Chapter XXIX

by Susan Glaspell

　　The next morning Katie did something which it had been in her mind to dofor some time. She went to Centralia.

　　It was not that she expected Centralia to furnish any information aboutAnn. It was hard to say just why she was so certain Ann had not gone backto Centralia. The conviction had something to do with her belief in Ann.

　　Centralia, however, might be an avenue to something. Furthermore, shewanted to see Centralia. That was part of her passion for seeing thething as a whole, realizing it. And she had a suspicion that if anythingremained to forgive Ann it would be forgiven after seeing Centralia.

　　And back of all that lurked the longing to tell Ann's father what shethought of him.

　　Katie was in a strange mood that day. She had read Ann's letter manytimes, but had never finished it with that poignantly personal heartacheof the night before. It was as if she were not worthy that new thingwhich kept warm in her own heart. For she had been hostile to the verything from which the warmth in her own heart drew. The sadness deepenedin the thought that the great hosts of the world's people sheltered joyin their own hearts and hardened those very hearts against all to whomlove came less fortunately than it had come to them. How could there be'hope for the world, no matter what it might do about its materialaffairs, while heart closed against heart like that, while men and womendrew their own portions of joy and shut themselves in with them, refusingto see that they were one with all who drew, or would draw. It seemed themost cruel, the most wrong thing of all the world that men—and aboveall, women—should turn their most unloving face upon the face of love.

　　Of which things she thought again as she passed various Centraliasand wondered if there were Anns longing for love in all thoseunlovely places.

　　She came at last, after crossing a long stretch of nothingness, to thetown where Ann had lived, town from which she had gone forth to heargrand opera and find the loveliness of life. But as she stepped from thetrain and approached a group of men lounging at the station it came toher that "Ann's father," particularly as Ann had not been Ann inCentralia, was a somewhat indefinite person to be inquiring for.

　　After a moment's consideration she approached the man who looked newestto his profession and asked how many churches there were in Centralia.Thereupon one man beat open retreat and all viewed her with suspicion.But the man of her choice was a brave man and ventured to guess thatthere were four.

　　One of his comrades held that there were five. A discussion ensuedclosing with the consensus of opinion in favor of the greater number.

　　Then Katie explained her predicament; she wanted to find a man who was aminister in Centralia and she didn't know his name. Reassured, theygathered round interestedly. Was he young or old? Katie cautiously placedhim in the forties or fifties. Then they guessed and reckoned that itcouldn't be either the Reverend Lewis or that new fellow at the Baptist.Was he—would she say he was one to be kind of easy on a fellow, or didshe think he took his religion pretty hard?

　　Katie was forced to admit that she feared he took it hard. With that theywere agreed to a man that it must be the Reverend Saunders.

　　She was thereupon directed to the residence of the Reverend Saunders.Right down there was a restaurant with a sign in the window "Don't PassBy." But she was to pass by. Then there was the church said "Welcome."No, that was not the Reverend Saunders' church. It was the church whereshe turned to the right. She could turn to the left, but, on the whole,it would be better to turn to the right—It would all have been quitesimple had it not been for the fullness of the directions.

　　She took it that the fullness of their directions was in proportion tothe emptiness of their lives.

　　As she walked slowly along she appreciated what Ann had said of thetown's being walled in by nothingness—the people walled in bynothingness. Her two blocks on "Main Street" showed her Centralia as aplace of petty righteousness and petty vice. There was nothing so largeand flexible as the real joys of either righteousness or unrighteousness.

　　Nor was Centralia picturesquely desolate. It had not that quality ofhopelessness which lures to melancholy. New houses were going up. Thelast straw was that Centralia was "growing."

　　And it was on those streets that a lonely little girl with deep browneyes and soft brown hair had dreamed of a Something Somewhere.

　　As she turned in at the residence of the Reverend Saunders Katie wasnewly certain that Ann had not come back to Centralia. It seemed the onedisappointment in Ann she was not prepared to bear would be to find thatshe had returned to the home of her youth.

　　Katie had been shown into the parlor. She was sitting in a rocking chairwhich "squeaked"—her smartly shod foot resting on a pale blue rose—thepale blue rose being in the carpet. The carpet also squeaked—or thepapers underneath it did. On the table beside her was a large and ornateBible, an equally splendid album, and something called "SteppingHeavenward."

　　Oh no—Ann had not come back. She knew that before she asked.

　　Ann's father was a tall, thin man with small gray eyes. "Thin lips thatshut together tight"—she recalled that. And the kind of beard that isunalterably associated with self-righteousness.

　　It was clear he did not know what to make of Katie. She was wearing alinen suit which had vague suggestions of the world, the flesh, and thedevil. She had selected it that morning with considerable care. Likewisethe shoes! And the angle of the quill in Katie's hat stirred in him thesame suspicion and aggression which his beard stirred in her.

　　Thus viewing each other across seas of prejudice, separated, as itwere, by all the experiences of the human race, they began to speak ofAnn and of life.

　　"I am a friend of your daughter's," was Katie's opening.

　　It startled him, stirring something on the borderland of the human. Thenhe surveyed Katie anew and shut his lips together more tightly. It wasevidently just what he had expected his daughter to come to.

　　"And I came," said Katie, "to ask if you had any idea where she was."

　　That reached even farther into the border-country. He sat forward—hislips relaxed. "Don't you know?"

　　"No—I don't know. She was living with me, and she went away."

　　That recalled his own injury. He sat back and folded his arms. "She wasliving with me—and she went away. No, I know nothing of herwhereabouts. My daughter saw fit to leave her father's house—undercircumstances that bowed his head in shame. She has not seen fit toreturn, or to give information of her whereabouts. I have tried to servemy God all my days," said the Reverend Saunders; "I do not know why thisshould have been visited upon me. But His ways are inscrutable. Hispurpose is not revealed."

　　"No," said Katie crisply, "I should say not."

　　He expressed his condemnation of the relation of manner to subject by acompression of both eyes and lips. That, Katie supposed, was the way hehad looked when he told Ann her dog had been sent away.

　　"Did you ever wonder," she asked, with real curiosity, "how in the worldyou happened to have such a daughter?"

　　"I have many times taken it up in prayer," was his response.

　　Katie sat there viewing him and looking above his head at the motto "God

　　Is Love." She wondered if Ann had had to work it.

　　It was the suggestion in the motto led her to ask: "Tell me, have youreally no idea, have you never had so much as a suspicion of why Annwent away?"

　　"Who?" he asked sharply.

　　"Your daughter. Her friends call her Ann."

　　"Her name," said he uncompromisingly, "is Maria."

　　Katie smiled slightly. Maria, as he uttered it, squeaked distressingly.

　　"Be that as it may. But have you really no notion of why she went away?"

　　She was looking at him keenly. After a moment his eyes fell, orrather, lifted under the look. "She had a good home—a God-fearinghome," he said.

　　But Katie did not let go her look. He had to come back to it, and heshifted. Did he have it in him remotely, unavowedly, to suspect?

　　It would seem so, for he continued his argument, as if meetingsomething. He repeated that she had a good home. He enumerated herblessings.

　　But when he paused it was to find Katie looking at him in just thesame way. It forced him to an unwilling, uneasy: "What more could agirl want?"

　　"What she wanted," said Katie passionately, "was life."

　　The word spoken as Katie spoke it had suggestion of unholy things. "But

　　God is life," he said.

　　Suddenly Katie's eyes blazed. "God! Well it's my opinion that you knowjust as little about Him as you do about 'life.'"

　　It was doubtless the most dumbfounded moment of the Reverend Saunders'life. His jaw dropped. But only to come together the tighter. "Youngwoman," said he, "I am a servant of God. I have served Him all my days."

　　"Heaven pity Him!" said Katie, and rocked and her chair squeakedsavagely.

　　He rose. "I cannot permit such language to be used in my house."

　　Katie gave no heed. "I'll tell you why your daughter left. She leftbecause you starved her.

　　"Above your head is a motto. The motto says, 'God Is Love.' I couldalmost fancy somebody hung that in this house as a joke!

　　"You see you don't know anything about love. That's why you don't knowanything about God—or life—or Ann.

　　"In this universe of mysterious things," Katie went on, "it sohappened—as you have remarked, God's ways are indeed inscrutable—thatunto you was born a child ordained for love."

　　She paused, held herself by the mystery of that.

　　And as she contemplated the mystery of it her wrath against him fellstrangely away. Telling him what she thought of him suddenly ceased to bethe satisfying thing she had anticipated. It was all too mysterious.

　　It grew so large and so strange that it did not seem a matter theReverend Saunders had much to do with it. Telling him what shethought of him was not the thing interesting her then. Whatinterested her was wondering why he was as he was. How it had allhappened. What it all meant.

　　Her wondering almost drew her to him; certainly it gave her a newapproach. "Oh isn't it a pity!" was what Katie said next. And there waspain and feeling and almost sympathy in her voice as she repeated, "Isn'tit a pity!"

　　He, too, spoke differently—more humanly. "Isn't—what a pity?"

　　"That we bungle it so! That we don't seem to know anything abouteach other.

　　"Why I suppose you didn't know—you simply didn't have it in you toknow—that the way she needed to serve God was by laughing and dancing!"

　　He was both outraged and drawn. He neither rebuked nor agreed. He waited.

　　"You see it was this way. You were one thing; she was another thing. Andneither of you had any way of getting at the thing that the other was. Soyou just grew more intolerant in the things you were, and that, Isuppose, is the way hearts are broken and lives are spoiled."

　　Her eyes had filled. It had drawn her back to her mood of the morning."Doesn't it seem to you," she asked gently of the Reverend Saunders,"that it's just an awful pity?"

　　The Reverend Saunders did not reply. But he was not looking at Katie'squill or Katie's shoes. He was looking at Katie's wet eyes.

　　And Katie, as they sat there for a moment in silence, was not seeing himalone as the Reverend Saunders. She was seeing him as product ofsomething which had begun way back across the centuries, seeing far backof the Reverend Saunders that spirit of intolerance which had shapedhim—wrung him dry—spirit which in the very beginning had lost themeaning of those words which hung above the Reverend Saunders' head.

　　It seemed a childish thing to be blaming the Reverend Saunders for thethings the centuries had made him.

　　Indeed, she no longer felt like "blaming" any one. Sorrow which comesthrough seeing leaves small room for blame.

　　Katie did not know as much about the history of mankind as she now wishedshe did—as she meant to know!—but there did open to her a glimpse ofthe havoc wrought by the forerunners of the Reverend Saunders—of all thechildren of love blighted in the name of a God of love.

　　She had risen. And as she looked at him again she was sorry for him.Sterility of the heart seemed a thing for pity rather than scorn. "I'msorry for you," she spoke it. "Oh I'm sorry for us all! We all bungle it!We're all in the grip of dead things, aren't we? Do you suppose it willever be any different?"

　　And still he looked, not at the quill or the shoes, but the eyes, eyeswhich seemed sorrowing with all the love sorrows of the centuries. "Youngwoman," he said uncertainly, "you puzzle me."

　　"I puzzle myself," said Katie, and wiped her eyes and laughed a little,thinking of the scornful exit she had meant to make after telling himwhat she thought of him.

　　She retraced her steps and waited for two hours at the station,reconstructing for herself Ann's girlhood in Centralia and thinkinglarger thoughts of the things which spoiled girlhoods, the pity of itall. And it seemed that even self-righteousness was not wholly to blame.Katie felt a little lonely in losing her scorn of "goodness." She had soenjoyed hating the godly. If even they were to be gently grouped with thewicked as more to be pitied than hated, then whom would one hate?

　　Did knowing—seeing—spoil hating? And was all hating to go whenall men saw?

　　At the last minute she had a fight with herself to keep from going backand refunding the missionary money! The missionary money worried Katie.She wanted it paid back. But she saw that it was not her paying it backwould satisfy her. She even felt that she had no right to pay it back.