“Is she in love with you?”
“She says so.”
“And you?”
“I? When I’m with her, I’m normal enough to feel the stir, you know! But the old part of me knows better. ‘You’ll be bored with her.’ That’s what it tells me — am I mad?”
“No. Only wise.”
“I could do with less wisdom.”
“Don’t say that. It’s given to you as a tool for accomplishment.”
“Of what?”
“Of whatever it is that you want to accomplish.”
“To penetrate the secrets of the universe!”
He leaned forward, elbows on the table, his eyes shining into hers, and she felt comforted, even elated, for some vague reason she did not wish to comprehend.
“I must leave early tomorrow morning,” he said abruptly, and as abruptly went to the piano and began to play.
Snow fell upon snow, in silence and chill. It began as he left the house the next morning, the sky gray and the mountain clouded in mist. Winter settled over the eastern coast. In Philadelphia, too, it was snowing, her radio had announced.
“I hate to leave this warm house,” he said.
He stood at the door, wrapped in his rough, outdoor coat, its cap falling back.
“You are leaving your skis in the cellar. That means you will be back,” she said.
“Yes, but I mean this morning.”
“This morning,” she echoed.
She could not tell him what she was thinking, what she always thought when snow was falling. Arnold, lying under the snow! Of course she was accustomed by now, if she was ever to be accustomed, that is, and why should it be the snow? In the spring she could contemplate his grave without agony, and in the autumn the bright leaves falling from a maple tree near his grave made the city churchyard almost cheerful. But the snow? The realization of his death, desolate and final, had come at the first snowfall and she was alone here in this house. She had stood at the wide window, biting the knuckles of her clenched right hand, tears streaming down her cheeks. O Arnold, you lying alone under the snow!
Something of that desolation fell upon her now. The house had been full today of this presence, young and strange, yet he was no longer a stranger to her, nor ever had been or could be. Something they shared, something more than music, but what? He had been very gay this morning, almost as though he were glad to go, until at this moment when he stood tall above her, and she saw a look in his eyes, startled and unbelieving.
“Yes, I like you,” he said and so suddenly, as though he had made a discovery, that she laughed.
“Delightful to hear,” she said gaily, “and of course you’ll come back. The only question is when.”
“I’ll let you know.” He stood looking at her and then abruptly he turned and left her, closing the door firmly behind him. She lingered for an instant, gazing at that closed door. The house was silent about her, and empty.
…“The sunsets are always finest when you are here,” Edwin said.
She was sitting by the small round table in the bay window of his great square living room. In the distance mountain ranges lifted sharp peaks against a glowing western sky. It was her usual place when she was in this vast old house in the evening, and she seldom missed the sunset when the sky was clear. Today, the second day of her visit, had been very clear. She had spent the hours with “your old philosopher” as he called himself until, an hour ago, he was overcome with one of his fits of weariness and had gone upstairs to sleep. Now he had waked and had come to find her.
“The sunset is always finest after snow,” she replied.
She felt his hands on her shoulders, his cheek gently pressing her hair.
“The unutterable comfort of you, of having you in my house,” he murmured.
“I am always happy here,” she replied, motionless, her gaze upon the sky.
The colors were changing now, the violence of crimson and gold subdued to rose and pale yellow.
“Don’t move,” he said as she was about to rise. “I have something to ask of you.”
“Yes, Edwin?”
He was standing behind her and thus out of her sight, his hands still on her shoulders. In the silence she turned her head and saw an unusual tenderness suffusing his face as he looked down into her eyes.
“Is it something outrageous?” she asked, smiling.
“I am wondering if you will so consider it. But no — you will understand. I think so. In your own way you are an artist, with an artist’s honesty.”
“Perhaps you had better prepare me.”
He came from behind her then and sat down opposite her at the small table. His head, the white hair and clipped white mustache, the fair, healthy skin and bright blue eyes, made him a handsome portrait against the fading sky.
“How you can look as you do!” she exclaimed.
“How do I look?” he demanded.
“I shan’t tell you. You’re vain enough already.”
“That is to say — I’m lovable? For you, I mean?”
“Of course. You know that. Every time you ask me I tell you so.”
“Ah, but I have to ask,” he complained.
“So that I have courage to confess!”
They were bantering on the edge of truth again and beyond it they had never ventured. Or perhaps she was not ready for truth, and perhaps would never be. What she felt for him was an emotion altogether different from the willing love she had given Arnold. But that love had ended, stopped by death, and suddenly, for a while, there was no one to love. In the long months when she knew he must die she had wondered about love. Would it go on living after the beloved was dead? Could so strong a force continue to feed only upon memory? She knew now that it could not. The habit of love became a necessity to love and remained alive in her being, like a river dammed. Now it was flowing again, not in fullness, not inevitably, but tentatively and gently toward this man who sat facing her, his back to the sunset. He began to speak in his thoughtful, philosophizing mood, his eyes, so piercing in their blue, upon her face.
“The need to love and be loved lasts until we draw our final breath and from the need comes the power. It is in you, it is in me. How can this be, you may ask. Because, my child, my dear and only One, love sustains the spirit and the spirit sustains life. If love is mutual, then the two concerned can live long. Yet even if it is one-sided, the one who loves is sustained. It is sweet to be loved, but to be able to love is to possess the life force. I love you. Therefore I am strong. Whatever my age, I am sustained by my own power to love. How fortunate am I to have someone I can love! For I am fastidious, my darling! It is not every woman who is to be loved — at least by me.”
She felt an embarrassment entirely new to her, for at this instant there was something new about him. Whether it was the light of the sky beyond him, or a light shining from within him, he was for the moment transfigured, his face younger by years, his eyes bright, a faint flush on his cheeks. He leaned toward her impulsively.
“Let us have no reserves! I want you wholly. I want to give myself wholly.”
“What do you mean, Edwin?” she asked.
She was imprisoned by his gaze into her eyes, by his hands seizing upon hers with unexpected strength.
“May I come to your room tonight?” he asked abruptly, as though he struck down a barrier with one blow.
The question hung between them, unbelievable, yet an entity. He had spoken. There could be no doubt that he had spoken, and question demanded answer. She was compelled by his unchanging gaze. In her silence he spoke again, this time gently, as to a child.
“We inhabit these bodies, my darling. They are our only means of conveying love. We speak, of course, but words are only words. We kiss, yes, but a kiss is only a touch of the lips. There is the whole body through which the sacred message can be exchanged. And for what do we nurture the body with food and drink and sleep and exercise except for the conveyance of love?”