by May Sarton
I must be very careful not to antagonize Rose—not to do anything that could poison this reprieve. Harriet will be away for two whole weeks, maybe more, who knows? Meanwhile I am alive in a way I have not been since I came. That is what a mere presence, if it is kind, can do. There is something to look forward to. I shall wake up thinking that Mrs. Close will be coming in to say good morning.
It is only a little frightening to be swept back into feeling so much. Don’t make a fool of yourself, Caro! Old people, we are told, get infatuated easily. I understand it all so much better than I would have even five years ago. Whatever lives in us, the heart and its capacity for suffering and for joy never dies, and must have an object. The sin would be to stop loving. But I have only seen this dear woman for a day and already I feel less starved and ornery, less arid, less ready to break out in anger. A single rose, a tray cloth, the presence of goodheartedness, of imagination—now I am ready for Lisa. I know that I can still respond to life in a normal human way. I am not disintegrating into madness.
The rose has opened during the day. I have lain here for an hour really paying attention to it. And now I think I’ll go and sit outdoors.
People have remissions from cancer when for a time they feel quite well. I am being given a remission from despair and decline. It may be my last chance to recover and sort out all that must be resolved, so I must use it well. Time had become slack, tedious. Now it races. But I am accomplishing quite a lot in my own nice quiet noisy way. Who used to say that? “Nice quiet noisy way”… My Aunt Isabel, of course! She was the black sheep of the family, not only went to college but got a Ph.D. in political science. At a time when ladies neither drank nor smoked she did both with zest, and I suppose she was the only person in the family with whom I could feel wholly at ease. She even made a trip to London to meet Alex and approved of our liaison. How strange that I have not thought of her since I came here. I suppose it was feeling myself again that has made it possible. The very thought of her energy and the great way she died, of a heart attack on the way to get an honorary degree from the University of Wisconsin, would have depressed me too much when I first landed here. I never quite met her standards of superior achievement, but at least she understood why a woman of some intellectual distinction might hesitate to marry. “Be yourself, Caro,” she used to say. “No one can be that for you.” She was a prima donna, of course, and of course the family resented her fame and her women friends, her getting away with murder and flourishing despite it all.
She was my mother’s older sister; they could not have been more different. When she came to visit we had a family joke that Hurricane Isabel was about to strike. She arrived with huge amounts of luggage, two or three briefcases of papers and books, made demands no other woman would have been allowed to make, worked till the early morning hours after everyone else was asleep, got up at eleven and expected breakfast, demanded endless martinis before dinner, teased my father and treated my mother with what can only be called condescension. But when Hurricane Isabel left, the house seemed very empty and life rather dull, even to my parents. They resented her intensity, her drive, but without it, for a week or so, they saw the dingy aspects of their life rather too clearly. At least, if they did not, I did. I couldn’t help comparing her life, so wide open, so luxuriant, with theirs, so closed in, prim and safe.
For years I was terribly jealous of John, in whom she took an interest. Children bored her and at fourteen and fifteen I was a rather boring child, no doubt. But John was interested in ideas, a worthy antagonist, and they went at it together. Often my parents went to bed in sheer desperation, while she and John went on talking about “progressive education” or whatever was in the air, and I, solemn ghost at the feast, nearly went to sleep but refused to leave for fear of missing something.
Later on I suppose I was a little in love with her and her life, and later on she enjoyed what she called my toughmindedness, teased me about being a mathematician, took me one wonderful summer to Europe, a slow, rich progress to her favorite places—Chartres, of course, the Dordogne, St. Paul de Vence, Venice, and finally Sion, in Switzerland. What would she have been like if she had lived to be very old? When she began to lose her powers? Well, of course, faithful Daphne, the last one of her several “friends,” would have looked out for her. She attracted people like a magnet, attracted by sheer vitality and zest for life. She was always surrounded by admiring students, male and female. And by women, jealous of each other. I do not believe, strangely enough, that she was a very passionate woman. She aroused passions rather than experiencing them, is my guess. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to have her sail in here and demolish the place by the sheer force of her personality! She would have carried me off without a moment’s hesitation!—Such fantasies, Caro. The truth is that the people who could save the old in places like this have died—that is why we are put here, because there is no one.
I had a note, at long last, from Ginny to apologize for the long lapse. John, it seems, has been quite ill with pleurisy and nearly died. So that explains that. She promises to come in before they go south later on. He cannot, say the doctors, stand the winter here. The winter! I think of it with dread. Snow piled against the windows, drafts, being marooned.
Well, I was sitting outdoors, reading, at peace with myself, when Richard Thornhill drove up late that afternoon. He brought four or five splendid copybooks and a powerful transistor radio on which he thinks I can get music at certain hours. It has an earphone thing so I can listen without disturbing anyone. He brought more flowers from his wife. But, far more precious, he sat down for an hour and we had a real talk. I am almost afraid of so many good things happening—what fury stands in the wings? It can’t last. A gentle voice, gentle hands, the silent communion with Mrs. Close and a charming young man who treats me with respect and listens to what I say! Can all this be real?
Richard (we are on a first-name basis now, at least on my side; he cannot quite bring himself to call me Caro) asked why they had told Lisa I couldn’t see her—was it by my wish?
“No, that was Harriet’s way of punishing me for having told you so much, for the inspectors coming.”
“I can’t believe it!” The words sprang out spontaneously. He had no idea how frightful they were to hear. I had a queer sensation of dizziness and covered my eyes with one hand. It all rushed in, the fear of madness, of not being believed. I didn’t know what to say, how to tell him. But he must have guessed, for he added after a moment, “Of course I believe you, Miss Spencer, if you tell me so.”
But his eyes were troubled when I met them.
“No one believes in wickedness until he meets it face to face. I never did before.” I was trembling and could hardly light my cigarette. He took the lighter from my hand and did it for me.
“Please, Miss Spencer, don’t be upset. I had no idea, of course, that my effort to help could go wrong.”
“It didn’t … only … you see they took Standish away and he died such a lonely death in the ambulance. I felt responsible. The inspectors won’t allow really sick people here any more. And that’s right. Only they hate me now.”
It was an awful moment. I felt I was spoiling his visit for him and for me, too. Tears flew down my cheeks like rain. I couldn’t help it. “Nothing can be changed here,” I managed to say when I had pulled myself together. “It’s a locked world.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” he said firmly. “Next time Lisa comes she will force her way in. Of that I can assure you.”
For me it had been a violent fall back into the grief I had kept at bay since Standish died. But with it came a flash of insight. I did not, of course, tell Richard what I saw in that flash. It was that things can be changed here, but only by violent action. If I lose my temper I will be put in the dark again. But if I burn the place down some day, I can open this locked world—at least to death by fire, better than death by bad smells and bedpans and lost minds in sordidly failing bodies. I was staggered by the flash of what I conce
ived. The tears stopped at once and I became crazily cheerful, talked a blue streak, told him about John, gave a quite humorous criticism of the long novel he had brought, as a strong but aberrant cartoon of life—what people want to believe, not what is true.
And this led us back to old age and death. And finally to my King Charles’ Head, wickedness, and what one does in its presence, how one handles it.
“People become wicked,” I said in the flush of all this talk, “when they have absolute power. I think that’s the answer. One reads about fathers who brutalize infants, for instance. ‘The battered child syndrome,’ I believe it is called. Have you run into it, Richard? It seems so horrible.”
“Yes,” he nodded. “It happens every day. A man or woman is frustrated for some reason, an unfair boss, or what have you—comes home to a crying baby and breaks its arm. I’ve seen it.”
“What do you do about it? How can one help?”
“I don’t know,” he sighed. “I try never to blame, or at least try to withhold blame, try to understand what the frustrations back of cruelty are. It’s never easy, Miss Spencer. Such people are eaten by guilt.”
“My experience of wickedness is that it is Protean—you can’t seize onto it. And you can’t because the truly wicked perhaps live in Heaven, a Heaven of their own making. They do not admit even to themselves what they have done or are doing. Harriet Hatfield is a perfect example. Her image of herself, I feel sure, is that of a compassionately overworked human being who has taken over the responsibility of others toward their fathers, mothers, sisters, et cetera, for little pay. She feels superior to me, for instance, because I have been left in her care. In her own eyes she is perfectly good. She feels no guilt, I can assure you. It is the innocent, not the guilty, who live in Hell,” I heard myself say. And I have been thinking about this ever since. (The wonderful thing about real conversation is that it stimulates one to new insights.) Richard fumbled when I pressed my point, “And if that is so, how can you believe in a just God?”
I liked him because he took his time. He narrowed his eyes and looked down at the hands clasping his crossed knee. He is rather an elegant creature and I enjoy looking at him. He pleases me as a man and as a human being. Brilliance, intellectually speaking, is not required of the ministry, but integrity is. And it is becoming rare in any field. Richard has it, and I feel it in Lisa too.
“You are really probing my faith, Miss Spencer,” he said with an odd shy smile.
“I suppose so. Well?”
“I don’t know,” and he suddenly laughed. “Perhaps part of me believes that we are every day making God possible as He made us possible—He fails us when we fail Him. Maybe,” he said, “wickedness is what God cannot deal with Himself. We have to deal with it.”
“Cancer, for instance,” I murmured, “when normal cells go wild and overmultiply—you mean we can’t blame God for that?”
“Maybe …”
It was time to change the subject and I did. But it has given me much to think about. In this little distance from Harriet and in the blessed presence of Mrs. Close, I must try to achieve detachment and to stop hating so much. Hate is corrosive. But how to deal with Harriet? That remains a mystery.
These are wonderful days. They begin with dear Anna Close and my breakfast tray—though actually they begin with sunrise. Sometimes the field is covered with frost and sparkles when the sun climbs over the trees. I lie in my bed as the grey dawn changes to blue and the round red sun climbs up. Frost has brought changes to the trees and now everything is red and gold at the end of the field. I do not really want to die at all these days. I am avid for life. Sometimes Anna can sit down for a minute after my breakfast when she has taken care of the old men and comes back to get my tray. She is not a talker. I feel perfectly at peace when she is there and we do not need words. She seems to understand me in a way I have needed for years. The room feels airy and clean when she has been there with her magic touch. No more dust under the bureau these days! But it is not that, it is being cared for as though I were worthy of care. It is being not humiliated but treasured.
“I wish I could take you home with me,” she said the other day, “but my husband wouldn’t hear of it, and there are no conveniences. Children pouring in and out.”
“Don’t let’s think ahead,” I said quickly. I wanted to ask her when Harriet is due back, but I was afraid to. The only way I can handle this inevitable disaster is not to think about it. “Let’s count our blessings,” I added. “You make me feel ten years younger, Anna.”
That made her laugh her soft secret laugh. “I’m sure I can’t think why. I’m no one for the likes of you, a plain farmer’s wife who has never been outside the state, if you can believe it.”
“It’s not that,” I said, brushing away what seems quite irrelevant. “You’re an angel in disguise.”
“Quite a disguise, I must say,” and she laughed again and gave me an amused look out of her clear blue eyes.
I think she is a little afraid of my feeling for her. No doubt it seems absurd. And no doubt it is. But while she is here, surely I am permitted to bask in goodness—it will not last long in this place. She insists on taking my things home to wash so they won’t be stuffed into the machine here. She brings them back beautifully ironed and wrapped in tissue paper. “I do like that blouse,” she will say, giving the package a pat. “It has a label from Paris.” I realize that a blouse from Paris dazzles her.
“Hermès,” I murmur.
“I just can’t understand their leaving you here,” she says. For by now of course she knows all about Ginny and John. “It’s all very well for those old men, this is the sort of place they lived in before. But you …”
“Nobody stays special when they’re old, Anna. That’s what we have to learn.”
“I don’t believe that.” She is, for once, angry, and flushes. “I would like to wring that Ginny’s neck.”
But now I am defended I can be generous. “It’s not her fault, you know. She’s got her hands full. And I was beastly to her, so maybe I deserve what I got.”
So we talk, but it is not the words that matter. When she goes she pats my hand and sometimes kisses me on the cheek. “You’d better get outside in the warm sun,” she says, “and do your writing there.”
My notebooks fascinate her. “What do you do it for?” she asked me once.
“Oh, to keep alive, I suppose—to tell myself I am still able to feel and think.” But there is another reason. The notebooks are my touchstone for sanity.
Anna’s mother died last year. She was completely blotto for years, at the end didn’t know who Anna was. When Anna tells me about her, I get terribly frightened. She turned against them all before the end and threw things. And Anna had a hard time keeping her at home for her husband had enough of it long before the end. He appears to be a rather hard man, hard but a man of integrity, nearly works himself to death with the cows. They still have a herd, and when Anna comes here at seven she has been up since five to give him his breakfast. He didn’t want her to take the job, but finally agreed because they need a new frigidaire and her weeks here helping out will make the downpayment. I sometimes ask myself what I do for her, she who does so much for me. I think perhaps it is a glimpse of a woman’s life not entirely spent in physical struggle to keep going—pretty things, a blouse from Hermès. She does not want them for herself, but she gets a romantic delight out of what I am and plies me with questions about Europe. To her I suppose I am like some rare bird, a scarlet tanager who suddenly appears in the back yard. One day she asked me, “Why didn’t you marry, lovely as you are?”
It was a hard question to answer. How could I tell her, perhaps that I am a failure, couldn’t take what it would have cost to give up an authentic being, myself, to take in the stranger? That I failed because I was afraid of losing myself when in fact I might have grown through sharing an equality with another human being. And yet … do I really regret not marrying? No, to be quite honest, no. I must
have been silent for some time, because she said, “I shouldn’t have asked.”
“I’m sorry, I was thinking,” I answered.
“You don’t have to tell me.”
“I want to tell you the truth. That’s the problem. What is the truth?”
But then she had to go, for Rose was calling her as usual. Rose deeply resents our intimacy. She senses, I suppose, that something is going on that cannot be controlled. But even Rose has become more human in Harriet’s absence. She dislikes me because she senses a superiority I cannot hide however much I try to. But I do not believe she actually hates me as Harriet does. She is simply at a loss about how to behave toward me. She has been trained to treat the inmates as inferiors to be ordered about, controlled in every possible way. I escape the control simply by being myself. However meek I am, I am still myself. This, I presume, is what has to be destroyed.
I live in dread of Anna’s leaving, but there is something I can keep. Quite often I can get real music on the transistor radio in the evenings. It makes what used to be long hours after Anna has gone home a time of marvels. I marvel that such beauty flows in through my ears, unheard by anyone else. What a miracle! Last night I heard the Fauré Requiem, sung by the boys’ voices in King’s Chapel, and the other night Mozart’s clarinet quintet and a Beethoven quartet. I have never listened to music with such absolute attention in a long life of hearing a great deal of it. Here there is nothing to distract. I give myself wholly to listening as if an astonishing angel had come into the room. I force myself not to daydream, not to think about Anna, for instance. Giving the music my whole attention I sometimes actually see notes written on a page (a curious reversal of the usual thing of hearing what one sees). I get a distilled pleasure from it that resembles what mathematics did for me in the past—a total absorption in abstract beauty, I suppose it is. My feelings have nothing to do with this pleasure, at least when I am hearing music. The romantics, even Beethoven occasionally, have a less wholesome effect. There is the danger that the Vox Humana sound too loudly, and then some door into private never-solved conflict flies open and I am undone. I become a lover, not a listener. Who was it who said that Mozart feels like an angel? Perhaps Gide in the journals. That is not quite right, but my understanding of what Gide meant is clear nonetheless. Mozart always transcends the dung of human experience. It is all there but transcended, as, indeed, an angel might apprehend it. And does that mean detachment? Perhaps, but of a very special kind known only to the creators. I would like to write a poem for Anna. But in this strange time of my life, in this strange place, it appears that I must suffer feeling without expression—it is to be used, if at all, as a reason for not dying. And I am not a poet, God knows.