Looking Backward: 2000-1887 Page 30

  CHAPTER XXVII.

  I never could tell just why, but Sunday afternoon during my old lifehad been a time when I was peculiarly subject to melancholy, when thecolor unaccountably faded out of all the aspects of life, andeverything appeared pathetically uninteresting. The hours, which ingeneral were wont to bear me easily on their wings, lost the power offlight, and toward the close of the day, drooping quite to earth, hadfairly to be dragged along by main strength. Perhaps it was partlyowing to the established association of ideas that, despite the utterchange in my circumstances, I fell into a state of profound depressionon the afternoon of this my first Sunday in the twentieth century.

  It was not, however, on the present occasion a depression withoutspecific cause, the mere vague melancholy I have spoken of, but asentiment suggested and certainly quite justified by my position. Thesermon of Mr. Barton, with its constant implication of the vast moralgap between the century to which I belonged and that in which I foundmyself, had had an effect strongly to accentuate my sense ofloneliness in it. Considerately and philosophically as he had spoken,his words could scarcely have failed to leave upon my mind a strongimpression of the mingled pity, curiosity, and aversion which I, as arepresentative of an abhorred epoch, must excite in all around me.

  The extraordinary kindness with which I had been treated by Dr. Leeteand his family, and especially the goodness of Edith, had hithertoprevented my fully realizing that their real sentiment toward me mustnecessarily be that of the whole generation to which they belonged.The recognition of this, as regarded Dr. Leete and his amiable wife,however painful, I might have endured, but the conviction that Edithmust share their feeling was more than I could bear.

  The crushing effect with which this belated perception of a fact soobvious came to me opened my eyes fully to something which perhaps thereader has already suspected,--I loved Edith.

  Was it strange that I did? The affecting occasion on which ourintimacy had begun, when her hands had drawn me out of the whirlpoolof madness; the fact that her sympathy was the vital breath which hadset me up in this new life and enabled me to support it; my habit oflooking to her as the mediator between me and the world around in asense that even her father was not,--these were circumstances that hadpredetermined a result which her remarkable loveliness of person anddisposition would alone have accounted for. It was quite inevitablethat she should have come to seem to me, in a sense quite differentfrom the usual experience of lovers, the only woman in this world. Nowthat I had become suddenly sensible of the fatuity of the hopes I hadbegun to cherish, I suffered not merely what another lover might, butin addition a desolate loneliness, an utter forlornness, such as noother lover, however unhappy, could have felt.

  My hosts evidently saw that I was depressed in spirits, and did theirbest to divert me. Edith especially, I could see, was distressed forme, but according to the usual perversity of lovers, having once beenso mad as to dream of receiving something more from her, there was nolonger any virtue for me in a kindness that I knew was only sympathy.

  Toward nightfall, after secluding myself in my room most of theafternoon, I went into the garden to walk about. The day was overcast,with an autumnal flavor in the warm, still air. Finding myself nearthe excavation, I entered the subterranean chamber and sat down there."This," I muttered to myself, "is the only home I have. Let me stayhere, and not go forth any more." Seeking aid from the familiarsurroundings, I endeavored to find a sad sort of consolation inreviving the past and summoning up the forms and faces that were aboutme in my former life. It was in vain. There was no longer any life inthem. For nearly one hundred years the stars had been looking down onEdith Bartlett's grave, and the graves of all my generation.

  The past was dead, crushed beneath a century's weight, and from thepresent I was shut out. There was no place for me anywhere. I wasneither dead nor properly alive.

  "Forgive me for following you."

  I looked up. Edith stood in the door of the subterranean room,regarding me smilingly, but with eyes full of sympathetic distress.

  "Send me away if I am intruding on you," she said; "but we saw thatyou were out of spirits, and you know you promised to let me know ifthat were so. You have not kept your word."

  I rose and came to the door, trying to smile, but making, I fancy,rather sorry work of it, for the sight of her loveliness brought hometo me the more poignantly the cause of my wretchedness.

  "I was feeling a little lonely, that is all," I said. "Has it neveroccurred to you that my position is so much more utterly alone thanany human being's ever was before that a new word is really needed todescribe it?"

  "Oh, you must not talk that way,--you must not let yourself feel thatway,--you must not!" she exclaimed, with moistened eyes. "Are we notyour friends? It is your own fault if you will not let us be. You neednot be lonely."

  "You are good to me beyond my power of understanding," I said, "butdon't you suppose that I know it is pity merely, sweet pity, but pityonly. I should be a fool not to know that I cannot seem to you asother men of your own generation do, but as some strange uncannybeing, a stranded creature of an unknown sea, whose forlornnesstouches your compassion despite its grotesqueness. I have been sofoolish, you were so kind, as to almost forget that this must needs beso, and to fancy I might in time become naturalized, as we used tosay, in this age, so as to feel like one of you and to seem to youlike the other men about you. But Mr. Barton's sermon taught me howvain such a fancy is, how great the gulf between us must seem to you."

  "Oh that miserable sermon!" she exclaimed, fairly crying now in hersympathy, "I wanted you not to hear it. What does he know of you? Hehas read in old musty books about your times, that is all. What do youcare about him, to let yourself be vexed by anything he said? Isn't itanything to you, that we who know you feel differently? Don't you caremore about what we think of you than what he does who never saw you?Oh, Mr. West! you don't know, you can't think, how it makes me feel tosee you so forlorn. I can't have it so. What can I say to you? How canI convince you how different our feeling for you is from what youthink?"

  As before, in that other crisis of my fate when she had come to me,she extended her hands towards me in a gesture of helpfulness, and, asthen, I caught and held them in my own; her bosom heaved with strongemotion, and little tremors in the fingers which I clasped emphasizedthe depth of her feeling. In her face, pity contended in a sort ofdivine spite against the obstacles which reduced it to impotence.Womanly compassion surely never wore a guise more lovely.

  Such beauty and such goodness quite melted me, and it seemed that theonly fitting response I could make was to tell her just the truth. Ofcourse I had not a spark of hope, but on the other hand I had no fearthat she would be angry. She was too pitiful for that. So I saidpresently, "It is very ungrateful in me not to be satisfied with suchkindness as you have shown me, and are showing me now. But are you soblind as not to see why they are not enough to make me happy? Don'tyou see that it is because I have been mad enough to love you?"

  At my last words she blushed deeply and her eyes fell before mine, butshe made no effort to withdraw her hands from my clasp. For somemoments she stood so, panting a little. Then blushing deeper thanever, but with a dazzling smile, she looked up.

  "Are you sure it is not you who are blind?" she said.

  That was all, but it was enough, for it told me that, unaccountable,incredible as it was, this radiant daughter of a golden age hadbestowed upon me not alone her pity, but her love. Still, I halfbelieved I must be under some blissful hallucination even as I claspedher in my arms. "If I am beside myself," I cried, "let me remain so."

  "It is I whom you must think beside myself," she panted, escaping frommy arms when I had barely tasted the sweetness of her lips. "Oh! oh!what must you think of me almost to throw myself in the arms of one Ihave known but a week? I did not mean that you should find it out sosoon, but I was so sorry for you I forgot what I was saying. No, no;you must not touch me again till you know who I am. After that, sir,you shall
apologize to me very humbly for thinking, as I know you do,that I have been over quick to fall in love with you. After you knowwho I am, you will be bound to confess that it was nothing less thanmy duty to fall in love with you at first sight, and that no girl ofproper feeling in my place could do otherwise."

  As may be supposed, I would have been quite content to waiveexplanations, but Edith was resolute that there should be no morekisses until she had been vindicated from all suspicion ofprecipitancy in the bestowal of her affections, and I was fain tofollow the lovely enigma into the house. Having come where her motherwas, she blushingly whispered something in her ear and ran away,leaving us together. It then appeared that, strange as my experiencehad been, I was now first to know what was perhaps its strangestfeature. From Mrs. Leete I learned that Edith was the great-granddaughterof no other than my lost love, Edith Bartlett. After mourning me forfourteen years, she had made a marriage of esteem, and left a son whohad been Mrs. Leete's father. Mrs. Leete had never seen hergrandmother, but had heard much of her, and, when her daughter wasborn, gave her the name of Edith. This fact might have tended toincrease the interest which the girl took, as she grew up, in all thatconcerned her ancestress, and especially the tragic story of thesupposed death of the lover, whose wife she expected to be, in theconflagration of his house. It was a tale well calculated to touch thesympathy of a romantic girl, and the fact that the blood of theunfortunate heroine was in her own veins naturally heightened Edith'sinterest in it. A portrait of Edith Bartlett and some of her papers,including a packet of my own letters, were among the family heirlooms.The picture represented a very beautiful young woman about whom it waseasy to imagine all manner of tender and romantic things. My lettersgave Edith some material for forming a distinct idea of mypersonality, and both together sufficed to make the sad old story veryreal to her. She used to tell her parents, half jestingly, that shewould never marry till she found a lover like Julian West, and therewere none such nowadays.

  Now all this, of course, was merely the daydreaming of a girl whosemind had never been taken up by a love affair of her own, and wouldhave had no serious consequence but for the discovery that morning ofthe buried vault in her father's garden and the revelation of theidentity of its inmate. For when the apparently lifeless form had beenborne into the house, the face in the locket found upon the breast wasinstantly recognized as that of Edith Bartlett, and by that fact,taken in connection with the other circumstances, they knew that I wasno other than Julian West. Even had there been no thought, as at firstthere was not, of my resuscitation, Mrs. Leete said she believed thatthis event would have affected her daughter in a critical andlife-long manner. The presumption of some subtle ordering of destiny,involving her fate with mine, would under all circumstances havepossessed an irresistible fascination for almost any woman.

  Whether when I came back to life a few hours afterward, and from thefirst seemed to turn to her with a peculiar dependence and to find aspecial solace in her company, she had been too quick in giving herlove at the first sign of mine, I could now, her mother said, judgefor myself. If I thought so, I must remember that this, after all, wasthe twentieth and not the nineteenth century, and love was, no doubt,now quicker in growth, as well as franker in utterance than then.

  From Mrs. Leete I went to Edith. When I found her, it was first of allto take her by both hands and stand a long time in rapt contemplationof her face. As I gazed, the memory of that other Edith, which hadbeen affected as with a benumbing shock by the tremendous experiencethat had parted us, revived, and my heart was dissolved with tenderand pitiful emotions, but also very blissful ones. For she who broughtto me so poignantly the sense of my loss was to make that loss good.It was as if from her eyes Edith Bartlett looked into mine, and smiledconsolation to me. My fate was not alone the strangest, but the mostfortunate that ever befell a man. A double miracle had been wroughtfor me. I had not been stranded upon the shore of this strange worldto find myself alone and companionless. My love, whom I had dreamedlost, had been reembodied for my consolation. When at last, in anecstasy of gratitude and tenderness, I folded the lovely girl in myarms, the two Ediths were blended in my thought, nor have they eversince been clearly distinguished. I was not long in finding that onEdith's part there was a corresponding confusion of identities. Never,surely, was there between freshly united lovers a stranger talk thanours that afternoon. She seemed more anxious to have me speak of EdithBartlett than of herself, of how I had loved her than how I lovedherself, rewarding my fond words concerning another woman with tearsand tender smiles and pressures of the hand.

  "You must not love me too much for myself," she said. "I shall be veryjealous for her. I shall not let you forget her. I am going to tellyou something which you may think strange. Do you not believe thatspirits sometimes come back to the world to fulfill some work that laynear their hearts? What if I were to tell you that I have sometimesthought that her spirit lives in me,--that Edith Bartlett, not EdithLeete, is my real name. I cannot know it; of course none of us canknow who we really are; but I can feel it. Can you wonder that I havesuch a feeling, seeing how my life was affected by her and by you,even before you came. So you see you need not trouble to love me atall, if only you are true to her. I shall not be likely to bejealous."

  Dr. Leete had gone out that afternoon, and I did not have an interviewwith him till later. He was not, apparently, wholly unprepared for theintelligence I conveyed, and shook my hand heartily.

  "Under any ordinary circumstances, Mr. West, I should say that thisstep had been taken on rather short acquaintance; but these aredecidedly not ordinary circumstances. In fairness, perhaps I ought totell you," he added, smilingly, "that while I cheerfully consent tothe proposed arrangement, you must not feel too much indebted to me,as I judge my consent is a mere formality. From the moment the secretof the locket was out, it had to be, I fancy. Why, bless me, if Edithhad not been there to redeem her great-grandmother's pledge, I reallyapprehend that Mrs. Leete's loyalty to me would have suffered a severestrain."

  That evening the garden was bathed in moonlight, and till midnightEdith and I wandered to and fro there, trying to grow accustomed toour happiness.

  "What should I have done if you had not cared for me?" she exclaimed."I was afraid you were not going to. What should I have done then,when I felt I was consecrated to you! As soon as you came back tolife, I was as sure as if she had told me that I was to be to you whatshe could not be, but that could only be if you would let me. Oh, howI wanted to tell you that morning, when you felt so terribly strangeamong us, who I was, but dared not open my lips about that, or letfather or mother"--

  "That must have been what you would not let your father tell me!" Iexclaimed, referring to the conversation I had overheard as I came outof my trance.

  "Of course it was," Edith laughed. "Did you only just guess that?Father being only a man, thought that it would make you feel amongfriends to tell you who we were. He did not think of me at all. Butmother knew what I meant, and so I had my way. I could never havelooked you in the face if you had known who I was. It would have beenforcing myself on you quite too boldly. I am afraid you think I didthat to-day, as it was. I am sure I did not mean to, for I know girlswere expected to hide their feelings in your day, and I was dreadfullyafraid of shocking you. Ah me, how hard it must have been for them tohave always had to conceal their love like a fault. Why did they thinkit such a shame to love any one till they had been given permission?It is so odd to think of waiting for permission to fall in love. Wasit because men in those days were angry when girls loved them? That isnot the way women would feel, I am sure, or men either, I think, now.I don't understand it at all. That will be one of the curious thingsabout the women of those days that you will have to explain to me. Idon't believe Edith Bartlett was so foolish as the others."

  After sundry ineffectual attempts at parting, she finally insistedthat we must say good night. I was about to imprint upon her lips thepositively last kiss, when she said, with an indescribable archnes
s:--

  "One thing troubles me. Are you sure that you quite forgive EdithBartlett for marrying any one else? The books that have come down tous make out lovers of your time more jealous than fond, and that iswhat makes me ask. It would be a great relief to me if I could feelsure that you were not in the least jealous of my great-grandfatherfor marrying your sweetheart. May I tell my great-grandmother'spicture when I go to my room that you quite forgive her for provingfalse to you?"

  Will the reader believe it, this coquettish quip, whether the speakerherself had any idea of it or not, actually touched and with thetouching cured a preposterous ache of something like jealousy which Ihad been vaguely conscious of ever since Mrs. Leete had told me ofEdith Bartlett's marriage. Even while I had been holding EdithBartlett's great-granddaughter in my arms, I had not, till thismoment, so illogical are some of our feelings, distinctly realizedthat but for that marriage I could not have done so. The absurdity ofthis frame of mind could only be equalled by the abruptness with whichit dissolved as Edith's roguish query cleared the fog from myperceptions. I laughed as I kissed her.

  "You may assure her of my entire forgiveness," I said, "although if ithad been any man but your great-grandfather whom she married, it wouldhave been a very different matter."

  On reaching my chamber that night I did not open the musical telephonethat I might be lulled to sleep with soothing tunes, as had become myhabit. For once my thoughts made better music than even twentiethcentury orchestras discourse, and it held me enchanted till welltoward morning, when I fell asleep.