Chapter V

by Sherwood Anderson

　　On the August evening as Rosalind sat on the porch before her father'shouse in Willow Springs, Walter Sayers came home from the factory bythe river and to his wife's suburban garden. When the family had dinedhe came out to walk in the paths with the two children, boys, but theysoon tired of his silence and went to join their mother. The youngnegro came along a path by the kitchen door and joined the party.Walter went to sit on a garden seat that was concealed behind bushes.He lighted a cigarette but did not smoke. The smoke curled quietly upthrough his fingers as it burned itself out.

　　Closing his eyes Walter sat perfectly still and tried not to think. Thesoft evening shadows began presently to close down and around him. Fora long time he sat thus motionless, like a carved figure placed on thegarden bench. He rested. He lived and did not live. The intense body,usually so active and alert, had become a passive thing. It was thrownaside, on to the bench, under the bush, to sit there, waiting to bereinhabited.

　　This hanging suspended between consciousness and unconsciousness was athing that did not happen often. There was something to be settledbetween himself and a woman and the woman had gone away. His whole planof life had been disturbed. Now he wanted to rest. The details of hislife were forgotten. As for the woman he did not think of her, did notwant to think of her. It was ridiculous that he needed her so much. Hewondered if he had ever felt that way about Cora, his wife. Perhaps hehad. Now she was near him, but a few yards away. It was almost dark butshe with the negro remained at work, digging in the ground--somewherenear--caressing the soil, making things grow.

　　When his mind was undisturbed by thoughts and lay like a lake in thehills on a quiet summer evening little thoughts did come. "I want youas a lover--far away. Keep yourself far away." The words trailedthrough his mind as the smoke from the cigarette trailed slowly upwardsthrough his fingers. Did the words refer to Rosalind Wescott? She hadbeen gone from him three days. Did he hope she would never come back ordid the words refer to his wife?

　　His wife's voice spoke sharply. One of the children in playing about,had stepped on a plant. "If you are not careful I shall have to makeyou stay out of the garden altogether." She raised her voice andcalled, "Marian!" A maid came from the house and took the childrenaway. They went along the path toward the house protesting. Then theyran back to kiss their mother. There was a struggle and thenacceptance. The kiss was acceptance of their fate--to obey. "O,Walter," the mother's voice called, but the man on the bench did notanswer. Tree toads began to cry. "The kiss is acceptance. Any physicalcontact with another is acceptance," he reflected.

　　The little voices within Walter Sayers were talking away at a greatrate. Suddenly he wanted to sing. He had been told that his voice wassmall, not of much account, that he would never be a singer. It wasquite true no doubt but here, in the garden on the quiet summer night,was a place and a time for a small voice. It would be like the voicewithin himself that whispered sometimes when he was quiet, relaxed. Oneevening when he had been with the woman, Rosalind, when he had takenher into the country in his car, he had suddenly felt as he did now.They sat together in the car that he had run into a field. For a longtime they had remained silent. Some cattle came and stood nearby, theirfigures soft in the night. Suddenly he had felt like a new man in a newworld and had begun to sing. He sang one song over and over, then satin silence for a time and after that drove out of the field and througha gate into the road. He took the woman back to her place in the city.

　　In the quiet of the garden on the summer evening he opened his lips tosing the same song. He would sing with the tree toad hidden away in thefork of a tree somewhere. He would lift his voice up from the earth, upinto the branches, of trees, away from the ground in which people weredigging, his wife and the young negro.

　　The song did not come. His wife began speaking and the sound of hervoice took away the desire to sing. Why had she not, like the otherwoman, remained silent?

　　He began playing a game. Sometimes, when he was alone the thinghappened to him that had now happened. His body became like a tree or aplant. Life ran through it unobstructed. He had dreamed of being asinger but at such a moment he wanted also to be a dancer. That wouldhave been sweetest of all things--to sway like the tops of young treeswhen a wind blew, to give himself as grey weeds in a sunburned fieldgave themself to the influence of passing shadows, changing colorconstantly, becoming every moment something new, to live in life and indeath too, always to live, to be unafraid of life, to let it flowthrough his body, to let the blood flow through his body, not tostruggle, to offer no resistance, to dance.

　　Walter Sayers' children had gone into the house with the nurse girlMarian. It had become too dark for his wife to dig in the garden. Itwas August and the fruitful time of the year for farms and gardens hadcome, but his wife had forgotten fruitfulness. She was making plans foranother year. She came along the garden path followed by the negro. "Wewill set out strawberry plants there," she was saying. The soft voiceof the young negro murmured his assent. It was evident the young manlived in her conception of the garden. His mind sought out her desireand gave itself.

　　The children Walter Sayers had brought into life through the body ofhis wife Cora had gone into the house and to bed. They bound him tolife, to his wife, to the garden where he sat, to the office by theriverside in the city.

　　They were not his children. Suddenly he knew that quite clearly. Hisown children were quite different things. "Men have children just aswomen do. The children come out of their bodies. They play about," hethought. It seemed to him that children, born of his fancy, were atthat very moment playing about the bench where he sat. Living thingsthat dwelt within him and that had at the same time the power to departout of him were now running along paths, swinging from the branches oftrees, dancing in the soft light.

　　His mind sought out the figure of Rosalind Wescott. She had gone away,to her own people in Iowa. There had been a note at the office sayingshe might be gone for several days. Between himself and Rosalind theconventional relationship of employer and employee had long since beenswept quite away. It needed something in a man he did not possess tomaintain that relationship with either men or women.

　　At the moment he wanted to forget Rosalind. In her there was a strugglegoing on. The two people had wanted to be lovers and he had foughtagainst that. They had talked about it. "Well," he said, "it will notwork out. We will bring unnecessary unhappiness upon ourselves."

　　He had been honest enough in fighting off the intensification of theirrelationship. "If she were here now, in this garden with me, itwouldn't matter. We could be lovers and then forget about beinglovers," he told himself.

　　His wife came along the path and stopped nearby. She continued talkingin a low voice, making plans for another year of gardening. The negrostood near her, his figure making a dark wavering mass against thefoliage of a low growing bush. His wife wore a white dress. He couldsee her figure quite plainly. In the uncertain light it looked girlishand young. She put her hand up and took hold of the body of a youngtree. The hand became detached from her body. The pressure of herleaning body made the young tree sway a little. The white hand movedslowly back and forth in space.

　　Rosalind Wescott had gone home to tell her mother of her love. In hernote she had said nothing of that but Walter Sayers knew that was theobject of her visit to the Iowa town. It was on odd sort of thing totry to do--to tell people of love, to try to explain it to others.

　　The night was a thing apart from Walter Sayers, the male being sittingin silence in the garden. Only the children of his fancy understood it.The night was a living thing. It advanced upon him, enfolded him."Night is the sweet little brother of Death," he thought.

　　His wife stood very near. Her voice was soft and low and the voice ofthe negro when he answered her comments on the future of the garden wassoft and low. There was music in the negro's voice, perhaps a dance init. Walter remembered about him.

　　The young negro had been in trouble before he came to the Sayers. Hehad been an ambitious young black and had listened to the voices ofpeople, to the voices that filled the air of America, rang through thehouses of America. He had wanted to get on in life and had tried toeducate himself. The black had wanted to be a lawyer.

　　How far away he had got from his own people, from the blacks of theAfrican forests! He had wanted to be a lawyer in a city in America.What a notion!

　　Well he had got into trouble. He had managed to get through college andhad opened a law office. Then one evening he went out to walk andchance led him into a street where a woman, a white woman, had beenmurdered an hour before. The body of the woman was found and then hewas found walking in the street. Mrs. Sayers' brother, a lawyer, hadsaved him from being punished as a murderer and after the trial, andthe young negro's acquittal, had induced his sister to take him asgardener. His chances as a professional man in the city were no good."He has had a terrible experience and has just escaped by a fluke" thebrother had said. Cora Sayers had taken the young man. She had boundhim to herself, to her garden.

　　It was evident the two people were bound together. One cannot bindanother without being bound. His wife had no more to say to the negrowho went away along the path that led to the kitchen door. He had aroom in a little house at the foot of the garden. In the room he hadbooks and a piano. Sometimes in the evening he sang. He was going nowto his place. By educating himself he had cut himself off from his ownpeople.

　　Cora Sayers went into the house and Walter sat alone. After a time theyoung negro came silently down the path. He stopped by the tree where amoment before the white woman had stood talking to him. He put his handon the trunk of the young tree where her hand had been and then wentsoftly away. His feet made no sound on the garden path.

　　An hour passed. In his little house at the foot of the garden the negrobegan to sing softly. He did that sometimes in the middle of the night.What a life he had led too! He had come away from his black people,from the warm brown girls with the golden colors playing through theblue black of their skins and had worked his way through a Northerncollege, had accepted the patronage of impertinent people who wanted touplift the black race, had listened to them, had bound himself to them,had tried to follow the way of life they had suggested.

　　Now he was in the little house at the foot of the Sayers' garden.Walter remembered little things his wife had told him about the man.The experience in the court room had frightened him horribly and he didnot want to go off the Sayers' place. Education, books had donesomething to him. He could not go back to his own people. In Chicago,for the most part, the blacks lived crowded into a few streets on theSouth Side. "I want to be a slave," he had said to Cora Sayers. "Youmay pay me money if it makes you feel better but I shall have no usefor it. I want to be your slave. I would be happy if I knew I wouldnever have to go off your place."

　　The black sang a low voiced song. It ran like a little wind on thesurface of a pond. It had no words. He had remembered the song from hisfather who had got it from his father. In the South, in Alabama andMississippi the blacks sang it when they rolled cotton bales onto thesteamers in the rivers. They had got it from other rollers of cottonbales long since dead. Long before there were any cotton bales to rollblack men in boats on rivers in Africa had sung it. Young blacks inboats floated down rivers and came to a town they intended to attack atdawn. There was bravado in singing the song then. It was addressed tothe women in the town to be attacked and contained both a caress and athreat. "In the morning your husbands and brothers and sweethearts weshall kill. Then we shall come into your town to you. We shall hold youclose. We shall make you forget. With our hot love and our strength weshall make you forget." That was the old significance of the song.

　　Walter Sayers remembered many things. On other nights when the negrosang and when he lay in his room upstairs in the house, his wife cameto him. There were two beds in their room. She sat upright in her bed."Do you hear, Walter?" she asked. She came to sit on his bed, sometimesshe crept into his arms. In the African villages long ago when the songfloated up from the river men arose and prepared for battle. The songwas a defiance, a taunt. That was all gone now. The young negro's housewas at the foot of the garden and Walter with his wife lay upstairs inthe larger house situated on high ground. It was a sad song, filledwith race sadness. There was something in the ground that wanted togrow, buried deep in the ground. Cora Sayers understood that. Ittouched something instinctive in her. Her hand went out and touched,caressed her husband's face, his body. The song made her want to holdhim tight, possess him.

　　The night was advancing and it grew a little cold in the garden. Thenegro stopped singing. Walter Sayers arose and went along the pathtoward the house but did not enter. Instead he went through a gate intothe road and along the suburban streets until he got into the opencountry. There was no moon but the stars shone brightly. For a time hehurried along looking back as though afraid of being followed, but whenhe got out into a broad flat meadow he went more slowly. For an hour hewalked and then stopped and sat on a tuft of dry grass. For some reasonhe knew he could not return to his house in the suburb that night. Inthe morning he would go to the office and wait there until Rosalindcame. Then? He did not know what he would do then. "I shall have tomake up some story. In the morning I shall have to telephone Cora andmake up some silly story," he thought. It was an absurd thing that he,a grown man, could not spend a night abroad, in the fields without thenecessity of explanations. The thought irritated him and he arose andwalked again. Under the stars in the soft night and on the wide flatplains the irritation soon went away and he began to sing softly, butthe song he sang was not the one he had repeated over and over on thatother night when he sat with Rosalind in the car and the cattle came.It was the song the negro sang, the river song of the young blackwarriors that slavery had softened and colored with sadness. On thelips of Walter Sayers the song had lost much of its sadness. He walkedalmost gaily along and in the song that flowed from his lips there wasa taunt, a kind of challenge.