The Night's School by James Hopper. Having laid my last hope beneath heavy flowers,
I had drifted back to the village of my youth. The little village
was now a large city, a clamorous city. And on the first day
I met Dorman. It was on a stone sidewalk beneath a pale, faint
sun. How he recognized me, God only knows. We both had grown
very old, and at first I could see nothing in him of the boy
with whom I had gone to school. He stopped and fixed me silently.
Then from the folds of his cloak, his arms stretched out and gripped me
as with a claw. You are Halton, he said, Jack Halton,
whose desk was next to mine at school. I am, I said,
I am Jack Halton. He stood there, looking at me with eyes gray
and round, beneath the bristles of his heavy brows. I am Dorman,
he said, Not Dorman, who sat next to you at school. Of
late age has been in wrapping me with its frigid haze, and I have
taken to the resource of the old. I stare persistently at the golden days
that are gone, and so I remembered I remember, I said. His
hand was still on my arm. His eyes were on my eyes. You
have a wife, children, he asked, I have had a wife.
I have no wife. I answered, I've had children. I have no
children. I have never had either wife or children, he said. We
stood there on the stone sidewalk beneath the cheerless sun. Wife nor children.
He nodded, wife nor children. But it was on my answer. He
pondered for Finally he said, come with me to my house to night.
A vast indifference held me. I said, very well, I will go
with you to your house for to night. He raised his stick, and
a carriage, which had been wheeling slowly back and forth, rushed in sudden
animation to the curb. We sank upon the dark cushions within. The door
shut upon us. As we rolled along the streets I had known. Now
unknown to me, I noticed that his hands folded beneath his chin. On
the top of his cane trembled incessantly. How old he is? I thought
it was a palace, his house of stone, thick wall, the interior
full of fine somber things, and muffled with elastic carpets. We dined in
a high sealed oaken hall before a blazing grate. We held up our glasses
to the flame and looked at the golden sun of our youth, the ruby
blood of our youth. We drank the sun, We drank the blood,
but our veins remained cold. We went upstairs to his room. Two beds
heavily curtained, were in it, against opposite walls. There are two beds.
He said, you will sleep here with me in my room. I
did not care. I answered, yes, I will sleep here in your
room with you. I slept badly. The bed was heaped with blankets,
but they were as heavy as a lid. And between the sheets I was
as cold as in the tomb. I dreamed. A bell was ringing somewhere
in someone's hand. It had a brazen, persistent sound. When it had
ceased with the last rattle of clapper, a drum began to beat. Feet
march to the beat, many of them light feet, marching a little shufflingly.
I could hear their passing from crunched gravel to a resonance of hollow wood.
They united in a rhythmic murmur, above which, like gulls eddying over
the sea, sharp cries of command hovered female cries of women. A door
slam too, with a clack as of a whip. The drum died abruptly.
There was a silence. Then a charse of fresh, young voices rose
in song, a song which my bearded critical self judged harshly, but which
was soft to the heart of my youth. Though I thought that I must
be asleep, thought that my eyes must be closed, I was aware of
my host in white, standing at one of the three southern windows. He
too, seemed to listen to the song. I heard him sigh, a
long, dolorous sigh. Then he must have returned to his bed. The
song trailed away in a last, long, gentle note. And now I
slept undisturbed, a tenderness tugging at my soul. I awoke after the long
night. The room was still dark, but when to my gesture a curtained
word opened with a noise as of wings, the day came in, warm
with sun. I stood at the window and looked out. I was looking
deep into a large bare yard. Children were playing there, many children,
brown headed and yellow haired boys and girls. Above them, the layers of
air, striated with suns, seemed liquid. They were like goldfish in an
aquarium. They zigzagged like butterflies in their bright garments. Their cries, muffled
to me, came as the little cries of birds. The front of the
yard, to my right was a big brick building, pierced with many windows.
Do you recognize the place, Dorman asked. I turned and saw him
standing at the casement next to mine. He seemed speaking to the glass,
not to me. It is a school, is it? Not? I
fenced? It is our school, he said. I looked back far into
my memory and saw that it indeed must be the school to which we had
when young. But it had changed. The yard had been much wider than
without bonds, to the south, where now rose a forest of chimneys and
roofs. Then it had stretched away to the south in a grassy meadow that
sloped away gently to a brook, And the schoolhouse had not been the big
brick pile it now stood. I shut my eyes and saw again the schoolhouse
that had been. I saw clearly the little wooden house, its overlapping board
softly gray, its peaked roof as green as moss, the red veins of
the carpeting vine, and the long outside stairway slanting upward to the gallery,
along which we marched up to our classroom under the twittering eaves. They have
changed it our school, I exclaimed, absurdly resentful when I returned to this
city, he said, I built here next to the school. I don't
know why I built here next to the school. A bell began to ring
in the yard beneath me. The children's criss crossing play halted abruptly and petrified,
and longed to chorus lines. A drum began to beat, and the
little ones marched into school. The many little feet stamped the ground together.
The lines flowed forward, They coiled, straightened rows, and slid like ribbons
into the yawning portals. The drum beat, the little feet tramped, tramp
tramped along halls, up flights of stairs. The whole building trembled to the
tremendous union of their light, firm tread. And above this basic rumor,
the commands of the women teachers eddied like the gull's nostalgic cry. The drum
stopped, the outer doors clang shut. A silence followed. Then fresh young
voices rose, and choral song. Why it must be what I heard last
night, I cried, but Dorman said it was not they, you heard
the others. I did not understand him. I stayed again at Dorman's house,
for he insisted, and I did not care. My sleep was troubled
again that night. The covers lay upon me like a stone, and I
was tomb cold. A bell began to ring. It rang persistently. Its
clangs winged off in brazen waves, struck and rebounded to mingle with new clangs,
till my brain pained. I rose at length to its continued attack,
and, groping through the velvet darkness, reached one of the windows. I
parted the ponderous curtains, looked and saw nothing. I was looking into the
night and saw only night. Little by little, through the fixity of my
stare, the blackness seemed to recede, and at last I saw, in
a brown obscurity, I saw a yard and a schoolhouse. It was a
small school house of wood. The roof was peaked, vines veined one wall,
stairs along another wall slanted upward to a gallery beneath the eaves below me.
The distinct floor of the yard was dimly striated with lines. These were
animated with a fluid pulsation. After a time when I understood them. Children
were lying there, grave, little children, many of them with books under
their arms, or swinging at the end of straps. I tried to count
the children, but there were too many. I tried to count the lines,
but they fluctuated like tide water. There were many. They ran east
and west from the little school house to the fence at the back, then
turned flexibly and streamed off to the south, where in my youth the land
lay open. I could not see them end over there. My eyes followed
them till they merged in the darkness. But even there, and beyond the
void, held an undulation of fluid multitudes. Multitudes of children waited in line.
Over there, in the vague region, beyond the reading of my sight.
The bell came to a stop with a last wicked rattle, and a
drum began to beat. A shiver passed along the lines like a breeze,
and the small forms bent slightly forward. The lines began to flow, and
the night became filled with a measured, soft and tender tramping sound, which
was as the muffled heartbeat of the night. The lions passed by. They
came glidingly from the void in the south, swung into the yard with a
lithe torsion of a fish that turns crushed across the gravel, stamped up the
planking of the stairs, flowed into the yawn of the doors. They passed
the children by hundreds, by thousands. The stairs shook, the frail building
trembled. The night was rhythmic with the soft beat of their feet, the
drum beat they passed. And still the vastness to the south palpitated obscurely,
with unnumbered reserves above the basic rumor. The cries of women were sharp.
It's our class coming now, our own class, said a voice within the
room. I turned toward it. Dorman was at the window next to mine,
seated in his rich red armchair. He was looking as I looked,
his brow against the pane. How are class? How are our class?
I said, peevishly. It is our class, you see if it is
not our class? And then it was truly our class that passed the little
companions of our childhood. They came in line from the dim reservoir to the
south, turned into the yard, crunched upon its gravel, and rose along
the stairway to the small room. Beneath the eaves. Their familiar little feet
hissed gently against the wooden steps, and we stood there, the two old
men, each at his window, watching with cold brows upon the panes.
Dorman, as they passed, told them off to me one by one,
their names and their fate. I saw Jack Bennett, the butcher's son,
and I remembered that I still owed him a marble. I saw red headed
Jack Sterns, with his pale, up tilted nose, and the glass eye
which had been our marvel and our pride. And ruscolle Miller, who had
become a banker and star who had ended in the gutter. And Perry,
who had wrecked himself against the things it will not move. Up the other
stairs, which we could not see, I guess the girls were passing,
and I knew that among them was a frail, blue eyed girl. Ah,
how well I remembered her. But I said, all those you tell
me of have died. From his window, Dorman said, I have noticed
that all those that pass here have died. He added, after a moment,
and all those with whom we went to school pass here. The class
is almost complete. And still they passed, and still Dorman told them off.
Some had been poor, some had been rich, some had been comic,
and some tragic, but all had died. Ralph Dorn passed by.
He had been my best chalm at school. Ralph Ralph went my lips,
but made no sound, and he did not hear. But I knew now
that all my life I had missed him, him and the frail blue eyed
girl. I knew now what had been ailing my life. He said,
Dorman, watch him. He's always funny. To the stairs came a hunchback
boy. He toiled up with much labor, but did not know that he
toiled, for his eyes were ahead, far amid vapory visions. Beneath his
cap, his hair was like a wreath of gold. He wrote verse,
and he starved, said Dorman. I have his book in the library.
It is funny. The poet boy toiled up uncertainly. He zigzagged a bit
from side to side. The cries of the women teachers eddied over him.
He slowed up the line and disordered the march. His eyes were far.
The boy behind him mischievously wiped his feet upon his stockings, but he was
unaware of it. The same boy reached within his pocket and took his pencil
and his knife, But still he did not notice. He let a book
slip from beneath his elbow, and the boy behind trampled upon it. Finally,
the boy behind gave him a push. The poet boy fell, his
cap jerked off his head, his books scattered down the stae. A woman
teacher picked him up and shook him ragefully, while the boy behind looked grave
and reproachful. If I were there, I would protect him, I thought,
If I were there, I would understand him. Who is the boy
behind, I asked Dorman. It's Spike Martin. He answered, he has
been the most successful of us. All his sons are multi millionaires. I
notice now that this was the end of all the marching. This was the
last line. A length of it was still on the stairs, but the
yard behind was already empty. It is the end, I said, Yes,
he answered, they have all passed now. Our class is always the
last. But wait, I said, here comes another boy. I think,
Are you sure, said Dorman, I have not missed anyone. Yes,
yes, I am sure. From the vague somberness to the south,
a dim form was flitting towards us. It neared It was a boy running
very fast, his books under his arm, his cap in hand. Who
is that boy? Who is that boy? Dorman murmured. The boy was
still in the twilight, not quite distinct, but he was nearing very fast.
He seemed to pant for his school despite his fast running. His hair
was orderly and a little damp, with late combing, as though to the
ring of the bell. He had broken away from a mother's lingering touch.
Who is that boy? Who is that boy? Mumbled Dorman. The boy
was near, and something about his square shoulders, his sturdy legs, the
way he swayed slightly from right to left as he ran, gave my memory
unrest Who is that boy? Who is that boy? Dorman cried. It
seems to me. I know, it seems to me, I know,
I said, my memory more and more restless. Who is that boy?
Halton? Who is that boy? And suddenly I knew it is you,
Dorman, It is you, I cried, No, no, Halton,
don't say that. Who is that boy? It is you? It is
you, I cried. The boy came swiftly across the yard, leaped up
the steps. He came to the poet boy drew him aside eagerly took his
place. Then, with incredible quickness, he pulled aside boy after boy till
he was first, and at the door he vanished within. The boys behind,
one after the other, vanished within. The poet boy, last of
the line, vanished within the door. Slap shut, the drums stopped beating.
There was a silence. I left my window, and going up to
Dorman, placed a friendly hand upon his shoulder, and he was dead,
dead there in his rich red armchair, his brow still upon the cold pane.
I think I shall stay here always, and stand at the window at
night till out of the vague region to the south I see a boy come
running, A last late boy come running to join his dear comrades. End
of the night school