The unwelcome man

by Waldo David Frank

Quincy envisaged dimly the wide variations that spirit makes in human action. In his dreams no more than such a kiss had made him drunk with joy; a fancied embrace no longer than this real one which had been, had made him faint with the need of giving. But these realities were far less sharply limned, their contents and their meanings were infinitely more complex than the willed dramas of his dreams. So Quincy felt no remorse. He was far too wildly drained by puzzlement.

The way of his soul was like a lake, wide and clear and full, at one end of which was a lock. And at times, the bolt in the lock slipped out and the waters rushed away with marvellous swiftness and there remained but a hollow basin, reeking and vaporous. So had been the week after that night. He had seen her again. But she had seemed content with his empty self. It did not occur to Quincy that this might have been, because she also had been swept of her fullness.

And then, gradually, came a healing. There had been no other sequel. The Professor had returned. He had not dared speculate upon the meeting him and facing him. But when, one day, the great man stopped him on the Campus, all of the torture he had imagined for this moment seemed strangely fanciful. He talked with him, calmly, and mentioned the dinner with his wife, and smiled at an apt remark and responded with another. Beyond, behind, he glimpsed in his brain another Quincy, spotted with red, writhing in his quandary. But this was upon the plane of his imagined tortures, a remote plane. He went away, wondering if he was a hypocrite, questioning which Quincy was the false one, hating his adaptability with life. For in his thoughts, a situation half so hard would have made his head whirl, and his heart bleed and his breath smother. Yet here he was, coolly at his lessons, chatting, digesting normally! He grew to be a wonder to himself greater than Julia was, or the Professor.

And all of the remainder of the year, there was no sequel. His calm was the calm of a great battle. But since Quincy had accepted the traditional idea of conflict, he did not know how deeply he was fighting. Yet he who has fought knows well that there is no calm so vast and so profound as the calm of conflict. Above it, the clouds may writhe and the air clash with thunder. Before it, the soul may quake and after it, the heart may bleed. But in the conflict, there is no energy at leisure to make a storm within. All of man’s power to stir has been projected outward. Within, there can be only peace. And then, little by little, as the struggle flags, the mind begins to move—the mind which is the herald of the soul. And as the inner forces put about and return homeward, they bring the turmoil and the stirring with them. And the mind catches these. And the mind speaks of bleeding or of winning, of dying or of living. And this is the consciousness of conflict—when the conflict flags.

So came it, that at that time which his jejune imaginings had pictured as unbearably upsetting, Quincy moved quietly about. And where he had dreamed of a decision in an open lists, behold! in the glamor, there was only the announcement of what had been done in secret from himself.

Julia allowed him to be alone. She demanded nothing. He saw her scarce more often than before. And when they were together, he found her reserved and smiling, with a deep suggestion of confidence and seriousness. All this helped him to a decision. And his decision was: that a great responsibility had come to him. His task must be to add Julia to her husband’s conscious treasures—to his ideals. In all ways, he must help herself to give herself to him. For he was sure that it was his failure to go out toward her, and hers to go out toward him—no more—which caused this state of famine. He did not seek a word for his emotion toward Julia. He admired her intensely; and she was a woman. That sufficed. As a woman, she did not see her husband as fully as did he. And her husband had limitations—in his capacity for living. But fortunately, he was there—he, Quincy, with his mission. He thanked God for it.

One night, after long pondering upon his ideal and strong bond with Julia, a strange lust devoured Quincy. In the hands of it he went and spent several hours with a woman whom he had met, liked, but not dreamed before of visiting. The adventure was an empty, dismal failure. And Quincy found more joy in telling Julia about it, than he had felt all of those set, uncomfortable hours.

Julia listened with her old, deep smile.

“You’re not the sort to do things like that,” she said.

And Quincy agreed. He was hungry no more—until the lust next possessed him.