Aurora Dawn (2 page)

And the young lady? Reader, I yield to the lady novelists, who insist that young ladies have minds and will describe their
workings at length. Like the Ptolemaic celestial hypothesis, this approach is productive of believable results, within the
limits of its first assumption. This historian is unable to report what the young lady was thinking and submits that perhaps
it does not matter. Few people are governed by what young ladies think–least of all the young ladies themselves. This deep,
but entirely wholesome truth, is one of the many that will be demonstrated in the course of this astonishing tale.

Telling a little more about the Beautiful Brahmin

and bringing Andrew farther along his way.

I
T DOES NOT OCCUR
to city dwellers that American railroads are capillaries of mechanized civilization threading through a wilderness, until
they come one day as Andrew Reale did to the end of the line, and must eke out the rest of a journey over roads as primitive
as any in such backward countries as Afghanistan or India. True, we usually climb aboard a bus instead of a yak or oxcart
to convey us the rest of the way, but if the superiority of our culture is to rest on a showdown between the yak and the country
bus, we had better take pause. The yak is slow, fractious, and not amenable to assembly on a conveyor belt; but does the bus
give milk, or answer to its name in the night, or bring out new models each spring by simple association with other busses?
It is a nice dispute, but it borders on political economy, and the reader will doubtless be pleased if it is left unresolved
in order that the narrative may gather speed.

Andrew clung to the dusty, cracked leather seat of the bus which jolted from Providence, West Virginia, to the township of
Smithville (distance forty-one miles), over an asphalt road sagging piteously here and there where a frugal contractor had
economized on asphalt and reaped the rewards of individual enterprise. He made an earnest effort to close his mind to the
beauty of the sunset over the darkening hills and to arrange his thoughts for the accomplishment of the task ahead. It was
the first major enterprise of its kind with which he had been entrusted; it called for daring, quick wit, ability to act singlehanded,
and an unwillingness to be daunted, all of which qualities he had displayed to such a degree in the last two years that at
last this mission had fallen into his hands. Pride and eagerness glowed within him when he thought of it. With the best will
in the world he set about imagining the obstacles he was likely to encounter, and the measures he must take to win the day;
but in whatever direction he set the current of his thoughts, it invariably meandered over an erratic, untraceable course
until at last it found sea level in a troubled contemplation of his hours at breakfast and thereafter with the Beautiful Brahmin.
A casual flirtation–the mere automatic response of a healthy young man–had led him into a startling experience.

There are many solid metaphysical arguments buttressing Bishop Berkeley’s great philosophical doctrine that no reality exists
outside the mind, but empirical evidence supporting it is thought to be rare; yet there is one phenomenon utterly Berkeleian
in its nature and effect, and that is a cup of coffee in the morning. It sheds so dulcet a radiance on a world which twenty
seconds before the ingestion of the brew usually seems stale and grisly, that we are forced to conclude the sudden change
is not in the world but in the mental tone of the observer. Now–follow this philosophical thread carefully–if you admit the
fact that the external world has actually remained unchanged while seeming to undergo a profound metamorphosis in the instance
of coffee in the morning, are you not forced to go the rest of the way and admit that at all times, even if less obviously,
the aspect of the world must depend on the mental state of the observer? And since aspect is all we can ever know (experience
being only perceivable through the window of the brain), are you not thrust into the arms of Berkeley and compelled to the
position that the world as we know it is a product of the mind? Leaving you to consider at leisure the staggering implications
of the thesis, we return to our tale.

The coffee our hero shared at breakfast with the Beautiful Brahmin had its customary effect both on the external world and
the internal Andrew. In its train of familiar miracles it brought the gift of tongues. Andrew commenced to talk with amazing
vivacity and speed and–as he was now recalling with acute spasms of embarrassment as the bus jounced along the hilly road–he
did not stop talking for hours.

The breakfast had begun awkwardly and silently enough. The girl kept her eyes either on the food, which she attacked with
great vigor, or out the window during the intervals between dishes–which were brief, for they were the only people in the
car and the steward, energized by a night’s sleep, hovered over them and sprang panther-like on empty plates and glasses.
Her persistent avoidance of his glance gave him the chance to scrutinize her. Aside from the very thick, very black hair and
the alert brown eyes it was hard to select her distinguishing features. She had clothed, coiffed, and painted herself with
such mannequin accuracy that she seemed an embodied fashion rather than a person: the Last Word made Flesh. Gradually, however,
beneath the gilding he discerned a satisfying lily. He first noticed how young she was: her skin was firm and clear under
the rouge and powder, and the curves in her cheeks had the roundness of true girlhood despite the shadows under her eyes which
betokened late hours rather than advanced years. Her mouth was a full eighth of an inch smaller all around than her carmine
artistry pretended, and in its natural state would have made a better match with her short and snub nose. Her hands continually
drew his eyes; all their movements were tense, and in every action they fell into naturally graceful lines, like cats. They
were too small and too thin to be really beautiful, he supposed. Her body was shaped according to the Providential design
for young ladies’ bodies, and was most pleasing to the view of Andrew whose eyes deviated little from the Providential design
for young men’s eyes.

He would probably have been surprised to know that all this while the girl was also giving him a thorough if less direct scrutiny,
that she had noted with approval the squareness of his shoulders, clearly a tribute to his bone structure and not to his tailor,
as well as his curly, sandy hair, his handsome if rather long features, and above all his well-cut mouth and the flashing
beauties it contained. He would surely have been astonished to know that she had given him a nickname within five minutes
of the moment she had first noticed him, and that she thought of him as “Teeth.”

Along came the coffee, and the silence was broken up, all too effectively for Andrew. It was bad enough that he told her the
story of his life, from his origin in a Colorado schoolmaster’s abode through his young manhood at Yale and his rapid rise
since then into his present position (described at length, with names of important people studding the account like raisins
in a bun); bad enough that he soared into a dithyramb on his plans for the future, omitting, as he now recalled with shame,
any reference to his beloved Honey; but, worst of all, in an incredible fit of weak-mindedness, he disclosed to her the whole
truth of his present enterprise. A tingle of remorse crawled up his spine as he recalled this. The girl had been a gratifying
audience. It is in the nature of young ladies, under certain circumstances, to rise to great heights of prolonged and artistic
listening. She fixed grave wide eyes on him when he was serious, sparkled with laughter at his least sally, filled his pauses
with quick questions that spurred him on to fresh bursts of monologue, and, in fine, subtly conveyed to him that he was rather
a wonderful fellow. This elevation of spirits lasted for several hours, as they moved back to the parlor car without a perceptible
break in Andrew’s epic narrative. Then, just when he was becoming a bit giddy with success (this was in the midst of spilling
the beans about his current adventure), he thought he noticed a tinge of quiet amusement in the girl’s expression at the wrong
times. It was impossible to define, much less to challenge, but, illusion or no, it made him uneasy, and his cataract of eloquence
suddenly lagged to a sluggish trickle, then vanished into the sands of silence.

The girl, after vainly roweling him with a few more questions, seemed satisfied that he was exhausted, and did a little talking
herself. Said she:

“Well, I’m certainly glad I ran into you. This train kills me. I die every time I have to take it. If you knew how I hate
to get up at three o’clock in the morning to catch a train–I don’t as a rule, I just stay up all night, that’s what I did
last night, I rhumba’d until two-thirty, then went home, took a shower and changed my clothes. I probably look it. I loathe
morning trains. I feel so filthy by ten o’clock I can’t bear to touch myself. My face is like a cobblestone street this minute–”
(it was like the blandest Bavarian cream, thought Andrew). “The only good thing about this train is that it gets me to Mother’s
six o’clock at night, so that all I do is eat dinner and fall into bed, and that’s one day out of two killed. I visit my mother
every now and then for a weekend–my parents are divorced. Mother isn’t bad, but her husband is the most horrible goon.”–(The
word “goon,” a main prop of young feminine conversation in that decade, meant a harmless, fumbling, shambling fellow. It was
loosely used to refer to all males except the current object of a young lady’s desire.)–“He writes books–novels and biographies
and things that nobody ever buys. He just wrote a book about Thomas Chatterton–what a pancake! Not that he has to worry, the
way Mother is fixed. He was her English instructor at Wellesley. Mother is a terrific aesthete, anyway. She had a sensational
crush on him at college–that’s nothing, I’m mad about my Fine Arts prof and I know he’s a goon, but I can’t help it, he’s
beautiful–but Mother never outgrew hers. Three and a half years after she married Dad she decided that old Literature A-4
was the big thing in her life, and she walked out on Dad, leaving me in the middle. I don’t mind it except when I have to
visit Mother and her husband is around. He’s so polite I could die, and I know he despises me. He always wants to talk about
school, and how my painting is coming, and–”

“Do you paint?” interrupted Andrew with some surprise.

“Yes. Oh, nothing good, yet–but I’ll be good some day. I’m going to spend a year in Mexico as soon as I can talk Dad into
it. He thinks I’ll be raped by bandits.”

The porter here put his head and one white, starched sleeve into the car and announced, “Washington, D.C., five minutes.”

“I change here,” said the girl, cutting off her disquisition abruptly and beginning to wriggle into a camel’s hair coat as
lethally casual as the rest of her array. Andrew sprang to her assistance and swung a heavy bag down from the rack overhead
with an easy movement which the girl watched appreciatively. For more than an hour Andrew had been increasingly aware of a
very awkward circumstance; they had, in this extravagant barter of confidences, somehow neglected the detail of exchanging
names. They had passed so quickly from formality to the mushroom intimacy which springs up between wayfarers who have no intention
of meeting again, that Andrew had never introduced himself. He suddenly felt that this was an impossible situation, that she
must not be allowed to vanish into anonymity.

“It’s a little late for this,” said he with one of his pearliest smiles, “but anyway, my name’s Andrew Reale.”

“How do you do, Mr. Reale?” said the girl. “It’s been fun talking to you.” With this she relapsed into a prim silence, smoothed
her coat once more, and folded her gloved little hands in her lap with feline grace.

Andrew, a little out of countenance, could not let it rest so. “And what’s yours?” he inquired, with as much genial music
as he could instill into the syllables.

The girl looked at him with the oddest expression, not unfriendly but quite unfathomable. “I don’t feel like telling you,”
she said in a pleasant and definite tone.

Our hero felt as though he had driven a car at sixty miles an hour into a rock wall. The three minutes that elapsed before
the train drew into the station were longer than the three hours which had preceded them. Not another word could Andrew dredge
out of his reservoir of easy civilities. He sat in silence until the girl left the car with an airy “So long,” which he barely
acknowledged with a grated “Good-by.”

As Andrew’s recollections took this turn he groaned aloud. “Rough road if you ain’t used to it,” commented the bus driver,
a gaunt gray man in blue denims, taking a bite from a large meat sandwich and resting it on the ledge in front of him.

“How much longer to Smithville?” asked Andrew, bracing himself on his bucking seat.