The Devourers

Someone held her wrist, and for a while everything was silent. Again, again, a shooting, maddening pain. An exclamation, and then a word: "Useless." Valeria opened her eyes. She saw the white-winged woman's face with her eyes fixed on the red face, which was bending forward, and the two other faces were also bending over, looking down at something Valeria could not see, for it was on her own pillow. Then the red-faced man said: "Useless," again. And the white-winged face moved its lips.

"Useless!" The word conveyed nothing clear to Valeria's mind, but something in her body responded to the word. Thump, thump, thump, her heart began to beat, loud and quick, louder and quicker, until it could be heard all over the room. Thump, thump, thump, it rolled like a drum, and Valeria turned her frightened eyes to the red face above her. She said to him: "Stop my heart. Stop my heart from beating like this." But the three men and the sister did not seem to hear. They stood quite still listening to it, and then Valeria knew that she had not spoken. Thud, thump; thud, thump; quicker and quicker, and Valeria's eyes rolled wildly, imploring help. Then the Sister said to the surgeon: "Oh, try! try, poor thing!" And again water rushed, and something was rolled stridently across the marble floor.

"Ether," said the surgeon.

One of the yellow faces bent over her, and he had a dark net mask in his hand. He held it over her face.

Suddenly Valeria was wide awake. She sat up with a shriek, and struck out at the yellow face and the mask. She saw the two doctors and the old surgeon, and the Sister of Charity. She spoke and her voice came. She wanted to say: "Save me! Save me!" but she heard herself saying: "I have time to cross!" Then she tried to explain about the violet bag, and the money, but what she cried was: "Nancy! Nancy!" Then the surgeon was angry with the man who held the mask, and turned on him with impatient words. But the Sister stood over Valeria, and made the sign of the cross above her. "Lie down, dear, lie down," she said. So Valeria lay down.

Thud, thump; thud, thump; thud, thump, rolled the drum of her heart.

"Now," said the surgeon, "you must be good. Don't move! Count! Count to twenty."

Valeria struggled to get up. The black mask was near her face again.

"Now, dear, now!" said the Sister's voice. "Count: one—two—three–"

"Breathe deeply," said someone, and Valeria did as she was told.

Then she remembered that she was to count. But she had lost time, so she felt she must begin further on. "… Nine," she said, breathing deeply; "ten." She was on a swing—a large, wild swing in the air that swung her out in the sky and back through the wide, white air. "Eleven, twelve," Valeria felt that she must say thirteen quickly because—unlucky number—"thirteen … fourteen...."

The swing swung her out, flying through the air with a swoop and a sweep beyond all the mountains. The people around her seemed to be left far away, down in the little white room. They would never hear her voice from so far away. "FIFTEEN!" she cried, shouting loud, loud, from afar. Then the sweep of a gigantic wave swung her out into Eternity.

"I knew it was useless," said the Surgeon angrily. The face was covered, and the stretcher was wheeled away.

An hour later Zio Giacomo, Nino, and Aunt Carlotta came hurrying in, red-eyed and white-faced. It was over. Aunt Carlotta wrung her hands, and the Sister consoled her, and assured her that there had been no suffering.

"I want to see her," said Aunt Carlotta, sobbing.

"No, no," said the Sister. "Don't."

"Don't!" said Giacomo brokenly, the tears streaming down his face. Nino said not a word, but went with one of the young doctors into the large bare room where two stretchers stood, each with a shrouded burden.

"This one," said the doctor, he who had held the mask. Nino saw, gasped, and turned away.

Aunt Carlotta was being led in, supported by the Sister. Nino grasped her hand.

"Come away," he whispered; "come away at once."

Carlotta shook her head, her face buried in her handkerchief. "My sister's child! My sister's only child! I must close her eyes." Nino went out.

Carlotta was led to the farther of the two stretchers. The cloth was lifted from Valeria's face. Then shriek after shriek resounded through the bare chill room, echoing through the wide corridors, reaching the patients lying selfish and sad in their wards. Shriek after shriek. But the two quiet figures on the stretchers were not disturbed.

Valeria was buried in Nervi near Tom.

IX

When Nancy in New York received the news of her mother's death she wore black instead of brown, and wept, and wept, and wept, as children weep for their mothers. Then she wore brown again, and went on living for Anne-Marie, as mothers live for their children.

They had left Mrs. Schmidl's kindly, dingy roof, and moved a little further away from the niggers, into a small flat in 82nd Street. Mrs. Schmidl's niece, Minna, came and did the housework, and took Anne-Marie for walks. Anne-Marie loved Minna. Anne-Marie watched her with entranced gaze when she spoke to the tradesmen, and followed her from room to room when she swept and did the beds. Minna wore low-necked collars, and a little black velvet ribbon round her neck, and pink beads. She was beautiful in Anne-Marie's sight, and Anne-Marie imitated as much as possible her manner, her walk, and her language. Nancy could hear them talking together in the kitchen. Minna's voice: "What did you have for your tea? A butter-bread?" And Anne-Marie's piping treble: "Yes, two butter-breads mit sugar." Minna: "That's fine! To-morrow Tante Schmidl makes a cake, a good one. We eat it evenings." "A cake—a good one!" echoed Anne-Marie.

Nancy's soul crumbled with mortification. She had taken out her manuscript, and it lay before her on the table once more. Its broad pages were dear to her touch. They felt thick and solid. The tingling freshness of thought, the little thrill that always preceded the ripple and rush of inspiration, caught at her, and the ivory pen was in her hand.

"A cake—a good one," repeated in the next room Anne-Marie, who liked the substantial German sound of that phrase.

"Oh, my little girl! My little girl! How will she grow up?" And Nancy the mother took the ivory pen from Nancy the poet's hand, and Anne-Marie was called and kept, and taught, for the rest of the day.

During the months that followed, Nancy played a game with her little daughter which, to a certain extent, was successful.

"We will play that you are a little book of mine, that I have written. A pretty little book like Andersen's 'Märchen,' with the pictures in it. And in this book that I love–"

"What colour is it?" asked Anne-Marie.

"Pink, and white, and gold," said Nancy, kissing the child's shining hair.

"Well, in it, in the midst of the loveliest fairy-tale, somebody has come and written dreadfully silly, ugly words, like—like 'butter-bread.' I must take all those out, mustn't I? And put pretty words and pretty thoughts in instead. Otherwise nobody will like to read the book."

"No," said Anne-Marie, looking slightly dazed. "And will you put pictures in it?"

"Oh yes," said Nancy. "And I wish I could put rhymes into it too."

But that was not to be. Long explanations about boy and toy—rain and pain—fly and cry—far and star—left Anne-Marie bewildered and cross.

Nancy coaxed and petted her. "Just you say a rhyme! Only one. Now what rhymes with day?"

No. Anne-Marie did not know what rhymed with day.

"Play, of course, my goosie dear! Now what rhymes with dear?"

"Play," said Anne-Marie.

"No; do think a little, sweetheart. With dear!—dear?"

"Vegetables?" asked Anne-Marie, who had spent many hours in Frau Schmidl's kitchen.

Nancy groaned. "Dear!" she repeated again.

"Darling!" cried Anne-Marie triumphantly, and was lifted up and embraced.

"I wish you were a poet, Anne-Marie!" said her mother, pushing the fair locks from the child's level brow.

"What for?" said Anne-Marie, wriggling.

"Poets never die," said Nancy, thus placing a picture in the fairy-tale book.

"Then I'll be," said Anne-Marie, who knew death from having buried a dead kitten in the Schmidls' yard, and dug it up a day or two after to see what it was like.

But Anne-Marie was not to be a poet. In the little pink and white books that mothers think they create, the Story is written before ever they reach the tender maternal hands. And Anne-Marie was not to be a poet.

But Nancy herself could not forget that Fate had printed the seal of immortality upon her own girlish brow. She thought: "I cannot finish The Book now. The Book must wait until later on, when Anne-Marie does not need me every moment. But now, now I can write a cycle of child-poems on Anne-Marie."

So she watched her little daughter through narrowed eyelids, throwing over the unconscious blonde head the misty veil of imagery, searching in the light blue eyes for the source of word and symbol, standing Anne-Marie like a little neoteric statue on the top of a sonnet, trying to fix her in some rare, archaic pose. But Anne-Marie was the child of her surroundings; Anne-Marie wore clothes of Minna's cutting and fitting, and on her yellow head a flat pink cotton hat like a lid. Anne-Marie had spoken Italian like a royal princess, but her German-American English was of 7th Avenue and 82nd Street. And Anne-Marie's pleasures were, as are those of every child, taken where she found them; for her no wandering in a shady garden, nursing an expensive, mellifluously-named doll. Since the Monte Carlo "Marguerite-Louise," whose eyes, attached to two small lumps of lead now lay in a box on a shelf, Anne-Marie's dolls had been numerous but unloved. At Mrs. Schmidl's suggestion, and for economic motives, Nancy had gone down town one day to a wholesale shop in Lower Broadway, where she had been able to buy "one dozen dolls, size nine, quality four, hair yellow, dress blue," for two dollars and seventy cents.

The first of the dozen was the same evening presented to Anne-Marie. It was rapturously kissed; it was christened Hermina—Minna's name; its clotted yellow hair was combed; attempts were made to undress it, but as it did not undress, it was put to sleep as it was, and Anne-Marie went to bed carefully beside it. In due time Hermina broke and died. What unbounded joy was Anne-Marie's when Hermina herself, with the self-same azure eyes, clotted yellow hair, blue dress, angel smile, reappeared before her. She was rapturously kissed. In due time also this second Hermina, legless, and with pendulous, dislocated head, was taken away from Anne-Marie's fond arms, and a new stiff Hermina was produced, with clotted hair and angel smile renewed. Anne-Marie's eyes opened large and wide, and she drew a deep breath. With more amazement than love she accepted the third Hermina, and did not kiss her. That Hermina died quickly, and Nancy, with a triumphant smile, produced a fourth. With a shriek of hatred Anne-Marie took her by the well-known painted boots, and hit the well-known face against the floor.

The other eight were given to her at once, and were hit, and hated, and stamped upon. For many nights Anne-Marie's dreams were peopled with dead and resuscitated Herminas—placid, smiling Herminas with no legs; booted Herminas with large pieces broken out of their cheeks; fearful Herminas all right in the back, but with darksome voids where their faces ought to be under the clotted yellow hair.

She would have no more dolls, and her pleasures were taken where she found them mainly in the kitchen. She liked to wash dishes, because she was not allowed to; and she could be seen whisking a kitchen-towel under her arm in the brisk, important manner of Minna. She liked to see the butcher's man slap a piece of steak down on the table; and the laugh of the "coloured lady" who brought the washing was sweet in her ears. She also liked the piano that was played in the adjoining flat—the piano that drove Nancy to distraction and despair whenever she tried to work.

"Rose of my spirit, Fountain of my love,Lilial blue-veinèd flower of my desire–"

wrote Nancy, trying not to hear the climpering next door.

"Minna! Minna! What is that tune?" called Anne-Marie, jumping from her chair. "Is it 'Eastside, Westside,' or 'Paradise Alley'?"

"No, it ain't. It's 'Casey would waltz.'"

"Oh, is it? Sing it. Do sing it, Minna."

And from the kitchen came Minna's voice, a loud soprano:

"Casey would waltz with the strawberry blonde,And the band—played—on."

Then Anne-Marie's childish falsetto:

"Casey would waltz with the strawberry blonde,And the band—play—don."

Alas! even the cycle of child poems must wait until Nancy could afford a larger apartment, and a governess for the "lilial blue-veinèd flower of her desire." There was no "Stimmung" for lyrics in the left-top flat in 82nd Street.

Aldo was at home a good deal during the day-time, yawning, reading the interminable Sunday papers that lay about all the week, smoking cigarettes, and wishing they could afford this and that.

In the evenings he went out. His work, it seemed, was to be done more in the evening than in the day-time, so he explained to Nancy. He explained very little to Nancy. Once he had brought home one hundred dollars instead of twenty, but she had been so startled and aghast, so nervous and impatient to know how he had got it, and, above all, it had been so impossible to make her understand the subtleties of his duties to Mrs. Van Osten, that he had finally declared it was simply a present for an extra important piece of work he had had to do. And the next time he received a hundred dollars—about three months afterwards, when more arduous duties once more developed upon him—he took eighty to the Dime Savings-Bank, and brought the usual twenty dollars home.

As soon as the little savings-bank book was placed in his hand, the Caracciolo grandfather awoke in him again, and murdered the lazzarone who cared not for the morrow. He became heedful of little things, grudging of little expenses. The dingy flat was run on the strictest principles of economy, and when a dollar could be taken up the steps of the savings-bank and put away, he was happy. He had learned that by making deep, grateful eyes at Minna over the accounts, she would keep expenses down to please him; and many were the lumps of sugar and bits of butter taken from Mrs. Schmidl's larder by Minna's fat, pink hand and placed, sacrificial offerings, on the Della Roccas' shabby table.

Anne-Marie's pink hats and Minna-made frocks had to last through the seasons long after the "coloured lady" had washed every vestige of tint and vitality out of them, and they were a thorn in Nancy's eye. Nancy wore her pepper-and-salt dress day after day; it turned, and it dyed—black, and when it was no more, she got another like it.

The days passed meanly and quickly. And Nancy learned that one can be dingy, and sordid, and poverty-stricken, and yet go on living, and gently drift down into the habit of it, and hardly remember that things were ever otherwise.

The evenings only were terrible. When Minna had gone home, and Anne-Marie slept, and Aldo had sauntered out to meet some Italians, or had hurried in full evening-dress to his work, Nancy sat drearily in the "parlour." From mantelpiece, shelf, and what-not photographs of unknown people, friends of Mrs. Johnstone, the landlady, gazed at her with faded faces and in obsolete attire; actresses in boy's clothes, and large-faced children; chinless young men in turned-down collars; Mr. and Mrs. Johnstone in bridal attire; their first-born baby with no clothes on, now a clerk at Macy's. Hanging on the wall, with whitish eyes that followed Nancy about, was the enlarged photograph of dead Mr. Johnstone, and Nancy, in her loneliness, feared him. She covered him one evening with a table-cloth, but it was worse. When, on her arrival months ago, she had collected all these photographs and hidden them away in a closet, Mrs. Johnstone, who liked to drop in suddenly, had arrived, and looked round with a red face.

"You don't want to do that," she had said, taking all the pictures out again and setting them up in their places. She also would not allow the large ornamental piano-lamp, that took up half the stuffy little room, to be moved. It had cost thirty-two dollars. So it stood there in the dark-carpeted, obscure parlour, and its yellow silk shade with the grimy white silk roses pinned on it was an outrage to Nancy's pained gaze.

One evening at bed-time Anne-Marie said to her mother: "I like the girl next door."

"You do not know her, darling," said Nancy.

"Oh yes, I do. I talked to her from the back-window."

"What is her name?" said Nancy, unfastening strings and buttons on her daughter's back.

"Oh, she told me—I don't know. A little dry name like a cough."

Nancy laughed and kissed the nape of Anne-Marie's neck, which was plump, and fair, and sweet to smell. At that moment the girl-neighbour knocked and came in, with a bear made of chocolate for Anne-Marie. Her name—the dry name like a cough—was Peggy.

"I've just come in because I thought you seemed kind of lonesome," she said, looking round the parlour after Anne-Marie had been tucked in and left in the adjoining bedroom with the door ajar.

She then told Nancy that she worked in a hairdresser's shop down Broadway, "mostly fixing nails." "Sickening work," she added. "All those different hands I have to keep holding kind of turns me. Especially women's!"

Nancy laughed. Peggy offered to fix her nails for nothing, and after some hesitation Nancy allowed her to do so.

"My! you have hands quite like a lady," said Peggy; and the cup of Nancy's bitterness was full. Nancy quickly changed the subject.

"Is it you who play the piano?" she asked.

"No, my brother. He works in a shipping office. But he is great on music."

At this point Anne-Marie's voice was heard from the adjoining room: "What is that piece that was lovely?"

Peggy laughed, but could not say which piece Anne-Marie meant. After a while she went to call her brother, who came in, lanky and diffident, and was introduced as "George." Anne-Marie kept calling from her room about the piece that was lovely, and finally the young man went back to his flat, leaving the doors open, and played all the pieces of his repertoire.

But "the piece that was lovely" was not among them. Peggy and Nancy said: "She probably dreamt it." But Anne-Marie cried "No, no, no!" at the first note of every piece that was started. At last she wept, and was naughty and rude, and the bear's hindlegs, which she had not yet eaten, were taken away from her.

Peggy and George were very friendly, and promised to call again. They lived alone. Their parents had a sheep ranch in Dakota.

"Rotten place," said George. "New York is good enough for me." And they shook hands and left.

After that, when Mr. Johnstone frightened Nancy more than usual, she knocked at the wall in Anne-Marie's room with a hair-brush, and Peggy came in, and spent a friendly evening with her. Sometimes George came, too, and read the magazine supplements of the Sunday papers aloud. George read all the poems.

"He's a great one for poetry," said his sister.

George passed his manicured fingers through his thin hair, and looked self-conscious.

"I guess all the real poets are dead long ago," he said.

"I fear so," said Nancy.

"Mamma!" came Anne-Marie's voice, distinct and wide-awake, through the half-open door.

"Yes, dear," said Nancy. "Good-night."

"Mamma!" cried Anne-Marie. "Come here."

Nancy rose and went to her. Anne-Marie was sitting up in bed.

"What did he say?"

Nancy did not know.

"He said the poets were dead. All the real ones. You said poets could never die."

Nancy sat down on the bed, and pressed the little fair head to her heart.

"I will tell you about that to-morrow," she said. "And you must not listen to what is said in another room. It is not honourable." After a long explanation of what "honourable" meant, Nancy rose and kissed her.

"You had better shut the door," said Anne-Marie. "One can't be honourable if one can be not."

So the door was closed.

Early next morning Anne-Marie inquired about the poets.

"Well," said Nancy, who had forgotten about it, and was taken unawares. She spoke slowly, making up her story as she went on, and trying to put another picture in the little book of Anne-Marie's mind. "Once the world was full of roses, and poets lived for ever."

"Yes," said Anne-Marie.

"Then one day some people said to God: 'There are too many useless things in the world. Roses, for instance. We could do without them, and have vegetables instead.' So God took away the roses. And all the poets died."

"What of?"

"Of silence," said Nancy. "They died because they had nothing more to say."

Anne-Marie looked very sad. Nancy made haste to comfort her.

"Then God put a few roses back, for little Anne-Maries who don't like vegetables (which is very naughty of them, because they do one good), and so also a few poets came back into the world."

"But not the real ones?"

"Well, not quite real ones, perhaps," said Nancy.

"Then what is the good of them?" asked Anne-Marie.

Nancy could not say. Nancy could not say what was the good of not quite real poets. But for that matter, what was the good of the real ones? What was the good of anything? Nancy's thoughts went in drooping file to her own work. What was the good of writing a Book? "I need not have written any story at all," she said to herself.

Perhaps that is what God will say when the dead worlds come rolling in at his feet, at the end of Eternity.

X

Poverty and loneliness pushed Nancy along the dreary year, and she went in her brown dress, with her heels worn down at the side, through the autumn and the winter. Aldo was away for weeks at a time, and although he seemed in good humour when he was at home, and dressed elaborately, he was always parsimonious in the house, warning against rashness and expense.

Anne-Marie went to a kindergarten, where the grocer's children, and the baker's children, and the milkman's children went, and she liked them, and they liked her.

And now April was here. Where it could, it pushed and penetrated; through the trestles of the elevated railroads it spilt its sunshine on the ground. And it ran into the open window of the 82nd Street flat, and stretched its sweetness on the faded yellow silk of the hated lampshade.

To Nancy, who was moping in her dingy brown dress, April said: "Go out." So she put on her hat, and went out. And, having no reason to turn to the right, she turned to the left, and after a few blocks, having no reason to turn to the left, she turned to the right, and ran straight into a little messenger-boy, who was coming round the corner carrying some flowers in tissue-paper, and whistling.

Some trailing maidenhair escaping from the paper caught in her dress, and broke off. "I am sorry," she said.

"Can't yer use yer eyes!" said the boy rudely.

Then April said to Nancy: "Smile!" And she smiled, dimpling, and said again: "I am sorry."

The boy looked at her, and turned his tongue round in his mouth; then he sniffed, and said: "Here you are! This is for you."

He pushed the bunch of flowers into Nancy's hand, then turned back, and went round the corner again, whistling. Nancy ran after him, but he ran quicker, looking round every now and then and laughing at her. When he turned another corner Nancy stood with the flowers in her hand, wondering.

She opened the paper a little at the top, and looked in. Mauve orchids and maidenhair—a bouquet for a queen. She walked slowly back to her house, carrying the flowers in front of her with both hands, and their idle beauty and extravagant loveliness lifted her prostrate spirit above the dust around her.

She went to her room with them, avoiding Minna, who was clattering dishes in the kitchen, and, locking her door, sat down near the bed. She drew the tissue-paper away, and the fairy-like flowers, scintillant and bedewed, nodded at her.

In their midst lay a letter, with the crest of a Transatlantic steamship on the envelope. She opened it with timid hands.

"Dear Unknown in the Pale Blue Dress,

        "I am sending this to you as a child sends a walnut-shell boat sailing down a river. Where will it go to? Whom will it reach? I am leaving America to-day. By the time you read this—are you smiling with wondering eyes? or is your mouth grave, and your heart subdued?—I shall be throbbing away to Europe on board the Lusitania, and we shall probably never meet. But I am superstitious. As I drove down to the steamer just now the words that are often in my mind when I travel sprang with loud voices to my ear: