The Woman With a Past/The Confessional
X.—THE CONFESSIONAL
... It does trouble me.
No, trouble's a bad word: for as I walk
There's springing and melody and giddiness;
And old quaint turns and passages of my youth,
Dreams long forgotten ...
Return to me.
IT started with the sight of the old bookshop, with its dusty counters piled high with secondhand books, pathetic monuments to men's scholarly aspirations starved into abeyance or the grave.
Philippa Carpenter loved second-hand books; they drew her far more irresistibly than new ones, and she bought a great many that she did not really want because of quaint or pitiful little inscriptions on flyleaves, or marks and original notes that gave her glimpses into characters she never could have sensed in any other way. By a man's books shall ye know him, but, above all, by what he gets out of the books! And reprehensible as literary folk consider the habit of marking a book, it is of infinite value to the student of human nature who comes after. Faint notes of irony, nearly rubbed off the page; vehement bracketings of pungent truths; light, shy underpencilings of sentences full of sentiment or pathos—these are the soul prints that they who run may read.
Pippa stood fingering the litter of books. Her white gloves got dirty, and she did not even notice. The aged book-seller regarded her without apparent interest. If the sight of a beautiful red-haired, purple-eyed lady in a leaf-green gown was an unusual one in his dry existence, it seemed at any rate to arouse no admiration in him.
Among the ragged Balzacs and De Maupassants, the neater Doctor Johnsons, Montaignes, and Carlyles, and the almost immaculate moderns that had been quickly bought, and as quickly sold, was an old and very shabby little brown book of poetry. It was composed of translations from various Eastern poets—Hindu and Mohammedan, Japanese and Chinese, Persian and Arabic, and the translator had chosen the most lyric, and yet direct, of the verses, and put them into English as simple as might be. Some of them rhymed, some did not. Some were innocent of any fixed metrical form of rhythm. The spirit of the lines seemed to have been the end sought.
Pippa began turning the leaves, without even looking at the title, which was worn dim and faint. As she turned, various phrases here and there leaped out and struck her, first with a haunting sense of trouble and puzzlement, then with a startled realization of their familiarity, and finally with a burst of full recognition and the flashing remembrance of a complete and vivid episode in her life, some twelve years away.
She glanced hastily at the cover. Dim as the lettering was, she found it easy to read: “Songs of the East; Translated by Mark Gresham.” The dedication read simply: “To Her.”
Pippa's hand trembled, as once again she began to look through the little book. Page after page sang to her, laughed to her, whispered to her of forgotten things. It had been long, very long, since she had thought of these Oriental poems or of the man who had read them with her. Now the mists rolled away, and, bright as those midsummer days, mysterious as those wonderful purple nights, she saw again the romance that she had forgotten.
She could almost smell the apples in the orchard all about them, and the fresh sweetness of the new-mown hay in the golden field beyond. What fields! The place had taken its name from them—“Golden Acres.” She could almost see the strong, tense, passionate face of the man who sat beside her under the apple trees; she could almost hear his voice, rich and full, with eager inflections and cadences.
There was one page over which she paused and shivered a little. Down each margin was a pencil mark—one thick, black, and strong; the other delicate, but quite as firm. He had made one line, and she the other. It had been their fancy to own the book jointly, since he had written it, and she was the woman of the dedication, and each had marked it throughout quite independently of the other. Sometimes they quarreled happily over one another's preferences, but this they both loved:
The soul has the wings of a butterfly
When it drinks the flowers;
And the wings of a bird
When it sings of love in the wood;
But the wings of an angel
When it flies toward God
Philippa dragged her mind out of the past, and turned to the ancient book-seller. He was sitting motionless behind the counter, peering at her with a pair of black eyes uncannily bright. He was paralyzed from the waist down, and had to reach for inaccessible books with a long-handled, rakelike implement.
“How much is this?” she asked.
“Fifty cents,” he told her. Then he laughed, a harsh and eery chuckle. “The man who brought it here didn't want anything for it, so it's one thing I make a clear profit on!”
“He—he didn't sell it?
“No!” chuckled the old man, patting the half dollar she had handed him. “He said he wanted to get rid of it. Well, poems are trash, anyhow!”
Pippa felt a little stab of pain.
“He wanted to get rid of it!” Well—no wonder. She longed to ask the bookseller other questions, but the words choked her. She took the little brown book, and went out of the shop.
She was walking through the old, sleepy streets of the oldest and sleepiest part of New York. There were no cars here, and nearly all the houses had their own grassplots and flower beds of varyingly humble character. There were actually some trees, too, and fine stretches of rippling, emerald-green ivy.
Pippa loved this part of the town. On any other day she would have delighted in the picture made by the Italian vegetable stand on the corner, with its decorative strings of garlic and dried mushrooms and the fat, brown, smiling signora arrayed in a purple-and-scarlet bodice; by the little cake shop, where a dozen children were buying sweets and chattering pretty, idiomatic French; by the artist sitting, safe and brazen in the middle of the street, as he sketched a violet-pink perspective of little houses veiled in summer haze. She would have smiled understandingly at the dignified, portly gentleman who was carefully watering his ten-foot grass-plot, and at the shabby old lady in mourning who was taking her fat cat for a very slow airing. She would have paused to catch the fluent, garrulous Neapolitan patter of the two icemen sitting on the steps of their subterranean abode. Even the sad man who was twanging one never-changing major chord on a guitar while he sang a monotonous minor lay in quite another key, would have found a way to her heart. But to-day she was blind and deaf to the little humors and charms of the neighborhood.
With a burning heart and restless steps, she was walking with Memory, and he is a thrilling and a terrible companion. Strange that those things that we have believed dead and buried can rise again, so strong and masterful that they well-nigh overpower the very souls that have interred them! She hardly knew now whether her mood had in it more of pain or of sweetness. So poignant a recollection of a happiness must have in it much of joy in spite of all regret; so, living a consciousness of a wrong done must be in some measure bitter, in spite of all remembered delight. And a wrong had been done. Pippa had always known it to be a wrong, and to-day, revivified so strangely by chance, it cried in her ears, even while her heart thrilled again to the old love motif played upon it so long, so very long ago.
Suddenly the chime of a clock sounded across her deep abstraction, and she stopped, startled. Six o'clock! She had been walking about for half an hour! She was just passing a little Catholic church. Strange! He had been a Catholic. Was the whole city conspiring to-day to stab and touch her spirit at every turn? The day was hot, and the church door stood open. Tired by her aimless, restless walk, and even more tired by her own thoughts, Pippa went in to be quiet for a minute or two.
She dropped into a pew with a sigh of relief. Yes, it was cool here, and restful. She was thankful that there was no service in progress, and the church seemed to be empty except for one other woman, who knelt in the pew in front.
Mrs. Carpenter glanced about the place. It was not a rich church evidently; the fittings were of the cheapest, and the stained-glass windows were strikingly ugly. But the light came in softly filtered, and the shadowy corners were peaceful to the eye.
All at once she noticed that the kneeling woman was praying aloud.
The voice was soft and liquid, the voice of a Frenchwoman—not a Parisienne, but a paysanne. It was full of expressive shades, and just now was keyed to a pitch infinitely tender, fervent, and appealing. The voice first, and then the words it spoke, caught Pippa's interest:
“'O ma Mère, j'accours à vous, je viens à vous, et gémissant sous le poids de mes péchés, je me prosterne à vos pieds.'”
Pippa bent softly forward, and heard a gentle “Ainsi soit-il!”—the musical Gallic equivalent for the sterner Amen.
Almost immediately the voice went on with a faint huskiness, as if the words were uttered through tears:
“'O ma Souveraine, O ma Mère! Je m'offre tout à vous. Je vous consacre aujourd'hui mes oreilles, ma bouche, mon coeur, tout moi-même,'”
The simple, impassioned beauty of the religious phrase lingered in the listener's heart: “I consecrate to you to-day my ears, my mouth, my heart, all myself!” How exquisite to say, and above all to feel, a thing like that! Mrs. Carpenter's love of beauty—beauty of thoughts, of line, of word—was a passion. She felt a pang of envy for the kneeling woman, who had so delicate an emotional outlet.
The woman rose, crossed herself, with a genuflection, and prepared to depart. Pippa, acting on a sudden impulse, stopped her with a quick little gesture, and whispered in French:
“A thousand pardons, madame, but—what were those beautiful words?”
The woman turned with a start. She was still young, but her eyes were weary and haggard.
“It was a prayer to the Blessed Virgin, madame,” she answered, in a hushed tone; “the Prayer for—Purity.” She dropped her eyes painfully as she spoke. “I have no right to say—to make that prayer,” she added, faltering over the words, “but it is my one consolation, and the priest permits it. He is a saint, and does not turn even from sinners like myself. Such a prayer, one perceives, rends the heart, but it also—uplifts! Is madame a Catholic?”
“No,” said Pippa softly. “But I know that both the words and the thought are beautiful.”
“There is only one other prayer more beautiful,' said the other woman. “It is the Prayer Before Confession. And the words, to such as me, are the most comforting in all the world.” She bowed her head, and murmured with a rapt look:
“'O mon Dieu, me voici devant vous pour implorer mon pardon comme un enfant coupable aux genoux de son père!' Oh, madame, how consoling, how tranquilizing! To ask pardon like a little child, 'like an erring child at the knee of his father!' Madame has never known the great joy of the confessional?”
Pippa shook her head.
“I,” said the other woman, “I go when—I dare! And, ah, the rapture of relief! I am in heaven afterward—for a time. Of course, madame is a lady, not such as I, but all men and women are human. Is there not some shadow of the soul that longs to be dispelled?”
“Many—shadows,” said Philippa.
A glow entered the weary eyes gazing into hers.
“Then, madame, even if you are not a Catholic, go to confession! The good priest of this church”—her voice dropped still lower—“oh, madame, he is wise and kind—a true man of holiness! The work that he has done passes belief. I, madame—I am not yet worthy, not yet purified, but he has lifted me from—the depths. Perhaps you do not know what that means. His people worship him! Tell him the troubles that are looking out of your eyes; yes, they are looking forth, madame! Do I not know—I?”
A sudden overpowering desire seized Pippa Carpenter. She longed inexpressibly to lay forever this ghost of the past that had walked with her through Greenwich Village. Perhaps—who knows?—it might be in such a way as this that it would find rest.
“I will go to—the confessional,” she said brusquely.
The other woman smiled gladly.
“God keep you, madame!” she said.
“But I am not a Catholic,” pursued Pippa. “Will the priest hear me?”
“Assuredly, madame. The Church's ears are open to all the world! Adieu, madame!”
She slipped silently from the church and from Pippa's life.
“I am not a Catholic, father, but I must speak to some one—some one who will understand. I do not expect”
“I will listen.”
The voice was so quiet that it seemed to lay a hand upon Pippa's pulse and palpably to lower its beat. She had never heard so calm, so restrained, so tranquilizing a tone. It was not the usual sonorous voice of the pulpit-speaking priest; it was grave and low, the voice of a man long accustomed to close and intimate speech. And withal it was a voice as impersonal as a bell.
“I am listening,” it said again.
Philippa put her hands to her face for a moment. The tiny confessional seemed crowded with memories—dark and gay, painful and sweet; the scent of apples and new-mown hay was warm in her nostrils. Out of a summer long buried beneath the snows of the years, she spoke without preamble, as one might speak in a dream.
“He was good, father—with the best goodness; for he—he could have been bad, too Do you know what I mean?”
“Yes,” said the priest, in that quiet voice of his.
“He was very fiery, and enthusiastic, and—and full-blooded; very passionate, and hot-headed, and—vital. He was a man of one idea—there are such men, men who can have—only one big thing in their lives—aren't there?”
“Yes,” the priest said again.
“This man”—the memories were crowding her hard—“might have been an artist, or an explorer, or a monk, or a soldier—anything requiring ardor, and hope, and sacrifice; above all, he might—he should have been—a poet. He had it in his soul. And he was ambitious. He had a great temperament—a great spirit. But—he had great passions, too; he chose for the one big thing in his life—love.”
She paused, a trifle breathless.
The priest said, without expression: “Love, if it be worthy, may, indeed, be as big and as good a thing in a man's life as any other.”
“But it was not worthy,” said Philippa in a lower tone. “It was not worthy, because she was not worthy. Father—it was—I!”
Her eyes, hidden in her clasped hands, were wet with hot tears.
“Yes?” said the quiet voice. “And wherein did you prove unworthy?”
“I—I had not suffered then,” returned Pippa, speaking slowly and haltingly. “I did not know what great pain might mean—or great love, or great regret, or great sacrifice. I thought I loved him; I did love him in a way—but it was not a big love. Instead of yearning to raise him up, my love tried to pull him down. And—it succeeded.”
She stopped short.
“Go on. I am listening.”
“I was young then,” said Pippa quickly, breathlessly; “quite young—but I was not free. And because I was not free, and he was full of ideals, and wanted to be like his idol, Dante, who had adored a woman all his life from afar off—because of all that and any other things—he would have worshiped me always—worshiped me, and that is all—if I had let him do so. Do you understand still?”
“Yes. Go on.”
“But—I would not let him. I did not want to be worshiped; I wanted to be loved. I was not very happy. And Before the end of the summer, I—we—were lovers.
“We were thrown a great deal together, and we were young. We walked in the woods, and read aloud together, and wandered over the bright fields. There was a little book of Eastern songs that he had translated—I should have said written, for they were mostly his own.”
The small brown volume lay on the floor against her knee, and it seemed almost to throb as she spoke of it.
“We used to read it over and over again!”
Dreamily, hardly remembering where she was, she began to repeat:
“The soul has the wings of a butterfly
When it drinks the flowers;
And the wings of a bird
When it sings of love in the wood”
She paused again, her eyes filling.
It was fully a half minute before she heard the father prompt her:
“Go on. I am—listening.”
The voice was less soothing; there was in it a note that was almost harsh. Pippa went on:
“I know now how wicked it all was, but I did not know then; I mean I did not think. I tore away his ambitions and his aspirations, and his wonderful poetic dreams. Oh, I did not mean to hurt him, father! But—I think I killed—his soul!”
It seemed to her that she heard a slight movement behind the inscrutable grating. She hurried on:
“You see, I never really cared as much as he did. When the break came, I could go on, but what I fear is that he could not. He was too one-ideaed, too hot-hearted. He had set all his hopes and desires upon me, and when I went out of his life I left him—I must have left him—drained of everything except bitterness!
“If only Oh, father, if only I could know that it was not so; that he had—gotten over it; that he had grown to be the big, useful, noble creature that he was meant to be! If only I could find out what had become of him after I—deserted him!”
The cry came from Pippa Carpenter's heart. She had not known before how eagerly she thirsted to know this thing. Wracked by her emotions, she sobbed silently for a moment or two. When she could quiet herself again, the priest was speaking:
“To lead a man into sin is a very grave thing; to hurt a man's ideals a great wrong; to kill a man's spiritual future is, perhaps, the deepest crime of all. But you do not know in truth that you have done this. There are things stronger than all sin. I do not speak of God, but of the power in ourselves. This man—suppose—suppose that from that deep bitterness, that cruel pain ”
“Ah, father, you do understand!” murmured Pippa.
For the priest's voice was troubled by a very human roughness. It gathered itself more firmly, as it continued:
“Suppose—from that profound hurt and shame, I say—the man had yet been able to rise to his feet and walk onward—how usefully I do not say”
“You do not say!” repeated Pippa, bewildered, for the words had an oddly personal sound.
“How usefully—does not matter!” the priest corrected a trifle quickly. “But at least, if it led toward—something—that had always shone on his soul, and that no—mistake—could shut out”
“Father, you are speaking strangely, and—so differently! I don't understand”
She was trembling all over.
“Go home,” said the priest, and his voice was more and more altered, more cadenced, richer in inflections. “Go home, and—burn the little brown book.”
“The little brown How did you know it was brown?” gasped Philippa, her head whirling under the thought that was taking shape in her.
The priest's voice went on, strongly, and with authority:
“It is not well to live too much in the past, or to grieve unduly over those sins that have been buried—and that, perhaps, have blossomed into good uses. The past is past, do not forget that. And the orchard of 'Golden Acres' bears no more apples now.”
“The orchard of 'Golden Acres' Mark! It is you!”
“Hush! The confession is ended. Go now”
Suddenly, as if spurred by the ghostly years that had so spurred her, he went on in the rich and passionate voice of her dreams:
“The soul has the wings of a butterfly
When it drinks the flowers;
And the wings of a bird
When it sings of love in the wood;
But the wings of an angel
When it flies toward God.”