Complete Works of Sherwood Anderson

by Sherwood Anderson

  Cold gray clouds hurried across the sky. The diver fell down from his high place into the sea, in the presence of a small silent crowd, but the sea did not receive him warmly. It awaited him in a cold gray silence. Looking at him, falling thus, sent a cold shiver through the body.

  What was the cold gray sea toward which the man’s naked body fell so swiftly?

  On that day, when the professional diver had taken his leap, Jane Webster’s heart had stopped beating until he had gone down into the sea and his head had reappeared on the surface. She was standing beside a young man, her escort for the day, and her hands clutched eagerly his arm and shoulder. When the diver’s head reappeared she put her head down on the young man’s shoulder and her own shoulders shook with sobs.

  It had, no doubt, been a very silly performance and she had been ashamed of it later. The diver was a professional. “He knows what he is about,” the young man had said. Every one present had laughed at Jane and she had become angry because her escort had laughed too. Had he but had sense enough to know how she was feeling at the moment, she thought she would not have minded the others laughing.

  “I’m a great little swimmer in seas.”

  It was altogether amazing how ideas, expressed in words, kept running from mind to mind. “I’m a great little swimmer in seas.” But a short time before her father had said the words as she stood in the doorway between the two bedrooms and he came walking toward her. He had wanted to give her the stone, she now held pressed against the palm of her hand, and had wanted to say something about it, and instead of words regarding the stone, there had come to his lips these words about swimming in seas. There had been something puzzled and confused in his whole bearing at the moment. He had been upset, as she was now. The moment was now being lived over again, swiftly, in the daughter’s mind. Her father was again stepping toward her, holding the stone between his thumb and finger, and the wavering, uncertain light had again come into his eyes. Quite distinctly, as though he were again in her presence, Jane heard again the words that, but such a short time before, had seemed without meaning, meaningless words come from the lips of a man temporarily drunk or insane, “I’m a great little swimmer in seas.”

  She had been plunged down from a high safe place, down into a sea of doubt and fear. Only a short time before, but yesterday, she had been standing on firm ground. One could let one’s fancy play with the thought of what had happened to her. There would be a kind of comfort in doing that.

  She had been standing on firm ground, high above a vast sea of confusion, and then, quite suddenly, she had been pushed off the firm high ground and down into the sea.

  Now, at this very moment, she was falling down into the sea. Now a new life had to begin for her. Her father had gone away with a strange woman and her mother was dead.

  She was falling down off the high safe ground into the sea. With a kind of absurd flourish, as by a gesture of the arm, her own father had plunged her down. She was clad in her white nightgown and her falling figure made a white streak against the gray of cold skies.

  Her father had put a meaningless little stone in her hand and had gone away and then her mother had gone into the bathroom and had done a terrible, an unthinkable thing, to herself.

  And now she, Jane Webster, had gone quite down into the sea, far far down into a lonely cold gray place. She had gone down into the place from which all life came and to which, in the end, all life goes.

  There was a heaviness, a deadly heaviness. All life had become gray and cold and old. One walked in darkness. One’s body fell with a soft thump against gray soft unyielding walls.

  The house in which one lived was empty. It was an empty house in an empty street of an empty town. All the people Jane Webster had known, the young men and women with whom she had lived, with whom she had walked about on summer evenings, could not be a part of what she was facing now. Now she was quite alone. Her father had gone away and her mother had killed herself. There was no one. One walked alone in darkness. One’s body struck with a soft thump against soft gray unyielding walls.

  The little stone held so firmly in the palm of the hand hurt and hurt.

  Before her father had given it to her he had gone to hold it up before the candle flame. In certain lights its color changed. Yellowish green lights came and went in it. The yellowish green lights were of the color of young growing things pushing their way up out of the damp and cold of frozen grounds, in the spring.

  III

  JANE WEBSTER WAS lying on the bed in the darkness of her room and crying. Her shoulders shook with sobs but she made no sound. Her finger, that had been pressed down so hard against her palms, had relaxed, but there was a spot, in the palm of her right hand, that burned with a warm feverishness. Her mind had become passive now. Fancy had released her from its grip. She was like a fretful and hungry child that has been fed and that lies quietly with its face turned to a white wall.

  Her sobbing now indicated nothing. It was a release. She was a little ashamed of her lack of control over herself and kept putting up the hand, that held the stone, first closing it carefully that the precious stone be not lost, and with her fist wiping the tears away. What she wished, at the moment, was that she could become suddenly a strong resolute woman, able to handle quietly and firmly the situation that had arisen in the Webster household.

  IV

  THE SERVANT KATHERINE was coming up the stairs. After all she was not the woman with whom Jane’s father was going away. How heavy and resolute Katherine’s footsteps were! One could be resolute and strong when one knew nothing of what had been going on in the house. One could walk thus, as though one were going up the stairs of an ordinary house, in an ordinary street.

  When Katherine put her foot down on one of the steps the house seemed to shake a little. Well, one could not say the house shook. That would be stretching things too much. What one was trying to express was just that Katherine was not very sensitive. She was one who made a direct frontal attack upon life. Had she been very sensitive she might have known something of the terrible things going on in the house without having to wait to be told.

  Now Jane’s mind was playing tricks on her again. An absurd sentence came into her mind.

  “Wait until you see the whites of their eyes and then shoot.”

  It was silly, altogether silly and absurd, what notions were now racing through her head. Her father had set going in her the sometimes relentless and often unexplainable thing, represented by the released fancy. It was a thing that could color and beautify the facts of life but it could also, upon occasions, run on and on regardless of the facts of life. Jane believed she was in the house with the dead body of her mother, who had just committed suicide, and there was something within her that told her she should now give herself over to sadness. She did weep but her weeping had nothing to do with her mother’s death. It did not take that into consideration. She was not, after all, so much sad as excited.

  The weeping that had been silent was now audible all over the house. She was making a noise like a foolish child and was ashamed of herself. What would Katherine think of her?

  “Wait until you see the whites of their eyes and then shoot.”

  What an utterly silly jumble of words. Where had they come from? Why were such meaningless silly words dancing in her brain at such a vital moment of her life? She had got them out of some book at school, a history book perhaps. Some general had shouted the words at his men as they stood waiting for an advancing enemy. And what had that to do with the fact of Katherine’s footsteps on the stairs? In a moment Katherine would be coming into the room where she was.

  She thought she knew exactly what she would do. She would get quietly out of bed and go to the door and admit the servant. Then she would strike a light.

  She had, in fancy, a picture of herself, standing by a dressing table at the side of the room and addressing the servant calmly and resolutely. One had to begin a new life now. Yesterday perhaps one was a young woman with n
o experience in life but now one was a mature woman who had difficult problems to face. One had, not only the servant Katherine, but the whole town to face. Tomorrow one would be very much in the position of a general in command of troops that had to withstand an attack. One had to comport oneself with dignity. There would be people who wanted to scold at her father, others who wanted to pity herself. Perhaps she would have to handle affairs too. There would be arrangements necessary, in connection with selling her father’s factory and getting moneys so that she could go on and make plans for living her life. One could not be a silly child sitting and sobbing on a bed at such a moment.

  And at the same time one could not, at such a tragic moment in life, and when the servant came in, suddenly burst out laughing. Why was it that the sound of Katherine’s resolute footsteps on the stairs made her want to laugh and weep at the same time? “Soldiers advancing resolutely across an open field toward an enemy. Wait until you see the whites of their eyes.” Silly notions. Silly words dancing in the brain. One did not want either to laugh or weep. One wanted to comport oneself with dignity.

  An intensive struggle was going on within Jane Webster and now it had lost dignity and had become no more than a struggle to stop crying loudly, not to begin laughing, and to be ready to receive the servant Katherine with a certain dignity.

  As the footsteps drew nearer the struggle intensified. Now she was again sitting very stiffly upright in the bed and again her body was rocking back and forth. Her fists, doubled and hard, were again beating down upon her legs.

  Like every one else in the world Jane had been spending her entire life making dramatizations of herself in relation to life. One did that as a child and later as a young girl in school. One’s mother died suddenly or one found oneself violently ill and facing death. Every one gathered about one’s death-bed and all were amazed at the quiet dignity with which one met the situation.

  Or again there was a young man who had smiled at one on the street. Perhaps he had the audacity to think of one as merely a child. Very well. Let the two of them be thrown together into a difficult position and then see which one could comport himself with the greater dignity.

  There was something terrible about this whole situation. After all Jane felt she had it in her to carry life off with a kind of flourish. It was certain no other young woman of her acquaintance had ever been put into such a position as she was now in. Already, although they, as yet, knew nothing of what had occurred, the eyes of the whole town were directed toward herself and she was merely sitting in the darkness on a bed and sobbing like a child.

  She began to laugh, sharply, hysterically, and then the laughter stopped and the loud sobbing began again. The servant Katherine came to her bedroom door but she did not knock and give Jane the chance to arise and receive her with dignity, but came right in. She ran across the room and knelt at the side of Jane’s bed. Her impulsive action brought an end to Jane’s desire to be the grand lady, at least for the night. The woman Katherine had become, by her quick impulsiveness, sister to something that was her own real self too. There were two women, shaken and in trouble, both deeply stirred by some inward storm, and clutching at each other in the darkness. For a time they stayed thus, on the bed, their arms about each other.

  And so Katherine was not after all such a strong resolute person. One need not be afraid of her. That was an infinitely comforting thought to Jane. She also was weeping. Perhaps now, if Katherine were to jump up and begin walking about, one would not have the fancy about her strong resolute steps making the house shake. Had she been in Jane Webster’s shoes perhaps she also would have been unable to get up out of bed and speak of everything that had happened calmly and with cool dignity. Why, Katherine also might have found herself unable to control the desire to weep and laugh loudly at the same time. Well, she was not such a terrible, such a strong resolute and terrible person, after all.

  To the younger woman, sitting now in the darkness with her body pressed against the more sturdy body of the older woman there came a sweet intangible sense of being fed and refreshed out of the body of this other woman. She even gave way to a desire to put up her hand and touch Katherine’s cheek. The older woman had great breasts against which one could cushion oneself. What comfort there was in her presence in the silent house.

  Jane stopped weeping and felt suddenly weary and a little cold. “Let’s not stay here. Let’s go downstairs into my room,” Katherine said. Could it be that she knew what had happened in that other bedroom? It was evident she did know. Then it was true. Jane’s heart stopped beating and her body shook with fear. She stood in the darkness beside the bed and put her hand against the wall to keep from falling. She had been telling herself that her mother had taken poison and had killed herself but it was evident there was an inner part of her had not believed, had not dared believe.

  Katherine had found a coat and was putting it about Jane’s shoulders. It was odd, this being so cold when the night was comparatively warm.

  The two women went out of the room into the hallway. A gas light was burning in the bathroom at the end of the hallway and the bathroom door had been left open.

  Jane closed her eyes and clung to Katherine. The notion that her mother had killed herself had now become a certainty. It was so evident now that Katherine knew about it too. Before Jane’s eyes the drama of the suicide again played itself out in the theatre of her fancy. Her mother was standing and facing the little cabinet fastened to the walk of the bathroom. Her face was turned upward and the light from above shone down on it. One hand was against the wall of the room to keep the body from falling and the other hand held a bottle. The face turned up to the light was white, of a pasty whiteness. It was a face that from long association had become familiar to Jane but it was at the same time strangely unfamiliar. The eyes were closed and there were little reddish bags of flesh under the eyes. The lips hung loosely open and from one corner of the mouth a reddish brown streak ran down over the chin. Some spots of a brown liquid had fallen down over the white nightgown.

  Jane’s body was trembling violently. “How cold the house has become, Katherine,” she said and opened her eyes. They had reached the head of the stairs and from where they stood could look directly into the bathroom. There was a gray bath mat on the floor and a small brown bottle had been dropped on it. In passing out of the room the heavy foot of the woman, who had swallowed the contents of the bottle, had stepped on the bottle and had broken it. Perhaps her foot had been cut but she had not minded. “If there was pain, a hurt place, that would have been a comfort to her,” Jane thought. In her hand she still held the stone her father had given her. How absurd that he should have called it “the Jewel of Life.” There was a spot of yellowish green light reflected from an edge of the broken bottle on the floor of the bathroom. When her father had taken the little stone to the candle in the bedroom, and had held it up to the candle-light such another yellowish green light had flashed from it too. “If mother were still alive she would surely make some sound of life now. She would wonder what Katherine and I were doing tramping about the house and would get up and come to her bedroom door to inquire about it,” she thought drearily.

  When Katherine had put Jane into her own bed, in a little room off the kitchen, she went upstairs to make certain arrangements. There had been no explanations. In the kitchen she had left a light burning and the servant’s bedroom was lighted by a reflected light, shining through an open doorway.

  Katherine went to Mary Webster’s bedroom and without knocking opened the door and went in. There had been a gas lamp lighted and the woman, who did not want any more of life, had tried to get into bed and die respectably between the sheets but had not been successful. The tall slender girl, who had once refused love on a hillside, had been taken by death before she had time to protest. Her body, half lying on the bed, had struggled and twisted itself about and had slipped off the bed to the floor. Katherine lifted it up and put it on the bed and went to get a wet cloth to cleanse
the disfigured and discolored face.

  Then a thought came to her and she put the cloth away. For a moment she stood in the room looking about. Her own face had become very white and she felt ill. She put out the light and going into John Webster’s bedroom closed the door. The candles were still burning beside the Virgin and she took the little framed picture and put it away, high up on a closet shelf. Then she blew out one of the candles and carried it, with the lighted one, downstairs and into the room where Jane lay waiting.

  The servant went to a closet and getting an extra blanket wrapped it about Jane’s shoulders. “I don’t believe I’ll undress,” she said. “I’ll come sit on the bed with you as I am.”

  “You have already figured it out,” she said, in a matter of fact tone, when she had seated herself and when she had put her arm about Jane’s shoulder. Both women were pale but Jane’s body no longer trembled.

  “If mother has died at least I have not been left alone in the house with the dead body,” she thought gratefully. Katherine did not tell her any of the details of what she had found on the floor above. “She’s dead,” she said, and after the two had waited in silence for a moment she began to elaborate an idea that had come into her mind as she stood in the presence of the dead woman, in the bedroom above. “I don’t suppose they’ll try to connect your father with this but they may,” she said thoughtfully. “I saw something like that happen once. A man died and after he was dead some men tried to make him out a thief. What I think is this — we had better sit here together until morning comes. Then I’ll call in a doctor. We’ll say we knew nothing of what had happened until I went to call your mother for breakfast. By that time, you see, your father will be gone.”