"Do you know what I discovered this morning?" Peter Stock asked, after the three had found a table together. "M. Mondet is trying to keep the people in town for political reasons. It appears that there is to be an election in a few days. All my efforts, and, by non-parishioners, the efforts of Father Fontanel, are regarded as a political counter-stroke—to rush a certain element of the suffrage1 out of the town.... This is certainly Ash-Wednesday, isn't it?"
Charter laughed. "My theory that the Guerin disaster might relieve the craters2 and give surcease to Saint Pierre—doesn't seem to work out. The air is getting thicker, even."
"It isn't really ash, you know," explained Mr. Stock, "but rock, ground fine as neat in the hell-mills under the mountain and shot out by steam through Pelée's valves——"
"It has been rather a graphic morning," Charter remarked. "Friend Stock is virile4 from his activities with Father Fontanel."
"Well, I didn't make a covenant5 with the mountain—as you did this morning in the wine-shop. You should have seen him, Miss Wyndam, staring away at the volcano and, muttering, 'Hang on, old chap, hang on!....' My dear young woman, doesn't a ride on the ocean sound good for this afternoon? You can sit on deck and hold the little black babies. The Saragossa takes another load to Fort de France in two or three hours."
She shook her head. "Not just yet. You don't realize how wonderful the drama is to me—you and Father Fontanel, playing Cassandra down in the city—the groaning6 mountain, and the pity of it all. I confess a little inconvenience of the weather isn't enough to drive me out. It isn't very often given to a woman to watch the operations of a destiny so big as this."
The capitalist turned to Charter. "You know Empress Josephine was born in Martinique and has become a sort of patron saint for the Island. A beautiful statue of her stands in the square at Fort de France where our refugees are encamped. I was only thinking that the map of Europe and the history of France might have been altered greatly if our beloved Josephine had been gifted with a will like this—of Miss Wyndam's."
Her pale, searching face regarded Charter for a second, and his eyes said plainly as words, "Don't you think you'd better consider this more seriously?"
"Maybe you'll like the idea better for the evening, when the Saragossa is back in the roadstead again, comparatively empty," Peter Stock added presently. "Father Fontanel and I have a lot to do in the meantime. Can you imagine our first parents occupying themselves when the first tornado7 was swooping8 down—our dear initial mother, surpassingly wind-blown, driving the geese to shelter, propping9 up the orchards10, getting out the rain-barrels, and tightening11 tent-pins?"
"Vividly," said Paula.
"That's just how busy we are—Father Fontanel and I."
It was to be expected that a sophomoric12 pointlessness should characterize the sayings of the two in the midst of Peter Stock's masculinity and the thrilling magnitude of the marvel13 each was to the other.... They were left together presently, and the search for treasure began at once:
"... The present is a time of readjustment between men and women," he was saying. "It seems to me that the great mistake people make—men and women alike—is that each sex tries to raise itself by lowering the other. It hardly could be any other way just now, and at first—with woman filled with the turmoil14 of emerging from ages of oppression—fighting back the old and fitting to the new. But in man and woman—not in either alone—lies completion. If the two do not quite complete each other, a Third often springs from them with an increased spiritual development."
"Yes," she answered, leaning forward, her chin fitted to her palms. "The I-am and the You-are-not will soon be put away. I like to think of it—that man and woman are together in the complete human. There is a glorious, an arch-feminine ideal in the nature of the Christ——"
"Even in the ineffable15 courage," he added softly. "That is woman's—the finer courage that never loses its tenderness.... His Figure sometimes, as now, becomes an intimate passion to me——"
"As if He were near?"
"As if He were near—still loving, still mediating—all earth's struggle and anguish16 passing through Him and becoming glorified17 with His pity and tenderness—before it reaches the eyes of the Father.... There is no other way. Man and woman must be One in Two—before Two in One. They must not war upon each other. Woman is receptive; man the origin. Woman is a planet cooled to support life; man, still an incandescent18 sun, generates the life."
"That is clear and inspiring," she said. "I have always wanted it said just like that—that one is as important as the other in the evolution of the Individual——"
"And for that Individual are swung the solar systems.... Look at Job—denuded of all but the Spirit. There is an Individual, and his story is the history of an Initiation19.... We are coming to a time when Mind will operate in man and woman conscious of the Soul. When that time comes true, how the progress to God will be cleared and speeded! It will be a flight——"
"Instead of a crawl," she finished.
They were alone in the big dining-room. Their voices could not have reached the nearest empty table. It was like a communion—their first communion.
"I have felt it," she went on in a strange, low tone, "and heard the New Voices—Preparers of the Way. Sometimes it came to me in New York—the stirring of a great, new spiritual life. I have felt the hunger—that awful hollowness in the breasts of men and women, who turn to each other in mute agony, who turn to a thousand foolish sensations—because they do not realize what they hunger for. Their breasts cry out to be filled——"
"And the Spirit cries out to flood in."
"Yes, and the Spirit asks only for Earth-people to listen to their inner voices and love one another," she completed. "It demands no macerations, no fetters20, no fearful austerities—only fineness and loving kindness."
"How wonderfully they have come to me, too—those radiant moments—as I sat by my study window, facing the East," he whispered, not knowing what the last words meant to her. "How clear it is that all great and good things come with this soul-age—this soul-consciousness. I have seen in those lovely moments that Mother Earth is but one of many of God's gardens; that human life is but a day in a glorious culture-scheme which involves many brighter and brighter transplantings; that the radiance of the Christ, our Exemplar, but shows us the loveliness which shall be ours when we approach that lofty maturity21 of bloom——"
A waiter entered with the word that a man from the city, Pere Rabeaut, desired to see Mr. Charter. Each felt the dreadfulness of returning so abruptly22 to sordid23 exterior24 consciousness—each felt the gray ghost of Pelée.
"I shall go and see what is wanted, Miss Wyndam, and hurry back—if I may?" he said in a dull, tired tone.
It was the first time he had said "Wyndam," and it hurt cruelly at this moment.... "No, no," she said rising hastily. "It would spoil it to come back. We could not forget ourselves like that—so soon again. It always spoils—oh, what am I saying? I think our talk must have interested me very much."
"I understand," he said gently. "But we shall talk again—and for this little hour, my whole heart rises to thank you."
Pere Rabeaut was waiting upon the veranda25. Peculiarly, at this moment he seemed attached to the crook26 of wine-shop servitude, which Charter had never noticed with such evidence among the familiar casks. Moreover, disorder27 was written upon the gray face.
Charter regarded the sharp, black eyes, which darted29 over his own face, but would not be held in any gaze.
"I heard from my daughter that you are going to the craters of the mountain," the old man said. "'He will need a guide,' said I at once. 'And guides are scarce just now, for the people are afraid of Pelée. Still, he's an old patron,' I said to Soronia. 'He cannot go to the mountain without a guide, so I shall do this little thing for him. He must have our Jacques.'"
Charter drew him away. He did not care to have it known at the Palms that he was projecting a trip to the summit. Perhaps the inscrutable Pere Rabeaut was conferring a considerable favor. It was arranged that if he decided30 to make the journey, the American should call at the wine-shop for Jacques early the following morning. Pere Rabeaut left him none the poorer for his queer errand.
Charter avoided Miss Wyndam for the rest of the day. Beyond all the words of their little talk, had come to him a fullness of womanhood quite beyond the dreamer. As he remembered the lustrous31 face, the completion of his sentences, the mutual32 sustaining of their thoughts, their steady, tireless ascent33 beyond the need of words; as he remembered her calms, and the glimpses of cosmic consciousness, her grasp, her expression, her silences, the exquisite34 refinement35 of her face, and the lingering adoration36 in her eyes—the ideal of the Skylark was so clearly and marvellously personified that for moments at a time the vision was lost in the living woman. And for this, Quentin Charter proposed to suffer—and to suffer alone.
So he supped down-town, and waited for Father Fontanel at the parish-house. The priest came in during the evening and Charter saw at once, what the other never could have admitted, that the last few days had borne the good man to the uttermost edges of his frail37 vitality38. Under the lamp, the beautiful old face had the whiteness of that virgin39 wax of Italian hives in which the young queens lie until the hour of awakening40. The tired, smiling eyes, deeply shadowed under a brow that was blest, gazed upon the young man with a light in his eyes not reflected from the lamp, but from his great love—in that pure fatherhood of celibacy41....
"Ah, no, I'm not weary, my son. We must have our walks and talks together on the Morne again.... When old Father Pelée rests once more from his travail42, and the people are happy again, you and I shall walk under the stars, and you shall tell me of those glorious saints, who felt in the presence of God that they must put such violent constraint43 upon themselves.... When I think of my suffering people—it comes to me that the white ship was sent like a good angel—and how I thank that noble lady for taking me at once to this great rock of an American, who bluffs44 me about so cheerily and grants all things before they are asked. What wonderful people you are from America! But it is always so—always these good things come to me. Indeed, I am very grateful.... Weary?—what a poor old man I should be to fall weary in the midst of such helpers...."
Charter sat down beside him under the lamp and told him what an arena45 his mind had become for conflict between a woman and a vision. Even with the writer's trained designing, the tale drew out with an oriental patience of weaving and coloring. Charter had felt a woman's need for the ease of disclosure, and indeed there was no other man whom he would have told. He had a thought, too, that if by any chance Pelée should intervene—both the woman and the Skylark might learn. He did not tell of his plan to go to the mountain—lest he be dissuaded46. In his mind the following day was set apart—as a sort of pilgrimage sacred to Skylark.
"Old Pelée has shadowed my mind," Father Fontanel said, when the story was done. "I see him before and between all things, but I shall meditate48 and tell you what seems best in my sight. Only this, my son, you may know, that when first the noble lady filled my eyes—I felt you near her—as if she had come to me from you, whom I always loved to remember."
Charter bowed and went his way, troubled by the shadow of Pelée in the holy man's mind; and yet glad, too, that the priest had felt him near when he first saw Miss Wyndam. It was late when he reached the Palms yet sleeplessness49 ranged through his mind, and he did not soon go to his room. The house and grounds were all his own. He paced the veranda, the garden paths and drives; crossed the shadowy lawns, brooded upon the rumbling50 mountain and the foggy moon high in the south.... At the side of the great house to the north, there was a trellis heavily burdened with lianas. Within, he found the orifice of an old cistern51, partially52 covered by unfixed planking. A startling thought caused him to wonder why he had not explored the place before. The moonlight, faint at best, gave but ghostly light through the foliage53, yet he kicked away a board and lit a match. A heavy wooden bar crossed the rim47 and was set stoutly54 in the masonry55. His mind keenly grasped each detail at the exterior. A rusty56 chain depended from the thick cross-piece. He dropped several ignited matches into the chamber57. Slabs58 of stone from the side-walls had fallen into the cistern, which seemed to contain little or no water.... From one of the native cabins came the sound of a dog barking. A shutter59 clicked in one of the upper windows of the plantation-house.
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1
suffrage
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| n.投票，选举权，参政权 | |
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craters
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| n.火山口( crater的名词复数 )；弹坑等 | |
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graphic
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| adj.生动的，形象的，绘画的，文字的，图表的 | |
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virile
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| adj.男性的；有男性生殖力的；有男子气概的；强有力的 | |
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covenant
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| n.盟约，契约；v.订盟约 | |
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groaning
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| adj. 呜咽的, 呻吟的 动词groan的现在分词形式 | |
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tornado
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| n.飓风，龙卷风 | |
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swooping
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| 俯冲，猛冲( swoop的现在分词 ) | |
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propping
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| 支撑 | |
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orchards
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| （通常指围起来的）果园( orchard的名词复数 ) | |
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tightening
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| 上紧，固定，紧密 | |
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sophomoric
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| adj.一知半解的；大学或四年制中学的二年级的 | |
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marvel
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| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
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turmoil
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| n.骚乱，混乱，动乱 | |
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ineffable
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| adj.无法表达的，不可言喻的 | |
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anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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glorified
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| 美其名的，变荣耀的 | |
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incandescent
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| adj.遇热发光的， 白炽的，感情强烈的 | |
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initiation
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| n.开始 | |
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fetters
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| n.脚镣( fetter的名词复数 )；束缚v.给…上脚镣，束缚( fetter的第三人称单数 ) | |
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maturity
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| n.成熟；完成；(支票、债券等)到期 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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exterior
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| adj.外部的，外在的；表面的 | |
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veranda
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| n.走廊；阳台 | |
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crook
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| v.使弯曲；n.小偷，骗子，贼；弯曲(处) | |
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disorder
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| n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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darted
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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lustrous
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| adj.有光泽的；光辉的 | |
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mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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ascent
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| n.(声望或地位)提高；上升，升高；登高 | |
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exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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refinement
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| n.文雅；高尚；精美；精制；精炼 | |
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adoration
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| n.爱慕，崇拜 | |
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frail
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| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
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vitality
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| n.活力，生命力，效力 | |
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virgin
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| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
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awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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41
celibacy
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| n.独身(主义) | |
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42
travail
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| n.阵痛；努力 | |
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43
constraint
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| n.(on)约束，限制；限制(或约束)性的事物 | |
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44
bluffs
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| 恐吓( bluff的名词复数 )； 悬崖； 峭壁 | |
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45
arena
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| n.竞技场，运动场所；竞争场所，舞台 | |
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46
dissuaded
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| 劝（某人）勿做某事，劝阻( dissuade的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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47
rim
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| n.(圆物的)边，轮缘；边界 | |
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48
meditate
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| v.想，考虑，（尤指宗教上的）沉思，冥想 | |
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49
sleeplessness
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| n.失眠，警觉 | |
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50
rumbling
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| n. 隆隆声, 辘辘声 adj. 隆隆响的 动词rumble的现在分词 | |
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51
cistern
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| n.贮水池 | |
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52
partially
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| adv.部分地，从某些方面讲 | |
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53
foliage
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| n.叶子，树叶，簇叶 | |
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54
stoutly
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| adv.牢固地，粗壮的 | |
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55
masonry
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| n.砖土建筑；砖石 | |
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rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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57
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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slabs
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| n.厚板，平板，厚片( slab的名词复数 )；厚胶片 | |
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59
shutter
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| n.百叶窗；(照相机)快门；关闭装置 | |
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