Standing beside the dead body of this man a future with Isabel took form
in my heart. Love is a great solemnity itself. And in this moment I felt
that Isabel shared my vision.
We buried Uncle Tom. Then Isabel began to prepare to sail for America.
Of course no trip now around the world. She must go back to Connecticut,
but she must go alone. That was her wish. It was understood that I
should follow her later. This much was definite between us. Many plans
filled her mind. She had a large estate to put in order. There were
lawyers and agents to consult. I really wished to return with her in
order to assist her. But she said: "It is best for you to stay here for
a while. We shall write to each other. Later I wish you to come."
The question in my mind was not shall we be married, but when shall we
be married. But Isabel's mood was too serious, too majestic for me to
broach these definite subjects now. I looked into her eyes. It seemed to
me that my thoughts were silently communicated to her. She pressed my
hand gently. And so after some days of packing, in which I helped her
constantly, she sailed away and left me in Rome.
I tried to work but the time would not pass. All my drawings and
etchings were failures. What after all was art to me except a diversion?
Too late! The only art that I ever could achieve was that of giving
happiness to Isabel and being worthy of her devotion. Her letters came
frequently, always so full of wise observations, striking fancies and
imagery; so many with thanks for what I had been to her. She wrote me
that Uncle Tom's will, as he had dictated it, had been probated and
acquiesced in by every one.
Six months went by. I had gone with Reverdy to Lake Maggiore to escape
the heat in Rome. While I was there a letter came from Isabel asking me
to come to her. In three weeks I was by her side, having first placed
Reverdy in Phillips Exeter. We were together in the great homestead
which had belonged to Uncle Tom's father, there in Connecticut. It was
full of the treasures of old times. Priceless things gathered on
Isabel's travels--a great house set in a wonderful expanse of grounds
about a mile from a pretty village. It was October. The earth was aflame
with the fires of the forest. Jays cried from the maples. The air was
subtle with a delicate scent of pine needles and fallen leaves.
She had other guests in the house. But they dispersed themselves
gracefully. We were much alone, reading, listening to music played
softly by one of her woman friends at a distance in the drawing room.
Our favorite place was the window seat in the library, heaped with
pillows and overlooking lilac and rose bushes, where we could see the
great elms, the fountain, the country beyond. We had many walks
together; and one afternoon we came to a place on a woodland path amid
hills, trees towering above us, a brook playing below us. The air was
hushed with a passionate Orpheus, and there I sensed her yearning. I
heard the rhythm of her flesh singing to me. Her hands were stretched
toward me, the pupils of her eyes grew wide as if a vision stood before
her. For the first time I kissed Isabel upon the lips.
Hitherto we had breathed the rarefied air of the peaks, seen the white
light of the upper spaces, felt the passionless gods about us. Now we
were descending the rich valleys, to the clustered vines, to the places
of soft sounds and voluptuous air, to havens of sleep, to the
replenishment of our souls in the bridal supper.
That night we sat again in the window seat. Her other guests faded here
and there. For a time there were shadowy fancies from the piano, then
the house was stilled. But outside an April rain was falling. It pelted
the windowpanes as softly as driven petals. It made a fairy swish as of
far-off waves, and we sat together in a dim light. Isabel's eyes were
closed. Her head rested partly on my shoulder, partly on a pillow. Her
hand lay limp in my hand. Her whole being was relaxed. We were quite
alone.
Isabel was with me body and mind. But a terror crept upon me. My very
hair trembled. I pressed her hand to my breast. It seemed only an act of
will, however, not of emotion. I drew her head close to my breast. All
these actions arrayed themselves before my detached observation.
Paralyzing self-analysis preoccupied me. I kissed her upon the brow, the
eyes, with pressure and strength upon the lips. I was not acting; I was
thinking out these demonstrations. The consciousness that I was
deceiving Isabel broke my emotional concentration. Could she sense that
my heart was beating, but with terror? Where were the flames that had
sung to me ethereally before? Where the song out of the flesh, but too
subtle for the ears of flesh? Yet I drew her closer to me, folded her
tightly against my breast. My imaginative strength was more and more
absorbed in self-analysis, into wonder as to what weakness had taken
place in me. For here was Isabel dissolved in my arms and how could I
continue this futile demonstration? But why also desist? The sweat began
to stand out on my forehead. What should I say? Uncle Tom no longer
stood between us. Isabel was my bride. There were no barriers to break
down, no protests to overcome. We were both of an age and of an
experience where formalities lose their significance. The goddess had
descended to me and here was I a witless fool. Finally there flashed
into my mind what she had said to me in Rome: "My friend, for this once
be Orpheus--Orpheus was once Dionysius. Orpheus, tranquil and inspired,
touched the quiet lyre surrounded by the Muses. Orpheus had been
Dionysius drinking wine, beating cymbals. Be Orpheus, my friend, and
take into your being these beauties of the mind which are given
us--these flowers of friendship attend and keep for our garden."
These words ran through my tortured brain. They completed my enervation.
But I could utter none of them to Isabel. What fear that hatred was
budding in the heart of this woman at my side! I pressed her hands every
now and then to see what was moving in her; for as my mind would not
cease to analyze, analysis became keener. Always she returned the
pressure. Her kisses at first given with ardent emotion were now lisped
softly against my cheek. So we sat side by side. The rain pelted the
window, the clock chimed. And the night was passing. A proposal of
marriage seemed belated, incongruous. Yet it came into my mind as a
protective coloration to more immediate expressions of the moment.
Men have lost women because they dishonored them or betrayed them or
changed for the time toward them--for a thousand reasons. But look at
me. What were friendship, truth, honor, the service of all that I was,
love in its highest and deepest sense, understanding, sympathy with all
of Isabel's flights of the mind, if I could not come to her with a
promise of the future? She was not only the revelation of all that I had
desired and of all that I had missed in life, but she was the symbol of
a fate that has come past the appointed hour. I was the father of
Reverdy by Dorothy, whom I loved with a heart's beginning; and I was the
defeated lover of the ideal whom I had found too late.
In these circumstances of myself and Isabel were symbolized the lives of
all men who give their devotions to lesser loves, who find their
creations and their work imperfect or worthless when the planting season
has passed.
As hollow as the words sounded, I nevertheless asked Isabel to be my
wife. And Isabel without changing her position and without opening her
eyes said in the quietest of voices: "You know I love you. You know I
have loved you in every way a woman can. I love you as I loved Uncle
Tom; for you are my friend, as he was. But what will the future be? I
have been compelled all my life to center my thought upon books and
music, friends, travel, and devotion to Uncle Tom. I have developed this
power of concentration and self-denial; but would you bring me to live
over again what I lived with Uncle Tom? Oh, my friend, no man can
understand and fathom the maternal desire in a woman. It is a mystery
which she alone knows."
What life remained in me sank down just as a stricken eagle falls into
the thickets and is still; and breathes quietly and draws the film over
its eyes. I could not answer her. The October air was mild. The house
was overheated. A window was open. An entering wind began to stir my
hair. I thought of how it must look to another, these beginnings of
gray hair. Age had come to me. And I could see Isabel with my feelings
alone, sitting beside me so pale, so tender, so sorrowful.
The clock strikes three. Isabel arouses, turns slightly from me, and
gradually sits up. "That was three, wasn't it?" she asked. "Your train
leaves early in the morning. You must sleep a few hours. I shall not see
you at breakfast. The maid will bring it to you. Shall we have a glass
of wine together?"
She poured wine for me and we drank. She handed me a lighted candle.
Then she stood and searched my face. She offered her lips to me, turned
and walked away.
I stood with the candle in my hand, watching her until she passed
through the shadows and darkness of the hall. The house was without a
sound. No step of her came from the hall or the stair. I still stood
with the candle in that silence and fluttering darkness. Then I went to
my room.