welled up as if from the depths of him, and he was physically blinded by
the dim intensity of his emotion. He frowned painfully. He began to
speak aloud again. "Too much, Charles, my boy. Too old for this kind of
thing. Damn! She's too good--too lovely--"
There was a knock at the door. Johnson, Mr. Hurst's man, was never
allowed in the room while his master was dressing, since Charles was
frankly embarrassed by the presence of a valet.
"Hello! Hello, Johnson."
"Telephone, sir. Mrs. Hurst wanted me to ask if you'd like to come, or
if I was to tell them to call later."
Julia! The mad hope that it was Julia.
"It's Mr. Goode, sir. He says he can't give me the message."
God, but I'm ridiculous! "Mr. Goode, eh?" Charles, very abstracted,
buttoned on his shirt. "Well, you tell Goode I'll call him later,
Johnson." As Johnson, assenting in his delicately servile manner, was
turning away, Charles beckoned him back. "Eh, Johnson, just between you
and me, while the madam isn't looking. Suppose you bring me up--just a
little, you know--Old Scotch. God damn this collar button!"
Johnson, who was a blond young man with a wise subdued air, smiled a
little. Finding it flattered his employers, he had cultivated the sad
manner of a professional mourner. "Very good, sir."
As Johnson disappeared, Charles's ruminations broke forth afresh. "'Very
good, sir!' Damn little son-of-a-gun! He'd do well in a play. Got a fine
contempt for the old man, Johnson has. Yep, by God, Catherine has got me
on breeding. Servants never bat an eye at her. Might have been born with
a gold spoon in her mouth. Well, she's a pink-face and the old boy's a
rough-neck. Tra-la-la--" He resumed Musetta's Waltz.
"That Blanche--that damned little hyper-sexed, hyper-sophisticated,
hyper-everything--By Jove, she'd pinch the gold plate out of a mummy's
tooth!" When Charles talked he allowed his voice gradually to mount the
scales until it broke on a falsetto note. It was part of the horseplay
with which his dramatic sense responded, in self-derision, to the
attitude of those about him. Catherine insisted on his occasional
attendance at the opera, and Pagliacci, which he heard first, was his
favorite piece. He identified himself with the title part, though it was
a little confusing for him to imagine himself a deceived husband. He
felt that the author of the libretto had confused the issue. "Blanche,
by God, that Blanche!" He referred to a young woman who took minor parts
in cinema plays. He wanted to be rid of her. She was statuesque and
theatric, but as his intimacy with her had grown she had relapsed into
habitual vulgarities which grated on him. Charles revered a lady.
Besides, since becoming interested in Julia he wanted to forget
everything else. Blanche was realizing that she had destroyed an
illusion through which she might have furthered her ambition, and she
was growing recklessly spiteful and crude. Only the day before Charles
had sent her money which she had kept, though she reviled him for
sending it. His humility made it impossible for him to condemn any one,
except in extreme moments of self-defense. "Poor little girl! By Jove, I
wonder if she did love me a little after all!" He shook his head, and
smiled with an expression of sentimental weariness. He put Blanche away
as incongruous with the thought of Julia which filled him with
happiness.
"Sick o' the whole mess of 'em. That fellow, Goode, making a damn
jackass of himself every time a chorus girl winks at him. The whole damn
cheap, sporting, booze-fighting lot of nincompoops. Goode's a
grandfather and he looks it."
The door moved softly, there was a light rap, and Johnson re-entered
with a tray. Charles laid his hair brushes down. "Looks good to me,
Johnson." Johnson smiled his sad, half-perceptible smile. "Shall I mix
it, sir?"
"No--Johnson. No." With an air of ostentatious casualness, Charles
poured whisky into a glass and held it up to the light. "Good stuff."
Johnson kept his still smile, but did not speak.
Charles drank with deliberate noisiness. When he set the glass down he
drew a deep theatric sigh. His face was solemn. "Better try some,
Johnson."
The man flushed slightly. "Anything else?"
"No, no. Coming downstairs. The madam had her breakfast yet?"
"I don't know, sir. That is, I think so, sir." Johnson turned away and
the door swung soundlessly across his rigid back.
Charles gave himself a little more whisky that brought the tears of
relaxation to his eyes. He wondered if he were mistaken about Julia. He
dared not consider future potentialities too definitely, though he told
himself that, whatever came, he was ready for it. Would she ever let him
put his head in her lap? He felt good and complacent when he imagined
it. The pose it represented was assumed with such sincerity and was so
remote from the aspect of him with which his wife was acquainted, or
even the guise he bore to his sporting friends. It was pleasant to him
to recognize this secret and not too obvious self. "Well, Charles, you
old rooster, you may have broken most of the commandments, and you can't
talk Maeterlinck and Tagore with the old lady, but there's something to
you they all miss. The dear!" he added, thinking of Julia.
* * * * *
It was Saturday afternoon. The holiday crowd moved in endless double
lines along an endless street. As Julia walked with it there was a hill
before her and the stream of motor cars floated over the crest against a
pale sky hazy with dust. Men stared at her and, feeling naked and
unpossessed, she demanded their look.
"Miss Julia!" She glanced up, hearing a car whirr to a standstill beside
her. Mr. Hurst was driving a gray racer. He was bareheaded. The wind had
disarranged his sleek hair, revealing his baldness. He smoothed back the
locks. He gazed at her a little fearfully, but his face was happy and
intent. "I've caught you. Going anywhere? Let me take you for a ride?"
He saw her eyes, the outline of her breasts, her cloth dress blown
against her long legs, her ungloved hands with their beautiful helpless
look. "You are tired." Tender of her fatigue, he was grateful to her
because she allowed him this tenderness. His heart beat so heavily that
he fancied it must be fluttering the breast of his silk shirt. She must
think me a fool, dear girl! I love her! He was conscious of being a
little mad in his delight, and wanted to lay his faults before her.
"How's this? I'm going to run away with you--take you off to the
country." Julia was beside him. The car glided on.
"I can't be long." Julia stared into his eyes with a calm smile, and
tried to be simple and detached. She told herself that she could do
nothing for him, but that she wanted him to understand her loneliness.
"Well, we're going to be long--ever so long." Her hair is all in a
mess--clouds about her eyes. Her little feet walking on clouds. Oh,
Julia, my darling, I love you! She's not like other women I have known.
If she gives herself to a caress it means something to her. "I've been
looking forward to this--longing for it," he said. "You know that ever
since that night I kissed you I've thought of almost nothing but you?"
Julia said, "I'm sorry."
"Why?" All at once everything confusing was being swept away in the
nakedness of the wind they rode against. "Going too fast for you--dear?"
"No. But you mustn't think of me so much."
"Why?"
"Because--I'm not worth it." Hypocrite. She wanted to be beautiful. She
had a horrible sense of her own spiritual leanness and ugliness. If he
would take me away--kiss me--anywhere--in darkness. She wanted to belong
to some one so utterly as to make her oblivious of herself.
They turned a sharp corner. They were in the park now. Pale leaves,
yellow against the light, floated, and fell upon them in a shower of
silk. "I'm in love with you, Julia."
"Are you?"
"Don't _ask_. You know it. Don't you want me to be?" Goode--too good.
Hadn't meant to say that yet!
"I don't know. I'm afraid I'm a disillusioned person. I'm tired watching
people try to live through others. It can't be done."
"I think I could live in you--through you--if you'd let me, Julia."
"You don't know me."
"How can I if you won't let me, Julia?" He drew the car nearly to a
standstill. He grasped her fingers with his free hand. "I'm going to
kiss you, dear." It was lonely here. She felt his mouth over her face
and was ashamed of her distaste for him. "You're unhappy, Julia. Why are
you unhappy?"
She withdrew herself. "I am--horribly."
Charles, hardening, felt relieved, and imagined himself stronger.
Farley don't treat her well, he said to himself. In his mind was a
furtive expectation, with which was mingled an unadmitted thought of
divorce. "Don't be, darling. You make me too happy. It's not fair. Can't
I be anything to you--even a little?"
Julia laughed pathetically. "You must be. I'm here."
"Yes, thank God, you are. And you're not going to be disgusted with me
because I'm such an unpretentious human animal? My taste in music runs
about as high as The Old Oaken Bucket, and I suppose if I'd been left to
myself I'd have canned those Dudley Allen productions you persuaded
Catherine to buy, and hung up Breaking The Home Ties instead. You know
all this new art stuff goes over my head, child. Hate me for it?"
"Not very much. Perhaps it goes over my head too."
"Wish it did, but Kate's told me all about you. You're so damned
clever." He wanted her, yet, even if she offered herself to him now, he
could not touch her. Her little feet. As a matter of fact they weren't
small. Little feet just the same. Must be white. White feet. Lovely
things walking over his heart. Beautiful things hurt him with their
pride. He had felt this before about women. It was always wrong.
Afterward only the pain and the longing remained. She's different. Mine.
I can't have her. "You won't hate me when--" His eyes misted. He gave
her a blurred look. His lips were humorous and self-contemptuous.
"Won't hate you when?" Julia was still motherly.
It hurt him to speak. His face was flushed. He stared at her fixedly an
instant, as if something stood between them. She observed his unsteady
mouth, that was weakly unconscious of itself like a desperate child's.
"Am I going to have you, Julia? Are you disgusted with me, child?"
She would not consider clearly what he meant, but she wanted him to shut
Laurence out of her mind. "Yes. I think so." Her voice was unsteady.
The car went on, they were out of town among suburban roads and vacant
lots. Charles drew up again. "Let's get out and walk a bit."
The dry pinkish grass moved before them like a cloud over the field. It
rustled stiffly about their ankles. The low sun was in their eyes.
Double lines of gnats rose into the light. They passed an empty house
with glaring uncovered windows.
White feet that hurt. Charles was afraid of her. He imagined her hands
touching him. Oh, my dear! He said, "We must find a way to see each
other."
Julia said nothing. He took hold of her arms hesitatingly. "Look at me!"
She was ashamed for him. When their eyes met, hers filled with tears.
She seemed to herself dead, and wanted him to be sorry for her. I can't
live. I'm dead already. No use. I'm dead! I'm dead! She wanted to be
dead. Something kept alive, torturing her.
"Take your hat off, won't you?" She took her hat off. Clouds. "Now I can
look at you." She wondered if she looked ill. She was ashamed for him
when he trembled. Her eyes were gentle, and at the same time there was
something desperate in them. It seemed to him that she was asking him to
hurt her, and he wanted to say, Don't, don't! Her face, that he could
not bear to understand, was just a blur of sweetness. He believed that
her tenderness for him was something which must be tried by the
grossness of his pleasure in physical contact with her. He thought his
pleasure in her body would make her suffer. Afterward he meant to show
her how little that was, and that what he was giving her--what he was
asking of her--was really something else. "I want to be your lover,
child." It was done. He was conscious of desperation and relief. She's
different! My God, she's different! Blanche. All of them. He pitied
himself with them.
Julia said, "I know it."
Why does she smile like that? Forgive me. He felt their two bodies, hers
and his, pitiful helpless things. His shame was for her too. "Life,
child! It's got us," he said. "Now I'll kiss you just once." He gathered
her up in his arms. She's trembling too. She loves me! I want to make
her happy. He wondered why everything hurt so. She's too fine.
Julia was cold. Frozen all over. It seemed he would never be done
kissing her. She despised him, and enjoyed the bitterness of her
gratitude in being loved. When she could speak she said, smiling yet,
"We'd better be starting back. It's late. Look at the sun." The meadow
was filled with cold light that lay on the grass tops and made them
burning and colorless. The sun, as if dissolving, was formless and
brilliant on the horizon.
"Have you had enough of me? Do you want to leave me, Julia?"
"No. It's only that when I left home it was for a little while."
As they walked back to the car, Charles, holding Julia's hand, pressed
it apologetically. "I want to take you to a place I have, Julia--a cabin
I go to sometimes for fishing trips. We could motor there and picnic for
a day. Could you be with me as long as that without becoming more
disillusioned?" He tried to joke. His thin face jested, but his pale
eyes were anxious.
Julia said, in a smothered voice, "You mustn't love me too much. You are
the one who will be disillusioned."
He wanted to talk to her about Laurence, but as yet did not dare; so he
pressed her hand again. "Darling!" She returned the pressure and was
piqued by his abstracted glance. I'm alone, she said to herself.
* * * * *
On the following Saturday Julia went with Charles to the cabin he had
spoken of. It was on the shore of a small lake, only a few feet removed
from the water's edge. It was a still cloudy day, and the lake, choked
with sedges, had a heavy look, like a mirror coated with grease. There
were pine woods all around that, without undergrowth, seemed empty. The
still trees were like things walking in a dream. Julia felt them, not
moving, going on relentlessly and spurning the earth. It seemed as if
everything in the landscape had been forgotten. It was a memory held
intact that no one ever recalled. A little group of scrub oaks were
turning scarlet. They were like colored shadows.
Charles drew up his motor car in the half-obliterated roadway, and
helped Julia to alight. He felt sinful, as he always did when he was
about to enjoy anything. He wished that he might beg Julia to condescend
to him as to an inferior being. He would be grateful for her contempt
which, if it were tempered by affection, would allow him to be himself.
She went ahead of him, and waited in the dusty portico of the small
house while he covered some cushions that might be wet if it rained.
When he came toward her his eyes were uncertain. "Here we are. Damn it,
Julia, I'm so happy I'm afraid! You aren't going to mind being here?"
He carried a picnic basket.
"Of course not. Why should I have come?"
He set the basket down. "Hands all grimy. Why should you! God, I don't
know. I'm going to love you." He swung her hands in his delightedly, but
there was something stealthy and embarrassed in his manner. He could not
bring himself to kiss her. "At least you're not going to try to make a
new man of me!"
"I know my limitations."
"You haven't any, darling."
Julia's mouth was happy, but her eyes were dark and unkind. "It makes
one uncomfortable to be thought too well of." She knew that she was
about to give herself to him and resented his confidence. He was a crude
childlike man. At the same time, she sensed a simplicity in him that was
almost noble. Her self-esteem could not endure thinking of a possible
debt to him.
"Shall we go in?" He opened the door and went in ahead of her. The place
was crowded with camp beds, piled one on top of the other, and numbers
of more or less dilapidated chairs. There was a thick coating of dust
over everything, and films of spider web across the window panes
yellowed the light. "Isn't this a disgrace, child? I ought to have had a
house-cleaning before we came out."
"I like work. We'll clean up together." She removed her hat and laid it
on a table. Charles took off his coat. He found an old broom, swept up
the trash that littered the floor, and began to pull the furniture into
place. Julia discovered a torn shirt and used it to clean the window
glass. Charles felt the morning was passing grotesquely. I love her.
What shall I do! "Jove, I wish we lived here!" he said. When he had laid
a fire in the stone chimney, he pulled out one of the camp beds and made
a divan with blankets and pillows. "Come sit down here and warm
yourself, child." He turned his back to her and began warming his hands.
"It's damp in here."
Julia came to the fire. She did not seat herself. He knew she was beside
him. He put off the moment when he must look at her. As he finally
turned, his suffused eyes avoided hers. He was smiling miserably. "Have
I made a mistake?"
Julia felt blind inside herself. "Mistake?" She laughed nervously.
He fumbled for her hands. "Julia!" His emotion could no longer
distinguish between her and himself. His face was in her hair. "I can't
help it, child! I can't help it!"
Finding herself futile and inadequate, it seemed to Julia that her pity
for herself must include all the things that surrounded her, and that
she must embrace them in the mingled agony of self-contempt and pride.
It was because she did not love him that it liberated her so completely
to give herself to him. She tried to abase herself utterly so that she
might experience the joy of rising above her own needs.
Her tears were on his hands and he was bewildered. The contagion of her
emotion overpowered him. He was equally astonished at her and at
himself. For a moment he was unable to speak. "Oh, Julia--my Julia--I
love you!" He could not comprehend himself. Why was it that even now,
when she surrendered herself to him, he continued to feel helpless and
almost terrified. He had not imagined that she loved him as deeply as
this. His desire to abase himself, though it arose from a different
motive, was as complete as hers. "Julia," he kept repeating, "don't!
What is it, Julia? Don't!" He wanted to kiss her feet. What is it? What
have I done? He found himself at the mercy of something unknown that was
cheating them when they should have had happiness. "Do you love me,
Julia?" He observed her expression of tenderness and suffering. Yet,
while she was telling him that she loved him, it seemed to him that he
was ignored and obliterated by what she was feeling.
Julia sat on the camp bed and, as he had promised himself, he knelt
beside her and buried his face in her lap. Still, though he did not
admit it, he knew the gesture was false. He was embarrassed by his
hostility to her pity. He believed now that he loved her far more than
he had loved her before. He could no longer articulate his situation or
his intentions, or anything practical connected with his life. He
decided that, though she made him unhappy, life would only be endurable
if he saw her more frequently and in a franker relationship. How this
was to be brought about he dared not reflect. When Laurence's name was
on his lips he recalled Catherine and the pain of indecision made him
dumb.
Julia felt that even this last attempt to lose herself was a failure.
While she stroked his hair, she was furtively considering whether or not
she dared see him again.
* * * * *
Laurence knew now that his attitude regarding Bobby was apparent to
Julia, and that it caused her pain. Why he punished her by keeping her
apart from his son and making her ill at ease when the child was present
he could not have said. However, though he realized absurdities in
himself, he would not renounce his sense of righteousness. What he
suffered through compunction was to him the pain of virtue. He hurt
Julia in order to convince himself of her depth of feeling. While he
observed her misery, he could believe that she would not betray him
again. Her agony was his, but it showed him that she was not callous and
indifferent to the consequences of her acts. He could not yet allow
himself to express any love for her. He would not even admit his desire
to do so. In the meantime, without understanding his expectation, he
waited and withheld himself. When she looked at him there was always in
her eyes the demand of self-pity. When she would accept, as he did, the
recognition that there was nothing, that there could be nothing, he
would not be afraid to give himself. He struggled with his tenderness
for her. It was always tearing at him. He was never at rest. Because he
put the thought of her out of his mind, he seemed to have no thoughts at
all--only an emptiness consuming him. He tried to comfort himself with
generalities and reverted to the illusory finality of the positivist
philosophy which he had at one time professed.
Julia decided that self-loathing was the inevitable outgrowth of
profound experience. Others, who were as fully self-aware as she, were
filled with the same nausea of futility. She had several times talked to
Charles Hurst on the telephone, and the sound of his voice always
exhilarated her. When she sensed his emotion in speaking with her, a
kind of iron seemed to enter into her despair. Her distaste for contact
with him only convinced her of the pride of her recklessness. The more
intimate their relationship became, the more voluptuously she scourged
herself by her accurate perceptions of his deficiencies. Only by seeing
him at his worst could she preserve her gratification in being tender to
him and careless of her own interest.
* * * * *
Julia was continually irritated by the trivial routine of daily
existence. The banality of life was humiliating to her. Always, before
she went to the laboratory, she stopped in the kitchen to give Nellie
the orders for the day. The poised indifference of the old woman's
manner never failed to have an almost maddening effect. "Is the butter
out, Nellie? Shall I order any sugar this week?" Nellie's opaque,
self-engrossed eyes were continually fixed on some distant object.
"Yas'm. I reckon you bettah odah sugah. Dey's plenty o' buttah." Julia
smiled and tapped her foot on the bare, clean-scrubbed boards. "You're
frightfully inattentive, Nellie." Nellie's full purplish lips pouted
ruminatively. Her face was like a stone. "I always tends to what's mah
business, Miss Julia. You has yo' ways an' I has mine." And Julia, in
puzzled defeat, invariably left the kitchen.
When she encountered May, it was as bad. The girl's vapid, apologetic
smile suggested the stubborn resistances of weakness. "Do you love your
negligent Aunt Julia, May?" May would give a sidewise glance from soft
protesting eyes. Then Julia, realizing that she should be touched by
May's affection, would put her arms about the girl.
But Julia found herself actively disliking the child who forced upon her
an undefined sense of responsibility, elicited by the exhibition of
unhappiness. "Now, May, dear, I know you love me--you funny, sensitive
little thing!" Julia's perfunctory tone was a subtle and deliberate
repulse.
May, wanting to hide herself, pressed her forehead against her sleeve.
Julia tried to pull May's arms apart, and wondered at her own
satisfaction in the brutality of the gesture. It seemed to May that Aunt
Julia's hands were about to tear open her heart. "Angry with me, May?
This is so silly."
With an effort, May lifted her quivering face to Aunt Julia's cold eyes,
and giggled. "Of course not." She wanted to keep Aunt Julia from looking
at her and knowing her.
"You aren't, eh? Well, be a good girl. There!" A kiss, meekly accepted.
How Julia abhorred that meekness! "Where's Paul these days? He hasn't
run away to the South Seas or some such place without telling us
good-by?" Julia felt guilty when she referred to him. But Paul and May
were children. That explained away an unnamed thing.
"I--I don't know." Again May giggled.
"Why don't you go to see Lucy Wilson?"
"I don't know. I don't care much about going anywhere."
My God, what's to become of the girl! Why should she live, Julia
thought.
* * * * *
Mrs. Hurst was finding it more and more difficult to face her husband.
Something which was becoming chronic in his manner aroused a suspicious
protest in her. When, in the morning, he entered the breakfast room and
found her already seated at the table, she bit her lips, and between her
brows appeared a little invariable frown. Charles was a mystery to her.
She wanted him to be a mystery. The thing she had to fight against most
was the recognition of his obviousness. A child! A ridiculous grown-up
child! Quite incomprehensible. And when her reflections culminated too
logically she put them aside with an emphasis on "the sacredness of
sex". There were flirtations, trivial improprieties, she knew, and she
admitted them. Perhaps all men were like that, spiritually so immature.
But where the flesh impinged upon her dream there was only an excited
darkness in which she defiantly closed her eyes.
"Mrs. Wilson is going out to Marburne this week, Charles. She's
organizing a distributing center for the country women. They are quite
out of touch with the city markets and some of them make such wonderful
things--jams and embroideries, needlework and the like. She's trying to
get coöperation from other people who summer there. She wants to build
an industrial school for the girls, and is willing to put up a third of
the necessary money if others will contribute the rest. She wants me to
go out there with her and speak in various country schools." Catherine
was resisting the conviction that something critical was occurring in
her husband's inner life. The idea of going away from the city, and
leaving him, in such a state, to his own devices, frightened her. To
admit the necessity of remaining, however, was to concede the existence
of an issue. When he looked at her, it was as if he said, I'm like this,
but I can't help it, so forgive me. She did not wish to know what that
look meant. For years she had warded off crises by merely ignoring their
imminence. She dared not abandon the serviceable belief that the
disturbing elements of life cease to confuse us if we refuse to admit
that they exist. She called this, Rising above our lower selves. There
is so much truth, you know, in the religions of the Orient. At the same
time, Catherine's transcendental generalizations did not save her from
bitterness. Life was difficult, and Charles had left her more than her
share of responsibility for its solution.
Charles regarded his wife wistfully, almost sentimentally. He made a
good-humored grimace. "Mrs. Wilson going to carry sweetness and light to
Marburne, is she?" He was crumbling bread between his blunt unsteady
fingers, and scattering it on the table cloth. What was he thinking of?
Catherine smiled at him, a perplexed resentful smile, a trifle hard. He
was unhappy before her. There was something cold and watchful
half-hidden in her eyes beneath her pleasantly wrinkled lids. "Mrs.
Wilson is a very valuable, capable woman."
Charles grimaced gallantly but derisively. He was leaning one elbow on
the table, and now he caught the flesh above his nose and pinched it
with his thumb and forefinger as if to still a hurt. "Yes," he agreed
with light absence. "By Jove, I know it! Every time I see poor old Jack
Wilson it reminds me of how capable she is."
Catherine agreed to be amused, though her mouth was severe. "Ridicule
is an easy way out of difficulty, Charles."
"Difficulty? Is it? Damn me, I wish it was!" He pushed his plate aside
and pressed the fingers of both hands against his lowered brow.
Catherine, determinedly complacent, tapped her foot under the table and
ate daintily. The nervous frown reasserted itself and she smoothed it
away with an effort.
Charles lifted his head, as with a sudden sweetly-depressing resolution.
"So you're going away. When?"
Catherine was diligently attentive to her food. "Perhaps I may not be
able to go. I have so many important things--" She hesitated.
Charles rose, as if imperatively desirous of physical expression. He
halted a moment by the table. Catherine had no name for his saccharine
melancholy, but she detested it. "I haven't been such a hell of a
husband, have I, Kate?" Ridiculous, she thought. She saw his mouth
twitch. She was afraid. He touched her hair and she bore it. "Things
might have been worse for you, Kate."
She sensed in his pity for her a phase of the pity for himself which
supplied the excuse for all his shortcomings. "You'll muss my hair,
Charles. I think life has treated me very well indeed--both of us, I
should say."
"We men are a rough lot, but we mean well. Time for me to get down to
the dirty world of commerce." His hand dropped away from her. He took
out his watch.
White feet--he was tired.
Catherine did not glance up as he went out. She was hostile toward his
disappearing back that was invisible to her. She laid her knife and fork
very precisely on her plate. When she spoke to the servant who came to
clear away the dishes, her manner, though kind, was peculiarly severe.
* * * * *
Charles had long ago definitely decided, though on no more than
circumstantial evidence, that Julia had no life with her husband, and
now he wanted her to the point of divorcing Catherine. Of course he had
as yet said nothing decisive to either Julia or his wife. Until he was
prepared to act it seemed to him unnecessary to speak.
It was night. He was in his room alone. Without removing his clothes he
threw himself on the bed, soiling the handsome counterpane with his
polished shoes. Mentally he reviewed the histories of those of his
friends who had taken some such steps as he was contemplating. The more
he thought about the domestic upheavals which he had noted from a safe
distance, the more it was borne in upon him that, no matter how great
his desire to avoid causing suffering, the moment he began to act
positively, suffering for others would result from anything that he did.
Charles had never found himself able to inflict even a just punishment.
Wherever possible he avoided the sight of pain. In the street he would
go a block out of his intended way to evade the familiar spectacle of
some wretched beggar. In doing so, his relief in escape was greater than
his sense of guilt. If he was approached directly for whatever pathetic
cause he always gave away everything that was in his pocket, and only
asked that no one remind him of the occasion of his generosity. His wife
was an efficient charity worker. Every quarter year he allowed her a
sum--always above what her practical nature would have dictated--to
dispose of in the alleviation of physical distress. He deferred to her
common sense, and was glad to be relieved of the depressing knowledge
of particular cases. As regarded legislative remedies for wrongs, he was
conservative where his business dealings were affected, but had an open
sympathy with revolutionary protests on the part of oppressed peoples in
any far-off European or Asiatic state. He had persuaded himself that
extreme measures were needed to compel fair play from the ancient
orthodoxies abroad, while reformatory methods could achieve everything
at home.
He decried the prevalence of divorce, and the disintegration of the
home. Yet never, in a given instance, had he been able to condemn the
friend or acquaintance who had become dissatisfied with his wife and
sought happiness by forming new ties. Maternity in the abstract
represented to him a confused and embarrassing ideal. But he recalled
his own mother, who had never loved him, with a pain he did not attempt
to analyze.
He was thinking now of young Goode's wife, who, before her marriage was
a year old, had run away with another man. Two days previously Charles
had met young Goode in the street. To keep from listening to any
reminiscence of the affair, Charles had talked to him rapidly in a
jocular voice and taken him off to his club to give him a drink.
Charles turned in the bed, groaned, and hid his face. If only Catherine
were far away! Had gone abroad for a trip, or something like that! He
believed that the emotion he experienced when he held Julia in his arms
or knelt with his head in her lap was unlike anything that had ever
before come to him. He felt that through Julia he had discovered
qualities in himself by which he could lift himself from the banal plane
where he had been placed by others. The imposed acceptance of
limitations had humiliated him. It was not so much Julia that he was
afraid of losing, as the quality within him which he felt she alone
could evoke. He knew his own weakness too well. If, at this crisis, he
could not bring himself to initiate a change, the miracle which was
present would lose its potency, and he would be convicted forever of the
triviality which his friends saw in him.
Charles rose to a sitting posture and threw off his coat. When he lay
down again he covered his eyes with his stubby fingers. The revealed
lower portion of his florid face was harsh and drawn. He could count the
pulse jumping in his temples where his hands pressed. His weak lips,
unconscious of themselves, looked shriveled with unhappiness. As the
tears came under his lids and slipped down his cheeks, his chin shook,
and he made a grimace like a contorted smile. All his gestures were
cumbersome and pathetic. He wanted the love that would not despise his
indecisions. At this moment he feared that even Julia might not be equal
to it.
He despised his cowardice, yet had a certain pride in the frankness of
his self-confession. Christianity, in his mind, had to do with
sanctimonious Puritanism. He resisted with disgust what he understood to
be the Christian conception of humility. But he wanted to trust people
and lay himself at their feet. Not all--one woman's feet.
There was nothing else for it! His thoughts were betraying him. He had
to have alcohol. He rolled to one side of the bed, tore his collar open,
and staggered to his feet. Already, the resolution to indulge himself
softened the clash of uncertainties. When he had gone to a cellarette,
and taken a drink from a decanter there, his misery grew warm and sweet.
His body was inundated in the hot painful essence of his own soul. He
was helpless and at ease, bathed in himself.
Standing by the window, he watched the cold small moon rising above the
houses on the other side of the street. Strange and alone in whiteness,
it flashed above the dark roofs that glistened with a purplish light.
Charles, startled by the poesy of his own mood, compared it to a piece
of shattered mirror reflecting emptiness. He was ingenuously surprised
by his imaginings. Staring, with his large naïve eyes, at the glowing
moon in the profound starless sky, he was convinced of an incredible
beauty in everything, but particularly in himself.
* * * * *
Paul knew that in a fortnight he was expected to be away at college.
Without having spoken to any one of his resolve, he had decided on
rebellion. Of late he had been a regular attendant at industrial
gatherings. When he talked to Socialists, Communists, or even people
with anarchistic leanings, he was conscious of making himself absurd
with the illogical violence of his remarks. He felt that he was
continually doing himself an injustice, for almost everything he said
suggested that he was taking the side of the oppressed only to gratify a
personal spite. At the same time, he confessed to himself that the
revolution pleased him doubly when it emphasized the triviality and
complacency of women like Julia and her friends, who titillated their
vanity by trifling with matters which concerned the actual life and
death of a huge, semi-submerged class.
On one occasion he listened to the tempestuous speech of a young
Rumanian Jewess, and was exalted by the mere passion of her words,
irrespective of their content. It seemed beautiful to him that this
young woman, under the suspicion of the police, was able to express her
faith with such utter recklessness. He wished that he too might endanger
himself. He hated the bourgeois comfort of his uncle's home. In order to
achieve such righteous defiance it was necessary to suffer something at
the hands of the enemy. Instead of running away to sea, as he had at
first planned, he decided that he ought to go into a factory to work,
and live in a low quarter of the city. There was Byronic pleasure in
imagining the loneliness that would be his lot. His desperation would be
a rebuke to those who despised him as a credulous youth. Above
everything, he wanted to be poor and socially lost. When he was at home,
his uncle nagged him and his aunt watched him continually with
curiosity and resentment. She thought he was lazy, that he lounged about
the streets and was untidy in his dress.
Paul haunted slums where sex in its crudest form was always manifest. He
treasured his aversion to it. The deeper understanding of life had
lifted him above its necessities. He was never so much in the mood to
enter the battle for industrial right, in utter disregard of selfish
interests, as after resisting an appeal to what he termed his elemental
nature. Then he became impatient of his exclusion from present dangers.
At last he was introduced to the Rumanian Jewess he had so much admired.
But when he saw that she was interested in men, and even something of a
coquette, it filled him with repugnance. He observed much in her that he
had not taken account of before. There was something coarse and sensual
in her heavy figure. Her skin, that was dark and oily, now appeared to
him unclean. And in her friendly eyes, with their look of frank
invitation, he discovered a secret depravity. This made him question the
need to merge his sense of self in the impersonal self of the working
class. It seemed certain that, to remain pure for leadership, he must
live apart.
* * * * *
In the vague morning street figures passed dimly on their way to work.
The sun, half visible, melted in pale rays that trembled on the wet
roofs of houses. The diffused shadows lay on the pavements in
transparent veils. Julia, on her way to the laboratory, saw Paul walking
in front of her, stooping, a tall, awkward figure with a cap pulled over
its face. She called, "Paul!" She noticed that he hesitated perceptibly
before he glanced back. In her state of mind she felt rebuked for
everything that went wrong around her. Paul's hesitation challenged her
conscience.
He turned and awaited her approach. She took his cold limp fingers. He
seemed shy--almost angry--and would not look at her. "May and I have
missed you, Paul. Were you trying to run away from me?" A moment before
hearing her voice he had felt worldly and old and self-possessed. He
hated himself because, at the time, she always obliged him to believe in
her estimate of him rather than his own. He walked along beside her with
his hands in his pockets, his head lowered. "Until I met your aunt the
other day I thought you had taken the long voyage you were always
talking about. We haven't been such bad friends that we deserve to be
ignored, have we?"
Paul said, "I haven't been to see anybody."
She thought his reserve sulky. "Aren't you going to college in a few
days?"
Paul turned red. He was all against her. "I think a lot of college is a
waste of time."
"I suppose it is, but one might waste time much more disastrously."
"I feel that going to college would be hypnotizing myself for four years
so I wouldn't know what real people were doing."
"Surely there are some real people in college!"
"Well, they manage to hide themselves. No college professor would ever
let you know that there was such a thing as a class struggle going on!"
Poor child! Why is he so angry! "I see you're still very much interested
in economics."
"Well, I haven't much use for the theoretical side of it."
"I thought economics was all theory."
Paul's intolerance scarcely permitted him to answer her. Most women,
who go in for making the world right over a cup of tea, do! "If anything
good comes to the working people of this country it will be through
direct action." He could not go on. His words suffocated him. He knew
that she was cursing him once more with the sin of youth. "I can't
expect people who don't know anything about actual conditions to agree
with me." His trembling hands fumbled helplessly in his pockets. It was
all dim between them. Love. I must love the world. She has never
suffered. It was almost as if she must suffer before he could go on with
what he believed. The world that was old seemed stronger and harder than
he could bear. People work because they must starve otherwise. She goes
to work that is only another diversion. They die. I could die. Dead
beast. Beauty and the beast. His heart was like a stone.
Julia, watching him as they walked, saw his gullet move in his long
stooped neck. Poor awkward child! "I like you for feeling all this,
Paul. I used to feel the same things."
"I suppose you don't believe in them now!"
"I'm afraid I don't, Paul--not entirely. So many people have tried." She
was jealous of the child's illusion, but at the same time complacently
sad. He doesn't know me. The boy doesn't know me. Pity, baby, Dudley,
Charles, Laurence.
"It wouldn't be hopeless if they didn't all pat themselves on the back
for being disillusioned."
"What would you think then if I said I envied you?" She loved him for
misjudging her. It magnified the importance of her loneliness. They were
at a crossing where they must part. "Are you going this way?" What makes
the child look at me like that! He's unhappy. Paul said, "No." "Then
you'll come to see us--come to see May and me?" His hand did not take
hers, only permitted her grasp. She smiled and went on, feeling that she
was leaving something behind that she had meant to keep.
He remembered her eyes, proud and humble at the same time, that asked of
him. As she left him it was as if he were dying. I must love some one!
He thought of her soul, a physical soul, meager and abandoned. All at
once an unasked thing possessed him. I love her! He was sick with sudden
terror and surprise. He walked blindly, jostling people he met. She
takes everything beautiful out of my life! His hands clenched in his
pockets. No. When he said love, he meant hate.
The Indian girl walked down the grass to the ship. The waves, pale and
white-crested, parted before her. The waves were like white breasts
lying apart waiting for him. It was cold in the sea. She wants to kill
me. Now he knew what was meant by death--beautiful in coldness. White
breasts like sculptured things. They were so still he could lie in them
forever. Death. The peace of perfection. In the cold pure sky quivered
the thin rays of stars. The end of life. I love her, not beautiful--her
weak body torn by life.
No, no, no! He could not endure it. Seas paler, and paler still. Not
beautiful. The water ran out forever. Dawn, and the empty sands like
glowing shadows of silk. A sandpiper flying overhead made dim
reflections of himself. With flashings of heavy light, the water
unrolled, and sank back from the beach.
* * * * *
Charles made repeated unsuccessful efforts to see Julia. It was a long
time before he was willing to be convinced that she was avoiding him.
When he finally realized it, he felt that he had been going toward a
place which seemed beautiful, but that when he stood in it there was
only emptiness. The emptiness was in him, hard, like a light which
disclosed nothing but its own brightness. He hated, but the emotion had
no particular object, for, by its very intensity, even Julia was
obliterated. There was nothing but himself, a thing frozen in a
brilliance which blinded its own eyes. If he could have felt anything
definite against her it would have been easier. To stop hating the
emptiness, he began to drink more heavily. If he permitted himself to
seek an object through which his suffering could be expressed he
reverted to Catherine. He must keep away from that. I mustn't hurt her.
Poor old girl. It's not right.
He found that his repugnance to Catherine had become so acute that, to
keep himself from saying and doing irretrievable things, it was
necessary to escape the house and her presence. By God, it's rotten!
She's stood by me. I've got to be good to her.
In his rejuvenated conception of his wife he exaggerated both her
acuteness and her capacity for suffering. It now appeared to him that
she had immolated herself on the altar of an ideal of which he was the
embodiment. She's loved me. She's always loved me. I don't know what's
the matter with me. Christ, what a rotten world this is!
Then her small face rose up before him in all its evasive pleasantness.
He hated the faded prettiness of it; the withered look of her throat;
the velvet band she wore about her neck to make herself appear younger
when she was in evening dress. He hated her delicate characterless hands
that were less fresh than her face. The very memory of her rings
oppressed him. She was always so richly yet so discreetly dressed. Such
perfect taste. She had a way of seeming to call attention to other
people's bad breeding. He remembered the glasses she put on when she
read and hated the look of them on her small nose. The little grimace
she made when she laughed. Her verbal insistence on sensible footgear
and the feeling he always had that her shoes were too small for her. The
quizzical contempt with which she baffled him. Her sweet severe smile
behind which she concealed herself.
My God, I've got to. I've got to. When he realized that the recollection
of Julia was coming into his mind he went somewhere and took another
drink. It was hot and quieting. Warm sensual dark in which he could
hide himself. Julia was something bright and glassy that stabbed his
eyes. He put her out like a light. He held fast to his sense of sin. He
had to torture himself with reproaches to make it seem worth while to go
back to his wife.
* * * * *
Charles tried to immerse himself in business. This was the one province
in which he could act without hesitations. He called it, "playing the
game". The atmosphere of trade hardened him. He had unconsciously
absorbed some of his wife's contempt for the details of money making.
Where he was not permitted to be sentimental, he luxuriated in a
callousness of which he was incapable in his intimate life.
Day after day, scrupulously dressed, he sat in his office, an expensive
cigar between his lips, preserving to his associates what would be
called a "poker face". If he were able to get the best of any
one--especially through doubtful and unanticipated means--it gave him an
illusion of power which tempted him later to prolific benevolence. He
had begun life as a telegraph operator in a small town. He deserted this
profession to go into trade. At one time he was a small manufacturer.
Later he sold mining stock, and promoted a company that ultimately
failed. His first success had come when he went into the lumber
industry, and he had recently become possessed of some oil fields that
were making him rich.
Charles never felt pity for any one who was on a financial equality with
himself. He would fleece such a man without a qualm. He distrusted
Socialists, tolerated trade unions with suspicion, but was sorry for
"the rough necks". Poor devils! I know what it's like. We're all of us
poor devils. He loved to think of himself as one who, through sheer
force of initiative, had risen despite unusual handicaps. By gosh,
before I get through I'm going to be quits with the world! At least we
can keep the women out of this--! Damned muck!
In the flush of unscrupulous conquest, his eyes glistened with triumph.
His gestures were harshly confident. He looked young and happy. If, at
such times, he encountered women, they found his mixture of simplicity
and ruthlessness particularly ingratiating.
* * * * *
In the street Charles remembered a small niece whom he had not thought
of for a long time. Brother's kid. I'll send her something. His brother
was a poor man working on a small salary. Charles wanted to do something
generous that would help him to think well of himself. God, what a fool
I am! He walked along briskly with his hat off, looking insolent and
debonair. When an acquaintance passed in a motor car a jovial greeting
was exchanged. To make himself oblivious to the resentment which was in
the memory of Julia, Charles dwelt elaborately on the memory of other
women. Blanche, damn her! I'll have to go and see her again. One hand
around the old boy's neck and the other in his pocket. He tried to keep
away from the center toward which his thoughts converged. What price
life! Hell! (In the depths of me, this awful despair. Horror, horror,
horror. Something clutched and dragged him into himself.) He stretched
his neck above his collar and passed his finger along the edge. (Some
woman's throat white like that. Bent back. Lilies on a windy day. I
shall die.)
Young Goode coming toward him. Goode thinking, Here's that unmoral
innocent. He'll live forever. Hurst's a bounder. Damn well-meaning ass.
They stood on the street corner gossiping. Young Goode's brown eyes
desponded from boredom. Very handsome. A black mustache. His nose almost
Greek. His head empty--only a few clever thoughts. "Hello, Hurst."
"Hello, Goode, old chap. Yes, going out to Marburne to-morrow--Wilson
and his wife. How are you? What do you think of the election? Glad that
crook, Hallowell, got kicked out."
Goode said he was thinking of turning Bolshevist. His smile was
self-appreciative. Ludicrous!
"Well, I hope not. Haven't come to that yet. But the patriotism of some
of these ward heelers is pretty thin. Yes--hope we'll see you."
They moved apart. Young Goode grew small in distance. A dark vanishing
speck down the glaring street. Christ, what a hot day! Charles mumbled
over some obscene expressions. I don't want to think. (Catherine,
lilies, white and beautiful neck.)
Charles had gone all the way to town on foot. In front of the building
where his office was located he encountered Mr. Wilson. "Hello! Hello!
What do you think of this for the beginning of fall? Hot, eh? About time
for another drink? Yes, going out to your wife's new place. Kate says
it's quite a buy. Not yours? What's a husband now-a-days! Superfluous
critter. Endured but not wanted."
Mr. Wilson's eyes were twinklingly submerged between his fat cheeks and
bulging brows. He hadn't time for a drink. He wanted to talk business
before he left town. He chuckled at everything Charles said. His full
cheeks quivered and his neat belly shook in the opening of his coat.
Charles was wary of unqualified approbation, but the more suspicious he
became the more easy and Rabelaisian was his conversation.
"Well--well--well, Hurst! I'll be--" Mr. Wilson actually suffered in
delight.
They had seated themselves in Charles's inner room, a handsome heavy
desk between them. Charles gazed with cold innocent eyes at the laughing
fat man opposite.
When Mr. Wilson had gone Charles opened a cupboard and took out a
bottle. In business hours he was very moderate in his indulgence.
A long white road, just empty, going nowhere. The car jumped to his
touch. How cool and still it had been in the woods at evening when he
and Julia drove home. That's beautiful. Myself beautiful, wanting to be
loved. Fat old fool. Little children, little children, come unto me.
My God, he said out loud, I'm getting a screw loose. Growing senile!
Julia--that hurts. I can't think of that. Kate, poor girl!
All day he felt as though the memory of some pathetic death had made him
kind.
* * * * *
At last Paul had made up his mind to run away. His interest in the
revolution had waned. What do I think? May--that Farley woman. I don't
know. His emotions had betrayed him. Where am I? I don't know anything.
I don't know myself. He was unhappy, afraid that some one would discover
for him that his unhappiness also was absurd. His aunt, and Uncle
Archie, were intimate with the things that made his thoughts. He wanted
to go away, overseas, to know things which their recognitions had never
touched. When he was a part of foreign life they would not be able to
reach his thoughts. He wanted to put his wonder into things that were
dark to them.
There were days when he spent all his free time among the docks. He
edged into the vast obscurity of warehouses. Red-necked men, half
dressed, were pushing trucks about. When they shouted orders to each
other their voices echoed in the twilight of dust and mingled odors in
the huge sheds. Through an opening, far off, Paul saw the side of a
ship, white, on which the sun struck a ray like light on another world.
There was a porthole in the glaring fragment of hull. The porthole
glittered. The strip of water below it was like twinkling oil.
He made friends with a petty officer of a Brazilian freight boat who
took him aboard for a visit. On the machine deck Paul saw sailors'
clothes spread out to dry. With the smell of hot metal and grease was
mingled the odor of fresh paint. He leaned over one of the ventilators
and the air that came out of it almost overpowered him.
From where he stood he could see the city distantly. Here and there a
tower radiated, or a gilded cornice on a high roof flashed through the
opacity of smoke. When he faced the sun the glow was intolerable, but he
turned another way and watched a world that looked drowned in light. The
ships were crowded along the docks as if they were on dry land. Masts
and smoke stacks bristled together. The harbor, filled with tugs and
barges, seemed to have contracted so that the farthest line of shore was
only a hand's throw away.
He listened to the creaking of hawsers and the shouts in foreign
tongues. When the wind turned toward him, the strong oily fragrance of
the sacks of coffee that were being unloaded over the gang plank
pervaded everything. The wind touched him like the hand of a ghost.
Gulls with bright wings darted through the haze to rest for an instant
amidst the refuse that floated in the brown fiery water.
Down in the engine room something was burring and churning. The water
rose along the ship's side with a hiss of faint motion, and descended
again as if in stealthy silence. Nothing but the lap, lap of tiny waves
succeeding one another. As if the sun's rays had woven a net about it,
the water was caught again in stillness. It was a transfixed glory like
the end of the world.
I shall die. I shall never come back. Inside Paul was like a light
growing dim to itself, going on forever in invisible distance. When he
contemplated leaving everything he knew, he followed the disappearing
light, and when it died away he belonged to the strange lands which
wanted him like dreams. The river and the city, dim and harsh at the
same time, had the indefiniteness which allowed him to give himself to
them. He was in them, in smoke and endless distance. He listened to the
hoarse startling whistles of tugs, the shrill whistles of factories
blowing the noon hour on land, the confusion of voices that rose from
the small boats clustered about the ship's stern.
Going away. Dying. I shall be dead of light, not known. Fear of the
unknown. There is only fear of the known, he said to himself, the known
outside. The unknown is in me. He wondered what he was saying, growing
up. Mature. He felt as if he had already gone far, far away, beyond the
touch of the familiar things one never understood. The strange was
close. It was his.
* * * * *
May felt herself lost in pale endless beauty of which Aunt Julia was a
part. Love in the darkness. Love in her own room at night when she was
alone and hugged her pillow to her wet face. Through the window she saw
the trees in the street leaning together and mingling their odd shadows.
An arc light was a blurred circle through the branches and the stiff
leaves shaking and dropping occasionally to earth. When she was unseen
she could give herself. If they saw her, they shut her in. Now she was
everywhere, wanted, dark in the dark street. She could see a star above
the roof and she was in the star filled with thin light. She felt as if
she were dying of love, dying of happiness. Happy over a world which was
beautiful because she loved it. She loved Paul, but he was only a part
of the secret city--a part of everything. She did not want to think of
him too much. Jesus, everything, she said. I'm Jesus. She shivered at
her blasphemy, and was glad. I'm Jesus! I'm Jesus! The leaves rattled
against the window pane and fell into the dark street. It was too
bright. She drew herself up in a knot and hid her face.
* * * * *
It was a hot night. Bobby was excited and cross. He was going away to
school the next day. His two trunks stood open on the floor of his room.
Outside the windows the dry leaves rustled in the murky night. Some rain
drops splattered against the lifted glass. Then there was silence, save
for the occasional rattle of twigs in the darkness. An automobile
slipped by with the long soft sound of rubber tires sucking damp
asphalt. When the branches of the trees parted, the lights in the house
opposite seemed to draw nearer. Bobby disliked their spying.
He clattered up and down the stairs and through the halls in the still
house where one could hear the clocks tick.
Depressed and resentful, Julia had kept herself from the boy and his
preparations. He encountered her outside his door. She was passing
quietly, trying not to be seen. "Gee whizz, Aunt Julia, I haven't got
anybody to help me!" Julia realized that she was hypocritical in her
determination to keep away from him. "I don't see why you can't help me,
Aunt Julia."
Julia clasped her long pale fingers together in front of her black
dress. She smiled. Bobby doesn't know! Oh, Laurence, how can you!
"Hadn't you better do it alone, Bobby? Then you'll know where everything
is." She was thinking how proud his throat looked above his open collar.
His sun-burned neck was full and slender like a flower calyx. She found
something pathetic in his small hard face: his short straight nose, his
sulky mouth, his round chin, his eyes that saw nothing but their own
desires. She loved him. He hurt her so, hard beautiful little beast. She
walked through the door, into his domain that recalled his school
pennants and baseball bats. "What a trunk! You haven't left room for
clothes, child."
"Well, gee whizz, Aunt Julia, I've got to take my boxing gloves and my
hockey sticks, and there's not anything in yet." She crouched by the
trunk and began to lift his treasures from it. "I'm afraid this will all
have to be taken out."
Bobby stepped on her trailing skirt as he peered into the trunk. "Gosh,
Aunt Julia, it's so long!" He added, "You're so darn slow."
"Have you asked May to help you?"
"Gosh, Aunt Julia, I don't want her! She never will help me anyway."
"I'm afraid you don't help her very much." Julia glanced over her
shoulder. Her smile apologized for her severity.
"Well, gee, when she wants me to help her it's always some fool girl's
thing. She's not going away to school."
Laurence, climbing the stairs slowly, heard their talk. He had hidden
himself for the evening, and was on his way to bed. He went to the door
and looked in. Julia saw him, and clambered to her feet, tripping over
her skirt. Laurence concentrated his attention on Bobby. "Not through
yet?"
"Well, darn it, Dad, I've got to get everything in these two measly
little trunks. I just can't do it."
Laurence came forward. "Oh, yes, you can." He squatted beside the heap
of clothes. Julia stepped back like an intruder. She watched his hands,
with their gestures of delicacy and tension, moving among the scattered
objects. His sweet sneer seemed graven on his face. Everything about
him, his clumsy humped shoulders, the spread of his hams straining the
cloth of his trousers, was full of her knowledge of him that he would
not admit. Bobby ran about the room bringing things to his father. Rain
fluttered out of the darkness and made threads of motion on the silvered
glass. "You'd better shut that window, Bobby." Bobby struggled with the
sash. "Gee whizz, Dad, it's so hot in here!"
Julia wanted to leave them, but could not. She felt blank, and excluded,
as though they had thrust her out into the obliviousness of the night.
She was tired of the disorder of her inner life, but there was an
intoxication in desperation vivid enough to make remembered peace seem
dead and unreal. The only peace she could look forward to would come in
going on and on to the numbness of broken intensity. When one became
God, one destroyed in order to accomplish one's godhead. By destruction
one brought everything into one's self. But she was heavy with the
everything that she had become. It was too much. Only Laurence remained
outside her. He would not have her. He was more than she, because he
would not take her and become her. Love could not annihilate him. She
understood the strategy of crucifixion, but could not accomplish it.
Laurence was rising stiffly to his feet. "Better, eh?"
Bobby was grudgingly appreciative. "There's a lot more. I'm much
obliged. I guess it's all right."
Laurence settled his cuffs about his wrists and, drawing out a crumpled
handkerchief, brushed dust from his small hands. "Well, that will do
until morning anyway. Anything we can't find room for we'll send after
you. You'd better get to bed now."
Julia said, "Good-night, Bobby, dear." "Good-night." Bobby did not see
her face. "Good-night, Robert." "'Night, Dad."
Julia followed Laurence out. Still he did not look at her. He was
relieved by the certainty of Bobby's departure, and willing to
acknowledge that he owed Julia some compensation. "Well, I suppose we'll
miss the kid."
"I shall." They were before Julia's door. She hesitated with her hand on
the knob. "Won't you come in and talk to me a minute, Laurence?" He
avoided her eyes again and stiffened weakly to resist her tone. "Pretty
late, isn't it?" He noted her trembling lips. I can't bear that mouth.
"Isn't it time you got to sleep?" "I can't sleep."
Then he had to meet her gaze. He was lost in it. He smiled wryly. "All
right." With a sense of groping, he followed her in. He wanted the
strength to keep her out of his life forever. When she exposed her
misery to him, it was as if she were showing him breasts which he did
not desire.
Julia said, "Sit down, won't you, Laurence? I feel almost as if you had
never been here." Why did she treat him like a guest! He knew her
suffering gaze was fixed on him steadily. Laurence, self-entangled, was
ashamed to defend himself. He hated her because he loved her. He was
jealous of the virgin quality of his pain, and he must give it up for
her to ravage in a shared emotion. It was as if her hands, sensually
understanding, were reaching voluptuously for his heart.
"You've changed your furniture around." He fumbled in his pocket for a
cigar. Julia was closer. He could feel her movement closer to him. He
could no longer hide himself.
Julia knelt by the side of his chair. "Are you sending Bobby off to get
him away from me, Laurie?"
I shall have to look at her. I can't! I can't! "What an idea, Julia!"
"Laurie, don't punish me! It's killing me to be shut out of your life."
His head was bent over his unlit cigar, as he rolled it endlessly in his
fingers. A tear splashed on his hand--his own tear. He wondered at it.
He was helpless. "Laurie, my darling! I love you, whether you love me or
not!" She was pressing his head against her. His lost head. It lolled.
It was hers. Everything was hers. She had taken him, and was exposing
his love for her. This would be the hardest thing to forget. Could he
ever forget? He gave himself limply to her exultance. "You've killed me,
Julia. What is there to forgive? Yes, I love you. I love you." They
leaned together. How easily she cries! They love each other. "Oh,
Laurie, my darling, my darling! Thank you! Thank you!" She was kissing
his hands. He writhed inwardly. My God, not that! Even _I_ can't bear
it! "Don't, Julia. Please don't." "I want to be yours, Laurie--oh, won't
you let me be yours?" "Julia, I'm anything. I'm broken. I don't know."
He was weeping through his fingers. She pulled them apart, and pressed
her lips to his face and his closed eyes.
After a time they were calm. She was tender to his humiliation. When he
lit the cigar which he had recovered from the floor, she sat at his feet
and smiled. He recognized his need of her now. It was dull and
persistent. Yes, God forbid that I should judge anybody. I love her.
"Laurie?"
"Julia?" His furtive eyes admitted the sin she put on them.
"Dear Laurie! I love you so much."
Unacknowledged, each kept for himself a pain which the other could not
heal. Each pitied the other's illusion, and was steadied by it into
gentleness.
THE END