“I have a guest,” she said now.
“Who is it?”
She heard an echo of jealousy in Edwin’s voice, and was amused.
“You’re jealous!”
“Of course I am!”
“But that’s absurd.”
“No, only natural. I’m in love with you.”
“That’s nonsense.”
“No, only reality. Let me tell you an amazing truth about the human being. You’re too young to know, but I know. The ability to love is the secret of life. So long as one can love, really love, another human being, death waits afar off. It is only when the capacity to love ceases to exist that death follows soon. I thank you, my darling, for letting me love you. It keeps death from my door.”
She listened as she always listened to him, accepting and believing. He was still teacher and she was still pupil. “You make too much of me,” she said, “and that is very sweet.”
“So,” he continued, “who is your guest?”
She told him briefly, almost indifferently, ending with the words, “And probably he won’t be back. The weekend rush is over today and he’ll find another place to stay.”
“I hope so,” he replied. “I don’t like your being alone in the house with a stranger. One never knows, these days — and you’re a very beautiful woman.”
Arnold had not been one to praise her looks and she had never been sure of her own beauty. He had been jealous, yes, but without cause, and since he was possessive it occurred to her now that perhaps she had always been beautiful, and he had not dared to tell her so.
“It’s only what you think, Edwin,” she said, “but still I like to hear it, being in my secret heart a vain woman.”
“You’ve never thought of yourself. I’ve always known you were beautiful. I remember the first time I saw you. It was a September day, and your head, true red gold, was shining there among the browns and blacks and blondes of the freshmen. I marked you then, without any thought of course that one day you would become my life. I saw your eyes, clear with intelligence. That’s my prize pupil, I thought — as you were. And I began then to scheme how I could keep you in my department, and failed because that rascal, Arnold Chardman, married you too early! I almost wept the day you came to tell me. Remember?”
She did remember. It was true she had married too young, but she had been so joyful that she had not noticed the professor’s eyes, only his silence.
“Will you not wish me well?” she had asked.
She remembered the long pause before he answered. “I wish you to be happy. You will find your happiness in different ways. Just now you are sure it is in marriage. Well, perhaps so. But the time will come when it will be in something else.”
“So long as it is not in someone else,” she had said gaily.
“Do not limit happiness,” he had said gravely. “One takes it where one finds it.”
They had not met again for years and she forgot him. Then one day, soon after Arnold had died, among the many letters of condolence she found his letter. He wrote as though they had parted only yesterday.
“Do you remember,” he had written, “do you remember what I said about happiness? One happiness has passed, but hold yourself ready for the next, whatever it is. If you do not see it on the horizon, then you must create it where you are. So long as you live you may find happiness if you search for it, or create it for yourself. Perhaps the search itself is happiness.”
It had been a long letter, speaking only of herself and the future, of life and not of death. Yet he, too, had known death, ho reminded her, for Eloise, his wife, had died many years before. Now he lived alone in their house in the country, which had been their summer home, and he was writing books.
She had replied with a sad short letter, merely saying that his had been the most comforting words she had received, “but there is no happiness on the horizon,” she had told him, “and I find no creative spark within me.”
Then he had sent her a telegram, inviting her to visit him, and she had gone, only to find him the center of a houseful of grown children and grandchildren, temporary visitors, and among whom she had sat as a guest, vaguely welcome, but of no importance. It was he who had made her important, singling her out as his companion, to remain at his side when the others went off on jaunts together. Alone in the vast sprawling family house, he had talked and she had listened. He was writing a book on immortality, and he talked of what he wrote. She had listened with concentrated interest, for Arnold had not believed in life beyond death. In the midst of her anguish as he lay dying, she had admired his firm courage.
“I am very near the end,” he had told her. “And it is the end, my dear. There remains only my gratitude — to you. For your infinite variety — my thanks!”
Those were his last coherent words, for he had been overcome with pain, and in a daze of agony had died a few hours later. On her first night alone in the great house in Philadelphia which was now hers only, she had pondered his words. Was it true, could it be true, that nothing of him remained except the body buried in the churchyard where his ancestors lay? She had puzzled her way among such thoughts, unable to reach conclusion, equally unwilling to believe he was right, and yet compelled to fear that he was. She had no proof of immortality, but then he had had no proof against it, either. In this frame of mind she had been willing, and indeed eager, to hear what Edwin had to say.
“We human beings are the only creatures who are able to think of our own end, without doubt or faith.”
He had made this as a statement one day on her first visit. They sat on the terrace overlooking the distant mountains, and the housekeeper had brought them tea and small cakes and, setting the tray on the table between them, had gone away again. Alone with him, she had dared to disagree with him. Over her teacup she had shaken her head.
“You disagree?” he had asked, surprised.
“Even animals know their end and fear it,” she had replied. “See how wildly they try to escape death! They may not be able to reason or think, but they fight death. Have you ever seen a rabbit in the clutch of a dog’s jaws? Until its last breath it struggles against death. A fish, drawn out of water, will straggle to live. Animals fear death and if they fear, they know.”
He had listened, surprised and pleased. “Good thinking,” he had replied, “but don’t confuse instinct with consciousness.”
She had pondered this and then had inquired, “What is the difference between animal and human being?”
“Consciousness of self,” he had said. “A human being declares himself because he knows his own being. Animals? No. They don’t separate themselves from the cosmos.”
They had come strangely close even on that first visit and, as time passed, had grown into mutual dependence each upon the other, although she recognized that what she felt for him was not love, only closeness. On his part it was frankly love, an old man’s love, the nature of which was not close to her. Whatever it was, love was sweet, and she clung to its persistence. He was wiser than she, and this, too, was sweet. She had never leaned on anyone, for Arnold, she had discerned early, would never be able to know her altogether. They were compatible, but she was the knowing one.
Edwin’s voice recalled her. “Are you still there, Edith?”
“Yes, oh, yes,” she replied quickly.
“Then you haven’t been listening!”