II
Late in the afternoon of a brilliant October day, Alexandra Bergson,dressed in a black suit and traveling-hat, alighted at the Burlingtondepot in Lincoln. She drove to the Lindell Hotel, where she hadstayed two years ago when she came up for Emil's Commencement. Inspite of her usual air of sureness and self-possession, Alexandrafelt ill at ease in hotels, and she was glad, when she went to theclerk's desk to register, that there were not many people in thelobby. She had her supper early, wearing her hat and black jacketdown to the dining-room and carrying her handbag. After suppershe went out for a walk.
It was growing dark when she reached the university campus. Shedid not go into the grounds, but walked slowly up and down thestone walk outside the long iron fence, looking through at the youngmen who were running from one building to another, at the lightsshining from the armory and the library. A squad of cadets weregoing through their drill behind the armory, and the commands oftheir young officer rang out at regular intervals, so sharp andquick that Alexandra could not understand them. Two stalwart girlscame down the library steps and out through one of the iron gates.As they passed her, Alexandra was pleased to hear them speakingBohemian to each other. Every few moments a boy would come runningdown the flagged walk and dash out into the street as if he wererushing to announce some wonder to the world. Alexandra felt agreat tenderness for them all. She wished one of them would stopand speak to her. She wished she could ask them whether they hadknown Emil.
As she lingered by the south gate she actually did encounter oneof the boys. He had on his drill cap and was swinging his booksat the end of a long strap. It was dark by this time; he did notsee her and ran against her. He snatched off his cap and stoodbareheaded and panting. "I'm awfully sorry," he said in a bright,clear voice, with a rising inflection, as if he expected her tosay something.
"Oh, it was my fault!" said Alexandra eagerly. "Are you an oldstudent here, may I ask?"
"No, ma'am. I'm a Freshie, just off the farm. Cherry County.Were you hunting somebody?"
"No, thank you. That is--" Alexandra wanted to detain him. "Thatis, I would like to find some of my brother's friends. He graduatedtwo years ago."
"Then you'd have to try the Seniors, wouldn't you? Let's see; Idon't know any of them yet, but there'll be sure to be some of themaround the library. That red building, right there," he pointed.
"Thank you, I'll try there," said Alexandra lingeringly.
"Oh, that's all right! Good-night." The lad clapped his cap onhis head and ran straight down Eleventh Street. Alexandra lookedafter him wistfully.
She walked back to her hotel unreasonably comforted. "What a nicevoice that boy had, and how polite he was. I know Emil was alwayslike that to women." And again, after she had undressed and wasstanding in her nightgown, brushing her long, heavy hair by theelectric light, she remembered him and said to herself, "I don'tthink I ever heard a nicer voice than that boy had. I hope hewill get on well here. Cherry County; that's where the hay is sofine, and the coyotes can scratch down to water."
At nine o'clock the next morning Alexandra presented herselfat the warden's office in the State Penitentiary. The warden wasa German, a ruddy, cheerful-looking man who had formerly been aharness-maker. Alexandra had a letter to him from the German bankerin Hanover. As he glanced at the letter, Mr. Schwartz put awayhis pipe.
"That big Bohemian, is it? Sure, he's gettin' along fine," saidMr. Schwartz cheerfully.
"I am glad to hear that. I was afraid he might be quarrelsome andget himself into more trouble. Mr. Schwartz, if you have time, Iwould like to tell you a little about Frank Shabata, and why I aminterested in him."
The warden listened genially while she told him briefly somethingof Frank's history and character, but he did not seem to findanything unusual in her account.
"Sure, I'll keep an eye on him. We'll take care of him all right,"he said, rising. "You can talk to him here, while I go to see tothings in the kitchen. I'll have him sent in. He ought to be donewashing out his cell by this time. We have to keep 'em clean, youknow."
The warden paused at the door, speaking back over his shoulder toa pale young man in convicts' clothes who was seated at a desk inthe corner, writing in a big ledger.
"Bertie, when 1037 is brought in, you just step out and give thislady a chance to talk."
The young man bowed his head and bent over his ledger again.
When Mr. Schwartz disappeared, Alexandra thrust her black-edgedhandkerchief nervously into her handbag. Coming out on the streetcarshe had not had the least dread of meeting Frank. But since shehad been here the sounds and smells in the corridor, the look of themen in convicts' clothes who passed the glass door of the warden'soffice, affected her unpleasantly.
The warden's clock ticked, the young convict's pen scratchedbusily in the big book, and his sharp shoulders were shaken everyfew seconds by a loose cough which he tried to smother. It was easyto see that he was a sick man. Alexandra looked at him timidly,but he did not once raise his eyes. He wore a white shirt underhis striped jacket, a high collar, and a necktie, very carefullytied. His hands were thin and white and well cared for, and he hada seal ring on his little finger. When he heard steps approachingin the corridor, he rose, blotted his book, put his pen in the rack,and left the room without raising his eyes. Through the door heopened a guard came in, bringing Frank Shabata.
"You the lady that wanted to talk to 1037? Here he is. Be on yourgood behavior, now. He can set down, lady," seeing that Alexandraremained standing. "Push that white button when you're throughwith him, and I'll come."
The guard went out and Alexandra and Frank were left alone.
Alexandra tried not to see his hideous clothes. She tried to lookstraight into his face, which she could scarcely believe was his.It was already bleached to a chalky gray. His lips were colorless,his fine teeth looked yellowish. He glanced at Alexandra sullenly,blinked as if he had come from a dark place, and one eyebrow twitchedcontinually. She felt at once that this interview was a terribleordeal to him. His shaved head, showing the conformation of hisskull, gave him a criminal look which he had not had during thetrial.
Alexandra held out her hand. "Frank," she said, her eyes fillingsuddenly, "I hope you'll let me be friendly with you. I understandhow you did it. I don't feel hard toward you. They were more toblame than you."
Frank jerked a dirty blue handkerchief from his trousers pocket.He had begun to cry. He turned away from Alexandra. "I neverdid mean to do not'ing to dat woman," he muttered. "I never meanto do not'ing to dat boy. I ain't had not'ing ag'in' dat boy. Ialways like dat boy fine. An' then I find him--" He stopped. Thefeeling went out of his face and eyes. He dropped into a chairand sat looking stolidly at the floor, his hands hanging looselybetween his knees, the handkerchief lying across his striped leg.He seemed to have stirred up in his mind a disgust that had paralyzedhis faculties.
"I haven't come up here to blame you, Frank. I think they weremore to blame than you." Alexandra, too, felt benumbed.
Frank looked up suddenly and stared out of the office window. "Iguess dat place all go to hell what I work so hard on," he saidwith a slow, bitter smile. "I not care a damn." He stopped andrubbed the palm of his hand over the light bristles on his headwith annoyance. "I no can t'ink without my hair," he complained."I forget English. We not talk here, except swear."
Alexandra was bewildered. Frank seemed to have undergone a changeof personality. There was scarcely anything by which she couldrecognize her handsome Bohemian neighbor. He seemed, somehow, notaltogether human. She did not know what to say to him.
"You do not feel hard to me, Frank?" she asked at last.
Frank clenched his fist and broke out in excitement. "I not feelhard at no woman. I tell you I not that kind-a man. I never hitmy wife. No, never I hurt her when she devil me something awful!"He struck his fist down on the warden's desk so hard that heafterward stroked it absently. A pale pink crept over his neck andface. "Two, t'ree years I know dat woman don' care no more 'boutme, A
lexandra Bergson. I know she after some other man. I knowher, oo-oo! An' I ain't never hurt her. I never would-a donedat, if I ain't had dat gun along. I don' know what in hell makeme take dat gun. She always say I ain't no man to carry gun. Ifshe been in dat house, where she ought-a been--But das a foolishtalk."
Frank rubbed his head and stopped suddenly, as he had stoppedbefore. Alexandra felt that there was something strange in the wayhe chilled off, as if something came up in him that extinguishedhis power of feeling or thinking.
"Yes, Frank," she said kindly. "I know you never meant to hurtMarie."
Frank smiled at her queerly. His eyes filled slowly with tears."You know, I most forgit dat woman's name. She ain't got no namefor me no more. I never hate my wife, but dat woman what make medo dat--Honest to God, but I hate her! I no man to fight. Idon' want to kill no boy and no woman. I not care how many menshe take under dat tree. I no care for not'ing but dat fine boyI kill, Alexandra Bergson. I guess I go crazy sure 'nough."
Alexandra remembered the little yellow cane she had found in Frank'sclothes-closet. She thought of how he had come to this country agay young fellow, so attractive that the prettiest Bohemian girlin Omaha had run away with him. It seemed unreasonable that lifeshould have landed him in such a place as this. She blamed Mariebitterly. And why, with her happy, affectionate nature, shouldshe have brought destruction and sorrow to all who had loved her,even to poor old Joe Tovesky, the uncle who used to carry her aboutso proudly when she was a little girl? That was the strangest thingof all. Was there, then, something wrong in being warm-heartedand impulsive like that? Alexandra hated to think so. But therewas Emil, in the Norwegian graveyard at home, and here was FrankShabata. Alexandra rose and took him by the hand.
"Frank Shabata, I am never going to stop trying until I get youpardoned. I'll never give the Governor any peace. I know I canget you out of this place."
Frank looked at her distrustfully, but he gathered confidence fromher face. "Alexandra," he said earnestly, "if I git out-a here,I not trouble dis country no more. I go back where I come from;see my mother."
Alexandra tried to withdraw her hand, but Frank held on to itnervously. He put out his finger and absently touched a buttonon her black jacket. "Alexandra," he said in a low tone, lookingsteadily at the button, "you ain' t'ink I use dat girl awful badbefore--"
"No, Frank. We won't talk about that," Alexandra said, pressinghis hand. "I can't help Emil now, so I'm going to do what I canfor you. You know I don't go away from home often, and I came uphere on purpose to tell you this."
The warden at the glass door looked in inquiringly. Alexandranodded, and he came in and touched the white button on his desk.The guard appeared, and with a sinking heart Alexandra saw Frankled away down the corridor. After a few words with Mr. Schwartz,she left the prison and made her way to the street-car. She hadrefused with horror the warden's cordial invitation to "go throughthe institution." As the car lurched over its uneven roadbed, backtoward Lincoln, Alexandra thought of how she and Frank had beenwrecked by the same storm and of how, although she could come outinto the sunlight, she had not much more left in her life thanhe. She remembered some lines from a poem she had liked in herschooldays:--
Henceforth the world will only be A wider prison-house to me,--
and sighed. A disgust of life weighed upon her heart; some suchfeeling as had twice frozen Frank Shabata's features while theytalked together. She wished she were back on the Divide.
When Alexandra entered her hotel, the clerk held up one fingerand beckoned to her. As she approached his desk, he handed her atelegram. Alexandra took the yellow envelope and looked at it inperplexity, then stepped into the elevator without opening it. Asshe walked down the corridor toward her room, she reflected thatshe was, in a manner, immune from evil tidings. On reaching herroom she locked the door, and sitting down on a chair by the dresser,opened the telegram. It was from Hanover, and it read:--
Arrived Hanover last night. Shall wait here until you come. Please hurry. CARL LINSTRUM.
Alexandra put her head down on the dresser and burst into tears.
III
The next afternoon Carl and Alexandra were walking across the fieldsfrom Mrs. Hiller's. Alexandra had left Lincoln after midnight,and Carl had met her at the Hanover station early in the morning.After they reached home, Alexandra had gone over to Mrs. Hiller'sto leave a little present she had bought for her in the city. Theystayed at the old lady's door but a moment, and then came out tospend the rest of the afternoon in the sunny fields.
Alexandra had taken off her black traveling suit and put ona white dress; partly because she saw that her black clothes madeCarl uncomfortable and partly because she felt oppressed by themherself. They seemed a little like the prison where she had wornthem yesterday, and to be out of place in the open fields. Carlhad changed very little. His cheeks were browner and fuller. Helooked less like a tired scholar than when he went away a year ago,but no one, even now, would have taken him for a man of business.His soft, lustrous black eyes, his whimsical smile, would be lessagainst him in the Klondike than on the Divide. There are alwaysdreamers on the frontier.
Carl and Alexandra had been talking since morning. Her letter hadnever reached him. He had first learned of her misfortune froma San Francisco paper, four weeks old, which he had picked up ina saloon, and which contained a brief account of Frank Shabata'strial. When he put down the paper, he had already made up hismind that he could reach Alexandra as quickly as a letter could;and ever since he had been on the way; day and night, by the fastestboats and trains he could catch. His steamer had been held backtwo days by rough weather.
As they came out of Mrs. Hiller's garden they took up their talkagain where they had left it.
"But could you come away like that, Carl, without arranging things?Could you just walk off and leave your business?" Alexandra asked.
Carl laughed. "Prudent Alexandra! You see, my dear, I happen tohave an honest partner. I trust him with everything. In fact,it's been his enterprise from the beginning, you know. I'm in itonly because he took me in. I'll have to go back in the spring.Perhaps you will want to go with me then. We haven't turned upmillions yet, but we've got a start that's worth following. Butthis winter I'd like to spend with you. You won't feel that weought to wait longer, on Emil's account, will you, Alexandra?"
Alexandra shook her head. "No, Carl; I don't feel that way aboutit. And surely you needn't mind anything Lou and Oscar say now.They are much angrier with me about Emil, now, than about you.They say it was all my fault. That I ruined him by sending him tocollege."
"No, I don't care a button for Lou or Oscar. The moment I knewyou were in trouble, the moment I thought you might need me, it alllooked different. You've always been a triumphant kind of person."Carl hesitated, looking sidewise at her strong, full figure. "Butyou do need me now, Alexandra?"
She put her hand on his arm. "I needed you terribly when ithappened, Carl. I cried for you at night. Then everything seemedto get hard inside of me, and I thought perhaps I should never carefor you again. But when I got your telegram yesterday, then--thenit was just as it used to be. You are all I have in the world,you know."
Carl pressed her hand in silence. They were passing the Shabatas'empty house now, but they avoided the orchard path and took onethat led over by the pasture pond.
"Can you understand it, Carl?" Alexandra murmured. "I have hadnobody but Ivar and Signa to talk to. Do talk to me. Can youunderstand it? Could you have believed that of Marie Tovesky? Iwould have been cut to pieces, little by little, before I wouldhave betrayed her trust in me!"
Carl looked at the shining spot of water before them. "Maybe shewas cut to pieces, too, Alexandra. I am sure she tried hard; theyboth did. That was why Emil went to Mexico, of course. And he wasgoing away again, you tell me, though he had only been home threeweeks. You remember that Sunday when I went with Emil up tothe French Church fair? I thought that day there was some kindof feeling, something unusual, between them. I meant
to talk toyou about it. But on my way back I met Lou and Oscar and got soangry that I forgot everything else. You mustn't be hard on them,Alexandra. Sit down here by the pond a minute. I want to tellyou something."
They sat down on the grass-tufted bank and Carl told her how he hadseen Emil and Marie out by the pond that morning, more than a yearago, and how young and charming and full of grace they had seemedto him. "It happens like that in the world sometimes, Alexandra,"he added earnestly. "I've seen it before. There are women whospread ruin around them through no fault of theirs, just by beingtoo beautiful, too full of life and love. They can't help it.People come to them as people go to a warm fire in winter. I usedto feel that in her when she was a little girl. Do you rememberhow all the Bohemians crowded round her in the store that day, whenshe gave Emil her candy? You remember those yellow sparks in hereyes?"
Alexandra sighed. "Yes. People couldn't help loving her. PoorFrank does, even now, I think; though he's got himself in sucha tangle that for a long time his love has been bitterer than hishate. But if you saw there was anything wrong, you ought to havetold me, Carl."
Carl took her hand and smiled patiently. "My dear, it was somethingone felt in the air, as you feel the spring coming, or a storm insummer. I didn't SEE anything. Simply, when I was with those twoyoung things, I felt my blood go quicker, I felt--how shall I sayit?--an acceleration of life. After I got away, it was all toodelicate, too intangible, to write about."
Alexandra looked at him mournfully. "I try to be more liberalabout such things than I used to be. I try to realize that we arenot all made alike. Only, why couldn't it have been Raoul Marcel,or Jan Smirka? Why did it have to be my boy?"
"Because he was the best there was, I suppose. They were both thebest you had here."
The sun was dropping low in the west when the two friends rose andtook the path again. The straw-stacks were throwing long shadows,the owls were flying home to the prairie-dog town. When they cameto the corner where the pastures joined, Alexandra's twelve youngcolts were galloping in a drove over the brow of the hill.
"Carl," said Alexandra, "I should like to go up there with you inthe spring. I haven't been on the water since we crossed the ocean,when I was a little girl. After we first came out here I usedto dream sometimes about the shipyard where father worked, and alittle sort of inlet, full of masts." Alexandra paused. After amoment's thought she said, "But you would never ask me to go awayfor good, would you?"
"Of course not, my dearest. I think I know how you feel about thiscountry as well as you do yourself." Carl took her hand in bothhis own and pressed it tenderly.
"Yes, I still feel that way, though Emil is gone. When I was onthe train this morning, and we got near Hanover, I felt somethinglike I did when I drove back with Emil from the river that time,in the dry year. I was glad to come back to it. I've lived herea long time. There is great peace here, Carl, and freedom....I thought when I came out of that prison, where poor Frank is,that I should never feel free again. But I do, here." Alexandratook a deep breath and looked off into the red west.
"You belong to the land," Carl murmured, "as you have always said.Now more than ever."
"Yes, now more than ever. You remember what you once said aboutthe graveyard, and the old story writing itself over? Only it iswe who write it, with the best we have."
They paused on the last ridge of the pasture, overlooking thehouse and the windmill and the stables that marked the site of JohnBergson's homestead. On every side the brown waves of the earthrolled away to meet the sky.
"Lou and Oscar can't see those things," said Alexandra suddenly."Suppose I do will my land to their children, what difference willthat make? The land belongs to the future, Carl; that's the wayit seems to me. How many of the names on the county clerk's platwill be there in fifty years? I might as well try to will thesunset over there to my brother's children. We come and go, butthe land is always here. And the people who love it and understandit are the people who own it--for a little while."
Carl looked at her wonderingly. She was still gazing into the west,and in her face there was that exalted serenity that sometimes cameto her at moments of deep feeling. The level rays of the sinkingsun shone in her clear eyes.
"Why are you thinking of such things now, Alexandra?"
"I had a dream before I went to Lincoln--But I will tell you aboutthat afterward, after we are married. It will never come true,now, in the way I thought it might." She took Carl's arm and theywalked toward the gate. "How many times we have walked this pathtogether, Carl. How many times we will walk it again! Does it seemto you like coming back to your own place? Do you feel at peacewith the world here? I think we shall be very happy. I haven'tany fears. I think when friends marry, they are safe. We don'tsuffer like--those young ones." Alexandra ended with a sigh.
They had reached the gate. Before Carl opened it, he drew Alexandrato him and kissed her softly, on her lips and on her eyes.
She leaned heavily on his shoulder. "I am tired," she murmured."I have been very lonely, Carl."
They went into the house together, leaving the Divide behind them,under the evening star. Fortunate country, that is one day toreceive hearts like Alexandra's into its bosom, to give them outagain in the yellow wheat, in the rustling corn, in the shiningeyes of youth!
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