The unwelcome man

by Waldo David Frank

Here was a roseate arrangement; and yet, to Quincy, one certain of accomplishment, if only he would face about. But he walked on. Why?

He saw his family, coldly, clearly, in the event of his return. He read the added sneer of their lips, the arching of brows that meant indulgence for one who was hopelessly foolish and incompetent. He saw the wrath of his father at this new turn on his dignity which he had played him; the knowing whistle of Marsden, discounting childish weakness; the sharp unconcern of Rhoda, not honoring his adventure even with contempt. And he dramatized for himself the sensations of his mother. She would be glad to have him back—oh, yes! But how little she would understand! To her, his going would seem an escapade luckily done with—a spurt of temper, subsiding fortunately. She would think thus:

“Quincy was naughty. But thank God, he thought better of it. Thank God, he was too weak to turn naughtiness into badness. Quincy was too much of a child to do real injury to me. Thank God, for Quincy’s childishness!”

In her regard, as in that of all the others, he would have lost. His return would mean the sacrifice of those few considerations which he had somehow won. It would mark a new depth for his inferiority, forge a new weapon for tyranny and contempt and misconstruction. To stay away meant a path of glory. To return meant skulking back into a cell made dingier and poorer for him in his absence. And in his act, no single one of them would see aught but a lack of will, a dearth of spirit, a sickly fall. And yet, in this direction went his feet!

No tinge of cowardice was there. Quincy knew too little of the world to be afraid of it, to hesitate in choice between his home that he did know, and it. His going-out had been the irresistible plunge of a long propped-up weight, rushing toward the goal of its momentum. In his return—if return he did—there was no falling; rather, a laborious, painful urging back against the sweep of that momentum. The one way, craned his thoughts and his ambition. The way he went, a voice he did not recognize or know of, had sent a syllable.

But now, he came to feel its nature. The words of the man had been wise words indeed. That was perhaps a reason for defeating them. They had singled out the fact of mother, and there dwelt. And though Quincy was inclined to think him right, these very words had inspired within him a protest of antithesis. His mother! Was the man wrong in his uncanny penetration? What had she helped him? How sustained him? how really served to protect him? Her love was real enough. But was it not a sickly, swaying plant—roots spread too wide for clinging, leaves thrust too close within the shadow of others, to have the sun? What did he owe her? Was her love not in its essence selfish, weakly? Did it not subsist on tears and sterile moments? Could he conceive of living on such sustenance, of mounting with such feeble help?

The man had been right. Quincy’s mind agreed. But Quincy in each step proved that both man and mind were wrong. For Quincy was going back to this discredited mother. Mentally, he nullified her and discarded her. Always, she stood there, with outstretched arms, as he rushed toward her. He thought he knew the formula of her tears, yet they ate deep in him. He thought he knew the grammar of her words; yet they commanded him. Quincy was learning.

And now, the Park was behind him. The adventure stood at its climax. And if there be gods who cease at times their celestial indifference, when the gleam of a real heroism smarts in their dull eyes from earth, they were now watching Quincy. Learn the book of life and the nature of the heroic becomes plain. It is the deliberate negation of what is sense and rote, of that which the interminable average makes life; it is the disavowal of all laws, the compliance with what is but a shadow, a shred, and a suggestion. It is the leaning on an instant and the despising of all time. It is the paradoxical resolve to prove a spot of star greater and wider and more important than the mass of earth. It is the truth. And it is even more, for it is the acting on it.

Quincy knew to what he was returning. He knew that no soul within the house would feel the power of his temptation to stay away, though it meant starving. He knew that she for whom he walked back into the shambles would translate his deed to fit in her own petty scope and wishes and perturbations. He knew the utter vainness of his act for his own self; the bitter fruit that it must bear; the insufferable slur that it would cast upon his fine rush for freedom.

For a moment, he paused, lost in a cloud almost of extinction. And then, something put force upon his finger. And his finger pressed the bell....