The Three Wishes

MAETERLINCK, Pelléas et Mélisande

DORA MERRY WEATHER caught a glimpse of her five-year-old boy as he was peeping through the portières from his vantage point in the little vestibule between the dining room and the library, where her guests, under the drowsy spell of the flickering fire, were just entering upon a somewhat subdued and meditative mood.

‘If the little imp will only keep out of mischief now! ’ she was hoping. ‘ Emma ought not to have let him creep out of his bed at this time of night. She does n’t know how to manage him. He will be picking up stray ends of conversation again and let them torture his precocious, fantastic little head. Not, to be sure, that anything is being said just now to corrupt five-year-old youth!’

These friends, who were lingering in an intimate circle after the other guests were gone, seemed indeed to have slipped into a blissfully naïve state, as they allowed themselves to do — and she realized this with pride — only in the mellow atmosphere of her

own open house. Most of the men who had been here to-night — and Hortense Lorraine, too, for that matter — would ordinarily begrudge an evening spent away from their desks, with not even a dinner for compensation. These loose, congenial Thursday-evening gatherings without special invitation were unique in the university town.

‘Yes, he was a powerful thinker,’ old Professor Leighton’s rich voice sounded from the depth of his leather armchair. ‘But he never attained the greatness that he desired.’

‘Who does?’ sighed little Mrs. Odiorne.

‘Do you remember the old fairy tale,’ asked Hortense Lorraine, staring into the fire, ‘of the three wishes?'

‘Yes,’ said Maurice Andrews, at her side. ‘ Did n’t a fairy allow a peasant and his wife just three wishes, and did n’t the old peasant woman wish that a sausage would hang on her husband’s nose and then have to waste a perfectly good wish to get it off again — or off her own nose — how was it?’

‘Oh, I remember it very clearly,’ Dora Merryweather now joined in heartily. ‘I read it to Peter only the other day. But what makes you think of that, Hortense?’

‘Oh, well,’ said Hortense, ‘I am sometimes so childish — I like to imagine some spirit offered me just three wishes to be surely fulfilled and I had to decide then and there what they should be.’

‘A desperate task!’ said Maurice Andrews.

Dora let her eyes travel in a circle round her guests; they were all hushed and listening to the vagaries of Hortense as if they were the latest hypothesis of Einstein. A strange intensity was settling on every face, and each pair of eyes was drawn to the fire, as if a secret could be read in the restless, blue-green flames.

How funny this was! Dora had a perverse wish that the whole company would suddenly turn into children. Chubby, curly-headed children! And old Professor Leighton a darling little boy! And she herself would be back in that sunny childhood of hers! That would be her first wish, if she had three precious ones at her disposal — to be a child again in Birchsilver, the country home, with laughter in the yard full of romping playmates, laughter on the dark old stairs, laughter rippling in every corner. Her gay young mother, her little brother who looked like Peter — oh, what folly to waste a wish on a life that had no Peter in it! Dora was quite serious now; there were only three washes, and all three must be for Peter! They were not hard to find. In the first place, he must always love her to the end of her life — wish number one. Then he must always be happy, of course; but that was too vague, for what was happiness? He must have his own heart’s desire, his own ambition fulfilled, so that he would always have that precious light in his eyes that kindled when he ran to meet her, and was so easily eclipsed by a harsh word. Also he must become a great man, in some intellectual field, like his father and grandfathers, only more distinguished, more original than any of them—wish number three. His father! With a sense of guilt Dora glanced in the direction of her husband, who was brooding unperceived in a dark corner. The three wishes were exhausted and she had forgotten him! Now she could not unwish them any more. . . .

In the silence that had fallen on the room, which made the ticking of the old clock formidable, Hortense Lorraine felt suddenly face to face with herself, as if the others were mere phantoms. Three wishes! Only three. It seemed as if life were nothing but intense wishing, wishing all the time. What was every poem, created with so much pain, but a crystallized dream or wish? Or was it called hope? Hortense was often haunted by a picture of Dante’s Limbo, where the virtuous Pagans languish in eternal desire without hope. Three secret, inmost wishes to come really true! Hortense felt her pulse quickening with the awful responsibility of choice. Well — one wish could be quickly disposed of: that the publisher would accept her book of poems. He had it now three weeks. There was a certain pride in the definiteness of this wish. After all, there was some compensation for outgrowing the turmoil of student days: a clear purpose emerges at last. Now, with the poems safely between covers, what next? Good reviews, fame? Oh, no, let that take care of itself. One wish was enough for one’s work. And now the two others. Here her confidence left her, and she felt on unsafe ground. Neither was she alone in the room any more, with only spectres dimly filling the background. Of one other inhabitant she was intensely aware, almost afraid that he might penetrate into the depths where a wish was taking form. That dreaded spy was Maurice Andrews, and the wish was for his love. The fierceness with which that wish asserted itself was startling — it seemed as if it were being screamed into the silence. And, when the wish comes true, what will become of little Ethel, Maurice’s fiancée, with those big blue child’s eyes adoring him, waiting for him in the dreariness of her small-town home? Hortense was not cruel. Ah, but there was still a third wish left — and could n’t that be for Ethel? That Ethel should turn away from him and love someone else? But would n’t that be likely to happen anyway, if she knew that Maurice . . . ? Yet it would be better if she turned from him first. . . . How childish, childish! And what would it all lead to, anyway? The third wish must be something definite— some end. Marriage? His faithfulness? Oh, let that all be taken for granted! The third wish: a child from him! There was honesty at last! But poor Ethel. . . .

Maurice Andrews felt a strange vibration, as if some force from without were communicating itself to him. This childish fancy was taking a queer hold on his mind: three wishes! Suppose some power really granted these three. There was, of course, a fascination in the ancient sacred number. Else why just three? There was something inexorable about it, too, for the wrong wish and its fulfillment could never be undone. If one could choose — but one was n’t even free to choose one’s own wishes; they seemed to come by themselves. There it was, the first wish: to be in Professor Leighton’s place in the university. The rôle of instructor for one whose book was now internationally known, while mere drudges held higher posts, was too irksome to endure. Therefore . . . but oh, shame! For Leighton’s chair to be vacant, the dear old man would have to die. Never! The second wish must be old Leighton’s voluntary retirement with a pension. And now there was only one wish left for the contents of life. This was a deliberate wish: his three-volume study of Swift should be a masterpiece, an undisputed contribution to scholarship. That was the third wish. But something was left that should have been included in all this wishing. What? Why, Ethel, of course. But what was there to wish about her? Was n’t she his, secure, already? Why was Hortense Lorraine looking at him just then? Disconcerting she was, with that dark, haunting glance. . . . Clever, too, with swift flashes of insight. A poet ... he must read her things; or perhaps not — they might have less life than their author. Tantalizing, that look of hers. . . .

It must have been a nervous stir on the part of Maurice Andrews that made Professor Leighton, who was smoking placidly in a remote corner of the room, suddenly look in the direction of his young colleague. To be as young once more as that brilliant pupil of his! Ah, if there were something in this puerility of the three wishes, that would be his first wish, without hesitation! Slowly he inhaled the rich smoke from Mrs. Merry weather’s excellent Havanas, and sank forty years back into the time of his early manhood. He was a young instructor with a passion for his subject, attracting more students than the head of the department. Those lectures on the Romantic Movement were n’t bad — not at all bad for that time. But oh, the humiliation of being under that small intriguer, with his jealousy of the stronger and younger man! He could still see those foxlike little eyes. The old scholar shook his head; no, if he were to be forty years younger again, it would not be in that or any other fresh-water college! No, he would be a young instructor at Harvard, with all the means for research at his disposal and the prospect of early promotion. And Jane would be alive! That would not be the third wish, of course, but the first. Jane and he would be young together once more! The old man took off his blurred spectacles and wiped them carefully. The sweetness of it . . . yes, but those scenes she used to make, over his late hours, his smoking, the new hat that he did n’t like, over the coffee in the morning — over anything and everything when she was possessed. And how willful she used to be, never giving in or admitting that she was wrong! No, the first years had been trial years, and then, as they defied intrigues together, as the children grew up, as time mellowed both . . . Dear Jane! If she could be here now as she was ten years ago — that last year! No, those foolish wishes for youth should be unwished again, if only Jane’s hand could lie on his once more — the trembling, wrinkled hand, so dear. . . .

The ash tray on the little table between Professor Leighton and William Odiorne was accidentally knocked over.

‘What can be agitating the old Professor so?’ thought the lawyer. ‘He is lost in contemplation and yet seems excited. What can be going on inside that white-haired old head?’ Nothing the like of which was ever in his own, William Odiorne’s—no, sir! Some unworldly fancy or a problem of what Spenser meant in some line of the Faerie Queene or how many grams of opium Coleridge used before concocting Kubla Khan. . . . And what queer, unearthly wishes such a head would entertain! Oh, well, there was not much pondering for William Odiorne, Jr., when it came to three wishes. First — money! There was no mincing that big and solid truth: money to make him free, so that he would not have to slave in the office one other day! A deep sigh of relief escaped him at the prospect. Wish number two: a farm somewhere in Connecticut or New Hampshire, where he would raise fruit trees, experiment with them, breed them true, like another Burbank. Oh, the torment of a missed vocation! To be out in t he air from morning to night, brown from the sun, using one’s perfectly good strong hands! Very well, sir, but how about the rheumatism? Confound it! Hah — the third wish will be to get rid of rheumatism for once and all. There, now! What will Bess say? Indeed, what will she say to the farm! Far too many words to suit him. Oh, pshaw! Can’t a man have three decent wishes fulfilled and be left in peace? Was there still bound to be something? Well, if he were limited to three, there was no help for it; he would have to let the rheumatism stay and use the third wish to transform Bess so that she would be supremely happy on the farm. . . . Darn it! There was that twitch again. With a hundred wishes fulfilled, and that pain, there was no joy. . . .

The involuntary twitching of the stolid lawyer did not escape the fine perceptions of Donald Fisher, the youngest and least conspicuous member of these evening gatherings. The twitching reminded him of the convulsive movements of the frog with which he had experimented this morning, touching its leg with acid. If only the tadpole experiment would bring the desired result — if the polliwog, after the operation, would only refrain from growing into a frog! Really, if he were a superstitious fool and could have three wishes — the joy of that experiment turning out right! And the next step—the second wish: to discover the law of growth. A glow spread over him, and his pulse thumped at the thought. It would be the consummation of his hopes. But would it be possible to carry on all the necessary experiments under present conditions? Ah, the third wish: a large and permanent endowment for the laboratory. Those three wishes fulfilled, and life would be worth while. . . . Oh, but he was an egotist, a brute. Not a thought of his old mother who had toiled, out on the dreary Dakota farm, to make this life possible for him! Would he be experimenting now if she had indulged in ease and the things other women liked — if she had been like that silly woman over there, toying with a cigarette in her plump hands that looked as if they had never held either a needle or a broom? . . .

Mrs. Odiorne felt that someone was looking at her, though she was not sure who, or whether or not the look was agreeable. Not that she minded being looked at! After all, why did one spend weary hours at the dressmaker’s and hairdresser’s if nobody paid any attention to one? Look at Dora Merryweather now! She seemed to command attention without effort. Now if Bess Odiorne could have three wishes come true, she would wish to be in Mrs. Merryweather’s place. How she would enjoy these evenings as hostess! How smart she would make them — perhaps with bridge for some, instead of just talk. But — was n’t there always some but? — she could n’t abide Dr. Merryweather for a husband. No, old Bill was better than a doctor coming home at all hours. . . . And besides, she was afraid of that wiry, aged-looking little man. He had a way of staring right through you, enough to make you squirm. No, that first wish would have to be revised: she would n’t want to be in her hostess’s shoes at all — only to be as young and clever and handsome as Mrs. Merryweather! Then wish number two: to be a great social leader. That was fine! And now for a third one. Perhaps it was silly, — people would laugh at her if they knew, — but she did so want to speak French fluently. Ever since that dinner for the French celebrity, — oh, what was his name? — when the other women had all talked to him and she had sat there dumb and out of it, that had been her secret wish. And if she could play the piano as well as her sister Roxie . . . or . . . three wishes did n’t go very far. . . . And there was that horrible Dr. Merryweather again looking at her as though he could read every one of her thoughts and saw how ridiculous they were. . . .

Dr. Merryweather had slipped in late and found his wife’s guests still lingering. He stood in a dark corner, behind a revolving bookcase, where he did not have to talk after an exhausting day, and let his eyes wander round the room. He caught his wife’s swift, alert glance as it shot in his direction. How young and fresh she was! How untouched by care! He almost envied her. If he could have three wishes fulfilled, they would be sleep, sleep, and again sleep! He lit a cigarette and leaned against the wall. Three wishes, indeed! As if he were not consumed with some passionate wish every hour of his day! The eyes of that cancer victim this morning in the public ward, those eyes riveted on to his with the dying man’s last hope and beseeching him for help. . . . Oh, God, if that man could come to life again! What a wish! Then the operation this afternoon — the young man, only support of his family. There was hope there — if the patient’s heart could survive the strain, he would be saved. The torture in the mother’s look! — Then the poisoned woman in the maternity ward who lay in convulsions — if she could pass the crisis to-night, there would be a chance. ... The passion of these wishes was wearing him out. Now that the disciplined tension of work was relaxed, a wave of bitterness flooded his spirits. What did these people in the room know of agony and despair? What trivial wishes — ambitions, vanities, futile desires — were filling their minds this moment?

There was not one who could follow him — not even Dora. Gifted as she was, devoted mother, perfect housewife and hostess — she could not accompany him to those depths into which he was plunged almost daily. Not one here, not one! The loneliness of it! His eyes again swept the circle of his guests, and now they met the full, dark glance of Hortense Lorraine. Here there was passion — here was his equal! Strange that he had not even noticed her before. She was, he believed, a musician or poet. A poet and a healer could meet perhaps on the same plane. . . . Tired, worn-out as he was, he felt himself suddenly jerked back to life. And he was darkly, mysteriously drawn to this stranger in his house. . . . Heavens, what was that?

A heart-rending wail rang through the house and terrified the guests, so that they sprang to their feet.

‘Emma, Emma!’ cried a child’s voice in mortal terror. ‘They’re bewitched! Come and see! Oh, I’m afraid. They have n’t said a word — nobody has — an awful long, long time; and they’re just all staring and they look awful, like ghosts. A bad fairy has come and bewitched them all.’

Without a word, Dora Merryweather slipped out of the room to comfort her hysterical child.

‘The boy is right,’ said Donald Fisher quietly. ‘We have all sat for twenty minutes in complete silence. I noticed the clock when Miss Lorraine first spoke of the three wishes.’

The sultry atmosphere that had settled upon the room was not relieved by so much as a smile. The spell was not broken, but intensified, as one glanced furtively at the other, dazed and embarrassed. Mechanically they looked round for the hostess, but, as she was not in sight, they walked upstairs one after the other, silently or with subdued whispers put on their cloaks, and just as silently left the house. Dr. Merryweather crept up the back stairs to his private study which no one entered, and threw himself on the couch, after closing the door, to avoid meeting his wife