1
THE ward in which Felix lay was a great room with a hundred beds in it,
only a few feet apart.
It was a restful place, after Canal street. Even the delirium of a man
on the other side of the room was, after the first night, easy to
disregard. Those yells had no relation to Felix’s life; at least, they
were not Eddie Silver’s yells. He did not have to wake up and join in
any painful festivities with that man.... In their utter aloofness from
his own life, those yells seemed actually soothing, and he went to sleep
to their music as to a lullaby.
2
Every morning, at five o’clock, he was awakened, and a cup was put to
his lips. It was merely hot tea with milk and sugar in it; but Felix had
never tasted any drink so good as this—so invigorating, so life-giving,
so nourishing.... A wonderful drink! And when he had drained the last
drop, he sank back again into a drowsy slumber like that of childhood.
It was so good to know that he did not have to get down to the office at
eight o’clock. He could just stay in bed all day, and sleep, and sleep,
and sleep.
His friends came ... bringing him messages from still other friends. He
never had any idea that he had so many friends in Chicago. He was
touched by their remembering him, and caring about him. People from the
settlement, and the boys from the office. Clive came the first day,
bringing word that Mr. Devoe, the managing editor, was anxious about
him. His pay, Clive assured him, would go on just the same while he was
sick.... It seemed quite wonderful. Felix had never realized how good
people were....
His friends brought books for him to read. Clive brought him “The Island
of Doctor Moreau,” which he had long ago promised to lend him. Paul came
with a slender volume entitled “The Complete Works of Max Beerbohm.”
Roger brought him “The Confessions of a Young Man,” and Don appeared
with Dowson’s poems. Eddie Silver did not come, though Felix rather
expected him to bring a volume of Swinburne....
Very nice of them, too, to think up such exotic and sophisticated books
for him to read—a tribute, doubtless, to his superior tastes. But he
felt, as he glanced languidly into their pages, that these were not just
the kind of books a sick person wants to read. He wished somebody would
bring him the Saturday Evening Post—or the Bab Ballads.
3
But it was all right—he didn’t want very much to read, anyway. It was
pleasanter to lie and day-dream—or watch the pretty head-nurse, who was
exactly like a pretty nurse on the cover of a magazine—or think. He had
a lot of time to think, now. Hours. Funny, how one never seemed to get
time to think, outside of a hospital.
His thoughts were slow and long, reaching to places where it seemed he
had not been in thought for a great while. Really, a hospital was a fine
place. People ought to go there once a year for a long, long week of
thinking. These thoughts of his own, for instance—how glad he was about
them! They would make a great difference in his life, once he got out of
the hospital....
The only trouble was that when he did get out of the hospital, he never
could remember what any of those thoughts were.... They had vanished,
leaving apparently no trace upon his mind. And that seemed queer, too.
Thoughts that took such hours upon hours to think, and that seemed so
wonderful at the time, oughtn’t to disappear like that....
The only thought that remained was a very small and insignificant
thought, not worthy of being remembered. It was not really a thought at
all, but only a memory: it went back to the time when he was a little
boy in Maple, and there was a syringa bush in front of the house,
growing up to the second-story window; and he would lean out of the
window to see the bird’s nest in the syringa bush, and smell the perfume
of the syringa blossoms; and he would watch the mother-bird, sitting on
her speckled eggs and looking back at him with bright, sharp eyes, not
at all afraid of him.... Out of all those profound thoughts, that was
all he could ever remember.
4
On Saturday morning, his fifth day at the hospital, Clive came, bringing
Felix his pay-envelope from the Chronicle.
“When do you get out?” he asked.
“Some time today,” said Felix. “The doctor has to formally discharge me,
or something. This afternoon, I guess.”
“Well, come out to my place in Woods Point, and rest up for a week
before you go back to the office.... I’ll have something special for
dinner tonight in your honour. I have a neighbour woman come in, you
know, to cook for me whenever I dine at home; you needn’t be afraid
you’ll have to depend on my culinary abilities. All right? Good!... I
must get to the office now and finish some work. Oh, I forgot, here’s a
letter for you. Good-bye—see you this afternoon!”
The letter was from Rose-Ann.
“_I couldn’t write_,” it opened abruptly, “_till today. Mother died
Sunday. There is something very strange about death—you can’t quite
believe it, or adjust yourself to it. I’ve had all sorts of queer
feelings about it all. But I know now why people go through the
ceremonial of funerals—it always seemed to me absurd before. But in some
queer pagan way it seems to make up for all one’s ingratitude to the
dead—for all the things you’ve forgotten, and only remember when it’s
too late. It is, as people say, ‘all you can do.’ And in some queer way,
it suffices. It enables you to think of other things again—to go back to
ordinary life._
“_I shan’t have to ever quarrel with my brothers again now—that’s one of
the other things I think of. I mean—I’ve a tiny legacy, enough at any
rate to make me independent of them forever. Father was very nice to
me—I don’t think I’ve ever told you about my father; he’s a clergyman,
and I suppose perhaps I didn’t want to be known as a clergyman’s
daughter. But he does understand me._
“_Felix, I am worried about you. I suppose it’s absurd, but I keep
thinking you’re in trouble of some kind. And your letters tell me
nothing at all—except—But we will talk about that when I see you._
“_I’m coming back to Chicago as soon as ever I can._”
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Book Three
Woods Point
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