To a God Unknown

by John Steinbeck

“work is your only weapon” against life’s tragedies.

“If you could wait a year,” the old man said at last, “a year or two is nothing when you’re thirty-five. If you could wait a year, not more than two surely, then I wouldn’t mind. You’re not the oldest, Joseph, but I’ve always thought of you as the one to have the blessing. Thomas and Burton are good men, good sons, but I’ve always intended the blessing for you, so you could take my place. I don’t know why. There’s something more strong in you than in your brothers, Joseph; more sure and inward.”

The endless green halls and aisles and alcoves seemed to have meanings as obscure and promising as the symbols of an ancient religion.

The past, his home and all the events of his childhood were being lost, and he knew he owed them the duty of memory. This land might possess all of him if he were not careful. To combat the land a little, he thought of his father, of the calm and peace, the strength and eternal rightness of his father, and then in his thought the difference ended and he knew that there was no quarrel, for his father and this new land were one. Joseph was frightened then. “He’s dead,” he whispered to himself. “My father must be dead.”

His eyes lighted with recognition and welcome, for his father’s strong and simple being, which had dwelt in his youth like a cloud of peace, had entered the tree.

My father is in that tree. My father is that tree! It is silly, but I want to believe it.

Thomas liked animals and understood them, and he killed them with no more feeling than they had about killing each other. He was too much an animal himself to be sentimental.

Thomas understood animals, but humans he neither understood nor trusted very much.

Once, after a service to the church, he had been praised from the pulpit, “A strong man in the Lord,” the pastor called him, and Thomas bent close to Joseph’s ear and whispered, “A weak man in the stomach.”

In a way it gratified him that his health was bad, for it proved that God thought of him enough to make him suffer.

He looked so young, so helpless and so lost that many women pitied him, and for this reason Benjamin was nearly always in trouble with some woman or other.

Benjamin, the youngest of the four, was a charge upon his brothers. He was dissolute and undependable; given a chance, he drank himself into a romantic haze and walked about the country, singing gloriously. He looked so young, so helpless and so lost that many women pitied him, and for this reason Benjamin was nearly always in trouble with some woman or other. For when he was drunk and singing and the lost look was in his eyes, women wanted to hold him against their breasts and protect him from his blunders. It always surprised those who mothered Benjamin when he seduced them. They never knew quite how it happened, for his was a deadly helplessness. He accomplished things so badly that everyone tried to help him. His new young wife, Jennie, labored to keep Benjamin from hurt. And when she heard him singing in the night and knew that he was drunk again she prayed he might not fall and hurt himself. The singing drew off into the dark and Jennie knew that before the night was out, some perplexed and startled girl would lie with him. She cried a little for fear he might be hurt. Benjy was a happy man, and he brought happiness and pain to everyone who knew him. He lied, stole a little, cheated, broke his word and imposed upon kindnesses; and everyone loved Benjy and excused and guarded him. When the families moved West they brought Benjy with them for fear he might starve if he were left behind. Thomas and Joseph saw that his homestead was in good order. He borrowed Joseph’s tent and lived in it until his brothers found time to build him a house. Even Burton, who cursed Benjy, prayed with him and hated his way of living, couldn’t let him live in a tent. Where he got whiskey his brothers could never tell, but he had it always. In the valley of Our Lady the Mexicans gave him liquor and taught him their songs, and Benjy took their wives when they were not watching him.

They put up little shacks on their own land as the law required, but never for a minute did they think of the land as being divided into four.

The families clustered about the house Joseph had built. They put up little shacks on their own land as the law required, but never for a minute did they think of the land as being divided into four. It was one ranch, and when the technicalities of the homesteading were satisfied, it was the Wayne ranch. Four square houses clustered near to the great oak, and the big barn belonged to the tribe.

Perhaps because he had received the blessing, Joseph was the unquestioned lord of the clan.

All things about him, the soil, the cattle and the people were fertile, and Joseph was the source, the root of their fertility;

It was the heritage of a race which for a million years had sucked at the breasts of the soil and cohabited with the earth.

“—everyone knows such things are natural. Everyone knows such things must happen if the race is to go on. But people don’t watch it unless it’s necessary. You might be seen acting this way.”

“Don’t be afraid, Tom. There’s something strong and sweet and good in there. There’s something like food in there, and like cool water. We’ll forget it now, Tom. Only maybe sometime when we have need, we’ll go back again—and be fed.”

She whispered to herself, “He is useless, I know! A drunken, useless fool. I have something to do, almost a magic thing.”

For a moment she broke into his thinking, crying, “Joseph, I’m afraid.”

He stepped to the ground, then, and held out a hand to her; but when he tried to lead her toward the pass she pulled her hand away from him and stood shivering in the shade. And he thought, “I must try to tell her. I’ve never tried to tell her things like this. It’s seemed too difficult a thing, but now I’ll have to try to tell her,” and he practiced in his mind the thing he must try to say. “Elizabeth,” he cried in his mind, “can you hear me? I am cold with a thing to say, and prayerful for a way to say it.” His eyes widened and he was entranced. “I have thought without words,” he said in his mind. “A man told me once that was not possible, but I have thought—Elizabeth, listen to me. Christ nailed up might be more than a symbol of all pain. He might in very truth contain all pain. And a man standing on a hilltop with his arms outstretched, a symbol of the symbol, he too might be a reservoir of all the pain that ever was.” For a moment she broke into his thinking, crying, “Joseph, I’m afraid.” And then his thought went on, “Listen, Elizabeth. Do not be afraid. I tell you I have thought without words. Now let me grope a moment among the words, tasting them, trying them. This is a space between the real and the clean, unwavering real, undistorted by the senses. Here is a boundary. Yesterday we were married and it was no marriage. This is our marriage—through the pass—entering the passage like sperm and egg that have become a single unit of pregnancy. This is a symbol of the undistorted real. I have a moment in my heart, different in shape, in texture, in duration from any other moment. Why, Elizabeth, this is all marriage that has ever been, contained in our moment.” And he said in his mind, “Christ in his little time on the nails carried within his body all the suffering that ever was, and in him it was undistorted.”

“There’s nothing to be afraid of, dear. This is nothing. I have been far too much alone. It seems to mean something to me to go through the pass with you.”

He had been upon a star, and now the hills rushed back and robbed him of his aloneness and of his naked thinking. His arms and hands felt heavy and dead, hanging like weights on thick cords from the shoulders that were tired of supporting them. Elizabeth saw how his mouth had gone loose with hopelessness and how his eyes had lost the red gleaming of a moment before. She cried, “Joseph, what is it you want? What are you asking me to do?” Twice he tried to answer, but a thickness in his throat prohibited speech. He coughed the passage free. “I want to go through the pass,” he said hoarsely. “I’m afraid, Joseph. I don’t know why, but I’m terribly afraid.” He broke his lethargy then and coiled one of the swinging weights about her waist. “There’s nothing to be afraid of, dear. This is nothing. I have been far too much alone. It seems to mean something to me to go through the pass with you.”

“There may be pains more sharp than delight, Elizabeth, like sucking a hot peppermint that burns your tongue. The bitterness of being a woman may be an ecstasy.”

“Joseph,” she said. “It’s a bitter thing to be a woman. I’m afraid to be. Everything I’ve been or thought of will stay outside the pass. I’ll be a grown woman on the other side. I thought it might come gradually. This is too quick.” And she remembered how her mother said, ‘When you’re big, Elizabeth, you’ll know hurt, but it won’t be the kind of hurt you think. It’ll be a hurt that can’t be reached with a curing kiss.’ “I’ll go now, Joseph,” she said quietly. “I’ve been foolish. You’ll have to expect so much foolishness from me.” The weight left Joseph then. His arm tightened about her waist and he urged her forward tenderly. She knew, although her head was bent, how he gazed down on her and how his eyes were gentle. They walked slowly through the pass, in the blue shade of it. Joseph laughed softly. “There may be pains more sharp than delight, Elizabeth, like sucking a hot peppermint that burns your tongue. The bitterness of being a woman may be an ecstasy.”

The land was dancing in the shimmer of the sun and the trees, clannish little families of white oaks, stirred slightly under the wind that brought excitement to a sloping afternoon.

And then the air grew warm; there was no longer rock under her feet. Her eyelids turned black-red and then yellow-red over her eyes. Joseph stopped and drew her tightly against his side. “Now we are through, Elizabeth. Now it is done.” She opened her eyes and looked about on the closed valley. The land was dancing in the shimmer of the sun and the trees, clannish little families of white oaks, stirred slightly under the wind that brought excitement to a sloping afternoon. The village of Our Lady was before them, houses brown with weathering and green with rose vines, picket fences burning with a soft fire of nasturtiums. Elizabeth cried out sharply with relief, “I’ve been having a bad dream. I’ve been asleep. I’ll forget the dream now. It wasn’t real.” Joseph’s eyes were radiant. “It’s not so bitter, then, to be a woman?” he asked. “It isn’t any different. Nothing seems changed. I hadn’t realized how beautiful the valley is.”

“For it’s a bitter thing to be a child,” she thought. “There are so many clean new surfaces to scratch.”

“Wait here,” he said. “I’ll go back and bring the horses through.” But when he was gone, Elizabeth cried sadly, for she had a vision of a child in short starched skirts and with pigtails down her back, who stood outside the pass and looked anxiously in, stood on one foot and then on the other, hopped nervously and kicked a stone into the stream. For a moment the vision waited as Elizabeth remembered waiting on a street corner for her father, and then the child turned miserably away and walked slowly toward Monterey. Elizabeth was sorry for her, “For it’s a bitter thing to be a child,” she thought. “There are so many clean new surfaces to scratch.”

“There are some times, Joseph, when the love for people is strong and warm like a sorrow.”

Joseph took off his hat and laid it on his lap. His hair was tangled and damp, and his eyes tired. “They are good people,” he said. “I’ll be glad to get home, won’t you?” “Yes, I’ll be glad.” And she said suddenly, “There are some times, Joseph, when the love for people is strong and warm like a sorrow.” He looked quickly at her in astonishment at her statement of his own thought. “How did you think that, dear?” “I don’t know. Why?” “Because I was thinking it at that moment—and there are times when the people and the hills and the earth, all, everything except the stars, are one, and the love of them all is strong like a sadness.” “Not the stars, then?” “No, never the stars. The stars are always strangers—sometimes evil, but always strangers. Smell the sage, Elizabeth. It’s good to be getting home.”

“No, never the stars. The stars are always strangers—

Something I’ve read or something I’ve been told makes it a fitting thing that a goat should come out of the ocean.”

With evening the air grew clear with moisture, so that the mountains were as hard and sharp as crystal. After the sun was gone, there was a hypnotic time when Joseph and Elizabeth stared ahead at the clear hills and could not take their eyes away. The pounding hoofs and the muttering of water deepened the trance. Joseph looked unblinkingly at the string of light along the western mountain rim. His thoughts grew sluggish, but with their slowness they became pictures, and the figures arranged themselves on the mountain tops. A black cloud sailed in from the ocean and rested on the ridge, and Joseph’s thought made it a black goat’s head. He could see the yellow, slanting eyes, wise and ironic, and the curved horns. He thought, “I know that it is really there, the goat resting his chin on a mountain range and staring in on the valley. He should be there. Something I’ve read or something I’ve been told makes it a fitting thing that a goat should come out of the ocean.” He was endowed with the power to create things as substantial as the earth. “If I will admit the goat is there, it will be there. And I will have made it. This goat is important,” he thought. A flight of birds rolled and twisted high overhead, and they caught the last light on their flickering wings, and twinkled like little stars. A hunting owl drifted over and shrieked his cry, designed to make small groundling creatures start uneasily and betray themselves against the grass. The valley filled quickly with dark, and the black cloud, as though it had seen enough, withdrew to the sea again. Joseph thought, “I must maintain to myself that it was the goat. I must never betray the goat by disbelieving it.

“I mean there’s a danger of being lost. It’s the light that’s going. I thought I suddenly felt myself spreading and dissipating like a cloud, mixing with everything around me. It was a good feeling, Joseph. And then the owl went over, and I was afraid that if I mixed too much with the hills I might never be able to collapse into Elizabeth again.”

“Yes,” he said at last, “it’s like that—why all the animals stand still when it comes dark evening. They don’t blink their eyes at all and they go dreaming.” He fell silent again.

“It’s only the time of day,” he reassured her. “It seems to affect all living things. Have you ever noticed the animals and the birds when its evening?” “No,” she said, turning eagerly toward him, for it seemed to her that she had discovered a communication. “I don’t think I’ve ever noticed anything very closely in my life,” she said. “Just now it seems to me that the lenses of my eyes have been wiped clean. What do the animals do at evening?” Her voice had grown sharp and had broken through his reverie. “I don’t know,” he said sullenly. “I mean—I know, but I’ll have to think. These things aren’t always ready to hand, you know,” he apologized. And he fell silent and looked into the gathering darkness. “Yes,” he said at last, “it’s like that—why all the animals stand still when it comes dark evening. They don’t blink their eyes at all and they go dreaming.” He fell silent again.

“Cats’ tails lie flat and straight and motionless when they’re eating.”

“I remember a thing,” Elizabeth said. “I don’t know when I noticed it, but just now—you said yourself it’s the time of day, and this picture is important in this time of day.” “What?” he asked. “Cats’ tails lie flat and straight and motionless when they’re eating.” “Yes,” he nodded, “yes, I know.” “And that’s the only time they’re ever straight, and that’s the only time they’re ever still.” She laughed gaily. Now that the foolish thing was said, she realized it might be taken as a satire on Joseph’s dreaming animals, and she was glad it might. She felt rather clever to have said it.

“You’re pretty,” Rama said critically. “I wouldn’t have thought Joseph could pick a pretty wife.”

“You’re pretty,” Rama said critically. “I wouldn’t have thought Joseph could pick a pretty wife.” Elizabeth blushed. “What do you mean?” she asked. There were streams of feeling here she couldn’t identify, methods of thinking that wouldn’t enter the categories of her experience or learning. It frightened her and so she smiled amusedly. “Of course he knows that. Why he told me.” Rama laughed quietly. “I didn’t know him as well as I thought I did. I thought he’d pick a wife as he’d pick a cow—to be a good cow, perfect in the activity of cows—to be a good wife and very like a cow. Perhaps he is more human than I thought.” There was a little bitterness in her voice. Her strong white fingers brushed her hair down on each side of the sharp part. “I think I’ll have a cup of tea. I’ll put more water in. It must be poisonously strong.” “Of course he’s human,” Elizabeth said. “I don’t see why you seem to say he isn’t. He is self-conscious. He’s embarrassed, that is all.” And her mind reverted suddenly to the pass in the hills and the swirling river. She was frightened and put the thought away from her. Rama smiled pityingly. “No, he isn’t self-conscious,” she explained. “In all the world I think there isn’t a man less self-conscious, Elizabeth.” And then she said compassionately, “You don’t know this man. I’ll tell you about him, not to frighten you, but so you won’t be frightened when you come to know him.

But Rama only smiled at her. “Don’t be afraid, Elizabeth. You’ve seen things already. There’s no cruelty in him, Elizabeth, I think. You can worship him without fear of being sacrificed.”

“I told you at the beginning that a door is open tonight. It’s like an All Souls’ Eve, when the ghosts are loose. Tonight, because our brother has died, a door is open in me, and partly open in you. Thoughts that hide deep in the brain, in the dark, underneath the bone can come out tonight. I will tell you what I’ve thought and held secret. Sometimes in the eyes of other people I’ve seen the same thought, like a shadow in the water.”

Rama drew her chair forward so that she could put her hands on Elizabeth’s knee. “This is a strange time,” she said softly. “I told you at the beginning that a door is open tonight. It’s like an All Souls’ Eve, when the ghosts are loose. Tonight, because our brother has died, a door is open in me, and partly open in you. Thoughts that hide deep in the brain, in the dark, underneath the bone can come out tonight. I will tell you what I’ve thought and held secret. Sometimes in the eyes of other people I’ve seen the same thought, like a shadow in the water.” She patted softly on Elizabeth’s knee as she spoke, patted out a rhythm to her words, and her eyes shone with intensity until there were red lights in them. “I know men,” she continued. “Thomas I know so well that I feel his thought as it is born. And I know his impulse before it is strong enough to set his limbs in motion. Burton I know to the bottom of his meager soul, and Benjy—I knew the sweetness and the laziness of Benjy. I knew how sorry he was to be Benjy, and how he couldn’t help it.” She smiled in reminiscence. “Benjy came in one night when Thomas was not here. He was so lost and sad. I held him in my arms until nearly morning.” Her fingers doubled under, making a loose fist. “I knew them all,” she said hoarsely. “My instinct was never wrong. But Joseph I do not know. I did not know his father.” Elizabeth was nodding slowly, caught in the rhythm. Rama continued: “I do not know whether there are men born outside humanity, or whether some men are so human as to make others seem unreal. Perhaps a godling lives on earth now and then. Joseph has strength beyond vision of shattering, he has the calm of mountains, and his emotion is as wild and fierce and sharp as the lightning and just as reasonless as far as I can see or know. When you are away from him, try thinking of him and you’ll see what I mean. His figure will grow huge, until it tops the mountains, and his force will be like the irresistible plunging of the wind. Benjy is dead. You cannot think of Joseph dying. He is eternal. His father died, and it was not a death.” Her mouth moved helplessly, searching for words. She cried as though in pain, “I tell you this man is not a man, unless he is all men. The strength, the resistance, the long and stumbling thinking of all men, and all the joy and suffering, too, cancelling each other out and yet remaining in the contents. He is all these, a repository for a little piece of each man’s soul, and more than that, a symbol of the earth’s soul.” Her eyes dropped and her hand withdrew. “I said a door was open.” Elizabeth rubbed the place on her knee where the rhythm had been. Her eyes were wet and shining. “I’m so tired,” she said. “We drove through the heat, and the grass was brown. I wonder if they took the live chickens and the little lamb and the nanny goat out of the wagon. They should be turned loose, else their legs might swell.” She took a handkerchief out of her bosom and blew her nose and wiped it harshly and made it red. She would not look at Rama. “You love my husband,” she said in a small, accusing voice. “You love him and you are afraid.” Rama looked slowly up and her eyes moved over Elizabeth’s face and then dropped again. “I do not love him. There is no chance of a return. I worship him, and there’s no need of a return in that. And you will worship him, too, with no return. Now you know, and you needn’t be afraid.” For a moment more she stared at her lap, and then her head jerked up and she brushed down the hair on each side of the part. “It’s closed now,” she said. “It’s all over. Only remember it for a time of need. And when that time comes, I’ll be here to help you. I’ll make some new tea now, and maybe you’ll tell me about Monterey.”

“The first grave. Now we’re getting someplace. Houses and children and graves, that’s home, Tom. Those are the things to hold a man down. What’s in the box-stall, Tom?”

And so thick and powerful was the cloud that the day went to dusk and the mountains radiated a metallic light, hard and sharp.

As Joseph watched the swollen black cloud it seemed not to move, and yet it was eating up the sky, and all suddenly it caught and ate the sun. And so thick and powerful was the cloud that the day went to dusk and the mountains radiated a metallic light, hard and sharp. A moment after the sun had gone, a golden lance of lightning shot from the cloud, and the thunder ran, stumbling and falling, over the mountain tops—another quiver of light and a plunge of thunder. The music and the dancing stopped instantly. The dancers looked upward with sleepy startled eyes, like children awakened and frightened by the grind of an earthquake. They stared uncomprehendingly for a moment, half-awake and wondering, before their reason came back. And then they scurried to the tied horses and began hooking up the surreys, fastening traces and tugs, backing their teams around the poles. The guitars stripped down the buntings and the unused lanterns and slipped them into the saddle-bags out of danger of the wet. In the barn Burton arose to his feet and shouted triumphantly, “It’s God’s voice in anger!” And Thomas answered him, “Listen again, Burton. It’s a thunderstorm.”

“There was the outwardness, the people coming and the mass and the feasting and then the dance, and last of all the storm. Am I being silly, Joseph, or was there a meaning, right under the surface? It seemed like those pictures of simple landscapes they sell in the cities. When you look closely, you see all kinds of figures hidden in the lines. Do you know the kind of pictures I mean? A rock becomes a sleeping wolf, a little cloud is a skull, and the line of trees marching soldiers when you look closely. Did the day seem like that to you, Joseph, full of hidden meanings, not quite understandable?”

“It was the excitement; all the people. And the music was—well, it was strenuous.” She paused, trying to think what the music and the dancing meant. “It was such an odd day,” she said. “There was the outwardness, the people coming and the mass and the feasting and then the dance, and last of all the storm. Am I being silly, Joseph, or was there a meaning, right under the surface? It seemed like those pictures of simple landscapes they sell in the cities. When you look closely, you see all kinds of figures hidden in the lines. Do you know the kind of pictures I mean? A rock becomes a sleeping wolf, a little cloud is a skull, and the line of trees marching soldiers when you look closely. Did the day seem like that to you, Joseph, full of hidden meanings, not quite understandable?”

“You see closely, Elizabeth,” he said sharply. “You look too deeply into things.” “And Joseph, you did feel it, didn’t you? The meanings seemed to me to be a warning. Oh—I don’t know how to say it.”

He was still kneeling, bending close to her in the low right of the lamp. He watched her lips intently, as though he could not hear. His hands stroked his beard roughly, and he nodded again and again. “You see closely, Elizabeth,” he said sharply. “You look too deeply into things.” “And Joseph, you did feel it, didn’t you? The meanings seemed to me to be a warning. Oh—I don’t know how to say it.”

“You see, Elizabeth; it should make me less lonely that you can see under the covering, but it doesn’t. I want to tell you, and I can’t. I don’t think these are warnings to us, but only indications how the world fares. A cloud is not a sign set up for men to see and to know that it will rain. Today was no warning, but you are right. I think there were things hidden in today.”

Alice sang, “Corono ale de flores que es cosa mia—” Joseph said softly, “You see, Elizabeth; it should make me less lonely that you can see under the covering, but it doesn’t. I want to tell you, and I can’t. I don’t think these are warnings to us, but only indications how the world fares. A cloud is not a sign set up for men to see and to know that it will rain. Today was no warning, but you are right. I think there were things hidden in today.” He licked his lips carefully. Elizabeth put out her hand to stroke his head. “The dance was timeless,” Joseph said, “do you know?—a thing eternal, breaking through to vision for a day.” He fell silent again, and tried to back his mind out of the heavy and vague meanings that rolled about it like grey coils of fog. “The people enjoyed it,” he said, “everyone but Burton. Burton was miserable and afraid. I can never tell when Burton will be afraid.”

“Yes—the child is precious, but not so precious as the bearing of it. That is as real as a mountain. That is a tie to the earth.”

He studied the floor and frowned. “Yes—the child is precious, but not so precious as the bearing of it. That is as real as a mountain. That is a tie to the earth.” He stopped, thinking of words for the feeling. “It is a proof that we belong here, dear, my dear. The only proof that we are not strangers.” He looked suddenly at the ceiling. “The rain has stopped. I’ll go to see how the horses are.” Elizabeth laughed at him. “Some place I’ve read or heard of a strange custom, maybe it’s in Norway or Russia, I don’t know, but wherever it is, they say the cattle must be told. When anything happens in a family, a birth or a death, the father goes to the barn and tells the horses and cows about it. Is that why you are going, Joseph?” “No,” he said. “I want to see that all the halter ropes are short.” “Don’t go,” she begged. “Thomas will look after the stock. He always does. Stay with me tonight. I’ll be lonely if you go out tonight. Alice,” she called, “will you set the supper now? I want you to sit beside me, Joseph.”

Joseph stepped quietly down from the porch. The sky had cleared, and the night sharpened with frost, but the trees still dripped water, and from the roof a tiny stream fell to the ground. Joseph walked straight to the great oak and stood beneath it. He spoke very softly, so no one could hear. “There is to be a baby, sir. I promise that I will put it in your arms when it is born.” He felt the cold wet bark, drew his fingertips slowly downward. “The priest knows,” he thought. “He knows part of it, and he doesn’t believe. Or maybe he believes and is fearful.” “There’s a storm coming,” he said to the tree. “I know I can’t escape it. But you, sir, you might know how to protect us from the storm.”

Gradually the desire changed until she wanted only the trees. They called down to her from their ridge, called for her to come in among the trunks, out of the sun, and to know the peace that lay in a pine forest.

She had not got up to see him off, but when the sun was up she dressed and went to sit on the porch. Everything irritated her, the noise of grasshoppers ticking as they flew, the pieces of rusty baling wire lying on the ground. The smell of ammonia from the barns nearly nauseated her. When she had seen and hated all the things close to her, she raised her eyes to the hills for more prey, and the first thing she saw was the pine grove on the ridge. Immediately a sharp nostalgia for Monterey assailed her, a homesickness for the dark trees of the peninsula, and for the little sunny streets and for the white houses and for the blue bay with colored fishing boats; but more than anything for the pines. The resinous odor of the needles seemed the most delicious thing in the world. She longed to smell it until her body ached with desire. And all the time she looked at the black pine grove on the ridge. Gradually the desire changed until she wanted only the trees. They called down to her from their ridge, called for her to come in among the trunks, out of the sun, and to know the peace that lay in a pine forest. She could see herself, and even feel herself lying on a pine needle bed, looking up at the sky between the boughs, and she could hear how the wind would swish softly in the tops of the trees, and go flying away, laden with the pine scent.

The forest closed behind her and left her free.

Her hands were scratched and her hair pulled down when she came at last through the bramble wall and straightened up. Her eyes grew wide with wonder at the circle of trees and the clear flat place. And then her eyes swept to the huge, misshapen green rock. She whispered to herself, “I think I knew it was here. Something in my breast told me it was here, this dear good thing.” There was no sound at all in the place except the high whispering of the trees, and it was shut out, which only made the silence deeper, more impenetrable. The green moss covering of the rock was as thick as fur, and the long ferns hung down over the little cavern in its side like a green curtain. Elizabeth seated herself beside the tiny stream, slipping secretly away across the glade, and disappearing into the underbrush. Her eyes centered upon the rock and her mind wrestled with its suggestive shape. “Some place I’ve seen this thing,” she thought. “I must have known it was here, else why did I come straight to it?” Her eyes widened as she watched the rock, and her mind lost all sharp thought and became thronged with slowly turning memories, untroubled, meaningless and vague. She saw herself starting out for Sunday School in Monterey, and then she saw a slow procession of white-dressed Portuguese children marching in honor of the Holy Ghost, with a crowned queen leading them. Vaguely she saw the waves driving in from seven different directions to meet and to convulse at Point Joe near Monterey. And then as she gazed at the rock she saw her own child curled head-downward in her womb, and she saw it stir slightly, and felt its movement at the same time. Always the whispering went on over her head and she could see out of the corners of her eyes how the black trees crowded in and in on her. It came upon her as she sat there that she was alone in all the world; every other person had gone away and left her and she didn’t care. And then it came upon her that she could have anything she wished, and in the train of this thought there came the fear that she most wished for death, and after that, for a knowledge of her husband. Her hand moved slowly from her lap and fell into the cold water of the spring, and instantly the trees rushed back and the low sky flew upward. The sun had leaped forward as she sat there. There was a rustling in the forest now, not soft but sharp and malicious. She looked quickly at the rock and saw that its shape was as evil as a crouched animal and as gross as a shaggy goat. A stealthy cold had crept into the glade. Elizabeth sprang to her feet in panic, and her hands rose up and held her breasts. A vibration of horror was sweeping through the glade. The black trees cut off escape. There was the great rock crouching to spring. She backed away, fearing to take her eyes from it. When she had reached the entrance of the broad trail, she thought she saw a shaggy creature stir within the cave. The whole glade was alive with fear. She turned and ran down the trail, too frightened to scream, and she came, after a great time, to the open, where the warm sun shone. The forest closed behind her and left her free.

“Lord Jesus protect me from these forbidden things, and keep me in the way of light and tenderness. Do not let this thing pass through me into my child, Lord Jesus. Guard me against the ancient things in my blood.” She remembered how her father said his ancestors a thousand years ago followed the Druidic way.

Before her fear was gone, she scrambled up to her knees to pray. She tried to think what had happened in the glade, but the memory of it was fading. “It was an old thing, so old that I have nearly forgotten it.” She recollected her posture, “It was an unlawful thing.” And she prayed, “Our Father which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name—” And she prayed, “Lord Jesus protect me from these forbidden things, and keep me in the way of light and tenderness. Do not let this thing pass through me into my child, Lord Jesus. Guard me against the ancient things in my blood.” She remembered how her father said his ancestors a thousand years ago followed the Druidic way. When the prayer was done, she felt better. A clear light entered her mind again and drove out the fear, and with it, a memory of the fear. “It’s my condition,” she said. “I should have known. Nothing was in that place except my imagination. Rama has told me often enough what kind of things to expect.”

“Women in this condition have a strong warmth of God in them. They must know things no one else knows. And they must feel a joy beyond any other joy. In some way they take up the nerve-ends of the earth in their hands.”

Elizabeth came out to wave him off, and she was glowing with health again. After her little spell of illness, she had grown beautiful and well. Her cheeks were red with coursing blood and her eyes shone with a mysterious happiness. Often Joseph, watching her, wondered what she knew or what she thought to make her seem always on the verge of laughter. “She knows something,” he said to himself. “Women in this condition have a strong warmth of God in them. They must know things no one else knows. And they must feel a joy beyond any other joy. In some way they take up the nerve-ends of the earth in their hands.” Joseph regarded her narrowly, and stroked his beard as slowly as an old man would.

And he replied, “No, you’re working.” He could see in his mind how she was doing it. Her helpless hands lay crossed in her lap, but her bones were casting bones and her blood was distilling blood and her flesh was moulding flesh. He laughed shortly at the thought that she was idle.

Burton dropped his eyes uneasily and went back to currying. “I’ve never wanted to be a farmer,” he said lamely. “Even at home I thought of opening a little store in town.” His hands stopped working. He said passionately. “I’ve tried to lead an acceptable life. What I have done I have done because it seemed to me to be right. There is only one law. I have tried to live in that law. What I have done seems right to me, Joseph. Remember that. I want you to remember that.”

I don’t blame you for wanting to be among people who carry your own thoughts.”

Burton took up the lines, but before he clucked to the horses, he turned to Joseph. “Good-bye. I’ve done right. When you come to see it, you’ll know it was right. It was the only way. Remember that, Joseph. When you come to see it, you’ll thank me.”

Joseph walked hurriedly to the trunk and looked up at the branches. “Why, it seems all right.” He paused and ran his hand over the bark. “That was funny. When I looked at it, I thought something was wrong with it. It was just a feeling, I guess.” And he continued, “I didn’t want Burton to go away. It splits the family.”

Joseph walked slowly, with his head down. “You know I’m responsible for Burton’s going.” “No you aren’t. He wanted to go.” “It was because of the tree,” Joseph went on. “He said I worshipped it.” Joseph’s eyes raised to the tree, and suddenly he stood still, startled. “Thomas, look at the tree!” “I see it. What’s the matter?” Joseph walked hurriedly to the trunk and looked up at the branches. “Why, it seems all right.” He paused and ran his hand over the bark. “That was funny. When I looked at it, I thought something was wrong with it. It was just a feeling, I guess.” And he continued, “I didn’t want Burton to go away. It splits the family.”

“I’m worried about something, and I don’t know what it is.”

Elizabeth passed behind them, toward the house. “Still at the game, Joseph?” she called mockingly. He jerked his hand from the bark and turned to follow her. “We’ll try to get along without another hand,” he told Thomas. “If the work gets too much for us, I’ll hire another Mexican.” He went into the house and stood idly in the sitting-room. Elizabeth came out of the bedroom, brushing her hair back with her fingertips. “I hardly had time to dress,” she explained. She looked quickly at Joseph. “Are you feeling badly about having Burton go?” “I think I am,” he said uncertainly. “I’m worried about something, and I don’t know what it is.” “Why don’t you ride? Haven’t you anything to do?” He shook his head impatiently. “I have fruit trees coming to Nuestra Señora. I should go in for them.” “Why don’t you go, then?” He walked to the front door and looked out at the tree. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m afraid to go. There’s something wrong.” Elizabeth stood beside him. “Don’t play your game too hard, Joseph. Don’t let the game take you in.” He shrugged his shoulders. “That’s what I’m doing, I guess. I told you once I could tell weather by the tree. It’s a kind of ambassador between the land and me. Look at the tree, Elizabeth! Does it seem all right to you?”

A foreboding followed him and enveloped him.