Part 11 (2/2)

Rachel was sad. They left her home in silence.

”We'll go toward the park,” he announced. It irritated him to utter matter-of-fact directions. Why when he had had nothing to talk about had he been able to talk? And now when there was something, there seemed little to say? Words were obviously the delicate fruit of insincerity.

Silence, the dark flower of emotion.

”I must go away.” Rachel slipped her arm into his. He stared at her. She seemed more sorrowful than tears. This annoyed. It was ungrateful for her to look like weeping. But she was going from him. He tried to think of her and himself after they had parted, and succeeded only in remembering she was at his side. So he laughed quietly.

”Yes, to-morrow the guillotine falls,” he answered. ”To-night we dance in each other's arms. Immemorial tableau. Laughter, love, and song against the perfect background--death. Let's not cheat ourselves by being sad. To-morrow will be time enough.”

He realized he was collapsing into a pluck-ye-the-roses-while-ye-may strain, and stopped, irritated. There was something he should talk to her about--the causes of her departure. Plans. Their future. Was there a future? Undoubtedly something would have to be arranged. But his mind eluded responsibilities.

”I'm happy,” he whispered. ”I talk like a fool because I feel like one.

Heedless. Irresponsible. You've given me something and I can only look at it almost without thought.”

”It seems so strange that you should love me,” she answered. ”Because I've loved you always and never dreamed of you loving.” She had become melting, as if her sadness were dissolving into caresses. ”Let's just walk and I'll remember we're together and be happy, too.”

Thoughts vanished from him. He released her hand and they walked in silence with their arms together. A sleep descended. Their faces, tranquil and lighted by the snow, offered solitudes to each other.

It was now snowing heavily. A thick white lattice raised itself from the streets against the darkness. The little black hectagonals of night danced between its s.p.a.ces. Long white curtains painted themselves on the shadows of the city. The lovers walked unaware of the street. The snow crowded gently about them, moving patiently like a white and silent dream over their heads. Phantom houses stared after them. Slanting rooftops spread wings of silver in the night and drifted toward the moon. The half-closed leaden eyes of windows watched from another world.

The snow grew heavier, winding itself about the yellow lights of street lamps and crawling with sudden life through the blur of window rays.

Beneath, the pavements opened like white and narrow fans in a far-away hand. Black figures leaning forward emerged for an instant from behind the falling snow and disappeared again.

Still the lovers moved without words--two black figures themselves, arms together, leaning forward, staring with burning hearts and tranquil faces out of a dream, as if they did not exist, had never existed; as if in the snow and night they had become an unreality, walking deeper into mists--yet never quite vanis.h.i.+ng but growing only more unreal. Snow and two lovers walking together with the world like a dream over their heads, with life lingering in their eyes like a delicately absent-minded guest--the thought drifted like a memory through their hearts.

Then slowly consciousness of themselves returned, bringing with it no relief of words. Their hearts seemed to have grown weak with tears, and in their minds existed nothing but the dark vagueness of despair--the despair of things that die with their eyes open and questing. Faces drifting like circles of light in the storm. At the end of the street a park. Here they would vanish from each other. The snow would continue falling gently, patiently, upon an empty world.

The cold of Rachel's fingers pressed upon his hand. Her face turned itself to him. A moment of happiness halted them both as if they had been embraced. A wonder--the why and where of her leaving. But an indifference deprived him of words.

”This is all of life,” he muttered. Rachel staring at him nodded her head in echo. They were standing motionless as if they had forgotten how to live. Beyond this there were no gestures to make, nowhere to go. They had come to a horizon--an end. Here was ecstasy. What else? Nothing.

Everything, here. Sky and night and snow had fallen about their heads in an ending. They stood as if clinging to themselves. Dorn heard a soft laugh from her.

”I thought I had died,” Rachel was murmuring. He nodded his head in echo.

A lighted window lost in the snow drew their eyes. People sat in a room--warm, stiff figures. The lovers stood smiling toward it. Words, soft and mocking, formed themselves in Dorn. A pain was pulling his heart away. The ecstasy that had raised him beyond his emotions seemed suddenly to have cast him into the fury of them. He would say mocking things--absurd phrases to which he might cling. Or else he must weep because of the pain in him. ”Two waifs adrift in a storm, peering into a bakery window at the cookies.” That was the key. A laugh at the dolorous asininity of life. ”Face to face with the Roman Pop U Lace. We who are about to die salute you.” Laugh, a phrase of laughter or he would stand blubbering like an imbecile.

He struggled for the theatric gesture and found himself s.h.i.+vering at Rachel's side, his arm clinging about her shoulders. Lord, what a jest!

After the moment they had lived through, to stand round-eyed and blubbering before the gingerbread vision of joys behind a lighted window. The whine of a barrel-organ. The sentimental whimpering of a street-corner _Miserere_. And he must weep because of it--he who had stood with his head thrust through the sky. His thought, like an indignant monitor, collapsed with scoldings. Let it come, then! With a sigh he gave himself to tears, and they stood together weeping.

The little lighted room seemed an enchantment floating in the scurry of the storm. It reached with warm fingers into their hearts, whispering a broken barrel-organ lullaby to them. Life shone upon them out of the lighted window and behind it the world of rocking-chairs and fireplaces, wall pictures and table lamps, lay like a haven smiling a good-by to them. Their hearts become tombs, closed slowly and forever upon a vision.

”The world will be a black sky and the memory of you like a s.h.i.+ning star that I watch endlessly.” He listened to his words. They brought a dim gladness. His phrases had finally capitulated to his love. He could talk now without the artifice of ba.n.a.lity to hide behind. Talk, say the unsayable, bring his love in misty word lines before his eyes; look and forget a moment.

Rachel's voice at his side said, ”I love you so. Oh, I love you so!”

Yes, he could talk now. His heart wagged a tongue. The pain in him had found words. The mystic desires and torments--words, words.

”We'll remember, years later, and be grateful we didn't bury our love behind lighted windows, but left it to wander forever and remain forever alive. Rachel, my dear one.”

”I love you so!” she wept.

<script>