By
O. Henry
The most notable thing about Time is
that it is so purely relative. A large amount of reminiscence is, by common
consent, conceded to the drowning man; and it is not past belief that one may
review an entire courtship while removing one's gloves.
That is what Trysdale was doing,
standing by a table in his bachelor apartments. On the table stood a
singular-looking green plant in a red earthen jar. The plant was one of the
species of cacti, and was provided with long, tentacular leaves that
perpetually swayed with the slightest breeze with a peculiar beckoning motion.
Trysdale's friend, the brother of
the bride, stood at a sideboard complaining at being allowed to drink alone.
Both men were in evening dress. White favors like stars upon their coats shone
through the gloom of the apartment.
As he slowly unbuttoned his gloves,
there passed through Trysdale's mind a swift, scarifying retrospect of the last
few hours. It seemed that in his nostrils was still the scent of the flowers
that had been banked in odorous masses about the church, and in his ears the
lowpitched hum of a thousand well-bred voices, the rustle of crisp garments,
and, most insistently recurring, the drawling words of the minister irrevocably
binding her to another.
From this last hopeless point of
view he still strove, as if it had become a habit of his mind, to reach some
conjecture as to why and how he had lost her. Shaken rudely by the uncompromising
fact, he had suddenly found himself confronted by a thing he had never before
faced --his own innermost, unmitigated, arid unbedecked self. He saw all the
garbs of pretence and egoism that he had worn now turn to rags of folly. He
shuddered at the thought that to others, before now, the garments of his soul
must have appeared sorry and threadbare. Vanity and conceit? These were the
joints in his armor. And how free from either she had always been--But why--
As she had slowly moved up the aisle
toward the altar he had felt an unworthy, sullen exultation that had served to
support him. He had told himself that her paleness was from thoughts of another
than the man to whom she was about to give herself. But even that poor
consolation had been wrenched from him. For, when he saw that swift, limpid,
upward look that she gave the man when he took her hand, he knew himself to be
forgotten. Once that same look had been raised to him, and he had gauged its
meaning. Indeed, his conceit had crumbled; its last prop was gone. Why had it
ended thus? There had been no quarrel between them, nothing--
For the thousandth time he
remarshalled in his mind the events of those last few days before the tide had
so suddenly turned.
She had always insisted upon placing
him upon a pedestal, and he had accepted her homage with royal grandeur. It had
been a very sweet incense that she had burned before him; so modest (he told
himself); so childlike and worshipful, and (he would once have sworn) so
sincere. She had invested him with an almost supernatural number of high
attributes and excellencies and talents, and he had absorbed the oblation as a
desert drinks the rain that can coax from it no promise of blossom or fruit.
As Trysdale grimly wrenched apart
the seam of his last glove, the crowning instance of his fatuous and tardily
mourned egoism came vividly back to him. The scene was the night when he had
asked her to come up on his pedestal with him and share his greatness. He could
not, now, for the pain of it, allow his mind to dwell upon the memory of her
convincing beauty that night--the careless wave of her hair, the tenderness and
virginal charm of her looks and words. But they had been enough, and they had
brought him to speak. During their conversation she had said:
"And Captain Carruthers tells
me that you speak the Spanish language like a native. Why have you hidden this
accomplishment from me? Is there anything you do not know?"
Now, Carruthers was an idiot. No
doubt he (Trysdale) had been guilty (he sometimes did such things) of airing at
the club some old, canting Castilian proverb dug from the hotchpotch at the
back of dictionaries. Carruthers, who was one of his incontinent admirers, was
the very man to have magnified this exhibition of doubtful erudition.
But, alas! the incense of her
admiration had been so sweet and flattering. He allowed the imputation to pass
without denial. Without protest, he allowed her to twine about his brow this
spurious bay of Spanish scholarship. He let it grace his conquering head, and,
among its soft convolutions, he did not feel the prick of the thorn that was to
pierce him later.
How glad, how shy, how tremulous she
was! How she fluttered like a snared bird when he laid his mightiness at her
feet! He could have sworn, and he could swear now, that unmistakable consent
was in her eyes, but, coyly, she would give him no direct answer. "I will
send you my answer to-morrow," she said; and he, the indulgent, confident
victor, smilingly granted the delay. The next day he waited, impatient, in his
rooms for the word. At noon her groom came to the door and left the strange
cactus in the red earthen jar. There was no note, no message, merely a tag upon
the plant bearing a barbarous foreign or botanical name. He waited until night,
but her answer did not come. His large pride and hurt vanity kept him from
seeking her. Two evenings later they met at a dinner. Their greetings were
conventional, but she looked at him, breathless, wondering, eager. He was
courteous, adamant, waiting her explanation. With womanly swiftness she took
her cue from his manner, and turned to snow and ice. Thus, and wider from this
on, they had drifted apart. Where was his fault? Who had been to blame? Humbled
now, he sought the answer amid the ruins of his self-conceit. If--
The voice of the other man in the
room, querulously intruding upon his thoughts, aroused him.
"I say, Trysdale, what the
deuce is the matter with you? You look unhappy as if you yourself had been
married instead of having acted merely as an accomplice. Look at me, another
accessory, come two thousand miles on a garlicky, cockroachy banana steamer all
the way from South America to connive at the sacrifice--please to observe how
lightly my guilt rests upon my shoulders. Only little sister I had, too, and
now she's gone. Come now! take something to ease your conscience."
"I don't drink just now,
thanks," said Trysdale.
"Your brandy," resumed the
other, coming over and joining him, "is abominable. Run down to see me
some time at Punta Redonda, and try some of our stuff that old Garcia smuggles
in. It's worth the, trip. Hallo! here's an old acquaintance. Wherever did you
rake up this cactus, Trysdale?"
"A present," said
Trysdale, "from a friend. Know the species?"
"Very well. It's a tropical
concern. See hundreds of 'em around Punta every day. Here's the name on this
tag tied to it. Know any Spanish, Trysdale?"
"No," said Trysdale, with
the bitter wraith of a smile--"Is it Spanish?"
"Yes. The natives imagine the
leaves are reaching out and beckoning to you. They call it by this
name--Ventomarme. Name means in English, 'Come and take me.'"
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