Chapter II

CHAPTER II THE ripening fields slid past in gold and emerald stripes, soothing them with the charm of homeliness. To the northern bred, trees and grass compose the landscape of Eden. Except that it was cut into such narrow plots, some of them not ten yards wide, Marta thought, you could hardly distinguish it from, say, Minnesota. The low slopes, the willows along the creeks, even the texture of the summer clouds and the pure blue of the sky, were familiar. There must have been fighting allover here, she mused, but there's nothing to show for it, after only ten years. She had not wished to see battlefields; it made her sick to think of the war. While it was going on it made her sick as if that helped! But it went on and on beyond en durance. Like her childhood; did everything painful tie up to that? Most people had enjoyed the wari those who weren't actually shot or starved. Probably they were sensible. Pauline had gone out to the Marne, with a Cook's party. Walking through a lovely wood, they had been gratified to come upon the un buried bones of a soldier. "More likely a strayed N EVE R ASK THE END 17 tourist," Marta said. It couldn't hurt his poor bones now. Am I tD weep? Good sirs, ihe earth is old. Of the whole earth, th81'e is no single rood but hides a grave. Pauline said: "When you're married, what is a war more or less? With three babies and no money, you can't worry about anything else."

Pauline had been driven by duty. "If people ask me, did I see this and that, what shall I say?" she demanded. "We haven't seen anything." Marta pointed out that she could say yes. "They'll ask, but they won't listen. It was my fault; I'm sorry to be so lazy. 1 did insist on seeing the fountains play at Ver sailles, and Jane wouldn't speak to me for three days. I don't blame her." Under the August sun, the gravelled terraces were a blazing desert, and they suf focated in the clotted crowds. The genuine, indomita ble tourists filled them with hatred and awe. Dumb driven cattle . . . yet somehow heroic, too. They cer tainly got somethingout of it, but what? Marta won dered, recalling the desiccated! gleanings of history forked out like baled hay by the brisk guides: Marie Antoinette's mirror and Pompadour's bed, Louises by the dozen and Napoleon in bulk. Mostly Napoleon. The tourists had heard of Napoleon before; his name evoked a gleam of recognition,almost of dawning in telligence.

Maybe that was the way to enjoy it. Otherwise the weight of history was too great. Europe was crushed under it. Too many things had happened.

18 N EVE R ASK THE END For themselves, Pauline and Marta had given up. Settled on the train, they experienced a conscience stricken relief. They were retreating, in none too good order. The struggle with milliners) dressmakers, trying to secure something, anything, and be done with it, had ended in confessed defeat. "For one suit and one hat," Pauline exclaimed. "And still I have nothing that I can just put on and wear. You know-one never has." Marta knew. "A frock one can breakfast in) wear all day, and go on to dinner and the opera without changing; and be suitably attired throughout. My suit doesn't fit either." "N0, it's no use," said Pauline. <'There's Jane--a creature so elegant that even in Paris people turn to stare after her in the street. And her feet hurt." Pauline had not surrendered to Paris. It aggravated the malady of her soul, her sense of dispossession. In Paris, one should have everything or want nothing.

Only that one evening, Paris had belonged to them. All the next day they had been immeasurably dejected. Marta had enjoyed Paris for itself; she had learned in . her bad years to be a looker-on. But she understood Pauline's insistent need of distraction. And one slight expectation for Pauline had failed. "Didn't you have any sense of recognition?" Pauline understood the allusion. "Only in the Lux embourg Gardens, when the sound of the bugle came through the trees,," At the closing hour, relieving the guard, Marta supposed; or a signal for clearance. "It N EVE R ASK THE END 19 was as if I'd listened for them once anod they didn't play, or they played·another air-As if it were the end of something .... And on the steps at Fontaine bleau, maybe; and in the Carnavalet Museum, the picture of that horrible man-" "Bailly? He wasn't a horrible man; as a matter of fact he was rather humane and honest. Of course, the aristocrats must have thought he was a monster. You spoke exactly as if you belonged to the Court. That was the way you used to talk; it was funny." Years ago, when they shared a meagre apartment in a wind harried prairie town, and Paris was barely a name to them, beyond the furthest horizon of their hopes, they had experimented blunderingly with some kind of white witchcraft; they didn't know what it was then and were no wiser since. Certainly they had not got it out of books; Marta had just begun her insatiable reading •.•Yau don't learn anything out of books, said Alma, except what you know already. She too had tried that road to wisdom . . .

But Pauline was certainly a witch . . . Seated on a red corduroy sofa, leaning back against a green satin cushion, there in that scantily furnished, box-like room which had no history, no memories beyond yesterday, Pauline had conjured up out of the emptiness of twi light another state of being, a past such as neither of them had known or dreamed, through which she moved in .powdered curls and red-heeled shoes, a lackey fol lowing to hand her chocolate and stand behind her 20 N EVE R ASK THE END chair. They were both in the story, and they had been fortunate, insolent and gay. Until it was all eclipsed in some disaster Pauline shuddered away from recall ing. Don't ask me any more ... She had, in the pres ent, a mortal terror of locked doors. Not that that proved anything. It was outside of proof, and impossible on the face of it. Only the details had been so curious, Marta could not forget them. They came back to her in the light of later knowledge. Much had been incomprehensible at the time: points of etiquette and custom, the unaffected hauteur of Pauline's phrases. Certainly they did not then know the duties of a lackey; or that it was an act of extreme condescension and affection for a lady of rank to run down a grand staircase and meet a guest at the foot instead of awaiting her at the head . . . At Fontainebleau, Pauline said, coming suddenly upon the state entrance, with its majestic double flight of curved stone steps: "There's a way of walking downstairs, the right way; you click your heels a little on each step." ... It was of such things she used to speak, as if naturally one would know them. But they knew nothing. How should they, growing up in poverty and isolation on the last edge of the vanishing wilder ness?

Probably Pauline was still but vaguely acquainted with the great drama of the Revolution, the part Bailly played in it. Marta offered no further enlightenment. Pauline resented information. Another phase of her N EVE R ASK THE END 21 pride, innocent enough. Or had it been that which held her back from some ampler fulfillment? She wished to be equal to every occasion, and most occasions are trivial. One could spend one's life outdoing the woman next door in embroidered lunchcloths, or per fecting one's game of croquet. No doubt their magic had been nonsense, too, better left alone.. Did not every idle silly woman cherish the belief that she had once been Cleopatra? Nobody remembered being a kitchen maid. And it would really be more interesting ... If I should remember anything here, thought Marta, it would be the wild strawberry ices .••It's absurd to call Americans materialists; they won't even bother about food. What is it we want?

Something-something more. . . . Beyond anything that has ever been. To By, to resolve into a finer es sence, pure spirit, above the law. It's why we are unhappy in love, except at moments, when even passion is outdone, forgotten ... Flesh and blood won't stand it; so much the worse for them; we can't help that. Of course we get tired, burn ourselves out. We want to. In work, if we can't find the other way, whatever it is ... Like Russ ... He did invite us, Marta thought; visitors were the original plague of Egypt; but I daresay he can put up with us for a day or two. How ready one is to hang around someone"s neck at the slightest excuse. It must be an art, though, for I've never been very successful at it. When Keith and I came to a showdown-not 22 N EVE R ASK THE END two words about it. I packed my suitcase for the next train, at five o'clock in the morning. Keith took me to the station, ever so polite and yawning. The sun was balancing on the level edge of the prairie; you could see the round of it, not a flat disk but a globe, cool and yellow as amber, marvelous, and the world brand-new, and everything gone to smash . . . But there never had been anything . . . The Player Queen . . . Acting out an imitation tragedy with Keith because I'd been through the real thing and it was so deadly quiet; be cause it consisted precisely in nothingness, silence, ab sence. That's the use of melodrama, why people eat it up. They were born, they suffered, and they died.

Without ever achieving the satisfaction of the final scene. The vows and reproaches, the explanations and retributions and rewards, the last words, are never spoken. So we force an occasion, make it up. It wasn't fair to Keith, making him understudy; he meant his part while it lasted. In the long run I guess it didn't make any difference.- He was spoiled already by women, Qr born that way. An indolent handsome boy with amazing black eyes and seal-brown hair; he should have been a girl-but then he)d have been a ... Tickets? ... passport? ... no? Pauline and Marta consulted each other wildly, turning out their purses in complete submission. Douane. Marta grasped the one word presently. They abandoned all their posses sions to the mercy of the customs officer. He chalked them through with brisk contempt. To him they were N EVE R ASK THE .E N D 23 indistinguishable in the endless procession of American women. of uncerta.in age, roaming about Europe in search of God knows what.... They drew cheer from the inference that they must now be in Belgium. "Do you suppose Russ will meet us at the station?" Pauline speculated. He might be too busy, Marta replied cautiously. "You'd think," she grinned, "that we had come all the way to Europe to track down that poor man. Maybe he came to get away from us." The last .

time he went through New York, coming from China, he had not let anyone know. None of his close friends. Marta did not place herself in that category, but Nonie and AlmaHe must have sought to make a clean break) for awhile at least. She could imagine why. He had been so intricately tied up) for years. That was one thing used to make her shy of him. He had troubles enough. So had she, for that matter. He between Nonie and his wife-what was her name? And maybe others. It was no business of hers; so she pondered it intensively. Marta admitted to herself that she was worse than the Elephant's Child. Full of a positively depraved curiosity. She would have listened at key holes, read private letters; only you couldn't hear at a keyhole, and most letters were a waste of two cents. She had to find out somehow, and she was so stupid about people. No intuition. Even with the most earnest snooping and much reflection, her progress through the world was attended by a continuous sound 2~ N EVE R A S [{ THE END of crashing and the cries of the injured. Literally as well as figuratively, the most absurd things happened to her. When she was newly come to New York, she had once halted to look about for the bell that rang mysteriously underfoot. Then the pavement rose with her, and she balanced with spread arms on the ascend ing top of an outside freight elevator, while the popu lace shouted warnings. She was always doing that, or falling into excavations.. And people thought she did those things on purpose, to be original. Pauline was the eat's whiskers, all quivering sensibility. N at sense, perhaps-but nobody had any sense. Where would they get it? "1 can't think of his wife's name," Marta repeated aloud, returning to that problem.

"Russ? Do you mean he is married?" "Aren't we all? Yes, he's seen the wolf. 1 told you before. They've been separated-oh, for ten years. Before my time. I'm not sure if they got a divorce; I think the case was thrown out once for col lusion, but it may have gone through afterward." Col lusion carried a suggestion of extraordinary intimacy, of an unbreakable secret bond. As if when they faced one another in the courtroom the judge felt they didn't mean it about the divorce; they were married in spite of themselves for keeps. Marta had once, with in credible gaucherie, asked Russ about his wife. She blushed inwardly at the recollection. Perhaps her imaginary courtroom scene was based on his justified evasion of an answer.

N EVE R ASK THE END 25 "What is she like?" Pauline asked idly. "1 never saw her. She's a singer. Concert work, I believe; but she never quite arrived." An accomplished musician, Marta had heard, but not much of a voice.. For distinction, she chose unusual programs: Turkish folksongs or Siberian lullabies or Aztec hymns or what not. The rewards were slight in money and fame. What the public wants is to have its eardrums aston ished with a high C. Or a whiskey mezzo and the blues. "You know I hate singers," Marta added pensively. Pauline knew. Nothing to do with Russ's wife. One of those old, unhappy, far-off things that only Marta and Pauline did know about each other. Everybody else concerned had gone about other af fairs, faded into limbo. The story was too complicated to revive at the moment; they were eagerly decipher ing the wayside stations, most of which appeared to be called Sortie.

Their view of Brussels was limited to a dismai stretch of switch-rails and freight sheds; the train backed out again cautiously, as if it had made a mis take. No carpets nor sprouts, Marta found herself thinking inanely. Apparently the Duchess of Rich mond had given her Waterloo ball in a box-car. Travel books do not allow for railroad yards and suburbs. Nothing but castles and cathedrals, the intervening avenues lined with pictures and statuary ..• The landscape, Marta thought, positively refused to look foreign or historic; it grew more and more like 26 N EVE R ASK THE END home. Dunmore Junction next stop! Where she cooked for the section crew. Nonsense, it didn't really look the same-turnip fields and garden plots com pared to unending miles of yellow sun-cured grassland -but somehow it felt the same. Being with Pauline revived all the rest. How young and fresh and eager they had been. Ah, those dear vanished days when I was so unhappy. If it were offered, would she live her life over again? No. But to be so much alive yes, yes, yes! How little one made of youth while one had it ...

At last. Though they weren't quite sure, they tumbled out in an avalanche of suitcases and hatboxes and typewriters. nThere he is," cried Pauline; and they were all laughing again, stepping into the waiting motor. Not a taxi. "My goodness," said Marta, "I was afraid we were going to two other places. How many names has this town got?" Russ answered liberally: "Four." Antwerp, An vers, Antwerpen, Amberes. Have it your own way; the Belgians don't care. They liked it by all of its names. Russ began an apology for some circumstance which was not immediately clear to them. He had reserved rooms at a hotel. He was sorry not to take them to his apartment as he had intended; he had a guest already, unexpected and apparently uninvited. (COne of the men from our office, Ernest Wilson.. He was there when I got back. I don't know how to turn him N EVE R ASK THE END 27 out. He says his wife made the arrangement with me.

If she did, I never heard her." Marta said severely: "You must break yourself of the habit of saying, 'Yes, dear,' when you're not listen ing. Let this be a lesson to you. Especially when there)s a husband." Russ glowered and smiled. "Brownie, you devil ... Caroline is the last woman-" Marta persisted: "Well, how did Ernest get in, unless Caroline lent him her latchkey? Where is Caroline?" Russ hunched his shoulders. "Sailed for New York. She took the children, so she thought it would be con venient to have her house done over; she'll be gone a month. Besides, she thinks it isn't good for me to be so much alone." Marta repeated. "For a month? She parked her husband on you for a whole month?" Russ elucidated patiently: "She thought it would be better for both of us. She didn't want to leave Ernest in a hotel. Ernest is nervous." Still Marta could not quite grasp it. "You mean that he simply moved in while you were away?" Russ meant precisely that. "Ernest is nervous," Marta re peated dazedly. "If he ever gets over it, he should go far. What I don't understand is why she didn't leave the children. It would have been good for them. For him. For her. For you. I must see Ernest. I wish to gaze upon him."

28 N EVE R ASK THE END "You will," Russ assured her. "This is the Grand Hotel de Londres. Winston Churchill once stayed here." "1 remember," said Marta.. "He rushed out on the terrace armed with a dinner napkin. To repel the Germans." The terrace remained, a stretch of pave ment snugly enclosed by a striped awning and green painted tubs of shrubbery. They liked it.