The most notable thing about Time is that it is
so purely relative
. A large amount of reminiscence is, by common
consent, conceded to the drowning man; and it is not past belief that one may
review an entire courtship while removing one's gloves.
That is what Trysdale was doing, standing by a
table in his bachelor apartments. On the table stood a singular-looking green
plant in a red earthen jar. The plant was one of the species of cacti, and was provided
with long, tentacular leaves that perpetually swayed with the slightest breeze
with a peculiar beckoning motion.
Trysdale's friend, the brother of the bride,
stood at a sideboard
complaining at being allowed to drink alone.
Both men were in
evening dress. White favors like stars upon
their coats shone through the gloom of the apartment.
As he slowly unbuttoned his gloves, there
passed through Trysdale's mind a swift, scarifying retrospect of the last few
hours. It seemed that in his nostrils was still the scent of the flowers that
had been banked in odorous masses about the church, and in his ears the lowpitched
hum of a thousand well-bred voices, the rustle of crisp garments, and, most
insistently recurring, the drawling words of the minister irrevocably binding
her to another.
>From this last hopeless point of view he
still strove, as if it had
become a habit of his mind, to reach some
conjecture as to why and how he had lost her. Shaken rudely by the
uncompromising fact, he had suddenly found himself confronted by a thing he had
never before faced --his own innermost, unmitigated, arid unbedecked self. He saw
all the garbs of pretence and egoism that he had worn now turn to rags of
folly. He shuddered at the thought that to others, before
now, the garments of his soul must have
appeared sorry and threadbare. Vanity and conceit? These were the joints in his
armor. And how free from either she had always been--But why--
As she had slowly moved up the aisle toward the
altar he had felt an unworthy, sullen exultation that had served to support
him. He had told himself that her paleness was from thoughts of another than
the man to whom she was about to give herself. But even that poor consolation
had been wrenched from him. For, when he saw that swift, limpid, upward look
that she gave the man when he took her hand, he knew himself to be forgotten.
Once that same look had been raised to him, and he had gauged its meaning.
Indeed, his conceit had crumbled; its last prop was gone. Why had it ended
thus? There had been no quarrel between them, nothing--
For the thousandth time he remarshalled in his
mind the events of those last few days before the tide had so suddenly turned. She
had always insisted upon placing him upon a pedestal, and he had accepted her
homage with royal grandeur. It had been a very sweet incense that she had
burned before him; so modest (he told himself);
so childlike and worshipful, and (he would once
have sworn) so sincere. She had invested him with an almost supernatural number
of high attributes and excellencies and talents, and he had absorbed the oblation
as a desert drinks the rain that can coax from it no promise of blossom or
fruit.
As Trysdale grimly wrenched apart the seam of
his last glove, the crowning instance of his fatuous and tardily mourned egoism
came vividly back to him. The scene was the night when he had asked her to come
up on his pedestal with him and share his greatness. He could not, now, for the
pain of it, allow his mind to dwell upon the memory of her convincing beauty
that night--the careless wave of her hair, the tenderness and virginal charm of
her looks and words. But they had been enough, and they had brought him to speak.
During their conversation she had said:
"And Captain Carruthers tells me that you
speak the Spanish language like a native. Why have you hidden this
accomplishment from me? Is there anything you do not know?"
Now, Carruthers was an idiot. No doubt he
(Trysdale) had been guilty (he sometimes did such things) of airing at the club
some old, canting Castilian proverb dug from the hotchpotch at the back of
dictionaries. Carruthers, who was one of his incontinent admirers, was the very
man to have magnified this exhibition of doubtful erudition.
But, alas! the incense of her admiration had
been so sweet and
flattering. He allowed the imputation to pass
without denial.
Without protest, he allowed her to twine about
his brow this spurious bay of Spanish scholarship. He let it grace his conquering
head, and, among its soft convolutions, he did not feel the prick of the thorn that
was to pierce him later.
How glad, how shy, how tremulous she was! How
she fluttered like a snared bird when he laid his mightiness at her feet! He
could have sworn, and he could swear now, that unmistakable consent was in her eyes,
but, coyly, she would give him no direct answer. "I will send you my
answer to-morrow," she said; and he, the indulgent, confident victor,
smilingly granted the delay. The next day he waited, impatient, in his rooms
for the word. At noon her groom came to the door and left the strange cactus in
the red earthen jar. There was no note, no message, merely a tag upon the plant
bearing a barbarous foreign or botanical name. He waited until night, but her
answer did not come. His large pride and hurt vanity kept him from seeking her.
Two evenings later they met at a dinner. Their
greetings were conventional, but she looked at him, breathless, wondering,
eager.
He was courteous, adamant, waiting her
explanation. With womanly swiftness she took her cue from his manner, and
turned to snow and ice. Thus, and wider from this on, they had drifted apart.
Where was his fault? Who had been to blame? Humbled now, he sought the answer
amid the ruins of his self-conceit. If--
The voice of the other man in the room,
querulously intruding upon his thoughts, aroused him.
"I say, Trysdale, what the deuce is the
matter with you? You look unhappy as if you yourself had been married instead
of having acted merely as an accomplice. Look at me, another accessory, come
two thousand miles on a garlicky, cockroachy banana steamer all the way from
South America to connive at the sacrifice--please to observe how lightly my
guilt rests upon my shoulders. Only little sister I had,
too, and now she's gone. Come now! take
something to ease your conscience."
"I don't drink just now, thanks,"
said Trysdale.
"Your brandy," resumed the other, coming
over and joining him, "is abominable.
Run down to see me some time at Punta Redonda, and try some of our stuff that
old Garcia smuggles in. It's worth the, trip. Hallo! here's an old acquaintance.
Wherever did you rake up this cactus, Trysdale?"
"A present," said Trysdale,
"from a friend. Know the species?"
"Very well. It's a tropical concern. See
hundreds of 'em around
Punta every day. Here's the name on this tag
tied to it. Know any Spanish, Trysdale?"
"No," said Trysdale, with the bitter
wraith of a smile--"Is it
Spanish?"
"Yes. The natives imagine the leaves are
reaching out and beckoning
to you. They call it by this name--Ventomarme.
Name means in English,
'Come and take me.'"