The Brimming Cup

t Around

n

Round t

the Life of Mr

y

mp-lit kitchen. "I'm real glad you felt to come to one of our dances. They're old-fashioned, but we like 'em." She closed the door beh

on him from one side and the lively old woman from the other. Together they stripped the older man of his wraps. "Never too late to learn," old Mrs. Powers assured him briskly. "You dance with me and I'll shove ye around, all right

said, "Mrs. Powers, aren't you

" she answered smart

dance. Only I don't know any more than Mr. Well

he living-room. Both wore such an unusual aspect of elegance and grace that Vincent stared, stopping to look about him. "Looks queer, don

rooms could be seen. Lamps glowed from every shelf, their golden light softened by great sprays of green branches with tender young leaves, w

e he would have some pine boughs too. He's crazy about pine-trees. I always thought that was one reason why he took it so hard when we was done out of our

his place with the men, that not a single one had put powder on her face. Their eyes looked shining with anticipation. They leaned their heads together and chatted in low tones, laughing and glancing sideways at the group of men on the other side of the room. Vincent wondered at the presence of the children. When she arrived, he would ask Maris

k of weather, pigs, roads, and spring plowing which rose from the others. Vincent looked at him with approval. He felt strongly drawn to this splendid, primitive crea

" he said. "Ha

go out if we sm

ed Vincent, looking around him. "

velvet curtains, so great was the contrast with the yellow radiance of the room they had left. They looked back through the unshaded windows and saw the room as though it were an illustration in a book, or a scene in a moving-

n. She was carrying a large tray full of cups. She braced herself against the weight of the earthenware and balancing

ncent, not sorry to have an opportuni

ese savages, routing to the imagination of a civilized being. He went on, determined to get

prepared to listen with all the prodigious sharpness of which he knew himself capable. If

, she's good-loo

tremes, the super-sophisticated person who could control his voice so that it did not give him away, and the utter rustic whose voice had such a brute inexpressiveness that his meaning was as effectively hidden. He would try again

ll, down in Massachusetts, Adams way, and they got married there. They only come back here to live after they'd had all that trouble with lawyer

and set his teeth in his cigarette. Yes, Marise had come, now appeared in the doorway, tall, framed in green-leafed branches, the smooth pale ova

far away on the other side of the globe had chosen to express their being united to another human being

tood poised on her long, thick, white throat. What

s Brunhilda talking to Leonardo da Vinci's Ste. Anne. No, heavens no! Not a saint, a musty, penitential negation like a saint! Only of course, the Ste.

ting away the butt of his cigarette. "I th

g no sign, his strong long arms hanging a little in front of his body as he moved, his shoulders stooped apparently with their own weight. From the dining-room came a sound which Vincent did not recognize as the voice of any instrument he had ever heard: a series of extraordinarily rapid staccato scrapes, playing over and over a primitively simple sequence of notes. He stepped to the door to see what instrument was being used and saw an old man with a white beard an

Marsh." She called across to Frank Warner, standing very straight

iting for the signal, sent out a long

ality of the human voice when not hushed to

e far room!" chanted Frank. He drew a deep breath which visibly swelle

ing off through the thron

elligible in what looked like crowding confusion to Vincent and told him hurriedly, "Look-y-here, we'll have to git a move on, if we git into a set. They're all full

es about him were indeed in their places, hand in hand, facing each other, gravely elate and confident. The younger ones were swinging their

oom with a low ceiling, dense and green with pine-boughs, fastened to the walls. The odor was as st

her partner. She gave a sigh of satisfaction, caught at

incent felt his blood move more quickly at the spectacle they made. On one side stood Marise Crittenden, her fingers clasped by the huge knotted han

e the jig-jig-jigging of the

s boyhood, real embarrassment, fear of appearing at a disadvantage. What i

ngly, "Don't you worry. J

ittle later, he caught at the idea and sketched a bow such as to his aston

an's. Such a hearty zest was in her ev

rank, sending his voice out like a bugle s

the couples separated, stepped swayingly, each towards

to corner

t was executed t

orward and back

oised an instant on the top wave of rhythm and stepped back, every footfall, every movement, their very breathing

r an instant, he glanced beyond them into the next room. He received an impression of rapid, incessant, intricate shifting to and fro, the whole throng of dancers in mo

nd all the men broke out in a hoarse c

t through and

the girl b

t back on the

the girl b

viding and reuniting. The old clergyman held out his hand to Mrs. Crittenden, laughing as he swung her briskly about. 'Gene bent his grea

s in an intoned chant like a muezzin calling from a tower. Vincent felt h

t back on the

the girl b

f through to the motor-centers and set them throbbing. Vincent found himself holding Nelly Powers at arm's

and left!"

ly and passed him on to her mother, who swam past him like a goddess, a gold

s of Debussy's heart. . . . She grasped his fingers firmly and looked at him full, laughingly, her fa

dly light and elastic, treading the floor in her

is time his voice exultant that

followed by the other couples. The music stopped. He released her insta

g quickly. "'Twan't so hard as you

"What do you think of our aboriginal folk-dancing? I'll warrant you did not think there was a place i

out the subject at all," said Vincen

rsistence of certain parts of old English speech which is to be observed in the talk of

y through the crowd, recklessly. He was struck by the aspect of the people, their blood warmed, their

differently, confidently, and laid her hand on his arm in token of accepting his invitation. Vincent had a passing fancy that she did not care at all with

rank's deep-mouthed shout, "The set i

again Vincent found himself opposite Frank

shaking, quavering iteratio

your p

a deep courtesy, her toe pointed, instep high, her eyes shining, looking straight

o the corn

mself. Now that his first panic of astonishment was over, he observed that the fi

ic changed and again the men broke out into

t around

n

around

h

around

n

around

oised, alert human figures, he encountered Marise, comin

mperatively, nodding and laug

around t

the

ng lightly, his tall body apparently weighing no more th

ended hi

"And the lady

overlaying the men's invisible

and faster. The men sang at the tops of their voices, and beat time heavily. Under cover of this rolling clamor,

T

around

rise circled

A

around

ank follo

y's warm, vibrant hand was again in his. They were in the

ne brief moment of close physical contact of

abruptly, but it w

to touch her hair. Vincent, reflecting that he would never acquire the native-born capacity for abstaining

oom lined with the fragrant branches, and remarked,

ust have a great deal of it, whether you like it o

" she said, "I wish it were cut down, darkening the house the way it does." She sp

e to him, of combining two clues to make a certainty. He wished he could lay his hands on

stalled, looking extraordinarily young and girl-like, between Mr. Welles and Mr. Bayweather, fanning first one and then the other elderly gentleman and talking to them with animati

ng to a halt in front of the group and wishing

in your life." He went on to the others, "You simply can't imagine how remarkabl

an endeavor to save his clerical collar from complete ruin, and

ook like a boy, and you've been looking rather tired lately." She had an idea and added

't he expatiate on that subject and succeed in spoiling the afternoon. I had never been forced to think so much about it in all my life. He made me very uncomfortable, very! What

her certainty that he would follow the train of her thought; and he decided to try to get another rise out of the round-eyed little clergyman. "Oh, if it weren't the Negro problem, Mr. Bayweather, it wo

ng that he has the habit. His life at Ashley seems too unnaturally peaceful to him. I'd just as soon he took it out with worrying about the Negroes. The

ling, for she now brought the talk back to a safe, literal level by crying, "Well, there's one thing sure, Mr. Welles c

uld ever experience anything so . . . so . . . well, I tell

e," she laid her hand on his arm. "This is leap-year. I solemnly engage you to dance 'The Whirlwind' with me." She made the gesture of the little-boy athlete, feeling the biceps of one arm, moving her forear

light-hearted merriment, and thought, "The

pression. "You think I'm just silly and childish, don't you?" she told him challeng

far as my observation of life extends, our dances here are the only social functions left in the world, that people really en

hand. Vincent asked her casually, "What's the idea of ma

ve-labor to leave the children with, and so bring them along out of mere brute necessity. If I answer you in another vocabulary, I'd say that there is a close feeling of family unity,

Vincent challenged her, "Why don't you bring your own, then?" He kept down with difficulty the exclamation which he inwa

and saying that he is able to get home a little sooner than he thought, and will be here early tomorr

after she had finished this reasonable explanation. He was sta

mment, "How nice." He himself said, "Oh r

ly Powers, and asking her to dance with him again. She was shaking her head, and looking about the room uneasily. Vincent felt a gust

and inscrutable, shrugged her shoulders, put h

d by the heat of his accent. And then, seeing that Nelly's husband was in possible earshot, Vincent raised his voice r

how it, the granite impassiv

burst. He would go out and have another cigarette, he thought, and then ta

gain as he stepped out and

ring before him, frowning, forgetting what he had come out to do. He told himself that coming from that yelling confusion inside, and the glare of those garish lamps, he was stupefied by the great silence of the night. There was nothing clear in his mind, only a turmoil of eddying

igantic tree, ridiculous, despicable in the face of Nature, like the human life it sheltered. From its every w

le of the tree, folding his arms and staring at the h

d, sensual groping and grabbing for something worth while that did not exist, save in the stultification of th

of the dancers, insect-tiny, footing it to and fro. And in

er and any good-natured woman who would put on their shoes and wash their faces for them. Any paid Irish nurse could do for them what their mother bent the priceless treasure of her temperament to accomplish. The Irish nurse would do it better, for she would not be aware of anything else better, which she might do, and their mother knew well enough what she sacrificed . . . or if she did not know it yet, she would, soon. She had betrayed that to him, the very first time he had seen her, that astonishing first day, when, breathing out her vivid charm like an aureole of gold mist, she had sat there before him, quite simply the woman most to his taste he ha

away. What were the treasures to whom she was being sacrificed? Paul, the greasy, well-intentioned, priggish burgher he would make; Elly, almost half-witted, a child who stared at you like an imbecile when asked a question,

fourth w

. Well, that was less idiotic than working, at least. How soon before it would break again, the final destructive hurricane, born of nothing but the malignant folly of human hearts, and sweep away all that they now agoni

e and human beings. Now at least he was on bed-rock. There was a certain hard,

never given him in reality. His hard quiet was broken by an agitation he could not control. No, no, there was something there that was not mud. He h

on him from the mountains. A

o a furious resentment as at an indignity. God! What wa

t vibrant with eager and joyous life. With a strong, resolute step he went rapidly back to the door, opened it wide, stepped