The old lady watched Berenice walk down the road, pausing for a moment in her beautiful needlework to admire her young daughter-in-law's slim, willowy figure, the eager pose of her head, her brown, beautifully plaited hair. The apple-green of her dress and the blue-green of the trees—she made such a beautiful picture, and the old lady shook her head and sighed.
And one might imagine the old lady saying: When I was young I was as lissome as that, as pretty, had as eager a head. Time flies, and we grow old. Ah, the fine days of young womanhood!
But that was not in her mind at all: she shook her head because she knew the heartaches, the difficulties, the terrors the young girl must go through before she attained to the reward of women—wisdom and peace.
For they all came to that in the latter end, the old lady thought—the girls who started out dancing, and the girls whose eyes were troubled with thought, and the girls deep as rivers, and the shallow girls who angled for a honeyed word. And life, like some deft schoolmistress, caught them and taught them and put wisdom in their heads, and in their hearts little modest flowers, like forget-me-nots. And the sad girls learned laughter from little children on the floor, and the wayward ones learned loyalty from trouble, and great emotional currents put depths into the shallow ones. And life seemed so hard, the present so brutal, the future terrible as an army with banners—but one day it was gone. All was past. And in retrospect it seemed so little pain to have had, to learn such a great lesson, to come to such a sweet place! If one came through it, it was so much worth while.
The hazards one made so much of ... Oh! Did n't she know!
It seemed to her as she looked back now very strange that all the little tragedies of her life appeared to have faded and all the happiness intensified; and this was peculiar, for at the time the pain seemed so poignant and the happiness so diverse, so hard to grasp. A night at a theater, for instance, twenty years ago, and a dinner before it, and a supper afterward—how queer one could remember all that! Even the tunes the orchestra played, the clothes one wore, what this man said, how this woman looked. And one thought of the night young Barry, below, writing, was so near to death; and the utter terror, the tragedy of that time had faded. And one remembered only how pretty he looked, how kind the doctor was, how Mr. Valance, her husband, had put his hand on her shoulder in his big, kindly way.
If young people knew how these things came out, they would n't worry so much, but there was no use telling them. They would have to find out for themselves.
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 cru............