Down among men

by Will Levington Comfort

It was different and dearer to John Morning than anything he had ever known. The picture came clearly to him as he walked around behind.... This was the hour of her return. She had gone from the hearts of her people long ago to bring back music. It was the beautiful old story of their sacrifice to send her away. How splendidly she had learned; how thrillingly they remembered her beginnings. And she had never forgotten; she would always love and thank them—indeed, she was happier than any now.... Morning was lost for a moment in his story.

She was approaching, but did not see him yet. The house was pleased with her, not noisily, but pleasantly. She turned to bow to the people—and then back toward the wings. She saw him standing there. Her arms went out to him, though she had not quitted the stage.... The gesture was new to the people.... It was different from her coming to him at the Armory.... They were standing together.

“Why don’t you go on again?” a voice said, and with a queer irritation in the tone.

... She was playing again—and with dash and power.

Morning had to shut his eyes now, really to hear; and yet, he could not summon her face to mind when his eyes were shut. He thought with a quick burn of shame that he had once wished her prettier. Sadness followed, for, it seemed to him, their meeting had been broken. She belonged to the people and not to him. They loved her.... She was different. He saw it now. The audience, so pleased and joyous, lifted her in a way perhaps that he could never do.

It was everywhere—the music. It filled the high, brick-walled stage, vibrated in the spiral stairways, moved mysteriously in the upper darkness and immensity. Behind the far wings a man was moving up and down in a sort of enchantment—no, he was memorizing something. A few of the far front rows were visible from where Morning stood, and the forward boxes opposite....

Morning was wandering in a weird land, a hollow land. The woman’s playing was between him and the world of men; half for them, half for him. The Memorizer was but another phantom, wandering with the ghost of a manuscript. Between Morning and the player was only the frail, fluent current of music. This was a suspense of centuries.... Would she go to Them, or return to Him? The tall, dim canvases were fields of emptiness and silence, in which he wandered listening, tortured with tension; and the loft was sunless, moonless, unearthly....

The music ceased. He heard the calling of the other world to her. He was apart in the shadows. Would she go to them, or would she remember him, waiting?... She was coming. He heard her step behind the wings. It was light as a gloved hand upon a table. He was hungry and athirst and breathless. For the first time he saw that her throat and arms were bare.... They were standing together again, but the Other Phantom intercepted.

It was the Memorizing Man. He came forward in an agony of excitement. “You’ll have to prompt me,” he said to Betty Berry, speaking roughly in his tension. “It’s my first time with this new dope. I thought I had it, but I ain’t—and there’s a barrel of it.”

The stage was slightly changed. Morning was thinking how hideous the work of some men. The Phantom was scourged with the fear of one who was to do imperfectly what another had written. The woman had carried a small table and chair to the wings, out of view of the audience and as near as possible to the Memorizer.... Morning found something soft and fragrant in his hands. Betty Berry’s wrap, which she had given to him before going to the table. And now the monologue had begun.... It was to be humorous.