Chapter VI: Part 6

In accepting Catty out of charity, the fellows unexpectedly made an advantageous bargain. Not merely because she was always eager to help, but for her specific contribution to the haven’s economy. Before this, clothing the haven had been a haphazard affair; suits or dresses were bought with money which would otherwise have been contributed to the general fund, or if the fellow had no outside income, by a grant from the same fund. Catty’s artistry with the needle made a revolution. Not only did she patch and mend and alter; she designed and made clothes, conveying some of her enthusiasm to the other women. The haven was better and more handsomely clad and a great deal of money was saved. Only Barbara refused to have her silk trousers and jackets made at home.

It was not entirely easy to adjust to the new Catty, the busy, efficient, selfreliant creature. Her expressive voice could be enchanting even when she was speaking nonsense—and Catty rarely spoke nonsense. I don’t mean she was priggish or solemn, quite the contrary; her spontaneous laughter was quick and frequent. But she was essentially not frivolous; she felt deeply, her loyalties were strong and enduring.

I missed her former all too open devotion to me. It had caused embarrassment, impatience, annoyance; now it was withdrawn I felt deprived and even pettish at its lack. Not that I had anything to offer in return or considered that any emotion was called for from me. Though I didnt express it to myself so openly at the time, what I regretted was the sensually valuable docility of a beautiful woman. Of course there was a confusion here: I was regretting what had never been, for Catty and the nameless dumb girl were different individuals. Even her always undeniable beauty was changed and heightened; what I really wanted was for the Catty of now to act like the Catty of then. And without any reciprocal gesture from me.

The new Catty no more than the old was disingenuous or coquettish. She was simply mature, dignified, selfcontained and just a trifle amusedly aloof. Also she was very busy. She did not pretend to any interest in other men; at the same time she had clearly outgrown her childish dependence on me. She refused any competition with Barbara. When I sought her out she was there, but she made no attempt to call me to her.

I was not so unversed that I didnt occasionally suspect this might be a calculated tactic. But when I recalled the utter innocence of her look I reflected I would have to have a very nice conceit of myself indeed to believe the two most attractive women at Haggershaven were contending for me.

I don’t know precisely when I began to see Catty with a predatory male eye. Doubtless it was during one of those times when Barbara and I had quarrelled, and when she had called attention to Catty by accusing me of dallying with her. I was essentially as polygamous as Barbara was polyandrous or Catty monogamous; once the idea had formed I made no attempt to reject it.

Nor, for a very long time, did I accept it in any way except academically. There are sensual values also in tantalizing, and if these values are perverse I can only say I was still immature in many ways. Additionally there must have been an element of fear of Catty, the same fear which maintained a reserve against Barbara. For the time being at least it seemed much pleasanter to talk lightly and inconsequentially with her; to laugh and boast of my progress, to discuss Haggershaven and the world, than to face our elementary relationship.

My fourth winter at the haven had been an unusually mild one; spring was early and wet. Kimi Agati who, with her children, annually gathered quantities of mushrooms from the woodlots and pastures, claimed this year’s supply was so large that she needed help, and conscripted Catty and me. Catty protested she didnt know a mushroom from a toadstool; Kimi immediately gave her a brief but thorough course in thallophytology. “And Hodge will help you; he’s a country boy.”

“All right,” I said. “I make no guarantees though; I havent been a country boy for a long time.”

“I’m not so sure,” said Kimi thoughtfully. “You two take the small southeast woodlot; Fumio can have the big pasture, Eiko the small one; Yosh and I will pick in the west woodlot.”

We carried a picnic lunch and nests of large baskets which were to be put by the edge of the woodlots when full; late in the afternoon a cart would pick them up and bring them in for drying. The air was warm even under the leafless branches; the damp ground steamed cosily.

“Kimi was certainly right,” I commented. “Theyre thick as can be.”

“I don’t see....” She stooped gracefully; “Oh, is this one?”

“Yes,” I said, “And there, and there. Not that white thing over there though.”

We filled our first baskets without moving more than a few yards. “At this rate we’ll have them all full by noon.”

“And go back for more?”

“I suppose. Or just wander around.”

“Oh.... Look, Hodge—what’s this?” “What?”

“This.” She showed me the puffball in her hands, looking inquiringly up.

I looked down casually; suddenly there was nothing casual between us any more, nor ever would be again. I looked down at a woman I wanted desperately, feverishly, immediately. The shock of desire was a weight on my chest, expelling the air from my lungs.

“Goodness—is it some rare specimen or something?” “Puffball,” I managed to say. “No good.”

I hardly spoke, I could hardly speak, as we filled our second baskets. I was sure the pounding of my heart must show through my shirt, and several times I thought I saw her looking curiously at me. “Let’s eat now,” I suggested hoarsely.

I found a pine with low-hanging boughs and tore down enough to make a dry, soft place to sit while Catty unpacked our picnic. “Here’s an egg,” she said; “I’m starved.”

We ate; that is, she ate and I pretended to. I was half dazed, half terrified. I watched her swift motions, the turn of her head, the clean, sharp way she bit into the food, and averted my eyes every time her glance crossed mine.

“Well,” she murmured at last; “I suppose we mustnt sit idle any longer. Come on, lazy; back to work.”

“Catty,” I whispered. “Catty.”

“What is it, Hodge?”

“Wait.”

Obediently she paused. I reached over and took her in my arms. She looked at me, not startled, but questioning. Just as my mouth reached hers she moved slightly so that I kissed her cheek instead of her lips. She did not struggle but lay passively, with the same questioning expression.

I held her, pressing her against the pine boughs, and found her mouth. I kissed her eyes and throat and mouth again. Her eyes stayed open and she did not respond. I undid the top of her dress and pressed my face between her breasts.

“Hodge.”

I paid no attention.

“Hodge, wait. Listen to me. If this is what you want you know I will not try to stop you. But Hodge, be sure. Be very sure.”

“I want you, Catty.”

“Do you? Really want _me_, I mean.”

“I don’t know what you mean. I want you.”

But it was already too late; I had made the fatal error of pausing to listen. Angrily I moved away, picked up my basket and sullenly began to search for mushrooms again. My hands still trembled and there was a quiver in my legs. To complement my mood a cloud drifted across the sun and the warm woods became chilly.

“Hodge.”

“Yes?”

“Please don’t be angry. Or ashamed. If you are I shall be sorry.”

“I don’t understand.”

She laughed. “Oh my dear Hodge. Isnt that what men always say to women? And isnt it always true?”

Suddenly the day was no longer spoiled. The tension melted and we went on picking mushrooms with a new and fresh innocence.

After this I could no longer keep all thoughts of Catty out of the intimacy with Barbara; now for the first time her jealousy had grounds. I felt guilty toward both, not because I desired both, but because I didnt totally desire either.

Now, years later, I condemn myself for the lost rapturous moments; at the time I procrastinated and hesitated as though I had eternity in which to make decisions. I was, as Tyss had said, the spectator type, waiting to be acted upon, waiting for events to push me where they would.

_16._ _OF VARIED SUBJECTS_

“I can’t think of anything more futile,” said Kimi, “than to be an architect at this time in the United States.”

Her husband grinned. “You forgot to add, ‘of Oriental extraction.’”

Catty said, “Ive never understood. Of course I don’t remember too well, but it seems to me Spanish people don’t have the same racial fanaticism. Certainly the Portuguese, French and Dutch don’t. Even the English are not quite so certain of Anglo-Saxon superiority. Only the Americans, in the United States and the Confederate States too, judge everything by color.”

“The case of the Confederacy is reasonably simple,” I said. “There are about fifty million Confederate citizens and two hundred and fifty million subjects. If white supremacy wasnt the cornerstone of Southron policy a visitor couldnt tell the ruling class at a glance. Even as it is he sometimes has a hard time, what with sunburn. It’s more complicated here. Remember, we lost a war, the most important war in our history, which was not unconnected with skin color.”

“In Japan,” said Hiro, “the lighter colored people, the Ainu, used to be looked down on. Just as the Christians were once driven underground at exactly the same time they themselves drove the Jews underground in Spain and Portugal.”

“The Jews,” murmured Catty vaguely; “are there still Jews?”

“Oh yes,” I said. “Several millions in Uganda-Eretz which the British made a self-governing dominion back in 1933 under the first Labour cabinet. And numbers most everywhere else, except in the German Union since the massacres of 1905-1913.”

“Which were much more thorough than the anti-Oriental massacres in the United States,” supplied Hiro.

“Much more thorough,” I agreed. “After all, scattered handfuls of Asians were left alive here.”

“My parents and Kimi’s grandparents among them. How lucky they were to be American Japanese instead of European Jews.”

“There are Jews in the United States,” announced Kimi. “I met one once. She was a theosophist and told me I ought to learn the wisdom of the East.”

“Very few of them. There were about two hundred thousand at the close of the War of Southron Independence on both sides of the border. After the election of 1872, General Grant’s Order Number Ten, expelling all Jews from the Department of the Missouri, which had been rescinded immediately by President Lincoln, was retroactively re-enacted by President Butler, in spite of the fact that the United States no longer controlled that territory. Henceforth Jews were treated like all other colored peoples, Negroes, Orientals, Indians and South Sea Islanders: as undesirables to be bribed to leave or to be driven out of the country.”

“This is very dull stuff,” said Hiro. “Let me tell you about a hydrogen reaction—”

“No, please,” begged Catty. “Let me listen to Hodge.”

“Good heavens,” exclaimed Kimi, “when do you ever do anything else? I’d think you’d be tired by now.”

“She will marry him one of these days,” predicted Hiro; “then the poor fellow will never be allowed to disguise a lecture as a conversation again.”

Catty blushed, a deep red blush. I laughed to cover some constraint. Kimi said, “Go-betweens are out of fashion; youre a century behind times, Hiro. I suppose you think a woman ought to walk two paces respectfully behind her husband. Actually, it’s only in the United States women can’t vote or serve on juries.”

“Except in the state of Deseret,” I reminded her.

“That’s just bait; the Mormons gave us equality because they were running short of women.”

“Not the way I heard it. The Latter Day Saints have been the nearest thing to a prosperous group in the country. Women have been moving there for years, it’s so easy to get married. All the grumbling about polygamy has come from men who can’t stand the competition.”

Catty glanced at me, then looked away.

Had she, I wondered afterward, been thinking how Barbara would have rejected my observation furiously? Or about that day in the spring? Or about Hiro’s earlier comment? I thought about it, briefly, myself.

I also thought of how easily Catty fitted in with the Agatis and contrasted it with the tension everyone would have felt if Barbara had been there. One could love Barbara, or hate her or dislike her or even, I supposed, be indifferent to her; the one thing impossible was to be comfortable with her.

The final choice (was it final? I don’t know. I shall never know now) hardened when I had been nearly six years at Haggershaven. It had been “on” between Barbara and me for the longest stretch I could recall and I had even begun to wonder if some paradoxical equilibrium had not been established which would allow me to be her lover without vexation and at the same time innocently enjoy a bond with Catty.

As always when the hostility between us slackened, Barbara spoke of her work. In spite of such occasional confidences it was still not her habit to talk of it with me. That intimacy was obviously reserved for Ace, and I didnt begrudge him it, for after all he understood what it was all about and I didnt. This time she was so full of the subject she could not hold back, even from one who could hardly distinguish between thermodynamics and kinesthetics.

“Hodge,” she said, gray eyes greenish with excitement, “I’m not going to write a book.”

“That’s nice,” I answered idly. “New, too. Saves time, paper, ink. Sets a different standard; from now on scholars will be known as ‘Jones, who didnt write _The Theory of Tidal Waves’_,‘Smith, unauthor of _Gas and Its Properties_,’ or ‘Backmaker, non-recorder of _Gettysburg And After_.’”

“Silly. I only meant it’s become customary to spend a lifetime formulating principles; then someone else comes along and puts your principles into practice. It seems more sensible for me to demonstrate my own conclusions instead of writing about them.”

“Yes, sure. Youre going to demonstrate ... uh ...?”

“Cosmic entity, of course. What do you think Ive been talking about?”

I tried to remember what she had said about cosmic entity. “You mean youre going to try to turn matter into space or something like that?”

“Something like that. I intend to translate matter-energy into terms of space-time.”

“Oh,” I said, “equations and symbols and all that.”

“I just said I wasnt going to write a book.”

“But how—” I started up as the impact struck me. “Youre going to ...” I groped for words. “Youre going to build a ... an engine which will move through time?”

“Putting it crudely. But close enough for a layman.”

“You once told me your work was theoretical. That you were no vulgar mechanic.”

“I’ll become one.”

“Barbara, youre crazy! As a philosophical abstraction this theory of yours is interesting—”

“Thank you. It’s always nice to know one has amused the yokelry.”

“Barbara, listen to me. Midbin—” “I havent the faintest interest in Oliver’s stodgy fantasies.”

“He has in yours though, and so have I. Don’t you see, this determination of yours is based on the fantasy of going back through time to—uh—injure your mother—”

“Oliver Midbin is a coarse, stupid, insensate lout. He has taught the dumb to speak, but he’s too much of a fool to understand anyone of normal intelligence. He has a set of idiotic theories about diseased emotions and he fits all facts into them even if it means chopping them up to do it or inventing new ones to piece them out. Injure my mother indeed! I have no more interest in her than she ever had in me.”

“Ah, Barbara—” “‘Ah Barbara,’” she mimicked. “Run along to your pompous windbag of a Midbin or your oh-so-willing cow-eyed Spanish doxy—”

“Barbara, I’m talking as a friend. Leave Midbin and Catty and personalities out of it and just look at it this way. Don’t you see the difference between promulgating a theory and trying a practical demonstration which will certainly appear to the world as going over the borderline into charlatanism? Like a spiritualist medium or—” “That’s enough! ‘Charlatan’! You unspeakable guttersnipe. What do you know of anything beyond the seduction of cretins? Go back to your trade, you errand boy!”

I seemed to remember that once before an incident had ended precisely this way. “Barbara—”

Her hand caught me across my mouth. Then she strode away.

The fellows of Haggershaven were not enthusiastic for her project. Even as she outlined it to them in more sober language than she had to me it still sounded outlandish, like the recurrent idea of a telegraph without wires or a rocket to the moon. Besides, 1950 was a bad year. The war was coming closer; at the least, what was left of the independence of the United States was likely to be extinguished. Our energies had to be directed toward survival rather than new and expensive ventures. Still, Barbara Haggerwells was a famous figure commanding great respect, and she had cost them little so far, beyond paper and pencils. Reluctantly the fellows voted an appropriation.

An old barn, not utilized for years, but still sound, was turned over to Barbara, and Kimi was delighted to plan, design and supervise the necessary changes. Ace and a group of the fellows attacked the job vigorously, sawing and hammering, bolting iron beams together, piping in gas for reflecting lights to enable them to work at night as well.

I believe I took no more interest than was inescapable as a fellow of Haggershaven. I had no doubt that the money and labor were being wasted, and I foresaw a terrible disappointment for Barbara when she realized the impossibility of her project. For myself I did not think she would play any further part of importance in my life.

We had not spoken since the quarrel, nor was there inclination on either side toward coming together again. I could not guess at Barbara’s feelings; mine were those of relief, unmixed with regret. I would not have erased all there had been between us, but I was satisfied to have it in the past. The raging desire vanished, gradually replaced by an affection of sorts; I wanted no more of that tempestuous passion, instead I felt aloofly protective and understanding.

For at last I was absorbed with Catty. The raw hunger of the moment when I first realized I wanted her came back with renewed force, but now other, more diffused feelings were equally part of my emotion. I knew she could make me jealous as Barbara could not; at the same time I could see tranquillity beyond turbulent wanting, a tranquillity never possible with Barbara.

But my belated realization of what Catty meant to me was no reaction to Barbara or connected with the breaking of that tie. The need for Catty was engendered by Catty alone, and for Catty apart from anything I had ever felt for another. It was in some ways an entirely new hunger, as the man’s need transcends the youth’s. I understood now what her question in the woodlot meant and at last I could truthfully answer.

She kissed me back, freely and strongly. “I love you, Hodge,” she said; “I have loved you even through the bad dream of not being able to speak.”

“When I was so unfeeling.”

“I loved you even when you were impatient; I tried to make myself prettier for you. You know you have never said I was pretty.”

“You arent, Catty. Youre extraordinarily beautiful.”

“I think I would rather be pretty. Beauty sounds forbidding. Oh, Hodge, if I did not love you so much I would not have stopped you that day.”

“I’m not sure I understand that.”

“No? Well, it is not necessary now. Sometimes I wondered if I had been right after all, or if you would think it was because of Barbara.”

“Wasnt it?”

“No. I was never jealous of her. We Garcías are supposed to have Morisco blood; perhaps I have the harem outlook of my dark Muslim ancestors. Would you like me to be your black concubine?”

“No,” I said. “I’d like you to be my wife. In any colors you have.”

“Spoken with real gallantry; you will be a courtier yet, Hodge. But that was a proposal, wasnt it?”

“Yes,” I answered grimly; “if you will consider one from me. I can’t think of any good reason why you should.”

She put her hands on my shoulders and looked into my eyes. “I don’t know what reason has to do with it. It is what I always intended; that was why I blushed so when Hiro Agati blurted out what everyone could see.”

Later I said, “Catty, can you ever forgive me for the wasted years? You say you werent jealous of Barbara, but surely if she and I—that is ... anyway, forgive me.”

“Dear Hodge, there’s nothing to forgive. Love is not a business transaction, nor a case at law in which justice is sought, nor a reward for having good qualities. I understand you, Hodge, better I think than you understand yourself. You are not satisfied with what is readily obtained, otherwise you would have been content back in—what is the name?—Wappinger Falls. I have known this for a long time and I could, I think—you must excuse my vanity—have interested you at any moment by pretending fickleness. Just as I could have held you if I had given in that day. Besides, I think you will make a better husband for realizing you could not deal with Barbara.”

I can’t say I entirely enjoyed this speech. I felt, in fact, rather humiliated, or at least healthily humbled. Which was no doubt what she intended, and as it should be. I never had the idea she was frail or insipid.

Nor did Catty’s explanation of a harem outlook satisfactorily account for the sudden friendliness of the two women after the engagement was announced. That Barbara should soften so toward a successful rival was incomprehensible and also disturbing.

Because both were fully occupied they actually spent little time together, but Catty visited the workshop, as they called the converted barn, whenever she had the chance and her real admiration for Barbara grew so that I heard too often of her genius, courage and imagination. I could hardly ask Catty to forego society I had so recently found enchanting nor establish a taboo against mention of a name I had lately whispered with ardor; still I felt a little foolish, and not quite as important as I might otherwise have thought myself.

Not that Catty didnt have proper respect and enthusiasm for my fortunes. I had completed my notes for _Chancellorsville to the End_—that is, I had a mass of clues, guideposts, keys, ideas, and emphases which would serve as skeleton for a work which might take years to write—and Catty was the audience to whom I explained and expounded and used as a prototype of the reader I might reach. Volume one was roughly drafted, and we were to be married as soon as it was finished, shortly after my thirtieth and Catty’s twenty-fourth birthday. There was little doubt the book would bring an offer from one of the great Confederate universities, but Catty was firm for a cottage like the Agatis’, and I could not conceive of being foolish enough to leave Haggershaven.

From Catty’s talk I knew Barbara was running into increasing difficulties now the workshop was complete and actual construction begun of what was referred to, with unnecessary crypticism I thought, as HX-1. The impending war created scarcities, particularly of such materials as steel and copper, of which latter metal HX-1 seemed inordinately greedy. I was not surprised when the fellows apologetically refused Barbara a new appropriation.

Next day Catty said, “Hodge, you know the haven wouldnt take my money.”

“And quite right too. Let the rest of us put in what we get; we owe it to the haven anyway. But the debt is the other way round in your case and you should keep your independence.”

“Hodge, I’m going to give it all to Barbara for her HX-1.”

“What? Oh, nonsense!”

“Is it any more nonsensical for me to put in money I didnt do anything to get than for her and Ace to put in time and knowledge and labor?”

“Yes, because she’s got a crazy idea and Ace has never been quite sane where she’s concerned. If you go ahead and do this you’ll be as crazy as they are.”

When Catty laughed I remembered with a pang the long months when that lovely sound had been strangled by terror inside her. I also thought with shame of my own failure; had I appreciated her when her need was greatest I might have eased the long, painful ordeal of restoring her voice.

“Perhaps I am crazy. Do you think the haven would make me a fellow on that basis? Anyway, I believe in Barbara even if the rest of you don’t. Not that I’m criticizing; you were right to be cautious. You have more to consider than demonstration of the truth of a theory which can’t conceivably have a material value; I don’t have to take any such long view. Anyway I believe in her. Or perhaps I feel I owe her something. With my money she can finish her project. I only tell you this because you may not want to marry me under the circumstances.”

“You think I’m marrying you for your money?”

She smiled. “Dear Hodge. You are in some ways so young; I hear the wounded dignity in your voice. No, I know very well you arent marrying me for money, that it never occurred to you it might be a good idea. That would be too practical, too grown up, too un-Hodgelike. I think you might not want to marry a woman who’d give all her money away. Especially to Barbara Haggerwells.”

“Catty, are you doing this absurd thing to get rid of me? Or to test me?”

This time she again laughed loud. “Now I’m sure you will marry me after all and turn out to be a puzzled but amenable husband. You are my true Hodge, who studies a war because he can’t understand anything simpler or subtler.”

She wasnt to be dissuaded from the quixotic gesture. I might not understand subtleties but I was sure I understood Barbara well enough. Foreseeing her request for more funds would be turned down, she must have cultivated Catty deliberately in order to use her. Now she’d gotten what she wanted I confidently expected her to drop Catty or revert to her accustomed virulence.

She did neither. If anything the amity grew. Catty’s vocabulary added words like “magnet,” “coil,” “induction,” “particle,” “light-year,” “continuum” and many others either incomprehensible or uninteresting to me. Breathlessly she described the strange, asymmetric structure taking shape in the workshop, while my mind was busy with Ewell’s Corps and parrott guns and the weather chart of southern Pennsylvania for July, 1863.

The great publishing firm of Ticknor, Harcourt & Knopf contracted for my book—there was no publisher in the United States equipped to handle it—and sent me a sizable advance in Confederate dollars which became even more sizable converted into our money. I read the proofs of volume one in a state of semiconsciousness, sent the inevitable telegram changing a footnote on page 99, and waited for the infuriating mails to bring me my complimentary copies. The day after they arrived (with a horrifying typographical error right in the middle of page 12), Catty and I were married.

Dear Catty. Dear, dear Catty.

With the approval of the fellows we used part of the publisher’s advance for a honeymoon. We spent it—that part of it in which we had time for anything except being alone together—going over nearby battlefields of the last year of the War of Southron Independence.

It was Catty’s first excursion away from Haggershaven since the night I brought her there. Looking at the world outside through her perceptions, at once insulated and made hypersensitive by her new status, I was shocked afresh at the harsh indifference, the dull poverty, the fear, brutality, frenzy and cynicism highlighting the strange resignation to impending fate which characterized our civilization. It was not a case of eat, drink, be merry, for tomorrow we die; rather it was, let us live meanly and trust to luck—tomorrow’s luck is bound to be worse.

We settled down in the autumn of 1951 in a cottage designed by Kimi and built by the fellows during our absence. It gave on the Agatis’ cherished garden and we were both moved by this evidence of love, particularly after what we had seen and heard on our trip. Mr Haggerwells made a speech, filled with classical allusions, welcoming us back as though we had been gone for years; Midbin looked anxiously into Catty’s face as though to assure himself I had not, in my new role as husband, treated her so ill as to bring on a new emotional upset; and the other fellows made appropriate gestures. Even Barbara stopped by long enough to comment that the house was ridiculously small, but she supposed Kimi’s movable partitions helped.

I immediately began working on volume two and Catty took up her sewing again. She also resumed her visits to Barbara’s workshop; again I heard detailed accounts of my former sweetheart’s progress. HX-1 was to be completed in the late spring, or early summer. I was not surprised at Barbara’s faith surviving actual construction of the thing, but that such otherwise level-headed people as Ace and Catty could envisage breathlessly the miracles about to happen was beyond me. Ace, even after all these years, was still bemused—but Catty ...?

Just before the turn of the year I got the following letter:

LEE & WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
Department of History

Leesburg, District of Calhounia, CSA.
December 19, 1951

Mr. Hodgins M. Backmaker
“Haggershaven”
York,
Pennsylvania, USA.

_Sir_:

_On page 407 of_ Chancellorsville to the End, _volume I_, Turning Tides, _you write, “Chronology and topography—timing and the use of space—were to be the decisive factors, rather than population and industry. Stuart’s detachment, which might have proved disastrous, turned out extraordinarily fortunate for Lee, as we shall see in the next volume. Of course the absence of cavalry might have been decisive if the Round Tops had not been occupied by the Southrons on July 1....”_

_Now, sir, evidently in your forthcoming analysis of Gettysburg you hold (as I presume most Yankees do) to the theory of fortuitousness. We Southrons naturally ascribe the victory to the supreme genius of General Lee, regarding the factors of time and space not as forces in themselves but as opportunities for the display of his talents._

_Needless to say, I hardly expect you to change your opinions, rooted as they must be in national pride. I only ask that before you commit them, and the conclusions shaped by them, to print, you satisfy yourself as an historian, of their validity in this particular case. In other words, sir, as one of your readers (and may I add, one who has enjoyed your work), I should like to be assured that you have studied this classic battle as carefully as you have the engagements described in volume I._

_With earnest wishes for your success,
I remain, sir
Cordially yours,
Jefferson Davis Polk_

This letter from Dr Polk, the foremost historian of our day, author of the monumental biography, _The Great Lee_, produced a crisis in my life. Had the Confederate professor pointed out flaws in my work, or even reproached me for undertaking it at all without adequate equipment I would, I trust, have acknowledged the reproof and continued to the best of my ability. But this letter was an accolade. Without condescension Dr Polk admitted me to the ranks of serious historians, only asking me to consider the depth of my evaluation.

Truth is, I was not without increasing doubts of my own. Doubts I had not allowed to rise to the surface of my mind and disturb my plans. Polk’s letter brought them into the open.

I had read everything available. I had been over the ground between the Maryland line, South Mountain, Carlisle and the haven until I could draw a detail map from memory. I had turned up diaries, letters and accounts which had not only never been published, but which were not known to exist until I hunted them down. I had so steeped myself in the period I was writing about that sometimes the two worlds seemed interchangeable and I could live partly in one, partly in the other.

Yet with all this, I was not sure I had the whole story, even in the sense of wholeness that historians, knowing they can never collect every detail, accept. I was not sure I had the grand scene in perfectly proper perspective. I admitted to myself the possibility that I had perhaps been too rash, too precipitate, in undertaking _Chancellorsville to the End_ so soon. I knew the shadowy sign, the one which says in effect, _You are ready_, had not been given. My confidence was shaken.

Was the fault in me, in my temperament and character, rather than in my preparation and use of materials? Was I drawing back from committing myself, from acting, from doing? That I had written the first volume was no positive answer, for it was but the fraction of a whole deed; if I withdrew now I could still preserve my standing as an onlooker.

But not to act was itself an action and answered neither Dr Polk nor myself. Besides, what could I do? The entire work was contracted for. The second volume was promised for delivery some eighteen months hence. My notes for it were complete; this was no question of revising, but of wholly re-examining, revaluing and probably discarding them for an entirely new start. It was a job so much bigger than the original, one so discouraging, I felt I couldnt face it. It would be corrupt to produce a work lacking absolute conviction and cowardly to produce none.

Catty responded to my awkward recapitulation in a way at once heartening and strange. “Hodge,” she said, “youre changing and developing, and for the better, even though I love you as you were. Don’t be afraid to put the book aside for a year—ten years if you have to. You must do it so it will satisfy yourself; never mind what the publishers or the public say. But Hodge, you mustnt, in your anxiety, or your foolish fear of passiveness, you mustnt try any shortcuts. Promise me that.”

“I don’t know what youre talking about, Catty dear. There are no shortcuts in writing history.”

She looked at me thoughtfully. “Remember that, Hodge. Oh, remember it.”

_17._ _HX-1_

I could not bring myself to follow the promptings of my conscience and Catty’s advice, nor could I use my notes as though Dr Polk’s letter had never come to shatter my complacency. As a consequence—without deliberately committing myself to abandon the book—I worked not at all, thus adding to my feelings of guilt and unworthiness. The tasks assigned by the fellows for the general welfare of the haven were not designed to take a major part of my time, and though I produced all sorts of revolutions in the stables and barns, I still managed to wander about, fretful and irritable, keeping Catty from her work, interrupting the Agatis and Midbin—I could not bring myself to discuss my problems with him—and generally making myself a nuisance. Inevitably I found my way into Barbara’s workshop.

She and Ace had done a thorough job on the old barn. I thought I recognized Kimi’s touch in the structural changes of the walls, the strong beams and rows of slanted-in windows which admitted light and shut out glare, but the rest must have been shaped by Barbara’s needs.

Iron beams held up a catwalk running in a circle about ten feet overhead. On the catwalk there were at intervals what appeared to be batteries of telescopes, all pointed inward and downward at the center of the floor. Just inside the columns was a continuous ring of clear glass, perhaps four inches in diameter, fastened to the beams with glass hooks. Closer inspection proved the ring not to be in one piece but in sections, ingeniously held together with glass couplings. Back from this circle, around the walls, were various engines, all enclosed except for dial faces and regulators and all dwarfed by a mammoth one towering in one corner. From the roof was suspended a large, polished reflector.

There was no one in the barn and I wandered about, cautiously avoiding the mysterious apparatus. For a moment I meditated, basely perhaps, that all this had been paid for with my wife’s money. Then I berated myself, for Catty owed all to the haven, as I did. The money might have been put to better use, but there was no guarantee it would have been more productive allotted to astronomy or zoology. During eight years I’d seen many promising schemes come to nothing.

“Like it, Hodge?”

Barbara had come up, unheard, behind me. This was the first time we had been alone together since our break, two years before.

“It looks like a tremendous amount of work,” I evaded.

“It was a tremendous amount of work.” For the first time I noticed that her cheeks were flushed. She had lost weight and there were deep hollows beneath her eyes. “This construction has been the least of it. Now it’s done. Or has begun. Depending how you look at it.”

“All done?”

She nodded, triumph accenting the strained look on her face. “First test today.”

“Oh well ... in that case—” “Don’t go, Hodge. Please. I meant to ask you and Catty to the more formal trial, but now youre here for the preliminary I’m glad. Ace and Father and Oliver will be along in a minute.”

“Midbin?”

The familiar arrogance showed briefly. “I insisted. It’ll be nice to show him the mind can produce something besides fantasies and hysterical hallucinations.”

I started to speak, then swallowed my words. The dig at Catty was insignificant compared with the supreme confidence, the abnormal assurance prompting invitations to witness a test which could only reveal the impossibility of applying her cherished theories. I felt an overwhelming pity. “Surely,” I said at last, seeking to make some preparation for the disillusionment certain to come, “surely you don’t expect it to work the first time?”

“Why not? There are sure to be adjustments to be made, allowances for erratic chronology caused by phenomena like the pull of comets and so forth. There might even have to be major alterations, though I doubt it. It may be some time before Ace can set me down at the exact year, month, day, hour and minute agreed upon. But the fact of space-time-energy-matter correspondence can just as well be established this afternoon as next year.”

She was unbelievably at ease for someone whose lifework was about to be weighed. I have shown more nervousness discussing a disputed date with the honorary secretary of a local historical society.

“Sit down,” she invited; “there’s nothing to do or see till Ace comes. Ive missed you, Hodge.”

I felt this was a dangerous remark, and wished I’d stayed far away from the workshop. I hooked my leg over a stool—there were no chairs—and coughed to hide the fact I was afraid to answer, Ive missed you too; and afraid not to.

“Tell me about your own work, Hodge. Catty says youre having difficulties.”

I was faintly annoyed with Catty, but whether for confiding in Barbara at all or specifically for revealing something unheroic, I didnt stop to consider. At any rate this annoyance diluted my feeling of disloyalty for conversing with Barbara at all. Or it may be the old, long-established bond—I almost wrote, of sympathy, but it was so much more complex than the word indicates—was reawakened by proximity and put me in the mood to tell my troubles. It is even possible I had the altruistic purpose of fortifying Barbara against inevitable disappointment on a misery-loves-company basis. Be that as it may, I found myself pouring out the whole story.

She jumped up and took my hands in hers. Her eyes were gray and warm. “Hodge! It’s wonderful—don’t you see?”

“Oh....” I was completely confused. “I ... uh....”

“The solution. The answer. The means. Look: now you can go back, back to the past in your own person. You can see everything with your own eyes instead of relying on accounts of what other people said happened.”

“But ... but—” “You can verify every fact, study every move, every actor. You can write history as no one ever did before, for youll be writing as a witness, yet with the perspective of a different period. Youll be taking the mind of the present, with its judgment and its knowledge of the patterns, back to receive the impressions of the past. It almost seems HX-1 was devised especially for this.”

There was no doubt she believed, that she was really and unselfishly glad her work could aid mine. I was overcome by pity, helpless to soften the disillusionment so soon to come and filled with an irrational hatred of the thing she had built and which was about to destroy her.

I was saved from having to mask my emotions by the arrival of her father, Ace, and Midbin. Thomas Haggerwells began tensely, “Barbara, Ace tells me you intend to try out this—this machine on yourself. I can’t believe you would be so foolhardy.”

Midbin didnt wait for her to reply. I thought with something of a shock, Midbin has gotten old; I never noticed it. “Listen to me. There’s no point now in saying part of your mind realizes the impossibility of this demonstration and that it’s willing for you to annihilate yourself in the attempt and so escape from conflicts which have no resolution. Although it’s something you must be at least partly aware of. But consider objectively the danger involved in meddling with unknown natural laws—”

Ace Dorn, who looked as strained as they in contrast to Barbara’s ease, growled, “Let’s go.”

She smiled reassuringly at us. “Please, Father, don’t worry; there’s no danger. And Oliver....”

Her smile was almost mischievous and very unlike the Barbara I had known. “Oliver, HX-1 owes more to you than you will ever know.”

She ducked under the transparent ring and walked to the center of the floor, glancing up at the reflector, moving an inch or two to stand directly beneath it. “The controls are already adjusted to minus fifty-two years and a hundred and fifty-three days,” she informed us conversationally. “Purely arbitrary. One date is good as another, but January 1, 1900 is an almost automatic choice. I’ll be gone sixty seconds. Ready, Ace?”

“Ready.” He had been slowly circling the engines, checking the dials. He took his place before the largest, the monster in the corner, holding a watch in his hand. “Three forty-three and ten,” he announced.

Barbara was consulting her own watch. “Three forty-three and ten,” she confirmed. “Make it at three forty-three and twenty.”

“OK. Good luck.”

“You might at least try it on an animal first,” burst out Midbin, as Ace twirled the valve under his hand. The transparent ring glowed, the metal reflector threw back a dazzling light. I blinked. When I opened my eyes the light was gone and the center of the workshop was empty.

No one moved. Ace frowned over his watch. I stared at the spot where Barbara had stood. I don’t think my mind was working; I had the feeling my lungs and heart certainly were not. I was a true spectator, with all faculties save sight and hearing suspended.

“ ... on an animal first.” Midbin’s voice was querulous.

“Oh, God ...” muttered Thomas Haggerwells.

Ace said casually—too casually, “The return is automatic. Set beforehand for duration. Thirty more seconds.”

Midbin said, “She is ... this is....” He sat down on a stool and bent his head almost to his knees.

Mr Haggerwells groaned, “Ace, Ace—you should have stopped her.” “Ten seconds,” said Ace firmly.

Still I couldnt think with any clarity. She had stood there; then she was gone. What ...? Midbin was right: we had let her go to destruction. Certainly more than a minute had passed by now.

The ring glowed and the brilliant light was reflected. “It did, oh, it did!” Barbara cried. “It did!”

She stood perfectly still, overwhelmed. Then she came out of the circle and kissed Ace, who patted her gently on the back. I suddenly noticed the pain of holding my breath and released a tremendous sigh. Barbara kissed her father and Midbin—who was still shaking his head—and, after the faintest hesitation, me. Her lips were ice-cold.

The shock of triumph made her voluble. Striding up and down, she spoke with extraordinary rapidity, without pause, almost a little drunkenly. In her excitement her words cluttered her tongue; from time to time she had to go back and repeat a phrase or sentence to make it intelligible.

When the light flashed, she too involuntarily closed her eyes. She had felt a strange, terrifying weightlessness, an awful disembodiment, for which she had been unprepared. She thought she had not actually been unconscious, even for an instant, though she had an impression of ceasing to exist as a unique collection of memories, and of being somehow dissolved. Then she had opened her eyes.

At first she was shocked to find the barn as it had been all her life, abandoned and dusty. Then she realized she had indeed moved through time; the disappearance of the engines and reflector showed she had gone back to the unremodelled workshop.

Now she saw the barn was not quite as she had known it, even in her childhood, for while it was unquestionably abandoned, it had evidently not long been so. The thick dust was not so thick as she remembered, the sagging cobwebs not so dense. Straw was still scattered on the floor; it had not yet been entirely carried away by mice or inquisitive birds. Alongside the door hung bits of harness beyond repair, some broken bridles, and a faded calendar on which the ink of the numerals 1897 was still bright.

The minute she had allotted this first voyage seemed fantastically short and incredibly long. All the paradoxes she had brushed aside as of no immediate concern now confronted her. Since she had gone back to a time before she was born, she must have existed as a visitor prior to her own conception; she could presumably be present during her own childhood and growth, and by making a second and third visit, multiply herself as though in facing mirrors, so that an infinite number of Barbara Haggerwells could occupy a single segment of time.

A hundred other parallel speculations raced through her mind without interfering with her rapid and insatiable survey of the commonplace features of the barn, features which could never really be commonplace to her since they proved all her speculations so victoriously right.

Suddenly she shivered with the bitter cold and burst into teeth-chattering laughter. She had made such careful plans to visit on the First of January—and had never thought to take along a warm coat.

She looked at her watch; only twenty seconds had passed. The temptation to defy her agreement with Ace not to step outside the tiny circle of HX-1’s operating field on the initial experiment was almost irresistible. She longed to touch the fabric of the past, to feel the worn boards of the barn, to handle as well as look. Again her thoughts whirled with speculation; again the petty moment stretched and contracted. She spent eternity and instantaneity at once.

Suppose.... But she had a thousand suppositions and questions. Was she really herself in the flesh, or in some mental projection? A pinch would do no good; that might be projection also. Would she be visible to the people of the time, or was she a ghost from the future? Oh, there was so much to learn, so much to encounter!

When the moment of return came, she again experienced the feeling of dissolution, followed immediately by the light. When she opened her eyes she was back.

Midbin rubbed his belly and then his thinning hair. “Hallucination,” he propounded at last; “a logical, consistent hallucination. Answer to an overriding wish.”

“You mean Barbara was never gone?” asked Ace. “Was she visible to you—or Mr H or Hodge—during that minute?”

“Illusion,” said Midbin; “group illusion brought on by suggestion and anxiety.”

“Nonsense,” exclaimed Barbara. “Unless youre accusing Ace and me of faking youll have to account for what you just called the logical consistency of it. Your group illusion and my individual hallucination fitting so neatly together.”

Midbin recovered some of his poise. “The two phenomena are separate, connected only by some sort of emotional hypnosis. Certainly your daydream of having been back in 1900 is an emotionally induced aberration.”

“And your daydream that I wasn’t here for a minute?”

“The eyes are quickly affected by the feelings. Note tears, ‘seeing red’ and so forth.”

“Very well, Oliver. The only thing to do is to let you try HX-1 yourself.”

“Hay, my turn’s supposed to be next,” protested Ace.

“Of course. But no one is going to use it again today. Tomorrow morning. Bring Catty, Hodge, if she wants to come, but please don’t say anything to anyone else till weve made further demonstrations, otherwise we’ll be besieged by fellows wanting to take short jaunts into popular years.”

I had little inclination to discuss what had happened with anyone, even Catty. Not that I shared Midbin’s theory of nothing material having taken place; I knew I’d not seen Barbara for sixty seconds and I was convinced her account of them was accurate. What confused me was the shock to my preconceptions involved in her proof. If time and space, matter and energy were the same, as fog and ice and water are the same, then I—the physical I at least—and Catty, the world and the universe must be, as Enfandin had insisted, mere illusion. In that sense Midbin had been right.

I went furtively to the workshop next day without telling Catty, as though we were all engaged in some dark necromancy, some sacrilegious rite. Apparently I was the only one who had spent an anxious night; Mr Haggerwells looked proud, Barbara looked satisfied, Ace cocky, and even Midbin, for no understandable reason, benign.

“All here?” inquired Ace. “I’m eager as a fox in a hen-house. Three minutes in 1885. Why 1885? I don’t know; a year when nothing much happened, I suppose. Ready, Barbara?”

He returned to report he had found the barn well occupied by both cattle and fowl, and been scared stiff of discovery when the dogs set up a furious barking.

“That pretty well settles the question of corporeal presence,” I remarked.

“Not at all,” said Mr Haggerwells unexpectedly. “Dogs are notoriously psychic.”

“Ah,” cried Ace, bringing his hands from behind his back; “look at this. I could hardly have picked it up with psychic feelers.”

“This” was a newlaid egg, sixty-seven years old. Or was it? Trips in time are confusing that way.

Barbara was upset, more than I thought warranted. “Oh, Ace, how could you be so foolish? We darent be anything but spectators, as unseen as possible.”

“Why? Ive a notion to court my grandmother and wind up as my own grandfather.”

“Don’t be stupid. The faintest indication of our presence, the slightest impingement on the past, may change the whole course of events. We have no way of knowing what actions have no consequences—if there can be any. Goodness knows what your idiocy with the egg has done. It’s absolutely essential not to betray ourselves in any way. Please remember this in future.”

“You mean, ‘Remember this in past,’ don’t you?”

“Ace, this isnt a joke.”

“It isn’t a wake either. I can’t see the harm in bringing back tangible proof. Loss of one egg isnt going to send the prices up for 1885 and cause retroactive inflation. Youre making a mountain out of a molehill—or an omelette out of a single egg.”

She shrugged helplessly. “Oliver, I hope you won’t be so foolish.”

“Since I don’t expect to arrive in, say, 1820, I can safely promise neither to steal eggs nor court Ace’s female ancestors.”