It was she who spoke. "Dr. Parkman,"—looking at him with a keenness in which there was almost an affectionate understanding—"you did not say what you intended to say when you came into this room. You intended to speak of me—but the room swept you back to Karl. Oh—I know. And it is just because you were swept back—care like this—that I am going to tell you something.
"Doctor,"—blinded with tears—"we never understood. None of us ever knew what it meant to Karl to be blind. After—after he had gone—I found something. In this book"—reaching over to Karl's copy of Faust—"I found a letter—a very long letter Karl wrote in those last few days, when he was there—alone. I found it the day I went out to the library alone—the day before they—broke it up. Oh doctor—what it told! I want you to know—" but she could not go on.
When she raised her head the fierce light of hate was burning through the tears. "Can you fancy how I hate the light? Can you fancy with what feelings I wake in the morning and see it come—light from which Karl was shut out—which he craved like that—and could not have? Do you see how it symbolises all those other things taken from him and me? He talked of another light—light he must gain for himself—light which the soul must have. And Karl was longing for the very light I was ready to bring! He would have believed in it—turned to it eagerly—the letter shows that. Do you wonder that there is nothing but darkness in my soul—that I want nothing else? Look at Karl's life! Always cut off just this side of achievement! Every battle stopped right in the hour of victory! Made great only to have his greatness buffetted about like—held up for sport!—I will say it! "—in fierce response to his protesting gesture—"It's true!"
He tried to speak, but this was far too big for words which did not come straight from the soul.
"Do you know what I am doing now?" She laughed—and none of it had told as much as that laugh revealed. "I am making patchwork quilts! Can you fancy anything more worthless in this world than a patchwork quilt?—cutting things up and then sewing them together again, and making them uglier in the end than they were in the beginning? Do you know anything more futile to do with life than that? Well that's where my life is now. My aunt had begun some, and I am finishing them up. And once—once—" but the sob in her voice gathered up the words.
He wanted to speak then; that sob brought her nearer. But she went on:
"I sit sewing those little pieces together—a foolish thing to do, but one must be doing something, and as I think how useless it is there comes the thought of whether it is any more useless than all the other things in life. Is it any more useless than surgery? For can a great surgeon save his best friend? Is it any more useless than science—for can science do anything for her own? Is it any more useless than ambition and purpose and hope—for does not fate make sport of them all? Is it any more useless than books—for can books reach the hearts which need them most? Is it any more useless than art—for does art reach realities? Is it any more useless than light—for can light penetrate the real darkness? Is it,"—she wavered, quivered; she had been talking in low, quick voice, her eyes fixed on something straight ahead, as though reading her words out there before her. And now, as she held back, and he saw what she saw and could not say, he asked for her, slowly: "Is it any more useless than love?"
CHAPTER XXXIX
ASH HEAP AND ROSE JAR
As she broke then to the sobs for which he had hoped, something of tremendous force stirred within the man; and he felt that if he could bring her from the outer darkness where she had been carried, back to the things which were her soul's own, that his own life, his whole life, with all of the dark things through which it had passed, would have found justification. He had tried to save Karl, and failed. But there was left Ernestine. And it seemed to him—he saw it simply, directly, unquestioningly—that after all he would not have failed Karl if he could do what it was in his heart to do now for her.