Chapter IV

CHAPTER IV I BELONG to the cat kind, Ivlarta thought, as they turned into a long avenue redeemed from the common place by ranks of noble chestnut trees; there's nothing I like so much as this, still-hunting on a summer night, "when the windows are shut in the street," going no place in particular, especially no place 1 ought to be; and if it's been raining a little) so much the better. • • • She had walked with Chris in the rain, a lost gir1. Lost because Chris was holding her hand in the pocket of his coat. Her new shoes that had pleased her so with their bright buckles-there was the last of the girl, of the child perhaps-were ruined, and she didn't care. Chris pulled a branch of lilac over a stone wall and gave it to her, dew-cold and sweet. They had no place to go. Americansdon't sit down, she thought. Because they think they are going somewhere, though they're not certain where, and they must keep on. All these cafes and benches are Europe. . . . The shadow of the con cierge leaped nimbly across the glass panel of the street door and back again. The conscience of Europe, N EVE R ASK THE END 41 an institutionalized nuisance, to be tipped and cursed and ignored. He was invisible when they stepped quietly into the quiet hall, their hush an unconscious confession of past midnights. "We won't stay long. Half an hour," Marta whispered firmly to Pauline. "Yau re mind me if I don't remind you."

"It's not late," Russ said. Marta sighed: "Not yet, but it gets late so early. What time do you usually go to bed?" "I don't know"; his reluctant expression struck Marta. She said: "Do you do that, toO! Wind the clock without looking at it, so you won't know?" He confessed: "It's all right if you don't see daylight under the blind." The admission told her a great deal that could not have been conveyed more explicitly. Their daytimes had never belonged to them. They lived on borrow ings from the night hours, repaid with interest out of tomorrow. "We mustn't wake Ernest," Pauline said under her breath. "N0 chance," Russ muttered. Ernest was awake. He rose from a wing chair by the reading lamp, the gracious host complete with dinner jacket. Ernest was a desiccated colorless youngish man, tall and nar row. His rimless eyeglasses gleamed with inexorable hospitality. It's Little Johnny Bostonbeans, grown up into a Y. M. C. A. secretary, Marta thought wildly; and knew the evening was gone. Pauline thought, it's almost more than Russ can bear, to be welcomed into his own apartment, practically told to make himself at 4-2 N EVE R ASK THE END home. Ernest has been sitting facing the door for hours, for fear we should escape. Their gaiety crystallized into defensive politeness. Pauline shouldered the obli gation. «What were you reading?" her fluty upward inflection made the effort sound spontaneous. Marta answered at a venture for Ernest: "A detective story.

All great men read detective stories. President Wilson and Jack Dempsey and Owen D. Young. It rests the brain. To achieve greatness, the brain must be kept in a state of absolute repose." Ernest's eyeglasses ra diated gratification. It was a detective story. In the atmosphere of bleak propriety which Ernest created, they were unable to remove their hats or ac cept the invitation of the deep-cushioned sofa; they moved about the room tentatively. It was very large, new, restfully negative, being furnished only with neces sities. The furniture was unstamped by any personality through use, except for some books on the table and mantel; an odd lot) French and English, some bespeak ing taste, others accidental. Pauline exclaimed: "You've got 'The Tale of Genji.' \Ve read it on, the boat; isn't it charming? At first it seems quaint and far off, and then it comes alive; they are real people, only they've made a world shut in by a garden wall, where nobody had to worry about money or work. They spent their time matching silks and taking the pet crickets out for a sip of dew and presenting one another with sprays of wistaria. Everything was done by form, but all the formalities were paper partitions, and they stepped N EVE R ASK THE END 43 through whenever they chose, but it had to be done in exactlythe right way, or at the right moment, to keep up the play, and you can't tell what made it right the same as with us, wearing a bathing suit on the beach, when you'd be arrested for going on the street in it.

So you're never quite sure what they will do next except compose a poem. I wonder if it really was like that?" Russ said: "It is yet. In Shanghai there's a street where the Chinese merchants stroll up and down carrying bird-cages, solemn old duffers in brocade coats and embroidered shoes, giving the canaries an airing. And the geisha girls in Japan make verses at dinner, by way of repartee with the guests. When one of them made a neat hit, I could tell by the way the Japanese men took it; but if I asked what she said, the transla tion hadn't any point to me: autumn leaves or morning glories or moonlight." In the glow of her enthusiasm, Pauline turned to Ernest: "Have you read it?" Ernest said: "Not yet; I meant to try it, but haven't had time." "You wouldn't make much of it unless you've been to Japan," Russ said. Pauline's eyelashes flickered; she thought, Russ doesn't want Ernest to read a book he likes himself. He knows we've never been to Japan.

Marta thought, Ernest might as well be at a Japanese dinner, he yearns to join the conversation but it's in a foreign language. To make a diversion, she glanced at another book, then put her finger on it tentatively: "Something About Eve." Russ was watching her; 4-4 NEVER ASK THE END their eyes met. She ventured the question: "Did you care for this?" hoping for a disclaimer. Russ nodded: "He's got it all down.)) Then it was true, as a disclosure of a man's mind, his feeling about women. Pauline looked: '~Would I like it?" Marta said lightly: "It's pretty rough Stuff4" Here was the riddle to which she had found no key when she was eighteen. To men, women are another species. She had surprised it in their eyes, following her or some other girl as one might observe a wholly strange creature; something unaccountable, enchanting, perhaps dangerous, almost supernatural. And bad. There was a dark streak in their thoughts .. 4 But why?

Trix O'Neill told me once that I had no feelings; not that I was unkind or mean, but like Ariel when Miranda was weeping for the shipwrecked sailors: So would I too if 1 were human. Afterward she said she was wrong, that it was because I reversed the usual process, felt with my mind, instead of thinking through my emo tions. • ••When I was in love with Chris I couldn't class him with other men; I didn't know what to do or say; he had power) he was as incomprehensible as a god. He belonged to another order. Then it must be as if men were in love with women even when they're not in love with one woman. They are bewildered, and they grow to resent the subjection. It makes them cruel. They want to deface the image of the Witch Woman, degrade her, burn her. We don't under stand why they are obscene; it's a denial of the Witch N EVE R ASK THE END 4S Woman's power. Something you must submit to or fight; you can't come to even terms, or make a truce.

That might be why-I don't know. Chris told me I could have had him under my thumb; he ,said I was far stronger than he. But it was stronger than I. For ] didn't want him under my thumb; I wanted him to bestow happiness on me, because he had power. It was enough to scare him, to have me pile the world on his shoulders. I can't stand it either when a man expects me to make him happy; I've always run away ... Russ likes women, he really likes them; but it must be that he feels they broke him, as I felt about Chris. Chris didn't, of course; he was rather decent, on the whole. . . . I dare say we'd have to be dead and dis embodied to understand. . . . Russ was still watching her, half smiling, under his dark brows, with the expression of one disarmed, who surrenders without retracting; as if to say, yes, it's true, all of it, and I do like women, I like you. You've got it on me. Besides, it doesn't matter now, the war's over.

What he said was that there was champagne in the icebox. They fetched it out. Even that did not help much, against Ernest. Pauline struggled bravely with the stock market and the weather. Marta, sitting on the sofa beside Russ) shrank under the pitiless publicity of Ernest's eyeglasses. She said to Russ: "This flat looks as big as the Pe~nsylvania Station." Prompted by an impulse toward escape,Russ 46 NEVER ASK THE END asked if she would care to look around. "There's nothing to see," he added; "I got some stuff in China, but I shipped it to New York-not sure how long I'd be here. So I just wa~ed through a furniture store and ordered this lot wholesale." Marta rose with alac rity. Consciencecompelled her to include Pauline: "Do you want to make the grand tour? Not that I want you-ow! " Russ had thrust out his arm and "side swiped" her, dropping her neatly back on the sofa. "No, you don't! ..• I'm sorry, I didn't mean-" "To break a rib?" Marta giggled. "It's all right, nothing but the collar-bone. What's a collar-bone between friends? I assure you, my intentions were strictly dis honorable." She thought, that's the champagne; I'm talking the kind of piffle you think is funny when you're half tipsy. Russ isn't, and he doesn't want me to let down, on account of Ernest. I must pull myself to gether, go home. She slid around Russ and he followed her into the dining-room. Maybe, she thought, he really did suspect I meant to start something. She was suddenly shy and sober. They stood by the open win dow, gazing down at the dark mass of the heavy-leafed chestnut trees, not quite looking at each other. The delicate balance established at the moment of their meet ing in Paris was shaken. As if they had been dancing and lost step, .or the music stopped. They were un willinglyaware of the profound implications existingbe tween them simply as a man and a woman; their silence was confession by avoidance. Once, eight years ago, N EVE R ASK THE END 47 they had trespassed recklessly on the debatable ground; becauseit was only once, the impressionrem~ined vivid and near, as when two people see each other by the spurt of a match, leaning together to light their ciga rettes in the dusk. With no clue to what Russ was thinking, Marta could not have said what was in her own mind. She dispelled the silence: "It's nice to have so much room to yourself. When I go home at night, the best of it is that there's no·one waiting for me. Ex cept the colored maid, and she never speaks, and leaves after supper. Where do you keep your old family reta~ner? I hope we haven't disturbed her."

((Berth6r she' can't hear us; the servants' rooms are on the floor above. She has a husband concealed up there." Russ did not answer the rest of what Marta had said; because she had, in the slang sense, said it. Here he had space and quiet; so he was enabled to get through each day· as it came. He preferred not to reckon how many years he had spent in single rooms, whether hotels or lodging houses, definitely limited to four walls, with no sense of permanency or possession. You went out just to get out; some queer enough places he had gone to, under that necessity.••Brownie had a trick of getting past your guard. In Alma's car, how long ago was it? coming back from a party, he had spilled everything, told her between kisses how he wanted to get clear away, cut all the ropes. The joke was on him, for he asked her to go with him, and she said she would-she was playing him, of course 48 N EVE R ASK THE END -but there he was, wanting to get away from women, and proposing to take one along! . . . Then she wrote to him in China, called the turn again, told him how bored he was with the stuffy clique of the foreign col ony, the same thing over again, as if she'd been there.

. . . She used to sit sunk in the corner of Alma's sofa, as pale as a ghost, as blank as if she didn't even know your name; then she'd flash out and answer your very thought, coming alive like an electric spark, and sud denly almost pretty.. She does it for fun, he thought. Tells your fortune by the cards and then shuffies them up-phut! You never knew where to have her, or where she would have you. He was glad to see her again, had counted on it. Because you could ·talk to her, and you didn't have to. Now, being near her, gave him a sense of something having come out right. But mixed with . . . He was too tired to figure it through, and Brownie had thrown the switch again. Still, it was there ... They went down the hall, subdued by the knowledge that they were only spinning out the last minutes. Op positea half-open>door, Marta clapped her hands, child ishly delighted. ((Pauline, look! Clouds of glory!"

A foam of white stuff, spreading downward from a small gilt crown above the headboard, flowed chastely over the bed. "It belonged to the Empress Josephine, I'm sure. I want one! I need it--so becoming." Pauline came. CClt's only a mosquito net," said Russ amiably. "You N EVE R ASK THE END 49 do need it in this town. We get malaria mosquitoes-even yellowfeversometimes,they say, from the ships." ;,(Wehaven't got them at our hotel," Marta mourned. "Malaria mosquitoes are extra," Pauline explained. ('Yellow fever, double rates." Marta said: "Id jit! Has Ernest got a canopy?" Russ nodded toward another door. "In there." They stopped at the threshold; Marta and Pauline exchanged eloquent ,glances. "1 hope Ernest gets malaria," Pauline said piously. ,Marta said: ((1 shall cry myself to sleep. You needn't bother to take us back, Russ, we'll find a taxi." He insisted) and they were unable to deny them selves the brief reprieve from Ernest, who expressed a polite eagerness for another occasion. "Oh, we're bound to meet again," Marta said. In the cab, she brooded, while Pauline held hands with Russ openly.

"I suppose there is no way of getting Ernest out? Not that it would do you any good; we'd move right in." Russ swore mildly. "I've had the flat nearly two years, and you are the first guests I've invited. Or wanted." He added, as if driven to make the state ment in self defense. "Ernest sings in his bath." "Can't you give him a hint?" "1 did. So this morning he whistled." "George," said Pauline, "used to sing in his bath. At seven in the morning. He was always cheerful in the morning. I have trained Jimmy not to speak to his angel mother before ten.') For twelve years, she thought, SO N EVE R ASK THE END I never had a night of unbroken sleep. The cold grey ness of waking and the sick thin feeling under your breastbone • • •When the babies were through nursing and teething, George had acquired that unhealthy over weight; he slept soddenly, and his breathing was labored, hoarse • • •I knew that last morning, before I opened the door; I couldn't hear him. The whole house was still • • • Marta thought, I used to laugh before breakfast.

Trix noticed it •.. Not any more. Denny Forbes caught me yawning at my desk, and I said the wind had rattled the sashes. He said: Women never sleep, do they? and then he turned red. A Short History of Women .•• In Pauline's room, where she stopped to retrieve a book, Marta said: "If I hadn't sent you that silver lace frock, you might never have married George." It was offered as a peculiarly feminine act of reparation. "But I thought you were rather •.•That he was at· B 1 "tractive. •• y your etters ••• UHe was then," said Pauline. "1 don't know. I was sure he'd be successful. Nothing seemed to matter very much. I didn't even care about Keith any more. If George • • • I didn't know he drank, I mean, that it had got him. We used to go riding." Racing across the unfenced prairie, letting the surefooted broncos,half bred Indian ponies, take their heads, on a loose rein. ..•How could she define what she had felt for the young George she had married, all fire and urgency and hopeN EVE R ASK THE END 51 fulness; for the gross, pathetic, desperate, valiant hus band she was bound to; when they were the same man?

... He knew he wouldn't make old bones; with intol erable generosity he had striven to provide security for her and the children before the reckoning fell due. While the drink was on him he blustered; when he was sick and sorry, getting over it, he wept. She hardly knew which was worse. She pitied him, she despised him, she respected him-for the indestructible fibre of his ambition. And for one unpardonable word she hated him, oh, beyond the grave. • • • She did not even forgive herself for having heard it; she should have killed him. What is the sum of such a relation? She was pulling off her gloves; she dusted her finger tips together, and said, with that truly angelic note in her voice, a voice tuned only to mirth: «(You can't love a man who weighs two hundred and twenty pounds."