LOVE
THE night received the moonlight in the manner of a sophisticated braggart who slaps the face of an old, impassive man. Mrs. Robert Calvin Taylor observed this illusion and painted it upon one of the lanterns lighting a little party within her heart. The guests at the party, fat sophists and slatterns in gay, patched clothes, gathered around the lantern and felt relieved at the impersonal novelty of its decoration. If Mrs. Robert Calvin Taylor had been a philosopher or a scientist she would have changed the night to an unseen background, or a chemical diagram; she would have ignored the pleading of her heart for pictorial distraction. But since she was a society-woman, tired of sensual toys and a mental twilight, she welcomed the night as her first effectual lover. Sitting in the garden of her country home she could see the lighted windows of her crowded ballroom, and hear the saccharine pandemonium of a jazz orchestra. The noise reminded her of a middle-aged roué, snickering as he rolled his huge dice while gambling for a new mistress. She felt glad that her new lover, the night, did not seek to court her with such a blustering clatter.
The night was incredibly sophisticated but held the pungently awkward body of a youth, crashing against trees and bushes. This mixture pierced Mrs. Robert Calvin Taylor and slid far beneath those sensual routines which are the delight of psycho-analysts—slid to a depth where aesthetic passion slays the flesh and blends it into a sexless potency. She felt a sense of bodiless conflagration striding with wide steps beside the night. When the limitless glow died within her, she glanced down and found that she was naked. The complicated shrewdness of her clothes had disappeared.
By this time she had ceased to be Mrs. Robert Calvin Taylor—she had become an expectant novice in a new world, and even the jazz music and ballroom laughter had changed to the mumbled rumours of a past existence. Therefore her nakedness failed to disconcert her. She touched her shoulder, with a gesture of matter-of-fact congratulation, and loosened her hair to rid herself of a last dab of incongruity. Then she rose from the stone bench and walked down a pathway leading to the great lake that bounded one side of her country estate. She felt the powerful and sober curiosity of one who has decided to become a recluse and examines the deserted possibilities of his roofless plateau. She reached a high bluff rising over the placid vanity of the huge lake, combing its bluish black hair with moonlight. Suddenly she became aware of a figure standing beside her. She turned with a gasp of strangled aloofness. The ethereal composure of her small face, defended by moonlight, sheered into an ebony cast of hermit-like annoyance. But when the color and outlines of the figure shrunk within her eyes, her face changed again. An astounded immersion crowned her head, tugging at her short nose, straightening her thick lips, and cleaving her gray eyes. The slightly deteriorated slenderness of her short body lowered a bit toward the earth, not from fear but because of a weakening incredulity. The figure before her was that of a sexless human being, small and slim of statute, nude, and hued with an inhumanly concentrated black. The head held large eyes that shone like metaphysical diamonds, as though ten thousand stars were carousing together, in a realm of compressed light. The figure spoke to Mrs. Robert Calvin Taylor, and its voice seemed thrown forth by the rays from its eyes. The voice was distinct and subdued.
“You are not a hermit who has turned a garden into a solitary castle,” said the figure.
“What am I?” asked Mrs. Robert Calvin Taylor.
“Your mind and heart are no longer clad in their heavy mirages of love, fear, and sleep,” said the figure. “The surface pictures have gone and the twin bazaars of your heart and mind are exchanging a long-deferred greeting. Within the now mingled bazaars emotions and thoughts have become friends and sell each other endless variations in color, light, and form. I am the being who rules this proceeding.”
“Have you a name?” asked Mrs. Robert Calvin Taylor, using the unashamed naïveté of a child.
“Men call me Aesthetics,” answered the figure. “In my weakest form I make the eyes of the shop-girl hesitate a bit, as she views an unusually gaudy sunset. In my strongest manifestations I help poets and artists to contradict their personal lives. But these are merely my outward indications. I line the hearts and minds of all human beings, often remaining within them, unfelt, until they die. In rare cases such as yours the mirages hiding and dividing me are slain, and I clap my hands, sending motion to the twin bazaars of heart and mind.”
“What caused me to uncover you within myself?” said Mrs. Robert Calvin Taylor.
“You yielded to a whim and made the night your lover. Dissatisfied with the loves and fears he found within you, the night threw them aside, one by one, thus slaying the mirages that hid me. Your other lovers of the past were content with more material gifts and did not seek to uncover you.”
“I am bare now. What will you do with me?” said Mrs. Robert Calvin Taylor. The figure laid a hand upon her shoulder. His eyes burnt her to a petal of ashes that fell down between them.
Mr. Robert Calvin Taylor stood over the form of his young wife, who sat slouched down upon a stone bench within their garden. He shook her shoulder, lightly. She uttered a perturbed mumble and did not raise the head resting upon one of her arms. The moonlight fell upon the silken complexities of her dress.
“Poor Dot, I warned her not to take a third glass,” he muttered to himself as he raised her in his arms and staggered down the garden pathway.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.