Mary Heaton Vorse

“ Suddenly Tarleton stopped laughing; he thrust out his jaw at Allen menacingly, his face flushed to purple—to the color of the big mines—and a triangular patch of white on his forehead where the scar was gleamed out as if it had been greased.
"Talk!" he cried. "Who talks? What makes 'um come with me, then—they know me—what makes 'um come? They got eyes, 'ain't they—an' ears? They come o' their own free will, don't they? Oh, I know 'um. I don't put up no bluff with no girl. Let 'um stay home!" The storm had passed. His laughter boomed out again. "But they can't stay home—hey, Allen?—ho-ho-ho! ”

“ There is no peace for that old hate this side of death, and I know others more relentless than this. I have put a sure and sharp weapon in their hands and the sight of it has made them all come yapping for blood. What does he offer them, this poor Brother Agnello—poor Brother Lamb that shall so slake their ancient thirst for blood? Thirst for blood, Matteo, is sated by one thing—red blood sates it. Are Messer Gubbio di Grollo and his friends moved with pity, think you, as they sit even now, seeing what men they may summon to do their merciful work ”

“ There came, unbidden, to Marion's mind some scene of childhood, when on this same piazza they three, Don, Alice, and herself, had stood, conscience-stricken, before their mother. Don shifted restlessly on his feet, as if he were a small boy.
"How long, Alec," she asked, "have you been engaged?"
"It happened at Easter," he replied, "when I was at home. I wanted to tell you then."
"And they've kept this happiness from me all this time!... What," she asked them, "do you think that life holds for me but your happiness? As I sit alone for hours, of what do you suppose I'm dreaming? ”

“ Then, very quietly, Cara opened the door of her room, which led from her mother's, and went into it. One could hear her lock it behind her. Then silence again—and then the storm burst, the molten torrent Amy Vossema had been expecting.
He raged at her. That she could have let this go on under her eyes. That she had perhaps connived at it! That she, who had had the bringing up of Cara, could have let her grow up with such disgraceful possibilities in her heart!
"My God!" he foamed at her, "you soft, white-livered thing! Not fit to bear children for a man! ”

“ Andrew lay awake that night a long time thinking of her. It was a wonderful thing to contemplate the awakening of a human soul as untouched as hers. There was no greater adventure of the spirit that he could think of—an adventure, too, fraught with danger. A wrong step, and there would be destruction. Her words, "Thornton women give what they feel like giving," would have made a man of harder heart than Andrew swear to himself that she must not give too much; only a cad of the lowest type but would feel the need of protecting Althea from her own generosity. ”

“ There is not a single little family on the remote border of France whose eyes are not fixed on that long, narrow strip of blood-stained country, that tormented and tortured country of barb-wire, of mitrailleuses, of shell, of great guns and trenches. The state of soul of a nation which has subordinated the fruitful industries of life to the subject of killing and being killed is a strange thing. The spirit of a nation which sees its young manhood and its youth surge up to the country of death and then ebb back wounded and dead is strange and grave ”

“ I wonder have you lost Ellen in your big and fearsome city. Roger, I have times when I’m afraid, and I don’t know of what—just fear, as though the inner heart of me rang, ‘Something’s wrong, something’s wrong, something’s wrong,’ where my mind has nothing to go on. Roger, I wait for each one of your letters as if I was afraid it wouldn’t come, and as if it were to be the last. I’m [Pg 202] afraid. I don’t trust life as I did, and when I don’t trust life, I can’t find you; when I trust life, it’s as if when I shut my eyes I can put out my hand and touch you. ”

“ As she talked I had grown, not old, but mature. I judged her as a woman half a dozen years her senior might have judged her, and saw her as she was, pretty, artificial, cheap, a shallow child. I saw her as Paul might have seen her at the end of his disillusion. I had lost my Paul and gone through my fiery ordeal for this, just because I was a little girl, just because I was not old enough, just because I had been so young a girl that all older girls seemed wonderful to me. Poor Rose! Now I knew she had not depth enough to be evil. ”

“ Down below, at the foot of the sand hill, he could hear the lap-lapping of waves; out from behind the fog the frightened voices of vessels; below the Spinet he could hear two large vessels talking to each other. Spinet, Dead Man's Bar, and the Gurnet Reef Hollow gave warning by horn and bell, and all the time the world was full of whispering, as though the voices of storm conversed together; this was broken only by the insistent lisping of the waves on the beach. The surface of the sea had begun to heave uneasily, and far off David could hear the whistling of the buoy on the shoals. ”

“ Even I, who had been warned, could never tell which of Alison's two certainties were right—whether in very fact she was poisoning the life about her, or whether her clairvoyant instinct had perceived what no eyes could see. But one thing I knew: that if, under our unnatural tranquillity, we all suffered—each in his own way, even though Godfrey suffered innocently—it was Alison whose very life was torn in two.
Grief can kill and betrayal can put out the light of the spirit, but it is in conflict that the soul can find its most nameless torture. ”

“ I'm afraid of emptiness—empty purses, empty bellies. The last words my mother spoke were to me. She said, 'Deolda, fear nothing but emptiness—empty bellies, empty hearts' She left me something, too."
She went into the house and came back with the saffron shawl, its long fringe trailing on the floor, its red flowers venomous and lovely in the evening light.
"You've seen my mother," she said, "but you've seen her a poor old woman. She had everything in the world once. She gave it up for love. I've seen what love comes to. ”

“ Virginia asked her. "How do you like it yourself, Mrs. Pollock?"
The old lady clasped her hands together. "It's beautiful, Miss Vane. The months I lived here alone, and the years that they were so feeble and, do the best I could, neglect gaining on the house all the time, it seemed to me as if the light had gone out of it, as much as it could out of a house like this—a house that has a heart of gold. Now it's all lit again. It's a very sad thing. Miss Vane, to watch the light of life burning dimmer and dimmer in those you love. ”

“ I was now no more a young philosopher with the keen eyes of Mazzaleone. No longer did I move upon the outside, marveling over the turpitude of men. Now I knew why Gemma had sought her secret and shameful love, and why my lady sat with her black ballot in her hand, and why Simon the usurer had killed himself, for there were times when panic was in my breast and I felt I had best stick my own knife in my breast and not wait for who knows what death at the hands of Mazzaleone. I knew why men and women sat silent and brooding, for I sat that way also. ”

“ From the window she watched the fog swallow him up as he had watched Cara. She waited for his return at first as one deprived almost of breath by the terrible and painful beating of her heart. Full of the anguish of apprehension, she walked up and down her room and then listened, and yet no sound would come from the silent world except the fog-bell from the Point. Then that feeling of revolt that she had felt before stirred vaguely within her and grew in her heart. There flamed up in her the passionate revolt of a fine spirit that has stayed too long in bondage. ”

“ Roger, when first I saw the other Roger, and that was if any one denied you anything, you loved to beg for it. As long as a thing denies itself to you, you must strive for it, and knowing this of you, it is a weapon that I can never use. If I played you as if you were a trout in the stream, played you until I reeled you in to me, tired and gasping, I might have held you in my hand always. Whatever I shall do for you in life, I shall never do anything that shows my love for you more, in that I won’t traffic with your love, and keep it for myself by playing a game with you. ”

“ One went in by the kitchen door, not by the front door, at Dawes Hole. Tarleton knocked.
"What are you doing here?" Tessie cried. She was as stern as a sentencing judge.
"I—I—came— You don't understand—" he faltered. He had never asked a woman to marry him before—and meant it. "I—I—want to marry you, Tessie."
At that fury broke loose in her.
"Marry you!" she cried. "Marry you!"
"Tessie—don't—you understand?" He couldn't believe it. It had never occurred to him that he could not have any woman he wanted. He had never even had to pay a price before.
The spectacle of her anger inflamed him. ”

“ Don't keep me out of your lives. Don't try to spare me so much. While I'm still in the world—perhaps for so short a time—let me live in it; let me live my life with yours. Nothing can happen as bad as my unspoken fears. No anxiety that I share with you can be as great as my lonely anxiety when I see tears behind your smiles. Often you ask me why I seem sad. It's because I'm lonely. Often, when you say, 'Mother seems tired,' it's that I'm tired with the inaction that your thoughtfulness has forced on me. Old age at best is a lonely place, and sometimes an empty one ”

“ I embraced the world in my new joy. I tried to please exacting and difficult teachers. By instinct I felt that I must give to life that which love had suddenly given to me with such radiant fullness.
There was no room in me for any small emotion; everything but happiness and goodness was crowded out. The smallest act of life, tiresome lessons, the routine of housework, had now a meaning, since I was trying to be worthy of life.
I had discovered the meaning of life, and that was to give myself utterly. It must have been when I put that into words that I also put into words my love for Paul. ”

“ My world of romance was blue and gray, with the savage dunes glittering gold in the sun. Here life was intense. Danger lurked always under the horizon. Lights, like warning eyes, flashed at night, and through the drenching fog, bells on reefs talked to invisible ships. Old men who told tales of storm and strange, savage islands, of great catches of fish, of smuggling, visited my aunt.
Then, as if this were merely the background of a drama, Deolda Costa came to live with us in a prosaic enough fashion, as a "girl to help out." ”

“ There were few in Moglio who might not profit by the death of some one.
Changed was the temper of the town. They had been wallowing in life. Now from one day to another they were wallowing in the thought of death. Eye met eye questioningly, for each man hugged to his bosom the thought of old scores long due. In this temper they continued their rejoicing, and that pallid specter, assassination, rejoiced with them; and with assassination and revenge smirked along the love of gain, asking:
"If you must kill your man, why not kill him whose death will be most to your advantage?" ”