Chapter IV: Introduction (3)

Illusion crowded upon the young soldier; blinded him; dazzled him.... Life had been too stabbing to last, poetry too poignant. And now it did not matter; _his_ life, _his_ death, _his_ poetry.

“Another race hath been, and other palms are won.”

A flag-draped bier! Like great protecting wings about his soul presentiment enfolded him.... Peace comes after war; death after life; and always to the poet, come poetry and beauty. A shining something, like light, was about him, was in his eyes and soul. Unsung songs ... a voiceless poet ... a soldier, an unknown warrior ... _sleeping in Westminster with the mighty dead_!

The swirling visions vanished. Illusion fell away.

The young soldier sank to his knees; for an instant his head was bowed in prayer ... “thoughts too deep for tears.”

The vision he had seen had blinded him, and humbled him and healed. Gradually his eyes re-focused to the dark, but the shining something, like light, remained in his soul.

In the stained glass window the colors had blurred together, but still a lantern, in the hand of a figure grown shadowy and dull, retained its fire; the soldier watched it fade.

And then he rose and moved away. Beyond a transparent dimming window, he glimpsed a gargoyle vague with snow. The great nave as he traversed it was a well of darkness. Out of the silence came the muffled sound of a padded door.

In the vestibule, a ragged newsboy flitted past him like a bat; his face and the papers under his arm made white blots in the gloom. “’Ello! A soldier hin the Habbey!” The boy drew up at his side. “Paper, sir? News from the front?”

The soldier looked about him tentatively, as one waking from a dream. In the shadows the newsboy’s face was strangely white, and he had eerie eyes. The man wondered what he was doing in the Abbey.

“Hit’s the quiet ’ere hafter the streets,” the boy volunteered, as if in answer to the unspoken thought. His strangely white face and his eyes fascinated the soldier, hypnotized him.

“Hit’s quiet ’ere too hafter the guns!” The boy was pirouetting from one foot to another.

“Yes,” the soldier said. He wanted to tell the boy to come here often. He wanted to tell the boy about poetry and beauty--the Intimations of Immortality.

“Hi come to the big shows they pulls off ’ere, too,” the child said unexpectedly.

For an instant his illusion recurred to the soldier; a vast crowd, lights and banners--funeral music, a _flag-draped bier_!

“But Hi likes hit better when hit’s dark and quiet--like now!”

The newsboy’s eerie eyes re-focused to the soldier’s vision. It had come to him that this boy, other boys, loved the Abbey as he had. For an instant he realized the linked chain of life. He saw a passing torch.

Then he got into his overcoat. Shrinking a little as one does who leaves home for the darkness and the cold, the young soldier passed out from Westminster.

Snow was falling over London; a great blur of zig-zagging flakes....

[5] Copyright, 1922, by _The Junior League Bulletin_.
Copyright, 1923, by Susan M. Boogher.

THE HELPLESS ONES[6]

By FREDERICK BOOTH

(From _Broom_)

Eddie Gordon sprawled face upward on the living-room couch, asleep. His head was at the foot of the couch, hanging partly over the edge, and his shod feet lay nearly buried where the pillows and his overcoat were jumbled together. One arm hung over the side of the couch, and his hand, crumpled against the floor, lying limp in the shadow, resembled a cast-off gray glove. He lay so still with his clothes all tumbled and his head turned and hanging back against one shoulder, one might have thought him dead. But he only slept.

At six o’clock a lively step sounded in the hall. A key snapped in the lock. The door opened and Sally Gordon came in.

She turned her head deliberately toward the couch as she closed the door. A sigh, rather tremulous but brief, whispered in the gloom. She went quickly to the table in the middle of the room, felt about for a match, and lighted the gas chandelier. Without looking again toward the couch she removed her overcoat and hat, went into the bathroom, turned high the gas and washed her face and hands, vigorously brushing the ink-stains from her fingertips. She turned from the bathroom into the bedroom, turned up the light there, and brushed her hair with soft, slow strokes. She touched her face rather indifferently with a powder-puff, and stood then stroking her eyebrows with the tips of her fingers, looking long into the mirror. She gazed at her reflection and her face wore a look of pleasure. Once with her palm she smoothed back the hair from her forehead with a slow, caressing stroke, as one would stroke back the hair from the forehead of a child. She regarded herself steadily with the unaffected and unconcealed tenderness with which she would have regarded a child.

At last, reluctantly, she turned down the light and walked back into the living room.

She stood by the couch and stared down at her husband. Her eyes had the peculiar intent look of a mother who watches her sleeping baby. Her eyes roamed the whole length of his body, looking at his untidy clothing, his uncombed hair, at his muddy boots that had muddied his overcoat and the pillows. At last she slipped one arm under his shoulders and with a great effort pulled him up on the couch so that his head had a better resting place. She reached for a pillow and tucked it under his head. She picked up his limp, hanging arm and laid it across his body, pulled his gaping coat together and buttoned the bottom button. She made quick, sure movements, the movements of one who performs an accustomed human task.

Having made him easier, less ungraceful in his inertness, she sat down on the edge of the couch and gazed intently into his face. Her eyes dwelt in turn on every one of his features and to every one she gave some sort of touch, his tousled hair a pat, his forehead a slow stroke, his closed eyes a touch of her finger-tips, and still in her face was that peculiar intent and anxious look, the look of a mother who dotes on her fragile treasure.

Eddie Gordon slept, hardly breathing, not moving. His sleep was profound, sodden, the sleep of a hard and habitual drinker who gets drunk every night and sleeps until morning, drunk every morning and sleeps until night. His face had a greenish yellow color about the forehead and eyes, was flushed at the cheeks and swollen at the mouth.

Sally knew what ailed him. It was a daily event in her life, and she found herself reacting to it this time exactly as she had many times before, as she did every time she saw her husband lying so still and helpless, his heart barely beating, his breath barely stirring. Always when she saw him thus, so profoundly helpless, so utterly and mystically babelike, the feelings of a mother for awhile possessed her completely. It possessed her as one is possessed by a mood. It possessed her against her will, this common emotion that had not yet found expression in her life. She dreaded this slow welling up of morbid desire to fondle and nurse that helpless, still baby, her husband. But it was not to be resisted while it ran its course. In that desire, during its beginning and even during the moments of her surrender to it, was something that filled her with self-horror. She felt herself tricked and made worse than silly. She felt herself infected with moral decay. Always she had fought against it, as she had this time, with little devices, delays, as one in sleep fights the approach of a bad dream which comes on regardless. And always she surrendered, for awhile. Always, for awhile, something in her was glad to have this man even thus dependent, thus her own.

So she sat, prinking her husband’s hair, straightening his disordered clothing, lost in this strange little orgy of motherliness.

But after awhile a look of distaste ruffled a little her face. Little dimples puckered the middle of her forehead. The wide pupils of her eyes narrowed a little. She turned her face a little away, still looking, cocked her head a little sideways, bit her lip and drew her hands back, hesitating. The man’s mouth was sagging open, and impulsively, with a studious, earnest air, like a child modeling clay, she took his face in both her hands and firmly pressed his mouth shut, and for a moment held it so. But when she took her hands away his mouth again sagged open. He slept.

She frowned and again put out her hands, but drew them back. She recoiled a little and turning her head swept his body from head to foot with one swift glance. She took his limp hand in hers, held it up to the light and looked at it narrowly. His hand was unclean all over and the nails were black. She flung it down hurriedly, and without getting up she turned her back to him, and bending over, her elbow on her knee, her mouth resting against her fist, stared at the floor a long while. The silence was absolute.

Minutes passed. She arose and walked aimlessly about for awhile, tucking at her hair, rearranging the furniture. Once she glanced at her watch. She came and leaned back against the table, looking at her husband. Her hands arranged and rearranged a bunch of violets pinned between the buttoned lapels of her jacket.

After awhile she called sharply, “Eddie! Eddie!” Silence.

She bit her lip and shook her head slowly a long time, gripping the edge of the table and holding her body rigid. She lifted up her head and gazed at the ceiling.

“Oh, God!” she whispered, as though she believed God might be in the room above. Her body sagged while she gazed at the ceiling. She sobbed without making a sound. Tears glinted in her eyes but did not roll down her cheeks.

The man lay regardless.

At last the woman smiled, a wry smile; looked at her watch; and turned toward her coat and hat.

A step sounded in the hall, heavy and rather slow, coming toward her door. It stopped at her door, there was a wait, a firm rap. She opened the door at once.

“You, Allen?” she exclaimed in an undertone.

A tall man was looking in at her. He was rather angular and awkward. His eyes were deepset and gray, and his large, rather bony face had a sober look.

“May I come in?” he said.

She led the way into the room. He followed slowly, closing the door behind him. She looked at him with a question in her face.

“I could not stay away any longer,” he said.

“I never told you not to come,” she replied.

He had not appeared to notice the man on the couch. Now, as if he had known all the time, he turned slowly and looked down at Eddie. After some moments he again faced her.

“The same as ever,” he said.

She shrugged her shoulders and a poor smile flickered on her lips. He looked at her steadily but not offensively, and she could not take her eyes from his face. The steady, full breathing of this man could be heard in the room. He put out his great hand and stroked back the hair from her forehead as she herself had done when she stood before the mirror in the bedroom. Her head was thrust a little back by the weight of his hand, but she continued to look up into his eyes. Her hands trembled on the edge of the table.

“You’ve had enough,” he said at last. “You’re going away with me this evening. You are going now.”

The pupils of her eyes widened. Her face grew pale and her lips seemed brilliant by contrast. She put both of her hands against his shoulders. The quick gesture seemed to warn him not to come any nearer, yet the touch of her hands against his coat was almost like a caress.

A sort of eagerness animated the face of the man, tempered by hesitancy and grave concern. The look of his face plainly said, “I want you, but I wouldn’t hurt you.”

He held his head in an awkward fashion and moved his lips, searching for words. They gazed at each other without speaking.

The man on the couch flung his head fretfully about, opened his eyes and blinked up at the light, turned his body a little more and raised himself on his elbow. His swollen lips made a grotesque attempt to draw themselves down, and failed; but the stare of his eyes was fixed, unwinking and terrible. He saw how her bare arm, the sleeve slipped back, gleamed like a bar of silver against the tall man’s shoulder. He stared and then his face became dull. Quietly he laid himself down again.

The tall man said at last, “Pack your suitcase and come away. I’m not asking you to.... You know. You understand me, don’t you, Sally? I love you. But that’s not it, not entirely. I wouldn’t try to break up your home, not if you had a home. I see you wearing yourself out here. This is breaking you, this business. You’ve said so yourself. Now it’s time to cut it out, anyway, for awhile. I saw that look in your eyes when I came in. Leave him a note. I’ll take you anywhere you say. You can go to my mother’s, or you can go to a hotel. But you’ve got to have a rest for awhile anyway. I saw that look in your eyes when I came in. Now you’ve got to give this business a let-up. Don’t worry about him. Leave him a note and some money. Anyway, I have always managed to look him up every day or so, I’ll see to it that he gets along. You know that Eddie and I understand each other, Sally, I mean, when he’s sober. And I don’t have to tell you, do I Sally, that I am honest about it with both of you, no matter how much I want you? You and Eddie and I, we’ve always been friends, and we always will be, no matter what happens. I’ll see him and I’ll talk to him straight out. It will be for the best all the way round, for him too. He’ll see the thing straight. He’s not so unreasonable, not when he’s sober. I know he will consent. I know it can be settled in the right way. Pack a suitcase and come away with me tonight.”

His heavy manner, his blunt speech, his awkwardness, revealed the heaviness of his desire and his anxious earnestness.

The woman had slowly drawn away from him. Now she leaned back against the table, one hand braced against the edge, the other hand smoothing down the lapel of her jacket. She held her head sideways and cast at the floor a troubled and pensive look, its pathos heightened by the whiteness of her face and supple neck.

She thinned her lips and a frown puckered her forehead.

“No,” she said slowly, in a small voice. “No, I couldn’t do that. You know I couldn’t, Allen. No. No.”

The tall man looked at her with an expression of benign indecision and puzzlement. He turned his head toward the sprawled shape on the couch. He bit his lip. A deep flush mounted to his forehead and made the arteries in his temples swell. He stroked his chin, meditating.

“Sally,” he said at last. The constraint in his voice made the woman look quickly up. “I’ll tell you, Sally, I haven’t talked to you about this thing the way I feel like talking. Now I’m going to talk the way I feel like talking. Maybe it’s brutal of me to do it, but I can’t help that. I have to say what I think. I’m that way and you know me well enough not to mind too much.”

But he paused and studied her face, hesitating, half afraid. Then he said:

“You loved me before you met Eddie, didn’t you, Sally?”

“Yes.”

“I knew it.” His voice trembled a little, and he stopped for a moment because he did not want to show how pleased he was at her confession while he was still under the disadvantage of her resistance.

His slow voice went on, “Yes, I used to feel almost sure of it. Even though it was presumptuous of me, I did think so. You were always straightforward. You were never ashamed of your feelings. But I couldn’t ask you to marry me, not then. You remember how things were with me--my kid sisters and all to be looked after. I had to wait.”

“I understood,” said Sally in a low voice. “I knew you cared, and why you--didn’t say anything.”

“But you married Eddie just the same! And it wasn’t because you didn’t care for me. I know why you married him. I’m going to tell you why you married him.”

“Don’t! You needn’t tell me. I know. I didn’t know then. I just felt something that was too strong for me. I didn’t know why I had to give in to it. I just had to. Now I know what it was. I know why I had to give in to it.”

She paused, pressed the back of one hand against her mouth. She bent her head. Her hand trembled against her mouth and her shoulders trembled a little too. She took her hand away from her mouth and began to tug at one of the buttons of her coat. Her lips were white. She pressed her upper lip against her teeth to keep it from quivering.

“I could have waited for you. I knew you would ask me some day. But there was one thing I couldn’t wait for. I was twenty-four, and natural. My whole feeling for life and people was full of a woman’s desires. I didn’t know it then, but I know it now. I was strong, I could have waited if I had known it then. I know now that my whole feeling for Eddie was that I wanted to mother him. I had to mother somebody. But I didn’t know it was that, not then. I didn’t understand it at all. I used to be afraid and ashamed because I still loved you and here all the time Eddie and I were coming closer and closer together. I didn’t understand myself at all. Yes, I still loved you, but ... I couldn’t have children then, it takes money to have children. Those days you were having your own struggles and I could barely make my living. I couldn’t even allow myself to think of having children.”

She stopped, turned her head and looked at the sleeper on the couch. She knitted her brows and compressed her lips. The tall man moved his lips as if to speak, but she went on:

“One night he came to see me. That was when he was on _The Sun_, and he had made such a hit, you remember? He was drunk that night. He came to the house drunk. I used to wonder how he could get drunk--how he could--such a sweet boy. Now I know why. He got himself drunk so he could run away from responsibilities--so he would be helpless--so he could be a child, just as he is now. He was beautiful that night--drunk. He was beautiful partly because he was drunk. Can you understand that? Some men are that way. He was that way then. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes sparkled, and his yellow hair stood up all over his head, glittering in the lamplight. He sat on the couch and drew up his knees so that his feet were on the couch too. He sat there and talked to me. He lisped when he talked. His head was unsteady on his shoulders, like a baby’s. He talked to me about his mother. You know she died when he was five. He had to grow up unfinished. He had become a man but he was still a child. He told me how beautiful his mother was and how he would have been different if she had lived. I was like her, he said. He sat there and talked to me just about as he would have talked to his mother, I suppose, if she had been there in my place. The room was warm and after awhile he couldn’t talk at all. But he was beautiful, as a child is beautiful. His yellow head fell over against me. I put my arms around him and pulled his head down and held him close to me. I didn’t know what I was doing. Maybe I didn’t want to know.

“After that I couldn’t resist him. I didn’t try. I wouldn’t let myself think about you. Eddie needed me. The whole thing with me was pity. A woman must pity something! I told myself that Eddie needed me. I loved him for his weaknesses.”

The tall man slowly nodded his head. “I knew that was why you married him,” he said. “I can see how a woman would do that.”

The woman went on: “After we were married I used to go out and hunt for him when he didn’t come home. I still do sometimes. I hunt for him in the back rooms of saloons, at the bar, down at the Press Club. I go along the streets where I know he is likely to be. I lead him home by the hand. Yes, and he leans on me, and he babbles to me like a baby as we go along the streets, he says the same things over and over again the way a baby does. He comes with me through the streets like a child that was lost and is glad to be found again. And when I get him home I wash his face and feed him. I put my arm around him and make him eat. I undress him and put him to bed. And he is glad of it. He is glad to be like a baby; then he can live that part of his life that was never finished. And I used to be glad too.”

“You used to be glad?” the tall man said. “That is hard to believe.”

“Yes, I think I must have been glad of his helplessness. Do you understand? His helplessness gave me an excuse to mother him. I had to mother somebody! The worst thing is, no good at all has come of our being married--no good to either of us. No, it has hurt us both.”

She turned her head, holding it a little sideways as she had when she sat on the couch by her husband, and looked at him again. There was something childlike in the expression of her face and in her pose. Her whole body expressed ingenuous bewilderment and trouble. She put her finger to her lips.

The tall man, his hands at his side, studied her face. He said nothing. He waited for her to go on.

She made a little gesture with her hand as if she were brushing something away.

“See, now he has got to where he no longer wants even to be helped. Now he doesn’t even want to be cared for.”

Her voice was tired and plaintive, the voice of a tired child.

“To be a coddled baby doesn’t satisfy him any more. He wants to be a sleeping baby. Sleep! Sleep! Only let him sleep! He gets drunk at night and sleeps till morning. He gets drunk in the morning and sleeps till night. That is what drinking is with him. That is what drinking is for. That is the way he escapes--he has always drunk to escape--he is backing out of life entirely. Do you see? Now he doesn’t want me to take care of him any more, for that reminds him that he is alive and in the world. I know. He is trying to find again the deep sleep that a baby has before it is born.”

The tall man would have spoken but she went on.

“Can’t you see how it is with me now? There is no longer any satisfaction, not even the kind of satisfaction I got from it at first. Maybe I should have known better at first. But we always say that afterward, when it is too late.”

“It isn’t too late,” the tall man said. “You know it was a mistake. It’s a simple thing to correct that mistake, and you know it’s perfectly straight. As far as Eddie is concerned we will take care of him.”

“But I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t, somehow. You don’t know how it is. But I know. The whole thing is like a habit, only it’s worse than a habit. I know. I have tried to break it. But I didn’t use much will power. Maybe I didn’t want to break it.

“You think I am strong. Maybe I am strong. But I am like most women. My strength does just about as it pleases with me.”

She bowed her head and looked hopelessly at the floor.

The tall man had already taken her by the shoulders. She lifted her head quickly. Her face wore a look of surprise and fear because of his sudden and strong grip on her shoulders.

“You may call it a habit or whatever you like, you’ve had enough of it,” he said. His face had turned pale and his mouth was stern. But his eyes regarded her kindly. She made no attempt to pull away from him. The frightened look left her face.

“You’ll put an end to this business. I’ll make you. Then you’ll be glad.”

They looked at each other in silence. The sleeper on the couch seemed to be holding his breath.

“I don’t know,” said the woman at last. “Maybe I would be glad. Yes, maybe I would be glad. But I don’t know--I just don’t know how I could make myself do it.”

“How about me?” said the tall man in a voice that had changed since last he spoke. “Why do you always leave me out of it? Maybe if you let yourself think about me once in a while....”

He had turned pale and his lips were trembling. He stopped speaking, but not because he was ashamed of his emotion. He stopped speaking because he was ashamed of what his emotion had impelled him to say.

She was looking at him in surprise and wonder. She put out one hand and touched his coat with her finger-tips, unconsciously, lightly. Her chin quivered.

“Allen,” she said softly, “Allen, I didn’t mean--please--”

“Never mind,” he said slowly, in a constrained voice. “You know I didn’t mean to talk to you that way. I don’t want to appeal to your sympathy. And I don’t want to make you do anything. You know that. I meant all along to appeal to your understanding. You know that. I still mean to. And as far as understanding goes, you understand everything as well as I do. It’s all a matter of making up your mind. I don’t want to force you to do anything. I know how hard it is for you. You take your time about it. Don’t think about me. Try to think about what is the best thing to do. And just take your time about it.”

She still kept her head lowered and still her fingers touched his coat. He knew that if he had taken her in his arms then and there the decision would have been entirely of his own making, and to his own liking. But his pride rebelled at the thought of reaching a decision, above all a decision in his own favor, by such a primitive method, by a method so contrary to his idea of how an issue between a man and a woman should be met. He would have her make her decision through her own understanding and by her own will! His hands left her shoulders and he stepped a little away from her. They no longer touched each other.

She nodded her head a little, looking at the floor.

He studied her, a little puzzled. “Then, may I come back next week, say, next Monday evening?”

Again she nodded her head, without looking up.

“Will you try to make up your mind between now and then? Will you be ready to tell me what you have decided to do?” He spoke almost as he would have spoken to a child.

For a moment she still looked at the floor. Then she lifted her head. She met his kind gaze timidly.

“Yes, Allen, I will,” she replied in a low voice.

He drew a deep breath. “Good night,” he said, awkwardly holding out his hand.

“Good night, Allen.”

He was gone and she closed the door quickly behind him.

She stood by the door while the sound of his footsteps rang in the hall. She looked wistfully about the room, sunk again in silence. She puckered her brows, thinking.

She understood Allen. She knew why he had not followed up his advantage. She respected him for it. But she almost hated him for it as well.

She walked slowly back into the middle of the room. Again she leaned back against the table. The uneasy breathing of the man on the couch could be heard.

“Eddie,” she called.

Slowly he turned his face away from the wall. He opened his eyes and for a moment stared without winking down the length of his body. Then he crooked one arm, raised himself to a sitting posture, turned and pulled his feet off the couch. He sat with his body toward her. But he looked down at her feet. He put his hands down on either side of him against the couch, as if to brace himself. He moved his dry lips two or three times.

“So you let Allen go away without you,” he said.

“You were awake?”

“Most of the time.” He looked up at her. He had slept a long time and he was quite sober. The pupils of his blue eyes were like black pin-heads. He tried to control the uneasy movements of his swollen upper lip.

“I heard what you told him,” he declared in a high, assertive voice. “You’re right about me. I know it. But it’s worse than you think. I’m done. I’ll be glad when I’m dead. Not on your account either. On my own account. I’ll be glad when I’m dead, I tell you. You ought to have gone away with him. What makes you so silly?”

“Please, Eddie.”

“I mean it. I wish you’d go away and leave me. I wish to God you would.”

He stared defiantly at her, blinking his eyes.

She tried to speak. She moved her lips, searching for words. Exasperation struggled with the pity in her face.

She looked at him without trying to hide her pity. Her forehead was puckered with little dimples. She tilted her head a little to one side and half extended one hand.

“Eddie!” she cried. “Eddie, my poor boy! If you’d only let me--”

“Ah-k!” He waved his hand in front of his face, brushing away her words.

“Don’t I know what you’re about to say!” he sneered, twisting his face and making his light-colored eyes glare at her.

“Save me--eh? Want to try that again, eh? What do you want to do that for? You’ve tried that before. Now you want to try it again, eh? I know. I know. What makes you so silly? I’m done. You know I’m done. Allen’s right. Better chuck the whole thing and forget it. You’ll be glad afterward.”

He wagged his head, smirked at her and added: “And maybe you don’t know it but I’ll be damned glad of it too.”

“You mustn’t talk that way, Eddie. You mustn’t.”

“Yes I will,” he declared, pulling down his puffed upper lip. He looked around at the floor, at the furniture, at her, with an unchanging, hard stare. A silence followed. Nothing could be heard but his quick, uneasy breathing and the uneasy motions of his body on the couch. His hands moved all of the time. His yellowish face moved. His eyes rested nowhere.

She came and sat by him. She put her hand on his shoulder. She regarded him with a look of pity, watching his face. Her feeling for him trembled on her lips. Her eyes watched every movement he made, dwelt on every one of his features. Her fingers trembled.

But he would not look at her. He looked sideways at the floor.

“When he comes Monday you’ll go with him. You’d better.” His voice was high and harsh.

“No I won’t go!” She put her arms around him and began to cry. “I just couldn’t, somehow. What would become of you? How could I when I know you would be alone and nobody to take care of you! Eddie, I feel so sorry for you. I feel so sorry for you. As long as you need me I shall stay. I shall stay. I don’t know what will become of us but I shall stay. I can’t help myself.”

He stiffly put up his hands and pulled her arms away from his shoulders. She turned away from him. He, bending over, propping his elbows on his knees and his chin against his fists, stared at the floor. He blinked his eyes and puckered his forehead as if he were trying to think.

She stood half turned from him, with her head bent, staring at the floor. She was half ashamed, half pensive. The silence lasted a long time. In the silence the man made a despairing gesture and ejaculated:

“Oh, Jesus, what’s the use!”

Minutes passed. The woman stood without moving. The man’s lips writhed, his forehead scowled, his eyes stared.

“There’s no use in talking about it, is there Eddie?” The woman turned and looked at him with patient weariness. He let his hands fall and dangle between his knees. He shook his head.

“Christ, no! What’s the use in talking!”

She slowly crossed the room and began putting on her hat.

“I’m going to dinner; will you come with me?” She looked at him with a flash of wistfulness in her eyes.

He shook his head without saying anything. She put on her overcoat and came over to him, stood by his side and stroked his hair. He stared at the floor.

“I’ll be back in about an hour,” she said at last. “Good-by, Eddie.”

“Good-by.”

He listened to her footsteps in the hall until they died away. He sat thrusting his head forward. The fixed stare of his light-colored eyes defied the lines of his mouth which changed all of the time.

At last he stood erect in a crumpled sort of way and walked into the middle of the room. His wrinkled trousers clung to his calves and bagged at the knees. His coat had come unbuttoned and he held it together with one hand like a woman wearing a shawl. He frowned, sticking out his upper lip; and his forehead was broken by many little wrinkles. His forehead was greenish-yellow in the gaslight. He shivered and a whisper rang through the room:

“Jesus, it’s cold!”

He let go of his coat, felt in his pockets and brought out a sack of tobacco and some papers, rolled a cigarette, lighted it and began to smoke greedily, inhaling the smoke. He looked at the table, at the chairs, at the floor. And all the time he made grimaces, scowled and shivered. His movements were uncertain and halting, but he stared intently this way and that. He was trying to reflect. But he was dizzy and cold. His blood felt yellow.

Once he looked at the door where they had gone out. He listened a long time while the cigarette smoked in his fingers.

At last he turned away from the door, back toward the middle of the room. He happened to see her handkerchief lying at the foot of the table. He threw away the cigarette and picked up the handkerchief and stared at it. He shivered more than ever and pulled his coat together at the bottom, but forgot to button it.

With a gesture of finality he threw the handkerchief from him, on the table. With the manner of an idle or a sick man he walked to the window, drew aside the curtain and looked down at the glittering street. His mind became clearer and his thoughts began to arrange themselves in more orderly fashion.

After a long time he turned away from the window.

“Yes,” he drawled in a fretful voice, “yes it would serve me right. Christ, yes, she’d be doing the right thing.”

His forehead became smooth. His face ceased to pout and wrinkle. It became calm. The pupils of his staring eyes became a little larger. He lifted his head a little. His face had almost an eager look. One would have said that he had reached some sort of a decision.

He found some paper and envelopes in the table-drawer and took a pencil from his pocket. Craning over the table, his intent face pallid in the gaslight, his hair gleaming like disordered gilt plush, he began to write in a shaky large scrawl.

He wrote one sheet almost full; signed it; folded it crookedly; put it in an envelope and scrawled a single line across the face of the envelope. On another sheet he wrote six or seven short lines, underlining each one; signed it boldly at the bottom and put it in another envelope, which he addressed.

He stood the two envelopes against some books and looked at them as he put the pencil back in his pocket. On the first envelope was written: _For My Wife._ On the other: _For the Police._

He rolled and smoked another cigarette slowly, looking at one spot on the carpet.

At last he tossed the remnant of the cigarette on the floor as if something in him craved disorder. He walked slowly into the bedroom, thrusting his head forward and his elbows out.

In the bedroom he turned up the light and without hesitation opened a little drawer in the old-fashioned bureau, taking out a revolver. He held it in both hands and cocked it. He stared into the mirror, and with something of the manner of a man who prepares to take a new kind of medicine he lifted the revolver and pointed it at his temple.

Then something in his whole mechanism seemed to stop and something else seemed to start. His body sagged and quivered at the same time. His eyes bulged. His mouth opened in such a way that his teeth glittered. A loud groan rang through the room. Quickly he laid the revolver down and walked back into the living room. He took unsteady steps and held his hands against his forehead.

“Oh, Jesus!” he cried.

He stood still a long time, pondering. It seemed to him that the silence of the room was lost in another silence.

His eye fell on a quart whiskey-bottle standing on a corner of the table. The unusual character of his awakening had made him, thus far, forget all about it.

It was nearly a third full of liquor. A little gleam came into his eye, the faintest color into his cheeks. He looked at the bottle with a sort of eagerness and went hopefully toward it.

He was thinking of the revolver on the bureau and it seemed to him that some of the whiskey would make that business easier.

He picked up the glass and the bottle and poured out a large drink, shuddered and swallowed it, making a face. He had eaten nothing all day and at once the whiskey was racing in his blood. Color flashed into his cheeks. He felt his blood becoming red again.

He took another drink and waited for the effect. After a little while he took still another. There was only a little left in the bottle.

Now his eyes were brighter and they had a misty look. The pupils were larger. He blinked his eyes and looked about. His face looked almost cheerful. He appeared to be reflecting. Indeed his thoughts raced rapidly but they began to tumble over each other. He hardly understood his thoughts. Vague emotions stirred him.

A sort of courage was mounting in his body, warming him like a new-kindled fire. But he felt mournful too.

He waited. He was about to have great thoughts. He was about to discover some magnificent solution of everything.

He stood still a long time, pondering. A little smile began to tremble on his mouth.

He poured out the last of the whiskey and shook the bottle to get the last drop. But now his head was rolling a little and his eyes were vague.

He lifted the glass. Just then his uncertain glance fell on his wife’s handkerchief. He looked long at the handkerchief, blinking. His head wobbled a little. He was trying to seize some idea that eluded him. Thoughts rose up in his mind but they fell over one another. His face wore a crippled look.

A long while he stood in thought, staring feebly at the handkerchief. But at last a faint, self-satisfied smile appeared on his trembling mouth.

Visibly swaying he turned around, his gaze wandering a little; steadied himself a little bit, and began to look uncertainly in the direction of the door. The smile flickered over his face like a blue flame. His mouth moved. His lips picked at words.

But he remembered the whiskey. He lifted the tumbler and emptied it, spilling some on his chin, half turned and with a single motion flung the glass ringing on the table.

He turned toward the door again, peering uncertainly as a man peers in the dusk. His head wagged. His voice blurred the silence:

“Di’ think I was ’sleep?”

Pleased, he laughed, rolling his head. But he stopped laughing to look toward the door, listening. His mouth got ready to talk.

“Di’--di’ y’ think I was ’sleep? Di’ y’ think I was ’sleep?” he called. No reply. Silence beyond the door. He smiled a satisfied smile. He laughed at the silence beyond the door; wagged his head; turned away; made two or three sidelong steps and brought up against the table. He flattened one hand out on the table-top and leaned against that hand. He stood there. His body swayed back and forth to a certain rhythm, like a weed in a creek. A smile flickered back and forth across his face like shadow on a shaking leaf. Sunk in drunken revery he blinked his drunken eyes, smirked and blinked. Now and again, when he leaned harder than usual, the legs of the table creaked under his weight. The hiss of the hot gas-lamp mingled with the noise of his breathing.

The little handkerchief lay on the table just under his nose. He had to see it if he looked. And when at last, tired of leaning against the table, he roused himself a little from his revery, he did see it at once. Pulling himself up as straight as he could he confronted the handkerchief with all his unsteady dignity, and with a righteous smirk, as one confronts an offender. He took the handkerchief in both his hands and turned it over and over. He stared at it as a baby stares at a new plaything. He moved his mouth all the time, breathing noisily. He blinked hard and often, looking and pondering. He seemed to be trying to recall something the handkerchief almost reminded him of, something he had forgotten.

At last he made the sort of motion a baby makes when it throws down a plaything, and threw the handkerchief on the floor. He looked pleased with himself and smirked down at the handkerchief. Satisfied, he pondered no longer. He turned with studied care, aimed himself at the bedroom door, made crooked long steps and went unsteadily in.

He looked at the revolver a long time. Sometimes he scowled. Sometimes he smiled. After awhile he picked up the revolver in both hands; turned and swayed back into the living room. He stood in the middle of the room, his body bending to and fro, and peered at the revolver with idiotic eyes. He stuck out his lips; blinked his eyes with great deliberation, pondered over the thing he held in his hands.

Now he began to look at the door again, listening and watching more and more attentively. At last he fixed his gaze wholly upon the door. The pupils of his eyes were distended. Bending in the middle, his legs trembling, his body swayed this way and that. His lips no longer smiled, but writhed.

“Think I was ’sleep?” he called. “Di’ y’ think--steal m’ wife when I was ’sleep?”

His voice shrilled in the room. He began to hurl at the door inept anathemas against the treachery of wives and the cowardice of men. He made uncouth accusations. He delivered himself of bizarre philosophies; sometimes mumbling, sometimes shrilling his words. He twisted his shoulders, stepping about in a small space. His voice quavered, rising and falling. His head tossed as if he rode in a boat.

But the silence at last reduced him to silence.

The labor of thought again showed in his face. Something was eluding him. Yes, he had forgotten something he was going to do. He tried hard in his own way, opening and shutting his mouth, blinking and searching the floor with his aimless eyes. Sometimes mutterings fell out of his mouth.

He smiled again. Something stirred him. Now he remembered what he had forgotten. He lifted the hand that held the revolver and aimed his wavering gaze down toward it. He raised his eyebrows and blinked. He turned the gun over this way and that, staring and blinking as if he had never seen one before in all his life. His face was pulled out of shape with the labor of cogitation. He began to smirk. He looked toward the door again, opening and shutting his mouth; and at last he delivered himself:

“Di’ y’ think I was go’ shoo’ m’self? Di’ y’ think I was go’ shoo’ m’self?”

His head sank on his breast and his eyes half closed. But he heaved his head up again and opened his eyes.

“Ah, sure, sure,” he called. “Steal m’ wife an’ I shoo’ m’self. Sure! sure!”

He laughed. But the laugh crumpled up in the silence.

His eyes were witless. It looked as though his pale head had talked without his knowing it. He wagged his head and announced solemnly:

“I’ll shoo’ you.” He waited a moment, trying to keep his gaze on the door, and repeated more loudly:

“I’ll shoo’ you. I’ll shoo’ you.”

He smiled down at the revolver and patted the barrel with an aimless motion.

“We know where fin’ ’im, don’t we?” he said to the revolver.

His eyes brightened and he became a little steadier smirking at the door, he called loudly, “We know where fin’ ’im. We know where fin’ ’im.”

He turned, and like a man walking in the dark he made his way to the couch. Here he laid the revolver down. With much labor and fumbling he gathered up his overcoat. With much labor he began to put it on. Half way through the job he paused, turned, and sent a wavering look toward the door.

“Di’ y’ think I do’ know where fin’ im?” he jibed.

He got his overcoat on and put on his hat. He stood a long time with a solemn expression on his face. He blinked studiously. He had become steadier. A fixed purpose seemed to have got him under its control. With great care he buttoned the overcoat and settled his hat as straight on his head as he could. Now his eyes were no longer blurred and wavering. They glowed as with fever and a flame was mounting in his cheeks. But his mouth was a woeful thing, a wound that opened and shut, writhing.

He picked up the revolver and looked at it, smirking. With the smirk on his face he turned toward the door and began to shove the revolver down into the inside pocket of his overcoat.

“We know,” he said, wagging at the door. “We know where--”

The trigger of the revolver must have caught in some part of his clothing. The crash of the discharge tore the wavering smirk from his face. Piteously intent, he stared for a second at the door. Then he lay quickly down, as if he accepted everything.

He lay first on his face, and muzzled his face snugly between his hands. Presently he turned over quietly on his back. One hand knocked once or twice against the floor.

The look fixed on his countenance was the look of one who has at last discovered something real.

[6] Copyright, 1921, by _Broom_.
Copyright, 1923, by Frederick Booth.

FOREST COVER[7]

By EDNA BRYNER

(From _The Bookman, N. Y._)

The ribbon of road wound down through the forest. A woman followed it. The road seemed to come from the town of a thousand souls but it only came through there, just as it came through forest on the other side of the town, and through another town on the other side of the forest, and through forest again on the other side of that town. The woman followed the road just that way. At some time or other she had stepped out upon it from some place through which it came and ever since she had been following it. Somewhere she would stop following it, she would make an end of it. The road itself would go on, ceaselessly, in and out of forest, through towns and again through forest.

As the woman walked, a sharp, long needle of words, “No one must ever know,” drove itself in and out of her brain. The words made a thin pattern that spread out sprawlingly to form a lid, like the pan of some cunning trap, which shut down automatically over every projection of thought that tried to make of her an articulate being, conscious of her own exigency. At the same time, something of her beyond the reach of words, finely hidden away from all snares, escaped like a thin cloud and entered the forest, crept along the dark leaf-mold earth, over the mossed rocks, up the dark, strong trunks of trees, out to the tips of the branches, to the edges of the leaves, swaying there until by its own motion it was dissipated--and again she was a woman walking along a piece of road.

The woman was in a daze with her following of the road. When she bent her head down and stared upon its yellow dirt surface, she was one with it, a piece of itself walking upon it. When she lifted up her head, she was separate from it, a living thing walking upon a piece of dead earth. Then she looked upon the wall of forest to right and left and became aware that the trees were intimate with the earth. She felt heavily their greater intimacy with the earth.

This intimacy bothered her. The forest came up out of the earth in trunks swelling into branches that burst into leaves. The earth was proud of this, proud of the roots that bored into it and sucked at it, at the trunks that went up, swelling into branches, a network between it and the sky, mesh to sift sunshine through. The trees were proud, too, proud of the earth that lay quiet and heavy with nourishment under them, receiving their roots, feeding them. The deep, unfathomable intimacy made them proud. They were joined in understanding, one. Their oneness bothered the woman. At the same time she felt strangely protected by it. She walked quietly and firmly, not fast, as she did in the towns. In the towns she hurried through, looking at no one, eager to get into the safety of the woods, eager almost to be in the bother of the oneness of earth and trees.

There were times when she wanted to stop, to leave the road, go up the side of the forest-clothed mountain and lie down; but she did not dare. Something within her urged her on. The Something was her Sin. Her Sin made her put one unwilling foot before the other and follow the winding strip of dirt road.