Alice in Bed (36 page)

William says it is just for practice, and please don't tell Mother. My eye falls on a column of ants near my foot; I place the toe of my boot in their path and watch the ants swerve around it. You can't help but admire them, marching along in a soldierly column, carrying their immense burdens. I make no answer to William except to scowl. I am not a tattletale; he should know that by now.

William has been working on a portrait of Kitty Temple for weeks. They go off together to Mr. Hunt's studio every day, sometimes with their painter friend John La Farge, and return hours later. I wonder if there
is
a portrait or if they are just going there to kiss some more, with their bodies pressed against each other. At the end of August the painting is unveiled and I feel its power. Your eyes are drawn to Kitty's white neck, her cloud of dark hair, her beautiful
hands engaged in some needlework. Despite my fragmentary knowledge of art, I see that William has captured an immortal quality in Kitty; if I'd known the words then, I would have said it was the Eternal Feminine. Was that mysterious quality inside Kitty all along, or did being painted by William make her more beautiful? (William has sketched me numerous times, in caricature style, along with the rest of our family, but I doubt he will ever find me worth an oil painting.)

Was this when I first knew I was set apart from others and could expect nothing from the world? Did it happen all at once, or little by little? Maybe I should have William's Dr. Janet—was that the man's name?—mesmerize me to remember what has slipped through the cracks.

I have a sense of something else that happened that summer which remains just out of reach. I write in my journal,

I had to peg away pretty hard between twelve and twenty-four, “killing myself”—absorbing into the bone that the better part is to clothe oneself in neutral tints, walk beside still waters, and possess oneself in silence.

But what do I mean by this?

W
ILLIAM
J
AMES

95 I
RVING
S
TREET
, C
AMBRIDGE

J
UNE
22
ND
1890

T
O
H
ENRY
H
OLT
(
HIS EDITOR
)

No one could be more disgusted than I at the sight of the book. No subject is worth being treated in 1,000 pages—it is a loathsome, distended, tumefied, bloated, dropsical mass testifying to but two things: that there is no such thing as a science of psychology, and 2nd that WJ is incapable.

W
ILLIAM
J
AMES

95 I
RVING
S
T
., C
AMBRIDGE

J
UNE
19
TH
1890

T
O
M
RS
. W
ILLIAM
J
AMES

T
AMWORTH
I
RON
W
ORKS
, N
EW
H
AMPSHIRE

Darling—I just mailed The Principles of Psychology in 5 large boxes. If it burns up at the post office, I don't care for I shan't rewrite it. I miss you dreadfully, but you know that already. I hope you are all well and that black flies aren't feeding on the flesh of our children. We are having a Biblical plague of them here just now, but that is not the worst of my troubles. On the horse-cars on the way home from the PO, a hideous thought burst into my mind. The proofs! I cannot bear to contemplate them. Therefore I intend to leave within the week, before they arrive, and join you in NH. That way, they can't disturb my peace till the end of summer.

How is the new fraulein working out? I hope she will be tough enough to withstand Billy.

W
ILLIAM
J
AMES

95 I
RVING
S
TREET
, C
AMBRIDGE
, M
ASS
.

J
UNE
26, 1890

T
O
M
RS
. W
ILLIAM
J
AMES

Darling: You were right. I did not manage to leave. That you know me so well is either reassuring or terrifying, I am not sure which.

You must promise not to laugh or rail against me when I tell you why. Just before I was to leave, I woke up before dawn in a white panic, convinced that the reason Henry Holt hadn't acknowledged receipt of the book was because he loathed it and had not the heart to tell me. For several days I pictured in vivid detail my sorrowful fate as an unpublished professor, pitied and scorned at the Faculty Club, &c. I wrote to Holt that since I hadn't heard from him, I felt no further responsibility whatever about having the thing published.

And the very next day the proofs started arriving, 20 by each of the 4 daily mail deliveries. Thus I am caught & unable to join the rest of you, alas. It is a terrible business, these proofs. I miss you to the point of despair. I see you so clearly in my mind, sitting at your dressing table in your peach-colored gown, the smell of your cold cream, your hair falling down. I weep at the thought of my children's dear faces.

W
ILLIAM
J
AMES

95 I
RVING
S
T
., C
AMBRIDGE
.

J
ULY
6
TH
1890

T
O
H
ENRY
J
AMES

Today I went to Somerville to visit poor Kitty Prince and found her thrashing like a demon, pinned down by three nursing matrons and one doctor. She is so shriveled I thought her legs would snap like matchsticks
and watched in horror as the nursing matron pinched her nostrils shut. This forced poor K to open her mouth, into which the red-faced doctor inserted a horrible metal bit and turned a screw that pried her mouth open. All this time she was shaking and quivering from head to toe. When they forced a long brown tube down her throat, the choking sounds were horrific, and, while I gaped in disbelief, the matron inserted a funnel into the end of the tube and poured a pitcher of yellow fluid down Kitty's throat. Raw eggs. Her eyes roved wildly, like a spooked horse.

I asked the doctor why they were torturing her. He said, “She is determined to starve herself to death and we must prevent that. We have orders from the superintendent to force-feed her three times a day.” Well, I know the superintendent (Edward Cowles) as a colleague and (I thought) an enlightened scientific man, and I intend to give him a piece of my mind. Why not just let her die if her case is hopeless? (He told me last month that her chances of recovery now are nil.)

T
O
T
HE
E
DITOR OF THE
N
ATION

J
ULY
4, 1891

Sir: For several years past I have lived in provincial England. Although so far from home, every now and then a transatlantic blast, pure and undefiled, fans to a white heat the fervor of my patriotism.

This morning, most appropriately to the day, a lady from one of our Eastern cities applied to my landlady for apartments. In the process of telling her that she had no rooms for let, the landlady said that there was an invalid in the house, whereupon the lady exclaimed, “In that case perhaps it is just as well that you cannot take us in, for my little girl, who is thirteen, likes to have plenty of liberty and to scream through the house.”

Yours very truly,

Invalid

FOUR
FOUR

S
O
I
AM PUBLISHED!
H
OW MUCH MORE DISTINGUISHED ONE
'
S
words look in print; I confess it gives me a little warm glow. I went through almost as many author-processes in composing it as Harry does with one of his novels. He writes that everyone in London has guessed my identity and that I am the talk of the town.

It is a month of miracles. Two weeks later, Katherine arrived
chez moi
after three years' absence! Listed in the shipping news as “Mrs. Peabody,” a passenger on the
Cephalonia
, she fortunately succeeded in transforming herself into Miss Katherine Peabody Loring on the train from Liverpool and is with me now.

What bliss it is to huddle in my daybed by the window and dictate my diary entries to K., who, with her self-devised code, takes dictation as quickly as I can talk. She is a wonderful audience; her infectious laughs, wry commentary, and pointed questions spur me on. One thing you should know about Katherine: she is in thrall to words. She once referred to my having “seduced” her with “my language,” and occasionally says things like, “I'm not sure how you would put it in your language.”

“What do you mean,
my language
? It isn't as if I had my own dialect.”

“In my family we think the Jameses talk like Irish bards. I've never heard
anyone
talk like William. At dinner parties most of the table goes silent so they can listen in.”

“It was always thus, Katherine. Father had his bardic moments, and William and Henry, even poor Bob. I, on the other hand, express myself entirely normally.”

“Not really, dear.”

“Give me an example, then.”

“All right. When we were discussing your finances yesterday you said, ‘My income is a most interesting quantity, with the greatest capacity for diminishing itself and yet still existing.' I made a note of it in my diary.”

“I was only stating the facts.”

“Most people would have phrased it differently. Anyway, that's only one example.”

“Do I figure prominently in your diary, Katherine?” I ask in a teasing tone.

“What do you think?” She flushes a little. In some respects, my beloved is shy, which I find endearing. “I believe I
have
been influenced by your diary a little, Alice. Lately, I've been trying to overcome the Boston tendency to record bare facts. A typical entry in a Loring diary goes like this:
Mild overcast day, temp. 64. 1:30, Dined at Tavern Club with J. Winthrop. Stopped by Doll's afterwards
. You should see my brothers' diaries. Nothing more personal in them than the air temperature.”

“Bostonians are unfathomably fascinated with temperature, barometric pressure, and wind speed. Is that because you are a race of sailors?”

Katherine's brothers are men of the law as well as sailors. One is a judge. While judges are necessary, I believe that sitting on the bench may encourage an exalted view of oneself. But as Katherine adores her brothers, I keep this to myself.

“Speaking of brothers,” she says, “did I tell you I bumped into William near the post office just before I left? I asked him how he was, and he said, ‘Splendid! I have just posted my Index and I can relate to the universe receptively again.' I asked if he meant his Psychology textbook and he said, ‘Yes. Nasty little subject! Nothing in it! Everything one wants to know lies
outside
!'”

“That sounds like William. I was afraid he'd go on dragging that manuscript around for the rest of his life. It has been in existence longer than young Harry, who is in long trousers now.”

“I did wonder how he manages to teach a subject he despises.”

“Oh, he only despises it s
ome
times.”

I dictate another paragraph for my diary. Noticing my references to
Inconnu
, Katherine says, “Do you mind my asking, Alice: who is this
Inconnu
?”

“Well, after I ‘pass over,' as William's spiritist friends say,
Inconnu
will be the unknown reader who will turn these pages, amazed at the immortal wisdom this finicky old maid harbored under her unprepossessing exterior.”

I suppose, in the end,
Inconnu
is an idealized distillation of my surviving family. He/she feels strangely real, linked to me by that peculiar bond of sympathy between author and reader (which I have felt intensely with any author I have loved) and that I feel even now, filling me with quiet radiance.

“Unprepossessing indeed,” Katherine chuckles. “Do you want to have your diary published, darling?”

“Oh, I wouldn't dare, Kath. Imagine Father's apoplexy if his only daughter sullied the family name by publishing her hysterical fancies!”

“Your father has departed. Even Aunt Kate is no more. You have as much right as Henry to publish whatever you wish, it seems to me.”

“Oh, but you don't
honestly
think . . . this is publishable?”

“I do.”

Katherine is monstrously well read. I had not dared to hope that my little diary might possess literary value. I shall have to give this some thought. “I suppose my principal readers will be William and Henry. Maybe Bob if he is in his right mind—or even if he isn't. Later, the odd niece or nephew on a dull, rainy afternoon. William's little Peggy maybe.” I don't tell her of my fantasy of a grown-up Peggy reading my diary and thinking, “So this is how Aunt Alice felt. This is how she saw the world! I wish I had known her.” It is silly of me; I have never met the child and she is only three years old.

“I saw Peggy with her mother on the cars just before I left. She is a real beauty. And never draws breath, from what I could see.”

“I wish I could meet her.” I see by K's expression that she regrets having reminded me of the thousands of miles of blustery Atlantic standing between me and home.

“It's quite likely, Kath, that
Inconnu
will think,
Oh, that Aunt Alice! Crazy as a loon!
I'll probably ask you to toss the pages into the fire after I go. Meanwhile, don't breathe a word to anyone, especially Henry. I've told you how he likes to use family letters as kindling.”

Sometimes it feels as if someone else inside me is writing, surprising me with thoughts I did not know I had. As if a Book of Alice existed somewhere in a ghostly state, and I have only to discover it and translate it into form.

What wonders abound in Katherine's presence! The crack in the window frame has been sealed against the winter chill, the chimney has been swept, the carpets and portière curtains taken down and flogged, the bow-front clock repaired. The globes of the lamp that hangs from the ceiling have been scrubbed, the mantel of the lamp on the wall has been repaired. The sudden lessening of gloom is like a heavenly vision.

She has been bringing me up to date on her battles on behalf of the Harvard Annex, the women's branch of Harvard. The overseers and many of the faculty have apparently taken a vow to repel, vex, and defeat the female sex at every turn—including, most recently, revoking their library privileges. The dilemma is this: The library is located in Harvard Yard, where women are not permitted to set foot lest they distract the Harvard men from their studies. Yet it is the only Harvard library. So far, the women are banned from it, but there is a proposal afoot to permit female persons to use the library on Sunday afternoons between two and four o'clock.

“I don't see why the sight of a woman should be fatal to scholarship,” I say. “I have a good mind to pop off a rantlet to President Eliot myself.”

“You may just as well address a brick wall,” Katherine says, and stomps off to make a pot of tea. When she comes back with the tea things on a tray, her equanimity seems restored. “I sometimes think it will be a hundred years before women gain basic rights. We probably won't live to see it, Alice. I just have to remind myself that I am only a small link in a very long chain.”

One of K's splendid qualities is the way she takes my “going off” in stride and never disapproves, as others are apt to do. Let me try to
explain what it is like. First, there is a wooziness, a sinking feeling in your head, followed by a startling
whoosh
as you are drawn downward as if into a funnel. (You may picture the funnel in the pans used for making angel food cake.) Then you go under, and you're gone. All this takes place in a few seconds. It used to frighten me, but when you faint every day, you soon get used to it and it becomes a sort of hobby.

K. claims that just before I go under there is an utter blankness in my eyes. “You just look
gone
. Do you feel as if you've been gone?”

“Yes. Sometimes when I open my eyes, I don't know where or even who I am. The whole story of Alice James has been wiped clean. Do you think death appears to us that way?”

“I suppose we'll find out someday.
If
there is anyone left to find out.”

Katherine is agnostic verging on atheist. She calls herself a Unitarian, which can mean anything. Eternity neither awes nor interests her particularly, which is one difference between us. Gathering up her work-reticule and a cushion for her back, she settles down near the window to knit. The sky behind her is cloudless and appears chilly.

“Katherine, does it ever worry you that there might not be enough
room
in heaven for all the people who have lived on earth since the beginning?”

“The good sheep, you mean. The black sheep go elsewhere, so they say.” (In reality, neither of us subscribes to the superstition of hell.)

“Imagine the bureaucratic fuss that would be required for accounting for yourself at the Pearly Gates. It'd be like the East India Company. Documents in triplicate and so on. Surely they wouldn't just take your
word
for it! Especially a woman's word. They'd demand documentation, don't you think?”

“It's obvious, darling. The angels must be employed as clerks, scriveners, and bureaucrats.”

“I've always said you were a genius, Katherine, and this clinches it.”

“You're very perky today. What were you laughing about earlier?”

“Oh, it's this Prussian noblewoman whose memoir I'm reading. Knew every science and language under the sun—like Lizzy Boott, only more so; used to correspond with Descartes, was very handsome. But she had a
bête noire
. Her nose would get red, and she'd shut herself
up and see no one. Who among us does not have a red nose at the core of her being which defies all her philosophy?”

I am watching Katherine assemble the components of a lamp, admiring her hands, so familiar to me and so beautiful. Hands that can split wood, soothe runaway horses, do delicate needlepoint, or stroke my fevered brow. (I am rather partial to hands and believe they reveal character.) When she has the lamp up and running, I ask her if she would mind terribly reading to me from the newspapers. “I'd love to close my eyes and take in the world through your lovely voice.”

She picks up the
Standard
and scans the front page. “Well, the
Standard
this evening devotes the first paragraph of news to the thrilling fact that the infant daughter of the Duke of Portland was christened in Windsor Castle.”

“You don't say!”

“Yes, and only at the foot of the column is there a small mention of the ‘impressive gathering' in Hyde Park of the working-men on the eight hours question. The Rothschilds drew their blinds, they say.”

“Oh, Katherine, isn't it delicious that these starvelings should make millionaires tremble?”

Then she turns the page and is silent a moment.

“Here is something rather grim. Are you in the mood?” When I nod, she proceeds to read aloud an article about a Hampstead man on trial for subjecting his wretched wife to systematic cruelty.
He had continually threatened to kill her
, K. reads
, either by jumping on her, dashing out her brains, or by inserting a pin or needle behind her ear to penetrate her brain.

“But can the brain be penetrated so easily?”

“I don't know, but there is more.” She reads more of the man's dastardly acts, and suddenly bursts out laughing and can't stop. I am quickly doubled over as well.

“Why are we laughing?” I say. “It is terrible of us.”

“We must stop now. We really must.” She struggles to regain a serious mien and then, a minute later, glances at me and explodes in laughter again. “Oh dear! What if Emily comes home and finds us cackling like a couple of harpies?”

“Oh, she will be gone for some time. Her Sabbath-day dissipations last from eight-thirty in the morning till five in the afternoon. She visits her family somewhere in the middle of the day, I think.”

The article K is reading concludes with the monstrous husband being found guilty and fined ten shillings.

“This must go into my journal, Kath. It so perfectly illustrates man's inhumanity to woman. Does it say whether they are still living together after that?”

“It gives the impression they are. I suppose the poor woman has nowhere to go, and there are probably children.”

Thinking of this, our hilarity subsides instantly.

A quarter hour later, Katherine asks me, “Would you like another cup of tea, Alice? Shall I help you get dressed, or is this one of your Marie Antoinette days?” (Referring to that queen's habit of receiving callers in her boudoir.)

“No. I think I
shan't
get dressed today, Katherine. I would much prefer to help
you
get undressed.” I smile up at her and tug at her arm so she sits down abruptly next to me. “Nurse will be at her Guild all day, so while the cat's away . . .”

She flashes me a particular intimate smile I love. I begin by unbuttoning her blouse as she fumbles with the buttons of her skirt. So many layers to a woman! Normally, unbuttoning is a trial, but at these times it is a delicious game. I loosen her stays and kiss away the red marks pinched into her shoulders, and when her breasts tumble out I turn my attention to them. Then, she is kissing the inside of my wrist and slowly works her way up my arm and into the hollows of my throat, my eyes mist up with joy. And a great wind comes up and blows away the world and we return to our true selves.