Evered

by Ben Ames Williams

The night, and then the day. A steady calm possessed him. His memories flowed smoothly past, like the eternal cycle of the days. The man’s face did not change; he was expressionless. He was sunk so deep in his own thoughts that the turmoil there did not disturb his outward aspect. His countenance was grave and still. No tears flowed; this was no time for tears. It was an hour too deep for tears, a sorrow beyond weeping.

During the storm that day he went to the window now and then. And once in the morning he heard the red bull bellow in its pen; and once or twice thereafter, as the afternoon drove slowly on. Each time he heard this sound it was as though the man’s attention was caught and held. He stood still in a listening attitude, as though waiting for the bellow to be repeated; and it would be minutes on end before his eyes clouded with his own thoughts again.

It would be easy to say that Evered during this solitary night and day went mad with grief and self-condemning, but it would not be true. The man was never more sane. His thoughts were profound, but they were quiet and slow and unperturbed. They were almost impersonal. There is in most men—though in few women—this power to withdraw out of oneself or into an inner deeper self; this power to stand as spectator of one’s own actions. It is a manifestation of a deeper, more remote consciousness. It is as though there were a man within a man. And this inner soul has no emotions. It is unmoved by love or passion, by anger or hatred, by sorrow or grief, by hunger or by thirst. It watches warm caresses, it hears ardent words, it sees fierce blows, and listens to curses and lamentations with the same inscrutable and immutable calm. It can approve, it can condemn; but it neither rejoices nor bemoans. It is always conscious that the moment is nothing, eternity everything; that the whole alone has portent and importance. This inner self has a depth beyond plumbing; it has a strength unshakable; it has understanding beyond belief. It is not conscience, for it sets itself up as no arbiter of acts or deeds. It is simply a consciousness that that which is done is good or evil, kind or harsh, wise or foolish. This calm inner soul of souls might be called God in man.

Evered this day lived in this inner consciousness. As though he sat remote above the stream he watched the years of his memories flow by. He was, after the first moments, torn by no racking grief and wrenched by no remorseful torments and burned by no agonizing fires. He was without emotion, but not without judgment and not without decision. He moved through his thoughts as though to a definitely appointed and pre-determined end. A strange numbness possessed him, in which only his mind was alive.

He did not pity himself; neither did he damn himself. He did not pray that he might cancel all the past, for this inner consciousness knew the past could never be canceled. He simply thought upon it, with grave and sober consideration.

When his thoughts evidenced themselves in actions it was done slowly, and as though he did know not what he did. He got up from where he had been sitting and went to the window and looked out. The snow had ceased; the sun was breaking through. The world was never more beautiful, never more gloriously white and clean.

The man had held in his hands for most of the day that heavy knife of his. He put it now back in its sheath. Then he took off his shirt and washed himself. There was no fire of purpose in his eye; he was utterly calm and unhurried.

He put on a clean shirt. It was checked blue and white. Mary Evered had made it for him, as she was accustomed to make most of his clothes. When it was buttoned he drew his belt about him and buckled it snug. Then he sat down and took off his slippers—old, faded, rundown things that had eased his tired feet night by night for years. He took off these slippers and put on hobnailed shoes, lacing them securely.

When this was done the man stood for a little in the room, and he looked steadily before him. His eyes did not move to this side and that; there was no suggestion that he was taking farewell of the familiar things about him. It was more as though he looked upon something which other eyes could never see. And his face lighted a little; it was near smiling. There was peace in it.

I do not believe that there was any deadly purpose in Evered’s heart when he left his room. Fraternity thinks so; Fraternity has never thought anything else about the matter. He took his knife, in its sheath. That is proof enough for Fraternity. “He went to do the bull, and the bull done him.” That is what they say, have always said.