|
|
|
Prev
| Next
| Contents
A PERIOD.
If London was dreary when Lufa left it, it was worse than dreary to
Walter now that she was gone from his world; gone from the universe past
and future both--for the Lufa he had dreamed of was not, and had never
been! He had no longer any one to dream about, waking or asleep. The
space she had occupied was a blank spot, black and cold, charred with
the fire of passion, cracked with the frost of disappointment and scorn.
It had its intellectual trouble too--the impossibility of bringing
together the long-cherished idea of Lufa, and the reality of Lufa
revealed by herself; the two stared at each other in mortal
irreconcilement. Now also he had no book to occupy him with pleasant
labor. It had passed from him into the dark; the thought of it was
painful, almost loathesome to him. No one, however, he was glad to find,
referred to it. His friends pitied him, and his foes were silent. Three
copies of it were sold. The sneaking review had had influence enough
with the courted public to annihilate it.
But the expenses of printing it remained; he had yet to pay his share of
them; and, alas, he did not know how! The publisher would give him time,
no doubt, but, work his hardest, it would be a slow clearance! There was
the shame too of having undertaken what he was unable at once to
fulfill! He set himself to grind and starve.
At times the clouds would close in upon him, and there would seem
nothing in life worth living for; though in truth his life was so much
the more valuable that Lufa was out of it. Occasionally his heart would
grow very gentle toward her, and he would burrow for a possible way to
her excuse. But his conclusion was ever the same: how could he forget
that laugh of utter merriment and delight when she found it was indeed
himself under the castigation of such a mighty beadle of literature! In
his most melting mood, therefore, he could only pity her. But what would
have become of him had she not thus unmasked herself! He would now be
believing her the truest, best of women, with no fault but a coldness of
which he had no right to complain, a coldness comforted by the extent of
its freezing!
But there was far more to make London miserable to him: he was now at
last disgusted with his trade: this continuous feeding on the labor of
others was no work for a gentleman! he began to descry in it certain
analogies which grew more and more unpleasant as he regarded them. For
his poetizing he was sick of that also. True, the quality or value of
what he had written was nowise in itself affected by its failure to meet
acceptance. It had certainly not had fair play; it had been represented
as it was not; its character had been lied away! But now that the
blinding influence of their chief subject was removed, he saw the verses
themselves to be little worth. The soul of them was not the grand
all-informing love, but his own private self-seeking little passion for
a poor show of the lovable. No one could care for such verses, except
indeed it were some dumb soul in love with a woman like, or imaginably
like the woman of their thin worship! Not a few were pretty, he allowed,
and some were quaint--that is, had curious old-flavored phrases and
fantastic turns of thought; but throughout there was no revelation! They
sparkled too with the names of things in themselves beautiful, but
whether these things were in general wisely or fairly used in his
figures and tropes and comparisons, he was now more than doubtful. He
had put on his singing robes to whisper his secret love into the two
great red ears of the public!--desiring, not sympathy from love and
truth, but recognition from fame and report! That he had not received it
was better than he deserved! Then what a life was it thus to lie
wallowing among the mushrooms of the press! To spend gifts which,
whatever they were, were divine, in publishing the tidings that this man
had done ill, that other had done well, that he was amusing, and she was
dull! Was it worth calling work, only because it was hard and dreary?
His conscience, his taste, his impulses, all declined to back him in it
any longer. What was he doing for the world? they asked him. How many
books had he guided men to read, by whose help they might steer their
way through the shoals of life? He could count on the fingers of one
hand such as he had heartily recommended. If he had but pointed out what
was good in books otherwise poor, it would have been something! He had
not found it easy to be at once clever, honest, and serviceable to his
race: the press was but for the utterance of opinion, true or false, not
for the education of thought! And why should such as he write books, who
had nothing to tell men that could make them braver, stronger, purer,
more loving, less selfish!
What next was to be done? His calling had vanished! It was not work
worthy of a man! It was contemptible as that of the parson to whom the
church is a profession! He owed his landlady money: how was he to pay
her? He must eat, or how was he to work? There must be something honest
for him to do! Was a man to do the wrong in order to do the right?
The true Walter was waking--beginning to see things as they were, and
not as men regarded them. He was tormented with doubts and fears of all
kinds, high and low. But for the change in his father's circumstances,
he would have asked his help, cleared off everything, and gone home at
once; and had he been truer to his father, he would have known that such
a decision would even now have rejoiced his heart.
He had no longer confidence enough to write on any social question. Of
the books sent him, he chose such as seemed worthiest of notice, but
could not do much. He felt not merely a growing disinclination, but a
growing incapacity for the work. How much the feeling may have been
increased by the fact that his health was giving way, I can not tell;
but certainly the root of it was moral.
His funds began to fail his immediate necessities, and he had just come
from pawning the watch which he would have sold but that it had been his
mother's, and was the gift of his father, when he met Harold Sullivan,
who persuaded him to go with him to a certain theater in which the
stalls had not yet entirely usurped upon the enjoyable portion of the
pit. Between the first and second acts, he caught sight of Lady Lufa in
a box, with Sefton standing behind her. There was hardly a chance of
their seeing him, and he regarded them at his ease, glad to see Sefton,
and not sorry to see Lufa, for it was an opportunity of testing himself.
He soon perceived that they held almost no communication with each
other, but was not surprised, knowing in how peculiar a relation they
stood. Lufa was not looking unhappy--far from it; her countenance
expressed absolute self-contentment: in all parts of the house she was
attracting attention, especially from the young men. Sefton's look was
certainly not one of content; but neither, as certainly, was it one of
discontent; it suggested power waiting opportunity, strength quietly
attendant upon, hardly expectant of the moment of activity. Walter
imagined one watching a beloved cataleptic: till she came alive, what
was to be done but wait! God has had more waiting than any one else!
Lufa was an iceberg that would not melt even in the warm southward sea,
watched by a still volcano, whose fires were of no avail, for they could
not reach her. Sparklingly pretty, not radiantly beautiful, she sat,
glancing, coruscating, glittering, anything except glowing: glow she
could not even put on! She did not know what it was. Now and then a soft
sadness would for a moment settle on Sefton's face--like the gray of a
cloudy summer evening about to gather into a warm rain; but this was
never when he looked at her; it was only when, without seeing, he
thought about her. Hitherto Walter had not been capable of understanding
the devotion, the quiet strength, the persistent purpose of the man; now
he began to see into it and wonder. While a spark of hope lay alive in
those ashes of disappointment that had often seemed as if they would
make but a dust-heap of his bosom, there he must remain, by the clean,
cold hearth, swept and garnished, of the woman he loved--loved
strangely, mysteriously, inexplicably even to himself!
Walter sat gazing; and as he gazed, simultaneously the two became aware
of his presence. A friendly smile spread over Sefton's face, but, with
quick perception, he abstained from any movement that might seem to
claim recognition. To Walter's wonder, Lufa, so perfectly
self-contained, so unchangingly self-obedient, colored--faintly indeed,
but plainly enough to the eyes of one so well used to the white rose of
her countenance. She moved neither head nor person, only turned her eyes
away, and seemed, like the dove for its foot, to seek some resting-place
for her vision--and with the sight awoke in Walter the first unselfish
resolve of his life. Would he not do anything--could he not do something
to bring those two together? The thought seemed even to himself almost a
foolish one; but spiritual relations and potencies go far beyond
intellectual ones, and a man must become a fool to be wise. Many a
foolish thought, many a most improbable idea, has proved itself
seed-bearing fruit of the kingdom of heaven. A man may fail to effect,
or be unable to set hand to work he would fain do--and be judged, as
Browning says in his "Saul," by what he would have done if he could.
Only the would must be as true as a deed; then it is a deed. The
kingdom of heaven is for the dreamers of true dreams only!
Was there then anything Walter could do to help the man to gain the
woman he had so faithfully helped Walter to lose? It was no plain task.
The thing was not to enable him to marry her--that Sefton could have
done long ago--might do any day without help from him! As she then was,
she was no gain for any true man! But if he could help to open the eyes
of the cold-hearted, conceited, foolish girl, either to her own
valuelessness as she was, or her worth as she might be, or again to the
value, the eternal treasure of the heart she was turning from, she would
then be a gift that in the giving grew worthy even of such a man!
Here, however, came a different thought, bearing nevertheless in the
same direction. It was very well to think of Lufa's behavior to Sefton,
but what had Walter's been to Lufa? It may seem strange that the
reflection had not come to him before; but in nothing are we slower than
in discovering our own blame--and the slower that we are so quick to
perceive or imagine we perceive the blame of others. For, the very fact
that we see and heartily condemn the faults of others, we use,
unconsciously perhaps, as an argument that we must be right ourselves.
We must take heed not to judge with the idea that so we shall escape
judgment--that by condemning evil we clear ourselves. Walter's eyes were
opened to see that he had done Lufa a great wrong; that he had helped
immensely to buttress and exalt her self-esteem. Had he not in his whole
behavior toward her, been far more anxious that he should please her
than that she should be worthy? Had he not known that she was far more
anxious to be accepted as a poet than to be admired as a woman?--more
anxious indeed to be accepted than, even in the matter of her art, to be
worthy of acceptance--to be the thing she wished to be thought? In that
review which, in spite of his own soul, he had persuaded himself to
publish, knowing it to be false, had he not actively, most
unconscientiously, and altogether selfishly, done her serious
intellectual wrong, and heavy moral injury? Was he not bound to make
what poor reparation might be possible? It mattered nothing that she did
not desire any such reparation; that she would look upon the attempt as
the first wrong in the affair--possibly as a pretense for the sake of
insult, and the revenge of giving her the deepest possible pain: having
told her the lies, he must confess they were lies! having given her the
poison of falsehood, he must at least follow it with the only antidote,
the truth! It was not his part to judge of consequences so long as a
duty remained to be done! and what could be more a duty than to
undeceive where he had deceived, especially where the deception was
aggravating that worst of diseases, self-conceit, self-satisfaction,
self-worship? It was doubtful whether she would read what he might
write; but the fact that she did not trust him, that, notwithstanding
his assurance, she would still be in fear of how he might depreciate her
work in the eyes of the public, would, he thought, secure for him a
reading. She might, when she got far enough to see his drift, destroy
the letter in disgust; that would be the loss of his labor; but he would
have done what he could! He had begun to turn a new leaf, and here was a
thing the new leaf required written upon it!
As to Sefton, what better thing could he do for him, than make her think
less of herself! or, if that were impossible, at least make her
understand that other people did not think so much of her as she had
been willingly led to believe! In wronging her he had wronged his friend
as well, throwing obstacles in the way of his reception! He had wronged
the truth itself!
When the play was over, and the crowd was dispersing, he found himself
close to them on the pavement as they waited for their carriage. So near
to Lufa was he that he could not help touching her dress. But what a
change had passed on him! Not once did he wish her to look round and
brighten when she saw him! Sefton, moved perhaps by that unknown power
of presence, operating in bodily proximity but savoring of the
spiritual, looked suddenly round and saw him. He smiled and did not
speak, but, stretching out a quiet hand, sought his. Walter grasped it
as if it was come to lift him from some evil doom. Neither spoke, and
Lufa did not know that hands had clasped in the swaying human flood. No
physical influence passed between Walter and her.
Having made up his mind on the way, he set to work as soon as he reached
home. He wrote and destroyed and rewrote, erased and substituted, until,
as near as he could, he had said what he intended, so at least as it
should not be mistaken for what he did not intend, which is the main
problem in writing. Then he copied all out fair and plain, so that she
could read it easily--and here is his letter, word for word:
Prev
| Next
| Contents
|
|
|