OUT OF THE SHADOW
"Until the day break and the shadows flee away."
--Song of Solomon.
In due time the vessel upon which David had embarked arrived at her
destination, the city of New York, and the lonely traveler stepped forth
unnoticed and unknown into the metropolis of the New World.
With, an instinct common to all adventurers, he made his way to the
Bowery, that thoroughfare whose name and character dispute the fame of
the Corso, the Strand and the Rue de Rivoli.
Amid its perpetual excitements and boundless opportunities for
adventure, David resumed the habits formed during that period of life
upon which the doors had now closed. His reputation had followed him,
and the new scenes, the physical restoration during the long voyage, the
necessity of maintaining his fame, all conspired to help him take a
place in the front rank of the devotees of the gambling rooms.
He did his best to enter into this new life with enthusiasm, but it had
no power to banish or even to allay his grief. He therefore spent most
of his time in wandering about among the wonders of the swiftly-growing
city, observing her busy streets, her crowded wharfs, her libraries,
museums and parks. This moving panorama temporarily diverted his
thoughts from that channel into which they ever returned, and which they
were constantly wearing deeper and deeper, and so helped him to
accomplish the one aim of his wretched life, which was to become even
for a single moment unconscious of himself and of his misery.
He had long ceased to ponder the problems of existence, for his
philosophy of life had reached its goal at the point where he was too
tired and broken-hearted to think. He could hardly be said to "live" any
longer, and his existence was scarcely more than a vegetation. Like a
somnambulist, he received upon the pupils of his eye impressions which
did not awaken a response in his reason.
If any general conceptions at all were being formed he was unconscious
of them. What he really thought of the phenomena of life upon which he
thus blindly stared, he could not have definitely told; but in some
vague way he felt as he gazed at the multitudes of human beings swarming
through the streets, that all were, like himself, the victims of some
insane folly which had precipitated them into some peculiar form of
misery or crime.
And so, as he peered into their faces, he would catch himself wondering
what wrong this man had done, what sin that woman had committed, and
what sorrow each was suffering. That all must be in some secret way
guilty and miserable, he could not doubt, for it seemed to him
impossible that in this world of darkness and disorder, any one should
have been able to escape being deceived and victimized. "No man," he
thought, "can pick his way over all these hot plowshares without
stepping on some of them. None can run this horrible gauntlet without
being somewhere struck and wounded. What has befallen me, has in some
form or other befallen them all. They are trying, just as I am, to
conceal their sorrows and their crimes from each other. There is nothing
else to do. There is no such thing as happiness. There is nothing but
deception. Some of the keener ones see through my mask as I see through
theirs. And yet some of them smile and look as gay as if they were
really happy. Perhaps I can throw off this weight that is crushing me,
as they have thrown off theirs--if I try a little harder." Such were the
reflections which revolved ceaselessly within his brain.
But his efforts were in vain. In this life he had but a single
consolation, and that was in a friendship which from its nature did not
and could not become an intimacy.
Among the many acquaintances he had made in that realm of life to which
his vices and his crimes had consigned him, a single person had awakened
in his bosom emotions of interest and regard. There was in that circle
of silent, terrible, remorseless parasites of society, a young man whose
classical face, exquisite manners and varied accomplishments
set him apart from all the others. He moved among them like a
ghost,--mysterious, uncommunicative and unapproachable.
He had inspired in his companions a sort of unacknowledged respect, from
the superiority of his professional code of ethics, for he never preyed
upon the innocent, the weak, or the helpless, and gambled only with the
rich or the crafty. He victimized the victimizers, and signalized his
triumph with a mocking smile in which there was no trace of bitterness,
but only a gentle and humorous irony.
From the time of their first meeting he had treated David in an
exceptional manner. In unobserved ways he had done him little
kindnesses, and proffered many delicate advances of friendship, and not
many months passed before the two lonely, suspicious and ostracized men
united their fortunes in a sort of informal partnership and were living
in common apartments.
The most marked characteristic of this restricted friendship was a
disposition to respect the privacy of each other's lives and thoughts.
In all their intercourse through the year in which they had been thus
associated they had never obtruded their personal affairs upon each
other, nor pried into each other's secrets.
There was in Foster Mantel a sort of sardonic humor into which he was
always withdrawing himself. In one of their infrequent conversations the
two companions had grown unusually confidential and found themselves
drifting a little too near that most dangerous of all shoals in the
lives of such men--the past.
With a swift, instinctive movement both of them turned away. Each read
in the other's face consciousness of the impossibility of discussing
those experiences through which they had come to be what they were. Such
men guard the real history of their lives and the real emotions of their
hearts as jealously as the combinations of their cards. The old,
ironical smile lighted up Mantel's features, and he said:
"We seem to have a violent antipathy to thin ice, Davy, and skate away
from it as soon as it begins to crack a little beneath our feet."
"Yes," said his friend, shrugging his shoulders, "it is not pleasant to
fall through the crust of friendship. There is a sub-element in every
life a too sudden plunge into which might result in a fatal chill. We
had all better keep on the surface. I am frank enough to say that the
less any one knows about my past, the better I shall be satisfied."
"I wish that I could keep my own self from invading that realm as easily
as I can keep others! Why is it that no man has ever yet been able to
'let the dead past bury its dead'? It seems a reasonable demand."
"He is a poor sexton--this old man, the Past. I have watched him at his
work, and he is powerless to dig his own grave, however many others he
may have excavated!"
"The Present seems as helpless as the Past. I wonder if the future will
heap enough new events over old ones to hide them from view?"
"Let a shadow bury the sun! Let a wave bury the sea," answered David
bitterly.
"I am afraid you take life too seriously," said Mantel, on whose face
appeared that inexplicable smile behind which he constantly retired.
"For, after all, life is nothing but a jest--a grim one, to be sure, but
still a jest. The great host who entertains us in the banqueting hall of
the universe must have his fun as well as any one, and we must laugh at
his jokes even when they are at our expense. This is the least that
guests can do."
"What, even when they writhe with pain?"
"Why not? We all have our fun! You used to scare timid little girls with
jack-lanterns, put duck eggs under the old hen, and tie tin cans to
dogs' tails. Where did you learn these tricks, if not from the great
Trickmaster himself? Humor is hereditary! We get it from a divine
original, and the Archetypal Joker must have His fun. It is better to
take His horseplay in good part. We cannot stop Him, and we may as well
laugh at what amuses Him. There is just as much fun in it as a fellow is
able to see!"
"Then there is none, for I cannot see any. But if you get the comfort
you seem to out of this philosophy of yours, I envy you. What do you
call it? There ought to be a name for a metaphysic which seems to
comprehend all the complex phenomena of life in one single, simple,
principle of humor!"
"How would 'will-o'-the-wispism' do? There is a sort of elusive element
in life, you see. Nature has no goal, yet leads us along the pathway by
shows, enchantments and promises. She pays us in checks which she never
cashes. She holds out a glittering prize, persuades us that it is worth
any sacrifice, and when we make it, the bubble bursts, the sword
descends, and you hear a low chuckle."
"You have described her method well enough, but how is it that you get
your fun out of your knowledge?"
"It is the illusion itself! The boy chasing the rainbow is happier than
the man counting his gold!"
"But what of that dreadful day of disenchantment when the illusion no
longer deceives?"
"Ha! ha! Why, just put on your mask and smile. You can 'make believe'
you are happy, can't you?"
"I have got beyond that," David answered savagely. "I am not sitting for
my picture to this great, grim artist friend of yours, who first sticks
a knife into me, and then tells me to look pleasant that he may
photograph me for his gallery of fools! I am tired of shams and
make-believes. Life is a hideous mockery, and I say plainly that I
loathe and abhor it!"
"Tush, tush, whatever else you do or do not do, keep sweet, David! Whom
the gods would destroy they first make mad! You take yourself and your
life too seriously, I tell you. Everything will go its own way whether
you want it to or not! I used to read the classics, once, and some
fragments of those old fellows' sublime philosophy are still fresh in
my memory. There is a scrap in one of the Greek tragedies--the Oedipus,
I think, that has always kept running through my head:
"'Why should we fear, when Chance rules everything,
And foresight of the future there is none?
'Tis best to live at random as we can!
But thou, fear not that marriage with thy mother!
Many, ere now, have dreamed of things like this,
But who cares least about them, bears life best!'
"There is wisdom for you! 'Who cares least about them bears life best!'
It's my philosophy in a nut-shell."
"Look here, Mantel," said David, "your philosophy may be all right,
provided a man has not done a--provided--provided a man has not
committed a-a crime! I don't care anything about your past in detail;
but unless you have done some deed that hangs around your neck like a
mill-stone, you don't know anything about the subject you are
discussing."
Mantel dropped his eyes, and sat in silence. For the first time since
David had known him, his fine face gave some genuine revelation of the
emotions of his soul. Great tears gathered in his eyes, and his lips
trembled. In a moment, he arose, took his hat, laid his hand gently upon
the arm of his friend, and said "David, my dear fellow, we are skating
on that thin ice again. We shall fall through if we are not careful, and
get that chill you were talking about. Let's go out and take a walk.
Life is too deep for either you or me to fathom. I gave it up as a bad
job long ago. What you just said about having a knife stuck into you
comes the nearest to my own notion. I feel a good deal as I fancy a
butterfly must when he has been intercepted in a gay and joyous flight
and stuck against the wall with a sharp pin, among a million other
specimens which the great entomologist has gathered for some purpose
which no one but himself can understand. All I try to do is to smile
enough to cover up my contortions. Come, let us go. We need the air."
They went down into the streets and lost themselves in the busy crowd of
care-encumbered men. Half unconscious of the throngs which jostled them,
they strolled along Broadway, occasionally pausing to gaze into a shop
window, to rest on a seat in a park, to listen to a street musician, or
to watch some passing incident in the great panorama which is ever
unrolling itself in that brilliant and fascinating avenue.
Suddenly Mantel was startled by an abrupt change in the manner of his
companion, who paused and stood as if rooted to the pavement, while his
great blue eyes opened beyond their natural width with a fixed stare.
Following the direction of their gaze, Mantel saw that they were fixed
on a blind beggar who sat on a stool at the edge of the sidewalk, silent
and motionless like an old snag on the bank of a river--the perpetual
stream of human life forever flowing by. His head was bare; in his
outstretched hand he held a tin cup which jingled now and then as some
compassionate traveler dropped him a coin; by his side, looking up
occasionally into his unresponsive eyes, was a little terrier, his
solitary companion and guide in a world of perpetual night.
The face of the man was a remarkable one, judged by almost any standard.
It was large in size, strong in outline, and although he was a beggar,
it wore an expression of power, of independence and resolution like that
of another Belisarius. But the feature which first arrested and longest
held attention, was an enormous mustache. It could not have been less
than fourteen inches from tip to tip, was carefully trimmed and trained,
and although the man himself was still comparatively young, was white as
snow. Occasionally he set his cup on his knee and with both hands
twisted the ends into heavy ropes.
It was a striking face and exacted from every observer more than a
passing look; but remarkable as it was, Mantel could not discover any
reason for the strained and terrible interest of his companion, who
stood staring so long and in such a noticeable way, that he was in
danger of himself attracting the attention of the curious crowd.
Seeing this, Mantel took him by the arm. "What is the matter?" he asked.
David started. "My God," he cried, drawing his hand over his eyes like a
man awakening from a dream; "it is he!"
"It is who? Are you mad! Come away! People are observing you. If there
is anything wrong, we must move or get into trouble."
"Let me alone!" David replied, shaking off his hand. "I would rather die
than lose sight of that man."
"Then come into this doorway where you can watch him unobserved, for you
are making a spectacle of yourself. Come, or I shall drag you."
With his eyes still riveted on that strange countenance, David yielded
to the pressure of his friend's hand and they retired to a hallway
whence he could watch the beggar unobserved. His whole frame was
quivering with excitement and he kept murmuring to himself: "It is he.
It is he! I cannot be mistaken! Nature never made his double! But how he
has changed! How old and white he is! It cannot be his ghost, can it? If
it were night I might think so, but it is broad daylight! This man is
living flesh and blood and my hand is not, after all, the hand of a
mur--"
"Hush!" cried Mantel; "you are talking aloud!"
"Yes, I am talking aloud," he answered, "and I mean to talk louder yet!
I want you to hear that I am not a murderer, a murderer! Do you
understand? I am going to rush out into the streets to cry out at the
top of my voice--I am not a murderer!"
Terrified at his violence, Mantel pushed him farther back into the
doorway; but he sprang out again as if his very life depended upon the
sight of the great white face.
"Be quiet!" Mantel cried, seizing his arm with an iron grip.
The pain restored him to his senses. "What did I say?" he asked
anxiously.
"You said, 'I am not a murderer,'" Mantel whispered.
"And it is true! I am not!" he replied, with but little less violence
than before.
"Look at this hand, Mantel! I have not looked at it myself for more than
three years without seeing spots of blood on it! And now it looks as
white as snow to me! See how firm I can hold it! And yet through all
those long and terrible years, it has trembled like a leaf. Tell me, am
I not right? Is it not white and firm?"
"Yes, yes. It is; but hush. You are in danger of being overheard, and if
you are not careful, in a moment more we shall be in the hands of the
police!"
"No matter if I am," he cried, almost beside himself, and rapturously
embracing his friend. "Nothing could give me more pleasure than a trial
for my crime, for my victim would be my witness! He is not dead. He is
out there in the street. Mantel, you don't know what happiness is! You
don't know how sweet it is to be alive! A mountain has been taken from
my shoulders. I no longer have any secret! I will tell you the whole
story of my life, now."
"Not now; but later on, when we are alone. Let us leave this spot and go
to our rooms."
"No, no! Don't stir! We might lose him, and if we did, I could never
persuade myself that this was not a dream! We will stay here until he
leaves, and then we will follow him and prove beyond a doubt that this
is a real man and not the vision of an overheated brain. We will follow
him, I say, and if he is really flesh and blood, and not a poor ghost,
we will help him, you and I. Poor old man! How sad he looks! And no
wonder! You don't know of what I robbed him!"
David had now grown more quiet, and they stood patiently waiting for the
time to come when the old beggar should leave his post and retire to his
home, if home he had.
At last he received his signal for departure. A shadow fell from the
roof of the tall building opposite, upon the pupil of an eye, which
perhaps felt the darkness it could not see. The building was his dial.
Like millions of his fellow creatures, he measured life by advancing
shadows.
He arose, and in his mien and movements there was a certain majesty.
Placing his hat upon his storm-beaten head, he folded the camp-chair
under his arm, took the leading string in his hand and followed the
little dog, who began picking his way with fine care through the surging
crowd.
Behind him at a little distance walked the two gamblers, pursuing him
like a double shadow. A bloodhound could not have been more eager than
David was. He trembled if an omnibus cut off his view for a single
instant, and shuddered if the beggar turned a corner.
Unconscious of all this, the dog and his master wended their way
homeward. They crawled slowly and quietly across a street over which
thundered an endless procession of vehicles; they moved like snails
through the surf of the ocean of life. Arriving at length at the door of
a wretched tenement house, the blind man and his dog entered.
As he noted the squalor of the place, David murmured to himself, "Poor
old man! How low he has fallen!"
Several minutes passed in silence, while he stood reflecting on the
doctor's misery, his own new happiness and the opportunities and duties
which the adventure had opened and imposed. At last he said to his
friend, "Do you know where we are? I was so absorbed that I didn't
notice our route at all."
"Yes," Mantel answered. "I have marked every turn of the way."
"Could you find the place again?"
"Without the slightest difficulty."
"Be sure, for if you wish to help me, as I think you do, you will have
to come often. I have made my plans in the few moments in which I have
been standing here, and am determined to devote my life, if need be, to
this poor creature whom I have so wronged. I must get him out of this
filthy hole into some cheerful place. I will atone for the past if I
can! Atone! What a word that is! With what stunning force its meaning
dawns upon me! How many times I have heard and uttered it without
comprehension. But somehow I now see in it a revelation of the sweetest
possibility of life. Oh! I am a changed man; I will make atonement!
Come, let us go. I am anxious to begin. But no, I must proceed with
caution. How do I know that this is his permanent home? He may be only
lodging for the night, and when you come to-morrow, he may be gone! Go
in, Mantel, and make sure that we shall find him here to-morrow. Go, and
while you find out all you can about him, I will begin to search for
such a place as I want to put him in. We will part for the present; but
when we meet to-night we shall have much to talk about. I will tell you
the whole of this long and bitter story. I am so happy, Mantel. You
can't understand! I have something to live for now. I will work, oh, you
do not know how I will work to make this atonement. What a word it is!
It is music to my ears. Atonement!"
And so in the lexicon of human experience he had at last discovered the
meaning of one of the great words of our language. After all, experience
is the only exhaustive dictionary, and the definitions it contains are
the only ones which really burn themselves into the mind or fully
interpret the significances of life.
To every man language is a kind of fossil poetry, until experience makes
those dry bones live! Words are mere faded metaphors, pressed like
dried flowers in old and musty volumes, until a blow upon our heads, a
pang in our hearts, a strain on our nerves, the whisper of a maid, the
voice of a little child, turns them into living blossoms of odorous
beauty.