Love's Pilgrimage Part 53

She was always fighting to make her temperament like Thyrsis'; she despised her own temperament utterly, and set up his qualities as her ideal. He was self-contained and masterful; he knew what he wanted and how to get it; he was not dependent upon anyone else, he needed no one's approval or admiration; he could control his emotions, and destroy those that inconvenienced him. So Corydon must be these things also; she _was_ these things, and no one must gainsay it! And if ever she had felt or wished or said or done anything else--that was all misunderstanding or delusion or accident; she would repudiate it with grief and indignation, and proclaim herself the creature of pure reason that every person ought to be!

But then would come something that appealed to her emotions--to her love of beauty, her craving for joy; and there in a flash was the primitive self again. The task of compelling Corydon to economy reminded her husband of a toy which had been popular in his childhood days. The name of it was "Pigs in Clover"; there were five little b.a.l.l.s which you had to coax into a narrow entrance, and while you were getting the last one in, the other four were almost certain to roll out. It was a labor of hours to get Corydon to recognize an unpleasant fact; and then--the next day she had forgotten it. There were some things about himself and his life that he could never get her to understand; for instance, his preoccupation with the newspaper--that symbol of all that was hateful in life. Just then was the beginning of the Russian revolution; and to Thyrsis the Russian revolution was like the coming of relief to a s.h.i.+pwrecked mariner. It was a personal thing to him--the overthrow of a horror that pressed upon the life of every human being upon earth. And so each day he hungered for the news, and when the paper came he would pounce upon it.

"Now dearest," he would say, "please don't disturb me. I want to read."

"All right," she would answer; and five minutes would pa.s.s.

Then--"Do you want potatoes for supper, Thyrsis?"

"Yes, dear. But I'm reading now."

"All right." And then another five minutes.

"Thyrsis, who was Boadicea?"

"I'm reading now, dearest."

"Oh yes." And then another five minutes.

"Thyrsis, do you spell choke with an a?"

At which Thyrsis would put down the paper. "Tell me, Corydon--isn't there something I can do so that you won't interrupt me?"

Instantly a look of pain would sweep across her face. "Do you have to speak to me like that, Thyrsis? If you'd only just tell me, kindly and pleasantly--"

"But I've told you three or four times!'

"Thyrsis! How can you say that?"

"But didn't I?"

"Why, of course not!"

And then they would have an argument. He would bring up each case and confront her with it; and how very unloving a procedure was that--and how exasperating was his manner as he did it!

Section 13. Then again, Corydon would be going into town to do some shopping; and he would ask her to bring out the afternoon paper. It would be the day of the October ma.s.sacre, for instance; and he be on fire for the next batch of news. He would explain this to her; he would tell her again and again--whatever else she forgot, she must remember the afternoon paper. He would walk out to meet her, burning with impatience; and he would ask for the paper, and see a blank look come over her face.

Then, of course, he would scold. He had certain phrases--"How perfectly unspeakable! Perfectly paralyzing!" How she hated these phrases!

"I had so many things to get!" she would exclaim.

"But only one thing for me, Corydon!"

"Everything is for you--just as much as for myself! All these groceries--look at the bundles! I haven't had a single moment--"

"But how many moments does it take to buy a newspaper?"

"But Thyrsis--"

"And how many times would I have to tell you? Have I got to go into town myself, just for the sake of a newspaper?"

"I tell you I tried my very best to remember it--"

"But what's the matter with you? Is your mind getting weak?"

And then like as not Corydon would burst into tears. "Oh, I think you are a brute!" she would cry. "A perfect brute!"

Or else, perhaps, she would grow angry, and they would rail at each other, exchanging recriminations.

"I think I have burdens enough in my life," he would exclaim. "I've a right to some help from you."

"You have no sense of proportion!" she would answer. "You are impossible! You would drive any saint to distraction."

"Perhaps so. But I can't drive you anywhere, and I'm sick of trying."

"Oh, if you only weren't such a talker! You talk--talk--talk!"

And all the while they did this, what grief was in the depths of them!

And afterwards, what ghastly wounds in Corydon's soul, that had to be bound up and tended and healed! The pity of it; the shame of it--that they should be able to descend to such sordidness! That their love, which they had planned as a n.o.ble temple, should turn out an ugly hovel!

"Oh Thyrsis!" the girl would cry. "The idea that you should think less of my soul than of an old newspaper!"

"But that is not so, dearest," he would answer. He would try to explain to her how much the newspaper had meant to him, and just why his annoyance had got the better of him. So they would rehea.r.s.e the scene over again; and like as not their irritation would sweep over them, and before they realized it they would find themselves disputing once more.

Thyrsis would be making a desperate attempt to bring her to a realization of his difficulties; he would be in the midst of pouring out some eloquence, when she would interrupt him.

"But Thyrsis, wait a moment--you do not understand!"

"I am speaking!" he would say.

"But, Thyrsis--"

"I am speaking!" He would not be interrupted.

But then would come a time when they sat down together and talked all this out, perceiving it as one more aspect of the disharmony of their temperaments. It no fault of either of them, they would agree; it was just that they were different. Thyrsis had a simile that he used--"It's a marriage between a b.u.t.terfly and a hippopotamus. You don't blame the b.u.t.terfly because it can't get down into the water and snort; and on the other hand, when the hippopotamus tries to flap his wings and flit about among the flowers, he doesn't make a success of it."

There would be times when he took Corydon's point of view entirely. She was beautiful and good; her navete and guilelessness were the essence of her charm and how preposterous it was to expect her to think about newspapers, or to be familiar with the price of beefsteaks! As for him--he was a blundering creature, dull and pragmatical; he was a great spiny monster that she had drawn up from the ocean-depths. She would cut off his spines, but at once they grew out again; she could do nothing with him at all!

But then she would protest--"It's not so bad as that, Thyrsis. You have your work."

"Yes, that's it," he would answer. "My work! I'm just a thinking-machine. I'm fit for nothing else. And here I am--married!"

He would say that, and he would mean it; he would try to act upon the conviction. Of course Corydon's nature was a thing more lovely than his; and, of course, it ought to have its way, to grow in freedom and joy.

But alas--there was "the economic screw"! His qualities--hateful though they might be--were the product of stern conditions; they were the qualities which had to dominate in their lives, if they were to survive in the grim struggle for life.

Section 14. It was, as always, their tragedy that they had no means of communicating, except through suffering; they had no work, and they had no art, and they had no religion. To Thyrsis it seemed that this last was the supreme need of their lives; but it was quite in vain that he tried to supply it. He had no theologies to offer, but he had a rough working faith that served his needs. He had a way of prayer--informal prayers, to the undiscovered G.o.ds--"Oh infinite Holiness of life, I seek to be reminded of Thee!" He would contemplate their failures and agonies and despairs, and floods of pity would well up in him; and then he would come back to Corydon, seeking to make these things real to her. But this he could never do--he could never carry her with him, he could never find anything with her but failure and disappointment.

This was, in part, the outrage that the creed-mongers had done to her; with their dead formulas and their grotesque legends and their stupid bigotries they had sullied and defaced all the symbols of religion--they had made a n.o.ble temple into a sepulchre of dead bones. They had taken her by force, when she was a child, and dragged her into it, and filled her with terror and loathing. To abandon the language of metaphor, they had sent her to a Protestant-Episcopal Sunday-school, where a vinegary spinster had taught her the catechism and the ten commandments. And so forever after the whole content of Christianity was a thing alien and hateful to her.