University of Virginia Library

“Another summer brings another June,
With August on the way. When August comes,
Our friends will have an anniversary,
And celebrate, maybe, their overflowing
First year of ecstasy. They have come back
As frisk from their delirious honey-moon
As two bedraggled spaniels tied together
Out in the rain all night.”

Althea frowned
On Doctor Quick, who pondered with an air
Of one who was not telling everything.
“I cannot say,” she said; “I have not seen them.
I hope they like each other.”

“Well, they don't,”
Said he; “and I'm at work on a prognosis—
Which is a medical word, my frowning one,
Meaning their chance or probability
Of getting well. Their case is not a nice one.
No pills or tinctures that I know about
Will cure them, and I'm sorry; which is to say
I'm sinful glad. Why so? It serves 'em right.
And I speak with a heart swollen so large
With kindness and insatiable good will
To man and woman that I'm short of breath.
I'd be a better doctor if my heart
Were not so large. I should have been a priest;
For I might then have comforted the wicked,
If not the selfish and infatuated,
Who are God's own to save. His laws are said
To be obscure; yet my belief in them
Uncovers them, and sees them occupied
Not far from where we live. They are outside
The kingdom of our wits, and frequently
Are inconsiderate of our best mistakes.
They wake us up and make us hate ourselves
Till we cease hating them. Sometimes we can't;
And we are for the scrap-heap, to be wasted.
We dread the sound of our deliverers,
And shut them out, because we like to starve;
Or say because we cannot face ourselves
In a true looking-glass. Few of us can;
But that won't save our neighbors, who are shaken
Out of a silly dream that won't come back
To punish them again. They are awake
Today in a cold prison, which has a door
That has no bolt. And there's a looking-glass;
And there's our old friend Time. You may remember
When I presented him, a year ago,
And asked you to believe in him. He knows you,
And he will not forget you. He remembers
Your shameless estimation of my merit
Because of my large heart—which is a menace
To eminence and applause. My godless uncle
Knew it, although he said it differently—
In words less tempered with extenuation,
And so the more profanely to the point.”

Althea smiled, with a satirical
Affection in her eyes: “You like your voice;
You like your voice more than you like your friends;
Or you would tell them, confidentially,
What you are trying to say. What has your heart
To do—you mention hearts as if you had one—
With our imprisoned neighbors? I am sorry
For all who are in prisons. I am in one,
And I am just as sorry for myself,
And doing myself no good. About the best
That I have done is not to have done worse
Than to lose all that I believed was mine,
And to be disillusioned and deceived
Unspeakably in what I have supposed
Was my importance. When the Bible says
No chastening for the present seemeth joyous,
I don't say that it does. Is there much left
For me to say?”

“No, not much—for the present,”
He said; and he repeated, “for the present.
But fix your diligence hard on those three words,
And hold them well. Don't let them get away.
Don't play with them. I doubt if in our language
There are three other words that will say half
To you that they are saying. For your life's sake,
Seize them. They are the best words in your book.”

“There are not many,” she said, “that are worth reading.
I see so many pages that are empty,
Or blurred with memories that have lost a meaning,
That nowadays it looks best in the dark;
And if I touch it, I've a dusty finger
To pay for my indifference.”

“You are not
Indifferent; you are desperate,” said he;
“And that's not good for ladies living alone.”
She sighed, and writhing slightly under her clothes,
Laughed at him with a melancholy pity:
“There never was a doctor in the world
Before who knew so much. If desperation
Is a mistake, and a wrong medicine
For loneliness, have you an easier one
To swallow, or a sweeter one to taste?
If you have in your pharma-what-you-call-it
A drug for memory that will make it sleep,
And has no evil in it, for heaven's sake,
Bring me as many blessed pounds of it
As you may carry and not break your back.”

“My back will carry mountains. It is yours,
Not mine,” said he, “that is in danger now.
For it has carried all that it should bear,
And for as long as would be necessary
If reason were the king of circumstance,
And could wear folly's crown. But since it isn't,
And can't, it can do only what it can—
Which is occasionally not a little.
It may be well for you and your impatience,
Before you wear another pillow out
With your indignant head, trying to sleep,
First to get down on your two little knees
And thank the Lord that folly, with all his power,
Is not yet absolute.”

“It will do no good,”
She said, “to tell you twice how fond you are
Of hearing your own voice. It's a good voice,
But it is not the Lord's, or an archangel's.
And why be suddenly so concentrated
On folly? Am I a fool? You dwell on it
As if you had just found a new disease.”
He smiled, and smoked. “No, it is not a new one.
Indeed, I do not know of one that's older.
I saw the Talifers—I mean Talifer
And his exotic helpmate—yesterday;
And that may be why folly follows me
Like a wet dog today. The law may call her
A wife, but she was never a Talifer,
And never will be one. So there remains
Only one Talifer; and who shall say
That more than one might not be a profusion,
A prodigal duplication, if you like,
Or a majestic error. For one of him—
And you will surely say it after me—
Will serve, at least for one community,
Better than two. Would you have, if you might,
Two Talifers in one town?”

“There are not two,”
She snapped, “in this town, or in any other.
If I don't sleep tonight as once I did,
When I was two feet long, never suppose
My fear of hearing there's another like him
Keeps me awake. There's not another like him.
You know there never was, and never will be.”

“The biologic odds are all against it;
Yet I don't know, for sure,” he said, and laughed
Inside; and feeling his laugh, Althea scowled.
“There may be one somewhere; and where he is,
He will be notable, and will be observed
And envied, and will not escape, not wholly,
The qualifying eye and the true tongue.
For truth will say that no man has a right
To look so great and still be not so great.
When all is said, you know, this Talifer
Is not a Julius Caesar—which is well;
For with a Julius Caesar in your house,
You might not be so tranquil as without him.
Talifer would be more to your desire.
And yet, you know, this Talifer, on occasion,
May weigh an atom heavy. While he looks
To be made only of magnificence,
And race, and grace, there may be, on occasion,
A few too many mortal ounces of him;
And on occasion—I go timorously—
When he is not too sure of his foundation,
He might appear to the malevolent
A little owlish and oracular—
As when he told, with Karen listening
Like an oblivious kitten, how it was
That he awoke (he must have been like Saul
Before he became Paul) and found—what was it?—
Peace, with a capital. That's what it was,
And a good thing to find. Yet, all the same,
He was, you know—he was, he was, you know—
Well, I said heavy.”

“I dare say he was,”
Althea cried, with her eyes flashing anger.
“And if he was, it's a great shame and pity
That there is nothing to be done about it.”
She rose and looked away, rubbing her eyes
In disappointed rage. “Why do you tell
These things to me?” she said, turning at last
To see him. “I thought—I thought—you were a friend.
If there's a grain of tiresome useless truth
In this, are you supposing that I care?
Why do you say this now? What does it mean?”
He was already there, and his warm hands
Were on her shoulders, holding her securely.
“Only to see the sparks, my fiery one,”
He said, and laughed. “Only to see them fly,
And to be sure the fire has not gone out.
And as for Talifer, you are right, my child,
You are quite right. There's an elected remnant,
A scattered one, a small one, far to seek,
On whom accomplishment, as the word goes,
Might be a blemish—like a price-mark scratched
On a jade vase. They are themselves enough.
Their being alive is their accomplishment,
Their presence and urbanity their service.
They are more loved than envied, never hated,
And are so few that they are never scorned.
I have known two of them in forty years,
And one of them is dead. Now I have told
As much as need be told of Talifer,
And may as well get out. The wedding guest
Here beats his breast. Farewell, but not for ever.”
He drummed himself like an orang-outang,
And disappeared. Althea, trembling, watched him.
Long after he had vanished and was lost
Among the trees, Althea could still see him,
As he was when he left her. He was laughing,
As if he did not care whether she trembled
Or not. And trembling still, she wondered why
He laughed—or why an anniversary
In August was amusing. Still she trembled,
And still she wondered why.

There were no signs
In August of an anniversary
More festive than today's of yesterday,
Or none to be discerned. Quick, leisurely
Approaching, found them where not long ago
He had congratulated Talifer,
He feared, somewhat evasively. Today,
Evasion would have hung its head and hidden
Behind a tree. There was nothing to evade;
And there was less to mourn or deprecate,
Since all was going well.

Talifer rose,
And with a carved smile on an older face,
Composed a welcome that would serve; and Karen,
With eyes half shut, gave him some languid fingers
To do with as he might. “Where is the band?”
He asked, with a grimace after a pause.
“If you are so indifferent and informal,
And so inured to joy that you don't feel it,
My small attention, Karen, and remembrance—
Don't forget that—I fear, may not excite you.
I hoped it might. But I was always hoping,
And am addicted still to certainties.
If you, whom God hath joined, don't understand it,
I'll tell you that his purpose, dark sometimes,
Was never clearer. Karen, you are lovely,
But you are not alert. Open your eyes
Wider, and try to purr, and put your paws
Out nicely. For this time I've brought a mouse.
Regard him: Apollonius Rhodius.
You said that you had never tasted him,
And I remembered—as I'm doing always,
And having not so much as a kind word.
He looks a bit forgotten and long-tailed
To me perhaps, but I don't have to eat him.
Now he is yours; and with my compliments,
And with my most agreeable intimations
Of your contented coming retrospect.
Nothing is lost, or it is best to think so;
And life, if not unduly maimed or stretched,
Is not too long. You are both doing your best.
Why do these trees, who are all strength and wisdom,
Grow up, with roots in earth, instead of down,
With roots in air? Think for an hour of that,
And find your thoughts becoming beautiful.
Think for an hour of how and why things grow.
If there's to be no music, or thanksgiving,
There may be hidden drink. Will Talifer
Please clap his hands and see?”

“I will,” said Karen.
“If you must pay for hearing yourself talk,
You have my thanks for Apollonius.
I'm purring them. There are not many cats
Today who are pursuing him.”

Talifer's mouth
Deformed his countenance till it became
A face that was as homelike and engaging
As a bronze Dante smiling. “Quick,” he said,
“You are the crowned among the fortunate.
You know what women want.”

“I do,” said Quick—
“Sometimes; and I have lost a world of sleep
For what they do not want. They don't want me,
Talifer. There are two at least who don't;
And elsewhere there are probably some others.
I don't know why. I'm cheerful; I can talk;
I have a studious eye for small attentions;
I pick things up; I'm kind to animals;
I dance with feet that are not too ferocious;
I can shift busily from the wrong note,
And fade from argument imperceptibly;
I can be childlike when they flatter me,
And tell them lies that they like best to hear;
I can be gracious when they say I'm going
To places where I'd rather be damned than go;
I can avoid reminding them that men
Are sometimes restive and preoccupied
With trivial claims and interferences
Of life and death. But they, not knowing my worth,
Make light of me. A sigh for merit wasted
Says I am not the man. I don't know why.
Althea's thumbs are down at sight of me—
While Karen here would pour petroleum
All over me, and sing to see me burn.
I don't know why.”

“You might think for an hour,”
Said Karen, who rose drowsily and yawned
Behind her Apollonius Rhodius.
“I'll send out what you creatures think you need,
And take a nap. You will do better alone.
Cats can read signs.”

“An anniversary nap,”
Quick said, “is always a brave evidence.
It argues that a year of discipline
Has not undone the present or laid waste
The future. You will live for a long time,
And may as well prepare.” He followed her
With eyes that asked and answered an old question,
And watched her all the way into the house.

“Well, Talifer,” he said as he sat down,
“You are not voluble this afternoon.
You leave to me and to my reticence
The normal occupation of three tongues.
I miss today the measured eloquence
That I heard once—only a little more
Than one brief year ago—in Karen's cottage,
When I came back and was to be surprised.
You told me then that I was your best friend,
And I believed you. I believe you still—
As you do. For you must, or you would never
Have listened the other day when I set out
So painfully to prove it. Where's the use,
When a thing's here, for men like you and me
To say it's warm, or that September's coming,
Or so on? When I told you, for your knowledge,
Only what you told me when you were silent,
You had your reason for not showing me
The short way home. You are about the last
On whom the uninvited would intrude
Without a warning and at least a small
Response. Was I misled when I was here
Last time—last week? When I do less than well,
I shall have doubts, or qualms, and hesitations.
But hark—do I hear tinklings in the distance?
By heaven, I do. Karen, though cold herself,
Remembers warmth in others. Or doesn't she?
I may be going too fast.”

“What in God's name,”
Talifer said, relaxing desolately,
And all but angrily, “do you know about it?
You know as much as you have read in books,
Written by those who know no more than you
Of what it means to live, as I have lived,
For twelve months, and each longer than the last,
In an—in a—...”

“In an aquarium,
May be, perhaps, what you are trying to say,”
Quick answered, filling slowly a tall glass.
“And if I don't know everything about it,
I do know two determining good reasons
Why you are to escape—over the top,
Flop, flop, down to the good warm earth again,
And solid on your feet. Where, and oh, where ...
Not far from here, my friend, if I guess well.”

Talifer sighed, watching a frosted glass
With clear eyes that saw nothing. “I don't know,”
He said, “that I shall ever escape—from her.
I found her yesterday, lying asleep,
With sunlight shining on her like warm glory
On a white saint with hair as dark as night.
She was too beautiful to be a woman.
She was like nothing I had seen before,
And had a saint's appearance, or a child's—
I don't know which. Her face was partly turned
Away from me, and there was her white throat—
A small thing to mean life. For just a moment
I thought how pleasant it would be to seize it,
And hold it; and I was sorry and ashamed.
For though it was at worst a bitter fancy,
I wished it had not been.”

Quick, who was drinking,
Chuckled and choked. “When I was young,” he said,
“I could have slain at least three schoolmasters,
Who lathered me when I was not absorbed,
And been a merry child. I was not merry,
Because my uncle was not imaginative.
He would begin sometimes where the schoolmasters
Left off. My uncle was a sinful man,
Who left me everything. When I was older,
He said I was like Reuben, son of Jacob,
Because I was unstable—and so I am,
Somewhat, though I have merit. No, Talifer,
I am not fearful of your isolating
Body and soul of anything that's alive—
Not even of a wasp—or never unless
He stings you twice. If there is nothing worse
In you than an incipient willingness
To strangle Karen, you are sound and safe,
And far from crime's alarms.”

Talifer tapped
His glass with idle fingers, and said, grimly,
“I'll venture to believe it, if you say so.
Nevertheless, I could say things to you
That in a meaningless and friendly way
You might believe you partly understood.
But they are best not said.”

The doctor poked
His cubes of ice: “You do not have to say them,
Talifer, for I know them. Disembarrass
Your brain of its indelicate preparations,
And finish that drink before it is all water.
For you have lived a year too long on water,
And your discretion will be inundated
Unless you act. In ages unrecorded
You may have been aquatic, but your fins
And gills are gone, and you have two legs now.
You are not even amphibious, Talifer;
And you are not to drown because a woman,
Who is in habit more than in appearance
A watchful trout or an elusive eel,
Has made you to believe you might as well.
It is not so. No more are you to perish
For a sphinx-eyed Greek-reading Lorelei,
Or philosophic siren. God knows best
Why she was born, or why she must be here,
From nowhere, to become the chatelaine
Of your unhappy castle. At first sight,
And by the nameless law that lets you know,
Karen appraised Althea and envied her,
And hated her with her best graciousness—
Which is, if you still notice it, a thing
Considerable—and was repaid at once
With hate as gracious, and with more sparks in it.
If Karen saw them, and with her perceptions
There is a possibility that she did,
She may have made of them partly a reason
For teaching you to swim. Is it not strange
That one right woman, dowered with fate for you,
Should be left waiting while you might possess
And cherish, in an amatory trance,
A changeling epicene anomaly,
Who sleeps, and finds her catnip in the classics?
Is it, or is it not, remarkable?
I don't say. All I say is, your release
Will not wait for next year, or the year after.”

Talifer shrugged his admirable shoulders,
And answered first with a forgiving smile:
“I cannot follow if you go too fast.
We Talifers have always found ourselves
A little behind—or, if you like, old-fashioned;
Or feudal, if you like. Feudal, or foolish,
Or what you will, and maybe never in step
With a world hurrying after a brass band
That plays—yes, rather too loud. We are inclined
To let the world go by, and doing no harm,
To stay for a while longer as we are—
‘We’ being only one, the last of us.
I do not know that we are right or wrong,
Or what is wrong or right, or how much longer
We shall go on—if we go on at all.
Assuming a short view, it looks today
As if in me might be the end of us.
But there are still some providential clouds
Between now and tomorrow, and I'll wait.
An ancient fancy has passed on to us
An old man with an hour-glass and a scythe—
Which, with him always mowing, may reduce
My tangled weeds and grass to a clean field.
I have had glimpses, though I see just now
Nothing impending. There has been no stain
On our name yet; and Karen, whatever she is,
Has done my name no wrong. There is a duty,
It seems to me, that I owe to my name,
And to the voices of my ancestors.
I may not always think so. And the voices—
Time and events may drown them.”

“Talifer,”
Quick murmured, pouring not quite half a pint
Of amber spirit into his large glass,
“If my descriptive and incisive uncle
Were now alive, and sitting with us here,
He could say everything aloud to you
That I can only whisper silently
To a sad heart. If I am stimulated,
And say things to you that I do not mean,
I mean them all the same. You are my friend,
Talifer; and you are, if you don't mind,
At times a rather splendid sort of ass—
A nobler sort, we'll say, than should be nibbling
Where there is nothing but dead leaves to eat.
You are the last of all the Talifers;
And you might yet be monstrously in tune
With your inertia and your temporizing,
If you should drown yourself for one of those
Incurable stupidities of duty
That would be wept in heaven. Time and events?
God help us, Talifer. If I go home
From here inebriated, and scare women,
Or make of merit a fell spectacle
For curious and contaminable youth,
It will go on your books. For you have done
A sinful thing in rifling, as you have,
The last and inmost pocket of my faith,
Which held a jewel that will be lost to me,
And to far more than me, unless, by heaven,
You give it back and promise never again
To stir my sorrow and wrath, or make me cry
Into my drink, or make me wring my hands,
Or, like a wounded and forsaken hound,
Howl all night long, as I shall, presently,
If you should say again, in one relation,
Time and events. To hell with time and events,
And first with time. And you know what I mean.
Your eyes do, if you don't. For both of them
Are shining with a bright benevolence
That augurs well. You will not drown yourself;
And you may still find Peace. Who shall say no?”

Talifer, startled for a moment, stared
At Quick, whose countenance was not unflushed,
And smiled. “There may have been some temporizing
In my last words,” he said. “I have forgotten
Just what they were, or what they may have meant.
There are so many words that mean so little.
If I know what yours mean, you will have patience.
Sometimes I do not know what anything means;
And you might not, with my last year behind you.”