The dark mother

by Waldo David Frank

It was come and working over him as does all bloom: subtly, hidden away in the slow hours, swift alone in the achievement and perhaps in the passing—a thrust here of green, a burst there of bud, the alternate warm cradling of sun and shadow....

He was alone in his room. By breaking early from his work he overtook the long rays of the sun of afternoon pointing across his window into the East where the night rose. He squatted on the floor with crossed legs, arms folded. He stayed unmoved, and let his thoughts swirl about his gladness like birds circling a light-house.

Swift shadows were his thoughts against the tower of his vision. David saw he was alive, and felt it good. Surely life was a miracle none could explain. Surely to approach the miracle was to confess it—bask in the glow of knowing life unknowable. He had a vision of the world of men and children and mothers—endless millions massing down the ages. All of them had eyes upturned, had eyes and lips full of prayer. All of them were on their knees. All the men and mothers and children of all ages were praying before the miracle of life! He thought of Science—he thought of Darwin, of the makers of systems and machines, of the weavers of dogmas and rules. He knew that all these were parts of the miracle and somehow good. But what did they know and what did their saying amount to? Could one of them explain what and why Life was? the ecstasy of this teeming, whirling earth flung like a fleck of dust upon the whirlwind of countless worlds that, in their turn, lifted a shred of flimsy scarf on the tempest of unending Space? They could not explain. Their absorption in some speck of knowledge ended alone in this: that they forgot they could not explain ... so lost the one approach they might have had to the ecstasy of life. Their little speck of knowledge blotted their vision!

David sat thrilling with the thought of this adventure—this greatest of surprises:—he was alive! He seemed large in his vision, strong. He realized that Tom did not have this vision. He felt himself larger and stronger than Tom. He felt tender toward him for this. He forgave him everything, since everything was trivial to this: that he was stronger than Tom and loved him, and must therefore care for him. Out of the dim vision of all life, there crystalized for David a vision clear and single of his relationship with Tom. But in its superb folly, never could it have been engendered save for the truth of David’s wanderings among the stars....

So he was really stronger than his friend? And he had been unjust with misunderstanding? There were discrepancies of words and action, dubious things in Tom? Then let him out of his overflowing strength observe them.

Tom said to him: “You are my one real friend. You must believe that.”

And: “Whatever I may say or do with others to deflect me, to you I am the truth.”

Tom said these things often, because often puzzlement was in David and doubt near. Tom said to him: “Your standard of me, David, is a great injustice. Its height is unfair. I am not strong, David, I am weak. I admit all the hateful things you see in me when we go out together. A sort of drunkenness quivers through me. I have to say clever things, I have to please, I have to control. Damn it, man! you don’t despise it half so well as I. But, Davie, I am not like that, am I, when we are alone? Why won’t you judge me by my real self? Tell me, do you judge anything else when it is hidden and sick?”

Tom said to him: “You didn’t like the way I was to-day with Durthal? Oh, my dear fellow, it was plain enough. It was written all over you. My only wonder was what poor old Lars was thinking. What a dear, black grouch you can be, Davie.... Well, why should I not be cordial to Lars? Why should I not pay as much attention to him as I wish? And more than I do to my best friend—yes, my best friend whom I ignored? I know that, Davie. In company I do not need to pay attention to you. You are not part of company. If I ignored you—logical, eh? I have you alone. And if, in yourself, you do not know the difference in the way I feel toward yourself and toward silly, empty-headed Durthal, do not expect me to make it clear with a room full of fellows. Because I won’t!”

“Do you think Durthal empty-headed?”