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——
HELENA—Yes?
STORM—Yes. [_Pause._] You know, you surprise me.
HELENA—Why? Because I do not set my dogs on you?
STORM—Something like that.
HELENA—I respect my dogs.
STORM—What does that mean?
HELENA—Had I a daughter, would I set her on every man?
STORM—[_Trying to laugh._] That’s meant for an insult, isn’t it? Well, I
like the little insulting women——
HELENA—You are a man of taste.
STORM—I respect you.
HELENA—What kind of a feeling is that?
STORM—A gentleman’s——
HELENA—I see.
STORM—People say of you: “She has a great many ways——”
HELENA—Yes?
STORM—[_Sitting on the edge of the table._] “But none of them simple.”
HELENA—Do they?
STORM—[_Without attempting to hide his admiration._] 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——
HELENA—In other words, the starved women of the town are beginning to
eat.
STORM—[_Pause._] Well [_laughs_] I like you.
HELENA—I do not enjoy the spectacle of men ascending.
STORM—What are you trying to say?
HELENA—I’m saying it.
STORM—[_After an awkward pause._] Do—you wish me to—go away?
HELENA—You will go.
STORM—Why won’t you let me talk to you?
HELENA—Any man may accomplish anything he’s capable of.
STORM—Do you know how I feel about you?
HELENA—Perfectly.
STORM—I have heard many things about your—your past—— I believe none of
them——
HELENA—Quite right, why should you mix trades?
STORM—What do you mean by that?
HELENA—Why confuse incapability with accomplishment——
STORM—It’s strange to see a woman like you turning to the merely
bitter——
HELENA—I began beyond bitterness.
STORM—Why do you treat me this way?
HELENA—How would you have me treat you?
STORM—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.
HELENA—You say it was about to storm?
STORM—Yes.
HELENA—It even looked like rain?
STORM—Yes.
HELENA—[_Quickly in a different voice._] It was a dark night, and I
ended it.
STORM—What have I done?
HELENA—You have neglected to make any beginning in the world—can I help
that?
STORM—I offer you a clean heart.
HELENA—Things which have known only one state, do not interest me.
STORM—Helena!
HELENA—Gheid Storm.
STORM—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——
HELENA—The saddle comes down from the horse.
STORM—Well, she died——
HELENA—And that’s over.
STORM—Well, there it is, I have a son——
HELENA—And that’s not over. Do you resent that?
STORM—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——”
HELENA—In other words, you’re living for the sake of your fire.
STORM—[_To himself._] Some day I shall be glad I knew you.
HELENA—You go rather fast.
STORM—Yes, I shall have you to think of.
HELENA—When the fire is hot, you’ll be glad to think of me?
STORM—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.
HELENA—How horrible!
STORM—[_Startled._] Why?
HELENA—Would you show everything that made your heart?
STORM—I believe in frankness——
HELENA—[_With something like anger._] Well, some day your son will blow
his head off, to be rid of frankness, before his skin is tough.
STORM—You are not making anything easier.
HELENA—I’ve never been callous enough to make things easier.
STORM—You’re a queer woman——
HELENA—Yes, that does describe me.
STORM—[_Taking his leg off the table._] Do you really want to know why I
came? Because I need you——
HELENA—I’m not interested in corruption for the many.
STORM—[_Starting as if he had been struck._] By God!
HELENA—Nor in misplaced satisfactions——
STORM—By God, what a woman!
HELENA—Nor do I participate in liberations——
STORM—[_In a low voice._] I could hate you!
HELENA—I limit no man, feel what you can.
STORM—[_Taking a step toward her, the dog lifts its head._] If it were
not for those damned dogs of yours—I’d—I’d——
HELENA—Aristocracy of movement never made a dog bite——
STORM—That’s a—strange thing to say—just at this moment.
HELENA—Not for me.
STORM—[_Sulky._] Well, anyway, a cat may look at a King——
HELENA—Oh no, a cat may only look at what it sees.
STORM—Helena Hucksteppe.
HELENA—Yes.
STORM—I’m—attracted—to you.
HELENA—A magnet does not attract shavings.
STORM—[_With positive conviction._] I _could_ hate you.
HELENA—I choose my enemies.
STORM—[_Without warning, seizing her._] By God, at least I can kiss you!
[_He kisses her full on the mouth—she makes no resistance._]
HELENA—[_In a calm voice._] And this, I suppose, is what you call the
“great moment of human contact.”
STORM—[_Dropping his arms—turning pale._] What are you trying to do to
me?
HELENA—I’m doing it.
STORM—[_To himself._] Yet it was you that I wanted——
HELENA—Mongrels may not dig up buried treasure.
STORM—[_In a sudden rage._] You can bury your past as deep as you like,
but carrion will out!
HELENA—[_Softly._] And this is love.
STORM—[_His head in his arms._] Oh, God, God!
HELENA—And you who like the taste of new things, come to me?
STORM—[_In a lost voice._] Shall I have no joy?
HELENA—Joy? Oh, yes, of a kind.
STORM—And you—are angry with me?
HELENA—In the study of science, is the scientist angry when the fly
possesses no amusing phenomena?
STORM—I wanted—to know—you——
HELENA—I am conscious of your failure.
STORM—I wanted something—some sign——
HELENA—Must I, who have spent my whole life in being myself, go out of
my way to change some look in you?
STORM—That’s why you are so terrible, you have spent all your life on
yourself.
HELENA—Yes, men do resent that in women.
STORM—Yes, I suppose so. [_Pause._] I should have liked to talk
of—myself——
HELENA—You see I could not listen.
STORM—You are—intolerant.
HELENA—No—occupied——
STORM—You are probably—playing a game.
HELENA—[_With a gracious smile._] You will get some personal good out of
it, won’t you?
STORM—I’m uncomfortable——
HELENA—Uncomfortable!
STORM—[_Beginning to be really uncomfortable._] Who _are_ you?
HELENA—I am a woman, Gheid Storm, who is _not_ in need.
STORM—You’re horrible!
HELENA—Yes, that too.
STORM—But somewhere you’re vulnerable.
HELENA—Perhaps.
STORM—Only I don’t quite know the spot.
HELENA—Spot?
STORM—Something, somewhere, hidden——
HELENA—Hidden! [_She laughs._] _All_ of me is vulnerable.
STORM—[_Setting his teeth._] You tempt me.
HELENA—[_Wearily._] It’s not that kind.
STORM—I’ve lain awake thinking of you—many nights.
HELENA—That is too bad.
STORM—What is too bad?
HELENA—That you have had—fancies.
STORM—Why?
HELENA—Theft of much, makes much to return——
STORM—The world allows a man his own thoughts.
HELENA—Oh, no——
STORM—At least my thoughts are my own.
HELENA—Not one, so far.
STORM—What does that mean?
HELENA—You’ll know when you try to think them again.
STORM—You mean I’m not making headway—well, you’re right, I’m not——
HELENA—Now tell me what brought you through the window.
STORM—[_Relieved._] I’m glad you ask that, it’s the first human thing
that’s happened this afternoon.
HELENA—You have forgotten our great moment of human contact.
STORM—[_Nervously._] Well——
HELENA—You were about to tell me what brought you?
STORM—I don’t know—something no one speaks of—some great ease in your
back—the look of a great lover——
HELENA—So—you scented a great lover——
STORM—I am a man—and I love——
HELENA—What have you done for love, Gheid Storm?
STORM—I’ve—never gone to the dogs——
HELENA—So?
STORM—I’ve always respected women.
HELENA—In other words: taken the coals out of the fire with the
poker—continue——
STORM—That’s all.
HELENA—And you dared to come to me! [_Her entire manner has changed._]
STORM—No matter what you’ve been—done—I love you.
HELENA—Do not come so near. Only those who have helped to make such
death as mine may go a little way toward the ardours of that decay.
STORM—What have I done?
HELENA—You have dared to bring to a woman, who has known love, the
whinny of a pauper.
STORM—What am I?
HELENA—[_Softly, to herself._] How sensitively the handles cling to the
vase, how delicate is the flesh between the fingers.
STORM—I—I don’t know you.
HELENA—[_Dropping her hands to her sides._] Come here, Gheid
Storm—[_Gheid approaches slowly, like a sleep walker_]. Put your hand on
me. [_He does so as if in a dream._] So! [_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._] 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.
STORM—[_In an inaudible voice._] I am going now——
HELENA—I cannot touch new things, nor see beginnings.
STORM—Helena! Helena!
HELENA—Do not call my name. There are too many names that must be called
before mine.
STORM—Shall I die, and never have known you?
HELENA—Death, for you, will begin where my cradle started rocking——
STORM—Shall I have no love like yours?
HELENA—When I am an old woman, thinking of other things, you will,
perhaps, be kissing a woman like me——
STORM—[_Moving blindly toward the door._] Now I am going.
HELENA—[_In a quiet, level voice._] The fall is almost here.
STORM—Yes, it’s almost here.
HELENA—The leaves on the mountain road are turning yellow.
STORM—Yes, the leaves are turning.
HELENA—It’s late, your son will be waiting dinner for you.
STORM—Don’t take everything away.
HELENA—You will not even recall having seen me.
STORM—Can memory be taken too?
HELENA—Only that memory that goes past recollection may be kept.
STORM—[_At the door._] Good night——
HELENA—[_Smiling._] There is the window.
STORM—I could not lift my legs now.
HELENA—That’s a memory you may keep.
STORM—Good night.
HELENA—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.
STORM—The one with the brown spots?
HELENA—Yes.
STORM—That was a fine dog.
HELENA—Yes, she was a fine dog—restless.
STORM—They say any dog will follow any man who carries aniseed.
HELENA—Well, soon I return to the city.
STORM—You look tired.
HELENA—Yes, I am tired.
[_Gheid exits. Helena takes her old position, her back almost square to
the audience._]
CURTAIN
[Illustration]
BEYOND THE END
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.
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.
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.
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.
“It’s some time since we have seen you, Mrs. Anspacher.”
Julie raised her thin long face from her collar and nodded.
“Yes,” she answered in a short voice, and frowned.
“Your husband has gathered in the corn already, and the orchards are
hanging heavy.”
“Are they?” she said, and tried to remember how many trees there were of
apple and of pear.
The driver took in another foot of reins, and turning slightly around,
so that he could look at her, said:
“It’s good to see you again, Mrs. Anspacher.”
She began to laugh. “Is it?” then with deliberation checked herself, and
fixed her angry eyes straight ahead of her.
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.
“You remember Mrs. Berling?” he went on. “She is married again.”
“Is she?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He began to tell her about the local office for outgoing mails, where a
nephew of her husband, Paytor, had taken a job.
The child sat so still that it was painful and Julie Anspacher moved
away, thinking aloud:
“All is corruption.”
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.
“What did you say, ma’am?”
“Nothing—I said all is lost from the beginning—if we only saw
it—always.”
The child looked at her slowly, puzzled, and looked down.
“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.
“Are they yours?” she whispered.
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.”
“Can I see them?”
“Oh, yes, you shall see them. Don’t be ridiculous.”
The child shrank back into herself, clutching nervously at her muff.
Julie Anspacher returned to her reflections.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
“And where does the child come from?” he inquired, touching the little
girl’s chin.
“Come along, don’t be ridiculous!” Julie said impatiently, and swept on
toward the house.
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.
“Tell me what the doctors said—cured?”
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.”
“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.
“I’m glad you took down the crystals—I always hated them.”—She moved to
the windows.
“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.”
“What do you know about my heart, Paytor?” Julie said, angrily. “You
don’t know what you are talking about at all. The child——”
“Well, yes——?”
“Her name is Ann,” she finished sulkily.
“It’s a sweet name—it was your mother’s, too. Whose is she?”
“Oh, good heavens!” Julie cried, moving around the room. “Mine, mine,
mine, of course, whose would she be if not mine?”
He looked at her. “Yours—why, Julie—how absurd!” Slowly the colour left
his face.
“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.”
“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?”
“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 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——”
“But, Julie——”
“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.”
“Well——”
“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: “You’re right—they lied, and I lived through—all the way—all the
way!”
He turned his face from her.
“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.”
“Don’t you feel horror?” he asked in a loud voice, suddenly.
“No, I don’t feel horror—horror is conflict—and I have none—I’m alien to
life.”
“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.
“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.”
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——”
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.
“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?”
“I don’t know—— Perhaps because there is a 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.”
“Know what?”
“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 _and_ that—in other words—I wanted to be set wrong.... You
understand?”
“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 sorry, I’m very sorry—but there it is”—he began to grimace and
twitch his shoulders.
“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.”