A WIFE? thought I; yes, a wife! And why?
And pray, my dear sir, why not—why? Why not doubt; why not hesitate; why
not tremble?
Does a man buy a ticket in a lottery—a poor man, whose whole earnings go
in to secure the ticket—without trembling, hesitating, and doubting?
Can a man stake his bachelor respectability, his independence, and
comfort, upon the die of absorbing, unchanging, relentless marriage,
without trembling at the venture?
Shall a man who has been free to chase his fancies over the wide world,
without let or hindrance, shut himself up to marriageship, within four
walls called home, that are to claim him, his time, his trouble, and his
tears, thenceforward forever more, without doubts thick and thick-coming
as smoke?
Shall he who has been hitherto a mere observer of other men’s cares and
business, moving off where they made him sick of heart, approaching
whenever and wherever they made him gleeful—shall he now undertake
administration of just such cares and business without qualms? Shall he,
whose whole life has been but a nimble succession of escapes from
trifling difficulties, now broach, without doubtings, that matrimony,
where if difficulty beset him there is no escape? Shall this brain of
mine, careless-working, never tired with idleness, feeding on long
vagaries, and high, gigantic castles, dreaming out beatitudes hour by
hour—turn itself at length to such dull task-work, as thinking out a
livelihood for wife and children?
Where thenceforward will be those sunny dreams, in which I have warmed
my fancies, and my heart, and lighted my eye with crystal? This very
marriage, which a brilliant working imagination has invested time and
again with brightness and delight, can serve no longer as a mine for
teeming fancy: all, alas, will be gone—reduced to the dull standard of
the actual! No more room for intrepid forays of imagination—no more
gorgeous realm-making—all will be over!
Why not, I thought, go on dreaming?
Can any wife be prettier than an after-dinner fancy, idle and yet vivid,
can paint for you? Can any children make less noise than the little
rosy-cheeked ones, who have no existence, except in the _omnium
gatherum_ of your own brain? Can any housewife be more unexceptionable
than she who goes sweeping daintily the cobwebs that gather in your
dreams? Can any domestic larder be better stocked than the private
larder of your head dozing on a cushioned chair-back at Delmonico’s? Can
any family purse be better filled than the exceeding plump one you dream
of after reading such pleasant books as _Münchausen_ or _Typee_?
But if, after all, it must be—duty, or what-not, making provocation—what
then? And I clapped my feet hard against the fire-dogs, and leaned back,
and turned my face to the ceiling, as much as to say: And where on
earth, then, shall a poor devil look for a wife?
Somebody says, Lyttleton or Shaftesbury, I think, that, “marriages would
be happier if they were all arranged by the lord chancellor.”
Unfortunately, we have no lord chancellor to make this commutation of
our misery.
Shall a man, then, scour the country on a mule’s back, like Honest Gil
Blas, of Santillane; or shall he make application to some such
intervening providence as Madame St. Marc, who, as I see by the
_Presse_, manages these matters to one’s hand, for some five per cent.
on the fortunes of the parties?
I have trouted when the brook was so low and the sky so hot that I might
as well have thrown my fly upon the turnpike; and I have hunted hare at
noon, and woodcock in snow-time—never despairing, scarce doubting; but
for a poor hunter of his kind, without traps or snares, or any aid of
police or constabulary, to traverse the world, where are swarming, on a
moderate computation, some three hundred and odd millions of unmarried
women, for a single capture—irremediable, unchangeable—and yet a captive
which, by strange metonymy not laid down in the books, is very apt to
turn captor into captive, and make game of hunter—all this, surely,
surely may make a man shrug with doubt!
Then—again—there are the plaguy wife’s relations. Who knows how many
third, fourth, or fifth cousins will appear at careless, complimentary
intervals long after you had settled into the placid belief that all
congratulatory visits were at an end? How many twisted-headed brothers
will be putting in their advice, as a friend to Peggy?
How many maiden aunts will come to spend a month or two with their “dear
Peggy,” and want to know every tea-time “if she isn’t a dear love of a
wife?” Then dear father-in-law will beg (taking dear Peggy’s hand in
his) to give a little wholesome counsel; and will be very sure to advise
just the contrary of what you had determined to undertake. And dear
mamma-in-law must set her nose into Peggy’s cupboard, and insist upon
having the key to your own private locker in the wainscot.
Then, perhaps, there is a little bevy of dirty-nosed nephews, who come
to spend the holidays, and eat up your East India sweetmeats, and who
are forever tramping over your head or raising the old Harry below,
while you are busy with your clients. Last, and worst, is some fidgety
old uncle, forever too cold or too hot, who vexes you with his
patronizing airs, and impudently kisses his little Peggy!
—That could be borne, however, for perhaps he has promised his fortune
to Peggy. Peggy, then, will be rich (and the thought made me rub my
shins, which were now getting comfortably warm upon the fire-dogs).
Then, she will be forever talking of _her_ fortune; and pleasantly
reminding you on occasion of a favorite purchase—how lucky that _she_
had the means; and dropping hints about economy; and buying very
extravagant Paisleys.
She will annoy you by looking over the stock list at breakfast time; and
mention quite carelessly to your clients, that she is interested in
_such_, or such a speculation.
She will be provokingly silent when you hint to a tradesman that you
have not the money by you for his small bill—in short, she will tear the
life out of you, making you pay in righteous retribution of annoyance,
grief, vexation, shame and sickness of heart, for the superlative folly
of “marrying rich.”
—But if not rich, then poor. Bah! the thought made me stir the coals;
but there was still no blaze. The paltry earnings you are able to wring
out of clients by the sweat of your brow, will now be all _our_ income;
you will be pestered for pin-money, and pestered with your poor wife’s
relations. Ten to one she will stickle about taste—“Sir Visto’s”—and
want to make this so pretty, and that so charming, if she _only_ had the
means; and is sure Paul (a kiss) can’t deny his little Peggy such a
trifling sum, and all for the common benefit.
Then she, for one, means that _her_ children shan’t go a-begging for
clothes—and another pull at the purse. Trust a poor mother to dress her
children in finery!
Perhaps she is ugly—not noticeable at first, but growing on her, and
(what is worse) growing faster on you. You wonder why you didn’t see
that vulgar nose long ago: and that lip—it is very strange, you think,
that you ever thought it pretty. And then—to come to breakfast, with her
hair looking as it does, and you not so much as daring to say—“Peggy,
_do_ brush your hair!” Her foot, too—not very bad when decently
_chaussée_—but now, since she’s married, she does wear such infernal
slippers! And yet, for all this, to be prigging up for an hour, when any
of my old chums come to dine with me!
“Bless your kind hearts! my dear fellows,” said I, thrusting the tongs
into the coals, and speaking out loud, as if my voice could reach from
Virginia to Paris—“not married yet!”
Perhaps Peggy is pretty enough—only shrewish.
—No matter for cold coffee; you should have been up before.
What sad, thin, poorly-cooked chops, to eat with your rolls!
—She thinks they are very good, and wonders how you can set such an
example to your children.
The butter is nauseating.
—She has no other, and hopes you’ll not raise a storm about butter a
little turned. I think I see myself—ruminated I—sitting meekly at table,
scarce daring to lift up my eyes, utterly fagged out with some quarrel
of yesterday, choking down detestably sour muffins that my wife thinks
are “delicious”—slipping in dried mouthfuls of burned ham off the side
of my fork tines—slipping off my chair sideways at the end, and slipping
out with my hat between my knees, to business, and never feeling myself
a competent, sound-minded man till the oak door is between me and Peggy!
—“Ha, ha—not yet!” said I; and in so earnest a tone that my dog started
to his feet—cocked his eye to have a good look into my face—met my smile
of triumph with an amiable wag of the tail, and curled up again in the
corner.
Again, Peggy is rich enough, well enough, mild enough, only she doesn’t
care a fig for you. She has married you because father, or grandfather
thought the match eligible, and because she didn’t wish to disoblige
them. Besides, she didn’t positively hate you, and thought you were a
respectable enough young person; she has told you so repeatedly at
dinner. She wonders you like to read poetry; she wishes you would buy
her a good cookbook; and insists upon you making your will at the birth
of the first baby.
She thinks Captain So-and-So a splendid-looking fellow, and wishes you
would trim up a little, were it only for appearance’s sake.
You need not hurry up from the office so early at night: she, bless her
dear heart! does not feel lonely. You read to her a love tale; she
interrupts the pathetic parts with directions to her seamstress. You
read of marriages: she sighs, and asks if Captain So-and-So has left
town! She hates to be mewed up in a cottage, or between brick walls; she
does _so_ love the Springs!
But, again, Peggy loves you; at least she swears it, with her hand on
the _Sorrows of Werther_. She has pin-money which she spends for the
_Literary World_ and the _Friends in Council_. She is not bad looking,
save a bit too much of forehead; nor is she sluttish, unless a _négligé_
till three o’clock, and an ink stain on the forefinger be sluttish; but
then she is such a sad blue!
You never fancied, when you saw her buried in a three-volumed novel,
that it was anything more than a girlish vagary; and when she quoted
Latin you thought, innocently, that she had a capital memory for her
samplers.
[Illustration]
But to be bored eternally about Divine Dante and funny Goldoni, is too
bad. Your copy of Tasso, a treasure print of 1680, is all bethumbed and
dog’s-eared, and spotted with baby gruel. Even your Seneca—an Elzevir—is
all sweaty with handling. She adores La Fontaine, reads Balzac with a
kind of artist-scowl, and will not let Greek alone.
You hint at broken rest and an aching head at breakfast, and she will
fling you a scrap of anthology—in lieu of the camphor bottle—or chant
the aἰaĩ aἰaĩ, of tragic chorus.
—The nurse is getting dinner; you are holding the baby; Peggy is reading
Bruyère.
The fire smoked thick as pitch, and puffed out little clouds over the
chimney place. I gave the fore-stick a kick, at the thought of Peggy,
baby and Bruyère.
—Suddenly the flame flickered bluely athwart the smoke—caught at a twig
below—rolled round the mossy oak-stick—twined among the crackling
tree-limbs—mounted—lit up the whole body of smoke, and blazed out
cheerily and bright. Doubt vanished with Smoke, and Hope began with
Flame.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration]
II
BLAZE—SIGNIFYING CHEER
I PUSHED my chair back, drew up another, stretched out my feet cozily
upon it, rested my elbows on the chair arms, leaned my head on one hand,
and looked straight into the leaping and dancing flame.
—Love is a flame—ruminated I; and (glancing round the room) how a flame
brightens up a man’s habitation.
“Carlo,” said I, calling up my dog into the light, “good fellow, Carlo!”
and I patted him kindly, and he wagged his tail, and laid his nose
across my knee, and looked wistfully up in my face; then strode
away—turned to look again, and lay down to sleep.
“Pho, the brute!” said I, “it is not enough, after all, to like a dog.”
—If now in that chair yonder, not the one your feet lie upon, but the
other, beside you—closer yet—were seated a sweet-faced girl, with a
pretty little foot lying out upon the hearth—a bit of lace running round
the swelling throat—the hair parted to a charm over a forehead fair as
any of your dreams; and if you could reach an arm around that chair
back, without fear of giving offense, and suffer your fingers to play
idly with those curls that escape down the neck; and if you could clasp
with your other hand those little white, taper fingers of hers, which
lie so temptingly within reach—and so, talk softly and low in presence
of the blaze, while the hours slip without knowledge, and the winter
winds whistle uncared for; if, in short, you were no bachelor, but the
husband of some such sweet image (dream, call it rather), would it not
be far pleasanter than this cold single night-sitting—counting the
sticks—reckoning the length of the blaze, and the height of the falling
snow?
And if, some or all of those wild vagaries that grow on your fancy at
such an hour, you could whisper into listening, because loving ears—ears
not tired with listening, because it is you who whisper—ears ever
indulgent because eager to praise; and if your darkest fancies were lit
up, not merely with bright wood fire, but with a ringing laugh of that
sweet face turned up in fond rebuke—how far better than to be waxing
black and sour over pestilential humors—alone—your very dog asleep.
And if, when a glowing thought comes into your brain, quick and sudden,
you could tell it over as to a second self, to that sweet creature, who
is not away, because she loves to be there; and if you could watch the
thought catching that girlish mind, illuming that fair brow, sparkling
in those pleasantest of eyes—how far better than to feel it slumbering,
and going out, heavy, lifeless, and dead, in your own selfish fancy. And
if a generous emotion steals over you—coming, you know not whither,
would there not be a richer charm in lavishing it in caress, or
endearing word, upon that fondest, and most dear one, than in patting
your glossy-coated dog, or sinking lonely to smiling slumbers?
How would not benevolence ripen with such monitor to task it! How would
not selfishness grow faint and dull, leaning ever to that second self,
which is the loved one! How would not guile shiver, and grow weak,
before that girl-brow and eye of innocence! How would not all that
boyhood prized of enthusiasm, and quick blood, and life, renew itself in
such presence!
The fire was getting hotter, and I moved into the middle of the room.
The shadows the flames made were playing like fairy forms over floor,
and wall, and ceiling.
My fancy would surely quicken, thought I, if such being were in
attendance. Surely imagination would be stronger and purer if it could
have the playful fancies of dawning womanhood to delight it. All toil
would be torn from mind-labor, if but another heart grew into this
present soul, quickening it, warming it, cheering it, bidding it
ever—God speed!
_Her_ face would make a halo, rich as a rainbow, atop of all such
noisome things, as we lonely souls call trouble. Her smile would
illumine the blackest of crowding cares; and darkness that now seats you
despondent, in your solitary chair for days together, weaving bitter
fancies, dreaming bitter dreams, would grow light and thin, and spread,
and float away—chased by that beloved smile.
Your friend—poor fellow! dies: never mind, that gentle clasp of _her_
fingers, as she steals behind you, telling you not to weep—it is worth
ten friends!
Your sister, sweet one, is dead—buried. The worms are busy with all her
fairness. How it makes you think earth nothing but a spot to dig graves
upon!
—It is more: _she_, she says, will be a sister; and the waving curls as
she leans upon your shoulder, touch your cheek, and your wet eyes turn
to meet those other eyes—God has sent his angel, surely!
Your mother, alas for it, she is gone! Is there any bitterness to a
youth, alone, and homeless, like this!
But you are not homeless; you are not alone; _she_ is there—her tears
softening yours, her smile lighting yours, her grief killing yours; and
you live again, to assuage that kind sorrow of hers.
Then—those children, rosy, fair-haired; no, they do not disturb you with
their prattle now—they are yours! Toss away there on the
greensward—never mind the hyacinths, the snowdrops, the violets, if so
be any are there; the perfume of their healthful lips is worth all the
flowers of the world. No need now to gather wild bouquets to love and
cherish: flower, tree, gun, are all dead things; things livelier hold
your soul.
And she, the mother, sweetest and fairest of all, watching, tending,
caressing, loving, till your own heart grows pained with tenderest
jealousy, and cures itself with loving.
You have no need now of any cold lecture to teach thankfulness; your
heart is full of it. No need now, as once, of bursting blossoms of trees
taking leaf and greenness, to turn thought kindly and thankfully; for,
ever beside you, there is bloom, and ever beside you there is fruit—for
which eye, heart and soul are full of unknown, and unspoken, because
unspeakable thank-offering.
And if sickness catches you, binds you, lays you down—no lonely moanings
and wicked curses at careless-stepping nurses. _The_ step is noiseless,
and yet distinct beside you. The white curtains are drawn, or withdrawn
by the magic of that other presence; and the soft, cool hand is upon
your brow.
No cold comfortings of friend-watchers, merely come in to steal a word
away from that outer world, which is pulling at their skirts; but, ever
the sad, shaded brow of her, whose lightest sorrow for your sake is your
greatest grief—if it were not a greater joy.
The blaze was leaping light and high, and the wood falling under the
growing heat.
—So, continued I, this heart would be at length itself—striving with
everything gross, even now as it clings to grossness. Love would make
its strength native and progressive. Earth’s cares would fly. Joys would
double. Susceptibilities be quickened; love master self; and having made
the mastery, stretch onward, and upward toward infinitude.
And if the end came, and sickness brought that follower—Great
Follower—which sooner or later is sure to come after, then the heart,
and the hand of love, ever near, are giving to your tired soul, daily
and hourly, lessons of that love which consoles, which triumphs, which
circleth all and centereth in all—love infinite and divine!
Kind hands—none but _hers_—will smooth the hair upon your brow as the
chill grows damp and heavy on it; and her fingers—none but hers—will lie
in yours as the wasted flesh stiffens and hardens for the ground. _Her_
tears—you could feel no others, if oceans fell—will warm your drooping
features once more to life; once more your eye, lighted in joyous
triumph, kindles in her smile, and then—
The fire fell upon the hearth; the blaze gave a last leap—a flicker—then
another—caught a little remaining twig—blazed up—wavered—went out.
There was nothing but a bed of glowing embers, over which the white
ashes gathered fast. I was alone, with only my dog for company.
[Illustration]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration]
III
ASHES—SIGNIFYING DESOLATION
AFTER all, thought I, ashes follow blaze inevitably as death follows
life. Misery treads on the heels of joy; anguish rides swift after
pleasure.
“Come to me again, Carlo,” said I to my dog; and I patted him fondly
once more, but now only by the light of the dying embers.
It is very little pleasure one takes in fondling brute favorites; but it
is a pleasure that when it passes, leaves no void. It is only a little
alleviating redundance in your solitary heart-life which, if lost,
another can be supplied.
But if your heart, not solitary—not quieting its humors with mere love
of chase, or dog—not repressing, year after year, its earnest yearnings
after something better and more spiritual—has fairly linked itself by
bonds strong as life, to another heart—is the casting off easy then?
Is it then only a little heart-redundancy cut off, which the next bright
sunset will fill up?
And my fancy, as it had painted doubt under the smoke, and cheer under
warmth of the blaze, so now it began under the faint light of the
smoldering embers, to picture heart-desolation.
What kind, congratulatory letters, hosts of them, coming from old and
half-forgotten friends, now that your happiness is a year, or two years
old!
“Beautiful.”
—Ay, to be sure, beautiful!
“Rich.”
—Pho, the dawdler! how little he knows of heart-treasure, who speaks of
wealth to a man who loves his wife as a wife only should be loved!
“Young.”
—Young indeed; guileless as infancy; charming as the morning.
Ah, these letters bear a sting: they bring to mind, with new and newer
freshness, if it be possible, the value of that which you tremble lest
you lose.
How anxiously you watch that step—if it lose not its buoyancy. How you
study the color on that cheek, if it grow not fainter. How you tremble
at the luster in those eyes, if it be not the luster of death. How you
totter under the weight of that muslin sleeve—a phantom weight! How you
fear to do it, and yet press forward, to note if that breathing be
quickened, as you ascend the home-heights, to look off on the sunset
lighting the plain.
Is your sleep, quiet sleep, after that she has whispered to you her
fears, and in the same breath—soft as a sigh, sharp as an arrow—bid you
bear it bravely?
Perhaps—the embers were now glowing fresher, a little kindling, before
the ashes—she triumphs over disease.
But Poverty, the world’s almoner, has come to you with ready, spare
hand.
Alone, with your dog living on bones, and you on hope—kindling each
morning, dying slowly each night—this could be borne. Philosophy would
bring home its stores to the lone man. Money is not in his hand, but
knowledge is in his brain! and from that brain he draws out faster, as
he draws slower from his pocket. He remembers; and on remembrance he can
live for days and weeks. The garret, if a garret covers him, is rich in
fancies. The rain, if it pelts, pelts only him used to rain-peltings.
And his dog crouches not in dread, but in companionship. His crust he
divides with him, and laughs. He crowns himself with glorious memories
of Cervantes, though he begs; if he nights it under the stars, he dreams
heaven-sent dreams of the prisoned and homeless Galileo.
He hums old sonnets, and snatches of poor Jonson’s plays. He chants
Dryden’s odes, and dwells on Otway’s rhyme. He reasons with Bolingbroke
or Diogenes as the humor takes him, and laughs at the world, for the
world, thank Heaven, has left him alone!
Keep your money, old misers, and your palaces, old princes—the world is
mine!
I care not, fortune, what you me deny.
You cannot rob me of free nature’s grace,
You cannot shut the windows of the sky;
You cannot bar my constant feet to trace
The woods and lawns, by living streams, at eve,
Let health, my nerves and finer fibers brace,
And I, their toys, to the great children, leave.
Of fancy, reason, virtue, nought can we bereave!
But—if not alone?
If _she_ is clinging to you for support, for consolation, for home, for
life—she, reared in luxury, perhaps, is faint for bread?
Then the iron enters the soul; then the nights darken under any
skylight. Then the days grow long, even in the solstice of winter.
She may not complain; what then?
Will your heart grow strong, if the strength of her love can dam up the
fountains of tears, and the tied tongue not tell of bereavement? Will it
solace you to find her parting the poor treasure of food you have stolen
for her, with begging, foodless children?
But this ill, strong hands and Heaven’s help will put down. Wealth
again; flowers again; patrimonial acres again; brightness again. But
your little Bessie, your favorite child, is pining.
Would to God! you say in agony, that wealth could bring fullness again
into that blanched cheek, or round those little thin lips once more; but
it can not. Thinner and thinner they grow; plaintive and more plaintive
her sweet voice.
“Dear Bessie”—and your tones tremble; you feel that she is on the edge
of the grave? Can you pluck her back? Can endearments stay her? Business
is heavy, away from the loved child; home, you go, to fondle while yet
time is left—but _this_ time you are too late. She is gone. She can not
hear you; she can not thank you for the violets you put within her stiff
white hand.
And then—the grassy mound—the cold shadow of head-stone!
The wind, growing with the night, is rattling at the window panes, and
whistles dismally. I wipe a tear, and in the interval of my reverie,
thank God, that I am no such mourner.
But gaiety, snail-footed, creeps back to the household. All is bright
again:
The violet bed’s not sweeter
Than the delicious breath marriage sends forth.
_Her_ lip is rich and full; her cheek delicate as a flower. Her frailty
doubles your love.
And the little one she clasps—frail too—too frail: the boy you had set
your hopes and heart on. You have watched him growing, ever prettier,
ever winning more and more upon your soul. The love you bore to him when
he first lisped names—your name and hers—has doubled in strength now
that he asks innocently to be taught of this, of that, and promises you
by that quick curiosity that flashes in his eye, a mind full of
intelligence.
And some hair-breadth escape by sea, or flood, that he perhaps may have
had—which unstrung your soul to such tears as you pray God may be spared
you again—has endeared the little fellow to your heart a thousandfold.
And, now with his pale sister in the grave, all _that_ love has come
away from the mound, where worms feast, and centers on the boy.
How you watch the storms lest they harm him! How often you steal to his
bed late at night and lay your hand lightly upon the brow, where the
curls cluster thick, rising and falling with the throbbing temples, and
watch, for minutes together, the little lips half-parted, and
listen—your ear close to them—if the breathing be regular and sweet!
But the day comes—the night rather—when you can catch no breathing.
Aye, put your hair away—compose yourself—listen again.
No, there is nothing!
Put your hand now to his brow—damp indeed—but not with healthful night
sleep: it is not your hand, no, do not deceive yourself—it is your loved
boy’s forehead that is so cold; and your loved boy will never speak to
you again—never play again—he is dead!
Oh, the tears—the tears: what blessed things are tears! Never fear now
to let them fall on his forehead, or his lip, lest you waken him! Clasp
him—clasp him harder—you can not hurt, you can not waken him! Lay him
down, gently or not, it is the same; he is stiff; he is stark and cold.
* * * * *
But courage and patience, faith and hope recovers itself easier, thought
I, than these embers will get into blaze again.
But courage, and patience, faith, and hope have their limit. Blessed be
the man who escapes such trial as will determine limit!
To a lone man it comes not near; for how can trial take hold where there
is nothing by which to try?
A funeral? You reason with philosophy. A graveyard? You read Hervey and
muse upon the wall. A friend dies? You sigh, you pat your dog—it is
over. Losses? You retrench—you light your pipe—it is forgotten. Calumny?
You laugh—you sleep.
But with that childless wife clinging to you in love and sorrow—what
then?
Can you take down Seneca now, and coolly blow the dust from the
leaf-tops? Can you crimp your lip with Voltaire? Can you smoke idly,
your feet dangling with the ivies, your thoughts all waving fancies upon
a church-yard wall—a wall that borders the grave of your boy?
Can you amuse yourself by turning stinging Martial into rhyme? Can you
pat your dog, and seeing him wakeful and kind, say, “It is enough?” Can
you sneer at calumny, and sit by your fire dozing?
Blessed, thought I again, is the man who escapes such trial as will
measure the limit of patience and the limit of courage!
But the trial comes—colder and colder were growing the embers.
That wife, over whom your love broods, is fading. Not beauty
fading—that, now that your heart is wrapped in her being, would be
nothing.
She sees with quick eye your dawning apprehension, and she tries hard to
make that step of hers elastic.
Your trials and your loves together have centered your affections. They
are not now as when you were a lone man, wide-spread and superficial.
They have caught from domestic attachments a finer tone and touch. They
cannot shoot out tendrils into barren world-soil and suck up thence
strengthening nutriment. They have grown under the forcing-glass of
home-roof, they will not now bear exposure.
You do not now look men in the face as if a heart-bond was linking
you—as if a community of feeling lay between. There is a heart-bond that
absorbs all others; there is a community that monopolizes your feeling.
When the heart lay wide open, before it had grown upon, and closed
around particular objects, it could take strength and cheer from a
hundred connections that now seem colder than ice.
And now those particular objects—alas for you!—are failing.
What anxiety pursues you! How you struggle to fancy—there is no danger;
how she struggles to persuade you—there is no danger!
How it grates now on your ear—the toil and turmoil of the city! It was
music when you were alone; it was pleasant even, when from the din you
were elaborating comforts for the cherished objects—when you had such
sweet escape as evening drew on.
Now it maddens you to see the world careless while you are steeped in
care. They hustle you in the street; they smile at you across the table;
they bow carelessly over the way; they do not know what canker is at
your heart.
The undertaker comes with his bill for the dead boy’s funeral. He knows
your grief; he is respectful. You bless him in your soul. You wish the
laughing street-goers were all undertakers.
Your eye follows the physician as he leaves your house: is he wise, you
ask yourself; is he prudent? Is he the best? Did he never fail—is he
never forgetful?
And now the hand that touches yours, is it no thinner—no whiter than
yesterday? Sunny days come when she revives; color comes back; she
breathes freer; she picks flowers; she meets you with a smile. Hope
lives again.
But the next day of storm she is fallen. She cannot talk even; she
presses your hand.
You hurry away from business before your time. What matter for
clients—who is to reap the rewards? What matter for fame—whose eye will
it brighten? What matter for riches—whose is the inheritance?
You find her propped with pillows; she is looking over a little
picture-book be-thumbed by the dear boy she has lost. She hides it in
her chair; she has pity on you.
—Another day of revival, when the spring sun shines, and flowers open
out of doors; she leans on your arm, and strolls into the garden where
the first birds are singing. Listen to them with her—what memories are
in bird-songs! You need not shudder at her tears—they are tears of
thanksgiving. Press the hand that lies light upon your arm, and you,
too, thank God, while yet you may!
* * * * *
You are early home—mid-afternoon. Your step is not light; it is heavy,
terrible.
They have sent for you.
She is lying down; her eyes half closed; her breathing long and
interrupted.
She hears you; her eye opens; you put your hand in hers; yours
trembles—hers does not. Her lips move; it is your name.
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“Be strong,” she says, “God will help you!”
She presses harder your hand: “Adieu!”
A long breath—another; you are alone again. No tears now; poor man! You
cannot find them!
* * * * *
—Again home early. There is a smell of varnish in your house. A coffin
is there; they have clothed the body in decent grave clothes, and the
undertaker is screwing down the lid, slipping round on tip-toe. Does he
fear to waken her?
He asks you a simple question about the inscription upon the plate,
rubbing it with his coat cuff. You look him straight in the eye; you
motion to the door; you dare not speak.
He takes up his hat and glides out stealthful as a cat.
The man has done his work well for all. It is a nice coffin—a very nice
coffin! Pass your hand over it—how smooth!
Some sprigs of mignonette are lying carelessly in a little gilt-edged
saucer. She loved mignonette.
It is a good stanch table the coffin rests on; it is your table; you are
a housekeeper—a man of family!
Ay, of family! keep down outcry, or the nurse will be in. Look over at
the pinched features; is this all that is left of her? And where is your
heart now? No, don’t thrust your nails into your hands, nor mangle your
lip, nor grate your teeth together. If you could only weep!
—Another day. The coffin is gone out. The stupid mourners have wept—what
idle tears! She with your crushed heart, has gone out!
Will you have pleasant evenings at your home now?
Go into your parlor that your prim housekeeper has made comfortable with
clean hearth and blaze of sticks.
Sit down in your chair; there is another velvet cushioned one, over
against yours—empty. You press your fingers on your eye-balls, as if you
would press out something that hurt the brain; but you cannot. Your head
leans upon your hand; your eye rests upon the flashing blaze.
Ashes always come after blaze.
Go now into the room where she was sick—softly, lest the prim
housekeeper come after.
They have put new dimity upon her chair; they have hung new curtains
over the bed. They have removed from the stand its vials, and silver
bell; they have put a little vase of flowers in their place; the perfume
will not offend the sick sense now. They have half opened the window,
that the room so long closed may have air. It will not be too cold.
She is not there.
—Oh, God! thou who dost temper the wind to the shorn lamb—be kind!
The embers were dark; I stirred them; there was no sign of life. My dog
was asleep. The clock in my tenant’s chamber had struck one.
I dashed a tear or two from my eyes; how they came there I know not. I
half ejaculated a prayer of thanks, that such desolation had not yet
come nigh me; and a prayer of hope—that it might never come.
In a half hour more, I was sleeping soundly. My reverie was ended.
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