Hardy’s book was never written. In fact, his Middle Western career was
brief and very unpleasant. He didn’t suit his editor at all. He was
perpetually criticized and badgered, and his air of sophistication and
cynic wisdom was resented as an affectation from the execrated
metropolis. He came back to New York in midsummer, terribly disappointed
and sorely perplexed. He couldn’t understand his failure, both
professional and personal.
He had saved a little money, and he used it to give himself a vacation
before applying to his old newspaper. He went on a fishing trip with two
other men, to a beautiful, remote mountain spot, far from all noise and
turmoil, and far from any supervised source of water supply.
When he came back to the city, he wondered that his vacation had done
him so little good. He felt so tired, so wretched, so despondent, that
he couldn’t think of going to work. He sat in his furnished room, in a
stupor of misery, scarcely able to drag himself out for meals, waiting
with alarm and anxiety for his physical and mental condition to improve.
“I hope I’m not going to be ill!” he thought, in despair.
His money was all gone, and what was he to do?
He tried to fight it off. He insisted to himself that it was nothing. He
couldn’t lay a finger on any alarming symptom, except this weariness,
this chill dread. He couldn’t eat, but he slept a great deal.
It was a sweltering August afternoon, and his room was like an oven. He
awakened from a long nap, and sprang up, dizzy and confused, but filled
with sudden activity. He wanted to go out, he wanted to talk to
somebody, at once. He was in great haste. He brushed his hair with the
greatest precision, but he didn’t observe that he had on no collar or
tie.
He found it difficult to get down the stairs, and when he reached the
street he had to walk very rapidly to keep from staggering. The fierce
glare of the sun was intolerable.
Suddenly there came to his distracted brain the thought of Mme.
Sensobiareff and her cool, airy rooms, the kindness of her voice. He
felt that if he could have a cup of her weak, fragrant tea, and sit
quietly listening to her for a little while, his malady would leave him.
He needed to talk to her. He was so anxious to talk that he muttered to
himself as he walked.
She said, afterward, that he had been guided to her. Perhaps he was;
certainly he never quite understood how he got there. He arrived at the
hottest hour of that intolerable day, a disheveled and sinister figure.
The hall boy didn’t want to let him in, but Hardy pushed him aside with
a melodramatic scowl, and began ascending the seven flights of stairs.
It didn’t occur to him to use the lift.
He went on at a terrific gait, with his heart pounding madly and his
head almost bursting. He didn’t rest once. He reached her door and rang
the bell. She opened the door herself, and he lurched in, gasping, his
face crimson. He couldn’t speak. He waved his hands feebly and flung
himself down on the sofa and cried.
He didn’t faint, he didn’t actually lose consciousness, for he was aware
of talking volubly for a long time; yet he didn’t know what was going on
about him. At last he came to himself, and gradually became aware that
he was lying in bed in a darkened room, with his shoes and coat off, and
a damp towel about his forehead. The dark green shades at the windows
were flapping with a gentle, pleasing sound. There was an agreeable
fresh fragrance in the air--a feeling of wonderful peace and calm. He
felt very sick and inert, and he made no effort to move, although he
heard voices at his bedside. He looked with languid interest at a big
bureau facing him, on which were two framed photographs and a silver
toilet service.
“He ought to go to the hospital,” said a deep, buzzing voice.
“Never!” came the voice of Mme. Sensobiareff. “That shall not be!”
“Then you’ll have to get two nurses, one for the day and one for the
night. You’ll have to turn your house upside down. It’ll cost you a
great deal--a very great deal; and it’s unnecessary and foolish. Put him
in the hospital, and--”
“Never! As for two nurses, that cannot be arranged. I shall take care of
him myself.”
“Nonsense! He’ll have to be looked after constantly. There are all sorts
of things to be done for him which an inexperienced--”
“Ah! Inexperienced, you tell me?” she whispered fervently. “There is no
one in the world who can nurse better than I. I have a genius for
nursing. I was at Port Arthur during the most awful days, and I
nursed--my God!--perhaps five hundred men. I shall take care of him. My
servant will help me.”
“Impossible! You’ll kill the fellow between you. And you’ll be held
responsible for--”
“Enough!” she said curtly. “This is my affair. I take it upon myself.
Give your instructions; they will be carried out to the letter.”
“You realize that this is a very serious illness?”
“It is the typhoid fever,” said she. “I know very well.”
“Yes,” said the other. “I see you do know something. Well--”
They walked quietly away, and Hardy fell asleep.
In the night he awoke, or grew conscious again, and he saw sitting bolt
upright beside his bed the gaunt young servant, in a red calico dressing
jacket and a tremendous braid of dark hair. Her flat face looked so
immobile, so inhuman, that he suddenly became terrified.
“_Madame!_” he called. “Quick! Come here! A dead woman! Quick!”
Mme. Sensobiareff hurried into the room almost at once. She soothed him,
gave him something to drink, and brought an ice cap for his head. He
grew calmer and presently quite lucid.
“Don’t keep me here,” he said, in a weak whisper. “Send me to the
hospital. This is too much for you!”
“Hush! Hush! Be quiet! You are not to talk!”
And he gave up completely and resigned himself to her miraculous care.
V
For two weeks Hardy was very ill, often delirious. Then he began little
by little to improve, to enter into a delightful period of rest and
peace. The two women devoted their lives to him. They waited upon him
with the most passionate seriousness. There was no annoying fuss, no
superfluous attention, but one or the other of them was at hand every
minute, and they divined his every want.
The quiet, beautiful order of the room, the odd and touching delicacy of
his nurses, sank into his spirit. In spite of his weakness, in spite of
the minor pains and discomforts of his malady, he was happy.
But he couldn’t help worrying. One morning, while Mme. Sensobiareff was
busy about the room, he spoke to her about his anxiety.
“It isn’t right!” he said, in a feeble, plaintive tone. “Your husband is
ill, too, and I’m taking up all your time and upsetting everything. He
won’t--”
“It makes no difference to him,” she said. “He is not here. Only rest
and be tranquil, my dear!”
“But I feel like a beast!” he protested. “To come here like this, and to
let you do all this! And the expense! I haven’t a cent to repay you. You
can’t imagine how it makes me feel. I’m ashamed!”
“That is foolish, my dear--very foolish. I understand how it is with
you.” She paused for a moment. “I do not think there is any one on this
earth who can understand better the troubles of others,” she said;
“because I have felt them all--all! You must believe me!”
As she looked at him, still smiling, her pale, clear eyes grew misty.
“I have the most sorrowful heart in the world,” she said. “He is dead!”
“Your husband?” he cried, shocked.
She bowed her head.
“Three months ago. But we will not speak of that, if you please. You
will see now what a blessing it is for me that I can help _you_.”
As he grew stronger they talked more and more together--or, rather, she
talked and he listened. It was a sort of monologue made up of her own
vast experience. She had seen so much, traveled so much, suffered so
much. She had seen plagues, famine, battles, she had lived in alien and
hostile countries, she who lived so much through her friends had seen so
many of them suffer; and now, past her youth, she found herself utterly
alone, poor, friendless, thousands of miles from her home.
Hardy would sit propped up in a chaise longue near the window, and,
while he smoked the five cigarettes he was permitted daily, he would
listen to her charming voice, talking and talking. Sometimes he grew
sleepy, but he concealed it.
There was one thing that puzzled him. She never sat with him in the
evening. After they had had dinner, which he now took in the dining
room, he was always conducted back to his own room, and Anna would come
in, with her sewing, to keep him company. This was not very
entertaining, for she didn’t know a dozen words of English, and he
didn’t like to read and entirely ignore her.
What on earth did Mme. Sensobiareff do with herself? He heard the
doorbell ring, time after time, every evening, but he heard no sounds to
indicate social activity, no voices, no moving about. Who came? He
couldn’t ask Anna, and he didn’t care to ask her mistress; but he
thought about it a great deal, and he didn’t like it.
The time came when he was declared well, and the doctor made his last
visit.
“Now I’ll have to be thinking about going away,” he said.
“Oh, no!” she protested. “I have this beautiful lodging, all paid for
five months to come. You must stay here until you have found a
position.”
“I can’t do that,” he said. “It wouldn’t--you see, it’s awfully kind of
you, but it wouldn’t look--you see, you’re here all alone. People would
talk.”
“These people, who are they? I have no friends. No one will know or
care. Don’t trouble yourself, my friend!” she said, smiling. “There will
be no difficulty. I am a thousand years old!”
In the end he decided that he would stay, for a time at least, as much
for her sake as for his own, until he could find work and in that way be
able to help her. He resolved to protect her and care for her all his
life.
An amazing existence! It continued for six weeks, for even after he had
found a place as copy writer for a mail order house, she insisted upon
his taking his earnings to buy clothes.
“Without clothes one can do nothing,” she said. “It is always necessary
to present a good appearance.”
She was truly like a mother to him. She looked after his clothes, she
wanted to hear every detail of his day, and she dearly loved to give him
advice, which was always sensible, but sometimes a little irritating,
because it was so obvious. Never was there such a wonderful friend, so
unfailingly kind, so loyal, so delicate.
And yet--would you believe it?--all his natural affection for her was
poisoned by suspicion, because of those mysterious evenings. He bitterly
resented being shunted off into his own room after dinner. He resented
the secrecy and the mystery. He would sit there, listening to the sound
of the doorbell, the front door opening and closing, and then nothing
further. The room she had given him was at the back of the flat, because
it was quiet there. It was very quiet.
One evening he went into the kitchen, to try to talk with Anna. Since he
had been declared well, the maid no longer sat with him in the evenings,
and he felt that even her silent company would be better than none.
He found her sitting by the table, her head in her hands, the picture of
a despondent exile; but when he entered she looked up with a friendly,
anxious smile.
“You eat?” she asked.
“No, thanks,” he said.
She shrugged her shoulders, to show her despair at not understanding,
and kept on smiling.
Suddenly the swing door from the dining room was opened, and Mme.
Sensobiareff came in. She looked at Hardy gravely; then, without a word,
she drew herself a glass of water and went out again, leaving him
astounded and distressed, a prey to the most disagreeable suspicions.
What in Heaven’s name was she doing, dressed like that, in evening
dress, with bare arms and neck and so elaborate a coiffure?
He went back to his own room and walked up and down in the dark, angry,
terribly humiliated. After all, what did he know about her, except that
she had been kind? Women of a certain sort were often kind, with a
facile, lavish kindness. He felt that he comprehended the mystery now,
that he knew what sort of house this was, and the thought of all that he
had accepted was intolerable to him.
She had no right to force her kindness on him! It was shameful; she had
degraded him. If any one should ever hear of it, that he had been
supported--yes, certainly supported for weeks by this woman, out of her
disgraceful earnings!
She thought him a little moody and ill-humored the next morning at
breakfast; but with her unfailing generosity, she made allowances. She
sat there in her crisp white wrapper, a very model of domesticity, and
smiled at him over the pretty little bouquet of flowers that she always
arranged on the table. She went to the front door with him, and bade
him good-by; and with constraint, in misery, he replied to her, and
hurried off. He had decided never to return.
He fully intended to write to her, but he never did. He found it too
difficult. He couldn’t reproach her, for her conduct was none of his
business, and he could think of no plausible lie. He put off writing for
day after day, and little by little the pain of the thing wore off and
his regret and shame grew faint.
However, he wasn’t ungrateful. He tried to compute the cost of his
illness and his long stay, and he made a magnificent effort to save
enough to repay the disconcerting total; but it wasn’t possible. It
would take many months. He had got back into newspaper work again, doing
special articles, and his earnings were not imposing.
When he had scraped together a small part of his debt, he decided to
take the money to her. He trusted to her tact and good sense to avoid
the necessity of an awkward explanation.
He arrived at the apartment house, and was about to enter the lift when
the boy stopped him.
“The madam’s gone,” he said, with a grin.
“Gone? Moved away?”
“Yes, sir--moved away.” He chuckled. “She certainly _did_ move away. She
wuz moved away. Seems she’d borrowed some money on that furniture of
hers, and couldn’t pay it. One day the people came and took it away. Ah
thought Ah’d never get over laughin’. There she stood, watching it go;
and she didn’t have a stick left in the place!”
“Do you know where she went?” asked Hardy.
“No, sir, Ah do not. She didn’t invite me to call,” said the boy.
Hardy went away, heavy-hearted. For many, many nights she came to haunt
him--that poor, friendless foreign woman, so wonderfully kind, so wise
and so sad. He blamed himself bitterly for losing track of her. She
hadn’t investigated his morals, she hadn’t blamed, she hadn’t
judged--she had simply helped. His scruples now appeared petty and
cruel. He thought that he would give anything he had if he could only
see her again, in her beruffled white wrapper, sitting before the
samovar and talking.
He remembered her devotion to her husband. What if she had taken a wrong
way, in order to live? Who was he, whom she had so greatly benefited, to
despise her?