The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather (best reads .TXT) 📕

metal, Thea”⁠—he pointed to the papers before him⁠—“I’m up to my neck in mines, and I’m going to be a rich man some day.”

“I hope you will; awfully rich. That’s the only thing that counts.” She looked restlessly about the consulting-room. “To do any of the things one wants to do, one has to have lots and lots of money.”

Dr. Archie was direct. “What’s the matter? Do you need some?”

Thea shrugged. “Oh, I can get along, in a little way.” She looked intently out of the window at the arc streetlamp that was just beginning to sputter. “But it’s silly to live at all for little things,” she added quietly. “Living’s too much trouble unless one can get something big out of it.”

Dr. Archie rested his elbows on the arms of his chair, dropped his chin on his clasped hands and looked at her. “Living is no trouble for little people, believe me!” he exclaimed. “What do you want to get out of it?”

“Oh⁠—so many things!” Thea shivered.

“But what? Money? You mentioned that. Well, you can make money, if you care about that more than anything else.” He nodded prophetically above his interlacing fingers.

“But I don’t. That’s only one thing. Anyhow, I couldn’t if I did.” She pulled her dress lower at the neck as if she were suffocating. “I only want impossible things,” she said roughly. “The others don’t interest me.”

Dr. Archie watched her contemplatively, as if she were a beaker full of chemicals working. A few years ago, when she used to sit there, the light from under his green lampshade used to fall full upon her broad face and yellow pigtails. Now her face was in the shadow and the line of light fell below her bare throat, directly across her bosom. The shrunken white organdie rose and fell as if she were struggling to be free and to break out of it altogether. He felt that her heart must be laboring heavily in there, but he was afraid to touch her; he was, indeed. He had never seen her like this before. Her hair, piled high on her head, gave her a commanding look, and her eyes, that used to be so inquisitive, were stormy.

“Thea,” he said slowly, “I won’t say that you can have everything you want⁠—that means having nothing, in reality. But if you decide what it is you want most, you can get it.” His eye caught hers for a moment. “Not everybody can, but you can. Only, if you want a big thing, you’ve got to have nerve enough to cut out all that’s easy, everything that’s to be had cheap.” Dr. Archie paused. He picked up a paper-cutter and, feeling the edge of it softly with his fingers, he added slowly, as if to himself:⁠—

He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
Who dares not put it to the touch
To win⁠ ⁠… or lose it all.

Thea’s lips parted; she looked at him from under a frown, searching his face. “Do you mean to break loose, too, and⁠—do something?” she asked in a low voice.

“I mean to get rich, if you call that doing anything. I’ve found what I can do without. You make such bargains in your mind, first.”

Thea sprang up and took the paper-cutter he had put down, twisting it in her hands. “A long while first, sometimes,” she said with a short laugh. “But suppose one can never get out what they’ve got in them? Suppose they make a mess of it in the end; then what?” She threw the paper-cutter on the desk and took a step toward the doctor, until her dress touched him. She stood looking down at him. “Oh, it’s easy to fail!” She was breathing through her mouth and her throat was throbbing with excitement.

As he looked up at her, Dr. Archie’s hands tightened on the arms of his chair. He had thought he knew Thea Kronborg pretty well, but he did not know the girl who was standing there. She was beautiful, as his little Swede had never been, but she frightened him. Her pale cheeks, her parted lips, her flashing eyes, seemed suddenly to mean one thing⁠—he did not know what. A light seemed to break upon her from far away⁠—or perhaps from far within. She seemed to grow taller, like a scarf drawn out long; looked as if she were pursued and fleeing, and⁠—yes, she looked tormented. “It’s easy to fail,” he heard her say again, “and if I fail, you’d better forget about me, for I’ll be one of the worst women that ever lived. I’ll be an awful woman!”

In the shadowy light above the lampshade he caught her glance again and held it for a moment. Wild as her eyes were, that yellow gleam at the back of them was as hard as a diamond drill-point. He rose with a nervous laugh and dropped his hand lightly on her shoulder. “No, you won’t. You’ll be a splendid one!”

She shook him off before he could say anything more, and went out of his door with a kind of bound. She left so quickly and so lightly that he could not even hear her footstep in the hallway outside. Archie dropped back into his chair and sat motionless for a long while.

So it went; one loved a quaint little girl, cheerful, industrious, always on the run and hustling through her tasks; and suddenly one lost her. He had thought he knew that child like the glove on his hand. But about this tall girl who threw up her head and glittered like that all over, he knew nothing. She was goaded by desires, ambitions, revulsions that were dark to him. One thing he knew: the old highroad of life, worn safe and easy, hugging the sunny slopes, would scarcely hold her again.

After that night Thea could have asked pretty much anything of him. He could have refused her nothing. Years ago a crafty little bunch of hair and smiles had shown him what she