Part 14

She had never been one to admire nature, had the old lady, but one thing she did know: she knew people and she knew life. Berenice was all right, a very fine girl for all her romantic thoughts, but Barry worried her occasionally. He was so intense about his career of writing. And she felt in her heart that if was not going to be a success. One knew, somehow. For instance this: she could tell whether or not a novice was going to be a great pianist, because she could see him as a master, if he were ever to arrive; his power, his aloofness, his concentration. She could see a merchant. She supposed it was a gift, just feeling what people were.

And her son Barry below--she could not see him. And she was n't going to tell him, either. Men were queer. They bore grudges, even to their mothers. It was better to let him fight himself out, and be conquered, drop; and then pick himself up, and think it over, and go to something else, with a pang and more wisdom. And month by month the disappointment would pass, until the ramping of his early days was no more to him than a quaint gesture. And years later he would meet some great author for a moment, and be very courteous, a little shy with him. But he would never tell him of the struggle on his own account, never mention a word--ah, she knew, she knew!

Barry would be all right. Only--only he must be broken. All humans must be broken, as Mr. Valance, her husband, had said horses are. And some horses are great race-horses, and some are hacks, and some hunters, and some just simply for use. But all have to be broken. And they are nearly all kind, nearly all good, as human beings are. For nearly all men and women are good, the old lady thought. One had to know their hearts,--their appearance, their gestures meant nothing,--and their hearts ought to have a chance to grow. And then they would all be good. Those who were n't had had the growth of their hearts stunted somehow. And they were n't to be hated, but pitied, poor things.

If any one, any young person, were to know what her thoughts were--the old lady smiled--she would say she had known no trouble in life, was shallow, did not understand the tragedy of things.

Well, she had had her share of life; her troubles as well as the rest of them. She had been a very sensitive girl. When she married Mr. Valance, her husband, she had hardly known him,--for such was the custom in her day, that he should satisfy her parents of his affection rather than herself,--and when the day came to leave her father and mother and her four brothers and her sisters, to leave the house she had known since she was born, to leave her own virginal room, and go away with a strange, terrifying, fascinating man--why, it was like jumping into the sea without knowing how to swim. In those days young girls did not know, were scared. And yet everything had been all right. She loved Mr. Valance, her husband. No two could ever have been closer than she and he. And she smiled at the terror of her leaving the home.

And before Barry was born--oh, the ghastly nights, the ghastly, ghastly nights, of lying awake and fearing, fearing, and the hideous unimaginable dreams! And the birth itself, the surge of pain like some cruel, driving knife, and strength ebbing in a fast flood! And came kind unconsciousness, and when she woke there was a sort of white peace in her, and the little dark-haired boy, by some beneficent magic, was on the nurse's broad lap. And the strange miracle of how she had forgotten all the pain so soon ... how little it seemed, how natural! And how ready she would have been again. A little daughter, she had thought--how nice it would be! But it was n't to be.

And when Mr. Valance, her husband, had died, for her had come, she thought, the end of the world. Yet now all she could remember were the peace and trust in his quiet face, when all had gone. And into the room where she was alone with him there came the quiet message that all was well. And the hearts of people were so warm. The doctor himself, who had seen so many die one would have thought he would have become callous, was so unaffectedly kind. Even people one had thought were enemies--or not enemies but just careless of one--showed a warmth, an understanding.

And she had thought it impossible for her ever to be on the world alone; but somewhence strength had come to her, and poise; and all the fears she had when Mr. Valance, her husband, was alive, were dead now, she a widow. Lonely and down in grief at times, but afraid never!

And she thought to herself, with a queer little smile, of the times when in the dark of the night, by the eerie Long Island waters, she had gone out, crying in a little misery, praying, wishing that Mr. Valance, her husband, would appear to her, that she might once more hear the beloved voice, sense the big dignity, perhaps feel the kindly hand upon her shoulder. But she waited in vain. Nothing came to her cries, her prayers, her wishes. But when she came in again, she felt she had emptied her heart of longing and loneliness, and all the familiar furnishings of her rooms spoke to her tactfully and friendly.

She smiled, because now she recognized--however she did it she did not know--that what she wanted could not possibly be granted. Just for her alone an exception could not be made against the seemingly cruel, tremendously wise law that the dead should be silent. Everything was so wise, so ordered. And if one were to know exactly, the merchant would leave his shop, the seamstress her broidery, the workman his lathe. So it was kept a curtain of mystery, with a little hedge of terror before it.

All was well. Life and death, all in good hands.

She had often thought to herself, sitting there, as an old person might, that things did not seem as well as they were in her young days. But on second thoughts she discovered they were just the same. Life was a constant, as Mr. Valance, her husband used to say of things. Oftentimes while she sat in a corner and heard young people talk, she was amused, for they seemed to think she knew nothing of modern life. And life could not be modern or ancient. Life was a constant, as Mr. Valance, her husband, used to say. They had only manufactured new terms, discovered new angles. She smiled as she thought of their talks of psychoanalysis; of how one was very complex; and how one must get rid of obsessions by discovering them and talking about them to a specialist. One did the same in her day. One called the obsessions troubles, and on one's knees one poured one's heart out to God. And their talk of psychic things--why, when she was a grown woman, did n't they have the queer Eddys in Vermont, and that strange Russian woman, Madame Blavatsky, and Home, the medium, who floated through a window, feet first! And she was sure that when she was young there was just as intricate card games as bridge. And their talk of Socialism and man's rights! Did they forget that Lincoln freed the slaves? Ah, the young!

She remembered a man saying--an old man--that what was wrong with the new generation was this: they left nothing to God. They wanted to do everything their own way. Fifty years ago, he said, every one was cognizant of God.

But were they? pondered the old lady. Yes, they went to church. But did n't they go just because one went, as nowadays one goes to the movies? A habit. And did the rounded sentences of the ministers mean anything to the young? No. And the hymns--they were just melodies. One sang them, as young boys sang college songs. It was only when one was grown, man or woman tall, and the great wolves of the world harried one, harried until one could sense their white teeth, their red slavering mouths, and there was a blank wall and no escape--it was only then one felt the Immense Hand. And rarely afterward did one speak of it. It seemed like a strange secret order, being initiated to God. She was sure that it was like that to-day, as it was fifty years ago, as it must ever have been, as it must ever be.

Looking up from her sewing an instant, she saw Berenice coming toward the house. It must be later than she thought. It must be lunch-time. They must make Barry, poor boy, stop now. Brain work was so fatiguing and he should n't overdo it.

She paused for a breath, watching the brown head, the apple-green dress. She knew the girl's secret, though Berenice had never said anything, hinted at all about a baby. But the little exalted look in the eyes--

"I must say a prayer to-night," thought the old lady.

He got up from the desk. No! it was no use. Nothing would come to-day. Another fruitless morning. If he could only find the trick those fellows had!

Yes, but they all had something to write about, and he had nothing: this wretched urban setting, this calm, uninteresting sound. And he knew nobody. There was no encouragement, no inspiration. His mother, dear old lady--she knew nothing, could tell him nothing. And his wife--she was a dear girl, and he loved her, but-- Oh, there was nothing to write about; no drama; no people of drama.

WISDOM BUILDETH HER HOUSE

I

Whilst her great train was picking its way carefully from the mountain-tops of Abyssinia, eight thousand treacherous feet of height, to the littoral of the Red Sea, the slim brown queen had experienced only impatience. In the cool quietness of her mountain home it had seemed the most natural thing in the world to arise and visit the young king of the Jews. On every step of the long journey downhill it had seemed natural. In her own country it seemed right she should do as she had chosen. But now they had left Abyssinia, left the great tropical forests with the gigantic candelabra trees, left the arid cactus-covered plains, left the pleasant green valleys where water trilled and the boxwood trees and wild roses and water cress grew, and had come to arid Ailet by the Red Sea. And here were great stretches of sand and mimosa, here half-naked, cunning black men, here a heat like a pall, here the brooding mystery of Egypt, that knows all things and is silent to questioning.

A different world, and in the different atmosphere there came a faltering, a waver into the heart of Balkis. Was she a fool? For two miles her royal train stretched. First, the fighting men in their short white robes, graceful, powerful as cats; then the line of laden camels with tinkling bells; then the great black elephants with their gleaming black skin, their gleaming white tusks, their painted trappings; then the litters of her women; then her own litter; a welter of attendants, bearing the provisions of the journey and the present she was bringing to Solomon, the young king of the Jews: spices; and gold of Ophir; and large diamonds from the Abyssinian mines; apes--great red-faced baboons that had the strength of ten men, and delicate blue monkeys, pretty as birds; and peacocks that outdid precious stones in the shimmer of their colors; and tusks of ivory, large as the branches of great trees.... Her heart wavered, and for an instant it occurred to her in panic to go back. But if she returned now, she would be dissatisfied all her life, and grow inward, and become maybe hard as a stone, and that was against nature, for all things grow outward, as a tree grows outward, to fill up the empty spaces of Death....

"No! no! I shall go on."

Up in the cool mountains decision had seemed so natural, action so easy. But below in humid Egypt subtleties of thought seemed native to the weak Nilotic breeze, and she could see herself as though she were another woman. She could see her orphaned childhood, when the care of all her counselors was to have her gracious and kind, and sweet as a small bird's song. They had instructed her that queens are not made by crowns, but by graciousness and strength and courtesy, so that any beholder might know she was a queen were she dressed in the garments of her humblest slave. And she had grown older into young maidenhood, and wise old heads had helped her govern and take care of her wild mountain folk, and came a few years more and she was twenty-two, and the counselors were too old to counsel, being either querulous old men or dotards, living in forgotten days, and Balkis herself had to rule, being queen. To be queen alone would have been simple.

But being queen, she was lonely, and being gracious and just, she was wise, and being wise, questions arose in her like a spring of well water. Thought rose like a hawk and swept in widening gyres, but arrived nowhere. Thought and emotion were with her in the red Afric dawn. Thought and emotion were with her like the flickering lightning and terrible thunder of the Abyssinian hills. Thought and emotion came with blue mountainy twilight. And there was none to share them. None to ask. None to satisfy. Being a queen, there was none she might consort with but kings and queens, and the kings of the states about her were shrewd political men, who could not understand what a young girl felt, and her young womanhood quivering like the jessamy bough.... Their eyes would be on the riches of Ethiopia; so they were out.... And the queens of Africa, outside herself, were not queens, but tribal chieftainesses, half priestess and half prostitute, Amazonian, untutored.... She could not talk to them.

And so she had decided there was nothing for her to do but to govern justly, to grow old gracefully, to weep a little in private, to find it hard to go asleep of nights, to look forward to death as a sentry awaits the dawn, until a swart Egyptian trader had brought word of the new king of the Jews, now David was gone. A boy he was, they said, a strange dreaming boy, with none of his father's delight in war, and with a gift of strange inspired wisdom. She was told the story of two women, that were harlots, and how they each claimed a certain child as theirs, and of Solomon's judgment.

"And how old is the young king of the Jews?" Sheba asked.

"Twenty-three or twenty-four."

"A year or so older than I."

And she was told how Hiram, King of Tyre, that shrewd man, was a friend to the young prince, and how the arrogant Pharaoh of Egypt conceived it worth his while to make a treaty with him.

"And is he married?"

"No, Sheba, he is not married," the trader vouched....

II

The girl in her said: "Go back. They will think you are seeking love. They will think that with your white teeth, your sloe-black eyes, your color of fine bronze, your body, lithe and sleek and graceful as a cat's, you want love from the king of the Jews." And all her face flushed at that thought, and she debated whether she should send for the captain general of the fighting men and tell him to face his troops about and return to her Ethiopia. But the queen in her rose and said: "What care I what they say? Does Sheba need the love of any lowland king, or plead for alliance? Sheba is Sheba, and what Sheba does is Sheba's business." And the woman of her brooded softly: "I will go on. Somewhere there is an answer to all the questions, and if he does n't know the answer, perhaps he can help me to find them."

"And perhaps he has questions of his own," she said, "and I can help him answer those." A sad boyhood, she had heard his was, with his father David droning psalms in his latter days, busy at his prayers as a potter at his lathe, calling for mercy for his own soul.... And his mother, the queen, who had once been wife to Uriah the Hittite, a strange, mad old woman who walked about the palace, gibbering to herself, her face and fingers twisting, all the white beauty that had dazzled David upon the roof of the king's house turned now to an awesome gray rugosity.... A house of fear, Sheba thought, a house of silence, and she understood how Solomon could have become so wise, for wisdom comes with the quiet tongue....

Wisdom he had, according to all reporters, but the wisdom she had heard about was wisdom of the head and of the body. Had he wisdom of the heart? Did he understand why one was now quiet as a well, now turbulent as the sea? Did he understand why peace should come in a soft blue garment, and suddenly irritation rise in angry red? Did he understand what it was that dragged at the heart so, pulling it, it seemed, toward the furtherest star? And could he resolve her what she was to do with herself? Govern she must and govern wisely, but outside of that was she always to be so lonely--she who was so young and strong and beautiful? The slave girl with the fatherless baby had more than she, the queen. The housewife grinding the family corn. Each could escape into some one else, had a refuge--all but Sheba, the queen....

"I must go on."

And so her great and gorgeous train went on through the desert, crunch of camels' pads, shuffle of marching men, thud of lumbering elephants, screaming of peacocks, chattering of apes.... They passed the shimmering sands, and came to the black high rocks. They passed sluggish Nile, and came to the roaring cataracts. They came to the city of hawks and the city of Venus and the city of sacred crocodiles. They came to Thebes with its gigantic figures, each of a single stone. They came into the desert again, steering at night by the stars as mariners do. They came to the great Lake Moeris, which the Egyptians control by locks. They came to Memphis. They passed the giant labyrinth. They passed the three great pyramids. They passed the Sphinx. They came to the Great Delta. They crossed to Ais. They came to Joppa. They wended toward Jerusalem in the cool of the dawn....

III

She was in no wise impressed, somehow, by his ceremonial officers. They lacked dignity and were familiar. Nor did Solomon's great captains please her. They were not fighters; they were strategists. They played with companies as the Persians played chess with pawns. Her own men were her ideal of soldiers, copper-colored, muscled like panthers; they would crash into an opposing army like their native lightning, or they would die doggedly, their backs to the wall, their heads broken, the blood streaming into their eyes.... Nor did all the magnificence of the king's house please her.... There was too much, too quickly acquired, and jumbled, no composition. The Egyptians had more magnificent things, and grouped them better. Her eyes flickered from the hall to the pale young king on his throne. Beside him, standing, was Nathan, the principal officer, and the king's friend, a great frame of a man, fanatical. And there was silence.

"I am Balkis, Queen of Sheba," she said and threw back her veil. Solomon cast an uneasy glance at the prophet by his side.

"She is come to prove you with hard questions," Nathan spoke.

For an instant Balkis all but laughed. Behind her stood her fighting men, in exact ranks, rather contemptuous. Around the hall the men of Judah and Israel fluttered. Winked at, nudged one another. "From Abyssinia she comes, to ask him questions. See what a king we have! A great people, we!" It was so like a showman with a marvel to exhibit! "Ask him, ask him anything you like. Go on. Ask him." The cadaverous prophet! The white, young king. A swift stab of pathos went into Sheba's heart. Poor lad! Poor king! Poor mummer!

She smiled in the corner of her veil. She was supposed to ask questions, he to answer them. Well, let the mummery go on!

"O King," her voice rang out, "what is sweeter than honey?"

"The love of pious children."

"O King, what is sharper than poison?"

"The tongue."

"O King, what is the pleasantest of days?"

"The day of profit on merchandise."

"O King, what is the debt the most stubborn debtor denies not?"

"The debt is death."

"O King, what is death in life?"

"It is poverty."

"O King, what is the disease that may not be healed?"

"It is evil nature."

She was rather ashamed for herself and for him, and her great Ethiopians were puzzled. But it was so evident that the poor white king's hold on his people was this trick of wisdom. She must help him. She remembered quickly what history she knew of his folk.

"O King," she asked, "what woman was born of man alone?"

"Eve was born of Adam."

"O King, what spot of lowland is it upon which the sun shone once, but will never again shine until judgment-day?"

"The bottom of the Red Sea, which clave asunder for Moses. Then the sun shone on the bottom and will never again shine until judgment-day."

"O King, what thing was it whose first state was wood and whose last life?"

"The rod of Aaron, which became a writhing serpent."

She spread her slim copper hands, she bowed her sleek black head, as in homage.

"It was a true report that I heard in mine own land of thy acts and of thy wisdom.

"Howbeit I believed not the words, until I came and mine eyes had seen it, and behold the half was not told me; thy wisdom and prosperity exceedeth the fame which I heard.

"Happy are thy men, happy are these thy servants which stand continually before thee and that hear thy wisdom!"

And all through the king's hall went the flutter of his subjects: "Did n't I tell you? Did n't we say so? A fine king we 've got. All the way from Abyssinia she came to prove him. And he answered her everything. A great king! A fine king! Make no mistake!"

She moved toward the troubled young king with a smile.

"I would now commune with you on what is in my heart, great Solomon. Let us commune alone."

His eyes probed her. He saw her kindliness to him. A fleeting little smile answered her smile. He rose to meet her. The giant prophet caught him by the wrist.

"My son, attend unto my wisdom," he whispered fiercely....

"The lips of a strange woman drop as a honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil.

"But her end is bitter as wormwood--"

She caught his whispered words, and her proud head went up, her sloe-black eyes flashed.

"I am Balkis, Queen of Sheba."

For an instant they regarded each other with hatred in their eyes. Sheba turned.