University of Virginia Library

There came at last a shining afternoon
In late September when his trees all sang,
For Talifer, a fiery dirge together
Of lights and silences. Leaving his house,
Ivied half over with a still vermilion,
Behind him in the sunlight, he walked slowly
Along a darkening road, with trees all round him
That hid the sky with red and yellow leaves,
Of which a few, as he went on alone,
Fell warningly, and in their falling whispered
Relentlessly of time. Time and events,
He muttered, with a twinge of reminiscence,
Had wrought no miracle yet; and he moved on,
Where many a Talifer had gone before him,
Till he was outside his inheritance
And on the world's highway, where still he owned
His human and inalienable right
To walk and do no harm. So Talifer walked,
And did no harm, and had no premonition
Of what a few next hours of life may hide
From man or woman.

He walked until he paused,
Like one compelled to pause, where two stone posts
That were at once familiar and forbidding
Told where he was. A curving road, soon lost
Among remembered autumn-colored trees
That were like his, lay silent there before him,
Like a deserted way to things all gone,
Until a moving shape that was a woman
Came as if called; and seeing Talifer there,
Below her at the gate, where she had seen him
So many times, paused like a frightened ghost
Before she came to greet him.

“Is it you?”
She asked, and let her trembling hand remain
In his until he let it go. “They told me
That you were here again. I hope you are both—
Happy.”

Talifer knew there was no truth
In that, for her large eyes and trembling mouth
Told what a liar she was, and left him asking
If this could be Althea there before him,
After so long. She was almost like one risen
Out of a grave where he had buried her
Alive, and she was not reproaching him.
Sorrow and joy and hope were in those eyes
That would not look from his; and there was fear,
Which might have pierced him deeper with remorse
If hope had not withheld it. He felt most
That she was there, that she was touching him,
And that she was alive, and was Althea.
There might be time for more when he knew more,
And she knew all. So he stood watching her,
And searching with a fearsome exultation
A face not ruinously beautiful,
Yet fair as a face need be to reveal
A beauty that is made of more than faces,
A mobile and a multiple confusion
Of humor, truth, and passion, and of love
That outwears time. Talifer knew them all,
And saw them all again as he had left them.
Sorrow and pain had only softened them;
And anger, which he knew, knowing Althea,
Must once have been a tenant of their house,
Was not there now. There was no trace of it;
And in its absence his humility
Found more room to be felt—as her eyes told him,
And soon her shaken smile. Talifer tried
To talk, but her accusing wonderment
And fear, and half-emerging happiness,
Were made of questions that were now too many
And large for him to answer. He must wait,
And while he had it might as well not let
The moment go.

“You hope that I am—happy?
You said so.” Then he paused, waiting for time
To give him language to go on with it.
“Before I answer that,” he said, not trying
To hide the truth, which in his hungry eyes
Was hers to read, “may I not ask you first
If I have come to nothing in your sight
That you should ask me that? If I deserve
No answer, you deserve no persecution,
And shall have none—from me. If I deserve,
Sometime, a time that is imaginable,
More than another moment of your kindness,
You will not quite forget? Althea, tell me.
Althea, do you hope that I am happy?
If in your heart you do, no matter what things
You say, I shall have no right to be sorry,
And I shall never come this way again.”

“If I believed you never would,” she said,
“I should have many reasons to be sorry,
And a few rights. You have not taken them
Away; you cannot have them. They are mine.”

“I came today because day follows night,
Althea—which may not be, if we knew all,
The least of reasons. At a future time,
It might be charity, if you cared enough,
To say where you believe the best of me
Is buried in me; for it is in me somewhere,
For what it may be worth. Once I believed
That I was not a fool—till I became one.
Today I have a yearning to go back
And find myself again, to recognize
Today in yesterday—which may be asking
A man's whole world too much. How shall I know
Whether I'm there or not, if none shall tell me?
It is important that I find myself;
For we that are no more than ordinary
Are more for that the creatures of our lapses.
They make us—or unmake us. Erring man
Has a cold eye for other men's mistakes,
And women a colder one—which is as well,
Most likely, for a world so full of traps.
If this is unexpected, or prolonged,
You are permitted to interpret it
Alone when I am gone, and as you may.
Althea, if my wishes are worth keeping,
I wish that happiness may still surprise you,
And that you may not damn me to the dust
Until you know. Quick would applaud me now,
And say bravo. If you do, I can bear it.
God gave the moment and I merely seized it.
Tell me, Althea. Tell me—are you sorry?
You have not told me yet to go away,
And your large eyes have still a kindness in them.
If it is only pity, never say so;
Leave me in ignorance, and let me follow
The way that I must find. I have said this
Because time whispered softly in my ear,
And said I might as well. Whether or not
The moment is a trusty counsellor,
We cannot always know. Sometimes it is.”

Althea, whose large eyes were seeing just then
Nothing too clearly, could not see the smile
Of hope in Talifer's. But she could feel it
In the warm melancholy of his voice,
And then she did not care. She rubbed her eyes
Industriously and thoroughly, till she saw him
All as he used to be; and then she laughed
In a doubt-haunted way as if afraid
He might not still be there and was a spirit.

“Well, no,” she said, “I may not have been ready
For time's advice—or for so much of it.
I'll trust that he was kind. He can be kind,
And he can be as cruel as a tiger
That waits in places for what comes along—
Which might not be so bad if he were not
So fierce and so terrific, as your eyes are
When you don't know. But they are not so now;
Now they are kind. I might say they were sorry,
If I knew more of what is hidden in them.”

“Unless I have been looking at a stranger,
With voice and eyes and features of Althea,
You know enough,” he murmured, and looked hard
At a red leaf that had come fluttering down
While he was listening. He took it up,
And after holding it as if uncertain
Of whose red leaf it was, said, like a boy,
“Will you keep this until I come again?”

A warmness, like a sudden wave of healing,
Touched her and filled her and brought happiness,
Unwarranted or not—she did not ask—
Into her eyes, where she could feel it shining.
“I will,” she said; “and I may keep it longer.
Have I no rights? It came down from my tree.”

He smiled, and seizing her small hands, forgot
That his were strong. “God knows you have a right
To more than I have yet to say is yours.
You may have that as well as your red leaf—
If you have room for both, and have a notion
That they go well together.”

“It is good,”
She said, “to find a glimmer of yourself,
In the same face I knew. For when you looked
At me last year, there was no mercy in it.
You don't know how you looked, or how you talked.
You were so solemn and so terrible,
So sure that you were done with me for always,
That I believed—no, I can't lie to you;
One part of it I'm sure you must have heard
In someone else's house before you said it.
I can't believe you found it. ‘Peace,’ I mean.
I shouldn't have said that, and so I said it.
Only a thoughtful and sweet-natured ferret
Like me, would do it.” She made her large eyes larger,
While from his coat she plucked invisible threads
And held them in the air for him to see.
Talifer fixed his eyes on the red leaf,
And then on her changed face: “If what you mean
Is what I see, you have already said it.
But we had best not be here any longer,
Or we shall soon be news. You will not lose it?”

“No, I shall always have it, and I'll watch it.
If rightly kept, they last for a long time—
I shouldn't wonder if a hundred years.
Good-bye, and thank you for it.”

Talifer's world
Was larger as he wandered slowly back,
And autumn held a glory and a warmth
Of colors that had shone nowhere on earth
An hour before. The tunnelled road he found
Through his own trees and foliage, waiting for him,
Was none that he had followed in his life
Till now. It was all new and unexplored,
And was beyond remembrance or belief,
Till suddenly, half-covered with the same
Vermilion, his house told him with hard silence
That here was home. It did not look like home,
And felt less like it as he entered it
And found the same things he had always known
Awaiting him—still there as they had been
When he was born, and some as long before him
As there were Talifers who had lived and died
Within those walls. He was the last of them,
And he had bound himself by church and state,
In a blind lapse of pagan turbulence,
To a soul-frozen disillusionment
That was not woman and was not for man.

A breathing silence and a western light
Was on the couch where Karen lay asleep
While he came in unheard. He felt Althea
There with him, like an injured wistful spirit
That might be with him for as long as life,
And injured for as long, unless he made
Of his not yet humiliated name
A target and a plaything for the town
To pelt with ignominy, and to laugh at
As a high-flying game brought down at last,
And sadly spattered. If it must be so,
He reasoned, he had made the way for it.
So far as man alone made anything here—
A master-question that his pride evaded,
Save in appraising others—he had made
His bed, and here was what he found in it—
One of an ancient God's wise mockeries,
Perhaps, and a right punishment for a fool.
So he might think so long as his eyes rested
On anything not that face. No man could watch
A face and form so harrowingly divine
As hers and tell himself it was all folly
To be its famished prey. But what of that?
There was no sustenance in repeating it,
And no especial sense. The more he gazed
In vain upon that seeming heaven-wrought sheath
Of ice and intellect and indifference,
The more he felt the presence of Althea,
With a forgiving and amused reproach
In her expectant eyes. What was a name,
A shield, or a tradition, or a legend
Worth now, he thought; and in Althea's eyes
He found the only answer. And once more
He gazed at Karen, sleeping. “God in heaven,”
He groaned—“God, fate, or nature, or mischance,
Why was this woman born!” Unconsciously
He raised his arms in angry supplication,
Clutching at nothing with indignant hands
That would have torn the veil between man's folly
And fate. His will was his alone no longer,
And he could only ask, and ask unanswered,
“Why was this woman born!”

With upraised hands
That had no purpose, and with eyes ablaze
With fire that was not his to feel or know,
He stared at her; and while he stared, his words
Were answered with a terror-laden shriek,
A writhing, and a moaning, and a leap
From where she had been lying to the floor,
Where now she stood with hands holding her throat,
Like one who had seen death. She seemed to wait;
And when he made a forward step to save her,
Covered her eyes and swayed. He lifted her,
And felt the frightened warmth of her soft body
Trembling in helplessness. She was alive,
And was awake; but life was horror breathing,
And consciousness a terror without speech.
He laid her softly on the couch again,
And stroked her cold white fingers while a slow
Unfolding of incredible comprehension
Chilled him with her mistake.

“Karen,” he said,
“What fearful dream is this that I have broken?
And why were you afraid to find me here?
I have stood here and seen you lying asleep
Before—because you were so beautiful.
There was no other reason. Did you dream
That I could hurt you, Karen?” He could feel
His words drawn out of him like heavy weights
Of uselessness, and now he felt the sweat
Of cold despair for having spoken them.
They were not words, although they were the truth,
For Karen to believe.

“Don't look at me!”
She cried, and snatched her fingers out of his
As if the touch and sight of them were fire
And death. “Don't touch me with those hands!
Don't look at me! It was your eyes! Your eyes!
It was your hands—it was your hands and eyes!
It was your eyes! Your eyes!” She threw herself
Upright, and groped away like a blind child
Until there was a chair that she could feel
Between him and her fear. She clung to it
As people sinking cling to sinking things
At sea before they drown. “Don't look at me!”
She cried again. “Don't tell me anything—
It was your eyes! Your eyes!”

Talifer sat
Amazed and helpless, fearing if he arose,
Or moved, or spoke, nothing would come of it
But that mad shriek repeated. So he sat
With sad eyes looking at the floor, and waited—
For what, he did not know. The only sound
He heard was of a quick and fearful breathing,
Which hurt him as a stinging lash would hurt,
And made a pain of silence. He looked up
To find her facing him, with her dark eyes
Fixed on him with an unbelieving fear,
Which had a darker and a wilder light
Than fury would have had, or woman's hate.
It was a fear that had no thought of him,
Save as a nameless horror watching her,
And holding her, he fancied, as a serpent
Would hold a bird. And there was pity in that,
And sorrow that was not to be endured
Longer with nothing said.

So he said, “Karen,
You poor bewildered and unhappy child,
You poor mistaken child, what have I done?
I'll tell you, if I can. You were asleep,
And woke up suddenly to find me there,
With my hands raised in hopelessness above you.
I raised them, and not knowing why I did it,
Held them above you and your loveliness,
And your deceiving and unearthly coldness,
And said to God, ‘Why was this woman born?’
You may have heard. If not, you hear it now.
There was no anger in me when I said it;
There was just wonder, and a long despair.
I would not injure you to save my life.
And when you saw me there, there was in me
No thought or furthest wish to give you pain,
Or to molest your sleep. You might have slept
Until you woke to find the sun gone down;
And I should have gone softly somewhere else.
I should have gone like Ahab. He went softly.”
He smiled at her with only a drawn hope,
And thought of nothing better.

After a pause
That each long second lengthened painfully,
He spoke again: “Will you believe me, Karen?
You would not have me telling lies to you,
For somehow I believe that you would know them.
You know so much that I'm afraid of you—
And yet so little as to believe your life
Unsafe with me. This is all comedy,
Karen; and with your knowledge you must know it,
Or must believe that I'm a scurvy fiend,
And liar; and you will never believe that,
Strive as you may. A tortured evidence
May torture truth until it has no features
For even itself to recognize. But—Karen!
You must believe me, for I said the truth.
It was not easy. And we, not being two fools,
Must own the presence of an error somewhere,
And at a better time—not now, God knows—
Acknowledge it, and find what's left to do
With our mishandled lives. I am not mighty,
And when my life is done, so few will know
Or care, that I might sigh to think of it,
If sighs were seeds of glory. I'm not glorious,
Karen, nor am I eminently vicious;
For I can swear to you that I am decent,
And swear again that I am not a liar;
And I'm not much for swearing. If my word
To you were not sufficient, all my oaths
To God would be no more. You saw my hands
Uplifted in a solemn desperation
That may have had a sort of humor in it.
I don't know what it was. I looked at you,
And saw you sleeping there, so beautiful,
So inaccessible and impossible,
That I—well, I forgot what I was doing.
You are enough to make a man forget
That earth is not a tomb—where the dead live,
All reading only what the dead have written,
And all as beautiful as ...”

“Don't!” she cried.
“I have read everything—and in your eyes.
I saw your eyes—and there was death in them.
No!—stay away—don't touch me!”

Talifer, rising,
Like a man battling with a last despair,
Would have restrained and held her, and with words
Of sorrow and assurance pacified her
Into a right belief. But she escaped,
And like a frightened fox eluded him,
This way and that, crying “Quick! Quick! Where are you!”
Out of the room and through the hall she ran,
And through the open doorway to the road
That ran like a long tunnel under trees
Into the town. He did not follow her,
Nor could he have said why. He only knew
There was a will not his that hindered him,
And held him there alone. She would come back
Before she had gone far, and would be sorry
For what she said. If she did not come back ...
He shook his head, and found that he was smiling
Because two mighty and invisible hands
Imprisoned him from action. And he knew,
And would have known if she had never told him,
Where she was going.

And while Talifer,
With trees that might have been the walls of time
Between him and the truth, was asking fate
What a red leaf was saying to Althea
In a new language, there was Doctor Quick,
Reading at home serenely a new book
About the universe, and learning from it
Knowledge as far beyond phenomenon
As brontosauruses had known before him.
Yawning, he stretched himself, and saw the sun
Above a distant hill. The day was going,
He thought, and would be gone with nothing done
Deserving a red letter; and he sighed,
With an untroubled comfortable envy
Of mightier men than he, who had performed
Or thought immortally, and had left their deeds
And thoughts behind them for mankind to cherish.
He sighed again, fearing that he would leave
Only what undiscriminating fortune
Had left to him; and if his pride was quiet
Because of that, his grief to be unwritten
Among the mighty was an easier pang
To bear than endless pain and destitution—
Of which in lives around him he had seen
Far more than was a pleasure. On the whole,
He fancied he was not the most accurst
Of men, and was about to yawn for that,
When someone running, while a startled maid
Stood watching, found a way to where he was,
And stood there panting while she looked at him
With scared, beseeching eyes.

“For God's sake—Karen!”
He said, and shut the door. She ran to him
As to a sturdy father—which may never
Have been quite his imaginary status
In her proximity—and with quivering arms
Around his neck, held herself close to him,
And was held closer still. “Take me away!”
She moaned: “If you meant anything when you said it,
Take me away from here, where I shan't see them—
Where I shan't see his eyes!”

For the first time
A dream that had been his, mostly the whim
Of a luxurious curiosity
That loyalty had for a year disowned,
Was granted. He had not expected it,
But here it was; and what the devil it meant
Would in its time be told. When she looked up,
He kissed her, and her warm lips answered his
As if she cared. He wondered if she did,
Or if she could have told, or if it mattered,
Whether she knew or not. For there she was,
The loveliest biological achievement
That his prehensive eyes had yet approved,
Or that his arms had held. If Talifer
Had lost his wits and thought he had found peace
In finding her, he was to be forgiven,
Though Quick was at a loss for Talifer's
Envisagement of peace. He lifted her,
More for the sake of holding her, perhaps,
Than for her visible need of being lifted,
And left her in a chair. “Drink this,” he said,
“And tell me all about it. Talifer,
Unless another man has had his name,
Would have it so. Tell me, in your own way,
What has been said or done; and in my way,
I'll tell you how it looks.”

“I was asleep,”
She said; “and when I woke I saw his hands,
High in the air above me, like great claws.
And then I saw—and then I saw—his eyes!
I saw death in his eyes—and then I screamed.
I leapt away from him and almost fainted.
He carried me, as you did now, and laid me
In the same place where I awoke and saw him—
And saw his eyes. He talked about his hands,
And said that they were only asking God
Why I was born. But he could see his hands,
And may have told the truth. He could not see
His eyes, or what was in them that I saw,
And could not tell the truth. I saw his eyes—
And I saw death in them. His eyes! His eyes!”

Quick rubbed his chin, and said assuringly,
“It sounds to me more like a benediction,
Or a farewell. He raised his hands to heaven,
And asked why you were born? He might do that,
You see, if you forgot that you were married;
And if you did, it's too late to remember.
There are too many forces you don't know.
Or do you? The Lord knows just what you know,
And why you gave yourself to Talifer—
If ever you did. You never wanted him;
You only wanted what Althea wanted;
And with your face and your anatomy,
And your pied-piper voice, and your quaint learning—
Which, in a crazy way, made all the rest
The more unreal and indispensable—
You stole him, as you might steal priests and bishops,
If you set out. You are the devil, Karen;
And you must not go back to Talifer.
You could not if you would—though, I'll assure you,
Talifer's eyes are not so terrible
As you believe them. If a good old dog
Had wakened you as he did, suddenly,
And you had seen his eyes examining you
Too curiously, you might have found in them
Death and hell-fire together. You might have yelled;
And the good dog, not knowing what else to do,
Might have stood up amazed, on his hind legs,
And barked as if he'd bite you. It was all
A wild misunderstanding on your part,
Yet one we don't regret. You can't go back.”
“I know I can't,” she said. “I am afraid.
I can't go back. You know I can't stay here.
What can I do? What is there left to do?”
He smiled—or grinned: “Oh, there are lots of things.
So far as I can see with your sphinx-eyes
What's left for you to do, I should say first
That you might best imagine yourself running
Out of a burning house, Talifer's house,
And that by now the whole manorial mass
Is no more than a seething crumbling ruin,
Roaring and smoking, with brave firemen spouting
Water all over it that will do no good.
For now it is too late. Nothing of yours
That you're not wearing on your body and bones
Is left. So where's the use of going back?
You don't want Talifer; and from your account,
He doesn't want you. He may have burned, also;
And ashes may be all that you and sorrow
May find of him to mourn. Now there's a thought
Worth polishing and holding to the light.
And all this might have happened. Since it hasn't,
You'll need a few discreet commodities,
More personal and more individual
Than I have here. I shall see Talifer,
And he, with a few prompt and willing words
To your obedient maid, will give me all
You'll need for a few days. And in ten minutes,
Or maybe twenty, I shall be here again.
And all the while I'm gone this world of ours
That was here yesterday will have been whirling
Around the sun—because the sun, being stronger,
Will have his way. And there is a law stronger
Than all the suns that has you in its keeping—
But we'll forget that now. You know it better
Than I can say it—and you can't go back.
You are afraid to go, and you are right—
Though not for the wrong reason you have given.
Even so, you can't go back.”

Karen, who heard him
As an imprisoned victim of a siege
Might have heard murmurs of encouragement
Above the roar of a surrounding battle,
Stared at him with despairing eyes wide open,
Pounding her knees with her two little fists.
“But you are blind!” she cried. “I can't stay here.
I won't stay here! The town would laugh for ever
At me—and I won't be ridiculous.
I'd rather be dead than be ridiculous.”

He stilled her quickly, with a lifted hand
Commanding quiet, and with a patient frown:
“Child of anticipation and illusion,
Not more than one of those invisible ears,
Which might be seen, could have been listening,
Or you'd not say with any such violence
That you will not stay here. I know you won't.
And I know you will never go back again
To find the webs of Talifer's traditions
Entangling and delaying you for nothing.
And you don't dare to go. I forgot that.
You will not flout fate's opportunity,
Which is a part of an immortal progress
In which you are a pilgrim, whether or no.
Now let us yoke our brilliant wits together
And find out, by geography at first,
Just where you are. You are three hours from New York,
And there's a tavern there; and there's a ship
That sails away sometimes. If I know more
Than owls—reputed falsely to be wise—
All you may ask will be sent after you
Before you sail. Nothing of yours that's here
Will be withheld or misappropriated.
Your things, your trinkets, and your dictionaries,
Your Plato, and your Hermes Trismegistus,
And your new Apollonius Rhodius,
And all your little friends, will follow you.
I shall not hold you to your invitation
Till you are more composed. Only, remember
That I'm still here, and your inveterate slave.
Don't be delirious, don't be agitated,
And don't forget that little house in Wales.”