Death and the Woman - Gertrude Atherton 2

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Death and the woman by Gertrude Atherton. Her husband was dying,
and she was alone with him. Nothing could exceed the
desolation of her surroundings. She and the man who was
going from her were in the third floor back of
a New York boarding house. It was summer, and the
other boarders were in the country. All the servants except

(00:20):
the cook had been dismissed, and she, when not working,
slept profoundly on the fifth floor. The landlady also was
out of town on a brief holiday. The window was
opened to admit the thick, unstirring air. No sound rose
from the row of long, narrow yards, nor from the tall,
deep houses annexed. The latter deadened the rattle of the streets.
At intervals, the distant elevated lumbered protestingly along, its grunts

(00:43):
and screams muffled by the hot, suspended ocean. She sat there,
plunged in the profoundest grief that can come to the
human soul. For in all other agony, hope flickers. However,
forlornly she gazed dully at the unconscious, breathing form of
the man who had been friend and companion and love
during five years of youth, too vigorous and hopeful to
be warped by uneven fortune. It was wasted by disease.

(01:07):
The face was shrunken. The night garment hung loosely about
a body which had never been disfigured by flesh, but
had been muscular with exercise and full bodied with health.
She was glad that the body was changed, glad that
its beauty, too, had gone some other ware than into
the coffin. She had loved his hands as apart from himself,
loved their strong, warm magnetism. They lay limp and yellow

(01:30):
on the quilt. She knew that they were already cold,
and that moisture was gathering on them. For a moment,
something convulsed within her. They had gone too. She repeated
the words twice, and after them forever and the while
the sweetness of their pressure came back to her. She
leaned suddenly over him. He was in there, still somewhere

(01:51):
where if he had not ceased to breathe, The ego,
the soul, the personality was still in the sodden clay
which had shaped to give its speech. Why could it
not manifest itself to her? Was it still conscious in there?
Unable to project itself through the disintegrating matter, which was
the only medium its creator had vouchsafed it. Did it
struggle there? Seeing her agony sharing it, Longing for the

(02:14):
complete disintegration which should put an end to its torment,
She called his name, She even shook him, slightly, mad
to tear the body apart and find her mate. Yet,
even in that tortured moment, realizing that violence would hasten
his going, the dying man took no notice of her,
and she opened his gown and put her cheek to
his heart, calling him again. There had never been more

(02:36):
perfect union. How could the bond be so strong if
he were not at the other end of it? He
was there her other part until dead, he must be living.
There was no immediate state. Why should he be as
entombed and unresponding as if the screws were in the lid.
But the faintly beating heart did not quicken. Beneath her lips.
She extended her arms, suddenly describing eccentric lines above about him,

(02:59):
rapped open and closing her hands as if to clutch
some escaping object. Then sprang to her feet and went
to the window. She feared insanity. She had asked to
be left alone with her dying husband, and she did
not wish to lose her reason and shriek. A crowd
of people about her. The green plots in the yard
were not apparent. She noticed something heavy like a pall,

(03:20):
rested upon them. She understood that the day was over
and the night was coming. She returned swiftly to the bedside,
wondering if she had remained away hours or seconds, and
if he were dead. His face was still discernible, and
death had not relaxed it. She laid her own against it,
then withdrew it with a shuddering flesh, her teeth smiting
each other, as if an icy wind had passed. She

(03:42):
let herself fall back in the chair, clasping her hands
against her heart, watching with expanding eyes the white sculptured face,
which in the glittering dark was becoming less defined of outline.
Did she light the gas It would draw mosquitoes, and
she could not shut from him the little air he
was mechanically grateful for she did not want to see
the opening eye, the falling jaw. Her vision became so

(04:05):
fixed that at length she saw nothing and closed her
eyes and waited for the moisture to rise and relieve
the strain. When she opened them, his face had disappeared.
The humid waves above the housetops put out even the
light of the stars, and night was come. Fearfully, she
approached her ear to his lips. He still breathed. She
made a motion to kiss him, then threw herself back

(04:26):
in a quiver of agony. They were not the lips
she had known, and she would have nothing less. His
breathing was so faint that, in her half reclining position,
she could not hear it, could not be aware of
the moment of his death. She extended her arm resolutely
and laid her hand on his heart. Not only must
she feel his going, but so strong had been the
comradeship between them, it was a matter of loving honor

(04:48):
to stand by him to the last. She sat there
in the hot, heavy night, pressing her hand hard against
the ebbing heart of the unseen and awaited death. Suddenly,
an odd fancy possessed her her. Where was death? Why
was he tarrying? Who was detaining him? From what quarter
would he come? He was taking his leisure, drawing near
with footsteps as measured as those of men keeping time.

(05:10):
To a funeral march by a wayward deflection. She thought
of the slow music that was always turned on in
the theater when the heroine was about to appear, or
something uneventful to happen. She had always thought this sort
of thing ridiculous and inartistic. So had he. She drew
her brows together angrily, wondering at her levity, and pressed
her relaxed palm against the heart. It kept guard over

(05:32):
for a moment. The sweat stood on her face, then
the pent up breath burst from her lungs. He still lived.
Once more, the fancy wantoned above the stunned heart death.
Where was he? What a curious experience to be sitting
alone in a big house. She knew that the cook
had stolen out, waiting for death to come and snatch
her husband from her. No, he would not snatch. He

(05:53):
would steal upon his prey, as noiselessly as the approach
of sin to innocence, an invisible, unfair, sneaking enemy with
whom no man's strength could grapple, if he would only
come like a man and take his chances like a man.
Women had been known to reach the hearts of giants
with the dagger's point, but he would creep upon her.
She gave an exclamation of horror. Something was creeping over

(06:15):
the window sill. Her limbs palsied, but she struggled to
her feet and looked back, Her eyes dragged about against
her own volition. Two small green stars glared menacingly at her,
just above the sill. Then the cat possessing them leaped
downward and the stars disappeared. She realized she was horribly frightened.
Is this possible? She thought? Am I afraid of death?

(06:36):
And of death that has not yet come? I have
always been a rather brave woman. He used to call
me heroic, But then with him it was impossible to
fear anything. And I begged them to leave me alone
with him as the last of earthly booms. Oh shame.
But she was still quaking as she resumed her seat
and laid her hand again on his heart. She wished
that she had asked Mary to sit outside the door.

(06:58):
There was no bell in the room. To call would
be worse than desecrating the house of God. And she
would not leave him for one moment to return and
find him dead, gone alone. Her knees smote each other.
It was idle to deny it. She was in a
state of unreasoning terror. Her eyes rolled apprehensively about. She
wondered if she should see it when it came, wondered

(07:18):
how far off it was, now not very far. The
heart was barely pulsing. She had heard of the power
of the corpse to drive brave men to frenzy, and
had wondered. Having no morbid horror of the dead, but
this to wait, and wait, and wait, perhaps for hours,
passed the midnight on to the small hours, while that
awful determined leisurely something stole nearer and nearer. She bent

(07:40):
to him who had been her protector with a spasm
of anger. Where was the indomitable spirit that had held
her all these years with such strong and loving clasp.
How could he leave her? How could he desert her?
Her head fell back and moved restlessly against the cushion,
Moaning with the agony of loss. She recalled him as
he had been, Then fear once more took possession of her.

(08:01):
She sat erect, rigid, breathless, awaiting the approach of death. Suddenly,
far down in the house on the first floor, her
strained hearing took note of a sound a weary, muffled sound,
as if some one were creeping up the stair fearful
of being heard. Slowly, it seemed to count a hundred
between laying down each foot. She gave a hysterical gasp.

(08:22):
Where was the slow music. Her face her body were wet,
as if a wave of death sweat had broken over them.
There was a stiff feeling at the roots of her hair.
She wondered if it was really standing erect, but she
could not raise her hand to ascertain. Possibly it was
only the coloring matter freezing and bleaching. Her muscles were flabby,
her nerves twitched helplessly. She knew that it was death

(08:43):
who was coming for her through the silent, deserted house.
Knew that it was the sensitive ear of her intelligence
that heard him, not the dull, coarse, grained ear of
the body. He toiled up the stair painfully, as if
he were old and tired with much work. But how
could he afford to loiter, With all the work he
had to do every minute, every second, he must be
in demand to hook his cold, hard finger about a

(09:05):
soul struggling to escape from its putrefying tenement. But probably
he had his emissaries, his minions, For only those worthy
of the honor did he come in person. He reached
the first landing and crept like a cat down the
hall to the next stair, then crawled slowly up as
before light. As the footfalls were, they were squarely planted,
unfaltering slow. They never halted. Mechanically, She pressed her jerking

(09:30):
hand closer against the heart. Its beats were almost done.
They would finish, she calculated, just as those footfalls paused
beside the bed. She was no longer a human being.
She was an intelligence and an ear. Not a sound
came from without. Even the elevator appeared to be temporarily
off duty. But inside the big quiet house, that footfall

(09:51):
was waxing louder louder, until iron feet crashed on iron
stairs and echo thundered. She had counted the steps one, two, three,
Irritated beyond endurance at the long, deliberate pauses between as
they climbed and clanged with slow precisions, she continued to
count audibly and with equal precision, noting their hollow reverberation.

(10:14):
How many steps had the stare? She wished? She knew
no need the colossal trampling announced the lessening distance in
an increasing volume of sound, not to be misunderstood. It
turned the curve, it reached the landing. It advanced slowly
down the hall. It paused before her door. Then knuckles
of iron shook the frail panels. Her nerveless tongue gave

(10:34):
no invitation. The knocking became more imperious. The very walls vibrated.
The handle turned swiftly and firmly, with wild instinctive movement,
she flung herself into the arms of her husband. When
Mary opened the door and entered the room, she found
a dead woman lying across a dead man. The end
of death and the woman