Told in a French Garden August, 1914

IV

THE DOC­TOR'S STO­RY

AS ONE DREAMS

THE TALE OF AN ADO­LES­CENT

The next day was very peace­ful. We were be­com­ing ha­bit­uat­ed to the sit­ua­tion. It was a Sun­day, and the weath­er was warm. There had been no re­al news so far as we knew, ex­cept that Japan had lined up with the Al­lies. The Young­ster had come near to strik­ing fire by won­der­ing how the Unit­ed States, with her dis­like for Japan, would view the en­ter­ing in­to line of the yel­low man, but the spark flick­ered out, and I imag­ine we set­tled down for the sto­ry with more ea­ger­ness than on the pre­vi­ous evening, es­pe­cial­ly when the Doc­tor thrust his hands in­to his pock­ets and lift­ed his chin in­to the air, as if he were in the tri­bune. More than one of us smiled at his re­sem­blance to Pierre Janet en­ter­ing the tri­bune at the _Col­lege de France_, and the Young­ster said, un­der his breath, “A _Clin­ique_, I sup­pose.”

The Doc­tor's ears were sharp. “Not a bit,” he an­swered, run­ning his keen brown eyes over us to be sure we were lis­ten­ing be­fore he be­gan:

* * * * *

In the days when it was thought that the South End was to be the smart part of Boston, and when streets were laid out along wide tree shad­ed malls, with a square in the cen­tre, in im­ita­tion of some quar­ters of Lon­don,--for Boston was in those days much more En­glish in ap­pear­ance than it is now,--there was in one of those squares a fa­mous pri­vate school. In those days it was rather smart to go to a pri­vate school. It was in the days be­fore Boston had much of an im­mi­grant quar­ter, when some smart fam­ilies still lived in the old Colo­nial hous­es at the North End, and min­is­ters and lawyers and all pro­fes­sion­al men sent their sons and their daugh­ters to the pub­lic schools, at that time prob­ably the best in the world.

At this pri­vate school, there was, at the time of which I speak, what one might al­most call a “prin­ci­pal girl.”

She was the daugh­ter of a rich banker--his on­ly daugh­ter. The gods all seemed to have been very good to her. She was not on­ly a re­al­ly beau­ti­ful girl, she was, for her age, a dis­tin­guished girl,--one of the sort who seemed to do ev­ery­thing bet­ter than any one else, and with a lack of self-​con­scious­ness or pre­ten­sion. Ev­ery one ad­mired her. Some of her com­rades would have loved her if she had giv­en them the chance. But no one could ev­er get in­ti­mate with her. She came and went from school quite alone, in the habit of the Amer­ican girl of those days be­fore the chap­er­on be­came the cor­rect thing. She was charm­ing to ev­ery one, but she kept ev­ery one a lit­tle at arm's length. Of course such a girl would be much talked over by the oth­er type of girl to whom con­fi­dences were nec­es­sary.

As al­ways hap­pens in any school there was a pop­ular teach­er. She taught his­to­ry and lit­er­ature, and I imag­ine girls get more in­ti­mate with such a teach­er than they ev­er do with the math­emat­ics.

Al­so, as al­ways hap­pens, there was a “teach­er's pet,” one of those girls that has to adore some­thing, and the lit­er­ature teach­er, as she was smart and good look­ing, was as con­ve­nient to adore as any­thing else,--and more ad­ja­cent.

Of course “teach­er's pet” nev­er has any se­crets from the teach­er, and does not mean to be a sneak ei­ther. Just can't help turn­ing her­self in­side out for her idol, and when the heart of a girl of sev­en­teen turns it­self in­side out, al­most al­ways some­thing comes out that is not her busi­ness. That was how it hap­pened that one day the lit­er­ature teach­er was told that the “Prin­ci­pal Girl” was re­ceiv­ing won­der­ful box­es of vi­olets at the school door, and “Don't you know ONE DAY she was seen by a group of pupils who hap­pened to be go­ing home, and were just be­hind her, get­ting in­to a closed car­riage and driv­ing away from the cor­ner of the street!”

Now the lit­er­ature teach­er did not, as a rule, en­cour­age such con­fi­dences, but this time it seemed use­ful. She liked the Prin­ci­pal Girl--ad­mired her, in fact. She was ter­ri­bly shocked. She warned her pet to talk to no one else, and then she went at once to the cler­gy­man who was at the head of the school. She knew that he felt re­spon­si­ble for his pupils, and this had an un­pleas­ant look. He took the pains to ver­ify the two state­ments. Then there was but one thing to do--to lay the mat­ter be­fore the par­ents of the girl.

Now, as so of­ten hap­pens in Amer­ican fam­ilies, the banker and his wife stood in some awe of their daugh­ter. There was not that con­fi­dence be­tween them which one tra­di­tion­al­ly sup­pos­es to ex­ist be­tween par­ents and chil­dren. I imag­ine that there is no doubt that the ado­les­cent finds it much eas­ier to con­fide in some one oth­er than the par­ents who would seem to be her prop­er con­fi­dants.

At any rate the banker and his wife were sim­ply stag­gered. They dared not broach the sub­ject to the Prin­ci­pal Girl, and in their dis­tress turned to the fam­ily lawyer. As they were too cow­ard­ly to take his first ad­vice--per­haps they were afraid the daugh­ter would lie, they some­times do in the best reg­ulat­ed fam­ilies,--it was de­cid­ed to put a dis­creet per­son “on the job,” and dis­cov­er first of all what was re­al­ly go­ing on.

The re­sult of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion was at first con­sol­ing, and then amaz­ing.

They dis­cov­ered that the bunch­es of vi­olets were or­dered at a smart down town florist by the girl her­self, and by her or­der de­liv­ered at the school door by a liv­er­ied mes­sen­ger boy, who, by her or­ders, await­ed her ar­rival. As for the closed car­riage, that she al­so be­spoke her­self at a smart liv­ery sta­ble where she was known. When she en­tered it, she was at once driv­en to the Park Street sta­tion, where she bought a round trip tick­et to Waltham. There she walked to the riv­er, hired a boat, rowed her­self up stream, tied her boat at a wood­en bank, climbed the slope, and sat there all the af­ter­noon, some­times read­ing, and some­times mere­ly star­ing out at the riv­er, or up at the sky. At sun­set she rowed back to the town, re­turned to the city, and walked from the sta­tion to her home.

This all seemed sim­ple enough, but it puz­zled the fa­ther, it made him un­qui­et in his mind. Why all this mys­tery? Why--well, why a great many things, for of course the Prin­ci­pal Girl had to pre­pare for these ab­sences, and, al­though the lit­tle fibs she told were harm­less enough--well, why? The lit­er­ature teach­er, who had been watch­ing her care­ful­ly, had her the­ory. She knew a lot about girls. Wasn't she once one her­self? So it was by her ad­vice that the fam­ily doc­tor was tak­en in­to the fam­ily con­fi­dence, chiefly be­cause nei­ther fa­ther nor moth­er had the pluck to tack­le the mat­ter--they were ashamed to have their daugh­ter know that she had been caught in even a small de­cep­tion--it seemed so like in­trud­ing in­to her in­ti­mate life.

There are par­ents like that, you know.

The doc­tor had known the girl since he ush­ered her in­to the world. If there were any one with whom she had shown the slight­est sign of in­ti­ma­cy, it was with him. Like all doc­tors whose as­so­ci­ations are so large­ly with wom­en, and who are mod­er­ate­ly in­tel­li­gent and tem­per­amen­tal, he knew a great deal about the dan­gers of the imag­ina­tion. No one ev­er heard just what passed be­tween the two. One thing is pret­ty sure, he made no se­crets re­gard­ing the af­fair, and at the end of the in­ter­view he ad­vised the par­ents to take the girl out of school, take her abroad, keep her ac­tive, present her at courts, show her the world, keep her oc­cu­pied, in­ter­est her, keep her among peo­ple whether she liked it or not.

The lit­er­ature teach­er count­ed for some­thing in the af­fair, and I imag­ine that it was nev­er talked over be­tween the par­ents and daugh­ter, who soon af­ter left town for Eu­rope, and for three years were not seen in Boston.

When they _did_ re­turn, it was to an­nounce the mar­riage of the Prin­ci­pal Girl to the son of the fam­ily lawyer, a clever man, and a ris­ing politi­cian.

Re­la­tions be­tween the lit­er­ature teach­er and the Prin­ci­pal Girl had nev­er whol­ly bro­ken off, so ten years af­ter the school ad­ven­ture it hap­pened one beau­ti­ful day in ear­ly Septem­ber that the teach­er was a guest at the North Shore sum­mer home of the Prin­ci­pal Girl, now the moth­er of two hand­some boys.

That af­ter­noon at tea, sit­ting on the ve­ran­dah, watch­ing the white sails as the yachts made for Mar­ble­head har­bor, and the long line of surf beat­ing against the rugged rocks be­yond the wide peb­bly beach on which the drag­ging stones made weird mu­sic, the lit­er­ature teach­er, sup­pos­ing the old sto­ry to be so much an­cient his­to­ry that it could, as can so many of the in­ci­dents of one's teens, be re­ferred to light­ly, had the mis­for­tune to men­tion it. To her hor­ror, the Prin­ci­pal Girl gave her one star­tled look, and then rolled over among the cush­ions of the ham­mock in which she was swing­ing, and burst in­to a tor­rent of tears.

When the parox­ysm had passed, she sat up, wiped her eyes in which, how­ev­er, there was no laugh­ter, and said pas­sion­ate­ly:

“I sup­pose you think me the most un­grate­ful wom­an in the world. I know on­ly too well that to many wom­en my po­si­tion has al­ways ap­peared en­vi­able. Poor things, if they on­ly knew! Of course, my hus­band is a good man. In all ways I do him per­fect jus­tice. He is ev­ery­thing that is kind and gen­er­ous--on­ly, alas, he is not the lover of my dreams. My chil­dren are nice hand­some boys, but they are the ev­ery day chil­dren of ev­ery day life. I dreamed an­oth­er and a dif­fer­ent life in which my chil­dren were oh, so dif­fer­ent, and be­side which the life I try to lead with all the strength I have is no more like the life I dreamed than my boys are like my dream chil­dren. If you think it has not tak­en courage to play the part I have played, I am sor­ry for your lack of in­sight.”

And she got up, and walked away.

It was as well, for, as the lit­er­ature teach­er told the doc­tor af­ter­ward, it was one notch above her ex­pe­ri­ence, and she ab­so­lute­ly could have found no word to say. When the Wife came back to the ham­mock, ten min­utes lat­er, the cloud was gone from her face, and she nev­er men­tioned the sub­ject again. And you may be sure that the lit­er­ature teach­er nev­er did. She al­ways looked up­on the in­ci­dent as her worst mo­ment of tact­less­ness.

* * * * *

“Bul­ly, bul­ly!” ex­claimed the Lawyer, “Take off your lau­rels, Crit­ic, and crown the Doc­tor!”

“For that lit­tle tale,” shout­ed the Crit­ic. “Nev­er! That has not a bit of lit­er­ary mer­it. It has not one round­ed pe­ri­od.”

“The Lawyer is a re­al­ist,” said the Sculp­tor. “Of course that ap­peals to him.”

“If you want my opin­ion, I con­sid­er that there is just as much imag­ina­tion in that sto­ry as in the mor­bid rig­ma­role you threw at us last night,” per­sist­ed the Lawyer.

“Why,” de­clared the Crit­ic, “I call mine a healthy sto­ry com­pared with this one. It is a shock­ing tale for the op­er­at­ing room--I mean the in­sane asy­lum.”

“All right,” laughed the Doc­tor, “then we had all bet­ter go in­side the san­itar­ium walls at once.”

“Do you pre­sume,” said the Jour­nal­ist, “to pre­tend that this is a nor­mal in­ci­dent?”

“I am not go­ing in­to that. I on­ly claim that more peo­ple know the con­di­tion than dare to con­fess it. It is af­ter all on­ly sym­bol­ic of the du­al­ity of the soul--or call it what you like. It is the em­bod­iment of a truth which no one thinks of deny­ing--that the spir­it has its se­crets. Imag­ina­tion plays a great part in most of our lives--it is the glo­ry that gilds our facts--it is the bril­liant bar­ri­er which sep­arates us from the beasts, and the on­ly re­al thing that di­vides us in­to class­es, though, of course, it does not run through the world like straight lines of lat­itude and lon­gi­tude, but like the lines of mean tem­per­ature.”

“The truth is,” said the Lawyer, “if the Prin­ci­pal Girl had been obliged to strug­gle for her liv­ing, the fact that her imag­ina­tion did not run at any point in­to her world of re­al­ities would not have been dan­ger­ous.”

“Nat­ural­ly not,” said the Doc­tor, “for she would have been a great nov­el­ist, or a poor one, and all would have been well, or not, ac­cord­ing to cir­cum­stances.”

“All the same,” per­sist­ed the Crit­ic, “I think it a hor­rid sto­ry and--”

“I think,” in­ter­rupt­ed the Doc­tor, “that you have a vi­cious mind, and--” Here the Doc­tor cast a quick look in the di­rec­tion of the Young­ster, who was stretched out in a steam­er chair and had not said a word.

“All right,” said the Trained Nurse, “he is fast asleep.” And so he was.

“Just as well,” said the Doc­tor, “though it does not speak so well for the sto­ry as it might.”

“Well,” laughed the Jour­nal­ist, “you have had a dou­ble suc­cess, Doc­tor. You have been spon­ta­neous­ly ap­plaud­ed by the man of law, and sent the man of the air to _faire do­do_. I reck­on you get the lau­rels.”

“Don't you be in such a hur­ry to award the palm,” protest­ed the Sculp­tor. “There are some of us who have not spo­ken yet. I am go­ing to put some bril­liant touch­es on mine be­fore I give my star per­for­mance.”

“What's that about stars?” yawned the Young­ster, wak­ing up slow­ly.

“Noth­ing ex­cept that you have giv­en a very dis­tin­guished and un­ex­pect­ed star per­for­mance as a sleep­er,” said the Doc­tor.

“I say!” he ex­claimed, sit­ting up. “By Jove, is the sto­ry of the Prin­ci­pal Girl all told? That's a shame. What be­came of her?”

“You'll nev­er know now,” said the Doc­tor.

“Be­sides,” said the Crit­ic, “you would not un­der­stand. You are too young.”

“Well, I like your cheek.”

“Af­ter all,” said the Jour­nal­ist, “it is on­ly an­oth­er phase of the Dear Lit­tle Josephine, and I still think that is the ban­ner sto­ry.”

“Me, too,” said the Doc­tor, as we went in­to the house.

And I thought to my­self, “I can tell a third phase--the trag­ic--when my turn comes,” and I was the on­ly one who knew that my sto­ry would come last.