There Was a Time

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  Frank looked at the sky, and a great stillness and dread came to him. Fear lay over the world on this calm and lovely evening. It threw its shadow of hatred over all the cities, over all the seas. Why did man hate his own kind? What evil was born in him, that he wished to destroy his brother? For every man was every other man’s brother. It was not some transcendental mystery, some invention of the saints or the angels. It was living and irrefutable fact. The blood of a white man, the blood of a Negro, a Chinese, a Frenchman or an Englishman, was identical, and no scientist with all his tests and tubes could find the slightest difference. The blackest savage in the jungle dark of Africa could exchange blood with the white patrician of the same blood type, and the bloods would harmonize. Man’s blood was his link with all other men. Why, then, did his spirit stand in eternal enmity against the spirit of his brother?

  Is the secret in myself? thought Frank. Is each man really a microcosm of all the other men in the world? I hated because I was afraid. Why was I afraid? I don’t know. I only know that I never really had cause to fear anything. I was not strong enough, not courageous enough, to withstand the shock of reality. Why don’t the Churches know that it is not man’s animal humility which must be cultivated, but his secret and inner conviction that he is a heroic spirit, invulnerable, immortal, and strong? He knows this when he is a child, for then he is closer to heaven and the fountain of life. The Churches must begin with the child, for once that child fears, he is on the way to destruction, and becomes an instrument of destruction against his fellows.

  Not the fear of God, but the love of God. Not the lust for the things of fear: money, position, power, but the lust for the things of the spirit. When the child looks at the sky he dreams, but he does not dream of wealth and security and mastery over others. He dreams of mysteries, and remembers. But when he has been taught fear by those who have forgotten, he stoops like an ape and picks up a stone.

  I’m not afraid, now, of anything, thought Frank, because someone loves me. A few hours ago I stumbled around in darkness and was utterly lost. But someone loves me. And my fear went away because I love in return. Life came back to me, full of perspective and color. I can write again as I used to write!

  He felt a surge of pure joy and peace and hope. Was it the sky and the river that were trembling in light, or was the radiant trembling in himself alone? He could not tell. Now, down on the tracks below, he heard the long wail of an approaching train. He felt a vibration in the air. The wailing came clearer, louder, more despairing. He listened to it, but he did not put his hands over his ears as he had always done before.

  I am free, he thought. I am free, as I was free when I was a child. I feel my strength, my invulnerability, and so I can’t be afraid. Nothing can injure me but my own fear, and because that fear is gone I am invincible. I can hate nothing because I am afraid of no man.

  Some day I shall find Paul, and I will tell him. I know I shall find him.

  The streets were dark and quiet under the warm white moon. Every tree rustled and whispered. Frank heard voices on the verandahs of the houses he passed. He heard the hiss of passing automobiles. He saw lighted shop windows. He heard and saw everything with exultation. His mind burned with his vision of a new book. He had it all now. He would tell of the growth of fear in himself, of terror, and, finally, of hatred. War hung like a black wing over the world. War would come, for man’s fear had gone too far. But perhaps, after the madness had passed, there would be hope. If only men could understand. If only they did not invent something to bring greater destruction upon themselves and upon others. If only they could look upon their brothers and know them. It might not be too late even now. It might not be too late even in the midst of the red storm of madness. If only a few listened, it might not be too late. I will do what I can, thought Frank Clair. I may be only one voice, but perhaps, in the wilderness, voices hitherto silent will rise up and join mine.

  The summer wind was rising, and the leaves of the trees rose to greet it. Frank reached a corner of a street and saw a great tree before him, standing alone on a long dark lawn. He stood and watched it. And now his heart went out to the great tree, as his heart had once gone out to trees and to all other things. It went out like a wave of love and light, communicating, calling, embracing, encompassing, a long wave of passion and desire and knowing. The tree stood still under the moon, every leaf hanging motionless, every branch heavy with dreams and darkness. Then the wind touched it and broke up its static silence, and all at once the tree moved like a sentient thing waking from sleep, it was all motion, all fluid being, all life. From its branches, from its deepest self, broke forth a soft deep roar, a voice, as if replying, as if responding, to the call that Frank had sent to it, and the leaves turned bright silver in the moonlight, a multitude of small and vivid brightnesses, mirrors of plated glory, shimmering and trembling.

  Now the dark and silvered wind struck Frank also, sweeping over and above and about him like a sea in strong motion. He stood and felt it, and looked at the tree, and something of his old passionate exultation replied to the night, something of his old joy and ecstasy and rapturous knowledge.

  But he knew, too, as he looked at the tree, and called to it, and the tree answered, that never again could he possess the wonder and the enchantment of the world. The years had struck a black chasm between himself and his youth, and there was no crossing it. The globe of his childhood rolled on into rainbowed space; it was a dream; it was a bewitchment. It was all glory and all delight. It was never to be known by him again in this life, for he was a man, and he knew that enchantment and magic are not part of manhood, and that “the splendor in the grass” is for the eyes of children only.

  Never again would he walk a street, and turn over a little stone or a scrap of paper, hoping for the magic word which would give him the world, the fulfillment of dreams, the shining towers of sorcery, the gardens of Circe. Never again would he believe that there were islands of charmed entrancement waiting for the discoverer, full of sweetness and rapture and loveliness. Never again would he climb a hill, expectant of marble walls and golden gates on the other side, and a city where angels walked, clothed in gold, with the sun upon their faces. The world was small; it was hard and concrete with reality. There were no white colonnades full of moonlight to be found in a lost field, and no mountains that rang with music. What there was to be known of the world he knew, and there was no spot “appalled in celestial light.”

  But for the man of good will, the man who loved and did not hate, the man who knew compassion and grief and understanding, there remained the gentle evening of hope, the sweetness of sympathy, the fruit of peace. Life, for him, would never again be as radiant as the “glory and the freshness of a dream.” Ecstasy was no longer to be his companion between sunrise and sunset. But for men of good will there was knowledge, and the faith so to live and so to work that each day would find another stone of anguish lifted from mankind, the faith that the fear and the hatred which beset humanity, and which condemned it to inexorable death, could be transmuted into trust and love—if only a few men desired it and determined upon it.

  CHAPTER 71

  How incredibly beautiful it was to wake in the morning with this slow and rapturous content flowing all through one like golden water! To feel filled and fulfilled, waiting, quiet and smiling, to see the sunshine on one’s hands as if it had just been newly created, not the sun of yesterday, but a stranger and sweeter light. To look at the walls, familiar yet not familiar, to feel again the emanations of every object, as one felt them in one’s youth—that was to be reborn, to have again a child’s lovely expectation, tranquillized now, with a more subdued shining, but with a richness not to be know in fragile and uncertain childhood.

  This was not peace again, in the new morning, but understanding. It was not ecstasy. It was simply being without fear, fear of tomorrow, fear of every voice, fear of pain, death, defeat, ignominy, frustration. It was, in short, to be free of the fear of one’s fellows, thei
r cruelty, malice, brutality and hate. It was to see men crouching in a dark shadow, and to know compassion and sorrow for them, a passionate desire to tell them that he no longer feared them, and that, as he no longer feared them, they had no cause to fear him.

  How good it was to know this, and to feel it, and with it the strength and the power granted only to the merciful and the liberated!

  It was not possible to forget the balefulness of men, their darkness of mind, their detestableness, their boundless capacity for evil, their envy and avarice, the murder that lurked in them like a watchful beast. But it was possible to feel pity for them, and sadness, and grief—all the preludes to love. Even if they replied with a stone and a Cross, it was nothing at all. Even if they answered with a stake, the fires of hatred they raised might shine with enlightenment upon them, with penitence and awakening.

  Each man was immovably scaled in a tree in some dim forest that grew on a wasteland, his real voice choked, his gestures made in wood, his eyes blinded, only a faint rustling heard when he cried out in agony. How was it possible to hate these immured souls, speechless, rooted in the earth they could not escape, striving towards a sky they could not see but could only vaguely feel?

  Frank Clair sat on the side of his bed and thought: I was one of them. But now I am free. Some way, somehow, I’ll find the words to free these others too. There was a stronger and more vehement stirring in him now, a vast but potent urge. He listened to it, and felt it gathering force and cogency. Into what pattern was it flowing? What would be the words of its articulateness? He did not know. But he felt it growing and expanding, moment by moment, flashing with exultation and purpose, as lightning flashes on mountain peaks, showing, for an instant, the outline of crags and images against an unlit sky. When would the hour come when he would hear the word “Now!” and sit down to write again, to work, to put into words the things he had learned?

  He knew he had to wait. The power and the force were there. They waited as he had to wait. In the meantime, like irresistible roots, they probed deeper into the dark rich soil of his mind, coiling through alluvial deposits, drinking in life, and becoming life themselves.

  Old Mr. Penseres called up the stairs to him that the photographer and the reporter from the Bison Evening News were waiting for him below. Startled, he saw that it was almost eleven o’clock. He had slept for over ten hours, the deep and dreamless sleep which he had not known for many years.

  Later, Mr. Penseres proudly showed him a large item in the morning paper about the acceptance of his novel by Thomas Ingham’s Sons. Frank read the item, which he had given to the reporter over the telephone yesterday, and he thought: But that was a dream. It was not that it no longer mattered. It was that since yesterday he had come across eons of space and time, and that the face he had seen in the mirror this morning was not the face he had known before.

  It was nearly one o’clock. He would call Jessica and tell her. However poor his words, she would understand and know. But just as he reached for the receiver, the telephone rang, and he answered it impatiently. The man’s voice asked for him, and he replied: “Yes. This is Frank Clair.”

  The voice laughed in a friendly fashion, and now it sounded vaguely familiar.

  “Do you remember me, Frank?” asked the voice. “Gordon Hodge?”

  Frank’s hand gripped the receiver convulsively. “Gordon,” he repeated. His own voice came in a wild stammer: “Gordon Hodge! Where are you? I—I’ve been looking for you—”

  “You have?” said Gordon, with mild surprise. Frank could see him, sandy, smiling with indulgent incredulity, good-tempered, yet wary, as he had been when they were children. “Well, I’ve been here since May. I’ve been appointed associate professor of English at the University of Bison, and I’ve been doing some summer work at the University.” He paused. “I often wondered what had become of you. I’ve been teaching in Ohio for the past ten years, myself. And this morning I read about you in the Bison Courier, and had to call you immediately and congratulate you. I think it’s wonderful, but then, I always knew you would do it, Frank.”

  Frank stood there, hearing a strong drumming in and about him. His voice seemed paralyzed by the passion that tried to rush across its thin cords. The receiver bit into his hand.

  “I’m married now,” Gordon went on easily, but with a faint questioning in his tone when he became aware of Frank’s silence. “We live near the University, my wife and I, and we have two children. I’d like to have you visit us, so we can talk about a lot of things. You know my father’s dead?”

  “I—I didn’t know,” stammered Frank. His knees became weak and he sat down abruptly. He swallowed and said: “I’ve tried all these years to find you. Gordon, where is Paul?”

  Gordon did not answer. The telephone hummed in Frank’s ear. He waited, then when he heard nothing else but this, he repeated urgently: “Gordon? Are you still there? Where is Paul?”

  Gordon’s voice came again, thinner and with a suspicious coldness. “What are you trying to tell me, Frank? That you didn’t know that Paul is dead, too?”

  All sensation fell away from Frank. He was sitting in nothingness. He heard his voice whispering dryly: “I didn’t know. I didn’t know.”

  “Hello?” said Gordon. “Hello, Frank?”

  Like a hollow echo, he heard Frank say: “I didn’t know. My God, I didn’t know!”

  Gordon became uncertain and embarrassed. “Why, I can hardly believe it. That was when you were down in Kentucky. You had written once or twice to Paul, while he was in the Navy, and the letters were sent on to me, as next of kin. I wrote you myself, telling you, and the letter was never returned.”

  That must have been after I ran away, thought Frank, still not feeling anything at all. He said: “When did it happen?”

  “It happened a year or so after the war, while he was still in the Navy, transport work. The ship hit a submerged mine, and I believe everyone was killed. I’m awfully sorry, Frank. I thought you knew. It was a long time ago.”

  No, thought Frank, it was not a long time ago. It was only now. It has happened this very minute. I have just felt the sledge hammer; but that is all I have felt. In a little while I’ll realize, because it has just happened now.

  Gordon was talking on, in a conciliatory and concerned voice, but Frank heard only a blur of sound which meant nothing. Paul was dead. I’ll feel it soon, Frank thought. I’ll know it in a few minutes. The blur of sound was again wary and incredulous, faintly rallying, unwilling to believe. That is the way he always talked to me when we were kids, thought Frank. He was always on guard against my “tricks.”

  Frank hung up the receiver and climbed the stairs to his rooms. He went to the window and looked down at the hot July pavement. A streetcar passed, and he followed it mutely and helplessly with his eyes. He watched a woman and some children on the pavements. He saw the blue flash of noonday over the buildings opposite. Sunlight glanced from the dusty tops of automobiles, from the steel rails in the street. Now everything began to tremble with the bright outline of a rising agony.

  “Paul!” said Frank, aloud. And then, with urgent and terrible questioning: “Paul?”

  Only the sunlight answered, and a hot and dusty breath from the pavement below.

  “I didn’t know,” said Frank. “Why didn’t I know? Why didn’t I feel it? Why didn’t you tell me, Paul? I thought of you all the time, and then—and then—There wasn’t any answer! I ought to have known then.”

  He sat down and lit a cigarette abstractedly. It burned in his fingers. He stared before him at the wall, which was patterned in sunshine. He said, still speaking aloud: “I ought to have known when I didn’t hear from you. Do you hear me now, Paul? Do you remember all those years, all the walks we had together, all the talks, all the hopes of the future, all the ideas and the dreams and the imaginings? Why, you’re my childhood, Paul! You are part of me, more than if we had been brothers. You are an inseparable part, as no one else can ever be a part, not even J
essica. We saw the new world together. Do you remember that spring day in the Canadian woods? Can you still remember those dry, ashen days in November when we walked along the river, and told each other everything we thought and knew, and saw the world through each other’s eyes? The books we read, Paul, and the band concerts we used to listen to at The Front, and the sunsets we saw together, and the grave, childish conjectures we had about God and earth and life and being? The weedy Queen Anne’s lace that grew along the fence near your home, which to us was a miracle? The games we played, the balls we tossed, the sandwiches we ate in the wet spring grass along the Canadian Creeks, and the way we made designs with our feet in the snow? The candy we bought with our few pennies, and how we tracked down a drugstore that sold penny sodas, and walked the hot summer miles to get them, and how we put crossed pins on the streetcar tracks to make scissors of them? And how we talked of the day when I’d be a ‘great writer,’ and how we’d buy a house together in which we’d always live, a house in a wood, on the top of a great green hill overlooking cold green water? You believed in me, Paul. Even when you went away that day, that last day, you didn’t really go. You always stayed. That day was only a dream, because it never really happened to us.”

  The sunlight brightened on the walls, on the figured carpet on the floor. There was no sound but that of passing traffic and an occasional child’s voice.