Chapter XI
After the arrival of Steve Garland, Mary had no cause to complain of lonesomeness. She had imagined that she was familiar with all types of men and any new meetings would be only repetitions. But she was wrong. She had never met anyone like Steve. He laughed at life even when he beheld it fleeing in terror from him. It made Mary Blaine creepy but at least now there was laughter in the house.
"I have a rendezvous with death," he told her, "though she is somewhat late. However I'll wait. While I am not physically busy at least I have much time for musing. In China there are over six hundred million people. In India there are three hundred million. Without considering the other teeming millions of the world, it does seem to me that any god must be kept tremendously busy listening to all those prayers and pleas. Sometimes I imagine that a man who doesn't pray is really more religious than the others because he lessens the Divine work. He pleads for nothing. It is a noble tribute. His silence at least adds no commotion to the discord. I wonder what it is all about, this universe of immortal stars and petty men?"
Sometimes he sat in his room, drawing sketches or painting. He made no effort to do creative work because he stated he was slowly disintegrating.
"To be in tune," he insisted, "I must do destructive work. Taking my cue from Keats, I should paint only in water."
Now and then he drew Mary's profile. She interested him. She was a strong personality. Here was a woman who had lived. He could tell it by her eyes.
Once when she entered his room to make the bed, he showed her a water-color sketch which he had made of her. So beautiful the portrait was, it made her gasp. The resemblance was astounding, yet there was an expression in the face, a depth of feeling that was entirely at variance with her life. It was the portrait of a woman, a good woman who might have been a Madonna or a nun.
"As I look at the picture," Mary said slowly, "I get the impression that there is a halo about the head."
"That is the impression I strove to create," he drawled. "I am glad that you grasped it. It pleases me. Of course there is no actual halo there. It is an illusion brought about by the arrangement of light."
"But it is false!" she cried vehemently.
"What matter?" he asked. "Is not everything of earth false?" "But I am not like that."
"You are, exactly. You are not the woman you profess to be. Not one of us is the man his friends behold. Every one of us is two people. The one that we parade for the eyes of the world, the other that lies hidden in the shell of our bodies. I have painted you with an inner vision. You say it is false. I refuse to argue. I think that truth as exemplified by patrons of the world is a pompous liar. Somewhere within you that woman lies hidden. Perhaps she is in a dark chamber, only occasionally peeping out, but I have caught a glimpse of her."
"But this is the picture of a saint!"
"Nor do I deny it. Still it is the woman I glimpsed in the mirror of your eyes."
Mary was more stirred than she cared to admit. She walked across the room and gazed off over the sweeping sea of wheat. Finally, decisively she turned toward him. At least she was fearless. She did not wish to wear the mantle of false gods.
"That picture is a lie," she said tensely, "just as my whole life has been a lie. I am not even married to Yekial Meigs."
"Would your body be softer or more yielding if you were?" he asked bluntly. "Or your lips more sweet? I care not what your past has been. Even if it were deep scarlet it would matter naught to me. On the contrary it might help give color to your portrait. The woman I have painted exists. The woman you are endeavoring to tell me about is only a dream. Let her depart. Permit the lady of the picture to emerge from her dark retreat."
Abruptly he put his arms about Mary and kissed her. His lips were like ice but she was thrilled. When finally he pushed her gently away, he murmured:
"You are warm with life. I must not do that again. I have an appointment with death. I have no reason to clutch at life. Feel the tips of my fingers, the cold, restless fingers of death."
"Don't talk like that!" she begged. "I cannot bear it."
"We all must bear it," he said. "In time every man gets used to death and the genuine philosopher welcomes it. Nothing but eulogies, no more strife. Plenty of flowers, lies and hypocritical tears."
"But you must live!"
"Why?"
"Oh I don't know; you are so wonderful. A mind like yours should not be destroyed."
"A mind is already destroyed," he said thoughtfully, "when it is educated. A Catholic peasant toiling long hours in the field is far greater than a king because he makes his periodical confessions and is granted absolution. He returns to his tiny hut and sits before his fire, smoking his pipe, with his family grouped about him and a pot of porridge cooking on the hob. He has no cares, no worries, no doubts. He has utter faith in his priest. He sleeps at night in his rustic bed and awakes with the sun, refreshed and ready for his field-toil once more. What greater life could any man live? But the king is constantly harassed by cares and worry, the cheap ceremonies of court, the petty bickerings of those about him, rumors of impending wars, the poverty of some of his subjects, the constant dread of assassination, and at the end of the day a couch shared with a woman whom he has been forced to marry for the good of his country, a woman whom he doesn't love and who doesn't love him. He is educated beyond his intellect, crushed by regal robes and ceremony. It is a lasting wonder that any king lives long after he ascends to the throne. Broadly speaking it is not an ascent at all. It is a descent, a descent into the valley of everlasting gloom."
He laughed softly. "I talk too much," he ended abruptly. "I should have been a preacher. I'd make a perfect one, for I never know what I am talking about."
"Why did you not become one?" asked Mary.
"Because I've never believed in anything."
"You mean you don't believe in God?"
"I try not to," said he, "but I waver in my purpose every time I behold the dawn. Then I feel that God is in the open Helds. He speaks to the flowers. He listens to the wind voices. And He weeps for humanity because man finds Him so elusive. Fools look for God in high places when He is perhaps sitting by the roadside watching children playing in a field and softly smiling."
"You are an odd man," Mary said reflectively. "You profess not to believe in God, yet at this moment as I listen to you speaking, God never seemed so close to me."
"It is not because of me," he explained. "It is because you live close to the soil and can gaze far off over the tranquil country."
"But never till this moment have I been conscious that it possessed a certain spirituality."
Garland lighted a cigarette. "We see in nature as in life only what we are tuned to see," he told her. "Take yourself for instance. You deny the existence of your real personality. You are loyal to a puppet. You profess to be a bad woman and I see you as good."
"And you," she whispered, "profess to be an Atheist yet in your words I have caught a glimpse of God."
"That is life," said he, "or perhaps it is death. For death clears the vision. Never does a man see as clearly as during his last few moments of existence, prior to his ceasing to see forever."
Yekial Meigs had little use for Steve Garland although he tolerated him because he paid his board regularly. Behind his back he grumbled a great deal to Mary.
"He's a lunatic," he declared. "I can't understand him. A man seeking death with relish when he ought to be seeking life."
"Yet without worry," she reminded him.
"And without hope."
"Not entirely without hope. There is always the hope of death, the Great Adventure."
One morning they found the body of Steve Garland, far off in the fields, lifeless, though there was a bit of color in his face and he was smiling. A cigarette which he clutched in his fingers was still smouldering.
Mary Blaine looked wistfully into his face.
"He met the dawn with arms outstretched," she said.
"He died," declared Yekial Meigs shortly.
She looked quickly up into his face. "Perhaps you are right," she mused. Never she thought had Yekial looked so utterly repulsive. "Tell me," she asked, "have you ever seen a sunrise?"
"Of course, you fool," he said. "Every morning for twenty years. Do you think I'm blind?"
"But never once have you beheld a dawn," she reflected.
"What do you mean?"
"You wouldn't understand. Simply that you found death in life while he found life in death."
"What are you raving about?" he asked in bewilderment.
"I am talking to a blind man," said she. "Forgive me if I falter. This has been a great shock to me. I think I'm more than a little mad."
"That is because you have been associating with a madman," grumbled Yekial. "It is a good thing that he is dead."
And Mary thought: "For my own peace of mind, perhaps it is best. He tried to make me believe that I was something other than I am. That good woman must go back into her cell. If she exists, escape is impossible. Her cell must be guarded. She must never break free."