Beyond the Gates

by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

“I’m going to live, Tom! Tell Mother I have no idea of dying. I prefer to live.”

Tom nodded; he did not speak; I felt a hot dash of tears on my face, which surprised me; I had not seen Tom cry since he lost the football match when he was eleven years old.

They gave me something more out of the spoon, again, I think, at that moment, and I felt better. I said to Tom:—

“You see!” and bade them send Mother to lie down, and asked Alice to make her beef-tea, and to be sure and make it as we did in the army. I do not remember saying anything more after this. I certainly did not suffer any more. I felt quiet and assured. Nothing farther troubled me. The room became so still that I thought they must all have gone away, and left me with the nurse, and that she, finding me so well, had herself fallen asleep. This rested me—to feel that I was no longer causing them pain—more than anything could have done; and I began to think the best thing I could do would be to take a nap myself.

With this conviction quietly in mind I turned over, with my face towards the wall, to go to sleep. I grew calmer, and yet more calm, as I lay there. There was a cross of Swiss carving on the wall, hanging over a picture of my father. Leonardo’s Christ—the one from the drawing for the Last Supper, that we all know—hung above both these. Owing to my position, I could not see the other pictures in the room, which was large, and filled with little things, the gifts of those who had been kind to me in a life of many busy years. Only these three objects—the cross, the Christ, and my father—came within range of my eyes as the power of sleep advanced. The room was darkened, as it had been since I became so ill, so that I was not sure whether it were night or day. The clock was striking. I think it struck two; and I perceived the odor of the mignonette. I think it was the last thing I noticed before going to sleep, and I remembered, as I did so, the theories which gave to the sense of smell greater significance than any of the rest; and remembered to have read that it was either the last or the first to give way in the dying. (I could not recall, in my confused condition, which.) I thought of this with pleased and idle interest; but did not associate the thought with the alarm felt by my friends about my condition.

I could have slept but a short time when I woke, feeling much easier. The cross, the Christ, and the picture of my father looked at me calmly from the wall on which the sick-lamp cast a steady, soft light. Then I remembered that it was night, of course, and felt chagrined that I could have been confused on this point.

The room seemed close to me, and I turned over to ask for more air.

As I did so, I saw some one sitting in the cushioned window-seat by the open window—the eastern window. No one had occupied this seat, on account of the draught and chill, since my illness. As I looked steadily, I saw that the person who sat there was my father.

His face was turned away, but his figure and the contour of his noble head were not to be mistaken. Although I was a mere girl when he died, I felt no hesitation about this. I knew at once, and beyond all doubt, that it was he. I experienced pleasure, but little, if any, surprise.

As I lay there looking at him, he turned and regarded me. His deep eyes glowed with a soft, calm light; but yet, I know not why, they expressed more love than I had ever seen in them before. He used to love us nervously and passionately. He had now the look of one whose whole nature is saturated with rest, and to whom the fitfulness, distrust, or distress of intense feeling acting upon a super-sensitive organization, were impossible. As he looked towards me, he smiled. He had one of the sweetest smiles that ever illuminated a mortal face.