—What do I know of Jesus, what does Harry know? There is a meaning that is God’s in the words of Christ, and I can’t find it out. Who knows it? Leon? It seemed to her that Leon knew. A Jew. He uses neither Love nor Christ ... the unlovely and unChristian Jews. We did not meet in Washington. Yet we had a talk. It seems to me I know what Leon said to me in Washington. What Harry said at home? That is real—yet it seems more like a shadow. Harry? You must not hate Harry. Hard. You dare not. What is there terrible in hate? Others hate ... good healthy people hate. Why can’t you? Why, when hate comes for Harry, do you sicken ... something in you rips, fades, bleeds away? I am pulled out from myself as if my heart from my body. It is easier to hate than to love. You cannot. One hate? O I love this world of little people dragging through pain, mired in it, sinking in pain. O I love you! We are close. Let me hate Harry! You dare not. What has he done? He turned good. He quoted Scripture ... here am I. Edith, Edith—your father killed me quoting the words of Christ. O this is not it. There is something beyond. I am exiled. Did God give me exile? I could have stayed and fought.... Not Harry, God gave me exile. Will you hate God? If Harry because you thought he gave you exile, why not hate God? Why not? Why cannot I hate God? He made the Morass of pain in which the world so pitifully struggles, so pitifully dies! Hate God! Not Harry. You too ... who knows what agony you have lived, what sickly visions you have had, lifting you up. Poor Harry ... if one understands you, Boy.... I understand you, miserable Boy.... Fool! I can’t hate you. God? Hate God?... not if you understand him also.
—There was a tree, I see a tree standing upon a mountain side above a quiet lake. And the tree’s roots break out. The tree falls into the water. Downward it groans, crashing and crushing. But in the water does it not lie still? No, it rots. Why does it fall, why does it rot so still when it has fallen? Why does the Hand of God draw it down ... God who has made it grow ... down against its growing, down against a thousand sprouts and seedlings?
—I am falling, Fanny. Are you rotten also? Where are you going? O if you pull me down, Lord, I must go. You do not think that I am bad. You know. God, you know everything, you must see my girlhood ... how I pushed up, eager, straight, sunward. You must see my wifehood. You must see my motherhood. I fall. But I have not lost you, God. O it hurts!... Fall, fall.... Why are you nearer, Father, when I fall?
She pressed her fingers hard against her brow.—Little brain, is God in there? Her eyes with a new salience touched the objects in her room ... the blue burlap on her couch, the chair, the Bible, the wall of the still Church, the swift sun vaulting away above the vaulting roofs. She bound her fingers hard about her brow:—All of you ... all ... I hold you.... There is no air ... there are no spaces. I touch everything that my eyes see, everything that my mind holds.... God?
Fanny sank to her knees on the floor. She felt her face free and bright above her body. Her face prayed, and her body:
“God ... go ahead. If I can stand it, Go ahead. There you are down below. I see you. You draw me like a tree, crashing down, crashing down.” She held her Bible high, let it go, it fell. “God ... go ahead.”
She got up, seated herself once more: and began to darn some stockings.
She worked long. At times:—I am hungry. Better go out and eat, came to her faintly dizzy head. She could not. The room was ripe and round, holding her firm.
A knock.