had some premonitory symptoms yesterday going up that cursed old tower,
and I had some very advanced ones coming down from it; and this morning,
when I started to shave, the truth just burst in my face. Now, don't try
to say anything, for I've read too many patent-medicine advertisements
not to recognize paralysis when I feel it up and down the back of my own
legs. I'm not the man not to know my own feelings, and I want to tell
you that when I got up this morning I couldn't stand up, and then, after
I stood up, I couldn't sit down; and if that isn't a clear case of
having completely given out, I don't know what you would call it.
"Now, my dear, the question is, what's to be done? Of course our travels
have come to a full stop, for I shall probably never walk again. The
curious thing is that I don't feel any particular inclination ever to
walk again. You've no conception of the sentiments that I feel in my
legs; but if you roll the fatigue of a lifetime into either the left or
the right, you can get some faint inkling of the first freshness of
paralysis. I tell you, Yvonne, it is awful. Every cobblestone I've gone
over seems to be singing in my calves; but that's neither here nor
there. What I want you to do is to go to the pocket of my valise get out
the cable-code book and look out a word that means 'Both legs paralyzed.
What shall I do with the girls?' You'll find a word that means it, if
you look long enough. They've got forty pages of words that mean every
fool thing on earth from 'It's a boy' to 'Impossible to lend you ten
dollars.' I was reading it over in Paris the other day while I waited
for my money at the bank.
"Well, ain't you going to get the code-book? I don't want to be
impatient, but I want some one to be doing something. You don't know how
restless it makes me to think of lying still for the rest of my life.
While I was waiting for you, I was thinking that probably I shall live
right here in Caen till I die. I'm very glad we got here too late to see
anything, because now I can take it bit by bit and drag it out through
my remaining days. I shall have a wheeling-chair and a man to push me
around, and--well, maybe it's in the little outside pocket. I know I had
it in Paris, anyhow; I remember I was just reading that 'salsify' means
'Your mother-in-law left by the ten o'clock train,' and that 'salsifry'
means that she didn't, when they brought me my money, and I was free to
go.
[Illustration: "'I'm happy that it will be out of the question for me
ever to travel again.'"]
"Well, now you've got it. I thought maybe it would be in the little
valise all the time. Seems to me the sicknesses begin with 'Salt.' I
remember 'Saltfish' means 'have got smallpox; keep away,' and
'Saltpetre' means 'have got a cold; come at once.' You look along there
and find 'paralysis.' I'll just keep quiet while you're looking. I'd
better be learning to keep quiet. Keeping quiet must be the long suit of
the paralyzed, I should fancy. But you see what it is now to be an
optimist. Here's my life practically over all of a sudden, and, instead
of being blue, I'm as cheerful as a cricket. No need of fussing over the
candle-grease on my hat now, for I shall never wear a hat again, I shall
wear a soft felt tied over my ears with a plaid shawl as they always do
in rolling-chairs; as for the umbrella, I'm actually glad I left it. It
would only have been an aggravation to have seen it lying around. But
all the same I can't see why you didn't notice it lying down there. It
must have been in plain sight,--I remember pointing over at Mont Mirat
with it, and saying the rock looked as if it had been dropped there from
above. Yvonne, I tell you when I think of all we did these last two days
I feel perfectly content to be paralyzed. I'm glad to think that I've
got such a good excuse to stay right in bed; I'm happy that it will be
out of the question for me ever to travel again. I feel as if I've
traveled enough to last me forever; I actually don't want to see
anything more. No more catching trains and climbing castles for your
Uncle John--not in his life. You can put the Baedeker in the fire right
now--I never want to see a red cover or a green string or an index
again as long as I live. What's that? No, I sha'n't want it to look over
and recall things by; I can recall more than I want to just by the way I
feel. I don't need any guide-book to remember what I've been through
since I left Paris. I remember too much. I remember so much that I am
rejoiced to think that muscles over which I have no control will prevent
my having to go out to-day and see anything else. It seems a little hard
to think of having sight-seen so hard that you never want to see another
sight, but I'm perfectly content. And I don't want a doctor, either;
I've no faith in French doctors. It would be just like one to hypnotize
me and set me going again, and I don't want to go. I want to lie right
here, and I thank the Lord that I have money enough to allow me to lie
here forever, if I feel like it. I was thinking this morning what a
horrible existence a tramp must lead--always going on to new places.
Thank Heaven, I can just settle down in this old one and stay on
indefinitely. I want you to go down to the office and ask what rate
they'll make for this room by the year. I want this same room right
along. It's the first restful spot I've struck since my trunk went smash
into that ship. Yvonne, did you notice the way they handled those trunks
when we landed--as if they were eggs? I tell you, the baggage system at
home is a burning disgrace. That's one reason I like Europe so--it's
quiet and peaceful. I heard some goats go by this morning; I'd like to
know a hotel in America where you can listen to a goat. And then that
wallpaper, what a tranquil pattern--a basket of sunflowers upside down
alternately with a single palm upside up! What a contrast to the paper
on that room I sailed from! It looked more like snakes doing physical
culture than anything else.
"Yvonne, I was thinking it all over as I lay here this morning waiting
for you, and the truth is, we've been traveling too fast. I wanted you
to see all there was to see, and I overlooked myself completely. Don't
feel badly, child, because I know you never meant it; but it _is_ the
truth, and, as a consequence, here I lie paralyzed. Yes, we've been
traveling too fast. It's the vice of the American abroad; it's the
terrible secret drain upon the strength of our better classes. We come
over to rest, and if we don't do two countries a week we feel we've
wasted our money. The idea of leaving Paris in the morning and doing
Chartres and Dreux and getting to Argentan that night! Why, Hercules
himself would have been used up. And then that castle at Falaise. But
I'm not sorry that I went to Falaise. No, I'm not sorry. Yvonne, there
was something about that castle that I'll never get over. I tell you
those were the days to live in! I was thinking about it while I was
waiting for you this morning. Will you consider what it must have been
to put on a suit that you couldn't be punched through, and then get out
with an ax that faced two ways and have full freedom to hack at people
you hated. I tell you, child, I should have been one of those who
barricaded themselves behind the dead bodies they had killed and kept
right on firing over the top. And to-day my armor would be hanging up
somewhere all full of dents and rusty blood-stains, and I'd be a sight
in some cathedral with your Aunt Jane wearing a funnel and an accordion
beside me. We'd both be in marble, of course, some worn by time and some
chipped by tourists--ah, well!
"Can't you find anything suitable in that code-book? Here, I've been
waiting a quarter of an hour for you to hunt--hand me the book. I
remember 'Shell' is 'have broken my left leg,' and 'Shell-fish' is 'have
broken my right leg,' and 'Shawl' is--wait a bit--keep still, Yvonne; no
one in the wide world can study a code and listen at the--
"Oh, well, I'll leave it till to-night. Not that I'm irritated at your
interruption, for I never let anything ruffle me, and when you write
home the first thing I want you to tell your mother is that being
paralyzed has not changed me one particle. Same even disposition, same
calm outlook on life, same disinclination to ever bother anyone. I want
you to make them understand in particular how cheerful I am. Some men
would turn cynical at waking up paralyzed, but not me. I feel as if I
might get about quite a little in Caen, maybe even get to Falaise again
some time; but you can bank on one thing, and that is that if I ever go
back to Falaise I won't go up that tower again. I was wondering this
morning as I lay here waiting for you how in thunder you were holding
that candle to spill so much grease on my hat. You can't say that you
didn't know I was there, for every second step you took your foot hit me
in the small of the back. You ought to have gone first, anyhow. I know
the rule is for a man to go first going down a staircase, but I don't
call that business we were on any staircase; it was more like a series
of cascades with us forming the merry, leaping, part. I tell you what,
Yvonne, the next time it's up to your Uncle John to play the chamois
that springs from crag to crag over an old middle-aged staircase while
his niece pours candle-grease on his hat, you can excuse me.
"What I like is clean, open-to-the-day-light ruins like that old one at
Jumieges! No peril, no anxiety--all on a level, and time to look up at
what wasn't. I tell you, I wouldn't have missed seeing Jumieges for
anything. I was thinking this morning as I lay here waiting for you that
I have a good mind to write a book about my travels, and that when I do
I shall have the frontispiece, me in front of Jumieges. I could take an
artist down there on purpose, and while he wasn't doing me, I could look
it all over again. Maybe I could go there alone with a kodak and get a
satisfactory frontispiece, only those rocks were so thick that most
people would think it was a defective plate. I shouldn't like to have
them think that, for if I was going to have a book at all, I should have
it in good style--gold edges, bevel-plate, and so forth, don't you know.
I'd like to write a book about Europe, I vow. I haven't been here very
long, but I'll swear I know ten times more than any book ever tells. It
never said a word in Baedeker about there not being any cabs at Dreux,
or about the condition of those steps in Talbot's Tower, and such
things ought to be known. It's all right to make light of perils past,
but those steps were too dark for me to ever make light of in this
world. Up toward the top where we had to sit down and stretch for the
next one--you remember?--I must own that I was honestly sorry I came.
"Well, my child, it must be nearing noon, and I feel like taking a nap
before dinner. Suppose you go in and write to your mother and Mrs.
Clary. After your mother gets the cable, she'll naturally be anxious for
details, and she won't want to wait longer than ten days to know all. I
wish you'd ring and tell them to bring me some hot water before you go;
tell them I want it in a pitcher. Make them understand a pitcher. They
brought it last night in a sort of brass cylinder, and I couldn't get
the thing open anyway--had to use it for a hot-water-bag in bed in the
end. It worked fine for that. Never cooled off all night, in fact, I
couldn't put my feet against it till morning.
"There, now, you go on and leave me to sleep. You haven't the faintest
idea of how used-up I feel. Don't forget to write your mother how
cheerful I am; don't forget the hot water. I'll send for you when I want
you. There--there--I'm all right, child, don't you worry. Just pull the
curtains and let me sleep."
IX
YVONNE TO HER MOTHER
_Caen._
Dearest Mama: We are still there, and I'm so happy Uncle is in bed, and
at first he thought he was paralyzed, but now he says he's only refusing
to take chances. It's so nice having him in bed, because Lee is here,
and Uncle makes it all right without knowing anything about it. It was
yesterday that he thought he was paralyzed; he sent for me before I was
awake to tell me. I was so dreadfully stiff and lame that I thought at
first that I could not get up; but of course I did, and went to him as
soon as I could. He told me that he was paralyzed, really paralyzed; but
I wasn't frightened, because, when he explained his feelings, I knew
every one of them, and of course I knew that I wasn't paralyzed. Only
when he rolled around upon his pillows and said he certainly would end
his days right here in Caen, I couldn't help wishing that he had left me
to enjoy my pillows, also.
But he wanted to talk, so I listened for ever so long; and then he
wanted to sleep, so I came away to write you, and there was a note from
Lee in my room. He was down-stairs waiting, and I went right down, and
my, but it was good to see him! I didn't kiss him, because it was a
hotel parlor, even if we don't know any one in Caen; but I told him
about Uncle, and he said it was fine and that he hoped he would be in
bed a week, but no such luck. The yacht has broken a thumb-screw, or
whatever it is on a yacht, and they have all come here to meet some
automobile people. Lee looks real well; he says he's had no end of fun
lately, and that it is a shame I can't go, too.
While we were talking, Mrs. Catherwood-Chigley came in. I didn't know
that she was in Europe, and Lee was dreadfully put out for she sat right
down and asked all about us. Lee explained that he was here with a yacht
and that I was here with Uncle; but she didn't seem to believe us, and
shook her head, and asked about Mrs. Clary. She said Mr. Chigley was
here, too, and they have seen a monument in the cemetery here that is
just what they want for Mr. Catherwood. She says Mr. Catherwood was so
clear-cut and Doric in his ideas that it has been very hard to find the
right thing. She said Mr. Chigley was out making a sketch of the
monument then. She says Mr. Chigley is devotion itself to Mr.
Catherwood's memory, and cabled a beautiful wreath on his wedding
anniversary and palms tied with purple the day he died. She said she was
very happy, and Mr. Chigley just loves to hear her tell stories about
Mr. Catherwood by the hour. Lee was awfully rude and kept yawning, and I
know she didn't like it by the way she looked at him. It was awfully
trying to have her just then, because, of course, there's no telling how
long Uncle will stay paralyzed. We really thought she would stay until
lunch-time, but Lee yawned so that she went at last.
[Illustration: "Lee was awfully rude and kept yawning, and I know she
didn't like it by the way she looked at him."]
Lee said that we ought to join them in the touring-cars and do Brittany
that way, but he didn't like to tackle Uncle. He says Uncle is a very
tough proposition, because he is so devilish observing, and he never
begged my pardon for saying it, either. Of course Uncle brought me, and
I must do as he wishes, but I do wish that he liked Lee. Lee says he
wishes he liked him, too; he says it would be so devilish convenient
just now, and he didn't beg my pardon that time, either.
[Illustration: Caen]
I ran up, and Uncle was still asleep, so I had lunch with Lee at the
table d'hote. Mr. Chigley and Mrs. Catherwood-Chigley sat opposite, and
she does look so funny with her wedding-rings and engagement-rings
alternating on the same finger. Mr. Chigley said he should call on
Uncle, and Lee and I were frightened to death until I remembered that
Uncle wouldn't be able to read the card or understand the waiter without
me. After luncheon I ran up again, and Uncle was still asleep, so we
went out to walk. We had a lovely walk, and never looked at a sight, and
when we came back I ran up again, and Uncle was still asleep; so Lee and
I sat down in the parlor, and we were just going to be so happy when
Pinkie and Bunnie Clemens came in. Well, really, I hardly knew either,
they have changed so, and Pinkie has a beard and Bunnie is over six feet
high. They are on a bicycle tour with eight men, and they saw Elfrida
and her sister yesterday, headed for Bayeux. Pinkie says it's been such
bad weather they've had to tie umbrellas and waterproofs to them, too.
He says Elfrida looks half-witted, and her sister looks like a full
idiot. I was so glad that I had on a Paris frock. They wanted me to go
to the theater with them, but of course I couldn't, for I couldn't be
sure about Uncle's staying paralyzed.
He slept till eight o'clock last night, and then he had dinner and went
right to sleep again, so I could have gone to the theater after all; but
how could I know to dare to risk it?
Lee and the men from the yacht are at another hotel, so he didn't come
very early this morning, and it was fortunate, because Uncle sent for me
about nine to explain Mr. Chigley's card, which they poked under the
door last night. Uncle was so curious to know what it was that he got
out of bed and found he could walk. He said he had never felt sure that
it was paralysis, only he wanted to be on the safe side, and he is in
bed still, only he is so lively that I am half crazy over Lee. If Uncle
concludes he's all right, and comes down and finds Lee, I know he isn't
going to like it at all. Pinkie and Bunnie have gone on to Mont St.
Michel, and the Catherwood-Chigleys took the train for Dol right after
breakfast. Mr. Chigley was very sorry not to see Uncle, and Mrs.
Catherwood-Chigley said she should write you all about how well and
happy I was looking. I know that what she really means to write about
is Lee; but you know all about him, so I don't care.
Lee says if there was time he'd go to Paris and get a nurse and an
electric-battery and have Uncle kept just comfortably paralyzed for a
few more days, but there isn't time, and I am so worried. If Uncle loses
any more patience with Lee, he won't have any patience left at all, and
I'll have to go all of the rest of the trip that way. We took a walk
this afternoon to consult, and we saw Elfrida and her sister. They have
cut off their hair, because it bothered them so, coming down in their
eyes, and Elfrida says she feels all the freedom of a man thrilling
through her--you know how funny she always talks. They have seven
calloused places on the inside of each hand from the handle-bars, and
Elfrida says she's sure their insteps will arch forever after. They were
coming out of St. Stephen's Church, and the only way to get rid of them
was to say that we were just going in; so we said it, and went in.
It was really very interesting, and the tomb of William the Conqueror is
there. He built St. Stephen's, and Mathilde built La Trinite at the
other end of the town, partly as a thank-offering for conquering England
and partly as a penance for being cousins. There was a monastery with
St. Stephen's and a convent with La Trinite until the Revolution changed
everything. William's tomb is just a flat slab in front of the altar,
but he really isn't there any more, for they have dug him up and
scattered him over and over again. The church is tremendously big and
plain, and every word you even whisper echoes so much that Lee and I
thought we'd better come out where we could talk alone.
When we came back to the hotel, I ran up, and the mail had come from
Paris; so Uncle said if I'd fill his fountain-pen, he'd just spend the
afternoon letting a few people in America know what Europe was really
like. I'm a little bit troubled, for I'm all over being stiff and sore
from that climbing, and yet he seems to feel almost as mean as ever. He
has his meals in his room, for, although we're on the first floor, he
says he cannot even think calmly of a stair-case yet. He says that
Talbot's Tower seems to have settled in his calves, and Heaven knows
when he'll get over it. Lee says I ought not to worry, but to make the
most out of the situation; but I do worry, because Uncle is so
uncertain. And I'm perfectly positive that there will be an awful scene
when he finds out that during his paralysis I've been going all over
with Lee.
[Illustration: "He has his meals in his room, for he says he cannot even
think calmly of a stair-case yet."]
Lee and I went to walk this afternoon, and we visited the old, old
church of St. Nicolas. It said in the book that the apse still had its
original stone roof, and Lee said it would be a good chance to learn
what an apse was; so we set out to go there, but we forgot all about
where we set out for, and it was five o'clock before we finally got
back to where it was. It stands in an old cemetery, and it says in the
book that it has been secularized; so we climbed up on gravestones till
we could see in the windows and learn what that meant, also. The
gravestones were all covered with lichen and so slippery that in the end
Lee gave up and just helped me to look. We didn't learn much, though,
for it was only full of hay.
When we got back to the hotel, I ran up, and Uncle was gone! I never was
so frightened in my life, and when I ran back and told Lee, he whistled,
so I saw that he was upset, too. He said I'd better go to my room and
wait, and he'd dine at his hotel to-night; so I went to my room, and
Uncle was there, hunting all through my things for the address-book. I
was so glad and relieved that I didn't mind a bit the way he had churned
everything up, although you ought to see my trunk, and I kissed him and
told him it was just splendid to see him beginning to go about again. He
looked pleased, but he says the backs of his legs are still beyond the
power of description, and so I proposed having dinner with him in his
room, which we did very comfortably, and he told me that he should
remember this trip till the day he died, without any regard for the
grease I spilt on his hat. After dinner he was very fidgety, and I can
see that the confinement is wearing on him; but I don't know what to
do.
More letters came by the evening mail, and Mrs. Clary is so in raptures
over the dinner that when Uncle asked me if I had heard from her I
thought it was wisest to say no, because I knew that if he read how
happy M. Sibilet was making her, he surely wouldn't like it at all.
Lee sent me a note by a messenger about eleven o'clock, with
instructions in French on the outside about their delivering it to me
when I was _not_ with Uncle. They delivered it all right, and I read it.
He just said that the automobiles had come, and that he was going to
cast his die clean over the Rubicon to-morrow morning at eleven. That
means that he is going, of course, and that I am to be left here all
alone. I do feel very badly over it, for Uncle will be almost sure to
find out about Lee whenever he can get downstairs again, and then I'm
sure I don't know what will happen. Of course I've not done anything
that I shouldn't have done; but, dear me! doing right doesn't help if
Uncle chooses to decide that it is wrong. And if he can't walk, to let
us go on traveling, he's going to keep getting more and more difficult
to get along with. I don't like to tell Lee how troubled I am, because
if Lee gets worked up and decides to take a hand in while I'm traveling
with Uncle, I might as well be Mr. Pickwick when he rushed between just
in time to get the tongs on one side and the shovel on the other. I
don't want Lee trying to defend me from Uncle, because I know Uncle
would never forgive him for thinking I needed defending. You know
yourself just how Uncle is, and now that his legs are so stiff he is
more that way than ever. Lee doesn't understand, and I can't make him
understand, and perhaps it's just as well that he should go on
to-morrow. Maybe Uncle will be better in a few days, so that we can
visit Bayeux. He's crazy to go to Bayeux and see the tapestry, and it
isn't so very far. But what shall we do if we come to any town again
where there are no cabs! It would be awful.
However, I shall not worry, for it's no use. Mrs. Catherwood-Chigley
wrote me her address on one of her cards, and Lee took it and sent it
to me with some beautiful flowers. He thought it was such a clever, safe
idea; but just suppose we meet them again! If I didn't think Lee was
just right, I'd think he had almost too many clever ideas; and, anyhow,
I know that I'm sure that he has too many while I'm traveling with
Uncle.
Now, good-night, it's so very late. Don't ever feel troubled over me,
for I'm having a splendid time, and it was so kind of Uncle to bring us.
Your own loving
YVONNE.
X
YVONNE TO HER MOTHER
_Vire._
Dear Mama: I am the happiest thing in the whole wide world, and Lee is
the grandest fellow! I must write you everything, and you will see.