University of Virginia Library

Natalie, playing lightly with an envy
Of almost anything not herself alive,
And everything not alive, saw the years coming,
And having seen more of them than were important,
Smiled at herself and wished herself extinct—
Or said so to the cat, who pondered it,
As if in doubt, and went to sleep again.
She sat where they had spoken yesterday
So carelessly of Garth, who in time gone
Had sat there with them and as carelessly
Promised himself the wealth that was for him
His pillow and his dream—not that he cared
For wealth, but for the quieting of some tongues.
Matthias, long familiar with it all,
Had been for years indulgent and amused,
But now for years had nodded, and sometimes
Had yawned. It was his tongue, more than another,
Garth would have quieted. Now Garth was quiet,
Natalie thought, and missed him. She had liked him—
Partly for his futility, perhaps,
Having one something like it as her own
To nourish and conceal.

From where she was
She looked down on the tops of the same trees
That had been there when she had told Matthias
She loved him—which was temperately true.
She did not hate him, and had married him
For reasons old as history, and as good
As reasons mostly are when they are found.
“I might have married Garth and starved to death,
Or Timberlake, if he had seen it so,
And maybe poisoned him,” Natalie said,
To herself and to the trees. The trees and rocks
Down there were calling her. There was a place
Below those twinkling peaks of oaks and birches
Where men who had been sent there by Matthias
Had found Garth in a square hole, like a door
In a square monstrous rock that she remembered
As one too large to be. More like a tomb,
Where man's hand for a time had followed nature's,
Than a thing there by chance, it would be there
When Egypt was forgotten, and was calling
Natalie to come down to the dark place
Where they found Garth. She was afraid to go,
Which may have been a reason why she went.
“I wonder why we go to see the places
Where those we liked have died,” she thought, “and why
We feel as if there must be something there.
I wonder if I'm different from the others
Who are like me.”

Down where the gorge began,
Leaving the sky behind her, she could feel,
Like an embrace of an unpleasant stranger,
The chilliness of an untimely twilight
Surrounding her, and holding her at first
With no heart to go on. Yet on she went,
And down; and on again and down again,
Until there was a rock that filled the distance
With a square darkness. On she went, and down,
And down, and down, till she could see a blot
That might have been a door, with two dim pillars,
Carved out of night, on either side of it.
And she saw now, knowing before she saw him,
That she was not the only one alive,
There in that place of death.

“So it is you,”
She said; “and it was in there they found him.
Why don't you say you are surprised to see me?”

“I have outlived surprise, I told you so
Last night,” said Timberlake, regarding her
With a sad pleasure that belied laconics
Until her silence warned him, and he smiled:
“A normal morbid mortuary impulse
Brought me to see this place, as it did you.
Why should I be surprised? Are you surprised?”

“Never, by you. If they had found you there
Instead of Garth, I should have shed some tears
Of nature, none of wonder.”

“Am I worth,
To you, the moisture of a natural grief
After these years?” He shrugged, and turned his eyes
To the square darkness in the giant rock
Before him. “If I said it the wrong way,
It was because the past got hold of me—
When you and I and Garth, and good Matthias,
Were young and uninformed. Matthias thinks
That he was informed always, but he wasn't,
And is not yet—which is good providence
For him, and a good security for you.
The more I think of it, the less I'm certain
There was not too much joy on Ararat
When they all sat and watched the water falling.
It must have pleased the animals.”

“If it's Garth
Telling you that,” she said, “we'll go away.
I'm not a skylark lately, and that hole
Is too dark for a door; and your bright words
Make it no lighter. I have seen the place,
And seeing it is enough. He was in there.
I wonder where he was and what he suffered
Before he found his way there. We don 't know,
And so had best be still. Matthias says
Garth was a fool.”

“Matthias may be right,”
Said Timberlake. “So many of us are waiting
To wear the mark of some such name as that,
That he may throw it where he will, almost,
Assured that it will stick. He 's a good man—
Matthias—and you know what else he is.
I love him none the less; I love him more
Than you do, Natalie. He saved my life,
But that 's not why. You see, I'm sorry for him,
Which is one reason. There are other reasons,
And they are things of nature—like those tears
You might have shed for me. Matthias needs
As many friends now as there are commandments,
Or more than any man has. Once he had two,
One of them being Garth—for what he was;
Now he has one—for what he is—in me.
The miracle is, he cares. Why should he care
For what is left of me? ... What—who is this!”
Natalie, while he asked, was in his arms—
Where she would stay or fall. He felt her there,
Clinging and shaking in a desperation
So long imprisoned that escape at last
Was only to another. Timberlake
Held her and wondered what her life had been
To break like this, while a great helplessness
Humbled and stung him. She was his to take
Or fly with, if he would. He had known that;
And there was more than that. He kissed her mouth,
And face and eyes, and held her closer to him,
Remembering why it was he was alive,
And at whose peril. Then she freed herself,
As if in anger, and stood looking at him,
Her mask of resignation all washed off
With tears. “You know,” she said, “we are two ghouls,
Coming down here like this to watch a hole
Where a man died. Worse yet, we are two fools.
I hope you are beginning to know that.”
She sat down on a rock and laughed at him
Like an unhappy witch, with a warm face
That was itself a witchcraft.

“It's not easy
For me to be a scholar, with you near me,
And never was.” He leaned against a boulder,
And for a time saw nothing but a face
Below him, looking up, and seriously
Said nothing, till he found a few poor words
That had a wealth of melancholy truth:
“There was too heavy a credit on his side,
And there was little on mine; we'll say enough,
When added carefully, to make a sum
About as large as ordinary honor—
Which, if it's all we have, is more than ...”

“Say it,
Say it,” she said. “Say it is more than love,
Say it is more than happiness, more than life.
Say it is more than everything else together;
And I'll say, when you're done, we are two fools.
Down in me somewhere I'll agree with you,
And then I'll say again, we are two fools.
It does me good to say it, and I enjoy it.
You should have married me, and tortured me,
And got drunk, and left me for other women,
And then come back when you were tired of them.
I should have been the devil and hated you,
And scratched, and made fur fly all over the house,
And loved you, and one day I might have killed you,
And then myself. That would have been all right.
We should have killed each other, and so known
That we had lived a little before we died.
Can you see there no comfort? What do you see
In this? It looks to me a waste of being,
And a more desolate foolishness for knowing
Just what it is.” She looked up at him, smiling,
With tears running unhindered from her eyes
And down her cheeks, like little brooks. “Matthias
Would be surprised at this, if you are not;
And I should tell him. There isn 't so much to tell,
More than to say we are three fools together,
Each in a crumbling foolish human house,
With no harm done—save two of them in ruins,
And one of them built happily on a lie.
He thinks I love him, and so throws away
No time or pride in asking why in the name
Of heaven and earth I shouldn 't. That 's his way.
He married me and put me in a cage
To look at and to play with, and was happy—
Being sure of finding me, when he came home,
With my face washed and purring. Poor Matthias!
He says I'm not demonstrative, God bless him,
And he says prayers because I'm not a fright.
He 's a good man, and has been good to me—
But what if many a man like him should learn
Somethings that many a man must never know?
Now look at me, and say, to comfort me,
That I'm a fool. You know that you are one—
Honor or not.” She made a face at him,
And rubbed her eyes with a wet handkerchief
That was by now almost invisible.

He watched her, fancying she was like a child
Who had been crying and was tired of it;
But that was no long fancy. “I'm afraid,”
He said, “that he may soon learn some of them.
Garth, I've a notion, tore a few farewell holes
In the rich web of his complacency,
Letting some truth come in. Whether Matthias
Would see the truth, or would see only holes,
Is a new question. I'm not answering that,
But there's an answer, or say half an answer,
For one of yours—if yours was ever a question.
You know the story in a distant way,
And I would rather never bring it nearer.
I don 't mind what you call me, or mind saying
That all your names will be as true as tar;
Yet in my wilderness I'd like to save
One refuge for reflection and escape.
While you were speaking I saw only your face;
For there was nothing else—until it melted
Into time going back, and I was there
Strangling, in that accursed house again,
Roused out of heavy sleep by knocks and yells
To find myself there swimming, it seemed, in smoke
Too thick to breathe. I knew there was a door
Where I should never find it; and I drowned
There in that ocean of death-heavy smoke
While it was battered in. All I could see—
While I could see—was red light and more smoke,
And hardly much of either. Light went out
Entirely then, and all remembrance of it,
Until I was awake in a dark room,
And heard Matthias. He was asking for me,
And there was friendship trembling in his voice,
As memory will in music we have heard
Somewhere before. I forget many voices,
But not that voice of his, or what it said,
There in the dark.”

“No, you must not forget it,”
Natalie said; “and you must not forget,
If ever you learn, to tell me why it is
Our fates and ways are so malignantly
Mixed up that it 's a miracle to me
So few of us die crazy. I can see
What 's coming for you to say. It 's all I've seen,
Or guessed, for twenty years.”

“I know,” he said,
And with unanswered eyes he watched the place
Where Garth had been, as if in envy of him.
“There's a malignance in the distribution
Of our effects and faculties. It is nature,
And our faith makes it more. If it 's no more,
Garth waited longer than was logical
For a good atheist who believed himself
And life a riot of cells and chemistry—
If he believed it. You say you believe it,
But in that curious woman 's apprehension
Of yours there broods a doubt that frightens you
More than annihilation.”

“The last thing
To frighten me would be that,” said Natalie.
“It's only that I have never been quite ready.”

Timberlake only smiled. “Well, to go back,
When I awoke there was night everywhere.
If I had eyes, I knew they were on fire,
And of no use to me. I heard Matthias,
And only wished that he had never found me;
More of me than my eyes had lost all seeing;
And when my eyes returned I saw Matthias,
All scorched and swaddled, and so happy to see
That I could see, that I was sorry and sick
For wishing in the dark. Don 't wish in the dark;
Or never until you know there 's no more light,
Which is a difficult knowledge. If you tell me
You know what 's coming of what I'm trying to say,
I'm willing enough you should. I knew Matthias
Had found that my unworthiness of you
Was like an apparition stalking always
Between him and your love. Yes, you are right:
I made myself more worthless than I was—
For his sake, and, as I saw then, for yours.
I don 't know what it is that I see now.
If you were not the world and heaven together
For him and his complacent faith in you,
There might be some escape, or compromise
With fire-born obligation even like mine;
Or a maybe-beneficial cataclysm
Might be the best way out, but I don 't know it.
Whether my one way then was folly or fate,
Is more, no doubt, than I deserve to know;
Only, I know that I am glad somewhere
Within me, where so little deserves a wreath,
For one thing right—or not. Fire leaves a mark
On friendship that would be a brand on love,
Always in sight; and even without Matthias,
You might have paused. If you had come to me
For happiness, you might well have murdered me,
As you so playfully have intimated.
I should have tripped and slipped and broken the eggs
Until you might have starved yourself to madness.
There 's no slight fire in you, my child; and time,
Developing combustion, might have achieved
An earthquake, or a woman-quake, within you
That would have blown our problematic house
To chips and flinders, and ourselves as well;
Which would have been more picturesque than pleasant,
More ruinous than unique. The same has happened;
And I have helped, and burned my fingers helping,
To rescue out of hot and smoking ruins
A few things yet worth saving. It 's dark work,
And mostly smoke and ashes. Half the grief
Of living is our not seeing what 's not to be
Before we see too well. You have Matthias,
And a safe nest. I'm ready enough to know
How far that is from nothing.”

Natalie laughed,
And dug holes in the air with nervous fingers.
“When you poor men look in from the outside
With your well-meaning and unmarried eyes,
And see so much, and tell us all about it,
What has a woman left to do but laugh—
Unless she cries? I'm tired of crying now,
And tired of this unearthly place. Come here.”
She reached up for his hands and drew him slowly
Down on his knees, and having him there, surprised him,
Who had outlived surprise, by seizing him
And holding his hot lips with hotter lips
That had alive in them the fire of death
To burn him till he knew what he had lost,
And might have thrown away. Slowly at last
There was an end of that, and she sat gazing
At the black rock that she had come to see,
A rock with a dark entrance like a door.
He lifted her and held her while she pointed,
Like a child frightened, at the place where Garth
Had entered and had stayed. “He was in there,”
She said; and they went silently together
Away from there, together and each alone,
Climbing to find a sky.

Another twilight
Found Natalie, still alone, where she had seen
Matthias in his chair, and Timberlake,
Who would not come tonight. Matthias came,
As always, and as never before; for silence
Came with him, and attended him along
The dim veranda, where he passed her twice,
And twice again, before he stopped and said:
“You chose a merry place for love, you two,
Down there this morning. You should have gone in
Where Garth went—where there was more privacy.”

Natalie waited, but he said no more
“I see, Matthias.” Hesitating only
A moment, she stood up, and without fear
Or care for any danger or disaster,
Said calmly: “You had better know, Matthias.
I'll be direct, and so not like a woman
As to astonish you, but you will know me.
It 's not so dark here that you cannot see me.
Whether you went before me, or came after,
This morning, is no matter. You were there.
Whether you saw me distantly or clearly,
Whether or not you heard me, is no matter.
So long as you were there, that 's everything.
I went without a wish and with no fancy
That I was not alone, and found him there.
He was there to see that place. He was drawn there,
As I was; and what followed was my fault,
If it was anyone 's fault. You saw me there;
And if you heard me, you heard all there is.
There is no more; there'll never be anything more.
There was a man I would have married once,
And likely to my sorrow, but you saved him
Out of the fire—and only saved yourself
By mercy of a miracle. You were brave,
Matthias; and because he was your friend,
That man gave me to you, first having given
Himself to folly, and to waste worse than crime.
I don 't know yet whether he loves me really,
Or if it 's in him to love any woman
Save as a game and an experience.
I know that I'd have given myself to him,
Not caring whether or which. But it was you
Who saved him from the fire, and he remembers,
As he remembered then. He is your friend,
And sometime you may know, wherever he is,
Your need of him. I married you, Matthias,
Because I liked you, and because your love
Was too real to be tortured, and because
There was no better thing for me to do.
Houses are built on more infirm foundations
Than ours, and some of them are standing well.
I would not have you walking in your sleep—
Not after this—as you have said you walked
When you were young. Were we ever young, Matthias?
It must have been a long, long time ago.
You see me as I am, and have been always.
I am not lying to you. Do you believe me?”

Matthias, like an image in the gloom,
Stood silent, looking only at the floor,
While Natalie felt creeping from his eyes
Tears that she could not see. It might have been
For minutes or for hours that he stood there,
And she stood watching him. “Yes, I believe you,”
He said, and stumbled as he walked away.