“What was that?” I asked, startled.
“The very first crack of the ice breakup — which means our last day on the river. Skating won’t be safe after this.”
As we unlaced our skates, Jonathan arrived, and Davy warned him about the ice. “You’re an hour too late, I’m afraid,” Davy advised him. “It’s just like the news nowadays. We heard only that one crack — but that’s enough. There’s real trouble coming.”
That night my mind kept turning back to Davy’s remark. All through the autumn, I had been so engrossed in my flowering life — my fascinating studies, the wonder of our engagement, the vision of our future — that I barely noticed events in the larger world around us. There had been a military skirmish of sorts in October. I remembered a raid in Virginia and some hangings. I had hardly read the news-paper; it seemed unimportant compared to the unfolding events in my own life.
But Davy’s comment forced my view to widen. His eyes were fixed beyond our tiny sphere; mine had to be too. So every afternoon, I read the Springfield Republican, where Emily’s friend Mr. Samuel Bowles was editor — and I began to see we were indeed skating on thin ice. The Northeast and the South were ready for a war — an American war.
During one of our study sessions, I brought up some of my worries, hoping for reassurance.
“Davy, this won’t concern you, will it? Illinois in the Middle West is not part of this, is it?”
“Perhaps you shouldn’t have dropped geography, Miranda.” Davy gave me a wry smile. “No place in the United States is separate from any other place. We’re all connected by arteries of railroads and rivers.”
I hauled out Father’s atlas, and Davy showed me the rail and shipping routes converging on Chicago. “All the commerce of the continent goes to and from Chicago,” he explained, running his fingers along the snaking lines. “The Middle Western states couldn’t exist with only the top half of the Mississippi or some chopped-off bits of railroad.”
My heart lurched and sank. “I see, I do see.”
Once I understood this fatal geography, I read everything — the daily Republican, the weekly news in Harper’s, and the articles in the Atlantic Monthly. My former ignorance was bliss indeed, but I’d never get it back.
It was soon the last day of an uneasy March 1860. Josiah Howland was born the previous night, nearly killing his mother as he came. He was a good-size infant, somewhat tardy — and Kate had a narrow frame. Dr. Smedley told us, as the hours dragged on, that the baby was crosswise, and he could not turn him. At any rate, Josey was a day and a night en route, and we thought we would surely lose our Kate.
Aunt Helen had gone to Springfield a week before to help Kate get ready for the birth. But the Howlands’ steep stairs became too painful for her arthritis, and she telegraphed for me to come. With Father’s help, I arranged for the time away from school and took the cars to join them. I was there for the first happy onset of Kate’s labor at Monday noon — and all through the horror of the endless night that followed. By Tuesday noon, Kate was so exhausted that she would fall asleep between pains and then wake to arch and scream again.
Her agony penetrated every inch of the tidy little honeymoon house — so there was no way to shield me, an unmarried girl, from the whole fearful process. I barely recognized my calm Kate in this violent, pitiful creature. I sat with her, sponging her swollen face, sobbing too. Her desperate grip bruised my hands.
Privately Aunt Helen and I were not very good at hiding our fear that we would lose our Kate, but we were brave at her bedside. By evening, Dr. Smedley told us he would try to turn the baby one more time. There came a spurt of bright blood, a final shriek, and finally, late that night, Josiah Chase Howland was born.
Now that he had arrived, Aunt Helen and Ethan were so proud of the little fellow that they were forgetting the mortal ordeal of his birth. I could not; I never would. “I can’t forgive him, Kate. He almost took you away from us.”
I was sitting by her bed, the third day. She had been sleeping, but she was still paler than the dainty sheets she had embroidered for her hope chest. I had helped her sew those same innocent doves and scrolls. The doves had lied to us then; they were lying now.
“You’d better start forgiving Josey; he may be the only little cousin you get. Dr. Smedley said I shouldn’t try having another baby.”
“Do you mind, Kate?”
“Right now, I can’t even imagine wanting to do this again! But it will be hard for Ethan; he wants a big family.”
I could see she was unresigned to Dr. Smedley’s advice, which frightened and confused me. But her happiness was so deep, her lovely nature so calm, that this was not a time for argument but for rejoicing.
Maureen arrived, a cheerful young Irish helper for Kate, and Aunt Helen and I returned to Amherst. Davy called at once. He found me shaken and sobered by my close view of childbirth.
“Of course I’ve never seen it the way you did, but I do fear it,” he confided. “My own mother never got her strength back.”
I remembered Davy telling me that his mother had died at the age of twenty, when he was only three months old. He would have been too young to have any actual memories of her.
“Do you know anything about her?” I asked.
“They tell me she was generous and loving, and very beautiful. Her name was Claire. I wish I had even one small memory of her.”
Since, in a way, I had never really known my own mother, I knew we shared something important. Perhaps we had never really admitted this “hole” in our life’s experience, perhaps we would be able to explore its meaning together.
A few days later, when I visited The Homestead, Emily was sweetly pleased over Kate’s little son but was even more excited to show me her latest work. She must have forgotten her recent anger when I presumed to judge her poem, the one based on her childish letter to “Master.”
I expected there would be real fireworks when she finally submitted her work to a “surgeon.” She was abnormally sensitive to any advice, which she always saw as a searing personal attack. I believed that Emily, in her writing, was saying to the world: “Love me, love my poem without question! I have worked to find this word, to build that phrase; how could you be expected to understand it? You are an outsider. I do not write for you.”
Having said all this to myself, I was quite ready to be tactfully evasive when she handed me another paper to read. Here was a letter, or the draft of a letter, with lines marked “ . . . not a glorious victory Abiah . . . but a kind of a helpless victory, where triumph would come of itself, faintest music, weary soldiers. . . .”
“I see some nice images,” I told her carefully. “What is it?”
Now she was a gleeful child with a surprise for the grown-ups. “It’s a letter I wrote to Abby Root in 1850. It’s a ton of mimosa, waiting to be DISTILLED into a poem!”
“These lines, Emily?”
“These very lines! Now read the poem they have become.”
I took the page from her and read.
Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne’er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.
Not one of all the purple Host
Who took the Flag today
Can tell the definition
So clear of Victory
As he defeated — dying —
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear!
I was overcome by the authority and compelling force of these twelve lines. I had always sensed an uneven quality in Emily’s work until now — but here I found clear direction to a stunning conclusion. This poem was flawless and complete; I could only praise it.
“Emily, it’s your very best. You have pulled all your talents together here. It is a masterpiece. I am awed, truly awed.”
She blushed, but she met my gaze, standing proud and straight — at ease in the presence of her own excellence attain
ed.
“I know, I know! It was a LONG JOURNEY, some of it by night — but I’ve arrived.”
“Now, Emily, it’s time to send this to your ‘surgeon.’ ”
“Not yet. I need two or three others I like as much. Mr. Thomas Wentworth Higginson will want to compare them, I imagine.” She looked away from my disappointment.
So even with this triumphant poem in her hand, she was defensive again. She dared not risk exposing herself to criticism.
The next Monday, I went cross lots to The Homestead, thinking again of the power of Emily’s most recent verse. When I reached Emily’s house, the stair door was locked, so I went around the front. Miss Lavinia opened the door before I knocked; she seemed excited and distraite.
“Miranda, you will have to excuse my sister this afternoon. She has an unexpected guest. She will see you next Monday.” Then I noticed a carriage from the livery stable, with a driver waiting — and I heard a man’s deep voice from the parlor.
“A livery carriage, indeed!” Aunt Helen was intrigued when I told her. “That means someone from out of town. Could it be one of those men she writes so often?”
“Never!” I was emphatic. “They would never be permitted to come to The Homestead in person.”
But next Monday, Dick, the Dickinson stableman, brought me a note. Emily was in bed — “felled” was her word — and could not receive me till next week.
It was just as well: my history of Greek drama was almost due. Emily had intended to help me, but I discovered she was hopeless at organizing a mass of fact. She preferred to swoop and dart around a topic like a shimmering dragonfly — and she was much too subjective for expository writing. So I learned to arrange my new knowledge, logically and chronologically, in an orderly structure of fact and opinion. This was much harder than reading Medea but strangely satis-fying. As in flower arranging, I knew instinctively when a section was right — when I had attained my intent.
Davy had a difficult project too, a paper on Thoreau. On Amity Street, we spread our papers over the dining table and worked in total silence. Every now and then he pushed a note down to my end. (“If I can’t be kissing you, I might as well study.”) At the end of the period, we compared our progress, and Aunt Helen brought us cider.
When I called on Monday, I found Emily convalescent, pale and subdued. Her freckles were showing again; this was always her sign of distress. Something had truly shaken her.
“It was a CATACLYSM,” she told me. “At my feet, the hall became ABYSS.” She repeated this, testing it: “BECAME ABYSS.” One day, I knew, she would use this metaphor again.
“Can you tell me what happened, Emily?”
“I was working in the kitchen; I had no WARNING. Vinnie had taken Mother downtown; there was no one to answer the door. Usually I just let a caller go on knocking. Oh, whatever POSSESSED me?” She wrung her hands; she was literally beside herself, outside her tidy little body. Her pain was tremendous and genuine.
“Emily, who was it?”
“It was my MASTER! And I in my old work apron, with flour on my hands — oh, it was terrible, terrible! It was a VIOLATION!”
The Philadelphia minister — here? I was shocked. What impact would this have on the delicate truce erected by so many concerned parties? “Had he written you that he was coming?”
“NEVER. He knew I would refuse to see him! He had some ridiculous church business in Northampton and stopped on a silly WHIM, on his way back to Philadelphia. He hired a carriage at the depot and just — INVADED. After five years, after all we have been to each other — just because he had some time to fill up between trains! How did he DARE — to me, Emily Dickinson!”
I could see her vibrating. Her rage was visible; I wanted to calm her. “Emily, I can’t imagine he meant to hurt you. He was being sociable — just taking the chance to meet you, after all your fine letters. He was calling on you only as a friend.”
“I do not have such FRIENDS. No coarse, insensitive DROPPER IN is any friend of mine!”
“What . . . what is he like?” She needed sympathy, but I was not sure how to offer it.
“How could I tell? All I could see was an intruder — a strange, unwelcome man with stiff round whiskers like those of an APE. Miranda, it was NOT my Master!”
Clearly she preferred her two-dimensional correspondent to the whiskered reality. This should set Mrs. Austin’s mind at ease; there was no danger of Emily’s running off and sullying the Dickinson name to be with this man.
“Did you enjoy any part of his visit?”
“How could I? I do not like SOCIAL conversation, when I am afraid of what I might hear my own voice saying. In letters, I am safe. I can plan, I can edit; I can PRESENT myself! Talking is so raw, so random, so DANGEROUS!”
As she spoke, I recognized the accuracy of Mrs. Austin’s phrase “Emily’s truth.” Emily had her own pane of violet glass — and she herself demanded to be seen through the same filter of fantasy.
I had brought daffodils, but their spring beauty had no effect, nor had any of the conversational topics I offered. After a gloomy hour, I left, wondering how long it would take Emily to recover from her assault.
I soon found out. As I walked along Main Street on Saturday, I heard the sentimental birds calling their nesting plans across the delicious April morning. Then, to my surprise, I came on Emily working in her garden. She never went outdoors past nine, as Main Street filled up with chatty passersby like me.
“Good morning, Little Red Riding Hood!” she trilled, waving a trowel. “Where are you taking your basket?”
“These are molasses cookies for a hayride,” I told her. Davy and I had planned an excursion up Mount Holyoke with a dozen of our friends. There was a splendid panoramic view there — the oxbow loop of the Connecticut River. All the Pelham Hills will be silver gilt, with tiny leaves uncurling. We would sing and fly kites; we would sketch; then we would lunch at the Mountain House Inn. Davy had grown up arranging such outings along Lake Michigan; he made me see that the planning was as delightful as the event.
“You chose the PARADIGM of spring for your outing!” Emily gushed. “Look in the guest books when you get up there; you will see my signature OFTEN, from years ago.”
“I see you’ve forgiven your uninvited dropper-in,” I ventured. The prospect of a glorious day emboldened me.
“Forgiven him? It was nothing, nothing at all — a passing THISTLEDOWN between us. He is my guide and my guardian, as always. I’ve forgotten my little PIQUE.”
No one could handle Emily but Emily herself. The college clock struck ten, and I turned toward the common, where I would forget Emily as I met the dear true fact of my sweetheart.
For the rest of the spring, Davy and I planned a particular enterprise for each Saturday. After the hayride to Mount Holyoke, our next project was wildflowers. People declared you could not transplant them, but Emily’s garden was flourishing disproof of this. Aunt Helen wanted to start growing some beside our brook — and Davy wished to do her a particular favor. So Emily wrote me transplanting directions, and we went to work.
One day while we were planting, we stopped to sun ourselves by the stream in our yard, playing the Hamlet game. Davy refused to find sharks and unicorns in the clouds and saw only Amherst College faculty faces. Suddenly he sat up and turned serious.
“Miranda, I’d like to take a look at your friend’s poetry.”
I thought this over. Emily had never asked me not to show them. Davy had not read as much poetry as I had, but he had good judgment. Whether he liked the poems or not, I wanted to hear his reasons.
“I’ll get the box.” As I ran into the house, across the hall and up the stairs, I caught a fleeting image of myself in the mirror. I glimpsed a stunning young woman, flushed and confident, flashing by in the bright swift current of her happiness. I could not quite believe the miracle I was feeling. I had known Davy for only a year.
“What an unusual hand she writes!” Davy remarked as I opened my cedar box
. “Does it show she is hiding her thoughts, I wonder?” He took the pages from me and began to read. “The poems don’t exactly come rushing out to meet you,” he said, stretching out and rolling over onto his stomach.
I felt as protective as Emily did about her work. Could a stranger understand this proud, shy spirit? Davy was inscrutable, fixed on his reading. He studied each poem several times and then placed it in one of three piles. Sometimes he went back to reread a sheet and move it to another pile. Sometimes he asked me to decipher a par-ticular word.
I watched the sun on Davy’s long, elegant hands. He must still be growing; his wrists extended from his blue cuffs. I wanted to kiss one, warm from the sun. Finally, he rolled back and sat up.
“Well . . . ?” I asked.
“First of all, your friend Emily Dickinson is her own person,” he said. “She isn’t copying anyone. Her ideas — that is, the ones I can follow — are all hers. So is her style. After all the curlicues of Shelley and Byron — yes, even your Browning! — these short, plain stanzas are very appealing. They almost remind me of hymns.”
“Because she loves hymns, of course! She says they’re the perfect verse form. Go on, Davy.”
“As I see it, her poems fall into three groups. The ones in this pile are impressive, unique. I understand them, even though I sometimes reject their message.
“This second pile is harder to judge, Miranda. They are serious and sincere, but I just can’t follow them. She makes these enormous leaps and expects me to stay right there with her.
“Sometimes she talks to God and then about Him — in the same poem. She seems to address God in a dozen different ways; it makes me uncomfortable.”
“I often feel she is speaking a different language,” I said.
“She uses words I know, but she manages to give them different meanings. Sometimes I feel she’s playing hide-and-seek with me!”
“I often tell her that. And the third pile, Ralph Waldo Farwell?”
Davy frowned. “I’m sorry, Miranda, but I have to tell you I think this last group is counterfeit — false, mannered. She’s trying for an effect, wearing a disguise. She plays, she poses. I don’t believe these poems, and I don’t think Miss Dickinson does either. Listen to this:
Afternoons with Emily Page 24