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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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