Prelude to Love

I

THE corridor seemed strangely quiet. The usual evening bustle and clatter of voices and footsteps, of nurses and internes hurrying by, of visitors coming and going or walking slowly beside some convalescent patient, all were hushed. There were long intervals during which no one passed at all.

But Neal, lying in his narrow bed, continued to stare hopefully toward the open doorway. Each time his keen invalid’s ears caught the sound of an approaching step his heart jumped. But each time he knew deep within him that it was not Gay. He would know her step instantly among a million. A clock began striking the hour. Its loudness startled him at first because he knew it was several blocks away. Mechanically he counted eight strokes. She won’t come now, he thought, especially with all this snow.

The overheated hospital atmosphere became suddenly so oppressive to him that he felt nearly suffocated. He looked toward the window. It was wide open, yet no breath of air reached him. He stared at the large flakes falling steadily out there, to glisten for a moment like moths as they passed through a beam of light, and then vanish into the night. Even the sea sound of the city was miraculously hushed to a murmur, so that he imagined he could hear the whisper of the flakes. But for once they brought him no comfort.

Why had n’t Gay come this afternoon as she promised? She must know how much it would mean to me this last day, he thought. But what does she care? I can’t take her out and give her a good time like the others. No, that’s not fair; she’s proved often enough that she does care — a little, anyway. But I would n’t blame her if she did n’t. What can I offer her? Nothing . . . but myself — helpless, no good to anyone. But after the operation I shan’t be so helpless . . . if it’s a success. But it must be, it must be. . . .

The door of Mrs. Daley’s room across the way opened a little. There was a loud blare from the radio inside. ‘Since my sweetie went away . . . Wah, wah-wah, wah-wah . . .’ The intricate harmonizings of a male quartette filled the corridor. Neal winced for the man in the next room. He would not last through the night, they had said. She might turn the damnable thing off for a few hours at least. The door was shut suddenly and the noise ceased. Does he know he is dying? What kind of thoughts does a dying person have? Neal found himself listening for something. Yes, there it was still, that curious little sound which had come to him at quiet moments during the day from the other side of the wall and which had so puzzled him until it had finally struck him that it could be but one thing — hiccoughs. Perhaps he too was lying in there now staring at the snow and trying unsuccessfully to lose himself. . . .

Listlessly Neal turned from the window to glance at the book on the small table beside the bed. At last he picked it up, and opening to his place, which was marked by a letter from Gay, he began to read. He had reached the bottom of the page before he realized that nothing of its sense had penetrated to his consciousness. Instead of Proust’s meandering sentences he saw Gay rocking back and forth and singing to herself, as blithely unselfconscious as a child: —

As the words kept running through his head he let the book fall on his chest, and, turning again to the window, gave himself up to the memories that rose in rapid succession: the way she stood that day at the beach with the sun on her face and squinted up at him with the funny little smile curling up out of one corner of her mouth . . . the sound of her laughter, a low, husky, deprecating gurgle when he teased her, and the impudent wrinkling of her snub nose and toss of her head, with a flapping of her short hair round her ears . . . her trick of staying till the last moment and then going off with a single brief waggle of her fingers, and leaving behind in her hurry her gloves, purse, handkerchief. . . . Neal heard himself laughing. I’ll ask her next time she comes, he thought. What will she say? How will she look? He recalled how she would sometimes sink into a long silence in the midst of a conversation, and how, with a slow, absorbed, dreamy stare, she would turn to him when he sought, though always in vain, to enter that fathomless world of her silence, and he marveled anew at her rare capacity for yielding herself wholly to each present moment. . . .

II

A light tapping at the door broke in upon his reverie. He looked and saw a familiar silhouette standing framed just within the doorway. ‘It’s me,’ it said, incredibly bringing his dream to life. Something in him leaped with sudden eagerness to meet the slight figure as it came slowly into the room to stop close by the bed.

‘ You did come,’ he heard himself say, still only half convinced of her presence. Her snow-wet cheeks glistened, and her eyes were dancing gloriously. Gratefully he breathed in the smell of the fur and the snow. For a long moment they just stared, all their sensibilities opened wide to the magical flow that was passing back and forth between them. ‘In all this snow, too.’ Leisurely she took off her coat and threw it over the back of a chair. She moved in an aura of delicious, fragrant coolness, the fresh fragrance of outdoors.

‘Don’t you love the snow? I wanted to stay out and walk and feel it on my face.’

‘I’ve been lying here wishing I could do just that.’

‘So fluffy and soft ... I wanted to lie down and roll in it as I did when I was small, and make snowballs and throw them at people — only I was afraid they might think I was queer. . . . Are you laughing at me?’

‘Certainly not. Go on. Please talk more.’

‘ If it had been anyone else I would n’t have come in at all.’

‘Too bad you did. I was having such a good time here all by myself.’

‘I did walk round the block once. And I’m only going to stay a minute.’ She pulled off her gloves and laid them beside the purse on the bureau. ‘Then I’m going out to walk some more.’

‘Good,’ he grinned.

She wrinkled her nose and gave his arm a little push. ‘Pig.’

They burst out laughing together. And his delight in her grew beyond all measuring as he recognized the low gurgle he had been hearing in imagination such a short time before. Should he ask her now?

‘I’m so glad I know you,’ he said. ‘You do play so nice.’

She went to get her handkerchief from her purse and made several little dabs at her nose. ‘Have I got a red nose?’

‘ A little. Why, have you got a cold ? ’

‘It’s nothing. Just a sniffle. Mamma did n’t want me to go out to-night. But I told you I’d come, so I came anyway.’

‘But suppose it makes your cold worse. Maybe you should n’t have.’

‘What a nice bouquet!’ She bent to smell the roses in the small vase on the table. ‘Sweetheart roses. I should have brought you some flowers.’

‘Is that what they are called? That makes it even more romantic. They were sent to me by a girl down the corridor.’

Gay made a face at him, and, taking the vase, set it down on the floor out of sight. Her playful pretense of jealousy enchanted Neal.

‘I have n’t even seen her yet, but we’re old friends already. This morning after breakfast her nurse brought me a note from her. I sent back an answer and we’ve been exchanging notes all day, each one more friendly, till the last one, a little while ago when she sent me the flowers, sounded as if we had known each other for years. She’s had her appendix out and expects to get up in a day or so. They say she’s very pretty; all the internes are crazy about her.’

As he paused she lifted the vase back to its place on the table and began rearranging the flowers with what struck him as rather too elaborate carefulness. ‘Can you see them all right?’ she said. Then she went and sat in the chair in the farthest corner of the room.

‘Don’t sit way over there. Come here and sit on the bed.’

But she stayed still where she was. The flowers stood directly in his line of vision, so he could not see her face. He became conscious of a vague disappointment growing at the back of his mind, and of regret for something in his dream which was missing now in the reality of her actual presence. What’s the matter with me? he thought. Just a few minutes ago I was longing to see her, and now she’s here the thrill is gone already. Feeling somehow guilty, he tried to push his disappointment away. ‘Well, then, move the flowers,’ he said; ‘I can’t see you.’ But why was it, when he was alone it always seemed so easy, and then as soon as they were together something got between them?

‘What difference does it make?’ she said.

She was only pretending, of course. But that cold curtness beneath the surface lightness of her tone? This was carrying the game a bit too far. Another blare of the radio drew his attention. He looked in time to see the back of a man going into Mrs. Daley’s room. The door closed behind him. A shrill feminine voice sounded faintly from inside. Neal grasped eagerly at the diversion. He forced a laugh. ‘She’son a rampage to-night. That’s her husband who just went in. Usually he’s here by seven, but he’s over an hour late tonight. She’s so jealous she calls him up at all hours to make sure he’s where he tells her he’s going to be.’

‘How do you know all that?’

Yes, there was an unmistakable note of constraint in her voice. Neal went on hurriedly, saying whatever first came into his head. And all the while he was painfully aware of the swift fading of that precious thing which had just been there flowing between them.

I must hear her laugh again, he thought. ‘Why, you can’t help but hear, she hollers so loud. Besides, everyone knows all about everyone else in a hospital. Everybody gossips, when they’re not too busy boasting about their doctors or their own ailments. It’s funny, but there’s something in the air that makes people let down the bars and throw off most of the conventional restraints that rule them outside. For most people, after the first short period of pain is past, it’s just one grand holiday. Nothing to do all day but talk and eat, and talk some more. Everyone seems so much more sex-conscious, too. The most sedate females get out their thinnest and fanciest negligees — much too fancy to waste on a mere husband at home — and parade up and down before total strangers, or else sit up in bed and flirt brazenly with people they would n’t be seen with on the street. Even the worst grouches and snobs become quite amiable. I suppose the enforced idleness, together with the unfamiliar nearness of death . . .’ Overcome all at once by a sense of the hollowness of his words and hopelessly scattered by her continued aloofness, he let his sentence dribble away unfinished into the silence. His mind was drained dry.

III

Suddenly she got up, pulled the chair close to the bed, and sat down again, settling back into its depths with her body curled sideways. He looked at her curiously and she smiled, a strange, intimate, lazy smile which reassured him and filled him with gratitude. She crossed her legs and began absently twirling round her forefinger a curl at the back of her head. A shock of wonder passed through him as he stared at the slowly bobbing tip of her shoe. To be able to stand up and sit down, to cross one’s legs and to lie back at ease in a chair, all so easily, without a single conscious effort of will! And shall I be able to do all that too after the operation? he thought incredulously.

‘What are you thinking of?’

Her voice came to him from far away. But how could he tell her, who lived in a world in which to be able to do these things was not a miracle, in which the body could be taken for granted? How make her understand?

She leaned forward abruptly to stare at him intently. ‘Are you nervous about the operation, Neal?’

‘No, I’m looking forward to it.‘

Their eyes met for a long moment.

‘Oh, Neal,’ she murmured in a naked voice which revealed her secret hopes and fears more clearly than any words.

I ’ll ask her now. This was the moment. To hear her say ‘Yes,’ to feel her close — something to hold on to when they covered his face with that mask to-morrow. It must be a success.

With a little impulsive gesture she reached out and touched his hand with the tips of her fingers. ‘Say it, Neal. What is it you were going to say?’

She knows. No need to ask her. You’re adorable, he was saying inwardly; you have the loveliest eyes I ever looked into. But that would sound too much like a line. . . . He wanted to shout, to sing, to laugh long and loud, to describe to her in detail all that was happening inside him. But why could n’t he?

‘Please. Tell me what you were going to say then.’

Well, and why not? Surely it will be a success. But suppose it was n’t. He could not bear to see this light go out of her eyes little by little, and know he was becoming a burden to her, unwanted. . . . ’Here comes Mrs. Daley’s husband out again. You can get a good look at him.’ Why did I say that?

‘Oh, forget Mrs. Daley and her husband! You must tell me, Neal.’

‘He generally spends more time with the nurse at the desk than with his wife. Did you notice her when you came in? She’s a dizzy thing.’

The light faded from her eyes. She sat back in her chair again. ‘I don’t wonder his wife bawls him out all the time. I would n’t trust him out of my sight two minutes. But that’s just like a man. They ’re all the same —they fall for any dizzy thing who takes the trouble to flatter their vanity. When you get up you’ll do it too, I suppose.’

The brittle flippancy of her words bewildered him. ‘Why do you say that? It’s because of what I told you about that girl.’

‘Oh, I would n’t blame you, no matter what you did. You certainly deserve a good time after all this.’

‘But that is n’t my idea of a good time. Promiscuous friendships don’t interest me.’

‘That’s what you say now. But just wait. It’s only human nature. After all, you ‘re no different from other men.’

His vanity reared at the direct challenge to his deeply cherished sense of individuality. ‘You’re a very wise young lady, are n’t you?’ he began. Then, after a moment, ‘But surely you don’t think I take her seriously, or she me?’

‘How do I know? You might. But I don’t see how men can be so simple as to be taken in by such tricks.’

This was too ridiculous. Sounds of life flowing in the street below, the irritable snarl of an automobile horn, the clanging of a street-car bell, the shrill of a policeman’s whistle, cut across the heavy silence to penetrate the outer precincts of his consciousness. ‘Are n’t you being rather hard on someone you’ve never even seen?’ he said at last. ‘There are the notes over there. Read them if you like. You talk as if you thought . .

‘I’m not at all interested in hearing about your affairs with other women.’

Stinging, bitter words rushed to his lips, but he checked them. Slow, he thought; be careful what you say now or you may break something that can’t be repaired again. But deep down he knew that something was already irreparably broken. So she was like this, too. Then this lovely image which had been taking shape in him all this long while was, after all, only an illusion fashioned out of his own longings. Certainly this was not the Gay of the swift sympathies and wide tolerance he thought he knew so well.

IV

They stared at each other as strangers. Her eyes and lips were smiling, but it was a smile he had never seen before on her face, a surface smile, faintly mocking and alert to parry and thrust. Within the lonely, innermost, elusive core of him he recoiled from her. Finally he gave a short, hard laugh and looked away toward the door. Presently Mr. Tomkins came shuffling along in his faded brown bathrobe. He smiled and waved. Neal responded mechanically. Mr. Tomkins hesitated as if about to come in, then went on. Neal heard the scrape of a chair and out of the corner of his eye saw Gay go to the bureau. But he would not let himself turn to her.

Stubbornly he shut himself off from her, assuring himself he did n’t care what she did. Then he heard the click of the catch on her purse. There was a sharp finality to the sound that made him go tight all over. Could she be going, really going? In a flash he saw what a vast aching emptiness her going would leave in him.

‘That was n’t fair, Gay, and you know it,’ he said quietly.

She lifted her head defiantly. ‘Well, maybe it was n’t. But a person who is really in love has eyes for nobody but the one he loves. He just is n’t interested in anyone else.’

‘That sounds very nice and romantic, but it just is n’t so. A man in love is even more susceptible, in some ways, than one who is n’t.’

‘I don’t believe it.‘

‘Nevertheless it’s a fact. Besides, no one person can be all in all to another, no matter how much the two may be in love. People are too complex.’

She shook her head emphatically. ‘A person who is really in love simply can’t see anyone but the one he loves.’

‘That’s your opinion. But it’s mine that a man can have a genuine love for two or even more women at the same time.’ She was staring at him in a way which puzzled and disturbed him. ‘But of course it all comes down to what you mean by love. There are so many different kinds . . . Oh, I can’t explain what I mean. . . .’

Gay walked slowly over to stand near the foot of the bed. Little by little his thoughts began to clear. He spoke slowly, and in his self-absorbed search for just the right word his awareness of her began to fade again. ‘But there’s always something more in us that’s left over, something that can only be satisfied by some other person or maybe several persons. Perhaps for a time, while the first glow of love is on you . . . But that’s bound to wear off sooner or later.’

‘I know love can’t last forever,’ Gay interrupted. ‘But when it came to an end I would go away.’

Good, he thought, she’s sensible again. Lulled by her words into a relaxed complacency, he began to strut. ‘Life never stands still. Life is growth and decay, a perpetual ebb and flow of desire . . .’ But the shell of his complacency was shattered in an instant when, looking up, he saw that her eyes were misty. He floundered, groping ineffectually to free himself from the web of words. ‘Oh, why are we wasting our time like this? Why do we go on looking solemn and pretending we’re interested in all these pompous generalities? All generalities are false.’ Yes, even this one, he added inwardly.

With an aching acuteness he watched the precious minutes sliding by swiftly and irretrievably into eternity. Soon Miss Wiggen would be coming to say it was time to go. But was n’t there some way, some word that would make her understand? ‘It’s an insatiable curiosity, a ... a sense of mystery. . . . But these are only words. You have to feel it. Oh, how can so many people go through life and not feel the mystery of things?’ Her chin went up again. Worse and worse. He was only getting in deeper all the time. ‘Don’t misunderstand me. Please, Gay . . .

‘ I don’t. I know what you mean, all right. Better than you do yourself, I think.’

‘ Do you ever have the feeling, when you’re talking to someone, trying to get across to him and make him understand something that means a lot to you, that the other person does n’t understand at all and never will, no matter how long you talk? Have you ever felt the treachery, the utter inadequacy of words — the futility of even trying to express what you mean in words that must in the very nature of things mean something different to everyone? What do you mean by the word “love,” for instance? I doubt if you could tell me. I know I could n’t tell you what I mean. After all, it’s merely a convenient symbol we use to sum up all the thousands of little emotional experiences of a certain sort that have chanced to come to us from the day we were born. So even for ourselves its meaning changes almost every time we use it. It’s so easy to misunderstand even the simplest things; even things said with the kindest intentions in the world have a way of hurting someone without our knowing anything about it.’

‘Do you know, I think you’re not very frank.’

Exasperated, Neal flung out in hot arrogance, ‘Who ever said I was? Of course I’m not frank, if by being frank you mean blurting out whatever you think, regardless of everyone. A person who is always frank is either a barbarian or a fool. What we need in this world is less frankness and more hypocrisy.’ There you go, showing off again, protested an inner voice. You know you don’t mean that. Well, but in a way I do.

‘Then I’m either a barbarian or a fool. I can’t pretend. And I won’t try.’

All at once Neal felt very tired and heavy with defeat. It’s no good — I can’t reach her. Better not to talk at all; words only drive it away. But must it be so always? He said, ‘Sometimes I’m tempted to close up tight and not even try to meet people except on the surface. The trouble is, you’re all feeling — and I ’m top-heavy on the mental side, I guess. Here we are talking to each other in different languages and getting nowhere. . . . Oh, what’s the use?’

‘If that’s the way you feel, I think it’s too bad.’

They stayed silent for some time, avoiding each other’s eyes.

‘We are very different,’ she said at last. ‘It really is silly for us to go on; we never seem to understand each other.’ She paused. He knew she was waiting for him to deny it. But he found it impossible to say a word. ‘I guess I might as well go now.’

If she goes now, it’s the end, he told himself. He stared at her curiously, with a cold detachment. There was a hurt look in her eyes and an odd, set expression round her mouth. She dropped her eyes before his pitiless gaze. Do you know you’re not at all pretty like that?

Suddenly she was over by the bureau, standing with her back to him, her head bent forward.

Damn! She was crying. Had he really said that, or did he just imagine he said it? He stared at her back while she cried silently, his only feeling a rather shocked astonishment at his indifference. The far-off muffled moan of foghorns on the river came drifting forlornly through the falling snow to mingle with the gloom in his soul. We’re lost in a fog too, he thought. But she’s right. It was silly to hope they could ever meet in any lasting understanding. Why not let it end now before they got in any deeper?

V

‘Excuse me,’ broke in a voice from the doorway. It was Miss Wiggen. ‘I ’ll just close this for a minute.’

‘Why? . . .’

But the door was already shut and they were alone again. Then suddenly he knew.

‘The man next door must have died,’ he said, ‘and they’re going to take him out now. She’s very professional. She does n’t want me to know for fear it will upset me.’ His voice somehow did not sound as unconcerned as he had hoped.

Gay turned about to stare at him, her eyes big with awe. The sight of her tears melted Neal in an instant. He stretched out a hand.

‘Come here, Gay,’ he said in a strange, peremptory voice, straining toward her with all the strength of his being. There was an intolerable ache in his throat. He felt as if he were going to choke. He felt he could not bear to see her like that another second. What torture to be unable to get up and go to her!

She came and stood just beyond his reach, her hands clasped over her breast. Then abruptly she took his hand and held it between both of hers. ‘Does it upset you, Neal?’

‘No. But it gives me a queer feeling.’ They stared at each other, listening. She feels it too, he thought. Vague noises came to them from the next room — people talking, feet and chairs scuffling. But no longer that sound of hiccoughing. When had that ceased? While they were arguing, absorbed in their petty quarrel, a man had died on the other side of that wall. Something had left that body in there which just a few minutes ago had been a human being, like her and himself, and gone — where? Perhaps it had passed between them as they wrangled. The chimes came booming through the night. A sound of laughter reached them through the wall.

‘I don’t see how they can be so callous,’ said Gay in a hushed, indignant voice.

‘They see so much of it, the mystery does n’t touch them.’

She came then of her own accord and sat on the edge of the bed, still holding his hand between hers. The light shone on her face and hair, and her crystal beads sparkled iridescently. In the back of his consciousness he noted the shape and color of their shadows on her throat. Each shadow had a small hole of light in it which it puzzled him for a moment to account for. The gleaming ivory-pink smoothness of her skin, so soft, so firm. . . . The pulse throbbing at the lower edge of the sh dow caught his eye. At sight of that mysterious token of the life force coursing in her veins it came to him with a shock how completely his happiness was bound up in this fragile flesh, and he shuddered. . . . That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once. . . .

Gay disengaged one of her hands. She smiled dimly as their eyes met.

‘Forgive me, Gay. I’m a stupid pig. Kick me, will you?’

She lifted his hand and brushed the back of it lightly with her lips. Her eyes glowed with a tenderness such as Neal had never seen before.

‘Sometimes you make me feel so old,’ she said. ‘You’re such a baby, Neal.’

And Neal became aware of something utterly new welling up within him, like a spring in a desert, to moisten with its fertile flow the arid sands of his soul.

‘I guess maybe you’re right,’ he said.