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- margin-bottom: 0.8em; margin-left: 35%; margin-right: 35%; width: 30%; } - div.tnotes { padding-left:1em;padding-right:1em;background-color:#E3E4FA; - border:1px solid silver; margin:2em 10% 0 10%; font-family: Georgia, serif; - } - .covernote { visibility: hidden; display: none; } - div.tnotes p { text-align:left; } - @media handheld { .covernote { visibility: visible; display: block;} } - blockquote {margin-top: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0em; - margin-right: 0em; font-size: .9em; } - .section { clear: both; page-break-before: always; } - .ol_1 li {font-size: .9em; } - @media handheld {.ol_1 li {padding-left: 1em; text-indent: 0em; } } - body {font-family: Georgia, serif; text-align: justify; } - table {font-size: 1em; } - .figcenter {font-size: .9em; page-break-inside: avoid; } - div.titlepage {text-align: center; page-break-before: always; - page-break-after: always; } - div.titlepage p {text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; font-weight: bold; - line-height: 1.5; margin-top: 3em; } - .ph1 { text-indent: 0em; font-weight: bold; font-size: xx-large; - margin: .67em auto; page-break-before: always; } - .pad {padding-left:2.5em; } - </style> - </head> - <body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Book, by Djuna Barnes - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll -have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using -this ebook. - - - -Title: A Book - -Author: Djuna Barnes - -Release Date: December 11, 2019 [EBook #60904] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BOOK *** - - - - -Produced by Richard Tonsing, Tim Lindell, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -book was produced from images made available by the -HathiTrust Digital Library.) - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class='tnotes covernote'> - -<p class='c000'><b>Transcriber’s Note:</b></p> - -<p class='c000'>The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.</p> - -</div> - -<div class='section ph1'> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c001'> - <div>A BOOK</div> - </div> -</div> - -</div> - -<div id='Frontispiece' class='figcenter id001'> -<img src='images/i_frontispiece.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<div class='titlepage'> - -<div> - <h1 class='c002'>A BOOK</h1> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div>BY</div> - <div class='c004'><span class='xlarge'>DJUNA BARNES</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i_title.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div><span class='large'>BONI <span class='fss'>AND</span> LIVERIGHT</span></div> - <div class='c004'><span class='sc'>Publishers</span> <span class='sc'>New York</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c001'> - <div><i>Copyright, 1923, by</i></div> - <div class='c004'><span class='sc'>Boni and Liveright, Inc.</span></div> - <div class='c003'>PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c001'> - <div>To</div> - <div class='c004'>MOTHER</div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c004' /> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 class='c005'>CONTENTS</h2> -</div> - -<table class='table0' summary='CONTENTS'> - <tr> - <th class='c006'></th> - <th class='c007'><span class='small'>PAGE</span></th> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>A Night Among the Horses</span></td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_1'>1</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>Three from the Earth</span></td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_15'>15</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>The Valet</span></td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_31'>31</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>To the Dogs</span></td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_44'>44</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>Beyond the End</span></td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_59'>59</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>Pastoral</span></td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_74'>74</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>Oscar</span></td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_76'>76</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>Antique</span></td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_103'>103</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>Katrina Silverstaff</span></td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_104'>104</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>Hush Before Love</span></td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_116'>116</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>The Robin’s House</span></td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_117'>117</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>Paradise</span></td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_131'>131</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>No-Man’s-Mare</span></td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_132'>132</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>Six Songs of Khalidine</span></td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_145'>145</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span></td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_147'>147</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>Mother</span></td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_164'>164</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>Song in Autumn</span></td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_172'>172</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>The Nigger</span></td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_173'>173</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>Lullaby</span></td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_179'>179</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>Indian Summer</span></td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_180'>180</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>I’d Have You Think of Me</span></td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_194'>194</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>The Rabbit</span></td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_195'>195</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>The Flowering Corpse</span></td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_209'>209</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>A Boy Asks a Question of a Lady</span></td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_210'>210</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>First Communion</span></td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_219'>219</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>Finis</span></td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_220'>220</a></td> - </tr> -</table> - -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 class='c005'>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> -</div> - -<table class='table0' summary=''> - <tr> - <td class='c006'>Study</td> - <td class='c007'><i><a href='#Frontispiece'>Frontispiece</a></i></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <th class='c006'></th> - <th class='c007'><span class='small'><i>Facing page</i></span></th> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'>Portrait</td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_30'>30</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'>Portrait</td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_58'>58</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'>Drawing</td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_102'>102</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'>Portrait Study</td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_144'>144</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'>Portrait</td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_172'>172</a></td> - </tr> -</table> - -<div class='section ph1'> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c001'> - <div>A BOOK</div> - </div> -</div> - -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_1'>1</span> - <h2 class='c005'>A NIGHT AMONG THE HORSES</h2> -</div> - -<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c008'>Toward dusk, in the Summer of the -year, a man dressed in a frock coat and -top hat, and carrying a cane, crept -through the underbrush bordering the corral of -the Buckler farm.</p> - -<p class='c009'>As he moved, small twigs snapped, fell and -were silent. His knees were green from wounded -shrubbery and grass, and his outspread hands -tore unheeded plants. His wrists hurt him and -he rested from time to time, always caring for -his hat and knotted yellow cane, blowing through -his moustache.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Dew had been falling, covering the twilight -leaves like myriad faces damp with the perspiration -of the struggle for existence, and half a -mile away, standing out against the darkness -of the night, a grove of white birches shimmered -like teeth in a skull.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He heard the creaking of a gate, and the -splashing of late rain into the depths of a dark -cistern. His heart ached with the nearness of -the earth, the faint murmur of it moving upon -<span class='pageno' id='Page_2'>2</span>itself, like a sleeper who turns to throw an arm -about a beloved.</p> - -<p class='c009'>A frog began moaning among the skunk -cabbages, and John thrust his hand deep into -his bosom.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Something somnolent seemed to be here, and -he wondered. It was like a deep, heavy, yet -soft prison where, without sin, one may suffer -intolerable punishment.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Presently he went on, feeling his way. He -reached a high plank fence and sensing it with -his fingers, he lay down, resting his head against -the ground.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He was tired, he wanted to sleep, but he -searched for his hat and cane and straightened -out his coat beneath him before he turned his -eyes to the stars.</p> - -<p class='c009'>And now he could not sleep, and wondered -why he had thought of it; something quick was -moving the earth, it seemed to live, to shake with -sudden immensity.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He heard a dog barking, and the dim light -from a farm window kept winking as the trees -swung against its square of light. The odor of -daisies came to him, and the assuring, powerful -smell of the stables; he opened his mouth and -drew in his moustache.</p> - -<p class='c009'>A faint tumult had begun. A tremor ran -<span class='pageno' id='Page_3'>3</span>under the length of his body and trembled off -into the earth like a shudder of joy—died down -and repeated itself. And presently he began -to tremble, answering, throwing out his hands, -curling them up weakly, as if the earth were -withholding something precious, necessary.</p> - -<p class='c009'>His hat fell off, striking a log with a dull -hollow sound, and he pressed his red moustache -against the grass, weeping.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Again he heard it, felt it; a hundred hoofs -beat upon the earth and he knew the horses had -gone wild in the corral on the other side of the -fence, for animals greet the Summer, striking -the earth, as friends strike the back of friends. -He knew, he understood; a hail to Summer, to -life, to death.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He drew himself against the bars, pressing his -eyes under them, peering, waiting.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He heard them coming up across the heavy -turf, rounding the curve in the Willow Road. -He opened his eyes and closed them again. The -soft menacing sound deepened, as heat deepens, -strikes through the skin into the very flesh. -Head on, with long legs rising, falling, rising -again, striking the ground insanely, like needles -taking terrible, impossible and purposeless -stitches.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He saw their bellies, fawn-coloured, pitching -<span class='pageno' id='Page_4'>4</span>from side to side, flashing by, straining the fence, -and he rose up on his feet and silently, swiftly, -fled on beside them.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Something delirious, hysterical, came over him -and he fell. Blood trickled into his eyes down -from his forehead. It had a fine feeling for a -moment, like a mane, like that roan mare’s mane -that had passed him—red and long and splendid.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He lifted his hand, and closed his eyes once -more, but the soft pounding did not cease, though -now, in his sitting position, it only jogged him -imperceptibly, as a child on a knee.</p> - -<p class='c009'>It seemed to him that he was smothering, and -he felt along the side of his face as he had done -in youth when they had put a cap on him that -was too large. Twining green things, moist with -earth-blood, crept over his fingers, the hot, impatient -leaves pressed in, and the green of the -matted grass was deathly thick. He had heard -about the freeness of nature, thought it was so, -and it was not so.</p> - -<p class='c009'>A trailing ground pine had torn up small -blades in its journey across the hill, and a vine, -wrist-thick, twisted about a pale oak, hideously, -gloriously, killing it, dragging it into dust.</p> - -<p class='c009'>A wax Patrick Pipe leaned against his neck, -staring with black eyes, and John opened his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_5'>5</span>mouth, running his tongue across his lips, snapping -it off, sighing.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Move as he would, the grass was always under -him, and the crackling of last Autumn’s leaves -and last Summer’s twigs—minute dead of the -infinite greatness—troubled him. Something -portentous seemed connected with the patient -noises about him. An acorn dropped, striking -a thin fine powder out of a frail oak pod. He -took it up, tossing it. He had never liked to see -things fall.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He sat up, with the dim thunder of the horses -far off, but quickening his heart.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He went over the scene he had with Freda -Buckler, back there in the house, the long quivering -spears of pot-grass standing by the window -as she walked up and down, pulling at them, talking -to him.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Small, with cunning fiery eyes and a pink and -pointed chin. A daughter of a mother who had -known too many admirers in her youth; a woman -with an ample lap on which she held a Persian -kitten or a trifle of fruit. Bounty, avarice, desire, -intelligence—both of them had always what they -wanted.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He blew down his moustache again thinking of -Freda in her floating yellow veil that he had -called ridiculous. She had not been angry, he -<span class='pageno' id='Page_6'>6</span>was nothing but a stable boy then. It was the -way with those small intriguing women whose -nostrils were made delicate through the pain of -many generations that they might quiver whenever -they caught a whiff of the stables.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“As near as they can get to the earth,” he had -said, and was Freda angry? She stroked his arm -always softly, looking away, an inner bitterness -drawing down her mouth.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She said, walking up and down quickly, looking -ridiculously small:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I am always gentle, John”—frowning, trailing -her veil, thrusting out her chin.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He answered: “I liked it better where I was.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Horses,” she said showing sharp teeth, “are -nothing for a man with your bile—pot-boy—curry -comber, smelling of saddle soap—lovely!” -She shrivelled up her nose, touching his arm: -“Yes, but better things. I will show you—you -shall be a gentleman—fine clothes, you will like -them, they feel nice.” And laughing she turned -on one high heel, sitting down. “I like horses, -they make people better; you are amusing, intelligent, -you will see——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“A lackey!” he returned passionately, throwing -up his arm. “What is there in this for you, -what are you trying to do to me? The family—askance—perhaps—I -don’t know.”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span>He sat down pondering. He was getting used -to it, or thought he was, all but his wordy remonstrances. -He knew better when thinking of his -horses, realizing that when he should have married -this small, unpleasant and clever woman, -he would know them no more.</p> - -<p class='c009'>It was a game between them, which was the -shrewder, which would win out? He? A boy of -ill breeding, grown from the gutter, fancied by -this woman because he had called her ridiculous, -or for some other reason that he would never -know. This kind of person never tells the truth, -and this, more than most things, troubled him. -Was he a thing to be played with, debased into -something better than he was—than he knew?</p> - -<p class='c009'>Partly because he was proud of himself in the -costume of a groom, partly because he was timid, -he desired to get away, to go back to the stables. -He walked up to the mirrors as if about to challenge -them, peering in. He knew he would look -absurd, and then knew, with shame, that he looked -splendidly better than most of the gentlemen that -Freda Buckler knew. He hated himself. A man -who had grown out of the city’s streets, a fine -common thing!</p> - -<p class='c009'>She saw him looking into the mirrors, one after -the other, and drew her mouth down. She got -<span class='pageno' id='Page_8'>8</span>up, walking beside him in the end, between him -and them, taking his arm.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You shall enter the army—you shall rise to -General, or Lieutenant at least—and there are -horses there, and the sound of stirrups—with that -physique you will be happy—authority you -know,” she said, shaking her chin, smiling.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Very well, but a common soldier——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“As you like—afterward.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Afterward?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Very well, a common soldier.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He sensed something strange in her voice, a -sort of irony, and it took the patience out of him:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I have always been common, I could commit -crimes, easily, gladly—I’d like to!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She looked away. “That’s natural,” she said -faintly; “it’s an instinct all strong men have——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She knew what was troubling him, thwarted -instincts, common beautiful instincts that he was -being robbed of. He wanted to do something -final to prove his lower order; caught himself -making faces, idiot faces, and she laughed.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“If only your ears stuck out, chin receded,” she -said, “you might look degenerate, common, but -as it is——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>And he would creep away in hat, coat and with -his cane, to peer at his horses, never daring to go -in near them. Sometimes, when he wanted to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span>weep, he would smear one glove with harness -grease, but the other one he held behind his back, -pretending one was enough to prove his revolt.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She would torment him with vases, books, pictures, -making a fool of him gently, persistently, -making him doubt by cruel means, the means of -objects he was not used to, eternally taking him -out of his sphere.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“We have the best collection of miniatures,” -she would say with one knee on a low ottoman, -bringing them out in her small palm.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Here, look.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He would put his hands behind him.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“She was a great woman—Lucrezia Borgia—do -you know history——” She put it back -because he did not answer, letting his mind, a -curious one, torment itself.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You love things very much, don’t you?” she -would question, because she knew that he had a -passion for one thing only. She kept placing -new ladders beneath his feet, only to saw them -off at the next rung, making him nothing more -than a nervous, irritable experiment. He was -uneasy, like one given food to smell and not to -taste, and for a while he had not wanted to taste, -and then curiosity began, and he wanted to, and -he also wanted to escape, and he could do neither.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Well, after he had married her, what then? -<span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>Satisfy her whim and where would he be? He -would be nothing, neither what he had been nor -what other people were. This seemed to him, at -times, her wish—a sort of place between lying -down and standing up, a cramped position, a slow -death. A curious woman.</p> - -<p class='c009'>This same evening he had looked at her attentively -for the first time. Her hair was rather -pretty, though too mousy, yet just in the nape -of the neck, where it met the lawn of the collar -it was very attractive. She walked well for a little -woman, too.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Sometimes she would pretend to be lively, -would run a little, catch herself at it, as if she had -not intended to do it, and calm down once more, -or creeping up to him, stroking his arm, talking -to him, she would walk beside him softly, slowly, -that he might not step out, that he would have to -crawl across the carpet.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Once he had thought of trying her with -honesty, with the truth of the situation. Perhaps -she would give him an honest answer, and he -had tried.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Now, Miss Freda—just a word—what are -you trying to do? What is it you want? What -is there in me that can interest you? I want you -to tell me—I want to know—I have got to ask -someone, and I haven’t anyone to ask but you.”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span>And for a moment she almost relented, only -to discover that she could not if she had wished. -She did not know always what she meant herself.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I’ll tell you,” she said, hoping that this, somehow, -might lead her into the truth, for herself, if -not for him, but it did not, “you are a little nervous, -you will get used to it—you will even grow -to like it. Be patient. You will learn soon -enough that there is nothing in the world so -agreeable as climbing, changing.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Well,” he said, trying to read her, “and -then?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“That’s all, you will regret the stables in the -end—that’s all.” Her nostrils quivered. A light -came into her eyes, a desire to defy, to be defied.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Then on this last night he had done something -terrible, he had made a blunder. There -had been a party. The guests, a lot of them, -were mostly drunk, or touched with drink. And -he, too, had too much. He remembered having -thrown his arms about a tall woman, gowned -in black with loose shoulder straps, dragging her -through a dance. He had even sung a bit of a -song, madly, wildly, horribly. And suddenly he -had been brought up sharp by the fact that no one -thought his behaviour strange, that no one -thought him presumptuous. Freda’s mother had -not even moved or dropped the kitten from her -<span class='pageno' id='Page_12'>12</span>lap where it sat, its loud resolute purr shaking -the satin of her gown.</p> - -<p class='c009'>And he felt that Freda had got him where she -wanted him, between two rungs. Going directly -up to her, he said:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You are ridiculous!” and twirled his moustache, -spitting into the garden.</p> - -<p class='c009'>And he knew nothing about what happened -until he found himself in the shrubbery, crawling -toward the corral, through the dusk and the -dampness of the leaves, carrying his cane, making -sure of his hat, looking up at the stars.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Now he knew why he had come. He was -with his horses again. His eyes, pressed against -the bars, stared in. The black stallion in the lead -had been his special pet, a rough animal, but -kindly, knowing. And here they were once more, -tearing up the grass, galloping about in the night -like a ball-room full of real people, people who -wanted to do things, who did what they wanted -to do.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He began to crawl through the bars, slowly, -deftly, and when half way through he paused, -thinking.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Presently he went on again, and drawing himself -into the corral, his hat and cane thrown in -before him, he lay there mouth to the grass.</p> - -<p class='c009'>They were still running, but less madly; one -<span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span>of them had gone up the Willow Road leading -into a farther pasture, in a flare of dust, through -which it looked immense and faint.</p> - -<p class='c009'>On the top of the hill three or four of the -horses were standing, testing the weather. He -would mount one, he would ride away, he would -escape. And his horses, the things he knew, -would be his escape.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Bareback, he thought, would be like the days -when he had taken what he could from the rush -of the streets, joy, exhilaration, life, and he was -not afraid. He wanted to stand up, to cry aloud.</p> - -<p class='c009'>And he saw ten or twelve of them rounding -the curb, and he did stand up.</p> - -<p class='c009'>They did not seem to know him, did not seem -to know what to make of him, and he stared at -them wondering. He did not think of his white -shirt front, his sudden arising, the darkness, their -excitement. Surely they would know, in a moment -more.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Wheeling, flaring their wet nostrils, throwing -up their manes, striking the earth in a quandary, -they came on, whinnied faintly, and he knew what -it was to be afraid.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He had never been afraid and he went down on -his knees. With a new horror in his heart he -damned them. He turned his eyes up, but he -could not open them. He thought rapidly, calling -<span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>on Freda in his heart, speaking tenderly, -promising.</p> - -<p class='c009'>A flare of heat passed his throat and descended -into his bosom.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I want to live. I can do it—damn it—I can -do it! I can forge ahead, make my mark.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He forgot where he was for a moment and -found new pleasure in this spoken admission, -this new rebellion. He moved with the faint -shaking of the earth, like a child on a woman’s lap.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The upraised hoofs of the first horse missed -him, but the second did not.</p> - -<p class='c009'>And presently the horses drew apart, nibbling -here and there, switching their tails, avoiding a -patch of tall grass.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span> - <h2 class='c005'>THREE FROM THE EARTH</h2> -</div> - -<table class='table1' summary='Persons'> -<colgroup> -<col width='20%' /> -<col width='79%' /> -</colgroup> - <tr> - <td class='brt c010'><span class='sc'>Persons</span>:</td> - <td class='c011'> </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c010'><span class='pad'><span class='sc'>James</span> </span></td> - <td class='c011' rowspan='3'><span class='sc'>Carson</span> <i>brothers</i></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c010'><span class='pad'><span class='sc'>Henry</span> </span></td> - - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c010'><span class='pad'><span class='sc'>John</span> </span></td> - - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c010'><span class='pad'><span class='sc'>Kate Morley</span>—</span></td> - <td class='c011'><i>An adventuress, a lady of leisure</i></td> - </tr> -</table> - -<p class='c012'><span class='sc'>Time</span>—<i>Late afternoon</i>.</p> - -<p class='c012'><span class='sc'>Place</span>—<span class='sc'>Kate Morley’s</span> <i>boudoir. A long narrow -room, with a great many lacquer -screens in various shades of blue, a tastefully -decorated room though rather -extreme.</i></p> - -<p class='c013'><i>At the rise of the curtain the three</i> <span class='sc'>Carson</span> -<i>brothers are discovered sitting together on a -couch to the left. They look like peasants of the -most obvious type. They are tall, rather heavy—and -range in age from nineteen to twenty-five. -They have sandy, sun-bleached hair that insists -upon sticking straight up—oily, sweaty skins—large -hanging lips and small eyes on which a -faint whitish down moves for lashes. They are</i> -<span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span><i>clumsy and ill clothed. Russet shoes are on all -six feet. They each wear a purple aster and each -has on a tie of the super-stunning variety—they -have evidently done their best to be as one might -say “well dressed.”</i></p> - -<p class='c009'><i>When they speak—aside from their grunts—their -voices are rough, nasal and occasionally -crack. They are stoop-shouldered and their -hands are excessively ugly.</i></p> - -<p class='c009'><i>Yet in spite of all this, their eyes are intelligent, -their smiles gentle, melancholy, compassionate. -And though they have a look of formidable grossness -and stupidity, there is, on second observation, -a something beneath all this in no way in -keeping with this first impression.</i></p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>John</span>, <i>the youngest, and the smallest, looks -around the room carefully</i>.</p> -<p class='c013'><span class='sc'>John</span>—A nice room, eh? [<i>He tries to whisper, -but it comes forth buzzing and harsh.</i>]</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>James</span>—A woman’s room.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Henry</span>—How?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>James</span>—A narrow room, John.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>John</span>—Well?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>James</span>—Cats and narrow walls.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Henry</span>—[<i>Grunting.</i>] Ugh.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>John</span>—Hush—I hear her coming! [<i>The curtains -part and</i> <span class='sc'>Kate Morley</span> <i>enters. She is a -woman of about forty. Handsome. Dark. She</i> -<span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span><i>is beautifully dressed—in a rather seductive -fashion. She has a very interesting head; she -has an air of one used to adulation and the -pleasure of exerting her will. She has a trick -of narrowing her eyes. As she comes forward -there is a general commotion among the brothers, -but none manages to stand up.</i>]</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—Good day, gentlemen.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>All Three</span>—Good day.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—Nice of you to call on me. [<i>She seats -herself, crossing her legs.</i>] You are the three -Carsons, John, James and Henry, aren’t you? -I haven’t seen you for years, yet I think I should -have known you.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>All Three</span>—Ah ha.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—Yes, I presume I should have known -you. I have a good memory. Well, as I said, -it’s nice of you to come to see me. Social?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Henry</span>—You might call it that.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—It’s quite nice to get an unexpected -visitor or so. I’m the kind of woman who knows -just who is going to call on Monday, Tuesday, -Thursday——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>All Three</span>—Ah ha.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—How’s the country?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>John</span>—Just the same.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—It always is.—Don’t you go mad—watching -it?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span><span class='sc'>Henry</span>—Now and again.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—And how’s your father? [<i>Not pausing -for an answer—almost to herself.</i>] I remember—<i>he</i> -was always mad. He used to wear a green -cloth suit, and he carried white rats all over his -shoulders. [<i>Remembering the three.</i>] Ah, yes, -your father—he was a barber, wasn’t he?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Henry</span>—No, a chemist.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—[<i>Laughing uneasily.</i>] I have a bad -memory after all. Well, anyway, in those days -he had begun to be queer—everyone noticed it—even -that funny man who had those three -flaxen-haired daughters with the thin ankles who -lives at the end of the street—— And your -mother—a prostitute, I believe.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Henry</span>—[<i>Calmly.</i>] At times.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—A dancing girl without a clean word in -her vocabulary, or a whole shirt to her name——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>James</span>—But a woman with fancies.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—[<i>Sarcastically.</i>] And what ability?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Henry</span>—Oh, none, just a burning desire.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—What’s the use of going into that? -How did you get here—what for?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>All Three</span>—On bicycles.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—[<i>Bursting into laughter.</i>] How exactly -ridiculous and appropriate—and what else?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>John</span>—To see how the sun falls in a place like -this.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—[<i>Angrily, rising.</i>] Well, you see, from -left to right, and right to left——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Henry</span>—True.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>John</span>—[<i>Quietly.</i>] And we wanted to see how -you walked, and sat down, and crossed your -legs——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Henry</span>—And to get father’s letters.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—Well, you see how I walk, sit down, -cross my legs. What letters?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>James</span>—Letters to you.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—[<i>Uneasily.</i>] So you know about that—well, -and what would you fellows do with -them—read them to see how clever they are?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>James</span>—No, we have the clever ones.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—Mine?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>John</span> <i>and</i> <span class='sc'>Henry</span>—[<i>Nodding.</i>] Exactly.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—Oh!</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>John</span>—You suffer?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—From time to time—there’s always a -reaction.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Henry</span>—That’s vulgar, isn’t it?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—Not unusually.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>John</span>—The letters?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—[<i>To herself.</i>] Well, there is malice in -me—what of it? We’ve all been a while with the -dogs, we don’t all learn to bark.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>John</span>—Ah ha.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—See here, what will you do with your -father’s letters?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Henry</span>—Destroy them, perhaps.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—And if I give them to you—will your -father be as generous with mine?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Henry</span>—Father is undoubtedly a gentleman—even -at this moment.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—Well, we shall see about that—first tell -me how you live.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>John</span>—We go down on the earth and find -things, tear them up, shaking the dirt off. [<i>Making -motions to illustrate.</i>] Then there are the -cows to be milked, the horses—a few—to be fed, -shod and curried—do you wish me to continue?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—Yes, yes, go on.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Henry</span>—[<i>Taking the tale up.</i>] We get up at -dawn, and our father turns over in bed and -whispers: “If you meet anyone, say nothing; if -you are asked a question, look stupid——”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—I believe you.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>James</span>—And he says: “Go about your work -as if you had neither sight, speech nor hearing——”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—Yes——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>John</span>—And he adds: “If you should meet a -woman in the road——”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—[<i>Excited.</i>] Then what?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Henry</span>—That’s enough. Then of a Sunday -<span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span>we watch the people going to church, when we -hear the “Amen,” we lift a little and sit back—and -then again——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—Religion?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Henry</span>—Enough for our simple needs.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—Poor sheep!</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>James</span>—Wise sheep!</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—What! Well perhaps. No one is any -longer sure of anything. Then what?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>John</span>—When we come home he says: “What -have you seen and heard today?” He never asks, -“What have you said?”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—He trusts you?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>John</span>—Undoubtedly. Sometimes we say, -“We saw a hawk flying,” or, “A badger passed,” -and sometimes we bring him the best treat -of all——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—Well?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>John</span>—Something dead.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—Dead?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Henry</span>—Anything that has destroyed the -crops—a mole—a field-mouse.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—And never anything that’s harmless?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>John</span>—Never.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—Well, see here, I’ll give you those letters. -Suddenly my heart says to me, “Kate, give -the oxen the rope, they won’t run away.”—Isn’t -it so? Very well, I put my hand on a certain -<span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span>package and all is over—I’m about to be married, -you know. [<i>She has risen and gone over to a -little box standing on the desk. Out from this -she takes a package of letters tied with a red ribbon. -She turns and walks straight up to</i> <span class='sc'>John</span>.] -I’ll give them to you. You are the youngest, the -gentlest, and you have the nicest hands. [<i>She -sits down, breathing with difficulty.</i>]</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>John</span>—[<i>Putting them into his blouse.</i>] Thank -you, Kate Morley.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—Now, tell me about everything. How -is that mother of yours? I remember her—she -was on the stage—she danced as they say, and -she sang. She had a pet monkey—fed it honey -out of a jar kept full by her admirers: grooms, -stage hands, what not——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Henry</span>—Yes, and she used to draw pictures -of it in the style of Dürer—almost morbid—and -later it caught a disease and died——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—I don’t doubt it—and she, she had an -under-lip like a balloon—and your father kissed -that mouth, was even tempted——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>James</span>—My father often saw beyond the flesh.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—Kissed such a creature!</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Henry</span>—At such times she was beautiful.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—[<i>With a touch of humility.</i>] Yes, I’m -sorry—I remember. Once I passed her, and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span>instead of saying something, something horrible—she -might—she looked down.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>John</span>—She was beautiful, looking down.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—[<i>Angry.</i>] And I, I suppose I wasn’t -beautiful to look at——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Henry</span>—No, I suppose not, that is, not for -her.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—[<i>Viciously.</i>] Well, let me tell you, -you haven’t inherited her beauty. Look at your -hands—thick, hard, ugly—and the life lines in -them like the life lines in the hands of every -laborer digging sewers——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>John</span>—There’s something in that, but they are -just beginning.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—[<i>Turning on them.</i>] Look at you! -You’re ugly, and clumsy, and uncouth. You -grunt and roar, you wear abominable clothes—and -you have no manners—and all because of -your father, your mighty righteous and original -father. You don’t have to be like this. You -needn’t have little pigs’ eyes with bleached lashes, -and thick hanging lips—and noses—but I suppose -you’ve got adenoids, and you may suffer -from the fact that your mother had a rupture, -and in all probability you have the beginning of -ulcers of the stomach, for God knows your father -couldn’t keep a meal down like a gentleman!</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Henry</span>—He <i>was</i> delicate.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—And why was he delicate? He called -himself “The little Father,” as one might say, -“The great Emperor.” Well, to have a father -to whom you can go and say, “All is not as it -should be”—that would have been everything. -But what could you say to him, and what had he -to say to you? Oh, we all have our pathetic -moments of being at our best, but he wasn’t satisfied -with that, he wanted to be at it all the time. -And the result, the life of a mole. “Listen and -say nothing.” Then he becomes the gentleman -farmer because he discovers he cannot be the -Beloved Fool. Suddenly he is the father of three -creatures for all the world like Russian peasants—without -an idea, a subtlety—it’s wicked, that’s -all, wicked—and as for that, how do you know -but that all three of you had a different mother? -Why, great God, I might be the mother of one -of you!</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>John</span>—[<i>Significantly.</i>] So I believe, madam.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—[<i>Unheeding.</i>] Do you think a man -like your father had any right to bring such children -as you into the world—three columns of flesh -without one of the five senses! [<i>She suddenly -buries her head in her hands.</i>]</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>John</span>—[<i>Gently.</i>] You loved our father.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Henry</span>—And you also had your pot of -honey——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—Thank God I had no ideals—I had a -religion.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>John</span>—Just what?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—You wouldn’t understand.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Henry</span>—Shoes to the needy?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—No, I’m not that kind, vicious boy.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>John</span>—Are you quite certain?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—I’ll admit all my candles are not burning -for God. Well, then, blow them out, still I’ll -have a light burning somewhere, for all your -great breaths, you oxen!</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Henry</span>—You were never a tower builded of -ivory——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—You’re too stupid to be bitter—your -voices are too undeveloped—you’d say “love” -and “hate” the same way.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>James</span>—True, we have been shut away from -intonations.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—You wouldn’t even wish to die.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>John</span>—We shall learn.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—Why bother?</p> - -<p class='c009'>John—[<i>Abruptly rising.</i>] You have posed -for the madonna?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—Every woman has.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>John</span>—You have done it better than most.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—What do you mean?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>John</span>—I looked at it when I came in. [<i>He -picks up the photograph.</i>]</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—Let it be—I was playing in the -“Crown of Thorns,” an amateur theatrical.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>John</span>—Yes, I presumed it was amateur——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>James</span>—You were a devoted mother?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—I have no virtues.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Henry</span>—And vices?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—Weak in one, weak in the other.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>John</span>—However, the baby had nice hands——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—[<i>Looking at him.</i>] That is true.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>James</span>—But then babies only use their hands -to lift the breast, and occasionally to stroke the -cheek——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—Or throw them up in despair—not a -heavy career.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>John</span>—And then?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—[<i>In an entirely new tone.</i>] Won’t you -have tea?— But no, pay no attention to me, -that’s another of my nasty malicious tricks. -Curse life!</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Henry</span>—Your life is drawing to a close.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>James</span>—And from time to time you place your -finger on a line of Nietzsche or Schopenhauer, -wondering: “How did he say it all in two -lines?” Eh?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—As you say, [<i>She looks at them slowly, -one by one.</i>] You are strange things. [<i>Coming -back.</i>] But at least I’ve given up something—look -<span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span>at your mother, what did she give up for -your father—a drunken husband——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>James</span>—A drunken lover—that’s different.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—I can’t help thinking of that great -gross stomach of hers.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>James</span>—Gross indeed, it won’t trouble him -any more.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—What’s that?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>John</span>—He cut his throat with a knife——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—Oh, my God! [<i>Pause.</i>] How did he -look?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>John</span>—You can’t satisfy your æsthetic sense -that way—he looked—well, ugly, played out; yes, -played out. Everything had been too much for -him—you—us—you could see that in the way -he——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—[<i>In a whisper.</i>] Well, that’s strange—everything -seems—I knew him, you know. -[<i>She begins to laugh.</i>] And the dogs barked?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>James</span>—So I believe.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—[<i>Dazed.</i>] And you, what are you -three going to do?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Henry</span>—We are coming out of the country—we -are going abroad—we can listen there.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—Abroad—listen—what are you saying?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Henry</span>—There are great men abroad.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>James</span>—Anatole France, De Gourmont——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—De Gourmont is dead.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span><span class='sc'>John</span>—There will be others.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—[<i>Still dully.</i>] And how did you -come to know such names—oh, your father, of -course——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>John</span>—We needed them.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—Strange, I’ve been prepared for every -hour but this——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>James</span>—Yet I dare say you’ve never cried out.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—You are mistaken. I’ve cried: “To -the evil of mind all is evil——”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Henry</span>—Ah ha, and what happened?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—Sometimes I found myself on my -knees——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>James</span>—And sometimes?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—That’s enough, haven’t we about -cleared all the shavings out of the carpenter -shop?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Henry</span>—You at least will never kill yourself.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—Not likely, I’ll probably die in bed -with my slippers on—you see, I have a pretty -foot.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Henry</span>—We understand—you are about to be -married.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—To a supreme court judge—so I’m -cleaning house.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>John</span>—[<i>Standing with the photograph.</i>] But -it won’t be quite cleared out until this goes. [<i>He -takes it out of the frame and turning it over</i> -<span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span><i>reads.</i>] “Little John, God bless him.” [<i>He -turns it back.</i>] God bless him. Well, just for -that I’d like to keep it.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—That’s my affair.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>John</span>—So I see. [<i>He puts the photo in his -blouse with the letters.</i>]</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—Well, perhaps—well, you’re not so -stupid after all—— Come, for the madonna give -me back the letters—I’ll burn them I swear, and -you can put the madonna at the foot of the bed.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>John</span>—I shan’t put it at the foot of the bed—I -don’t look at the foot of the bed——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Henry</span> <i>and</i> <span class='sc'>James</span>—[<i>Rising.</i>] And now we -shall go.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—[<i>Her hands to her head.</i>] But, gentlemen, -gentlemen——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Henry</span>—We won’t need to bother you again. -We are leaving the country and going elsewhere—and -there was only one of us to whom you -might have shown a little generosity—in other -words we do not wish to be reminded, and now -we can forget, and in time become quite hilarious——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—But, gentlemen, gentlemen, not this -way——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>John</span>—Well? [<i>Quite suddenly he takes her -in his arms, raises her face and kisses her on the -mouth.</i>]</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span><span class='sc'>Kate</span>—[<i>Crying out.</i>] Not that way! Not -that way!</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>James</span>—That’s the way you bore him!</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div>[<i>The curtain drops behind them.</i>]</div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='figcenter id001'> -<img src='images/i_030fp.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span> - <h2 class='c005'>THE VALET</h2> -</div> - -<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c008'>The fields about Louis-Georges’ house -grew green in early Spring, leaving the -surrounding country in melancholy grey, -for Louis-Georges was the only man who sowed -his ground to rye.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Louis-Georges was of small stature. His face -was oblong, too pale. A dry mouth lay crookedly -beneath a nose ending in a slight bulb. His long -animal-like arms swung half a rhythm ahead of -his legs.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He prided himself on his farming, though he -knew nothing about it. He surveyed the tender -coming green with kindly good nature, his acres -were always a month ahead of his neighbours’.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Sometimes standing in the doorway, breathing -through the thick hair in his nostrils, stretching -his gloves, he would look at the low-lying -sheds and the stables and the dull brown -patches of ploughed earth, and mutter, “Splendid, -splendid!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Finally he would stroll in among the cattle -where, in dizzy circles, large coloured flies -<span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span>swayed, emitting a soft insistent drone, like -taffeta rubbed against taffeta.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He liked to think that he knew a great deal -about horses. He would look solemnly at the -trainer and discuss length of neck, thinness and -shape of flank by the hour, stroking the hocks -of his pet racer. Sometimes he would say to -Vera Sovna: “There’s more real breeding in -the rump of a mare than in all the crowned heads -of England.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Sometimes he and Vera Sovna would play in -the hay, and about the grain bins. She in her -long flounces, leaping in and out, screaming and -laughing, stamping her high heels, setting up a -great commotion among her ruffles.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Once Louis-Georges caught a rat, bare-handed, -and with such skill that it could not bite. He -disguised his pride in showing it to her by pretending -that he had done so to inform her of -the rodent menace to Winter grain.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Vera Sovna was a tall creature with thin -shoulders; she was always shrugging them as if -her shoulder-blades were heavy. She dressed in -black and laughed a good deal in a very high key.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She had been a great friend of Louis-Georges’ -mother, but since her death she had fallen into -disrepute. It was hinted that she was “something” -to Louis-Georges; and when the townsfolk -<span class='pageno' id='Page_33'>33</span>and neighbouring landholders saw her enter -the house they would not content themselves -until they saw her leave it.</p> - -<p class='c009'>If she came out holding her skirts crookedly -above her thin ankles, they would find the roofs -of their mouths in sudden disapproval, while if -she walked slowly, dragging her dress, they would -say: “See what a dust Vera Sovna brings up in -the driveway; she stamps as if she were a mare.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>If she knew anything of this feeling, she never -showed it. She would drive through the town and -turn neither to right nor left until she passed the -markets with their bright yellow gourds and -squashes, their rosy apples and their splendid -tomatoes, exhaling an odour of decaying sunlight. -On the rare occasions when Louis-Georges -accompanied her, she would cross her legs at the -knee, leaning forward, pointing a finger at him, -shaking her head, laughing.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Sometimes she would go into the maids’ quarters -to play with Leah’s child, a little creature -with weak legs and neck, who always thrust out -his stomach for her to pat.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The maids, Berthe and Leah, were well-built -complacent women with serene blue eyes, quite -far apart, and good mouths in which fine teeth -grew gratefully and upon whom round ample -busts flourished like plants. They went about -<span class='pageno' id='Page_34'>34</span>their work singing or chewing long green salad -leaves.</p> - -<p class='c009'>In her youth Leah had done something for -which she prayed at intervals. Her memory was -always taking her hastily away to kneel before -the gaudy wax Christ that hung on a beam in -the barn. Resting her head against the boards -she would lift her work-worn hands, bosom-high, -sighing, praying, murmuring.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Or she would help Berthe with the milking, -throwing her thick ankles under the cow’s udders, -bringing down a sudden fury of milk, shining and -splashing over her big clean knuckles, saying -quietly, evenly:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I think we will have rain before dawn.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>And her sister would answer: “Yes, before -dawn.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Leah would spend hours in the garden, her -little one crawling after her, leaving childish -smears on the dusty leaves of the growing corn, -digging his hands into the vegetable tops, falling -and pretending to have fallen on purpose; grinning -up at the sun foolishly until his eyes watered.</p> - -<p class='c009'>These two women and Louis-Georges’ valet, -Vanka, made up the household, saving occasional -visits from Louis-Georges’ aunts, Myra and Ella.</p> - -<p class='c009'>This man Vanka was a mixture of Russian and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span>Jew. He bit his nails, talked of the revolution, -moved clumsily.</p> - -<p class='c009'>His clothes fitted him badly, he pomaded his -hair, which was reddish yellow, pulled out the -short hairs that tormented his throat, and from -beneath his white brows distributed a kindly intelligent -look. The most painful thing about him -was his attempt to seem alert, his effort to keep -pace with his master.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Louis-Georges would say, “Well now, Vanka, -what did they do to you in Russia when you were -a boy?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“They shot my brother for a red,” Vanka -would answer, pulling the hairs. “They threw -him into prison, and my sister took him his food. -One day our father was also arrested, then she -took two dinner pails instead of one. Once -she heard a noise, it sounded like a shot, and -our father returned her one of the pails. They -say he looked up at her like a man who is gazed -at over the shoulder.” He had told the tale often, -adding: “My sister became almost bald later on, -yet she was a handsome woman; the students used -to come to her chambers to hear her talk.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>At such times Louis-Georges would excuse -himself and shut himself up to write, in a large -and scrawling hand, letters to his aunts with -some of Vanka’s phrases in them.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span>Sometimes Vera Sovna would come in to watch -him, lifting her ruffles, raising her brows. Too, -she would turn and look for a long time at Vanka -who returned her look with cold persistence, the -way of a man who is afraid, who does not approve, -and yet who likes.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She would stand with her back to the fireplace, -her high heels a little apart, tapping the stretched -silk of her skirt, saying:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You will ruin your eyes,” adding: “Vanka, -won’t you stop him?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She seldom got answers to her remarks. -Louis-Georges would continue, grunting at her, -to be sure, and smiling, but never lifting his eyes: -and as for Vanka he would stand there, catching -the sheets of paper as they were finished.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Finally Louis-Georges would push back his -chair, saying: “Come, we will have tea.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>In the end he fell into a slow illness. It -attacked his limbs, he was forced to walk with a -cane. He complained of his heart, but he persisted -in going out to look at the horses, to the -barn to amuse Vera Sovna, swaying a little as -he watched the slow-circling flies, sniffing the -pleasant odours of cow’s milk and dung.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He still had plans for the haying season, for -his crops, but he gave them over to his farm -<span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>hands, who, left to themselves, wandered aimlessly -home at odd hours.</p> - -<p class='c009'>About six months later he took to his bed.</p> - -<p class='c009'>His aunts came, testing with their withered -noses the smell of decaying wood and paregoric, -whispering that “he never used to get like this.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Raising their ample shoulders to ease the little -black velvet straps that sunk into their flesh, -they sat on either side of his bed.</p> - -<p class='c009'>They looked at each other in a pitifully surprised -way. They had never seen illness, and -death but once—a suicide, and this they understood: -one has impulses, but not maladies.</p> - -<p class='c009'>They were afraid of meeting Vera Sovna. -Their position was a difficult one; having been -on friendly terms while Louis-Georges’ mother -lived, they had nevertheless to maintain a certain -dignity and reserve when the very townsfolk had -turned against her. Therefore they left her an -hour in the evening to herself. She would come -creeping in, saying:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Oh, my dear,” telling him long unheard -stories about a week she had spent in London. A -curious week, full of near adventure, with amusing -tales of hotel keepers, nobility. And sometimes -leaning close to him, that he might hear, he -saw that she was weeping.</p> - -<p class='c009'>But in spite of this and of his illness and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span>the new quality in the air, Vera Sovna was -strangely gay.</p> - -<p class='c009'>During this illness the two girls served as -nurses, changing the sheets, turning him over, -rubbing him with alcohol, bringing him his soup, -crossing themselves.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Vanka stood long hours by the bedside coughing. -Sometimes he would fall off into sleep, at -others he would try to talk of the revolution.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Vera Sovna had taken to dining in the kitchen, -a long bare room that pleased her. From the -window one could see the orchards and the pump -and the long slope down to the edge of the -meadow. And the room was pleasant to look -upon. The table, like the earth itself, was simple -and abundant. It might have been a meadow -that Leah and Berthe browsed in, red-cheeked, -gaining health, strength.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Great hams, smoked fowl with oddly taut legs -hung from the beams, and under these the girls -moved as if there were some bond between them.</p> - -<p class='c009'>They accepted Vera Sovna’s company cheerfully, -uncomplainingly, and when she went away -they cleared up her crumbs, thinking and talking -of other things, forgetting.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Nothing suffered on account of his illness. -The household matters went smoothly, the crops -ripened, the haying season passed, and the sod -<span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span>in the orchards sounded with the thud of ripe -falling fruit. Louis-Georges suffered alone, -detached, as if he had never been. Even about -Vera Sovna there was a strange quiet brilliancy, -the brilliancy of one who is about to receive something. -She caressed the medicine bottles, tended -the flowers.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Leah and Berthe were unperturbed, except -from overwork; the face of Vanka alone changed.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He bore the expression at once of a man in -pain and of a man who is about to come into -peace. The flickering light in Louis-Georges’ -face cast its shadow on that of his valet.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Myra and Ella became gradually excited. -They kept brushing imaginary specks of dust -from their shoulders and bodices, sending each -other in to observe him. They comforted themselves -looking at him, pretending each to the -other that he was quite improved. It was not -so much that they were sorry to have him die, -as it was that they were not prepared to have -him die.</p> - -<p class='c009'>When the doctor arrived they shifted their -burden of worry. They bought medicine with -great relish, hurriedly. Finally to lessen the torment -they closed their eyes as they sat on either -side of his bed, picturing him already dead, laid -<span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span>out, hands crossed, that they might gain comfort -upon opening them, to find him still alive.</p> - -<p class='c009'>When they knew that he was really dying they -could not keep from touching him. They tried -to cover him up in those parts that exposed too -plainly his illness: the thin throat, the damp pulsing -spot in the neck. They fondled his hands, -driving doctor and nurse into a passion.</p> - -<p class='c009'>At last, in desperation, Myra knelt by his bed, -touched his face, stroked his cheeks, trying to -break the monotonous calm of approaching -death.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Death did not seem to be anywhere in him -saving in his face ... it seemed to Myra that to -drive it from his eyes would mean life. It was -then that she and her sister were locked out, -to wander up and down the hall, afraid to speak, -afraid to weep, unless by that much they might -hasten his death.</p> - -<p class='c009'>When he finally died, they had the problem of -Vera Sovna.</p> - -<p class='c009'>But they soon forgot her, trying to follow the -orders left by the dead man. Louis-Georges had -been very careful to see to it that things should -go on growing; he had given many orders, -planned new seasons, talked of “next year,” -knowing that he would not be there.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The hens cackled with splendid performances, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span>the stables resounded with the good spirits of the -horses, the fields were all but shedding their very -life on the earth as Vanka moved noiselessly -about, folding the dead man’s clothes.</p> - -<p class='c009'>When the undertaker arrived Vanka would not -let him touch the body. He washed and dressed -it to suit himself. It was he who laid Louis-Georges -in the shiny coffin, it was he who arranged -the flowers, and he who finally left the -room on the flat of his whole noisy feet for the -first time in years. He went to his own room -overlooking the garden.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He paced the room. It seemed to him that he -had left something undone. He had loved service -and order; he did not know that he also loved -Louis-Georges, who made service necessary and -order desirable.</p> - -<p class='c009'>This distressed him, he rubbed his hands, holding -them close to his mouth, as if by the sound -of one hand passing over the other he might -learn some secret in the stoppage of sound.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Leah had made a scene, he thought of that. -A small enough scene, considering. She had -brought her baby in, dropping him beside the -body, giving the flat-voiced: “Now you can play -with him a minute.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He had not interfered, the child had been too -frightened to disturb the cold excellence of Louis-Georges’ -<span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span>arrangement, and Leah had gone out -soon enough in stolid silence. He could hear -them descending the steps, her heavy slow tread -followed by the quick uneven movements of the -child.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Vanka could hear the rustling of the trees in -the garden, the call of an owl from the barn; one -of the mares whinnied and, stamping, fell off -into silence.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He opened the window. He thought he caught -the sound of feet on the pebbles that bordered -the hydrangea bushes; a faint perfume, such as -the flounces of Vera Sovna exhaled, came to him. -Irritated, he turned away, when he heard her -calling.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Vanka, come, my foot is caught in the vine.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Her face, with wide hanging lips, came above -the sill, and the same moment she jumped into -the room.</p> - -<p class='c009'>They stood looking at each other. They had -never been alone together before. He did not -know what to do.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She was a little dishevelled, twigs from the -shrubbery clung to the black flounces of her -gown. She raised her thin shoulders once, twice, -and sighed.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She reached out her arm, whispering:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Vanka.”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_43'>43</span>He moved away from her, staring at her.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Vanka,” she repeated, and came close, leaning -a little on him.</p> - -<p class='c009'>In a voice of command, she said simply, “You -must tell me something.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I will tell you,” he answered, automatically.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“See, look at your hands——” She kissed them -suddenly, dropping her wet lips into the middle -of the palms, making him start and shiver.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Look at these eyes—ah, fortunate man,” she -continued, “most fortunate Vanka; he would let -you touch him, close, near the heart, the skin. -You could know what he looked like, how he -stood, how his ankle went into his foot.” He -ceased to hear her.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And his shoulders, how they set. You -dressed and undressed him, knew him, all of him, -for many years—you see, you understand? Tell -me, tell me what he was like!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He turned to her. “I will tell you,” he said, -“if you are still, if you will sit down, if you are -quiet.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She sat down with another sigh, with a touch -of her old gaiety; she raised her eyes, watching -him.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“His arms were too long, you could tell that—but -beautiful, and his back was thin, tapering—full -of breeding——”</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_44'>44</span> - <h2 class='c005'>TO THE DOGS</h2> -</div> - -<table class='table1' summary='Persons'> -<colgroup> -<col width='20%' /> -<col width='79%' /> -</colgroup> - <tr> - <td class='brt c010'><span class='sc'>Persons</span>:</td> - <td class='c011'> </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c010'><span class='pad'><span class='sc'>Helena Hucksteppe</span></span></td> - <td class='c011'> </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c010'><span class='pad'><span class='sc'>Gheid Storm</span>—</span></td> - <td class='c011'><i>Her neighbour</i></td> - </tr> -</table> - -<p class='c012'><span class='sc'>Time</span>—<i>Late afternoon</i>.</p> - -<p class='c012'><span class='sc'>Place</span>—<i>In the mountains of Cornwall-on-Hudson—the</i> - <span class='sc'>Hucksteppe</span> <i>house</i>.</p> - -<p class='c012'><span class='sc'>Scene</span>—<i>The inner room of the</i> <span class='sc'>Hucksteppe</span> - <i>cottage</i>.</p> - -<p class='c013'><i>To the left, in the back wall, a large window -overlooks a garden. Right centre, a door leads -off into a bedroom, and from the bedroom one -may see the woods of the mountain. The door -is slightly open, showing a glimpse of a tall mirror -and the polished pole of a bed.</i></p> - -<p class='c009'><i>In the right wall there is a fireplace.</i></p> - -<p class='c009'><i>A dog lies across the threshold, asleep, head on -paws.</i></p> - -<p class='c009'><i>About this room there is perhaps just a little -too much of a certain kind of frail beauty of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_45'>45</span>object. Crystal glasses, scent bottles, bowls of -an almost too perfect design, furniture that is too -antiquely beautiful.</i></p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena Hucksteppe</span>, <i>a woman of about -thirty-five, stands almost back view to the -audience, one arm lying along the mantel. She -is rather under medium in height. Her hair, -which is dark and curling, is done carefully about -a small fine head. She is dressed in a dark, long -gown, a gown almost too faithful to the singular -sadness of her body.</i></p> - -<p class='c009'><i>At about the same moment as the curtain’s -rising</i>, <span class='sc'>Gheid Storm</span> <i>vaults the window-sill. -He is a man of few years, a well-to-do man of -property, brought up very carefully by upright -women, the son of a conscientious physician, the -kind of man who commutes with an almost -religious fervour, and who keeps his wife and his -lawns in the best possible trim, without any particular -personal pleasure.</i></p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Gheid</span> <i>is tall, but much too honourable to be -jaunty, he is decidedly masculine. He walks -deliberately, getting all the use possible out of -his boot-leather, his belt-strap and hat-bands.</i></p> - -<p class='c009'><i>His face is one of those which, for fear of misuse, -has not been used at all.</i></p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena Hucksteppe</span> <i>does not appear to be -in the least astonished at his mode of entrance.</i></p> -<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_46'>46</span><span class='sc'>Gheid Storm</span>—As you never let me in at the -door, I thought of the window. [<span class='sc'>Helena</span> <i>remains -silent</i>.] I hope I did not startle you. -[<i>Pause.</i>] Women are better calm, that is, some -kinds of calm——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Yes?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Gheid</span>—[<i>Noticing the dog, which has not -stirred.</i>] You’ve got funny dogs, they don’t even -bark. [<i>Pause.</i>] I expected you’d set them on -me; however, perhaps that will come later——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Perhaps.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—Are you always going to treat me like -this? For days I’ve watched you walking with -your dogs of an evening—that little black bullpup, -and then those three setters—you’ve fine -ways with you Helena Hucksteppe, though there -are many tales of how you came by them——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Yes?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—Yes. [<i>Pause.</i>] You know, you surprise -me.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Why? Because I do not set my -dogs on you?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—Something like that.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—I respect my dogs.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—What does that mean?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Had I a daughter, would I set her -on every man?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—[<i>Trying to laugh.</i>] That’s meant for -<span class='pageno' id='Page_47'>47</span>an insult, isn’t it? Well, I like the little insulting -women——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—You are a man of taste.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—I respect you.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—What kind of a feeling is that?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—A gentleman’s——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—I see.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—People say of you: “She has a great -many ways——”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Yes?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—[<i>Sitting on the edge of the table.</i>] -“But none of them simple.”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Do they?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—[<i>Without attempting to hide his -admiration.</i>] I’ve watched your back: “There -goes a fine woman, a fine silent woman; she wears -long skirts, but she knows how to move her feet -without kicking up a dust—a woman who can -do that, drives a man mad.” In town there’s a -story that you come through once every Spring, -driving a different man ahead of you with a riding -whip; another has it, that you come in the -night——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—In other words, the starved women -of the town are beginning to eat.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—[<i>Pause.</i>] Well [<i>laughs</i>] I like you.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—I do not enjoy the spectacle of men -ascending.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_48'>48</span><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—What are you trying to say?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—I’m saying it.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—[<i>After an awkward pause.</i>] Do—you -wish me to—go away?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—You will go.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—Why won’t you let me talk to you?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Any man may accomplish anything -he’s capable of.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—Do you know how I feel about you?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Perfectly.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—I have heard many things about your—your -past—— I believe none of them——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Quite right, why should you mix -trades?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—What do you mean by that?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Why confuse incapability with accomplishment——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—It’s strange to see a woman like you -turning to the merely bitter——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—I began beyond bitterness.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—Why do you treat me this way?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—How would you have me treat you?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—There was one night when you -seemed to know, have you forgotten? A storm -was coming up, the clouds were rolling overhead—and -you, you yourself started it. You kissed -me.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—You say it was about to storm?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_49'>49</span><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—Yes.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—It even looked like rain?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—Yes.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—[<i>Quickly in a different voice.</i>] It -was a dark night, and I ended it.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—What have I done?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—You have neglected to make any -beginning in the world—can I help that?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—I offer you a clean heart.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Things which have known only one -state, do not interest me.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—Helena!</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Gheid Storm.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—I have a son; I don’t know why I -should tell you about him, perhaps because I -want to prove that I have lived, and perhaps not. -My son is a child, I am a man of few years and -my son is like what I was at his age. He is thin, -I was thin; he is quiet, I was quiet; he has delicate -flesh, and I had also—well, then his mother -died——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—The saddle comes down from the -horse.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—Well, she died——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—And that’s over.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—Well, there it is, I have a son——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—And that’s not over. Do you resent -that?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_50'>50</span><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—I don’t know, perhaps. Sometimes I -say to myself when I’m sitting by the fire alone—“You -should have something to think of while -sitting here——”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—In other words, you’re living for the -sake of your fire.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—[<i>To himself.</i>] Some day I shall be -glad I knew you.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—You go rather fast.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—Yes, I shall have you to think of.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—When the fire is hot, you’ll be glad -to think of me?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—Yes, all of us like to have a few things -to tell to our children, and I have always shown -all that’s in my heart to my son.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—How horrible!</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—[<i>Startled.</i>] Why?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Would you show everything that -made your heart?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—I believe in frankness——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—[<i>With something like anger.</i>] -Well, some day your son will blow his head off, to -be rid of frankness, before his skin is tough.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—You are not making anything easier.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—I’ve never been callous enough to -make things easier.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—You’re a queer woman——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Yes, that does describe me.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_51'>51</span><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—[<i>Taking his leg off the table.</i>] Do -you really want to know why I came? Because I -need you——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—I’m not interested in corruption for -the many.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—[<i>Starting as if he had been struck.</i>] -By God!</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Nor in misplaced satisfactions——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—By God, what a woman!</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Nor do I participate in liberations——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—[<i>In a low voice.</i>] I could hate you!</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—I limit no man, feel what you can.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—[<i>Taking a step toward her, the dog -lifts its head.</i>] If it were not for those damned -dogs of yours—I’d—I’d——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Aristocracy of movement never -made a dog bite——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—That’s a—strange thing to say—just -at this moment.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Not for me.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—[<i>Sulky.</i>] Well, anyway, a cat may -look at a King——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Oh no, a cat may only look at what -it sees.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—Helena Hucksteppe.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Yes.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—I’m—attracted—to you.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_52'>52</span><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—A magnet does not attract shavings.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—[<i>With positive conviction.</i>] I <i>could</i> -hate you.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—I choose my enemies.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—[<i>Without warning, seizing her.</i>] By -God, at least I can kiss you! [<i>He kisses her full -on the mouth—she makes no resistance.</i>]</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—[<i>In a calm voice.</i>] And this, I suppose, -is what you call the “great moment of -human contact.”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—[<i>Dropping his arms—turning pale.</i>] -What are you trying to do to me?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—I’m doing it.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—[<i>To himself.</i>] Yet it was you that I -wanted——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Mongrels may not dig up buried -treasure.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—[<i>In a sudden rage.</i>] You can bury -your past as deep as you like, but carrion will -out!</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—[<i>Softly.</i>] And this is love.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—[<i>His head in his arms.</i>] Oh, God, -God!</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—And you who like the taste of new -things, come to me?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—[<i>In a lost voice.</i>] Shall I have no -joy?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Joy? Oh, yes, of a kind.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_53'>53</span><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—And you—are angry with me?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—In the study of science, is the scientist -angry when the fly possesses no amusing -phenomena?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—I wanted—to know—you——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—I am conscious of your failure.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—I wanted something—some sign——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Must I, who have spent my whole -life in being myself, go out of my way to change -some look in you?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—That’s why you are so terrible, you -have spent all your life on yourself.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Yes, men do resent that in women.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—Yes, I suppose so. [<i>Pause.</i>] I -should have liked to talk of—myself——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—You see I could not listen.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—You are—intolerant.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—No—occupied——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—You are probably—playing a game.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—[<i>With a gracious smile.</i>] You will -get some personal good out of it, won’t you?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—I’m uncomfortable——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Uncomfortable!</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—[<i>Beginning to be really uncomfortable.</i>] -Who <i>are</i> you?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—I am a woman, Gheid Storm, who -is <i>not</i> in need.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—You’re horrible!</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_54'>54</span><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Yes, that too.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—But somewhere you’re vulnerable.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Perhaps.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—Only I don’t quite know the spot.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Spot?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—Something, somewhere, hidden——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Hidden! [<i>She laughs.</i>] <i>All</i> of me -is vulnerable.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—[<i>Setting his teeth.</i>] You tempt me.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—[<i>Wearily.</i>] It’s not that kind.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—I’ve lain awake thinking of you—many -nights.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—That is too bad.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—What is too bad?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—That you have had—fancies.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—Why?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Theft of much, makes much to return——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—The world allows a man his own -thoughts.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Oh, no——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—At least my thoughts are my own.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Not one, so far.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—What does that mean?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—You’ll know when you try to think -them again.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—You mean I’m not making headway—well, -you’re right, I’m not——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_55'>55</span><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Now tell me what brought you -through the window.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—[<i>Relieved.</i>] I’m glad you ask that, -it’s the first human thing that’s happened this -afternoon.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—You have forgotten our great moment -of human contact.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—[<i>Nervously.</i>] Well——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—You were about to tell me what -brought you?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—I don’t know—something no one -speaks of—some great ease in your back—the -look of a great lover——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—So—you scented a great lover——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—I am a man—and I love——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—What have you done for love, Gheid -Storm?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—I’ve—never gone to the dogs——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—So?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—I’ve always respected women.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—In other words: taken the coals out -of the fire with the poker—continue——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—That’s all.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—And you dared to come to me! -[<i>Her entire manner has changed.</i>]</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—No matter what you’ve been—done—I -love you.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Do not come so near. Only those -<span class='pageno' id='Page_56'>56</span>who have helped to make such death as mine may -go a little way toward the ardours of that decay.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—What have I done?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—You have dared to bring to a -woman, who has known love, the whinny of a -pauper.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—What am I?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—[<i>Softly, to herself.</i>] How sensitively -the handles cling to the vase, how delicate -is the flesh between the fingers.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—I—I don’t know you.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—[<i>Dropping her hands to her sides.</i>] -Come here, Gheid Storm—[<i>Gheid approaches -slowly, like a sleep walker</i>]. Put your hand on -me. [<i>He does so as if in a dream.</i>] So! [<i>She -looks first at his hand, then into his face, making -it quite plain that he does not even know how to -touch a woman.</i>] Yet you would be my lover, -knowing not one touch that is mine, nor one word -that is mine. My house is for men who have -done their stumbling.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—[<i>In an inaudible voice.</i>] I am going -now——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—I cannot touch new things, nor see -beginnings.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—Helena! Helena!</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Do not call my name. There are -too many names that must be called before mine.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_57'>57</span><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—Shall I die, and never have known -you?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Death, for you, will begin where my -cradle started rocking——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—Shall I have no love like yours?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—When I am an old woman, thinking -of other things, you will, perhaps, be kissing a -woman like me——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—[<i>Moving blindly toward the door.</i>] -Now I am going.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—[<i>In a quiet, level voice.</i>] The fall -is almost here.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—Yes, it’s almost here.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—The leaves on the mountain road -are turning yellow.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—Yes, the leaves are turning.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—It’s late, your son will be waiting -dinner for you.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—Don’t take everything away.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—You will not even recall having seen -me.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—Can memory be taken too?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Only that memory that goes past -recollection may be kept.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—[<i>At the door.</i>] Good night——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—[<i>Smiling.</i>] There is the window.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—I could not lift my legs now.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—That’s a memory you may keep.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_58'>58</span><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—Good night.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Good-bye, Gheid Storm, and as you -go down the hill, will you lock the gate, a dog -thief passed in the night, taking my terrier with -him.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—The one with the brown spots?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Yes.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—That was a fine dog.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Yes, she was a fine dog—restless.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—They say any dog will follow any -man who carries aniseed.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Well, soon I return to the city.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Storm</span>—You look tired.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Helena</span>—Yes, I am tired.</p> - -<p class='c009'>[<i>Gheid exits. Helena takes her old position, -her back almost square to the audience.</i>]</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><span class='sc'>Curtain</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='figcenter id001'> -<img src='images/i_058fp.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_59'>59</span> - <h2 class='c005'>BEYOND THE END</h2> -</div> - -<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c008'>Behind two spanking horses, in the heat -of noon, rode Julie Anspacher. The air -was full of the sound of windlasses and -well water, where, from cool abysses, heavy -buckets arose; and, too, the air was full of the -perfect odour of small flowers. And Julie turned -her head, gazing at the familiar line of road that -ran away into the still more familiar distance.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The driver, a Scandinavian, who remembered -one folk-tale involving a partridge and one popular -song involving a woman, sat stiffly on his box -holding the reins gently over the shining and sleek -backs of the two mares.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He began to whistle the popular song now, -swinging a little on his sturdy base, and drifting -back with his tune came the tang of horse skin, -wet beneath tight leather.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The horses were taking the hill, straining and -moving their ears, and reaching the top, bounded -forward in a whirl of dust. Still sitting rigid, the -driver clucked, snapping his whip, and began -talking in a dry deep bass.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_60'>60</span>“It’s some time since we have seen you, Mrs. -Anspacher.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Julie raised her thin long face from her collar -and nodded.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Yes,” she answered in a short voice, and -frowned.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Your husband has gathered in the corn already, -and the orchards are hanging heavy.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Are they?” she said, and tried to remember -how many trees there were of apple and of pear.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The driver took in another foot of reins, and -turning slightly around, so that he could look at -her, said:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It’s good to see you again, Mrs. Anspacher.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She began to laugh. “Is it?” then with deliberation -checked herself, and fixed her angry eyes -straight ahead of her.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The child, loose-limbed with excessive youth, -who sat at her side, lifted a small sharp face on -which an aquiline nose perched with comic boldness. -She half held, half dropped an old-fashioned -ermine muff, the tails of which stuck -out in all directions. She looked unhappy and -expectant.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You remember Mrs. Berling?” he went on. -“She is married again.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Is she?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Yes, ma’am.”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_61'>61</span>He began to tell her about the local office for -outgoing mails, where a nephew of her husband, -Paytor, had taken a job.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The child sat so still that it was painful and -Julie Anspacher moved away, thinking aloud:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“All is corruption.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The child started, and looked quickly away, as -children will at something that they expect but do -not understand. The driver beat the horses, until -long lines of heavy froth appeared at the edges -of the harness.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“What did you say, ma’am?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Nothing—I said all is lost from the beginning—if -we only saw it—always.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The child looked at her slowly, puzzled, and -looked down.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Ann,” said Julie Anspacher, suddenly lifting -the muff over her hands, “did you ever see two -such big horses before?” The child turned its -head with brightness, and bending down tried to -see between the driver’s arms. Then she smiled.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Are they yours?” she whispered.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Julie Anspacher took in a deep breath, stretching -the silk of her waist across her breasts. -“No,” she answered, “they are not mine, but we -have two—bigger—blacker.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Can I see them?”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_62'>62</span>“Oh, yes, you shall see them. Don’t be ridiculous.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The child shrank back into herself, clutching -nervously at her muff. Julie Anspacher returned -to her reflections.</p> - -<p class='c013'>It was almost five years since she had been -home. Five years before in just such an Autumn -the doctors had given her six months to live. One -lung gone and the other going. They called it -sometimes the White Death, and, sometimes, the -love disease. She coughed a little, remembering, -and the child at her side coughed too in echo, and -the driver, puckering his forehead, reflected that -Mrs. Anspacher was not cured.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She was thirty-nine—she should have died at -thirty-four. In those five years Paytor had seen -her five times, coming in over fourteen hours of -the rails at Christmas. He cursed the doctors, -called them fools.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The house appeared dull white between the -locust trees, and the smoke, the same lazy -Autumn smoke, rose in a still column straight -into the obliterating day.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The driver reined in the horses until their foaming -jaws struck against their harness, and with a -quick bound Julie Anspacher jumped the side -of the cart, the short modish tails of her jacket -<span class='pageno' id='Page_63'>63</span>dancing above her hips. She turned around and -thrusting her black gloved hands under the child, -lifted her out. A dog barked. She began walking -the ascent toward the house.</p> - -<p class='c009'>A maid, in dust cap, put her head out of an -upstairs window, clucked, drew it in and -slammed the sash, and Paytor, with slow and -deliberate steps, moved toward the figure of his -wife and the child.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He was a man of middle height, with a close-cropped -beard that ended in a grey wedge on his -chin. He was sturdy, a strong man, almost too -pompous, but with kindly blue eyes and a long -thin mouth. As he walked he threw his knees out, -which gave him a rocking though substantial gait. -He was slightly surprised and raised the apricot-coloured -veil that covered the keen newness of her -face, and leaning down kissed her twice upon both -cheeks.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And where does the child come from?” he -inquired, touching the little girl’s chin.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Come along, don’t be ridiculous!” Julie said -impatiently, and swept on toward the house.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He ran after her. “I’m glad to see you,” he -went on, warmly, trying to keep up with her -rapid strides, that swung the child half off the -ground, stumbling, trotting.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Tell me what the doctors said—cured?”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_64'>64</span>There was a note of happiness in his voice. -“Not that I really give a damn what they think, -I always told you you would live to a ripe old -age, as they say. What did they do to Marie -Bashkirtseff? Locked her up in a dark room, -shut all the windows—and of course she died—that -was their method then—and now it’s Koch’s -tuberculin—all nonsense.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It worked well with some people,” she said, -going ahead of him into the living room. “There -was one boy there—well—of that later. Will you -have someone put Ann to bed—the trip was bad -for her. See how sleepy the child is—run along, -Ann,” she added, pushing her slightly but kindly -toward the maid. Then when they had disappeared, -she stood looking about her, drawing off -her gloves.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I’m glad you took down the crystals—I -always hated them.”—She moved to the windows.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I didn’t, the roof fell in—just after my last -visit in December. You’re looking splendid, -Julie.” He coloured. “I’m glad, you know—awfully -glad. I began to think—well, not that -the doctors know anything,” he said, laughing: -“but it’s a drop here of about fifteen hundred feet, -but your heart is good—always was.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“What do you know about my heart, Paytor?” -<span class='pageno' id='Page_65'>65</span>Julie said, angrily. “You don’t know what you -are talking about at all. The child——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Well, yes——?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Her name is Ann,” she finished sulkily.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It’s a sweet name—it was your mother’s, too. -Whose is she?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Oh, good heavens!” Julie cried, moving -around the room. “Mine, mine, mine, of course, -whose would she be if not mine?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He looked at her. “Yours—why, Julie—how -absurd!” Slowly the colour left his face.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I know—we have got to talk it over—it’s all -got to be arranged, it’s terrible. But she is nice, -a bright child, a good child.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“What in the world is all this about?” he demanded, -stopping in front of her. “What are -you in this mood for—what have I done?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Good heavens! What have you done? What -a ridiculous man you are. Why nothing, of -course, absolutely nothing!” She waved her arm. -“That’s not it—why do you bring yourself in? -I’m not blaming you, I’m not asking to be forgiven. -I’ve been down on my knees, I’ve beaten -my head on the ground, abased myself, but,” she -said in a terrible voice, “it is not low enough, the -ground is not low enough, to bend is not enough; -to ask forgiveness is not enough, to receive it is -nothing. There isn’t the right kind of misery in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_66'>66</span>the world for me to suffer, nor the right kind of -pity for you to feel, there isn’t the right word in -the world to heal me up. It’s good to forgive, to -be forgiven, but that’s for ordinary things. This -is beyond that—it’s something you can experience -but never feel—there are not enough nerves, -blood cells, flesh—to feel it. You suffer insufficiently; -it’s like drinking insufficiently, sleeping -insufficiently. I’m not asking anything because -there is nothing that I can receive—how primitive -to be able to receive——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“But, Julie——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It’s not that,” she said roughly, tears swimming -in her eyes. “Of course I love you. But -think of it, a danger to everyone excepting those -like yourself. Curious, involved in a problem -affecting only a small per cent of humanity, sick, -frightened, filled with fever and lust perhaps—with -nothing, nothing coming after, whatever -you do, but death—then you go on—it goes on—then -the child—and life probably, for a time.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Well——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I couldn’t tell you. I thought, ‘Well, I’ll die -next month,’ and finally I didn’t want to go off—although -I did, you know what I mean. Then -her father died—they say her lungs are weak—death, -death perpetuating itself, that’s funny you -see—and the doctors——” She swung around: -<span class='pageno' id='Page_67'>67</span>“You’re right—they lied, and I lived through—all -the way—all the way!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He turned his face from her.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The real thing,” she went on in a pained -voice, “is to turn our torment toward the perfect -design. I didn’t want to go beyond you—that -was not my purpose. I thought there was not -to be any more me. I wanted to leave nothing behind -but you, only you. You must believe this or -I can’t bear it—and still,” she continued, walking -around the room impatiently, “there was a somehow -hysterical joy in it too. I thought, if you -had real perception, that ‘something’ that we -must possess, that must be at the bottom of us -somewhere—or there wouldn’t be such an almost -sensuous desire for it, that ‘something’ that, at -times, is so near us that it becomes obscene, well, -I thought, if Paytor has this—and mind you, I -knew all the time that you didn’t have it—that -you would understand. And when you had been -gone a long time I said, ‘Paytor understands’—and -I would say to myself—‘Now, at this moment—at -ten-thirty precisely, if I could be with Paytor -he would say “I see,”’ but so soon as I had the -time table in my hand I knew that there was no -such feeling in your bosom—nothing at all.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Don’t you feel horror?” he asked in a loud -voice, suddenly.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_68'>68</span>“No, I don’t feel horror—horror is conflict—and -I have none—I’m alien to life.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Have you a religion, Julie?” he asked, still in -the same loud voice, as if he were addressing -someone a little raised, yet invisible, as one tries -to see a choir.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I don’t know—I don’t think so. I’ve tried to -believe in something external, something that -might envelop this and carry it beyond—that’s -what we demand of our faiths, isn’t it? But I -always return to a fixed notion that there is something -more fitting than a possible release.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He put his hands to his head. “You know,” -he said, “I’ve always thought that a woman, because -she can have children, ought to know the -truth—the very fact that she can do something -so really preposterous ought to make her equally -capable of the other preposterous thing—well——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She coughed, her handkerchief before her face—she -laughed with brightness. “One learns -to be careful about death—but never, never -about——” She didn’t finish but stared before -her.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Why did you bring the child here—why did -you return at all then—after so long a time—it -seems all so mixed up?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I don’t know—— Perhaps because there is a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_69'>69</span>right and a wrong, and a good and an evil. I -had to find out—and if there’s such a thing as -everlasting mercy—I want to find out about that -also—there’s a flavour of unfamiliar intimacy -about it all, though, this Christian treatment——” -She had a way of lifting up the side of her face, -closing her eyes. “I thought—Paytor may -know.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Know what?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Will know—well, will be able to divide me -against myself—— Personally I don’t feel -divided—I seem to be a sane and balanced whole—a -hopelessly mixed, but perfect design. So I -said Paytor will be able to see where this divides -and departs. Though all the time I never for a -moment felt that there was a system working on -a this for that basis, but that there was only this -<i>and</i> that—in other words—I wanted to be set -wrong.... You understand?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And you yourself,” he inquired, in the same -loud voice, “cannot feel the war? Well, then, -what about me?—you must realize what you have -done—turned everything upside down—oh, I -won’t even say betrayed me—it’s much less than -that, what most of us do, we betray circumstances—well, -I can’t do anything for you,” he -said sharply. “I can’t do anything at all—I’m -<span class='pageno' id='Page_70'>70</span>sorry, I’m very sorry—but there it is”—he began -to grimace and twitch his shoulders.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The child has it too,” Julie Anspacher said, -looking up at him. “I shall die soon.—It’s -ridiculous,” she added, with the tears streaming -down her face. “You are strong, always were—and -so were all your family before you—not one -of them in their graves under ninety—it’s all -wrong—it’s quite ridiculous.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I don’t know. Perhaps it’s not ridiculous. -One must be very careful not to come, too hastily, -to a conclusion.” He began searching for his -pipe. “Only you know yourself, Julie, how I -torment myself, if it’s a big enough thing, for -days, weeks, years; and the reason is, the real -reason is, that I come to my conclusions instantly, -and then fight to destroy them.” He seemed to -Julie a little pompous now. “It’s because first -I’m human, and second, logical. Well, I don’t -know—perhaps I’ll be able to tell you something -later—give you a beginning at least—later——” -He twitched his shoulders and went out, closing -the door after him. She heard him climbing the -familiar creaking stairs, the yellow painted stairs -that led up into the roof—she heard him strike a -match—then silence.</p> - -<p class='c013'>The dark had begun, closing in about bushes -<span class='pageno' id='Page_71'>71</span>and barn, and filling the air with moist joyousness, -the joyousness of autumn that trusts itself -to the darkness, and Julie leaned on her hand by -the shelf and listened.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She could hear, far away and faint, the sound -of dogs on heavy chains. She tried to stop, listening -to the outside, but her thoughts rotted away -like clouds in a wind.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The sense of tears came to her, but it was only -a sentimental memory of her early childhood, -and it brought a smile to her long face. She had -cried once when they made her kiss a dead priest—“<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Qui -habitare facit sterilem—matrem filiorum -laetantem</span>”—then “<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Gloria Patri</span>—” and she had -wept then, or thought she had, because he was -not only beyond glory and all mercy, but beyond -the dubious comfort of the feeling.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She heard Paytor walking above, and the -smoke of his pipe crept down between loose -boards and uneven plaster and laths.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She went—quite mechanically—over to a chest -in one corner, and opened the lid. A shirt waist, -of striped taffeta, one she had worn years before, -some old Spanish lace—her mother’s—the -child——</p> - -<p class='c009'>Paytor did not seem to like the child—“How -ridiculous!” she thought. “She is good, quiet, -gentle—but that’s not enough now.” She removed -<span class='pageno' id='Page_72'>72</span>her hat. Living with Paytor and the child—Paytor -so strong,—always was, and so was his -family—and she sickly, coughing. Perhaps she -had made a mistake in coming back. She went -toward the steps to tell this to Paytor but thought -better of it. That wasn’t what she wanted to say.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The hours drew out and Julie Anspacher, -sitting now at the window overlooking the garden—nodded -without sleep—long dreams—grotesque -and abominable—stupid irrelevances dull -and interminable. Somewhere little Ann coughed -in her sleep. Julie Anspacher coughed also, and -in between, the sound of Paytor walking up and -down, and the smell of tobacco growing stronger.</p> - -<p class='c009'>To take her own life, that was right, if only -she had not the habit of fighting death—“but -death is past knowing, and to know is better than -to make right——” She shook her head. “That’s -another detour on the wrong side,” she told herself. -“If only I had the power to feel pain as -unbearable, a gust of passion, of impatience, and -all would be over—but I’ve stood so much so -long, there is no too long.” She thought what -she would not give for any kind of feeling, anything -that was vital and sudden and determining. -“If Paytor will have patience I will get around -to it.”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_73'>73</span>Then it seemed that something must happen, -must inevitably happen.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“If I could only think of the right word before -it happens,” she said to herself, over and over, -and over. “It’s because I’m cold and I can’t -think, I’ll think soon——” She would take her -jacket off, put on her coat——</p> - -<p class='c009'>She got up, running her hand along the wall. -Or had she left it on the chair? “I can’t think of -the word,” she said to keep her mind on something.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She turned around. All his family—long lives. -“And me too, me too,” she murmured. She became -dizzy. “It is because I must get on my -knees—but it isn’t low enough.” She contradicted -herself. “Yet if I put my head down—way -down—down——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Then she heard the shot. “He has quick warm -blood” went through her mind—and her blood -was cold.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Her forehead had not quite touched the boards, -now she touched them, but she got up immediately, -stumbling over her dress.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_74'>74</span> - <h2 class='c005'>PASTORAL</h2> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b c014'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span class='xxlarge'>A</span> frog leaps out across the lawn,</div> - <div class='line'>And crouches there—all heavy and alone,</div> - <div class='line'>And like a blossom, pale and over-blown,</div> - <div class='line'>Once more the moon turns dim against the dawn.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Crawling across the straggling panoply</div> - <div class='line'>Of little roses, only half in bloom,</div> - <div class='line'>It strides within that beamed and lofty room</div> - <div class='line'>Where an ebon stallion looms upon the hay.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>The stillness moves, and seems to grow immense,</div> - <div class='line'>A shuddering dog starts, dragging at its chain,</div> - <div class='line'>Thin, dusty rats slink down within the grain,</div> - <div class='line'>And in the vale the first far bells commence.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Here in the dawn, with mournful doomèd eyes</div> - <div class='line'>A cow uprises, moving out to bear</div> - <div class='line'>A soft-lipped calf with swarthy birth-swirled hair,</div> - <div class='line'>And wide wet mouth, and droll uncertainties.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_75'>75</span>The grey fowls fight for places in the sun,</div> - <div class='line'>The mushrooms flare, and pass like painted fans:</div> - <div class='line'>All the world is patient in its plans—</div> - <div class='line'>The seasons move forever, one on one.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Small birds lie sprawling vaguely in the heat,</div> - <div class='line'>And wanly pluck at shadows on their breasts,</div> - <div class='line'>And where the heavy grape-vine leans and rests,</div> - <div class='line'>White butterflies lift up their furry feet.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>The wheat grows querulous with unseen cats;</div> - <div class='line'>A fox strides out in anger through the corn,</div> - <div class='line'>Bidding each acre wake and rise to mourn</div> - <div class='line'>Beneath its sharps and through its throaty flats.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>And so it is, and will be year on year,</div> - <div class='line'>Time in and out of date, and still on time</div> - <div class='line'>A billion grapes plunge bleeding into wine</div> - <div class='line'>And bursting, fall like music on the ear.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>The snail that marks the girth of night with slime,</div> - <div class='line'>The lonely adder hissing in the fern,</div> - <div class='line'>The lizard with its ochre eyes aburn—</div> - <div class='line'>Each is before, and each behind its time.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_76'>76</span> - <h2 class='c005'>OSCAR</h2> -</div> - -<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c008'>Before the house rose two stately pine -trees, and all about small firs and hemlocks. -The garden path struggled up -to the porch between wild flowers and weeds, and -looming against its ancient bulk the shadows of -out-houses and barns.</p> - -<p class='c009'>It stood among the hills, and just below around -a curve in the road, lay the placid grey reservoir.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Sometimes parties would cross the fields, walking -slowly toward the mountains. And sometimes -children could be heard murmuring in the -underbrush of things they scarcely knew.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Strange things had happened in this country -town. Murder, theft, and little girls found weeping, -and silent morose boys scowling along in -the ragweed, with half-shut sunburned eyelids.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The place was wild, deserted and impossible in -Winter. In Summer it was over-run with artists -and town folk with wives and babies. Every -Saturday there were fairs on the green, where -second-hand articles were sold for a song, and -flirting was formidable and passing. There were -<span class='pageno' id='Page_77'>77</span>picnics, mountain climbings, speeches in the townhall, -on the mark of the beast, on sin, and democracy, -and once in a while a lecture on something -that “everyone should know,” attended by -mothers, their offspring left with servants who -knew what everyone shouldn’t.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Then there were movies, bare legs, deacons, -misses in cascades of curls and on Sunday one -could listen to Mr. Widdie, the clergyman, who -suffered from consumption, speak on love of -one’s neighbour.</p> - -<p class='c009'>In this house and in this town had lived, for -some fifteen years or so, Emma Gonsberg.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She was a little creature, lively, smiling, -extremely good-natured. She had been married -twice, divorced once, and was now a widow still -in her thirties.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Of her two husbands she seldom said anything. -Once she made the remark: “Only fancy, they -never did catch on to me at all.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She tried to be fashionable, did her hair in the -Venetian style, wore gowns after the manner of -Lady de Bath entering her carriage; and tried to -cultivate only those who could tell her “where she -stood.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Her son Oscar was fourteen or thereabouts. -He wore distinctly over-decorative English -clothes, and remembered two words of some obscure -<span class='pageno' id='Page_78'>78</span>Indian dialect that seemed to mean “fleas,” -for whenever he flung these words defiantly at -visitors they would go off into peals of laughter, -headed by his mother. At such times he would -lower his eyes and show a row of too heavy teeth.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Emma Gonsberg loved flowers, but could not -grow them. She admired cats because there was -“nothing servile about them,” but they would not -stay with her; and though she loved horses and -longed to be one of those daring women who could -handle them “without being crushed in the stalls,” -they nevertheless ignored her with calm indifference. -Of her loves, passions and efforts, she had -managed to raise a few ill-smelling pheasants, -and had to let it go at that.</p> - -<p class='c009'>In the Winter she led a lonely and discriminating -life. In the Summer her house filled with -mixed characters, as one might say. A hot melancholy -Jew, an officer who was always upon the -point of depreciating his medals in a conceited -voice, and one other who swore inoffensively.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Finally she had given this sort of thing up, -partly because she had managed, soon after, to -get herself entangled with a man called Ulric -Straussmann. A tall rough fellow, who said he -came from the Tyrol; a fellow without sensibilities -but with a certain bitter sensuality. A good-natured -creature as far as he went, with vivid -<span class='pageno' id='Page_79'>79</span>streaks of German lust, which had at once something -sentimental and something careless about -it; the type who can turn the country, with a -single gesture, into a brothel, and makes of children -strong enemies. He showed no little -audacity in putting things into people’s minds -that he would not do himself.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He smelled very strongly of horses, and was -proud of it. He pretended a fondness for all that -goes under hide or hair, but a collie bitch, known -for her gentleness, snapped at him and bit him. -He invariably carried a leather thong, braided at -the base for a handle, and would stand for hours -talking, with his legs apart, whirling this contrived -whip, and, looking out of the corner of his -eyes would pull his moustache, waiting to see -which of the ladies would draw her feet in.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He talked in a rather even, slightly nasal tone, -wetting his lips with a long outthrust of tongue, -like an animal. His teeth were splendid and his -tongue unusually red, and he prided himself on -these and on the calves of his legs. They were -large, muscular and rather handsome.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He liked to boast that there was nothing that -he could not do and be forgiven, because, as he -expressed it, “I have always left people satisfied.” -If it were hate or if it were love, he seemed to -have come off with unusual success. “Most -<span class='pageno' id='Page_80'>80</span>people are puny,” he would add, “while I am -large, strong, healthy. Solid flesh through and -through,” whereat he would pound his chest and -smile.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He was new to the town and sufficiently -insolent to attract attention. There was also -something childishly naïve in him, as there is in -all tall and robust men who talk about themselves. -This probably saved him, because when he was -drinking he often became gross and insulting, but -he soon put the women of the party in a good -humour by giving one of them a hearty and -good-natured slap on the rear that she was not -likely to forget.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Besides this man Emma had a few old friends -of the less interesting, though better-read, type. -Among them, however, was an exception, Oliver -Kahn, a married man with several children one -heard of and never saw. A strange, quiet man -who was always talking. He had splendid eyes -and a poor mouth—very full lips. In the beginning -one surmised that he had been quite an -adventurer. He had an odour about him of the -rather recent cult of the “terribly good.” He -seemed to have been unkind to his family in some -way, and was spending the rest of his life in a -passion of regret and remorse. He had become -one of those guests who are only missed when -<span class='pageno' id='Page_81'>81</span>absent. He finally stayed for good, sleeping in -an ante-room with his boots on,—his one royal -habit.</p> - -<p class='c009'>In the beginning Emma had liked him tremendously. -He was at once gentle and furious, -but of late, just prior to the Straussmann affair, -he had begun to irritate her. She thought to herself, -“He is going mad, that’s all.” She was angry -at herself for saying “that’s all,” as if she had -expected something different, more momentous.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He had enormous appetites, he ate like a -Porthos and drank like a Pantagruel, and talked -hour after hour about the same thing, “Love of -one’s neighbour,” and spent his spare time in -standing with his hands behind him, in front of -the pheasants’ cage. He had been a snipe hunter -in his time, and once went on a big game hunt, -but now he said he saw something more significant -here.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He had, like all good sportsmen, even shot -himself through the hand, but of late he pretended -that he did not remember what the scar -came from.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He seemed to suffer a good deal. Evil went -deep and good went deep and he suffered the -tortures of the damned. He wept and laughed -and ate and drank and slept, and year by year -<span class='pageno' id='Page_82'>82</span>his eyes grew sweeter, tenderer, and his mouth -fuller, more gross.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The child Oscar did not like Kahn, yet sometimes -he would become extraordinarily excited, -talk very fast, almost banteringly, a little -malignly, and once when Kahn had taken his -hand he drew it away angrily. “Don’t,” he said.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Why not?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Because it is dirty,” he retorted maliciously.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“As if you really knew of what I was thinking,” -Kahn said, and put his own hands behind -him.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Emma liked Kahn, was attached to him. He -mentioned her faults without regret or reproval, -and this in itself was a divine sort of love.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He would remark: “We cannot be just because -we are bewildered; we ought to be proud enough -to welcome our enemies as judges, but we hate, -and to hate is the act of the incurious. I love -with an everlasting but a changing love, because -I know I am the wrong sort of man to be good—and -because I revere the shadow on the threshold.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“What shadow, Kahn?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“In one man we called it Christ—it is energy; -for most of us it is dead, a phantom. If you -have it you <i>are</i> Christ, and if you have only a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_83'>83</span>little of it you are but the promise of the -Messiah.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>These seemed great words, and she looked at -him with a little admiring smile.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You make me uneasy for fear that I have not -said ‘I love you with an everlasting love,’ often -enough to make it an act of fanaticism.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>As for Oscar, he did what he liked, which gave -him character, but made him difficult to live with.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He was not one of those “weedy” youths, long -of leg, and stringy like “jerked beef, thank God!” -as his mother said to visitors. He was rather too -full-grown, thick of calf and hip and rather heavy -of feature. His hands and feet were not out of -proportion as is usually the case with children of -his age, but they were too old looking.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He did not smoke surreptitiously. On the -contrary he had taken out a pipe one day in -front of his mother, and filling it, smoked in -silence, not even with a frightened air, and for -that matter not even with a particularly bold air;—he -did it quite simply, as something he had -finally decided to do, and Emma Gonsberg had -gone off to Kahn with it, in a rather helpless -manner.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Most children swing in circles about a room, -clumsily. Oscar on the contrary walked into the -four corners placidly and officially, looked at the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_84'>84</span>backs of the books here and a picture there, and -even grunted approvingly at one or two in quite -a mature manner.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He had a sweetheart, and about her and his -treatment of her there were only a few of the -usual signs—he was shy, and passionately -immersed in her, there was little of the casual -smartness of first calf love about it, though he -did in truth wave her off with a grin if he was -questioned.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He took himself with seriousness amounting to -a lack of humour—and though he himself knew -that he was a youth, and had the earmarks of -adolescence about him—and know it he certainly -did—once he said, “Well, what of it—is that any -reason why I should not be serious about everything?” -This remark had so astonished his -mother that she had immediately sent for Kahn -to know if he thought the child was precocious—and -Kahn had answered, “If he were, I should -be better pleased.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“But what is one to expect?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Children,” he answered, “are never what they -are supposed to be, and they never have been. -He may be old for his age, but what child hasn’t -been?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>In the meantime, she tried to bring Straussmann -and Kahn together—“My house is all at -<span class='pageno' id='Page_85'>85</span>odds,” she thought, but these two never hit it off. -Straussmann always appeared dreadfully superficial -and cynical, and Kahn dull and good about -nothing.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“They have both got abnormal appetites,” she -thought wearily. She listened to them trying to -talk together of an evening on the piazza steps. -Kahn was saying:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You must, however, warn yourself, in fact I -might say arm yourself, against any sensation of -pleasure in doing good; this is very difficult, I -know, but it can be attained. You can give and -forgive and tolerate gently and, as one might say, -casually, until it’s a second nature.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“There you have it, tolerate—who wants tolerance, -or a second nature? Well, let us drop it. -I feel like a child—it’s difficult not to feel like a -child.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Like Oscar—he has transports—even at his -age,” Emma added hesitatingly. “Perhaps that’s -not quite as it should be?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The memory of growing up is worse than -the fear of death,” Kahn remarked, and Emma -sighed.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I don’t know; the country was made for -children, they say—I could tell you a story about -that,” Straussmann broke off, whistling to Oscar. -“Shall I tell Oscar about the country—and what -<span class='pageno' id='Page_86'>86</span>it is really like?” he asked Emma, turning his -head.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Let the boy alone.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Why, over there in that small village,” -Straussmann went on, taking Oscar by the arm. -“It is a pretty tale I could tell you—perhaps I -will when you are older—but don’t let your -mother persuade you that the country is a nice, -healthful, clean place, because, my child, it’s corrupt.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Will you let the boy alone!” Emma cried, -turning very red.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Ah, eh—I’ll let him alone right enough—but -it won’t make much difference—you’ll see,” he -went on. “There is a great deal told to children -that they should not hear, I’ll admit, but there -wasn’t a thing I didn’t know when I was ten. It -happened one day in a hotel in Southampton—a -dark place, gloomy, smelling frightfully of mildew, -the walls were damp and stained. A strange -place, eh, to learn the delights of love, but then -our parents seldom dwell on the delights,—they -are too taken up with the sordid details, the mere -sordid details. My father had a great beard, and -I remember thinking that it would have been -better if he hadn’t said such things. I wasn’t -much good afterwards for five or six years, but -my sister was different. She enjoyed it immensely -<span class='pageno' id='Page_87'>87</span>and forgot all about it almost immediately, -excepting when I reminded her.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Go to bed, Oscar,” Emma said abruptly.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He went, and on going up the steps he did -not let his fingers trail along the spindles of the -banisters with his usual “Eeny meeny miny mo,” -etc.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Emma was a little troubled and watched him -going up silently, hardly moving his arms.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Children should be treated very carefully, -they should know as much as possible, but in a -less superficial form than they must know later.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I think a child is born corrupt and attains to -decency,” Straussmann said grinning.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“If you please,” Emma cried gaily, “we will -talk about things we understand.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Kahn smiled. “It’s beautiful, really beautiful,” -he said, meaning her gaiety. He always -said complimentary things about her lightness of -spirit, and always in an angry voice.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Come, come, you are going mad. What’s the -good of that?” she said, abruptly, thinking, “He -is a man who discovered himself once too often.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You are wrong, Emma, I am not worthy of -madness.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Don’t be on your guard, Kahn,” she retorted.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Oscar appeared before her suddenly, barefoot. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_88'>88</span>She stared at him. “What is it?” she at last managed -to ask in a faint almost suffocated voice.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I want to kiss you,” he whispered.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She moved toward him slowly, when, half way, -he hurried toward her, seized her hand, kissed it, -and went back into the house.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“My God,” she cried out. “He is beginning -to think for himself,” and ran in after him.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She remembered how she had talked to him -the night before, only the night before. “You -must love with an everlasting but a changing -love,” and he became restless. “With an everlasting -but a changing love.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“What do you mean by ‘changing’?” His -palms were moist, and his feet twitched.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“A love that takes in every detail, every -element—that can understand without hating, -without distinction, I think.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Why do you say, ‘I think’?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I mean, I know,” she answered, confused.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Get that Kahn out, he’s a rascal,” he said, -abruptly, grinning.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“What are you saying, Oscar?” she demanded, -turning cold. “I’ll never come to your bed again, -take your hands and say ‘Our Father.’”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It will be all right if you send that man packing,” -he said, stressing the word “packing.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She was very angry, and half started toward -<span class='pageno' id='Page_89'>89</span>the door. Then she turned back. “Why do you -say that, Oscar?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Because he makes you nervous—well, then—because -he crouches”; he saw by his mother’s face -that she was annoyed, puzzled, and he turned red -to his ears. “I don’t mean that, I mean he -isn’t good; he’s just watching for something good -to happen, to take place——” His voice trailed -off, and he raised his eyes solemn and full of -tears to her face. She leaned down and kissed -him, tucking him in like a “little boy.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“But I’m not a little boy,” he called out to her.</p> - -<p class='c009'>And tonight she did not come down until she -thought Kahn and Straussmann had gone.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Kahn had disappeared, but Straussmann had -taken a turn or two about the place and was -standing in the shadow of the stoop when she -came out.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Come,” he said. “What is it that you want?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I think it’s religion,” she answered abruptly. -“But it’s probably love.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Let us take a walk,” he suggested.</p> - -<p class='c009'>They turned in toward the shadows of the -great still mountains and the denser, more -arrogant shadows of the out-houses and barns. -She looked away into the silence, and the night, -and a warm sensation as of pleasure or of something -expected but intangible came over her, and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_90'>90</span>she wanted to laugh, to cry, and thinking of it -she knew that it was neither.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She was almost unconscious of him for a little, -thinking of her son. She raised her long silk -skirts about her ankles and tramped off into the -dampness. A whippoorwill was whistling off to -the right. It sounded as if he were on the fence, -and Emma stopped and tried to make it out. -She took Ulric’s arm presently, and feeling his -muscles swell began to think of the Bible. “Those -who take by the sword shall die by the sword. -And those who live by the flesh shall die by the -flesh.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She wished that she had someone she could -believe in. She saw a door before her mental -eye, and herself opening it and saying, “Now tell -me this, and what it means,—only today I was -thinking ‘those who live by the flesh’”—and as -suddenly the door was slammed in her face. She -started back.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You are nervous,” he said in a pleased -whisper.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Heavy stagnant shadows sprawled in the path. -“So many million leaves and twigs to make one -dark shadow,” she said, and was sorry because it -sounded childishly romantic, quite different from -what she had intended, what she had meant.</p> - -<p class='c009'>They turned the corner of the carriage-house. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_91'>91</span>Something moved, a toad, grey and ugly, -bounced across her feet and into the darkness of -the hedges. Coming to the entrance of the barn -they paused. They could distinguish sleeping -hens, the white films moving on their eyes—and -through a window at the back, steam rising from -the dung heap.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“There don’t seem to be any real farmers left,” -she said aloud, thinking of some book she had -read about the troubles of the peasants and landholders.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You’re thinking of my country,” he said -smiling.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“No, I wasn’t,” she said. “I was wondering -what it is about the country that makes it seem -so terrible?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It’s your being a Puritan—a tight-laced delightful -little Puritan.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She winced at the words, and decided to remain -silent.</p> - -<p class='c009'>It was true, Straussmann was in a fever of -excitement—he was always this way with women, -especially with Emma. He tried to conceal it for -the time being, thinking, rightly, that a display -of it would not please her just at the moment—“but -it would be only a matter of minutes when -she would welcome it,” he promised himself, and -waited.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_92'>92</span>He reflected that she would laugh at him. -“But she would enjoy it just the same. The way -with all women who have had anything to do with -more than one man and are not yet forty,” he -reflected. “They like what they get, but they -laugh at you, and know you are lying——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Oh, my God!” Emma said suddenly, drawing -her arm away and wiping her face with her handkerchief.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“What’s the matter?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Nothing, it’s the heat.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It is warm,” he said dismally.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I despise everything, I really despise everything, -but you won’t believe—— I mean everything -when I say everything—you’ll think I -mean some one thing—won’t you?” she went on -hurriedly. She felt that she was becoming -hysterical.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It doesn’t matter,” he rejoined, walking on -beside her, his heart beating violently. “Down, -you dog,” he said aloud.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“What is that?” She raised her eyes and he -looked into them, and they both smiled.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“That’s better. I wish I were God.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“A desire for a vocation.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Not true, and horrid, as usual,” she answered, -and she was hot and angry all at once.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He pulled at his moustache and sniffed. “I -<span class='pageno' id='Page_93'>93</span>can smell the hedges—ah, the country is a gay -deceiver—it smells pleasant enough, but it’s -treacherous. The country, my dear Emma, has -done more to corrupt man, to drag him down, -to turn him loose upon his lower instincts, than -morphine, alcohol and women. That’s why I -like it, that’s why it’s the perfect place for women. -They are devils and should be driven out, and as -there’s more room in the country and consequently -less likelihood of driving them out in too -much of a hurry, there is more time for amusement.” -He watched her out of the corner of his -eye as he said these things to note if they were ill -advised. They seemed to leave her cold, but -tense.</p> - -<p class='c009'>A little later they passed the barns again.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“What was that?” Emma asked suddenly.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I heard nothing.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>But she had heard something, and her heart -beat fearfully. She recognized Oscar’s voice. -She reached up signing Straussmann to be quiet. -She did not want him to hear; she wished that -the ground would yawn, would swallow him up.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“See that yellow flower down there,” she said, -pointing toward the end of the path they had -just come. “I want it, I must have it, please.” -He did as he was bid, amiably enough.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_94'>94</span>She listened—she heard the voice of Oscar’s -little sweetheart:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It seems as if we were one already.”... It -was high, resolute, unflagging, without emotion, a -childish parroting of some novel. Oscar’s voice -came back, half smothered:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Do you really care—more than you like -Berkeley?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Yes, I do,” she answered in the same false -treble, “lots more.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Come here,” he said softly—the hay rustled.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I don’t want to—the rye gets into my hair -and spoils it.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Dolly, do you like the country?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Yes, I do,”—without conviction.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“We will go to the city,” he answered.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Oh, Oscar, you’re so strong,” she giggled, and -it sent a cold shudder through Emma’s being.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Then presently, “What’s the matter, Oscar—why, -you’re crying.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I’m not—well, then yes, I am—what of it?—you’ll -understand, too, some day.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She was evidently frightened, because she said -in a somewhat loosened key, “No one would ever -believe that we were as much in love as we are, -would they, Oscar?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“No, why do you ask that?”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_95'>95</span>“It’s a great pity,” she said again with the -false sound, and sighed.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Do you care? Why do you care?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Straussmann was coming back with the yellow -flower between thumb and forefinger. Emma -ran a little way to meet him.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Come, let us go home the other way.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Rather, let us not go home,” he said, boldly, -and took her wrist, hurting her.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Ah,” she said. “<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Vous m’avez blessée -d’amour</span>”—ironically.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Yes, speak French, it helps women like you -at such moments,” he said, brutally, and kissed -her.</p> - -<p class='c009'>But kissing him back, she thought, “The fool, -why does Oscar take her so seriously when they -are both children, and she is torturing him.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“My love, my sweet, my little love,” he was -babbling.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She tried to quench this, trembling a little. -“But tell me, my friend—no, not so hasty—what -do you think of immortality?” He had pushed -her so far back that there was no regaining her -composure. “My God, in other words, what of -the will to retribution!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>But she could not go on. “I’ve tried to,” she -thought.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Later, when the dawn was almost upon them, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_96'>96</span>he said: “How sad to be drunk, only to die. For -the end of all man is Fate, in other words, the -end of all man is vulgar.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She felt the need of something that had not -been.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I’m not God, you see, after all.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“So I see, madam,” he said. “But you’re a -damned clever little woman.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>When she came in, she found Kahn lying flat -on his back, his eyes wide open.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Couldn’t you sleep?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“No, I could not sleep.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She was angry. “I’m sorry—you suffer.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Yes, a little.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Kahn,” she cried in anguish, flinging herself -on her knees beside him. “What should I have -done, what shall I do?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He put his hand on her cheek. “My dear, my -dear,” he said, and sighed. “I perhaps was -wrong.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She listened.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Very wrong, I see it all now; I am an evil -man, an old and an evil being.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“No, no!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Yes, yes,” he said gently, softly, contradicting -her. “Yes, evil, and pitiful, and weak”; he -seemed to be trying to remember something. -“What is it that I have overlooked?” He asked -<span class='pageno' id='Page_97'>97</span>the question in such a confused voice that she was -startled.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Is it hate?” she asked.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I guess so, yes, I guess that’s it.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Kahn, try to think—there must be something -else.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Madness.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She began to shiver.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Are you cold?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“No, it’s not cold.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“No, it’s not cold,” he repeated after her. -“You are not cold, Emma, you are a child.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Tears began to roll down her cheeks.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Yes,” he continued sadly. “You too will -hear: remorse is the medium through which the -evil spirit takes possession.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>And again he cried out in anguish. “But I’m -<i>not</i> superficial—I may have been wanton, but -I’ve not been superficial. I wanted to give up -everything, to abandon myself to whatever IT -demanded, to do whatever IT directed and willed. -But the terrible thing is I don’t know what -abandon is. I don’t know when it’s abandon and -when it’s just a case of minor calculation.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The real abandon is not to know whether one -throws oneself off a cliff or not, and not to care. -But I can’t do it, because I must know, because -I’m afraid if I did cast myself off, I should find -<span class='pageno' id='Page_98'>98</span>that I had thrown myself off the lesser thing after -all, and that,” he said in a horrified voice, “I could -never outlive, I could never have faith again. -And so it is that I shall never know, Emma; only -children and the naïve know, and I am too sophisticated -to accomplish the divine descent.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“But you must tell me,” she said, hurriedly. -“What am I to do, what am I to think? My -whole future depends on that, on your answer—on -knowing whether I do an injustice not to hate, -not to strike, not to kill—well, you must tell me—I -swear it is my life—my entire life.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Don’t ask me, I can’t know, I can’t tell. I who -could not lead one small sheep, what could I do -with a soul, and what still more could I do with -you? No,” he continued, “I’m so incapable. I -am so mystified. Death would be a release, but -it wouldn’t settle anything. It never settles anything, -it simply wipes the slate, it’s merely a way -of putting the sum out of mind, yet I wish I -might die. How do I know now but that everything -I have thought, and said, and done, has not -been false, a little abyss from which I shall crawl -laughing at the evil of my own limitation.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“But the child—what have I been telling Oscar—to -love with an everlasting love——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“That’s true,” he said.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Kahn, listen. What have I done to him, what -<span class='pageno' id='Page_99'>99</span>have I done to myself? What are we all doing -here—are we all mad—or are we merely excited—overwrought, -hysterical? I must know, I must -know.” She took his hand and he felt her tears -upon it.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Kahn, is it an everlasting but a changing love—what -kind of love is that?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Perhaps that’s it,” he cried, jumping up, and -with a gesture tore his shirt open at the throat. -“Look, I want you to see, I run upon the world -with a bared breast—but never find the blade—ah, -the civility of our own damnation—that’s the -horror. A few years ago, surely this could not -have happened. Do you know,” he said, turning -his eyes all hot and burning upon her, “the most -terrible thing in the world is to bare the breast -and never to feel the blade enter!” He buried -his face in his hands.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“But, Kahn, you must think, you must give -me an answer. All this indecision is all very well -for us, for all of us who are too old to change, -for all of us who can reach God through some -plaything we have used as a symbol, but there’s -my son, what is he to think, to feel, he has no -jester’s stick to shake, nor stool to stand on. Am -I responsible for him? Why,” she cried frantically, -“must I be responsible for him? I tell -you I won’t be, I can’t. I won’t take it upon -<span class='pageno' id='Page_100'>100</span>myself. But I have, I have. Is there something -that can make me immune to my own blood? -Tell me—I must wipe the slate—the fingers are -driving me mad—can’t he stand alone now? Oh, -Kahn, Kahn!” she cried, kissing his hands. “See, -I kiss your hands, I am doing so much. You -must be the prophet—you can’t do less for the -sign I give you—I must know, I must receive -an answer, I <i>will</i> receive it.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He shook her off suddenly, a look of fear came -into his eyes.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Are you trying to frighten me?” he whispered. -She went into the hall, into the dark, and did not -know why, or understand anything. Her mind -was on fire, and it was consuming things that -were strange and merciful and precious.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Finally she went into her son’s room and stood -before his bed. He lay with one feverish cheek -against a dirty hand, his knees drawn up; his -mouth had a peculiar look of surprise about it.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She bent down, called to him, not knowing -what she was doing. “Wrong, wrong,” she whispered, -and she shook him by the shoulders. “Listen, -Oscar, get up. Listen to me!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He awoke and cried out as one of her tears, forgotten, -cold, struck against his cheek. An ague -shook his limbs. She brought her face close to -his.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_101'>101</span>“Son, hate too, that is inevitable—irrevocable——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He put out his two hands and pushed them -against her breast and in a subdued voice said, -“Go away, go away,” and he looked as if he were -about to cry, but he did not cry.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She turned and fled into the hall.</p> - -<p class='c009'>However, in the morning, at breakfast, there -was nothing unusual about her, but a tired softness -and yielding of spirit; and at dinner, which -was always late, she felt only a weary indifference -when she saw Straussmann coming up the walk. -He had a red and white handkerchief about his -throat, and she thought, “How comic he looks.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Good evening,” he said.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Good evening,” she answered, and a touch of -her old gaiety came into her voice. Kahn was -already seated, and now she motioned Straussmann -to follow. She began slicing the cold -potted beef and asked them about sugar in their -tea, adding, “Oscar will be here soon.” To Kahn -she showed only a very little trace of coldness, of -indecision.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“No,” Straussmann said, still standing, legs -apart: “If you’ll excuse me, I’d like a word or -two with Kahn.” They stepped off the porch -together.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Kahn,” he said, going directly to the point, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_102'>102</span>“listen,” he took hold of Kahn’s coat by the lapel. -“You have known Emma longer than I have, -you’ve got to break it to her.” He flourished a -large key under Kahn’s nose, as he spoke.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I’ve got him locked up in the out-house safe -enough for the present, but we must do something -immediately.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“What’s the matter?” A strange, pleasant but -cold sweat broke out upon Kahn’s forehead.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I found Oscar sitting beside the body of his -sweetheart, what’s-her-name; he had cut her -throat with a kitchen knife, yes, with a kitchen -knife—he seemed calm, but he would say nothing. -What shall we do?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“They’ll say he was a degenerate from the -start——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Those who live by the flesh—eh?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“No,” Kahn said, in a confused voice, “that’s -not it.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>They stood and stared at each other so long -that presently Emma grew nervous and came -down the garden path to hear what it was all -about.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id001'> -<img src='images/i_102fp.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_103'>103</span> - <h2 class='c005'>ANTIQUE</h2> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b c014'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span class='xxlarge'>A</span> lady in a cowl of lawn</div> - <div class='line'>With straight bound tabs and muted eyes,</div> - <div class='line'>And lips fair thin and deftly drawn</div> - <div class='line in4'>And oddly wise.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>A cameo, a ruff of lace,</div> - <div class='line'>A neck cut square with corners laid;</div> - <div class='line'>A thin Greek nose and near the face</div> - <div class='line in4'>A polished braid.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Low, sideways looped, of amber stain</div> - <div class='line'>The pale ears caught within its snare.</div> - <div class='line'>A profile like a dagger lain</div> - <div class='line in4'>Between the hair.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_104'>104</span> - <h2 class='c005'>KATRINA SILVERSTAFF</h2> -</div> - -<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c008'>“We have eaten a great deal, my -friend, against the day of God.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She was a fine woman, hard, -magnificent, cold, Russian, married to a Jew, a -doctor on the East Side.</p> - -<p class='c009'>You know that kind of woman, pale, large, -with a heavy oval face.</p> - -<p class='c009'>A woman of ‘material’—a lasting personality, -in other words, a ‘fashionable’ woman, a woman -who, had she lived to the age of forty odd, would -have sat for long fine hours by some window, -overlooking some desolate park, thinking of a -beautiful but lazy means to an end.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She always wore large and stylish hats, and -beneath them her mouth took on a look of pain -at once proud, aristocratic and lonely.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She had studied medicine—but medicine in the -interest of animals; she was a good horse doctor—an -excellent surgeon on the major injuries to -birds and dogs.</p> - -<p class='c009'>In fact she and her husband had met in a -medical college in Russia—she had been the only -woman in the class, the only one of the lot of them -<span class='pageno' id='Page_105'>105</span>who smiled in a strange, hurt and sarcastic way -when dissecting.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The men treated her like one of them, that is, -they had no cringing mannerliness about their -approach, they lost no poise before her, and tried -no tricks as one might say.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The Silverstaffs had come to America, they had -settled on the East Side, among ‘their own -people’ as he would say; she never said anything -when he talked like this, she sat passive, her hands -in her lap, but her nostrils quivered, and somewhere -under the skin of her cheek something -trembled.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Her husband was the typical Jewish intellectual, -a man with stiff, short, greying hair, prominent -intelligent and kindly eyes, rather short, -rather round, always smelling of Greek salad and -carbolic acid, and always intensely interested in -new medical journals, theories, discoveries.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He was a little dusty, a little careless, a little -timid, but always gentle.</p> - -<p class='c009'>They had been in America scarcely eight -months before the first child was born, a girl, -and then following on her heels a boy, and then -no more children.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Katrina Silverstaff stopped having her children -as abruptly as she had begun having them; -something complicated had entered her mind, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_106'>106</span>and where there are definite complications of the -kind that she suffered, there are no more children.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“We have eaten a great deal, my friend, -against the day of God,” she had said that.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She had said that one night, sitting in the dusk -of their office. There was something inexpressibly -funny in their sitting together in this office, with -its globe of the world, its lung charts, its weighing -machine, its surgical chair, and its bowl of -ineffectual goldfish. Something inexpressibly -funny and inexpressibly fecund, a fecundity suppressed -by coldness, and a terrible determination—more -terrible in that her husband Otto felt -nothing of it.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He was very fond of her, and had he been a -little more sensitive he would have been very glad -to be proud of her. She never became confidential -with him, and he never tried to overstep -this, partly because he was unaware of it, and -partly because he felt little need of a closer companionship.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She was a fine woman, he knew that; he never -thought to question anything she did, because it -was little, nor what she said, because it was less; -there was an economy about her existence that -simply forbade questioning. He felt in some dim -way, that to criticize at all would be to stop -everything.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_107'>107</span>Their life was typical of the East Side doctor’s -life. Patients all day for him, and the children -for her, with an occasional call from someone who -had a sick bird. In the evening they would sit -around a table with just sufficient food, with just -sufficient silver and linen, and one luxury: -Katrina’s glass of white wine.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Or sometimes they would go out to dine, to -some kosher place, where everyone was too -friendly and too ugly and too warm, and here he -would talk of the day’s diseases while she listened -to the music and tried not to hear what her -daughter was crying for.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He had always been a ‘liberal,’ from the first -turn of the cradle. In the freedom of the people, -in the betterment of conditions, he took the interest -a doctor takes in seeing a wound heal.</p> - -<p class='c009'>As for Katrina Silverstaff, she never said -anything about it, he never knew what she really -thought, if she thought at all; it did not seem -necessary for her to do or say anything, she was -fine as she was, where she was. On the other -hand it never occurred to him that she would not -hear, with calmness at least, his long dissertations -on capital.</p> - -<p class='c009'>At the opening of this story, Katrina’s -daughter was a little girl of ten, who was devoted -to dancing, and who lay awake at nights -<span class='pageno' id='Page_108'>108</span>worrying about the shape of her legs, which had -already begun to swell with a dancer’s muscles.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The boy was nine, thin, and wore spectacles.</p> - -<p class='c009'>And of course what happened was quite unaccountable.</p> - -<p class='c009'>A man, calling himself Castillion Rodkin, -passed through one Summer, selling Carlyle’s -“French Revolution.” Among the houses where -he had left a copy was the house of Otto Silverstaff.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Katrina had opened the door, the maid was -down with the measles, and the doctor was busy -with a patient, a Jew much revered for his poetry.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She never bought anything of peddlers, and -she seldom said more than “No, thank you.” In -this case she neither said “Thank you,” nor closed -the door—instead she held it open, standing a -little aside for him to pass, and, utterly astonished, -he did pass, waiting behind her in the hall -for orders.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“We will go into the study,” she said, “my -husband is busy.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I was selling Bibles last year,” he remarked, -“but they do not go down in this section.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Yes,” she answered, “I see,” and she moved -before him into the heavy damp parlour which -was never unshuttered and which was never used. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_109'>109</span>She reached up and turned on one solitary -electric light.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Castillion Rodkin might have been of any -nationality in the world; this was partly from -having travelled in all countries, and also from a -fluid temperament—little was fixed or firm in -him, a necessary quality in a salesman.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Castillion Rodkin was below medium height, -thin and bearded with a pale, almost white -growth of hair. He was peculiarly colourless, -his eyes were only a shade darker than his -temples, and very restless.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She said simply, “We must talk about -religion.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>And with an awkwardness unusual to him he -asked “Why?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Because,” she said in a strained voice, making -a hurt gesture, “it is so far from me.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He did not know what to say, of course, and -lifting one thin leg in its white trousers he -placed it carefully over the other.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She was sitting opposite him, her head turned -a little to one side, not looking at anything. -“You see,” she said presently, “I want religion -to become out of the reach of the few.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Become’s a queer word,” he said.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It is the only word,” she answered, and there -<span class='pageno' id='Page_110'>110</span>was a slight irritation in her voice, “because it is -so irrevocably for the many.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Yes,” he said mechanically, and reached up -to his beard, leaving his hand there under a few -strands of hair.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You see,” she went on simply, “I can come to -the point. For me, everything is a lie—I am not -telling this to you because I need your help, I -shall never need help,” she said, turning her eyes -on his, “understand that from the beginning——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Beginning,” he said in a loud voice suddenly.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“From the beginning,” she repeated calmly, -“right from the very start, not help but hindrance, -I need enough hindrance, a total obstacle, -otherwise I cannot accomplish it.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Accomplish what, madame?” he asked and -took his hand from under his beard.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“That is my affair, mine alone, that you must -not question, it has nothing to do with you, you -are only a means to an end.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He said, “What can I do for you?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She smiled, a sudden smile, and under her -cheek something flickered. “You can do -nothing,” she said and stood up. “I must always -do it all—yes, I shall be your mistress—wait,” -she said raising her hand, and there was anger -and pride in her. “Do not intrude now by word -or sign, but tomorrow you will come to me—that -<span class='pageno' id='Page_111'>111</span>is enough—that is all you can do,” and in this -word “all” he felt a limit on himself that he had -never known before, and he was frightened and -disquieted and unhappy.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He came the next day, cringing a little, fawning, -uneasy, and she would not see him—she -sent word “I do not need you yet,” and he called -again the next day and learned that she was out -of town, then one Sunday she was in to him.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She said quietly to him, as if she were preparing -him for a great disappointment, “I have deliberately, -very deliberately, removed remorse from -the forbidden fruit,” and he was abject suddenly -and trembling.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“There will be no thorns for you,” she went -on in a cold abrupt voice. “You will miss that, -but do not presume to show it in my presence.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Also my floor is not the floor on which you -may crawl,” she continued, “and I do not permit -you to suffer while I am in the room—and,” she -added, unfastening her brooch slowly and precisely, -“I dislike all spiritual odours.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Are we all strange?” he whispered.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It takes more than will to attain to madness.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Yes.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Then she was silent for a while, thinking.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I want to suffer,” he murmured, and trembled -again.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_112'>112</span>“We are all gross at times, but this is not your -time.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I could follow you into the wilderness.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I would not miss you.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>And it was said in a terrible forbidding voice.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I suffer as a birthright—I want it to be something -more my own than that.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“What are you going to do?” he said.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Does one ever destroy oneself who is utterly -disinterested?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I don’t know.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Presently she said, “I love my husband—I -want you to know that, it doesn’t matter, but I -want you to know that, and that I am content -with him, and quite happy——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Yes,” Castillion Rodkin answered and began -trembling again, holding on to the sides of the -bed.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“But there is something in me,” she continued, -“that is very mournful because it is being.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He could not answer and tears came to his -eyes.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“There is another thing,” she said with abrupt -roughness, “that I must insist on, that is that -you will not insult me by your presence while you -are in this room.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He tried to stop his weeping now, and his -body grew tense, abject.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_113'>113</span>“You see,” she continued, “some people drink -poison, some take a knife, and others drown; -I take you.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>In the very early dawn, she sat up with a -strange smile. “Will you smoke?” she said, and -lit him a cigarette. Then she withdrew into herself, -sitting on the edge of the mahogany boards, -her hands in her lap.</p> - -<p class='c009'>And there was a little ease, and a little comfort -in Castillion Rodkin, and he turned, drawing up -one foot, thrusting his hand beneath his beard, -slowly smoking his cigarette.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Does one regret?” he asked, and the figure of -Katrina never moved, nor did she seem to hear.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You know, you frightened me—last night,” -he went on, lying on his back now and looking -at the ceiling. “I almost became something—something.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>There was a long silence.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Shall the beasts of the field and the birds of -the air forsake thee?” he said gloomily, then -brightly. “Shall any man forsake thee?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Katrina Silverstaff remained as she was, but -under her cheek something quivered.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The dawn was very near and the street lamps -had gone out; a milk cart rattled across the -square, and passed up a side street.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“One out of many, or only one?”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_114'>114</span>He put his cigarette out, he was beginning to -breathe with difficulty, he was beginning to -shiver.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Well——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He turned over, got up, stood on the floor.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Is there nothing I can say?” he began, and -went a little away and put his things on.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“When shall I see you again?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>And now a cold sweat broke out on him, and -his chin trembled.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Tomorrow?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He tried to come toward her, but he found -himself near the door instead.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I’m nothing,” he said, and turned toward her, -bent slightly; he wanted to kiss her feet—but -nothing helped him.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You’ve taken everything now, now I cannot -feel, I do not suffer——” He tried to look at her—and -succeeded finally after a long time.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He could see that she did not know he was -in the room.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Then something like horror entered him, and -with a soft, swift running gait he reached the -door, turned the handle and was gone.</p> - -<p class='c009'>A few days later, at dusk, for his heart was -the heart of a dog, he came into Katrina’s street, -and looked at the house.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_115'>115</span>A single length of crape, bowed, hung at the -door.</p> - -<p class='c009'>From that day he began to drink heavily, he -got to be quite a nuisance in the cafés, he seldom -had money to pay, he was a fearless beggar, -almost insolent, and once when he saw Otto -Silverstaff sitting alone in a corner, with his -two children, he laughed a loud laugh and burst -into tears.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_116'>116</span> - <h2 class='c005'>HUSH BEFORE LOVE</h2> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b c014'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span class='xxlarge'>A</span> voice rose in the darkness saying “Love,”</div> - <div class='line'>And in the stall the scattered mice grew still,</div> - <div class='line'>Where yet the white ox slept, and on the sill</div> - <div class='line'>The crowing cock paused, and the grey house dove</div> - <div class='line'>Turned twice about upon the ledge above.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_117'>117</span> - <h2 class='c005'>THE ROBIN’S HOUSE</h2> -</div> - -<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c008'>In a stately decaying mansion, on the lower -end of the Avenue, lived a woman by the -name of Nelly Grissard.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Two heavy cocks stood on either side of the -brownstone steps, looking out toward the park; -and in the back garden a fountain, having -poured out its soul for many a year, still poured, -murmuring over the stomachs of the three -cherubim supporting its massive basin.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Nelly Grissard was fat and lively to the point -of excess. She never let a waxed floor pass under -her without proving herself light of foot. Every -ounce of Nelly Grissard was on the jump. Her -fingers tapped, her feet fluttered, her bosom -heaved; her entire diaphragm swelled with little -creakings of whale-bone, lace and taffeta.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She wore feathery things about the throat, had -a liking for deep burgundy silks, and wore six -petticoats for the “joy of discovering that I’m -not so fat as they say.” She stained her good -square teeth with tobacco, and cut her hair in a -bang.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_118'>118</span>Nelly Grissard was fond of saying: “I’m -more French than human.” Her late husband -had been French; had dragged his nationality -about with him with the melancholy of a man -who had half dropped his cloak and that cloak -his life, and in the end, having wrapped it -tightly about him, had departed as a Frenchman -should.</p> - -<p class='c009'>There had been many “periods” in Nelly Grissard’s -life, a Russian, a Greek, and those privileged -to look through her key-hole said, even -a Chinese.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She believed in “intuition,” but it was always -first-hand intuition; she learned geography by -a strict system of love affairs—never two men -from the same part of the country.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She also liked receiving “spirit messages”—they -kept her in touch with international emotion—she -kept many irons in the fire and not the -least of them was the “spiritual” iron.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Then she had what she called a “healing -touch”—she could take away headaches, and she -could tell by one pass of her hand if the bump -on that particular head was a bump of genius -or of avarice—or if (and she used to shudder, -closing her eyes and withdrawing her hand with -a slow, poised and expectant manner) it was the -bump of the senses.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_119'>119</span>Nelly was, in other words, dangerously careful -of her sentimentalism. No one but a sentimental -woman would have called her great roomy mansion -“The Robin’s House,” no one but a sentimentalist -could possibly have lived through so -many days and nights of saying “yes” breathlessly, -or could have risen so often from her bed -with such a magnificent and knowing air.</p> - -<p class='c009'>No one looking through the gratings of the -basement window would have guessed at the -fermenting mind of Nelly Grissard. Here well-starched -domestics rustled about, laying cool fingers -on cool fowls and frosted bottles. The cook, -it is true, was a little untidy; he would come and -stand in the entry, when Spring was approaching, -and look over the head of Nelly Grissard’s old -nurse, who sat in a wheel-chair all day, her feeble -hands crossed over a discarded rug of the -favourite burgundy colour, staring away with -half-melted eyes into the everlasting fountain, -while below the cook’s steaming face, on a hairy -chest, rose and fell a faded holy amulet.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Sometimes the world paused to see Nelly Grissard -pounce down the steps, one after another, -and with a final swift and high gesture take her -magnificent legs out for a drive, the coachman -cracking his whip, the braided ribbons dancing -at the horses’ ears.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_120'>120</span>And that was about all—no, if one cared to -notice, a man, in the early forties, who passed -every afternoon just at four, swinging a heavy -black cane.</p> - -<p class='c009'>This man was Nicholas Golwein—half Tartar, -half Jew.</p> - -<p class='c009'>There was something dark, evil and obscure -about Nicholas Golwein, and something bending, -kindly, compassionate. Yet he was a very Jew -by nature. He rode little, danced less, but -smoked great self-reassuring cigars, and could -out-ponder the average fidgety American by -hours.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He had travelled, he had lived as the “Romans -lived,” and had sent many a hot-eyed girl back -across the fields with something to forget or -remember, according to her nature.</p> - -<p class='c009'>This man had been Nelly Grissard’s lover at -the most depraved period of Nelly’s life. At -that moment when she was colouring her drinking -water green, and living on ox liver and “<span lang="it" xml:lang="it">testina -en broda</span>,” Nicholas Golwein had turned her collar -back, and kissed her on that intimate portion -of the throat where it has just left daylight, yet -has barely passed into the shadow of the breast.</p> - -<p class='c009'>To be sure, Nelly Grissard had been depraved -at an exceedingly early age, if depravity is -understood to be the ability to enjoy what others -<span class='pageno' id='Page_121'>121</span>shudder at, and to shudder at what others enjoy.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Nelly Grissard dreamed “absolutely honestly”—stress -on the absolutely—when it was all the -fashion to dream obscurely,—she could sustain -the conversation just long enough not to be -annoyingly brilliant, she loved to talk of ancient -crimes, drawing her stomach in, and bending her -fingers slightly, just slightly, but also just -enough to make the guests shiver a little and -think how she really should have been born in -the time of the Cenci. And during the craze for -Gauguin she was careful to mention that she had -passed over the same South Sea roads, but where -Gauguin had walked, she had been carried by two -astonished donkeys.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She had been “kind” to Nicholas Golwein just -long enough to make the racial melancholy blossom -into a rank tall weed. He loved beautiful -things, and she possessed them. He had become -used to her, had “forgiven” her much (for those -who had to forgive at all had to forgive Nelly -in a large way), and the fact that she was too -fluid to need one person’s forgiveness long, drove -him into slow bitterness and despair.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The fact that “her days were on her,” and that -she did not feel the usual woman’s fear of age -and dissolution, nay, that she even saw new -measures to take, possessing a fertility that can -<span class='pageno' id='Page_122'>122</span>only come of a decaying mind, drove him almost -into insanity.</p> - -<p class='c009'>When the Autumn came, and the leaves were -falling from the trees, as nature grew hot and the -last flames of the season licked high among the -branches, Nicholas Golwein’s cheeks burned with -a dull red, and he turned his eyes down.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Life did not exist for Nicholas Golwein as a -matter of day and after day—it was flung at him -from time to time as a cloak is flung a flunkey, -and this made him proud, morose, silent.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Was it not somehow indecent that, after his -forgiveness and understanding, there should be -the understanding and forgiveness of another?</p> - -<p class='c009'>There was undoubtedly something cruel about -Nelly Grissard’s love; she took at random, and -Nicholas Golwein had been the most random, -perhaps, of all. The others, before him, had all -been of her own class—the first had even married -her, and when she finally drove him to the knife’s -edge, had left her a fair fortune. Nicholas Golwein -had always earned his own living, he was -an artist and lived as artists live. Then Nelly -came—and went—and after him she had again -taken one of her own kind, a wealthy Norwegian—Nord, -a friend of Nicholas’.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Sometimes now Nicholas Golwein would go -off into the country, trying to forget, trying to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_123'>123</span>curb the tastes that Nelly’s love had nourished. -He nosed out small towns, but he always came -hurriedly back, smelling of sassafras, the dull -penetrating odour of grass, contact with trees, -half-tamed animals.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The country made him think of Schubert’s -Unfinished Symphony—he would start running—running -seemed a way to complete all that was -sketchy and incomplete about nature, music, love.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Would I recognize God if I saw him?” The -joy of thinking such thoughts was not every -man’s, and this cheered him.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Sometimes he would go to see Nord; he was -not above visiting Nelly’s lover—in fact there -was that between them.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He had fancied death lately. There was a -tremendously sterile quality about Nicholas Golwein’s -fancies; they were the fancies of a race, -and not of a man.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He discussed death with Nord—before the -end there is something pleasant in a talk of a -means to an end, and Nord had the coldness that -makes death strong.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I can hate,” he would say, watching Nord out -of the corner of his eye; “Nelly can’t, she’s too -provincial——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Yes, there’s truth in that. Nelly’s good to -herself—what more is there?”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_124'>124</span>“There’s understanding.” He meant compassion, -and his eyes filled. “Does she ever speak -of me?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>It was beginning to rain. Large drops struck -softly against the café window and thinning out -ran down upon the sill.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Oh, yes.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And she says?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Why are you never satisfied with what you -have, Nicholas?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Nicholas Golwein turned red. “One dish of -cream and the cat should lick his paws into -eternity. I suppose one would learn how she -felt, if she feels at all, if one died.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Why, yes, I suppose so.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>They looked at each other, Nicholas Golwein -in a furtive manner, moving his lips around his -cigar—Nord absently, smiling a little. “Yes, -that would amuse her.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“What?” Nicholas Golwein paused in his -smoking and let his hot eyes rest on Nord.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Well, if you can manage it——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Nicholas Golwein made a gesture, shaking his -cuff-links like a harness—“I can manage it,” he -said, wondering what Nord was thinking.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Of course it’s rather disgusting,” Nord said.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I know, I know I should go out like a gentleman, -but there’s more in me than the gentleman, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_125'>125</span>there’s something that understands meanness; a -Jew can only love and be intimate with the thing -that’s a little abnormal, and so I love what’s low -and treacherous and cunning, because there’s -nobility and uneasiness in it for me—well,” he -flung out his arms—“if you were to say to Nell, -‘He hung himself in the small hours, with a -sheet’—what then? Everything she had ever said -to me, been to me, will change for her—she won’t -be able to read those French journals in the same -way, she won’t be able to swallow water as she -has always swallowed it. I know, you’ll say -there’s nature and do you know what I’ll answer: -that I have a contempt for animals—just because -they do not have to include Nelly Grissard’s -whims in their means to a living conduct—well, -listen, I’ve made up my mind to something”—he -became calm all of a sudden and looked Nord -directly in the face.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Well?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I shall follow you up the stairs, stand behind -the door, and you shall say just these words, -‘Nicholas has hung himself.’”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And then what?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“That’s all, that’s quite sufficient—then I shall -know everything.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Nord stood up, letting Nicholas open the café -door for him.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_126'>126</span>“You don’t object?” Nicholas Golwein murmured.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Nord laughed a cold, insulting laugh. “It -will amuse her——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Nicholas nodded, “Yes, we’ve held the coarse -essentials between our teeth like good dogs—” -he said, trying to be insulting in turn, but it only -sounded pathetic, sentimental.</p> - -<hr class='c015' /> - -<p class='c009'>Without a word passing between them, on the -following day, they went up the stairs of Nelly -Grissard’s house, together. The door into the -inner room was ajar, and Nicholas crept in -behind this, seating himself on a little table.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He heard Nord greet Nelly, and Nelly’s voice -answering—“Ah, dear”—he listened no further -for a moment, his mind went back, and he seemed -to himself to be peaceful and happy all at once. -“A binding up of old sores,” he thought, a oneness -with what was good and simple—with -everything that evil had not contorted.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Religion,” he thought to himself, resting his -chin on his hands—thinking what religion had -meant to all men at all times, but to no man in -his most need. “Religion is a design for pain—that’s -it.” Then he thought, that, like all art, -must be fundamentally against God—God had -made his own plans—well, of that later——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_127'>127</span>Nelly had just said something—there had -been a death-like silence, then her cry, but he -had forgotten to listen to what it was that had -passed. He changed hands on his cane. “There -is someone in heaven,” he found his mind saying. -The rising of this feeling was pleasant—it -seemed to come from the very centre of his being. -“There’s someone in heaven—who?” he asked -himself, “who?” But there was no possible answer -that was not blasphemy.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Jews do not kill themselves——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Nelly’s voice. He smiled—there was someone -in heaven, but no one here. “I’m coming,” -he murmured to himself—and felt a sensuous -giving away in the promise.</p> - -<p class='c009'>His eyes filled. What was good in death had -been used up long ago—now it was only dull -repetition—death had gone beyond the need of -death.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Funnily enough he thought of Nelly as she -was that evening when she had something to forgive. -He had pulled her toward him by one -end of a burgundy ribbon, “Forgive, forgive,” -and she had been kind enough not to raise him, -not to kiss him, saying, “I forgive”—she just -stood there showing her tobacco-stained teeth in -a strong laugh, “Judas eliminated.” He put his -hand to his mouth, “I have been <i>There</i>,” and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_128'>128</span><i>There</i> seemed like a place where no one had ever -been. How cruel, how monstrous!</p> - -<p class='c009'>Someone was running around the room, heavy, -ponderous. “She always prided herself on her -lightness of foot,” and here she was running like -a trapped animal, making little cries, “By the -neck!”—strange words, horrifying—unreal——</p> - -<p class='c009'>“To be a little meaner than the others, a -little more crafty”—well, he had accomplished -that, too.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Someone must be leaning on the couch, it -groaned. That took him back to Boulogne; he -had loved a girl once in Boulogne, and once in -the dark they had fallen, it was like falling -through the sky, through the stars, finding that -the stars were not only one layer thick, but that -there were many layers, millions of layers, a -thickness to them, and a depth—then the floor—that -was like a final promise of something -sordid, but lasting—firm.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Sounds rose from the streets; automobiles -going uptown, horses’ hoofs, a cycle siren,—that -must be a child,—long drawn out, and piercing—yes, -only a child would hold on to a sound -like that.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Life is life,” Nelly had just said, firmly, -decisively. After all he had done this well—he -had never been able to think of death long, but -<span class='pageno' id='Page_129'>129</span>now he had thought of it, made it pretty real—he -remembered sparrows, for some unknown -reason, and this worried him.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The line of the hips, simply Renoir over -again——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>They were on the familiar subject of art.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The sounds in the room twittered about him -like wings in a close garden, where there is -neither night nor day. “There is a power in -death, even the thought of death, that is very -terrible and very beautiful——” His cane -slipped, and struck the floor.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“What was that?” the voice of Nelly Grissard -was high, excited, startled——</p> - -<p class='c009'>“A joke.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Nicholas Golwein suddenly walked into the -room.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“A joke,” he said and looked at them both, -smiling.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Nelly Grissard, who was on her knees, and who -was holding Nord’s shoe in one hand, stared at -him. It seemed that she must have been about -to kiss Nord’s foot.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Nicholas Golwein bowed, a magnificent bow, -and was about to go.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” Nelly -Grissard cried, angrily, and got to her feet.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_130'>130</span>He began to stammer: “I—I am leaving -town—I wanted to pay my respects——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Well, go along with you——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Nicholas Golwein went out, shutting the door -carefully behind him.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_131'>131</span> - <h2 class='c005'>PARADISE</h2> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b c014'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span class='xxlarge'>T</span>his night I’ve been one hour in Paradise;</div> - <div class='line'>There found a feather from the Cock that Crew—</div> - <div class='line'>There heard the echo of the Kiss that Slew,</div> - <div class='line'>And in the dark, about past agonies</div> - <div class='line in4'>Hummed little flies.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_132'>132</span> - <h2 class='c005'>NO-MAN’S-MARE</h2> -</div> - -<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c008'>Pauvla Agrippa had died that -afternoon at three; now she lay with -quiet hands crossed a little below her fine -breast with its transparent skin showing the -veins as filmy as old lace, purple veins that were -now only a system of charts indicating the pathways -where her life once flowed.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Her small features were angular with that repose -which she had often desired. She had not -wanted to live, because she did not mind death. -There were no candles about her where she lay, -nor any flowers. She had said quite logically to -her sisters: “Are there any candles and flowers -at a birth?” They saw the point, but regretted the -philosophy, for buying flowers would have connected -them with Pauvla Agrippa, in this, her -new adventure.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Pauvla Agrippa’s hair lay against her cheeks -like pats of plated butter; the long golden ends -tucked in and wound about her head and curved -behind her neck. Pauvla Agrippa had once been -complimented on her fine black eyes and this -yellow hair of hers, and she had smiled and been -<span class='pageno' id='Page_133'>133</span>quite pleased, but had drawn attention to the -fact that she had also another quite remarkable -set of differences—her small thin arms with their -tiny hands and her rather long narrow feet.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She said that she was built to remain standing; -now she could rest.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Her sister, Tasha, had been going about all -day, praying to different objects in search of one -that would give her comfort, though she was not -so much grieved as she might have been, because -Pauvla Agrippa had been so curious about all -this.</p> - -<p class='c009'>True, Agrippa’s husband seemed lost, and -wandered about like a restless dog, trying to find -a spot that would give him relief as he smoked.</p> - -<p class='c009'>One of Pauvla’s brothers was playing on the -floor with Pauvla’s baby. This baby was small -and fat and full of curves. His arms curved -above his head, and his legs curved downward, -including his picture book and rattle in their -oval. He shouted from time to time at his uncle, -biting the buttons on his uncle’s jacket. This -baby and this boy had one thing in common—a -deep curiosity—a sense that somewhere that curiosity -would be satisfied. They had all accomplished -something. Pauvla Agrippa and her husband -and her sister and the boy and Pauvla’s -<span class='pageno' id='Page_134'>134</span>baby, but still there was incompleteness about -everything.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Nothing was ever done; there wasn’t such a -thing as rest, that was certain, for the sister still -felt that her prayers were not definite, the husband -knew he would smoke again after lunch, -the boy knew he was only beginning something, -as the baby also felt it, and Pauvla Agrippa -herself, the seemingly most complete, had yet to -be buried. Her body was confronted with the -eternal necessity of change.</p> - -<p class='c009'>It was all very sad and puzzling, and rather -nice too. After all, atoms were the only things -that had imperishable existence, and therefore -were the omnipotent quality and quantity—God -should be recognized as something that was -everywhere in millions, irrevocable and ineradicable—one -single great thing has always been the -prey of the million little things. The beasts of -the jungle are laid low by the insects. Yes, she -agreed that everything was multiple that counted. -Pauvla was multiple now, and some day they -would be also. This was the reason that she -wandered from room to room touching things, -vases, candlesticks, tumblers, knives, forks, the -holy pictures and statues and praying to each -of them, praying for a great thing, to many -presences.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_135'>135</span>A neighbour from across the way came to see -them while Pauvla’s brother was still playing -with the baby. This man was a farmer, once -upon a time, and liked to remember it, as city-bred -men in the country like to remember New -York and its sophistication.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He spent his Summers, however, in the little -fishing village where the sisters, Pauvla and -Tasha, had come to know him. He always spoke -of “going toward the sea.” He said that there -was something more than wild about the -ocean; it struck him as being a little unnatural, -too.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He came in now grumbling and wiping his -face with a coarse red handkerchief, remarking -on the “catch” and upon the sorrow of the house -of Agrippa, all in the one breath.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“There’s a touch of damp in the air,” he said, -sniffing, his nose held back so that his small eyes -gleamed directly behind it. “The fish have been -bad catching and no-man’s-mare is going up the -headlands, her tail stretched straight out.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Tasha came forward with cakes and tea and -paused, praying over them also, still looking for -comfort. She was a small woman, with a round, -wrinkled forehead and the dark eyes of her sister; -today she felt inconvenienced because she -could not understand her own feelings—once or -<span class='pageno' id='Page_136'>136</span>twice she had looked upon the corpse with resentment -because it had done something to Pauvla; -however, she was glad to see the old man, and she -prayed to him silently also, to see if it would help. -Just what she prayed for she could not tell; the -words she used were simple: “What is it, what -is it?” over and over with her own childhood -prayers to end with.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She had a great deal of the quietness of this -village about her, the quietness that is in the -roaring of the sea and the wind, and when she -sighed it was like the sound made of great waters -running back to sea between the narrow sides of -little stones.</p> - -<p class='c009'>It was here that she, as well as her brothers -and sisters, had been born. They fished in the -fishing season and sold to the market at one-eighth -of the market price, but when the markets -went so low that selling would put the -profits down for months, they turned the nets -over and sent the fish back to sea.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Today Tasha was dressed in her ball-gown; -she had been anticipating a local gathering that -evening and then Pauvla Agrippa got her heart -attack and died. This dress was low about the -shoulders, with flounces of taffeta, and the sea-beaten -face of Tasha rose out of its stiff elegance -like a rock from heavy moss. Now that -<span class='pageno' id='Page_137'>137</span>she had brought the cakes and tea, she sat listening -to this neighbour as he spoke French to her -younger brother.</p> - -<p class='c009'>When they spoke in this strange language she -was always surprised to note that their voices -became unfamiliar to her—she could not have -told which was which, or if they were themselves -at all. Closing her eyes, she tried to see if this -would make any difference, and it didn’t. Then -she slowly raised her small plump hands and -pressed them to her ears—this was better, because -now she could not tell that it was French that -they were speaking, it was sound only and might -have been anything, and again she sighed, and -was glad that they were less strange to her; she -could not bear this strangeness today, and -wished they would stop speaking in a foreign -tongue.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“What are you saying?” she enquired, taking -the teacup in one hand, keeping the other over -her ear.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Talking about the horse,” he said, and -went on.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Again Tasha became thoughtful. This horse -that they were speaking about had been on the -sands, it seemed to her, for as long as she could -remember. It was a wild thing belonging to -nobody. Sometimes in a coming storm, she had -<span class='pageno' id='Page_138'>138</span>seen it standing with its head out toward the -waters, its mane flying in the light air, and its -thin sides fluttering with the beating of its -heart.</p> - -<p class='c009'>It was old now, with sunken flanks and -knuckled legs; it no longer stood straight—and -the hair about its nose had begun to turn grey. -It never interfered with the beach activities, and -on the other hand it never permitted itself to -be touched. Early in her memory of this animal, -Tasha had tried to stroke it, but it had started, -arched its neck and backed away from her with -hurried jumping steps. Many of the ignorant -fisherfolk had called it the sea horse and also “no-man’s-mare.” -They began to fear it, and several -of them thought it a bad omen.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Tasha knew better—sometimes it would be -down upon the pebbly part of the shore, its head -laid flat as though it were dead, but no one could -approach within fifty feet without its instantly -leaping up and standing with its neck thrust forward -and its brown eyes watching from beneath -the coarse lashes.</p> - -<p class='c009'>In the beginning people had tried to catch it -and make it of use. Gradually everyone in the -village had made the attempt; not one of them -had ever succeeded.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The large black nostrils were always wet, and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_139'>139</span>they shook as though someone were blowing -through them—great nostrils like black flowers.</p> - -<p class='c009'>This mare was old now and did not get up -so often when approached. Tasha had been as -near to it as ten paces, and Pauvla Agrippa had -once approached so near that she could see that -its eyes were failing, that a thin mist lay over -its right eyeball, so that it seemed to be flirting -with her, and this made her sad and she hurried -away, and she thought, “The horse had its own -defence; when it dies it will be so horrifying perhaps -that not one of us will approach it.” -Though many had squabbled about which of -them should have its long beautiful tail.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Pauvla Agrippa’s husband had finished his -cigar and came in now, bending his head to get -through the low casement. He spoke to the -neighbour a few moments and then sat down -beside his sister-in-law.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He began to tell her that something would -have to be done with Pauvla, and added that -they would have to manage to get her over to -the undertaker’s at the end of the headland, but -that they had no means of conveyance. Tasha -thought of this horse because she had been thinking -about it before he interrupted and she spoke -of it timidly, but it was only an excuse to say -something.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_140'>140</span>“You can’t catch it,” he said, shaking his head.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Here the neighbour broke in: “It’s easy -enough to catch it; this last week three children -have stroked it—it’s pretty low, I guess; but I -doubt if it would be able to walk that far.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He looked over the rim of the teacup to see -how this remark would be taken—he felt excited -all of a sudden at the thought that something -was going to be attempted that had not been -attempted in many years, and a feeling of misfortune -took hold of him that he had certainly -not felt at Pauvla Agrippa’s death. Everything -about the place, and his life that had seemed -to him quite normal and natural, now seemed -strange.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The disrupting of one idea—that the horse -could not be caught—put him into a mood that -made all other accustomed things alien.</p> - -<p class='c009'>However, after this it seemed quite natural -that they should make the effort and Tasha went -into the room where Pauvla Agrippa lay.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The boy had fallen asleep in the corner and -Pauvla’s baby was crawling over him, making -for Pauvla, cooing softly and saying “mamma” -with difficulty, because the little under-lip kept -reaching to the upper lip to prevent the saliva -from interrupting the call.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Tasha put her foot in the baby’s way and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_141'>141</span>stood looking down at Pauvla Agrippa, where -her small hands lay beneath her fine breast with -its purple veins, and now Tasha did not feel quite -the same resentment that she had felt earlier. It -is true this body had done something irrevocable -to Pauvla Agrippa, but she also realized that she, -Tasha, must now do something to this body; it -was the same with everything, nothing was left -as it was, something was always altering something -else. Perhaps it was an unrecognized law.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Pauvla Agrippa’s husband had gone out to see -what could be done with the mare, and now the -neighbour came in, saying that it would not come -in over the sand, but that he—the husband—thought -that it would walk toward the headland, -as it was wont.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“If you could only carry her out to it,” he said.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Tasha called in two of her brothers and woke -up the one on the floor. “Everything will be -arranged for her comfort,” she said, “when we -get her up there.” They lifted Pauvla Agrippa -up and her baby began to laugh, asking to be -lifted up also, and holding its little hands high -that it might be lifted, but no one was paying -any attention to him, because now they were -moving his mother.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Pauvla Agrippa looked fine as they carried -her, only her small hands parted and deserted -<span class='pageno' id='Page_142'>142</span>the clef where they had lain, dropping down upon -the shoulders of her brothers. Several children -stood hand in hand watching, and one or two -villagers appeared who had heard from the neighbours -what was going on.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The mare had been induced to stand and someone -had slipped a halter over its neck for the first -time in many years; there was a frightened look -in the one eye and the film that covered the other -seemed to darken, but it made no objection when -they raised Pauvla Agrippa and placed her on its -back, tying her on with a fish net.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Then someone laughed, and the neighbour -slapped his leg saying, “Look what the old horse -has come to—caught and burdened at last.” -And he watched the mare with small cruel -eyes.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Pauvla Agrippa’s husband took the strap of -the halter and began plodding through the sand, -the two boys on either side of the horse holding -to all that was left of Pauvla Agrippa. Tasha -came behind, her hands folded, praying now to -this horse, still trying to find peace, but she -noticed with a little apprehension that the horse’s -flanks had begun to quiver, and that this quiver -was extending to its ribs and from its ribs to its -forelegs.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Then she saw it turn a little, lifting its head. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_143'>143</span>She called out to Pauvla Agrippa’s husband who, -startled with the movement and the cry, dropped -the rope.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The mare had turned toward the sea; for an -instant it stood there, quivering, a great thin, -bony thing with crooked legs; its blind eyes half -covered with the black coarse lashes. Pauvla -Agrippa with her head thrown a bit back rested -easily, it seemed, the plaits of her yellow hair -lying about her neck, but away from her face, -because she was not supported quite right; still -she looked like some strange new sea animal -beneath the net that held her from falling.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Then without warning, no-man’s-mare jumped -forward and plunged neck-deep into the water.</p> - -<p class='c009'>A great wave came up, covered it, receded and -it could be seen swimming, its head out of the -water, while Pauvla Agrippa’s loosened yellow -hair floated behind. No one moved. Another -wave rose high, descended, and again the horse -was seen swimming with head up, and this time -Pauvla Agrippa’s hands were parted and lay -along the water as though she were swimming.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The most superstitious among them began -crossing themselves, and one woman dropped on -her knees, rocking from side to side; and still -no one moved.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_144'>144</span>And this time the wave rose, broke and passed -on, leaving the surface smooth.</p> - -<p class='c009'>That night Tasha picked up Pauvla Agrippa’s -sleepy boy and standing in the doorway prayed -to the sea, and this time she found comfort.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id001'> -<img src='images/i_144fp.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_145'>145</span> - <h2 class='c005'>SIX SONGS OF KHALIDINE</h2> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><i>To the Memory of Mary Pyne</i></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b c014'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span class='xxlarge'>T</span>he flame of your red hair does crawl and creep</div> - <div class='line'>Upon your body that denies the gloom</div> - <div class='line'>And feeds upon your flesh as ’t would consume</div> - <div class='line'>The cold precision of your austere sleep—</div> - <div class='line'>And all night long I beat it back, and weep.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>It is not gentleness but mad despair</div> - <div class='line'>That sets us kissing mouths, O Khalidine,</div> - <div class='line'>Your mouth and mine, and one sweet mouth unseen</div> - <div class='line'>We call our soul. Yet thick within our hair</div> - <div class='line'>The dusty ashes that our days prepare.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>The dark comes up, my little love, and dyes</div> - <div class='line'>Your fallen lids with stain of ebony,</div> - <div class='line'>And draws a thread of fear ’tween you and me</div> - <div class='line'>Pulling thin blindness down across our eyes—</div> - <div class='line'>And far within the vale a lost bird cries.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_146'>146</span>Does not the wind moan round your painted towers</div> - <div class='line'>Like rats within an empty granary?</div> - <div class='line'>The clapper lost, and long blown out to sea</div> - <div class='line'>Your windy doves. And here the black bat cowers</div> - <div class='line'>Against your clock that never strikes the hours.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>And now I say, has not the mountain’s base</div> - <div class='line'>Here trembled long ago unto the cry</div> - <div class='line'>“I love you, ah, I love you!” Now we die</div> - <div class='line'>And lay, all silent, to the earth our face.</div> - <div class='line'>Shall that cast out the echo of this place?</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Has not one in the dark funereal</div> - <div class='line'>Heard foot-fall fearful, born of no man’s tread,</div> - <div class='line'>And felt the wings of death, though no wing spread</div> - <div class='line'>And on his cheek a tear, though no tear fell—</div> - <div class='line'>And a voice saying without breath “Farewell!”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_147'>147</span> - <h2 class='c005'>THE DOVE</h2> -</div> - -<table class='table1' summary='Persons'> -<colgroup> -<col width='20%' /> -<col width='79%' /> -</colgroup> - <tr> - <td class='brt c010'><span class='sc'>Persons</span>:</td> - <td class='c011'> </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c010'><span class='pad'><span class='sc'>Amelia Burgson</span> </span></td> - <td class='c011' rowspan='2'><i>Sisters</i></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c010'><span class='pad'><span class='sc'>Vera Burgson</span> </span></td> - - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c010'><span class='pad'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—</span></td> - <td class='c011'><i>A young girl living with the</i> <span class='sc'>Burgsons</span></td> - </tr> -</table> - -<p class='c012'><span class='sc'>Time</span>—<i>Early morning</i></p> - -<p class='c012'><span class='sc'>Place</span>—<i>The</i> <span class='sc'>Burgson</span> <i>Apartment, a long, low -rambling affair at the top of a house in -the heart of the city</i>.</p> - -<p class='c013'><i>The decoration is garish, dealing heavily in -reds and pinks. There is an evident attempt to -make the place look luxuriously sensual. The -furniture is all of the reclining type.</i></p> - -<p class='c009'><i>The walls are covered with a striped paper in -red and white. Only two pictures are evident, -one of the Madonna and child, and one of an -early English tandem race.</i></p> - -<p class='c009'><i>There are firearms everywhere. Many groups -of swords, ancient and modern, are secured to the -walls. A pistol or two lie in chairs, etc.</i></p> - -<p class='c009'><i>There is only one door, which leads out into the -back hall directly back centre.</i></p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_148'>148</span><span class='sc'>Amelia Burgson</span> <i>is a woman rather over the -normal in height, with large braids of very yellow -hair, done about a long face. She seems -vitally hysterical</i>.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera Burgson</span> <i>is small, thin and dark</i>.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span> <i>is a slight girl barely out of her -teens; she is as delicate as china with almost dangerously -transparent skin. Her nose is high-bridged -and thin, her hands and feet are also -very long and delicate. She has red hair, very -elegantly coiffured. When she moves</i> [<i>seldom</i>] -<i>the slightest line runs between her legs, giving -her the expectant waiting air of a deer.</i></p> - -<p class='c009'><i>At the rising of the curtain</i> <span class='sc'>The Dove</span>, -<i>gowned in white, is seated on the divan polishing -the blade of an immense sword. Half reclining -to her right lies</i> <span class='sc'>Vera</span> <i>in a thin yellow -morning gown. A French novel has half fallen -from her hand. Her eyes are closed.</i></p> - -<p class='c013'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—Yes, I’m hurrying.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—That’s best, she will be back soon.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—She is never gone long.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—No, never very long—one would grow -old waiting for the day on which she would stay -an hour—a whole hour.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—Yes, that’s true.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—[<i>Wearily.</i>] She says we live dangerously; -<span class='pageno' id='Page_149'>149</span>[<i>laughs</i>] why, we can’t even keep the -flies out.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—Yes, there are a great many flies.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—[<i>After a pause.</i>] Shall I ever have a -lover, do you suppose?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—[<i>Turning the sword over.</i>] No, -I suppose not.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—Yet Amelia and I have made it our -business to know—everything.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—Yes?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—Yes. We say this little thing in -French and that little thing in Spanish, and we -collect knives and pistols, but we only shoot our -buttons off with the guns and cut our darning -cotton with the knives, and we’ll never, never be -perverse though our entire education has been -about knees and garters and pinches on hindquarters—elegantly -bestowed—, and we keep a few -animals—very badly—hoping to see something -first-hand—and our beds are as full of yellow -pages and French jokes as a bird’s nest is full -of feathers— God! [<i>she stands up abruptly</i>] -little one, why do I wear lace at my elbows?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—You have pretty arms.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—Nonsense! Lace swinging back and -forth like that, tickling my arms, well, that’s -not beauty——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—I know.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_150'>150</span><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—[<i>Returning to her couch.</i>] I sometimes -wonder what you do know, you are such -a strange happening, anyway. Well then, tell -me what you think of me and what you think -of my sister, you have been here long enough. -Why do you stay? Do you love us?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—I love something that you have.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—What?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—Your religious natures.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—Good heavens!</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—You misunderstand me. I call -that imagination that is the growth of ignorance, -religion.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—And why do you like that?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—Because it goes farther than -knowledge.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—You know, sometimes I wish——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—Yes?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—That you had lived all we pretend we -have.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—Why?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—I don’t know, but somehow someone -like you should know—everything.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—Do I seem so young?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—I know, that’s what’s so odd. [<i>Impatiently.</i>] -For heaven’s sake, will you stop polishing -that infernal weapon!</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_151'>151</span><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—[<i>Quietly.</i>] She said to me:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Take all the blood stains off first, then polish -it.”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—There you are; she is quite mad, there’s -no doubt. Blood stains! Why, she would be -afraid to cut her chops with it—and as for the -rest of her manifestations—nonsense!</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—She carries a pistol with her, just -to go around the corner for a pound of butter.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—It’s wicked! She keeps an enormous -blunderbuss in the corner of her room, but when -I make up her bed, all I find is some Parisienne -bathing girl’s picture stuck full of pin holes——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—I know, she sits beside me for -hours making those pin holes in the borders of -everything in sight.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—[<i>With a strange anger.</i>] Why do you -stay?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—Why should I go?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—I should think this house and two such -advanced virgins as Amelia and myself would -drive you to despair——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—No, no, I’m not driven to despair——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—What do you find here?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—I love Amelia.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—Another reason for going away.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—Is it?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_152'>152</span><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—Yes, it is.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—Strange, I don’t feel that way -about it.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—Sometimes I think——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—Yes?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—That you are the mad one, and that -we are just eccentric.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—Yet my story is quite simple.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—I’m not so certain.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—Yet you have heard it.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—There’s more than one hears.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—I was born on a farm——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—So you say.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—I became very fond of moles—it’s -so daring of them to be in the darkness underground. -And then I like the open fields, too—they -say there’s nothing like nature for the simple -spirit.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—Yes, and I’ve long had my suspicions -of nature.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—Be that as it may, my brothers -were fond of me—in a way, and my father in—a -way—then I came to New York——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—And took up the painting of china——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—Exactly. I was at that for three -years, then one day I met you walking through -the park, do you remember? You had a parasol, -you tipped it back of your head, you looked at -<span class='pageno' id='Page_153'>153</span>me a long time. Then I met Amelia, by the same -high fence in the same park, and I bowed to her -in an almost military fashion, my heels close -together——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—And you never did anything wild, -insane——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—It depends on what you call wild, -insane——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—[<i>With great excitement.</i>] Have you -ever taken opium or hasheesh?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—[<i>As if answering.</i>] There are -many kinds of dreams—in one you laugh, in -another you weep——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—[<i>Wringing her hands.</i>] Yes, yes, once -I dreamed. A dream in the day, with my eyes -wide open. I dreamt I was a Dresden doll and -that I had been blown down by the wind and that -I broke all to pieces—that is, my arms and my -head broke all to pieces—but that I was surprised -to find that my china skirt had become flexible, -as if it were made of chiffon and lace.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—You see, there are many -dreams——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—Have you ever felt that your bones -were utterly sophisticated but that your flesh -was keeping them from expressing themselves?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—Or vice versa?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—Yes, or vice versa.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_154'>154</span><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—There are many kinds of -dreams——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—You know, I’m afraid of you!</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—Me?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—Yes, you seem so gentle—do we not -call you the Dove? And you are so little—so -little it’s almost immoral, you make me feel -as if——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—As if?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—Well, as if your terrible quality were -not one of action, but just the opposite, as if you -wanted to prevent nothing.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—There are enough people preventing -things, aren’t there?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—Yes—that’s why you frighten me.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—Because I let everything go on, -as far as it can go?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—Yes, because you disturb nothing.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—I see.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—You never meddle——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—No, I never meddle.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—You don’t even observe as other people -do, you don’t watch. Why, if I were to come to -you, wringing my hands saying, “Amelia has -shot herself,” I don’t believe you would stand up.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—No, I don’t suppose I would, but -I would do something for all that.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—What?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_155'>155</span><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—I should want to be very sure you -wrung your hands as much as possible, and that -Amelia had gotten all there was to get out of the -bullet before she died.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—It’s all very well, but why don’t you do -something?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—A person who is capable of anything -needs no practice.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—You are probably maligning yourself, -you are a gentle creature, a very girl——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—If you were sensitive you would -not say that.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—Well, perhaps. [<i>She laughs a hard -laugh.</i>] What can you expect of a lumber -dealer’s daughter?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—Why are you so restless, Vera?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—Because I’m a woman. I leave my life -entirely to my imagination and my imagination -is terrific. I can’t even turn to religion for the -<i>prie-dieu</i> inclines me to one thing only—so there -you are!</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—You imagine—many things?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—You know well enough—sitting here -day after day, giving my mind everything to do, -the body nothing——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—What do you want, Vera?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—Some people would say a lover, but I -don’t say a lover; some people would say a home, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_156'>156</span>but I don’t say a home. You see I have imagined -myself beyond the need of the usual home and -beyond the reach of the usual lover——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—Then?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—Perhaps what I really want is a reason -for using one of these pistols! [<i>She laughs and -lies back.</i> <span class='sc'>The Dove</span>, <i>having risen, goes up -behind</i> <span class='sc'>Vera</span> <i>and places her hand on her throat</i>.]</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—Now you may use one of those -pistols.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—[<i>Startled, but making no attempt to -remove the</i> <span class='sc'>Dove’s</span> <i>hand</i>.] For such a <i>little</i> -thing?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—[<i>Dropping her hand, once more -taking up her old position, sword on knee.</i>] Ah!</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—Why do you say that? [<i>She is evidently -agitated.</i>]</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—I suppose I shall <i>always</i> wait.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—What is the matter?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—Always, always!</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—What <i>is</i> the matter?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—I suppose I’m waiting for the -person who will know that anything is a reason -for using a pistol, unless one is waiting for the -obvious, and the obvious has never been sufficient -reason.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—It’s all hopeless, I am hopeless and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_157'>157</span>Amelia is hopeless, and as for you—— [<i>She -makes a gesture.</i>]</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—I’ve never held anything against -hopelessness.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—Now what do you mean?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—It doesn’t matter.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—[<i>After a long pause.</i>] I wish you -danced.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—Perhaps I do.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—It might make me happier.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—[<i>Irrelevantly.</i>] Why don’t people -get angry at each other, quite suddenly and -without reason?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—Why should they?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—Isn’t there something fine and -cold and detached about a causeless anger?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—I suppose so, it depends——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—No, it does not depend, that’s -exactly it; to have a reason is to cheapen rage. -I wish every man were beyond the reach of -his own biography.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—You are either quite an idiot, or a -saint.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—I thought we had discussed that.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—[<i>Dashed but not showing it.</i>] Yes, a -saint.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—[<i>Continuing.</i>] I’m impatient of -necessary continuity, I’m too sensitive, perhaps. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_158'>158</span>I want the beautiful thing to be, how can logic -have anything to do with it, or probable sequence?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—You make my hair stand on end!</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—Of course, that’s logical!</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—Then how is it you like Amelia? And -how do you stand me?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—Because you are two splendid -dams erected about two little puddles.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—You’re horrid!</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—Only horrid!</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—Yes, I’m really afraid of you.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—Afraid?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—For instance, when you’re out of this -room all these weapons might be a lot of butter -knives or pop guns, but let you come in——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—Well?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—It becomes an arsenal.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—Yet you call me the Dove.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—Amelia called you the Dove, I’d never -have thought of it. It’s just like Amelia to call -the only dangerous thing she ever knew the -“Dove.”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—Yes, there’s something in that.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—Shall I sing for you?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—If you like.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—Or shall I show you the album that no -one ever sees? [<i>She laughs.</i>] If we had any -<span class='pageno' id='Page_159'>159</span>friends we would have to throw that book in -the fire.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—And you would have to clear the -entry——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—True. It’s because of that picture of -the Venetian courtesans that I send Amelia out -for the butter, I don’t dare let the grocer call.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—You have cut yourselves off—just -because you’re lonely.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—Yes, just because we are lonely.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—It’s quite wonderful.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—It’s a wonder the neighbours don’t -complain of Amelia’s playing that way on the -violin.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—I had not noticed.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—No, I presume not, but everyone else -in the house has. No nice woman slurs as many -notes as Amelia does! [<i>At this moment</i> <span class='sc'>Amelia</span> -<i>enters the outer room. She is wearing a cloak -with three shoulder-capes, a large plumed hat, -and skirt with many flounces.</i>]</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Amelia</span>—[<i>From the entry.</i>] You should -come and see Carpaccio’s <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Deux Courtisanes -Vénitiennes</span> now, the sun is shining right in on -the head of the one in the foreground. [<i>She -begins to hum an Italian street song.</i>] Well, I -have brought a little something and a bottle of -wine. The wine is for you, my Dove—and for -<span class='pageno' id='Page_160'>160</span>you, Vera, I’ve a long green feather. [<i>Pause -in which</i> <span class='sc'>The Dove</span> <i>continues to polish the blade -of the sword</i>. <span class='sc'>Vera</span> <i>has picked up her book</i>.]</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Amelia</span>—[<i>Advancing into the room, shrugging.</i>] -It’s damp! [<i>Seeing</i> <span class='sc'>The Dove</span> <i>still at -work</i>.] What a sweet, gentle creature, what a -little Dove it is! Ah, God, it’s a sin, truly it’s -a sin that I, a woman with temperament, permit -a young girl to stay in the same room with me!</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—[<i>In a peaceful voice.</i>] I’ve -loaded all the pistols——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—[<i>With suppressed anger.</i>] Shined all -the swords, ground all the poniard points! Attack -a man now if you dare, he’ll think you’re -playing with him!</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Amelia</span>—[<i>In an awful voice.</i>] Vera! [<i>She -begins pacing.</i>] Disaster! disaster!—wherever -I go, disaster! A woman selling fish tried to do -me out of a quarter and when I remonstrated -with her, she said with a wink: “I, too, have -been bitten by the fox!”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—If you’ll sit down I’ll make some -tea.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Amelia</span>—No, no, we’ll have a little lunch -soon, only I never can get the corks out of -bottles.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—I can.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—Rubbish! [<i>She gets up and goes out.</i>]</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_161'>161</span><span class='sc'>Amelia</span>—Well, has anything happened since -I went out?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—No.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Amelia</span>—No, no, it never does. [<i>She begins -to walk about hurriedly.</i>] Aren’t there a great -many flies in here?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—Yes, the screens should be put up.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Amelia</span>—No, no, no, I don’t want anything -to be shut out. Flies have a right to more than -life, they have a right to be curious.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—A bat flew into the room last -night.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Amelia</span>—[<i>Shuddering.</i>] Some day I shall -look like a bat, having beaten my wings about -every corner of the world, and never having hung -over anything but myself——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—And this morning, early, before -you got up, the little seamstress’ monkey -walked in through the window——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Amelia</span>—[<i>Stopping short.</i>] Are we to become -infested?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—Yesterday the mail-man offered -me some dancing mice, he’s raising them.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Amelia</span>—[<i>Throwing up her hands.</i>] There! -You see! [<i>Pause.</i>] Why should I wear red -heels? Why does my heart beat?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—Red heels are handsome.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Amelia</span>—Yes, yes, that’s what I say [<i>she begins -<span class='pageno' id='Page_162'>162</span>to dance</i>]. Little one, were you ever held -in the arms of the one you love?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—Who knows?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Amelia</span>—If we had not been left an income -we might have been in danger—well, let us laugh -[<i>she takes a few more dance steps</i>]. Eating -makes one fat, nothing more, and exercising reduces -one, nothing more. Drink wine—put flesh -on the instep, the instep that used to tell such a -sweet story—and then the knees—fit for nothing -but prayers! The hands—too fat to wander! [<i>she -waves her arm</i>]. Then one exercises, but it’s -never the same; what one has, is always better -than what one regains. Is it not so, my little one? -But never mind, don’t answer. I’m in an excellent -humour—I could talk for hours, all about -myself—to myself, for myself. God! I’d like -to tear out all the wires in the house! Destroy -all the tunnels in the city, leave nothing underground -or hidden or useful, oh, God, God! [<i>She -has danced until she comes directly in front of</i> -<span class='sc'>The Dove</span>. <i>She drops on her knees and lays her -arms on either side of</i> <span class='sc'>The Dove</span>.] I hate the -chimneys on the houses, I hate the doorways, I -hate you, I hate Vera, but most of all I hate my -red heels!</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—[<i>Almost inaudibly.</i>] Now, now!</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Amelia</span>—[<i>In high excitement.</i>] Give me the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_163'>163</span>sword! It has been sharpened long enough, give -it to me, give it to me! [<i>She makes a blind effort -to find the sword; finding</i> <span class='sc'>The Dove’s</span> <i>hand instead, -she clutches it convulsively. Slowly</i> <span class='sc'>The -Dove</span> <i>bares Amelia’s left shoulder and breast, -and leaning down, sets her teeth in. Amelia gives -a slight, short stifled cry. At the same moment</i> -<span class='sc'>Vera</span> <i>appears in the doorway with the uncorked -bottle</i>. <span class='sc'>The Dove</span> <i>stands up swiftly, holding a -pistol. She turns in the doorway hastily vacated -by</i> <span class='sc'>Vera</span>.]</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Dove</span>—So! [<i>She bows, a deep military -bow, and turning goes into the entry.</i>]</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Voice of The Dove</span>—For the house of -Burgson! [<i>A moment later a shot is heard.</i>]</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Amelia</span>—[<i>Running after her.</i>] Oh, my God!</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vera</span>—What has she done?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Amelia</span>—[<i>Reappearing in the doorway with -the picture of the Venetian courtesans, through -which there is a bullet hole—slowly, but with -emphasis.</i>] <i>This</i> is obscene!</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><span class='sc'>Curtain</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_164'>164</span> - <h2 class='c005'>MOTHER</h2> -</div> - -<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c008'>A feeble light flickered in the pawn -shop at Twenty-nine. Usually, in the -back of this shop, reading by this light—a -rickety lamp with a common green cover—sat -Lydia Passova, the mistress.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Her long heavy head was divided by straight -bound hair. Her high firm bust was made still -higher and still firmer by German corsets. She -was excessively tall, due to extraordinarily long -legs. Her eyes were small, and not well focused. -The left was slightly distended from the long -use of a magnifying glass.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She was middle-aged, and very slow in movement, -though well balanced. She wore coral in -her ears, a coral necklace, and many coral finger -rings.</p> - -<p class='c009'>There was about her jewelry some of the -tragedy of all articles that find themselves in -pawn, and she moved among the trays like the -guardians of cemetery grounds, who carry about -with them some of the lugubrious stillness of the -earth on which they have been standing.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_165'>165</span>She dealt, in most part, in cameos, garnets, and -a great many inlaid bracelets and cuff-links. -There were a few watches however, and silver -vessels and fishing tackle and faded slippers—and -when, at night, she lit the lamp, these and -the trays of precious and semi-precious stones, -and the little ivory crucifixes, one on either side -of the window, seemed to be leading a swift -furtive life of their own, conscious of the slow -pacing woman who was known to the street as -Lydia Passova.</p> - -<p class='c009'>No one knew her, not even her lover—a little -nervous fellow, an Englishman quick in speech -with a marked accent, a round-faced youth with -a deep soft cleft in his chin, on which grew two -separate tufts of yellow hair. His eyes were wide -and pale, and his eyeteeth prominent.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He dressed in tweeds, walked with the toes in, -seemed sorrowful when not talking, laughed a -great deal and was nearly always to be found in -the café about four of an afternoon.</p> - -<p class='c009'>When he spoke it was quick and jerky. He -had spent a great deal of his time in Europe, -especially the watering places—and had managed -to get himself in trouble in St. Moritz, it -was said, with a well-connected family.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He liked to seem a little eccentric and managed -it simply enough while in America. He -<span class='pageno' id='Page_166'>166</span>wore no hat, and liked to be found reading the -<i>London Times</i>, under a park lamp at three in the -morning.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Lydia Passova was never seen with him. She -seldom left her shop, however, she was always -pleased when he wanted to go anywhere: “Go,” -she would say, kissing his hand, “and when you -are tired come back.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Sometimes she would make him cry. Turning -around she would look at him a little surprised, -with lowered lids, and a light tightening of the -mouth.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Yes,” he would say, “I know I’m trivial—well -then, here I go, I will leave you, not disturb -you any longer!” and darting for the door he -would somehow end by weeping with his head -buried in her lap.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She would say, “There, there—why are you so -nervous?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>And he would laugh again: “My father was a -nervous man, and my mother was high-strung, -and as for me——” He would not finish.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Sometimes he would talk to her for long hours, -she seldom answering, occupied with her magnifying -glass and her rings, but in the end she -was sure to send him out with: “That’s all very -true, I have no doubt; now go out by yourself and -think it over”—and he would go, with something -<span class='pageno' id='Page_167'>167</span>like relief, embracing her large hips with his small -strong arms.</p> - -<p class='c009'>They had known each other a very short time, -three or four months. He had gone in to pawn -his little gold ring, he was always in financial -straits, though his mother sent him five pounds -a week; and examining the ring, Lydia Passova -had been so quiet, inevitable, necessary, that it -seemed as if he must have known her forever—“at -some time,” as he said.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Yet they had never grown together. They remained -detached, and on her part, quiet, preoccupied.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He never knew how much she liked him. She -never told him; if he asked she would look at him -in that surprised manner, drawing her mouth -together.</p> - -<p class='c009'>In the beginning he had asked her a great -many times, clinging to her, and she moved about -arranging her trays with a slight smile, and in the -end lowered her hand and stroked him gently.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He immediately became excited. “Let us -dance,” he cried, “I have a great capacity for -happiness.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Yes, you are very happy,” she said.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You understand, don’t you?” he asked -abruptly.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“What?”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_168'>168</span>“That my tears are nothing, have no significance, -they are just a protective fluid—when I -see anything happening that is about to affect my -happiness I cry, that’s all.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Yes,” Lydia Passova said, “I understand.” -She turned around reaching up to some shelves, -and over her shoulder she asked, “Does it hurt?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“No, it only frightens me. You never cry, do -you?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“No, I never cry.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>That was all. He never knew where she had -come from, what her life had been, if she had or -had not been married, if she had or had not -known lovers; all that she would say was, “Well, -you are with me, does that tell you nothing?” and -he had to answer, “No, it tells me nothing.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>When he was sitting in the café he often -thought to himself, “There’s a great woman”—and -he was a little puzzled why he thought this -because his need of her was so entirely different -from any need he seemed to remember having -possessed before.</p> - -<p class='c009'>There was no swagger in him about her, the -swagger he had always felt for his conquests with -women. Yet there was not a trace of shame—he -was neither proud nor shy about Lydia -Passova, he was something entirely different. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_169'>169</span>He could not have said himself what his feeling -was—but it was in no way disturbing.</p> - -<p class='c009'>People had, it is true, begun to tease him:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You’re a devil with the ladies.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Where this had made him proud, now it made -him uneasy.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Now, there’s a certain Lydia Passova for -instance, who would ever have thought——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Furious he would rise.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“So, you do feel——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He would walk away, stumbling a little among -the chairs, putting his hand on the back of every -one on the way to the door.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Yet he could see that, in her time, Lydia -Passova had been a “perverse” woman—there -was, about everything she did, an economy that -must once have been a very sensitive and a very -sensuous impatience, and because of this everyone -who saw her felt a personal loss.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Sometimes, tormented, he would come running -to her, stopping abruptly, putting it to her this -way:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Somebody has said something to me.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“When—where?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Now, in the café.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“What?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I don’t know, a reproach——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She would say:</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_170'>170</span>“We are all, unfortunately, only what we are.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She had a large and beautiful angora cat, it -used to sit in the tray of amethysts and opals and -stare at her from very bright cold eyes. One day -it died, and calling her lover to her she said:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Take her out and bury her.” And when he -had buried her he came back, his lips twitching.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You loved that cat—this will be a great loss.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Have I a memory?” she inquired.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Yes,” he answered.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Well,” she said quietly, fixing her magnifying -glass firmly in her eye. “We have looked at -each other, that is enough.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>And then one day she died.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The caretaker of the furnace came to him, -where he was sipping his liqueur as he talked to -his cousin, a pretty little blond girl, who had a -boring and comfortably provincial life, and who -was beginning to chafe.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He got up, trembling, pale, and hurried out.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The police were there, and said they thought it -had been heart failure.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She lay on the couch in the inner room. She -was fully dressed, even to her coral ornaments; -her shoes were neatly tied—large bows of a -ribbed silk.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He looked down. Her small eyes were slightly -open, the left, that had used the magnifying -<span class='pageno' id='Page_171'>171</span>glass, was slightly wider than the other. For a -minute she seemed quite natural. She had the -look of one who is about to say: “Sit beside me.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Then he felt the change. It was in the peculiar -heaviness of the head—sensed through despair -and not touch. The high breasts looked very -still, the hands were half closed, a little helpless, -as in life—hands that were too proud to “hold.” -The drawn-up limb exposed a black petticoat and -a yellow stocking. It seemed that she had become -hard—set, as in a mould—that she rejected -everything now, but in rejecting had bruised him -with a last terrible pressure. He moved and -knelt down. He shivered. He put his closed -hands to his eyes. He could not weep.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She was an old woman, he could see that. The -ceasing of that one thing that she could still have -for anyone made it simple and direct.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Something oppressed him, weighed him down, -bent his shoulders, closed his throat. He felt as -one feels who has become conscious of passion for -the first time, in the presence of a relative.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He flung himself on his face, like a child.</p> - -<p class='c009'>That night, however, he wept, lying in bed, his -knees drawn up.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_172'>172</span> - <h2 class='c005'>SONG IN AUTUMN</h2> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b c014'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span class='xxlarge'>T</span>he wind comes down before the creeping night</div> - <div class='line'>And you, my love, are hid within the green</div> - <div class='line'>Long grasses; and the dusk steals up between</div> - <div class='line'>Each leaf, as through the shadow quick with fright</div> - <div class='line'>The startled hare leaps up and out of sight.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>The hedges whisper in their loaded boughs</div> - <div class='line'>Where warm birds slumber, pressing wing to wing,</div> - <div class='line'>All pulsing faintly, like a muted string</div> - <div class='line'>Above us where we weary of our vows—</div> - <div class='line'>And hidden underground the soft moles drowse.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='figcenter id001'> -<img src='images/i_172fp.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_173'>173</span> - <h2 class='c005'>THE NIGGER</h2> -</div> - -<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c008'>John Hardaway was dying. That -wasn’t what he minded. His small, well-shaped -hands twitched at the soft coverlet -which rose and fell slowly with his breathing, and -he breathed hard with mouth open, showing all -his teeth.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Rabb, the nigger, crouched in the corner. The -air about her was heavy with her odour. She kept -blinking her eyes. She was awed at the presence -of her master, but ashamed too, ashamed -that he was dying—ashamed as she would have -been had he been caught at his toilet.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Rabb was a good nigger; she had served John -Hardaway’s mother, she had seen her die—old -Mrs. Hardaway fluttered against her lace like a -bird caught in deep foliage—Rabb had been able -to do something about Mrs. Hardaway’s death -because Mrs. Hardaway had loved her, in her -way.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Mrs. Hardaway had died understandably—she -had breathed hard too, opening her mouth, -but it was gentle and eager, like a child at the -breast.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_174'>174</span>Rabb had tried to be near her, had put her -hands on her. But the thing she was trying to -touch lay in some hidden corner of Mrs. Hardaway, -as a cat hides away under a bed, and Rabb -had done nothing after all.</p> - -<p class='c009'>But it was different with John Hardaway. -She watched life playing coquettishly with him. -It played with him as a dog plays with an old -coat. It shook him suddenly in great gusts of -merriment. It played with his eyelids; it twisted -his mouth, it went in and out of his body, like a -flame running through a funnel—throwing him -utterly aside in the end, leaving him cold, lonely, -and forbidding.</p> - -<p class='c009'>John Hardaway hated negroes with that hate -a master calls love. He was a Southerner and -never forgot it. Rabb had nursed him when he -was an infant, she had seen him grow up into a -big boy, and then she had been there when he -broke his mistress’s back by some flaw in his -otherwise flawless passion.</p> - -<p class='c009'>From time to time John Hardaway called for -water. And when Rabb tried to lift his head, -he cursed her for a ‘black bitch’—but in the end -he had to let her hold it.</p> - -<p class='c009'>John Hardaway was fifty-nine, he had lived -well, scornfully, and this always makes the end -easier; he had been a gentleman in the only way a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_175'>175</span>Southerner has of being one—he never forgot -that he was a Hardaway——</p> - -<p class='c009'>He called out to her now:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“When I die—leave the room.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Yes, sah,” she whispered sadly.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Bring me the broth.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She brought it trembling. She was very tired -and very hungry, and she wanted to whistle but -she only whispered:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Ain’t there nothing I kin do for you?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Open the window.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It’s night air, sah——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Open it, fool——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She went to the window and opened it. She -was handsome when she reached up, and her -nose was almost as excellent as certain Jewish -noses; her throat was smooth, and it throbbed.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Toward ten o’clock that night John Hardaway -began to sing to himself. He was fond of -French, but what he learned in French he sang -in English.</p> - -<blockquote> -<p class='c009'>“Ah, my little one—I have held you on my knee——</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I have kissed your ears and throat——</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Now I set you down——</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You may do as you will.”</p> -</blockquote> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_176'>176</span>He tried to turn over—but failed, and so he -lay there staring into the fire.</p> - -<p class='c009'>At this point in the death of John Hardaway, -Rabb, the nigger, came out of her corner, and -ceased trembling. She was hungry and began -heating some soup in a saucepan.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“What are you doing?” John Hardaway inquired -abruptly.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I’s hungry, sah.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Then get out of here—get into the kitchen.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Yes, sah,” but she did not move.</p> - -<p class='c009'>John Hardaway breathed heavily, a mist went -over his eyes—presently, after interminable -years, he lifted his lids. Rabb was now slowly -sipping the steaming soup.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You damned nigger!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She got up from her haunches hurriedly—placing -her hand in front of her, backing toward -the door.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Little one, I have taken you on my knee——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Rabb crept back—she came up to the bed.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Massah, don’t you think——?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“What?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“A priest—maybe?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Fool!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Yes, sah, I only wanted to make safe.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He tried to laugh. He pressed his knees together. -He had forgotten her.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_177'>177</span>Finally toward dawn he began to wander.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Rabb moistened the roll of red flesh inside her -lip and set her teeth. She began to grin at -nothing at all, stroking her hips.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He called to her.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I want to tell you something.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She came forward—rolling her eyes.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Come closer.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She came.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Lean down!” She leaned down, but already -the saliva began to fill her mouth.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Are you frightened?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“No, sah,” she lied.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He raised his hand but it fell back, feebly. -“Keep your place,” he whispered, and instantly -went to sleep.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He began to rattle in his throat, while Rabb -crouched in the corner, holding her breasts in her -folded arms and rocking softly on the balls of -her feet.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The rattling kept on. Rabb began creeping -toward him on hands and knees.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Massah!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He did not move.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“John!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He felt a strange sensation—he lifted his eyelids -with their fringe of white lashes and almost -inaudibly said:</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_178'>178</span>“Now go!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He had closed his eyes a long time, when he -was troubled with the thought that someone was -trying to get into his body as he left it. He -opened his eyes and there stood Rabb the nigger -very close, looking down at him.</p> - -<p class='c009'>A gush of blood sprang from his nose.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“No, sah!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He began to gasp. Rabb the nigger stood up -to her full height and looked down at him. She -began to fan him, quickly. He breathed more -hurriedly, his chest falling together like a house -of cards. He tried to speak, he could not.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Suddenly Rabb bent down and leaning her -mouth to his, breathed into him, one great and -powerful breath. His chest rose, he opened his -eyes, said “Ah!” and died.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Rabb ran her tongue along her lips, and raising -her eyes, stared at a spot on the wall a little -higher than she was wont to. After a while she -remembered her unfinished soup.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_179'>179</span> - <h2 class='c005'>LULLABY</h2> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b c014'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span class='xxlarge'>W</span>hen I was a young child I slept with a dog,</div> - <div class='line'>I lived without trouble and I thought no harm;</div> - <div class='line'>I ran with the boys and I played leap-frog;</div> - <div class='line'>Now it is a girl’s head that lies on my arm.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Then I grew a little, picked plantain in the yard;</div> - <div class='line'>Now I dwell in Greenwich, and the people do not call;</div> - <div class='line'>Then I planted pepper-seed and stamped on them hard.</div> - <div class='line'>Now I am very quiet and I hardly plan at all.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Then I pricked my finger on a thorn, or a thistle,</div> - <div class='line'>Put the finger in my mouth, and ran to my mother.</div> - <div class='line'>Now I lie here, with my eyes on a pistol.</div> - <div class='line'>There will be a morrow, and another, and another.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_180'>180</span> - <h2 class='c005'>INDIAN SUMMER</h2> -</div> - -<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c008'>At the age of fifty-three Madame Boliver -was young again. She was suddenly -swept away in a mad current of reckless -and beautiful youth. What she had done with -those years that had counted up into such a perfect -conclusion, she could not tell—it was a -strange, vague dream. She had been plain, -almost ugly, shy, an old maid. She was tall and -awkward—she sat down as if she were going to -break when she was in those new years that girls -call early bloom.</p> - -<p class='c009'>When she was thirty she had been frankly and -astonishingly Yankee; she came toward one -with an erect and angular stride. She was -severe, silent and curious. It was probably due -to this that she was called Madame. She dressed -in black outlined with white collar and cuffs, her -hair was drawn straight back and showed large -lobed and pale ears. The tight drawn hair exposed -her features to that utter and unlovely -nakedness that some clean rooms are exposed to -by the catching back of heavy and melancholy -<span class='pageno' id='Page_181'>181</span>curtains—she looked out upon life with that same -unaccustomed and expectant expression that best -rooms wear when thrown open for the one yearly -festivity that proclaims their owners well to do.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She had no friends and could not keep acquaintances—her -speech was sharp, quick and -truthful. She spoke seldom, but with such fierce -strictness and accuracy that those who came into -contact with her once, took precautions not to be -thus exposed a second time.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She grew older steadily and without regret—long -before the age of thirty she had given up -all expectations of a usual life or any hopes of -that called “unusual”; she walked in a straight -path between the two, and she was content and -speculated little upon this thing in her that had -made her unloved and unlovely.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Her sisters had married and fallen away about -her as blossoms are carried off, leaving the stalk—their -children came like bits of pollen and she -enjoyed them and was mildly happy. Once she, -too, had dreamed of love, but that was before -she had attained to the age of seventeen—by that -time she knew that no one could or would ask for -her hand—she was plain and unattractive and she -was satisfied.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She had become at once the drudge and the -adviser—all things were laid upon her both to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_182'>182</span>solve and to produce. She laboured for others -easily and willingly and they let her labour.</p> - -<p class='c009'>At fifty-three she blazed into a riotous Indian -Summer of loveliness. She was tall and magnificent. -She carried with her a flavour of some -exotic flower; she exhaled something that -savoured of those excellences of odour and tone -akin to pain and to pleasure; she lent a plastic -embodiment to all hitherto unembodied things. -She was like some rare wood, carved into a melting -form—she breathed abruptly as one who has -been dead for half a century.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Her face, it is true, was not that plump, downy -and senseless countenance of the early young—it -was thin and dark and marked with a few -very sensitive wrinkles; about the mouth there -were signs of a humour she had never possessed, -of a love she had never known, of a joy she had -never experienced and of a wisdom impossible -for her to have acquired. Her still, curious -eyes with their blue-white borders and the -splendid irises were half veiled by strange dusty -lids. The hair, that had once been drawn back, -was still drawn back, but no appallingly severe -features were laid bare. Instead the hair seemed -to confer a favour on all those who might look -upon its restrained luxury, for it uncovered a face -at once valuable and unusual.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_183'>183</span>Her smile was rich in colour—the scarlet of her -gums, the strange whiteness of her teeth, the -moisture of the sensitive mouth, all seemed as if -Madame Boliver were something dyed through -with perfect and rare life.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Now when she entered a room everyone -paused, looking up and speaking together. She -was quite conscious of this and it pleased her—not -because she was too unutterably vain, but -because it was so new and so unexpected.</p> - -<p class='c009'>For a while her very youth satisfied her—she -lived with herself as though she were a second -person who had been permitted access to the -presence of some lovely and some longed-for -dream.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She did not know what to do. If she could -have found religion newly with her new youth she -would have worshipped and have been profoundly -glad of the kneeling down and the rising up -attendant with faith, but this was a part of her -old childhood and it did not serve.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She had prayed then because she was ugly; -she could not pray now because she was beautiful—she -wanted something new to stand before, to -speak to.</p> - -<p class='c009'>One by one the old and awkward things went, -leaving in their wake Venetian glass and bowls -of onyx, silks, cushions and perfume. Her -<span class='pageno' id='Page_184'>184</span>books became magazines with quaint, unsurpassable -and daring illustrations.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Presently she had a salon. She was the rage. -Gentlemen in political whiskers, pomaded and -curled, left their coats in the embrace of pompous -and refined footmen.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Young students with boutonnières and ambitions -came; an emissary or two dropped in, proffered -their hearts and departed. Poets and -musicians, littérateurs and artists experimenting -in the modern, grouped themselves about her -mantels like butterflies over bonbons and poured -sentiment upon sentiment into her ears.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Several gentlemen of leisure and millions -courted her furiously with small tears in the -corners of their alert eyes. Middle-aged professors -and one deacon were among the crowd that -filled her handsome apartment on those days -when she entertained.</p> - -<p class='c009'>There was something about Madame Boliver -that could not quite succumb to herself. She was -still afraid; she would start, draw her hand away -and pale abruptly in the middle of some ardent -proposal—she would hurry to the mirror at such -times, though she never turned her head to -look in.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Was it possible that she was beautiful now? -And if so, would it remain? And her heart said, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_185'>185</span>“Yes, it will remain,” until at last she believed -it.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She put the past behind her and tried to forget -it. It hurt her to remember it, as if it were -something that she had done in a moment of -absent-mindedness and of which she had to be -ashamed. She remembered it as one remembers -some small wrong deed hidden for years. She -thought about her past unattractiveness as -another would have thought of some cruelty. -Her eyes watered when she remembered her way -of looking at herself in her twenties. Her mouth -trembled when she thought back to its severity -and its sharp retorts.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Her very body reproached her for all that had -been forced upon it in her other youth, and a -strange passion came upon her, turning her memory -of her sisters into something at times like that -hatred felt by the oppressed who remember the -oppression when it has given way to plenty.</p> - -<p class='c009'>But now she was free. She expanded, she -sang, she dreamed for long hours, her elbows -upon the casement, looking out into the garden. -She smiled, remembering the old custom of -serenading, and wondered when she, too, would -know it.</p> - -<p class='c009'>That she was fifty-three never troubled her. -It never even occurred to her. She had been -<span class='pageno' id='Page_186'>186</span>fifty-three long ago at twenty, and now she was -twenty at fifty-three, that was all—this was compensation, -and if she had been through her -middle age in youth she could go through her -youth in middle age.</p> - -<p class='c009'>At times she thought how much more beautiful -nature is in its treacheries than its remedies.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Those who hovered about her offered, time on -time, to marry her, to carry her away into Italy -or to Spain, to lavish money and devotion on her, -and in the beginning she had been almost too -ready to accept them in their assurances, because -the very assurances were so new and so delightful.</p> - -<p class='c009'>But in spite of it she was, somewhere beneath -her youth, old enough to know that she did not -love as she would love, and she waited with a -patience made pleasant by the constant attentions -of the multitude.</p> - -<p class='c009'>And then Petkoff, “the Russian,” had come, -accompanied by one of the younger students.</p> - -<p class='c009'>A heavy fur cap came down to the borders of -his squinting and piercing eyes. He wore a -mixture of clothing that proclaimed him at once -foreign and poor. His small moustache barely -covered sensitive and well shaped lips, and the -little line of hair that reached down on each side -of his close-set ears gave him an early period -expression as if he, too, in spite of his few years, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_187'>187</span>might have lived in the time when she was a girl.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He could not have been much over thirty, perhaps -just thirty—he said little but never took his -eyes off the object of his interest.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He spoke well enough, with an occasional -lapse into Russian, which was very piquant. He -swept aside all other aspirants with his steady -and centred gaze. He ignored the rest of the -company so completely as to rob him of rudeness. -If one is ignorant of the very presence of his -fellow beings, at most he can only be called -“strange.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Petkoff was both an ambitious and a self-centred -man—all his qualities were decisive and -not hesitatingly crooked, providing he needed -crookedness to win his point. He was attractive -to Madame Boliver because he was as strange as -she was herself, her youth was foreign, and so -was Petkoff.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He had come to this country to start a venture -that promised to be successful; in the meantime, -he had to be careful both in person and in heart.</p> - -<p class='c009'>What he felt for Madame Boliver was at first -astonishment that such a woman was still unmarried; -he knew nothing of her past, and -guessed at her age much below the real figure. -After a while this astonishment gave way to -pleasure and then to real and very sincere love.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_188'>188</span>He began to pay court to her, neglecting his -business a little and worrying over that end of -it, but persisting, nevertheless.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He could see that she, on her side, was becoming -deeply attached to him. He would walk -about in the park for hours arguing this affair -out to himself. Both the shoulds and should -nots.</p> - -<p class='c009'>It got him nowhere except into a state of impatience. -He liked clear-cut acts and he could -not decide to go or stay. As it was, nothing could -be worse for his business than this same feverish -indecision. He made up his mind.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Madame Boliver was radiantly happy. She -began to draw away from a life of entertainment -and, instead, turned most of her energies into the -adoration of her first real love. She accepted him -promptly, and with a touch of her old firm and -sharp decisiveness, and a hint of her utter frankness. -He told her that she took him as she would -have taken a piece of cake at a tea party, and -they both laughed.</p> - -<p class='c009'>That was in the Winter. Madame Boliver -was fifty-five—he never asked her how old she -was and she never thought to tell him. They set -the day for their wedding early in the following -June.</p> - -<p class='c009'>They were profoundly happy. One by one -<span class='pageno' id='Page_189'>189</span>the younger, more ardent admirers fell off, but -very slowly; they turned their heads a little as -they went, being both too vain and too skeptical -to believe that this would last.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She still held receptions and still her rooms -were flooded, but when Petkoff entered, a little -better dressed but still a bit heedless of the -throng, they hushed their highest hilarities and -spoke of the new novels and the newest trend -in art.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Petkoff had taken notice of them to that degree -necessary to a man who knows what he has won, -and from whom and how many. He looked upon -them casually, but with a hint of well-being.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Madame Boliver grew more beautiful, more -radiant, more easeful. Her movements began -to resemble flowing water; she was almost too -happy, too supple, too conscious of her well-being. -She became arrogant, but still splendid; she -became vain, but still gracious; she became -accustomed to herself, but still reflective. She -could be said to have bloomed at too auspicious -an age; she was old enough to appreciate it, and -this is a very dangerous thing.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She spent hours at the hair dresser’s and the -dressmaker’s. Her dressing table resembled a -battlefield. It supported all the armament for -keeping age at a distance. She rode in the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_190'>190</span>avenue in an open carriage, and smiled when the -society notices mentioned her name and ran her -picture.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She finally gave one the impression of being -beautiful, but too conscious of it; talented, but -too vain; easy of carriage, but too reliant on it; -of being strange and rare and wonderful, but a -little too strange, a little too rare, a little too -wonderful. She became magnificently complex -to outward appearances, yet in her soul Madame -Boliver still kept her honesty, her frankness and -her simplicity.</p> - -<p class='c009'>And then one day Madame Boliver took to her -bed. It began with a headache and ended with -severe chills. She hoped to get up on the following -day, and she remained there a week; she put -her party off, expecting to be able to be about, -but instead she gave it sitting in a chair supported -by cushions.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Petkoff was worried and morose. He had -given a good deal of time to Madame Boliver, and -he cared for her in a selfish and all-engrossing -way. When she stood up no longer he broke a -Venetian tumbler by throwing it into the fireplace. -When she laughed at this he suddenly -burst out into very heavy weeping. She tried to -comfort him, but he would not be comforted. -She promised him that she would walk soon, as a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_191'>191</span>mother promises a child some longed-for object. -When she said, “I will be well, dear, soon; after -all I’m a young woman,” he stopped and looked -at her through a film of painful tears.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“But are you?” he said, voicing for the first -time his inner fear.</p> - -<p class='c009'>And it was then that the horror of the situation -dawned upon her. In youth, when youth -comes rightly, there is old age in which to lose it -complacently, but when it comes in old age there -is no time to watch it go.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She sat up and stared at him.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Why, yes,” she said in a flat and firm voice, -“that’s so. I am no longer of few years.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She could not say “no longer young,” because -she was young.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It will make no difference.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Ah,” she said, “it will make no difference to -you, but it will make a difference to us.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She lay back and sighed, and presently she -asked him to leave her a little while.</p> - -<p class='c009'>When he had gone she summoned the doctor.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She said: “My friend—am I dying—so soon?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He shook his head emphatically. “Of course -not,” he assured her; “we will have you up in a -week or so.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“What is it, then, that keeps me here now?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You have tired yourself out, that is all. You -<span class='pageno' id='Page_192'>192</span>see, such extensive entertaining, my dear -madame, will tax the youngest of us.” He shook -his head at this and twisted his moustache. She -sent him away also.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The next few days were happy ones. She felt -better. She sat up without fatigue. She was -joyful in Petkoff’s renewed affections. He had -been frightened, and he lavished more extravagant -praise and endearing terms on her than ever -before. He was like a man who, seeing his -fortune go, found how dear it was to him after -all and how necessary when it returned to him. -By almost losing her he appreciated what he -should have felt if he had lost her indeed.</p> - -<p class='c009'>It got to be a joke between them that they had -held any fears at all. At the club he beat his -friends on the back and cried:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Gentlemen, a beautiful and young woman.” -And they used to beat his back, exclaiming: -“Lucky, by God!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She ordered a large stock of wine and cakes for -the wedding party, bought some new Venetian -glasses and indulged in a few rare old carpets -for the floor. She had quite a fancy, too, for a -new gown offered at a remarkably low sum, but -she began to curb herself, for she had been very -extravagant as it was.</p> - -<p class='c009'>And then one day she died.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_193'>193</span>Petkoff came in a wild, strange mood. Four -candles were burning at head and feet, and -Madame Boliver was more lovely than ever. -Stamping, so that he sent up little spirals of -dust from the newly acquired carpet, Petkoff -strode up and down beside the bier. He leaned -over and lit a cigarette by one of the flickering -flames of the candles. Madame Boliver’s elderly -sister, who was kneeling, coughed and looked -reproachfully upward at the figure of Petkoff, -who had once again forgotten everyone and -everything. “Damn it!” he said, putting his -fingers into his vest.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_194'>194</span> - <h2 class='c005'>I’D HAVE YOU THINK OF ME</h2> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b c014'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span class='xxlarge'>A</span>s one who, leaning on the wall, once drew</div> - <div class='line'>Thick blossoms down, and hearkened to the hum</div> - <div class='line'>Of heavy bees slow rounding the wet plum,</div> - <div class='line'>And heard across the fields the patient coo</div> - <div class='line'>Of restless birds bewildered with the dew.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>As one whose thoughts were mad in painful May,</div> - <div class='line'>With melancholy eyes turned toward her love,</div> - <div class='line'>And toward the troubled earth whereunder throve</div> - <div class='line'>The chilly rye and coming hawthorn spray—</div> - <div class='line'>With one lean, pacing hound, for company.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_195'>195</span> - <h2 class='c005'>THE RABBIT</h2> -</div> - -<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c008'>The road was covered with red and yellow -leaves. Rugo Amietieve, who said that -he was an Armenian, had wished one of -those lingering good-byes to this rotund and -plentiful day that only a man of slow and -methodical mind can bring into being. He bid -it adieu with more than the silence and the love -of his heart; he had whispered over it, his square -yellow teeth a little apart and touching the moist -curve of his under-lip with the small round point -of flesh that clung to his upper like a tear. He -said good-bye resolutely and quite peacefully, -with the restraint of a man who knows what’s bad -for him and why. Rugo did not want to leave the -country, but he had to. He knew why he did not -want to, and he knew why he was being forced -to—necessity—that was it, necessity had been -hurrying his people about the world from the -beginning of time and would hurry them.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Farewell held no piquancy for him, he did not -tear out his heart by his departure; there was -nothing in the fact of the sunlight and the blowing -<span class='pageno' id='Page_196'>196</span>and dying leaves that gave him sweet pain -and too heavy sorrow; the red of the fallen apples -sent no pang into the very midst of his being. -On the contrary Rugo Amietieve felt only that -sense of loss that a good housewife feels when she -is letting a rich quilt out of her fingers. In the -soil, as Rugo had known it, had been life, hard -and fragrant. He had toiled at the plough -grumbling, but sensing, with a slow, precise -pleasure, that the air was warm and good and -healthy. He had tended his geese and his cows -with the same stolid satisfaction, and he watched -them moving about, leaning on his two folded -and brown hands. The ducks’ yellow, gaping -mouths gave him physical pleasure, he would -have liked to press his hand over them where they -were all shining and brittle; it would have given -him as much pleasure as a flower petal—more, -because these living things that cackled and -spread their wings and brought forth young -were profitable also—the world lived here and -moved, and its incidental placing of him where -he could profit by it was the thing that amazed -and satisfied him.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Now it was otherwise. He must go away into -the city where, they said, nothing was fresh and -new and living. His uncle had died, leaving him -his little tailoring establishment on the East Side. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_197'>197</span>There Rugo was bound, there from this day forward -he would sit and sew interminably as -though he were a machine—as though he had -suddenly died and had to work.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He lifted his straight nose and smelled the -September air. Here the woods dipped over the -road, spilling shadows gigantic and restless, with -a speckling of ragged sun patches like flowers. -Mosquitoes came up from the swamp as the -night descended and sang about Rugo’s ears -and set him swearing. They got into the long, -tangled meshes of his beard and clung there; -they sat in among these thick, ruddy strands and -hissed against the shuddering flesh of his cheeks. -He lifted one of his hands and struck his face on -either side, and went on.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The next morning the East Side, in the early -Thirties, saw a stranger sweeping out what had -been old Amietieve’s shop. Rugo looked about -him with sad eyes. The room was twelve feet by -twenty-four and the back part was curtained off -by a hanging of dull green, sprinkled over -with pink roses; a small cot bed was thus hidden -from the front of the shop. It was within these -four walls that Rugo must live. He turned -around in it, sniffing the air with his long nose, -laid back again as he had done in the last hour -in the country. He sneered. “You’re a little -<span class='pageno' id='Page_198'>198</span>fool room,” he said, “to be so small.” It was -as if he were shaking it, as a child is shaken -and held up to learn by another’s larger and more -important example. He held this room up by -the scruff of its neck and shook it in the face of -the thirty acres he had known, and he sneered -upon it.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He had learned the trade when still a child, -when this same uncle had been guardian, but his -fingers were freedom clumsy and he broke the -needle.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Work came hesitatingly and painfully. Rugo -was a slow man, and at this task he was still more -laborious and backward. He toiled far into the -night seated upon his table, his goose between his -knees. People walking by on their way home -sometimes peered in over the top of the cardboard -sign specked by the flies and the open -fashion book with its strange, angular, shiny -gentlemen carrying canes and looking over their -shoulders playfully as if they were keeping -something very amusing in their minds to hand -out like favours; and such people often said, -“That chap will die of consumption, you see.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The butcher’s shop across the way seemed to -be vying with the remnants of silks and serge in -Rugo’s window. There were rump ends and -flanks and knuckle bones, remnants of some fine -<span class='pageno' id='Page_199'>199</span>animal, all wonderful and red and satiny yellow -where the layers of fat crept out like frostings, -or where fat spread over kidneys like irregular -lace; yet to Rugo they were somehow painful, -they made him think of the cows and the poultry -that he had so often gazed fondly upon, of the -animal life he had grown up among, and he -turned his head away and went on stitching.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Rugo got his own breakfast, lunch, dinner. -Behind the curtain there, beside his bed, was a -small gas stove. In the Winter the shop was -deadly with heavy air. He could not open the -door or he would have flooded the place in a -moment with cold, piercing and cruel, so he sat -in the foul air of a gas burner, and his eyes grew -so dark in the paling face that the children of the -neighbourhood called him “Coal Eye.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>In the Summer business had picked up, though -Rugo seldom had any time to himself. He -worked quicker, but then orders were more -plentiful on patches, turnings and pressings. He -had become attached to a small, ill and very -slender Italian girl who came once with her -father’s coat.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Her straight parted dark hair made him think -of animals, he thought her gentle and Madonna-like, -not taking into account a small, cruel and -avaricious mouth. It was very red and he was -<span class='pageno' id='Page_200'>200</span>pleased with it. Almost anything bright pleased -him. The very fact that these lips were cruel -pleased him, though he did not know that it was -the brightness of calculation that made them -attractive to him.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Rugo was not a good-looking man, but this -did not trouble him; he was as good-looking as -anyone he had ever seen, and therefore he was -unconscious that for so large a head, his body was -rather small.</p> - -<p class='c009'>This girl Addie told him. It hurt him, because -he was beginning to like her. He noticed that -when his lip trembled her eyes got very bright. -“Why,” he asked her, puzzled, “do you always -look so pretty when you say things like that?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>This flattered her, but it only made it worse -for Rugo. She was indeed a very common -woman, with a little to make her young and -pretty, and she made the most of it.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Finally he spoke to her quietly and slowly -about love and marriage. Of course Addie, in -her shrewd mind, had calculated on this; his was -a business that threatened to prosper, and she -was attracted to him, anyway. She made her -plans accordingly; she acted displeased.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You are a poor, common tradesman,” she -said bitterly, as if she were something uncommon -and therefore beyond him. He felt this, too, and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_201'>201</span>instead of discovering her own smallness in the -retort, he only got the point she wanted him to -get. He began to think himself below her. He -raised his hand:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“What do you want that I shall do?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She shrugged her narrow shoulders and -laughed, showing a red tongue that seemed to -crouch in her mouth in a long, dented line.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“But I must do something, you say I am -only——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You shall never be anything else.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“True, but I may be more.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Hardly.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Why do you say ‘hardly’?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You are not the sort of person—now, for -instance——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Yes?” he questioned slowly, turning around -and looking into her face.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Well, for instance, you are hardly a hero.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Are heroes the style?” he asked pitifully. -This made her laugh even harder.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Not in your family, I take it.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He nodded. “Yes, that’s true—we were -always quiet people. You do not like quiet -people?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“They are like women,” she answered.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He pondered awhile over this. He shook his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_202'>202</span>head; after all he knew better and he was angry -because he had been letting Addie lie to him.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“That is not true.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She began to scream at him:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“So, that’s the way you begin, calling me a -liar, is it?” She put her hands into her hair on -either side and tore at it. This had even more of -an effect upon Rugo than she had expected. He -beat his hands together. In spoiling the perfect -oval of her head, in ruinously shaking its smooth -and parted hair, she had hurt him as much as if -she had shaken a holy picture.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“No, no,” he cried. “I will do something, you -shall see—it is all right—it is all right.” He -approached her and, touching her shoulder with -his hand, he added:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“For you I will do it—I will do it.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She smiled. “You will do what, Rugo -Amietieve?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I shall be less like a woman. You called me -like a woman; well, you shall see.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She came close to him, her two thin arms -pressed close to her side.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You will do something big and grand—Rugo—for -me?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He looked down at her, puzzled and quiet. -The cruel mouth was half open, showing the -shining line of her teeth. He nodded, but this -<span class='pageno' id='Page_203'>203</span>time he moved away from her and stood staring -out into the street.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She came up behind him, caught both of his -hands, and, leaning forward, kissed him on the -back of his neck. He tried to turn, but she held -his two hands a moment longer and then broke -out of the shop at a run.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Presently he set to work again, sitting cross-legged -on his table.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He wondered what he was expected to do. He -had often spoken to her of returning to the -country, with a hint in his voice that she would be -there beside him, too. Now it had come to this.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He pondered. A hero—what was a hero—what -made the difference between a hero and -himself, anyway? He remembered tales the -gypsies had told him about their greatest men -when he had been in the old land of his birth. -They told a story of a lad who fought and fought, -and finding himself unequal to the task of killing -his rival, flung himself off a mountain.</p> - -<p class='c009'>What would be the use of that—he would die, -and then he might as well not have lived. He -thought of all the great people he had read of, -or had heard of, or had known. There was Jean -the blacksmith, who had lost an eye saving his -child from a horse. If he lost an eye Addie -would not like him.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_204'>204</span>Napoleon—there was a well-known man; he -had done so many things, it seemed, for which -people framed him in white enamel and hung him -upon their bedroom walls; but chiefly he had been -renowned for his killing. Rugo thought about -that awhile and came to the illuminating conclusion -that all heroes were men who killed or were -killed.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Well, the last was impossible; if he was killed -he might just as well have starved in the country -and not have laid eyes on Addie. Therefore, he -must kill—but what—but whom?</p> - -<p class='c009'>Of course, he might save something or somebody, -but they would have to be in danger first, -and there might not be any danger for days and -days, and he was tired of waiting.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Presently he laid his work aside, lowered the -shade, and, lying face down on his bed, he tried -to think it all out clearly.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Presently he got a vivid picture of killing in -his mind. He sat up and put his hands two or -three times over his face. It was damp. He sat -on the edge of the bed and looked at the carpet. -His mind wandered. He thought of the ducks he -had longed to stroke, of the gentle, feeding cows, -of the fresh, clean air—then he thought again of -Addie and of what he must do. He tried to -picture himself killing someone. He put his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_205'>205</span>two hands together and looked at them—there, -that was the way. Then he smiled. His hands, -set as they were, could not have choked anything -larger than a thrush. He widened them, but -he separated them instantly and rubbed them -down his legs, breathing heavily. What a terrible -business a hero’s was! He thought of the throbbing -that must stop beneath such hands as his. -He got up, shaking his shoulders from side to -side as if his back hurt him. He pulled up the -shade.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The butcher’s windows opposite attracted his -attention. Two gas lights were burning there -vividly. Rugo could see flanks of beef laid out in -pans, little ruddy pools collecting about them like -insertion. Fowl hung by the necks and several -hams lured the passer-by as they swung softly -this way and that.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He opened his door hesitatingly and shutting -it carefully stepped out into the roadway.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He crossed over and leaned his head against -the glass. He looked in very close now, and he -could see the film that shrouded the dead eyes -of the fowl and the hares. Slabs of liver laid -out in heaps, flanked by cuts of tripe, drew his -attention.</p> - -<p class='c009'>A strange sensation had hold of him in the -pit of his stomach. It seemed to him that he was -<span class='pageno' id='Page_206'>206</span>turning pale. He raised his hand to his beard -and tugged at it.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Two or three red hairs separated and came out. -He held them up between him and the light. -Then he darted in the back door of the shop.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Presently he emerged carrying a box. With -the furtive and hurried step of a man who is -being observed he crossed the street. He opened -the door of his own little shop and, locking it -quickly, he put the box in the corner and turned -down the light.</p> - -<p class='c009'>It was very dark and he stumbled. A little -reflection came from the meat shop window and -touched the rims of his cardboards, and his pattern -book full of the funny strutting gentlemen. -His heart was beating horribly against his side. -He began to question himself and stopped. He -could never do it unless he made his mind a -resolute thing. He clenched his teeth, blinking -his eyes as he did so. He began to shiver.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Presently he threw himself on the ground in -the corner near the box, his arms over his head, -his face flat upon the dust and grime of the -boards. He must do it quickly—but he couldn’t -do it.</p> - -<p class='c009'>His mind began to wander again. He thought -of the road, red and yellow with the dying leaves -of Autumn, of the great swaying shadows and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_207'>207</span>the sunlight breaking in between in little jagged -spots like flowers. He remembered the mosquitoes, -and he got to his knees and let his hands -hang down at his sides.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The Summer had always been so pretty; the -rains left the fields so bright and sudden when -they came into view over the top of the hill. The -ploughing had been good, he had really enjoyed -that after all, only then he had not known just -how much he did enjoy it. What a pity that he -had not known what a good thing it all was then.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Something moved beside him, breathing softly. -He uttered a sharp cry and the same thing -moved back, hitting a board, and was again -silent.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He bent forward, thrust his two hands out, -closed them—tighter, tighter and tighter. A -faint cry, a little jerking to and fro—that was all.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He stood up and turned the light on. He -looked at his hands. Then backing away from -the corner, never letting his eyes rest there, he -plunged his hands up to the elbows in a pail of -water. He threw a cupful of it inside his shirt -at the neck. He opened the door. Addie was -there.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She came in softly, gently, insinuatingly. She -could see by his face that something very horrible -and necessary had been done. She saw by his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_208'>208</span>face how it had hurt, by his hands what it must -have cost him.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She came close to him. “What have you done, -Rugo?” she said.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I—I have killed,” he said, almost in a whisper.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“What—where?” She moved toward the -centre of the room and then looked into the -corner.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“That?” she began to laugh.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Take it or leave it,” he said suddenly in a -loud and penetrating voice.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She stooped and lifted it up—a small grey -rabbit.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She laid it down again. She placed her arm -about him.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Come quickly,” she said. “Comb your hair.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She pushed him into the street. She was -afraid of him, for there was something strange -and hard in his mouth and he walked putting each -foot down very flat and steady.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Where are you going? What are you going -to do?” He did not seem to know that she was -there, clinging to him, her arm about his waist. -He had forgotten her. He looked up into the air, -sniffing it and smiling.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Come,” she said, “we are going to have your -boots shined.”</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_209'>209</span> - <h2 class='c005'>THE FLOWERING CORPSE</h2> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b c014'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span class='xxlarge'>S</span>o still she lies in this closed place apart,</div> - <div class='line'>Her feet grown fragile for the ghostly tryst;</div> - <div class='line'>Her pulse no longer striking in her wrist,</div> - <div class='line'>Nor does its echo wander through her heart.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Over the body and the quiet head</div> - <div class='line'>Like stately ferns above an austere tomb,</div> - <div class='line'>Soft hairs blow; and beneath her armpits bloom</div> - <div class='line'>The drowsy passion flowers of the dead.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_210'>210</span> - <h2 class='c005'>A BOY ASKS A QUESTION OF A LADY</h2> -</div> - -<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c008'>The days had been very warm and quick. -It was Fall now and everything was -drawing to a close. It had been a bad, -but somehow pleasant, year. A great number -of people had been disillusioned and were not -seen hurrying from one place to another, as is -customary with those of undisturbed habit. They -went slowly, and it was said that Winter with its -snow and frost would be most welcome.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Carmen la Tosca was in the habit of riding -at a swift gallop down the lane and into the -copse beyond. She leaned ever so little in her -saddle as she went under the boughs. The -plume of her hat bent and swung smartly back -into place as she rounded the curve.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Her horse was a clear cascade of white. The -shining forelock, the soft descending plane of -the frontal bone melted into a taut nostril. And -where Carmen la Tosca broke the living line of -its back with her own, the spine flowed beneath -her as deftly as water, and quivered into massive -alert haunches, which in turn socketed in -velvet, a foaming length of tail.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_211'>211</span>Carmen la Tosca rode well. She let more than -usual of her pelvis drop into the saddle. Upon -the reins she kept gloved hands in a grip that -was consciously lacking in direction.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Carmen la Tosca was an actress. She had -played in “Fife and Fiddle” and “Drums of -the King.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She took parts suggesting a love of danger -and intrigue. She was always handsomely -gloved and shod, and her dresses were widely -copied.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She had been in stock, and in the beginning -had sung in opera; she had been the Queen in -“Aïda” and she had played a boy’s part in vaudeville. -Now she was resting.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She was not the kind of woman who usually -came to this quiet country town, snuggled, as -they say, among the foothills. The boy who kept -the general store said she was “stunning.” -Little children ran backward ahead of her, crying -provokingly, “Red lips, red lips!” But no -one really knew her.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She had appeared in the Spring of the year -with a man-servant and a maid. For two days -she had been seen at the windows hanging curtains. -When they were all hung no one saw -her for some time. Then she bought a white -horse and rode it. And after that she always -<span class='pageno' id='Page_212'>212</span>rode on the white horse, though she had six or -seven others before the Fall came. Usually she -rode alone. Now and again a gentleman, with -a birth-mark twisting his face into an unwilling -irony, rode beside her. There was a goat path -in the underbrush and here two boys sometimes -came and lay and talked of her and waited for -her to pass, riding that smart way on the white -mare. These boys were Brandt and Bailey -Wilson, a farmer’s sons. Sometimes couples, -going berrying by the mountain road, came near -enough to hear her laughing behind the casement.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Sometimes she walked, descending the hill -carefully, avoiding the melon plants, talking -brightly to a young man, but paying little attention -to the effect of her words, not through -vanity, but simply through lack of interest in -the effect itself.</p> - -<p class='c009'>There was a great deal of gossip about her -of course. She did not court mystery, but it -was all about her.</p> - -<p class='c009'>People said that she was not exactly beautiful, -neither was she ugly. Her face held the -elements of both in perfect control. She was -brutally chic.</p> - -<p class='c009'>A lean, tall woman of the village, who had -come from London, said Carmen la Tosca’s back -<span class='pageno' id='Page_213'>213</span>was like the Queen’s. This was probably an -exaggeration.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Carmen la Tosca breakfasted in bed and late. -She dusted her arms with talc and she languidly -settled into a light lace peignoir. She had tea -and rolls, and the bed stood between two unvarnished -cherry-wood ovals, in which were imprisoned -two engravings of officials of the Tower -of London, in its bloodiest hour.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The double windows faced the orchard. She -turned her back to the orchard and its falling -apples, and read St. Francis, or the morning -paper which was, by the time she received it, -a day or two old.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The room was bare and grey and rustic. And -in this Carmen la Tosca and her bed made a -strange contrast. She liked to think of it unless -she had other things on her mind. If the morning -was chilly she had a quilted jacket, and if -it was raining she had the shades raised that -she might watch the rain falling a long way.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Early in the morning the boy chose it had -been raining, but about eleven it had stopped -and the sun was trying to come out. Carmen -la Tosca could smell how wet everything was.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The boy was Brandt Wilson, fourteen; he -had done rather well at the high school of the -nearest large town. He was short and his head -<span class='pageno' id='Page_214'>214</span>was large and his face already a little prematurely -softened by melancholy. He was -splashed with mud and his red tie stuck out -ridiculously at the top of a vest that was too -large for his small, shyly muscular chest.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He stood before her on the rug, his hat in -his hand.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Carmen la Tosca, with a single movement, -rolled over in bed.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Who are you? Where did you come from?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I am Brandt Wilson. I came through the -window. It was very easy.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Well,” she said. “What is it?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The child hesitated, and with a look of distress, -managed to say:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I have a brother.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Carmen la Tosca pushed away the paper and -regarded him with amusement, and a little -amazement.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“He is two years older than I am—and there’s -something I don’t understand—and you know -everything.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Who said so?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The neighbours, my father, my mother, my -sister, the schoolmaster, the postman——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“That will do.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You are a woman of the world.” The childish -sound of his voice became terribly apparent.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_215'>215</span>“My brother is where no one understands—My -sister said, ‘I don’t like Bailey any more, he -has lost that cunning little light in his eyes’—and -I said, ‘It’s still there when you give him -something he likes, and he is untying it, with -his head bent down——’”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“How do you come to think of all this?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Once the sun was shining and we had been -lying out on the bank with our arms under our -heads and then he said—he confessed”—the -child faltered, then looking at her directly and -fixedly, said, “Bailey cried when he knew it was -over——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“What was over?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I asked him, and he answered, ‘I am a man -now.’ Shall I cry, too, when I know that? -What is it all about?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Carmen la Tosca rose on her elbow and -looked at him with suffused eyes as if she had -been crying, but it was all an illusion.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“How many of you are there?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Three. A married brother.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And how old is he?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Twenty-four. He cried once, too, but differently, -about his sweetheart. She died, you -know, and when they told him he said, crying -out, ‘I could have saved her.’ We asked him -how, but he would not tell us, but he told mother; -<span class='pageno' id='Page_216'>216</span>he said, ‘I would have said I love you.’ Is there -such a power?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Carmen la Tosca lay on her back, her hands -beside her.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“That was innocence. We are all waiting for -the day when people shall learn of our innocence, -all over again,” she said brightly.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And is that suffering?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Yes, a special kind, for everyone,” she said -gravely. “But not a personal torment. You -are not to believe in that. Suffering is all alike, -yours, mine, everybody’s. All these distinctions -and what people say about them is nonsense. -Suffering is all the same everywhere for everyone.” -She suddenly rose up in bed and said, -softly, “Now you do not want to talk to me -any more?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He moved his fingers on the foot-board of -the bed.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I’m sorry,” she said hastily, covered with -confusion. “It’s my indolence that does it.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“What?” he asked timidly.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Embarrasses you.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It’s all right.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Now see here,” she continued. “Do you -ever think of animals?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Why?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Do you?”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_217'>217</span>“I don’t know. I notice them——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Capital!” she cried, clapping her hands; -“that’s what I wanted to know. Well then, -what would all this, you and I and your great -trouble, mean to them?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I don’t know what you mean.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Your questions, my answers? Nothing.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He coloured, and looked down. “What does -it mean?” he repeated, and as he said it he -could not remember what he had come for, or -what he had said, and while she was answering he -tried desperately to re-establish himself.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He said, “And you do not know what I must -go through before I feel like Bailey?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“A little evil day by day, that makes everything -grow.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Yes, that is what I wanted to know,” he -said, breathlessly.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Listen then, it’s all that makes the difference -between a gentleman and a fool. Never do evil -to good people, they always forgive it, and that -is nasty.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“But what about all these things that people -talk of and I do not understand?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The simple story, simply told by simple -people—that in the end is all you will listen to.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And I’m not to try to make anything out -of all this?”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_218'>218</span>“No,” she said, “nothing at all, leave it alone.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And not to try to understand what made him -cry?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Just as it is. The calf is born, she lies in the -sun; she waits for the end. That is dignity.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“But sometimes I’m unhappy.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“In the end you will know you know nothing. -That will be the death of you.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Brandt stood still, though she had taken up -her paper.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Just that?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Come here,” she said, and he came, quickly. -She put her hand out with a gentle laugh and -touched him. “There, that’s all.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He went away then.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_219'>219</span> - <h2 class='c005'>FIRST COMMUNION</h2> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b c014'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span class='xxlarge'>T</span>he mortal fruit upon the bough</div> - <div class='line'>Hangs above the nuptial bed.</div> - <div class='line'>The cat-bird in the tree returns</div> - <div class='line'>The forfeit of his mutual vow.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>The hard, untimely apple of</div> - <div class='line'>The branch that feeds on watered rain</div> - <div class='line'>Takes the place upon her lips</div> - <div class='line'>Of her late lamented love.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Many hands together press</div> - <div class='line'>Shaped within a static prayer</div> - <div class='line'>Recall to one the chorister</div> - <div class='line'>Docile in his sexless dress.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>The temperate winds reclaim the iced</div> - <div class='line'>Remorseless vapours of the snow.</div> - <div class='line'>The only pattern in the mind</div> - <div class='line'>Is the cross behind the Christ.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_220'>220</span> - <h2 class='c005'>FINIS</h2> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b c014'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span class='xxlarge'>F</span>or you, for me? Why then the striking hour,</div> - <div class='line'>The wind among the curtains, and the tread</div> - <div class='line'>Of some late gardener pulling at the flower</div> - <div class='line'>They’ll lay between our hearts when we are dead.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c004' /> -</div> -<div class='tnotes'> - -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 class='c005'>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES</h2> -</div> - <ol class='ol_1 c003'> - <li>Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling. - - </li> - <li>Anachronistic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed. - </li> - </ol> - -</div> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Book, by Djuna Barnes - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BOOK *** - -***** This file should be named 60904-h.htm or 60904-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/9/0/60904/ - -Produced by Richard Tonsing, Tim Lindell, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -book was produced from images made available by the -HathiTrust Digital Library.) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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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