“Oh, Rann,” she said in a whisper.
And suddenly he saw that she was sad. But what could he say except to stammer his thanks?
“I do thank you—I thank you most awfully—”
She did not hear him. She was talking to herself.
“I’d give anything to be your age—I’d give all I’ve ever had—I would and I would; I would indeed!”
She put her arms about him and held him and then pushed him away. “I’m going to the village for shopping. When I come back, you’ll be gone.”
He stood watching her as she walked away in her usual light, quick fashion. She did not turn her head, and he knew now that she was gone from him forever, and he was returned to himself—free as perhaps he had never before been free.
WHEN HE ARRIVED IN LONDON he took a taxi to the small hotel his grandfather had told him about.
“We had expected you much earlier, Mr. Colfax,” the desk clerk said to him. “Your grandfather had led us to believe you would be here some months ago. There is a letter here from some solicitors but nothing more than that.”
“I’ve been visiting a friend I met on the ship on the way over,” he said by way of explanation. “Now I’ll be here for a few days, then I’ll be going to Paris.”
“Very good, sir,” the clerk said. “Your room is all ready.”
The letter from his grandfather’s London legal firm told him of funds his grandfather had made available for him, and by telephone he told them he would not be needing the money in London and they insisted he take the name and address of the firm in Paris where it would be forwarded to him. He walked around London for a while and found it much the same as New York and other cities he had visited and decided the sooner he went on to Paris the better for him. He had heard that Paris was a city with a soul, unlike any other city in the world.
PARIS WAS IN THE MIDST OF AUGUST HEAT. It was a changeable city, and he had loved it immediately, partly because it was changeable and difficult to understand and therefore enchanting. In June it had been like a young girl his own age. Indeed, it had swarmed with young girls. They were new to him and he was fascinated by them but not more by them than he was by the beauty of the city itself, its history, which led him into libraries; its paintings, which led him to weeks in the Louvre; its magnificence—which led him into Versailles, and cathedrals. But now there were days when he simply wandered about the streets, stopping at outdoor cafés, sometimes walking as far as the Bois de Boulogne to throw himself on the ancient French earth and lie there, submitting himself to it. He imagined, or felt, emanation from that earth, as indeed he had felt too in England. Lady Mary more than a few times had stopped the small car she drove herself, when she was alone with him, when they were out merely to enjoy a fine mild day, or when she wanted to show him an old village, or open a picnic basket or make excuse, he now suspected—at any rate, she had stopped the car in some remote spot, shielded by hedgerows, and declaring herself weary, had spread a car rug, usually folded in the backseat, and there in the hedges, in the warm glow of approaching spring, she had stirred him to make love. Make love! He disliked the phrase. Could one make love? There was a compulsion hidden in the word “make.” Now, today, far away from her, and lying alone under the trees in this French forest, he admitted his own too-ready response to her physical stimulation. He had allowed himself to be overcome not by her so much as by himself. He carried within himself his own constant temptation and therefore he must blame himself. But was there need to blame himself for his male nature? No, his reason replied, for he was not responsible for his own parts. His responsibility lay only in the choice of which part of him was to be his master. There was far more to him, he knew, than the enjoyment of his physical being. His world was still not in himself. Or else, he was only a small single world, however composite, in a world of other worlds, and his undying sense of curiosity and wonder—that powerful inner force that impelled him to every adventure—made him a part of every other world. Knowledge was his deepest hunger and now especially the knowledge of people, of what they were and thought, and did. And when he was replete with this knowledge, if ever he were, what would he do with it?
Lying there on the warm French earth, his cheek pressed against its green moss, he pondered his own question, adding to it his eternal why. Why was he as he was? What was his compound? Without vanity, he accepted the fact of his own superiority, his own self-confidence. He knew that whatever he chose to do he would do superbly well. He did not think of fame—indeed, he did not care for it. His own need to live in freedom, to learn in his own way, at his own speed, was now his supreme desire. How he would express his self-gained knowledge was as yet unknown to him. But there was a way, waiting, and he would find it.
He turned on his back, head on his clasped hands, and gazed into the leaf-flecked blue sky and waited while slowly a decision found itself invincibly in his own being. It was not only in his mind. It was a decision forming throughout his whole being. He would never again go to school—not to college—ever! Others could not teach him what he wanted now to know. Books he would always learn from, for people, great people, put the best of themselves into books. Books were a distillation of people. But people would be his teachers, and people were not in schoolrooms. People were everywhere.
Decision! He had decided. He recognized finality and a deep peace pervaded his being, as real as though he had drunk an elixir, a wine, had eaten a consecrated bread. Whatever came to him was good. It was life. It was knowledge. He sprang up from the earth. He brushed the leaves from his hair and with his handkerchief he brushed the dampness of moss from his cheek. Then he walked back into the city.
FROM THAT DAY ON, HE devoted his time to the new learning. He who had spent his life as long as he could remember with books, still read as a matter of habit and necessity. On any fair afternoon he wandered to the book stalls of the Left Bank and spent hours there, browsing, searching, tasting one book and another to take an armful of books back with him to the big attic room that in its fashion had become home to him. For he came to perceive that since people were his study, his teachers, the objects through which he could satisfy his persistent wonder about life itself, his own being among others, wherever he lived for the moment, there was his home. It was as though he had reached a place that he had been seeking all his life, a point of knowing himself first, and where he was meant to be and what he was meant to do. Now he could satisfy his hunger to know, his eternal sense of persistent wonder about life, its reason, its purpose, for now he had found his teachers, and these teachers were wherever he happened to be. A new and delicious joy filled his entire being. He had no sense of compulsion. He was entirely and truly free.
Therefore on this August morning, a hot and sunny morning, a day of quiet in the city, for this was the month of holiday and many people were away at seaside and country resorts, he lingered at the bookstalls and fell into conversation with the wizened old woman who was dusting her stall. He had seen her often, had always replied to her cheerful greetings, her chirping comments, her sly, suggestive remarks on certain books a young man might like, especially one, this morning, which she said an American might like.
“And why especially an American?” he asked.
He spoke French easily now, being long past the stage where he was compelled to translate French mentally into English before he could converse.
The old woman was only too ready to converse. He was her first customer, August being a poor business month, and she was as cheerful as a cricket.