Back Aa

Glory Of The Conquered

Close

<h2 id="id01700" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XXXVIII</h2> <h4 id="id01701" style="margin-top: 2em">PATCHWORK QUILTS</h4> And now that the first ten minutes had passed he felt anew the futility of his errand. His first look into her face made him certain he might better have remained in Chicago. The thing which cut off all approach was that she too had done some work on the surface. It seemed to him as he sat there in utter silence that he had been brutal, not alone to her heart, but to his own, that he asked too much, not only of her command, but of his. He had come to talk of Ernestine and the future; the things about him drew him overmasteringly to Karl and the past. She had taken him to her little sitting room up stairs, forced to do so because the fire down stairs had gone out. He understood now why it was she had faltered so in asking him to come up here. Here was Karl's big chair—many things from their library at home. It was where she lived with her past. She wanted no one here. She would make no attempt at helping him. She sat there in silence, her face white, almost stern. In her aloofness it was as though she were trying to hold herself, from the consciousness of his presence. He too remained silent. For he was filled with the very things against which he had come to protest. It was Karl who was very close; it was the thoughts of Karl's life which filled him. His heart had never been so warm for his friend, his appreciation had never been so great as now. Karl, and all that Karl meant, had never been so close, and so dear. And the words he finally said to Ernestine, words of passionate tenderness spoken in utter unconsciousness of how far he had gone from his purpose, were: "I do not believe any of us half appreciated Karl!" Startled, she gave him a long, strange look. "No, Dr. Parkman,"—very low—"neither do I." "I have been looking into it since. I wanted to throw Karl's results to the right man. He was head and shoulders above them all." There was a slow closing of her eyes, but she was not shrinking from him now;—this the kind of hurt she was able to bear. "If he had been left to work out his life—" but he stopped, brought suddenly to a sense of how far he had lost himself. She too saw it. "Dr. Parkman,"—with a smile which put him far from her—"this is what you came to say? You think I need any incitement? You needn't, Dr. Parkman,"—with rising passion—"you needn't. Every time I leave this room two things are different. I have more love for Karl—more hate for his destroyers. And those two passions will feed upon me to the end of my life!" Instinctively he put out a protesting hand. It was too plain that it was as she said. "More love for Karl—more hate for his destroyers,"—she repeated it with a passionate steadfastness as though it comprehended the creed of her life. "His—destroyers?" he faltered. "What do you mean—by that?" And she answered, with a directness before which dissembling and evasion crumbled away: "Read the answer in your own heart. "And if you cannot look into your own heart," she went on, unsparingly, "if your own heart has been shut away so long that it is closed even to yourself, then look into your looking-glass and read the answer there. Let the grey hairs in your own head, the lines in your own face,—yes, the words of your own mouth—tell you what you would know of Karl's destroyers." He drew in his lips in that way of his; one side of his face twitched uncontrollably. He had come to reach her soul, reach it if must be through channels of suffering. He had not thought of her reaching his like this. But she could not stop. "And if you want to know what I have gone through, look back to what you have gone through yourself—then make some of those hours just as much stronger as love is stronger than friendship—and perhaps you can get some idea of what it has been to me!" He was dumb before that. Putting it that way there was not a word to say. He saw now the real change. It was more than hollowed cheeks and eyes from which the light of other days had gone, more than soft curves surrendered to grief and youth eaten out by bitterness. It was a change at the root of things. A great tide had been turned the other way. But in the days when happiness softened her and love made it all harmonious he had never felt her force as he felt it now. Reach this? Turn this? The moment brought new understanding of the paltriness of words. It was she who spoke. "Dr. Parkman,"—looking at him with a keenness in which there was almost an affectionate understanding—"you did not say what you intended to say when you came into this room. You intended to speak of me—but the room swept you back to Karl. Oh—I know. And it is just because you were swept back—care like this—that I am going to tell you something. "Doctor,"—blinded with tears—"we never understood. None of us ever knew what it meant to Karl to be blind. After—after he had gone—I found something. In this book"—reaching over to Karl's copy of Faust—"I found a letter—a very long letter Karl wrote in those last few days, when he was there—alone. I found it the day I went out to the library alone—the day before they—broke it up. Oh doctor—what it told! I want you to know—" but she could not go on. When she raised her head the fierce light of hate was burning through the tears. "Can you fancy how I hate the light? Can you fancy with what feelings I wake in the morning and see it come—light from which Karl was shut out—which he craved like that—and could not have? Do you see how it symbolises all those other things taken from him and me? He talked of another light—light he must gain for himself—light which the soul must have. And Karl was longing for the very light I was ready to bring! He would have believed in it—turned to it eagerly—the letter shows that. Do you wonder that there is nothing but darkness in my soul—that I want nothing else? Look at Karl's life! Always cut off just this side of achievement! Every battle stopped right in the hour of victory! Made great only to have his greatness buffetted about like—held up for sport!—I will say it! "—in fierce response to his protesting gesture—"It's true!" He tried to speak, but this was far too big for words which did not come straight from the soul. "Do you know what I am doing now?" She laughed—and none of it had told as much as that laugh revealed. "I am making patchwork quilts! Can you fancy anything more worthless in this world than a patchwork quilt?—cutting things up and then sewing them together again, and making them uglier in the end than they were in the beginning? Do you know anything more futile to do with life than that? Well that's where my life is now. My aunt had begun some, and I am finishing them up. And once—once—" but the sob in her voice gathered up the words. He wanted to speak then; that sob brought her nearer. But she went on: "I sit sewing those little pieces together—a foolish thing to do, but one must be doing something, and as I think how useless it is there comes the thought of whether it is any more useless than all the other things in life. Is it any more useless than surgery? For can a great surgeon save his best friend? Is it any more useless than science—for can science do anything for her own? Is it any more useless than ambition and purpose and hope—for does not fate make sport of them all? Is it any more useless than books—for can books reach the hearts which need them most? Is it any more useless than art—for does art reach realities? Is it any more useless than light—for can light penetrate the real darkness? Is it,"—she wavered, quivered; she had been talking in low, quick voice, her eyes fixed on something straight ahead, as though reading her words out there before her. And now, as she held back, and he saw what she saw and could not say, he asked for her, slowly: "Is it any more useless than love?" <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2