The Fate of the Jury/Part 6
VI
Now days, weeks, months slipped by for Merival,
With a little to do to overlook the bank,
On which receivers, lawyers woke and slept,
Making the saving remnant of the loss
Enough for fees. But Merival kept the courts
From laying hands on Ritter, saying why
Indict a dead man?
With a little to do to overlook the bank,
On which receivers, lawyers woke and slept,
Making the saving remnant of the loss
Enough for fees. But Merival kept the courts
From laying hands on Ritter, saying why
Indict a dead man?
Indict a dead man?On a day he went
With Newfeldt to Chicago to confer
With Smulski, but to find the sculptor gone
To Poland, and for good, abandoning
America forever. Who could make
The bronze for Elenor Murray now? Meanwhile
Merival bore the intricate affairs
Of Arielle, vexed by the growing hate
And covetous plotting of those relatives,
Those sisters of her husband. He stood curtained
Directing her (that was her wish); although
After some time he lost the count of all
The trips he made to Madison. In between
Aunt Cynthia and Arielle came to him;
So that at last the sisters surely knew
Some masculine advice was guiding her.
And there were letters daily. Frequently
Helena wrote for Arielle when reports
Of business matters made the letter long.
So was it now that Helena made her home
With Arielle. And the dizzy sweep of life
Near and afar kept Merival in a whirl
Of wonder. What was Arielle? What was he?
Why should he try to save his life? For what?
Losing his life might be a way to gain it;
Losing control of life might be a peace,
Surrender, fortuned better than his will
Which gripped himself to keep a mastery
Of self and life. In moods like this he thought:
"Why in a crazy world be sane?" And then
He'd plan to go to Madison, and say
"You need a husband, Arielle. Marry me,
And in the open I will end your trials,
Settle your vexed estate. This home of yours
What is it but a horror house? This town
Where you must breathe the air these sisters breathe,
What but infection do your nostrils take?
And there're three thousand acres at LeRoy,
Where peace is, where the distant woodlands send
Dreams of tranquillity around the land,
And where with books and walks, and comfort days
When the rain comes, before my hickory logs
We may defy the world." So he would muse,
Then he would find his soaring thought shot down
By Ritter's words: "I never have obeyed
Any good impulse without getting stung";
And always he would find his dreaming checked
By the dread of children born of Arielle;
Or by the picture of her fate prevised
If she bore children. Merival who had seen
In hoping fancy sons and daughters here
Romping the largesse of this lawn, saw none
Mothered by Arielle. Then should marriage be
The selfish interest of a man and wife,
Grown thinner with the years?
With Newfeldt to Chicago to confer
With Smulski, but to find the sculptor gone
To Poland, and for good, abandoning
America forever. Who could make
The bronze for Elenor Murray now? Meanwhile
Merival bore the intricate affairs
Of Arielle, vexed by the growing hate
And covetous plotting of those relatives,
Those sisters of her husband. He stood curtained
Directing her (that was her wish); although
After some time he lost the count of all
The trips he made to Madison. In between
Aunt Cynthia and Arielle came to him;
So that at last the sisters surely knew
Some masculine advice was guiding her.
And there were letters daily. Frequently
Helena wrote for Arielle when reports
Of business matters made the letter long.
So was it now that Helena made her home
With Arielle. And the dizzy sweep of life
Near and afar kept Merival in a whirl
Of wonder. What was Arielle? What was he?
Why should he try to save his life? For what?
Losing his life might be a way to gain it;
Losing control of life might be a peace,
Surrender, fortuned better than his will
Which gripped himself to keep a mastery
Of self and life. In moods like this he thought:
"Why in a crazy world be sane?" And then
He'd plan to go to Madison, and say
"You need a husband, Arielle. Marry me,
And in the open I will end your trials,
Settle your vexed estate. This home of yours
What is it but a horror house? This town
Where you must breathe the air these sisters breathe,
What but infection do your nostrils take?
And there're three thousand acres at LeRoy,
Where peace is, where the distant woodlands send
Dreams of tranquillity around the land,
And where with books and walks, and comfort days
When the rain comes, before my hickory logs
We may defy the world." So he would muse,
Then he would find his soaring thought shot down
By Ritter's words: "I never have obeyed
Any good impulse without getting stung";
And always he would find his dreaming checked
By the dread of children born of Arielle;
Or by the picture of her fate prevised
If she bore children. Merival who had seen
In hoping fancy sons and daughters here
Romping the largesse of this lawn, saw none
Mothered by Arielle. Then should marriage be
The selfish interest of a man and wife,
Grown thinner with the years?
Grown thinner with the years?To cap the sheaf
One day he read from Arielle: "I am worried,
So worried,"—this was deeply underscored.
And with her letter came a scrawl to edge
His vision of a senseless, crazy world.
That Barrett Bays, whom Elenor Murray loved;
That Barrett Bays whose arms held Elenor
Until she died, wrote Merival from his cell
There in the madhouse. Long he pored the words
Of Arielle, then with a listless hand
Held the strange letter, of this Barrett Bays,
And read with measured beating of the heart:
"Right to the end I might have lived a man
No madder say than Dante. For belief
That life, the world are wrong and devil made
Is thought straight shot. But oh these vortex storms
Of atoms which make thought go whirling up
This way and that, and in and out, around,
Swarm here, fly off, converge, disperse, or spire;
That means the thought is faith, or fear or doubt;
Sometimes sees system, progress; then divines
A spiral wash of nebulæ which cool
By radiation in the dark; at last
By the void are sponged of every scrawl of chalk—
And there's the slate, no marks. Well, I have seen
A swarm of gnats against the evening light—
And that's the nebulæ, first as it hangs
Like a dead pendulum by the mere intense
Beat of invisible wings, then darts and sways,
Then severs and is gone. So swarming suns
Whirl up, hang still, drift off and disappear.
One day he read from Arielle: "I am worried,
So worried,"—this was deeply underscored.
And with her letter came a scrawl to edge
His vision of a senseless, crazy world.
That Barrett Bays, whom Elenor Murray loved;
That Barrett Bays whose arms held Elenor
Until she died, wrote Merival from his cell
There in the madhouse. Long he pored the words
Of Arielle, then with a listless hand
Held the strange letter, of this Barrett Bays,
And read with measured beating of the heart:
"Right to the end I might have lived a man
No madder say than Dante. For belief
That life, the world are wrong and devil made
Is thought straight shot. But oh these vortex storms
Of atoms which make thought go whirling up
This way and that, and in and out, around,
Swarm here, fly off, converge, disperse, or spire;
That means the thought is faith, or fear or doubt;
Sometimes sees system, progress; then divines
A spiral wash of nebulæ which cool
By radiation in the dark; at last
By the void are sponged of every scrawl of chalk—
And there's the slate, no marks. Well, I have seen
A swarm of gnats against the evening light—
And that's the nebulæ, first as it hangs
Like a dead pendulum by the mere intense
Beat of invisible wings, then darts and sways,
Then severs and is gone. So swarming suns
Whirl up, hang still, drift off and disappear.
"No matter, if the soul remains the eye
Which the Thinker loves, and at the center sets
To witness in security from first to last
The strut of systems, and the puppet fall
Of planets when the strings that dangle them
Are jerked, and they are corded with the laws
Which make them dance. So long as I could see
The soul as favored witness of this play,
The soul as blossom on a starry stalk
Whose pollen in the general design
The Thinker meant to scatter for farther life
That long was I an eye-cell in His eye,
Or better, perhaps, one of the million facets
Of insect eyes, whose aggregate image is
Reflection of the whole. Now this was well,
Was comfort to me, honor, dignity;
And I could flout the shadowed rooms of space,
The time clock scorn, though knowing while I dreamed
If once it ticked a nebula would wink,
Or if it struck the universe would sleep.
So far the nebula of my brain was peace,
Till something atomic stirred, an inner storm
Which roared with sparks. 'Twas this: I said to self
All's over, all the drama worth a look;
But in past æons a gorgeous pageant moved,
Of which this earth, and spectacle of suns
Are the raffish rear, the limping, out-of-step
Straggle, and we are brought the tragedy
Of eyes by devil magic merely to watch
The toppled torches fume in drunken hands,
Smoke and go out, or thrown away along
The streets deserted, darkened, without a sound.
This was the divination which made death
And the world's end too, but trifles, if the soul
Were honored, saved, and given work's reward.
This forecast of the footlights soon to grow
Dim in some billion years, then to go out,
When the pit would be, the stage, one hollow black
Seen by the phosphor of the eyes, if eyes
Remained to stare, to stare the silent stage
Where flats, flaps, props, and properties were strewn,
Making imagined leviathans and shapes
Of lowest hell's dreams—this forecast in truth
Came of a speculation half confirmed
By numbers, telescopes and chemistry:
That the whole galactic spectacle was torn—
Some hundred million stars—out of the breasts
Of suns colliding with other reckless suns,
As when the sledge falls on the dazzling steel,
Or clamps the brake upon the wheel, up fly
A shower of sparks: so the planets soar;
And this, our little earth, a cinder mote,
Sailed off, and left a mica speck behind
To be its moon; sailed off to gather mist,
Rain, till the jellied slime of steaming swamps
Became a tooth, a leather-wing, a tail.
Which the Thinker loves, and at the center sets
To witness in security from first to last
The strut of systems, and the puppet fall
Of planets when the strings that dangle them
Are jerked, and they are corded with the laws
Which make them dance. So long as I could see
The soul as favored witness of this play,
The soul as blossom on a starry stalk
Whose pollen in the general design
The Thinker meant to scatter for farther life
That long was I an eye-cell in His eye,
Or better, perhaps, one of the million facets
Of insect eyes, whose aggregate image is
Reflection of the whole. Now this was well,
Was comfort to me, honor, dignity;
And I could flout the shadowed rooms of space,
The time clock scorn, though knowing while I dreamed
If once it ticked a nebula would wink,
Or if it struck the universe would sleep.
So far the nebula of my brain was peace,
Till something atomic stirred, an inner storm
Which roared with sparks. 'Twas this: I said to self
All's over, all the drama worth a look;
But in past æons a gorgeous pageant moved,
Of which this earth, and spectacle of suns
Are the raffish rear, the limping, out-of-step
Straggle, and we are brought the tragedy
Of eyes by devil magic merely to watch
The toppled torches fume in drunken hands,
Smoke and go out, or thrown away along
The streets deserted, darkened, without a sound.
This was the divination which made death
And the world's end too, but trifles, if the soul
Were honored, saved, and given work's reward.
This forecast of the footlights soon to grow
Dim in some billion years, then to go out,
When the pit would be, the stage, one hollow black
Seen by the phosphor of the eyes, if eyes
Remained to stare, to stare the silent stage
Where flats, flaps, props, and properties were strewn,
Making imagined leviathans and shapes
Of lowest hell's dreams—this forecast in truth
Came of a speculation half confirmed
By numbers, telescopes and chemistry:
That the whole galactic spectacle was torn—
Some hundred million stars—out of the breasts
Of suns colliding with other reckless suns,
As when the sledge falls on the dazzling steel,
Or clamps the brake upon the wheel, up fly
A shower of sparks: so the planets soar;
And this, our little earth, a cinder mote,
Sailed off, and left a mica speck behind
To be its moon; sailed off to gather mist,
Rain, till the jellied slime of steaming swamps
Became a tooth, a leather-wing, a tail.
"Well, if it ended there who would lament?
Not I; and I'd be sane. And if this earth
Drifting in seas of space were doomed to melt
As an iceberg in the Gulf Stream, I could smile,
Provided I as man, and one of the race
Were matter of atomic rush, electrons
Out of the fiery center of a sun;
Provided I were not a bit of crust
Of the common crust, the earth, which as a whole
Was from the outside of a sun torn off.
That makes me stuff of lower energy,
And no deliverance ever as flesh or soul.
For thought, man's thought, is only saurian thought,
Sped faster by a salt, or eisel spurt;
It is steel, perhaps, but left akin to iron;
It is not flame, because it never sped
From the pure, invisible and eternal fire!
What mockery of Big Malice, that I, a man,
See through the joke, know that I might have been
A spirit in a world of spirits, yet
Am not myself a spirit, save so far
As this poor bit of crust is teased, which turns
For retribution and grinds with a sullen heel
The spark that aspires! So far a spirit only,
Caught amid other creatures like myself.
With what result? Why this: That after eras
Which sent us up to straightened faces, rumps
Which shed their tails, we still, as if in trees
Huddled against the forest fire, retreat
Above the flames, and chattering our fears
Watch the approaching doom. It comes to this:
There is no whirling of the atoms in us,
By which the past were saved, the future stayed.
Hence wars! And back of wars the urge and thoughts
Which speak them good. And hence the birth of good,
Intended good, but which the Saturn stuff,
The low, slow, leaden movement of our souls
Makes pure good evil partly, half or so;
Then turns about and takes a devil era
To generate some years of mock success.
After great war, innumerable deaths, the ruin
Of Elenor Murrays, and myself locked here
No worse in mind than those at liberty.
Not I; and I'd be sane. And if this earth
Drifting in seas of space were doomed to melt
As an iceberg in the Gulf Stream, I could smile,
Provided I as man, and one of the race
Were matter of atomic rush, electrons
Out of the fiery center of a sun;
Provided I were not a bit of crust
Of the common crust, the earth, which as a whole
Was from the outside of a sun torn off.
That makes me stuff of lower energy,
And no deliverance ever as flesh or soul.
For thought, man's thought, is only saurian thought,
Sped faster by a salt, or eisel spurt;
It is steel, perhaps, but left akin to iron;
It is not flame, because it never sped
From the pure, invisible and eternal fire!
What mockery of Big Malice, that I, a man,
See through the joke, know that I might have been
A spirit in a world of spirits, yet
Am not myself a spirit, save so far
As this poor bit of crust is teased, which turns
For retribution and grinds with a sullen heel
The spark that aspires! So far a spirit only,
Caught amid other creatures like myself.
With what result? Why this: That after eras
Which sent us up to straightened faces, rumps
Which shed their tails, we still, as if in trees
Huddled against the forest fire, retreat
Above the flames, and chattering our fears
Watch the approaching doom. It comes to this:
There is no whirling of the atoms in us,
By which the past were saved, the future stayed.
Hence wars! And back of wars the urge and thoughts
Which speak them good. And hence the birth of good,
Intended good, but which the Saturn stuff,
The low, slow, leaden movement of our souls
Makes pure good evil partly, half or so;
Then turns about and takes a devil era
To generate some years of mock success.
After great war, innumerable deaths, the ruin
Of Elenor Murrays, and myself locked here
No worse in mind than those at liberty.
"So moves in us the sun's inferior crust
Whirled here as earth, from which we men were born,
With hands that felt a kinship with the club
Wherewith to beat out brains in swampy feuds
For bread or mates. Soon there were flint and venom,
Soon guns—and all for bread. When bread rose up
To the giantship of trade, then Faith appeared,
And handed up her lying mask called Truth,
The sole, whole truth of whence we are and why,
And with what rites the God should be adored,
Made true, established by immeasurable blood;
And how we fashioned sinless, perfect too,
Fell, when we never fell, but rose from dirt
Hurled hither from a sun. These perjuries
Turned us to snakes, and made the world a pit
Where we were twined in coils of bloody death.
And all the while the issue, too, was bread
Made flesh by hocus-pocus, and wine made blood
By Latin gabble. But these were mere pretense
For bread, wine, flesh, blood, conquered to the use
Of empire, privilege, and extorted gold,
Wherewith the heavier and more murderous clubs
Could rule. Whence was this? From that man
Perfect, the son of God! Is that the truth?
Was he such radium? Was he Saturn stuff
As we are, and his hope was like our hope
A flame earth smudged? Who knows? One thing is true
Our sole report of him puts in his mouth
Such curses and such hates as never yet
Fell from flesh lips. He cursed to endless hell
Of flames and deathless worms his enemies,
And these made wars; and these make hates to-day.
Dull tyrannies that choke, and pain and shame,
And breadless courage, honor, truth and toil
For man's emancipation. We are caught
Fast in this stuff of the sun, from which a gram,
One little gram of radium can be drawn
From tons of pitchblende. And it follows thus:
Mind is a spark, scarce visible at that
Shot from this heavy cellulose of flesh.
Whirled here as earth, from which we men were born,
With hands that felt a kinship with the club
Wherewith to beat out brains in swampy feuds
For bread or mates. Soon there were flint and venom,
Soon guns—and all for bread. When bread rose up
To the giantship of trade, then Faith appeared,
And handed up her lying mask called Truth,
The sole, whole truth of whence we are and why,
And with what rites the God should be adored,
Made true, established by immeasurable blood;
And how we fashioned sinless, perfect too,
Fell, when we never fell, but rose from dirt
Hurled hither from a sun. These perjuries
Turned us to snakes, and made the world a pit
Where we were twined in coils of bloody death.
And all the while the issue, too, was bread
Made flesh by hocus-pocus, and wine made blood
By Latin gabble. But these were mere pretense
For bread, wine, flesh, blood, conquered to the use
Of empire, privilege, and extorted gold,
Wherewith the heavier and more murderous clubs
Could rule. Whence was this? From that man
Perfect, the son of God! Is that the truth?
Was he such radium? Was he Saturn stuff
As we are, and his hope was like our hope
A flame earth smudged? Who knows? One thing is true
Our sole report of him puts in his mouth
Such curses and such hates as never yet
Fell from flesh lips. He cursed to endless hell
Of flames and deathless worms his enemies,
And these made wars; and these make hates to-day.
Dull tyrannies that choke, and pain and shame,
And breadless courage, honor, truth and toil
For man's emancipation. We are caught
Fast in this stuff of the sun, from which a gram,
One little gram of radium can be drawn
From tons of pitchblende. And it follows thus:
Mind is a spark, scarce visible at that
Shot from this heavy cellulose of flesh.
"So here's the world and man. Yes, here he is.
We might abide the annual spawn of hordes
Dumb, blind, half-witted, mad, diseased, and weak,
And shut them up, or feed them, while we strong
Built up the world. But who's the strong, I ask?
Are they the radiate light from the core of suns?
No, rather pitchblende made to seethe and move
By just the one inherent gram of light.
Hence this America! This great defeat
Successful now, first plotted against the souls
And faiths that laid the Republic's cornerstones.
Hence this America, this lump of pitch
Whose yield of radium is used to kill
Truth making dials visible at night,
For gluttonous thieves, who later law and rob
With courts, marines and battleships the toil
Of broken crusts. All's mad—and I am mad."
We might abide the annual spawn of hordes
Dumb, blind, half-witted, mad, diseased, and weak,
And shut them up, or feed them, while we strong
Built up the world. But who's the strong, I ask?
Are they the radiate light from the core of suns?
No, rather pitchblende made to seethe and move
By just the one inherent gram of light.
Hence this America! This great defeat
Successful now, first plotted against the souls
And faiths that laid the Republic's cornerstones.
Hence this America, this lump of pitch
Whose yield of radium is used to kill
Truth making dials visible at night,
For gluttonous thieves, who later law and rob
With courts, marines and battleships the toil
Of broken crusts. All's mad—and I am mad."
When Merival finished this he laughed, he laughed,
He laughed out loud, talked to himself at length
As men do living much alone. "Just look!
Who am I for such circumspect regard
Of self? What will I gain by taking care?
What will I do if I leave Arielle?
What with my life kept clear of perils? You
Are fifty now. Will you live ten years more?
Five? Two? One? What's the row about? Look here,
The woman's beautiful, the woman's keen,
Intelligent, has charm. What do you want?
In trouble too! Just think of it! Heavens, man,
Are you a scoundrel? No! But think of it—
It's Elenor Murray catches you at last,
After your Harvard days, ambitions, books,
Travel, and wide experience, after all,
This little, battered nurse dies at LeRoy,
Who living changed, we found it so, some lives;
And being dead enforced this inquest, took
Ritter, the others from a place immune
To Elenor Murray; took myself long fixed
In singleness, and sent me on my way
To Arielle, on the God-stream drifting down,
Which in my inner judgment I resist
As impulse, passion, God, goodness, who see
With Pyrrho that man never knows enough
To say one course is right, the other wrong.
Well, then to marry Arielle may be right,
Or right enough, since among infinite days,
Schemes, teleologies, this way or that
Straying, if straying, lacks appreciable
Difference. I wonder my streams of blood—
Being fifty—have not turned awry, to leave
This island of my brain a curled up crust
Where water crawlers, efts and stilted spiders
Dart here and there—my thoughts. Rouse all your strength,
Capture your olden self. Yes, hasten now
To Madison, and marry Arielle,
Protect her, solve her issues. What can come
To make existence worse?"
He laughed out loud, talked to himself at length
As men do living much alone. "Just look!
Who am I for such circumspect regard
Of self? What will I gain by taking care?
What will I do if I leave Arielle?
What with my life kept clear of perils? You
Are fifty now. Will you live ten years more?
Five? Two? One? What's the row about? Look here,
The woman's beautiful, the woman's keen,
Intelligent, has charm. What do you want?
In trouble too! Just think of it! Heavens, man,
Are you a scoundrel? No! But think of it—
It's Elenor Murray catches you at last,
After your Harvard days, ambitions, books,
Travel, and wide experience, after all,
This little, battered nurse dies at LeRoy,
Who living changed, we found it so, some lives;
And being dead enforced this inquest, took
Ritter, the others from a place immune
To Elenor Murray; took myself long fixed
In singleness, and sent me on my way
To Arielle, on the God-stream drifting down,
Which in my inner judgment I resist
As impulse, passion, God, goodness, who see
With Pyrrho that man never knows enough
To say one course is right, the other wrong.
Well, then to marry Arielle may be right,
Or right enough, since among infinite days,
Schemes, teleologies, this way or that
Straying, if straying, lacks appreciable
Difference. I wonder my streams of blood—
Being fifty—have not turned awry, to leave
This island of my brain a curled up crust
Where water crawlers, efts and stilted spiders
Dart here and there—my thoughts. Rouse all your strength,
Capture your olden self. Yes, hasten now
To Madison, and marry Arielle,
Protect her, solve her issues. What can come
To make existence worse?"
To make existence worse?"So Merival rushed
To catch a train to Madison. Helena came
And opened to him. And at once he saw
The evidence of change, first vaguely sensed,
Then seen in rolled up rugs, and couches draped,
In hangings off the windows, in the trunks
Along the halls. The writhing nerves of tears
Knotted in Merival's breast. Past all delight
Which once was here for him. And Arielle
After the greeting sat upon the arm
Of a great chair with hands around her knee
Tensed back in simulate will, but yet how clear
Was all her shattered life, how visible
Her helplessness. Then Merival held her head
Against his breast, ""Tell me," but she was silent.
When she looked up she dashed her tears away,
Laughed to mock down the fate, and said at last
"It happened. They have bent me to their will.
Lawyers are worthless, even yours. The facts
Are all against me. In this crooked world
Run with regard to human crookedness,
Where sheriffs, mayors, all the rest are made
To bond themselves to keep the law, and stores
Have spies, cash registers and double checks,
Collectors, lawyers, just to circumvent
The natural, general, tendency to steal,
In such a world how can you blame these sisters
For their distrust of me, if like the world,
I'd steal those stocks and bonds? So now trustees
Will hold them; I've consented. All the law—
And the law is made in doubt of men not faith,
It's all against me. So I walk from here
A pensioned creature, getting quarterly
The income from these stocks and bonds. But why
Stay here? I'm tired of Madison—so tired;
I'm tired of Cynthia—forgive me that.
So I have let them take this house to sell,
And give me money for my homestead rights,
My dower. And we are off to travel some,
I and Helena, whom I love so much.
Besides—" and Arielle paused and looked for long
At Merival, half accusing, half with humor—
"It may be wise for me to go away."
Then Merival spoke suddenly, "If so—
If there be nothing but the trust, the house,
Come, marry me—this minute. Get your hat,
Let's to the courthouse." Arielle shook her head,
"Wait, till I go away and think some more;
I'll write you. You can come for me—perhaps.
I can't go through it here."
To catch a train to Madison. Helena came
And opened to him. And at once he saw
The evidence of change, first vaguely sensed,
Then seen in rolled up rugs, and couches draped,
In hangings off the windows, in the trunks
Along the halls. The writhing nerves of tears
Knotted in Merival's breast. Past all delight
Which once was here for him. And Arielle
After the greeting sat upon the arm
Of a great chair with hands around her knee
Tensed back in simulate will, but yet how clear
Was all her shattered life, how visible
Her helplessness. Then Merival held her head
Against his breast, ""Tell me," but she was silent.
When she looked up she dashed her tears away,
Laughed to mock down the fate, and said at last
"It happened. They have bent me to their will.
Lawyers are worthless, even yours. The facts
Are all against me. In this crooked world
Run with regard to human crookedness,
Where sheriffs, mayors, all the rest are made
To bond themselves to keep the law, and stores
Have spies, cash registers and double checks,
Collectors, lawyers, just to circumvent
The natural, general, tendency to steal,
In such a world how can you blame these sisters
For their distrust of me, if like the world,
I'd steal those stocks and bonds? So now trustees
Will hold them; I've consented. All the law—
And the law is made in doubt of men not faith,
It's all against me. So I walk from here
A pensioned creature, getting quarterly
The income from these stocks and bonds. But why
Stay here? I'm tired of Madison—so tired;
I'm tired of Cynthia—forgive me that.
So I have let them take this house to sell,
And give me money for my homestead rights,
My dower. And we are off to travel some,
I and Helena, whom I love so much.
Besides—" and Arielle paused and looked for long
At Merival, half accusing, half with humor—
"It may be wise for me to go away."
Then Merival spoke suddenly, "If so—
If there be nothing but the trust, the house,
Come, marry me—this minute. Get your hat,
Let's to the courthouse." Arielle shook her head,
"Wait, till I go away and think some more;
I'll write you. You can come for me—perhaps.
I can't go through it here."
I can't go through it here."Then Helena
Came for directions, and then Arielle took
Both hands in hers, and talked. But when she went
Arielle said to Merival, "What a friend!
She is adorable. How can you see us,
And love me and not her?"
Came for directions, and then Arielle took
Both hands in hers, and talked. But when she went
Arielle said to Merival, "What a friend!
She is adorable. How can you see us,
And love me and not her?"
And love me and not her?"Now Merival stood
Bewildered, balked, and half ashamed. His thought
Ran back to Cynthia's lyric words which came
When he was taking proof of Elenor Murray's
Life and death: "A prankish wit," "a soul
Of love of wisdom," "a spirit of bright tears,"
"A will as disciplined as steel;" "if I
Were taking for America a symbol
It would be Arielle, not Elenor Murray."
Then flashed his mind to what Aunt Cynthia wrote:
"She is a will as disciplined as steel."
And so she was! She did not need him. So
What altruistic impulse moved him now
Went thankless! All his dreams of Arielle
In longing, loneliness, in delicate
Angelic beauty clinging to his strength,
And watching the vine which she had pointed to,
Trying to grow and cross her window sill—
All this blew off and there in clearest light
Sat Arielle self-sufficient, with her thoughts
About her packing, steadied in her eyes
As concentration on prosaic things,
Mere sight which with its sharpness sheared away
All iris rims, and saw him as a man,
And not a trunk. Now Merival would have walked
Once more with Arielle to live again
First hours with her. But she was speaking now
Of all that she must do, and wondering
How she could do it. Then to spend the time
And help her till his train, he went about
Lifting and moving. After a little lunch
He went away with self-upbraiding thoughts,
Self-scorned that he had felt such tenderness,
And such accountable regard for all
Her happiness, her future. It was fancy
Out of conceit that a mastery was thrust
Upon his conscience, mastery of her fate,
And fancying that he had whiffled back and forth
Between a prudence and a rapt desire;
While all the time she was mere human flesh,
A woman's too, who saw with selfish eyes;
And who now that he stood surrendering up
Reluctance, doubt—did she divine he did?—
Seeing at least that he surrendered will,
Paltered, denied; and at the doorway stood
Saying good-by—perhaps forever too.
Back to LeRoy with listless, thoughtless thoughts,
With no framework to train his days upon,
As the days passed idly, Merival returned.
Bewildered, balked, and half ashamed. His thought
Ran back to Cynthia's lyric words which came
When he was taking proof of Elenor Murray's
Life and death: "A prankish wit," "a soul
Of love of wisdom," "a spirit of bright tears,"
"A will as disciplined as steel;" "if I
Were taking for America a symbol
It would be Arielle, not Elenor Murray."
Then flashed his mind to what Aunt Cynthia wrote:
"She is a will as disciplined as steel."
And so she was! She did not need him. So
What altruistic impulse moved him now
Went thankless! All his dreams of Arielle
In longing, loneliness, in delicate
Angelic beauty clinging to his strength,
And watching the vine which she had pointed to,
Trying to grow and cross her window sill—
All this blew off and there in clearest light
Sat Arielle self-sufficient, with her thoughts
About her packing, steadied in her eyes
As concentration on prosaic things,
Mere sight which with its sharpness sheared away
All iris rims, and saw him as a man,
And not a trunk. Now Merival would have walked
Once more with Arielle to live again
First hours with her. But she was speaking now
Of all that she must do, and wondering
How she could do it. Then to spend the time
And help her till his train, he went about
Lifting and moving. After a little lunch
He went away with self-upbraiding thoughts,
Self-scorned that he had felt such tenderness,
And such accountable regard for all
Her happiness, her future. It was fancy
Out of conceit that a mastery was thrust
Upon his conscience, mastery of her fate,
And fancying that he had whiffled back and forth
Between a prudence and a rapt desire;
While all the time she was mere human flesh,
A woman's too, who saw with selfish eyes;
And who now that he stood surrendering up
Reluctance, doubt—did she divine he did?—
Seeing at least that he surrendered will,
Paltered, denied; and at the doorway stood
Saying good-by—perhaps forever too.
Back to LeRoy with listless, thoughtless thoughts,
With no framework to train his days upon,
As the days passed idly, Merival returned.