Children of the Market Place Part 21

Back of me was America, flattened out like a map in my imagination, lost and sunk like old Atlantis. I sent my mind across it from New York to Chicago, from Chicago to California. What was it? Earth, a continent containing an embattled and disappointed Douglas, millions of struggling people. Ahead of me, over thousands of miles of water, an unknown Italy.

I lived over all my life, but mostly now all my life with Dorothy, from those first days in Jacksonville when I was under a cloud because of Zoe and the killing of Lamborn, to our days in Nashville; the ecstasy of first love, our walks and restings among the c.u.mberland hills, the kindness of Mother Clayton, her joy when she learned that Dorothy had consented to become my wife. I saw again the face of Jackson, his eyes, his reverence when he kissed the brow of Dorothy; his tears and his feeble step when he walked away from us. And I lived over early Chicago, all my days with Douglas. Where was he now on that flattened, negligible map called America? In what soil had Zoe moldered into the earth? What had become of Fortescue? Where were Abigail and Aldington, Reverdy, Sarah, this night? How could the millions storming over slavery and war, territories, sugar and cotton and iron, gold and railways think of these things if they were face to face with a reality as stark as I was, in a boat rolled by dark water, tossing forward toward Europe and with a burden like the dead body of Dorothy? All this night I walked the deck.

I saw the dawn come up, ragged and blue, patched with dark clouds, which the wind drove close to the mounting waves.

The captain ordered an autopsy. Dorothy had died of heart failure. Then there was to be a burial at sea. In the afternoon the clouds lifted from the sky. Toward the west the sun burned over the water, making a wake of fire from the boat to the utmost horizon. I took a last look at Dorothy, kissed her cold brow. Then she was wrapped with sheets on a plank weighted with iron, and taken to the stern of the boat. I stood near to see it all, with little Reverdy weeping as if his heart would break.

The body is cast into the water, and in the very golden wake of the sun.

I cannot hear the splash; I only see a slight flap of the sheet. The water closes over instantly. A gull frightened into a slight veering off turns to the spot where Dorothy has disappeared. No ripples to mark the place where she has been received by the sea! The boat has gone on without staying. I keep my eyes fixed on the place. Waves cross and recross over it. The sunlight s.h.i.+fts. Tears and the sun blind my eyes. I rest them a moment and then look again. Where was it that Dorothy sank?

What great fish started at the splash, the white apparition; and then returned to nibble? To what depths has Dorothy sunk? To what darker waters has she been towed by some creature of prey? The sailors have gone to their other duties. Little Reverdy is by my side, weeping softly. I must write to the older Reverdy back in Jacksonville. He is her only relation in the world. To-night I must sleep, if I can.

But I do not sleep. I wonder if I have been a good husband to Dorothy.

What was she doing, how living, in the years past, when I was absorbed in business, following the fortunes of Douglas, studying the books that had no bearing upon her happiness nor, alas, upon mine? I saw her now as patient, sometimes alone, perhaps always waiting for me, but never complaining. How many happy hours had I sacrificed to other things when I might have been with her! Was Dorothy happy? Did she love me? I began to think over the occasions of her demonstrations of affection--after all how few they were! Always tender toward me, but how infrequently were there moments of pa.s.sion, of ecstasy. Had I awakened all of her nature? Had I been living a neutral life all these years? Was I in some sort a negligible character, without magnetism, of unfulfilled pa.s.sion?

A slumbering nature?

But where now was Dorothy's body? We were fifty miles, seventy-five miles, a hundred miles from the unmarked spot of burial. She had sunk fathoms into the abyss. The bell on the boat had rung the midnight, then one o'clock. I heard it toll for two--then I slept. I awoke hearing little Reverdy sobbing. I stood out of the berth and tried to comfort him. Then we dressed and went to breakfast. Whatever happens there must be coffee and toast. Then I walked the deck and longed for land.

We changed boats at Cherbourg. Then a dreary voyage to Naples. We hurried through the noise and colorful disorder of Naples and drove by carriage to Rome. We entered the same gate through which Milton and Goethe had pa.s.sed, into the Piazza di Spagna. At the foot of the steps leading to Trinita di Monti--here where the foreigners stayed, the English quarter. I found accommodations in a pension. First there was the unpacking, and little Reverdy had to be kept comforted, if possible; I must start him in school too. Life must always go on. I became sensible of many bells. The strange noises of a civilization wholly unknown to me came up through my window. I looked out upon the Piazza di Spagna, knowing nothing of its history. Who would be my friends here?

Back of me was nearly a quarter of a century in America and before me what?

CHAPTER LII

Our pension was all that could be desired. Mr. and Mrs. Winch.e.l.l were here from America, from Connecticut. She was about twenty-seven; he was nearly sixty. They were on their way around the world, stopping in Rome for some months. She was studying painting under an artist who also taught etching. In this way I came under the instruction of Luca, who had a studio not far from the Piazza di Spagna, and also into daily a.s.sociation with Mrs. Winch.e.l.l.

First little Reverdy had to be placed in school and given a tutor.

Before doing this I took him around the city, and we saw together some of the churches: S. Maria del Popolo, S. Giovanna dei Laterano, S.

Angelo, S. Paolo. I took him to the Pantheon, the Coliseum, to St.

Peter's, into the Vatican. Thus I gained my first impressions; and on these rounds I found the courier Serafino Maletesta, who became a source of so much interest and delight to me.

My mornings were spent in Luca's studio; my afternoons in sightseeing with Serafino, in which Mr. and Mrs. Winch.e.l.l joined, though infrequently by him. He was ageing and not well. And often from the beginning Mrs. Winch.e.l.l and I set off together with Serafino to explore museums, visit the Palatine, drive to the edge of the city where the Alban hills were plainer across the Campagna, as level as a prairie around Jacksonville.

I was struggling with Italian, carrying on such conversation as I could with Serafino, and with Mrs. Winch.e.l.l, who was growing proficient in the language.

Serafino was something past sixty. He had been with the Carbonari of 1820, and in the Italian revolution of 1830-31. He saw this suppressed.

Then when the republican movements of 1848 shook Europe, he had partic.i.p.ated in the third Italian revolution of that year; and again he had seen Italy put down, this time by the intervention of the French, whose Louis Napoleon sought by this action to win the friends.h.i.+p of the Catholic clergy in France. The hated Austrians now ruled Lombardy and Venice. In Rome, now that the Pope again had temporal, power, the political affairs of the city were in the hands of Cardinal Antonelli, who suppressed political agitation with great severity. It was not only an American audience before North Market Hall in Clark Street, Chicago, that denied the freedom of speech. Cardinals were up to the same thing, as well as mobs.

Serafino told me calmly, with occasional profanity, of the arrest of large numbers of Italians who belonged to the Unita Italiana at Naples, whose condemnation was speedily followed by hideous dungeons and atrocious cruelties. There was slavery in Italy too!

Italy was under the heel of Austria. Religious bigotry, more subtle and more powerful than the slavocracy of America, was crus.h.i.+ng hope from the lives of the Italians, while Mazzini and Cavour battled like t.i.tans against the powerful hierarchy of monarchy and Catholicism. There was little of the history of Italy, of ancient Rome, that was seemingly unknown to Serafino. He had read all his life; and he had been in the actual conflicts of awakening Italy. Now his head shook a little when his face reddened from suppressed wrath. He cursed quietly, but with a terrible energy. He was poor; but there was a refinement in his personal appearance. His worn shoes were always polished, his coat and trousers of many years service were always brushed. He would appear at the appointed hour, bright of eye, cleanly shaven, and always with wonderful suggestions for sightseeing for the afternoon. He lived somewhere near the Forum. Having never married he was continuing a friends.h.i.+p formed long ago with a woman who kept house for him and lived with him. As he was no longer fitted for a battle or strife he was now an adviser to younger men. He was no doubt suspected but he seemed to have no fear. As we went about among priests and soldiers he smiled and spoke to them.

He knew them of old and a certain security seemed to be his. His two interests were politics and art, but art had won him almost completely.

What he knew of history and of art, his life-long residence in Rome made him the most interesting of couriers.

Our conversations widened and deepened day by day. Had he heard of Douglas? No. He had read _Uncle Tom's Cabin_. What did I know of Mrs.

Stowe? I ran over the list of our notables. They meant nothing to him.

State sovereignty, popular sovereignty, the Missouri Compromise, the Compromises of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska act were words without significance. But there was negro slavery. "How can that be in your country?" he asked, and laughed ironically. "If all men are created free and equal how about the negro?" he asked.

I went on to tell Serafino, that Thomas Jefferson, when drafting the Declaration of Independence, had condemned George III who had forbidden the American Colonies "to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce"; but that the clause was stricken out by South Carolina and Georgia.

Therefore that the Declaration did not mean negroes when it said "all men." Serafino looked at me with quiet, comprehending eyes which said: "It's the same struggle of money and power everywhere." He added aloud: "Italy will never eat free bread and have enough of it until the Austrian is driven off our back. They make us work and take away our labor in taxes. We are negroes too."

He wanted to know something of Garrison, of whom he had heard. What was thought of Was.h.i.+ngton in America? But in the midst of these subjects he would stop to point to a broken column, a ruined temple; or he would turn suddenly into an old church to show me some beloved picture. After all, the old life of street brawls, debates, and dungeons had faded out of him with the dying of the rebellious fires of youth. There were only echoes of these thunderous events in his soul. His eye only brightened fully before a picture or a statue. His reverence arose only to some perfection of color or of form.

Once he took me by a quick turn, as if by impulse, into an old church.

"There is a lovely Madonna here," he said. "Who painted it?" "Some pupil of Raphael's perhaps." Serafino removed his hat and stood reverently before this beautiful face, so human, so tender. "I have heard you say so much against the Church, the Papacy--I thought you were not in the Church," I said. "No, I am an atheist," replied Serafino. "But what has that to do with this? Look at those eyes, those lips. In '48, when my soul was torn, I used to come in here every day just for the consolation of that face. And now I come for the memory and the peace it brings me."

Slow tears were on the lower lids of his eyes. With a rough hand he brushed them away, then asked me: "What do you think?" "I love that face," I replied. "I understand how you feel."

A friends.h.i.+p grew up between Serafino and me. He was not a perfunctory guide. He never grew tired. When five o'clock would come and the day was really ended I would say: "Well I must be back now. Little Reverdy is coming over for an early dinner." "Ah, but just this one picture," he would say, "it will only take a few minutes. I want you to see this. It is a great work and something may happen. I may forget to bring you again." Then we would walk in and out of the cold and gloom of the church after having stared the picture into vividness.

During my morning work my friends.h.i.+p with Mrs. Winch.e.l.l ripened rapidly.

We had an excellent start in the circ.u.mstance that we were Americans. We knew of cities, of some people in common. Abigail had come from Connecticut and that, in a sense, laid a foundation for our conversations. We were working together, she with painting, I with drawing and etching. We criticized and suggested concerning each other's work. Or we put down our brushes and pencils and talked of life. In this way at last she knew of my going to America as a youth of eighteen, of the farm, of Zoe, of my marriage, my life in Chicago, my long friends.h.i.+p with Douglas, and lastly of Dorothy's death at sea. Her eyes would look intently into mine. And when I told her that I considered my life practically wasted she said: "Do you know every one's life is wasted; nearly every one. Few find their work and pursue it. Most of us are drawn aside, or tripped, or blinded. Your friend Douglas seems to me to have had a wasted life. As you tell me all this I see you as a man of tremendous will drawn into an accidental path, not his real path. You are an artist at heart. I don't mean that you will ever be a great etcher, though one cannot tell; I mean that all this turbulence, sordidness, American hurry, waste, vulgarity, agitation, politics, did not belong to you. But what right have I to talk? My life is a waste too."

Little by little I learned from her what her life had been, what its central impulse was. She was a poor girl who hungered for opportunity.

She had looked with critical eyes upon marriageable men. I wondered if she had been attractive to many men, if many had had the discernment to see what she was. If a young woman marries an elderly man of wealth it is probable that no young man of wealth has come to her at the favorable hour; and probable, too, that no man of merely compelling magnetism has been interested in her. Mr. Winch.e.l.l was kindly, a n.o.ble nature; he gave her a tender, but only a paternal love. But through him she had traveled; she had had the beauty of life for which her heart was insatiable. There were no children; there never would be children, and what lavish, ecstatic affection she bestowed upon my Reverdy! So day by day I learned that she was a teacher in Connecticut when Mr. Winch.e.l.l came along, willing to give her everything if she would marry him. He had been rather a heavy drinker up to this time, now five years before; when he left off drink for awhile. Then he had begun again, but rarely indulged to excess. It may be that drink had emasculated him before he married her; but now if because of this he tippled occasionally, he was justified in medicine which dulled feelings that he could not be a husband to this radiant woman, who treated him always with such tenderness and devotion, always honored him with such scrupulous attention.

She wanted a child above all things. All of us remember some woman whom we knew in youth who kept canaries, or raised flowers or had some queer little fad. We learn to know why women do this. In her case she expressed her mother's pa.s.sion in studies, in art, in travel, in friends.h.i.+p, in kindness to every one; above all in devotion to her husband. She mothered him in the most tender and beautiful way. In a little while I knew all her story, as she did mine.

Serafino came for me one morning at the studio. There was an old cafe beyond the walls near the Campagna where the food was wholly Italian and of the best. It was a wonderful place for the rest of the noonday meal, for a view of the Alban hills. The sun was warm, the sky was clear. The intoxication of an Italian day was in the air. I wished so much to share the delight with someone. Mrs. Winch.e.l.l was sitting near absorbed in her work. But she had looked up and bowed to Serafino, whom she had seen with me so frequently. I turned to her and asked: "Would you and Mr.

Winch.e.l.l like to join me?" "Let us go and ask him," she replied. So we set off to the pension to invite Uncle Tom. That was the name she called him, and I had begun to use it myself.

Uncle Tom had made the acquaintance of some men of his own age from New York. They had begun to patronize a cafe located beyond the American Emba.s.sy, where broiled chicken and fresh vegetables were a specialty and where the red wine was of the best. He had an engagement with these cronies and was preparing to leave as we came in. He listened to Isabel's exclamations about the place to which Serafino wished to take us. If she had been his daughter and I had been his son he could not have sent us off together with a heartier laugh, a more undisturbed heart. "You two go," he said. "You get along about pictures and scenery.

I am going to Canape's, and play checkers this afternoon. I am too fat to run around like you young folks do. Go on and have a good time."

And we ran down, following Serafino who had preceded us to engage a carriage. Off we drove, the wheels rattling over the stones, past the Forum, past the Coliseum, in view of St. Peter's. Soon we entered a dusty road. The houses were small now, broken and old. At last we drew up into an open s.p.a.ce surrounded by little buildings: a blacksmith's shop where the anvil was ringing, little bakeries, markets where vegetables and bologna were vended. Ragged Italian children, gay and soiled with healthy dirt, were playing in the dust, turning somersaults, chasing each other, laughing. Beyond us was the Campagna, the Alban hills. We climbed a rickety stairway to a platform or roof of stone. An eager and obliging waiter brought us a table, spread it, put before us red wine. And Serafino, seeing these things done, disappeared, leaving Isabel and me to dine together under this clear sky with the green of the lovely plain spread out before us to the purples of the hills.

How could I help but make comparisons between Isabel and Dorothy? I had never known any women but Dorothy and Abigail, Sarah, Mother Clayton. I had never come into romantic contact with any woman but Dorothy. Now I was advancing to this relations.h.i.+p with Isabel. I began to wonder if I had given Dorothy love. I had given her perfect loyalty. Was there a form of treason to Dorothy's memory in the fast beating of my heart here in the presence of Isabel, under this sky, in this charming place?

Perhaps I had been starved too. Yet because of her personality, the radiant flame which was herself, the laughing and girlish genius which was in her, but above all the spiritual integrity which was hers, I stood in awe of her. But that awe was sufficiently explained by her devotion to her husband. I saw in her eyes honor and truth, and the peace of mind that sometimes comes with them, all the while that I felt the blood surge around my heart and pulsate in my hands. There seemed to be nothing now of which we could not speak. Her interest in children betrayed itself in exclamations over the ragged little Italians playing in the court. I wondered if my heart had ever been profoundly stirred. I had married Dorothy. But suppose Zoe had not been in my life to have offended and alienated Dorothy's interest for a time, and thus to have energized this English will which was mine for conquest of the farm, for the killing of Lamborn--for the continued pursuit of Dorothy? In such case had I married Dorothy? What would life have been to me if I had met Isabel when I first knew Dorothy? This woman of white flame talking of art, of travel, of Rome, of religion, of beauty; giving way to girlish chuckles and laughter. Was she not closer to me, as temperate genius of the North, than Dorothy, out of the languor and the romanticism of the South? Was not Douglas closer to the North, which Isabel seemed to me now to symbolize, than to that South with which his fate had now so long been entangled?

A step is heard. The old stair creaks, and Serafino's head appears above the railing. We look up, aroused from our enchantment. The afternoon lights are slanting across the Campagna. It is time to go. I have overpaid the waiter. He honestly offers to rectify it. Isabel laughs, seeing that I am oblivious of such worldly things. That breaks the spell. And we drive back to Rome and our pension.

CHAPTER LIII

I begin to wonder about my Reverdy. At the school I see him in a.s.sociation with English boys. He is not so strong as they, not so handsome, not so alert and apt. Isabel has never had a child and wants one with consuming pa.s.sion. This boy is mine, but am I better off than Isabel? My life grows clearer to me. I have receded from it and can see it better. I can look out upon Rome and then close my eyes and recall Chicago. I think of my long years of money making; then I turn to reflection upon art and life. I thrill in the presence of Isabel; then I remember the mild but tender pa.s.sion which Dorothy aroused in me.

I thrill before Isabel, but I give my feelings no expression. There are looks, no doubt, hesitations of speech, flutterings of the heart, that she may hear. But she is encompa.s.sed with flame that bars my way. I do not try to pa.s.s. We are all friends together, Isabel, Uncle Tom, and I.

No plans are made which exclude Uncle Tom. Isabel and I have no secrets, no stealings away, no intimacies however slight, no quick withdrawals upon the sound of his step. Everything is known to Uncle Tom. I had impulses to all clearness of conduct in the circ.u.mstance that Uncle Tom is so much my friend. He treats me like a father; he is always doing generous things for me. He is delighted to see Isabel go with me to a church or a gallery, when he is too tired or too ill to accompany us, and that is often.

And day by day Isabel was happier. She became a creature of glories, s.h.i.+ning transparencies. We had books together, music together, our work together. We had the companions.h.i.+p of the morning and the evening meal, sacred rituals between beings who love each other. We had infinite talks together with Uncle Tom or alone, as it happened. If Uncle Tom saw our exaltation, nevertheless he knew all that was between us. For it was beauty of life that Isabel and I shared, and who cannot know between whom this secret exists, if he have eyes to see?

He knew I loved Isabel, if he had not forgotten all that moves in the blood of a man of forty-two. He knew that she loved me--at any rate in some quality of love. For Isabel used this word freely in the ecstasies of her spirit, in the rapturous atmosphere of Italy. "I love James, Uncle Tom--not as I love you; but I really love him! How wonderful that he should come to us. He is like my brother, but he is something more.

He is a great friend." Uncle Tom would smile benignantly upon this radiant woman, whom he had married for her youthful vitality, for which he gave the happiness that comes of wealth. Perhaps in his ageing psychology he did not know that there was pa.s.sion in our hearts. Yet I think he was a great soul, wis.h.i.+ng Isabel to have every happiness. I know he was my friend. There was nothing in him of the envy of January because of my younger years, nor reproof for the Maytime suns.h.i.+ne that was in the heart of Isabel.

Isabel and I had been to the Vatican several times. Uncle Tom disliked pictures; above all he dreaded the fatigue of walking and the cold of the churches and rooms where he was obliged to remove his hat. One afternoon Isabel proposed that we go again to the Vatican; there was a face there she wished to show me. We asked Uncle Tom to come with us; but this was one of the days when he did not feel strong enough for anything. He was keeping to his room. Perhaps later he would go to Canape's. "You two go along. You will get on without me."