Читать книгу Kings Row - Henry Bellamann - Страница 5

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This same afternoon Father Aloysius Donovan came out of his little church on Walnut Street and walked south toward the business part of town.

Father Donovan was what Mariah Shane, the janitress of the church, called “black Irish.” A tall man, worn to gauntness, his massive bones stuck out and rendered shapeless the fit of his cheap clerical clothes. He had fervent brown eyes and coarse black hair that grew low to a peak on his brow. His jaw and chin were always blue. His large, patient hands were tufted with wiry hairs, and he had a strong masculine smell about him. He was well loved by his tiny congregation, but he had not in the ten years he had been in Kings Row ever completely won their confidence. His wide mouth, squarish like the mouths of many orators and actors, was markedly humorous, a shade derisive, even. It was his mouth that made the members of his church a trifle uncomfortable. It seemed to say that he knew more than they guessed, and that what he knew was comical. It was the last thing he would have suspected—this racial trick of feature—for he was in reality a most earnest man.

“He’s a grand face,” Mariah Shane declared. And, indeed, he had. His features were large and rather handsome—his nose was as bold as a jutting rock—but it was an earthy face with a simple earthiness, neither gross nor sensual. An earthiness as good as that of a kindly soil which covers hard rocks. That look of goodness was, perhaps, the nearest approach to a look of spirituality possible for a man of Father Donovan’s age and nature, and it betokened as much of spirituality as would be practicable or useful in his particular setting. The bishop knew this, recognized it, and was well content to have Father Donovan in Kings Row.

Priests being in no wise different from other men, Father Donovan was restless this warm April day. After a morning of severe mental exercise he had eaten his midday meal and swung off for a long hard walk.

Mariah Shane finished sweeping the vestibule of the church and stood leaning on her broom, watching the good man heaving himself along the sunny side of Walnut Street. Father Donovan always walked as though he were struggling with an invisible adversary.

Mariah had been the janitress of little St. Peter’s for many years. She was big-boned like the priest himself, and vigorous. She also kept house for the father and made his place neat.

She passed her hand across her mouth, which twitched as she half talked to herself.

An acquaintance stopped, and Mariah came out to the white picket fence. They exchanged opinions on the weather and agreed that it was a difficult season.

“My wool drawers itch me so I’m halfways on fire, but I’m afeared to take ’em off. It’s awful easy to catch cold this time of year, it being that changeable you can’t guess what it’ll be like before dark, an’ a cold is hard to get rid of in the spring.”

The neighbor nodded.

Mariah continued. “I told Father Donovan this morning to be careful. I didn’t say nothing more. I’m afeared he’ll change too early, but I can’t mention it, of course.”

Both women looked down the street where the black figure of the priest rocked along over the uneven walk.

“There’s a good man if there ever was one,” Mariah said softly. “You know, Nellie, I’m gettin’ to be an old woman, but I’ve still got me eyes, and I can still see a speck o’ dust from here to yonder, and a good many things besides. It’s hard to be good in this world, I know that for myself. I’ve never had a dime to give to the Church, so I just thought I’d give what I had to give in sweepin’ and dustin’. The blessed Virgin, being female, like meself, would be like to know just how much it’s worth. But that’s not what I was goin’ to say. I guess we’ve got no right to think about a priest being like anybody else, but there must be times when that’s so, all the same. It’s a lonely life, Nellie, an awful lonely life. Havin’ a house that never is a home—oh, I know, I suppose it’s right since that’s the way it is, but—” she paused and gave a sort of snorting chuckle. “Do you know what I’ve thought sometimes? I’ve thought maybe there ought to be a special kind of heaven for a priest—a heaven like Father Donovan says the heathen black Mohammedans all think is waitin’ for them on the other side!”

She winked broadly, involving half of her face in the grimace of implication. Nellie laughed and slapped Mariah on the arm. “You old divil, you ought to be ashamed!”

“But ain’t it the truth?”

Nellie laughed again. “I’ve got to be gettin’ on.” She paused after a few steps. “There’s a lot of dandelions comin’ up in there. You ought to gather a mess of greens for the father. It’s good for the stomach this time of year.”

“I will that, Nellie. It’ll be up and big enough by next week.”

Father Donovan continued on his way, his lively eyes taking note of all activities. It was seldom that anyone spoke to him because few outside of his congregation knew him well enough to speak. In this Protestant town a Roman Catholic priest was almost outside the pale, and actually, in the minds of most people, a somewhat sinister figure. There were always tales about the Catholic Church plotting this and that. Some of the more ignorant subscribed to anti-Catholic papers and believed the lurid stories they read of arsenals concealed in the churches, of clerical immorality, and other still wilder stories. One heard occasionally, from Baptist or Methodist pulpits, tirades against Popery. There were few individuals in Kings Row belonging to Protestant denominations who had ever been inside the little church in Walnut Street.

The priest knew of this and accepted it as one of the minor, but inescapable, trials of life. He was a warmly human man, and a very lonely one. He had no one to talk to—certainly no one of his own intellectual stature. He would have enjoyed a little consideration. That was it. He had once read something about that very thing. One did not always crave love, or admiration, or any other more active kind of tribute, but one did wish for the consideration of one’s fellow men. He was unconsidered and he knew it—as unconsidered, he thought ruefully, as the Negroes or those foreign families who came to work in the coal mines and clay pits about Kings Row.

He turned into Union Street, the town’s principal thoroughfare, and passed the courthouse where the little group of men sat in their shirt sleeves. It would have been pleasant, Father Donovan reflected, to join them, to talk of town affairs, of crops, of local politics, of the new project to gravel the road to Camperville, but he knew he would not be welcome. He had tried it a few times. Men fell silent and looked at him curiously, glancing away quickly if he caught their eyes—as though they did not wish to have him surprise their thoughts and opinions. It made them uncomfortable, and it made him uncomfortable. He had acquired the habit of side streets. When he did come on Union or Federal Streets where the stores were he assumed a stern and preoccupied air as though hurrying on to pressing engagements. Even at such times his eye was watchful for any chance welcome. If such an event occurred—sometimes Lawyer Skeffington stopped to talk to him—his face would light, and he would shake hands too long and too warmly. The other person would be embarrassed by the unexpected fervor of the response and would fall into awkward silence. Father Donovan was quick to sense the change. Hurt and puzzled, he, too, would become inarticulate and with a hasty excuse hurry on, setting his face again in its look of concentration upon important matters. Sometimes the muscles of his jaw ached from the effort of holding this expression until he had once more reached his accustomed back streets.

Matt Fuller, owner of the feed store, cut himself a liberal chew of tobacco. “There goes that Catholic priest. Looks like he’s in a hurry. Where you reckon he’s goin’?”

“Maybe some of his Irish crowd is dyin’ and he’s hurrying to give ’em a passport to Saint Peter. Can’t none of them Catholics git in without a pass from the priest?”

The men laughed. Ricks Darden was quick at that kind of thing.

“And then after they’re gone,” Ricks continued, “he has to pray them out of purgatory. So much an inch. I heard of one of them Catholic families once that paid for fifteen years to git their old man out of purgatory. They got tired of payin’ and they asked the priest how much further the old man had to go. He told ’em their Pa was all out but one heel. The oldest boy told him, ‘Look here, if Pop’s that near out, he can jump out. Damned if I’m goin’ to pay any more!’ ”

A hearty laugh greeted this story. All of them had heard Ricks Darden tell it a hundred times. It was always funny.

“Fact!” said Ricks. “I bet that old Donovan’s got a mattress full of money right now.”

“No. He has to give it to the Pope.”

“Bet he don’t give the Pope all of it.”

“Don’t see what use he’s got for money, or any of them priests, for that matter. They can’t do nothin’.”

Ricks winked. “Donovan goes to St. Louis once or twice a year. Don’t nobody know whether you’re a priest or a dry-goods drummer once you get there.”

They turned their heads to get another look at Father Donovan hurrying on toward the lower end of town.

“Besides,” said Matt Fuller, “I’ve seen this here Donovan a-prowlin’ round the streets down around old Julie Ann Martin’s away after midnight when ever’body’s at home in bed.”

“What was you doin’ around Julie Ann’s that time o’ night, Matt?”

The roar of laughter echoed in the pillared portico and startled the pigeons flying around and around with muted protests. Father Donovan heard the laughter as he crossed the street below the courthouse. It sounded pleasant, he thought. He realized that it had been a long time since he had laughed with anyone.

The priest had come to Jake Bloomfield’s tannery. Jake was at the door of the detached little box of a room he called his office. The men greeted each other cordially. There was a strange bond of sympathy and understanding between the two—the alien Jew and the no less alien Catholic priest.

Father Donovan felt better as he passed on. He had from even this one moment of friendly exchange a sense of release. His severe lines of concentration relaxed, and an added spring came into his step.

The streets in the south end of Kings Row were irregular. They had grown from old cowpaths, perhaps, and had never been straightened. Many Negroes lived along the creek. The acrid, smoky smell of their houses hung heavy in the streets. Pickaninnies sat on the cool damp ground, making playhouses of sticks and pieces of old china and glass. Now and then Father Donovan paused and spoke to them, but they looked at him with round liquid black eyes and did not answer. They did not know what to make of this strange white man. Their elders squatting on doorsteps looked on stolidly, almost with hostility. They knew who he was and they shared to a considerable degree the feelings of the town. A priest—a man without a woman—that was an unaccountable kind of man.

He crossed the rickety footbridge and climbed the steep hillside beyond. He made his way slowly up the slope, wiping his face from time to time with a large yellow bandanna handkerchief.

Presently he came to a clearing and sat down on a rock. He fanned himself with his heavy felt hat. Little rivulets of perspiration tickled his neck, and the heavy beading of moisture on his hands stung slightly as it dried.

He sat for half an hour looking out through the wide-spaced branches of a sycamore at the town of Kings Row as it lay piled up on the long gradual rise to the north. It reminded him of pictures he had seen of towns in the Holy Land. He could just see the modest little steeple of St. Peter’s at the upper reach of the slope. A few more days and the leaves would open to their full and obscure the view.

He sank back to a more comfortable position and gave himself up gradually to the spell of the day.

The alarming beauty of April filled the woods. The afternoon sunlight flooded the tops of the highest trees. The long levels of light touched the young green and the bright gold with a curious unreality. It was like—what was it like? Something haunted and teased in the back of his brain. Yes, yes—it was like the backgrounds he had seen in old pictures. It seemed a world apart—that upper sea of light that appeared to flow straight from horizon to horizon. Something untroubled by the turmoil and striving of the earth beneath it—something pure, eternal, apocalyptic.

Birds arose from the depths of the trees, glinted sudden bronze, and flung themselves in long curves, like aerial skaters. Their thin notes dropped down into the shadows where the earth seemed to rustle and whisper. Minute whirrings, tiny harmonies of insects, water chuckling suddenly out of the hillside, and hiding in dead grass—these and the indefinable sense of a fullness of life, invisible, but everywhere, underground, in the trees, overhead in the air, filled all the spaces of the wood.

Father Donovan shifted his position and took a book from his pocket, but he did not read. He sighed deeply, and sniffed. The air was warm and damp. Yesterday’s rains had stirred a thousand smells—fresh smells of leaves so young they still showed the crinkles of the bud, cool woody smells of the earliest flowers, green rooty smells, and the nostalgic smell of dead leaves sinking back into the soil.

He yielded to an almost sensuous abandon. His contemplation of the day became a kind of lively participation.

Already, he noticed, the Judas tree was dropping its faded blossoms. By tomorrow, or the next day, all of the haw trees would be white. Overnight they would come. Indistinguishable now in the tangle of undergrowth they would appear suddenly—like Annunciation angels. The woods would be peopled with them.

Needles of new grass thrust everywhere through the broken and tangled mat of dead stems. He could see the secret way of tiny rivulets on the slopes. They showed plainly by an intenser line of green that thinned on either side. Like the canals on Mars, he thought, happy in the allusion.

In the somehow full silence of the afternoon the voices of these multitudinous threads of water rose and filled the air with a delicate clamor.

Father Donovan sighed again, plaintively, as he glanced at the close-printed page. Saint Francis’ Little Flowers. He could understand that mystical saint today. He felt a little that he, too, could stand up, here and now, and preach to these birds. He closed the book and returned it to his pocket. Probably Saint Francis never felt exactly as he felt now. He remembered that this feeling for nature was a modern one. Perhaps a very old one, he amended—some sort of paganism that might even be dangerous.

He turned his mind resolutely to thought of his morning’s reading. He had been hard at it this past winter going through some of the old theologians—the great Church Fathers. Curious things they thought about sometimes. Strange discussions. How many angels can stand on a needle’s point? That, now....

He recalled a lecture he had heard in St. Louis last year. A young man talking about new kinds of mathematics, fourth dimensions and the like. He had understood very little of it, but he had enjoyed it in the same way he enjoyed music. It gave a spread to the imagination. With that kind of confusion of time and space, maybe the old disputations were not so abstruse and useless as they seemed. Like these new geometries—many parallels through a single point, like many lives passing together through a point of time—parallel and yet disparate—each passing this ever-crucial instant of present and moving on to the infinite, intent and determined by God alone knew what forces—each toward its separate destiny.

He smiled, a little shamefacedly—he could not grasp the new mathematics—he, bound to this visible earth he loved so much, could not free his mind from the old, familiar Euclidean space, but he believed it, somehow. It was consonant with one’s ideas of an infinite God, the infinite power of Deity, and that sense of the infinite which he could always feel in the finite moment.

How many angels can stand on a needle’s point? He felt an expansion of spirit. Infinite angels—he could almost see them—infinite angels, dancing on a needle’s point!

He had been staring, unseeing, at the town. His vision cleared suddenly and the streets and houses swam once more into focus. He thought of his little flock of parishioners, of their lives, of all the lives of all the people in Kings Row—in the state—in the world! Infinite lives swinging upon this instant—this needle point of time. He could see them balancing in elaborate and ever-changing figures, leaning upon each other, crossing and weaving, attracting, repelling, but always bound together by links of invisible chains—parts of an eternally shifting but foreordained pattern from whose laws and compulsions no man, wherever he might be, could ever be loosed.

He saw the designs dissolve and form again—break into confusion only to resolve themselves into conclusions of harmony and satisfaction. It was a picture of life—this dance of angels on a needle’s point—a picture of the world—a symbol of the way of this town of Kings Row now lying before him in the bright sun of an April day. Those souls—there in houses, on the streets, traveling toward the town or away from it—were all a part of the pattern, all touched by its influence, interdependent, and exerting each upon all others, and all upon each individual, the most amazing forces.

“I’m not being so original, at that,” he said softly, but the idea of his dancing angels pleased him. He made a mystical vision of it as he let his imagination shine on it, and a mood of ecstasy came over him.

The hands of Miss Venable’s watch pointed to four. She tapped on the desk, and instantly the room buzzed.

“Quiet, quiet! Clear your desks.”

The buzz became a clatter.

“Monitors, pass.”

Hats were distributed quickly by boys and girls who were appointed weekly to this privilege as a reward for good behavior. Miss Venable often wondered why it was considered a privilege.

Peyton Graves, a quiet boy in school, but a noisy one outside, slapped each hat down on the desk in front of its owner as he moved rapidly up the aisle. “Here’s your louse-cage,” he remarked softly to each one. He adroitly avoided the kicks aimed at his shins and reached the safety of the last desk in a mild glow of triumph.

“Position!”

The children sat upright.

“Turn!”

Heels clomped into the aisles.

“Rise!”

Scuffling and scraping of feet.

“Pass!”

Their departure was thunderous.

Miss Venable fetched a long tremulous breath of relief. She walked to the window and watched the dispersing crowd. In the hall she could hear the hollow thumping of the upper grades descending the stairs. Shouts of the boys mingled with the shrill chatter of the girls. She thrust her hands into the heavy waves of her crimped black hair as if to relieve her brow of its oppressive weight. She took in gulps of the warm soft air.

She felt that she was too tired to move from the window. Leaning her head against the frame, she gazed absently at the milling groups which began to break up into smaller groups and pairs. Here and there an occasional child walked alone—hurrying home or loitering and scuffing the loose gravel of the playground in a wistful sort of fashion. Miss Venable was sometimes given to half-philosophical meditations on life and society as she saw it through her pupils. She could see the forces of society at work this moment as the children fell apart from the hurly-burly at the main entrance to the building. The prescribed social lines of the town fell upon them the moment they left the democracy of the classroom. The children of rich parents, the “nice” children, the poor children, and the children who rested under the fatal classification defined by other children as “tacky”—they were all like so many helpless pieces thrown out from a common center by some centrifugal force that sent them severally and separately on predestined ways. Already their feet were set on roads that led them farther and farther apart. “It’s strange,” she thought, “how quickly they feel it themselves, and how effectively it works. They seem to know it and to accept it. I guess that’s a mercy.”

There was one individual in that noisy crowd who felt something of this, and who thought about it. That was Parris Mitchell.

Parris was, in his own dark way, a thoughtful boy. He was standing a little apart and was dreamily half thinking, half feeling something of Miss Venable’s thought. It was quite vague in his mind—little more than a sort of wonder. But he was aware of a marked difference that took place in the relationships all about him as soon as they came out from school. Inside they were all—well, kind of alike. If you knew your lessons and didn’t make too much noise, you were what Miss Sally called a “good scholar.” If you were a bad scholar, things got pretty difficult sometimes. But outside—here, everything was different. How was it that inside the schoolroom you felt a certain way about Dodd McLean, and outside another way entirely? Dodd was stupid. He made wrong answers and he couldn’t read well. You were a little embarrassed for him, and when he was called on to recite you kept your eyes on your book so he wouldn’t think you noticed. Out here on the playground Dodd was almost a hero. He played games well, he was the strongest boy in his class, and he possessed a fascinating fund of horrible knowledge. It wasn’t nice to listen, but you did. You didn’t want to be a sissy—besides, it was interesting.

It seemed, as he thought about it, to have something to do with that feeling of embarrassment. Inside you were embarrassed by different things. Out here you felt easy and comfortable with some of the boys and girls and a little strange with others. It was very puzzling. But there were so many things that puzzled one, and teased in one’s head. You couldn’t bother too much about them. He supposed he’d understand a lot more when he grew up. It must be very, very nice to be grown up. He was always thinking about it. It would be jolly, he said—Parris said jolie: he thought it meant the same thing.

“C’mon, Parris. What you standin’ there for?”

“Nothing,” he answered vaguely, giving the second syllable of the word a slight stress.

It was Peyton Graves calling—the quiet Peyton now transformed into a leaping, shouting Indian. “Well, c’mon. I’ve got some new stamps. Amos and Vic’r comin over to my house.”

“I can’t. I have to go home.”

“Aw, what for? C’mon.”

“I can’t.”

“Well, come tomorrow. I got some I’ll trade you.”

“All right. Maybe.”

Two or three girls were standing near, talking with their heads close together. He wondered why they always acted that way—as if they had secrets. Vera Lichinsky was one of them. She caught sight of him.

“You going down to Professor Berdorff’s for your music lesson?” She called the Reverend Doctor Berdorff “Professor” because her father did.

“No, not today.”

“Why?”

“ ’Cause.”

“Well, ’cause why? It’s your regular day, ain’t it?”

“It’s my birthday.”

“Oh.” She looked slightly mystified. Nothing ever interfered with her violin lessons. She couldn’t see what a birthday had to do with it.

“I’ve got a new Bach piece.” Vera made it sound important.

“Have you?”

“Yes. It’s not very pretty.”

“I have a new Bach piece, too.”

“What is it?”

“It’s an Invention.”

“What’s that?”

“I don’t know. It’s a piece.”

“Is it pretty?”

“No.”

“Is it hard?”

“Yes. It’s in four flats.”

“I’ve had pieces in all the keys. Long time ago. Ain’t you?”

“No.”

“Well, I’ve got to go.” She turned with an air of serious decision. She did not look back.

“Hello, Parris.” Cassandra Tower hung back from the other girls who were walking away, their heads still close together.

Parris blushed. He remembered the way he had looked at her legs in school. He wondered if she could have noticed. Probably not. She’d be mad if she had.

“Hello, Cassie.”

“Do you like Vera Lichinsky?”

“I—I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“Well, I don’t know. I guess I like her all right.”

“I don’t.”

There seemed to be nothing to reply to this.

“I don’t like her, or Amos.” Cassandra was emphatic.

Parris was silent.

“What makes you like Vera?”

“I don’t.”

“You said you did. Just now you said you did.”

“I said I liked her all right.”

“You silly, what’s the difference?”

“I mean I don’t like her specially.”

“Oh.” Cassandra smiled. “I heard you say today’s your birthday. How old are you?”

“Twelve.”

“I’m thirteen. Why don’t you have a party?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m going to have a party next Saturday.”

“Are you?”

“Yes. I’m going to invite you.”

“I’d like to come.”

“Will your grandmother let you?”

“Of course.”

“All right. I’ll send you an invitation.”

Parris stared a little. Invitations were something grown people used for parties.

“Good-by, Parris.”

“ ’By, Cassie.”

She walked backward for a little way, smiling. Parris smiled, too. She turned and ran until she caught up with her companions.

The playground was empty now. He walked slowly toward the stile which mounted the tall fence surrounding the school grounds. He did not see a little girl who stood outside watching him through the gap in the boards. She was smaller than Parris, and rather poorly dressed in a faded calico dress. Her stockings were lumpy where long winter underwear was carelessly stuffed into them. She was extremely blonde, and an expression of sweetness—half angelic, half sensuous—gave her a somewhat enigmatic charm. As Parris descended the stile, she swung into step with him. He had not seen her until she appeared beside him.

“Hello, Renée.”

“Hello.”

They proceeded without further speech along the road toward Parris’ home. Renée lived on the von Eln place. Her father, Sven Gyllinson, was the overseer of the nurseries owned by Parris’ grandmother. Renée and Parris had played together since they were babies. She was only a few months younger than Parris, but she was a grade behind him in school. Seemingly, they took no notice of each other now. Parris was thinking of other matters. When he picked up a rock and threw it, she threw one also with ridiculously similar gestures. If he swung his book strap from one shoulder to the other, she did, too. If he stopped to watch a bird in a treetop, she tilted her head back and looked. She matched her step to his with assiduous care. Apparently she wished nothing but his company. He, in turn, paid scant attention to her. He was used to Renée. She was always “tagging” along—always had been as long as he could remember. No one teased him about her. Some of the boys had tried that and met with a fury in him that was as astonishing as it was inexplicable. Renée was a “tacky” child, but her father worked for Parris’ grandmother, so they decided maybe he had to look out for her. After a while no one paid any attention to the odd companionship. Parris liked Renée very much, but he didn’t think about her often, except in vacation times.

As they neared home Renée spoke. “I’ll be glad when school’s out, won’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be awful glad. We’ll go swimmin’ then, won’t we?”

“Uh huh,” he answered indifferently.

“Up in our own pond?”

“Uh huh.”

He opened the wicket gate and stood aside for her to pass through. She turned into a lane that led to the overseer’s cottage.

“Good-by, Parris.”

“ ’By, Renée.”