“Come, then,” he said grudgingly, finding his hat and waiting for her to pull on her warm new pelisse and tie the ribbons of her bonnet beneath her chin.
They walked without talking or touching down the driveway and across the Palladian bridge before he turned onto a path that led among the trees until it arrived at the marble temple folly that stood on the southern shore of the lake and made a picturesque prospect from the opposite shore.
It was a chilly, cloudy day and blustery too. The ground was carpeted with leaves, though there were still plenty left on the trees. Anne went to sit inside the shelter of the temple while he stood outside gazing across the choppy water.
He was not often depressed. He did not allow himself to be. Whenever his spirits threatened to droop, he always found more work to do. Work was an amazing antidote to depression. And he did not often give in to self-pity. It was tedious and cowardly and pointless. He preferred to count his blessings, which were many. He was alive. Even that was a miracle.
But just occasionally depression or self-pity or both assaulted him no matter how determinedly he tried to keep them at bay. He dreaded such times. Sometimes neither work nor positive thinking would help.
This was one of those times.
The smell of the oils was still in his head.
He still remembered the moment when he had lifted his hand to take the brush from David.
Hisrighthand.
And he still remembered lifting his left hand to the canvas.
“Sydnam—”
He had almost forgotten Anne’s presence. She was his wife, his bride. She was bearing their child. And she had shown him enormous kindness even in the midst of her own pain.
“Sydnam,” she said again, “is there no way you can paint again?”
Ah. Already she understood him too well.
He stared bleakly into the folly.
“My right hand is no longer there,” he said. “My left will not do my bidding. You must have seen that this morning.”
“You used your mouth,” she said, “and changed your grip on the brush. And then you made brushstrokes that caused David to understand what you had been telling him.”
“I cannot produceartwith my left fist and my mouth,” he said. “Forgive me, but you do not understand, Anne. There is the vision, but it flows down my right arm, which is not there. Am I to produce phantom paintings?”
“Perhaps,” she said, “you have allowed the vision to master you instead of bending it to your will.”
She was sitting very upright on the stone bench at the back of the folly, her feet together, her hands cradled in each other, palm-up, in her lap. She looked very much like the rather prim teacher she had been until a few days ago—and ever and always dazzlingly beautiful. He turned his head away.
“The vision is not like a muscle to be exercised,” he said softly. “I have lost an eye as well as an arm, Anne. I do not see properly. Everything is changed. Everything has narrowed and flattened and lost perspective. How could I evenseeaccurately to paint?”
“Properly,”she said, picking up on the one word he had spoken. “How do we know what isproperoraccuratevision?”
“That which involves two eyes?” he said rather bitterly.
“Butwhosetwo eyes?” she asked. “Have you ever watched a bird of prey hovering so high in the sky that it is almost indiscernible to the human eye and then diving to catch a mouse on the ground? Can you even begin to imagine the vision that bird has, Sydnam? Can you imagine seeing the world through its eyes? And have you seen a cat at night, able to see what is invisible to us in the darkness? What must it be like to see as a cat does? How do we know what ispropervision? Is there any such thing? Because you have only one eye, you see differently from me or from yourself when you had two. But is it thereforeimpropervision? Perhaps your artistic vision is great enough to see new meaning in things and to find a different way of expressing itself without in any way diminishing itself in the process. Perhaps it has needed the changes so that it may challenge you to do great things you never even imagined before.”
He stood looking out over the lake as she spoke, its surface gray and rough in the wind but nevertheless reflecting some of the myriad colors of autumn that the trees were sporting.
He felt a painful surge of love for her. She wanted so badly to help him, just as she had the night before last after he had woken from his nightmare. And yet there seemed no way he could help her.
“Anne,” he said, “I cannot paint again. Icannot. Yet I cannot live without painting.”
Those final words were wrenched unwillingly from him and horrified him. He had never dared eventhinksuch thoughts before. He dared not believe in the truth of them now. For if theyweretrue, there was no real hope left in life.
Suddenly, without warning, he hit the very bottom of despair.
And then he was horrified anew as he sobbed aloud and, when he tried to strangle the sound, sobbed once more.
