“Yes, I’ll go away now. I’ll leave you alone. I know how tired you are. You have to rest for a while, and then I’ll come back later.” I murmur to her in a hurried, frightened tone of reassurance, my hands fluttering about her collar, her hair, her brow, half comforting, half beseeching, in little terrified caresses. “You’ll feel much better after you’ve rested. We’ll talk about it then.”
After a moment she stops the restless swinging of her head and clutches her elbows, pressing her arms against her waist and shuddering silently. I stand stroking her head fearfully, bending down to touch her forehead with my lips. “Lilith, do you hear me? Will you lie down for a little while and rest? I want you to rest.”
“What?”
“I’m going to leave you for a little while. I want you to lie down.”
“Yes, please. But you’ll come back? Do you promise to come back?”
“Yes, I’ll come back. And I’ll bring you something. Some flowers, perhaps. Would you like that?”
“Yes. A flower from that lovely field. A yellow one. Not a rose.”
“All right. And you mustn’t think about anything while I’m gone. Just lie down and rest. And then I’ll come and bring you your flower. Do you promise?”
“Yes, I will.” She lifts her head to me in a weary childish way as I leave the room. “There are some there that we crushed with our bodies; not those. You mustn’t bring any of those.”
“No, I know.”
“And you will come back, won’t you? Because I’m very frightened.”
“Yes, Lilith.”
I close the door and stand with my hand on the knob, staring down the hall. Its vast Arctic bleakness is broken by the sight of Miss Donohue, coming toward me in a white, frozen uniform which shrieks faintly with the sound of splitting frost as she approaches. At my appearance her look of casual greeting changes to one of professional acuteness; she pauses inquiringly before me, asking, “Is anything the matter?”
So habitual has my reflex of deception become that I do not require the pause of even an instant before my calm, succinct reply: “She’s pretty upset. She saw them taking Warren out of Field House this morning in the ambulance.”
“Oh, Lord; wouldn’t you know it. I was afraid she might; she’s up at all hours.”
“Yes. I guess it gave her quite a shock. But she seems better now. I made her promise to lie down for a while.”
“I’ll have Dr. Lavrier come up; he may want to give her a sedative.”
“Yes. You’d better check in on her from time to time. I’d stay myself, but I’ve got an O. T. meeting.”
“I’ll look in, in a minute. Thanks, Vincent.”
“That’s all right.”
I go on slowly down the corridor, staring across the wastes which stretch out endlessly from Lilith’s door.
In the late afternoon I went into the meadow behind the O. T. dormitories and picked a handful of primroses for her, bunching them together in my hand and twisting a strip of vine around their stems to form a little bouquet as I carried them to her room. I found her much calmer. She had drawn the curtains across her window and lay on her bed in the dark, staring up into the dusk of the room.
“Vincent?” she asked as I entered.
“Yes. Were you asleep?”
“No. I was only thinking—remembering. I was afraid you wouldn’t come. I’ve been waiting such a long time.” She took the flowers from me with a murmur of pleasure as I approached her bed, cradling them in her hand and holding them lightly to her nostrils. “Ah, you remembered. Thank you, Vincent. Are they yellow? I can’t see them, quite.”
“Yes. They’re primroses.”
“Primroses, from our field. How sweet of you. Witnesses of our joy. And, you see, they’re not blemished: so fresh and bright. Aren’t they, Vincent? I know they are.”
“Do you want me to open the curtains? You can see them better.”
“Oh, no; the sun is too bright. It seems to scald my eyes. What makes the sun so bright today?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes it’s like that in the early fall.”
“In the fall? But it isn’t fall yet; it can’t be fall already. Oh, then you’ll be going back to school!”
“I’m not going to school.”
“You’re not going to school?”
“No. I’m going to stay here with you. All winter. Always.”
“Will you? Do you promise?”
“Yes.”
“And bring me flowers? All winter? Where will you get them?”
“I’ll find them. In our field, perhaps.”
“Yes, I think they’ll bloom all winter there. Even in the snow. Because we’ve warmed the earth forever with our love. Haven’t we? We’re the ones who keep it warm, not that horrid sun.”
She lay quietly, brushing her lips and nostrils with the bouquet, while I bent above her, stroking her hair.
“What were you remembering?”
“Oh, all sorts of things I haven’t remembered for years. A teacup falling on the floor in the sunroom because of something I said, and everyone staring; Cousin Priscilla’s kimono, with those gold dragons embroidered on it, all wound around her breasts, as if they were suckling her; the sound that tires make on gravel, very late at night, underneath the rose arbor; and the pier at the bay, with dried fish scales stuck to it, and all the initials cut into those old pale boards—all those summer loves. Terrible things. Why do I have to remember such terrible things?” She pressed her face against my forearm with a gentle, fearful movement, staring into the darkness. “I try not to think about them, because they frighten me; but they keep coming back. They’re beautiful but frightening, like knives wrapped in silk—lovely, soft, scented silk, with knives inside. What must I do to keep from remembering them?”
“You can work—do some painting, or play your flute, or compose.”
“Yes, I must do that, mustn’t I? I must work very hard on my language. There are so many words I have to put into my vocabulary. What do you call it when someone is afraid of beautiful things—of light? Luxophobia? No, there isn’t any word for that in English, is there? I should think there would be. There are so many things I haven’t found a word for yet.” She turned to look up at me and stretched out her hand to lay it lightly on my face. “And, Vincent, I don’t want to make you angry. I don’t want you to be miserable and say terrible, angry things to me again—so when Warren is better I’ll give the box back to him and won’t see him any more. Will that make you happy?”
“Yes.” I laid my finger tips lightly across her eyelids. “Don’t talk any more now. Go to sleep.”
“I’ll see him just once more—to give the box to him—and then we won’t need to talk about it any more. I won’t ask you to take us walking again. He’ll be better soon, won’t he?”
“Yes, I think so. We’ll talk about it later.”
“In the morning? Will you come back in the morning?”
“Yes. Go to sleep now, and I’ll come back in the morning.”
I walk quickly, still full of the cold fear in which I have awakened, under the avenue of poplars toward the main building. I must stop to see Lilith for a moment before I attend the morning O. T. meeting. The shrill, ugly anxiety which animates me is controlled by my attention to the silver trails of slugs upon the pavement. The morning shift is changing and the elevator is busy; I walk up the emergency stairs, oppressed by the chill reverberation of my heels in the tiled shaft. I unlock the metal door of the stairwell and walk quickly down the morning-quiet corridor to Lilith’s room. I knock at her door twice in my usual pattern, standing with tightly clasped hands in sudden desperate impatience. Will she never reply?
I knock again, more loudly. Silence. Can she still be sleeping? Nonsense; she is up every morning at dawn. There is something the matter. I turn the handle, push the door inward and stand peering about the sunny room. She is not here! A lattice of triangulated shadow lies across her desk, which has an appearance of disarray. A bottle of scarlet dye has been overturned, spilling across the pages of her open Gospel and making a ghastly stain upon them. A sheet of gold leaf has fallen to the floor and stirs with a tinsel whisper in the draft. The horse skull lies beside her loom, broken into many chalky fragments. The red rosette is ripped apart, its crumpled satin ribbons tangled about a chair. Raising my head, I see that the motto on the wall above her bed has been defaced, the great letters blacked out with fierce strokes of charcoal. How silent it is—how desolate! “Lilith,” I say softly. (Perhaps she is hiding under her bed.) There is no answer. After a moment I turn and leave the room, walking down the hall with frantic haste. In the floor office Miss Donohue is filing the night attendants’ reports. I stare at her somewhat wildly as she turns toward me with a look of consternation.
“You look awful,” she says. “What’s the matter, Vincent?”
“Lilith,” I demand. “Where is Lilith?”
“She’s gone, Vincent.”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s on Fourth. She went all to pieces last night. They’ve just taken her up.”
“She’s on Fourth Floor?”
“Yes. Completely out of contact, I guess—from the report. I didn’t see her; they took her up just before my shift.”
I stare bleakly, plucking at the buttons of my jacket.
“Do you think I could see her?”
“I don’t know. She’s probably still in isolation, but it’s worth a try. Why don’t you go up?”
“Yes. I will. Thank you.”
I take the elevator up two floors, standing very still and erect in a formal, almost military attitude of sufferance, as if awaiting inspection. When I open the door the squalor of the fourth floor assaults me in a wave of noisy, odorous babel. I move down the corridor among the stealthy, stupefied, hilarious or mimicking women, each of them a derelict parody of Lilith’s careless, wanton loveliness. For the first time I feel revulsion toward them.
When I enter the floor office Miss Jackson nods at me briefly; she is a very businesslike, rather distant nurse.
“I hear they brought Lilith Arthur up last night,” I say.
“Yes. She’s in isolation.”
“How is she?”
“She’s quieted down some, but she’s still way out of contact. I think she’s pretty bad.”
“Could I try to talk to her for a while?”
“If you like. You’ve had a good bit of success with her, haven’t you?”
“I get along with her pretty well, yes.”
“Well, go on back if you like. Brewster’s on duty back there; he’ll let you in.”
“All right.”
I go down the hall to the two isolation rooms at the end. An attendant stands outside them, peering occasionally at their inmates’ through the tiny slotted window at the top of each metal door. He smiles and says hello to me. I hear my voice asking with determined casualness, “Which one is Miss Arthur in?”
“Number Two. Are you going in?”
“Yes. I’m going to try and have a chat with her.”
“Okay. I hope you enjoy it.” He grins and, after peering through the window for a moment, unlocks the door cautiously, blocking the exit with his body as I enter. The walls and floor of the room are padded with canvas and there is only a single small, barred window, set high in the outer wall. Lilith stands staring up at it, her hair burnished darkly by the narrow ray of light it casts down through the dimness of the cell. She turns quickly as I enter and backs away from me into a corner, her eyes terrified.
“Oh, no!” she says in a soft stark voice. “You mustn’t come in here with those hands. How horrible to have dead hands! You must take those hands off before you come in here!” She stands divided from me by the sloping plane of light, her shoulders pressed against the canvas padding, her hands lifted and held against her mouth.
“Lilith,” I whisper, “I’m Vincent. Don’t you know me?”
“Oh, no, don’t! Don’t come near me, please! You mustn’t touch me.
“I’m Vincent, Lilith,” I repeat desperately, imploringly.
She stares in confusion. “Vincent?”
“Yes. You know me. You love me. You’re not afraid of me.”
“But then why do you have those hands? Those are his hands. I know they are. I saw him clutch that rose with one of them, when he was dying. So tightly. Crushing it into a little ball. As if it might be the thing he wanted. There was something he wanted to hold, all his life. But then his fingers shivered and he let it go; and all the broken petals blew away out of his hand. They were exactly the color of fire.”
“Lilith, look at me,” I say, moving toward her and holding my hands up into the ray of light that falls from the high barred window. “I’m Vincent. These are my hands. I held the lance for you with them. Don’t you remember the tournament?”