But lo, there breaks a yet more glorious day;
The saints triumphant rise in bright array;
The King of glory passes on His way.
They marched outside following the flower-banked casket into the little
cemetery, and Queed stood with bared head like the others, watching the
committal of dust unto dust. In the forefront of the mournful gathering,
nearest the grave's edge, there stood three women heavily swathed in
black. Through all the rite now, suppressed sobbing ran like a motif.
Soon fell upon all ears the saddest of all sounds, the pitiless thud of
the first earth upon the stiff lid. On the other side of the irregular
circle, Queed saw the coarse red motorman; tears were rolling down his
fat cheeks; but never noticing them he was singing loudly, far off the
key, from the book the black-gloved hand had given Queed. The hymn they
were singing now also spoke surely and naturally of the saints. The same
proud note, the young man observed, ran through the service from
beginning to end. Hymn and prayer and reading all confidently assumed
that Fifi was dead only to this mortal eye, but in another world, open
to all those gathered about the grave for their seeking, she lived in
some marvelously changed form--her body being made _like unto his own
glorious body_....
In the homeward-bound car, Queed fully recaptured his poise, and
redirected his thoughts into rational channels.
The doctrine of the immortality of the soul had not a rational leg to
stand on. The anima, or spirit, being merely the product of certain
elements combined in life, was wiped out when those elements dissolved
their union in death. It was the flame of a candle blown out. Yet with
what unbelievable persistence this doctrine had survived through
history. Science had annihilated it again and again, but these people
resolutely stopped their ears to science. They could not answer science
with argument, so they had answered her with the axe and the stake; and
they were still capable of doing that whenever they thought it
desirable. Strange spectacle! What was the "conflict between Religion
and Science" but man's desperate struggle against his own reason?
Benjamin Kidd had that right at any rate.
Yet did these people really believe their doctrine of the saved body and
the saved soul? They said they did, but did they? If they believed it
surely, as they believed that this night would be followed by a new day,
if they believed it passionately as they believed that money is the
great earthly good, then certainly the biggest of their worldly affairs
would be less than a grain of sand by the sea against the everlasting
glories that awaited them. Yet ... look at them all about him in the
car, these people who told themselves that they had started Fifi on the
way to be a saint, in which state they expected to remeet her. Did they
so regard their worldly affairs? By to-morrow they would be at each
other's throats, squabbling, cheating, slandering, lying, fighting
desperately to gain some ephemeral advantage--all under the eye of the
magnificent guerdon they pretended to believe in and knew they were
jeopardizing by such acts. No, it was pure self-hypnosis. Weak man
demanded offsets for his earthly woes, and he had concocted them in a
world of his own imagining. That was the history of man's religions; the
concoction of other-worldly offsets for worldly woes. In their heart of
hearts, all knew that they were concoctions, and the haruspices laughed
when they met each other.
Supper was early at Mrs. Paynter's, as though to atone for the tardiness
of yesterday. The boarders dispatched it not without recurring
cheerfulness, broken now and again by fits of decorous silence. You
could see that by to-morrow, or it might be next day, the house would be
back in its normal swing again.
Mr. Queed withdrew to his little chamber. He trod the steps softly for
once, and perhaps this was why, as he passed Mrs. Paynter's room, his
usually engrossed ear caught the sound of weeping, quiet but
unrestrained, ceaseless, racking weeping, running on evermore, the
weeping of Rachel for her children, who would not be comforted.
The little Doctor shut the door of the Scriptorium and lit the gas. So
far, his custom; but here his whim and his wont parted. Instead of
seating himself at his table, where the bound _Post_ for January-March,
1902, awaited his exploration, he laid himself down on his tiny bed.
If he were to die to-night, who would weep for him like that?
The thought had come unbidden to his mind and stuck in his metaphysics
like a burr. Now he remembered that the question was not entirely a new
one. Fifi had once asked him who would be sorry if he died, and had
answered herself by saying that she would. However, Fifi was dead, and
therefore released from her promise.
Yes, Fifi was dead. He would never help her with her algebra again. The
thought filled him with vague, unaccountable regrets. He felt that he
would willingly take twenty minutes a night from the wrecked Schedule to
have her come back, but unfortunately there was no way of arranging that
now. He remembered the night he had sent Fifi out of the dining-room for
coughing, and the remembrance made him distinctly uncomfortable. He
rather wished that he had told Fifi he was sorry about that, but it was
too late now. Still he had told her that he was her friend; he was glad
to remember that. But here, from a new point of view, was the trouble
about having friends. They took your time while they lived, and then
they went off and died and upset your evening's work.
Clearly, Fifi left behind many sorrowful friends, as shown by her
remarkable funeral. If he himself were to die, Tim and Murphy Queed
would probably feel sorrowful, but they would hardly come to the
funeral. For one thing, Tim could not come because of his duties on the
force, and Murphy, for all he knew, was undergoing incarceration. About
the only person he could think of as a probable attendant at his
graveside was William Klinker. Yes, Buck would certainly be there,
though it was asking a good deal to expect him to weep. A funeral
consisting of only one person would look rather odd to those who were
familiar with such crowded churches as that he had seen to-day. People
passing by would nudge each other and say that the dead must have led an
eccentric life, indeed, to be so alone at the end.... Come to think of
it, though, there wouldn't be any funeral. He had nothing to do with
those most interesting but clearly barbaric rites. Of course his body
would be cremated by directions in the will. The operation would be
private, attracting no attention from anybody. Buck would make the
arrangements. He tried to picture Buck weeping near the incinerator, and
failed.
Then there was his father, whom, in twenty-four years' sharing of the
world together, he had never met. The man's behavior was odd, to say the
least. From the world's point of view he had declined to own his son.
For such an unusual breach of custom, there must be some adequate
explanation, and the circumstances all pointed one way. This was that
his mother (whom his boyhood had pictured as a woman of distinction who
had eloped with somebody far beneath her) had failed to marry his
father. The persistent mystery about his birth had always made him
skeptical of Tim's statement that he had been present at the marriage.
But he rarely thought of the matter at all now. The moral responsibility
was none of his; and as for a name, Queed was as good as any other. X or
Y was a good enough name for a real man, whose life could demonstrate
his utter independence of the labels so carefully pasted upon him by
environment and circumstance.
Still, if he were to die, he felt that his father, if yet alive, should
come forward and weep for him, even as Mrs. Paynter was weeping for Fifi
down in the Second Front. He should stand out like a man and take from
Buck's hand the solemn ceremonies of cremation. He tried to picture his
father weeping near the incinerator, and failed, partly owing to the
mistiness surrounding that gentleman's bodily appearance. He felt that
his father was dodging his just responsibilities. For the first time in
his life he perceived that, under certain circumstances, it might be an
advantage to have some definite individual to whom you can point and
say: "There goes my father."
As it was, it all came down to him and Buck. He and Buck were alone in
the world together. He rather clung to the thought of Buck, and
instantly caught himself at it. Very well; let him take it that way
then. Take Buck as a symbol of the world, of those friendships which
played such certain havoc with a man's Schedule. Was he glad that he had
Buck or was he not?
The little Doctor lay on his back in the glare thinking things out. The
gas in his eyes was an annoyance, but he did not realize it, and so did
not get up, as another man would have done, and put it out.
Certainly it was an extraordinary thing that the only critics he had
ever had in his life had all three attacked his theory of living at
precisely the same point. They had all three urged him to get in touch
with his environment. He himself could unanswerably demonstrate that in
such degree as he succeeded in isolating himself from his
environment--at least until his great work was done--in just that degree
would his life be successful. But these three seemed to declare, with
the confidence of those who state an axiom, that in just that degree was
his life a failure. Of course they could not demonstrate their
contention as he could demonstrate his, but the absence of reasoning did
not appear to shake their assurance in the smallest. Here then was
another apparent conflict of instinct with reason: their instinct with
his reason. Perhaps he might have dismissed the whole thing as merely
their religion, but that his father, with that mysterious letter of
counsel, was among them. He did not picture his father as a religious
man. Besides, Fifi, asked point-blank if that was her religion, had
denied, assuring him, singularly enough, that it was only common-sense.
And among them, among all the people that had touched him in this new
life, there was no denying that he had had some curiously unsettling
experiences.
He had been ready to turn the pages of the book of life for Fifi, an
infant at his knee, and all at once Fifi had taken the book from his
hands and read aloud, in a language which was quite new to him, a
lecture on his own short-comings. There was no denying that her question
about his notions on altruism had given him an odd, arresting glimpse of
himself from a new peak. He had set out in his pride to punish Mr. Pat,
and Mr. Pat had severely punished him, revealing him humiliatingly to
himself as a physical incompetent. He had dismissed Buck Klinker as a
faintly amusing brother to the ox, and now Buck Klinker was giving him
valuable advice about his editorial work, to say nothing of jerking him
by the ears toward physical competency. He had thought to honor the
_Post_ by contributing of his wisdom to it, and the _Post_ had replied
by contemptuously kicking him out. He had laughed at Colonel Cowles's
editorials, and now he was staying out of bed of nights slavishly
struggling to imitate them. He had meant to give Miss Weyland some
expert advice some day about the running of her department, and suddenly
she had turned about and stamped him as an all-around failure, meet not
for reverence, but the laughter and pity of men.
So far as he knew, nobody in the world admired him. They might admire
his work, but him personally they felt sorry for or despised. Few even
admired his work. The _Post_ had given him satisfactory proof of that.
Conant, Willoughby, and Smathers would admire it--yes, wish to the Lord
that they had written it. But would that fill his cup to overflowing? By
the way, had not Fifi asked him that very question, too--whether he
would consider a life of that sort a successful life? Well--would he? Or
could it imaginably be said that Fifi, rather, had had a successful
life, as evidenced by her profoundly interesting funeral?
Was it possible that a great authority on human society could make
himself an even greater authority by personally assuming a part in the
society which he theoretically administered? Was it possible that he was
missing some factor of large importance by his addiction to isolation
and a schedule?
In short, was it conceivable that he had it all wrong from the
beginning, as the young lady Charles Weyland had said?
The little Doctor lay still on his bed and his precious minutes slipped
into hours.... If he finished his book at twenty-seven, what would he do
with the rest of his life? Besides defending it from possible criticism,
besides expounding and amplifying it a little further as need seemed to
be, there would be no more work for him to do. Supreme essence of
philosophy, history, and all science as it was, it was the final word of
human wisdom. You might say that with it the work of the world was done.
How then should he spend the remaining thirty or forty years of his
life? As matters stood now he had, so to say, twenty years start on
himself. Through the peculiar circumstances of his life, he had reached
a point in his reading and study at twenty-four which another man could
not hope to reach before he was forty-five or fifty. Other men had done
daily work for a livelihood, and had only their evenings for their
heart's desire. Spencer was a civil engineer. Mill was a clerk in an
India house. Comte taught mathematics. But he, in all his life, had not
averaged an hour a week's enforced distraction: all had gone to his own
work. You might say that he was entitled to a heavy arrears in this
direction. If he liked, he could idle for ten years, twenty years, and
still be more than abreast of his age.
And as it was, he could not pretend that he had kept the faith, that he
was inviolably holding his Schedule unspotted from the world. No, he
himself had outraged and deflowered the Schedule. Klinker's Exercises
and the _Post_ were deliberate impieties. And he could not say that they
had the sanction of his reason. The exercises had only a partial
sanction; the _Post_ no sanction at all. Both were but sops to wounded
pride. Here, then, was a pretty situation: he, the triumphant
rationalist, the toy of utterly irrational impulses--of an utterly
irrational instinct. And this new impulse tugging at his inside, driving
him to heed the irrational advice of his critics--what could it be but
part and parcel of the same mysterious but apparently deep-seated
instinct? And what was the real significance of this instinct, and what
in the name of Jerusalem was the matter with him anyway?
* * * * *
He was twenty-four years old, without upbringing, and utterly alone in
the world. He had raised himself, body and soul, out of printed books,
and about all the education he ever had was half an hour's biting talk
from Charles Weyland. Of course he did not recognize his denied youth
when it rose and fell upon him, but he did recognize that his assailant
was doughty. He locked arms with it and together they fell into
undreamed depths.
Buck Klinker, returning from some stag devilry at the hour of two A.M.,
and attracted to the Scriptorium by the light under the door, found the
little Doctor pacing the floor in his stocking feet, with the gas
blazing and the shade up as high as it would go. He halted in his
marchings to stare at Buck with wild unrecognition, and his face looked
so white and fierce that honest Buck, like the good friend he was, only
said, "Well--good-night, Doc," and unobtrusively withdrew.