Part 39 (2/2)
”If--if you should die--”
”I shall not die, Shane. I know. I shall not die.”
”But how do you know?”
”I just know, Shane. That's all.”
”O Granya, it seems very terrible, that one day one of us should die.”
”Dear Shane, it is not very terrible. If I should die, my heart, I should know I would not have long to wait. And I should be with you, Shane, even dead, when I could.... And after days of trouble suddenly one morning you would know you had had a good night's sleep, and that would be because I had come to you in the night and had kissed you, and laid a dim hand on you.... And sometimes, in difficulties, you would feel a sudden rush of strength, and that would be because I was beside you ... dear heart, dear Shane.”
”I am so much older, Granya. I shall be the first to die.”
”If you are the first to go, Shane, I shall be like some wife of the Crusades, of an old time when a dream meant more than a pocketful of money ... and men were glad to go, and women glad to send them. I shall sit by my fire, and when you come I shall talk to you in my heart ...
saying little foolish sweet things.... And when I need you, I shall go out into the soft night, and call, and you will hear my voice in the Milky Way ... and G.o.d will let you come ... my darling....”
”Granya!”
”And maybe--sweet, sweet thought--He will let us go together....”
-- 5
Here was a great fact, that he lived, but with the fact came a problem: Why? If within him there existed this sentient, supple, strong thing, and it did exist, for what end was it designed? It was not enough to have faith, to know one lived to save one's soul.... That was selfish, and selfishness was an unpardonable thing, the sin against the Holy Spirit. That has ordained there should be one occult purpose.... No, everything had a reason.... The sheltering trees, the ocean from whose womb came the great clouds that nurtured the green gra.s.s: the winds that were like gigantic brooms. The wise and the good labored, and never s.h.i.+rked.... Each man must give according to his station, the strong man of strength, the wise one of wisdom; the one who knew beauty must give it somehow, not huddle it like a miser's h.o.a.rd.... All men must work; that was as natural an instinct as the law that men must eat: and work did not mean grinding, but justifying one's existence fully.... None may hold back, for that is ign.o.ble, and all that is ign.o.ble dies, dies and is used again.... The murderer's dead body may nurture a green bay-tree, such beautiful economy nature has.... And it seemed to him that the souls of dark men were used, too, but used as negations, and that was death.... Perhaps they provided the sinister thunderstorms, the terrible typhoon, the cold polar breezes, the storms off the Horn.... They might be the counterpoint of nature's harmony.... But this was going past knowledge, and past knowledge of heart and head one must not go.... But of one thing he was certain; all that is ign.o.ble dies....
He had always known from the time he was a young boy that man must do something.... It was not sufficient to make a little money and sit down and spend it, as a dog finds a bone and gnaws it, or buries it, in a solitary place.... For a long time he had thought it sufficient to do the little commerce of the world.... But that was not sufficient.... In Buenos Aires he had felt ridiculous, as a giant might feel ridiculous carrying little stones for the making of a grocer's house.... Ashamed, a little resentful! He was like a dumb paralytic with flaming words in his heart and brain, and he could not write them, not even speak them aloud....
But all his life this had worried him, the getting of work to do. And when he came to America with Granya he had come with great plans. s.h.i.+ps and s.h.i.+p-building were the only things he knew, and he had thought with others that the great clipper days might be revived. Iron steams.h.i.+ps were grasping the swift commerce of the world, but there were errands great wooden s.h.i.+ps under skysails might yet be supreme in, the grain trade of San Francisco, for instance. And it might be possible, so he had dreamed, that once more the great pre-war clippers should be the pride of the new idealistic commonwealth ... and what had come from his hand? A half-dozen three-masted schooners, and not very good schooners either, being too long in the hull for strength.... And n.o.body seemed to care.... From Belfast and the Clyde, iron boats swarmed like flies....
And people were impatient.... They did not care to wait if a s.h.i.+p were blown from her course.... They wanted s.h.i.+ps on time.... People had laughed at him, calling him crazy, and saying he was trying to stem progress.... And then they had done worse.... They had smiled and said it was a hobby of his.... He knew it was no use. He quit.... And Granya had been very tender.
”You mustn't mind, Shane. It was very lovely of you to dream and act....
But it is not intended. Don't take it to heart, dearest.”
”All my life, Granya, I have been trying to do something, and I always fail.”
”Dear Shane, you never fail. The success is in yourself, not outside of yourself. That is all.”
”Ah, yes, Granya, but that is not enough. That seems so selfish. So many men have done so much for the world, and I have done nothing. Even the old charwoman on her knees scrubbing floors has done more. She has given her best, and her best has been useful.”
”But, Shane, you must wait. Have patience.”
”I am old, Granya, and have done nothing.”
”Wait, Shane, wait. I am going to dim the light, and blur all these things around us, and tell you a secret thought has been deep in my heart for years. There will be we two just in the room--absolute. And come nearer the fire, dear Shane, where I can just see where your hand is, and put my hand on it when the thought makes me feel like a child in a great wood.... Shane....
”You know your charts, the charts you use and you at sea, the charts of the heavens, where what stars we know are marked, the sun and the moon and Venus and Jupiter, and Sirius the dog star, and Saturn, and the star you steer your s.h.i.+p by, the polar star.... And all the constellations, the Milky Way, and the belt of Orion, and the Plow and the Great Bear and the great glory you see when you pa.s.s the line, the Southern Cross ... and the little stars you have no names for, but mark them on your chart with quaint Greek letters.... Our little world is so little, so pathetically little in this immensity.... It is as though we were living on the smallest of islands, like some of the islands you have known and you on board s.h.i.+p following the moon down the West--Saba, where the Dutch are in the Caribbean, or Grenada, the very little island.... And on that island they know only vaguely that such great lands as Africa and Europe and Asia are.... They don't know it from experience.... But Peking of the bells exists, and stately Madrid, and Paris that is a blaze of light, and London where the fog rolls inland from the sea....
Heart of my heart, how terrible it is that cannot, will not see, understand.... And they say: Well, we don't see it. Here we were born and here we die.... And they say: Show us somebody who has been there.... They forget how long is the journey and how a man may have affairs in the crowning cities.... Dearest, I am losing myself, but I know.
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