Caskin School - Blue Moon Yearbook (Haverford, PA)

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THE BLUE MOON Oh, I say, Eve, said a tall young man with a faint English accent and an even fainter ash-blond mustache. Why not ankle up to the roof for a while? It's jolly hot in here, don't you think? Eve, one of the flaming, passionately sweet roses of girls, attired in stiff petals of scar- let chiffon and who had long green eyes and a scar of a mouth, a mouth that was a scar of sophistication and anguish and knowledge against the still innocent whiteness of her face, but withal a beautiful scarlet scar, looked up from where she was sitting on an ivory velvet couch. S'all right with me, Van, part of us go, part stay. In a moment the lights Hashed off and a rush was made through the carved doorway. Why, thought the angel, that's odd. Here they are leaving all this beauty and romance to go up to the cold roof to look for heaven. How very, very stupid they were. A tiny doubt seeped its way through the complacency of her mind, and as the doubt came, a small bit of the discontent fell away. The angel decided to investigate this apartment of youth and love. Presently she found herself in a strange, dark, ominous room. No, not dark, because by the light of pale yellow shaded lamps she perceived an immense oak bed hung with brocade, stiff and stark with its richness. Then, whence that presentiment of evil and darkness? Draw- ing nearer the bed, she saw buried beneath a mound of gold satin a face-a face whiter than the face of death which hovered near. Such humiliation, such despair and sorrow as was written and engraved by Time, with its able assistant, Experience, on that face. The angel felt she could not bear it. What was this revelation of the human soul in its very lowest depths of horror and grief doing in this magic house of all beauty? What incongruity of fate had put that man here? Was he dead, lying there? Surely, he must be. No mortal could live with the agony and torture that that man bore. It wasn't humanly possible. The angel watched him, hypnotized, and trembling she fled, making blindly for the gay Hower-banked room. It was quite dark, but in an alcove opposite where the orchestra had sat she heard voices. I can't and I won't, Van, and that's all there is to it. You may argue with me till both you and I fall dead from sheer exhaustion, which won't be long at the rate you're going, but I won't. Perhaps if I had been a Victorian maiden in sheer white ruflles and a mind as smooth and starched I could forgive. But I'm not. I have a mind of my own and I shall obey the dictates of sanity and clear thinking what it sets for me But surely, Eve, and the angel recognized the speaker by his faint English accent, though she could not see his ash-blond mustache. Surely, you can carry this too far. You've overreached the limit. One look at that man's face will tell you what he's gone through. To be frank, Eve, I can hardly bear to go in that room any more. lt's almost indecent for his soul to be so written on his face. And his eyes, Eve, the look in his eyes. Don't get dramatic, Van, please. It's horribly unbecoming. Besides, I abhor sentiment. For an instant the silence hung thick and heavy till it was broken by the penetrating, quick, silver flame that was Eve's voice. Don't you see, Van, dear, that the Whole thing happened when I was at the most impressionable period of my life. I shall never, never forget that evening when he told her to go, quite in the melodramatic manner of most fictions and the love in my 'Thirty-eight

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THE BLUE MOON T 0 All Tlzofe DlifJ'dl'Zd'jf66! 66 OODNESS gracious, sighed the angel, such a terrible time as I had getting down to earth. I thought that silly old committee would never let me be the one to investigate this city. If we have any more squabbles I really don't know what I shall do. Angel Helen is getting perfectly impossible. She tries to boss that committee quite as if she was Chairman this year instead of only last year. Humph-I didn't miss that sly dig about the hem of my robe being a little uneven on the side, either. She knows very well that I get all my clothes made at Angel Mary's cousin. And just because Mary is a little more popular than Helen, she takes it out on running down the clothes her cousin makes. Some people are so petty and small-minded. That's one trouble up there. Such a petty atmosphere. It's a good thing we all arranged this trip to the world in order to find out if it was as lovely and marvelous as it has been painted to us. Though I really think that if the people that live on the wrong side of the barrier, my dear, hadn't started that movement of 'Impellists,' all this discontent wouldn't have been aroused. However, I think it's a very good idea. For my part I certainly was tired of playing that same harp in the choir for two thou- sand fifty years. They're only guaranteed for two thousand at the most. Oh, well, I suppose this is no way to begin my investigation. Let me see, which part shall I take first? That courier who recently came back said the happiness, content, well-being and joy on Park Avenue was unbelievable. I really think I shall be tempted to go there 1rst. The angel thought for a moment as if she was still undecided, and then resolutely flew east till she arrived on the lamp-lighted plane that was Park Avenue. Such tall build- ings and imposing entrances! Small wonder that mortals could be contented living in such pomp. At the corner she caught a glimpse of green shrubs in shiningly painted boxes with a purple clad attendant in front. In here she wandered. What commo- tion, she chuckled to herself, if all these gorgeous looking men in gold braid and stiflly visored caps knew that an angel was in their midst. Poor creatures-if they only knew how futile being an angel was! She envied violently, at that minute, the exciting life of the tiny devils and she wished she knew how to manipulate a pitchfork skillfully. Ah, well, which apartment should she choose? Here was one with a name on the door--Godfrey Livingston Pelt. Um'm, such a pretty name, so different from plain Angel this or Angel that. And now to really judge for herself. She became conscious of glaring black and white blocks and a pale green wall. VVhat a strange place. And what a strange-looking man. Ah, now she remembered, this must be one of those affairs called butlers she'd heard so much about. VVell, well, but where was that Godfrey Livingston Pelt? Such a strange noise, but how com- pelling, how compelling. In a minute she found herself in an immense room crowded with color and people. Young people all of them. What merriment, what gayety, what laughter and youth! In one end of the room in an alcove darkies played that barbaric music called jazz. Everywhere were Howers, but, thought the angel, the flowers that danced were much more beautiful. Strange that the angel with the insight and power- ful clarity of vision could not divine underneath it all the contempt of each one for the other, the despair, hard and bitter and final, with the finality that only youth knows under the mask of gay insouciance. But, no, the angel was blinded by the riotous music and shuffling feet and laughter-blinded like a mortal. How discontent clouds the perception! If mortals only knew that in everyone God had given the perception and clarity, but that the evil in their natures obscured it. Poor, foolish creatures and poor, foolish angel. Thirtyfseven

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THE BLUE MOON mother's eyes for him and the look of loathing in his. Oh, Van, it was ghastly, and when I ran after her he gripped my arm and laughed and laughed and laughed. That laughter seared into my heart, so that when I see him now all I can hear is that laughter. And when I asked him why he laughed, he said, 'My child, life is destruc- tion and those who destroy are the victors. Behold a victorl' And then he sobbed and sobbed, Van, dreadfully, but I stood and cursed him. But the most awful time was when we heard two weeks later that that very night he bade her leave she had killed herself. I thought for a while he would go mad. I wish to heaven I could have. But I couldn't feel a thing, Van, it meant no more to him than if a stranger, not my mother, had committed suicide. I seemed made of stone with but one weak spot, my hatred which was alive and burning like a red hot coal for him. Even the note she left for him, which proved the whole thing false and made a martyr of her, failed to move me. I just hated him, hated him. Well, there was just one thing left in life for me-my music. I studied and tried to forget the awfulness. It wouldn't have been so frightful, Van, if only she hadn't died. But her death seemed to make him so re- morseful and regretful that the whole thing was even more difficult to bear. While he became soft I became harder and more bitter, but the thought that some day perhaps I should sing, and sing to all the world, spurred me on. And then-then the last act of ironical fate-he became so ill. I know he did it on purpose, Van, I know. The only comfort, the only thing left, he snatched from me and left me nothing but an empty shell. Perhaps I could forgive a little if he hadn't robbed me of the ability to feel. That's why when I look at his face I see no scars, no sorrow, just hear his laughter of so long ago, and exult and pray that God or the devil may let him be so I can sing again. When I'm taking care of him or seeing that he has what he needs, such a tide arises in me that I would like to strike him and watch him die. Eve, Eve, ou don't know what ou're sa in , cried Van. There, there, dear, I'm Y Y , Y g glad to see that you can at least cry again. There was absolute silence and the angel's mind was whirling. She had been absolutely tense while Eve had told Van all the tragedy which had been her life. The tragedy which had made her mouth a scar, the reason for the coldness and emptiness of her long green eyes. And did I, thought the angel to herself, think that this place was one of beauty and love and merriment, this place of darkness, of agony, of horror, this place of sadness? For a while the angel lost herself from the world, a trait peculiar to angels alone, and floated in grey white clouds, but a sudden burst of drums recalled her and she saw that the lights were on and the shuffling of the feet had begun again. Everywhere was youth-on the surface-but the angel wondered how many of these boys and girls carried soul-eating burdens under their Benda-like masks. The scene was the same as when she had first entered, but now she understood, and oh, what a difference it made. Eve with her stiff petals swirling and her silver feet twinkling- Eve and the man lying buried under gold satin with his face whiter and more ter- rible than death itself. The angel had had enough. As she fled she heard a voice cry, Come on, Eve Livingston Pelt, do the Charleston for us like a good egg. VVhen the angel returned to Heaven it was with a new appreciation of what she was going back to. At the report of the committee meeting it was with some trepidation that the angel told of what she had seen. But, much to her surprise, she found that the experience had been the same in every angel's case as it had been in hers. From all ends of the earth sorrow, the same realization of the perpetual discontent, of the end- less dissatisfaction of either mortals or angels. Oh, my, sighed the angel when the business had been gotten over, where is my harp? That's one thing I missed most dreadfully when I was down on earth. Good- ness, but it seems good to be back. Tlzirtyfviine