Father Damon slept the sleep of exhaustion. In this for a time the mind
joined in the lethargy of the body. But presently, as the vital currents
were aroused, the mind began to play its fantastic tricks. He was a
seminary student, he was ordained, he was taking his vows before the
bishop, he was a robust and consecrated priest performing his first
service, shining, it seemed to him, before the congregation in the purity
of his separation from the world. How strong he felt. And then came
perplexities, difficulties, interests, and conflicting passions in life
that he had not suspected, good that looked like evil, and evil that had
an alloy of virtue, and the way was confused. And then there was a
vision of a sort of sister of charity working with him in the evil and
the good, drawing near to him, and yet repelling him with a cold,
scientific skepticism that chilled him like blasphemy; but so patient was
she, so unconscious of self, that gradually he lost this feeling of
repulsion and saw only the woman, that wonderful creation, tender,
pitiful comrade, the other self. And then there was darkness and
blindness, and he stood once more before his congregation, speaking words
that sounded hollow, hearing responses that mocked him, stared at by
accusing eyes that knew him for a hypocrite. And he rushed away and left
them, hearing their laughter as he went, and so into the street--plainly
it was Rivington Street--and faces that he knew had a smile and a sneer,
and he heard comments as he passed "Hulloa, Father Damon, come in and
have a drink." "I say, Father Damon, I seen her going round into Grand
Street."
When Father Monies looked in, just before daylight, Father Damon was
still sleeping, but tossing restlessly and muttering incoherently; and he
did not arouse him for the early devotions.
It was very late when he awoke, and opened his eyes to a confused sense
of some great calamity. Father Monies was standing by the bedside with a
cup of coffee.
"You have had a good sleep. Now take this, and then you may get up. The
breakfast will wait for you."
Father Damon started up. "Why didn't you call me? I am late for the
mission."
"Oh, Bendes has gone down long ago. You must take it easy; rest today.
You'll be all right. You haven't a bit of fever."
"But," still declining the coffee, "before I break my fast, I have
something to say to you. I--"
"Get some strength first. Besides, I have an engagement. I cannot wait.
Pull yourself together; I may not be back before evening."
So it was fated that he should be left still with himself. After his
coffee he dressed slowly, as if it were not he, but some one else going
through this familiar duty, as if it were scarcely worth while to do
anything any more. And then, before attempting his breakfast, he went
into the little oratory, and remained long in the attitude of prayer,
trying to realize what he was and what he had done. He prayed for
himself, for help, for humility, and he prayed for her; he had been used
of late to pray for her guidance, now he prayed that she might be
sustained.
When he came forth it was in a calmer frame of mind. It was all clear
now. When Father Monies returned he would confess, and take his penance,
and resolutely resume his life. He understood life better now. Perhaps
this blow was needed for his spiritual pride.
It was a mild winter day, bright, and with a touch of summer, such as
sometimes gets shuffled into our winter calendar. The book that he took
up did not interest him; he was in no mood for the quiet meditation that
it usually suggested to him, and he put it down and strolled out,
directing his steps farther up the height, and away from the suburban
stir. As he went on there was something consonant with his feelings in
the bare wintry landscape, and when he passed the ridge and walked along
the top of the river slope, he saw, as it seemed to him he had not seen
it before, that lovely reach of river, the opposite wooded heights, the
noble pass above, the peacefulness and invitation of nature. Had he a
new sense to see all this? There was a softness in the distant outline,
villas peeped out here and there, carriages were passing in the road
below, there was a cheerful life in the stream--there was a harmony in
the aspect of nature and humanity from this height. Was not the world
beautiful? and human emotion, affection, love, were they alien to the
Divine intention?
She loved beauty; she was fond of flowers; often she had spoken to him of
her childish delight in her little excursions, rarely made, into the
country. He could see her now standing just there and feasting her eyes
on this noble panorama, and he could see her face all aglow, as she might
turn to him and say, "Isn't it beautiful, Father Damon?" And she
was down in those reeking streets, climbing about in the foul
tenement-houses, taking a sick child in her arms, speaking a word
of cheer--a good physician going about doing good!
And it might have been! Why was it that this peace of nature should
bring up her image, and that they should seem in harmony? Was not the
love of beauty and of goodness the same thing? Did God require in His
service the atrophy of the affections? As long as he was in the world
was it right that he should isolate himself from any of its sympathies
and trials? Why was it not a higher life to enter into the common lot,
and suffer, if need be, in the struggle to purify and ennoble all?
He remembered the days he had once passed in the Trappist monastery of
Gethsemane. The perfect peace of mind of the monks was purchased at the
expense of the extirpation of every want, all will, every human interest.
Were these men anything but specimens in a Museum of Failures? And yet,
for the time being, it had seemed attractive to him, this simple
vegetable existence, whose only object was preparation for death by the
extinction of all passion and desire. No, these were not soldiers of the
Lord, but the fainthearted, who had slunk into the hospital.
All this afternoon he was drifting in thought, arraigning his past life,
excusing it, condemning it, and trying to forecast its future. Was this
a trial of his constancy and faith, or had he made a mistake, entered
upon a slavish career, from which he ought to extricate himself at any
cost of the world's opinion? But presently he was aware that in all
these debates with himself her image appeared. He was trying to fit his
life to the thought of her. And when this became clearer in his tortured
mind, the woman appeared as a temptation. It was not, then, the love of
beauty, not even the love of humanity, and very far from being the
service of his Master, that he was discussing, but only his desire for
one person. It was that, then, that made him, for that fatal instant,
forget his vow, and yield to the impulse of human passion. The thought
of that moment stung him with confusion and shame. There had been
moments in this afternoon wandering--when it had seemed possible for him
to ask for release, and to take up a human, sympathetic life with her, in
mutual consecration in the service of the Lord's poor. Yes, and by love
to lead her into a higher conception of the Divine love. But this
breaking a solemn vow at the dictates of passion was a mortal sin--there
was no other name for it--a sin demanding repentance and expiation.
As he at last turned homeward, facing the great city and his life there,
this became more clear to him. He walked rapidly. The lines of his face
became set in a hard judgment of himself. He thought no more of escaping
from himself, but of subduing himself, stamping out the appeals of his
lower nature. It was in this mood that he returned.
Father Monies was awaiting him, and welcomed him with that look of
affection, of more than brotherly love, which the good man had for the
younger priest.
"I hope your walk has done you good."
"Perhaps," Father Damon replied, without any leniency in his face; "but
that does not matter. I must tell you what I could not last night. Can
you hear me?"
They went together into the oratory. Father Damon did not spare himself.
He kept nothing back that could heighten the enormity of his offense.
And Father Monies did not attempt to lessen the impression upon himself
of the seriousness of the scandal. He was shocked. He was exceedingly
grave, but he was even more pitiful. His experience of life had been
longer than that of the penitent. He better knew its temptations. His
own peace had only been won by long crucifixion of the natural desires.
"I have nothing to say as to your own discipline. That you know. But
there is one thing. You must face this temptation, and subdue it."
"You mean that I must go back to my labor in the city?"
"Yes. You can rest here a few days if you feel too weak physically."
"No; I am well enough." He hesitated. "I thought perhaps some other
field, for a time?"
"There is no other field for you. It is not for the moment the question
of where you can do most good. You are to reinstate yourself. You are a
soldier of the Lord Jesus, and you are to go where the battle is most
dangerous."
That was the substance of it all. There was much affectionate counsel
and loving sympathy mingled with all the inflexible orders of obedience,
but the sin must be faced and extirpated in presence of the enemy.
On the morrow Father Damon went back to his solitary rooms, to his
chapel, to the round of visitations, to his work with the poor, the
sinful, the hopeless. He did not seek her; he tried not to seem to avoid
her, or to seem to shun the streets where he was most likely to meet her,
and the neighborhoods she frequented. Perhaps he did avoid them a
little, and he despised himself for doing it. Almost involuntarily he
looked to the bench by the chapel door which she occasionally occupied at
vespers. She was never there, and he condemned himself for thinking that
she might be; but yet wherever he walked there was always the expectation
that he might encounter her. As the days went by and she did not appear,
his expectation became a kind of torture. Was she ill, perhaps? It
could not be that she had deserted her work.
And then he began to examine himself with a morbid introspection. Had
the hope that he should see her occasionally influenced him at all in his
obedience to Father Monies? Had he, in fact, a longing to be in the
streets where she had walked, among the scenes that had witnessed her
beautiful devotion? Had his willingness to take up this work again been
because it brought him nearer to her in spirit?
No, she could not be ill. He heard her spoken of, here and there, in his
calls and ministrations to the sick and dying. Evidently she was going
about her work as usual. Perhaps she was avoiding him. Or perhaps she
did not care, after all, and had lost her respect for him when he
discovered to her his weakness. And he had put himself on a plane so
high above her.
There was no conscious wavering in his purpose. But from much dwelling
upon the thought, from much effort rather to put it away, his desire only
to see her grew stronger day by day. He had no fear. He longed to test
himself. He was sure that he would be impassive, and be all the stronger
for the test. He was more devoted than ever in his Work. He was more
severe with himself, more charitable to others, and he could not doubt
that he was gaining a hold-yes, a real hold-upon the lives of many about
him. The attendance was better at the chapel; more of the penitent and
forlorn came to him for help. And how alone he was! My God, never even
to see her!
In fact, Ruth Leigh was avoiding him. It was partly from a womanly
reserve--called into expression in this form for the first time--and
partly from a wish to spare him pain. She had been under no illusion
from the first about the hopelessness of the attachment. She
comprehended his character so thoroughly that she knew that for him any
fall from his ideal would mean his ruin. He was one of the rare spirits
of faith astray in a skeptical age. For a time she had studied curiously
his efforts to adapt himself to his surroundings. One of these was
joining a Knights of Labor lodge. Another was his approach to the
ethical-culture movement of some of the leaders in the Neighborhood
Guild. Another was his interest in the philanthropic work of agnostics
like herself. She could see that he, burning with zeal to save the souls
of men, and believing that there was no hope for the world except in the
renunciation of the world, instinctively shrank from these contacts,
which, nevertheless, he sought in the spirit of a Jesuit missionary to a
barbarous tribe.
It was possible for such a man to be for a time overmastered by human
passion; it was possible even that he might reason himself temporarily
into conduct that this natural passion seemed to justify; yet she never
doubted that there would follow an awakening from that state of mind as
from a horrible delusion. It was simply because Ruth Leigh was guided by
the exercise of reason, and had built up her scheme of life upon facts
that she believed she could demonstrate, that she saw so clearly their
relations, and felt that the faith, which was to her only a vagary of the
material brain, was to him an integral part of his life.
Love, to be sure, was as unexpected in her scheme of life as it was in
his; but there was on her part no reason why she should not yield to it.
There was every reason in her nature and in her theory why she should,
for, bounded as her vision of life was by this existence, love was the
highest conceivable good in life. It had been with a great shout of joy
that the consciousness had come to her that she loved and was loved.
Though she might never see him again, this supreme experience for man or
woman, this unsealing of the sacred fountain of life, would be for her an
enduring sweetness in her lonely and laborious pilgrimage. How strong
love is they best know to whom it is offered and denied.
And why, so far as she was concerned, should she deny it? An ordinary
woman probably would not. Love is reason enough. Why should artificial
conventions defeat it? Why should she sacrifice herself, if he were
willing to brave the opinion of the world for her sake? Was it any new
thing for good men to do this? But Ruth Leigh was not an ordinary woman.
Perhaps if her intellect had not been so long dominant over her heart it
would have been different. But the habit of being guided by reason was
second nature. She knew that not only his vow, but the habit of life
engendered by the vow, was an insuperable barrier. And besides, and this
was the touchstone of her conception of life and duty, she felt that if
he were to break his vow, though she might love him, her respect for him
would be impaired.
It was a singular phenomenon--very much remarked at the time--that the
women who did not in the least share Father Damon's spiritual faith, and
would have called themselves in contradistinction materialists, were
those who admired him most, were in a way his followers, loved to attend
his services, were inspired by his personality, and drawn to him in a
loving loyalty. The attraction to these very women was his
unworldliness, his separateness, his devotion to an ideal which in their
reason seemed a delusion. And no women would have been more sensitive
than they to his fall from his spiritual pinnacle.
It was easy with a little contrivance to avoid meeting him. She did not
go to the chapel or in its neighborhood when he was likely to be going to
or from service. She let others send for him when in her calls his
ministration was required, and she was careful not to linger where he was
likely to come. A little change in the time of her rounds was made
without neglecting her work, for that she would not do, and she trusted
that if accident threw him in her way, circumstances would make it
natural and not embarrassing. And yet his image was never long absent
from her thoughts; she wondered if he were dejected, if he were ill, if
he were lonely, and mostly there was for him a great pity in her heart, a
pity born, alas! of her own sense of loneliness.
How much she was repressing her own emotions she knew one evening when
she returned from her visits and found a letter in his handwriting. The
sight of it was a momentary rapture, and then the expectation of what it
might contain gave her a feeling of faintness. The letter was long. Its
coming needs a word of explanation.
Father Damon had begun to use the Margaret Fund. He found that its
judicious use was more perplexing than he had supposed. He needed
advice, the advice of those who had more knowledge than he had of the
merits of relief cases. And then there might be many sufferers whom he
in his limited field neglected. It occurred to him that Dr. Leigh would
be a most helpful co-almoner. No sooner did this idea come to him than
he was spurred to put it into effect. This common labor would be a sort
of bond between them, a bond of charity purified from all personal alloy.
He went at once to Mr. Henderson's office and told him his difficulties,
and about Dr. Leigh's work, and the opportunities she would have. Would
it not be possible for Dr. Leigh to draw from the fund on her own checks
independent of him? Mr. Henderson thought not. Dr. Leigh was no doubt a
good woman, but he didn't know much about woman visitors and that sort;
their sympathies were apt to run away with them, and he should prefer at
present to have the fund wholly under Father Damon's control. Some time,
he intimated, he might make more lasting provisions with trustees. It
would be better for Father Damon to give Dr. Leigh money as he saw she
needed it.
The letter recited this at length; it had a check endorsed, and the
writer asked the doctor to be his almoner. He dwelt very much upon the
relief this would be to him, and the opportunity it would give her in
many emergencies, and the absolute confidence he had in her discretion,
as well as in her quick sympathy with the suffering about them. And also
it would be a great satisfaction to him to feel that he was associated
with her in such a work.
In its length, in its tone of kindliness, of personal confidence,
especially in its length, it was evident that the writing of it had been
a pleasure, if not a relief, to the sender. Ruth read it and reread it.
It was as if Father Damon were there speaking to her. She could hear the
tones of his voice. And the glance of love--that last overmastering
appeal and cry thrilled through her soul.
But in the letter there was no love; to any third person it would have
read like an ordinary friendly philanthropic request. And her reply,
accepting gratefully his trust, was almost formal, only the writer felt
that she was writing out of her heart.