| What are the mortal facts With which we deal? The man is thirty years, Most vital, in a richness physical, Of musical heart and feeling; and the woman Is twenty-eight, a cradle warm and rich For life to grow in. And the time is this: This Henry Murray has a mood of peace, A splendor as of June, has for the time Quelled anarchy within him, come to law, Sees life a thing of beauty, happiness, And fortune glow before him. And the mother, Sunning her feathers in his genial light, Takes longing and has hope. For body’s season The blood of youth leaps in them like a fountain, And splashes musically in the crystal pool Of quiet days and hours. They rise refreshed, Feel all the sun’s strength flow through muscles, nerves; Extract from food no poison, only health; Are sensitive to simple things, the turn Of leaves on trees, flowers springing, robins’ songs. Now such a time must prosper love’s desire, Fed gently, tended wisely, left to mount In flame and light. A prospering fate occurs To send this Henry Murray from his wife, And keep him absent for a month—inspire A daily letter, written of the joys, And hopes they have together, and omit, Forgotten for the time, old aches, despairs, Forebodings for the future. What results? For thirty days her youth, and youthful blood Under the stimulus of absence, letters, And growing longing, laves and soothes and feeds, Like streams that nourish fields, her body’s being. Enriches cells to plumpness, dim, asleep, Which stretch, expand and turn, the prototype Of a baby newly born; which after the cry At midnight, taking breath an hour before— That cry which is of things most tragical, The tragedy most poignant—sleeps and rests, And flicks its little fingers, with closed eyes Senses with visions of unopened leaves This monstrous and external sphere, the world, And what moves in it. So she thinks of him, And longs for his return, and as she longs The rivers of her body run and ripple, Refresh and quicken her. The morning’s light Flutters upon the ceiling, and she lies And stretches drowsily in the breaking slumber Of fluctuant emotion, calls to him With spirit and flesh, until his very name Seems like to form in sound, while lips are closed, And tongue is motionless, beyond herself, And in the middle spaces of the room Calls back to her. And Henry Murray caught, In letters, which she sent him, all she felt, Re-kindled it and sped it back to her. Then came a lover’s fancy in his brain: He would return unlooked for—who, the god, Inspired the fancy?—find her in what mood She might be in his absence, where no blur Of expectation of his coming changed Her color, flame of spirit. And he bought Some chablis and a cake, slipped noiselessly Into the chamber where she lay asleep, And had a light upon her face before She woke and saw him. How she cried her joy! And put her arms around him, burned away In one great moment from a goblet of fire, Which over-flowed, whatever she had felt Of shrinking or distaste, or loveless hands At any time before, and burned it there Till even the ashes sparkled, blew away In incense and in light. She rose and slipped A robe on and her slippers; drew a stand Between them for the chablis and the cake. And drank and ate with him, and showed her teeth, While laughing, shaking curls, and flinging back Her head for rapture, and in little crows. And thus the wine caught up the resting cells, And flung them in the current, and their blood Flows silently and swiftly, running deep; And their two hearts beat like the rhythmic chimes Of little bells of steel made blue by flame, Because their lives are ready now, and life Cries out to life for life to be. The fire, Lit in the altar of their eyes, is blind For mysteries that urge, the blood of them In separate streams would mingle, hurried on By energy from the heights of ancient mountains; The God himself, and Life, the Gift of God. And as result the hurrying microcosms Out of their beings sweep, seek out, embrace, Dance for the rapture of freedom, being loosed; Unite, achieve their destiny, find the cradle Of sleep and growth, take up the cryptic task Of maturation and of fashioning; Where no light is except the light of God To light the human spirit, which emerges From nothing that man knows; and where a face, To be a woman’s or a man’s takes form: Hands that shall gladden, lips that shall enthrall With songs or kisses, hands and lips, perhaps, To hurt and poison. All is with the fates, And all beyond us. Now the seed is sown, The flower must grow and blossom. Something comes, Perhaps, to whisper something in the ear That will exert itself against the mass That grows, proliferates; but for the rest The task is done. One thing remains alone: It is a daughter, woman, that you bear, A whisper says to her—It is her wish— Her wish materializes in a voice Which says: the name of Elenor is sweet, Choose that for her—Elenor, which is light, The light of Helen, but a lesser light In this our larger world; a light to shine, And lure amid the tangled woodland ways Of this our life; a firefly beating wings Here, there amid the thickets of hard days. And to go out at last, as all lights do, And leave a memory, perhaps, but leave No meaning to be known of any man. … So Elenor Murray is conceived and born. ———— But now this Elenor Murray being born, We start not with her life, but with her death, The finding of her body by the river. And then as Coroner Merival takes proof Her life comes forth, until the Coroner Traces it to the moment of her death. And thus both life and death of her are known. This the beginning of the mystery:— |
