The Shadow of Happiness

by Irving Bacheller

THE SHADOW OF HAPPINESS.

By Irving Bacheller

THAT little inn was somewhere on the road from New Amsterdam to New York—a half-way house between now and antiquity. A part was old and a part new, and it was all very shabby and simple and genuine. Its day begun at dusk and its noon was midnight. Then the red door of Morcho was one of the gates of the city opening on a strange and merry way of life. They called it the Roost because it was inhabited chiefly by the night-folk. A tall man could almost touch its eaves and had to pay a toll of reverence at its door if he entered. Once in, he forgot all care save that of stepping lightly lest it fall upon him. The Roost had grown, wing by wing, until it covered half the short block, and now under its roof were unexpected caverns far back of the red door at the sidewalk . A big church flanked the little inn and buried it under fathoms of gloom as the sun came up. When it was nearing noon, of a bright day, a great lever of sunlight thrust itself in where the two buildings came close together behind Morcho's, and lifted on the bulk of shadow until it was gone.

Morcho himself was a man worth knowing. He was an item of expense in the moral economy of the world, but the lesson of his life, if one were able to make it dear, would have some profit in it. He was a brown little Spaniard who knew how to cook and loved eating and drinking and good companionship. One never sat under the bare beams of the Roost and felt his blood warming and the gloom going out of his soul, in the smile of Morcho, without some thankfulness for the like of him. But that was a pleasure, with all its accessories, full of peril. There was in it too much of the spice of life and the cuisine. If one were his friend, Morcho came and served him with his own hand or sat beside him and told stories and at the end of each lifted his glass and said, "Happy day!" Indeed, that was the conclusion of every tale he told and, I make no doubt, of every dream he dreamed. He came to misery in due time, as did many who sat with him there in the little inn, but he had to be merry, to give the warm heart to every one. to eat when he had no hunger, to drink when he had no thirst. Otherwise he would not have been Morcho and some who came there would have sought a host more to their liking. It was as if he said: “Is your heart heavy, my friend? I have a merry little monkey of a soul here in this body and I'm going to show you some of its tricks.” He had no thought of the evil in it all. He was born a Castilian peasant and had never heard any preaching about temperance, and thinking was out of his line. I know he had a heart of lead some days, but even then the glad hand, the toast of “Happy day,” the merry tale, were not withheld.

I had been out of New York a year and, returning one summer night, strolled to the little inn for supper. Mine host had grown thin and pale. He spoke in a rough whisper and trembled with weakness. I could see that the man was dying, but the inn was already dead. A lonely guest sat near me and Morcho was trying hard to keep his feet and tell a story. He sank into a chair at the end of it and soon fell nodding. The cozy rooms were empty. The tables were neatly spread, but where were the merry feasters, the song and laughter that rang to the roof in other days?

“Morcho,” said the man who sat by him, lifting his glass, “where are the happy days?”

“Madre de Dios!” he whispered. “Here's happy day!” and then he took a sip out of a glass that had been waiting for him.

“You're sick, Morcho,” said the man drinking. “You'd better go off somewhere and taken rest.” Then he rose and paid the waiter and went away.

Morcho had not seemed to hear him and shortly came over to me, rubbing his hands, He was bracing himself for the task before him and his smile came hard. I was an old customer and he must do his best to please me.

“I not sick—no-o-o-o!” he whispered. “I be well purty quick.”

He would have the waiter bring glasses and a bottle in spite of my refusal to drink. He'd a great need of good cheer—that was evident. His hand trembled as the ruby flood trickled into his glass. I turned a moment to give my order. When I looked again, his head had fallen on his hand and Morcho was sleeping. The little clock on the mantel ticked loudly, and the long hand was on its last quarter climbing to eleven. The canary that hung in the window had covered his head. The moment was long with loneliness.

A man came in, as I was waiting in the silence, and stood a moment looking down at Morcho.

“Going to die soon and he hasn't a friend in the world—they've all left him,” he said. I couldn't bear the sight of him sleeping there beside me and so I touched his shoulder and said:

“Morcho, happy days!”

He started up and answered quickly, as the liquor touched his his. “Happy day!”

“How are you to-night?” the man asked.

“I better; I get well purty quick,” said Morcho.

"You'd better leave New York—it's a rough climate,” said the other. “Just go off somewhere an' take a rest.”

“Yes,” I echoed, “you'd better go somewhere and take a long rest.”

“I no leave my business,” he said, and took another sip. Then he laid his head upon his hands, and coughed until I thought he was near his end. The waiter came to fan him. He got to his feet presently with an effort painful to witness. He held the half-empty glass and turned to me.

“He my old customaire,” said Morcho; “he stay by me an' I try give him good dinner—everything what he wants.” The glass seemed heavy in his hand; he could not speak the toast. In a moment he sat nodding in his chair as he had done before, and he was a poor host. Then even I, his last customer, came away and left him. His “happy day” had gone too dark and there was no longer any pleasure in it. A gloomy business it is, trying to be merry in the shadow of death. I had seen enough of it.

“Why don't you go and see Morcho?” I inquired of an old habitué of the inn.

“Because he will have me drink with him and talk with him and I can't bear to do it now. I don't get over it for a day.”

The fact was, Morcho had come to a time when he needed a little of the good cheer he had freely given, but it was not to be had. For days I was the only man who went to wish him a happy day. The priest came, of a day that I was there, and tried to talk with him about his soul. He would have none of his own trouble, however, any more than his friends would have it. He asked the boy to bring glasses and the priest to drink him a “happy day.” The good father said, “No.”

“Then tell me good story, do tell me good story,” said Morcho.

“No, no,” was the answer, and as it came I left them together.

“My God!” I heard Morcho whisper, as if he were crying, “I have no more, no more happy day.”

Now the inn is but an empty shell. The red door is barred; its rooms are silent as the grave and dust is on its windows. Morcho has taken the advice of his friends, when they could no longer bear the sight of him, and “gone off somewhere for a long rest.”