Eugenia

“ Approbation so sacred, joined to a prepossession so tender, soon conquered every timid difficulty in the ingenuous Eugenia; who in his well-earnt esteem, and grateful affection, received, at length, the recompence of every exerted virtue, and the solace of every past suffering. Melmond, in a companion delighting in all his favourite pursuits, and capable of joining even in his severer studies, found a charm to beguile from him all former regret, while reason and experience endeared his ultimate choice. Eugenia once loved, was loved for ever. ”

“ Those fresh summer dawns of Eugenia's childhood became among her dearest memories in after years. There were hours when, awaking, wide-eyed, before the house was astir, she would rise on her elbow and look out across the dripping lawn, where each dewdrop was charged with opalescent tints, to the western horizon, where the day broke in a cloud of gold. ”

“ At least, the real Eugenia would certainly have preferred to become a nun. For how in the world can a monk's cowl and living among seventy monks be a merit and salvation for any woman, even the most learned and pious? No, I still hold to my opinion that you are a smooth-faced beardless fellow of an impostor, whom I don't trust in the slightest! Besides, Eugenia has been proclaimed as deified and dwelling among the stars; her image stands where it was dedicated in the temple, and it will go hard enough with you if you persist in your slanderous assertion. ”

“ It was with a view to impressing Eugenia with the elegance of her friends, that Lloyd noticed every detail of the beautiful luncheon. She intended that Eugenia should hear about it all. Gay butterflies, so lifelike that one could not believe that human hands had made them, were poised everywhere, on the flowers, the candle-shades, the curtains. The menu cards were decorated with them, the fine hand-painted china bore swarms of them around their dainty rims, and even the ices were moulded to represent them. ”

“ She looked without sympathy or admiration at Eugenia's perfection of aspect. "To look like that, she must care for looks more than anything else. What can she know about any real human feeling?" Marise asked herself, with an intolerance she could not mitigate.
And yet as she continued to peer at Eugenia through that dark cloud of tragedy, it seemed to her that Eugenia showed signs of some real human emotion. As she gazed at her in the crude brilliance of the gaudy morning sun, she saw for the first time signs of years in Eugenia's exquisite small face. ”

“ Marise felt that the talk was on a plane different from hers, so that she did not get its meaning, although the words were clear enough. What was all that about Eugenia and Eugénie? She hadn't caught the point of that, at all.
Being only eighteen, she found her bewilderment rather comic, and began to laugh. "I still don't see that Eugenia isn't just as good as Eugénie!" she said, "I honestly don't know what you're talking about, Eugenia, but if you do, it's all right." ”

“ Eugenia and Livingstone accepted it as such. "Yes, I often feel as ancient as the stones," said Eugenia pensively.
Mr. Crittenden put in hastily, "Not on your life, it doesn't depress me! Why should it? You don't seem to realize, Miss Allen, what an immense difference there is between us! I never really took it in before myself—not until this visit to Rome. But it's immense! Enormous! Let me tell you about it. They're dead and we are alive! Alive!" ”

“ There was a glow in her face, but she did not reply. His eyes and the last, long ray of sunshine were upon her. He was revoking from an old October a dark-haired, clear-eyed girl amid the dahlias, and it seemed to him that Eugenia had shot up in a season like one of the stately flowers. As she stood in the grass-grown walk, her skirt half-filled with blossoms, her white hands lifting the thin folds above her ruffled petticoat, she appeared to be the vital apparition of the place—a harbinger of the vivid sunlight and the dark shadows of the passing of the year. ”

“ She said impulsively, "Eugenia, it's a stupidly conventional thing to say, but it's a pity you never married."
As Eugenia only looked at her, quietly, she ventured further, "You might really be happier, you know. There is a great deal of happiness in the right marriage." She had never said so much to Eugenia.
Eugenia let Marise's hand drop and with it, evidently, whatever intention she might have had of saying something difficult to express. Instead, she advanced with her fastidious, delicate note of irony, "I don't deny the happiness, if that sort of happiness is what one is after. ”

“ Eugenia was seated on a sofa, with her boy by her side, the loveliest little fellow I had ever beheld. His face was one often described, but rarely seen; it was shaded with dark curling ringlets, his mouth, eyes, and complexion had much of his mother, and, vanity whispered me, much more of myself. I took a seat on the sofa, and with the boy on my knee, and Eugenia by my side, held her hand, while she narrated the events of her life since the time of our separation. ”

“ Eugenia is at present safe; I see, now, distinctly, her heart is yet untouched. The readiness with which she met the subject, the openness with which she avows her esteem, the unembarrassed, though modest simplicity with which she speaks of his passion and his distress, all shew that her pity results from generosity, not from love. Had it been otherwise, with all her steadiness, all her philosophy, some agitation and anxiety would have betrayed her secret soul. ”

“ Eugenia then was greatly stirred, and with weeping addressed her two servants, whose names were Protus and Jacinctus, who had been instructed in Latin and in Greek, together with Eugenia, in worldly doctrine, and were eunuchi, that is to say, castrated, and were to their mistress true and faithful.
Then Eugenia took them apart in conversation, called them brethren, and besought that they would shear her hair after the fashion of men, and disguise her with garments as if she were a boy.
She desired to approach the Christians in the garb of a man, that she might not be betrayed. ”

“ The ingenuous Eugenia, incapable of suspecting such a design, was always the dupe to the request, from the opinion it was made in kindness, to save her from fatigue in the eternal sauntering of a public place; and, lost to all fear, in being lost to all hope, as to her own appearance, cheerfully accompanied her beautiful kinswoman, without conjecturing that, in a company whence the illiterate and vulgar were excluded, personal imperfections could excite pleasantry, or be a subject of satire. ”

“ And the sight of Eugenia’s face rewarded the old lady for the kindly effort she had made. It was not so much her beauty, though Lady Hereward loved to see a pretty face; it was her sweet, bright, yet wistful expression, that straightway touched the maternal chord in her visitor’s heart. Possibly, too, contradiction had something to do with the interest Eugenia at once awakened.
“Underbred, indeed!” she said to herself, contemptuously. “I wish I could teach some people I know, what good breeding really is. ”

“ Eugenia slipped back and for the hundredth time laid her hand gently on the young fellow’s brow. Somehow he must be quieted, comforted into thinking his mother near him. Then if he never returned to consciousness he would pass out of the world’s alarms with a sense of her presence.
Do you recall that Barbara Meade had discovered a wonderful, healing quality in the touch of Eugenia’s hands? It is true that a few people have this vital, health-giving quality in their hands, which is not true of others. ”

“ It pleased her, all, every bit of it, pleased and amused her; the dear children, Paul worshiping at the shrine of Eugenia's elegancies, Mark the absurd darling with that grotesque sword between his legs, Elly devouring her favorite sandwich with impassioned satisfaction and wondering about the Holy Ghost; Cousin Hetty, ageless, pungent, and savory as one of her herbs; Mr. Welles, the old tired darling come into his haven, loving Paul as he would his own grandson; Eugenia orchid-like against their apple-blossom rusticity; Marsh . ”

“ All the time Eugenia felt herself anything but well and happy. Her well-trained servitors must needs philosophize through heaven and earth and hell, only to be suddenly interrupted and forced to wander about in the country with her for hours together without being favoured with a single word. One day she was seized with the desire to make an excursion to a country-seat. She herself drove the carriage, and was in an amiable mood, for it was a bright spring day, and the air was full of balmy fragrance. The Hyacinths were delighted at her good humour. ”

“ What in thunder did Eugenia come to visit them for, anyhow? Their way of life must make her sick. Why did she bother? Oh, probably her old affection for Marise. They had been girls together, of course, and Marise had been good to her. Women thought more of those old-time relations than men. Well, he could stand Eugenia if she could stand them, he guessed. ”

“ Now he asked the question of Eugenia, and she smiled and was silent. Her eyes passed from the porch to the lawn and the walk and the immemorial gloom of the great cedars. Sunshine lay over all the warm, sleepy land, and sunshine lay across her white dress and across the senile droop of the general's mouth.
"For He maketh sore, and bindeth up," read the girl slowly. "He woundeth and His hands make whole." ”

“ Marise found Eugenia's fervent accent rather distasteful. Not that she minded her latest fad of finding married men so much more interesting subjects than the others. Eugenia's affairs never lasted more than a minute anyhow. But she wished Eugenia would pick out somebody with more brains than Mme. Vallery's husband, somebody not so well satisfied with himself. ”

“ Couldn't Eugenia see that she was bothering Marise!
"What do you suppose Freud would make out of such dreams?" asked Eugenia, evidently of Marsh.
"Why, it sounds simple enough to me," said Marsh, and Neale was obliged to hand it to him that the very sound of his voice had a living, real, genuine accent that was a relief after Eugenia. He didn't talk half-chewed and wholly undigested nonsense, the way Eugenia did. Neale had heard enough of his ideas to know that he didn't agree with a word the man said, but at least it was a vital and intelligent personality talking. ”

“ A sigh, not to be checked, acknowledged how little either reasoning or eloquence could subdue a wish to resemble such an appearance, when the young person, flinging herself suddenly upon her face, threw her white arms over her head, and sobbed aloud with violence.
Astonished, and deeply concerned, Eugenia internally said, alas! what a world is this! even beauty so exquisite, without waiting for age or change, may be thus miserable! ”

“ For her disquietude, however, she felt in a measure repaid when she saw that Eugenia was the most showy young lady present, and managed to keep about her a cross-eyed widower, a near-sighted-bachelor, a medical student of nineteen, a broken-down merchant, a lame officer, a spiritualist, and Stephen Grey! This completed the list of her admirers, if we except a gouty old man, who praised her dancing, and would perhaps have called her beautiful, but for his better half, who could see nothing agreeable or pleasing in the dashing belle. ”

“ All that busy day between the demands that business made on him, and once even in the midst of dictating to his typewriter, his thoughts kept turning to that far-away island in the Southern seas, where Tusitala's road gleams white under the tropic sun. He had met Robert Louis Stevenson once, the tale-teller of Eugenia's story, and he well understood the influence of that noble life over the old chiefs who called him "brother."
The words that Eugenia had quoted in her letter rang in his ears all day, every way he turned: "Fame dies and honours perish, but loving-kindness is immortal." ”

“ For no one of the American Red Cross girls really cared much for her. Of this Eugenia was convinced. Nona and Mildred both tried to be kind and Barbara behaved as well as she could, except on occasions when she felt especially antagonistic.
Once or twice Eugenia stumbled, not because there were difficulties in her way [106] but because she was thinking so deeply. What could be the trouble with her nature? As she was in a mood of severe truthfulness with herself she realized that no one had ever loved her a great deal in her entire life. ”

“ He won't even let me put red flannel in the soles of his shoes."
"Then he's not the man I thought him," said Eugenia as she rose. "Do you know, the baby is so pretty I stopped her carriage. If she were mine I shouldn't let her grow up."
Mrs. Rann glowed with pride, and in the depths of her shallow eyes Eugenia read a triumphant compassion. This little vulgar countrywoman, upon whom she looked so grandly down, was pitying her in her narrow heart.
She flushed and turned away.
"You have never had a child?" asked the little common voice. ”

“ Live, then, happy and tranquil, amiable Eugenia! Preserve carefully an existence so interesting and so necessary to all those with whom you live. Allow not your health to be injured, nor trouble your quiet with melancholy ideas. ”

“ Eugenia gathered herself together like one stunned. "I must go," she said breathlessly. "I must go."
Then she hesitated and stood before him, her hands on her bosom, a single spray of goldenrod clinging to her dress.
He folded his arms as he faced her.
"I have loved you all my life," he said.
She bowed her head; her face had gone white.
"I shall always love you," he went on. "You may as well know it. Men change, but I do not. I have never really loved anybody else. I have tried to love my family, but I never did. ”