HERE are seasons when life is like a dried gourd of a past summer filled with the arid rattle of seeds; and all the myriad voices of the universe which once held for us the most poignant meanings are silent, or, if they speak at all, it is a babble of strange tongues, a meaningless clamor falling on wearied and unheeding ears.
For days this had been the experience of Christine Wickham, and she expressed in manner and appearance this mood as she walked up Fifth Avenue one afternoon in late December. Her gaze was detached, indifferent, while her movements bespoke an infinite and bored leisure. Among the hurrying, purposeful crowds about her, she appeared as aimless as a thistledown blown by uncertain and shifting breezes. And yet, she, frail thistledown, drifting through great, roaring, splendid stone cañons, began to feel, in a vague way, as if it came to her through the broken hazes of a dream, some invitation, some beckoning impulse, and this impression grew more definite, less occasional, as she went on. In fact, this feeling of being led or drawn increased as she made no resistance, but continued without mental protest to pursue her way toward an unknown goal.
She did not pause to compute the distance she had walked, but presently she realized that she was very tired. The convalescence of a recent and severe illness had been prolonged, and weariness came on suddenly. The decision to hail a cab and drive home commended itself as wise, but although it hovered on the brink of action, it did not achieve it; for stronger than ever was the sense of something or some one awaiting her somewhere. Yet she was very tired.
She looked about her rather helplessly, as if hoping to see something, any straw in the current which might assist her in making up her mind, and her eye fell upon a poster on the dignified, polished exterior of one of the picture galleries. It conveyed the unobtrusive, but to the art lover important, announcement of an exhibition of Flessing's pictures.
Christine turned. There was not even a momentary hesitation on her part, but she realized as she went up the steps that she was trembling.
As she entered the first gallery, she looked about her half timidly, as if fearing to see Flessing himself, but he was not there. This first gallery—several rooms were occupied by this exhibition—contained landscapes principally, although his choice of subjects was always rich and various; and these were full of that oneness with nature which was Flessing's peculiar gift. They were admirable, beautiful, for his genius was incontestable, and they flooded the crowded room with the dazzle and the daring of their sunlight. The transcendent gleam of the universe with which he infused his atmospheres was like some crystal-clear, superearthly shout of triumph. And Christine felt like a groping shadow in the splendor of this fulfilled genius. Why did it smite her so now? Had she not always known that when Flessing painted he wore his “coat of stars”?
Ordinarily her heart would have risen to these pictures, exulted in them; but now it was unresponsive, dull, slow-beating. Ah, tired and chill shadow! What had she to do with this facile rendering of the ecstasy of sunlight?
She shrank from it, and slipped through the crowd into the next room. There were a number of portraits here, enormously interesting. Were they not Flessing's? Christine's gaze wandered listlessly over them. Then, turning a little, her eyes fell upon a portrait near her. There was a shock, the blood tingled electrically through her veins, bit into her brain, restoring its numbed action, and with a keenness which was at once pain and rapture, she felt herself adjusted to life. She was again in harmony with the rhythm of the universe. Weariness, ennui fell from her, and it was with a thrilling sense of revived eagerness that she gazed back into those pictured eyes which, with such bold assurance, held her gaze.
They were brown as the clear waters of a mountain pool, and flickering, flashing through their depths was a very devil of mockery and laughter. Under the small, upturned brown mustache was a red and reckless smile, secretive, teasing you with alluring hints of incommunicable secrets. She could almost see the thin nostrils quiver and dilate. It was the face of the winebibber, quaffing to the lees the uncontaminated wine of life, and drunk on those insatiable drafts, gloriously drunk as Pan. A cloak or cape of rich brown velvet fell in heavy folds about him and was tossed with cavalier grace over one shoulder. The hair was brown, short, and so velvet dense that Christine had a quick sensation in her finger tips as if she had touched it and found it like the fur of an animal.