Love's Pilgrimage Part 30

They would count this the beginning of their love; at last they were free to love, and to be happy as they chose. There was no longer anyone to criticize them scarcely anyone to know about them; their only contact with the world was when they went for the mail and for provisions. They learned that the washer-woman who came for their clothes was ashamed for the poverty in which they lived, and that some of the neighbors suspected them of being oil-smugglers; on two occasions came sheriffs from distant counties to compare Thyrsis with the photographs and descriptions of long-sought bank-burglars and murderers. But although Thyrsis had often declared that he would rob a bank to secure his freedom to work, he had not yet done it, and so these experiences only added piquancy to their adventure.

It was a life such as might have been lived in the Garden of Eden. They cooked and ate and studied out doors, in a sunny glade when it was cool, and in the shade of a great oak-tree when it was warm. They wandered about in the forest, they bathed naked in the crystal lake--diving from the rocky headland, and afterwards standing upon it and drying themselves in the sun. Corydon was now free to fling away the conventionalities which had hampered her in the city; by way of signalizing her enfranchis.e.m.e.nt she cut short her hair--that untamed, rebellious hair which had taken so long to dry and to braid and to keep in order!

So they lived, in daily touch with the great heart of Nature. They saw the sun rise on one side of the rocky headland, and set upon the other; they watched the great storms sweep across the lake, and the lightnings stab into the water. Sometimes, at night, the gale would shake their tent until they could not be sure if it was wind or thunder; but the stays held fast, and they slept untroubled. And then the storm would pa.s.s, and in the morning there would be the lake, sparkling in the sunlight; and the sky, clear as crystal, with the white gulls wheeling about, and grey-blue herons standing near the sh.o.r.e.

There were ba.s.s to be caught from the rocky point. "So we must have at least one meal of fish every day," declared Thyrsis.

"I'm willing," said Corydon--"if you'll catch them."

"And then, there are lots of squirrels about."

"Squirrels!" cried she.

"Yes. I can knock one over with a stone now and then--you'll see."

"But, Thyrsis! To eat them!"

"Did you ever taste one?" he laughed.

"But it's cruel!" she exclaimed; and he thought to himself, How like the little Corydon of old!

"Wait till I've skinned him and fried him in bacon grease," he answered.

And even so it proved. Corydon was troubled by the crisp little toes turned up in the air, but when these had been cut off, she yielded to the allurements of odor and taste. "I'm nothing but a digesting machine nowadays!" she lamented.

To which Thyrsis replied in the words of the village-girl in "Faust,"

"'She feeds two when she eats!'"

They had been obliged to give up their attempt to live on prunes and turnips. For the doctor had warned them that Corydon must have plenty of "good nouris.h.i.+ng food"; and this warning was backed up by all her women acquaintances--and also by Corydon's own inner voices. The appet.i.te that she developed was appalling to them--not only as to quant.i.ty but as to quality. She would find herself unable to eat anything they had in their pantry, and with a craving for the wildest and most impossible things; or she would not know what she wanted--and would travel to the store and gaze about at the provisions, until a sudden illumination came.

Sometimes she would be so hungry for it that she could not wait to get home, but would sit down by the road-side and devour the contents of the market-basket. To these cravings she yielded religiously, because she had been told that they represented vital needs of her system. Some one had told her an appalling tale about a pregnant woman who had been possessed by a desire for bananas; and because she had not gratified it, the baby when born had cried for five weeks--until they had fed it a banana!

These strange experiences lent new interest to their intimacy. They went through all the journey of maternity together. Pretty soon the changes in her body began to be noticeable; and day by day they would watch these. How wonderful it all was, how incredible! Thyrsis would sink upon his knees before her, and clasp his arms about her and laugh "She's going to have a little baby!" And Corydon would blush and protest; she did not like to be teased about it--she was still only half reconciled to it. "I'm only a child myself!" she would cry. "I've no education--nothing! And I'm not fit for it!" Then he would have to comfort her, telling her that life was long, and that the child would be something to study.

They discussed the weighty question of the name which they should give the child. In this, as in other matters, they were without precedents and limitations, and they found that excess of freedom is sometimes an embarra.s.sment. They were impelled towards literary reminiscence; and Thyrsis soon realized that this was a matter in which the sensuous temperament would have to have its way. "After all," argued Corydon, "to you a name is a name. If you can call the baby and have it answer, isn't that all you care about?"

"Yes," he a.s.sented, "I suppose so; if the name's too unhandy for calling, I can have a nickname."

To Corydon, on the other hand, a name was a vital thing; a child that was lovely under one name might be unendurable under another. She had been reading Ossian, and the poems of the neo-Celtic enthusiasts; so after much pondering and consultation she announced that Cedric and Eileen were the two names from which they would choose.

Section 9. Many moods of tenderness came to them. He loved to fondle her, to exchange endearments with her. They gave each other foolish names, after the fas.h.i.+on of lovers the world over; and they would go on to modify these names, and add prefixes and suffixes, until the most ingenious philologist could not have figured out where the names had started. They made new words, also; they invented a whole language for use in these times of illumination, and which Thyrsis denoted by the name of "dam-fool talk".

One was always discovering new qualities in Corydon. She had as many moods as the lake by which they lived, and it seemed to him that with each mood her whole personality changed--she would even look like another being. There was the every-day Corydon, demure, and rather silent; and then there was the Corydon who lived in the arms of Nature--who swam in the water, a sister of the mermaids, and made herself drunken with the sunlight; and then would come a mood of mischief, and laughter would break from her, and her wit would be such that Thyrsis would sigh for a stenographer. She would make herself a Grecian costume out of a sheet, and dance to music of her own making; or she would put trinkets upon her forehead, and be a gypsy-queen--she could be anything that was wild and exotic and unpremeditated. She had dances for that mood also--she would laugh and caper as merrily as any young witch. But then, again, there would come the Corydon of melancholy and despair; her features would shrink up, her face would become peaked and pitiful, she would seem like a child of ten. Sometimes Thyrsis could laugh her out of such a mood by telling her of her "beady black eyes"; and she did not like to desecrate her eyes.

And now there was a new Corydon--the Corydon who had been chosen of the Lord, the worker of a miracle. This gave new awe to her presence, it set a crown upon her forehead. One morning, in mid-summer, they had come out from their bath, and she stood upon the rock in the suns.h.i.+ne; and suddenly he saw her give a start, and stand transfixed, staring in front of her.

"What is it?" he asked.

Her voice thrilled as she whispered, "Thyrsis! It moved!"

"Moved?" he echoed.

"I felt the child move!" she cried.

And so he came and put his hands upon her body, and together they stood waiting, breathless, as if listening for a far-off sound.

"There! There!" she cried. "Did you feel it?"

Yes, he had felt it. And in all his life had he ever felt anything stranger? The first sign of the new life that was to be--the first hail out of the darkness of nonent.i.ty! And truly, to hear that hail was to be rapt into regions of wonder unspeakable!

It was to be a new human soul; a creature like themselves, with a mind of its own, and a sense of responsibility--It would be a man or a woman, independent, self-creating, and knowing naught about this strange inception. And yet, it would be their life also; they had caused it--but for them it would never have been! Blindly, unwittingly, following the guidance of some power greater than themselves, they had called it into being. And in some mysterious and incredible way it would share their qualities; it would be a blending of their natures, a symbol of their union, of the strange fire that had blazed up in them and fused them together. Truly, had they not come here to the essence of love, that great blind force which had ruled and guided all things from Time's beginning?

They had come to the very making of life, it seemed. And yet, they wondered--were they really there? This new soul that was to be--had they in truth created it? Or had it existed before this? And whence did it come? If it was really the dignified and divine thing that it would someday imagine itself to be, was it not uncanny that it should have come thus--a nameless, half-human, half-animal thing, kicking inside the body of a woman?

It was Being, in all its ineffable mystery, its monstrous and unendurable strangeness. They lived face to face with it, they saw a thousand aspects of it. Sometimes Corydon would be obsessed with the sense of the sheer weight she carried; a burden fastened upon her and not to be got rid of--an imposition and torment to her. Then again, she would see herself in grotesque and even comical lights--as akin to all the animals, a cousin of the patient cow. And then would come a moment of sudden wonder, when she would be transfigured, a being divine, conferring the boon of life upon another.

It was in this last way that Thyrsis thought of her. There was about her a sense of brooding mystery, as of one who walks in the midst of supernatural presences. She would sit for hours gazing before her, like Joan of Arc listening to her voices; and he would be touched with awe, and would kiss her tenderly and with reverence.

This brought new meanings into their love, new meanings into his life; he would clench his hands and vow afresh his battle with the world.

How hideous a thing it was that at this time she should be tormented by fears of want and failure! That she should have to go without comforts, that she should even fear to ask for necessities--because she knew how fast his little store of money was going! Other women had children, and they did not have to be haunted by the doubt if it was right to have them, if there would be any place for them in the world. And some of these were selfish and idle women, too--and yet they had everything they needed! And here was Corydon, beautiful and n.o.ble, the very soul of devotion--Corydon must be harrowed and tortured! He did not really mind the world's treatment of himself, but for this treatment of her--ah, someday the world should pay for that! Someday it should do penance for its mockery and its blindness, that had been a blasphemy against the holy spirit itself!

At such times as this he would put his arms about her, and try to whisper something of the pity and grief that filled his heart. He would try to tell her how much he really loved her, how utterly he was devoted to her. Some day she should have her rights, some day he would repay her for all that she had dared for him. And then the tears would come into Corydon's eyes, and she would answer that she feared nothing and cared about nothing, so long as she had his love.

Section 10. After these things, Thyrsis would go at his book again. He would go at it doggedly, desperately. He had scarcely taken time to get settled in the tent and to get their housekeeping regime under way, before he had heard the call of the book and wandered away to wrestle with it. The writing of it was a matter of life and death with him now--of life and death, not only for himself, and for Corydon, but for the unborn soul as well. His money would last him only six or eight weeks, and then he would have to take to pot-boiling again. So every hour was precious; this time there could be no blundering permitted.

Thyrsis was not writing now about minstrels and princesses; he was not painting enraptured pictures of joy and love. The pain of life had become too real to him. His six months of contact with the world had filled him with bitterness; and he was forging a sharp spear, that he could drive into the heart of folly and stupidity.

It was the story of Hathawi, the dreamer, which he had come upon in a Hindoo legend. "The Hearer of Truth," was to be the t.i.tle of the book; and for it Thyrsis was working out a new style. In the original it had been a fanciful tale; but he meant to take it over to the world of everyday reality, to give it the atmosphere of utter verihood. He meant to use a style of biblical simplicity, bare of all ornament, dealing with the most elemental things. And this might seem easy, but in reality it was the hardest thing in the world--it was like blank verse. One might toil all day for a single phrase into which to pack one's meaning.

He wished to show Hathawi from the beginning; the solitary child, the seer of life's mystery, who went away into a lonely place to brood.

He dwelt in the high mountains, where the lightning played and the storm-winds shook him; he disciplined his will by fasting and prayer, so that the self in him died, and he could perceive eternal things, and aspects of being that are hidden. He went into the forests and dwelt with the wild things, and learned to understand their language--not only their beauty and their power, which are plain; not only their fears and their hatreds, which are painful to discover; but also their love, which is deepest of all. He learned to know the life which is in lifeless things--in water and air and fire; the joys and sorrows of the flowers, and the venerable wisdom of great trees, and the wors.h.i.+p which is in the floods of sunlight. And having learned these things, Hathawi came back into the world.

He found that he was able to read the souls of men, but at first he could not believe what he read--it was so terrible, and so far from nature. He preferred to stay among the poor, because they were closer to the heart of things, and their falsehoods were simple. But he discovered that the evil and misery of men's life came from above, and so he went into the "great world" to dwell.

And everywhere he went, men's innermost thoughts were revealed to him, and to themselves through him. He acted upon men and women like wine--an impulse seized them to speak the truth, the truth that they had hidden even from their own hearts. Afterwards, when they realized what they had done, they hated Hathawi and feared him; but they said nothing, because each thought that the secret was his own.

But then, as his power grew, Hathawi began to reveal men in more public ways, and a scandal arose. There was whispered a story of a great statesman who had declared at a banquet what was his real work in the world; and one day a bishop arose in his cathedral and said that he taught the dogmas of his church, because they were necessary to keep the people in subjection. Then came the famous episode of a policeman who bade the prisoner go free and arrested the judge instead. Other policemen were called upon to hinder their comrade, but they declared that he was right; and then newspaper reporters, when ordered to write about it, avowed that they would write only what they believed. After which came a convention of one of the great political parties; and the presidential candidate made a speech, outlining his actual beliefs, and so destroyed his party. This, of course, was a national calamity, for all statesmen declared that the people could not be deceived by one party; and then, too, it was reported that Hathawi meant to attend the convention of the other party!

Because of this they shut him up in jail, charging him with being a vagrant, which he undoubtedly was. But he won over all the jailers and the prisoners to his doctrine, and so the jail was emptied. Moreover, it was found that some of those who loved him most truly had come to share his power of hearing truth. The madness was spreading everywhere; agitators were busy among the people, and public safety was threatened.

So a certain very rich man, who in Hathawi's presence had vowed himself a wolf, engaged an a.s.sa.s.sin to strike him down in broad daylight upon the street.

Then in order to suppress the disturbance, they spirited the body away and burned it, and scattered the ashes. But this was a bad thing for them to do, for the ashes became seeds of the new contagion, and all through the great city, in the strangest and most unaccountable way, men would suddenly begin to speak the truth. And, of course this made business impossible--the merchants and traders had to move away; and how was it possible to preserve authority, when sooner or later all the lawyers and the judges and the politicians would speak truth? So the people arose and declared that they were weary of lies, and they erected a statue of Hathawi at one of the places where his ashes had fallen, and declared that every candidate for office must make his speeches there. After that it was a long time before there were any officials elected--because no man could be found to whom prominence and power were not more precious than public welfare. But meanwhile the people thrived exceedingly.

Finally, however--the climax of the story--the news of all this had spread to other nations, and the rulers of these nations perceived that it was anarchy, and could by no means be permitted--their own people were threatening to rise. It must be clearly shown that a state without a government would be plundered by enemies; and so they prepared to plunder it. And so arose a great agitation in Hathawi's home-state, and men called for a dictator, and for preparations of defence. But the followers of Hathawi cried out, saying, "Let us submit! Let us open our city to these men, and let them do their will--for the power of the truth is greater than even they." And so it was decided.

When the hostile rulers heard of this a great fear took possession of them. They remembered the fate of certain famous diplomatists they had already sent over; and they dared not trust themselves near the statue of the Hearer of Truth. So their plans of invasion came to naught; and among their own people there was laughter and bitter mockery; and behold, one morning, a statue of Hathawi which some one had set up in a public-square! Here the lovers of truth gathered by thousands, and the soldiers who were sent to shoot them laid down their arms and joined them; and so, all over the world, was the end of the dominion of the lie.

Section 11. Such was the outline of Thyrsis' story. He judged that it might be a very great story, or a comparatively commonplace one--it all depended upon the power with which it was visioned. He must get into himself and wrestle the thing out. This was to be his act of creation--his baby!