Afternoons with Emily (31 page)

The snows continued; February glittered and gleamed. Davy and I were given a glorious unbroken fortnight of skating on the
Connecticut River, frozen a historic two-feet thick. The weather curtailed my visits to the outlying school districts for
my independent study, so we had even more time available to spend together. We skated after school through all the brilliant
afternoons, and then by firelight and moonlight at night. Kind Aunt Helen relaxed her rules for this rare event.

Davy and I glided together upstream and down, mile after smooth white mile — our arms entwined, our bodies joined in rhythm,
our breath fused in an intimate cloud. Our matching, repeating motions were languorous and thrilling. When we moved beyond
the other groups of skaters, I kissed Davy’s lips, pressing the cold apart to reach the inner warmth — until I was faint from
his sweetness.

Late one afternoon, just as we were heading for the sociable bonfire onshore, there was a sharp sound like a rifle shot and
then a long, hollow boom.

“What was that?” I asked, startled.

“The very first crack of the ice breakup — which means our last day on the river. Skating won’t be safe after this.”

As we unlaced our skates, Jonathan arrived, and Davy warned him about the ice. “You’re an hour too late, I’m afraid,” Davy
advised him. “It’s just like the news nowadays. We heard only that one crack — but that’s enough. There’s real trouble coming.”

That night my mind kept turning back to Davy’s remark. All through the autumn, I had been so engrossed in my flowering life
— my fascinating studies, the wonder of our engagement, the vision of our future — that I barely noticed events in the larger
world around us. There had been a military skirmish of sorts in October. I remembered a raid in Virginia and some hangings.
I had hardly read the news-paper; it seemed unimportant compared to the unfolding events in my own life.

But Davy’s comment forced my view to widen. His eyes were fixed beyond our tiny sphere; mine had to be too. So every afternoon,
I read the
Springfield Republican,
where Emily’s friend Mr. Samuel Bowles was editor — and I began to see we were indeed skating on thin ice. The Northeast
and the South were ready for a war — an American war.

During one of our study sessions, I brought up some of my worries, hoping for reassurance.

“Davy, this won’t concern you, will it? Illinois in the Middle West is not part of this, is it?”

“Perhaps you shouldn’t have dropped geography, Miranda.” Davy gave me a wry smile. “No place in the United States is separate
from any other place. We’re all connected by arteries of railroads and rivers.”

I hauled out Father’s atlas, and Davy showed me the rail and shipping routes converging on Chicago. “All the commerce of the
continent goes to and from Chicago,” he explained, running his fingers along the snaking lines. “The Middle Western states
couldn’t exist with only the top half of the Mississippi or some chopped-off bits of railroad.”

My heart lurched and sank. “I see, I do see.”

Once I understood this fatal geography, I read everything — the daily
Republican,
the weekly news in
Harper’s,
and the articles in the
Atlantic Monthly.
My former ignorance was bliss indeed, but I’d never get it back.

It was soon the last day of an uneasy March 1860. Josiah Howland was born the previous night, nearly killing his mother as
he came. He was a good-size infant, somewhat tardy — and Kate had a narrow frame. Dr. Smedley told us, as the hours dragged
on, that the baby was crosswise, and he could not turn him. At any rate, Josey was a day and a night en route, and we thought
we would surely lose our Kate.

Aunt Helen had gone to Springfield a week before to help Kate get ready for the birth. But the Howlands’ steep stairs became
too painful for her arthritis, and she telegraphed for me to come. With Father’s help, I arranged for the time away from school
and took the cars to join them. I was there for the first happy onset of Kate’s labor at Monday noon — and all through the
horror of the endless night that followed. By Tuesday noon, Kate was so exhausted that she would fall asleep between pains
and then wake to arch and scream again.

Her agony penetrated every inch of the tidy little honeymoon house — so there was no way to shield me, an unmarried girl,
from the whole fearful process. I barely recognized my calm Kate in this violent, pitiful creature. I sat with her, sponging
her swollen face, sobbing too. Her desperate grip bruised my hands.

Privately Aunt Helen and I were not very good at hiding our fear that we would lose our Kate, but we were brave at her bedside.
By evening, Dr. Smedley told us he would try to turn the baby one more time. There came a spurt of bright blood, a final shriek,
and finally, late that night, Josiah Chase Howland was born.

Now that he had arrived, Aunt Helen and Ethan were so proud of the little fellow that they were forgetting the mortal ordeal
of his birth. I could not; I never would. “I can’t forgive him, Kate. He almost took you away from us.”

I was sitting by her bed, the third day. She had been sleeping, but she was still paler than the dainty sheets she had embroidered
for her hope chest. I had helped her sew those same innocent doves and scrolls. The doves had lied to us then; they were lying
now.

“You’d better start forgiving Josey; he may be the only little cousin you get. Dr. Smedley said I shouldn’t try having another
baby.”

“Do you mind, Kate?”

“Right now, I can’t even imagine wanting to do this again! But it will be hard for Ethan; he wants a big family.”

I could see she was unresigned to Dr. Smedley’s advice, which frightened and confused me. But her happiness was so deep, her
lovely nature so calm, that this was not a time for argument but for rejoicing.

Maureen arrived, a cheerful young Irish helper for Kate, and Aunt Helen and I returned to Amherst. Davy called at once. He
found me shaken and sobered by my close view of childbirth.

“Of course I’ve never seen it the way you did, but I do fear it,” he confided. “My own mother never got her strength back.”

I remembered Davy telling me that his mother had died at the age of twenty, when he was only three months old. He would have
been too young to have any actual memories of her.

“Do you know anything about her?” I asked.

“They tell me she was generous and loving, and very beautiful. Her name was Claire. I wish I had even one small memory of
her.”

Since, in a way, I had never really known my own mother, I knew we shared something important. Perhaps we had never really
admitted this “hole” in our life’s experience, perhaps we would be able to explore its meaning together.

A few days later, when I visited The Homestead, Emily was sweetly pleased over Kate’s little son but was even more excited
to show me her latest work. She must have forgotten her recent anger when I presumed to judge her poem, the one based on her
childish letter to “Master.”

I expected there would be real fireworks when she finally submitted her work to a “surgeon.” She was abnormally sensitive
to any advice, which she always saw as a searing personal attack. I believed that Emily, in her writing, was saying to the
world: “Love me, love my poem without question! I have worked to find this word, to build that phrase; how could you be expected
to understand it? You are an outsider. I do not write for you.”

Having said all this to myself, I was quite ready to be tactfully evasive when she handed me another paper to read. Here was
a letter, or the draft of a letter, with lines marked “ . . . not a glorious victory Abiah . . . but a kind of a helpless
victory, where triumph would come of itself, faintest music, weary soldiers. . . .”

“I see some nice images,” I told her carefully. “What is it?”

Now she was a gleeful child with a surprise for the grown-ups. “It’s a letter I wrote to Abby Root in 1850. It’s a ton of
mimosa, waiting to be DISTILLED into a poem!”

“These lines, Emily?”

“These very lines! Now read the poem they have become.”

I took the page from her and read.

Success is counted sweetest

By those who ne’er succeed.

To comprehend a nectar

Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple Host

Who took the Flag today

Can tell the definition

So clear of Victory

As he defeated — dying —

On whose forbidden ear

The distant strains of triumph

Burst agonized and clear!

I was overcome by the authority and compelling force of these twelve lines. I had always sensed an uneven quality in Emily’s
work until now — but here I found clear direction to a stunning conclusion. This poem was flawless and complete; I could only
praise it.

“Emily, it’s your very best. You have pulled all your talents together here. It is a
masterpiece.
I am awed, truly awed.”

She blushed, but she met my gaze, standing proud and straight — at ease in the presence of her own excellence attained.

“I know, I know! It was a LONG JOURNEY, some of it by night — but I’ve arrived.”

“Now, Emily, it’s time to send this to your ‘surgeon.’ ”

“Not yet. I need two or three others I like as much. Mr. Thomas Wentworth Higginson will want to compare them, I imagine.”
She looked away from my disappointment.

So even with this triumphant poem in her hand, she was defensive again. She dared not risk exposing herself to criticism.

The next Monday, I went cross lots to The Homestead, thinking again of the power of Emily’s most recent verse. When I reached
Emily’s house, the stair door was locked, so I went around the front. Miss Lavinia opened the door before I knocked; she seemed
excited and distraite.

“Miranda, you will have to excuse my sister this afternoon. She has an unexpected guest. She will see you next Monday.” Then
I noticed a carriage from the livery stable, with a driver waiting — and I heard a man’s deep voice from the parlor.

“A livery carriage, indeed!” Aunt Helen was intrigued when I told her. “That means someone from out of town. Could it be one
of those men she writes so often?”

“Never!” I was emphatic. “They would never be permitted to come to The Homestead in person.”

But next Monday, Dick, the Dickinson stableman, brought me a note. Emily was in bed — “felled” was her word — and could not
receive me till next week.

It was just as well: my history of Greek drama was almost due. Emily had intended to help me, but I discovered she was hopeless
at organizing a mass of
fact.
She preferred to swoop and dart around a topic like a shimmering dragonfly — and she was much too subjective for expository
writing. So I learned to arrange my new knowledge, logically and chronologically, in an orderly structure of fact and opinion.
This was much harder than reading
Medea
but strangely satis-fying. As in flower arranging, I knew instinctively when a section was right — when I had attained my
intent.

Davy had a difficult project too, a paper on Thoreau. On Amity Street, we spread our papers over the dining table and worked
in total silence. Every now and then he pushed a note down to my end.
(“If I can’t be kissing you, I might as well study.”)
At the end of the period, we compared our progress, and Aunt Helen brought us cider.

When I called on Monday, I found Emily convalescent, pale and subdued. Her freckles were showing again; this was always her
sign of distress. Something had truly shaken her.

“It was a CATACLYSM,” she told me. “At my feet, the hall became ABYSS.” She repeated this, testing it: “BECAME ABYSS.” One
day, I knew, she would use this metaphor again.

“Can you tell me what happened, Emily?”

“I was working in the kitchen; I had no WARNING. Vinnie had taken Mother downtown; there was no one to answer the door. Usually
I just let a caller go on knocking. Oh, whatever POSSESSED me?” She wrung her hands; she was literally beside herself, outside
her tidy little body. Her pain was tremendous and genuine.

“Emily, who was it?”

“It was my MASTER! And I in my old work apron, with flour on my hands — oh, it was terrible, terrible! It was a VIOLATION!”

The Philadelphia minister — here? I was shocked. What impact would this have on the delicate truce erected by so many concerned
parties? “Had he written you that he was coming?”

“NEVER. He knew I would refuse to see him! He had some ridiculous church business in Northampton and stopped on a silly WHIM,
on his way back to Philadelphia. He hired a carriage at the depot and just — INVADED. After five years, after all we have
been to each other — just because he had some time to fill up between trains! How did he DARE — to me, Emily Dickinson!”

I could see her vibrating. Her rage was visible; I wanted to calm her. “Emily, I can’t imagine he meant to hurt you. He was
being
sociable
— just taking the chance to meet you, after all your fine letters. He was calling on you only as a friend.”

“I do not have such FRIENDS. No coarse, insensitive DROPPER IN is any friend of mine!”

“What . . . what is he like?” She needed sympathy, but I was not sure how to offer it.

“How could I tell? All I could see was an intruder — a strange, unwelcome man with stiff round whiskers like those of an APE.
Miranda, it was NOT my Master!”

Clearly she preferred her two-dimensional correspondent to the whiskered reality. This should set Mrs. Austin’s mind at ease;
there was no danger of Emily’s running off and sullying the Dickinson name to be with this man.

“Did you enjoy any part of his visit?”

“How could I? I do not like SOCIAL conversation, when I am afraid of what I might hear my own voice saying. In letters, I
am safe. I can plan, I can edit; I can PRESENT myself! Talking is so raw, so random, so DANGEROUS!”

As she spoke, I recognized the accuracy of Mrs. Austin’s phrase “Emily’s truth.” Emily had her own pane of violet glass —
and she herself demanded to be seen through the same filter of fantasy.