The Art Of Living And Other Stories Part 6

6.

When Aunt Ella woke up in the morning, Darthamae was still in the house. Leon had gone home, and the baby with him. Darthamae offered to comb Aunt Ella's hair for her, and Aunt Ella thanked her meekly and got up. Her knees were so stiff she could hardly walk, but she refused to be troubled today. The Lord was with her. She sat still in front of the dresser mirror, deliciously conscious of the lightness of Darthamae's combing, and she tried to think how old Darthamae was, whether she was old enough to remember when the yellow-white hair had been red. Darthamae began to roll the bun and slip in the amber pins. All quickly, quickly.

"I've been thinking," Darthamae said.

Aunt Ella looked at Darthamae's face in the mirror and waited.

"About Brother Flood," Darthamae said. "It doesn't really matter that he won't admit what he did. That is, it doesn't hurt us."

Aunt Ella smiled docilely and waited.

"And of course it does hurt him, you know? I mean, how can his wife respect him, knowing what she does? And how can other people-those of us who know the truth, that is? How can he even respect himself?" Her hands hesitated a moment. She said, "You know, Aunt Ella, I feel sorry for him. Really."

"You're a wise girl for your years," Aunt Ella said, smiling. "Bless you." She felt light as a bluejay, warm and sweet and old as summer fields.

Darthamae's glance was sharp, and Aunt Ella looked down at the dresser doily. "I've been foolish," she said with sincere humility. "Leon was right from the beginning. I should have put on charity."

When she glanced up into the mirror again, Darthamae was looking at her harder than ever.

"Aunt Ella," she said, "I want to know what you're thinking."

"Why, Darthamae!" she protested sweetly. Outside her window there were b.u.t.terflies playing over the gra.s.s. The lightest of them was not as light as she was.

"I warn you, Aunt Ella," Darthamae said. She clenched her teeth.

Ralph moaned, in the parlor, and Darthamae went to him. His head was splitting, poor boy. Aunt Ella thought sadly, Poor Ralph, poor dear child. It was Ralph who'd gotten the worst of it, right from the start. It was all her fault, and no one else's. And the greatest of these is charity. Yes. Oh yes.

"Ralph's got a headache, Aunt Ella," Darthamae said. "What should I do?"

"It's going to be all right," she said. "There's aspirin in the medicine closet in the bathroom." On second thought she said, "Perhaps if you run cold water over his head it will help. Run it for three, four minutes." As soon as Darthamae was gone she got up, still light, despite the sharp pains in her knees, found her cane in the closet, and went as quickly as she could out onto the porch. Slowly, slowly (and yet quickly, for all that, borne aloft on the mighty wings of charity), she slipped around to the barn.

The white hat was right where Betty Jane Flood, poor dear, had left it, hanging on the chair. She made her way back to the corner of the house with it and stood there a moment, head c.o.c.ked craftily, listening. When she heard water running, she hurried as fast as she could to the Preacher's car and got herself up in behind the steering wheel. Merely by releasing the emergency brake she was able to back the car fifteen feet down the driveway. She got out and planted the white hat on the ground beside the driver's door. Then she went back in the house, listened at the door, then went in and sat down by the window, meek as a dove, to watch. She heard Darthamae helping Ralph to his bed.

At lunchtime Darthamae said, "Aren't you going to eat, Aunt Ella?"

"No thank you, dear," she said. (Outside there were swallows, light as feathers blowing.) Darthamae stood thinking, her forehead troubled. "You just keep looking out the window," she said.

"I'm praying," Aunt Ella said, smiling sweetly. "You run along and eat."

Darthamae said, "Are you praying for somebody or against?"

"Have charity, child," Aunt Ella said. "Do unto others ..."

She pretended to be satisfied.

It was midafternoon when Aunt Ella saw the Preacher walking down from the manse for his car. Darthamae was in the kitchen cleaning beet greens. Aunt Ella got up as quietly as possible and went out onto the porch and down, slowly, to the driveway. He hadn't yet seen her, though she made no effort at secretiveness, knowing the Lord watched over her. Six feet behind the car, on a span she'd backed over earlier, she smoothed the pebbles away and eased herself down onto her back. It wasn't as comfortable as she'd expected. She closed her eyes, and stretched one arm out awkwardly in a gesture oddly humble, like a broken wing. It seemed a long time before she heard his footsteps coming up the drive, the sound loud under her ear, far away, then closer and closer. Perhaps ten feet from where she lay, the footsteps stopped. She resisted the urge to peek. He'd be looking at the car, his heart beating slightly faster now-poor dear, poor dear!-remembering it wasn't where he'd parked it. Now he would have seen the hat. Now he came closer, his feet moving very slowly, his reeling wits knowing without any need of evidence that she was dead. He whispered, so close that she almost jumped, "My G.o.d." Then poor Darthamae was out on the porch, screaming in terror, and the Preacher was exclaiming, "I never saw her. She came out of nowhere. Call Dr. Coombs, quick." They went up on the porch and she waited until the door slammed, then opened her eyes. She couldn't see them or hear what was happening inside, and she could have kicked herself for forgetting to leave that blessed window open. Then she heard the door open again, and she snapped her eyes shut tight. It was Darthamae, running to her, weeping and bending over her. Aunt Ella opened her eyes and winked. Darthamae's face froze, first amazement, then outrage. "Aunt Ella!" she whispered. But by the very act of whispering she'd turned herself into an accomplice. Aunt Ella closed her eyes. "I called Leon," Darthamae whispered. "And we called Doc Coombs, too. And the sheriff. Oh, Aunt Ella, really!" Aunt Ella said nothing.

Then the Preacher was with her. Darthamae said, "Don't touch her! Wait for the doctor!"

"My G.o.d," the Preacher said.

Darthamae said, "What will we do with Betty Jane's hat?"

He said again, as though his voice were stuck, "My G.o.d."

"It was bad enough when she ran Aunt Ella off the road," Darthamae said, "but this."

"G.o.d," he said.

There was a long silence. Then Darthamae said, "Why don't we just hide her?" She began to speak more rapidly. "We could stuff her under some hay in the barn."

He moaned.

"The poor thing," Darthamae said. "Your wife, I mean. How will she ever live with it?" Suddenly she was laughing wildly and Aunt Ella opened her eyes for a moment. But he thought it was hysterics.

"You mustn't tell it was her," the Preacher said. "She's only a child."

"That's right, we've got to lie for her," Darthamae said eagerly. Again the laughing took her. She loved it all-sinfully. Poor child, G.o.d forgive her.

Then Aunt Ella heard the siren, far away, and almost the same instant another sound that she couldn't identify for a second. It came to her at last. The door banged shut. She thought, No, knowing the rest already. She opened her eyes. She saw them looking toward the porch, and she heard the crutches hurrying toward the steps. "Ralph, be careful!" Darthamae yelled. But it was too late. They listened to the racket of his fall. There's no satisfaction, Aunt Ella thought. She sighed.

Now the police car was turning into the yard. Half from weariness of heart, Aunt Ella went on lying where she was. She heard the Preacher explaining to the deputy, "I never knew she was there till I felt the b.u.mp."

At last Aunt Ella opened her eyes and, little by little, shaking from the exertion of it, sat up. Ralph, too, was sitting up, over by the steps. Up the hill toward the burned-down church she saw the Preacher's wife running between the tombstones in a white dress, coming down to see what was happening. They too had seen her by now. And now they saw that Aunt Ella was sitting up, dusting off her hands and the sleeves of her dress. The Preacher stared. After a second he came over to her. Behind where the deputy's car was parked, Leon's car was just turning in.

"How could you?" the Preacher whispered, astounded.

Then the deputy was looking at her, and Leon was beside him.

"Aunt Ella," Leon said. She had made him old before his time.

"What a childish thing to do," the Preacher whispered. He was sweating.

"Of such is the kingdom of heaven," she said.

"It's mean and spiteful, that's all there is to it," the Preacher said. He was pale as a ghost.

"Do onto others as you would have others do onto you," she said smugly, knowing it was smug and feeling delighted about it.

"Terrible is thy wrath, O Lord," Leon said.

"It wasn't wrath," she said. "I did it for his correction, out of pure charity. Bless him."

"I have seen Thy mercy, show me then Thy thunder, O Lord," said Leon.

"What's going on here," the Howard boy said.

Darthamae said, "Someone should help poor Ralph."

Ralph was looking sadly up the hill toward the graveyard.

"Cheer up," Leon said, "he's going to inherit the earth."

VLEMK.

THE BOX-PAINTER.

1.

There once was a man who made pictures on boxes. Snuff boxes, jewel boxes, match boxes, cigar boxes, whatever kinds of boxes people used in that country, for keeping their treasures in or giving as presents to friends and loved ones, the people would take their boxes to this man, who was called Vlemk the box-painter-or they'd buy one of the boxes the man had made-and he would paint pictures on them. Though he was not old and stooped, though old enough by several years to grow a moustache and a beard that reached halfway down his chest, he was a master artist, as box-painters go. He could paint a tiny picture of a grandfather's clock that was so accurate in its details that people sometimes thought, listening very closely, that they could make out the noise of its ticking. He painted flowers so precisely like real ones that one would swear that they were moving just perceptibly in the breeze, and swear that, pressing one's nose to the picture, one could detect a faint suggestion of rose smell, or lilac, or foxglove.

As is sometimes the way with extremely good artists, this Vlemk the box-painter was unfortunately not all he might be when it came to matters not pertaining to his art. When he was painting, up in his bright, sunlit studio that looked down over the houses and streets of the city, he was a model of industry and good sense. He kept his brushes, paints, glazes, and thinners as carefully and neatly as a fussy old widow keeps her dishes and spoons, and he worked with the deep concentration of a banker or lawyer studying his books in the hope of growing richer. But when his work was finished, whenever that might be, since sometimes he worked all night, sometimes all day, sometimes for an hour, sometimes for a week and a half without an hour out for rest-this Vlemk changed completely, so that people who had seen him at work would swear now that he was not the same person, surely not even that person's brother, but someone else entirely.

When the artist wasn't working, it was as if some kind of demon got into him. He would go to the tavern at the end of his street, where he talked very loudly and waved his arms wildly, knocking over beerpots and sometimes tipsy old men, and though many people liked him and were interested in his talk, since none of them had the knack of painting pictures as he did, sooner or later he was too much for even the most kindly and sympathetic, and they would call the police or throw him out into the alley by the collar of his shirt and the seat of his trousers. Sometimes he had dealings with unsavory characters, drunkards, pickpockets and pilferers, even a certain murderer who took his axe with him everywhere he went.

The artist was not proud of himself, needless to say. Often, sitting up in his studio high above the city, he would moan and clutch his head between his hands, saying, "Woe is me! Oh, what's to become of me?" But moaning was no solution. As soon as he'd finished his work for that day, or that week, as chance would have it, down he would go into the city again, and his fall to dissolution would be as shameful as before. "What a box I'm in!" he would cry, looking up from the gutter the next morning. It had long been his habit to think in terms of boxes, since boxes were his joy and occupation.

One morning when this happened-that is, as he was crying "What a box I'm in" and struggling to get himself up out of the gutter, where he was lying among bottles, old papers, and the remains of a cat-a carriage was pa.s.sing, driven by a uniformed man in a top hat. The driver was elegant-when his boots caught the sunlight they shone like polished onyx-and the carriage on which he sat was more elegant still, like a splendid box of black leather and polished golden studs. When the carriage was right alongside the poor artist, a voice cried out "Stop!" and at once the carriage stopped. A small hand parted the window curtains, and a pale white face looked out. "Driver," said the person in the carriage, "who is that unfortunate creature in the gutter?"

"That, I am sorry to say," said the driver, "is the famous box-painter Vlemk."

"Vlemk, you say?" said the person in the carriage. "Surely you're mistaken! I once visited his studio, and I'm certain I'd know him anywhere! That creature in the gutter is some miserable, pitiful wretch without a talent in the world!"

"I a.s.sure you, Princess," said the carriage driver sadly, "that the filthy thing you see in the gutter is Vlemk the box-painter."

In horror, Vlemk covered his face with his hands and arms, for now he recognized that the person in the carriage was indeed the Princess, soon to be Queen of the Kingdom, people said, since her mother had been dead for years and her father was declining. Vlemk was so ashamed to be seen by such a person in his present condition that he fervently wished himself dead.

"Shall I throw the poor devil a coin?" asked the driver. "I a.s.sure you he can use it, for if rumor be believed he squanders all he earns by his art on his life of dissolution."

"Heavens no!" said the Princess, parting the curtains more widely in order to get a closer look at Vlemk. "What earthly good would a coin do him? He'd spend it on further debauchery!" So saying, she closed the window curtains and ordered the driver to drive off.

"Heartless monster!" cried Vlemk, clumsily rising and staggering a few steps in the direction of the swiftly departing carriage. He was so angry he raised both fists to the sky and shook them.

But secretly, Vlemk did not blame her for her words. All she'd said was true, and if he was wise, he knew, he would thank her for her righteous severity. "Woe is the kingdom," he said to himself, "whose rulers are dismayed by every sniffle." Besides, when she'd parted the curtains wide, he'd gotten a very clear look at her face, and with the force of a knife in the back or an arrow in the chest it had struck him that the Princess was the most beautiful creature he'd ever set eyes on.

When he returned to his studio that day he found he was incapable of painting. His brushes had a malevolent will of their own, dabbing too deeply, as if angrily, into the paints, so that every stroke he made in the picture was slightly off its. .h.i.t and inefficient, like the work of an amateur, so that he had to wipe it off and start over. By midafternoon he understood that his case was hopeless. He'd lost the will to do perfect paintings of animals or flowers or rural landscapes, paintings of the kind that had made him famous. Indeed, he'd lost the will to paint at all. Carelessly, irritably, he put away his materials, hardly noticing that the brushes were less clean than usual, the paints not well capped, one bottle of thinner tipped sideways and dripping on the floor. "What a box I'm in!" he said, but dully, without feeling.

In the tavern he discovered that nothing the establishment had to offer was exactly what he wanted. The wine, he knew without tasting it, was bitter, the beer too full of froth, the brandy too sugary and thick. "What is it I want?" he thought, sitting with his mouth open, hands clasped in front of his chin, eyes rolled upward, staring without interest at the cracks in the old, sagging ceiling. All of the regulars of the tavern threw puzzled, slightly irritable glances in his direction, perplexed at his seeming so unlike himself. By this time, people grumbled, he should be singing, if not kicking up his heels or starting arguments. One might have thought they would be pleased, since Vlemk could be a nuisance when behaving in his normal way, but in general this was not the case. Even the laziest and most base of the regulars-not including three who were all in some sense artists themselves-were simple people who led complicated lives, and Vlemk's disruption of what little routine they could persuade themselves they kept was distressing.

"What is it I want?" Vlemk asked over and over, inaudibly, sitting by himself at his table by the window.

"Why doesn't he drink?" grumbled the regulars, or all except the three. "Why doesn't he do something?"

The three or, rather, four-the barmaid and three glum men who wore their hats low and went about armed-said nothing, hardly noticing. The flaxen-haired one, formerly a poet, was fast asleep with his eyes open. The one in the gla.s.ses, an ex-violinist, was picking the pocket of the laborer just behind him. The third one only stared, like a cat before a mousehole. He was the axe-murderer.

Secretly, of course, Vlemk had known from the beginning what it was that he wanted, and when he came to full awareness of what that something was, he was filled with such misery that he could no longer stay indoors. He rose without a word to anyone, not so much as a glance at the sullen, fat barmaid, and with his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his painter's frock, which in his misery he'd neglected to leave behind in the studio, he walked to the door and, after a moment's hesitation, out onto the street.

He walked quickly, like a man with some urgent purpose, though in fact he had nowhere in particular to go and nothing much in mind. If someone had asked of him the time of day, he would have had to look around to determine that it was evening, almost nightfall. He walked from street to street and from bridge to bridge in this dejected state until, to his surprise, as the last glow of sunset was fading from the clouds, he found himself standing at the gates of the royal palace.

The Princess, as it happened, was at just that moment returning from walking her greyhounds on the palace grounds. At sight of the box-painter, the greyhounds set up a terrific rumpus and jerked fiercely at their leashes in an attempt to get at him and scare him away, with the result that the Princess was drawn, w.i.l.l.y-nilly, to where Vlemk stood gazing in morosely at the palace door. When they reached the iron gates between Vlemk and themselves, the dogs leaped and snapped, dancing on their hind feet and lunging at the bars, all to so little avail that the painter hardly noticed. At last, at a word from their mistress, the dogs fell silent, or, rather, fell to whimpering and sniffing and running around in circles. The Princess, cautiously keeping well back lest Vlemk be some dangerous anarchist, leaned forward at the waist and, holding the leashes with one hand, shaded her eyes with the other, trying to make out whether she knew him. Suddenly she gave a start and cried, "Vlemk the box-painter!" Whether or not she had actually recognized him Vlemk could not tell. At very least, she had recognized his frock.

Vlemk sadly nodded. "Yes, Your Highness," he said, "it's Vlemk."

"For heaven's sake what are you doing here?" asked the Princess. "Surely you don't think we give hand-outs!"

"No," said Vlemk, "I have no reason to think that."

"What is it, then?" asked the Princess, a little more kindly.

For a long moment Vlemk said nothing, so sunk in misery that he could barely draw a breath. At last he pulled himself together and said: "I will tell you the truth, since then at least I will have it off my chest. It's not that I expect any good to come of it."

"Very well," said the Princess, and abruptly, as if at a premonition, dropped her gaze and went slightly pale.

"I have come," said Vlemk, "to ask for your hand in marriage." He was so abashed at having said the words, though he couldn't help saying them, that he wrung his hands and stared fixedly at the k.n.o.bs of his shoes.

To her credit, the Princess did not laugh. "That is an exceedingly odd request," she said, and glanced up at him, then away. "As a man who's had dealings with wealthy aristocrats, you must surely be aware that it's unusual for members of the royal family to marry box-painters."

Even the dogs seemed to notice that something was taking place. They abruptly stopped their antics and stood motionless, their heads raised crookedly, like the heads of jurors.

"Yes," said Vlemk, "I'm aware of that."

"No doubt you're also aware," the Princess continued, her voice slightly husky, as if her heart were beating too fast, "that I saw you this morning in the gutter with some bottles and papers and the remains of a cat." Now she too c.o.c.ked her head, studying him. Whether or not she was smiling Vlemk could not be sure in the enfolding darkness.

"Yes, I'm aware of that too," Vlemk said. The memory so abashed him that he was unable to say another word.

But as luck would have it, the Princess took over his argument for him. "I suppose you will say," she said, "that you are nevertheless an aristocrat, in your way, and worthy of any princess alive, since no one in the world is your equal at painting little boxes."

Poor wretched Vlemk could only nod and wring his hands and make his knuckles hurt. In the palace behind the Princess the windows were now all lighted-so many lighted windows it was like snow in the air. Above the highest tower, the moon was just breaking free of clouds.

"An interesting argument," the Princess said, though the argument was her own. She touched her forehead with the tips of three fingers and gave her head a queer, just perceptible jerk. "But I'm afraid I'm not persuaded. How can I know that, living as you do, you haven't lost all your former ability?"

At this, Vlemk's gift of speech rushed back. "Believe me," he said recklessly, "I could paint you a picture of your face so real it seems to speak!"