Chapter IX: Book II: The Hill-Cabin (5)

So, it was a matter of minutes. Nothing was ready. Least of all, was she ready. She could hardly stand. She had forgotten at first, and it had required courage, of late, to look in the mirror. She would have given up, before what she saw now, but a robin was singing in the foliage by the rear windows. She went out to open the studio door into the hall, then retired to the inner room again.... “He can heal you, and bring back the music,” her heart whispered, but her mind cowered before herself, and this mate of herself, Helen Quiston, and before his Guardian.... She heard his step on the stair ... called to him to wait in the studio. He was pacing to and fro.

Morning felt the light resistance in her arms. His kiss fell upon her cheek. He held her at arm’s length, looking into her face.

She laughed, repeating that she was not ill.... She was always thinner in summer, she said. In her withholding, there was destructiveness for the zeal he had brought; and that which she set herself resolutely to impart--the sense of their separateness--found its lodgment in his nature. It would always be there now, she thought; it would augment, like ice about a spring in early winter, until the frost sealed the running altogether. The lover was stayed, though his mind would not yet believe.

“Is it really possible,” he said, sitting before her restlessly, “that I am here in your house, and that I can stay, and talk with you, and see you and hear you play? I have thought about it so much that it’s hard to realize.”

“It is quite what a lover would say,” she thought.... She had to watch her words. Her heart went out to him, but her mind remembered the work to do.... Self-consciousness, and a weighing of words--how horrible between _them_!

“And what made you come? I had just read your letter, when the telephone rang----”

“I shouldn’t have sent that letter,” he answered. “I must have sent it because of the things I thought, and didn’t write.... The night before, I had come home to the cabin--after Markheim and the city. It was dreadful--with the work gone. Yesterday was too much for me--the Spring day--alone--not ready to begin again--you here.... I got to thinking about you so fast--and the shame of it, for us to be apart--that I couldn’t endure it.... I thought of going to you in a month--in a week; and then when the letter was mailed, I thought of it being with you this morning.... A thousand things poured into my mind. It seemed finally as if everything was wrong between us; as if I had already remained too long from you. It was like fighting devils.... And then I tried to beat the letter to you, but it got here by an earlier train this morning.”

He was like a child to her, telling about something that had frightened him.

Their silences were strained. His eyes had a sleepless look. Betty saw it working upon him--the repulsion that had gone from her. She wished she might go to his arms and die. It suddenly came over her--the uselessness of it all--the uselessness of being a woman, of waiting, of final comprehension--all for this rending.... Yet she saw what would happen if she followed her heart. He would take her. There would be a radiant season, for the lover within him was not less because his work was for other men. But there was also within him (his Guardian had made her believe it) her rival, a solitary stranger come to the world for service, who would not delay long to show him how he had betrayed his real work, how he had caged his greater self, his splendid pinions useless.... Morning would hear the world calling for work he could not do.

“_There seem all about me invisible restraints._”

This from the letter of the morning--alone remained with her. It expressed it all. The sentence uprose in her mind. It was more dominant to her than if a father had forbade his coming, or even if by his coming another was violated.

All the forbiddings that Society can bring against desire are but symbols compared to the invisible restraints of a full man’s nature. Men who are held by symbols, ruled by exterior voices and fears, are not finished enough to be a law unto themselves.... It wasn’t the terror of these thoughts, but tenderness in answer to his hurried tumble of explanation regarding his coming, that had filled Betty’s eyes. He caught the sparkle of a tear in profile, and came to her.

“It’s like creating--visibly, without hands, but with thoughts--creating a masterpiece--to see the tears come like that----”

He drew a chair to the bench where she sat, her back to the piano. Helen Quiston was away, as usual, for the forenoon.

“It is creating--another world,” she answered steadily.

He stared at her. She saw again that sleepless look.

“You’ve been a whole month on a lofty ridge--just think of it--fasting and pure expression of self--spiritual self-revelation----”

It seemed to him there was a suggestion in what she said for the new book.

“And now you are down in the meadows again,” she finished.

“The earth-sweet meadows--with you.”

He could not know what the words meant to her; that there was no quarter in them for her. She did not belong to his ascents.

“Somehow I always think of you as belonging best to the evenings, the hushed earth, the sweetness of the rest-time. You make me remember what to do, and how to do it well. Why, just now you made me see clearly for a second what I must do next. You make me love people better--when I am close to you.”

She was not to be carried away by these givings which would have made many a woman content.

“Remember, I have had your letters every day. You are very dear to me up there. You have been down in the meadows--and in the caverns--much. You are not ready to return--even for the evenings. You stand now for austere purity--for plain, ancient, mother’s knee ideals. You must not delude yourself. A man must be apart in order to see. You did not begin really to live--until you drew apart.”

He felt her stripping his heart. His face lifted in agony, and his eyes caught the picture on the wall of the meeting of Beatrice and Dante. The Florentine woman seemed not to touch the earth; the poet was awed, mystic in the fusion of their united powers. It was fateful that Morning saw the picture at this instant.

“Look,” he said, “what the world has from the meeting of that man and woman--an immortal poem!”

“But Beatrice passed on----”

“She became identified with his greater power, Betty. She was one with it----”

“By passing on!”

He arose and lifted her to her feet, and his arms did not relinquish her.

“And you mean that you would pass on?... You must not. You must not. We would both be broken and bewildered. I love you. I have come to you. I want to be near--and work with you. I know you all, and shall love you always. I have come to you, and I must stay--or you must come with me----”

Her resistance was broken for the moment. An icy burden fell from her. She clung to him, and tears helped her.

* * * * *

They were together again in the studio that afternoon. Betty Berry was making tea, her strength renewed. Helen Quiston had come and gone. Morning had been away for an hour.

“Strange man,” she said, “let us reason together.... You are working now for men. That is right, but when you are full of power, when you come really into the finished man you are to be, and all these hard years have healed beyond the last ache--you will work for women. Does it sound strange from me, that the inspiration of the world to-day is with the women? Why, it seems to me that men are caught in the very science of cruelty. And then, the women of to-day represent the men of the future. When one of the preparers of the way brings his gospel to women, he kindles the inspiration of the next generation. But this fire can only come from the solitary heights--never from the earth-sweet meadows----”

He shook his head.

“The men who have done the most beautiful verses and stories about children--have had no children of their own. A man cannot be the father of his country and the father of a house. The man who must do the greatest work for women must hunger for the _vision_ of Woman, and not be yoked with one.... It is so clear. It is always so.”

“All that you say makes me love you more, Betty----”

“Don’t, dear. Don’t make it harder for me.... It is not I that thrills you. It is my speaking of your work that fills your heart with gladness--the things you feel to do----”

“They are from you----”

“Don’t say that. It is not true.”

“But I never saw so clearly----”

“Then go away with the vision. Oh, John Morning, you cannot listen to yourself--with a woman in the room!”

He lifted his shoulders, drawing her face to his. “I was going to say, you are my wings,” he whispered. “But that is not it. You are my fountain. I would come to you and drink----”

“But not remain----”

“I love your thoughts, Betty, your eyes and lips----”

“Because you are athirst----”

“I shall always be athirst!”

“That is not nature.”

He shuddered.

“Do men, however athirst--remain at the oases? Men of strength--would they not long to go? Would they not remember the far cities and the long, blinding ways of the sun?”

“But you could go with me--” he exclaimed.

“That is not nature!”

He was the weaker. “But you have gone alone to the far cities, and the long, blinding ways of the sun----”

“Yes, alone. But with you--a time would come when I could not. We are man and woman. There would be little children. I would stay--and you could not leave them.... Oh, they are not for you, dear. They would weaken your courage. You would love them. At the end of the day, you would want them, and the mother again.... The far cities would not hear you; the long, blinding ways of the sun would know you no more----”

“Betty,” he whispered passionately, “how wonderfully sweet that would be!”

“Yes ... to the mother ... but _you_--I can see it in your eyes. You would remember Nineveh, that great city....”

* * * * *

Darkness was about them.

“Betty Berry--you would rather I wouldn’t take the train to you again--not even when it seems I cannot stay longer away?”

She did not answer.

“Betty----”

“Yes....”

She left him and crossed to the far window.

“Would you not have me come to you again--at all?”

She could not hold the sentence, and her answer. The room was terrible. It seemed filled with presences that suffocated her--that cared nothing for her. All day they had inspired her to speak and answer--and now they wanted her death. She moved to the ’cello. Her hands fluttered along the strings--old, familiar ways--but making hardly a sound.... If she did not soon speak, he would come to her. She would fail again--the touch of him, and she would fail.

“Betty, is there never to be--the fountain at evening?”

“You know--you know--” she cried out. Words stuck after that. She had not a thought to drive them.

He arose.

“Don’t,” she implored. “Don’t come to me! I cannot bear it.”

... It was his final rebellion.

“I am not a preparer of the way. I have not a message. I am sick of the thought. I am just a man--and I love you!”

At last she made her stand, and on a different position. “I could not love you--if that were true.”

* * * * *

She heard him speak, but not the words. She heard the crackling and whirring of flames. He did not cross the room.... She had risen, her arms groping toward him. She felt him approach, and the flames were farther.... She must not speak of flames.

“You will go away soon--won’t you?” she whispered, as he took her.

“Yes, to-night----”

“Yes--to-night,” she repeated.

She was lying upon the couch in the studio, and his chair was beside her.

“No, don’t light anything--no light!... It is just an hour.... I could not think of food until you go. But you may bring me a drink of water. On the way to the train, you can have your supper.... I will play--play in the dark, and think of you--as you go----”

She talked evenly, a pause between sentences. There was a tensity in the formation of words, for the whirring and crackling distracted, dismayed her. Her heart was breaking. This she knew. When it was finished, he would be free.... The flames were louder and nearer, as he left for the drink of water. She called to him to light a match, if he wished, in the other room.... He was in her room. She knew each step, just where. He was there. It was as if he were finally materialized from her thoughts in the night, her dreaming and writing to him. His hand touched her dresser. She heard the running water ... and then it was all red and rending and breathless, until she felt the water to her lips. Always, as he came near, the flames receded.

And out of all the chaos, the figure of the craftsman had returned to him. The world had revealed itself to him as never before in the passage of time. She had given him her very spirit that day, and the strength of all her volition from the month of brooding upon the conception of his Guardian. Literally on that day the new Book was conceived, as many a man’s valorous work has begun to be, in a woman’s house--her blood and spirit, its bounty.

“This is a holy place to me, this room,” he said, the agonies of silence broken. “I can feel the white floods of spirit that drive the world.”

She did not need to answer. She held fast to herself, lest something betray her. Darkness was salvation. All that his Guardian had asked was in her work. John Morning told it off, sentence by sentence. It took her life, but he must not know. She thought she would die immediately after he was gone--but, strangely, now the suffering was abated.... She was helping.... Was not that the meaning of life--to give, to help, to love?... Someone had said so.

He lifted her, carried her in his arms, talked and praised her.

“There’s something deathlessly bright about you, Betty Berry!” he whispered. “I am going--but we are one! Don’t you feel it? You are loving the world from my heart!”

To the door, but not to the light, she walked with him.... Up the stairs he strode a last time to take her in his arms.

“We are one--a world-loving one--remember that!”

She did not know why, but as he kissed her--she thought of the pitcher broken at the fountain.

It was all strange light and singing flame.... She was lost in the hall. She laughed strangely.... She must play him on his way.... Someone helped her through the raining light--until she could feel the strings.