John Marvel, Assistant

by Thomas Nelson Page

The rest was in the language of their own country. The argument had its effect; for I could hear the old drummer's tone growing more and more acquiescent and the other's laugh becoming more and more assured, and finally I knew by his voice that he had succeeded.

I came near rising on the spot and going in and unmasking him. But I did not. I determined to wait until the next morning.

Next morning, however, when I came down I received notice that my room was no longer for rent. The announcement came to me from Mrs. Loewen, who gave it in her husband's name, and appeared somewhat embarrassed. I could not see her husband. He had gone out "to meet a gentleman," she said. Her manner was so changed that I was offended, and contented myself with saying I would leave immediately; and I did so, only leaving a line addressed to my old drummer to explain my departure—I was sure that their action was in some way due to Pushkin. In fact, I was not sorry to leave though I did not like being put out. My only cause of regret was that I should miss my walk through the street where the young school-mistress was shining. I am not sure whether it was a high motive or a mean one which made me, as I left the house, say to Mrs. Loewen:

"You are harboring a scoundrel in that man Pushkin. Keep your eyes open." I saw a startled look in her eyes, but I did not wait to explain.

I did not feel comfortable that evening as I walked through the streets to the better quarters which I had taken. I knew that John Marvel would have said less or more. I half made up my mind to go to John and lay the matter before him. Indeed, I actually determined to do so. Other things, however, soon engrossed my thoughts and my time. I had to file my bill for my old ladies. And so this, like most of my good intentions, faded away.

In fact, about this time I was so wholly taken up with my love for the entrancing ideal that I had clad in the lineaments of Miss Eleanor Leigh and adorned with her radiance and charm that I had no thought for anything that was not in some way related to her. My work was suddenly uplifted by becoming a means to bring me nearer to my ambition to win her. My reading took on new meaning in storing my mind with lore or equipping it to fit it for her service; the outward form of nature displayed new beauty because she loved it. The inward realm of reflection took on new grace because she pervaded it. In a word, the whole world became but the home and enshrinement of one being, about whom breathed all the radiance and sweetness that I found in it. All of which meant simply that I was truly in love. Content with my love, I lived in a Heaven whose charm she created. But Love has its winter and it often follows close on its spring. I had played Fate again and waylaid her one afternoon as she was returning home from an excursion somewhere, and persuaded her to prolong her walk with an ease that lifted me quite out of myself, and I began to have aspirations to be very brave and good. I wished to be more like a rock, rugged and simple.

We were walking slowly and had reached a park, and I guilefully led her by a roundabout path through a part where the shrubbery made it more secluded than the rest. I can see the spot now as then I saw it: a curving gray road sloping down under overhanging trees, and a path dappled with sunlight dipping into masses of shrubbery with a thrush glancing through them, like a little brown sprite playing hide-and-seek. As we neared a seat, I suggested that we should sit down and I was pleased at the way in which she yielded; quite as if she had thought of it herself. It was almost the first time that I had her quite to myself in fair surroundings where we were face to face in body and soul. I felt, somehow, as though I had made a great step up to a new and a higher level. We had reached together a new resting-place, a higher atmosphere; almost a new land. And the surroundings were fresh to me in the city, for we had strayed out of the beaten track. I remember that a placid pool, shaded by drooping willows and one great sycamore, lay at our feet, on which a couple of half-domesticated wild-fowl floated, their graceful forms reflected in the mirror below them. I pointed to one and said, "Alcyone," and my heart warmed when she smiled and said, "Yes, at peace. 'The past unsighed for, and the future sure.'"

A quotation from a poet always pleases me. It is as if one found a fresh rose in the street, and where it comes from the lips and heart of a girl it is as though she had uttered a rose.

"Are you fond of Wordsworth?" I asked. "He seems to me very spiritual."

"Yes. In fact, I think I am fond of all poetry. It lifts me up out of the grosser atmosphere of the world, which I enjoy, too, tremendously—and seems to place me above and outside of myself. Some, even, that I don't understand. I seem to be borne on wings that I can't see into a rarer atmosphere that I can only feel, but not describe."