The New Nation - Internet Edition

Short story: The count and the wedding guest

O. Henry

One evening when Andy Donovan went to dinner at his Second Avenue boarding-house, Mrs. Scott introduced him to a new boarder, a young lady, Miss Conway. Miss Conway was small and unobtrusive. She wore a plain, snuffy-brown dress, and bestowed her interest, which seemed languid, upon her plate. She lifted her diffident eyelids and shot one perspicuous, judicial glance at Mr. Donovan, politely murmured his name, and returned to her mutton. Mr. Donovan bowed with the grace and beaming smile that were rapidly winning for him social, business and political advancement, and erased the snuffy-brown one from the tablets of his consideration.

Two weeks later Andy was sitting on the front steps enjoying his cigar. There was a soft rustle behind and above him, and Andy turned his head-and had his head turned.

Just coming out the door was Miss Conway. She wore a night-black dress of crêpe de-crêpe de-oh, this thin black goods. Her hat was black, and from it drooped and fluttered an ebon veil, filmy as a spider's web. She stood on the top step and drew on black silk gloves. Not a speck of white or a spot of color about her dress anywhere. Her rich golden hair was drawn, with scarcely a ripple, into a shining, smooth knot low on her neck. Her face was plain rather than pretty, but it was now illuminated and made almost beautiful by her large gray eyes that gazed above the houses across the street into the sky with an expression of the most appealing sadness and melancholy.

Gather the idea, girls-all black, you know, with the preference for crêpe de-oh, crêpe de Chine-that's it. All black, and that sad, faraway look, and the hair shining under the black veil (you have to be a blonde, of course), and try to look as if, although your young life had been blighted just as it was about to give a hop-skip-and-a-jump over the threshold of life, a walk in the park might do you good, and be sure to happen out the door at the right moment, and-oh, it'll fetch 'em every time. But it's fierce, now, how cynical I am, ain't it?-to talk about mourning costumes this way.

Mr. Donovan suddenly reinscribed Miss Conway upon the tablets of his consideration. He threw away the remaining inch-and-a-quarter of his cigar, that would have been good for eight minutes yet, and quickly shifted his center of gravity to his low cut patent leathers.

"It's a fine, clear evening, Miss Conway," he said; and if the Weather Bureau could have heard the confident emphasis of his tones it would have hoisted the square white signal, and nailed it to the mast.

"To them that has the heart to enjoy it, it is, Mr. Donovan," said Miss Conway, with a sigh.

Mr. Donovan, in his heart, cursed fair weather. Heartless weather! It should hail and blow and snow to be consonant with the mood of Miss Conway.

"I hope none of your relatives-I hope you haven't sustained a loss?" ventured Mr. Donovan.

"Death has claimed," said Miss Conway, hesitating-"not a relative, but one who-but I will not intrude my grief upon you, Mr. Donovan."

"Intrude?" protested Mr. Donovan. "Why, say, Miss Conway, I'd be delighted, that is, I'd be sorry-I mean I'm sure nobody could sympathize with you truer than I would."

Miss Conway smiled a little smile. And oh, it was sadder than her expression in repose.

"'Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and they give you the laugh,'" she quoted. "I have learned that, Mr. Donovan. I have no friends or acquaintances in this city. But you have been kind to me. I appreciate it highly."

He had passed her the pepper twice at the table.

"It's tough to be alone in New York-that's a cinch," said Mr. Donovan. "But, say-whenever this little old town does loosen up and get friendly it goes the limit. Say you took a little stroll in the park, Miss Conway-don't you think it might chase away some of your mullygrubs? And if you'd allow me-"

"Thanks, Mr. Donovan. I'd be pleased to accept of your escort if you think the company of one whose heart is filled with gloom could be anyways agreeable to you." Through the open gates of the iron-railed, old, downtown park, where the elect once took the air, they strolled, and found a quiet bench.

There is this difference between the grief of youth and that of old age: youth's burden is lightened by as much of it as another shares; old age may give and give, but the sorrow remains the same.

"He was my fiance," confided Miss Conway, at the end of an hour. "We were going to be married next spring. I don't want you to think that I am stringing you, Mr. Donovan, but he was a real Count. He had an estate and a castle in Italy. Count Fernando Mazzini was his name. I never saw the beat of him for elegance. Papa objected, of course, and once we eloped, but papa overtook us, and took us back. I thought sure papa and Fernando would fight a duel. Papa has a livery business-in P'kipsee, you know."

"Finally, papa came 'round, all right, and said we might be married next spring. Fernando showed him proofs of his title and wealth, and then went over to Italy to get the castle fixed up for us. Papa's very proud, and when Fernando wanted to give me several thousand dollars for my trousseau he called him down something awful. He wouldn't even let me take a ring or any presents from him. And when Fernando sailed I came to the city and got a position as cashier in a candy store."

"Three days ago I got a letter from Italy, forwarded from P'kipsee, saying that Fernando had been killed in a gondola accident." "That is why I am in mourning. My heart, Mr. Donovan, will remain forever in his grave. I guess I am poor company, Mr. Donovan, but I cannot take any interest in no one. I should not care to keep you from gayety and your friends who can smile and entertain you. Perhaps you would prefer to walk back to the house?"

Now, girls, if you want to observe a young man hustle out after a pick and shovel, just tell him that your heart is in some other fellow's grave. Young men are grave-robbers by nature. Ask any widow. Something must be done to restore that missing organ to weeping angels in crêpe de Chine. Dead men certainly get the worst of it from all sides.

"I'm awfully sorry," said Mr. Donovan, gently. "No, we won't walk back to the house just yet. And don't say you haven't no friends in this city, Miss Conway. I'm awful sorry, and I want you to believe I'm your friend, and that I'm awful sorry."

"I've got his picture here in my locket," said Miss Conway, after wiping her eyes with her handkerchief. "I never showed it to anybody; but I will to you, Mr. Donovan, because I believe you to be a true friend."

Mr. Donovan gazed long and with much interest at the photograph in the locket that Miss Conway opened for him. The face of Count Mazzini was one to command interest. It was a smooth, intelligent, bright, almost a handsome face-the face of a strong, cheerful man who might well be a leader among his fellows.

"I have a larger one, framed, in my room," said Miss Conway. "When we return I will show you that. They are all I have to remind me of Fernando. But he ever will be present in my heart, that's a sure thing."

A subtle task confronted Mr. Donovan,-that of supplanting the unfortunate Count in the heart of Miss Conway. This his admiration for her determined him to do. But the magnitude of the undertaking did not seem to weigh upon his spirits. The sympathetic but cheerful friend was the rôle he essayed; and he played it so successfully that the next half-hour found them conversing pensively across two plates of ice-cream, though yet there was no diminution of the sadness in Miss Conway's large gray eyes.

Before they parted in the hall that evening she ran upstairs and brought down the framed photograph wrapped lovingly in a white silk scarf. Mr. Donovan surveyed it with inscrutable eyes. "He gave me this the night he left for Italy," said Miss Conway. "I had the one for the locket made from this."

"A fine-looking man," said Mr. Donovan, heartily. "How would it suit you, Miss Conway, to give me the pleasure of your company to Coney next Sunday afternoon?"

A month later they announced their engagement to Mrs. Scott and the other boarders. Miss Conway continued to wear black.

A week after the announcement the two sat on the same bench in the downtown park, while the fluttering leaves of the trees made a dim kinetoscopic picture of them in the moonlight. But Donovan had worn a look of abstracted gloom all day. He was so silent to-night that love's lips could not keep back any longer the questions that love's heart propounded.

"What's the matter, Andy, you are so solemn and grouchy to-night?"

"Nothing, Maggie."

"I know better. Can't I tell? You never acted this way before. What is it?"

"It's nothing much, Maggie."

"Yes it is; and I want to know. I'll bet it's some other girl you are thinking about. All right. Why don't you go get her if you want her? Take your arm away, if you please." "I'll tell you then," said Andy, wisely, "but I guess you won't understand it exactly. You've heard of Mike Sullivan, haven't you? 'Big Mike' Sullivan, everybody calls him."

"No, I haven't," said Maggie. "And I don't want to, if he makes you act like this. Who is he?"

"He's the biggest man in New York," said Andy, almost reverently. "He can about do anything he wants to with Tammany or any other old thing in the political line. He's a mile high and as broad as East River. You say anything against Big Mike, and you'll have a million men on your collarbone in about two seconds. Why, he made a visit over to the old country awhile back, and the kings took to their holes like rabbits.

"Well, Big Mike's a friend of mine. I ain't more than deuce-high in the district as far as influence goes, but Mike's as good a friend to a little man, or a poor man as he is to a big one. I met him to-day on the Bowery, and what do you think he does? Comes up and shakes hands. 'Andy,' says he, 'I've been keeping cases on you. You've been putting in some good licks over on your side of the street, and I'm proud of you. What'll you take to drink?" He takes a cigar, and I take a highball. I told him I was going to get married in two weeks. 'Andy,' says he, 'send me an invitation, so I'll keep in mind of it, and I'll come to the wedding.' That's what Big Mike says to me; and he always does what he says.

"You don't understand it, Maggie, but I'd have one of my hands cut off to have Big Mike Sullivan at our wedding. It would be the proudest day of my life. When he goes to a man's wedding, there's a guy being married that's made for life. Now, that's why I'm maybe looking sore to-night."

"Why don't you invite him, then, if he's so much to the mustard?" said Maggie, lightly.

"There's a reason why I can't," said Andy, sadly. "There's a reason why he mustn't be there. Don't ask me what it is, for I can't tell you."

"Oh, I don't care," said Maggie. "It's something about politics, of course. But it's no reason why you can't smile at me."

"Maggie," said Andy, presently, "do you think as much of me as you did of your-as you did of the Count Mazzini?"

He waited a long time, but Maggie did not reply. And then, suddenly she leaned against his shoulder and began to cry-to cry and shake with sobs, holding his arm tightly, and wetting the crêpe de Chine with tears.

"There, there, there!" soothed Andy, putting aside his own trouble. "And what is it, now?"

"Andy," sobbed Maggie. "I've lied to you, and you'll never marry me, or love me any more. But I feel that I've got to tell. Andy, there never was so much as the little finger of a count. I never had a beau in my life. But all the other girls had; and they talked about 'em; and that seemed to make the fellows like 'em more. And, Andy, I look swell in black-you know I do. So I went out to a photograph store and bought that picture, and had a little one made for my locket, and made up all that story about the Count, and about his being killed, so I could wear black. And nobody can love a liar, and you'll shake me, Andy, and I'll die for shame. Oh, there never was anybody I liked but you-and that's all."

But instead of being pushed away, she found Andy's arm folding her closer. She looked up and saw his face cleared and smiling.

"Could you-could you forgive me, Andy?"

"Sure," said Andy. "It's all right about that. Back to the cemetery for the Count. You've straightened everything out, Maggie. I was in hopes you would before the wedding-day. Bully girl!"

"Andy," said Maggie, with a somewhat shy smile, after she had been thoroughly assured of forgiveness, "did you believe all that story about the Count?"

"Well, not to any large extent," said Andy, reaching for his cigar case, "because it's Big Mike Sullivan's picture you've got in that locket of yours."

Book Review

Madonna of the Rain (a poetry collection) by Rabiul Hasan. Rockford, Illinois: Rockford Writers' Guild Press, 2008, pp. 68. Price US $ 15.95. Reviewed by Munir Muztaba Ali.

Does any one like a fit of the blues? The answer is probably no, but we must admit that we all have a little bit of them in us and do not mind feeling melancholy once in a while, especially if the source of that melancholy is a good piece of literature with a tinge of dejection in it. Poet and storyteller Rabiul Hasan's (whose work is widely published in Bangladesh and the United States) first book of poetry in the English language, Madonna of the Rain, is imbued with notes of melancholia. Love is an enduring theme in his poems, but his love is an elusive love, love that is beyond his reach, love that will never be in reality, and that seems to make his life drift away to despair and desolateness. Hence, though Hasan does not seem to be altogether indifferent toward life, he does seem to be relishing the thought of after-life. These two important aspects, elusive love and the thought of after-life, are all pervasive in Hasan's poems, and they have gotten superbly portrayed by a skilled poet who knows how to use the right word at the right place to evoke an emotion and stir a tragic feeling in the reader without necessarily showing any hamartia on the part of his persona.

In Hasan's title poem, "Madonna of the Rain", he seems to be excited about his lady love (his ma donna-my lady),

…and through the rain

I will walk straight to the other end of the hamlet

To visit Marianne, who like an undine

Holds her water-filled breasts toward the invisible sun,

But he knows her to be "like the dreams I have not dreamt" of realizing his love for her, although Marianne, having lacked a soul, seems to be waiting like an undine for a mortal to come and mate with her and give her a soul. In "After a Busy Week", Hasan writes:

She would call me, she would not call me.

She would come, she would not come. Am I waiting for someone? Carmen, Carmen. …

Sometimes I love this aloofness-this strange solitude.

This vacillation between hope and despair is the upshot of the persona's many experiences of his love being elusive. In "I Am Drifting Away, Marianne", he writes:

I am rotten like a moth-eaten apple,

And wasted, pining into the grave, you can see

I need you, call you, and cry for you:

Marianne, do you hear me?

The question seems be a rhetorical one, and we know the answer that Marianne won't show up. We can feel the pinch of despair here, and the despair gives way to the thought of after-life in "Leaving" where he writes:

The earth is leaving me. So are you. And I am

Leaving all: flowers, woods, love, my roots-myself.

I am leaving all. Hear me, Miriam. Hear me well.

I can die, you kindly bury me beneath the earth,

Or hurl me quietly into that eternal black river in Hades."

Pastoral elements and natural sceneries abound in Hasan's poems since most of his poems are set in the U.S. country side, but we see mostly the gloomy side of nature.

Rain yesterday. Rain today. More rain tomorrow.

Roads dark, half-sunk. No grass. Grasses deep under streams."Madonna of the Rain" opens with these lines, which divulge nature's pensive mood. "Madonna" sets the melancholic mood of many other poems; the melancholia only gets deeper. Even if we see the bright lushness of nature here and there once in a while, it is immediately juxtaposed with its gloomy opposite. In his "On a Moonlit December Night Near Charleston, Mississippi", he seems to enjoy the view of night:

Majestic fields for miles to see the earth straddled with stars,

And the moonlight break out in the orchards by the Tallahatchie.

But his night is also "dipped into ashes of snow" when he swims through the "long, empty, winding road ending up nowhere" and hears the "distant thuds of landslides, the fringy, muffled snow". In "After the Rain", we see "Roads glaze-wind through the swollen fields", but everything around is

gray, vapor,

… the faces grow

Thin as daylight fades toward the dimming west.

In "December Snow", the snow is compared to "the velvet shroud thick on the ground" where the grasses are "stiff under the serge of white." Hasan's treatment of nature reminds us of two English romantic poets-Byron and Shelly. He successfully fuses the wild and stormy aspects of nature as seen in Byron with the shifting and changeful aspects as manifested in Shelley. Hasan's feeling of melancholia reaches its pinnacle in poems such as "Depression" and "The Call" in which his detachment to earth transcends his attachment to it, and he seems to long for his final journey into eternity. In "Depression" he writes:

One or two stars know what I feel when I cross my fingers.

Some day I will jump into the river and drown.

And the final call for that journey into eternity seems to have come from his poem "The Call" in which he asks, "Who calls me from the lonely, dark place?" He knows the answer, so do we.

Does he respond to that call valiantly? Does he subscribe to the wisdom of Lord Buddha expressed in the following couplet?

From attachment comes grief; from attachment comes fear.

Whoever is free from attachment knows neither grief nor fear.

Just find out. Hasan's Madonna of the Rain is an excellent read for the poetry lovers who like to feel, as the poet feels, a little bit of lugubrious at times. To purchase a copy, contact rabiulhasan@hotmail.com. Rabiul will be in Dhaka during the months of June, July, and August when a signed copy could be acquired.

(The reviewer is an associate professor of English at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA.)

O United Nations

By Sinha M. A. Sayeed

There is no denying the fact that the book O United Nations--- written by Sinha M. A. Sayeed in a prosaic poetry fashion, a developing approach in the world of literature, and published by Bangladesh Political Science Association--- merits to be named for the author's profoundly pointing out and courageously uttering the drawbacks and loopholes, inherent or created, of the United Nations. Concerns and urges expressed in part three of the book for the timely implementation of all sorts of reform proposals and recommendations deserve to be noted with due respect and care indeed. His touching on the need for a comparative study on the International Court of Justice[ ICJ] under UN and European Court of Justice[ ECJ] under European Union is very much thought provoking in the light of the emerging new world order.

More interesting to see is that a call to the current Secretary General Ban-Ki-moon to move tactfully onward having a lesson from the experiences of the past Secretaries General is, to speak the truth, a new dimension in writing a book on the United Nations. Sinha appears very strong and confident about the unavoidable necessity, existence and continuation of the United Nations in the face of the challenges, open or hidden, as a paean global body and he also draws attention of all concerned to the threats to balance of power emanating from the ongoing imbalance standing of the nuclear and non- nuclear power holders, suppliers and stock pillars. His fingering at the regeneration of cold war in new forms and dimensions after the fall of the communist USSR indicates his in-depth study to the geo-political landscapes in the contemporary world. Sounding in the book like 'unipolar world is not safe, not safe either for you [UN] or for USA' echoes the reality of the limitations, weaknesses and operational non-substantive ness of the doctrine of unipolar world now being led by Hyper State the United States of America.

To our utter surprise, religion has been made a very dynamic and positive issue in the book in building the civilization, past, present and future and his proposal for convening an annual conference of religions (not on religions) should be one of the missions of United Nations bears a great significance in the context of ongoing approaches and initiatives to peace and conflicts, nationally, regionally and internationally. United Nations, to speak the truth, should voluntarily welcome Sinha for creatively, lucidly evaluating this global body without a minimum bias in any form and dimension. Such an evaluation may act as an example for others in future. The style of expression of thoughts taken resort to, otherwise called a prose-poetry form, in the book has added further glamour and flavor for a reader The book has beyond doubt mingled with the spirit and tempo of the peoples in this planet of the universe.

[The review has been made by Professor Dr. Shamsur Rahman, Head of the Department of Law and Human Rights, University of Asia Pacific, Bangladesh)

Poem

Of women

There are women we love whom we never see again.

Robert Bly

They are the swirls of snow on edges of the fields.

They melt in swing to the streams, and we do not

See them again for the dark of sun. They are

Riddles in hazel bodies ruptured in the breast of autumn.

Their body is a flesh is a sin is a fall.

Of their past we know very little or nothing:

Where were they born, with whom had they

Played their long seasons, and ripped the

Harvests to the last stalk for whom?

In Fargo, North Dakota, I loved a woman, whom

I cannot remember, I spen! a few nights with, or

In Beatrice, Nebraska, I cast my eyes upon a

Woman whom I loved but never made love to her,

And we fell off from each other one snowy evening

In Columbus, Mississippi, when the last autumn day flagged away.

When we grow old, and look at women we sometimes

Get a bit aphrodisiac; and they are blind alleys

We ride overhand never look back again through the dark.

Madonna of the rain

Rain yesterday. Rain today. More rain tomorrow.

Roads dark, half-sunk. No grass. Grasses deep under streams.

All eyes rain, waters, waters.

Against the window, pressed and punctilious, she

Stands facing the rain, and the wild wind wild,

Dances, dances about her unravelled hair.

Her silhouette is long, spread-eagled yet nonchalant,

Nebulous. Her arms across her breasts.

She croons a note, no syllable. Perhaps inaudible.

And it is all rain now, she prays for more.

And she stands there, all in rain,

And it is all rain now. Who is she?

Marianne? Michelle? Melanie?

I know them all? Perhaps. One of them.

I know her like the dreams I have not dreamt,

The falls I have not slipped,

The wrongs I have not done,

The lies I have not uttered,

The sins I have not committed.

Marianne! Marianne? Marianne?

Marianne, body in waters, eyes in clouds.

And it is all rain now, and through the rain

I will walk straight to the other end of the hamlet

To visit Marianne, who like an undine

Holds her water-filled breasts toward the invisible sun.

There was a time when I could

lend you a hand

I saw you take his kiss!

-Coventry Patmore

You sat facing the high bright sun.

The cloud overshadowed the light in your eyes.

A day was lost therein.

You sat facing the Ful1 Moon.

A cloud mopped out the flakes of silver on your golden cheeks.

A Beauty was spoiled therein, and a profile disturbed.

Who could tear the cloud to thousand bits?

Probably you knew the answer.

Someone waited on your cal1 that never came.

You liked him, the engulfing devil in disguise,

Many-faced serpent of nature,

Who robbed you of everything most precious

A woman should possess, and then left

You a destitute in a forlorn paradise all alone

With a million bitter memories that haunted you night and day.

You kissed him, and the serpent bit back your bosom,

Poisoned the plains of cream blue,

Reptile he was you knew yet bothered little.

This is not courage, no display of chaste womanhood.

You were a doll not board of a cruel game-

The string firmly held by him-

The visible God of your fate.

I was there-trapped, perplexed, hurt-watching

The game closing in-it is all over:

You are drowned in the quagmire of your sin.

Yes, there was a time when I could lend you a hand.

-Rabiul Hasan