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Children of the Market Place by Edgar Lee Masters

E >> Edgar Lee Masters >> Children of the Market Place




He was of the spirit of Douglas. He was an expansionist. He had gone
into California in 1845, and raised the American flag on a mountain
overlooking Monterey. He had helped later to conquer California. He had
for various audacious and disobedient acts been tried and
court-martialed, and dismissed from military service. President Polk had
approved the verdict, but remitted the penalty. Then he had resigned.
Now he was the object of the highest honor of an American convention. He
was made the spokesman for a platform which denounced the invasion of
Kansas by an armed force in the interests of slavery. He had gone into
California for the slavocracy which engineered the Mexican War, as New
England contended. Now he was at the head of the party waging war upon
that slavocracy. A strange people, these Americans!

Douglas had said that he did not want the office of President. Perhaps
that was an exhibition of political coyness, for he was in the lists
just the same! He had 33 votes on the first ballot, of which only 14
came from the South. President Pierce, who was running again, met a
wavering fortune. On the sixteenth ballot he had not a vote. Douglas had
121 votes; a certain Mr. Buchanan had 168. On the seventeenth ballot
this Mr. Buchanan was nominated. Who was this Mr. Buchanan?

He had been Secretary of State under Polk, had helped to secure the
Texan territory. So much for the appeal to Young America. He had been
minister to Great Britain. Therefore he was abroad when Douglas was
gummed with the poisonous sweet of Kansas and Nebraska. He thought
slavery was wrong; therefore, you Abolitionists, here's the man for you.
He held that territorial extension of slavery need not be feared; let
the people rule. As a Congressman he had voted to exclude abolition
literature from the mails; come forward Calhoun-ites and vote for
Buchanan. They did. Fremont did not get a vote in North Carolina, South
Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas,
Missouri, Tennessee; and only 281 in Maryland, 291 in Virginia, and 364
in Kentucky. But Millard Fillmore, running on a platform of America for
Americans, almost divided the vote with Buchanan in those states. He
carried Maryland against Buchanan; but of the whole popular vote he was
nearly a million behind Buchanan. Fremont had 1,341,264 votes and
Buchanan had 1,838,169 votes. The electoral college gave Buchanan 174
votes, Fremont 114, and Fillmore 8. Why could Douglas not have been
nominated?

We got the news by telegraph in Chicago. As I studied the bulletins, I
was wondering whether the result was symptomatic of transient causes or
whether it betokened great changes. Had the Declaration of Independence
been approved at the polls? How was Douglas taking it? I did not see
him. I wrote to him, but he did not reply. Did he get my letter, or was
he consoling himself in convivial ways?

I now prepared to go abroad. I was leaving a country that had changed in
almost every way since I had come to it. I was leaving a city that was
nothing but a hamlet when I first saw it. I had seen New Orleans and
Chicago connected by rail, and the state grow from a few hundred
thousand to a million population. I had seen Arkansas, Florida,
Michigan, Iowa, Texas, Wisconsin, California, added to the Union. Coal
and iron had become barons and were doing the bidding of steam, which
was king. The oil that had floated on the surface of the salt wells of
Kentucky was soon to be more powerful than cotton. Everything had
changed--but man. Was he rising to a purer height, had a glory begun to
dawn on America? Should slavery, polygamy, rum, be driven from the land?
Then should we be free and happy, and just and noble? France had got
schools and the ballot by the Revolution, but now she had a throne
again. We had the ballot but did we have freedom? No law could have made
a mob hiss Douglas at the North Market. Freedom in their hearts would
have given him an audience.

Was I free? Was I happy? I was not free. I was not happy. My life seemed
cribbed. Dorothy was an invalid. I went to her from watching the
election bulletins. I sat on the side of the bed, took her in my arms.
"Let us go to Italy," she said. "I am dying here." She pressed her frail
hands around my neck. "Oh let us go--let us go."




CHAPTER LI


We sailed on the _Persia_, 376 feet long, 45 feet of beam, gross tonnage
3300, horsepower 4000, speed 14 knots an hour. As Dorothy knew nothing
of ocean sailing craft she was unable to share in my wonder at all the
splendor and comfort of this wonderful steamer.

From the first Dorothy was ill. Our boy Reverdy too became seasick. As I
was not affected in the least I had the care of both of them. A part of
the time the sea was very rough.

One night when we had been on the water three days Dorothy called to me.
She had been greatly nauseated during the afternoon. A sudden return of
the discomfort had seized her. I arose quickly and made a light. The
boat was rocking. A stiff breeze was blowing. We were headed through a
great darkness. Dorothy was deathly pale. She was unable to bring up
anything more and was convulsed with retching and coughing.

She grew suddenly quiet, her eyes closing, her lips parting. "Dear," she
murmured. I waited for what she would say. She had become at once limp
in my arms. I shook her gently, pressed my ear to her breast. I could
hear no heart beat. I called her, laid her down, wetted a towel, and
applied it to her head. She did not rouse. I went from the stateroom to
find the physician. He came hurriedly. But Dorothy was dead. That word
of endearment was her last.

Without, the sea and the sky were as black as a sunless cave. The water
rolled around us, pitching the boat forward and sideways. The timbers
creaked, lamps jiggled, the hallways seemed to undulate like snakes. But
the heart of the _Persia_ pumped with rhythmic regularity. The
passengers were asleep, or in various festivities, in cabins or in the
dining room. Nothing was stayed for this tragedy which had come to me.
On we went through the darkness! Dorothy was lying where I had placed
her, her head turned to one side, her face pale in the last sleep. I
aroused little Reverdy. He looked at his mother, kneeled by the berth,
and sobbed. The physician took us out of the cabin, locked the door, and
put us in another. I tucked little Reverdy in bed again; then I went out
to look, at the storm, the dark water, the impenetrable sky.

Back of me was America, flattened out like a map in my imagination, lost
and sunk like old Atlantis. I sent my mind across it from New York to
Chicago, from Chicago to California. What was it? Earth, a continent
containing an embattled and disappointed Douglas, millions of struggling
people. Ahead of me, over thousands of miles of water, an unknown Italy.
I lived over all my life, but mostly now all my life with Dorothy, from
those first days in Jacksonville when I was under a cloud because of
Zoe and the killing of Lamborn, to our days in Nashville; the ecstasy
of first love, our walks and restings among the Cumberland hills, the
kindness of Mother Clayton, her joy when she learned that Dorothy had
consented to become my wife. I saw again the face of Jackson, his eyes,
his reverence when he kissed the brow of Dorothy; his tears and his
feeble step when he walked away from us. And I lived over early Chicago,
all my days with Douglas. Where was he now on that flattened, negligible
map called America? In what soil had Zoe moldered into the earth? What
had become of Fortescue? Where were Abigail and Aldington, Reverdy,
Sarah, this night? How could the millions storming over slavery and war,
territories, sugar and cotton and iron, gold and railways think of these
things if they were face to face with a reality as stark as I was, in a
boat rolled by dark water, tossing forward toward Europe and with a
burden like the dead body of Dorothy? All this night I walked the deck.
I saw the dawn come up, ragged and blue, patched with dark clouds, which
the wind drove close to the mounting waves.

The captain ordered an autopsy. Dorothy had died of heart failure. Then
there was to be a burial at sea. In the afternoon the clouds lifted from
the sky. Toward the west the sun burned over the water, making a wake of
fire from the boat to the utmost horizon. I took a last look at Dorothy,
kissed her cold brow. Then she was wrapped with sheets on a plank
weighted with iron, and taken to the stern of the boat. I stood near to
see it all, with little Reverdy weeping as if his heart would break.

The body is cast into the water, and in the very golden wake of the sun.
I cannot hear the splash; I only see a slight flap of the sheet. The
water closes over instantly. A gull frightened into a slight veering off
turns to the spot where Dorothy has disappeared. No ripples to mark the
place where she has been received by the sea! The boat has gone on
without staying. I keep my eyes fixed on the place. Waves cross and
recross over it. The sunlight shifts. Tears and the sun blind my eyes. I
rest them a moment and then look again. Where was it that Dorothy sank?
What great fish started at the splash, the white apparition; and then
returned to nibble? To what depths has Dorothy sunk? To what darker
waters has she been towed by some creature of prey? The sailors have
gone to their other duties. Little Reverdy is by my side, weeping
softly. I must write to the older Reverdy back in Jacksonville. He is
her only relation in the world. To-night I must sleep, if I can.

But I do not sleep. I wonder if I have been a good husband to Dorothy.
What was she doing, how living, in the years past, when I was absorbed
in business, following the fortunes of Douglas, studying the books that
had no bearing upon her happiness nor, alas, upon mine? I saw her now as
patient, sometimes alone, perhaps always waiting for me, but never
complaining. How many happy hours had I sacrificed to other things when
I might have been with her! Was Dorothy happy? Did she love me? I began
to think over the occasions of her demonstrations of affection--after
all how few they were! Always tender toward me, but how infrequently
were there moments of passion, of ecstasy. Had I awakened all of her
nature? Had I been living a neutral life all these years? Was I in some
sort a negligible character, without magnetism, of unfulfilled passion?
A slumbering nature?

But where now was Dorothy's body? We were fifty miles, seventy-five
miles, a hundred miles from the unmarked spot of burial. She had sunk
fathoms into the abyss. The bell on the boat had rung the midnight, then
one o'clock. I heard it toll for two--then I slept. I awoke hearing
little Reverdy sobbing. I stood out of the berth and tried to comfort
him. Then we dressed and went to breakfast. Whatever happens there must
be coffee and toast. Then I walked the deck and longed for land.

We changed boats at Cherbourg. Then a dreary voyage to Naples. We
hurried through the noise and colorful disorder of Naples and drove by
carriage to Rome. We entered the same gate through which Milton and
Goethe had passed, into the Piazza di Spagna. At the foot of the steps
leading to Trinita di Monti--here where the foreigners stayed, the
English quarter. I found accommodations in a pension. First there was
the unpacking, and little Reverdy had to be kept comforted, if possible;
I must start him in school too. Life must always go on. I became
sensible of many bells. The strange noises of a civilization wholly
unknown to me came up through my window. I looked out upon the Piazza di
Spagna, knowing nothing of its history. Who would be my friends here?
Back of me was nearly a quarter of a century in America and before me
what?




CHAPTER LII


Our pension was all that could be desired. Mr. and Mrs. Winchell were
here from America, from Connecticut. She was about twenty-seven; he was
nearly sixty. They were on their way around the world, stopping in Rome
for some months. She was studying painting under an artist who also
taught etching. In this way I came under the instruction of Luca, who
had a studio not far from the Piazza di Spagna, and also into daily
association with Mrs. Winchell.

First little Reverdy had to be placed in school and given a tutor.
Before doing this I took him around the city, and we saw together some
of the churches: S. Maria del Popolo, S. Giovanna dei Laterano, S.
Angelo, S. Paolo. I took him to the Pantheon, the Coliseum, to St.
Peter's, into the Vatican. Thus I gained my first impressions; and on
these rounds I found the courier Serafino Maletesta, who became a source
of so much interest and delight to me.

My mornings were spent in Luca's studio; my afternoons in sightseeing
with Serafino, in which Mr. and Mrs. Winchell joined, though
infrequently by him. He was ageing and not well. And often from the
beginning Mrs. Winchell and I set off together with Serafino to explore
museums, visit the Palatine, drive to the edge of the city where the
Alban hills were plainer across the Campagna, as level as a prairie
around Jacksonville.

I was struggling with Italian, carrying on such conversation as I could
with Serafino, and with Mrs. Winchell, who was growing proficient in the
language.

Serafino was something past sixty. He had been with the Carbonari of
1820, and in the Italian revolution of 1830-31. He saw this suppressed.
Then when the republican movements of 1848 shook Europe, he had
participated in the third Italian revolution of that year; and again he
had seen Italy put down, this time by the intervention of the French,
whose Louis Napoleon sought by this action to win the friendship of the
Catholic clergy in France. The hated Austrians now ruled Lombardy and
Venice. In Rome, now that the Pope again had temporal, power, the
political affairs of the city were in the hands of Cardinal Antonelli,
who suppressed political agitation with great severity. It was not only
an American audience before North Market Hall in Clark Street, Chicago,
that denied the freedom of speech. Cardinals were up to the same thing,
as well as mobs.

Serafino told me calmly, with occasional profanity, of the arrest of
large numbers of Italians who belonged to the Unita Italiana at Naples,
whose condemnation was speedily followed by hideous dungeons and
atrocious cruelties. There was slavery in Italy too!

Italy was under the heel of Austria. Religious bigotry, more subtle and
more powerful than the slavocracy of America, was crushing hope from the
lives of the Italians, while Mazzini and Cavour battled like Titans
against the powerful hierarchy of monarchy and Catholicism. There was
little of the history of Italy, of ancient Rome, that was seemingly
unknown to Serafino. He had read all his life; and he had been in the
actual conflicts of awakening Italy. Now his head shook a little when
his face reddened from suppressed wrath. He cursed quietly, but with a
terrible energy. He was poor; but there was a refinement in his personal
appearance. His worn shoes were always polished, his coat and trousers
of many years service were always brushed. He would appear at the
appointed hour, bright of eye, cleanly shaven, and always with wonderful
suggestions for sightseeing for the afternoon. He lived somewhere near
the Forum. Having never married he was continuing a friendship formed
long ago with a woman who kept house for him and lived with him. As he
was no longer fitted for a battle or strife he was now an adviser to
younger men. He was no doubt suspected but he seemed to have no fear. As
we went about among priests and soldiers he smiled and spoke to them.

He knew them of old and a certain security seemed to be his. His two
interests were politics and art, but art had won him almost completely.
What he knew of history and of art, his life-long residence in Rome made
him the most interesting of couriers.

Our conversations widened and deepened day by day. Had he heard of
Douglas? No. He had read _Uncle Tom's Cabin_. What did I know of Mrs.
Stowe? I ran over the list of our notables. They meant nothing to him.
State sovereignty, popular sovereignty, the Missouri Compromise, the
Compromises of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska act were words without
significance. But there was negro slavery. "How can that be in your
country?" he asked, and laughed ironically. "If all men are created free
and equal how about the negro?" he asked.

I went on to tell Serafino, that Thomas Jefferson, when drafting the
Declaration of Independence, had condemned George III who had forbidden
the American Colonies "to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce";
but that the clause was stricken out by South Carolina and Georgia.
Therefore that the Declaration did not mean negroes when it said "all
men." Serafino looked at me with quiet, comprehending eyes which said:
"It's the same struggle of money and power everywhere." He added aloud:
"Italy will never eat free bread and have enough of it until the
Austrian is driven off our back. They make us work and take away our
labor in taxes. We are negroes too."

He wanted to know something of Garrison, of whom he had heard. What was
thought of Washington in America? But in the midst of these subjects he
would stop to point to a broken column, a ruined temple; or he would
turn suddenly into an old church to show me some beloved picture. After
all, the old life of street brawls, debates, and dungeons had faded out
of him with the dying of the rebellious fires of youth. There were only
echoes of these thunderous events in his soul. His eye only brightened
fully before a picture or a statue. His reverence arose only to some
perfection of color or of form.

Once he took me by a quick turn, as if by impulse, into an old church.
"There is a lovely Madonna here," he said. "Who painted it?" "Some pupil
of Raphael's perhaps." Serafino removed his hat and stood reverently
before this beautiful face, so human, so tender. "I have heard you say
so much against the Church, the Papacy--I thought you were not in the
Church," I said. "No, I am an atheist," replied Serafino. "But what has
that to do with this? Look at those eyes, those lips. In '48, when my
soul was torn, I used to come in here every day just for the consolation
of that face. And now I come for the memory and the peace it brings me."
Slow tears were on the lower lids of his eyes. With a rough hand he
brushed them away, then asked me: "What do you think?" "I love that
face," I replied. "I understand how you feel."

A friendship grew up between Serafino and me. He was not a perfunctory
guide. He never grew tired. When five o'clock would come and the day was
really ended I would say: "Well I must be back now. Little Reverdy is
coming over for an early dinner." "Ah, but just this one picture," he
would say, "it will only take a few minutes. I want you to see this. It
is a great work and something may happen. I may forget to bring you
again." Then we would walk in and out of the cold and gloom of the
church after having stared the picture into vividness.

During my morning work my friendship with Mrs. Winchell ripened rapidly.
We had an excellent start in the circumstance that we were Americans. We
knew of cities, of some people in common. Abigail had come from
Connecticut and that, in a sense, laid a foundation for our
conversations. We were working together, she with painting, I with
drawing and etching. We criticized and suggested concerning each other's
work. Or we put down our brushes and pencils and talked of life. In this
way at last she knew of my going to America as a youth of eighteen, of
the farm, of Zoe, of my marriage, my life in Chicago, my long friendship
with Douglas, and lastly of Dorothy's death at sea. Her eyes would look
intently into mine. And when I told her that I considered my life
practically wasted she said: "Do you know every one's life is wasted;
nearly every one. Few find their work and pursue it. Most of us are
drawn aside, or tripped, or blinded. Your friend Douglas seems to me to
have had a wasted life. As you tell me all this I see you as a man of
tremendous will drawn into an accidental path, not his real path. You
are an artist at heart. I don't mean that you will ever be a great
etcher, though one cannot tell; I mean that all this turbulence,
sordidness, American hurry, waste, vulgarity, agitation, politics, did
not belong to you. But what right have I to talk? My life is a waste
too."

Little by little I learned from her what her life had been, what its
central impulse was. She was a poor girl who hungered for opportunity.
She had looked with critical eyes upon marriageable men. I wondered if
she had been attractive to many men, if many had had the discernment to
see what she was. If a young woman marries an elderly man of wealth it
is probable that no young man of wealth has come to her at the favorable
hour; and probable, too, that no man of merely compelling magnetism has
been interested in her. Mr. Winchell was kindly, a noble nature; he gave
her a tender, but only a paternal love. But through him she had
traveled; she had had the beauty of life for which her heart was
insatiable. There were no children; there never would be children, and
what lavish, ecstatic affection she bestowed upon my Reverdy! So day by
day I learned that she was a teacher in Connecticut when Mr. Winchell
came along, willing to give her everything if she would marry him. He
had been rather a heavy drinker up to this time, now five years before;
when he left off drink for awhile. Then he had begun again, but rarely
indulged to excess. It may be that drink had emasculated him before he
married her; but now if because of this he tippled occasionally, he was
justified in medicine which dulled feelings that he could not be a
husband to this radiant woman, who treated him always with such
tenderness and devotion, always honored him with such scrupulous
attention.

She wanted a child above all things. All of us remember some woman whom
we knew in youth who kept canaries, or raised flowers or had some queer
little fad. We learn to know why women do this. In her case she
expressed her mother's passion in studies, in art, in travel, in
friendship, in kindness to every one; above all in devotion to her
husband. She mothered him in the most tender and beautiful way. In a
little while I knew all her story, as she did mine.

Serafino came for me one morning at the studio. There was an old cafe
beyond the walls near the Campagna where the food was wholly Italian and
of the best. It was a wonderful place for the rest of the noonday meal,
for a view of the Alban hills. The sun was warm, the sky was clear. The
intoxication of an Italian day was in the air. I wished so much to share
the delight with someone. Mrs. Winchell was sitting near absorbed in her
work. But she had looked up and bowed to Serafino, whom she had seen
with me so frequently. I turned to her and asked: "Would you and Mr.
Winchell like to join me?" "Let us go and ask him," she replied. So we
set off to the pension to invite Uncle Tom. That was the name she called
him, and I had begun to use it myself.

Uncle Tom had made the acquaintance of some men of his own age from New
York. They had begun to patronize a cafe located beyond the American
Embassy, where broiled chicken and fresh vegetables were a specialty and
where the red wine was of the best. He had an engagement with these
cronies and was preparing to leave as we came in. He listened to
Isabel's exclamations about the place to which Serafino wished to take
us. If she had been his daughter and I had been his son he could not
have sent us off together with a heartier laugh, a more undisturbed
heart. "You two go," he said. "You get along about pictures and scenery.
I am going to Canape's, and play checkers this afternoon. I am too fat
to run around like you young folks do. Go on and have a good time."

And we ran down, following Serafino who had preceded us to engage a
carriage. Off we drove, the wheels rattling over the stones, past the
Forum, past the Coliseum, in view of St. Peter's. Soon we entered a
dusty road. The houses were small now, broken and old. At last we drew
up into an open space surrounded by little buildings: a blacksmith's
shop where the anvil was ringing, little bakeries, markets where
vegetables and bologna were vended. Ragged Italian children, gay and
soiled with healthy dirt, were playing in the dust, turning somersaults,
chasing each other, laughing. Beyond us was the Campagna, the Alban
hills. We climbed a rickety stairway to a platform or roof of stone. An
eager and obliging waiter brought us a table, spread it, put before us
red wine. And Serafino, seeing these things done, disappeared, leaving
Isabel and me to dine together under this clear sky with the green of
the lovely plain spread out before us to the purples of the hills.

How could I help but make comparisons between Isabel and Dorothy? I had
never known any women but Dorothy and Abigail, Sarah, Mother Clayton. I
had never come into romantic contact with any woman but Dorothy. Now I
was advancing to this relationship with Isabel. I began to wonder if I
had given Dorothy love. I had given her perfect loyalty. Was there a
form of treason to Dorothy's memory in the fast beating of my heart here
in the presence of Isabel, under this sky, in this charming place?
Perhaps I had been starved too. Yet because of her personality, the
radiant flame which was herself, the laughing and girlish genius which
was in her, but above all the spiritual integrity which was hers, I
stood in awe of her. But that awe was sufficiently explained by her
devotion to her husband. I saw in her eyes honor and truth, and the
peace of mind that sometimes comes with them, all the while that I felt
the blood surge around my heart and pulsate in my hands. There seemed to
be nothing now of which we could not speak. Her interest in children
betrayed itself in exclamations over the ragged little Italians playing
in the court. I wondered if my heart had ever been profoundly stirred. I
had married Dorothy. But suppose Zoe had not been in my life to have
offended and alienated Dorothy's interest for a time, and thus to have
energized this English will which was mine for conquest of the farm, for
the killing of Lamborn--for the continued pursuit of Dorothy? In such
case had I married Dorothy? What would life have been to me if I had met
Isabel when I first knew Dorothy? This woman of white flame talking of
art, of travel, of Rome, of religion, of beauty; giving way to girlish
chuckles and laughter. Was she not closer to me, as temperate genius of
the North, than Dorothy, out of the languor and the romanticism of the
South? Was not Douglas closer to the North, which Isabel seemed to me
now to symbolize, than to that South with which his fate had now so long
been entangled?

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Various - "The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863"

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