Elena Page 14

  Our dinners came a few minutes later. Dr. Stein talked on about Cowper, then turned to Ossian.

  “It is not really Ossian who interests me,” he said with a shrug. “It is Macpherson who evidently wrote the verses he ascribed to Ossian.”

  “It was a forgery,” Elena said, looking intently at me. “A great literary forgery.”

  Dr. Stein nodded. “Yes. Macpherson wrote poetry, then claimed it for someone else, an ancient Gaelic warrior.”

  “You’re going to expose this?” I asked.

  Dr. Stein shook his head. “Of course not, William. This forgery has been known for quite some time. Dr. Johnson attacked Macpherson as a charlatan. Wordsworth never believed that Macpherson’s Ossianic translations were genuine. No, the exposé was done long before my time.”

  “So what is your interest, exactly, Doctor?” I asked.

  “The chill in Macpherson’s soul, William,” Dr. Stein replied with a sly look, “the peculiar situation in which he found himself, the author of competent poetry which he claimed to have but translated, poetry which came from him but which he had to defend as the work of someone else in order to keep the fame his falsehood had won for him.” He looked at Elena. “Had he been less gifted, he could not have written the poems he ascribed to Ossian. Had he been somewhat more gifted, he may not have needed to ascribe them.” He turned back to me. “Macpherson was in the odd position of having an imperfect gift, one which he could neither fully deny, taking himself as nothing more than an amateur, nor fully use, since it was not of the first order.”

  “I see.”

  Dr. Stein forked a bit of dinner into his mouth and chewed it slowly. “I don’t care a fig for Ossian. Macpherson is the heart of my story.”

  “It’s the moral implications, William,” Elena explained.

  “Not the implications, Elena,” Dr. Stein corrected. “Not the moral implications of Macpherson’s dilemma, but the moral terror in which he found himself.”

  Elena nodded quickly. “Yes, his dilemma, William.”

  Dr. Stein laughed. “Dilemma, that is a wonderful word. To be caught between two equally unfavorable possibilities.”

  I looked at Elena quizzically.

  “Dr. Stein believes that the moment you are certain of something, you are also bored by it,” Elena explained.

  “Oh,” I said. “Well, I suppose.”

  “Nothing profound in that observation, of course,” Dr. Stein added quickly. “But I also suggest that moral dilemma is the best sort because it cannot ever be resolved; it can only be endlessly pursued.” He smiled. “Why, imagine, William, how boring Ahab’s life would have become if he had survived the whale.” Dr. Stein shook his head. “No, William, the best that a great mind can hope for, a great doubting, uncertain, searching mind can hope for, is a moment here and there when the entire edifice presents itself.”

  I chuckled, though rather self-consciously. “Does that ever happen?”

  “Why yes, it does, William,” Dr. Stein replied. “It happened to Matthew Arnold on Dover Beach and I think, perhaps, to Wordsworth at Tintern Abbey. It was a moment, very quickly passing, when the mists coalesced, just for a second, and the whole story swam into view.”

  “And told them what?” I asked.

  “Told them, dear boy, that they were different from the rest,” Dr. Stein said. “Told them that there is a small world, a very sparsely populated one, of men and women who, from time to time, see the ecstasy as clearly as the dread in being alive.”

  “Artists,” I said.

  Dr. Stein gently shook his head. “Minds, William, deeply thoughtful minds. There is a difference between a grave consciousness and the craft necessary to display it. The former may exist without the latter.” He turned to Elena. “Would you like a dessert?”

  “No, thank you,” Elena said.

  He turned to me. “What about you, William? I am certainly willing to pay for it. After all, Barnard raised faculty salaries last year.”

  “I’m really quite set as is,” I told him. “But thank you.”

  “Very well,” Dr. Stein said. “At least my generosity cannot be doubted.” He pulled his pocket watch from his vest. “My word, quite late for a dotard like myself.” His eyes remained fixed on his watch, but his mind clearly was elsewhere. He seemed, just for an instant, entirely lost in his own thought, and it struck me that he was one who bore within his person — at least symbolically for me and certainly for Elena — the ancient creed of thoughtfulness and concentration, and that surely it had been someone like him who had watched as Odysseus set sail from Calypso’s island, or stood on a windy beach, staring out to sea, as the Pequod slowly drifted from Nantucket Shore.

  Elena leaned toward him after a moment, her hand gently touching his.

  “Are you ready to leave, Dr. Stein?” she asked.

  “Oh yes,” he said, rousing himself. “Sorry, was I daydreaming again?” He looked at me. “My apologies, William. I think my brain misfires from time to time, shoots me into space like a cannonball.” He laughed lightly. “Please forgive me.”

  “I very much enjoyed having dinner with you, sir,” I told him.

  “Good,” Dr. Stein said. “I shall take a quick drink of water, then go.” He reached for the glass and took hold of it, but as he did so his hand began to shake with sudden violence, sloshing the water back and forth near the rim of the glass.

  Elena quickly stretched her hand out toward him.

  “No, no,” Dr. Stein said, “I’m fine.” Then, with very obvious determination, he let go of the glass and slowly drew his hand back into his lap.

  “We’ll sit for just a moment, Elena,” he said quietly, and with a somewhat embarrassed smile.

  “Of course,” Elena said. “As long as you like.”

  Dr. Stein nodded. “Thank you, my dear,” he said weakly. “Only a minute.”

  After a short time, the two of them left. Something in that scene remained forever in Elena’s mind. It grew there, reaching beyond her initial sympathy into the world of related meaning, she would later describe in Quality, “where all things join, all disconnections finally unite. This is the world of that integrated life which the mind insists upon when it insists upon its greatness, when it reaches toward certain gestures that draw us powerfully into man’s estate, into a commiseration deeper than pity, an empathy more vast than love and more fully comprehending — gestures like the trembling, for example, of a great scholar’s hand.”

  I did not see Elena again for several weeks. I assumed that she was immersed in her work with Dr. Stein, and I certainly had my hands full with Cowper. It might have been quite some time before we got together again if Elizabeth had not decided to visit New York.

  We had seen her only occasionally since moving to the city, short hurried visits during which we had spent most of our time with Mother in Whitman House. So we were delighted that Elizabeth planned to spend an entire weekend, and Elena was particularly excited as we waited for her train.

  She arrived toward late morning, and I saw her instantly. She was dressed in a long wool coat with a high fur collar, and I remember thinking how out of place she looked as she jostled through the crowd. I had known her among the greenery of McCarthy Pond and Wilmot Street, and it was hard to re-imagine her now, very womanly indeed, as she made her way through the haunting maze of light that bathed the arcade in a soft, smoky radiance.

  “There she is,” I shouted, and Elena rose onto her tiptoes, craning her neck to get a glimpse of her friend.

  Then I caught sight of the young man who walked directly beside her, carrying a piece of luggage which I recognized as Elizabeth’s. Elena must have seen him at that instant too, because she glanced up at me questioningly.

  I shrugged. “Perhaps someone she met on the train?”

  But that was not the case, and as soon as the embraces were over, Elizabeth introduced him.

  “This is Howard Carlton,” she said. “He moved to Standhope about a month ago.”


  Howard smiled politely. He was quite handsome — tall, lean, with dark curly hair — not at all the frail and scholarly type I had envisioned for Elizabeth.

  “It’s good to be in New York again,” he said. He was dressed in a full-length overcoat that had an expensive look to it, and his hands were sheathed in elegant leather gloves. He looked older than the rest of us, and a great deal more experienced. There was a concentration in his face that lent it an almost feminine loveliness, and I think that because of him Elena would come somewhat to distrust men of too much beauty. In her novels, for example, she would choose to make her great men those of the least imposing physical presence, men like Raymond Finch in Calliope, “sent down to earth in a gunny sack of skin.”

  “I know New York quite well,” Howard said, smiling tentatively, “but I would find it difficult to live here now.”

  We were still standing amid the bustle on the platform, bumping about as the crowds shifted by us, but Howard seemed oblivious to this. His voice was calmly modulated and soft, as if he were speaking to us in the serenity of a Victorian parlor.

  “Elizabeth wanted to see it, of course,” Howard said. “And I think that everyone should.” He glanced at Elena and me, then shifted his weight uneasily from one foot to another, an early sign, as Elena would later point out, of the basic fears within him, the sense that the earth was not firm beneath his feet.

  I glanced at my watch. “Well, why don’t we get out of this smelly place and have a nice lunch.”

  Howard nodded, as if I were addressing him alone. “Yes, that would be good,” he said quietly. “Someplace nearby, perhaps.”

  We ambled out into a glittering wintry brilliance, Howard and I in front together, Elena and Elizabeth lagging behind.

  “You said you knew the city?” I asked.

  “Yes, I lived here for quite some time,” Howard said. He tugged one of his gloves on more firmly. “With my father. Before he died.” He looked over toward me. “I wanted to go someplace small. I tried a few places outside the cities. Quincy, outside Boston, for a time.” He shook his head. “But even that was a bit too much for me.” He smiled delicately. “You might as well know, I have a nervous condition.”

  “I see.”

  Howard lifted his collar against the cold. “Nothing serious, I hope, only a sort of … well, a sort of confusion.” He looked at me then with the saddest eyes I had ever seen. “A rather helpless confusion.” He glanced away. “There’s Schrafft’s,” he said. “We could have lunch there.”

  We steered our way across the avenue to the restaurant.

  When we were all seated, Elizabeth pulled the small hat from her head and laughed. “Well, what do you think?”

  She had cut her hair, reduced that wall of flame to a small mound of embers, in the interest, I suppose, of modernity.

  “What do you think?” she repeated.

  Elena and I exchanged glances.

  “Well, just fine, I suppose,” Elena said. “But why did you do it?”

  “At my suggestion,” Howard said as he absently opened the menu. “Something I read about long hair being a symbol for enslavement.” He looked at Elena. “You wear your hair long, I see.”

  “Yes.”

  “Black hair,” Howard said. “Coal black.”

  “It always has been,” Elena said, looking at him oddly, as if, at last, she had met a creature far too strange for immediate evaluation.

  Howard’s eyes fell back down toward the menu. “Mine is thinning just a bit now,” he said. He shook his head. “How silly, to talk about one’s hair.” He chuckled then, but at something known only to himself.

  “I’ll have soup and a sandwich,” Elizabeth said excitedly. “My God, Elena, it’s wonderful being in New York with you.”

  “Yes, wonderful,” Howard muttered.

  “How did you happen to get to Standhope?” I asked him.

  “Well, when my father died, I left New York, as I said.” He smiled. “I inherited a good sum of money, you see, so I could live anywhere I wanted to.”

  “And you chose Standhope?” I asked unbelievingly.

  “You find that odd, don’t you?”

  I laughed lightly. “Well, yes, I do.”

  “Elizabeth says that both you and your sister were anxious to get away.”

  “Yes, we were.”

  Howard picked up the salt shaker and twirled it about in his hands. “Well, I had the same feeling, only I wanted to get away from New York.” He smiled again. “I was looking for a restful place, like a sanitarium, you might say.”

  “And you found that in Standhope?”

  “That, and Elizabeth,” Howard said quietly. His eyes shifted over to her, and it could not have been more clear how much he loved her.

  We ordered a few minutes later. We all had our fill, and the check could hardly have been more than three or four dollars.

  Back on the street again, Elizabeth stood glancing east and west as we stood under the Schrafft’s awning, as much in awe of the city as Elena had once been.

  “What would like to do, Elizabeth?” Howard asked. “I told you, anything you like.”

  Elizabeth looked at Elena. “You know the city. Make a suggestion.”

  “The entire day is on me, by the way,” Howard added quickly. “So please, do whatever you like.”

  “Well, we could go to the theater,” Elena said.

  And that is what we did. We went to the Hammerstein Theater to hear Helen Morgan belt out the songs from Sweet Adeline — a rather superior form of drivel, as Mary once said, definitely preferable to the zoo. After the theater, we found a small, darkly illuminated lounge. It seemed to put Howard in more animated spirits. He draped his arm over Elizabeth’s shoulder as they sat across from us in a booth.

  “I like places like this,” he said, “dark and cozy.”

  “Why is that, Howard?” Elena asked him.

  He seemed to appreciate the question. “It is enclosed,” he said. “I have a very small house in Standhope, very small, just two rooms and a little kitchen.” He glanced quickly at Elizabeth, then back to Elena. “I’ve always been this way, since I was a little boy. I’ve always felt somehow, well, unborn.” He laughed slightly. “How silly, I’m thirty-one.”

  Elizabeth nuzzled Howard’s cheek. “It’s the money, don’t you think, Elena?” she asked. “He’s never had to get out in the world.”

  Elena did not answer, but I could see how carefully she kept her eyes upon them, as if trying to unearth the secret of their relationship.

  “I behave like an invalid,” Howard said, “and I’m never sick.” He shook his head. “I’m a mystery to myself.” He looked at Elizabeth. “Can you love a mystery?”

  Elizabeth kissed him very gently. “Yes,” she said.

  “How did you two meet?” I asked.

  “At the library,” Elizabeth said. “I work there, you know, and Howard came in one afternoon and asked for something.” She looked at him. “It was The Canterbury Tales, wasn’t it?”

  Howard nodded. “That, and maybe a volume of sentimental poetry, something like that.” He looked at Elena. “I don’t like my own taste. I resent my own taste. It’s so juvenile.”

  Elizabeth laughed delightedly. “Well, I had the book, of course. I mean, who in Standhope would ever read The Canterbury Tales? It hadn’t been checked out in thirty years.”

  “She thought I was shy,” Howard said. “People think I’m shy, but I’m not. I used to approach strangers all the time, when I was a little boy, and ask them questions. But of course, you can’t keep doing things like that. Not when you’re grown-up. You frighten people if you do. They think you’re after something, or just crazy, perhaps.” He shrugged. “So I stopped doing that about twenty years ago. I still miss it.”

  “He came up to me, though,” Elizabeth said. “He told me who he was and where he lived and why he’d come to Standhope. He told me all this before he mentioned The Canterbury Tales.”

  “Becaus
e of her face,” Howard said in an almost wistful tone of voice, as if relating events so long past that they were already golden with nostalgia. “Her eyes, you know. They were very clear.” He laughed. “It helps my confusion, you see, to have clear eyes around.”

  Elena looked at him skeptically. “Are you serious?”

  “Oh yes,” Howard said. “No matter how crazy it sounds.”

  “Howard has a sort of condition,” Elizabeth said.

  “That’s right,” Howard said, quite openly. “A condition of being easily thrown off balance.” He was looking very closely at Elena. “Have you ever had a day when you just couldn’t manage anything?”

  “Yes,” Elena said.

  “Well, I have years like that.”

  I couldn’t help it. I started to laugh, then caught myself. “Sorry, Howard,” I said, trying to regain my composure, “I didn’t mean to laugh.”

  “Oh, that’s all right,” Howard said. “Really, quite all right.” He looked at Elena. “I’m not sensitive about it. I don’t try to hide it. I know that if I weren’t wealthy, I’d probably starve. But there are times when it seems almost a blessing, you know?”

  Elena was evidently intensely interested in this person, and she would later write that he had seemed to her like a floating cloud, a sympathetic presence, “precious and unreal, a figure carved from the prose of Walter Pater.”

  “You say a blessing?” Elena asked.

  Howard nodded. “Yes.”

  “In what way, Howard?”

  “Because I feel I’m everywhere at once, sometimes, and so everything lives in me, you see?”

  Elena smiled. “Not really.”

  “Well, I’m many things at once,” Howard went on. “Partly an adult, partly a child.” He smiled. “Even partly man and partly woman.” He turned to me. “It must seem odd to you, William.”

  “It surely does, Howard,” I told him.

  He laughed, then put his arm around Elizabeth and squeezed her to him. “She understands as much as anyone can.”

  “He explained it another way once,” Elizabeth said. She looked at Howard. “You don’t mind?”