My Antonia Part 13

"He made grandfather's coffin, didn't he?" Anton asked.

"Wasn't they good fellows, Jim?" Antonia's eyes filled. "To this day I'm ashamed because I quarrelled with Jake that way. I was saucy and impertinent to him, Leo, like you are with people sometimes, and I wish somebody had made me behave."

"We aren't through with you, yet," they warned me. They produced a photograph taken just before I went away to college: a tall youth in striped trousers and a straw hat, trying to look easy and jaunty.

"Tell us, Mr. Burden," said Charley, "about the rattler you killed at the dog-town. How long was he? Sometimes mother says six feet and sometimes she says five."

These children seemed to be upon very much the same terms with Antonia as the Harling children had been so many years before. They seemed to feel the same pride in her, and to look to her for stories and entertainment as we used to do.

It was eleven o'clock when I at last took my bag and some blankets and started for the barn with the boys. Their mother came to the door with us, and we tarried for a moment to look out at the white slope of the corral and the two ponds asleep in the moonlight, and the long sweep of the pasture under the star-sprinkled sky.

The boys told me to choose my own place in the haymow, and I lay down before a big window, left open in warm weather, that looked out into the stars. Ambrosch and Leo cuddled up in a hay-cave, back under the eaves, and lay giggling and whispering. They tickled each other and tossed and tumbled in the hay; and then, all at once, as if they had been shot, they were still. There was hardly a minute between giggles and bland slumber.

I lay awake for a long while, until the slow-moving moon pa.s.sed my window on its way up the heavens. I was thinking about Antonia and her children; about Anna's solicitude for her, Ambrosch's grave affection, Leo's jealous, animal little love. That moment, when they all came tumbling out of the cave into the light, was a sight any man might have come far to see. Antonia had always been one to leave images in the mind that did not fade-that grew stronger with time. In my memory there was a succession of such pictures, fixed there like the old woodcuts of one's first primer: Antonia kicking her bare legs against the sides of my pony when we came home in triumph with our snake; Antonia in her black shawl and fur cap, as she stood by her father's grave in the snowstorm; Antonia coming in with her work-team along the evening sky-line. She lent herself to immemorial human att.i.tudes which we recognize by instinct as universal and true. I had not been mistaken. She was a battered woman now, not a lovely girl; but she still had that something which fires the imagination, could still stop one's breath for a moment by a look or gesture that somehow revealed the meaning in common things. She had only to stand in the orchard, to put her hand on a little crab tree and look up at the apples, to make you feel the goodness of planting and tending and harvesting at last. All the strong things of her heart came out in her body, that had been so tireless in serving generous emotions.

It was no wonder that her sons stood tall and straight. She was a rich mine of life, like the founders of early races.

II

WHEN I AWOKE IN THE morning, long bands of sunshine were coming in at the window and reaching back under the eaves where the two boys lay. Leo was wide awake and was tickling his brother's leg with a dried cone-flower he had pulled out of the hay. Ambrosch kicked at him and turned over. I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep. Leo lay on his back, elevated one foot, and began exercising his toes. He picked up dried flowers with his toes and brandished them in the belt of sunlight. After he had amused himself thus for some time, he rose on one elbow and began to look at me, cautiously, then critically, blinking his eyes in the light. His expression was droll; it dismissed me lightly. "This old fellow is no different from other people. He doesn't know my secret." He seemed conscious of possessing a keener power of enjoyment than other people; his quick recognitions made him frantically impatient of deliberate judgments. He always knew what he wanted without thinking.

After dressing in the hay, I washed my face in cold water at the windmill. Breakfast was ready when I entered the kitchen, and Yulka was baking griddle-cakes. The three older boys set off for the fields early. Leo and Yulka were to drive to town to meet their father, who would return from Wilber on the noon train.

"We'll only have a lunch at noon," Antonia said, "and cook the geese for supper, when our papa will be here. I wish my Martha could come down to see you. They have a Ford car now, and she don't seem so far away from me as she used to. But her husband's crazy about his farm and about having everything just right, and they almost never get away except on Sundays. He's a handsome boy, and he'll be rich some day. Everything he takes hold of turns out well. When they bring that baby in here, and unwrap him, he looks like a little prince; Martha takes care of him so beautiful. I'm reconciled to her being away from me now, but at first I cried like I was putting her into her coffin."

We were alone in the kitchen, except for Anna, who was pouring cream into the churn. She looked up at me. "Yes, she did. We were just ashamed of mother. She went round crying, when Martha was so happy, and the rest of us were all glad. Joe certainly was patient with you, mother."

Antonia nodded and smiled at herself. "I know it was silly, but I couldn't help it. I wanted her right here. She'd never been away from me a night since she was born. If Anton had made trouble about her when she was a baby, or wanted me to leave her with my mother, I wouldn't have married him. I couldn't. But he always loved her like she was his own."

"I didn't even know Martha wasn't my full sister until after she was engaged to Joe," Anna told me.

Toward the middle of the afternoon, the wagon drove in, with the father and the eldest son. I was smoking in the orchard, and as I went out to meet them, Antonia came running down from the house and hugged the two men as if they had been away for months.

"Papa," interested me, from my first glimpse of him. He was shorter than his older sons; a crumpled little man, with run-over boot-heels, and he carried one shoulder higher than the other. But he moved very quickly, and there was an air of jaunty liveliness about him. He had a strong, ruddy colour, thick black hair, a little grizzled, a curly moustache, and red lips. His smile showed the strong teeth of which his wife was so proud, and as he saw me his lively, quizzical eyes told me that he knew all about me. He looked like a humorous philosopher who had hitched up one shoulder under the burdens of life, and gone on his way having a good time when he could. He advanced to meet me and gave me a hard hand, burned red on the back and heavily coated with hair. He wore his Sunday clothes, very thick and hot for the weather, an unstarched white shirt, and a blue necktie with big white dots, like a little boy's, tied in a flowing bow. Cuzak began at once to talk about his holiday-from politeness he spoke in English.

"Mama, I wish you had see the lady dance on the slack-wire in the street at night. They throw a bright light on her and she float through the air something beautiful, like a bird! They have a dancing bear, like in the old country, and two-three merry-go-around, and people in balloons, and what you call the big wheel, Rudolph?"

"A Ferris wheel," Rudolph entered the conversation in a deep baritone voice. He was six foot two, and had a chest like a young blacksmith. "We went to the big dance in the hall behind the saloon last night, mother, and I danced with all the girls, and so did father. I never saw so many pretty girls. It was a Bohunk crowd, for sure. We didn't hear a word of English on the street, except from the show people, did we, papa?"

Cuzak nodded. "And very many send word to you, Antonia. You will excuse"-turning to me-"if I tell her." While we walked toward the house he related incidents and delivered messages in the tongue he spoke fluently, and I dropped a little behind, curious to know what their relations had become-or remained. The two seemed to be on terms of easy friendliness, touched with humour. Clearly, she was the impulse, and he the corrective. As they went up the hill he kept glancing at her sidewise, to see whether she got his point, or how she received it. I noticed later that he always looked at people sidewise, as a work-horse does at its yokemate. Even when he sat opposite me in the kitchen, talking, he would turn his head a little toward the clock or the stove and look at me from the side, but with frankness and good nature. This trick did not suggest duplicity or secretiveness, but merely long habit, as with the horse.

He had brought a tintype of himself and Rudolph for Antonia's collection, and several paper bags of candy for the children. He looked a little disappointed when his wife showed him a big box of candy I had got in Denver-she hadn't let the children touch it the night before. He put his candy away in the cupboard, "for when she rains," and glanced at the box, chuckling. "I guess you must have hear about how my family ain't so small," he said.

Cuzak sat down behind the stove and watched his women-folk and the little children with equal amus.e.m.e.nt. He thought they were nice, and he thought they were funny, evidently. He had been off dancing with the girls and forgetting that he was an old fellow, and now his family rather surprised him; he seemed to think it a joke that all these children should belong to him. As the younger ones slipped up to him in his retreat, he kept taking things out of his pockets; penny dolls, a wooden clown, a balloon pig that was inflated by a whistle. He beckoned to the little boy they called Jan, whispered to him, and presented him with a paper snake, gently, so as not to startle him. Looking over the boy's head he said to me, "This one is bashful. He gets left."

Cuzak had brought home with him a roll of ill.u.s.trated Bohemian papers. He opened them and began to tell his wife the news, much of which seemed to relate to one person. I heard the name Vasakova, Vasakova, repeated several times with lively interest, and presently I asked him whether he were talking about the singer, Maria Vasak.30 "You know? You have heard, maybe?" he asked incredulously. When I a.s.sured him that I had heard her, he pointed out her picture and told me that Vasak had broken her leg, climbing in the Austrian Alps, and would not be able to fill her engagements. He seemed delighted to find that I had heard her sing in London and in Vienna; got out his pipe and lit it to enjoy our talk the better. She came from his part of Prague. His father used to mend her shoes for her when she was a student. Cuzak questioned me about her looks, her popularity, her voice; but he particularly wanted to know whether I had noticed her tiny feet, and whether I thought she had saved much money. She was extravagant, of course, but he hoped she wouldn't squander everything, and have nothing left when she was old. As a young man, working in Wienn,u he had seen a good many artists who were old and poor, making one gla.s.s of beer last all evening, and "it was not very nice, that." he had seen a good many artists who were old and poor, making one gla.s.s of beer last all evening, and "it was not very nice, that."

When the boys came in from milking and feeding, the long table was laid, and two brown geese, stuffed with apples, were put down sizzling before Antonia. She began to carve, and Rudolph, who sat next his mother, started the plates on their way. When everybody was served, he looked across the table at me.

"Have you been to Black Hawk lately, Mr. Burden? Then I wonder if you've heard about the Cutters?"

No, I had heard nothing at all about them.

"Then you must tell him, son, though it's a terrible thing to talk about at supper. Now, all you children be quiet, Rudolph is going to tell about the murder."

"Hurrah! The murder!" the children murmured, looking pleased and interested.

Rudolph told his story in great detail, with occasional promptings from his mother or father.

Wick Cutter and his wife had gone on living in the house that Antonia and I knew so well, and in the way we knew so well. They grew to be very old people. He shrivelled up, Antonia said, until he looked like a little old yellow monkey, for his beard and his fringe of hair never changed colour. Mrs. Cutter remained flushed and wild-eyed as we had known her, but as the years pa.s.sed she became afflicted with a shaking palsy which made her nervous nod continuous instead of occasional. Her hands were so uncertain that she could no longer disfigure china, poor woman! As the couple grew older, they quarrelled more and more often about the ultimate disposition of their "property." A new law was pa.s.sed in the state, securing the surviving wife a third of her husband's estate under all conditions. Cutter was tormented by the fear that Mrs. Cutter would live longer than he, and that eventually her "people," whom he had always hated so violently, would inherit. Their quarrels on this subject pa.s.sed the boundary of the close-growing cedars, and were heard in the street by whoever wished to loiter and listen.

One morning, two years ago, Cutter went into the hardware store and bought a pistol, saying he was going to shoot a dog, and adding that he "thought he would take a shot at an old cat while he was about it." (Here the children interrupted Rudolph's narrative by smothered giggles.) Cutter went out behind the hardware store, put up a target, practised for an hour or so, and then went home. At six o'clock that evening, when several men were pa.s.sing the Cutter house on their way home to supper, they heard a pistol shot. They paused and were looking doubtfully at one another, when another shot came crashing through an upstairs window. They ran into the house and found Wick Cutter lying on a sofa in his upstairs bedroom, with his throat torn open, bleeding on a roll of sheets he had placed beside his head.

"Walk in, gentlemen," he said weakly. "I am alive, you see, and competent. You are witnesses that I have survived my wife. You will find her in her own room. Please make your examination at once, so that there will be no mistake."

One of the neighbours telephoned for a doctor, while the others went into Mrs. Cutter's room. She was lying on her bed, in her night-gown and wrapper, shot through the heart. Her husband must have come in while she was taking her afternoon nap and shot her, holding the revolver near her breast. Her night-gown was burned from the powder.

The horrified neighbours rushed back to Cutter. He opened his eyes and said distinctly, "Mrs. Cutter is quite dead, gentlemen, and I am conscious. My affairs are in order." Then, Rudolph said, "he let go and died."

On his desk the coroner found a letter, dated at five o'clock that afternoon. It stated that he had just shot his wife; that any will she might secretly have made would be invalid, as he survived her. He meant to shoot himself at six o'clock and would, if he had strength, fire a shot through the window in the hope that pa.s.sersby might come in and see him "before life was extinct," as he wrote.

"Now, would you have thought that man had such a cruel heart?" Antonia turned to me after the story was told. "To go and do that poor woman out of any comfort she might have from his money after he was gone!"

"Did you ever hear of anybody else that killed himself for spite, Mr. Burden?" asked Rudolph.

I admitted that I hadn't. Every lawyer learns over and over how strong a motive hate can be, but in my collection of legal anecdotes I had nothing to match this one. When I asked how much the estate amounted to, Rudolph said it was a little over a hundred thousand dollars.

Cuzak gave me a twinkling, sidelong glance. "The lawyers, they got a good deal of it, sure," he said merrily.

A hundred thousand dollars; so that was the fortune that had been sc.r.a.ped together by such hard dealing, and that Cutter himself had died for in the end!

After supper Cuzak and I took a stroll in the orchard and sat down by the windmill to smoke. He told me his story as if it were my business to know it.

His father was a shoemaker, his uncle a furrier, and he, being a younger son, was apprenticed to the latter's trade. You never got anywhere working for your relatives, he said, so when he was a journeyman he went to Vienna and worked in a big fur shop, earning good money. But a young fellow who liked a good time didn't save anything in Vienna; there were too many pleasant ways of spending every night what he'd made in the day. After three years there, he came to New York. He was badly advised and went to work on furs during a strike, when the factories were offering big wages. The strikers won, and Cuzak was blacklisted. As he had a few hundred dollars ahead, he decided to go to Florida and raise oranges. He had always thought he would like to raise oranges! The second year a hard frost killed his young grove, and he fell ill with malaria. He came to Nebraska to visit his cousin, Anton Jelinek, and to look about. When he began to look about, he saw Antonia, and she was exactly the kind of girl he had always been hunting for. They were married at once, though he had to borrow money from his cousin to buy the wedding ring.

"It was a pretty hard job, breaking up this place and making the first crops grow," he said, pushing back his hat and scratching his grizzled hair. "Sometimes I git awful sore on this place and want to quit, but my wife she always say we better stick it out. The babies come along pretty fast, so it look like it be hard to move, anyhow. I guess she was right, all right. We got this place clear now. We pay only twenty dollars an acre then, and I been offered a hundred. We bought another quarter ten years ago, and we got it most paid for. We got plenty boys; we can work a lot of land. Yes, she is a good wife for a poor man. She ain't always so strict with me, neither. Sometimes maybe I drink a little too much beer in town, and when I come home she don't say nothing. She don't ask me no questions. We always get along fine, her and me, like at first. The children don't make trouble between us, like sometimes happens." He lit another pipe and pulled on it contentedly.

I found Cuzak a most companionable fellow. He asked me a great many questions about my trip through Bohemia, about Vienna and the Ringstra.s.sev and the theatres. and the theatres.

"Gee! I like to go back there once, when the boys is big enough to farm the place. Sometimes when I read the papers from the old country, I pretty near run away," he confessed with a little laugh. "I never did think how I would be a settled man like this."

He was still, as Antonia said, a city man. He liked theatres and lighted streets and music and a game of dominoes after the day's work was over. His sociability was stronger than his acquisitive instinct. He liked to live day by day and night by night, sharing in the excitement of the crowd.-Yet his wife had managed to hold him here on a farm, in one of the loneliest countries in the world.

I could see the little chap, sitting here every evening by the windmill, nursing his pipe and listening to the silence; the wheeze of the pump, the grunting of the pigs, an occasional squawking when the hens were disturbed by a rat. It did rather seem to me that Cuzak had been made the instrument of Antonia's special mission. This was a fine life, certainly, but it wasn't the kind of life he had wanted to live. I wondered whether the life that was right for one was ever right for two!

I asked Cuzak if he didn't find it hard to do without the gay company he had always been used to. He knocked out his pipe against an upright, sighed, and dropped it into his pocket.

"At first I near go crazy with lonesomeness," he said frankly, "but my woman is got such a warm heart. She always make it as good for me as she could. Now it ain't so bad; I can begin to have some fun with my boys, already!"

As we walked toward the house, Cuzak c.o.c.ked his hat jauntily over one ear and looked up at the moon. "Gee!" he said in a hushed voice, as if he had just wakened up, "it don't seem like I am away from there twenty-six year!"

III

AFTER DINNER THE NEXT day I said good-bye and drove back to Hastings to take the train for Black Hawk. Antonia and her children gathered round my buggy before I started, and even the little ones looked up at me with friendly faces. Leo and Ambrosch ran ahead to open the lane gate. When I reached the bottom of the hill, I glanced back. The group was still there by the windmill. Antonia was waving her ap.r.o.n.

At the gate Ambrosch lingered beside my buggy, resting his arm on the wheel-rim. Leo slipped through the fence and ran off into the pasture.

"That's like him," his brother said with a shrug. "He's a crazy kid. Maybe he's sorry to have you go, and maybe he's jealous. He's jealous of anybody mother makes a fuss over, even the priest."

I found I hated to leave this boy, with his pleasant voice and his fine head and eyes. He looked very manly as he stood there without a hat, the wind rippling his shirt about his brown neck and shoulders.

"Don't forget that you and Rudolph are going hunting with me up on the Niobrara31 next summer," I said. "Your father's agreed to let you off after harvest." next summer," I said. "Your father's agreed to let you off after harvest."

He smiled. "I won't likely forget. I've never had such a nice thing offered to me before. I don't know what makes you so nice to us boys," he added, blushing.

"Oh, yes, you do!" I said, gathering up my reins.

He made no answer to this, except to smile at me with unabashed pleasure and affection as I drove away.

My day in Black Hawk was disappointing. Most of my old friends were dead or had moved away. Strange children, who meant nothing to me, were playing in the Harlings' big yard when I pa.s.sed; the mountain ash had been cut down, and only a sprouting stump was left of the tall Lombardy poplar that used to guard the gate. I hurried on. The rest of the morning I spent with Anton Jelinek, under a shady cottonwood tree in the yard behind his saloon. While I was having my midday dinner at the hotel, I met one of the old lawyers who was still in practice, and he took me up to his office and talked over the Cutter case with me. After that, I scarcely knew how to put in the time until the night express was due.

I took a long walk north of the town, out into the pastures where the land was so rough that it had never been ploughed up, and the long red gra.s.s of early times still grew s.h.a.ggy over the draws and hillocks. Out there I felt at home again. Overhead the sky was that indescribable blue of autumn; bright and shadowless, hard as enamel. To the south I could see the dun-shaded river bluffs that used to look so big to me, and all about stretched drying cornfields, of the pale-gold colour, I remembered so well. Russian thistles were blowing across the uplands and piling against the wire fences like barricades. Along the cattle-paths the plumes of goldenrod were already fading into sun-warmed velvet, grey with gold threads in it. I had escaped from the curious depression that hangs over little towns, and my mind was full of pleasant things; trips I meant to take with the Cuzak boys, in the Bad Lands and up on the Stinking Water.32 There were enough Cuzaks to play with for a long while yet. Even after the boys grew up, there would always be Cuzak himself! I meant to tramp along a few miles of lighted streets with Cuzak. There were enough Cuzaks to play with for a long while yet. Even after the boys grew up, there would always be Cuzak himself! I meant to tramp along a few miles of lighted streets with Cuzak.

As I wandered over those rough pastures, I had the good luck to stumble upon a bit of the first road that went from Black Hawk out to the north country; to my grandfather's farm, then on to the Shimerdas' and to the Norwegian settlement. Everywhere else it had been ploughed under when the highways were surveyed; this half-mile or so within the pasture fence was all that was left of that old road which used to run like a wild thing across the open prairie, clinging to the high places and circling and doubling like a rabbit before the hounds.

On the level land the tracks had almost disappeared-were mere shadings in the gra.s.s, and a stranger would not have noticed them. But wherever the road had crossed a draw, it was easy to find. The rains had made channels of the wheel-ruts and washed them so deeply that the sod had never healed over them. They looked like gashes torn by a grizzly's claws, on the slopes where the farm-wagons used to lurch up out of the hollows with a pull that brought curling muscles on the smooth hips of the horses. I sat down and watched the haystacks turn rosy in the slanting sunlight.

This was the road over which Antonia and I came on that night when we got off the train at Black Hawk and were bedded down in the straw, wondering children, being taken we knew not whither. I had only to close my eyes to hear the rumbling of the wagons in the dark, and to be again overcome by that obliterating strangeness. The feelings of that night were so near that I could reach out and touch them with my hand. I had the sense of coming home to myself, and of having found out what a little circle man's experience is. For Antonia and for me, this had been the road of Destiny; had taken us to those early accidents of fortune which predetermined for us all that we can ever be. Now I understood that the same road was to bring us together again. Whatever we had missed, we possessed together the precious, the incommunicable past.

ENDNOTES

1 (p. 1) Optima dies ... prima fugit: This phrase, which appears in book 3 of Virgil's (p. 1) Optima dies ... prima fugit: This phrase, which appears in book 3 of Virgil's Georgics, Georgics, is accurately translated from the Latin by Jim Burden, the narrator of is accurately translated from the Latin by Jim Burden, the narrator of My Antonia, My Antonia, as "the best days are the first to flee" (see page 159). Considered to be one of the central works in the pastoral tradition, the Georgics (written c.35 b.c.) celebrate rural life and the Italian countryside through detailed depictions of agricultural practices. as "the best days are the first to flee" (see page 159). Considered to be one of the central works in the pastoral tradition, the Georgics (written c.35 b.c.) celebrate rural life and the Italian countryside through detailed depictions of agricultural practices.

2 (p. 4) A (p. 4) A Suffrage headquarters: Suffrage headquarters: The Suffrage Movement earned for women the right to vote, which was granted in 1920 by the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Const.i.tution. The Suffrage Movement earned for women the right to vote, which was granted in 1920 by the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Const.i.tution.

3 (p. 15) (p. 15) Our neighbours lived in sod houses and dugouts: Our neighbours lived in sod houses and dugouts: Since there were no trees on the prairie to use for building shelters, the early settlers constructed temporary underground quarters known as dugouts. They then built aboveground houses using blocks of prairie sod. These houses were still primitive but much more comfortable than the dugouts. Since there were no trees on the prairie to use for building shelters, the early settlers constructed temporary underground quarters known as dugouts. They then built aboveground houses using blocks of prairie sod. These houses were still primitive but much more comfortable than the dugouts.

4 (p. 19) (p. 19) "But Bohemians has a natural distrust of Austrians": "But Bohemians has a natural distrust of Austrians": Czech nationalists objected to the authority of the Austro-Hungarian Empire over the region of Bohemia, which had been an independent kingdom until 1620. Shortly after World War I, Bohemia regained its independence under the name Czechoslovakia. Czech nationalists objected to the authority of the Austro-Hungarian Empire over the region of Bohemia, which had been an independent kingdom until 1620. Shortly after World War I, Bohemia regained its independence under the name Czechoslovakia.

5 (p. 30) (p. 30) The whole prairie was like the bush that burned with fire and was not consumed: The whole prairie was like the bush that burned with fire and was not consumed: The reference is to the Bible, Exodus 3:2, in which the angel of G.o.d appears to Moses in the form of a burning bush that is not consumed. The reference is to the Bible, Exodus 3:2, in which the angel of G.o.d appears to Moses in the form of a burning bush that is not consumed.

6 (p. 44) (p. 44) "Swiss Family Robinson": "Swiss Family Robinson": The reference is to Swiss writer Johann David Wyss's 1813 novel about a family shipwrecked on a deserted island. The reference is to Swiss writer Johann David Wyss's 1813 novel about a family shipwrecked on a deserted island.

7 - (p. 53) - (p. 53) "Napoleon Announcing the Divorce to Josephine": "Napoleon Announcing the Divorce to Josephine": This incident from the life of the French emperor Napoleon occurred in 1809 and was depicted in many works of art, including a well-known painting by Swiss artist Charles-Abraham Cha.s.selat. The newly developed technique of chromolithography made reproductions of such images in popular magazines quite common. This incident from the life of the French emperor Napoleon occurred in 1809 and was depicted in many works of art, including a well-known painting by Swiss artist Charles-Abraham Cha.s.selat. The newly developed technique of chromolithography made reproductions of such images in popular magazines quite common.

8 (p. 58) (p. 58) "The Prince of the House of David": "The Prince of the House of David": The reference is to a popular 1855 novel by the Reverend Joseph Holt Ingraham, a religious romance depicting scenes from the life of Christ. The reference is to a popular 1855 novel by the Reverend Joseph Holt Ingraham, a religious romance depicting scenes from the life of Christ.

9 (p. 63) (p. 63) "Robinson Crusoe": "Robinson Crusoe": The reference is to a novel by Daniel Defoe that was published in 1719; it chronicles the shipwrecked hero's life on an uninhabited island. The reference is to a novel by Daniel Defoe that was published in 1719; it chronicles the shipwrecked hero's life on an uninhabited island.

10 (p. 65) (p. 65) Dives: Dives: The sufferings in h.e.l.l of this arrogant rich man are described in a parable told by Jesus in the Bible, Luke 16:19-31. The sufferings in h.e.l.l of this arrogant rich man are described in a parable told by Jesus in the Bible, Luke 16:19-31.

11 (p. 71) (p. 71) A suicide must be buried at the cross-roads: A suicide must be buried at the cross-roads: Medieval superst.i.tions a.s.sociated crossroads with witchery and evil spirits, and suicides were often buried in this supposedly unconsecrated ground. Medieval superst.i.tions a.s.sociated crossroads with witchery and evil spirits, and suicides were often buried in this supposedly unconsecrated ground.

12 (p. 111) (p. 111) Blind d'Arnault: Blind d'Arnault: The circ.u.mstances of Blind d'Arnault's life are based on the story of Thomas "Blind Tom" Bethune (1849-1908), who was born into slavery in Georgia and became a composer and pianist. Cather reviewed an 1894 performance by Bethune in Lincoln, Nebraska, for the The circ.u.mstances of Blind d'Arnault's life are based on the story of Thomas "Blind Tom" Bethune (1849-1908), who was born into slavery in Georgia and became a composer and pianist. Cather reviewed an 1894 performance by Bethune in Lincoln, Nebraska, for the Nebraska State journal. Nebraska State journal. In creating D'Arnault, Cather also drew on the life of another African-American musician, John William "Blind" Boone (1864-1927), a Missouri composer who performed his ragtime songs in Red Cloud while on tour during the 1880s. In creating D'Arnault, Cather also drew on the life of another African-American musician, John William "Blind" Boone (1864-1927), a Missouri composer who performed his ragtime songs in Red Cloud while on tour during the 1880s.

13 (p. 112) (p. 112) Booth and Barrett: Booth and Barrett: Nineteenth-century American actors Edwin Thomas Booth (1833-1893) and Lawrence Barrett (1838-1891) were known for their joint appearances in productions of Shakespearean drama. Nineteenth-century American actors Edwin Thomas Booth (1833-1893) and Lawrence Barrett (1838-1891) were known for their joint appearances in productions of Shakespearean drama.

14 (p. 112) (p. 112) Mary Anderson: Mary Anderson: This popular American actress (1859-1940) was known for her portrayals of Shakespearean heroines, especially Rosalind in This popular American actress (1859-1940) was known for her portrayals of Shakespearean heroines, especially Rosalind in As You Like It As You Like It and Hermione and Perdita in and Hermione and Perdita in The Winter's Tale. The Winter's Tale.

15 (p. 139) (p. 139) The "Aeneid": The "Aeneid": This epic poem, completed by the Roman poet Virgil in 19 b.c., recounts the legendary founding of Rome. This epic poem, completed by the Roman poet Virgil in 19 b.c., recounts the legendary founding of Rome.

16 (p. 146) (p. 146) Seven Golden Cities: Seven Golden Cities: In pursuit of the legendary Seven Golden Cities of Cibola, the Spanish conquistador Francisco Vasquez de Coronado (1510-1554) led an expedition in 1540 across a large swath of what is now the southwestern United States and became the first European to encounter the Grand Canyon. Contrary to Jim's speculations, there is no evidence that he reached beyond Kansas into Nebraska before returning to Mexico in 1541. In pursuit of the legendary Seven Golden Cities of Cibola, the Spanish conquistador Francisco Vasquez de Coronado (1510-1554) led an expedition in 1540 across a large swath of what is now the southwestern United States and became the first European to encounter the Grand Canyon. Contrary to Jim's speculations, there is no evidence that he reached beyond Kansas into Nebraska before returning to Mexico in 1541.

17 (p. 156) (p. 156) Tragic Theatre at Pompeii: Tragic Theatre at Pompeii: Destroyed with the rest of the city of Pompeii in the year a.d. 79 by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius, this outdoor theater dates to 300 b.c. Destroyed with the rest of the city of Pompeii in the year a.d. 79 by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius, this outdoor theater dates to 300 b.c.

18 (p. 157) (p. 157) Who spoke for Dante Who spoke for Dante ... ... nurse to me in poetry: nurse to me in poetry: In Dante's epic poem In Dante's epic poem The Divine Comedy The Divine Comedy (1321), Virgil serves as Dante's guide through h.e.l.l and purgatory. Cather quotes from canto 21 of the (1321), Virgil serves as Dante's guide through h.e.l.l and purgatory. Cather quotes from canto 21 of the Purgatory Purgatory section of the epic, in which Dante tells of the encounter between the two poets and the Latin poet Statius (c.45-c.96). section of the epic, in which Dante tells of the encounter between the two poets and the Latin poet Statius (c.45-c.96).

19 (p. 159) (p. 159) "Optima "Optima dies ... dies ... prima fugit": prima fugit": See note 1. See note 1.

20 (p. 159) (p. 159) "For I shall be the first, if I live, to bring the Muse into my country": "For I shall be the first, if I live, to bring the Muse into my country": This is another quotation from book 3 of Virgil's This is another quotation from book 3 of Virgil's Georgics, Georgics, which Jim accurately translates within the text. which Jim accurately translates within the text.

21 (p. 159) (p. 159) "Sloping down to the river and to the old beech trees with broken tops": "Sloping down to the river and to the old beech trees with broken tops": This excerpt is from Lycidas's speech in eclogue 9 of Virgil's This excerpt is from Lycidas's speech in eclogue 9 of Virgil's Eclogues. Eclogues.

22 (p. 159) (p. 159) Virgil, when he was dying at Brindisi, must have remembered that pa.s.sage: Virgil, when he was dying at Brindisi, must have remembered that pa.s.sage: While returning home, Virgil died in the southern Italian city of Brindisi before completing the revisions he had planned to make to the While returning home, Virgil died in the southern Italian city of Brindisi before completing the revisions he had planned to make to the Aeneid. Aeneid. His instructions to destroy the ma.n.u.script of his poem were not followed. His instructions to destroy the ma.n.u.script of his poem were not followed.

23 (p. 163) (p. 163) Joseph Jefferson in "Rip Van Winkle": Joseph Jefferson in "Rip Van Winkle": Joseph Jefferson (1829-1905) became famous for portraying the role of Rip Van Winkle in a stage version of Washington Irving's story that premiered in 1865. Joseph Jefferson (1829-1905) became famous for portraying the role of Rip Van Winkle in a stage version of Washington Irving's story that premiered in 1865.

24 (p. 163) (p. 163) "Camille": "Camille": First performed in Paris in 1852, this play by the French writer Alexandre Dumas the younger was enormously popular in late-nineteenth-century America; it came to Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1893, and was reviewed by Cather in the First performed in Paris in 1852, this play by the French writer Alexandre Dumas the younger was enormously popular in late-nineteenth-century America; it came to Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1893, and was reviewed by Cather in the Nebraska State Journal. Nebraska State Journal. Originally t.i.tled Originally t.i.tled La Dame aux camelias, La Dame aux camelias, the play concerns a love affair between the courtesan Marguerite Gautier and Armand Duval, whose father convinces Marguerite to leave Armand so as not to ruin his family's social position. the play concerns a love affair between the courtesan Marguerite Gautier and Armand Duval, whose father convinces Marguerite to leave Armand so as not to ruin his family's social position.

25 (p. 164) (p. 164) "The Count of Monte Cristo": "The Count of Monte Cristo": This 1844 novel by Alexandre Dumas the older was adapted for the stage by Charles Albert Fechter; the stage version became enormously popular in America. This 1844 novel by Alexandre Dumas the older was adapted for the stage by Charles Albert Fechter; the stage version became enormously popular in America.

26 (p. 165) (p. 165) A member of Daly's famous New York company... under his direction: A member of Daly's famous New York company... under his direction: Cather is referring to the American actress Clara Morris (1847-1925), who worked with the prominent theatrical impresario Augustin Daly (1838-1899). Cather is referring to the American actress Clara Morris (1847-1925), who worked with the prominent theatrical impresario Augustin Daly (1838-1899).

27 (p. 165) "misterioso, misterios' altero!": In Verdi's opera La Traviata, Violetta sings about her ardor: "Mysterious and n.o.ble." She continues with words that translate as "both cross and ecstasy." (p. 165) "misterioso, misterios' altero!": In Verdi's opera La Traviata, Violetta sings about her ardor: "Mysterious and n.o.ble." She continues with words that translate as "both cross and ecstasy."

28 (p. 182) (p. 182) "crayon enlargements": "crayon enlargements": These inexpensive drawings are created by tracing the projected image of a photograph with crayons. These inexpensive drawings are created by tracing the projected image of a photograph with crayons.