VII
The Spare Room
With her eyes still flashing from argument, the grandmother took me up stairs. She gave me a big bath-towel, and showed me the bath-room, and also my sleeping place. I asked her about the holy pictures hanging near my bed. She explained in a voice that endeavored not to censure: “My daughter-in-law is of German-Catholic descent, and she is still Catholic.”
“What is your denomination?” I asked.
“My husband and son and I are Congregationalists.”
She did not ask it of me, but I said: “I am what is sometimes disrespectfully called a ‘Campbellite.’”
But the old lady was gone.
After a boiling bath I lay musing under those holy pictures. My brother of the road, when they put you in the best room, as they sometimes do, and you look at the white counterpane and the white sheets and the cosey appointments, do you take these brutally, or do you think long upon the intrinsic generosity of God and man?
I have laid hold of hospitality coldly and greedily in my time, but this night at least, I was thankful. And as I turned my head in a new direction I was thankful most of all for the unexpected presence of the Mother of God. There was her silvery statue near the foot of my bed, the moonlight pouring straight in upon it through the wide window. It spoke to me of peace and virginity.
And I thought how many times in Babylon I had gone into the one ever open church to look on the crowned image of the Star of the Sea. Though I am no servitor of Rome I have only adoration for virginity, be it carved in motionless stone, or in marble that breathes and sings.
A long long time I lay awake while the image glimmered and glowed. The clock downstairs would strike its shrill bell, and in my heart a censer swung.