Part 3
_In the right wall there is a fireplace._
_A dog lies across the threshold, asleep, head on paws._
_About this room there is perhaps just a little too much of a certain kind of frail beauty of object. Crystal glasses, scent bottles, bowls of an almost too perfect design, furniture that is too antiquely beautiful._
HELENA HUCKSTEPPE, _a woman of about thirty-five, stands almost back view to the audience, one arm lying along the mantel. She is rather under medium in height. Her hair, which is dark and curling, is done carefully about a small fine head. She is dressed in a dark, long gown, a gown almost too faithful to the singular sadness of her body._
_At about the same moment as the curtain’s rising_, GHEID STORM _vaults the window-sill. He is a man of few years, a well-to-do man of property, brought up very carefully by upright women, the son of a conscientious physician, the kind of man who commutes with an almost religious fervour, and who keeps his wife and his lawns in the best possible trim, without any particular personal pleasure._
GHEID _is tall, but much too honourable to be jaunty, he is decidedly masculine. He walks deliberately, getting all the use possible out of his boot-leather, his belt-strap and hat-bands._
_His face is one of those which, for fear of misuse, has not been used at all._
HELENA HUCKSTEPPE _does not appear to be in the least astonished at his mode of entrance._
GHEID STORM—As you never let me in at the door, I thought of the window. [HELENA _remains silent_.] I hope I did not startle you. [_Pause._] Women are better calm, that is, some kinds of calm——
HELENA—Yes?
GHEID—[_Noticing the dog, which has not stirred._] You’ve got funny dogs, they don’t even bark. [_Pause._] I expected you’d set them on me; however, perhaps that will come later——
HELENA—Perhaps.
STORM—Are you always going to treat me like this? For days I’ve watched you walking with your dogs of an evening—that little black bullpup, and then those three setters—you’ve fine ways with you Helena Hucksteppe, though there are many tales of how you came by them——
HELENA—Yes?
STORM—Yes. [_Pause._] You know, you surprise me.
HELENA—Why? Because I do not set my dogs on you?
STORM—Something like that.
HELENA—I respect my dogs.
STORM—What does that mean?
HELENA—Had I a daughter, would I set her on every man?
STORM—[_Trying to laugh._] That’s meant for an insult, isn’t it? Well, I like the little insulting women——
HELENA—You are a man of taste.
STORM—I respect you.
HELENA—What kind of a feeling is that?
STORM—A gentleman’s——
HELENA—I see.
STORM—People say of you: “She has a great many ways——”
HELENA—Yes?
STORM—[_Sitting on the edge of the table._] “But none of them simple.”
HELENA—Do they?
STORM—[_Without attempting to hide his admiration._] I’ve watched your back: “There goes a fine woman, a fine silent woman; she wears long skirts, but she knows how to move her feet without kicking up a dust—a woman who can do that, drives a man mad.” In town there’s a story that you come through once every Spring, driving a different man ahead of you with a riding whip; another has it, that you come in the night——
HELENA—In other words, the starved women of the town are beginning to eat.
STORM—[_Pause._] Well [_laughs_] I like you.
HELENA—I do not enjoy the spectacle of men ascending.
STORM—What are you trying to say?
HELENA—I’m saying it.
STORM—[_After an awkward pause._] Do—you wish me to—go away?
HELENA—You will go.
STORM—Why won’t you let me talk to you?
HELENA—Any man may accomplish anything he’s capable of.
STORM—Do you know how I feel about you?
HELENA—Perfectly.
STORM—I have heard many things about your—your past—— I believe none of them——
HELENA—Quite right, why should you mix trades?
STORM—What do you mean by that?
HELENA—Why confuse incapability with accomplishment——
STORM—It’s strange to see a woman like you turning to the merely bitter——
HELENA—I began beyond bitterness.
STORM—Why do you treat me this way?
HELENA—How would you have me treat you?
STORM—There was one night when you seemed to know, have you forgotten? A storm was coming up, the clouds were rolling overhead—and you, you yourself started it. You kissed me.
HELENA—You say it was about to storm?
STORM—Yes.
HELENA—It even looked like rain?
STORM—Yes.
HELENA—[_Quickly in a different voice._] It was a dark night, and I ended it.
STORM—What have I done?
HELENA—You have neglected to make any beginning in the world—can I help that?
STORM—I offer you a clean heart.
HELENA—Things which have known only one state, do not interest me.
STORM—Helena!
HELENA—Gheid Storm.
STORM—I have a son; I don’t know why I should tell you about him, perhaps because I want to prove that I have lived, and perhaps not. My son is a child, I am a man of few years and my son is like what I was at his age. He is thin, I was thin; he is quiet, I was quiet; he has delicate flesh, and I had also—well, then his mother died——
HELENA—The saddle comes down from the horse.
STORM—Well, she died——
HELENA—And that’s over.
STORM—Well, there it is, I have a son——
HELENA—And that’s not over. Do you resent that?
STORM—I don’t know, perhaps. Sometimes I say to myself when I’m sitting by the fire alone—“You should have something to think of while sitting here——”
HELENA—In other words, you’re living for the sake of your fire.
STORM—[_To himself._] Some day I shall be glad I knew you.
HELENA—You go rather fast.
STORM—Yes, I shall have you to think of.
HELENA—When the fire is hot, you’ll be glad to think of me?
STORM—Yes, all of us like to have a few things to tell to our children, and I have always shown all that’s in my heart to my son.
HELENA—How horrible!
STORM—[_Startled._] Why?
HELENA—Would you show everything that made your heart?
STORM—I believe in frankness——
HELENA—[_With something like anger._] Well, some day your son will blow his head off, to be rid of frankness, before his skin is tough.
STORM—You are not making anything easier.
HELENA—I’ve never been callous enough to make things easier.
STORM—You’re a queer woman——
HELENA—Yes, that does describe me.
STORM—[_Taking his leg off the table._] Do you really want to know why I came? Because I need you——
HELENA—I’m not interested in corruption for the many.
STORM—[_Starting as if he had been struck._] By God!
HELENA—Nor in misplaced satisfactions——
STORM—By God, what a woman!
HELENA—Nor do I participate in liberations——
STORM—[_In a low voice._] I could hate you!
HELENA—I limit no man, feel what you can.
STORM—[_Taking a step toward her, the dog lifts its head._] If it were not for those damned dogs of yours—I’d—I’d——
HELENA—Aristocracy of movement never made a dog bite——
STORM—That’s a—strange thing to say—just at this moment.
HELENA—Not for me.
STORM—[_Sulky._] Well, anyway, a cat may look at a King——
HELENA—Oh no, a cat may only look at what it sees.
STORM—Helena Hucksteppe.
HELENA—Yes.
STORM—I’m—attracted—to you.
HELENA—A magnet does not attract shavings.
STORM—[_With positive conviction._] I _could_ hate you.
HELENA—I choose my enemies.
STORM—[_Without warning, seizing her._] By God, at least I can kiss you! [_He kisses her full on the mouth—she makes no resistance._]
HELENA—[_In a calm voice._] And this, I suppose, is what you call the “great moment of human contact.”
STORM—[_Dropping his arms—turning pale._] What are you trying to do to me?
HELENA—I’m doing it.
STORM—[_To himself._] Yet it was you that I wanted——
HELENA—Mongrels may not dig up buried treasure.
STORM—[_In a sudden rage._] You can bury your past as deep as you like, but carrion will out!
HELENA—[_Softly._] And this is love.
STORM—[_His head in his arms._] Oh, God, God!
HELENA—And you who like the taste of new things, come to me?
STORM—[_In a lost voice._] Shall I have no joy?
HELENA—Joy? Oh, yes, of a kind.
STORM—And you—are angry with me?
HELENA—In the study of science, is the scientist angry when the fly possesses no amusing phenomena?
STORM—I wanted—to know—you——
HELENA—I am conscious of your failure.
STORM—I wanted something—some sign——
HELENA—Must I, who have spent my whole life in being myself, go out of my way to change some look in you?
STORM—That’s why you are so terrible, you have spent all your life on yourself.
HELENA—Yes, men do resent that in women.
STORM—Yes, I suppose so. [_Pause._] I should have liked to talk of—myself——
HELENA—You see I could not listen.
STORM—You are—intolerant.
HELENA—No—occupied——
STORM—You are probably—playing a game.
HELENA—[_With a gracious smile._] You will get some personal good out of it, won’t you?
STORM—I’m uncomfortable——
HELENA—Uncomfortable!
STORM—[_Beginning to be really uncomfortable._] Who _are_ you?
HELENA—I am a woman, Gheid Storm, who is _not_ in need.
STORM—You’re horrible!
HELENA—Yes, that too.
STORM—But somewhere you’re vulnerable.
HELENA—Perhaps.
STORM—Only I don’t quite know the spot.
HELENA—Spot?
STORM—Something, somewhere, hidden——
HELENA—Hidden! [_She laughs._] _All_ of me is vulnerable.
STORM—[_Setting his teeth._] You tempt me.
HELENA—[_Wearily._] It’s not that kind.
STORM—I’ve lain awake thinking of you—many nights.
HELENA—That is too bad.
STORM—What is too bad?
HELENA—That you have had—fancies.
STORM—Why?
HELENA—Theft of much, makes much to return——
STORM—The world allows a man his own thoughts.
HELENA—Oh, no——
STORM—At least my thoughts are my own.
HELENA—Not one, so far.
STORM—What does that mean?
HELENA—You’ll know when you try to think them again.
STORM—You mean I’m not making headway—well, you’re right, I’m not——
HELENA—Now tell me what brought you through the window.
STORM—[_Relieved._] I’m glad you ask that, it’s the first human thing that’s happened this afternoon.
HELENA—You have forgotten our great moment of human contact.
STORM—[_Nervously._] Well——
HELENA—You were about to tell me what brought you?
STORM—I don’t know—something no one speaks of—some great ease in your back—the look of a great lover——
HELENA—So—you scented a great lover——
STORM—I am a man—and I love——
HELENA—What have you done for love, Gheid Storm?
STORM—I’ve—never gone to the dogs——
HELENA—So?
STORM—I’ve always respected women.
HELENA—In other words: taken the coals out of the fire with the poker—continue——
STORM—That’s all.
HELENA—And you dared to come to me! [_Her entire manner has changed._]
STORM—No matter what you’ve been—done—I love you.
HELENA—Do not come so near. Only those who have helped to make such death as mine may go a little way toward the ardours of that decay.
STORM—What have I done?
HELENA—You have dared to bring to a woman, who has known love, the whinny of a pauper.
STORM—What am I?
HELENA—[_Softly, to herself._] How sensitively the handles cling to the vase, how delicate is the flesh between the fingers.
STORM—I—I don’t know you.
HELENA—[_Dropping her hands to her sides._] Come here, Gheid Storm—[_Gheid approaches slowly, like a sleep walker_]. Put your hand on me. [_He does so as if in a dream._] So! [_She looks first at his hand, then into his face, making it quite plain that he does not even know how to touch a woman._] Yet you would be my lover, knowing not one touch that is mine, nor one word that is mine. My house is for men who have done their stumbling.
STORM—[_In an inaudible voice._] I am going now——
HELENA—I cannot touch new things, nor see beginnings.
STORM—Helena! Helena!
HELENA—Do not call my name. There are too many names that must be called before mine.
STORM—Shall I die, and never have known you?
HELENA—Death, for you, will begin where my cradle started rocking——
STORM—Shall I have no love like yours?
HELENA—When I am an old woman, thinking of other things, you will, perhaps, be kissing a woman like me——
STORM—[_Moving blindly toward the door._] Now I am going.
HELENA—[_In a quiet, level voice._] The fall is almost here.
STORM—Yes, it’s almost here.
HELENA—The leaves on the mountain road are turning yellow.
STORM—Yes, the leaves are turning.
HELENA—It’s late, your son will be waiting dinner for you.
STORM—Don’t take everything away.
HELENA—You will not even recall having seen me.
STORM—Can memory be taken too?
HELENA—Only that memory that goes past recollection may be kept.
STORM—[_At the door._] Good night——
HELENA—[_Smiling._] There is the window.
STORM—I could not lift my legs now.
HELENA—That’s a memory you may keep.
STORM—Good night.
HELENA—Good-bye, Gheid Storm, and as you go down the hill, will you lock the gate, a dog thief passed in the night, taking my terrier with him.
STORM—The one with the brown spots?
HELENA—Yes.
STORM—That was a fine dog.
HELENA—Yes, she was a fine dog—restless.
STORM—They say any dog will follow any man who carries aniseed.
HELENA—Well, soon I return to the city.
STORM—You look tired.
HELENA—Yes, I am tired.
[_Gheid exits. Helena takes her old position, her back almost square to the audience._]
CURTAIN
BEYOND THE END
Behind two spanking horses, in the heat of noon, rode Julie Anspacher. The air was full of the sound of windlasses and well water, where, from cool abysses, heavy buckets arose; and, too, the air was full of the perfect odour of small flowers. And Julie turned her head, gazing at the familiar line of road that ran away into the still more familiar distance.
The driver, a Scandinavian, who remembered one folk-tale involving a partridge and one popular song involving a woman, sat stiffly on his box holding the reins gently over the shining and sleek backs of the two mares.
He began to whistle the popular song now, swinging a little on his sturdy base, and drifting back with his tune came the tang of horse skin, wet beneath tight leather.
The horses were taking the hill, straining and moving their ears, and reaching the top, bounded forward in a whirl of dust. Still sitting rigid, the driver clucked, snapping his whip, and began talking in a dry deep bass.
“It’s some time since we have seen you, Mrs. Anspacher.”
Julie raised her thin long face from her collar and nodded.
“Yes,” she answered in a short voice, and frowned.
“Your husband has gathered in the corn already, and the orchards are hanging heavy.”
“Are they?” she said, and tried to remember how many trees there were of apple and of pear.
The driver took in another foot of reins, and turning slightly around, so that he could look at her, said:
“It’s good to see you again, Mrs. Anspacher.”
She began to laugh. “Is it?” then with deliberation checked herself, and fixed her angry eyes straight ahead of her.
The child, loose-limbed with excessive youth, who sat at her side, lifted a small sharp face on which an aquiline nose perched with comic boldness. She half held, half dropped an old-fashioned ermine muff, the tails of which stuck out in all directions. She looked unhappy and expectant.
“You remember Mrs. Berling?” he went on. “She is married again.”
“Is she?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He began to tell her about the local office for outgoing mails, where a nephew of her husband, Paytor, had taken a job.
The child sat so still that it was painful and Julie Anspacher moved away, thinking aloud:
“All is corruption.”
The child started, and looked quickly away, as children will at something that they expect but do not understand. The driver beat the horses, until long lines of heavy froth appeared at the edges of the harness.
“What did you say, ma’am?”
“Nothing—I said all is lost from the beginning—if we only saw it—always.”
The child looked at her slowly, puzzled, and looked down.
“Ann,” said Julie Anspacher, suddenly lifting the muff over her hands, “did you ever see two such big horses before?” The child turned its head with brightness, and bending down tried to see between the driver’s arms. Then she smiled.
“Are they yours?” she whispered.
Julie Anspacher took in a deep breath, stretching the silk of her waist across her breasts. “No,” she answered, “they are not mine, but we have two—bigger—blacker.”
“Can I see them?”
“Oh, yes, you shall see them. Don’t be ridiculous.”
The child shrank back into herself, clutching nervously at her muff. Julie Anspacher returned to her reflections.
It was almost five years since she had been home. Five years before in just such an Autumn the doctors had given her six months to live. One lung gone and the other going. They called it sometimes the White Death, and, sometimes, the love disease. She coughed a little, remembering, and the child at her side coughed too in echo, and the driver, puckering his forehead, reflected that Mrs. Anspacher was not cured.
She was thirty-nine—she should have died at thirty-four. In those five years Paytor had seen her five times, coming in over fourteen hours of the rails at Christmas. He cursed the doctors, called them fools.
The house appeared dull white between the locust trees, and the smoke, the same lazy Autumn smoke, rose in a still column straight into the obliterating day.
The driver reined in the horses until their foaming jaws struck against their harness, and with a quick bound Julie Anspacher jumped the side of the cart, the short modish tails of her jacket dancing above her hips. She turned around and thrusting her black gloved hands under the child, lifted her out. A dog barked. She began walking the ascent toward the house.
A maid, in dust cap, put her head out of an upstairs window, clucked, drew it in and slammed the sash, and Paytor, with slow and deliberate steps, moved toward the figure of his wife and the child.
He was a man of middle height, with a close-cropped beard that ended in a grey wedge on his chin. He was sturdy, a strong man, almost too pompous, but with kindly blue eyes and a long thin mouth. As he walked he threw his knees out, which gave him a rocking though substantial gait. He was slightly surprised and raised the apricot-coloured veil that covered the keen newness of her face, and leaning down kissed her twice upon both cheeks.
“And where does the child come from?” he inquired, touching the little girl’s chin.
“Come along, don’t be ridiculous!” Julie said impatiently, and swept on toward the house.
He ran after her. “I’m glad to see you,” he went on, warmly, trying to keep up with her rapid strides, that swung the child half off the ground, stumbling, trotting.
“Tell me what the doctors said—cured?”
There was a note of happiness in his voice. “Not that I really give a damn what they think, I always told you you would live to a ripe old age, as they say. What did they do to Marie Bashkirtseff? Locked her up in a dark room, shut all the windows—and of course she died—that was their method then—and now it’s Koch’s tuberculin—all nonsense.”
“It worked well with some people,” she said, going ahead of him into the living room. “There was one boy there—well—of that later. Will you have someone put Ann to bed—the trip was bad for her. See how sleepy the child is—run along, Ann,” she added, pushing her slightly but kindly toward the maid. Then when they had disappeared, she stood looking about her, drawing off her gloves.
“I’m glad you took down the crystals—I always hated them.”—She moved to the windows.
“I didn’t, the roof fell in—just after my last visit in December. You’re looking splendid, Julie.” He coloured. “I’m glad, you know—awfully glad. I began to think—well, not that the doctors know anything,” he said, laughing: “but it’s a drop here of about fifteen hundred feet, but your heart is good—always was.”
“What do you know about my heart, Paytor?” Julie said, angrily. “You don’t know what you are talking about at all. The child——”
“Well, yes——?”
“Her name is Ann,” she finished sulkily.
“It’s a sweet name—it was your mother’s, too. Whose is she?”
“Oh, good heavens!” Julie cried, moving around the room. “Mine, mine, mine, of course, whose would she be if not mine?”
He looked at her. “Yours—why, Julie—how absurd!” Slowly the colour left his face.
“I know—we have got to talk it over—it’s all got to be arranged, it’s terrible. But she is nice, a bright child, a good child.”
“What in the world is all this about?” he demanded, stopping in front of her. “What are you in this mood for—what have I done?”
“Good heavens! What have you done? What a ridiculous man you are. Why nothing, of course, absolutely nothing!” She waved her arm. “That’s not it—why do you bring yourself in? I’m not blaming you, I’m not asking to be forgiven. I’ve been down on my knees, I’ve beaten my head on the ground, abased myself, but,” she said in a terrible voice, “it is not low enough, the ground is not low enough, to bend is not enough; to ask forgiveness is not enough, to receive it is nothing. There isn’t the right kind of misery in the world for me to suffer, nor the right kind of pity for you to feel, there isn’t the right word in the world to heal me up. It’s good to forgive, to be forgiven, but that’s for ordinary things. This is beyond that—it’s something you can experience but never feel—there are not enough nerves, blood cells, flesh—to feel it. You suffer insufficiently; it’s like drinking insufficiently, sleeping insufficiently. I’m not asking anything because there is nothing that I can receive—how primitive to be able to receive——”
“But, Julie——”
“It’s not that,” she said roughly, tears swimming in her eyes. “Of course I love you. But think of it, a danger to everyone excepting those like yourself. Curious, involved in a problem affecting only a small per cent of humanity, sick, frightened, filled with fever and lust perhaps—with nothing, nothing coming after, whatever you do, but death—then you go on—it goes on—then the child—and life probably, for a time.”
“Well——”
“I couldn’t tell you. I thought, ‘Well, I’ll die next month,’ and finally I didn’t want to go off—although I did, you know what I mean. Then her father died—they say her lungs are weak—death, death perpetuating itself, that’s funny you see—and the doctors——” She swung around: “You’re right—they lied, and I lived through—all the way—all the way!”
He turned his face from her.
“The real thing,” she went on in a pained voice, “is to turn our torment toward the perfect design. I didn’t want to go beyond you—that was not my purpose. I thought there was not to be any more me. I wanted to leave nothing behind but you, only you. You must believe this or I can’t bear it—and still,” she continued, walking around the room impatiently, “there was a somehow hysterical joy in it too. I thought, if you had real perception, that ‘something’ that we must possess, that must be at the bottom of us somewhere—or there wouldn’t be such an almost sensuous desire for it, that ‘something’ that, at times, is so near us that it becomes obscene, well, I thought, if Paytor has this—and mind you, I knew all the time that you didn’t have it—that you would understand. And when you had been gone a long time I said, ‘Paytor understands’—and I would say to myself—‘Now, at this moment—at ten-thirty precisely, if I could be with Paytor he would say “I see,”’ but so soon as I had the time table in my hand I knew that there was no such feeling in your bosom—nothing at all.”
“Don’t you feel horror?” he asked in a loud voice, suddenly.
“No, I don’t feel horror—horror is conflict—and I have none—I’m alien to life.”
“Have you a religion, Julie?” he asked, still in the same loud voice, as if he were addressing someone a little raised, yet invisible, as one tries to see a choir.
“I don’t know—I don’t think so. I’ve tried to believe in something external, something that might envelop this and carry it beyond—that’s what we demand of our faiths, isn’t it? But I always return to a fixed notion that there is something more fitting than a possible release.”