With the closing session, Algarcife lost his position at the Bodley
College. He had published, for a mere pittance, a series of articles
upon the origin of sex, and, as a result, he was requested to deliver
his resignation to the principal of the institution. A man holding such
views, it was argued, was an unsuitable instructor for sixty-one young
women. So the instructorship was transferred to a divinity student who
was casually looking into science, and Algarcife was dismissed.
Upon receiving his dismissal, he descended into the street and walked
slowly homeward. His first sensation was one of anger--blind anger
against the blindness of the universe. It seemed incredible that a
premium should be set upon commonplaceness, that modern civilization
should demand of a man that he shape his mind by an artificial process
after the minds of semi-savage ancestors. Was thought to be forever
prostrate beneath the feet of superstition? Was all boldness of inquiry,
all mental advancement along other than given lines, to be branded in
the nineteenth century by the _odium theologicum_ as it had been branded
in the time of Bruno?
Then there followed a wave of personal bitterness which in its turn was
succeeded by a flood-tide of indifference.
Going home, he found Mariana in nervous despair. The baby, who had been
unwell for several days, had been suddenly threatened with convulsions.
Upon the doctor's arrival, he had predicted a dangerous teething, and
had insisted upon Isolde leaving town before the beginning of hot
weather.
"I am so miserable," said Mariana, moistening a towel to remove the
traces of milk that she had upset upon her wrapper. "What can we do?"
With a feverish gesture she brushed her heavy and disordered hair from
her brow and shook her head helplessly. "Monday is the first of June,"
she added.
Anthony listened almost stolidly. When he spoke there was a dogged
decision in his voice. "The money must be had," he answered. "God knows,
I believe I'd steal it if I'd half a chance!"
"Then we'd all go to prison," remarked Mariana, ruefully, as she
measured the coffee into the coffee-pot.
Algarcife smiled with a quick sense of humor. "At any rate, a livelihood
would be insured," he returned. "Honest industry is the only thing that
goes a-begging in this philanthropic century." Then, as Mariana returned
to the baby, he drank his coffee in silence and went out. As a
beginning, he secured an order to write hygienic articles for a Sunday
newspaper. Then he called upon Father Speares and found that he was out
of town, and even in his desperation was conscious of a sensation of
relief at the thought that Father Speares was beyond appeal. But the
sensation was reactionary, and, upon consulting the weather bulletin and
finding that a change in temperature was expected, he wrote a letter,
which he left at the clergyman's house.
"How is Isolde?" he asked of Mariana an hour later.
Mariana smiled and raised her finger warningly. "Much brighter to-day,"
she answered, "and sleeping sweetly."
Anthony bent over the crib, holding his breath as he watched the child.
He noticed that she looked thinner; the blue veins showed in a delicate
tracery upon the forehead, and the crease around the tiny wrists was
less deep.
Mariana, serious and careworn, leaned upon the opposite side.
"What do you think?" she whispered.
"Only a little pale," he replied; "all children are when teething, I
suppose."
They went into the next room and sat down, leaving the door ajar.
"The doctor was here again," began Mariana, playing with the folds of
her gown. "June is the dangerous month--he says so."
Algarcife raised his eyes and looked at her.
"I wrote to Father Speares to-day," he said.
For a moment Mariana was silent, a flush rising to her brow. Then she
rose and came over to his side, putting her arms about his neck.
"My poor love," she murmured. Anthony drew her down upon the sofa beside
him.
"It was tough," he said, slowly, "but--how I hate to tell you,
Mariana!--there is something else."
Mariana flinched sharply.
"Surely he has not refused?" she exclaimed.
"He is away, but the College has given me notice."
Mariana did not answer, but she grew white and her lips trembled. Then
she flung her arms out upon the sofa and laid her head upon them. Her
sobs came short and fast.
"Mariana!"
She lifted her head and choked back her tears, sitting cold and stiff
beside him.
"If it were only ourselves," she said; "but the baby--what will become
of the baby?"
There was a strained note of cheerfulness in Algarcife's voice.
"Don't cry," he said, laying his hand upon her shoulder. "I must get the
money. Father Speares will lend it to me. We will pull through all
right, never fear."
Mariana rested her head upon his arm and looked up at him.
"How ill you look!" she said. "My poor boy!"
Then the baby cried, and she went back to it. As Algarcife rose from the
sofa, he was seized with a sudden swimming in his head, and, to steady
himself, leaned against the mantel. The objects in the room seemed to
whirl in a tangle before him, and his vision was obscured by a vaporous
fog, while a tumultuous ringing sounded in his ears. But in a moment it
passed, and he was himself again.
"Biliousness," he remarked, and started out in search of stray
journalistic work. He found it easier to obtain than he had supposed,
and, with his usual precision of method, calculated that by working
fifteen hours a day he might, provided the supply of work continued,
make up the amount which he would lose with the loss of the Bodley
College.
After a week of such work, he became optimistic in mind and
correspondingly depressed in body. "If my brains didn't get so
sluggish," he said to Mariana, "the work would be nothing; but caffeine
will remedy that." And he returned to the use of the drug, silencing
Mariana's remonstrances with a laugh.
"My dear girl, if I didn't take something to keep me awake, I'd fall
asleep in my chair at ten o'clock, and the subscribers to the evening
issue would never learn the hygienic value of regular hours and a
sufficient amount of recreation."
"But you will wreck yourself," urged Mariana.
"Nonsense. This caffeine is going to take Isolde and yourself to the
country."
"And you?"
"I--oh, don't worry about me! I am all right."
And he would begin work with a pretence of alacrity, keeping to it
until drowsiness warned him of physical exhaustion, when he would pause,
stretch himself, measure his dose of caffeine, and, lifting his pen, dog
away until past midnight.
It was an afternoon shortly after this that Mariana came to him flushed
and expectant.
"Signor Morani sent for me," she explained. "I left Isolde with a
daughter of the laundress and went. He has offered me an engagement in a
comic opera."
Algarcife started and looked up.
"It seems that the manager heard me sing one day when I was at my
lesson. He liked my dramatic power, Signor Morani says. At any rate, one
of his troupe has given out, and he offers me the part."
"But, Mariana--"
Mariana did not look at him, but went rapidly on, as if waiving possible
objections.
"We need the money. It might take Isolde away--and it is a chance. I am
so young, you see--and--"
"Mariana!" cried Algarcife, sharply. There was a note in his voice which
caused her to shrink away as if he had struck her. "Mariana," he put out
his hand in protest, "you shall not do it. I will not let you. I could
not bear it."
Mariana tapped her foot upon the floor impatiently. "I believe it is a
child's part," she said.
"You shall not do it," he said, passionately.
Mariana turned her eyes upon him.
"But the money?"
"Oh, we will arrange it. I will leave The Gotham and take a room
down-town, and you and Isolde shall go."
"Very well," said Mariana, sullenly, and left the room.
The next few days brought a wave of heat, and Algarcife made
arrangements to send Mariana and the child away. He gave notice at The
Gotham, and secured a room upon Fourth Street, and in spare moments
assisted Mariana with the packing. Then there was some delay in the
payment for the articles he had written, and Mariana's departure was
postponed. "Get your things ready," said Algarcife, when the heat grew
more intense and Isolde drooped. "The moment that the money arrives, you
can start. It was due a week ago."
So Mariana continued her packing with nervous hands. She was divided
between anxiety for Anthony and anxiety for the child, and she was
profoundly depressed on her own account.
"If it wasn't for Isolde, I wouldn't go a step," she declared, standing
before a trunk into which she was putting cans of baby's milk. "I feel
as if I could weep gallons of tears--only I haven't time."
Miss Ramsey, who was rocking Isolde, smiled encouragingly. "The change
will do you good," she responded, "and I am sure you need it. You are
quite ghastly."
Mariana sighed and looked at herself in the glass. "I suppose so," she
remarked, a little wistfully. "I might be thirty."
And she went on packing. "Of course we may not leave for weeks," she
explained, "and yet I feel driven. The uncertainty is horrible."
But Algarcife, coming in at dusk, found her more cheerful. She kissed
him with something of her old warmth, and talked almost animatedly while
he ate his supper.
"I shall miss you so," she said, "and yet I do wish we could get off.
Isolde has been very fretful all day, and is badly broken out with heat.
She has just fallen asleep."
After supper Mariana went to bed, and Anthony returned to work. He had
an article to do upon the moral effects of the bicycle, which was to be
handed in in the morning, and this, with some additional work, would
keep him writing far into the night. With a strong feeling of distaste
he took up his pen, and his repugnance increased with every line. In a
moment he rose, threw off his coat, and applied himself with dull
determination. It was warm to oppression, and the noises of the city
came distinctly through the open window. The elevated road grated upon
him as if it were running along his nervous system, and he started at
the shrill sounds which rose at intervals above the monotonous roar of
the streets.
He had been writing some hours, and it was twelve o'clock when the door
opened and Mariana came in. She was barefooted and in her night-gown.
Her face shone gray in the lamplight, and there were heavy circles under
her eyes. She spoke rapidly.
"The baby is ill," she said. "You must find a doctor. She can't
breathe."
In an instant Algarcife had passed her and was bending over the crib.
The child was lying upon its back, staring with a mute interrogation at
vacancy. There was a purple tinge over its face, and its breath came
shortly.
"In a moment," said Anthony, and, taking up his hat, went out.
Within half an hour he returned, followed by the doctor, a well-meaning
young fellow, fresh from college and wholly in earnest.
He looked at the child, spoke soothingly to Mariana, wrote a
prescription, which he himself had filled at the nearest druggist's,
gave a multitude of directions, sat an hour, and departed with the
assurance that he would return at daybreak.
"She looks easier now," said Anthony, with a nervous tremor in his
voice. "It must have been the heat."
Mariana, with tragic eyes, was fanning the little, flushed face,
crooning a negro lullaby which she had treasured from her own childhood.
The wavings of the palm-leaf fan cast a grotesque shadow that hovered
like a gigantic hand above the baby's head, and, with the flitting of
the shadow, the wistful little plantation melody went on. Ever since the
birth of Isolde, Mariana had sung that song, and it fell upon Anthony's
ears with an acute familiarity, like the breaking of happier
associations against a consciousness of present pain.
"Ba! ba! black sheep. Where yo' lef' yo' lamb?
Way down yonder in de val-ley.
De birds an' de butterflies a-peckin' out its eyes,
An' de po' little thing cries: 'Mammy.'"
As Algarcife looked down upon the small and motionless body, he felt a
sudden tightening of his heart. The infantile hands, with their waxen
look of helplessness, caused him to draw his breath as he turned away,
and to wonder how Mariana could sit there hour after hour, crooning the
negro song and waving to and fro the palm-leaf fan.
And yet her figure in its pallid outline against the dim light was
photographed upon his brain, and it was Mariana at that moment that he
loved with the love more abundant, and that in the after-years he found
it hardest to forget.
He saw her with the reddish glow from the night-lamp upon her profile,
her drooping body in the shadow, the fixed look of pain upon her face
softened by the look which fell upon the sick child. He saw the child
lying mute and motionless, the wide eyes staring, the small hands
folded, the soft rings of flaxen hair wet and dark with perspiration,
and the moisture lying upon the fragile little chest which the gown left
bare; and he saw it all shadowed and lightened by the wavings of
Mariana's fan.
Beyond this he saw the homely and disordered room, the articles dropped
hastily as if in the start of sudden anxiety, the half-packed trunk with
the piles of clothes upon the floor beside it, the tiny socks with the
impress of the feet just learning to stand, the battered India-rubber
doll with the crocheted frock of bright-hued worsteds, and at Mariana's
hand the medicines which the doctor had left.
All these things were one with Mariana and himself. They were the
heritage of their marriage, the memories which must always be
inviolate--memories that could be shared by none other, could be undone
by no stretch of time. In that atmosphere of common pain, which is more
powerful both to sever and to unite than the less trenchant atmosphere
of joy, he felt his heart leap into an invisible communion with the
heart of Mariana. At that moment he was conscious of an additional
sense-perception in the acuteness of his sympathy. He returned to his
desk and took up his pen. The articles must be finished, and yet between
himself and the unwritten page rose the vision of the still room, the
pallid woman, and the sick child. The wavings of Mariana's fan seemed to
obscure the light, and in his nervous tension he convinced himself that
he heard the difficult breathing of a dying child--his child and
Mariana's.
He swallowed an added dose of caffeine and looked at the page before
him. The last written words stared him in the face and seemed so alien
to his present train of thought as to have emanated from another person.
He wondered what that other person's completion of the sentence would
have been.
"Optimism is the first duty of the altruist." What in thunder had that
to do with the effects of the bicycle? And what beastly rot it was. One
might as well state that to be comfortable is the first duty of the
damned.
"Optimism is the first duty of the altruist." He wrote on with the
feeling that he was existing as an automaton, that while his hand was
executing the result of some reflex action, his thinking entity was in
the still room behind the closed door.
But with the absence of personality his senses were rendered doubly
acute, and he seemed to see the rhythm of the atmospheric waves about
him, while his ears were responsive to every sound in the night
without--hearing them, not in a confused discord, but in distinct
differentiation of note and key. Once his gaze encountered the grinning
skull above the mantel, and, to his giddy senses, it seemed to wink with
its hollow sockets. He found himself idly wondering if the skull had
caught the trick of winking from its former accompaniment of flesh, and
was forced to pull his thoughts together with a jerk. Then there came
one of those sudden attacks of vertigo to which he had become subject,
and he laid aside his pen and closed his eyes. "Too much caffeine," he
muttered. But when it passed he went on again.
As the day broke he finished his articles, placed them in envelopes,
stamped and addressed them, and rose to his feet. He blew out the lamp,
and the faint odor of heated oil caused him a sensation of nausea.
Crossing to the window, he raised the shade and stood inhaling the
insipidity of atmosphere which is the city imitation of the freshness of
a country morning. Without, a sombre, neutral-toned light flooded the
almost deserted streets. In the highest heaven a star was still visible,
and the vaguest herald of dawn flaunted itself beyond the chimney-pots.
As he lifted the shade he noticed that his hand trembled and that his
head was unusually light. That massive sense of loneliness which the
transition hour from darkness to day begets in the on-looker oppressed
him with the force of an estrangement of hope. Such an impression had
been produced upon him a hundred times by the breaking of dawn after a
sleepless night.
He turned away and opened the door softly.
The night-lamp was still burning, but the beginning of the morrow washed
with a faint grayness the atmosphere. The objects he had dwelt upon the
night before were magnified in size, and in an instant the unpacked
trunks, the rubber doll, and the bottles of medicine obtruded themselves
upon his vision.
Mariana was still sitting as he had left her, waving to and fro the
palm-leaf fan. He wondered vaguely if she had sat thus since midnight.
Then he laid his hand upon her shoulder.
"Mariana, you must lie down." And as he stooped nearer he saw that the
child was dead.