THE PARK.
Walter did not know where he was going when he turned from Lufa. It was
solitude he sought, without being aware that he sought anything. Must it
not be a deep spiritual instinct that drives trouble into solitude?
There are times when only the highest can comfort even the lowest, and
solitude is the ante-chamber to his presence. With him is the only
possibility of essential comfort, the comfort that turns an evil into a
good. But it was certainly not _knowledge_ of this that drove Walter
into the wide, lonely park. “Away from men!” moans the wounded life.
Away from the herd flies the wounded deer; away from the flock staggers
the sickly sheep--to the solitary covert to die. The man too thinks it
is to die; but it is in truth so to return to life--if indeed he be a
man, and not an abortion that can console himself with vile
consolations. “You can not soothe me, my friends! leave me to my
misery,” cries the man; and lo his misery is the wind of the waving
garments of him that walks in the garden in the cool of the day! All
misery is _God unknown_.
Hurt and bleeding Walter wandered away. His life was palled with a
sudden hail-cloud which hung low, and blotted out color and light and
loveliness. It was the afternoon; the sun was fast going down; the
dreary north wind had begun again to blow, and the trees to moan in
response; they seemed to say, “How sad thou art, wind of winter! see how
sad thou makest us! we moan and shiver! each alone, we are sad!” The
sorrow of nature was all about him; but the sighing of the wind-sifting
trees around his head, and the hardening of the earth about the ancient
roots under his feet, was better than the glow of the bright
drawing-room, with its lamps and blazing fires, its warm colors and
caressing softnesses. Who would take joy in paradise with hell in his
heart! Let him stay out in the night with the suffering, groaning trees,
with the clouds that have swallowed the moon and the stars, with the
frost and the silent gathering of the companies, troops, and battalions
of snow!
Every man understands something of what Walter felt. His soul was seared
with cold. The ways of life were a dull sickness. There was no reason
why things should be, why the world should ever have been made! The
night was come: why should he keep awake! How cold the river looked in
its low, wet channel! How listlessly the long grasses hung over its
bank! And the boy on the other side was whistling!
It grew darker. He had made a long round, and unaware was approaching
the house. He had not thought what he must do. Nothing so practical as
going away had yet occurred to him. She had not been unkind! She had
even pressed on him a sister’s love! The moth had not yet burned away
enough of its wings to prevent it from burning its whole body! it kept
fluttering about the flame. Nor was absent the childish weakness, the
unmanly but common impulse, to make the woman feel how miserable she had
made him. For this poor satisfaction, not a few men have blown their
brains out; not a few women drowned themselves or taken poison--and
generally without success! Walter would stand before her the ruin she
had made him, then vanish from her sight. To-morrow he would leave the
house, but she must see him yet once, alone, before he went! Once more
he must hang his shriveled pinions in the presence of the seraph whose
radiance had scorched him! And still the most hideous thought of all
would keep lifting its vague ugly head out of chaos--the thought that,
lovely as she was, she was not worshipful.
The windows were dimly shining through their thick curtains. The house
looked a great jewel of bliss, in which the spirits of paradise might
come and go, while such as he could not enter! What should he do? Where
should he go? To his room, and dress for dinner? It was impossible! How
could he sit feeling her eyes, and facing Sefton! How endure the
company, the talk, the horrible eating! All so lately full of
refinement, of enchantment--the music, the pictures, the easy
intercourse--all was stupid, wearisome, meaningless! He would go to his
room and say he had a headache! But first he would peep into the
drawing-room: she might be there--and looking sad!