The Blood Red Dawn

by Charles Caldwell Dobie

He thought about his wife; not indirectly, evasively, as had been his habit, but with ruthless honesty. The bulletins from the sanatorium had grown less hopeful. Still, there was always the possibility that the mental fog would clear and leave her at the mercy of a wan sanity. Stillman could imagine nothing more terrible than this return to a chill, stark reason. It would be as if some smiling hillside had paid the toll of a devastating freshet, and was left a scarred and naked waste that a belated sun could never clothe again. And always there would be the sleeping and waking fear that the torrents would descend again with even greater fury. Now, at least, she had the warmth of her hallucinations to make life tolerable. What would be left her when these mirages melted into the dreary void of actual life?... For a moment it seemed to Stillman that reality was the greatest of all tragedies to face. The visions of youth, the ecstasies of the witless, the crooning dreams of old age—how they softened the relentless glare of things as they were! How they lured the traveler past the soul-killing monotonies, the bleak disillusionments!

He left the orchards behind, and came into the region of pretty, artless homes surrounded by gardens spilling their fragrance into the lap of morning. To the west the land dimpled with laughing hills, green and tremulous in the young light. Eucalyptus-trees bent gravely in the chance breezes or stood erectly still where the calm of dawn remained inviolate. Stillman received the impression of nature's calm contentment and took issue with it. He was in no mood to be snared by the false promise of morning.

He began now to think about himself, and immediately all his raillery at fate died. What had he ever done to prove his claim to happiness? Had he ever wrestled with God for a blessing? He thought of Danilo, remembering all the details of the doctor's hard-fisted battle with circumstances—starving days, shivering nights. There must be a full-blooded joy in giving fate blow for blow; in having to fight for every narrow foothold upon the ledge of fortune! Well, the heights had been his without the toil of scaling, and he had looked down upon the promised land with indifference. What had he been doing all these years, all these months, all these weeks? He had done his duty, perhaps; but scarcely more. Widows who cast their mite into the Lord's treasury did this much. He had never thought of spilling the wine from his brimming cup upon the parched lips of the thirsty, and he had measured the meal of obligation with too finely balanced a scale. Now had come a time when his greatest wish was to be prodigal, and the hands that should have received his outpouring were tied grimly. What would not he have given to see the fruits of his inheritance replenishing the scant store of the woman he loved! And yet, as he had said, the veriest beggar could do more—could fling his penny at the feet of Claire Robson and go on his starving way with a smile. Perhaps a man more trained in outwitting circumstances would have found a way out of the difficulty, but Stillman could see only blind alleys leading from every desire of his heart.... Danilo's ardent face rose before him. Here was a man who could no doubt feel the ecstasy of personal passion and yet have abundant thrill for bigger things. He had conquered a profession and now he was to surrender to the outpouring of the spirit upon the altars of his native land. His native land! Just what did an expression like this mean to Ned Stillman?—a smiling country untouched by the stress of nature, and only remotely disturbed by the grim expediency of war; a sky-blue birthright that yielded up the easy harvests which had reduced him to such sleek impotence. He felt suddenly tricked, cheated, as one does who looks back upon indulgent parents with a feeling of accusing scorn. Danilo's native land had made demands, forced the chains of loyalty in the white-heated fires of necessity. Danilo loved his Serbia because he had wept with her—because the claims of mutual tears are stronger than the claims of mutual laughter. Stillman felt loyal to the land of his birth. And he had worked hard, too. He had made sacrifices, of a kind, and he was prepared to do more. Yes, he would go the limit ... the absolute limit. He had every reason to be grateful for his inheritance, and yet, Danilo, penniless and tempered in the fires of a frugal birthright, had the best of the bargain....

Stillman was nearing San Francisco now. The landscape had the moth-eaten look that landscapes do when they make the transition from countryside to paved streets. But at least the morning air was still fresh, as yet unpolluted by the foul breath of drudgery and toil. He began to wonder vaguely whether Danilo would be stirring so early. He felt a sudden desire to see him. Well, why not? He remembered the doctor's address—a cheap lodging-house on Third Street. He had never favored Danilo before with a visit. It seemed absurd to burst in upon a man at the ungodly hour of six o'clock. But he had a wish to outrage his own sense of conventionality.

He found Danilo up and stirring. The room was clean and unincumbered with personal effects. A few photographs upon the bureau, a panorama of Belgrade, an American and a Serbian flag intertwined—these were all the evidences of occupation. Danilo himself was in a gay-flowered dressing-gown and he moved toward the door with a graceful gliding movement as he said:

"Why, my dear fellow, you look ill! What can be the matter?"

Stillman sank into a chair. It had needed just this word of sympathy to upset his poise utterly.

"I don't know," he answered. "I felt suddenly dizzy when I opened the door. Forgive me for breaking in on you at such an hour!"

Danilo answered with a laugh, and brought out cigarettes. Stillman took one. They began to smoke.

"I can't think what is the matter with me," Stillman began, awkwardly.