INCOMPLETENESS
STUMBLING and blind, Hardin pushed without volition toward the river
which was sending its peaceful waters once again to the gulf. When he
awoke to himself and the night, he was on the levee.
His bitterness was coloring both strands of his life. Strange, that
a man’s attainment can bring him neither pride nor joy, his own
achievement winning him dishonor in a double sense! The triumph of that
mound of earth, of those turned waters, was not his. Gerty had felt it;
else she had not flouted him. In everything he had failed. Life held
only jeers for him.
Nothing in Hardin’s experience, or in his specialized reading had
helped him to a philosophy of life; the books men live by were not his;
and his crude egotism, as raw to-day as when he was twenty-five, in
the moment of his trial tripped him to his fall. In all his jaundiced
world, there was no rosy finger of light. His wounded shadow obscured
the universe. His suffering, he felt, was unparalleled, because it was
undeserved. What had betrayed him? His bitterness was crying to the
stars. Where was the fault?
He kept telling himself that it was not true. He would wake up and find
himself in his tent, under those same mocking stars; he would discover
it to be a hideous dream. Why for him this bite of hate, cried his
bleeding ego? It was as though life, which he had been pursuing, had
turned suddenly on him, savage and virulent, had bitten him to the
bone. It wasn’t true, cried his resistance, because it wouldn’t be
right! This crash violated all his plans, warped his world, accused his
judgments. This the Hardin who had followed a deliberate trail ever
since that morning of resolution in this yet unawakened desert? In what
had that man failed, where had he missed? Misfortune, trouble, he had
thought of vaguely as a punishment for sin, or negligence, as do most
eager spirits, before it comes! Himself! Tom Hardin,--why, life had
scarcely begun! Why, since that moment, his path had known no turning;
one woman, one ambition; selflessness. Something was wrong; the umpire
caught napping!
His training betrayed him into a thicket of amaze, of protest. His
mental processes kept him in a circle of tangled underbrush. What was
physical pain, he cried, to the torture of his mind? What the agony of
death?
Stumbling along the levee of his buried hopes, by the peaceful chained
river of his dedication, it came to him, the Ultimate, the end of it
all. Until then death had been kept in its decent background. The one
incontrovertible fact of the universe stared him now in the face.
Heretofore, his struggle had been set to the tune of life; now, the
rest of the way, he was facing death. For what is death but the failure
to live? That was where he, Hardin, had failed. He touched at a thought
of brotherhood, the realization dim. Death had come to Eduardo swiftly;
but others it follows, cloaking its face, slowly stalking its victim
down! Now he knew what would be _his_ companion the rest of the way!
Brandon, walking out a philosophic, bloodless vigil, came upon the
distorted, reeling fugitive. The starlight showed the face tortured. No
safety for that staggering derelict without a pilot! He grabbed Hardin
by the arm, and with gentle force, directed his steps. He talked of
himself, his voice tuned to the stillness of the night.
“I like to walk before I turn in. I go to sleep quicker. I have no
dreams then. ‘No dreams, dear God, no dreams.’ That is the mile-post
of age, I think. We cling to our dreams in our youth. When we begin to
grow old, we pray for sleep, which is the beginning of the prayer for
death. It is our preparation for the long sleep.” He would not see the
scowl that disfigured Hardin’s features.
“I often think of that blessing of ours. Wondering if men could endure
what they like to call their supreme blessing, life, if we were not
able to sleep away half of it. We die half of our life, eagerly, that
we may live the other half. Strange, that!”
Hardin thought that he was too full of pain, of intolerance to listen,
but the calm voice reached his fleeing thoughts. The final sleep,
release? Sharply, he looked at Brandon’s straight clean profile,
ascetic in its intellectual purity, sweet as a woman’s. What had _his_
life been? Brandon kept on with his quiet reflection, but Hardin was
wandering afield. His thoughts were growing centrifugal, sympathetic.
Brandon, too, had failed!
He found that his companion had been talking about the river’s capture.
He caught a phrase now and again, but his thoughts hovered over his own
hurt as vultures over a dying body.
“That was a great battle,” Brandon was saying. “And this the sort of
field on which our future battles will be fought. It’s modern warfare.
In a few years the names of those generals will be forgotten. We call
ourselves civilized, yet we put up statues to a man who bombards and
burns a town of savages. We’ll learn to do things differently. We’ll
learn our real values. When the world begins to crowd up, we’ll find
the value of these waste places. And we’ll give titles to men like the
older Estrada.” Hardin was thrown against another wrong. He forgot that
Brandon was droning. Suddenly, a personal note was sounded. He woke to
hear Brandon’s conclusion:
“You think you will, but you won’t. You won’t do anything to him. You
won’t want to.”
Hardin stood still. He stared at Brandon. What was he talking about? It
sounded like necromancy. He had said nothing of Godfrey.
“You won’t harm him.” Brandon linked his arm through the withdrawn one
of Hardin and pressed him into step.
“You saw them?” Of course, everybody knew by this time that Gerty had
left him! They had taken no pains to spare him, throwing publicly their
scorn of him in his face!
“I was at the station. I think I know how you feel. How any man
would feel. Plan it, kill him with your hands. Hate him; get it out
of you. Kill him before you go to sleep.” Hardin was staring like a
sleep-walker. “Get it out of your system; it’s poison. When you leave
me”--but Brandon did not intend that to be soon--“go home and write to
them both. Then you can sleep. To-morrow, it will be done. Then burn
the letter. Satisfy the animal, or it will be at your bedside waiting
in the morning. I always write out my anger, before I sleep. Do you
remember the Lincoln story? I’ve adopted that.”
Hardin shut his ears to the anecdote with rude intention. Stories! What
had he to do with after-dinner stories a night like this? Brandon was
walking a little faster. He intended to tire out Hardin. He finished
his whimsical reminiscence. “Yes, I always burn those letters. But I
write them first. It’s a good way, the Lincoln way.”
Hardin turned on him, his twisted features unpleasant to see. “You
think I mean to hurt him, kill him. We are not living in dueling times.
I wouldn’t touch the--skunk.”
An ulcer had been pricked. His voice was calmer. The plan came out,
the ugly revenge of distorted chivalry and hate and duty. Brandon’s
low murmurs of attention passed for assent. Hardin did not notice that
they were within sight of the encampment, nor that Brandon wheeled
to retrace their steps. He took Brandon back into the beginnings
of things, his cramped youth, his ambition, his awakening in that
very desert, his final dedication to one woman, one idea. It was
a passionate self-eulogy, the relief of the wounded self-esteem.
Everything had mocked him. What use were such sacrifices, if this be
the end? He demanded an answer of the eternal. As well be a beast--the
punishment no worse!
His fury had shouted itself hoarse, stridulous. She was still his
wife--he still had a duty to perform, he maintained, the duty of
protection. It was grotesque, a Frankenstein of rage, but there was no
smile in Brandon’s heart. He waited for the storm to exhaust itself.
Even when Hardin had finished, he hesitated; his words must be water,
not fuel to those scorching fires.
“It’s good as far as you see it,” he was beginning.
“Of course, it’s right,” thundered Hardin. “She’s not to be thrown
aside, my wife--”
“No, but Godfrey’s wife is.” Brandon added no comment.
“Well, what of that? That’s his lookout, isn’t it? He should have
thought about that before. I’ll stand by Gerty, God Almighty, until the
end.”
He walked on sulking.
“_Your_ wife. Because she is _your_ wife. It’s the pronoun, not the
sex, or the relation. She’s yours, that is, she was. Oh, we recognize
the marriage ceremony, we men to-day, but we go farther, we acknowledge
the unwritten sacrament, inclination. If she no longer wants to be your
wife, she’s not your wife, Hardin. You don’t want her. Let her alone.
You have no more right to her, or to her life, after yesterday, than
though she were a dollar on another man’s desk. You’re not a savage.
And she’s not a child. She knows the world. She can protect herself,
oh, better than you can.”
Hardin flung out a protest to this startling twist of facts. Brandon
let him get tangled in his angry rush.
“The river,” began Brandon, as though they had been discussing it. “You
have done this thing, but yours is not the credit, the published honor.
It’s Marshall’s and Rickard’s. Yet the thing is done as you wanted it,
approximately. I heard that it was you who went after Faraday. Now the
success stings you. _Yours_ is neither the power nor the glory. The
pronoun again, Mr. Hardin!”
Beside them ran the river, guileless, now, in its captivity. The flat
world stretched away from them until it ran into a blur of rising
shadow, of dim mountain ranges. The world was sleeping; only the stars
watched. In spite of his resistance, the quiet came creeping into
Hardin’s soul. His muscles were relaxing; he was slipping toward sleep.
“I’ve wondered, too,” Brandon took a slower tempo, “if we could not see
men better by searching for their apex. Perhaps you’ve never looked at
life that way?”
The ugly lip flared. Hardin couldn’t see what Brandon was driving at.
He’d never had time to sit still and look at life! He’d just lived!
Just worked along!
“What are we doing? Climbing up a mountain. Whatever we call this
journey of ours, ambition, labor; life. We climb up; we creep down. We
are taught to climb up, plenty of teachers for that, all the way along.
No one shows us when to begin to crawl down. When we reach the apex,
that’s the trial. Why? We don’t know it’s the apex. We’ve achieved all
we can. Achieved or failed. We fail, anyway, there, because we find
we can’t climb any more. We’re in the habit of climbing; we’ve a lust
for it. No slippers and easy chair yet for us. We tell ourselves it’s
slothful not to climb. We keep on, and we fall. We must learn to creep;
we are leaving our apex. That’s when we need help, a voice out of a
book, or a friend’s to help us and say, ‘You’ve not failed! You went
as far as you could. You’ve done your part. The young men will do the
rest, the ones who come after. They’ll take the place you leave. Why,
man, you yourself, took another’s. Creep down cheerfully. You’ve lived.
It’s the eternal plan!’”
Hardin did not speak, but his eyes had left the ground.
“Look at this desert. I reckon that there’s no man who knows better
than I do just what you’ve done. You’ve gone ahead when others laughed
at you. You’ve worked when others slept.”
Hardin’s head lost its shamed droop. Some one knew what he had done.
Gerty had known, too, but she was ashamed of him. To her, he had failed.
“Don’t covet all the parts, Hardin. You started it, you and Estrada.
He’s had less fun out of it, even, than you. I know that you sacrificed
your position to get the thing pulled through. It was a grand thing to
do, better than putting the harness on the river. I’m proud to know
you.”
The stormy blood began its normal flow. He could look at the river,
now, not ashamed. A few minutes later, he remembered to ask, “What do
you mean by my part?”
“Your ego, Hardin. Our ego. It tells us in our youth to do everything,
that all the parts are calling for us. But one man can’t fill more than
one part. Then it’s time to get off the stage. Make room for the young
men; they’re waiting for their chance. Why, Hardin, _you_ don’t have to
write your name all over this desert! It’s here! The world may mention
Marshall, or Rickard when they speak of the Colorado, but there’s not
a man in this valley, nor one who comes after, who’ll fail to take off
his hat to Tom Hardin!”
Hardin stopped with a jerk. “Do you think that’s true?”
A steady smile, paternal in its sweetness, answered him. “I know it’s
true. But what difference does that make? _You_ know. You are on good
terms with yourself. That’s all we ought to want. It’s a fact. Creep
down cheerfully.”
The two men struck homeward. The chill that precedes the desert dawn
was in the air.
“I yearned for completeness, too,” mused Brandon. “We’re made that way.
I thought that that was what life was. A complete thing. We begin to
believe in that when we are tugging at our mother’s skirts. When we
grow older, we fight for it. Not until we reach our apex, not until we
begin to think about death, do we discover that there is no such thing
as individual completion. Did you ever hear of a rounded life, or a
complete one? We live too long, Hardin, or die too soon. It’s creeping
paralysis, or an accident in the street. We never finish anything, even
ourselves! We were never intended to, that’s my philosophy. Our ego
blinds us to that. We can only help the scheme along.”
“Go on talking,” said Hardin. Brandon had thrown him back to his own
centrifugal and nebulous thought.
He was trudging now, his step grown weary, in the direction of the
encampment. He could see in the distance his deserted tent. But his
mood had softened. The stream of his shackling connoted his success,
as this man had said. The valley beyond, yielding its harvest of happy
homes, that had he done. Perhaps, after all, he had not altogether
failed. And, at last, he looked up at the stars.
Before they reached the camp Brandon spoke again. “I can remember when
I discovered that that was not the plan. I’d just had my knockout. I
could not see any reason in it. For my wife to have to stay behind me,
to support me until I was strong enough to get started, or could find a
berth out here--it wasn’t the thing I wanted! I wasn’t pleasant to have
around. I moaned a good deal to Bertha about failure. I was a failure,
as a hero! I had to go to Boston to sell a piece of property. If I sold
it, I thought I could take Bertha west with me. I did not sell it. I
went in to a symphony concert after the deal fell through. I was full
of rebellion; the apex had come too soon. I guess it always seems that
way, whether we’re fifty, or twenty-nine. The music itself, the sounds
did not soothe me. I was thinking of my paper, my ambition. Ambition in
a desert? It had a mocking sound. I wanted to support my wife!
“I wasn’t listening to the music. I found I was watching the antics
of the man with the violoncello. He’d sit for a while and never make
a sound. It struck me as queer that a man could be willing to spend
a lifetime learning to play a thing like that, spend an afternoon to
come in, just once in a while! Just a few notes a day! I suppose you’ll
laugh at me, for we get our lessons different ways. I got mine from
that ’cello player. It came to me then, the apex philosophy. I got a
view at the scheme of things. Men’s incompleteness, the brotherhood of
man, our broken segments making up the whole; I remember when I left,
I was trying to whistle a theme from that great _Pathetique_! I never
shall forget that afternoon. I think of that ’cello player, think of my
life that way. We are all playing in the symphony, some of us carry the
tune a little further, some of us, like the ’cello player, content to
fill out the harmonies.”
They had reached the encampment. “I believe I’ll turn in,” gruffed
Hardin.
“Good night.” Brandon struck off to his tent.
Hardin found Innes asleep, huddled in his overcoat. He did not waken
her. On his threshold he stumbled over a clumsy bundle. Paper, torn,
paper wrappings, crackled under his fingers. He carried it into his
tent and shut the door before striking a match, so as not to waken her.
In the dark, he fumbled through the room for a match. Before lighting
a candle, the flickering match in his hand, he pulled down the tent
shades lest the light arouse Innes. He didn’t want any more woman talk!
He was stumbling off to bed when his eyes fell on the fat parcel. The
shape intrigued his curiosity.
It was soiled and racked from traveling. The labels read “Jalisco;
Nogales; Guadalajara; Tepic.” He searched for the original address. At
last he made out a blurred and muddied “Hardin.” Scrawled in by recent
fingers was “The Crossing, Mexico.”
On the table he unwound its dirty wrappings. A covering of cheese-cloth
lined the paper shells. Hardin’s weary eyes questioned the odd-looking
cushion. His fingers ran over the rigid curves. It came to him then,
what it was. Gerty’s form! And he sat it up on its waist-line.
Through Mexico, jostled from town to town; written about, speculated
on, sorely needed every time one of those dainty gowns was made, “those
pretty flimsy gowns of Gert’s!” At last it had come to the Heading!
He stared at it vacantly.
Something was happening within him; a childishness he could not
control. The shuddering storm swept over him as a dry autumn wind that
strips the trees gaunt.
He staggered to the candle and blew out its wavering flame. Picking up
the shape, he stole with it into the next room. He knelt by the bed
that had been Gerty’s. And the grandson of old Jasper Gingg cried out
his hurt, with his arms around that unyielding waist, his head against
that stuffed bosom.