He came to it across the new bridge, from the south where the greater
city lay—the older portion—and where he had left his car, and paused
at the nearer bridgehead to look at it—the eddying water of the river
below, the new docks and piers built on either side since he had left,
twenty years before; the once grassy slopes on the farther shore, now
almost completely covered with factories, although he could see too,
among them, even now, traces of the old, out-of-the-way suburb which
he and Marie had known. Chadds Bridge, now an integral part of the
greater city, connected by car lines and through streets, was then such
a simple, unpretentious affair, a little suburban village just on the
edge of this stream and beyond the last straggling northward streets of
the great city below, where the car lines stopped and from which one
had to walk on foot across this bridge in order to take advantage of
the rural quiet and the cheaper—much cheaper—rents, so all-important to
him then.
Then he was so poor—he and Marie—a mere stripling of a mechanic and
inventor, a student of aeronautics, electricity, engineering, and what
not, but newly married and without a dollar, and no clear conception
of how his future was to eventuate, whereas now—but somehow he did not
want to think of now. Now he was so very rich, comparatively speaking,
older, wiser, such a forceful person commercially and in every other
way, whereas then he was so lean and pathetic and worried and wistful—a
mere uncertain stripling, as he saw himself now, with ideas and
ambitions and dreams which were quite out of accord with his immediate
prospects or opportunities. It was all right to say, as some one
had—Emerson, he believed—“hitch your wagon to a star.” But some people
hitched, or tried to, before they were ready. They neglected some of
the slower moving vehicles about them, and so did not get on at all—or
did not seem to, for the time being.
And that had been his error. He was growing at the time, of course,
but he was so restless, so dissatisfied with himself, so unhappy. All
the world was apparently tinkling and laughing by, eating, drinking,
dancing, growing richer, happier, every minute; whereas he—he and
Marie, and the two babies which came a little later—seemed to make no
progress at all. None. They were out of it, alone, hidden away in this
little semi-rural realm, and it was all so disturbing when elsewhere
was so much—to him, at least, if not to her—of all that was worth
while—wealth, power, gayety, repute. How intensely, savagely almost,
he had craved all of those things in those days, and how far off they
still were at that time!
Marie was not like him, soft, clinging little thing that she was,
inefficient in most big ways, and yet dear and helpful enough in all
little ones—oh, so very much so.
When first he met her in Philadelphia, and later when he brought her
over to New York, it seemed as though he could not possibly have made
a better engagement for himself. Marie was so sweet, so gentle, with
her waxy white pallor, delicately tinted cheeks, soft blackish brown
eyes that sought his so gently always, as if seeming to ask, “And what
can I do for my dearie now? What can he teach me to do for him?” She
was never his equal, mentally or spiritually—that was the dreadful
discovery he had made a few months after the first infatuation had worn
off, after the ivory of her forehead, the lambent sweetness of her
eyes, her tresses, and her delicately rounded figure, had ceased to
befuddle his more poetical brain. But how delightful she seemed then in
her shabby little clothes and her shabbier little home—all the more
so because her delicate white blossom of a face was such a contrast to
the drear surroundings in which it shone. Her father was no more than a
mechanic, she a little store clerk in the great Rand department store
in Philadelphia when he met her, he nothing more than an experimental
assistant with the Culver Electric Company, with no technical training
of any kind, and only dreams of a technical course at some time or
other. The beginnings of his career were so very vague.
His parents were poor too, and he had had to begin to earn his own
living, or share, at fourteen. And at twenty-four he had contracted
this foolish marriage when he was just beginning to dream of bigger
things, to see how they were done, what steps were necessary, what
studies, what cogitations and hard, grinding sacrifices even, before
one finally achieved anything, especially in the electrical world. The
facts which had begun to rise and take color and classify themselves
in his mind had all then to develop under the most advantageous
conditions thereafter. His salary did not rise at once by any means,
just because he was beginning to think of bigger things. He was a no
better practical assistant in a laboratory or the equipment department
of the several concerns for which he worked, because in his brain were
already seething dim outlines of possible improvements in connection
with arms, the turbine gun, electro-magnetic distance control, and the
rotary excavator. He had ideas, but also as he realized at the time
he would have to study privately and long in order to make them real;
and his studies at night and Sundays and holidays in the libraries
and everywhere else, made him no more helpful, if as much so, in his
practical, everyday corporation labors. In fact, for a long time
when their finances were at the lowest ebb and the two children had
appeared, and they all needed clothes and diversion, and his salary had
not been raised, it seemed as though he were actually less valuable to
everybody.
But in the meantime Marie had worked for and with him, dear little
thing, and although she had seemed so wonderful at first, patient,
enduring, thoughtful, later because of their poverty and so many other
things which hampered and seemed to interfere with his work, he had
wearied of her a little. Over in Philadelphia, where he had accompanied
her home of an evening and had watched her help her mother, saw her set
the table, wash the dishes, straighten up the house after dinner, and
then if it were pleasant go for a walk with him, she seemed ideal, just
the wife for him, indeed. Later as he sensed the world, its hardness,
its innate selfishness, the necessity for push, courage, unwillingness
to be a slave and a drudge, these earlier qualities and charms were the
very things that militated against her in his mind. Poor little Marie!
But in other ways his mind was not always on his work, either.
Sometimes it was on his dreams of bigger things. Sometimes it was
on his silly blindness in wanting to get married so soon, in being
betrayed by the sweet innocence and beauty of Marie into saddling
himself with this burden when he was scarcely prepared, as he saw after
he was married, to work out his own life on a sensible, economic basis.
A thought which he had encountered somewhere in some book of philosophy
or other (he was always reading in those days) had haunted him—“He
that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune”—and that
painful thought seemed to grow with each succeeding day. Why had he
been so foolish, why so very foolish, as to get married when he was so
unsuitably young! That was a thing the folly of which irritated him all
the time.
Not that Marie was not all she should be—far from it!—nor the two
little boys (both boys, think of that!), intensely precious to him at
first. No, that was not it, but this, that whatever the values and
the charms of these (and they were wonderful at first), he personally
was not prepared to bear or enjoy them as yet. He was too young, too
restless, too nebulous, too inventively dreamful. He did not, as he had
so often thought since, know what he wanted—only, when they began to
have such a very hard time, he knew he did not want that. Why, after
the first year of their marriage, when Peter was born, and because
of better trade conditions in the electrical world, they had moved
over here (he was making only twenty-two dollars a week at the time),
everything had seemed to go wrong. Indeed, nothing ever seemed to go
right any more after that, not one thing.
First it was Marie’s illness after Peter’s birth, which kept him on
tenterhooks and took all he could rake and scrape and save to pay the
doctor’s bill, and stole half her beauty, if not more. She always
looked a little pinched and weak after that. (And he had charged
that up to her, too!) Then it was some ailment which affected Peter
for months and which proved to be undernourishment, due to a defect
in Marie’s condition even after she had seemingly recovered. Then,
two years later, it was the birth of Frank, due to another error, of
course, he being not intended in Marie’s frail state; and then his
own difficulties with the manager of the insulating department of the
International Electric, due to his own nervous state, his worries,
his consciousness of error in the manipulation of his own career—and
Marie’s. Life was slipping away, as he saw it then and he kept thinking
he was growing older, was not getting on as he had thought he should,
was not achieving his technical education; he was saddled with a
family which would prevent him from ever getting on. Here, in this
neighborhood, all this had occurred—this quiet, run-down realm, so
greatly changed since he had seen it last. Yes, it had all happened
here.
But how peaceful it was to-day, although changed. How the water ran
under this bridge now, as then, eddying out to sea. And how this late
October afternoon reminded him of that other October afternoon when
they had first walked up here—warm, pleasant, colorful. Would he ever
forget that afternoon? He had thought he was going to do so much
better—was praying that he would, and they had done so much worse.
He, personally, had grown so restless and dissatisfied with himself
and her and life. And things seemed to be almost as bad as they could
be, drifting indefinitely on to nothing. Indeed, life seemed to
gather as a storm and break. He was discharged from the International
Electric, due supposedly to his taking home for a night a battery for
an experiment he was making but in reality because of the opposition
of his superior, based on the latter’s contempt for his constantly
(possibly) depressed and dissatisfied air, his brooding mien, and some
minor inattentions due to the state of his mind at the time.
Then, quite as swiftly (out of black plotting or evil thoughts of his
own, perhaps), Peter had died of pneumonia. And three days later Frank.
There were two funerals, two dreary, one-carriage affairs—he remembered
that so well!—for they had no money; and his pawned watch, five dollars
from Marie’s mother, and seven chemical and electrical works sold to an
old book man had provided the cash advance required by the undertaker!
Then, spiritually, something seemed to break within him. He could not
see this world, this immediate life in which he was involved, as having
any significance in it for himself or any one after that. He could not
stand it any more, the weariness, the boredom, the dissatisfaction with
himself, the failure of himself, the sickening chain of disasters which
had befallen this earlier adventure. And so—
But that was why he was here to-day, after all these years—twenty-four,
to be exact—with his interest in this old region so keen, if so sad.
Why, there—there!—was a flock of pigeons, just like those of old
Abijah Hargot’s, flying around the sky now, as then. And a curl of
smoke creeping up from Tanzer’s blacksmith shop, or the one that had
succeeded it, just one block from this bridge. How well he remembered
old Tanzer and his forge, his swelling muscles and sooty face! He had
always nodded in such a friendly way as he passed and talked of the
pest of flies and heat in summer. That was why he was pausing on this
bridge to-day, just to see once more, to feel, standing in the pleasant
afternoon sun of this October day and gazing across the swirling waters
below at the new coal-pockets, the enlarged lamp works of the George
C. Woodruff Company, once a mere shed hidden away at a corner of this
nearest street and rented out here no doubt because it was cheap and
Woodruff was just beginning—just as he did twenty-four years before.
Time had sped by so swiftly. One’s ideals and ideas changed so. Twenty
years ago he would have given so much to be what he was now—rich and
fairly powerful—and now—now—The beauty of this old neighborhood,
to-day, even.
The buff school which crowned the rise beyond, and the broad asphalt of
Edgewood Avenue leading up to the old five-story flat building—the only
one out here, and a failure financially—in which he and Marie had had
their miserable little apartment—here it was, still to be seen. Yes,
it and so many other things were all here; that group of great oaks
before old Hargot’s door; the little red—if now rusted—weather-vane
over his carriage house; the tall romantic tower of St. George’s
Episcopal Church—so far to the west over the river, and the spars and
masts of vessels that still docked here for a while. But dark memories
they generated, too, along with a certain idyllic sweetness, which had
seemed to envelop the whole at first. For though it had had sweetness
and peace at first, how much that had been bitter and spiritually
destroying had occurred here, too.
How well he recalled, for instance, the day he and Marie had wandered
up here, almost hand in hand, across this very bridge and up Edgewood
Avenue, nearly twenty-four years before! They had been so happy at
first, dreaming their little dream of a wonderful future for them—and
now—well, his secret agency had brought him all there was to know of
her and her mother and her little world after he had left. They had
suffered so much, apparently, and all on account of him. But somehow
he did not want to think of that now. It was not for that he had come
to-day, but to see, to dream over the older, the better, the first days.
He crossed over, following the old road which had then been a cobble
wagon trail, and turned into Edgewood Avenue which led up past the line
of semi-country homes which he used to dread so much, homes which
because of their superior prosperity, wide lawns, flowers and walks,
made the life which he and Marie were compelled to lead here seem so
lean and meagre by contrast. Why, yes, here was the very residence of
Gatewood, the dentist, so prosperous then and with an office downtown;
and that of Dr. Newton, whom he had called in when Peter and Frank were
taken ill that last time; and Temple, the druggist, and Stoutmeyer,
the grocer—both of whom he had left owing money; and Dr. Newton, too,
for that matter—although all had subsequently been paid. Not a sign of
the names of either Gatewood or Newton on their windows or gates now;
not a trace of Temple’s drug store. But here was Stoutmeyer’s grocery
just the same. And Buchspiel, the butcher. (Could he still be alive,
by any chance—was that his stout, aged figure within?) And Ortman, the
baker—not a sign of change there. And over the way the then village
school, now Public School No. 261, as he could see. And across from it,
beyond, the slim little, almost accidental (for this region) five-story
apartment house—built because of an error in judgment, of course,
when they thought the city was going to grow out this way—a thing of
grayish-white brick. On the fifth floor of this, in the rear, he and
Marie had at last found a tiny apartment of three rooms and bath, cheap
enough for them to occupy in the growing city and still pay their way.
What memories the mere sight of the building evoked! Where were all
the people now who used to bustle about here of a summer evening when
he and Marie were here, boys and girls, grown men and women of the
neighborhood? It had all been so pleasant at first, Marie up there
preparing dinner and he coming home promptly at seven and sometimes
whistling as he came! He was not always unhappy, even here.
Yes, all was exactly as it had been in the old days in regard to this
building and this school, even—as he lived!—a “For Rent” sign in that
very same apartment, four flights up, as it had been that warm October
day when they had first come up here seeking.
But what a change in himself—stouter, so much older, gray now. And
Marie—dying a few years after in this very region without his ever
seeing her again or she him—and she had written him such pathetic
letters. She had been broken, no doubt, spiritually and in every other
way when he left her,—no pointless vanity in that, alas—it was too sad
to involve vanity. Yes, he had done that. Would it ever be forgiven
him? Would his error of ambition and self-dissatisfaction be seen
anywhere in any kindly light—on earth or in heaven? He had suffered so
from remorse in regard to it of late. Indeed, now that he was rich and
so successful the thought of it had begun to torture him. Some time
since—five years ago—he had thought to make amends, but then—well, then
he had found that she wasn’t any more. Poor little Marie!
But these walls, so strong and enduring (stone had this advantage over
human flesh!), were quite as he had left them, quite as they were the
day he and Marie had first come here—hopeful, cheerful, although later
so depressed, the two of them. (And he had charged her spiritually with
it all, or nearly so—its fatalities and gloom, as though she could have
avoided them!)
The ruthlessness of it!
The sheer brutality!
The ignorance!
If she could but see him now, his great shops and factories, his
hundreds of employés, his present wife and children, his great new
home—and still know how he felt about her! If he could only call her
back and tell her, apologize, explain, make some amends! But no;
life did not work that way. Doors opened and doors closed. It had no
consideration for eleventh-hour repentances. As though they mattered
to life, or anything else! He could tell her something now, of course,
explain the psychology, let her know how pathetically depressed and
weary he had felt then. But would she understand, care, forgive? She
had been so fond of him, done so much for him in her small, sweet way.
And yet, if she only knew, he could scarcely have helped doing as he
did then, so harried and depressed and eager for advancement had he
been, self-convinced of his own error and failure before ever his
life had a good start. If she could only see how little all his later
triumphs mattered now, how much he would be glad to do for her now! if
only—only—he could. Well, he must quit these thoughts. They did not
help at all, nor his coming out here and feeling this way!
But life was so automatic and unconsciously cruel at times. One’s
disposition drove one so, shutting and bolting doors behind one,
driving one on and on like a harried steer up a narrow runway to
one’s fate. He could have been happy right here with Marie and the
children—as much so as he had ever been since. Or, if he had only taken
Marie along, once the little ones were gone—they might have been happy
enough together. They might have been! But no, no; something in him at
that time would not let him. Really, he was a victim of his own grim
impulses, dreams, passions, mad and illogical as that might seem. He
was crazy for success, wild with a desire for a superior, contemptuous
position in the world. People were so, at times. He had been. He had
had to do as he did, so horribly would he have suffered mentally
if he had not, all the theories of the moralists to the contrary
notwithstanding. The notions of one’s youth were not necessarily those
of age, and that was why he was here to-day in this very gloomy and
contrite mood.
He went around the corner now to the side entrance of the old apartment
house, and paused. For there, down the street, almost—not quite—as he
had left it, was the residence of the quondam old Abijah Hargot, he of
the pigeons,—iron manufacturer and Presbyterian, who even in his day
was living there in spite of the fact that the truly princely residence
suburbs had long since moved much farther out and he was being entirely
surrounded by an element of cheaper life which could not have been
exactly pleasant to him. In those days he and Marie had heard of the
hardwood floors, the great chandeliers, the rugs and pictures of the
house that had once faced a wide sward leading down to the river’s edge
itself. But look at it now! A lumber-yard between it and the river!
And some sort of a small shop or factory on this end of the lawn! And
in his day, Abijah had kept a pet Jersey cow nibbling the grass under
the trees and fantailed pigeons on the slate roof of his barn, at the
corner where now was this small factory, and at the back of his house
an immense patch of golden glow just outside the conservatory facing
the east, and also two pagodas down near the river. But all gone! all
gone, or nearly so. Just the house and a part of the lawn. And occupied
now by whom? In the old days he had never dared dream, or scarcely so,
that some day, years later—when he would be much older and sadder,
really, and haunted by the ghosts of these very things—he would be able
to return here and know that he had far more imposing toys than old
Hargot had ever dreamed of, as rich as he was.
Toys!
Toys!
Yes, they were toys, for one played with them a little while, as with
so many things, and then laid them aside forever.
Toys!
Toys!
But then, as he had since come to know, old Hargot had not been without
his troubles, in spite of all his money. For, as rumor had it then, his
oldest son, Lucien, his pride, in those days, a slim, artistic type of
boy, had turned out a drunkard, gambler, night-life lover; had run with
women, become afflicted with all sorts of ills, and after his father
had cut him off and driven him out (refusing to permit him even to
visit the home), had hung about here, so the neighbors had said, and
stolen in to see his mother, especially on dark or rainy nights, in
order to get aid from her. And, like all mothers, she had aided him
secretly, or so they said, in spite of her fear of her husband. Mothers
were like that—his mother, too. Neighbors testified that they had seen
her whispering to him in the shade of the trees of the lawn or around
the corner in the next street—a sad, brooding, care-worn woman, always
in black or dark blue. Yes, life held its disappointments for every
one, of course, even old Abijah and himself.
He went on to the door and paused, wondering whether to go up or not,
for the atmosphere of this building and this neighborhood was very,
very sad now, very redolent of old, sweet, dead and half-forgotten
things. The river there, running so freshly at the foot of the street;
the school where the children used to play and shout, while he worked
on certain idle days when there was no work at the factory; the little
church up the street to which so many commonplace adherents used to
make their way on Sunday; the shabby cabin of the plumber farther up
this same street, who used to go tearing off every Saturday and Sunday
in a rattle-trap car which he had bought second-hand and which squeaked
and groaned, for all the expert repairing he had been able to do upon
it.
The color, the humor, the sunshine of those old first days, in spite of
their poverty!
He hesitated as to whether to ring the bell or no—just as he and Marie
had, twenty-odd years before. She was so gay then, so hopeful, so
all-unconscious of the rough fate that was in store for her here....
How would it be inside? Would Marie’s little gas stove still be near
the window in the combined kitchen, dining-room and laundry—almost
general living-room—which that one room was? Would the thin single gas
jet still be hanging from the ceiling over their small dining-room
table (or the ghost of it) where so often after their meals, to save
heat in the other room—because there was no heat in the alleged
radiator, and their oil stove cost money—he had sat and read or worked
on plans of some of the things he hoped to perfect—and had since,
years since, but long after he had left her and this place? How sad!
He had never had one touch of luck or opportunity with her here,—not
one. Yet, if only she could, and without pain because of it, know how
brilliantly he had finished some of them, how profitably they had
resulted for him if not her.
But he scarcely looked like one who would be wanting to see so small an
apartment, he now felt, tall and robust and prosperous as he was. Still
might he not be thinking of buying this place? Or renting quarters for
a servant or a relative? Who should know? What difference did it make?
Why should he care?
He rang the bell, thinking of the small, stupid, unfriendly and
self-defensive woman who, twenty or more years before, had come up from
the basement below, wiping her hands on a gingham apron and staring at
them querulously. How well he remembered her—and how unfriendly she had
always remained in spite of their efforts to be friendly, because they
had no tips to give her. She could not be here any longer, of course;
no, this one coming was unlike her in everything except stupidity and
grossness. But they were alike in that, well enough. This one was
heavy, beefy. She would make almost two of the other one.
“The rooms,” he had almost said “apartment,” “on the top floor—may I
see them?”
“Dey are only t’ree an’ bat’—fourteen by der mont’.”
“Yes, I know,” he now added almost sadly. So they had not raised the
rent in all this time, although the city had grown so. Evidently this
region had become worse, not better. “I’ll look at them, if you please,
just the same,” he went on, feeling that the dull face before him was
wondering why he should be looking at them at all.
“Vait; I getcha der key. You can go up py yerself.”
He might have known that she would never climb any four flights save
under compulsion.
She returned presently, and he made his way upward, remembering how
the fat husband of the former janitress had climbed up promptly every
night at ten, if you please, putting out the wee lights of gas on the
return trip (all but a thin flame on the second floor: orders from the
landlord, of course), and exclaiming as he did so, at each landing,
“Ach Gott, I go me up py der secon’ floor ant make me der lights out.
Ach Gott, I go me py der t’ird floor ant make me der lights out. Ach
Gott, I go me py der fourt’ floor ant make me der lights out,” and
so on until he reached the fifth, where they lived. How often he had
listened to him, puffing and moaning as he came!
Yes, the yellowish-brown paper that they had abhorred then, or one
nearly as bad, covered all these hall walls to-day. The stairs
squeaked, just as they had then. The hall gas jets were just as small
and surmounted by shabby little pink imitation glass candles—to give
the place an air, no doubt! He and Marie would never have taken this
place at all if it had depended on the hall, or if the views from its
little windows had not been so fine. In the old days he had trudged up
these steps many a night, winter and summer, listening, as he came, for
sounds of Marie in the kitchen, for the prattle of the two children
after they were with them, for the glow of a friendly light (always
shining at six in winter) under the door and through the keyhole. His
light! His door! In those early dark winter days, when he was working
so far downtown and coming home this way regularly, Marie, at the sound
of his key in the lock, would always come running, her heavy black hair
done in a neat braid about her brow, her trim little figure buttoned
gracefully into a house-dress of her own making. And she always had a
smile and a “Hello, dearie; back again?” no matter how bad things were
with them, how lean the little larder or the family purse. Poor little
Marie!
It all came back to him now as he trudged up the stairs and neared the
door. God!
And here was the very door, unchanged—yellow, painted to imitate the
natural grain of oak, but the job having turned out a dismal failure
as he had noted years before. And the very lock the same! Could he
believe? Scarcely any doubt of it. For here was that other old hole,
stuffed with putty and painted over, which he and Marie had noted as
being the scar of some other kind of a lock or knob that had preceded
this one. And still stuffed with paper! Marie had thought burglars (!)
might make their way in via that, and he had laughed to think what they
would steal if they should. Poor little Marie!
But now, now—well, here he was all alone, twenty-four years later,
Marie and Peter and Frank gone this long time, and he the master of so
many men and so much power and so much important property. What was
life, anyhow? What was it?
Ghosts! Ghosts!
Were there ghosts?
Did spirits sometimes return and live and dream over old, sad scenes
such as this? Could Marie? Would she? Did she?
Oh, Marie!... Marie! Poor little weak, storm-beaten, life-beaten soul.
And he the storm, really.
Well, here was the inside now, and things were not a bit different
from what they had been in his and her day, when they had both been so
poor. No, just the same. The floor a little more nail-marked, perhaps,
especially in the kitchen here, where no doubt family after family had
tacked down oil-cloth in place of other pieces taken up—theirs, for
instance. And here in the parlor—save the mark!—the paper as violent as
it had ever been! Such paper—red, with great bowls of pinkish flowers
arranged in orderly rows! But then they were paying so little rent
that it was ridiculous for them to suggest that they wanted anything
changed. The landlord would not have changed it anyhow.
And here on the west wall, between the two windows, overlooking Abijah
Hargot’s home and the river and the creeping city beyond, was where
he had hung a wretched little picture, a print of an etching of a
waterscape which he had admired so much in those days and had bought
somewhere second-hand for a dollar—a house on an inlet near the sea,
such a house as he would have liked to have occupied, or thought he
would—then. Ah, these windows! The northernmost one had always been
preferred by him and her because of the sweep of view west and north.
And how often he had stood looking at a soft, or bleak, or reddening,
sunset over the river; or, of an early night in winter, at the lights
on the water below. And the outpost apartments and homes of the great
city beyond. Life had looked very dark then, indeed. At times, looking,
he had been very sad. He was like some brooding Hamlet of an inventor
as he stood there then gazing at the sweet little river, the twinkling
stars in a steely black sky overhead; or, in the fall when it was still
light, some cold red island of a cloud in the sky over the river and
the city, and wondering what was to become of him—what was in store for
him! The fallacy of such memories as these! Their futility!
But things had dragged and dragged—here! In spite of the fact that
his mind was full of inventions, inventions, inventions, and methods
of applying them in some general way which would earn him money,
place, fame—as they subsequently did—the strange mysteries of ionic or
electronic action, for instance, of motion, of attraction and polarity,
of wave lengths and tensile strengths and adhesions in metals, woods
and materials of all kinds—his apparent error in putting himself in
a position where failure might come to him had so preyed on his mind
here, that he could do nothing. He could only dream, and do common,
ordinary day labor—skeleton wiring and insulating, for instance,
electrical mapping, and the like. Again, later, but while still here,
since he had been reading, reading, reading after marriage, and working
and thinking, life had gone off into a kind of welter of conflicting
and yet organized and plainly directed powers which was confusing to
him, which was not to be explained by anything man could think of and
which no inventor had as yet fully used, however great he was—Edison,
Kelvin, or Bell. Everything as he knew then and hoped to make use
of in some way was alive, everything full of force, even so-called
dead or decaying things. Life was force, that strange, seemingly
(at times) intelligent thing, and there was apparently nothing but
force—everywhere—amazing, perfect, indestructible. (He had thought of
all that here in this little room and on the roof overhead where he
made some of his experiments, watching old Hargot’s pigeons flying
about the sky, the sound of their wings coming so close at times that
they were like a whisper of the waves of the sea, dreams in themselves.)
But the little boundaries of so-called health and decay, strength
and weakness, as well as all alleged _fixity_ or changelessness of
things,—how he had brooded on all that, at that time. And how all
thought of fixity in anything had disappeared as a ridiculous illusion
intended, maybe, by something to fool man into the belief that his
world here, his physical and mental state, was real and enduring, a
greater thing than anything else in the universe, when so plainly it
was not. But not himself. A mere shadow—an illusion—nothing. On this
little roof, here, sitting alone at night or by day in pleasant weather
or gray, Saturdays and Sundays when it was warm and because they had
no money and no particular place to go, and looking at the stars or
the lights of the city or the sun shining on the waters of the little
river below,—he had thought of all this. It had all come to him,
the evanescence of everything, its slippery, protean changefulness.
Everything was alive, and everything was nothing, in so far as its
seeming reality was concerned. And yet everything was everything but
still capable of being undermined, changed, improved, or come at in
some hitherto undreamed-of way—even by so humble a creature as himself,
an inventor—and used as chained force, if only one knew how. And that
was why he had become a great inventor since—because he had thought
so—had chained force and used it—even he. He had become conscious of
anterior as well as ulterior forces and immensities and fathomless
wells of wisdom and energy, and had enslaved a minute portion of them,
that was all. But not here! Oh, no. Later!
The sad part of it, as he thought of it now, was that poor little Marie
could not have understood a thing of all he was thinking, even if he
had explained and explained, as he never attempted to do. Life was all
a mystery to Marie—deep, dark, strange—as it was to him, only he was
seeking and she was not. Sufficient to her to be near him, loving him
in her simple, dumb way, not seeking to understand. Even then he had
realized that and begun to condemn her for it in his mind, to feel that
she was no real aid and could never be—just a mother-girl, a housewife,
a social fixture, a cook, destined to be shoved back if ever he were
really successful; and that was sad even then, however obviously true.
But to her, apparently, he was so much more than just a mere man—a god,
really, a dream, a beau, a most wonderful person, dreaming strange
dreams and thinking strange thoughts which would lead him heaven knows
where; how high or how strange, though, she could never guess, nor
even he then. And for that very reason—her blind, non-understanding
adoration—she had bored him then, horribly at times. All that he could
think of then, as he looked at her at times—after the first year or
two or three, when the novelty of her physical beauty and charm had
worn off and the children had come, and cares and worries due to his
non-success were upon them—was that she was an honest, faithful,
patient, adoring little drudge, but no more, and that was all she would
ever be. Think of that! That was the way life was—the way it rewarded
love! He had not begun to dislike her—no, that was not it—but it was
because, as the philosopher had said, that in and through her and the
babies he had given hostages to fortune, and that she was not exactly
the type of woman who could further him as fast as he wished—that he
had begun to weary of her. And that was practically the whole base of
his objection to her,—not anything she did.
Yes, yes—it was that, _that_, that had begun to plague him as though
he had consciously fastened a ball and chain on one foot and now never
any more could walk quickly or well or be really free. Instead of being
able to think on his inventions he was constantly being compelled to
think on how he would make a living for her and them, or find ten more
dollars, or get a new dress for Marie and shoes for the children!
Or how increase his salary. That was the great and enduring problem
all the time, and over and over here. Although healthy, vigorous and
savagely ambitious, at that time, it was precisely because he was those
things that he had rebelled so and had desired to be free. He was too
strong and fretful as he could see now to endure so mean a life. It was
that that had made him savage, curt, remote, indifferent so much of
the time in these later days—here— And to her. And when she could not
help it at all—poor little thing—did not know how to help it and had
never asked him to marry her! Life had tinkled so in his ears then. It
had called and called. And essentially, in his own eyes then, he was
as much of a failure as a husband as he was at his work, and that was
killing him. His mind had been too steadily depressed by his mistake in
getting married, in having children so soon, as well as by his growing
knowledge of what he might be fitted to do if only he had a chance to
go off to a big technical school somewhere and work his way through
alone and so get a new and better position somewhere else—to have a
change of scene. For once, as he knew then, and with all his ideas, he
was technically fitted for his work, with new light and experience in
his mind, what wonders might he not accomplish! Sitting in this little
room, or working or dreaming upstairs in the air, how often he had
thought of all that!
But no; nothing happened for ever so long here. Days and weeks and
months, and even years went by without perceptible change. Nature
seemed to take a vicious delight in torturing him, then, in so far as
his dreams were concerned, his hopes. Hard times came to America,
blasting ones—a year and a half of panic really—in which every one hung
on to his pathetic little place, and even he was afraid to relinquish
the meagre one he had, let alone ask for more pay. At the same time
his dreams, the passing of his youth, this unconscionable burden of a
family, tortured him more and more. Marie did not seem to mind anything
much, so long as she was with him. She suffered, of course, but more
for him than for herself, for his unrest, and his dissatisfaction,
which she feared. Would he ever leave her? Was he becoming unhappy with
her? Her eyes so often asked what her lips feared to frame.
Once they had seventy dollars saved toward some inventive work of his.
But then little Peter fell from the top of the washtub, where he had
climbed for some reason, and broke his arm. Before it was healed and
all the bills paid, the seventy was gone. Another time Marie’s mother
was dying, or so she thought, and she had to go back home and help her
father and brother in their loneliness. Again, it was brother George
who, broke, arrived from Philadelphia and lived with them a while
because he had no place else to go. Also once he thought to better
himself by leaving the International Electric, and joining the Winston
Castro Generator Company. But when he had left the first, the manager
of the second, to whom he had applied and by whom he had been engaged,
was discharged (“let out,” as he phrased it), and the succeeding
man did not want him. So for three long months he had been without
anything, and, like Job, finally, he had been ready to curse God and
die.
And then—right here in these rooms it was—he had rebelled, spiritually,
as he now recalled, and had said to himself that he could not stand
this any longer, that he was ruining his life, and that however much
it might torture Marie—ruin her even—he must leave and do something
to better his state. Yes quite definitely, once and for all, then, he
had wished that he had not married Marie, that they had never been so
foolish as to have children, that Marie was not dependent on him any
more, that he was free to go, be, do, all the things he felt that he
could go do, be—no matter where, so long as he went and was free. Yes,
he had wished that in a violent, rebellious, prayerful way, and then—
Of all the winters of his life, the one that followed that was the
blackest and bleakest, that last one with Marie. It seemed to bring
absolutely nothing to either him or her or the children save disaster.
Twenty-five dollars was all he had ever been able to make, apparently,
while he was with her. The children were growing and constantly
requiring more; Marie needed many things, and was skimping along on
God knows what. Once she had made herself some corset slips and other
things out of his cast-off underwear—bad as that was! And then once,
when he was crossing Chadds Bridge, just below here, and had paused to
meditate and dream, a new hat—his very best, needless to say, for he
had worn his old one until it was quite gone—had blown off into the
water, a swift wind and some bundles he was compelled to carry home
aiding, and had been swiftly carried out by the tide. So much had he
been harried in those days by one thing and another that at first he
had not even raged, although he was accustomed so to do. Instead then
he had just shut his teeth and trudged on in the biting wind, in danger
of taking cold and dying of something or other—as he had thought at the
time—only then he had said to himself that he did not really mind now.
What difference did it make to himself or anybody whether he died or
not? Did anybody care really, God or anybody else, what became of him?
Supposing he did it? What of it? Could it be any worse than this? To
hell with life itself, and its Maker,—this brutal buffeting of winds
and cold and harrying hungers and jealousies and fears and brutalities,
arranged to drive and make miserable these crawling, beggarly
creatures—men! Why, what had he ever had of God or any creative force
so far? What had God ever done for him or his life, or his wife and
children?
So he had defiantly raged.
And then life—or God, or what you will—had seemed to strike at last.
It was as if some Jinnee of humane or inhuman power had said, “Very
well, then, since you are so dissatisfied and unhappy, so unworthy of
all this (perhaps) that I have given you, you shall have your will,
your dreams. You have prayed to be free. Even so—this thing that you
see here now shall pass away. You have sinned against love and faith
in your thoughts. You shall be free! Look! Behold! You shall be! Your
dreams shall come true!”
And then, at once, as if in answer to this command of the Jinnee, as
though, for instance, it had waved its hand, the final storm began
which blew everything quite away. Fate struck. It was as if black
angels had entered and stationed themselves at his doors and windows,
armed with the swords of destruction, of death. Harpies and furies
beset his path and perched on his roof. One night—it was a month before
Peter and Frank died, only three days before they contracted their
final illness—he was crossing this same bridge below here and was
speculating, as usual, as to his life and his future, when suddenly,
in spite of the wind and cold and some dust flying from a coal barge
below, his eye was attracted by two lights which seemed to come dancing
down the hill from the direction of his apartment and passed out over
the river. They rose to cross over the bridge in front of him and
disappeared on the other side. They came so close they seemed almost
to brush his face, and yet he could not quite accept them as real.
There was something too eerie about them. From the moment he first laid
eyes on them in the distance they seemed strange. They came so easily,
gracefully, and went so. From the first moment he saw them there below
Tegetmiller’s paint shop, he wondered about them. What were they? What
could they mean? They were so bluish clear, like faint, grey stars,
so pale and watery. Suddenly it was as if something whispered to him,
“Behold! These are the souls of your children. They are going—never to
return! See! Your prayers are being answered!”
And then it was that, struck with a kind of horror and numb despair,
he had hurried home, quite prepared to ask Marie if the two boys were
dead or if anything had happened to them. But, finding them up and
playing as usual he had tried to put away all thought of this fact as
a delusion, to say nothing. But the lights haunted him. They would not
stay out of his mind. Would his boys really die? Yet the first and the
second day went without change. But on the third both boys took sick,
and he knew his dread was well founded.
For on the instant, Marie was thrown into a deep, almost inexplicable,
depression, from which there was no arousing her, although she
attempted to conceal it from him by waiting on and worrying over them.
They had to put the children in the one little bedroom (theirs),
while they used an extension cot in the “parlor,” previously occupied
by the children. Young Dr. Newton, the one physician of repute in
the neighborhood, was called in, and old Mrs. Wertzel, the German
woman in front, who, being old and lonely and very fond of Marie, had
volunteered her services. And so they had weathered along, God only
knows how. Marie prepared the meals—or nearly all of them—as best she
could. He had gone to work each day, half in a dream, wondering what
the end was to be.
And then one night, as he and Marie were lying on the cot pretending
to sleep, he felt her crying. And taking her in his arms he had
tried to unwish all the dark things he had wished, only apparently
then it was too late. Something told him it was. It was as though in
some dark mansion somewhere—some supernal court or hall of light or
darkness—his prayer had been registered and answered, a decision made,
and that that decision could not now be unmade. No. Into this shabby
little room where they lay and where she was crying had come a final
black emissary, scaled, knightly, with immense arms and wings and a
glittering sword, all black, and would not leave until all this should
go before him. Perhaps he had been a little deranged in his mind at the
time, but so it had seemed.
And then, just a few weeks after he had seen the lights and a few days
after Marie had cried so, Peter had died—poor weak little thing that
he was—and, three days later, Frank. Those terrible hours! For by then
he was feeling so strange and sad and mystical about it all that he
could neither eat nor sleep nor weep nor work nor think. He had gone
about, as indeed had Marie, in a kind of stupor of misery and despair.
True, as he now told himself—and then too, really,—he had not loved
the children with all the devotion he should have or he would never
have had the thoughts he had had—or so he had reasoned afterward.
Yet then as now he suffered because of the love he should have given
them, _and had not_—and now could not any more, save in memory. He
recalled how both boys looked in those last sad days, their pinched
little faces and small weak hands! Marie was crushed, and yet dearer
for the time being than ever before. But the two children, once gone,
had seemed the victims of his own dark thoughts as though his own
angry, resentful wishes had slain them. And so, for the time, his mood
changed. He wished, if he could, that he might undo it all, go on as
before with Marie, have other children to replace these lost ones in
her affection—but no. It was apparently not to be, not ever any more.
For, once they were gone, the cords which had held him and Marie
together were weaker, not stronger—almost broken, really. For the
charm which Marie had originally had for him had mostly been merged
in the vivacity and vitality and interest of these two prattling
curly-headed boys. Despite the financial burden, the irritation and
drain they had been at times, they had also proved a binding chain,
a touch of sweetness in the relationship, a hope for the future, a
balance which had kept even this uneven scale. With them present he
had felt that however black the situation it must endure because of
them, their growing interests; with them gone, it was rather plain
that some modification of their old state was possible—just how, for
the moment, he scarcely dared think or wish. It might be that he could
go away and study for awhile now. There was no need of his staying
here. The neighborhood was too redolent now of the miseries they had
endured. Alone somewhere else, perhaps, he could collect his thoughts,
think out a new program. If he went away he might eventually succeed in
doing better by Marie. She could return to her parents in Philadelphia
for a little while and wait for him, working there at something as
she had before until he was ready to send for her. The heavy load of
debts could wait until he was better able to pay them. In the meantime,
also, he could work and whatever he made over and above his absolute
necessities might go to her—or to clearing off these debts.
So he had reasoned.
But it had not worked out so of course. No. In the broken mood in which
Marie then was it was not so easy. Plainly, since he had run across her
that April day in Philadelphia when he was wiring for the great dry
goods store, her whole life had become identified with his, although
his had not become merged with hers. No. She was, and would be, as he
could so plainly see, then, nothing without him, whereas he—he—Well,
it had long since been plain that he would be better off without
her—materially, anyhow. But what would she do if he stayed away a long
time—or never came back? What become? Had he thought of that then?
Yes, he had. He had even thought that once away he might not feel like
renewing this situation which had proved so disastrous. And Marie had
seemed to sense that, too. She was so sad. True he had not thought of
all these things in any bold outright fashion then. Rather they were
as sly, evasive shadows skulking in the remote recesses of his brain,
things which scarcely dared show their faces to the light, although
later, once safely away—they had come forth boldly enough. Only at that
time, and later—even now, he could not help feeling that however much
Marie might have lacked originally, or then, the fault for their might
was his,—that if he himself had not been so dull in the first instance
all these black things would not have happened to him or to her. But
could she go on without him? Would she? he had asked himself then. And
answered that it would be better for him to leave and build himself up
in a different world, and then return and help her later. So he fretted
and reasoned.
But time had solved all that, too. In spite of the fact that he
could not help picturing her back there alone with her parents in
Philadelphia, their poor little cottage in Leigh Street in which she
and her parents had lived—not a cottage either, but a minute little
brick pigeon-hole in one of those long lines of red, treeless, smoky
barracks flanking the great mills of what was known as the Reffington
District, where her father worked—he had gone. He had asked himself
what would she be doing there? What thinking, all alone without him—the
babies dead? But he had gone.
He recalled so well the day he left her—she to go to Philadelphia,
he to Boston, presumably—the tears, the depression, the unbelievable
sadness in her soul and his. Did she suspect? Did she foreknow? She was
so gentle, even then, so trustful, so sad. “You will come back to me,
dearie, won’t you, soon?” she had said, and so sadly. “We will be happy
yet, won’t we?” she had asked between sobs. And he had promised. Oh
yes; he had done much promising in his life, before and since. That was
one of the darkest things in his nature, his power of promising.
But had he kept that?
However much in after months and years he told himself that he wanted
to, that he must, that it was only fair, decent, right, still he had
not gone back. No. Other things had come up with the passing of the
days, weeks, months, years, other forces, other interests. Some plan,
person, desire had always intervened, interfered, warned, counseled,
delayed. Were there such counselors? There had been times during the
first year when he had written her and sent her a little money—money he
had needed badly enough himself. Later there was that long period in
which he felt that she must be getting along well enough, being with
her parents and at work, and he had not written. A second woman had
already appeared on the scene by then as a friend. And then—
The months and years since then in which he had not done so! After his
college course—which he took up after he left Marie, working his way—he
had left Boston and gone to K—— to begin a career as an assistant plant
manager and a developer of ideas of his own, selling the rights to such
things as he invented to the great company with which he was connected.
And then it was that by degrees the idea of a complete independence and
a much greater life had occurred to him. He found himself so strong, so
interesting to others. Why not be free, once and for all? Why not grow
greater? Why not go forward and work out all the things about which he
had dreamed? The thing from which he had extricated himself was too
confining, too narrow. It would not do to return. The old shell could
not now contain him. Despite her tenderness, Marie was not significant
enough. So—He had already seen so much that he could do, be, new faces,
a new world, women of a higher social level.
But even so, the pathetic little letters which still followed from time
to time—not addressed to him in his new world (she did not know where
he was), but to him in the old one—saying how dearly she loved him, how
she still awaited his return, that she knew he was having a hard time,
that she prayed always, and that all would come out right yet, that
they would be able to be together yet!—she was working, saving, praying
for him! True, he had the excuse that for the first four years he had
not really made anything much, but still he might have done something
for her,—might he not have?—gone back, persuaded her to let him go,
made her comfortable, brought her somewhat nearer him even? Instead he
had feared, feared, reasoned, argued.
Yes, the then devil of his nature, his ambition, had held him
completely. He was seeing too clearly the wonder of what he might be,
and soon, what he was already becoming. Everything as he argued then
and saw now would have had to be pushed aside for Marie, whereas what
he really desired was that his great career, his greater days, his
fame, the thing he was sure to be now—should push everything aside.
And so—Perhaps he had become sharper, colder, harder, than he had ever
been, quite ready to sacrifice everything and everybody, or nearly,
until he should be the great success he meant to be. But long before
this he might have done so much. And he had not—had not until very
recently decided to revisit this older, sweeter world.
But in the meantime, as he had long since learned, how the tragedy
of her life had been completed. All at once in those earlier years
all letters had ceased, and time slipping by—ten years really—he
had begun to grow curious. Writing back to a neighbor of hers in
Philadelphia in a disguised hand and on nameless paper, he had learned
that nearly two years before her father had died and that she and her
mother and brother had moved away, the writer could not say where.
Then, five years later, when he was becoming truly prosperous, he had
learned, through a detective agency, that she and her mother and her
ne’er-do-well brother had moved back into this very neighborhood—this
old neighborhood of his and hers!—or, rather, a little farther out near
the graveyard where their two boys were buried. The simplicity of her!
The untutored homing instinct!
But once here, according to what he had learned recently, she and her
mother had not prospered at all. They had occupied the most minute
of apartments farther out, and had finally been compelled to work
in a laundry in their efforts to get along—and he was already so
well-to-do, wealthy, really! Indeed three years before his detectives
had arrived, her mother had died, and two years after that, she
herself, of pneumonia, as had their children. Was it a message from her
that had made him worry at that time? Was that why, only six months
since, although married and rich and with two daughters by this later
marriage, he had not been able to rest until he had found this out,
returned here now to see? Did ghosts still stalk the world?
Yes, to-day he had come back here, but only to realize once and for all
now how futile this errand was, how cruel he had been, how dreary her
latter days must have been in this poor, out-of-the-way corner where
once, for a while at least, she had been happy—he and she.
“Been happy!”
“By God,” he suddenly exclaimed, a passion of self-reproach and memory
overcoming him, “I can’t stand this! It was not right, not fair. I
should not have waited so long. I should have acted long, long since.
The cruelty—the evil! There is something cruel and evil in it all, in
all wealth, all ambition, in love of fame—too cruel. I must get out! I
must think no more—see no more.”
And hurrying to the door and down the squeaking stairs, he walked
swiftly back to the costly car that was waiting for him a few blocks
below the bridge—that car which was so representative of the realm of
so-called power and success of which he was now the master—that realm
which, for so long, had taken its meaningless lustre from all that had
here preceded it—the misery, the loneliness, the shadow, the despair.
And in it he was whirled swiftly and gloomily away.