The Swing of the Pendulum by Adriana Spadoni

Spring was late, but when it came, it came with a rush. In a day, the trees swelled in buds and blades of grass pricked the frozen earth. Jean woke one morning, late in April, to the feeling of a new force in the world and in herself. It was as if she had been walking through a tunnel, and now, unexpectedly, stepped into the light. Time had somehow slipped its leash; it no longer strained behind but ran forward. Jean jumped out of bed and went through the morning exercises that she had neglected for weeks. Raising and lowering herself on her toes, she drew in deep breaths of the spring air and with every breath the last two months receded, the future brightened, until, her whole body glowing, Jean came to a final halt, planted firmly on both feet.

She entered the dining-room humming, so that Martha, who was shirring eggs in the kitchen, poked her head through the swing door, as if she expected to see a stranger.

"Why, Jean!"

"Why, mummy!"

Martha smiled. "All the problems in the universe must be solved this morning."

"Not exactly. But I confess they don't seem quite so hopeless. I guess it's the spring. Who could be altogether miserable on a morning like this? In the spring tra la!"

Martha went back to the eggs. Such a sudden change of mood was beyond her, for it was weeks since Jean had come humming to breakfast and, although Martha had said nothing, she had worried. But there had been nothing to worry about, since Jean could hum because the sun shone and the earth-smell came through the open windows. Martha wondered why intelligent people gave way to moods, when they must know what a little thing in the end would dispel them.

At the office Jean found a letter from Gregory. It was the longest she had had and the writing of it had stretched over a week.

"It's the only way to do," Gregory wrote, "because if I don't, things pile up to tell you until there are so many I can't tackle them all. Sometimes I want to get right on the train and come over, when something very good happens. And it's just the same when something bad happens, so you see I want you pretty much all the time."

At this point, Jean rang for Josephine Grimes and told her there would be no dictation ready until eleven. When Josephine had gone, Jean locked the door.

"I don't care if it is silly. I have to be sensible enough the rest of the time."

Jean came back to the desk and read and re-read Gregory's letter until she felt that they had been together through the days of its writing. They were interesting days, filled from morning until night with new impressions and new people.

"At first it felt queer and unreal, to have millionaire pork packers and mayors and things like that consulting my convenience. I felt about the way Puck does, just before Galatea comes to life. Not that I want to convey that a pork packer is like a Greek statue. It felt like this -- -- "

Here followed a marginal drawing of himself standing before a group of pedestals at various angles of motion, but the flagstone on which he stood was anchored at the four corners with the words, _I did win the contest_.

"I'm afraid I'm getting too cocky about winning, as if I had done it all by myself, when it was you, more than half. Yes, it was, and you needn't smile as I am positive you are doing, and insist it was all my great ability. Of course I have ability, tons of it. Does that satisfy you? But when I look back now on the hopeless, dreamless creature you rescued, I want -- well, I never claimed to be any good at words, and even drawing fails me here. I want you close. I want your arms round me and that glorious cool hair hiding all but your eyes. Why do you come so often, dear, just at dawn, and wake me that way, as you did that first morning at Morrison's? It was just about a year ago, wasn't it? Maybe that's why I've been thinking of them lately, or maybe it's because you came every morning last week. You shameless, brazen -- -- " Here was the figure that he usually drew instead of writing her name, the Roman tower with the shaft of sunlight across the top.

The division for that day stopped here and the next was about some changes in the plans that he had decided to make. The description was brief and technical but Jean knew the old design so well that she could reconstruct it without an effort. Evidently he had been interrupted, for he broke off short and when he began again it was about Puck. Puck was delighted with Chicago and as far as he could judge it was because she would never again have to be nice to Squdgy.

"I believe Squdgy was your Dr. Fenninger and my Amos Palmer to her. I hadn't any idea that she really disliked him so much. Funny little entities children are, changing right under your eyes every minute. Sometimes she looks like this and the next day she's this."

Jean's lips quivered. How closely he must observe Puck! It hurt in a way and yet it made her very tender, too.

There was no direct mention of Margaret but in the last division, written the day before, Gregory said that she need not think New York was doing everything. Chicago had an institution, a group rather, whose motto was The Ultimate End.

"So what's the good of fiddling with any little by-products of social uplift or religion? Fascinatingly logical, isn't it? You dive straight at The End. It's the weirdest yet, a lot more simple than garbage or the Divine Mind."