OF TIME AND THE RIVER

by Thomas Wolfe

  Miss Telfair's house, which they now entered, was just the sort of house that one would expect a woman like Miss Telfair to live in. Everywhere one looked, one saw the image of the woman's personality--and that personality was fragile, exquisite, elegant, and elaborately minute. In spite of its graceful, plain proportions, that house was not wholly a comfortable place to be in. It was filled with ten thousand little things--ten thousand little, fragile, costly, lovely and completely useless little things, and their profusion was so great, their arrangement so exquisitely right, their proximity so immediate and overwhelming that one instantly felt cramped, uneasy, and uncomfortable, fearfully apprehensive lest a sudden free and spacious movement should send a thousand rare and terribly costly little things crashing into shattered bits, the treasure of a lifetime irretrievably lost, and one's own life and work and future irretrievably mortgaged, blighted, wrecked, in one shattering instant of blind ruin. In short, in Miss Telfair's lovely, exquisite and toy-becluttered house, one felt very much like a delicate, sensitive, intelligent and highly organized bull in a horribly expensive china-shop, and this feeling was cruelly enhanced if one was twenty-three years old and six and a half feet tall, and large of hand and foot, and long of arm and leg in just proportion, and painfully embarrassed, and given to sudden and convulsive movements, and keyed and strung on the same wires as a racehorse.

  It was an astonishing place, about as exquisitely feminine a place as one could imagine. One had only to take a look round to feel that no man had ever lived here, that the only man who ever came here had come as a visitor; and somehow one felt at once he knew the reason why Miss Telfair had not married--she simply did not want to have "a man about the place," a disgusting, clumsy brute of a man who would go plunging round like a wild bull, sending her vases crashing to the floor, upsetting her fragile little tables and all the precious little bric-à-brac that crowded them, sprawling out upon the voluptuously soft but elegantly arrayed cushions of the sofa, reaching for matches on the mantel and sweeping it clear of a half-dozen dainty eighteenth-century clocks and plates and china shepherds with one swinging blow, barging into dainty little stools of painted china and sending it a-teeter while Miss Telfair watched and prayed and waited with a smile of frozen apprehension, raising hell with the Wedgwood plates, the vases of Dresden and of Delft, and making the buried kings of the old Ming dynasty turn over in their graves with groans of anguish every time some brute of a bull of a man came lumbering near the dearest and most priceless treasures of their epoch.

  Miss Telfair, herself the most dainty, fragile, and exquisitely inviolable ornament of the collection, was waiting for them at the centre of this fabulous clutter. She gave each of the young men a quick cool clasp of her small, frail, nail-bevarnished hand, a few crisp words of greeting, and a quick light smile, as brittle, frail, and painted as a bit of china--a smile curiously like that of Mrs. Pierce in its glacial rigidity but, like everything else about the woman, more fragile, delicate, and shell-like.

  Then she turned and led the way through the house out into the sun-porch. The two young men picked their way carefully between the frail and crowded complications of a thousand costly relics and around great bowls and vases filled with flowers--great bouquets of roses, lilies and carnations, which were everywhere--and which filled the air with the clinging, dense, and overpowering sweetness of their perfumes.

  The sun-parlour was a great, light place, alive and golden with bright sunlight--a magnificent room with comfortably padded wicker chairs and tables and settees, but here, as elsewhere in the house, the fabulous complication of small useless ornaments was overwhelming, and one walked with care. This room also was filled with great bowls of roses, lilies and carnations, the air was dense and heavy with their scent, and through the windows of the place one could see the smooth velvet of the lawns, trimly patterned with designs of flowers aflame with all their glorious polychrome of colour, and at the end the flower-garden, which was alive with many rich and costly blooms growing in geometric designs. It was just the kind of flower-garden, just the kind of flowers, that a woman like Miss Telfair would have: their orderly, exotic and unnatural profusion suggested the cultivation of a hot-house; even the wild and lyric growth of sweet unordered nature had been made to conform to the elegant and fragile pattern of Miss Telfair's life.

  She led the way to a wicker table where there were easy chairs and a comfortable settee and great flaming fragrant lights of flowers. They seated themselves and tea was brought in by a maid-servant. The service of the tea was fragile, costly, elegant, like everything else about the woman; but it was also wonderful, rich, and generous in its abundance, and this was probably like her, too. There were delicate little pastries, cubes, and crusts of things that were so flaky, rich and succulent that they melted away in the mouth; and there were little cubes and squares of sandwiches as well, all dainty, elegant, and small, but wonderfully good. She asked them if they wanted hot-tea or iced-tea or some whisky: the day was hot and Joel took iced-tea, refusing whisky; the other youth took iced-tea too--she poured it for them in marvellous tall frail glasses filled with slivers of bright ice, and put in mint and lemon, doing all things deftly, beautifully, with her small, swift, china-lovely hands, and then turning to Joel's guest, with her light cool smile, her crisp incisive inquiry, in which there was somehow something good and generous, she said:

  "And won't you have some whisky, too?" and as he hesitated, and looked dubious yet consenting, added: "In your iced-tea--if you like it that way?"

  He looked at her, perplexed, and said uncertainly:

  "I--don't know. . . . Does it go that way?"

  Miss Telfair bent back her head--her cheeks had the delicate colour of rose-tinted china, and she was pretty in the rose-tinted-china way--and laughed a thin, metallic, and yet musical and friendly laugh.

  "Oh, yes!" she cried briskly and gaily, "it goes that way! . . . It goes very well that way." More seriously, she added: "Yes, it's really very good that way"--and crisply, yet encouragingly, with her fire-bright china-smile--"why don't you try it?"

  He looked at Joel dubiously, not certain what to do, and not wishing to embarrass his friend, and Joel looked back, with his radiant eager smile, shaking his head in droll refusal, whispering:

  "Not for me. But go on if you like. Do as you like--"

  "Well, then--" he said consentingly--and Miss Telfair, smiling lightly, took a bottle of Scotch whisky off the tray, uncorked it, and poured a drink into the tea--a good stiff shot it was, too--and when he had finished the drink, she poured him out another, adding another liberal potation of the Scotch.

  Thus animated and released, he felt more at ease: they talked together quickly and easily; he had a good time. She was a bright, quick, cool, inquiring kind of woman, at once detached yet friendly, coolly amused yet curious: she asked him about his work at the university, the kind of classes that he taught and the kind of people that attended them, the kind of life he had in the city, and about the play that he was writing. The detached coolness of her curiosity was much like that of Mrs. Pierce, and suggested the curiosity of a woman of a separate and privileged world hearing about the creatures who lived in the great nameless world of dust and noise and strife and swelter "down below"--and yet it was also a more friendly and eager curiosity than Mrs. Pierce had shown: it had a certain warmth of human interest in it, too.

  She was obviously very fond of Joel: her relation to him was that of an old-maid friend of the family, who is so intimate and close to all the family's history that she is practically a part of it herself, and who feels for the children and all their lives and actions as much affection and interest as she could feel for her own blood. Now she turned to Joel, and began to talk to him about some decorative screens which he was painting for her: as one might expect, she knew all about decorative screens and their respective merits; she spoke of them with the exact authority, the assured conviction of the expert, she spoke her mind about them crisply, plainly, incisively, and Jo
el listened to her eagerly, his gaunt face lifted, turned towards her in an attitude of rapt attention and respect, while she was talking.

  "The central one is excellent, Joel--really first-rate, the best one you've ever done--and decidedly the best of the lot. The one on the right is also good--not as good as the first, it swings off-balance in the foreground. I'll show you what I mean tomorrow--but it is good, and will do."

  "What about the other one--the one on the left?" he whispered eagerly. "What did you think of that?"

  "I think it's very, very bad," she said coolly and incisively. "I think you've fallen down on it, and that you're going to have to do the whole thing over again."

  For a moment his gaunt face winced, but not with pain and disappointment, rather with swift, concerned interest, eager attentiveness: he hitched his long thin figure forward unconsciously, his large well-boned hands splayed out upon his knees, and he whispered eagerly:

  "But why, Madge? . . . Tell me. Where do you think I've fallen down?"

  "Well," said Miss Telfair, "in the first place, Joel, you've lost out on your design--It falls all to pieces now, you've let the whole thing get away from you: you were trying to follow it out from the one in the middle and bring it to an end, but you didn't know how to finish it--and so you put in that pavilion or summer-house or whatever it is--because you didn't know what else to do."

  "Don't you like that?" he whispered, smiling.

  "I think it's perfectly god-awful," she answered quietly, "utterly meaningless--simply terrible! It has no relation to anything else in the whole design--it stands out like a sore thumb--and the colour is atrocious. . . . No, Joel, the whole thing is out of key, it upsets the whole design, it has no place there."

  "And what about the background?" he whispered. "What did you think of that?"

  "I think that's bad, too," she replied without a moment's hesitation. "You've used far, far too much gold--almost twice as much as you did in the other two--the proportion is very bad."

  "Hm," he muttered, stroking his chin thoughtfully. "Yes," he whispered, "I see what you mean. . . . I hadn't thought about the pavilion being out of key--perhaps you're right. . . . But," he whispered, smiling his radiantly gentle and good-natured smile, "I don't agree with you about the background being bad, nor that I have used too much gold on it. But I will argue with you about that."

  "All right," she answered crisply and good-naturedly. "I'll come over tomorrow and we'll have it out. . . . But," she shook her head, and spoke with a crisp but obstinate conviction, "Joel, I know I'm right! . . . That whole screen is out of proportion. It won't do. . . . You'll have to do the whole thing over again."

  They debated in this fashion of art-talk for some time, and presently the young men rose to go. As they departed, Miss Telfair returned to her former tone of crisp and casual friendliness, saying:

  "What is Ida doing tonight? Is she going to the Pastons' for the fireworks?"

  "Yes," Joel whispered. "We're all going; can't you come along?"

  "No, thank you," she said, smiling. "Not this time. They're very lovely--and very awe-inspiring--and all that--but about once every five years is my limit. I would not get into that mob tonight, as hot as it is, for a million dollars. . . . Tell Ida I expect her here for lunch tomorrow: Irene will be here. . . . And now, good-bye," she said, turning to the other young man, and giving him a bright china smile, a swift cool pressure of her little china hand. . . . "Come up again to see us, won't you? . . . And bring your play along. And try going to bed some night at ten o'clock. . . . Really!" she said with a crisp cool irony, "--you miss very little by doing so."

  As they walked away along the road towards Joel's house, Joel whispered with his radiant and admiring astonishment:

  "She's simp-ly incredible! . . . Don't you think so? . . . She knows everything," he went on, without defining more exactly that large specification. "It's simply stupendous the things she knows! . . . And she's such a nice person," he said quietly. "One of the nicest people that I ever knew--just what an old maid ought to be--don't you think so?"

  "Yes. But why is she an old maid? Why did she never get married?"

  "Hm," said Joel thoughtfully, looking down the road with a detached, abstracted stare. "I can't say. . . . She's awfully rich," he whispered. "Enormously rich--she has loads of money--she's been able to do just as she pleased all her life--she's been everywhere--all over the world--and I suppose that's the reason that she never married. She never found anyone that she liked well enough to give up the kind of life she had. . . . But she's an amazing person. . . . Don't you think so?"

  "Yes," the other said.

  They walked on down the road, and presently they saw the great white shape of Joel's house, framed in the trees before them, and below them in the light and distance of a westering sun, the shine and wink of the great river. They entered the house.

  LXV

  The Paston estate, like the Pierce estate, was situated upon the river, but several miles farther north. To reach it, they drove through the eastern entrance of the Pierce place and through the little Dutch Colonial village of Leydensberg, of which Joel's father was the mayor and which the Pierce family largely owned.

  "It's a pity Pups never went into politics," Joel whispered, as they drove through the old leafy village, with its pleasant houses among which a few of the lonely white houses of the Colonial period still remained. "The people around here worship him: he could have anything he wanted if he ran for office."

  It was the first time he had spoken of his father: with a feeling of sharp surprise, the other youth now remembered that he had not seen Mr. Pierce since his arrival: he wondered where he was, but did not ask. He also now remembered that Joel's references to his father had often been marked by a note of resignation and regret--the tone a person uses when he speaks of someone who has possessed talents and wasted opportunities, and whose life has come to nothing.

  Their road led northward from the village: they sped swiftly along a paved highway bordered by trees and fields and woods, by houses here and there, and presently by the solid masonry of a wall that marked the boundaries of another great estate. It was the Paston place, and presently they turned in to an entrance flanked by stone-markers, and began to drive along a road arched by tall leafy trees. Night had come, the moon was not yet well up, but from time to time there was beside the road the gleam of steel, and at times as they passed a cleared space he could plainly see the rail pattern of a tiny railway, complete in all respects--with roadbed, rock-ballast, grades, and cuts, embankments, even tunnels, but all so small in scale that it suggested a gigantic toy more than anything else. He asked what it was and Joel answered:

  "It's Hunter's railway."

  "Hunter's railway?" he asked in a puzzled tone. "But why does he need a railway here? What does he use it for?"

  "Oh, he really doesn't need it for anything," Joel whispered. "It's of no use to anyone. He just likes to play with it."

  "Play with it? But--but what is it? . . . Isn't it a real railway?"

  "Yes, of course," Joel answered, laughing at his astonishment. "It's really quite marvellous--complete in every way--with tunnels, stations, bridges, signals, round-houses, and everything else a regular railway has. Only everything is on a very small scale--like a toy."

  "But the engine--the locomotive? . . . How does that run? Do you wind it up, as you do a toy, or run it by electricity, or how?"

  "Oh, no," Joel answered. "It's a regular locomotive--not over two or three feet high, I should say--but runs by steam, just like a real locomotive. . . . It's really quite a fascinating thing," he whispered. "You ought to see it some time."

  "But--but how does he run it? Is he able to get into anything as small as that?"

  "He can, yes," said Joel, laughing again. "But usually he just runs along by the side. It's pretty cramped quarters for a grown man."

  "A grown man! . . . Do you mean that Mr. Paston built this little railway for himself?"

  "But, of
course!" Joel turned, and looked at his friend with a surprised stare. "Whom did you think I was talking about?"

  "Why, I--I thought when you said--'Hunter' you meant one of his children--a boy--some child in his family who--"

  "No, not at all," Joel whispered, laughing again at the astonished and bewildered look upon his companion's face. "It may be for a child, but the child is Hunter Paston himself. . . . You see," he said more quietly and seriously after a brief pause, "he's crazy about all kinds of machinery--locomotives, aeroplanes, motor-boats, motor-cars, steam-yachts--he loves anything that has an engine in it--he always has been that way since he was a boy--and it's such a pity, too," he whispered, in the same regretful tone he had used when speaking of his father--"It's a shame he was never able to do anything with it. . . . If he hadn't had all this money, he would have made a swell mechanic--he really would."