THREE White Sky

FANNY DIRK Luve stood on the Bridge where she could see the river up and down.

—I know what I am going to do. I know. Not die. Not going to see—What can I—? Since she knew, “Why! Why!” she said aloud.

She searched the world trying to find the anguish—I am not going to die!... of what she was to do.—Why not? But she knew that.... Not die. Not see her child.... She saw the river.

The river came to her from trees. The city, a raised shadow near her eyes, pulled her eyelids down away from there beyond, where she lay once on her back. She lies on her back. Under: grass, roots thrusting in erection, spilling in bud. Over: he.... From these trees came the river ... from this past ... flowing like the dimension that was time upon her standing on the Bridge. Time and the river were one. It swept upon her from the past of trees, past of sweet love, thrust against her, surging resistless; it was going to overwhelm her. Where? Time and the river flung in a stroke eternally sure against her standing dry in anguish—love an edged steel—on the Bridge. She turned. It turned her. Time and the river sweeping from rootage and trees struck her now in the back. She saw where it flowed.

It flowed into flat land. A rugose strewing of rust and yard and factory was the flat land. The city in the heights fell down from its proud mansions—through dawdling soiled cottages, through clustered shanties—fell to the flat land of rust and coal. Slow brackish river here, turmoiled ... full. It swirled in oil, it recoiled from the harsh thrusts of the makings of men—of junkyards. River and time stole through this newness of noise and filth away, in a filmy scarf of smoke-bitten locusts, beyond the eyes of Fanny. She felt in her back the subtle thrust of a beginning world of high-banked trees free in the air: how it fell, grew, now hurling through noise, dirt, misery—making, struggle to make!—to beyond her eyes that lay so wistfully against the dying locusts, unable to fall farther.

And at her side the city fell along. From its secluded shadow—warmed mansions fell with her along into a rising clatter of smoke, a foam of steel, huddling men moving.... Mist.

Black-purple mist ... red rust ... the shriek of wheels crunching resistless against and upon steel lines thrust resistless also.

Fanny left the Bridge....

* * *

In one hand of Fanny was a valise. Her other hand was a fist.

Her mouth asking for a ticket shut fast. Her hand counting change shut fast. She sat in a train, shut.

The moving train worked at her, stole up in her, swayed, shook, pried her open. Her feet in the opening rhythm of the train. Her legs. Her loins. Warm loins. Breasts, not so frozen, melting. Her head, erect on her frozen breast, now plunged in their melting. She sat in a train, open.... She lay in a hot bath of her melted pain and life, flowing within it, open.

She had no sense of a world of objects—fragments to beat against her. She was all melted hot. She had a sense of the whole world ... whole worlds ... all ... falling. The train fell sure, it was sure of itself in its fall. It fell with the world it held so sure, so steadfast; it was a blessing so. She had the sense of the whole world falling in a stark cadence upward upon God. Tears, battle ecstacy of loss ... a falling somehow upward upon God.

Her hands gripped the plush arms, shrill sharp against the quick of her nails. The world was her world again, and was a delirious tangle of broken objects hurling against her eyes. She was bruised and aghast in the rain of broken objects of her world. But that which she had sensed in the melt of worlds remained. All fell upward ... let her pray!—can I dare?... fell upward upon God.

—I am falling away. Grappling, crying, she saw at last how real was this falling away from the whole warm world of her sorrows and joys and wants.—Edith, Harry; myself, O Edith my heart! It is true. Can I fall upward? ...

The fast train seemed to be running over her life. It ran over an earth full of flying fragments. Over houses, fence snapping, cows dipped sudden into trees, pool flaring skyward, cloud-full, caught in the porch of a house, road ribboning a tobacco-field, shaken straight, road stiff like a rod flashing away beneath her.—This is Virginia, this is I. The fast train running over her life smoothed it clear....

She could have remained and fought him for her child, she could not. She could have remained and won him ... repulsive ... she could not. She moved upon a track that was there she sensed before her moving upon it. But Edith! What sort of a life is this, moving away from Edith? The pain of her deprival was a thousand pains, gray: a thousand gray birds circling her in mist.—I am suffering, suffering. Can I stand this? The mists cleared. She saw her Pain clear ... one Pain ... one moment. Pain. She saw that it was not a thousand pains, weeping in gray wings mistily about her. She saw that it was Life.

Life solid and salient.

—What is this terror? What have I to do with this terror?

You are within it!

... Like this Virginia, an unbroken sweep, broken alone by the unwonted stress of the dimension of moving. One can face solid. One has two eyes and a mind for facing solid.... She loved her daughter.—I love you, love you! More things she loved. Not Harry perhaps, O yes ... the warm dreams she had born in Harry. The house around Edith. Clean beds, linen her own, the kitchen where she came each day and the apron she tied about her hips and the hips too she loved which arms must circle she was sure of. Edith’s. Home, daughter, man ... why were they all destroyed?

It was true. Bleeding to death? Bleeding to birth? She did not know. But flowing.

“God, let me think!” The words came aloud.—God, let me think! now silent....—Edith? Yes, Edith was flowing alive. But Edith was not herself, not her blood flowing. Edith’s blood flowing. Let it flow for Edith.

Fanny sat shaken in a mother’s storm. Help for her child. Could her child flow first alone? Where was the mother to help her? Father? Fanny sat trembling. She saw him, as he oldens in the cant moulds of his ideals. Harry, pious, weak, stale ... leading the life of her child. What did she have of her father?—If she is like her father let her rot! But now would she not surely be like him? She alone could save her child from that. She alone could, who could not. ... The train ran.... Fanny saw the Town, it would be the world of her child growing, of her child learning to live in the world. World of such women! Edith’s blue eyes, open beneath the dimpled softness of her brows, behold a world of such women ... the only world! Stiff brittle creatures, floating upon the viscid surface of a stream they have no weight to pierce. And their Laws: “Have no weight, have no thrust that might pierce the viscid surface of our stream.” World of such men! Liars, builders of lies, men taught to pray to Christ and to cheat their fellows, to cheat their women and wear them ... trim them then wear them ... taught to ignore half of the aching world that was black.—Let me go back to Edith! O let me go back!... The train ran smooth.—You may not.

Fanny faced the dead of her heart. She felt the world of her child clear, how it stank, how it swarmed like an evil stinking weed sucking the soil of God. She saw the blue eyes of her girl. They stood upon a body, white and clear like a flower: and all about, the Weed, swarming and purulent with its harsh roots sucking soil, with its hot leaves stealing sun.—What can I do? She faced she could do nothing. Yet reasonably something. Fight ... pursuade. There was reason with the cry of her mangled heart that there was much she could do. Turn back. The train, racing, swept her eyes upon a world lying folded in myriad skies, a world solid, a world one with space and stars ... space solid joined her to the stars as her white body joined her eyes to her limbs. One. And Edith within it, flowing her way. Ruthlessly hers....—Let her blood flow for her.

Fanny facing the dead of her heart faced the life of failure. She knew at last she could live.

The train swam into a strewing of neat flat houses, cut across asphalt. A marble Dome in sun rose above smoke of roofs. Washington!... Leon’s home.—I must change here. Every hour New York trains every ... get there by day, though.

Fanny walked through a city incredibly neat.—Very fine. Government world. Fine and dead. It has not started to grow, it has not started to be. It is easy and fine, like a nonexistence.

Her feet were heavy as if she were walking in space.

“When, God,” she said aloud, “do I begin to think?”

* * *

She stood halted by a building. She knew which building it was.—— He is inside! Of course perhaps he is inside no longer. It was a gray pile rising in numberless piddling columns to the white of the sky. It was cold. She looked at it. “I am not going in.”

He was perfect in her. Why should she go in to take from him perfection? She was afraid for his perfection.—How can he be this holy man in this grave? The Government Building stood like an insolent lackey fending her off. It glared at her and was very insecure and stupid within its ruffles of marble. It strutted its turrets before her like a vain proud bird.—He is perfect. He is done. He is no more. He is buried here. She felt a great need to see him.

She knew she must not. “I must seek you,” she whispered against the mounting marble, “differently.”

She walked and knew that Leon Dannenberg who was in each of her steps, in each of her pangs, in each leap forward of her blood was forever beyond her eyes.—Here you are, holy man. Where am I? There you are.

She walked away. A vast openness was upon her flank, it ached sweetly as if her blood poured through it. An open longing lay upon her flesh as if she walked away from him who had given her birth.—You are behind. Not so far behind as Edith. Nearer, holy man. Farther ahead.

But as she walked the inept city, a scene came and it filled her. She gave herself her scene fully, voluptuously ... starving ... while the long buildings passed her in a squad of uniformed dull giants.

He is up from a wide desk. He says no word, looking deep in her eyes. One instant doubt as to the full free independence of her coming. Doubt goes before the intelligence of her eyes. He took her hands, very lightly, released them.

“I am going North. I am on my way North.”

“How can I help you?”

“You have helped me all you can.”

“He came back ... you told him?”

She nodded.

“He did not understand?”

“How could we expect he should understand? Would I? Do I?... if this all was not mine ...?”

“It is good, Fanny Luve. Go ahead.”

His face sudden is like a field under a sky of longing: a sun came down; his face glows in tender fear: it shadows to resolution.

“You must go North. We can’t understand. I can see, you are going right.”

“How can you see that, Leon?”

“No day since I left have you been far from me. You come into my thinking, my dreaming, into my sudden flying visions. You measure yourself always with them, with the best of them, Fanny. You measure full with them.”

“What you have said I could have said.”

His eyes came very near. They filled with tears of her. He looked away.

“But I am vague. O Leon, so blind!”

“You are no longer afraid of being blind. You are ready.”

“Leon, what am I going to be?”

“We are no longer prophets ... save in our lives. Live, Fanny.”

“Leon, I could fight.... I could win her, I could save her.”

“No, Fanny ... you are going to live.”

“I ... and Edith?”

“You....”

She walked with mouth tear-brimmed and open out of her fancied words. She saw about her with relentless eyes, felt with relentless feet, this hard pavement, these hard houses, hard white sky. Out of the deep scene came now upon her, as her mouth shut, clearer and more solid than the stone city his last words:

“You, Fanny ... not Edith, you ... are to live.”

Clear feet carried body erect through the stone city. Mother worlds in blood poured from her, leaving white feet, white body, while the soul of Fanny swooned in a ruthless knowledge.