Black is White 37

Black is White 37

If anyone had told him an hour earlier that he would have been possessed

of such emotions as these he could have sneered in the face of him. When

he entered the house that evening he was full of resentment toward

his father and sullen with the remains of an ugly rage. And now to be

actually craving the affection of the man who humbled him, even in

the presence of servants. It was unbelievable. He could not understand

himself. A wonderful, compelling tenderness filled his heart. He longed

to throw himself at his father’s feet and crave his pardon for the

harsh, vengeful thoughts he had spent upon him in those black hours. He

hungered for a word of kindness or of understanding on which he could

feed his starving soul. He wanted his father’s love. He wanted, more

than anything else in the world, to love his father.

 

Lydia slipped out of his mind, Yvonne was set aside in that immortal

moment. He had not thought of them except in their relation to a

completed state of happiness for his father. Indistinctly he recognised

them as essentials.

 

In the library, later on, he smoked with the old men, moodily staring

up through the blue clouds into a space that seemed limitless. The

__EXPRESSION__ of pain, and the self-pity that attended it, increased in his

eyes. The old men rambled on, but he scarcely heard them. They wrangled,

and he was not impatient with them. He was lonely. He felt deserted,

forsaken. The sweet companionship of the day just closing stood for

naught in this hour of a deeper longing. He wanted to hear his father

say, from his heart: “Frederic, my son, here is my hand. It is no longer

against you.”

 

Aye, he was lonely. The house was as bleak as the steppes of Siberia.

He longed for companionship, friendship, kindness, and suddenly in the

midst of it all he leaped to his feet.

 

“I’m going out, gentlemen,” he exclaimed, breaking in upon an

unappreciated tale that Mr Riggs was relating at some length and with

considerable fierceness in view of the fact that Mr Dawes had pulled him

up rather sharply once or twice in a matter of inaccuracies. “Excuse me,

please.”

 

He left them gaping with astonishment and dashed out into the hall for

his coat and hat. Even then he had no definite notion as to what his

next move would be, save that he was going out--somewhere, anywhere;

he did not care. All the time he was employed in getting into his light

overcoat his eyes were fixed on the front door, and in his heart was the

strange, indescribable hope that it would open to admit his father,

who, thinking of him in his loneliness and moved by a suddenly aroused

feeling of love, had abandoned an evening of selfish pleasure in order

to spend it with him.

 

And if his father should walk in, with eagerness in his long unfriendly

eyes, what joy it would be for him to rush up to him and cry out:

“Father, let’s be happy! Let’s make each other happy!”

 

Somehow, as he rushed down the front steps with the cool night air

blowing in his face, there surged up within him a strong, overpowering

sense of filial duty. It was his duty to make the first advances. It

was for him to pave the way to peace and happiness. Something vague but

disturbing tormented him with the fear that his father faced a great

peril and that his own place was beside him and not against him, as he

had been for all these illy directed years. He could not put it away

from him, this thought that his father was in danger--in danger of

something that was not physical, something from which, with all his

valour, he had no adequate form of defence.

 

At the corner he paused, checked by an irresistible impulse to look

backward at the house he had just left. To his surprise there was a

light in the drawing-room windows facing the street. The shade in one of

them had been thrown wide open and a stream of light flared out across

the sidewalk.

 

Standing in this stream of light was the figure of a man. Slowly, as if

drawn by a force he could not resist, the young man retraced his steps

until he stood directly in front of the window. A questioning smile was

on his lips. He was looking up into Ranjab’s shadowy, unsmiling face,

dimly visible in the glow from the distant street-lamp. For a long time

they stared at each other, no sign of recognition passing between them.

The Hindu’s face was as rigid, as emotionless as if carved out of stone;

his eyes were unwavering. Frederic could see them, even in the shadows.

He had the queer feeling that, though the man gave no sign, he had

something he wanted to say to him, that he was actually calling to him

to come back into the house.

 

Undecided, the man outside took several halting steps toward the

doorway, his gaze still fixed on the face in the window. Then he broke

the spell. It was a notion on his part, he argued, If he had been

wanted, his father’s servant would have beckoned to him. He would not

have stood there like a graven image, staring out into the night.

 

Having convinced himself of this, Frederic wheeled and swung off up the

street once more, walking rapidly, as one who is pursued. Turning,

he waved his hand at the man in the window. He received no response.

Farther off, he looked back once more. The Hindu still was there. Long

after he was out of sight of the house he cast frequent glances over

his shoulder, as if still expecting to see the lighted window and its

occupant.

 

Blocks away, in his hurried, aimless flight, he slackened his pace and

began to wonder whither he was going. He had no objective point in mind.

He was drifting. His footsteps lagged and he looked about him for marks

of locality. Union Square lay behind him, and beyond, across Eighteenth

Street, was the Third Avenue Elevated. He had not meant to come in this

direction. It was not his mind alone that wandered.

 

As he made his way back to Broadway, somewhat hazily bent on following

that thoroughfare up to the district where the night glittered and the

stars were shamed, he began turning over in his mind a queer notion

that had just suggested itself to him, filtering through the maze of

uncertainty in which he had been floundering. It occurred to him that

he had been mawkishly sentimental in respect to his father. He was

seriously impressed by the feelings that had mastered him, but he

found himself ridiculing the idea that his father stood in peril of any

description. And suddenly, out of no particular trend of thought,

groped the sly, persistent suspicion that he had not been altogether

responsible for the sensations of an hour ago. Some outside influence

had moulded his emotions, some cunning brain had been doing his thinking

for him!

 

Then came the sharp recollection of that motionless, commanding figure

in the lighted window, and his own puzzling behaviour on the side-walk

outside. He recalled his impression that someone has called out to

him just before he turned to look up at the window. It was all quite

preposterous, he kept on saying over and over again to himself, and yet

he could not shake off the uncanny feeling.

 

Like a shot there flashed into his brain the startling question: was

Ranjab the solution? Was it Ranjab’s mind and not his own that had moved

him to such tender resolves? Could such a condition be possible? Was

there such a thing as mind control?

 

He laughed aloud, and was startled by the sound of his own voice. The

idea was preposterous! Such a thing could not have been possible. They

were his own thoughts, his own emotions, coming from his own brain, his

own heart.

 

An hour later Frederic approached the box-office of the theatre

mentioned by Yvonne over the telephone that morning. The play was

half over and the house was sold out. He bought a ticket of admission,

however, and lined up with others who were content to stand at the back

to witness the play.

 

He had walked past the theatre three or four times before finally making

up his mind to enter, and even then his intentions were not quite clear.

He only knew that he was consciously committing an act that he was

ashamed of, an act so inexcusable that his face burned as he thought of

the struggle he had had with himself up to the moment he stood at the

box-office window.

 

Inside the theatre he leaned weakly against the railing at the back

of the auditorium and wiped his brow. What was it that had dragged him

there against his will, in direct opposition to his dogged determination

to shun the place? The curtain was up, the house was still, save for the

occasional coughing of those who succumb to a habit that can neither be

helped nor explained.

 

There were people moving on the stage, but Frederic had no eyes for

them. He was seeking in the darkness for the two figures that he knew

were somewhere in the big, tense throng.

 

Hundreds of backs confronted him, no faces. A sensation not far removed

from stealth took possession of him. His searching eyes were furtive

in their quest. If he had been lonely before, he was doubly so now.

The very presence of the multitude filled him with a sickening sense of

emptiness. He was friendless there, with all those contented backs for

company. Not one among them all had a thought for him, not one turned

so much as an inch from the engrossing scene that held them in its grip.

Straight, immovable, unresponsive backs--nothing but backs!

 

Again he asked of himself, why was he there? And he pitied himself so

vastly that his throat contracted as with pain. His soul sickened. The

truth was being revealed to him as he stood there and with aching eyes

searched throughout the serried rows of backs. It came home to him

all of a sudden that his quest was a gleaming white back and a small,

exquisitely poised head crowned with black.

 

With a sharp execration, a word of disgust for himself, he tore himself

away from the railing and rushed toward the doors. At the same instant

a tremendous burst of applause filled the house and he whirled just in

time to see the curtain descending. Curiously interested, he paused near

the door, his gaze fixed on the great velvet wall that rose and fell

at least a half-dozen times in response to the clamour of the delighted

crowd.

 

The backs all at once seemed to become animated and friendly. He drew

near the last row of seats again and stared at the actor and the actress

who came out to take the “curtain-call”--stared as if at something he

had never seen before.

 

And they had been up there all the time, developing the splendid climax

that had drawn people out of their seats, that had put life into all

those insufferable backs.

 

The lights went up and the house was bright. Men began scurrying up

the aisles. Here and there broad, black backs rose up in the centre of

sections and moved tortuously toward the aisles. Pretty soon, when the

theatre was dark again and the curtain up, they would return, politely

hiss something about being sorry or “Don’t get up, please,” and even

more tortuously move into their places, completing once more the sullen,

arrogant row of backs.

 

Frederic experienced a sudden shock of dismay. It was not at all

unlikely that his father would be among those heading for the lobby,

although the chance was remote. His father was the peculiar type of

gentleman, now almost extinct, that subsists without fresh air quite

as long as the lady who sits in the seat beside him. He was a

bit old-fashioned for a New Yorker, no doubt, but he was rather

distinguished for his good manners. In fact, he was almost unique. He

would not leave Yvonne between the acts, Frederic was quite sure. In

spite of this, the young man discreetly hid himself behind two stalwart

figures and watched the aisles with alert, shifty eyes.