Chapter VI: Before the Dawn

_March 18th._ If the outward pressure of necessity for self-control be great enough to balance the inward pressure of pain, one can keep fairly steady. But a week after the Peon left on one of those long western trips something came up that made it necessary for David to drop everything and go to Atlanta. He was detained there beyond his expectations, and then wrote me he must go to New York before returning home. He begged me again, as when he first left, to send for Grace; but I did not want her. At first it was a relief to be alone, with no need for effort or concealment. Afterwards, I did not want her because her sympathy would have been more than I could bear.

It wasn’t just the day’s pain, or the night’s—one can usually manage that somehow. What Grumpy did was to set today’s pain by that of yesterday, and the day before that; to add last week’s to last year’s, to the pain of ten years, twenty years, back. He applied his recollections like a mustard plaster, and rubbed them in like a liniment. Then he took tomorrow, and next year, and the year after that, and built them all into one long _via dolorosa_—a life-time path of pain. I might have stood that; I have before. But beside the pain he set the idleness—this horrible, useless idleness. That is the killing part! He set it all before me, as plain in the black and sleepless nights as in the day: and while I cowered, he gibed and threatened till I feared to look ahead and dared not hope. And when I tried to run away to Make-Believe, for the first time in all my life I could not find the way! That finished everything.

So I lay still and silent one age-long night, shut fast in my body at last, the slow tears dripping on my pillow on either side. Suddenly, in the dawning, a purpose leaped within me; Ella should come to me—here, in this very room, from which I could no longer escape. If Make-Believe were closed to me, I would command her here. I would tell her everything: I could not bear it in silence any more.

Since we first went to the city I had loved her. And after Great-aunt Letitia died, until she went North to live, she had been constantly in my home. And after that—oh, we knew the way to Make-Believe, we two! Never a day but we met there, for many a year. She knew all about the pain, though we never spoke of it. It wasn’t merely that words were unnecessary, but that pain, in her presence, seemed so small a part of life. Nothing really mattered but love and kindness and happy human laughter.

Yet she had never had a real home, nor even a care-free childhood. Her life had been one long sacrifice for those who took her bounty as their right. But the laughing blue eyes, the heart of kindness, the sturdy, sensible, joyous spirit of her, blended of love and humor and common sense! The children in the streets ran after her, and tired faces brightened as she passed.

For three years and a half now I had not seen her, even in Make-Believe, where I met every one else I love, both living and dead. Somehow I could not pretend about her any more, after that strange day when my letter came back unopened—the happy letter I had written to tell her I was going to a sanitarium to be made over new, so that I could come and pay her a “really truly” visit on my way home. She never saw the letter. They sent it back unopened; and I could not play about her any more.

But now, if I must stay shut in my body, she must come. She should never leave me. I would tell her every day just how hard life was. And she would be sorry for me; she would understand. I reached out with all the life left in me to draw her out of Make-Believe, now shut against me, and bring her to share my prison, and to hear my complaints.

* * * * *

I turned my head upon the pillow and lifted my heavy lids. She was coming toward the bed. I raised my arms feebly, and her own were round me. My head fell on her breast, and I lay there, drawing long, sobbing breaths, while she stroked my hair with firm and gentle fingers. There was no need for speech: her touch was always plainer than other people’s words.

But presently I was aware of a difference in her touch, a something new and strange. I whispered weakly, without opening my eyes.

“What is it dear? What troubles you? Why don’t you speak to me?”

Silence. Only that tender, pitying touch.

“I knew you’d be sorry for me,” I whispered on; “and oh, I want you to be! I wouldn’t have called you if it were real, you know—I wouldn’t hurt you for the world. But nothing can hurt you now. Isn’t Love so plain to you, and the end of things, and the reasons why they must be—isn’t all that so shining clear to you that even my being like this can’t hurt? Tell me about it. I want to know it is clear to somebody—I’m so far gone in the dark.”

Still no answer.

“Then be sorry for me,” I went on, dashing my desperate pleading against that strange, disquieting silence. “I’ve borne so much. I must tell somebody, and it isn’t fair to talk about it to them here at home. I’ve never talked to anybody before, even to you. I’ve never even cried, never once, except all by myself in the dark. And I’m such a coward about everything, and specially about pain; I’ve been so afraid of it all my life. And it never stops. It’s been years, Ella, years and years. And oh, I can’t bear it any more! You don’t know what it’s like just to be still and suffer when you can’t _do_ anything. It wasn’t so bad when I could keep going; I could fight. But now I can’t fight any more. I want to die. I think God ought to let me die.—I’ve tried; I’ve tried my best so long. And I can’t try any more.”

The words were scarcely breathed, and I stopped in exhaustion, the slow tears dropping on her breast.

Still she did not speak. Deeper and deeper sank her silence, pressed in by that strange, tender touch.

Suddenly I shivered, and my eyes flew wide. Her own were full of love and sorrow—a sorrow that looked past all my complaints to something deeper and more vital. I shrank away from her.

“I can’t,” I said. “I can’t any more; I can’t.”

Behind the sorrow in her eyes a light was kindled; but it only frightened me the more.

“I have tried,” I protested. “I’ve done nothing else the most of my life. Is there no pity, even in you?”

Still she gazed; and something in her look called to something dead in me. I shook my head feebly and closed my eyes; but through the shut lids her gaze commanded.

“I have come to the end,” I persisted; “and if you do not understand, there is nothing left. I can’t try any more, and I won’t. Go away.”

I gasped as I said it, and opened my eyes again. Her look pierced and held me like the point of a sword. I turned my head from side to side, shivering, but there was no escape. The dead thing in me stirred to life and dragged itself up to look truth in the face once more.

“Yes,” I said, “It is true. I can’t because I won’t. I thought I wouldn’t because I couldn’t, but that is a lie. I can endure if I will—and if I can, I must. But will it never end?”

She lifted her head a little. Her eyes shone, and a smile curved the sweet corners of her mouth. It was not the old, brave, happy laughter, but something wiser and more compelling—the overflow of an exhaustless joy.

“You _know_,” I whispered. “You learned it even in your life down here. And to keep on trying is to conquer, isn’t it?—even though one fails with every breath. And the only irreparable calamity is to turn coward and quit.”

Her face was heavenly sweet.

“I must never send for you again?” I asked, like a child. “Not to say things are hard, or to cry?—But if I play, in the real Make-Believe, will you talk to me there as you used? If I see you there I won’t need you this way again. Good-bye.”

Her fingers brushed my hair once more as I lay back on the pillow; and then I knew she was gone.—O bravest friend! Not even in my own coward thoughts could your courage be bent to the service of fear; to think of you was to find strength, even against my will!

For a long time I lay there, while the slow day passed and twilight deepened again into night. All her life passed before me—its selflessness, its courage, its joy. No creature that knew her went unblessed of her. What gifts pain brought, what power of helpfulness, what fullness of life and love!

Suddenly, there in the deep stillness, it was as if the night were drawn away like a veil; and I saw out to the very edges of the world, and back into far-off ages, and on into days that are yet to be; and everywhere was light. And the light came from countless faces; and I knew that to each one pain had come—pain of body or pain of soul—and because of the pain they had found the light. And down, under the light, looking up to it, drawn by it, stumbling forward by it, were those to whom the vision had not come. And I—was I offered such a fellowship only to run away in fear?

The veil of night fell dark again, but a song was in my heart. When daylight came I wrote it down—the song my friend had given me. It is called

_THE INITIATES_

_Wide as the world their company,_
_Many the paths they tread;_
_Here may a toil-worn peasant be,_
_Yonder a crownèd head._
_Famed or unknown, each one must fare_
_Forth on a bidden way;_
_That which awaits no man may share,_
_Lonely ’mid throngs are they._
_Yet comrades all they come to be:_
_Far-sundered, yet one line,_
_They march in this great company,_
_Deep in their souls its sign._

_How shall ye know them? Some there be_
_So wasted and worn and weak,_
_So anguished in body, ye all may see_
_They bear the sign ye seek._
_But some in this brotherhood there be_
_Who in such secret wise_
_Meet suffering, no man may see_
_Wherein their sorrow lies._
_Their laughter rings out true and free,_
_Ye look for the sign in vain,_
_Nor guess they are of this company,_
_Marked with the mark of pain._

_Thus shall ye know them: On their eyes_
_Falls the light of things unseen;_
_Their pain-cleared vision sweeps the skies_
_And the hearts of men, I ween;_
_The things that pass, and the things that remain,_
_Lie open to their sight,_
_And that which they learn as they dwell with pain_
_Gives strength to the world, and light._
_Patient, and wise, and glad they be,_
_Rich with love’s own increase—_
_They of this world-wide company_
_Who suffer, and find peace._

_Freed as by fire? Yet the fire shall pass,_
_And the freedom shall stand for aye;_
_And what would be the hope for the mass_
_If these should shrink in dismay?_
_So may I cast aside all fear;_
_So may my soul aspire;_
_So may I climb pain’s pathway drear_
_To heights of my soul’s desire._
_And there, with heart grown wise to see,_
_Counting nor loss nor gain._
_May I serve with this brave company_
_Who bear the mark of pain!_