Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1899-02-15

forever, yet never cause a mortal
wound-only an ininitude of pain.
But that of yesterday was the broad
blade that kills at one stroke.
And again, as it broadened and
deepened and faded, like a moonbeam,
away. "That of yesterday" he MUIR
INJURED, ''was remuneration; with its
battle, its victory, its sublime triumph,
its transient peace; today's is resigna-
tion-a submittance which has naught
of battle, Of victory, of triumph, but
only pain. Today's is the end, an end
that has no end"
But IS he lay there, hands clasped be-
hind his tired head, lips parted in a
smile-a smile unlike his, for it had
naught of scorn in it-there broke upon
the silence the opening bars of a little
prelude, dainty and sweet in itself, but
the n of its playing a veritable
triumph in ~mediocrity. 1t walled and
cried laboriously above the Poets head
and echoed about the window. 1t broke
into painful snatches and Indifferent
rhythm.
The Poet sprang to his feet with an
exclamation of Impotence. "To spoil
that with this!" he cried. ooh, how
can shel' He bit his lips wrathfully,
but he did not intend to have his dream
altogether spoiled and, his anger con-
quering his WEAKNESS, he raj lightly up
the narrow stair.
He burst into the room of the stranger
without preface or prelude, and began
in q high pitched, womanish voice,
"What in the world Then he
paused, for he found she was crying. A
little, middle aged woman, with a
wrinkled face and funny elin locks that
fell in a cloud about it. She was stand
ing in the middle of the room with her
music stretched out fatty on the table
and her violin and bow in her hands
standing, the tears running thickly
down her pale cheeks, without making
any attempt to wipe them away.
The Poet felt ever angrier than be-
fore. Women of that age had no right
to cry SO openly, he thought. 1t went
against all his theories. He was angry,
too, that he had imagined her to be
young.
"What an abominable row. he said
~savagely. "And what are you crying
about? But it is enough to make any
one cryl' He was not far from tears
himself with vexation.
She looked up at him wistfully--she
was but a little thing-and without
any apparent surprise at his presence
or abrupt entrance. "Ah! l should not
have played again" she sobbed. "after
after I had given it up"
"Then I had guessed aright!' cried
the Poet. yesterday it was renuncia-
tion and today resignation. But what
had you given up? What have you re
nounced? To what are you resigned?' p
II don't understand you, she said
uncomprehendingly. She laid her violin
on the table, hanging over it as a moth
er does over her child.
"When you played yesterday
"But I didn't play yesterday" she
cried. 81 wanted to-oh, SO badly. The
storm cried to me, the wind cried and
the sea cried, and I heard them all. l
took my violin in my hand, but I could
tell nothing of what l heard. Oh, how
unhappy I wasl Then-I drew the bow
backward and forward across the
strings, but without touching them,
and imagined it all. l caught the Sob
bling of the sea god on the end Of my
bow. I sent out the cry of the gulls''-
"And the spray of the seal' cried the
Poet.
"And the eddy and gathering Of the
foam
"And the mutter of the waves"
"And I thought of how I might have
played had not notwithstanding
been wanting. Oh, l cried to God to
give me the power to play as-as my
soul could play but for this thing-this
me that cannot"
"The cry for the unattainable," the
Poet whispered to himself, but she did
not hear or heed him.
81 made a resolution. She dried her
tears briefly at the recollection of it.
"God would not give me my desire, SO
I gave up my semblance of it, for l
wanted to keep my ideal. Then, when I
had quite made up my mind, how I
could have played them But it would
not come"
"The triumph" said the Poet. He
smiled imperceptibly to himself.
"But today it was all 81 dreary. 1t
was all over, and there was nothing
left. And after I had thought how it
was all over and my last note played I
thought I would again say goodby to
my fiddle. And / fetched it out and
played goodby, but without making a
sound. And I felt not a bit sorry, but
only a strange feeling here" She put
her hand on her heart. $50 l played a
real little bit to see if it would take it
away"
He did not speak. His dream had
come back to him. and his thoughts,
like white clouds, foated far, far away.
n1--1--.- = Y1sk