He followed her into the drawing-room and closed the door. Julia, as she advanced, was vaguely aware that the room at least was unchanged: time had not mitigated its horrors. The contadina still lurched from the chimney-breast, and the Greek slave obstructed the threshold of the inner room. The place was alive with memories: they started out from every fold of the yellow satin curtains and glided between the angles of the rosewood furniture. But while some subordinate agency was carrying these impressions to her brain, her whole conscious effort was centred in the act of dominating Arment’s will. The fear that he would refuse to hear her mounted like fever to her brain. She felt her purpose melt before it, words and arguments running into each other in the heat of her longing. For a moment her voice failed her, and she imagined herself thrust out before she could speak; but as she was struggling for a word, Arment pushed a chair forward, and said quietly: “You are not well.”
The sound of his voice steadied her. It was neither kind nor unkind—a voice that suspended judgment, rather, awaiting unforeseen developments. She supported herself against the back of the chair and drew a deep breath. “Shall I send for something?” he continued, with a cold embarrassed politeness.
Julia raised an entreating hand. “No—no—thank you. I am quite well.”
He paused midway toward the bell and turned on her. “Then may I ask—?”
“Yes,” she interrupted him. “I came here because I wanted to see you. There is something I must tell you.”
Arment continued to scrutinize her. “I am surprised at that,” he said. “I should have supposed that any communication you may wish to make could have been made through our lawyers.”
“Our lawyers!” She burst into a little laugh. “I don’t think they could help me—this time.”
Arment’s face took on a barricaded look. “If there is any question of help—of course—”
It struck her, whimsically, that she had seen that look when some shabby devil called with a subscription-book. Perhaps he thought she wanted him to put his name down for so much in sympathy—or even in money… The thought made her laugh again. She saw his look change slowly to perplexity. All his facial changes were slow, and she remembered, suddenly, how it had once diverted her to shift that lumbering scenery with a word. For the first time it struck her that she had been cruel. “There IS a question of help,” she said in a softer key: “you can help me; but only by listening… I want to tell you something…”
Arment’s resistance was not yielding. “Would it not be easier to—write?” he suggested.
She shook her head. “There is no time to write… and it won’t take long.” She raised her head and their eyes met. “My husband has left me,” she said.
“Westall—?” he stammered, reddening again.
“Yes. This morning. Just as I left you. Because he was tired of me.”
The words, uttered scarcely above a whisper, seemed to dilate to the limit of the room. Arment looked toward the door; then his embarrassed glance returned to Julia.
“I am very sorry,” he said awkwardly.
“Thank you,” she murmured.
“But I don’t see—”
“No—but you will—in a moment. Won’t you listen to me? Please!” Instinctively she had shifted her position putting herself between him and the door. “It happened this morning,” she went on in short breathless phrases. “I never suspected anything—I thought we were—perfectly happy… Suddenly he told me he was tired of me… there is a girl he likes better… He has gone to her…” As she spoke, the lurking anguish rose upon her, possessing her once more to the exclusion of every other emotion. Her eyes ached, her throat swelled with it, and two painful tears burnt a way down her face.
Arment’s constraint was increasing visibly. “This—this is very unfortunate,” he began. “But I should say the law—”
“The law?” she echoed ironically. “When he asks for his freedom?”
“You are not obliged to give it.”
“You were not obliged to give me mine—but you did.”
He made a protesting gesture.
“You saw that the law couldn’t help you—didn’t you?” she went on. “That is what I see now. The law represents material rights—it can’t go beyond. If we don’t recognize an inner law… the obligation that love creates… being loved as well as loving… there is nothing to prevent our spreading ruin unhindered… is there?” She raised her head plaintively, with the look of a bewildered child. “That is what I see now… what I wanted to tell you. He leaves me because he’s tired… but I was not tired; and I don’t understand why he is. That’s the dreadful part of it—the not understanding: I hadn’t realized what it meant. But I’ve been thinking of it all day, and things have come back to me—things I hadn’t noticed… when you and I…” She moved closer to him, and fixed her eyes on his with the gaze that tries to reach beyond words. “I see now that YOU didn’t understand—did you?”
Their eyes met in a sudden shock of comprehension: a veil seemed to be lifted between them. Arment’s lip trembled.
“No,” he said, “I didn’t understand.”
She gave a little cry, almost of triumph. “I knew it! I knew it! You wondered—you tried to tell me—but no words came… You saw your life falling in ruins… the world slipping from you… and you couldn’t speak or move!”
She sank down on the chair against which she had been leaning. “Now I know—now I know,” she repeated.
“I am very sorry for you,” she heard Arment stammer.
She looked up quickly. “That’s not what I came for. I don’t want you to be sorry. I came to ask you to forgive me… for not understanding that YOU didn’t understand… That’s all I wanted to say.” She rose with a vague sense that the end had come, and put out a groping hand toward the door.
Arment stood motionless. She turned to him with a faint smile.
“You forgive me?”
“There is nothing to forgive—”
“Then will you shake hands for good-by?” She felt his hand in hers: it was nerveless, reluctant.
“Good-by,” she repeated. “I understand now.”
She opened the door and passed out into the hall. As she did so, Arment took an impulsive step forward; but just then the footman, who was evidently alive to his obligations, advanced from the background to let her out. She heard Arment fall back. The footman threw open the door, and she found herself outside in the darkness.
The End of The Reckoning
VERSE
BOTTICELLI’S MADONNA IN THE LOUVRE.
WHAT strange presentiment, O Mother, lies On thy waste brow and sadly-folded lips, Forefeeling the Light’s terrible eclipse On Calvary, as if love made thee wise, And thou couldst read in those dear infant eyes The sorrow that beneath their smiling sleeps, And guess what bitter tears a mother weeps When the cross darkens her unclouded skies?
Sad Lady, if some mother, passing thee, Should feel a throb of thy foreboding pain, And think—“My child at home clings so to me, With the same smile… and yet in vain, in vain, Since even this Jesus died on Calvary”— Say to her then: “He also rose again.”
THE TOMB OF ILARIA GIUNIGI.
ILARIA, thou that wert so fair and dear That death would fain disown thee, grief made wise With prophecy thy husband’s widowed eyes And bade him call the master’s art to rear Thy perfect image on the sculptured bier, With dreaming lids, hands laid in peaceful guise Beneath the breast that seems to fall and rise, And lips that at love’s call should answer, “Here!”
First-born of the Renascence, when thy soul Cast the sweet robing of the flesh aside, Into these lovelier marble limbs it stole, Regenerate in art’s sunrise clear and wide As saints who, having kept faith’s raiment whole, Change it above for garments glorified.
THE SONNET.
PURE form, that like some chalice of old time Contain’st the liquid of the poet’s thought Within thy curving hollow, gem-enwrought With interwoven traceries of rhyme, Whil
e o’er thy brim the bubbling fancies climb, What thing am I, that undismayed have sought To pour my verse with trembling hand untaught Into a shape so small yet so sublime? Because perfection haunts the hearts of men, Because thy sacred chalice gathered up The wine of Petrarch, Shakspere, Shelley—then Receive these tears of failure as they drop (Sole vintage of my life), since I am fain To pour them in a consecrated cup.
TWO BACKGROUNDS.
I. LA VIERGE AU DONATEUR.
HERE by the ample river’s argent sweep, Bosomed in tilth and vintage to her walls, A tower-crowned Cybele in armored sleep The city lies, fat plenty in her halls, With calm, parochial spires that hold in fee The friendly gables clustered at their base, And, equipoised o’er tower and market-place, The Gothic minster’s winged immensity; And in that narrow burgh, with equal mood, Two placid hearts, to all life’s good resigned, Might, from the altar to the lych-gate, find Long years of peace and dreamless plenitude.
II. MONA LISA.
Yon strange blue city crowns a scarped steep No mortal foot hath bloodlessly essayed; Dreams and illusions beacon from its keep, But at the gate an Angel bares his blade; And tales are told of those who thought to gain At dawn its ramparts; but when evening fell Far off they saw each fading pinnacle Lit with wild lightnings from the heaven of pain; Yet there two souls, whom life’s perversities Had mocked with want in plenty, tears in mirth, Might meet in dreams, ungarmented of earth, And drain Joy’s awful chalice to the lees.
EXPERIENCE.
I.
LIKE Crusoe with the bootless gold we stand Upon the desert verge of death, and say: “What shall avail the woes of yesterday To buy to-morrow’s wisdom, in the land Whose currency is strange unto our hand? In life’s small market they have served to pay Some late-found rapture, could we but delay Till Time hath matched our means to our demand.”
But otherwise Fate wills it, for, behold, Our gathered strength of individual pain, When Time’s long alchemy hath made it gold, Dies with us—hoarded all these years in vain, Since those that might be heir to it the mould Renew, and coin themselves new griefs again.
II.
O, Death, we come full-handed to thy gate, Rich with strange burden of the mingled years, Gains and renunciations, mirth and tears, And love’s oblivion, and remembering hate, Nor know we what compulsion laid such freight Upon our souls—and shall our hopes and fears Buy nothing of thee, Death? Behold our wares, And sell us the one joy for which we wait. Had we lived longer, life had such for sale, With the last coin of sorrow purchased cheap, But now we stand before thy shadowy pale, And all our longings lie within thy keep— Death, can it be the years shall naught avail?
“Not so,” Death answered, “they shall purchase sleep.”
CHARTRES.
I.
IMMENSE, august, like some Titanic bloom, The mighty choir unfolds its lithic core, Petalled with panes of azure, gules and or, Splendidly lambent in the Gothic gloom, And stamened with keen flamelets that illume The pale high-altar. On the prayer-worn floor, By surging worshippers thick-thronged of yore, A few brown crones, familiars of the tomb, The stranded driftwood of Faith’s ebbing sea— For these alone the finials fret the skies, The topmost bosses shake their blossoms free, While from the triple portals, with grave eyes, Tranquil, and fixed upon eternity, The cloud of witnesses still testifies.
II.
The crimson panes like blood-drops stigmatize The western floor. The aisles are mute and cold. A rigid fetich in her robe of gold The Virgin of the Pillar, with blank eyes, Enthroned beneath her votive canopies, Gathers a meagre remnant to her fold. The rest is solitude; the church, grown old, Stands stark and gray beneath the burning skies. Wellnigh again its mighty frame-work grows To be a part of nature’s self, withdrawn From hot humanity’s impatient woes; The floor is ridged like some rude mountain lawn, And in the east one giant window shows The roseate coldness of an Alp at dawn.
LIFE.
LIFE, like a marble block, is given to all, A blank, inchoate mass of years and days, Whence one with ardent chisel swift essays Some shape of strength or symmetry to call; One shatters it in bits to mend a wall; One in a craftier hand the chisel lays, And one, to wake the mirth in Lesbia’s gaze, Carves it apace in toys fantastical.
But least is he who, with enchanted eyes Filled with high visions of fair shapes to be, Muses which god he shall immortalize In the proud Parian’s perpetuity, Till twilight warns him from the punctual skies That the night cometh wherein none shall see.
AN AUTUMN SUNSET
I
LEAGUERED in fire The wild black promontories of the coast extend Their savage silhouettes; The sun in universal carnage sets, And, halting higher, The motionless storm-clouds mass their sullen threats, Like an advancing mob in sword-points penned, That, balked, yet stands at bay. Mid-zenith hangs the fascinated day In wind-lustrated hollows crystalline, A wan valkyrie whose wide pinions shine Across the ensanguined ruins of the fray, And in her lifted hand swings high o’erhead, Above the waste of war, The silver torch-light of the evening star Wherewith to search the faces of the dead.
II
Lagooned in gold, Seem not those jetty promontories rather The outposts of some ancient land forlorn, Uncomforted of morn, Where old oblivions gather, The melancholy, unconsoling fold Of all things that go utterly to death And mix no more, no more With life’s perpetually awakening breath? Shall Time not ferry me to such a shore, Over such sailless seas, To walk with hope’s slain importunities In miserable marriage? Nay, shall not All things be there forgot, Save the sea’s golden barrier and the black Closecrouching promontories? Dead to all shames, forgotten of all glories, Shall I not wander there, a shadow’s shade, A spectre self-destroyed, So purged of all remembrance and sucked back Into the primal void, That should we on that shore phantasmal meet I should not know the coming of your feet?
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10), by Edith Wharton
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EARLY SHORT FICTION ***
***** This file should be named 306.txt or 306.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/306/
Produced by John Hamm
Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be renamed.
Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given away—you may do practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is subject to the trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.
*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at http://gutenberg.org/license).
Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual prope
rty (trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
Early Short Stories Vol. 2 Page 14
