The Woman Who Vowed (The Demetrian)

by Ellison Harding

  CHAPTER XVI

  ANNA'S SECRET

  I saw very little of Anna during the first few days of my stay at thePater's. Cleon had drawn a bad number and was therefore drafted on adetachment of workmen engaged in mending roads--a work all disliked, andas no one volunteered for it, it had to be apportioned by lot. Anna ofAnn felt the absence of Cleon because, although he was young, he hadattached himself to her and she had learned somewhat to depend on hiscompanionship. In the absence of Cleon, therefore, I often joined Annain her walks and became more and more charmed by her singleness ofpurpose. She seemed indifferent to everything except her art, carednothing for Chairo and his principles, had little conviction as regardsthe Demetrian cult, and absorbed herself altogether in the joy to bederived from beauty, whether in nature or in man. The idea that therewas something in man different from nature had become so familiar tothis century that the confusion between them from which the philosophyof our time was only just emerging seemed to her altogether impossible,and it was a hope of hers one day to compose a group or monument inwhich man with his faculty of subjugating the forces of nature to hisuse would be contrasted with these forces, typified either by animals orundeveloped human races. She had shown me several models upon which shewas at work to typify these forces; among them I remember one of a negrokneeling, with wonder on his thick lips and a superb strength about hisloins; she had modelled also a lion crouching at the bidding of anunseen hand; but I had seen no model of Conquering Man. In an abandonedsugar house which she had arranged as a studio, however, were manyunfinished busts hidden away which she did not show to me or to others,and there was a good deal of curiosity and some little chaff as to thesecret so carefully thus concealed by her.

  One morning, however, that I had risen early, tempted by the bright sunof an Indian summer, I started for a short stroll, and passing Anna'sstudio was surprised to find a window open. Looking inside the window, Isaw Anna so absorbed on a clay bust that she had not heard my approach.I watched her work in silence without appreciating that I had surpriseda secret, until moving a little I saw clearly that the bust on which shewas working was a portrait of Ariston. Even then I was not clear thatAnna had been hiding this portrait from us; it seemed perfectly naturalthat she should be engaged upon it. But when she at last perceived meshe blushed scarlet and threw a cloth over it.

  "You have seen it," she said reproachfully.

  "Why not?" asked I. "It was only a portrait of Ariston."

  "Was it so like him that you saw it at once?"

  "Did you not mean it to be so?"

  "No!" she exclaimed, almost with temper, "and I did not mean you to seeit."

  I apologized to her and suggested that she should join me in my walk;but she did not answer me at once; she moved about the studio as thoughagitated by my discovery, moving things aimlessly, taking things up andputting them down again. I stood at the window waiting for an answer,for I did not wish to leave her in this disturbed condition. At last shelooked me full in the face and her mobile lips twitched withill-suppressed emotion. Had she known how little I suspected the causeof her trouble she need not have been so moved; but she had been solong fighting against her love for Ariston that she imagined thediscovery by me of the portrait had betrayed her secret.

  "You won't tell any one you have seen it, will you?" she said at lastappealingly.

  "Certainly not," answered I. "But why are you so anxious to keep it asecret?"

  She opened her eyes at this question and then burst out, with a sob inher voice:

  "I would not have them guess it for the world."

  At last I understood: this bust was not a portrait of Ariston; it was astudy for her Conquering Man, and she could not keep out of it thefeatures of the one she loved.

  "See," she said, pointing to the corner where the uncompleted busts werehidden, "they all look like him; even when I tried to model a facewithout a beard, expressly to escape this haunting thought, you can seeit--somewhere in the brow," and she moved her hand over the brow. "Atevery attempt I make, something betrays me," and she sat down on a lowchair and buried her face in her hands.

  I stood by her, not daring to intrude; and presently she got up sadlyand said:

  "Yes, I shall go with you--anything to get away from it all"; andtaking her cap from a peg, closed the window, locked the door, andjoined me.

  "I had half an idea," said I, as we moved toward the wood, "that you hada fancy for Cleon."

  Anna smiled. "Cleon is a sweet boy and I am very fond of him; I supposehe thinks he is in love with me; but we are accustomed to these 'greenand salad' loves; indeed, we are taught not to discourage them. It isgood for a boy like Cleon to be in love with some one much older thanhimself that he can never marry; it keeps him out of mischief and doesno one harm. One day he will reproach me and tell me I have encouragedhim; I have not, you know, not the slightest; but he will say I have,and honestly think it for a few days; a little later he will get over itand be a good friend of mine to the end of my days."

  We had a walk in the wood that has remained in my memory as one of thesweetest hours I spent at Tyringham. She soon accustomed herself to myknowledge of her secret, and this created an intimacy between us thatwas rare and pleasant.

  At that early hour the woods were dark and fresh, and the light upon ameadow we were approaching reminded me of a forgotten poet:

  "I knew the flowers; I knew the leaves; I knew The tearful glimmer of the languid dawn On those long rank dark wood walks drenched with dew Leading from lawn to lawn."

  I quoted them to her and she responded to them; wanted to know thepoet's name and more of his work; and as the autumn mist lay heavy onthe lower pastures and the heavy fragrance of the autumn woods filledthe air, I repeated to her those other lines of his:

  "The woods decay; the woods decay and fall, The vapors weep their burthen to the ground; Man comes and tills the earth and lies beneath, And after many a summer dies the swan. Me only, cruel immortality consumes Here at the Eastern limit of the day----"

  She put a hand on my arm and stopped me:

  "What is that again, 'Me only, cruel----'"

  I repeated the line to her.

  "What a subject," she said; "not for a Tithonus--no; what a thought towork into my group!"

  I saw her meaning: Man might subdue Nature to his use; what then? Washe to be nevertheless forever consumed by immortality? Here was thelimit to his triumph; its shadow and reverse.

  "What is the meaning of it all!" she said. "We are unhappy, do what wemay, and it is out of our very unhappiness that we find something thatreplaces happiness--a sort of divine sorrow."

  We had by this time traversed the wood and stood on a height whichcommanded the now deserted colony buildings. The sun was well up on thehorizon; the birds hopping silently in the boughs, their spring andsummer songs over; but the torrent filled the air with its noisy musicas it dashed down the hillside, and beyond we saw it meandering inpeaceful curves among the meadows.

  "It is very beautiful," she said. "After all, there is joy enough inbeauty, and it is no small thing"--she was looking absently over themeadows as she repeated--"it is no small thing that we can by art add toit."

  "It is a mission of which you can well be proud," said I.

  She looked at me and smiled gratefully.

  As we returned I felt that she had shaken off some of the sorrow withwhich she had started.