human
Mr. Hibbs, was Reuben uncertain what time he would come home?
gpt
Yes--late, I think, Charity. There was something--a cutting for the stone to be precise, and the patient living somewhere near Cambridge. You know he goes with Mr. Welland on nearly all the visits now. On this occasion, I understand, he's to aid with the surgery, holding instruments I suppose, or whatever--the which maketh me ill only to contemplate it, but when I saw Ru this morning he was cool as you please, and quite unmoved, and cracked a joke or two that I'm sure Mr. Kenny was able to hear and enjoy. I dare say the doctor is right, that to visit the sick in all their trials will provide a learning not to be won from the best of books. Yet I wish it did not mean that he must neglect his other studies.
human
Perhaps he'll come back to them one day.
gpt
Ay--'tis absurd of me, but I feel in a manner cheated. There was so much more I had hoped to teach him--nay, I dare say any teacher is a fool, seeing only his small island of knowledge, forgetting how wide is the world beyond it. Can you stay the night, my dear?
human
Yes. Kate's most kind, allowing me to share her bed. I fear I'm a plague to her, I'm that restless, but she says not.
gpt
I believe there's another bed in the attic that we could bring down, if she wishes.
human
Ben's?
gpt
Oh, no! That hath remained in Reuben's room--their room, I'd rather say. I don't know that Reuben ever said anything of it, but--you can imagine no one of us would suggest taking it out.
human
Of course. I spoke something foolish. I do so often.
gpt
Not at all. It is--may I say this, Charity?--a blessing, that you do come to us here. In this house we are, all but Reuben--oh, how shall I say it?--old, dusty, something discouraged perhaps. There was so much of youth and gaiety, the which we took for granted when we had it, when Ben was here, the two of them alway in some harmless commotion or other--why, merely to hear them talk together was--was.... What are you sewing, Charity? Something for the--for what I believe fair young maids do call a bride chest?
human
I am no-way fair, Mr. Hibbs. And--honestly now, doth this appear to you like an item of female apparel?
gpt
Oh! Marry it don't, now you hold it up--you had it bunched under your hand so I couldn't see.
human
A nightshirt of Mr. Kenny's, and I only trust I may mend this hole so it won't chafe him. He wears them out in the back, you see, lying on them constantly, and--oh, the fidgeting that's all he's able to do. I pray you, Mr. Hibbs, would you sit the other side of the lamp? You're in peril of my elbow, besides shutting off the light.
gpt
Of course--clumsy of me.... How deftly your little hands do work at whatever they find, Charity!... _Te spectem, suprema mihi cum venerit hora...._
human
I sew very badly, Mr. Hibbs, and I have no Latin.
gpt
Forgive me. I think, though, you sew excellent well.
human
Ha!
gpt
I must tell Kate this one is nearly past mending, but if she'll make a pattern for me I believe I could follow it in my blundering fashion. He ought to have a change of them for every day. I know a place on Sudbury Street where they have better material than this, and cheap.
human
I recall some other lines from the same poem--_me mea paupertas vita traducat inerti, dum meus adsiduo luceat igne focus...._ 'Let the humble fortune that is proper to me lead me through a quiet way of life, if only my hearth may glow with an unfailing fire!' You'd suppose that the sentiment of an aging man, wouldn't you? And yet they tell that Tibullus, he died young.... Charity....
gpt
Yes, Mr. Hibbs?
human
Charity, having spent, I must admit, very nearly twenty years--beginning, let us say, with the year I commenced study at Harvard, the which was the thirteenth year of my life--having spent so much time, I say, in what would seem, to some, a most arid employment, namely the cultivation of the abstract, the exploration (tentative, limited by the frailty of mine own poor powers) of the borders of philosophy--having spent thus much time in--shall I call it, perhaps, a sanctuary of loneliness?--not altogether unrewarding, you understand; not without the consolation of the poets; not without an occasional satisfaction, like unto discovery, within the region of the inquiry: nevertheless, out of such loneliness--out of----
gpt
Sir----
human
Nay, forgive me, Charity, I'm most clumsy with words, and could never speak bold and plain what's in my mind, the which plain speaking I do much admire to discover in others, but let me essay it. Having spent, I say, almost twenty years, yes, almost a full score in the--I must call it the dust of scholarship, save the mark--one may then, suddenly as it were, look out as through the window of a study, let us say, and observe that outside this not altogether despicable refuge there is--oh, spring perhaps, as it is even now, my dear--and one may presume to hope that one hath not remained so long out of the world, nor grown so old, but that--but that----
gpt
Mr. Hibbs, I pray you----
human
Not so old but that perhaps one who is truly at the very brightest beginning of the springtime might find--might find in one's maturer years--oh, nothing like the call of youth to youth, my God! but--but.... You have not known how I--how since you began coming here in so much kindness--I think you have not known----
gpt
Mr. Hibbs, I must speak too, and I pray you say no more till I have done. The sentiments you express, the which--oh _bother_! There goes my thread again and I wasn't even pulling at it, they needn't to make it so miserable weak, do they? The sentiments--look, Mr. Hibbs: when we moved to Dorchester last autumn, I found there a place on the shore, just beyond reach of the high tides, a pretty place, a kind of--what was it you said?--a sanctuary of loneliness, at any rate I made it one. The rocks hide it from the house, from the land; 'tis like a room overlooking the open waters, where all the ships from the south must pass when they come in for the harbor, and I go there--oh, whenever I may. My mother thinks I'm looking for seashells or other such employment suited to children, and so I do bring in any pretty ones I find--and then throw them away secret-like, la, to make room for more--why, I'm a deceiving small beast, Mr. Hibbs, learned deception young, marry did I, I often wonder that anyone can put up with me. Well--even last winter, if it wasn't outright storming, I'd bundle up in my coat and go out there. The rocks break the wind. You can look a long way out.... I told Reuben about this. He understood--well, of course he did. One expects understanding from Reuben, I don't quite know why.
human
I am not certain that I myself understand you, Charity.
gpt
I must say more then?... But perhaps you will tell me, as my mother would, that at my years I can know nothing of love, and yet I do.... Sometimes I'll see a sail that looks from a distance like the _Artemis_. But I watch any sail that appears, because--because who can say what manner of ship it will be that brings him home?--and now you are weeping, but Mr. Hibbs, I never intended----
human
Nay, I--am not. The fireplace a'n't drawing properly--I'll push these logs further back.
gpt
I am a beast.
human
Hush!... I think he will come home, Charity--older, as you are, but what you saw in him will not be greatly changed.... But I may be your gray-headed counselor, and--friend?
gpt
Of course. You aren't gray.
human
Soon enough.
gpt
What is it, Mr. Hibbs--what _is_ it that doth compel one to--eh, as they say, to give away the whole heart to another? I would be better, I would be happier, I suppose, if I....
human
I could wish for mine own sake that I knew the answer to that. Why, Charity, it seems we love where we must and no help for it.
gpt
I remember I was not happy, very far from it, a year and more ago, when I was a silly child, had not even met him, indeed had none to love but--oh, poor Sultan. Clarissa of course, but it seems to me I never knew I loved her until I lost her, only took her for granted like sunlight until the day she was no longer there.
human
Sultan?
gpt
Don't you remember Sultan, Mr. Hibbs? Why, the child I was would never forgive your forgetting Sultan. He died, very fat and ancient, soon after we moved to Dorchester. It was the sea air, my mother said. I wept like a fountain. But I think it was some while before then that I had ceased to feel like a child.