by Willa Cather
“And you, God be with you,” replied Ivar as he clambered into the cart and put the lantern under the oilcloth lap-cover. “Now for a ducking, my girl,” he said to the mare, gathering up the reins.
As they emerged from the shed, a stream of water, running off the thatch, struck the mare on the neck. She tossed her head indignantly, then struck out bravely on the soft ground, slipping back again and again as she climbed the hill to the main road. Between the rain and the darkness Ivar could see very little, so he let Emil’s mare have the rein, keeping her head in the right direction. When the ground was level, he turned her out of the dirt road upon the sod, where she was able to trot without slipping.
Before Ivar reached the graveyard, three miles from the house, the storm had spent itself, and the downpour had died into a soft, dripping rain. The sky and the land were a dark smoke color, and seemed to be coming together, like two waves. When Ivar stopped at the gate and swung out his lantern, a white figure rose from beside John Bergson’s white stone.
The old man sprang to the ground and shuffled toward the gate calling, “Mistress, mistress!”
Alexandra hurried to meet him and put her hand on his shoulder. “Tyst! Ivar. There’s nothing to be worried about. I’m sorry if I’ve scared you all. I didn’t notice the storm till it was on me, and I couldn’t walk against it. I’m glad you’ve come. I am so tired I didn’t know how I’d ever get home.”
Ivar swung the lantern up so that it shone in her face. “Gud! You are enough to frighten us, mistress. You look like a drowned woman. How could you do such a thing!”
Groaning and mumbling he led her out of the gate and helped her into the cart, wrapping her in the dry blankets on which he had been sitting.
Alexandra smiled at his solicitude. “Not much use in that, Ivar. You will only shut the wet in. I don’t feel so cold now; but I’m heavy and numb. I’m glad you came.”
Ivar turned the mare and urged her into a sliding trot. Her feet sent back a continual spatter of mud.
Alexandra spoke to the old man as they jogged along through the sullen gray twilight of the storm. “Ivar, I think it has done me good to get cold clear through like this, once. I don’t believe I shall suffer so much any more. When you get so near the dead, they seem more real than the living. Worldly thoughts leave one. Ever since Emil died, I’ve suffered so when it rained. Now that I’ve been out in it with him, I shan’t dread it. After you once get cold clear through, the feeling of the rain on you is sweet. It seems to bring back feelings you had when you were a baby. It carries you back into the dark, before you were born; you can’t see things, but they come to you, somehow, and you know them and aren’t afraid of them. Maybe it’s like that with the dead. If they feel anything at all, it’s the old things, before they were born, that comfort people like the feeling of their own bed does when they are little.”
“Mistress,” said Ivar reproachfully, “those are bad thoughts. The dead are in Paradise.”
Then he hung his head, for he did not believe that Emil was in Paradise.
When they got home, Signa had a fire burning in the sitting-room stove. She undressed Alexandra and gave her a hot footbath, while Ivar made ginger tea in the kitchen. When Alexandra was in bed, wrapped in hot blankets, Ivar came in with his tea and saw that she drank it. Signa asked permission to sleep on the slat lounge outside her door. Alexandra endured their attentions patiently, but she was glad when they put out the lamp and left her. As she lay alone in the dark, it occurred to her for the first time that perhaps she was actually tired of life. All the physical operations of life seemed difficult and painful. She longed to be free from her own body, which ached and was so heavy. And longing itself was heavy: she yearned to be free of that.
As she lay with her eyes closed, she had again, more vividly than for many years, the old illusion of her girlhood, of being lifted and carried lightly by some one very strong. He was with her a long while this time, and carried her very far, and in his arms she felt free from pain. When he laid her down on her bed again, she opened her eyes, and, for the first time in her life, she saw him, saw him clearly, though the room was dark, and his face was covered. He was standing in the doorway of her room. His white cloak was thrown over his face, and his head was bent a little forward. His shoulders seemed as strong as the foundations of the world. His right arm, bared from the elbow, was dark and gleaming, like bronze, and she knew at once that it was the arm of the mightiest of all lovers. She knew at last for whom it was she had waited, and where he would carry her. That, she told herself, was very well. Then she went to sleep.
Alexandra wakened in the morning with nothing worse than a hard cold and a stiff shoulder. She kept her bed for several days, and it was during that time that she formed a resolution to go to Lincoln to see Frank Shabata. Ever since she last saw him in the courtroom, Frank’s haggard face and wild eyes had haunted her. The trial had lasted only three days. Frank had given himself up to the police in Omaha and pleaded guilty of killing without malice and without premeditation. The gun was, of course, against him, and the judge had given him the full sentence,—ten years. He had now been in the State Penitentiary for a month.
Frank was the only one, Alexandra told herself, for whom anything could be done. He had been less in the wrong than any of them, and he was paying the heaviest penalty. She often felt that she herself had been more to blame than poor Frank. From the time the Shabatas had first moved to the neighboring farm, she had omitted no opportunity of throwing Marie and Emil together. Because she knew Frank was surly about doing little things to help his wife, she was always sending Emil over to spade or plant or carpenter for Marie. She was glad to have Emil see as much as possible of an intelligent, city-bred girl like their neighbor; she noticed that it improved his manners. She knew that Emil was fond of Marie, but it had never occurred to her that Emil’s feeling might be different from her own. She wondered at herself now, but she had never thought of danger in that direction. If Marie had been unmarried,—oh, yes! Then she would have kept her eyes open. But the mere fact that she was Shabata’s wife, for Alexandra, settled everything. That she was beautiful, impulsive, barely two years older than Emil, these facts had had no weight with Alexandra. Emil was a good boy, and only bad boys ran after married women.
Now, Alexandra could in a measure realize that Marie was, after all, Marie; not merely a “married woman.” Sometimes, when Alexandra thought of her, it was with an aching tenderness. The moment she had reached them in the orchard that morning, everything was clear to her. There was something about those two lying in the grass, something in the way Marie had settled her cheek on Emil’s shoulder, that told her everything. She wondered then how they could have helped loving each other; how she could have helped knowing that they must. Emil’s cold, frowning face, the girl’s content—Alexandra had felt awe of them, even in the first shock of her grief.
The idleness of those days in bed, the relaxation of body which attended them, enabled Alexandra to think more calmly than she had done since Emil’s death. She and Frank, she told herself, were left out of that group of friends who had been overwhelmed by disaster. She must certainly see Frank Shabata. Even in the courtroom her heart had grieved for him. He was in a strange country, he had no kinsmen or friends, and in a moment he had ruined his life. Being what he was, she felt, Frank could not have acted otherwise. She could understand his behavior more easily than she could understand Marie’s. Yes, she must go to Lincoln to see Frank Shabata.
The day after Emil’s funeral, Alexandra had written to Carl Linstrum; a single page of notepaper, a bare statement of what had happened. She was not a woman who could write much about such a thing, and about her own feelings she could never write very freely. She knew that Carl was away from post-offices, prospecting somewhere in the interior. Before he started he had written her where he expected to go, but her ideas about Alaska were vague. As the weeks went by and she heard nothing from him, it seemed to Alexandra that her heart grew hard
against Carl. She began to wonder whether she would not do better to finish her life alone. What was left of life seemed unimportant.
II
L ate in the afternoon of a brilliant October day, Alexandra Bergson, dressed in a black suit and traveling-hat, alighted at the Burlington depot in Lincoln. She drove to the Lindell Hotel, where she had stayed two years ago when she came up for Emil’s Commencement. In spite of her usual air of sureness and self-possession, Alexandra felt ill at ease in hotels, and she was glad, when she went to the clerk’s desk to register, that there were not many people in the lobby. She had her supper early, wearing her hat and black jacket down to the dining-room and carrying her handbag. After supper she went out for a walk.
It was growing dark when she reached the university campus. She did not go into the grounds, but walked slowly up and down the stone walk outside the long iron fence, looking through at the young men who were running from one building to another, at the lights shining from the armory and the library. A squad of cadets were going through their drill behind the armory, and the commands of their young officer rang out at regular intervals, so sharp and quick that Alexandra could not understand them. Two stalwart girls came down the library steps and out through one of the iron gates. As they passed her, Alexandra was pleased to hear them speaking Bohemian to each other. Every few moments a boy would come running down the flagged walk and dash out into the street as if he were rushing to announce some wonder to the world. Alexandra felt a great tenderness for them all. She wished one of them would stop and speak to her. She wished she could ask them whether they had known Emil.
As she lingered by the south gate she actually did encounter one of the boys. He had on his drill cap and was swinging his books at the end of a long strap. It was dark by this time; he did not see her and ran against her. He snatched off his cap and stood bareheaded and panting. “I’m awfully sorry,” he said in a bright, clear voice, with a rising inflection, as if he expected her to say something.
“Oh, it was my fault!” said Alexandra eagerly. “Are you an old student here, may I ask?”
“No, ma’am. I’m a Freshie, just off the farm. Cherry County. Were you hunting somebody?”
“No, thank you. That is—” Alexandra wanted to detain him. “That is, I would like to find some of my brother’s friends. He graduated two years ago.”
“Then you’d have to try the Seniors, wouldn’t you? Let’s see; I don’t know any of them yet, but there’ll be sure to be some of them around the library. That red building, right there,” he pointed.
“Thank you, I’ll try there,” said Alexandra lingeringly.
“Oh, that’s all right! Good-night.” The lad clapped his cap on his head and ran straight down Eleventh Street. Alexandra looked after him wistfully.
She walked back to her hotel unreasonably comforted. “What a nice voice that boy had, and how polite he was. I know Emil was always like that to women.” And again, after she had undressed and was standing in her nightgown, brushing her long, heavy hair by the electric light, she remembered him and said to herself, “I don’t think I ever heard a nicer voice than that boy had. I hope he will get on well here. Cherry County; that’s where the hay is so fine, and the coyotes can scratch down to water.”
At nine o’clock the next morning Alexandra presented herself at the warden’s office in the State Penitentiary. The warden was a German, a ruddy, cheerful-looking man who had formerly been a harness-maker. Alexandra had a letter to him from the German banker in Hanover. As he glanced at the letter, Mr. Schwartz put away his pipe.
“That big Bohemian, is it? Sure, he’s gettin’ along fine,” said Mr. Schwartz cheerfully.
“I am glad to hear that. I was afraid he might be quarrelsome and get himself into more trouble. Mr. Schwartz, if you have time, I would like to tell you a little about Frank Shabata, and why I am interested in him.”
The warden listened genially while she told him briefly something of Frank’s history and character, but he did not seem to find anything unusual in her account.
“Sure, I’ll keep an eye on him. We’ll take care of him all right,” he said, rising. “You can talk to him here, while I go to see to things in the kitchen. I’ll have him sent in. He ought to be done washing out his cell by this time. We have to keep ‘em clean, you know.”
The warden paused at the door, speaking back over his shoulder to a pale young man in convicts’ clothes who was seated at a desk in the corner, writing in a big ledger.
“Bertie, when 1037 is brought in, you just step out and give this lady a chance to talk.”
The young man bowed his head and bent over his ledger again.
When Mr. Schwartz disappeared, Alexandra thrust her black-edged handkerchief nervously into her handbag. Coming out on the streetcar she had not had the least dread of meeting Frank. But since she had been here the sounds and smells in the corridor, the look of the men in convicts’ clothes who passed the glass door of the warden’s office, affected her unpleasantly.
The warden’s clock ticked, the young convict’s pen scratched busily in the big book, and his sharp shoulders were shaken every few seconds by a loose cough which he tried to smother. It was easy to see that he was a sick man. Alexandra looked at him timidly, but he did not once raise his eyes. He wore a white shirt under his striped jacket, a high collar, and a necktie, very carefully tied. His hands were thin and white and well cared for, and he had a seal ring on his little finger. When he heard steps approaching in the corridor, he rose, blotted his book, put his pen in the rack, and left the room without raising his eyes. Through the door he opened a guard came in, bringing Frank Shabata.
“You the lady that wanted to talk to 1037? Here he is. Be on your good behavior, now. He can set down, lady,” seeing that Alexandra remained standing. “Push that white button when you’re through with him, and I’ll come.”
The guard went out and Alexandra and Frank were left alone.
Alexandra tried not to see his hideous clothes. She tried to look straight into his face, which she could scarcely believe was his. It was already bleached to a chalky gray. His lips were colorless, his fine teeth looked yellowish. He glanced at Alexandra sullenly, blinked as if he had come from a dark place, and one eyebrow twitched continually. She felt at once that this interview was a terrible ordeal to him. His shaved head, showing the conformation of his skull, gave him a criminal look which he had not had during the trial.
Alexandra held out her hand. “Frank,” she said, her eyes filling suddenly, “I hope you’ll let me be friendly with you. I understand how you did it. I don’t feel hard toward you. They were more to blame than you.”
Frank jerked a dirty blue handkerchief from his trousers pocket. He had begun to cry. He turned away from Alexandra. “I never did mean to do not’ing to dat woman,” he muttered. “I never mean to do not’ing to dat boy. I ain’t had not’ing ag’in’ dat boy. I always like dat boy fine. An’ then I find him—” He stopped. The feeling went out of his face and eyes. He dropped into a chair and sat looking stolidly at the floor, his hands hanging loosely between his knees, the handkerchief lying across his striped leg. He seemed to have stirred up in his mind a disgust that had paralyzed his faculties.
“I haven’t come up here to blame you, Frank. I think they were more to blame than you.” Alexandra, too, felt benumbed.
Frank looked up suddenly and stared out of the office window. “I guess dat place all go to hell what I work so hard on,” he said with a slow, bitter smile. “I not care a damn.” He stopped and rubbed the palm of his hand over the light bristles on his head with annoyance. “I no can t’ink without my hair,” he complained. “I forget English. We not talk here, except swear.”
Alexandra was bewildered. Frank seemed to have undergone a change of personality. There was scarcely anything by which she could recognize her handsome Bohemian neighbor. He seemed, somehow, not altogether human. She did not know what to say to him.
“You do not feel hard
to me, Frank?” she asked at last.
Frank clenched his fist and broke out in excitement. “I not feel hard at no woman. I tell you I not that kind-a man. I never hit my wife. No, never I hurt her when she devil me something awful!” He struck his fist down on the warden’s desk so hard that he afterward stroked it absently. A pale pink crept over his neck and face. “Two, t’ree years I know dat woman don’ care no more ‘bout me, Alexandra Bergson. I know she after some other man. I know her, oo-oo! An’ I ain’t never hurt her. I never would-a done dat, if I ain’t had dat gun along. I don’ know what in hell make me take dat gun. She always say I ain’t no man to carry gun. If she been in dat house, where she ought-a been—But das a foolish talk.”
Frank rubbed his head and stopped suddenly, as he had stopped before. Alexandra felt that there was something strange in the way he chilled off, as if something came up in him that extinguished his power of feeling or thinking.
“Yes, Frank,” she said kindly. “I know you never meant to hurt Marie.”
Frank smiled at her queerly. His eyes filled slowly with tears. “You know, I most forgit dat woman’s name. She ain’t got no name for me no more. I never hate my wife, but dat woman what make me do dat—Honest to God, but I hate her! I no man to fight. I don’ want to kill no boy and no woman. I not care how many men she take under dat tree. I no care for not’ing but dat fine boy I kill, Alexandra Bergson. I guess I go crazy sure ‘nough.”
Alexandra remembered the little yellow cane she had found in Frank’s clothes-closet. She thought of how he had come to this country a gay young fellow, so attractive that the prettiest Bohemian girl in Omaha had run away with him. It seemed unreasonable that life should have landed him in such a place as this. She blamed Marie bitterly. And why, with her happy, affectionate nature, should she have brought destruction and sorrow to all who had loved her, even to poor old Joe Tovesky, the uncle who used to carry her about so proudly when she was a little girl? That was the strangest thing of all. Was there, then, something wrong in being warm-hearted and impulsive like that? Alexandra hated to think so. But there was Emil, in the Norwegian graveyard at home, and here was Frank Shabata. Alexandra rose and took him by the hand.
