The Woman Who Vowed Part 3

"Yes," I said, "I shall never get out of my bewilderment unless I talk to some one who can understand my point of view."

"And you will probably find Chairo there," she added, with a provoking smile. "He was to arrive to-day."

Ariston p.r.i.c.ked his ear:

"Ah!" he said. "You will enjoy meeting Chairo; he is the leader of our Radical party; he is in favor of all sorts of Radical measures--such as the destruction of the Cult--" the women looked at one another--"the respect of private property----"

"What! Do you call the respect of private property Radical?" asked I.

"It was the s.h.i.+bboleth of the Conservatives in my time; they called it the 'sacredness of private property.'"

"Just as the Demetrians speak of the 'sacredness' of the Cult to-day,"

said Ariston.

"Whenever Hypocrisy wants to preserve an abuse she calls it Sacred,"

said a strong voice at my elbow. I turned and saw that a new companion had been added to us, and I guessed at once that it was Chairo.

He was a splendid man; nothing was wanting to him--stature, nor beauty, nor strength. He was remarkable, too, by the fact that his face was clean shaved, whereas all the other men I had met wore beards; but his face bore a likeness so striking to that of Augustus that to have hidden it by a beard would have been a desecration. And he was strong enough in mind as well as in muscle to bear being exceptional. It would have been impossible for him to be other than exceptional.

Lydia blushed as she recognized him, and the blush suggested what I most feared to know. Chairo went to her and without a shadow of affectation took her hand, knelt on one knee, and kissed it. There could have been no clearer confession of his love. I could not help contrasting the frankness of this act and the superb humility of it with the reticence, hypocrisy, and pride that characterized our twentieth-century love-making.

Lydia with her disengaged hand made a sign of the cross over his head; not the rapid, timid, fugitive conventional sign that Catholics made in our day, but with her whole arm, a large sign, swinging from above her head to his as it bowed over her hand, with a large sweep afterward across; and as she did so I saw her eyes widen and her glance stretch forward across the heavenly distance.

For the first time I felt the narrowness of my life and my own insignificance. And I--_I_--had dared to think I could make love to this woman! For a moment it occurred to me that Lydia had encouraged me; but so mean an apprehension of her could not live in her presence. As she stood there making the sign of the cross over the bowed head of her beloved, I knew that Love was something more in this civilization than the satisfaction of a caprice or the banter of good-humored gallantry; that it was possible to make of Love a religion, without for that reason sacrificing the charm of life, and the particular charm that makes the companions.h.i.+p of a woman something different from the companions.h.i.+p of a man.

And yet I was puzzled; was Lydia not a Demetrian? Cleon had told me she had not yet made up her mind; but was there not in this greeting with Chairo a practical admission of a betrothal? And what was the meaning of the sign of the cross? Was Christianity still alive, then? And if so, how reconcile Christ and Demeter? And there swung through my mind the terrible invocation of the poet: "Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean!

The world has grown gray from thy breath."

When the cult of Demeter had first been hinted to me I had a.s.sumed that the reign of the Galilean was over, and that the old G.o.ds had resumed their sway. The possibility of this had admitted a note of latent triumph in the hymn to Proserpine.

Will thou yet take all, Galilean? Yet these things thou shalt not take: The laurel, the palm and the paean; the breast of the nymph in the brake.

Could it be that we could keep these things and yet remain loyal to the religion of sacrifice? Could we wors.h.i.+p as well at the voluptuous altar of Cytherea and at the mystic shrine of the Holy Grail?

My mind was in a tumult of inquiry as Chairo arose from his knee and engaged in conversation with the group; and though they did not point or look at me I knew that it was of me they were talking. Presently, Chairo came to me and held out his hand:

"You are a traveller from the Past, I hear! Dropped down among us in some unaccountable way." He looked me squarely in the eye as he held my hand a moment, with a frank scrutiny that I had already noticed in Lydia. Then he added:

"You were returning to the Hall; if you don't mind, I shall accompany you; it is too late for me to begin work before lunch; besides, there is no scythe for me." And waving his hand to Lydia and the others, he walked away with me toward the Hall.

CHAPTER III

THE CULT OF DEMETER

For some distance we walked in silence. At last I said: "You will not be surprised to hear that I am bewildered; everything is in some respects so much the same and in others so different."

"I am curious to know what bewilders you most."

"Well, it is bewildering enough to be told that you are actually living under the regime of Collectivism--a thing which we always considered impossible; but I confess what piques my curiosity most is this cult of Demeter----"

A scowl came over Chairo's face.

"How much do you know about it?" said he.

"Nothing, except that Lydia is a Demetrian and that she is to be married to some mathematician----"

"Married!" interrupted Chairo. "It cannot be called a marriage! It is a desecration!" He paused a moment as if to collect himself and then began again in a calmer voice:

"It is difficult for me to speak of it without impatience; but declamation which is well enough on the rostrum is not tolerable in conversation, so I shall not give way to it. The cult of Demeter is an abomination--one of the natural fruits of State Socialism, which, to my mind, means the paralysis of individual effort and death to individual liberty. I lead the opposition in our legislature, and you will, therefore, take all I say with the allowance due to one who has struggled, his whole life through, against what I believe to be an intolerable abuse. The cult of Demeter is nothing more nor less than the attempt to breed men as men breed animals. It totally disregards the fact that a man has a soul, and that the demands of a soul are altogether paramount over those of the body. To attempt to breed men along purely physical or mental lines without regard to psychical aspirations is contrary not only to common sense, but to the highest religion. Did not Christ Himself say, 'What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul'?"

"You quote Christ," interrupted I. "Is it possible that the Christian religion can live side by side with the cult of Demeter?"

"Yes," said Chairo, "and this is perhaps just where the mischief lies.

Christianity has remained among us as the religion of sacrifice; and the priests of Demeter bolster up their hideous doctrine and their exorbitant power by appeal to this religion of sacrifice."

"But where," asked I, "do they derive this power of theirs?"

"Where else," answered Chairo, "but through the hold they have upon the imagination of the women--that terrible need for ritual which has given the priest his power ever since the world began. Gambetta was right, 'Le clericalisme; voila l'ennemi.'"

"Do you mean to say," asked I, "that superst.i.tion has survived among you?"

"No, you cannot call it superst.i.tion; the time has long since pa.s.sed when the priesthood could impose on the minds of men through superst.i.tion; but just because they now appeal to a higher and n.o.bler function of mind are they the more dangerous."

"Tell me," I said--I paused a moment, for I was very anxious to ask a question and yet a little afraid to do so.

But Chairo looked at me again with a look so frank that I ventured:

"Tell me," I said, "is Lydia going to accept the mission?"

"No one can tell," said Chairo. "She is profoundly religious, profoundly possessed with this notion of sacrifice; she has been brought up to believe the mission of Demeter the highest honor which the state can give, and it comes to her now clothed with all the mysticism of a strange ritual and a religious obligation. Think of it: just because she has the talent of rapid calculation, a knack which you in your time used to exhibit as a freak in a country fair, she is to be sacrificed--ah, if it were only a sacrifice I shouldn't complain--but she is to be contaminated. She is to be contaminated, because, forsooth, it is believed that by coupling this knack of calculation with one possessing a profounder genius for mathematics, she will bring into the world a being further endowed with mathematical ability. What if she did; is there not something in the world worth more than mathematics?"

"And what mathematician will be selected?" asked I.

"That is the wicked part of it," answered Chairo; "that matter is absolutely in the hands of the priests. My G.o.d!" he said, "I shall not endure it."

His eyes flashed, and his voice, though low, rang as he spoke these words. But we were now approaching the Hall and we saw the Pater, as they called him, sitting upon the veranda. "I have spoken vigorously,"

he said in a lower voice, as we approached the Hall--"perhaps too vigorously; but I do not mean to disguise my intention. I would not speak in this way upon a public platform, because they would endeavor to stop me, and the issue would be raised before public opinion is ripe for it. But I warn you the Pater is on the side of the priests, and so, to avoid discussion, which we seldom allow to interfere with the harmony of our domestic life, I recommend you not to speak of these things to the Pater when I am present."

The Pater arose and advanced to meet us, holding out his hands to Chairo.

"Welcome to Tyringham," he said. And then looking toward me he added: "You could not get hold of a better man to explain to you the changes that have occurred since your time, but I warn you he will not give you an optimistic view of them."

I smiled, but said nothing.

After a few words about the weather and the crops Chairo left us, and I at once began upon the burning theme.