CHAPTER XI.
"How long will she sleep, doctor?" asked Henry, after satisfying himselfby looking through the crack of the door that she was actually asleep.
"Patients do not usually wake under an hour or two," replied the doctor."She was very drowsy, and that is a good sign. I think we may have thebest hopes of the result of the operation."
Henry walked restlessly to and fro. After Dr. Heidenhoff had regarded hima few moments, he said--
"You are nervous, sir. There is quite a time to wait, and it is better toremain as calm as possible, for, in the event of an unsatisfactoryresult, your friend will need soothing, and you will scarcely be equal tothat if you are yourself excited. I have some very fair cigars here. Dome the honour to try one. I prescribe it medicinally. Your nerves needquieting;" and he extended his cigar-case to the young man.
As Henry with a nod of acknowledgment took a cigar and lit it, andresumed his striding to and fro, the doctor, who had seated himselfcomfortably, began to talk, apparently with the kindly intent ofdiverting the other's mind.
"There are a number of applications of the process I hope to make, whichwill be rather amusing experiments. Take, for instance, the case of aperson who has committed a murder, come to me, and forgotten all aboutit. Suppose he is subsequently arrested, and the fact ascertained thatwhile he undoubtedly committed the crime, he cannot possibly recall hisguilt, and so far as his conscience is concerned, is as innocent as anew-born babe, what then? What do you think the authorities would do?"
"I think," said Henry, "that they would be very much puzzled what to do."
"Exactly," said the doctor; "I think so too. Such a case would bring outclearly the utter confusion and contradiction in which the currenttheories of ethics and moral responsibility are involved. It is time theworld was waked up on that subject. I should hugely enjoy precipitatingsuch a problem on the community. I'm hoping every day a murderer willcome in and require my services.
"There is another sort of case which I should also like to have," hecontinued; shifting his cigar to the other side of his mouth, anduncrossing and recrossing his knees. "Suppose a man has done another agreat wrong, and, being troubled by remorse, comes to me and has thesponge of oblivion passed over that item in his memory. Suppose the manhe has wronged, pursuing him with a heart full of vengeance, gets him atlast in his power, but at the same time finds out that he has forgotten,and can't be made to remember, the act he desires to punish him for."
"It would be very vexatious," said Henry..
"Wouldn't it, though? I can imagine the pursuer, the avenger, if a reallyvirulent fellow, actually weeping tears of despite as he stands beforehis victim and marks the utter unconsciousness of any offence with whichhis eyes meet his own. Such a look would blunt the very stiletto of aCorsican. What sweetness would there be in vengeance if the avenger, ashe plunged the dagger in his victim's bosom, might not hiss in his ear,'Remember!' As well find satisfaction in torturing an idiot or mutilatinga corpse. I am not talking now of brutish fellows, who would kick a stockor stone which they stumbled over, but of men intelligent enough tounderstand what vengeance is."
"But don't you fancy the avenger, in the case you supposed, would retainsome bitterness towards his enemy, even though he had forgotten theoffence?"
"I fancy he would always feel a certain cold dislike and aversion forhim," replied the doctor--"an aversion such as one has for an objector an animal associated with some painful experience; but any activeanimosity would be a moral impossibility, if he were quite certain thatthere was absolutely no guilty consciousness on the other's part.
"But scarcely any application of the process gives me so much pleasure todream about as its use to make forgiving possible, full, free, perfect,joyous forgiving, in cases where otherwise, however good our intentions,it is impossible, simply because we cannot forget. Because they cannotforget, friends must part from friends who have wronged them, even thoughthey do from their hearts wish them well. But they must leave them, forthey cannot bear to look in their eyes and be reminded every time ofsome bitter thing. To all such what good tidings will it be to learn ofmy process!
"Why, when the world gets to understand about it I expect that two men ortwo women, or a man and a woman, will come in here, and say to me, 'Wehave quarrelled and outraged each other, we have injured our friend, ourwife, our husband; we regret, we would forgive, but we cannot, because weremember. Put between us the atonement of forgetfulness, that we may loveeach other as of old,' and so joyous will be the tidings of forgivenessmade easy and perfect, that none will be willing to waste even an hour inenmity. Raging foes in the heat of their first wrath will bethinkthemselves ere they smite, and come to me for a more perfect satisfactionof their feud than any vengeance could promise."
Henry suddenly stopped in his restless pacing, stepped on tiptoe to theslightly opened door of the retiring room, and peered anxiously in. Hethought he heard a slight stir. But no; she was still sleeping deeply,her position quite unchanged. He drew noiselessly back, and again almostclosed the door.
"I suppose," resumed the doctor, after a pause, "that I must preparemyself as soon as the process gets well enough known to attract attentionto be roundly abused by the theologians and moralists. I mean, of course,the thicker-headed ones. They'll say I've got a machine for destroyingconscience, and am sapping the foundations of society. I believe that isthe phrase. The same class of people will maintain that it's wrong tocure the moral pain which results from a bad act who used to think itwrong to cure the physical diseases induced by vicious indulgence. Butthe outcry won't last long, for nobody will be long in seeing that themorality of the two kinds of cures is precisely the same, If one iswrong, the other is. If there is something holy and God-ordained in thepainful consequences of sin, it is as wrong to meddle with thoseconsequences when they are physical as when they are mental. The allegedreformatory effect of such suffering is as great in one case as theother. But, bless you, nobody nowadays holds that a doctor ought torefuse to set a leg which its owner broke when drunk or fighting, so thatthe man may limp through life as a warning to himself and others.
"I know some foggy-minded people hold in a vague way that the working ofmoral retribution is somehow more intelligent, just, and equitable thanthe working of physical retribution. They have a nebulous notion that thelaw of moral retribution is in some peculiar way God's law, while the lawof physical retribution is the law of what they call nature, somehow notquite so much God's law as the other is. Such an absurdity only requiresto be stated to be exposed. The law of moral retribution is precisely asblind, deaf, and meaningless, and entitled to be respected just aslittle, as the law of physical retribution. Why, sir, of the two, themuch-abused law of physical retribution is decidedly more moral, in thesense of obvious fairness, than the so-called law of moral retributionitself. For, while the hardened offender virtually escapes all pangs ofconscience, he can't escape the diseases and accidents which attend viceand violence. The whole working of moral retribution, on the contrary, isto torture the sensitive-souled, who would never do much harm any way,while the really hard cases of society, by their very hardness, avoid allsuffering. And then, again, see how merciful and reformatory is theworking of physical retribution compared with the pitilessness of themoral retribution of memory. A man gets over his accident or disease andis healthy again, having learned his lesson with the renewed health thatalone makes it of any value to have had that lesson. But shame and sorrowfor sin and disgrace go on for ever increasing in intensity, inproportion as they purify the soul. Their worm dieth not, and their fireis not quenched. The deeper the repentance, the more intense the longingand love for better things, the more poignant the pang of regret and thesense of irreparable loss. There is no sense, no end, no use, in this lawwhich increases the severity of the punishment as the victim grows ininnocency.
"Ah, sir," exclaimed the doctor, rising and laying his hand caressinglyon the battery, while a triumphant exultation shone in his eyes, "youhave no idea o
f the glorious satisfaction I take in crushing, destroying,annihilating these black devils of evil memories that feed on hearts. Itis a triumph like a god's.
"But oh, the pity of it, the pity of it!" he added, sadly, as his handfell by his side, "that this so simple discovery has come so late in theworld's history! Think of the infinite multitude of lives it would haveredeemed from the desperation of hopelessness, or the lifelong shadow ofparalysing grief to all manner of sweet, good, and joyous uses!"
Henry opened the door slightly, and looked into the retiring-room.Madeline was lying perfectly motionless, as he had seen her before. Shehad not apparently moved a muscle. With a sudden fear at his heart, hesoftly entered, and on tiptoe crossed the room and stood over her. Themomentary fear was baseless. Her bosom rose and fell with long, fullbreathing, the faint flush of healthy sleep tinged her cheek, and thelips were relaxed in a smile. It was impossible not to feel, seeing herslumbering so peacefully, that the marvellous change had been indeedwrought, and the cruel demons of memory that had so often lurked behindthe low, white forehead were at last no more.
When he returned to the office, Dr. Heidenhoff had seated himself, andwas contemplatively smoking.
"She was sleeping, I presume," he said.
"Soundly," replied Henry.
"That is well. I have the best of hopes. She is young. That is afavourable element in an operation of this sort."
Henry said nothing, and there was a considerable silence. Finally thedoctor observed, with the air of a man who thinks it just as well tospend the time talking--
"I am fond of speculating what sort of a world, morally speaking, weshould have if there were no memory. One thing is clear, we should haveno such very wicked people as we have now. There would, of course, becongenitally good and bad dispositions, but a bad disposition would notgrow worse and worse as it does now, and without this progressive badnessthe depths of depravity are never attained."
"Why do you think that?"
"Because it is the memory of our past sins which demoralizes as, byimparting a sense of weakness and causing loss of self-respect. Take thememory away, and a bad act would leave us no worse in character than wewere before its commission, and not a whit more likely to repeat it thanwe were to commit it the first time."
"But surely our good or bad acts impress our own characters for good orevil, and give an increased tendency one way or the other."
"Excuse me, my dear sir. Acts merely express the character. Therecollection of those acts is what impresses the character, and gives ita tendency in a particular direction. And that is why I say, if memorywere abolished, constitutionally bad people would remain at theiroriginal and normal degree of badness, instead of going from bad toworse, as they always have done hitherto in the history of mankind.Memory is the principle of moral degeneration. Remembered sin is the mostutterly diabolical influence in the universe. It invariably eitherdebauches or martyrizes men and women, accordingly as it renders themdesperate and hardened, or makes them a prey to undying grief andself-contempt. When I consider that more sin is the only anodyne for sin,and that the only way to cure the ache of conscience is to harden it, Imarvel that even so many as do essay the bitter and hopeless way ofrepentance and reform. In the main, the pangs of conscience, so muchvaunted by some, do most certainly drive ten deeper into sin where theybring one back to virtue."
"But," remarked Henry, "suppose there were no memory, and men did forgettheir acts, they would remain just as responsible for them as now."
"Precisely; that is, not at all," replied the doctor.
"You don't mean to say there is no such thing as responsibility, no suchthing as justice. Oh, I see, you deny free will. You are anecessitarian."
The doctor waved his hand rather contemptuously.
"I know nothing about your theological distinctions; I am a doctor. I saythat there is no such thing as moral responsibility for past acts, nosuch thing as real justice in punishing them, for the reason that humanbeings are not stationary existences, but changing, growing, incessantlyprogressive organisms, which in no two moments are the same. Thereforejustice, whose only possible mode of proceeding is to punish in presenttime for what is done in past time, must always punish a person more orless similar to, but never identical with, the one who committed theoffence, and therein must be no justice.
"Why, sir, it is no theory of mine, but the testimony of universalconsciousness, if you interrogate it aright, that the difference betweenthe past and present selves of the same individual is so great as to makethem different persons for all moral purposes. That single fact we werejust speaking of--the fact that no man would care for vengeance on onewho had injured him, provided he knew that all memory of the offence hadbeen blotted utterly from his enemy's mind--proves the entireproposition. It shows that it is not the present self of his enemy thatthe avenger is angry with at all, but the past self. Even in theblindness of his wrath he intuitively recognizes the distinction betweenthe two. He only hates the present man, and seeks vengeance on him in sofar as he thinks that he exults in remembering the injury his past selfdid, or, if he does not exult, that he insults and humiliates him by thebare fact of remembering it. That is the continuing offence which alonekeeps alive the avenger's wrath against him. His fault is not that he didthe injury, for _he_ did not do it, but that he remembers it.
"It is the first principle of justice, isn't it, that nobody ought to bepunished for what he can't help? Can the man of to-day prevent or affectwhat he did yesterday, let me say, rather, what the man did out of whomhe has grown--has grown, I repeat, by a physical process which he couldnot check save by suicide. As well punish him for Adam's sin, for hemight as easily have prevented that, and is every whit as accountable forit. You pity the child born, without his choice, of depraved parents.Pity the man himself, the man of today who, by a process as inevitable asthe child's birth, has grown on the rotten stock of yesterday. Think you,that it is not sometimes with a sense of loathing and horror unutterable,that he feels his fresh life thus inexorably knitting itself on, growingon, to that old stem? For, mind you well, the consciousness of the manexists alone in the present day and moment. There alone he lives. That ishimself. The former days are his dead, for whose sins, in which he had nopart, which perchance by his choice never would have been done, he isheld to answer and do penance. And you thought, young man, that there wassuch a thing as justice !"
"I can see," said Henry, after a pause, "that when half a lifetime hasintervened between a crime and its punishment, and the man has reformed,there is a certain lack of identity. I have always thought punishments insuch cases very barbarous. I know that I should think it hard to answerfor what I may have done as a boy, twenty years ago.
"Yes," said the doctor, "flagrant cases of that sort take the generaleye, and people say that they are instances of retribution rather thanjustice. The unlikeness between the extremes of life, as between the babeand the man, the lad and the dotard, strikes every mind, and all admitthat there is not any apparent identity between these widely partedpoints in the progress of a human organism. How then? How soon doesidentity begin to decay, and when is it gone--in one year, five years,ten years, twenty years, or how many? Shall we fix fifty years as theperiod of a moral statute of limitation, after which punishment shall bedeemed barbarous? No, no. The gulf between the man of this instant andthe man of the last is just as impassable as that between the baby andthe man. What is past is eternally past. So far as the essence of justiceis concerned, there is no difference between one of the cases ofpunishment which you called barbarous, and one in which the penaltyfollows the offence within the hour. There is no way of joining the pastwith the present, and there is no difference between what is a momentpast and what is eternally past."
"Then the assassin as he withdraws the stiletto from his victim's breastis not the same man who plunged it in."
"Obviously not," replied the doctor. "He may be exulting in the deed, or,more likely, he may be in a reaction of regret. He may be worse, he
maybe better. His being better or worse makes it neither more nor less justto punish him, though it may make it more or less expedient. Justicedemands identity; similarity, however close, will not answer. Though amother could not tell her twin sons apart, it would not make it any morejust to punish one for the other's sins."
"Then you don't believe in the punishment of crime?" said Henry.
"Most emphatically I do," replied the doctor; "only I don't believe incalling it justice or ascribing it a moral significance. The punishmentof criminals is a matter of public policy and expediency, precisely likemeasures for the suppression of nuisances or the prevention of epidemics.It is needful to restrain those who by crime have revealed theirlikelihood to commit further crimes, and to furnish by their punishment amotive to deter others from crime."
"And to deter the criminal himself after his release," added Henry.
"I included him in the word 'others,'" said the doctor. "The man who ispunished is other from the man who did the act, and after punishment heis still other."
"Really, doctor," observed Henry, "I don't see that a man who fullybelieves your theory is in any need of your process for obliterating hissins. He won't think of blaming himself for them any way."
"True," said the doctor, "perfectly true. My process is for those whocannot attain to my philosophy. I break for the weak the chain of memorywhich holds them to the past; but stronger souls are independent of me.They can unloose the iron links and free themselves. Would that more hadthe needful wisdom and strength thus serenely to put their past behindthem, leaving the dead to bury their dead, and go blithely forward,taking each new day as a life by itself, and reckoning themselves dailynew-born, even as verily they are! Physically, mentally, indeed, thepresent must be for ever the outgrowth of the past, conform to itsconditions, bear its burdens; but moral responsibility for the past thepresent has none, and by the very definition of the words can have none.There is no need to tell people that they ought to regret and grieve overthe errors of the past. They can't help doing that. I myself suffer attimes pretty sharply from twinges of the rheumatism which I owe toyouthful dissipation. It would be absurd enough for me, a quiet oldfellow of sixty, to take blame to myself for what the wild student did,but, all the same, I confoundedly wish he hadn't.
"Ah, me!" continued the doctor. "Is there not sorrow and wrong enough inthe present world without having moralists teach us that it is our dutyto perpetuate all our past sins and shames in the multiplying mirror ofmemory, as if, forsooth, we were any more the causers of the sins of ourpast selves than of our fathers' sins. How many a man and woman havepoisoned their lives with tears for some one sin far away in the past!Their folly is greater, because sadder, but otherwise just like that ofone who should devote his life to a mood of fatuous and imbecileself-complacency over the recollection of a good act he had once done.The consequences of the good and the bad deeds our fathers and we havedone fall on our heads in showers, now refreshing, now scorching, ofrewards and of penalties alike undeserved by our present selves. But,while we bear them with such equanimity as we may, let us remember thatas it is only fools who flatter themselves on their past virtues, so itis only a sadder sort of fools who plague themselves for their pastfaults."
Henry's quick ear caught a rustle in the retiring-room. He stepped to thedoor and looked in. Madeline was sitting up.
CHAPTER XII.
Her attitude was peculiar. Her feet were on the floor, her left handrested on the sofa by her side, her right was raised to one temple andchecked in the very act of pushing back a heavy braid of hair which hadbeen disarranged in sleep. Her eyebrows were slightly contracted, and shewas staring at the carpet. So concentrated did her faculties appear to bein the effort of reflection that she did not notice Henry's entranceuntil, standing by her aide, he asked, in a voice which he vainly triedto steady--
"How do you feel ?"
She did not look up at him at all, but replied, in the dreamy, drawlingtone of one in a brown study--
"I--feel--well. I'm--ever--so--rested."
"Did you just wake up?" he said, after a moment. He did not know what tosay.
She now glanced up at him, but with an expression of only partialattention, as if still retaining a hold on the clue of her thoughts.
"I've been awake some time trying to think it out," she said.
"Think out what?" he asked, with a feeble affectation of ignorance. Hewas entirely at loss what course to take with her.
"Why, what it was that we came here to have me forget," she said,sharply. "You needn't think the doctor made quite a fool of me. It wassomething like hewing, harring, Howard. It was something that began with'H,' I'm quite sure. 'H,'" she continued, thoughtfully, pressing her handon the braid she was yet in the act of pushing back from her forehead."'H,'--or maybe--'K.' Tell me, Henry. You must know, of course."
"Why--why," he stammered in consternation. "If you came here to forgetit, what's the use of telling you, now you've forgotten it, that is--Imean, supposing there was anything to forget."
"I haven't forgotten it," she declared. "The process has been a failureanyhow. It's just puzzled me for a minute. You might as well tell me.Why, I've almost got it now. I shall remember it in a minute," and shelooked up at him as if she were on the point of being vexed with hisobstinacy. The doctor coming into the room at this moment, Henry turnedto him in his perplexity, and said--
"Doctor, she wants to know what it was you tried to make her forget."
"What would you say if I told you it was an old love affair?" replied thedoctor, coolly.
"I should say that you were rather impertinent," answered Madeline,looking at him somewhat haughtily.
"I beg your pardon. I beg your pardon, my dear. You do well to resent it,but I trust you will not be vexed with an old gentleman," replied thedoctor, beaming on her from under his bushy eyebrows with an expressionof gloating benevolence.
"I suppose, doctor, you were only trying to plague me so as to confuseme," she said, smiling. "But you can't do it. I shall remember presently.It began with 'H'--I am almost sure of that. Let's see--Harrington,Harvard. That's like it."
"Harrison Cordis, perhaps," suggested the doctor, gravely.
"Harrison Cordis? Harrison? Harrison?" she repeated, contracting hereyebrows thoughtfully; "no, it was more like Harvard. I don't want anymore of your suggestions. You'd like to get me off the track."
The doctor left the room, laughing, and Henry said to her, his heartswelling with an exultation which made his voice husky, "Come, dear, wehad better go now: the train leaves at four."
"I'll remember yet," she said, smiling at him with a saucy toss of thehead. He put out his arms and she came into them, and their lips met in akiss, happy and loving on her part, and fraught with no special feeling,but the lips which hers touched were tremulous. Slightly surprised at hisagitation, she leaned back in his clasp, and, resting her glorious blackeyes on his, said--
"How you love me, dear!"
Oh, the bright, sweet light in her eyes! the light he had not seen sinceshe was a girl, and which had never shone for him before. As they wereabout to leave, the doctor drew him aside.
"The most successful operation I ever made, sir," he said,enthusiastically. "I saw you were startled that I should tell her sofrankly what she had forgotten. You need not have been so. That memory isabsolutely gone, and cannot be restored. She might conclude that what shehad forgotten was anything else in the world except what it really was.You may always allude with perfect safety before her to the real facts,the only risk being that, if she doesn't think you are making a bad joke,she will be afraid that you are losing your mind."
All the way home Madeline was full of guesses and speculation as to whatit had been which she had forgotten, finally, however, settling down tothe conclusion that it had something to do with Harvard College, andwhen Henry refused to deny explicitly that such was the case, she wasquite sure. She announced that she was going to get a lot of oldcatalogues and read over the names, and als
o visit the college to see ifshe could not revive the recollection. But, upon his solemnly urging hernot to do so, lest she might find her associations with that institutionnot altogether agreeable if revived, she consented to give up the plan.
"Although, do you know," she said, "there is nothing in the world which Ishould like to find out so much as what it was we went to Dr. Heidenhoffin order to make me forget. What do you look so sober for? Wouldn't Ireally be glad if I could?"
"It's really nothing of any consequence," he said, pretending to bemomentarily absorbed in opening his penknife.
"Supposing it isn't, it's just as vexatious not to remember it," shedeclared.
"How did you like Dr. Heidenhoff?" he asked.
"Oh, I presume he's a good enough doctor, but I thought that joke aboutan affair of the heart wasn't at all nice. Men are so coarse."
"Oh, he meant no harm," said Henry, hastily.
"I suppose he just tried to say the absurdest thing he could think of toput me off the track and make me laugh. I'm sure I felt more like boxinghis ears. I saw you didn't like it either, sir."
"How so?"
"Oh, you needn't think I didn't notice the start you gave when he spoke,and the angry way you looked at him. You may pretend all you want to, butyou can't cheat me. You'd be the very one to make an absurd fuss if youthought I had even so much as looked at anybody else." And then she burstout laughing at the red and pale confusion of his face. "Why, you're thevery picture of jealousy at the very mention of the thing. Dear me, whata tyrant you are going to be! I was going to confess a lot of my oldflirtations to you, but now I sha'n't dare to. O Henry, how funny my facefeels when I laugh, so stiff, as if the muscles were all rusty! I shouldthink I hadn't laughed for a year by the feeling."
He scarcely dared leave her when they reached her lodgings, for fear thatshe might get to thinking and puzzling over the matter, and, possibly, atlength might hit upon a clue which, followed up, would lead her back tothe grave so recently covered over in her life, and turn her raving madwith the horror of the discovery. As soon as he possibly could, he almostran back to her lodgings in a panic. She had evidently been thinkingmatters over.
"How came we here in Boston together, Henry? I don't seem to quiteunderstand why I came. I remember you came after me?"
"Yes, I came after you."
"What was the matter? Was I sick?"
"Very sick."
"Out of my head?"
"Yes."
"That's the reason you took me to the doctor, I suppose?"
"Yes."
"But why isn't mother here with me?"
"You--you didn't seem to want her," answered Henry, a cold sweat coveringhis face under this terrible inquisition.
"Yes," said she, slowly, "I do remember your proposing she should comeand my not wanting her. I can't imagine why. I must have been out of myhead, as you say. Henry," she continued, regarding him with eyes ofsudden softness, "you must have been very good to me. Dr. Heidenhoffcould never make me forget that."
The next day her mother came. Henry met her at the station and explainedeverything to her, so that she met Madeline already prepared for thetransformation, that is, as much prepared as the poor woman could be. Theidea was evidently more than she could take in. In the days that followedshe went about with a dazed expression on her face, and said very little.When she looked at Henry, it was with a piteous mingling of gratitude andappeal. She appeared to regard Madeline with a bewilderment thatincreased rather than decreased from day to day. Instead of becomingfamiliar with the transformation, the wonder of it evidently grew on her.The girl's old, buoyant spirits, which had returned in full flow, seemedto shock and pain her mother with a sense of incongruity she could notget over. When Madeline treated her lover to an exhibition of her oldimperious tyrannical ways, which to see again was to him sweeter than thereturn of day, her mother appeared frightened, and would try feebly tocheck her, and address little deprecating remarks to Henry that were verysad to hear. One evening, when he came in in the twilight, he sawMadeline sitting with "her baby," as she had again taken to calling hermother, in her arms, rocking and soothing her, while the old lady wasdrying and sobbing on her daughter's bosom.
"She mopes, poor little mother!" said Madeline to Henry. "I can't thinkwhat's the matter with her. We'll take her off with us on our weddingtrip. She needs a little change."
"Dear me, no, that will never do," protested the little woman, with herusual half-frightened look at Henry. "Mr. Burr wouldn't think that niceat all."
"I mean that Mr. Burr shall be too much occupied in thinking how nice Iam to do any other thinking," said Madeline.
"That's like the dress you wore to the picnic at Hemlock Hollow," saidHenry.
"Why, no, it isn't either. It only looks a little like it. It's light,and cut the same way; that's all the resemblance; but of course a mancouldn't be expected to know any better."
"It's exactly like it," maintained Henry.
"What'll you bet?"
"I'll bet the prettiest pair of bracelets I can find in the city."
"Betting is wicked," said Madeline, "and so I suppose it's my duty totake this bet just to discourage you from betting any more. Being engagedmakes a girl responsible for a young man's moral culture."
She left the room, and returned in a few moments with the veritablepicnic dress on.
"There!" she said, as she stepped before the mirror.
"Ah, that's it, that's it! I give in," he exclaimed, regarding herecstatically. "How pretty you were that day! I'd never seen you so prettybefore. Do you remember that was the day I kissed you first? I shouldnever have dared to. I just had to--I couldn't help it."
"So I believe you said at the time," observed Madeline, dryly. "It doesmake me not so bad," she admitted, inspecting herself with a criticalair. "I really don't believe you could help it. I ought not to have beenso hard on you, poor boy. There! there! I didn't mean that. Don't! Herecomes mother."
Mrs. Brand entered the room, bringing a huge pasteboard box.
"Oh, she's got my wedding dress! Haven't you, mother?" exclaimedMadeline, pouncing on the box. "Henry, you might as well go right home. Ican't pay any more attention to you to-night. There's more importantbusiness."
"But I want to see you with it on," he demurred.
"You do?"
"Yes."
"Very much?"
"The worst kind."
"Well, then, you sit down and wait here by yourself for about an hour,and maybe you shall;" and the women were off upstairs.
At length there was a rustling on the stairway, and she re-entered theroom, all sheeny white in lustrous satin. Behind the gauzy veil that fellfrom the coronal of dark brown hair adown the shoulders her face shonewith a look he had never seen in it. It was no longer the mirthful,self-reliant girl who stood before him, but the shrinking, trustfulbride. The flashing, imperious expression that so well became her boldbeauty at other times had given place to a shy and blushing softness,inexpressibly charming to her lover. In her shining eyes a host ofvirginal alarms were mingled with the tender, solemn trust of love.
As he gazed, his eyes began to swim with tenderness, and her face grewdim and misty to his vision. Then her white dress lost its sheen andform, and he found himself staring at the white window-shade of hisbedroom, through which the morning light was peering. Startled,bewildered, he raised himself on his elbow in bed. Yes, he was in bed. Helooked around, mechanically taking note of one and another familiarfeature of the apartment to make sure of his condition. There, on thestand by his bedside, lay his open watch, still ticking, and indicatinghis customary hour of rising. There, turned on its face, lay that drybook on electricity he had been reading himself to sleep with. And there,on the bureau, was the white paper that had contained the morphinesleeping powder which he took before going to bed. That was what had madehim dream. For some of it must have been a dream! But how much of it wasa dream? He must think. That was a dream certainly about her weddingdress. Yes, and perhaps--y
es, surely--that must be a dream about hermother's being in Boston. He could not remember writing Mrs. Brand sinceMadeline had been to Dr. Heidenhoff. He put his hand to his forehead,then raised his head and looked around the room with an appealing stare.Great God! why, that was a dream too! The last waves of sleep ebbed fromhis brain and to his aroused consciousness the clear, hard lines ofreality dissevered themselves sharply from the vague contours ofdreamland. Yes, it was all a dream. He remembered how it all was now. Hehad not seen Madeline since the evening before, when he had proposedtheir speedy marriage, and she had called him back in that strange way tokiss her. What a dream! That sleeping powder had done it--that, and thebook on electricity, and that talk on mental physiology which he hadoverheard in the car the afternoon before. These rude materials, asunpromising as the shapeless bits of glass which the kaleidoscope turnsinto schemes of symmetrical beauty, were the stuff his dream was made of.
It was a strange dream indeed, such an one as a man has once or twice ina lifetime. As he tried to recall it, already it was fading from hisremembrance. That kiss Madeline had called him back to give him the nightbefore; that had been strange enough to have been a part also of thedream. What sweetness, what sadness, were in the touch of her lips. Ah!when she was once his wife, he could contend at better advantage with herdepression of spirits, He would hasten their marriage. If possible, itshould take place that very week.
There was a knock at the door. The house-boy entered, gave him a note,and went out. It was in Madeline's hand, and dated the preceding evening.It read as follows:--
"You have but just gone away. I was afraid when I kissed you that youwould guess what I was going to do, and make a scene about it, and oh,dear! I am so tired that I couldn't bear a scene. But you didn't think.You took the kiss for a promise of what I was to be to you, when it onlymeant what I might have been. Poor, dear boy! it was just a little stupidof you not to guess. Did you suppose I would really marry you? Did youreally think I would let you pick up from the gutter a soiled rose to putin your bosom when all the fields are full of fresh daisies? Oh, I loveyou too well for that! Yes, dear, I love you. I've kept the secret prettywell, haven't I? You see, loving you has made me more careful of yourhonour than when in my first recklessness I said I would marry you inspite of all. But don't think, dear, because I love you that it is asacrifice I make in not being your wife. I do truly love you, but I couldnot be happy with you, for my happiness would be shame to the end. Itwould be always with us as in the dismal weeks that now are over. The wayI love you is not the way I loved him, but it is a better way. I thoughtperhaps you would like to know that you alone have any right to kiss mylips in dreams. I speak plainly of things we never spoke of, for you knowpeople talk freely when night hides their faces from each other, and howmuch more if they know that no morning shall ever come to make themshamefaced again! A certain cold white hand will have wiped away theflush of shame for ever from my face when you look on it again, for Igo this night to that elder and greater redeemer whose name is death.Don't blame me, dear, and say I was not called away. Is it only whendeath touches our bodies that we are called? Oh, I am called, I amcalled, indeed! "MADELINE."
Dr. Heidenhoff's Process Page 11
