Hetty Hemenway - "Four Days"

Emile Zola - "La Bete Humaine"

Guy De Maupassant - "A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales"

Anonymous - "The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The Seventh Noon

F >> Frederick Orin Bartlett >> The Seventh Noon




"To yourself, Ben,--be better to yourself! Are you going to be that?"

"That is the way,--by being a man to you and to the others."

"The others?"

"The unseen others. You must get Donaldson to tell you about the
others."

She grasped his wrist with both her hands, looking up at him intently.
Where was the change? A photograph would not have shown all the
change. Yet it was there. Nor was this a temporal reformation based
upon cowardly remorse. It showed too calm, too big an impulse for
that. It was so sincere, so deep, that it did not need words to
express it.

"I believe you, Ben," she said, "I believe you with all my heart and
soul."

In the words he realized the divine that is in all women, the eagerness
that is Christ-like in its eternal hunger to seize upon the good in
man. He stooped again and with religious reverence kissed the white
space above her eyes.

"We 'll not talk about it much, shall we?" he said. "I want you to
believe only as I go on from day to day. I 've some big plans that I
thought up on the way home. Some day we 'll talk those over, but not
now. Donaldson is downstairs."

He saw the color sweep her face. It suggested to him something that he
had not yet suspected. It came to him like a new revelation of
sunlight.

He smiled. It was the smile of the father which she had so long
missed, the smile that always greeted her when his sad heart was
fullest of hope and gladness. It was so he used to smile when at
twilight he stood at her side, his long thin arm over her shoulder and
talked of Ben with a new hope born of his own victory.

"I was going to tell you," he said tenderly, "I was going to tell you
of what a big fine fellow this Donaldson is. But--perhaps you know."

She refused not to meet her brother's eyes.

"Yes, Ben," she said, "I know that."

He took her hand, seating himself on the arm of her chair, the other
arm resting affectionately across her shoulders. So the father had
sometimes sat.

"Is there more?" he asked softly.

"So," she answered, starting a little, "not as you mean. But tell me
about him--tell me all about him, Ben."

He felt her hand throb as he held it.

"It's just this; that I owe everything in the world to him. I owe my
life to him; I owe," his voice lowered, "I owe my soul to him. You
ought to have heard him talk. But it was n't talking, it wasn't
preaching. I don't know what it was, unless--unless it was praying.
Yet it was n't like that either. He got inside me and made me talk to
myself. It was the first time words ever meant anything to me--that
they ever got a hold on me. You 've talked, little sister, Lord knows
how often, and how deep from the heart, but somehow, dear, nothing of
it sank in below the brain. I understood as in a sort of dream.
Sometimes I even remembered it for a little, but that was all.

"But he was different, Elaine! If I forgot every word he spoke, the
meaning of it would still be left. I 'd still feel his hand upon my
shoulder, the hand that sank through my shoulder and got a grip on
something inside me. I 'd still feel his eyes burning into mine. I 'd
still see that street out the window and know what it meant. I 'd even
see the little old lady picking her way to the other side,--see the
blind beggar on the corner and the Others. Oh, the Others, Elaine!"

He had risen from beside her and pressed towards the window as though
once again he wished to taste the air that came down to him from the
star-country to sweeten the decaying soul of him.

"What was it, Elaine?" he demanded.

"You heard," she answered, "because every fibre of him is true. Tell
me more."

"He showed me the sun on the windows!" he ran on eagerly. "He showed
me the people passing on the streets! He showed me what I--even I--had
to do among them. Did you know that we are n't just ourselves--that we
're a part of a thousand other lives? Did you know that?"

"It takes a seer really to know that," she answered, "but it's true."

"That's it," he broke in. "He _knows_! He doesn't guess, he doesn't
reason, he _knows_!"

She was leaning forward, her head a little back, her eyes half-closed.
He saw the veins in her neck--the light purple penciling of them--as
they throbbed. He was held a moment by the sight. Then he laughed
gently.

"Little sister," he said, "you know him even better than I."

She started back.

He was surprised at the shy beauty he perceived. She had always seemed
to him such a sober body.

The nurse rapped at the door.

"It is bedtime," she announced,

"Yes, nurse," she answered quickly.

"He asked if he might come to say good night. He 's going to stay here
with me a day or so. Shall I bring him up?"

She hesitated a moment and then meeting her brother's eyes steadily,
answered,

"Yes, Ben."

When Donaldson came into the room she was shocked at the change in his
appearance. It was almost as though what Arsdale had gained Donaldson
had lost. He was colorless, wan, and haggard. His eyes seemed more
deeply imbedded in the dark recesses below his brows. Even his hair at
the temples looked grayer. But neither his voice nor his manner
betrayed the change. The grip of his hand was just as sure; there was
the same certainty in gesture and speech, save perhaps for some
abstraction.

"They tell me I may stay but a minute," he said, "but it is good to see
you even that long."

"You brought him back home," she cried. "But it has cost you heavy.
You look tired."

"I am not tired," he answered shortly. Then turning the talk away from
himself, as he was ever eager to do, he continued,

"I brought him home, but the burden is still on you."

"Not a burden any longer. You have removed the burden."

"I 'm afraid not. There still remains the fight to make him stay.
This is only a beginning."

His face grew worried.

"He will stay," she answered confidently, "he will stay because you
reached the father in him and the father was a fighter. I saw the
father in his eyes--I heard his father's voice. It is a miracle!"

"No. The miracle is how we men keep blind."

"I feel blind myself when I think how you see."

"I am no psychic," he exclaimed impatiently. "I see nothing that is
n't before me. You can't help seeing unless you close your eyes. The
world presses in upon you from every side. It is insistent. Even now
the stars outside there are demanding recognition."

He drew back the crimson curtains draping the big French windows, which
opened upon a balcony. The silver stiletto rays darted a greeting to
him. He swung open the windows.

"Come out with me and see my friends," he said.

She rose instantly and followed him.

He stood there a moment in silence, his head back as he seemed to lead
her into the limitless fragrant purple above. She caught his profile
and saw him like some prophet. It was as though a people were at his
back and he trying to pierce the road ahead for them. The thin face
and erect head seemed to dominate the night. He looked down at her, a
sad smile about his mouth.

"Out here," he said, "out here with a million miles over our heads we
are freer."

In her eyes he saw now just what he saw in the stars, the same freedom
of unpathed universes. He saw the same limitlessness. Here there were
no boundaries. A man could go on forever and forever in those eyes--in
their marvelous unfolding. More! More! He would go beyond the
cognate universe, straight into the golden heart of universes beyond.
Eternity was written there. The beacon of her eyes flamed a path that
reached beyond the stars!

She seemed like nothing but a trusting child. So, she was one with the
great poets. So, she was a great poem. He listened to the same music
which had moved Isaiah.

"The stars,--they seem to be dancing!" she exclaimed.

It was to the music of the spheres they were dancing.

"You!" he commanded, "you must get away from this house. You must take
Ben and get away from here. You must go into a new country. You must
begin your life anew and forget all this, forget everything."

He paused.

"Everything," he repeated. "They tell us that the road is straight and
narrow. It's narrow, but it is n't straight. It's crooked and it's
winding and it goes through brake and brush. It's a hard road to find
and a hard road to keep, even with the polestar over our heads. Maybe,
if we were a little above earth--maybe for those who are winged--the
road is straight, but we are n't all winged. Some of us have n't even
sturdy legs and have to creep. Some of us find our legs only after we
are helplessly lost. For down below there is a terrible tangle with
things to be gone around, with things to beat down, and always the
tangle above our heads. So what wonder that we get lost? What wonder?"

"But I am not lost--you are not lost!"

"I! I do not matter," he answered slowly. "You must n't let me
matter. I come into your life and I go out of your life and I pray
that I have done no harm."

His words to her were like words caught in a wind. She heard snatches
of them, but she was unable to piece them together.

"In your new life you must forget even me. We have met in the brush
and gone on a little way together. We have helped each other in
finding each his true road again. Whether the paths will meet
again--whether the paths will meet again--" he repeated as though deep
in some new and grander reflection, "why, God knows. If we go on
forever, perhaps they will in an aeon or two."

He paused to give her an opportunity to say something which he might
use as a subject for proceeding farther. His thoughts did n't go very
far along any one line. Always he seemed checked by a wall of
darkness. But she said nothing. The silence lengthened into a minute.

"Do you understand?" he asked gently.

"No," she answered frankly.

"Then--then perhaps we had better go in," he said, fearing for himself.

He led the way through the swinging windows and closed them behind him.
In the light he saw that she was shivering.

"I 'm afraid I kept you out there too long," he said anxiously. He
reached her shawl and placed it about her shoulders. His throat ached.

"I haven't hurt you?"

"I think you have hurt yourself, somehow."

She raised her head a little.

Marie was calling.

"Good night," he said quickly.

"Good night."




CHAPTER XX

_A Long Night_

Donaldson retired to his room, and without undressing threw up his
window and stared at the hedge and the dark that lay beyond. Then he
tried to work out some solution to the problem which confronted him.
There was no use for him to try to blind himself to the fact that he
loved this girl--that was but to shirk the question. She stood out as
the supreme passion of his life and forced upon him a future that had a
meaning beyond anything of which he had ever dreamed. She quickened in
him new hopes, new aspirations, new ambitions. She made him see the
triviality of all that he had most hoped to enjoy during this week; she
opened his eyes to all that he had tried to make Arsdale see. With her
by his side every day would be like that first afternoon; every hour
thrilling with opportunities. The barren future which he had so
feared, even though it offered no greater opportunities than had always
lain before him, would tingle with possibilities. Wait? He could wait
an eternity with her by his side and every waiting minute would be a
golden minute. He could go back to that little office now and find a
thousand things to do. He could hew out a career that would honor her.
He saw numberless chances for reform work into which he could throw
himself, heart and soul, while waiting. But there would be no waiting;
life would begin from the first hour. What more did he need than her?
He shuddered back from his luxurious room at the hotel as from
something cheap.

A loaf of bread without even so much as a jug of wine would be paradise
enow. Just the opportunity to live and breathe and have his being in
this big pregnant universe was all he craved. He needed nothing else.
So the universe would be his.

He dared not try to read her thoughts. He had no right to do this. It
did n't matter. Her love was not essential. If he deserved it, that
would come. It was enough that she had given him back his dreams, that
she had taken him back to those fragrant days when his uncrusted soul
had known without knowing. It was enough that the sweetness of her had
become an inseparable part of him for evermore. She was his now, even
though he should never again lay eyes upon her. The only relief he had
was in the thought that she had accomplished this without committing
herself. At least he did not have the burden of her tender love upon
his soul further to complicate matters.

So much he admitted frankly; so much was fact. The problem which now
confronted him was how he could best escape from involving her at all
in the inevitable climax--how he could make his escape without
destroying in her the ideals with which she had surrounded him and
which she had a right to keep. He owed this to her, to Arsdale, and to
the world of men.

A dozen times he was upon the point of pushing out into the dark. If
he had followed his own impulse he would have taken some broad road and
footed it hour after hour, through the night, through the next day,
through the next night, and so till the end overtook him, striking him
down in his tracks. He would get as far away as possible, keeping out
under the broad expanse of the sky above. He could find rest only by
taking a course straight on over the hills, turning aside for nothing,
tearing a path through the tangle.

But he still had his work to do. He must lend his strength to the boy
so long as any strength was left. He must pound into him again and
again the realization of life which he himself had been tempted to
shirk. He must make him see,--must make him know. In recalling that
scene in the room by the window, in recalling his own words to Arsdale,
he felt strangely enough the force of his own thoughts entering into
himself with new life. He listened as it were to himself. Even for
him there were the Others. Down to the last arrow-sped minute there
would still be the Others. Who knew what remained for him to
do--charged with what influence might be even the manner in which he
drew his last breath? If he stood up to it sturdily, if he faced death
with his head high, his shoulders back, even though he might be
cornered in his room like a rat in its hole, so the message might be
wired silently into the heart of some poor devil struggling hard
against his death throes and lend him courage.

At the end of two hours he undressed and tumbled upon the bed.

His room was next to Arsdale's room and during the night the latter
came in.

"I 've had bad dreams about you," the boy exclaimed. "Is anything the
matter?"

"I 'm not sleeping very well," Donaldson answered.

"You haven't a fever or anything?"

"No. Just restless."

"I have n't slept very well myself. I 've been doing so much thinking.
That keeps a fellow awake."

"Yes--thinking does. You 'd better let your brain close up shop and
get some rest."

"I can't. I 've been chewing over what you said, and the more I think
of it, the more I see that you have the right idea. The secret of
keeping happy is to fight for others. It's the only thing that will
make a man put up a good fight, isn't it?"

"The only thing," answered Donaldson.

"I don't understand why I did n't realize that before--with Elaine
here. You 'd think she would make a man realize that."

Donaldson did not answer.

"I think one reason is," continued the boy, "that until now, until
lately, she's been so nervy herself that she did n't seem to need any
one. She 's been stronger than I. But last night she looked like a
little girl. And now, I'd like to die fighting for her."

Donaldson found the boy's hand.

"Never lose that spirit," he said earnestly. "But remember, she 's
worth more than dying for, she 's worth living for."

"That's so. You put things right every time. She is worth living for.
You are n't much good to people after you 're dead, are you?"

"Not as far as we know."

The boy hesitated a moment, a bit confused, and then blurted out,

"I 'm going to take up some sort of work. Perhaps you can help me get
after something. We have loads of money, you know. I don't think much
of giving it out as cash,--the charity idea. I 've a hunch that I 'd
like to study law and then give my services free to the poor devils who
need a man to look after their interests. They are darned small
interests to men who are only after their fee, but they are big to the
poor devils themselves. And generally they get done. Do you think I
have it in me to study law?"

"You have it in you to study law with that idea back of you. You 'd
make a great lawyer with that idea."

"Do you think so?" asked the boy eagerly.

"I know it."

"Then perhaps--perhaps--say, would you be willing to take me in with
you?"

Donaldson moved uneasily.

"It sounds sort of kiddish, but I know that I 'd do better alongside of
you. I 'd help you around the office. I 'd feel better, just to see
you. Anyway, would you be willing to try me for a while until I sort
of get my bearings?"

"I like the idea," answered Donaldson. "Let 's talk it over later.
You see there's a chance that I may give up law."

"Give it up?"

"I may have to leave this part of the country--for good."

"Why, man," burst out Arsdale, "you wouldn't leave Elaine?"

The silence grew ominous. The fighting spirit rose in Arsdale at the
suggestion.

"You would n't leave Elaine?" he demanded again, turning towards the
form on the bed which looked strangely huddled up.

"I must leave her with you," answered Donaldson unsteadily. The boy
scarcely recognized the voice, but it roused him to a danger which he
felt without understanding.

"Why, man dear," he exclaimed, "what would I count to Elaine with you
gone? Don't you know? Have n't you seen?"

They were the identical words Donaldson had used in trying to open
Arsdale's eyes to another great truth. And Donaldson knew that if they
cut half as deep into the boy as they now cut into him they had left
their mark. He found no answer. He listened with his breath coming as
heavily as the boy's breath had come when they had stood before the
open window.

Arsdale faltered for words.

"Why--why Elaine loves you!" he blurted out.

"Don't!"

So, too, the boy had exclaimed.

"Don't you know? I thought you knew everything, Donaldson! I don't
see how you help seeing that. But I suppose it's because you 're so
thoughtful of others that you can't see your own joys. But it's true,
Donaldson. I don't suppose I ought to tell you about it, but man, man,
she loves you! Give me your hand, Donaldson."

He found it in the dark, hot and dry.

"I want to tell you how glad I am. I suppose I must be a sort of
father to her now, and I tell you that I would n't give her to another
man in the world but you. You 're the only one worthy of her."

He pressed the big hand.

"You 're the one man who can make her happy," he ran on. "You can give
her some of the things she 's been cheated out of. Why, when I was
talking to her last night, her face looked like an angel's as I spoke
of you. It is you who makes it easier for her to forget all the
past--even--even the blow. I knew what it was when I came home--that
you 'd done even that for me--though she couldn't see it. You 've
blotted out of her mind every dark day in her life!"

"That is something, is n't it?" asked Donaldson almost pleadingly.

"Something? Something? It's everything. Don't you see now that you
can't go away?"

"I see," he answered.

"Well, then, give me your hand again. Sort of trembly, eh? But I 'll
bet you sleep better the rest of the night. And don't you on your life
let her know I told you. She 's proud as the devil. But she would
have done the same for me. They say love is blind," he laughed
excitedly, "but, Holy Smoke, this is the worst case of it I ever saw!"

Donaldson lay passive.

"Now," concluded Arsdale, "I 'll go back and see if I can sleep. Good
night."

Donaldson again lay flat on his back after Arsdale had gone. So he
lay, not sleeping, merely enduring, until, almost imperceptibly at
first, the dark about him began to dissolve. Then he rose, partly
dressed, and sitting by the open window watched the East as the dawn
stole in upon the sleeping city. It came to the attack upon the grim
alleys, the shadows around buildings, the stealthy figures, like a
royal host. A few gray outriders reconnoitred over the horizon line
and sent scurrying to their hovels those who looked up at them from
shifty eyes. Then came a vanguard in brighter colors with crimson
penants who attacked the fields and broad thoroughfares; then the
King's Own in scarlet jackets and wide sweeping banners, bronze tinted,
who charged the smaller streets and factory roofs, and finally the
brave array of all the dazzling host itself, who hurled their golden,
sun-tipped lances into every nook and cranny, awaking to life all save
those whose souls were dark within.

In watching it Donaldson found the first relief in the long night. His
own mind cleared with the dawn. The day broke so clean and fresh, so
bathed in morning dew, that once again his mind, grown perhaps less
active, clung in some last spasm to the present as when he had sat with
Elaine at breakfast, part of the little Dutch picture. Without
reasoning into the to-morrow, he felt as though this day belonged to
him. As the sun rose higher and stronger, enveloping the world in its
catholic rays, the night seemed only an evil dream. He was both
stronger and weaker. He was swept on, unresisting, by the high flood
of the new day. This world now before his eyes acknowledged nothing of
his agony but came mother-like to ease his fretting. She would have
nothing of the heavy tossings inspired by her sinister sister, the
Night. She was all for clean glad spirits, all for new hopes. So he
who had first frowned at it, who had then watched passively, now rose
to its call.

He was entitled to this day, sang the tempter sun,--one big day out of
all his life. The crisis would be no more acute upon the morrow and he
might be stronger to meet it. This day was his and hers, and even the
boy's. To accept it would be to shirk nothing; it would be only to
postpone--to weave into the sombre grave vestments be was making for
himself one golden thread. Arsdale's talk had removed the last vestige
of hope. The worst had happened. Surely one gay interlude could add
no burden. A day was always a day, and joys once lived could never be
lost. Always in her life and in his this would remain, and since he
had shouldered the other days as they had come to him, it seemed no
more than right that he should take this. Not to do so would be but
sorry self-imposed martyrdom.

Arsdale came in, still in his bathrobe, with brisk step and his face
a-beaming.

"Well," he demanded, "how do you feel now?"

"Better," answered Donaldson, unhesitatingly.

"Better! You ought to feel great! Look at the sun out there! Smell
that air! Have you had your tub?"

"Not yet," smiled Donaldson.

Arsdale led the way to the shower, and a few minutes later Donaldson
felt his akin tingle to new life beneath the cold spray.




CHAPTER XXI

_Facing the Sun_

When he came down-stairs he found her dressed in white and looking like
a nun. Her hair was brushed back from her forehead and the
silk-figured Japanese shawl was over her shoulders. He recalled the
shawl and with it the picture she had made that first night.

At the door he called her name and she looked up quickly, swiftly
scanning his face. He crossed to her side.

"You should n't stay in here," he said. "Come outdoors a moment before
breakfast. It's bright and warm out there."

She arose, and they went out together to the lawn. Each blade of grass
was wearing its morning jewels. The sun petted them and bestowed
opals, amethysts, and rubies upon them. The hedge was as fresh as if
newly created; the neighboring houses appeared as though a Dutch
housewife had washed them down and sanded them; the sky was a perfect
jewel cut by the Master hand. The peeping and chattering of the
swallows was music, while a robin or two added a longer note to the
sharp staccatos.

They stood in the deep porch looking out at it, while the sun showered
them with warmth.

"You 've seen Ben?" he asked.

"Yes," she answered, turning her face up to his with momentary
brightness. "Yes. And he was like this out here! The change is
wonderful! It is as though he had risen from the dead!"

Donaldson lifted his head toward the stark blue of the sky.

"The dead? There are no dead," he exclaimed passionately. "Even those
we bury are ever ready to open their silent lips to us if only we give
them life again. We owe it to them to do that, through our own lives
to continue as best we can their lives here on earth. But we can't do
that as long as we have them dead, can we? And that is true of dead
hopes, of dead loves. We have to face the sun with all those things
and through it breathe into them a new spirit. Do you see, Miss
Arsdale?"

Copyright (c) 2007. topboookz.com. All rights reserved.