"I do find that," the boy replied. "That is just what is the matter with me."
"I"m afraid you"ll be forced to a compromise in the end."
"But I won"t! I won"t!" cried Thyrsis, wildly. "I will starve first!"
The other said nothing.
"Or I will beg!" added Thyrsis.
The other"s look clouded slightly--as the boy, with his quick sensitiveness, noted instantly. "Of course," said the professor, "if you are not ashamed to do that--"
"But why should I be ashamed? Greater men than I have begged for their art."
"Yes. I know that. And naturally--I honor that feeling in you. If you have that much fervor--why, of course, you will do it. But I"m afraid you"ll find it a humiliating experience."
"I wouldn"t expect to find it a picnic," answered Thyrsis, and took his departure--having perceived that the professor"s leading thought was a fear lest he should begin his begging that day.
So there it was! There was the eminent critic, the writer of exquisite appreciations of literature! The darling of the salons of Boston--which called itself the Athens of America and the hub of the universe! A man with a brain full of all the culture of the ages--and with the heart of a mummy and the soul of a sn.o.b! He had approved of Thyrsis" consecration with his lips--because he did not dare to disapprove it, because the ghosts of a thousand paupers of genius had stood over him and awed him into silence. But in his secret heart he had despised this wan and haggard boy who threatened to beg; and the boy went out of the palace of luxury, feeling like an outcast rat.
Section 7. From this interview Thyrsis went to meet Corydon in the park; and after he had told her what had happened, they began one more discussion of their great problem. This had to be the final one; for the month of respite had pa.s.sed, and the time for action was come!
Through their long arguments, Thyrsis had gradually come to realize that the decision rested with him. Corydon was in his hands; she had become a burden upon him, and she would rather she were dead; and so he had to take the responsibility and issue the command. So through many an hour while Corydon slept he had marshalled the facts and tested them, hungering with all his soul for knowledge of the right.
To bring a child into the world would shatter every plan they had formed. And yet, again and again, he forced himself to face the idea.
They had always meant to have children ultimately; and now the gift was offered--and suppose they rejected it, and it should never be offered again! However unpropitious the hour might be, still the hour was here--the task was already one-third done. And if there were cares and responsibilities, expenses and pains of child-birth--at least they would be for a child; whereas, in the other case, there were also cares and responsibilities, expenses and pains--and for naught!
Throughout all this long pilgrimage of love, Thyrsis had been struck by the part which blind chance had played. It was blind chance that had brought Corydon to the country where he had gone. It was blind chance that he had read his book to her. And then--the chance that he had gone to see a doctor about diet! And that dark accident in the night, that had opened the gates of life to a new human soul! And now, strangest of all--the chance by which this last issue was to be decided! By a walk in the park, and a casual meeting with a nurse-maid!
"G.o.d knows I want to do what is right!" Thyrsis had said. "But I just don"t know what to say!"--And then they sat down upon a bench, and the nurse-maid came and sat beside them.
It was five or ten minutes before Thyrsis noted what was going on.
He was lost in his sombre brooding, his eyes fixed upon vacancy; when suddenly he heard Corydon exclaim: "Isn"t he a little love!" He turned to look.
The nurse-maid was in charge of a carriage, and in the carriage was a baby; and the baby was smiling at Corydon, and Corydon was smiling back.
She was poking her finger at it, and it was catching at the finger with its chubby paws. "Isn"t he a little love!" Corydon repeated.
Thyrsis stared at her. But then, quickly, he hid his thought. He even pretended to be interested.
"Isn"t he pretty?" she asked him.
Now as a matter of fact he seemed to Thyrsis to be quite conspicuously ugly. He had red hair, and a flat nose, and was altogether lacking in aristocratic attributes. But Thyrsis answered promptly, "Yes, dear," and continued to watch.
And Corydon continued to play. Apparently she knew something about babies--how to amuse them and how to handle them, and had even heard rumors about how to feed them. She was asking questions of the nurse-maid, and displaying interest--Thyrsis would have been no more amazed had he found her in converse with a Chaldean astrologer. For a full quarter of an hour she had managed to forget her agonies of spirit, and to play with a baby!
They got up to go. "You like babies, don"t you, dearest?" asked Thyrsis, as they walked.
"Why, yes," she said.
And then there was a silence, while he pondered. Here, he perceived in a flash, was the great hand of Nature again!
Since the first day of their marriage Thyrsis had been haunted by the sense of a dark shadow hanging over them, of a seed of tragedy in their love. He had his great task to do, and Corydon could not do it with him.
The long road of his art-pilgrimage stretched out before him; and some day he must take his staff and go.
And now here, of a sudden, was the solution of the problem! The answer to the riddle of all their disharmonies! Let Corydon have her baby--and then he might have his books! As he pondered, there came to him the words of the old doctor--"She wants that baby!"
So before he reached home, his mind was made up. Cost what it might, she should have the baby. But he would not tell her his reason--that must be a secret between himself and Mother Nature. And then it seemed to him that he could hear Mother Nature laughing behind her curtain--and laughing not only at Corydon, but at him. He recalled with a twinge all his earlier cynicism, his biological bitterness; he had taken up the burden of his virtues again!
Section 8. In many ways this decision, once arrived at, was a relief to them. It lifted the weight of a great fear from their lives; it gave them six months more of respite--and in six months, what might not Thyrsis be able to do? He had been toiling incessantly at his hack-work, and had saved nearly ninety dollars, which would be enough to keep them going until his new book was written.
This book was now fairly seething in him. A wonderful thing it was to be, far beyond his first; in the beauty of it and the glow of it he was forgetting all his disappointments, all the mockeries of fate and the hardness of the world. If only he could get _this_ book done, then surely he would be saved, then surely men would be forced to give him a chance!
So he waited not a moment after the decision was made; he even blamed himself for having waited so long. From the "higher regions" there had come a windfall in the shape of two railroad-pa.s.ses; and a couple of days later they stepped out upon the depot-platform of a little town upon the sh.o.r.e of Lake Ontario.
Oh, the joy of being in the country again! The smell of the newly-plowed earth, the sight of the spring-time verdure; and then the first glimpse of the lake, with its marvellous clear-green water, and the fresh cold breeze that blew from off it! There was challenge and adventure in that air--Thyrsis thought of argonauts and old sea-rovers, and his soul was stirred to high resolves. He took deep breaths of delight, and clenched his hands, and imagined that he was at his book already.
They found a second-hand tent which could be bought for eight dollars; four dollars more would pay for the lumber, and so they would live rent-free for the next five months! They went far down the sh.o.r.e of the lake, looking for a place to camp, and picked out a rocky headland, a mile from the nearest farmhouse, and completely out of sight of all the world. The rich woman who owned it was in Europe, but the agent gave permission; and then Thyrsis looked at his watch and made a wild suggestion--"Let"s get settled this afternoon!"
"Why, it"s nearly three o"clock!" cried Corydon. "It"ll be dark!"
"There"ll be a moon," he replied, "and we can work all night if want to."
"But suppose it should rain!"
"I don"t see any signs of it. And what"s the use of spending a night in the town, and wasting all that money?"
And so it was decided. They went to the store and purchased their housekeeping equipment. What a sense of power and prosperity it gave them as they made their selection--two canvas-cots and two pairs of blankets, a lamp and an oil-can and a tiny oil-stove, two water-buckets and an axe and a wash-basin, a camp-stool and a hammock and a box full of groceries! They got a team to carry all this, in addition to their lumber and their trunks. They stopped at a farm-house, and arranged to get their milk and eggs and bread and vegetables, and also to borrow a hammer and saw; and then till after sundown Thyrsis toiled at the building of the platform and the cutting of stakes and poles for the tent.
Corydon fried some bacon and heated a can of corn, and they had a marvellous and incredible supper. Afterwards they raised the tent, and she held the poles erect while Thyrsis tied the guy-ropes. They had been advised to choose a sheltered place, back in the woods; but they were all for adventure and a view of the water, and so they were out on the open point. There were pine-trees, however, and Thyrsis had strong ropes with which to anchor the tent fast. When he finished, about ten o"clock at night, he stood off and admired the job by the light of the moon, and declared that a storm might tear the tent to pieces, but could never blow it over.
They hauled in their trunks and the rest of their belongings, and set up the cots and spread the blankets. Then by the light of the oil-lamp they gazed about.
"Oh, Thyrsis," she cried, "isn"t it glorious!"
"It"s our home," he said. "A home we made all for ourselves!"
"And a home without a landlady!" she added.
"And with no saloon underneath!" said he. "And no street-cars and no screaming children in front of it!"
Instead there was the night with its thousand eyes, and the lake, with the moon-fire flung wide across it, and the pine-trees singing in the wind.
"Brr! it"s cold!" exclaimed Corydon.
"We"ll have to sleep with our clothes on for a while," said he. And yet they laughed aloud in glee. "It"s all we want!"
"It"s all we ever could want!" declared Corydon. "Oh, let"s work hard and earn money enough, so that we can stay here beneath the open sky, and not have to go back into slavery!"
Then, in the morning, the joy of a plunge in the icy lake, and of a run in the woods, and of breakfast eaten in the warm sunlight! There was much work still to be done; Thyrsis had to build a stand of shelves and a table for the tent, and a table and a bench outside; and then all their belongings had to be unpacked and set in order. Such fun as they had laying out the imaginary part.i.tions in their house; two bedrooms and a library, a kitchen and a pantry--and all outdoors for a living-room!