Gladiator (26 page)

Hugo accepted his bundle, set it in the seat beside himself, and drove back to the big, green house.

Later
in the day he said to Cane: “If you will want me to drive the station wagon very often, I ought to have a license.”

“Go ahead. Get one.”

“I couldn't afford it at the moment, and since it would be entirely for you, I thought—”

“I see,” Cane answered calmly. “Trying to get a license out of me. Well, you're out of luck. You probably won't be needed as a chauffeur again for the next year. If you are, you'll drive without a license, and drive damn carefully, too, because any fines or any accidents would come out of your wages.”

Hugo received the insult unmoved. He wondered what Cane would say if he smashed the car and made an escape. He knew he would not do it; the whole universe appeared so constructed that men like Cane inevitably avoided their desserts.

June came, and July. The sea-shore was not distant and occasionally at night Hugo slipped away from the woods and lay on the sand, sometimes drinking in the firmament, sometimes closing his eyes. When it was very hot he undressed behind a pile of barnacle-covered boulders and swam far out in the water. He swam naked, unmolested, stirring up tiny whirlpools of phosphorescence, and afterwards, damp and cool, he would dress and steal back to the barn through the forest and the hay-sweet fields.

One day a man in Middletown asked Mr. Cane to call on him regarding the possible purchase of three cows. Cane's cows were raised with the maximum of human care, the minimum of extraneous expense. His profit on them was great and he sold them, ordinarily, one at a time. He was so excited at the prospect of a triple sale that for a day he was almost gay, very nearly generous. He drove off blithely—not in the sedan, but in the station wagon, because its gasoline mileage was greater.

It was a day filled with wonder for Hugo. When Cane drove from the house, Roseanne was standing beside the drive. She walked over to the barn and said to Hugo in an oddly agitated voice: “Mr. Danner, could you spare an hour or two this morning to help me get some flowers from the woods?”

“
Certainly.”

She glanced in the direction her husband had taken and hurried to the kitchen, returning presently with two baskets and a trowel. He followed her up the road. They turned off on an overgrown path, pushed through underbrush, and arrived in a few minutes at the side of a pond. The edges were grown thick with bushes and water weeds, dead trees lifted awkward arms at the upper end, and dragon flies skimmed over the warm brown water.

“I used to come here to play when I was a little girl,” she said. “It's still just the same.” She wore a blue dress; branches had dishevelled her hair; she seemed more alive than he had ever seen her.

“It's charming,” Hugo answered.

“There used to be a path all the way around—with stones crossing the brook at the inlet. And over there, underneath those pine trees, there are some orchids. I've always wanted to bring them down to the house. I think I could make them grow. Of course, this is a bad time to transplant anything—but I so seldom get a chance. I can't remember when—when—”

He realized with a shock that she was going to cry. She turned her head away and peered into the green wall. “I think it's here,” she said tremulously.

They followed a dimly discernible trail; there were deer tracks in it and signs of other animals whose feet had kept it passable. It was hot and damp and they were forced to bend low beneath the tangle to make progress. Almost suddenly they emerged in a grove of white pines. They stood upright and looked: wind stirred sibilantly in the high tops, and the ground underfoot was a soft carpet; the lake reflected the blue of the sky instead of the brown of its soft bottom.

“Let's rest a minute,” she said. And then: “I always think a pine grove is like a cathedral. I read somewhere that pines inspired Gothic architecture. Do you suppose it's true?”

“There was the lotos and the Corinthian column,” Hugo answered.

They
sat down. This was a new emotion—a paradoxical emotion for him. He had come to an inharmonious sanctuary and he could expect both tragedy and enchantment. There was Roseanne herself, a hidden beautiful thing in whom were prisoned many beauties. She was growing old in the frosty seclusion of her husband's company. She was feeding on the toothless food of dreams when her hunger was still strong. That much anyone might see; the reason alone remained invisible. He was acutely conscious of an hour at hand, an imminent moment of vision.

“You're a strange man,” she said finally.

That was to be the password. “Yes?”

“I've watched you every day from the kitchen window.” Her depression had gone now and she was talking with a vague excitement.

“Have you?”

“Do you mind if we pretend for a minute?”

“I'd like it.”

“Then let's pretend this is a magic carpet and we've flown away from the world and there's nothing to do but play. Play,” she repeated musingly. “I'll be Roseanne and you'll be Hugo. You see, I found out your name from the letters. I found out a lot about you. Not facts like born, occupation, father's first name; just—things.”

He dared a little then. “What sort of things, Roseanne?”

She laughed. “I knew you could do it! That's one of them. I found out you had a soul. Souls show even in barn-yards. You looked at the peonies one day and you played with the puppies the next. In one way—Hugo—you're a failure as a farm hand.”

“Failure?”

“A flop. You never make a grammatical mistake.” She saw his surprise and laughed again. “And your manners—and, then, you understood French. See—the carpet is taking us higher and farther away. Isn't it fun! You're the hired man and I'm the farmer's wife and all of a sudden—we're—”

“A prince and princess?”

“
That's exactly right. I won't pretend I'm not curious—morbidly curious. But I won't ask questions, either, because that isn't what the carpet is for.”

“What is it for, Roseanne?”

“To get away from the world, silly. And now—there's a look about you. When I was a little girl, my father was a great man, and many great men used to come to our house. I know what the frown of power is and the attitude of greatness. You have them—much more than any pompous old magnate I ever laid eyes on. The way you touch things and handle them, the way you square your shoulders. Sometimes I think you're not real at all and just an imaginary knight come to storm my castle. And sometimes I think you're a very famous man whose afternoon walk just has been extended for a few months. The first thought frightens me, and the second makes me wonder why I haven't seen your picture in the Sunday rotogravures.”

Hugo's shoulders shook. “Poor Princess Roseanne. And what do I think about you, then—”

She held up her hand. “Don't tell me, Hugo. I should be sad. After all, my life—”

“May be what it does not appear to be.”

She took a brittle pine twig and dug in the mould of the needles until it broke. “Ralph—was different once. He was a chemist. Then—the war came. And he was there and a shell—”

“Ah,” Hugo said. “And you loved him before?”

“I had promised him before. But it changed him so. And it's hard.”

“The carpet,” he answered gently. “The carpet—”

“I almost dropped off, and then I'd have been hurt, wouldn't I?”

“A favour for a favour. I'm not a great man, but I hope to be one. I have something that I think is a talent. Let it go at that. The letters come from my father and mother—in Colorado.”

“I've never seen Colorado.”

“It's big—”

“
Like the nursery of the Titans, I think,” she said softly, and Hugo shuddered. The instinct had been too true.

Her eyes were suddenly stormy. “I feel old enough to mother you, Hugo. And yet, since you came, I've been a little bit in love with you. It doesn't matter, does it?”

“I think—I know—”

“Sit closer to me then, Hugo.”

The sun had passed the zenith before they spoke connectedly again. “Time for the magic carpet to come to earth,” she said gaily.

“Is it?”

“Don't be masculine any longer—and don't be rudely possessive. Of course it is. Aren't you hungry?”

“I was hungry—” he began moodily.

“All off at earth. Come on. Button me. Am I a sight?”

“I disregard the bait.”

“You're being funny. Come. No—wait. We've forgotten the orchids. I wonder if I really came for orchids. Should you be terribly offended if I said I thought I did?”

“Extravagantly offended.”

Cane returned late in the day. The cows had been sold—“I even made five hundred clear and above the feeding and labour on the one with the off leg. She'll breed good cattle.” The barns were as clean as a park, and Roseanne was singing as she prepared dinner.

Nothing happened until a hot night in August. The leaves were still and limp, the moon had set. Hugo lay awake and he heard her coming quietly up the stairs.

“Ralph had a headache and he took two triple bromides. Of course, I could always have said that I heard one of the cows in distress and came to wake you. But he's jealous, poor dear. And then—but who could resist a couple of simultaneous alibis?”

“Nobody,” he whispered. She sat down on his bed. He put his arm around her and felt that she was in a nightdress. “I wish I could see you now.”

“
Then take this flashlight—just for an instant. Wait.” He heard the rustle of her clothing. “Now.”

She heard him draw in his breath. Then the light went out.

With the approach of autumn weather Roseanne caught a cold. She continued her myriad tasks, but he could see that she was miserable. Even Cane sympathized with her gruffly. When the week of the cattle show in New York arrived, the cold was worse and she begged off the long trip on the trucks with the animals. He departed alone with his two most precious cows, scarcely thinking of her, muttering about judges and prizes.

Again she came out to the barn. “You've made me a dreadful hypocrite.”

“I know it.”

“You were waiting for me! Men are so disgustingly sure of everything!”

“But—”

“I've made myself cough and sniffle until I can't stop.”

Hugo smiled broadly. “All aboard the carpet....”

They lay in a field that was surrounded by trees. The high weeds hid them. Goldenrod hung over them. “Life can't go on—”

“Like this,” he finished for her.

“Well—can it?”

“It's up to you, Roseanne. I never knew there were women—”

“Like me? You should have said ‘was a woman.'”

“Would you run away with me?”

“Never.”

“Aren't we just hunting for an emotion?”

“Perhaps. Because there was a day—one day—in the pines—”

He nodded. “Different from these other two. That's because of the tragic formation of life. There is only one first, only one commencement, only one virginity. Then—”

“Character sets in.”

“
Then it becomes living. It may remain beautiful, but it cannot remain original.”

“You'd be hard to live with.”

“Why, Roseanne?”

“Because you're so determined not to have an illusion.”

“And you—”

“Go on. Say it. I'm so determined to have one.”

“Are we quarreling? I can fix that. Come closer, Roseanne.” Her face changed through delicate shades of feeling to tenderness and to intensity. Abruptly Hugo leaped to his feet.

The rhythmic thunder rode down upon them like the wind. A few yards away, head down, tail straight, the big bull charged over the ground like an avalanche. Roseanne lifted herself in time to see Hugo take two quick steps, draw back his fist, and hit the bull between the horns. It was a diabolical thing. The bull was thrown back upon itself. Its neck snapped loudly. Its feet crumpled; it dropped dead. Twenty feet to one side was a stone wall. Hugo picked up a hoof and dragged the carcass to the base of the wall. With his hand he made an indenture in the rocks, and over the face of the hollow he splashed the bull's blood. Then he approached Roseanne. The whole episode had occupied less than a minute.

She had hunched her shoulders together, and her face was pale. She articulated with difficulty. “The bull”—her hands twitched—“broke in here—and you hit him.”

“Just in time, Roseanne.”

“You killed him. Then—why did you drag him over there?”

“Because,” Hugo answered slowly, “I thought it would be better to make it seem as if he charged the wall and broke his neck that way.”

Her frigidity was worse than any hysteria. “It isn't natural to be able to do things like that. It isn't human.”

He swallowed; those words in that stifled intonation were very familiar. “I know it. I'm very strong.”

Roseanne looked down at the grass. “Wipe your hand, will you?”

He
rubbed it in the earth. “You mustn't be frightened.”

“No?” She laughed a little. “What must I be, then? I'm alive, I'm crawling with terror. Don't touch me!” She screamed and drew back.

“I can explain it.”

“You can explain everything! But not that.”

“It was an idiotic, wild, unfair thing to have happen at this time,” he said. “My life's like that.” He looked beyond her. “I began wanting to do tremendous things. The more I tried, the more discouraged I became. You see, I was strong. There have been other things figuratively like the bull. But the things themselves get littler and more preposterous, because my ambition and my nerve grows smaller.” He lowered his head. “Some day—I shan't want to do anything at all any more. Continuous and unwonted defeat might infuriate some men to a great effort. It's tiring me.” He raised his eyes sadly to hers. “Roseanne—!”