it had never occurred to her +that anyone could become attached to Flavia in that deeply +personal and exclusive sense. It seemed quite as irrational as +trying to possess oneself of Broadway at noon. + +When they went out to dinner Imogen realized the completeness of +Flavia's triumph. They were people of one name, mostly, like +kings; people whose names stirred the imagination like a romance or +a melody. With the notable exception of M. Roux, Imogen had seen +most of them before, either in concert halls or lecture rooms; but +they looked noticeably older and dimmer than she remembered them. + +Opposite her sat Schemetzkin, the Russian pianist, a short, +corpulent man, with an apoplectic face and purplish skin, his +thick, iron-gray hair tossed back from his forehead. Next to the +German giantess sat the Italian tenor --the tiniest of men--pale, +with soft, light hair, much in disorder, very red lips, and +fingers yellowed by cigarettes. Frau Lichtenfeld shone in a gown +of emerald green, fitting so closely as to enhance her natural +floridness. However, to do the good lady justice, let her attire +be never so modest, it gave an effect of barbaric splendor. At +her left sat Herr Schotte, the Assyriologist, whose features were +effectually concealed by the convergence of his hair and beard, +and whose glasses were continually falling into his plate. This +gentleman had removed more tons of earth in the course of his +explorations than had any of his confreres, and his vigorous +attack upon his food seemed to suggest the strenuous nature of +his accustomed toil. His eyes were small and deeply set, and his +forehead bulged fiercely above his eves in a bony ridge. His +heavy brows completed the leonine suggestion of his face. Even +to Imogen, who knew something of his work and greatly respected +it, he was entirely too reminiscent of the Stone Age to be +altogether an agreeable dinner companion. He seemed, indeed, to +have absorbed something of the savagery of those early types of +life which he continually studied. + +Frank Wellington, the young Kansas man who had been two +years out of Harvard and had published three historical novels, +sat next to Mr. Will Maidenwood, who was still pale from his +recent sufferings and carried his hand bandaged. They took +little part in the general conversation, but, like the lion and +the unicorn, were always at it, discussing, every time they met, +whether there were or were not passages in Mr. Wellington's works +which should be eliminated, out of consideration for the Young +Person. Wellington had fallen into the hands of a great American +syndicate which most effectually befriended struggling authors +whose struggles were in the right direction, and which had +guaranteed to make him famous before he was thirty. Feeling the +security of his position he stoutly defended those passages which +jarred upon the sensitive nerves of the young editor of +<i>Woman</i>. Maidenwood, in the smoothest of voices, urged the +necessity of the author's recognizing certain restrictions at the +outset, and Miss Broadwood, who joined the argument quite without +invitation or encouragement, seconded him with pointed and +malicious remarks which caused the young editor manifest +discomfort. Restzhoff, the chemist, demanded the attention of the +entire company for his exposition of his devices for manufacturing +ice cream from vegetable oils and for administering drugs in +bonbons. + +Flavia, always noticeably restless at dinner, was somewhat +apathetic toward the advocate of peptonized chocolate and was +plainly concerned about the sudden departure of M. Roux, who had +announced that it would be necessary for him to leave tomorrow. +M. Emile Roux, who sat at Flavia's right, was a man in middle +life and quite bald, clearly without personal vanity, though his +publishers preferred to circulate only those of his portraits +taken in his ambrosial youth. Imogen was considerably shocked at +his unlikeness to the slender, black-stocked Rolla he had looked +at twenty. He had declined into the florid, settled heaviness of +indifference and approaching age. There was, however, a certain +look of durability and solidity about him; the look of a man who +has earned the right to be fat and bald, and even silent at +dinner if he chooses. + +Throughout the discussion between Wellington and Will +Maidenwood, though they invited his participation, he remained +silent, betraying no sign either of interest or contempt. Since +his arrival he had directed most of his conversation to Hamilton, +who had never read one of his twelve great novels. This +perplexed and troubled Flavia. On the night of his arrival Jules +Martel had enthusiastically declared, "There are schools and +schools, manners and manners; but Roux is Roux, and Paris sets +its watches by his clock." Flavia bad already repeated this +remark to Imogen. It haunted her, and each time she quoted it +she was impressed anew. + +Flavia shifted the conversation uneasily, evidently exasperated +and excited by her repeated failures to draw the novelist out. +"Monsieur Roux," she began abruptly, with her most animated smile, +"I remember so well a statement I read some years ago in your 'Mes +Etudes des Femmes' to the effect that you had never met a really +intellectual woman. May I ask, without being impertinent, whether +that assertion still represents your experience?" + +"I meant, madam," said the novelist conservatively, "intellectual +in a sense very special, as we say of men in whom the purely +intellectual functions seem almost independent." + +"And you still think a woman so constituted a mythical +personage?" persisted Flavia, nodding her head encouragingly. + +"<i>Une Meduse</i>, madam, who, if she were discovered, would +transmute us all into stone," said the novelist, bowing gravely. +"If she existed at all," he added deliberately, "it was my +business to find her, and she has cost me many a vain pilgrimage. +Like Rudel of Tripoli, I have crossed seas and penetrated deserts +to seek her out. I have, indeed, encountered women of learning +whose industry I have been compelled to respect; many who have +possessed beauty and charm and perplexing cleverness; a few with +remarkable information and a sort of fatal facility." + +"And Mrs. Browning, George Eliot, and your own Mme. Dudevant?" +queried Flavia with that fervid enthusiasm with which she could, on +occasion, utter things simply incomprehensible for their +banality--at her feats of this sort Miss Broadwood was wont to sit +breathless with admiration. + +"Madam, while the intellect was undeniably present in the +performances of those women, it was only the stick of the rocket. +Although this woman has eluded me I have studied her conditions +and perturbances as astronomers conjecture the orbits of planets +they have never seen. if she exists, she is probably neither an +artist nor a woman with a mission, but an obscure personage, with +imperative intellectual needs, who absorbs rather than produces." + +Flavia, still nodding nervously, fixed a strained glance of +interrogation upon M. Roux. "Then you think she would be a woman +whose first necessity would be to know, whose instincts would be +satisfied only with the best, who could draw from others; +appreciative, merely?" + +The novelist lifted his dull eyes to his interlocutress with +an untranslatable smile and a slight inclination of his +shoulders. "Exactly so; you are really remarkable, madam," he +added, in a tone of cold astonishment. + +After dinner the guests took their coffee in the music room, +where Schemetzkin sat down at the piano to drum ragtime, and give +his celebrated imitation of the boardingschool girl's execution +of Chopin. He flatly refused to play anything more serious, and +would practice only in the morning, when he had the music room to +himself. Hamilton and M. Roux repaired to the smoking room to +discuss the necessity of extending the tax on manufactured +articles in France--one of those conversations which particularly +exasperated Flavia. + +After Schemetzkin had grimaced and tortured the keyboard +with malicious vulgarities for half an hour, Signor Donati, to +put an end to his torture, consented to sing, and Flavia and +Imogen went to fetch Arthur to play his accompaniments. Hamilton +rose with an annoyed look and placed his cigarette on the mantel. +"Why yes, Flavia, I'll accompany him, provided he sings something +with a melody, Italian arias or ballads, and provided the recital +is not interminable." + +"You will join us, M. Roux?" + +"Thank you, but I have some letters to write," replied the +novelist, bowing. + +As Flavia had remarked to Imogen, "Arthur really played +accompaniments remarkably well." To hear him recalled vividly the +days of her childhood, when he always used to spend his business +vacations at her mother's home in Maine. He had possessed for +her that almost hypnotic influence which young men sometimes +exert upon little girls. It was a sort of phantom love affair, +subjective and fanciful, a precocity of instinct, like that +tender and maternal concern which some little girls feel for +their dolls. Yet this childish infatuation is capable of all the +depressions and exaltations of love itself, it has its bitter +jealousies, cruel disappointments, its exacting caprices. + +Summer after summer she had awaited his coming and wept at his +departure, indifferent to the gayer young men who had called her +their sweetheart and laughed at everything she said. Although +Hamilton never said so, she had been always quite sure that he was +fond of her. When he pulled her up the river to hunt for fairy +knolls shut about by low, hanging willows, he was often silent for +an hour at a time, yet she never felt he was bored or was +neglecting her. He would lie in the sand smoking, his eyes +half-closed, watching her play, and she was always conscious that +she was entertaining him. Sometimes he would take a copy of "Alice +in Wonderland" in his pocket, and no one could read it as he could, +laughing at her with his dark eyes, when anything amused him. No +one else could laugh so, with just their eyes, and without moving +a muscle of their face. Though he usually smiled at passages that +seemed not at all funny to the child, she always laughed gleefully, +because he was so seldom moved to mirth that any such demonstration +delighted her and she took the credit of it entirely to herself Her +own inclination had been for serious stories, with sad endings, +like the Little Mermaid, which he had once told her in an unguarded +moment when she had a cold, and was put to bed early on her +birthday night and cried because she could not have her party. But +he highly disapproved of this preference, and had called it a +morbid taste, and always shook his finger at her when she asked for +the story. When she had been particularly good, or particularly +neglected by other people, then he would sometimes melt and tell +her the story, and never laugh at her if she enjoyed the "sad +ending" even to tears. When Flavia had taken him away and he came +no more, she wept inconsolably for the space of two weeks, and +refused to learn her lessons. Then she found the story of the +Little Mermaid herself, and forgot him. + +Imogen had discovered at dinner that he could still smile at +one secretly, out of his eyes, and that he had the old manner of +outwardly seeming bored, but letting you know that he was not. +She was intensely curious about his exact state of feeling toward +his wife, and more curious still to catch a sense of his final +adjustment to the conditions of life in general. This, she could +not help feeling, she might get again--if she could have him alone +for an hour, in some place where there was a little river and a +sandy cove bordered by drooping willows, and a blue sky seen +through white sycamore boughs. + +That evening, before retiring, Flavia entered her husband's +room, where be sat in his smoking jacket, in one of his favorite +low chairs. + +"I suppose it's a grave responsibility to bring an ardent, +serious young thing like Imogen here among all these fascinating +personages," she remarked reflectively. "But, after all, one can +never tell. These grave, silent girls have their own charm, even +for facile people." + +"Oh, so that is your plan?" queried her husband dryly. "I +was wondering why you got her up here. She doesn't seem to mix +well with the faciles. At least, so it struck me." + +Flavia paid no heed to this jeering remark, but repeated, "No, +after all, it may not be a bad thing." + +"Then do consign her to that shaken reed, the tenor," said +her husband yawning. "I remember she used to have a taste for +the pathetic." + +"And then," remarked Flavia coquettishly, "after all, I owe her +mother a return in kind. She was not afraid to trifle with +destiny." + +But Hamilton was asleep in his chair. + + +Next morning Imogen found only Miss Broadwood in the breakfast +room. + +"Good morning, my dear girl, whatever are you doing up so +early? They never breakfast before eleven. Most of them take +their coffee in their room. Take this place by me." + +Miss Broadwood looked particularly fresh and encouraging in +her blue serge walking skirt, her open jacket displaying an +expanse of stiff, white shirt bosom, dotted with some almost +imperceptible figure, and a dark blue-and-white necktie, neatly +knotted under her wide, rolling collar. She wore a white rosebud +in the lapel of her coat, and decidedly she seemed more than ever +like a nice, clean boy on his holiday. Imogen was just hoping +that they would breakfast alone when Miss Broadwood exclaimed, +"Ah, there comes Arthur with the children. That's the reward of +early rising in this house; you never get to see the youngsters +at any other time." + +Hamilton entered, followed by two dark, handsome little +boys. The girl, who was very tiny, blonde like her mother, and +exceedingly frail, he carried in his arms. The boys came up and +said good morning with an ease and cheerfulness uncommon, even in +well-bred children, but the little girl hid her face on her +father's shoulder. + +"She's a shy little lady," he explained as he put her gently +down in her chair. "I'm afraid she's like her father; she can't +seem to get used to meeting people. And you, Miss Willard, did +you dream of the White Rabbit or the Little Mermaid?" + +"Oh, I dreamed of them all! All the personages of that +buried civilization," cried Imogen, delighted that his estranged +manner of the night before had entirely vanished and feeling +that, somehow, the old confidential relations had been restored +during the night. + +"Come, William," said Miss Broadwood, turning to the younger +of the two boys, "and what did you dream about?" + +"We dreamed," said William gravely--he was the more assertive of +the two and always spoke for both--"we dreamed that there were +fireworks hidden in the basement of the carriage house; lots and +lots of fireworks." + +His elder brother looked up at him with apprehensive +astonishment, while Miss Broadwood hastily put her napkin to her +lips and Hamilton dropped his eyes. "If little boys dream +things, they are so apt not to come true," he reflected sadly. +This shook even the redoubtable William, and he glanced nervously +at his brother. "But do things vanish just because they have +been dreamed?" he objected. + +"Generally that is the very best reason for their vanishing," +said Arthur gravely. + +"But, Father, people can't help what they dream," +remonstrated Edward gently. + +"Oh, come! You're making these children talk like a +Maeterlinck dialogue," laughed Miss Broadwood. + +Flavia presently entered, a book in her hand, and bade them all +good morning. "Come, little people, which story shall it be this +morning?" she asked winningly. Greatly excited, the children +followed her into the garden. "She does then, sometimes," murmured +Imogen as they left the breakfast room. + +"Oh, yes, to be sure," said Miss Broadwood cheerfully. "She +reads a story to them every morning in the most picturesque part +of the garden. The mother of the Gracchi, you know. She does so +long, she says, for the time when they will be intellectual +companions for her. What do you say to a walk over the hills?" + +As they left the house they met Frau Lichtenfeld and the +bushy Herr Schotte--the professor cut an astonishing figure in +golf stockings--returning from a walk and engaged in an animated +conversation on the tendencies of German fiction. + +"Aren't they the most attractive little children," exclaimed +Imogen as they wound down the road toward the river. + +"Yes, and you must not fail to tell Flavia that you think +so. She will look at you in a sort of startled way and say, +'Yes, aren't they?' and maybe she will go off and hunt them up +and have tea with them, to fully appreciate them. She is awfully +afraid of missing anything good, is Flavia. The way those +youngsters manage to conceal their guilty presence in the House +of Song is a wonder." + +"But don't any of the artist-folk fancy children?" asked Imogen. + +"Yes, they just fancy them and no more. The chemist remarked the +other day that children are like certain salts which need not be +actualized because the formulae are quite sufficient for practical +purposes. I don't see how even Flavia can endure to have that man +about." + +"I have always been rather curious to know what Arthur +thinks of it all," remarked Imogen cautiously. + +"Thinks of it!" ejaculated Miss Broadwood. "Why, my dear, +what would any man think of having his house turned into an +hotel, habited by freaks who discharge his servants, borrow his +money, and insult his neighbors? This place is shunned like a +lazaretto!" + +Well, then, why does he--why does he--" persisted Imogen. + +"Bah!" interrupted Miss Broadwood impatiently, "why did he +in the first place? That's the question." + +"Marry her, you mean?" said Imogen coloring. + +"Exactly so," said Miss Broadwood sharply, as she snapped +the lid of her matchbox. + +"I suppose that is a question rather beyond us, and +certainly one which we cannot discuss," said Imogen. "But his +toleration on this one point puzzles me, quite apart from other +complications." + +"Toleration? Why this point, as you call it, simply is +Flavia. Who could conceive of her without it? I don't know where +it's all going to end, I'm sure, and I'm equally sure that, if it +were not for Arthur, I shouldn't care," declared Miss Broadwood, +drawing her shoulders together. + +"But will it end at all, now?" + +"Such an absurd state of things can't go on indefinitely. A +man isn't going to see his wife make a guy of herself forever, is +he? Chaos has already begun in the servants' quarters. There are +six different languages spoken there now. You see, it's all on +an entirely false basis. Flavia hasn't the slightest notion of +what these people are really like, their good and their bad alike +escape her. They, on the other hand, can't imagine what she is +driving at. Now, Arthur is worse off than either faction; he is +not in the fairy story in that he sees these people exactly as +they are, <i>but</i> he is utterly unable to see Flavia as they see +her. There you have the situation. Why can't he see her as we do? +My dear, that has kept me awake o' nights. This man who has +thought so much and lived so much, who is naturally a critic, +really takes Flavia at very nearly her own estimate. But now I am +entering upon a wilderness. From a brief acquaintance with her +you can know nothing of the icy fastnesses of Flavia's self- +esteem. It's like St. Peter's; you can't realize its magnitude +at once. You have to grow into a sense of it by living under its +shadow. It has perplexed even Emile Roux, that merciless +dissector of egoism. She has puzzled him the more because be saw +at a glance what some of them do not perceive at once, and what +will be mercifully concealed from Arthur until the trump sounds; +namely, that all Flavia's artists have done or ever will do means +exactly as much to her as a symphony means to an oyster; that +there is no bridge by which the significance of any work of art +could be conveyed to her." + +"Then, in the name of goodness, why does she bother?" gasped +Imogen. "She is pretty, wealthy, well-established; why should +she bother?" + +"That's what M. Roux has kept asking himself. I can't pretend to +analyze it. She reads papers on the Literary Landmarks of Paris, +the Loves of the Poets, and that sort of thing, to clubs out in +Chicago. To Flavia it is more necessary to be called clever than +to breathe. I would give a good deal to know that glum Frenchman's +diagnosis. He has been watching her out of those fishy eyes of his +as a biologist watches a hemisphereless frog." + +For several days after M. Roux's departure Flavia gave an +embarrassing share of her attention to Imogen. Embarrassing, +because Imogen had the feeling of being energetically and +futilely explored, she knew not for what. She felt herself under +the globe of an air pump, expected to yield up something. When +she confined the conversation to matters of general interest +Flavia conveyed to her with some pique that her one endeavor in +life had been to fit herself to converse with her friends upon +those things which vitally interested them. "One has no right to +accept their best from people unless one gives, isn't it so? I +want to be able to give--!" she declared vaguely. Yet whenever +Imogen strove to pay her tithes and plunged bravely into her +plans for study next winter, Flavia grew absent-minded and +interrupted her by amazing generalizations or by such +embarrassing questions as, "And these grim studies really have +charm for you; you are quite buried in them; they make other +things seem light and ephemeral?" + +"I rather feel as though I had got in here under false +pretenses," Imogen confided to Miss Broadwood. "I'm sure I don't +know what it is that she wants of me." + +"Ah," chuckled Jemima, "you are not equal to these heart to +heart talks with Flavia. You utterly fail to communicate to her +the atmosphere of that untroubled joy in which you dwell. You +must remember that she gets no feeling out of things +herself, and she demands that you impart yours to her by some +process of psychic transmission. I once met a blind girl, blind +from birth, who could discuss the peculiarities of the Barbizon +school with just Flavia's glibness and enthusiasm. Ordinarily +Flavia knows how to get what she wants from people, and her +memory is wonderful. One evening I heard her giving Frau +Lichtenfeld some random impressions about Hedda Gabler which she +extracted from me five years ago; giving them with an impassioned +conviction of which I was never guilty. But I have known other +people who could appropriate your stories and opinions; Flavia +is infinitely more subtle than that; she can soak up the very +thrash and drift of your daydreams, and take the very thrills +off your back, as it were." + +After some days of unsuccessful effort, Flavia withdrew +herself, and Imogen found Hamilton ready to catch her when she +was tossed afield. He seemed only to have been awaiting this +crisis, and at once their old intimacy reestablished itself as a +thing inevitable and beautifully prepared for. She convinced +herself that she had not been mistaken in him, despite all the +doubts that had come up in later years, and this renewal of faith +set more than one question thumping in her brain. "How did he, +how can he?" she kept repeating with a tinge of her childish +resentment, "what right had he to waste anything so fine?" + +When Imogen and Arthur were returning from a walk before +luncheon one morning about a week after M. Roux's departure, they +noticed an absorbed group before one of the hall windows. Herr +Schotte and Restzhoff sat on the window seat with a newspaper +between them, while Wellington, Schemetzkin, and Will Maidenwood +looked over their shoulders. They seemed intensely interested, +Herr Schotte occasionally pounding his knees with his fists in +ebullitions of barbaric glee. When imogen entered the hall, +however, the men were all sauntering toward the breakfast room +and the paper was lying innocently on the divan. During luncheon +the personnel of that window group were unwontedly animated and +agreeable all save Schemetzkin, whose stare was blanker than +ever, as though Roux's mantle of insulting indifference +had fallen upon him, in addition to his own oblivious self- +absorption. Will Maidenwood seemed embarrassed and annoyed; the +chemist employed himself with making polite speeches to Hamilton. +Flavia did not come down to lunch--and there was a malicious +gleam under Herr Schotte's eyebrows. Frank Wellington announced +nervously that an imperative letter from his protecting syndicate +summoned him to the city. + +After luncheon the men went to the golf links, and Imogen, +at the first opportunity, possessed herself of the newspaper +which had been left on the divan. One of the first things that +caught her eye was an article headed "Roux on Tuft Hunters; The +Advanced American Woman as He Sees Her; Aggressive, Superficial, +and Insincere." The entire interview was nothing more nor less +than a satiric characterization of Flavia, aquiver with +irritation and vitriolic malice. No one could mistake it; it was +done with all his deftness of portraiture. Imogen had not finished +the article when she heard a footstep, and clutching the paper she +started precipitately toward the stairway as Arthur entered. He +put out his hand, looking critically at her distressed face. + +"Wait a moment, Miss Willard," he said peremptorily, "I want +to see whether we can find what it was that so interested our +friends this morning. Give me the paper, please." + +Imogen grew quite white as he opened the journal. She +reached forward and crumpled it with her hands. "Please don't, +please don't," she pleaded; "it's something I don't want you to +see. Oh, why will you? it's just something low and despicable +that you can't notice." + +Arthur had gently loosed her hands, and he pointed her to a chair. +He lit a cigar and read the article through without comment. When +he had finished it he walked to the fireplace, struck a match, and +tossed the flaming journal between the brass andirons. + +"You are right," he remarked as he came back, dusting his +hands with his handkerchief. "It's quite impossible to comment. +There are extremes of blackguardism for which we have no name. +The only thing necessary is to see that Flavia gets no +wind of this. This seems to be my cue to act; poor girl." + +Imogen looked at him tearfully; she could only murmur, "Oh, +why did you read it!" + +Hamilton laughed spiritlessly. "Come, don't you worry about +it. You always took other people's troubles too seriously. When +you were little and all the world was gay and everybody happy, +you must needs get the Little Mermaid's troubles to grieve over. +Come with me into the music room. You remember the musical +setting I once made you for the Lay of the Jabberwock? I was +trying it over the other night, long after you were in bed, and I +decided it was quite as fine as the Erl-King music. How I wish I +could give you some of the cake that Alice ate and make you a +little girl again. Then, when you had got through the glass door +into the little garden, you could call to me, perhaps, and tell +me all the fine things that were going on there. What a pity it +is that you ever grew up!" he added, laughing; and Imogen, too, +was thinking just that. + +At dinner that evening, Flavia, with fatal persistence, +insisted upon turning the conversation to M. Roux. She had been +reading one of his novels and had remembered anew that Paris set +its watches by his clock. Imogen surmised that she was tortured +by a feeling that she had not sufficiently appreciated him while +she had had him. When she first mentioned his name she was +answered only by the pall of silence that fell over the company. +Then everyone began to talk at once, as though to correct a false +position. They spoke of him with a fervid, defiant admiration, +with the sort of hot praise that covers a double purpose. Imogen +fancied she could see that they felt a kind of relief at what the +man had done, even those who despised him for doing it; that they +felt a spiteful hate against Flavia, as though she had tricked +them, and a certain contempt for themselves that they had been +beguiled. She was reminded of the fury of the crowd in the fairy +tale, when once the child had called out that the king was in his +night clothes. Surely these people knew no more about Flavia +than they had known before, but the mere fact that the +thing had been said altered the situation. Flavia, meanwhile, +sat chattering amiably, pathetically unconscious of her nakedness. + +Hamilton lounged, fingering the stem of his wineglass, +gazing down the table at one face after another and studying the +various degrees of self-consciousness they exhibited. Imogen's +eyes followed his, fearfully. When a lull came in the spasmodic +flow of conversation, Arthur, leaning back in his chair, remarked +deliberately, "As for M. Roux, his very profession places him +in that class of men whom society has never been able to accept +unconditionally because it has never been able to assume that +they have any ordered notion of taste. He and his ilk remain, +with the mountebanks and snake charmers, people indispensable to +our civilization, but wholly unreclaimed by it; people whom we +receive, but whose invitations we do not accept." + +Fortunately for Flavia, this mine was not exploded until +just before the coffee was brought. Her laughter was pitiful to +hear; it echoed through the silent room as in a vault, while she +made some tremulously light remark about her husband's drollery, +grim as a jest from the dying. No one responded and she sat +nodding her head like a mechanical toy and smiling her white, set +smile through her teeth, until Alcee Buisson and Frau Lichtenfeld +came to her support. + +After dinner the guests retired immediately to their rooms, +and Imogen went upstairs on tiptoe, feeling the echo of breakage +and the dust of crumbling in the air. She wondered whether +Flavia's habitual note of uneasiness were not, in a manner, +prophetic, and a sort of unconscious premonition, after all. She +sat down to write a letter, but she found herself so nervous, her +head so hot and her hands so cold, that she soon abandoned the +effort. just as she was about to seek Miss Broadwood, Flavia +entered and embraced her hysterically. + +"My dearest girl," she began, "was there ever such an +unfortunate and incomprehensible speech made before? Of course +it is scarcely necessary to explain to you poor Arthur's lack of +tact, and that he meant nothing. But they! Can they be +expected to understand? He will feel wretchedly about it when +he realizes what he has done, but in the meantime? And M. Roux, +of all men! When we were so fortunate as to get him, and he made +himself so unreservedly agreeable, and I fancied that, in his way, +Arthur quite admired him. My dear, you have no idea what that +speech has done. Schemetzkin and Herr Schotte have already sent +me word that they must leave us tomorrow. Such a thing from a +host!" Flavia paused, choked by tears of vexation and despair. + +Imogen was thoroughly disconcerted; this was the first time +she had ever seen Flavia betray any personal emotion which was +indubitably genuine. She replied with what consolation she +could. "Need they take it personally at all? It was a mere +observation upon a class of people--" + +"Which he knows nothing whatever about, and with whom he has +no sympathy," interrupted Flavia. "Ah, my dear, you could not be +<i>expected</i> to understand. You can't realize, knowing Arthur +as you do, his entire lack of any aesthetic sense whatever. He is +absolutely <i>nil</i>, stone deaf and stark blind, on that side. +He doesn't mean to be brutal, it is just the brutality of utter +ignorance. They always feel it--they are so sensitive to +unsympathetic influences, you know; they know it the moment they +come into the house. I have spent my life apologizing for him +and struggling to conceal it; but in spite of me, he wounds them; +his very attitude, even in silence, offends them. Heavens! Do I +not know? Is it not perpetually and forever wounding me? But +there has never been anything so dreadful as this--never! If I +could conceive of any possible motive, even!" + +"But, surely, Mrs. Hamilton, it was, after all, a mere +expression of opinion, such as we are any of us likely to venture +upon any subject whatever. It was neither more personal nor more +extravagant than many of M. Roux's remarks." + +"But, Imogen, certainly M. Roux has the right. It is a part +of his art, and that is altogether another matter. Oh, this is +not the only instance!" continued Flavia passionately, "I've +always had that narrow, bigoted prejudice to contend with. It +has always held me back. But this--!" + +"I think you mistake his attitude," replied Imogen, feeling +a flush that made her ears tingle. "That is, I fancy he is more +appreciative than he seems. A man can't be very demonstrative +about those things--not if he is a real man. I should not think +you would care much about saving the feelings of people who are +too narrow to admit of any other point of view than their own." +She stopped, finding herself in the impossible position of +attempting to explain Hamilton to his wife; a task which, if once +begun, would necessitate an entire course of enlightenment which +she doubted Flavia's ability to receive, and which she could +offer only with very poor grace. + +"That's just where it stings most"--here Flavia began pacing +the floor--"it is just because they have all shown such tolerance +and have treated Arthur with such unfailing consideration that I +can find no reasonable pretext for his rancor. How can he fail +to see the value of such friendships on the children's account, +if for nothing else! What an advantage for them to grow up among +such associations! Even though he cares nothing about these +things himself he might realize that. Is there nothing I could +say by way of explanation? To them, I mean? If someone were to +explain to them how unfortunately limited he is in these +things--" + +"I'm afraid I cannot advise you," said Imogen decidedly, +"but that, at least, seems to me impossible." + +Flavia took her hand and glanced at her affectionately, +nodding nervously. "Of course, dear girl, I can't ask you to be +quite frank with me. Poor child, you are trembling and your +hands are icy. Poor Arthur! But you must not judge him by this +altogether; think how much he misses in life. What a cruel shock +you've had. I'll send you some sherry, Good night, my dear." + +When Flavia shut the door Imogen burst into a fit of nervous +weeping. + +Next morning she awoke after a troubled and restless night. At +eight o'clock Miss Broadwood entered in a red and white striped +bathrobe. + +"Up, up, and see the great doom's image!" she cried, her +eyes sparkling with excitement. "The hall is full of +trunks, they are packing. What bolt has fallen? It's you, <i>ma +cherie</i>, you've brought Ulysses home again and the slaughter has +begun!" she blew a cloud of smoke triumphantly from her lips and +threw herself into a chair beside the bed. + +Imogen, rising on her elbow, plunged excitedly into the +story of the Roux interview, which Miss Broadwood heard with the +keenest interest, frequently interrupting her with exclamations +of delight. When Imogen reached the dramatic scene which +terminated in the destruction of the newspaper, Miss Broadwood +rose and took a turn about the room, violently switching the +tasselled cords of her bathrobe. + +"Stop a moment," she cried, "you mean to tell me that he had +such a heaven-sent means to bring her to her senses and didn't +use it--that he held such a weapon and threw it away?" + +"Use it?" cried Imogen unsteadily. "Of course he didn't! He +bared his back to the tormentor, signed himself over to +punishment in that speech he made at dinner, which everyone +understands but Flavia. She was here for an hour last night and +disregarded every limit of taste in her maledictions." + +"My dear!" cried Miss Broadwood, catching her hand in +inordinate delight at the situation, "do you see what he has +done? There'll be no end to it. Why he has sacrificed himself to +spare the very vanity that devours him, put rancors in the +vessels of his peace, and his eternal jewel given to the common +enemy of man, to make them kings, the seed of Banquo kings! He is +magnificent!" + +"Isn't he always that?" cried Imogen hotly. "He's like a +pillar of sanity and law in this house of shams and swollen +vanities, where people stalk about with a sort of madhouse +dignity, each one fancying himself a king or a pope. If you +could have heard that woman talk of him! Why, she thinks him +stupid, bigoted, blinded by middleclass prejudices. She talked +about his having no aesthetic sense and insisted that her artists +had always shown him tolerance. I don't know why it should get +on my nerves so, I'm sure, but her stupidity and assurance are +enough to drive one to the brink of collapse." + +"Yes, as opposed to his singular fineness, they are +calculated to do just that," said Miss Broadwood gravely, wisely +ignoring Imogen's tears. "But what has been is nothing to what +will be. Just wait until Flavia's black swans have flown! You +ought not to try to stick it out; that would only make it harder +for everyone. Suppose you let me telephone your mother to wire +you to come home by the evening train?" + +"Anything, rather than have her come at me like that again. It +puts me in a perfectly impossible position, and he <i>is</i> so +fine!" + +"Of course it does," said Miss Broadwood sympathetically, +"and there is no good to be got from facing it. I will stay +because such things interest me, and Frau Lichtenfeld will stay +because she has no money to get away, and Buisson will stay +because he feels somewhat responsible. These complications are +interesting enough to cold-blooded folk like myself who have an +eye for the dramatic element, but they are distracting and +demoralizing to young people with any serious purpose in life." + +Miss Broadwood's counsel was all the more generous seeing +that, for her, the most interesting element of this denouement +would be eliminated by Imogen's departure. "If she goes now, +she'll get over it," soliloquized Miss Broadwood. "If she stays, +she'll be wrung for him and the hurt may go deep enough to last. +I haven't the heart to see her spoiling things for herself." She +telephoned Mrs. Willard and helped Imogen to pack. She even took +it upon herself to break the news of Imogen's going to Arthur, +who remarked, as he rolled a cigarette in his nerveless fingers: + +"Right enough, too. What should she do here with old cynics +like you and me, Jimmy? Seeing that she is brim full of dates and +formulae and other positivisms, and is so girt about with +illusions that she still casts a shadow in the sun. You've been +very tender of her, haven't you? I've watched you. And to think +it may all be gone when we see her next. 'The common fate of all +things rare,' you know. What a good fellow you are, anyway, +Jimmy," he added, putting his hands affectionately on her +shoulders. + +Arthur went with them to the station. Flavia was so +prostrated by the concerted action of her guests that she was +able to see Imogen only for a moment in her darkened sleeping +chamber, where she kissed her hysterically, without lifting her +head, bandaged in aromatic vinegar. On the way to the station +both Arthur and Imogen threw the burden of keeping up appearances +entirely upon Miss Broadwood, who blithely rose to the occasion. +When Hamilton carried Imogen's bag into the car, Miss Broadwood +detained her for a moment, whispering as she gave her a large, +warm handclasp, "I'll come to see you when I get back to town; +and, in the meantime, if you meet any of our artists, tell them +you have left Caius Marius among the ruins of Carthage." + + + + + +The Sculptor's Funeral + +A group of the townspeople stood on the station siding of a +little Kansas town, awaiting the coming of the night train, which +was already twenty minutes overdue. The snow had fallen thick +over everything; in the pale starlight the line of bluffs across +the wide, white meadows south of the town made soft, smoke- +colored curves against the clear sky. The men on the siding +stood first on one foot and then on the other, their hands thrust +deep into their trousers pockets, their overcoats open, their +shoulders screwed up with the cold; and they glanced from time to +time toward the southeast, where the railroad track wound along +the river shore. They conversed in low tones and moved about +restlessly, seeming uncertain as to what was expected of them. +There was but one of the company who looked as though he knew +exactly why he was there; and he kept conspicuously apart; +walking to the far end of the platform, returning to the station +door, then pacing up the track again, his chin sunk in the high +collar of his overcoat, his burly shoulders drooping forward, his +gait heavy and dogged. Presently he was approached by a tall, +spare, grizzled man clad in a faded Grand Army suit, who shuffled +out from the group and advanced with a certain deference, craning +his neck forward until his back made the angle of a jackknife +three-quarters open. + +"I reckon she's agoin' to be pretty late ag'in tonight, +Jim," he remarked in a squeaky falsetto. "S'pose it's the snow?" + +"I don't know," responded the other man with a shade of +annoyance, speaking from out an astonishing cataract of red beard +that grew fiercely and thickly in all directions. + +The spare man shifted the quill toothpick he was chewing to +the other side of his mouth. "It ain't likely that anybody from +the East will come with the corpse, I s'pose," he went on +reflectively. + +"I don't know," responded the other, more curtly than before. + +"It's too bad he didn't belong to some lodge or other. I +like an order funeral myself. They seem more appropriate for +people of some reputation," the spare man continued, with an +ingratiating concession in his shrill voice, as he carefully +placed his toothpick in his vest pocket. He always carried the +flag at the G. A. R. funerals in the town. + +The heavy man turned on his heel, without replying, and walked up +the siding. The spare man shuffled back to the uneasy group. +"Jim's ez full ez a tick, ez ushel," he commented commiseratingly. + +Just then a distant whistle sounded, and there was a +shuffling of feet on the platform. A number of lanky boys of all +ages appeared as suddenly and slimily as eels wakened by the +crack of thunder; some came from the waiting room, where they had +been warming themselves by the red stove, or half-asleep on the +slat benches; others uncoiled themselves from baggage trucks or +slid out of express wagons. Two clambered down from the driver's +seat of a hearse that stood backed up against the siding. They +straightened their stooping shoulders and lifted their heads, and +a flash of momentary animation kindled their dull eyes at that +cold, vibrant scream, the world-wide call for men. It stirred +them like the note of a trumpet; just as it had often stirred the +man who was coming home tonight, in his boyhood. + +The night express shot, red as a rocket, from out the eastward +marsh lands and wound along the river shore under the long lines of +shivering poplars that sentineled the meadows, the escaping steam +hanging in gray masses against the pale sky and blotting out the +Milky Way. In a moment the red glare from the headlight streamed +up the snow-covered track before the siding and glittered on the +wet, black rails. The burly man with the disheveled red beard +walked swiftly up the platform toward the approaching train, +uncovering his head as he went. The group of men behind him +hesitated, glanced questioningly at one another, and awkwardly +followed his example. The train stopped, and the crowd shuffled up +to the express car just as the door was thrown open, the spare man +in the G. A. B. suit thrusting his head forward with curiosity. +The express messenger appeared in the doorway, accompanied by a +young man in a long ulster and traveling cap. + +"Are Mr. Merrick's friends here?" inquired the young man. + +The group on the platform swayed and shuffled uneasily. +Philip Phelps, the banker, responded with dignity: "We have come +to take charge of the body. Mr. Merrick's father is very feeble +and can't be about." + +"Send the agent out here," growled the express messenger, +"and tell the operator to lend a hand." + +The coffin was got out of its rough box and down on the +snowy platform. The townspeople drew back enough to make room +for it and then formed a close semicircle about it, looking +curiously at the palm leaf which lay across the black cover. No +one said anything. The baggage man stood by his truck, waiting +to get at the trunks. The engine panted heavily, and the fireman +dodged in and out among the wheels with his yellow torch and long +oilcan, snapping the spindle boxes. The young Bostonian, one of +the dead sculptor's pupils who had come with the body, looked +about him helplessly. He turned to the banker, the only one of +that black, uneasy, stoop-shouldered group who seemed enough of +an individual to be addressed. + +"None of Mr. Merrick's brothers are here?" he asked uncertainly. + +The man with the red heard for the first time stepped up and +joined the group. "No, they have not come yet; the family is +scattered. The body will be taken directly to the house." He +stooped and took hold of one of the handles of the coffin. + +"Take the long hill road up, Thompson--it will be easier on +the horses," called the liveryman as the undertaker snapped the +door of the hearse and prepared to mount to the driver's seat. + +Laird, the red-bearded lawyer, turned again to the stranger: +"We didn't know whether there would be anyone with him or not," +he explained. "It's a long walk, so you'd better go up in the +hack." He pointed to a single, battered conveyance, but the young +man replied stiffly: "Thank you, but I think I will go up with +the hearse. If you don't object," turning to the undertaker, +"I'll ride with you." + +They clambered up over the wheels and drove off in the +starlight tip the long, white hill toward the town. The lamps in +the still village were shining from under the low, snow-burdened +roofs; and beyond, on every side, the plains reached out into +emptiness, peaceful and wide as the soft sky itself, and wrapped +in a tangible, white silence. + +When the hearse backed up to a wooden sidewalk before a naked, +weatherbeaten frame house, the same composite, ill-defined group +that had stood upon the station siding was huddled about the gate. +The front yard was an icy swamp, and a couple of warped planks, +extending from the sidewalk to the door, made a sort of rickety +footbridge. The gate hung on one hinge and was opened wide with +difficulty. Steavens, the young stranger, noticed that something +black was tied to the knob of the front door. + +The grating sound made by the casket, as it was drawn from the +hearse, was answered by a scream from the house; the front door was +wrenched open, and a tall, corpulent woman rushed out bareheaded +into the snow and flung herself upon the coffin, shrieking: "My +boy, my boy! And this is how you've come home to me!" + +As Steavens turned away and closed his eyes with a shudder +of unutterable repulsion, another woman, also tall, but flat and +angular, dressed entirely in black, darted out of the house and +caught Mrs. Merrick by the shoulders, crying sharply: "Come, +come, Mother; you mustn't go on like this!" Her tone changed to +one of obsequious solemnity as she turned to the banker: "The +parlor is ready, Mr. Phelps." + +The bearers carried the coffin along the narrow boards, +while the undertaker ran ahead with the coffin-rests. They +bore it into a large, unheated room that smelled of dampness and +disuse and furniture polish, and set it down under a hanging lamp +ornamented with jingling glass prisms and before a "Rogers group" +of John Alden and Priscilla, wreathed with smilax. Henry +Steavens stared about him with the sickening conviction that +there had been some horrible mistake, and that he had somehow +arrived at the wrong destination. He looked painfully about over +the clover-green Brussels, the fat plush upholstery, among the +hand-painted china plaques and panels, and vases, for some mark +of identification, for something that might once conceivably have +belonged to Harvey Merrick. It was not until he recognized his +friend in the crayon portrait of a little boy in kilts and curls +hanging above the piano that he felt willing to let any of these +people approach the coffin. + +"Take the lid off, Mr. Thompson; let me see my boy's face," +wailed the elder woman between her sobs. This time Steavens +looked fearfully, almost beseechingly into her face, red and +swollen under its masses of strong, black, shiny hair. He +flushed, dropped his eyes, and then, almost incredulously, looked +again. There was a kind of power about her face--a kind of +brutal handsomeness, even, but it was scarred and furrowed by +violence, and so colored and coarsened by fiercer passions that +grief seemed never to have laid a gentle finger there. The long +nose was distended and knobbed at the end, and there were deep +lines on either side of it; her heavy, black brows almost met +across her forehead; her teeth were large and square and set far +apart--teeth that could tear. She filled the room; the men were +obliterated, seemed tossed about like twigs in an angry water, +and even Steavens felt himself being drawn into the whirlpool. + +The daughter--the tall, rawboned woman in crepe, with a +mourning comb in her hair which curiously lengthened her long +face sat stiffly upon the sofa, her hands, conspicuous for their +large knuckles, folded in her lap, her mouth and eyes drawn down, +solemnly awaiting the opening of the coffin. Near the door stood +a mulatto woman, evidently a servant in the house, with a timid +bearing and an emaciated face pitifully sad and gentle. +She was weeping silently, the corner of her calico apron lifted +to her eyes, occasionally suppressing a long, quivering sob. +Steavens walked over and stood beside her. + +Feeble steps were heard on the stairs, and an old man, tall +and frail, odorous of pipe smoke, with shaggy, unkept gray hair +and a dingy beard, tobacco stained about the mouth, entered +uncertainly. He went slowly up to the coffin and stood, rolling +a blue cotton handkerchief between his hands, seeming so pained +and embarrassed by his wife's orgy of grief that he had no +consciousness of anything else. + +"There, there, Annie, dear, don't take on so," he quavered +timidly, putting out a shaking hand and awkwardly patting her +elbow. She turned with a cry and sank upon his shoulder with +such violence that he tottered a little. He did not even glance +toward the coffin, but continued to look at her with a dull, +frightened, appealing expression, as a spaniel looks at the whip. +His sunken cheeks slowly reddened and burned with miserable +shame. When his wife rushed from the room her daughter strode +after her with set lips. The servant stole up to the coffin, +bent over it for a moment, and then slipped away to the kitchen, +leaving Steavens, the lawyer, and the father to themselves. The +old man stood trembling and looking down at his dead son's face. +The sculptor's splendid head seemed even more noble in its rigid +stillness than in life. The dark hair had crept down upon the +wide forehead; the face seemed strangely long, but in it there +was not that beautiful and chaste repose which we expect to find +in the faces of the dead. The brows were so drawn that there +were two deep lines above the beaked nose, and the chin was +thrust forward defiantly. It was as though the strain of life +had been so sharp and bitter that death could not at once wholly +relax the tension and smooth the countenance into perfect peace-- +as though he were still guarding something precious and holy, +which might even yet be wrested from him. + +The old man's lips were working under his stained beard. He +turned to the lawyer with timid deference: "Phelps and the rest are +comin' back to set up with Harve, ain't they?" he asked. "Thank +'ee, Jim, thank 'ee." He brushed the hair back gently from his +son's forehead. "He was a good boy, Jim; always a good boy. He +was ez gentle ez a child and the kindest of 'em all--only we didn't +none of us ever onderstand him." The tears trickled slowly down +his beard and dropped upon the sculptor's coat. + +"Martin, Martin. Oh, Martin! come here," his wife wailed +from the top of the stairs. The old man started timorously: +"Yes, Annie, I'm coming." He turned away, hesitated stood for a +moment in miserable indecision; then he reached back and patted +the dead man's hair softly, and stumbled from the room. + +"Poor old man, I didn't think he had any tears left. Seems +as if his eyes would have gone dry long ago. At his age nothing +cuts very deep," remarked the lawyer. + +Something in his tone made Steavens glance up. While the +mother had been in the room the young man had scarcely seen +anyone else; but now, from the moment he first glanced into Jim +Laird's florid face and bloodshot eyes, he knew that he had found +what he had been heartsick at not finding before--the feeling, +the understanding, that must exist in someone, even here. + +The man was red as his beard, with features swollen and +blurred by dissipation, and a hot, blazing blue eye. His face +was strained--that of a man who is controlling himself with +difficulty--and he kept plucking at his beard with a sort of +fierce resentment. Steavens, sitting by the window, watched him +turn down the glaring lamp, still its jangling pendants with an +angry gesture, and then stand with his hands locked behind him, +staring down into the master's face. He could not help wondering +what link there could have been between the porcelain vessel and +so sooty a lump of potter's clay. + +From the kitchen an uproar was sounding; when the dining- +room door opened the import of it was clear. The mother was +abusing the maid for having forgotten to make the dressing for +the chicken salad which had been prepared for the watchers. +Steavens had never heard anything in the least like it; it was +injured, emotional, dramatic abuse, unique and masterly +in its excruciating cruelty, as violent and unrestrained as had +been her grief of twenty minutes before. With a shudder of +disgust the lawyer went into the dining room and closed the door +into the kitchen. + +"Poor Roxy's getting it now," he remarked when he came back. +"The Merricks took her out of the poorhouse years ago; and if her +loyalty would let her, I guess the poor old thing could tell +tales that would curdle your blood. She's the mulatto woman who +was standing in here a while ago, with her apron to her eyes. +The old woman is a fury; there never was anybody like her for +demonstrative piety and ingenious cruelty. She made Harvey's +life a hell for him when he lived at home; he was so sick ashamed +of it. I never could see how he kept himself so sweet." + +"He was wonderful," said Steavens slowly, "wonderful; but +until tonight I have never known how wonderful." + +"That is the true and eternal wonder of it, anyway; that it +can come even from such a dung heap as this," the lawyer cried, +with a sweeping gesture which seemed to indicate much more than +the four walls within which they stood. + +"I think I'll see whether I can get a little air. The room +is so close I am beginning to feel rather faint," murmured +Steavens, struggling with one of the windows. The sash was +stuck, however, and would not yield, so he sat down dejectedly +and began pulling at his collar. The lawyer came over, loosened +the sash with one blow of his red fist, and sent the window up a +few inches. Steavens thanked him, but the nausea which had been +gradually climbing into his throat for the last half-hour left +him with but one desire--a desperate feeling that he must get +away from this place with what was left of Harvey Merrick. Oh, +he comprehended well enough now the quiet bitterness of the smile +that he had seen so often on his master's lips! + +He remembered that once, when Merrick returned from a visit +home, he brought with him a singularly feeling and suggestive +bas-relief of a thin, faded old woman, sitting and sewing +something pinned to her knee; while a full-lipped, full-blooded +little urchin, his trousers held up by a single gallows, +stood beside her, impatiently twitching her gown to call her +attention to a butterfly he had caught. Steavens, impressed by +the tender and delicate modeling of the thin, tired face, had +asked him if it were his mother. He remembered the dull flush +that had burned up in the sculptor's face. + +The lawyer was sitting in a rocking chair beside the coffin, +his head thrown back and his eyes closed. Steavens looked at him +earnestly, puzzled at the line of the chin, and wondering why a +man should conceal a feature of such distinction under that +disfiguring shock of beard. Suddenly, as though he felt the +young sculptor's keen glance, he opened his eyes. + +"Was he always a good deal of an oyster?" he asked abruptly. +"He was terribly shy as a boy." + +"Yes, he was an oyster, since you put it so," rejoined +Steavens. "Although he could be very fond of people, he always +gave one the impression of being detached. He disliked violent +emotion; he was reflective, and rather distrustful of himself-- +except, of course, as regarded his work. He was surefooted +enough there. He distrusted men pretty thoroughly and women even +more, yet somehow without believing ill of them. He was +determined, indeed, to believe the best, but he seemed afraid to +investigate." + +"A burnt dog dreads the fire," said the lawyer grimly, and +closed his eyes. + +Steavens went on and on, reconstructing that whole miserable +boyhood. All this raw, biting ugliness had been the portion of +the man whose tastes were refined beyond the limits of the +reasonable--whose mind was an exhaustless gallery of beautiful +impressions, and so sensitive that the mere shadow of a poplar +leaf flickering against a sunny wall would be etched and held +there forever. Surely, if ever a man had the magic word in his +fingertips, it was Merrick. Whatever he touched, he revealed its +holiest secret; liberated it from enchantment and restored it to +its pristine loveliness, like the Arabian prince who fought the +enchantress spell for spell. Upon whatever he had come in +contact with, he had left a beautiful record of the experience--a +sort of ethereal signature; a scent, a sound, a color that was +his own. + +Steavens understood now the real tragedy of his master's +life; neither love nor wine, as many had conjectured, but a blow +which had fallen earlier and cut deeper than these could have +done--a shame not his, and yet so unescapably his, to bide in his +heart from his very boyhood. And without--the frontier warfare; +the yearning of a boy, cast ashore upon a desert of newness and +ugliness and sordidness, for all that is chastened and old, and +noble with traditions. + +At eleven o'clock the tall, flat woman in black crepe +entered, announced that the watchers were arriving, and asked +them "to step into the dining room." As Steavens rose the lawyer +said dryly: "You go on--it'll be a good experience for you, +doubtless; as for me, I'm not equal to that crowd tonight; I've +had twenty years of them." + +As Steavens closed the door after him be glanced back at the +lawyer, sitting by the coffin in the dim light, with his chin +resting on his hand. + +The same misty group that had stood before the door of the +express car shuffled into the dining room. In the light of the +kerosene lamp they separated and became individuals. The +minister, a pale, feeble-looking man with white hair and blond +chin-whiskers, took his seat beside a small side table and placed +his Bible upon it. The Grand Army man sat down behind the stove +and tilted his chair back comfortably against the wall, fishing +his quill toothpick from his waistcoat pocket. The two bankers, +Phelps and Elder, sat off in a corner behind the dinner table, +where they could finish their discussion of the new usury law and +its effect on chattel security loans. The real estate agent, an +old man with a smiling, hypocritical face, soon joined them. The +coal-and-lumber dealer and the cattle shipper sat on opposite +sides of the hard coal-burner, their feet on the nickelwork. +Steavens took a book from his pocket and began to read. The talk +around him ranged through various topics of local interest while +the house was quieting down. When it was clear that the members +of the family were in bed the Grand Army man hitched his +shoulders and, untangling his long legs, caught his heels on the +rounds of his chair. + +"S'pose there'll be a will, Phelps?" he queried in his weak +falsetto. + +The banker laughed disagreeably and began trimming his nails +with a pearl-handled pocketknife. + +"There'll scarcely be any need for one, will there?" he +queried in his turn. + +The restless Grand Army man shifted his position again, +getting his knees still nearer his chin. "Why, the ole man says +Harve's done right well lately," he chirped. + +The other banker spoke up. "I reckon he means by that Harve +ain't asked him to mortgage any more farms lately, so as he could +go on with his education." + +"Seems like my mind don't reach back to a time when Harve +wasn't bein' edycated," tittered the Grand Army man. + +There was a general chuckle. The minister took out his +handkerchief and blew his nose sonorously. Banker Phelps closed +his knife with a snap. "It's too bad the old man's sons didn't +turn out better," he remarked with reflective authority. "They +never hung together. He spent money enough on Harve to stock a +dozen cattle farms and he might as well have poured it into Sand +Creek. If Harve had stayed at home and helped nurse what little +they had, and gone into stock on the old man's bottom farm, they +might all have been well fixed. But the old man had to trust +everything to tenants and was cheated right and left." + +"Harve never could have handled stock none," interposed the +cattleman. "He hadn't it in him to be sharp. Do you remember +when he bought Sander's mules for eight-year-olds, when everybody +in town knew that Sander's father-in-law give 'em to his wife for +a wedding present eighteen years before, an' they was full-grown +mules then." + +Everyone chuckled, and the Grand Army man rubbed his knees +with a spasm of childish delight. + +"Harve never was much account for anything practical, and he +shore was never fond of work," began the coal-and-lumber dealer. +"I mind the last time he was home; the day he left, when the old +man was out to the barn helpin' his hand hitch up to take +Harve to the train, and Cal Moots was patchin' up the fence, Harve, +he come out on the step and sings out, in his ladylike voice: 'Cal +Moots, Cal Moots! please come cord my trunk.'" + +"That's Harve for you," approved the Grand Army man +gleefully. "I kin hear him howlin' yet when he was a big feller +in long pants and his mother used to whale him with a rawhide in +the barn for lettin' the cows git foundered in the cornfield when +he was drivin' 'em home from pasture. He killed a cow of mine +that-a-way onc't--a pure Jersey and the best milker I had, an' +the ole man had to put up for her. Harve, he was watchin' the +sun set acros't the marshes when the anamile got away; he argued +that sunset was oncommon fine." + +"Where the old man made his mistake was in sending the boy +East to school," said Phelps, stroking his goatee and speaking in +a deliberate, judicial tone. "There was where he got his head +full of traipsing to Paris and all such folly. What Harve +needed, of all people, was a course in some first-class Kansas +City business college." + +The letters were swimming before Steavens's eyes. Was it +possible that these men did not understand, that the palm on the +coffin meant nothing to them? The very name of their town would +have remained forever buried in the postal guide had it not been +now and again mentioned in the world in connection with Harvey +Merrick's. He remembered what his master had said to him on the +day of his death, after the congestion of both lungs had shut off +any probability of recovery, and the sculptor had asked his pupil +to send his body home. "It's not a pleasant place to be lying +while the world is moving and doing and bettering," he had said +with a feeble smile, "but it rather seems as though we ought to +go back to the place we came from in the end. The townspeople +will come in for a look at me; and after they have had their say +I shan't have much to fear from the judgment of God. The wings +of the Victory, in there"--with a weak gesture toward his studio-- +will not shelter me." + +The cattleman took up the comment. "Forty's young for a +Merrick to cash in; they usually hang on pretty well. Probably +he helped it along with whisky." + +"His mother's people were not long-lived, and Harvey never +had a robust constitution," said the minister mildly. He would +have liked to say more. He had been the boy's Sunday-school +teacher, and had been fond of him; but he felt that he was not in +a position to speak. His own sons had turned out badly, and it +was not a year since one of them had made his last trip home in +the express car, shot in a gambling house in the Black Hills. + +"Nevertheless, there is no disputin' that Harve frequently +looked upon the wine when it was red, also variegated, and it +shore made an oncommon fool of him," moralized the cattleman. + +Just then the door leading into the parlor rattled loudly, +and everyone started involuntarily, looking relieved when only +Jim Laird came out. His red face was convulsed with anger, and +the Grand Army man ducked his head when he saw the spark in his +blue, bloodshot eye. They were all afraid of Jim; he was a +drunkard, but he could twist the law to suit his client's needs +as no other man in all western Kansas could do; and there were +many who tried. The lawyer closed the door gently behind him, +leaned back against it and folded his arms, cocking his head a +little to one side. When he assumed this attitude in the +courtroom, ears were always pricked up, as it usually foretold a +flood of withering sarcasm. + +"I've been with you gentlemen before," he began in a dry, +even tone, "when you've sat by the coffins of boys born and +raised in this town; and, if I remember rightly, you were never +any too well satisfied when you checked them up. What's the +matter, anyhow? Why is it that reputable young men are as scarce +as millionaires in Sand City? It might almost seem to a stranger +that there was some way something the matter with your +progressive town. Why did Ruben Sayer, the brightest young +lawyer you ever turned out, after he had come home from the +university as straight as a die, take to drinking and forge a +check and shoot himself? Why did Bill Merrit's son die of the +shakes in a saloon in Omaha? Why was Mr. Thomas's son, here, +shot in a gambling house? Why did young Adams burn his mill to +beat the insurance companies and go to the pen?" + +The lawyer paused and unfolded his arms, laying one clenched +fist quietly on the table. "I'll tell you why. Because you +drummed nothing but money and knavery into their ears from the +time they wore knickerbockers; because you carped away at them as +you've been carping here tonight, holding our friends Phelps and +Elder up to them for their models, as our grandfathers held up +George Washington and John Adams. But the boys, worse luck, were +young and raw at the business you put them to; and how could they +match coppers with such artists as Phelps and Elder? You wanted +them to be successful rascals; they were only unsuccessful ones-- +that's all the difference. There was only one boy ever raised in +this borderland between ruffianism and civilization who didn't +come to grief, and you hated Harvey Merrick more for winning out +than you hated all the other boys who got under the wheels. +Lord, Lord, how you did hate him! Phelps, here, is fond of saying +that he could buy and sell us all out any time he's a mind to; +but he knew Harve wouldn't have given a tinker's damn for his +bank and all his cattle farms put together; and a lack of +appreciation, that way, goes hard with Phelps. + +"Old Nimrod, here, thinks Harve drank too much; and this +from such as Nimrod and me!" + +"Brother Elder says Harve was too free with the old man's +money--fell short in filial consideration, maybe. Well, we can +all remember the very tone in which brother Elder swore his own +father was a liar, in the county court; and we all know that the +old man came out of that partnership with his son as bare as a +sheared lamb. But maybe I'm getting personal, and I'd better be +driving ahead at what I want to say." + +The lawyer paused a moment, squared his heavy shoulders, and +went on: "Harvey Merrick and I went to school together, back +East. We were dead in earnest, and we wanted you all to be proud +of us some day. We meant to be great men. Even 1, and I haven't +lost my sense of humor, gentlemen, I meant to be a great man. I +came back here to practice, and I found you didn't in the least +want me to be a great man. You wanted me to be a shrewd lawyer-- +oh, yes! Our veteran here wanted me to get him an increase of +pension, because he had dyspepsia; Phelps wanted a new county +survey that would put the widow Wilson's little bottom +farm inside his south line; Elder wanted to lend money at 5 per +cent a month and get it collected; old Stark here wanted to +wheedle old women up in Vermont into investing their annuities in +real estate mortgages that are not worth the paper they are +written on. Oh, you needed me hard enough, and you'll go on +needing me; and that's why I'm not afraid to plug the truth home +to you this once. + +"Well, I came back here and became the damned shyster you +wanted me to be. You pretend to have some sort of respect for +me; and yet you'll stand up and throw mud at Harvey Merrick, +whose soul you couldn't dirty and whose hands you couldn't tie. +Oh, you're a discriminating lot of Christians! There have been +times when the sight of Harvey's name in some Eastern paper has +made me hang my head like a whipped dog; and, again, times when I +liked to think of him off there in the world, away from all this +hog wallow, doing his great work and climbing the big, clean +upgrade he'd set for himself. + +"And we? Now that we've fought and lied and sweated and +stolen, and hated as only the disappointed strugglers in a +bitter, dead little Western town know how to do, what have we got +to show for it? Harvey Merrick wouldn't have given one sunset +over your marshes for all you've got put together, and you know +it. It's not for me to say why, in the inscrutable wisdom of +God, a genius should ever have been called from this place of +hatred and bitter waters; but I want this Boston man to know that +the drivel he's been hearing here tonight is the only tribute any +truly great man could ever have from such a lot of sick, side- +tracked, burnt-dog, land-poor sharks as the here-present +financiers of Sand City--upon which town may God have mercy!" + +The lawyer thrust out his hand to Steavens as he passed him, +caught up his overcoat in the hall, and had left the house before +the Grand Army man had had time to lift his ducked head and crane +his long neck about at his fellows. + + +Next day Jim Laird was drunk and unable to attend the +funeral services. Steavens called twice at his office, but was +compelled to start East without seeing him. He had a +presentiment that he would hear from him again, and left his +address on the lawyer's table; but if Laird found it, he never +acknowledged it. The thing in him that Harvey Merrick had loved +must have gone underground with Harvey Merrick's coffin; for it +never spoke again, and Jim got the cold he died of driving across +the Colorado mountains to defend one of Phelps's sons, who had +got into trouble out there by cutting government timber. + + + + + +"A Death in the Desert" + +Everett Hilgarde was conscious that the man in the seat +across the aisle was looking at him intently. He was a large, +florid man, wore a conspicuous diamond solitaire upon his third +finger, and Everett judged him to be a traveling salesman of some +sort. He had the air of an adaptable fellow who had been about +the world and who could keep cool and clean under almost any +circumstances. + +The "High Line Flyer," as this train was derisively called +among railroad men, was jerking along through the hot afternoon +over the monotonous country between Holdridge and Cheyenne. +Besides the blond man and himself the only occupants of the car +were two dusty, bedraggled-looking girls who had been to the +Exposition at Chicago, and who were earnestly discussing the cost +of their first trip out of Colorado. The four uncomfortable +passengers were covered with a sediment of fine, yellow dust +which clung to their hair and eyebrows like gold powder. It blew +up in clouds from the bleak, lifeless country through which they +passed, until they were one color with the sagebrush and +sandhills. The gray-and-yellow desert was varied only by +occasional ruins of deserted towns, and the little red boxes of +station houses, where the spindling trees and sickly vines in the +bluegrass yards made little green reserves fenced off in that +confusing wilderness of sand. + +As the slanting rays of the sun beat in stronger and +stronger through the car windows, the blond gentleman asked the +ladies' permission to remove his coat, and sat in his lavender +striped shirt sleeves, with a black silk handkerchief tucked +carefully about his collar. He had seemed interested in Everett +since they had boarded the train at Holdridge, and kept +glancing at him curiously and then looking reflectively out of +the window, as though he were trying to recall something. But +wherever Everett went someone was almost sure to look at him with +that curious interest, and it had ceased to embarrass or annoy him. +Presently the stranger, seeming satisfied with his observation, +leaned back in his seat, half-closed his eyes, and began softly +to whistle the "Spring Song" from <i>Proserpine</i>, the cantata +that a dozen years before had made its young composer famous in a +night. Everett had heard that air on guitars in Old Mexico, on +mandolins at college glees, on cottage organs in New England +hamlets, and only two weeks ago he had heard it played on +sleighbells at a variety theater in Denver. There was literally no +way of escaping his brother's precocity. Adriance could live on +the other side of the Atlantic, where his youthful indiscretions +were forgotten in his mature achievements, but his brother had +never been able to outrun <i>Proserpine</i>, and here he found it +again in the Colorado sand hills. Not that Everett was exactly +ashamed of <i>Proserpine</i>; only a man of genius could have +written it, but it was the sort of thing that a man of genius +outgrows as soon as he can. + +Everett unbent a trifle and smiled at his neighbor across +the aisle. Immediately the large man rose and, coming over, +dropped into the seat facing Hilgarde, extending his card. + +"Dusty ride, isn't it? I don't mind it myself; I'm used to +it. Born and bred in de briar patch, like Br'er Rabbit. I've +been trying to place you for a long time; I think I must have met +you before." + +"Thank you," said Everett, taking the card; "my name is +Hilgarde. You've probably met my brother, Adriance; people often +mistake me for him." + +The traveling man brought his hand down upon his knee with +such vehemence that the solitaire blazed. + +"So I was right after all, and if you're not Adriance +Hilgarde, you're his double. I thought I couldn't be mistaken. +Seen him? Well, I guess! I never missed one of his recitals at +the Auditorium, and he played the piano score of <i>Proserpine</i> +through to us once at the Chicago Press Club. I used to be on +the <i>Commercial</i> there before I <i>146</i> began to travel +for the publishing department of the concern. So you're Hilgarde's +brother, and here I've run into you at the jumping-off place. +Sounds like a newspaper yarn, doesn't it?" + +The traveling man laughed and offered Everett a cigar, and +plied him with questions on the only subject that people ever +seemed to care to talk to Everett about. At length the salesman +and the two girls alighted at a Colorado way station, and Everett +went on to Cheyenne alone. + +The train pulled into Cheyenne at nine o'clock, late by a +matter of four hours or so; but no one seemed particularly +concerned at its tardiness except the station agent, who grumbled +at being kept in the office overtime on a summer night. When +Everett alighted from the train he walked down the platform and +stopped at the track crossing, uncertain as to what direction he +should take to reach a hotel. A phaeton stood near the crossing, +and a woman held the reins. She was dressed in white, and her +figure was clearly silhouetted against the cushions, though it +was too dark to see her face. Everett had scarcely noticed her, +when the switch engine came puffing up from the opposite +direction, and the headlight threw a strong glare of light on his +face. Suddenly the woman in the phaeton uttered a low cry and +dropped the reins. Everett started forward and caught the +horse's head, but the animal only lifted its ears and whisked its +tail in impatient surprise. The woman sat perfectly still, her +head sunk between her shoulders and her handkerchief pressed to +her face. Another woman came out of the depot and hurried toward +the phaeton, crying, "Katharine, dear, what is the matter?" + +Everett hesitated a moment in painful embarrassment, then +lifted his hat and passed on. He was accustomed to sudden +recognitions in the most impossible places, especially by women, +but this cry out of the night had shaken him. + +While Everett was breakfasting the next morning, the headwaiter +leaned over his chair to murmur that there was a gentleman waiting +to see him in the parlor. Everett finished his coffee and went in +the direction indicated, where he found his visitor restlessly +pacing the floor. His whole manner betrayed a high degree of +agitation, though his physique was not that of a man whose nerves +lie near the surface. He was something below medium height, +square-shouldered and solidly built. His thick, closely cut hair +was beginning to show gray about the ears, and his bronzed face was +heavily lined. His square brown hands were locked behind him, and +he held his shoulders like a man conscious of responsibilities; +yet, as he turned to greet Everett, there was an incongruous +diffidence in his address. + +"Good morning, Mr. Hilgarde," he said, extending his hand; +"I found your name on the hotel register. My name is Gaylord. +I'm afraid my sister startled you at the station last night, Mr. +Hilgarde, and I've come around to apologize." + +"Ah! The young lady in the phaeton? I'm sure I didn't know +whether I had anything to do with her alarm or not. If I did, it +is I who owe the apology." + +The man colored a little under the dark brown of his face. + +"Oh, it's nothing you could help, sir, I fully understand +that. You see, my sister used to be a pupil of your brother's, +and it seems you favor him; and when the switch engine threw a +light on your face it startled her." + +Everett wheeled about in his chair. "Oh! <i>Katharine</i> Gaylord! +Is it possible! Now it's you who have given me a turn. Why, I +used to know her when I was a boy. What on earth--" + +"Is she doing here?" said Gaylord, grimly filling out the +pause. "You've got at the heart of the matter. You knew my +sister had been in bad health for a long time?" + +"No, I had never heard a word of that. The last I knew of +her she was singing in London. My brother and I correspond +infrequently and seldom get beyond family matters. I am deeply +sorry to hear this. There are more reasons why I am concerned +than I can tell you." + +The lines in Charley Gaylord's brow relaxed a little. + +"What I'm trying to say, Mr. Hilgarde, is that she wants to see +you. I hate to ask you, but she's so set on it. We live several +miles out of town, but my rig's below, and I can take you out +anytime you can go." + +"I can go now, and it will give me real pleasure to do so," said +Everett, quickly. "I'll get my hat and be with you in a moment." + +When he came downstairs Everett found a cart at the door, +and Charley Gaylord drew a long sigh of relief as he gathered up +the reins and settled back into his own element. + +"You see, I think I'd better tell you something about my +sister before you see her, and I don't know just where to begin. +She traveled in Europe with your brother and his wife, and sang +at a lot of his concerts; but I don't know just how much you know +about her." + +"Very little, except that my brother always thought her the +most gifted of his pupils, and that when I knew her she was very +young and very beautiful and turned my head sadly for a while." + +Everett saw that Gaylord's mind was quite engrossed by his +grief. He was wrought up to the point where his reserve and +sense of proportion had quite left him, and his trouble was the +one vital thing in the world. "That's the whole thing," he went +on, flicking his horses with the whip. + +"She was a great woman, as you say, and she didn't come of a +great family. She had to fight her own way from the first. She +got to Chicago, and then to New York, and then to Europe, where +she went up like lightning, and got a taste for it all; and now +she's dying here like a rat in a hole, out of her own world, and +she can't fall back into ours. We've grown apart, some way-- +miles and miles apart--and I'm afraid she's fearfully unhappy." + +"It's a very tragic story that you are telling me, Gaylord," +said Everett. They were well out into the country now, spinning +along over the dusty plains of red grass, with the ragged-blue +outline of the mountains before them. + +"Tragic!" cried Gaylord, starting up in his seat, "my God, man, +nobody will ever know how tragic. It's a tragedy I live with and +eat with and sleep with, until I've lost my grip on everything. +You see she had made a good bit of money, but she spent it all +going to health resorts. It's her lungs, you know. I've got money +enough to send her anywhere, but the doctors all say it's no use. +She hasn't the ghost of a chance. It's just getting through the +days now. I had no notion she was half so bad before she came to +me. She just wrote that she was all run down. Now that she's +here, I think she'd be happier anywhere under the sun, but she +won't leave. She says it's easier to let go of life here, and that +to go East would be dying twice. There was a time when I was a +brakeman with a run out of Bird City, Iowa, and she was a little +thing I could carry on my shoulder, when I could get her everything +on earth she wanted, and she hadn't a wish my $80 a month didn't +cover; and now, when I've got a little property together, I can't +buy her a night's sleep!" + +Everett saw that, whatever Charley Gaylord's present status +in the world might be, he had brought the brakeman's heart up the +ladder with him, and the brakeman's frank avowal of sentiment. +Presently Gaylord went on: + +"You can understand how she has outgrown her family. We're +all a pretty common sort, railroaders from away back. My father +was a conductor. He died when we were kids. Maggie, my other +sister, who lives with me, was a telegraph operator here while I +was getting my grip on things. We had no education to speak of. +I have to hire a stenographer because I can't spell straight--the +Almighty couldn't teach me to spell. The things that make up +life to Kate are all Greek to me, and there's scarcely a point +where we touch any more, except in our recollections of the old +times when we were all young and happy together, and Kate sang in +a church choir in Bird City. But I believe, Mr. Hilgarde, that +if she can see just one person like you, who knows about the +things and people she's interested in, it will give her about the +only comfort she can have now." + +The reins slackened in Charley Gaylord's hand as they drew +up before a showily painted house with many gables and a round +tower. "Here we are," he said, turning to Everett, "and I guess +we understand each other." + +They were met at the door by a thin, colorless woman, whom +Gaylord introduced as "my sister, Maggie." She asked her brother +to show Mr. Hilgarde into the music room, where Katharine wished +to see him alone. + +When Everett entered the music room he gave a little start +of surprise, feeling that he had stepped from the glaring Wyoming +sunlight into some New York studio that he had always known. He +wondered which it was of those countless studios, high up under +the roofs, over banks and shops and wholesale houses, that this +room resembled, and he looked incredulously out of the window at +the gray plain that ended in the great upheaval of the Rockies. + +The haunting air of familiarity about the room perplexed +him. Was it a copy of some particular studio he knew, or was it +merely the studio atmosphere that seemed so individual and +poignantly reminiscent here in Wyoming? He sat down in a reading +chair and looked keenly about him. Suddenly his eye fell upon a +large photograph of his brother above the piano. Then it all +became clear to him: this was veritably his brother's room. If +it were not an exact copy of one of the many studios that +Adriance had fitted up in various parts of the world, wearying of +them and leaving almost before the renovator's varnish had dried, +it was at least in the same tone. In every detail Adriance's +taste was so manifest that the room seemed to exhale his +personality. + +Among the photographs on the wall there was one of Katharine +Gaylord, taken in the days when Everett had known her, and when +the flash of her eye or the flutter of her skirt was enough to +set his boyish heart in a tumult. Even now, he stood before the +portrait with a certain degree of embarrassment. It was the face +of a woman already old in her first youth, thoroughly +sophisticated and a trifle hard, and it told of what her brother +had called her fight. The camaraderie of her frank, confident +eyes was qualified by the deep lines about her mouth and the +curve of the lips, which was both sad and cynical. Certainly she +had more good will than confidence toward the world, and the +bravado of her smile could not conceal the shadow of an unrest +that was almost discontent. The chief charm of the woman, as +Everett had known her, lay in her superb figure and in her eyes, +which possessed a warm, lifegiving quality like the sunlight; +eyes which glowed with a sort of perpetual <i>salutat</i> to the +world. Her head, Everett remembered as peculiarly well-shaped and +proudly poised. There had been always a little of the imperatrix +about her, and her pose in the photograph revived all his old +impressions of her unattachedness, of how absolutely and valiantly +she stood alone. + +Everett was still standing before the picture, his hands behind him +and his head inclined, when he heard the door open. A very tall +woman advanced toward him, holding out her hand. As she started to +speak, she coughed slightly; then, laughing, said, in a low, rich +voice, a trifle husky: "You see I make the traditional Camille +entrance--with the cough. How good of you to come, Mr. Hilgarde." + +Everett was acutely conscious that while addressing him she +was not looking at him at all, and, as he assured her of his +pleasure in coming, he was glad to have an opportunity to collect +himself. He had not reckoned upon the ravages of a long illness. +The long, loose folds of her white gown had been especially +designed to conceal the sharp outlines of her emaciated body, but +the stamp of her disease was there; simple and ugly and obtrusive, +a pitiless fact that could not be disguised or evaded. The +splendid shoulders were stooped, there was a swaying unevenness in +her gait, her arms seemed disproportionately long, and her hands +were transparently white and cold to the touch. The changes in her +face were less obvious; the proud carriage of the head, the warm, +clear eyes, even the delicate flush of color in her cheeks, all +defiantly remained, though they were all in a lower key--older, +sadder, softer. + +She sat down upon the divan and began nervously to arrange the +pillows. "I know I'm not an inspiring object to look upon, but you +must be quite frank and sensible about that and get used to it at +once, for we've no time to lose. And if I'm a trifle irritable you +won't mind?--for I'm more than usually nervous." + +"Don't bother with me this morning, if you are tired," urged +Everett. "I can come quite as well tomorrow." + +"Gracious, no!" she protested, with a flash of that quick, +keen humor that he remembered as a part of her. "It's solitude +that I'm tired to death of--solitude and the wrong kind of people. +You see, the minister, not content with reading the prayers for the +sick, called on me this morning. He happened to be riding +by on his bicycle and felt it his duty to stop. Of course, he +disapproves of my profession, and I think he takes it for granted +that I have a dark past. The funniest feature of his conversation +is that he is always excusing my own vocation to me--condoning it, +you know--and trying to patch up my peace with my conscience by +suggesting possible noble uses for what he kindly calls my talent." + +Everett laughed. "Oh! I'm afraid I'm not the person to call +after such a serious gentleman--I can't sustain the situation. +At my best I don't reach higher than low comedy. Have you +decided to which one of the noble uses you will devote yourself?" + +Katharine lifted her hands in a gesture of renunciation and +exclaimed: "I'm not equal to any of them, not even the least +noble. I didn't study that method." + +She laughed and went on nervously: "The parson's not so bad. +His English never offends me, and he has read Gibbon's <i>Decline +and Fall</i>, all five volumes, and that's something. Then, he has +been to New York, and that's a great deal. But how we are losing +time! Do tell me about New York; Charley says you're just on from +there. How does it look and taste and smell just now? I think a +whiff of the Jersey ferry would be as flagons of cod-liver oil to +me. Who conspicuously walks the Rialto now, and what does he or +she wear? Are the trees still green in Madison Square, or have +they grown brown and dusty? Does the chaste Diana on the Garden +Theatre still keep her vestal vows through all the exasperating +changes of weather? Who has your brother's old studio now, and +what misguided aspirants practice their scales in the rookeries +about Carnegie Hall? What do people go to see at the theaters, +and what do they eat and drink there in the world nowadays? You +see, I'm homesick for it all, from the Battery to Riverside. Oh, +let me die in Harlem!" She was interrupted by a violent attack +of coughing, and Everett, embarrassed by her discomfort, plunged +into gossip about the professional people he had met in town +during the summer and the musical outlook for the winter. He was +diagraming with his pencil, on the back of an old envelope he +found in his pocket, some new mechanical device to be +used at the Metropolitan in the production of the <i>Rheingold</i>, +when he became conscious that she was looking at him intently, and +that he was talking to the four walls. + +Katharine was lying back among the pillows, watching him +through half-closed eyes, as a painter looks at a picture. He +finished his explanation vaguely enough and put the envelope back +in his pocket. As he did so she said, quietly: "How wonderfully +like Adriance you are!" and he felt as though a crisis of some +sort had been met and tided over. + +He laughed, looking up at her with a touch of pride in his +eyes that made them seem quite boyish. "Yes, isn't it absurd? +It's almost as awkward as looking like Napoleon--but, after all, +there are some advantages. It has made some of his friends like +me, and I hope it will make you." + +Katharine smiled and gave him a quick, meaning glance from +under her lashes. "Oh, it did that long ago. What a haughty, +reserved youth you were then, and how you used to stare at people +and then blush and look cross if they paid you back in your own +coin. Do you remember that night when you took me home from a +rehearsal and scarcely spoke a word to me?" + +"It was the silence of admiration," protested Everett, "very +crude and boyish, but very sincere and not a little painful. +Perhaps you suspected something of the sort? I remember you saw +fit to be very grown-up and worldly. + +"I believe I suspected a pose; the one that college boys +usually affect with singers--'an earthen vessel in love with a +star,' you know. But it rather surprised me in you, for you must +have seen a good deal of your brother's pupils. Or had you an +omnivorous capacity, and elasticity that always met the +occasion?" + +"Don't ask a man to confess the follies of his youth," said +Everett, smiling a little sadly; "I am sensitive about some of +them even now. But I was not so sophisticated as you imagined. +I saw my brother's pupils come and go, but that was about all. +Sometimes I was called on to play accompaniments, or to fill out +a vacancy at a rehearsal, or to order a carriage for an +infuriated soprano who had thrown up her part. But they never +spent any time on me, unless it was to notice the resemblance you +speak of." + +"Yes", observed Katharine, thoughtfully, "I noticed it then, +too; but it has grown as you have grown older. That is rather +strange, when you have lived such different lives. It's not +merely an ordinary family likeness of feature, you know, but a +sort of interchangeable individuality; the suggestion of the +other man's personality in your face like an air transposed to +another key. But I'm not attempting to define it; it's beyond +me; something altogether unusual and a trifle--well, uncanny," +she finished, laughing. + +"I remember," Everett said seriously, twirling the pencil +between his fingers and looking, as he sat with his head thrown +back, out under the red window blind which was raised just a +little, and as it swung back and forth in the wind revealed the +glaring panorama of the desert--a blinding stretch of yellow, +flat as the sea in dead calm, splotched here and there with deep +purple shadows; and, beyond, the ragged-blue outline of the +mountains and the peaks of snow, white as the white clouds--"I +remember, when I was a little fellow I used to be very sensitive +about it. I don't think it exactly displeased me, or that I would +have had it otherwise if I could, but it seemed to me like a +birthmark, or something not to be lightly spoken of. People were +naturally always fonder of Ad than of me, and I used to feel the +chill of reflected light pretty often. It came into even my +relations with my mother. Ad went abroad to study when he was +absurdly young, you know, and mother was all broken up over it. +She did her whole duty by each of us, but it was sort of +generally understood among us that she'd have made burnt +offerings of us all for Ad any day. I was a little fellow then, +and when she sat alone on the porch in the summer dusk she used +sometimes to call me to her and turn my face up in the light that +streamed out through the shutters and kiss me, and then I always +knew she was thinking of Adriance." + +"Poor little chap," said Katharine, and her tone was a +trifle huskier than usual. "How fond people have always been of +Adriance! Now tell me the latest news of him. I haven't heard, +except through the press, for a year or more. He was in Algeria +then, in the valley of the Chelif, riding horseback night and day +in an Arabian costume, and in his usual enthusiastic fashion he +had quite made up his mind to adopt the Mohammedan faith +and become as nearly an Arab as possible. How many countries and +faiths has be adopted, I wonder? Probably he was playing Arab to +himself all the time. I remember he was a sixteenth-century duke +in Florence once for weeks together." + +"Oh, that's Adriance," chuckled Everett. "He is himself +barely long enough to write checks and be measured for his +clothes. I didn't hear from him while he was an Arab; I missed +that." + +"He was writing an Algerian suite for the piano then; it +must be in the publisher's hands by this time. I have been too +ill to answer his letter, and have lost touch with him." + +Everett drew a letter from his pocket. "This came about a +month ago. It's chiefly about his new opera, which is to be +brought out in London next winter. Read it at your leisure." + +"I think I shall keep it as a hostage, so that I may be sure +you will come again. Now I want you to play for me. Whatever +you like; but if there is anything new in the world, in mercy let +me hear it. For nine months I have heard nothing but 'The +Baggage Coach Ahead' and 'She Is My Baby's Mother.'" + +He sat down at the piano, and Katharine sat near him, +absorbed in his remarkable physical likeness to his brother and +trying to discover in just what it consisted. She told herself +that it was very much as though a sculptor's finished work had +been rudely copied in wood. He was of a larger build than +Adriance, and his shoulders were broad and heavy, while those of +his brother were slender and rather girlish. His face was of the +same oval mold, but it was gray and darkened about the mouth by +continual shaving. His eyes were of the same inconstant April +color, but they were reflective and rather dull; while Adriance's +were always points of highlight, and always meaning another thing +than the thing they meant yesterday. But it was hard to see why +this earnest man should so continually suggest that lyric, +youthful face that was as gay as his was grave. For Adriance, +though he was ten years the elder, and though his hair was +streaked with silver, had the face of a boy of twenty, so mobile +that it told his thoughts before he could put them into words. +A contralto, famous for the extravagance of her vocal +methods and of her affections, had once said to him that the +shepherd boys who sang in the Vale of Tempe must certainly have +looked like young Hilgarde; and the comparison had been +appropriated by a hundred shyer women who preferred to quote. + + +As Everett sat smoking on the veranda of the InterOcean +House that night, he was a victim to random recollections. His +infatuation for Katharine Gaylord, visionary as it was, had been +the most serious of his boyish love affairs, and had long +disturbed his bachelor dreams. He was painfully timid in +everything relating to the emotions, and his hurt had withdrawn +him from the society of women. The fact that it was all so done +and dead and far behind him, and that the woman had lived her +life out since then, gave him an oppressive sense of age and +loss. He bethought himself of something he had read about +"sitting by the hearth and remembering the faces of women without +desire," and felt himself an octogenarian. + +He remembered how bitter and morose he had grown during his +stay at his brother's studio when Katharine Gaylord was working +there, and how he had wounded Adriance on the night of his last +concert in New York. He had sat there in the box while his +brother and Katharine were called back again and again after the +last number, watching the roses go up over the footlights until +they were stacked half as high as the piano, brooding, in his +sullen boy's heart, upon the pride those two felt in each other's +work--spurring each other to their best and beautifully +contending in song. The footlights had seemed a hard, glittering +line drawn sharply between their life and his; a circle of flame +set about those splendid children of genius. He walked back to +his hotel alone and sat in his window staring out on Madison +Square until long after midnight, resolving to beat no more at +doors that he could never enter and realizing more keenly than +ever before how far this glorious world of beautiful creations +lay from the paths of men like himself. He told himself that he +had in common with this woman only the baser uses of life. + +Everett's week in Cheyenne stretched to three, and he saw no +prospect of release except through the thing he dreaded. The +bright, windy days of the Wyoming autumn passed swiftly. Letters +and telegrams came urging him to hasten his trip to the coast, +but he resolutely postponed his business engagements. The +mornings he spent on one of Charley Gaylord's ponies, or fishing +in the mountains, and in the evenings he sat in his room writing +letters or reading. In the afternoon he was usually at his post +of duty. Destiny, he reflected, seems to have very positive +notions about the sort of parts we are fitted to play. The scene +changes and the compensation varies, but in the end we usually +find that we have played the same class of business from first to +last. Everett had been a stopgap all his life. He remembered +going through a looking glass labyrinth when he was a boy and +trying gallery after gallery, only at every turn to bump his nose +against his own face--which, indeed, was not his own, but his +brother's. No matter what his mission, east or west, by land or +sea, he was sure to find himself employed in his brother's +business, one of the tributary lives which helped to swell the +shining current of Adriance Hilgarde's. It was not the first +time that his duty had been to comfort, as best he could, one of +the broken things his brother's imperious speed had cast aside +and forgotten. He made no attempt to analyze the situation or to +state it in exact terms; but he felt Katharine Gaylord's need for +him, and he accepted it as a commission from his brother to help +this woman to die. Day by day he felt her demands on him grow +more imperious, her need for him grow more acute and positive; +and day by day he felt that in his peculiar relation to her his +own individuality played a smaller and smaller part. His power +to minister to her comfort, he saw, lay solely in his link with +his brother's life. He understood all that his physical +resemblance meant to her. He knew that she sat by him always +watching for some common trick of gesture, some familiar play of +expression, some illusion of light and shadow, in which he should +seem wholly Adriance. He knew that she lived upon this and that +her disease fed upon it; that it sent shudders of remembrance +through her and that in the exhaustion which followed this +turmoil of her dying senses, she slept deep and sweet and +dreamed of youth and art and days in a certain old Florentine +garden, and not of bitterness and death. + +The question which most perplexed him was, "How much shall I +know? How much does she wish me to know?" A few days after his +first meeting with Katharine Gaylord, he had cabled his brother +to write her. He had merely said that she was mortally ill; he +could depend on Adriance to say the right thing--that was a part +of his gift. Adriance always said not only the right thing, but +the opportune, graceful, exquisite thing. His phrases took the +color of the moment and the then-present condition, so that they +never savored of perfunctory compliment or frequent usage. He +always caught the lyric essence of the moment, the poetic +suggestion of every situation. Moreover, he usually did the +right thing, the opportune, graceful, exquisite thing--except, +when he did very cruel things--bent upon making people happy +when their existence touched his, just as he insisted that his +material environment should be beautiful; lavishing upon those +near him all the warmth and radiance of his rich nature, all the +homage of the poet and troubadour, and, when they were no longer +near, forgetting--for that also was a part of Adriance's gift. + +Three weeks after Everett had sent his cable, when he made +his daily call at the gaily painted ranch house, he found +Katharine laughing like a schoolgirl. "Have you ever thought," +she said, as he entered the music room, "how much these seances +of ours are like Heine's 'Florentine Nights,' except that I don't +give you an opportunity to monopolize the conversation as Heine +did?" She held his hand longer than usual, as she greeted him, +and looked searchingly up into his face. "You are the kindest +man living; the kindest," she added, softly. + +Everett's gray face colored faintly as he drew his hand +away, for he felt that this time she was looking at him and not +at a whimsical caricature of his brother. "Why, what have I done +now?" he asked, lamely. "I can't remember having sent you any +stale candy or champagne since yesterday." + +She drew a letter with a foreign postmark from between +the leaves of a book and held it out, smiling. "You got him to +write it. Don't say you didn't, for it came direct, you see, and +the last address I gave him was a place in Florida. This deed +shall be remembered of you when I am with the just in Paradise. +But one thing you did not ask him to do, for you didn't know about +it. He has sent me his latest work, the new sonata, the most +ambitious thing he has ever done, and you are to play it for me +directly, though it looks horribly intricate. But first for the +letter; I think you would better read it aloud to me." + +Everett sat down in a low chair facing the window seat in +which she reclined with a barricade of pillows behind her. He +opened the letter, his lashes half-veiling his kind eyes, and saw +to his satisfaction that it was a long one--wonderfully tactful +and tender, even for Adriance, who was tender with his valet and +his stable boy, with his old gondolier and the beggar-women who +prayed to the saints for him. + +The letter was from Granada, written in the Alhambra, as he +sat by the fountain of the Patio di Lindaraxa. The air was +heavy, with the warm fragrance of the South and full of the sound +of splashing, running water, as it had been in a certain old +garden in Florence, long ago. The sky was one great turquoise, +heated until it glowed. The wonderful Moorish arches threw +graceful blue shadows all about him. He had sketched an outline +of them on the margin of his notepaper. The subtleties of Arabic +decoration had cast an unholy spell over him, and the brutal +exaggerations of Gothic art were a bad dream, easily forgotten. +The Alhambra itself had, from the first, seemed perfectly +familiar to him, and he knew that he must have trod that court, +sleek and brown and obsequious, centuries before Ferdinand rode +into Andalusia. The letter was full of confidences about his +work, and delicate allusions to their old happy days of study and +comradeship, and of her own work, still so warmly remembered and +appreciatively discussed everywhere he went. + +As Everett folded the letter he felt that Adriance had +divined the thing needed and had risen to it in his own wonderful +way. The letter was consistently egotistical and seemed to him +even a trifle patronizing, yet it was just what she had +wanted. A strong realization of his brother's charm and intensity +and power came over him; he felt the breath of that whirlwind of +flame in which Adriance passed, consuming all in his path, and +himself even more resolutely than he consumed others. Then he +looked down at this white, burnt-out brand that lay before him. +"Like him, isn't it?" she said, quietly. + +"I think I can scarcely answer his letter, but when you see +him next you can do that for me. I want you to tell him many +things for me, yet they can all be summed up in this: I want him +to grow wholly into his best and greatest self, even at the cost +of the dear boyishness that is half his charm to you and me. Do +you understand me?" + +"I know perfectly well what you mean," answered Everett, +thoughtfully. "I have often felt so about him myself. And yet +it's difficult to prescribe for those fellows; so little makes, +so little mars." + +Katharine raised herself upon her elbow, and her face +flushed with feverish earnestness. "Ah, but it is the waste of +himself that I mean; his lashing himself out on stupid and +uncomprehending people until they take him at their own estimate. +He can kindle marble, strike fire from putty, but is it worth +what it costs him?" + +"Come, come," expostulated Everett, alarmed at her excitement. +"Where is the new sonata? Let him speak for himself." + +He sat down at the piano and began playing the first +movement, which was indeed the voice of Adriance, his proper +speech. The sonata was the most ambitious work he had done up to +that time and marked the transition from his purely lyric vein to +a deeper and nobler style. Everett played intelligently and with +that sympathetic comprehension which seems peculiar to a certain +lovable class of men who never accomplish anything in particular. +When he had finished he turned to Katharine. + +"How he has grown!" she cried. "What the three last years have +done for him! He used to write only the tragedies of passion; but +this is the tragedy of the soul, the shadow coexistent with the +soul. This is the tragedy of effort and failure, the thing Keats +called hell. This is my tragedy, as I lie here spent by the +racecourse, listening to the feet of the runners as they pass me. +Ah, God! The swift feet of the runners!" + +She turned her face away and covered it with her straining +hands. Everett crossed over to her quickly and knelt beside her. +In all the days he had known her she had never before, beyond an +occasional ironical jest, given voice to the bitterness of her +own defeat. Her courage had become a point of pride with him, +and to see it going sickened him. + +"Don't do it," he gasped. "I can't stand it, I really +can't, I feel it too much. We mustn't speak of that; it's too +tragic and too vast." + +When she turned her face back to him there was a ghost of the old, +brave, cynical smile on it, more bitter than the tears she could +not shed. "No, I won't be so ungenerous; I will save that for the +watches of the night when I have no better company. Now you may +mix me another drink of some sort. Formerly, when it was not +<i>if</i> I should ever sing Brunnhilde, but quite simply when I +<i>should</i> sing Brunnhilde, I was always starving myself and +thinking what I might drink and what I might not. But broken music +boxes may drink whatsoever they list, and no one cares whether they +lose their figure. Run over that theme at the beginning again. +That, at least, is not new. It was running in his head when we +were in Venice years ago, and he used to drum it on his glass at +the dinner table. He had just begun to work it out when the late +autumn came on, and the paleness of the Adriatic oppressed him, +and he decided to go to Florence for the winter, and lost touch +with the theme during his illness. Do you remember those +frightful days? All the people who have loved him are not strong +enough to save him from himself! When I got word from Florence +that he had been ill I was in Nice filling a concert engagement. +His wife was hurrying to him from Paris, but I reached him first. +I arrived at dusk, in a terrific storm. They had taken an old +palace there for the winter, and I found him in the library--a +long, dark room full of old Latin books and heavy furniture and +bronzes. He was sitting by a wood fire at one end of the room, +looking, oh, so worn and pale!--as he always does when he is ill, +you know. Ah, it is so good that you <i>do</i> know! Even +his red smoking jacket lent no color to his face. His first words +were not to tell me how ill he had been, but that that morning he +had been well enough to put the last strokes to the score of his +<i>Souvenirs d'Automne</i>. He was as I most like to remember him: +so calm and happy and tired; not gay, as he usually is, but just +contented and tired with that heavenly tiredness that comes after +a good work done at last. Outside, the rain poured down in +torrents, and the wind moaned for the pain of all the world and +sobbed in the branches of the shivering olives and about the walls +of that desolated old palace. How that night comes back to me! +There were no lights in the room, only the wood fire which glowed +upon the hard features of the bronze Dante, like the reflection of +purgatorial flames, and threw long black shadows about us; beyond +us it scarcely penetrated the gloom at all, Adriance sat staring at +the fire with the weariness of all his life in his eves, and of all +the other lives that must aspire and suffer to make up one such +life as his. Somehow the wind with all its world-pain had got into +the room, and the cold rain was in our eyes, and the wave came up +in both of us at once--that awful, vague, universal pain, that +cold fear of life and death and God and hope--and we were like +two clinging together on a spar in midocean after the shipwreck +of everything. Then we heard the front door open with a great +gust of wind that shook even the walls, and the servants came +running with lights, announcing that Madam had returned, <i>'and in +the book we read no more that night.'</i>" + +She gave the old line with a certain bitter humor, and with +the hard, bright smile in which of old she had wrapped her +weakness as in a glittering garment. That ironical smile, worn +like a mask through so many years, had gradually changed even the +lines of her face completely, and when she looked in the mirror +she saw not herself, but the scathing critic, the amused observer +and satirist of herself. Everett dropped his head upon his hand +and sat looking at the rug. "How much you have cared!" he said. + +"Ah, yes, I cared," she replied, closing her eyes with a +long-drawn sigh of relief; and lying perfectly still, she went +on: "You can't imagine what a comfort it is to have you know how I +cared, what a relief it is to be able to tell it to someone. I +used to want to shriek it out to the world in the long nights when +I could not sleep. It seemed to me that I could not die with it. +It demanded some sort of expression. And now that you know, you +would scarcely believe how much less sharp the anguish of it is." + +Everett continued to look helplessly at the floor. "I was +not sure how much you wanted me to know," he said. + +"Oh, I intended you should know from the first time I looked +into your face, when you came that day with Charley. I flatter +myself that I have been able to conceal it when I chose, though I +suppose women always think that. The more observing ones may +have seen, but discerning people are usually discreet and often +kind, for we usually bleed a little before we begin to discern. +But I wanted you to know; you are so like him that it is almost +like telling him himself. At least, I feel now that he will know +some day, and then I will be quite sacred from his compassion, +for we none of us dare pity the dead. Since it was what my life +has chiefly meant, I should like him to know. On the whole I am +not ashamed of it. I have fought a good fight." + +"And has he never known at all?" asked Everett, in a thick voice. + +"Oh! Never at all in the way that you mean. Of course, he +is accustomed to looking into the eyes of women and finding love +there; when he doesn't find it there he thinks he must have been +guilty of some discourtesy and is miserable about it. He has a +genuine fondness for everyone who is not stupid or gloomy, or old +or preternaturally ugly. Granted youth and cheerfulness, and a +moderate amount of wit and some tact, and Adriance will always be +glad to see you coming around the corner. I shared with the +rest; shared the smiles and the gallantries and the droll little +sermons. It was quite like a Sunday-school picnic; we wore our +best clothes and a smile and took our turns. It was his kindness +that was hardest. I have pretty well used my life up at standing +punishment." + +"Don't; you'll make me hate him," groaned Everett. + +Katharine laughed and began to play nervously with her fan. +"It wasn't in the slightest degree his fault; that is the most +grotesque part of it. Why, it had really begun before I +ever met him. I fought my way to him, and I drank my doom +greedily enough." + +Everett rose and stood hesitating. "I think I must go. You ought +to be quiet, and I don't think I can hear any more just now." + +She put out her hand and took his playfully. "You've put in +three weeks at this sort of thing, haven't you? Well, it may +never be to your glory in this world, perhaps, but it's been the +mercy of heaven to me, and it ought to square accounts for a much +worse life than yours will ever be." + +Everett knelt beside her, saying, brokenly: "I stayed because I +wanted to be with you, that's all. I have never cared about other +women since I met you in New York when I was a lad. You are a part +of my destiny, and I could not leave you if I would." + +She put her hands on his shoulders and shook her head. "No, +no; don't tell me that. I have seen enough of tragedy, God +knows. Don't show me any more just as the curtain is going down. +No, no, it was only a boy's fancy, and your divine pity and my +utter pitiableness have recalled it for a moment. One does not +love the dying, dear friend. If some fancy of that sort had been +left over from boyhood, this would rid you of it, and that were +well. Now go, and you will come again tomorrow, as long as there +are tomorrows, will you not?" She took his hand with a smile that +lifted the mask from her soul, that was both courage and despair, +and full of infinite loyalty and tenderness, as she said softly: + + For ever and for ever, farewell, Cassius; + If we do meet again, why, we shall smile; + If not, why then, this parting was well made. + +The courage in her eyes was like the clear light of a star to him +as he went out. + +On the night of Adriance Hilgarde's opening concert in Paris +Everett sat by the bed in the ranch house in Wyoming, watching +over the last battle that we have with the flesh before we are +done with it and free of it forever. At times it seemed that the +serene soul of her must have left already and found some refuge +from the storm, and only the tenacious animal life were left to do +battle with death. She labored under a delusion at once pitiful +and merciful, thinking that she was in the Pullman on her way to +New York, going back to her life and her work. When she aroused +from her stupor it was only to ask the porter to waken her half an +hour out of Jersey City, or to remonstrate with him about the +delays and the roughness of the road. At midnight Everett and the +nurse were left alone with her. Poor Charley Gaylord had lain down +on a couch outside the door. Everett sat looking at the sputtering +night lamp until it made his eyes ache. His head dropped forward +on the foot of the bed, and he sank into a heavy, distressful +slumber. He was dreaming of Adriance's concert in Paris, and of +Adriance, the troubadour, smiling and debonair, with his boyish +face and the touch of silver gray in his hair. He heard the +applause and he saw the roses going up over the footlights until +they were stacked half as high as the piano, and the petals fell +and scattered, making crimson splotches on the floor. Down this +crimson pathway came Adriance with his youthful step, leading his +prima donna by the hand; a dark woman this time, with Spanish eyes. + +The nurse touched him on the shoulder; he started and awoke. +She screened the lamp with her hand. Everett saw that Katharine +was awake and conscious, and struggling a little. He lifted her +gently on his arm and began to fan her. She laid her hands +lightly on his hair and looked into his face with eyes that +seemed never to have wept or doubted. "Ah, dear Adriance, dear, +dear," she whispered. + +Everett went to call her brother, but when they came back +the madness of art was over for Katharine. + +Two days later Everett was pacing the station siding, +waiting for the westbound train. Charley Gaylord walked beside +him, but the two men had nothing to say to each other. Everett's +bags were piled on the truck, and his step was hurried and his +eyes were full of impatience, as he gazed again and again up the +track, watching for the train. Gaylord's impatience was not less +than his own; these two, who had grown so close, had now become +painful and impossible to each other, and longed for the +wrench of farewell. + +As the train pulled in Everett wrung Gaylord's hand among +the crowd of alighting passengers. The people of a German opera +company, en route to the coast, rushed by them in frantic haste +to snatch their breakfast during the stop. Everett heard an +exclamation in a broad German dialect, and a massive woman whose +figure persistently escaped from her stays in the most improbable +places rushed up to him, her blond hair disordered by the wind, +and glowing with joyful surprise she caught his coat sleeve with +her tightly gloved hands. + +"<i>Herr Gott</i>, Adriance, <i>lieber Freund</i>," she cried, +emotionally. + +Everett quickly withdrew his arm and lifted his hat, +blushing. "Pardon me, madam, but I see that you have mistaken +me for Adriance Hilgarde. I am his brother," he said quietly, +and turning from the crestfallen singer, he hurried into the car. + + + + +The Garden Lodge + +When Caroline Noble's friends learned that Raymond d'Esquerre was +to spend a month at her place on the Sound before he sailed to fill +his engagement for the London opera season, they considered it +another striking instance of the perversity of things. That the +month was May, and the most mild and florescent of all the +blue-and-white Mays the middle coast had known in years, but added +to their sense of wrong. D'Esquerre, they learned, was ensconced +in the lodge in the apple orchard, just beyond Caroline's glorious +garden, and report went that at almost any hour the sound of the +tenor's voice and of Caroline's crashing accompaniment could be +heard floating through the open windows, out among the snowy apple +boughs. The Sound, steel-blue and dotted with white sails, was +splendidly seen from the windows of the lodge. The garden to the +left and the orchard to the right had never been so riotous with +spring, and had burst into impassioned bloom, as if to accommodate +Caroline, though she was certainly the last woman to whom the +witchery of Freya could be attributed; the last woman, as her +friends affirmed, to at all adequately appreciate and make the most +of such a setting for the great tenor. + +Of course, they admitted, Caroline was musical--well, she +ought to be!--but in that, as in everything, she was paramountly +cool-headed, slow of impulse, and disgustingly practical; in +that, as in everything else, she had herself so provokingly well +in hand. Of course, it would be she, always mistress of herself +in any situation, she, who would never be lifted one inch from +the ground by it, and who would go on superintending her +gardeners and workmen as usual--it would be she who got him. +Perhaps some of them suspected that this was exactly why +she did get him, and it but nettled them the more. + +Caroline's coolness, her capableness, her general success, +especially exasperated people because they felt that, for the +most part, she had made herself what she was; that she had cold- +bloodedly set about complying with the demands of life and making +her position comfortable and masterful. That was why, everyone +said, she had married Howard Noble. Women who did not get +through life so well as Caroline, who could not make such good +terms either with fortune or their husbands, who did not find +their health so unfailingly good, or hold their looks so well, or +manage their children so easily, or give such distinction to all +they did, were fond of stamping Caroline as a materialist, and +called her hard. + +The impression of cold calculation, of having a definite +policy, which Caroline gave, was far from a false one; but there +was this to be said for her--that there were extenuating +circumstances which her friends could not know. + +If Caroline held determinedly to the middle course, if she +was apt to regard with distrust everything which inclined toward +extravagance, it was not because she was unacquainted with other +standards than her own, or had never seen another side of life. +She had grown up in Brooklyn, in a shabby little house under the +vacillating administration of her father, a music teacher who +usually neglected his duties to write orchestral compositions for +which the world seemed to have no especial need. His spirit was +warped by bitter vindictiveness and puerile self-commiseration, +and he spent his days in scorn of the labor that brought him +bread and in pitiful devotion to the labor that brought him only +disappointment, writing interminable scores which demanded of the +orchestra everything under heaven except melody. + +It was not a cheerful home for a girl to grow up in. The +mother, who idolized her husband as the music lord of the future, +was left to a lifelong battle with broom and dustpan, to +neverending conciliatory overtures to the butcher and grocer, to +the making of her own gowns and of Caroline's, and to the delicate +task of mollifying Auguste's neglected pupils. + +The son, Heinrich, a painter, Caroline's only brother, had +inherited all his father's vindictive sensitiveness without his +capacity for slavish application. His little studio on the third +floor had been much frequented by young men as unsuccessful as +himself, who met there to give themselves over to contemptuous +derision of this or that artist whose industry and stupidity had +won him recognition. Heinrich, when he worked at all, did +newspaper sketches at twenty-five dollars a week. He was too +indolent and vacillating to set himself seriously to his art, too +irascible and poignantly self-conscious to make a living, too +much addicted to lying late in bed, to the incontinent reading of +poetry, and to the use of chloral to be anything very positive +except painful. At twenty-six he shot himself in a frenzy, and +the whole wretched affair had effectually shattered his mother's +health and brought on the decline of which she died. Caroline +had been fond of him, but she felt a certain relief when he no +longer wandered about the little house, commenting ironically +upon its shabbiness, a Turkish cap on his head and a cigarette +hanging from between his long, tremulous fingers. + +After her mother's death Caroline assumed the management of +that bankrupt establishment. The funeral expenses were unpaid, +and Auguste's pupils had been frightened away by the shock of +successive disasters and the general atmosphere of wretchedness +that pervaded the house. Auguste himself was writing a symphonic +poem, Icarus, dedicated to the memory of his son. Caroline was +barely twenty when she was called upon to face this tangle of +difficulties, but she reviewed the situation candidly. The house +had served its time at the shrine of idealism; vague, distressing, +unsatisfied yearnings had brought it low enough. Her mother, +thirty years before, had eloped and left Germany with her music +teacher, to give herself over to lifelong, drudging bondage at the +kitchen range. Ever since Caroline could remember, the law in the +house had been a sort of mystic worship of things distant, +intangible and unattainable. The family had lived in successive +ebullitions of generous enthusiasm, in talk of masters and +masterpieces, only to come down to the cold facts in the case; to +boiled mutton and to the necessity of turning the dining-room +carpet. All these emotional pyrotechnics had ended in petty +jealousies, in neglected duties, and in cowardly fear of the little +grocer on the corner. + +From her childhood she had hated it, that humiliating and +uncertain existence, with its glib tongue and empty pockets, its +poetic ideals and sordid realities, its indolence and poverty +tricked out in paper roses. Even as a little girl, when vague +dreams beset her, when she wanted to lie late in bed and commune +with visions, or to leap and sing because the sooty little trees +along the street were putting out their first pale leaves in the +sunshine, she would clench her hands and go to help her mother +sponge the spots from her father's waistcoat or press Heinrich's +trousers. Her mother never permitted the slightest question +concerning anything Auguste or Heinrich saw fit to do, but from +the time Caroline could reason at all she could not help thinking +that many things went wrong at home. She knew, for example, that +her father's pupils ought not to be kept waiting half an hour +while he discussed Schopenhauer with some bearded socialist over +a dish of herrings and a spotted tablecloth. She knew that +Heinrich ought not to give a dinner on Heine's birthday, when the +laundress had not been paid for a month and when he frequently +had to ask his mother for carfare. Certainly Caroline had served +her apprenticeship to idealism and to all the embarrassing +inconsistencies which it sometimes entails, and she decided to +deny herself this diffuse, ineffectual answer to the sharp +questions of life. + +When she came into the control of herself and the house she +refused to proceed any further with her musical education. Her +father, who had intended to make a concert pianist of her, set +this down as another item in his long list of disappointments and +his grievances against the world. She was young and pretty, and +she had worn turned gowns and soiled gloves and improvised hats +all her life. She wanted the luxury of being like other people, +of being honest from her hat to her boots, of having nothing to +hide, not even in the matter of stockings, and she was willing to +work for it. She rented a little studio away from that house of +misfortune and began to give lessons. She managed well and was +the sort of girl people liked to help. The bills were +paid and Auguste went on composing, growing indignant only when +she refused to insist that her pupils should study his compositions +for the piano. She began to get engagements in New York to play +accompaniments at song recitals. She dressed well, made herself +agreeable, and gave herself a chance. She never permitted herself +to look further than a step ahead, and set herself with all the +strength of her will to see things as they are and meet them +squarely in the broad day. There were two things she feared even +more than poverty: the part of one that sets up an idol and the +part of one that bows down and worships it. + +When Caroline was twenty-four she married Howard Noble, then +a widower of forty, who had been for ten years a power in Wall +Street. Then, for the first time, she had paused to take breath. +It took a substantialness as unquestionable as his; his money, +his position, his energy, the big vigor of his robust person, to +satisfy her that she was entirely safe. Then she relaxed a +little, feeling that there was a barrier to be counted upon +between her and that world of visions and quagmires and failure. + +Caroline had been married for six years when Raymond +d'Esquerre came to stay with them. He came chiefly because +Caroline was what she was; because he, too, felt occasionally the +need of getting out of Klingsor's garden, of dropping down +somewhere for a time near a quiet nature, a cool head, a strong +hand. The hours he had spent in the garden lodge were hours of +such concentrated study as, in his fevered life, he seldom got in +anywhere. She had, as he told Noble, a fine appreciation of the +seriousness of work. + +One evening two weeks after d'Esquerre had sailed, Caroline +was in the library giving her husband an account of the work she +had laid out for the gardeners. She superintended the care of +the grounds herself. Her garden, indeed, had become quite a part +of her; a sort of beautiful adjunct, like gowns or jewels. It +was a famous spot, and Noble was very proud of it. + +"What do you think, Caroline, of having the garden lodge torn down +and putting a new summer house there at the end of the arbor; a big +rustic affair where you could have tea served in midsummer?" he +asked. + +"The lodge?" repeated Caroline looking at him quickly. "Why, that +seems almost a shame, doesn't it, after d'Esquerre has used it?" + +Noble put down his book with a smile of amusement. + +"Are you going to be sentimental about it? Why, I'd sacrifice the +whole place to see that come to pass. But I don't believe you +could do it for an hour together." + +"I don't believe so, either," said his wife, smiling. + +Noble took up his book again and Caroline went into the +music room to practice. She was not ready to have the lodge torn +down. She had gone there for a quiet hour every day during the +two weeks since d'Esquerre had left them. It was the sheerest +sentiment she had ever permitted herself. She was ashamed of it, +but she was childishly unwilling to let it go. + +Caroline went to bed soon after her husband, but she was not +able to sleep. The night was close and warm, presaging storm. +The wind had fallen, and the water slept, fixed and motionless as +the sand. She rose and thrust her feet into slippers and, +putting a dressing gown over her shoulders, opened the door of +her husband's room; he was sleeping soundly. She went into the +hall and down the stairs; then, leaving the house through a side +door, stepped into the vine-covered arbor that led to the garden +lodge. The scent of the June roses was heavy in the still air, +and the stones that paved the path felt pleasantly cool through +the thin soles of her slippers. Heat-lightning flashed +continuously from the bank of clouds that had gathered over the +sea, but the shore was flooded with moonlight and, beyond, the +rim of the Sound lay smooth and shining. Caroline had the key of +the lodge, and the door creaked as she opened it. She stepped +into the long, low room radiant with the moonlight which streamed +through the bow window and lay in a silvery pool along the waxed +floor. Even that part of the room which lay in the shadow was +vaguely illuminated; the piano, the tall candlesticks, the +picture frames and white casts standing out as clearly in the +half-light as did the sycamores and black poplars of the garden +against the still, expectant night sky. Caroline sat +down to think it all over. She had come here to do just that +every day of the two weeks since d'Esquerre's departure, but, +far from ever having reached a conclusion, she had succeeded +only in losing her way in a maze of memories--sometimes +bewilderingly confused, sometimes too acutely distinct--where +there was neither path, nor clue, nor any hope of finality. She +had, she realized, defeated a lifelong regimen; completely +confounded herself by falling unaware and incontinently into +that luxury of reverie which, even as a little girl, she had so +determinedly denied herself, she had been developing with +alarming celerity that part of one which sets up an idol and +that part of one which bows down and worships it. + +It was a mistake, she felt, ever to have asked d'Esquerre to come +at all. She had an angry feeling that she had done it rather in +self-defiance, to rid herself finally of that instinctive fear of +him which had always troubled and perplexed her. She knew that she +had reckoned with herself before he came; but she had been equal to +so much that she had never really doubted she would be equal to +this. She had come to believe, indeed, almost arrogantly in her +own malleability and endurance; she had done so much with herself +that she had come to think that there was nothing which she could +not do; like swimmers, overbold, who reckon upon their strength and +their power to hoard it, forgetting the ever-changing moods of +their adversary, the sea. + +And d'Esquerre was a man to reckon with. Caroline did not +deceive herself now upon that score. She admitted it humbly +enough, and since she had said good-by to him she had not been +free for a moment from the sense of his formidable power. It +formed the undercurrent of her consciousness; whatever she might +be doing or thinking, it went on, involuntarily, like her +breathing, sometimes welling up until suddenly she found herself +suffocating. There was a moment of this tonight, and Caroline +rose and stood shuddering, looking about her in the blue +duskiness of the silent room. She had not been here at night +before, and the spirit of the place seemed more troubled and +insistent than ever it had in the quiet of the afternoons. +Caroline brushed her hair back from her damp forehead +and went over to the bow window. After raising it she sat down +upon the low seat. Leaning her head against the sill, and +loosening her nightgown at the throat, she half-closed her eyes +and looked off into the troubled night, watching the play of +the heat-lightning upon the massing clouds between the pointed +tops of the poplars. + +Yes, she knew, she knew well enough, of what absurdities +this spell was woven; she mocked, even while she winced. His +power, she knew, lay not so much in anything that he actually +had--though he had so much--or in anything that he actually was, +but in what he suggested, in what he seemed picturesque enough to +have or be and that was just anything that one chose to believe +or to desire. His appeal was all the more persuasive and alluring +in that it was to the imagination alone, in that it was as +indefinite and impersonal as those cults of idealism which so +have their way with women. What he had was that, in his mere +personality, he quickened and in a measure gratified that +something without which--to women--life is no better than +sawdust, and to the desire for which most of their mistakes and +tragedies and astonishingly poor bargains are due. + +D'Esquerre had become the center of a movement, and the +Metropolitan had become the temple of a cult. When he could be +induced to cross the Atlantic, the opera season in New York was +successful; when he could not, the management lost money; so much +everyone knew. It was understood, too, that his superb art had +disproportionately little to do with his peculiar position. +Women swayed the balance this way or that; the opera, the +orchestra, even his own glorious art, achieved at such a cost, were +but the accessories of himself; like the scenery and costumes and +even the soprano, they all went to produce atmosphere, were the +mere mechanics of the beautiful illusion. + +Caroline understood all this; tonight was not the first time +that she had put it to herself so. She had seen the same feeling +in other people, watched for it in her friends, studied it in the +house night after night when he sang, candidly putting herself +among a thousand others. + +D'Esquerre's arrival in the early winter was the signal for +a feminine hegira toward New York. On the nights when he sang +women flocked to the Metropolitan from mansions and hotels, from +typewriter desks, schoolrooms, shops, and fitting rooms. They +were of all conditions and complexions. Women of the world who +accepted him knowingly as they sometimes took champagne for its +agreeable effect; sisters of charity and overworked shopgirls, +who received him devoutly; withered women who had taken doctorate +degrees and who worshipped furtively through prism spectacles; +business women and women of affairs, the Amazons who dwelt afar +from men in the stony fastnesses of apartment houses. They all +entered into the same romance; dreamed, in terms as various as +the hues of fantasy, the same dream; drew the same quick breath +when he stepped upon the stage, and, at his exit, felt the same +dull pain of shouldering the pack again. + +There were the maimed, even; those who came on crutches, who +were pitted by smallpox or grotesquely painted by cruel birth +stains. These, too, entered with him into enchantment. Stout +matrons became slender girls again; worn spinsters felt their +cheeks flush with the tenderness of their lost youth. Young and +old, however hideous, however fair, they yielded up their heat-- +whether quick or latent--sat hungering for the mystic bread +wherewith he fed them at this eucharist of sentiment. + +Sometimes, when the house was crowded from the orchestra to +the last row of the gallery, when the air was charged with this +ecstasy of fancy, he himself was the victim of the burning +reflection of his power. They acted upon him in turn; he felt +their fervent and despairing appeal to him; it stirred him as the +spring drives the sap up into an old tree; he, too, burst into +bloom. For the moment he, too, believed again, desired again, he +knew not what, but something. + +But it was not in these exalted moments that Caroline had +learned to fear him most. It was in the quiet, tired reserve, +the dullness, even, that kept him company between these outbursts +that she found that exhausting drain upon her sympathies which +was the very pith and substance of their alliance. It was the +tacit admission of disappointment under all this glamour +of success--the helplessness of the enchanter to at all enchant +himself--that awoke in her an illogical, womanish desire to in +some way compensate, to make it up to him. + +She had observed drastically to herself that it was her +eighteenth year he awoke in her--those hard years she had spent +in turning gowns and placating tradesmen, and which she had never +had time to live. After all, she reflected, it was better to +allow one's self a little youth--to dance a little at the +carnival and to live these things when they are natural and +lovely, not to have them coming back on one and demanding arrears +when they are humiliating and impossible. She went over tonight +all the catalogue of her self-deprivations; recalled how, in the +light of her father's example, she had even refused to humor her +innocent taste for improvising at the piano; how, when she began +to teach, after her mother's death, she had struck out one little +indulgence after another, reducing her life to a relentless +routine, unvarying as clockwork. It seemed to her that ever +since d'Esquerre first came into the house she had been haunted +by an imploring little girlish ghost that followed her about, +wringing its hands and entreating for an hour of life. + +The storm had held off unconscionably long; the air within +the lodge was stifling, and without the garden waited, +breathless. Everything seemed pervaded by a poignant distress; +the hush of feverish, intolerable expectation. The still earth, +the heavy flowers, even the growing darkness, breathed the +exhaustion of protracted waiting. Caroline felt that she ought +to go; that it was wrong to stay; that the hour and the place +were as treacherous as her own reflections. She rose and began +to pace the floor, stepping softly, as though in fear of +awakening someone, her figure, in its thin drapery, diaphanously +vague and white. Still unable to shake off the obsession of the +intense stillness, she sat down at the piano and began to run +over the first act of the <i>Walkure</i>, the last of his roles +they had practiced together; playing listlessly and absently at +first, but with gradually increasing seriousness. Perhaps it was +the still heat of the summer night, perhaps it was the heavy odors +from the garden that came in through the open windows; but as she +played there grew and grew the feeling that he was there, beside +her, standing in his accustomed place. In the duet at the end of +the first act she heard him clearly: <i>"Thou art the Spring for +which I sighed in Winter's cold embraces."<i/> Once as he sang +it, he had put his arm about her, his one hand under her heart, +while with the other he took her right from the keyboard, holding +her as he always held <i>Sieglinde</i> when he drew her toward the +window. She had been wonderfully the mistress of herself at the +time; neither repellent nor acquiescent. She remembered that she +had rather exulted, then, in her self-control--which he had seemed +to take for granted, though there was perhaps the whisper of a +question from the hand under her heart. <i>"Thou art the Spring +for which I sighed in Winter's cold embraces."</i> Caroline lifted +her hands quickly from the keyboard, and she bowed her head in +them, sobbing. + +The storm broke and the rain beat in, spattering her +nightdress until she rose and lowered the windows. She dropped +upon the couch and began fighting over again the battles of other +days, while the ghosts of the slain rose as from a sowing of +dragon's teeth, The shadows of things, always so scorned and +flouted, bore down upon her merciless and triumphant. It was not +enough; this happy, useful, well-ordered life was not enough. It +did not satisfy, it was not even real. No, the other things, the +shadows-they were the realities. Her father, poor Heinrich, even +her mother, who had been able to sustain her poor romance and +keep her little illusions amid the tasks of a scullion, were +nearer happiness than she. Her sure foundation was but made +ground, after all, and the people in Klingsor's garden were more +fortunate, however barren the sands from which they conjured +their paradise. + +The lodge was still and silent; her fit of weeping over, +Caroline made no sound, and within the room, as without in the +garden, was the blackness of storm. Only now and then a flash of +lightning showed a woman's slender figure rigid on the couch, her +face buried in her hands. + +Toward morning, when the occasional rumbling of thunder was +heard no more and the beat of the raindrops upon the orchard +leaves was steadier, she fell asleep and did not waken +until the first red streaks of dawn shone through the twisted +boughs of the apple trees. There was a moment between world and +world, when, neither asleep nor awake, she felt her dream grow +thin, melting away from her, felt the warmth under her heart +growing cold. Something seemed to slip from the clinging hold +of her arms, and she groaned protestingly through her parted lips, +following it a little way with fluttering hands. Then her eyes +opened wide and she sprang up and sat holding dizzily to the +cushions of the couch, staring down at her bare, cold feet, at +her laboring breast, rising and falling under her open nightdress. + +The dream was gone, but the feverish reality of it still +pervaded her and she held it as the vibrating string holds a +tone. In the last hour the shadows had had their way with +Caroline. They had shown her the nothingness of time and space, +of system and discipline, of closed doors and broad waters. +Shuddering, she thought of the Arabian fairy tale in which the +genie brought the princess of China to the sleeping prince of +Damascus and carried her through the air back to her palace at +dawn. Caroline closed her eyes and dropped her elbows weakly +upon her knees, her shoulders sinking together. The horror was +that it had not come from without, but from within. The dream +was no blind chance; it was the expression of something she had +kept so close a prisoner that she had never seen it herself, it +was the wail from the donjon deeps when the watch slept. Only as +the outcome of such a night of sorcery could the thing have been +loosed to straighten its limbs and measure itself with her; so +heavy were the chains upon it, so many a fathom deep, it was +crushed down into darkness. The fact that d'Esquerre happened to +be on the other side of the world meant nothing; had he been +here, beside her, it could scarcely have hurt her self-respect +so much. As it was, she was without even the extenuation of an +outer impulse, and she could scarcely have despised herself more +had she come to him here in the night three weeks ago and thrown +herself down upon the stone slab at the door there. + +Caroline rose unsteadily and crept guiltily from the lodge +and along the path under the arbor, terrified lest the +servants should be stirring, trembling with the chill air, while +the wet shrubbery, brushing against her, drenched her nightdress +until it clung about her limbs. + +At breakfast her husband looked across the table at her with +concern. "It seems to me that you are looking rather fagged, +Caroline. It was a beastly night to sleep. Why don't you go up +to the mountains until this hot weather is over? By the way, were +you in earnest about letting the lodge stand?" + +Caroline laughed quietly. "No, I find I was not very serious. I +haven't sentiment enough to forego a summer house. Will you tell +Baker to come tomorrow to talk it over with me? If we are to have +a house party, I should like to put him to work on it at once." + +Noble gave her a glance, half-humorous, half-vexed. "Do you +know I am rather disappointed?" he said. "I had almost hoped +that, just for once, you know, you would be a little bit foolish." + +"Not now that I've slept over it," replied Caroline, and +they both rose from the table, laughing. + + + + +The Marriage of Phaedra + +The sequence of events was such that MacMaster did not make his +pilgrimage to Hugh Treffinger's studio until three years after that +painter's death. MacMaster was himself a painter, an American of +the Gallicized type, who spent his winters in New York, his summers +in Paris, and no inconsiderable amount of time on the broad waters +between. He had often contemplated stopping in London on one of +his return trips in the late autumn, but he had always deferred +leaving Paris until the prick of necessity drove him home by the +quickest and shortest route. + +Treffinger was a comparatively young man at the time of his +death, and there had seemed no occasion for haste until haste was +of no avail. Then, possibly, though there had been some +correspondence between them, MacMaster felt certain qualms about +meeting in the flesh a man who in the flesh was so diversely +reported. His intercourse with Treffinger's work had been so +deep and satisfying, so apart from other appreciations, that he +rather dreaded a critical juncture of any sort. He had always +felt himself singularly inept in personal relations, and in this +case he had avoided the issue until it was no longer to be feared +or hoped for. There still remained, however, Treffinger's great +unfinished picture, the <i>Marriage of Phaedra</i>, which had never +left his studio, and of which MacMaster's friends had now and again +brought report that it was the painter's most characteristic +production. + +The young man arrived in London in the evening, and the next +morning went out to Kensington to find Treffinger's studio. It +lay in one of the perplexing bystreets off Holland Road, and the +number he found on a door set in a high garden wall, the top of +which was covered with broken green glass and over which +a budding lilac bush nodded. Treffinger's plate was still there, +and a card requesting visitors to ring for the attendant. In +response to MacMaster's ring, the door was opened by a cleanly +built little man, clad in a shooting jacket and trousers that had +been made for an ampler figure. He had a fresh complexion, eyes +of that common uncertain shade of gray, and was closely shaven +except for the incipient muttonchops on his ruddy cheeks. He +bore himself in a manner strikingly capable, and there was a sort +of trimness and alertness about him, despite the too-generous +shoulders of his coat. In one hand he held a bulldog pipe, and +in the other a copy of <i>Sporting Life</i>. While MacMaster was +explaining the purpose of his call he noticed that the man surveyed +him critically, though not impertinently. He was admitted into a +little tank of a lodge made of whitewashed stone, the back door +and windows opening upon a garden. A visitor's book and a pile +of catalogues lay on a deal table, together with a bottle of ink +and some rusty pens. The wall was ornamented with photographs +and colored prints of racing favorites. + +"The studio is h'only open to the public on Saturdays and Sundays," +explained the man--he referred to himself as "Jymes"--"but of +course we make exceptions in the case of pynters. Lydy Elling +Treffinger 'erself is on the Continent, but Sir 'Ugh's orders was +that pynters was to 'ave the run of the place." He selected a key +from his pocket and threw open the door into the studio which, like +the lodge, was built against the wall of the garden. + +MacMaster entered a long, narrow room, built of smoothed +planks, painted a light green; cold and damp even on that fine +May morning. The room was utterly bare of furniture--unless a +stepladder, a model throne, and a rack laden with large leather +portfolios could be accounted such--and was windowless, without +other openings than the door and the skylight, under which hung +the unfinished picture itself. MacMaster had never seen so many +of Treffinger's paintings together. He knew the painter had +married a woman with money and had been able to keep such of his +pictures as he wished. These, with all of <i>182</i> his +replicas and studies, he had left as a sort of common legacy to +the younger men of the school he had originated. + +As soon as he was left alone MacMaster sat down on the edge +of the model throne before the unfinished picture. Here indeed +was what he had come for; it rather paralyzed his receptivity for +the moment, but gradually the thing found its way to him. + +At one o'clock he was standing before the collection of studies +done for <i>Boccaccio's Garden</i> when he heard a voice at his +elbow. + +"Pardon, sir, but I was just about to lock up and go to +lunch. Are you lookin' for the figure study of Boccaccio +'imself?" James queried respectfully. "Lydy Elling Treffinger +give it to Mr. Rossiter to take down to Oxford for some lectures +he's been agiving there." + +"Did he never paint out his studies, then?" asked MacMaster +with perplexity. "Here are two completed ones for this picture. +Why did he keep them?" + +"I don't know as I could say as to that, sir," replied James, +smiling indulgently, "but that was 'is way. That is to say, 'e +pynted out very frequent, but 'e always made two studies to stand; +one in watercolors and one in oils, before 'e went at the final +picture--to say nothink of all the pose studies 'e made in pencil +before he begun on the composition proper at all. He was that +particular. You see, 'e wasn't so keen for the final effect as for +the proper pyntin' of 'is pictures. 'E used to say they ought to +be well made, the same as any other h'article of trade. I can lay +my 'and on the pose studies for you, sir." He rummaged in one of +the portfolios and produced half a dozen drawings, "These three," +he continued, "was discarded; these two was the pose he finally +accepted; this one without alteration, as it were. + +"That's in Paris, as I remember," James continued reflectively. +"It went with the <i>Saint Cecilia</i> into the Baron H---'s +collection. Could you tell me, sir, 'as 'e it still? I +don't like to lose account of them, but some 'as changed 'ands +since Sir 'Ugh's death." + +"H---'s collection is still intact, I believe," replied MacMaster. +"You were with Treffinger long?" + +"From my boyhood, sir," replied James with gravity. "I was +a stable boy when 'e took me." + +"You were his man, then?" + +"That's it, sir. Nobody else ever done anything around the studio. +I always mixed 'is colors and 'e taught me to do a share of the +varnishin'; 'e said as 'ow there wasn't a 'ouse in England as could +do it proper. You ayn't looked at the <i>Marriage</i> yet, sir?" +he asked abruptly, glancing doubtfully at MacMaster, and indicating +with his thumb the picture under the north light. + +"Not very closely. I prefer to begin with something simpler; +that's rather appalling, at first glance," replied MacMaster. + +"Well may you say that, sir," said James warmly. "That one regular +killed Sir 'Ugh; it regular broke 'im up, and nothink will ever +convince me as 'ow it didn't bring on 'is second stroke." + +When MacMaster walked back to High Street to take his bus +his mind was divided between two exultant convictions. He felt +that he had not only found Treffinger's greatest picture, but +that, in James, he had discovered a kind of cryptic index to the +painter's personality--a clue which, if tactfully followed, might +lead to much. + +Several days after his first visit to the studio, MacMaster +wrote to Lady Mary Percy, telling her that he would be in London +for some time and asking her if he might call. Lady Mary was an +only sister of Lady Ellen Treffinger, the painter's widow, and +MacMaster had known her during one winter he spent at Nice. He +had known her, indeed, very well, and Lady Mary, who was +astonishingly frank and communicative upon all subjects, had been +no less so upon the matter of her sister's unfortunate marriage. + +In her reply to his note Lady Mary named an afternoon when +she would be alone. She was as good as her word, and when +MacMaster arrived he found the drawing room empty. Lady Mary +entered shortly after he was announced. She was a tall woman, +thin and stiffly jointed, and her body stood out under the folds +of her gown with the rigor of cast iron. This rather metallic +suggestion was further carried out in her heavily knuckled hands, +her stiff gray hair, and her long, bold-featured face, +which was saved from freakishness only by her alert eyes. + +"Really," said Lady Mary, taking a seat beside him and +giving him a sort of military inspection through her nose +glasses, "really, I had begun to fear that I had lost you +altogether. It's four years since I saw you at Nice, isn't it? I +was in Paris last winter, but I heard nothing from you." + +"I was in New York then." + +"It occurred to me that you might be. And why are you in London?" + +"Can you ask?" replied MacMaster gallantly. + +Lady Mary smiled ironically. "But for what else, incidentally?" + +"Well, incidentally, I came to see Treffinger's studio and +his unfinished picture. Since I've been here, I've decided to +stay the summer. I'm even thinking of attempting to do a +biography of him." + +"So that is what brought you to London?" + +"Not exactly. I had really no intention of anything so serious +when I came. It's his last picture, I fancy, that has rather +thrust it upon me. The notion has settled down on me like a thing +destined." + +"You'll not be offended if I question the clemency of such a +destiny," remarked Lady Mary dryly. "Isn't there rather a +surplus of books on that subject already?" + +"Such as they are. Oh, I've read them all"--here MacMaster +faced Lady Mary triumphantly. "He has quite escaped your amiable +critics," he added, smiling. + +"I know well enough what you think, and I daresay we are not +much on art," said Lady Mary with tolerant good humor. "We leave +that to peoples who have no physique. Treffinger made a stir for +a time, but it seems that we are not capable of a sustained +appreciation of such extraordinary methods. In the end we go +back to the pictures we find agreeable and unperplexing. He was +regarded as an experiment, I fancy; and now it seems that he was +rather an unsuccessful one. If you've come to us in a missionary +spirit, we'll tolerate you politely, but we'll laugh in our +sleeve, I warn you." + +"That really doesn't daunt me, Lady Mary," declared +MacMaster blandly. "As I told you, I'm a man with a mission." + +Lady Mary laughed her hoarse, baritone laugh. "Bravo! And +you've come to me for inspiration for your panegyric?" + +MacMaster smiled with some embarrassment. "Not altogether +for that purpose. But I want to consult you, Lady Mary, about +the advisability of troubling Lady Ellen Treffinger in the +matter. It seems scarcely legitimate to go on without asking her +to give some sort of grace to my proceedings, yet I feared the +whole subject might be painful to her. I shall rely wholly upon +your discretion." + +"I think she would prefer to be consulted," replied Lady +Mary judicially. "I can't understand how she endures to have the +wretched affair continually raked up, but she does. She seems to +feel a sort of moral responsibility. Ellen has always been +singularly conscientious about this matter, insofar as her light +goes,--which rather puzzles me, as hers is not exactly a +magnanimous nature. She is certainly trying to do what she +believes to be the right thing. I shall write to her, and you +can see her when she returns from Italy." + +"I want very much to meet her. She is, I hope, quite +recovered in every way," queried MacMaster, hesitatingly. + +"No, I can't say that she is. She has remained in much the +same condition she sank to before his death. He trampled over +pretty much whatever there was in her, I fancy. Women don't +recover from wounds of that sort--at least, not women of Ellen's +grain. They go on bleeding inwardly." + +"You, at any rate, have not grown more reconciled," MacMaster +ventured. + +"Oh I give him his dues. He was a colorist, I grant you; +but that is a vague and unsatisfactory quality to marry to; Lady +Ellen Treffinger found it so." + +"But, my dear Lady Mary," expostulated MacMaster, "and just +repress me if I'm becoming too personal--but it must, in the +first place, have been a marriage of choice on her part as well +as on his." + +Lady Mary poised her glasses on her large forefinger and +assumed an attitude suggestive of the clinical lecture room as +she replied. "Ellen, my dear boy, is an essentially +romantic person. She is quiet about it, but she runs deep. I +never knew how deep until I came against her on the issue of that +marriage. She was always discontented as a girl; she found +things dull and prosaic, and the ardor of his courtship was +agreeable to her. He met her during her first season in town. +She is handsome, and there were plenty of other men, but I grant +you your scowling brigand was the most picturesque of the lot. +In his courtship, as in everything else, he was theatrical to the +point of being ridiculous, but Ellen's sense of humor is not her +strongest quality. He had the charm of celebrity, the air of a +man who could storm his way through anything to get what he +wanted. That sort of vehemence is particularly effective with +women like Ellen, who can be warmed only by reflected heat, and +she couldn't at all stand out against it. He convinced her of his +necessity; and that done, all's done." + +"I can't help thinking that, even on such a basis, the marriage +should have turned out better," MacMaster remarked reflectively. + +"The marriage," Lady Mary continued with a shrug, "was made +on the basis of a mutual misunderstanding. Ellen, in the nature +of the case, believed that she was doing something quite out of +the ordinary in accepting him, and expected concessions which, +apparently, it never occurred to him to make. After his marriage +he relapsed into his old habits of incessant work, broken by +violent and often brutal relaxations. He insulted her friends +and foisted his own upon her--many of them well calculated to +arouse aversion in any well-bred girl. He had Ghillini +constantly at the house--a homeless vagabond, whose conversation +was impossible. I don't say, mind you, that he had not +grievances on his side. He had probably overrated the girl's +possibilities, and he let her see that he was disappointed in +her. Only a large and generous nature could have borne with him, +and Ellen's is not that. She could not at all understand that +odious strain of plebeian pride which plumes itself upon not +having risen above its sources. + +As MacMaster drove back to his hotel he reflected that Lady +Mary Percy had probably had good cause for dissatisfaction +with her brother-in-law. Treffinger was, indeed, the last man who +should have married into the Percy family. The son of a small +tobacconist, he had grown up a sign-painter's apprentice; idle, +lawless, and practically letterless until he had drifted into the +night classes of the Albert League, where Ghillini sometimes +lectured. From the moment he came under the eye and influence of +that erratic Italian, then a political exile, his life had swerved +sharply from its old channel. This man had been at once incentive +and guide, friend and master, to his pupil. He had taken the raw +clay out of the London streets and molded it anew. Seemingly he +had divined at once where the boy's possibilities lay, and had +thrown aside every canon of orthodox instruction in the training of +him. Under him Treffinger acquired his superficial, yet facile, +knowledge of the classics; had steeped himself in the monkish Latin +and medieval romances which later gave his work so naive and remote +a quality. That was the beginning of the wattle fences, the cobble +pave, the brown roof beams, the cunningly wrought fabrics that gave +to his pictures such a richness of decorative effect. + +As he had told Lady Mary Percy, MacMaster had found the imperative +inspiration of his purpose in Treffinger's unfinished picture, the +<i>Marriage of Phaedra</i>. He had always believed that the key to +Treffinger's individuality lay in his singular education; in the +<i>Roman de la Rose</i>, in Boccaccio, and Amadis, those works +which had literally transcribed themselves upon the blank soul of +the London street boy, and through which he had been born into the +world of spiritual things. Treffinger had been a man who lived +after his imagination; and his mind, his ideals and, as MacMaster +believed, even his personal ethics, had to the last been colored by +the trend of his early training. There was in him alike the +freshness and spontaneity, the frank brutality and the religious +mysticism, which lay well back of the fifteenth century. In the +<i>Marriage of Phaedra</i> MacMaster found the ultimate expression +of this spirit, the final word as to Treffinger's point of view. + +As in all Treffinger's classical subjects, the conception +was wholly medieval. This Phaedra, just turning from her husband +and maidens to greet her husband's son, giving him her +first fearsome glance from under her half-lifted veil, was no +daughter of Minos. The daughter of <i>heathenesse</i> and the +early church she was; doomed to torturing visions and scourgings, +and the wrangling of soul with flesh. The venerable Theseus +might have been victorious Charlemagne, and Phaedra's maidens +belonged rather in the train of Blanche of Castile than at the +Cretan court. In the earlier studies Hippolytus had been done +with a more pagan suggestion; but in each successive drawing the +glorious figure bad been deflowered of something of its serene +unconsciousness, until, in the canvas under the skylight, he +appeared a very Christian knight. This male figure, and the face +of Phaedra, painted with such magical preservation of tone under +the heavy shadow of the veil, were plainly Treffinger's highest +achievements of craftsmanship. By what labor he had reached the +seemingly inevitable composition of the picture--with its twenty +figures, its plenitude of light and air, its restful distances +seen through white porticoes--countless studies bore witness. + +From James's attitude toward the picture MacMaster could +well conjecture what the painter's had been. This picture was +always uppermost in James's mind; its custodianship formed, in +his eyes, his occupation. He was manifestly apprehensive when +visitors--not many came nowadays--lingered near it. "It was the +<i>Marriage</i> as killed 'im," he would often say, "and for the +matter 'o that, it did like to 'av been the death of all of us." + +By the end of his second week in London MacMaster had begun the +notes for his study of Hugh Treffinger and his work. When his +researches led him occasionally to visit the studios of +Treffinger's friends and erstwhile disciples, he found their +Treffinger manner fading as the ring of Treffinger's personality +died out in them. One by one they were stealing back into the +fold of national British art; the hand that had wound them up was +still. MacMaster despaired of them and confined himself more and +more exclusively to the studio, to such of Treffinger's letters +as were available--they were for the most part singularly negative +and colorless--and to his interrogation of Treffinger's man. + +He could not himself have traced the successive steps +by which he was gradually admitted into James's confidence. +Certainly most of his adroit strategies to that end failed +humiliatingly, and whatever it was that built up an understanding +between them must have been instinctive and intuitive on both +sides. When at last James became anecdotal, personal, there was +that in every word he let fall which put breath and blood into +MacMaster's book. James had so long been steeped in that +penetrating personality that he fairly exuded it. Many of his +very phrases, mannerisms, and opinions were impressions that he +had taken on like wet plaster in his daily contact with +Treffinger. Inwardly he was lined with cast-off epitheliums, as +outwardly he was clad in the painter's discarded coats. If the +painter's letters were formal and perfunctory, if his expressions +to his friends had been extravagant, contradictory, and often +apparently insincere--still, MacMaster felt himself not entirely +without authentic sources. It was James who possessed +Treffinger's legend; it was with James that he had laid aside his +pose. Only in his studio, alone, and face to face with his work, +as it seemed, had the man invariably been himself. James had +known him in the one attitude in which he was entirely honest; +their relation had fallen well within the painter's only +indubitable integrity. James's report of Treffinger was +distorted by no hallucination of artistic insight, colored by no +interpretation of his own. He merely held what he had heard and +seen; his mind was a sort of camera obscura. His very +limitations made him the more literal and minutely accurate. + +One morning, when MacMaster was seated before the <i>Marriage +of Phaedra</i>, James entered on his usual round of dusting. + +"I've 'eard from Lydy Elling by the post, sir," he remarked, +"an' she's give h'orders to 'ave the 'ouse put in readiness. I +doubt she'll be 'ere by Thursday or Friday next." + +"She spends most of her time abroad?" queried MacMaster; on +the subject of Lady Treffinger James consistently maintained a +very delicate reserve. + +"Well, you could 'ardly say she does that, sir. She finds +the 'ouse a bit dull, I daresay, so durin' the season she stops +mostly with Lydy Mary Percy, at Grosvenor Square. Lydy +Mary's a h'only sister." After a few moments he continued, +speaking in jerks governed by the rigor of his dusting: "H'only +this morning I come upon this scarfpin," exhibiting a very +striking instance of that article, "an' I recalled as 'ow Sir +'Ugh give it me when 'e was acourting of Lydy Elling. Blowed if +I ever see a man go in for a 'oman like 'im! 'E was that gone, +sir. 'E never went in on anythink so 'ard before nor since, +till 'e went in on the <i>Marriage</i> there--though 'e mostly +went in on things pretty keen; 'ad the measles when 'e was +thirty, strong as cholera, an' come close to dyin' of 'em. +'E wasn't strong for Lydy Elling's set; they was a bit too stiff +for 'im. A free an' easy gentleman, 'e was; 'e liked 'is dinner +with a few friends an' them jolly, but 'e wasn't much on what you +might call big affairs. But once 'e went in for Lydy Elling 'e +broke 'imself to new paces; He give away 'is rings an' pins, an' +the tylor's man an' the 'aberdasher's man was at 'is rooms +continual. 'E got 'imself put up for a club in Piccadilly; 'e +starved 'imself thin, an' worrited 'imself white, an' ironed +'imself out, an' drawed 'imself tight as a bow string. It was a +good job 'e come a winner, or I don't know w'at'd 'a been to +pay." + +The next week, in consequence of an invitation from Lady +Ellen Treffinger, MacMaster went one afternoon to take tea with +her. He was shown into the garden that lay between the residence +and the studio, where the tea table was set under a gnarled pear +tree. Lady Ellen rose as he approached--he was astonished to +note how tall she was-and greeted him graciously, saying that she +already knew him through her sister. MacMaster felt a certain +satisfaction in her; in her reassuring poise and repose, in the +charming modulations of her voice and the indolent reserve of her +full, almond eyes. He was even delighted to find her face so +inscrutable, though it chilled his own warmth and made the open +frankness he had wished to permit himself impossible. It was a +long face, narrow at the chin, very delicately featured, yet +steeled by an impassive mask of self-control. It was behind just +such finely cut, close-sealed faces, MacMaster reflected, that +nature sometimes hid astonishing secrets. But in spite of this +suggestion of hardness he felt that the unerring taste that +Treffinger had always shown in larger matters had not deserted +him when he came to the choosing of a wife, and he admitted that +he could not himself have selected a woman who looked more as +Treffinger's wife should look. + +While he was explaining the purpose of his frequent visits +to the studio she heard him with courteous interest. "I have +read, I think, everything that has been published on Sir Hugh +Treffinger's work, and it seems to me that there is much left to +be said," he concluded. + +"I believe they are rather inadequate," she remarked vaguely. She +hesitated a moment, absently fingering the ribbons of her gown, +then continued, without raising her eyes; "I hope you will not +think me too exacting if I ask to see the proofs of such chapters +of your work as have to do with Sir Hugh's personal life. I have +always asked that privilege." + +MacMaster hastily assured her as to this, adding, "I mean to touch +on only such facts in his personal life as have to do directly with +his work--such as his monkish education under Ghillini." + +"I see your meaning, I think," said Lady Ellen, looking at +him with wide, uncomprehending eyes. + +When MacMaster stopped at the studio on leaving the house he +stood for some time before Treffinger's one portrait of himself, +that brigand of a picture, with its full throat and square head; +the short upper lip blackened by the close-clipped mustache, the +wiry hair tossed down over the forehead, the strong white teeth +set hard on a short pipestem. He could well understand what +manifold tortures the mere grain of the man's strong red and +brown flesh might have inflicted upon a woman like Lady Ellen. +He could conjecture, too, Treffinger's impotent revolt against +that very repose which had so dazzled him when it first defied +his daring; and how once possessed of it, his first instinct had +been to crush it, since he could not melt it. + +Toward the close of the season Lady Ellen Treffinger left +town. MacMaster's work was progressing rapidly, and he and James +wore away the days in their peculiar relation, which by this time +had much of friendliness. Excepting for the regular visits of a +Jewish picture dealer, there were few intrusions upon their +solitude. Occasionally a party of Americans rang at the +little door in the garden wall, but usually they departed speedily +for the Moorish hall and tinkling fountain of the great show +studio of London, not far away. + +This Jew, an Austrian by birth, who had a large business in +Melbourne, Australia, was a man of considerable discrimination, +and at once selected the <i>Marriage of Phaedra</i> as the object +of his especial interest. When, upon his first visit, Lichtenstein +had declared the picture one of the things done for time, MacMaster +had rather warmed toward him and had talked to him very freely. +Later, however, the man's repulsive personality and innate +vulgarity so wore upon him that, the more genuine the Jew's +appreciation, the more he resented it and the more base he somehow +felt it to be. It annoyed him to see Lichtenstein walking up and +down before the picture, shaking his head and blinking his watery +eyes over his nose glasses, ejaculating: "Dot is a chem, a chem! +It is wordt to gome den dousant miles for such a bainting, eh? To +make Eurobe abbreciate such a work of ardt it is necessary to take +it away while she is napping. She has never abbreciated until she +has lost, but," knowingly, "she will buy back." + +James had, from the first, felt such a distrust of the man +that he would never leave him alone in the studio for a moment. +When Lichtenstein insisted upon having Lady Ellen Treffinger's +address James rose to the point of insolence. "It ayn't no use +to give it, noway. Lydy Treffinger never has nothink to do with +dealers." MacMaster quietly repented his rash confidences, +fearing that he might indirectly cause Lady Ellen annoyance from +this merciless speculator, and he recalled with chagrin that +Lichtenstein had extorted from him, little by little, pretty much +the entire plan of his book, and especially the place in it which +the <i>Marriage of Phaedra</i> was to occupy. + +By this time the first chapters of MacMaster's book were in +the hands of his publisher, and his visits to the studio were +necessarily less frequent. The greater part of his time was now +employed with the engravers who were to reproduce such of +Treffinger's pictures as he intended to use as illustrations. + +He returned to his hotel late one evening after a long +and vexing day at the engravers to find James in his room, seated +on his steamer trunk by the window, with the outline of a great +square draped in sheets resting against his knee. + +"Why, James, what's up?" he cried in astonishment, glancing +inquiringly at the sheeted object. + +"Ayn't you seen the pypers, sir?" jerked out the man. + +"No, now I think of it, I haven't even looked at a paper. I've +been at the engravers' plant all day. I haven't seen anything." + +James drew a copy of the <i>Times</i> from his pocket and handed it +to him, pointing with a tragic finger to a paragraph in the +social column. It was merely the announcement of Lady Ellen +Treffinger's engagement to Captain Alexander Gresham. + +"Well, what of it, my man? That surely is her privilege." + +James took the paper, turned to another page, and silently pointed +to a paragraph in the art notes which stated that Lady Treffinger +had presented to the X--gallery the entire collection of paintings +and sketches now in her late husband's studio, with the exception +of his unfinished picture, the <i>Marriage Of Phaedra</i>, which +she had sold for a large sum to an Australian dealer who had come +to London purposely to secure some of Treffinger's paintings. + +MacMaster pursed up his lips and sat down, his overcoat +still on. "Well, James, this is something of a--something of a +jolt, eh? It never occurred to me she'd really do it." + +"Lord, you don't know 'er, sir," said James bitterly, still +staring at the floor in an attitude of abandoned dejection. + +MacMaster started up in a flash of enlightenment, "What on +earth have you got there, James? It's not-surely it's not--" + +Yes, it is, sir," broke in the man excitedly. "It's the +<i>Marriage</i> itself. It ayn't agoing to H'Australia, no'ow!" + +"But man, what are you going to do with it? It's +Lichtenstein's property now, as it seems." + +It ayn't, sir, that it ayn't. No, by Gawd, it ayn't!" +shouted James, breaking into a choking fury. He controlled +himself with an effort and added supplicatingly: "Oh, sir, you +ayn't agoing to see it go to H'Australia, w'ere they send +convic's?" He unpinned and flung aside the sheets as though to +let <i>Phaedra</i> plead for herself. + +MacMaster sat down again and looked sadly at the doomed +masterpiece. The notion of James having carried it across London +that night rather appealed to his fancy. There was certainly a +flavor about such a highhanded proceeding. "However did you get +it here?" he queried. + +"I got a four-wheeler and come over direct, sir. Good job I +'appened to 'ave the chaynge about me." + +"You came up High Street, up Piccadilly, through the +Haymarket and Trafalgar Square, and into the Strand?" queried +MacMaster with a relish. + +"Yes, sir. Of course, sir, " assented James with surprise. + +MacMaster laughed delightedly. "It was a beautiful idea, +James, but I'm afraid we can't carry it any further." + +"I was thinkin' as 'ow it would be a rare chance to get you to take +the <i>Marriage</i> over to Paris for a year or two, sir, until the +thing blows over?" suggested James blandly. + +"I'm afraid that's out of the question, James. I haven't +the right stuff in me for a pirate, or even a vulgar smuggler, +I'm afraid." MacMaster found it surprisingly difficult to say +this, and he busied himself with the lamp as he said it. He heard +James's hand fall heavily on the trunk top, and he discovered +that he very much disliked sinking in the man's estimation. + +"Well, sir," remarked James in a more formal tone, after a +protracted silence; "then there's nothink for it but as 'ow I'll +'ave to make way with it myself." + +"And how about your character, James? The evidence would be +heavy against you, and even if Lady Treffinger didn't prosecute +you'd be done for." + +"Blow my character!--your pardon, sir," cried James, starting to +his feet. "W'at do I want of a character? I'll chuck the 'ole +thing, and damned lively, too. The shop's to be sold out, an' my +place is gone any'ow. I'm agoing to enlist, or try the gold +fields. I've lived too long with h'artists; I'd never give +satisfaction in livery now. You know 'ow it is yourself, sir; +there ayn't no life like it, no'ow." + +For a moment MacMaster was almost equal to abetting James in +his theft. He reflected that pictures had been whitewashed, or +hidden in the crypts of churches, or under the floors of palaces +from meaner motives, and to save them from a fate less +ignominious. But presently, with a sigh, he shook his head. + +"No, James, it won't do at all. It has been tried over and +over again, ever since the world has been agoing and pictures +amaking. It was tried in Florence and in Venice, but the +pictures were always carried away in the end. You see, the +difficulty is that although Treffinger told you what was not to +be done with the picture, he did not say definitely what was to +be done with it. Do you think Lady Treffinger really understands +that he did not want it to be sold?" + +"Well, sir, it was like this, sir," said James, resuming his seat +on the trunk and again resting the picture against his knee. "My +memory is as clear as glass about it. After Sir 'Ugh got up from +'is first stroke, 'e took a fresh start at the <i>Marriage</i>. +Before that 'e 'ad been working at it only at night for a while +back; the <i>Legend</i> was the big picture then, an' was under the +north light w'ere 'e worked of a morning. But one day 'e bid me +take the <i>Legend</i> down an' put the <i>Marriage</i> in its +place, an' 'e says, dashin' on 'is jacket, 'Jymes, this is a start +for the finish, this time.' + +"From that on 'e worked at the night picture in the mornin'--a +thing contrary to 'is custom. The <i>Marriage</i> went wrong, and +wrong--an' Sir 'Ugh agettin' seedier an' seedier every day. 'E +tried models an' models, an' smudged an' pynted out on account of +'er face goin' wrong in the shadow. Sometimes 'e layed it on the +colors, an' swore at me an' things in general. He got that +discouraged about 'imself that on 'is low days 'e used to say to +me: 'Jymes, remember one thing; if anythink 'appens to me, the +<i>Marriage</i> is not to go out of 'ere unfinished. It's worth +the lot of 'em, my boy, an' it's not agoing to go shabby for lack +of pains.' 'E said things to that effect repeated. + +"He was workin' at the picture the last day, before 'e went +to 'is club. 'E kept the carriage waitin' near an hour while 'e +put on a stroke an' then drawed back for to look at it, an' then +put on another, careful like. After 'e 'ad 'is gloves on, +'e come back an' took away the brushes I was startin' to clean, an' +put in another touch or two. 'It's acomin', Jymes,' 'e says, 'by +gad if it ayn't.' An' with that 'e goes out. It was cruel sudden, +w'at come after. + +"That night I was lookin' to 'is clothes at the 'ouse when +they brought 'im 'ome. He was conscious, but w'en I ran +downstairs for to 'elp lift 'im up, I knowed 'e was a finished +man. After we got 'im into bed 'e kept lookin' restless at me +and then at Lydy Elling and ajerkin' of 'is 'and. Finally 'e +quite raised it an' shot 'is thumb out toward the wall. 'He +wants water; ring, Jymes,' says Lydy Elling, placid. But I +knowed 'e was pointin' to the shop. + +"'Lydy Treffinger,' says I, bold, 'he's pointin' to the studio. He +means about the <i>Marriage</i>; 'e told me today as 'ow 'e never +wanted it sold unfinished. Is that it, Sir 'Ugh?' + +"He smiled an' nodded slight an' closed 'is eyes. 'Thank +you, Jymes,' says Lydy Elling, placid. Then 'e opened 'is eyes +an' looked long and 'ard at Lydy Elling. + +"'Of course I'll try to do as you'd wish about the picture, +'Ugh, if that's w'at's troublin' you,' she says quiet. With that +'e closed 'is eyes and 'e never opened 'em. He died unconscious +at four that mornin'. + +"You see, sir, Lydy Elling was always cruel 'ard on the +<i>Marriage</i>. From the first it went wrong, an' Sir 'Ugh was +out of temper pretty constant. She came into the studio one day +and looked at the picture an 'asked 'im why 'e didn't throw it up +an' quit aworriting 'imself. He answered sharp, an' with that she +said as 'ow she didn't see w'at there was to make such a row +about, no'ow. She spoke 'er mind about that picture, free; an' +Sir 'Ugh swore 'ot an' let a 'andful of brushes fly at 'is study, +an' Lydy Elling picked up 'er skirts careful an' chill, an' +drifted out of the studio with 'er eyes calm and 'er chin 'igh. +If there was one thing Lydy Elling 'ad no comprehension of, it +was the usefulness of swearin'. So the <i>Marriage</i> was a sore +thing between 'em. She is uncommon calm, but uncommon bitter, is +Lydy Elling. She's never come anear the studio since that day she +went out 'oldin' up of 'er skirts. W'en 'er friends goes over she +excuses 'erself along o' the strain. Strain--Gawd!" James ground +his wrath short in his teeth. + +"I'll tell you what I'll do, James, and it's our only hope. I'll +see Lady Ellen tomorrow. The <i>Times</i> says she returned today. +You take the picture back to its place, and I'll do what I can +for it. If anything is done to save it, it must be done through +Lady Ellen Treffinger herself, that much is clear. I can't think +that she fully understands the situation. If she did, you know, +she really couldn't have any motive--" He stopped suddenly. +Somehow, in the dusky lamplight, her small, close-sealed face +came ominously back to him. He rubbed his forehead and knitted +his brows thoughtfully. After a moment he shook his head and +went on: "I am positive that nothing can be gained by highhanded +methods, James. Captain Gresham is one of the most popular men +in London, and his friends would tear up Treffinger's bones if he +were annoyed by any scandal of our making--and this scheme you +propose would inevitably result in scandal. Lady Ellen has, of +course, every legal right to sell the picture. Treffinger made +considerable inroads upon her estate, and, as she is about to +marry a man without income, she doubtless feels that she has a +right to replenish her patrimony." + +He found James amenable, though doggedly skeptical. He went +down into the street, called a carriage, and saw James and his +burden into it. Standing in the doorway, he watched the carriage +roll away through the drizzling mist, weave in and out among the +wet, black vehicles and darting cab lights, until it was +swallowed up in the glare and confusion of the Strand. "It is +rather a fine touch of irony," he reflected, "that he, who is so +out of it, should be the one to really care. Poor Treffinger," +he murmured as, with a rather spiritless smile, he turned back +into his hotel. "Poor Treffinger; <i>sic transit gloria</i>." + +The next afternoon MacMaster kept his promise. When he +arrived at Lady Mary Percy's house he saw preparations for a +function of some sort, but he went resolutely up the steps, +telling the footman that his business was urgent. Lady Ellen +came down alone, excusing her sister. She was dressed for +receiving, and MacMaster had never seen one so beautiful. +The color in her cheeks sent a softening glow over her small, +delicately cut features. + +MacMaster apologized for his intrusion and came unflinchingly +to the object of his call. He had come, he said, not only to offer +her his warmest congratulations, but to express his regret that a +great work of art was to leave England. + +Lady Treffinger looked at him in wide-eyed astonishment. +Surely, she said, she had been careful to select the best of the +pictures for the X--- gallery, in accordance with Sir Hugh +Treffinger's wishes. + +"And did he--pardon me, Lady Treffinger, but in mercy set my +mind at rest--did he or did he not express any definite wish +concerning this one picture, which to me seems worth all the +others, unfinished as it is?" + +Lady Treffinger paled perceptibly, but it was not the pallor +of confusion. When she spoke there was a sharp tremor in her +smooth voice, the edge of a resentment that tore her like pain. +"I think his man has some such impression, but I believe it to be +utterly unfounded. I cannot find that he ever expressed any wish +concerning the disposition of the picture to any of his friends. +Unfortunately, Sir Hugh was not always discreet in his remarks to +his servants." + +"Captain Gresham, Lady Ellingham, and Miss Ellingham," +announced a servant, appearing at the door. + +There was a murmur in the hall, and MacMaster greeted the +smiling Captain and his aunt as he bowed himself out. + +To all intents and purposes the <i>Marriage of Phaedra</i> was +already entombed in a vague continent in the Pacific, somewhere +on the other side of the world. + + + + +A Wagner Matinee + +I received one morning a letter, written in pale ink on +glassy, blue-lined notepaper, and bearing the postmark of a +little Nebraska village. This communication, worn and rubbed, +looking as though it had been carried for some days in a coat +pocket that was none too clean, was from my Uncle Howard and +informed me that his wife had been left a small legacy by a +bachelor relative who had recently died, and that it would be +necessary for her to go to Boston to attend to the settling of +the estate. He requested me to meet her at the station and +render her whatever services might be necessary. On examining +the date indicated as that of her arrival I found it no later +than tomorrow. He had characteristically delayed writing until, +had I been away from home for a day, I must have missed the good +woman altogether. + +The name of my Aunt Georgiana called up not alone her own +figure, at once pathetic and grotesque, but opened before my feet +a gulf of recollection so wide and deep that, as the letter +dropped from my hand, I felt suddenly a stranger to all the +present conditions of my existence, wholly ill at ease and out of +place amid the familiar surroundings of my study. I became, in +short, the gangling farm boy my aunt had known, scourged with +chilblains and bashfulness, my hands cracked and sore from the +corn husking. I felt the knuckles of my thumb tentatively, as +though they were raw again. I sat again before her parlor organ, +fumbling the scales with my stiff, red hands, while she, beside +me, made canvas mittens for the huskers. + +The next morning, after preparing my landlady somewhat, I +set out for the station. When the train arrived I had some +difficulty in finding my aunt. She was the last of +the passengers to alight, and it was not until I got her into the +carriage that she seemed really to recognize me. She had come +all the way in a day coach; her linen duster had become black +with soot, and her black bonnet gray with dust, during the +journey. When we arrived at my boardinghouse the landlady put +her to bed at once and I did not see her again until the next +morning. + +Whatever shock Mrs. Springer experienced at my aunt's +appearance she considerately concealed. As for myself, I saw my +aunt's misshapen figure with that feeling of awe and respect with +which we behold explorers who have left their ears and fingers +north of Franz Josef Land, or their health somewhere along the +Upper Congo. My Aunt Georgiana had been a music teacher at the +Boston Conservatory, somewhere back in the latter sixties. One +summer, while visiting in the little village among the Green +Mountains where her ancestors had dwelt for generations, she had +kindled the callow fancy of the most idle and shiftless of all +the village lads, and had conceived for this Howard Carpenter one +of those extravagant passions which a handsome country boy of +twenty-one sometimes inspires in an angular, spectacled woman of +thirty. When she returned to her duties in Boston, Howard +followed her, and the upshot of this inexplicable infatuation was +that she eloped with him, eluding the reproaches of her family +and the criticisms of her friends by going with him to the +Nebraska frontier. Carpenter, who, of course, had no money, had +taken a homestead in Red Willow County, fifty miles from the +railroad. There they had measured off their quarter section +themselves by driving across the prairie in a wagon, to the wheel +of which they had tied a red cotton handkerchief, and counting +off its revolutions. They built a dugout in the red hillside, +one of those cave dwellings whose inmates so often reverted to +primitive conditions. Their water they got from the lagoons +where the buffalo drank, and their slender stock of provisions +was always at the mercy of bands of roving Indians. For thirty +years my aunt had not been further than fifty miles from the +homestead. + +But Mrs. Springer knew nothing of all this, and must have +been considerably shocked at what was left of my kinswoman. +Beneath the soiled linen duster which, on her arrival, was the most +conspicuous feature of her costume, she wore a black stuff dress, +whose ornamentation showed that she had surrendered herself +unquestioningly into the hands of a country dressmaker. My poor +aunt's figure, however, would have presented astonishing +difficulties to any dressmaker. Originally stooped, her shoulders +were now almost bent together over her sunken chest. She wore no +stays, and her gown, which trailed unevenly behind, rose in a sort +of peak over her abdomen. She wore ill-fitting false teeth, and +her skin was as yellow as a Mongolian's from constant exposure to +a pitiless wind and to the alkaline water which hardens the most +transparent cuticle into a sort of flexible leather. + +I owed to this woman most of the good that ever came my way +in my boyhood, and had a reverential affection for her. During +the years when I was riding herd for my uncle, my aunt, after +cooking the three meals--the first of which was ready at six +o'clock in the morning-and putting the six children to bed, would +often stand until midnight at her ironing board, with me at the +kitchen table beside her, hearing me recite Latin declensions and +conjugations, gently shaking me when my drowsy head sank down +over a page of irregular verbs. It was to her, at her ironing or +mending, that I read my first Shakespeare', and her old textbook +on mythology was the first that ever came into my empty hands. +She taught me my scales and exercises, too--on the little parlor +organ, which her husband had bought her after fifteen years, +during which she had not so much as seen any instrument, but an +accordion that belonged to one of the Norwegian farmhands. She +would sit beside me by the hour, darning and counting while I +struggled with the "Joyous Farmer," but she seldom talked to me +about music, and I understood why. She was a pious woman; she +had the consolations of religion and, to her at least, her +martyrdom was not wholly sordid. Once when I had been doggedly +beating out some easy passages from an old score of +<i>Euryanthe</i> I had found among her music books, she came up to +me and, putting her hands over my eyes, gently drew my head back +upon her shoulder, saying tremulously, "Don't love it so well, +Clark, or it may be taken from you. Oh, dear boy, pray that +whatever your sacrifice may be, it be not that." + +When my aunt appeared on the morning after her arrival she +was still in a semi-somnambulant state. She seemed not to realize +that she was in the city where she had spent her youth, the place +longed for hungrily half a lifetime. She had been so wretchedly +train-sick throughout the journey that she bad no recollection of +anything but her discomfort, and, to all intents and purposes, +there were but a few hours of nightmare between the farm in Red +Willow County and my study on Newbury Street. I had planned a +little pleasure for her that afternoon, to repay her for some of +the glorious moments she had given me when we used to milk +together in the straw-thatched cowshed and she, because I was +more than usually tired, or because her husband had spoken +sharply to me, would tell me of the splendid performance of the +<i>Huguenots</i> she had seen in Paris, in her youth. At two +o'clock the Symphony Orchestra was to give a Wagner program, and I +intended to take my aunt; though, as I conversed with her I grew +doubtful about her enjoyment of it. Indeed, for her own sake, I +could only wish her taste for such things quite dead, and the +long struggle mercifully ended at last. I suggested our visiting +the Conservatory and the Common before lunch, but she seemed +altogether too timid to wish to venture out. She questioned me +absently about various changes in the city, but she was chiefly +concerned that she had forgotten to leave instructions about +feeding half-skimmed milk to a certain weakling calf, "old +Maggie's calf, you know, Clark," she explained, evidently having +forgotten how long I had been away. She was further troubled +because she had neglected to tell her daughter about the freshly +opened kit of mackerel in the cellar, which would spoil if it +were not used directly. + +I asked her whether she had ever heard any of the Wagnerian +operas and found that she had not, though she was perfectly +familiar with their respective situations, and had once possessed +the piano score of <i>The Flying Dutchman</i>. I began to think it +would have been best to get her back to Red Willow County without +waking her, and regretted having suggested the concert. + +From the time we entered the concert hall, however, she was +a trifle less passive and inert, and for the first time seemed to +perceive her surroundings. I had felt some trepidation lest she +might become aware of the absurdities of her attire, or might +experience some painful embarrassment at stepping suddenly into +the world to which she had been dead for a quarter of a century. +But, again, I found how superficially I had judged her. She sat +looking about her with eyes as impersonal, almost as stony, as +those with which the granite Rameses in a museum watches the +froth and fret that ebbs and flows about his pedestal-separated +from it by the lonely stretch of centuries. I have seen this +same aloofness in old miners who drift into the Brown Hotel at +Denver, their pockets full of bullion, their linen soiled, their +haggard faces unshaven; standing in the thronged corridors as +solitary as though they were still in a frozen camp on the Yukon, +conscious that certain experiences have isolated them from their +fellows by a gulf no haberdasher could bridge. + +We sat at the extreme left of the first balcony, facing the +arc of our own and the balcony above us, veritable hanging +gardens, brilliant as tulip beds. The matinee audience was made +up chiefly of women. One lost the contour of faces and figures-- +indeed, any effect of line whatever-and there was only the color +of bodices past counting, the shimmer of fabrics soft and firm, +silky and sheer: red, mauve, pink, blue, lilac, purple, ecru, +rose, yellow, cream, and white, all the colors that an +impressionist finds in a sunlit landscape, with here and there +the dead shadow of a frock coat. My Aunt Georgiana regarded them +as though they had been so many daubs of tube-paint on a palette. + +When the musicians came out and took their places, she gave +a little stir of anticipation and looked with quickening interest +down over the rail at that invariable grouping, perhaps the first +wholly familiar thing that had greeted her eye since she had left +old Maggie and her weakling calf. I could feel how all those +details sank into her soul, for I had not forgotten how they had +sunk into mine when. I came fresh from plowing forever and +forever between green aisles of corn, where, as in a treadmill, +one might walk from daybreak to dusk without perceiving a shadow +of change. The clean profiles of the musicians, the gloss of +their linen, the dull black of their coats, the beloved shapes of +the instruments, the patches of yellow light thrown by the green- +shaded lamps on the smooth, varnished bellies of the cellos and +the bass viols in the rear, the restless, wind-tossed forest of +fiddle necks and bows-I recalled how, in the first orchestra I +had ever heard, those long bow strokes seemed to draw the heart +out of me, as a conjurer's stick reels out yards of paper ribbon +from a hat. + +The first number was the <i>Tannhauser</i> overture. When the +horns drew out the first strain of the Pilgrim's chorus my Aunt +Georgiana clutched my coat sleeve. Then it was I first realized +that for her this broke a silence of thirty years; the +inconceivable silence of the plains. With the battle between the +two motives, with the frenzy of the Venusberg theme and its +ripping of strings, there came to me an overwhelming sense of the +waste and wear we are so powerless to combat; and I saw again the +tall, naked house on the prairie, black and grim as a wooden +fortress; the black pond where I had learned to swim, its margin +pitted with sun-dried cattle tracks; the rain-gullied clay banks +about the naked house, the four dwarf ash seedlings where the +dishcloths were always hung to dry before the kitchen door. The +world there was the flat world of the ancients; to the east, a +cornfield that stretched to daybreak; to the west, a corral that +reached to sunset; between, the conquests of peace, dearer bought +than those of war. + +The overture closed; my aunt released my coat sleeve, but +she said nothing. She sat staring at the orchestra through a +dullness of thirty years, through the films made little by little +by each of the three hundred and sixty-five days in every one of +them. What, I wondered, did she get from it? She had been a good +pianist in her day I knew, and her musical education had been +broader than that of most music teachers of a quarter of a +century ago. She had often told me of Mozart's operas and +Meyerbeer's, and I could remember hearing her sing, years ago, +certain melodies of Verdi's. When I had fallen ill with a fever +in her house she used to sit by my cot in the evening--when the +cool, night wind blew in through the faded mosquito netting +tacked over the window, and I lay watching a certain bright star +that burned red above the cornfield--and sing "Home to our +mountains, O, let us return!" in a way fit to break the heart of +a Vermont boy near dead of homesickness already. + +I watched her closely through the prelude to <i>Tristan and +Isolde</i>, trying vainly to conjecture what that seething turmoil +of strings and winds might mean to her, but she sat mutely staring +at the violin bows that drove obliquely downward, like the +pelting streaks of rain in a summer shower. Had this music any +message for her? Had she enough left to at all comprehend this +power which had kindled the world since she had left it? I was +in a fever of curiosity, but Aunt Georgiana sat silent upon her +peak in Darien. She preserved this utter immobility throughout +the number from <i>The Flying Dutchman</i>, though her fingers +worked mechanically upon her black dress, as though, of themselves, +they were recalling the piano score they had once played. Poor old +hands! They had been stretched and twisted into mere tentacles to +hold and lift and knead with; the palms unduly swollen, the +fingers bent and knotted--on one of them a thin, worn band that +had once been a wedding ring. As I pressed and gently quieted +one of those groping hands I remembered with quivering eyelids +their services for me in other days. + +Soon after the tenor began the "Prize Song," I heard a quick +drawn breath and turned to my aunt. Her eyes were closed, but +the tears were glistening on her cheeks, and I think, in a moment +more, they were in my eyes as well. It never really died, then-- +the soul that can suffer so excruciatingly and so interminably; +it withers to the outward eye only; like that strange moss which +can lie on a dusty shelf half a century and yet, if placed in +water, grows green again. She wept so throughout the development +and elaboration of the melody. + +During the intermission before the second half of the concert, I +questioned my aunt and found that the "Prize Song" was not new to +her. Some years before there had drifted to the farm in Red Willow +County a young German, a tramp cowpuncher, who had sung the chorus +at Bayreuth, when he was a boy, along with the other peasant boys +and girls. Of a Sunday morning he used to sit on his +gingham-sheeted bed in the hands' bedroom which opened off the +kitchen, cleaning the leather of his boots and saddle, singing the +"Prize Song," while my aunt went about her work in the kitchen. +She had hovered about him until she had prevailed upon him to join +the country church, though his sole fitness for this step, insofar +as I could gather, lay in his boyish face and his possession of +this divine melody. Shortly afterward he had gone to town on the +Fourth of July, been drunk for several days, lost his money at a +faro table, ridden a saddled Texan steer on a bet, and disappeared +with a fractured collarbone. All this my aunt told me huskily, +wanderingly, as though she were talking in the weak lapses of +illness. + +"Well, we have come to better things than the old <i>Trovatore</i> +at any rate, Aunt Georgie?" I queried, with a well-meant effort +at jocularity. + +Her lip quivered and she hastily put her handkerchief up to +her mouth. From behind it she murmured, "And you have been +hearing this ever since you left me, Clark?" Her question was the +gentlest and saddest of reproaches. + +The second half of the program consisted of four numbers from the +<i>Ring</i>, and closed with Siegfried's funeral march. My +aunt wept quietly, but almost continuously, as a shallow vessel +overflows in a rainstorm. From time to time her dim eyes looked +up at the lights which studded the ceiling, burning softly under +their dull glass globes; doubtless they were stars in truth to +her. I was still perplexed as to what measure of musical +comprehension was left to her, she who had heard nothing but the +singing of gospel hymns at Methodist services in the square frame +schoolhouse on Section Thirteen for so many years. I was wholly +unable to gauge how much of it had been dissolved in soapsuds, or +worked into bread, or milked into the bottom of a pail. + +The deluge of sound poured on and on; I never knew what she +found in the shining current of it; I never knew how far it bore +her, or past what happy islands. From the trembling of her face +I could well believe that before the last numbers she had been +carried out where the myriad graves are, into the gray, +nameless burying grounds of the sea; or into some world of death +vaster yet, where, from the beginning of the world, hope has lain +down with hope and dream with dream and, renouncing, slept. + +The concert was over; the people filed out of the hall +chattering and laughing, glad to relax and find the living level +again, but my kinswoman made no effort to rise. The harpist +slipped its green felt cover over his instrument; the flute +players shook the water from their mouthpieces; the men of the +orchestra went out one by one, leaving the stage to the chairs +and music stands, empty as a winter cornfield. + +I spoke to my aunt. She burst into tears and sobbed pleadingly. +"I don't want to go, Clark, I don't want to go!" + +I understood. For her, just outside the door of the concert +hall, lay the black pond with the cattle-tracked bluffs; the +tall, unpainted house, with weather-curled boards; naked as a +tower, the crook-backed ash seedlings where the dishcloths hung +to dry; the gaunt, molting turkeys picking up refuse about the +kitchen door. + + + + +Paul's Case + +<i>A Study in Temperament</i> + +It was Paul's afternoon to appear before the faculty of the +Pittsburgh High School to account for his various misdemeanors. +He had been suspended a week ago, and his father had called at +the Principal's office and confessed his perplexity about his +son. Paul entered the faculty room suave and smiling. His +clothes were a trifle outgrown, and the tan velvet on the collar +of his open overcoat was frayed and worn; but for all that there +was something of the dandy about him, and he wore an opal pin in +his neatly knotted black four-in-hand, and a red carnation in his +buttonhole. This latter adornment the faculty somehow felt was +not properly significant of the contrite spirit befitting a boy +under the ban of suspension. + +Paul was tall for his age and very thin, with high, cramped +shoulders and a narrow chest. His eyes were remarkable for a +certain hysterical brilliancy, and he continually used them in a +conscious, theatrical sort of way, peculiarly offensive in a boy. +The pupils were abnormally large, as though he were addicted to +belladonna, but there was a glassy glitter about them which that +drug does not produce. + +When questioned by the Principal as to why he was there Paul +stated, politely enough, that he wanted to come back to school. +This was a lie, but Paul was quite accustomed to lying; found it, +indeed, indispensable for overcoming friction. His teachers were +asked to state their respective charges against him, which they +did with such a rancor and aggrievedness as evinced that this was +not a usual case, Disorder and impertinence were among the +offenses named, yet each of his instructors felt that it was +scarcely possible to put into words the real cause of the trouble, +which lay in a sort of hysterically defiant manner of the boy's; in +the contempt which they all knew he felt for them, and which he +seemingly made not the least effort to conceal. Once, when he +had been making a synopsis of a paragraph at the blackboard, his +English teacher had stepped to his side and attempted to guide +his hand. Paul had started back with a shudder and thrust his +hands violently behind him. The astonished woman could scarcely +have been more hurt and embarrassed had he struck at her. The +insult was so involuntary and definitely personal as to be +unforgettable. in one way and another he had made all his +teachers, men and women alike, conscious of the same feeling of +physical aversion. In one class he habitually sat with his hand +shading his eyes; in another he always looked out of the window +during the recitation; in another he made a running commentary on +the lecture, with humorous intention. + +His teachers felt this afternoon that his whole attitude was +symbolized by his shrug and his flippantly red carnation flower, +and they fell upon him without mercy, his English teacher leading +the pack. He stood through it smiling, his pale lips parted over +his white teeth. (His lips were continually twitching, and be had +a habit of raising his eyebrows that was contemptuous and +irritating to the last degree.) Older boys than Paul had broken +down and shed tears under that baptism of fire, but his set smile +did not once desert him, and his only sign of discomfort was the +nervous trembling of the fingers that toyed with the buttons of +his overcoat, and an occasional jerking of the other hand that +held his hat. Paul was always smiling, always glancing about +him, seeming to feel that people might be watching him and trying +to detect something. This conscious expression, since it was as +far as possible from boyish mirthfulness, was usually attributed +to insolence or "smartness." + +As the inquisition proceeded one of his instructors repeated +an impertinent remark of the boy's, and the Principal asked him +whether he thought that a courteous speech to have made a +woman. Paul shrugged his shoulders slightly and his eyebrows +twitched. + +"I don't know," he replied. "I didn't mean to be polite or +impolite, either. I guess it's a sort of way I have of saying +things regardless." + +The Principal, who was a sympathetic man, asked him whether +he didn't think that a way it would be well to get rid of. Paul +grinned and said he guessed so. When he was told that he could +go he bowed gracefully and went out. His bow was but a +repetition of the scandalous red carnation. + +His teachers were in despair, and his drawing master voiced +the feeling of them all when he declared there was something +about the boy which none of them understood. He added: "I don't +really believe that smile of his comes altogether from insolence; +there's something sort of haunted about it. The boy is not +strong, for one thing. I happen to know that he was born in +Colorado, only a few months before his mother died out there of a +long illness. There is something wrong about the fellow." + +The drawing master had come to realize that, in looking at +Paul, one saw only his white teeth and the forced animation of +his eyes. One warm afternoon the boy had gone to sleep at his +drawing board, and his master had noted with amazement what a +white, blue-veined face it was; drawn and wrinkled like an old +man's about the eyes, the lips twitching even in his sleep, and +stiff with a nervous tension that drew them back from his teeth. + +His teachers left the building dissatisfied and unhappy; +humiliated to have felt so vindictive toward a mere boy, to have +uttered this feeling in cutting terms, and to have set each other +on, as it were, in the gruesome game of intemperate reproach. +Some of them remembered having seen a miserable street cat set at +bay by a ring of tormentors. + +As for Paul, he ran down the hill whistling the "Soldiers' Chorus" +from <i>Faust</i>, looking wildly behind him now and then to see +whether some of his teachers were not there to writhe under his +lightheartedness. As it was now late in the afternoon and Paul +was on duty that evening as usher at Carnegie Hall, he decided +that he would not go home to supper. When he reached the +concert hall the doors were not yet open and, as it was chilly +outside, he decided to go up into the picture gallery--always +deserted at this hour--where there were some of Raffelli's gay +studies of Paris streets and an airy blue Venetian scene or two +that always exhilarated him. He was delighted to find no one in +the gallery but the old guard, who sat in one corner, a newspaper +on his knee, a black patch over one eye and the other closed. +Paul possessed himself of the peace and walked confidently up and +down, whistling under his breath. After a while he sat down before +a blue Rico and lost himself. When he bethought him to look at his +watch, it was after seven o'clock, and he rose with a start and ran +downstairs, making a face at Augustus, peering out from the cast +room, and an evil gesture at the Venus de Milo as he passed her on +the stairway. + +When Paul reached the ushers' dressing room half a dozen +boys were there already, and he began excitedly to tumble into +his uniform. It was one of the few that at all approached +fitting, and Paul thought it very becoming-though he knew that +the tight, straight coat accentuated his narrow chest, about +which he was exceedingly sensitive. He was always considerably +excited while be dressed, twanging all over to the tuning of the +strings and the preliminary flourishes of the horns in the music +room; but tonight he seemed quite beside himself, and he teased +and plagued the boys until, telling him that he was crazy, they +put him down on the floor and sat on him. + +Somewhat calmed by his suppression, Paul dashed out to the +front of the house to seat the early comers. He was a model +usher; gracious and smiling he ran up and down the aisles; +nothing was too much trouble for him; he carried messages and +brought programs as though it were his greatest pleasure in life, +and all the people in his section thought him a charming boy, +feeling that he remembered and admired them. As the house +filled, he grew more and more vivacious and animated, and the +color came to his cheeks and lips. It was very much as though +this were a great reception and Paul were the host. just as the +musicians came out to take their places, his English teacher +arrived with checks for the seats which a prominent +manufacturer had taken for the season. She betrayed some +embarrassment when she handed Paul the tickets, and a hauteur +which subsequently made her feel very foolish. Paul was +startled for a moment, and had the feeling of wanting to put her +out; what business had she here among all these fine people and +gay colors? He looked her over and decided that she was not +appropriately dressed and must be a fool to sit downstairs in +such togs. The tickets had probably been sent her out of +kindness, he reflected as he put down a seat for her, and she had +about as much right to sit there as he had. + +When the symphony began Paul sank into one of the rear seats +with a long sigh of relief, and lost himself as he had done +before the Rico. It was not that symphonies, as such, meant +anything in particular to Paul, but the first sigh of the +instruments seemed to free some hilarious and potent spirit +within him; something that struggled there like the genie in the +bottle found by the Arab fisherman. He felt a sudden zest of +life; the lights danced before his eyes and the concert hall +blazed into unimaginable splendor. When the soprano soloist came +on Paul forgot even the nastiness of his teacher's being there +and gave himself up to the peculiar stimulus such personages +always had for him. The soloist chanced to be a German woman, by +no means in her first youth, and the mother of many children; but +she wore an elaborate gown and a tiara, and above all she had +that indefinable air of achievement, that world-shine upon her, +which, in Paul's eyes, made her a veritable queen of Romance. + +After a concert was over Paul was always irritable and +wretched until he got to sleep, and tonight he was even more than +usually restless. He had the feeling of not being able to let +down, of its being impossible to give up this delicious +excitement which was the only thing that could be called living +at all. During the last number he withdrew and, after hastily +changing his clothes in the dressing room, slipped out to the +side door where the soprano's carriage stood. Here he began +pacing rapidly up and down the walk, waiting to see her come out. + +Over yonder, the Schenley, in its vacant stretch, loomed big and +square through the fine rain, the windows of its twelve stories +glowing like those of a lighted cardboard house under a Christmas +tree. All the actors and singers of the better class stayed there +when they were in the city, and a number of the big manufacturers +of the place lived there in the winter. Paul had often hung about +the hotel, watching the people go in and out, longing to enter and +leave schoolmasters and dull care behind him forever. + +At last the singer came out, accompanied by the conductor, who +helped her into her carriage and closed the door with a cordial +<i>auf wiedersehen</i> which set Paul to wondering whether she +were not an old sweetheart of his. Paul followed the carriage +over to the hotel, walking so rapidly as not to be far from the +entrance when the singer alighted, and disappeared behind the +swinging glass doors that were opened by a Negro in a tall hat +and a long coat. In the moment that the door was ajar it seemed +to Paul that he, too, entered. He seemed to feel himself go +after her up the steps, into the warm, lighted building, into an +exotic, tropical world of shiny, glistening surfaces and basking +ease. He reflected upon the mysterious dishes that were brought +into the dining room, the green bottles in buckets of ice, as he +had seen them in the supper party pictures of the <i>Sunday +World</i> supplement. A quick gust of wind brought the rain down +with sudden vehemence, and Paul was startled to find that he was +still outside in the slush of the gravel driveway; that his boots +were letting in the water and his scanty overcoat was clinging wet +about him; that the lights in front of the concert hall were out +and that the rain was driving in sheets between him and the +orange glow of the windows above him. There it was, what be +wanted--tangibly before him, like the fairy world of a Christmas +pantomime--but mocking spirits stood guard at the doors, and, as +the rain beat in his face, Paul wondered whether he were destined +always to shiver in the black night outside, looking up at it. + +He turned and walked reluctantly toward the car tracks. The +end had to come sometime; his father in his nightclothes at the +top of the stairs, explanations that did not explain, hastily +improvised fictions that were forever tripping him up, +his upstairs room and its horrible yellow wallpaper, the creaking +bureau with the greasy plush collarbox, and over his painted +wooden bed the pictures of George Washington and John Calvin, and +the framed motto, "Feed my Lambs," which had been worked in red +worsted by his mother. + +Half an hour later Paul alighted from his car and went +slowly down one of the side streets off the main thoroughfare. +It was a highly respectable street, where all the houses were +exactly alike, and where businessmen of moderate means begot and +reared large families of children, all of whom went to Sabbath +school and learned the shorter catechism, and were interested in +arithmetic; all of whom were as exactly alike as their homes, and +of a piece with the monotony in which they lived. Paul never +went up Cordelia Street without a shudder of loathing. His home +was next to the house of the Cumberland minister. He approached +it tonight with the nerveless sense Of defeat, the hopeless +feeling of sinking back forever into ugliness and commonness that +he had always had when he came home. The moment he turned into +Cordelia Street he felt the waters close above his head. After +each of these orgies of living he experienced all the physical +depression which follows a debauch; the loathing of respectable +beds, of common food, of a house penetrated by kitchen odors; a +shuddering repulsion for the flavorless, colorless mass of +everyday existence; a morbid desire for cool things and soft +lights and fresh flowers. + +The nearer he approached the house, the more absolutely +unequal Paul felt to the sight of it all: his ugly sleeping +chamber; the cold bathroom with the grimy zinc tub, the cracked +mirror, the dripping spiggots; his father, at the top of the +stairs, his hairy legs sticking out from his nightshirt, his feet +thrust into carpet slippers. He was so much later than usual +that there would certainly be inquiries and reproaches. Paul +stopped short before the door. He felt that he could not be +accosted by his father tonight; that he could not toss again on +that miserable bed. He would not go in. He would tell his +father that he had no carfare and it was raining so hard he had +gone home with one of the boys and stayed all night. + +Meanwhile, he was wet and cold. He went around to the back +of the house and tried one of the basement windows, found it +open, raised it cautiously, and scrambled down the cellar wall to +the floor. There he stood, holding his breath, terrified by the +noise he had made, but the floor above him was silent, and there +was no creak on the stairs. He found a soapbox, and carried it +over to the soft ring of light that streamed from the furnace +door, and sat down. He was horribly afraid of rats, so he did +not try to sleep, but sat looking distrustfully at the dark, +still terrified lest he might have awakened his father. In such +reactions, after one of the experiences which made days and +nights out of the dreary blanks of the calendar, when his senses +were deadened, Paul's head was always singularly clear. Suppose +his father had heard him getting in at the window and had come +down and shot him for a burglar? Then, again, suppose his father +had come down, pistol in hand, and he had cried out in time to +save himself, and his father had been horrified to think how +nearly he had killed him? Then, again, suppose a day should come +when his father would remember that night, and wish there had +been no warning cry to stay his hand? With this last supposition +Paul entertained himself until daybreak. + +The following Sunday was fine; the sodden November chill was +broken by the last flash of autumnal summer. In the morning Paul +had to go to church and Sabbath school, as always. On seasonable +Sunday afternoons the burghers of Cordelia Street always sat out +on their front stoops and talked to their neighbors on the next +stoop, or called to those across the street in neighborly +fashion. The men usually sat on gay cushions placed upon the +steps that led down to the sidewalk, while the women, in their +Sunday "waists," sat in rockers on the cramped porches, pretending +to be greatly at their ease. The children played in the +streets; there were so many of them that the place resembled the +recreation grounds of a kindergarten. The men on the steps--all +in their shirt sleeves, their vests unbuttoned--sat with their +legs well apart, their stomachs comfortably protruding, and +talked of the prices of things, or told anecdotes of the sagacity +of their various chiefs and overlords. They occasionally looked +over the multitude of squabbling children, listened +affectionately to their high-pitched, nasal voices, smiling to +see their own proclivities reproduced in their offspring, and +interspersed their legends of the iron kings with remarks about +their sons' progress at school, their grades in arithmetic, and +the amounts they had saved in their toy banks. + +On this last Sunday of November Paul sat all the afternoon +on the lowest step of his stoop, staring into the street, while +his sisters, in their rockers, were talking to the minister's +daughters next door about how many shirtwaists they had made in +the last week, and bow many waffles someone had eaten at the last +church supper. When the weather was warm, and his father was in +a particularly jovial frame of mind, the girls made lemonade, +which was always brought out in a red-glass pitcher, ornamented +with forget-me-nots in blue enamel. This the girls thought very +fine, and the neighbors always joked about the suspicious color +of the pitcher. + +Today Paul's father sat on the top step, talking to a young +man who shifted a restless baby from knee to knee. He happened +to be the young man who was daily held up to Paul as a model, and +after whom it was his father's dearest hope that he would +pattern. This young man was of a ruddy complexion, with a +compressed, red mouth, and faded, nearsighted eyes, over which he +wore thick spectacles, with gold bows that curved about his ears. +He was clerk to one of the magnates of a great steel corporation, +and was looked upon in Cordelia Street as a young man with a +future. There was a story that, some five years ago--he was now +barely twenty-six--he had been a trifle dissipated, but in order +to curb his appetites and save the loss of time and strength that +a sowing of wild oats might have entailed, he had taken his +chief's advice, oft reiterated to his employees, and at twenty- +one had married the first woman whom he could persuade to share +his fortunes. She happened to be an angular schoolmistress, much +older than he, who also wore thick glasses, and who had now borne +him four children, all nearsighted, like herself. + +The young man was relating how his chief, now cruising in +the Mediterranean, kept in touch with all the details of +the business, arranging his office hours on his yacht just as +though he were at home, and "knocking off work enough to keep two +stenographers busy." His father told, in turn, the plan his +corporation was considering, of putting in an electric railway +plant in Cairo. Paul snapped his teeth; he had an awful +apprehension that they might spoil it all before he got there. +Yet he rather liked to hear these legends of the iron kings that +were told and retold on Sundays and holidays; these stories of +palaces in Venice, yachts on the Mediterranean, and high play at +Monte Carlo appealed to his fancy, and he was interested in the +triumphs of these cash boys who had become famous, though he had +no mind for the cash-boy stage. + +After supper was over and he had helped to dry the dishes, +Paul nervously asked his father whether he could go to George's +to get some help in his geometry, and still more nervously asked +for carfare. This latter request he had to repeat, as his +father, on principle, did not like to hear requests for money, +whether much or little. He asked Paul whether he could not go to +some boy who lived nearer, and told him that he ought not to +leave his schoolwork until Sunday; but he gave him the dime. He +was not a poor man, but he had a worthy ambition to come up in +the world. His only reason for allowing Paul to usher was that +he thought a boy ought to be earning a little. + +Paul bounded upstairs, scrubbed the greasy odor of the +dishwater from his hands with the ill-smelling soap he hated, and +then shook over his fingers a few drops of violet water from the +bottle he kept hidden in his drawer. He left the house with his +geometry conspicuously under his arm, and the moment he got out +of Cordelia Street and boarded a downtown car, he shook off the +lethargy of two deadening days and began to live again. + +The leading juvenile of the permanent stock company which played at +one of the downtown theaters was an acquaintance of Paul's, and the +boy had been invited to drop in at the Sunday-night rehearsals +whenever he could. For more than a year Paul had spent every +available moment loitering about Charley Edwards's dressing room. +He had won a place among Edwards's following not only because the +young actor, who could not afford to employ a dresser, often found +him useful, but because he recognized in Paul something akin to +what churchmen term "vocation." + +It was at the theater and at Carnegie Hall that Paul really +lived; the rest was but a sleep and a forgetting. This was +Paul's fairy tale, and it had for him all the allurement of a +secret love. The moment he inhaled the gassy, painty, dusty odor +behind the scenes, he breathed like a prisoner set free, and felt +within him the possibility of doing or saying splendid, +brilliant, poetic things. The moment the cracked orchestra beat +out the overture from <i>Martha</i>, or jerked at the serenade from +<i>Rigoletto</i>, all stupid and ugly things slid from him, and his +senses were deliciously, yet delicately fired. + +Perhaps it was because, in Paul's world, the natural nearly +always wore the guise of ugliness, that a certain element of +artificiality seemed to him necessary in beauty. Perhaps it was +because his experience of life elsewhere was so full of Sabbath- +school picnics, petty economies, wholesome advice as to how to +succeed in life, and the inescapable odors of cooking, that he +found this existence so alluring, these smartly clad men and +women so attractive, that he was so moved by these starry apple +orchards that bloomed perennially under the limelight. + +It would be difficult to put it strongly enough how +convincingly the stage entrance of that theater was for Paul the +actual portal of Romance. Certainly none of the company ever +suspected it, least of all Charley Edwards. It was very like the +old stories that used to float about London of fabulously rich +Jews, who had subterranean halls there, with palms, and +fountains, and soft lamps and richly appareled women who never +saw the disenchanting light of London day. So, in the midst of +that smoke-palled city, enamored of figures and grimy toil, Paul +had his secret temple, his wishing carpet, his bit of blue-and- +white Mediterranean shore bathed in perpetual sunshine. + +Several of Paul's teachers had a theory that his imagination +had been perverted by garish fiction, but the truth was that he +scarcely ever read at all. The books at home were not such as +would either tempt or corrupt a youthful mind, and as for reading +the novels that some of his friends urged upon him--well, he got +what he wanted much more quickly from music; any sort of music, +from an orchestra to a barrel organ. He needed only the spark, the +indescribable thrill that made his imagination master of his +senses, and he could make plots and pictures enough of his own. It +was equally true that he was not stagestruck-not, at any rate, in +the usual acceptation of that expression. He had no desire to +become an actor, any more than he had to become a musician. He +felt no necessity to do any of these things; what he wanted was +to see, to be in the atmosphere, float on the wave of it, to be +carried out, blue league after blue league, away from everything. + +After a night behind the scenes Paul found the schoolroom +more than ever repulsive; the bare floors and naked walls; the +prosy men who never wore frock coats, or violets in their +buttonholes; the women with their dull gowns, shrill voices, and +pitiful seriousness about prepositions that govern the dative. +He could not bear to have the other pupils think, for a moment, +that he took these people seriously; he must convey to them that +he considered it all trivial, and was there only by way of a +jest, anyway. He had autographed pictures of all the members of +the stock company which he showed his classmates, telling them +the most incredible stories of his familiarity with these people, +of his acquaintance with the soloists who came to Carnegie Hall, +his suppers with them and the flowers he sent them. When these +stories lost their effect, and his audience grew listless, he +became desperate and would bid all the boys good-by, announcing +that he was going to travel for a while; going to Naples, to +Venice, to Egypt. Then, next Monday, he would slip back, +conscious and nervously smiling; his sister was ill, and he +should have to defer his voyage until spring. + +Matters went steadily worse with Paul at school. In the +itch to let his instructors know how heartily he despised them +and their homilies, and how thoroughly he was appreciated +elsewhere, he mentioned once or twice that he had no time to fool +with theorems; adding--with a twitch of the eyebrows and a touch +of that nervous bravado which so perplexed them--that he was +helping the people down at the stock company; they were old +friends of his. + +The upshot of the matter was that the Principal went to +Paul's father, and Paul was taken out of school and put to work. +The manager at Carnegie Hall was told to get another usher in his +stead; the doorkeeper at the theater was warned not to admit him +to the house; and Charley Edwards remorsefully promised the boy's +father not to see him again. + +The members of the stock company were vastly amused when +some of Paul's stories reached them--especially the women. They +were hardworking women, most of them supporting indigent husbands +or brothers, and they laughed rather bitterly at having stirred +the boy to such fervid and florid inventions. They agreed with +the faculty and with his father that Paul's was a bad case. + + +The eastbound train was plowing through a January snowstorm; +the dull dawn was beginning to show gray when the engine whistled +a mile out of Newark. Paul started up from the seat where he had +lain curled in uneasy slumber, rubbed the breath-misted window +glass with his hand, and peered out. The snow was whirling in +curling eddies above the white bottom lands, and the drifts lay +already deep in the fields and along the fences, while here and +there the long dead grass and dried weed stalks protruded black +above it. Lights shone from the scattered houses, and a gang of +laborers who stood beside the track waved their lanterns. + +Paul had slept very little, and he felt grimy and uncomfortable. +He had made the all-night journey in a day coach, partly because he +was ashamed, dressed as he was, to go into a Pullman, and partly +because he was afraid of being seen there by some Pittsburgh +businessman, who might have noticed him in Denny & Carson's office. +When the whistle awoke him, he clutched quickly at his breast +pocket, glancing about him with an uncertain smile. But the +little, clay-bespattered Italians were still sleeping, the +slatternly women across the aisle were in open-mouthed oblivion, +and even the crumby, crying babies were for the nonce stilled. +Paul settled back to struggle with his impatience as best he could. + +When he arrived at the Jersey City station he hurried through his +breakfast, manifestly ill at ease and keeping a sharp eye about +him. After he reached the Twenty-third Street station, he +consulted a cabman and had himself driven to a men's-furnishings +establishment that was just opening for the day. He spent upward +of two hours there, buying with endless reconsidering and great +care. His new street suit he put on in the fitting room; the frock +coat and dress clothes he had bundled into the cab with his linen. +Then he drove to a hatter's and a shoe house. His next errand was +at Tiffany's, where he selected his silver and a new scarf pin. He +would not wait to have his silver marked, he said. Lastly, he +stopped at a trunk shop on Broadway and had his purchases packed +into various traveling bags. + +It was a little after one o'clock when he drove up to the +Waldorf, and after settling with the cabman, went into the +office. He registered from Washington; said his mother and +father had been abroad, and that he had come down to await the +arrival of their steamer. He told his story plausibly and had no +trouble, since he volunteered to pay for them in advance, in +engaging his rooms; a sleeping room, sitting room, and bath. + +Not once, but a hundred times, Paul had planned this entry +into New York. He had gone over every detail of it with Charley +Edwards, and in his scrapbook at home there were pages of +description about New York hotels, cut from the Sunday papers. +When he was shown to his sitting room on the eighth floor he saw +at a glance that everything was as it should be; there was but +one detail in his mental picture that the place did not realize, +so he rang for the bellboy and sent him down for flowers. He +moved about nervously until the boy returned, putting away his +new linen and fingering it delightedly as he did so. When the +flowers came he put them hastily into water, and then tumbled +into a hot bath. Presently he came out of his white bathroom, +resplendent in his new silk underwear, and playing with the +tassels of his red robe. The snow was whirling so fiercely +outside his windows that he could scarcely see across the street, +but within the air was deliciously soft and fragrant. He put the +violets and jonquils on the taboret beside the couch, and threw +himself down, with a long sigh, covering himself with a Roman +blanket. He was thoroughly tired; he had been in such haste, he +had stood up to such a strain, covered so much ground in the last +twenty-four hours, that he wanted to think how it had all come +about. Lulled by the sound of the wind, the warm air, and the +cool fragrance of the flowers, he sank into deep, drowsy +retrospection. + +It had been wonderfully simple; when they had shut him out +of the theater and concert hall, when they had taken away his +bone, the whole thing was virtually determined. The rest was a +mere matter of opportunity. The only thing that at all surprised +him was his own courage-for he realized well enough that he had +always been tormented by fear, a sort of apprehensive dread that, +of late years, as the meshes of the lies he had told closed about +him, had been pulling the muscles of his body tighter and +tighter. Until now he could not remember the time when he had +not been dreading something. Even when he was a little boy it +was always there--behind him, or before, or on either side. +There had always been the shadowed corner, the dark place into +which he dared not look, but from which something seemed always +to be watching him--and Paul had done things that were not pretty +to watch, he knew. + +But now he had a curious sense of relief, as though he had +at last thrown down the gauntlet to the thing in the corner. + +Yet it was but a day since he had been sulking in the +traces; but yesterday afternoon that he had been sent to the bank +with Denny & Carson's deposit, as usual--but this time he was +instructed to leave the book to be balanced. There was above two +thousand dollars in checks, and nearly a thousand in the bank +notes which he had taken from the book and quietly transferred to +his pocket. At the bank he had made out a new deposit slip. His +nerves had been steady enough to permit of his returning to the +office, where he had finished his work and asked for a full day's +holiday tomorrow, Saturday, giving a perfectly reasonable +pretext. The bankbook, be knew, would not be returned before +Monday or Tuesday, and his father would be out of town for the +next week. From the time he slipped the bank notes into his +pocket until he boarded the night train for New York, he +had not known a moment's hesitation. It was not the first time +Paul had steered through treacherous waters. + +How astonishingly easy it had all been; here he was, the +thing done; and this time there would be no awakening, no figure +at the top of the stairs. He watched the snowflakes whirling by +his window until he fell asleep. + +When he awoke, it was three o'clock in the afternoon. He +bounded up with a start; half of one of his precious days gone +already! He spent more than an hour in dressing, watching every +stage of his toilet carefully in the mirror. Everything was +quite perfect; he was exactly the kind of boy he had always +wanted to be. + +When he went downstairs Paul took a carriage and drove up +Fifth Avenue toward the Park. The snow had somewhat abated; +carriages and tradesmen's wagons were hurrying soundlessly to and +fro in the winter twilight; boys in woolen mufflers were +shoveling off the doorsteps; the avenue stages made fine spots of +color against the white street. Here and there on the corners +were stands, with whole flower gardens blooming under glass +cases, against the sides of which the snowflakes stuck and +melted; violets, roses, carnations, lilies of the valley--somehow +vastly more lovely and alluring that they blossomed thus +unnaturally in the snow. The Park itself was a wonderful stage +winterpiece. + +When he returned, the pause of the twilight had ceased and +the tune of the streets had changed. The snow was falling +faster, lights streamed from the hotels that reared their dozen +stories fearlessly up into the storm, defying the raging Atlantic +winds. A long, black stream of carriages poured down the avenue, +intersected here and there by other streams, tending +horizontally. There were a score of cabs about the entrance of +his hotel, and his driver had to wait. Boys in livery were +running in and out of the awning stretched across the sidewalk, +up and down the red velvet carpet laid from the door to the +street. Above, about, within it all was the rumble and roar, the +hurry and toss of thousands of human beings as hot for pleasure +as himself, and on every side of him towered the glaring +affirmation of the omnipotence of wealth. + +The boy set his teeth and drew his shoulders together in a +spasm of realization; the plot of all dramas, the text of all +romances, the nerve-stuff of all sensations was whirling about +him like the snowflakes. He burnt like a faggot in a tempest. + +When Paul went down to dinner the music of the orchestra +came floating up the elevator shaft to greet him. His head +whirled as he stepped into the thronged corridor, and he sank +back into one of the chairs against the wall to get his breath. +The lights, the chatter, the perfumes, the bewildering medley of +color--he had, for a moment, the feeling of not being able to +stand it. But only for a moment; these were his own people, he +told himself. He went slowly about the corridors, through the +writing rooms, smoking rooms, reception rooms, as though he were +exploring the chambers of an enchanted palace, built and peopled +for him alone. + +When he reached the dining room he sat down at a table near a +window. The flowers, the white linen, the many-colored +wineglasses, the gay toilettes of the women, the low popping of +corks, the undulating repetitions of the <i>Blue Danube</i> from +the orchestra, all flooded Paul's dream with bewildering radiance. +When the roseate tinge of his champagne was added--that cold, +precious, bubbling stuff that creamed and foamed in his glass-- +Paul wondered that there were honest men in the world at all. +This was what all the world was fighting for, he reflected; this +was what all the struggle was about. He doubted the reality of +his past. Had he ever known a place called Cordelia Street, a +place where fagged-looking businessmen got on the early car; mere +rivets in a machine they seemed to Paul,--sickening men, with +combings of children's hair always hanging to their coats, and +the smell of cooking in their clothes. Cordelia Street--Ah, that +belonged to another time and country; had he not always been +thus, had he not sat here night after night, from as far back as +he could remember, looking pensively over just such shimmering +textures and slowly twirling the stem of a glass like this one +between his thumb and middle finger? He rather thought he had. + +He was not in the least abashed or lonely. He had no +especial desire to meet or to know any of these people; all +he demanded was the right to look on and conjecture, to watch the +pageant. The mere stage properties were all he contended for. +Nor was he lonely later in the evening, in his lodge at the +Metropolitan. He was now entirely rid of his nervous misgivings, +of his forced aggressiveness, of the imperative desire to show +himself different from his surroundings. He felt now that his +surroundings explained him. Nobody questioned the purple; he had +only to wear it passively. He had only to glance down at his +attire to reassure himself that here it would be impossible for +anyone to humiliate him. + +He found it hard to leave his beautiful sitting room to go +to bed that night, and sat long watching the raging storm from +his turret window. When he went to sleep it was with the lights +turned on in his bedroom; partly because of his old timidity, and +partly so that, if he should wake in the night, there would be no +wretched moment of doubt, no horrible suspicion of yellow +wallpaper, or of Washington and Calvin above his bed. + +Sunday morning the city was practically snowbound. Paul +breakfasted late, and in the afternoon he fell in with a wild San +Francisco boy, a freshman at Yale, who said he had run down for a +"little flyer" over Sunday. The young man offered to show Paul +the night side of the town, and the two boys went out together +after dinner, not returning to the hotel until seven o'clock the +next morning. They had started out in the confiding warmth of a +champagne friendship, but their parting in the elevator was +singularly cool. The freshman pulled himself together to make +his train, and Paul went to bed. He awoke at two o'clock in the +afternoon, very thirsty and dizzy, and rang for icewater, coffee, +and the Pittsburgh papers. + +On the part of the hotel management, Paul excited no suspicion. +There was this to be said for him, that he wore his spoils with +dignity and in no way made himself conspicuous. Even under the +glow of his wine he was never boisterous, though he found the stuff +like a magician's wand for wonder-building. His chief greediness +lay in his ears and eyes, and his excesses were not offensive ones. +His dearest pleasures were the gray winter twilights in his sitting +room; his quiet enjoyment of his flowers, his clothes, his wide +divan, his cigarette, and his sense of power. He could not +remember a time when he had felt so at peace with himself. The +mere release from the necessity of petty lying, lying every day and +every day, restored his self-respect. He had never lied for +pleasure, even at school; but to be noticed and admired, to assert +his difference from other Cordelia Street boys; and he felt a good +deal more manly, more honest, even, now that he had no need for +boastful pretensions, now that he could, as his actor friends used +to say, "dress the part." It was characteristic that remorse did +not occur to him. His golden days went by without a shadow, and he +made each as perfect as he could. + +On the eighth day after his arrival in New York he found the whole +affair exploited in the Pittsburgh papers, exploited with a wealth +of detail which indicated that local news of a sensational nature +was at a low ebb. The firm of Denny & Carson announced that the +boy's father had refunded the full amount of the theft and that +they had no intention of prosecuting. The Cumberland minister had +been interviewed, and expressed his hope of yet reclaiming the +motherless lad, and his Sabbath-school teacher declared that she +would spare no effort to that end. The rumor had reached +Pittsburgh that the boy had been seen in a New York hotel, and his +father had gone East to find him and bring him home. + +Paul had just come in to dress for dinner; he sank into a +chair, weak to the knees, and clasped his head in his hands. It +was to be worse than jail, even; the tepid waters of Cordelia +Street were to close over him finally and forever. The gray +monotony stretched before him in hopeless, unrelieved years; +Sabbath school, Young People's Meeting, the yellow-papered room, +the damp dishtowels; it all rushed back upon him with a sickening +vividness. He had the old feeling that the orchestra had +suddenly stopped, the sinking sensation that the play was over. +The sweat broke out on his face, and he sprang to his feet, +looked about him with his white, conscious smile, and winked at +himself in the mirror, With something of the old childish belief +in miracles with which he had so often gone to class, all his +lessons unlearned, Paul dressed and dashed whistling down the +corridor to the elevator. + +He had no sooner entered the dining room and caught the +measure of the music than his remembrance was lightened by his +old elastic power of claiming the moment, mounting with it, and +finding it all-sufficient. The glare and glitter about him, the +mere scenic accessories had again, and for the last time, their +old potency. He would show himself that he was game, he would +finish the thing splendidly. He doubted, more than ever, the +existence of Cordelia Street, and for the first time he drank his +wine recklessly. Was he not, after all, one of those fortunate +beings born to the purple, was he not still himself and in his +own place? He drummed a nervous accompaniment to the Pagliacci +music and looked about him, telling himself over and over that it +had paid. + +He reflected drowsily, to the swell of the music and the +chill sweetness of his wine, that he might have done it more +wisely. He might have caught an outbound steamer and been well +out of their clutches before now. But the other side of the +world had seemed too far away and too uncertain then; he could +not have waited for it; his need had been too sharp. If he had +to choose over again, he would do the same thing tomorrow. He +looked affectionately about the dining room, now gilded with a +soft mist. Ah, it had paid indeed! + +Paul was awakened next morning by a painful throbbing in his +head and feet. He had thrown himself across the bed without +undressing, and had slept with his shoes on. His limbs and hands +were lead heavy, and his tongue and throat were parched and +burnt. There came upon him one of those fateful attacks of +clearheadedness that never occurred except when he was physically +exhausted and his nerves hung loose. He lay still, closed his +eyes, and let the tide of things wash over him. + +His father was in New York; "stopping at some joint or +other," he told himself. The memory of successive summers on the +front stoop fell upon him like a weight of black water. He had +not a hundred dollars left; and he knew now, more than ever, that +money was everything, the wall that stood between all he loathed +and all he wanted. The thing was winding itself up; he +had thought of that on his first glorious day in New York, and +had even provided a way to snap the thread. It lay on his +dressing table now; he had got it out last night when he came +blindly up from dinner, but the shiny metal hurt his eyes, and he +disliked the looks of it. + +He rose and moved about with a painful effort, succumbing now and +again to attacks of nausea. It was the old depression exaggerated; +all the world had become Cordelia Street. Yet somehow he was not +afraid of anything, was absolutely calm; perhaps because he had +looked into the dark corner at last and knew. It was bad enough, +what he saw there, but somehow not so bad as his long fear of it +had been. He saw everything clearly now. He had a feeling that he +had made the best of it, that he had lived the sort of life he was +meant to live, and for half an hour he sat staring at the revolver. +But he told himself that was not the way, so he went downstairs and +took a cab to the ferry. + +When Paul arrived in Newark he got off the train and took +another cab, directing the driver to follow the Pennsylvania +tracks out of the town. The snow lay heavy on the roadways and +had drifted deep in the open fields. Only here and there the +dead grass or dried weed stalks projected, singularly black, +above it. Once well into the country, Paul dismissed the +carriage and walked, floundering along the tracks, his mind a +medley of irrelevant things. He seemed to hold in his brain an +actual picture of everything he had seen that morning. He +remembered every feature of both his drivers, of the toothless +old woman from whom he had bought the red flowers in his coat, +the agent from whom he had got his ticket, and all of his fellow +passengers on the ferry. His mind, unable to cope with vital +matters near at hand, worked feverishly and deftly at sorting and +grouping these images. They made for him a part of the ugliness +of the world, of the ache in his head, and the bitter burning on +his tongue. He stooped and put a handful of snow into his mouth +as he walked, but that, too, seemed hot. When he reached a +little hillside, where the tracks ran through a cut some twenty +feet below him, he stopped and sat down. + +The carnations in his coat were drooping with the cold, he +noticed, their red glory all over. It occurred to him that all +the flowers he had seen in the glass cases that first night must +have gone the same way, long before this. It was only one +splendid breath they had, in spite of their brave mockery at the +winter outside the glass; and it was a losing game in the end, it +seemed, this revolt against the homilies by which the world is +run. Paul took one of the blossoms carefully from his coat and +scooped a little hole in the snow, where he covered it up. Then +he dozed awhile, from his weak condition, seemingly insensible to +the cold. + +The sound of an approaching train awoke him, and he started +to his feet, remembering only his resolution, and afraid lest he +should be too late. He stood watching the approaching +locomotive, his teeth chattering, his lips drawn away from them +in a frightened smile; once or twice he glanced nervously +sidewise, as though he were being watched. When the right moment +came, he jumped. As he fell, the folly of his haste occurred to +him with merciless clearness, the vastness of what he had left +undone. There flashed through his brain, clearer than ever +before, the blue of Adriatic water, the yellow of Algerian sands. + +He felt something strike his chest, and that his body was +being thrown swiftly through the air, on and on, immeasurably far +and fast, while his limbs were gently relaxed. Then, because the +picture-making mechanism was crushed, the disturbing visions +flashed into black, and Paul dropped back into the immense design +of things. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Etext of The Troll Garden and Selected Stories + diff --git a/old/troll10.zip b/old/troll10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0c5d27c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/troll10.zip |