E-text prepared by Malcolm Farmer
DR. HEIDENHOFF'S PROCESS
by
EDWARD BELLAMY
CHAPTER I.
The hand of the clock fastened up on the white wall of the conferenceroom, just over the framed card bearing the words "Stand up for Jesus,"and between two other similar cards, respectively bearing the sentences"Come unto Me," and "The Wonderful, the Counsellor," pointed to tenminutes of nine. As was usual at this period of Newville prayer-meetings,a prolonged pause had supervened. The regular standbyes had all takentheir usual part, and for any one to speak or pray would have been aboutas irregular as for one of the regulars to fail in doing so. For theattendants at Newville prayer-meetings were strictly divided into the twoclasses of speakers and listeners, and, except during revivals or timesof special interest, the distinction was scrupulously observed.
Deacon Tuttle had spoken and prayed, Deacon Miller had prayed and spoken,Brother Hunt had amplified a point in last Sunday's sermon, BrotherTaylor had called attention to a recent death in the village as a warningto sinners, and Sister Morris had prayed twice, the second time it mustbe admitted, with a certain perceptible petulance of tone, as if willingto have it understood that she was doing more than ought to be expectedof her. But while it was extremely improbable that any others of thetwenty or thirty persons assembled would feel called on to break thesilence, though it stretched to the crack of doom, yet, on the otherhand, to close the meeting before the mill bell had struck nine wouldhave been regarded as a dangerous innovation. Accordingly, it onlyremained to wait in decorous silence during the remaining ten minutes.
The clock ticked on with that judicial intonation characteristic oftime-pieces that measure sacred time and wasted opportunities. Atintervals the pastor, with an innocent affectation of having justobserved the silence, would remark: "There is yet opportunity. . . . .Time is passing, brethren. . . . . Any brother or sister. . . . . Weshall be glad to hear from any one." Farmer Bragg, tired with his day'shoeing, snored quietly in the corner of a seat. Mrs. Parker dropped ahymn-book. Little Tommy Blake, who had fallen over while napping and hithis nose, snivelled under his breath. Madeline Brand, as she sat at themelodeon below the minister's desk, stifled a small yawn with her prettyfingers. A June bug boomed through the open window and circled aroundDeacon Tuttle's head, affecting that good man with the solicitudecharacteristic of bald-headed persons when buzzing things are about. Nextit made a dive at Madeline, attracted, perhaps, by her shining eyes, andthe little gesture of panic with which she evaded it was the prettiestthing in the world; at least, so it seemed to Henry Burr, abroad-shouldered young fellow on the back seat, whose strong, seriousface is just now lit up by a pleasant smile.
Mr. Lewis, the minister, being seated directly under the clock, cannotsee it without turning around, wherein the audience has an advantage ofhim, which it makes full use of. Indeed, so closely is the generalattention concentrated upon the time-piece, that a stranger might drawthe mistaken inference that this was the object for whose worship thelittle company had gathered. Finally, making a slight concession ofetiquette to curiosity, Mr. Lewis turns and looks up at the clock, and,again facing the people, observes, with the air of communicating a pieceof intelligence, "There are yet a few moments."
In fact, and not to put too fine a point upon it, there are five minutesleft, and the young men on the back seats, who attend prayer-meetings togo home with the girls, are experiencing increasing qualms of alternatehope and fear as the moment draws near when they shall put their fortuneto the test, and win or lose it all. As they furtively glance over at thegirls, how formidable they look, how superior to common affections, howserenely and icily indifferent, as if the existence of youth of the othersex in their vicinity at that moment was the thought furthest from theirminds! How presumptuous, how audacious, to those youth themselves nowappears the design, a little while ago so jauntily entertained, ofaccompanying these dainty beings home, how weak and inadequate thephrases of request which they had framed wherewith to accost them!Madeline Brand is looking particularly grave, as becomes a young lady whoknows that she has three would-be escorts waiting for her just outsidethe church door, not to count one or two within, between whoseconflicting claims she has only five minutes more to make up her mind.
The minister had taken up his hymn-book, and was turning over the leavesto select the closing hymn, when some one rose in the back part of theroom. Every head turned as if pulled by one wire to see who it was, andDeacon Tuttle put on his spectacles to inspect more closely this dilatoryperson, who was moved to exhortation at so unnecessary a time.
It was George Bayley, a young man of good education, excellent training,and once of great promise, but of most unfortunate recent experience.About a year previous he had embezzled a small amount of the funds of acorporation in Newville, of which he was paymaster, for the purpose ofraising money for a pressing emergency. Various circumstances showed thathis repentance had been poignant, even before his theft was discovered.He had reimbursed the corporation, and there was no prosecution, becausehis dishonest act had been no part of generally vicious habits, but asingle unaccountable deflection from rectitude. The evident intensity ofhis remorse had excited general sympathy, and when Parker, the villagedruggist, gave him employment as clerk, the act was generally applauded,and all the village folk had endeavoured with one accord, by a friendlyand hearty manner, to make him feel that they were disposed to forget thepast, and help him to begin life over again. He had been converted at arevival the previous winter, but was counted to have backslidden of late,and become indifferent to religion. He looked badly. His face wasexceedingly pale, and his eyes were sunken. But these symptoms of mentalsickness were dominated by an expression of singular peace and profoundcalm. He had the look of one whom, after a wasting illness, the fever hasfinally left; of one who has struggled hard, but whose struggle is over.And his voice, when he began to speak, was very soft and clear.
"If it will not be too great an inconvenience," he said; "I should liketo keep you a few minutes while I talk about myself a little. Youremember, perhaps, that I professed to be converted last winter. Sincethen I am aware that I have shown a lack of interest in religiousmatters, which has certainly justified you in supposing that I was eitherhasty or insincere in my profession. I have made my arrangements to leaveyou soon, and should be sorry to have that impression remain on the mindsof my friends. Hasty I may have been, but not insincere. Perhaps you willexcuse me if I refer to an unpleasant subject, but I can make my meaningclearer by reviewing a little of my unfortunate history."
The suavity with which he apologized for alluding to his own ruin, as ifhe had passed beyond the point of any personal feeling in the matter, hadsomething uncanny and creeping in its effect on the listeners, as if theyheard a dead soul speaking through living lips.
"After my disgrace," pursued the young man in the same quietlyexplanatory tone, "the way I felt about myself was very much, I presume,as a mechanic feels, who by an unlucky stroke has hopelessly spoiled thelooks of a piece of work, which he nevertheless has got to go on andcomplete as best he can. Now you know that in order to find any pleasurein his work, the workman must be able to take a certain amount of pridein it. Nothing is more disheartening for him than to have to keep on witha job with which he must be disgusted every time he returns to it, everytime his eye glances it over. Do I make my meaning clear? I felt likethat beaten crew in last week's regatta, which, when it saw itselfhopelessly distanced at the very outset, had no pluck to row out therace, but just pulled ashore and went home.
"Why, I remember when I was a little boy in school, and one day made abig blot on the very first page of my new copybook, that I didn't havethe heart to go on any further, an
d I recollect well how I teased myfather to buy me a new book, and cried and sulked until he finally tookhis knife and neatly cut out the blotted page. Then I was comforted andtook heart, and I believe I finished that copybook so well that theteacher gave me the prize.
"Now you see, don't you," he continued, the ghost of a smile glimmeringabout his eyes, "how it was that after my disgrace I couldn't seem totake an interest any more in anything? Then came the revival, and thatgave me a notion that religion might help me. I had heard, from a child,that the blood of Christ had a power to wash away sins and to leave onewhite and spotless with a sense of being new and clean every whit. Thatwas what I wanted, just what I wanted. I am sure that you never had amore sincere, more dead-in-earnest convert than I was."
He paused a moment, as if in mental contemplation, and then the wordsdropped slowly from his lips, as a dim self-pitying smile rested on hishaggard face.
"I really think you would be sorry for me if you knew how very bitter wasmy disappointment when I found that, these bright promises were onlyfigurative expressions which I had taken literally. Doubtless I shouldnot have fallen into such a ridiculous mistake if my great need had notmade my wishes fathers to my thoughts. Nobody was at all to blame butmyself; nobody at all. I'm blaming no one. Forgiving sins, I should haveknown, is not blotting, them out. The blood of Christ only turns them redinstead of black. It leaves them in the record. It leaves them in thememory. That day when I blotted my copybook at school, to have had theteacher forgive me ever so kindly would not have made me feel the leastbit better so long as the blot was there. It wasn't any penalty fromwithout, but the hurt to my own pride which the spot made, that I wantedtaken away, so I might get heart to go on. Supposing one of you--andyou'll excuse me for asking you to put yourself a moment in my place--hadpicked a pocket. Would it make a great deal of difference in your stateof mind that the person whose pocket you had picked kindly forgave you,and declined to prosecute? Your offence against him was trifling, andeasily repaired. Your chief offence was against yourself, and that wasirreparable. No other person with his forgiveness can mediate between youand yourself. Until you have been in such a fix, you can't imagine,perhaps, how curiously impertinent it sounds to hear talk about somebodyelse forgiving you for ruining yourself. It is like mocking."
The nine o'clock bell pealed out from the mill tower.
"I am trespassing on your kindness, but I have only a few more words tosay. The ancients had a beautiful fable about the water of Lethe, inwhich the soul that was bathed straightway forgot all that was sad andevil in its previous life; the most stained, disgraced, and mournful ofsouls coming forth fresh, blithe, and bright as a baby's. I suppose myabsurd misunderstanding arose from a vague notion that the blood ofChrist had in it something like this virtue of Lethe water. Just thinkhow blessed a thing for men it would be if such were indeed the case, iftheir memories could be cleansed and disinfected at the same time theirhearts were purified! Then the most disgraced and ashamed might live goodand happy lives again. Men would be redeemed from their sins in fact, andnot merely in name. The figurative promises of the Gospel would becomeliterally true. But this is idle dreaming. I will not keep you," and,checking himself abruptly, he sat down.
The moment he did so, Mr. Lewis rose and pronounced the benediction,dismissing the meeting without the usual closing hymn. He was afraid thatsomething might be said by Deacon Tuttle or Deacon Miller, who were goodmen, but not very subtile in their spiritual insight, which would stillfurther alienate the unfortunate young man. His own intention of findingopportunity for a little private talk with him after the meeting was,however, disappointed by the promptness with which Bayley left the room.He did not seem to notice the sympathetic faces and out-stretched handsaround him. There was a set smile on his face, and his eyes seemed tolook through people without seeing them. There was a buzz of conversationas the people began to talk together of the decided novelty in the lineof conference-meeting exhortations to which they had just listened. Thetone of almost all was sympathetic, though many were shocked and pained,and others declared that they did not understand what he had meant. Manyinsisted that he must be a little out of his head, calling attention tothe fact that he looked so pale. None of these good hearts were half somuch offended by anything heretical in the utterances of the young man asthey were stirred with sympathy for his evident discouragement. Mr. Lewiswas perhaps the only one who had received a very distinct impression ofthe line of thought underlying his words, and he came walking down theaisle with his head bent and a very grave face, not joining any of thegroups which were engaged in talk. Henry Burr was standing near the door,his hat in his hand, watching Madeline out of the corners of his eyes, asshe closed the melodeon and adjusted her shawl.
"Good-evening, Henry," said Mr. Lewis, pausing beside the young man. "Doyou know whether anything unpleasant has happened to George lately toaccount for what he said to-night?"
"I do not, sir," replied Henry.
"I had a fancy that he might have been slighted by some one, or given thecold shoulder. He is very sensitive."
"I don't think any one in the village would slight him," said Henry.
"I should have said so too," remarked the minister, reflectively. "Poorboy, poor boy! He seems to feel very badly, and it is hard to know how tocheer him."
"Yes, sir--that is--certainly," replied Henry incoherently, forMadeline was now coming down the aisle.
In his own preoccupation not noticing the young man's, Mr. Lewis passedout.
As she approached the door Madeline was talking animatedly with anotheryoung lady.
"Good-evening," said Henry.
"Poor fellow!" continued Madeline to her companion, "he seemed quitehopeless."
"Good-evening," repeated Henry.
Looking around, she appeared to observe him for the first time."Good-evening," she said.
"May I escort you home?" he asked, becoming slightly red in the face.
She looked at him for a moment as if she could scarcely believe her earsthat such an audacious proposal had been made to her. Then she said, witha bewitching smile--
"I shall be much obliged."
As he drew her arm beneath his own the contact diffused an ecstaticsensation of security through his stalwart but tremulous limbs. He hadgot her, and his tribulations were forgotten. For a while they walkedsilently along the dark streets, both too much impressed by the tragicsuggestions of poor Bayley's outbreak to drop at once into trivialities.For it must be understood that Madeline's little touch of coquetry hadbeen merely instinctive, a sort of unconscious reflex action of thefeminine nervous system, quite consistent with very lugubriousengrossments.
To Henry there was something strangely sweet in sharing with her for thefirst time a mood of solemnity, seeing that their intercourse had alwaysbefore been in the vein of pleasantry and badinage common to the firststages of courtships. This new experience appeared to dignify theirrelation, and weave them together with a new strand. At length she said--
"Why didn't you go after poor George and cheer him up instead of goinghome with me? Anybody could have done that."
"No doubt," replied Henry, seriously; "but, if I'd left anybody else todo it, I should have needed cheering up as much as George does."
"Dear me," she exclaimed, as a little smile, not exactly of vexation,curved her lips under cover of the darkness, "you take a mostunwarrantable liberty in being jealous of me. I never gave you noranybody else any right to be, and I won't have it!"
"Very well. It shall be just as you say," he replied. The sarcastichumility of his tone made her laugh in spite of herself, and sheimmediately changed the subject, demanding--
"Where is Laura to-night?"
"She's at home, making cake for the picnic," he said.
"The good girl! and I ought to be making some, too. I wonder if poorGeorge will be at the picnic?"
"I doubt it," said Henry. "You know he never goes to any sort of party.The last time I saw him at such a place was at Mr. Bradfor
d's. He wasplaying whist, and they were joking about cheating. Somebody said--Mr.Bradford it was--'I can trust my wife's honesty. She doesn't know enoughto cheat, but I don't know about George.' George was her partner.Bradford didn't mean any harm; he forgot, you see. He'd have bitten histongue off otherwise sooner than have said it. But everybody saw theapplication, and there was a dead silence. George got red as fire, andthen pale as death. I don't know how they finished the hand, butpresently somebody made an excuse, and the game was broken off."
"Oh, dear! dear! That was cruel! cruel! How could Mr. Bradford do it? Ishould think he would never forgive himself! never!" exclaimed Madeline,with an accent of poignant sympathy, involuntarily pressing Henry's arm,and thereby causing him instantly to forget all about George and hismisfortunes, and setting his heart to beating so tumultuously that he wasafraid she would notice it and be offended. But she did not seem to beconscious of the intoxicating effluence she was giving forth, andpresently added, in a tone of sweetest pity--
"He used to be so frank and dashing in his manner, and now when he meetsone of us girls on the street he seems so embarrassed, and looks away orat the ground, as if he thought we should not like to bow to him, ormeant to cut him. I'm sure we'd cut our heads off sooner. It's enough tomake one cry, such times, to see how wretched he is, and so sensitivethat no one can say a word to cheer him. Did you notice what he saidabout leaving town? I hadn't heard anything about it before, had you?"
"No," said Henry, "not a word. Wonder where he's going. Perhaps he thinksit will be easier for him in some place where they don't know him."
They walked on in silence a few moments, and then Madeline said, in amusing tone--
"How strange it would seem if one really could have unpleasant thingsblotted out of their memories! What dreadful thing would you forget now,if you could? Confess."
"I would blot out the recollection that you went boat-riding with WillTaylor last Wednesday afternoon, and what I've felt about it ever since."
"Dear me, Mr. Henry Burr," said Madeline, with an air of excessivedisdain, "how long is it since I authorized you to concern yourself withmy affairs? If it wouldn't please you too much, I'd certainly box yourears.
"I think you're rather unreasonable," he protested, in a hurt tone. "Yousaid a minute ago that you wouldn't permit me to be jealous of you, andjust because I'm so anxious to obey you that I want to forget that I everwas, you are vexed."
A small noise, expressive of scorn, and not to be represented by lettersof the alphabet, was all the reply she deigned to this more ingeniousthan ingenuous plea.
"I've made my confession, and it's only fair you should make yours," hesaid next. "What remorseful deed have you done that you'd like toforget?"
"You needn't speak in that babying tone. I fancy I could commit sins aswell as you, with all your big moustache, if I wanted to. I don't believeyou'd hurt a fly, although you do look so like a pirate. You've probablygot a goody little conscience, so white and soft that you'd die of shameto have people see it."
"Excuse me, Lady Macbeth," he said, laughing; "I don't wish to underrateyour powers of depravity, but which of your soul-destroying sins wouldyou prefer to forget, if indeed any of them are shocking enough totrouble your excessively hardened conscience?
"Well, I must admit," said Madeline, seriously, "that I wouldn't care toforget anything I've done, not even my faults and follies. I should beafraid if they were taken away that I shouldn't have any character left."
"Don't put it on that ground," said Henry, "it's sheer vanity that makesyou say so. You know your faults are just big enough to be beauty-spots,and that's why you'd rather keep 'em."
She reflected a moment, and then said, decisively--
"That's a compliment. I don't believe I like 'em from you. Don't make meany more."
Perhaps she did not take the trouble to analyse the sentiment thatprompted her words. Had she done so, she would doubtless have found it ina consciousness when in his presence of being surrounded with so fine anddelicate an atmosphere of unspoken devotion that words of flattery soundedalmost gross.
They paused before a gate. Pushing it open and passing within, she said,"Good-night."
"One word more. I have a favour to ask," he said. "May I take you to thepicnic?"
"Why, I think no escort will be necessary," she replied; "we go in broaddaylight; and there are no bears or Indians at Hemlock Hollow."
"But your basket. You'll need somebody to carry your basket."
"Oh yes, to be sure, my basket," she exclaimed, with an ironical accent."It will weigh at least two pounds, and I couldn't possibly carry itmyself, of course. By all means come, and much obliged for yourthoughtfulness."
But as she turned to go in she gave him a glance which had just enoughsweetness in it to neutralize the irony of her words. In the treatment ofher lovers, Madeline always punctured the skin before applying a drop ofsweetness, and perhaps this accounted for the potent effect it had toinflame the blood, compared with more profuse but superficialapplications of less sharp-tongued maidens.
Henry waited until the graceful figure had a moment revealed its charmingoutline against the lamp-lit interior, as she half turned to close thedoor. Love has occasional metaphysical turns, and it was an odd feelingthat came over him as he walked away, being nothing less than a rush ofthankfulness and self-congratulation that he was not Madeline. For, if hehad been she, he would have lost the ecstasy of loving her, ofworshipping her. Ah, how much she lost, how much all those lose, who,fated to be the incarnations of beauty, goodness, and grace, areprecluded from being their own worshippers! Well, it was a consolationthat she didn't know it, that she actually thought that, with her littlecoquetries and exactions, she was enjoying the chief usufruct of herbeauty. God make up to the haughty, wilful darling in some other way formissing the passing sweetness of the thrall she held her lovers in!
When Burr reached home, he found his sister Laura standing at the gate ina patch of moonlight.
"How pretty you look to-night!" he said, pinching her round cheek.
The young lady merely shrugged her shoulders, and replied dryly--
"So she let you go home with her."
"How do you know that?" he asked, laughing at her shrewd guess.
"Because you're so sweet, you goosey, of course."
But, in truth, any such mode of accounting for Henry's favourable commenton her appearance was quite unnecessary. Laura, with her petite, plumpfigure, sloe-black eyes, quick in moving, curly head, and dark, clearcheeks, carnation-tinted, would have been thought by many quite ascharming a specimen of American girlhood as the stately pale brunette whoswayed her brother's affections.
"Come for a walk, chicken! It is much too pretty a night to go indoors,"he said.
"Yes, and furnish ears for Madeline's praises, with a few more reflectedcompliments for pay, perhaps," she replied, contemptuously. "Besides,"she added, "I must go into the house and keep father company. I only cameout to cool off after baking the cake. You'd better come in too. Thesemoonlight nights always make him specially sad, you know."
The brother and sister had been left motherless not long before, andLaura, in trying to fill her mother's place in the household, so far asshe might, was always looking out that her father should have as littleopportunity as possible to brood alone over his companionless condition.