The unwelcome man

by Waldo David Frank

Quincy trudged through the campus, bound for his room, as a wounded beast seeks his lair. Several of his mates passed him. He was forced to stop and shake their hands and meet their perfunctory questions as to his summer. And all of them felt the coldness of this fellow, Burt; and Quincy knew that all of them felt this. So he avoided stopping when he could. And he shut the door of his room behind him—it was as if to blot out the serene self-satisfaction of the college buildings under whose stony eyes he had had to pass. And he rejoiced at the emptiness of his room. And so, he sank into a chair and began feeling for his wound.

But it was utterly hopeless.

The room had not yet been placed in order. A trunk stood on the floor; a carpet was rolled away in the corner; chiffonière and book-box and divan huddled together, giving an air of disarray. He could not find his wound, in such a clutter. He knew merely that its pain submerged him, flooded its position, made him feel that all of him was drenched with blood. Vacantly, like this, he sat for an hour. And then, an idea drew him from the room.

He boarded a car. And now, he was in the open; hatless, panting, seeking nature as a solace. The gentle woods flared away in their autumnal dress. The wind tarried in the branches, shaking the red leaves downward with the fresh force of its news. Quincy marched on, over the full-blown grass. A copse of locust trilling before him, a harsh space where malignant-colored sumachs mingled with the thickspread blackberry briars that caught and stung him—and then, he reached a grove of fir. Here, he sat down. The ground was moist and green. And a great spruce spread out its balmful verdure. Beyond lay the parched woods. But he was free and cut off from them. Here, he should be able to fix his wound.

From the clouds of feeling that swirled up in him, the clear-cut figure of Julia Deering came forth. He resented her. There was no love in his beholding her. This hurt. For it was an emptiness that ached. And then, a strange sensation filtered through. Why did he resent her? Despise her almost? He had hurt her; that was why. He had been unfair to her; that was why. He had betrayed her and she lay silent in his mind throughout, unstirring, unprotesting. This was the unforgivable thing. This was why. How could he love a creature himself had maimed?

For a brief moment, Quincy veered upon the truth. Had he but dared to alight there, to go no farther, to drive his standard and hold firm! Quincy began to see how weak and straddling it had been to go to him, to remain silent toward her; began to see what a fund of cowardly uncertainty his virtue hid, that prompted him to feel a guilt toward him, instead of a right for her; began to see that in his action lay a hedging, a shallowness of feeling, a failure to build up his own morale and his own measure, as a force which was life-saving should! He had maimed everything. He had not stood by him, not stood by her. From each, he had been willing to receive; and his response in each case had been a blow in the back, once that back was turned. Oh! there was health in this hatred, this detestation of himself which gripped him now like a storm! It was torture. But from such torture he could arise and still create. All that he needed was not to escape the storm; to invite, rather, the heart of it; to remain drowned in it, till it had swept him clean.

But though he had veered so nigh, he was too unstable not to fly on and past. The vision of the truth died out behind him in the spray-dashed horizon. Quincy began to defend himself, to rationalize, to seek a way of self-forgiveness. And of course, that which he sought, he found. He did not know what Julia had meant. He had been mad with Julia; and his madness was over, as madness should be. Perhaps, she also had been mad and her madness, also, had disappeared. His scruple, driving him to Professor Deering, was a clean and brave one. He had a conscience. What could a conscience be, but good and strong? Who ever had dared suggest that conscience was a coward and a traitor? Professor Deering simply had not understood. He would not lose him, he would make him understand. And the great man, regretting his injustice, would cry him welcome and crave his pardon. As to Julia—he felt with strong effort, he might still be able to look upon her as a friend. His infatuation was gone. But so might go, also, his new repulsion.

Many times, Quincy had alighted in this false haven. He should have known its meretriciousness. He should have known that it would as surely fail him as it had failed before. So now, a moment after, the smooth way receded, the storm swept back and he was no better off than he had been. But far beyond the passed horizon, the shore of truth had died away. Ahead might be illimitable seas, lashed with his fury. But the truth was gone.

And so, unsuccored even by this last resort, Quincy abandoned his fir grove and went back, unheeding, through the magnificence of autumn.

College resumed its mechanical paces; Quincy went through them poorly. His marks fell to dangerously near the point of failing. But he sustained them, barely, as he sustained the business of taking food and sleep. Garsted was gone. He had graduated and Quincy rejoiced in his absence. It would have been impossible to talk with him. It would have been more difficult with him about, to remain hedged in his solitude, as he desired.