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Chapter one of Alexander's Bridge. This
is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings

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are in the public domain. For
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LibriVox dot org. Recording by Miranda
Stinson. Alexander's Bridge by Willis Cybert Cather,

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Chapter one, Late one brilliant April
afternoon, Professor Lucius Wilson stood at

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the head of Chestnut Street, looking
about him with the pleased air of a

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man of taste who does not very
often get to Boston. He had lived

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there as a student, but for
twenty years and more since he had been

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professor of philosophy in a western university, he had seldom come east, except

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to take a steamer for some foreign
port. Wilson was standing quite still,

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contemplating with a whimsical smile, the
slanting street, with its worn paving,

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its irregular, gravely colored houses,
and the row of naked trees on which

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the thin sunlight was still shining.
The gleam of the river at the foot

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of the hill made him blink a
little, not so much because it was

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too bright, as because he found
it so pleasant. The few passers by

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glanced at him unconcernedly and even the
children who hurried along with their school bags

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under their arms, seemed to find
it perfectly natural that a tall, brown

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gentleman should be standing there, looking
up through his glasses at the gray housetops.

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The sun sank rapidly, the silvery
light had faded from the bare boughs,

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and the watery twilight was setting in. When Wilson at last walked down

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the hill, descending into cooler and
cooler depths of grayish shadow. His nostril,

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long unused to it, was quick
to detect the smell of wood smoke

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in the air, blended with the
odor of moist spring earth, and the

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saltiness that came up the river with
the tide. He crossed Charles Street between

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jangling street cars and shelving lumber drays, and after a moment of uncertainty,

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wound into Brimmer Street. The street
was quiet, deserted, and hung with

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a thin, bluish haze. He
had already fixed his sharp eye upon the

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house, which he reasoned should be
his objective point, when he noticed a

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woman approaching rapidly from the opposite direction. All was an interested observer of women,

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Wilson would have slackened his pace anywhere
to follow this one with his impersonal

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appreciative glance. She was a person
of distinction, he saw at once,

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and moreover, very handsome. She
was tall, carried her beautiful head proudly,

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and moved with ease and certainty.
One immediately took for granted the costly

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privileges and fine spaces that must lie
in the background from which such a figure

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could emerge with this rapid and elegant
gait. Wilson noted her dress, too,

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for in his way he had an
eye for such things, particularly her

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brown furs and her hat. He
got a blurred impression of her fine color,

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the violets she wore, her white
gloves, and curiously enough of her

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veil. As she turned up a
flight of steps in front of him and

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disappeared. Wilson was able to enjoy
lovely things that passed him on the wing

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as completely and deliberately as if they
had been dug up marvels long anticipated and

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definitely fixed at the end of a
railway journey. For a few pleasureable seconds,

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he quite forgot where he was going, and only after the door had

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closed behind her did he realize that
the young woman had entered the house to

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which he had directed his trunk from
the South station that morning. He hesitated

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a moment before mounting the steps.
Can that he murmured in amazement, Can

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that possibly have been Missus Alexander?
When the servant admitted him, Missus Alexander

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was still standing in the hallway.
She heard him give his name and came

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forward, holding out her hand.
Is it you, indeed, Professor Wilson?

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I was afraid that you might get
here before I did. I was

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detained at a concert, and Bartley
telephoned that he would be late. Thomas

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will show you your room. Had
you rather have your tea brought to you

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there? Or will you have it
down here with me while we wait for

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Bartley. Wilson was pleased to find
that he had been the cause of her

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rapid walk, and with her he
was even more vastly pleased than before.

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He followed her through the drawing room
into the library, where the wide back

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windows looked out upon the garden and
the sunset and a fine stretch of silver

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colored river. A harp shape elm
stood stripped against the pale colored evening sky

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with ragged last year it's bird's nests
in its forks, and through the bare

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branches, the evening star quivered in
the misty air. The long brown room

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breathed the piece of a rich and
amply guarded quiet tea was brought in immediately

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and placed in front of the wood
fire. Missus Alexander sat down in a

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high backed chair and began to pour
it, while Wilson sank into a low

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seat opposite her and took his cup
with a great sense of ease and harmony

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and comfort. You have had a
long journey, haven't you, Missus Alexander

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asked, after showing gracious concern about
his tea. And I am so sorry

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Bartley is late. He's often tired
when he's late. He flatters himself that

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it is a little on his account
that you have come to this congress of

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psychologists. It is, Wilson assented, selecting his muffin carefully, and I

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hope he won't be tired to night. But on my own account, I'm

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glad to have a few moments alone
with you before Bartley comes. I was

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somehow afraid that my knowing him so
well would not put me in the way

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of getting to know you. That's
very nice of you, she nodded at

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him above her cup and smiled,
but there was a little formal tightness in

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her tone, which had not been
there when she greeted him in the hall.

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Wilson leaned forward, Have I said
something awkward? I live very far

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out of the world, you know, But I didn't mean that you would

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exactly fade dim even if Bartley were
here. Missus Alexander laughed relentingly. Oh,

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I'm not so vain. How terribly
discerning you are. She looked straight

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at Wilson, and he felt that
this quick, frank glance brought about an

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understanding between them. He liked everything
about her, he told himself, but

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he particularly liked her eyes. When
she looked at one directly for a moment,

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they were like a glimpse of fine, windy sky that may bring all

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sorts of weather. Since you noticed
something, Missus Alexander, went on,

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it must have been a flash of
the distrust I have come to feel.

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Whenever I meet any of the people
who knew Bartley when he was a boy,

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it is always as if they were
talking about some one I had never

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met. They Professor Wilson, it
would seem that he grew up among the

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strangest people. They usually say that
he has turned out very well, or

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remarked that he was always a fine
fellow. I never know what reply to

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make. Wilson chuckled and leaned back
in his chair, shaking his left foot

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gently. I expect the fact is
that we none of us knew him very

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well, Missus Alexander. Though I
will say for myself that I was always

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confident he'd do something extraordinary. Missus
Alexander's shoulders gave a slight movement suggestive of

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impatience. Oh, I should think
that might have been a safe prediction.

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Another cup, please, yes,
thank you. But predicting in the case

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of boys is not so easy as
you might imagine, Missus Alexander. Some

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get a bad hurt early and lose
their courage, and some never get a

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fair wind Bartley. He dropped his
chin on the back of his long hand

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and looked at her admiringly. Bartley
caught the wind early, and it has

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sung in his sails ever since.
Missus Alexander sat looking into the fire with

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intent preoccupation, and Wilson studied her
half averted face. He liked the suggestion

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of stormy possibilities in the proud curve
of her lip and nostril. Without that,

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he reflected, she would be too
cold. I should like to know

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what he was really like when he
was a boy. I don't believe he

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remembers, she said, suddenly,
won't you smoke, mister Wilson. Wilson

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lit a cigarette. No, I
don't suppose he does. He was never

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introspective. He was simply the most
tremendous response to stimuli I have ever known.

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We didn't know exactly what to do
with him. A servant came in

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and noiselessly removed the tea tray.
Missus Alexander screened her face from the firelight,

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which was beginning to throw wavering bright
spots on her dress and hair as

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the dusk deepened. Of course,
she said, I now and again hear

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stories about things that happen when he
was in college. But that isn't what

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you want. Wilson wrinkled his brows
and looked at her with a smiling familiarity

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that had come about so quickly.
What do you want is a picture of

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him standing back there at the other
end of twenty years. You want to

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look down through my memory. She
dropped her hands in her lap. Yes,

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Yes, that's exactly what I want
at this moment. They heard the

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front door shut with a jar,
and Wilson laughed as Missus Alexander rose quickly.

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There he is away with perspective,
no past, no future for Bartley,

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just the fiery moment, the only
moment that ever was or will be

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in the world. The door from
the hall opened, a voice called Winifred

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Hurly, and a big man came
through the drawing room with a quick,

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heavy tread, bringing with him a
smell of cigar smoke and chilled out of

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door's air. When Alexander reached the
library door, he switched on the lights

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and stood six feet and more in
the archway, glowing with strength and cordiality

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and rugged blonde good looks. There
were other bridge builders in the world,

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certainly, but it was always Alexander's
picture that the Sunday Supplement men wanted,

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because he looked as a tamer of
rivers ought to look under his tumbled sandy

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hair, his head seemed as hard
and powerful as a catapult, and his

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shoulders looked strong enough in themselves to
support a span of any one of his,

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and great bridges that cut the air
above as many rivers. After dinner,

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Alexander took Wilson up to his study. It was a large room over

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the library, and looked out upon
the Black River and the row of white

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lights along the Cambridge embankment. The
room was not at all what one might

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expect of an engineer's study. Wilson
felt at once the harmony of beautiful things

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that had lived long together without obtrusions
of ugliness or change. It was none

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of Alexander's doing, of course,
those warm consonances of color had been blending

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and mellowing before he was born.
But the wonder was that he was not

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out of place there, that it
all seemed to glow, like the inevitable

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background for his vigor and vehemence.
He sat before the fire, his shoulders

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deep in the cushions of his chair, his powerful head upright, his hair

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rumpled above his broad forehead. He
sat heavily, a cigar in his large,

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smooth hand, a flush of after
dinner color in his face, which

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wind and sun and exposure to all
sorts of weather had left fair and clear

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skinned. You are off for England
on Saturday, Bartley, missus, Alexander

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tells me. Yes, for a
few weeks only there's a meeting of bridge's

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engineers, and I'm doing another bridge
in Canada. You know, Oh,

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everyone knows about that. And it
was in Canada that you met your wife,

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wasn't it? Yes? At Alway
she was visiting her great aunt.

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There, a most remarkable old lady. I was working with mc keeller,

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then, an old Scotch engineer who
would pick me up in London and taken

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me back to Quebec with him.
He had the contract for the Alway bridge,

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but before he began work on it, he found out that he was

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going to die, and he advised
the committee to turn the job over to

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me. Otherwise I'd never have gotten
anything good so early. Mc keeller was

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an old friend of missus Pemberton,
Winnifred's aunt. He had mentioned me to

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her, so when I went to
Alway, she asked me to come and

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see her. She was a wonderful
old lady like her niece. Wilson,

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queried, Bartley laughed. She had
been very handsome, but not in Winifred's

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way. When I knew her,
she was little and fragile, very pink

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and white, with a splendid head
and a face like fine old lace somehow,

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But perhaps I always think of that
because she wore a lace scarf on

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her hair. She had such a
flavor of life about her. She had

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known Gordon and Livingstone in Beaconsfield when
she was young, every one. She

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was the first woman of that sort
I'd ever known. You know how it

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is in the West. Old people
are poked out of the way. Aunt

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ellenor fascinated me as few young women
have ever done. I used to go

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up from the works to have tea
with her and sit talking to her for

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hours. It was very stimulating,
for she couldn't tolerate stupidity. It must

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have been then that your luck began, Bartley, said Wilson, flicking his

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cigar ash with his long finger.
It's curious watching boys, he went on

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reflectively. I'm sure I did you
justice in the matter of ability. Yet

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I always used to feel that there
was a weak spot where some day strain

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would tell. Even after you began
to climb. I stood down in the

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crowd and watched you with well,
not with confidence. The more dazzling the

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front you presented, the higher your
facade rose, the more I expected to

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see a black crack zig zagg from
top to bottom. He indicated its course

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in the air with his forefinger.
Then a crash and clouds of dust.

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It was curious I had such a
clear picture of it. And another curious

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thing Bartley Wilson spoke with deliberateness and
settled deeper into his chair, is that

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I don't feel it any longer.
I'm sure of you, Alexander laughed.

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Nonsense, it's not I you feel
sure of. It's winifred. People often

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make that mistake. No, I'm
serious, Alexander. You've changed. You

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have decided to leave some birds in
the bushes. You used to want them

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all. Alexander's chair creaked. I
still want a good many, he said,

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rather gloomily. After all, life
doesn't offer a man much. You

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work like the devil and think you're
getting on, and suddenly you discover that

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you've only been getting yourself tied up
a million details, drink you dry,

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your life keeps going for things you
don't want, and all the while you

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are being built alive into a social
structure that you don't care a rap about.

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I sometimes wonder what sort of chap
I'd have been if I hadn't been

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this sort. I want to go
out and live his potentialities too. I

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haven't forgotten that there are birds in
the bushes. Bartley stopped and sat frowning

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into the fire, his shoulders thrust
forward as if he were about to spring

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at something. Wilson watched him,
wondering his old pupil always stimulated him at

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first, and then vastly wearied him. The machinery was always pounding away in

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this man, and Wilson preferred companions
of a more reflective habit of mind.

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He could not help feeling that they
were unreasoning and unreasonable activities going on in

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Alexander. All the while that even
after dinner, when most men achieve a

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decent impersonality, Bartley had merely closed
the door of the engine room and come

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up for an airing. The machinery
itself was still pounding on. Bartley's abstraction

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and Wilson's reflections were cut short by
a rustle at the door, and almost

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before they could rise, Missus Alexander
was standing by the hearth. Alexander brought

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a chair for her, but she
shook her head no, thank you.

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I only came in to see whether
you and Professor Wilson were quite comfortable.

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I am going down to the music
room. Why not practice here, Wilson,

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and I are growing very dull.
We are tired of talk. Yes,

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I beg you, missus Alexander Wilson
began, but he got no further.

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Why, certainly, if you won't
find me too noisy, I am

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working on the Schumann Carnival, and
though I don't practice a great many hours,

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I am very methodical, Missus Alexander
explained, and she crossed to an

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upright piano that stood at the back
of the room, near the windows.

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Wilson followed, and, having seen
her seated, dropped into a chair behind

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her. She played brilliantly and with
great musical feeling. Wilson could not imagine

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her permitting herself to do anything badly, but he was surprised at the cleanness

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of her execution. He wondered how
a woman with so many duties had managed

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to keep herself up to a standard
really professional. It must take a great

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deal of time, certainly, and
Bartley must take a great deal of time.

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Wilson reflected that he had never before
known woman who had been able,

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for any concern iterable while to support
both a personal and an intellectual passion.

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Sitting behind her he watched her with
perplexed admiration, shading his eyes with his

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hand. In her dinner dress,
she looked even younger than in street clothes,

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and for all her composure and self
sufficiency, she seemed to him strangely

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alert and vibrating, as if in
her too, there was something never altogether

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at rest. He felt that he
knew pretty much what she demanded in people,

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and what she demanded from life,
And he wondered how she squared Bartley

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after ten years. She must know
him, and however one took him,

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however much one admired him, one
had to admit that he simply wouldn't square.

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He was a natural force, certainly, but beyond that, Wilson felt

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he was not anything, very really, or for very long at a time,

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Wilson glanced toward the fire, where
Bartley's profile was still wreathed in cigar

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smoke that curled up at more and
more slowly. His shoulders were sunk deep

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in the cushions. In one hand, hung large and passive over the arm

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of his chair. He had slipped
on a purple velvet smoking coat. His

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wife, Wilson surmised, had chosen
it. She was certainly very proud of

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his good looks and his fine color, but with the glow of an immediate

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interest gone out of it, the
engineer's face looked tired, even a little

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haggard. The three lines in his
forehead directly above the nose deepened as he

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sat thinking, and his powerful head
drooped forward heavily. Although Alexander was only

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forty three, Wilson thought that beneath
his vigorous color he detected the dulling weariness

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of oncoming middle age. The next
afternoon, at the hour when the river

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was beginning to redden under the declining
sun, Wilson again found himself facing Missus

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Alexander at the tea table in the
library. Well, he remarked, when

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he was bidden to give an account
of himself. There was a long mourning

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with the psychologists, luncheon with Bartley
at his club, more psychologists than here

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I am. I've looked forward to
this hour all day, Missus Alexander smiled

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at him across the vapor from the
kettle, and do you remember where we

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stopped yesterday? Perfectly? I was
going to show you a picture, but

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I doubt whether I have enough color
in me. Bartley makes me feel a

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faded monochrome. You can't get at
the young Bartley except by means of color.

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Wilson paused and deliberated. Suddenly he
broke out. He wasn't a remarkable

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student, you know, though he
was always strong and higher mathematics. His

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work in my own department was quite
ordinary. It was as a powerfully equipped

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nature that I found him interesting.
That is the most interesting thing a teacher

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can find. It has the fascination
of a scientific discovery. We come across

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other pleasing and endearing qualities so much
oftener than we find force. And after

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all, said missus Alexander, that
is the thing we all live upon.

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It is the thing that takes us
forward. Wilson thought, she spoke a

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little wistfully. Exactly, he assented
warmly. It builds the bridges into the

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future over which the feet of every
one of us will go. How interested

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I am to hear you put it
in that way, the bridges into the

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future. I often say that to
myself. Bartley's bridges always seemed to me

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like that. Have you ever seen
his first suspension bridge in Canada, the

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one he was doing when I first
knew him. I hope you will see

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it sometime. We were married as
soon as it was finished. And he

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will laugh when I tell you that
it always has a rather bridle look to

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me. It is over the wildest
river, with mists and clouds always battling

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about it, and it is as
delicate as a cobweb hanging in the sky.

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It really was a bridge into the
future. You have only to look

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at it to feel that it meant
the beginning of a great career. But

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I have a photograph of it.
Here. She drew a portfolio from behind

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a bookcase, and there you see
on the hill as my aunt's house.

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Wilson took up the photograph. Bartley
was telling me something about your aunt last

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night. She must have been a
delightful person. Winnifred laughed. But the

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bridge you see was just at the
foot of the hill, and the noise

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of the engines annoyed her very much
at first, but after she met Bartley

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she pretended to like it, and
said it was a good thing to be

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reminded that there were things going on
in the world. She loved life,

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and Bartley brought a great deal of
it to her when he came to the

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house. Aunt Eleanor was very worldly
in a frank early Victorian manner. She

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liked men of action, and disliked
men who were careful of themselves, and

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who, as she put it,
were always trimming in their wick, as

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if they were afraid of their oils
giving out. Mc keellar, Bartley's first

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chief, was an old friend of
my aunt, and he told her that

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Bartley was a wild, little governed
youth, which really pleased her very much.

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I remember we were sitting alone in
the dusk after Bartley had been there

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for the first time. I knew
that Aunt Eleanor had found him much to

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her taste, but she hadn't said
anything. Presently, she came out with

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a chuckle. Mc keellar found him
sewing wild oats in London, I believe,

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I hope he didn't stop him too
soon. Life coquettes with dashing fellows.

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The coming men are always like that. We must have him to dinner,

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my dear, and so we did. She grew much fonder of Bartley

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than she was of me. I
had been studying in Vienna, and she

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thought that absurd. She was interested
in the army and in politics, and

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she had a great contempt for music
and art and philosophy. She used to

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declare that the Prince Consort had brought
all that stuff over from Germany. She

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always sniffed when Bartley asked me to
play for him. She considered that a

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new fangled way of making a match
of it. When Alexander came in a

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few moments later, he found Wilson
and his wife still confronting the photograph.

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Oh let us get that out of
the way, he said, laughing,

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Whendifred Thomas can bring my trunk down, I've decided to go over to New

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York tomorrow night and take a fast
boat. I shall save two days.

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End of chapter one. Chapter one
of Alexander's Bridge. Chapter two of Alexander's

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00:20:52.039 --> 00:20:56.960
Bridge by Willikada. This is a
LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in

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00:20:56.960 --> 00:21:03.759
the public domain. For more omation
or to volunteer, please visit librevax dot

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00:21:03.880 --> 00:21:10.640
org. Recording by Gen Maxwell,
Boston, Massachusetts. Chapter two. On

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00:21:10.680 --> 00:21:14.960
the night of his arrival in London, Alexander went immediately to the hotel on

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the Embankment, at which he always
stopped, and in the lobby he was

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accosted by an old acquaintance, Maurice
Mainhall, who fell upon him with effusive

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cordiality and indicated a willingness to dine
with him. Bartley never dined alone if

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he could help it. And Mainhall
was a good gossip who always knew what

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had been going on in town.
Especially he knew everything that was not printed

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in the newspapers. The nephew of
one of the standard Victorian novelists, Mainhall

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bobbed about among the various literary cliques
of London at its outlying suburbs, careful

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00:21:45.559 --> 00:21:48.759
to lose touch with none of them. He had written a number of books

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00:21:48.799 --> 00:21:55.160
himself, among them The History of
Dancing, A History of Costume, A

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00:21:55.279 --> 00:22:00.319
Key to Shakespeare's Sonnets, A Study
of the poetry of Ernest Dowson. Although

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00:22:00.400 --> 00:22:06.039
main Hall's enthusiasm was often tiresome,
and although he was often unable to distinguish

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00:22:06.119 --> 00:22:11.839
between facts and vivid figments of his
imagination, his imperturbable good nature overcame even

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00:22:11.880 --> 00:22:15.559
the people whom he bored most,
so that they ended up by becoming in

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a reluctant manner his friends. In
appearance, main Hall was astonishingly like the

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00:22:21.519 --> 00:22:26.480
conventional stage englishman of American drama,
tall and thin, with high hitching shoulders

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00:22:26.599 --> 00:22:32.079
and a small head, glistening with
closely brushed yellow hair. He spoke with

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00:22:32.119 --> 00:22:36.839
an extreme Oxford accent, and when
he was talking well, his face sometimes

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00:22:36.880 --> 00:22:41.440
wore the rapt expression of an emotional
man listening to music. Main Hall liked

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00:22:41.480 --> 00:22:47.200
Alexander because he was an engineer.
He had preconceived ideas about everything, and

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00:22:47.359 --> 00:22:51.720
his idea about Americans was that they
should be engineers or mechanics. He hated

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00:22:51.759 --> 00:22:56.799
them when they presumed to be anything
else. While they sat at dinner,

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00:22:56.880 --> 00:23:00.519
main Hall acquainted Bartley with the fortunes
of his old friends in London, and

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00:23:00.640 --> 00:23:03.160
as they left the table, he
proposed that they should go see Hugh McConnell's

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00:23:03.160 --> 00:23:07.960
new comedy bog Lights. It's really
quite the best thing McConnell's done, he

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00:23:08.039 --> 00:23:12.160
explained, as they got into a
hansom. It's tremendously well put on too

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00:23:12.759 --> 00:23:18.480
Florence Merrill and Cyril Henderson, but
Hildebergoygne's the hit of the piece. He's

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00:23:18.480 --> 00:23:22.359
written a delightful part for her,
and she's quite inexpressible. It's been on

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00:23:22.359 --> 00:23:25.920
only two weeks and i've been half
a dozen times already. I haven't have

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00:23:26.000 --> 00:23:29.559
McConnell's box for tonight, where there'd
be no chance of our getting places.

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00:23:29.920 --> 00:23:33.960
There's everything in seeing Hilda while she's
fresh in apart. She's apt to grow

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00:23:33.000 --> 00:23:38.400
a bit stale after a time.
The ones who have any imagination do Hildeburgoyne,

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00:23:38.519 --> 00:23:44.720
Alexander exclaimed mildly. Why I haven't
heard of her for years? Manhal

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laughed. Then you can't have heard
much at all, my dear Alexander.

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00:23:48.119 --> 00:23:51.799
It's only lately since McConnell and his
set have got hold of her that she's

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00:23:51.799 --> 00:23:56.119
come up myself. I always knew
she had it in her if we had

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00:23:56.160 --> 00:24:00.400
one real critic in London. But
one can one expect, do you know,

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00:24:00.519 --> 00:24:03.799
Alexander? Mainhall looked with perplexity up
into the top of the hansom and

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00:24:03.920 --> 00:24:08.000
rubbed his pink cheek with his gloved
finger. Do you know I sometimes think

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00:24:08.039 --> 00:24:14.160
of taking to criticism seriously myself.
In a way it would be a sacrifice.

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00:24:14.599 --> 00:24:18.039
But dear me, we do need
someone. Just then they drove up

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to the Duke of York, so
Alexander did not commit himself, but followed

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Mainhall into the theater. When they
entered the stage box on the left,

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the first act was well underway,
the scene being the interior of a cabin

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00:24:29.480 --> 00:24:33.160
in the south of Ireland. As
they sat down, a burst of applause

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drew Alexander's attention to the stage.
Miss Burgoyne and her donkey were thrusting their

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heads in at the half door.
After all, he reflected, there's a

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small probability of her recognizing me.
She doubtless hasn't thought of me for years.

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00:24:47.480 --> 00:24:49.160
He felt the enthusiasm of the house
at once, and in a few

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00:24:49.160 --> 00:24:53.720
moments he was caught up by the
current if McConnell's irresistible comedy. The audience

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had come forewarned, evidently, and
whenever the ragged slip of a donkey girl

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ran upon the st age, there
was a deep murmur of approbation. Everyone

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00:25:03.079 --> 00:25:06.759
smiled and glowed, and main Hall
hitched his heavy chair a little nearer the

360
00:25:06.799 --> 00:25:11.319
brass railing, you see, he
murmured at Alexander's ear as the curtain fell

361
00:25:11.359 --> 00:25:15.680
on the first act. One almost
never sees apart like that done without smartness

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00:25:15.720 --> 00:25:19.359
or mawkishness. Of course, Hilda
is Irish. The Burgoyins have vin stage

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00:25:19.400 --> 00:25:23.559
people for generations, and she has
the Irish voice. It's delightful to hear

364
00:25:23.599 --> 00:25:27.319
it in a London Theater. That
laugh now when she doubles over at the

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00:25:27.359 --> 00:25:32.519
hips, who ever heard it out
of Galway? She saves her hand too.

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She's at her best in the second
act. She's really McConnell's poetic motif

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00:25:36.359 --> 00:25:40.200
you see makes the whole thing a
fairy tale. The second act opened before

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00:25:40.279 --> 00:25:45.160
Philly Doyle's underground, still with Peggy
and her battered donkey come in to smuggle

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00:25:45.160 --> 00:25:48.759
a load of pothine across the bog, and to bring Philly word of what

370
00:25:48.880 --> 00:25:52.839
was doing in the world without,
and of what was happening along the roadsides

371
00:25:52.839 --> 00:25:56.720
and ditches with the first gleam of
fine weather. Alexander, annoyed by main

372
00:25:56.799 --> 00:26:03.279
Hall's size and exclamations, watched her
with keen half skeptical interest. As main

373
00:26:03.319 --> 00:26:07.279
Hall had said she was. The
second act, the plot and feeling alight

374
00:26:07.359 --> 00:26:11.960
depended upon her lightness of foot,
her lightness of touch, upon the shrewdness

375
00:26:11.039 --> 00:26:17.319
and deft fancifulness that played alternately and
sometimes together in her mirthful brown eyes.

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00:26:18.079 --> 00:26:22.160
When she began to dance by way
of showing the gassoons what she had seen

377
00:26:22.240 --> 00:26:26.519
in the fairy Rings at night,
the house broke into a prolonged uproar.

378
00:26:26.160 --> 00:26:30.480
After the dance, she withdrew from
the dialog and retreated to the ditch wall

379
00:26:30.640 --> 00:26:34.759
back of Philly's burrow, where she
sat singing the Rising of the Moon and

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00:26:34.920 --> 00:26:38.960
making a wreath of primroses for her
donkey. When the act was over,

381
00:26:40.119 --> 00:26:44.799
Alexander and Mainhall strolled out into the
corridor. They met a good many acquaintances.

382
00:26:45.079 --> 00:26:48.680
Main Hall indeed knew almost every one, and he babbled on incontinently,

383
00:26:48.000 --> 00:26:52.559
screwing his small head about over his
high collar. Presently he held a tall

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00:26:52.680 --> 00:26:57.240
bearded man, grim browed and rather
battered looking, who had his opera cloak

385
00:26:57.319 --> 00:27:00.359
on his arm and his hat in
his hand, and who seemed to be

386
00:27:00.400 --> 00:27:04.599
in the point of leaving the theater. McConnell, let me introduce mister Bartley

387
00:27:04.599 --> 00:27:08.799
Alexander. I say, it's going
famously to night, mac and what an

388
00:27:08.839 --> 00:27:12.319
audience. You'll never do anything like
this again, mark me, a man

389
00:27:12.400 --> 00:27:17.720
writes to the top of his bent. Only once the playwright gave Mainhall a

390
00:27:17.759 --> 00:27:21.400
curious look out of his deep set, faded eyes and made a wry face.

391
00:27:21.839 --> 00:27:23.839
And have I done anything so full
as that? Now? He asked,

392
00:27:25.359 --> 00:27:27.799
That's what I'm saying. Mainhall lounged
a little nearer and dropped into her

393
00:27:27.799 --> 00:27:33.799
tone even more conspicuously confidential. And
you'll never bring Hilda out like this again,

394
00:27:33.200 --> 00:27:36.920
Dear me, Mac The girl couldn't
possibly be better, you know.

395
00:27:37.559 --> 00:27:41.519
McConnell grunted. She'll do well enough
if she keeps her pace and doesn't go

396
00:27:41.599 --> 00:27:44.519
off on us in the middle of
the season, as she's more than like

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00:27:44.680 --> 00:27:48.400
to do. He nodded curtly and
made for the door, dodging acquaintances as

398
00:27:48.400 --> 00:27:52.519
he went. Poor old Hugh Mainhall
murmured, he's hit terribly hard. He's

399
00:27:52.519 --> 00:27:56.160
been wanting to marry Hilda these three
years and more. She doesn't take up

400
00:27:56.160 --> 00:28:00.519
with anybody, you know, Irene
Burgoyne. One of her family told me

401
00:28:00.559 --> 00:28:03.119
in confidence that there was a romance
somewhere back in the beginning, one of

402
00:28:03.119 --> 00:28:07.680
your countrymen, Alexander, by the
way, an American student whom she met

403
00:28:07.720 --> 00:28:11.799
in Paris. I believe, I
dare say it's quite true that there's never

404
00:28:11.839 --> 00:28:15.119
been any one else. Manhall vouched
for her constancy with a loftiness that made

405
00:28:15.119 --> 00:28:21.519
Alexander smile even while a kind of
rapid excitement was tingling through him. Blinking

406
00:28:21.559 --> 00:28:25.880
up at the lights. Mainhall added
in his luxurious worldly way. She's an

407
00:28:25.920 --> 00:28:30.519
elegant little person and quite capable of
an extravagant bit of sentiment like that.

408
00:28:30.039 --> 00:28:33.400
Here comes, Sir harry Town.
He's another who's awfully keen about her.

409
00:28:33.640 --> 00:28:37.640
Let me introduce you, Sir harry
Town, mister Bartley Alexander, the American

410
00:28:37.680 --> 00:28:42.000
engineer. Sir Harrytown bowed and said
that he had met mister Alexander and his

411
00:28:42.039 --> 00:28:47.319
wife in Tokyo. Mainhall cut in
impatiently. I say, Sir Harry,

412
00:28:47.359 --> 00:28:51.279
the little girl's going famously to night, isn't she. Sir Harry wrinkled his

413
00:28:51.440 --> 00:28:56.359
brows judiciously. You know, I
thought the dance a bit conscious tonight for

414
00:28:56.440 --> 00:28:59.920
the first time. The fact is
she's feeling rather seedy. Poor child.

415
00:29:00.400 --> 00:29:03.039
Westmere and I were back after the
first act, and we thought she seemed

416
00:29:03.079 --> 00:29:08.480
quite uncertain of herself, a little
attack of nerves possibly. He bowed as

417
00:29:08.480 --> 00:29:11.880
the warning bell rang and Mainhall whispered, you know, Lord west mayor,

418
00:29:11.920 --> 00:29:15.759
of course, the stoopman with the
long gray mustache talking to Lady Dowell.

419
00:29:17.079 --> 00:29:19.640
Lady Westmeyre is very fond of Hilda. When they reached their box, the

420
00:29:19.680 --> 00:29:23.000
house was darkened, and the orchestra
was playing The Cloak of Old Gall.

421
00:29:23.799 --> 00:29:27.960
In a moment, Peggy was on
the stage again, and Alexander applauded vigorously

422
00:29:27.960 --> 00:29:32.880
with the rest. He even leaned
forward over the rail a little. For

423
00:29:32.920 --> 00:29:36.519
some reason, he felt pleased and
flattered by the enthusiasm of the audience.

424
00:29:36.920 --> 00:29:40.920
In the half light, he looked
about at the stalls and boxes and smiled

425
00:29:40.960 --> 00:29:45.000
a little, consciously recalling with amusement
Sir Harry's judicial frown. He was beginning

426
00:29:45.000 --> 00:29:49.680
to feel a keen interest in the
slender, barefoot donkey girl who slipped in

427
00:29:49.720 --> 00:29:53.640
and out of the play, singing
like someone winding through a hilly field.

428
00:29:55.559 --> 00:30:00.559
He leaned forward and beamed felicitations as
warmly as Mainhall himself, when at the

429
00:30:00.640 --> 00:30:03.680
end of the play she came again
and again before the curtain, panting a

430
00:30:03.720 --> 00:30:07.799
little flushed, her eyes dancing,
and her eager, nervous little mouth tremulous

431
00:30:07.799 --> 00:30:14.480
with excitement. When Alexander returned to
his hotel, he shook main Hall at

432
00:30:14.480 --> 00:30:17.240
the door of the theater. He
had some supper brought up to his room,

433
00:30:17.279 --> 00:30:21.319
and it was late before he went
to bed. He had not thought

434
00:30:21.359 --> 00:30:26.400
of Hildeba gone for years. Indeed, he'd almost forgotten her. He'd last

435
00:30:26.440 --> 00:30:30.440
written to her from Canada after he
first met Winnifred, telling her that everything

436
00:30:30.480 --> 00:30:33.400
was changed with him, that he
had met a woman whom he would marry

437
00:30:33.400 --> 00:30:36.680
if he could. If he could
not, then all the more was everything

438
00:30:36.799 --> 00:30:41.559
changed for him. Hilda had never
replied to his letter. He felt guilty

439
00:30:41.559 --> 00:30:45.440
and unhappy about her for a time, but after Winnifred promised to marry him,

440
00:30:45.480 --> 00:30:49.559
he really forgot Hilda altogether. When
he wrote her that everything was changed

441
00:30:49.559 --> 00:30:53.839
for him, he was telling the
truth. After he met Winnifred Pemberton,

442
00:30:55.079 --> 00:30:59.160
he seemed to himself like a different
man. One night, when he and

443
00:30:59.160 --> 00:31:02.720
Winnifrid were sitting together on the bridge, he told her that things had happened

444
00:31:02.720 --> 00:31:07.000
while he was studying abroad, that
he was sorry for one thing in particular,

445
00:31:07.279 --> 00:31:08.920
and he asked her whether she thought
she ought to know about them.

446
00:31:10.559 --> 00:31:12.599
She considered for a moment and then
said, no, I think not,

447
00:31:14.240 --> 00:31:17.599
though I am glad you asked me. You see, one can't be jealous

448
00:31:17.640 --> 00:31:22.720
about things in general, but about
particular, definite personal things. Here she

449
00:31:22.799 --> 00:31:25.720
had thrown her hands up to his
shoulders with a quick, impulsive gesture.

450
00:31:26.480 --> 00:31:30.400
Oh about those things. I should
be very jealous. I should torture myself.

451
00:31:30.680 --> 00:31:33.839
I couldn't help it. After that, it was easy to forget,

452
00:31:33.160 --> 00:31:37.960
actually to forget. He wondered tonight, as he poured his wine. How

453
00:31:37.960 --> 00:31:41.680
many times he had thought of Hilda
in the last ten years. He had

454
00:31:41.720 --> 00:31:45.799
been in London more or less,
but he had never happened to hear of

455
00:31:45.799 --> 00:31:48.599
her. All the same, he
lifted his glass. Here's to you,

456
00:31:48.720 --> 00:31:52.640
little Hilda. You've made things come
your way, and I never thought you

457
00:31:52.640 --> 00:31:56.559
could do it. Of course,
he reflected, she always had that combination

458
00:31:56.599 --> 00:32:01.759
of something homely and sensible, something
utterly wild and daft. But I never

459
00:32:01.799 --> 00:32:07.079
thought she'd do anything. She hadn't
much ambition then, and she was too

460
00:32:07.119 --> 00:32:09.920
fond of trifles. She must care
about the theater or a great deal more

461
00:32:09.960 --> 00:32:14.480
than she used to. Perhaps she
has met a thank for something. After

462
00:32:14.519 --> 00:32:17.599
all, Sometimes a little jolt like
that does one good. She was a

463
00:32:17.680 --> 00:32:22.440
daft, generous little thing. I'm
glad she's held her own since. After

464
00:32:22.480 --> 00:32:27.640
all, we were awfully young.
It was youth and poverty and proximity,

465
00:32:27.799 --> 00:32:31.039
and everything was young and kindly.
I shouldn't wonder if she could laugh about

466
00:32:31.079 --> 00:32:36.160
it with me. Now, I
shouldn't wonder, but they've probably spoiled her

467
00:32:36.359 --> 00:32:39.680
so that she'd be tiresome if one
met her again. Bartley smiled and yawned

468
00:32:39.880 --> 00:32:52.480
and went to bed end of chapter
two. Chapter three of Alexander's Bridge by

469
00:32:52.480 --> 00:32:57.519
WILLI. Cather. This is a
LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in

470
00:32:57.559 --> 00:33:01.880
the public domain. For more information
or to volunteer, visit LibriVox dot org.

471
00:33:02.640 --> 00:33:09.920
Recording by Gen Maxwell, Boston,
Massachusetts, Chapter three. The next

472
00:33:09.960 --> 00:33:14.480
evening, Alexander dined alone at a
club, and at about nine o'clock he

473
00:33:14.599 --> 00:33:17.480
dropped in at the Duke of York's. The house was sold out and he

474
00:33:17.519 --> 00:33:22.759
stood through the second act. When
he returned to his hotel, he examined

475
00:33:22.799 --> 00:33:25.960
the new directory and found Miss Burgoyne's
address still given as off Bedford Square,

476
00:33:27.119 --> 00:33:30.960
though at a new number. He
remembered that in so far as she had

477
00:33:30.960 --> 00:33:34.240
been brought up at all, that
she had been brought up in Bloomsbury.

478
00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:37.160
Her father and mother played in the
provinces most of the year, and she

479
00:33:37.279 --> 00:33:40.559
was left a great deal in the
care of an old aunt who was crippled

480
00:33:40.559 --> 00:33:45.000
by rheumatism, and who had had
to leave the stage altogether. In the

481
00:33:45.079 --> 00:33:49.799
days when Alexander knew her, Hilda
always managed to have a lodging of some

482
00:33:49.960 --> 00:33:53.359
sort about Bedford Square, because she
clung tenaciously to such scraps and shreds of

483
00:33:53.400 --> 00:33:58.640
memories as were connected with it.
The Mummy Room of the British Museum had

484
00:33:58.680 --> 00:34:02.519
been one of the chief delights her
childhood. That forbidding pile was the goal

485
00:34:02.559 --> 00:34:07.200
of her true and fancy, and
she was sometimes taken there for a treat

486
00:34:07.480 --> 00:34:10.719
as other children were taken to the
theater. It was long since Alexander had

487
00:34:10.719 --> 00:34:15.199
thought of any of these things,
but now they came back to him quite

488
00:34:15.199 --> 00:34:17.800
fresh and had a significance they did
not have when they were first told him

489
00:34:17.840 --> 00:34:22.039
in his restless twenties. So she
was still in the old neighborhood near Bedford

490
00:34:22.079 --> 00:34:28.639
Square. The new number probably meant
increased prosperity, he hoped, so he

491
00:34:28.679 --> 00:34:31.239
would like to know that she was
snugly settled. He looked at his watch.

492
00:34:31.639 --> 00:34:35.320
It was a quarter past ten.
She would not be home for a

493
00:34:35.360 --> 00:34:37.000
good two hours yet, and he
might as well walk over and have a

494
00:34:37.000 --> 00:34:42.519
look at the place. He remembered
the shortest way. It was a warm,

495
00:34:42.719 --> 00:34:45.800
smoky evening, and there was a
grimy moon. He went through Covent

496
00:34:45.840 --> 00:34:50.400
Garden to Oxford Street, and as
he turned into Museum Street, he walked

497
00:34:50.440 --> 00:34:53.840
more slowly, smiling at his own
nervousness as he approached the sullen gray mass

498
00:34:53.880 --> 00:34:59.039
at the end. He had not
been inside the museum actually, since he

499
00:34:59.079 --> 00:35:01.800
and Hilda used to meet there,
sometimes to set out for gay adventures at

500
00:35:01.800 --> 00:35:06.599
Twickenham or Richmond, sometimes to linger
about the place for a while, and

501
00:35:06.679 --> 00:35:10.119
to ponder, by Lord Elgin's marbles
upon the lastingness of some things, or

502
00:35:10.480 --> 00:35:15.880
in the mummy room, upon the
awful brevity of others. Since then,

503
00:35:15.119 --> 00:35:20.360
Bartley had always thought of the British
Museum as the ultimate repository of mortality,

504
00:35:20.679 --> 00:35:23.400
where all the dead things in the
world were assembled to make one's hour of

505
00:35:23.480 --> 00:35:28.800
youth the more precious. One trembled, lest before he got out it might

506
00:35:28.920 --> 00:35:32.239
somehow escape him, lest he might
drop the glass from over eagerness and see

507
00:35:32.280 --> 00:35:37.599
it shivered on the stone floor at
his feet. How one hit his youth

508
00:35:37.679 --> 00:35:40.239
under his coat and hugged it,
And how good it was to turn one's

509
00:35:40.280 --> 00:35:45.159
back upon that vaulted cold to take
hilled his arm, and hurry out of

510
00:35:45.199 --> 00:35:49.400
the great door and down the steps
into the sunlight among the pigeons, to

511
00:35:49.440 --> 00:35:52.880
know that the warm and vital thing
within him was still there and had not

512
00:35:52.000 --> 00:35:57.440
been snatched away to flush Caesar's lean
cheek, or to feed the veins of

513
00:35:57.440 --> 00:36:01.000
some bearded Assyrian king. They and
their day had carried the flaming liquor,

514
00:36:01.199 --> 00:36:05.760
but today was his, So the
song used to run in his head those

515
00:36:05.760 --> 00:36:09.079
summer mornings. A dozen years ago, Alexander walked by the place, very

516
00:36:09.159 --> 00:36:15.079
quietly, as if he were afraid
of waking someone. He crossed Bedford Square

517
00:36:15.079 --> 00:36:17.519
and found the number he was looking
for. The house a comfortable, well

518
00:36:17.599 --> 00:36:22.760
kept place. Enough was dark except
for the four front windows on the second

519
00:36:22.760 --> 00:36:27.199
floor, where a low even light
was burning behind the white muslin sash curtains.

520
00:36:27.800 --> 00:36:31.480
Outside, there were window boxes painted
white and full of flowers. Bartley

521
00:36:31.519 --> 00:36:35.800
was making a third round of the
square when he heard the far flung hoofbeats

522
00:36:35.800 --> 00:36:39.000
of a handsome cab horse driven rapidly. He looked at his watch and was

523
00:36:39.000 --> 00:36:44.000
astonished to find that it was a
few minutes after twelve. He turned and

524
00:36:44.039 --> 00:36:45.920
walked back along the iron railing.
As the cab came up to Hild his

525
00:36:46.000 --> 00:36:51.199
number and stopped. The handsome must
have been one that she employed regularly,

526
00:36:51.360 --> 00:36:53.920
for she did not stop to pay
the driver. She stepped out quickly and

527
00:36:54.000 --> 00:36:58.920
lightly. He heard her cheerful good
night, Cabby as she ran up the

528
00:36:58.920 --> 00:37:01.400
steps and opened the door with a
latchkey. In a few moments, the

529
00:37:01.480 --> 00:37:06.159
lights flared up brightly behind the white
curtains, and as he walked away he

530
00:37:06.159 --> 00:37:08.559
heard a window raised, but he
had gone too far to look up.

531
00:37:08.599 --> 00:37:13.599
Without turning around, he went back
to his hotel, feeling that he had

532
00:37:13.599 --> 00:37:16.400
had a good evening, and he
slept well. For the next few days.

533
00:37:16.400 --> 00:37:20.800
Alexander was very busy. He took
a desk in the office of a

534
00:37:20.840 --> 00:37:24.719
Scotch engineering firm on Henrietta Street,
and was at work almost constantly. He

535
00:37:24.760 --> 00:37:30.519
avoided the clubs and usually dined alone
at his hotel. One afternoon, after

536
00:37:30.599 --> 00:37:34.480
he had tea, he started for
a walk down the embankment toward Westminster,

537
00:37:34.960 --> 00:37:38.000
intending to end his stroll at Bedford
Square and to ask whether miss Bourgoyne would

538
00:37:38.079 --> 00:37:42.760
let him take her to the theater, but he did not go so far.

539
00:37:43.599 --> 00:37:46.599
When he reached the abbey, he
turned back and crossed Westminster Bridge and

540
00:37:46.639 --> 00:37:51.840
sat down to watch the trails of
smoke behind the Houses of Parliament catch fire.

541
00:37:51.920 --> 00:37:55.440
With the sunset, The slender towers
were washed by a rain of golden

542
00:37:55.519 --> 00:38:00.719
light and licked by little flickering flames. Summer set House and the bleached gray

543
00:38:00.719 --> 00:38:06.960
pinnacles about Whitehall were floated in a
luminous haze. The yellow light poured through

544
00:38:06.960 --> 00:38:10.199
the trees, and the leaves seemed
to burn with soft fires. There was

545
00:38:10.199 --> 00:38:15.559
a smell of acacias in the air
everywhere, and the laburnums were dripping gold

546
00:38:15.559 --> 00:38:19.360
over the walls of the gardens.
It was a sweet, lonely kind of

547
00:38:19.400 --> 00:38:23.719
summer evening. Remembering Hilda as she
used to be was doubtless more satisfactory than

548
00:38:23.760 --> 00:38:29.239
seeing her as she must be now. And after all, Alexander asked himself,

549
00:38:29.519 --> 00:38:32.800
what was it but his own young
years that he was remembering. He

550
00:38:32.920 --> 00:38:37.719
crossed back to Westminster, went up
to the Temple and sat down to smoke

551
00:38:37.760 --> 00:38:40.480
in the middle Temple gardens, listening
to the thin voice of the fountain and

552
00:38:40.599 --> 00:38:45.719
smelling the spice of the sycamores that
came out heavily in the damp evening air.

553
00:38:45.840 --> 00:38:50.920
He thought as he sat there about
a great many things, about his

554
00:38:51.000 --> 00:38:53.480
own youth and Hilda's. Above all, he thought of how glorious it had

555
00:38:53.519 --> 00:38:58.760
been, and how quickly it had
passed, and when it had passed,

556
00:38:58.960 --> 00:39:02.519
how little worth while anything was.
None of the things he had gained and

557
00:39:02.599 --> 00:39:07.559
the least compensated. In the last
six years, his reputation had become as

558
00:39:07.559 --> 00:39:13.119
the saying is popular. Four years
ago he had been called to Japan to

559
00:39:13.159 --> 00:39:17.079
deliver, at the Emperor's request,
a course of lectures at the Imperial University,

560
00:39:17.320 --> 00:39:22.360
and had instituted reforms throughout the islands, not only in the practice of

561
00:39:22.360 --> 00:39:25.800
bridge building, but in drainage and
roadmaking. On his return, he had

562
00:39:25.880 --> 00:39:30.360
undertaken the bridge at Morlock in Canada, the most important piece of bridge building

563
00:39:30.400 --> 00:39:35.760
going on in the world, a
test indeed, of how far the latest

564
00:39:35.800 --> 00:39:40.400
practice in bridge structure could be carried. It was a spectacular undertaking by reason

565
00:39:40.440 --> 00:39:45.679
of its very size, and Bartley
realized that whatever else he might do,

566
00:39:45.280 --> 00:39:50.719
he would probably always be known as
the engineer who designed the Great Morlock Bridge,

567
00:39:51.039 --> 00:39:55.960
the longest cantilever in existence. Yet
it was to him the least satisfactory

568
00:39:55.960 --> 00:40:00.559
thing he had ever done. He
was cramped in every way by a niggardly

569
00:40:00.559 --> 00:40:06.519
commission, and was using lighter structural
material than he thought proper. He had

570
00:40:06.599 --> 00:40:09.719
vexations enough too with his work at
home. He had several bridges under way

571
00:40:09.719 --> 00:40:13.960
in the United States, and they
were always being held up by strikes and

572
00:40:14.039 --> 00:40:19.719
delays resulting from a general industrial unrest. Though Alexander often told himself he had

573
00:40:19.760 --> 00:40:22.719
never put more into his work than
he had done in the last few years,

574
00:40:22.239 --> 00:40:25.199
he had to admit that he had
never got so little out of it.

575
00:40:25.880 --> 00:40:30.559
He was paying for success too,
in the demands made on his time

576
00:40:30.639 --> 00:40:35.880
by boards of civic enterprise and committees
of public welfare. The obligations imposed by

577
00:40:35.920 --> 00:40:39.480
his wife's fortune and position were sometimes
distracting to a man who followed his profession,

578
00:40:39.840 --> 00:40:43.920
and he was expected to be interested
in a great many worthy endeavors on

579
00:40:43.960 --> 00:40:47.480
her account as well as on his
own. His existence was becoming a network

580
00:40:47.480 --> 00:40:52.599
of great and little details. He
had expected that success would bring him freedom

581
00:40:52.599 --> 00:40:57.840
and power, but it had brought
only power that was in itself another kind

582
00:40:57.880 --> 00:41:01.280
of restraint. He had always bent
to keep his personal liberty at all costs,

583
00:41:01.480 --> 00:41:04.960
as old mc kellar, his first
chief, had done, and not,

584
00:41:05.280 --> 00:41:07.960
like so many American engineers, to
become part of a professional movement.

585
00:41:08.159 --> 00:41:14.679
A cautious board member unnested a pontibus. He happened to be engaged in work

586
00:41:14.719 --> 00:41:16.960
of public utility, but he was
not willing to become what is called a

587
00:41:17.000 --> 00:41:22.760
public man. He found himself living
exactly the kind of life he had determined

588
00:41:22.840 --> 00:41:27.719
to escape. What he asked himself
did he want with these genial honors and

589
00:41:27.800 --> 00:41:34.079
substantial comforts, hardships and difficulties he
had carried lightly over work had not exhausted

590
00:41:34.159 --> 00:41:38.079
him, But this dead calm of
middle life which confronted him of that he

591
00:41:38.239 --> 00:41:43.880
was afraid he was not ready for
it. It was like being buried alive.

592
00:41:44.599 --> 00:41:46.760
In his youth, he would not
have believed such a thing possible.

593
00:41:47.280 --> 00:41:52.079
The one thing he had really wanted
all his life was to be free,

594
00:41:52.840 --> 00:41:57.320
and there was still something unconquered in
him, something besides the strong workhorse that

595
00:41:57.400 --> 00:42:00.400
his profession had made of him.
He felt to night in the possession of

596
00:42:00.440 --> 00:42:06.199
that unstultified survival. In the light
of his experience, it was more precious

597
00:42:06.280 --> 00:42:10.000
than honors or achievement. In all
those busy successful years, there had been

598
00:42:10.119 --> 00:42:15.480
nothing so good as this hour of
wild, lightheartedness. This feeling was the

599
00:42:15.559 --> 00:42:20.280
only happiness that was real to him, and such hours were the only ones

600
00:42:20.320 --> 00:42:23.360
in which he could feel his own
continuous identity, feel the boy he had

601
00:42:23.400 --> 00:42:27.719
been in the rough days of the
Old West, feel the youth who had

602
00:42:27.719 --> 00:42:30.079
worked his way across the ocean on
a cattle ship and gone to study in

603
00:42:30.159 --> 00:42:35.599
Paris without a dollar in his pocket. The man who sat in his offices

604
00:42:35.599 --> 00:42:40.239
in Boston was only a powerful machine. Under the activities of that machine,

605
00:42:40.280 --> 00:42:44.559
the person who, in such moments
as this he felt himself to be,

606
00:42:45.159 --> 00:42:50.159
was fading and dying. He remembered
how, when he was a little boy

607
00:42:50.159 --> 00:42:52.280
and his father called him in the
morning, he used to leap from his

608
00:42:52.360 --> 00:42:59.119
bed into the full consciousness of himself. That consciousness was life itself. Whatever

609
00:42:59.159 --> 00:43:04.159
took its place, action, reflection, the power of concentrated thought were only

610
00:43:04.199 --> 00:43:07.800
functions of a mechanism useful to society, things that could be bought in the

611
00:43:07.880 --> 00:43:14.199
market. There was only one thing
that had an absolute value for each individual,

612
00:43:14.480 --> 00:43:19.480
and it was just that original impulse, that internal heat, that feeling

613
00:43:19.519 --> 00:43:24.280
of one's self in one's own breast, When Alexander walked back to his hotel,

614
00:43:24.599 --> 00:43:29.039
the red and green lights were blinking
along the docks on the farther shore,

615
00:43:29.360 --> 00:43:32.000
and the soft white stars were shining
in the wide sky above the river.

616
00:43:34.360 --> 00:43:38.199
The next night and the next Alexander
repeated the same foolish performance. It

617
00:43:38.280 --> 00:43:42.360
was always miss Burgoyne whom he started
out to find, and he got no

618
00:43:42.440 --> 00:43:45.679
farther than the temple gardens and the
embankment. It was a pleasant kind of

619
00:43:45.760 --> 00:43:51.519
loneliness to a man who was so
little given to reflection, whose dreams always

620
00:43:51.519 --> 00:43:54.920
took the form of definite ideas reaching
into the future. There was a seductive

621
00:43:54.960 --> 00:44:00.519
excitement in renewing old experiences and imagination. He started out upon these walks,

622
00:44:00.559 --> 00:44:05.840
half guiltily, with a curious longing
and expectancy, which were wholly gratified by

623
00:44:05.880 --> 00:44:12.360
solitude. Solitude, but not solitariness, For he walked shoulder to shoulder with

624
00:44:12.400 --> 00:44:16.599
a shadowy companion, not little Hilda
Bogoyne by any means, but by some

625
00:44:16.679 --> 00:44:22.280
one vastly dearer to him than she
had ever been his own young self,

626
00:44:22.880 --> 00:44:25.079
the youth who had waited for him
upon the steps of the British Museum that

627
00:44:25.199 --> 00:44:30.719
night and who, though he had
tried to pass so quietly, had known

628
00:44:30.800 --> 00:44:35.480
him and come down and linked an
arm in his. It was not until

629
00:44:35.519 --> 00:44:39.679
long afterward that Alexander learned that for
him this youth was the most dangerous of

630
00:44:39.719 --> 00:44:45.599
companions. One Sunday evening at Lady
Walford's, Alexander did at last meet Hilde

631
00:44:45.599 --> 00:44:51.239
Burgoyne. Main Hall had told him
that she would probably be there. He

632
00:44:51.320 --> 00:44:53.480
looked about for her rather nervously,
and finally found her at the farther end

633
00:44:53.480 --> 00:44:57.559
of the drawing room, the center
of a circle of men, young and

634
00:44:57.639 --> 00:45:01.400
old. She was apparently telling them
story. They were all laughing and bending

635
00:45:01.440 --> 00:45:06.719
towards her. When she saw Alexander, she rose quickly and put out her

636
00:45:06.719 --> 00:45:09.920
hand. The other men drew back
a little to let him approach. Mister

637
00:45:10.039 --> 00:45:15.280
Alexander. I am delighted. Have
you been in London? Long? Bartley

638
00:45:15.320 --> 00:45:19.679
bowed somewhat laboriously over her hand,
long enough to have seen you more than

639
00:45:19.760 --> 00:45:22.199
once? How fine it all is, she laughed, as if she were

640
00:45:22.199 --> 00:45:25.519
pleased. I'm glad you think so. I like it. Won't you join

641
00:45:25.639 --> 00:45:30.559
us here? Miss Burgoyne was just
telling us about a donkey boy she had

642
00:45:30.559 --> 00:45:34.519
in Galway last summer, Sir harry
Ton explained. As the circle closed up

643
00:45:34.559 --> 00:45:38.840
again, Lord Westmeyre stroked his long
white mustache with his bloodless hand and looked

644
00:45:38.840 --> 00:45:45.039
at Alexander blankly. Hilda was a
good story teller. She was sitting on

645
00:45:45.079 --> 00:45:47.199
the edge of her chair, as
if she had alighted there for a moment.

646
00:45:47.239 --> 00:45:52.960
Only. Her primrose satin gown seemed
like a soft sheath for her slender,

647
00:45:52.000 --> 00:45:57.199
supple figure, and its delicate color
suited her white Irish skin and brown

648
00:45:57.239 --> 00:46:01.400
hair. Whatever she wore felt the
charm of her active, girlish body,

649
00:46:01.480 --> 00:46:07.199
with its slender hips and quick,
eager shoulders. Alexander heard little of the

650
00:46:07.320 --> 00:46:12.159
story, but he watched Hilda intently. She must, certainly, he reflected,

651
00:46:12.440 --> 00:46:15.440
be thirty, and he was honestly
delighted to see that the years had

652
00:46:15.440 --> 00:46:19.480
treated her so indulgently. If her
face had changed at all, it was

653
00:46:19.519 --> 00:46:22.800
in a slight hardening of the mouth, still eager enough to be very disconcerting

654
00:46:22.800 --> 00:46:27.840
at times, he felt, and
in an added air of self possession and

655
00:46:27.920 --> 00:46:32.639
self reliance. She carried her head
too, a little more resolutely. When

656
00:46:32.639 --> 00:46:37.719
the story was finished, Miss Burgoyne
turned pointedly to Alexander and the other men

657
00:46:37.800 --> 00:46:42.119
drifted away. I thought I saw
you in McConnell's box with Main Hall one

658
00:46:42.159 --> 00:46:45.280
evening. But I suppose you had
left town before this. She looked at

659
00:46:45.360 --> 00:46:49.639
him frankly and cordially, as if
he were indeed merely an old friend whom

660
00:46:49.639 --> 00:46:52.039
she was glad to meet again.
No, I've been mooning about here,

661
00:46:52.639 --> 00:46:57.239
Hilda laughed, gaily, mooning.
I see you mooning. You must be

662
00:46:57.280 --> 00:47:00.960
the busiest man in the world.
Time and Success have done well by you.

663
00:47:00.960 --> 00:47:04.480
You know, you're handsomer than ever, and you've gained a grand manner.

664
00:47:05.119 --> 00:47:08.039
Alexander blushed and bowed. Timing Success
have been good friends to both of

665
00:47:08.119 --> 00:47:13.280
us. Aren't you tremendously pleased with
yourself? She laughed again and shrugged her

666
00:47:13.280 --> 00:47:16.559
shoulders. Oh so so. But
I want to hear about you. Several

667
00:47:16.639 --> 00:47:20.679
years ago I read such a lot
in the papers about the wonderful things you

668
00:47:20.719 --> 00:47:23.559
did in Japan, and how the
Emperor decorated you. What was it,

669
00:47:23.800 --> 00:47:28.639
Commander of the Order of the Rising
Sun? That sounds like the Mikado?

670
00:47:29.039 --> 00:47:32.000
And what about your new bridge in
Canada, isn't it And it's to be

671
00:47:32.039 --> 00:47:36.039
the longest one in the world and
has some queer name I can't remember.

672
00:47:36.760 --> 00:47:39.960
Bartley shook his head and smiled drolly. Since when have you been interested in

673
00:47:40.000 --> 00:47:44.639
bridges or have you learned to be
interested in everything? And is that part

674
00:47:44.639 --> 00:47:47.960
of success? Why? How absurd
is if I were not always interested?

675
00:47:49.039 --> 00:47:52.000
Hilde exclaimed, Well, I think
we won't talk about bridges here at any

676
00:47:52.079 --> 00:47:55.119
rate. Bartley looked down at the
toe of her yellow slipper, which was

677
00:47:55.159 --> 00:48:00.000
tapping the rug impatiently under the hem
of her gown. But I wonder whether

678
00:48:00.079 --> 00:48:01.840
you'd think me impertinent if I asked
you to let me come to see you

679
00:48:01.920 --> 00:48:07.400
sometime and tell you about them.
Why should I ever? So many people

680
00:48:07.400 --> 00:48:10.480
come on Sunday afternoons. Why know? Main Hall offered to take me.

681
00:48:10.960 --> 00:48:15.000
But you must know that I've been
in London several times within the last few

682
00:48:15.079 --> 00:48:17.440
years, and you might very well
think that just now is an inopportune time,

683
00:48:17.760 --> 00:48:22.960
She cut him short. Nonsense.
One of the pleasantest things about success

684
00:48:22.039 --> 00:48:24.519
is that it makes people want to
look one up. If that's what you

685
00:48:24.559 --> 00:48:29.400
mean, I'm like everyone else,
more agreeable to meet when things are going

686
00:48:29.400 --> 00:48:31.920
well with me. Don't you suppose
it gives me any pleasure to do something

687
00:48:31.920 --> 00:48:36.079
the people like, does it?
Oh? How fine it all is.

688
00:48:36.119 --> 00:48:37.800
You're coming on like this, But
I didn't want you to think it was

689
00:48:37.840 --> 00:48:42.440
because of that I wanted to see
you. He spoke very seriously and looked

690
00:48:42.440 --> 00:48:45.719
down at the floor. Hilda studied
him in wide on astonishment for a moment,

691
00:48:45.880 --> 00:48:51.519
and then broke into a low,
amused laugh. My dear mister Alexander,

692
00:48:51.920 --> 00:48:55.199
you have strange delicacies. If you
please, that is exactly why you

693
00:48:55.239 --> 00:49:00.159
wish to see me. We understand
that, do we not. Bartley looked

694
00:49:00.239 --> 00:49:04.519
ruffled and turned the seal ring on
his little finger about awkwardly. Hilda leaned

695
00:49:04.559 --> 00:49:07.039
back in her chair, watching him
indulgently out of her shrewd eyes. Come,

696
00:49:07.360 --> 00:49:10.559
don't be angry, but don't try
to pose for me or be anything

697
00:49:10.599 --> 00:49:14.360
but what you are. If you
care to come it yourself, I'll be

698
00:49:14.360 --> 00:49:17.400
glad to see and you thinking well
of yourself. And don't try to wear

699
00:49:17.400 --> 00:49:22.119
a cloak of humility. It doesn't
become you. Stalk in as you are,

700
00:49:22.239 --> 00:49:24.840
and don't make excuses. I'm not
accustomed to inquiring into the motives of

701
00:49:24.880 --> 00:49:29.719
my guests. That would hardly be
safe even for Lady Walford in a great

702
00:49:29.760 --> 00:49:34.280
house like this Sunday afternoon, then
said Alexander, as she rose to join

703
00:49:34.320 --> 00:49:37.480
her hostess, how early may I
come? She gave him her hand and

704
00:49:37.599 --> 00:49:42.920
flushed and laughed. He bent over
it a little stiffly. She went away

705
00:49:42.960 --> 00:49:45.840
on Lady Walford's arm, And as
he stood watching her yellow train glide down

706
00:49:45.880 --> 00:49:51.199
the long floor, he looked rather
sullen. He felt that he had not

707
00:49:51.280 --> 00:50:02.239
come out of it very brilliantly.
End of chapter three, Chapter four of

708
00:50:02.320 --> 00:50:07.559
Alexander's Bridge by WILLI. Cather.
This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox

709
00:50:07.679 --> 00:50:13.800
recordings are in the public domain.
For more information or to volunteer, visit

710
00:50:13.840 --> 00:50:20.480
LibriVox dot org. Recording by Gen
Maxwell, Boston, Massachusetts. Chapter four.

711
00:50:22.920 --> 00:50:28.079
On Sunday afternoon, Alexander remembered Miss
Burgoyne's invitation and called at her apartment.

712
00:50:28.559 --> 00:50:31.079
He founded a delightful little place,
and he met charming people there.

713
00:50:31.800 --> 00:50:37.639
Hilda lived alone, attended by a
very pretty, incompetent French servant who answered

714
00:50:37.639 --> 00:50:42.320
the door and brought in the tea. Alexander arrived early, and some twenty

715
00:50:42.320 --> 00:50:45.719
odd people dropped in during the course
of the afternoon, Hugh McConnell came with

716
00:50:45.760 --> 00:50:51.679
his sister and stood about managing his
tea cup awkwardly and watching everyone out of

717
00:50:51.719 --> 00:50:54.840
his deep set, faded eyes.
He seemed to have made a resolute effort

718
00:50:54.880 --> 00:50:59.840
at tidiness of attire, and his
sister, a robust, florid woman with

719
00:51:00.000 --> 00:51:05.280
the splendid oviality about her, kept
eyeing his freshly creased clothes apprehensively. It

720
00:51:05.320 --> 00:51:08.119
was not very long, indeed,
before his coat hung with a discouraged sag

721
00:51:08.199 --> 00:51:13.039
from his gaunt shoulders, and his
hair and beard were rumpled as if he'd

722
00:51:13.039 --> 00:51:16.000
been out in a gale. His
dry humor went under a cloud of absent

723
00:51:16.039 --> 00:51:22.760
minded kindliness, which main Hall explained
always overtook him here. He was never

724
00:51:22.800 --> 00:51:27.000
so witty or so sharp here as
elsewhere, And Alexander thought he behaved as

725
00:51:27.000 --> 00:51:31.039
if he were an elderly relative come
into a young girl's party. The editor

726
00:51:31.079 --> 00:51:35.719
of a monthly review came with his
wife, and Lady Kildare, the Irish

727
00:51:35.760 --> 00:51:38.679
philanthropist, brought her young nephew,
Robert Owen, who had come up from

728
00:51:38.719 --> 00:51:43.880
Oxford, and who was visibly excited
and gratified by his first introduction to Miss

729
00:51:43.920 --> 00:51:46.760
Burgoyne. Hilda was very nice to
him, and he sat on the edge

730
00:51:46.760 --> 00:51:51.760
of his chair, flushed with his
conversational efforts, and moving his chin about

731
00:51:51.840 --> 00:51:55.199
nervously over his high collar. Sarah
Frost, the novelist, came with her

732
00:51:55.280 --> 00:52:00.239
husband, a very genial and placid
old scholar who would become slightly deranged upon

733
00:52:00.280 --> 00:52:05.679
the subject of the fourth dimension.
On other matters, he was perfectly rational,

734
00:52:05.840 --> 00:52:08.639
and he was easy and pleasing in
conversation. He looked very much like

735
00:52:08.719 --> 00:52:14.760
Agazies, and his wife in her
old fashioned black silk dress, overskirted and

736
00:52:14.800 --> 00:52:20.440
tight sleeved, reminded Alexander of the
early pictures of Missus Browning. Hilda seemed

737
00:52:20.480 --> 00:52:23.559
particularly fond of this quaint couple,
and Bartley himself was so pleased with their

738
00:52:23.559 --> 00:52:28.480
mild and thoughtful converse that he took
his leave when they did and walked with

739
00:52:28.519 --> 00:52:31.480
them over to Oxford Street, where
they waited for their bus. They asked

740
00:52:31.519 --> 00:52:35.639
him to come to see them in
Chelsea, and they spoke very tenderly of

741
00:52:35.719 --> 00:52:39.599
Hilda. She's a dear and unworldly
little thing, said the philosopher absently,

742
00:52:39.960 --> 00:52:44.840
more like the stage people of my
young days. Folk of simple manners.

743
00:52:45.239 --> 00:52:49.880
There aren't many such left American tours
have spoiled them. I'm afraid they have

744
00:52:49.960 --> 00:52:52.760
all grown very smart. Lamb wouldn't
care a great deal about many of them.

745
00:52:52.800 --> 00:52:59.000
I fancy Alexander went back to Bedford
Square a second Sunday afternoon. He

746
00:52:59.119 --> 00:53:01.440
had a long talk with mc connell, but he got no word with Hilda

747
00:53:01.480 --> 00:53:05.800
alone, and he left in a
discontented state of mind. For the rest

748
00:53:05.880 --> 00:53:08.119
of the week, he was nervous
and unsettled, and kept rushing his work

749
00:53:08.119 --> 00:53:13.880
as if he were preparing for immediate
departure. On Thursday afternoon, he cut

750
00:53:13.880 --> 00:53:16.480
short a committee meeting, jumped into
a hansom, and drove to Bedford Square.

751
00:53:16.920 --> 00:53:20.039
He sent up his card, but
it came back to him with a

752
00:53:20.079 --> 00:53:23.840
message scribbled across the front, Sorry, I can't see you. We'll come

753
00:53:23.840 --> 00:53:29.639
and dine with me Sunday evening at
half past seven h b. When Bartley

754
00:53:29.719 --> 00:53:32.679
arrived at Bedford Square on Sunday evening, Marie, the pretty little French girl,

755
00:53:32.920 --> 00:53:37.599
met him at the door and conducted
him upstairs. Hilda was writing in

756
00:53:37.639 --> 00:53:40.840
her living room under the light of
a tall desk lamp. Bartley recognized the

757
00:53:40.840 --> 00:53:45.960
primrose satin gown she had worn that
first evening at Lady Walford's. I'm so

758
00:53:45.000 --> 00:53:47.760
pleased that you think me worth that
yellow dress, you know, he said,

759
00:53:49.079 --> 00:53:52.239
taking her hand and looking her over
admiringly, from the toes of her

760
00:53:52.239 --> 00:53:55.960
canary slippers to her smoothly parted brown
hair. Yes, it's very pretty.

761
00:53:57.400 --> 00:54:00.480
Every one at Lady Walford's was looking
at it. Hill to curtesyed, is

762
00:54:00.519 --> 00:54:04.840
that why you think I'm pretty?
I've no need for fine clothes in Max's

763
00:54:04.880 --> 00:54:07.679
play this time, so I can
afford a few duddies for myself. It's

764
00:54:07.679 --> 00:54:10.800
owing to that same chance, by
the way, that I'm able to ask

765
00:54:10.880 --> 00:54:15.119
you to dinner. I don't need
Marie to dress me this season, so

766
00:54:15.239 --> 00:54:17.800
she keeps house for me, and
my little Galway girl has gone home for

767
00:54:17.840 --> 00:54:22.119
a visit. I should never have
asked you if Molly had been here for

768
00:54:22.239 --> 00:54:27.320
I remember you don't like English cookery. Alexander walked about the room, looking

769
00:54:27.360 --> 00:54:30.800
at everything. I haven't had a
chance yet to tell you what a jolly

770
00:54:30.840 --> 00:54:34.400
little place I think this is.
Where did you get those etchings? They're

771
00:54:34.480 --> 00:54:37.360
quite unusual, aren't they. Lady
Westmere sent them to me from Rome last

772
00:54:37.440 --> 00:54:42.480
Christmas. She's very much interested in
the American artist who did them. They

773
00:54:42.480 --> 00:54:45.239
are all sketches made about the Villadeste, you see. He painted that group

774
00:54:45.239 --> 00:54:51.039
of cypresses for the salon, and
it was bought for the Luxembourg. Alexander

775
00:54:51.079 --> 00:54:53.559
walked over to the bookcases. It's
the air of the whole place here that

776
00:54:53.599 --> 00:54:58.599
I like. You haven't got anything
that doesn't be long, seems to me

777
00:54:58.679 --> 00:55:01.599
it looks particularly well to night.
You have so many flowers. I like

778
00:55:01.679 --> 00:55:07.280
these little yellow irises. Rooms always
look better by lamp light in London at

779
00:55:07.360 --> 00:55:12.360
least. Though Marie is clean,
really clean as the French are. Why

780
00:55:12.400 --> 00:55:15.480
do you look at the flowers so
critically? Marie got them all fresh in

781
00:55:15.559 --> 00:55:20.079
Covent Garden Market yesterday morning. I'm
glad, said Alexander, simply. I

782
00:55:20.119 --> 00:55:22.039
can't tell you how glad I am
to have you so pretty uncomfortable here,

783
00:55:22.199 --> 00:55:27.199
and to hear everyone saying such nice
things about you. You've got awfully nice

784
00:55:27.199 --> 00:55:30.440
friends, he added, humbly,
picking up a little jade elephant from her

785
00:55:30.480 --> 00:55:34.599
desk. Those fellows are all very
loyal, even main Hall. They don't

786
00:55:34.639 --> 00:55:37.400
talk of any one else as they
do of you. Hilda sat down on

787
00:55:37.440 --> 00:55:40.719
the couch and said seriously, I've
a neat little sum in the bank too

788
00:55:40.800 --> 00:55:44.800
now, and I own a mite
of a hut in Galway. It's not

789
00:55:44.840 --> 00:55:47.440
worth much, but I love it. I've managed to save something every year,

790
00:55:47.719 --> 00:55:52.079
and that with helping my three sisters
now and then, and tiding poor

791
00:55:52.119 --> 00:55:54.800
cousin Mike over bad seasons. He's
that gifted, you know. But he

792
00:55:54.840 --> 00:55:59.760
will drink and loses more good engagements
than other fellows ever get. And I've

793
00:56:00.000 --> 00:56:04.639
traveled a bit too. Marie opened
the door and smilingly announced that dinner was

794
00:56:04.639 --> 00:56:07.400
served. My dining room, Hilda
explained, as she led the way is

795
00:56:07.440 --> 00:56:13.320
the tiniest place you have ever seen. It was a tiny room hung all

796
00:56:13.360 --> 00:56:16.559
around with French prints, above which
ran a shelf full of china. Hilda

797
00:56:16.599 --> 00:56:21.639
saw Alexander look up at it.
It's not particularly rare, she said,

798
00:56:21.840 --> 00:56:24.119
but some of it was my mother's. Heaven knows how she managed to keep

799
00:56:24.119 --> 00:56:28.800
it whole through all our wanderings,
or in what baskets and bundles and theater

800
00:56:28.880 --> 00:56:31.519
trunks. It hasn't been stowed away. We always had our tea out of

801
00:56:31.519 --> 00:56:36.119
those blue cups when I was a
little girl. Sometimes in the queerest lodgings

802
00:56:36.320 --> 00:56:38.840
and sometimes on a trunk at the
theater Queer Theaters, for that matter.

803
00:56:39.800 --> 00:56:44.840
It was a wonderful little dinner.
There was watercress, soup and soul,

804
00:56:45.280 --> 00:56:49.800
and a delightful omelet stuffed with mushrooms
and truffles, and two small rare ducklings

805
00:56:50.000 --> 00:56:53.159
and artichokes, and a dry yellow
ron wine of which Bartley had always been

806
00:56:53.280 --> 00:56:58.440
very fond. He drank it appreciatively
and remarked that there was still no other

807
00:56:58.480 --> 00:57:01.559
he liked so well. I have
some champagne for you too. I don't

808
00:57:01.639 --> 00:57:05.480
drink it myself, but I like
to see it behave when it's poured.

809
00:57:06.039 --> 00:57:09.159
There's nothing else that looks so jolly. Thank you, But I don't like

810
00:57:09.239 --> 00:57:13.760
it so well as this. Bartley
held the yellow wine against the light and

811
00:57:13.800 --> 00:57:16.760
squinted into it as he turned the
glass slowly. About you've traveled, you

812
00:57:16.840 --> 00:57:22.199
say, Have you been in Paris
much these late years? Hilda lowered one

813
00:57:22.199 --> 00:57:24.440
of the candle shades carefully. Oh, yes, I go over to Paris

814
00:57:24.440 --> 00:57:29.400
often. There are a few changes
in the old quarter. Dear old Madame

815
00:57:29.440 --> 00:57:32.440
Auger is dead, but perhaps you
don't remember her, don't I though I'm

816
00:57:32.480 --> 00:57:37.119
so sorry to hear it. How
did her son turn out. I remember

817
00:57:37.119 --> 00:57:39.400
how she saved and scraped for him, and how we always lay abed till

818
00:57:39.480 --> 00:57:44.400
ten o'clock. He was the laziest
fellow at the Bow's Ar, and that's

819
00:57:44.400 --> 00:57:47.800
saying a good deal. Well,
he is still clever and lazy. They

820
00:57:47.840 --> 00:57:52.159
say he's a good architect when he
will work. He's a big, handsome

821
00:57:52.159 --> 00:57:54.519
creature, and he hates Americans as
much as ever. But Angel, do

822
00:57:54.559 --> 00:57:58.840
you remember? Angel? Did she
ever get back to Brittany and her band

823
00:57:58.840 --> 00:58:01.800
de mair Ah? No, poor
Angel. She got tired of cooking and

824
00:58:01.840 --> 00:58:06.280
scouring the coppers in Madame Angill's little
kitchen, so she ran away with a

825
00:58:06.320 --> 00:58:09.400
soldier, and then with another soldier. Too bad. She still lives about

826
00:58:09.400 --> 00:58:13.679
the quarter, and though there is
always a Solda, she has become a

827
00:58:13.719 --> 00:58:16.719
blancheurs de fin. She did my
blouse as beautifully the last time I was

828
00:58:16.760 --> 00:58:21.360
there, and was so delighted to
see me again. I gave her all

829
00:58:21.400 --> 00:58:23.639
my old clothes, even my old
hats. Though she always wears her Breton

830
00:58:23.679 --> 00:58:28.920
head dress. Her hair is still
like flax, and her blue eyes are

831
00:58:28.960 --> 00:58:31.280
just like a baby's, and she
has the same three freckles on her little

832
00:58:31.320 --> 00:58:36.400
nose and talks about going back to
her banda mare. Bartley looked at Hilda

833
00:58:36.440 --> 00:58:38.719
across the yellow light of the candles
and broke into a low, happy laugh.

834
00:58:39.159 --> 00:58:44.199
How jolly it was being young,
Hilda. Do you remember that first

835
00:58:44.239 --> 00:58:47.280
walk we took together in Paris?
We walked on the place Sam Michelle to

836
00:58:47.320 --> 00:58:52.440
buy some lilacs. Do you remember
how sweet they smelled? Indeed, I

837
00:58:52.519 --> 00:58:54.760
do. Come. We'll have our
coffee in the other room and you can

838
00:58:54.800 --> 00:58:58.840
smoke. Hilda rose quickly, as
if she wished to change the drift of

839
00:58:58.840 --> 00:59:01.920
their talk, but Bartley found it
pleasant to continue. What a warm,

840
00:59:02.000 --> 00:59:06.199
soft spring evening that was, he
went on, as they sat down in

841
00:59:06.239 --> 00:59:08.639
the study with the coffee on a
little table between them, and the sky

842
00:59:08.760 --> 00:59:13.719
over the bridges was just the color
of lilacs. We walked on down by

843
00:59:13.719 --> 00:59:16.840
the river, didn't we. Hilda
laughed and looked at him questioningly. He

844
00:59:16.880 --> 00:59:21.039
saw a little gleam in her eyes
that he remembered even better than the episode

845
00:59:21.079 --> 00:59:24.400
he was recalling. I think we
did, she answered demurely. It was

846
00:59:24.400 --> 00:59:29.079
on the Qui where we met that
woman who was crying so bitterly. I

847
00:59:29.159 --> 00:59:30.880
gave her a spray of Lilac,
I remember, and you gave her a

848
00:59:30.880 --> 00:59:36.519
franc I was frightened at your prodigality. I expect it was the last franc

849
00:59:36.559 --> 00:59:39.480
I had. What a strong brown
face she had, and very tragic.

850
00:59:40.000 --> 00:59:45.119
She looked at us with such despair
and longing out from under her black shawl.

851
00:59:45.599 --> 00:59:47.880
What she wanted from us was neither
our flowers, nor our francs,

852
00:59:49.199 --> 00:59:52.039
but just our youth. I remember
it touched me so I would have given

853
00:59:52.039 --> 00:59:55.519
her some of mine off my back
if I could. I had enough and

854
00:59:55.679 --> 01:00:01.119
to spare. Then, Bartley mused
and thoughtfully looked at his cigar. They

855
01:00:01.119 --> 01:00:05.760
were both remembering what the woman had
said when she took the money. God

856
01:00:05.800 --> 01:00:08.719
give you a happy love. It
was not in the ingratiating tone of the

857
01:00:08.760 --> 01:00:14.119
habitual beggar. It had come out
of the depths of the poor creature's sorrow,

858
01:00:14.599 --> 01:00:17.639
vibrating with pity for their youth and
despair at the terribleness of human life.

859
01:00:19.199 --> 01:00:22.039
It had the anguish of a voice
of prophecy. Until she spoke,

860
01:00:22.320 --> 01:00:27.239
Bartley had not realized that he was
in love. The strange woman, and

861
01:00:27.320 --> 01:00:31.480
her passionate sentence that rang out so
sharply had frightened them. Both. They

862
01:00:31.480 --> 01:00:36.159
went home sadly with the lilacs,
back to the Rue Saint Jean, walking

863
01:00:36.239 --> 01:00:39.239
very slowly arm in arm. When
they reached the house where Hilda lodged,

864
01:00:39.519 --> 01:00:44.360
Bartley went across the court with her
and up the dark old stairs to the

865
01:00:44.440 --> 01:00:47.800
third landing. And there he had
kissed her for the first time. He

866
01:00:47.840 --> 01:00:51.840
had shut his eyes to give him
the courage he remembered, and she had

867
01:00:51.840 --> 01:00:54.639
trembled, so Bartley started. When
Hilda rang the little bell beside her,

868
01:00:54.960 --> 01:00:59.280
Dear me, why did you do
that? I had quite forgotten I was

869
01:00:59.320 --> 01:01:02.159
back there. It was very jolly, he murmured lazily. As Marie came

870
01:01:02.199 --> 01:01:07.039
in to take away the coffee.
Hilda laughed and went over to the piano.

871
01:01:07.679 --> 01:01:09.800
Well we are neither of us twenty
now, you know? Have I

872
01:01:09.840 --> 01:01:14.039
told you about my new play?
Mac is writing one really for me?

873
01:01:14.159 --> 01:01:17.079
This time? You see, I'm
coming on. I've seen nothing else.

874
01:01:17.119 --> 01:01:20.639
What kind of a part is it? Shall you wear? Yellow gowns?

875
01:01:20.960 --> 01:01:23.559
I hope? So he was looking
at a round, slender figure as she

876
01:01:23.639 --> 01:01:27.679
stood by the piano, turning over
a pile of music, and he felt

877
01:01:27.679 --> 01:01:30.119
the energy in every line of it. No, it isn't a dress up

878
01:01:30.199 --> 01:01:35.239
part. He doesn't seem to fancy
me in fine feathers. He says,

879
01:01:35.280 --> 01:01:37.199
I ought to be minding the pigs
at home, and I suppose I ought.

880
01:01:37.679 --> 01:01:42.599
But he's given me some good Irish
songs. Listen. She sat down

881
01:01:42.599 --> 01:01:45.880
at the piano and sang. When
she finished, Alexander shook himself out of

882
01:01:45.920 --> 01:01:50.840
a reverie, sing the harp that
once, Hilda, you used to sing

883
01:01:50.880 --> 01:01:54.320
it so well. Nonsense. Of
course, I can't really sing except the

884
01:01:54.360 --> 01:01:59.280
way my mother and grandmother did before
me. Most actresses nowadays learn to sing

885
01:01:59.320 --> 01:02:02.599
properly, so I try to master. But he confused me. Just Alexander

886
01:02:02.679 --> 01:02:07.119
laugh all the same, sing it, Hilda. Hilda started up from the

887
01:02:07.159 --> 01:02:09.840
stool and moved restlessly toward the window. It's really too warm in this room

888
01:02:09.880 --> 01:02:14.760
to sing, don't you feel it? Alexander went over and opened the window

889
01:02:14.800 --> 01:02:17.159
for her. Aren't you afraid to
let the wind low like that on your

890
01:02:17.199 --> 01:02:22.119
neck? Can't I get a scarf
for something? Ask a theater lady if

891
01:02:22.159 --> 01:02:24.800
she's afraid of drafts. Hilda laughed, But perhaps, as I'm so warm,

892
01:02:25.000 --> 01:02:30.679
give me your handkerchief there just in
front, He slipped the corners carefully

893
01:02:30.679 --> 01:02:32.760
around her shoulder. Straps. There
that will do. It looks like a

894
01:02:32.800 --> 01:02:37.719
bib. She pushed his hand away
quickly and stood looking out in the deserted

895
01:02:37.760 --> 01:02:43.199
square. Isn't London a tomb?
On Sunday night? Alexander caught the agitation

896
01:02:43.239 --> 01:02:46.039
in her voice. He stood a
little behind her and tried to steady himself

897
01:02:46.039 --> 01:02:51.400
as he said, It's soft and
misty. See how white the stars are.

898
01:02:52.880 --> 01:02:55.679
For a long time, neither Hilda
nor Bartley spoke. They stood close

899
01:02:55.719 --> 01:03:00.440
together, looking out of the wan
watery sky, breathing all ways, more

900
01:03:00.480 --> 01:03:04.239
quickly and lightly, and it seemed
as if all the clocks in the world

901
01:03:04.320 --> 01:03:08.440
had stopped. He suddenly moved the
clenched handy it held behind him, and

902
01:03:08.599 --> 01:03:13.079
dropped it violently at his side.
He felt a tremor run through the slender

903
01:03:13.159 --> 01:03:15.920
yellow figure in front of him.
She caught his handkerchief from her throat and

904
01:03:15.920 --> 01:03:20.239
thrust it at him without turning around. Here take it, you must go

905
01:03:20.280 --> 01:03:22.719
now, Bartley. Good night.
Bartley leaned over her shoulder without touching her,

906
01:03:22.760 --> 01:03:27.320
and whispered in her ear. You
are giving me a chance, yes,

907
01:03:27.880 --> 01:03:30.519
take it and go. This isn't
fair, you know. Good Night.

908
01:03:30.480 --> 01:03:35.679
Alexander clenched the two hands at his
sides. With one he drew down

909
01:03:35.760 --> 01:03:38.480
the window, and with the other
still standing behind her, he drew her

910
01:03:38.480 --> 01:03:43.679
back against him. She uttered a
little cry and threw her arms over her

911
01:03:43.719 --> 01:03:45.599
head, and drew his face down
to hers. Are you going to let

912
01:03:45.599 --> 01:03:58.679
me love you a little Bartley?
She whispered? End of chapter four Chapter

913
01:03:58.760 --> 01:04:02.320
five of Alexander's Bridge by WILLI.
Cather. This is a LibriVox recording.

914
01:04:02.880 --> 01:04:08.800
All LibriVox recordings are in the public
domain. For more information or to volunteer,

915
01:04:09.119 --> 01:04:15.599
visit LibriVox dot org. Alexander's Bridge, Chapter five. It was the

916
01:04:15.639 --> 01:04:20.199
afternoon of the day before Christmas.
Missus Alexander had been driving about all the

917
01:04:20.280 --> 01:04:25.159
morning, leaving presents at the houses
of her friends. She lunched alone,

918
01:04:25.360 --> 01:04:28.920
and as she rose from the table, she spoke to the butler, Thomas,

919
01:04:29.159 --> 01:04:31.199
I'm going down to the kitchen now
to see Norah. In half an

920
01:04:31.199 --> 01:04:33.880
hour, you were to bring the
greens up from the cellar and put them

921
01:04:33.880 --> 01:04:38.719
in the library. Mister Alexander will
be home at three to hang them himself.

922
01:04:39.159 --> 01:04:42.880
Don't forget the step ladder and plenty
of tax and string. You may

923
01:04:42.880 --> 01:04:46.320
bring the Azalea upstairs, take the
white want mister Alexander's study. Put the

924
01:04:46.360 --> 01:04:49.239
two pink ones in his room and
the red one in the drawing room.

925
01:04:50.000 --> 01:04:54.639
A little before three o'clock, Missus
Alexander went into the library to see that

926
01:04:54.679 --> 01:04:58.480
everything was ready. She pulled the
window shades high, for the weather was

927
01:04:58.559 --> 01:05:01.519
dark and stormy, and there little
light even in the streets. A foot

928
01:05:01.559 --> 01:05:04.840
of snow had fallen during the morning, and the wide space over the river

929
01:05:04.960 --> 01:05:09.760
was thick with flying flakes that fell
and wreathed the masses of floating ice.

930
01:05:10.480 --> 01:05:14.320
Winnifred was standing by the window when
she heard the front door open. She

931
01:05:14.400 --> 01:05:17.440
hurried to the hall as Alexander came
stamping end covered with snow. He kissed

932
01:05:17.440 --> 01:05:21.039
her joyfully and brushed away the snow
that fell on her hair. I wish

933
01:05:21.119 --> 01:05:24.239
i'd ask you to meet me at
the office and walk home with me,

934
01:05:24.239 --> 01:05:27.920
Winnifred. The common is beautiful.
The boys have swept the snow off the

935
01:05:27.960 --> 01:05:31.719
pond, and they're skating furiously.
Did the sicklamans come an hour ago?

936
01:05:32.000 --> 01:05:36.519
What splendid ones? But aren't you
frightfully extravagant? Not for Christmas time?

937
01:05:36.719 --> 01:05:40.760
I'll go upstairs and change my coat. I'll be down in a moment.

938
01:05:40.880 --> 01:05:44.719
Tell Thomas to get everything ready.
When Alexander reappeared, he took his wife's

939
01:05:44.800 --> 01:05:47.400
arm and went with her into the
library. When did the azaleas get here?

940
01:05:47.679 --> 01:05:50.639
Thomas has got the white one in
my room. I told him to

941
01:05:50.679 --> 01:05:55.119
put it there, but I say
it's much the finest of the lot.

942
01:05:55.960 --> 01:05:58.760
That's why I had it put there. There is too much color in that

943
01:05:58.840 --> 01:06:01.400
room for a red one, you
know. Bartley began to sort the greens.

944
01:06:01.880 --> 01:06:04.880
It looks very splendid there, but
I feel piggish to have it.

945
01:06:05.320 --> 01:06:10.000
However, we really spend more time
there than anywhere else in the house.

946
01:06:10.559 --> 01:06:14.000
Will you hand me the holly?
He climbed up the step ladder, which

947
01:06:14.039 --> 01:06:16.320
creaked under his weight, and began
to twist the tough stems of the holly

948
01:06:16.400 --> 01:06:20.039
into the framework of the chandelier.
I forgot to tell you that I had

949
01:06:20.039 --> 01:06:25.239
a letter from Wilson this morning explaining
his telegram. He is coming because an

950
01:06:25.239 --> 01:06:28.760
old uncle up in Vermont has conveniently
died and left Wilson a little money,

951
01:06:29.039 --> 01:06:31.880
something like ten thousand. He's come
on to settle up the estate. Won't

952
01:06:31.880 --> 01:06:35.119
it be jolly? To have him, And how fine that he's come into

953
01:06:35.159 --> 01:06:39.519
a little money. I can see
him posting down State Street to the steamship

954
01:06:39.559 --> 01:06:43.079
offices. He will get a good
many trips out of that ten thousand.

955
01:06:43.800 --> 01:06:47.320
What can have detained him? I
expected him here for luncheon. Those trains

956
01:06:47.320 --> 01:06:51.280
from Albany are always late. He'll
be along some time this afternoon. And

957
01:06:51.440 --> 01:06:55.000
now, don't you want to go
upstairs and lie down for an hour.

958
01:06:55.159 --> 01:06:57.800
You've had a busy morning, and
I don't want you to be tired tonight.

959
01:06:59.400 --> 01:07:02.119
After his wife went upstairs, Alexander
worked energetically at the greens for a

960
01:07:02.119 --> 01:07:05.320
few moments. Then, as he
was cutting off a length of string,

961
01:07:05.800 --> 01:07:10.760
he sighed suddenly and sat down,
staring out the window at the snow.

962
01:07:11.760 --> 01:07:15.519
The animation died out of his face, but in his eyes there was a

963
01:07:15.559 --> 01:07:20.599
restless light, a look of apprehension
and suspense. He kept clasping and unclasping

964
01:07:20.599 --> 01:07:25.480
his big hands, as if he
were trying to realize something. The clock

965
01:07:25.519 --> 01:07:29.039
ticked through the minutes of a half
hour, and the afternoon outside began to

966
01:07:29.079 --> 01:07:33.039
thicken and darken turbidly. Alexander,
since he first sat down, had not

967
01:07:33.199 --> 01:07:39.840
changed his position he leaned forward,
his hands between his knees, scarcely breathing,

968
01:07:40.239 --> 01:07:44.079
as if he were holding himself away
from his surroundings, from the room,

969
01:07:44.400 --> 01:07:47.159
and from the very chair in which
he sat, from everything except the

970
01:07:47.239 --> 01:07:51.119
wild eddies of snow above the river, on which his eyes were fixed with

971
01:07:51.199 --> 01:07:57.400
feverish intentness, as if he were
trying to project himself thither. When at

972
01:07:57.480 --> 01:08:00.639
last Lucius Wilson was announced, Alexander
Or sprang eagerly to his feet and hurried

973
01:08:00.639 --> 01:08:05.400
to meet his old instructor. Hello, Wilson, what luck? Come into

974
01:08:05.400 --> 01:08:09.880
the library? We are to have
a lot of people to dinner tonight and

975
01:08:09.960 --> 01:08:14.079
Winifred's lying down, you will excuse
or won't you? And now what about

976
01:08:14.119 --> 01:08:17.439
yourself? Sit down and tell me
everything. I think I'd rather move about,

977
01:08:17.439 --> 01:08:20.239
if you don't mind. I've been
sitting in the train for a week,

978
01:08:20.279 --> 01:08:25.199
it seems to me. Wilson stood
before the fire with his hands behind

979
01:08:25.279 --> 01:08:29.399
him, and looked about the room. You have been busy, Bartley.

980
01:08:29.399 --> 01:08:31.880
If I'd had my choice of all
possible places in which to spend Christmas,

981
01:08:32.039 --> 01:08:35.960
your house would certainly be the place
I'd have chosen. Happy people do a

982
01:08:36.000 --> 01:08:40.960
great deal for their friends, a
house like this throws its warmth out.

983
01:08:41.279 --> 01:08:45.159
I felt it distinctly as I was
coming through the Berkshires. I could scarcely

984
01:08:45.199 --> 01:08:47.800
believe that I was to see missus
Bartley again. So soon, Thank you

985
01:08:47.880 --> 01:08:51.399
Wilson. She'll be as glad to
see you. Shall we have tea?

986
01:08:51.479 --> 01:08:56.199
Now? I'll ring for Thomas to
clear away this litter. Winifred says,

987
01:08:56.239 --> 01:08:59.439
I always wrecked the house when I
try to do anything. Do you know

988
01:08:59.520 --> 01:09:02.079
I am tired? Looks as if
we're not used to work, doesn't it?

989
01:09:02.319 --> 01:09:05.960
Alexander laughed and dropped into a chair. You know I'm sailing the day

990
01:09:06.000 --> 01:09:11.840
after New Year's again. Why you've
been over twice since I was here in

991
01:09:11.840 --> 01:09:15.000
the spring, haven't you? Oh? I was in London about ten days

992
01:09:15.000 --> 01:09:17.319
in the summer, went to escape
the hot weather more than anything else.

993
01:09:17.640 --> 01:09:20.760
I shan't be gone more than a
month this time, Winifred and I have

994
01:09:20.840 --> 01:09:25.239
been up in Canada for most of
the autumn. That morlock Bridge is on

995
01:09:25.319 --> 01:09:29.159
my back all the time. I
never had so much trouble with a job

996
01:09:29.199 --> 01:09:33.520
before. Alexander moved about restlessly and
fell to poking the fire. Haven't I

997
01:09:33.560 --> 01:09:36.880
seen in the papers that there is
some trouble about a tidewater bridge of yours

998
01:09:36.920 --> 01:09:41.720
in New Jersey. Oh that doesn't
amount to anything. It's held up by

999
01:09:41.760 --> 01:09:45.359
a steel strike a bother, of
course, but the sort of thing one

1000
01:09:45.439 --> 01:09:48.079
is always having to put up with. But the Morlock Bridge is a continual

1001
01:09:48.159 --> 01:09:53.520
anxiety, you see. The truth
is we're having to build pretty well to

1002
01:09:53.600 --> 01:09:57.359
the strained limit up there. They've
crowded me too much on the cost.

1003
01:09:58.000 --> 01:10:01.000
It's all very well if everything goes
well, but these estimates have never been

1004
01:10:01.079 --> 01:10:05.520
used for anything of such length before. However, there's nothing to be done.

1005
01:10:06.000 --> 01:10:10.880
They hold me to the scale I've
used in shorter bridges. The last

1006
01:10:10.920 --> 01:10:14.439
thing a bridge commission cares about is
the kind of bridge you build. When

1007
01:10:14.479 --> 01:10:16.520
Bartley had finished dressing for dinner,
he went to his study, where he

1008
01:10:16.520 --> 01:10:20.760
found his wife arranging flowers on his
writing table. These pink roses just came

1009
01:10:20.840 --> 01:10:25.119
from Missus Hastings, she said,
smiling, and I'm sure she meant them

1010
01:10:25.119 --> 01:10:29.399
for you. Bartley looked about with
an air of satisfaction at the greens and

1011
01:10:29.479 --> 01:10:32.399
the wreaths in the windows. Have
you a moment, Winnifred. I have

1012
01:10:32.520 --> 01:10:36.680
just now been thinking that this is
our twelfth Christmas. Can you realize it?

1013
01:10:38.479 --> 01:10:41.239
He went up to the table and
took her hands away from the flowers,

1014
01:10:41.600 --> 01:10:45.840
drying them with his pocket handkerchief.
They've been awfully happy ones, all

1015
01:10:45.880 --> 01:10:48.079
of them, haven't they. He
took her in his arms and bent back,

1016
01:10:48.319 --> 01:10:51.800
lifting her a little and giving her
a long kiss. You are happy,

1017
01:10:51.840 --> 01:10:55.600
aren't you, Winnifred. More than
anything else in the world, I

1018
01:10:55.680 --> 01:10:59.840
want you to be happy. Sometimes, of late, i've thought you looked

1019
01:11:00.000 --> 01:11:03.479
as if you were troubled. No, it's only when you were troubled and

1020
01:11:03.560 --> 01:11:08.600
harassed that I feel worried. Bartley. I wish you always seemed as you

1021
01:11:08.640 --> 01:11:13.560
do tonight, but you don't always. She looked earnestly and inquiringly into his

1022
01:11:13.640 --> 01:11:17.399
eyes. Alexander took her two hands
from his shoulders and swung them back and

1023
01:11:17.439 --> 01:11:21.600
forth in his own, laughing his
big blonde laugh. I'm growing older,

1024
01:11:21.680 --> 01:11:26.039
my dear, that's what you feel
now? It may I show you something.

1025
01:11:26.600 --> 01:11:29.439
I meant to save them until tomorrow, but I want you to wear

1026
01:11:29.479 --> 01:11:32.920
them tonight. He took a little
leather box out of his pocket and opened

1027
01:11:32.920 --> 01:11:38.520
it. On the white velvet lay, two long pendants of curiously worked gold

1028
01:11:38.640 --> 01:11:43.439
set with pearls Winnifred looked from the
box to Bartley and exclaimed, where did

1029
01:11:43.479 --> 01:11:47.079
you ever find such gold work?
Bartley? It's old Flemish, isn't it

1030
01:11:47.119 --> 01:11:51.439
fine? They are the most beautiful
things, dear. But you know I

1031
01:11:51.520 --> 01:11:56.000
never wear earrings. Yes, yes
I know, but I want you to

1032
01:11:56.000 --> 01:12:00.600
wear them. I've always wanted you
to. So few women can. There

1033
01:12:00.680 --> 01:12:02.800
must be a good ear to begin
with, and a nose. He waved

1034
01:12:02.840 --> 01:12:08.159
his hand above reproach. Most women
look silly in them. They go only

1035
01:12:08.199 --> 01:12:12.319
with faces like yours, very very
proud, and just a little hard.

1036
01:12:12.960 --> 01:12:15.520
Winifred laughed as she went over to
the mirror and fitted the delicate springs to

1037
01:12:15.560 --> 01:12:19.520
the lobes of her ears. Oh, Bartley, that old foolishness about my

1038
01:12:19.640 --> 01:12:24.520
being hard, It really hurts my
feelings. But I must go down now

1039
01:12:24.560 --> 01:12:28.600
people are beginning to come. Bartley
drew her arm about his neck and went

1040
01:12:28.640 --> 01:12:30.800
to the door with her. Not
hard to me, Winifred, he whispered,

1041
01:12:31.239 --> 01:12:35.479
never, never hard to me.
Left alone, he paced up and

1042
01:12:35.520 --> 01:12:40.000
down in his study. He was
at home again, among all the dear,

1043
01:12:40.159 --> 01:12:44.640
familiar things that spoke to him of
so many happy years. His house

1044
01:12:44.680 --> 01:12:47.880
to night would be full of charming
people who liked and admired him. Yet

1045
01:12:47.880 --> 01:12:53.920
all the time, underneath his pleasure
and hopefulness and satisfaction, he was conscious

1046
01:12:53.920 --> 01:12:59.479
of the vibration of an unnatural excitement. Amid this light and warmth and friendliness,

1047
01:12:59.800 --> 01:13:02.840
he sometimes started and shuddered, as
if some one had stepped on his

1048
01:13:02.920 --> 01:13:09.159
grave. Something had broken loose in
him, of which he knew nothing except

1049
01:13:09.239 --> 01:13:13.159
that it was sullen and powerful,
and that it rung and tortured him.

1050
01:13:13.920 --> 01:13:19.359
Sometimes it came upon him softly,
in enervating reveries. Sometimes it battered him

1051
01:13:19.399 --> 01:13:25.319
like the cannon rolling in the hold
of the vessel. Always now it brought

1052
01:13:25.359 --> 01:13:29.760
with it a sense of quickened life, of stimulating danger. To night.

1053
01:13:30.119 --> 01:13:32.960
It came upon him suddenly as he
was walking the floor after his wife left

1054
01:13:33.039 --> 01:13:39.199
him. It seemed impossible. He
could not believe it. He glanced entreatingly

1055
01:13:39.239 --> 01:13:42.520
at the door, as if to
call her back. He heard voices in

1056
01:13:42.560 --> 01:13:45.479
the hall below, and knew that
he must go down. Going over to

1057
01:13:45.479 --> 01:13:49.880
the window, he looked out at
the lights across the river. How could

1058
01:13:49.920 --> 01:13:56.039
this happen here in his own house, among the things he loved? What

1059
01:13:56.319 --> 01:14:00.439
was it that reached in out of
the darkness and thrilled him. As he

1060
01:14:00.479 --> 01:14:03.520
stood there, he had a feeling
that he would never escape. He shut

1061
01:14:03.520 --> 01:14:08.359
his eyes and pressed his forehead against
the cold window glass, breathing in the

1062
01:14:08.439 --> 01:14:13.800
chill that came through it. That
this, he groaned, that this should

1063
01:14:13.840 --> 01:14:18.479
have happened to me. On New
Year's Day, a thaw set in,

1064
01:14:18.840 --> 01:14:23.960
and during the night torrents of rain
fell. In the morning, the morning

1065
01:14:24.000 --> 01:14:28.319
of Alexander's departure for England, the
river was streaked with fog, and the

1066
01:14:28.399 --> 01:14:32.800
rain drove hard against the windows of
the breakfast room. Alexander finished his coffee

1067
01:14:32.960 --> 01:14:36.680
and was pacing up and down.
His wife sat at the table, watching

1068
01:14:36.760 --> 01:14:43.119
him. She was pale and unnaturally
calm. When Thomas brought the letters,

1069
01:14:43.600 --> 01:14:47.399
Bartley sank into his chair and ran
them over rapidly. Here's a note from

1070
01:14:47.439 --> 01:14:50.960
old Wilson. He's safe back at
his grind and says he had a bully

1071
01:14:51.000 --> 01:14:56.560
time. The memory of missus Bartley
will make my whole winter fragrant. Just

1072
01:14:56.760 --> 01:15:00.359
like him, he will go on
getting measureless satisfaction out of you by his

1073
01:15:00.399 --> 01:15:03.640
study fire. What a man he
is for looking on at life, Bartley

1074
01:15:03.720 --> 01:15:09.159
sighed, pushed the letters back impatiently
and went over to the window. This

1075
01:15:09.239 --> 01:15:12.439
is a nasty sort of day to
sail. I've a notion to call it

1076
01:15:12.520 --> 01:15:16.119
off. Next week would be time
enough. That would only mean starting twice.

1077
01:15:16.600 --> 01:15:20.319
It wouldn't really help you out at
all, missus. Alexander spoke soothingly,

1078
01:15:20.960 --> 01:15:26.600
and you'd come back late for all
your engagements. Bartley began jingling some

1079
01:15:26.680 --> 01:15:30.319
loose coins in his pocket. I
wish things would let me rest. I'm

1080
01:15:30.319 --> 01:15:34.399
tired of work, tired of people, tired of trailing about. He looked

1081
01:15:34.399 --> 01:15:39.479
out at the storm beaten river.
Winnifred came up behind him and put a

1082
01:15:39.479 --> 01:15:43.760
hand on his shoulder. That's what
you always say, poor Bartley, at

1083
01:15:43.840 --> 01:15:47.199
bottom, you really like all these
things, can't you remember that? He

1084
01:15:47.279 --> 01:15:51.800
put his arm about her. All
the same life runs smoothly enough with some

1085
01:15:51.880 --> 01:15:57.199
people, and with me it's always
a messy sort of patchwork. It's like

1086
01:15:57.279 --> 01:16:00.359
the song pieces where I am not. How can you face it all with

1087
01:16:00.439 --> 01:16:05.319
so much fortitude? She looked at
him with that clear gaze which Wilson had

1088
01:16:05.399 --> 01:16:11.479
so much admired, which he had
felt implied such high confidence and fearless pride.

1089
01:16:12.560 --> 01:16:15.359
Oh, I faced that long ago, when you were on your first

1090
01:16:15.359 --> 01:16:19.000
bridge up at Old Allway. I
knew then that your paths were not to

1091
01:16:19.039 --> 01:16:25.640
be paths of peace, But I
decided that I wanted to follow them.

1092
01:16:25.760 --> 01:16:29.800
Bartley and his wife stood silent for
a long time. The fire crackled in

1093
01:16:29.840 --> 01:16:33.760
the grate, the rain beat insistently
upon the windows, and the sleepy Angora

1094
01:16:33.840 --> 01:16:39.800
looked up at them curiously. Presently, Thomas made a discreet sound at the

1095
01:16:39.840 --> 01:16:44.279
door. Shall Edward bring down your
trunks, sir, Yes, they are

1096
01:16:44.319 --> 01:16:46.520
ready. Tell him not to forget
the big portfolio and the study table.

1097
01:16:47.319 --> 01:16:51.720
Thomas withdrew, closing the door softly. Bartley turned away from his wife,

1098
01:16:51.760 --> 01:16:58.479
still holding her hand. It never
gets any easier, Winnifred. They both

1099
01:16:58.479 --> 01:17:01.680
started at the sound of the carriage
on the pavement outside. Alexander sat down

1100
01:17:01.680 --> 01:17:05.680
and leaned his head on his hand. His wife bent over him courage,

1101
01:17:05.720 --> 01:17:10.840
she said gaily. Bartley rose and
rang the bell. Thomas brought him his

1102
01:17:10.880 --> 01:17:15.119
hat and stick and ulster. At
the sight of these, the supercilious Angora

1103
01:17:15.199 --> 01:17:18.119
moved restlessly, quitted her red cushion
by the fire, and came up,

1104
01:17:18.199 --> 01:17:24.800
waving her tail and vexation at these
ominous indications of change. Alexander stooped to

1105
01:17:24.840 --> 01:17:28.720
stroke her, and then plunged into
his coat and drew on his gloves.

1106
01:17:29.279 --> 01:17:32.279
His wife held his stick, smiling. Bartley smiled too, and his eyes

1107
01:17:32.359 --> 01:17:36.000
cleared. I'll work like the devil, Winifrid, and be home again before

1108
01:17:36.000 --> 01:17:40.840
you realize I've gone. He kissed
her quickly several times, hurried out of

1109
01:17:40.840 --> 01:17:43.840
the front door into the rain,
and waved to her from the carriage window.

1110
01:17:43.880 --> 01:17:48.279
As the driver was starting his melancholy
dripping black horses, Alexander sat with

1111
01:17:48.319 --> 01:17:53.159
his hands clenched on his knees.
As the carriage turned up the hill,

1112
01:17:53.479 --> 01:17:58.319
he lifted one hand and brought it
down violently. This time he spoke aloud

1113
01:17:58.319 --> 01:18:00.079
through his set teeth. This time, I'm I'm going to end it.

1114
01:18:01.640 --> 01:18:05.239
On the afternoon of the third day
out, Alexander was sitting well to the

1115
01:18:05.279 --> 01:18:10.359
stern on the windward side, where
the chairs were few, his rugs over

1116
01:18:10.439 --> 01:18:13.960
him and the collar of his fur
lined coat turned up about his ears.

1117
01:18:14.800 --> 01:18:18.119
The weather had so far been dark
and raw. For two hours he had

1118
01:18:18.119 --> 01:18:23.079
been watching the low, dirty sky
and the beating of the heavy rain upon

1119
01:18:23.079 --> 01:18:29.239
the iron colored sea. There was
a long oily swell that made exercise laborious.

1120
01:18:29.720 --> 01:18:32.239
The deck smelled of damp woolens,
and the air was so humid that

1121
01:18:32.359 --> 01:18:38.359
drops of moisture kept gathering upon his
hair and mustache. He seldom moved except

1122
01:18:38.399 --> 01:18:42.720
to brush them away. The great
open spaces made him passive, and the

1123
01:18:42.760 --> 01:18:47.000
restlessness of the water quieted him.
He intended during the voyage to decide upon

1124
01:18:47.000 --> 01:18:50.960
a course of action, but he
held all this away from him for the

1125
01:18:51.000 --> 01:18:57.840
present and lay in a blessed gray
oblivion. Deep down in him somewhere his

1126
01:18:57.960 --> 01:19:02.600
resolution was weakening and strengthening, ebbing
and flowing. The thing that perturbed him

1127
01:19:02.640 --> 01:19:06.720
went on as steadily as his pulse, but he was almost unconscious of it.

1128
01:19:08.520 --> 01:19:12.520
He was submerged in the vast impersonal
grayness about him, and at the

1129
01:19:12.560 --> 01:19:15.800
intervals the sidelong roll of the boat
measured off time like the ticking of a

1130
01:19:15.840 --> 01:19:21.359
clock. He felt released from everything
that troubled and perplexed him. It was

1131
01:19:21.399 --> 01:19:26.920
as if he had tricked and outwitted
torturing memories, had actually managed to get

1132
01:19:26.960 --> 01:19:30.399
on board without them. He thought
of nothing at all. If his mind

1133
01:19:30.479 --> 01:19:34.079
now and again picked a face out
of the grayness, it was Lucius Wilson's,

1134
01:19:34.520 --> 01:19:39.239
or the face of an old schoolmate
forgotten for years, or it was

1135
01:19:39.279 --> 01:19:43.239
the slim outline of a favorite greyhound
who used to hunt jack rabbits with when

1136
01:19:43.239 --> 01:19:45.960
he was a boy. Towards six
o'clock, the wind rose and tugged at

1137
01:19:45.960 --> 01:19:50.520
the tarpaulin and brought the swell higher. After dinner, Alexander came back to

1138
01:19:50.520 --> 01:19:55.720
the wet deck, piled his damp
rugs over him again, and sat smoking,

1139
01:19:55.880 --> 01:20:00.000
losing himself in the obliterating blackness and
drowsing in the rush of the gate

1140
01:20:00.039 --> 01:20:04.199
ale. Before he went below,
a few bright stars were pricked off between

1141
01:20:04.239 --> 01:20:09.720
heavily moving masses of cloud. The
next morning was bright and mild, with

1142
01:20:09.760 --> 01:20:14.399
a fresh breeze. Alexander felt the
need of exercise even before he came out

1143
01:20:14.399 --> 01:20:16.800
of his cabin. When he went
on deck, the sky was blue and

1144
01:20:16.920 --> 01:20:21.680
blinding, with heavy whiffs of white
cloud smoke colored at the edges moving rapidly

1145
01:20:21.720 --> 01:20:27.319
across it. The water was roughish, a cold, clear indigo breaking into

1146
01:20:27.319 --> 01:20:30.720
white caps. Bartley walked for two
hours and then stretched himself in the sun

1147
01:20:30.800 --> 01:20:34.840
until lunch time. In the afternoon, he wrote a long letter to Winifrid

1148
01:20:35.159 --> 01:20:39.960
later, as he walked the deck
through a splendid golden sunset, his spirits

1149
01:20:40.039 --> 01:20:44.680
rose continually. It was agreeable to
come to himself again. After several days

1150
01:20:44.680 --> 01:20:47.800
of numbness and torpor. He stayed
out until the last tinge of violet had

1151
01:20:47.840 --> 01:20:51.720
faded from the water. There was
literally a taste of life on his lips

1152
01:20:51.720 --> 01:20:56.520
as he sat down to dinner and
ordered a bottle of champagne. He was

1153
01:20:56.600 --> 01:21:00.319
late in finishing his dinner and drank
rather more wine than he had meant too.

1154
01:21:00.239 --> 01:21:03.159
When he went above, the wind
had risen and the deck was almost

1155
01:21:03.159 --> 01:21:06.760
deserted. As he stepped out of
the door, a gale lifted his heavy

1156
01:21:06.760 --> 01:21:11.479
fur coat about his shoulders. He
fought his way back up the deck with

1157
01:21:11.680 --> 01:21:15.960
keen exhilaration. The moment he stepped, almost out of breath, behind the

1158
01:21:15.000 --> 01:21:18.439
shelter of the stern, the wind
was cut off, and he felt like

1159
01:21:18.479 --> 01:21:24.399
a rush of warm air, a
sense of close and intimate companionship. He

1160
01:21:24.479 --> 01:21:28.359
started back and tore his coat open, as if something warm were actually clinging

1161
01:21:28.359 --> 01:21:30.960
to him beneath it. He hurried
up the deck and went into the saloon

1162
01:21:31.039 --> 01:21:35.800
parlor full of women who had retreated
thither from the sharp wind, he threw

1163
01:21:35.840 --> 01:21:40.720
himself upon them. He talked delightfully
to the older ones, and played accompaniments

1164
01:21:40.720 --> 01:21:44.800
for the younger ones until the last
sleepy girl had followed her mother below.

1165
01:21:45.520 --> 01:21:48.239
Then he went into the smoking room. He played bridge until two o'clock in

1166
01:21:48.279 --> 01:21:53.079
the morning, and managed to lose
a considerable sum of money without really noticing

1167
01:21:53.119 --> 01:21:57.640
that he was doing so. After
the break of one fine day, the

1168
01:21:57.680 --> 01:22:01.920
weather was pretty consistently dull. When
the low sky thinned a trifle, the

1169
01:22:02.000 --> 01:22:05.880
pale white spots of a sun did
no more than throw a bluish luster on

1170
01:22:05.920 --> 01:22:12.079
the water, giving it the dark
brightness of newly cut lead. Through One

1171
01:22:12.279 --> 01:22:15.640
after another of those gray days,
Alexander drowsed and mused, drinking in the

1172
01:22:15.680 --> 01:22:19.800
grateful moisture, but the complete peace
of the first part of the voyage was

1173
01:22:19.880 --> 01:22:25.239
over. Sometimes he rose suddenly from
his chair, as if driven out,

1174
01:22:25.560 --> 01:22:30.279
and paced the deck for hours.
People noticed his propensity for walking in rough

1175
01:22:30.359 --> 01:22:34.159
weather and watched him curiously as he
did his rounds. From his abstraction and

1176
01:22:34.199 --> 01:22:38.680
the determined set of his jaw,
they fancied he must be thinking about his

1177
01:22:38.760 --> 01:22:44.199
bridge. Everyone had heard of the
new Cantilever bridge in Canada, but Alexander

1178
01:22:44.279 --> 01:22:47.760
was not thinking about his work after
the fourth night out, when his will

1179
01:22:47.920 --> 01:22:53.520
suddenly softened under his hands. He
had been continually hammering away at himself,

1180
01:22:54.319 --> 01:22:57.600
more and more often. When he
first wakened in the morning, or when

1181
01:22:57.600 --> 01:23:00.399
he stepped into a warm place after
being chilled the deck, he felt a

1182
01:23:00.439 --> 01:23:05.760
sudden, painful delight at being nearer
another shore. Sometimes when he was most

1183
01:23:05.800 --> 01:23:11.079
despondent, when he thought himself worn
out with this struggle, in a flash,

1184
01:23:11.119 --> 01:23:14.680
he was free of it and leaped
into an overwhelming consciousness of himself.

1185
01:23:15.680 --> 01:23:19.159
On the instant, he felt that
marvelous return of the impetuousness, the intense

1186
01:23:19.199 --> 01:23:36.520
excitement, the increasing expectancy of youth. End of chapter five, Chapter six

1187
01:23:36.560 --> 01:23:42.680
of Alexander's Bridge by Willi Cather.
This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox

1188
01:23:42.720 --> 01:23:45.960
recordings are in the public domain.
For more information or to volunteer, visit

1189
01:23:46.039 --> 01:23:53.640
LibriVox dot org. Chapter six of
Alexander's Bridge. The last two days of

1190
01:23:53.680 --> 01:23:59.199
the voyage Bartley found almost intolerable.
The stop at Queenstown, the tedious passage

1191
01:23:59.239 --> 01:24:02.319
up the Mercy were things that he
noted dimly through his growing impatience. He

1192
01:24:02.439 --> 01:24:06.319
planned to stop in Liverpool, but
instead he took the boat train for London,

1193
01:24:08.600 --> 01:24:12.479
emerging at Euston at half past three
o'clock in the afternoon. Alexander had

1194
01:24:12.479 --> 01:24:15.600
his luggage sent to the Savoy and
drove at once to Bedford Square. When

1195
01:24:15.640 --> 01:24:19.119
Marie met him at the door,
even her strong sense of proprieties could not

1196
01:24:19.159 --> 01:24:24.239
restrain her surprise and delight. She
blushed and smiled, and fumbled his card

1197
01:24:24.279 --> 01:24:28.880
in her confusion before she ran upstairs. Alexander paced up and down the hallway,

1198
01:24:29.119 --> 01:24:32.439
buttoning and unbuttoning his overcoat until she
returned and took him up to Hilda's

1199
01:24:32.439 --> 01:24:36.479
living room. The room was empty
when he entered. A coal fire was

1200
01:24:36.520 --> 01:24:40.720
crackling in the grate, and the
lamps were lit, for it was already

1201
01:24:40.760 --> 01:24:45.600
beginning to grow dark outside. Alexander
did not sit down. He stood his

1202
01:24:45.640 --> 01:24:48.279
ground over by the windows until Hilda
came in. She called his name on

1203
01:24:48.279 --> 01:24:51.640
the threshold, but in her swift
flight across the room, she felt a

1204
01:24:51.720 --> 01:24:57.000
change in him and caught herself up
so deftly that he could not tell just

1205
01:24:57.119 --> 01:25:00.319
when she did it. She merely
brushed his cheek with her lips and put

1206
01:25:00.319 --> 01:25:04.119
a hand lightly and joyously on either
shoulder. Oh, what a grand thing

1207
01:25:04.159 --> 01:25:08.399
to happen on a raw day.
I felt it in my bones when I

1208
01:25:08.439 --> 01:25:11.720
woke this morning that something splendid was
going to turn up. I thought it

1209
01:25:11.800 --> 01:25:15.520
might be sister Kate or cousin Mike
would be happening along. I never dreamed

1210
01:25:15.560 --> 01:25:17.560
it would be you, Bartley.
But why do you let me chatter on

1211
01:25:17.680 --> 01:25:21.319
like this? Come over to the
fire you're chilled through. She pushed him

1212
01:25:21.319 --> 01:25:25.119
toward the big chair by the fire
and sat down on a stool at the

1213
01:25:25.119 --> 01:25:28.800
opposite side of the hearth, her
knees drawn up to her chin, laughing

1214
01:25:28.880 --> 01:25:30.840
like a happy little girl. When
did you come, Bartley? And how

1215
01:25:30.840 --> 01:25:34.840
did it happen? You haven't spoken
a word. I got in about ten

1216
01:25:34.840 --> 01:25:39.600
minutes ago. I landed at Liverpool
this morning and came down on the boat

1217
01:25:39.600 --> 01:25:45.000
train. Alexander leaned forward and warmed
his hands before the blaze. Hilda watched

1218
01:25:45.039 --> 01:25:48.199
him with perplexity. There's something troubling
you, Bartley. What is it?

1219
01:25:49.640 --> 01:25:54.199
Bartley bent lowered over the fire.
It's the whole thing that troubles me,

1220
01:25:54.279 --> 01:25:58.800
Hilda, You and I. Hilda
took a quick, soft breath. She

1221
01:25:58.920 --> 01:26:01.720
looked at his heavy shoulder in big, determined head, thrust forward like a

1222
01:26:01.800 --> 01:26:06.479
catapult in leash. What about us, Bartley, she asked in a thin

1223
01:26:06.600 --> 01:26:12.399
voice. He locked and unlocked his
hands over the grate and spread his fingers

1224
01:26:12.439 --> 01:26:15.239
close to the bluish flame, while
the coals crackled, and the clock ticked,

1225
01:26:15.720 --> 01:26:20.039
and a street vendor began to call
under the window. At last,

1226
01:26:20.119 --> 01:26:26.159
Alexander brought out one word everything.
Hilda was pale by this time, and

1227
01:26:26.239 --> 01:26:30.319
her eyes were wide with fright.
She looked about desperately, from Bartley to

1228
01:26:30.359 --> 01:26:32.439
the door, then to the windows, and back again to Bartley. She

1229
01:26:32.640 --> 01:26:36.640
rose uncertainly, touched his hair with
her hand, then sank back upon her

1230
01:26:36.680 --> 01:26:42.319
stool. I'll do anything you wish
me to Bartley, she said tremulously.

1231
01:26:42.720 --> 01:26:46.600
I can't stand seeing you miserable.
I can't live with myself any longer,

1232
01:26:46.640 --> 01:26:50.000
he answered roughly. He rose and
pushed the chair behind him, and began

1233
01:26:50.039 --> 01:26:55.000
to walk miserably about the room,
seeming to find it too small for him.

1234
01:26:55.439 --> 01:26:59.239
He pulled up a window as if
the air were heavy. Hilda watched

1235
01:26:59.279 --> 01:27:02.680
him from the corner, trembling and
scarcely breathing, dark shadows growing about her

1236
01:27:02.680 --> 01:27:09.479
eyes. It hasn't always made you
miserable, hazard her eyelids fell and her

1237
01:27:09.479 --> 01:27:15.119
lips quivered always. But it's worse
now. It's unbearable. It tortures me

1238
01:27:15.199 --> 01:27:18.680
every minute. But why now,
she asked, pitilessly, wringing her hands.

1239
01:27:19.079 --> 01:27:23.079
He ignored her question. I am
not a man who can live two

1240
01:27:23.159 --> 01:27:26.880
lives, he went on, feverishly. Each life spoils the other. I

1241
01:27:26.960 --> 01:27:30.000
get nothing but misery out of either. The world is all there, just

1242
01:27:30.119 --> 01:27:32.640
as it used to be, but
I can't get at it any more.

1243
01:27:33.119 --> 01:27:39.479
There is this deception between me and
everything. At the word deception, spoken

1244
01:27:39.479 --> 01:27:44.119
with such self contempt, the color
flashed back into Hilda's face, as suddenly

1245
01:27:44.119 --> 01:27:46.960
if she had been struck by a
whiplash. She bit her lip and looked

1246
01:27:47.000 --> 01:27:51.000
down at her hands, which were
clasped tightly in front of her. Could

1247
01:27:51.039 --> 01:27:55.760
you sit down and talk about it
quietly, bartly, as if I were

1248
01:27:55.800 --> 01:28:00.359
a friend and not someone who had
to be defied. He dropped back heavily

1249
01:28:00.359 --> 01:28:04.039
into his chair by the fire.
It was myself I was defying, Hilda.

1250
01:28:04.159 --> 01:28:09.159
I have thought about it until I
am worn out. He looked at

1251
01:28:09.199 --> 01:28:13.000
her, and his haggard face softened. He put out his hand toward her

1252
01:28:13.039 --> 01:28:16.520
as he looked away again into the
fire. She crept across to him,

1253
01:28:16.560 --> 01:28:20.479
drawing her stool after her. When
did you begin to first feel like this,

1254
01:28:20.640 --> 01:28:27.359
Bartley? After the very first?
The first was sort of in play,

1255
01:28:27.479 --> 01:28:31.199
wasn't it. Helda's face quivered,
but she whispered, yes, I

1256
01:28:31.199 --> 01:28:34.359
think it must have been. But
why didn't you tell me when you were

1257
01:28:34.399 --> 01:28:40.119
here in the summer, Alexander groaned. I meant to, but somehow I

1258
01:28:40.159 --> 01:28:43.239
couldn't. We had only a few
days and your new play was just on,

1259
01:28:43.359 --> 01:28:45.960
and you were so happy. Yes, I was happy, wasn't i?

1260
01:28:46.399 --> 01:28:50.319
She pressed his hand gently in gratitude. Weren't you happy then at all?

1261
01:28:51.079 --> 01:28:55.000
She closed her eyes and took a
deep breath, as if to draw

1262
01:28:55.039 --> 01:28:59.600
in again the fragrance of those days, Something of their troubling sweetness came back

1263
01:28:59.600 --> 01:29:03.720
to alec Xander too. He moved
uneasily, and his chair creaked. Yes,

1264
01:29:03.880 --> 01:29:09.159
I was then, you know,
But afterward, yes, yes,

1265
01:29:09.199 --> 01:29:13.079
she hurried, pulling her hand gently
away from him. Presently it stole back

1266
01:29:13.119 --> 01:29:16.039
to his coat sleeve. Please tell
me one thing, Bartley, at least

1267
01:29:16.199 --> 01:29:20.640
tell me that you believe I thought
I was making you happy. His hands

1268
01:29:20.640 --> 01:29:25.319
shut down quickly over the questioning fingers
on his sleeves. Yes, Hilda,

1269
01:29:25.399 --> 01:29:29.039
I know that, he said simply. She leaned her head against his arm

1270
01:29:29.079 --> 01:29:32.640
and spoke softly. You see,
my mistake was in wanting you to have

1271
01:29:32.720 --> 01:29:36.319
everything. I wanted you to eat
all the cakes and have them too.

1272
01:29:38.319 --> 01:29:42.199
I somehow believe that I could take
all the bad consequences for you. I

1273
01:29:42.359 --> 01:29:45.760
wanted you always to be happy and
handsome and successful, to have all the

1274
01:29:45.840 --> 01:29:48.760
things that a great man ought to
have, and once in a way,

1275
01:29:49.119 --> 01:29:55.079
the careless holidays that great men are
not permitted. Bartley gave a bitter little

1276
01:29:55.159 --> 01:29:59.319
laugh, and Hilda looked up and
read in the deepening lines of his face

1277
01:29:59.439 --> 01:30:03.680
that youth and Bartley would not much
longer struggle together. I understand, Bartley,

1278
01:30:04.079 --> 01:30:08.640
I was wrong, but I didn't
know. You've only to tell me

1279
01:30:08.760 --> 01:30:12.479
now, what must I do that
I've not done, or what must I

1280
01:30:12.560 --> 01:30:16.159
not do? She listened intently,
but she heard nothing but the creaking of

1281
01:30:16.239 --> 01:30:21.239
his chair. You want me to
say it, she whispered. You want

1282
01:30:21.279 --> 01:30:25.840
to tell me that you can only
see me like this as old friends do,

1283
01:30:26.159 --> 01:30:30.319
or out in the world among people
I can do that. I can't,

1284
01:30:30.359 --> 01:30:34.439
he said heavily. Hilda shivered and
sat still. Bartley leaned his head

1285
01:30:34.479 --> 01:30:39.159
in his hands and spoke through his
teeth. It's got to be a clean

1286
01:30:39.239 --> 01:30:43.399
break, Hilda. I can't see
you at all anywhere. What I mean

1287
01:30:43.520 --> 01:30:45.880
is that I want you to promise
never to see me again, no matter

1288
01:30:45.960 --> 01:30:49.760
how often I come, no matter
how hard I beg Hilda sprang up like

1289
01:30:49.800 --> 01:30:54.000
a flame. She stood over him, with her hands clenched at her side,

1290
01:30:54.000 --> 01:30:57.560
her body rigid. No, she
gasped. It's too late to ask

1291
01:30:57.600 --> 01:31:00.840
that. Do you hear me,
Bartley? It's too late. I won't

1292
01:31:00.880 --> 01:31:04.199
promise. It's abominable of you to
ask me. Keep away if you wish.

1293
01:31:04.279 --> 01:31:08.479
When have I ever followed you?
But if you come to me,

1294
01:31:08.560 --> 01:31:12.039
I'll do as I see fit.
The shamefulness of your asking me to do

1295
01:31:12.079 --> 01:31:14.880
that. If you come to me, I'll do as I see fit.

1296
01:31:15.079 --> 01:31:19.439
Do you understand, Bartley, you're
cowardly? Alexander rose and shook himself angrily.

1297
01:31:19.680 --> 01:31:24.039
Yes, I know I'm cowardly.
I'm afraid of myself. I don't

1298
01:31:24.079 --> 01:31:27.720
trust myself any more. I carried
it all lightly enough at first, but

1299
01:31:27.800 --> 01:31:30.840
now I don't dare trifle with it. It's getting the better of me.

1300
01:31:30.640 --> 01:31:35.159
It's different now I'm growing older,
and you've got my young self here with

1301
01:31:35.279 --> 01:31:39.840
you. It's through him that I've
come to wish for you all and all

1302
01:31:39.880 --> 01:31:42.640
the time. He took her roughly
in his arms. Do you know what

1303
01:31:42.720 --> 01:31:45.720
I mean? Hilda held her face
back from him and began to cry bitterly.

1304
01:31:46.079 --> 01:31:49.119
Oh Bartley, what am I to
do? Why didn't you let me

1305
01:31:49.159 --> 01:31:53.359
be angry with you? You ask
me to stay away from you because you

1306
01:31:53.479 --> 01:31:58.199
want me, and I've got nobody
but you. I will do anything you

1307
01:31:58.279 --> 01:32:01.319
say, but that I will ask
the least imaginable. But I must have

1308
01:32:01.680 --> 01:32:06.840
something. Bartley turned away and sank
down in his chair again. Hilda sat

1309
01:32:06.840 --> 01:32:11.479
on the arm of it and put
her hands lightly on his shoulders. Just

1310
01:32:11.680 --> 01:32:15.199
something, Bartley, I must have
you to think of through the months and

1311
01:32:15.279 --> 01:32:19.119
months of loneliness. I must see
you. I must know about you,

1312
01:32:19.640 --> 01:32:23.960
the sight of you, Bartley,
to see you living and happy and successful.

1313
01:32:24.439 --> 01:32:28.279
Can I never make you understand what
that means to me? She pressed

1314
01:32:28.279 --> 01:32:31.920
his shoulders gently. You see,
loving someone as I love you makes the

1315
01:32:31.960 --> 01:32:36.520
whole world different. If I'd met
you later, if I hadn't loved you

1316
01:32:36.560 --> 01:32:42.399
so well, But that's all over
long ago. Then came all those years

1317
01:32:42.439 --> 01:32:46.760
without you, lonely and hurt and
discouraged, those decent young fellows and poor

1318
01:32:46.840 --> 01:32:51.920
Mac and me, never heeding hard
as a still spring. And then you

1319
01:32:53.000 --> 01:32:58.159
came back, not caring very much. But it made no difference. She

1320
01:32:58.279 --> 01:33:00.800
slid to the floor beside him,
as if she were too tired to sit

1321
01:33:00.880 --> 01:33:05.399
up any longer. Bartley bent over
and took her in his arms, kissing

1322
01:33:05.439 --> 01:33:10.720
her mouth and her wet tired eyes. Don't cry, don't cry, he

1323
01:33:10.760 --> 01:33:15.640
whispered. We've tortured each other enough
for to night. Forget everything except that

1324
01:33:15.680 --> 01:33:20.000
I am here. I think I've
forgotten everything but that already. She murmured,

1325
01:33:20.680 --> 01:33:34.880
Ah, your dear arms. End
of chapter six, Chapter seven of

1326
01:33:34.920 --> 01:33:41.680
Alexander's Bridge by WILLI Cather. This
is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings

1327
01:33:41.680 --> 01:33:45.199
are in the public domain. For
more information or to volunteer, please visit

1328
01:33:45.239 --> 01:33:54.279
LibriVox dot org. Recording by Jen
Maxwell, Chapter seven. During the fortnight

1329
01:33:54.279 --> 01:33:58.319
that Alexander was in London, he
drove himself hard. He got through a

1330
01:33:58.319 --> 01:34:00.640
great deal of personal business, and
there are a great many men who were

1331
01:34:00.640 --> 01:34:04.840
doing interesting things in his own profession. He disliked to think of his visits

1332
01:34:04.840 --> 01:34:09.399
to London as holidays, and when
he was there he worked even harder than

1333
01:34:09.399 --> 01:34:13.840
he did at home. The day
before his departure for Liverpool was a singularly

1334
01:34:13.880 --> 01:34:17.159
fine one. The thick air had
cleared overnight in a strong wind, which

1335
01:34:17.199 --> 01:34:20.359
brought in a golden dawn, and
then fell off to a fresh breeze.

1336
01:34:21.039 --> 01:34:25.800
When Bartley looked out of his windows
from the Savoy, the river was flashing

1337
01:34:25.880 --> 01:34:30.159
silver, and the gray stone along
the embankment was bathed in bright, clear

1338
01:34:30.239 --> 01:34:34.359
sunshine. London had wakened to life
after three weeks of cold and sodden rain.

1339
01:34:34.960 --> 01:34:40.640
Bartley breakfasted hurriedly and went over his
mail while the hotel valet packed his

1340
01:34:40.720 --> 01:34:45.399
trunks. Then he paid his account
and walked rapidly down the strand past Charing

1341
01:34:45.399 --> 01:34:49.000
Cross Station. His spirits rose with
every step, and when he reached Trafalgar

1342
01:34:49.079 --> 01:34:54.399
Square, blazing in the sun,
with its fountains playing and its columns reaching

1343
01:34:54.479 --> 01:34:58.439
high up into the bright air,
he signaled to a hansom, and before

1344
01:34:58.479 --> 01:35:00.760
he knew what he was about,
told the driver to go to Bedford Square

1345
01:35:00.800 --> 01:35:05.640
by way of the British Museum.
When he reached Hilda's apartment, she met

1346
01:35:05.720 --> 01:35:11.399
him fresh as the morning itself.
Her rooms were flooded with sunshine and full

1347
01:35:11.399 --> 01:35:14.880
of the flowers he had been sending
her. She would never let him give

1348
01:35:14.920 --> 01:35:17.560
her anything else. Are you busy
this morning, Hilda, he asked,

1349
01:35:17.600 --> 01:35:21.399
as he sat down, his hat
and gloves in his hand. Very,

1350
01:35:21.720 --> 01:35:26.359
I've been up in about three hours
working at my part. We open in

1351
01:35:26.399 --> 01:35:29.800
February. You know. Well,
then you've worked enough, and so have

1352
01:35:29.920 --> 01:35:32.279
I. I've seen all my men. My packing is done and I go

1353
01:35:32.319 --> 01:35:35.920
to Liverpool this evening. But this
morning we're going to have a holiday.

1354
01:35:36.520 --> 01:35:41.319
What do you say to a drive
out to Queue or Richmond. You may

1355
01:35:41.359 --> 01:35:45.279
not get another day like this all
winter. It's like a fine April day

1356
01:35:45.319 --> 01:35:47.840
at home. May I use your
telephone? I want to order the carriage.

1357
01:35:48.520 --> 01:35:51.560
Oh, how jolly there. Sit
down at the desk, and while

1358
01:35:51.560 --> 01:35:55.840
you're telephoning, I'll change my dress. I shan't be long. All the

1359
01:35:55.880 --> 01:35:59.399
morning papers are on the table.
Hilda was back in a few moments,

1360
01:35:59.399 --> 01:36:02.560
wearing a law gray squirrel coat and
a broad fur hat. Bartley rose and

1361
01:36:02.600 --> 01:36:06.600
inspected her. Why don't you wear
some of those pink roses, he asked.

1362
01:36:08.239 --> 01:36:11.119
But they came only this morning,
and they've not even begun to open.

1363
01:36:11.600 --> 01:36:15.560
I was saving them. I am
so unconsciously thrifty, she laughed as

1364
01:36:15.560 --> 01:36:18.960
she looked about the room. You've
been sending me far too many flowers,

1365
01:36:19.000 --> 01:36:24.640
Bartley, new ones every day.
That's too often, though. I do

1366
01:36:24.760 --> 01:36:28.640
love to open the boxes, and
I take good care of them. Why

1367
01:36:28.680 --> 01:36:30.600
won't you let me send you any
of those jade or ivory things you're so

1368
01:36:30.680 --> 01:36:35.479
fond of, or pictures. I
know a good deal about pictures. Hilda

1369
01:36:35.479 --> 01:36:39.319
shook her large hat as she drew
the roses out of the tall glass.

1370
01:36:39.920 --> 01:36:43.399
No, there are some things you
can't do. There's the carriage. Will

1371
01:36:43.439 --> 01:36:46.199
you button my gloves for me?
Bartley took her wrist and began to button

1372
01:36:46.239 --> 01:36:49.920
the long, gray suede glove.
How gay your eyes are this morning,

1373
01:36:49.960 --> 01:36:55.119
Hilda. That's because I've been studying. It always stirs me up a little.

1374
01:36:55.720 --> 01:36:59.159
He pushed the top of the glove
up slowly. When did you learn

1375
01:36:59.199 --> 01:37:01.760
to take hold of your hearts like
that? When I had nothing else to

1376
01:37:01.800 --> 01:37:05.720
think of? Come, the carriage
is waiting. What a shocking while you

1377
01:37:05.800 --> 01:37:12.239
take I'm in no hurry. We've
plenty of time. They found all London

1378
01:37:12.279 --> 01:37:16.640
abroad Piccadilly was a stream of rapidly
moving carriages, from which flashed firs and

1379
01:37:16.800 --> 01:37:21.920
flowers and bright winter costumes. The
metal trappings of the harnesses shone dazzingly,

1380
01:37:23.319 --> 01:37:27.920
and the wheels were revolving disks that
threw off rays of light. The parks

1381
01:37:27.920 --> 01:37:31.079
were full of children and nursemaids,
and joyful dogs that leaped and yelped and

1382
01:37:31.159 --> 01:37:35.880
scratched up the brown earth with their
paws. I'm not going until tomorrow,

1383
01:37:35.880 --> 01:37:40.159
you know, Bartley announced. Suddenly, I'll cut off a day in Liverpool.

1384
01:37:40.520 --> 01:37:44.880
I haven't felt so jolly this long
while Hilda looked up with a smile

1385
01:37:44.960 --> 01:37:47.600
which she tried not to make too
glad. I think people were meant to

1386
01:37:47.640 --> 01:37:51.680
be happy a little, she said. They had lunch at Richmond and then

1387
01:37:51.720 --> 01:37:56.680
walked to Twickenham, where they had
sent the carriage. They drove back,

1388
01:37:56.760 --> 01:38:00.479
with a glorious sunset behind them,
toward the distant gold Water city. It

1389
01:38:00.640 --> 01:38:05.039
was one of those rare afternoons when
all the thickness and shadow of London are

1390
01:38:05.119 --> 01:38:11.680
changed to a kind of shining,
pulsing special atmosphere, when the smoky vapors

1391
01:38:11.720 --> 01:38:16.079
become fluttering golden clouds, nacrious veils
of pink and amber, when all that

1392
01:38:16.159 --> 01:38:21.239
bleakness of gray stone and dulness of
dirty brick trembles in aureate light, and

1393
01:38:21.439 --> 01:38:28.119
all the roofs and spires and one
great dome are floated in golden haze.

1394
01:38:28.640 --> 01:38:32.520
On such rare afternoons, the ugliest
of cities becomes the most poetic, and

1395
01:38:32.720 --> 01:38:38.960
months of sodden days are offset by
a moment of miracle. It's like that

1396
01:38:39.000 --> 01:38:43.840
with us Londoners too, Hilda was
saying. Everything is awfully grim and cheerless,

1397
01:38:43.840 --> 01:38:46.920
our weather and our houses and our
ways of amusing ourselves. But we

1398
01:38:47.039 --> 01:38:51.439
can be happier than anybody. We
can go mad with joy as the people

1399
01:38:51.479 --> 01:38:56.000
do out in the fields on a
fine wooden's day. We make the most

1400
01:38:56.079 --> 01:39:00.640
of our moment. She thrust her
little chin out defiantly over her gray fur

1401
01:39:00.760 --> 01:39:03.800
collar, and Bartley looked down at
her and laughed, You are a plucky

1402
01:39:03.800 --> 01:39:08.399
one, you, He patted her
glove with his hand. Yes, you

1403
01:39:08.439 --> 01:39:14.039
are a plucky one. Hild Aside, No, I'm not not about some

1404
01:39:14.079 --> 01:39:16.800
things at any rate. It doesn't
take pluck to fight for one's moment.

1405
01:39:17.199 --> 01:39:23.159
But it takes pluck to go without
a lot more than I have. I

1406
01:39:23.239 --> 01:39:28.119
can't help it, she added fiercely. After miles of outlying streets and little

1407
01:39:28.159 --> 01:39:31.960
gloomy houses, they reached London itself, red and roaring and murky, with

1408
01:39:32.039 --> 01:39:38.479
a thick dampness coming up from the
river that betokened fog again tomorrow. The

1409
01:39:38.600 --> 01:39:42.880
streets were full of people who had
worked indoors all through the priceless day and

1410
01:39:43.000 --> 01:39:46.279
had now come hungrily out to drink
the muddy leaves of it. They stood

1411
01:39:46.279 --> 01:39:50.600
in long black lines, waiting for
the pit entrances of the theaters, short

1412
01:39:50.640 --> 01:39:57.479
coated boys and girls and sailor hats, all shivering and chatting gaily. There

1413
01:39:57.560 --> 01:40:00.279
was a blurred rhythm in all the
dull city noises, in the clatter of

1414
01:40:00.319 --> 01:40:04.319
the cab horses and the rumbling of
the buses, in the street calls,

1415
01:40:04.600 --> 01:40:09.840
and in the undulating tramp tramp of
the crowd. It was like the deep

1416
01:40:09.960 --> 01:40:15.800
vibration of some vast underground machinery,
and like the muffled pulsations of millions of

1417
01:40:15.920 --> 01:40:19.920
human hearts. Seems good to get
back, doesn't it. Bartley whispered as

1418
01:40:19.960 --> 01:40:25.479
they drove from Bayswater Road to Oxford
Street. London always makes me want to

1419
01:40:25.520 --> 01:40:30.079
live more than any other city in
the world. You remember our priestess Mummy

1420
01:40:30.119 --> 01:40:32.359
over in the Mummy Room, and
how we used to go and bring her

1421
01:40:32.399 --> 01:40:38.920
out on nights like this three thousand
years uugh, all the same. I

1422
01:40:38.960 --> 01:40:42.079
believe she used to feel it when
we stood there and watched her and wished

1423
01:40:42.079 --> 01:40:45.399
her well. I believe she used
to remember, Hilda said thoughtfully, I

1424
01:40:45.439 --> 01:40:49.279
hope. So now let's go to
some awfully jolly place for dinner before we

1425
01:40:49.359 --> 01:40:53.600
go home. I could eat all
the dinners there are in London tonight.

1426
01:40:54.239 --> 01:40:58.239
Where shall I tell the driver?
The Piccadilly Restaurant. The music's good there.

1427
01:40:59.079 --> 01:41:01.439
There were too many people there whom
one knows. Why not that little

1428
01:41:01.439 --> 01:41:04.760
French place in Soho where we went
so often when you were here in the

1429
01:41:04.800 --> 01:41:09.359
summer. I love it, and
I've never been there with any one but

1430
01:41:09.479 --> 01:41:14.479
you. Sometimes I go by myself
when I am particularly lonely, very well,

1431
01:41:14.520 --> 01:41:17.000
the soul's good there. How many
street pianos there are about tonight?

1432
01:41:17.479 --> 01:41:21.239
The fine weather must have thawed them
out. We've had five miles of the

1433
01:41:21.199 --> 01:41:26.840
il trovatore. Now they always make
me feel jaunty. Are you comfy and

1434
01:41:26.920 --> 01:41:30.079
not too tired? I'm not tired
at all. I was just wondering how

1435
01:41:30.119 --> 01:41:34.359
people can ever die? Why did
you remind me of the Mummy? Life

1436
01:41:34.359 --> 01:41:39.760
seems the strongest and most indestructible thing
in the world. Do you really believe

1437
01:41:39.800 --> 01:41:43.640
that all those people rushing down there, going to good dinners and clubs and

1438
01:41:43.720 --> 01:41:47.680
theaters will be dead some day and
not care about anything. I don't believe

1439
01:41:47.720 --> 01:41:50.920
it, and I know I shan't
die ever. You see, I feel

1440
01:41:50.920 --> 01:41:57.159
too too powerful. The carriage stopped, Bartley sprang out and swung her quickly

1441
01:41:57.199 --> 01:42:00.520
to the pavement. As he lifted
her in his two hands, he whispered,

1442
01:42:00.359 --> 01:42:13.920
you are powerful. End of chapter
seven. Chapter eight of Alexander's Bridge

1443
01:42:13.920 --> 01:42:18.279
by WILLI Cather. This is a
LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in

1444
01:42:18.319 --> 01:42:24.880
the public domain. For more information
or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot

1445
01:42:25.039 --> 01:42:32.039
org. Chapter eight The last rehearsal
was over a tedious dress rehearsal which had

1446
01:42:32.119 --> 01:42:36.159
lasted all day and exhausted the patience
of everyone who had to do with it.

1447
01:42:36.880 --> 01:42:40.760
When Hilda had dressed for the street
and came out of her dressing room.

1448
01:42:41.039 --> 01:42:45.479
She found Hugh McConnell waiting for her
in the corridor. The FOG's thicker

1449
01:42:45.479 --> 01:42:48.479
than ever, Hilda. There have
been a great many accidents today. It's

1450
01:42:48.560 --> 01:42:53.199
positively unsafe for you to be out
alone. Will you let me take you

1451
01:42:53.239 --> 01:42:56.840
home? How good of you,
mac, if you are going with me,

1452
01:42:57.119 --> 01:43:00.319
I think i'd rather walk. I've
had no exercise to day, and

1453
01:43:00.399 --> 01:43:03.640
all this has made me nervous.
I shouldn't wonder, said mc connell dryly.

1454
01:43:04.479 --> 01:43:09.039
Hilda pulled down her veil and stepped
out into the thick brown wash that

1455
01:43:09.119 --> 01:43:13.880
submerged Saint Martin's lane. Mc conell
took her hand and tucked it snugly under

1456
01:43:13.920 --> 01:43:16.640
his arm. I'm sorry I was
such a savage. I hope you didn't

1457
01:43:16.640 --> 01:43:20.000
think I made an ass of myself. Not a bit of it. I

1458
01:43:20.039 --> 01:43:25.159
don't wonder you were peppery. Those
things are awfully trying. How do you

1459
01:43:25.159 --> 01:43:30.880
think it's going magnificently? That's why
I got so stirred up. We are

1460
01:43:30.920 --> 01:43:33.199
going to hear from this, both
of us, and that reminds me.

1461
01:43:33.479 --> 01:43:36.920
I've got news for you. They're
going to begin repairs on the theater about

1462
01:43:36.960 --> 01:43:40.960
the middle of March, and we
are to run over to New York for

1463
01:43:41.000 --> 01:43:45.640
six weeks. Bennett told me yesterday
that it was decided. Hilda looked up

1464
01:43:45.640 --> 01:43:48.600
delightedly at the tall, gray figure
beside her. He was the only thing

1465
01:43:48.720 --> 01:43:53.279
she could see, for they were
moving through a dense opaqueness, as if

1466
01:43:53.319 --> 01:43:56.319
they were walking at the bottom of
the ocean. Oh, Mac, how

1467
01:43:56.359 --> 01:43:59.640
glad I am? And they love
your things over there, don't they?

1468
01:44:00.039 --> 01:44:03.279
Shall you be glad for any other
reason? Hilda. McConnell put his hand

1469
01:44:03.319 --> 01:44:06.560
in front of her to ward off
some dark object. It proved to be

1470
01:44:06.600 --> 01:44:10.439
only a lamp post, and they
beat in father from the edge of the

1471
01:44:10.479 --> 01:44:15.119
pavement. What do you mean,
Mac, Hilda asked nervously. I was

1472
01:44:15.159 --> 01:44:17.039
just thinking there might be people over
there you'd be glad to see, he

1473
01:44:17.119 --> 01:44:21.359
brought out awkwardly. Hilda said nothing, and as they walked on, mc

1474
01:44:21.359 --> 01:44:27.159
connell spoke again, apologetically. I
hope you don't mind my knowing about it,

1475
01:44:27.279 --> 01:44:30.560
Hilda. Don't stiffen up like that. No one else knows, and

1476
01:44:30.640 --> 01:44:33.680
I didn't try to find out anything. I felt it even before I knew

1477
01:44:33.680 --> 01:44:38.119
who he was. I knew there
was somebody and that it wasn't I.

1478
01:44:39.239 --> 01:44:44.239
They crossed Oxford Street in silence,
feeling their way. The buses had stopped

1479
01:44:44.279 --> 01:44:46.920
running, and the cab drivers were
leading their horses. When they reached the

1480
01:44:46.960 --> 01:44:53.920
other side, McConnell said, suddenly, I hope you're happy, terribly dangerously

1481
01:44:53.960 --> 01:44:57.960
happy. Mac. Hilda spoke quietly, pressing the rough sleeve of his greatcoat

1482
01:44:58.000 --> 01:45:01.439
with her gloved hand. You've always
thought me too old for you, Hilda.

1483
01:45:01.520 --> 01:45:05.520
Oh of course you've never said just
that. And here this fellow is

1484
01:45:05.560 --> 01:45:10.119
not more than eight years younger than
I. I've always felt that if I

1485
01:45:10.159 --> 01:45:14.600
could get out of my old case, I might win you. Yet it's

1486
01:45:14.640 --> 01:45:17.680
a fine, brave youth I carry
inside me. Only he'll never be seen.

1487
01:45:18.640 --> 01:45:21.960
Nonsense, Mac, that has nothing
to do with it. It's because

1488
01:45:21.960 --> 01:45:26.920
you seem too close to me,
too much my own kind. It would

1489
01:45:26.920 --> 01:45:30.960
be like marrying cousin Mike. Almost. I really tried to care as you

1490
01:45:30.000 --> 01:45:34.760
wanted me to away back in the
beginning. Well, here we are turning

1491
01:45:34.760 --> 01:45:39.399
out of the square. You're not
angry with me, Hilda. Thank you

1492
01:45:39.439 --> 01:45:42.560
for this walk, my dear,
go in and get dry things on at

1493
01:45:42.560 --> 01:45:45.640
once. You'll be having a great
night tomorrow. She put out her hand.

1494
01:45:46.079 --> 01:45:51.520
Thank you Mac for everything. Good
night McConnell trudged off through the fog,

1495
01:45:51.880 --> 01:45:57.039
and she went slowly upstairs. Her
slippers and dressing gown were waiting for

1496
01:45:57.079 --> 01:46:00.520
her before the fire. I shall
certainly see him in New York. He

1497
01:46:00.600 --> 01:46:04.279
will see by the papers that were
coming. Perhaps he knows it already,

1498
01:46:04.520 --> 01:46:09.159
Hilda kept thinking as she undressed.
Perhaps he will be at the dock,

1499
01:46:09.920 --> 01:46:13.479
no scarcely that, But I may
meet him in the street even before he

1500
01:46:13.479 --> 01:46:16.600
comes to see me. Marie placed
the tea table by the fire and brought

1501
01:46:16.640 --> 01:46:20.319
Hilda her letters. She looked them
over and started as she came to one

1502
01:46:20.359 --> 01:46:26.399
in handwriting that she did not often
see. Alexander had written to her only

1503
01:46:26.479 --> 01:46:30.199
twice before, and he did not
allow her to write him at all.

1504
01:46:30.319 --> 01:46:34.800
Thank you, Marie, You may
go now. Hilda sat down by the

1505
01:46:34.840 --> 01:46:40.039
table with the letter in her hand, still unopened. She looked at it

1506
01:46:40.079 --> 01:46:45.039
intently, turned it over, and
felt its thickness with her fingers. She

1507
01:46:45.159 --> 01:46:48.560
believed that she sometimes had a kind
of second sight about letters, and could

1508
01:46:48.560 --> 01:46:54.720
tell before she read them whether they
brought good or evil tidings. She put

1509
01:46:54.760 --> 01:46:58.720
this one down on the table in
front of her while she poured her tea.

1510
01:46:58.840 --> 01:47:02.359
At last, a little shiver of
expectancy, she tore open the envelope

1511
01:47:02.359 --> 01:47:11.439
and read Boston, February. My
dear Hilda, it is after twelve o'clock.

1512
01:47:12.279 --> 01:47:15.640
Everyone else is in bed, and
I am sitting alone in my study.

1513
01:47:15.760 --> 01:47:19.159
I have been happier in this room
than anywhere else in the world.

1514
01:47:20.119 --> 01:47:25.880
Happiness like that makes one insolent.
I used to think these four walls could

1515
01:47:25.880 --> 01:47:30.880
stand against anything, and now I
scarcely know myself here. Now I know

1516
01:47:31.000 --> 01:47:35.560
that no one can build his security
upon the nobleness of another person. Two

1517
01:47:35.600 --> 01:47:40.840
people, when they love each other, grow alike in their tastes and habits

1518
01:47:40.840 --> 01:47:45.720
and pride, But their moral natures, whatever we may mean by that canting

1519
01:47:45.760 --> 01:47:49.800
expression, are never welded. The
base one goes on being base, and

1520
01:47:49.880 --> 01:47:55.439
the noble one to the end.
The last week has been a bad one.

1521
01:47:55.920 --> 01:48:00.159
I have been realizing how things used
to be with me. Sometimes I

1522
01:48:00.199 --> 01:48:02.720
get used to being dead inside,
But lately it has been as if a

1523
01:48:02.800 --> 01:48:08.439
window beside me had suddenly opened,
and as if all the smells of spring

1524
01:48:08.520 --> 01:48:13.319
blew into me. There was a
garden out there with stars overhead, where

1525
01:48:13.359 --> 01:48:15.399
I used to walk at night,
when I had a single purpose and a

1526
01:48:15.479 --> 01:48:20.560
single heart. I can remember how
I used to feel there, how beautiful

1527
01:48:20.600 --> 01:48:25.560
everything about me was, and what
life and power and freedom I felt in

1528
01:48:25.640 --> 01:48:30.600
myself. When the window opens,
I know exactly how it would feel to

1529
01:48:30.680 --> 01:48:34.279
be out there, but that garden
is closed to me. How is it,

1530
01:48:34.399 --> 01:48:39.439
I asked myself, that everything can
be so different with me when nothing

1531
01:48:39.560 --> 01:48:44.119
here has changed. I am in
my own house, in my own study,

1532
01:48:44.319 --> 01:48:47.279
in the midst of all these quiet
streets where my friends live. They

1533
01:48:47.319 --> 01:48:51.520
are all safe and at peace with
themselves, But I am never at peace.

1534
01:48:53.159 --> 01:48:57.880
I always feel in the edge of
danger and change. I keep remembering

1535
01:48:57.920 --> 01:49:00.760
low cowed horses I used to see
on the range when I was a boy.

1536
01:49:00.319 --> 01:49:04.399
They changed like that. We used
to catch them and put them up

1537
01:49:04.439 --> 01:49:09.640
in the corral, and they developed
great cunning. They could pretend to eat

1538
01:49:09.680 --> 01:49:13.640
their oats like the other horses,
but we knew they were always scheming to

1539
01:49:13.680 --> 01:49:16.840
get back At the logo, it
seems that a man is meant to live

1540
01:49:16.960 --> 01:49:20.399
only one life in this world.
When he tries to live a second,

1541
01:49:20.600 --> 01:49:26.439
he develops another nature. I feel
as if a second man had been grafted

1542
01:49:26.479 --> 01:49:30.279
into me. At first, he
seemed only a pleasure loving simpleton of whose

1543
01:49:30.279 --> 01:49:33.960
company I was rather ashamed, and
whom I used to hide under my coat

1544
01:49:34.000 --> 01:49:40.039
when I walked the embankment in London. But now he is strong and sullen,

1545
01:49:40.399 --> 01:49:43.800
and he is fighting for his life
at the cost of mine. That

1546
01:49:43.920 --> 01:49:48.640
is his one activity, to grow
strong. No creature ever wanted so much

1547
01:49:48.640 --> 01:49:55.239
to live. Eventually, I suppose
he will absorb me altogether. Believe me,

1548
01:49:55.600 --> 01:49:59.359
you will hate me then. And
what have you to do, Hilda,

1549
01:49:59.520 --> 01:50:03.000
with this story? Nothing at all. The little boy drank of the

1550
01:50:03.039 --> 01:50:08.239
prettiest brook in the forest, and
he became a stag. I write all

1551
01:50:08.239 --> 01:50:11.479
this because I can never tell it
to you, and because it seems as

1552
01:50:11.520 --> 01:50:15.359
if I could not keep silent any
longer, And because I suffer, Hilda.

1553
01:50:15.439 --> 01:50:19.520
If anyone I loved suffered like this, I'd want to know it.

1554
01:50:19.600 --> 01:50:34.159
Help me, Hilda b a end
of chapter eight Chapter nine of Alexander's Bridge

1555
01:50:34.199 --> 01:50:40.399
by Willicather. This is a LibriVox
recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the

1556
01:50:40.439 --> 01:50:45.840
public domain. For more information or
to volunteer, visit LibriVox dot org.

1557
01:50:46.760 --> 01:50:51.760
Chapter nine on the last Saturday in
April, The New York Times published an

1558
01:50:51.760 --> 01:50:57.880
account of the strike complications which were
delaying Alexander's New Jersey Bridge, and stated

1559
01:50:57.920 --> 01:51:01.199
that the engineer himself was in town
and at his office on West tenth Street

1560
01:51:02.079 --> 01:51:06.079
on Sunday, the day after this
notice appeared, Alexander worked all day at

1561
01:51:06.079 --> 01:51:11.119
his Tenth Street rooms. His business
often called him to New York, and

1562
01:51:11.199 --> 01:51:14.760
he had kept an apartment there for
years, sub letting it when he went

1563
01:51:14.760 --> 01:51:18.239
abroad for any length of time.
Besides his sleeping room in Bath, there

1564
01:51:18.279 --> 01:51:21.880
was a large room, formerly a
painter's studio, which he used as a

1565
01:51:21.920 --> 01:51:28.119
study in office. It was furnished
with cast off possessions of his bachelor days

1566
01:51:28.399 --> 01:51:31.159
and with odd things which he sheltered
for friends of his who followed itinerant and

1567
01:51:31.279 --> 01:51:36.880
more or less artistic callings. Over
the fireplace there was a large old fashioned

1568
01:51:36.920 --> 01:51:42.880
gilt mirror. Alexander's big work table
stood in front of one of three windows,

1569
01:51:43.199 --> 01:51:45.720
and above the couch hung one picture
in the room, a big canvas

1570
01:51:45.720 --> 01:51:50.199
of charming color and spirit, a
study of the Luxembourg Gardens in early spring,

1571
01:51:50.560 --> 01:51:54.840
painted in his youth by a man
who would since become a portrait painter

1572
01:51:55.039 --> 01:51:59.520
of international renown. He had done
it for Alexander when they were students together

1573
01:51:59.560 --> 01:52:02.800
in Paris. Sunday, it was
a cold, raw day and a fine

1574
01:52:02.880 --> 01:52:09.039
rain fell continuously. When Alexander came
back from dinner, he put more wood

1575
01:52:09.079 --> 01:52:13.000
on his fire, made himself comfortable, and settled down at his desk,

1576
01:52:13.079 --> 01:52:16.479
where he began checking over estimate sheets. It was after nine o'clock and he

1577
01:52:16.520 --> 01:52:19.560
was lighting a second pipe when he
thought he heard a sound at his door.

1578
01:52:20.319 --> 01:52:25.560
He started and listened, holding the
burning match in his hand. Again,

1579
01:52:25.640 --> 01:52:29.560
he heard the same sound, like
a firm light tap. He rose

1580
01:52:29.600 --> 01:52:32.159
and crossed the room quickly. When
he threw open the door, he recognized

1581
01:52:32.199 --> 01:52:36.119
the figure that shrank back into the
bare, dimly lit hallway. He stood

1582
01:52:36.119 --> 01:52:41.600
for a moment in awkward constraint,
his pipe in his hand. Come in,

1583
01:52:41.680 --> 01:52:44.600
he said to Hilda at last,
and closed the door behind her.

1584
01:52:45.239 --> 01:52:47.279
He pointed to a chair by the
fire and went back to his work table.

1585
01:52:47.720 --> 01:52:53.159
Won't you sit down? He was
standing behind the table, churning over

1586
01:52:53.199 --> 01:52:58.439
a pile of blueprints nervously. The
yellow light from the student's lamp fell on

1587
01:52:58.479 --> 01:53:01.079
his hands, and the purple sleeves
of his velvet smoking jacket, but his

1588
01:53:01.159 --> 01:53:06.039
flushed face and big hard head were
in the shadow. There was something about

1589
01:53:06.079 --> 01:53:10.800
him that made Hilda wish herself at
her hotel again, in the street below,

1590
01:53:11.319 --> 01:53:15.119
anywhere but where she was, of
course, I know, Bartley.

1591
01:53:15.159 --> 01:53:17.600
She said at last that after this
you won't owe me the least consideration.

1592
01:53:18.079 --> 01:53:23.239
But we sail on Tuesday. I
saw that interview in the paper yesterday telling

1593
01:53:23.279 --> 01:53:26.319
where you were, and I thought
I had to see you. That's all,

1594
01:53:26.920 --> 01:53:29.880
good night, I'm going now.
She turned and her hand closed on

1595
01:53:29.880 --> 01:53:33.359
the door knob. Alexander hurried towards
her and took her gently by the arm.

1596
01:53:33.760 --> 01:53:36.960
Sit down, Hilda, you're wet
through. Let me take off your

1597
01:53:36.960 --> 01:53:41.760
coat and your boots. They're oozing
water. He knelt down and began to

1598
01:53:41.840 --> 01:53:45.560
unlace her shoes, while Hilda shrank
into the chair. Here, put your

1599
01:53:45.560 --> 01:53:48.560
feet on the stool. You don't
mean to say you walked down and without

1600
01:53:48.600 --> 01:53:54.119
overshoes. Hilda hid her face in
her hands. I was afraid to take

1601
01:53:54.159 --> 01:53:57.880
a cab, can't you see,
Bartley. I'm terribly frightened. I've been

1602
01:53:57.920 --> 01:54:00.399
through this a hundred times today.
Don't be any more angry than you can

1603
01:54:00.479 --> 01:54:03.800
help. I was all right until
I knew you were in town, if

1604
01:54:03.840 --> 01:54:08.640
you'd sent me a note or telephoned
me or anything. But you won't let

1605
01:54:08.640 --> 01:54:11.479
me write you, and I had
to see you after that letter, that

1606
01:54:11.680 --> 01:54:15.000
terrible letter you wrote me when you
got home. Alexander faced her, resting

1607
01:54:15.039 --> 01:54:18.199
his arm on the mantel behind him, and began to brush the sleeve of

1608
01:54:18.239 --> 01:54:21.600
his jacket. Is this the way
you mean to answer at Hilda, he

1609
01:54:21.680 --> 01:54:27.319
asked unsteadily. She was afraid to
look up at him. Didn't didn't you

1610
01:54:27.359 --> 01:54:30.680
mean to even say goodbye to me? Bartley? Did you mean to just

1611
01:54:30.439 --> 01:54:33.359
quit me? She asked. I
came to tell you that I'm willing to

1612
01:54:33.399 --> 01:54:36.560
do as you asked me. But
it's no use talking about that. Now

1613
01:54:38.079 --> 01:54:41.079
give me my things, please.
She put her hand toward the fender.

1614
01:54:41.800 --> 01:54:45.479
Alexander sat down on the arm of
her chair. Did you think I'd forgotten

1615
01:54:45.520 --> 01:54:47.840
you were in town? Hilda?
Do you think I kept away by accident?

1616
01:54:48.760 --> 01:54:53.359
Did you suppose I didn't know you
were sailing on Tuesday? There's a

1617
01:54:53.439 --> 01:54:57.079
letter for you there in my desk
drawer. It was to have reached you

1618
01:54:57.159 --> 01:55:00.479
on the steamer. I was all
the morning right it. I told myself

1619
01:55:00.479 --> 01:55:04.039
that if I were really thinking of
you and not of myself, a letta

1620
01:55:04.079 --> 01:55:09.279
would be better than nothing. Marks
on paper means something to you, he

1621
01:55:09.359 --> 01:55:14.239
paused, They never did to me. Hilda smiled up at him beautifully,

1622
01:55:14.279 --> 01:55:16.760
her hand on his sleeve. Oh, Bartley, did you write to me?

1623
01:55:17.359 --> 01:55:20.800
Why didn't you telephone me to let
me know that you had? Then

1624
01:55:20.840 --> 01:55:26.479
I wouldn't have come, Alexander slipped
his arm about her. I didn't know

1625
01:55:26.560 --> 01:55:29.359
it before, Hilda, on my
honor, I didn't, but I believe

1626
01:55:29.399 --> 01:55:31.399
it was because, deep down to
me, somewhere I was hoping I might

1627
01:55:31.479 --> 01:55:35.640
drive you to do just this.
I've watched that door all day. I've

1628
01:55:35.720 --> 01:55:40.279
jumped up if the fire crackled.
I think I've felt that you were coming.

1629
01:55:41.159 --> 01:55:44.399
He bent his face over her hair, and I, she whispered,

1630
01:55:44.880 --> 01:55:46.920
I felt that you were feeling that. But when I came, I thought

1631
01:55:46.960 --> 01:55:51.279
I had been mistaken. Alexander started
up and began to walk up and down

1632
01:55:51.359 --> 01:55:56.640
the room. No, you weren't
mistaken. I've been up in Canada with

1633
01:55:56.720 --> 01:55:59.880
my bridge, and I arranged not
to come to New York until after you

1634
01:56:00.039 --> 01:56:03.319
had gone. Then when your manager
added two more weeks I was already committed.

1635
01:56:03.840 --> 01:56:06.199
He dropped down on the stool in
front of her and sat with his

1636
01:56:06.279 --> 01:56:11.680
hands hanging between his knees. What
am I to do, Hilda? That's

1637
01:56:11.680 --> 01:56:14.760
what I wanted to see you about
Bartley. I'm going to do what you

1638
01:56:14.800 --> 01:56:16.800
asked me to do when you were
in London, only I'll do it more

1639
01:56:16.840 --> 01:56:23.680
completely. I'm going to marry who. Oh, it doesn't matter much one

1640
01:56:23.720 --> 01:56:28.159
of them. Only not Mac.
I'm too fond of him. Alexander moved

1641
01:56:28.199 --> 01:56:32.439
restlessly. Are you joking, Hilda? Indeed I'm not. Then you don't

1642
01:56:32.479 --> 01:56:36.399
know what you're talking about. Yes, I know very well. I thought

1643
01:56:36.439 --> 01:56:41.000
about it a great deal, and
I've quite decided. I never used to

1644
01:56:41.079 --> 01:56:44.960
understand how women did things like that, but I know now it's because they

1645
01:56:44.960 --> 01:56:48.640
can't be at the mercy of the
man they love any longer. Alexander flushed

1646
01:56:48.640 --> 01:56:51.399
angrily. So it's better to be
at the mercy of a man you don't

1647
01:56:51.439 --> 01:56:57.319
love under such circumstances. Infinitely,
there was a flash in her eyes that

1648
01:56:57.359 --> 01:57:00.079
made Alexander's fall. He got up
and over to the window, threw it

1649
01:57:00.119 --> 01:57:03.840
open, and leaned out. He
heard Hilda moving about behind him. When

1650
01:57:03.840 --> 01:57:08.039
he looked over his shoulders. She
was lacing her boots. He went back

1651
01:57:08.039 --> 01:57:11.920
and stood over her. Hilda,
you'd better think a while longer before you

1652
01:57:11.960 --> 01:57:14.720
do that. I don't know what
I ought to say, but I don't

1653
01:57:14.720 --> 01:57:17.079
believe you'd be happy, truly,
I don't. Are you trying to frighten

1654
01:57:17.159 --> 01:57:21.279
me? She tied the knot of
the last lacing and put her boot heeled

1655
01:57:21.279 --> 01:57:26.520
down firmly. No, I'm telling
you what I've made up my mind to

1656
01:57:26.560 --> 01:57:30.680
do. I suppose I would better
do it without telling you, But afterward

1657
01:57:30.720 --> 01:57:33.039
I shan't have an opportunity to explain, for I shan't be seeing you again.

1658
01:57:33.920 --> 01:57:38.600
Alexander started to speak, but caught
himself. When Hilda rose, he

1659
01:57:38.680 --> 01:57:41.319
sat down on the arm of her
chair and drew her back into it.

1660
01:57:42.560 --> 01:57:45.119
I wouldn't be so much alarmed if
I didn't know how utterly reckless you can

1661
01:57:45.159 --> 01:57:49.640
be. Don't do anything like that
rashly, His face grew troubled. You

1662
01:57:49.680 --> 01:57:54.600
wouldn't be happy. You are not
that kind of woman. I'd never have

1663
01:57:54.680 --> 01:57:58.199
another hour's peace if I helped to
make you do a thing like that.

1664
01:57:59.359 --> 01:58:02.079
He took her face between his hands
and looked down into it. You see

1665
01:58:02.239 --> 01:58:06.840
you are different, Hilda. Don't
you know you are? His voice grew

1666
01:58:06.880 --> 01:58:12.079
soft, his touch more and more
tender. Some women can do that sort

1667
01:58:12.119 --> 01:58:15.840
of thing, But you you can
love as queens did in the old time.

1668
01:58:15.960 --> 01:58:19.399
Hilda had heard that soft, deep
tone in his voice only once before

1669
01:58:20.279 --> 01:58:25.640
she closed her eyes. Her lips
and eyelids trembled only one, Bartley,

1670
01:58:25.920 --> 01:58:30.600
only one, and he threw it
back at me a second time. She

1671
01:58:30.720 --> 01:58:33.880
felt the strength leap in the arms
that held her so lightly. Try him

1672
01:58:33.880 --> 01:58:39.279
again, Hilda, Try him once
again. She looked up into his eyes

1673
01:58:39.560 --> 01:58:50.560
and hid her face in her hands. End of chapter nine, Chapter ten

1674
01:58:50.680 --> 01:58:57.119
of Alexander's Bridge by WILLI Cather.
This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox

1675
01:58:57.159 --> 01:59:00.840
recordings are in the public domain.
For more information or to volunteer, visit

1676
01:59:00.920 --> 01:59:09.079
LibriVox dot org. Chapter ten.
On Tuesday afternoon, a Boston lawyer who

1677
01:59:09.159 --> 01:59:12.760
had been trying a case in Vermont
was standing on the siding at White River

1678
01:59:12.880 --> 01:59:16.800
Junction when the Canadian Express pulled by
on its northward journey. As the day

1679
01:59:16.840 --> 01:59:20.359
coaches at the rear end of the
long train swept by him, the lawyer

1680
01:59:20.399 --> 01:59:24.680
noticed at one of the windows a
man's head with thick, rumpled hair.

1681
01:59:25.439 --> 01:59:29.279
Curious, he thought that looked like
Alexander. But what would he be doing

1682
01:59:29.319 --> 01:59:33.760
back there in the day coaches.
It was indeed Alexander. That morning,

1683
01:59:33.800 --> 01:59:38.720
a telegram from Morlock had reached him, telling him that there was serious trouble

1684
01:59:38.760 --> 01:59:42.439
with the bridge and that he was
needed there at once. So he had

1685
01:59:42.439 --> 01:59:45.920
caught the first train out of New
York. He had taken a seat in

1686
01:59:45.960 --> 01:59:48.359
a day coach to avoid the risk
of meeting anyone he knew, and because

1687
01:59:48.359 --> 01:59:53.720
he did not wish to be comfortable. When the telegram arrived, Alexander was

1688
01:59:53.760 --> 01:59:57.159
at his rooms on Tenth Street,
packing his bag to go to Boston.

1689
01:59:57.760 --> 02:00:00.680
On Monday night. He had written
a long letter to his wife, but

1690
02:00:00.800 --> 02:00:02.840
when morning came he was afraid to
send it, and the letter was still

1691
02:00:02.840 --> 02:00:08.239
in his pocket. Winnifred was not
a woman who could bear disappointment. She

1692
02:00:08.359 --> 02:00:11.640
demanded a great deal of herself and
of the people she loved, and she

1693
02:00:11.720 --> 02:00:15.319
never failed herself. If he told
her now, he knew it would be

1694
02:00:15.359 --> 02:00:18.680
irretrievable. There would be no going
back. He would lose the thing he

1695
02:00:18.760 --> 02:00:23.760
valued most in the world, and
he would be destroying himself and his own

1696
02:00:23.800 --> 02:00:29.000
happiness. There would be nothing for
him afterward. He seemed to see himself

1697
02:00:29.079 --> 02:00:33.680
dragging out of a restless existence on
the continent canns Hires, Algiers, Cairo,

1698
02:00:33.880 --> 02:00:39.760
among the smartly dressed disabled men of
every nationality, forever going on journeys

1699
02:00:39.760 --> 02:00:43.760
that led nowhere, hurrying to catch
trains that he might just as well miss,

1700
02:00:44.000 --> 02:00:46.239
getting up in the morning with a
great bustle and splashing of water to

1701
02:00:46.319 --> 02:00:50.960
begin a day that had no purpose
and no meaning, Dining late to shorten

1702
02:00:51.000 --> 02:00:56.600
the night, sleeping late to shorten
the day, and for what for a

1703
02:00:56.640 --> 02:01:00.039
mere folly, a masquerade, a
little thing that he could not let go.

1704
02:01:00.800 --> 02:01:04.800
And he couldn't even let it go, he told himself. But he

1705
02:01:04.800 --> 02:01:09.039
had promised to be in London at
Midsummer, and he knew that he would

1706
02:01:09.079 --> 02:01:14.720
go. It was impossible to live
like this any longer. And this then

1707
02:01:15.520 --> 02:01:18.159
was to be the disaster that his
old professor had foreseen for him, the

1708
02:01:18.279 --> 02:01:23.720
crack in the wall, the crash, the cloud of dust, And he

1709
02:01:23.720 --> 02:01:28.079
could not understand how it had come
about. He felt that he himself was

1710
02:01:28.199 --> 02:01:31.239
unchanged, that he was still there, the same man he had been five

1711
02:01:31.319 --> 02:01:35.880
years ago, and that he was
sitting stupidly by and letting some resolute offshoot

1712
02:01:35.880 --> 02:01:41.319
of himself spoil his life. For
him, this new force was not he.

1713
02:01:41.720 --> 02:01:44.960
It was but a part of him. He would not even admit that

1714
02:01:45.039 --> 02:01:48.319
it was stronger than he, but
it was more active. It was by

1715
02:01:48.359 --> 02:01:53.880
its energy that this new feeling got
the better of him. His wife was

1716
02:01:53.920 --> 02:01:58.479
the woman who had made his life
gratified, his pride, given direction to

1717
02:01:58.520 --> 02:02:03.279
his tastes and habits. The life
they led together seemed to him beautiful Winifred

1718
02:02:03.399 --> 02:02:09.239
still was as she had always been, romance for him, and whenever he

1719
02:02:09.359 --> 02:02:13.640
was deeply stirred, he turned to
her. When the grandeur and beauty of

1720
02:02:13.640 --> 02:02:16.640
the world challenged him, as it
challenges even the most self absorbed people,

1721
02:02:17.079 --> 02:02:21.479
he was always answered with her name. That was his reply to the question

1722
02:02:21.560 --> 02:02:26.720
put by the mountains and the stars, to all the spiritual aspects of life.

1723
02:02:27.399 --> 02:02:30.119
In his feeling for his wife,
there was all the tenderness, all

1724
02:02:30.119 --> 02:02:34.319
the pride, all the devotion of
which he was capable. There was everything

1725
02:02:34.680 --> 02:02:40.279
but energy, the energy of youth, which must register itself and cut its

1726
02:02:40.359 --> 02:02:45.760
name before it passes. This new
feeling was so fresh, so unsatisfied,

1727
02:02:45.760 --> 02:02:49.560
in light of foot. It ran
and was not wearied, anticipated him everywhere.

1728
02:02:50.159 --> 02:02:53.960
It put a girdle round the earth. While he was going from New

1729
02:02:54.039 --> 02:02:58.720
York to Morlock. At this moment
it was tingling through him, exultant and

1730
02:02:58.840 --> 02:03:03.520
live as quicksilver, whispering in July, you will be in England. Already

1731
02:03:03.560 --> 02:03:09.079
he dreaded the long empty days at
sea, the monotonous Irish coast, the

1732
02:03:09.159 --> 02:03:13.119
sluggish passage up the Mercy, the
flash of the boat train through the summer

1733
02:03:13.159 --> 02:03:15.960
country. He closed his eyes and
gave himself up to the feeling of rapid

1734
02:03:16.000 --> 02:03:21.640
motion and to swift, terrifying thoughts. He was sitting so his face shaded

1735
02:03:21.680 --> 02:03:26.239
by his hand when the Boston lawyer
saw him from the siding at the White

1736
02:03:26.319 --> 02:03:31.479
River junction. When at last Alexander
roused himself, the afternoon had waned to

1737
02:03:31.600 --> 02:03:36.720
sunset. The train was passing through
a gray country, and the sky overhead

1738
02:03:36.760 --> 02:03:42.279
was flushed with a wide flood of
clear color. There was a rose colored

1739
02:03:42.359 --> 02:03:45.319
light over the gray rocks and hills
and meadows. Off to the left,

1740
02:03:45.680 --> 02:03:49.359
under the approach of a weather stained
wooden bridge, a group of boys were

1741
02:03:49.359 --> 02:03:54.399
sitting around a little fire. The
smell of wood smoke blew in at the

1742
02:03:54.439 --> 02:03:58.960
window. Except for an old farmer
jogging along the high road in his box

1743
02:03:59.039 --> 02:04:03.119
wagon, there was not another living
creature to be seen. Alexander looked back

1744
02:04:03.199 --> 02:04:08.119
wistfully at the boys camped on the
edge of a little marsh, crouching under

1745
02:04:08.159 --> 02:04:12.359
their shelter and looking gravely at their
fire. They took his mind back a

1746
02:04:12.439 --> 02:04:15.000
long way to a camp fire on
a sand bar and a western river,

1747
02:04:15.439 --> 02:04:18.840
and he wished he could go back
and sit down with them. He could

1748
02:04:18.840 --> 02:04:24.920
remember exactly how the world had looked. Then it was quite dark, and

1749
02:04:25.039 --> 02:04:28.319
Alexander was still thinking of the boys
when it occurred to him that the train

1750
02:04:28.399 --> 02:04:31.560
must be nearing Allway. In going
to his new bridge at Morlock, he

1751
02:04:31.600 --> 02:04:36.399
had always to pass through Allway.
The train stopped at Allway Mills, then

1752
02:04:36.439 --> 02:04:41.159
wound two miles up the river,
and then the hollow sound under his feet

1753
02:04:41.199 --> 02:04:45.640
told Bartley that he was on his
first bridge again. The bridge seemed longer

1754
02:04:45.640 --> 02:04:48.000
than it had ever seemed before,
and he was glad when he felt the

1755
02:04:48.039 --> 02:04:51.680
beat of the wheels on the solid
road bed again. He did not like

1756
02:04:51.800 --> 02:04:56.520
coming and going across that bridge,
or remembering the man who built it,

1757
02:04:57.159 --> 02:05:00.880
and was he indeed the same man
I used to walk that bridge at night,

1758
02:05:00.279 --> 02:05:04.520
promising such things to himself and to
the stars. And yet he could

1759
02:05:04.560 --> 02:05:10.239
remember it all so well, the
quiet hills sleeping in the moonlight, the

1760
02:05:10.319 --> 02:05:14.680
slender skeleton of the bridge reaching out
into the river and up yonder alone on

1761
02:05:14.720 --> 02:05:18.359
the hill, the big white house
upstairs in Winnifred's window, the light that

1762
02:05:18.439 --> 02:05:21.800
told him she was still awake and
still thinking of him. And after the

1763
02:05:21.880 --> 02:05:26.600
light went out, he walked alone, taking the heavens into his confidence,

1764
02:05:27.039 --> 02:05:30.279
unable to tear himself away from the
white magic of the night, unwilling to

1765
02:05:30.319 --> 02:05:34.399
sleep, because longing was so sweet
to him, and because, for the

1766
02:05:34.479 --> 02:05:39.399
first time since the first hills were
hung with moonlight, there was a lover

1767
02:05:39.520 --> 02:05:43.920
in the world. And always there
was the sound of the rushing water underneath,

1768
02:05:44.279 --> 02:05:47.279
the sound, which, more than
anything else meant death, the wearing

1769
02:05:47.279 --> 02:05:51.800
away of things under the impact of
physical forces which men could direct but never

1770
02:05:51.840 --> 02:05:57.920
circumvent or diminish. Then, in
the exultation of love, more than ever

1771
02:05:57.960 --> 02:06:01.239
it seemed to him to mean death, the only other thing as strong as

1772
02:06:01.319 --> 02:06:06.399
love. Under the moon, under
the cold, splendid stars, there were

1773
02:06:06.479 --> 02:06:12.880
only those two things, awake and
sleepless, death and love, the rushing

1774
02:06:12.960 --> 02:06:17.520
river and his burning heart. Alexander
sat up and looked about him. The

1775
02:06:17.600 --> 02:06:23.119
train was tearing on through the darkness. All his companions in the day coach

1776
02:06:23.159 --> 02:06:27.119
were either dozing or sleeping heavily,
and the murky lamps were turned low.

1777
02:06:28.319 --> 02:06:31.119
How came he here among all these
dirty people? Why was he going to

1778
02:06:31.199 --> 02:06:35.039
London? What did it mean?
What was the answer? How could this

1779
02:06:35.079 --> 02:06:39.640
happen to a man who had lived
through all that magical spring and summer,

1780
02:06:39.920 --> 02:06:44.000
and who had felt that the stars
themselves were but flaming particles in the far

1781
02:06:44.039 --> 02:06:48.840
away infinitudes of his love? What
had he done to lose it? How

1782
02:06:48.880 --> 02:06:54.119
could he endure the baseness of life
without it? And with every revolution of

1783
02:06:54.119 --> 02:06:58.479
the wheels beneath him, the unquiet
quicksilver in his breast told him that at

1784
02:06:58.479 --> 02:07:02.239
midsummer he would be in London.
He remembered his last night there, the

1785
02:07:02.319 --> 02:07:08.119
red, foggy darkness, the hungry
crowds before the theaters, the hand organs,

1786
02:07:08.279 --> 02:07:12.039
the feverish rhythm of the blurred,
crowded streets, and the feeling of

1787
02:07:12.119 --> 02:07:15.880
letting himself go with the crowd.
He shuddered and looked about him at the

1788
02:07:15.880 --> 02:07:20.800
poor, unconscious companions of his journey, unkempt and travel stained, now doubled

1789
02:07:20.800 --> 02:07:26.319
in unlovely attitudes, who had come
to stand to him for the ugliness he

1790
02:07:26.399 --> 02:07:30.279
had brought into the world, And
those boys back there, beginning it all

1791
02:07:30.399 --> 02:07:34.079
just as he had begun it.
He wished he could promise them better luck.

1792
02:07:35.159 --> 02:07:40.119
Ah, if one could promise anyone
better luck, if one could assure

1793
02:07:40.159 --> 02:07:44.560
a single human being of happiness.
He had thought he could do so once.

1794
02:07:45.039 --> 02:07:48.479
And it was thinking of that that
he at last fell asleep in his

1795
02:07:48.560 --> 02:07:53.520
sleep, as if it had nothing
fresher to work upon. His mind went

1796
02:07:53.600 --> 02:07:58.039
back and tortured itself with something years
and years away, an old, long

1797
02:07:58.159 --> 02:08:03.079
forgotten sorrow of his childhood. When
Alexander awoke in the morning, the sun

1798
02:08:03.159 --> 02:08:07.079
was just rising through pale, golden
ripples of cloud, and the fresh yellow

1799
02:08:07.159 --> 02:08:11.720
light was vibrating through the pine woods. The white birches, with their little

1800
02:08:11.800 --> 02:08:16.319
unfolding leaves, gleamed in the low
lands, and the marshmadows were already coming

1801
02:08:16.319 --> 02:08:20.359
to life with their first green,
a thin, bright color which had run

1802
02:08:20.399 --> 02:08:26.520
over them like fire. As the
train rushed along the trestles. Thousands of

1803
02:08:26.520 --> 02:08:31.760
wild birds rose screaming into the light. The sky was already a pale blue

1804
02:08:33.119 --> 02:08:37.680
and of the clearness of crystal.
Bartley caught up his bag and hurried through

1805
02:08:37.680 --> 02:08:41.000
the pullman coaches until he found the
conductor. There was a stateroom unoccupied,

1806
02:08:41.199 --> 02:08:46.039
and he took it and set about
changing his clothes. Last night, he

1807
02:08:46.079 --> 02:08:48.520
would not have believed that anything could
be so pleasant as the cold water he

1808
02:08:48.640 --> 02:08:52.119
dashed over his head and shoulders,
and the freshness of clean linen on his

1809
02:08:52.199 --> 02:08:58.399
body. After he had dressed,
Alexander sat down at the window and drew

1810
02:08:58.439 --> 02:09:03.199
into his lungs deep breaths of pine
scented air. He had awakened with all

1811
02:09:03.279 --> 02:09:07.039
his old sense of power. He
could not believe that things were as bad

1812
02:09:07.079 --> 02:09:09.720
with him as they had seen last
night, that there was no way to

1813
02:09:09.720 --> 02:09:15.399
set them entirely right. Even if
he went to London at midsummer, What

1814
02:09:15.479 --> 02:09:18.880
would that mean except that he was
a fool, and he had been a

1815
02:09:18.920 --> 02:09:22.760
fool before. That was not the
reality of his life. Yet he knew

1816
02:09:22.800 --> 02:09:26.880
he would go to London. Half
an hour later, the train stopped at

1817
02:09:26.880 --> 02:09:31.479
Morlock. Alexander sprang to the platform
and hurried up the siding, waving to

1818
02:09:31.520 --> 02:09:35.319
Philipporton, one of his assistants,
who was anxiously looking up at the windows

1819
02:09:35.319 --> 02:09:39.039
of the coaches. Bartley took his
arm and they went together into the station

1820
02:09:39.119 --> 02:09:43.159
buffet. I'll have my coffee first, Philip, Have you had yours?

1821
02:09:43.399 --> 02:09:46.399
And now what seems to be the
matter up here? The young man,

1822
02:09:46.479 --> 02:09:50.800
in a hurried, nervous way,
began his explanation, but Alexander cut him

1823
02:09:50.800 --> 02:09:54.760
short. When did you stop work? He asked sharply. The young engineer

1824
02:09:54.800 --> 02:10:00.239
looked confused. I haven't stopped work
yet, mister Alexander. I did feel

1825
02:10:00.279 --> 02:10:03.760
that I could go so far without
definite authorization from you. Then why didn't

1826
02:10:03.760 --> 02:10:07.680
you say on your telegram exactly what
you thought and ask for your authorization.

1827
02:10:09.119 --> 02:10:11.720
You'd have got it quick enough.
Well, really, mister Alexander, I

1828
02:10:11.720 --> 02:10:15.800
couldn't be absolutely sure, you know, and I didn't like to take the

1829
02:10:15.840 --> 02:10:20.720
responsibility of making it public. Alexander
pushed back his chair and rose, anything

1830
02:10:20.760 --> 02:10:24.199
I do can be made public,
Philip. You say that you believe the

1831
02:10:24.239 --> 02:10:28.960
lower chords are showing strain, and
that even the workmen have been talking about

1832
02:10:28.960 --> 02:10:31.880
it, and yet you've gone on
adding weight. I'm sorry, mister Alexander,

1833
02:10:31.920 --> 02:10:35.600
but I had counted on your getting
here yesterday. My first telegram missed

1834
02:10:35.600 --> 02:10:39.800
you somehow. I sent one Sunday
evening to the same address, but it

1835
02:10:39.840 --> 02:10:43.640
was returned to me. Have you
a carriage out there? I must stop

1836
02:10:43.640 --> 02:10:46.800
to send a wire. Alexander went
up to the telegraph desk and penciled the

1837
02:10:46.840 --> 02:10:52.880
following message to his wife. I
may have to be here for some time.

1838
02:10:52.159 --> 02:10:58.079
Can you come up at once,
Urgent Bartley. The more Luck Bridge

1839
02:10:58.159 --> 02:11:01.680
lay three miles of the town.
When they were seated in the carriage,

1840
02:11:01.800 --> 02:11:07.560
Alexander began to question his assistant further. If it were true that the compression

1841
02:11:07.600 --> 02:11:11.560
members showed strain with the bridge only
two thirds done, then there was nothing

1842
02:11:11.640 --> 02:11:15.680
left to do but pull the whole
structure down and begin over again. Horton

1843
02:11:15.760 --> 02:11:18.000
kept repeating that he was sure there
could be nothing wrong with the estimates.

1844
02:11:18.760 --> 02:11:22.359
Alexander grew impatient. That's all true, Phil, but we were never justified

1845
02:11:22.359 --> 02:11:26.199
in assuming that a scale that was
perfectly safe for an ordinary bridge would work

1846
02:11:26.199 --> 02:11:30.479
with anything of such length. It's
all very well on paper, but it

1847
02:11:30.520 --> 02:11:33.600
remains to be seen whether it can
be done in practice. I should have

1848
02:11:33.680 --> 02:11:37.199
thrown up the job when they crowded
me. It's all nonsense to try to

1849
02:11:37.239 --> 02:11:41.159
do what other engineers are doing when
you know they're not sound. But just

1850
02:11:41.279 --> 02:11:45.720
now, when there is such competition, the younger man demured, And certainly

1851
02:11:45.960 --> 02:11:50.680
that's the new line of development.
Alexander shrugged his shoulders and made no reply.

1852
02:11:52.399 --> 02:11:56.720
When they reached the bridge works,
Alexander began his examination immediately. An

1853
02:11:56.720 --> 02:12:00.239
hour later, he sent for the
superintendent. I think you would better stop

1854
02:12:00.359 --> 02:12:03.119
work out there at once, Dan, I should say that the lower chord

1855
02:12:03.199 --> 02:12:07.119
here might buckle at any moment.
I told the commission that we were using

1856
02:12:07.199 --> 02:12:11.640
higher unit stresses than any practice is
established, and we've put the dead load

1857
02:12:11.760 --> 02:12:16.720
at a low estimate. Theoretically it
worked out well enough, but it had

1858
02:12:16.840 --> 02:12:20.359
never actually been tried. Alexander put
on his overcoat and took the superintendent by

1859
02:12:20.359 --> 02:12:24.600
the arm. Don't look so chop
fallen, Dan. It's a jolt,

1860
02:12:24.640 --> 02:12:26.039
but we've got to face it.
It isn't the end of the world,

1861
02:12:26.119 --> 02:12:30.000
you know. Now. We'll go
out and call the men off quietly.

1862
02:12:30.399 --> 02:12:33.680
They're already nervous, Horton tells me, and there's no use alarming them.

1863
02:12:33.840 --> 02:12:37.439
I'll go with you, and we'll
send the end riveters in first. Alexander

1864
02:12:37.439 --> 02:12:43.039
and the Superintendent picked their way out
slowly over the long span. They went,

1865
02:12:43.119 --> 02:12:46.640
deliberately, stopping to see what each
gang was doing, as if they

1866
02:12:46.640 --> 02:12:50.520
were on an ordinary round of inspection. When they reached the end of the

1867
02:12:50.600 --> 02:12:54.960
river span, Alexander nodded to the
Superintendent, who quietly gave an order to

1868
02:12:54.000 --> 02:12:58.239
the foreman. The men in the
end gang picked up their tools, and,

1869
02:12:58.319 --> 02:13:01.119
glancing curiously at each other, started
back across the bridge toward the river

1870
02:13:01.159 --> 02:13:07.520
bank. Alexander himself remained standing where
they had been working. Looking about him,

1871
02:13:07.000 --> 02:13:11.159
it was hard to believe, as
he looked back over it that the

1872
02:13:11.199 --> 02:13:16.199
whole great span was incurably disabled,
was already as good as condemned, because

1873
02:13:16.239 --> 02:13:20.119
something was out of line in the
lower cord of the candilever arm. The

1874
02:13:20.239 --> 02:13:22.840
end riveters had reached the bank and
were dispersing among the tool houses, and

1875
02:13:22.880 --> 02:13:26.079
the second gang had picked up their
tools and were starting towards the shore.

1876
02:13:26.680 --> 02:13:31.359
Alexander, still standing at the end
of the river span, saw the lower

1877
02:13:31.359 --> 02:13:35.800
cord of the candilever arm give a
little like an elbow bending. He shouted

1878
02:13:35.800 --> 02:13:39.119
and ran after the second gang,
but by this time everyone knew that the

1879
02:13:39.159 --> 02:13:43.720
big river span was slowly settling.
There was a burst of shouting that was

1880
02:13:43.760 --> 02:13:48.560
immediately drowned by the scream and cracking
of tearing iron, as all the tension

1881
02:13:48.600 --> 02:13:52.880
work began to asunder. Once the
cords began to buckle, there were thousands

1882
02:13:52.880 --> 02:13:56.039
of tons of iron work, all
riveted together and lying in mid air without

1883
02:13:56.079 --> 02:14:01.319
support. It tore itself to pieces
with roaring and grinding and noises that were

1884
02:14:01.359 --> 02:14:05.399
like the shrieks of a steam whistle. There was no shock of any kind.

1885
02:14:05.760 --> 02:14:11.119
The bridge had no impetus except from
its own weight. It lurched neither

1886
02:14:11.159 --> 02:14:15.720
to the right nor left, but
sank almost in a vertical line, snapping

1887
02:14:15.760 --> 02:14:20.119
and breaking and tearing as it went
because no integral part could bear for an

1888
02:14:20.159 --> 02:14:24.000
instant the enormous strain loosed upon it. Some of the men jumped, and

1889
02:14:24.119 --> 02:14:28.279
some ran trying to make the shore. At the first shriek of the tearing

1890
02:14:28.319 --> 02:14:31.439
iron, Alexander jumped from the downstream
side of the bridge. He struck the

1891
02:14:31.479 --> 02:14:35.520
water without injury and disappeared. He
was under the river a long time and

1892
02:14:35.600 --> 02:14:41.119
had great difficulty in holding his breath
when it seemed impossible, and its chest

1893
02:14:41.199 --> 02:14:43.119
was about to heave. He thought
he heard his wife telling him that he

1894
02:14:43.159 --> 02:14:48.159
could hold out a little longer.
An instant later, his face cleared the

1895
02:14:48.159 --> 02:14:52.479
water. For a moment in the
depths of the river, he had realized

1896
02:14:52.520 --> 02:14:56.000
what it would mean to die a
hypocrite, and to lie dead under the

1897
02:14:56.079 --> 02:15:01.119
last abandonment of her tenderness. But
once in the light air, he knew

1898
02:15:01.159 --> 02:15:03.840
he should live to tell her and
to recover all he had lost. Now,

1899
02:15:05.079 --> 02:15:09.880
at last he felt sure of himself. He was not startled. It

1900
02:15:09.960 --> 02:15:13.880
seemed to him that he had been
through something of this sort before. There

1901
02:15:13.960 --> 02:15:18.560
was nothing horrible about it. This
too was life, and life was activity,

1902
02:15:18.600 --> 02:15:22.079
just as it was in Boston or
in London. He was himself,

1903
02:15:22.439 --> 02:15:28.319
and there was something to be done. Everything seemed perfectly natural. Alexander was

1904
02:15:28.319 --> 02:15:31.079
a strong swimmer, but he had
gone scarcely a dozen strokes when the bridge

1905
02:15:31.119 --> 02:15:35.760
itself, which had been settling faster
and faster, crashed into the water behind

1906
02:15:35.840 --> 02:15:41.680
him. Immediately the river was full
of drowning men. A gang of French

1907
02:15:41.680 --> 02:15:45.560
Canadians fell almost on top of him. He thought he had cleared them when

1908
02:15:45.600 --> 02:15:48.920
they began coming up all around him, clutching at him and at each other.

1909
02:15:48.159 --> 02:15:52.319
Some of them could swim, but
they were either hurt or crazed with

1910
02:15:52.399 --> 02:15:56.439
fright. Alexander tried to beat them
off, but there were too many of

1911
02:15:56.479 --> 02:15:58.960
them. One caught him about the
neck, another gripped him about the middle,

1912
02:16:00.119 --> 02:16:03.000
and they went down together. When
he sank, his wife seemed to

1913
02:16:03.000 --> 02:16:07.439
be there in the water beside him, telling him to keep his head,

1914
02:16:07.479 --> 02:16:09.399
that if he could hold out,
the men would drown and release him.

1915
02:16:09.840 --> 02:16:13.560
There was something he wanted to tell
his wife, but he could not think

1916
02:16:13.600 --> 02:16:16.680
clearly for the roaring in his ears. Suddenly he remembered what it was.

1917
02:16:18.319 --> 02:16:22.840
He caught his breath, and then
she let him go. The work of

1918
02:16:22.880 --> 02:16:28.279
recovering the dead went on all day
and all the following night. By the

1919
02:16:28.359 --> 02:16:31.120
next morning, forty eight bodies had
been taken out of the river, but

1920
02:16:31.200 --> 02:16:35.879
there were still twenty missing. Many
of the men had fallen with the bridge

1921
02:16:37.000 --> 02:16:41.000
and were held down under the debris. Early in the morning of the second

1922
02:16:41.079 --> 02:16:45.719
day, a closed carriage was driven
slowly along the river bank and stopped a

1923
02:16:45.719 --> 02:16:48.639
little below the works, where the
river boiled and churned about the great iron

1924
02:16:48.680 --> 02:16:54.920
carcass which lay in a straight line
two thirds across it. The carriage stood

1925
02:16:54.959 --> 02:16:58.200
there hour after hour, and words
soon spread among the crowds on the shore

1926
02:16:58.440 --> 02:17:03.360
that it saw comment was the wife
of the chief engineer. His body had

1927
02:17:03.360 --> 02:17:07.959
not yet been found. The widows
of the lost workmen, moving up and

1928
02:17:07.000 --> 02:17:11.440
down the bank with shawls over their
heads, some of them carrying babies,

1929
02:17:11.000 --> 02:17:16.319
looked at the rusty hard hack many
times that morning. They drew near it

1930
02:17:16.520 --> 02:17:20.159
and walked about it, but none
of them ventured to peer within even half

1931
02:17:20.200 --> 02:17:26.399
Indifferent sightseers dropped their voices as they
told a newcomer, you see that carriage

1932
02:17:26.399 --> 02:17:31.639
over there. That's Missus Alexander.
They haven't found him yet. She got

1933
02:17:31.639 --> 02:17:35.600
off the train this morning. Horton
met her. She heard it in Boston

1934
02:17:35.680 --> 02:17:41.360
yesterday, heard the newsboys crying it
in the street. At noon, Philip

1935
02:17:41.360 --> 02:17:43.440
Horton made his way through the crowd
with a tray and a tin coffee pot

1936
02:17:43.479 --> 02:17:48.920
from the camp kitchen. When he
reached the carriage, he found Missus Alexander,

1937
02:17:48.959 --> 02:17:52.000
just as he had left her in
the early morning, leaning forward a

1938
02:17:52.000 --> 02:17:56.159
little with her hand in the lowered
window, looking at the river. Hour

1939
02:17:56.280 --> 02:18:01.520
after hour, she had been watching
the water the lonely, useless stone towers,

1940
02:18:01.719 --> 02:18:05.399
and the convulsed mass of iron wreckage
over which the angry river continually spat

1941
02:18:05.479 --> 02:18:11.040
up its yellow foam. Those poor
women out there, do they blame him

1942
02:18:11.120 --> 02:18:13.319
very much? She asked, as
she handed the coffee cup back to Horton.

1943
02:18:15.319 --> 02:18:18.680
Nobody blames him, Missus Alexander.
If any one is to blame,

1944
02:18:18.920 --> 02:18:22.120
I'm afraid it's I. I should
have stopped work before he came, he

1945
02:18:22.239 --> 02:18:24.600
said, so, as soon as
I met him. I tried to get

1946
02:18:24.639 --> 02:18:28.239
him here a day earlier, but
my telegram missed him somehow. He didn't

1947
02:18:28.239 --> 02:18:31.760
have much time, really to explain
to me. If he'd got here Monday,

1948
02:18:31.959 --> 02:18:35.760
he'd have had all the men off
at once. But you see,

1949
02:18:35.799 --> 02:18:39.559
Missus Alexander, such a thing never
happened before. According to all human calculations,

1950
02:18:39.559 --> 02:18:45.079
it simply couldn't happen. Horton leaned
wearily against the front wheel of the

1951
02:18:45.159 --> 02:18:48.360
cab. He had not had his
clothes off for thirty hours, and the

1952
02:18:48.399 --> 02:18:52.920
stimulus of violent excitement was beginning to
wear off. Don't be afraid to tell

1953
02:18:52.959 --> 02:18:56.559
me the worst, mister Horton.
Don't leave me to the dread of finding

1954
02:18:56.559 --> 02:19:00.440
out things that people may be saying, if he is blamed, if he

1955
02:19:00.520 --> 02:19:03.840
needs any one to speak for him. For the first time, her voice

1956
02:19:03.840 --> 02:19:07.040
broke in a flush of life,
tearful, painful and confused, swept over

1957
02:19:07.079 --> 02:19:11.200
a rigid pallor if he needs any
one, tell me, show me what

1958
02:19:11.319 --> 02:19:18.719
to do. She began to sob, and Horton hurried away. When he

1959
02:19:18.760 --> 02:19:20.799
came back at four o'clock in the
afternoon, he was carrying his hat in

1960
02:19:20.879 --> 02:19:24.920
his hand, and Winnifred knew as
soon as she saw him that they had

1961
02:19:24.920 --> 02:19:28.079
found Bartley. She opened the carriage
door before he reached her and stepped to

1962
02:19:28.079 --> 02:19:33.000
the ground. Horton put out his
hand as if to hold her back,

1963
02:19:33.040 --> 02:19:35.719
and spoke pleadingly, won't you drive
up to my house, missus Alexander.

1964
02:19:37.079 --> 02:19:39.360
They will take him up there.
Take me to him now, please,

1965
02:19:39.840 --> 02:19:43.879
I shall not make any trouble.
The group of men down the river bank

1966
02:19:43.959 --> 02:19:46.920
fell back when they saw a woman
coming, and one of them threw a

1967
02:19:46.959 --> 02:19:52.840
tarpaulin over the stretcher. They took
off their hats and caps as Winnifred approached,

1968
02:19:52.200 --> 02:19:56.159
and although she had pulled her veil
down over her face, they did

1969
02:19:56.239 --> 02:19:58.879
not look up at her. She
was taller than Horton, and some of

1970
02:19:58.920 --> 02:20:01.280
the the men thought that she was
the tallest woman they had ever seen,

1971
02:20:03.040 --> 02:20:07.280
as tall as himself. Some one
whispered. Horton motioned to the men,

1972
02:20:07.360 --> 02:20:09.920
and six of them lifted the stretcher
and began to carry it up the embankment.

1973
02:20:11.639 --> 02:20:16.600
Winnifred followed them half mile to Horton's
house. She walked quietly, without

1974
02:20:16.680 --> 02:20:20.280
once breaking or stumbling. When the
bearers put the stretcher down in Horton's spare

1975
02:20:20.319 --> 02:20:24.520
bedroom, she thanked them and gave
her hand to each in turn. The

1976
02:20:24.559 --> 02:20:28.239
men went out of the house and
through the yard with their caps in their

1977
02:20:28.239 --> 02:20:31.159
hands. They were too much confused
to say anything as they went down the

1978
02:20:31.239 --> 02:20:37.159
hill. Horton himself was almost as
deeply perplexed Mamie. He said to his

1979
02:20:37.239 --> 02:20:41.639
wife when he came out of the
spare room half an hour later, will

1980
02:20:41.639 --> 02:20:45.799
you take missus Alexander the things she
needs. She's going to do everything herself.

1981
02:20:46.360 --> 02:20:48.760
Just stay about where you can hear
her, and go in if she

1982
02:20:48.879 --> 02:20:54.840
wants you. Everything happened as Alexander
had foreseen in that moment of prescience.

1983
02:20:54.959 --> 02:20:58.639
Under the river. With her own
hands, she washed him clean of every

1984
02:20:58.680 --> 02:21:03.079
mark of disaster. All night he
was alone with her in the still house,

1985
02:21:03.559 --> 02:21:07.920
his great head lying deep in the
pillow, in the pocket of his

1986
02:21:07.959 --> 02:21:09.959
coat. When if it found the
letter he had written her the night before

1987
02:21:11.000 --> 02:21:15.440
he left New York water soaked and
illegible, But because of its length,

1988
02:21:15.760 --> 02:21:20.040
she knew it had been meant for
her. For Alexander, death was an

1989
02:21:20.079 --> 02:21:24.079
easy creditor. Fortune, which had
smiled upon him consistently all his life,

1990
02:21:24.319 --> 02:21:28.600
did not desert him in the end. His harshest critics did not doubt that

1991
02:21:28.799 --> 02:21:33.639
had he lived, he would have
retrieved himself. Even Lucius Wilson did not

1992
02:21:33.879 --> 02:21:39.079
see in this accident the disaster he
had once foretold. When a great man

1993
02:21:39.120 --> 02:21:43.079
dies in his prime, there is
no surgeon who can say whether he did

1994
02:21:43.079 --> 02:21:46.959
well, whether or not the future
was his as it seemed to be.

1995
02:21:48.000 --> 02:21:54.479
The mind that society had come to
regard as a powerful and reliable machine dedicated

1996
02:21:54.520 --> 02:21:58.760
to its service, may for a
long time have been sick within itself and

1997
02:21:58.920 --> 02:22:11.239
bent upon its own destruction. End
of Chapter ten. Epilog for Alexander's Bridge

1998
02:22:11.239 --> 02:22:16.239
by Willik Cather. This is a
LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in

1999
02:22:16.280 --> 02:22:22.360
the public domain. For more information
or to volunteer, visit LibriVox dot org.

2000
02:22:22.959 --> 02:22:28.840
Epilog. Professor Wilson had been living
in London for six years, and

2001
02:22:28.959 --> 02:22:33.239
he was just back from a visit
to America. One afternoon. Soon after

2002
02:22:33.280 --> 02:22:37.079
his return, he put on his
frock coat and drove in a hansom to

2003
02:22:37.079 --> 02:22:39.840
pay a call upon Hilde Burgoyne,
who still lived at her old number off

2004
02:22:39.879 --> 02:22:45.479
Bedford Square. He and miss Burgoyne
had been fast friends for a long time.

2005
02:22:46.079 --> 02:22:48.399
He had first noticed her about the
quarters of the British Museum, where

2006
02:22:48.399 --> 02:22:52.399
he read constantly. Her being there
so often had made him feel that he

2007
02:22:52.399 --> 02:22:56.120
would like to know her, and
as she was not an inaccessible person,

2008
02:22:56.360 --> 02:23:01.959
an introduction was not difficult. The
preliminaries once over they came to depend a

2009
02:23:03.000 --> 02:23:07.319
great deal upon each other, and
Wilson, after his day's reading, often

2010
02:23:07.360 --> 02:23:11.159
went round to Bedford Square for his
tea. They had much more in common

2011
02:23:11.200 --> 02:23:15.799
than their memories of a common friend. Indeed, they seldom spoke of him.

2012
02:23:16.360 --> 02:23:20.239
They saved that for the deep moments
which do not come often, and

2013
02:23:20.280 --> 02:23:24.159
then their talk of him was mostly
silence. Wilson knew that Hilda had loved

2014
02:23:24.239 --> 02:23:30.479
him more than this he had not
tried to know. It was late when

2015
02:23:30.520 --> 02:23:35.559
Wilson reached Hilda's apartment on this particular
December afternoon, and he found her alone.

2016
02:23:35.120 --> 02:23:39.079
She sent for fresh tea and made
him comfortable, as she had such

2017
02:23:39.120 --> 02:23:43.000
a knack of making people comfortable.
How good you were to come back before

2018
02:23:43.040 --> 02:23:46.959
Christmas. I quite dreaded the holidays
without you. You've helped me over a

2019
02:23:48.000 --> 02:23:52.360
good many Christmases. She smiled at
him gaily, as if you needed me

2020
02:23:52.440 --> 02:23:56.079
for that, But at any rate
I needed you. How well you are

2021
02:23:56.079 --> 02:23:58.399
looking, my dear, and how
rested. He peered up at her from

2022
02:23:58.399 --> 02:24:03.200
his low chair, balancing the tips
of his long fingers together in a judicial

2023
02:24:03.239 --> 02:24:07.760
manner which had grown on him with
years. Hilda laughed as she carefully poured

2024
02:24:07.799 --> 02:24:11.399
his cream. That means that I
was looking very seedy at the end of

2025
02:24:11.399 --> 02:24:13.520
the season, doesn't it. Well
we must show where at last, you

2026
02:24:13.559 --> 02:24:18.440
know, Wilson took the cup gratefully. Ah, No need to remind a

2027
02:24:18.440 --> 02:24:22.040
man of seventy who has just been
home to find that he has survived all

2028
02:24:22.079 --> 02:24:26.120
his contemporaries. I was most gently
treated as a sort of precious relic.

2029
02:24:26.680 --> 02:24:31.159
But do you know it made me
feel awkward to be hanging about still seventy

2030
02:24:31.479 --> 02:24:35.440
never mentioned it to me. Hilda
looked appreciatively at the professor's alert face,

2031
02:24:35.719 --> 02:24:41.079
with so many kindly lines about the
mouth and so many quizzical ones about the

2032
02:24:41.159 --> 02:24:43.600
eyes. You've got to hang about
for me. You know, I can't

2033
02:24:43.600 --> 02:24:46.719
even let you go home again.
You must stay put now that I have

2034
02:24:46.760 --> 02:24:52.399
you back. You're the realest thing
I have, Wilson chuckled. Dear me,

2035
02:24:52.559 --> 02:24:56.360
am, I out of so many
conquests and the spoils of conquered cities,

2036
02:24:56.680 --> 02:25:00.479
you've really missed me. Well,
then I shall hang even if you

2037
02:25:00.559 --> 02:25:03.079
have at last to put me in
the mummy room with the others. You'll

2038
02:25:03.159 --> 02:25:07.159
visit me oft, and won't you
every day in the calendar. Here your

2039
02:25:07.159 --> 02:25:11.520
cigarettes are in this drawer where you
left them. She struck a match and

2040
02:25:11.600 --> 02:25:15.000
lit one for him. But you
did, after all, enjoy being at

2041
02:25:15.040 --> 02:25:20.000
home again. Oh yes, I
found the long railway journeys trying people live

2042
02:25:20.040 --> 02:25:22.639
a thousand miles apart. But I
did it thoroughly. I was all over

2043
02:25:22.639 --> 02:25:26.920
the place. I was in Boston. It was in Boston, I lingered

2044
02:25:26.920 --> 02:25:31.520
longest. Ah, you saw missus
Alexander often. I dined with her and

2045
02:25:31.600 --> 02:25:35.879
had tea there a dozen different times, I should think. Indeed, it

2046
02:25:35.000 --> 02:25:39.479
was to see her that I lingered
on and on. I found that I

2047
02:25:39.559 --> 02:25:43.159
still loved to go to the house. It always seemed as if Bartley were

2048
02:25:43.200 --> 02:25:46.000
there somehow, and that at any
moment one might hear his heavy tramp on

2049
02:25:46.040 --> 02:25:50.680
the stairs. Do you know I
kept feeling that he must be up in

2050
02:25:50.719 --> 02:25:54.200
his study. The professor looked reflectively
into the grate. I should really have

2051
02:25:54.319 --> 02:25:58.719
liked to go up there. That
was where I had my last long talk

2052
02:25:58.719 --> 02:26:03.600
with him. But Miss as Alexander
never suggested it. Why Wilson was a

2053
02:26:03.600 --> 02:26:07.079
little startled by her tone, and
he turned his head so quickly that his

2054
02:26:07.200 --> 02:26:11.600
cufflink caught the string of his nose
glasses and pulled them awry. Why,

2055
02:26:13.200 --> 02:26:16.639
why, dear me, I don't
know. She probably never thought of it,

2056
02:26:16.719 --> 02:26:18.760
hild a bitter lip. I don't
know what made me say that.

2057
02:26:20.079 --> 02:26:22.040
I didn't mean to interrupt. Go
on, please and tell me how it

2058
02:26:22.159 --> 02:26:26.920
was. Well, it was like
that, almost as if he were there.

2059
02:26:26.639 --> 02:26:31.239
In a way, he really is
there. She never lets him go.

2060
02:26:31.840 --> 02:26:35.520
It's the most beautiful and dignified sorrow
I've ever known. It's so beautiful

2061
02:26:35.559 --> 02:26:41.760
that it has its compensations. I
should think its very completeness is a compensation.

2062
02:26:41.239 --> 02:26:46.200
It gives her a fixed star to
steer by. She doesn't drift.

2063
02:26:46.000 --> 02:26:50.200
We sat there evening after evening,
in the quiet of that magically haunted room,

2064
02:26:50.639 --> 02:26:54.399
and watched the sunset burn on the
river, and felt him, felt

2065
02:26:54.440 --> 02:26:58.159
him with a difference, of course. Hilda leaned forward, her elbow on

2066
02:26:58.159 --> 02:27:01.959
her knee, her chin in her
hand, with a difference because of her,

2067
02:27:03.040 --> 02:27:07.280
you mean, Wilson's brow wrinkled something
like that. Yes, of course,

2068
02:27:07.319 --> 02:27:11.440
as time goes on to her,
he becomes more and more their simple

2069
02:27:11.520 --> 02:27:16.879
personal relation. Hilda studied the droop
of the Professor's head intently. You didn't

2070
02:27:16.920 --> 02:27:20.879
altogether like that, You felt it
wasn't wholly fair to him. Wilson shook

2071
02:27:20.920 --> 02:27:26.079
himself and readjusted his glasses. Oh, fair enough, more than fairer.

2072
02:27:26.120 --> 02:27:28.520
Of course. I always felt that
my image of him was just a little

2073
02:27:28.559 --> 02:27:33.360
different from hers. No relation is
so complete that it can hold absolutely all

2074
02:27:33.399 --> 02:27:37.479
of a person. And I liked
him just as he was. His deviations

2075
02:27:37.520 --> 02:27:43.120
too, the places where he didn't
square. Hilda considered vaguely. Has she

2076
02:27:43.200 --> 02:27:48.319
grown much older? She asked at
last, Yes and no in a tragic

2077
02:27:48.360 --> 02:27:54.319
way. She is even handsomer,
but colder, cold for everything but him.

2078
02:27:54.440 --> 02:27:58.600
Forget thyself to marble. I kept
thinking of that. Her happiness was

2079
02:27:58.639 --> 02:28:03.040
a happy biness, a dieu,
not apart from the world, but actually

2080
02:28:03.079 --> 02:28:07.319
against it. And now her grief
is like that. She saves herself for

2081
02:28:07.440 --> 02:28:11.399
it and doesn't even go through the
form of seeing people much. I'm sorry.

2082
02:28:11.760 --> 02:28:13.159
It would be better for her,
and it might be so good for

2083
02:28:13.200 --> 02:28:18.120
them if she could let other people
in. Perhaps she's afraid of letting him

2084
02:28:18.120 --> 02:28:22.879
out a little, of sharing him
with somebody. Wilson put down his cup

2085
02:28:22.879 --> 02:28:26.600
and looked up with vague alarm.
Dear me, it takes a woman to

2086
02:28:26.639 --> 02:28:31.959
think of that now, I don't
you know, think we ought to be

2087
02:28:31.000 --> 02:28:35.440
hard on her more even than the
rest of us. She didn't choose her

2088
02:28:35.440 --> 02:28:39.360
destiny, she underwent it, and
it has left her chilled as to her

2089
02:28:39.399 --> 02:28:43.520
not wishing to take the world into
her confidence. Well, it is a

2090
02:28:43.559 --> 02:28:46.680
pretty brutal and stupid world, after
all, you know, Hilda leaned forward.

2091
02:28:48.559 --> 02:28:52.479
Yes, I know, I know. Only I can't help being glad

2092
02:28:52.479 --> 02:28:56.680
that there was something for him,
even in stupid and vulgar people. My

2093
02:28:56.760 --> 02:29:01.479
little Marie worshiped him. When she's
dusting, I always know when she's come

2094
02:29:01.520 --> 02:29:05.000
to his picture. Wilson nodded,
Oh, yes, he left an echo.

2095
02:29:05.719 --> 02:29:09.159
The ripples go on in all of
us. He belonged to the people

2096
02:29:09.200 --> 02:29:13.079
who make the play, and most
of us are only onlookers at the best.

2097
02:29:13.719 --> 02:29:18.239
We shouldn't wonder too much at missus
Alexander. She must feel how useless

2098
02:29:18.239 --> 02:29:22.799
it would be to stir about that. She may as well sit still,

2099
02:29:22.280 --> 02:29:28.319
that nothing can happen to her after
Bartley. Yes, Hilda said softly,

2100
02:29:28.360 --> 02:29:33.879
nothing can happen to one after Bartley. They both sat looking into the fire

2101
02:29:35.680 --> 02:29:39.120
and of Alexander's bridge.