About the Garden of the Gods, and took
A meal together at the restaurant.
And as they talked, he told her of himself,
About his wife long ill, this trip for health--
She sensed a music sadness in his soul.
And Gregory Wenner heard her tell her life
Of teaching, of the arid home, the shadow
That fell on her at ten years, when she saw
The hopeless, loveless life of father, mother.
And his great hunger, and his solitude
Reached for the soothing hand of Elenor Murray,
And Elenor Murray having life to give
By her maternal strength and instinct gave.
The man began to laugh, forgot his health,
The leaning building, and the money lenders,
And found his void of spirit growing things--
He loved this girl. And Elenor Murray seeing
This strong man with his love, and seeing too
How she could help him, with that venturesome
And prodigal emotion which was hers
Flung all herself to help him, being a soul
Who tried all things in courage, staked her heart
On good to come.
They took the train together.
They stopped at Santa Cruz, and on the rocks
Heard the Pacific dash himself and watched
The moon upon the water, breathed the scent
Of oriental flowerings. There at last
Under the spell of nature Gregory Wenner
Bowed down his head upon his breast and shook
For those long years of striving and of haggling,
And for this girl, but mostly for a love
That filled him now. And when he spoke again
Of his starved life, his homeless years, the girl,
Her mind resolved through thinking she could serve
This man and bring him happiness, but with heart
Flaming to heaven with the miracle
Of love for him, down looking at her hands
Which fingered nervously her dress's hem,
Said with that gasp which made her voice so sweet:
"Do what you will with me, to ease your heart
And help your life."
And Gregory Wenner shaken,
Astonished and made mad with ecstasy
Pressed her brown head against his breast and wept.
And there at Santa Cruz they lived a week,
Till Elenor Murray went to take her school,
He to the north en route for home.
Five years
Had passed since then. And on this day poor Wenner
Looks from a little office at his building
Visibly leaning now, the building lost,
The bonds foreclosed; this is the very day
A court gives a receiver charge of it.
And he, these several months reduced to deals
In casual properties, in trivial trades,
Hard pressed for money, has gone up and down
Pursuing prospects, possibilities,
Scanning each day financial sheets and looking
For clues to lead to money. And he finds
His strength and hope not what they were before.
His wife is living on, no whit restored.
And Gregory Wenner thinks, would they not say
I killed myself because I lost my building,
If I should kill myself, and leave a note
That business worries drove me to the deed,
My building this day taken, a receiver
In charge of what I builded out of my dream.
And yet he said to self, that would be false:
It's Elenor Murray's death that makes this life
So hard to bear, and thoughts of Elenor Murray
Make life a torture. First that I had to live
Without her as my wife, and next the fact
That I have taken all her life's thought, ruined
Her chance for home and marriage; that I have seen
Elenor Murray struggle in the world,
And go forth to the war with just the thought
To serve, if it should kill her.
Then his mind
Ran over these five years when Elenor Murray
Throughout gave such devotion, constant thought,
Filled all his mind and heart, and kept her voice
Singing or talking in his memory's ear,
In absence with long letters, when together
With passionate utterances of love. The girl
Loved Gregory Wenner, but the girl had found
A comfort for her spiritual solitude,
And got a strength in taking Wenner's strength.
For at the last one soul lives on another.
And Elenor Murray could not live except
She had a soul to live for, and a soul
On which to pour her passion, taking back
The passion of that soul in recompense.
Gregory Wenner served her power and genius
For giving and for taking so to live,
Achieve and flame; and found them in some moods
Somehow demoniac when his spirits sank,
And drink was all that kept him on his feet.
And so when Elenor Murray came to him
And said this life of teaching was too much,
Could not be longer borne, he thought the time
Had come to end the hopeless love. He raised
The money by the hardest means to pay
Elenor Murray's training as a nurse,
By this to set her free from teaching school,
And then he set about to crush the girl
Out of his life.
For Gregory Wenner saw
Between this passion and his failing thought,
And gray hairs coming, fortune slip like sand.
And saw his mind diffuse itself in worries,
In longing for her: found himself at times
Too much in need of drink, and shrank to see
What wishes rose that death might take his wife,
And let him marry Elenor Murray, cure
His life with having her beside him, dreaming
That somehow Elenor Murray could restore
His will and vision, by her passion's touch,
And mother instinct make him whole again.
But if he could not have her for his wife,
And since the girl absorbed him in this life
Of separation which made longing greater,
Just as it lacked the medium to discharge
The great emotion it created, Wenner
Caught up his shreds of strength to crush her out
Of his life, told her so, when he had raised
The money for her training. For he saw
How ruin may overtake a man, and ruin
Pass by the woman, whom the world would judge
As ruined long ago. But look, he thought,
I pity her, not for our sin, if it be,
But that I have absorbed her life; and yet
The girl is mastering life, while I fall down.
She has absorbed me, if the wrong lies here.
And thus his thought went round.
And Elenor Murray
Accepted what he said and went her way
With words like these: "My love and prayers are yours
While life is with us." Then she turned to study,
And toiled each day till night brought such fatigue
That sleep fell on her. Was it to forget?
And meanwhile she embraced the faith and poured
Her passion driven by a rapturous will
Into religion, trod her path in silence,
Save for a card at Christmas time for him,
Sometimes a little message from some place
Whereto her duty called her.
Gregory Wenner
Stands at the window of his desolate office,
And looks out on his sixteen-story building
Irrevocably lost this day. His mind runs back
To that day in the Garden of the Gods,
That night at Santa Cruz, and then his eyes
Made piercing sharp by sorrow cleave the clay
That lies upon the face of Elenor Murray,
And see the flesh of her the worms have now.
How strange, he thinks, to flit into this life
Singing and radiant, to suffer, toil,
To serve in the war, return to girlhood's scenes,
To die, to be a memory for a day,
Then be forgotten. O, this life of ours.
Why is not God ashamed for graveyards, why
So thoughtless of our passion he lets play
This tragedy.
And Gregory Wenner thought
About the day he stood here, even as now
And heard a step, a voice, and looked around
Saw Elenor Murray, felt her arms again,
Her kiss upon his cheek, and saw her face
As light was beating on it, heard her gasp
In ecstasy for going to the war,
To which that day she gave her pledge. And heard
Her words of consecration. Heard her say,
As though she were that passionate Heloise
Brought into life again: "All I have done
Was done for love of you, all I have asked
Was only you, not what belonged to you.
I did not hope for marriage or for gifts.
I have not gratified my will, desires,
But yours I sought to gratify. I have longed
To be yours wholly, I have kept for self
Nothing, have lived for you, have lived for you
These years when you thought best to crush me out.
And now though there's a secret in my heart,
Not wholly known to me, still I can know it
By seeing you again, I think, by touching
Your hand again. Your life has tortured me,
Both for itself, and since I could not give
Out of my heart enough to make your life
A way of peace, a way of happiness."
Then Gregory Wenner thought how she looked down
And said: "Since I go to the war, would God
Look with disfavor on us if you took me
In your arms wholly once again? My friend,
Not with the thought to leave me soon, but sleeping
Like mates, as birds do, making sleep so sweet
Close to each other as God means we should.
I mingle love of God with love of you,
And in the night-time I can pray for you
With you beside me, find God closer then.
Who knows, you may take strength from such an hour."
Then Gregory Wenner lived that night again,
And the next morning when she rose and shook,
As it were night gathered dew upon fresh wings,
The vital water from her glowing flesh.
And shook her hair out, laughed and said to him:
"Courage and peace, my friend." And how they passed
Among the multitude, when he took her hand
And said farewell, and hastened to this room
To seek for chances in another day,
And never saw her more.
And all these thoughts
Coming on Gregory Wenner swept his soul
Till it seemed like a skiff in mid-sea under
A sky unreckoning, where neither bread,
Nor water, save salt water, were for lips.
And over him descended a blank light
Of life's futility, since now this hour
Life dropped the mask and showed him just a skull.
And a strange fluttering of the nerves came on him,
So that he clutched the window frame, lest he
Spring from the window to the street below.
And he was seized with fear that said to fly,
Go somewhere, find some one, so to draw out
This madness which was one with him and in him,
And which some one in pity must relieve,
Something must cure. And in this sudden horror
Of self, this ebbing of the tides of life,
Leaving his shores to visions, where he saw
Horrible creatures stir amid the slime,
Gregory Wenner hurried from the room
And walked the streets to find his thought again
Wherewith to judge if he should kill himself
Or look to find a path in life once more.
And Gregory Wenner sitting in his club
Wrote to his brother thus: "I cannot live
Now that my business is so tangled up,
Bury my body by my father's side."
Next day the papers headlined Gregory Wenner:
"Loss of a building drives to suicide."
* * * * *
Elenor Murray's death kills Gregory Wenner
And Gregory Wenner dying make a riffle
In Mrs. Wenner's life--reveals to her
A secret long concealed:--
MRS. GREGORY WENNER
Gregory Wenner's wife was by the sea
When Gregory Wenner killed himself, half sick
And half malingering, and otiose.
She wept, sent for a doctor to be braced,
Induced a friend to travel with her west
To bury Gregory Wenner; did not know
That Gregory Wenner was in money straits
Until she read the paper, or had lost
His building in the loop. The man had kept
His worries from her ailing ears, was glad
To keep her traveling, or taking cures.
She came and buried Gregory Wenner; found
His fortune just a shell, the building lost,
A little money in the bank, a store
Far out on Lake Street, forty worthless acres
In northern Indiana, twenty lots
In some Montana village. Here she was,
A widow, penniless, an invalid.
The crude reality of things awoke
A strength she did not dream was hers. And then
She went to Gregory Wenner's barren office
To collect the things he had, get in his safe
For papers and effects.
She had to pay
An expert to reveal the combination,
And throw the bolts. And there she sat a day,
And emptied pigeon holes and searched and read.
And in one pigeon hole she found a box,
And in the box a lock of hair wrapped up
In tissue paper, fragrant powder lying
Around the paper--in the box a card
With woman's writing on it, just the words
"For my beloved"; but no name or date.
Who was this woman mused the widow there?
She did not know the name. She did not know
Her eyes had seen this Elenor Murray once
When Elenor Murray came with Gregory Wenner
To dinner at his home to face the wife.
For Elenor Murray in a mood of strength,
After her confirmation and communion,
Had said to Gregory Wenner: "Now the end
Has come to this, our love, I think it best
If she should ever learn I am the woman
Who in New York spent summer days with you,
And later in Chicago, in that summer,
She will remember what my eyes will show
When we stand face to face, and I give proof
That I am changed, repentant."
For the wife
Had listened to a friend who came to tell
She saw this Gregory Wenner in New York
From day to day in gardens and cafes,
And by the sea romancing with a girl.
And later Mrs. Wenner found a book,
Which Gregory Wenner cherished--with the words
Beloved, and the date. And now she knew
The hand that wrote the card here in this box,
The hand that wrote the inscription in the book
Were one--but still she did not know the woman.
No doubt the woman of that summer's flame,
Whom Gregory Wenner promised not to see
When she brought out the book and told him all
She learned of his philandering in New York.
And Elenor Murray's body was decaying
In darkness, under earth there at LeRoy
While Mrs. Wenner read, and did not know
The hand that wrote the card lay blue and green,
Half hidden in the foldings of the shroud,
And all that country stirred for Elenor Murray,
Of which the widow absent in the east
Had never heard.
And Mrs. Wenner found
Beside the box and lock of hair three letters,
And sat and read them. Through her eyes and brain
This meaning and this sound of blood and soul,
Like an old record with a diamond needle.
Passed music like:--
"The days go swiftly by
With study and with work. I am too tired
At night to think. I read anatomy,
Materia medica and other things,
And do the work an undergraduate
Is called upon to do. And every week
I spend three afternoons with the nuns and sew,
And care for children of the poor whose mothers
Are earning bread away. I go to church
And talk with Mother Janet. And I pray
At morning and at night for you, and ask
For strength to live without you and for light
To understand why love of you is mine,
And why you are not mine, and whether God
Will give you to me some day if I prove
My womanhood is worthy of you, dear.
And sometimes when our days of bliss come back
And flood me with their warmth and blinding light
I take my little crucifix and kiss it,
And plunge in work to take me out of self,
Some service to another. So it is,
This sewing and this caring for the children
Stills memory and gives me strength to live,
And pass the days, go on. I shall not draw
Upon your thought with letters, still I ask
Your thought of me sometimes. Would it be much
If once a year you sent me a bouquet
To prove to me that you remember, sweet,
Still cherish me a little, give me faith
That in this riddle world there is a hand,
Which spite of separation, thinks and touches
Blossoms that I touch afterward? Dear heart,
I have starved out and killed that reckless mood
Which would have taken you and run away.
Oh, if you knew that this means killing, too,
The child I want--our child. You have a cross
No less than I, beloved, even if love
Of me has passed and eased the agony
I thought you knew--your cross is heavy, dear,
Bound, but not wedded to her, never to know
The life of marriage with her. Yet be brave,
Be noble, dear, be always what God made you,
A great heart, patient, gentle, sacrificing,
Bring comfort to her tedious days, forbear
When she is petulant, for if you do,
I know God will reward you, give you peace.
I pray for strength for you, that never again
May you distress her as you did, I did
When she found there was someone. Lest she know
Destroy this letter, all I ever write,
So that her mind may never fix itself
Upon a definite person, on myself.
But still remaining vague may better pass
To lighter shadows, nothingness at last.
I try to think I sinned, have so confessed
To get forgiveness at my first communion.
And yet a vestige of a thought in me
Will not submit, confess the sin. Well, dear,
You can awake at midnight, at the pause
Of duty in the day, merry or sad,
Light hearted or discouraged, if you chance,
To think of me, remember I send prayers
To God for you each day--oh may His light
Shine on your face!"
So Widow Wenner read,
And wondered of the writer, since no name
Was signed; and wept a little, dried her eyes
And flushed with anger, said, "adulteress,
Adulteress who played the game of pity,
And wove about my husband's heart the spell
Of masculine sympathy for a sorrowing woman,
A trick as old as Eden. And who knows
But all the money went here in the end?
For if a woman plunges from her aim
To piety, devotion such as this,
She will plunge back to sin, unstable heart,
That swings from self-denial to indulgence
And spends itself in both."
Then Widow Wenner
Took up the second letter:
"I have signed
To go to France to-day. I wrote you once
I planned to take the veil, become a nun.
But now the war has changed my thought. I see
In service for my country fuller life,
More useful sacrifice and greater work
Than ever I could have, being a nun.
The cause is so momentous. Think, my dear,
This woman who still thinks of you will be
A factor in this war for liberty,
A soldier serving soldiers, giving strength,
Health, hope and spirit to the soldier boys
Who fall, must be restored to fight again.
I've thrown my soul in this, am all aflame.
You should have seen me when I took the oath,
And raised my hand and pledged my word to serve,
Support the law. I want to think of you
As proud of me for doing this--be proud,
Be grateful, too, that I have strength and will
To give myself to this. And if it chance,
As almost I am hoping, that the work
Should break me, sweep me under, think of me
As one who died for country, as I shall
As truly as the soldiers slain in battle.
I leave to-morrow, will be at a camp
Some weeks before I sail. I telephoned you
This morning twice, they said you would return
By two-o'clock at least. I write instead.
But I shall come to see you, if I can
Sometime this afternoon, and if I don't,
This letter then must answer. Peace be with you.
To-day I'm very happy. Write to me,
Or if you do not think it best, all right,
I'll understand. Before I sail I'll send
A message to you--for the time farewell."
Then Widow Wenner read the telegram
The third and last communication: "Sail
To-day, to-morrow, very soon, I know.
My memories of you are happy ones.
A fond adieu." This telegram was signed
By Elenor Murray. Widow Wenner knew
The name at last, sat petrified to think
This was the girl who brazened through the dinner
Some years ago when Gregory Wenner brought
This woman to his home--"the shameless trull,"
Said Mrs. Wenner, "harlot, impudent jade,
To think my husband is dead, would she were dead--
I could be happy if I knew a bomb
Or vile disease had got her." Then she looked
In other pigeon holes, and found in one
A photograph of Elenor Murray, knew
The face that looked across the dinner table.
And in the pigeon hole she found some verses
Clipped from a magazine, and tucked away
The letters, verses, telegram in her bag,
Closed up the safe and left.
Next day at breakfast
She scanned the morning _Times_, her eyes were wide
For reading of the Elenor Murray inquest.
"Well, God is just," she murmured, "God is just."
* * * * *
All this was learned of Gregory Wenner. Even
If Gregory Wenner killed the girl, the man
Was dead now. Could he kill her and return
And kill himself? The coroner had gone,
The jury too, to view the spot where lay
Elenor Murray's body. It was clear
A man had walked here. Was it Gregory Wenner?
The hunter who came up and found the body?
This hunter was a harmless, honest soul
Could not have killed her, passed the grill of questions
From David Borrow, skilled examiner,
The coroner, the jurors. But meantime
If Gregory Wenner killed this Elenor Murray
How did he do it? Dr. Trace has made
His autopsy and comes and makes report
To the coroner and the jury in these words:--
DR. TRACE TO THE CORONER
I cannot tell you, Coroner, the cause
Of death of Elenor Murray, not until
My chemical analysis is finished.
Here is the woman's heart sealed in this jar,
I weighed it, weight nine ounces, if she had
A hemolysis, cannot tell you now
What caused the hemolysis. Since you say
She took no castor oil, that you can learn
From Irma Leese, or any witness, still
A chemical analysis may show
The presence of ricin,--and that she took
A dose of oil not pure. Her throat betrayed
Slight inflammation; but in brief, I wait
My chemical analysis.
Let's exclude
The things we know and narrow down the facts.
She lay there by the river, death had come
Some twenty hours before. No stick or stone,
No weapon near her, bottle, poison box,
No bruise upon her, in her mouth no dust,
No foreign bodies in her nostrils, neck
Without a mark, no punctures, cuts or scars
Upon her anywhere, no water in lungs,
No mud, sand, straws or weeds in hands, the nails
Clean, as if freshly manicured.
Again
No evidence of rape. I first examined
The genitals _in situ_, found them sound.
The girl had lived, was not a virgin, still
Had temperately indulged, and not at all
In recent months, no evidence at all
Of conjugation willingly or not,
The day of death. But still I lifted out
The ovaries, fallopian tubes and uterus,
The vagina and vulvae. Opened up
The mammals, found no milk. No pregnancy
Existed, sealed these organs up to test
For poison later, as we doctors know
Sometimes a poison's introduced _per vaginam_.
I sealed the brain up too, shall make a test
Of blood and serum for urea; death
Comes suddenly from that, you find no lesion,
Must take a piece of brain and cut it up,
Pour boiling water on it, break the brain
To finer pieces, pour the water off,
Digest the piece of brain in other water,
Repeat four times, the solutions mix together,
Dry in an oven, treat with ether, at last
The residue put on a slide of glass
With nitric acid, let it stand awhile,
Then take your microscope--if there's urea
You'll see the crystals--very beautiful!
A cobra's beautiful, but scarce can kill
As quick as these.
Likewise I have sealed up
The stomach, liver, kidneys, spleen, intestines,
So many poisons have no microscopic
Appearance that convinces, opium,
Hyoscyamus, belladonna fool us;
But as the stomach had no inflammation,
It was not chloral, ether took her off,
Which we can smell, to boot. But I can find
Strychnia, if it killed her; though you know
That case in England sixty years ago,
Where the analysis did not disclose
Strychnia, though they hung a man for giving
That poison to a fellow.
To recur
I'm down to this: Perhaps a hemolysis--
But what produced it? If I find no ricin
I turn to streptococcus, deadly snake,
Or shall I call him tiger? For I think
The microscopic world of living things
Is just a little jungle, filled with tigers,
Snakes, lions, what you will, with teeth and claws,
The perfect miniatures of these monstrous foes.
Sweet words come from the lips and tender hands
Like Elenor Murray's, minister, nor know
The jungle has been roused in throat or lungs;
And shapes venene begin to crawl and eat
The ruddy apples of the blood, eject
Their triple venomous excreta in
The channels of the body.
There's the heart,
Which may be weakened by a streptococcus.
But if she had a syncope and fell
She must have bruised her body or her head.
And if she had a syncope, was held up,
Who held her up? That might have cost her life:
To be held up in syncope. You know
You lay a person down in syncope,
And oftentimes the heart resumes its beat.
Perhaps she was held up until she died,
Then laid there by the river, so no bruise.
So many theories come to me. But again,
I say to you, look for a man. Run down
All clues of Gregory Wenner. He is dead--
Loss of a building drives to suicide--
The papers say, but still it may be true
He was with Elenor Murray when she died,
Pushed her, we'll say, or struck her in a way
To leave no mark, a tap upon the heart
That shocked the muscles more or less obscure
That bind the auricles and ventricles,
And killed her. Then he flies away in fear,
Aghast at what he does, and kills himself.
Look for a man, I say. It must be true,
She went so secretly to walk that morning
To meet a man--why would she walk alone?
So while you hunt the man, I'll look for ricin,
And with my chemicals end up the search.
I never saw a heart more beautiful,
Just look at it. We doctors all agreed
This Elenor Murray might have lived to ninety
Except for jungles, poison, sudden shock.
I take my bottle with the heart of Elenor
And go about my way. It beat in France,
It beat for France and for America,
But what is truer, somewhere was a man
For whom it beat!
* * * * *