Read Ebook: Prairie Gold by Iowa Press And Authors Club Ficke Arthur Davison Contributor Garland Hamlin Contributor Hough Emerson Contributor Brigham Johnson Editor LeCron Helen Cowles Editor Smith Lewis Worthington Editor Darling Jay N Jay Norwood Illustrator Macy Harriet Illustrato

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 1054 lines and 72691 words, and 22 pages

SODAN UHATESSA

Ilveilys yhdess? n?yt?ksess?

Kirj.

THEODOLINDA HAHNSSON

Tampereella, Hj. Hagelberg, kustantaja, 1888.

J?SENET:

Tapaus v?h?isess? maaseutu-kaupungsisa.

N?ytt?m?: Varovaisen koti. Huonekalut tavalliset. Herra Varovainen istuu sohvassa papirossia polttaen ja lukee Uutta Suometarta. Rouva istuu sukkaa kutoen sohvap?yd?n ??ress?.

Ensimm?inen kohtaus.

Herra Varov. Rouva Varov. Sitten Janne.

Toinen kohtaus.

Rouva Varov. Manta. Herra Varov. Alma.

Kolmas kohtaus.

Alma.

Nelj?s kohtaus.

Alma. Herra Varov. Sitten Rouva Varon. Janne ja Manta.

Viides kohtaus

Manta. Janne.

Kuudes kohtaus.

Manta. Herra ja Rouva Ahnanen.

Seitsem?s kohtaus.

Entiset. Alma. Herra ja Rouva Varovainen.

Kahdeksas kohtaus.

Entiset. Neiti Tippa. Sitten Toimi, Huhu ja Manta. Sitten Alma.

Yhdeks?s kohtaus.

Entiset paitsi Tippa, Pormestari. Sitten Janne ja Alma.

Kymmenes kohtaus.

Entiset. Arthur. Sitten Manta ja Janne.

In complete comprehension he addressed the statue: "Thee is but a symbol of this artist's love for another after all. Nicholas Asche was right. This sculptor under cover of my love--in pretending to work out my ideal--has betrayed me and bewitched Ruth."

Ruth, his constant sunny companion, the keeper, the almost second mother of his child, had been snared by the fowler! He no longer doubted it. He recalled the gladness with which she always accompanied him to the sculptor's studio and her silence and preoccupation on the homeward drive. She loved the artist. She was about to be taken away.

Something fierce and wild clutched at his throat and with a groan he fell upon the ground beneath the figure: "Oh, Ruth, Ruth! Am I to lose thee too?"

At this moment he forgot all else but the sweet girl who had become so necessary to his life. Truly, to lose all hope of her was to be doubly bereaved. "I am now most surely solitary," he mourned. "What will become of me hereafter? Who will care for my little son?"

While still he lay there, dark with despair and lax with weakness, Ruth and the sculptor came up the walk to the gate and saw his prostrate form. Ruth checked the sculptor's advance. "Let me go up to him alone," she said, and approached where Roger lay. She did not know the true cause of his grief, but she pitied him: "Do not grieve, Roger; they will not dare to touch the figure."

He looked up at her with a glance which was at once old and strange, but uttered no word of reply, only steadfastly regarded her; then his head dropped upon his arm and his body shook only with sobbing.

She spoke again: "Thee must not despair. There are quite as many for thee as there are against thee. All the young people are on thy side. No one will dare to harm the statue."

He spoke no further, for Roger waved his hand in dismissal of them and cried out in most lamentable voice: "Leave me. Leave me," and again hid his face in his hands.

In troubled wonder the young people moved away slowly, Ruth with tear-filled eyes, Conrad very grave. Together they took their stand at the gate to guard against the approach of others less sympathetic. "His grief is profound," said Ruth, "but the statue will comfort him."

Roger, overwhelmed now by another emotion--a sense of shame, of deep contrition--was face to face with a clear conception of his disloyalty to the dead. Aye, the statue was Ruth. Its youth, its tender, timid smile, its arch brow, all were hers, and as he remembered how Conrad had taken the small unresisting hand in his, he knew himself to be baser than Nicholas Asche had dared imagine. "I loved thee," he confessed; "not as I loved Rachel--but in a most human way. My life has closed round thee. I have unconsciously thought of thee as the guardian of my child. Thy shining figure I have placed in the glow of my fire."

This was true. Ruth had not displaced the love he still bore for his sweet wife--but she had made it an echo of passion, a dim song, a tender and haunting memory of his youth.

The sun sank and dusk came on while still he lay at the statue's feet in remorseful agony of soul, and those who came near enough to speak with him respected his wish and left him undisturbed.

Softly the darkness rose and a warm and mellow night covered the mourner, clothing the marble maid with mystery.

The crickets singing innumerably all about him came at last to express in some subtle way the futility of his own purpose, the smallness of his own affairs, and as he listened he lost the sharpness of his grief. His despair lightened. He ceased to accuse; his desire of battle died. "How could Conrad know that I had grown disloyal? And how was Ruth to perceive my change of heart? The treachery is mine, all mine, dear angel, but I will atone. I will atone. Forgive me. Come to me and forgive me! Comfort me."

Within his heart the spirit of resentment gave way to one of humbleness, of submission. The contest for a place among these gray old monuments no longer seemed worthy--or rather he felt himself no longer worthy to wage it. His disloyalty to his dead disqualified him as a base act disqualified the knights of old. "My cause is lost because my heart was false!" he said.

So during the long hours of the night he kept remorseful vigil. The moon set, the darkness deepened, cool, odorous, musical with lulling songs of insects; and still he lingered, imploring solace, seeking relief from self-reproach. At last, just before dawn, the spirit of his dead Rachel stepped from the shadow. She approached him and bending above him softly said:

"Dear heart, it is true I am not within the graven image. You have no need of it. Go home. There I am, always near thee and the child. I am not for others; I am thine. Return. Make thy peace with the elders. Thee must not live solitary and sad. Our son waits for thee, and when thee sits beside his bed, I will be there."

He woke chilled and wet with the midnight damp, but in his heart a new-found sense of peace had come. His interest in the statue was at an end. He now knew that it was neither the monument he had desired nor the image of his love. "How gross I have been," he said, addressing himself to the unseen presence, "to think that the beauty of my dead could be embodied in stone! Ruth shall go her ways to happiness with my blessing."

In this mood he rose and went to his home, deeply resolved to put aside his idolatry of Ruth even as he had put behind him the gleaming, beautiful figure beneath the shadow of the oak.

Masterpieces

Give me my pen, For I would write fine thoughts, pure thoughts, To touch men's hearts with tenderness, To fire with zeal for service grim, To cheer with mirth when skies are dull; Give me my pen, For I would write a masterpiece.

Yet stay a while, For I must put away these toys, And wash this chubby, grimy face, And kiss this little hurting bruise, And hum a bedtime lullaby-- Take back the pen: This is a woman's masterpiece.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet