Peter walked the room, a changing star or two in the windy skylight; a
candle in the center by the stair-door where the sentry stood; Berthe
watching him steadily from her chair. The others at the far end looked
up occasionally. They were talking low-toned. Poltneck had been singing
folk-songs--pure spirit of the boat and cradle, of the march and the
marriage and the harvest, of the cruel winter and the pregnant warmth
again; songs that had come up from the soil and stream and the simple
heart of man, older than Mother Moscow, old beyond any human name to
attach to them. True and anonymous, these songs. The lips that first
sung them never knew that they had breathed the basic gospel which does
not die, but moves from house to house around the world. Indeed, the
melodies were born of the land and the sky, like the mist that rises
from the earth when the yellow sun comes up from the south, and the
“green noise” of spring breaks the iron cold.
The moment had come when Peter could not sit still. Berthe was never so
dear, but he could not stay. He held the three men in true full comrade
spirit, but he could not sit with them now. He had nothing to fear; all
was quite well.
He was thinking of America, that she was “bred right”; that some change
might be upon her now, something akin to his own transformation. Was
there a bond thicker than blood between America and the New Russia? Word
had reached the field that Russia had put away her greatest devil in a
day. A nation is to be reckoned with that makes her changes thus at a
sweep. Had Russia not freed fifty million slaves at one stroke of the
pen--that great emancipation of Alexander? And Russia now held the
Earth's mighty energy of fecundity--an ultimate significance here; for
this guest invariably comes before a people has reached its meridian,
and not afterward.... His companions of the death cell were touching
the truth; this dark suffering army was the Europe of the future--the
Russian voice that would challenge America to answer brother to brother.
The folk songs were singing in his soul, and the lines of Abel's _We Are
Free,_ the friendships of Spenski and Samarc, of these in the room, and
the love of Berthe Wyndham.
All had prevailed. The culmination was now. He thought of the actuality
of to-morrow, but without terror, or blankness. It would seem that he
were leaving all this; that America, Russia, friendship, the love of
woman, were no longer his portion; yet he seemed closer than ever to
them. It was as Fallows said, “These things are immortal.” Perhaps this
very room, and this, the greatest of his days in the world, would be
pictured by some one to come, as clearly and as magically as he saw
it all now; by some young workman of the reconstruction, after the red
horse of war was driven back forever.
He was sustained. The sense came clearly that nothing men might do could
cause him harm. He felt even that his mother would some time know how
well he had come to understand her at the last. Everything was answered
by the mystic future. It was all there; all would be told.
“Why, to-morrow,” he exclaimed aloud suddenly, “why, to-morrow, we will
laugh at today.”
They were about him. They seemed to understand all that had brought
his words, as if they had followed his thoughts to the same apostrophe.
...He was laughing in the midst of them.
“I think it must have been the singing and all,” he said breathlessly.
“It got away from me. It has all been too fine to-day. I don't see--I
really don't--how I managed to earn it all.”
A step upon the stair, slow and heavy, a step that Peter Mowbray knew.
The companion sentry had remained below at the street door, and now
called to his fellow of the guard to open. ...Peter was abashed before
his friend like a child that had disobeyed, and come to believe that he
knew better than the father. It was Big Belt at midnight.
“I brought your shaving-tackle,” he said. “Hello, Peter.”
The face in the thin ray looked like polished metal.
“Come in.” Peter had him by the hand, which was easily pulled across the
threshold, but the body didn't move.
“No, I won't come in--”
“Boylan, come in!... I want you to meet--”
“No. I'll see you in the morning.... For God's sake, don't look so
happy, and keep your mouth shut.... Good-night.”
A curtain had fallen before the glowing future. Peter couldn't raise
it again. He tried to restore his laugh and light-heartedness for the
others, but it was a mockery. The world had come in all its chaos and
mad fatigue. All that he had said was without meaning. The singing was
over. Berthe gave him her hand as he returned to the dark corner. She
did not speak, for a moment, and then only to say:
“How sensitive we are!”
All the weariness that he had ever known came upon him, gathering
together for descent, pressing out vitality, leaving him cold and
undone.
“You are very tired,” she whispered. “Perhaps we can rest a little. The
three are resting.” Then a little later, like a child half-asleep, she
added, “I love you.”
It was her good-night.
Throughout that short night he dreamed of cedar boughs and pungent
autumn air; flurries of snow falling from wide pine branches. There was
gray in the skylight when he awoke. Berthe was near, her cheek against
his saddle bags, which he had placed for her the last thing. Very white
and small her face looked as she slept, her hands folded under her
chin.... Peter watched, his eyes becoming accustomed to the faint light.
The white cap lay near, a different and imperfect white compared to her
flesh; and the soft deep night of her hair seemed to him of sufficient
loveliness for any world. A girl asleep--and such a faith had they
known. There was a beauty about it all that rebuked the actuality of the
place and the town and the soldiery.
Misery began deep in his heart, welled up to his throat, blurring
his eyes, resolving his whole nature almost past resistance; that a
love-woman still without her chance, without her child, so fair and
unafraid, who had asked so little for herself and so much for the
world--should be brought to the shame and the shot of fools. A flutter
of eyes. Mowbray gripped his self-control with every ounce of force. He
would hold her in his power of will while she met the issue of the day,
and its first cruel thought. Her brow contracted a little, as if through
some passing pain.... The dawn of a smile that pursed her lips to speak
his name, met his kiss instead. He held her face between his hands,
smiling at her, while the realization came.
_“Dear Peter--it's the day of our journey--“_
He brushed the lather in gratefully with cold water. The touch of the
razor gave him a queer pang such as he had never met before.
“You're just a boy,” Berthe remarked.... “It must make one feel clean.
It has been years since I was present--”
The others were now awake. They made merry over the shaving, all taking
turns, even Fallows, the last and the longest. Indeed he had scarcely
finished before their first test came. It was like a whip--that step
upon the stair, but only a sentry with tea and bread.