Speaker 1: The Triumph of Night by Edith Wharton, Chapter one. It
was clear that the sleigh from Wymore had not come,
and the shivering young traveler from Boston, who had so
confidently counted on jumping into it when he left the
train at Northridge Junction, found himself standing alone on the
open platform, exposed to the full assault of nightfall and winter.
The blast that swept him came off New Hampshire snowfields
and ice hung forests. It seemed to have traversed interminable
leagues of frozen silence, filling them with the same cold roar,
and sharpening its edge against the same bitter black and
white landscape. Dark, searching and swordlike, it alternately muffled and
harried its victim, like a bullfighter, now whirling his cloak
and now planting his darts. This analogy brought home to
the young man the fact that he himself had no cloak,
and that the overcoat in which he had faced the
relatively temperate airs of Boston seemed no thicker than a
sheet of paper. On the bleak heights of Northridge, George
Faxon said to himself that the place was uncommonly well named.
Speaker 2: It clung to an.
Speaker 1: Exposed ledge over the valley from which the train had
lifted him, and the wind combed it with teeth of
steel that he seemed actually to hear scraping against the
wooden sides of the station. Other building there was none.
The village lay far down the road, and thither since
the way More sleigh had not come, Faxon saw himself
under the immediate necessity of plodding through several feet of snow.
He understood well enough what had happened at Waymore. His
hostess had forgotten that he was coming. Young as Faxon was,
this sad lucidity of soul had been acquired as the
result of long experience, and he knew that the visitors
who can least afford to hire a carriage are almost
always those whom their hosts forget to send for Yet
to say missus colmb had forgotten him was perhaps too
crude a way of putting it. Similar incidents led him
to think that she had probably told her maid to
tell the butler to telephone the coachman to tell one
of the grooms if no one else needed him to
drive over to Northridge to fetch the new secretary. But
on a night like this, what groom who respected his
rights would fail to forget the order. Faxon's obvious course
was to struggle through the drifts to the village and
there route out a sleigh to convey him to Waymore.
But what if on his arrival at Missus Colmes no
one remembered to ask him what this devotion to duty
had cost. That again, was one of the contingencies he
had expensively learned to look out for, and the perspicacity
so acquired told him it would be cheaper to spend
the night at the Northridge Inn and advise Missus Colm
of his presence there by telephone. He had reached this
decision and was about to entrust his luggage to a
vague man with a lantern who seemed to have some
loose connection with the railway company, when his hopes were
raised by the sound of sleigh bells. Two vehicles were
just dashing up to the station, and from the foremost
there sprang a young man swathed in furs.
Speaker 2: Waymore.
Speaker 1: No, these are not the Waymore sleighs.
Speaker 2: The voice was that of the youth who.
Speaker 1: Had jumped to the platform, a voice so agreeable that
in spite of the words, it fell reassuringly on Faxon's ears.
At the same moment, the wandering station lantern, casting a
transient light on the speaker, showed his features to be
in the pleasantest harmony with his voice. He was very
fair and very young, hardly in the twenties, Faxen thought,
But his face, though full of a morning freshness, was
a trifle too thin and fine drawn, as though a
vivid spirit contended in him with a strain of physical weakness.
Faxon was perhaps the quicker to notice such delicacies of balance,
because his own temperament hung on lightly vibrating nerves, which, yet,
as he believed, would never quite swing him beyond the
arc of a normal sensibility. You expected a sleagh from waymore.
The youth continued standing beside Faxon like a slender column
of fur. Missus Colmbe's secretaire, Mary explained his difficulty, and
the newcomer brushed it aside with a contemptuous oh, missus
colmb that carried both speakers a long way toward reciprocal understanding.
Speaker 2: But then you.
Speaker 1: Must be, the youth broke off with a smile of interrogation.
The new secretary, yes, but apparently there are no notes
to be answered this evening. Faxon's laugh deepened the sense
of solidarity which had so promptly established itself between the two.
The newcomer laughed also. Missus Colm, he explained, was lunching
at my uncle's to day, and she said you were
due this evening. But seven hours is a long time
for missus Calm to remember anything. Well, said Faxen, philosophically,
I suppose that's one of the reasons why she needs
a secretary. And I've always the inn at Northridge, he concluded.
The youth laughed again. He was at the age when
predicaments are food for gaiety.
Speaker 2: Oh but you.
Speaker 1: Haven't, though it burned down last week week the deuce
it did, said Faxon. But the humor of the situation
struck him also before its inconvenience. His life four years
past had been mainly a succession of resigned adaptations, and
he had learned, before dealing practically with his embarrassments, to
extract from most of them a small tribute of amusement.
Oh well, there's sure to be somebody in the place
who can put me up. No one you could put
up with. Besides, Northridge is three miles off, and our
place in the opposite direction is a little nearer. Through
the darkness. Faxon saw his friend sketch a gesture of
self introduction. My name's Frank Rayner, and I'm staying with
my uncle at Overdale. I've driven over to meet two
friends of his who are due in a few minutes
from New York. If you don't mind waiting till they arrive,
I'm sure Overdale can do you better than Northridge. We're
only down from town for a few days, but the
house is always ready for a lot of people. But
your uncle Faxon could only object with the odd sense
through his embarrassment that it would be magically dispelled by
his invisible friend's next words, Oh, my uncle, you'll see
I answer for him. I dare say you've heard of him?
John Lavington, John Lavington. There was a certain irony in
asking if one had heard of John Lavington, even from
a post of observation as obscure as that of Missus
Colmes's secretary. The rumor of John Lavington's money, of his pictures,
his politics, his charities, and his hospitality was as difficult
to escape as the roar of a cataract in a mountain.
Speaker 2: Solitude.
Speaker 1: It might almost have been said that the one place
in which one would not have expected to come upon
him was in just such a solitude as now surrounded
the speakers, at least in this deepest hour of its desertedness.
But it was just like life, Havington's brilliant ubiquity to
put one in the wrong even there. Oh, yes, I've
heard of your uncle. Then you will come, won't you.
We've only five minutes to wait. Young Rayner urged in
the tone that dispels scruples by ignoring them, and Faxon
found himself accepting the invitation as simply as it was offered.
A delay in the arrival of the New York train
lengthened their five minutes to fifteen, and as they paced
the icy platform, Faxon began to see why it had
seemed the most natural thing in the world to accede
to his new acquaintance's suggestion. It was because Frank Rayner
was one of the privileged beings who simplify human intercourse
by the atmosphere of confidence and good humor they diffuse.
He produced this effect, Faxon noted by the exercise of
no gift save his youth, of no art save his sincerity.
But these qualities were revealed in a smile of such
appealing sweetness that Faxon felt as never before what nature
can achieve when she deigns to match the face with
the mind. He learned that the young man was the
ward and only nephew of John Lavington, with whom he
had made his home since the death of his mother.
The great man's sister, Mister Lavington, Rayner said, had been
a regular brick to him, But then he is to
everyone you know, And the young fellow's situation seemed, in
fact to be perfectly in keeping with his person. Apparently
the only shade that had ever rested on him was
cast by the physical weakness which Faxon had already detected.
Young Rayner had been threatened with a disease of the lungs, which,
according to the highest authorities, made banishment to Arizona or
New Mexico inevitable. But luckily my uncle didn't pack me off.
Most people would have done without getting another opinion. Who's oh,
an awfully clever chap, a young doctor with a lot
of new ideas, who simply laughed at my being sent
away and said I'd do perfectly well in New York
if I didn't dine out too much, and if I
dashed off occasionally to Northridge for little fresh air. So
it's really my uncle's doing that. I'm not in exile,
and I feel no end better since the new chap
told me I needn't bother young. Rayner went on to
confess that he was extremely fond of dining out, dancing,
and other urban distractions, and Faxon, listening to him, concluded
that the physician who had refused to cut him off
altogether from these pleasures was probably a better psychologist than
his seniors. All the same, you ought to be careful,
you know. The sense of elder brotherly concern that forced
the words from Faxen made him, as he spoke, slip
his arm impulsively through Frank Rayner's. The latter met the
movement with a responsive pressure. Oh, I am awfully, awfully,
And then my uncle has such an eye on me.
But if your uncle has such an eye on you,
what does he say to your swallowing knives out here
in this Siberian wild? Rayner raised his fur coat with
a careless gesture. It's not that that does it. The
cold's good for me, and it's not the dinners and dancers.
Speaker 2: What is it?
Speaker 1: Then, Faxen good humoredly insisted, to which his companion answered
with a laugh, Well, my uncle says it's being bored,
and I rather think he's right. His laugh ended in
a spasm of coughing and a struggle for breath that
made Faxen, still holding his arm, guide him hastily into
the shelter of the fireless waiting room. Young Rainer had
dropped down on the bench against the wall and pulled
off one of his fur gloves to grope for a handkerchief.
He tossed aside his cap and drew the handkerchief across us,
his forehead, which was intensely white and beaded with moisture,
though his face retained a healthy glow. But Faxon's gaze
remained fastened to the hand he had uncovered. It was
so long, so colorless, so wasted, so much older than
the brow.
Speaker 2: He passed it over.
Speaker 1: It's queer, a healthy face, but dying hands. The secretary mused,
he somehow wished young Rainer had kept on his glove.
The whistle of the express drew the young men to
their feet, and the next moment two heavily furred gentlemen
had descended to the platform and were breasting the rigor
of the night. Frank Rayner introduced them as mister Grisbon
and mister Balch, and Faxen, while their luggage was being
lifted into the second sleigh, discerned them by the roving
lantern gleam to be an elderly, gray headed pair, apparently
of the average prosperous business cut. They saluted their host's
nephew with friendly familiarity, and mister Grisbone, who seemed the
spokesman of the two, ended his greeting with a genial
and many more of them dear boy, which suggested to
Faxon that their arrival coincided with an anniversary, but he
could not express the inquiry for the seat allotted him
was at the coachman's side, while Frank Rayner joined his
uncle's guests inside the sleigh. A swift flight behind such
horses as one could be sure of, John Lavington's having
brought them to tall gate posts, an illuminated lodge, and
an avenue on which the snow had been leveled to
the smoothness of marble. At the end of the avenue,
the long house loomed through trees, its principal bulk dark,
but one wing sending out a ray of welcome, and
the next moment Faxon was receiving a violent impression of
warmth and light, of hot house plants, hurrying servants, a
vast spectacular oak hall like a stage setting, and in
its unreal middle distance, a small, concise figure, correctly dressed,
conventionally featured, and utterly unlike his rather floored conception of
the great John Lavington. The shock of the contrast remained
with him through his hurried dressing in the large, impersonally
luxurious bedroom to which he had been shown. I don't
see where he comes in was the only way he
could put it, So difficult was it to fit the
exuberance of Lavington's public personality into his host's contracted frame
and manner. Mister Lavington, to whom Faxon's case had been
rapidly explained by young Rayner, had welcomed him with a
sort of dry and stilted cordiality that exactly matched his
narrow face, his stiff hand, the whiff of scent on
his evening handkerchief. Make yourself at home, At home, he
had repeated, in a tone that suggested on his own
part a complete inability to perform the feat. He urged
on his visitor and a friend of Frank's delighted, make yourself
thoroughly at home Chapter two. In spite of the balmy
temperature and complicated conveniences of Faxon's bedroom, the injunction was
not easy to obey. It was wonderful luck to have
found a night's shelter under the opulent roof of Overdale,
and he tasted the physical satisfaction to the full. But
the place, for all its ingenuities of comfort, was oddly
cold and unwelcoming. He couldn't have said why, and could
only suppose that mister Lavington's intense personality intensely negative but
intense all the same, must, in some occult way have
penetrated every corner of his dwelling. Perhaps, though, it was
merely that Faxon himself was tired and hungry, more deeply
chilled than he had known till he came in from
the cold and unutterably sick of all strange houses and
of the prospect of perpetually treading other people's stairs. I
hope you're not famished. Rayner's slim figure was in the doorway.
My uncle has a little business to attend to with
mister Grisbon, and we don't dine for half an hour.
Shall I fetch you or can you find your way down?
Come straight to the dining room the second floor, on
the left of the long gowery. He disappeared, leaving a
ray of warmth behind him, and Faxen relieved, lit a
cigarette and sat down by the fire. Looking about with
less haste, he was struck by a detail that had
escaped him. The room was full of flowers, a mere
bachelor's room in the wing of a house opened only
for a few days in the dead middle of a
new Hampshire winter. Flowers were everywhere, not in senseless profusion,
but placed with the same conscious art he had remarked
in the grouping of the blossoming shrubs that filled the hall.
A vase of arms stood on the writing table, a
cluster of strange hued carnations on the stand at his elbow,
and from wide buls of glass and porcelain, clumps of
frisiobulbs diffused their melting fragrance. The fact implied acres of glass,
but that was the least interesting part of it. The
flowers themselves, their quality, selection and arrangement attested on someone's part,
and on who's but John Lavington's a solicitous and sensitive
passion for that particular embodiment of beauty. Well, it simply
made the man, as he had appeared to Faxen, all
the harder to understand. The half hour elapsed, and Faxen,
rejoicing at the near prospect of food, set out to
make his way to the dining room. He had not
noticed the direction he had followed in going to his room,
and was puzzled when he left it to find that
two staircases of apparently equal importance invited him. He chose
the one to the right and reached at its foot
a long gallery such as Rayner had described. The gallery
was empty, the doors down its length were closed, but
Rainer had said the second to the left, and Faxen,
after pausing for some chance enlightenment, which did not come,
laid his hand on the second knob to the left.
The room he entered was square, with dusky picture hung
walls in its center, about a table lit by veiled lamps.
He fancied mister Lavington and his guests to be already
seated at dinner. Then he perceived that the table was
covered not with vians, but with papers, and that he
had blundered into what seemed to be his host's study.
As he paused in the irresolution of embarrassment, Frank Rayner
looked up. Oh, there's mister Faxon. Why not ask him?
Mister Lavington, from the end of the table, reflected his
nephew's smile in a glance of impartial benevolence. Certainly come in,
mister Faxon, if you won't think it a liberty. Mister Grisbon,
who sat opposite his host, turned his solid head toward
the door. Of course, mister Faxon's an American citizen. Frank
Rayner laughed, that's all right, Oh no, not one of
your pinpointed pens, Uncle Jack. Haven't you got a quill somewhere.
Mister Balch, who spoke slowly and as if reluctantly, in
a muffled voice of which there seemed to be very
little lef left, raised his hand to say, one moment
you acknowledge this to be my last will and testament.
Rayner's laugh redoubled. Well, I won't answer for the last.
It's the first one anyway, It's a mere formula, mister
Balch explained, Well, here goes. Rayner dipped his quill in
the inkstand his uncle had pushed in his direction, and
ashed a gallant signature across the document. Faxon, understanding what
was expected of him, and conjecturing that the young man
was signing his will on the attainment of his majority,
had placed himself behind mister Grisbon and stood awaiting his
turn to affix his name to the instrument. Rayner, having signed,
was about to push the paper across the table to
mister Balch, but the latter, again raising his hand, said
in his sad, imprisoned voice, the seal.
Speaker 2: Oh does there have to be a seal?
Speaker 1: Faxon, looking over mister Grisbon at John Lavington saw a
faint frown between his impassive eyes. Really frank, he seemed,
Faxon thought, slightly irritated by his nephew's frivolity.
Speaker 2: Who's got a seal? Frank?
Speaker 1: Rayner continued, glancing about the table. There doesn't seem to
be one here, mister Grisbon interposed. A wafer will do, Lavington,
You have a wafer? Mister Lavington had recovered his serenity.
There must be some in one of the drawers, but
I'm ashamed to say I don't know where my secretary
keeps these things. He ought, of course, to have seen
to it that a wafer was sent with the document.
Oh hang it, Frank Rayner pushed the paper aside. It's
the hand of God, and I'm hungry as a wolf.
Let's dine first, Uncle Jack. I think I've a seal upstairs,
said Faxen. Suddenly, mister Lavington sent him a barely perceptible smile.
So sorry to give you the trouble. Oh, I say,
don't send him after it. Now, let's wait till after dinner.
Mister Lavington continued to smile on his guest, and the latter,
as if under the faint coercion of the smile, turned
from the room and ran upstairs. Having taken the seal
from his writing case, he came down again and once
more opened the door of the study. No one was
speaking when he entered. They were evidently awaiting his return
with the mute impatience of hunger, and he put the
seal in Rayner's reach and stood watching while mister Grisbon
struck a match and held it to one of the
candles flanking the inkstand. As the wax descended on the paper,
Faxen remarked again the singular emaciation, the premature physical weariness
of the hand that held it. He wondered if mister
Lavington had ever noticed his nephew's hand, and if it
were not poignantly visible to him now. With this thought
in his mind, Faxen raised his eyes to look at
mister Lavington. The great man's gaze rested on Frank Rayner
with an expression of untroubled benevolence, and at the same
instant Faxon's attention was attracted by the presence in the
room of another person who must have joined the group
while he was upstairs searching for the seal. The newcomer
was a man of about mister Lavington's age and figure,
who stood directly behind his chair, and who, at the
moment when Faxen first saw him, was gazing at young
Rayner with an equal intensity of attention. The likeness between
the two men perhaps increased by the fact that the
hooded lamps on the table left the figure behind the
chair and shadow struck Faxon, the more because of the
strange contrast in their expression. John Lavington, during his nephew's
blundering attempt to drop the wax and apply the seal,
continued to fasten on him a look of half amused affection,
while the man behind the chair, so oddly reduplicating the
lines of his features and figure, turned on the boy
a face of pale hostility. The impression was so startling
Faxon forgot what was going on about him. He was
just dimly aware of young Rayner's exclaiming, your turn, mister Grisbon,
of mister Grisbon's ceremoniously protesting no, no, mister Faxon first,
and of the pens being thereupon transferred to his own hand.
Speaker 2: He received it with a deadly.
Speaker 1: Sense of being unable to move or even to understand
what was expected of him, till he became conscious of
mister Grisbon's paternally pointing out the precise spot on which
he was to leave his autograph. The effort to fix
his attention and steady his hand prolonged the process of signing,
and when he stood up a strange weight of fatigue
on all his limbs. The figure behind mister Lavington's chair
was gone. Faxon felt an immediate sense of relief. It
was puzzling that the man's exit should have been so
rapid and noiseless. But the door behind mister Lavington was
screened by a tapestry hanging, and Faxon concluded that the
unknown looker on had merely had to raise it to
pass out at any rate. He was gone, and with
his withdrawal the strange weight was lifted. Young Rayner was
lighting a cigarette, Mister Balch meticulously inscribing his name at
the foot of the document. Mister Lavington, his eyes no
longer on his nephew, examining a strange white winged orchid
in the vase at his elbow. Everything suddenly seemed to
have grown natural and simple again, and Faxon found himself
responding with a smile to the affable gesture, where with
which his host declared, and now mister Faxon will dine
Chapter three. I wonder how I blundered into the wrong room.
Just now, I thought you told me to take the
second door to the left, Faxon said to Frank Rayner,
as they followed the older men down the gallery. So
I did, but I probably forgot to tell you which
staircase to take coming from your bedroom. I ought to
have said the fourth door to the right. It's a
puzzling house because my uncle keeps adding to it from
year to year. He built this room last summer for
his modern pictures. Young Rayner, pausing to open another door,
touched an electric button, which sent a circle of light
about the walls of a long room hung with canvases
of the French Impressionist school. Faxon advanced, attracted by a
shimmering monnette, but Rayner laid a hand on his arm.
He bought that last week for a thundering price. But
come along, I'll show you all of this after dinner,
or he will rather he loves it. Does he really
love things? Rainer stared clearly perplexed at the question. Rather
flowers and pictures especially, Haven't you noticed the flowers? I
suppose you think his manner's cold. It seems so at first,
but he's really awfully keen about things. Faxon looked quickly
at the speaker. Has your uncle a brother, brother? No?
Speaker 2: Never had.
Speaker 1: He and my mother were the only ones or any
relation who who looks like him who might be mistaken
for him, not that I ever heard of. Does he
remind you of someone? Yes, that's queer. We'll ask him
if he's got a double come on. But another picture
had arrested Faxen, and some minutes elapsed before he and
his young host reached the dining room. It was a
large room with the same conventionally handsome furniture and delicately
grouped flowers, and Faxon's first glance showed him that only
three men were seated about the dining table. The man
who had stood behind Lavington's chair was not present, and
no seat awaited him. When the young men entered, mister
Grisbon was speaking, and his host, who faced the door,
sat looking down at his untouched soup plate and turning
the spoon about in his small dry hand. It's pretty
late to call them rumors. They were devilishly close to
facts when we left town this morning, mister Grisbone was saying,
with an unexpected incisiveness of tone. Mister Lavington laid down
his spoon and smiled interrogatively. Oh facts, what are facts?
Just the way a thing happens to look at a
given minute. You haven't heard anything from town, mister Grisbon, persisted,
not a syllable, so you see, Balch, a little more
of that? Petit mar mitt, mister Faxon, between Frank and
mister Grisbone, please. The dinner progressed through a series of
complicated courses, ceremoniously dis fenced by a stout butler, attended
by three tall footmen, and it was evident that mister
Lavington took a somewhat puerile satisfaction in the pageant that
Faxen reflected was probably the joint in his armor, that
and the flowers. He had changed the subject, not abruptly,
but firmly when the young men entered, but Faxen perceived
that it still possessed the thoughts of the two elderly visitors,
and mister Balch presently observed, in a voice that seemed
to come from the last survivor down a mine shaft.
If it does come, it will be the biggest crash
since ninety three. Mister Lavington looked bored. But polite wall
Street can stand crashes better than it could. Then it's
got a robuster constitution. Yes, But speaking of constitution, mister
Grisbon intervened, Frank, are you taking care of yourself? A
flush rose to young Rayner's cheeks. Why, of course, isn't
that what I'm here for. You're here about three days
in the month, aren't you, And the rest of the
time it's crowded restaurants and hot ball rooms in town.
I thought you were to be shipped off to New Mexico. Oh,
I've got a new man who says that's all rot. Well,
you don't look as if your new man were right,
said mister Grisbond bluntly. Faxon saw the lad's color fade
and the rings of shadow deepen under his gay eyes.
At the same moment, his uncle turned to him with
a renewed intensity of attention. There was such solicitude in
mister Lavington's gaze that it seemed almost to fling a
tangible shield between his nephew and mister Grisbon's tactless scrutiny.
We think Frank's a good deal better, he began, the
new doctor. The butler coming up bent discreetly to whisper
a word in his ear, and the communication caused a
sudden change in mister Lavington's expression. His face was naturally
so colorless that it seemed not so much to pay
hale as to fade, to dwindle, and recede into something
blurred and blotted out. He half rose, sat down again,
and sent a rigid smile about the table. Will you
excuse me the telephone? Peter's gone with the dinner. With
small precise steps, he walked out of the door, which
one of the footmen had hastened to throw open. A
momentary silence fell on the group. Then mister Grisbone once
more addressed himself to Rayner. You ought to have gone,
my boy, you ought to have gone. The anxious look
returned to the youth's size. My uncle doesn't think so. Really,
you're not a baby to be always governed on your
uncle's opinion. You came of age today, didn't you. Your
uncle spoils you, That's what's the matter. The thrust evidently
went home for Rayner laughed and looked down with a
slight accession of color. But the doctor, use your common sense, Frank,
you had to try twenty doctors to find one to
tell you what you wanted to be told. A look
of apprehension overshadowed Rayner's gaiety.
Speaker 2: Oh come, I say, what would you do?
Speaker 1: He stammered, pack up and jump on the first train.
Mister Grisbon leaned forward and laid a firm hand on
the young man's arm. Look here, my nephew, Jim Grisbine
is out there, ranching on a big scale. He'll take
you in and be glad to have you. You say,
your new doctor thinks it won't do you any good,
But he doesn't pretend to say it will do you harm,
does he. Well, then give it a trial. It'll take
you out of hot theaters and night restaurants anyhow, and
all the rest of it. Eh, balch, go, said mister
bull hollowly. Go at once, he added, as if a
closer look at the youth's face had impressed on him
the need of backing up his friend. Young Rayner had
turned ashy pale. He tried to stiffen his mouth into
a smile. Do I look as bad as all that
mister Grisbone was helping himself to terrapin? You look like
the day after an earthquake, he added, concisely. The terrapin
had encircled the table and been deliberately enjoyed by mister
Lavington's three visitors. Rayner Faxon noticed left his plate untouched
before the door was thrown open to readmit their host.
Mister Lavington advanced with an air of recovered composure. He
seated himself, picked up his napkin, and consulted the gold
monogrammed menu. No, don't bring back the filet some terrapin. Yes,
he looked affably about the table. Sorry to have deserted you,
but the storm has played the deuce with the wires,
and I had to wait a long time before I
could get a good connection. It must be blowing up
for a blizzard, Uncle Jack, Young Rayner broke in. Mister
Grisbond's been lecturing me. Mister Lavington was helping himself to terrapin. Ah,
what about he thinks I ought to have given New
Mexico a show. I want him to go straight out
to my nephew at Santa Paz and stay there till
his next birthday. Mister Lavington signed to the butler to
hand the turpan to mister Grisbon, who, as he took
a second helping, addressed himself again to Rayner Jims in
New York. Now and going back the day after tomorrow
in Oliphant's private car. I'll ask Oliphant to squeeze you
in if you'll go. And when you've been out there
a week or two, in the saddle all day and
sleeping nine hours a night, I suspect you won't think
much of the doctor who prescribed New York. Faxon spoke up.
He knew not why I was out there once. It's
a splendid life. I saw a fellow, Oh, a really
bad case who'd been simply made over by it. It
does sound jolly, Rayner laughed, a sudden eagerness of anticipation
in his tone. His uncle looked at him gently. Perhaps
Grisbon's right, it's an opportunity. Faxon looked up with a start.
The figure dimly perceived in the study was now more
visibly and tangibly planted behind mister Lavington chair. That's right, Frank.
You see your uncle approves, and the trip out there
with Oliphant isn't a thing to be missed. So drop
a few dozen dinners and be at the Grand Center
the day after tomorrow. At five, mister Grisbon's pleasant gray
eye sought corroboration of his host, and Faxon, in a
cold anguish of suspense, continued to watch him as he
turned his glance on mister Lavington. One could not look
at Lavington without seeing the presence at his back, and
it was clear that the next minute, some change in
mister Grisbon's expression must give his watcher a clue. But
mister Grisbon's expression did not change. The gaze he fixed
on his host remained unperturbed, and the clue he gave
was the startling one of not seeming to see the
other figure. Faxon's first impulse was to look away, to
look anywhere else, to resort again to the Champagne glass
the watch butler had already brimmed, but some fatal attraction
at war in him, with an overwhelming physical resistance, held
his eyes upon the spot they feared. The figure was
still standing more distinctly and therefore more resemblingly at mister
Lavington's back, And while the latter continued to gaze affectionately
at his nephew, his counterpart, as before, fixed young Rayner
with eyes of deadly menace. Faxon, with what felt like
an actual wrench of muscles, dragged his own eyes from
the sight to scan the other countenances about the table,
but not one revealed the least consciousness of what he saw,
and a sense of mortal isolation sank upon him. It's
worth considering, certainly. He heard mister Lavington continue, and as
Rayner's face lit up, the face behind his uncle's chair
seemed to gather into its look all the fierce weariness
of old, unsatisfied hates. That was the thing that, as
the minutes labored by Faxon was becoming most conscious of,
the watcher behind the chair was no longer merely malevolent.
He had grown suddenly unutterably tired. His hatred seemed to
well up out of the very depths of balked effort
and thwarted hopes, and the fact made him more pitiable
and yet more dire. Faxon's look reverted to mister Lavington,
as if to surmise in him a corresponding change. At
first none was visible. His pinched smile was screwed to
his blank face, like a gaslight to a white washed wall.
Then the fixity of the smile became ominous. Faxon saw
that its wearer was afraid to let it go. It
was evident that mister lav Rington was unutterably tired too,
and the discovery sent a cold current through Faxon's veins.
Looking down at his untouched plate, he caught the soliciting
twinkle of the champagne glass, but the sight of the
wine turned him sick. Well, we'll go into the details presently,
he heard mister Lavington say, still on the question of
his nephew's future, let's have a cigar first. No, not here, Peters.
He turned his smile on Faxen. When we've had coffee,
I want to show you my pictures. Oh, by the way,
uncle Jack, mister Faxon wants to know if you've got
a double. A double Mister Lavington, still smiling, continued to
address himself to his guest, Not that I know of,
have you seen one, mister Faxon, Faxon thought, my god,
If I look up now, they'll both be looking at me.
To avoid raising his eyes, he made as though to
lift the glass to his lips, but his hand sank
inert and he looked up. Missus Lavington's glance was politely
bent on him, but with a loosening of the strain
about his heart, he saw that the figure behind the
chair still kept its gaze on Rayner. Do you think
you've seen my double, mister Faxon, would the other face
turn if he said yes? Faxon felt a dryness in
his throat. No, he answered, ah, it's possible.
Speaker 2: I've a dozen. I believe I'm.
Speaker 1: Extremely usual looking. Mister Lavington went on conversationally, and still
the other face watched Rayner. It was a mistake, a
confusion of memory. Faxon heard himself stammer. Mister Lavington pushed
back his chair, and as he did so, mister Grisbon
suddenly leaned forward. Lavington, what have we been thinking of?
We haven't drunk Frank's health. Mister Lavington reseated himself. My
dear boy, Peter's another bottle. He turned to his nephew.
After such a a sin of omission. I don't presume
to propose the toast myself, but Frank knows. Go ahead, Crispin.
The boys shone on his uncle. No, no, Uncle Jack,
Mister Crispin won't mind nobody but you.
Speaker 2: To day.
Speaker 1: The butler was replenishing the glasses. He filled mister Lavington's last,
and mister Lavington put out his small hand to raise it.
As he did so, Faxon looked away. Well, then all
the good I've wished you in all the past years.
I put it into the prayer that the coming ones
may be healthy and happy and many. Dear boy Faxon
saw the hands about him reach out for their glasses automatically,
he made the same gesture. His eyes were still on
the table, and he repeated to himself with a trembling vehemence.
Speaker 2: I won't look up. I won't, I won't.
Speaker 1: His fingers clasped the stem of the glass and raised
it to the level of his lips. He saw the
other hands making the same motion. He heard mister Crispin's
genial hear, hear, and mister Balch's hollow echo. He said
to himself, as the rim of the glass touched his lips.
Speaker 2: I won't look up. I swear I won't. And he looked.
Speaker 1: The glass was so full that it required an extraordinary
effort to hold it there, brimming and suspended during the
awful interval before he could trust his hand to lower
it again, untouched to the table. It was this merciful
preoccupation which saved him, kept him from crying out, from
losing his hold, from slipping down into the bottomless blackness
that gaped for him as long as the problem of
the glass engaged him, he felt able to keep his seat,
manage his muscles, fit unnoticeably into the group. But as
the glass touched the table, his last link with safety snapped.
He stood up and dashed out of the room Chapter four.
In the gallery, the instinct of self preservation helped him
to turn back and sign to young Rayner not to follow.
He stammered out something about a touch of dizziness and
joining them presently, and the boy waved an unsuspecting hand
and drew back. At the foot of the stairs, Faxen
ran against a servant. I should like to telephone to waymore,
he said, with dry lips. Sorry, sir, wires all down.
We've been trying the last hour to get New York
again for mister Lavington. Faxen shot on to his room,
burst into it, and bolted the door. The mild lamp
light lay on furniture, flowers, books in the ashes, A
log still glimmered. He dropped down on the sofa and
hid his face. The room was utterly silent, The whole
house was still. Nothing about him gave a hint of
what was going on. Darkly and dumbly in the horrible
room he had flown from, and with the covering of
his eyes, oblivion and reassurance seemed to fall on him.
But they fell for a moment. Only then his lids
opened again to the monstrous vision. There it was stamped
on his pupils, a part of him forever, an indelible
horror burnt into his body and brain. But why into
his just his? Why had he alone been chosen to
see what he had seen? What business was it of his?
Speaker 2: In God's name?
Speaker 1: Any one of the others, thus enlightened, might have exposed
the horror and defeated it. But he, the one weaponless
and defenseless spectator, the one whom none of the others
would believe or understand if he attempted to reveal what
he knew, He alone had been singled out as the
victim of this atrocious initiation. Suddenly he sat up, listening.
He had heard a step on the stairs, someone, no doubt,
was coming to see how he was to urge him
if he felt better to go down and join the
smoker's Cautiously, he opened his door. Yes, it was young
Rayner's step. Faxon looked down the passage, remembered the other
stairway and darted to it. All he wanted was to
get out of the house. Not another instant would he
breathe its abominable air. What business was it of his?
In God's name? He reached the opposite end of the
lower gallery, and beyond it saw the hall by which
he had entered. It was empty, and on a long table.
He recognized his coat and cap among the furs of
the other travelers. He got into his coat, unbolted the door,
and plunged into the purifying night.
Speaker 2: The darkness was deep, and.
Speaker 1: The cold so intense that for an instant it stopped
his breathing. Then he perceived that only a thin snow
was falling, and resolutely set his face for flight. The
trees along the avenue dimly marked his way as he
hastened with long strides over the beaten snow. Gradually, while
he walked, the tumult in his brain subsided. The impulse
to fly still drove him forward, but he began to
feel that he was flying from a terror of his
own creating, and that the most urgent reason for escape
was the need of hiding his state of shunning other
eyes scrutiny till he should regain his balance. He had
spent the long hours in the train, in fruitless broodings
on a discouraging situation, and he remembered how his bitterness
had turned to exasperation when he found that the way
more sleigh was not awaiting him. It was absurd, of course,
but though he had joked with Rayner over missus Colm's forgetfulness,
to confess it had cost a pang. That was what
his rootless life had brought him to. For lack of
a personal stake in things, his sensibility was at the
mercy of such trivial accidents. Yes, that and the cold
and fatigue, and absence of hope, and the haunting sense
of starved aptitudes. All these had brought him to the
perilous verge, over which once or twice before his terrified
brain had hung, Why else, in the name of any
imaginable logic, human or devilish, should he, a stranger, be
singled out for this experience? What could it mean to him?
How was he related to it? What bearing had it
on his case? Unless indeed it was just because he
was a stranger, a stranger everywhere, because he had no
personal life, no warm, strong screen of private egotisms to
shield him from exposure. That he had developed this abnormal
sensitiveness to the vicissitudes of others. The thought pulled him
up with a shudder. No, such a fate was too abominable.
All that was strong and sound in him rejected it.
A thousand times better regard himself as ill, disorganized, deluded
than as the predestined victim of such warnings. He reached
the gates and paused before the darkened lodge. The wind
had risen and was sweeping the snow into his face
and lacerating streamers. The cold had him in its grasp again,
and he stood uncertain should he put his sanity to
the test and go back.
Speaker 2: He turned and looked down the dark drive to the house.
Speaker 1: A single ray shone through the trees, evoking a picture
of the lights, the flowers, the faces grouped about that
fatal room. He turned and plunged out into the road.
He remembered that about a mile from Overdale, the coachman
had pointed out the road to Northridge, and he began
to walk in that direction. Once in the road, he
had the gale in his face and the wet snow
on his mustached eyelashes instantly hardened to metal. The same
metal seemed to be driving a million blades into his
throat and lungs. But he pushed on, desperately, determined the
vision of the warm room pursuing him. The snow in
the road was deep and uneven. He stumbled across ruts
and sank into drifts, and the wind rose behind him
like a granite cliff. Now and then he stopped, gasping
as if an invisible hand had tightened an iron band
about his body. Then he started again, stiffening himself against
the stealthy penetration of the cold. The snow continued to
descend out of a pall of inscrutable darkness, and once
or twice he paused, fearing he had missed the road
to Northridge, but seeing no sign of a turn, he
plowed on doggedly. At last, feeling sure that he had
walked more than a mile, he halted and looked back.
The act of turning brought immediate relief, first because it
put his back to the wind, and then because, far
down the road it showed him the advancing gleam of
a lantern. A sleigh was coming, a sleigh that might
perhaps give him a lift to the village. Fortified by
the hope, he began to walk back toward the lane.
It seemed to come forward very slowly, with unaccountable zigzags
and waverings, and even when he was within a few
yards of it, he could catch no sound of sleigh bells.
Then the light paused and became stationary by the roadside,
as though carried by a pedestrian who had stopped exhausted
by the cold. The thought made Faxen hasten on, and
a moment later he was stooping over a motionless figure
huddled against the snow bank. The lantern had dropped from
its bear's hand, and Faxen, fearfully raising it, threw its
light into the face of Frank Rayner. Rayner, What on
earth are you doing here? The boy smiled back through
his Pallor what are you? I'd like to know, he retorted,
and scrambling to his feet, with a clutch on Faxon's arm,
he added gaily, well, I run you down anyhow, Faxen
stood confounded, his heart sinking.
Speaker 2: The lad's face was gray.
Speaker 1: What madness? He began, Yes, it is what on earth
did you do it?
Speaker 2: For?
Speaker 1: I do? What?
Speaker 2: Why?
Speaker 1: I I was just taking a walk. I often walk
at night. Frank Rayner burst into a laugh on such nights.
Then you hadn't bolted, bolted because I'd done something to
offend you. My uncle thought you had, Faxen grasped his arm.
Did your uncle send you after me?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 1: He gave me an awful rowing for not going up
to your room with you when you said you were ill.
And when we found you'd gone, we were frightened, and
he was awfully upset. So I said I'd catch you.
You're not ill?
Speaker 2: Are you ill?
Speaker 1: No? Never better? Faxon picked up the lantern. Come let's
go back. It was awfully hot in that dining room,
he added, yes, I hoped It was only that. They
trudged on in silence for a few minutes. Then Faxen questioned,
you're not too done up? Oh no, it's a lot
easier with the wind behind us. All right, don't talk anymore.
They pushed ahead, walking in spite of the light that
guided them more slowly than Faxen had walked alone into
the gale. The fact of his companions stumbling against a
drift gave him a pretext for saying, take hold of
my arm, and rainer obeying, gasped out, I'm blown so
m who wouldn't be What a dance you led me
if it hadn't been for one of the servants happening
to see you. Yes, all right, and now won't you
kindly shut up? Rayner laughed and hung on him. Oh,
the call doesn't hurt me. For the first few minutes
after Rainer had overtaken him, anxiety for the lad had
been Faxen's only thought.
Speaker 2: But as each.
Speaker 1: Laboring step carried them nearer to the spot he had
been fleeing, the reasons for his flight grew more ominous
and more insistent. No, he was not ill, He was
not distraught and del eluded. He was the instrument singled
out to worn and save. And here he was irresistibly driven,
dragging the victim back to his doom. The intensity of
the conviction had almost checked his steps, But what could
he do or say? At all costs, He must get
Rainer out of the cold, into the house and into
his bed. After that he would act. The snowfall was thickening,
and as they reached a stretch of the road between
open fields, the wind took them at an angle, lashing
their faces with barbed thongs. Rainer stopped to take breath,
and Faxon felt the heavier pressure of his arm. When
we get to the lodge, can't we telephone to the
stable for sleigh if they're not all asleep at the lodge. Oh,
I'll managed, don't talk, Faxen ordered, and they plodded on
at length. The lantern rays showed ruts that curved away
from the road under tree darkness. Faxen's spirit rose, there's
the gate. We'll be there in five minutes. As he spoke,
he caught about the boundary hedge the gleam of a
light at the farther end of the dark avenue. It
was the same light that had shown on the scene,
of which every detail was burnt into his brain, and
he felt again its overpowering reality. No, he couldn't let
the boy go back. They were at the lodge at last,
and Faxon was hammering on the door. He said to himself,
I'll get him inside first and make them give him
a hot drink. Then i'll see I'll find an argument.
There was no answer to his knocking, and after an interval,
Rayner said, look here, we'd better go on. No, I
can perfectly you shan't go to the house, I say.
Faxon furiously redoubled his blows, and at length steps sounded
on the stairs. Rayner was leaning against the lint, and
as the door opened, the light from the hall flashed
on his pale face and fixed eyes. Faxen caught him
by the arm and drew him in. It was cold
out there. He sighed, and then abruptly, as if invisible
shears at a single stroke had cut every muscle in
his body. He swerved, drooped on Faxon's arm, and seemed
to sink into nothing at his feet. The lodge keeper
and Faxen bent over him, and somehow between them lifted
him into the kitchen and laid him on a sofa
by the stove. The lodge keeper, stammering a ring up
the house, dashed out of the room, but Faxen heard
the words without heeding them. Omens mattered nothing now beside
this woe fulfilled He knelt down to undo the fur
collar about Rayner's throat, and as he did so he
felt a warm moisture on his hands. He held them up,
and they were red.
Speaker 2: Chapter five.
Speaker 1: The palms threaded their endless lines along the Yellow River.
The little steamer lay at the wharf and George Faxon,
sitting in the verandah of the Wooden Hotel, idly watched
the coolies carrying the freight across the gang plank. He
had been looking at such scenes for two months. Nearly
five had elapsed since he had descended from the train
at Northridge and strained his eyes for the sleigh that
was to take him to Waymore, Waymore, which he was
never to behold part of the interval, the first part
was still a great gray blur. Even now he could
not be quite sure how he had got back to Boston,
reached the house of a cousin, and been thence transferred
to a quiet room looking out on snow under bare trees.
He looked out a long time at the same scene,
and finally, one day a man he had known at
Harvard came to see him and invited him to go
out on a business trip to the Malay Peninsula. You've
had a bad shake up, and it'll do you no
end of good to get away from things. When the
doctor came the next day, it turned out that he
knew of the plan and approved it. You ought to
be quiet for a year, just loaf and look at
the landscape, he advised, Faxon felt the first faint stirrings
of curiosity. What's been the matter with me? Anyhow well
over work? I suppose you must have been bottling up
for a bad breakdown before you started for New Hampshire
last December. And the shock of that poor boy's death
did the rest.
Speaker 2: Ah.
Speaker 1: Yes, Rayner had died, he remembered. He started for the east,
and gradually, by imperceptible degrees, life crept back into his
weary bones and leaden brain. His friend was very considerate
and forbearing, and they traveled slowly and talked little. At first.
Faxon had felt a great shrinking from whatever touched on
familiar things. He seldom looked at a newspaper. He never
opened a letter without a moment's contraction of the heart.
It was not that he had any special cause for apprehension,
but merely that a great trail of darkness lay on
everything he had looked too, deep down into the abyss.
But little by little health and energy returned to him,
and with them the common promptings of curiosity. He was
beginning to wonder how the world was going, And when
presently the hotel keeper told him there were no letters
for him in the.
Speaker 2: Steamer's mail bag.
Speaker 1: He felt a distinct sense of disappointment. His friend had
gone into the jungle on a long expression, and he
was lonely, unoccupied and wholesomely bored. He got up and
strolled into the stuffy reading room. There he found a
game of dominoes, a mutilated picture puzzle, some copies of
Zion's Herald, and a pile of New York and London newspapers.
He began to glance through the papers and was disappointed
to find that they were less recent than he had hoped.
Evidently the last number had been carried off by luckier travelers.
He continued to turn them over, picking out the American
ones first. These, as it happened, were the oldest. They
dated back to December and January to Faxon. However, they
had all the flavor of novelty, since they covered the
precise period during which he had virtually ceased to exist.
It had never before occurred to him to wonder what
had happened in the world during that interval of obliteration,
but now he felt a sudden desire to know. To
prolong the pleasure, he began by sorting the papers chronologically,
and as he found and spread out the earliest number,
the date at the top of the page entered into
his unconsciousness like a key slipping into a lock. It
was the seventeenth of December, the date of the day
after his arrival at Northridge. He glanced at the first
page and read, in blazing characters, reported failure of opal
Cement Company. Lavington's name involved gigantic exposure of corruption, shakes
Wall Street to its foundations. He read on, and when
he had finished the first paper, he turned to the next.
Speaker 2: There was a.
Speaker 1: Gap of three days that the opal Cement investigation still
held the center of the stage from its complex revelations
of greed and ruin. His eye wandered to the death notices,
and he read Rayner Suddenly at Northridge, New Hampshire, Francis John,
only son of the late His eyes clouded, and he
dropped the newspaper and sat for a long time with
his face in his hands. When he looked up again,
he noticed that his gesture had pushed the other papers
from the table and scattered them on the floor at
his feet. The uppermost lay spread out before him, and
heavily his eyes began their search again. John Lavington comes
forward with plan for reconstructing company, offers to put in
ten millions of his own the proposal under consideration by
the district Attorney ten millions, ten millions of his own.
But if John Lavington was ruined, Faxon stood up with
a cry that was it? Then that was what the
warning meant. And if he had not fled from it,
dashed wildly away from it into the night, he might
have broken the spell of iniquity. The power of darkness
might not have prevailed. He caught up the pile of
newspapers and began to glance through each in turn for
the headline Wills admitted to probate. In the last of all,
he found the paragraph he sought, and it stared up
at him, as if with Rainer's dying eyes. That that
was what.
Speaker 2: He had done.
Speaker 1: The powers of pity had singled him out to warn
and save, and he had closed his ears to their call,
had washed his hands of it, and fled, washed his
hands of it. That was the word. It caught him
back to the dreadful moment in the lodge, when raising
himself up from Rayner's side, he had looked at his hands,
and seen that they were read. End of the Triumph
of Night by Edith Wharton