ELLEN UNDERTAKES TO CONQUER HERSELF
The first sting of disappointment past, Ellen believed that she was
glad that her Christmas journey had been made impossible. She might
have betrayed herself, and the only light in her darkness was the hope
of keeping Stephen's good-will. Her experience of human passion was
limited; she believed that the simple fact that Hilda lived would keep
his heart from wandering. Pure hearts, she believed, did not wander,
nor did they seek those which were bound. To feel his eyes upon her
in amazement, disapproval, or scorn--there was the one contingency
intolerable and shameful.
Not once, during her self-examination, did she surmise that she was
regarded in any other light than that of a beneficiary. Stephen was
grateful to her father for some remembered kindness, he sympathized
with her ambitions, and he had given her what must seem to him--however
large it was to her--a little from his store. Fetzer's opinion that
she had lifted her eyes to a distant and unattainable star was her
own opinion exactly; indeed, to Fetzer he was not nearly so exalted a
person as he was to Ellen.
She felt, alas! now that she understood herself, another humiliating
emotion, jealousy of all who had anything to do with him, of Miss
Knowlton who obeyed his commands, of Miss MacVane who kept his house,
of Fetzer who might some day return to her post, of Professor Mayne who
went about with him, even of the patients who saw him daily. One could
become, it seemed, wholly ludicrous.
Another woman might have tried to conquer this passion because it could
result only in misery and humiliation for herself, but Ellen tried to
conquer it because it was wrong. It had not been wrong to love him; she
had fallen blindly into that error--upon that she proudly insisted;
but it would be sinful to continue. From the narrow theology of
Grandfather and from the character of her father she had unconsciously
constructed a code of behavior as rigid as Grandfather's precepts and
as her father's probity. Her nature was developing rapidly, but in this
respect it retained all its natural simplicity and innocence.
She determined, therefore, poor Ellen, that she would banish Stephen
from the heart which he unlawfully occupied, and with this end in view
she laid down specific rules for herself. In the first place she would
think of him no more. In this determination she was not as childlike
as she seemed for she planned for herself deliberate distractions. She
would study still harder; she would respond to some of the friendly
overtures which were continually made; and, above all, she would
dream no more. She laid away the tiny watch which Stephen had sent
her at Christmas--it was absurd to try not to think of him and then
deliberately to recall him whenever she needed to know the hour! She
went to a few dances, she received a few student callers, she even went
walking four times with a graduate student who confided to her the
history of his past and his hopes for the future. She decided drearily
in March that she was conquering herself.
She would go to Harrisburg in June only for a day on her way to
Ephrata. Her self-examination led her farther than her relations with
Stephen, and she believed that in her preoccupation with herself
she had been undutiful to her grandfather and to Matthew. When Miss
Grammer, who had taken a cottage on the lake, invited her wistfully to
go with her, she burst into tears.
"I wish I could. But I've written to my brother that I'm coming home."
Miss Grammer studied her gravely. Had the object of love died or had he
been married? It was the former of these sorrows which she had suffered
in her youth.
"You knew that you might come with me, surely, Ellen?"
"Oh, yes."
"You are tired," said Miss Grammer.
Spring breaks the best of resolutions of Ellen's particular variety.
The willow branches turned a brighter yellow, the brook bubbled more
and more loudly, crocuses and scilla enlivened the grass. Presently
flowering shrubs bloomed; one walked in welcome shade where yesterday
there had been sunshine; bees hummed in and out of classrooms where
students nodded. Those who had studied ceased to be industrious and
those who had been idle continued in their course. There was little
talk of Avogadro's Law or of the Elizabethan spirit of Shelley; there
was discussion of baseball games and boat-races. Envy was transferred
from him who made high marks to him who, like the wise virgins, had
provided against springtime by saving permitted absences.
On Memorial Day there was a boat-race and the students departed with
few exceptions to the lakeside. A half-dozen, studious like Miss
Grammer, worked in the library, their thoughts occupied with matters
alien to boat-races, and others whose purses were empty sought points
of vantage on distant hillsides. Only Ellen turned her back upon
both work and play and went in an opposite direction. She meant this
afternoon, while the struggle on the lake was in progress, to take
herself to task.
She selected her battleground with poor judgment. One may win a victory
over one's self as one walks on a frozen road or under the bare
branches of wintry trees, but when one approaches the scene of conflict
through beds of daisies and sweet clover one is weakened at the start.
Even her physical strength seemed to be failing when at last she sat
down on a fallen tree at the edge of a little wood and clasped her
hands round her knees. The land fell in a gentle slope to the campus
whose towers rose above the tree-tops. Beyond, and far below, the lake
lay clear and blue. There was no house near by and there was no sound
of the life of human beings, and nothing to take her attention away
from her own problem.
She believed now that her obsession was a mortal sickness and that from
it she could never escape; she hoped only to hide it and to proceed so
that it might be unsuspected by others. She had tried since Christmas
to put Stephen out of her mind and had failed. She had reminded herself
that her affection was not and that it never would be returned. Indeed,
it seemed to her that already Stephen's letters had grown more curt and
businesslike; perhaps he understood and was trying to make clear to her
the hopelessness of her situation.
She reproached herself for her blindness. It was upon the night when
she had returned from the King Sanatorium that this had begun; she
should have understood herself then, and not created for herself a
fool's paradise. The effect of this emotion was like the effect of
death, it colored everything. The universe had narrowed to a point. She
did not realize how unlike most lives her life was, with its limited
circle of acquaintances, and its intense affection for a few human
beings.
The afternoon wore slowly on; far away the straining bodies of the
rowers bent above their oars waiting the word to make a belated start,
the thousands of spectators shouted, and presently the long observation
train began to move with the boats. She should have been with her
schoolmates in body and in spirit, but she did not even think of them.
Suddenly it seemed to her that some restraining band within her
weakened and broke. In imagination she let her eyes devour Stephen, let
herself be enfolded by his arms, lifted her lips to his. She uttered
a sigh of complete abandonment; she began eagerly to comfort herself
with reminders of his gifts to her, his smile upon her, his hand on a
memorable occasion lifting her chin. When he had walked with her in New
York, he had never let go her arm; when he helped her into his car his
clasp lingered. She found herself speaking aloud.
"If I could only see him! I haven't seen him since last summer! If I
only knew that he didn't despise me, that he thought of me, I shouldn't
care for anything else. Then I could work once more. If I could only
see him! Others can, and I would give my life for him!"
She heard dimly the cheering of a multitude. It must be that the race
was won; the visitors could produce no such volume of sound. But her
victory was not won! She rose and went down the hill to the road, her
shoulders bent. Her childhood had been ended by her father's death,
and now her youth was ended by this misfortune. She remembered, alas,
a word of Amos's--"burn with sinful passion"--and she was filled with
shame.
She crossed the deserted campus to the library, walking aimlessly, and
descended to the cool corridor leading to the Seminar room. The door
was open and she could see Miss Grammer at work within. Unheard, she
stood looking at her curiously, almost as though Miss Grammer were
dead. So that was what was left for one, that was what one became!