THE PALE PEACOCK AND THE PURPLE HERRING
The Young Lady was much applauded. Colonel Livingstone looked into
Stafford's eyes, and was hesitant. Yet he still had something of the old
masterly way about him, and he spoke out openly and very frankly. There
is something about the United States army officer that is worth while.
He rose to the occasion. The manner in which he rose to it was worthy of
his occupation and rank. He said:
"You have done things, my boy. You have bossed this train. You have
brought to us a great engineering and overbearing quality."
And the Colonel almost blushed in an affectionate sort of lapse. "And
yet it may be that you expect to get away from me, Mr. Stafford. You
have got to tell your own story before we escape from here through this
soon to be open road that you have largely made for us. Tell us the
story, Mr. Stafford."
There are times when a strong man may be crushed, but it is rarely, save
by thought of a a woman. Stafford looked slantwise up the aisle, and
then with a look that was tell-tale in his eyes as he cast them toward
Her, where she was sitting three or four seats away. He told the story
of
THE PALE PEACOCK AND THE PURPLE HERRING
This is not really more the story of the Pale Peacock and the Purple
Herring than it is of John and Agnes, but that does not matter much, for
the first account encompasses the second, in a way. What is chiefly
curious is the difference, in point of view, between the Peacock and
Herring, and the other two.
Once there was a peacock. Never before was so beautiful a peacock as
she. She was snow-white except as to her head and tail. Her appearance
was something wonderful. From her head down to her shoulders the hues
blended and flashed in iridescent green. Whenever she moved herself in
the slightest degree there appeared a lighting in color passionately
vivid. From about her neck and breast there shone what is known as a
lambent flame which at times became tempestuous. So the neck and
shoulders melted into the snow-white of the body, a restless glimmering
ebbing into a milky way. It was just so with the tail.
Well, this peacock was unlike other peacocks. She was not--eh?--she was
not morbid, but she was solitary and reflective and intensely emotional
and sentimental. Of course she had two feet and had a voice, but the
less said of them the better. She would wander up and down by the
lakeside and think of all that might be. She scarcely dreamed that there
was to come to her what was her secret heart's desire, but in time it
came. She met the Purple Herring. With each of them it was a case of
infatuation at first sight.
Now the Purple Herring was almost as much of an exceptional case as the
Pale Peacock. He was the only purple herring in all the great lakes, and
was practically the King of the Herrings, and was respected as such.
Personally, he had in his nature many of the traits of the Pale Peacock.
He, too, was emotional, faithful, and impassioned. They loved.
Here was a most unfortunate situation. Naturally, the Purple Herring
could not get along very well upon the land, and, naturally too, the
Peacock could not flourish in the water. It was not exactly a case of
Platonic love; it was a case of hopeless love, in a way, and yet, not
altogether hopeless, for they were happy. It came to this, that they
made the best of things, and that the Peacock, day after day, would
wander along upon the sands which the water lapped, while the Herring
would swim along beside her, and they would exchange tender confidences,
and that, to amuse her, he would tell her tales, many tales, of the
wonders of the vasty deep of the lake. He told her why the fish flies
came in autumn and smeared the windows and made slippery the sidewalks
of the great city; of how they lay in the mud at the bottom of the lake,
like little short sticks, and then finally burst open and came to the
surface and floated away into town. He told her of his talk with Mrs.
Whitefish, and of how she did not think the spawn was getting along as
well as usual. He told her of a thousand things, and they were happy.
They often talked too, this united yet effectually separated pair, of
what they saw upon the shores of the placid lake, whose creamy sands,
outside the city, sloped down to the water's edge from green fields and
waving groves.
Many people walked along the sands, and children played and romped there
all day. At sunset the Purple Herring began to look with special
interest for the lovers who came in pairs and sat until late, talking,
and sometimes in blissful silence while they listened to the soft
lapping of the waves upon the shore.
One day the Purple Herring told the Pale Peacock about one of these
pairs of lovers, the only pair, he said, which were not happy.
"And I can't imagine why they are not, either," said the Purple Herring.
"Nor can I, although I have not yet heard all you know about them," said
the Pale Peacock. "How two lovers who may live together forever, who are
not kept from each other by such a fate as separates you and me--how men
and women who love each other can be unhappy, is more than I can conjure
up by any stretch of fancy!"
"Her name is Agnes," began the Purple Herring, "and when I first saw her
she was walking slowly along the shore, back and forth, on a stretch of
beach bordering the great park at the head of the lake. The sky was red
after sunset, and in the southwest hung the new moon, with a great star
over it. She was a beautiful lady, but she looked perplexed and a little
sad even on that first evening. I did not notice the perplexity and
sorrow on her sweet face at the time, but afterward I remembered it.
"Suddenly her face was all lighted up by some light that was not of the
western sky, nor of the little bent moon, nor the great star. Her eyes
shone, her cheeks became pink like the inside of a pink shell, and I
looked where her eyes were turned. I saw a man walking rapidly toward
her, and I thought, 'Only another pair of lovers!'
"But this was no common pair; I could not leave them, they were so
strangely attractive. Their voices thrilled me as I heard them. I could
feel all around the vibrations of deep emotion, electrical, disturbing,
and enchanting. The lady began their conversation:
"'The day has been so long!' she said. 'And our time together is so
short!' the man replied.
"They did not touch each other. They did not even take each other's
hands. They only walked slowly along the shore, side by side, yet I and
all the world had but to see them to know that they were lovers.
"'Agnes,' the man said, 'how happy the men and women are who have a home
together! I would not care how humble the roof was that sheltered you
and me. How glad I would be to work for you, to plan, and in every way
live for you--even now I live only for you!--but what a joy it would be
if it could all be with you!'
"'Do not speak of it, John,' the woman said, and her voice trembled.
"'How many there are,' the man continued, passionately, 'how many there
are who are chained together, straining both at the chain! They would be
free, and cannot. Their dwelling-place is no home. They fret and sting
each other, while you and I--"
"'John!' the lady interrupted him.
"'Forgive me!' he said, his tone suddenly changing. 'I can see you but
for a few minutes, and I proceed to make you miserable! Forgive me! Tell
me about yourself--what you are thinking, what you are reading. Has the
white rose blossomed in your garden? How is my friend Rex, and why
didn't you bring him with you?'
"She answered first about the dog, Rex, and then their talk grew
uninteresting, or it grew late, so that I became sleepy; I don't know
which, but soon they parted, and, would you believe it? the man didn't
even kiss her once, nor touch her hand!
"I saw this strange couple many times again during that clear bright
June weather, and sometimes I heard their talk. There was always
something about it that made me think of heat-lightning, with a mystery
of earnestness even in their light banter and play of talk.
"You must have observed that these human creatures often mean things
they do not say, and yet contrive that the sense shall show through
their misleading words. These two often talked lightly and laughed
together, but there was ever an undercurrent of feeling of such deepness
and power as I could not comprehend; its mystery almost irritated me.
"One day--it was at night--not a living soul was to be seen on the sands
as the two came walking toward me. They came swiftly as if they would
walk into the water, but stopped there at its edge--and I listened,
fascinated by their tense faces, and deep low voices.
"'We must do what is right,' the man was saying. 'Honor binds you, and
it binds me. We must not play with fire. I have taken the step which
parts us.'
"'So soon!' said she.
"'None too soon!' the man protested. Then he burst out, as if he could
not keep what came like a torrent from his lips.
"'Help me! help me! We must decide and act together! I cannot leave you
without your help!'
"The lady turned her face from him for a moment. She looked away across
the water, and the tears which had started to her eyes seemed as if
commanded not to fall. Pale she was, pale was her face, and with the
look of ice with snow upon it. Her voice, when she turned to him again,
did not seem like her voice--the sound of it made him start.
"'You are right,' she said, 'Good-bye. God bless you!'
"'Agnes!' the man cried, as she turned away.
"'Go,' she answered.
"The man looked at her as if to fix her image upon his soul forever, and
said, repeating her words: 'Good-bye, God bless you!'
"Then he walked quickly off into the park, and away, never looking back.
The lady sank down on a seat by the water's edge. For a long time I
watched her, and she did not move. When, finally, she arose and walked
away, I felt that I was seeing her, and I also had seen the man, for the
last time. And so it was. I have watched for them in vain. The man has
gone to the ends of the earth. That I know by the look on his face and
hers. She will never see him again, nor will she walk by these waters
where she used to walk with him. But why? That is what puzzles me!"
"What fools these mortals be!" said the Pale Peacock, without the least
idea that any one else had ever before made that remark.
Pale Death with even tread knocks at the threshold of rich and poor.
"Pallida mors aequam pulsat," etc. One day the Purple Herring died, and
the Pale Peacock suffered as suffer those who love and are bereaved.
Little cared she for longer life, and she wanted to pine away. She went
to a policeman on the corner, and said: "Tell me how to pine."
"What now! What now!" said the policeman and he gave her no assistance.
But she must pine. She wanted to pine away. She wandered on and met the
Cream-Colored Cat, and to her she told her tale. Now, the Cream-Colored
Cat had herself learned to pine, having lost her loving mistress, and,
being of an affable and affectionate nature, she at once revealed the
secret of pining to the Pale Peacock, and they joined forces and pined
together. And they pined, and they pined, and they pined. They pined
until they became a Sublimated Substance--(just what a Sublimated
Substance is does not matter in this story)--and they pined along until
they became something so intangible they were almost like a little fog;
that is, they were like a young fog, for as a fog gets older and begins
to dissipate, it gets thinner, so that the younger a fog is, the thicker
it is. Finally it becomes a vapor. And they became what may be called an
Evanescent Vapor, until all was lost in the Empyrean. And the souls of
the Pale Peacock and the Purple Herring were at last commingled.
Perhaps it was so in the end with the souls of John and Agnes.