what he believed himself best fitted to do. It had always seemed to him
that New York opened an infinity of vistas to the dramatist. He intended
to seize some of this opulent material and to set on the stage the life
of the great city as he had seen it during his five years of journalism.
He knew that it did a man good to be a reporter for a little while, if
he had the courage to cut himself loose before it was too late, before
journalism had corroded its stigma. His reporting had taken him into
strange places now and again; but it had also taken him into the homes
of the plain people who make New York what it is. Society, as Society
was described in the Sunday papers, he knew little about, and he cared
less; he was not a snob, if he knew himself. But humanity was
unfailingly interesting and unendingly instructive; and it was more
interesting and more instructive in the factories and in the tenements
than it was in the immense mansions on Lenox Hill.
His work as a reporter had not only sharpened his eyes and broadened his
sympathies; it had led him to see things that made him think. He had not
inherited his New England conscience for nothing; and his college
studies in sociology, that seemed so bare to him as an undergraduate,
had taken on a new aspect since he had seen for himself the actual
working of the inexorable laws of life. To sneer at the reformers who
were endeavoring to make the world better had not been easy for him,
even when he was straining to achieve the false brilliance of the star
reporter; and now that he was free to say what he thought, he was going
to seize the first opportunity to help along the good cause, to show
those rich enough to sit in the good seat in the theater that the boy
perched up in the gallery in his shirt-sleeves was also a man and a
brother.
The young playwright held that a play ought to be amusing, of course,
but he held also that it might give the spectators something to think
about after they got home. He was going to utilize his opportunity to
show how many failures there are, and how many there must be if the
fittest is to survive, and how hard it is to fail, how bitter, how
pitiful! With an effort he refrained from saying out loud enough to
waken his wife the quotation that floated back to his memory:
Whether at Naishapur or Babylon,
Whether the Cup with sweet or bitter run,
The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop,
The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one.
His own success, now it had come, found him wondering at it. He was a
modest young fellow at bottom, and he really did not know why he had
attained the prize so many were striving to grasp. Probably it was due
to the sturdiness of the stock he came from; and he was glad that his
ancestors had lived cleanly and had left him a healthy body and a sober
mind. His father and his mother had survived long enough to see him
through college and started in newspaper work in New York. They had been
old-fashioned in their ways, and he was aware that they might not have
approved altogether of his choice of a profession, since it would have
seemed very strange to them that a son of theirs should earn his living
by writing plays. Yet he grieved that they had gone before he was able
to repay any of the sacrifices they had made for him; it was the one
blot on his good-fortune that he could not share it with them in the
future.
The future! Yes, the future was in his power at last. As he lay there in
the darkness he said to himself that all his ambitions were now almost
within his grasp. He was young and well educated; he had proved ability
and true courage; he had friends; he had a wife whom he loved and who
loved him; his first-born was a son, already almost able to walk. Never
before had his prospects appeared so smiling, and never before had he
foreseen how his hopes might be fulfilled. And yet now, as he thought of
the future, for the first time his pulse did not beat faster. When it
was plain to him that he might soon have the most of the things he cared
for, he found himself asking whether, after all, he really did care for
them so much. He was happy, but just then his happiness was passive.
The future might be left to take care of itself all in good time. He was
wide awake, yet he had almost the languor of slumber; it surprised him
to find himself thus unenergetic and not wanting to be roused to battle,
even if the enemy were in sight. He thought of the Nirvana that the
Oriental philosophers sought to gain as the final good; and he asked
himself if perhaps the West had not still something to learn from the
East.
Afar, in the silence of the night, he heard the faint clang of an
ambulance-bell, and he began to think of the huge city now sunk in
slumber all around him. He had nearly four million fellow-citizens; and
in an hour or two or three they would awaken and go forth to labor. They
would fill the day with struggle, vying one with another, each trying to
make his footing secure; and now and again one of them would fall and be
crushed to the ground. They would go to bed again at night, wearied out,
and they would sleep again, and waken again, and begin the battle again.
Most of them would take part in the combat all in vain, since only a few
of them could hope to escape from the fight unvanquished. Most of them
would fall by the wayside or be trampled under foot on the highroad.
Most of them would be beaten in the battle and would drop out of the
fight, wounded unto death. And for the first time all this ceaseless
turmoil and unending warfare seemed to him futile and purposeless.
What was victory but a chance to engage again in the combat? To win
to-day was but to have a right to enter the fray again to-morrow. His
triumph that evening in the theater only opened the door for him; and if
he was to hold his own he must make ready to wrestle again and again.
Each time the effort would be harder than the last. And at the end,
what? He would be richer in money, perhaps, but just then money seemed
to have no absolute value. He would do good, perhaps; but perhaps also
he might do harm, for he knew himself not to be infallible. He would not
be more contented, he feared, for he had discovered already that
although success is less bitter than failure, it rarely brings complete
satisfaction. If it were contentment that he really was seeking, why not
be satisfied now with what he had won? Why not quit? Why not step out of
the ranks and throw down his musket and get out of the way and leave the
fighting to those who had a stomach for it?
As he asked himself these questions a gray shroud of melancholy was
wrapped about him and all the brightness of youth was quenched in him.
Probably this was the inevitable reaction after the strain of his long
effort. But none the less it left him looking forward to the end of his
life, and he saw himself withered and racked with pain; he saw his young
wife worn and ugly, perhaps dead--and the ghastly vision of the grave
glimpsed before him; he saw his boy dead also, dead in youth; and he saw
himself left alone and lonely in his old age, and still struggling,
struggling, struggling in vain and forever.
Then he became morbid even, and he felt he was truly alone now, as every
one of us must be always. He loved his wife and she loved him, and there
was sympathy and understanding between them; but he doubted if he really
knew her, for he felt sure she did not really know him. There were
thoughts in his heart sometimes that he was glad she did not guess; and
no doubt she had emotions and sentiments she did not reveal to him.
After all, every human being must be a self-contained and repellent
entity; and no two of them can ever feel alike or think alike. He and
his wife came of different stocks, with a different training, with a
different experience of life, with different ideals; and although they
were united in love, they could not but be separate and distinct to all
eternity. And as his wife was of another sex from his, so his boy was of
another generation, certain to grow up with other tastes and other
aspirations.
Wilson Carpenter's marriage had been happy, and his boy was all he could
wish,--and yet--and yet--Is this all that life can give a man? A little
joy for the few who are fortunate, a little pleasure, and then--and
then--For the first time he understood how it was that a happy man
sometimes commits suicide. And he smiled as he thought that if he wished
to choose death at the instant of life when the outsider would suppose
his future to be brightest, now was the moment. He knew that there
ought to be a revolver in the upper drawer of the table at the side of
the bed. He turned gently; and then he lay back again, smiling bitterly
at his own foolishness.
A heavy wagon rumbled along down the next street, and he heard also the
whistle of a train on the river-front. These signs of returning day did
not interest him at that moment when--so it seemed to him, although he
was aware this was perfectly unreasonable--when he was at a crisis in
his life.
Then there came to him another quatrain of Omar's, a quatrain he had
often quoted with joy in its stern vigor and its lofty resolve:
So when the Angel of the darker Drink
At last shall find you by the river-brink,
And, offering his Cup, invite your Soul
Forth to your Lips to quaff--you shall not shrink.
And youth came to his rescue again, and hope rose within him once more;
and his interest in the eternal conflict of humanity sprang up as keen
as ever.
The mood of craven surrender passed from him as abruptly as it had come,
leaving him older, and with a vague impression as though he had had a
strange and unnatural experience. He knew again that life is infinitely
various, and that it is worth while for its own sake; and he wondered
how it was that he had ever doubted it. Even if struggle is the rule of
our existence in this world, the fight is its own reward; it brings its
own guerdon; it gives a zest to life; and sometimes it even takes the
sting from defeat. The ardor of the combat is bracing; and fate is a
foeman worthy of every man's steel.
So long as a man does his best always, his pay is secure; and the
ultimate success or failure matters little after all, for, though he be
the sport of circumstance, he is the master of himself. To be alone--in
youth or in age--is not the worst thing that can befall, if the man is
not ashamed of the companionship of his own soul. If his spirit is
unafraid and ready to brave the bludgeon of chance, then has man a
stanch friend in himself, and he can boldly front whatever the future
has in store for him. Only a thin-blooded weakling casts down his
weapons for nothing and flees around the arena; the least that a man of
even ordinary courage can do is to stand to his arms and to fight for
his life to the end.
Wilson Carpenter had no idea how long it was that he had been lying
awake motionless, staring at the ceiling. There were signs of dawn now,
and he heard a cart rattle briskly up to the house next door.
Perhaps his wife heard this also, for she turned and put out one arm
caressingly, smiling at him in her sleep. He took her hand in his gently
and held it. Peace descended upon him, and his brain ceased to torment
itself with the future or with the present or with the past.
He was conscious of no effort not to think, nor indeed of any
unfulfilled desire on his part. It seemed to him that he was floating
lazily on a summer sea, not becalmed, but bound for no destination. And
before he knew it, he was again asleep.
(1899)
[Illustration: Her Letter
to His Second Wife]
She was gayly humming a lilting tune as she flitted about the spacious
sitting-room, warm with the mellow sunshine of the fall. From the broad
bow-window she looked down on the reddened maples in Gramercy Park,
where a few lingering leaves were dancing in the fitful autumn breeze.
Turning away with a graceful, bird-like movement, she floated across to
the corner and glanced again into a tall and narrow mirror set in the
door of a huge wardrobe. She smiled back at the pretty face she saw
there reflected. Then she laughed out merrily, that she had caught
herself again at her old trick. Yet she did not turn away until she had
captured two or three vagrant wisps of her pale-gold hair, twisting them
back into conformity with their fellows. When at last she glided off
with a smile still lingering on her dainty little mouth, the whole room
seemed to be illuminated by her exuberant happiness.
And this was strong testimony to the brightness of the bride herself,
for there was nothing else attractive in that sitting-room or in the
rest of the house. The furniture was stiff and old-fashioned throughout,
and the hangings were everywhere heavy and somber. The mantelpiece was
of staring white marble; and on each side of this was a tall bookcase of
solid black walnut highly varnished and overladen with misplaced
ornament. The rectangular chairs were covered with faded maroon reps.
The window curtains were of raw silk, thickly lined and held back by
cords with black-walnut tassels. The least forbidding object in the room
was a shabby little desk, of which the scratched white paint contrasted
sharply with the dull decorum of the other furniture.
The bride had brought this desk from the home of her youth to her
husband's house, and she cherished it as a possession of her girlhood.
By the side of it was a low, cane-backed rocking-chair, and in this she
sat herself down at last. A small rectangular package was almost under
her hand on the corner of the desk; and she opened it eagerly and
blushed prettily as she discovered it to contain her new
visiting-cards--"Mrs. John Blackstock." She repeated the name to herself
with satisfaction at its sonorous dignity. _John Blackstock_ seemed to
her exactly the name that suited her husband, with his gentleness and
his strength. Next to the cards was another package, a belated present
from a schoolmate; it contained a silver-mounted calendar. She held it
in her hand and counted back the days to her wedding--just twenty, and
it seemed to her hardly a week. Then she remarked that in less than a
fortnight it would be Thanksgiving; and she thought at once of the many
blessings she would have to give thanks for this year, many more than
ever before--above all, for John!
Suddenly it struck her that a year could make startling changes in a
woman's life--or even half a year. Twelve months ago in the New England
mill-town where her parents lived she had no thought of ever coming to
New York to stay or of marrying soon. Last Thanksgiving she had never
seen John; and indeed, it was not till long after Decoration Day that
she had first heard his name; and now there was a plain gold ring on her
finger, and John and she were man and wife. If she had not accepted Mary
Morton's invitation she might never have met John! She shuddered at the
fatal possibility; and she marveled how the long happiness of a woman's
life might hang on a mere chance. When the Mortons had asked her to go
to Saratoga with them to spend the Fourth of July she had hesitated, and
she came near refusing after Mary had said that Mr. Blackstock was going
to be there, and that he was a widower now, and that there was a chance
for her. She detested that kind of talk and thought it was always in bad
taste. But then Mary Morton was a dear, good girl; and it was natural
that Mr. Morton should be interested in Mr. Blackstock, since Mr.
Blackstock was the head of the New York house that took all the output
of the Morton mills. She had decided to go to Saratoga at last, partly
because her father thought it would amuse her, and partly just to show
Mary Morton that she was not the kind of girl to be thrown at a man's
head.
The morning after their arrival in Saratoga, when they were walking in
Congress Park, Mary had pointed out John to her, and she remembered that
he had seemed to her very old. Of course, he was not really old; she
knew now that he was just forty; but she was only twenty herself, and at
first sight he had impressed her as an elderly man. That evening he came
over to their hotel to call on Mr. Morton, and he was presented to her.
Mary had been telling her how his wife had died the summer before, and
how he had been inconsolable; and so she could not help sympathizing
with him, nor could she deny that he had seemed to be taken with her
from the beginning. Instead of talking to Mr. Morton or to Mary, he kept
turning to her and asking her opinion. Before he got up to go he had
invited them all to go down to the lake with him the next day for a fish
dinner. Twenty-four hours later he had asked her to drive with him
alone, and while she was wavering Mary had accepted for her; and really
she did not see why she should not go with him. She had liked him from
the first, he was so quiet and reserved, and then he had been so lonely
since the death of his wife. On Sunday he had taken her to church; and
the next morning he had moved over to their hotel. She had been afraid
that Mary might tease her; but she did not care, for she was getting to
like to have him attentive to her. She had made up her mind not to pay
any regard to anything Mary might say. What Mary did say was to ask her
to stay on another fortnight. She wondered now what would have happened
if her father had refused his permission. As it was, she remained in
Saratoga two weeks longer--and so did John, though Mr. Morton said that
the senior partner of Blackstock, Rawlings & Cameron had lots of things
to do in New York. Then Mary used to smile and to tell her husband that
Mr. Blackstock had more pressing business on hand in Saratoga than in
New York.
At last they all started for home again, and John had come with them as
far as Albany. When he held her hand just as the car was going and said
good-by, it was rather abruptly that he asked her if he might come and
see her at Norwich--and he had blushed as he explained that he might be
called there soon on important business.
As the picture of this scene rose before the eyes of the young bride she
smiled again. She knew now what she had guessed then--that she was the
important business that was bringing the senior partner of Blackstock,
Rawlings & Cameron to Norwich. When he came up the next Saturday and had
made the acquaintance of her father and mother she began to think that
perhaps he was really interested in her. She spent the next twenty-four
hours in a strange dream of ecstasy; and when he walked home with her
after the evening service she knew that she had found her fate most
unexpectedly. As they neared her father's door he had asked her if she
were willing to trust her future to him, and she had answered solemnly
that she was his whenever he might choose to claim her.
Although she had said this, she was taken aback when he had wished her
to be married early in September. She had had to beg to have the wedding
postponed till the end of October, assuring him that she could not be
ready before then. Now, as she sat there rocking silently in the
sitting-room of his house in New York, with a smile of happiness curving
her lips, and as she recalled the swiftness of time's flight during the
few weeks of her engagement, she did not regret that his neglected
business would keep him in town all winter and that the promised trip to
Europe was postponed until next summer. They had gone on their brief
wedding journey to Niagara and Montreal and Quebec; and they had
returned only the day before. Last night for the first time had she sat
at the head of his table as the mistress of his house. For the first
time that morning had she poured out his coffee in their future home,
smiling at him across the broad table in the dingy dining-room with its
black horsehair chairs.
Then he had sent for a cab, and he had insisted on her coming down to
the office with him. It was the first time that she had seen the immense
building occupied by Blackstock, Rawlings & Cameron, with the
packing-cases piled high on the sidewalk and with half a dozen drays
unloading the goods just received from Europe. Although two or three of
the clerks were looking at him when he got out of the cab, he had kissed
her; and although she supposed she must have blushed, she did not really
object. She was John's wife now, and it did not matter who knew it. He
had called to the driver to come back so that he might tell her to stop
anywhere she pleased on her way up-town and to buy anything she fancied.
She had come straight home without buying anything, for, of course, she
was not going to waste John's money.
All the same the house was very old-fashioned, and it sadly needed to be
refurnished. John was rich, and John was generous with his money; and
she felt sure he would let her do over the house just as she pleased.
Then her thoughts went back to the days when she had been sent to a
boarding-school in New York to finish her education and to the afternoon
walks when she and the other girls, two by two, had again and again
passed in front of that very house; and now it was her home for the rest
of her life. It was hers to brighten and to beautify and to make over to
suit herself. She did not want to say a word against John's first wife,
but it did seem to her that the elder woman had lacked taste at least.
The wall-papers and the hangings were all hopeless, and the furniture
was simply prehistoric. The drawing-room looked as though nobody had
ever dared to sit in it; and it was so repellent that she did not wonder
everybody kept out of it.
Probably his first wife was a plain sort of person who did not care to
entertain at all; perhaps she was satisfied with the narrow circle of
church work. The young woman remarked how her mind kept on returning to
her predecessor. She was ready to confess that this was natural enough,
and yet it made her a little impatient nevertheless. Her eyes filled
with tears when she thought of the swiftness with which a woman is
forgotten when once she is dead.
She went to the window of the sitting-room and looked down on Gramercy
Park again. The November twilight was settling down, and the rays of the
setting sun were obscured by a heavy bank of gray clouds. The wind had
risen and was whirling the dead leaves in erratic circles. Rain was
threatened and might come at any minute. The day that had begun in
glorious sunshine was about to end in gloom. The young bride was
conscious of a vague feeling of loneliness and homesickness; she found
herself longing for John's return.
As she turned away she heard the front door close heavily. With the
swift hope that her husband might have come home earlier than he had
promised, she flew to the head of the stairs. She was in time to see the
butler gravely bowing an elderly gentleman into the drawing-room.
Disappointed that it was not John, she went back to the sitting-room and
dropped into the rocking-chair by her old desk. She wondered who it was
that hastened to call on her the day after her home-coming.
A minute later the butler was standing before her with the salver in his
hand and a card on it.
She took it with keen curiosity.
"Dr. Thurston!" she cried. "Did you tell him Mr. Blackstock was not home
yet?"
"Yes, m'am," the butler responded; "and he said it was Mrs. Blackstock
he wished to see particularly."
"Oh, very well," she returned. "Say I will be down in a minute."
When the butler had gone, she ran to the tall mirror and readjusted her
hair once more and felt to make sure that her belt was in position on
her lithe young waist. She was glad that she happened to have on a
presentable dress, so that she need not keep the minister waiting.
As she slowly went down-stairs she tried in vain to guess why it was
that Dr. Thurston wanted to see her particularly. She knew that John had
had a pew in Dr. Thurston's church for years and that he was accustomed
to give liberally to all its charities. She had heard of the beautiful
sermon the doctor had preached when John was left a widower, and so she
almost dreaded meeting the minister for the first time all alone. She
lost a little of her habitual buoyancy at the fear lest he should not
like her. When she entered the drawing-room--which seemed so ugly in
her eyes then that she was ready to apologize for it--the minister
greeted her with a reserved smile.
"I trust you will pardon this early visit, Mrs. Blackstock--" he began.
"It is very good of you to come and see me so soon, Dr. Thurston," she
interrupted, a little nervously, as she dropped into a chair.