the scarlet flush of morning was in the sky; and they stood upon the hill again, and watched the color spreading.
“we must go,” she was saying. “but it was worthwhile to come.”
“it was all worth-while,” he said—“all!”
and she smiled, and quoted some lines from the poem—
“thou too, o thyrsis, on like quest wast bound;
thou wanderedst with me for a little hour!
men gave thee nothing; but this happy quest,
if men esteem’d thee feeble, gave thee power,
if men procured thee trouble, gave thee rest!”
section 1. this illness of the baby’s had been a fearful drain upon their strength; and thyrsis perceived that they had now got to a point where they could no longer stand alone. there must be a servant in the house, to help corydon, and do for the baby what had to be done. it was a hard decision for him to face, for his money was almost gone, and the book loomed larger than ever. but there was no escaping the necessity.
they would get a married couple, they decided—the man could pay for himself by working the farm. so they put an advertisement in a city paper, and perused the scores of mis-spelled replies. after due correspondence, and much consultation, they decided upon patrick and mary flanagan; and thyrsis hired a two-seated carriage and drove in to meet them at the depot.
it was all very funny; years afterwards, when the clouds of tragedy were dispersed, they were able to laugh over the situation. thyrsis had been used to servants in boyhood, but that was before he had acquired any ideas as to universal brotherhood and the rights of man. now he hated all the symbols and symptoms of mastership; he shrunk from any sort of clash with unlovely personalities—he would be courteous and deprecating to the very tramp who came to his door to beg. and here were patrick and mary, very irish, enormously stout, and devotedly roman catholic, having spent all their lives as caretakers of “gentlemen’s country-places”. they had most precise ideas as to what gentlemen’s country-places should be, and how they should be equipped, and how the gentlemen of the country-places should treat their servants. and needless to say, they found nothing in this new situation which met with their approval. there were signs of humiliating poverty everywhere, and the farm-outfit was inadequate. as to the master and mistress, they must have been puzzling phenomena for patrick and mary to make up their minds about—possessing so many of the attributes of the lady and gentleman, and yet being lacking in so many others!
patrick was a precise and particular person; he wanted his work laid out just so, and then he would do it without interference. as for mary—he stood in awe of mary himself, and so he accepted the idea that corydon and thyrsis should stand in awe of her too. mary it was who announced that their dietary was inadequate; she took no stock at all in fletcher and chittenden—she knew that working-people must have meat at least four times a week. also mary maintained that their room was not large enough for so stout a couple. also she arranged it that corydon and thyrsis should get the dinner on sundays—the roman catholic church being five miles away, and the hour of mass being late, and the horse very old and slow.
for two months corydon and thyrsis struggled along under the dark and terrible shadow of the disapproval of the flanagan family. then one day there came a violent crisis between corydon and mary—occasioned by a discussion of the effect of an excess of grease upon the digestibility of potato-starch. corydon fled in tears to her husband, who started for the kitchen forthwith, meaning to dispose of the flanagans; when, to his vast astonishment, corydon experienced one of her surges of energy, and thrust him to one side, and striding out upon the field of combat, proceeded to deliver herself of her pent-up sentiments. it was a discourse in the grandest style of tragedy, and mary flanagan was quite dumbfounded—apparently this was a “lady” after all! so the flanagan family packed its belongings and departed in a chastened frame of mind; and corydon turned to her spouse, her eyes still flashing, and remarked, “if only i had talked to her that way from the beginning!”
section 2. then once more there was answering of advertisements, and another couple was spewed forth from the maw of the metropolis—“henery and bessie dobbs”, as they subscribed themselves. “henery” proved to be the adult stage of the east side “gamin”; lean and cynical, full of slang and humor and the odor of cigarettes. he was fresh from a “ticket-chopper’s” job in the subway, and he knew no more about farming than thyrsis did; but he put up a clever “bluff”, and was so prompt with his wits that it was hard to find fault with him successfully. as for his wife, she had come out of a paper-box factory, and was as skilled at housekeeping as her husband was at agriculture; she was frail and consumptive, and told corydon the story of her pitiful life, with the result that she was able to impose upon her even more than her predecessor had done.
“henery” was slow at pitching hay and loading stone, but when the season came, he developed a genius for peddling fruit; he was always hungry for any sort of chance to bargain, and was forever coming upon things which thyrsis ought to buy. very quickly the neighborhood discovered this propensity of his, and there was a constant stream of farmers who came to offer second-hand buggies, and wind-broken horses, and dried-up cows, and patent hay-rakes and churns and corn-shellers at reduced values; all of which rather tended to reveal to thyrsis the unlovely aspects of his neighbors, and to weaken his faith in the perfectibility of the race.
among henery’s discoveries was a pair of aged and emaciated mules. he became eloquent as to how he could fatten up these mules and what crops he could raise in the spring. so thyrsis bought the mules, and also a supply of feed; but the fattening process failed to take effect-for the reason, as thyrsis finally discovered, that the mules were in need of new teeth. when the plowing season began, henery at first expended a vast amount of energy in beating the creatures with a stick, but finally he put his inventive genius to work, and devised a way to drive them without beating. it was some time before thyrsis noted the change; when he made inquiries, he learned to his consternation that the ingenious henery had fixed up the stick with a pin in the end!
at any time of the day one might stand upon the piazza of the house and gaze out across the corn-field, and see a long procession marching through the furrow. first there came the mules, and then came the plow, and then came henery; and after henery followed the dog, and after the dog followed the baby, and after the baby followed a train of chickens, foraging for worms. little cedric was apparently content to trot back and forth in the field for hours; which to his much-occupied parents seemed a delightful solution of a problem. but it happened one day when they had a visit from mr. harding, that thyrsis and the clergyman came round the side of the house, and discovered the child engaged in trying to drag a heavy arm-chair through a door that was too small for it. he was wrestling like a young titan, purple in the face with rage; and shouting, in a perfect reproduction of henery’s voice and accent, “come round here, god damn you, come round here!”
there were many such drawbacks to be balanced against the joys of “life on a farm”. thyrsis reflected with a bitter smile that his experiences and corydon’s had been calculated to destroy their illusions as to several kinds of romance. they had tried “grub street”, and the poet’s garret, and the cultivating of literature upon a little oatmeal; they had not found that a joyful adventure. they had tried the gypsy style of existence; they had gone back “to the bosom of nature”—and had found it a cold and stony bosom. they had tried out “love in a cottage”, and the story-writer’s dream of domestic raptures. and now they were chasing another will o’ the wisp—that of “amateur farming”! when thyrsis had purchased half the old junk in the township, and had seen the mules go lame, and the cows break into the pear-orchard and “founder” themselves; when he had expended two hundred dollars’ worth of money and two thousand dollars’ worth of energy to raise one hundred dollars’ worth of vegetables and fruit, he framed for himself the conclusion that a farm is an excellent place for a literary man, provided that he can be kept from farming it.
section 3. as the result of such extravagances, when they had got as far as the month of february, thyrsis’ bank-account had sunk to almost nothing. however, he had been getting ready for this emergency; he had prepared a scenario of his new book, setting forth the ideas it would contain and the form which it would take. this he sent to his publisher, with a letter saying that he wanted the same contract and the same advance as before.
and again he waited in breathless suspense. he knew that he had here a work of vital import, one that would be certain to make a sensation, even if it did not sell like a novel. it was, to be sure, a radical book—perhaps the most radical ever published in america; but on the other hand, it dealt with questions of literature and philosophy, where occasionally even respectable and conservative reviews permitted themselves to dally with ideas. thyrsis was hoping that the publisher might see prestige and publicity in the adventure, and decide to take a chance; when this proved to be the case, he sank back with a vast sigh of relief. he had now money enough to last until midsummer, and by that time the book would be more than half done—and also the farm would be paying.
but alas, it seemed with them that strokes of calamity always followed upon strokes of good fortune. at this time corydon’s ailments became acute, and her nervous crises were no longer to be borne. there were anxious consultations on the subject, and finally it was decided that she should consult another “specialist”. this was an uncle of mr. harding’s, a man of most unusual character, the clergyman declared; the latter was going to the city, and would be glad to introduce corydon.
so, a couple of days later came to thyrsis a letter, conveying the tidings that she was discovered to be suffering from an abdominal tumor, and should undergo an immediate operation. it would cost a hundred dollars, and the hospital expenses would be at least as much; which meant that, with the bill-paying that had already taken place, their money would all be gone at the outset!
but thyrsis did not waste any time in lamenting the inevitable. he was rather glad of the tidings, on the whole—at least there was a definite cause for corydon’s suffering, and a prospect of an end to it. both of them had still their touching faith in doctors and surgeons, as speaking with final and godlike authority upon matters beyond the comprehension of the ordinary mind. the operation would not be dangerous, corydon wrote, and it would make a new woman of her.
“if i could only have delia gordon with me,” she added, “then my happiness would be complete. only think of it, she left for africa last week! i know she would have waited, if she’d known about this.
“however, i shall make out. mr. harding is going to be in town for more than a week—he is attending a conference of some sort, and he has promised to come and see me in the hospital. i think he likes to do such things—he has the queerest professional air about it, so that you feel you are being sympathized with for the glory of god. but really he is very beautiful and good, and i think you have never appreciated him. i am happy to-day, almost exhilarated; i feel as if i were about to escape from a dungeon.”
section 4. such was the mood in which she went to her strange experience. she liked the hospital-room, tiny, but immaculately clean; she liked the nurses, who seemed to her to be altogether superior and exemplary beings—moving with such silence and assurance about their various tasks. she slept soundly, and in the morning they combed and plaited her hair and prepared her for the ceremony. there came a bunch of roses to her room, with a card from mr. harding; and these were exquisite, and made her happy, so that, when the doctor arrived, she went almost gaily to the operating-room.
everything there aroused her curiosity; the pure white walls and ceiling, shining with matchless cleanness, the glittering instruments arranged carefully on glass tables, the attentive and pleasant-faced nurses, standing also in pure white, and the doctor in his vestments, smiling reassuringly. in the centre of the room was a large glass table, long enough for a reclining body, and through the sky-light the sun poured a pleasing radiance over all. “how beautiful!” exclaimed corydon; and the nurses exchanged glances, and the old doctor failed to hide an expression of surprise.
“i wish all my patients felt like that,” said he. “now climb up on the table.”
corydon promptly did so, and another doctor who was to administer the anaesthetic came to her side. “take a very deep breath, please,” he said, as he placed over her mouth a white, cone-shaped thing that had a rather suffocating odor. corydon was obedience itself, and breathed.
in a moment her body seemed to be falling from her. “oh, i don’t like it!” she gasped.
“breathe deeply, and count as far as you can,” came a voice from far above her.
“stop!” whispered corydon. “oh, i don’t want—i want to come back!”
then she began to count—or rather some strange voice, not hers, seemed to count for her; as the first numbness passed, farther and farther away she seemed to dissolve, to become a disembodied consciousness poised in a misty ether. and at that moment—so she told thyrsis afterwards—the face of mr. harding seemed to appear just above her, and to look at her with a pained and startled expression. it was a beautiful face, she thought; and she knew that everything she felt was being immediately registered in mr. harding’s mind. they were two affinitized beings, suspended in the centre of a cosmos; “their soul intelligences were all that had been left of the sentient world after some cataclysm.
“i always knew that about us,” thought corydon, and she realized that the face before her understood, even though at the moment it, too, was dissolving. “i wonder why”—she mused—“why—” and then the little spark went out.
two hours later the doctor was bending over her, anxiously scrutinizing her passive face. “nurse, bring me some ice-water,” he was saying. “she takes her time coming to.” and sharply he struck her cheek and forehead with his finger-tips; but she showed no sign.
deep down in some mysterious inner chamber, beneath the calm face, there was being enacted a grim spirit-drama. corydon’s soul was making a monstrous effort to return to its habitation; corydon felt herself hanging, a tortured speck of being, in a dark and illimitable void. “this may be hell,” she thought. “i have neither hands nor feet, and i cannot fight; but i can will to get back!” this effort cost her inexpressible agony.
a strange incessant throbbing was going on in the black pit over which she seemed suspended. it had a kind of rhythm—metallic, and yet with a human resonance. it began way down somewhere, and proceeded with maddening accuracy to ascend through the semi-tones of a gigantic scale. each beat was agony to her; it ascended to a certain pitch in merciless crescendo, then fell to the bottom again, and began anew its swift, maddeningly accurate ascent. each time it ascended a little higher, and always straining her endurance to the uttermost, and bringing a more vivid realization of agony. “will you stop here,” it seemed to pulsate. “no, no, i will go on,” willed corydon. “you shall not keep me, i must escape, i must get out.” but it kept up incessantly, ruthlessly, its strange, formless, soundless din, until the spirit writhed in its grasp.
finally it seemed to corydon that she was getting nearer—nearer to something, she knew not what. the blackness about her seemed to condense, and she found herself in what was apparently the middle of a lake, and some dark bodies with arms were trying to drag her down. “no, no,” she willed to these forms, “you shall not. i do not belong here, i belong up—up!” and by a violent effort she escaped—into sensations yet more agonizing, more acute. the vibrations were getting faster and faster, whirling her along, stretching her consciousness to pieces. “will it never end?” she thought. “have mercy!” but after an eternity of such repetition, she found a bright light staring at her, and a frightful sense of heaviness, like mountains piled upon her. also, eating her up from head to foot, was a strange, unusual pain; yes, it must be pain, though she had never felt anything like it before. she moaned; and there came a spasm of nausea, that seemed to tear her asunder.
the doctor was standing by her. “she gave me quite a fright,” he was saying. “there, that’s it, nurse. she’ll be sleeping sweetly in a minute.” the nurse hurried forward, and corydon felt a stinging sensation in her side, and then a delightful numbness crept over her. “oh, thank you, doctor,” she whispered.
section 5. the next week held for corydon continuous suffering, which she bore with a rebellious defiance—feeling that she had been betrayed in some way. “if you had only told me,” she wailed, to the doctor. “i would rather have stayed as i was before!” for answer he would pat her cheek and tell her to go to sleep.
the days dragged on. every afternoon her mother came and read to her for several hours; and in the afternoons mr. harding would come, and sit by her bedside in his kind way and talk to her. sometimes he only stayed a few minutes, but often he would spend an hour or so, trying to dispel the clouds of gloom and despondency that were hanging over her. corydon told him of her vision in the operating-room, and strange to say he declared that he had known it all; also he said that he had helped her to fight her way back to life.
he seemed to understand her every need, and from his sympathy gave her all the comfort he could. but he little realized all that it meant to her—how deeply it stirred her gratitude and her liking for him. during the day she would find herself counting the hours until the time he had named; and when the expected knock would come, and his tall figure appear at the door, her heart would give a sudden jump and send the blood rushing to her head. her lips would tremble slightly as she held out her hand to him; and as he sat and looked at her, she would become uncomfortably conscious of the beating of her heart; in fact at times it would almost suffocate her, and her cheeks would become as fire.
she wondered if he noticed it. but he seemed concerned only for her welfare, and anxiously inquired how she felt. she was not doing well, it seemed, and the doctor was greatly troubled; her temperature had not become normal since the operation, and they could not account for it, as she was suffering no more than the usual amount of pain. to corydon this was a matter of no importance; she was willing to lie there all day, if only the hour of mr. harding’s visit would come more quickly. she was beginning to be alarmed because she had such difficulty in controlling her excitement.
the magic hour would strike, and the door of hope open, and there upon the threshold he would appear, in all his superb manhood. corydon thought she had never before met a man who gave her such an impression of vitality. he was splendid; he was like a young viking, who brought into the room with him the pure air of the northern mountains. when he looked at her, his eyes assumed a wonderful expression, a “golden” expression, as corydon described it to herself. and day after day she clothed this viking in more lustrous garments, woven from the threads of her imagination, her innermost desires and her dreams. and always at sight of him, her heart beat faster, her head became hotter; until the bed she lay upon became a bed of burning coals. she realized at last what had happened to her, that she loved—yes, that she loved! but she must not let her viking see it; that would be unpardonable, it would damn her forever in his sight. and so she struggled with her secret. at night she slept in fitful starts, and in the morning she lay pale and sombre. but when he came she was all brilliancy and animation.
section 6. each night the doctor would look anxiously at his thermometer; it was a source of great worry to him and to corydon’s parents that the fever did not abate. also, needless to say, the news worried thyrsis; all the more, because it meant a long stay in the hospital, and more of their money gone. at last he came up to town to see about it; and corydon thought to herself, “this is very wrong of me. it is thyrsis i ought to be interested in, it is his sympathy i ought to be craving.”
she brought the image of thyrsis before her; it seemed vague and unreal. she found that she remembered mostly the unattractive aspects of him. and this brought a pang to her. “he is good and noble,” she told herself; she forced herself to think of generous things that he had done.
he came; and then she felt still more ashamed. he had been working very hard, and was pale and haggard; it was becoming to him to be that way. recollections came back to her in floods; yes, he was truly good and noble!
he sat by her bedside, and she told him about the operation, and poured out the hunger of her soul to him. he stayed all the morning with her, and he came again and spent the afternoon with her. he read to her and kissed her and soothed her—his influence was very calming, she found. after he had gone for the night, corydon lay thinking, “i still love him!”
how strange it was that she could love two men at once! it was surely very wrong! she would never have dreamed that she, corydon, could do such a thing. she thought of harry stuart, and of the unacknowledged thrill of excitement which his presence had brought to her. “and now here it is again,” she mused—“only this time it is worse! what can—be the matter with me?”
then she wondered, “do i really love mr. harding? haven’t i got over it now?” but the least thinking of him sufficed to set her heart to thumping again; and so she shrunk from that train of thought. she wanted to love her husband.
he came again the next morning, and corydon found that she was very happy in his presence. her fever was slightly lower, and she thought, “i will get well quickly now.”
but alas, she had reckoned in this without thyrsis! to sit in the hospital all day was a cruel strain upon him; the more so as he had been entirely unprepared for it. corydon had assured him that the operation would be nothing, and that she would not need him; and so he had just finished a harrowing piece of labor on the book. now to stay all day and witness her struggle, to satisfy her craving for sympathy and to meet and wrestle with her despair—it was like having the last drops of his soul-energy squeezed out of him. he did not know what was troubling corydon, but the rapport between them was so close, that he knew she was in some distress of mind.
he stood the ordeal as long as he could, and then he had to beg for respite. cedric was down on the farm, with no one but the servants to care for him; so he would go back, and see that everything was all right, and after he had rested up for two or three days, he would come again. corydon smiled faintly and assented—for that morning she had received a note from mr. harding, saying that he would be in town the next day, and would call.
so thyrsis went away, and corydon lay and thought the problem over again. “yes, i love my husband; but it’s such an effort for him to love me! and why should that be? i don’t believe it would be such an effort for mr. harding to love me!”
so again she was seized by the thought of the young clergyman. and she was astonished at the difference in her feelings—the flood of emotion that swept over her. her heart began to beat fast and her cheeks once more to burn. he was coming up to the city on purpose, this time; it must be that he wanted to see her very much!
that night was an especially hard one for her; she felt as though the frail shell that held her were breaking, as though her endurance were failing altogether. the fever had risen, and her bed had seemed like the burning arms of moloch. once she imagined that the room was stifling her, and in a sudden frenzy of impatience she struggled upon one elbow and flung her pillow across the room. in that instant she had noticed a new and sharp pain in her side; it did not leave her, though at the time she thought little about it.
she was all absorbed in the coming of mr. harding; by the time morning had come she had made up her mind that her one hope of deliverance was in confession. she must tell him, she must make known to him her love; and he would forgive her, and then her heart would not beat so violently at sight of him, her fever would abate and she might rest.
but when he sat there, talking to her, and looking so beautiful and so strange, she trembled, and made half a dozen vain efforts to begin. finally she asked, “have you ever read that poem of heine’s—‘ein jüngling liebt ein m?dchen, die hat einen andern erw?hlt?’”
“oh, yes,” he answered; then they were silent again. finally corydon nerved herself to yet another effort. “mr. harding,” she said, “will you come a little nearer, please. i have something very important to say to you.” and then, waveringly and brokenly, now in agonized abashment, now rushing ahead as she felt his encouragement and sympathy, she gave him the whole story of her suffering and its cause. when she came to the words “because i love you”, she closed her eyes and her spirit sank back with a great gasp of relief.
when she opened them again, his head was bowed in his hands and he did not move. “mr. harding,” she whispered, “mr. harding, you forgive me, do you not? you do not hate me?”
he roused himself with an effort. “dear child,” said he, and as he looked at her she thought she had never seen a face so sad, so exquisite—“it is i who ask forgiveness.”
he rose and came to her bedside, and took her hand in both of his. “it would not be right for me to say to you what you have said to me. we must not speak of this any more. you will promise me this, and then you will rest, and to-morrow you will be better. soon you will be well; and how glad your husband will be—and all of us.”
with that he pressed her hand firmly, and left the room; and corydon turned her face to the wall, and whispered happily to herself, “yes, he loves me, he loves me! and now i shall rest!”
section 7. for a while she slept the sleep of exhaustion, nor did there fall across her dreams the shadow of the angel of fate who was even then placing his mark upon her forehead. toward morning she was awakened suddenly with the sharp pain in her side; but it abated presently, and corydon thought blissfully of the afternoon before. he would come again to her, she would see him that very day; and so what did pain matter? she was really happy at last. but as the day advanced, she became uneasy; her fever had not diminished, and the pain was becoming more persistent.
the nurse was anxious, too. her mother came and regarded her in alarm. but she was thinking of mr. harding. he was coming; he might arrive at any moment.
there was a knock upon the door. corydon’s pulse fluttered, and she whispered, “here he is!” she could scarcely speak the words, “come in”. but when the door opened, she saw that it was the doctor. her heart sank, and she closed her eyes with a moan of pain. could it be that he was not coming? could it be that she had been mistaken—that he did not love her after all? she must see him—she must! she could not endure this suspense; she could not endure these interruptions by other people.
the doctor came and sat by her. “i must see what is the matter here,” he said. “why do you not get well, corydon?”
he questioned her carefully and looked grave. “i must have a consultation at once,” he said.
corydon’s hand caught at his sleeve. “no, no!” she whispered.
“don’t be afraid,” said the doctor. “it won’t hurt.”
“it isn’t that,” said corydon. she all but added, “i must see mr. harding!”
she was wheeled into the operating-room, but this time there was no interest in her eyes as she regarded the smooth table and the shining instruments. as they lifted her upon it, she shuddered. “oh i cannot, i cannot!” she wailed.
“there, there,” said the doctor. “be brave. we wish simply to see what the matter is. it won’t take long.”
and they put the cone to her mouth. corydon struggled and gasped, but it was no use, she was in the clutches of the fiend again; only this time there was no ecstasy, and no vision of mr. harding. instead there was instant and sickening suffocation. again she descended into the uttermost depths of the inferno; and it seemed as though this time the brave will was not equal to the battle before it.
the surgeons made their examination, and they discovered more diseased tissue, and a slowly spreading infection. so there was nothing for it but to operate again—they held a quick consultation, and then went ahead. and afterwards they labored and sweated, and by dint of persistent effort, and every device at their command, they fanned into life once more the faint spark in the ashen-grey form that lay before them. but it was a feeble flame they got; as corydon’s eyelids fluttered, the only sign of recognition that came from her lips was a moan, and from her eyes a look of dazed stupidity. but there was hope for her life, the doctors said; and they sent a telegram which thyrsis got three days later, when he had fought his way to the town through five miles of heavy snow-drifts.
meantime the grim fight for life was going on. in the morning corydon opened her eyes to a burning torture, the racked and twisted nerves quivering in rebellion. it did not come in twinges of pain, it was a slow, deadening, persistent agony, that pervaded every inch of her body. she wondered how she could bear it, how she could live. and yet, strangely, inexplicably, she wanted to live. she did not know why—she had been outraged, she had been deserted by all, she was but a feeble atom of determination in the centre of a hostile universe. and yet she would pit her will against them all, god, man, and devil; they should not conquer her, she would win out.
so she would clench her teeth together and fight. for hours she would stare at the wall, the blank, unresponsive, formless wall before her; and then, when the shadows of the evening fell, and they saw she was fainting from exhaustion, they would come with the needle of oblivion, and the dauntless soul would die for the night, and return in the morning to its pitiless task.
section 8. thyrsis received a couple of letters at the same time as the telegram, and he took the next train for the city. it is said that a drowning man sees before him in a few moments the panorama of his whole life; but to thyrsis were given three hours in which to recall the events of his love for corydon. he had every reason to believe that he would find her dying; and such pangs of suffering as came to him he had never known before. he was in a crowded car, and he would not shed a tear; but he sat, crouched in a heap and staring before him, fairly quivering with pent-up and concentrated grief. god, how he loved her! what a spirit of pure flame she was—what a creature from another sky! what martyrdom she had dared for him, and how cruelly she had been punished for her daring! and now, this was the end; she was dying—perhaps dead! how was he to live without her—in the bare and barren future that he saw stretching out before him?
flashes of memory would come to him, waves of torment roll over him. he would recall her gestures, the curves of her face, the tones of her voice, the songs that she had sung; and then would come a choking in his throat, and he would clench his hands, as a runner in the last moments of a desperate race. he thought of her as he had seen her last. he had gone away, careless and unthinking—how blind he had been! the things that he had not said to her, and that he might have said so easily! the love he had not uttered, the pardons he had not procured! the yearnings and consecrations that had remained unspoken all through their lives—ah god, what a tragedy of impotence and failure their lives had been!
then before his soul came troops of memories, each one a fiend with a whip of fire; the words of anger that he had spoken, the acts of cruelty that he had done! the times when he had made her weep, and had not comforted her! oh, what a fool he had been—what a blind and wanton fool! and now—if he were to find her dead, and never be able to tell her of his shame and sorrow—he knew that he would carry the memories with him all his days, they would be like blazing scars upon his soul.
she was still alive, however; and so he took a deep breath, and went at his task. there was no question now of what he could bear to do, but of what he must do; she must be saved, and who could do it but himself? who else could take her hands and whisper to her, and fill her with new courage and hope; who else could bid her to live—to live; could rouse the fainting spirit, and bid it rise up and set forth upon the agonizing journey?
so out of the very abyss they came together. but when at last the fight was won, when the doctors an-nounced that she was out of danger, thyrsis was fairly reeling with exhaustion. when he left her in the afternoon, he would go to his hotel-room and lie down, utterly prostrated; he would lie awake the whole night through, wrestling with the demons of horror that he had brought with him from her bedside.
so he realized that he was on the verge of collapse, and that cost what it would, he must get away. corydon’s mother was with her, and when she was strong enough to be moved, she would be taken back to the farm. he mentioned this to corydon, and she replied that she would be satisfied. there would be mr. harding also, she said; mr. harding wrote that he would come up to the city, and do what he could to help her in her dire distress.
section 9. there came from the higher regions a pass upon a steamer to florida; and so thyrsis sailed away. with a determined effort he took all his cares, and locked them back in a far chamber of his mind. he would not think about corydon, nor about what he would do for money when he came home; more important yet, he would clear the book out of his thoughts—he would not permit it to gnaw at him all day and all night.
and by these resolves he stood grimly. he walked the deck for hours every day; he watched the foaming green waters, and the gulls wheeling in the sky, and the sun setting over the sea, and the new moon showering its fire upon the waves. gradually the air grew warm, and ice and snow became as an evil dream. a land of magic it seemed to which thyrsis came—the beauty of it enfolded him like a clasp of love. he saw pine-forests, and swamps with alligators in them, and live oaks draped with trailing grey moss. the clumps of palmettos fascinated him—he had seen pictures of such trees in the tropics, and would hardly have been astonished to see a herd of elephants in their shadows.
he found a beach, snow-white and hard, upon which he walked for uncounted miles. he gathered strange shells and crabs, and watched the turkey-buzzards on the shore, and the slow procession of the pelicans, sailing past above the tops of the breakers. he saw the black fins of the grampuses cutting the water, and thought that they were sharks. he stood for hours at a time up to his waist in the surf, casting for sea-bass; he got few fish, but joy and excitement he got in abundance.
then, back upon the hammocks—to walk upon the hard shell roads, and see orange and lemon-groves, and gardens filled with roses and magnolias, and orchards of mulberry and fig-trees. truly this must have been the land which the poet had described—
“where every prospect pleases,
and only man is vile.”
thyrsis stayed in a humble boarding-house, but nearby was one of the famous winter-resorts of the florida east coast, and he was free to go there, and wander about the lobbies and piazzas of the palatial hotels, and watch the idle rich at their diversions. a strange society they were—it seemed as if the scum of the civilization of forty-five states had been blown into this bit of back-water. here were society women, jaded with dissipation; stock-brokers and financiers, fleeing from the strain of the “street”; here were parasites of every species, who, having nothing to do at home—or perhaps not even having any home—had come to this land of warmth to prolong their orgies. they raced over the roads and beaches in autos, and over the water in swift motor-boats; they dressed themselves half a dozen times a day, they fed themselves upon rich and costly foods, they gambled and gossiped and drank and wantoned their time away. as he watched them it was all that thyrsis could do to keep himself from beginning another manifesto for the “appeal to reason”. oh, if only the toilers of the nation could be brought here, and shown what became of the wealth they produced!
as if to complete his study of winter-resort manners and morals, thyrsis encountered a college acquaintance whose father had become enormously rich through a mining speculation, and was here with a party of friends in a private-train. so he was whirled off in one of half a dozen automobiles, and rode for a hundred miles or so to an inland lake, and sat down to an al fresco luncheon of such delicacies as paté de fois gras and jellied grouse and champagne. afterwards the young people wandered about and amused themselves, and the elders played “bridge”, in the face of all the raptures of this wonderland of nature.
a strange and sombre figure thyrsis must have seemed to these people, with his brooding air and his worn clothing; he rode home in an auto with half a dozen youths and maidens, and while they flashed by lakes and rivers that gleamed in the golden moon-light, and by orchards and gardens from which the mingled scents of millions of blossoms were wafted to them, these voung people jested together and laughed and sang.
and thyrsis lay back and watched them and studied them. their music was what is called “rag-time”—they had apparently found nothing better to do with their lives than to learn hundreds of verses and melodies, of which the subject-matter was the whims and moods of the half-tamed african race—their vanities and their barbarous impulses, and above all their hot and lustful passions. song after song they poured forth, the substance of which was summed up in one line that thyrsis happened to carry away with him—
“ah lubs you, mah honey, yes, ah do!”
it seemed to him such a curious and striking commentary upon the stage which leisure-class culture had reached, in the course of its reversion to savagery.
section 10. thyesis came home after three weeks, browned and refreshed, and ready to take up the struggle again. he came with the cup of his love and sympathy overflowing; eager to see corydon, and to tell her his adventures, and to share with her his store of new hope.
he found her reclining on the piazza of the farm-house. the april buds were bursting upon the trees, and the odor of spring was in the air; also, the flush of health was stealing back into corydon’s cheeks. how beautiful she looked, and how soft and gentle was her caress, and what wistfulness and tenderness were in the smile with which she greeted him!
there was the baby also, tumultuous and excited. thyrsis took him upon his knee, and while he fondled him and played with him, he told corydon about his trip. but in a short while it became evident to him that she had something on her mind; and finally she sent the baby away to play, and began, “there is something i have to tell you.”
“yes, dear?” he said.
“it is something very, very important.”
“yes?” he repeated.
“i—i don’t know just how to begin,” said corydon. “i hope you are not going to be angry.”
“i can’t imagine myself being angry just now,” he replied; and then, struck by a sense of familiarity in this introduction, he asked, with a smile, “you haven’t been seeing harry stuart, have you?”
corydon frowned at the words. “don’t speak of that!” she said, quickly. “i am not joking.”
he saw that she was agitated, and so he fell silent.
“i hesitated a long time about telling you,” she went on. “but you must know. i am sure it’s right to tell you.”
“by all means, dearest,” he answered.
“it’s a long story,” she said. “i must go back to my first operation.” and then she began, and told him how she had found herself thinking of mr. harding, and of the strange vision she had had; she told of all her fevered excitements, and of her confession to him. when she finished she was trembling all over, and her face and throat were flushed.
thyrsis sat for a while in silence, looking very grave. “i see,” he said.
“you—you are not angry with me?” she asked.
“no, i’m not angry,” he replied. “but tell me, what has been going on since?”
“well,” said corydon, “mr. harding has been coming here to see me. he saw i needed help, and he couldn’t refuse it. it was—it was his duty to come.”
“yes,” said the other. “go on.”
“well, i think he had an idea that the whole thing was a product of my sickness; and when i was well again, it would all be over.”
“and is it, corydon?”
she sat staring in front of her; her voice sank to a whisper. “no,” she said. “it—it isn’t.”
“and does he know that?” asked thyrsis.
“he knows everything,” she replied. “i don’t need to tell him things.”
“but have you talked about it with him?”
“a little,” she said. “that is, you see, i had to explain to him—to apologize for what i had done in the hospital. i wanted him to know that i wouldn’t have said anything to him, if i hadn’t been so very ill.”
“i see,” said thyrsis.
“and i want you to understand,” added corydon, quickly-“you must not blame him. for he’s the soul of honor, thyrsis; and he can’t help how he feels about me-any more than i can help it. you must know that, dear!”
“yes, i know that.”
“he’s been so good and so noble about it. he thinks so much of you, thyrsis—he wouldn’t do you wrong, not by a single word. he said that to me—-over and over again. he’s frightened, you know, that either of us might do wrong. he’s so sensitive-i think he takes things more seriously than anybody we’ve ever known.”
“i understand,” said thyrsis; and then, after a pause, he inquired, “but what’s to come of it?”
“how do you mean?” she asked.
“what are you going to do?”
“why, i don’t know that there’s anything to do, thyrsis. what would there be?”
“but are you going on being in love with him forever?”
“i—i don’t see how i can tell, thyrsis. would it do any harm?”
“it might grow on you,” he said, with a slight smile. “it sometimes does.”
“mr. harding said we ought never to speak of it again,” said she. “and i guess he’s right about that. he said that our lives would always be richer, because we had discovered each other’s souls; that it would help us to grow into a nobler life.”
“i see,” said thyrsis. “but it’s a trifle disconcerting at first. i’ll need a little time to get used to it.”
“mr. harding is very anxious to know you better,” remarked corydon. “but you see, he’s afraid of you, thyrsis. you are so direct—you get to the point too quickly for him.”
“um—yes,” said he. “i can imagine that.”
“and he thinks you distrust him,” she went on—“just because he’s orthodox. but he’s really not half as backward as you think. his faith means a great deal to him. i only wish i had such a faith in my own life.”
to which thyrsis responded, “god knows, my dear, i wish you had.”
section 11. the young clergyman came to call the next afternoon, and the three sat upon the lawn and talked. they talked about florida, and then about socialism—as was inevitable, after thyrsis had described the population of the east coast hotels. but he felt constrained and troubled—he did not know just how a man should conduct himself with his wife’s lover; and so in the end he excused himself and strolled off.
he came back as mr. harding was leaving; and it seemed to him that the other’s face wore a look of pain and distress. also, at supper he noted that corydon was ill at ease.
“something has gone wrong with your program?” he inquired.
to which corydon answered, “mr. harding thinks he ought not to come any more.”
“not come any more?”
“he says i don’t need him now. and he thinks—he thinks it isn’t right. he’s afraid to come.”
and so a week passed, and the young clergyman was not seen again. thyrsis noticed that his wife was silent a great deal; and that when she did talk, she talked about mr. harding. his heart ached to see her as she was, so pitifully weak and appealing. she was scarcely able to walk alone yet; and she complained also that her mind had been weakened by the frightful ordeal she had undergone. it exhausted her to do any thinking at all; and she seemed to have forgotten nearly all she knew—there were whole subjects upon which her mind appeared to be a blank.
so he gave up trying to think about his book, and went about all day pondering this new problem. it was one of the laws of the marriage state that he must suffer whenever she suffered. it was never permitted to him to question the reality of any of her emotions; if they were real to her, they were real in the only sense that counted; and he must take them with the entire tragic seriousness that she took them, he must regard them as inevitable and fatal. for himself, he could change or suppress emotions—that ability was the most characteristic fact about him; but corydon could not do it, and so he was not permitted to do it. that would be to manifest the “cold” and “stern” self, which was to corydon an object of abhorrence and fear.
so now he went about all day, brooding over this trouble. he would come to corydon and see her gazing across the valley with a melancholy look upon her features; he would see her, with her sweet face as if suffused with unshed tears. and what was he to do about it? was he to rebuke her—however gently—and urge her to suppress this yearning? to do that would be to plunge her into abysses of grief. or was he to come to her, and utter his own love to her, and draw her to him again? he knew that he could do that—he was conceited enough to believe that with his eloquence and his power of soul, he could have wiped mr. harding clean out of her thoughts in a few days. but then, when he had done it, he would have to go back to the task of revolutionizing the world’s critical standards; and what would become of corydon after that? what she needed, he told himself, was a love that was not a will o’ the wisp and a fraud, but a love that was real and unceasing; she needed the love of a man, and not of an artist!
here were two young people who were in love with each other; and according to the specifications of the moral code, they had their minds made up to sublime renunciation. but then, thyrsis had a moral code of his own, and in it renunciation was not the only law of life.
it was only when he thought of losing corydon, that he realized to the full how much he loved her. then all their consecrations and their pledges would come back to him; he would hold her as the greatest human soul that he had ever met. but it was a strange paradox, that precisely the depth of his love for her made him willing to think of losing her. he loved her for herself, and not for anything she gave him; he wanted her to be happy, he wanted her to grow and achieve, and in order to see her do this he would make any sacrifice in the world. in how many hours of insight had it become clear to him that he himself could never make her happy—that he was not the man to be her husband! now it seemed as if the time had come for him to prove that he meant what he had said—that he was willing to stand by his vision and to act upon it.
so after one day of especial unhappiness, he made up his mind to a desperate resolve; and at night, when all the household was asleep, he went over to his lonely study and sat down with a pen in his hand, and summoned the spirit of mr. harding before him.
“i have concluded to write you a letter,” he began. “you will find it a startling and unusual one. i can only beg you to believe that i have written it after much hesitation, and that it represents most earnest and prayerful thought upon my part.
“since my return, i have become aware of the situation which has developed between yourself and my wife. her welfare is dearer to me than anything else in the world; and after thinking it over, i concluded that her welfare required that i should explain to you the relationship which exists between us. it seems unlikely that you could know about it otherwise, for it is a very unusual relationship.
“i suppose there is no need for me to tell you that corydon is not happy. she never has been happy as my wife, and i fear that she never will be. she is by nature warm-hearted, craving affection and companionship. i, on the other hand, am by nature impersonal and self-absorbed—i am compelled by the exigencies of my work to be abstracted and indifferent to things about me. i perceived this before our marriage, but not clearly enough to save her; it has been her misfortune that i have loved her so dearly that i have been driven to attempt the impossible. i am continuually deceiving myself into the belief that i am succeeding—and i am continually deceiving corydon in the same way. it has been our habit to talk things out between us frankly; but this is a truth from which we have shrunk instinctively. i have always seen it as the seed of what must grow to be a bitter tragedy.
“the possibility that corydon might come to love some other man was one that i had not thought of—it was very stupid of me, no doubt. but now it has happened; and i have worked over the problem with all the faculties i possess. a man who was worthy of corydon’s love would be very apt, under the circumstances, to feel that he must crush his impulses towards her. but when we were married, it was with the agreement that our marriage should be binding upon us only so long as it was for the highest spiritual welfare of both; and by that agreement it is necessary that we should stand at all times. my purpose in writing to you is to let you know that i have no claim upon corydon which prohibits her from continuing her acquaintance with you; and that if in the course of time it should become clear that corydon would be happier as your wife than as mine, i should regard it as my duty to step aside. having said this, i feel that i have done my part. i leave the matter in your hands, with the fullest confidence in your sincerity and good faith.”
thyrsis wrote this letter, and read it a couple of times. then he decided to sleep over it; and the next morning he wakened, and read it again—with a shock of surprise. he found it a startling letter. it opened up vistas to his spirit; vistas of loneliness and grief—and then again, vistas of freedom and triumph. if he were to mail it, it would be irrevocable; and it would probably mean that he would lose corydon. and could he make up his mind to lose her? his swift thoughts flew to their parting; there were tears in his eyes—his love came back to him, as it had when he thought she was dying. but then again, there came a thrill of exultation; the captive lion within him smelt the air of the jungle, and rattled his chains and roared.
throughout breakfast he was absent-minded and ill at ease; he bid corydon a farewell which puzzled her by its tenderness, and then started to walk to bellevue with the letter. half way in, he stopped. no, he could not do it—it was a piece of madness; but then he started again—he must do it. he found himself pacing up and down before the post office, where for nearly an hour he struggled to screw his courage to the sticking-point. once he started away, having made up his mind that he would take another day to think the matter over; but after he had walked half a mile or so, he changed his mind and strode back, and dropped the letter in the box.
and then a pang smote him. it was done! all the way as he walked home he had to fight with an impulse to go back, and persuade the postmaster to return the letter to him!
section 12. thyrsis figured that the fatal document would reach mr. harding that afternoon; and the next morning in his anxiety he walked a mile or two to meet the mail-carrier on his way. sure enough, there was a reply from the clergyman. he tore it open and read it swiftly:
“i received your letter, and i hasten to answer. i cannot tell you the distress of mind which it has caused me. there has been a most dreadful misundertanding, and i can only hope that it has not gone too far to be corrected. i beg you to believe me that there has been nothing between your wife and myself that could justify the inference you have drawn. your wife was in terrible distress of spirit, and i visited her and tried to comfort her—such is my duty as a clergyman, as i conceive it. i did nothing but what a clergyman should properly do, and you have totally misunderstood me, and also your wife, who is the most innocent and gentle and trusting of souls. she is utterly devoted to you, and the idea that the help i have tried to give her should be the occasion of any misunderstanding between you is dreadful for me to contemplate.
“i must implore you to believe this, and dismiss these cruel suspicions from your mind. if i were to be the cause of breaking up your home, and wrecking corydon’s life, it would be more than i could bear. i have a most profound belief in the sanctity of the institution of marriage, and not for anything in the world would i have been led to do, or even to contemplate in my own thoughts, anything which would trespass upon its obligations. i repeat to you with all the earnestness of which i am capable that your idea is without basis, and i beg you to banish it from your mind. you may rely upon it that i will not see your wife again, under any circumstances imaginable.”
thyrsis read this, and then stared before him with knitted brows. “why, what’s the matter with the man?” he said to himself. and then he read the letter over again, weighing its every phrase. “did he think my letter was sarcasm?” he wondered. “did he think i was angry?”
he went to his study and got the rough draft of his own letter, and reread and pondered it. no, he concluded, it was not possible that mr. harding had thought he was angry. “he’s trying to dodge!” he exclaimed. “he can’t bring himself to face the thing!”
but then again, he wondered. could it be that the man was right; could it be that corydon had misunderstood him and his attitude? or had he perhaps experienced a reaction, and was now trying to deny his feelings?
for several hours thyrsis pondered the problem; and then he went and sat by her, as she was reading on the piazza. “you haven’t heard anything more from mr. harding, have you?” he asked.
“nothing,” said corydon.
“what do you suppose he intends to do?”
“i—i don’t know,” she said. “i don’t think he means to come back.”
“but why not, dear?”
“he’s afraid to trust himself, thyrsis.”
“you think he really cares for you, then?”
“yes, dear.”
“but, how can you be sure?” he asked.
at which corydon smiled. “a woman has ways of knowing about such things,” she said.
“i wish you’d tell me about it,” said he.
but after a little thought, she shook her head. “maybe some day, but not now. it wouldn’t be fair to him. it isn’t going any further, and that’s enough for you to know.”
“he must be unhappy, isn’t he?” said thyrsis, artfully.
“yes,” she answered, “he’s unhappy, i’m sure. he takes things very seriously.”
thyrsis paused a moment. “did he tell you that he loved you?” he asked.
“no,” said corydon. “he—he wouldn’t have permitted himself to do that. that would have been wrong.”
“but then—what did he do?”
“he looked at me,” she said.
“when he went off the other day—did he know how you still felt?”
“yes, thyrsis; why do you ask?”
“i thought you might have been deceiving yourself.”’
at which she smiled and replied, “i wouldn’t have bothered to tell you in that case.”
section 13. so thyrsis strolled away, and after duly considering the matter, he sat himself down to compose another letter to the young clergyman.
“my dear mr. harding:
“i read your note with a great deal of perplexity. it is evident to me that i have not made the situation clear to you; you probably do not find it easy to realize the frankness which corydon and i maintain in our relationship. i must tell you at the outset that she has narrated to me what has passed between you, and so i am not dealing with ‘cruel suspicions’, but with facts. can i not persuade you to do the same?
“it is difficult for me to be sure just what is in your mind. but for one thing, let me make certain that you are not trying to read anything between the lines of what i write you. please understand i am not angry, or jealous, or suspicious; also, i am not unhappy—at least not so unhappy but that i can stand it. i have stood a good deal of unhappiness in my life, and corydon has also.
“you tell me about your attitude towards my wife. of course it may be that as you come to look back upon what has passed between you, it seems to you that your feeling for her was not deep and permanent, and that you would prefer not to continue your acquaintance with her. that would be your right—you have not pledged yourself in any way. all that i desire is, that in considering the state of your feelings, you should deal with them, and not with any duty which you may imagine you owe to me. i have no claim in the matter, and any that i might have, i forego.
“the crux of the whole difficulty i imagine must lie in what you say about your ‘profound belief in the sanctity of the institution of marriage’. that is, of course, a large question to attempt to discuss in a letter. i can only say that i once had such a belief, and that as a result of my studies i have it no longer. i see the institution of marriage as a product of a certain phase of the economic development of the race, which phase is rapidly passing, if it be not already past. and the institution to me seems to share in the evils of the economic phase; indeed i am accustomed, when invited to discuss the institution of marriage, to insist upon discussing what actually exists—which is the institution of marriage-plus-prostitution.
“our economic system affords to certain small classes of men—to capitalists, to merchants, to lawyers, to clergymen—opportunities of comfort and dignity and knowledge and health and virtue. but to certain other classes, and far larger classes-to miners, to steel-workers, to garment-makers—it deals out misery and squalor and ignorance and disease and vice. and in the case of women it does exactly the same; to some it gives a sheltered home, with comfort and beauty and peace; while to others it gives a life of loneliness and sterility, and to others a life of domestic slavery, and to yet others only the horrors of the brothel. and when you come to investigate, you find that the difference is everywhere one of economic advantage. the merchant, the lawyer, the clergyman, has education and privilege, he can wait and make his terms; but the miner, the steel-worker, the sweat-shop-toiler, has to sell his labor for what will keep him alive that day. and in the same way with women—some can acquire accomplishments, virtues, charms; and when it comes to giving their love, they can secure the life-contract which we call marriage. but the daughter of the slums has no opportunity to acquire such accomplishments and virtues and charms, and often she cannot hold out for such a bargain—she sells her love for the food and shelter that she needs to keep her alive.
“this will seem radical doctrine to you, i suppose; i have noticed that you take our institutions at their face-value, and do not ask how much in them may be sham. but it seems to me there is no need to go into that matter here, for no trespass upon the marriage obligation is proposed. the conventions undoubtedly give me the right to be outraged because my wife is in love with another man; i can denounce him, and humiliate her. but if i am willing to forego this right, if i do not care to play othello to her desdemona, what then? who can claim to be injured by my renunciation?
“of course i know it is said that marriages are made in heaven, and that what god hath joined together, no man may put asunder. but it is difficult for me to imagine that an intelligent man would take this attitude at the present day. if i were dead, you would surely recognize that corydon might remarry; you would recognize it, i presume, if i were hopelessly insane, or degenerate. what if i were in the habit of getting drunk and maltreating her—would you claim that she was condemned to suffer this for life? or suppose that i were found to be physically impotent? and can you not recognize the fact that there might be impotence of an intellectual and spiritual sort, which could leave a woman quite as unhappy, and make her life quite as barren and futile?
“let us suppose, for the sake of the argument, that i have stated correctly the facts between corydon and myself; that there exists between us a fundamental difference in temperament, which makes it certain that, however much we might respect and admire, and even love each other, we could never either of us be happy as man and wife; and suppose that corydon were to meet some other man, with whom she could live harmoniously; and that she loved him sincerely, and he loved her; and that i were to recognize this, and be willing that she should leave me—do you mean that you would maintain that such a course was wrong? and if it were, with whom would the blame be? with her, because she did not condemn herself to a lifetime of failure? or with me, because i did not desire her to do this—because i did not wish to waste my life-force in trying to content a discontented woman?
“i might add that i have said nothing to corydon about having written to you; she has no idea that i have thought of such a thing, and she would be horrified at the suggestion. i have taken the responsibility of doing it, realizing that there was no other way in which you could be made acquainted with the true situation. there is much more that i could say about all this, but it seems a waste of time to write it. can we not meet sometime, and get at each other’s point of view? i am going to be in town the day after to-morrow, and unless i hear from you to the contrary, i will drop in to see you some time in the morning.”
section 14. thyrsis read this letter over two or three times; and then, resisting the impulse to elaborate his exposition of the economic bases of the marriage institution, he took it in to town and mailed it. he waited eagerly for a reply the next day; but no reply came.
the morning after that, he walked down to town as he had agreed to, and called at mr. harding’s home. the door was opened by his housekeeper, delia gordon’s aunt. “is mr. harding in?” asked thyrsis.
“he’s gone up to the city,” was the reply.
“to the city,” said thyrsis. “when did he go?”
“he left this morning.”
“and when will he be back?”
“i don’t know. he left rather suddenly, and he didn’t say.”
“i see,” said thyrsis. “tell him i called, please.”
and so he went home and mailed another note to mr. harding, asking him to make an appointment for a meeting; after which he waited for three or four days—but still there came no reply.
“have you heard anything more from mr. harding?” he asked of corydon, finally.
“no, dear,” she answered. “i don’t expect to hear.” but he saw that she was nervous and distrait; and he knew by her unwonted interest in the mail that she was all the time hoping to get some word from him.
when it came to handling any affair with corydon, thyrsis was a poor diplomatist. he would tell himself that this or that should be kept from her for the present; but the secrecy always irked him—his impulse was to talk things out with her, to go hand in hand with her to face the facts of their life. so now, in this case; one afternoon he settled her comfortably in a hammock, and sat beside her and took her hand.
“corydon,” he said, “i’ve something i want to tell you. i’ve been having a correspondence with mr. harding.”
she started, and stared at him wildly. “what do you mean?” she gasped.
“i wrote him two letters,” said he.
“what about?”
“i wanted to explain about us,” he said; and then he told her what he had put in the first letter, and read mr. harding’s reply, which he had in his pocket.
“what do you make of it?” he asked.
“tell me what your answer was!” cried corydon, quickly; and so he began to outline his second letter.
but she did not let him get very far. “you wrote him that way about marriage!” she exclaimed.
“yes, dear,” said he.
“but, thyrsis! he’ll be perfectly horrified!”
“you think so?”
“why, thyrsis! don’t you understand? he’s a clergyman!”
“i know; but it’s the truth—-”
“you don’t know anything about people at all!” she cried. “can’t you realize? he doesn’t reason about things like you; you can’t appeal to him in that way!”
“well, what was i to do—-”
“we’ll never see him again!” exclaimed corydon, in despair.
“that won’t be any worse than it was before, will it?”
“tell me,” she rushed on, in her agitation. “did you tell him that i had no idea what you were doing?”
“of course i told him that.”
“but did you make it perfectly clear to him?”
“i tried to, dear.”
“tell me what you said! tell me the rest of the letter.”
and so he recited it, as well as he could, while she listened, breathless with dismay. “how could you!” she cried.
then she read over mr. harding’s letter once more. “you see,” she said; “he was simply dazed. he didn’t know what to say, he didn’t know what to think.”
“he’ll get over it in time. he had to know, somehow.”
“but why did he have to know? why couldn’t things have stayed as they were?”
“but my dear, you are in love with the man, aren’t you?”
“but i don’t want to marry him, thyrsis! i don’t—i don’t love him enough.”
“you might have come to it in the course of time,” he replied.
“don’t you see that he’d have to give up being a clergyman?” she exclaimed.
“that’s been done before,” he said.
“but—see it from his point of view! think of the scandal!”
“i don’t think much about scandals,” thyrsis answered. “that part could be arranged.”
“but do the laws give people divorces in that way?”
“our divorce laws are relics of feudalism,” he answered. “one does not take them seriously.”
“but how can you get around them, thyrsis?”
“you simply have to admit whatever offense they require.”
“but thyrsis! think how that would seem to mr. harding!”
“my dear,” he answered, “if i knew that a divorce was necessary to your happiness, i would take upon myself whatever disgrace was necessary.”
corydon sat gazing at him. “is it so easy to give me up?” she asked.
“it wasn’t easy at all, my dear,” he answered. “it was a fight that i fought out.”
“but you decided that you could do it!” she exclaimed; and that, he found, was the aspect of the matter that stayed with her in the end. it seemed a poor sort of compliment he had paid her; and how could he make real to her the pangs the decision had cost him? he expected her to take that for granted—in all these years, had he not been able to convince her of his love?
it was the old story between them, he reflected; he was always being called upon to express his feelings, and always reluctant to attempt it. just now she wanted him to enter upon an eloquent exposition of how he had suffered and hesitated before he mailed the letter; and she would hang upon his words, and drink them in greedily—and of course, the more convincing he made them, the more she would love him.
she could never leave him, she insisted—the idea of giving him up was madness. she had not meant any such thing by falling in love with mr. harding. why must he be so elemental, so brutally direct? he was like some clumsy animal, blundering about in the garden where she kept her sentimental plants. he frightened her, as he had frightened mr. harding. she stood appalled at this thing which he had done; the truth being that his action had sprung from a certain deep conviction in him, which he never found courage to utter to her.
section 15. thyrsis pledged his word that he would write no more to mr. harding; and so they settled down to wait for a reply. but a couple more days passed, and still there came nothing.
corydon was restless and impatient. “what can he be doing?” she exclaimed. finally it chanced that thyrsis had to go to bellevue upon some errand; and so the two drove into town together, and came upon the solution of the mystery.
on the street they met mr. jennings, the high-school principal.
“good-morning,” said he. “a fine day.” and then, “have you heard the news about harding?”
“what news?” asked thyrsis.
“he’s gone away.”
“gone away!”
“he’s resigned his pastorate.”
thyrsis stared at the man, dazed; he felt corydon beside him give a start. “resigned his pastorate!” she echoed.
“yes,” said the other, “just so.”
“but why?”
“we none of us know. we’re at our wits’ end.”
“but—how did you hear it?”
“i’m one of the trustees of the church, and his letter was read last night.”
thyrsis could not find a word to utter. he sat staring at the man in bewilderment.
“what did he say?” cried corydon, at last.
“he said that for some time he had been dissatisfied with his work, and felt the need of more study and reflection. it quite took our breath away, for nobody’d had the least idea that anything was wrong.”
“but what’s he going to do?”
“apparently he’s going abroad,” was the answer—“at least he ordered his mail to be forwarded to an address in switzerland. and that’s all we know.”
then, after a few remarks about the spiritual ferment in the churches, the worthy high-school principal went on his way, and left corydon and thyrsis in the middle of the street. for a minute or two they sat staring before them as if in a trance; and then suddenly from thyrsis’ lips there burst a peal of wild laughter. “by the lord god, he ran away from it!” he cried; and he seized corydon by the arm and cried again, “he ran away from it!”
“thyrsis!” exclaimed the other. “don’t laugh about it!”
“don’t laugh!” he gasped; and again the convulsion of hilarity swept over him.
but corydon turned upon him swiftly. “no!” she cried. “stop! it’s no joke!”
she was staring at him, her eyes wide with consternation and dismay. “think!” she exclaimed. “he’s given up his career!”
“yes,” he said, “so it seems.”
“it’s awful!” she cried. “oh, how could he!”
he saw the way the news affected her, and he made an effort to control himself. “the man simply couldn’t face it,” he said. “he didn’t dare to trust himself. he ran.”
“but thyrsis!” she exclaimed. “i can’t believe it! he’s given up his whole life-work!”
“he’s fled like joseph,” said thyrsis—“leaving his cloak in the hands of the temptress!”
and then, the strain proving too much for him, he began to laugh again. becoming aware of the stares of some people on the street, he started up the horse, and drove on into the country, where he could be alone, and could give unrestrained expression to the emotions that possessed him.
he imagined the dismay and perplexity of the unhappy clergyman, with his belief in the sacred institution of marriage—and with the vision of corydon pursuing him all day, and haunting his dreams at night. he imagined him trying to face the interview with the husband—with the terrible, conventionless husband, whose arguments could not be answered. “he simply couldn’t face me! he went the very morning i was coming!”
so he would laugh again; he would laugh until he was so weak that he had to lie back in his seat. “i can’t believe that it’s true!” he exclaimed. “my dear, i think it’s the funniest thing that ever happened since the world began!”
“but thyrsis!” she protested. “think what we’ve done to him! the man’s life is wrecked!”
“nonsense!” said he. “it’s the best thing that could have happened to him. he might have gone on preaching sermons all his life—but now he’s got some ideas to work out. he’ll have time to read books, and to think.”
“but he must be suffering so!” exclaimed corydon, who could not forget her love, even in the presence of his ribaldry.
“he needs to suffer,” thyrsis replied. “he may meet some of the radicals over there, and come back with a new point of view.”
but corydon shook her head. “you don’t know him,” she said. “he couldn’t possibly change. i don’t think i’ll ever hear from him again.”
thyrsis looked at her and saw that there were tears in her eyes. he put his hand upon hers. “we’ll have to worry through for a while longer, dear,” he said. “never mind—we’ll manage to make out somehow!”
section 16. they drove home; and all through supper they talked about this breathless event. afterwards they sat in the twilight, upon the porch, and threshed it out in its every aspect.
“corydon,” said he, “i don’t believe you really loved him as much as you thought. did you?”
she stared before her without answering.
“would you have loved him for long?” he persisted.
she pondered over this. “i don’t think one could love a man always,” she answered, “unless he had a mind.”
at which he pondered in turn. “then it was too bad to drive him away!”
“that’s just it,” said she. “that’s what i couldn’t make clear to you.”
“but still, we had to find out.”
“you may have,” she said. “i didn’t.”
thyrsis looked, and saw that she was smiling through her tears. he took her hand in his. “we’ll see each other through, dear,” he said. “we’ll have to wait until the world grows up.”
he felt an answering pressure of her hand. “thyrsis,” she said, “you must promise me that you will never do anything dreadful like that again. you must understand me; i might think that i was in love, but it would never be real—truly it wouldn’t. no man could ever mean to me what you mean—i know that! and i couldn’t give you up—you must never let yourself think of such a thing! i couldn’t give you up!”
so there came to thyrsis one of those bursts of tenderness that she knew so well. he put his arms about her and kissed her with fervor; but even while he spoke with her, and gave her the love she desired, there was something in him that sank back and moaned with despair. so the captive sinks and moans when he finds that his break for freedom has led only to the tightening of his chains.
they stood for the last time before the cabin, bidding farewell to the little glen and all its memories.
“there are lines in the poem for everything,” she said. “even for that!” and she quoted—
“he hearkens not! light comer, he is flown!”
he laughed. “i can do better yet,” he said—
“alack, for corydon no rival now!”
there was a pause. “that was five years,” she mused. “and there were five more!”
“it will mean another book,” he said. “to tell about the new work; and how thyrsis became a social lion; and how, like icarus, he flew too high and melted his wings. and then, ‘the exploiters,’ the book of his vengeance! and then corydon—-”
“yes, do not forget corydon,” she said.
“how he watched her dying before his eyes, and how he prayed for months for courage to kill her, and could not, but ran away. and then—-”
“it will make a long story.”
“yes—a long story. ‘love’s deliverance,’ let us call it.”
“they will smile at that. it sounds like reno, nevada.”
“‘love’s deliverance,’ even so,” he said. “to tell how thyrsis went out into the wilderness and found himself; and of the new love that came to corydon.”
“it will be a bible for lovers,” said she.
“yes,” he replied, and smiled-“with a book of chronicles, and a book of proverbs, and a book of psalms, and a book of revelations—”
“and several books of epistles,” she interposed.
“the tablets in the temple are cracked,” he said, “and the fortresses of privilege are crumbling. when the revolution is here—when there are no longer priests nor judges nor class-taboos—then out of the hunger of our own hearts we shall have to shape our sex-ideals, and organize our new aristocracies.”
“they will call it a book of ‘free love’,” said she.
to which he answered, gravely: “let us redeem our great words from base uses. let that no longer call itself love, which knows that it is not free!”
the end
