She laughed oddly, almost amusedly, at my vehemence, and swayed back a little from me as I held out my hand. “Good-bye,” I said, “for to-day.” And when she yielded me her hand I pressed it lightly and let it go.
I had never tried, until that moment, to analyze the quality of my sentiment for Haidee. I had been filled with a vague romantic idealism where my wonder woman was concerned, but suddenly I was restless, and dissatisfied with idealising. I wanted to know Judith Batterly—the real woman. I wanted to pierce the veil of mysticism in which she was wrapped. I was not content with the artificiality of our discourse. It seemed to me I failed to strike a note truly sound in any of our talks. The real woman eluded me. I could not bring Haidee down to my plane from the dream-world where only she seemed to function. She was ever remote. And I wanted to understand fully my feeling for her.
When I fell asleep that night, dreams of Haidee and Wanza were commingled. Once I awoke, dressed completely, and walked outside the workshop in the clear, balmy air of the night. I lay down on the river bank and watched a particularly big bright star that hung just over the crest of Nigger Head. I thought of Wanza—of her new and gentler ways that were replacing the old crisp brightness of demeanor—and I smiled. I thought of Haidee—and I sighed. Then my thoughts flew to the kickshaw case I had given Wanza and her reception of it, and to the swamp laurel she had risen at daybreak to gather for me, and thinking of these things I went back to the workshop and crept in beside Joey, and with my arm about the lad slept dreamlessly till morning.
CHAPTER XIII
DEFICIENCIES
ABOUT this time I wrote in my diary: “A man in love is an oaf. How awkward and lumbering he is in the presence of his Dulcinea. How undesirable and like a clod away from her. He is a churl to every one but the one woman. I have been out in the sun-splashed forest searching for rare specimens of the wood anemone for my wonder woman. My search absorbed my morning, and I quite forgot that I had promised Wanza to ride to town for flour for the weekly baking. I dreamed and mused the hours away among the basaltic boulders in a strange grove of twisted yews, where nereid green pools lie in little hollows and maiden hair springs up through the gold-brown moss carpet. This grove has long been a favorite of mine. It has a classical aspect; there is something about it that suggests a train of mythological conceptions. I feel sure that the great God Pan must be fashioning his flute among the rushes in the bed of the spring. In the wind’s sibilance I hear the skirl of the Pandean pipes. I recall the divine huntress, and summon up visions of Iris, the goddess of many colors.”
This morning the wood spaces were filled with visions of Haidee. She smiled at me from behind the clumps of bracken and huckleberry, her eyes beamed at me from the hearts of the flowers. The clouds were her garments, the blue sky her soul. As Dante walked dreaming of Beatrice so went I with Haidee ever before me.
Love is a rejuvenating precious thing. Even a hopeless love softens the fibres of one’s entire being, and straightens the warped soul of one. But I must not reach out toward Love! I must renounce. I must go on alone, like a battered, wrecked, drifting derelict. I have thought the blackest part of my life behind me. I have come to look forward too much. I have vented my heavy heart, and found solace in work and books. And now! I must live through the culminating sorrow. Is all my life to be one great renunciation? I find myself rebelling. I have been too much the helpless victim of circumstances. For me Ossa has been heaped on Pelion.
I have said, “If I can but avoid comparing my lot with what it might have been, I can be a man.” I have repeated: “I swear the earth shall surely be complete to him or her who shall be complete. The earth remains jagged and broken only to him or her who remains jagged and broken.” I have said all this to myself times innumerable. And now what shall I say to myself? I can scarcely whisper to myself, “Courage!” I am baffled, balked, stunned. Oh, what do I signify in the scheme of things! I am a bit of washed spindrift. Glad should I be to surrender the quick of being. If it were not for work!— Through labor only I come near to God, the master artizan, who labors tirelessly and marvelously.
After making this entry in my diary I gained an unexpected surcease from wearied thoughts. I went on with my life calmly enough, doing the things nearest to hand, eating three good meals a day as a man will, writing on my novel evenings, and sleeping normally, with Joey curled into a warm little ball at my side. In some strange way after my descent into Avernus I became tranquil in every pulse. After brooding over much I sat back, figuratively speaking, and thought of nothing, but the simple joy of being. Sunlight was pure gold, the dew silver, each twilight a benediction, each dawn a natal hymn. I managed so that I saw very little of Haidee, paying my respects to her once a day, and pleading work as an excuse if invited to linger in the shady Dingle where she sat with her work or a book. I contemplated sending Joey to school in the autumn, and a portion of each day I devoted to teaching the small lad spelling. His remarks concerning the rite were often pungent. He persevered to please me, but I could see that in his heart he pitied me for my zealous attempts on his behalf.
“When people can say things what’s the use of spelling?” he asked one day. He held his book upside down, his eyes fixed longingly on a skimming prismatic cloud of butterflies beyond the workshop door. “I can say God—what’s the good of spelling it?” I did not respond, and evidently anxious to convince me further, he added: “Yes. And one time once—oh, when I was teenty, Mr. David, I thought I saw him.”