The City of Beautiful Nonsense

by E. Temple Thurston

But it was other than the calculation of philosophy which sustained the mind of the little old lady at this, the saddest and the most lonely moment of her life.

As she leant, gazing out of the window down the black line of water that lost itself in the silent gathering of the houses, there almost was triumph in her mind. She had lost everything, but she had done everything. She was utterly alone; but only because she had outlived her world. And last of all, there was triumph in her heart, because her world was complete. She could have asked nothing more of it. Her Romance was rekindled. If there was anything to live for, it was to see the flames leaping up in some other brazier--those flames which she had given the spark of her life to ignite. And had she not seen them rising already? Had she not seen the fire blessed by the only hand to whom the power of blessing is given? For all she knew, for all she dared to guess, the old gentleman's blessing had fallen upon a future, further distant than, perhaps, he dreamed of. What more had desire to ask for than that?

She remembered how, in those days of doubt and troubling, she had counted in fear the time which was left in which John should take his wife. She remembered doubting that they might even live to see the realisation of such happiness as that.

They were old people. There had no longer been certainty for them in the counting of the years. And, as this very day had proved, John's marriage had come none too soon. Had it been later, had they not received that blessing to which, with all such things as the flights of magpies and the turnings of the moon, this simple soul of hers gave magic virtue, then, indeed, she might have looked sorrowfully out of the high window in the great room.

But no--there had been no such mischance as that. The vivid sense of completeness filled her heart and raised the beating of it for a few moments, as the hope of a dying priest is raised by the presentation of his beloved cross.

And this is the philosophy, the stoicism of women, who will face the fearsome emptiness of a whole desert of life, so be it, that their heart is full and satisfied.

Who, passing below on the black strip of water and, seeing her pale, white face looking out from that high window into the night, could have conceived of such wonderful reconciliation as this? Who could have imagined the whole moment as it was? An old gentleman lying in a tiny room, the lamp still burning on the altar at his side, his hands crossed upon his breast in an unbreaking sleep; away out upon the water of the Lagoon, two lovers, young, alight with life, exalted in a sudden realisation of happiness, and this little old white-haired lady, alone in that great, high-ceilinged room, with its heavy, deep-coloured curtains and its massive pictures hanging on the wall and in the heart of her, a great uplifting thankfulness in the midst of such absolute desolation as this, a thankfulness that her life was a great, an all-comprehending fulfilment, that her greatest work was done, her highest desire reached--who, in the first inspiration of their imagination, seeing that frail white face pressed close against the window pane, could have conjured to their mind such a moment as this?

And yet, these simple things are life. A face peering from a window, a hand trembling at a touch, a sudden laugh, a sudden silence, they all may hide the greatest history, if one had but the eyes to read.

For more than half-an-hour she remained there without movement almost, except when she pressed her hand inquiringly to her breast to feel for the beating of her heart. At last, with a little shudder, as though, in that moment, she realised the vast space of emptiness in the great room behind her, she moved away.

Still her steps were steady, still her head was high, as she walked back to the little room where, evening after evening, year after year, the old gentleman had sat with her and talked, until the time came when they must go to bed. For with old people, as you know, it comes to be a state of--must--they must go to bed. It is not kind to tell them so, but there it is.