Two days later, the Countess Nattatorrini cut short her visit to Maple Valley, leaving, as she had planned, without seeing Gareth again. She sent him a note, however, a note which began, My dearest heart, and which closed with, à bientôt, à toi. Gareth smiled as he read it. How simple life became, once it ceased being difficult! His father, formerly the great stumbling block in his path, had, through the paradoxical force of ironical circumstances, turned out to be his greatest ally. He had accepted, almost with enthusiasm, Gareth's decision to enter the University of Chicago. The University, with its recent endowment from John D. Rockefeller, was branching out, reaching for students from all the states of the middle west. At present, therefore, no entrance examinations were required, and Gareth had not prepared himself for entrance examinations.
The boy could even perceive that his father would experience a certain temporary sense of relief through his departure. The strain of their false relationship was beginning to tell on the older man. The two rarely met, infrequently came into intimate contact, except at mealtimes, and then the self-consciousness of the father in the presence of his son was appalling. He could not say what he really wanted to say, and he would resort to a dozen subterfuges to get through with a breakfast or a dinner without being utterly silent. His favourite method of accomplishing this set purpose was to read aloud from the newspaper. One morning, for instance, while Gareth was eating his orange, his father read the report of the speech made in reply to Tsar Nicholas by Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany who, with the Kaiserin Augusta Victoria, was a guest at the Russian Court: I thank your Majesties in the name of the Empress for the cordial and magnificent reception you have accorded us, and for the gracious words with which your Majesty has so affectionately welcomed us. I especially desire to lay at the feet of your Majesty my most sincere and grateful thanks for the renewed mark of distinction which comes as such a surprise to me. I mean the enrolment of myself in your Majesty's glorious navy. This is an especial honour which I am able to appreciate to itg fullest extent, and an honour which, at the same time, confers a particular distinction upon my own navy.
It is a fresh proof of the continuance of our traditional intimate relations founded upon the unshakable basis of your Majesty's unalterable resolution to keep your people in peace in the future as in the past. It finds in me also the gladdest echo. Thus we will pursue the same paths and strive unitedly under the blessing of peace, to guide the intellectual development of our peoples. I can with full confidence lay this promise anew in the hands of your Majesty, and I know I have the support of my whole people in doing so, that I stand by your Majesty's side, with my whole strength in this great work of preserving the peace of the nation, and I will give your Majesty my strongest support against any one who may attempt to disturb or break this, peace.
Another time he read from a Chicago paper a letter which G. H. Cole, a carpenter in the Klondike, had written his wife in Seattle: When I first arrived here I saw money flowing like water. First five days I worked at putting in foundations at ten dollars a day, then went to work as carpenter at fifteen dollars. Women get one hundred dollars a week for cooking. Bread is fifty cents a loaf, pies, seventy-five cents; flour, six dollars a barrel . . .
At the conclusion of these readings Gareth usually attempted to make some suitable comment, but during their course his mind wandered to pleasanter pastures. Where was he going? What was he going todo? He did not know. He did not care. He was only cognizant of the fact that at last the world was open before him, that he might do as he pleased, live as he liked. He harboured no doubts, no fears. His vivid imagination assured him that he would find his niche somewhere, once he was free from the bondage which this town and his family life entailed. He would never come back, never see any of these people again: with a fine thrill of joy he deliberately made this vow. The town, his father, had ruined his mother's life, his mother, the only person who had ever inspired his deep affection. His escape would be his revenge on his father, his tribute to his mother. This, he felt, would please her more than anything else he might do.
That he must come to some decision in regard to the matter of his collections came to him one day while he was sitting in his room in the barn. They had served their purpose as makeshifts for what he more deeply desired, but at present they had lost what interest they had previously held for him. Now they seemed petty, unimportant. His collection of eggs, for instance: should he break them, leave them? He could not quite do either, he reflected, as he drew out the drawers and regarded the frail shells lying in their nests of cotton. He determined to present them to Chet Porter, who would consider the gift magnificent. Gareth turned to the pictures on the wall, to the bundles of photographs and cigarette-pictures of Della Fox, Nordica, and all the others, to his scrap-books. Now that he was about to see the great stars of the world, Réjane, Bernhardt, Jane Hading, Coquelin, of what use were these substitutes for the real people? He decided that they should go to Clara Barnes. His books, perhaps his richest treasures, remained. He ran over the titles. They were good books; they had been his friends, but he knew that he would never send for them, never want them again. From the lot he selected just two which, for certain reasons, he proposed to keep by him. The Chevalier of Pensieri-Vani and Bel-Ami. The others he would offer to Lennie Colman. There was, he felt, a certain ironic fitness in these various distributions.
A day or so later, meeting Clara on the street, he asked her if she wanted the photographs.
Yes, she assented indifferently, I'd like to have them. Let's get them now, she went on with more enthusiasm.
So, once again, for the last time, they ascended the steps in the barn together.
When are you going away, Gareth? she asked, while he was making a neat packet of the pictures.
Saturday, he replied.
We shall meet in Chicago, she asseverated. You know I am going a little later.
That will be dandy, was his absent-minded reply.
You know, Gareth, I wouldn't want to see many people from this old town. What do they know about art here? But you are different. You understand. Some day when I am a great singer you will be proud you knew me, Gareth.
He wondered if this rather unattractive girl with a commonplace mind ever would be a great singer. He could remember her . . . it was not so very long ago . . . when she wore gingham aprons, carrying her slate in the curve of her arm. A year ago, even, she had worn pig-tails down her back. It was a year ago that . . .
Gareth, she continued, you've been awfully mean to me lately. Let's be friends in Chicago anyway, no matter . . .
Of course, we'll be friends, he assured her, adding hastily, I'm expecting father home soon. We have to talk over some of my plans.
You're always sending me away, Gareth, she reproached him.
After Clara had departed, the boy sat before his desk with his photograph of the Countess propped up in front of him. He regarded it critically. She was a handsome god in a car. He wondered how long he would live with her, wondered if she would tire of him before he found . . . His mind reverted to Clara. She still wanted him. Lennie wanted him. There would be others, he assured himself. There would be some one always until he learned to write. Then, well, then he would be entirely free. In getting himself out of this accursed town, he had accomplished the first step.
He did not love the Countess; he was quite aware that he never could love her. Somehow, now that she had declared herself to him, he could feel very little more respect for her than he felt for Clara and Lennie. The distinction he made in his mind was that she could give him something, something that he wanted, while they could not. She did not . . . he was examining the photograph . . . look so very old, not nearly as old as she must be. Was she, he wondered, older than his mother? The photographer had retouched all the lines from the face, even, he noted, sliced a good bit off the curve of her hip. Nevertheless, he believed that the picture didn't unduly flatter her. She was still a handsome woman. There was intelligence in her face, animation, qualities the photograph lacked. He would not feel ridiculous with her.
He substituted another photograph for that of the Countess, a picture of his mother. He looked into the kind, grey eyes, smoothed the parted greybrown hair, kissed the soft mouth. Quite suddenly, he realized that he had lost the gift of tears. His mother's death had made it impossible for him to cry again. Nobody else could ever affect him in the same way. If she had lived, how different his life might have been. He might eventually have gone into business with his father, sacrificed himself to his father's desires as she had sacrificed herself. He would gladly have done this for her. He would have done anything for her. But through her death he had lost all sense of pity, all capacity for deep affection. Her death had made him hard, cold, remote from the possibility of tears. There was no one alive for whom he could now make a sacrifice. He was, indeed, living for himself alone now. He intended to do as he wished, go where he liked, know whom he fancied. He was breathless with the breadth of the opened prospect. There were no restrictions, no responsibilities of any kind. Incipit vita nuova! Incipit vita nuova! And his mother had to die to give him this freedom!
That was the complexity of life. It was a series of patterns. One weaver wove one way, another quite a different way. And no possibility of change. You patronized one weaver or another and you had to stick by your choice. He understood now. It was all quite clear to him. Life was simple to those who knew how to take what they wanted. He was one of these favoured ones; the Countess, in her way, another. For Lennie, even Clara, people who let life baffle them, who patronized the weavers that tangled the yarn, he could feel nothing but contempt.
He saw himself sitting on a sunlit Italian hill; olive-trees and marble ruins rose before him in the soft air beneath the azure sky. Below him lay the deeper blue of the Mediterranean. The vision was as crystal to him as though he had been there. Quite suddenly, he realized that he had been there, that Italy, Paris, all the rest, he had imagined fully before experiencing them. Perhaps all his life would be like this, a foreseeing of experience, a conscious arrangement of his future. Was that, he asked himself, the happiest existence? He shrugged his shoulders. What could it matter? It was his. Nothing could change it.
His father grew softer, more wistful, day by day. He spoke gently to his son, almost meekly. He had acquired a habit of asking unexpected questions: What shall we do with that bush? It's all worm-eaten, or Do you think you would prefer living in a dormitory? or Are you going to take your mandolin with you? There were no more com' mands, no rough words. Haltingly, hesitantly, but persistently, the man was trying to express his real affection, so long submerged, for the strange boy who was his son. To Gareth this metamorphosis seemed ghastly, blasphemously ironic. But he knew what had caused it: the strain resulting from the three living together had been removed. How Gareth detested this simple man! It afforded him a cruel pleasure to realize that he would dupe him, take away from him the one unattainable thing he craved, destroy his last hope.
One day when Gareth was sitting on the porch, Lennie Colman passed the house. He had not seen her since the day she had called just preceding the funeral. As she came towards him up the walk she smiled, a tender, pathetic smile.
I hear that you are going to college, Gareth, she began.
Yes, he replied, rising to shake hands with her, I am.
Aren't you coming to say good-bye to me?
Of course I am, Gareth assured her. I'll come to see you whenever you suggest.
When are you going?
In two or three days.
Will tomorrow evening . . . ?
That will be fine. I am leaving some books for you, he added, as she was turning away.
O, Gareth, how kind of you!
I want you to have them.
He delivered the books that same afternoon, and the conversation the next evening on the little porch of the Colman home began with a reference to them.
It's wonderful of you to give me those books, Gareth, the school-teacher said. It makes me very happy . . . and a little sad. We've read so many of them together.
I thought of that. That's why I gave them to you.
But why are you giving them away at all? You'll want them yourself when you come back.
No, Miss Colman, I won't want them. I'm going to begin all over. I'll get a new library.
The conversation lagged. It was becoming more and more difficult for them to talk with each other. In her mind and in his, also, rose a memory of the Countess. Gareth began to wish that he had not come, that he had left town without seeing Lennie again. He had known that he had no desire to see her. How stupid of him to have come!
After a long pause, Lennie managed to insert a reference to the subject which stood between them.
The Countess has gone, she remarked, rather self-consciously.
Yes.
I've seen practically nothing of you since you met her . . .
He was silent.
Did she tell you that I called on her last week?
No. His reply was truthful, his manner indifferent. No, she didn't tell me.
I didn't think, some devil prompted her to go on, although she knew she was making an error, that you were the kind of person who would desert your old friends for new ones.
I haven't done that, he muttered.
You mean a good deal to me, Gareth, she continued. I can't tell you how much. Now that she's gone I'm glad! She was taking you away from me. Lennie attempted to hide the seriousness of this accusation behind a smile, but her lips twitched nervously.
She waited for a reply. None came, and so she went on, Now that she has gone, and I was hoping that we might, we might . . . become friends again, now you are going away too.
This was more than awkward; it was stupid, horrible. He regarded her quite coldly, dispassionately: she was, he realized at this moment, a sentimental old maid with a scrawny neck. Determining to escape, he rose.
It's growing late, he said. Father wants to see me tonight. He told me he would sit up for me. We're going over some figures in relation to my allowance.
He offered her his hand. Lennie took it. Then, bending forward, she permitted her head to fall on his shoulder and burst into tears. I don't want you to go, she sobbed. I don't want you to go! He could feel her body trembling.
Miss Colman!
I love you, Gareth. I tell you I love you! You mean everything tome. If you only knew how hard and dry my life is! If you only knew how much you have given me! I can't get along without you any more. If you'll just stay here that will satisfy me. Just stay here. I don't ask for love. I don't expect you to love me, but let me see you sometimes. Let me see you!
Struggling to free himself, Gareth saw an uncertain figure lurch against the latched screen-door.
G'way, young man, the figure moaned in an unsteady, husky voice. G'way. Thish no place for you. I've disgraced my daughter an' her mother. I'm a drunkard. I spend all my daughter's money on booze. I don't work. I letter work for me. Thish no place for you. I've disgraced thish home, ruined my daughter's life.
Lennie turned. Father! she cried. O! my God! Father!
Gareth, released, fled down the street.