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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (July 25, 1909)
THE ST7XDAY OREGOXIAX, PORTLAND, JULY 25. 1909. 1 jw.muiiilrii 9 mjouim, fSiS. Sr-Jj " tM-M'nSCSWBBBBBS3BSlSSWWs?A.fl-l-.J-SBSla,illlllSuQlJ.SM. J f 1 Li CHAPTER IV. August 1st H I LI.BS' CHANDLER has been here all fternoon. She was called to town unexpectedly for a few days some thing about her husband's estate. Said the felt she must see me. That she wanted to talk and felt I would under stand as no one else could. I hardly knew her she looked so white and frail In her heavy crepe. 1-took her upstairs at once, made her lie down, and had Mary bring seme tea. But she pushed the tea aside and began walking up and down the room. "No no I can't rest! I can't be quiet I want to talk! It will help me more than anything else. "Oh, I know what you think what every one thinks that he was a- brute that he drank that he was untrue to me! You wonder why I should grieve so. I presume some people think it an affecta tion my grief. I mean. God! If It only werel But I loved him I loved himl In spite of all his dissipations he was never unkind to me. lie was fond of me in his way his selfish, careless way. But I would rather have had what little he gave me than the most loyal, faithful devotion of the noblest man on .earth! "Can you reason about love? If he had beat me I would still have loved him. But my love never blinded me don't think that. I saw all his coarseness, all his weakness: I never for a moment Idealized him. I knew him for what he was but I loved him. "And now at night I feel that I must ret up and go to his grave and with my bare hands dig down to the coffin and lie there with him. He always hated to be alone hs always wanted company, lite. gaiety. And now he Is lying there alone alone In that dark, silent graveyard, on. there are times when I feel I must go to him that ha Is calling me that I must get up out of bed and go to him and stay with himl" 3ly face was now as white as hers. felt If she did not stjp I would faint. But I made no effort to quiet her. I knew It would be useless that she must wear her self out. "He was so big end strong so full of life and vitality. Oh. how I loved his great, strong body his vigorous man hoodhis physical self. His muscles were like Iron, and yet his skin was aa soft and white as a baby's. I used to say It was like velvet white velvet over Iron. Ob, his body his milk-white body " I don't think I heard any more. It seemed to me the room was full of wo men. I could hear the swish of trailing skirts the air seemed charged with the feet of women, of flowing hair, of heaving breasts, of the anguished love of wo manhood. At length from sheer exhaustion she threw herself upon the couch. I did not try to comfort her I knew too well the cheapness; the futility of words. After a while she said faintly: "I think I can sleep jnow. It Is always like this. After I wear myself out there comes a sense almost of peace it Is the only peace have. I ran't explain It. but It always comes. After these violent outbursts I feel 89 though I had been drugged a soothing, quieting drug." I stooped over and kissed her. "Don't say anything more try not to arouse yourself again Fleep If you can," I darkened tiie room and left her. She slept quietly for over an hour. I tried to persuade her to stay all night. But she wanted to go bark home to their country home where he died. Said she had been In town two nights, and she wsnted to get back she felt nearer him out there. August Sd "The Incessant sadness of life." That phrase comes to me so often now. I have been standing at the window watching the steady stream of traffic In which there are so mny notes of misery. A wagon filled with freshly slaughtered calves, their tegs, now only bloody stumps, pro truding stiffly from under the burlap roverir.sr. And 1 think of the terror In the soft eyes of those helpless animals as they wore driven pitilessly to the ax. Another wagon piled high with slatted boxs full of huddling chickens. Poor, frightened things, on their way to he ktlied. straining their necks through the slats for a bivnth of air. The stolid in difference of the driver as he whips up the jaded horse that draws them. Tlie rlarg of the police patrol as It dashed hy. a hacgard man with a bandalged head inside. T turned from th window sick at heart. The. incessant sadness of life! The in cessant sadness of life! August 4th. There 1s a boarding-house across the street from us the only one in tho block, where almost everyone owns their own property. Every evening now, since the weather Is so warm, the steps of the house are full of people. They bring out gmss mats and sofa pillows and sit on th steps and stone balus trades, the cigars of the men glowing among the light dreasos of the .nen. I think I watch them with something like envy, they seem so happy and so ciable in an easy, unconventional way. The sound of their laughter comes re peatedly through my open windows. Now and then a coifple will leave the rest and stroll bareheaded down the street. Tonicht they were sincing; one of J i ' . S . :: : ' ' Ik" X.- X . 4;; j brrg :: J;, j. V '- J ' - - " . -,... J;; . . "--- r&&z?zj.-.i i '"' ' ' m v r.r - - .j.,, v..., ...v.s..j TUB MIXAS GERAES. NEW YORK, July n. (Special..) It is reported that the three Brazilian Dreadnoughts being built In England will be purchased by Japan. These ships are the Mlnas Geraes, the Rio Janeiro and the Sao Paoia. Their armament is more powerful than that of the British Dreadnoughts. These vessels carry a dozen 12-inch suns, as against ten of these guns carried by the British ships. The Brazilians also carry 22 4.7-inch guns. Each of the battleships is of 21,000 tons, 630 feet long, draws 25 feet of water and will be capable of 21 knots aa hour. The Minis Geraes was launched In September, the Sao-Paola In ApriL them had a " mandolin. They began with some new popular airs and ended with a number of old-farnioned songs "My Old Kentucky Home." "Ben Bolt." and "Annie Laurie." As I sat there by the window In my lonely, silent house, those old, familiar songs, the Summer night for roe there was an Infinite melancholy about It all. All my lone liness and heart-hunger seemed Intensi fied. The air grew more and more close and sultry. Then came a distant mut tering of thunder, and then some large raindrops. The songs ceased and there were little shrieks of laughter as the group across the street hurried into the house. Now it is raining In torrents a Sum mer heat-rain. I can hear it beating upon the roof almost like hall. Little rills of water are running down the window-pane beside my desk. How black It has grown the street lights are only faint blurs through this thick rain veil. And I sit here writing writing, try ing only to keep some of the horror of my loneliness away. Could Horace have gone out without an umbrella? He takes cold so easily. How strange a thing Is a woman's love! Even though she feels her husband Is spending the evening with another woman, still she worries lest he has no umbrella -his physical welfare still fills ber thoughts. August Eth. How many- women past their first youth find consolation in the thought still attractive, still admired, late in life! The memory of such women as Madame de Stael, Madame Recamier and George Sand has instilled hope and comfort In the heart of many a faded woman that though time may line the face, the charm of personality. Intel ligence and wit may still win and hold love. The lookingglass may be undeniable proof that her face Is no longer beauti ful, but nothing can prove to even the most vapid woman that her mentality, grace and wit have not the greatest charm. Sunday, August 6th. The telephone Just rang. I answered It but no one spoke. Again and again I said "Hello!" but there was no re sponse. And yet the silence seemed charged with a personality I felt there was someone there. Could It be Had she called and, not hearing his voice, had not answered? Of course it may have been a mistake; central may have unintentionally rung our number. But somehow I feel that there was not & mistake. I have that strange, weak sensation which always comes with any thing that relates to her. August 9th. This evening we went out to dinner. Until the last 'year we have always dined out at some hotel or resturant at least once a week. But now so rarely we ever go anywhere together. Perhaps It was because I have eaten so little lately that made him suggest the change might do me good. I consented eagerly. Vv e went to the , a place I have always liked. For the first few moments I was al most happy the lights, the music, the gay, well-dressed people all around, and my husband, gracious and distinguished, across from me. Impulsively I reached my hand across the table toward him. He pressed it slightly and smiled at me kindly. I could see that he was trying to respond, that he sincerely wanted me to have a happy evening. that he wanted to give me what he could. And I resolved to keep the ache from my heart and the choking lump from my throat, to try to forget everything but that we were together. He ordered the dinner with his usual quiet discrimination that always wins Instantly the best attention of the waiter. have never had the same excellent service tn dining with anyone else as with my husband. He always order some light wine, and tonight It was sparkling Chablls. But in spite of both our efforts, for know we both tried, the dinner "was strained and silent. One of the most pitiful conditions of our life now Is that we ha-e so little to say. Oh, It la horrible this conscious strained silence that is always between us! If only for one evening we could talk just talk as we used to do It would help me more than anything In the world. Feeling the failure of the dinner, he asked if I would like to go to the theater. The thought that there, at least, we would not feel the need of talk, and that I could be with him, near him a little longer, made me say yes. For I knew If we went home It would be to separate: he would go to his room and to mine. When we reached the street he bought n evening paper, handed It to me with the list of the theaters folded out, and sked where I would like to go. I glanced down the list. There were only three actors playing that I knew either of us would care to see, and they were all In plays which from reviews I knew were built around the marriage and di vorce question the unfaithfulness of ither the husband or the wife. finally chose a new play, in which the theme was a political one. The first act was well advanced when we entered; by the end of the BRAZILIAN DREADNOUGHTS MAY BE BOUGHT "AT LENGTH THROUGH SHEER EXHAUSTIO . sriE THREW HERSELF UPON THE COUCH. second I was rolling; and unrolling my programme with cold, nervous hands. The "political" element was only a background for the "problem" the love of a Senator for a woman who was not his wife, a woman whom he had known and loved before he was married and whom in his heart he had loved ever since. . The dramatic crisis was In the third act, where the woman. In a moment of fierce, uncontrollable jealousy, sends his wife one of the Senator's love let terschoosing with deliberate cruelty the one that will hurt her most, a beautiful, impassioned love message, written several months before on her birthday. There Is no address or sig nature, but his wife will know his writings It Is unmistakable. But she has hardly mailed the letter before she Is overwhelmed with re morse, with bitterest regret for what she has done. She must stop its de livery at any sacrifice she must keep his wife from reading that letter! It was almost midnight when she mailed It it could not be delivered be fore morning. The next scene, at 8 o'clock the fol lowing morning, finds her at the door of the Senator's house. She will not give her card or name, but there Is something In the tenseness of her voice and manner that makes the servant reluctantly admit her. As she waits in the reception-room she asks herself fearfully: "If he should refuse to see her? Should she have risked it and sent up her card?" , And then he enters. When he sees who it Is, he starts, closes the door and comes toward her with outstretched hands. "Margaret! What Is it, dear?" Excitedly she questions him about the mail the first delivery. Has it come yet? He answers wonderlngly "No," and then tenderly: "Is It some letter you have written me. dear, that you do not want me to read?" "If it were only that!" she moans. "If It were only that!" And then she tells him. He does not speak; ne stands by a desk, turning a paperweight over and over in his hand. Then a whistle the postman's whistle is heard. The man crosses the BY JAPAN. room and presses an electric bell. A servant enters. ""You will bring the mail to me here at once all of It." "Yes. sir." The maid returns, lays the mall on the table and leaves the room. The man glances hurriedly through the letters and then turns to the wom an, who Is leaning against the wall, her face burled in her hands. "It is not here!" "Not here?" Her voice is full of ter ror. The maid Is recalled and questioned. She says she brought all the mail ex cept two letters for Mrs. Hampton, which she herself took out as she was going Into the breakfast room. As the maid withdraws the man starts violently at some sound in the hall. "Carrie ray wife she is coming In here!" he murmurs huskily. "No! no! It would be too horrible! Don't let It be!" "It is too late now!" he answers, and even then the door opens. Quickly the woman slips behind heavy curtain. The wife holds an open letter in her hand, her face quivering with Joy and tenderness. , "Oh, Richard Richard what a beau tiful letter! That you should have re membered my birthday in this way! Yesterday I was afraid you had for gotten, and today oh. It was the most wonderful gift you could have sent. And you had the envelope typewrit ten so the surprise would be more complete!" She clings to him lov ingly, showering on him caresses and endearments, crying out that she had been so unhappy of late, that she felt he was growing farther away from her, that he no longer cared. And there had been a terrible fear in her heart that there might be some one else; but now she knows that she was wrong, she knows he loves her still, or he would not have written that letter. He gently soothes and quiets her and leads her from the stage. In the next act follows a wonderful scene of renunciation. Realizing as never before the piteous, clinging love of his wife, and feeling that they could never come together over the grave of her happiness, they resolve to part. Only once during the play did I see Horace's face, and then It was when he stooped to pick up the programme my nerveless fingers had dropped. He was very pale. We left the theater In silence. Out side it was mistins. He motioned to a cab and helped me in. I was filled with an intense longing for him to speak to say some trivial, common place thing anything but this silence, which seemed a subtle acknowledgment a willingness that I should know. . . We were almost home before he spoke, and then It was only to ask if he should draw down the curtain, if the mist was blowing in on me. When we reached the house he made some remark about being tired, bade me good-night, and went at once to his room. What did his silence mean? Did he intend it for an admission? Did he want me to construe it that way? Why did he not talk casually of the play, comment on the acting or the construction of the plot, as we have al ways done before? It is almost 3 o'clock. But how hope- ,less to try to sleep! ' August 10. This morning I know from his eyes that he, too, has not slept. I felt that I would regrret it, that I would make a mistake if I made any reference to the play, and yet the hope that he would say something to help me, to make me feel that he had not wished to convey by his silence what I had thought last night, drove me to try to force from him some expression. "Do you think such things end that way in life?" I tried to say it casually.' "How do you mean?" quietly. "The parting in the last act. If a man really loves another woman, do they often renounce her for the sake of their wife?" I did not look up: I kept my eyes on a crust I was crumbling on the tablecloth. There was a slight pause, and then he answered slowly: "I should think that would depend n tha man's strength," "But If he had much strength," my voice was measured, "would he have ever allowed himself to love another woman?" "No; I presume not." I waited, but he said nothing more. In a few moments he glanced at his watch, and left for the office. My ef forts had been futile his voice and manner had betrayed nothing. August 11. Am I too self-centered? Do I give way to my grief too much? Would another woman under the same cir cumstances have more strength? I know how dangerous is this constant brooding. I know that I am losing all sense of proportion. His slightest word and action I know bring to bear al ways upon one thing. I know that I draw suspicions from perfectly inno cent causes. My mind is so colored that I am able to see nothing else. And yet how can I help it? I have tried to fight against It, to force an in terest In other things, to drive my mind to things outside myself. And yet always the background of my thoughts remains the same. Never for a moment am I wholly free from the consciousness that my husband Is drift ing away from me that he loves another woman That poisonous thought Is always with me. August 12 More and more I have come to take a morbid, feverish Interest In newspaper accounts of divorce scan dals and Intrigues. Such things have always repulsed me; until lately, I would not even read the headlines. But now now I read all the details with a consuming interest- I will even read the varying accounts of the same case in the different papers. It all fills me with loathing, and yet It has this fearful hold upon me. These things that I have always re garded with such horror are now touching so closely my own life. Not the vulgar publicity, of course; that I feel will never come. .But the under lying cause Is always the same the love of a man for a woman who is not his wife. It terrifies me when I think that everything in life now seems bearing on that novels, plays they are all built on variations of that theme. August 13. I was in a bookstore today buy ing some stationery. when I saw one of the many reprints of a pen- and-ink sketch that have been much displayed In the shops. I have always r- GENERAL WOOD IS FIRM NEW YORK, July 24. (Special.) General Leonard Wood has taken careful survey of the New England Coast, planning war maneuvers which will be held there from August 14 to August 21. There will be 15,000 National Guard of the District of Columbia. New York and Connecticut In these maneuvers. These troops will invade New England and try to take Boston, which will be defended by Massachusetts troops under Gen eral Pew. General Wood-is a great believer In the militia system as an adjunct to the military system of the country. He thinks we should have 600,000 militiamen to aid the Regu lar Army In time of war. f thought It grewsome, and passed it with a shudder. But today I bought one. I don't know why. From a distance it is the outline of a skull; nearer, one sees it is cleverly formed by a beautiful . woman sitting before a dressing table, ithe bottles and trinkets before her forming the teeth, and the drapery over the dresser the top of the skull. I have it now on my desk. There Is a sort ' of fierce pleasure in thinking that the woman Horace loves will one day be a hideous, grinning skeleton. All his love and devotion cannot save her from that. The skeleton is there now the ugly, gaunt bones if he could only see through the soft, fair flesh that cover them. August 14. Once or twice a year Ellen sends a box of clothing to her mother, who, with a large family of chil dren, lives In Georgia. They are very poor and can make use of any thing that is sent. I always collect a lot of my own and Horace's clothes, and it was for this purpose that I went through some trunks in the store-room today. In one of the trays I came across a pale-blue dressing gown, one of the garments 1 had myself made for my trousseau. I had worn it but a few times, for I always felt the neck was cut too low. And now, except that the lace had grown yellow, it was still fresh. How beautifully it was made, with what care I had finished each small seam. And what hopes and dreams I had sewn into it. And now those tiny stitches, fine and frail as they were, had outlived my happiness! Oh, if I could only go back if I could only go back! For a long time I held the gown In my lap, brooding over it, filled with the memories it brought. How strange to have it there before me, every stitch I had put into it still so real, so per manent while all that it was made for is dead! In the lace of the sleeve was a long, Jagged tear. Oh, how vividly I remem bered that. It had been torn on Horace's cuff button during our bridal trip. I was standing before the dress ing table arranging my hair, when suddenly he came up behind me and caught me In his arms, bent back my head against his shoulder, and with his lips against my hair, murmured: "My darling my beautiful darling! You belong to me now! You can never go hack and be just yourself again, for now you belong to me do you know that, dear?" My only answer was to press my face closer against his breast, and so he held me silently. When at length he released me, there was a sound of tearing lace. "Oh, Mary! I'm so sorry!" as he stooped to un fasten It from his cuff-button. "You needn't be," I laughed hap pily. "As if It mattered as if any thing mattered but you!" Oh, Horace, Horace, you have torn my heart as you tore this lace; neither will ever be the same again. You said I could never go back and be Just myself. I would now If I could, for I know you no longer need me. But I cannot I cannot! You made me part of yourself you taught me to want you to need you ... And now now you love some else. And I am alone with only my mem ories. August 15th. I saw him looking af my 'hands this morning. He may have done it abse-ntmlndedly. But all throueh brea?-fast I was miserably conscious of how dark and withered they were. Oh, how cruelly hands show age! And he used to call them beautiful! And they were beautiful, solf and white. with tapering fingers and a delicate tracery of veins. But now the veins seem more like wires, the knuckles larger, and the skin has become yel low and leathery. I have been ex amining them mercilessly, holding them in different positions that I may know how they look best and worst. When they are closed the skin is more tightly drawn and they do not look so wrinkled, but when I lay them flat on the table, the skin on the back gathers in little folds and they look old old. But worst of all is when I hold up my arm and let the hand droop at the wrist there Is something almost claw-like about it then. Oh, why do not women die before they grow old? August 17th I have been reading a much-advertised book in the form of a woman's diary. The publishers have enthusi astically proclaimed it a "marvelous revelation of a woman's heart!" would any woman ever reveal her heart in carefully wrought epigrams, or in an extravagant series of trip licated adjectives? What strained attempts at cleverness and painful striving for effect! In her desperate efforts to be brilliant and sensational, the author seems to have quite for gotten that it might also be effective merely to be. true. When just now I came to this sen tence, I threw down the book in vio lent protest: . "It is all blued over with oblivion now, but sometimes I apprehend my self looking fearfully over the delic ate whiteness of my arms, and fancy ing I discern here and there the faint, faded saffron of a bruise, my mind shudderingly recoils lest I be once more steeped In memory with its ' ,Tvft ?' fcv "... .: - BELIEVER IX MILITIA AS ADJUNCT T i 11 ' : . t vast terrifying silence shot with sharp, convulsive flames of blinding pain, memories which engulf me in a maelstorm of emotions, crushing, castrating, deadening, leaving me but a pallid, swooning shadow of my self." Would any suffering woman on God's earth ever write like that? Why this book should have aroused in me such fierce resentment I hardly know, unless it is because my whole nature rebels at the thought of a woman's emotions being bandied forth with such mawkish sentimen talism and glaring artificiality. Sunday, August ISth Again it has happened the tele phone ring and no call. And now I know it was not a mistake that it was she. Both times it has been on Sunday, the only day she cannot reach him at his office. He had been in all morning, and just gone out when the bell rang. And when I answered there was no response. But this time Central shrilled: "There's your party go on!" Again I said "Hello!" but there was still no answer, nothing but that strange silence, that seemed throbbing with some mysterious presence. And then faint and far away came a sound lik a sob a stilled sob. I listened tensely and for many moments, but there was no other sound. Then I rang Central and asked where the call was from, but she could not tell me. All day I have been haunttM by the sound of that faint, distant sob. What did it mean? Can she be unhappy? The thought that she may suffer, too, had nver come to nie. And yet If she loves him . . . August 20th For several days he has seemed strangely harassed and worried. He does not go out, but spends the eve ning alone in his study. He avoids me and will see no callers. Says he is not well, but I know it is not that. It is something about her. That an- . other woman should have the power to make my husband' suffer! The same question beats always in my mind: Why did God ever let this thing happen? Why did she ever come into his life? I cannot bear to see him unhappy. If I could only share with him or help him in his trouble yes, I would do even that! I would lighten or bar, if I could, the suffering this woman has brought him. But he shuts me out completely. Says he hopes I will not feel hurt, but thut just now he would rather be alone. Last night he could eat no dinner; until almost dawn the light burned in -his room, and this morning he only drank a cup of coffee and hur ried off to the office. August 24th He was out until midnight last night, the first time for over a week. And this morning he came down to breakfast radiant. So ' whatever the trouble that was between them. It is over. And that has made hira hap py! Oh. my husband, my dear hus band! Perhaps it was from a feeling of pity for me, or perhaps his happiness filled him with a desire to give me some pleasure, too, for all through breakfast he talked to me, tried to take an interest in the house, and asked if there was anything he could send "me. After he had gone, I went up to his room, took from the closet the coat he had worn the night before. Yes, the odor of that soft, elusive perfume was there. And on the shoulder was a long brown hair silkly fine and with a glint of gold. (Continued Next Week.) The VanlMhed Bootjnclt. Covered it was with a carpet strip, And studded with nails of brass or wire; Back would the wearer of tl&ht boots tip While he pulled and tugged with in creasing ire And the flush of his wintry cheeks climbed higher; But ne'er again shall we pause on our way To witness the comedy by the Are Where is the bootjack of grandpa's day? The light from the blazing logs shone bright On the polished tacks, as a star de signed, And then came the struggle a short, sharp fight And he, to his slippered ease assigned. Would settle down with a peaceful mind; But now where he sat, like a prophet gray, Is only a hassock a bargain find Where Is the bvotjack of grandpa's day? In case of its loss, what a hue and cry. Till some one the vanished treasure brings. And at last, with the forked aid put by He succumbs to the order: "Now play smoke rings;" Who Is there left to cherish the things That sparkled of old in the back log play? 'Mong relics we know that have taken wings. Where is the bootjack of grandpa's day? Denver Republican. 4 VV - ,. - t T TO REGULAR ARMY.
