Phases of an Inferior Planet

Mariana looked at them wistfully. "I have done foolish things all my life," she said, "and this is the most foolish of all."

"What, dear?" asked Miss Ramsey, but she did not answer.

When Anthony came in, followed by the doctor, she was lying propped up among the pillows, with soft white blankets heaped over her. Her eyes were closed and she was breathing quietly.

Salvers took her hand and bent his ear to her chest.

"She must be stimulated," he said. "You say she has already taken digitalis – yes?"

He took Miss Ramsey's seat, still holding Mariana's hand, and turning now and then to give directions in his smooth, well-modulated voice. Anthony was standing at the foot of the bed, his eyes upon the blankets.

A light fall of rain beat rhythmically against the window-panes. The fire crackled in the grate and sent up a sudden, luminous flame, transfiguring the furniture in the room and the faces gathered in the shadow about the bed. Mariana stirred slightly. Presently Salvers rose and drew Miss Ramsey aside.

"It is very serious," he said. "The danger is heart failure. In another case I should say that it was hopeless – but her constitution is wonderful. She may pull through." Then he asked a few questions concerning the cause of the relapse, and turned to go. "Keep her stimulated, as I have said," he continued; "that is all that can be done. I would stay until morning, but several of my patients are at critical points. As soon as I have seen them I will come back." He started, paused to repeat several directions, and left the room softly, the sound of his footsteps lost in the heavy carpets.

Anthony took the chair beside the bed and laid his hand on the coverlet. He thought Mariana asleep. She was lying motionless, her heavy hair tangled in the lace on the pillow, her lashes resting like a black shadow upon her cheeks, her lips half parted.

He remembered that she had looked like this after the birth of Isolde, when he sat beside the bed and the child lay within the crook of her arm.

A groan rose to his lips, but he choked it back. The hand upon the coverlet was clinched, and the nails, pressed into the livid palm, had become purple. Still he sat motionless, his head bent, his muscles quivering like those of one palsied.

The flame of the fire shot up again, illuminating Mariana's face, and then died slowly down. The rain beat softly against the window.

Miss Ramsey went noiselessly into an adjoining room and came back, a glass in her hand. From across the hall a clock struck.

Suddenly Mariana opened her eyes, moaning in short sobs. A blue wave was rising over her face, deepening into tones of violet beneath the shadows of her eyes. They measured the medicine and gave it to her and she lay quiet again. He put his arm across her.

"Anthony!" she said.

He bent his ear.

"My beloved?"

"Hold me, the bed is going down. My head is so low."

He caught her passionately, his kisses falling distractedly upon her eyes, her lips, the lace upon her breast, and her cold hands.

"And you do love me?"

"Love you?" he answered, fiercely. "Have I ever loved anything else? O my love! My love!"

His tears stung her face like fire.

"Don't," she said, gently; and then, "It would have been very nice, the little farm in the South, and the peaches, and the cows in the pastures, but," she smiled, "I am not very thrifty – the peaches would have rotted where they fell, and the cows would never have been milked."

"Mariana!"

She lay in his arms, and they were both silent.

The clock struck again. In the street a passer-by was whistling "Oh, Nellie's blue eyes."

She spoke drowsily: "Speak softly. You will wake the baby."

In the glimmer of dawn Salvers entered. A sombre mist penetrated the curtains at the windows, and in the grate a heap of embers reddened and waned and reddened and waned again. A light dust had settled over the room, over the mantel, the furniture, and the blankets on the bed – a fine gray powder, pale like the ashes of yesterday's flame.

He crossed to the bed and took Mariana from Anthony's arms. Her head fell back and the violet shadows in her face had frozen into marble. She was smiling faintly.

"My God!" said Salvers, in a whisper. "She has been dead – for hours."

He laid her down and turned to the man beside him, looking at him for a moment without speaking. Then he laid his hand upon his arm and spoke to him as if to a child. "You must go home," he said, emphasizing the syllables. "It is over. You can do no good. You must go home."

The other shook his head. His eyes were blank, like those of a man in whom the springs of thought have been suddenly paralyzed.

"You must go home," repeated Salvers, his hand still upon his arm. "I will be with you in an hour. You must go."

Beneath his touch Anthony moved slowly into the hall, descending the stairs mechanically. Salvers gave him his hat and opened the outer door. Going to the sidewalk, he motioned to his coachman.

"Take Father Algarcife home," he said.

He slammed the door and looked after the carriage as it rolled down the block and rounded the corner. Then he turned and re-entered the house.

When Father Algarcife reached the rectory, he went into his study, locking the door after him. Then he seated himself at his desk and rested his head in his hands. His mind had cleared from the fog, but he did not think. He remained staring blankly before him.

The room was cold and damp, the fire had not been kindled, and the burned-out coals lay livid upon the hearth. The easy-chair was drawn before the fender where he had sat yesterday, and the lamp which he had not lighted the evening before stood on the little marble-top table. An open book, his pipe, and an untasted cup of coffee were beside it.

On the desk his yesterday's sermon lay unrolled, the text facing him in bold black and white:

"For who can tell a man what shall be after him under the sun?"

The dull, neutral tones of advancing dawn flooded the room. There was a suggestion of expectancy about it, as of a world uncreate, waiting for light and birth.

He raised his eyes, not his head, and stared over the desk at the wall beyond. From above the mantel the portrait of Father Speares's ancestor glared at him from its massive frame, wearing the fierce and faded aspect of a past century. Near the window stood the sofa, with the worn spot on the leather arm where the head of the dead man had rested. It was all chill and leaden and devoid of color.

Presently he moved, and, opening a drawer of the desk, drew out a small dark phial and placed it upon the unfolded leaves of the sermon. Through the blue glass the transparent liquid gleamed like silver. His movements were automatic. There was no haste, no precipitation, no hint of indecision. He looked at the clock upon the mantel, watching the gradual passage of the hands. When the minute-hand reached the hour he would have done with it all – with all things forever.

The colorless liquid in the small blue phial lay within reach of his grasp. It seemed to him that he saw already a man lying on that leathern sofa – saw the protruding eyes, the relaxed limbs, the clammy sweat, and saw nothing more that would be after him under the sun. The hands of the clock moved on. A finger of sunlight pierced the curtains and pointed to the ashes in the grate. Outside the noise of a crowded city went on tumultuously. He removed the cork of the bottle, inhaling a pungent and pervasive odor of bitter almonds.

At the same instant a voice called him, and there was a knock at his door.

"Father!"

He replaced the stopper, still holding the phial in his hand. For a moment the heavy silence hung oppressively, and then he answered: "What is it?" His voice sounded lifeless, like that of one awakening from heavy sleep or a trance.

"You are there? Come quickly. Your men at the Beasley Rolling Mills have gone on a strike. A policeman was shot and several of the strikers wounded. You are wanted to speak to them."

"To speak to them?"

"I have a cab. You may prevent bloodshed. Come."