Part 33 (1/2)
”I don't know anything, Mrs. Stuvic. I can only hope.”
She turned loose his wrist and shoved herself back further from him.
”You can only hope. You mean that you're only a fool. That's what you mean. What do you want to hope for? Why don't you find out? What's all the smart men doin' that they don't find out? Talk to me about the world gettin' wiser! Oh, they can invent their machines and all that, but why don't they find out the truth?”
”Some of the wisest of them think they have found out long ago,” Milford replied. ”Don't you see the churches? Somebody must believe that the truth is known or there wouldn't be so many churches.”
”Churches,” she sneered, ”yes, churches. But I don't believe in 'em, and you don't neither. Same old thing all the time; believe, believe, nothin' but believe. Well, I'm goin' home. I see you don't know any more than I do. We're all a pack of fools.”
Mitch.e.l.l said that he was going her way, and she told him to come on. At the door going out they met the Professor coming in. The old woman fell back as if she had seen a ghost. She declared that for a moment he was Old Lewson, just as he looked on the day when last he urged her to accept his faith. She sat down to recover breath. The Professor a.s.sured her that he meant no harm. Any resemblance that he might bear to the living or the dead was wholly unintentional on his part. She told him to shut up, that he was a fool. He acknowledged it with a bow, and said that this fact also was wholly unintentional.
”You pretend to be so smart,” she said. ”Yes, but why don't you know the truth?”
”I should know it, madam, were I to hear it.”
”Oh, you get out! You don't know half the time what you're talkin'
about. What's to become of us all? That's what I want to know.”
The Professor sat down. The hired man stood at the door. Milford leaned back in his chair. The old woman looked at the learned man and repeated her question. He began to say something about philosophy, and she broke in with a contemptuous snort and the cat's foot. She did not want philosophy; she wanted the truth. The Professor attempted to persuade her that philosophy was the truth, and she fluttered like a hen. It was nothing of the sort; it was ignorance put in big words. What she wanted was the truth.
”But if you won't listen I can't give it to you,” said the Professor.
”You cut me off at the beginning. Now, you say that what you want is the truth. You demand an answer to your question of what is to become of us all, after this life. You want me to answer it in a word, when the books that have been written on the subject would sink the biggest s.h.i.+p afloat.”
”Yes, and you don't know anythin' about it. What I want to know is, can we come back? Answer me that.”
”Madam, in my opinion----”
”I don't give a snap for your opinion. Come on, Bob Mitch.e.l.l, if you're goin' with me.” She bustled out of the room, leaving the Professor with his finger-tips pressed together and his head erect. ”As odd a fish as was ever hooked,” said he. ”She must be afraid that she is going to die.”
”It's on her mind all the time,” said Milford. ”She wants to believe something, she doesn't know exactly what.”
”The pitiable case of one beyond the reach of philosophy. But in her struggling to land herself somewhere she keeps her interest in herself keenly alive. There is always some sort of hope as long as we are interested in ourselves. Trite, I admit that it is trite, but it is a fact that we should always bear in mind, endeavoring constantly to keep alive an interest in self so that we may not fail in the obligations which we owe to others. But well may the old woman ask what is to become of us all. I wash my hands of the spiritual part,” he said, going through the motion of was.h.i.+ng; ”I can s.h.i.+ft the responsibilities here, or at least feel that I can, but--bodily, bodily, what's to become of us bodily?”
”When such riddles are asked of me, I'm always ready to give them up,”
said Milford. ”I'm not asking myself any questions.”
”Ha! you don't need to,” the Professor declared. ”You bristle yourself against the world, and in the fight that ensues you are not always beaten. I am. Your nerve is sound. Mine has been broken many a time, tied together again, and is therefore weak. Leaving age out of the question, there is scarcely any comparison between our equipments for the fight. You have a habit of silence that enforces respect for your talk. I am talkative, and a talkative man utters many an unheeded truth.
At times you are almost grim, and this makes your good humor the brighter. I am always pleasant, and as a consequence fail to hold the interest of the company. In overalls you can a.s.sert a sort of dignity, or rather what the thoughtless would take for dignity, but which I know to be a gruffism--permit the expression--a gruffism toned down. But I--even in a dress-suit I could not keep my dignity from cutting a prejudicial caper. The trouble is that my acquaintances will not take me seriously. I once heard a man say, 'Yes, as light as one of Dolihide's worries.' It angers me to feel that outwardly I am a caricature of my inner self. Not even my wife knows how serious I am, or what a tragedy life is to me. But, my dear fellow, my oddities are crystal, and I will not thread them off in spun gla.s.s. I came over for a different purpose.
The money with which you so generously deceived me--I have raised it; it was a fearful scuffle, but I seized the obstacles that danced about me and threw them down, one by one. Here is the money.”
He took out a number of bank notes with a scattering of silver, and slowly spread them on the table, carefully placing one upon the other.
”I said that I would pay you, and here's the money,--down to the forty cents.”
”I am much abliged to you, Professor. No hurry, though, you understand.”
”There has been no hurry, my dear friend. No one can ever know what a struggle it was to--to raise it at this time, this needful time.” He leaned back, and with lips tightly sealed together, and with head slowly nodding, gazed at the pile of dirty paper. ”This needful time, thou filth,” he said.