It would be better for my purpose if you could hear the little clear
arpeggios of an obsolete music box, the notes as sweet as barley sugar;
for then the mood of Rosemary Roselle might steal imperceptibly into
your heart. It is made of daguerreotypes blurring on their misted
silver; tenebrous lithographs--solemn façades of brick with classic
white lanterns lifted against the inky smoke of a burning city; the
pages of a lady's book, elegant engravings of hooped and gallooned
females; and the scent of crumbled flowers.
Such intangible sources must of necessity be fragile--a perfume linked
to a thin chime, elusive faces on the shadowy mirror of the past,
memories of things not seen but felt in poignant unfathomable emotions.
This is a magic different from that of to-day; here perhaps are only
some wistful ghosts brought back among contemptuous realities--a man in
a faded blue uniform with a face drawn by suffering long ended, a girl
whose charm, like the flowers, is dust.
It is all as remote as a smile remembered from youth. Such apparent
trifles often hold a steadfast loveliness more enduring than the
greatest tragedies and successes. They are irradiated by an imperishable
romance: this is my desire--to hold out an immaterial glamour, a vapor,
delicately colored by old days in which you may discover the romantic
and amiable shapes of secret dreams.
I
It will serve us best to see Elim Meikeljohn first as he walked across
Winthrop Common. It was very early in April and should have been
cool, but it was warm--already there were some vermilion buds on the
maples--and Elim's worn shad-belly coat was uncomfortably heavy. The
coat was too big for him--his father had worn it for twenty years before
he had given it to Elim for college--and it hung in somber greenish
folds about his tall spare body. He carried an equally oppressive black
stiff hat in a bony hand and exposed a gaunt serious countenance.
Other young men passing, vaulting lightly over the wooden rail that
enclosed the common, wore flowing whiskers, crisply black or brown like
a tobacco leaf; their luxuriant waistcoats were draped with a profusion
of chains and seals; but Elim's face was austerely shaved, he wore
neither brocade nor gold, and he kept seriously to the path.
He was, even more than usual, absorbed in a semi-gloom of thought. It
was his birthday, he was twenty-six, and he had been married more
than nine years. Already, with his inherited dark temperament, he was
middle-aged in situation and feeling. He had been assistant to the
professor of philosophy and letters for three of those married years;
yes--he had been graduated when he was twenty-three. He arrived at an
entrance to the common that faced the row of houses where he had his
room, and saw that something unusual was in progress.
The front of his boarding house was literally covered with young men:
they hung over the small portico from steps to ridge, they bulged from
every window and sat astride of the dormer windows in the roof. Before
them on the street a camera had been set up and was covered, all save
the snout, by a black rubber cloth, backward from which projected the
body and limbs of the photographer.
The latter, Elim realized, was one of a traveling band that took
pictures of whatever, on their way, promised sufficient pecuniary
return. Here the operator had been in luck--he would sell at least
thirty photographs at perhaps fifty cents each. Harry Kaperton, a great
swell, was in his window with his setter, Spot; his legs, clad in bags
with tremendous checks and glossy boots, hung outward. On the veranda
were Hinkle and Ben Willing, the latter in a stovepipe hat; others wore
stovepipes set at a rakish angle on one ear. They were all irrepressibly
gay, calling from roof to ground, each begging the photographer to focus
on his own particular charm.
Perhaps fifty cents--Elim Meikeljohn would have liked a place in the
picture; he would like to possess one, to keep it as a memento of the
youthful life that flowed constantly about him, but the probable cost
was prohibitive. He even wished, as he paused before making his way up
the crowded veranda steps, that some one would ask him to stay and
have his picture taken with the rest. He delayed, hoping for the mere
formality of this friendliness. But it was not forthcoming. He had felt
that it wouldn't be; he had divined the careless silence with which the
men moved aside for him to mount. There was even a muttered allusion
to his famous Scotch thrift, contained in a sharper word. Elim didn't
mind--actively. He had been accustomed to the utmost monetary caution
since the first dawn of his consciousness. He had come to regard the
careful weighing of pennies as an integral part of his being. It had
always been necessary for the Meikeljohns, father and son, on their
rocky pastures. He didn't mind, but at the same time he bore a faint
resentment at the injustice of the marked and perceptible disdain of the
majority of his fellows.
They didn't understand, he told himself, still ascending to his room in
the third floor back. Every cent that he could squeeze from his small
salary must go back to the support of the invalid, his wife. He had
never, of course, explained this to any one in Cambridge. They wouldn't
be particularly interested and, in addition, his daily companions seemed
far too young for such serious confidences. In reality Harry Kaperton
was three years older than Elim; and Kaperton had been pleasantly at
college, racing horses, for seven years; many others were Elim's age,
but the maturity of the latter's responsibility separated them.
In his room he took off his formal coat and nankeen waistcoat and hung
them on a pegged board. The room was bare, with two uncurtained windows
that afforded a glimpse of the shining river; it contained a small
air-tight stove, now cold and black, and a wood box, a narrow bed, a
deal table with a row of worn text-books and neatly folded papers, a
stand for water pitcher and basin, and two split-hickory Windsor chairs.
Now it was filled with an afternoon glow, like powdered gold, and the
querulously sweet piping of an early robin.
He dipped his face and hands in cooling water and, at the table, with
squared elbows, addressed himself to a set task.