The blinds were drawn. Cheering drifted in through the open window.
Mathilde sat in a chair. She was watching him.
"Hello!" he murmured. "What's up?"
"Erik ..."
She fell to her knees beside the bed and began to weep. He lay quietly
listening to her. Bandages around his head. A lunatic with a gun. Yes.
Rachel. The man had been in love with Rachel. Pains like noises in his
ears.
"You mustn't talk...."
"I'm all right. Where's von Stinnes?"
"'Shh...."
He smiled feebly. She was holding his hand, still weeping. A memory
returned vividly. A man with blazing eyes. He had lost his temper. But
there had been something more than that. Two imbeciles fighting over a
thing that had died for both of them. Clowns at each other's throat. A
background unfolded itself. Against it he lay watching the two men. Here
was something like a quaint old print with a title, "Fate...."
"Bumped my head," he murmured. But another thought persisted. It moved
through the pain in his skull, unable to straighten itself into lines
of words. It was something about fighting for Rachel. He would ask
questions.
"What happened, Mathilde? Where'd he go?"
"You mean the man? 'Shh.... Don't talk now."
"Come, don't be silly."
The thinness of his voice surprised him.
"What became of the fool?"
"He's dead."
"Dead?"
"Yes, you shot him. Now be quiet."
"Good God, so I did. I remember. When he jumped at me."
A sinking feeling almost drifted him away. He felt as if he had become
hungry. The man was dead.... "I killed him. Well ... what of it?"
He opened his eyes and looked at the room. It was day--afternoon,
perhaps.
"The doctor says you'll be all right in a few days. But you must be
quiet...."
"Von Stinnes," he murmured. "There'll be trouble. Call him, will you?"
Mathilde turned away. Now the pain was less. He could hear cheering
outside. A demonstration. Workingmen marching under new flags.
"Von Stinnes is under arrest, Erik."
"What for? A new government?" What a crazy business.
"No. Don't talk, please. Later...."
He was too weak to sit up.
"Things will have to be straightened out," he muttered. "The fool was an
American officer. There'll be trouble."
"No, don't worry. Von Stinnes has fixed things."
His eyes grew heavy and closed. Sleep ... and let things, fixed or
unfixed, go to the devil.
When he awoke again the room was lighted. Mathilde, standing by the
window, turned as he stirred.
"Are you awake?"
"Yes, and hungry."
She brought a tray to his bed. He raised himself carefully, his head
unbearably heavy. Mathilde watched him with wide eyes as he sipped some
broth.
"What did they arrest the Baron for?" he asked.
She waited till he had finished, and cleared the bed, sitting down on
the edge. Her face lowered toward him till her lips touched and kissed
him.
"For murder," she whispered. Another kiss. "Now you must be quiet and
I'll tell you. He gave himself up when the police came. We carried you
out first. And then I left him."
"But," Dorn looked bewilderedly into the eyes of the girl.
"It was easier for him than for you. They would take you away for trial
to America. But he will be tried here. And he will come out all right.
Don't worry. We thought your skull was fractured, but the doctor says
it was only a hard blow."
She lowered her head beside him on the pillow and whispered, "I love
you! Poor Erik! He is defenseless--with a broken head."
"You are kind," he answered; "von Stinnes, too. But we must set matters
right...."
"No, no, be still!"
He grew silent. It was night again. In the morning he would be strong
enough to get up. A misty calm, the pain almost gone, veins throbbing
and a little split in his thought ... but no more.
"I will sleep by you," Mathilde spoke. She stood up and removed her
waist and shoes. He watched her with interest. Another woman curiously
like Anna, like Rachel--like the two creatures in Paris. Shoulders
suddenly bare. Possessive, unashamed gestures.... She lay down beside
him with a sigh.
"Poor Erik! I take advantage of a broken head."
"No," he smiled.
They lay motionless, her head touching his shoulder timidly.
"I could live with you forever and be happy," she whispered.
"We will see about forever--when it comes."
"Do you like me--perhaps--now?"
He would have preferred her silent. Silence at least was an effortless
lie. To make love was preposterous. How many times had he said, "I love
you?" Too many. But she was young and it would sound pretty in her ears.
"Mathilde, dear one."
Her arm trembled across his body.
It was difficult, but he would say it.... "Yes, in an odd sort of way,
Mathilde, I love you...."
"Ah! you are only being polite--because I have fed you broth."
"No. As much as I can love anything...."
"Later, Erik. 'Shh! Sleep if you can. Oh, I am shameless."
She had moved against him. He thought with a smile, "What an original
way of nursing a broken head!"
Later, tired with a renewed effort to straighten out words about the
fool and Rachel and himself, he closed his eyes. Mathilde was still
awake.
"I'll see von Stinnes in the morning," he murmured drowsily. "Von
Stinnes ... a gallant friend...."
... Someone knocking on the door aroused him. Dawn was in the room.
"Matty," he called. She slept. He found himself able to rise and his
legs carried him unsteadily to the door. A tall marine, outside.
"Herr Erik Dorn?"
Dorn nodded dizzily.
The man went on in German. "I come from Stinnes. I have a letter for
you."
He took the letter from his hand and moved hurriedly to a chair.
"Thanks," vaguely. The marine saluted and walked off. Mathilde had
awakened.
"What are you doing?"
She slipped out of bed and hurried to him.
"A letter," he answered. He allowed her to help him back to his pillow.
Reclining again, his dizziness grew less.
"I'll read it for you," she said.
"No. Von Stinnes...."
"It may be important."
"I'll be able to read in a moment."
She shook her head and slipped the envelope from his weakening fingers.
"I know about von Stinnes. Don't be afraid. May I?"
He nodded and she began to read:
"DEAR ERIK DORN:
"I write this at night, and to-morrow I will be ended. You must not
misunderstand what I do. It is a business long delayed. But I have made
a full confession in writing for the Entente commission--ten closely
written pages. A masterpiece, if I have to boast myself. And in order to
avoid the anti-climax which your sense of honor would undoubtedly
precipitate, I will put a period to it in an hour. A trigger pulled, and
the nobility of my sad country loses another of its shining lights. I am
overawed by the quaint justice of life. I end a career of villainy with
a final lie. It would really be impossible for me to die telling a
truth. The devil himself would appear and protest. But with a lie on my
lips, it is easy. Indeed, somehow, natural. But I pose--a male Magdalene
in tears. Do not misunderstand--too much. You are my friend, and I would
like to live a while longer that we might amuse ourselves together. You
have been an education. I find myself even now on this auspicious
midnight writing with your words. But I mistrust you, friend. You would
deny me this delicate martyrdom if I lived. For you are at bottom
lamentably honorable. So now, as you read this, I am dead (a sentence
out of Marie Corelli) and the situation is beyond adjustment. Please
accept my service as gracefully as it is rendered. The confession, as I
said, is a masterpiece. It would please my vanity if sometime you could
read it. For in this, my last lie, I have extended myself. Dear friend,
there is a certain awe which I cannot overcome--for the drama, or
comedy, finishes too perfectly. You once called me a Don Quixote of
disillusion. And now, perhaps, I will inspire a few new phrases. Let
them be poignant, but above all graceful. I would have for my epitaph
your smile and the whimsical irony of your comment. Better this than the
hand-rubbing grunt of the firing-squad returning to barracks after its
labors. Alas! that I will not be near you to hear it. But perhaps there
will come to me as I submit myself to the opening tortures of hell, an
echo of your words. And this will bring me a smile with which to cheat
the devil. I bequeathe to you my silver cigarette-case. You are my
brother and I say good-bye to you.
"KARL VON STINNES."
"No postscript?" Dorn asked softly.
Mathilde shook her head. There was silence.
"Will you find out about him, please?" he whispered.
The girl dressed herself quickly and left the room without speaking.
Alone, Dorn lay with the letter in his hand.
He spoke aloud after minutes, as if addressing someone invisible.
"I have no phrases, dear friend. Let my tears be an epigram."
PART V
SILENCE
CHAPTER I
The sea swarmed under the night. A moon road floated on the long dark
swells. From the deck of the throbbing ship Dorn looked steadily toward
the circle of moving water. In the salon, the ship's orchestra was
playing. A rollicking sound of music drifted away into the dark monotone
of the sea.
A romantic mood. A chair on an upper deck. Stars and a moon road over
the sea. Better to sit mumbling to himself than join in the chatter of
the cabin. The gayly lighted salon alive with laughter, music, and
voices touched his ears--a tiny music-box tinkling valiantly through the
dark sweep of endless yesterdays, endless to-morrows that sighed out of
the hidden water. The night was an old yesterday, the sea an old
to-morrow.
A sadness in his heart that kept him from smiling, a strange comedy of
words in his thought, a harlequin with the night sitting on his lap.
There were things to remember. There were memories. Unnecessary to
think. Words formed themselves into phrases. Phrases made dim pictures
as if the past was struggling fitfully to remain somehow alive.... His
good-bye to Mathilde. And long, stupid weeks in Berlin. The girl had
been absurd. Absurd, an impulsive little shrew. With demands. Four
months of Mathilde. Unsuspected variants of boredom. Clothed in her
unrelenting love like an Indian in full war dress. Yet to part with her
had made him sad.
The sea rolled mystically away from his eyes.
"An old pattern," his thought murmured, "holding eternities. And the
little music keeps tinkling downstairs. A butterfly of sound in the
night. Like a miniature of all living. Ah, I'm growing sentimental.
Sitting holding hands with the sea. She was sad when I left her. What of
it? Von Stinnes. Dear friend! No sadness there. He was right. New
phrases, graceful emotions. What an artist! But Warren couldn't write
the story. It has to be played by a hurdy-gurdy on a guillotine."
He let his words wander gropingly over the water until a silence entered
him. Thus life wandered away. The sea beat time to the passing of ships,
changing ships. But always the same beat. It was the constancy of the
stars that saddened him. September stars. The stars were yesterdays.
Yes, unchanging spaces, unchanging yesterdays, and a ship's orchestra
dropping little valses into the dark sea. He opened a silver
cigarette-case--an heirloom with a crest on it. Von Stinnes again.
Curious how he remembered him--a memory neither sad nor merry--but final
like the sea. A phantom of word and incident that bowed with an
enchanting irony out of an April day. The other, the fool with the
gun.... Good God, he was a murderer! He smiled. Von Stinnes, a
melancholy Pierrot doffing his hat with a gallant snicker to the moon.
Hazlitt, a pantaloon. Yet tragic. Yes, there was something in the café
that night--two men hurling themselves drunkenly against the taunting
emptiness of life. The rage had come because he had remembered Rachel. A
sudden mysterious remembering. A remembering that she was gone. It had
torn for a moment at his heart, shouted in his ears and driven him mad.
Something had taken Rachel out of him. Time had eaten her image out of
him. He had remembered this in the café. But why had he fired at the
stranger? Because the man's eyes blazed. Because he had become for an
instant an intolerable comrade.
"We fought each other for what someone else had done to us," Dorn
murmured. "Not Rachel but someone that couldn't be touched. Absurd!"
Hazlitt slipped like a shadow out of his mind--an unanswered question.
The throbbing ship with its tinkling orchestra, its laughing, chattering
faces, was carrying him home over a dark sea. At night he sat alone
watching the circle of water. Four vanished nights. Four more nights. He
sighed. The sadness that lay in his heart desired to talk to him. He
struggled to change his thinking. Ideas that were new to him arose at
night on the ship.
"Not now," he whispered. He was postponing something. But the night and
the rolling sea were swallowing his resistance. Words that would tell
him the pain in his heart waited for him.... "Anna. Dear God, Anna! It's
that. But why Anna now? It was easy before."
Words of Anna waited for him. He stared into the dark.
"I want her. I must go back to her. Anna, forgive me!"
A murmur that the darkness might understand. The long rolling sea
listened automatically. Weak fool! Yet he felt better. He could think
now without hiding from words that waited.
His heart wept in silence. The unbidden ones came.... Anna--standing
looking at him. A despair, a death in her face. Something tearing itself
out of her. What pain! But no sound. An agony deeper than sound in her
eyes. He trembled at the memory. The crucified happy one....
Dear God, would he always have to remember now? Other pictures were
gone. They had drifted away leaving little phrases dragging in his
thought. Now Anna had found him. Not a phantom, but the thing as he had
left it, without a detail gone. The gesture of her agony intact. His
thought shifted vainly away. He knew she was standing as he had left
her--horribly inanimate--and he must go back. He would hold her in his
arms, kiss her lips, kneel before her weeping for forgiveness. Ah! he
would be kind. At night he would sit holding her head in his arms,
stroking her hair; whispering, "Forget ... forget! A year or two of
madness--gone forever. But years now waiting for us. New years.
Everything is gone but us. That brought me back. Mists blew away. Dear
Anna, I love you."
He was making love to Anna, his wife. A droll finale. Tears came in his
eyes. There lay happiness. She would move again. The rigid figure that
he had left behind and that was waiting rigidly, would smile again. He
plunged desperately into the dream of words to be. The music from the
salon had ended. Better, silence. Nothing to remind one of the fugitive
tinkle of life. A dark, interminable sea, a moon road, a sigh of rolling
water and a ship throbbing in the night.
"Dear Anna, I love you." And she would smile, her white face and eyes
that were constant as the stars. Constant, eternal. Love that was no
mystery but a caress of sea nights. Forgive him. And her sorrow would
heal under his fingers. It would end all right. The two years--the
halloo of strange sterile things--buried under the smile of her eyes ...
deep, sorrowful, beautiful. Words to be. "Anna we will grow old
together, holding to each other and smiling; lovers whom the years make
always younger." Words that were to heal the strange sadness that had
come to him and start a dead figure into life.
He stood up and walked to the rail, staring into the churn of water
underneath.
"It's slow," he murmured. "Four more days."
Anna's love would hide the world from him. But a fear loosened his
heart. The smell of sea whirled in his veins.
"Perhaps," he thought dreamily, "perhaps there will be nothing. She will
say no."
He hesitated, straightened with a sigh.
"A wife deserter, a seducer, a murderer. I mustn't expect too much, eh,
von Stinnes?"
He smiled at the night. The sound of the Baron's name seemed to bring a
strength into him. He walked toward his berth, his head unnecessarily
high, smoking at his cigarette and humming a tune remembered from the
Munich cafés.
CHAPTER II
There were people in New York who came to Erik Dorn and said: "Tell us
about Europe. And Germany. Is it really true that...." As if there were
some inner revelation--a few precious phrases of undistilled truth that
the correspondent of the _New Opinion_ had seen fit to withhold from his
communications.
The skyscrapers were intact. Windows shot into the air. Streets bubbled
with people. A useless sky clung tenaciously to its position above the
roof-gardens. The scene was amiable. Dorn spent a day congratulating
himself upon the genius of his homeland. He felt a pride in the
unbearable confusion of architecture and traffic.
But in the nine months of his absence there had been a change; or at
least a change seemed to have occurred. Perhaps he had brought the
change with him. It was evident that the Niagara of news pouring out of
Europe into the press and periodicals of the day had inundated the
provincialism of his countrymen. People were floundering about in a daze
of facts--groping ludicrously through labyrinths of information.
It had been easy during the war. Democracy-Autocracy; a tableau to look
at. Thought had been unnecessary. In fact, the popular intelligence had
legislated against it. The tableau was enough--a sublimated symbol of
the little papier-maché rigmarole of their daily lives, the immemorial
spectacle of Good and Evil at death grips, limelighted for a moment by
the cannon in France. The unreason and imbecility of the mob crowned
themselves. Thought became _lèse majesté_.
Dorn returned to find the tableau had suffered an explosion. It had for
some mysterious reason glibly identified as reaction burst into
fragments and vanished in a skyrocket chaos. Shantung, Poland, little
nations, pogroms, plebiscites, Ireland, steel strikes, red armies,
Fourteen Points, The Truth About This, The Real Story of That, the
League of Nations, the riots in Berlin, in Dublin, Milan, Paris, London,
Chicago; secret treaties, pacts, betrayals, Kolchak--an incomprehensible
muddle of newspaper headlines shrieked from morning to morning and said
nothing. The distracted mob become privy for the moment to the vast
biological disorder eternally existent under its nose, snorted, yelped,
and shook indignant sawdust out of its ears.
In vain the editorial Jabberwocks came galloping daily down the slopes
of Sinai bearing new tablets written in fire. The original and only
genuine tableau was gone. The starry heavens which concealed the Deity
Himself had become a junkpile full of its fragments.
"In the temporary collapse of the banalities that conceal the world
from their eyes," thought Dorn, "they're trying to figure out what's
really what around them--and making a rather humorous mess of it."
He went about for several days dining with friends, conferring with
Edwards and the directors of the _New Opinion_, and slowly shaping his
"experiences abroad" into phonograph records that played themselves
automatically under the needles of questions.
At night, he amused himself with reading the radical and conservative
periodicals, his own magazine among them.
"The thing isn't confined to the bloated capitalists alone," he laughed
one afternoon while sitting with Warren Lockwood in the latter's rooms.
"The radicals are up a tree and the conservatives down a cellar. What do
you make of it, Warren?"
"I haven't paid much attention to it," the novelist smiled. "I've been
busy on a book. What's all this stuff about Germany, anyway? I read some
things of yours but I can't figure it out."
Dorn exploded with another laugh.
"You're all a pack of simpletons and bounders, still moist behind the
ears, Warren. The whole lot of you. I've been in New York three days and
I've begun to feel that there isn't a remotely intelligent human animal
in the place. I'm going to retreat inland. In Chicago, at least, people
know enough to keep their mouths shut. I'll tell you what the trouble
is in a nutshell. People want things straight again. They want black and
white so's they can all mass on the white side and make faces at the
evil-doers who prefer the black. They don't want facts, diagnosis,
theories, interpretations, reports. They want somebody to stand up and
announce in a loud, clear voice, 'Tweedledum is wrong. Tweedledee is
right, everything else to the contrary is Poppycock.' Thus they'd be
able to put an end to their own thinking and bury themselves in their
own little alleys and be happy again. You know as well as I, it makes
them miserable to think. Restless, irritable, indignant. It's like
having bites--the more they're scratched the worse they itch. It's the
war, of course. The war has been a failure. The race has caught itself
red-handed in a lie. Now everybody is running around trying to confess
to everybody else that what he said in the past was a lie and that the
real truth is as follows. And there's where the trouble begins. There
ain't no such animal."
"I see," said Lockwood, smiling.
"Yes, you do," Dorn grinned. "You don't see anything. The trouble is ...
oh, well, the trouble is as I said that the human race is out in the
open where it can get a good look at itself. The war raised a
curtain...."
"What about the radicals, though? They seem to be saying something
definite?"
"Yes, shooting one another down by the thousands in Berlin--as they will
some day in New York. Yes, the radicals are definite enough.... The
revolution rumbling away in Germany isn't a standup fight between
Capital and Labor. It's Radical _versus_ Radical. Just as the war was
Imperialist _versus_ Imperialist. One of the outstanding lessons of the
last decade is the fact that the world's natural enemies haven't yet had
a chance at each other, being too busy murdering among themselves. It's
coming, though. Another tableau. All this hysteria and uncertainty will
gradually simmer down into another right-and-wrong issue--with life
boiling away as always under a black and white surface."
"Do you think we're going to go red here?" Lockwood asked pensively.
"It'll take a little time," Dorn went on. He had become used to reciting
his answers in the manner of a schoolmaster. "But it's bound to happen.
Bolshevism is a logical evolution of democracy--another step downward in
the descent of the individual. Until the arrival of Lenine and Trotzky
on the field, there's no question but what American Democracy was the
most atrocious insult leveled at the intelligence of the race by its
inferiors. Bolshevism goes us one better, however. And just as soon as
our lowest types, meaning the majority of our politicians, thinkers, and
writers, get to realizing that bolshevism isn't a Red Terror with a bomb
in one hand and a dagger in the other, but a state of society surpassing
even their own in points of weakness and abnormal silliness, they'll
start arresting everybody who isn't a bolshevist. Capital will put up a
fight, but capital is already doomed in this country. It isn't respected
for its strength, vision, and creative powers. It is tolerated to-day
for no other reason than that it has cornered the platitude market. I'm
telling you, Warren, that when we get it drummed into our heads that
bolshevism isn't strong and powerful, but weaker, more prohibitive, more
sentimental, more politically inefficient, and generally worse than our
own government, we'll have a dictator of the proletaire in Washington
within a week."
Lockwood sighed unhappily and lighted a pipe.
"If you were talking about men and women maybe I could join you," he
answered. "But I got a hunch you're just another one of those newspaper
Neds. The woods are full of smart alecks like you and they make me kind
of tired, because I never can figure out what they're talking about. And
I'll be damned if they know themselves. They think in big hunks and keep
a lot of words floating in the air.... What old Carl calls 'Blaa ...
blaa....'"
The two friends sat regarding each other critically. Dorn nodded after a
pause.
"You're right," he smiled. "I'm part of the blaa-blaa. I heard them
blaa-blaa with guns in Munich one night. And up in the Baltic. You're
right. Anything one says about absurdity becomes absurd itself. And
talking about the human race in chunks is necessarily talking absurdly.
Tell me about that fellow Tesla."
"They deported him to Rooshia," Lockwood answered. "There was quite a
romance about the girl. That was your girl, wasn't it?"
"Yes, Rachel. She wouldn't tag along, eh?"
"No. I suppose they wouldn't let her. I don't know. There was a lot of
stuff in the newspapers."
The novelist seemed to hesitate on the brink of further information. His
friend smiled understandingly.
"It doesn't matter, Warren. Go ahead. Shoot."
"Cured, eh?"
"No--dead."
Lockwood nodded sagely, his mouth half open as if his words were staring
at Dorn.
"Well, there isn't much I know. I met a little girl the other day--Mary
James; know her?"
"Yes."
"She was quite excited. She told me something about an artist that used
to hang around Tesla. It seems that he kidnapped her and carted her to
Chicago. This James girl was all upset."
An interruption in the person of Edwards the editor occurred. The talk
lapsed once more into world problems with Lockwood listening,
skeptically open-mouthed.
Late in the evening Edwards suddenly declared, "You're making a big
mistake leaving New York, Erik. You've got a market now. Your stuff
went big."
"I'm through," Dorn answered. He arose and took his hat. "I'm leaving
for Chicago to-morrow."
He paused, smiling at Lockwood.
"I'm going home."
The novelist nodded sagely and murmured, "Uh-huh. Well, good-night."
Making his way slowly through the night crowds and electrophobia of
lower Manhattan, Dorn felt peacefully out of place. His thought had
become: "I want to get back to where I was." In the midst of the
mechanical carnival of Broadway he caught a memory of himself walking to
work with a stream of faces--of a sardonic Erik Dorn to whom the street
was a pattern; to whom the mysteries tugging at heels that scratched the
pavements were the amusing variants of nothing.
CHAPTER III
"Eddy."
"Yes, dear."
"I have some news for you."
The round, smiling face of Eddy Meredith that refused to change with
age, beamed at Anna.
"Erik's back."
The beam hesitated.
"He wrote. He's coming to see me."
"Anna...."
"Yes, dear, I know. It sort of frightens me, too. But," she laughed
quietly, "there is nothing to be frightened about. He didn't give any
address or I would have written him telling him."
"He must know you're divorced," Meredith spoke nervously.
"I don't know if he does, Eddy."
She reached her hand out and placed it over his, her eyes glancing at
the figure of Isaac Dorn. He was asleep in a chair.
"Please, dearest, don't worry," she whispered.
"It'll be hard for you."
Meredith's face acquired an abnormal expression.
"Maybe you'll feel different." He sighed, and Anna shook her head.
"When's he coming?"
"To-morrow night."
"Did he say anything in the letter?"
She stood up and went to a desk.
"Here it is." A smile touched her lips. "He always wrote curious
letters. Words and words when there was nothing to say. And a single
phrase when there was something." She read from a sheet of paper--"'Dear
Anna, I am coming home. Erik.'"
In the corner Isaac Dorn opened his watery eyes and stared at the
ceiling.
"Are you awake, father?"
"Yes, Anna."
"Did I tell you I'd heard from Erik?"
The old man mumbled in his beard.
"He'll be out to-morrow night," she said, smiling at him. He nodded his
head, stared at her, and seemed to doze off again.
"Father is failing," Anna whispered. Meredith had arisen. His face had
grown blank. He walked toward the hall, saying, "I'll go now."
Anna came quickly to him. Her hands reached his shoulders and she stood
regarding him intently.
"There's nothing any more, dear. It all ended long ago. Perhaps I'll be
sad when I see him. But sad only for him."
Meredith smiled and spoke with an effort at lightness.
"Remember, I don't hold you to anything. I want you only to be happy. In
your own way. Not in my way. And if it will mean happiness for you to
... for you to go back, why ..." He shrugged his shoulders and continued
to smile with hurt eyes.
"Eddy...." Her face came close to his. He hesitated until her arms
closed tightly around him. He felt her warm lips cling and open.
"You've never kissed like that before, Anna." There was almost a fear in
his voice.
"Because I never knew I wanted you," she whispered, "till now--till this
minute; till you said about my going back."
Her face was alive with emotion. A laugh, and she was in his arms again.
They stood embraced, murmuring tenderly to each other.
Later in her bedroom Anna undressed slowly. Her thoughts seemed to be
quarreling with her emotions, her emotions with her thoughts. This was
Erik's room--ancient torture chamber. Something still clinging to its
walls and furniture. Ah, nights of agony still in the air she breathed.
Her words formed themselves quietly. They came to peer into her
heart--polite visitors standing on tiptoe before a closed cell that hid
something.
"Is there anything?" she murmured. "No. I'm different."
She thought of the day she had come out of a grave and resumed living.
It had seemed as if she must learn to walk again, to breathe, to
discover anew the meanings of words. At first--listless, uncertain. Then
new steps, new meanings. Her mind moved back through the year. She had
wept only once--on the night of the divorce. But that was as one weeps
at an old grave, even a stranger's grave. The rest had been Eddy.
"I've changed. And I've been happier in many ways."
She was talking to herself. Why? "I'm a different Anna." But why think
of it? It was settled.
She lay in the bed and her eyes opened at the darkness. Here was where
she had lain when she had died. Each night, new deaths. Here the lonely
darkness that had once choked her, torn at her eyes and made her scream
aloud with pain. Things on the other side of a grave. Memories become
alien. Things of long ago, when the whisper of the dark came like an
insanity into her brain. "Erik gone! Erik gone! Gone!" A word that beat
at her until she died--to awake in the morning and stumble once more
through a day.
Now she regarded the dark quietly. Black. It had no shape. It lay
everywhere about her. But it did not burn nor choke. A peaceful,
harmless dark that could only whisper as if it were asking something.
What was it asking? Long arms of night reaching out for something. But
there was nothing to give, even if she wanted to. Not even tears.
Nothing to give, even though it whispered for alms. Whispered, "Erik ...
Erik!" But there was no little memory. No big memory. Dead. Torn out of
her. So the dark whispered to a dead thing in her that did not stir. A
smile like a tired little gesture passed over her. "Poor Erik, poor
Erik!" she murmured. "He must be thinking things that are no more."
She grew chill for an instant.... The memory of agonies, of the screams
her love had uttered as it died.
"Poor Erik!"
She buried her cool cheek restlessly in the pillow.
CHAPTER IV
Everything the same as it had been. As if he had stepped out of the
office for a walk around the block and come back. But a sameness that
had lost its familiarity. Old furniture, old faces, intensely a part of
his consciousness, yet grown strange. It was like forgetting suddenly
the name of a life-long friend.
His entrance created a stir of excitement. He had spent the preceding
two days arranging with the chief for his return. Barring the
Nietzschean who had functioned in his absence, none had expected him.
He pushed open the swinging door with an old gesture, and walked to his
desk. Here he sat fumbling casually with proofs and the contents of
pigeonholes. An old routine saying, "Pick me up." Familiar trifles
rebuked him. The staff sauntered up one by one to greet him. Crowley,
Mortinson, Sweeney.
"Well, glad to see you back. We've sure missed you around here."
Handshakes, smiles, embarrassed questions. A few strange faces to be
resented and ignored. A strange locker arrangement in a corner to be
frowned at. But the rest of it familiar, poignant--a world where he
belonged, but that somehow did not seem to fit as snugly as once.
Handshakes in the hall. A faint cheer in the composing-room as he
sauntered for the first time to the stone. Slaps on the back. Busy men
pausing to look at him with suddenly lighted faces. "Well, Mr. Dorn,
greetings! How are ye? You're looking fine...."
His world. It was the same, only now he was conscious of it. Before he
had sat in its midst unaware of more than a detail here, a gesture
there. Now he seemed to be looking down from an airplane--a strange
bird's-eye view of things un-strange.
He returned to his desk. The scene again reached out to embrace him.
Familiar colored walls, familiar chatter and flurry of the afternoon
edition going to press. He felt its embrace and yet remained outside it.
There were things in him now that could never be a part of the
unchanging old shop.
During a lull in the forenoon he leaned back in his chair and stared
into the pigeonholes. Memories like the unfocused images of a dream one
remembers in the morning jumbled in his thought. The scene around him
made things he recalled seem unreal. And the things he recalled made the
scene around him seem unreal. He tried to divert himself by remembering
definitely.... "We lay in a moon-lighted room and I whispered to her:
'You have given me wings.' I held a gun and pulled the trigger as he
jumped at me.... Then von Stinnes took the blame.... There's a
restaurant in Kurfursten Damm where Mathilde and I.... What a night in
Munich!... at the Banhoff. What do I remember most? Let me see.... Yes
... there was a note pinned on the blanket saying she was gone and I ...
But there's something else. What? Let me see...."
He tried to evoke clearer pictures. But the sentences that passed
through his mind seemed sterile, impotent. The past, set in motion by
his effort, evaded him. Its details blurred like the spokes of a swiftly
turning wheel. He smiled.
"A sinner's darkest punishment is forgetting his sins," he murmured to
himself. He thought of the evening before him. "Better not think of
that. Read proofs." He had deferred his meeting with Anna until he
should be able to come to her from his desk in the office.
As the day passed an impatience seized him. The unfinished event brought
a fear with it.... "I must put it out of my mind until to-night." But it
remained and grew.
In the afternoon he sat for an hour talking to Crowley and Mortinson. He
listened to them chuckle at his anecdotes. Their faces beaming with
affectionate interest seemed nevertheless to say, "All this is
interesting, but not very important. Not as important as sitting in the
office here and sending the paper to press day after day."
The words he was uttering bored him. He had heard them too often. Yet he
kept on talking, trying to bury his impatience and fear in the sound of
his voice. His anecdotes were no longer memories. They seemed to have
become complete in themselves, related to nothing that had ever
happened. He wondered as he talked if he were lying. These things he was
saying were somehow improvisations--committed to memory. He kept on
talking, eagerly, amusingly.
The afternoon passed. A walk through familiar streets and it was time
for dinner.
"I'm not hungry. I'll eat, though."
Yes, the evening ahead was important--very important. That accounted for
the tedium of the day. But it would be dark soon. There would be a
to-morrow. There had been other important evenings. It was not necessary
to get too nervous. He had writhed before in the embrace of interminable
hours, hours that seemed never to arrive. Then suddenly they came,
looming, swelling into existence like oncoming locomotives that opened
with a sudden rush from little discs into great roaring shapes. And once
arrived they had seemed to be present forever. But suddenly the roaring
shapes were little discs again. Hours died as people died--with an
abrupt obliteration. Yet each new moment, like each new face, became
again interminable. Time was an endlessness whose vanishing left its
illusion unchanged.
But now it was night.
"At the end of this block is a house. Two doors more. I have no key.
Ring the bell. God, but I'm an idiot. She'll answer the door herself.
What'll I say? That's her step. Hello? No. Walk in. Naturally."
He stopped breathing. The door opened. His legs were made of whalebone.
But there was a new odor in the hallway.... And something new here in
her face. He stood looking at the woman with whom he had lived for seven
years and when he said her name it sounded like that of a stranger. His
features had a habit of smiling. An old habit of narrowing one of his
eyes and turning up the right corner of his lips. He stood unconscious
of his expression, his smile a mask that had slapped itself
automatically over his face.
But they must talk. No, she had him at a disadvantage. Her silence could
say everything for her. His silence could say nothing. He reached
forward and took her hands.
"Anna...."
She was different. A rigidness gone. When he had left her she was
standing, stiffened. Now her hands were limp. Her face too, limp. Her
eyes that looked at him seemed blind.
"I've come back, as you see."
That was banal. One did not talk like that to a crucified one. Her hands
slipped away and she preceded him into the room. He looked to see his
father, but forgot to ask a question about him. Anna was standing
straight, looking straight at him. Not as if he were there, but as if
she were alone with something.
"You must let me talk first, Erik."
Willingly. It was difficult to breathe and talk at the same time. He sat
down as she moved into a chair opposite.
Something was happening but he couldn't tell yet. She was changed. Older
or younger, hard to tell. But changed. It was confusing to look at
someone and look at a different image of her. The different image was in
his mind. When she talked he could tell.
"Did you know that I had gotten a divorce, Erik?"
That was it, then. She wasn't his wife any more. A sort of hocus-pocus
... now you are my wife, now you aren't my wife.
"No, Anna."
"Four months ago."
"I was in Germany...." Mathilde, von Stinnes, _es lebe die Welt
Revolution_, made a circle in his head.
"Yes, I know. I'm sorry you didn't find out."
It was impossible. Something impossible was happening. Of course, he had
known it would happen. But he had fooled himself. A clever thing to do.
He was talking like a little boy reciting a piece from a platform.
"I've come back to you because everything but you has died. I begin with
the end of what I have to say. I came back from Europe ... because I
wanted you...."
She interrupted. "I wrote you a letter when I found out about her. I
sent it to New York."
"I never got it."
"I'm sorry."
Quite a formal procedure thus far. A letter had miscarried. One could
blame the mails for that. And a divorce. Yes, that was formal too ...
"whereas the complainant further alleges ..." He felt that his legs were
trembling. If he spoke again his voice would be unsteady. He did not
want that. But someone had to speak. Not she. She could be silent.
"Anna"--let his voice shake. Perhaps it would help matters. "You've
changed...."
"Yes, Erik...."
"I haven't much right to ask for anything else...."
Why in God's name could he think clearly and yet only talk like a
blithering fool? He would pause and gather his wits. But then he would
start making a speech ... four-score and seven years ago our
forefathers....
"I'm sorry you came, Erik...."
This couldn't be Anna. He closed his mouth and stared. A dream full of
noises, voices, Anna saying:
"We mustn't waste time regretting or worrying each other about
things.... It's much too late now."
He wanted to say. "It is impossible that you do not love me because you
once loved me, because we once lay in each other's arms ... seven
years." But there was no Anna to say that to. Instead, a stranger-woman.
An impulse carried him away. He was kneeling beside her, burying his
face in her lap. It didn't matter. There was no one to see. Perhaps her
hand would move gently over his hair. No, she was sitting straight.
Still alone with something. She was saying:
"I'm sorry. Please, Erik, don't."
"I love you."
"No. No! Please, let's talk...."
He raised his face. It was easier now that he was crying. He wouldn't
have to be grammatical ... or finish sentences.
"I understand, Erik. I was afraid of this. For you. But you mustn't.
'Shh! it's all over."
"No, Anna. It can't be. You are still Anna."
"Yes. But different."
He stood up.
"Really, Erik," she was shaking her head and smiling without expression,
"everything is over. I would rather have written it to you. I could have
made it plain. But I didn't know where to reach you."
He let her talk on and stood staring. Her face was limp. There was
nothing there. He was looking at a corpse. Not of her, but somehow of
himself. There in her eyes he lay dead--an obliteration. He had come
back to a part of him that had died. It was buried where one couldn't
see, somewhere behind her eyes.
"I have nothing more to say, Erik. But you must understand what I have
said. Because it means everything."
He listened, staring now at the room, remembering. They had lived
together once in this room. There was something beautiful about the
room. A face that held itself like a lighted lamp to his eyes. "Erik,
Erik, I love you. Oh, I love you so. I would die without you. Erik, my
own!" The walls and books and chairs murmured with echoes. The familiar
slanting books on their shelves. The large leather chairs under the
light. He must weep. The little things that were familiar--mirrors in
which he saw images and words ... a white body with copper hair fallen
across its ivory; white arms clinging passionately to him; a voice,
rapturous, pleading. He must weep because he had come back to a world
that had died, that looked at him whispering with dead lips, "Erik, my
beloved. Oh, I'm so happy ... so happy when you kiss me ... my
dearest...."
He closed his eyes as tears burned out of them. Anna in a blur. Still
talking quietly. Embarrassed by his weeping. He was offering her his
silence and his tears. He had never stood like this before a woman. But
it was something other than a woman--an ending. As if one came upon a
figure dead in a room and looked at it and said without surprise, "It is
I."
"So you see, Erik, it's all over. I can't tell you how. It took a long
time, but it seemed sudden. I don't know what to say to you, but it will
be better to leave nothing unsaid. I'm trying to think of everything.
I'm going to be married next month. Remember, I'm not the Anna you knew.
She isn't getting married again. I'm somebody totally different. I feel
different. Even when I walk. You never knew me. I can remember our years
together clearly. But it seems like a story that was once told me. Do
you understand, Erik? I am not bitter or sad, and I have no blame for
you. You are more than forgiven...."
No words occurred to him. Somewhere behind the smooth face of her he
fancied lived a woman whose arms were about his neck and whose lips were
hungering for him.
"It's all very clear to me, Erik. I've thought of it often. You made me
a part of yourself and when you deserted me, you took that with you, and
left me as I am; as I was born...."
"Will you play something on the piano for me, Anna?"
"No, Erik."
He seated himself slowly and remained with his head down. There was
nothing to think.
"I'll go in a few minutes," he muttered.
Anna, standing straight, watched him as if she were curious. He felt her
eyes trying to acquaint themselves with him, and failing. He was growing
angry. Better leave before he spoke again. Anger was in him. It was she
who had been the unfaithful one. He could smile at that. He stood up
then, and smiled. This was a part of life, to be felt and appreciated. A
handshake, a smile that von Stinnes would have applauded, and he would
have lived another hour.
"On the boat I made love to you," he said softly, "and I am not unhappy.
It is only--my turn to weep a bit."
He regarded her calmly. Yes, if he wanted to ... there was something
waiting.... Even though she thought it dead. If he wanted to, there was
a grave to open, slowly, with tears and old phrases.
She let him approach her. He felt her body grow rigid as he placed his
arms around her. His lips touched her cold cheek.
"It was to make sure that you were dead," he whispered.
She nodded.
... Another hour ended. He had returned. Now he was going away again and
the hour was a disc whirling away, already lost among other discs.
The street was chilly. He walked swiftly. His thoughts were assembling
themselves. Words that had lain under the tears in the room thawed out.
"She will marry Meredith and the old man will come to live with me. I
should have gone upstairs and said hello. But he was probably asleep.
I'll take my books and furniture. She won't need them with Meredith.
Get an apartment somewhere. How old am I? About forty. Not quite.
Changed completely. Curious, I didn't want her after she'd talked about
it. I suppose because I didn't really come for her--for somebody else.
Conrad in quest of his youth. Lost youth. How'd that damn book end?
Well, what of it, what of it? Things die without saddening one. Yet one
becomes sad. A make-believe. That's right. No matter what happens you
keep right on thinking and breathing as if it were all outside. Yes,
that's it--outside; a poignant comedy outside that talks to one. Death
is the only thing that has reality. We must not take the rest too
seriously. If I get too bored I can remember that I killed a man and
develop a stricken conscience. Poppycock!... The old man'll be a
nuisance. But he's quiet, thank God! Well, well ... I'm too civilized. I
suppose I made an ass of myself. No.... A few tears more or less...."
His thought paused. He walked, looking at things--curbings, houses,
street trees, lights in windows. He resumed, after blocks:
"Good God, what a thing happened to her! To change like that. An
awfulness about it. Death in life. Have I changed? No. I'm the same. But
that's a lie. I was in love once ... a face like a mirror of stars. The
phrase grows humorous with repetition. It doesn't mean anything. What
did it mean? Like trying to remember a toothache ... which tooth ached.
But it only lasted ... let's see. Rachel, Rachel.... Nothing. It was
gone a week after I came to her. The rest was--a restlessness ...
wanting something. Not having it. Well, it doesn't matter now."
In his hotel room he undressed without turning on the lights. He felt
nervous, vaguely afraid of himself.
"I might commit suicide. Rather stupid, though. I'll die soon enough.
Maybe a few more things left to see and feel and forget. Who knows? I'll
have to look up some of the ladies."
He crawled into bed and grew promptly sleepless.
"If I'm honest I'll be able to amuse myself. If not ... oh, Lord, what a
mess! No. Why is it? Life runs away like that--hits you in the eye and
runs away."
He closed his eyes and sighed. Like himself, the world was full of
people who lived on. Things ended for them and nobody could tell the
difference, not even themselves. Being happy--what the devil was that?
Happiness--unhappiness--you slept as soundly and ate as heartily.
"I'm a little tired to-night." An excuse for something. He was afraid.
He reached over to the small table near the bed and secured a cigarette.
Lighting it, he lay on his back, blowing smoke carefully into the dark
and watching the tobacco glow under his nose.
"Damn good thing I'm not an author. End up as a cross between
Maeterlinck and Laura Jean. One could write a volume on a cigarette
glowing in the dark."
He puffed until the tobacco was almost ended. He placed the
still-kindled stub on the table and sighed:
"Yes, that's me. Life has had its lips to me blowing smoke and fire out
of me. And now a table top on which to glow reminiscently for a moment.
And cool into ashes. Apologies to Laura Jean, Marie Corelli--and God."
CHAPTER V
Rachel, removing her heavy coat, walked briskly to the grate fire
burning in the rear of the studio. She stood looking into the flames and
rubbing the cold out of her hands.
"Well, I kept the appointment, Frank."
Brander, the artist, sprawled on a cushion-littered couch, sat up
slowly. His heavy eyes regarded her.
"We had quite a talk. You know his wife has remarried."
"That so?" Rachel laughed.
"Mr. Dorn sends you his regards."
"That'll be enough."
"I must say he's much cleverer than you, Frank."
"What did you talk about? Soul stuff, eh?"
"Oh, not entirely."
She came over to the couch and patted his cheeks.
"My hands--feel how cold they are."
"Never mind your hands. What did our good friend have to say for
himself?"
"Oh, talk." Her dark eyes glanced enigmatically from his stare.
Brander swore. "I want to know, d'you hear?"
"Dear me! Soulmate bares all." She laughed and walked with a sensual
swing down the long room.
Brander, without stirring, repeated, "Yes, everything."
Rachel's face sobered.
"Why, there's nothing Frank--of interest."
"Hell, I've caught you crying over him."
"Well, what of that? A woman's tears, you know, a woman's tears, don't
mean anything."
"They don't, eh?"
"No." The sight of him hunched amid the cushions seemed to appeal to her
humor. A large, strong monkey face against blue, green, and yellow
pillow faces. She laughed.
"Well, I'll tell you something. There's going to be no soul stuff in
this. You're mine. And if you start any flapdoodle hand-holding with our
good friend, I'll knock your heads together into a pulp."
He raised his large shoulders and glowered majestically. Rachel, paused
beside a canvas, regarded him with half-closed eyes and smiling lips.
"He sent his kindest wishes to you."
Brander left his seat and strode toward her.
"That's enough."
"And asked us to call. And if we couldn't come together, I might call
alone," she spoke quickly. Her eyes were mocking. An oath from Brander
seemed to amuse her.
"You're in love with him," he muttered, his fingers tightening about
her wrist. "Come, out with it! I want to know."
"Yes." Rachel's eyes grew taunting. "He is the knight in shining armor,
fairy prince, and the man in the moon."
"Never mind laughing. I want to know."
"Well, listen then." Her voice grew vibrant as if a laugh were talking.
"His eyes are the beckoning hands of dream. Poor Frank doesn't know what
that means."
Brander swung her toward the couch. She fell amid the cushions with a
laugh. He stood looking at her and then walked slowly.
"Don't touch me. Don't you dare!"
A grin crossed the artist's face.
"I know you and your kind," he answered, "mooney girls. Mooney-headed
girls. I've had 'em before."
"Keep away...."
Her face as he bent over her glowed with a sudden terror.
"Mooney girls," repeated Brander.
His hands reached her shoulders and held her carelessly as she squirmed.
"You're hurting me."
"I'll hurt you more. Talk out now. Are you in love with that loon?"
"Yes."
"More than me?"
"Yes."
Brander's face reddened. His hand struck her chin. Rachel shut her eyes
to hold back tears.
"Are you still?"
"Yes. Always." Her teeth clenched. "Go on, hit me, if you want to. I
love him. Love him always. Every minute. As I did. Do you hear? I love
him."
She opened her eyes and shivered. He was going to kill her. He tore at
her clothes, beating her with his fists until her head rattled on her
neck.
"I'll fix your love for him," Brander whispered. The pain of his blows
and shakings were making her dizzy.
"Frank ... dear, please...."
"Do you love him?"
"Yes."
She tried to bury her head in her arms, but he untwisted her gesture.
His hands, striking and clawing at her, made her scream. A mist--he had
seized her.
"Frank! Frank!"
"Do you love him now?"
She opened her eyes and stared wildly into Brander's face. It grinned at
her. Her arms clutched his body.
"No, no!" she cried, her mouth gasping. "Don't talk. Don't ask
questions. Love ..." she laughed aloud eagerly, brazenly. Her thin arms
tightened fiercely about him. "I love this."
CHAPTER VI
Isaac Dorn was sitting in a chair beside the gas-log fire in his son's
apartment. His thin fingers lay motionless on his knees. His head had
fallen forward.
It was early evening when his son entered the room. Dorn paused and
looked at the silent figure in the chair. The old man raised his head as
if he had been spoken to and muttered. "Eh?"
He saw his son and smiled. He would like to talk to him. It was lonely
all day in the house. And things were beginning to fade from his eyes.
It was hard even to see if Erik was smiling. Yes, his face was happy.
That was good. People should look as Erik did--amused. Wait ... wait
long enough and it all blurred and faded gently away.
"What made you so late, Erik?" he asked. Now his son was laughing. That
was a good sign.
"A lot of work at the office. The Russians are at it again. And I met an
old friend this afternoon. A dear old friend. Old friends make one
sentimental and garrulous. So we talked."
He noticed the old man's eyes close but continued addressing him.
"We discussed problems in mathematics. How many yesterdays make a
to-morrow. That gas-log smells to high heaven."
He leaned over and turned out the odorous flames. He noticed now that
the old man had dozed off again. But his talk went on. It had become a
habit to keep on talking to his father who dozed under his words. "She's
going to drop around and visit us. And we will perform a gentle autopsy.
Stir a little cloud of dust out of the bucket of ashes, eh? And perhaps
we will come to life for a moment. Who knows? At least, we shall weep.
And that is something. To be able to weep. To know enough to weep. Her
name is Rachel."
He paused and walked toward the window.
"Rachel," he repeated, his eyes no longer on the old man. "Her name is
unchanged...."
He opened von Stinnes's silver case and removed a cigarette. He stood
gazing at the snow on roofs, on window ledges, on pavements. Crystalline
geometries. Houses that made little puzzle pictures against the stagnant
curve of the darkening sky. A zigzag of leaden-eyed windows, and windows
ringed with yellow light peering like cat eyes into the winter dusk. The
darkness slowly ended the scene. Night covered the snow. The city opened
its tiny yellow eyes.
A street of houses before him. A cigarette under his nose. An old man
asleep. Outside the window the snow-covered buildings stood in the dark
like a skeleton world, like patterns in black and white.