The Glory of the Conquered. Susan Glaspell
meant more to her than an Old World civilisation, more than tradition, beauty or art. It even meant more than the place where she had spent those first dear months of her love. It meant to her the place where she had hoped with woman's dearest hope, and where she had given up the child which should have been hers. Her tenderest, deepest thoughts were not of the wonders and beauties she had seen; they were of the dreams within, of the holy happiness of first knowledge, and then the grief in giving up the much desired, which she had known only in anticipation. The most cherished memories of their love were memories of those days in which he had comforted her, of the tenderness with which he had consoled, the strength with which he had upheld. Those hours had reached far into her soul, deepening it, giving her, as if in compensation, new channels for love, new understanding of those innermost things of life. But in those first days, even while the soul of the woman was deepening, the bruised heart was as the heart of a child. It was as a child she had been to him in those days, and he had comforted her as one would comfort an idolised child, whose hurt one strove to take wholly unto one's self. The memory of those hours knit them together as no other thing could have done.
Looking down at her face now he saw that look he had come to know—that far-away, frightened, wistful look. Very gently he laid his hand upon her knee.
"I am going to make you so happy. Life is going to be so beautiful," he said.
She smiled at him, but the tears were in it.
"Yes, Karl—I know. But now that we are coming home—together—alone, doesn't it seem—"
He turned away. The man had suffered too.
"And we are leaving it over there—over there, alone—away from us—the life that should have been—"
With that he turned resolutely back to her.
"Ernestine, isn't there another way to look at it? It came of our love, and now, dear, it has gone back into our love. It isn't something apart from us—something gone. We have taken it back unto ourselves. It is here with us. The greater love we have—that is it, dear."
The flame of understanding leaped quickly to her eyes.
"Oh, I like that Karl," she whispered. "I like that better than anything you ever said."
She turned then and looked from the window. Across the fields, over near the horizon, she could see a little house. The smoke was curling from the chimney. The autumn twilight had come on and they had lighted the lamp. A bit of home! The tears came to her eyes—tears of tender anticipation. She too was to make a home. And was it not good to think that smoke was coming from many chimneys and many lamps were being lighted? Was it not good to feel that the dear world was full of homes?
To the man this coming back to Chicago, returning to his work after the year and a half he had been away, was charged with a happy significance. As they drew nearer and nearer, an impatience possessed him to begin at once; that desire of the worker to start in immediately. He had worked some over there, had done a few things which were most satisfactory, but he wanted now to settle down to actual work in his old place, 'with his own things. He fell to wondering if they had changed the laboratory, resentful at the possibility.
"Why look here, Ernestine," he suddenly burst forth, turning to her eagerly, "to-morrow's a school day, we're late getting home, everything is in swing—they're waiting for me, and, by Jove, I can just as well as not begin to-morrow!"
A woman who never made one feel things in one's backbone might have resented the quick, eager plunge into work, but Ernestine knew the love of work herself, and her eyes brightened to his spirit.
"But dear me, Karl," after a second's hesitation, "it seems you should take a day or two first."
"Why?" he demanded.
"Well,"—vaguely—"to get rested up."
"Rested up!" He stretched forth his arm and then doubled it back, and they both laughed. "That's a joke—my getting rested up. Why I feel like a fighting cock!"
"And crazy to get to work?"
"Getting that way. Oh, I tell you, Ernestine, there's nothing like it."
Again she did not mind; she understood. She looked at his glowing face, all alight with enthusiasm for the work to which he was going back. She was never tired of thinking how Karl's face was just what Karl's face should be—reflective of a clear-cut, far-seeing, deeply comprehending mind. It seemed all written there—all those things of mind and character, and something too of those other things—the things which were for her alone. Ernestine held that one could tell by looking at Karl that he was doing some great thing.
"But see here, Dr. Hubers, a nice way you have of shirking your domestic duties! Who is going to help me settle this famous house Georgia tells about?"
"I'll do it at night," he protested eagerly. "I'll work every night until the house is spick and span."
Ernestine sighed. "I have a sad feeling that our house never will be spick and span. But we'll have some fun,"—eagerly—"fixing it up."
"Of course we'll have fun fixing it up! Georgia's sure to be on hand, and
I'll make old Parkman get busy too—do him good."
"I don't care about knowing a lot of men—"
"Well I should hope not"
"You didn't let me finish. I was going to say that Dr. Parkman is one man
I do want to know."
"You'll like Parkman; and he'll like you. By Jove, he's got to! You mustn't mind if he snaps your head off occasionally. His life's made him savage, but even his life—he's had an awful one, Ernestine—couldn't make him vicious. He's the gruffest, snarliest, biggest man I ever knew—meaner than the devil, and the best friend on top of earth. And Lord, how he works! I don't know any other three men could swing the same load. And I tell you, Ernestine, he's great. There's not a better surgeon in all Europe. Parkman's a tremendous help to me. Oh, it's going to be great to get back!"
"We have some really nice things for our house," mused Ernestine. "I'm glad we decided to take that rug for the library. Of course it seemed pretty high, but a library without a nice rug wouldn't do at all—not for us."
"No—that's right—library without a rug—now I wonder if I am to have my old eight o'clock lecture hour? I want that hour! I want to get all the school business out of the way in the morning. I must have plenty of uninterrupted time for myself. I tell you what it is, Ernestine, I'm going to get it! What I saw over there of the other fellows makes me all the more sure of myself. And coming back now after being made all over new—you see there's such a thing as inspiration in my work, just as there is in yours. Of course it's work—work—work, work your way through this and that, but there's something or other that leads you on—and I know I'm going to do something now!"
"I know it too, Karl," she responded, and the steadfastness shone strong through the tenderness now. "We all know it."
"I've got to," he murmured—"got to." And then his whole mind seized upon it; some suggestion had come to him, some of that inspiration of which he had spoken. He sat there looking straight ahead, brows drawn, eyes sometimes half closing, occasionally nodding his head as he saw a point more clearly. He looked in such moments as though indeed made for conquest—indomitable. One could almost feel his mind at work, could fancy the skillful cutting away of error, the inevitable working ahead to truth.
At last he turned to her. "There's no reason for not beginning to-morrow," he said, with the eagerness of a boy who would try a new gun or fishing rod. "There are a whole lot of things I want to get right at now."
CHAPTER VI
"GLORIA VICTIS"
"We'll