Martha Morton

“ He is no priest, he is Mad Martin. He cannot change; his blood still riots in him, calling for wine, for women. If I lie, burn me at the stake!’
“Mad Martin in the woods heard the angry voices of the people, the mocking gibes of the woman, and realized his degradation. He fled to the cabin, locked himself in, fell on his knees, and prayed for help. The chanting of priests, the cries of the people grew louder—their axes were breaking down the door. The poor sinner raised his arms to Heaven, with a cry, in which his battered, stricken soul took joyful flight. ”

“ Julie, with the boy in her arms, was sitting at the window watching the workingmen on the iron frame of a building opposite; they were knocking, boring, climbing in and out like monkeys; it was fascinating. She was conscious of her flannel wrapper. Floyd was always well dressed, well groomed; his glance was like a sharp whip. He took the boy from her and put him on the bed.
“The child is heavy, you must not accustom him to be carried about; he makes the house unbearable with his cries. It’s all right to be a good mother, but you are overdoing it; you forget you have a husband.” ”

“ He found Julie in a frenzy of fear, calling again and again, “Martin! Martin!” She stood like a white spirit, erect in the storm. The lightning rent the clouds; then the floods came down.
They carried her to the shelter of the chapel. The little building, centuries old, was originally a storehouse for contraband, a refuge for bandits who hid themselves from the gendarmes, among the wine barrels, in the caves beneath. ”

“ Floyd begged her to take off those ugly, depressing gray things, but she sat silent, antagonistic; it always ended in his dashing out, and spending the day at the club. But his anger never lasted. The pathetic figure, crouching in a big chair, those weary lustreless eyes, hurt him terribly; she had lost her beauty. What is the elusive thing we call beauty? It is not form, it is not color; it is something that pervades, like the perfume of a flower in fresh earth, or a haunting magic in the woods. In a woman it is a living spark that sets us aglow; that spark was dead in Julie ”

“ He lived over and over again the Romance of his youth, the agony, the passion, his first years with Julie, the rage of the murderer, the whole tragedy, but it didn’t hurt him now; Martin was dead, forgiven. We count the years we have lived to know how old we are—correct mathematics, but our age corresponds to other numbers. Heart swings are the rhythm of our seasons, recording in spiritual time, the real life.
The car stopped in Twelfth Street. Floyd jumped out, stood for a moment looking up at the imposing twenty-story office building which he had erected on the site of his old home. ”

“ A man must have money and lots of it to be anybody; it’s a hot game.”
He wiped his forehead.
Floyd wondered if money could buy his armchair in the club-window. He was sure it couldn’t, but he was a gentlemanly young fellow; he wouldn’t hurt the man’s feelings. Destiny had been more than kind to him. He wasn’t grateful; he took life’s favors as a matter of course. In fact, he never gave it any thought. When his father died, sorrow blunted the keen edge of existence; now after a year he was waking up. His heart’s desire was Julie Gonzola. He had no fear; it was the eve of fulfillment. ”

“ If I could be free of the horror that tears at me, the horror of—madness.”
The pastor spoke eagerly.
“Fight it, Martin, drive it out. It is an illusion, an evil thought that does not exist. Martin, your soul is in prison, beating its wings against the bars of your own obstinacy; let it soar.”
“I cannot. I am choked with wild impulses, driving me to distraction. I am mad! I tell you, mad!”
[207] “Martin! there is a madness which destroys, and a madness that reveals; such madness has been the salvation of the world. ”

“ I had to tell her about Ruth. She loves her husband with her whole soul—her eyes never leave him. They have a son, a big strong peasant lad. Mother, the artist is the most interesting man I have ever met; his hair is turning gray. He must have had a terrible struggle when he was young. I think he starved; he has deep lines in his face. I had to tear myself away. I love him, Mother, I love him! and I’m sure he loves me. When I left, he put his arms around me and kissed me; I felt his heart beating in big throbs.
“Martin’s heart-beats!”
She opened the package; Joseph laughed back at her. ”

“ The unearthly beauty of their divine types, fired the boy’s imagination, stimulated him like rich wine, tasted for the first time, taken again in long draughts until his senses reeled. The people fascinated him with their magnetism, their emotional sensuality, their worship of women, symbolized in the Blessed Virgin and Child; their passions—jealousy, hate, revenge, repentance. He roamed day after day through the streets, sat for hours in the churches listening to the chanting of the priests, with a pleasant sense of drowsiness, like the after effects of a narcotic. ”

“ He opened the door of the bedroom. Here he had brought his bride, here his boy was born, here he had watched Martin holding his wife in his arms. On the dressing-table was a faded rose; it fell to pieces in his hand. He went [124] up to his father’s workshop; the images took on life in the flicker of the candle light—the Negro, the Italian shoe boy, his mother clasping him in her arms, an unfinished bust of his father, Rip Van Winkle with his head smashed—he took it all in; a life picture, the background stretching out in the full sunlight of generations, an old landscape. ”

“ We think we live, but it is only a waking dream, and we are happy they let us dream; but dreams are not for you. Joseph, you must go out on the high road of Progress—and I—I must stay here with my grandfather.’ Then I fell into the depths of despair and cried, how I cried. ‘I won’t let you; it is a living death; you are young! young!’ Mother, I’ll never forget her face when she answered. ‘I look young, but my soul is old.’”
A sob choked Julie’s voice; herself at sixteen, with that “old soul.”
Floyd took the letter and read it rapidly to the finish. ”

“ His love had been ideal in those early wonderful days of his marriage. He reverenced his wife; he was afraid to repel her. He had heard of some men whose wives hated them for their lack of consideration. Julie laughed at his innocence. He often wondered if she appreciated being his first love; he couldn’t answer that now, after four years. He ceased trying to probe her soul; he worshipped her body.
In the physical intoxication of the next few months, he forgot all his plans for future activity. [108] Love can be a despot or a liberator; Floyd was in chains again. ”

“ The priest was in a frame of mind harmonizing with the beauty of approaching twilight. They sat outside the châlet. The pastor filled long glasses with the wine of the Canton, which expands the Soul. They sat there, looking into the Val Sinestra, until the sun scattered rubies and the moon threw down a silver veil.
They talked of the future of religion and the wave of unbelief sweeping over the world.
“When I meet a man like you,” said the priest, “I regret the loss to the Church. Protestantism was at best a frail child; it cannot survive without support. ”

“ The fact was, when Julie reached her room the usual revulsion of feeling set in. She undressed quickly, dropping her clothing in a heap on the floor, blew out the candle. There was a dark form below—waiting—she stood breathless, her hand on the knob of the door. Then—she turned the key, crept to the window, pushed the bolt. She was securely locked in—she slipped into bed.
This morning she looked very girlish in a sport suit; the short skirt grazing the tops of very high tan leather boots. A soft hat, pulled down over one eye, gave her rosy face a touch of diablerie. ”

“ There were two sides to Martin: a fiercely brutal realism, and a mysticism, instinctively concealed. As a boy, he would lie night after night, his eyes wide open; visions came and faded. It was always the same struggle with an unseen horror. He would awaken from a restless sleep, his face damp with tears. Those days he was very silent; his stepmother called them his sullen fits. As he grew older the visions vanished, but he had hours of deep abstraction, when reality slipped away from him. ”

“ The immigrants had an irresistible fascination. He watched them, listened to their unintelligible jargon. A dark-eyed Madonna with a shawl on her head, a child at her breast, was not strange to him. [213] He knew her: she was Julie’s sister. A bearded old man, carrying on his bent shoulders the tragedy of his race, looked at him with the eyes of Joseph Abravanel. A straight tall peasant with bundles, bewildered by the city, was Martin’s grandfather. ”

“ How often had they sat like that, opposite each other at a table set with fruit and wine, the long evening passing like a flash over the chess board which became symbolical of the spiritual struggle between them. The tenacity of that old man, who would not give up hope, even after the conversion of his daughter!
“You have won this time, but there is the next generation.”
When Julie was born, he was cheated again in this game for souls; but he would not give in, “God’s chosen people cannot die; they may lose the path, but they will find it again; they will come back in the third generation.” ”

“ Disentis—its crumbling piles of stone, monasteries of the seventh century, its stillness, its health-giving air, the wonderful healing waters, gushing from the earth into natural rock basins, hollowed out by Nature’s hand, the frugal fare, the rising at the first glimpse of dawn, the pervading sweetness of the bells, prayer, which had a new sanctity, as if nearer the Divine Fount—there he gained new spiritual inspiration, new physical strength—there during the summer months the Benedictine Friars welcome their brothers from all corners of the world. ”

“ Julie answered with a touch of seriousness.
“I am going to get him for you, if I can. Do you like him?”
Maud spoke slowly, weighing her words.
“Liking is too neutral for Martin Steele; it is either love or hate; I think I hate him.” She gave [68] a quick glance into the mirror as they went down to dinner.
The men were waiting in the parlor. Martin was ill at ease; he felt like a waiter in evening dress. Floyd wore it differently; he melted into it. Maud as the guest of honor was charming. All laughed heartily at her frank admissions, and keen enjoyment of the fruits so long forbidden. ”

“ Patriotism, that misunderstood word, with its medieval clashing of swords, its uniforms, its medals, has no relation to the Swiss adoration of the soil. He worships his valleys, his lakes, his waterfalls; they are living to him; he has a rage for the mountains; he leaves his country to seek wealth, but he rarely stays in the stranger’s land; nostalgia drives him home; he must get back to the heights or die. Martin understood later why his grandfather went mad, why his father was wordless, why his mother died young. ”

“ One night, a night like this in the woods where holiness dwelt, something stirred within him—a voice clear, beautiful, said wonderful things which gave his soul wings.”
“Yes! that happens sometimes, a voice from within,” said Martin.
“He left the band, made his way to the church and begged to be taken in. He was rarely gifted; the monks saw in him the white fervor of the saint. The Lord had changed the murderous rage of the robber into the divine madness of the fanatic. He went to Einsiedeln and there, it was said, heard the voice of God, who commanded him to become a monk. ”

“ When Joseph went from Rome to Vienna to visit the Gonzolas, he was in a state of mental unrest and indecision. The artist in him shrank from activity. He was very sensitive; he couldn’t bear pain, disappointment. The Church would be a shelter from the materialism of the world. It would be ideal to work for the poor. The garb of piety appealed to his imagination—a priest walking among the wretched, the persecuted, the unhappy, giving everything, his material wealth, himself, living a simple contemplative life. ”

“ Ruth sat beside him.
“I am dazzled,” said Joseph, “such lovely women, such jewels, such wealth.”
“We are not wealthy,” answered Ruth, “because it is a principle of the family to give away a large part of its income, and you will see that we live very simply; but tonight all this is in your honor. Our jewels, furs, laces have come down to us from generations back; our home and pictures can never be sold, unless the business goes under, and that will never happen.” ”

“ Julie, lying in her white bed, answered:
“His name will be Joseph Abravanel Gonzola Garrison.”
Floyd thought it too high-sounding for modern times—an American citizen couldn’t carry it, but Julie had her way.
After Father Cabello’s departure, she went seldom to the Cathedral and gradually ceased altogether.
“I’ve lived all my life under the tyranny of two religions. My boy must be free of that; when he is old enough he will choose for himself.” But she still read her grandfather’s little Hebrew book at night when she couldn’t sleep, or when she awoke terrified from the reality of her dreams. ”

“ Illness changes the character of people sometimes. He must be patient with her; but life had become very hard; the nights were spent in carousing. He didn’t know what to do with his days until Julie woke up—and he was only thirty.
He dressed and went down to his wife’s door—his Mecca; it was open. Hippolyte, with a strand of her hair over his shoulder, was bending down talking confidentially. Floyd abominated him; a man who could make a fortune out of the vanity of women was despicable; but most fortunes are directly or indirectly made out of the vanity of women. ”

“ Martin was no liar! He always told the brutal truth, even if it were against himself.
The night brought sanity, consolation. Julie was foolish, but not criminal. Her religion wouldn’t let her do anything wrong. She went to Confession the day before her marriage; then he wondered—what did she really believe? She was by creed a Catholic, but she taught her boy his prayers in Hebrew.
He went early to the club and waited for Martin, who was late as usual. He looked at his watch, and idly took up the morning paper. ”