7. Renunciation

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_ After that the curate came often to the room in the Box Street tenement; but beyond the tenants of top floor rear he did not allow the intimacy to extend--not even to embrace the quaintly love-lorn Mr. Poddle. It was now summer; the window was open to the west wind, blowing in from the sea. Most the curate came at evening, when the breeze was cool and clean, and the lights began to twinkle in the gathering shadows: then to sit at the window, describing unrealities, not conceived in the world of the listeners; and these new and beautiful thoughts, melodiously voiced in the twilight, filled the hours with wonder and strange delight. Sometimes, the boy sang--his mother, too, and the curate: a harmony of tender voices, lifted softly. And once, when the songs were all sung, and the boy had slipped away to the comfort of Mr. Poddle, who was now ill abed with his restless lungs, the curate turned resolutely to the woman.

"I want the boy's voice," he said.

She gave no sign of agitation. "His voice?" she asked, quietly. "Ain't the boy's self nothing to your church?"

"Not," he answered, "to the church."

"Not to you?"

"It is very much," he said, gravely, "to me."

"Well?"

He lifted his eyebrows--in amazed comprehension. "I must say, then," he said, bending eagerly towards her, "that I want the boy?"

"The boy," she answered.

For a little while she was silent--vacantly contemplating the bare floor. There had been no revelation. She was not taken unaware. She had watched his purpose form. Long before, she had perceived the issue approaching, and had bravely met it. But it was all now definite and near. She found it hard to command her feeling--bitter to cut the trammels of her love for the child.

"You got to pay, you know," she said, looking up. "Boy sopranos is scarce. You can't have him cheap."

"Of course!" he hastened to say. "The church will pay."

"Money? It ain't money I want."

To this there was nothing to say. The curate was in the dark--and quietly awaited enlightenment.

"Take him!" she burst out, rising. "My God! just you take him. That's all I want. Understand me? I want to get rid of him."

He watched her in amazement. For a time she wandered about the room, distraught, quite aimless: now tragically pausing; now brushing her hand over her eyes--a gesture of weariness and despair. Then she faced him.

"Take him," she said, her voice hoarse. "Take him away from me. I ain't fit to have him. Understand? He's got to grow up into a man. And I can't teach him how. Take him. Take him altogether. Make him--like yourself. Before you come," she proceeded, now feverishly pacing the floor, "I never knew that men was good. No man ever looked in my eyes the way you do. I know them--oh, I know them! And when my boy grows up, I want him to look in the eyes of women the way you look--in mine. Just that! Only that! If only, oh, if only my son will look in the eyes of women the way you look in mine! Understand? I want him to. But I can't teach him how. I don't know enough. I ain't good enough."

The curate rose.

"You can't take his voice and leave his soul," she went on. "You got to take his soul. You got to make it--like your own."

"Not like mine!"

"Just," she said, passionately, "like yours. Don't you warn me!" she flashed. "I know the difference between your soul and mine. I know that when his soul is like yours he won't love me no more. But I can't help that. I got to do without him. I got to live my life--and let him live his. It's the way with mothers and sons. God help the mothers! It's the way of the world.... And he'll go with you," she added. "I'll get him so he'll be glad to go. It won't be nice to do--but I can do it. Maybe you think I can't. Maybe you think I love him too much. It ain't that I love him too much. It's because I love him enough!"

"You offer the boy to me?"

"Will you take him--voice and soul?"

"I will take him," said the curate, "soul and voice."

She began at once to practice upon the boy's love for her--this skillfully, persistently: without pity for herself or him. She sighed, wept, sat gloomy for hours together: nor would she explain her sorrow, but relentlessly left it to deal with his imagination, by which it was magnified and touched with the horror of mystery. It was not hard--thus to feign sadness, terror, despair: to hint misfortune, parting, unalterable love. Nor could the boy withstand it; by this depression he was soon reduced to a condition of apprehension and grief wherein self-sacrifice was at one with joyful opportunity. Dark days, these--hours of agony, premonition, fearful expectation. And when they had sufficiently wrought upon him, she was ready to proceed.

One night she took him in her lap, in the old close way, in which he loved to be held, and sat rocking, for a time, silently.

"Let us talk, dear," she said.

"I think I'm too sick," he sighed. "I just want to lie here--and not talk."

He had but expressed her own desire--to have him lie there: not to talk, but just to feel him lying in her arms.

"We must," she said.

Something in her voice--something distinguishable from the recent days as deep and real--aroused the boy. He touched the lashes of her eyes--and found them wet.

"Why are you crying?" he asked. "Oh, tell me, mother! Tell me now!"

She did not answer.

"I'm sick," he muttered. "I--I--think I'm very sick."

"Something has happened, dear," she said. "I'm going to tell you what." She paused--and in the pause felt his body grow tense in a familiar way. For a moment the prospect frightened her. She felt, vaguely, that she was playing with that which was infinitely delicate--which might break in her very hands, and leave her desolate. "You know, dear," she continued, faltering, "we used to be very rich. But we're not, any more." It was a poor lie--she realized that: and was half ashamed. "We're very poor, now," she went on, hurriedly. "A man broke into the bank and stole all your mother's gold and diamonds and lovely dresses. She hasn't anything--any more." She had conceived a vast contempt for the lie; she felt that it was a weak, unpracticed thing--but she knew that it was sufficient: for he had never yet doubted her. "So I don't know what she'll do," she concluded, weakly. "She will have to stop having good times, I guess. She will have to go to work."

He straightened in her lap. "No, no!" he cried, gladly. "I'll work!"

Her impulse was to express her delight in his manliness, her triumphant consciousness of his love--to kiss him, to hug him until he cried out with pain. But she restrained all this--harshly, pitilessly. She had no mercy upon herself.

"I'll work!" he repeated.

"How?" she asked. "You don't know how."

"Teach me."

She laughed--an ironical little laugh: designed to humiliate him. "Why," she exclaimed, "I don't know how to teach you!"

He sighed.

"But," she added, significantly, "the curate knows."

"Then," said he, taking hope, "the curate will teach me."

"Yes; but----"

"But what? Tell me quick, mother!"

"Well," she hesitated, "the curate is so busy. Anyhow, dear," she continued, "I would have to work. We are very poor. You see, dear, it takes a great deal of money to buy new clothes for you. And, then, dear, you see----"

He waited--somewhat disturbed by the sudden failure of her voice. It was all becoming bitter to her, now; she found it hard to continue.

"You see," she gasped, "you eat--quite a bit."

"I'll not eat much," he promised. "And I'll not want new clothes. And it won't take long for the curate to teach me how to work."

She would not agree.

"Tell me!" he commanded.

"Yes," she said; "but the curate says he wants you to live with him."

"Would you come, too?"

"No," she answered.

He did not yet comprehend. "Would I go--alone?"

"Yes."

"All alone?"

"Alone!"

Quiet fell upon all the world--in the twilighted room, in the tenement, in the falling night without, where no breeze moved. The child sought to get closer within his mother's arms, nearer to her bosom--then stirred no more. The lights were flashing into life on the river--wandering aimlessly: but yet drifting to the sea.... Some one stumbled past the door--grumbling maudlin wrath.

"There is no other way," the mother said.

There was no response--a shiver, subsiding at once: no more than that.

"And I would go to see you--quite often."

She tried to see his face; but it was hid against her.

"It would be better," she whispered, "for you."

"Oh, mother," he sobbed, sitting back in her lap, "what would you do without me?"

It was a crucial question--so appealing in unselfish love, so vividly portraying her impending desolation, that for an instant her resolution departed. What would she do without him? God knew! But she commanded herself.

"I would not have to work," she said.

He turned her face to the light--looked deep in her eyes, searching for the truth. She met his glance without wavering. Then, discerning the effect, deliberately, when his eyes were alight with filial love and concern, at the moment when the sacrifice was most clear and most poignant, she lied.

"I would be happier," she said, "without you."

A moan escaped him.

"Will you go with the curate?" she asked.

"Yes."

He fell back upon her bosom....

There was no delay. 'Twas all done in haste. The night came. Gently the curate took the child from her arms.

"Good-bye," she said.

"I said I would not cry, mother," he faltered. "I am not crying."

"Good-bye, dear."

"Mother, I am not crying."

"You are very brave," she said, discovering his wish. "Good-bye. Be a good boy."

He took the curate's hand. They moved to the door--but there turned and lingered. While the child looked upon his mother, bravely calling a smile to his face, that she might be comforted, there crept into his eyes, against his will, some reproach. Perceiving this, she staggered towards him, but halted at the table, which she clutched: and there stood, her head hanging forward, her body swaying. Then she levelled a finger at the curate.

"Take him away, you damn fool!" she screamed. _

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