"How strange a thing it is, Thyrsis, that you and I, who might do so much with so little chance, should have no chance at all. I read of other poets and their wives--at least they managed to have a hut on some hillside, and they did not absolutely starve.
"I am tired now; perhaps I can sleep. But I will tell you something, Thyrsis--does it sound so very foolish? Not only will I never grow old, but I will never give up your love! Yes, some day you will find out how to seek your vision in spite of the fact that I am your wife!"
Section 8. Another day, there would be moods of peace, and even of merriment; it was always like putting one"s hand into a grab-bag, to open a new letter from Corydon. In after years he would read them, and strange were the memories they brought!
"My Thyrsis," she wrote: "I have been reading a story of Heine in Zangwill"s "Dreamers of the Ghetto". I did not know about Heine. He loved and married a sweet little woman of the people--Mathilde--who didn"t appreciate his writings. I am not only going to love you, but I am going to appreciate your writings! Some day I am going to be educated--and won"t it be fine when I am educated?
"I keep very busy, but I have not so much time as I had last summer. I live almost all my life in hope--the present is nothing. I think I get more strength by gazing at my baby than in any other way. I wonder if I can ever infuse into him my inspiration and my desire. It is wonderfully exciting to me to think of what a free soul could do, if it possessed my spirit and my dreams. Ah, even you don"t know! I smile to myself when I think how surprised you might some day be! Oh, my baby, my baby, surely you will not fail me--little soul that is to be. This is what I say to him, and then I squeeze him in ecstasy, and he coughs up his milk.
Dear funny little thing, that is so pleased with a red, white and blue rattle. At present he is grinning at it ecstatically--and he is truly most horribly cunning. His favorite expression is "Ah-boo, ah-boo"; and is not that just _too_ bright? Everybody tries to spoil him--even a twelve-year-old boy here wanted to kiss him. And wonder of wonders, he has two teeth appearing in his lower gums! Poor me--he bites hard enough as he is."
And then again:
"My Beloved: I am sitting with my candle once more. It is too hot for a lamp. I have been reading "Paradise Lost", and truly I am astonished that it is so beautiful. Also I have been reading a book about Unitarianism, and I did not know that such things had been written. But I think it is hardly worth while to call one"s self a Unitarian. I was thinking that I will go back and read the Bible through. I would not mind, if I knew I did not have to believe it.
"Also; this week, I read "Paul and Virginia". Oh, do not write anything to me about our meeting, until you are sure it can be! It breaks my heart.
"Did it ever occur to you that we might embark for the tropics? We"d have a hut, and I might learn to raise fruits and vegetables. I sigh for some verdant isle--and I am not joking. We might find some place where steamers came now and then, and some one in New York could attend to your ma.n.u.scripts.
"To-night I was trying to put my baby to sleep and he wouldn"t go, but just lay in my lap and kicked and grinned. I tried to coax him to go to sleep, but if I was the least bit impatient he"d begin to cry. And then he"d grin at me so roguishly, as if to say, "Let"s play before I go to sleep!" Finally I looked right at him and said, "Now, you have played long enough, and I wish you to be a good boy and go to sleep!" And then he laughed, and I put him on his side and he went to sleep! Wasn"t that bright for a baby just seven months old?
"I think I write you much more interesting letters than you write me.
To be sure I have no books into which to put my thoughts. Also, I have a great deal of time to compose letters to you; Cedric wakes me up so much in the night, and often I cannot go to sleep again. It plays havoc with me as a rule; and yet sometimes, when I"m not too exhausted, there is a certain joy in watching by the dim candle light the rosy upturned face and the little groping mouth. Oh Thyrsis, he is all mine and yours, and we must make him glad he was borned, mustn"t we?"
Section 9. Such letters would come at a time when Thyrsis was almost prostrated with exhaustion; and great waves of loneliness and yearning would sweep over him. Ah G.o.d, what a fate it was--to labor as he labored, and then to have no means of recreation or respite, no hand to smooth his forehead, no voice to whisper solace! Who could know the tragedy of that aspect of his life?
There came one day an incident that almost broke his heart. Down the lake came a private yacht, beautiful and swift, clean as a new penny, its bronze and white paint glistening in the sunlight. It anch.o.r.ed not far out from the point where Thyrsis camped, and a boat put off, and from it three young girls stepped ash.o.r.e. They were slender and graceful, clad all in white--as spotless as the vessel itself, and glowing with health and joyfulness. They cast shy glances at the tent, and asked Thyrsis to direct them to the nearest farm-house; he watched them disappear through the woods, and saw them return with a basket of fruit.
It was just at sunset, and there was a new moon in the sky, and the evening star trembled upon the bosom of the waters. There in the magic stillness lay the vessel--and suddenly came the sounds of a guitar, and of young voices singing. Wonderful to tell, they sang--not "ragtime" and "college songs," but the chorus of the "Rheintoechter," and Schubert"s "Auf dem Wa.s.ser zu singen", and other music, unknown to Thyrsis, exquisite almost beyond enduring. It pierced him to the heart; he sat with his hands clenched, and every nerve of him a-quiver, and the hot tears raining down his cheeks. It was loveliness not of this earth, it was an apparition; that presence which had been haunting him ever since he had come to this spot--
"So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea, And hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn."
The music died away, and rose again; and the deeps of his spirit were opened, and ecstasy and grief welled up together within him. Then he made out that the anchor was being lifted; and he was tempted to spring up and cry out to them to stay. But no--what did they know of him? What would they care about him? So he crouched by the bank, drinking greedily the precious notes; and as the yacht with its gleaming lights stole away into the twilight, all the poet"s soul went yearning with it. Still he could hear the faint strains swelling--
"Blow, blow, breathe and blow, Wind of the western sea!"
He sat with his face hidden in his hands, shuddering. Here he was, wrestling in the pit with sickness and despair--and there above him were the heights of art. If only he could live with such music, what prodigies could he not perform. And they who possessed it--did it mean to them what it meant to him? They who had everything that life could offer--music and art, freedom and beauty and health--all the treasures of life as their birthright--had they never a thought of those who had nothing, and were set to slave in the galleys of their pleasure-craft?
Thyrsis was always coming upon some aspect of this thing called Privilege. Corydon had suggested that there might be some work that she could do at home; and so one day he was looking over the advertis.e.m.e.nts in a newspaper, and came upon a composition by a man who was seeking a governess for his three children. It was written in a style all its own; it revealed a person accustomed to specify exactly what he wanted, and it occupied three or four inches, as if symbolic of the fact that he did not consider expense. He described the life of his children; they had servants and a tutor to attend to their physical and mental needs, and the father now sought a friend and, companion, to take charge of their spiritual and social development. The specifications evoked a picture of an establishment, in which all the community"s resources, all the sciences and arts of civilization, were set at work to create joy and power for three young people. What a contrast it made with the care that little Cedric was getting, as revealed in his mother"s letters!
Thyrsis could see in his mind"s eye the master and provider of this establishment. How well he knew the type--how often had he sat in some quiet corner and listened while it revealed itself. A man alert and aggressive; immaculate in appearance as the latest fashion-plate, and overlaid with a veneer of culture--yet underneath it still the predatory talons, the soul of the hawk. He was a "practical" man; that is, he understood profit. He was trained to see where profit lay, and swift to seize upon it. As a business-man he ruled labor, and crushed his compet.i.tors, and directed legislatures and political machines; as a lawyer he protected his kind from attack, as a judge he bent the law to the ends of greed. So he lived in palaces, and travelled about in private-cars and yachts, and had servants and governesses for his children, and valets and secretaries to attend himself. And whenever by any chance he got a glimpse of Thyrsis" soul, how he hated it! On the other hand, to Thyrsis he was a portent of terror. He ruled in every field of human activity; and yet one saw that if his rule continued, it would mean the destruction of civilization! Whenever Thyrsis met one of these men, whether in imagination or reality, he found himself with hands clenched, and every nerve of him a-tingle with the l.u.s.t of combat.
Section 10. A most trying thing it was to a man who carried the burden of the future in his soul--to have to wrestle with an obstinate stomach!
But so it was again; the magic red liquid seemed to be losing its power.
Then, the pot-boiler was not going well; and to cap the climax, the ma.n.u.scripts stopped coming. Thyrsis, after waiting two or three weeks in suspense and dread, wrote to Mr. Ardsley, and received a reply to the effect that he would not be able to send any more. Mr. Ardsley had sent them because of his interest in the proposed "practical" novel; and now he had learned that the poet had been giving his time to the writing of an impossible play!
Thyrsis" predicament was a desperate one, and drove him to a desperate course. It was now midsummer; and run down from overwork as he was, could he face the thought of returning to the sweltering city, to go to work in some office? Or was he to hire out as a farm-laborer, under he knew not what conditions? He recoiled from either of these alternatives; and then suddenly, as he racked his brains, a wild idea flashed over him. For years he had talked and dreamed of escaping from civilization.
He had pictured himself upon some tropic island, where bananas and cocoanuts grew; or again in some Northern wilderness, where he might hunt and fish, and live like the pioneers. And now--why not do it? He had an axe and a rifle and a fishing-rod; and only a few days previously he had heard a man telling of a lake in the Adirondacks, where not a dozen people went in the course of a year.
It was early one morning the idea came to him; and within an hour he had struck his tent and packed his trunk. He stowed his camp-stuff and bedding in a dry-goods box, and leaving his tent with the farmer, he purchased a ticket to a place on the edge of the wilderness. He put up at a village-hotel, and the next day drove fifteen miles by a stage, and five more by a wagon, and spent the night at a lumber-camp far in the wilderness. The next day, carrying as much of his belongings as he could, he walked three miles more, and came to the tiny lake that was his goal.
It was perhaps half a mile long; the virgin forest hung about it like a great green curtain, and the shadows of the blue mountains seemed as if painted upon its surface. Thyrsis gave a gasp of delight as he pushed through the bushes and saw it; he stripped and plunged into the crystal water--and hot and tired and soul-sick as he was, the coolness of it was like a clasp of protecting arms. There was a rock rising from the centre, and he swam out and stood upon it, and gazed about him at all the ravishing beauty, and laughed and whooped so that the mountains rang with the echoes.
He found an abandoned "open-camp", or shed, the roof of which he made water-proof with newspapers and balsam-boughs. He cut fresh boughs for his bed, and spread his blankets upon them, and went back to the lumber-shanties, and purchased a box of prunes and a bag of rice. There were huckleberries in profusion upon the hills, and in the lakes were fish, and in the forests squirrels and rabbits, partridges and deer.
There were the game-laws, to be sure; but there was also a "higher law", as eminent authorities had declared. As one of the wits at the lumber-camp put it, "If any wild rabbit comes rushing out to bite you, don"t you hesitate to defend yourself!"
So, with the sum of one dollar and twenty-three cents in his pocket-book, Thyrsis began the happiest experience of his life. He watched the sun rise and set behind the mountains; and sometimes he climbed to the summits to see it further upon its way. He watched the progress of the tempests across the lake, and swam in the water while the rain splashed his face and the lightning splintered the pines in the forest. He crouched in the bushes and saw the wild ducks feeding, and the deer that came at sunset to drink. He watched the loons diving, and spying him out with their wild eyes--sometimes, as they rose in flight, beating the surface of the water with a sound like thunder. At night he heard their loud laughter, and the creaking cries of the herons flying past. Sometimes far up in the hills a she-fox would bark, or some too-aged tree of the forest would come down with a booming crash.
Thyrsis would lie in his open camp and watch the moonlight through the pines, and prayers of thankfulness would well up within him--
"Peace of the forest, rich, profound, Gather me closely, fold me round!"
There had been much carrying and hard work to do before he was settled, and there was more of it all through his stay. He had to cook all his meals and clean up afterwards; and because the nights were cold and his blankets few, there was much firewood to be cut. Also, there was no food unless he went out and found it, and so he spent hours each day tramping about in the forests. By the time he had got home and had cleaned the game and cooked it, he was ravenously hungry, and there was never any question as to what would digest. This was just what he had sought; and so now, deliberately, he banned all the muses from his presence, and poured the rest of the dyspepsia-medicine into the lake. His muscles became hard, and the flush of health returned to his cheeks, and as he went about his tasks he laughed and sang, and shouted his defiance to the world. And to Corydon he wrote his newest plan--to earn a little in the city that winter, and come back in the early spring and build a log-cabin for herself and the baby!
Section 11. Twice a week his mail came to the lumbercamp, in care of the friendly foreman. Each time that he went out to get it, he hoped for some new turn. There was a publisher interested in "The Hearer of Truth", and an editor was reading "The Higher Cannibalism"; also, and most important of all, Miss Ethelynda Lewis had now had "The Genius"
for nearly two months, and had not yet reported. Thyrsis wrote to remind her, and after another two weeks, he wrote yet more urgently. At last came a note--"I have been away from the city, and have not had a chance to read the play. I will attend to it at once." And then, after three weeks more, Thyrsis wrote again--and at last came a letter that made his heart leap.
"I have read your play", wrote the popular _comedienne_: "I am very much interested in it indeed. I have asked my manager to read it, and will write you again shortly."
Thyrsis sent this to Corydon, and again there was rejoicing and expectation. "If only I can get the play on," he wrote, "our future is safe, for the profits from plays are enormous. It will be a great piece of luck if I have found the right person at the first attempt."
More weeks pa.s.sed. Thyrsis watched the pageant of autumn upon the mountains--he saw the curtains of the lake-sh.o.r.e change to gold and scarlet, and from that to pale yellow and brown; and now, with every lightest breeze that stirred, there were showers of leaves came fluttering to the ground. The deer left the lake-sh.o.r.e and took to the "hard-wood", and the drumming of partridges thundered at sunset. The nights were bitterly cold, and he spent a good part of his day chopping logs and carrying them to camp, so that he might keep a blazing fire all night. There were hunting-parties in the woods, and he got a deer, and sold part of it, and had the rest hanging near his camp.
And then one night came the first snow-storm; in the morning it lay white and sparkling in the sunlight--and oh, the wonder of a hunting-trip, when the floor of the wilderness was like a page on which could be read the tale of all that happened in the night! One could hardly believe that so many creatures were in these woods--there were tracks everywhere one looked. Here a squirrel had run, and here a partridge; here had been a porcupine, with feet like a baby"s, and here a fox, and here a bear with two cubs. And in yon hollow a deer had slept through the night, and here he had blown away the snow from the moss; here two bucks had fought; and here one of them had been started by a hunter, and had bounded away with leaps that it was a marvel to measure.
Thyrsis nearly lost his life at these fascinating adventures; for another storm came up, and covered his tracks, and when he tried to find his way back by the compa.s.s, he found that he had forgotten which end of the needle pointed to the North! So he wandered about for hours; and in the end had to decide by the toss of a penny whether he should get out to the main road, or wander off into twenty miles of trackless wilderness, without either food or matches. Fortunately the penny fell right; and he spent the night at a farmhouse, and the next day got back to the lumber-camp.
And there was a letter from Ethelynda Lewis! Thyrsis tore it open and read this incredible message:
"Your play has been carefully considered, and I am disposed to accept it. It is certainly very unusual and interesting, and I think it can be made a success. There are, however, certain changes which ought to be made. I am wondering if you will come to the city, so that we can talk it over. It would not be possible to settle a matter so important by mail; and there is no time to be lost, for I am ready to go ahead with the work at once, and so is my manager."
Section 12. Nothing that the mail had ever brought to Thyrsis had meant so much to him as this. He was transported with delight. Yes, for this he would go back to the city!--But then, he caught his breath, realizing his plight. How was he to get to the city, when he had only three dollars to his name?
He turned the problem over in his mind. Should he send a telegram to some relative and beg for help? No, he had vowed to die first. Should he write to the actress, and explain? No, for that would kill his chances.
There was just one way to be thought of; venison in the woods was worth eleven cents a pound, and the smallest of deer would get him to the city!
And so began a great adventure. Thyrsis wrote Miss Ethelynda that he would come; and that night he loaded up some more buckshot "sh.e.l.ls", and before dawn of the next day was out upon the hunt. The snow was gone now; and with soft shoes on his feet he wandered all day through the wilderness--and was rewarded by two chances to shoot at the white tails of flying deer.
And then came night, and he rigged up a "jack", a forbidden apparatus made of a soap-box and a lantern and a tin-plate for a reflector. He had an ingenious arrangement of straps and cords, whereby he could fasten this upon his head; and he had found an old lumber-trail where the deer came to feed upon the soft gra.s.s. Down this he crept like a thief in the night, with the light gleaming ahead, and the deer tramping in the thickets and whistling their alarms. Now and then one would stand and stare, his eye-b.a.l.l.s gleaming like coals of fire; and at last came the roar of the gun, and the jacklight tumbled to the ground. When Thyrsis lighted up again and went to examine, there were spots of blood upon the leaves--but no deer.
So the next day he was up again at dawn, watching by one of the runways to the lake. And then came another tramp, through the thickets and over the mountains--and more shots at the "flags" of the elusive enemy.
Thyrsis" back ached, and his feet were as if weighted with lead, but still he plodded on and on--it was his life against a deer"s.
If only he had had a boat, so that he could have set up his "jack" in that! But he had no boat--and so he wrapped himself in blankets and sat to watch another runway at sunset; and when no deer came he decided to stay on until the moon rose. It was a bitterly cold night, and his hands almost froze to the gun-barrel when he touched it. And the moon rose, and forthwith went behind a cloud--and then came a deer!
There was hardly a trace of motion in the air, but somehow the creature half-scented Thyrsis; and so it stood and trumpeted to the night. Oh, the wildness of that sound--and the thumping of the heart of the hunter, and the breathless suspense, and the burning desire. The deer would take a step, and a twig would crack; and then it would stand still again, and Thyrsis would listen, crouching like a statue, clutching his weapon and striving to penetrate the darkness. And then the deer would take two or three more steps, and stand again; and then, in sudden alarm, bound away; and then come back again, step by step--fascinated by this mysterious thing there in the darkness. For three mortal hours that creature pranced and cavorted about Thyrsis, while he waited with chattering teeth; then in the end it took a sudden fright, and went bounding away through the thicket.
So came another day"s hunting; and at sundown another watch by a runway; and another deer, that approached from the wrong direction, and came upon a man, worn out by three days and nights of effort, lying sound asleep at his post!
But there could be only one ending to this adventure. Thyrsis was out for a deer, and he would never quit until he got one. All his planning and wandering had availed him nothing; but now, the next morning, as he stepped out from his camp with a bucket in his hand--behold, at the edge of a thicket, a deer! Thyrsis stood rooted to the spot, staring blankly; and the deer stood staring at him.