CHAPTER XXVI
THE PALE PEACOCK AND THE PURPLE HERRING
The Young Lady was much applauded. Colonel Livingstone looked intoStafford's eyes, and was hesitant. Yet he still had something of the oldmasterly way about him, and he spoke out openly and very frankly. Thereis something about the United States army officer that is worth while.He rose to the occasion. The manner in which he rose to it was worthy ofhis occupation and rank. He said:
"You have done things, my boy. You have bossed this train. You havebrought to us a great engineering and overbearing quality."
And the Colonel almost blushed in an affectionate sort of lapse. "Andyet it may be that you expect to get away from me, Mr. Stafford. Youhave got to tell your own story before we escape from here through thissoon to be open road that you have largely made for us. Tell us thestory, Mr. Stafford."
There are times when a strong man may be crushed, but it is rarely, saveby thought of a a woman. Stafford looked slantwise up the aisle, andthen with a look that was tell-tale in his eyes as he cast them towardHer, where she was sitting three or four seats away. He told the storyof
THE PALE PEACOCK AND THE PURPLE HERRING
This is not really more the story of the Pale Peacock and the PurpleHerring than it is of John and Agnes, but that does not matter much, forthe first account encompasses the second, in a way. What is chieflycurious is the difference, in point of view, between the Peacock andHerring, and the other two.
Once there was a peacock. Never before was so beautiful a peacock asshe. She was snow-white except as to her head and tail. Her appearancewas something wonderful. From her head down to her shoulders the huesblended and flashed in iridescent green. Whenever she moved herself inthe slightest degree there appeared a lighting in color passionatelyvivid. From about her neck and breast there shone what is known as alambent flame which at times became tempestuous. So the neck andshoulders melted into the snow-white of the body, a restless glimmeringebbing into a milky way. It was just so with the tail.
Well, this peacock was unlike other peacocks. She was not--eh?--she wasnot morbid, but she was solitary and reflective and intensely emotionaland sentimental. Of course she had two feet and had a voice, but theless said of them the better. She would wander up and down by thelakeside and think of all that might be. She scarcely dreamed that therewas to come to her what was her secret heart's desire, but in time itcame. She met the Purple Herring. With each of them it was a case ofinfatuation at first sight.
Now the Purple Herring was almost as much of an exceptional case as thePale Peacock. He was the only purple herring in all the great lakes, andwas practically the King of the Herrings, and was respected as such.Personally, he had in his nature many of the traits of the Pale Peacock.He, too, was emotional, faithful, and impassioned. They loved.
Here was a most unfortunate situation. Naturally, the Purple Herringcould not get along very well upon the land, and, naturally too, thePeacock could not flourish in the water. It was not exactly a case ofPlatonic love; it was a case of hopeless love, in a way, and yet, notaltogether hopeless, for they were happy. It came to this, that theymade the best of things, and that the Peacock, day after day, wouldwander along upon the sands which the water lapped, while the Herringwould swim along beside her, and they would exchange tender confidences,and that, to amuse her, he would tell her tales, many tales, of thewonders of the vasty deep of the lake. He told her why the fish fliescame in autumn and smeared the windows and made slippery the sidewalksof the great city; of how they lay in the mud at the bottom of the lake,like little short sticks, and then finally burst open and came to thesurface and floated away into town. He told her of his talk with Mrs.Whitefish, and of how she did not think the spawn was getting along aswell as usual. He told her of a thousand things, and they were happy.
They often talked too, this united yet effectually separated pair, ofwhat they saw upon the shores of the placid lake, whose creamy sands,outside the city, sloped down to the water's edge from green fields andwaving groves.
Many people walked along the sands, and children played and romped thereall day. At sunset the Purple Herring began to look with specialinterest for the lovers who came in pairs and sat until late, talking,and sometimes in blissful silence while they listened to the softlapping of the waves upon the shore.
One day the Purple Herring told the Pale Peacock about one of thesepairs of lovers, the only pair, he said, which were not happy.
"And I can't imagine why they are not, either," said the Purple Herring.
"Nor can I, although I have not yet heard all you know about them," saidthe Pale Peacock. "How two lovers who may live together forever, who arenot kept from each other by such a fate as separates you and me--how menand women who love each other can be unhappy, is more than I can conjureup by any stretch of fancy!"
"Her name is Agnes," began the Purple Herring, "and when I first saw hershe was walking slowly along the shore, back and forth, on a stretch ofbeach bordering the great park at the head of the lake. The sky was redafter sunset, and in the southwest hung the new moon, with a great starover it. She was a beautiful lady, but she looked perplexed and a littlesad even on that first evening. I did not notice the perplexity andsorrow on her sweet face at the time, but afterward I remembered it.
"Suddenly her face was all lighted up by some light that was not of thewestern sky, nor of the little bent moon, nor the great star. Her eyesshone, her cheeks became pink like the inside of a pink shell, and Ilooked where her eyes were turned. I saw a man walking rapidly towardher, and I thought, 'Only another pair of lovers!'
"But this was no common pair; I could not leave them, they were sostrangely attractive. Their voices thrilled me as I heard them. I couldfeel all around the vibrations of deep emotion, electrical, disturbing,and enchanting. The lady began their conversation:
"'The day has been so long!' she said. 'And our time together is soshort!' the man replied.
"They did not touch each other. They did not even take each other'shands. They only walked slowly along the shore, side by side, yet I andall the world had but to see them to know that they were lovers.
"'Agnes,' the man said, 'how happy the men and women are who have a hometogether! I would not care how humble the roof was that sheltered youand me. How glad I would be to work for you, to plan, and in every waylive for you--even now I live only for you!--but what a joy it would beif it could all be with you!'
"'Do not speak of it, John,' the woman said, and her voice trembled.
"'How many there are,' the man continued, passionately, 'how many thereare who are chained together, straining both at the chain! They would befree, and cannot. Their dwelling-place is no home. They fret and stingeach other, while you and I--"
"'John!' the lady interrupted him.
"'Forgive me!' he said, his tone suddenly changing. 'I can see you butfor a few minutes, and I proceed to make you miserable! Forgive me! Tellme about yourself--what you are thinking, what you are reading. Has thewhite rose blossomed in your garden? How is my friend Rex, and whydidn't you bring him with you?'
"She answered first about the dog, Rex, and then their talk grewuninteresting, or it grew late, so that I became sleepy; I don't knowwhich, but soon they parted, and, would you believe it? the man didn'teven kiss her once, nor touch her hand!
"I saw this strange couple many times again during that clear brightJune weather, and sometimes I heard their talk. There was alwayssomething about it that made me think of heat-lightning, with a mysteryof earnestness even in their light banter and play of talk.
"You must have observed that these human creatures often mean thingsthey do not say, and yet contrive that the sense shall show throughtheir misleading words. These two often talked lightly and laughedtogether, but there was ever an undercurrent of feeling of such deepnessand power as I could not comprehend; its mystery almost irritated me.
"One day--it was at night--not a living soul was to be seen on the sandsas the two came walking toward
me. They came swiftly as if they wouldwalk into the water, but stopped there at its edge--and I listened,fascinated by their tense faces, and deep low voices.
"'We must do what is right,' the man was saying. 'Honor binds you, andit binds me. We must not play with fire. I have taken the step whichparts us.'
"'So soon!' said she.
"'None too soon!' the man protested. Then he burst out, as if he couldnot keep what came like a torrent from his lips.
"'Help me! help me! We must decide and act together! I cannot leave youwithout your help!'
"The lady turned her face from him for a moment. She looked away acrossthe water, and the tears which had started to her eyes seemed as ifcommanded not to fall. Pale she was, pale was her face, and with thelook of ice with snow upon it. Her voice, when she turned to him again,did not seem like her voice--the sound of it made him start.
"'You are right,' she said, 'Good-bye. God bless you!'
"'Agnes!' the man cried, as she turned away.
"'Go,' she answered.
"The man looked at her as if to fix her image upon his soul forever, andsaid, repeating her words: 'Good-bye, God bless you!'
"Then he walked quickly off into the park, and away, never looking back.The lady sank down on a seat by the water's edge. For a long time Iwatched her, and she did not move. When, finally, she arose and walkedaway, I felt that I was seeing her, and I also had seen the man, for thelast time. And so it was. I have watched for them in vain. The man hasgone to the ends of the earth. That I know by the look on his face andhers. She will never see him again, nor will she walk by these waterswhere she used to walk with him. But why? That is what puzzles me!"
"What fools these mortals be!" said the Pale Peacock, without the leastidea that any one else had ever before made that remark.
Pale Death with even tread knocks at the threshold of rich and poor."Pallida mors aequam pulsat," etc. One day the Purple Herring died, andthe Pale Peacock suffered as suffer those who love and are bereaved.Little cared she for longer life, and she wanted to pine away. She wentto a policeman on the corner, and said: "Tell me how to pine."
"What now! What now!" said the policeman and he gave her no assistance.
But she must pine. She wanted to pine away. She wandered on and met theCream-Colored Cat, and to her she told her tale. Now, the Cream-ColoredCat had herself learned to pine, having lost her loving mistress, and,being of an affable and affectionate nature, she at once revealed thesecret of pining to the Pale Peacock, and they joined forces and pinedtogether. And they pined, and they pined, and they pined. They pineduntil they became a Sublimated Substance--(just what a SublimatedSubstance is does not matter in this story)--and they pined along untilthey became something so intangible they were almost like a little fog;that is, they were like a young fog, for as a fog gets older and beginsto dissipate, it gets thinner, so that the younger a fog is, the thickerit is. Finally it becomes a vapor. And they became what may be called anEvanescent Vapor, until all was lost in the Empyrean. And the souls ofthe Pale Peacock and the Purple Herring were at last commingled.
Perhaps it was so in the end with the souls of John and Agnes.