Such words did not soften Helen’s distress. They did not arise from physical suffering; there was neither fever nor pain; he was still a little weak, but otherwise not ill. The cause was within, somewhere deep down, at the root of being. Looking at his drawn face and tragic eyes, listening to his slow, enfeebled voice, the words of Saul Hartz came back to her. “He’s down and out already.”
Could it be so? Had his will been broken by this blow? Were those high, ennobling hopes which made him the man he was now permanently destroyed? She would not believe it. And yet, as she talked with him, a haunting fear flooded her mind. He was like one who bleeds internally. There was nothing that showed and yet there was dire reason to suspect a lesion of the soul.
In the afternoon, after a playful passage at arms with his mother who was determined to exalt him into “a case,” he took Helen as far as the gazebo at the end of the terrace. Here for a full hour they sat with a generous sun upon them. Spread before their eyes was a lovely panoramic sweep of country. Out beyond the distant ring of fir-clad hills were the immensities.
As they sat side by side looking in silence and awe upon this wonder of wonders, a measure of healing came to them. The tragedy of their own frail humanity filled their hearts and drew them closer together. They saw themselves and one another as they were, two hapless specks of life. And yet with what tenacity they clung to it. Poised crazily in the middle of a narrow plank, rotten with age, over a bottomless abyss, one false step, and they were as though they had never been. That image of mortality filled their minds. To both alike, in those unforgettable moments, came knowledge of the stoicism that was needed in men and women who sought to overcome destiny.
Neither John or Helen had the depth of mind of the real thinker. In action lay their strength. To improve one tiny niche of the world they knew but very little was all they sought. But they were open to impressions, intensely alive. And each had a secret ear to catch, no matter how fitfully, how faintly, the pulse of the time.
“When we humans,” said the sick man, “we hapless two-legs sit in our gazebo trying to peer behind the sunset, as you and I are doing now, we always seem to be up against one question. Is there anything really to be hoped from science? It is contriving all sorts of wonders, they say. The elixir of youth has been found. There shall be length of days for those who desire it. A remarkable vista is opened up by these recent discoveries. Here is a most fascinating book, a translation from the Chinese, which is causing a great stir.”
Helen was shown the small volume in his hand.
“Lien Weng, I see,” was her comment. “They were talking about him the other evening at the Bryants. He has revolutionized psychology, they say, whatever that may mean. One hasn’t the mental machinery really to get at this sort of thing.”
“It’s beyond me, too,” said John. “One can’t quite reach to what he’s driving at, although the translation seems pretty exact.”
Helen read aloud the title of the book: New Uses for the Will.