II
This night I am guest at a banquet. I am seated next to my host who is a rich man, ah yes, we are all rich men; and he is dining and wining us in celebration of the anniversary of his birth. The table is a long one and is stretched away into a double banqueting hall. The guests are assembled. An orchestra is playing. There is much wine, and food in abundance is passed before us, and we make merry. Course after course is served before us—turtle soup, timbales of pheasant, terrapin, Kennebec salmon, venison, pates of birds in jelly, aspic of plover eggs—bah! I am satiated and can eat no more—and yet now the dessert comes on the table, course after course, but instead of eating anything more I turn my chair a little sideways so that I may shade my eyes and see into the next room. The hall wherein we sit is lighted with brilliant spangles of bright bulbs and dangling prisms, and the whole of our room is surrounded with great mirrors that we may see ourselves feasting and drinking and making merry. But lo! as I shade my eyes and look down the table, it seems to stretch away into a dimness beyond my sight, and seated at the other end of the table in the next room are countless guests; but they are glum and not merry. Upon more careful scrutiny, I observe that this adjoining room is dimly lighted and that there is no food upon the table, neither is there liquor for them to drink. I can see snowflakes falling in the darkness without; I can see it through the crevices in the windows of their room; whereas in our hall the blinds are down, the shutters are closed and the curtains are drawn close.
Every now and then, one of those who are sitting at that other end of the table in the next room way off there in the dimness, would rise, shove his empty chair under the table and make towards the door, but on his way out he would have to pass by my host. As one after another of them drew near, I noticed their wan, care-worn faces. Each one as he passed my host, stooped over and said, “Good-night, brother; you wouldn’t let me eat and I have to go, for all the food is at your end of the table.” Then each would shut the door behind him as he went out into the darkness.
“Who are they?” I asked my host, putting my fingers to my ear that he might whisper.
“They are the poor,” he answered, contracting his eyebrows, “let me fill your glass.”
He filled it to the brim; but in a moment of impulse, I arose and dashed the glass against the wall.
The breaking of the glass and its pieces falling on the floor brought me to my senses. Sandy came rushing into the room. “There is a tumbler over there. Bring me in another;” I said to him. He picked up the broken bits of glass and brought a cloth to dry the stain on the wall-paper where I had thrown my sangaree.
I fear that I shall not be able to sleep this night. Oh, if I could get just a little sleep—
‘the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care,
The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast.’