A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories

by William Dean Howells

"I don't understand you, Owen. How can you care so much for this impudent wretch's little snub, and yet be so indifferent about refusing Captain Ehrhardt?"

"I'm not indifferent about it, my dear. I know that I did right, but I don't know that I could do right under the same circumstances again."

In fact there were times when Elmore found almost insupportable the absolute conclusion to which that business had come. It is hard to believe that anything has come to an end in this world. For a time, death itself leaves the ache of an unsatisfied expectation, as if somehow the interrupted life must go on, and there is no change we make or suffer which is not denied by the sensation of daily habit. If Ehrhardt had really come back from the vague limbo to which he had been so inexorably relegated, he might only have restored the original situation in all its discomfort and apprehension; yet maintaining, as he did, this perfect silence and absence, he established a hold upon Elmore's imagination which deepened because he could not discuss the matter frankly with his wife. He weakly feared to let her know what was passing in his thoughts, lest some misconception of hers should turn them into self-accusal or urge him to some attempt at the reparation towards which he wavered. He really could have done nothing that would not have made the matter worse, and he confined himself to speculating upon the character and history of the man whom he knew only by the incoherent hearsay of two excited women, and by the brief record of hope and passion left in the notes which Lily treasured somewhere among the archives of a young girl's triumphs. He had a morbid curiosity to see these letters again, but he dared not ask for them; and indeed it would have been an idle self-indulgence: he remembered them perfectly well. Seeing Lily so indifferent, it was characteristic of him, in that safety from consequences which he chiefly loved, that he should tacitly constitute himself, in some sort, the champion of her rejected suitor, whose pain he luxuriously fancied in all its different stages and degrees. His indolent pity even developed into a sort of self-righteous abhorrence of the girl's hardness. But this was wholly within himself, and could work no sort of harm. If he never ventured to hint these feelings to his wife, he was still further from confessing them to Lily; but once he approached the subject with Hoskins in a well-guarded generality relating to the different kinds of sensibility developed by the European and American civilization. A recent suicide for love which excited all Venice at that time—an Austrian officer hopelessly attached to an Italian girl had shot himself—had suggested their talk, and given fresh poignancy to the misgivings in Elmore's mind.

"Well," said Hoskins, "those Dutch are queer. They don't look at women as respectfully as we do, and they mix up so much cabbage with their romance that you don't know exactly how to take them; and yet here you find this fellow suffering just as much as a white man because the girl's folks won't let her have him. In fact, I don't know but he suffered more than the average American citizen. I think we have a great deal more common sense in our love-affairs. We respect women more than any other people, and I think we show them more true politeness; we let 'em have their way more, and get their finger into the pie right along, and it's right we should: but we don't make fools of ourselves about them, as a general rule. We know they're awfully nice, and they know we know it; and it's a perfectly understood thing all round. We've been used to each other all our lives, and they're just as sensible as we are. They like a fellow, when they do like him, about as well as any of 'em; but they know he's a man and a brother after all, and he's got ever so much human nature in him. Well, now, I reckon one of these Dutch chaps, the first time he gets a chance to speak with a pretty girl, thinks he's got hold of a goddess, and I suppose the girl feels just so about him. Why, it's natural they should,—they've never had any chance to know any better, and your feelings are apt to get the upper hand of you, at such times, anyway. I don't blame 'em. One of 'em goes off and shoots himself, and the other one feels as if she was never going to get over it. Well, now, look at the way Miss Lily acted in that little business of hers: one of these girls over here would have had her head completely turned by that adventure; but when she couldn't see her way exactly clear, she puts the case in your hands, and then stands by what you do, as calm as a clock."

"It was a very perplexing thing. I did the best I knew," said Elmore.

"Why, of course you did," cried Hoskins, "and she sees that as well as you or I do, and she stands by you accordingly. I tell you, that girl's got a cool head."

In his soul Elmore ungratefully and inconsistently wished that her heart were not equally cool; but he only said, "Yes, she is a good and sensible girl. I hope the—the—other one is equally resigned."

"Oh, he'll get along," answered Hoskins, with the indifference of one man for the sufferings of another in such matters. We are able to offer a brother very little comfort and scarcely any sympathy in those unhappy affairs of the heart which move women to a pretty compassion for a disappointed sister. A man in love is in no wise interesting to us for that reason; and if he is unfortunate, we hope at the farthest that he will have better luck next time. It is only here and there that a sentimentalist like Elmore stops to pity him; and it is not certain that even he would have sighed over Captain Ehrhardt if he had not been the means of his disappointment. As it was, he came away, feeling that doubtless Ehrhardt had "got along," and resolved at least to spend no more unavailing regrets upon him.

The time passed very quietly now, and if it had not been for Hoskins, the ladies must have found it dull. He had nothing to do, except as he made himself occupation with his art, and he willingly bestowed on them the leisure which Elmore could not find. They went everywhere with him, and saw the city to advantage through his efforts. Doors, closed to ordinary curiosity, opened to the magic of his card, and he showed a pleasure in using such little privileges as his position gave him for their amusement. He went upon errands for them; he was like a brother, with something more than a brother's pliability; he came half the time to breakfast with them, and was always welcome to all. He had the gift of extracting comfort from the darkest news about the war; he was a prophet of unfailing good to the Union cause, and in many hours of despondency they willingly submitted to the authority of his greater experience, and took heart again.

"I like your indomitable hopefulness, Hoskins," said Elmore, on one of those occasions when the consul was turning defeat into victory. "There's a streak of unconscious poetry in it, just as there is in your taking up the subjects you do. I imagine that, so far as the judgment of the world goes, our fortunes are at the lowest ebb just now—"