The Best Short Stories of 1919 Part 54

"I love him," she said, "better than life."

He stared at her then, and I saw what was in his mind. He thought she was crazy--stark, staring crazy. Next he said, "Good night, Moira--my darling, Moira." And he stumbled out into the fog like a man that's been struck blind.

But I knew she wasn't crazy. Maybe 't was living with Mis' MacFarland made me believe things like that. Maybe 't was Moira herself. But I didn't feel she was any more crazy than I do when I've heard folks recite, "I know that my Redeemer liveth."

But this isn't the end--this isn't the strangest part! Listen to what happened next.

There was a storm after the fog and strange vessels came into the port--and Moira came to Mis' MacFarland and her eyes were starry and says she:

"I'm going to get 'em to put me aboard that vessel," and she points to a bark which is a rare thing to see nowadays in these waters.

"He's out there," says she.

I didn't doubt her--I didn't doubt her any more than if she'd said the sun was s.h.i.+ning when my own eyes were blinded by the light of it.

"Go, then," says Mis' MacFarland.

I tell you Moira was dragged out of that house as by a magnet. The sky had cleared and lay far off and cold, and the wrack of the broken clouds was burning itself up in the west when I saw a dory cast off from the vessel.

It was a queer procession came up our path, some foreign-looking sailors, and they carried a man on a sort of stretcher, and Moira walked alongside of him. I saw three things about him the same way you see a whole country in a flash of lightning.

One was that he was the strangest, the most beautiful man I had ever looked on, and I saw that he was dying.

Then in the next breath I knew he belonged to Moira more than anyone on earth ever had or would. Then all of a sudden it was as if a hand caught hold of my heart and squeezed the blood from it like water out of a sponge, for all at the same time I saw that they hadn't been born at the right time for each other and that they had only a moment to look into each other's faces--before the darkness of death could swallow him.

I couldn't bear it. I wanted to cry out to G.o.d that this miracle had come to pa.s.s only to be wiped out like a mark in the sand. He was as different from anyone I'd ever seen as Moira was. How can I say to you what I saw and felt. I knew that he belonged to Moira and Moira belonged to him. If I'd have met him at the ends of the earth I'd have known that they belonged together. We all dream about things like this when we're young--about there being a perfect love for us somewhere on earth--but there isn't, because we're not good enough.

The perfect flower can't bloom in most gardens. What these two had was love beyond love--the thing that poor, blundering mankind's been working for and straining toward all down the ages.

Love was what they had, not dimmed and tarnished, not the little flicker that comes for a moment and is gone, like in most of our lives, but the pure fire. The love that mankind tries to find in G.o.d--the final wonder.

Some of us, at most, have a day or hour--a vision that's as far off and dim as northern lights.

Mis' MacFarland and me looked at each other and, without saying anything, we walked from the room. I saw tears streaming down her face and then I realized that I couldn't see for my own, I was crying the way you may do twice in your life, if you're lucky, because you've seen something so beautiful, poor, weak human nature can't bear it.

After a long time Mis' MacFarland spoke.

"It has to happen on earth, once in a while," she said, "the heart's desire to millions and millions of people living and dead--the dream of all who know the meaning of love. Sometimes it must come true."

That's how it made me feel, and I've always wanted to be a witness to what I saw--but there aren't many to whom you dare to tell it.

After a time we went back and he was lying there, his face s.h.i.+ning like Moira's had when she'd found him in the dark s.p.a.ces where she'd had to search for him. His hair was like dark silver, and his eyes were young like Moira's and blue as the sea at dawn. Wisdom was what was in his face, and love--and he lay there, quiet, holding Moira's hand in his.

But even as I looked a change came over him and I saw the end wasn't far away, and Moira saw it and clung fast to him.

"Take me with you," she said. "I have found you and can't leave you.

I've looked for you so often and I couldn't find you. We lost each other so many times and the road together was so blind."

"It's all the same," he said, "she knows." He nodded to Mis' MacFarland.

"It's all the same."

Mis' MacFarland motioned to me and I came to her and I was trembling like a leaf.

"It's only walking into another room," she said.

Moira sat beside him, his hand in hers, pleading with her eyes. He turned to Mis' MacFarland--"You make her understand," he said, "we all have to wait our turn. You make her understand that we're all the same."

And we knew that he was talking about life and death. And then, as I watched, I saw the life of him was ebbing out and saw that Moira knew it. And then he was gone, just like the slow turning out of a light.

Moira turned to Mis' MacFarland and looked at her, and then I saw she'd gotten to the other side of grief, to where Mis' MacFarland was--to the place where there wasn't any death.

"THE FAT OF THE LAND"[21]

[Note 21: Copyright, 1919, by The Century Company. Copyright, 1920, by Anzia Yezierska.]

BY ANZIA YEZIERSKA

From _The Century_

In an air-shaft so narrow that you could touch the next wall with your bare hands, Hanneh Breineh leaned out and knocked on her neighbor's window.

"Can you loan me your wash-boiler for the clothes?" she called.

Mrs. Pelz threw up the sash.

"The boiler? What's the matter with yours again? Didn't you tell me you had it fixed already last week?"

"A black year on him, the robber, the way he fixed it! If you have no luck in this world, then it's better not to live. There I spent out fifteen cents to stop up one hole, and it runs out another. How I ate out my gall bargaining with him he should let it down to fifteen cents!

He wanted yet a quarter, the swindler. _Gottuniu!_ my bitter heart on him for every penny he took from me for nothing!"

"You got to watch all those swindlers, or they'll steal the whites out of your eyes," admonished Mrs. Pelz. "You should have tried out your boiler before you paid him. Wait a minute till I empty out my dirty clothes in a pillow-case; then I'll hand it to you."

Mrs. Pelz returned with the boiler and tried to hand it across to Hanneh Breineh, but the soap-box refrigerator on the window-sill was in the way.

"You got to come in for the boiler yourself," said Mrs. Pelz.

"Wait only till I tie my Sammy on to the high-chair he shouldn't fall on me again. He's so wild that ropes won't hold him."

Hanneh Breineh tied the child in the chair, stuck a pacifier in his mouth, and went in to her neighbor. As she took the boiler Mrs. Pelz said:

"Do you know Mrs. Melker ordered fifty pounds of chicken for her daughter's wedding? And such grand chickens! s.h.i.+ning like gold! My heart melted in me just looking at the flowing fatness of those chickens."

Hanneh Breineh smacked her thin, dry lips, a hungry gleam in her sunken eyes.

"Fifty pounds!" she gasped. "It ain't possible. How do you know?"