After dinner,when at last all of them were in bed,we dressed the tree;it might better be said that Maude and Miss Allsop dressed it,while Igave a perfunctory aid.Both the women took such a joy in the process,vying with each other in getting effects,and as I watched them eagerly draping the tinsel and pinning on the glittering ornaments I wondered why it was that I was unable to find the same joy as they.Thus it had been every Christmas eve.I was always tired when I got home,and after dinner relaxation set in.
An electrician had come while we were at the table,and had fastened on the little electric bulbs which did duty as candles.
"Oh,"said Maude,as she stood off to survey the effect,"isn't it beautiful!Come,Miss Allsop,let's get the presents."They flew out of the room,and presently hurried back with their arms full of the usual parcels:parcels from Maude's family in Elkington,from my own relatives,from the Blackwoods and the Peterses,from Nancy.In the meantime I had had my own contributions brought up,the man of war,the locomotive,the big doll.Maude stood staring.
"Hugh,they'll be utterly ruined!"she exclaimed.
"The boys might as well have something instructive,"I replied,"and as for Biddy--nothing's too good for her.""I might have known you wouldn't forget them,although you are so busy."....
We filled the three stockings hung by the great fireplace.Then,with a last lingering look at the brightness of the tree,she stood in the doorway and turned the electric switch.
"Not before seven to-morrow morning,Miss Allsop,"she said."Hugh,you will get up,won't you?You mustn't miss seeing them.You can go back to bed again."I promised.
Evidently,this was Reality to Maude.And had it not been one of my dreams of marriage,this preparing for the children's Christmas,remembering the fierce desires of my own childhood?It struck me,after I had kissed her good night and retired to my dressing-room,that fierce desires burned within me still,but the objects towards which their flames leaped out differed.That was all.Had I remained a child,since my idea of pleasure was still that of youth?The craving far excitement,adventure,was still unslaked;the craving far freedom as keen as ever.
During the whole of my married life,I had been conscious of an inner protest against "settling down,"as Tom Peters had settled down.The smaller house from which we had moved,with its enforced propinquity,hard emphasized the bondage of marriage.Now I had two rooms to myself,in the undisputed possession of which I had taken a puerile delight.On one side of my dressing-room Archie Lammerton had provided a huge closet containing the latest devices for the keeping of a multitudinous wardrobe;there was a reading-lamp,and the easiest of easy-chairs,imported from England,while between the windows were shelves of Italian walnut which I had filled with the books I had bought while at Cambridge,and had never since opened.As I sank down in my chair that odd feeling of uneasiness,of transience and unreality,of unsatisfaction I had had ever since we had moved suddenly became intensified,and at the very moment when I had gained everything I had once believed a man could desire!I was successful,I was rich,my health had not failed,I had a wife who catered to my wishes,lovable children who gave no trouble and yet--there was still the void to be filled,the old void I had felt as a boy,the longing for something beyond me,I knew not what;there was the strange inability to taste any of these things,the need at every turn for excitement,for a stimulus.My marriage had been a disappointment,though I strove to conceal this from myself;a disappointment because it had not filled the requirements of my category--excitement and mystery:Ihad provided the setting and lacked the happiness.Another woman Nancy--might have given me the needed stimulation;and yet my thoughts did not dwell on Nancy that night,my longings were not directed towards her,but towards the vision of a calm,contented married happiness I had looked forward to in youth,--a vision suddenly presented once more by the sight of Maude's simple pleasure in dressing the Christmas tree.What restless,fiendish element in me prevented my enjoying that?I had something of the fearful feeling of a ghost in my own house and among my own family,of a spirit doomed to wander,unable to share in what should have been my own,in what would have saved me were I able to partake of it.Was it too late to make that effort?....Presently the strains of music pervaded my consciousness,the chimes of Trinity ringing out in the damp night the Christmas hymn,Adeste Fideles.It was midnight it was Christmas.How clear the notes rang through the wet air that came in at my window!Back into the dim centuries that music led me,into candle-lit Gothic chapels of monasteries on wind-swept heights above the firs,and cathedrals in mediaeval cities.Twilight ages of war and scourge and stress and storm--and faith."Oh,come,all ye Faithful!"What a strange thing,that faith whose flame so marvellously persisted,piercing the gloom;the Christmas myth,as I had heard someone once call it.Did it possess the power to save me?Save me from what?Ah,in this hour Iknew.In the darkness the Danger loomed up before me,vague yet terrible,and I trembled.Why was not this Thing ever present,to chasten and sober me?The Thing was myself.
Into my remembrance,by what suggestion I know not,came that March evening when I had gone to Holder Chapel at Harvard to listen to a preacher,a personality whose fame and influence had since spread throughout the land.Some dim fear had possessed me then.I recalled vividly the man,and the face of Hermann Krebs as I drew back from the doorway....
