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diff --git a/42533-8.txt b/42533-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 9742d68..0000000 --- a/42533-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6008 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Narcissus, by Evelyn Scott - -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: Narcissus - -Author: Evelyn Scott - -Release Date: April 14, 2013 [EBook #42533] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NARCISSUS *** - - - - -Produced by Clare Graham & Marc D'Hooghe at -http://www.freeliterature.org (Images generously made -available by the Internet Archive.) - - - - - -NARCISSUS - -BY - -EVELYN SCOTT - - -NEW YORK - -HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY - - -1922 - - - - - "Nought loves another as itself, - Nor venerates another so, - Nor is it possible to thought - A greater than itself to know." - William Blake. - - - - -PART I - - -At three o'clock in the afternoon Julia put on her hat. Her dressing -table with its triple mirror stood in an alcove. It was a very fine -severe little table. It was Julia's vanity to be very fine and dainty in -her toilet. Here was no powder box, but lotions and expensive scents. -When she sat before the glass she enjoyed the defiant delicacy which she -saw in the lines of her lifted head, and there was a thrill which she -could not analyze in the sight of her long white hands lying useless in -her lap. They made her in love with herself. - -Her hat was of bright brown straw and when she slipped on her fur coat -she was pleased with the luxurious incongruity of the effect. - -Nellie, the old Negro servant, was away, and Julia's step-children, May -and Bobby, were at school. As Julia descended the stairway to the lower -hall, her silk dress, brushing the carpet, made a cool hissing sound in -the quiet passageway. - -She opened the front door softly and passed into the long street which -appeared sad and deserted in the spring sunshine. Under the cold trees, -that were budding here and there, were small blurred shadows. In the -tall yellow apartment house across the way windows were open and white -curtains shook mysteriously against the light. Above a cornice smoke -from a hidden chimney rushed in opaque volumes to dissolve against the -cold glow of the remote sky. - -Julia walked along, feeling as though she were the one point in which -the big silent city in the chill wind grew conscious of itself. It was -only when she reached Dudley Allen's doorstep that her mood changed, and -she felt that when she went in she would be robbed of her new glorious -indifference about her life. - -She rang the bell above the small brass plate, and when the white door -had opened and she was mounting the soft green-carpeted stairs up the -long corridor, it seemed to her that she was going back into herself. - -In the passage before Dudley's rooms he came to meet her as he had done -before. His hard eyes as they looked at her had a sort of bloom of -triumph. - -"I was sure you'd come." He grasped both her hands and drew her through -the tall doorway. "Dear!" - -"I suppose you were." She smiled at him with a clear look, knowing that -in his discomfort before her he was condemning himself. - -"Won't you kiss me?" They were in his studio. He pouted his lips under -his mustache. His eyes shone with uneasy brilliance. - -She kissed him. She understood that the simpler she was in her abandon -the more disconcerted he became. - -When she had taken off her hat and laid it upon his drawing-board, he -held her against him and caressed her hair. Because he was afraid of his -own silence, he kept repeating, "Dear! My dear!" - -"Aren't we lovers, Julia?" he insisted at last, childishly. He was -embarrassed and wanted to make a joke of his own mood, but she saw that -he was trembling. His mouth smiled. His eyes were clouded and watchful -with resentment. - -"How deeply are we lovers, Dudley?" She leaned her cheek against his -breast. She did not wish to look at him. Suddenly she was terrified that -a lover was able to give her nothing of what other women received. - -"You love me. Look at me, Julia. Say you love me." - -Her lids fluttered, but she kept her eyes fixed upon his small plump -hand, white through its black down. The hand was all at once a pitiful -trembling thing which belonged to neither of them. It had a poor -detached involuntary life. - -Because of the hand she felt sorry for him, and she said, warmly and -abruptly, "I love you." Her eyes, when they met his, were filled with -tears. Yet she knew the love she gave him was not the thing for which he -asked. - -He was suspicious. His hands fell away from her. "Was I mistaken -yesterday?" His voice sounded bitter and tired. - -She was pained and her fear of losing him made her ardent. "No, Dudley! -No!" Her face flushed, and her eyes, lifted to his, were dim with -emotion. - -"Did you understand what I hoped--how much I hoped for when I asked you -to come here to-day, Julia?" - -"Yes," she said. All the time she felt that she loved him because they -were both suffering and in a kind of danger from each other which he was -unable to see. She loved him because she was the only person who could -protect him from herself. She was oppressed by her accurate awareness of -him: of his hot flushed face close to hers, the shape of his nose, the -pores of his skin, the beard in his cheeks, the irregular contour of his -head matted with dark curls, his ears that she thought ugly with the -tufts of hair that grew above their lobes, his neck which was short and -white and a little thick, and his hands, hairy and at the same time -womanish. Already she knew him so intimately that it gave her a sense of -guilt toward him. Her recognition of him was so cruel, and he seemed -unmindful of it. - -When she had reassured him that she loved him, he drew her down beside -him on the couch with the black and gold cover. He wanted to make tea -for her and to show her some drawings that had been sent to him for his -judgment. - -She knew that while he talked he was on his guard before her. It seemed -ugly to her that they were afraid of each other. - -The drawings, by an unknown artist, were very delicate, indicated by a -few lines on what appeared to her a vast page. It humiliated her to -recognize that she did not understand the things he was interested in. -To admit, even inwardly, that something fine was beyond her awoke in -her an arrogance of self-contempt. I'm only fit for one need, she said -to herself. Then, aloud, "They are very subtle and wonderful, Dudley. -Much too fine, I think, for me to appreciate. I really don't want any -tea." And she gazed at him hatefully as though he had hurt her. - -Feeling herself so much less than he, even in this one thing, made her -hard again. She stretched her hands up to him. "Kiss me!" The frankness -and kindness were gone out of her eyes. - -He was startled by the ugly unexpected look, and his own eyes grew -sensual and moist as he sank beside her on his knees. - -She drew his head against her breast and between her palms she could -feel his pulses, heavy and labored. Each found at the moment something -loathsome in caressing the other; but it was only when they despised -each other that their emotions were completely released. - - * * * * * - -It was growing dusk. The cold pale day outside became suddenly hectic -with color. Through the windows at the back of the room Julia could see -the black roof of the factory across the courtyard and the shell-pink -stain that came into the sky above it. The heavy masses of buildings -were glowing shadows. The room was filled with pearl-colored -reflections. - -Dudley watched her as she lifted her hair in a long coil and pinned it -against her head. - -She glanced at his small highly colored face with its little mustache -above the full smiling lips. Again she was ashamed of seeing him so -plainly. She wished that she were exalted out of so definite a physical -perception of him. - -"Julia. Julia." He repeated her name ruminatively. "You did come to care -for me. What do you feel, Julia? What has this made you feel?" He could -not bear the sense of her separateness from him. He was obsessed by -curiosity about her and a lustful desire to outrage her mental -integrity. He could not bear the feeling that the body which had -possessed him so completely yet belonged to itself. His eyes, intimate -without tenderness, smiled with a guilty look into hers. - -She gazed at him as if she wanted to escape. For a moment she wished -that they could have disappeared from each other's lives in the instant -which culminated their embrace. Their talk made her feel herself -grotesque. "I don't know," she said. "How can I say? I don't know." - -Though he would not admit it to himself, her air of timidity and -bewilderment pleased him. "How many lovers have you had, Julia?" - -She thought, He only asked that to hurt me. She could not answer him. -She smiled. Her lips quivered. She looked at her hands. - -She saw him only as something which contributed to her experience of -herself. She had her experience of him before she gave herself to him. -What happened between them happened to her alone. - -"What do you feel? Tell me? How deeply do you love me, Julia?" He knew -that he was making her resentful toward him, but it was only when women -felt nothing at all in regard to him that he found it hard to bear. He -grasped her hands and held them. - -"Of course I love you deeply." Her voice trembled. She turned her head -aside. - -"What do you feel about your husband, Julia?" - -In spite of the pressure of his hands she felt Dudley far away, -dissolving from her. - -When she did not answer him at once he was afraid again and began to -kiss her. "You love me. You love me very much." - -"Oh, you know I love you," Julia said. She wanted to cry out and to go -away. He hurt her too much. Everything about him hurt her. She had a -drunken sense of his disregard of her. She could no longer comprehend -why she had come there and given herself to him. It was terrible to -discover that one did irrevocable things for no articulate reason. She -was less interested in Dudley now than in this new and terrible -astonishment about herself. She could not believe that she had taken a -lover out of boredom and discontent with herself, so she was forced to a -mystical conviction of the inevitability of her act. - -"I must leave you, Dudley. I can't bear to go. I love you. I love you." -She kept reiterating, I love you, and felt that she was trying to -convince herself against an uncertainty. - -He regarded her curiously with the same uneasiness. "I may be going away -soon, Julia. The French painter I told you about--the friend I had when -I was in Paris. He's through with America now and wants me to go to -Japan with him. Do you want me to go? I can't bear to be away from -you." - -"Go. Of course you must go." She felt hysterical. She took up her hat. - -He could not endure the cold reserved look that came over her face. -"Julia." Hating her, he put his arms about her, and when her body -suddenly relaxed he resented its unexpected pliancy. - -I don't know her, he repeated to himself with a kind of despair against -her. - - * * * * * - -Julia unlocked the front door and stepped into the still hall. A neat -mirror was set in the wall of the white-paneled vestibule. Here she saw -herself reflected dimly. Everything about her was rich-colored in the -afterglow that came golden through the long glass in the niches on -either side of the entrance. The polished floor was like a pool. Julia -felt that she had never seen her house before and this was a moment -which would never come again. - -When she went into the dining room she found the table laid, and the -knives and forks on the vague white cloth were rich with the purplish -luster of the twilight. The white plates looked secret with reflections. -Beyond the table, through the French windows, she could see the darkness -that was in the back yard close to the earth, but above the high wall -at the end was the brilliant empty sky. The base of the elm tree was in -the shadow. The top, with its new buds, glistened stiffly. - -She passed into the clean narrow kitchen. She had planned white sinks -and cupboards when she and her husband, Laurence Farley, were directing -the renovation of the place. Julia loved the annihilating quality of -whiteness. - -Old Nellie, standing before the stove, glanced impassively at her -mistress. - -"Dinner time, Nellie?" Julia wondered what was in the old woman's mind, -what made her so strong in her reticence that everything about her -seemed carved from her own will. The long strong arms moved stiffly in -the black sleeves. The ungainly hands moved heavily and surely. - -"Reckon 'tis, Miss Julia." Nellie mumbled with her cracked purplish -lips. When she smiled her brown face remained cold. She wore a wig of -straight black hair, but baldish patches of gray wool showed under the -edges against the rich dry color of her neck. Her shoulders were rounded -as if by the weight of her arms. Her breasts fell forward. When she -moved, her spine remained rigid above the sunken hips of a thin old -savage woman. Her buttocks dragged. She was bent with strength. - -Julia was all at once afraid of her servant. "I must find my children." -She moved toward the door, smiling over her shoulder. Nellie's reserve -seemed to demand a recognition. Julia wanted to get away from it. - -She went on to her sitting room. The door was ajar. Fifteen-year-old May -was there with her boy friend, Paul. As Julia entered Paul rose clumsily -and May leaned forward in her chair. - -Paul, irritated by the sight of Julia's radiance, was gloomy. He was -aware of May, young and awkward, a part of his own youth. May's presence -exposed a part of him and made him feel cowed and soiled. - -"Paul's still talking about Bernard Shaw, Aunt Julia." May was glad -"Aunt" Julia had come. When May was alone with Paul he expected things -of her that she could not give. He would not allow her to be close to -him. He required that she pass a test of mental understanding. She liked -him best when others were present. Then she could warm herself timidly -and secretly in a knowledge of him that she could never utter. - -Julia laughed affectionately. "Aren't you weary of such serious -subjects, Paul?" She felt that she saw the two from some distance inside -herself. She saw herself, beautiful and remote before Paul, and him -loving her. They loved the same thing. It filled her with tenderness. -He's a child! She felt guilty in her recognition of his youth. - -"Is that a serious subject?" Paul was wary. Being serious always made -one ridiculous. Without waiting for her reply, he said, "I'm boring May -with my company. I must go." As he glanced toward Julia his eyes had the -sad malicious look of a monkey's. A little color passed over his pale -narrow face with its expression of precocious childishness. - -Julia's long arms reached up to her hat. Paul's gaze made her feel her -body beautiful and strong, but her heart felt utterly lost in -wickedness. I'm Dudley Allen's mistress, she said to herself. She had -expected the reassurance of pain in her sense of sin; but the meaning of -what she had done was so utterly vacant that it frightened her. "Why not -have dinner with us? I want to hear more of your discussion." - -Paul resented everything about her, her strongness and poise and the -impression she gave him of having passed from something in which he was -still held. He moved his shoulders grotesquely. "Oh, Shaw's too facile. -He's only a bag of tricks." He could not bear to be with May any longer. -She's a silly little girl. "Good-night." He went out quickly. She's -laughing at me! She's trying to make me rude. They heard the front door -slam. - -Paul's accusing air had given Julia a feeling of self-condemnation. She -could not look at May at once. - -"I am stupid with Paul," May said. "I don't see why he likes to talk to -me. He's so grown-up and intellectual and I never know what to say to -him." She smiled unhappily. Her thin little hands moved awkwardly in her -lap. She wanted Aunt Julia to like her. - -Julia found in May's eagerness an inference of reproach, and was kind -with an effort. "Nonsense, May. Paul finds you a very interesting little -companion. He enjoys talking to you very much." - -May's mouth quivered. Her eyes were soft and appeared dark in her small -pale face. "But he's eighteen," she said. - -There were slow footsteps, ponderous on the stairs. Julia knew that -Laurence had come. Her heart beats quickened almost happily. She wanted -to experience the reproach of his face. Without naming what she waited -for, as a saint looks forward to his crucifixion, she looked forward to -the moment when he should condemn her. - -Laurence stood in the doorway. "Well, Julie, girl, how are you -to-night?" His brows contracted momentarily when he noticed May. "How -are you, May?" But his gaze returned to Julia and he smiled at her -steadily. His lips were harsh and at the same time sweet. - -"You're tired, dear. Come sit by our fire." Julia could not meet his -eyes. She watched his heavy slouched shoulders and observed the loose -bulge of his coat as he sank deeply in the high-backed chair which she -offered him. His hands were wonderful. Small white hesitating hands. She -remembered Dudley's hands passing over her, repulsive to her, hungry -hands with a kind of lascivious innocence that hurt. - -Dudley's bright secretive eyes seemed close to her, between her and her -husband, giving out a harsh warmth that suffocated her. She identified -herself so with her imaginings that it was as if she had become -invisible to Laurence. - -"Yes. I've had an interesting day at the laboratory. Even the commercial -side of science has its diversions." - -On the hearth the delicate drifting ash took a lilac tinge from some -fallen bits of stick in which a crimson glow trembled like a diffused -respiration. The room was strange with firelight. Bronze flames burst -suddenly from the logs in torrents of rushing silk. - -Laurence began to tell about the experiment in anaphylaxis which he had -been making in the laboratory that he had charge of at a medical -manufacturing establishment. He put the tips of his fingers together -while his elbows rested on the arms of his chair. His heavy -distinguished face was brown-red from the fire. The gray hair on his -temples was animate as with a life unrelated to him. In his ungainly -repose there was a dignity of acceptance which Julia recognized, though -she could not state it. - -Julia felt annihilated by his trust. When he talked on, unaware of her -secret misery, it was as though he had willed her out of being. She and -her pain had ceased to be. - -She had a vision of herself in Dudley's arms. That person in Dudley's -arms was alive. She was conscious of herself and Laurence as a double -deadness on either side of the living unrelated vision. Then it passed -and there was nothing but Laurie's dead voice. - - * * * * * - -After dinner, while Julia was hearing Bobby's lessons downstairs, -Laurence went up to her sitting room to rest and wait for her. He sat -down by the Adams desk. The glow from the blue pottery lamp with its -orange shade shone along his thick gray-sprinkled hair and lighted one -side of his strongly lined face, his deep-set eyes with their crinkled -lids, his large well-shaped nose with its bitter nostrils, and his -rather small mouth with its hard-sweet expression. - -When he heard Julia's step he lifted his head and glanced expectantly -toward the door. - -Julia's hair was in a loose knot against her neck. She was dressed in a -long plain smock of a curious green. Laurence wondered what genius had -taught her to select her clothes. While his first wife was alive he -despised the mere vainness of dress, but since marrying Julia he had -come to feel that clothes provided the art of individualization. It was -marvelous that a woman who had previously expended most of her industry -as a laboratory assistant had lost none of the knack of enhancing her -feminine attributes. - -"Bobby has the most indefatigable determination to have his own way. He -hasn't any respect for our educational system. I felt he simply must -finish his history before he succumbed to the charms of Jack Wilson's -new motor cycle." - -Laurence found in her voice a peculiar emotional timbre which never -failed to stir him, and when she sat down near him he was caught as -always by the helplessness of her large hands lying in her lap. - -"I don't fancy his playing with motor cycles." - -They were silent a moment. - -"Julie?" He smiled apologetically. He noticed that her eyes evaded him -and it made him unhappy. "Not much company for you. I'm a typical -American man of business--engrossed in my profession. Wasn't it to-night -that you were going to that meeting on Foreign Relief?" - -"You've discouraged my philanthropies," Julia said. "Besides, they won't -miss me." She lowered her gaze, and made a wry deprecating mouth. - -He felt that she was shutting him out from something--from her cold -youth. He had not intended to discourage her enthusiasms, but it would -have relieved him to enfold her in the warmth of his inertia. He said -inwardly that he must keep himself until she needed him. He wondered if -he were merely jealous of her youngness which went on beyond him -discovering itself. - -There was a pastel on the desk beside him. "I see Allen has done another -portrait of you." - -Julia flushed as she turned to him. In her open look he found something -concealed. He was ashamed of his thought. He stared at his own hands and -hated their sensitiveness. - -"I can't pretend to see myself in it. It looks grotesque to us with our -Victorian conceptions of art, doesn't it?" She smiled, gazing at him -with a harassed but eager air of demand. - -He did not wish to see her eyes that asked to be defended against -themselves. He stared at the picture a moment in silence. It irritated -him to feel that the artist had observed something in Julia which was -hidden from her husband. When he finally glanced with hard amused eyes -at her, he felt himself weak. "My mentality is not equal to an -appreciation of your friend's stuff. I'm hopelessly bourgeois, Julia." -He would not admit his hardening against each of Julia's interests as -they came to her. He put his pain with the transience of her youth and -condescended to her so that he need not take note of himself. "Did you -arrange for the lecture courses at the settlement house?" he asked. He -missed her former feverish engrossment in the projected lecture series -and wanted to bring her back to it. - -Julia made a pathetic grimace. "You've laughed at me so, Laurie. I -realize all that was absurd--terribly futile." - -"Did I? I thought I agreed with you that it was a fine thing to -inoculate the struggling masses with the culture bug." He could not -control his sarcasms, though he uttered them lightly. He wanted her to -be as tired as he was--to rest with him. There was sweat on his wrists -as he took his pipe from his pocket and pushed some tobacco into the dry -charred bowl. When he laughed at her the pupils of his gray eyes were -small and sharp and defensive, as though they had been pricked by his -pain. Beautiful, he thought. She doesn't need me. - -"I have a very middle-aged feeling about the welfare of humanity." - -She came over and knelt by his side. "Am I too ridiculous? Can't you -take me seriously, Laurie?" She wondered why it was that when he looked -at her she always found suffering in his face. He held himself away from -what she wanted to give. She wanted an abandon in which she would be -glorified. She imagined eyes finding her wonderful. She smiled at him, -her sweet humorless smile. - -Laurence stroked her hair. "I take you too seriously," he said. "I -sometimes feel that a husband is a very casual affair to you modern -women." - -She was tender to his ignorance of her and vain of her secret terror of -herself. Watching him, she thought of the day when his youngest child -died and he had allowed her to see his suffering. Because she had never -wished to hurt him she resented it that he had never again been helpless -before her. She wondered if he had been strong like this to his other -wife, or if he gave more of his suffering to the dead than to the -living. Suffering filled Julia with tenderness, so she could not think -herself cruel. "Dear!" She kissed him gently, maternally, and climbed to -her feet. - -He saw her reproachful eyes. Youth, so free with itself. Rapacious for -emotion. He felt bitterly his necessity more final than hers. "Where's -my last _Journal of American Science?_" He dismissed her intensity. -Lifting his thick brows, he took out spectacles and put them on. He -watched her over the rims. - -She handed him his paper. He was a child to her. Her secret sense of sin -made her strong and superior. She wanted to be gentle. She did not know -why the sense of wrongdoing made her so confident of herself. While he -read the journal she seated herself on the opposite side of the -fireplace with her embroidery. When he lowered the paper for an instant -and she had a glimpse of his oldish oblivious face, she loved its -unawareness and tears came to her eyes again. - - * * * * * - -On Saturday morning Julia attended the meeting of a club in which the -problems of business women were reviewed. The members gathered in a -hotel auditorium where musicales were sometimes given. The long windows -of the room opened above an alleyway and its gold rococo gloom was -relieved of the obscure sunshine by electric lights. The women sat in -little groups here and there, only half filling the place, and the -murmur of voices went on indistinguishably until the president, Mrs. -Hurst, a pale self-confident little woman with a whimsical smile, -stepped to the platform, below the garlanded reliefs of Beethoven and -Mozart, and struck her gavel on the desk. Then an unfinished silence -crept over the scattered assemblage. A stout intellectual-looking Jewess -came forward ponderously, adjusted her nose glasses, and read the -minutes of the previous meeting, while those before her listened with -forced attention, or frankly considered the interesting design of green -and black embroidery which ornamented her dark blue dress. - -But once the subjects of the day were under discussion the concentration -of the audience was natural and intense. Then the president, with demure -severity, rapped with her gavel and reminded too ardent debaters that -they were out of order. - -Julia could not resist the sense of importance that it gave her to state -her serious opinion upon certain problems which affected her sex. When -she rose to express herself her exposition was so succinct that she was -invited to the platform where what she said could be better -appreciated. - -The repetition of her speech was uncomfortably self-conscious. Her -cheeks grew faintly pink. There were several women in the audience whom -she disliked, and when she talked in this manner she felt that she was -beating them down with her righteousness. She observed in the faces of -many a virtuous and deliberate stupidity that was a part of their -determination not to understand her. - -Her speech intoxicated her a little. When she stepped to the floor -amidst small volleys of applause, the room about her grew slightly dim. -For an hour the discussion went on, back and forth, one woman rising and -the next interrupting her statement. After Julia herself had spoken, -nothing further seemed to her of consequence. The other women were -hopelessly verbose, or, if they argued against her, ridiculously -unseeing. Their past applause rang irritatingly in her mind. She -recalled Dudley Allen's contempt for this feeble utilitarian -consideration of eternal things. She was proud of comprehending the -unmorality--the moral cynicism--of art. She felt that her broad capacity -for understanding men like Dudley Allen liberated her from the narrow -ethical confines of the lives that surrounded her, which took their -color from social usage. - -Yet she resented Dudley's attitude toward her slight attempts at -self-expression. It reminded her of Laurence's protective air when she -first took a position under him at the laboratory. It was part of the -conspiracy against her attempt at achieving significance beyond the -limits of her personal problem. It hurt her as much as it pleased her -when either Dudley or her husband complimented her dress or commented on -the grace of her hands when she was pouring tea. Her feeling was the -same when she thought of having a child. She wanted the child in -everything but the sense of accepting the inevitable in maternity. She -sometimes imagined that if she could bear a child that was hers alone -she could be glad of it. In order to avoid being stifled by a conviction -of inferiority, she was constantly demanding some assurance of -dependence on her from those she was associated with. - - * * * * * - -Since childhood Dudley Allen had looked to himself to achieve greatness. -He had been a pretty child, but effeminate, undersized, and not noted -for cleverness. His father was a Unitarian minister in a New England -town; his mother, an ambitious woman absorbed in the pursuit of culture. -Her esthetic conceptions were of an intellectual order, but she sang in -the choir of her husband's church and thought of herself as frustrated -in the expression of a naturally artistic temperament. - -Dudley remembered her with vexation. She had been ambitious for him, and -he had resented her efforts to use him for vicarious self-fulfilment. -She had him taught to play the violin and developed his taste for music. -It was chiefly in contradiction to her suggestions that he early -interested himself in paint. Now he played the violin occasionally, but -never in public. - -His father was a man repressed and made severe by his sense of justice. -As a child Dudley knew that this parent was ashamed of his son's -physical weakness and emotional explosiveness. His father wanted him to -be a lawyer. His mother wished him to become a man of letters or a -musician of distinction. - -Dudley was reared in the sterile atmosphere of a religion which confined -itself to ethical adherences. However, he absorbed Biblical lore and -adapted it to his more poetic needs. His father's contempt pained him, -but in no wise diminished the boy's vaguely acquired conviction that he -was himself one of the chosen few. Dudley identified himself with the -singers of Israel who spoke with God. As he was unable to cope with -bullying playmates of his own age, his exalted isolation was his -defense. - -When he was twelve years old his mother discovered a journal in which he -had set down some of his intimacies with the Creator. She admonished him -for his absurdities and burned the book. The incident helped to develop -his resistance to the opinions of those who would destroy his consoling -fancies. He noted precociously symptoms of his mother's weaknesses. - -By the time he was sent away to college he had developed his secret -defense, and his timidity was no longer so apparent. His progress -through his courses, while erratic, was in part brilliant. When he -returned home after his first absence his father showed some pride in -the visit. - -At eighteen Dudley had evolved a philosophy which permitted him to look -upon himself as a prophet. Praise irritated him as much as blame. When -people made him angry he retorted to them with waspish sarcasms. When he -was alone he worked himself into transports of despair which made him -happy. He thought of himself as the peculiar interpreter of universal -life. He liked to go out in the woods and fields alone, and under the -trees to take his clothes off and roll in the grass. He was recklessly -generous on occasion, in defiance of habits of penuriousness. He felt -most kindly toward Negroes, day laborers, and other people whose social -status was inferior to his own. Yet among his own kind he exacted every -recognition of social superiority. - -After vexatious arguments with his father, he went to Paris to continue -the study of painting. His technical facility surprised every one. His -conversations were facile and worldly, he was impeccable in his dress, -while he thought of a trilogy in spirit which embraced David in Israel, -Spinoza, and himself. His greatest fear in life was the fear of -ridicule. The physical cowardice which had oppressed his childhood -remained with him, and his escape from it was still through his -religious belief in his inward significance. Men of the crasser type -despised him utterly, and he confuted them with stinging cleverness. A -few who were artists were attracted by the rich, almost feminine quality -of his emotions. He found these men, rather than the women he knew, -were the dominant figures in his life. - -He was in terror of all women with whom he could not establish himself -on planes of physical intimacy. But after he had arrived at such a state -with them, they interested him very little. Their attraction for him was -curious, rarely compelling. In all of his affairs his condition was -complicated by his fear of relinquishing any influence he had once been -able to assert. - -When he returned to America after two years abroad he felt stronger by -the intellectual distances which separated him from his former life. If -he had not rebelled against the tone of condescension in which his -fellow artists referred to his youthful success, he might have been -contented with the humbler friends who were waiting to lionize him. He -continued to cultivate an aloofness which sustained his pride as much -against inferior compliments as, in the past, it had protected him from -jibes. - -He could not console himself with the praises of most of the women he -met, for he always fancied that they were attempting to flatter him into -entanglements. When he encountered Julia, however, the mixture of -egoism and humility which he sensed in her discontent intrigued his -vanity. He saw that she was isolated and unhappy, and he longed for an -admiration which his discrimination would not condemn. In her he -anticipated a disciple of whom he need not be ashamed; but until she -should be sexually disarmed he was frightened of her. - - * * * * * - -May and Paul were in the park, by the side of the lake. The water was -caught in meshes of hot rays as in a web. In the sky, above the trees, -the light, drawn inward from the vague horizon, glowed in a fathomless -spot where the sun was sinking. The grass was uncut in the field about -them and the little seeded tops floated in a red-lilac mist above the -green stems. - -"I don't like your Aunt Julia, May!" - -May's mouth half smiled, uneasy. "Why not?" - -They sat down on a hillock and Paul began to tear up grass blades as if -he wanted to hurt them. When he thought of Julia it made him feel sorry -for himself, and he hated her. "She's so darn complacent and shallow." - -"Why, Paul, Aunt Julia's always doing things for people. She's been -awfully good to you. After the way she helped you with your exams I -shouldn't think you'd talk like that." May gazed at him with wide soft -eyes of reproach. - -He picked at the grass. "Oh, I'm joking. I suppose she felt very -virtuous when she helped me." - -"But she does lots, Paul. She's always interested in some charity work." - -"Pish! Charity! What does a woman like that know about life!" - -May was timidly silent. - -"Some of these days I'm going to cut loose from everything--all these -smug conventions." - -"But where'll you go, Paul? I thought you wanted to study medicine." - -"Well, I'd rather give up that than stand this atmosphere. Oh, hell! -What's the use!" - -She liked it when he said hell. It made her feel intimate with a strange -thing. Afraid. "But what do you want to do, Paul?" - -Looking away from her, he did not answer. It soothed him to be superior -to May, but he knew enough to be ashamed of such consolation. Too easy. -A kid like that! "It don't matter. I've got to get away. I don't fit -into the sort of life your Aunt Julia stands for. What's there here for -me anyway!" He added, "Of course you're too young to bother with my -troubles." He stared stubbornly at the twinkling tree tops across the -lake. - -May was crushed by this accusation of youth. "You used to say you wanted -to stay here and help radicals. Some day there'll be a revolution--" Her -humility would not permit her to continue. - -Paul was irritated by this reminder of his inconsistency. Still he felt -guilty and wanted to be kind. "Pshaw! A lot of chance for revolution in -America now. You must have been listening to your Aunt Julia talk parlor -socialism, child." - -May was feebly indignant in defense. "You didn't think so when you used -to read Karl Marx. You know you didn't!" - -The thin immature quality of her voice wounded him. He wanted to be -separate from it. He was aggrieved because all the world seemed to come -to conclusions ahead of him. He wanted to think something no one had -ever thought before. Now he had an unadmitted fear that what Julia had -said had diminished his interest in the struggles of the working class. -"I know a fellow who cut loose from home a couple of months ago and -shipped as a steward on a White Star boat. His sister got a letter from -him saying that when he got over he was fired, but he found another bunk -right away in a sailing vessel. He's going to West Africa. You remember -that kid that came and visited the Hursts?" - -"Yes, but I don't see any reason for you to throw up everything you've -always planned." - -Paul rubbed his chin. Beard. Of course it was childish to talk about -"seeing life". He didn't take pride in such absurdities as that. "What -are you going to do with _your_self, May?" He was gentle but light. - -"Me?" She smiled with a startled air. She felt helpless when people -asked her about herself. Of course she understood he wasn't serious. "I -suppose I'm going to college where Aunt Julia went--and then--oh, I -don't know, Paul! I'm not clever like Aunt Julia. You know she put -herself through, and then earned her own living for a long time." Her -small face flushed. - -As she turned a little he watched the thick pale braid of her hair swing -between her shoulders. "Yes, I know. Aunt Julia thinks the fact that she -once worked deserves special recognition." His sarcasm was laborious. He -knew that he was saying too much. He leaned forward and twitched May's -plait. "Why don't you do your hair up? You want to look grown-up." - -She laughed. She was grateful when he teased her. That meant it didn't -matter what she answered. "I don't want to look grown-up." - -"Aunt Julia doesn't want any grown-up step-daughters around." Something -had him, he thought. It was irresistible. - -"Paul!" A catch of surprise and rebuke in her soft tone. "I don't know -what's got into you lately. I think it's horrid--always suggesting Aunt -Julia has some mean motive in everything she does! She's one of the -loveliest people on earth! She's too good for you. You just don't -understand her and you're jealous." - -Paul was amused. "Jealous, am I!" He would not show the child his -vexation with her. All at once he was disconcerted to realize that he -had become very depressed. He pitied himself. He watched May's legs as -she stretched them stiffly before her, thin little legs. Her high shoes -were loosely laced and the tops bulged away from her ankles. Sweet. He -reached and took her hand. Cold little hand! May, too embarrassed to -take notice of his gesture, let him hold it. He thought she was sweet. -He might like to kiss her--maybe. Not now. He could not bear to be as -young as she was. While he held her hand it came over him that there was -something dark and sickly in himself. He was vain that she could not -understand it. Rotten. She's a kid. He tried not to recognize his pride -in finding himself impure. He was fed up with everything. Hell! - -As the sun disappeared the world grew suddenly bright, and long red rays -striped the tree trunks and the grass, endless rays reaching softly out -of the gorgeous welter in the western sky. The water twinkled fixedly. -The green grass was like mist over the fields. - -Paul became abruptly agitated. "Better go home, hadn't we?" - -May glanced at him furtively. His eyes made her unhappy. "I suppose we -had." - -They got up awkwardly. When they were standing he let her hand drop as -if it had been nothing. She walked before him, a little girl in a short -dress with a soft braid of hair hanging under a red cap. - -"You don't look fifteen, May." - -"Don't I?" - -He tried to catch up with her. He wondered what he was afraid of. Her -voice had a smothered sound, almost like a sob. She did not look back. - -It was nearly night now. The sky without the sun was a dark burning -blue. A strange cloud floated white above the black trees. - -Paul was suddenly happy and excited. When I get home--Uncle Alph--that -old fool. Aunt Susie. They were married. What did that ever mean! -Purification by fire is all that's good enough for people like that. A -sin to get married at all. If I thought people's bodies were like that! -Paul wondered to himself if he were mad. It hurt to think through -things. People went on living in their filthy world. Thick stockings -were ugly. May's legs. Thin little legs in ugly stockings. Why doesn't -she shine her shoes! Little rag picker! "Did you know that you were an -untidy person, May?" he called. As she looked back over her shoulder he -could feel her smile. Her vague face stared pale at him down the path. -The moon was floating out from the trees, pale moon like a face. Thin -light stole silver along the branches high up. Little moon, said Paul to -himself, staring at May's face and smiling. He felt ill, foolishly, -pleasantly ill. - -When he came up with her it was as if he were his own shadow walking -beside her. "Little moon, I love you." He talked under his breath. He -scarcely wanted her to hear his absurdity. Then he placed his arm around -her. Her cold sweet thinness was like the shadow of the moon, thin and -still on the topmost branch of the strange tree. Her small breast -swelled against his hand and he could feel her heart beat. "Oh, May!" He -kissed her. He kissed the silence between them. "Gee, kid!" he said. - -"Paul, dear." - -They walked along together, happy; but less happy as they neared the -hedge that cut them off from the street and the glow from an arc lamp -began to fall across the grass. - -When they stood under the light the absurdity had gone from Paul. He -wondered what had happened to him back there in the darkness. He had -taken his arm from her waist and now he pressed her hands, afraid that -she would observe the change in him. "Good night, May, child." - -May was tremulous and bewildered. "Good night, Paul." She tried -laboriously to fit her tone to his brotherly kindliness. - - * * * * * - -Mrs. Hurst sat with Julia at tea in Julia's upstairs room. The late sun -stretched tired rays across the soft blue carpet. The yellow curtains -glowed before the open windows, and, fluttering apart, showed the thick -foliage of the trees that screened the houses opposite. The atmosphere -intensified the very immobility of the furniture. There was a voluptuous -finality in the liquid repose of light on the polished floor and the -glint of a glass vase, where needle rays of brightness were transfixed -among the stems of flowers. - -Julia poured tea from a flat vermilion pot. The tea stood clear and dark -in the black cups. Over the two women hung a moist bitter odor, the -bruised sweetness of withering roses. The afternoon smells of dampened -dust and new-cut grass blew in from the street. - -Mrs. Hurst took her cup in her small, slightly unsteady hand, and -sipped. The veins were growing large and hard and showed through the -delicately withered skin on which there were tiny brown spots like -stains. She wore a wedding ring rubbed thin. "My dear, you still have -that wonderful old Negress who used to be your maid? How do you manage -to keep her? I'm always struggling with some fresh domestic problem." -Mrs. Hurst smiled and with her free hand settled her trim glasses on her -neat nose. Her sweet little face, turned toward Julia, showed a -determined insistence on negative happiness. "I think we have a great -deal more to struggle with than our grandmothers did. We haven't only -our homes to look after, but our social responsibilities are so great." -Mrs. Hurst was beautifully and simply dressed in gray, and the soft -outline of her hat, with its tilt of roses at the back, gave an air of -gallantry to her faded features, which were those of a sophisticated -little girl--the face of a woman of forty-six whose sex life has passed -away without her knowing it. - -"I'm afraid I've become a renegade as far as my social responsibilities -are concerned. I feel myself so inadequate to any real accomplishment, -Mrs. Hurst." Julia smiled guardedly and resentfully. Something in her -wanted to destroy the delicate aggressive repose of the woman opposite, -and felt helpless before it. - -"Ah, you mustn't feel that, my dear. All of us feel it at times, but I -do believe that it depends on us women more than on our men folk, -perhaps, to allay the unrest of our day. Changing conditions of labor -have taken the homes away from so many. I think we should carry the -spirit of the home out into the world." Mrs. Hurst made a plaintive -little _moue_ of faded sauciness. As men were obliterated from her -personal interests, she reverted to a child's demure coquetry in -pleading her cause with her own sex. - -"I can't look upon myself as the person for such a mission," Julia said. -Her eyes and lips were cold as she stared pleasantly at her visitor. -Julia felt a sudden sharp vanity in the thought of the sin against -society which initiated her into another life. She was confused by her -pride in adultery, and sought for an exalted ethical term which would -justify her sense of glorying in her act. Dudley--his hands upon me. I -couldn't be free. Eagles. The ethics of eagles. Julia knew that she was -absurd. She was humiliated and defiant. She was aware of her body under -her clothes as apart from her, and as though it were the only thing in -the world that lived. It was terrible to feel her body lost from her. -She fancied this was what people meant by the sense of nakedness. When -Dudley kissed her on the lips there was no nakedness, for she and her -body had the same existence. She despised Mrs. Hurst, who separated her -from her body. "You know I haven't a real genius for setting the world -right." - -Mrs. Hurst was gentle and severe. "We can't afford to lose you! I shall -ask your delightful husband to influence you. As for genius--I imagine -each of us has his own definition of that. We all think you showed -something very much like genius in your conduct of the college campaign -fund last winter. You should hear Charles expatiate on your cleverness -as a business woman. We are practical people, Julia Farley, and we do -need money. It is the golden key which opens the door for most of our -ideals, I'm afraid." - -Julia frowned slightly and tried to control her irritation. "Why can't -Mr. Hurst undertake some of the financial problems? He would reduce my -poor little efforts to such insignificance." - -"But there you are, my dear! Charles lives in a man's world. He doesn't -understand these things. Women are the conscience of the race." Mrs. -Hurst smiled again and in her small mouth showed even rows of artificial -teeth. - - * * * * * - -When Julia woke in the night beside Laurence she perceived her body -lying there naked and apart, and hands moving over it--horrible and -secret hands. In the daytime in the street the body walked with her -outside her clothes. With strange men her consciousness of that horrible -impersonal flesh that was hers, though she knew nothing of it--though it -belonged to the whole world--was most acute. - - * * * * * - -The curtains moved and the spots of light on the floor opened and closed -like eyes. A fly had crept inside the screens and made a singing noise -against the window. A vase of flowers was on the table, and the shadow -of a blossom, rigid and delicate, fell in the bar of sunshine that -bleached the polished wood. There was pale sunshine on the chess board -at which May and Paul were playing. Light took the color from the -close-cropped hair at the nape of Paul's neck, and, when May glanced up -at him, filled her eyes with brilliant vacancy so that she looked -strange. - -May bent forward again, her mouth loose in wonder. - -Paul made a stupid move. - -"Ah! You've lost him!" Aunt Julia said. - -He did not answer her, but his shoulders took a resentful curve. He felt -as if the veins in his temples were bursting, pouring floods of darkness -before his eyes. He wished he might be rid of her, always there in the -room beside him and May. He pushed forward another piece. - -Aunt Julia came and stood beside him. She leaned down. She leaned down -and laid her hand on his arm. "If only you hadn't lost that knight!" - -The sound of her voice made everything dark again. He resented her more -than he had ever resented anything on earth. - -"Let me move for you once, Paul, child." - -"But that won't be fair, Aunt Julia!" May watched them with a sudden -brightening and dimming of the eyes. She was startled by the look of -Aunt Julia's faintly flushed face so close to Paul's. What makes him -look like that! - -"I'll play for you, dear, too," Aunt Julia said. She was sorry for -herself because her loneliness made her want even the children. She was -tender of them. They could not understand her. She would not admit to -herself that Paul's response to her presence thrilled and strengthened -her. She wanted to be kind to the poor awkward boy. May was such a -baby. "Will you let me move your pawn there, May?" - -May nodded. She was restive. She wanted to move for herself. When she -resumed the game her eyes became wide and engrossed. "Check! Check!" She -came out of her delight. She was clapping the palms of her thin hands -and they made a muffled sound. They fell apart abruptly. Once more Aunt -Julia was leaning close to Paul. - -"You finished me all right, May." - -May wondered if Paul were angry with her. What made his eyes so hard! - -Julia was ashamed before May. That spineless little girl! Julia wanted -to leave them both. May and the boy hurt her. Her body was so alive that -her awareness of herself was very small. She was sure of her existence -only through this humiliating certainty of other being. Their youth -seemed disgusting to her and she wanted to leave them with it. She -smiled at them constrainedly. The two figures swam before her. "Good-by, -Paul. I must leave you children and attend to some humdrum duties below -stairs." - -"Good-by," Paul said. He could not look at her. She went out. The stir -of her dress died away. He feared to hear it go and to be alone with -something in himself. "I'm sick of chess, May. I must be going too." He -rose. - -"Must you?" May got up. - -Paul went to the table and took his cap. He wondered why she was so -still, why he could not bring himself to see her. When he turned around -she was watching him with her silly timid air. It repelled him that she -smiled so much for nothing at all. His eyes were blank with distrust of -her. Why does she smile like that! She made him cruel. He hated her for -making him cruel. He wanted to be cruel. "You seem pretty glad to get -rid of me!" - -"Why, Paul!" May flashed a glance at him. She stared at the floor, and -she was dying in the obscure impression of moonlight on trees near a -park gate. - -Paul came up to her and, with the surreptitious movement of a sulky -child, pressed a hard kiss against her mouth. - -Before she could respond to him he ran out, through the hall and down -the stairs and into the street. He was terrified lest he should see -Julia before he could leave the house. Anything but May! He didn't want -May. Aunt Julia always coming close to him, touching him, laying her -hand on his. He felt trapped in his loathing of her. Why was it he -could never forget her! - -It was growing dusk. On either side of the infinite street the houses -were vague. The trees were like plumes of shadow waving above him. The -stars in the sky, that yet glowed with the passing of the sun, were -burning dust. He tried to think that he was mad. Beyond him under a -street lamp he saw a dimly illumined figure--big buttocks wagging before -him under a thin calico skirt. And the Negress passed out of sight. - -By the time he reached home he was sick of himself, thoroughly dejected, -perceiving the vileness of his own mind. He crept up the back stairs -unseen, and in his small room lay face downward on his bed. He thought -he ought to kill himself to keep from thinking things like that. Uncle -Alph and his Aunt down in the dining room. He began to sob. God, all the -rottenness in the world! If I did that it would be outright in the -daytime. I wouldn't be ashamed. Naked bodies moved before him in a long -line. They were ugly because he wanted to keep them out. Aunt Julia was -there and even May. He would not see them, but they were ugly. Their -ugliness was the horror that enveloped him. He knew their ugliness -because it became a part of him without his having seen it. - -There was something beautiful at last. It was nakedness that belonged to -no one. Nakedness without a face. It took him. He was asleep. There were -breasts in the darkness. He was afraid. He could not wake up. He was -fear and he was afraid of himself. He was against naked breasts that -held him, that he could not see. - - * * * * * - -May tip-toed down the dark stairs, her small hand sliding along the cold -mysterious rail. - -When she reached the lower hall she saw the door of the study open and -Father sitting there with Bobby who was studying and very intent on the -book he held upon his knees. There was a green lamp on the desk and a -moth bumping against the shade and shattering its wings. The light, -falling on Father's back, made the strands of hair twinkle on his -drooped head, and his shoulders looked dusty in the black coat he wore. -The study windows were open. Beyond Father was the dark yard. A square -of the sky was like green silk. The moon, laid on it softly, was -breathing light like a sea thing, glowing and dying. - -When May had reassured herself of this unchanged world she tip-toed up -to her room. She wanted to undress quickly so that she could be in bed -and forget everything but Paul's unexpected kiss and the new cruel feel -of his lips. Now that she was alone she wanted to forget about being -ashamed. She had a curious, almost frightening, intimacy with her own -sensations. She wanted to go on thinking of herself forever and ever. - - * * * * * - -Dudley's intuitions were capable of sensing what might be called the -psychological essences of those about him. He never became aware of the -elusive value of a personality without wishing to absorb it into himself -so that it became a part of his own experience. He could not bear to -lose his sense of identity with those from whom he had compelled such -contacts. For this reason, though he despised his parents, he maintained -toward them the attitude of a dutiful son. - -It was the same with all the friends of other days. When he was -attracted by some one Dudley initiated him into a devastating intimacy. -The person, for a time, would yield to a flattering tyranny, but, in the -end, would rebel against the inequality of possession. Dudley refuted -all intellectual justifications of protest, and attributed the failure -of his friendships to the emotional inadequacies of his disciples. - -When women abandoned their sexual defenses to him, however, he found -nothing left to achieve. They held a view of their relationships which -made the subtler kinds of personal pride unnecessary to them. If they -had received in life any spiritual disfigurements, they were only too -ready to expose these where it would buy them a little pity through -which they might insinuate themselves into another soul. Their spiritual -instincts were as promiscuous as the physical expressions of embryo -life. It was only as regarded their bodies that they showed anything -like reserve. Even here it was more a matter of vanity than anything -else, for in surrendering themselves in the flesh the thing they seemed -most to fear was that once they were revealed they would not be -sufficiently admired. It was irritating to feel that when they abandoned -everything to a man they but attained to a subtler possession. - -Not long before meeting Julia, Dudley passed through an experience in -which he narrowly avoided matrimony. The girl had appeared to be -peculiarly submissive to his influence; but at a time when his -complacency had allowed him to feel most tender of her she had evaded -him. If she had been less precipitate he would have married her. He was -thankful for the circumstance which had saved him, and when he -corresponded with her he called her "my dear sister," or "my very dear -friend". Now that she had abandoned him he was more generous toward her -than he had ever been. He knew that one could give one's self in an -impersonal gesture. But it was very tricky to take from others. He wrote -her that he must learn to function alone, that it was the artist's life. -She could never explain to herself why it was that she resented so -deeply his condemnation of his own weakness and his reiteration of his -need of the isolation and suffering which would clarify his inner -vision. - -Dudley hinted to all the women he met that Art was his mistress and that -he could not permit himself to approach them seriously without -subjecting them to the injustice of this rivalry. The physical terrors -of his childhood had aggravated his caution. His inward distress was -terrible when he was obliged to reconcile his resistance to the world -outside him with the ideal of the great artist which commanded him to -abandon himself to all that came. His desire, even as regarded material -things, was to hoard everything that contributed to the erection of a -barrier between him and the ruthless struggle of men. He longed for -commercial success, and he displayed an ostentatious indifference to the -salableness of his work. He had a physical attachment for his -possessions. - -He hated gatherings of all sorts unless they were of friends who would -respond to all he had to say and whom he might insidiously dominate. Yet -he had encountered Julia first at the home of Mrs. Hurst, whose -bourgeois pretensions to esthetic interest he despised. These -heterogeneous assemblies gave him the cold impression of a mob. Anything -which affected him and at the same time evaded him was unadmittedly -alarming. He had not appeared at his best that night until he was able -to lead Julia aside and talk to her alone. Then he became suddenly at -ease. There was a slightly bitter humility about her confessions of -ignorance that made him feel her potentially appreciative in a genuine -sense. - -Strangely enough the frankness of her self-depreciation disarmed him. He -felt that he must search for a hidden pretension that would show her -weak and allow him an approach. Wherever she displayed symptoms of -confidence he confronted her with her dependence on illusion. He told -himself that all that one individual owed another was the means to -truth. Believing in the dignity of self-responsibility, he could not -assume the burden of Julia's discouragement. He imagined her unhappy. If -he helped her to see herself he was aiding her to attain the only -ultimate values in life. - -After he and Julia became lovers he was troubled not a little by the -necessity for concealment, for he had told her so frequently that her -relation to Laurence had been falsified by the accumulation of reserves. - - * * * * * - -Dudley had said so often that he considered Laurence a repressed and -misunderstood man that Julia, with an antagonism which she did not -confess to herself, asked her lover to dine at her home. Meeting Dudley -as Laurence's wife again put her on the offensive regarding everything -that concerned her house and the usual circumstances of her existence. -She had never taken such care in composing a meal as she did for this -occasion, and she spent half an hour arranging the flowers in a low bowl -on the table. - -When Dudley came he greeted Laurence with peculiar eagerness. Julia -found it hard to forgive her lover for making himself ridiculous. - -During dinner the guest led the talk which was exclusively between the -two men. He insisted on discussing bacteriological subjects with -Laurence. Laurence deferred politely to Dudley's ignorance. - -The large room in which they sat was lighted by the candles at either -end of the long table. The glow, like a bright shadow, was reflected in -the dark woodwork and against the obscure walls. Through the tall open -windows the wind brought the warm night in with a soft rush of -blackness. Then the pale candle flames flattened into fans and the wax -slipped with a hiss into the burnished holders. - -Laurence was humped in his chair as usual, so that the rough collar of -his coat rose up behind against his neck. Most of the time as he talked -he stared straight before him; but occasionally he glanced with his -small pained eyes into Dudley's engrossed and persistent face. - -Julia saw with unusual clearness everything that Laurence said and did. -She was possessively aware of his gestures, and when he spoke easily and -fluently of his work she had a proprietary satisfaction in it, and was -full of animosity toward Dudley's questioning. - -She felt betrayed by Dudley, who approached Laurence by ignoring her -mediumship. She could not bear the admission of Dudley's power to -exclude her. They could only live in each other. She gave him life in -her, but he obliterated her from himself, and so condemned her to a sort -of death. And while she was dead he gave Laurence her life. She was dead -and alone with her body that was so alive. She felt her breasts swelling -loathsomely under her crisp green muslin dress, and her long hidden legs -stretched horribly from the darkness of her hips. Her live body -possessed her stupidly. If only he would take it from her! If only with -one glance he would admit her to himself! - -As they passed from the dining room Julia touched Laurence despairingly. -He saw her worried smile. "You're warm, dear," she said. And she added, -"I wonder how our children fared upstairs, eating alone in state." She -wanted to compel Laurence into the atmosphere of domestic intimacies -where her guest had no part. - -"I wonder." He returned her smile abstractedly and spoke to Dudley -again. "You know Weissman of Berlin--" - -Julia looked unconsciously tragic and bit her lip. "Have you been able -to arrange for your exhibition, Dudley?" she interrupted demandingly. -Her voice was sharp. - -"Why, no--" Dudley glanced at her with pleasant interrogation. "You were -saying--about Weissman?" He was naïve like a child unconscious of -rudeness. - -When they came to the staircase Laurence went on ahead because of the -light. Dudley took Julia's arm, bare to the elbow. She shuddered away -from him. She was observing his strut, the way he walked, his weight -bearing on his heels. When the glow from the upper hall fell on them she -saw his short arms held stiffly at his sides, the black down clinging on -his wrists and the backs of his hands, the twinkle of his crisp reddish -mustache that appeared artificially imposed on his small, almost -womanish, face, and the thick black curls, soft and a little oily, that -clung about his ill-formed head. She disliked even the careful -carelessness of his dress. - -But her loathing of him was after all only horror of herself. If he had -given her a look of acceptance she would have become one with him. Then -it would have been impossible to see him so separately. She wanted to -explain the horror to him. If he had known her thoughts he could not -have endured them, and he would have saved them both. - -But he was separate and satisfied in himself. "Julia," he said in a low -voice, "Laurence Farley is a remarkable person. There is something in -the dignity of his reserve that puts us to shame. My God, what a tragedy -he is! He interests me tremendously. I'm grateful to you for letting me -know him." - -Julia felt hateful that he presumed to tell her this. She had always -spoken gratefully of Laurence. She had much pride in her pain in never -finding excuses for herself. - -"He isn't sophisticated in our sense," Dudley said, "but he makes me -feel that there is something puerile and immature in both of us." - -Julia said, in a hard voice, "I don't think I have ever failed in -appreciation of Laurence." Suddenly she realized that both these men -were strangers to her, that she loved and wanted only herself. Her -despair was so complete that it relieved her, and she could scarcely -hold back the tears. - - * * * * * - -Dudley wanted to despise Laurence. There was something in the -personality of Julia's husband which defied contempt. If Laurence had -displayed any crass desire for recognition Dudley would have passed him -by with relief; but the artist wished to force all sensitive natures to -admit that their secrets could not be hidden. - -Laurence's regard for Julia was full of the condescension of maturity. -He gave to her where it was impossible for him to take. Dudley had -always despised her a little, and now the fact that her husband excluded -her from his suffering was testimony of her inadequacy. Without -admitting it to himself, Dudley was beginning to resist being associated -with her. He reflected that it was grotesque to dream of finding -understanding in such a struggling and incomplete nature. Julia was -possessive. The heroic woman must rise above this instinct. - -Her breasts were a little old, her body thin. He remembered the -angularity of her hips, the too long line of her back. He saw her eyes -uplifted to his with that pained, withheld look which annoyed him so -much. Her skin was very white, but a little coarse. When she put her -arms about him her hair, all disarranged, fell wild and heavy about her -strained throat. He did not wish to admit that he had discovered his -mistress to be less beautiful than, in the beginning, he had imagined -her. He revolted against these obvious judgments of the senses. It was -unpleasant to recall her so distinctly. He pitied her mental -incompleteness which made it impossible to give her the purer values -which he wanted to share with her. - -Dudley congratulated himself on a curiously sensitive understanding of -what Laurence had endured. To escape the unpleasant vision of Julia's -body and the dumb gaze which fatigued him so much he concentrated all -his reflections on his magnanimous sympathy for the man. - -He felt that face to face with Julia he would never be able to explain -to her what he perceived in regard to her husband, so he wrote her a -letter about it. "Laurence Farley is our equal, Julia," he wrote. "We -owe it to ourselves to treat him as such. Now that I have had the -opportunity to observe and appreciate his rare qualities I know that the -relation between you and me will never fulfil its deep promise while -this lie exists between you and him. The truth will be hard, but he is -big enough to bear it. He is a man who has suffered from the American -environment, and has been warped and drawn away from his true self. If -his scientific erudition had been fostered in an atmosphere which loved -learning for its own sake, he would have been able to express himself. -He has the ripe nature of a _savant_. I feel that meeting with you both -has a rare meaning for me. We must all suffer in this thing. Perhaps he -most, except that I must suffer alone. You and he are close--in spite of -everything you are close. Closer perhaps than even you and I have been. -But I must learn, Julia. I am struggling yet. I have farther to go than -he has, in spite of my superior knowledge of certain things, of worlds -of which he has never become cognizant. I have not yet learned as he has -to rise above myself. In my slow way I shall do so. I shall learn, -Julia, and you shall help me--you two people. I want him to be my -friend. I respect him. I love you both. Oh, Julia, how deeply, deeply I -have loved you." - -When Dudley had dispatched this letter he found himself liberated from -many obscure depressions that had been hampering his spirit. The -important thing in Julia's life was her relation to Laurence. He, -Dudley, would accept the fact that he was only an incident in her -struggle to achieve herself. - -Yet he was disconcerted by the premonition that her interpretation of -what he had done would not be his. He was in furtive terror of being -made ridiculous. - - * * * * * - -Through the tall, open windows of the dining room, Julia, seated with -some mending, could see the dull line of the roofs in the next street, -and the dreary sky shadowed with soiled milky-looking clouds. The grass -in the back yard was a bright dead green. It had grown tall. Flurries of -moist acrid wind swept across it, and it bent all at once with a long, -undulant motion that was like voluptuous despair. The table cloth rose -heavily and fell in a spent gesture against the legs under it. Julia's -black muslin dress beat gently about her ankles. - -Then the wind passed. The grass blades were fixed and still. In the -silent room the ticking of a small clock on a _secrétaire_ sounded -labored and blatant. The odor of the cake that Nellie was baking filled -the warm air. - -Julia heard the postman's whistle and Nellie's heavy step in the hall. -Julia thought of Nellie, of the old woman's sureness and silence--a lean -old savage woman of many lovers. In all the years that the old Negress -had been there she had never showed the need of a confidant. Her -children had abandoned her and she had no tie with any human creature -save the old man whom she supported who came sometimes to do odd chores. - -Julia wondered what had poisoned the white race and given it the need of -sanction from some outside source. She wanted a justification of -herself, but did not know from what quarter she should demand it. - -Nellie entered with a letter and Julia, recognizing the handwriting at -once, left it on the table without opening it. As long as the letter lay -on the table unknown she controlled its contents. - -She turned her back to it and watched the branches of the elm tree, -which were stirring again, heavily and ceaselessly, against the fence. -Her needle pricked her finger and a rust-colored stain spread in the bit -of lace which she was mending. The sun burst through the clouds and the -room was filled with the shadowless glare, and with moist intense heat. - -Julia suddenly took up the letter and tore it open with a nervous jerk. -She dropped her needle. Where it fell on the polished floor it made a -tinkling sound like a falling splinter of glass. - -She did not question or analyze Dudley's statement of his mood. All she -knew was that he was flinging her away from him into herself. There was -something composed and final about the letter. When she reread it, it -overcame her with helplessness. The lie she had lived in had burdened -her, and she could not justify her resentment of the suggestion that she -tell the truth. - - * * * * * - -Later in the day Dudley called Julia on the telephone. He wanted to -arrange a meeting with her. He refused to admit to himself that the -strained note he observed in her voice caused him uneasiness. He had to -prove to himself his complete conviction of the righteousness of what he -demanded of her. He suggested a walk in the park, and Julia experienced -a resentful pang of exultance because she imagined that he was not -strong enough to have her come to his rooms. She contemplated, as a -means of defiance, taking him too much at his word. - - * * * * * - -White clouds filled with gray-brown stains flowed over the hidden sky. -Here and there the clouds broke and the aperture dilated until it -disclosed the deep angry blue behind it. In the center of the park the -lake, cold and lustrous like congealing oil, swelled heavily in the -wind, but now and again lapsed with the weight of a profound inertia. -The trees, with tossing limbs, had the same oppressed and resisting look -as they swung toward the water above their dying reflections. - -Julia, seated on a bench away from the path, waited for Dudley to come. -When she saw him far off all of her rose against him. She could not hate -him enough. She subsided into herself like the cold lustrous water drawn -toward its own depths. She felt bitter and shriveled by desperation. She -was unhappy because she could not, at this moment, love herself. - -Dudley was disconcerted by his own excitement as he approached her. -There was something spiritually _gauche_ in the exaggerated simplicity -of his manner. He knew that his affectionate smile was an attempt to -disarm her, and that his combative and questioning eyes showed his -uneasiness. It was hard for him to forgive her when she made him feel -absurd like this. A guilty sensation overpowered him. He considered the -emotion unwarranted, attributed it to her suggestion, and held it -against her as a grudge. At this instant he could allow her no equality -so he made himself feel kind. "Dear!" He took her cold fingers in his -moist plump hand. Their unresponsiveness pained him. He dropped them and -went on smiling at her interrogatively. "I had to talk to you," he said -at last. His voice was subdued. His smile disappeared. He recognized -that he was depressed and wounded. - -Julia wanted to ask him what he expected her to do with her life after -she had told Laurence everything, and it was no longer possible for them -to live in the same house. She had greeted Dudley. Now her mouth took a -sarcastic twist and she found herself unable to speak. She stared -straight at the lake, which was beginning to twinkle with cold lights -under the gray luminous sky. She shivered when Dudley seated himself -beside her. - -Before he could tell her what was in him, he had to harden himself. "I'm -suffering deeply, Julia. You are suffering. I see it. It is only the -little person who doesn't suffer. Why do you resent me? Life is always -making patterns. It has thrown us three--you and me, and your -husband--into a design--a relationship to each other. No matter what -happens we ought to be glad. We may come to mean terrific things to -each other, Julia--all three of us. This is a new experience. We mustn't -be afraid of it." When he noted her set profile he felt querulous toward -her, but he controlled himself and tried to take her hand again. If she -had protested in argument he might have talked to her about the strong -soul's right to truth, and made clearer to himself what, in the darkness -of his own spirit, he had to confess was still a little vague. - -Julia glanced at him. Her gaze was steady and bewildered. "Of course I -owe it to Laurence. I want to talk to Laurence. I would have done this -of my own free will. I loathe the lie I've been living!" She spoke -coldly and vehemently. Tears came into her eyes and she averted her -face. - -Dudley was silent a moment. He twisted his mustache and one of his small -bright eyes squinted nervously. He could not bear the pride of her -mouth. At the moment all pride seemed ugly to him. It was impossible to -call further attention to his pain in the contemplation of renouncing -her while she continued to maintain, almost vindictively, it appeared, -her readiness to abandon herself to him. - -"I can't put what I feel into words, Julia, but it is something very -beautiful and deep. Come, sister, you're not angry with me?" Again he -took her stiff hand in his. She was humiliating him and he would not -forget it. - -Julia wished that she could hurt him in a way which would make it -impossible for him to talk to her so kindly. She did not understand why -the recognition of his absurdity made her suffer so much. - -Dudley had been floundering inwardly through the attempt to avoid facing -the ridiculous. Watching the harsh bitter line of her lips, he noticed -the pulse that swelled and fluttered in her throat. The sight of her -pain, for which he was responsible, made him feel all at once very sure -and complete. He accepted no burden from it, for he told himself it was -a part of her awakening to detached and perfect understanding. He was -grateful to himself that he had an ideal notion of what she might be -that held him cruelly and steadily against all that she was. He felt -voluptuously intimate with her emotions. He could not hurt her enough. -He tried to shut out the recollection of her beautiful gaunt body in its -almost tragic nakedness. "I don't expect you to understand me completely -yet, Julia. One's vision is so warped and tortured by one's desire. All -our terminology of good and bad we use in such a limited personal -sense. We have to get away from that before we can even begin to -function spiritually--to be spiritually at rest. I feel that there are -clouds between us, Julia, but behind them is the great sun of your -understanding. I believe in that. Say something to me!" - -Julia withdrew her hand. "What can I say to you? I am in the habit of -viewing problems very concretely. Let me go. I must go." She stood up, -smiling at him desperately. - -He wanted to destroy the smile behind which she was trying to hide, and -to explain to her that the torture he caused her was the price of his -very nearness. It had been almost a pleasure for him to feel her hand -twitch with repugnance. It was sad that she comprehended so little of -his nature. Yet he was sensible of the helplessness of hatred. Knowing -that she hated him, for the first time he ceased to fear her and could -give himself to uncalculated reactions toward her. He thought that if -she were to remain his mistress in a conventional relation he could not -love her like this. The artist was, after all, he told himself, like the -priest, the mediator between the life of mankind and its mystical -source. - -But Julia moved away without looking at him. He watched her pass along -the edge of the lake, where threads of light as fine as hairs were drawn -hot and trembling across the colorless water. - -Dudley continued to feel embarrassment in his own soul, for he could not -clearly explain to himself the impulses which were governing his acts. -He decided that only through his art would he be able to justify all -that he was when, at the moment of giving Julia back to herself, he was -conscious of possessing her most intensely. He was at his ease only in -the midst of powerful abstractions. There was something elephantine -about his nature that prevented him from being simple or casual in his -moods. If he ever indulged in expressions that were light or commonplace -he was suspicious of his own appearance. He was startled sometimes when -he had to admit the maliciousness of his reactions toward the smaller -souls around him. If he laughed in a gay group his laughter sounded -awkward and strained. Perhaps it was because of his small effeminate -stature that he felt it necessary to hurt people before he could command -their respect. - -At this moment the conviction of his power filled him with an -intoxication of gentleness. He felt that he enveloped Laurence and Julia -as if in the same embrace. That he was beginning to have a peculiar -affection for Laurence proved to him the significance of his own unique -spirit. Realizing completely that neither Julia nor her husband could -approach his understanding, he loved them for their inferiority. As he -walked along the path toward the blank glare where the sun was setting -among black branches, he noticed a terrier puppy rolling in the polished -grass, and had for it something of the same emotion. He loved everything -in relation to which he found himself in a position of advantage. -Approaching thus he believed he could preserve a philosophic detachment -while perceiving what Spinoza called "the objective essence of -things." - - - - -PART II - - -May went to see her Grandmother Farley. May dreaded the visit. When she -arrived there she sat in the dining room, smiling and listening to her -grandmother's talk, and feeling small and mindless as she had felt as a -child. In the old Farley home May was always like that, like something -asleep possessed by itself in a shining unbroken dream. She wanted to -get back to Aunt Julia, who took her life out of her and showed it to -her so that she knew the shape of its thoughts. - -Old Mrs. Farley gave May cookies from the cake box, and Grandpapa -Farley, who did not go to his office any longer, took his granddaughter -into the back yard and showed her his vegetable garden. He was kindly -too, but, when this tall stooping elderly man with his handsome white -head looked with vague eyes at her, she fancied that he also was asleep -and could not see her. She was a little frightened of her silly thoughts -about him. Aunt Julia could have told her what she wanted to say. - -"And how is your father?" Grandmama Farley asked in a dry voice. "We -can't expect him to come to see us very often. His wife is so busy with -clubs and movements she has no time for us and I suppose he can't leave -her." - -May was cautious and timid in the presence of her grandmother. There was -something obscure and remote about the old woman's engrossed face, her -squinting eyes that gazed at one as from an infinitely projected -distance, her puckered lips with their self-righteous twist. May smiled -helplessly, not knowing how to reply. - -"I suppose Mrs. Julia is bringing you up to have the wider interests she -talks about when she is here. You want to vote, I suppose, don't you?" -Mrs. Farley squinted a smile. Her humor had an acrid flavor. - -May giggled apologetically. "I don't think I care much about voting, -Grandmother. I don't think Aunt Julia is trying to make me like anything -in particular." - -"I'm making bread. Your grandfather has to have his bread just right," -Mrs. Farley said. She went into the kitchen. - -May hesitated, then followed her. - -The clean room was full of sunlight. Mrs. Farley took down the bread -pans and began to work the stiff dough on a floured board. Her knotted -fingers sank tremulously into the bulging white stuff. The dough made a -snapping noise when she turned it and patted it. "I suppose it would be -a waste of time for you to learn to make bread, May." - -Behind the old lady the stove was dazzling black with its brilliant -nickel ornaments. The tin flour sifter on the table beside her was -filled with fiery reflections. The stiff white muslin curtains before -the open windows made lisping, scraping noises as the wind folded them -over and brushed them along the lifted panes. Mrs. Farley glanced from -time to time at May, and, with dim hostility, noted the slight angular -little figure seated so ill-at-ease on the rush-bottomed chair, the -darkened eyes with their chronic expression of melancholy and elation, -the heavy braid of flaxen hair that hung with a curious soft weight -between the small stooping shoulders. Mrs. Farley found May's continual -smile, her sweet relaxed lips and the large uneven white teeth that -showed between, peculiarly irritating. "You want another cake, eh?" she -flung out at last with an amused resigned air. Going back into the -dining room, she brought a cake and presented it as though she were -feeding a hungry puppy. - -May, trying to be grateful, munched the cake uncomfortably. She pulled -feebly at the hem of her skirt. Her grandmother made her ashamed of her -legs. - -Grandpapa Farley came up the walk and halted in the back doorway, -bareheaded in the warm sunshine. He was in his shirt sleeves. Beads of -perspiration stood on his high blank brow which might have been called -noble. His big hands, smeared with the earth of the garden, hung in a -helpless manner at his sides. He smiled uncomfortably at May. "Shall we -send your step-mother some lettuce?" - -May rose and walked out to where he waited. His expression had grown -suddenly ruminant, and, as he stared away from her over the back fence, -his eyes were cloudy and unseeing. "Well, May, I can't say she's done -her duty by your grandmother, but she's a fine woman--fine handsome -woman. Laurie was lucky to get her. She'll be able to do a lot for him." -He sighed as though he were relinquishing a vision, and, glancing once -more at May, became kindly aware of her again. - -May had hoped that Aunt Alice would not come downstairs, but there she -was behind them. Grandpapa Farley was uncomfortable if Alice came into a -room when outsiders were present. He saw her now, and, with a guilty -smile, told May he would go to gather his little present. He shambled -down the walk. The sunshine made his bald head lustrous. There was a -glinting fringe of white hair at its base. - -"So it's you, May, is it? How are you? Does Madame Julia think you are -safe with us now?" There was queer hostile pleasure in Aunt Alice's fat -face. - -May's mouth bent with its usual smiling acceptance, but she could not -keep the solemn arrested look of wonder from her eyes. People said Aunt -Alice was odd. There was nothing so strange in what Aunt Alice said. It -was more in something she didn't say but seemed always to have meant. -"I'm well." May squeezed her fingers nervously together. - -Aunt Alice laid her hand on her niece's head and tilted it back. May -shivered a little and her eyelids trembled against the light. "Suppose -you're living the larger life? Imbibing the fine flavor of contemporary -culture, are you?" - -May giggled evasively and wagged her head under the heavy hand. - -"Your step-mother can't stand this congenial atmosphere so she sends -you. She's strong for the true, the beautiful, and the good. Developing -your father's character. Teaching him to flower, is she?" - -May grew bewildered and rather sick. When she opened her eyes she caught -such a cruel secret expression in Aunt Alice's face. Why does Aunt Alice -always hate me? She moved her head from Aunt Alice's hand and gazed at -the burnt grass rocking in the sunshine. She tried to be happy and -amused. - -"Can't look at her, eh?" Aunt Alice said suddenly. "Don't wonder, May. -Ugly old bitch. Did you ever hear of the power and the glory without -end?" - -There were tears trembling on May's lashes. She gave Aunt Alice a quick -stare and laughed. - -Aunt Alice was examining her cautiously. "You're something of a milksop, -May. Keep on being a milksop. The Lord loveth a cheerful giver. But your -legs are too thin. You'll never attain to joy without end with those -legs." - -May did not want to understand what this meant. Something inside her -was trembling and lacerated. She stared directly at Aunt Alice now, -determined not to see her clearly. She could not bear to do so. - -And Aunt Alice's face was calm and kind, resigned and humorous, her eyes -as steady as May's. "Your old aunt is an eccentric creature, May." - -"I don't think so," May said with confused well-meaning. - -Grandpapa Farley was calling from the garden. May was glad to run away -to him. - - * * * * * - -It was a long way home--almost to the other end of town. May felt the -distance interminable. - -When she reached the house she rushed upstairs to Aunt Julia's room. -Aunt Julia was sitting there doing nothing at all. She glanced up with a -tired, distracted air as May came in. May smiled ecstatically, rushed -over to Aunt Julia, threw her arms about her, and in a moment was -weeping with her head in Aunt Julia's lap. - -Julia's fingers moved through May's soft hair that was so thick and -beautiful. She pitied herself that May was so young. May's youth seemed -loathsome and repugnant to her. Because of her loathing, she made her -voice more gentle. "What's the matter, sweet? Did something unpleasant -happen at your grandmother's house?" - -"N-no, nothing. Only I wanted to get away from there. I'm so glad to be -here!" - -Aunt Julia's fingers moved stiffly through May's hair. Why should I -dislike this child! Oh, I'm dying of loneliness! Julia felt that she -could love no one and that she deserved endless commiseration for her -lovelessness. "Don't cry, darling!" Aunt Julia's voice was harsh. "I -should never have let you go there. I know how depressing it is. Your -Aunt Alice is such a pathetic person, isn't she? I know. I know. She -isn't precisely mad, but so dreadfully unhappy. Such a morbid, isolated -life." - -"She makes me so--so--I don't know! Was she always like that? I used to -be afraid of her when I was small." - -"Perhaps so. I don't know, dear. Some man she was in love with, they -say. We won't think about her. When I first married your father I tried -to get her interested in some of the things I was doing at the time, but -she imagines that every one dislikes her. Now don't cry any more, May, -child. You mustn't let your poor father see how your visit has upset -you. He never wants us to go there, but I think we ought. Old Mr. Farley -is such a kind old man and your grandmother was so good to the little -baby that died. Your father has often told me about it. He is grateful -to her for it, I'm sure, though she never understood him and when he was -there with you children he was very miserable. That's one reason I -wanted him to move so far away. I hate for him to have that atmosphere -about him. It makes him think of your poor little mother, too. You know -she was only a girl when she died. Not much more of a woman than you -are, May. I don't think she understood your father very well either, but -he loved her very much. It was such a pity she died. Seemed so useless." -Julia was pained by her own kind words. The malice in her heart hurt -her. She felt that if people were compassionate they could find the -apology for her emotion which she was not able to discover. - -May was gazing up solemnly with tear smudges on her face. Aunt Julia's -beautiful long hand pushed the damp locks away from the girl's high -pearl-smooth forehead. "Oh, Aunt Julia, I love you! I love you! I love -you!" - -"I'm glad, dear." Aunt Julia looked consciously sad and stared at the -carpet. Her fingers continued their half-mechanical caress. - -Suddenly May sprang to her feet, clapped her palms together, and began -to pirouette. Then she ran to Aunt Julia and kissed her again. "I'm so -happy!" In herself she was still recalling Paul's kisses, and in them -escaping the old terror that had possessed her again in her -grandmother's house. - -Julia, convicted of her own brutality, regarded May pityingly. - - * * * * * - -The last semester was over. Paul, carrying his books under his arm, -slouched out of the High School yard, his cap pulled over his face. - -Hell! Those kids! What if he had flunked in several things! He had just -left a group who were betting on next year's football eleven. Next year -by mid-season it would be a college or a business school for him. When -he talked to those boys he tried to joke as they did about life and -"smut". He was only really interested in what they said when they talked -"smut". Then he looked at them curiously and wanted to be like them. - -Like them! Good Lord! They were donkeys. Even the ones who sailed beyond -him in their classes. He wanted them to know what he was--that his -views were outrageous. But there was Felix, a short brown little monkey, -a Russian Jew with excited far-seeing eyes, who enjoyed debating. He -said Paul's vision was warped by his personal problem. Paul tried to -make Felix talk about women. Felix blushed slightly, while his eyes, -bright and remote, remained fixed unwaveringly on Paul's face. Felix -said he respected women as the mothers of the race. He thought the boys -at school had cheap ideas about sexual laxity. That he never was so -utterly strong and possessed of himself as when he put women out of his -mind. Then he could give his whole soul to humanity. - -Paul blushed, yet sneered. Felix! Women! That brat! "Is your father a -tailor or an undertaker, Felix?" Afterward it hurt Paul to remember the -wrong idea of himself which he had been at such pains to impart. It -would be nice to belong somewhere! - -Away from the deserted schoolhouse, Paul strolled into the park. Against -the gleaming afternoon sky that was a dim milky blue, the trees were -shivering. He watched whirling oak leaves that looked black on the high -branches. Stretched on the grass tops, silver spider threads twitched -with reflections. The bright grass, bending, seemed to rush before him -like a blown cloud. Deep blots of shadow were on the lake, where, here -and there, taut strands of light sparkled and broke through the shaken -surface. - -May's step-mother. He kept trying to push that woman away, crowding up -to him with her sanctimonious face. He wanted to do violence to -something. He hated himself. - -When he sat down on the grass and closed his eyes he thought again of -going away. Already he could feel himself inwardly small, like a speck -in distance. The harshly coruscated sea made a boiling sound on the -stern of the ship. Beyond the blue-black strip of water that made his -eyes ache there was a long thin beach with tiny houses on it. He could -hear the dry rustle of leaves and cocoanut fronds. There was rain in the -air and huge masses of plum-colored cloud made a strange darkness far -off over the aching earth. A man in a red shirt ran along the shore, -following, waving something. Then all in a moment it had become night -and there was nothing but the hiss of the sea in the quietness. The glow -from a lamp made a yellow stain on the mist and showed a half-naked -sailor asleep on his side with his head thrown back. - -When Paul saw things like this he was never certain where the vision -came from. He wondered if he had made it himself, or if it were only -something he had read about. The sharpness of his dream pleased and -frightened him. - -He slung his books to one side and buried his face in his hands. He was -miserably conscious of his big grotesque body which he wanted to forget. -Saving the world. Karl Marx. Men that go down to the sea in ships. -Shipped away from here. Shipped as a sailor. He shook himself without -lifting his face. He did not want to hate May, so he hated Aunt Julia -instead. - -White moon blown across his face. It was there when he glanced up. It -floated down through the park trees. Why was it when he thought of May -he saw beautiful full breasts like moons in flower! They floated before -him like lilies. They were in him like the vision of the ship. - -A brown barefooted girl walked toward a hilltop, a water jar poised on -her head. The sky into which she went was like a dove's wing. Sunset -already. And the girl with the water jar kept mounting and going down, -down, down into him, into darkness. He could hear the quiet grass -parting against her feet. He could hear her going into the moon, into -darkness, into the vacant sky beyond the trees. - -He took his hands away from his face and gathered up his books. - -I must instinctively feel something rotten about that step-mother of -May's or I wouldn't have this unreasoning antagonism. The brown girl -passed out of sight on the imaginary meadow. He stared at an overturned -park bench, and at the lake water that made a stabbing spot of emptiness -in the glowing twilight among the trees. - - * * * * * - -Julia's depression continued during the evening meal and Laurence -noticed her silence. In the hallway, as they went up to her sitting room -after dinner, he surprised her by slipping his arm about her shoulders. - -Julia glanced toward him swiftly. Her mouth was strained. She smiled and -lowered her lids. - -"Being married to me isn't a thrilling experience, Julia." - -Julia tried to answer him, bit her lips, and said, "Dear!" in a choked -voice. - -He held her against him uneasily as they walked. Julia wished he would -not touch her as if he were afraid. - -When they mounted the stairs they found her room dark. Laurence released -her and she went ahead of him to find the light. The moon made a long -blue shadow that lay alive on the floor. The bright windows of the -houses opposite seemed to flicker with the moving branches of the trees -that came between. The night air of the city flowed cold into the room -and had a dead smell. They heard the horn of a motor car and children -were laughing in the street. Julia was shivering, fumbling for the -electric lamp. - -Laurence, though he barely saw the outline of her figure, was suddenly -aware of something confused and ominous in her delay. "What's the -matter, Julia? Do you need my help?" His tone was very casual but -gentle. He startled himself. She's unhappy. I need to be kind. He had -been restless, feeling something between them. She must come to me. He -had a quick sense of relief and tenderness. - -The light rushed out and bathed the indistinct walls. The carpet was -bleached with it. There was a circle of radiance low about the desk -where the lamp stood. Julia had not answered. Her shoulders, turned to -him, resisted him. Her head was bent forward, away. She was moving some -papers under a book. Her bare hand and arm appeared startlingly alive, -saffron-colored in the glow, trembling out of the dim blackness of her -sleeve. There were blanched reflections in the lighted folds of her silk -skirt. - -Laurence was all at once afraid, as if he had never seen her before. -"Julia!" He moved a step toward her. - -She turned to him, her hands behind her, palms downward on the desk -against which she braced herself. Her face was old. Her eyes, staring at -him, seemed blind. - -Laurence frowned while his lips twitched in a queer smile. He tried to -speak, but could not. Without knowing why, he wanted to keep her from -speaking. - -She buried her face in her hands. "I have something horrible to tell -you, Laurence." - -Her voice, unexpectedly calm, disconcerted him. Neither had she intended -to speak like that. She wanted her emotions to release her. She wanted -to be confused. The clearness of the instant terrified her. - -Laurence could not ask her what it was. Something hurt him at that -moment more than she could ever hurt him afterward. He wanted the -silence, unendurable as it was, to go on forever. - -Silence. - -He came to her and took her hands from her eyes. It was hard for him to -touch her. Her lids closed. She turned her head aside. - -"What's the matter, Julia? What's happened? Have I done anything to hurt -you? Tell me." - -He seemed to her so far away that she felt it useless to answer him. -Everything that had happened was deep inside her. Neither Laurence nor -Dudley had any relation to it. She knew herself too deeply. It was the -unknown self from which gods were made. There was nothing to turn to. -There was nothing more to know. She watched Laurence now and felt a -foolish smile on her lips. Her hard, concentrated gaze noted nothing -about him. "I've behaved disgustingly, Laurence." - -Laurence watched her. He let his hands fall away. He wanted never to -know what she was going to say. His eyes were on the soft hair against -her cheek. He had the impulse to kiss her there. He hated her already -for the pain of what she was taking away from him. Some helpless thing -in him wanted her and she was killing it cruelly and senselessly. It was -monstrous to take her soft hair and her cheek away from him. - -"I've deceived you, Laurence. I've been carrying on an intrigue without -telling you." Her brows were painfully drawn above her blind hard gaze. -Her smile suggested a sneer at its own agony. "I've had a lover." - -Laurence flushed slowly and regarded her with a dim stare of suffering -and dislike. He could not conquer the impression that her manner was -victorious. He felt that he must ask who her lover was. He thought that -she was degrading him when she made him ask it. "Yes?" His voice sounded -excited, yet calm, almost elated. The voice came from a strange mouth. - -"Dudley Allen," Julia said, and kept the same unhappy, irrational smile. - -"How long did this go on before you made up your mind to tell me? I can -forgive you everything but that, Julia. Why didn't you tell me? You're a -free agent. I have nothing to say about your actions, but I don't think -you had any right to lie to me, Julia." He tried to keep his mind on the -point of justice. He was utterly vanquished and weak. To touch her! To -be near to her! He felt her putting things between them so that he could -never touch her. His mouth was sweet. His suffused eyes had an -expression of stupidity and anguish. - -Julia, observing him, all at once relaxed, and, with a bewildered air, -began to weep, hiding her face again. He envied the sobs which shook her -with relief. She sank into a chair. - -"Don't, Julia. You mustn't do this, Julia. Don't!" He came up to her, -and, with an effort, touched her drooped head. The contact was grateful -to him. Her warm shuddering body reassured him against the dark they -were in. They were both in the same darkness. He wanted to know her in -it where her bright empty words had pierced and gone. - -"How can you bear to touch me?" Julia said. She demanded nothing. -Helpless and waiting, she was clinging to him. Her legs were warm and -weak and tired. She was glad of the chair, and only in terror that -Laurence might go. "Don't leave me, Laurence! Please don't leave me!" - -"I won't leave you, Julia." For a moment he pitied her, but suddenly he -knew how much outside her he was. She was taking no account of him at -all. He needed to resist her as if she were some awful weight. He was so -tired. She was crushing him. He wanted to live. He wanted to be away -from her. "I want to go--not far--out somewhere. I want to be alone for -a while. I have to think things out." - -"I know, Laurence! You can't bear me! I've killed what you had for me!" - -He was annoyed by her unthinking phrases, and that she showed no -knowledge of the new emotion which pain had created in him. It was hard -to leave her in distress, but he felt that he must go to save himself. - -He left the room quietly, and went downstairs and into his study. The -house was still, perhaps empty, but he closed the door after him and -locked it. He was afraid of his own room with its unfamiliar walls. - -He sat down awkwardly in the darkness, aware of his own movements as of -the gestures of some one else. He conceived a peculiar disgust for the -short heavy man who was humped soddenly in the arm-chair. He disliked -the man's clothes, expensive ill-fitting clothes draping a massive body. -Most of all he hated the man's small delicate hands, ridiculous below -his big sleeves. - -Laurence, out of his own fatigue, had abandoned the moral idea, and he -pleased himself now with the bitter lenience of his judgment. He had -known for a long time that Julia was dissatisfied and had even sensed -the pathos in her passing enthusiasms with their glamour of profundity. -He had seen her young and lovely, futile except to him, and, when he had -pitied her passion for the sublime, it had only added a paternal quality -to his feeling for her, so that he loved her more inwardly and quietly. -His unshaken pessimism regarding life had made him more and more gentle -of her when he saw that she yet clung to the things which, for him, had -failed. He perceived now that his very disbelief had been the symbol of -a too complete faith which she had made grotesque. If he had been able -to condemn her, the moral justification would have afforded him an -emotional outlet. He was helpless with a hurt that was his alone. - -Who was he, he said ironically to himself, that he should refuse the lie -with which humanity sustains itself. - - * * * * * - -Dudley wrote Julia that he was grieved that she excluded him from her -confidence. He was suffering deeply and he wanted to be a friend to both -her and Laurence. He had not anticipated anything like her silence. - -When his vanity was wounded he made a fetish of his isolation. He told -himself that he had no place in the superficiality of modern life. He -took a train away from the city and walked along the beach under the hot -gray sky beneath clouds like glaring water. He wanted to avoid his -artist friends. He wished to imagine that they could never understand -him. He was acute in his perception of their weaknesses and was always -defending himself inwardly against discovering their defects in himself. - -He tired himself out and, taking off his coat, sat down on some -driftwood to rest. His black hair clung in sweated curls to his flushed -forehead. The pine boughs above him rocked secretly against the glowing -blindness of the clouds. The bunches of needles, lustrous on the tips of -the branches, were like black stars. The sea was a moving hill going up -against the horizon. It made a slow heavy sound. The small waves sidled -along the shore, opened their fluted edges a little, fan-wise, then -flattened themselves and sank away with lisping noises. - -Dudley was more and more depressed by the constant terrible fear of -having made himself ludicrous. He said to himself that neither Julia nor -her husband would understand him, and he must suffer the -miscomprehension of his motives which would inevitably result from their -lesser experience. The most disconcerting thing was the sudden -retrospective vividness of his physical intimacy with Julia. She seemed -to have become a part of all the abhorrent elements that were -commonplace in his past, elements against which his romantic conception -of his destiny led him to rebel. - -His full lips pouted despairingly beneath his neat mustache shining in -the glare, and there was an aggrieved expression in his small sparkling -eyes. His plump, pretty body made him unhappy. He tried to exclude it. -It was terrible for him to realize ugliness or physical deficiency of -any sort. He never associated this with his weak childhood and the -semi-invalidism which he but vaguely remembered. He had begun so early -to detach his experiences from those of other beings, that it never -occurred to him. Yet if he came in contact with disease in another -creature it left him mentally ill. He never made any attempt to analyze -the violence of his reaction against the sight of sickness. At any rate, -his theory was of a Golden Age and a primitive man who had fallen -through admitting weakness into his psychical life. - -Dudley did not explain the fact to himself, but he knew that his dignity -survived only in his capacity for pain of the spirit. When he was in -agony of mind he never really doubted that his condition was a superior -one, the travail in which the great soul gave birth to its perfection. -At twenty-seven his hair was turning gray and there were lines of -exhaustion and disillusionment about his eyes and mouth. He demanded so -much of himself that it allowed him no spiritual quiet. - -To avoid recognizing the platitudinous details of his love affairs he -submitted himself to mystical tortures. He wanted to leave each incident -of his existence finished and perfect as he passed through it. As much -as he craved admiration, he needed gentleness, but he could not ask for -it. - -He remained on the beach until nightfall. He could not discover in -himself enough grief to release him from the cold misery and absurdity -of everyday human affairs. - - * * * * * - -Between Julia and Laurence, the reflex of their emotional fatigue -expressed itself in a mutual inertia. Except that Laurence showed his -desire to be alone by moving his bed into a small isolated room at the -back of the house, nothing in the order of existence was changed. - -Before the children, Julia spoke to him gently, almost pathetically, and -only now and then dared look at his face. He tried to avoid her guilty -and demanding gaze. If she caught his eyes he would glance quickly and -defensively away with a contraction of his features that he could not -control. - -School was over. "You and the children might go for a month on the -beach," Laurence said. - -And Julia said, "Yes." But she did not make any definite plans. She was -waiting for something which she had never named to herself. - -When she was away from him in her room she went over and over the -succession of events, and wondered if she should leave the house to go -out and earn her living, since she had betrayed Laurence's confidence -and no longer deserved anything at his hands. She sustained the ideas of -conscience to the point of applying for employment with the City Board -of Health, and, some weeks after, a position was given her. But it -seemed an irrelevant incident which resolved nothing. - -If Laurence had imposed difficulties on her she would have justified -herself in facing them. What seemed most horrible now was that -everything was in suspense, and she was cheated of the emotional -cleansing which relieved her in a crisis even where there were ominous -consequences to follow. - -Laurence made a constant effort to escape the atmosphere of anticipation -which her manner created. When he was not with her he fancied he saw -everything clearly. She had always been searching for something apart -from him and she had found it. He decided that it was the clearness and -finality of his vision of her and of himself that left him unable to -create a future. Laurence thought, in language different from Julia's, -that a man comes to the end of his life when he knows himself entirely. -Emotion can only build on the vagueness of expectation. His complete -awareness of the causes of his state allowed him no resentments. He -imagined that he could no longer feel anything toward Julia. He was -conscious of the broken thing in himself. He could not feel himself -going on. There was nothing but annihilating space around him. He -reflected that Julia could intoxicate herself with death, and that he -had no such autoerotic sense. - - * * * * * - -One evening, after an early dinner, May and Bobby ran out, bent on their -own affairs, and left Julia and Laurence in the dining room alone. -Without looking at Julia, Laurence rose. She recognized, beneath his -quiet manner, the furtive haste with which she had become so painfully -familiar. - -She touched his coat. "Laurence?" She picked up some embroidery which -lay on a chair near the table and began to thrust the needle, which had -lain on it, in and out of the coarse-woven brown cloth. She stared down -at her trembling fingers--at the long third finger where the thimble -should be. - -Laurence waited without speaking. When she touched him like that he -could scarcely bear it. Her long hands and her aching, drooping -shoulders were a part of him. Even the sound of her voice was something -that she dragged out of him that he found it hard to endure. He kept his -head bent away from her. His mouth contorted. Frowning, he passed his -fingers slowly across his face and covered his lips. - -"Dudley Allen and I have separated. Everything between us seems to have -been a mistake. I didn't know whether I had made you understand that." -Her voice was weak, almost whispering. As she watched her needle she -pricked herself and a drop of blood welled, slowly crimson, from the -hand that held the cloth. She went on pushing the needle jerkily through -some yellow cotton flowers. The late sunshine was pale in the room. -Nellie was singing in the kitchen. - -Laurence saw the blood spread on the embroidery and make a stain. He was -all at once insanely amused. What she was saying seemed an absurd -revelation of their distance from each other. She never considered him -as distinct from herself. He found it ludicrous. - -His finger tips moved along the edge of the table. He picked up a dish -and set it down. In his heart he knew that Dudley was her only lover, -but he was jealous of his right to suspect that it was otherwise. It -made him cruel toward her when he realized how seldom it occurred to her -that he might disbelieve what she said. "That is your affair--between -you and him, Julia. I'm not interested in it." - -She watched him helplessly. "Laurence, why is it always like this?" - -He saw her hands shaking. He wanted them to shake. All grew dim before -his eyes. He turned quickly from her and walked out of the room. He -could not hurt her. It was terrible not to be able to hurt her. He -fancied that he hated her more because he was so unable to revenge -himself for her manner of ignoring him. - -He went on through the hall into the street. He knew that Julia was -robbing him of the detachment in which he had taken refuge from earlier -suffering. He no longer possessed himself. Not even his own pain -belonged to him. - -He's cast her off so she comes to me. He did not think so, but he wanted -to indulge himself in this belief. He had hitherto controlled a loathing -for Dudley which was unreasoning. Now he resented Dudley for Julia's -sake and could despise her through this very resentment. - -Julia's isolation was pathetic, yet Laurence had only to recall the -physical nature of his emotion when they were together to know that he -could not express his pity for her. He tried to force all intimate sense -of her out of his mind. When he actually considered himself rid of her -he was conscious of being bright and blank like a mirror from which the -reflections are withdrawn, and there was a crazy stirring of laughter -through the emptiness in him. - -He passed along the neat sidewalks, his head bowed. His air of -abstraction was ostentatious. He wanted to enjoy uninterruptedly the -relaxation of self-loathing. There were deep, violet-red shadows on the -newly-washed asphalt street. The treetops were still and glistening -against the line of faintly gilded roofs. The grass blades on the -ordered lawns were green glass along which the quiet light trickled. -Well-dressed children played under the eyes of nurse maids. A limousine -was drawn up in the shrubbery that surrounded a Georgian portico. -Laurence decided that he was relieved by the failure which separated him -from the pretensions of success. - -He recalled the unhappiness of his first marriage, and the depression -he had experienced with his baby's death. It pleased him that he seemed -doomed to fail in every relationship. - -Alice and I are strangely alike after all. He took a grandiose -satisfaction in the delayed admittance that he and Alice were alike. -Wondering if Julia would ultimately leave him, he told himself that he -was the one who ought to go away to save Bobby from the contamination of -such bitterness. - -Of May he somehow did not wish to think. - - * * * * * - -When Dudley communicated with Julia over the telephone her manner was -strained and resentful, and when he wrote her notes she replied to him -with a reserve that showed her antagonism. His curiosity concerning her -and Laurence was becoming painful. He guessed that she was in spiritual -turmoil and he could not bear to be excluded from the consequences of a -situation which he himself had brought about. If he could imagine -himself dictating the course of her life, and of her husband's, it would -not be so hard to forego that physical pleasure in her which had made -him resentful of her, as of all other women. At the same time he fought -off relinquishing any of himself to her necessities. She needed to -grow. She did not belong in her bourgeois environment but she must -escape it alone. He told himself that later she would thank him that he -had been strong for both of them. - -Dudley was utterly miserable in his exclusion. He needed to appear noble -in his own eyes, and to assert his superiority with all those with whom -he came in contact. And this in a world which he knew had become too -sophisticated to believe any longer in the sincerity of the noble -gesture. In a letter to Julia he said, "Spiritually, I too am not well. -My life is not yet right. I can no longer avoid the conviction that I -should live alone. I am meant to have friends, but not to live with any -of them. And against this hold the numberless ways in which my life is -linked with the lives of others. I am in conflict and here goes much of -the energy which should pour into my projected and incompleted works. - -"I find that in several countries of Europe there are conscious groups -of men who feel that I am doing an important work, and that there is -significance in my life and thought. Is that not strange? Is it so, or -is it a freak of the pathos of distance? - -"If I could only resolve this endless conflict within myself! This -rending and spilling of myself in the battle of my wills to be alone and -to live as others do: to be out of the world, and to be normally in it! -It is a classic conflict, but no less mortal for that." - -After he had sent the letter he was uncomfortable because he had written -only of himself, but he dared not consider Julia's attitude. She must -accept his own definition of himself and his acts. - - * * * * * - -Dudley was ashamed of the strength of his interest in the Farleys. When -he was most in love with Julia he did not admit to his friends that she -had any part in his life. Now he was determined to initiate her and -Laurence into his environment. As a protest against their -misunderstanding, he must force them to live through his experiences. -Dudley even decided that when Julia became a part of his world it would -do no harm if it became known that she had been his mistress. Before he -let her go he wished the world to see her with some ineradicable mark -of himself upon her. She must accept his permanent significance in her -life without wanting to be paid for it by some symbol of sexual -possession. He insisted on a meeting with her. They saw each other again -in the park. - -The park on this damp day looked vast and abandoned. The tall buildings, -visible beyond the trees, were far off, strange with mist, as if in -another world. A few drops of rain fell occasionally on the heavy -surface of the lake and the water flickered like gray light. The grass -and the bushes around were vividly still. - -Dudley walked about nervously waiting for Julia to come. He would admit -no fault in his view of her and he could not explain his uneasiness. At -a recent exhibition his pictures had been unfavorably criticized. He -decided that he had not yet accepted the inevitableness of a life of -isolation. - -When he saw Julia coming along the path his eyes filled with tears. It -was cruel that a woman to whom he had opened his heart had closed -herself against him in enmity. He loved her as he loved everything which -had been a part of himself. She was yet a part of him, though she -refused to understand it. She wounded him unmercifully. When she halted -before him and looked at him he tried to forgive her. He fought back too -much consciousness of his small undignified body. "Julia! Aren't you -glad to see me?" - -She allowed him to press her hand. They went on together, side by side. -Dudley was afraid of her cold face. It made him the more determined to -be generous to her and rise above what she was feeling. Psychically he -wanted to touch her with himself. There was a kind of pagan chastity in -her reserved suffering. Such a thing he had never been able to achieve -and he could not bear it in others. "How does your husband feel about -what you have told him, Julia?" His voice shook. - -Julia said, "I think he's too big for both of us. He understands things -that neither of us know." - -Dudley would not allow himself to be jealous. He knew that he must -embrace Laurence's experience in order to rise above it. "If he had the -narrow outlook of the average man of his class he would condemn us both. -Does he condemn me?" - -"I'm sure he condemns neither of us in the sense you mean." - -"I want to see him and talk to him," Dudley said. "I want to be the -friend of both of you, Julia, in a deep true sense. Will he meet me? -Will he talk to me?" - -With a curious shock of astonishment Julia found herself ignored again. -"I don't know. Yes, I think he'll talk to you." Her white throat -strained so that it was corded with tension. She bit her lips. - -Dudley observed this and became elated. He told himself that sympathy -drew him to her, and he wanted to kiss her. But he withheld the kiss. He -could not accept the burden of Julia's deficiencies. If he made a friend -of Laurence Farley it would frustrate her in her undeveloped impulses. -Dudley tried to admire himself for being strong enough to resist her for -the sake of something she did not comprehend and might never appreciate. - -He placed his hand on her arm. "Julia, how do you feel--now--about -him--about you and me?" When she met his eyes, she noted in them the old -expression of impersonal intimacy which ignored all of her but what he -wanted for himself. He could endure everything but her reserve. He knew -that she despised him for not allowing her to suffer alone. He had to -risk that. It was preferable to being excluded from a life which had -belonged to him entirely. He could not bear to return the privacy of -emotion to any one who had appeared to him in spiritual nakedness. - -Julia shivered under his touch. "Why do you oblige me to go through the -humiliation of telling you things about myself that you already see?" - -"You do love me a little, Julia?" - -Julia would not look at him. "You know I love you." - -He was disconcerted for the moment, resenting the mysterious implication -of obligation which he always found in such words. "Sister. Julia. In -the environment where I met you, I never expected to meet a woman who -had your deep reality. We must all go through terrible things to come to -a true understanding of ourselves in the universe. I have been through -just what you are passing through now, Julia. Let me be your friend and -your husband's friend as no one else has ever been?" - -Julia clasped her hands and pressed the palms together. "Of course you -are my friend." She wondered if her feeling of amusement were insane. - -Dudley was unhappy with himself but her visible misery stimulated him in -a way he dared not explain. - - * * * * * - -The windows of Dudley's studio were open against the hot purplish night. -Large, fixed stars shuddered above the factory roofs and the confusion -of tenements. The still room seemed a vortex for the distant noises of -the street. A fire gong clanged alarmingly. Some one whistled. Somewhere -feet were shuffling and the rhythm of a bass viol marked jazz time with -the savage monotony of a tom-tom's beat. There was a sinister harmony in -the discordant blending of sound. - -Dudley, when he opened his door to Laurence, was relieved by a sudden -sense of intimate affection for the man before him. - -Laurence said, "I lost my way. Have I disturbed you by coming so late?" -He held out his hand with a slight air of reluctance. - -Dudley was pained and rebuffed by the pleasant casual manner of his -guest. He would have held Laurence's hand but that Laurence withdrew it. -"I had nothing to do but wait for you," Dudley said. He took Laurence's -hat and stick and drew forward a chair. - -Laurence seated himself with strained ease, and scrutinized a -half-finished picture that leaned on the mantel shelf opposite. "I've -been reading some references to your work lately." As he glanced away -from the study, his mouth twitched slightly and his hard smiling eyes -were full of an instinctive defiance. - -Dudley's inquisitive imagination was fired by the recognition of the -secret voluptuous relationship between them. He held Laurence's gaze -with a passionate expression of understanding which to Laurence was -peculiarly offensive and disturbing. "Inspired idiocy," Dudley said. "I -hope you won't judge me by the banal standards which govern my other -critics." His light tone, as usual, was awkwardly assumed. - -"My unfailing refuge." Laurence reached in his pocket and took out his -pipe. Dudley observed the tension of Laurence's hands that were too -steady. - -A pause. - -Laurence said, "Well--your pictures are interesting. I like them. I -won't subject you to my bromidic attempts at analysis. My appreciation -of art is limited by my training. I'm too factual in my approach to -follow the ebullitions of the modern consciousness." He glanced about -the room again. - -Dudley was disappointed in him, and unhappy in the way a child may be. -It wounded him, that Laurence, like Julia, persisted in excluding him -by means of a false pride. "It is a great deal to me that you are ready -to be my friend. Julia told me." Dudley's eyes were oppressively gentle. - -Laurence did not reply at once. He looked about the room. His glance was -bright with uneasiness. He pressed tobacco into the bowl of his pipe. -His knuckles were white. This visit was an ordeal which the bitterness -of his pride had forced him to accept. He wondered what he must do to -prevent talk of Julia which he could not endure. - -"It seems to me it would have been very absurd if I had refused to be -your friend." He made his gaze steady as he turned to watch Dudley. - -Dudley's negligee shirt was open over his chest which was beaded with -sweat. His face was flushed and his hair clung darkly to his moist -temples. His lips pouted slightly beneath his small glistening mustache. -The expression of his eyes suggested a domineering desire for openness. -He felt that already through Julia's body he knew Laurence's life. The -same virginal pagan quality of pride that had to be overcome in Julia -was in Laurence too. Dudley wanted to perpetrate an outrage of -compassion upon it. "I realized before Julia told me that there was a -side to you altogether different from the one you show to the world." - -Without knowing how to put an end to his humiliation, Laurence said, "I -suppose there is in all of us. You artists have a peculiar advantage in -being able to express yourselves." He put a light to his pipe, blew the -smoke out, and stared at the ceiling. Whenever Dudley mentioned Julia's -name Laurence wanted to repudiate the significance which it held in -common for Dudley and himself. Rather than be included here, he -preferred to think of Dudley and Julia together and himself as separate. - -Dudley was wrapt in the conviction of a dark, almost fleshly, knowledge -of Laurence, and his determination to love was as ruthless as any -hatred. He never had the intimate experience of a personality without -wanting, in a sense, to defile it by drawing it utterly to himself. He -smiled apologetically. "We should never refuse any experience." - -Laurence felt as if he were a woman whose body was being taken. He -sucked at his dry pipe which was extinguished. "Perhaps it is my -limitation which makes it impossible for me to receive everything so -unquestioningly." - -"But you do accept things." - -"Not emotionally. Not in the way you mean." - -Dudley realized that Julia had gone from him. His sense of loss was not -merely in the loss of physical domination. Laurence was as precious as -Julia had been. What was needed was a spiritual possession. Dudley's -method of self-enlargement was through the absorption of others, but he -had a theory of equality. His tyrannous impulses rarely persisted when -equality was disproven. Without admitting it himself, he wanted to -reduce his peers through his understanding of them. Then, too, on this -occasion, his superior comprehension of Laurence might be proof to -himself of Julia's inadequacy. - -Laurence felt nothing but blind proud protest against invasion, and, -when Dudley attempted to discuss their mutual interests, was furtive and -adroit in defense. - - * * * * * - -May told Paul that she believed Aunt Julia was unhappy. He had to -confess to himself that he disapproved of Aunt Julia too much to keep -away from her. He wanted to go to the house where she was. But he had -forgotten her work with the Board of Health, and arrived on an afternoon -when she was not at home. - -May took him to Aunt Julia's sitting room. He loathed the place. He -disliked May when he saw her in it. And when he disliked May it made him -despair. He thought that he had never in his life been so depressed. - -"Aunt Julia's things are so lovely I'm always afraid of spoiling them." -May sat down on the couch among the batik pillows and made a place for -him beside her. Her face was blanched by the bright colors. Her short -skirts drew up and showed her thin legs above her untidy shoes. - -Paul seated himself at the other end and rested his head uncomfortably -against the wall. "I suppose your Aunt Julia calls all these gew-gaws -art." Whenever he tried to be superior some external force of evil -seemed to frustrate his effort. - -"Now, Paul, they're lovely!" - -"I wonder how Aunt Julia relates this fol-de-rol to her soulful interest -in the working class." - -"But some of it's only tie dye, Paul. She did it herself out of an old -dress." - -Paul was baffled, but he preserved the sneer on his lips. Humming under -his breath, he tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling. - -"I hope you've decided not to go 'way, Paul, like you told me last -time. If you go away without telling them--your uncle and aunt--you're -only eighteen--it will hurt them so." She could not look at him, for her -eyes were full of tears. - -Paul knew that she was suffering. Silly little thing! He went on -humming, but interrupted himself to say, "Nothing but their vanity has -ever been hurt by anything I've done. They want me to go on and study -medicine--or law. What for? I don't care what becomes of me." - -May bit her lips and twisted her fingers together. When Paul talked -recklessly she knew that it was wicked because it hurt so much. It made -her unhappy to be told that one needed to explain what one felt. She -could not understand the thing that was good if it did not make one -glad. It never occurred to her to try to justify herself before some -obscure principle. Yet others had convinced her of her lack and she was -in a continual state of apology toward them because so much was beyond -her. She loved Aunt Julia. She wanted Paul to love her. - -May wondered if Paul despised her because she never resented it when he -kissed her. But the suspicion of his contempt, while it confused her, -did no more than emphasize her conviction of helplessness. - -Suddenly Paul ceased humming. He leaned toward her and took her hand. -She pretended not to notice, but she was happy. Her fingers in his grew -cold and covered with sweat. "I think you're unkind to them, Paul." Her -voice shook. There was a waiting feeling in her when he touched her. - -She made him sick of himself. Silly little thing! He dropped her hand as -if he had forgotten it. He was hunched forward now with his knees -crossed. He watched the floor where, in the bright afternoon light, dark -patches were moving. There was a curious evil expression in his furtive -eyes. His hair was rumpled in a colorless thatch across his head. His -mouth was babyish. "That reminds me of a story--" Paul began. He paused -a moment with a flickering sneer on his lips. Aunt Julia, damn her! All -of him was against May. In spite of his ugly look, his rumpled hair and -childish mouth were disarming. - -May was uncomfortable. She did not understand why he hesitated. "Go on." - -He glanced at her and was irritated by the air of uneasiness which came -to her whenever she was uncertain. Why couldn't she laugh! Aunt Julia's -brat! He wanted to punish her. She saw his uneven blush of defiance. - -He began to speak quickly. "Oh, a story--about a woman and a monkey." He -went on. His eyes were wicked and amused. When he had finished he -whistled and gazed at the ceiling again. - -May did not understand the story, but she felt that he told it to -embarrass her and make her sad. - -There was silence when he had done, until, with white face and strained -lips, he resumed his whistling. In his irritation with her he wanted to -cry. "Why don't you laugh?" he asked finally. - -May blushed. Her lashes were still wet, her lips tremulous. She -stuttered, "I--I can't." - -He jumped to his feet and jerked up the cap he had thrown aside. -"Good-by." - -"Why, Paul, what's the matter? You're not going? What for?" He was -halfway to the door before May recovered herself and stood up. - -"I was going to meet a fellow this afternoon. I'll let you pursue your -juvenile way undefiled." He hesitated, sneering, not seeing her. - -May could not speak at once. "Please don't go." - -When at last he glanced at her there was mist in his eyes. "Why not?" He -saw that she was smiling as if across the fear that was in her look. He -resented her fear and he loved her for it. Oh, little May! He loved her. - -"Because--because! You were angry with me when I didn't laugh." She -accused him. Why did he watch her so intently yet unseeingly? She felt -his look as something which drew her inward, into herself, too deep. - -"I'm not angry with you, May. Honestly, I'm not." In a dream he came -near her: her thin small figure, her pointed face, her bright blank -eyes, frightened and sweet. He came near her pale thick hair where it -was caught away from her temples. As she turned to him he could see the -end of her braid swinging below her waist. He was aware of her legs, -with the straight calves that showed below her skirt, and of her breasts -pointed separately through her sailor blouse. Everything that he saw was -a part of something that was killing him. That was why he did not love -her. She was too young. Because of this he hated her. She was like -himself. He had to hate her. To save himself from the sense of dying -and being utterly lost, he had to hate her. Though it was Aunt Julia's -fault. He knew that. - -All those books! He had tormented himself trying to understand them. Two -years ago he hid under the mattress the picture of the fat woman. -Childish. He abhorred the picture of the naked woman as he abhorred his -Aunt with her filthy priggishness. He remembered that long ago when he -asked her something he wanted to know she called him a dirty little boy. -Poor kid! He was sorry for himself. It was all a part of Julia and the -world and something that was killing him because there was no truth or -beauty in life. They went on smiling in their ugliness, torturing the -beautiful things and making them ugly like themselves. He would kill -himself. He did not belong in this ugly cruel world. - -White little May, white like a moon. Like snow and silence under the -trees. Snow and silence and rest forever and ever. Forever and ever. -Rest! Rest! - -May let him touch her. For a moment she was happy in a bright blank -eternal happiness that was an instant only. Then she was cold and alone -and afraid of him: of his face so hot and close, the queer look in his -eyes, and of his hands that she could not stop. - -"Oh, Paul," she kept saying, half sobbing. "Please, Paul! Don't. Oh, -don't, don't! Please, Paul, don't!" - -When he drew her down beside him and they rested together on the couch -she felt the hot nap of the cloth cover, stiff against her cheek. It -seemed to her that the afternoon light was terrible in the still room. -Bobby had a new canary bird and Aunt Julia had hung the cage inside the -window. The bird hopped from the perch to the cage floor, from the floor -to the perch, and the thud of its descent was monotonously reiterated. -Occasionally seeds fell in a series of ticks against the polished -wainscot. Beyond Paul's head, May looked into the pane above the bird -cage, and the glass was like a melted sun. On either side of the glowing -transparent squares, the yellow curtains were slack. May fancied that -Bobby was on the stairs and that she could hear old Nellie moving about -in the kitchen below. - -The heat in the room made May cold. Paul's hot face against her cheek -burnt like ice. She was dead already, shriveled in the cold heat. She -pushed at him feebly. She could scarcely hear her own words that told -him to stop. They were just a low buzzing from her cold dead lips. Paul -was making her aware of herself, of her body that she did not know, that -now she could never forget. - -He was crying. It astonished her that he was crying, but she felt -nothing except a cold burning sensation that came from the warmth of his -tears slipping across her face. She was surprised that he cried so -silently. Now he lay still against her with his face in her hair. His -stillness was too deep. She could not bear it. Her body was cramped and -stiff. She felt his heart beating against her like an echo of her own, -and above it she heard the clicking of the traveling clock on Aunt -Julia's desk, and the creaks of the woodwork on the stairway and in the -hall. - -If somebody came she would lie there forever. She was dead. She wanted -to think she was dead. - -But nobody came. - -She shut her eyes again, and after what seemed a long time she knew that -Paul was getting up and going away from her. She closed her eyes tighter -so that she might not see him. - -When he tip-toed across the room he made the floor shake. May's shut -eyes with the sun on them were sightless flaming lead under her lids. -She turned a little and hid her face in a pillow, wondering where Paul -was, waiting for him to go so that she could bear it. All at once she -knew that he had come out of somewhere and was standing beside her in -the light looking down. - -He leaned over and whispered, "Get up, May! Somebody 'ull come in and -find you lying there!" - -His voice was frightened. She wondered why he was afraid. It made her -sick with his fright. He added, "I love you." - -When he said, "I love you," she was, without explaining it to herself, -ashamed for him. She did not answer. She was conscious of his -stealthiness. It oppressed her. She would not let him see her face. When -the floor shook again she knew he was going out. She waited to hear his -footsteps on the stairs and the slam of the front door. Then she pushed -herself to her elbow and glanced about. In her new body she was strange -with herself. She stood up and smoothed her rumpled dress quickly and -guiltily. Then she ran out of the room and upstairs to her own garret. - -When the door was locked she threw herself on the bed on her face. The -darkness of the pillow was cool to her eyes and to her whole soul. She -wanted her throbbing body to lie still in the cool dark. She felt that -she was ugly and terrible in her disgrace. She wanted to ask Paul to -forgive her because she had behaved as she had. Sobbing into the -bedclothes, she kept murmuring to herself, "I love him! I love him! Oh, -I love him!" - - * * * * * - -To defend his vanity, Paul thought of himself as outcast and desperate. -He wanted to invite the sense of tragedy in himself. He felt numb and -despoiled. In the intensity of his misery earlier in the day there had -been, after all, a kind of promise. Now May had gone away from him as if -she were dead. The thought of Aunt Julia gave him only dull repugnance. -He hoped doggedly that no one had known about it when he was with May. -Beyond that he could not care. - -When he reached home he went up to his room and, though it was yet -afternoon, he fell asleep soddenly without a dream. Before, his fatigue -had been sharp and hungry. Now he was only tired of his own emptiness -and stupidity. - -At the dinner hour he was called downstairs. Blaming his aunt and uncle -for his own fears, he entered the dining room with a hang-dog air. His -food was tasteless. There seemed nothing to think about until his uncle -glanced at him. Guilt permeated Paul. He was hot and angry. - -After the meal he went upstairs and hid himself in the dark. He wondered -if any of the beautiful things he had dreamed about existed. Everywhere -was inflated dullness. He dwelt on this until he astonished himself by -finding a faint pleasure in his reflections. He decided that the stars -he saw through the window were burning nettles, and that they pricked -his glance when he looked at them. Suddenly there was something -substantial and satisfying in his very self-contempt. He decided that he -was no better than Julia, and that he detested her and himself for the -same reason. It was peculiarly soothing to perceive his own courage in -self-condemnation. In despising himself he unclothed himself and he was -with her in spiritual nakedness, which somehow took on a fleshly image -so that he dared not think of it too clearly. - - * * * * * - -Laurence forced himself to be alone with Julia. He went into her sitting -room casually and took up a book, but when he was seated he did not -read. His elbow rested on the arm of the chair and he held his head to -one side with his brow laid against his palm. - -It was Sunday. Dry hot air blew into the room from the almost deserted -street. Now and then the window curtains swelled slightly with the -breeze. The canary's cage hung in the light near the ceiling. The -sunshine slipped in wavering lines across the gilded bars. The bird -tapped with its beak on the sides of the cage which oscillated with its -quick motions. Sometimes it flew to its swing that moved with a jerk, -and a shower of seeds rattled lightly against the sill below. - -Julia had drawn a chair up to her desk and spread before her the -materials for letter writing. The pen lay idle in her relaxed fingers. -Laurence tried to be unaware that she was watching him. "Laurence." - -He stirred a little. It was hard to look at her. "Yes?" His smile was -cold and uneasy. He was not ready to talk with her about himself. - -Julia rose and came toward him. He glanced away. - -When she stood by him she placed her hand on his. He made an effort not -to withdraw his fingers. When he lifted his face to her his expression -was kind and obscure. He seemed to draw a veil across himself. - -"I can't bear it, Laurence!" She knelt down beside him. She wanted him -to hurt her against his will. If she could rouse him against her she -could endure it. - -Laurence cleared his throat. He knew that he cringed when she touched -his sleeve. He thought her voice sounded rich and strong with pain. -Women were like that. "Can't bear what?" He realized that his subterfuge -was absurd, but he smiled at her again. - -She did not answer. Her eyes were steady with reproach. Her throat -swelled with repressed sobs. "Why can't we be frank about things, -Laurence? We can't go on like this always. I know I have no right here. -I ought to go away! I know I ought. Somehow I haven't the courage." - -He moved his arm away and stared out of the window. The smile went from -his eyes. His gaze was vacant and fixed. "I don't ask you to go, Julia." -His face twitched. His whole body showed his breaking resistance. Yet -she knew that he would not relent. - -"But you don't ask me to stay. It is painful to you to have me here, -Laurence." - -For a moment he compressed his lips without answering her. "I think you -must decide everything for yourself. Your life is your own. You have -told me that one of my mistakes in the past was in condescending to you -and attempting to impose my own negative views upon you." - -"But, Laurence, how can I decide a thing like this as if it were -unrelated to you? If you would only talk to me! If you didn't consider -everything that happens between us as if it were irrevocable!" - -Laurence's expression softened. He turned his head so that she could not -see his eyes. "I react slowly, Julia. I can't arrive at a set of -difficult conclusions and then upset them in a moment." He sat stiffly, -looking straight before him. - -Julia got up and began to walk about, pressing the fingers of one hand -about the knuckles of the other. "It's killing me!" she said. "It's -killing me!" - -Laurence suffered. He stood up like an old man. "In a few weeks the -children are going off to school. Don't you think it would be better for -their sakes if we waited until then to untangle our affairs?" - -Julia came to him again. She saw that his eyes swam in a dull moist -light. Self-reproach made her giddy. In condemning herself she was -almost happy. She observed how, involuntarily, he drew away from her. "I -won't touch you, Laurence." She was aware of the injustice and cruelty -of what she said. No suffering but her own seemed of any consequence to -her. - -"You have no right to say that, Julia." - -"I know it. Kiss me, Laurence. Say that you forgive me." - -"How can I? What is there to forgive?" He kissed her. His lips were hard -with repugnance. She welcomed the bitterness that was in his kiss. He -said, "I have to think of myself, Julia." - -She did not know how to reply. He went out of the room, not looking at -her again. - -She felt naked and outrageous. She wanted to fling away what she thought -he did not treasure. When the pulse pounded in her wrists and temples -she fancied that her horror could not burst free from itself. - -Her sick mind found pleasure in destroying its own illusions. It seemed -absurd that, having rejected so many gods, she had made a god of -herself. When her reflections became most bitter she grew calm and -exalted. Her blood ran light. Having destroyed her world, her disbelief -somehow survived as if on an eminence. - -However, her emotions rejected their own finality. She felt that she had -to go on somewhere outside herself. - - * * * * * - -May waited in vain for Paul to come back. She convinced herself that she -was not good. When she believed in her own humility she was not afraid -to admit that she wanted to see him. She was unhappy now with her own -body. As soon as she saw her little breasts uncovered she felt -frightened and ashamed and wanted to hide herself. When she was alone in -her room she cried miserably, but as soon as her tears ceased to flow -she lay on her bed in an empty waiting happiness, thinking of Paul. She -recalled all that related to him since she had first known him. It gave -her a beautiful happy sense of want to remember him so distinctly. -However, when her thoughts arrived at the memory of the last thing that -had occurred between them she imagined that she wished him to kill her -so that she need no longer be ashamed. - -I want to be dead! I want to be dead! She said this over and over into -her pillow. Her beautiful pale braid of hair was in disorder. Her thin -legs protruded from her wrinkled skirts. She lifted her small -tear-smudged face with her eyes tight shut. - -May wanted to tell Aunt Julia, but dared not. She knew Aunt Julia was -sad, though she did not know why. Aunt Julia, however, resisted -confidences. When she came in from work and found May waiting for her in -the hall or on the stairs Aunt Julia made herself look tired and kind. -"Well, May, dear, how are you? You seem to be a very bored young lady -these days. Your father is thinking of sending you away to school when -Bobby goes. How would you like that?" And she smiled in a perfunctory -far-away fashion. - -May saw that Aunt Julia was in another world and did not want her. "I -don't care. Whatever you and Papa decide. I'm an awful ninny and should -be terribly homesick." - -"That would be good for you. You must learn to be self-reliant." Without -glancing behind her, Aunt Julia passed quickly up the stairs and -disappeared into her room. The door shut. - -To May it was as if Aunt Julia knew everything already and put her -aside because of what she had done. She was dead and corroded with -shame. Lonely, she wandered out into the back yard. The sky, in the late -sunshine, was covered with a pale haze like faint blue dust. A shining -wind blew May's hair about her face and swirled the long stems of uncut -grass. The seeded tops were like brown-violet feathers. Beyond the roofs -and fences the horizon towered, vast and cold looking. - -May wanted it to be night so that she could hide herself. She knew -Nellie was in the kitchen doorway watching her. She wanted to avoid the -eyes of the old woman. Paul could not love her while she was despised. - -White clothes on a line were stretched between the windows of the -apartment houses that overhung the alley. The bleached garments, soaked -with blue shadow, made a thick flapping sound as the wind jerked them -about. When the sun sank the grass was an ache of green in the empty -twilight. May thought it was like a painful dream coming out of the -earth. She was afraid of the fixity of the white sky that stared at her -like a madness. She knew herself small and ugly when she wanted to feel -beautiful. If she were only like Aunt Julia she would not be ashamed. - -It grew dark. She loved the dark. There was a black glow through the -branches of the elm tree against the fence. The large stars, unfolding -like flowers, were warm and strange. In the enormous evening only a -little shiver of self-awareness was left to her. She tried to imagine -that, because she was ugly and impure, Paul had already killed her. The -strangeness and exaltation she felt came to her because she was dead. -She loved him for destroying her. - - * * * * * - -Dudley gave up the attempt to take Laurence into his life. Dudley had -insisted on seeing the Farleys several times, but the result of these -meetings was always disappointing. What he considered their small hard -pride erected about them a wall of impenetrable reserves. He pitied them -in their conventionality. They regard me, he thought, as a wrecker of -homes, and the fact that I have been Julia's lover prevents them from -recognizing me in any other guise. - -He felt that he was learning a lesson. He must avoid destructive -intimacies. If he gave, even to small souls, he had to give everything. -In order to save himself for his art he must learn to refuse. He was in -terror of love, in terror of his own necessities, and afraid of meeting -acquaintances who, with the brutality of casual minds, could shake his -confidence in himself by uncomprehending statements regarding his work. - -He grew morbid, shut himself up in his studio, and refused to admit any -validity in the art of painters of his own generation. He persuaded -himself that he was the successor of El Greco and that since El Greco no -painter had done anything which could be considered of significance to -the human race. He would not even admit that Cézanne (whom he had -formerly admired) was a man of the first order. He was a painter, to be -sure, but Dudley could ally himself only with those whose gifts were -prophetic. - -His imaginings about himself assumed such grandiose proportions that he -scarcely dared to believe in them. To avoid any responsibility for his -conception of himself he was persuaded that there was a taint of madness -in him. Rather than awaken from a dream and find everything a delusion, -he would take his own life. He lay all day in his room and kept the -blinds drawn, and was tortured with pessimistic thoughts, until, by the -very blankness of his misery, he was able to overcome the critical -conclusions of his intelligence. He did not eat enough and his health -began to suffer. His absorption in death drew him to concrete visions of -what would follow his suicide. He was unable to close his eyes without -confronting the vision of his own putrid disintegrating flesh. In his -body he found infinite pathos. As much as he wanted to escape his -physical self, it was sickening to think of leaving it to the -indignities of burial at the hands of its enemies. - -The idea of suicide, haunting him persistently, aroused a resistant -spirit in him. He exaggerated the envies of his contemporaries. He -fancied that they feared him far more than they actually did and were -longing for his annihilation. He decided that something occult which -originated outside him was impelling him toward self-destruction. In -refusing to kill himself he was combating evil suggestions rather than -succumbing to his own repugnance to suffering and ugliness. - -While he was in this frame of mind some one sent him a German paper that -was the organ of an obscure artistic group. In this journal, -insignificantly printed, was a flattering reference to Dudley. He was -called one of the leaders of a new movement in America. He read the -article twice and was ashamed of the elation it afforded him. He could -not admit his deep satisfaction in such a remote triumph. With a sense -of release, he indulged to the full the vindictiveness of his emotions -toward his own countrymen--those who were fond of dismissing him as -merely one of the younger painters of misguided promise. - -However, the praise from men as unrecognized as himself encouraged his -defiance to such a point that he resumed work on a canvas which he had -thrown aside. His own efforts intoxicated him. He refused to doubt -himself. Life once more had the inevitability of sleep. He knew that he -was living in a dream and only asked that he should not be disturbed. - -He needed to run away from the suggestion of familiar things. He decided -to go abroad again and wrote to borrow money of his father. Dudley made -up his mind to avoid Paris where, as he expressed it, the professional -artist was rampant. He wanted to visit the birthplace of a Huguenot -ancestor who had suffered martyrdom for his religion. It stimulated him -to think of himself as the last of a line whose representatives had, -from time to time, been crucified for their beliefs. - - * * * * * - -Two endless streams of people moved, particolored, in opposite -directions along the narrow street. The high stone buildings were tinged -with the red of the low sunshine. Hundreds of windows, far up, catching -the glare, twinkled with the harsh fixity of gorgon's eyes. Beyond -everything floated the pale brilliant September sky overcast by the -broad rays which stretched upward from the invisible sun. - -Julia, returning from the laboratory, hesitated at a crowded corner and -found Dudley beside her. - -"This is pleasant, Julia. I've been wanting to see you and Laurence -Farley. I'm sailing for Europe next week, and I should have been very -much disappointed if I had been obliged to go off without meeting you -again." He tried to speak easily while he looked at her with an -expression of reproach. Julia smiled and held out her hand. There was a -defensive light in her eyes which he interpreted as a symptom of -dislike. He wanted to convince himself that every one, even she, was -completely alienated from him. All that fed his pain strengthened his -vacillating egotism. - -Julia noted the familiar details of his appearance: his short arms in -the sleeves of a perfectly fitting coat; the plump hairy white hand -which reached to hers a trifle unsteadily; his short well-made little -body that he held absurdly erect; the wide felt hat that he tried to -wear carelessly, which, in consequence, was slightly to one side on the -back of his head and showed his dark curls; the childishly fresh color -which glowed through the beard in his carefully shaven cheeks; his small -full mouth that sulked in repose but when he smiled displayed -exaggeratedly all of his little even teeth; his prettily modeled, -womanish nose; the silky reddish mustache on his short lip; and his -soft, ingratiating, long-lashed eyes. Everything in his appearance -disarmed her resentment of him. Yet she knew that if she expressed -anything of her state of mind he would take advantage of her -vulnerability. She was prepared to see his gaze harden toward her and -his demeanor, puerile now, become ruthless and commanding. She could not -analyze the thing in herself that made her so helpless before him. She -was able, she thought, to observe him coldly. She withdrew her hand -from his and said, "So you are going away again? I am glad for your -sake. I know how America must irk you. Even from my viewpoint I can see -that it is the last country for an artist." At the same moment her heart -contracted and she told herself that there was something false and -monstrous in Dudley which suppressed her natural impulse to be frank in -stating what she felt for him. - -Dudley walked beside her. She wants me to go away! He insisted on -believing this. To know that she continued to suffer, however, comforted -him as much now as it had in the past. He sensed that she had, in some -remote way, remained subject to him. Because of this she was dear. When -he remembered that, but for this accidental meeting, he would not have -communicated his departure to her he was momentarily panic-stricken. He -no longer wished to detach himself from her. - -"Tell me about your work. What are you doing now?" - -He took her arm. "I can't talk about my work, Julia. Something goes out -of me that ought to go into the work when I talk about it too much. -That's my struggle--my fight. It's terrifying at times. I know all the -hounds are baying at my heels. When I go abroad this time I am going to -avoid Paris. I know dozens of cities. Paris is the only one which is a -work of art. That's why I am going to keep away. I am through with the -finality of that kind of art. I am going abroad to feel how much of an -American I am. That's why I hate it so. It's in me--a part of me. I -can't escape it. I must express it. That is my salvation--in belonging -to America." It was almost irresistible to tell her some of the -conclusions he had arrived at to comfort himself, but he knew that Julia -never approached a subject from a cosmic angle. She made him feel small -and unhappy and full of a homesickness for understanding. In her very -crudity she was the life he had to face. "I want to talk to you about -yourself, Julia. There are clouds of misunderstanding between us. We -mustn't leave things like this." He pressed her arm against his side. - -She was ashamed before a stout woman who was passing who showed, by the -expression of dull attention in her eyes, that she had overheard his -remark. In this atmosphere of public intimacy Julia felt grotesque. "I -can't talk about myself, Dudley. Don't ask me. You've put me out of -your life. Why should you be interested?" - -He was conscious of the stiffening of her body as she walked beside him -and observed the forced immobility of her face. Emerging from the -self-loathing which was an undercurrent to his vanity, he was grateful -to her for allowing him to hurt her. He began to wonder if he were not, -at this instant, realizing for the first time the significance of his -relationship to her--not its significance in her life, but its -significance in his own. He admitted to himself the cruelty of his -feeling for her. He wanted to torture her, to annihilate her even. It -pleased him to discover in himself enormous capacities for all things -that, to the timid-minded, constitute sin. He must embrace life without -moral limitations. "Julia, my dear--you must not misunderstand my -feeling for you. I want you--want you even physically--as much as I ever -did." His voice shook a little. "It is only because I understand now -that I must refuse myself much. I have found just this last month a -marvelous spiritual rest which makes living deeply more acceptable." - -Julia had never felt more contemptuous of him. "What I have to say -would only convince you of my limitations." - -"Don't be childish, Julia. You don't want to understand me. We can't -talk in the street. Come to my studio for half an hour." He could not -let her go away from him yet. - -Julia's pride would not allow her to object. - -On the way they passed an acquaintance of Dudley's. Dudley could not -explain to himself why he was ashamed of being seen with Julia. He -wanted to hurry her through the street. - -In the oncoming twilight the brilliant shop fronts were vague with -glitter and color. Above the glowering tower of an office building a -blanched star twinkled among faded clouds. When they reached Dudley's -doorstep Julia began to feel morally ill and to wonder why she had come. -As Dudley watched her mount the long green-carpeted stairs before him he -was suddenly afraid of her. - -They entered the studio. It was almost dark in the big room. The canvas -that Dudley was working on stood out conspicuously in the translucent -gloom that filtered through the skylight. He crossed the floor and -furtively threw an old dressing gown over the painting. - -Julia found herself unable to speak. When she discerned the lounge she -sat down weakly upon it. - -Dudley stumbled over the furniture. He wanted to evade the moment when -he must find the lamp. "Take off your wrap, Julia. I can't find matches. -I seem to have mislaid everything. I am a graceless host." His own voice -sounded strange to him. - -When at last he struck a match, Julia said, "Don't!" and put her hands -to her eyes. The flame, which, for an instant, had blindly illumined his -face, went out. Dudley could not bring himself to move. The evening sky, -dim with color, was visible through the windows behind him, and above -the sombre roof of the factory that rose from the courtyard his figure -was thrown into relief. Objects over which there seemed to brood a -peculiar stillness loomed about the room. - -The tension was intolerable to them both. They were experiencing the -same nausea and disgust of their emotions--emotions which seemed -inevitable for such a moment and so meaningless. Dudley said, "Where are -you? I'm afraid of stumbling over you." - -Julia, a hysterical note in her voice, answered, "Here I am, Dudley." -She knew that he was coming toward her. She wanted to die to escape the -thing in herself which would yield to him. But at this instant the light -flashed on and everything that she was feeling appeared to her as -unjustifiable and ridiculous. - -To Dudley, Julia's body represented all the darkness of self-distrust -and the coldness of his own worldly mind. He wished that her personality -were more bizarre so that he might regard his past acts as mad rather -than commonplace. He did not know why he had brought her to the studio -and was ashamed to look at her. There was nothing for it but to admit -the duality of his nature, and that half of it was weak. He longed to -hasten the time of sailing when he would begin completely his life alone -in which nothing but the artist in him would be permitted to survive. He -said, "Is it too late for me to make you some tea? Let me take your -wrap." When he approached her he averted his gaze. - -"I can't stay long, Dudley. It is better that I shouldn't." She wanted -to force on him an admission of her defeat. If she could only reproach -him by showing him the destruction of her self-respect! Her eyes were -purposely open to him. He would not see her. She resented his -obliviousness. "You seem to me a master of evasion." - -When he sat down near her, he said, "Let it suffice, Julia, that I take -the hard things you want to say to me as coming from a human being whom -I respect and care for enormously--and I still think everything fine -possible between us provided you accept in me what I have never doubted -in you--my absolute good faith, and my absolute desire, to the best of -my powers, to be honest and sincere in every moment of our relationship, -past and present." - -Julia gave him a long look which he obliged himself to meet. Then she -got up. "I can't stay, Dudley. You won't understand." She turned her -head aside. Her voice trembled. "It's painful to me." - -He rose also, helplessly. He wanted to wring a last response from her. -It was impossible. Everything seemed dark. He would not forgive her for -going away. - -Julia took up her wrap from a chair and went out hastily without looking -back. - -Dudley felt a swift pang of despair. Not because she was gone, but -because her going left him again with the problem of reviving the -hallucinations of greatness. It was not easy for him to deceive -himself. He could do so only in the throes of emotions which exhausted -him. In moments of unusual detachment he perceived the faults in himself -as apart from the real elements of genius that existed in his work. But -he was not strong enough to continue his efforts for the sake of an -imperfect loveliness. Only in spiritual drunkenness could he conquer his -susceptibility to the nihilistic suggestions of complacent and -unimaginative beings. - - - - -PART III - - -Julia and Laurence were to dine with Mr. and Mrs. Hurst. Of late -Laurence had shown an unusual measure of social punctiliousness. Julia -realized that his new determination to see and be with people was a part -of his resistance to suffering. She thought bitterly that his regard for -the opinions of others was greater than his regard for her. - -Julia put on a thin summer gown, very simply made, a light green sash, -and a large black hat. Her misery had pride in itself, but when she -looked in the glass she was pleased, and it was difficult to preserve -the purity of her unhappiness. As she descended the stairs at Laurence's -side she felt guiltily the trivial effect of her becoming dress. She -wanted him to notice her. "I'm afraid we are late." - -His fine eyes, with their sharp far-away expression, rested on her -without seeming to take cognizance of her. "I hope not. Mrs. Hurst is a -hostess who demands punctuality." He spoke to her as to a child. There -was something cruel in his kindness. For fear of exposing himself he -refused her equality. - -If he would only love her--that is to say, desire her--Julia knew that -she would be willing to make herself even more abject than she had been, -and that it would hurt her less than his considerate obliviousness. -Laurence had ordered a taxi-cab. The driver waited at the curbstone in -the twilight. He turned to open the door for the two as they came out. -Julia was avidly, yet resentfully, aware of his surreptitious -admiration. She told herself that her sex was so beggared that she -accepted without pride its recognition by a strange menial. - -It was a beautiful cool evening. The glass in the taxi-cab was down. The -cold stale smell of the city, blowing in their faces, was mingled with -the perfume of the fading flowers in the park through which they passed. -The trees rose strangely from the long dim drives. Here and there -lights, surrounded by trembling auras, burst from the foliage. Far off -were tall illuminated buildings, and, about them, in the deep sky, the -reflection was like a glowing silence. The wall of buildings had the -appearance of retreating continually while the cab approached, as if the -huge blank bulks of hotels and apartment houses, withdrawing, held an -escaping mystery. - -Laurence scarcely spoke. Julia's sick nerves responded, with a feeling -of expectation, to the vagueness of her surroundings. Her heart, beating -terrifically in her breast, seemed to exist apart from her, unaffected -by her depression and fatigue. It was too alive. She cried inwardly for -mercy from it. - -Mrs. Hurst's home was a narrow, semi-detached house with a brown-stone -front and a bow window. From the upper floor it had a view of the park. -When Julia and Laurence arrived, a limousine and Mr. Hurst's racer were -already drawn up before the place. There were lights in one of the rooms -at the right, and, between the heavy hangings that shrouded its windows, -one had glimpses of figures. - -Laurence said sneeringly, "Hurst has arrived, hasn't he! Affluent -simplicity in a brown-stone front. You are honored that Mrs. Hurst is -carrying you to glory with her." - -Julia said, "But they really are quite helpless with their money, -Laurence. Mrs. Hurst has a genuine instinct for something better." - -"How ceremonious is this occasion anyway? I don't know whether I am -equal to the frame of mind that should accompany evening dress." - -"There will only be one or two people. Mrs. Hurst knows how we dislike -formal parties." - -Mr. Hurst, waving the servant back, opened the front door himself. He -was a tall, narrow-shouldered man with a thin florid face. His pale -humorous blue eyes had a furtive expression of defense. His mouth was -thin and weak. His manner suggested a mixture of braggadocio and -self-distrust. He dressed very expensively and correctly, but there was -that in his air which somehow deprecated the success of his appearance. -His sandy hair, growing thin on top, was brushed carefully away from his -high hollow temples. The hand he held out, with its carefully manicured -nails, was stubby-fingered and shapeless. "Well, well, Farley! How goes -it? I've been trying to get hold of you. Want to go for a little fishing -trip?" He was confused because he had not spoken to Julia first. "How -d'ye do, Mrs. Farley? Think you could spare him for a few days?" Mr. -Hurst's greeting of Laurence was a combination of bluff familiarity and -resentful respect. When he looked at Julia his eyes held hers in -bullying admiration. - -Julia had never been able to say just where his elusive intimacy verged -on presumption. Feeling irritated and helpless and sweetly sorry for -herself, she lowered her lids. - -"My--dear!" Mrs. Hurst kissed Julia. "How sweet you look! How do you do, -Mr. Farley? It was nice of you to let Julia persuade you to come to us. -We really feel you are showing your confidence in us. Julia, dear girl, -tells me you have as much of an aversion to parties as Charles and I -have. This will be a homely evening. Mr. and Mrs. Wilson are here, and -there is a young Hindoo who has been giving some charming talks at the -Settlement House. He speaks very poor English but he's so interested in -America. He's only become acquainted with a few American women. I want -him to meet Julia. I think he'll amuse her too." Mrs. Hurst's short -little person was draped in a black lace robe embroidered with jet. She -squinted when she smiled. Minute creases appeared about her bright eyes. -Her expression was gentle and deceitful. Her arms, protruding from her -sleeve draperies, were thin, and their movements weak. Her wedding ring -and one large diamond-encircled turquoise hung loosely on the third -finger of her left hand. Her hands were meager and showed that her -bones were very small and delicate. About her hollow throat she wore a -black velvet band, and her cheeks, no longer firm, were, nevertheless, -childishly full above it. Though she said nothing that justified it, one -felt in her a sort of affectionate malice toward those with whom she -spoke. In her flattering acknowledgment of Julia's appearance there was -something insidiously contemptuous. "Come away with me, child, and we'll -dispose of that hat. Williams!" She turned to the Negro servant whom Mr. -Hurst had intercepted at the door. She nodded toward Mr. Farley. The -Negro went forward obsequiously. - -"Yes, Williams, take Mr. Farley's hat," Mr. Hurst said. Then, in -humorous confidence, _sotto voce,_ "How about a drink, Farley? My wife -has that young Hindoo here. This is likely to be a dry intellectual -evening. That may suit you, but I have to resort to first aid. Want to -talk to you about that fishing trip. Come on to my den with me." - -Shortly after this, Julia, descending the stairs with her hostess, found -Laurence and Mr. Hurst in the hall again. Laurence, his lips twisted -disagreeably, was listening with polite but irritating quiescence to -Mr. Hurst's incessant high-pitched talk. Mr. Hurst, who had been -surreptitiously glancing toward the shadowy staircase that hung above -his guest's head, was quick to observe the approach of the women. He had -always found fault with what he considered to be Julia's coldness, but -he admired her tall figure and her fine shoulders. "Hello, hello! Here -they are!" - -"Charles!" Mrs. Hurst was whimsically disapproving. "Why haven't you -taken Mr. Farley in to meet our guests? You are an erratic host." - -Mr. Hurst moved forward. "That's all right! That's all right! Farley and -I had some strategic confidences. You take him off and show him your -Hindoo. I want Mrs. Farley to come out and see my rose garden, out in -the court. I'm going to have a few minutes alone with her before you -conduct her to the higher spheres and leave me struggling in my natural -earthly environment. I won't be robbed of a little tête-à-tête with a -pretty woman, just because there's an Oriental gentleman in the house -who can tell her all about her astral body. Did you ever see your astral -body, Mrs. Farley?" - -"Boo!" Mrs. Hurst waved him off and pushed Julia toward him. "Go on, if -she has patience with you. But mind you only keep her there a moment. -I've told Mr. Vakanda she was coming and I'm sure he's already uneasy. -Rose garden, indeed! It's quite dark, Charles! Come, Mr. Farley. Put -this scarf about you, dear." She took a scarf up and threw it around -Julia's shoulders. - -"Ta-ta!" Mr. Hurst came confidently to Julia, and they walked out -together across a glass-enclosed veranda that was brilliantly lit. -Descending a few steps they were among the roses. "Autumn roses," said -Mr. Hurst. The bushes drooped in vague masses about them. Here and there -a blossom made a pale spot among the obscure leaves. Where the glow from -the veranda stretched along the paths, the grass showed like a blue mist -over the earth, and clusters of foliage had a carven look. The dark wall -of the next house, in which the lighted windows were like wounds, -towered above them. Over it hung the black sky covered with an infinite -flashing dust of stars. Julia's face was in shadow, but her hair -glistened on the white nape of her neck where the black lace scarf had -fallen away. - -Mr. Hurst had made a large sum of money from small beginnings. He would -have enjoyed in peace the sense of power it gave him, and the -indulgence in fine wines and foods and expensive surroundings for which -he lived, but his wife prevented it. He had married her when they were -both young and impecunious. She had been a school teacher in a -mid-western city. She had managed to convince him that in marrying him -she conferred an honor upon him, and she succeeded now in making him -feel out of place and absurd in the environment which his efforts had -created, which she, however, turned to her own use. Instead of flaunting -his success in boastful generosity, according to his inclination, he -found himself compelled to deprecate it. He had a secret conviction that -he was a man to be reckoned with, but openly, and especially before his -wife's friends, he ridiculed himself, perpetrating laborious and -repetitious jokes at his own expense, just as she ridiculed him when -they were alone. - -Mrs. Hurst was chiefly interested in what she considered culture, and in -welfare work, and among her acquaintances referred to her husband -affectionately as if he were a child. She had no connection which would -give her the _entrée_ to socially exclusive circles, and she was wise -enough not to attempt pretenses which it would have been impossible for -her to sustain. Her husband's friends were mostly selfmade and newly -rich. She was affable to them but maintained toward them a mild but -superior reserve. She expressed tolerantly her contempt of social -ostentation and suggested that among Mr. Hurst's play-fellows she was -condescending from her more vital and intellectual pursuits. Men who -drank and played golf or poker between the hours of business considered -her "brainy," but "a damned nice woman". She was generous to impecunious -celebrities of whom she had been told to expect success. On one occasion -when she and Mr. Hurst were sailing for England she was photographed on -shipboard in the company of a popular novelist. The picture of the -novelist, showing Mrs. Hurst beside him in expensive furs, appeared in a -woman's magazine. She had never seen the man since, but she always -referred to him as "a charming person". She was frequently called upon -to conduct "drives" for charity funds. At masquerade balls organized for -similar purposes her name appeared with others better known and she -could honestly claim acquaintance with women whose frivolous occupations -she professed to despise. She was an assiduous attendant at concerts and -the public lectures which were given from time to time by men of letters -or exponents of the arts. References to sex annoyed her. The vagueness -of her aspirations sometimes led her into fits of depression and -discouragement, but she had a small crabbed pride that prevented her -from allowing any one--least of all, perhaps, her husband--to see what -she felt. She was conscientiously attentive to children, but actually -bored by them. She seldom thought of her own childhood, and she -sentimentalized her past only when she reflected on her early girlhood -and the instinctive longing for withheld refinements which had led her -away from a sordid uncultured home into the profession of a teacher. -Often her husband irritated her almost uncontrollably, but she never -admitted that the moods he aroused in her had any significance. She was -ashamed of him and called the feeling by other names. - -Mr. Hurst's frustrated vanity consoled itself somewhat when he was alone -before his mirror, for even his wife admitted that he was distinguished -looking. He consumed bottle after bottle of a prescription which, so a -specialist assured him, would make his hair come back. Always gay and -affectionate and generally liked, he had a secret sensitiveness that he -himself was but half aware of, and which no one who knew him suspected. -He had never abandoned the romantic hope that some day he would meet a -woman who would understand him. It was his unacknowledged desire to have -his wife's opinion of him repudiated that made him perpetually -unfaithful to her. Years ago he had been astonished to discover that -even the women whom his wife introduced him to, who looked down on his -absence of culture, and whose intellectual earnestness really seemed to -him grotesque, were quite willing to take him seriously when he made -love to them. He was bewildered but elated in perceiving the -vulnerability of those he was invited to revere. Once he learned this it -awakened something subtle and feminine in his nature and tempted him to -unpremeditated cruelties. Though his sex entanglements were, as a rule, -gross and banal enough, and quickly succeeded one another, he treasured -at intervals a plaintive conviction that some day he would meet the -woman who had, as he expressed it, "the guts to love him". Musing on -this, he found in it the excuse for all the unpleasing episodes in which -he took part. Outwardly cynical, he was sentimental to the point of -bathos. He had one fear that obsessed him, the fear of growing old, so -that _the_ woman, when she met him, might not be able to recognize him. - -He had always been a little afraid of Julia and had a secret desire, on -the rare occasions when they met, to hurt her in some way that might -force her to concede their equality. He called himself a mixture of pig -and child and when he met any of his wife's "high-brow" friends he -envied them and wanted to trick them into exhibiting something of the -pig also. Julia was young and pretty. He sighed and wished her more -"human". He had never found her so charming as she seemed to-night. -Under the accustomed stimulus of alcohol he relaxed most easily into a -mood of affectionate self-pity. Without being drunk in any perceptible -way, he loved himself and he loved every one, and his conviction of -human pathos was strong. Julia's tense yet curiously subdued manner -showed him that she was no longer oblivious to him. He fancied that -there was already between them that sudden _rapport_ which came between -him and women who were sexually sensible of his personality. "You aren't -angry with me for taking you away like this?" - -Julia said, "How could I be? I wish all social gatherings were in the -open. It seems terrible to shut one's self indoors on these beautiful -nights." - -Charles Hurst was impelled to talk about himself. He did not know how to -begin, and coughed embarrassedly. He imagined that Julia was ready to -hear, and already he was grateful for the regard he anticipated. "Don't -mind if I light a cigar?" - -"I should like it." - -"Don't smoke cigarettes, do you? Some of the ladies who come here -shedding sweetness and light are hard smokers." - -Julia shook her head negatively. "I don't. But you surely can't object, -as a principle, to women smoking?" - -"No. I think my objections are chiefly--chiefly what my wife--what -Catherine would call esthetic. I'm not strong on principles of any sort. -Don't take myself seriously enough." - -Julia could make out his nonchalant angular pose as he stood looking -down at her. As he held a match to his cigar the glow on his face showed -his narrow regular features, his humorously ridiculing mouth, and his -pale eyes caught in an unconscious expression of fright. - -Julia said, "I'm afraid you take yourself very seriously indeed, or you -wouldn't be so perpetually on the defensive." Poor Mr. Hurst! This -evening she could not bear to be isolated by conventional reserves, even -with him. It flattered her unhappiness to feel that he was a child. And -this evening it seemed to her desperately necessary that she touch -something living which would respond involuntarily to the contact. - -Mr. Hurst was disconcerted. He took the cigar out of his mouth and -examined the glowing tip which dilated in the dark as he stared at it. -Tears had all at once come to his eyes. He wondered if he were drunker -than he had imagined. The moment he suspected any one of a serious -interest in him it robbed him of his aplomb. "Don't read me too well, -Mrs. Farley. You know I'm not really much of a person. Coarse-fibered -American type. No interests beyond business and all that. Good poker -player. Hell of a good friend--when you let him. But commonplace. Damn -commonplace. Nothing worth while at all from your point of view." - -They strolled along the path further into the shadows. Julia was -astonished by the ill-concealed emotion in Mr. Hurst's humorous voice. -His transparency momentarily assuaged the tortures of her -self-distrust. "How can you say that? My human predilections are not -narrowed down to any particular type, I hope." - -"Oh, well, I know--you and Catherine--miles over my head, all of it. -Lectures on the Fourth Dimension. Some girl with adenoids here the other -night been studying 'Einstein'. Damned if it had done her any good. Yes, -what that gal needed was somebody to hug her." Julia was conscious that -he was turning toward her. "Crass outlook, eh?" He laughed -apologetically. - -"She probably did," Julia said. They laughed together. - -Mr. Hurst felt all at once unreasoningly depressed. He wanted to touch -her as a child wants to touch the person who pleases it. But the -sophisticated element in his nature intervened. He despised his own -simplicity. "Do you find yourself getting anywhere in the pursuit of the -good, the true, and the beautiful? Honestly now, Mrs. Farley. I've had -the whole program shoved at me--not that Catherine isn't the best of -women, bless her little soul. You know the life we tired business men -lead pretty much resembles that of the good old steady pack horse that -does the work. We dream about green pastures and all that, but never -get much closer to it. And when you get to the end of things you begin -to wonder if your plodding did anybody any good--if anything ever did -anybody any good. I've got no use for cynicism--consider it damn cheap. -Wish some time I was a little bit more of a cynic. But I'm lost. -Hopelessly lost. I take a highball every now and then because my--I -think my mind hurts." He halted suddenly and they were looking into each -other's vague faces. "This talk getting too damn serious, eh? Something -about you to-night that invites a fellow to make a fool of himself." - -"I hope not," Julia said. "I like you for talking frankly." - -"Oh, I'm not too damn frank. We can't afford it in this world of hard -knocks. Now to you, now, I'm not saying all that I'd like to, by a -jugful." - -"Then you don't make as much of a distinction between me and the crowd -as I hoped." - -Charles had let his cigar go out. He kept turning it over and over in -his stiff fingers that she could not see. He felt that only when he held -a woman in his arms and she was robbed of her conventional defenses -could he speak openly to her. With other attractive women he had come -quickly to a point like this where he wanted to talk of his inner life. -He imagined it would give him relief if he could touch Julia's dress and -put his head in her lap. The terrible fear of revealing himself before -his wife and her friends had stimulated his imagination toward abandon. -When he was a child his mother had not loved him. She was a defiant -person. She was ashamed of him because he allowed himself to be -victimized by all the things against which she had futilely rebelled. He -had felt himself despised though he had never understood the reason. His -mother found continual fault with him and never petted him. One day a -girl cousin much older than he had discovered him in a corner crying and -had comforted him, and had allowed him to put his head in her lap. As he -had never gotten over considering himself from a child's standpoint, his -adult visions always culminated in a similar moment of release. Whenever -he became sentimental about a woman he imagined that he would some day -put his head in her lap. He had been, in his own mind, so thoroughly -convicted of weakness that the development of strength no longer -appealed to him as a means of self-fulfilment. He abandoned himself to -an incurable dependence for which he had not as yet found a permanent -object. It eased him when he could evoke the maternal in a mistress. -"Aren't we all--somewhat on the defensive toward each other?" he said -after a minute. - -Julia was reminded again of what she thought to be her own tragedy. She -felt reckless and wanted some one into whom to pour herself. She -imagined herself lost in the dark garden, crushed between the walls and -bright windows of the houses. In some indefinable way she identified -herself with the million stars, flashing and remote in the black -distance of the sky that showed narrowly above the roofs. "Yes," she -said. "And so uselessly. People are so pathetic in their determination -not to recognize what they are. If we ever had the courage to stop -defending ourselves for a moment--But none of us have, I'm afraid." She -carried the pity which she had for herself over to him. She had noticed -how thin his face was, that the bold gaze with which he looked at her -was only an expression of concealment, and that there were strained -lines at the corners of his good-tempered mouth. Yes, in the depths of -his pale eyes with their conscious glint of humor there was undoubtedly -something eager and almost blankly disconcerted. - -Charles could not answer her at once. He threw his cigar aside. His hand -trembled a little. I wonder how drunk I am, he said to himself. He -decided that he was helpless in the clutch of his own impulses. He -thought, A damn fool now as always. Have I got this woman sized up -wrong? She's a dear. Here goes. Poor little thing! Gosh, I know she -can't be happy with that self-engrossed ass she's married to! In his -more secret nature he was proud of his own temerity. "Damn it all, Mrs. -Farley--Julia--" He hesitated. "I've queered myself right off by calling -you Julia, haven't I?" His laugh was forced and unhappy. He glanced over -his shoulder toward the house. - -Julia was alarmed by the unexpected immanence of something she was -trying to ignore. She kept repeating to herself, He's a child! Her -thoughts grew more disconnected each instant. She wanted to go away, yet -she half knew that she was demanding of Charles the very thing that -terrified her. "Of course not. Mrs. Hurst calls me Julia, why shouldn't -you?" Her tone was intended to lift their talk to a plane of unsexed -naturalness. - -"Yes, by George, why shouldn't I! She calls you that a good deal as if -she were your mother." He paused. "Did you know I'd reached the ripe -old age of forty-one?" (He was really forty-two.) - -"It doesn't shock me." - -"Well, I wish it did. I don't like to be taken so damn much for -granted." (He wanted to tell her that Catherine was three years older -than he, but his sense of fair play withheld him.) "An old man of my age -has no right to go around looking for some one to understand him, has -he?" - -"Why not? I'm afraid we do that to the end of time, Mr. Hurst." - -"Say, now, honestly, Mrs. Farley--Julia--I can't lay myself wide open to -anybody who insists on calling me Mr. Hurst. I feel as if I were a -hundred and seven." He tried to ingratiate himself with his boyishness. - -"I haven't any objection to calling you Charles." (Julia thought -uncomfortably of Mrs. Hurst and, remembering her, was embarrassed.) -"Don't feel hurt if I'm not able to do it at once. Certain habits of -thought are very hard to get rid of." - -"And I suppose you've been in the habit of considering me in the sexless -antediluvian class!" - -"You've forgotten that Laurence--that my husband is as old as you are." - -When Julia mentioned her husband, Charles's impetuosity was dampened. It -upset him and made him unhappy. However, he was determined to sustain -his impulses. "Yes, I had." - -Silence. - -Charles wanted to cry. "You know I appreciate it awfully that you are -willing to enter into the holy state of friendship with an obvious -creature like myself. Catherine says you're a wonderful woman, and she's -a damned good judge--of her own kind, that is." - -"I'm afraid she's flattered me. I wish you weren't so humble about our -friendship. I am as grateful as you are for anything genuine." - -"Yes, I'm too confounded humble. I know I am. Always was. You know I'm -not really lacking in self-respect, Miss Julia." - -"Of course you aren't. You seem to me one of the most self-respecting -people I know." - -Charles was silent a long time. He knew that he was being carried away -on a familiar current. By God, she means it! he said to himself. He -would refuse to regard anything but the present moment. "How does it -happen you and I never came together like this before? I'd got into the -habit of thinking you were one of these icy Dianas that had an almighty -contempt for any one as well rooted in Mother Earth as I am." - -Julia laughed uncomfortably. "That's a mixed metaphor." Then she said -seriously, "I want to understand things--not to try to escape. It seems -to me we must all go back to Mother Earth if we try to do that." She -added, "I'm afraid we are making ourselves delinquent. We mustn't -abandon Mrs. Hurst and her guests altogether." - -They turned toward the veranda. They were walking side by side and -inadvertently Charles's hand brushed Julia's. He caught her fingers. She -made a slight gesture of repulsion which he scarcely observed. Then her -hand was relinquished to him. "Confound these social amenities! I -thought you were going to be my mother-confessor, Miss Julia." Until he -touched her hand he had been conscious of their human separateness and -his sensuous impulses had been in abeyance. With the feel of her flesh, -she became simply the woman he wanted to kiss, the possessor of a -beautiful throat, and of mysterious breasts that compelled him -familiarly through the dim folds of her white dress. His acquisitive -emotion was savage and childlike. Here was a strange thing which -menaced and invited him. He wanted to know it, to tear it apart so that -he need no longer be afraid of it. Already he annihilated it and loved -it for being subject to him. He leaned toward her and when she lifted -her face to him he kissed her. He felt the shudder of surprise that -passed over her. "Julia--don't hate me. Child, I'm going to fall in love -with you! I know it!" His voice was smothered in her hair. He kissed her -eyes and her mouth again. Trembling, Julia was silent. He wondered -recklessly if she despised him, but while he wondered he could not leave -her. He felt embittered toward her because she awakened his dormant -sensuality and he supposed that women like her were superior to the -necessities that left him helpless. - -"Please!" Julia said. When his mouth was pressed against hers she was -suffocated by the same thrill of astonishment and despair which she had -experienced when she first allowed Dudley Allen to take her. When she -was able to speak she said, "Oh, we are so pathetic and absurd--both of -us! It's so hopelessly meaningless." - -He was excited and elated. In a broken voice, he said, "So you think I -am pathetic and absurd? I am, child. I don't care! I don't care!" He -thought that she was referring to the general opinion of him. He -hardened toward her, while, at the same moment, a wave of physical -tenderness enveloped him. Stealthily, he exulted in the capacity he -possessed for sexual ruthlessness. He knew she could not suspect it. He -would be honest with her only when it became impossible for her to evade -him. - -They heard footsteps and turned from each other with a common instinct -of defense. Mrs. Hurst was descending the steps from the lighted porch. -"I have a bone to pick with that spouse of mine," she called pleasantly -when she could see them. Charles had taken out a fresh cigar and was -lighting a match. - -"Hello, hello! Am I in trouble again?" Charles fumbled for Julia's hand, -and gave it a squeeze, but dropped it as his wife drew near. - -Mrs. Hurst's figure was in silhouette before them. "You'll spoil my -dinner party, Charles! Julia, child, I'm afraid you need reprimanding -too. You have to be stern with Charles." Her tone was truly vexed, but -so frankly so that it was evident she suspected nothing amiss. - -"I'm sorry if I am in disfavor." Julia's voice was cold. In her -nihilistic frame of mind she wished that her hostess had discovered the -compromising situation. - -Julia's reply was irritating and Mrs. Hurst's displeasure inwardly -deepened. She felt stirring in her a chronic distrust and animosity -toward other women, but would give no credence to her own emotion. -"Come, child, don't be ridiculous! I suppose I can't blame Charles for -trying to steal you from me. I'm sure he wanted to talk to you about -himself. It's the one thing he cannot resist." She laughed, a forced -pleasant little laugh, and caught Julia's arm in a determined caressing -pressure. "Come. We're all going to be good. Mr. Vakanda is waiting to -take you in to dinner." Julia followed her toward the house. "Come, -Charles!" Mrs. Hurst commanded him abruptly over her shoulder. The -manner in which she spoke to him suggested strained tolerance. - -Charles's immediate relief at not having been seen was succeeded by -complacency. To deceive his wife was for him to experience a naïve sense -of triumph. Poor little Kate! He could even be sorry for her. - -Julia more than ever wanted to feel that Laurence's refusal of her was -forcing upon her a promiscuous and degrading attitude toward sex. She -said, "I'm sure the fault is mine. I couldn't resist the night and the -roses." - -"Now don't try to defend him. The roses were his excuse, not yours." -Mrs. Hurst wondered how they had been able to see anything of the roses -in such a light. She wished to forget about it. "Mollie Wilson has been -telling us how difficult the role of a mother is these days. She says -she envies you May with her amenability. Lucy has some of the most -startlingly advanced conceptions of what her mother should let her do." - -Charles, walking almost on their heels, interrupted them. "It would be -an insult to Ju--to Mrs. Farley if I needed an excuse for carrying her -off for a minute." He cleared his throat. "Say, Kate, damn it all, will -you and she be upset if I call her Julia? I like her as well as you do." - -Again Mrs. Hurst was irritated and inexplicably disturbed. It was -Charles--not Julia--of course. Any woman. He's always like that! "Then I -shall expect to begin calling Mr. Farley Laurence," she said acidly. She -spoke confidentially to Julia. "He can't resist them, dear--any of them. -Pretty women. You'll have to put up with his admiration. All my nicest -friends do." - -"The dickens they do!" Charles grumbled jocosely. His wife's tone made -him nervous. He was suspicious of her. - -When they came up on the lighted veranda a maid passed them, a neat -good-looking young woman in black with inquisitive eyes. Julia caught on -the servant's face what seemed an expression of inquiry and amusement. -Charles, who had often tried to flirt with the girl, glanced at her -shamefacedly and immediately lowered his gaze. Damn these women! Julia, -feeling guilty and antagonistic, observed Mrs. Hurst, but found that she -appeared as usual, sweet and negatively self-contained, yet suggesting -faintly a hidden malice. - -They walked through a long over-furnished hall and entered the drawing -room. The men rose: the Hindoo, good-looking but with a softness that -would inevitably repel the Anglo-Saxon; Mr. Wilson, stout and jovial, -his small eyes twinkling between creases of flesh, the bosom of his -shirt bulging over his low-cut vest; Laurence, clumsy in gesture, kind, -but almost insulting in his composure. - -During the evening Julia could not bring herself to meet Laurence's -regard, nor did she again look directly at Mr. Hurst. Charles, after -some initial moments of readjustment when he found it difficult to join -in the general talk, recovered himself with peculiar ease. Indeed his -later manner showed such pronounced elation that Julia wondered if it -were not eliciting some unspoken comment. When he turned toward her she -was aware of the furtive daring of his expression, though she refused to -make any acknowledgment of it. He laughed a great deal, made boisterous -jokes uttered in the falsetto voice he affected when he was inclined to -comicality, and, when his jests were turned upon himself, chuckled -immoderately in appreciation of his own discomfiture. The Hindoo, whose -bearing displayed extraordinary breeding, had opaque eyes full of -distrust. His good nature under Charles's jibes was assumed with obvious -effort and did not conceal his polite contempt. During dinner and -afterward Charles plied every one, and particularly the men, with drink. -Mrs. Hurst had always been divided between the attractions of the -elegance which demanded a fine taste in wines and liqueurs, and her -moral aversion to alcohol. She never served wines when she and Charles -were alone, and to-night she was provoked by his ill-bred insistence -that the glasses of her guests be refilled. - -When the meal was over and the men had returned to the drawing room, -Charles seemed to be in a state of fidgets. His face and even his -helpless-looking hands were flushed. He walked about continually, and -was perpetually smoothing his carefully combed hair over the baldish -spot on the top of his head. Mrs. Wilson, who was florid and coarsely -good-looking, with her iron-gray hair, admired his distinguished figure -in its well-cut clothes. His flattering manner when he talked to her -made her feel self-satisfied. Julia, though she had honestly protested -to Charles that she did not smoke, indulged in a cigarette. Mrs. Wilson -also lit one and expelled the smoke from her pursed mouth in jerky -unaccustomed puffs. Mrs. Hurst's dislike of tobacco was equal to her -repugnance to alcohol. She refused to smoke but was careful to show that -her distaste for cigarettes was a personal idiosyncrasy. She made little -amused grimaces at the smokers and treated them as if they were -irresponsible children. Mrs. Wilson, in talking to Mr. Vakanda, -contrived many casual and contemptuous references to her recent -experiences in Europe. She was divided between her genuine boredom with -European culture and her pride in her acquaintance with it. - -Charles, observing Julia in this group, appreciated the distinction of -her simpler, more aristocratic manner; and the clarity and frankness of -her statements seemed to him to place her as a being from another world. -Damn me, she's a thoroughbred! Makes me ashamed of myself, bless her -soul! His emotions were too much for him. He went into his "den," which -was across the hall, and poured himself a drink. Fragments of the -evening's conversation buzzed in his head. Julia and Mr. Wilson had -disagreed as to the validity of certain phases of the newer movements in -art. Mr. Wilson scoffed blatantly at all of them. Mr. Vakanda was more -reserved, but one suspected that he looked upon Westerners as adolescent -and treated their art accordingly. Charles, without knowing what he was -talking about, had come jestingly to Julia's rescue. When he remembered -how often he had joined Mr. Wilson in ribald comment on subjects which -she treated as serious, he felt he had been a traitor to her. Damn my -soul, I'm hard hit! I never half appreciated that girl until to-night! -Don't know what the hell's been the matter with me! Overcome by his -reflections, he walked to a window and stared out into the quiet dimly -lit street. His suddenly aroused sensual longing for Julia returned and -made him embarrassed and unhappy. He set his glass down on the window -ledge and passed a hand across each eye as if he were wiping something -away. Damn it all, I'm in love with her all right. - - * * * * * - -When the time for the Farleys' departure arrived Charles was talkative -and uneasy. He clapped his hand on Laurence's shoulder. "You're one of -the few men who's fit to fish with, Farley. Most of 'em are too damned -loud for the fish. We'll fix that little trip up yet. I suspect you of -being the philosopher of this bunch anyway." - -"I can furnish the requisite of silence, but I'm afraid it requires some -peculiar psychic influence to attract fish. I haven't got it." - -Charles's manner was self-conscious to a degree. He spoke rapidly and -unnecessarily lifted his voice. His wife watched him with a cold kind -little smile of disgust. She wanted to create the impression that she -understood him, but her resentment of him rose chiefly from the fact -that he was incomprehensible to her. "That's all right. I'll catch the -fish. I'll catch the fish. Damned if I haven't enjoyed the evening. Say, -Farley, Kate and I are coming over some evening and I'm going to talk -to your wife. I believe she's just plain folks even if she can chant -Schopenhauer and the rest of those cranks. You know I admire your -brains, Miss Julia. By Jove, I do. You can give me some of the line of -patter I've missed. Kate, now--Kate's got it all at her finger tips, but -she's given me up long ago. Have a drink before you go, Farley? No! You -know I'm a great admirer of Omar Khayyám's, Miss Julia. The rest of you -high-brows seem to have put the kibosh on the old boy. He's the fellow -that had some bowels of compassion in him. Knew what it was like to want -a drink and be dry." Charles smoothed back his hair. His hand was -trembling slightly. He looked at Julia now and then but allowed no one -else to catch his eyes. - -Laurence, holding his silk hat stiffly in his fingers, moved -determinedly toward the front door. His smile was enigmatic but his -desire for escape was evident. - -Julia said, "I'll talk to you about Schopenhauer, Mr. Hurst, and -convince you that he was very far from a crank." She smiled. - -"Yep? Well, guess I'm jealous of him. I'm willing to be taught. This -business grind I'm in is converting me into pretty poor company. Not -much use for a meditative mind in the stock market. Eh, Farley? The -women have got it all over us when it comes to refining life." - -Laurence said, "I imagine I know as little of the stock market as my -wife, Hurst." - -"And you must remember I'm a business woman, too." - -"So you are. Working in that confounded laboratory. Well, I've got no -excuse then." - -"Know thyself, Charles!" Mrs. Hurst shook her finger playfully. - -"Yep. Constitutional aversion to knowing myself--knowing anything else. -Looks to me as if you had picked a lemon, Kate." - -"We must really go." Julia held out her hand. - -Mrs. Hurst shook hands with Julia. "So delightful to have had you. I'm -glad you impressed Mr. Vakanda with the significance of America in the -world of art, dear." Mrs. Hurst, at that instant, disliked her guest -intensely, but she preserved her smile and her delicate tactful air. -Laurence shook hands with her also. His reserve appealed to her. She -could be more frankly gracious with him. - -Charles pressed Julia's fingers lingeringly, in spite of her efforts to -withdraw them. He was suddenly depressed and gazed at her with an open -almost despairingly interrogative expression. "Yep, damn me, Kate's -right. You put the Far East in its place, Miss Julia. Did me good to see -it." He giggled nervously, but his face immediately grew serious. Seeing -her go away into her own strange world depleted the confidence he -experienced while with her. He was oppressed by the company of his wife, -and his pathetic feeling about himself returned. For the moment the hope -that Julia would understand him--like him and exculpate his -deficiencies, even see in him that which was admirable--was more -poignant than the passing desire to touch and dominate her body. There -was a helpless unreserve in his eyes. - -Julia could see the tired lines in his face all at once peculiarly -emphasized. His lips quivered. She thought he looked old but for some -reason all the more childlike. She could not resist his need for her. - -It was with an acute sense of disgust that Laurence left the house. - - * * * * * - -Mr. Hurst did not communicate with Laurence in regard to the fishing -trip, but one morning soon after the dinner party Mrs. Hurst called -Julia on the telephone and invited her to come with Laurence to an -all-day picnic in the country. "This is just the sort of thing Charles -delights in," Mrs. Hurst explained, in her hard pleasant light-timbred -voice. Julia heard her polite laugh over the wire. "I shan't blame you -if you refuse us. It's really too absurd. We shall probably be consumed -by mosquitoes." - -"Why, I'm afraid we can't go," Julia said. "Laurence is very busy and -you know I have my work, too." - -"I suppose you can't get off for a day--either of you? Charles is quite -determined to see you and your husband again." - -"It wouldn't be possible. It's nice of you. I really would enjoy it but -it wouldn't be possible for either of us." - -Again Mrs. Hurst's confidential amusement. "Well, I'm sorry. Though for -your own sake I'm glad. Charles has rather a boy's idea of fun. -Well--don't be surprised if we arrive at your front door some evening in -the near future." - -"I shall be very glad," Julia said. - -On a Monday evening while the Farley family were at an early dinner they -heard a laboring motor in the street. Bobby, who could not be restrained -when the prospect of diversion was at hand, ran out to see what it was -and, on his return, reported that Mr. and Mrs. Hurst were at the front -door. - -Laurence laid his napkin wearily aside. "To what do we owe the honor? -Have you been to see them since the other night?" - -Julia said she had not. - -When Julia arrived in the hallway Mr. and Mrs. Hurst were already there, -having been admitted by Bobby. Julia could not look at Charles's face. -With an effort she smiled at his wife. - -Mrs. Hurst, with one of her pleasant, mildly reducing grimaces, said, -"How are you? You were dining? There! I told you so, Charles!" - -Julia imagined that there was constraint in Mrs. Hurst's manner. Their -hands barely touched. - -"How do you do? How do you do, Mrs. Hurst?" Laurence's expression was -polite but not agreeable. For some reason he spoke to Charles with more -cordiality. - -"How d'ye do, Farley? How d'ye do, Miss Julia! Bless my soul, I'm glad -to see you! Kate couldn't keep me away from here. Yes, I confess it. All -my fault." He was uneasy as before, and adopted the falsetto tone of his -comic moods. He wrung Julia's hand for an instant and looked greedily -into her face. But he could not sustain the gaze. He turned to Laurence -and began to joke about the speed of his motor car. - -"Please go on to your dinner. I'm really ashamed that I allowed Charles -to bring me here now." Mrs. Hurst, smiling, preserved the -inconsequential atmosphere of the group. At the same time she felt a -repugnance to Julia which she had never experienced until recently. - -Julia, also, disliked the furtive intentness with which Mrs. Hurst, -continuing to smile, occasionally scrutinized her. - -"We dine so much later." - -"But we've quite finished--unless you will have a cup of coffee with -us?" - -"Coffee? What say, coffee?" Charles could not keep from listening to -what Julia and his wife were saying, though he was trying, at the same -time, to talk to Laurence. Now he interrupted himself. "Shall we have -some coffee with them, Kate?" Just then he caught Julia's eyes and a -flush spread over his face. "I think we'd better forego the coffee and -take these people for a little ride. That's what we came for." He kept -on gazing steadily and sentimentally at Julia who was embarrassed by -this too open regard. - -"Shall we? Perhaps we had. Our own dinner hour will come all too soon," -Mrs. Hurst said. - -"Won't you come in here?" Laurence motioned toward an open door. - -Julia was vexed by her own mingled depression and agitation. Frowning -and smiling at the same time, she added abstractedly, "Yes. How -ridiculous we are--standing here in this chilly hall. Please come in -here. I will have Nellie make a fire for you." - -"Who wants a fire this time of year!" Charles followed his wife, who -entered the half-darkened room with Julia. "Farley, you and Miss Julia -get your wraps and we'll wait for you. Don't waste your time making -yourself lovely, Miss Julia." - -After Laurence had turned up the lights he and Julia went out. Charles -and his wife, who had seated themselves, waited in silence. Charles -stretched out his long legs in checked trousers and crossed them over -one another. He stared up at the ceiling and pursed his mouth in a -soundless whistle. - -Catherine said, "We can't stay with these people long. You know the -Goodes are coming over after dinner." - -Charles started. "What's that?" He sat bolt upright. "Goodes, eh? No. -All right. Plenty of time." He did not relax his posture again, but -drummed on the arm of his chair, tapped his feet, and for a few moments -half hid his face in the cupped palm of his hand. - -Mrs. Hurst looked bored and tired. Her small sardonic mouth was very -precisely set. Her gaze was both humorous and weary. Now and then she -glanced at Charles and forced a twinkle to her eyes, while, at the same -moment, her features showed her repressed irritation. Mrs. Hurst had -suspected, after the previous meeting with the Farleys, that Charles was -interested in Julia. Suspicion sharpened her observation of him but her -policy toward him demanded of her that she be amused by all he did. -Otherwise the situation between them might long ago have precipitated a -crisis which she, at least, was not ready to face. In a moment of -impetuosity Charles would be capable of heaven-knows-what regrettable -and irretrievable resolution. He had so often shown the same kind of -frank admiration for a pretty woman that she made the best of things by -appearing to tolerate, if not to encourage, his folly. She was certain -that his infatuations were so illusory that a little enforced -acquaintance with the intimate personalities of her successive rivals -would dissipate his regard for them. In this case, too, she had no fear -that a woman of Julia's poise and enlightenment would make any serious -response to Charles's naïve overtures. If Mrs. Hurst could convince -herself that a situation was sufficiently grotesque (viewed, of course, -from the standpoint of manners) it became unreal to her, and she could -no longer believe that such a vague and ridiculous cause would produce -any effect in actuality. - -Waiting for Laurence and Julia to appear, Charles, even when he was not -looking at her, was conscious of his wife's personality. Though he could -not analyze the impression, he was, as he had been repeatedly before, -disconcerted by the cold understanding which he saw in her small, -humorously lined face. He was startled by the boldness of her evasions. -All his mental attempts to capture a grievance were diverted when he -considered her demure gentleness and good breeding. He had, at the -outset, to accept the fact of his inferiority. Now his pale eyes, fixed -intermittently in an upward gaze, were startled and perturbed. His mouth -twitched. He felt boisterous, and suppressed his laughter, though he did -not know whether he should direct it against her or against himself. She -was so visually real to him: her withered small hands, the flesh under -her plump throat--flesh that fell away and somehow failed to soften the -contour of her little chin. At these moments when she connived, or so it -might almost seem, to further his betrayal of her he felt a sentimental -affection for her, and decided that it was only because of the physical -repulsion which her ageing gave him that he did not love her completely -and lead an ideal life. He was sorry for himself and for her too because -he could not conquer his aversion. - -Catherine said, "Julia is particularly handsome to-night." - -Charles, with the blank innocence of a self-conscious child, glanced at -his wife. "You're right. She is. You dare me to fall in love with her, -do you? Think when she gets a good dose of me--" - -"Sh-h!" - -Charles eyed the door. "Somebody 'ull hear me? Say, Kate, for a -manhandler I've never seen your equal." He jumped up, walked twice -around the room, and stopped, gazing down at Catherine with a vacant -deliberate amusement. Each felt the other the victor in some stealthy -unconfessed combat. "All the spice goes out of forbidden fruit when your -wife hands it to you on a gold platter with her compliments. That it?" -Charles asked. He was wondering if his presentment about Julia as the -great thing in his life had been an illusion. He would accept his wife's -joke recklessly but that did not prevent his timidity in regard to -himself from returning and influencing his acts. - - * * * * * - -Julia sat beside Charles while he drove. Laurence and Mrs. Hurst were on -the back seat. Julia listened to what Charles said, but half -understanding him. Nothing was real to her but the self from which she -wanted to escape, this self which she knew would always deceive her. -When the car veered at a corner Charles and she were thrown together so -that their shoulders touched. She knew that he leaned toward her to -prolong the contact. The warmth of his body gave her no clear -consciousness of him, and was a sustained reminder of inscrutable things -with which he was not concerned. She despised the humility of his -intellect. What attracted her was a kind of primitive cruelty which he -tried to hide. She wanted to be consumed by his weakness, to be left -nothing of herself. His lovemaking repelled her. She perceived his -sentimentality toward womankind. All that he said was false because -unrelated to his fundamental impulse which was to take without giving -anything equivalent. She had somehow arrived at the conviction that only -the things which hurt her were true. Charles's conception of beauty was -childish. But she would not be afraid to abandon herself to the things -in him he was ashamed of, which he could not control. When he was -conquered, as she was, by the desires his intellect sought to evade, he -would be caught in actuality. Neither of them could be deceived. She was -impatient with Charles's deference to what he considered her finer -feelings. There she found herself insulted by the shallowness of his -respect. - -Charles made the drive as long as he could, though he knew that his -wife, with her prospect of guests at home, must be growing impatient. -He kept, for the most part, in the park where it was easier to imagine -that he and Julia were alone. In one place a hill cut off the city and -dry grass rushed up before them against the cloudy sunset. Then there -were masses of trees, green yet in the half darkness. The branches -stirred their blackish foliage, and the copse had a breathing look. The -last light broke through the shadowy clouds in metallic flames. When the -city came into view again Julia thought that the tall houses were like -the walls of a garden flowering with stars. - -Every one but Charles was glad when the drive came to an end. - - * * * * * - -Under her large black hat the strange girl's eyes, deep with a shining -emptiness, gazed into Paul's. Paul, glancing at her cautiously, felt -that the eyes were filled with a velvet dust into which he sank without -finding anything. It was as if he were falling, leaden and meaningless, -through them. - -She had a snub nose with coarse wide nostrils. Her mouth was -thick-lipped and over red. She was given to abrupt hilarity when she -showed her strong teeth in a peculiarly irrelevant laugh. Her voice was -hoarse. When she threw back her head her amusement made her broad white -throat quiver. Then her prominent breasts shook heavily. Her arms, bare -below the elbow, looked as though they were meant to be powerful but had -grown useless. Her insolence was stupid, but Paul envied it--even though -it irritated him that she was so bored with him. They had sat on the -same bench in a public square, and after they had fallen into -conversation he had asked her to go to dinner with him. Her name was -Carrie. She called him "son". She was "out for a good time," she said, -but she was "broke". - -Paul invited her to the working men's restaurant where he was going -himself. To dramatize his isolation from his own group, he wore old -clothes, brogans, and his school cap. His appearance suggested a -mechanic's assistant. He was ashamed of his secret desire to admit his -disguise to her. His uncle was a corporation lawyer who was becoming -prominent. Paul had constantly to fight against an ingrained class -vanity. Petty bourgeois! Not even snobbishness of the first order! When -he had to face it in himself he wanted to die. No use! Hell of a world! -Any disillusionment with himself strengthened his bitterness toward -those of his own kind. - - * * * * * - -When Paul left Carrie he walked into the dark park and seated himself on -a bench. The city seemed miles away, sunk in light. There was an iron -stillness in the black trunks of the trees that rose about him. Over him -the thick foliage hung oppressively in dark arrested clouds. - -Despair. He wanted Carrie to admire him. He saw himself strong and -bitter in the possession of all that Carries understand. He wanted to be -kind. He was a great man, alone, a little proud of his madness. Child! -He wanted to go far away--to die. Hate. I can't die! His heart beat -loudly and the memory of Carrie was remote again. - -In the hidden street Salvationists were passing. He heard hymn tunes and -the beat of drums. - -Dark angel. I want to save men. He thought of the women, strange in -their tight dark dresses. He wanted to save them. Emotionalism. Rot. He -tried to remember the working class and economic determinism. Facts. -They kept things out. There was a dramatic pride in being outcast, in -feeling himself definitely against his aunt and Uncle Archie. That kid, -May. Dead. He gave himself to a sense of loathing that was gorgeous and -absolute. His relaxation was drunken--like a dream. - -Once more, when he could not but remember May, he recalled Julia -instead. He did not explain to himself why he hated her so. It was as -though she had done the world some terrible hurt and his was the -arrogance of justice in leaving to her nothing of the self she wanted -him to believe in. Whenever he saw falseness in women, he felt that he -was seeing Julia at last. He wanted his thoughts to destroy her, or at -least to leave her utterly beggared. He must prove to himself that it -was women like Julia, women of the upper classes, that he had to fight. -He could no longer bear the recollection of May going before him through -the park in her short dress with her hair a silver paleness over her -shoulders. Because of Julia, everything wounded him. He conceived a -physical image of Julia in her ultimate day of degradation. When he -thought of stripping everything away from her, it was to show a physical -ugliness to a deceived world. In anticipation he purged his own soul of -all that horrified and confused it. Then he saw her body--that he had -never seen--lie before him like a beaten thing with used maternal -breasts, and knew that he had destroyed forever the virginal falsehood -of her face. No woman who belonged to a man as Julia belonged to -Laurence had the right to a face like hers. He despised his aunt, but -she was frankly a part of the hideousness of sex and his contempt for -her was negative. Toward Julia he was positive, for he felt that when he -had proved everything against her he would not be burdened with May. -When he imagined Julia lean and hideous of body, the sense of intimacy -with her made him gentle. He was strong and liberated. - -However, when actuality presented itself, and he realized that if he met -her she would be as he had always known her, kind and a little motherly -toward him, his heart grew sullen, and, again, he was helplessly -convicted of his youth. His defiance was so acute that he wanted to -write her an obscene letter and tell her of what he had done and the -women he knew. But he was trapped, as always, in the fear of appearing -ridiculous. - -It was difficult for him to justify his certainty that she was so much -in need of the cleansing fire of truth; yet he would not abandon his -conviction. When he had not dared to hate her he had been at loss -before her. Now his hate permitted his imagination complete and unafraid -abandon. He dared to relax in the intimacy of dislike because he fancied -that he saw her clearly at last. - -At times his hate grew too heavy for him, and he could have cried for -relief in admitting his childishness to some one. He was shut into -himself by that horrible laugh which surrounded him, which he seemed to -hear from all sides. - - * * * * * - -It was a cool afternoon in September. May walked through the park -between rows of flowering shrubs. Here the grass had died and the petals -of fallen blossoms were shriveled ivory on the black loam. Overhead the -treetops swung with a rotary motion against the rain-choked heavens. The -heat of the clouds gathered in a blank stain of brilliance where the -swollen sun half burst from its swathings of mist. The wind ceased for a -moment. A clump of still pine tops glinted with a black fire, and behind -them the sun became a chasm of glowing emptiness, like a hole in the -sky, from which the glare poured itself in a diffusing torrent. - -For a long time May had not dared to walk in the park. When she did go, -at last, she told herself that she was sure Paul would not come. She -felt herself inwardly lost in still bright emptiness. Cold far-off heat. -She was a tiny frozen speck, hardly conscious of itself on the burnt -grass, walking toward the tall buildings that receded before her. Tall -roofs were like iron clouds in the low sky. She wanted to be lost, going -farther and farther into emptiness. Now when she said Paul it was no -longer Paul she meant. She would have been ashamed before him, tall, -looking down at her. Paul was something else, something in which one -went out of one's self into infinite distance. Where one went forever, -never afraid. Where one ceased to be. - -She passed women and children. A child stumbled uncertainly toward her, -jam on its face, its dress torn. May was conscious of a part of herself -left behind that could see the child running to its mother, the white -dress brilliant, fluttering victorious. She knew how her own hair blew -out in separate strands from the loosened ends of her braid, and how -soft separate strands clung drily against her moist brow under her red -cap. Going out of herself, it was as if her blood flowed coldly out of -her into the cold sunlight, cold and away from her body. She was happy. -There were tears in her eyes. She wanted to go on forever saying Paul -and not thinking what it meant. - -The sun went out of sight. The wind lifted the pine boughs and they -moved as if in terror against the torn clouds. The sound that went -through them died away in peace, in the happiness of being lost. May -felt as if something of her had gone forever into the wide still sky and -the dead shadowless park. She wanted to feel, not to think. When she -thought, she was caught in her body as in a net. The separate parts of -her were like pains where she thought Aunt Julia would loathe her. - - * * * * * - -When Laurence was apart from Julia and remembered her look of humility -that asked for something she dared not state, he experienced an almost -sickening pity for her. There was something in her suffering which he -identified with his own. Yet he did not feel nearer to her in -attributing their unhappiness in common to the futile and inevitable -circumstances of human life. The pain of each of them, he told himself, -was in realizing the isolation in which every human ultimately finds -himself when he recognizes that his inner life cannot be shared. -Laurence somehow exulted in seeing Julia forced to accept a condition of -existence which had been plain to him for a long time. His despair was -so complete that he imagined himself ready to abandon his defenses -before her. But when he was actually in her presence she was only the -thing that hurt him, and he was against her in spite of himself. Then -her cruelty seemed monstrous, because she appeared to understand so -little of what she had done. He knew that he bewildered her by showing -no resentment toward Dudley Allen. Laurence despised her when she could -not see the working of his pride that forced him to be superior to her -lover's influence. - -Often he said to himself, I'll go away. I can't bear it! But, while he -believed in nothing outside himself, what was there to seek? He visited -his parents more frequently. To be with them was a fulfilment of his -humiliation. He would end where he was born, as every one else did. - -Though he was certain that everything which developed through initiative -was foredoomed to failure, his pride in Bobby increased. He wanted to -keep his pessimism from contaminating his son. Bobby knew his power. -When he encountered his father coming in from the laboratory alone it -was a time to make a demand. "Hello, Dad! Say, Dad, _am_ I too much of a -kid to run a motor cycle? Jack Wilson says I can't run his motor cycle -because I'm too much of a kid! Say, Dad, I've got some money saved up. -Can't I buy me a motor cycle? I can run it. Honest, I can!" He had been -playing in the street, his face dirty and smeared with sweat, his shirt -torn in front, and his collar askew. His look was rapt and self-intent. -He had the air of pushing his father aside to reach some hidden -determination. - -Laurence was self-conscious when talking to Bobby. He lowered his lids -to conceal the too lenient expression of his eyes. "You're not an -experienced mechanic, you know. Only have one life to lose. Better wait -a while before you risk it." - -Bobby stared with an intentness that obliterated his father's pretense. -"Aw, say, Dad, honest, now! I've taken Jack Wilson's machine to pieces. -I can run a motor cycle all right. Go on and say I can get it!" - -Laurence glanced up, and his smile was hard and cautious, but when his -face was averted his features softened immediately. "We'll see, son. I -don't think a brat like you could get a license. Time to talk about it -later." He put his hat on a hook and, turning aside, began to mount the -stairs. - -Bobby, vexed and excited, gazed after his father, regarding Laurence's -hesitation as an annoying but inevitable formula which had to be gone -through before one could get what one wanted. "Oh, gol darn it!" he -said, and ran out into the street again. He tolerated his father. - -Laurence wished that he had sent May away with Mr. and Mrs. Price, the -parents of his first wife. They had recently gone on a trip to Europe. -When they had asked to take Bobby with them, Laurence had resented it. - -Julia met Laurence in the upper hall. "Did you tell Bobby to come in and -dress for dinner? Isn't he a ragamuffin!" She smiled, imagining that her -pleasure in Bobby pleased her husband. - -Laurence smiled also, but coldly. He would have preferred to ignore her -relationship to Bobby. It had come over him strongly of late that he -must take Bobby away from the home environment. "I'm afraid I encourage -him in the spontaneity of bad manners." He walked past her with an -agreeable but remote expression that put her away from him. - -Julia experienced a familiar pang which contracted her breast with an -almost physical surprise. It was as if a touch had made her guilty. Why, -she could not say. He doesn't want me to show an interest in Bobby! She -was robbed of another--almost her last--certainty. - -At dinner she watched the father and son stealthily. Their attitude -toward each other seemed to confirm her unknown guilt. - -"I've sent off your first quarter's tuition at Mount Harrod, young man. -You haven't much time left with us." - -Bobby was secretly resigned but confident in his petulance. "Gee, Dad, I -don't want to go to that place!" - -"It's about time you began your initiation in the subtler forms of -self-defense," Laurence said sardonically. - -May, ignored by everybody, sat very straight in her chair and was over -dainty with her food, as if timid of her enjoyment of it. Julia, -withdrawing all attempt at contact with Laurence and Bobby, could not -bear to look at the girl. - -Laurence was uncomfortably admitting to himself that, in some subtle -way, his desire to have Bobby out of the house was directed by a feeling -against Julia. He wondered how much of his motive she had perceived. The -sooner he gets away from the hoax of home, the better, Laurence told -himself. He tried to exculpate himself by a generalization. It was the -false ideal he wanted to destroy for Bobby. Julia was a part of the -myth, though she had not created it. - - * * * * * - -Julia was wounded without knowing just what her wound was. She said to -herself, unexpectedly, If I had a child! My God, if I had a child! The -thought, which had been strange to her for a long time, seemed to -illumine all of her being. It was as if something warm and secret were -already her own. She was on the point of weeping with terror of her -longing for the child that did not exist. It was something she wanted to -take away to herself which no one else should know of. She considered -how she might get herself with child without any one becoming aware of -it. She wanted a child that would be helpless with her, that she could -give everything to. - -But she could not bear the thought of definite responsibilities -connected with a child. It was wrong to want a child like that. It was -like robbing a thing of its life to want it so completely. It had a -right to itself. She felt virtuously bereaved already, as if the child -that had never been born had grown to manhood and she had given it up. - -There was no peace except in the abnegation of all positive desire. She -invited the peace of helplessness. When her emotions were formless she -felt immense and lost in a waking sleep. The whole world was her own -dream. She could feel her physical life fade out of her and imagined -that her hair was growing white. - - * * * * * - -Charles Hurst had not been so happy for a long time. To evoke one of his -moods of glowing pathos, he had only to gaze at himself in a mirror and -think of Julia. She had committed herself but very little, yet he was -mystical in his certainty of their future relationship. When he recalled -the way she looked at him as if asking him not to hurt her too much he -was confirmed in his belief that she had laid aside the subterfuges of -more commonplace and less courageous women. "Damned if I look as young -as I did!" He studied his reflection ruefully. He had a hazy perception -of his outward defects and regretted them. "Growing old's hell all -right! Poor little Kate!" He was ashamed of the comfort of seeming less -his age than she. His sense of advantage made him tenderly apologetic. -When he was near her he wanted to pet her. "Rum deal women get. Life -after forty-five not worth much." He almost wished it possible for her -to console herself as he did, but he could not quite bring himself to -accept the logic of his imagining. Catherine with a lover! Women not the -same as we are. Men are a lot of ---- donkeys. Pity the girl never had a -kid. - -His pale eyes grew grave and retrospective again, and he seated himself -on the edge of his bed just as he was, in socks and trousers and -undershirt, burying his face in his curiously formless hands. "By God, I -love that girl!" He threw his head up and shrugged his shoulders with a -shivering motion, as if what he felt were almost too much for him. "She -may think I'm a senile idiot and a damn fool--all the things Catherine -does." He smiled, talking aloud. "But she loves me! She loves me! By -God, she loves me! She's got to!" He ended on a playfully emphatic note -as though he were disposing of an invisible argumentator. When he went -into his bathroom to shave he whistled Musetta's Waltz from La Boheme. -There was an expression of innocent complacency on his thin good-humored -face. For a time he was absorbed in his music and his sense of -completeness and well-being. - -Julia Farley. Too good. That Goode family. Bills. Fellow runs a car -like--Fast. Fast women. I hold her fast. I-- - -When his jumbled thoughts had proceeded to I-hold-her-fast, something -welled up as if from the depths of him, and he was physically blinded by -the dim intensity of his emotion. He frowned painfully. He began to -speak aloud again. "Too much, Charles, my boy. Too old for this kind of -thing. Damn! She's too good--too lovely--" - -There was a knock at the door. Johnson, Mr. Hurst's man, was never -allowed in the room while his master was dressing, since Charles was -frankly embarrassed by the presence of a valet. - -"Hello! Hello, Johnson." - -"Telephone, sir. Mrs. Hurst wanted me to ask if you'd like to come, or -if I was to tell them to call later." - -Julia! The mad hope that it was Julia. - -"It's Mr. Goode, sir. He says he can't give me the message." - -God, but I'm ridiculous! "Mr. Goode, eh?" Charles, very abstracted, -buttoned on his shirt. "Well, you tell Goode I'll call him later, -Johnson." As Johnson, assenting in his delicately servile manner, was -turning away, Charles beckoned him back. "Eh, Johnson, just between you -and me, while the madam isn't looking. Suppose you bring me up--just a -little, you know--Old Scotch. God damn this collar button!" - -Johnson, who was a blond young man with a wise subdued air, smiled a -little. Finding it flattered his employers, he had cultivated the sad -manner of a professional mourner. "Very good, sir." - -As Johnson disappeared, Charles's ruminations broke forth afresh. "'Very -good, sir!' Damn little son-of-a-gun! He'd do well in a play. Got a fine -contempt for the old man, Johnson has. Yep, by God, Catherine has got me -on breeding. Servants never bat an eye at her. Might have been born with -a gold spoon in her mouth. Well, she's a pink-face and the old boy's a -rough-neck. Tra-la-la--" He resumed Musetta's Waltz. - -"That Blanche--that damned little hyper-sexed, hyper-sophisticated, -hyper-everything--By Jove, she'd pinch the gold plate out of a mummy's -tooth!" When Charles talked he allowed his voice gradually to mount the -scales until it broke on a falsetto note. It was part of the horseplay -with which his dramatic sense responded, in self-derision, to the -attitude of those about him. Catherine insisted on his occasional -attendance at the opera, and Pagliacci, which he heard first, was his -favorite piece. He identified himself with the title part, though it was -a little confusing for him to imagine himself a deceived husband. He -felt that the author of the libretto had confused the issue. "Blanche, -by God, that Blanche!" He referred to a young woman who took minor parts -in cinema plays. He wanted to be rid of her. She was statuesque and -theatric, but as his intimacy with her had grown she had relapsed into -habitual vulgarities which grated on him. Charles revered a lady. -Besides, since becoming interested in Julia he wanted to forget -everything else. Blanche was realizing that she had destroyed an -illusion through which she might have furthered her ambition, and she -was growing recklessly spiteful and crude. Only the day before Charles -had sent her money which she had kept, though she reviled him for -sending it. His humility made it impossible for him to condemn any one, -except in extreme moments of self-defense. "Poor little girl! By Jove, I -wonder if she did love me a little after all!" He shook his head, and -smiled with an expression of sentimental weariness. He put Blanche away -as incongruous with the thought of Julia which filled him with -happiness. - -"Sick o' the whole mess of 'em. That fellow, Goode, making a damn -jackass of himself every time a chorus girl winks at him. The whole damn -cheap, sporting, booze-fighting lot of nincompoops. Goode's a -grandfather and he looks it." - -The door moved softly, there was a light rap, and Johnson re-entered -with a tray. Charles laid his hair brushes down. "Looks good to me, -Johnson." Johnson smiled his sad, half-perceptible smile. "Shall I mix -it, sir?" - -"No--Johnson. No." With an air of ostentatious casualness, Charles -poured whisky into a glass and held it up to the light. "Good stuff." -Johnson kept his still smile, but did not speak. - -Charles drank with deliberate noisiness. When he set the glass down he -drew a deep theatric sigh. His face was solemn. "Better try some, -Johnson." - -The man flushed slightly. "Anything else?" - -"No, no. Coming downstairs. The madam had her breakfast yet?" - -"I don't know, sir. That is, I think so, sir." Johnson turned away and -the door swung soundlessly across his rigid back. - -Charles gave himself a little more whisky that brought the tears of -relaxation to his eyes. He wondered if he were mistaken about Julia. He -dared not consider future potentialities too definitely, though he told -himself that, whatever came, he was ready for it. Would she ever let him -put his head in her lap? He felt good and complacent when he imagined -it. The pose it represented was assumed with such sincerity and was so -remote from the aspect of him with which his wife was acquainted, or -even the guise he bore to his sporting friends. It was pleasant to him -to recognize this secret and not too obvious self. "Well, Charles, you -old rooster, you may have broken most of the commandments, and you can't -talk Maeterlinck and Tagore with the old lady, but there's something to -you they all miss. The dear!" he added, thinking of Julia. - - * * * * * - -It was Saturday afternoon. The holiday crowd moved in endless double -lines along an endless street. As Julia walked with it there was a hill -before her and the stream of motor cars floated over the crest against a -pale sky hazy with dust. Men stared at her and, feeling naked and -unpossessed, she demanded their look. - -"Miss Julia!" She glanced up, hearing a car whirr to a standstill beside -her. Mr. Hurst was driving a gray racer. He was bareheaded. The wind had -disarranged his sleek hair, revealing his baldness. He smoothed back the -locks. He gazed at her a little fearfully, but his face was happy and -intent. "I've caught you. Going anywhere? Let me take you for a ride?" -He saw her eyes, the outline of her breasts, her cloth dress blown -against her long legs, her ungloved hands with their beautiful helpless -look. "You are tired." Tender of her fatigue, he was grateful to her -because she allowed him this tenderness. His heart beat so heavily that -he fancied it must be fluttering the breast of his silk shirt. She must -think me a fool, dear girl! I love her! He was conscious of being a -little mad in his delight, and wanted to lay his faults before her. -"How's this? I'm going to run away with you--take you off to the -country." Julia was beside him. The car glided on. - -"I can't be long." Julia stared into his eyes with a calm smile, and -tried to be simple and detached. She told herself that she could do -nothing for him, but that she wanted him to understand her loneliness. - -"Well, we're going to be long--ever so long." Her hair is all in a -mess--clouds about her eyes. Her little feet walking on clouds. Oh, -Julia, my darling, I love you! She's not like other women I have known. -If she gives herself to a caress it means something to her. "I've been -looking forward to this--longing for it," he said. "You know that ever -since that night I kissed you I've thought of almost nothing but you?" - -Julia said, "I'm sorry." - -"Why?" All at once everything confusing was being swept away in the -nakedness of the wind they rode against. "Going too fast for you--dear?" - -"No. But you mustn't think of me so much." - -"Why?" - -"Because--I'm not worth it." Hypocrite. She wanted to be beautiful. She -had a horrible sense of her own spiritual leanness and ugliness. If he -would take me away--kiss me--anywhere--in darkness. She wanted to belong -to some one so utterly as to make her oblivious of herself. - -They turned a sharp corner. They were in the park now. Pale leaves, -yellow against the light, floated, and fell upon them in a shower of -silk. "I'm in love with you, Julia." - -"Are you?" - -"Don't _ask_. You know it. Don't you want me to be?" Goode--too good. -Hadn't meant to say that yet! - -"I don't know. I'm afraid I'm a disillusioned person. I'm tired watching -people try to live through others. It can't be done." - -"I think I could live in you--through you--if you'd let me, Julia." - -"You don't know me." - -"How can I if you won't let me, Julia?" He drew the car nearly to a -standstill. He grasped her fingers with his free hand. "I'm going to -kiss you, dear." It was lonely here. She felt his mouth over her face -and was ashamed of her distaste for him. "You're unhappy, Julia. Why are -you unhappy?" - -She withdrew herself. "I am--horribly." - -Charles, hardening, felt relieved, and imagined himself stronger. -Farley don't treat her well, he said to himself. In his mind was a -furtive expectation, with which was mingled an unadmitted thought of -divorce. "Don't be, darling. You make me too happy. It's not fair. Can't -I be anything to you--even a little?" - -Julia laughed pathetically. "You must be. I'm here." - -"Yes, thank God, you are. And you're not going to be disgusted with me -because I'm such an unpretentious human animal? My taste in music runs -about as high as The Old Oaken Bucket, and I suppose if I'd been left to -myself I'd have canned those Dudley Allen productions you persuaded -Catherine to buy, and hung up Breaking The Home Ties instead. You know -all this new art stuff goes over my head, child. Hate me for it?" - -"Not very much. Perhaps it goes over my head too." - -"Wish it did, but Kate's told me all about you. You're so damned -clever." He wanted her, yet, even if she offered herself to him now, he -could not touch her. Her little feet. As a matter of fact they weren't -small. Little feet just the same. Must be white. White feet. Lovely -things walking over his heart. Beautiful things hurt him with their -pride. He had felt this before about women. It was always wrong. -Afterward only the pain and the longing remained. She's different. Mine. -I can't have her. "You won't hate me when--" His eyes misted. He gave -her a blurred look. His lips were humorous and self-contemptuous. - -"Won't hate you when?" Julia was still motherly. - -It hurt him to speak. His face was flushed. He stared at her fixedly an -instant, as if something stood between them. She observed his unsteady -mouth, that was weakly unconscious of itself like a desperate child's. -"Am I going to have you, Julia? Are you disgusted with me, child?" - -She would not consider clearly what he meant, but she wanted him to shut -Laurence out of her mind. "Yes. I think so." Her voice was unsteady. - -The car went on, they were out of town among suburban roads and vacant -lots. Charles drew up again. "Let's get out and walk a bit." - -The dry pinkish grass moved before them like a cloud over the field. It -rustled stiffly about their ankles. The low sun was in their eyes. -Double lines of gnats rose into the light. They passed an empty house -with glaring uncovered windows. - -White feet that hurt. Charles was afraid of her. He imagined her hands -touching him. Oh, my dear! He said, "We must find a way to see each -other." - -Julia said nothing. He took hold of her arms hesitatingly. "Look at me!" - -She was ashamed for him. When their eyes met, hers filled with tears. -She seemed to herself dead, and wanted him to be sorry for her. I can't -live. I'm dead already. No use. I'm dead! I'm dead! She wanted to be -dead. Something kept alive, torturing her. - -"Take your hat off, won't you?" She took her hat off. Clouds. "Now I can -look at you." She wondered if she looked ill. She was ashamed for him -when he trembled. Her eyes were gentle, and at the same time there was -something desperate in them. It seemed to him that she was asking him to -hurt her, and he wanted to say, Don't, don't! Her face, that he could -not bear to understand, was just a blur of sweetness. He believed that -her tenderness for him was something which must be tried by the -grossness of his pleasure in physical contact with her. He thought his -pleasure in her body would make her suffer. Afterward he meant to show -her how little that was, and that what he was giving her--what he was -asking of her--was really something else. "I want to be your lover, -child." It was done. He was conscious of desperation and relief. She's -different! My God, she's different! Blanche. All of them. He pitied -himself with them. - -Julia said, "I know it." - -Why does she smile like that? Forgive me. He felt their two bodies, hers -and his, pitiful helpless things. His shame was for her too. "Life, -child! It's got us," he said. "Now I'll kiss you just once." He gathered -her up in his arms. She's trembling too. She loves me! I want to make -her happy. He wondered why everything hurt so. She's too fine. - -Julia was cold. Frozen all over. It seemed he would never be done -kissing her. She despised him, and enjoyed the bitterness of her -gratitude in being loved. When she could speak she said, smiling yet, -"We'd better be starting back. It's late. Look at the sun." The meadow -was filled with cold light that lay on the grass tops and made them -burning and colorless. The sun, as if dissolving, was formless and -brilliant on the horizon. - -"Have you had enough of me? Do you want to leave me, Julia?" - -"No. It's only that when I left home it was for a little while." - -As they walked back to the car, Charles, holding Julia's hand, pressed -it apologetically. "I want to take you to a place I have, Julia--a cabin -I go to sometimes for fishing trips. We could motor there and picnic for -a day. Could you be with me as long as that without becoming more -disillusioned?" He tried to joke. His thin face jested, but his pale -eyes were anxious. - -Julia said, in a smothered voice, "You mustn't love me too much. You are -the one who will be disillusioned." - -He wanted to talk to her about Laurence, but as yet did not dare; so he -pressed her hand again. "Darling!" She returned the pressure and was -piqued by his abstracted glance. I'm alone, she said to herself. - - * * * * * - -On the following Saturday Julia went with Charles to the cabin he had -spoken of. It was on the shore of a small lake, only a few feet removed -from the water's edge. It was a still cloudy day, and the lake, choked -with sedges, had a heavy look, like a mirror coated with grease. There -were pine woods all around that, without undergrowth, seemed empty. The -still trees were like things walking in a dream. Julia felt them, not -moving, going on relentlessly and spurning the earth. It seemed as if -everything in the landscape had been forgotten. It was a memory held -intact that no one ever recalled. A little group of scrub oaks were -turning scarlet. They were like colored shadows. - -Charles drew up his motor car in the half-obliterated roadway, and -helped Julia to alight. He felt sinful, as he always did when he was -about to enjoy anything. He wished that he might beg Julia to condescend -to him as to an inferior being. He would be grateful for her contempt -which, if it were tempered by affection, would allow him to be himself. - -She went ahead of him, and waited in the dusty portico of the small -house while he covered some cushions that might be wet if it rained. -When he came toward her his eyes were uncertain. "Here we are. Damn it, -Julia, I'm so happy I'm afraid! You aren't going to mind being here?" -He carried a picnic basket. - -"Of course not. Why should I have come?" - -He set the basket down. "Hands all grimy. Why should you! God, I don't -know. I'm going to love you." He swung her hands in his delightedly, but -there was something stealthy and embarrassed in his manner. He could not -bring himself to kiss her. "At least you're not going to try to make a -new man of me!" - -"I know my limitations." - -"You haven't any, darling." - -Julia's mouth was happy, but her eyes were dark and unkind. "It makes -one uncomfortable to be thought too well of." She knew that she was -about to give herself to him and resented his confidence. He was a crude -childlike man. At the same time, she sensed a simplicity in him that was -almost noble. Her self-esteem could not endure thinking of a possible -debt to him. - -"Shall we go in?" He opened the door and went in ahead of her. The place -was crowded with camp beds, piled one on top of the other, and numbers -of more or less dilapidated chairs. There was a thick coating of dust -over everything, and films of spider web across the window panes -yellowed the light. "Isn't this a disgrace, child? I ought to have had a -house-cleaning before we came out." - -"I like work. We'll clean up together." She removed her hat and laid it -on a table. Charles took off his coat. He found an old broom, swept up -the trash that littered the floor, and began to pull the furniture into -place. Julia discovered a torn shirt and used it to clean the window -glass. Charles felt the morning was passing grotesquely. I love her. -What shall I do! "Jove, I wish we lived here!" he said. When he had laid -a fire in the stone chimney, he pulled out one of the camp beds and made -a divan with blankets and pillows. "Come sit down here and warm -yourself, child." He turned his back to her and began warming his hands. -"It's damp in here." - -Julia came to the fire. She did not seat herself. He knew she was beside -him. He put off the moment when he must look at her. As he finally -turned, his suffused eyes avoided hers. He was smiling miserably. "Have -I made a mistake?" - -Julia felt blind inside herself. "Mistake?" She laughed nervously. - -He fumbled for her hands. "Julia!" His emotion could no longer -distinguish between her and himself. His face was in her hair. "I can't -help it, child! I can't help it!" - -Finding herself futile and inadequate, it seemed to Julia that her pity -for herself must include all the things that surrounded her, and that -she must embrace them in the mingled agony of self-contempt and pride. -It was because she did not love him that it liberated her so completely -to give herself to him. She tried to abase herself utterly so that she -might experience the joy of rising above her own needs. - -Her tears were on his hands and he was bewildered. The contagion of her -emotion overpowered him. He was equally astonished at her and at -himself. For a moment he was unable to speak. "Oh, Julia--my Julia--I -love you!" He could not comprehend himself. Why was it that even now, -when she surrendered herself to him, he continued to feel helpless and -almost terrified. He had not imagined that she loved him as deeply as -this. His desire to abase himself, though it arose from a different -motive, was as complete as hers. "Julia," he kept repeating, "don't! -What is it, Julia? Don't!" He wanted to kiss her feet. What is it? What -have I done? He found himself at the mercy of something unknown that was -cheating them when they should have had happiness. "Do you love me, -Julia?" He observed her expression of tenderness and suffering. Yet, -while she was telling him that she loved him, it seemed to him that he -was ignored and obliterated by what she was feeling. - -Julia sat on the camp bed and, as he had promised himself, he knelt -beside her and buried his face in her lap. Still, though he did not -admit it, he knew the gesture was false. He was embarrassed by his -hostility to her pity. He believed now that he loved her far more than -he had loved her before. He could no longer articulate his situation or -his intentions, or anything practical connected with his life. He -decided that, though she made him unhappy, life would only be endurable -if he saw her more frequently and in a franker relationship. How this -was to be brought about he dared not reflect. When Laurence's name was -on his lips he recalled Catherine and the pain of indecision made him -dumb. - -Julia felt that even this last attempt to lose herself was a failure. -While she stroked his hair, she was furtively considering whether or not -she dared see him again. - - * * * * * - -Laurence knew now that his attitude regarding Bobby was apparent to -Julia, and that it caused her pain. Why he punished her by keeping her -apart from his son and making her ill at ease when the child was present -he could not have said. However, though he realized absurdities in -himself, he would not renounce his sense of righteousness. What he -suffered through compunction was to him the pain of virtue. He hurt -Julia in order to convince himself of her depth of feeling. While he -observed her misery, he could believe that she would not betray him -again. Her agony was his, but it showed him that she was not callous and -indifferent to the consequences of her acts. He could not yet allow -himself to express any love for her. He would not even admit his desire -to do so. In the meantime, without understanding his expectation, he -waited and withheld himself. When she looked at him there was always in -her eyes the demand of self-pity. When she would accept, as he did, the -recognition that there was nothing, that there could be nothing, he -would not be afraid to give himself. He struggled with his tenderness -for her. It was always tearing at him. He was never at rest. Because he -put the thought of her out of his mind, he seemed to have no thoughts at -all--only an emptiness consuming him. He tried to comfort himself with -generalities and reverted to the illusory finality of the positivist -philosophy which he had at one time professed. - -Julia decided that self-loathing was the inevitable outgrowth of -profound experience. Others, who were as fully self-aware as she, were -filled with the same nausea of futility. She had several times talked to -Charles Hurst on the telephone, and the sound of his voice always -exhilarated her. When she sensed his emotion in speaking with her, a -kind of iron seemed to enter into her despair. Her distaste for contact -with him only convinced her of the pride of her recklessness. The more -intimate their relationship became, the more voluptuously she scourged -herself by her accurate perceptions of his deficiencies. Only by seeing -him at his worst could she preserve her gratification in being tender to -him and careless of her own interest. - - * * * * * - -Julia was continually irritated by the trivial routine of daily -existence. The banality of life was humiliating to her. Always, before -she went to the laboratory, she stopped in the kitchen to give Nellie -the orders for the day. The poised indifference of the old woman's -manner never failed to have an almost maddening effect. "Is the butter -out, Nellie? Shall I order any sugar this week?" Nellie's opaque, -self-engrossed eyes were continually fixed on some distant object. -"Yas'm. I reckon you bettah odah sugah. Dey's plenty o' buttah." Julia -smiled and tapped her foot on the bare, clean-scrubbed boards. "You're -frightfully inattentive, Nellie." Nellie's full purplish lips pouted -ruminatively. Her face was like a stone. "I always tends to what's mah -business, Miss Julia. You has yo' ways an' I has mine." And Julia, in -puzzled defeat, invariably left the kitchen. - -When she encountered May, it was as bad. The girl's vapid, apologetic -smile suggested the stubborn resistances of weakness. "Do you love your -negligent Aunt Julia, May?" May would give a sidewise glance from soft -protesting eyes. Then Julia, realizing that she should be touched by -May's affection, would put her arms about the girl. - -But Julia found herself actively disliking the child who forced upon her -an undefined sense of responsibility, elicited by the exhibition of -unhappiness. "Now, May, dear, I know you love me--you funny, sensitive -little thing!" Julia's perfunctory tone was a subtle and deliberate -repulse. - -May, wanting to hide herself, pressed her forehead against her sleeve. -Julia tried to pull May's arms apart, and wondered at her own -satisfaction in the brutality of the gesture. It seemed to May that Aunt -Julia's hands were about to tear open her heart. "Angry with me, May? -This is so silly." - -With an effort, May lifted her quivering face to Aunt Julia's cold eyes, -and giggled. "Of course not." She wanted to keep Aunt Julia from looking -at her and knowing her. - -"You aren't, eh? Well, be a good girl. There!" A kiss, meekly accepted. -How Julia abhorred that meekness! "Where's Paul these days? He hasn't -run away to the South Seas or some such place without telling us -good-by?" Julia felt guilty when she referred to him. But Paul and May -were children. That explained away an unnamed thing. - -"I--I don't know." Again May giggled. - -"Why don't you go to see Lucy Wilson?" - -"I don't know. I don't care much about going anywhere." - -My God, what's to become of the girl! Why should she live, Julia -thought. - - * * * * * - -Mrs. Hurst was finding it more and more difficult to face her husband. -Something which was becoming chronic in his manner aroused a suspicious -protest in her. When, in the morning, he entered the breakfast room and -found her already seated at the table, she bit her lips, and between her -brows appeared a little invariable frown. Charles was a mystery to her. -She wanted him to be a mystery. The thing she had to fight against most -was the recognition of his obviousness. A child! A ridiculous grown-up -child! Quite incomprehensible. And when her reflections culminated too -logically she put them aside with an emphasis on "the sacredness of -sex". There were flirtations, trivial improprieties, she knew, and she -admitted them. Perhaps all men were like that, spiritually so immature. -But where the flesh impinged upon her dream there was only an excited -darkness in which she defiantly closed her eyes. - -"Mrs. Wilson is going out to Marburne this week, Charles. She's -organizing a distributing center for the country women. They are quite -out of touch with the city markets and some of them make such wonderful -things--jams and embroideries, needlework and the like. She's trying to -get coöperation from other people who summer there. She wants to build -an industrial school for the girls, and is willing to put up a third of -the necessary money if others will contribute the rest. She wants me to -go out there with her and speak in various country schools." Catherine -was resisting the conviction that something critical was occurring in -her husband's inner life. The idea of going away from the city, and -leaving him, in such a state, to his own devices, frightened her. To -admit the necessity of remaining, however, was to concede the existence -of an issue. When he looked at her, it was as if he said, I'm like this, -but I can't help it, so forgive me. She did not wish to know what that -look meant. For years she had warded off crises by merely ignoring their -imminence. She dared not abandon the serviceable belief that the -disturbing elements of life cease to confuse us if we refuse to admit -that they exist. She called this, Rising above our lower selves. There -is so much truth, you know, in the religions of the Orient. At the same -time, Catherine's transcendental generalizations did not save her from -bitterness. Life was difficult, and Charles had left her more than her -share of responsibility for its solution. - -Charles regarded his wife wistfully, almost sentimentally. He made a -good-humored grimace. "Mrs. Wilson going to carry sweetness and light to -Marburne, is she?" He was crumbling bread between his blunt unsteady -fingers, and scattering it on the table cloth. What was he thinking of? - -Catherine smiled at him, a perplexed resentful smile, a trifle hard. He -was unhappy before her. There was something cold and watchful -half-hidden in her eyes beneath her pleasantly wrinkled lids. "Mrs. -Wilson is a very valuable, capable woman." - -Charles grimaced gallantly but derisively. He was leaning one elbow on -the table, and now he caught the flesh above his nose and pinched it -with his thumb and forefinger as if to still a hurt. "Yes," he agreed -with light absence. "By Jove, I know it! Every time I see poor old Jack -Wilson it reminds me of how capable she is." - -Catherine agreed to be amused, though her mouth was severe. "Ridicule -is an easy way out of difficulty, Charles." - -"Difficulty? Is it? Damn me, I wish it was!" He pushed his plate aside -and pressed the fingers of both hands against his lowered brow. - -Catherine, determinedly complacent, tapped her foot under the table and -ate daintily. The nervous frown reasserted itself and she smoothed it -away with an effort. - -Charles lifted his head, as with a sudden sweetly-depressing resolution. -"So you're going away. When?" - -Catherine was diligently attentive to her food. "Perhaps I may not be -able to go. I have so many important things--" She hesitated. - -Charles rose, as if imperatively desirous of physical expression. He -halted a moment by the table. Catherine had no name for his saccharine -melancholy, but she detested it. "I haven't been such a hell of a -husband, have I, Kate?" Ridiculous, she thought. She saw his mouth -twitch. She was afraid. He touched her hair and she bore it. "Things -might have been worse for you, Kate." - -She sensed in his pity for her a phase of the pity for himself which -supplied the excuse for all his shortcomings. "You'll muss my hair, -Charles. I think life has treated me very well indeed--both of us, I -should say." - -"We men are a rough lot, but we mean well. Time for me to get down to -the dirty world of commerce." His hand dropped away from her. He took -out his watch. - -White feet--he was tired. - -Catherine did not glance up as he went out. She was hostile toward his -disappearing back that was invisible to her. She laid her knife and fork -very precisely on her plate. When she spoke to the servant who came to -clear away the dishes, her manner, though kind, was peculiarly severe. - - * * * * * - -Charles had long ago definitely decided, though on no more than -circumstantial evidence, that Julia had no life with her husband, and -now he wanted her to the point of divorcing Catherine. Of course he had -as yet said nothing decisive to either Julia or his wife. Until he was -prepared to act it seemed to him unnecessary to speak. - -It was night. He was in his room alone. Without removing his clothes he -threw himself on the bed, soiling the handsome counterpane with his -polished shoes. Mentally he reviewed the histories of those of his -friends who had taken some such steps as he was contemplating. The more -he thought about the domestic upheavals which he had noted from a safe -distance, the more it was borne in upon him that, no matter how great -his desire to avoid causing suffering, the moment he began to act -positively, suffering for others would result from anything that he did. - -Charles had never found himself able to inflict even a just punishment. -Wherever possible he avoided the sight of pain. In the street he would -go a block out of his intended way to evade the familiar spectacle of -some wretched beggar. In doing so, his relief in escape was greater than -his sense of guilt. If he was approached directly for whatever pathetic -cause he always gave away everything that was in his pocket, and only -asked that no one remind him of the occasion of his generosity. His wife -was an efficient charity worker. Every quarter year he allowed her a -sum--always above what her practical nature would have dictated--to -dispose of in the alleviation of physical distress. He deferred to her -common sense, and was glad to be relieved of the depressing knowledge -of particular cases. As regarded legislative remedies for wrongs, he was -conservative where his business dealings were affected, but had an open -sympathy with revolutionary protests on the part of oppressed peoples in -any far-off European or Asiatic state. He had persuaded himself that -extreme measures were needed to compel fair play from the ancient -orthodoxies abroad, while reformatory methods could achieve everything -at home. - -He decried the prevalence of divorce, and the disintegration of the -home. Yet never, in a given instance, had he been able to condemn the -friend or acquaintance who had become dissatisfied with his wife and -sought happiness by forming new ties. Maternity in the abstract -represented to him a confused and embarrassing ideal. But he recalled -his own mother, who had never loved him, with a pain he did not attempt -to analyze. - -He was thinking now of young Goode's wife, who, before her marriage was -a year old, had run away with another man. Two days previously Charles -had met young Goode in the street. To keep from listening to any -reminiscence of the affair, Charles had talked to him rapidly in a -jocular voice and taken him off to his club to give him a drink. - -Charles turned in the bed, groaned, and hid his face. If only Catherine -were far away! Had gone abroad for a trip, or something like that! He -believed that the emotion he experienced when he held Julia in his arms -or knelt with his head in her lap was unlike anything that had ever -before come to him. He felt that through Julia he had discovered -qualities in himself by which he could lift himself from the banal plane -where he had been placed by others. The imposed acceptance of -limitations had humiliated him. It was not so much Julia that he was -afraid of losing, as the quality within him which he felt she alone -could evoke. He knew his own weakness too well. If, at this crisis, he -could not bring himself to initiate a change, the miracle which was -present would lose its potency, and he would be convicted forever of the -triviality which his friends saw in him. - -Charles rose to a sitting posture and threw off his coat. When he lay -down again he covered his eyes with his stubby fingers. The revealed -lower portion of his florid face was harsh and drawn. He could count the -pulse jumping in his temples where his hands pressed. His weak lips, -unconscious of themselves, looked shriveled with unhappiness. As the -tears came under his lids and slipped down his cheeks, his chin shook, -and he made a grimace like a contorted smile. All his gestures were -cumbersome and pathetic. He wanted the love that would not despise his -indecisions. At this moment he feared that even Julia might not be equal -to it. - -He despised his cowardice, yet had a certain pride in the frankness of -his self-confession. Christianity, in his mind, had to do with -sanctimonious Puritanism. He resisted with disgust what he understood to -be the Christian conception of humility. But he wanted to trust people -and lay himself at their feet. Not all--one woman's feet. - -There was nothing else for it! His thoughts were betraying him. He had -to have alcohol. He rolled to one side of the bed, tore his collar open, -and staggered to his feet. Already, the resolution to indulge himself -softened the clash of uncertainties. When he had gone to a cellarette, -and taken a drink from a decanter there, his misery grew warm and sweet. -His body was inundated in the hot painful essence of his own soul. He -was helpless and at ease, bathed in himself. - -Standing by the window, he watched the cold small moon rising above the -houses on the other side of the street. Strange and alone in whiteness, -it flashed above the dark roofs that glistened with a purplish light. -Charles, startled by the poesy of his own mood, compared it to a piece -of shattered mirror reflecting emptiness. He was ingenuously surprised -by his imaginings. Staring, with his large naïve eyes, at the glowing -moon in the profound starless sky, he was convinced of an incredible -beauty in everything, but particularly in himself. - - * * * * * - -Paul knew that in a fortnight he was expected to be away at college. -Without having spoken to any one of his resolve, he had decided on -rebellion. Of late he had been a regular attendant at industrial -gatherings. When he talked to Socialists, Communists, or even people -with anarchistic leanings, he was conscious of making himself absurd -with the illogical violence of his remarks. He felt that he was -continually doing himself an injustice, for almost everything he said -suggested that he was taking the side of the oppressed only to gratify a -personal spite. At the same time, he confessed to himself that the -revolution pleased him doubly when it emphasized the triviality and -complacency of women like Julia and her friends, who titillated their -vanity by trifling with matters which concerned the actual life and -death of a huge, semi-submerged class. - -On one occasion he listened to the tempestuous speech of a young -Rumanian Jewess, and was exalted by the mere passion of her words, -irrespective of their content. It seemed beautiful to him that this -young woman, under the suspicion of the police, was able to express her -faith with such utter recklessness. He wished that he too might endanger -himself. He hated the bourgeois comfort of his uncle's home. In order to -achieve such righteous defiance it was necessary to suffer something at -the hands of the enemy. Instead of running away to sea, as he had at -first planned, he decided that he ought to go into a factory to work, -and live in a low quarter of the city. There was Byronic pleasure in -imagining the loneliness that would be his lot. His desperation would be -a rebuke to those who despised him as a credulous youth. Above -everything, he wanted to be poor and socially lost. When he was at home, -his uncle nagged him and his aunt watched him continually with -curiosity and resentment. She thought he was lazy, that he lounged about -the streets and was untidy in his dress. - -Paul haunted slums where sex in its crudest form was always manifest. He -treasured his aversion to it. The deeper understanding of life had -lifted him above its necessities. He was never so much in the mood to -enter the battle for industrial right, in utter disregard of selfish -interests, as after resisting an appeal to what he termed his elemental -nature. Then he became impatient of his exclusion from present dangers. - -At last he was introduced to the Rumanian Jewess he had so much admired. -But when he saw that she was interested in men, and even something of a -coquette, it filled him with repugnance. He observed much in her that he -had not taken account of before. There was something coarse and sensual -in her heavy figure. Her skin, that was dark and oily, now appeared to -him unclean. And in her friendly eyes, with their look of frank -invitation, he discovered a secret depravity. This made him question the -need to merge his sense of self in the impersonal self of the working -class. It seemed certain that, to remain pure for leadership, he must -live apart. - - * * * * * - -In the vague morning street figures passed dimly on their way to work. -The sun, half visible, melted in pale rays that trembled on the wet -roofs of houses. The diffused shadows lay on the pavements in -transparent veils. Julia, on her way to the laboratory, saw Paul walking -in front of her, stooping, a tall, awkward figure with a cap pulled over -its face. She called, "Paul!" She noticed that he hesitated perceptibly -before he glanced back. In her state of mind she felt rebuked for -everything that went wrong around her. Paul's hesitation challenged her -conscience. - -He turned and awaited her approach. She took his cold limp fingers. He -seemed shy--almost angry--and would not look at her. "May and I have -missed you, Paul. Were you trying to run away from me?" A moment before -hearing her voice he had felt worldly and old and self-possessed. He -hated himself because, at the time, she always obliged him to believe in -her estimate of him rather than his own. He walked along beside her with -his hands in his pockets, his head lowered. "Until I met your aunt the -other day I thought you had taken the long voyage you were always -talking about. We haven't been such bad friends that we deserve to be -ignored, have we?" - -Paul said, "I haven't been to see anybody." - -She thought his reserve sulky. "Aren't you going to college in a few -days?" - -Paul turned red. He was all against her. "I think a lot of college is a -waste of time." - -"I suppose it is, but one might waste time much more disastrously." - -"I feel that going to college would be hypnotizing myself for four years -so I wouldn't know what real people were doing." - -"Surely there are some real people in college!" - -"Well, they manage to hide themselves. No college professor would ever -let you know that there was such a thing as a class struggle going on!" - -Poor child! Why is he so angry! "I see you're still very much interested -in economics." - -"Well, I haven't much use for the theoretical side of it." - -"I thought economics was all theory." - -Paul's intolerance scarcely permitted him to answer her. Most women, -who go in for making the world right over a cup of tea, do! "If anything -good comes to the working people of this country it will be through -direct action." He could not go on. His words suffocated him. He knew -that she was cursing him once more with the sin of youth. "I can't -expect people who don't know anything about actual conditions to agree -with me." His trembling hands fumbled helplessly in his pockets. It was -all dim between them. Love. I must love the world. She has never -suffered. It was almost as if she must suffer before he could go on with -what he believed. The world that was old seemed stronger and harder than -he could bear. People work because they must starve otherwise. She goes -to work that is only another diversion. They die. I could die. Dead -beast. Beauty and the beast. His heart was like a stone. - -Julia, watching him as they walked, saw his gullet move in his long -stooped neck. Poor awkward child! "I like you for feeling all this, -Paul. I used to feel the same things." - -"I suppose you don't believe in them now!" - -"I'm afraid I don't, Paul--not entirely. So many people have tried." She -was jealous of the child's illusion, but at the same time complacently -sad. He doesn't know me. The boy doesn't know me. Pity, baby, Dudley, -Charles, Laurence. - -"It wouldn't be hopeless if they didn't all pat themselves on the back -for being disillusioned." - -"What would you think then if I said I envied you?" She loved him for -misjudging her. It magnified the importance of her loneliness. They were -at a crossing where they must part. "Are you going this way?" What makes -the child look at me like that! He's unhappy. Paul said, "No." "Then -you'll come to see us--come to see May and me?" His hand did not take -hers, only permitted her grasp. She smiled and went on, feeling that she -was leaving something behind that she had meant to keep. - -He remembered her eyes, proud and humble at the same time, that asked of -him. As she left him it was as if he were dying. I must love some one! -He thought of her soul, a physical soul, meager and abandoned. All at -once an unasked thing possessed him. I love her! He was sick with sudden -terror and surprise. He walked blindly, jostling people he met. She -takes everything beautiful out of my life! His hands clenched in his -pockets. No. When he said love, he meant hate. - -The Indian girl walked down the grass to the ship. The waves, pale and -white-crested, parted before her. The waves were like white breasts -lying apart waiting for him. It was cold in the sea. She wants to kill -me. Now he knew what was meant by death--beautiful in coldness. White -breasts like sculptured things. They were so still he could lie in them -forever. Death. The peace of perfection. In the cold pure sky quivered -the thin rays of stars. The end of life. I love her, not beautiful--her -weak body torn by life. - -No, no, no! He could not endure it. Seas paler, and paler still. Not -beautiful. The water ran out forever. Dawn, and the empty sands like -glowing shadows of silk. A sandpiper flying overhead made dim -reflections of himself. With flashings of heavy light, the water -unrolled, and sank back from the beach. - - * * * * * - -Charles made repeated unsuccessful efforts to see Julia. It was a long -time before he was willing to be convinced that she was avoiding him. -When he finally realized it, he felt that he had been going toward a -place which seemed beautiful, but that when he stood in it there was -only emptiness. The emptiness was in him, hard, like a light which -disclosed nothing but its own brightness. He hated, but the emotion had -no particular object, for, by its very intensity, even Julia was -obliterated. There was nothing but himself, a thing frozen in a -brilliance which blinded its own eyes. If he could have felt anything -definite against her it would have been easier. To stop hating the -emptiness, he began to drink more heavily. If he permitted himself to -seek an object through which his suffering could be expressed he -reverted to Catherine. He must keep away from that. I mustn't hurt her. -Poor old girl. It's not right. - -He found that his repugnance to Catherine had become so acute that, to -keep himself from saying and doing irretrievable things, it was -necessary to escape the house and her presence. By God, it's rotten! -She's stood by me. I've got to be good to her. - -In his rejuvenated conception of his wife he exaggerated both her -acuteness and her capacity for suffering. It now appeared to him that -she had immolated herself on the altar of an ideal of which he was the -embodiment. She's loved me. She's always loved me. I don't know what's -the matter with me. Christ, what a rotten world this is! - -Then her small face rose up before him in all its evasive pleasantness. -He hated the faded prettiness of it; the withered look of her throat; -the velvet band she wore about her neck to make herself appear younger -when she was in evening dress. He hated her delicate characterless hands -that were less fresh than her face. The very memory of her rings -oppressed him. She was always so richly yet so discreetly dressed. Such -perfect taste. She had a way of seeming to call attention to other -people's bad breeding. He remembered the glasses she put on when she -read and hated the look of them on her small nose. The little grimace -she made when she laughed. Her verbal insistence on sensible footgear -and the feeling he always had that her shoes were too small for her. The -quizzical contempt with which she baffled him. Her sweet severe smile -behind which she concealed herself. - -My God, I've got to. I've got to. When he realized that the recollection -of Julia was coming into his mind he went somewhere and took another -drink. It was hot and quieting. Warm sensual dark in which he could -hide himself. Julia was something bright and glassy that stabbed his -eyes. He put her out like a light. He held fast to his sense of sin. He -had to torture himself with reproaches to make it seem worth while to go -back to his wife. - - * * * * * - -Charles tried to immerse himself in business. This was the one province -in which he could act without hesitations. He called it, "playing the -game". The atmosphere of trade hardened him. He had unconsciously -absorbed some of his wife's contempt for the details of money making. -Where he was not permitted to be sentimental, he luxuriated in a -callousness of which he was incapable in his intimate life. - -Day after day, scrupulously dressed, he sat in his office, an expensive -cigar between his lips, preserving to his associates what would be -called a "poker face". If he were able to get the best of any -one--especially through doubtful and unanticipated means--it gave him an -illusion of power which tempted him later to prolific benevolence. He -had begun life as a telegraph operator in a small town. He deserted this -profession to go into trade. At one time he was a small manufacturer. -Later he sold mining stock, and promoted a company that ultimately -failed. His first success had come when he went into the lumber -industry, and he had recently become possessed of some oil fields that -were making him rich. - -Charles never felt pity for any one who was on a financial equality with -himself. He would fleece such a man without a qualm. He distrusted -Socialists, tolerated trade unions with suspicion, but was sorry for -"the rough necks". Poor devils! I know what it's like. We're all of us -poor devils. He loved to think of himself as one who, through sheer -force of initiative, had risen despite unusual handicaps. By gosh, -before I get through I'm going to be quits with the world! At least we -can keep the women out of this--! Damned muck! - -In the flush of unscrupulous conquest, his eyes glistened with triumph. -His gestures were harshly confident. He looked young and happy. If, at -such times, he encountered women, they found his mixture of simplicity -and ruthlessness particularly ingratiating. - - * * * * * - -In the street Charles remembered a small niece whom he had not thought -of for a long time. Brother's kid. I'll send her something. His brother -was a poor man working on a small salary. Charles wanted to do something -generous that would help him to think well of himself. God, what a fool -I am! He walked along briskly with his hat off, looking insolent and -debonair. When an acquaintance passed in a motor car a jovial greeting -was exchanged. To make himself oblivious to the resentment which was in -the memory of Julia, Charles dwelt elaborately on the memory of other -women. Blanche, damn her! I'll have to go and see her again. One hand -around the old boy's neck and the other in his pocket. He tried to keep -away from the center toward which his thoughts converged. What price -life! Hell! (In the depths of me, this awful despair. Horror, horror, -horror. Something clutched and dragged him into himself.) He stretched -his neck above his collar and passed his finger along the edge. (Some -woman's throat white like that. Bent back. Lilies on a windy day. I -shall die.) - -Young Goode coming toward him. Goode thinking, Here's that unmoral -innocent. He'll live forever. Hurst's a bounder. Damn well-meaning ass. - -They stood on the street corner gossiping. Young Goode's brown eyes -desponded from boredom. Very handsome. A black mustache. His nose almost -Greek. His head empty--only a few clever thoughts. "Hello, Hurst." -"Hello, Goode, old chap. Yes, going out to Marburne to-morrow--Wilson -and his wife. How are you? What do you think of the election? Glad that -crook, Hallowell, got kicked out." - -Goode said he was thinking of turning Bolshevist. His smile was -self-appreciative. Ludicrous! - -"Well, I hope not. Haven't come to that yet. But the patriotism of some -of these ward heelers is pretty thin. Yes--hope we'll see you." - -They moved apart. Young Goode grew small in distance. A dark vanishing -speck down the glaring street. Christ, what a hot day! Charles mumbled -over some obscene expressions. I don't want to think. (Catherine, -lilies, white and beautiful neck.) - -Charles had gone all the way to town on foot. In front of the building -where his office was located he encountered Mr. Wilson. "Hello! Hello! -What do you think of this for the beginning of fall? Hot, eh? About time -for another drink? Yes, going out to your wife's new place. Kate says -it's quite a buy. Not yours? What's a husband now-a-days! Superfluous -critter. Endured but not wanted." - -Mr. Wilson's eyes were twinklingly submerged between his fat cheeks and -bulging brows. He hadn't time for a drink. He wanted to talk business -before he left town. He chuckled at everything Charles said. His full -cheeks quivered and his neat belly shook in the opening of his coat. -Charles was wary of unqualified approbation, but the more suspicious he -became the more easy and Rabelaisian was his conversation. -"Well--well--well, Hurst! I'll be--" Mr. Wilson actually suffered in -delight. - -They had seated themselves in Charles's inner room, a handsome heavy -desk between them. Charles gazed with cold innocent eyes at the laughing -fat man opposite. - -When Mr. Wilson had gone Charles opened a cupboard and took out a -bottle. In business hours he was very moderate in his indulgence. - -A long white road, just empty, going nowhere. The car jumped to his -touch. How cool and still it had been in the woods at evening when he -and Julia drove home. That's beautiful. Myself beautiful, wanting to be -loved. Fat old fool. Little children, little children, come unto me. - -My God, he said out loud, I'm getting a screw loose. Growing senile! -Julia--that hurts. I can't think of that. Kate, poor girl! - -All day he felt as though the memory of some pathetic death had made him -kind. - - * * * * * - -At last Paul had made up his mind to run away. His interest in the -revolution had waned. What do I think? May--that Farley woman. I don't -know. His emotions had betrayed him. Where am I? I don't know anything. -I don't know myself. He was unhappy, afraid that some one would discover -for him that his unhappiness also was absurd. His aunt, and Uncle -Archie, were intimate with the things that made his thoughts. He wanted -to go away, overseas, to know things which their recognitions had never -touched. When he was a part of foreign life they would not be able to -reach his thoughts. He wanted to put his wonder into things that were -dark to them. - -There were days when he spent all his free time among the docks. He -edged into the vast obscurity of warehouses. Red-necked men, half -dressed, were pushing trucks about. When they shouted orders to each -other their voices echoed in the twilight of dust and mingled odors in -the huge sheds. Through an opening, far off, Paul saw the side of a -ship, white, on which the sun struck a ray like light on another world. -There was a porthole in the glaring fragment of hull. The porthole -glittered. The strip of water below it was like twinkling oil. - -He made friends with a petty officer of a Brazilian freight boat who -took him aboard for a visit. On the machine deck Paul saw sailors' -clothes spread out to dry. With the smell of hot metal and grease was -mingled the odor of fresh paint. He leaned over one of the ventilators -and the air that came out of it almost overpowered him. - -From where he stood he could see the city distantly. Here and there a -tower radiated, or a gilded cornice on a high roof flashed through the -opacity of smoke. When he faced the sun the glow was intolerable, but he -turned another way and watched a world that looked drowned in light. The -ships were crowded along the docks as if they were on dry land. Masts -and smoke stacks bristled together. The harbor, filled with tugs and -barges, seemed to have contracted so that the farthest line of shore was -only a hand's throw away. - -He listened to the creaking of hawsers and the shouts in foreign -tongues. When the wind turned toward him, the strong oily fragrance of -the sacks of coffee that were being unloaded over the gang plank -pervaded everything. The wind touched him like the hand of a ghost. -Gulls with bright wings darted through the haze to rest for an instant -amidst the refuse that floated in the brown fiery water. - -Down in the engine room something was burring and churning. The water -rose along the ship's side with a hiss of faint motion, and descended -again as if in stealthy silence. Nothing but the lap, lap of tiny waves -succeeding one another. As if the sun's rays had woven a net about it, -the water was caught again in stillness. It was a transfixed glory like -the end of the world. - -I shall die. I shall never come back. Inside Paul was like a light -growing dim to itself, going on forever in invisible distance. When he -contemplated leaving everything he knew, he followed the disappearing -light, and when it died away he belonged to the strange lands which -wanted him like dreams. The river and the city, dim and harsh at the -same time, had the indefiniteness which allowed him to give himself to -them. He was in them, in smoke and endless distance. He listened to the -hoarse startling whistles of tugs, the shrill whistles of factories -blowing the noon hour on land, the confusion of voices that rose from -the small boats clustered about the ship's stern. - -Going away. Dying. I shall be dead of light, not known. Fear of the -unknown. There is only fear of the known, he said to himself, the known -outside. The unknown is in me. He wondered what he was saying, growing -up. Mature. He felt as if he had already gone far, far away, beyond the -touch of the familiar things one never understood. The strange was -close. It was his. - - * * * * * - -May felt herself lost in pale endless beauty of which Aunt Julia was a -part. Love in the darkness. Love in her own room at night when she was -alone and hugged her pillow to her wet face. Through the window she saw -the trees in the street leaning together and mingling their odd shadows. -An arc light was a blurred circle through the branches and the stiff -leaves shaking and dropping occasionally to earth. When she was unseen -she could give herself. If they saw her, they shut her in. Now she was -everywhere, wanted, dark in the dark street. She could see a star above -the roof and she was in the star filled with thin light. She felt as if -she were dying of love, dying of happiness. Happy over a world which was -beautiful because she loved it. She loved Paul, but he was only a part -of the secret city--a part of everything. She did not want to think of -him too much. Jesus, everything, she said. I'm Jesus. She shivered at -her blasphemy, and was glad. I'm Jesus! I'm Jesus! The leaves rattled -against the window pane and fell into the dark street. It was too -bright. She drew herself up in a knot and hid her face. - - * * * * * - -It was a hot night. Bobby was excited and cross. He was going away to -school the next day. His two trunks stood open on the floor of his room. -Outside the windows the dry leaves rustled in the murky night. Some rain -drops splattered against the lifted glass. Then there was silence, save -for the occasional rattle of twigs in the darkness. An automobile -slipped by with the long soft sound of rubber tires sucking damp -asphalt. When the branches of the trees parted, the lights in the house -opposite seemed to draw nearer. Bobby disliked their spying. - -He clattered up and down the stairs and through the halls in the still -house where one could hear the clocks tick. - -Depressed and resentful, Julia had kept herself from the boy and his -preparations. He encountered her outside his door. She was passing -quietly, trying not to be seen. "Gee whizz, Aunt Julia, I haven't got -anybody to help me!" Julia realized that she was hypocritical in her -determination to keep away from him. "I don't see why you can't help me, -Aunt Julia." - -Julia clasped her long pale fingers together in front of her black -dress. She smiled. Bobby doesn't know! Oh, Laurence, how can you! -"Hadn't you better do it alone, Bobby? Then you'll know where everything -is." She was thinking how proud his throat looked above his open collar. -His sun-burned neck was full and slender like a flower calyx. She found -something pathetic in his small hard face: his short straight nose, his -sulky mouth, his round chin, his eyes that saw nothing but their own -desires. She loved him. He hurt her so, hard beautiful little beast. She -walked through the door, into his domain that recalled his school -pennants and baseball bats. "What a trunk! You haven't left room for -clothes, child." - -"Well, gee whizz, Aunt Julia, I've got to take my boxing gloves and my -hockey sticks, and there's not anything in yet." She crouched by the -trunk and began to lift his treasures from it. "I'm afraid this will all -have to be taken out." - -Bobby stepped on her trailing skirt as he peered into the trunk. "Gosh, -Aunt Julia, it's so long!" He added, "You're so darn slow." - -"Have you asked May to help you?" - -"Gosh, Aunt Julia, I don't want her! She never will help me anyway." - -"I'm afraid you don't help her very much." Julia glanced over her -shoulder. Her smile apologized for her severity. - -"Well, gee, when she wants me to help her it's always some fool girl's -thing. She's not going away to school." - -Laurence, climbing the stairs slowly, heard their talk. He had hidden -himself for the evening, and was on his way to bed. He went to the door -and looked in. Julia saw him, and clambered to her feet, tripping over -her skirt. Laurence concentrated his attention on Bobby. "Not through -yet?" - -"Well, darn it, Dad, I've got to get everything in these two measly -little trunks. I just can't do it." - -Laurence came forward. "Oh, yes, you can." He squatted beside the heap -of clothes. Julia stepped back like an intruder. She watched his hands, -with their gestures of delicacy and tension, moving among the scattered -objects. His sweet sneer seemed graven on his face. Everything about -him, his clumsy humped shoulders, the spread of his hams straining the -cloth of his trousers, was full of her knowledge of him that he would -not admit. Bobby ran about the room bringing things to his father. Rain -fluttered out of the darkness and made threads of motion on the silvered -glass. "You'd better shut that window, Bobby." Bobby struggled with the -sash. "Gee whizz, Dad, it's so hot in here!" - -Julia wanted to leave them, but could not. She felt blank, and excluded, -as though they had thrust her out into the obliviousness of the night. -She was tired of the disorder of her inner life, but there was an -intoxication in desperation vivid enough to make remembered peace seem -dead and unreal. The only peace she could look forward to would come in -going on and on to the numbness of broken intensity. When one became -God, one destroyed in order to accomplish one's godhead. By destruction -one brought everything into one's self. But she was heavy with the -everything that she had become. It was too much. Only Laurence remained -outside her. He would not have her. He was more than she, because he -would not take her and become her. Love could not annihilate him. She -understood the strategy of crucifixion, but could not accomplish it. - -Laurence was rising stiffly to his feet. "Better, eh?" - -Bobby was grudgingly appreciative. "There's a lot more. I'm much -obliged. I guess it's all right." - -Laurence settled his cuffs about his wrists and, drawing out a crumpled -handkerchief, brushed dust from his small hands. "Well, that will do -until morning anyway. Anything we can't find room for we'll send after -you. You'd better get to bed now." - -Julia said, "Good-night, Bobby, dear." "Good-night." Bobby did not see -her face. "Good-night, Robert." "'Night, Dad." - -Julia followed Laurence out. Still he did not look at her. He was -relieved by the certainty of Bobby's departure, and willing to -acknowledge that he owed Julia some compensation. "Well, I suppose we'll -miss the kid." - -"I shall." They were before Julia's door. She hesitated with her hand on -the knob. "Won't you come in and talk to me a minute, Laurence?" He -avoided her eyes again and stiffened weakly to resist her tone. "Pretty -late, isn't it?" He noted her trembling lips. I can't bear that mouth. -"Isn't it time you got to sleep?" "I can't sleep." - -Then he had to meet her gaze. He was lost in it. He smiled wryly. "All -right." With a sense of groping, he followed her in. He wanted the -strength to keep her out of his life forever. When she exposed her -misery to him, it was as if she were showing him breasts which he did -not desire. - -Julia said, "Sit down, won't you, Laurence? I feel almost as if you had -never been here." Why did she treat him like a guest! He knew her -suffering gaze was fixed on him steadily. Laurence, self-entangled, was -ashamed to defend himself. He hated her because he loved her. He was -jealous of the virgin quality of his pain, and he must give it up for -her to ravage in a shared emotion. It was as if her hands, sensually -understanding, were reaching voluptuously for his heart. - -"You've changed your furniture around." He fumbled in his pocket for a -cigar. Julia was closer. He could feel her movement closer to him. He -could no longer hide himself. - -Julia knelt by the side of his chair. "Are you sending Bobby off to get -him away from me, Laurie?" - -I shall have to look at her. I can't! I can't! "What an idea, Julia!" - -"Laurie, don't punish me! It's killing me to be shut out of your life." - -His head was bent over his unlit cigar, as he rolled it endlessly in his -fingers. A tear splashed on his hand--his own tear. He wondered at it. -He was helpless. "Laurie, my darling! I love you, whether you love me or -not!" She was pressing his head against her. His lost head. It lolled. -It was hers. Everything was hers. She had taken him, and was exposing -his love for her. This would be the hardest thing to forget. Could he -ever forget? He gave himself limply to her exultance. "You've killed me, -Julia. What is there to forgive? Yes, I love you. I love you." They -leaned together. How easily she cries! They love each other. "Oh, -Laurie, my darling, my darling! Thank you! Thank you!" She was kissing -his hands. He writhed inwardly. My God, not that! Even _I_ can't bear -it! "Don't, Julia. Please don't." "I want to be yours, Laurie--oh, won't -you let me be yours?" "Julia, I'm anything. I'm broken. I don't know." -He was weeping through his fingers. She pulled them apart, and pressed -her lips to his face and his closed eyes. - -After a time they were calm. She was tender to his humiliation. When he -lit the cigar which he had recovered from the floor, she sat at his feet -and smiled. He recognized his need of her now. It was dull and -persistent. Yes, God forbid that I should judge anybody. I love her. - -"Laurie?" - -"Julia?" His furtive eyes admitted the sin she put on them. - -"Dear Laurie! I love you so much." - -Unacknowledged, each kept for himself a pain which the other could not -heal. Each pitied the other's illusion, and was steadied by it into -gentleness. - - -THE END - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Narcissus, by Evelyn Scott - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NARCISSUS *** - -***** This file should be named 42533-8.txt or 42533-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/2/5/3/42533/ - -Produced by Clare Graham & Marc D'Hooghe at -http://www.freeliterature.org (Images generously made -available by the Internet Archive.) - - -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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