And he did understand; there lay the helpless pathos of it. A non-existent barrier separated them.
All the time, too, it was Hugh’s business to be cheerful, to be natural, and foolish, and boyish. That, again, was not easy, when, whatever he did or said, appeared “to be wrong.” And there was no respite; “the cheerful and contented spirit,” as Mr. Micawber said, “had to be kept up.”
And then, oases in the wilderness, sometimes a golden day fluttered down. Edith would be better, and, more than once, contrite, humbled to the dust, as she viewed the last week from some less tortured standpoint, she could only mutely plead his forgiveness. And there was nothing to forgive—nothing, at least, except the little insects, and Hugh had no more intention of forgiving them than of forgiving the devil for all the trouble he has made in this world, which would have been so pleasant if he had only died before we were born.
In these rifts in the clouds—one had come yesterday—there was no need for her to say, “I am horrible, but I am doing my best,” and no need for him to say, “I am stupid, but I am doing mine,” because they both utterly understood. Then, as on this morning, clouds would again, for some reason or other, drive over the face of the sun, and then when there was need for Edith to say just that word, she could not, could not! And, while silence starved her, Hugh had to whistle, or ask some absurd riddle to show he was quite cheerful and happy, thank you.
Hugh kept his depression and misgivings for such times as when he was alone; as soon as he set out from the house on a soi-disant skating errand, or, as to-day, to smell the pine-woods, since the skating excuse had broken down, he always found some companion of this nature waiting for him, like a faithful dog, outside the front door, eager for a walk. To-day the dog had kept very close to him, and now, as he sat on the fallen pine, it jumped up beside him, and thrust itself on his notice. It had always got some fresh fawning trick, and to-day it had a new one, a beauty. It was this.
Edith had begun to write the last act of her play, and Hugh’s faithful companion (this was its trick) made him remember with vital vividness the few words that had been said after he had read, now three months ago, the first two acts. Peggy, reasonable, cheerful Peggy, in the evening of that glorious day, had hoped that Andrew Robb would never finish it, for he was born of misery. And only two days ago Hugh had asked his wife whether Andrew Robb was writing still, whether he had come back to her. It appeared he had.
So the miserable spirit was in the house, holding her pen, uttering her thoughts. Was all beauty, then, all fine work born of misery? Was the “heavenly mind,” which, so rightly, he had attributed to Andrew Robb, active most when the soul was in travail, in trouble?
The sun was very warm to-day and the air windless. Hugh had had a nearly sleepless night; vague trouble had oppressed him through all the dark hours, vague while he looked it in the face, but real enough when drowsiness began to touch him on the shoulder or to tweak his blanket, so that, as often as he dozed, he was called back again. And now, in the same vague trouble, that which had tweaked and plucked at him during the night stood somewhere close by him. It would not do at all, and he sat up, banishing the drowsiness that his sleepless night had brought on him.
He had thrown away the end of his cigarette, and it had fallen into a clump of bilberries, and from the clump arose a little blue coil of smoke, twining lazily about the still air. Below lay the quiet Alpine village, brown and gray, with its lazy layer of smoke above it. Then close behind him came a flutter and scurry of wings, and a bird perched itself in a tree near him and gave three monotone whistles. Then it stopped; its love, its mate, did not answer. It could not go on alone. Some breath of wind in the upper air stirred, and the pine tops spoke of the sea to each other. All these things were drowsy, incomplete. They tried to be alive; the cigarette end tried to burn the bilberries; the pine-trees sighed for a real wind; the bird tried to sing, but did not find the stimulus. It was the hour, in fact, to him and all the world, when it is better, if possible, to go to sleep again till real morning comes. He had a sleepless night behind him, so, probably, he slept.
But he did not know that he slept; he only knew that drowsiness again gained on him, and he heard a step coming up the needle-strewn path below the pines, which seemed to wake him again into complete activity of consciousness. Then he saw, but strained his eyes at it, for he could not see distinctly, whose was the step. He did not know whether the figure was male or female; the face was bent down toward the earth as it approached him up the steep path, and he could not see it. Then, when it came close, it raised its head, and at that moment Hugh knew it more utterly than he knew himself, for it was Edith’s face. Yet, in the same moment, it was not her face, it was the face of a stranger, kind, wise, but inexorable. Then, though the mouth remained still, the eyes—Edith’s eyes—smiled at him, and then the lips said, “Du meine Seele, du mein Herz.” Then everything, figure and pine tree, Davos and sky, cigarette whorl of smoke, and smoke of the village “clicked.” And Hugh saw that they were all there except the figure that he had—dreamed.