A BLIND MAN'S TWILIGHT
"Ready?"
"All ready."
"Then, one--two--three--we're off!" A laugh and a scamper and one grand
rush down to the back fence. "You go too fast," she laughed, gasping for
breath.
"And you're not steady. You jerk."
"But this was a fine straight row. I can steer it just right when you
don't push too hard. Now--back."
They always had a great deal of fun cutting the grass. Ernestine used to
wish the grass had to be cut every day.
But Karl did not seem to be enjoying it as much as usual to-day. "I'm
going to desert you," he said, after a little while.
"Lazy man!"
"Yes--lazy good for nothing man--leaves all the work for his wife."
She looked at him sharply. His voice sounded very tired. "I'll be in in
just a few minutes, dear," she said.
She did not go with him. She knew Karl liked to find his own way just as
much as he could. She understood far too well to do any unnecessary
"helping."
But she stood there and looked after him--watched him with deep pain in
her eyes. He stooped a little, and of course he walked slowly, and
uncertainly. All that happy spring and assurance had gone from his walk.
She walked down to the rear of the yard, stood there leaning against the
back fence. She had dropped more than one tear over that back fence.
She too had lost something during the summer. Struggle had sapped up some
of the wine of youth. Her face was thinner, but that was not the vital
difference. The real change lay in the determination with which she had
learned to set her jaw, the defiance with which she held her head, and
the wistfulness, the pleading, with which her eyes seemed to be looking
out into the future. The combination of things about her was a strange
one.
She looked to the west; the sun was low, the clouds very beautiful. For
the minute she seemed to relax:--beauty always rested her. And then, with
a sharp closing of her eyes, a bitter little shake of her head, she
turned away. She could not look at beautiful things now without the
consciousness that Karl could not see them.
They always sat together in the library that hour before dinner--"our
hour" they had come to call it. She wondered, with a hot rush of tears,
if they did not care for it because it marked the close of another day.
She turned to the house, kicking the newly cut grass with her foot,
walking slowly. She was waiting for something--fighting for it. Karl
needed her to-night, needed courage and cheer.
She came so quietly, or else he was so deep in thought, that he did not
hear her. For a minute she stood there in the library door.
He was sitting in his Morris chair, his hands upon the arms of it, his
head leaning back. His eyes were closed, one could not tell in that
moment that he was blind, but it was more than the dimness, the blankness
in his eyes, more than scarred eyeballs, made for the change in Karl's
face. He and life did not dwell together as they had once; a freedom and
a gladness and a sureness had gone. The loss of those things meant
the loss of something fundamentally Karl. And the sadness--and the
longing--and the marks of struggle which the light of courage could not
hide!
She choked a little, and he heard her, and held out his hand, with a
smile. It was the smile which came closest to bridging the change. He was
very close to being Karl when he smiled at her like that.
She sat down on the low seat beside him, as was their fashion. "Lazy
man,"--brushing his hand tenderly with her lips--"wouldn't help his wife
cut the grass!"
She wondered, as they sat there in silence, how many lovers had loved
that hour. It seemed mellowed with the dreams it had held from the first
of time. Ever since the world was very young, children of love had crept
into the twilight hour and claimed it as their own. Perhaps the lovers of
to-day love it because unto it has been committed the soul of all love's
yesterdays.
She and Karl had loved it from the very first: in those days when they
were upon the sea, those supreme days of uncomprehended happiness. They
sat in the twilight then and watched day withdraw and night spread itself
over the waters. They loved the mystery of it, for it was one with the
mystery of their love; they loved it for reasons to be told only in great
silences, knowing unreasoningly, that they were most close together then.
And after that they came to love the twilight for the things it
bequeathed them. "Don't you remember," he would say, "we left it just as
the sun was setting. Aren't you glad we can remember it so?" It was as if
their love could take unto itself most readily that which came to it in
the mystic hour of closing day.
And when they returned, during that first year of joy in their work, they
loved the hour of transition as an hour of rest. Their day's work was
done; in the evening they would study or read or in some way occupy
themselves, but because they had worked all through the day they could
rest for a short time in the twilight. And they would tell of what they
had done; of what they hoped to do; if there had been discouragements
they would tell of them, and with the telling they would draw away. In
the light of closing day the future's picture was unblurred. They loved
their hour then as true workers love it; it was good to sink with the day
to the half lights of rest and peace.
Now it was all different, but they clung to their love for it still.
Through the heart of the day, during those hours which from his early
boyhood had been to him working hours, this removal from life brought to
the man a poignancy of realisation which beat with undiminishing force
against the wall of his endurance. It was when he finished his breakfast
and the day's work would naturally begin that it came home to him the
hardest. They would go into the library, and Ernestine would read to
him--how she delved into the whole storehouse of literature for things to
hold him best--and how great her joy when she found something to make the
day pass a little less hard than was the day's wont! He would listen to
her, loving her voice, and trying to bring his mind to what she read, but
all the while his thoughts reaching out to what he would be doing if his
life as worker were not blotted out. The call of his work tormented him
all through the day, and the twilight was the time most bearable because
it was an hour which had never been filled with the things of his work.
In that short hour he sometimes, in slight measure found, if not peace,
cessation from struggle. "This is what I would be doing now," he told
himself, and with that, when the day had not drawn too heavily upon him,
he could rest a little, perhaps, in some rare moments, almost forget.
But to-night the spell of the hour was passing him by. Ernestine saw that
in the restless way his hand moved away from hers, the nervous little
cough, the fretted shaking of the head. She understood why it was; the
fall quarter at the university opened that day. It would have marked the
beginning of his new year's work. Very quietly she wiped the tears from
her cheek. She tried never to let Karl know that they were there.
His head had fallen to his hand, and she moved closer to him and laid her
face against the sleeve of his coat. She did not say anything, she did
not touch him, or wind her arm, as she loved to do, about his neck. She
had come to understand so well, and perhaps the greatest triumph of her
love was in knowing when to say nothing at all.
At last he raised his head. His voice, like his face, was tensely drawn.
"Ernestine, don't bother to stay. Probably you want to be seeing about
dinner, and I--I don't feel like talking."
That too she understood. She only laid her hand for the moment upon his
hair. Then: "Call me, dear, if you want me," and she slipped away, and in
a little nook under the stairs sat looking out into their strange future
with wondering, beseeching eyes--seeking passionately better resources, a
more sustaining strength.
Left alone the man sat very still, his hands holding tight the arm of the
chair. The tide of despair was coming in, was washing over the sands of
resignation, beating against the rocks of courage. Many times before it
had come in, but there was something overwhelming in its volume to-night.
It beat hard against the rocks. Was it within its power to loosen and
carry them away? Carry them out with itself to be gone for all time?
He rose and felt his way to the window. He pressed his hot forehead
against the pane. Outside was the dying light of day, but the glare of
noonday, the quiet light of evening, the black of the night, were all one
to him now. Was it going to be so with his mind, his spirit? Would all
that other light, light of the mind and soul, be gulped into this black
monotone, this nothingness?
He had heard of the beautiful spirit of the blind, of the mastery of fate
achieved, the things they were able, in spite of it all, to gain from
life. Ernestine had read him some of that; he had been glad to hear it,
but it had not moved him much. Most of those people had been blind for a
long time. He too, in the course of ten or twenty years, when the best of
his life was gone, would become accustomed to groping his way about,
reading from those books, and having other people tell him how things
looked. But so long as he remained himself at all how accustom himself to
doing without his work? In the records and stories of the blind, it
seemed if they had a work it was something which they could continue. But
with him, the work which made his life was gone.
Over there was the university. It had been a busy day at the
university--old faces and new faces, all the exuberance of a new start,
the enthusiasm for a clean slate--students anxious to make some
particular class--how well he knew it all! Who was in his laboratory? Who
working with his old things? To whom was coming the joy he had thought
would be his? What man of all the world's men would achieve the things he
had believed would crown his own life?
Some day Ernestine would read it to him. He had made her promise to do
that, if it came. He would see it all--just how it had been worked out,
and the momentary joy of the revelation would sweep him back into it and
he would forget how completely it was a thing apart from him. And then
Ernestine would ask him if he wanted his chair a little higher or lower,
or whether she should shut the window; and he would pick up one of his
embossed books and try to read something, and he would know, as he had
never known before, how the great world which did things was going right
on without him.
There were a few little petitions he sent out every once in a while. "I
want to remain a man! I want to keep my nerve. I don't want to whine. I
don't want to get sorry for myself. For God's sake help me to be a good
fellow--a half way decent sort of chap!"
And he had not tried in vain. His success, as to exteriors, had been
good. Mrs. McCormick said it was indeed surprising how well one could get
along without one's sight.
But within himself he had not gone far. Ernestine knew something of
that--though he had tried his best with Ernestine, and Parkman knew, for
Parkman had a way of knowing everything.
And yet they did not know it all. The waking up in the night and knowing
it would not be any more light in the morning! Hearing the clock strike
four or five, and thinking that in a little while he would be getting up
and going to work, only to remember he would never be going to work in
that old way again! The waking in the morning feeling like his old self,
strength within him, his mind beseeching him to start in! No man had ever
suffered with the craving for strong drink as he suffered for the work
taken from him.
He had, by what grit he could summon, gone along for five months. But
ahead were five years, ten years, thirty years, perhaps, and what of
them? Each day was a struggle; the living of each day a triumph. Through
thousands of days should it be the same?
It was the future which took hold of him then--smothered him. He went
down before the vision of those unlived days, the grim vision of those
relentless, inevitable days, standing there waiting to be lived. It was
desolation. The surrender of a strong man who had tried to the uttermost.
Whether it was because he upset a chair, whether she heard him groan, or
whether she just knew in that way of hers that it was time for her to be
there, he did not know. But he felt her at the door, and held out
beseeching arms.
He crushed her to him very close. He wanted to bring her more close than
she had ever come before. For he needed her as he had not needed her
until this hour. "Ernestine! Ernestine!"--the sob in his voice was not to
be denied--"What am I going to do?"
"Karl,"--after her moment of passionate silence--"tell me this. Doesn't
it get any better? One bit easier?"
"No!"--that would have no denying; and then: "Oh but I'm the brute to
talk to you like this, after you've been"--again he swept her into his
arms--"what you have been to me this summer."
She guided him to a chair and knelt beside him. She held his hand for a
minute as the mother holds the hand of the child in pain. And then she
began, her voice tender, but quietly determined: "Karl dear--let's be
honest. Let's not do so much pretending with each other. For just this
once let's look it right in the face. I want to understand--oh how I want
to! What's the very worst of it, dear? Is it--the work?"
"Yes!"--the word leaped out as though let loose from a long bondage.
"Ernestine--no one but a man can quite see that. What _is_ a man without
a man's work? What is there for him to do but sit around in namby-pamby
fashion and be fussed over and coddled and cheered up! Lord"--he threw
away her hands and turned his face from her--"I'd rather be dead!"
Her utter silence recalled him to a sense of how she must be hurt. Could
he have looked into her eyes just then he would never have ceased to
regret those words.
There was contrition in his face as he turned back. He reached out for
her hands--those faithful, loving hands he had thrust away. For just a
minute she did not give them, but that was only for the minute--so quick
was she to forgive, so eager to understand.
"Forget that, sweetheart--quick. I didn't know what I was saying. Why,
liebchen--it's only you makes it bearable at all. If I did not have you I
should--choose the other way."
"Karl!"--in an instant clinging to him wildly--"you hadn't thought--you
couldn't think--"
"Oh, sweetheart--you've misunderstood. Now, dearie--don't--don't make me
feel I've made you cry. All I meant, Ernestine, was that without you it
would be so utterly unbearable."
He stroked her hair until she was quiet. "Why, liebchen--do you think
anything under heaven could be so bad that I should want to leave you?"
"I should hope I had not failed--quite that completely," she whispered
brokenly.
"Failed?--_You?_ Come up here a little closer and I'll try to tell you
just how far you've come from having failed."
At first he could tell her best in the passionate kiss, the gentle
stroking of her face, the tenderness with which his hands rested upon her
eyes. And then words added a little. "Everything, liebchen; everything of
joy and comfort and beauty and light--light, sweetheart--everything of
light and hope and consolation that comes to me now is through you.
You've done more than I would have believed in human power. You have
actually made me forget, and can you fancy how supreme a thing it is to
make a man forget that he is blind? You've put the beautiful things
before me in their most beautiful way. Do you suppose that alone, or with
any one else, I could see any beauty in anything? You've made me laugh!
How did you ever do that--you wonderful little Ernestine? And,
sweetheart, you've helped me with my self-respect. You've saved me in a
thousand little ways from the humiliations of being blind. Why you
actually must have some idea of what it is like yourself!"
"I have, Karl. I have imagined and thought about it and tried to--well,
just trained myself, until I believe I do know something of what it is
like."
"You love me!" he murmured, carried with that from despair to exultation.
"But if you could only know how _much._"
"I do know. I do know, dear. I wish that all the world--I'd hate to have
them know, for it's just ours--but for the sake of faltering faith they
ought to know what you've been to me this summer."
"Then, Karl,"--this after one of their precious silences--"I want to ask
you something. It is hard to say it just right, but I'll try. You know
that I love you--that we have one of those supreme loves which come at
rare times--perhaps for the sake of what you call faltering faith. But,
Karl--this will sound hard--but after all, doesn't it fail? Fail of being
supreme? Doesn't it fail if it is not--satisfying? I don't mean that it
should make up to one for such a thing as being blind, but if in spite of
love like ours life seems unbearable to you without your work--why then,
dear, doesn't it fail?"
He was long in answering, and then he only said, slowly: "I see. I see
how you have reasoned it out. I wonder if I can make you understand?"
"Ernestine,"--the old enthusiasm had kindled in his face with the
summoning of the thoughts--"no painter or sculptor ever loved his work
more than I loved mine. And I had that same kind of joy in it; that
delight in it as a beautiful thing to achieve. That may seem strange to
you. But the working out of something I was able to do brought me the
same delight the working out of a picture brings to you. Dear, it was my
very soul. And so, instead of there being two forces in my life after I
had you, it was just the one big thing. You made me bigger and because I
was bigger I wanted to do bigger things. Don't you see that?"
She held his hand a little more closely in response. He knew that she
understood.
"Don't think I have given up--why of course I haven't. I will adjust
myself in a little time--do what there is for me to do. I am going to see
immediately about a secretary, a stenographer--no, Ernestine, I don't
want you to do that. It's merely routine work, and I want you to do your
own work. One of us must do the work it was intended we should. I could
have gone on with some lecture work at the university, but I--this year I
couldn't quite do that. I'll be more used to handling myself by next
year, have myself better in hand in every way. I couldn't quite stand the
smell from the laboratory just now. This year I shall work on those
books I've told you about; just class-room books--I never could write
anything that would be literature--I'm not built for that; but these
things will be useful, I've felt the need of something of the sort in my
own classes. I'll always make a living, Ernestine--don't you ever worry
about that! And the world won't know--why should we let it know we're not
satisfied? But I can't hide from you that it is the other, the creative
work--the--oh, I tell you, Ernestine, the fellows up there in the far
north don't have all the fun! It may be great to push one's way through
icebergs--but I know something that is greater than that! They say there
is a joy in standing where no man ever stood before, and I can see that,
for I too have stood where no man ever stood before! But I'm ahead of
them--mine's the greater joy--for I knew that my territory was worth
something--that the world would follow where I had led!"--The old force,
fire, joyous enthusiasm had bounded into his voice. But it died away, and
it was with a settling to sadness he said, "You see, little girl, if
there was a wonderful picture you had conceived--your masterpiece,
something you had reason to feel would stand as one of the world's great
pictures, if you had begun on it, were in the heat of it, and then had to
give it up, it would not quite satisfy you, would it, dear, to settle
down and write some textbooks on art?"
"Karl--it's I who have been blind! I tried so hard to understand--but
I--oh, Karl--can't we do something? Can't we _do_ something about it?"
"I was selfish to tell you--but it is good to have you understand."
But she had not let go that idea of something being done. "Karl,
_couldn't_ you go on with it? Isn't there some way? Can't we _find_ a
way?"
He shook his head. "I have thought of it by the hour--gone over every
side of it. But work like that takes a man's whole being. It takes more
than mere eyes and hands--more than just mind. You must have the spirit
right for it--all things must work together. It's not the sort of work to
do under a handicap. God knows I'd start in if I could see my way--but
neither the world nor myself would have anything to gain. Some one would
have to be eyes for me--and so much more than eyes. It's all in how
things look, dear--their appearance tells the story. An assistant could
tell me what _he_ saw--but he could not bring to me what would be
conveyed if I saw it myself. All that was individual in my work would be
gone. Minds do not work together like that. I should be too much in the
dark," he concluded, sadly.
For a long time her head was on his shoulder. She was giving him of that
silent sympathy which came with an eternal freshness from her heart.
"We'll manage pretty well," he went on, in a lighter tone which did not
quite deceive her. "Our life is not going to be one long spell of moping.
It's time now for the year's work to begin. You must get at your
pictures, and I'll get at the books. Oh, I'll get interested in them,
all right--and oh, liebchen"--with a tenderness which swept all else
aside--"I have _you!_"