Love's pilgrimage

"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 1 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 o£ 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!

§ 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 Cory-don'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, art-fully.

"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 @orydon. "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."

§ 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 Cory-don 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."

§ 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 knovr 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.

,656 LOVE'S PILGRIMAGE

"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 lie 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 conv/'ncing he made them, the more she would love him.

She could never leave him, she insisted—the ;*dea 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.

§ 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."

Thvrsis could not find a word to utter. He sat

mr

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 j oke!"

She was staring at him, her eyes wide with consterna-

tion 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!"

§ 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. >4 Thyr-sis," 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 — , for Cory don 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 sJie.

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!"