The Noise of the World by Adriana Spadoni

Day after day Anne sat at rest in the vast silence. Far back in space and time she had waved a last good-bye up the black funnel of the staircase to Hilda, holding Rogie, for, in the end, Belle had prevailed and Anne had come alone. Trains and stages and the creaking wagon of old Timothy Potter had brought her from the world below and laid her in the heart of this little grassy meadow. Ringed by mountain peaks it lay, small and still, at the top of the world.

In the morning the sun rose with sudden gladness, not with the slow reluctance of the lowlands, but as if forced by its own energy and desire from the blackness of night. All day it poured its warmth into the meadow and when it went, yielding to night in a blaze of color; it called good-by in brilliant purple and crimson and went as gladly as it had come. In the afternoons a busy little wind came down from the snowy peaks, went its round of inspection over the lush green grass of the meadow, chatted with the little brook, whispered to the trees, saw all was well and slipped back again into the granite gorges. The stars came out, not with furious twinkling and effort to reach through to men so far below, but, with still gold, they moved forward into night.

It seemed to Anne that she made no definite motion of her own volition. The day came, lifted her into the perfect rhythm of its rotation, carried her through the clear warm morning, the still gold-filled afternoon, deposited her gently in the deep black peace of night.

This was the silence she had sought, the perfect peace. No artificial formula summoned it. No bodily posture propitiated it. It was there, deep, all pervading, everlasting, to one's need.

Perhaps, in incalculable space, other worlds were being made and destroyed. But this world was finished. In the marvelous perfection of its completion, the beginning was impossible to visualize, an ending inconceivable. No force could ever move again those granite peaks, melt the glacial ice, upheave the profound permanence of that tiny grassy meadow. It was done; perfectly done and left in peace.

Even old Timothy Potter and his wife were part of this profundity of accomplishment. They could never have been other than they were. Through the years of close companionship they had grown to look alike. It was impossible to imagine them ever having been younger, slimmer, more agile than they were. They must always have been together since the beginning of time, stout and quiet, with their understanding smile, their white hair, the little wrinkles of happiness about their kindly eyes.

As a separate human unit, apart from the spirit of the universe, she no longer existed. She was alone with old Timothy and Mary, his wife, at the very center of the all-living; so deep within the heart of Life that words were not needed. They communicated in silence like the earth and grass and trees. They were not bodies, opposed in their humanity to an exterior spirit without. They were part of the whole, as grass, the gnarled cedars growing in the clefts of the granite mountains, and the brook bubbling through the little meadow, were parts. Sitting in utter stillness Anne felt this engulfing Unity, drawing her gently down into the single purpose that ran through the granite mountains, the dancing brook, the rustling leaves, through her own body, and linked them all, each to the other.

Now, a poem of Wordsworth that she had thought silly and sentimental in the days of college extension, came back to her with new meaning, and often, sitting on the porch after the early supper, watching the day's gorgeous farewell to the granite peaks, Anne whispered slowly:

To her fair works did Nature link / The human soul that through me ran; / And much it grieved my heart to think / What Man has made of Man.

The rest of the stanzas she had forgotten, except the three final lines of all:

If such be Nature's Holy plan, / Have I not reason to Lament / What Man has made of Man?

Far off beyond distant Dana, rising in ice-capped majesty above the last range of mountains, hate and discord and confusion were positive qualities. Men struggled against each other, ideals clashed, faiths oppressed. Even love fought for its place and in the end surrendered. There was nothing sure, nothing positive, nothing motionless like this in its own perfection. It was all distorted, ugly and forever battling.

Sitting on the porch, after an early supper, watching the day's farewell to the granite peaks, Anne's eyes filled with tears. If only she had Rogie with her she would never leave this peace. The world beyond could fight its futile battles. If only Rogie were with her, nothing would be lacking. Undisturbed by the world's confusion, they would live out their lives, and sink, at last into the stillness of the earth.

What did it matter if they made no place for themselves among men; if no one ever heard of them; the ambitions of men were such pitiful things?