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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Questionable Shapes + +Author: William Dean Howells + + +Release Date: December, 2005 [EBook #9458] +This file was first posted on October 2, 2003 +Last Updated: August 22, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK QUESTIONABLE SHAPES *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan, Tonya Allen, David Widger +and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + +</pre> + + <h1> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of<br /> Questionable Shapes,<br /> by William + Dean Howells + </h1> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="ctr"> + <a href="images/frontis.jpg"><img src="images/frontis_th.jpg" + alt="MRS. ALDERLING CAME OUT WITH A BOOK IN HER HAND" /></a> + </p> + <h1> + QUESTIONABLE SHAPES + </h1> + <h3> + BY + </h3> + <h2> + W. D. HOWELLS + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h3> + AUTHOR OF “LITERARY FRIENDS AND ACQUAINTANCE” “LITERATURE AND LIFE” “THE + KENTONS” “THEIR SILVER WEDDING JOURNEY” ETC. ETC. + </h3> + <h3> + Published May, 1903 + </h3> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h2> + CONTENTS. + </h2> + <p class="ctr"> + <a href="#ha">HIS APPARITION</a> + </p> + <p class="ctr"> + <a href="#al">THE ANGEL OF THE LORD</a> + </p> + <p class="ctr"> + <a href="#rose">THOUGH ONE ROSE FROM THE DEAD</a> <br /> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h3> + ILLUSTRATIONS. + </h3> + <p class="ctr"> + <a href="images/frontis.jpg">"MRS. ALDERLING CAME OUT WITH A BOOK IN HER + HAND"</a> + </p> + <p class="ctr"> + <a href="images/illusp012.jpg">"’I’M AFRAID I’M RESPONSIBLE FOR THAT’”</a> + </p> + <p class="ctr"> + <a href="images/illusp066.jpg">"’WHY, THERE ISN’T ANY PUNISHMENT SEVERE + ENOUGH FOR A CRIME LIKE THAT’”</a> + </p> + <p class="ctr"> + <a href="images/illusp212.jpg">"HE BROKE INTO A SOBBING THAT SEEMED TO + WRENCH AND TEAR"</a> <br /> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <h2> + <a name="ha" id="ha">HIS APPARITION.</a> + </h2> + <h3> + I. + </h3> + <p> + The incident was of a dignity which the supernatural has by no means + always had, and which has been more than ever lacking in it since the + manifestations of professional spiritualism began to vulgarize it. Hewson + appreciated this as soon as he realized that he had been confronted with + an apparition. He had been very little agitated at the moment, and it was + not till later, when the conflict between sense and reason concerning the + fact itself arose, that he was aware of any perturbation. Even then, + amidst the tumult of his whirling emotions he had a sort of central calm, + in which he noted the particulars of the occurrence with distinctness and + precision. He had always supposed that if anything of the sort happened to + him he would be greatly frightened, but he had not been at all frightened, + so far as he could make out. His hair had not risen, or his cheek felt a + chill; his heart had not lost or gained a beat in its pulsation; and his + prime conclusion was that if the Mysteries had chosen him an agent in + approaching the material world they had not made a mistake. This becomes + grotesque in being put into words, but the words do not misrepresent, + except by their inevitable excess, the mind in which Hewson rose, and + flung open his shutters to let in the dawn upon the scene of the + apparition, which he now perceived must have been, as it were, + self-lighted. The robins were yelling from the trees and the sparrows + bickering under them; catbirds were calling from the thickets of syringa, + and in the nearest woods a hermit-thrush was ringing its crystal bells. + The clear day was penetrating the east with the subtle light which + precedes the sun, and a summer sweetness rose cool from the garden below, + gray with dew. + </p> + <p> + In the solitude of the hour there was an intimation of privity to the + event which had taken place, an implication of the unity of the natural + and the supernatural, strangely different from that robust gayety of the + plain day which later seemed to disown the affair, and leave the burden of + proof altogether to the human witness. By this time Hewson had already set + about to putting it in such phrases as should carry conviction to the + hearer, and yet should convey to him no suspicion of the pride which + Hewson felt in the incident as a sort of tribute to himself. He dramatized + the scene at breakfast when he should describe it in plain, matter-of-fact + terms, and hold every one spellbound, as he or she leaned forward over the + table to listen, while he related the fact with studied unconcern for his + own part in it, but with a serious regard for the integrity of the fact + itself, which he had no wish to exaggerate as to its immediate meaning or + remoter implications. It did not yet occur to him that it had none; they + were simply to be matters of future observation in a second ordeal; for + the first emotion which the incident imparted was the feeling that it + would happen again, and in this return would interpret itself. Hewson was + so strongly persuaded of something of the kind, that after standing for an + indefinite period at the window in his pajamas, he got hardily back into + bed, and waited for the repetition. He was agreeably aware of waiting + without a tremor, and rather eagerly than otherwise; then he began to feel + drowsy, and this at first flattered him, as a proof of his strange courage + in circumstances which would have rendered sleep impossible to most men; + but in another moment he started from it. If he slept every one would say + he had dreamt the whole thing; and he could never himself be quite sure + that he had not. + </p> + <p> + He got up, and began to dress, thinking all the time, in a dim way, how + very long it would be till breakfast, and wondering what he should do till + then with his appetite and his apparition. It was now only a little after + four o’clock of the June morning, and nobody would be down till after + eight; most people at that very movable feast, which St. John had in the + English fashion, did not show themselves before nine. It was impossible to + get a book and read for five hours; he would be dropping with hunger if he + walked so long. Yet he must not sleep; and he must do something to keep + from sleeping. He remembered a little interloping hotel, which had lately + forced its way into precincts sacred to cottage life, and had impudently + called itself the St. Johnswort Inn, after St. John’s place, by a name + which he prided himself on having poetically invented from his own and + that of a prevalent wild flower. Upon the chance of getting an early cup + of coffee at this hotel, Hewson finished dressing, and crept down stairs + to let himself out of the house. + </p> + <p> + He not only found the door locked, as he had expected, but the key taken + out; and after some misgiving he decided to lift one of the long library + windows, from which he could get into the garden, closing the window after + him, and so make his escape. No one was stirring outside the house any + more than within; he knocked down a trellis by which a clematis was trying + to climb over the window he emerged from, and found his way out of the + grounds without alarming any one. He was not so successful at the hotel, + where a lank boy, sweeping the long piazzas, recognized one of the St. + Johnswort guests in the figure approaching the steps, and apparently had + his worst fears roused for Hewson’s sanity when Hewson called to him and + wondered if he could get a cup of coffee at that hour; he openly owned it + was an unnatural hour, and he had a fine inward sense that it was + supernatural. The boy dropped his broom without a word, and vanished + through the office door, reappearing after a blank interval to pick up his + broom and say, “I guess so,” as he began sweeping again. It was well, for + one reason that he did not state his belief too confidently, Hewson + thought; but after another interval of unknown length a rude, sad girl + came to tell him his coffee was waiting for him. He followed her back into + the still dishevelled dining room, and sat down at a long table to a cup + of lukewarm drink that in color and quality recalled terrible mornings of + Atlantic travel when he haplessly rose and descended to the dining-saloon + of the steamer, and had a marine version of British coffee brought him by + an alien table-steward. + </p> + <p> + He remembered the pock-marked nose of one alien steward, and how he had + questioned whether he should give the fellow six-pence or a shilling, + seeing that apart from this tribute he should have to fee his own steward + for the voyage; at the same time his fancy played with the question + whether that uncouth, melancholy waitress had found a moment to wash her + face before hurrying to fetch his coffee. He amused himself by contrasting + her sloven dejection with the brisk neatness of the service at St. + Johnswort; but through all he never lost the awe, the sense of + responsibility which he bore to the vision vouchsafed him, doubtless for + some reason and to some end that it behooved him to divine. + </p> + <p> + He found a yesterday’s paper in the office of the hotel, and read it till + he began to drowse over it, when he pulled himself up with a sharp jerk. + He discovered that it was now six o’clock, and he thought if he could walk + about for an hour he might return to St. Johnswort, and worry through the + remaining hour till breakfast somehow. He was still framing in his + thoughts some sort of statement concerning the apparition which he should + make when the largest number of guests had got together at the table, with + a fine question whether he should take them between the cantaloupe and the + broiled chicken, or wait till they had come to the corn griddle-cakes, + which St. John’s cook served of a filigree perfection in homage to the + good old American breakfast ideal. There would be more women, if he + waited, and he should need the sympathy and countenance of women; his + story would be wanting in something of its supreme effect without the + electrical response of their keener nerves. <br /> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h3> + II. + </h3> + <p> + When Hewson came up to the cottage he was sensible of a certain agitation + in the air, which was intensified to him by the sight of St. John, in his + bare, bald head and the négligé of a flannel housecoat, inspecting, with + the gardener and one of the grooms, the fallen trellis under the library + window, which from time to time they looked up at, as they talked. Hewson + made haste to join them, through the garden gate, and to say shamefacedly + enough, “Oh, I’m afraid I’m responsible for that,” and he told how he must + have thrown down the trellis in getting out of the window. + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” said St. John, while the two men walked away with dissatisfied grins + at being foiled of their sensation. “We thought it was burglars. I’m so + glad it was only you.” But in spite of his profession, St. John did not + give Hewson any very lively proof of his enjoyment. “Deuced uncomfortable + to have had one’s guests murdered in their beds. Don’t say anything about + it, please, Hewson. The women would all fly the premises, if there’d been + even a suspicion of burglars.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no; I won’t,” Hewson willingly assented; but he perceived a + disappointment in St. John’s tone and manner, and he suspected him, + however unjustly, of having meant to give himself importance with his + guests by the rumor of a burglary in the house. + </p> + <p> + He was a man quite capable of that, Hewson believed, and failing it, + capable of pretending that he wanted the matter hushed up in the interest + of others. + </p> + <p> + In any case he saw that it was not to St. John primarily, or secondarily + to St. John’s guests, that he could celebrate the fact of his apparition. + In the presence of St. John’s potential vulgarity he keenly felt his own, + and he recoiled from what he had imagined doing. He even realized that he + would have been working St. John an injury by betraying his house to his + guests as the scene of a supernatural incident. + </p> + <p> + Nobody believes in ghosts, but there is not one in a thousand of us who + would not be uncomfortable in a haunted house, or a house so reputed. If + Hewson told what he had seen, he would not only scatter St. John’s + house-party to the four winds, but he would cast such a blight upon St. + Johnswort that it would never sell for a tenth of its cost. <br /> <br /> + <br /> + </p> + <h3> + III. + </h3> + <p> + From that instant Hewson renounced his purpose, and he remained true to + this renunciation in spite of the behavior of St. John, which might well + have tempted him to a revenge in kind. No one seemed to have slept late + that morning; several of the ladies complained that they had not slept a + wink the whole night, and two or three of the men owned to having waked + early and not been able to hit it off again in a morning nap, though it + appeared that they were adepts in that sort of thing. The hour of their + vigils corresponded so nearly with that of Hewson’s apparition that he + wondered if a mystical influence from it had not penetrated the whole + house. The adventitious facts were of such a nature that he controlled + with the greater difficulty the wish to explode upon an audience so aptly + prepared for it the prodigious incident which he was keeping in reserve; + but he did not yield even when St. John carefully led up to the point + through the sensation of his guests, by recounting the evidences of the + supposed visit of a burglar, and then made his effect by suddenly turning + upon Hewson, and saying with his broad guffaw: “And here you have the + burglar in person. He has owned his crime to me, and I’ve let him off the + penalty on condition that he tells you all about it.” The humor was not + too rank for the horsey people whom St. John had mainly about him, but + some of the women said, “Poor Mr. Hewson!” when the host, failing Hewson’s + confession, went on to betray that he had risen at that unearthly hour to + go down to the St. Johnswort Inn for a cup of its famous coffee. The + coffee turned out to be the greatest kind of joke; one of the men asked + Hewson if he could say on his honor that it was really any better than St. + John’s coffee there before them, and another professed to be in a secret + more recondite than had yet been divined: it was that long grim girl, who + served it; she had lured Hewson from his rest at five o’clock in the + morning; and this humorist proposed a Welsh rarebit some night at the inn, + where they could all see for themselves why Hewson broke out of the house + and smashed a trellis before sunrise. + </p> + <p> + Hewson sat silent, not even attempting a defensive sally. In fact it was + only his surface mind which was employed with what was going on; as + before, his deeper thought was again absorbed with his great experience. + He could not, if his conscience had otherwise suffered him, have spoken of + it in that company, and the laughter died away from his silence as if it + had been his offence. He was not offended, but he was ashamed, and not + ashamed so much for St. John as for himself, that he could have ever + imagined acquiring merit in such company by exploiting an experience which + should have been sacred to him. How could he have been so shabby? He was + justly punished in the humiliating contrast between being the butt of + these poor wits, and the hero of an incident which, whatever its real + quality was, had an august character of mystery. He had recognized this + from the first instant; he had perceived that the occurrence was for him, + and for him alone, until he had reasoned some probable meaning into it or + from it; and yet he had been willing, he saw it, he owned it! to win the + applause of that crowd as a man who had just seen a ghost. + </p> + <p> + He thought of them as that crowd, but after all, they were good-natured + people, and when they fancied that he was somehow vexed with the turn the + talk had taken, they began to speak of other things; St. John himself led + the way, and when he got Hewson alone after breakfast, he made him a sort + of amend. “I didn’t mean to annoy you, old fellow,” he said, “with my + story about the burglary.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, that’s all right,” Hewson brisked up in response, as he took the + cigar St. John offered him. “I’m afraid I must have seemed rather stupid. + I had got to thinking about something else, and I couldn’t pull myself + away from it. I wasn’t annoyed at all.” + </p> + <p> + Whether St. John thought this sufficient gratitude for his reparation did + not appear. As Hewson did not offer to break the silence in which they + went on smoking, his host made a pretext, toward the end of their cigars, + after bearing the burden of the conversation apparently as long as he + could, of being reminded of something by the group of women descending + into the garden from the terraced walk beyond it and then slowly, with + little pauses, trailing their summer draperies among the flower-beds and + bushes toward the house. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, by-the-way,” he said, “I should like to introduce you to Miss + Hernshaw; she came last night with Mrs. Rock: that tall girl, there, + lagging behind a little. She’s an original.” + </p> + <p> + “I noticed her at breakfast,” Hewson answered, now first aware of having + been struck with the strange beauty and strange behavior of the slim girl, + who drooped in her chair, with her little head fallen forward, and played + with her bread, ignoring her food otherwise, while she listened with a + bored air to the talk which made Hewson its prey. She had an effect of + being both shy and indifferent, in this retrospect; and when St. John put + up the window, and led the way out to the women in the garden, and + presented Hewson, she had still this effect. She did not smile or speak in + acknowledgement of Hewson’s bow; she merely looked at him with a sort of + swift intensity, and then, when one of the women said, “We were coming to + view the scene of your burglarious exploit, Mr. Hewson. Was that the very + window?” the girl looked impatiently away. + </p> + <p> + “The very window,” Hewson owned. “You wouldn’t know it. St. John has had + the trellis put up and the spot fresh turfed,” and he detached the + interlocutory widow in the direction of their bachelor host, as she + perhaps intended he should, and dropped back to the side of Miss Hernshaw. + </p> + <p> + She was almost spiritually slender. In common with all of us, he had heard + that shape of girl called willowy, but he made up his mind that + sweetbriery would be the word for Miss Hernshaw, in whose face a virginal + youth suggested the tender innocence and surprise of the flower, while the + droop of her figure, at once delicate and self-reliant, arrested the fancy + with a sense of the pendulous thorny spray. She looked not above sixteen + in age, but as she was obviously out, in the society sense of the word, + this must have been a moral effect; and Hewson was casting about in his + mind for some appropriate form of thought and language to make talk in + when she abruptly addressed him. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t see,” she said, with her face still away, “why people make fun of + those poor girls who have to work in that sort of public way.” + </p> + <p> + Hewson silently picked his steps back through the intervening events to + the drolling at breakfast, and with some misgiving took his stand in the + declaration, “You mean the waitress at the inn?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes!” cried the girl, with a gentle indignation, which was so dear to the + young man that he would have given anything to believe that it veiled a + measure of sympathy for himself as well as for the waitress. “We went in + there last night when we arrived, for some pins--Mrs. Rock had had her + dress stepped on, getting out of the car--and that girl brought them. I + never saw such a sad face. And she was very nice; she had no more manners + than a cow.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Hernshaw added the last sentence as if it followed, and in his poor + masculine pride of sequence Hewson wanted to ask if that were why she was + so nice; but he obeyed a better instinct in saying, “Yes, there’s a whole + tragedy in it. I wonder if it’s potential or actual.” He somehow felt safe + in being so metaphysical. + </p> + <p> + “Does it make any difference?” Miss Hernshaw demanded, whirling her face + round, and fixing him with eyes of beautiful fierceness. “Tragedy is + tragedy, whether you have lived it or not, isn’t it? And sometimes it’s + all the more tragical if you have it still to live: you’ve got it before + you! I don’t see how any one can look at that girl’s face and laugh at + her. I should never forgive any one who did.” + </p> + <p> + “Then I’m glad I didn’t do any of the laughing,” said Hewson, willing to + relieve himself from the strain of this high mood, and yet anxious not to + fall too far below it. “Perhaps I should, though, if I hadn’t been the + victim of it in some degree.” + </p> + <p> + “It was the vulgarest thing I ever heard!” said the girl. + </p> + <p> + Hewson looked at her, but she had averted her face again. He had a longing + to tell her of his apparition which quelled every other interest in him, + and, as it were, blurred his whole consciousness. She would understand, + with her childlike truth, and with her unconventionality she would not + find it strange that he should speak to her of such a thing for no + apparent reason or no immediate cause. He walked silent at her side, + revolving his longing in his thought, and hating the circumstance which + forbade him to speak at once. He did not know how long he was lost in + this, when he was suddenly recalled to fearful question of the fact by her + saying, with another flash of her face toward him, “You _have_ lost sleep + Mr. Hewson!” and she whipped forward, and joined the other women, who were + following the lead of St. John and the widow. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Rock, to whom Hewson had been presented at the same time as to Miss + Hernshaw, looked vaguely back at him over her shoulder, but made no + attempt to include him in her group, and he thought, for no reason, that + she was kept from doing so on account of Miss Hernshaw. He thought he + could be no more mistaken in this than in the resentment of Miss Hernshaw, + which he was aware of meriting, however unintentionally. Later, after + lunch, he made sure of this fact when Mrs. Rock got him into a corner, and + cozily began, “I always feel like explaining Rosalie a little,” and then + her vague, friendly eye wandered toward Miss Hernshaw across the room, and + stopped, as if waiting for the girl to look away. But Miss Hernshaw did + not look away, and that afternoon, Hewson’s week being up, he left St. + Johnswort before dinner. <br /> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h3> + IV. + </h3> + <p> + The time came, before the following winter, when Hewson was tempted beyond + his strength, and told the story of his apparition. He told it more than + once, and kept himself with increasing difficulty from lying about it. He + always wished to add something, to amplify the fact, to heighten the + mystery of the circumstances, to divine the occult significance of the + incident. In itself the incident, when stated, was rather bare and + insufficient; but he held himself rigidly to the actual details, and he + felt that in this at least he was offering the powers which had vouchsafed + him the experience a species of atonement for breaking faith with them. It + seemed like breaking faith with Miss Hernshaw, too, though this impression + would have been harder to reason than the other. Both impressions began to + wear off after the first tellings of the story; the wound that Hewson gave + his sensibility in the very first cicatrized before the second, and at the + fourth or fifth it had quite calloused over; so that he did not mind + anything so much as what always seemed to him the inadequate effect of his + experience with his hearers. Some listened carelessly; some nervously; + some incredulously, as if he were trying to put up a job on them; some + compassionately, as if he were not quite right, and ought to be looked + after. There was a consensus of opinion, among those who offered any sort + of comment, that he ought to give it to the Psychical Research, and at the + bottom of Hewson’s heart, there was a dread that the spiritualists would + somehow get hold of him. This remained to stay him, when the shame of + breaking faith with Miss Hernshaw and with Mystery no longer restrained + him from exploiting the fact. He was aware of lying in wait for + opportunities of telling it, and he swore himself to tell it only upon + direct provocation, or when the occasion seemed imperatively to demand it. + He commonly brought it out to match some experience of another; but he + could never deny a friendly appeal when he sat with some good fellows over + their five-o’clock cocktails at the club, and one of them would say in + behalf of a newcomer, “Hewson, tell Wilkins that odd thing that happened + to you up country, in the summer.” In complying he tried to save his + self-respect by affecting a contemptuous indifference in the matter, and + beginning reluctantly and pooh-poohingly. He had pangs afterwards as he + walked home to dress for dinner, but his self-reproach was less afflicting + as time passed. His suffering from it was never so great as from the + slight passed upon his apparition, when Wilkins or what other it might be, + would meet the suggestion that he should tell him about it, with the + hurried interposition, “Yes, I have heard that; good story.” This would + make Hewson think that he was beginning to tell his story too often, and + that perhaps the friend who suggested his doing so, was playing upon his + forgetfulness. He wondered if he were really something of a bore with it, + and whether men were shying off from him at the club on account of it. He + fancied that might be the reason why the circle at the five-o’clock + cocktails gradually diminished as the winter passed. He continued to join + it till the chance offered of squarely refusing to tell Wilkins, or + whoever, about the odd thing that had happened to him up country in the + summer. Then he felt that he had in a manner retrieved himself, and could + retire from the five-o’clock cocktails with honor. + </p> + <p> + That it was a veridical phantom which had appeared to him he did not in + his inmost at all doubt, though in his superficial consciousness he + questioned it, not indeed so disrespectfully as he pooh-poohed it to + others, but still questioned it. This he thought somehow his due as a man + of intelligence who ought not to suffer himself to fall into superstition + even upon evidence granted to few. Superficially, however, as well as + interiorly, he was aware of always expecting its repetition; and now, six + months after the occurrence this expectation was as vivid with him as it + was the first moment after the vision had vanished, while his tongue was + yet in act to stay it with speech. He would not have been surprised at any + time in walking into his room to find It there; or waking at night to + confront It in the electric flash which he kindled by a touch of the + button at his bedside. Rather, he was surprised that nothing of the sort + happened, to confirm him in his belief that he had been all but in touch + with the other life, or to give him some hint, the slightest, the dimmest, + why this vision had been shown him, and then instantly broken and + withdrawn. In that inmost of his where he recognized its validity, he + could not deny that it had a meaning, and that it had been sent him for + some good reason special to himself; though at the times when he had + prefaced his story of it with terms of slighting scepticism, he had + professed neither to know nor to care why the thing had happened. He + always said that he had never been particularly interested in the + supernatural, and then was ashamed of a lie that was false to universal + human experience; but he could truthfully add that he had never in his + life felt less like seeing a ghost than that morning. It was not full day, + but it was perfectly light, and there the thing was, as palpable to vision + as any of the men that moment confronting him with cocktails in their + hands. Asked if he did not think he had dreamed it, he answered scornfully + that he did not think, he _knew_, he had not dreamed it; he did not value + the experience, it was and had always been perfectly meaningless, but he + would stake his life upon its reality. Asked if it had not perhaps been + the final office of a nightcap, he disdained to answer at all, though he + did not openly object to the laugh which the suggestion raised. + </p> + <p> + Secretly, within his inmost, Hewson felt justly punished by the laughter. + He had been unworthy of his apparition in lightly exposing it to such a + chance; he had fallen below the dignity of his experience. He might never + hope to fathom its meaning while he lived; but he grieved for the wrong he + had done it, as if at the instant of the apparition he had offered that + majestic, silent figure some grotesque indignity: thrown a pillow at it, + or hailed it in tones of mocking offence. He was profoundly and + exquisitely ashamed even before he ceased to tell the story for his + listeners’ idle amusement. When he stopped doing so, and snubbed + solicitation with the curt answer that everybody had heard that story, he + was retrospectively ashamed; and mixed with the expectation of seeing the + vision again was the formless wish to offer it some sort of reparation, of + apology. + </p> + <p> + He longed to prove himself not wholly unworthy of the advance that had + been made him from the other world upon grounds which he had done his + worst to prove untenable. He could not imagine what the grounds were, + though he had to admit their probable existence; such an event might have + no obvious or present significance, but it had not happened for nothing; + it could not have happened for nothing. Hewson might not have been in what + he thought any stressful need of ghostly comfort or reassurance in matters + of faith. He was not inordinately agnostic, or in the way of becoming so. + He was simply an average skeptical American, who denied no more than he + affirmed, and who really concerned himself so little about his soul, + though he tried to keep his conscience decently clean, that he had not + lately asked whether other people had such a thing or not. He had not lost + friends, and he was so much alone in this world that it seemed improbable + the fate of any uncle or cousin, in the absence of more immediate kindred, + should be mystically forecast to him. He was perfectly well at the time of + the apparition, and it could not have been the figment of a disordered + digestion, as the lusty hunger which willingly appeased itself with the + coffee of the St. Johnswort Inn sufficiently testified. Yet, in spite of + all this, an occurrence so out of the course of events must have had some + message for him, and it must have been his fault that he could not divine + it. A sense of culpability grew upon him with the sense of his ignominy in + cheapening it by making it subservient to what he knew was, in the last + analysis, a wretched vanity. At least he could refuse himself that + miserable gratification hereafter, and he got back some measure of + self-respect in forbidding himself the pleasure he might have taken in + being noted for a strange experience he could never be got to speak of. + <br /> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h3> + V. + </h3> + <p> + The implication of any such study as this is that the subject of it is + continuously if not exclusively occupied with the matter which is supposed + to make him interesting. But of course it was not so with Hewson, who + perhaps did not think of his apparition once in a fortnight, or oftener, + say, than he thought of the odd girl with whom for no reason, except + contemporaneity in his acquaintance, he associated with it. If he never + thought of the apparition without subconsciously expecting its return, he + equally expected when he thought of Miss Hernshaw that the chances of + society would bring them together again, and it was with no more surprise + than if the vision had intimated its second approach that he one night + found her name in the minute envelope which the footman presented him at a + house where he was going to dine, and realized that he was appointed to + take her out. It was a house where he rather liked to go, for in that New + York of his where so few houses had any distinctive character, this one + had a temperament of its own in so far that you might expect to meet + people of temperament there, if anywhere. They were indeed held in a + social solution where many other people of no temperament at all floated + largely and loosely about, but they were there, all the same, and it was + worth coming on the chance of meeting them, though the indiscriminate + hospitality of the hostess might let the evening pass without promoting + the chance. Now, however, she had unwittingly put into Hewson’s keeping, + for two hours at least, the very temperament that had kept his fancy for + the last half-year and more. He fairly laughed at sight of the name on the + little card, and hurried into the drawing-room, where the first thing + after greeting his hostess, he caught the wandering look and vague smile + of Mrs. Rock. The look and the smile became personal to him, and she + welcomed him with a curious resumption of the confidential terms in which + they had seemed to part that afternoon at St. Johnswort. He thought that + she was going to begin talking to him where she had left off, about + Rosalie, as she had called her, and he was disappointed in the + commonplaces that actually ensued. At the end of these, however, she did + say: “Miss Hernshaw is here with me. Have you seen her?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes,” Hewson returned, for he had caught sight of the girl in a + distant group, on his way up to Mrs. Rock, but in view of the affluent + opportunity before him had richly forborne trying even to make her bow to + him, though he believed she had seen him. “I am to have the happiness of + going out with her.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, indeed,” said Mrs. Rock, “that is nice,” and then the people began + assorting themselves, and the man who was appointed to take Mrs. Rock out, + came and bowed Hewson away. + </p> + <p> + He hastened to that corner of the room where Miss Hernshaw was waiting, + and if he had been suddenly confronted with his apparition he could not + have experienced a deeper and stranger satisfaction than he felt as the + girl lifted up her innocent fierce face upon him. + </p> + <p> + It brought back that whole day at St. Johnswort, of which she, with his + vision, formed the supreme interest and equally the mystery; and it went + warmly to his heart to have her peremptorily abolish all banalities by + saying, “I was wondering if they were going to give me you, as soon as you + came in.” + </p> + <p> + She put her slim hand on his arm as she spoke, and he thought she must + have felt him quiver at her touch. “Then you were not afraid they were + going to give you me?” he bantered. + </p> + <p> + “No,” she said, “I wanted to talk with you. I wanted you to tell me what + Mrs. Rock said about me!” + </p> + <p> + “Just now? She said you were here.” + </p> + <p> + “No, I mean that day at St. Johnswort.” + </p> + <p> + Hewson laughed out for pleasure in her frankness, and then he felt a + gathering up of his coat-sleeve under her nervous fingers, as if (such a + thing being imaginable) she were going unwittingly to pinch him for his + teasing. “She said she wanted to explain you a little.” + </p> + <p> + “And then what!” + </p> + <p> + “And then nothing. She seemed to catch your eye, and she stopped.” + </p> + <p> + The fingers relaxed their hold upon that gathering up of his coat-sleeve. + “I won’t _be_ explained, and I have told her so. If I choose to act + myself, and show out my real thoughts and feelings, how is it any worse + than if I acted somebody else!” + </p> + <p> + “I should think it was very much better,” said Hewson, inwardly warned to + keep his face straight. <br /> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h3> + VI. + </h3> + <p> + They had time for no more talk between the drawing-room and the dinner + table, and when Miss Hernshaw’s chair had been pushed in behind her, and + she sat down, she turned instantly to the man on her right and began + speaking to him, and left Hewson to make conversation with any one he + liked or could. + </p> + <p> + He did not get on very well, not because there were not enough amusing + people beside him and over against him, but because he was all the time + trying to eavesdrop what was saying between Miss Hernshaw and the man on + her right. It seemed to be absolute trivialities they were talking; so far + as Hewson made out they got no deeper than the new play which was then + commanding the public favor apparently for the reason that it was + altogether surface, with no measure upwards or downwards. Upon this + surface the comment of the man on Miss Hernshaw’s right wandered + indefatigably. + </p> + <p> + Hewson could not imagine of her sincerity a deliberate purpose of letting + the poor fellow show all the shallowness that was in him, and of amusing + itself with his satisfaction in turning his empty mind inside out for her + inspection. She seemed, if not genuinely interested, to be paying him an + unaffected attention; but when the lady across the table addressed a word + to him, Miss Hernshaw, as if she had been watching for some such chance, + instantly turned to Hewson. + </p> + <p> + “What do you think of ‘Ghosts’?” she asked, with imperative suddenness. + </p> + <p> + “Ghosts?” he echoed. + </p> + <p> + “Or perhaps you didn’t go?” she suggested, and he perceived that she meant + Ibsen’s tragedy. But he did not answer at once. He had had a shock, and + for a timeless space he had been back in his room at St. Johnswort, with + that weird figure seated at his table. It seemed to vanish again when he + gave a second glance, as it had vanished before, and he drew a long sigh, + and looked a little haggardly at Miss Hernshaw. “Ah, I see you did! Wasn’t + it tremendous? I think the girl who did Regina was simply awful, don’t + you?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know,” said Hewson, still so trammeled in his own involuntary + associations with the word as not fully to realize the strangeness of + discussing “Ghosts” with a young lady. But he pulled himself together, and + nimbly making his reflection that the latitude of the stage gave room for + the meeting of cultivated intelligences in regions otherwise tabooed, if + they were of opposite sexes, he responded in kind. “I think that the + greatest miracle of the play--and to me it was altogether miraculous"-- + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I’m glad to hear you say that!” cried the girl. “It was the greatest + experience of my life. I can’t bear to have people undervalue it. I want + to hit them. But go on!” + </p> + <p> + Hewson went on as gravely as he could in view of her potential violence: + he pictured Miss Hernshaw beating down the inadequate witnesses of + “Ghosts” with her fan, which lay in her lap, with her cobwebby + handkerchief, drawn through its ring, and her long limp gloves looking + curiously like her pretty young arms in their slenderness. “I was merely + going to say that the most prodigious effect of the play was among the + actors--I won’t venture on the spectators--” + </p> + <p> + “No, don’t! It isn’t speakable.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s astonishing the effect a play of Ibsen’s has with the actors. They + can’t play false. It turns the merest theatrical sticks into men and + women, and it does it through the perfect honesty of the dramatist. He + deals so squarely with himself that they have to deal squarely with + themselves. They have to be, and not just _seem_.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Hernshaw sighed deeply. “I’m glad you think that,” she said, and + Hewson felt very glad too that he thought that. + </p> + <p> + “Why?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “Why? Because that is what I always want to do; and it’s what I always + shall do, I don’t care what they say.” + </p> + <p> + “But I don’t know whether I understand exactly.” + </p> + <p> + “Deal squarely with everybody. Say what I really feel. Then they say what + they really feel.” + </p> + <p> + There was an obscure resentment unworthily struggling at the bottom of + Hewson’s heart for her long neglect of him in behalf of the man on her + left. “Yes,” he said, “if they are capable of really feeling anything.” + </p> + <p> + “What do you mean? Everybody really feels.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, then, thinking anything.” + </p> + <p> + She drew herself up a little with an air of question. “I believe everybody + really thinks, too, and it’s your duty to let them find out what they’re + thinking, by truly saying what you think.” + </p> + <p> + “Then _she_ isn’t dealing quite honestly with him,” said Hewson, with a + malicious smile. + </p> + <p> + The man at Miss Hernshaw’s left was still talking about the play, and he + was at that moment getting off a piece of pure parrotry about it to the + lady across the table: just what everybody had been saying about it from + the first. + </p> + <p> + “No, I should think she was not,” said the girl, gravely. She looked hurt, + as if she had been unfairly forced to the logic of her postulate, and + Hewson was not altogether pleased with himself; but at least he had had + his revenge in making her realize the man’s vacuity. + </p> + <p> + He tried to get her back to talk about “Ghosts,” again, but she answered + with indifference, and just then he was arrested by something a man was + saying near the head of the table. <br /> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h3> + VII. + </h3> + <p> + It was rather a large dinner, but not so large that a striking phrase, + launched in a momentary lull, could not fuse all the wandering attentions + in a sole regard. The man who spoke was the psychologist Wanhope, and he + was saying with a melancholy that mocked itself a little in his smile: “I + shouldn’t be particular about seeing a ghost myself. I have seen plenty of + men who had seen men who had seen ghosts; but I never yet saw a man who + had seen a ghost. If I had it would go a long way to persuade me of + ghosts.” + </p> + <p> + Hewson felt his heart thump in his throat. There was a pause, and it was + as if all eyes but the eyes of the psychologist turned upon him; these + rested upon the ice which the servant had just then silently slipped under + them. Hewson had no reason to think that any of the people present were + acquainted with his experience, but he thought it safest to take them upon + the supposition that they had, and after he had said to the psychologist, + “Will you allow me to present him to you?” he added, “I’m afraid every one + else knows him too well already.” + </p> + <p> + “You!” said his _vis-à-vis_, arching her eyebrows; and others up and down + the table, looked round or over at Hewson where he sat midway of it with + Miss Hernshaw drooping beside him. She alone seemed indifferent to his + pretension; she seemed even insensible of it, as she broke off little + corners of her ice with her fork. + </p> + <p> + The psychologist fixed his eyes on him with scientific challenge as well + as scientific interest. “Do you mean that _you_ have seen a ghost?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes--ghost. Generically--provisionally. We always consider them ghosts, + don’t we, till they prove themselves something else? I once saw an + apparition.” + </p> + <p> + Several people who were near-sighted or far-placed put on their + eye-glasses, to make out whether Hewson were serious; a lady who had a + handsome forearm put up a lorgnette and inspected him through it; she had + the air of questioning his taste, and the subtle aura of her censure + penetrated to him, though she preserved a face of rigid impassivity. He + returned her stare defiantly, though he was aware of not reaching her + through the lenses as effectively as she reached him. Most of those who + prepared themselves to listen seemed to be putting him on trial, and they + apparently justified themselves in this from the cross-questioning method + the psychologist necessarily took in his wish to clarify the situation. + </p> + <p> + “How long ago was it?” he asked, coldly. + </p> + <p> + “Last summer.” + </p> + <p> + “Was it after dark?” + </p> + <p> + “Very much after. It was at day-break.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! You were alone?” + </p> + <p> + “Quite.” + </p> + <p> + “You made sure you were not dreaming?” + </p> + <p> + “I made sure of that, instantly. I was not awakened by the apparition. I + was already fully awake.” + </p> + <p> + “Had your mind been running on anything of the kind?” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing could have been farther from it. I was thinking what a very long + while it would be till breakfast.” This was not true as to the order of + the fact; but Hewson could not keep himself from saying it, and it made a + laugh and created a diversion in his favor. + </p> + <p> + “How long did it seem to last?” + </p> + <p> + “The vision? That was very curious. The whole affair was quite achronic, + as I may say. The figure was there and it was not there.” + </p> + <p> + “It vanished suddenly?” + </p> + <p> + “I can’t say it vanished at all. It ought still to be there. Have you ever + returned to a place where you had always been wrong as to the points of + the compass, and found yourself right up to a certain moment as you + approached, and then without any apparent change, found yourself perfectly + wrong again? The figure was not there, and it was there, and then it was + not there.” + </p> + <p> + “I think I see what you mean,” said the psychologist, warily. “The + evanescence was subjective.” + </p> + <p> + “Altogether. But so was the apparescence.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah!” said Wanhope. “You hadn’t any headache?” + </p> + <p> + “Not the least.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah!” The psychologist desisted with the effect of letting the defence + take the witness. + </p> + <p> + A general dissatisfaction diffused itself, and Hewson felt it; but he + disdained to do anything to appease it. He remained silent for that + appreciable time which elapsed before his host said, almost + compassionately, “Won’t you tell us all about it, Mr. Hewson.” + </p> + <p> + The guests, all but Miss Hernshaw, seemed to return to their impartial + frame, with a leaning in Hewson’s favor, such as the court-room feels when + the accused is about to testify in his own behalf; the listeners cannot + help wishing him well, though they may have their own opinions of his + guilt. + </p> + <p> + “Why, there _isn’t_ any ‘all-about-it,’” said Hewson. “The whole thing has + been stated as to the circumstances and conditions.” He could see the + baffled greed in the eyes of those who were hungering for a morsel of the + marvellous, and he made it as meagre as he could. He had now no temptation + to exaggerate the simple fact, and he hurried it out in the fewest + possible words. <br /> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h3> + VIII. + </h3> + <p> + The general disappointment was evident in the moment of waiting which + followed upon his almost contemptuous ending. His audience some of them + took their cue from his own ironical manner, and joked; others looked as + if they had been trifled with. The psychologist said, “Curious.” He did + not go back to his position that belief in ghosts should follow from + seeing a man who had seen one; he seemed rather annoyed by the encounter. + The talk took another turn and distributed itself again between contiguous + persons for the brief time that elapsed before the women were to leave the + men to their coffee and cigars. + </p> + <p> + When their hostess rose Hewson offered his arm to Miss Hernshaw. She had + not spoken to him since he had told the story of his apparition. Now she + said in an undertone so impassioned that every vibration from her voice + shook his heart, “If I were you, I would never tell that story again!” and + she pressed his arm with unconscious intensity, while she looked away from + him. + </p> + <p> + “You don’t believe it happened?” he returned. + </p> + <p> + “It did.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course it happened! Why shouldn’t I believe that? But that’s the very + reason why I wouldn’t have told it. If it happened, it was something + sacred--awful! Oh, I don’t see how you could bear to speak of it at a + dinner, when people were all torpid with--” + </p> + <p> + She stopped breathlessly, with a break in her voice that sounded just + short of a sob. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I’m sufficiently ashamed of doing it, and not for the first time,” + he said, in sullen discontent with himself. “And I’ve been properly + punished. You can’t think how sick it makes me to realize what a + detestable sensation I was seeking.” + </p> + <p> + She did not heed what he was saying. “Was it that morning at St. Johnswort + when you got up so early, and went for a cup of coffee at the inn?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “I thought so! I could follow every instant of it; I could see just how it + was. If such a thing had happened to me, I would have died before I spoke + of it at such a time as this. Oh, _why_ do you suppose it happened to + you?” the girl grieved. + </p> + <p> + “Me, of all men?” said Hewson, with a self-contemptuous smile. + </p> + <p> + “I thought you were different,” she said absently; then abruptly: “What + are you standing here talking to me so long for? You must go back! All the + men have gone back,” and Hewson perceived that they had arrived in the + drawing-room, and were conspicuously parleying in the face of a dozen + interested women witnesses. + </p> + <p> + In the dining-room he took his way toward a vacant place at the table near + his host, who was saying behind his cigar to another old fellow: “I used + to know her mother; she was rather original too; but nothing to this girl. + I don’t envy Mrs. Rock her job.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know what the pay of a chaperon is, but I suppose Hernshaw can + make it worth her while, if he’s like the rest out there,” said the other + old fellow. “I imagine he’s somewhere in his millions.” + </p> + <p> + The host held up one of his fingers. “Is that all? I thought more. Mines?” + </p> + <p> + “Cattle. Ah, Mr. Hewson,” said the host, turning to welcome him to the + chair on his other side. “Have a cigar. That was a strong story you gave + us. It had a good fault, though. It was too short.” <br /> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h3> + IX. + </h3> + <p> + Hewson had begun now to feel a keen, persistent, painful sympathy for the + apparition itself as for some one whose confidence had been abused; and + this feeling was none the less, but all the more, poignant because it was + he himself who was guilty towards it. He pitied it in a sort as if it had + been the victim of a wrong more shocking perhaps for the want of taste in + it than for any real turpitude. This was a quality of the event not + without a strange consolation. In arraying him on the side of the + apparition, it antagonized him with what he had done, and enabled him to + renounce and disown it. + </p> + <p> + From the night of that dinner, Hewson did not again tell the story of his + apparition, though the opportunities to do so now sought him as constantly + as he had formerly sought them. They offered him a fresh temptation + through the different perversions of the fact that had got commonly + abroad, but he resisted this temptation, and let the perversions, + sometimes annoyingly, sometimes amusingly, but always more and more + wildly, wide of the reality, take their course. In his reticence he had + the sense of atoning not only to the apparition but to Miss Hernshaw too. + </p> + <p class="ctr"> + <a href="images/illusp012.jpg"><img src="images/illusp012_th.jpg" + alt="I’M AFRAID I’M RESPONSIBLE FOR THAT" /></a> + </p> + <p> + Before he met her again, Miss Hernshaw had been carried off to Europe by + Mrs. Rock, perhaps with the purpose of trying the veteran duplicities of + that continent in breaking down the insurgent sincerity of her ward. + Hewson heard that she was not to be gone a great while; it was well into + the winter when they started, and he understood that they were merely + going to Rome for the end of the season, and were then going to work + northward, and after June in London were coming home. He did not fail to + see her again before she left for any want of wishing, but he did not + happen to meet her at other houses, and at the house of Mrs. Rock, if she + had one, he had not been asked to call, or invited to any function. In + thinking the point over it occurred to Hewson that this was so because he + was not wanted there, and not wanted by Miss Hernshaw herself; for it had + been in his brief experience of her that she let people know what she + wanted, and that with Mrs. Rock, whose character seemed to answer to her + name but poorly, she had ways of getting what she wanted. If Miss Hernshaw + had wished to meet him again, he could not doubt that she would have asked + him, or at the least had him asked to come and see her, and not have left + it to the social fortutities to bring them together. Towards the end of + the term which rumor had fixed to her stay abroad Hewson’s folly was + embittered to him in a way that he had never expected in his deepest shame + and darkest forboding. But evil, like good, does not cease till it has + fulfilled itself in every possible consequence. It seeing even more active + and persistent. Good seems to satisfy itself sometimes in the direct + effect, but evil winds sinuously in and out, and reaches round and over + and under its wretched author, and strikes him in every tender and fatal + place, with an ingenuity in finding the places out that seems truly of + hell. Hewson thought he had paid the principal of his debt in full through + the hurt to his vanity in failing to gain any sort of consequence from his + apparition, but the interest of his debt had accumulated, and the sorest + pinch was in paying the interest. His penalty took the form that was most + of all distasteful to him: the form of publicity in the Sunday edition of + a newspaper. A young lady attached to the staff of this journal had got + hold of his story, and had made her reporter’s Story of it, which she + imaginatively cast in the shape of an interview with Hewson. But worse + than this, and really beyond the vagary of the wildest nightmare, she gave + St. Johnswort as the scene of the apparition, with all the circumstances + of the supposed burglary, while tastefully disguising Hewson’s identity in + the figure of A Well-Known Society-man. + </p> + <p> + When Hewson read this Story (and it seemed to him that no means of + bringing it to his notice at the club, and on the street, and by mail was + left unemployed), he had two thoughts: one was of St. John, and one was of + Miss Hernshaw. In all his exploitations of his experience he had + carefully, he thought religiously, concealed the scene, except that one + only time when Miss Hernshaw suddenly got it out of him by that demand of + hers, “Was it that morning at St. Johnswort when you got up so early and + went for a cup of coffee at the inn?” He had confided so absolutely in her + that his admission had not troubled him at the time, and it had not + troubled him since, till now when he found the fact given this hideous + publicity, and knew that it could have become known only through her: + through her who had seemed to make herself the protectress of his + apparition and to guard it with indignation even against his own slight! + </p> + <p> + He could not tell himself what to think of her, and in this disability he + had at least the sad comfort of literally thinking nothing of her; but he + could not keep his thoughts away from St. John. It appeared to him that he + thought and lived nothing else till his dread concreted itself in the + letter which came from St. John as soon as that fatal newspaper could + reach him, and his demand for an explanation could come back to Hewson. He + wrote from St. Johnswort, where he had already gone for the season, and he + assumed, as no doubt he had a right to do, that the whole thing was a + fake, and that if Hewson was hesitating about denying it for fear of + giving it further prominence, or out of contempt for it, he wished that he + would not hesitate. There were reasons, which would suggest themselves to + Hewson, why the thing, if merely and entirely a fake, should be very + annoying, and he thought that it would be best to make the denial + immediate and imperative. To this end he advised Hewson’s sending the + newspaper people a lawyer’s letter; with the ulterior trouble which this + would intimate they would move in the matter with a quickened conscience. + </p> + <p> + Apparently St. John was very much in earnest, and Hewson would eagerly + have lied out of it, he felt in sudden depravity, from a just regard for + St. John’s right to privacy in his own premises, but no lying, not the + boldest, not the most ingenious, could now avail. Scores of people could + witness that they had heard Hewson tell the story at first hand; at second + hand hundreds could still more confidently affirm its truth. But if he + admitted the truth of the fact and denied merely that it had happened at + St. Johnswort, he would have Miss Hernshaw to deal with and what could he + hope from truth so relentless as hers? She was of a moral make so awful + that if he ventured to deny it without appeal for her support (which was + impossible), she was quite capable of denying his denial. + </p> + <p> + He did the only thing he could. He wrote to St. John declaring that the + newspaper story, though utterly false in its pretensions to be an + interview with him, was true in its essentials. The thing _had_ really + happened, he _had_ seen an apparition, and he had seen it at St. Johnswort + that morning when St. John supposed his house to have been invaded by + burglars. He vainly turned over a thousand deprecatory expressions in his + mind, with which to soften the blow but he let his letter go without + including one. <br /> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h3> + X. + </h3> + <p> + A week of silence passed, and then one night St. John himself appeared at + Hewson’s apartment. Hewson almost knew that it was his ring at the door, + and in the tremulous note of his voice asking the man if he were at home, + he recognized the great blubbery fellow’s most plaintive mood. + </p> + <p> + “Well, Hewson,” he whimpered, without staying for any form of greeting + when they stood face to face, “this has been a terrible business for me. + You can’t imagine how it’s broken me up in every direction.” + </p> + <p> + “I--I’m afraid I can, St. John,” Hewson began, but St. John cut him off. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no, you can’t. Look here!” He showed a handful of letters. “All from + people who had promised to stay with me, taking it back, since that + infernal interview of yours, or from people who hadn’t answered before, + saying they can’t come. Of course they make all sorts of civil excuses. I + shouldn’t know what to do with these people if any of them came. There + isn’t a servant left on the place, except the gardener who lives in his + own house, and the groom who sleeps in the stable. For the last three days + I’ve had to take my meals at that infernal inn where you got your coffee.” + </p> + <p> + “Is it so bad as that?” Hewson gasped. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, it is. It’s so bad that sometimes I can’t realize it. Do you + actually mean to tell me, Hewson that you saw a ghost in my house?” + </p> + <p> + “I never said a ghost. I said an apparition. I don’t know what it was. It + may have been an optical delusion. I call it an apparition, because that’s + the shortest way out. You know I’m not a spiritualist.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, that’s the devil of it,” said St. John. “That’s the very thing that + makes people believe it _is_ a ghost. There isn’t one of them that don’t + say to himself and the other fellows that if a cool, clear-headed chap + like you saw something queer, it _must_ have been a ghost; and so they go + on knocking my house down in price till I don’t believe it would fetch + fifteen hundred under the hammer to-morrow. It’s simply ruin to me.” + </p> + <p> + “Ruin?” Hewson echoed. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, ruin,” St. John repeated. “Before this thing came out I refused + twenty-five thousand for the place, because I knew I could get + twenty-eight thousand. Now I couldn’t get twenty-eight hundred. Couldn’t + you understand that the reputation of being haunted simply plays the devil + with a piece of property?” “Yes; yes, I did understand that, and for that + very reason I was always careful--” + </p> + <p> + “Careful! To tell people that you had seen a ghost in my house?” + </p> + <p> + “No! _Not_ to tell them where I had seen a ghost. I never--” + </p> + <p> + “How did it get out then?” + </p> + <p> + “I,” Hewson began, and then he stood with his mouth open, unable to close + it for the articulation of the next word, which he at last huskily + whispered forth, “can’t tell you.” + </p> + <p> + “Can’t tell me?” wailed St. John. “Well, I call that pretty rough!” + </p> + <p> + “It is rough,” Hewson admitted; “and Heaven knows that I would make it + smooth if I could. I never once--except once only--mentioned your place in + connection with the matter. I was scrupulously careful not to do so, for I + did imagine something like what has happened. I would do + anything--anything--in reparation. But I can’t even tell you how the name + of your place got out in the connection, though certainly you have a right + to ask and to know. The circumstances were--peculiar. The person-- was one + that I wouldn’t have dreamt was capable of repeating it. It was as if I + had said the words over to myself.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I can’t understand all that,” said St. John, with rueful sulkiness, + from which he brisked up to ask, as if by a sudden inspiration, “If it was + only to one person, why couldn’t you deny it, and throw the onus on the + other fellow?” He looked up at Hewson, standing nerveless before him, from + where he lay mournfully wallowing in an easy-chair, as if now for the + first time, there might be a gleam of hope for them both in some such + notion. + </p> + <p> + Hewson slowly shook his head. “It wouldn’t work. The person--isn’t that + kind of person.” + </p> + <p> + “Why, but see here,” St. John urged. “There must be something in the + fellow that you can appeal to. If you went and told him how it was playing + the very deuce with me pecuniarily, he would see the necessity of letting + you deny it, and taking the consequences, if he was anything of a man at + all.” + </p> + <p> + “He isn’t anything of a man at all,” said Hewson, in mechanical and + melancholy parody. + </p> + <p> + “Then in Heaven’s name what is he?” demanded St. John, savagely. + </p> + <p> + “A woman.” “Oh!” St. John fell back in his chair. But he pulled himself up + again with a sudden renewal of hope. “Why, see here! If she’s the right + kind of woman, she’ll enjoy denying the story, and putting the people in + the wrong that have circulated it!” + </p> + <p> + Hewson shook his head in rejection of the general principle, while, as to + the particular instance, he could only say: “She isn’t that kind. She’s + the kind that would rather die herself, and let everybody else die, than + be party to any sort of deception.” + </p> + <p> + “She must be a queer woman,” St. John bewailed himself, looking at the + point of his cigar, and discovering to his surprise that it was out. He + did not attempt to light it. “Of course, I can’t ask you _who_ she is; but + why shouldn’t I see her, and try what _I_ can do with her? I’m the one + that’s the principal sufferer in this matter,” he added, perhaps seeing + refusal in Hewson’s troubled eye. + </p> + <p> + “Because--for one reason--she’s in London.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh Lord!” St. John lamented. + </p> + <p> + “But if she were here in New York, I couldn’t allow it,” he continued. “It + was in confidence between us.” + </p> + <p> + “She doesn’t seem to have thought so,” said St. John, with sarcasm which + Hewson could not resent. + </p> + <p> + “There’s only one thing for me to do,” said Hewson, who had been thinking + the point over, and saw no other way out for him as a gentleman, or even + merely as a just man. He was not rich, and in the face of the mounting + accumulations of other men he had grown comparatively poor, without + actually losing money, since he had begun to lead the life which had long + been his ideal. After carefully ascertaining at the time in question that + he had sufficient income from inherited means to live without his + profession, he had closed his law-office without shutting many clients + out, and had contributed himself to the formation of a leisure class, + which he conceived was regrettably lacking in our conditions. He had + taste, he had reading, he had a pretty knowledge of the world from travel, + he had observed manners, and it seemed to him that he might not immodestly + pretend to supply, as far as one man went, a well-recognized want. + </p> + <p> + Hitherto he had been able to live up to his ideal with, sufficient + satisfaction, and in proposing to himself never to marry, but to grow old + gradually and gracefully as a bachelor of adequate income, he saw no + difficulties in his way for the future, until this affair of the + apparition. If now he incurred the chances of an open change in his way of + living--the end was simply a question of very little time. He must not + only declass, he must depatriate himself, for he would not have the means + of living even much more economically than he now lived in New York, if he + did what a sense of honor, of just responsibility urged him to do with + regard to St. John. + </p> + <p> + He would have been glad of any interposition of Providence that would have + availed him against his obvious duty. He would have liked to recall the + words saying that there was only one thing for him to do, but he could not + recall them and he was forced to go on. “Will you sell me your place?” he + said to St. John, colorlessly. + </p> + <p> + “Sell you my place? What do you mean?” + </p> + <p> + “Simply that if you will, I shall be glad to buy it at your own + valuation.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, look here, now, Hewson! I can’t let you do this,” St. John began, + trying to feel a magnanimity which proved impossible to him. “What do you + want with my place? You couldn’t get anybody to live there with you.” + </p> + <p> + “I couldn’t afford to live there in any case,” said Hewson; “but I am + entirely willing to risk the purchase.” + </p> + <p> + Was it possible that Hewson knew something of the neighborhood or its + future, which encouraged him to take the chances of the property + appreciating in value? This thought passed through St. John’s mind, and he + was not the man to let himself be overreached in a deal. “The place ought + to be worth thirty thousand,” he said, for a bluff. + </p> + <p> + It was a relief for Hewson to feel ashamed of St. John instead of himself, + for a moment. “Very well, I’ll give you thirty thousand.” + </p> + <p> + St. John examined himself for a responsive generosity. The most he could + say was, “You’re doing this because of what I’d said.” + </p> + <p> + “What does it matter? I make you a bonafide offer. I will give you thirty + thousand dollars for St. Johnswort,” said Hewson, haughtily. “I ask you to + sell me that place. I cannot see that it will ever be any good to me, but + I can assure you that it would be a far worse burden for me to carry round + the sense of having injured you, however unwillingly--God knows I never + meant you harm!--than to shoulder the chance of your place remaining + worthless on my hands.” + </p> + <p> + St. John caught at the hope which the form of words suggested. “If + anything can bring it up, it will be the fact that you have bought it. + Such a thing would give the lie to that ridiculous story, as nothing else + could. Every one will see that a house can’t be very badly haunted, if the + man that the ghost appeared to is willing to buy it.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps,” said Hewson sadly. + </p> + <p> + “No perhaps about it,” St. John retorted, all the more cheerfully because + he would have been glad before this incident to take twenty thousand for + his place. “It’s just on the borders of Lenox, and it’s bound to come up + when this blows over.” He talked on for a time in an encouraging strain, + while Hewson, standing with his back against the mantel, looked absently + down upon him. St. John was inwardly struggling through all to say that + Hewson might have the property for twenty-eight thousand, but he could + not. Possibly he made himself believe that he was letting it go a great + bargain at thirty; at any rate he ended by saying, “Well, it’s yours--if + you really mean it.” + </p> + <p> + “I mean it,” said Hewson. + </p> + <p> + St. John floundered up out of his chair with seal-like struggles. “Do you + want the furniture?” he panted. + </p> + <p> + “The furniture? Yes, why not?” said Hewson. He did not seem to know what + he was saying, or to care. + </p> + <p> + “I will put that in for a mere nominal consideration--the rugs alone are + worth the money--say a thousand more.” + </p> + <p> + Hewson’s man came in with a note. “The messenger is waiting, sir,” he + said. + </p> + <p> + Hewson was aware of wondering that he had not heard any ring. “Will you + excuse me?” he said, toward St. John. + </p> + <p> + “By all means,” said St. John. + </p> + <p> + Hewson opened the note, and read it with an expression which can only be + described as a radiant frown. He sat down at his desk, and wrote an answer + to the note, and gave it to his man, who was still waiting. Then he said + to St. John, “What did you say the rugs were worth?” + </p> + <p> + “A thousand.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ll take them. And what do you want for the rest of the furniture?” + </p> + <p> + Clearly he had not understood that the furniture, rugs, and all, had been + offered to him for a thousand dollars. But what was a man in St. John’s + place to do? As it was he was turning himself out of house and home for + Hewson, and that was sacrifice enough. He hesitated, sighed deeply, and + then said, “Well, I will throw all that in for a couple of thousand more.” + </p> + <p> + “All right,” said Hewson, “I will give it. Have the papers made out and I + will have the money ready at once.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, there’s no hurry about that, my dear fellow,” said St. John, + handsomely. <br /> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h3> + XI. + </h3> + <p> + Hewson’s note was from Mrs. Rock, asking him to breakfast with her at the + Walholland the next morning. She said that they were just off the steamer, + which had got in late, and they had started so suddenly from London that + she had not had time to write and have her apartment opened. She came to + business in the last sentence where she said that Miss Hernshaw joined her + in kind remembrances, and wished her to say that he must not fail them, or + if he could not come to breakfast, to let them know at what hour during + the day he would be kind enough to call; it was very important they should + see him at the earliest possible moment. + </p> + <p> + Hewson instantly decided that this summons was related to the affair of + his apparition, without imagining how or why, and when Miss Hernshaw met + him, and almost before she could say that Mrs. Rock would be down in a + moment, began with it, he made no feint of having come for anything else. + </p> + <p class="ctr"> + <a href="images/illusp066.jpg"><img src="images/illusp066_th.jpg" + alt="WHY, THERE ISN’T ANY PUNISHMENT SEVERE ENOUGH FOR A CRIME LIKE THAT" /></a> + </p> + <p> + As he entered the door of Mrs. Rock’s parlor, where the breakfast table + was laid, the girl came swiftly toward him, with the air of having turned + from watching for him at the window. “Well, what do you think of me?” she + demanded as soon as she had got over Mrs. Rock’s excuses for having her + receive him. He had of course to repeat, “What do I think of you?” but he + knew perfectly what she meant. + </p> + <p> + She disdained to help him pretend that he did not know. “It was I who told + that horrible woman about your experience at St. Johnswort. I didn’t dream + that she was an interviewer, but that doesn’t excuse me, and I am willing + to take any punishment for my--I don’t know what to call it--mischief.” + </p> + <p> + She was so intensely ready, so magnificently prepared for the stake, if + that should be her sentence, that Hewson could not help laughing. “Why + there isn’t any punishment severe enough for a crime like that,” he began, + but she would not allow him to trifle with the matter. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I didn’t think you would be so uncandid! The instant I read that + interview I made Mrs. Rock get ready to come. And we started the first + steamer. It seemed to me that I could not eat or sleep, till I had seen + you and told you what I had done and taken the consequences. And now do + you think it right to turn it off as a joke?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t wish to make a joke of it,” said Hewson, gravely, in compliance + with her mood. “But I don’t understand, quite, how you could have got the + story over there in time for you--” + </p> + <p> + “It was cabled to their London edition--that’s what it said in the paper; + and by this time they must have it in Australia,” said Miss Hernshaw, with + unrelieved severity. + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” said Hewson, giving himself time to realize that he was the + psychical hero of two hemispheres. “Well,” he resumed “what do you expect + me to say?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know what I expect. I expected you to say something without my + prompting you. You know that it was outrageous for me to talk about your + apparition without your leave, and to be the means of its getting into the + newspapers.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m not sure you were the means. I have told the story a hundred times, + myself.” + </p> + <p> + “But that doesn’t excuse me. You knew the kind of people to tell it to, + and I didn’t.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I am afraid I was willing to tell it to all kinds of people--to any + kind that would listen.” + </p> + <p> + “You are trying to evade me, Mr. Hewson,” she said, with a severity he + found charming. “I didn’t expect that of you.” + </p> + <p> + The appeal was not lost upon Hewson. “What do you want me to say?” + </p> + <p> + “I want you,” said Miss Hernshaw, with an effect of giving him another + trial, “to say--to acknowledge that you were terribly annoyed by that + interview.” + </p> + <p> + “If you will excuse me from attaching the slightest blame to you for it, I + will acknowledge that I was annoyed.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Hernshaw drew a deep breath as of relief. “I will arrange about the + blame,” she said loftily. “And now I wish to tell you how I never supposed + that girl was an interviewer. We were all together at an artist’s house in + Rome, and after dinner, we got to telling ghost-stories, the way people + do, around the fire, and I told mine--yours I mean. And before we broke + up, this girl came to me--it was while we were putting on our wraps--and + introduced herself, and said how much she had been impressed by my + story--of course, I mean your story--and she said she supposed it was made + up. I said I should not dream of making up a thing of that kind, and that + it was every word true, and I had heard the person it happened to tell it + himself. I don’t know! I was vain of having heard it, so, at first hand.” + </p> + <p> + “I can understand,” said Hewson, sadly. + </p> + <p> + “And then I told her who the person was, and where it happened--and about + the burglary. You can’t imagine how silly people get when they begin going + in that direction.” + </p> + <p> + “I am afraid I can,” said Hewson. + </p> + <p> + “She seemed very grateful somehow; I couldn’t see why, but I didn’t ask; + and then I didn’t think about it again till I saw it in that awful + newspaper. She sent it to me herself; she was such a simpleton; she + thought I would actually like to see it. She must have written it down, + and sent it to the paper, and they printed it when they got ready to; she + needed the money, I suppose. Then I began to wonder what you would say, + when you remembered how I blamed you for telling the same story--only not + half so bad--at that dinner.” + </p> + <p> + “I always felt you were quite right,” said Hewson. “I have always thanked + you in my own mind for being so frank with me.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, and what do you think now, when you know that I was ten times as + bad as you--ten times as foolish and vulgar!” + </p> + <p> + “I haven’t had time to formulate my ideas yet,” Hewson urged. + </p> + <p> + “You know perfectly well that you despise me. Can you say that I had any + right to give your name?” + </p> + <p> + “It must have got out sooner or later. I never asked any one not to + mention my name when I told the story--” + </p> + <p> + “I see that you think I took a liberty, and I did. But that’s nothing. + That isn’t the point. How I do keep beating about the bush! Mrs. Rock says + it was a great deal worse to tell where it happened, for that would give + the place the reputation of being haunted and nobody could ever live there + afterwards, for they couldn’t keep servants, even if they didn’t have the + creeps themselves, and it would ruin the property.” + </p> + <p> + Hewson had not been able, when she touched upon this point, to elude the + keen eye with which she read his silent thought. + </p> + <p> + “Is that true?” she demanded. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no; oh, no,” he began, but he could not frame in plausible terms the + lies he would have uttered. He only succeeded in saying, “Those things + soon blow over.” + </p> + <p> + “Then how,” she said, sternly, “does it happen that in every town and + village, almost, there are houses that you can hardly hire anybody to live + in, because people say they are haunted? No, Mr. Hewson, it’s very kind of + you, and I appreciate it, but you can’t make me believe that it will ever + blow over, about St. Johnswort. Have you heard from Mr. St. John since?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” Hewson was obliged to own. + </p> + <p> + “And was he very much troubled about it? I should think he was a man that + would be, from the way he behaved about the burglary. Was he?” she + persisted, seeing that Hewson hesitated. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I must say he was.” + </p> + <p> + There was a sound of walking to and fro in the adjoining room, a quick + shutting as of trunk-lids, a noise as of a skirt shaken out, and steps + advanced to the door. Miss Hernshaw ran to it and turned the key in the + lock. “Not yet, Mrs. Rock,” she called to the unseen presence within, and + she explained to Hewson, as she faced him again, “She promised that I + should have it all out with you myself, and now I’m not going to have her + in here, interrupting. Well, did he write to you?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, he wrote to me. He wanted me to deny the story.” + </p> + <p> + “And did you?” + </p> + <p> + “Of course not!” said Hewson, with a note of indignation. “It was true. + Besides it wouldn’t have been of any use.” + </p> + <p> + “No, it would have been wicked and it would have been useless. And then + what did he say?” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing.” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing? And you have never heard another word from him?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, he came to see me last night.” + </p> + <p> + “Here in New York? Is he here yet?” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose so.” + </p> + <p> + “Where?” + </p> + <p> + “I believe at the Overpark.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Hernshaw caught her breath, as if she were going to speak, but she + did not say anything. + </p> + <p> + “Why do you insist upon all this, Miss Hernshaw?” he entreated. “It can do + you no good to follow the matter up!” + </p> + <p> + “Do you think I want to do myself _good?_” she returned. “I want to do + myself _harm!_ What did he say when he came to see you?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, you can imagine,” said Hewson, not able to keep out of his tone the + lingering disgust he felt for St. John. + </p> + <p> + “He complained?” + </p> + <p> + “He all but shed tears,” said Hewson, recalled to a humorous sense of St. + John’s behavior. “I felt sorry for him; though,” he added, darkly, “I + can’t say that I do now.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Hernshaw didn’t seek to fathom the mystery of his closing words. “Had + he been actually inconvenienced by that thing in the paper?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes--somewhat.” + </p> + <p> + “How much?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” Hewson groaned. “If you must know--” + </p> + <p> + “I must! The worst!” + </p> + <p> + “It had fairly turned him out of house and home. His servants had all left + him, and he had been reduced to taking his meals at the inn. He showed me + a handful of letters from people whom he had asked to visit him, + withdrawing their acceptances, or making excuses for not accepting.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah!” said Miss Hernshaw, with a deep, inward breath, as if this now were + indeed something like the punishment she had expected. “And will it--did + he think--did he say anything about the pecuniary effect--the--whether it + would hurt the property?” + </p> + <p> + “He seemed to think it would,” answered Hewson, reluctantly, and he added, + unfortunately for his generous purpose, “I really can’t enter upon that + part.” + </p> + <p> + She arched her eyebrows in grieved surprise. “But that is the very part + that I want you to enter upon Mr. Hewson. You _must_ tell me, now! Did he + say that it had injured the property very much?” + </p> + <p> + “He did, but--” + </p> + <p> + “But what?” + </p> + <p> + “I think St. John is a man to put the worst face on that matter.” + </p> + <p> + “You are saying that to keep me from feeling badly. But I ought to feel + badly--I _wish_ to feel badly. I suppose he said that it wasn’t worth + anything now.” + </p> + <p> + “Something of that sort,” Hewson helplessly admitted. + </p> + <p> + “Very well, then, I will buy it for whatever he chooses to ask!” With the + precipitation which characterized all her actions, Miss Hernshaw rose from + the chair in which she had been provisionally sitting, pushed an electric + button in the wall, swirled away to the other side of the room, unlocked + the door behind which those sounds had subsided, and flinging it open, + said, “You can come out, Mrs. Hock; I’ve rung for breakfast.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Rock came smoothly forth, with her vague eyes wandering over every + other object in the room, till they rested upon Hewson, directly before + her. Then she gave him her hand, and asked, with a smile, as if taking him + into the joke. “Well, has Rosalie had it out with you?” + </p> + <p> + “I have had it out with him, Mrs. Rock,” Miss Hernshaw answered, “and I + will tell you all about it later. Now I want my breakfast.” <br /> <br /> + <br /> + </p> + <h3> + XII. + </h3> + <p> + Hewson ate the meal before him, and it was a very good one, as from time + to time he noted, in a daze which was as strange a confusion of the two + consciousnesses as he had ever experienced. Whatever the convention was + between Miss Hernshaw and Mrs. Rock with regard to the matter in hand, or + lately in hand, it dropped, after a few uninterested inquiries from Mrs. + Rock, who was satisfied, or seemed so, to know that Miss Hernshaw had got + at the worst. She led the talk to other things, like the comparative + comforts and discomforts of the line to Genoa and the line to Liverpool; + and Hewson met her upon these polite topics with an apparent fulness of + interest that would have deceived a much more attentive listener. + </p> + <p> + All the time he was arguing with Miss Hernshaw in his nether + consciousness, pleading with her to keep her away from the fact that he + had himself bought St. Johnswort, until he could frame some fitting form + in which to tell her that he had bought it. With his outward eyes, he saw + her drooping on the opposite side of the table, and in spite of her + declaration that she wanted her breakfast, making nothing of it, after the + preliminary melon, while to his inward vision she was passionately + refusing, by every charming perversity, to be tempted away from the + subject. + </p> + <p> + As the Cunard boats always get in on Saturday, this morrow of their + arrival was naturally Sunday; and after a while Hewson fancied symptoms of + going to church in Mrs. Rock. She could not have become more vague than + she ordinarily was, but her wanderings were of a kind of devotional + character. She spoke of the American church in Rome, and asked Hewson if + he knew the rector. Then, when he said he was afraid he was keeping her + from going to church, she said she did not know whether Rosalie intended + going. At the same time she rose from the table, and Hewson found that he + should not be allowed to sit down again, unless by violence. He had to go + away, and he went, as little at ease in his mind as he very well could be. + </p> + <p> + He was no sooner out of the house than he felt the necessity of returning. + He did not know how or when Miss Hernshaw would write to St. John, but + that she would do so, he did not at all doubt, and then, when the truth + came out, what would she think of him? He did not think her a very wise + person; she seemed to him rather a wild and whirling person in her ideals + of conduct, an unbridled and undisciplined person; and yet he was aware of + profoundly and tenderly respecting her as a creature of the most + inexpugnable innocence and final goodness. He could not bear to have her + feel that he had trifled with her. There had not been many meetings + between them, but each meeting had been of such event that it had advanced + their acquaintance far beyond the point that it could have reached through + weeks of ordinary association. From the first there had been that sort of + intimacy which exists between spirits which encounter in the region of + absolute sincerity. She had never used the least of those arts which women + use in concealing the candor of their natures from men unworthy of it; she + had not only practiced her rule of instant and constant veracity, but had + avowed it, and as it were, invited his judgment of it. Hitherto, he had + met her half-way at least, but now he was in the coil of a + disingenuousness which must more and more trammel him from her, unless he + found some way to declare the fact to her. + </p> + <p> + This ought to have been an easy matter, but it was not easy; upon + reflection it grew rather more difficult. Hewson did not see how he could + avow the fact, which he wished to avow, without intolerable awkwardness; + without the effect of boasting, without putting upon her a burden which he + had no right to put. To be sure, she had got herself in for it all by her + divine imprudence, but she had owned her error in that as promptly as if + it had been the blame of some one else. Still Hewson doubted whether her + magnanimity was large enough to go round in the case of a man who tried to + let his magnanimity come upon her with any sort of dramatic surprise. This + was what he must seem to be doing if he now left her to learn from another + how he had kept St. John from loss by himself assuming the chance of + depreciation in his property. But if he went and told her that he had done + it, how much better for him would that be? + </p> + <p> + He took a long, unhappy walk up into the Park, and then he walked back to + the Walholland. By this time he thought Mrs. Rock and Miss Hernshaw must + have been to church, but he had not the courage to send up his name to + them. He waited about in the region of the dining-room, in the senseless + hope that it would be better for him to surprise them on their way to + luncheon, and trust to some chance for introducing his confession, than to + seek a direct interview with Miss Hernshaw. But they did not come to + luncheon, and then Hewson had the clerk send up his card. Word came back + that the ladies would see him, and he followed the messenger to Mrs. + Rock’s apartment, where if he was surprised, he was not disappointed to be + received by Miss Hernshaw alone. + </p> + <p> + “Mrs. Rock is lying down,” she explained, “but I thought that it might be + something important, and you would not mind seeing me.” + </p> + <p> + “Not at all,” said Hewson, with what seemed to him afterwards superfluous + politeness, and then they both waited until he could formulate his + business, Miss Hernshaw drooping forward, and looking down in a way that + he had found was most characteristic of her. “It _is_ something + important--at least it is important to me. Miss Hernshaw, may I ask + whether you have done anything--it seems a very unwarrantable + question--about St. Johnswort?” + </p> + <p> + “About buying it?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. It will be useless to make any offer for it.” + </p> + <p> + “Why will it be useless to do that?” + </p> + <p> + “Because--because I have bought it myself.” + </p> + <p> + “You have bought it?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; when he came to me last night, and made those representations--Well, + in short, I have bought the place.” + </p> + <p> + “To save him from losing money by that--story?” + </p> + <p> + “Well--yes. I ought to have told you the fact this morning, as soon as you + said you would buy the place. I know that you like people to be perfectly + truthful. But--I couldn’t--without seeming to--brag.” + </p> + <p> + “I understand,” said Miss Hernshaw. + </p> + <p> + “I took the risk of your writing to St. John; but then I realized that if + he answered and told you what I ought to have told you myself, it would + make it worse, and I came back.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know whether it would have made it worse; but you have come too + late,” said Miss Hernshaw. “I’ve just written to Mr. St. John.” + </p> + <p> + They were both silent for what Hewson thought a long time. At the end of + it, he asked, “Did you--you must excuse me--refer to me at all?” + </p> + <p> + “No, certainly not. Why should I?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know. I don’t know that it would have mattered.” He was silent + again, with bowed head; when he looked up he saw tears in the girl’s eyes. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose you know where this leaves me?” she said gently. + </p> + <p> + “I can’t pretend that I don’t,” answered Hewson. “What can I do?” + </p> + <p> + “You can sell me the place for what it cost you.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no, I can’t do that,” said Hewson. + </p> + <p> + “Why do you say that? It isn’t as if I were poor; but even then you + wouldn’t have the right to refuse me if I insisted. It was my fault that + it ever came out about St. Johnswort. It might have come out about you, + but the harm to Mr. St. John--I did that, and why should you take it upon + yourself?” + </p> + <p> + “Because I was really to blame from the beginning to the end. If it had + not been for my pitiful wish to shine as the confidant of mystery, nothing + would have been known of the affair. Even when you asked me that night if + it had not happened at St. Johnswort, I know now that I had a wretched + triumph in saying that it had, and I was so full of this that I did not + think to caution you against repeating what I had owned.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said the girl, with her unsparing honesty, “if you had given me any + hint, I would not have told for the world. Of course I did not think--a + girl wouldn’t--of the effect it would have on the property.” + </p> + <p> + “No, you wouldn’t think of that,” said Hewson. Though he agreed with her, + he would have preferred that she should continue to blame herself; but he + took himself severely in hand again. “So, you see, the fault was + altogether mine, and if there is to be any penalty it ought to fall upon + me.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Miss Hernshaw, “and if there has been a fault there ought to + be a penalty, don’t you think? It would have been no penalty for me to buy + St. Johnswort. My father wouldn’t have minded it.” She blushed suddenly, + and added, “I don’t mean that--You may be so rich that--I think I had + better stop.” + </p> + <p> + “No, no!” said Hewson, amused, and glad of the relief. “Go on. I will tell + you anything you wish to know.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t wish, to know anything,” said Miss Hernshaw, haughtily. + </p> + <p> + Her words seemed to put an end to an interview for which there was no + longer any excuse. + </p> + <p> + Hewson rose. “Good-by,” he said, and he was rather surprised at her + putting out her hand, but he took it gratefully. “Will you make my adieux + to Mrs. Rock? And excuse my coming a second time to trouble you!” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t see how you could have helped coming,” said Miss Hernshaw, “when + you thought I might write to Mr. St. John at once.” + </p> + <p> + Whether this implied excuse or greater blame, Hewson had to go away with + it as her final response, and he went away certainly in as great + discomfort as he had come. He did not feel quite well used; it seemed to + him that hard measure had been dealt him on all sides, but especially by + Miss Hernshaw. After her futile effort at reparation to St. John she had + apparently withdrawn from all responsibility in the matter. He did not + know when he was to see her again, if ever, and he did not know what he + was to wait for, if anything. + </p> + <p> + Still he had the sense of waiting for something, or for some one, and he + went home to wait. There he perceived that it was for St. John, who did + not keep him waiting long. His nervous ring roused Hewson half an hour + after his return, and St. John came in with a look in his greedy eyes + which Hewson rightly interpreted at the first glance. + </p> + <p> + “See here, Hewson,” St. John said, with his habitual lack of manners. “I + don’t want to get you in for this thing at St. Johnswort. I know why you + offered to buy the place, and though of course you are the original cause + of the trouble, I don’t feel that it’s quite fair to let you shoulder the + consequences altogether.” + </p> + <p> + “Have I been complaining?” Hewson asked, dryly. + </p> + <p> + “No, and that’s just it. You’ve behaved like a little man through it all, + and I don’t like to take advantage of you. If you want to rue your + bargain, I’ll call it off. I’ve had some fresh light on the matter, and I + believe I can let you off without loss to myself. So that if it’s me + you’re considering--” + </p> + <p> + “What’s your fresh light?” asked Hewson. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said St. John, and he swallowed rather hard, as if it were a pill, + “the fact is, I’ve had another offer for the place.” + </p> + <p> + “A better one?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I don’t know that I can say that it is,” answered St. John, saving + his conscience in the form of the words. + </p> + <p> + Hewson knew that he was lying, and he had no mercy on him. “Then I believe + I’ll stick to my bargain. You say that the other party hasn’t bettered my + offer, and so I needn’t withdraw on your account. I’m not bound to + withdraw for any other reason.” + </p> + <p> + “No, of course not.” St. John rubbed his chin, as if hesitating to eat his + words, however unpalatable; but in the end he seemed not to find it + possible. “Well,” he said, disgustedly, as he floundered up to take his + leave, “I thought I ought to come and give you the chance.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s very nice of you,” said Hewson, with a smile that made itself a + derisive grin in spite of him, and a laugh of triumph when the door had + closed upon St. John. <br /> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h3> + XIII. + </h3> + <p> + After the first flush of Hewson’s triumph had passed he began to enjoy it + less, and by-and-by he did not enjoy it at all. He had done right not only + in keeping St. John from plundering Miss Hernshaw, but in standing firm + and taking the punishment which ought to fall upon him and not on her. But + the sense of having done right sufficed him no more than the sense of + having got the better of St. John. What was lacking to him? In the + casuistry of the moment, which was perhaps rather emotional than rational, + it appeared to Hewson that he had again a duty toward Miss Hernshaw, and + that his feeling of dissatisfaction was the first effect of its + non-fulfilment. But it was clearly impossible that he should go again to + see her, and tell her what had passed between him and St. John, and it was + clearly impossible that he should write and tell her what it was quite as + clearly her right to know from him. If he went to her, or wrote to her, he + felt himself in danger of wanting to shine in the affair, as her protector + against the rapacity of St. John, and as the man of superior quality who + had outwitted a greedy fellow. The fear that she might not admire his + splendor in either sort caused him to fall somewhat nervelessly back upon + Providence; but if the moral government of the universe finally favored + him it was not by traversing any of its own laws. By the time he had + determined to achieve both the impossibilities which formed his + dilemma--had decided to write to Miss Hernshaw and call upon her, and + leave his letter in the event of failing to find her--his problem was as + far solved as it might be, by the arrival of a note from Miss Hernshaw + herself, hoping that he would come to see her on business of pressing + importance. + </p> + <p> + She received him without any pretence of Mrs. Rock’s intermediary + presence, and put before him a letter which she had received, before + writing him, from St. John, and which she could not answer without first + submitting it to him. It was a sufficiently straightforward expression of + his regret that he could not accept her very generous offer for St. + Johnswort because the place was already sold. He had the taste to forbear + any allusion to the motives which (she told Hewson) she had said prompted + her offer; but then he became very darkling and sinuous in a suggestion + that if Miss Hernshaw wished to have her offer known as hers to the + purchaser of St. Johnswort he would be happy to notify him of it. + </p> + <p> + “You see,” she eagerly commented to Hewson, “he does not give your name; + but I know who it is, though I did not know when I made him my offer. I + must answer his letter now, and what shall I say? Shall I tell him I know + who it is? I should like to; I hate all concealments! Will it do any harm + to tell him I know?” + </p> + <p> + Hewson reflected. “I don’t see how it can. I was trying to come to you, + when I got your note, to say that St. John had been to see me, and offered + to release me from my offer, because, as I thought, you had made him a + better one. He’s amusingly rapacious, St. John is.” + </p> + <p> + “And what did you--I beg your pardon!” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, not at all. I said I would stand to my offer.” + </p> + <p> + She repressed, apparently, some form of protest, and presently asked, “And + what shall I say?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, if you like, that you have learned who the purchaser of St. Johnswort + is, and that you know he will not give way.” + </p> + <p> + “Well!” she said, with a quick sigh, as of disappointment. After an + indefinite pause, she asked, “Shall you be going to St. Johnswort?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, I don’t know,” Hewson answered. “I had thought of going to Europe. + But, yes, I think I shall go to St. Johnswort, first, at any rate. One + can’t simply turn one’s back on a piece of real estate in that way,” he + said, recognizing a fact that would doubtless have presented itself in due + order for his consideration. “My one notion was to forget it as quickly as + possible.” + </p> + <p> + “I should not think you would want to do that,” said the girl, seriously. + </p> + <p> + “No, one oughtn’t to neglect an investment.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t mean that. But if such a thing had happened to me, there, I + should want to go again and again.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean the apparition? Did I tell you how I had always had the + expectation that I should see it again, and perhaps understand it? But + when I had behaved so shabbily about it, I began to feel that it would not + come again.” + </p> + <p> + “If I were in your place,” said the girl, “I should never give up; I + should spend my whole life trying to find out what it meant.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah!” he sighed. “I wish you could put yourself in my place.” + </p> + <p> + “I wish I could,” she returned, intensely. + </p> + <p> + They looked into each other’s faces. + </p> + <p> + “Miss Hernshaw,” he demanded, solemnly, “do you really like people to say + what they think?” + </p> + <p> + “Of course I do!” + </p> + <p> + “Then I wish you would come to St. Johnswort with me!” + </p> + <p> + “Would that do?” she asked. “If Mrs. Rock--” + </p> + <p> + He saw how far she was from taking his meaning, but he pushed on. “I don’t + want Mrs. Rock. I want you--you alone. Don’t you understand me? I love + you. I--of course it’s ridiculous! We’ve only met three or four times in + our lives, but I knew this as well the first moment as I do now. I knew it + when you came walking across the garden that morning, and I haven’t known + it any better since, and I couldn’t in a thousand years. But of course--” + </p> + <p> + “Sit down,” she said, wafting herself into a chair, and he obeyed her. “I + should have to tell my father,” she began. + </p> + <p> + “Why, certainly,” and he sprang to his feet again. + </p> + <p> + She commanded him to his chair with an imperative gesture. “I have got to + find out what I think, first, myself. If I were sure that I loved you--but + I don’t know. I believe you are good. I believed that when they were all + joking you there at breakfast, and you took it so nicely; I have _always_ + believed that you were good.” + </p> + <p> + She seemed to be appealing to him for confirmation, but he could not very + well say that she was right, and he kept silent. “I didn’t like your + telling that story at the dinner, and I said so; and then I went and did + the same thing, or worse; so that I have nothing to say about that. And I + think you have behaved very nobly to Mr. St. John.” As if at some sign of + protest in Hewson, she insisted, “Yes, I do! But all this doesn’t prove + that I love you.” Again she seemed to appeal to him, and this time he + thought he might answer her appeal. + </p> + <p> + “I couldn’t prove that _I_ love _you_, but I feel sure of it.” + </p> + <p> + “And do you believe that we ought to take our feelings for a guide?” + </p> + <p> + “That’s what people do,” he ventured, with the glimmer of a smile in his + eyes, which she was fixing so earnestly with her own. + </p> + <p> + “I am not satisfied that it is the right way,” she answered. “If there is + really such a thing as love there ought to be some way of finding it out + besides our feelings. Don’t you think it’s a thing we ought to talk + sensibly about?” + </p> + <p> + “Of all things in the world; though it isn’t the custom.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Hernshaw was silent for a moment. Then she said, “I believe I should + like a little time.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I didn’t expect you to answer me at once,--I” + </p> + <p> + “But if you are going to Europe?” + </p> + <p> + “I needn’t go to Europe at all. I can go to St. Johnswort, and wait for + your answer there.” + </p> + <p> + “It might be a good while,” she urged. “I should want to tell my father + that I was thinking about it, and he would want to see you before he + approved.” + </p> + <p> + “Why, of course!” + </p> + <p> + “Not,” she added, “that it would make any difference, if I was sure of it + myself. He has always said that he would not try to control me in such a + matter, and I think he would like you. I do like you very much myself, Mr. + Hewson, but I don’t think it would be right to say I loved you unless I + could prove it.” + </p> + <p> + Hewson was tempted to say that she could prove it by marrying him, but he + had not the heart to mock a scruple which he felt to be sacred. What he + did say was: “Then I will wait till you can prove it. Do you wish me not + to see you again, before you have made up your mind?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know. I can’t see what harm there would be in our meeting.” “No, + I can’t, either,” said Hewson, as she seemed to refer the point to him. + “Should you mind my coming again, say, this evening?” + </p> + <p> + “To-night?” She reflected a moment. “Yes, come to-night.” + </p> + <p> + When he came after dinner, Hewson was sensible from the perfect + unconsciousness of Mrs. Rock’s manner that Miss Hernshaw had been telling + her. Her habit of a wandering eye, contributed to the effect she wished to + produce, if this were the effect, and her success was such that it might + easily have deceived herself. But when Mrs. Rock, in a supreme exercise of + her unconsciousness, left him with the girl for a brief interval before it + was time for him to go, Miss Hernshaw said, “Mrs. Rock knows about it, and + she says that the best way for me to find out will be to try whether I can + live without you.” + </p> + <p> + “Was that Mrs. Rock’s idea?” asked Hewson, as gravely as he could. + </p> + <p> + “No it was mine; I suggested it to her; but she approves of it. Don’t you + like it?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. I hope I sha’n’t die while you are trying to live without me. Shall + you be very long?” She frowned, and he hastened to say, “I do like your + idea; it’s the best way, and I thank you for giving me a chance.” + </p> + <p> + “We are going out to my father’s ranch in Colorado, at once,” she + explained. “We shall start to-morrow morning.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! May I come to see you off?” + </p> + <p> + “No, I would rather begin at once.” + </p> + <p> + “May I write to you?” + </p> + <p> + “I will write to you--when I’ve decided.” + </p> + <p> + She gave him her hand, but she would not allow him to keep it for more + than farewell, and then she made him stay till Mrs. Rock came back, and + take leave of her too; he had frankly forgotten Mrs. Rock, who bade him + adieu with averted eyes, and many civilities about seeing him again. She + could hardly have been said to be seeing him then. <br /> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h3> + XIV. + </h3> + <p> + The difficulties of domestication at St. Johnswort had not been + misrepresented by the late proprietor, Hewson found, when he went to take + possession of his estate. He thought it right in engaging servants to say + openly that the place had the reputation of being haunted, and if he had + not thought it right he would have thought it expedient, for he knew that + if he had concealed the fact it would have been discovered to them within + twenty-four hours of their arrival. His declaration was sufficient at once + with most, who recoiled from his service as if he had himself been a + ghost; with one or two sceptics who seemed willing to take the risks + (probably in a guilty consciousness of records that would have kept them + out of other employ) his confession that he had himself seen the spectre + which haunted St. Johnswort, was equally effective. He prevailed at last + against the fact and his own testimony with a Japanese, who could not be + made to understand the objection to the place, and who willingly went with + Hewson as his valet and general house-workman. With the wife of the + gardener coming in to cook for them during the long daylight, he got on in + as much comfort as he could have expected, and by night he suffered no + sort of disturbance from the apparition. He had expected to be annoyed by + believers in spiritualism, and other psychical inquirers, but it sufficed + with them to learn from him that he had come to regard his experience, of + which he had no more question now than ever, as purely subjective. + </p> + <p> + It seemed to Hewson, in the six weeks’ time which he spent at St. + Johnswort, waiting to hear from Rosalie (he had come already to think of + her as Rosalie), that all his life was subjective, it passed so like a + dream. He had some outward cares as to the place; he kept a horse in the + stable, where St. John had kept half a dozen, and he had the gardener look + after that as well as the shrubs and vegetables; but all went on in a + suspensive and provisional sort. In the mean time Rosalie’s charm grew + upon him; everything that she had said or looked, was hourly and daily + sweeter and dearer; her truth was intoxicating, beyond the lures of other + women, in which the quality of deceit had once fascinated him. Now, so + late in his youthful life, he realized that there was no beauty but that + of truth, and he pledged himself a thousand times that if she should say + she could not live without him he would henceforward live for truth alone, + and not for the truth merely as it was in her, but as it was in + everything. In those day’s he learned to know himself, as he never had + before, and to put off a certain shell of worldliness that had grown upon + him. In his remoteness from it, New York became very distasteful to him; + he thought with reluctance of going back to it; his club, which had been + his home, now appeared a joyless exile; the life of a leisure class, which + he had made his ideal, looked pitifully mean and little in the retrospect; + he wondered how he could have valued the things that he had once thought + worthy. He did not know what he should replace it all with, but Rosalie + would know, in the event of not being able to live without him. In that + event there was hardly any use of which he could not be capable. In any + other event--he surprised himself by realizing that in any other + event--still the universe had somehow more meaning than it once had. + Somehow, he felt himself an emancipated man. + </p> + <p> + He began many letters to Rosalie, and some he finished and some not, but + he sent none; and when her letter came at last, he was glad that he had + waited for it in implicit trust of its coming, though he believed she + would have forgiven him if he had not had the patience. The letter was + quite what he could have imagined of her. She said that she had put + herself thoroughly to the test, and she could not live without him. But if + he had found out that he could live without her, then she should know that + she had been to blame, and would take her punishment. Apparently in her + philosophy, which now seemed to him so divine, without punishment there + must be perdition; it was the penalty that redeemed; that was the token of + forgiveness. + </p> + <p> + Hewson hurried out to Colorado, where he found Hernshaw a stout, silent, + impersonal man, whose notion of the paternal office seemed to be a ready + acquiescence in a daughter’s choice of a husband; he appeared to think + this could be best expressed to Hewson in a good cigar He perceptibly + enjoyed the business details of the affair, but he enjoyed despatching + them in the least possible time and the fewest words, and then he settled + down to the pleasure of a superficial passivity. Hewson could not make out + that he regarded his daughter as at all an unusual girl, and from this he + argued that her mother must have been a very unusual woman. His only + reason for doubting that Rosalie must have got all her originality from + her mother was something that fell from Hernshaw when they were near the + end of their cigars. He said irrelevantly to their talk at that point, “I + suppose you know Rosalie believes in that ghost of yours?” + </p> + <p> + “Was it a ghost?--I’ve never been sure, myself,” said Hewson. + </p> + <p> + “How do you explain it?” asked his prospective father-in-law. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t explain it. I have always left it just as it was. I know that it + was a real experience.” + </p> + <p> + “I think I should have left it so, too,” said Hernshaw. “That always gives + it a chance to explain itself. If such a thing had happened to me I should + give it all the time it wanted.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I haven’t hurried it,” Hewson suggested. + </p> + <p> + “What I mean,” and Hernshaw stepped to the edge of the porch and threw the + butt of his cigar into the darkness, where it described a glimmering arc, + “is that if anything came to me that would help shore up my professed + faith in what most of us want to believe in, I would take the common-law + view of it. I would believe it was innocent till it proved itself guilty. + I wouldn’t try to make it out a fraud myself.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m afraid that’s what I’ve really done,” said Hewson. “But before people + I’ve put up a bluff of despising it.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes, I understand that,” said + Hernshaw. “A man thinks that if he can have an experience like that he + must be something out of the common, and if he can despise it--” + </p> + <p> + “You’ve hit my case exactly,” said Hewson, and the two men laughed. <br /> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h3> + XV. + </h3> + <p> + After his marriage, which took place without needless delay, Hewson + returned with his wife to spend their honey-moon at St. Johnswort. The + honey-moon prolonged itself during an entire year, and in this time they + contrived so far to live down its reputation of being a haunted house that + they were able to conduct their _ménage_ on the ordinary terms. They + themselves never wished to lose the sense of something supernatural in the + place, and were never quite able to accept the actual conditions as final. + That is to say, Rosalie was not, for she had taken Hewson’s apparition + under her peculiar care, and defended it against even his question. She + had a feeling (it was scarcely a conviction) that if he believed more + strenuously in the validity of his apparition as an authorized messenger + from the unseen world it would yet come again and declare its errand. She + could not accept the theory that if such a thing actually happened it + could happen for nothing at all, or that the reason of its occurrence + could be indefinitely postponed. She was impatient of that, as often as he + urged the possibility, and she wished him to use a seriousness of mind in + speaking of his apparition which should form some sort of atonement to it + for his past levity, though since she had taken his apparition into her + keeping he had scarcely hazarded any suggestion concerning it; in fact it + had become so much her apparition that he had a fantastic reluctance from + meddling with it. + </p> + <p> + “You are always requiring a great occasion for it,” he said, at last. + “What greater event could it have foreshadowed or foreshown, than that + which actually came to pass?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t understand you, Arthur,” she said, letting her hand creep into + his, where it trembled provisionally as they sat together in the twilight. + </p> + <p> + “Why, that was the day I first saw you.” + </p> + <p> + “Now, you are laughing!” she said, pulling her hand away. + </p> + <p> + “Indeed, I’m not! I couldn’t imagine anything more important than the + union of our lives. And if that was what the apparition meant to portend + it could not have intimated it by a more noble and impressive behavior. + Simply to be there, and then to be gone, and leave the rest to us! It was + majestic, it was--delicate!” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, it was. But it was too much, for it was out of proportion. A mere + earthly love-affair--” “Is it merely for earth?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, husband, I hope you don’t think so! I wanted you to say you didn’t. + And if you don’t think so, yes, I’ll believe it came for that!” + </p> + <p> + “You may be sure I don’t think so.” + </p> + <p> + “Then I know it will come again.” <br /> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <h2> + <a name="al" id="al">THE ANGEL OF THE LORD.</a> + </h2> + <h3> + I. + </h3> + <p> + “All that sort of personification,” said Wanhope, “is far less remarkable + than the depersonification which has now taken place so thoroughly that we + no longer think in the old terms at all. It was natural that the primitive + peoples should figure the passions, conditions, virtues, vices, forces, + qualities, in some sort of corporal shape, with each a propensity or + impulse of its own, but it does not seem to me so natural that the + derivative peoples should cease to do so. It is rational that they should + do so, and I don’t know that any stronger proof of our intellectual + advance could be alleged than the fact that the old personifications + survive in the parlance while they are quite extinct in the consciousness. + We still talk of death at times as if it were an embodied force of some + kind, and of love in the same way; but I don’t believe that any man of the + commonest common-school education thinks of them so. If you try to do it + yourself, you are rather ashamed of the puerility, and when a painter or a + sculptor puts them in an objective shape, you follow him with impatience, + almost with contempt.” + </p> + <p> + “How about the poets?” asked Minver, less with the notion, perhaps, of + refuting the psychologist than of bringing the literary member of our + little group under the disgrace that had fallen upon him as an artist. + </p> + <p> + “The poets,” said I, “are as extinct as the personifications.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s very handsome of you, Acton,” said the artist. “But go on, + Wanhope.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, get down to business,” said Rulledge. Being of no employ whatever, + and spending his whole life at the club in an extraordinary idleness, + Rulledge was always using the most strenuous expressions, and requiring + everybody to be practical. He leaned directly forward with the difficulty + that a man of his girth has in such a movement, and vigorously broke off + the ash of his cigar against the edge of his saucer. We had been dining + together, and had been served with coffee in the Turkish room, as it was + called from its cushions and hangings of Indian and Egyptian stuffs. “What + is the instance you’ve got up your sleeve?” He smoked with great energy, + and cast his eyes alertly about as if to make sure that there was no + chance of Wanhope’s physically escaping him, from the corner of the divan, + where he sat pretty well hemmed in by the rest of us, spreading in an + irregular circle before him. + </p> + <p> + “You unscientific people are always wanting an instance, as if an instance + were convincing. An instance is only suggestive; a thousand instances, if + you please, are convincing,” said the psychologist. “But I don’t know that + I wish to be convincing. I would rather be enquiring. That is much more + interesting, and, perhaps, profitable.” + </p> + <p> + “All the same,” Minver persisted, apparently in behalf of Rulledge, but + with an after-grudge of his own, “you’ll allow that you were thinking of + something in particular when you began with that generalization about the + lost art of personifying?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, that is very curious,” said the psychologist. “We talk of + generalizing, but is there any such thing? Aren’t we always striving from + one concrete to another, and isn’t what we call generalizing merely a + process of finding our way?” + </p> + <p> + “I see what you mean,” said the artist, expressing in that familiar + formula the state of the man who hopes to know what the other man means. + </p> + <p> + “That’s what I say,” Rulledge put in. “You’ve got something up your + sleeve. What is it?” + </p> + <p> + Wanhope struck the little bell on the table before him, but, without + waiting for a response, he intercepted a waiter who was passing with a + coffee-pot, and asked, “Oh, couldn’t you give me some of that?” + </p> + <p> + The man filled his cup for him, and after Wanhope put in the sugar and + lifted it to his lips, Rulledge said, with his impetuous business air, + “It’s easy to see what Wanhope does his high thinking on.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” the psychologist admitted, “coffee is an inspiration. But you can + overdo an inspiration. It would be interesting to know whether there + hasn’t been a change in the quality of thought since the use of such + stimulants came in--whether it hasn’t been subtilized--” + </p> + <p> + “Was that what you were going to say?” demanded Rulledge, relentlessly. + “Come, we’ve got no time to throw away!” + </p> + <p> + Everybody laughed. + </p> + <p> + “_You_ haven’t, anyway,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “Well, none of his own,” Minver admitted for the idler. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose you mean I have thrown it all away. Well, I don’t want to throw + away other peoples’. Go on, Wanhope.” <br /> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h3> + II. + </h3> + <p> + The psychologist set his cup down and resumed his cigar, which he had to + pull at pretty strongly before it revived. “I should not be surprised,” he + began, “if a good deal of the fear of death had arisen, and perpetuated + itself in the race, from the early personification of dissolution as an + enemy of a certain dreadful aspect, armed and threatening. That conception + wouldn’t have been found in men’s minds at first; it would have been the + result of later crude meditation upon the fact. But it would have remained + through all the imaginative ages, and the notion might have been + intensified in the more delicate temperaments as time went on, and by the + play of heredity it might come down to our own day in certain instances + with a force scarcely impaired by the lapse of incalculable time.” + </p> + <p> + “You said just now,” said Rulledge, in rueful reproach, “that + personification had gone out.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, it has. I did say that, and yet I suppose that though such a notion + of death, say, no longer survives in the consciousness, it does survive in + the unconsciousness, and that any vivid accident or illusory suggestion + would have force to bring it to the surface.” + </p> + <p> + “I wish I knew what you were driving at,” said Rulledge. + </p> + <p> + “You remember Ormond, don’t you?” asked Wanhope, turning suddenly to me. + </p> + <p> + “Perfectly,” I said. “I--he isn’t living, is he?” + </p> + <p> + “No; he died two years ago.” + </p> + <p> + “I thought so,” I said, with the relief that one feels in not having put a + fellow-creature out of life, even conditionally. + </p> + <p> + “You knew Mrs. Ormond, too, I believe,” the psychologist pursued. + </p> + <p> + I owned that I used to go to the Ormonds’ house. + </p> + <p> + “Then you know what a type she was, I suppose,” he turned to the others, + “and as they’re both dead it’s no contravention of the club etiquette + against talking of women, to speak of her. I can’t very well give the + instance--the sign--that Rulledge is seeking without speaking of her, + unless I use a great deal of circumlocution.” We all urged him to go on, + and he went on. “I had the facts I’m going to give, from Mrs. Ormond. You + know that the Ormonds left New York a couple of years ago?” + </p> + <p> + He happened to look at Minver as he spoke, and Minver answered: “No; I + must confess that I didn’t even know they had left the planet.” + </p> + <p> + Wanhope ignored his irrelevant ignorance. “They went to live provisionally + at a place up the Housatonic road, somewhere--perhaps Canaan; but it + doesn’t matter. Ormond had been suffering some time with an obscure + affection of the heart--” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, come now!” said Rulledge. “You’re not going to spring anything so pat + as heart-disease on us?” + </p> + <p> + “Acton is all ears,” said Minver, nodding toward me. “He hears the weird + note afar.” + </p> + <p> + The psychologist smiled. “I’m afraid you’re not interested. I’m not much + interested myself in these unrelated instances.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no!” “Don’t!” “Do go on!” the different entreaties came, and after a + little time taken to recover his lost equanimity, Wanhope went on: “I + don’t know whether you knew that Ormond had rather a peculiar dread of + death.” We none of us could affirm that we did, and again Wanhope resumed: + “I shouldn’t say that he was a coward above other men I believe he was + rather below the average in cowardice. But the thought of death weighed + upon him. You find this much more commonly among the Russians, if we are + to believe their novelists, than among Americans. He might have been a + character out of one of Tourguénief’s books, the idea of death was so + constantly present with him. He once told me that the fear of it was a + part of his earliest consciousness, before the time when he could have had + any intellectual conception of it. It seemed to be something like the + projection of an alien horror into his life--a prenatal influence--” + </p> + <p> + “Jove!” Rulledge broke in. “I don’t see how the women stand it. To look + forward nearly a whole year to death as the possible end of all they’re + hoping for and suffering for! Talk of men’s courage after that! I wonder + we’re not _all_ marked.’ + </p> + <p> + “I never heard of anything of the kind in Ormond’s history,” said Wanhope, + tolerant of the incursion. + </p> + <p> + Minver took his cigar out to ask, the more impressively, perhaps, “What do + you fellows make of the terror that a two months’ babe starts in its sleep + with before it can have any notion of what fear is on its own hook?” + </p> + <p> + “We don’t make anything of it,” the psychologist answered. “Perhaps the + pathologists do.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, it’s easy enough to say wind,” Rulledge indignantly protested. + </p> + <p> + “Too easy, I agree with you,” Wanhope consented. “We cannot tell what + influences reach us from our environment, or what our environment really + is, or how much or little we mean by the word. The sense of danger seems + to be inborn, and possibly it is a survival of our race life when it was + wholly animal and took care of itself through what we used to call the + instincts. But, as I was saying, it was not danger that Ormond seemed to + be afraid of, if it came short of death. He was almost abnormally + indifferent to pain. I knew of his undergoing an operation that most + people would take ether for, and not wincing, because it was not supposed + to involve a fatal result. + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps he carried his own anodyne with him,” said Minver, “like the + Chinese.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean a sort of self-anaesthesia?” Wanhope asked. “That is very + interesting. How far such a principle, if there is one, can be carried in + practice. The hypnotists--” + </p> + <p> + “I’m afraid I didn’t mean anything so serious or scientific,” said the + painter. + </p> + <p> + “Then don’t switch Wanhope off on a side track,” Rulledge implored. “You + know how hard it is to keep him on the main line. He’s got a mind that + splays all over the place if you give him the least chance. Now, Wanhope, + come down to business.” + </p> + <p> + Wanhope laughed amiably. “Why, there’s so very little of the business. I’m + not sure that it wasn’t Mrs. Ormond’s attitude toward the fact that + interested me most. It was nothing short of devout. She was a convert. She + believed he really saw--I suppose,” he turned to me, “there’s no harm in + our recognizing now that they didn’t always get on smoothly together?” + </p> + <p> + “Did they ever?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes--oh, yes,” said the psychologist, kindly. “They were very fond of + each other, and often very peaceful.” + </p> + <p> + “I never happened to be by,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “Used to fight like cats and dogs,” said Minver. “And they didn’t seem to + mind people. It was very swell, in a way, their indifference, and it did + help to take away a fellow’s embarrassment.” + </p> + <p> + “That seemed to come mostly to an end that summer,” said Wanhope, “if you + could believe Mrs. Ormond.” + </p> + <p> + “You probably couldn’t,” the painter put in. + </p> + <p> + “At any rate she seemed to worship his memory.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes; she hadn’t him there to claw.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, she was quite frank about it with me,” the psychologist pursued. + “She admitted that they had always quarreled a good deal. She seemed to + think it was a token of their perfect unity. It was as if they were each + quarreling with themselves, she said. I’m not sure that there wasn’t + something in the notion. There is no doubt but that they were tremendously + in love with each other, and there is something curious in the bickerings + of married people if they are in love. It’s one way of having no + concealments; it’s perfect confidence of a kind--” + </p> + <p> + “Or unkind,” Minver suggested. + </p> + <p> + “What has all that got to do with it!” Rulledge demanded. + </p> + <p> + “Nothing directly,” Wanhope confessed, “and I’m not sure that it has much + to do indirectly. Still, it has a certain atmospheric relation. It is very + remarkable how thoughts connect themselves with one another. It’s a sort + of wireless telegraphy. They do not touch at all; there is apparently no + manner of tie between them, but they communicate--” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Lord!” Rulledge fumed. + </p> + <p> + Wanhope looked at him with a smiling concern, such as a physician might + feel in the symptoms of a peculiar case. “I wonder,” he said absently, + “how much of our impatience with a fact delayed is a survival of the + childhood of the race, and how far it is the effect of conditions in which + possession is the ideal!” + </p> + <p> + Rulledge pushed back his chair, and walked away in dudgeon. “I’m a busy + man myself. When you’ve got anything to say you can send for me.” + </p> + <p> + Minver ran after him, as no doubt he meant some one should. “Oh, come + back! He’s just going to begin;” and when Rulledge, after some pouting, + had been _pushed down into his chair again,_ Wanhope went on, with a + glance of scientific pleasure at him. <br /> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h3> + III. + </h3> + <p> + “The house they had taken was rather a lonely place, out of sight of + neighbors, which they had got cheap because it was so isolated and + inconvenient, I fancy. Of course Mrs. Ormond, with her exaggeration, + represented it as a sort of solitude which nobody but tramps of the most + dangerous description ever visited. As she said, she never went to sleep + without expecting to wake up murdered in her bed.” + </p> + <p> + “Like her,” said Minver, with a glance at me full of relish for the touch + of character which I would feel with him. + </p> + <p> + “She said,” Wanhope went on, “that she was anxious from the first for the + effect upon Ormond. In the stress of any danger, she gave me to + understand, he always behaved very well, but out of its immediate presence + he was full of all sorts of gloomy apprehensions, unless the surroundings + were cheerful. She could not imagine how he came to take the place, but + when she told him so--” + </p> + <p> + “I’ve no doubt she told him so pretty promptly,” the painter grinned. + </p> + <p> + “--he explained that he had seen it on a brilliant day in spring, when all + the trees were in bloom, and the bees humming in the blossoms, and the + orioles singing, and the outlook from the lawn down over the river valley + was at its best. He had fallen in love with the place, that was the truth, + and he was so wildly in love with it all through that he could not feel + the defect she did in it. He used to go gaily about the wide, harking old + house at night, shutting it up, and singing or whistling while she sat + quaking at the notion of their loneliness and their absolute + helplessness--an invalid and a little woman--in case anything happened. + She wanted him to get the man who did the odd jobs about the house, to + sleep there, but he laughed at her, and they kept on with their usual town + equipment of two serving-women. She could not account for his spirits, + which were usually so low when they were alone--” + </p> + <p> + “And not fighting,” Minver suggested to me. + </p> + <p> + “--and when she asked him what the matter was he could not account for + them, either. But he said, one day, that the fear of death seemed to be + lifted from his soul, and that made her shudder.” + </p> + <p> + Rulledge fetched a long sigh, and Minver interpreted, “Beginning to feel + that it’s something like now.” + </p> + <p> + “He said that for the first time within his memory he was rid of that + nether consciousness of mortality which had haunted his whole life, and + poisoned, more or less, all his pleasure in living. He had got a reprieve, + or a respite, and he felt like a boy--another kind of boy from what he had + ever been. He was full of all sorts of brilliant hopes and plans. He had + visions of success in business beyond anything he had known, and talked of + buying the place he had taken, and getting a summer colony of friends + about them. He meant to cut the property up, and make the right kind of + people inducements. His world seemed to have been emptied of all trouble + as well as all mortal danger.” + </p> + <p> + “Haven’t you psychologists some message about a condition like that!” I + asked. + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps it’s only the pathologists again,” said Minver. + </p> + <p> + “The alienists, rather more specifically,” said Wanhope. “They recognize + it as one of the beginnings of insanit--_folie des grandeurs_ as the + French call the stage.” + </p> + <p> + “Is it necessarily that?” Rulledge demanded, with a resentment which we + felt so droll in him that we laughed. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know that it is,” said Wanhope. “I don’t know why we shouldn’t + sometimes, in the absence of proofs to the contrary, give such a fact the + chance to evince a spiritual import. Of course it had no other import to + poor Mrs. Ormond, and of course I didn’t dream of suggesting a scientific + significance.” + </p> + <p> + “I should think not!” Rulledge puffed. + </p> + <p> + Wanhope went on: “I don’t think I should have dared to do so to a woman in + her exaltation concerning it. I could see that however his state had + affected her with dread or discomfort in the first place, it had since + come to be her supreme hope and consolation. In view of what afterward + happened, she regarded it as the effect of a mystical intimation from + another world that was sacred, and could not he considered like an + ordinary fact without sacrilege. There was something very pathetic in her + absolute conviction that Ormond’s happiness was an emanation from the + source of all happiness, such as sometimes, where the consciousness + persists, comes to a death-bed. That the dying are not afraid of dying is + a fact of such common, such almost invariable observation--” + </p> + <p> + “You mean,” I interposed, “when the vital forces are beaten so low that + the natural dread of ceasing to be, has no play? It has less play, I’ve + noticed, in age than in youth, but for the same reason that it has when + people are weakened by sickness.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah,” said Wanhope, “that comparative indifference to death in the old, to + whom it is so much nearer than it is to the young, is very suggestive. + There may be something in what you say; they may not care so much because + they have no longer the strength--the muscular strength--for caring. They + are too tired to care as they used. There is a whole region of most + important inquiry in that direction--” + </p> + <p> + “Did you mean to have him take that direction?” Rulledge asked, sulkily. + </p> + <p> + “He can take any direction for me,” I said. “He is always delightful.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, thank you!” said Wanhope. + </p> + <p> + “But I confess,” I went on, “that I was wondering whether the fact that + the dying are indifferent to death could be established in the case of + those who die in the flush of health and strength, like, for instance, + people who are put to death.” + </p> + <p> + Wanhope smiled. “I think it can--measurably. Most murderers make a good + end, as the saying used to be, when they end on the scaffold, though they + are not supported by religious fervor of any kind, or the exaltation of a + high ideal. They go meekly and even cheerfully to their death, without + rebellion or even objection. It is most exceptional that they make a fight + for their lives, as that woman did a few years ago at Dannemora, and + disgusted all refined people with capital punishment.” + </p> + <p> + “I wish they would make a fight always,” said Rulledge, with unexpected + feeling. “It would do more than anything to put an end to that barbarity.” + </p> + <p> + “It would be very interesting, as Wanhope says,” Minver remarked. “But + aren’t we getting rather far away? From the Ormonds, I mean.” + </p> + <p> + “We are, rather,” said Wanhope. “Though I agree that it would be + interesting. I should rather like to have it tried. You know Frederick + Douglass acted upon some such principle when his master attempted to whip + him. He fought, and he had a theory that if the slave had always fought + there would soon have been an end of whipping, and so an end of slavery. + But probably it will be a good while before criminals are--” + </p> + <p> + “Educated up to the idea,” Minver proposed. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” Wanhope absently acquiesced. “There seems to be a resignation + intimated to the parting soul, whether in sickness or in health, by the + mere proximity of death. In Ormond’s case there seems to have been + something more positive. His wife says that in the beginning of those days + he used to come to her and wonder what could be the matter with him. He + had a joy he could not account for by anything in their lives, and it made + her tremble.” + </p> + <p> + “Probably it didn’t. I don’t think there was anything that could make Mrs. + Ormond tremble, unless it was the chance that Ormond would get the last + word,” said Minver. + </p> + <p> + No one minded him, and Wanhope continued: “Of course she thought he must + be going to have a fit of sickness, as the people say in the country, or + used to say. Those expressions often survive in the common parlance long + after the peculiar mental and moral conditions in which they originated + have passed away. They must once have been more accurate than they are + now. When one said ‘fit of sickness’ one must have meant something + specific; it would be interesting to know what. Women use those + expressions longer than men; they seem to be inveterate in their nerves; + and women apparently do their thinking in their nerves rather than their + brains.” <br /> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h3> + IV. + </h3> + <p> + Wanhope had that distant look in his eyes which warned his familiars of a + possible excursion, and I said, in the hope of keeping him from it, “Then + isn’t there a turn of phrase somewhat analogous to that in a + personification?” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, yes--a personification,” he repeated with a freshness of interest, + which he presently accounted for. “The place they had taken was very + completely furnished. They got it fully equipped, even to linen and + silver; but what was more important to poor Ormond was the library, very + rich in the English classics, which appeared to go with the house. The + owner was a girl who married and lived abroad, and these were her father’s + books. Mrs. Ormond said that her husband had the greatest pleasure in + them: their print, which was good and black, and their paper, which was + thin and yellowish, and their binding, which was tree calf in the poets, + he specially liked. They were English editions as well as English + classics, and she said he caressed the books, as he read them, with that + touch which the book-lover has; he put his face into them, and inhaled + their odor as if it were the bouquet of wine; he wanted her to like it, + too.” + </p> + <p> + “Then she hated it,” Minver said, unrelentingly. + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps not, if there was nobody else there,” I urged. + </p> + <p> + For once Wanhope was not to be tempted off on another scent. “There was a + good deal of old-fashioned fiction of the suspiratory and exclamatory + sort, like Mackenzie’s, and Sterne’s and his followers, full of feeling, + as people understood feeling a hundred years ago. But what Ormond rejoiced + in most were the poets, good and bad, like Gray and Collins and Young, and + their contemporaries, who personified nearly everything from Contemplation + to Indigestion, through the whole range of the Vices, Virtues, Passions, + Propensities, Attributes, and Qualities, and gave them each a dignified + capital letter to wear. She said he used to come roaring to her with the + passages in which these personifications flourished, and read them off + with mock admiration, and then shriek and sputter with laughter. You know + the way he had when a thing pleased him, especially a thing that had some + relish of the quaint or rococo. As nearly as she would admit, in view of + his loss, he bored her with these things. He was always hunting down some + new personification, and when he had got it, adding it to the list he + kept. She said he had thousands of them, but I suppose he had not so many. + He had enough, though, to keep him amused, and she said he talked of + writing something for the magazines about them, but probably he never + would have done it. He never wrote anything, did he?” Wanhope asked of me. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no. He was far too literary for _that_,” I answered. “He had a + reputation to lose.” + </p> + <p> + “Pretty good,” said Minver, “even if Ormond _is_ dead.” + </p> + <p> + Wanhope ignored us both. “After awhile, his wife said, she began to notice + a certain change in his attitude toward the personifications. She noticed + this, always expecting that fit of sickness for him; but she was not so + much troubled by his returning seriousness. Oh, I ought to tell you that + when she first began to be anxious for him she privately wrote home to + their family doctor, telling him how strangely happy Ormond was, and + asking him if he could advise anything. He wrote back that if Ormond was + so very happy they had better not do anything to cure him; that the + disease was not infectious, and was seldom fatal.” + </p> + <p> + “What an ass!” said Rulledge. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I think he was, in this instance. But probably he had been consulted + a good deal by Mrs. Ormond,” said Wanhope. “The change that began to set + her mind at rest about Ormond was his taking the personifications more + seriously. Why, he began to ask, but always with a certain measure of joke + in it, why shouldn’t there be something _in_ the personifications? Why + shouldn’t Morn and Eve come corporeally walking up their lawn, with little + or no clothes on, or Despair be sitting in their woods with her hair over + her face, or Famine coming gauntly up to their back door for a hand-out? + Why shouldn’t they any day see pop-eyed Rapture passing on the trolley, or + Meditation letting the car she intended to take go by without stepping + lively enough to get on board? He pretended that we could have the + personifications back again, if we were not so conventional in our + conceptions of them. He wanted to know what reason there was for + representing Life as a very radiant and bounding party, when Life usually + neither shone nor bounded; and why Death should be figured as an enemy + with a dart, when it was so often the only friend a man had left, and had + the habit of binding up wounds rather than inflicting them. The + personifications were all right, he said, but the poets and painters did + not know how they really looked. By the way,” Wanhope broke off, “did you + happen to see Hauptmann’s ‘Hånnele’ when it was here?” + </p> + <p> + None of us had, and we waited rather restively for the passing of the + musing fit which he fell into. After a while he resumed at a point whose + relation to the matter in hand we could trace: + </p> + <p> + “It was extremely interesting for all reasons, by its absolute + fearlessness and freshness in regions where there has been nothing but + timid convention for a long time; but what I was thinking of was the + personification of Death as it appears there. The poor little dying + pauper, lying in her dream at the almshouse, sees the figure of Death. It + is not the skeleton with the dart, or the phantom with the shrouded face, + but a tall, beautiful young man,--as beautiful as they could get into the + cast, at any rate,--clothed in simple black, and standing with his back + against the mantlepiece, with his hands resting on the hilt of a long, + two-handed sword. He is so quiet that you do not see him until some time + after the child has seen him. When she begins to question him whether she + may not somehow get to heaven without dying, he answers with a sort of + sorrowful tenderness, a very sweet and noble compassion, but unsparingly + as to his mission. It is a singular moment of pure poetry that makes the + heart ache, but does not crush or terrify the spirit.” + </p> + <p> + “And what has it got to do with Ormond?” asked Rulledge, but with less + impatience than usual. + </p> + <p> + “Why, nothing, I’m afraid, that I can make out very clearly. And yet there + is an obscure connection with Ormond, or his vision, if it was a vision. + Mrs. Ormond could not be very definite about what he saw, perhaps because + even at the last moment he was not definite himself. What she was clear + about, was the fact that his mood, though it became more serious, by no + means became sadder. It became a sort of solemn joy instead of the light + gaiety it had begun by being. She was no sort of scientific observer, and + yet the keenness of her affection made her as closely observant of Ormond + as if she had been studying him psychologically. Sometimes the light in + his room would wake her at night, and she would go to him, and find him + lying with a book faced down on his breast, as if he had been reading, and + his fingers interlaced under his head, and a kind of radiant peace in his + face. The poor thing said that when she would ask him what the matter was, + he would say, ‘Nothing; just happiness,’ and when she would ask him if he + did not think he ought to do something, he would laugh, and say perhaps it + would go off of itself. But it did not go off; the unnatural buoyancy + continued after he became perfectly tranquil. ‘I don’t know,’ he would + say. ‘I seem to have got to the end of my troubles. I haven’t a care in + the world, Jenny. I don’t believe you could get a rise out of me if you + said the nastiest thing you could think of. It sounds like nonsense, of + course, but it seems to me that I have found out the reason of things, + though I don’t know what it is. Maybe I’ve only found out that there _is_ + a reason of things. That would be enough, wouldn’t it?’” <br /> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h3> + V. + </h3> + <p> + At this point Wanhope hesitated with a kind of diffidence that was rather + charming in him. “I don’t see,” he said, “just how I can keep the facts + from this on out of the line of facts which we are not in the habit of + respecting very much, or that we relegate to the company of things that + are not facts at all. I suppose that in stating them I shall somehow make + myself responsible for them, but that is just what I don’t want to do. I + don’t want to do anything more than give them as they were given to me.” + </p> + <p> + “You won’t be able to give them half as fully,” said Minver, “if Mrs. + Ormond gave them to you.” + </p> + <p> + “No,” Wanhope said gravely, “and that’s the pity of it; for they ought to + be given as fully as possible.” + </p> + <p> + “Go ahead,” Rulledge commanded, “and do the best you can.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m not sure,” + the psychologist thoughtfully said, “that I am quite satisfied to call + Ormond’s experiences hallucinations. There ought to be some other word + that doesn’t accuse his sanity in that degree. For he apparently didn’t + show any other signs of an unsound mind.” + </p> + <p> + “None that Mrs. Ormond would call so,” Minver suggested. + </p> + <p> + “Well, in his case, I don’t think she was such a bad judge,” Wanhope + returned. “She was a tolerably unbalanced person herself, but she wasn’t + altogether disqualified for observing him, as I’ve said before. They had a + pretty hot summer, as the summer is apt to be in the Housatonic valley, + but when it got along into September the weather was divine, and they + spent nearly the whole time out of doors, driving over the hills. They got + an old horse from a native, and they hunted out a rickety buggy from the + carriage-house, and they went wherever the road led. They went mostly at a + walk, and that suited the horse exactly, as well as Mrs. Ormond, who had + no faith in Ormond’s driving, and wanted to go at a pace that would give + her a chance to jump out safely if anything happened. They put their hats + in the front of the buggy, and went about in their bare heads. The country + people got used to them, and were not scandalized by their appearance, + though they were both getting a little gray, and must have looked as if + they were old enough to know better. + </p> + <p> + “They were not really old, as age goes nowadays: he was not more than + forty-two or -three, and she was still in the late thirties. In fact, they + were + </p> + <p> + Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita-- + </p> + <p> + in that hour when life, and the conceit of life, is strongest, and when it + feels as if it might go on forever. Women are not very articulate about + such things, and it was probably Ormond who put their feeling into words, + though she recognized at once that it was her feeling, and shrank from it + as if it were something wicked, that they would be punished for; so that + one day, when he said suddenly, ‘Jenny, I don’t feel as if I could ever + die,’ she scolded him for it. Poor women!” said Wanhope, musingly, “they + are not always cross when they scold. It is often the expression of their + anxieties, their forebodings, their sex-timidities. They are always in + double the danger that men are, and their nerves double that danger again. + Who was that famous _salonnière_--Mme. Geoffrin, was it?--that Marmontel + says always scolded her friends when they were in trouble, and came and + scolded him when he was put into the Bastille? I suppose Mrs. Ormond was + never so tender of Ormond as she was when she took it out of him for + suggesting what she wildly felt herself, and felt she should pay for + feeling.” + </p> + <p> + Wanhope had the effect of appealing to Minver, but the painter would not + relent. “I don’t know. I’ve seen her--or heard her--in very devoted + moments.” + </p> + <p> + “At any rate,” Wanhope resumed, “she says she scolded him, and it did not + do the least good. She could not scold him out of that feeling, which was + all mixed up in her retrospect with the sense of the weather and the + season, the leaves just beginning to show the autumn, the wild asters + coming to crowd the goldenrod, the crickets shrill in the grass, and the + birds silent in the trees, the smell of the rowan in the meadows, and the + odor of the old logs and fresh chips in the woods. She was not a woman to + notice such things much, but he talked of them all and made her notice + them. His nature took hold upon what we call nature, and clung fondly to + the lowly and familiar aspects of it. Once she said to him, trembling for + him, ‘I should think you would be afraid to take such a pleasure in those + things,’ and when he asked her why, she couldn’t or wouldn’t tell him; but + he understood, and he said: ‘I’ve never realized before that I was so much + a part of them. Either I am going to have them forever, or they are going + to have me. We shall not part, for we are all members of the same body. If + it is the body of death, we are members of that. If it is the body of + life, we are members of that. Either I have never lived, or else I am + never going to die.’ She said: ‘Of course you are never going to die; a + spirit can’t die.’ But he told her he didn’t mean that. He was just as + radiantly happy when they would get home from one of their drives, and sit + down to their supper, which they had country-fashion instead of dinner, + and then when they would turn into their big, lamplit parlor, and sit down + for a long evening with his books. Sometimes he read to her as she sewed, + but he read mostly to himself, and he said he hadn’t had such a bath of + poetry since he was a boy. Sometimes in the splendid nights, which were so + clear that you could catch the silver glint of the gossamers in the thin + air, he would go out and walk up and down the long veranda. Once, when he + coaxed her out with him, he took her under the arm and walked her up and + down, and he said: ‘Isn’t it like a ship? The earth is like a ship, and + we’re sailing, sailing! Oh, I wonder where!’ Then he stopped with a sob, + and she was startled, and asked him what the matter was, but he couldn’t + tell her. She was more frightened than ever at what seemed a break in his + happiness. She was troubled about his reading the Bible so much, + especially the Old Testament; but he told her he had never known before + what majestic literature it was. There were some turns or phrases in it + that peculiarly took his fancy and seemed to feed it with inexhaustible + suggestion. ‘The Angel of the Lord’ was one of these. The idea of a divine + messenger, embodied and commissioned to intimate the creative will to the + creature: it was sublime, it was ineffable. He wondered that men had ever + come to think in any other terms of the living law that we were under, and + that could much less conceivably operate like an insensate mechanism than + it could reveal itself as a constant purpose. He said he believed that in + every great moral crisis, in every ordeal of conscience, a man was aware + of standing in the presence of something sent to try him and test him, and + that this something was the Angel of the Lord. + </p> + <p> + “He went off that night, saying to himself, ‘The Angel of the Lord, the + Angel of the Lord!’ and when she lay a long time awake, waiting for him to + go to sleep, she heard him saying it again in his room. She thought he + might be dreaming, but when she went to him, he had his lamp lighted, and + was lying with that rapt smile on his face which she was so afraid of. She + told him she was afraid and she wished he would not say such things; and + that made him laugh, and he put his arms round her, and laughed and + laughed, and said it was only a kind of swearing, and she must cheer up. + He let her give him some trional to make him sleep, and then she went off + to her bed again. But when they both woke late, she heard him, as he + dressed, repeating fragments of verse, quoting quite without order, as the + poem drifted through his memory. He told her at breakfast that it was a + poem which Longfellow had written to Lowell upon the occasion of his + wife’s death, and he wanted to get it and read it to her. She said she did + not see how he could let his mind run on such gloomy things. But he + protested he was not the least gloomy, and that he supposed his + recollection of the poem was a continuation of his thinking about the + Angel of the Lord. + </p> + <p> + “While they were at table a tramp came up the drive under the window, and + looked in at them hungrily. He was a very offensive tramp, and quite took + Mrs. Ormond’s appetite away: but Ormond would not send him round to the + kitchen, as she wanted; he insisted upon taking him a plate and a cup of + coffee out on the veranda himself. When she expostulated with him, he + answered fantastically that the fellow might be an angel of the Lord, and + he asked her if she remembered Parnell’s poem of ‘The Hermit.’ Of course + she didn’t, but he needn’t get it, for she didn’t want to hear it, and if + he kept making her so nervous, she should be sick herself. He insisted + upon telling her what the poem was, and how the angel in it had made + himself abhorrent to the hermit by throttling the babe of the good man who + had housed and fed them, and committing other atrocities, till the hermit + couldn’t stand it any longer, and the angel explained that he had done it + all to prevent the greater harm that would have come if he had not killed + and stolen in season. Ormond laughed at her disgust, and said he was + curious to see what a tramp would do that was treated with real + hospitality. He thought they had made a mistake in not asking this tramp + in to breakfast with them; then they might have stood a chance of being + murdered in their beds to save them from mischief.” <br /> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h3> + VI. + </h3> + <p> + “Mrs. Ormond really lost her patience with him, and felt better than she + had for a long time by scolding him in good earnest. She told him he was + talking very blasphemously, and when he urged that his morality was + directly in line with Parnell’s, and Parnell was an archbishop, she was so + vexed that she would not go to drive with him that morning, though he + apologized and humbled himself in every way. He pleaded that it was such a + beautiful day, it must be the last they were going to have; it was getting + near the equinox, and this must be a weather-breeder. She let him go off + alone, for he would not lose the drive, and she watched him out of sight + from her upper window with a heavy heart. As soon as he was fairly gone, + she wanted to go after him, and she was wild all the forenoon. She could + not stay indoors, but kept walking up and down the piazza and looking for + him, and at times she went a bit up the road he had taken, to meet him. + She had got to thinking of the tramp, though the man had gone directly off + down another road after he had his breakfast. At last she heard the old + creaking, rattling buggy, and as soon as she saw Ormond’s bare head, and + knew he was all right, she ran up to her room and shut herself in. But she + couldn’t hold out against him when he came to her door with an armful of + wild flowers that he had gathered for her, and boughs from some young + maples that he had found all red in a swamp. She showed herself so + interested that he asked her to come with him after their midday dinner + and see them, and she said perhaps she would, if he would promise not to + keep talking about the things that made her so miserable. He asked her, + ‘What things?’ and she answered that he knew well enough, and he laughed + and promised. + </p> + <p> + “She didn’t believe he would keep his word, but he did at first, and he + tried not to tease her in any way. He tried to please her in the whims and + fancies she had about going this way or that, and when she decided not to + look up his young maples with him, because the first autumn leaves made + her melancholy, he submitted. He put his arm across her shoulder as they + drove through the woods, and pulled her to him, and called her ‘poor old + thing,’ and accused her of being morbid. He wanted her to tell him all + there was in her mind, but she could not; she could only cry on his arm. + He asked her if it was something about him that troubled her, and she + could only say that she hated to see people so cheerful without reason. + That made him laugh, and they were very gay after she had got her cry out; + but he grew serious again. Then her temper rose, and she asked, ‘Well, + what is it?’ and he said at first, ‘Oh, nothing,’ as people do when there + is really something, and presently he confessed that he was thinking about + what she had said of his being cheerful without reason. Then, as she said, + he talked so beautifully that she had to keep her patience with him, + though he was not keeping his word to her. His talk, as far as she was + able to report it, didn’t amount to much more than this: that in a world + where death was, people never could be cheerful with reason unless death + was something altogether different from what people imagined. After people + came to their intellectual consciousness, death was never wholly out of + it, and if they could be joyful with that black drop at the bottom of + every cup, it was proof positive that death was not what it seemed. + Otherwise there was no logic in the scheme of being, but it was a cruel + fraud by the Creator upon the creature; a poor practical joke, with the + laugh all on one side. He had got rid of his fear of it in that light, + which seemed to have come to him before the fear left him, and he wanted + her to see it in the same light, and if he died before her--But there she + stopped him and protested that it would kill her if she did not die first, + with no apparent sense, even when she told me, of her fatuity, which must + have amused poor Ormond. He said what he wanted to ask was that she would + believe he had not been the least afraid to die, and he wished her to + remember this always, because she knew how he always used to be afraid of + dying. Then he really began to talk of other things, and he led the way + back to the times of their courtship and their early married days, and + their first journeys together, and all their young-people friends, and the + simple-hearted pleasure they used to take in society, in teas and dinners, + and going to the theater. He did not like to think how that pleasure had + dropped out of their life, and he did not know why they had let it, and he + was going to have it again when they went to town. + </p> + <p> + “They had thought of staying a long time in the country, perhaps till + after Thanksgiving, for they had become attached to their place; but now + they suddenly agreed to go back to New York at once. She told me that as + soon as they agreed she felt a tremendous longing to be gone that instant, + as if she must go to escape from something, some calamity, and she felt, + looking back, that there was a prophetic quality in her eagerness.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, she was always so,” said Minver. “When a thing was to be done, she + wanted it done like lightning, no matter what the thing was.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, very likely,” Wanhope consented. “I never make much account of + those retroactive forebodings. At any rate, she says she wanted him to + turn about and drive home so that they could begin packing, and when he + demurred, and began to tease, as she called it, she felt as if she should + scream, till he turned the old horse and took the back track. She was + _wild_ to get home, and kept hurrying him, and wanting him to whip the + horse; but the old horse merely wagged his tail, and declined to go faster + than a walk, and this was the only thing that enabled her to forgive + herself afterward.” + </p> + <p> + “Why, what had she done?” Rulledge asked. “She would have been responsible + for what happened, according to her notion, if she had had her way with + the horse; she would have felt that she had driven Ormond to his doom.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course!” said Minver. “She always found a hole to creep out of. Why + couldn’t she go back a little further, and hold herself responsible + through having made him turn round?” + </p> + <p> + “Poor woman!” said Rulledge, with a tenderness that made Minver smile. + “What was it that did happen?” + </p> + <p> + Wanhope examined his cup for some dregs of coffee, and then put it down + with an air of resignation. I offered to touch the bell, but, “No, don’t,” + he said. “I’m better without it.” And he went on: “There was a lonely + piece of woods that they had to drive through before they struck the + avenue leading to their house, which was on a cheerful upland overlooking + the river, and when they had got about half-way through this woods, the + tramp whom Ormond had fed in the morning, slipped out of a thicket on the + hillside above them, and crossed the road in front of them, and slipped + out of sight among the trees on the slope below. Ormond stopped the horse, + and turned to his wife with a strange kind of whisper. ‘Did you see it?’ + he asked, and she answered yes, and bade him drive on. He did so, slowly + looking back round the side of the buggy till a turn of the road hid the + place where the tramp had crossed their track. She could not speak, she + says, till they came in sight of their house. Then her heart gave a great + bound, and she broke out on him, blaming him for having encouraged the + tramp to lurk about, as he must have done, all day, by his foolish + sentimentality in taking his breakfast out to him. ‘He saw that you were a + delicate person, and now to-night he will be coming round, and--’ She says + Ormond kept looking at her, while she talked, as if he did not know what + she was saying, and all at once she glanced down at their feet, and + discovered that her hat was gone. + </p> + <p> + “That, she owned, made her frantic, and she blazed out at him again, and + accused him of having lost her hat by stopping to look at that worthless + fellow, and then starting up the horse so suddenly that it had rolled out. + He usually gave her as good as she sent when she let herself go in that + way, and she told me she would have been glad if he had done it now, but + he only looked at her in a kind of daze, and when he understood, at last, + he bade her get out and go into the house--they were almost at the + door,--and he would go back and find her hat himself. ‘Indeed, you’ll do + nothing of the kind,’ she said she told him. ‘I shall go back with you, or + you’ll be hunting up that precious vagabond and bringing him home to + supper.’ Ormond said, ‘All right,’ with a kind of dreamy passivity, and he + turned the old horse again, and they drove slowly back, looking for the + hat in the road, right and left. She had not noticed before that it was + getting late, and perhaps it was not so late as it seemed when they got + into that lonely piece of woods again, and the veils of shadow began to + drop round them, as if they were something falling from the trees, she + said. They found the hat easily enough at the point where it must have + rolled out of the buggy, and he got down and picked it up. She kept + scolding him, but he did not seem to hear her. He stood dangling the hat + by its ribbons from his right hand, while he rested his left on the + dashboard, and looking--looking down into the wooded slope where the tramp + had disappeared. A cold chill went over her, and she stopped her scolding. + ‘Oh, Jim,’ she said, ‘do you see something? What do you see?’ He flung the + hat from him, and ran plunging down the hillside--she covered up her face + when she told me, and said she should always see him running--till the + dusk among the trees hid him. She ran after him, and she heard him + calling, calling joyfully, ‘Yes, I’m coming!’ and she thought he was + calling back to her, but the rush of his feet kept getting farther, and + then he seemed to stop with a sound like falling. He couldn’t have been + much ahead of her, for it was only a moment till she stood on the edge of + a boulder in the woods, looking over, and there at the bottom Ormond was + lying with his face turned under him, as she expressed it; and the tramp, + with a heavy stick in his hand, was standing by him, stooping over him, + and staring at him. She began to scream, and it seemed to her that she + flew down from the brink of the rock, and caught the tramp and clung to + him, while she kept screaming ‘Murder!’ The man didn’t try to get away; he + only said, over and over, ‘I didn’t touch him, lady; I didn’t touch him.’ + It all happened simultaneously, like events in a dream, and while there + was nobody there but herself and the tramp, and Ormond lying between them, + there were some people that must have heard her from the road and come + down to her. They were neighbor-folk that knew her and Ormond, and they + naturally laid hold of the tramp; but he didn’t try to escape. He helped + them gather poor Ormond up, and he went back to the house with them, and + staid while one of them ran for the doctor. The doctor could only tell + them that Ormond was dead, and that his neck must have been broken by his + fall over the rock. One of the neighbors went to look at the place the + next morning, and found one of the roots of a young tree growing on the + rock, torn out, as if Ormond had caught his foot in it; and that had + probably made his fall a headlong dive. The tramp knew nothing but that he + heard shouting and running, and got up from the foot of the rock, where he + was going to pass the night, when something came flying through the air, + and struck at his feet. Then it scarcely stirred, and the next thing, he + said, the lady was _onto_ him, screeching and tearing. He piteously + protested his innocence, which was apparent enough, at the inquest, and + before, for that matter. He said Ormond was about the only man that ever + treated him white, and Mrs. Ormond was remorseful for having let him get + away before she could tell him that she didn’t blame him, and ask him to + forgive her.” <br /> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h3> + VII. + </h3> + <p> + Wanhope desisted with a provisional air, and Rulledge went and got Himself + a sandwich from the lunch-table. + </p> + <p> + “Well, upon my word!” said Minver. “I thought you had dined, Rulledge.” + </p> + <p> + Rulledge came back munching, and said to Wanhope, as he settled himself in + his chair again: “Well, go on.” + </p> + <p> + “Why, that’s all.” + </p> + <p> + The psychologist was silent, with Rulledge staring indignantly at him. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose Mrs. Ormond had her theory?” I ventured. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes--such as it was,” said Wanhope. “It was her belief--her + religion--that Ormond had seen Death, in person or personified, or the + angel of it; and that the sight was something beautiful, and not terrible. + She thought that she should see Death, too in the same way, as a + messenger. I don’t know that it was such a bad theory,” he added + impartially. + </p> + <p> + “Not,” said Minver, “if you suppose that Ormond was off his nut. But, in + regard to the whole matter, there is always a question of how much truth + there was in what she said about it.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course,” the psychologist admitted, “that is a question which must be + considered. The question of testimony in such matters is the difficult + thing. You might often believe in supernatural occurrences if it were not + for the witnesses. It is very interesting,” he pursued, with his + scientific smile, “to note how corrupting anything supernatural or + mystical is. Such things seem mostly to happen either in the privity of + people who are born liars, or else they deprave the spectator so, through + his spiritual vanity or his love of the marvelous, that you can’t believe + a word he says. + </p> + <p> + “They are as bad as horses on human morals,” said Minver. “Not that I + think it ever needed the coming of a ghost to invalidate any statement of + Mrs. Ormond’s.” Rulledge rose and went away growling something, partially + audible, to the disadvantage of Minver’s wit, and the painter laughed + after him: “He really believes it.” + </p> + <p> + Wanhope’s mind seemed to be shifted from Mrs. Ormond to her convert, whom + he followed with his tolerant eyes. “Nothing in all this sort of inquiry + is so impossible to predicate as the effect of any given instance upon a + given mind. It would be very interesting--” + </p> + <p> + “Excuse me!” said Minver. “There’s Whitley. I must speak to him.” + </p> + <p> + He went away, leaving me alone with the psychologist. + </p> + <p> + “And what is your own conclusion in this instance?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Why, I haven’t formulated it yet.” <br /> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <h2> + <a name="rose" id="rose">THOUGH ONE ROSE FROM THE DEAD.</a> + </h2> + <h3> + I. + </h3> + <p> + You are very welcome to the Alderling incident, my dear Acton, if you + think you can do anything with it, and I will give it as circumstantially + as possible. The thing has its limitations, I should think, for the + fictionist, chiefly in a sort of roundedness which leaves little play to + the imagination. It seems to me that it would be more to your purpose if + it were less _pat_, in its catastrophe, but you are a better judge of all + that than I am, and I will put the facts in your hands, and keep my own + hands off, so far as any plastic use of the material is concerned. + </p> + <p> + The first I knew of the peculiar Alderling situation was shortly after + William James’s “Will to Believe” came out. I had been telling the + Alderlings about it, for they had not seen it, and I noticed that from + time to time they looked significantly at each other. When I had got + through he gave a little laugh, and she said, “Oh, you may laugh!” and + then I made bold to ask, “What is it?” + </p> + <p> + “Marion can tell you,” he said. He motioned towards the coffee-pot and + asked, “More?” I shook my head, and he said, “Come out and let us see what + the maritime interests have been doing for us. Pipe or cigar?” I chose + cigarettes, and he brought the box off the table, stopping on his way to + the veranda, and taking his pipe and tobacco-pouch from the hall mantel. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Alderling had got to the veranda before us, and done things to the + chairs and cushions, and was leaning against one of the slender fluted + pine columns like some rich, blond caryatid just off duty, with the blue + of her dress and the red of her hair showing deliciously against the + background of white house-wall. He and she were an astonishing and + satisfying contrast; in the midst of your amazement you felt the divine + propriety of a woman like her wanting just such a wiry, + smoky-complexioned, black-browed, black-bearded, bald-headed little man as + he was. Before he sat down where she was going to put him, he stood + stoopingly, and frowned at the waters of the cove lifting from the foot of + the lawn that sloped to it before the house. “Three lumbermen, two + goodish-sized yachts, a dozen sloop-rigged boats: not so bad. About the + usual number that come loafing in to spend the night. You ought to see + them when it threatens to breeze up. Then they’re here in flocks. Go on, + Marion.” + </p> + <p> + He gave a soft groan of comfort as he settled in his chair and began + pulling at his short black pipe, and she let her eyes dwell on him in a + rapture that curiously interested me. People in love are rarely + interesting--that is, flesh-and-blood people. Of course I know that lovers + are the life of fiction, and that a story of any kind can scarcely hold + the reader without them. The love-interest, as they call it, is also + supposed to be essential to the drama, and friends of mine who have tried + to foist their plays upon managers have been overthrown by the objection + that the love-interest is not strong enough in what they have done. Yet + lovers in real life are, so far as I have observed them, bores. They are + confessed to be disgusting before or after marriage when they let their + fondness appear, but even when they try to hide it, they are tiresome. + Character goes down before passion in them; nature is reduced to + propensity. Then, how is it that the novelist manages to keep these, and + to give us nature and character while seeming to offer nothing but + propensity and passion? Perhaps he does not give them. Perhaps what he + does is to hypnotize us so that we each of us identify ourselves with the + lovers, and add our own natures and characters to the single principle + that animates them. The reason we like, that we endure, to read about + them, may be that they are ourselves rendered objective in an instant of + intense vitality, without the least trouble or risk to us. But if we have + them there before us in the tiresome reality, they exclude us from their + pleasure in each other and stop up the perspective of our happiness with + their hulking personalities, bare of all the iridescence of potentiality, + which we could have cast about them. Something of this iridescence may + cling to unmarried lovers, in spite of themselves, but wedded bliss is a + sheer offence. + </p> + <p> + I do not know why it was not an offence in the case of the Alderlings, + unless it was because they both, in their different ways, saw the joke of + the thing. At any rate, I found that in their charm for each other they + had somehow not ceased to be amusing for me, and I waited confidently for + the answer she would make to his whimsically abrupt bidding. But she did + not answer very promptly, even when he had added, “Wanhope, here, is + scenting something psychological in the reason of my laughing at you, + instead of accepting the plain inference in the case.” + </p> + <p> + “What is the plain inference?” I asked, partly to fill up Mrs. Alderling’s + continued silence. + </p> + <p> + “When a man laughs at a woman for no apparent reason it is because he is + amused at her being afraid of him when he is so much more afraid of her, + or puzzled by him when she is such an incomparable riddle herself, or + caring for him when he knows he is not worth his salt.” + </p> + <p> + “You don’t expect to put me off with that sort of thing,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “Well, then, go on Marion,” Alderling repeated. <br /> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h3> + II. + </h3> + <p> + Mrs. Alderling stood looking at him, not me, with a smile hovering about + the corners of her mouth, which, when it decided not to alight anywhere, + scarcely left her aspect graver for its flitting. She said at last, in her + slow, deep-throated voice, “I guess I will let you tell him.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I’ll tell him fast enough,” said Alderling, nursing his knee, and + bringing it well up toward his chin, between his clasped hands. “Marion + has always had the notion that I should live again if I believed I should, + and that as I don’t believe I shall, I am not going to. The joke of it + is,” and he began to splutter laughter round the stem of his pipe, “she’s + as much of an agnostic as I am. She doesn’t believe she is going to live + again, either.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Alderling said, “I don’t care for it in my case.” That struck me as + rather touching, but I had no right to enter uninvited into the intimacy + of her meaning, and I said, looking as little at her as I need, “Aren’t + you both rather belated?” + </p> + <p> + “You mean that protoplasm has gone out?” he chuckled. + </p> + <p> + “Not exactly,” I answered. “But you know that a great many things are + allowed now that were once forbidden to the True Disbeliever.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean that we may trust in the promises, as they used to be called, + and still keep the Unfaith?” + </p> + <p> + “Something like that.” + </p> + <p> + Alderling took his pipe out, apparently to give his whole face to the + pleasure of teasing his wife. + </p> + <p> + “That’ll be a great comfort to Marion,” he said, and he threw back his + head and laughed. + </p> + <p> + She smiled faintly, vaguely, tolerantly, as if she enjoyed his pleasure in + teasing her. + </p> + <p> + “Where have you been,” I asked, “that you don’t know the changed attitude + in these matters?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, here for the last three years. We tried it the first winter after + we came, and found it was not so bad, and we simply stayed on. But I + haven’t really looked into the question since I gave the conundrum up + twenty years ago, on what was then the best authority. Marion doesn’t + complain. She knew what I was when she married me. She was another. We + were neither of us very bigoted disbelievers. We should not have burned + anybody at the stake for saying that we had souls.” + </p> + <p> + Alderling put back his pipe and cackled round it, taking his knee between + his hands again. + </p> + <p> + “You know,” she explained, more in my direction than to me, “that I had + none to begin with. But Alderling had. His people believed in the future + life.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s what they said,” Alderling crowed. “And Marion has always thought + that if she had believed that way, she could have kept me up to it; and so + when I died I should have lived again. It is perfectly logical, though it + isn’t capable of a practical demonstration. If Marion had come of a + believing family, she could have brought me back into the fold. Her great + mistake was in being brought up by an uncle who denied that he was living + here, even. The poor girl could not do a thing when it came to the life + hereafter.” + </p> + <p> + The smile now came hovering back, and alighted at a corner of Mrs. + Alderling’s mouth, making it look, oddly enough, rather rueful. “It didn’t + matter about me. I thought it a pity that Alderling’s talent should stop + here.” + </p> + <p> + “Did you ever know anything like that?” he cried. “Perfectly willing to + thrust me out into a cold other-world, and leave me to struggle on without + her, when I had got used to her looking after me. Now I’m not so selfish + as that. I shouldn’t want to have Marion living on through all eternity if + I wasn’t with her. It would be too lonely for her.” + </p> + <p> + He looked up at her, with his dancing eyes, and she put her hand down over + his shoulder into the hand that he lifted to meet it, in a way that would + have made me sick in some people. But in her the action was so casual, so + absent, that it did not affect me disagreeably. + </p> + <p> + “Do you mean that you haven’t been away since you came here three years + ago?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “We ran up to the theatre once in Boston last winter, but it bored us to + the limit.” Alderling poked his knife-blade into the bowl of his pipe as + he spoke, having freed his hand for the purpose, while Mrs. Alderling + leaned back against the slim column again. He said gravely: “It was a + great thing for Marion, though. In view of the railroad accident that + didn’t happen, she convinced herself that her sole ambition was that we + should die together. Then, whether we found ourselves alive or not, we + should be company for each other. She’s got it arranged with the + thunderstorms, so that one bolt will do for us both, and she never lets me + go out on the water alone, for fear I shall watch my chance, and get + drowned without her.” + </p> + <p> + I did not trouble myself to make out how much of this was mocking, and as + there was no active participation in the joke expected of me, I kept on + the safe side of laughing. “No wonder you’ve been able to do such a lot of + pictures,” I said. “But I should have thought you might have found it + dull--I mean dull together--at odd times.” + </p> + <p> + “Dull?” he shouted. “It’s stupendously dull! Especially when our country + neighbors come in to ‘’liven us up.’ We’ve got neighbors here that can + stay longer in half an hour than most people can in a week. We get tired + of each other at times, but after a call from the people in the next + house, we return with rapture to our delusion that we are interesting.” + </p> + <p> + “And you never,” I ventured, making my jocosity as ironical as possible, + “wear upon each other?” + </p> + <p> + “Horribly!” said Alderling, and his wife smiled contentedly, behind him. + “We haven’t a whole set of china in the house, from exchanging it across + the table, and I haven’t made a study of Marion--you must have noticed how + many Marions there were that she hasn’t thrown at my head. Especially the + Madonnas. She likes to throw the Madonnas at me.” + </p> + <p> + I ventured still farther, addressing myself to Mrs. Alderling. “Does he + keep it up all the time--this blague?” + </p> + <p> + “Pretty much,” she answered passively, with entire acquiescence in the + fact if it were the fact, or the joke if it were the joke. + </p> + <p> + “But I didn’t see anything of yours, Mrs. Alderling,” I said. She had had + her talent, as a girl, and some people preferred it to her husband’s,--but + there was no effect of it anywhere in the house. + </p> + <p> + “The housekeeping is enough,” she answered, with her tranquil smile. + </p> + <p> + There was nothing in her smile that was leading, and I did not push my + inquiry, especially as Alderling did not seem disposed to assist. “Well,” + I said, “I suppose you will forgive to science my feeling that your + situation is most suggestive.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, don’t mind _us!_” said Alderling. + </p> + <p> + “I won’t, thank you,” I answered. “Why, it’s equal to being cast away + together on an uninhabited island.” + </p> + <p> + “Quite,” he assented. + </p> + <p> + “There can’t,” I went on, “be a corner of your minds that you haven’t + mutually explored. You must know each other,” I cast about for the word, + and added abruptly, “by heart.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t suppose he meant anything pretty?” said Alderling, with a look up + over his shoulder at his wife; and then he said to me, “We do; and there + are some very curious things I could tell you, if Marion would ever let me + get in a word.” + </p> + <p> + “Do let him, Mrs. Alderling,” I entreated, humoring his joke at her + silence. + </p> + <p> + She smiled, and softly shrugged, and then sighed. + </p> + <p> + “I could make your flesh creep,” he went on, “or I could if you were not a + psychologist. I assure you that we are quite weird at times.” + </p> + <p> + “As how?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, just knowing what the other is thinking, at a given moment, and + saying it. There are times when Marion’s thinking is such a nuisance to + me, that I have to yell down to her from my loft to stop it. The racket it + makes breaks me all up. It’s a relief to have her talk, and I try to make + her, when she’s posing, just to escape the din of her thinking. Then the + willing! We experimented with it, after we had first noticed it, but we + don’t any more. It’s too dead easy.” + </p> + <p> + “What do you mean by the willing?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, just wishing one that the other was there, and there he or she is.” + </p> + <p> + “Is he trying to work me, Mrs. Alderling?” I appealed to her, and she + answered from her calm: + </p> + <p> + “It is very unaccountable.” + </p> + <p> + “Then you really mean it! Why can’t you give me an illustration?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, you know,” said Alderling more seriously than he had yet spoken, “I + don’t believe those things, if they are real, can ever be got to show off. + That’s the reason why your ‘Quests in the Occult’ are mainly such rubbish, + as far as the evidences are concerned. If Marion and I tried to give you + an illustration, as you call it, the occult would snub us. But, is there + anything so very strange about it? The wonder _is_ that a man and wife + ever fail of knowing each what the other is thinking. They pervade each + other’s minds, if they are really married, and they are so present with + each other that the tacit wish should be the same as a call. Marion and I + are only an intensified instance of what may be done by living together. + There is something, though, that is rather queer, but it belongs to + psychomancy rather than psychology, as I understand it.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah!” I said. “What is that queer something?” + </p> + <p> + “Being visibly present when absent. It has not happened often, but it has + happened that I have seen Marion in my loft when she was really somewhere + else and not when I had willed her or wished her to be there.” + </p> + <p> + “Now, really,” I said, “I must ask you for an instance.” + </p> + <p> + “You want to heap up facts, Lombroso fashion? Well, this is as good as + most of Lombroso’s facts, or better. I went up one morning, last winter, + to work at a study of a Madonna from Marion, directly after breakfast, and + left her below in the dining-room, putting away the breakfast things. She + has to do that occasionally, between the local helps, who are all we can + get in the winter. She professes to like it, but you never can tell, from + what a woman says; she has to do it, anyway.” It is hard to convey a + notion of the serene, impersonal acquiescence of Mrs. Alderling in taking + this talk of her. “I was banging away at it when I knew she was behind me + looking over my shoulder rather more stormily than she usually does; + usually, she is a dead calm. I glanced up, and saw the calm succeed the + storm. I kept on, and after awhile I was aware of hearing her step on the + stairs.” + </p> + <p> + Alderling stopped, and smoked definitively, as if that were the end. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” I said, after waiting a while, “I don’t exactly get the unique + value of the incident.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” he said, as if he had accidentally forgotten the detail, “the steps + were coming up?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes?” + </p> + <p> + “She opened the door, which she had omitted to do before, and when she + came in she denied having been there already. She owned that she had been + hurrying through her work, and thinking of mine, so as to make me do + something, or undo something, to it; and then all at once she lost her + impatience, and came up at her leisure. I don’t exactly like to tell what + she wanted.” + </p> + <p> + He began to laugh provokingly, and she said, tranquilly, “I don’t mind + your telling Mr. Wanhope.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, then, strictly in the interest of psychomancy, I will confide that + she had found some traces of a model that I used to paint my Madonnas + from, before we were married, in that picture. She had slept on her + suspicion, and then when she could not stand it any longer, she had come + up in the spirit to say that she was not going to be mixed up in a Madonna + with any such minx. The words are mine, but the meaning was Marion’s. When + she found me taking the minx out, she went quietly back to washing her + dishes, and then returned in the body to give me a sitting.” <br /> <br /> + <br /> + </p> + <h3> + III. + </h3> + <p> + We were silent a moment, till I asked, “Is this true, Mrs. Alderling?” + </p> + <p> + “About,” she said. “I don’t remember the storm, exactly.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I don’t see why you bother to remain in the body at all,” I + remarked. + </p> + <p> + “We haven’t arranged just how to leave it together,” said Alderling. + “Marion, here, if I managed to get off first, would have no means of + knowing whether her theory of the effect of my unbelief on my future was + right or not; and if _she_ gave _me_ the slip, she would always be sorry + that she had not stayed here to convert me.” + </p> + <p> + “Why don’t you agree that if either of you lives again, he or she shall + make some sign to let the other know?” I suggested. “Well, that has been + tried so often, and has it ever worked? It’s open to the question whether + the dead do not fail to show up because they are forbidden to communicate + with the living; and you are just where you were, as to the main point. + No, I don’t see any way out of it.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Alderling went into the house and came out with a book in her hand, + and her fingers in it at two places. It was that impressive collection of + Christ’s words from the New Testament called “The Great Discourse.” She + put the book before me, first at one place and then at another, and I + read, “Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die,” and then, + “Nay, but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” She did not say + anything in showing me these passages, and I found something in her action + touchingly childlike and elemental, as well as curiously heathenish. It + was as if some poor pagan had brought me his fetish to test its effect + upon me. “Yes,” I said, “those are things that we hardly know what to do + with in our philosophy. They seem to be said as with authority, and yet, + somehow, we cannot admit their validity in a philosophical inquiry as to a + future life. Aren’t they generally taken to mean that we shall be unhappy + or happy hereafter, rather than that we shall be or not be at all? And + what is believing? Is it the mere act of acknowledgement, or is it + something more vital, which expresses itself in conduct?” + </p> + <p> + She did not try to say. In fact she did not answer at all. Whatever point + was in her mind she did not, or could not, debate it. I perceived, in a + manner, that her life was so largely subliminal that if she had tried she + could not have met my question any more than if she had not had the gift + of speech at all. But, in her inarticulate fashion, she had exposed to me + a state of mind which I was hardly withheld by the decencies from + exploring. “You know,” I said, “that psychology almost begins by rejecting + the authority of these sayings, and that while we no longer deny anything, + we cannot allow anything merely because it has been strongly affirmed. + Supposing that there is a life after this, how can it be denied to one and + bestowed upon another because one has assented to a certain supernatural + claim and another has refused to do so? That does not seem reasonable, it + does not seem right. Why should you base your conclusion as to that life + upon a promise and a menace which may not really refer to it in the sense + which they seem to have?” + </p> + <p> + “Isn’t it all there is?” she asked, and Alderling burst into his laugh. + </p> + <p> + “I’m afraid she’s got you there, Wanhope. When it comes to polemics + there’s nothing like the passive obstruction of Mrs. Alderling. Marion + might never have been an early Christian herself--I think she’s an + inexpugnable pagan--but she would have gone round making it awfully + uncomfortable for the other unbelievers.” + </p> + <p> + “You know,” she said to him, and I never could decide how much she was in + earnest, “that I can’t believe till you do. I couldn’t take the risk of + keeping on without you.” + </p> + <p> + Alderling followed her in-doors, where she now went to put the book away, + with the mock addressed to me, “Did you ever know such a stubborn woman?” + <br /> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h3> + IV. + </h3> + <p> + One conclusion from my observation of the Alderlings during the week I + spent with them was that it is bad for a husband and wife to be constantly + and unreservedly together, not because they grow tired of each other, but + because they grow more intensely interested in each other. Children, when + they come, serve the purpose of separating the parents; they seem to unite + them in one care, but they divide them in their employments, at least in + the normally constituted family. If they are rich, and can throw the care + of the children upon servants, then they cannot enjoy the relief from each + other that children bring to the mother who nurtures and teaches them, and + to the father who must work for them harder than before. The Alderlings + were not rich enough to have been freed from the wholesome + responsibilities of parentage, but they were childless, and so they were + not detached from the perpetual thought of each other. If they had only + had different tastes, it might have been better, but they were both + artists, she not less than he, though she no longer painted. When their + common thoughts were not centred upon each other’s being, they were + centred on his work, which, viciously enough, was the constant + reproduction of her visible personality. I could always see them studying + each other, he with an eye to her beauty, she with an eye to his power. + </p> + <p> + He was every now and then saying to her, “Hold on, Marion,” and staying + her in some pose or movement, while he made mental note of it, and I was + conscious of her preying upon his inmost thoughts and following him into + the recesses of his reveries, where it is best for a man to be alone, even + if he is sometimes a beast there. She was not like those wives who ask + their husbands, when they do not happen to be talking, “What are you + thinking about?” and I put this to her credit, till I realized that she + had no need to ask, for she knew already. Now and then I saw him get up + and shake himself restively, but I am bound to say in her behalf, that her + pursuit of him seemed quite involuntary, and that she enjoyed it no more + than he did. Twenty times I was on the point of asking, “Why don’t you + people go in for a good long separation? Is there nothing to call you to + Europe, Alderling? Haven’t you got a mother, or sister, or some one that + you could visit, Mrs. Alderling? It would do you both a world of good.” + </p> + <p> + But it happened, oddly enough, that the Alderlings were as kinless as they + were childless, and if he had gone to Europe he would have taken her with + him, and prolonged their seclusion by the isolation in which people + necessarily live in a foreign country. I found I was the only acquaintance + who had visited them during the years of their retirement on the coast, + where they had stayed, partly through his inertia, and partly from his + superstition that he could paint better away from the ordinary + associations and incentives; and they ceased, before I left, to get the + good they might of my visit because they made me a part of their intimacy, + instead of making themselves part of my strangeness. + </p> + <p> + After a day or two, their queer experiences began to resume themselves, + unabashed by my presence. These were mostly such as they had already more + than hinted to me: the thought-transferences, and the unconscious hypnotic + suggestions which they made to each other. There was more novelty in the + last than the first. If I could trust them, and they did not seem to wish + to exploit their mysteries for the effect on me, they were with each other + because one or the other had willed it. She would say, if we were sitting + together without him, “I think Rupert wants me; I’ll be back in a moment,” + and he, if she were not by, for some time, would get up with, “Excuse me, + I must go to Marion; she’s calling me.” + </p> + <p> + I had to take a great deal of this on faith; in fact, none of it was + susceptible of proof; but I have not been able since to experience all the + skepticism which usually replaces the impression left by sympathy with + such supposed occurrences. The thing was not quite what we call uncanny; + the people were so honest, both of them, that the morbid character of like + situations was wanting. The events, if they could be called so, were not + invited, I was quite sure, and they were varied by such diversions as we + had in reach. I went blueberrying with Mrs. Alderling in the morning after + she had got her breakfast dishes put away, in order that we might have + something for dessert at our midday dinner; and I went fishing off the old + stone crib with Alderling in the afternoon, so that we might have cunners + for supper. The farmerfolks and fisherfolks seemed to know them and to be + on tolerant terms with them, though it was plain that they still + considered them probational in their fellow-citizenship. I do not think + they were liked the less because they did not assume to be of the local + sort, but let their difference stand, if it would. There was nothing + countrified in her dress, which was frankly conventional; the short + walking-skirt had as sharp a slant in front as her dinner-gown would have + had, and he wore his knickerbockers--it was then the now-faded hour of + knickerbockers--with an air of going out golfing in the suburbs. They + stood on ceremony in addressing the natives, who might have been Jim or + Liza to each other, but were always Mr. Donald or Mrs. Moody, with the + Alderlings. They said they would not like being called by their first + names themselves, and they did not see why they should take that freedom + with others. Neither by nature nor by nurture were they out of the + ordinary in their ideals, and it was by a sort of accident that they were + so different in their realities. She had stayed on with him through the + first winter in the place they had taken for the summer, because she + wished to be with him, rather than because she wished to be there, and he + had stayed because he had not just found the moment to break away, though + afterwards he pretended a reason for staying. They had no more voluntarily + cultivated the natural than the supernatural; he kindled the fire for her, + and she made the coffee for him, not because they preferred, but because + they must; and they had arrived at their common ground in the occult by + virtue of being alone together, and not by seeking the solitude for the + experiment which the solitude promoted. Mrs. Alderling did not talk less, + nor he more, when either was alone with me, than when we were all + together; perhaps he was more silent, and she not quite so much; she was + making up for him in his absence as he was for her in her presence. But + they were always hospitable and attentive hosts, and though under the + peculiar circumstances of Mrs. Alderling’s having to do the house-work I + necessarily had to do a good many things for myself, there were certain + little graces which were never wanting, from her hands: my curtains were + always carefully drawn, and my coverlet triangularly opened, so that I did + not have to pull it down myself. There was a freshly trimmed lamp on the + stand at my bed-head, and a book and paper-cutter put there, with a + decanter of whiskey and a glass of water. I note these things to you, + because they are touches which help remove the sense of anything + intentional in the occultism of the Alderlings. + </p> + <p> + I do not know whether I shall be able to impart the feeling of an obscure + pathos in the case of Mrs. Alderling, which I certainly did not experience + in Alderling’s. Temperamentally he was less fitted to undergo the rigors + of their seclusion than she was; in his liking to talk, he needed an + audience and a variety of listening, and she, in her somewhat feline calm, + could not have been troubled by any such need. You can be silent to + yourself, but you cannot very well be loquacious, without danger of having + the devil for a listener, if the old saying is true. Yet still, I felt a + keener poignancy in her sequestration. Her beauty had even greater claim + to regard than his eloquence. She was a woman who could have commanded a + whole roomful with it, and no one would have wanted a word from her. She + could only have been entirely herself in society, where, and in spite of + everything that can be said against it, we can each, if we will, be more + natural than out of it. The reason that most of us are not natural in it + is that we want to play parts for which we are more or less unfit, and + Marion Alderling never wished to play a part, I was sure. It would have + sufficed her to be herself wherever she was, and the more people there + were by, the more easily she could have been herself. + </p> + <p> + I am not able to say now how much of all this is observation of previous + facts, and how much speculation based upon subsequent occurrences. At the + best I can only let it stand for characterization. In the same interest I + will add a fact in relation to Mrs. Alderling which ought to have its + weight against any undue appeal I have been making in her behalf. Without + in the least blaming her, I will say that I think that Mrs. Alderling ate + too much. She must have had naturally a strong appetite, which her active + life sharpened, and its indulgence formed a sort of refuge from the + pressure of the intense solitude in which she lived, and which was all the + more a solitude because it was _solitude à deux_. I noticed that beyond + the habit of cooks she partook of the dishes she had prepared, and that + after Alderling and I had finished dinner, and he was impatient to get at + his pipe, she remained prolonging her dessert. One night, when he and I + came in from the veranda, she was standing at the sideboard, bent over a + saucer of something, and she made me think of a large tortoise-shell cat + which has got at the cream. I expected in my nerves to hear her lap, and + my expectation was heightened by the soft, purring laugh with which she + owned that she was hungry, and those berries were so nice. + </p> + <p> + At the risk of giving the effect of something sensuous, even sensual, in + her, I find myself insisting upon this detail, which did not lessen her + peculiar charm. As far as the mystical quality of the situation was + concerned, I fancy your finding that rather heightened by her innocent + _gourmandise_. You must have noticed how inextricably, for this life at + least, the spiritual is trammeled in the material, how personal character + and ancestral propensity seem to flow side by side in the same individual + without necessarily affecting each other. On the moral side Mrs. Alderling + was no more to be censured for the refuge which her nerves sought from the + situation in over-eating than Alderling for the smoking in which he + escaped from the pressure they both felt from one another; and she was not + less fitted than he for their joint experience. <br /> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h3> + V. + </h3> + <p> + I do not suppose it was with the notion of keeping her weight down that + Mrs. Alderling rowed a good deal on the cove before the cottage; but she + had a boat, which she managed very well, and which she was out in, pretty + much the whole time when she was not cooking, or eating or sleeping, or + roaming the berry-pastures with me, or sitting to Alderling for his + Madonnas. He did not care for the water himself; he said he knew every + inch of that cove, and was tired of it; but he rather liked his wife’s + going, and they may both have had an unconscious relief from each other in + the absences which her excursions promoted. She swam as well as she rowed, + and often we saw her going down water-proofed to the shore, where we + presently perceived her pulling off in her bathing-dress. Well out in the + cove she had the habit of plunging overboard, and after a good swim, she + rowed back, and then, discreetly water-proofed again, she climbed the lawn + back to the house. Now and then she took me out in her boat, but so far as + I remember, Alderling never went with her. Once I ventured to ask him if + he never felt anxious about her. He said no, he should not have been + afraid to go with her, and she could take better care of herself than he + could. Besides, by means of their telepathy they were in constant + communion, and he could make her feel at any sort of chance, that he did + not wish her to take it, and she would not. This was the only occasion + when he treated their peculiar psychomancy boastfully, and the only + occasion when I felt a distinct misgiving of his sincerity. + </p> + <p> + The day before I left, Mrs. Alderling went down about eleven in the + morning to her boat, and rowed out into the cove. She rowed far toward the + other shore, whither, following her with my eyes from Alderling’s window, + I saw its ridge blotted out by a long low cloud. It was straight and level + as a wall, and looked almost as dense, and I called Alderling. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, that fog won’t come in before afternoon,” he said. “We usually get it + about four o’clock. But even if it does,” he added dreamily, “Marion can + manage. I’d trust her anywhere in this cove in any kind of weather.” + </p> + <p> + He went back to his work, and painted away for five or six minutes. Then + he asked me, still at the window, “What’s that fog doing now?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I don’t know,” I answered. “I should say it was making in.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you see Marion?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, she seems to be taking her bath.” + </p> + <p> + Again he painted a while before he asked, “Has she had her dip?” + </p> + <p> + “She’s getting back into her boat.” + </p> + <p> + “All right,” said Alderling, in a tone of relief. “She’s good to beat any + fog in these parts ashore. I wish you would come and look at this a + minute.” + </p> + <p> + I went, and we lost ourselves for a time in our criticism of the picture. + He was harder on it than I was. He allowed, _"C’est un bon portrait_, as + the French used to say of a faithful landscape, though I believe now the + portrait can’t be too good for them. I can’t say about landscape. But in a + Madonna I feel that there can be too much Marion, not for me, of course, + but for the ideal, which I suppose we are bound to respect. Marion is not + spiritual, but I would not have her less of the earth earthy, for all the + angels that ever spread themselves ‘in strong level flight.’” + </p> + <p> + I recognized the words from “The Blessed Damozel,” and I made bold to be + so personal as to say, “If her hair were a little redder than ‘the color + of ripe corn’ one might almost feel that the Blessed Damozel had been + painted from Mrs. Alderling. It’s the lingering earthiness in her that + makes the Damozel so divine.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, that was a great conception. I wonder none of the fellows do that + kind of thing now.” + </p> + <p> + I laughed and said, “Well, so few of them have had the advantage of seeing + Mrs. Alderling. And besides, Rosettis don’t happen every day.” + </p> + <p> + “It was the period, too. I always tell her that she belongs among the + later eighteen sixties. But she insists that she wasn’t even born then. + Marion is tremendously single-minded.” + </p> + <p> + “She has her mind all on you.” + </p> + <p> + He looked askance at me. “You’ve noticed--” + </p> + <p> + “I’ve noticed that your mind is all on her.” + </p> + <p> + “Not half as much!” he protested, fervidly. “I don’t think it’s good for + her, though of course I like it. That is, in a way. Sometimes it’s rather + too--” He suddenly flung his brush from him, and started up, with a loudly + shouted, “Yes, yes! I’m coming,” and hurled himself out of the garret + which he used for his studio, and cleared the stairs with two bounds. + </p> + <p> + By the time I reached the outer door of the cottage, he was a dark blur in + the white blur of the fog which had swallowed up the cove, and was rising + round the house-walls from the grass. I heard him shouting, “Marion!” and + a faint mellow answer, far out in the cove, “Hello!” and then-- + </p> + <p> + “Where are you?” and her answer “Here!” I heard him jump into a boat, and + the thump of the oars in the row-locks, and then the rapid beat of the + oars while he shouted, “Keep calling!” and she answered,-- + </p> + <p> + “I will!” and called “Hello! Hello! Hello!” + </p> + <p> + I made my mental comment that this time their mystical means of + communication was somehow not working. But after her last hello, no sound + broke the white silence of the fog except the throb of Alderling’s oars. + She was evidently resting on hers, lest she should baffle his attempts to + find her by trying to find him. + </p> + <p> + I suppose ten minutes or so had passed, when the dense air brought me the + sound of low laughing that was also like the sound of low sobbing, and + then I knew that they had met somewhere in the blind space. I began to + hear rowing again, but only as of one boat, and suddenly out of the mist, + almost at my feet, Alderling’s boat shot up on the shelving beach, and his + wife leaped ashore from it, and ran past me up the lawn, while he pulled + her boat out on the gravel. She must have been trailing it from the stern + of his. + </p> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h3> + VI. + </h3> + <p> + I was abroad when Mrs. Alderling died, but I heard that it was from a + typhoid fever which she had contracted from the water in their well, as + was supposed. The water-supply all along that coast is scanty, and that + summer most of the wells were dry, and quite a plague of typhoid raged + among the people from drinking the dregs. The fever might have gone the + worse with her because of her over-fed robustness; at any rate it went + badly enough. + </p> + <p> + I first heard of her death from Minver at the club, and I heard with still + greater astonishment that Alderling was down there alone where she had + died. Minver said that somebody ought to go down and look after the poor + old fellow, but nobody seemed to feel it exactly his office. Certainly I + did not feel it mine, and I thought it rather a hardship when a few days + after I found a letter from Alderling at the club quite piteously + beseeching me to come to him. He had read of my arrival home, in a stray + New York paper, and he was firing his letter, he said, at the club, with + one chance in a thousand of hitting me with it. Rulledge was by when I + read it, and he decided, with that unsparing activity of his, where other + people are concerned, that I must go; I certainly could not resist such an + appeal as that. He had a vague impression, he said, of something weird in + the situation down there, and I ought to go and pull Alderling out of it; + besides, I might find my account in it as a psychologist. I hesitated a + day, out of self-respect, or self-assertion, and then, the weather coming + on suddenly hot, in the beginning of September, I went. + </p> + <p> + Of course I had meant to go, all along, but I was not so glad when I + arrived, as I might have been if Alderling had given me a little warmer + welcome. His mood had changed since writing to me, and the strongest + feeling he showed at seeing me was what affected me very like a cold + surprise. + </p> + <p> + If I had broken in on a solitude in that place before, I was now the + intruder upon a desolation. Alderling was living absolutely alone, except + for the occasional presence of a neighboring widow--all the middle-aged + women there are widows, with dim or dimmer memories of husbands lost off + the Banks, or elsewhere at sea--who came in to get his meals and make his + bed, and then had instructions to leave. It was in one of her prevailing + absences that I arrived with my bag, and I had to hammer a long time with + the knocker on the open door before Alderling came clacking down the + stairs in his slippers from the top of the house, and gave me his somewhat + defiant greeting. I could almost have said that he did not recognize me at + the first bleared glance, and his inability, when he realized who it was, + to make me feel at home, encouraged me to take the affair into my own + hands. + </p> + <p> + He looked frightfully altered, but perhaps it was the shaggy beard that he + had let grow over his poor, lean muzzle, that mainly made the difference. + His clothes hung gauntly upon him, and he had a weak-kneed stoop. His coat + sleeves were tattered at the wrists, and one of them showed the white + lining at the elbow. I simply shuddered at his shirt. + </p> + <p> + “Will you smoke?” he asked huskily, almost at the first word, and with an + effect of bewilderment in his hospitality that almost made me shed tears. + </p> + <p> + “Well, not just yet, Alderling,” I said. “Shall I go to my old room?” + </p> + <p> + “Go anywhere,” he answered, and he let me carry my bag to the chamber + where I had slept before. + </p> + <p> + It was quite as his wife would have arranged it, even to the detail of a + triangular portion of the bedding turned down as she used to do it for me. + The place was well aired and dusted, and gave me the sense of being as + immaculately clean and fresh as Alderling was not. He sat down in a chair + by the window, and he remained, while I laid out my things and made my + brief toilet, unabashed by those incidents for which I did not feel it + necessary to banish him, if he liked staying. + </p> + <p> + We had supper by-and-by, a very well-cooked meal of fried fresh cod and + potatoes, with those belated blackberries which grow so sweet when they + hang long on the canes into September. There was a third plate laid, and I + expected that when the housekeeper had put the dishes on the table, she + would sit down with us, as the country-fashion still is, but she did not + reappear till she came in with the dessert and coffee. Alderling ate + hungrily, and much more than I had remembered his doing, but perhaps I + formerly had the impression of Mrs. Alderling’s fine appetite so strongly + in mind that I had failed to note his. Certainly, however, there was a + difference in one sort which I could not be mistaken in, and that was in + his not talking. Her mantle of silence had fallen upon him, and whereas he + used hardly to give me a chance in the conversation, he now let me do all + of it. He scarcely answered my questions, and he asked none of his own; + but I saw that he liked being talked to, and I did my best, shying off + from his sorrow, as people foolishly do, and speaking banalities about my + trip to Europe, and the Psychological Congress in Geneva, and the fellows + at the club, and heaven knows what rot else. + </p> + <p> + He listened, but I do not know whether he heard much of my clack, and I + got very tired of it myself at last. When I had finished my blackberries, + he asked mechanically, in an echo of my former visit, with a repetition of + his gesture towards the coffee-pot, “More?” I shook my head, and then he + led the way out to the veranda, stopping to get his pipe and tobacco from + the mantel on the way. But when we sat down in the early falling September + twilight outside, he did not light his pipe, letting me smoke my cigarette + alone. + </p> + <p> + “Are you off your tobacco?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t smoke,” he answered, but he did not explain why, and I did not + feel authorized to ask. + </p> + <p> + The talk went on as lopsidedly as before, and I began to get sleepy. I + made bold to yawn, but Alderling did not mind that, and then I made bold + to say that I thought I would go to bed. He followed me indoors, saying + that he would go to bed, too. The hall was lighted from a hanging-lamp and + two clear-burning hand-lamps which the widow had put for us on a small + table. She had evidently gone home, and left us to ourselves. He took one + lamp and I the other, and he started up stairs before me. If he were not + coming down again, he meant to let the hanging-lamp burn, and I had + nothing to say about that; but I suggested, concerning the wide-open door + behind me, “Shall I close the door, Alderling?” and he answered, without + looking round, “I don’t shut it.” + </p> + <p> + He led the way into my room, and he sat down as when I had come, and + absently watched my processes of getting into bed. There was something + droll, and yet miserable, in his behavior. At first, I thought he might be + staying merely for the comfort of a human presence, and again, I thought + he might be afraid, for I felt a little creepy myself, for no assignable + reason, except that Absence, which he must have been incomparably more + sensible of than I. From certain ineffectual movements that he made, and + from certain preliminary noises in his throat, which ended in nothing, I + decided that he wished to say something to me, tell me something, and + could not. But I was selfishly sleepy, and it seemed to me that anything + he had on his mind would keep there till morning, at least, and that if he + got it off on mine now, it might give me a night of wakeful speculation. + So when I got into bed and pulled the sheet up under my chin, I said, + “Well, I don’t want to turn you out, old fellow.” + </p> + <p> + He stared, and answered, “Oh!” and went without other words, carrying his + lamp with him and moving with a weak-kneed shuffle, like a very old man. + </p> + <p> + He was going to leave the door open behind him, but I called out, “I wish + you’d shut me in, Alderling,” and after a hesitation, he came back and + closed the door. <br /> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h3> + VII. + </h3> + <p> + We breakfasted as silently on his part as we had supped, but when we had + finished, and I was wondering what he was going to let me do with myself, + and on the whole what the deuce I had come for, he said, in the longest + speech I had yet had from him, “Wouldn’t you like to come up and see what + I’ve been doing?” + </p> + <p> + I said I should like it immensely, and he led the way up stairs, as far As + his attic studio. The door of that, like the other doors in the house, + stood open, and I got the emotion which the interior gave me, full force, + at the first glance. The place was so startlingly alive with that dead + woman on a score of canvases in the character in which he had always + painted her, that I could scarcely keep from calling out; but I went + about, pretending to examine the several Madonnas, and speaking rubbish + about them, while he stood stoopingly in the midst of them like the little + withered old man he looked. When I had emptied myself of my chaff, I + perceived that the time had come. + </p> + <p> + I glanced about for a seat, and was going to take that in which Mrs. + Alderling used to pose for him, but he called out with sudden sharpness, + “Not that!” and without appearing to notice, I found a box which I + inverted, and sat down on. + </p> + <p> + “Tell me about your wife, Alderling,” I said, and he answered with a sort + of scream, “I wanted you to ask me! Why didn’t you ask me before? What did + you suppose I got you here for?” + </p> + <p> + With that he shrank down, a miserable heap, in his own chair, and bowed + his hapless head and cried. It was more affecting than any notion I can + give you of it, and I could only wait patiently for his grief to wash + itself out in one of those paroxysms which come to bereavement and leave + it somehow a little comforted when they pass. + </p> + <p> + “I was waiting, for the stupid reasons you will imagine, to let you speak + first,” I said, “but here in her presence I couldn’t hold in any longer.” + </p> + <p> + He asked with strange eagerness, “You noticed that?” + </p> + <p> + I chose to feign that he meant in the pictures. “Over and over again,” I + answered. + </p> + <p> + He would not have my feint. “I don’t mean in these wretched caricatures!” + </p> + <p> + “Well?” I assented provisionally. + </p> + <p> + “I mean her very self, listening, looking, living--waiting!” + </p> + <p> + Whether I had insanity or sorrow to deal with, I could not gainsay the + unhappy man, and I only said what I really felt: “Yes, the place seems + strangely full of her. I wish you would tell me about her.” + </p> + <p> + He asked, with a certain slyness, “Have you heard anything about her + already? At the club? From that fool woman in the kitchen?” + </p> + <p> + “For heaven’s sake, no, Alderling!” + </p> + <p> + “Or about me?” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing whatever!” + </p> + <p> + He seemed relieved of whatever suspicion he felt, but he said finally, and + with an air of precaution, “I should like to know just how much you mean + by the place seeming full of her.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I suppose the association of her personality with the whole house, + and especially this room. I didn’t mean anything preternatural, I + believe.” + </p> + <p> + “Then you don’t believe in a life after death?” he demanded with a kind of + defiance. + </p> + <p> + I thought this rather droll, seeing what his own position had been, but + that was not the moment for the expression of my amusement. “The tendency + is to a greater tolerance of the notion,” I said. “Men like James and + Royce, among the psychologists, and Shaler, among the scientists, scarcely + leave us at peace in our doubts, any more, much less our denials.” + </p> + <p> + He said, as if he had forgotten the question: “They called it a very light + case, and they thought she was getting well. In fact, she did get well, + and then--there was a relapse. They laid it to her eating some fruit which + they allowed her.” + </p> + <p> + Alderling spoke with a kind of bitter patience, but in my own mind I was + not able to put all the blame on the doctors. Neither did I blame that + innocently earthy creature, who was of no more harm in her strong appetite + than any other creature which gluts its craving as simply as it feels it. + The sense of her presence was deepened by the fact of those childlike + self-indulgences which Alderling’s words recalled to me. I made no + comment, however, and he asked gloomily, as if with a return of his + suspicion, “And you haven’t heard of anything happening afterward?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know what you refer to,” I told him, “but I can safely say I + haven’t, for I haven’t heard anything at all.” + </p> + <p> + “They contended that it _didn’t_ happen,” he resumed. “She died, they + said, and by all the tests she had been dead two whole days. She died with + her hand in mine. I was not trying to hold her back; she had a kind of + majestic preoccupation in her going, so that I would not have dared to + detain her if I could. You’ve seen them go, and how they seem to draw + those last, long, deep breaths, as if they had no thought in the world but + of the work of getting out of it. When her breathing stopped I expected it + to go on, but it did not go on, and that was all. Nothing startling, + nothing dramatic, just simple, natural, _like her!_ I gave her hand back, + I put it on her breast myself, and crossed the other on it. She looked as + if she were sleeping, with that faint color hovering in her face, which + was not wasted, but I did not make-believe about it; I accepted the fact + of her death. In your ‘Quests of the Occult,’” Alderling broke off, with a + kind of superiority that was of almost the quality of contempt, “I believe + you don’t allow yourself to be daunted by a diametrical difference of + opinion among the witnesses of an occurrence, as to its nature, or as to + its reality, even?” “Not exactly that,” I said. “I think I argued that the + passive negation of one witness ought not to invalidate the testimony of + another as to his experience. One might hear and see things, and strongly + affirm them, and another, absorbed in something else, or in a mere + suspense of the observant faculties, might quite as honestly declare that + so far as his own knowledge was concerned, nothing of the kind happened. I + held that in such a case, counter-testimony should not be allowed to + invalidate the testimony for the fact.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, that is what I meant,” said Alderling. “You say it more clearly in + the book, though.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, of course.” <br /> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h3> + VIII. + </h3> + <p> + He began again, more remotely from the affair in hand than he had left + off, as if he wanted to give himself room for parley with my possible + incredulity. “You know how it was with Marion about my not believing that + I should live again. Her notion was a sort of joke between us, especially + when others were by, but it was a serious thing with her, in her heart. + Perhaps it had originally come to her as a mere fancy, and from + entertaining it playfully, she found herself with a mental inmate that + finally dispossessed her judgment. You remember how literally she brought + those Scripture texts to bear on it?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. May I say that it was very affecting?” + </p> + <p> + “Affecting!” Alderling repeated in a tone of amaze at the inadequacy of my + epithet. “She was always finding things that bore upon the point. After + awhile she got to concealing them, as if she thought they annoyed me. They + never did; they amused me; and when I saw that she had something of the + sort on her mind, I would say, ‘Well, out with it, Marion!’ She would + always begin, ‘Well, you may laugh!’” and as he repeated her words + Alderling did laugh, forlornly, and as I must say, rather bloodcurdlingly. + </p> + <p> + I could not prompt him to go on, but he presently did so himself, + desolately enough. “I suppose, if I was in her mind at all in that supreme + moment, when she seemed to be leaving this life behind with such a solemn + effect of rating it at nothing, it may have been a pang to her that I was + not following her into the dark, with any ray of hope for either of us. + She could not have returned from it with the expectation of convincing me, + for I used to tell her that if one came back from the dead, I should + merely know that he had been mistaken about being dead, and was giving me + a dream from his trance. She once asked me if I thought Lazarus was not + really dead, with a curious childlike interest in the miracle, and she was + disheartened when I reminded her that Lazarus had not testified of any + life hereafter, and it did not matter whether he had been really dead or + not when he was resuscitated, as far as that was concerned. Last year, we + read the Bible a good deal together here, and to tease her I pretended to + be convinced of the contrary by the very passages that persuaded her. As + she told you, she did not care for herself. You remember that?” + </p> + <p> + “Distinctly,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “It was always so. She never cared. I was perfectly aware that if she + could have assured life hereafter to me, she would have given her life + here to do it. You know how some women, when they are married, absolutely + give themselves up, try to lose themselves in the behoof of their + husbands? I don’t say it rightly; there are no words that will express the + utterness of their abdication.” + </p> + <p> + “I know what you mean,” I said, “and it was one of the facts which most + interested me in Mrs. Alderling.” + </p> + <p> + “Because I wasn’t worthy of it? No man is!” + </p> + <p> + “It wasn’t a question of that in my mind; I don’t believe that occurred to + me. It was the _Ding an sich_ that interested me, or as it related itself + to her, and not the least as it related itself to you. Such a woman’s + being is a cycle of self-sacrifice, so perfect, so essential, from birth + to death, as to exclude the notion of volition. She is what she does. Of + course she has to put her sacrifice into words from time to time, but its + true language is acts, and the acts themselves only clumsily express it. + There is a kind of tyranny in it for the man, of course. It requires + self-sacrifice to be sacrificed to, and I don’t suppose a woman has any + particular merit in what is so purely natural. It appears pathetic when it + is met with ingratitude or rejection, but when it has its way it is no + more deserving our reverence than eating or sleeping. It astonishes men + because they are as naturally incapable of it as women are capable of it.” + I was mounted and was riding on, forgetful of Alderling, and what he had + to tell me, if he had anything, but he recalled me to myself by having + apparently forgotten me, for when I paused, he took up his affair at a + quite different point, and as though that were the question in hand. + </p> + <p> + “That gift, or knack, or trick, or whatever it was, of one compelling the + presence of the other by thinking or willing it, was as much mine as hers, + and she tried sometimes to get me to say that I would use it with her if + she died before I did; and if she were where the conditions were opposed + to her coming to me, my will would help her to overcome the hinderance; + our united wills would form a current of volition that she could travel + back on against all obstacles. I don’t know whether I make myself clear?” + he appealed. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, perfectly,” I said. “It is very curious.” He said in a kind of muse, + “I don’t know just where I was.” Then he began again, “Oh, yes! It was at + the ceremony--down there in the library. Some of the country people came + in; I suppose they thought they ought, and I suppose they wanted to; it + didn’t matter to me. I had sent for Doctor Norrey, as soon as the relapse + came, and he was there with me. Of course there was the minister, + conducting the services. He made a prayer full of helpless repetitions, + which I helplessly noticed, and some scrambling remarks, mostly + misdirected at me, affirming and reaffirming that the sister they had lost + was only gone before, and that she was now in a happier world. + </p> + <p> + “The singing and the praying and the preaching came to an end, and then + there was that soul-sickening hush, that exanimate silence, of which the + noise of rustling clothes and scraping feet formed a part, as the people + rose in the hall, where chairs had been put for them, leaving me and + Norrey alone with Marion. Every fibre of my frame recognized the moment of + parting, and protested. A tremendous wave of will swept through me and + from me, a resistless demand for her presence, and it had power upon her. + I heard her speak, and say, as distinctly as I repeat the words, ‘I will + come for you!’ and the youth and the beauty that had been growing more and + more wonderful in her face, ever since she died, shone like a kind of + light from it. I answered her, ‘I am ready now!’ and then Norrey scuffled + to his feet, with a conventional face of sympathy, and said, ‘No hurry, my + dear Alderling,’ and I knew he had not heard or seen anything, as well as + I did afterwards when I questioned him. He thought I was giving them + notice that they could take her away. What do you think?” + </p> + <p> + “How what do I think?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Do you think that it happened?” + </p> + <p> + There was something in Alderling’s tone and manner that made me, instead + of answering directly that I did not, temporize and ask, “Why?” + </p> + <p> + “Because--because,” and Alderling caught his breath, like a child that is + trying to keep itself from crying, “because _I_ don’t.” He broke into a + sobbing that seemed to wrench and tear his poor little body, and if I had + thought of anything to say, I could not have said it to his headlong grief + with any hope of assuaging it. “I am satisfied now,” he said, at last, + wiping his wet face, and striving for some composure of its trembling + features, “that it was all a delusion, the effect of my exaltation, of my + momentary aberration, perhaps. Don’t be afraid of saying what you really + think,” he added scornfully, “with the notion of sparing me. You couldn’t + doubt it, or deny it, more completely than I do.” + </p> + <p class="ctr"> + <a href="images/illusp212.jpg"><img src="images/illusp212_th.jpg" + alt="HE BROKE INTO A SOBBING THAT SEEMED TO WRENCH AND TEAR" /></a> + </p> + <p> + I confess this unexpected turn struck me dumb. I did not try to say + anything, and Alderling went on. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t deny that she is living, but I can’t believe that I shall ever + live to see her again, or if you prefer, die to see her. There is the play + of the poor animal instinct, or the mechanical persistence of expectation + in me, so that I can’t shut the doors without the sense of shutting her + out, can’t put out the lights without feeling that I am leaving her in the + dark. But I know it is all foolishness, as well as you do, all craziness. + If she is alive it is because she believed she should live, and I shall + perish because I didn’t believe. I should like to believe, now, if only to + see her again, but it is too late. If you disuse any member of your body, + or any faculty of your mind, it withers away and if you deny your soul + your soul ceases to be.” + </p> + <p> + I found myself saying, “That is very interesting,” from a certain force of + habit, which you have noted in me, when confronted with a novel instance + of any kind. “But,” I suggested, “why not act upon the reverse of that + principle, and create the fact by affirmation which you think your denial + destroys?” + </p> + <p> + “Because,” he repeated wearily, “it is too late. You might as well ask the + fakir who has held his arm upright for twenty years, till it has stiffened + there, to restore the dry stock by exercise. It is too late, I tell you.” + </p> + <p> + “But, look here, Alderling,” I pursued, beginning to taste the joy of + argument. “You say that your will had such power upon her after you knew + her to be dead that you made her speak to you?” + </p> + <p> + “No, I don’t say that now,” he returned. “I know now that it was a + delusion.” + </p> + <p> + “But if you once had that power of summoning her to you, by strongly + wishing for her presence, when you were both living here, why doesn’t it + stand to reason that you could do it still, if she is living there and you + are living here?” + </p> + <p> + “I never had any such power,” he replied, with the calm of absolute + tragedy. “That was a delusion too. I leave the doors open for her, night + and day, because I must, but if she came I should know it was not she.” + <br /> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h3> + IX. + </h3> + <p> + Of course you know your own business, my dear Acton, but if you think of + using the story of the Alderlings--and there is no reason why you should + not, for they are both dead, without kith or kin surviving, so far as I + know, unless he has some relatives in Germany, who would never penetrate + the disguise you could give the case--it seems to me that here is your + true climax. But I necessarily leave the matter to you, for I shall not + touch it at any point where we could come into competition. In fact, I + doubt if I ever touch it at all, for though all psychology is in a manner + dealing with the occult, still I think I have done my duty by that side of + it, as the occult is usually understood; and I am shy of its grosser + instances, as things that are apt to bring one’s scientific poise into + question. However, you shall be the judge of what is best for you to do, + when you have the whole story, and I will give it you without more ado, + merely premising that I have a sort of shame for the aptness of the + catastrophe. I shall respect you more if I hear that you agree with me as + to the true climax of the tragedy, and have the heroism to reject the + final event. + </p> + <p> + I stayed with Alderling nearly a week, and I will own that I bored myself. + In fact, I am not sure but we bored each other. At any rate, when I told + him, the night before I intended going, that I meant to leave him in the + morning, he seemed resigned, or indifferent, or perhaps merely + inattentive. From time to time we had recurred to the matter of his + experience, or his delusion, but with apparently increasing impatience on + his part, and certainly decreasing interest on mine; so that at last I + think he was willing to have me go. But in the morning he seemed + reluctant, and pleaded with me to stay a few days longer with him. I + alleged engagements, more or less unreal, for I was never on such terms + with Alderling that I felt I need make any special sacrifice to him. He + gave way, suspiciously, rather, and when I came down from my room after + having put the last touches to my packing, I found him on the veranda + looking out to seaward, where a heavy fog-bank hung. + </p> + <p> + You will sense here the sort of _patness_ which I feel cheapens the + catastrophe; and yet, as I consider it, again, the fact is not without its + curious importance, and its bearing upon what went before. I do not know + but it gives the whole affair a relief which it would not otherwise have. + </p> + <p> + He was to have driven me to the station, some miles away, before noon, and + I supposed we should sit down together, and try to have some sort of talk + before I went. But Alderling appeared to have forgotten about my going, + and after a while, took himself off to his studio, and left me alone to + watch the inroads of the fog. It came on over the harbor rapidly, as on + that morning when Mrs. Alderling had been so nearly lost in it, and + presently the masts and shrouds of the shipping at anchor were sticking up + out of it as if they were sunk into a body as dense as the sea under them. + </p> + <p> + I amused myself watching it blot out one detail of the prospect after + another, while the fog-horn lowed through it, and the bell-buoy, far out + beyond the light-house ledge, tolled mournfully. The milk-white mass moved + landward, and soon the air was blind with the mist which hid the grass + twenty yards away. There was an awfulness in the silence, which nothing + broke but the lowing of the horn, and the tolling of the bell, except when + now and then the voice of a sailor came through it, like that of some + drowned man sending up his hail from the bottom of the bay. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly I heard a joyful shout from the attic overhead: + </p> + <p> + “I am coming! I am coming!” + </p> + <p> + It was Alderling calling out through his window, and then a cry came from + over the water, which seemed to answer him, but which there is no reason + in the world to believe was not a girlish shout from one of the yachts, + swallowed up in the fog. + </p> + <p> + His lunging descent of the successive stairways followed, and he burst + through the doorway beside me, and without heeding me, ran bareheaded down + the sloping lawn. + </p> + <p> + I followed, with what notion of help or hinderance I should not find it + easy to say, but before I reached the water’s edge--in fact I never did + reach it, and had some difficulty making my way back to the house,--I + heard the rapid throb of the oars in the row-locks as he pulled through + the white opacity. + </p> + <p> + You know the rest, for it was the common property of our enterprising + press at the time, when the incident was fully reported, with my + ineffectual efforts to be satisfactorily interviewed as to the nothing I + knew. + </p> + <p> + The oarless boat was found floating far out to sea after the fog lifted. + It was useless to look for Alderling’s body, and I do not know that any + search was made for it. + </p> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg’s Questionable Shapes, by William Dean Howells + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK QUESTIONABLE SHAPES *** + +***** This file should be named 9458-h.htm or 9458-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/9/4/5/9458/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan, Tonya Allen, David Widger, +and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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