Richling

“ Somebody was steadying him. He turned his eyes. Ah! who is this? A short, heavy, close-shaven man, with a woollen jacket thrown over one shoulder and its sleeves tied together in a knot under the other. He speaks in a low, kind tone:—
“Steady, Mr. Richling!”
Richling supported himself by a hand on the man’s arm, gazed in bewilderment at the gentle eyes that met his, and with a slow gesture of astonishment murmured, “Ristofalo!” and dropped his head.
The Italian had just entered the prison from another station-house. ”

“ One day, in this place, just as Richling turned from a delivery window to tear the envelope of a letter bearing the Milwaukee stamp, his attention was arrested by a man running by him toward Exchange alley, pale as death, and followed by a crowd that suddenly broke into a cry, a howl, a roar: “Hang him! Hang him!”
“Come!” said a small, strong man, seizing Richling’s arm and turning him in the common direction. If the word was lost on Richling’s defective hearing, not so the touch; for the speaker was Ristofalo. ”

“ I swore I couldn’t and wouldn’t live without her; but, you see, this is the fifteenth year that I have had to do it.”
“I should think it would have unmanned you for life,” said Richling.
“It made a man of me! I’ve never felt young a day since, and yet I’ve never seemed to grow a day older. It brought me all at once to my full manhood. I have never consciously disputed God’s arrangements since. The man who does is only a wayward child.”
“It’s true,” said Richling, with an air of confession, “it’s true;” and they fell into silence.
Presently Richling looked around the room. ”

“ Richling, gather fagots for pastime if you like, though it’s poor fun; but don’t think that’s your mission! Don’t be a fagot-gatherer! What are you smiling at?”
“Your good opinion of me,” answered Richling. “Doctor, I don’t believe I’m fit for anything but a fagot-gatherer. But I’m willing to try.”
“Oh, bah!” The Doctor admired such humility as little as it deserved. “Richling, reduce the number of helpless orphans! Dig out the old roots of calamity! A spoon is not what you want; you want a mattock. Reduce crime and vice! Reduce squalor! Reduce the poor man’s death-rate! ”

“ There were not many men whom he could even propose to haunt. He had been to all of them. Dr. Sevier was not one. “Not to-day,” said Richling.
“It all depends on the way it’s done,” he said to himself; “it needn’t degrade a man if it’s done the right way.” It was only by such philosophy he had done it at all. Ristofalo he could have haunted without effort; but Ristofalo was not to be found. Richling tramped in vain. It may be that all plans were of equal merit just then. The summers of New Orleans in those times were, as to commerce, an utter torpor, and the autumn reawakening was very tardy. ”

“ The Doctor was still again, and Richling only indicated his wish to hear more by shifting himself on his elbow.
“Do you remember, Richling, when the girl you had been bowing down to and worshipping, all at once, in a single wedding day, was transformed into your adorer?”
“Yes, indeed,” responded the convalescent, with [Pg 140] beaming face. “Wasn’t it wonderful? I couldn’t credit my senses. But how did you—was it the same”—
“It’s the same, Richling, with every man who has really secured a woman’s heart with her hand. ”

“ Richling raised his thin hand, and said pleasantly:—
“It’s no use. You can’t understand; it wouldn’t be possible to explain; for you simply don’t know Mary.”
“But there are some things I do know. Just think; she’s with her mother where she is. Imagine her falling ill here,—as you’ve told me she used to do,—and you with that bakery on your hands.”
Richling looked grave.
“Oh no,” continued the little man. “You’ve been so [Pg 354] brave and patient, you and your wife, both,—do be so a little bit longer! Live close; save your money; go on rising in value in your business ”

“ Many thoughts ran through Richling’s mind in the ensuing silence. His eyes were on the floor. Visions of parting; of the great emptiness that would be left behind; the pangs and yearnings that must follow,—crowded one upon another. One torturing realization kept ever in the front,—that the Doctor had a well-earned right to advise, and that, if his advice was to be rejected, one must show good and sufficient cause for rejecting it, both in present resources and in expectations. ”

“ Face and vesture alike revealed to the sharp eye of the Italian the woe underneath. “He has a wife,” thought Ristofalo.
Richling looked up with a smile. “How can you be so sure you will make, and not lose?”
“I never fail.” There was not the least shade of boasting in the man’s manner. Richling handed out his dollar. ”

“ Why, Richling, it’s the discontent makes that.”
“Oh, no! The discontent makes me long to expand. I never had so much ambition before. But what can I do here? Why, Doctor, I ought to be—I might be”—
The physician laid a hand on the young man’s shoulder.
“Stop, Richling. Drop those phrases and give us a healthy ‘I am,’ and ‘I must,’ and ‘I will.’ Don’t—don’t be like so many! You’re not of the many. Richling, in the first illness in which I ever attended your wife, she watched her chance and asked me privately—implored me—not to let her die, for your sake. ”

“ She failed in her effort to laugh. “Ah! ye’re sly!” She changed her attitude and drew a breath.
“No,” said Richling, “no, honestly. I should feel that you deserved better at this world’s hands than that, and that the world deserved better of you. I find two people don’t make a world, Mrs. Riley, though often they think they do. They certainly don’t when one is gone.” ”

“ Doctor,” continued Richling, smiling apologetically as his friend confronted him, “you know, as you say, better than any one else, all that Mary and I have gone through—nearly all—and how we’ve gone through it. Now, if my life should end here shortly, what would the whole thing mean? It would mean nothing. Doctor; it would be meaningless. No, sir; this isn’t the end. Mary and I”—his voice trembled an instant and then was firm again—“are designed for a long life. I argue from the simple fitness of things,—this is not the end.” ”

“ Richling, in the self-occupation of a lover, forgot what pains he might be inflicting. But the Doctor did not wince.
“Yes,” said the physician, “of course you wouldn’t want the separation to be painless; and it promises a reward, you know.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Richling, with an exultant smile and motion of the head, and then dropped his eyes in meditation. The Doctor looked at him steadily.
“Richling, you’ve gathered some terribly hard experiences. But hard experiences are often the foundation-stones of a successful life. You can make them all profitable. ”

“ Richling bent forward with the frown of defective hearing, and the physician raised his voice:—
“Or a cart-wheel—or a coat?”
“I can make a living,” rejoined the other, with a needlessly resentful-heroic manner, that was lost, or seemed to be, on the physician.
“Richling,”—the Doctor suddenly faced around and fixed a kindly severe glance on him,—“why didn’t you bring letters?”
“Why,”—the young man stopped, looked at his feet, and distinctly blushed. “I think,” he stammered—“it seems to me”—he looked up with a faltering eye—“don’t you think—I think a man ought to be able to recommend himself.” ”

“ See, now,”—he looked up with a gentle smile,—“from what a distance he brought our two hearts together. Why, Richling, the man that can make the rich and poor love each other will make the world happier than it has ever been since man fell!”
“Go on,” whispered Richling.
“No,” said the Doctor. ”

“ Richling counted it into his hand. He rolled it up and stuffed it into his portemonnaie.
“You like to part with your hard earnings, do you, Richling?”
“Earnings can’t be hard,” was the reply; “it’s borrowings that are hard.”
The Doctor assented.
“And, of course,” said Richling, “I enjoy paying old debts.” He stood and leaned his head in his hand with his elbow on the mantel. “But, even aside from that, I’m happy.”
“I see you are!” remarked the physician, emphatically, catching the arms of his chair and drawing his feet closer in. “You’ve been smiling worse than a boy with a love-letter.” ”

“ Don’t repeat my error!”
“Oh, but you haven’t missed it!” cried Richling.
“Yes, but I have,” said the Doctor. “Here I am, telling you to let your philanthropy be cold-blooded; why, I’ve always been hot-blooded.”
“I like the hot best,” said Richling, quickly.
“You ought to hate it,” replied his friend. “It’s been the root of all your troubles. Richling, God Almighty is unimpassioned. If he wasn’t he’d be weak. You remember Young’s line: ‘A God all mercy is a God unjust.’ The time has come when beneficence, to be real, must operate scientifically, not emotionally. Emotion is good ”

“ A wave of his hand indicated the whole personnel of the bread business.
“I would try not to mind their savageness, Richling,” said the little preacher, slowly. “The best of us are only savages hid under a harness. If we’re not, we’ve somehow made a loss.” Richling looked at him with amused astonishment, but he persisted. “I’m in earnest! We’ve had something refined out of us that we shouldn’t have parted with. Now, there’s Mrs. Reisen. I like her. She’s a good woman. If the savage can stand you, why can’t you stand the savage?” ”

“ The young man bowed with injured dignity and responded:—
“All a-ight, seh.”
He overtook Richling just outside the street entrance. Richling had halted there, bereft of intention, almost of outward sense, and choking with bitterness. It seemed to him as if in an instant all his misfortunes, disappointments, [Pg 96] and humiliations, that never before had seemed so many or so great, had been gathered up into the knowledge of that hard man upstairs, and, with one unmerciful downward wrench, had received his seal of approval. ”

“ Send for Mary; and tell her I advised it.” He turned quickly away to his desk, for Richling’s eyes had filled with tears; but turned again and rose as Richling rose. They joined hands.
“Yes, Richling, send for her. It’s the right thing to do—if you will not do the other. You know I want you to be happy.”
“Doctor, one word. In your opinion is there going to be war?” ”

“ When Richling went out the next morning the whole city was in an ecstasy of rage and terror. Thousands had gathered what they could in their hands, and were flying by every avenue of escape. Thousands ran hither and thither, not knowing where or how to fly. ”

“ Richling started away, but halted as the Doctor spoke again, rising from his seat and shaking out his legs.
“He’s not suffering any hardship. He’s shrewd, you know,—has made arrangements with the keeper by which he secures very comfortable quarters. The star-chamber, I think they call the room he is in. He’ll suffer very little restraint. Good-day!”
He turned, as Richling left, to get his own hat and gloves. “Yes,” he thought, as he passed slowly downstairs to his carriage, “I have erred.” He was not only teaching, he was learning. To fight evil was not enough. ”

“ He was the only one in New Orleans who knew—whatever some others may have suspected—that Richling’s heart was on the other side. Had Richling’s bodily strength remained, so that he could have been a possible factor, however small, in the strife, it is hard to say whether they could have been together day by day and night by night, as they came to be when the Doctor took the failing man into his own home, and have lived in amity, as they did. ”

“ Richling looked, but said nothing; and his friend hoped the word had taken effect. But Richling was too deeply bitten to be cured by one or two good sayings. After a moment he said:—
“I used to wonder to see nearly everybody struggling [Pg 315] to be rich, but I don’t now. I don’t justify it, but I understand it. It’s flight from oblivion. It’s the natural longing to be seen and felt.”
“Why isn’t it enough to be felt?” asked the other. “Here, you make bread and sell it. A thousand people eat it from your hand every day. ”

“ Richling looked down askance, pushed his fingers through his hair perplexedly, drew a deep breath, lifted his eyes to the Doctor’s again, smiled incredulously, and rubbed his brow.
“You don’t see it?” asked the physician, in a tone of surprise.
“O Doctor,”—throwing up a despairing hand,—“we’re miles apart. I don’t see how any work could be nobler. It looks to me”— But Dr. Sevier interrupted.
“—From an emotional stand-point, Richling. Richling,”—he changed his attitude again,—“if you want to be a philanthropist, be cold-blooded.” ”

“ As he was driving up at the sidewalk’s edge before his patient’s door, the Richlings came out of theirs, the husband talking with animation, and the wife, all sunshine, skipping up to his side, and taking his arm with both hands, and attending eagerly to his words.
“Heels!” muttered the Doctor to himself, for the sound of Mrs. Richling’s gaiters betrayed that fact. Heels were an innovation still new enough to rouse the resentment of masculine conservatism. ”

“ Richling bit his lip, but went on:—
“We can bear anything on earth together; but we have sworn to stay together through better and worse”—
“Oh, pf-f-f-f!” said the doctor, closing his eyes and swinging his head away again.
“—And we’re going to do it,” concluded Richling.
“But you can’t do it!” cried the Doctor, so loudly that Narcisse stood up on the rungs of his stool and peered.
“We can’t separate.”
Dr. Sevier smote the desk and sprang to his feet:—
“Sir, you’ve got to do it! If you continue in this way, you’ll die. You’ll die, Mr. Richling—both of you! You’ll die! ”

“ His tone was full of cheer, but it was also so motherly and the touch so gentle with which he put back the sick man’s locks—as if they had been a lad’s—that Richling turned away his face with chagrin.
“Come!” said the Doctor, more sturdily, laying his hand on the patient’s shoulder. “You’ll not lie here more than a day or two. Before you know it summer will be gone, and you’ll be sending for Mary.”
Richling turned again, put out a parting hand, and smiled with new courage.
[Pg 345]
CHAPTER XLVII. NOW I LAY ME—
Time may drag slowly, but it never drags backward. ”