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Children of the Market Place, a novel by Edgar Lee Masters |
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Chapter 55 |
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_ CHAPTER LV Standing beside the dead body of this man a future with Isabel took form in my heart. Love is a great solemnity itself. And in this moment I felt that Isabel shared my vision. We buried Uncle Tom. Then Isabel began to prepare to sail for America. Of course no trip now around the world. She must go back to Connecticut, but she must go alone. That was her wish. It was understood that I should follow her later. This much was definite between us. Many plans filled her mind. She had a large estate to put in order. There were lawyers and agents to consult. I really wished to return with her in order to assist her. But she said: "It is best for you to stay here for a while. We shall write to each other. Later I wish you to come." The question in my mind was not shall we be married, but when shall we be married. But Isabel's mood was too serious, too majestic for me to broach these definite subjects now. I looked into her eyes. It seemed to me that my thoughts were silently communicated to her. She pressed my hand gently. And so after some days of packing, in which I helped her constantly, she sailed away and left me in Rome. I tried to work but the time would not pass. All my drawings and etchings were failures. What after all was art to me except a diversion? Too late! The only art that I ever could achieve was that of giving happiness to Isabel and being worthy of her devotion. Her letters came frequently, always so full of wise observations, striking fancies and imagery; so many with thanks for what I had been to her. She wrote me that Uncle Tom's will, as he had dictated it, had been probated and acquiesced in by every one. Six months went by. I had gone with Reverdy to Lake Maggiore to escape the heat in Rome. While I was there a letter came from Isabel asking me to come to her. In three weeks I was by her side, having first placed Reverdy in Phillips Exeter. We were together in the great homestead which had belonged to Uncle Tom's father, there in Connecticut. It was full of the treasures of old times. Priceless things gathered on Isabel's travels--a great house set in a wonderful expanse of grounds about a mile from a pretty village. It was October. The earth was aflame with the fires of the forest. Jays cried from the maples. The air was subtle with a delicate scent of pine needles and fallen leaves. She had other guests in the house. But they dispersed themselves gracefully. We were much alone, reading, listening to music played softly by one of her woman friends at a distance in the drawing room. Our favorite place was the window seat in the library, heaped with pillows and overlooking lilac and rose bushes, where we could see the great elms, the fountain, the country beyond. We had many walks together; and one afternoon we came to a place on a woodland path amid hills, trees towering above us, a brook playing below us. The air was hushed with a passionate Orpheus, and there I sensed her yearning. I heard the rhythm of her flesh singing to me. Her hands were stretched toward me, the pupils of her eyes grew wide as if a vision stood before her. For the first time I kissed Isabel upon the lips. Hitherto we had breathed the rarefied air of the peaks, seen the white light of the upper spaces, felt the passionless gods about us. Now we were descending the rich valleys, to the clustered vines, to the places of soft sounds and voluptuous air, to havens of sleep, to the replenishment of our souls in the bridal supper. That night we sat again in the window seat. Her other guests faded here and there. For a time there were shadowy fancies from the piano, then the house was stilled. But outside an April rain was falling. It pelted the windowpanes as softly as driven petals. It made a fairy swish as of far-off waves, and we sat together in a dim light. Isabel's eyes were closed. Her head rested partly on my shoulder, partly on a pillow. Her hand lay limp in my hand. Her whole being was relaxed. We were quite alone. Isabel was with me body and mind. But a terror crept upon me. My very hair trembled. I pressed her hand to my breast. It seemed only an act of will, however, not of emotion. I drew her head close to my breast. All these actions arrayed themselves before my detached observation. Paralyzing self-analysis preoccupied me. I kissed her upon the brow, the eyes, with pressure and strength upon the lips. I was not acting; I was thinking out these demonstrations. The consciousness that I was deceiving Isabel broke my emotional concentration. Could she sense that my heart was beating, but with terror? Where were the flames that had sung to me ethereally before? Where the song out of the flesh, but too subtle for the ears of flesh? Yet I drew her closer to me, folded her tightly against my breast. My imaginative strength was more and more absorbed in self-analysis, into wonder as to what weakness had taken place in me. For here was Isabel dissolved in my arms and how could I continue this futile demonstration? But why also desist? The sweat began to stand out on my forehead. What should I say? Uncle Tom no longer stood between us. Isabel was my bride. There were no barriers to break down, no protests to overcome. We were both of an age and of an experience where formalities lose their significance. The goddess had descended to me and here was I a witless fool. Finally there flashed into my mind what she had said to me in Rome: "My friend, for this once be Orpheus--Orpheus was once Dionysius. Orpheus, tranquil and inspired, touched the quiet lyre surrounded by the Muses. Orpheus had been Dionysius drinking wine, beating cymbals. Be Orpheus, my friend, and take into your being these beauties of the mind which are given us--these flowers of friendship attend and keep for our garden." These words ran through my tortured brain. They completed my enervation. But I could utter none of them to Isabel. What fear that hatred was budding in the heart of this woman at my side! I pressed her hands every now and then to see what was moving in her; for as my mind would not cease to analyze, analysis became keener. Always she returned the pressure. Her kisses at first given with ardent emotion were now lisped softly against my cheek. So we sat side by side. The rain pelted the window, the clock chimed. And the night was passing. A proposal of marriage seemed belated, incongruous. Yet it came into my mind as a protective coloration to more immediate expressions of the moment. Men have lost women because they dishonored them or betrayed them or changed for the time toward them--for a thousand reasons. But look at me. What were friendship, truth, honor, the service of all that I was, love in its highest and deepest sense, understanding, sympathy with all of Isabel's flights of the mind, if I could not come to her with a promise of the future? She was not only the revelation of all that I had desired and of all that I had missed in life, but she was the symbol of a fate that has come past the appointed hour. I was the father of Reverdy by Dorothy, whom I loved with a heart's beginning; and I was the defeated lover of the ideal whom I had found too late. In these circumstances of myself and Isabel were symbolized the lives of all men who give their devotions to lesser loves, who find their creations and their work imperfect or worthless when the planting season has passed. As hollow as the words sounded, I nevertheless asked Isabel to be my wife. And Isabel without changing her position and without opening her eyes said in the quietest of voices: "You know I love you. You know I have loved you in every way a woman can. I love you as I loved Uncle Tom; for you are my friend, as he was. But what will the future be? I have been compelled all my life to center my thought upon books and music, friends, travel, and devotion to Uncle Tom. I have developed this power of concentration and self-denial; but would you bring me to live over again what I lived with Uncle Tom? Oh, my friend, no man can understand and fathom the maternal desire in a woman. It is a mystery which she alone knows." What life remained in me sank down just as a stricken eagle falls into the thickets and is still; and breathes quietly and draws the film over its eyes. I could not answer her. The October air was mild. The house was overheated. A window was open. An entering wind began to stir my hair. I thought of how it must look to another, these beginnings of gray hair. Age had come to me. And I could see Isabel with my feelings alone, sitting beside me so pale, so tender, so sorrowful. The clock strikes three. Isabel arouses, turns slightly from me, and gradually sits up. "That was three, wasn't it?" she asked. "Your train leaves early in the morning. You must sleep a few hours. I shall not see you at breakfast. The maid will bring it to you. Shall we have a glass of wine together?" She poured wine for me and we drank. She handed me a lighted candle. Then she stood and searched my face. She offered her lips to me, turned and walked away. I stood with the candle in my hand, watching her until she passed through the shadows and darkness of the hall. The house was without a sound. No step of her came from the hall or the stair. I still stood with the candle in that silence and fluttering darkness. Then I went to my room. _ |
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