đ The Cords Of Vanity (day 1)
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joi, 16 mai, 01:53 (acum 3 zile)
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The Cords Of Vanity
I
He Sits Out a Dance
I
When I first knew Stella she was within a month of being fifteen, which is for womankind an unattractive age. There were a startling number of corners to her then, and she had but vague notions as to the management of her hands and feet. In consequence they were perpetually turning up in unexpected places and surprising her by their size and number. Yes, she was very hopelessly fifteen; and she was used to laugh, unnecessarily, in a nervous fashion, approximating to a whinny, and when engaged in conversation she patted down her skirts six times to the minute.
It seems oddly unbelievable when I reflect that Rosalindâ ââdaughter to the banished Dukeââ âand Stella and Helen of Troy, and all the other famous fair ones of history, were each like that at one period or another.
As for myself, I was nine days younger than Stella, and so I was at this time very oldâ âmuch older than it is ever permitted anyone to be afterward. I cherished the most optimistic ideas as to my impendent moustache, and was wont in privacy to encourage it with the manicure-scissors. I still entertained the belief that girls were upon the whole superfluous nuisances, but was beginning to perceive the expediency of concealing this opinion, even in private converse with my dearest chum, where, in our joyous interchange of various heresies, we touched upon this especial subdivision of fauna very lightly, and, I now suspect, with some self-consciousness.
II
All this was at a summer resort, which was called the Green Chalybeate. Stella and I and others of our age attended the hotel hops in the evening with religious punctuality, for well-meaning elders insisted these dances amused us, and it was easier to go than to argue the point. At least, that was the feeling of the boys.
Stella has since sworn the girls liked it. I suspect in this statement a certain parsimony as to the truth. They giggled too much and were never entirely free from that haunting anxiety concerning their skirts.
We danced together, Stella and I, to the strains of the last Sousa two-step (it was the âWashington Postâ), and we conversed, meanwhile, with careful disregard of the amenities of life, since each feared lest the other might suspect in some common courtesy an attempt atâ âthere is really no other wordâ âspooning. And spooning was absurd.
Well, as I once read in the pages of a rare and little known author, one lives and learns.
I asked Stella to sit out a dance. I did this because I had heard Mr. Lethburyâ âa handsome man with waxed mustachios and an absolutely piratical amount of whiskersâ âmake the same request of Miss Van Orden, my just relinquished partner, and it was evident that such whiskers could do no wrong.
Stella was not uninfluenced, it may be, by Miss Van Ordenâs example, for even in girlhood the latter was a person of extraordinary beauty, whereas, as has been said, Stellaâs corners were then multitudinous; and it is probable that those two queer little knobs at the base of Stellaâs throat would be apt to render their owner uncomfortable and a bit abject beforeâ âlet us sayâ âmore ample charms. In any event, Stella giggled and said she thought it would be just fine, and I presently conducted her to the third piazza of the hotel.
There we found a world that was new.
III
It was a world of sweet odors and strange lights, flooded with a kindly silence which was, somehow, composed of many lispings and trepidations and thin echoes. The night was warm, the sky all transparency. If the comparison was not manifestly absurd, I would liken that remembered skyâs pale color to the look of blue plush rubbed the wrong way. And in its radiance the stars bathed, large and bright and intimate, yet blurred somewhat, like shop-lights seen through frosted panes; and the moon floated on it, crisp and clear as a new-minted coin. This was the full midsummer moon, grave and glorious, that compelled the eye; and its shield was obscurely marked, as though a Titan had breathed on its chill surface. Its light suffused the heavens and lay upon the earth beneath us in broad splashes; and the foliage about us was dappled with its splendor, save in the open east, where the undulant, low hills wore radiancy as a mantle.
For the trees, mostly maples of slight stature, clustered thickly about the hotel, and their branches mingled in a restless pattern of blacks and silvers and dim greens that mimicked the laughter of the sea under an April wind. Looking down from the piazza, over the expanse of treetops, all this was strangely like the sea; and it gave one, somehow, much the same sense of remote, unbounded spaces and of a beauty that was a little sinister. At times whippoorwills called to one another, eerie and shrill; and the distant dance-music was a vibration in the air, which was heavy with the scent of bruised growing things and was filled with the cool, healing magic of the moonlight.
Taking it all in all, we had blundered upon a very beautiful place. And there we sat for a while and talked in an aimless fashion. We did not know quite how one ought to âsit outâ a dance, you conceive.â ââ âŚ
IV
Then, moved by some queer impulse, I stared over the railing for a little at this great, wonderful, ambiguous world, and said solemnly:
âIt is good.â
âYes,â Stella agreed, in a curious, quiet and tiny voice, âitâ âitâs very large, isnât it?â She looked out for a moment over the treetops. âIt makes me feel like a little old nothing,â she said, at last. âThe stars are so big, andâ âso uninterested.â Stella paused for an interval, and then spoke again, with an uncertain laugh. âI think I am rather afraid.â
âAfraid?â I echoed.
âYes,â she said, vaguely; âofâ âof everything.â
I understood. Even then I knew something of the occasional insufficiency of words.
âIt is a big world,â I assented, âand lots of people are having a right hard time in it right now. I reckon there is somebody dying this very minute not far off.â
âItâs allâ âwaiting for us!â Stella had forgotten my existence. âItâs bringing us so many thingsâ âand we donât know what any of them are. But weâve got to take them, whether we want to or not. It isnât fair. Weâve got toâ âwell, got to grow up, andâ âmarry, andâ âdie, whether we want to or not. Weâve no choice. And it may not matter, after all. Everything will keep right on like it did before; and the stars wonât care; and what weâve done and had done to us wonât really matter!â
âWell, but, Stella, you can have a right good time first, anyway, if you keep away from ugly things and fussy people. And I reckon you really go to Heaven afterwards if you havenât been really badâ âdonât you?â
âRobâ âare you ever afraid of dying?â Stella asked, âvery much afraidâ âOh, you know what I mean.â
I did. I was about ten once more. It was dark, and I was passing a drugstore, with huge red and green and purple bottles glistening in the gas-lit windows; and it had just occurred to me that I, too, must die, and be locked up in a box, and let down with trunk-straps into a hole, like Father was.â ââ ⌠So I said, âYes.â
âAnd yet weâve got to! Oh, I donât see how people can go on living like everything was all right when thatâs always getting nearerâ âwhen they know theyâve got to die before very long. Because they dance and go on picnics and buy hats as if they were going to live forever. Iâ âoh, I canât understand.â
âThey get used to the idea, I reckon. Weâre sort of like the rats in the trap at home, in our stable,â I suggested, poetically. âWe can bite the wires and go crazy, like lots of them do, if we want to, or we can eat the cheese and kind of try not to think about it. Either way, thereâs no getting out till they come to kill us in the morning.â
âYes,â sighed Stella; âI suppose we must make the best of it.â
âItâs the only sensible thing to do, far as I can see.â
âBut it is all so bigâ âand so careless about us!â she said, after a little. âAnd we donât knowâ âwe canât know!â âwhat is going to happen to you and me. And we canât stop its happening!â
âWeâll just have to make the best of that, too,â I protested, dolefully.
Stella sighed again, âI hope so,â she assented; âstill, Iâm scared of it.â
âI think I am, tooâ âsort of,â I conceded, after reflection. âAnyhow, I am going to have as good a time as I can.â
There was now an even longer pause. Pitiable, ridiculous infants were pondering, somewhat vaguely but very solemnly, over certain mysteries of existence, which most of us have learned to accept with stolidity. We were young, and to us the miraculous insecurity and inconsequence of human life was still a little impressive, and we had not yet come to regard the universe as a more or less comfortable place, well-meaningly constructed anyhowâ âby Somebodyâ âfor us to reside in.
Therefore we moved a trifle closer together, Stella and I, and were commonly miserable over the weltschmerz. After a little a distant whippoorwill woke me from a chaos of reverie, and I turned to Stella, with a vague sense that we two were the only people left in the whole world, and that I was very, very fond of her.
Stellaâs head was leaned backward. Her lips were parted, and the moonlight glinted in her eyes. Her eyes were blue.
âDonât!â said Stella, faintly.
I did.â ââ âŚ
It was a matter out of my volition, out of my planning. And, oh, the wonder, and sweetness, and sacredness of it! I thought, even in the instant; and, oh, the pity that, after all, it is slightly disappointing.â ââ âŚ
Stella was not angry, as I had half expected. âThat was dear of you,â she said, impulsively, âbut donât try to do it again.â There was the wisdom of centuries in this mandate of Stellaâs as she rose from the bench. The spell was broken, utterly. âI think,â said Stella, in the voice of a girl of fifteen, âI think weâd better go and dance some more.â
V
In the crude morning I approached Stella, with a fatuous smile. She apparently both perceived and resented my bearing, although she never once looked at me. There was something of great interest to her in the distance, apparently down by the springhouse; she was flushed and indignant; and her eyes wouldnât, couldnât, and didnât turn for an instant in my direction.
I fidgeted.
âIf,â said she, impersonally, âif you believe it was because of you, you are very much mistaken. It would have been the same with anybody. You donât understand, and I donât either. Anyhow, I think you are a mess, and I hate you. Go away from me!â
And she stamped her foot in a fine rage.
For the moment I entertained an unchristian desire that Stella had been born a boy. In that case, I felt, I would, just then, have really enjoyed sitting upon the back of her head, and grinding her nose into the lawn, and otherwise persuading her to cry âââNough.â These virile pleasures being denied me, I sought for comfort in discourteous speech.
âUmph-huh!â said I, âand you think youâre mighty smart, donât you? Well, I donât want you pawing around me any more, either. I wonât have it, do you understand! That was what I was going to tell you anyhow, you kissing-bug, even if you hadnât acted so smart. And you can just stick that right in your pipe and smoke it, you old Miss Smart Alec.â
Thereupon Iâ âwiselyâ âdeparted without delay. A rock struck me rather forcibly between the shoulder blades, but I did not deign to notice this phenomenon.
âYou canât fight girls with fists,â I reflected. âYouâve just got to talk to them in the right way.â
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