The night received the moonlight in the manner of a sophisticated
braggart who slaps the face of an old, impassive man. Mrs. Robert
Calvin Taylor observed this illusion and painted it upon one of the
lanterns lighting a little party within her heart. The guests at the
party, fat sophists and slatterns in gay, patched clothes, gathered
around the lantern and felt relieved at the impersonal novelty of its
decoration. If Mrs. Robert Calvin Taylor had been a philosopher or a
scientist she would have changed the night to an unseen background, or
a chemical diagram; she would have ignored the pleading of her heart
for pictorial distraction. But since she was a society-woman, tired
of sensual toys and a mental twilight, she welcomed the night as her
first effectual lover. Sitting in the garden of her country home she
could see the lighted windows of her crowded ballroom, and hear the
saccharine pandemonium of a jazz orchestra. The noise reminded her of a
middle-aged roué, snickering as he rolled his huge dice while gambling
for a new mistress. She felt glad that her new lover, the night, did
not seek to court her with such a blustering clatter.
The night was incredibly sophisticated but held the pungently awkward
body of a youth, crashing against trees and bushes. This mixture
pierced Mrs. Robert Calvin Taylor and slid far beneath those sensual
routines which are the delight of psycho-analysts--slid to a depth
where aesthetic passion slays the flesh and blends it into a sexless
potency. She felt a sense of bodiless conflagration striding with wide
steps beside the night. When the limitless glow died within her, she
glanced down and found that she was naked. The complicated shrewdness
of her clothes had disappeared.
By this time she had ceased to be Mrs. Robert Calvin Taylor--she had
become an expectant novice in a new world, and even the jazz music
and ballroom laughter had changed to the mumbled rumours of a past
existence. Therefore her nakedness failed to disconcert her. She
touched her shoulder, with a gesture of matter-of-fact congratulation,
and loosened her hair to rid herself of a last dab of incongruity.
Then she rose from the stone bench and walked down a pathway leading
to the great lake that bounded one side of her country estate. She
felt the powerful and sober curiosity of one who has decided to become
a recluse and examines the deserted possibilities of his roofless
plateau. She reached a high bluff rising over the placid vanity of
the huge lake, combing its bluish black hair with moonlight. Suddenly
she became aware of a figure standing beside her. She turned with
a gasp of strangled aloofness. The ethereal composure of her small
face, defended by moonlight, sheered into an ebony cast of hermit-like
annoyance. But when the color and outlines of the figure shrunk within
her eyes, her face changed again. An astounded immersion crowned her
head, tugging at her short nose, straightening her thick lips, and
cleaving her gray eyes. The slightly deteriorated slenderness of her
short body lowered a bit toward the earth, not from fear but because
of a weakening incredulity. The figure before her was that of a
sexless human being, small and slim of statute, nude, and hued with
an inhumanly concentrated black. The head held large eyes that shone
like metaphysical diamonds, as though ten thousand stars were carousing
together, in a realm of compressed light. The figure spoke to Mrs.
Robert Calvin Taylor, and its voice seemed thrown forth by the rays
from its eyes. The voice was distinct and subdued.
“You are not a hermit who has turned a garden into a solitary castle,”
said the figure.
“What am I?” asked Mrs. Robert Calvin Taylor.
“Your mind and heart are no longer clad in their heavy mirages of love,
fear, and sleep,” said the figure. “The surface pictures have gone and
the twin bazaars of your heart and mind are exchanging a long-deferred
greeting. Within the now mingled bazaars emotions and thoughts have
become friends and sell each other endless variations in color, light,
and form. I am the being who rules this proceeding.”
“Have you a name?” asked Mrs. Robert Calvin Taylor, using the unashamed
naïveté of a child.
“Men call me Aesthetics,” answered the figure. “In my weakest form
I make the eyes of the shop-girl hesitate a bit, as she views an
unusually gaudy sunset. In my strongest manifestations I help poets and
artists to contradict their personal lives. But these are merely my
outward indications. I line the hearts and minds of all human beings,
often remaining within them, unfelt, until they die. In rare cases such
as yours the mirages hiding and dividing me are slain, and I clap my
hands, sending motion to the twin bazaars of heart and mind.”
“What caused me to uncover you within myself?” said Mrs. Robert Calvin
Taylor.
“You yielded to a whim and made the night your lover. Dissatisfied with
the loves and fears he found within you, the night threw them aside,
one by one, thus slaying the mirages that hid me. Your other lovers
of the past were content with more material gifts and did not seek to
uncover you.”
“I am bare now. What will you do with me?” said Mrs. Robert Calvin
Taylor. The figure laid a hand upon her shoulder. His eyes burnt her to
a petal of ashes that fell down between them.
* * * * *
Mr. Robert Calvin Taylor stood over the form of his young wife, who
sat slouched down upon a stone bench within their garden. He shook her
shoulder, lightly. She uttered a perturbed mumble and did not raise the
head resting upon one of her arms. The moonlight fell upon the silken
complexities of her dress.
“Poor Dot, I warned her not to take a third glass,” he muttered to
himself as he raised her in his arms and staggered down the garden
pathway.