breath quicken. “I think you do. Why do you avoid me? And call me
‘Miss Haggerwells’ in that prim tone? Do I look so old and ugly and
forbidding?”
This, I thought, is going to hurt Ace. Poor Ace, befuddled by a
Jezebel; why can’t he attach himself to a nice quiet girl who won’t
tear him in pieces every time she follows her inclinations?
I smoothed the mare’s side for the last time and put down the currycomb.
“I think you are the most exciting woman Ive ever met, Barbara,” I
said.
_13._ _TIME_
“Hodge.”
“Barbara?”
“Is it really true youve never written your mother since you left home?”
“Why should I write her? What could I say? Perhaps if my first plans
had come to something, I might have. But to tell her I worked for
six years for nothing would only confirm her opinion of my lack of
gumption.”
“I wonder if your ambitions in the end don’t amount to a wish to prove
her wrong.”
“Now you sound like Midbin,” I said, but I wasnt annoyed. I much
preferred her present questions to those I’d heard from her in the past
weeks: Do you love me? Are you sure? Really love, I mean; more than any
other woman? Why?
“Oliver has had accidental flashes of insight.”
“Arent you substituting your own for what you think might be my
motives?”
“My mother hated me,” she stated flatly.
“Well, it isnt a world where love is abundant; substitutes are cheap
and available. But hate—that’s a strong word. How do you know?”
“I know. What does it matter how? I’m not unfeeling, like you.”
“Me? Now what have I done?”
“You don’t care about anyone. Not me or anyone else. You don’t want me;
just any woman would do.”
I considered this. “I don’t think so, Barbara—”
“See! You don’t think so. Youre not sure, and anyway you wouldnt hurt
my feelings needlessly. Why don’t you be honest and tell the truth.
You’d just as soon it was that streetwalker in New York. Maybe you’d
rather. You miss her, don’t you?”
“Barbara, Ive told you a dozen times I never—”
“And Ive told you a dozen times youre a liar! I don’t care. I really
don’t care.”
“All right.”
“How can you be so phlegmatic? So unfeeling? Nothing means anything to
you. Youre a real, stolid peasant. And you smell like one too, always
reeking of the stable.”
“I’m sorry,” I said mildly; “I’ll try to bathe more often.”
Her taunts and jealous fits, her insistent demands did not ruffle me.
I was too pleased with the wonders of life to be disturbed. All I’d
dreamed Haggershaven could mean when I was sure I would never be part
of it was fulfilled and more than fulfilled. Haggershaven and Barbara;
Eden and Lilith.
At first it seemed the bookstore years were wasted, but I soon realized
the value of that catholic and serendipitous reading as a preparation
for this time. I was momentarily disappointed that there was no one
at the haven to whom I could turn for that personal, face-to-face,
student-teacher relationship on which I’d set so great a store, but
if there was no historical scholar among the fellows to tutor me, I
was surrounded by those who had learned the discipline of study. There
was none to discuss the details of the industrial revolution or the
failure of the Ultramontane Movement in Catholicism and the policies of
Popes Adrian VII, VIII and IX, but all could show me scheme and method.
I began to understand what thorough exploration of a subject meant
as opposed to sciolism, and I threw myself into my chosen work with
furious zest.
I also began to understand the central mystery of historical theory.
When and what and how and where, but the when is the least. Not
chronology but relationship is ultimately what the historian deals in.
The element of time, so vital at first glance, assumes a constantly
more subordinate character. That the past is past becomes ever less
important. Except for perspective it might as well be the present or
the future or, if one can conceive it, a parallel time. I was not
investigating a petrification but a fluid. Were it possible to know
fully the what and how and where one might learn the why, and assuredly
if one grasped the why he could place the when at will.
During that winter I read philosophy, psychology, archaeology,
anthropology. My energy and appetite were prodigious, as they needed to
be. I saw the field of knowledge, not knowledge in the abstract, but
things I wanted to know, things I had to know, expanding in front of me
with dizzying speed while I crawled and crept and stumbled over ground
I should have covered years before.
Yet if I had studied more conventionally I would never have had the
Haven or Barbara. Novelists speak lightly of gusts of passion, but it
was nothing less than irresistible force which drove me to her, day
after day. Looking back on what I had felt for Tirzah Vame with the
condescension twenty-four has toward twenty, I saw my younger self
only as callow, boyish and slightly obtuse. I was embarrassed by the
torments I had suffered.
With Barbara I lived only in the present, shutting out past and future.
This was only partly due to the intensity, the fierceness of our
desire; much came from Barbara’s own troubled spirit. She herself was
so avid, so demanding, that yesterday and tomorrow were irrelevant to
the insistent moment. The only thing saving me from enslavement like
poor Ace was the belief, correct or incorrect I am to this day not
certain, that to yield the last vestige of detachment and objectivity
would make me helpless, not just before her, but to accomplish my ever
more urgent ambitions.
Still I know much of my reserve was unnecessary, a product of fear, not
prudence. I denied much I could have given freely and without harm;
my guard protected what was essentially empty. My fancied advantage
over Ace, based on my having always had an easy, perhaps too easy
way with women, was no advantage at all. I foolishly thought myself
master of the situation because her infidelities, if such a word can
be used where faithfulness is explicitly ruled out, did not bother
me. I believed I had grown immensely wise since the time when the
prospect of Tirzah’s rejection had made me miserable. I was wrong; my
sophistication was a lack, not an achievement
Do I need to say that Barbara was no wanton, moved by light and fickle
voluptuousness? The puritanism of our time, expressing itself in
condemnations and denials, molded her as it molded our civilization.
She was driven by urges deeper and darker than sensuality; her
mad jealousies were provoked by an unappeasable need for constant
reassurance. She had to be dominant, she had to be courted by more
than one man; she had to be told constantly what she could never truly
believe: that she was uniquely desired.
I wondered that she did not burn herself out, not only with conflicting
passions, but with her fury of work. Sleep was a weakness she despised,
yet she craved far more of it than she allowed herself; she rationed
her hours of unconsciousness and drove herself relentlessly. Ace’s
panegyrics on her importance as a physicist I discounted, but older
and more objective colleagues spoke of her mathematical concepts, not
merely with respect, but with awe.
She did not discuss her work with me; our intimacy stopped short of
such exchanges. I got the impression she was seeking the principles of
heavier-than-air flight, a chimera which had long intrigued inventors.
It seemed a pointless pursuit, for it was manifest such levitation
could no more replace our safe, comfortable guided balloons than
minibiles could replace the horse.
Spring made all of us single-minded farmers until the fields were
plowed and sown. No one grudged these days, for the Haven’s economic
life was based first of all on its land, and we were happy in the work
itself. Not until the most feverish competition with time began to
slacken could we return to our regular activities.
I say “all of us,” but I must except the dumb girl. She greeted the
spring with the nearest approach to cheerfulness she had displayed;
there was a distinct lifting of her apathy. Unexpectedly she revealed
a talent which had survived the shock to her personality or had been
resurrected like the pussywillows and crocuses by the warm sun. She
was a craftsman with needle and thread. Timidly at first, but gradually
growing bolder, she contrived dresses of gayer and gayer colors in
place of the drab school uniform; always, on the completion of a new
creation, running to me as though to solicit my approval.
This innocent if embarrassing custom could hardly escape Barbara’s
notice, but her anger was directed at me, not the girl. My “devotion”
was not only absurd, she told me, it was also conspicuous and
degrading. My taste was inexplicable, running as it did to immature,
deranged cripples.
Naturally when the girl took up the habit of coming to the edge of the
field where I was plowing, waiting gravely motionless for me to drive
the furrow toward her, I anticipated still further punishment from
Barbara’s tongue. The girl was not to be swayed from her practice; at
least I did not have the heart to speak roughly to her, and so she
daily continued to stand through the long hours watching me plow,
bringing me a lunch at noon and docilely sharing a small portion of it.
The planting done, Midbin began the use of a new technique, showing
her drawings of successive stages of the holdup, again nagging and
pumping me for details to sharpen their accuracy. Her reactions pleased
him immensely, for she responded to the first ones with nods and the
throaty sounds we recognized as understanding or agreement. The scenes
of the assault itself, of the shooting of the coachman, the flight of
the footman, and her own concealment in the cornfield evoked whimpers,
while the brutal depiction of the Escobars’ murder made her cower and
cover her eyes.
I suppose I am not particularly tactful; still I had been careful
not to mention any of this to Barbara. Midbin, however, after a very
gratifying reaction to one of the drawings, said casually, “Barbara
hasnt been here for a long time. I wish she would come back.”
When I repeated this she stormed at me. “How dare you discuss me with
that ridiculous fool?”
“Youve got it all wrong. There wasnt any discussion. Midbin only said—”
“I know what Oliver said. I know his whole silly vocabulary.”
“He only wants to help you.”
“Help me? Help _me_? What’s wrong with me?”
“Nothing, Barbara. Nothing.”
“Am I dumb or blind or stupid?”
“Please, Barbara.”
“Just unattractive. I know. Ive seen you with that creature. How you
must hate me to flaunt her before everyone!”
“You know I only go with her to Midbin’s because he insists.”
“What about your little lovers’ meetings in the woodlot when you were
supposed to be plowing? Do you think I didnt know about them?”
“Barbara, I assure you they were perfectly harmless. She—”
“Youre a liar. More than that, youre a sneak and a hypocrite. Yes, and
a mean, crawling sycophant as well. I know you must detest me, but it
suits you to suffer me because of the haven. I’m not blind; youve used
me, deliberately and calculatedly for your own selfish ends.”
Midbin could explain and excuse her outbursts by his “emotional
pathology.” Ace accepted and suffered them as inescapable, so did her
father, but I saw no necessity of being always subject to her tantrums.
I told her so, adding, not too heatedly I think, “Maybe we shouldn’t
see each other alone after this.”
She stood perfectly immobile and silent, as if I were still speaking.
“All right,” she said at last. “All right; yes ... yes. Don’t.”
Her apparent calm deceived me completely; I smiled with relief.
“That’s right, laugh. Why shouldnt you? You have no feelings, no more
than you have an intelligence. You are an oaf, a clod, a real bumpkin.
Standing there with a silly grin on your face. Oh I hate you! How I
hate you!”
She wept, she shrilled, she rushed at me and then turned away, crying
she hadnt meant it, not a word of it. She cajoled, begging forgiveness
for all she’d said, tearfully promising to control herself after this,
moaning that she needed me, and finally, when I didnt repulse her,
exclaiming it was her love for me which tormented her so and drove her
to such scenes. It was a wretched, degrading moment, and not the least
of its wretchedness and degradation was that I recognized the erotic
value of her abjection. Detachedly I might pity, fear or be repelled;
at the same time I had to admit her sudden humility was exciting.
Perhaps this storm changed our relationship for the better, or at
least eased the constraint between us. At any rate it was after this
she began speaking to me of her work, putting us on a friendlier, less
furious plane. I learned now how completely garbled was my notion of
what she was doing.
“Heavier-than-air flying-machines!” she cried. “How utterly absurd!”
“All right. I didnt know.”
“My work is theoretical. I’m not a vulgar mechanic.”
“All right, all right.”
“I’m going to show that time and space are aspects of the same entity.”
“All right,” I said, thinking of something else.
“What is time?”
“Uh?... Dear Barbara, since I don’t know anything I can slide
gracefully out of that one. I couldnt even begin to define time.”
“Oh, you could probably define it all right—in terms of itself. I’m not
dealing with definitions but concepts.”
“All right, conceive.”
“Hodge, like all stuffy people your levity is ponderous.”
“Excuse me. Go ahead.”
“Time is an aspect.”
“So you mentioned. I once knew a man who said it was an illusion. And
another who said it was a serpent with its tail in its mouth.”
“Mysticism.” The contempt with which she spoke the word brought a
sudden image of Roger Tyss saying “metaphysics” with much the same
inflection. “Time, matter, space and energy are all aspects of the
cosmic entity. Interchangeable aspects. Theoretically it should be
possible to translate matter into terms of energy and space into terms
of time; matter-energy into space-time.”
“It sounds so simple I’m ashamed of myself.”
“To put it so crudely the explanation is misleading: suppose matter is
resolved into its component....”
“Atoms?” I suggested, since she seemed at loss for a word.
“No, atoms are already too individualized, too separate. Something more
fundamental than atoms. We have no word because we can’t quite grasp
the concept yet. Essence, perhaps, or the theological ‘spirit.’ If
matter....”
“A man?”
“Man, turnip or chemical compound,” she answered impatiently; “if
resolved into its essence it can presumably be reassembled, another
wrong word, at another point of the time-space fabric.”
“You mean ... like yesterday?”
“No—and yes. What is ‘yesterday’? A thing? An aspect? An idea? Or a
relationship? Oh, words are useless things; even with mathematical
symbols you can hardly.... But someday I’ll establish it. Or lay the
groundwork for my successors. Or the successors of my successors.”
I nodded. Midbin was at least half right; Barbara was emotionally
sick. For what was this “theory” of hers but the rationalization of
a daydream, the daydream of discovering a process for reaching back
through time to injure her dead mother and so steal all of her father’s
affections?
_14._ _MIDBIN’S EXPERIMENT_
At the next meeting of the fellows Midbin asked an appropriation for
experimental work and the help of haven members in the project. Since
the extent of both requests was modest, their granting would ordinarily
have been a formality. But Barbara asked politely if Dr Midbin wouldnt
like to elaborate a little on the purposes of his experiment.
I knew her manner was a danger signal. Nevertheless Midbin merely
answered goodhumoredly that he proposed to test a theory of whether
an emotionally induced physical handicap could be cured by recreating
in the subject’s mind the shock which had caused—to use a loose,
inaccurate term—the impediment.
“I thought so. He wants to waste the haven’s money and time on a little
tart he’s having an affair with while important work is held up for
lack of funds.”
One of the women called out, “Oh, Barbara, no,” and there were
exclamations of disapproval. I saw Kimi Agati look steadfastly down
in embarrassment. Mr Haggerwells, after trying unsuccessfully to hold
Barbara’s eye, said, “I must apologize for my daughter—”
“It’s all right,” interrupted Midbin. “I understand Barbara’s notions.
I’m sure no one here really thinks there is anything improper between
the girl and me. Outside of this, Barbara’s original question seems
quite in order. Quite in order. Briefly, as most of you know, I’ve
been trying to restore speech to a subject who lost it—again I use
an inaccurate term for convenience—during an afflicting experience.
Preliminary explorations indicate good probability of satisfactory
response to my proposed method, which is simply to employ a kinematic
camera like those making entertainment photinugraphs—”
“He wants to turn the haven into a tinugraph mill with the fellows as
mummers!”
“Only this once, Barbara, only this once. Not regularly; not as
routine.”
At this point her father insisted the request be voted on without
any more discussion. I was tempted to vote with Barbara, the only
dissident, for I foresaw Midbin’s tinugraph would undoubtedly rely
heavily on cooperation from me, but I didnt have the courage. Instead I
merely abstained, like Midbin himself and Ace.
The first effect of Midbin’s program was to free me from obligation,
for he decided there was no point continuing the sessions with the dumb
girl as before. All his time was taken up anyway with photography—no
one at the haven had specialized in it—kinematic theory, the art of
pantomime, and the relative merit of different makes of cameras, all
manufactured abroad.
The girl, who had never lost her tenseness and apprehension during
the interviews, nevertheless clung to the habit of being escorted to
Midbin’s workroom. Since it was impossible to convey to her that the
sessions were temporarily suspended, she appeared regularly, always in
a dress with which she had taken manifest pains, and there was little I
could do but walk her to Midbin’s and back. I was acutely conscious of
the ridiculousness of these parades and expectant of retribution from
Barbara afterward, so I was to some extent relieved when Midbin finally
made his decision and procured camera and film.
Now I had to set the exact scene where the holdup had taken place, not
an easy thing to do, for one rise looks much like another at twilight
and all look differently in daylight. Then I had to approximate the
original conditions as nearly as possible. Here Midbin was partially
foiled by the limitations of his medium, being forced to use the camera
in full sunlight instead of at dusk.
I dressed and instructed the actors in their parts, rehearsing and
directing them throughout. The only immunity I got was Midbin’s
concession that I neednt play the role of myself, since in my early
part of spectator I would be hidden anyway, and the succor was omitted
as irrelevant to the therapeutic purpose. Midbin himself did nothing
but tend the camera.
Any tinugraph mill would have snorted at our final product and
certainly no tinugraph lyceum would have condescended to show it. After
some hesitation Midbin had decided not to make a phonoto, feeling the
use of sound would add no value and considerable expense, so the film
didnt even have this feature to recommend it. Fortunately for whatever
involuntary professional pride was involved, no one was present at the
first showing but the girl and me, Ace to work the magic-lantern, and
Midbin.
In the darkened room the pictures on the screen gave—after the first
minutes—such an astonishing illusion that when one of the horsemen
rode toward the camera we all reflexively shrank back. Despite its
amateurishness the tinugraph seemed an artistic success to us, but
it was no triumph in justifying its existence. The girl reacted no
differently than she had toward the drawings; if anything her response
was less satisfactory. The inarticulate noises ran the same scale from
dismay to terror; nothing new was added. Nevertheless Midbin, his
adamsapple working joyously up and down, slapped Ace and me on the
back, predicting he’d have her talking like a politician before the
year was out.
I suppose the process was imperceptible; certainly there was no
discernible difference between one showing and the next. The boring
routine continued day after day and so absolute was Midbin’s confidence
that we were not too astonished after some weeks when, at the moment
“Don Jaime” folded in simulated death, she fainted and remained
unconscious for some time.
After this we expected—at least Ace and I did, Midbin only rubbed his
palms together—that the constraint on her tongue would be suddenly
and entirely lifted. It wasnt, but a few showings later, at the same
crucial point, she screamed. It was a genuine scream, clear and
piercing, bearing small resemblance to the strangling noises we were
accustomed to. Midbin had been vindicated; no mute could have voiced
that full, shrill cry.
Pursuing another of his theories, he soon gave up the idea of helping
her express the words in her mind in Spanish. Instead he concentrated
on teaching her English. His method was primitive, consisting of
pointing solemnly to objects and repeating their names in an artificial
monotone.
“She’ll have an odd way of speaking,” remarked Ace; “all nouns,
singular nouns at that, said with a mouthful of pebbles. I can just
imagine the happy day: ‘Man chair wall girl floor;’ and you bubbling
back, ‘Carpet ceiling earth grass.’”
“I’ll supply the verbs as needed,” said Midbin; “first things first.”
She must have been paying at least as much attention to our
conversation as to his instruction for, unexpectedly, one day she
pointed to me and said quite clearly, “Hodge ... Hodge ...”
I was discomposed, but not with the same vexation I had felt at her
habit of seeking me out and following me around. There was a faint,
bashful pleasure, and a feeling of gratitude for such steadfastness.
She must have had some grounding in English, for while she utilized
the nouns Midbin had supplied, she soon added, tentatively and
questioningly, a verb or adjective here and there. “I ... walk ...?”
Ace’s fear of her acquiring Midbin’s dead inflection was groundless;
her voice was low and charmingly modulated; we were enchanted listening
to her elementary groping among words.
Conversation or questioning was as yet impossible. Midbin’s, “What
is your name?” brought forth no response save a puzzled look and a
momentary sinking back into dullness. But several weeks later she
touched her breast and said shyly, “Catalina.”
Her memory then, was not impaired, at least not totally. There was no
way of telling yet what she remembered and what self-protection had
forced her to forget, for direct questions seldom brought satisfactory
answers at this stage. Facts concerning herself she gave out
sporadically and without relation to our curiosity.
Her name was Catalina García; she was the much younger sister of Doña
Maria Escobar, with whom she lived. So far as she knew she had no other
relatives. She did not want to go back to school; they had taught her
to sew, they had been kind, but she had not been happy there. Please—we
would not send her away from Haggershaven, would we?
Midbin acted now like a fond parent who was both proud of his child’s
accomplishments and fearful lest she be not quite ready to leave his
solicitous care. He was far from satisfied at restoring her speech;
he probed and searched, seeking to know what she had thought and felt
during the long months of muteness.