WORK THE SAVIOUR
For more than three years then they saw nothing of Ernestine. She left
this note for Georgia: "I am sorry to seem erratic, but I cannot wait for
you. I am going away at once. I am going first to New York, and then, I
think, to Paris. I am going to do something which I can do better there
than anywhere else. Thank you, Georgia, for everything. It must be
satisfying to feel one has succeeded as beautifully in anything as you
have succeeded in being a friend to me. Do not worry. There is nothing
now to worry about. You will be glad to know that I am going back to my
work."
A little later Dr. Parkman had this from her from New York: "I am sailing
for Paris. I am going to work. I see it all now; all that you would have
me see, and more. Some day I will try to show you just how well I see it.
"I do not know how I am going to bear part of it--the going back where we
were so happy. But I _will_ bear it, for nothing shall keep me from the
work I see before me.
"Thank you--for all that you have done, and most of all for all that you
have been. My idea is all comprehended in this: To the very uttermost of
my power, I am going to make it right for Karl."
Six months later she wrote him this:
"Dear Doctor: Thank you for attending to those things for me. It
infuriated me at first to think that the only thing in money left by the
work of Karl's great life was the money from those books which I resented
so bitterly. But how wrong to see it that way--for Karl would be so happy
to know that the brave work he did after his blindness was helping me
now. But I never spend a dollar of this money without thinking of the
mood--the circumstances--out of which it was earned.
"No--no money for the work he did for the blind. Karl intended that as a
gift. He would be so glad to know of its usefulness. He thought it all
wrong that books for the blind were so expensive, and so many of the
great things not to be had.
"Karl used to repeat a little verse of Heine, which he translated like
this:"
'At first I did not even hope,
And to a hostile fate did bow--
But I learned to bear the burden--
Only do not ask me how.'
"I have learned to bear it here in Paris--only do not ask me how. I could
not say. I do not know.
"But I want to tell you of a few of the good things. You would not
believe what that work in the laboratory has done for me. It has given me
a new understanding of colour--new sense of it, new power with eye and
hand, a better sense of values. Would you have thought of that? And do
you not see the reasons for my being glad?
"What I have done so far is but leading up to what I am going to do. That
is so vital that it must not be done too quickly. I must get my hand in,
gain what there is to be gained here, that the work I am going to do for
Karl may have the benefit of it all. But I have made innumerable
sketches, and it is growing all the time. There need be no fear of my
losing it. I could no more lose it than I could lose my own soul. It
grows as I grow. Sometimes I think I should wait ten years--but I shall
not.
"Yes, the critics like the picture of which you speak. Of course I am
painting all the time--other things--various things. But it all seems
like practice work to me--a mere getting ready."
And then, after a long time, this:--"This is my birthday;--a day linked
more closely than I could ever tell with Karl, our life and work and
love. If I had looked forward from one happy birthday I had and seen what
was ahead--how it would be with me now--I never could have gone on. We go
on by not knowing what is waiting for us, and day by day we bear what we
would have said, looking ahead, we never could endure--and that is human
life.
"I have been so lonely to-day that I must write this little word to one
who will understand. I turn to you as one close to us in those dear days,
one who cared for and appreciated Karl, understood something of the kind
of love that was ours. Doctor--it was so wonderful! So wonderful that it
seems to me sometimes the universe must have existed through the
centuries just that our love might be born. I think of it as the one
perfect flower of creation.
"I want you to know that I have come to see the worth--pricelessness--of
my memories. Karl's love for me lights up my life with a glory nothing
can ever take away. I think we do not have even our memories until we
have earned them. I have tried to come back to my own, to take my place.
I am trying to be of that great harmony of the world in which Karl and I
believed, and as my spirit turns from discord and seeks harmony, I am
given my memories, the memories of those many perfect days, and I am
never too lonely nor too desolate to thank God that to me was left the
scent of the roses.
"Oh, Doctor--where is he now? Do you ever think of all that? No one who
has ever loved and lost can remain secure in his materialism. I begin to
see that the beautiful thoughts, the poems, of immortality, eternity, of
its all coming right, have sprung from the lonely hearts of great lovers.
For they would not have it any other way--they could only endure it by
having it so, and, ah, Doctor--far greater than any proof of science or
logic, is there not proof in this? Lifting up their hearts in hours of
desolation were not the men and women born for great loves and great
sorrows granted a vision of the truth?
"We do not know. None of them know. We hope and wait and long for the
years to tell us the truth. And while we wait and hope, we work, and try
to make our lives that which is worthy our love. That endeavour, and that
alone, makes life bearable."
After a year of silence he received this letter: "Doctor, it is finished.
I will not tell you the things they are saying of it here, for you will
read it in the papers. The papers here are full of it; I think I have
never seen so much about any picture.
"But it is more important that I tell you this: They are seeing it, even
now, as I intended it should be seen--a work of love, a memorial, an
endeavour to make it right for him. I have cared more for what the
scientific people, Karl's own kind, have said of it, than the artists.
They claim it as their own, say they are going to have it, get it some
way,--_must_ have it. Do you not see how that means the fulfillment of my
desire?
"Of course you know that it is a picture of Karl. But the critics here
call it less a portrait than the incarnation of an idea. Light and truth
sweeping in upon a human soul--one of them expressed it. But why try to
tell you of that? When you see it you will understand what it is I have
tried to do. And you shall see it soon. After it is exhibited here they
want it in Vienna, and I cannot refuse, for Karl loved Vienna, and then a
short time in London, and then I come with it to America, and to Chicago.
I am bringing it home, Doctor, for even though it find final resting
place in that great temple of science in Paris, I have the feeling, in
taking it to Chicago, that I am bringing it home. And the first day it is
exhibited there I want you and me to go to it together, as Karl would
like that we should.
"I am so tired that I do not believe I shall ever be quite rested again.
For the last three months I lived with the picture, my heart and mind
knew nothing else. But the day I finished it my strongest feeling was a
regret that it was finished, a yearning to go on with it forever. For
doctor, I painted my heart, my life, everything that I had within myself,
everything I had taken from Karl, into that picture. I am lonely now
without it, for it made my life.
"It has revived Karl's whole story. They tell it here--oh so lovingly. I
heard one man from the Institute telling it all to a younger man as they
stood before it yesterday. I have moved them to a new sense of Karl's
greatness; it has been my glorious privilege to perpetuate him, make sure
his place, _reveal_ him--for that is what I have sought to do. Was not
life good to me to give me power to do that thing?
"We shall be together in Chicago very soon--you and Karl and I. For as
the days go on Karl comes closer. I hope, most of all, that the picture
will bring him very close to you."
That was three months before, and to-day he had this note from her, dated
Chicago:--"Yes, I am here, and the picture is here. The public exhibit
does not open for a few days, but the picture will be hung this morning,
and we may see it this afternoon. I shall be there at three, waiting for
you."