It was the first time since his marriage that Thyrsis had tried really to do what he called work. All things else had been mere echoes of the work he had done the previous summer; but now he had to do something new, something that was an echo of nothing else. Every day that he faced the task, his agony and despair of soul grew greater; for he found that he _could_ not do the work. He could not even begin to do it--he could not even try to do it! He was helpless, bound hand and foot!
It was not his fault, it was not Corydon"s fault; it was a tragedy inherent in the very nature of things--in the two natures that were in himself. There was the man, who loved a woman, and hungered to see her happy; and there was the artist, to whom solitude was the very breath of life. To write this book--to write it really--he would have to spend weeks of brooding over it, thinking about nothing else day and night; he would have to shape his whole existence to that end to be free from every distracting circ.u.mstance, from everything that called him out of himself. And how could he hope for such a thing, while he was living in a tent with another person?
Thyrsis had his artist"s standard of perfection. Of course, he could never actually be satisfied with what he did; but at least he could feel that it was the best he was equal to--he could get a real and honest sense of exhaustion for himself. But now, the moment that he faced the problem fairly, he saw he could never get that real and honest sense of exhaustion again. He was dragged up to the issue and forced to face it instantly. The pressure of circ.u.mstances upon him was overwhelming; and he had to make up his mind to do something he had never done before--instead of really writing his books, to do the best he could with them!
Yet, inevitable as this was, and clearly as he saw it, he could not make up his mind to it. In reality, he never did make up his mind to it. He did it, and in his inmost heart he knew that he was doing it; but all the time he was trying to deny it, was wrestling with agony and despair in his soul in the effort to do something else.
He would go away in the morning and try to think about the book; and just when he would get started, it would be time for dinner, and there would be the image of Corydon waiting for him. And so he would go home, and go back in the afternoon--and when he had got started again, it would be dark. The next day, having explained his trouble, he would take his lunch away with him; but in the forenoon there would come a drenching thunder-storm, and he would have to go back again. Or he would try to work in the tent at night; and the wind would howl and blow the lamp so that he could not put his mind on anything. Nor did it avail him to rail at himself, to tell himself that he was a fool for being at the mercy of such mishaps. It was none the less a fact that he was at the mercy of them, and that he could no longer give himself up to the sway of his imagination.
And always there was Corydon, yearning for his companionship. It had always been their idea that they should do the work together; so completely would they be fused in the fire of love, that she would share his soul states and write parts of his books. But now that idea had to be abandoned; and this was _her_ tragedy.
"I have to sit and think of my health!" she would exclaim.
"It isn"t your health, dear," he would plead; "it"s the health of the child!"
"I know that. But then, am I always to sit at home and be placid, while you go away to wrestle with the angels?"
"Not always, Corydon," he said. "This will pa.s.s--"
"If I do," she cried, "I only stay to wrestle with the demons. And is that so very good for a pregnant woman?"
"My dear!" he protested.
"It"s just as I said!" she went on. "I ought not to have had the child!
I"m only a school-girl, with a school-girl"s tasks. And I try and try, but I can"t help it--everything within me rebels at the cares of mother-hood."
"That"s one mood, dear," he said. "But you know that"s not true always."
"It"s all the clearer to me," she insisted, "since we"ve had to give up our music. I can"t work at the piano any more--I may never be able to."
"But even if you could, Corydon, I couldn"t afford to get you one now."
"No, of course not. And you have to give up your violin!"
"Much time I have to practice it in our present plight!"
"I know--I know! But don"t you see, we lose our last hope of growing together? I"ve a vision that haunts me all the time--you going away to do your work, and staying for longer and longer periods--and I sitting at home to mind the baby!"
Day after day he would come back, and she would ask him how the book was going; and he would have to answer that it was not going at all. Then, in his desperation, he would make up his mind to write what he could--to be content with this glimpse of one scene, and with that feeble echo of what he knew the next scene ought to be; and he would bring the result to Corydon, and would discover with a secret pang that she did not know the difference. But then he would ask himself--how could she know the difference? The difference did not exist! His vision of the thing had existed in himself, and in himself alone; if he never uttered it, the world would never know what it might have been--and would never care.
Ah, what a future was that to look forward to--to filling the ears of the world with lamentations concerning the books that he might have written! And all the time knowing that the ears of the world were deaf to every sound he made!
Section 12. He thought that he realized the bitterness of this tragedy all at once; but the real bitterness was that he had to realize more and more of it every day. It was a tragedy he had to live in the house with.
He had to watch it working itself out in all the little affairs of life; he had to see it manifesting itself in his own soul, and in the soul of Corydon, and even in the soul of the child. Worst of all to him, the artist, he had to see it working itself out in what he wrote--in book after book that went out to represent him to the world, and that did not represent him at all, but only represented the Snare in which he had been caught! It was one of the facts about this Snare, that there was no merciful Keeper to come and put the victim out of his misery with a blow upon the head; that he was left alone, to writhe and twist and tear himself to pieces, and to perish of slow exhaustion. It was not a murder--it was a crucifixion!
He could not have told for whom his heart bled most, for himself, or for Corydon. Here she was, with her grim problems and her bitter necessities; needing advice and comfort, needing companionship--needing a husband! And she had married an artist--a reed that would grow "nevermore again as a reed with the reeds by the river!" That could not grow, even if it had wanted to! For it was quite in vain that the world cried out to him to settle down and become as other men; he could not.
The thing that was tearing at his vitals would continue to tear; the only choice he had was between self-expression and madness.
So, wrung as his heart was, he had to go away and as he could. If he yielded to his desire and stayed by her, then the book would not be written in time; and so all their hopes would be gone--they would never win their freedom then! And he would explain this to her; with their relentless devotion to the truth, they would talk it all out between them. They would trace every cord and knot of the Snare. And Corydon would grant that he was right, and that she must submit. He must stay away all day--and all night, if need be--till the book was done.
Not that they were always able to settle their problems in the cold light of reason. Sometimes Thyrsis, with his artist"s ups and downs, would be nervous and irritable; he would manifest impatience over trifles, and this would give rise to tragedies. There was a vast amount of fetching and emptying of water to be done for their little establishment; and sometimes a man who was carrying the destinies of the human race in his consciousness was not as prompt as he might have been in attending to these humble tasks. And moreover, the water all had to be dipped up from the lake; and sometimes, when it was stormy, it was a difficult matter to get it as free from specks as was needed for the ablutions of a fastidious young lady like Corydon.
"If you"d only take a little trouble!" she would say.
"Trouble!" he would exclaim. "Do you think I enjoy hearing you complain about it?"
"But Thyrsis, this is dirtier than ever!"
"I know it. The wind is blowing harder."
"But if you"d only reach out a little ways---"
"I reached out till I nearly fell into the water!"
"But Thyrsis, how can I ever wash my face?"
And so it would go. Thyrsis would be absorbed in some especially important mental operation, and it would be a torment to him to have such things forced upon his attention. Corydon, it seemed to him, was always at the mercy of externals; and she was forever dragging him out of himself, and making him aware of them. The frying-pan was not clean enough, or his hair was unkempt; his trousers were ragged or his coat was too small for him. Was life always to consist of such impertinences as this?
And so Thyrsis, in a sudden burst of rage, gave the water-bucket a kick which sent it rolling down the bank, and then strode away to his work.
But unfortunately his work was not of a sort which he could do with angry emotions in his soul. And so very soon remorse overcame him. He returned, to find that Corydon had rushed out to the end of the point, and flung herself down upon the rocks in hysterics. And this, of course, was not a good thing for a pregnant woman, and so he had to set to work to soothe her.
But alas, to soothe her was never an easy task, because of her sensitiveness, and her exalted ideals of him. However humbly he might apologize and beg forgiveness, there would remain her grief that it had been possible for a quarrel to occur between them. She would drive him nearly wild by debating the event, and rehearsing it again and again, trying to justify herself to him, and him to himself. Thyrsis was robust, he wanted to let the past take care of itself; he would tell her of all the worries that were hara.s.sing him, and would plead with her to grant him the privilege of any ordinary human creature, to manifest annoyance now and then. And Corydon would promise it--she would promise him anything he asked for; but this was a boon it did not lie within the possibility of her temperament to grant. He could be angry at fate and at the world, and could rage and storm at them all he pleased; but he could never be harsh with Corydon without inflicting upon her pain that wrecked her, and wrecked him into the bargain.
Perhaps, he thought, it was her condition that accounted for this morbidness. She was liable to fits of depression, and to mysterious illness--nausea and faintness and what not. Also, she had been told weird tales about prenatal influences; and he, not having been educated in such matters, could not be sure what were the facts. So, whenever she had been unhappy, there was the possibility that she had done some irreparable harm to the child! And that made more problems for an over-worked and sensitive artist.
He soon saw that he had to suppress forever the side of him that was stern and exacting. Such things had a place in his own life, but no longer in Corydon"s. Instead, he would see how she suffered, and his heart would be wrung, and he would come back again and again to comfort her, and to tell her how he loved her, how he longed to do what was right. He would set before her the logic of the situation, so that if things went wrong she might realize that it was neither his fault nor hers--that it was the world, which kept them in this misery, and shut them up to suffer together. So it was, all through their lives, that their remorseless reason saved them; they would find in the a.n.a.lysis and exposition of the causes of their own unhappiness the one common satisfaction they had in life.
Section 13. These were the circ.u.mstances of the writing of "The Hearer of Truth". It was completed in six weeks, and it did not satisfy its author, the finishing of it brought him no joy. But that, though he did not realize it, was the one circ.u.mstance in its favor--the less it satisfied him, the more chance there was that the world would know what it was about.
He had the ma.n.u.script copied, and then he sent it off to a magazine in Boston, whose editor had been one of his hundred great men, and had promised to read the new ma.n.u.script at once. Meantime Thyrsis sent for some books to review, and got to work at another plot to be submitted to the editor of the "Treasure Chest". For their own treasure-chest was now all but empty, and one could not live forever upon blueberries and fish.
Day by day they waited; and at last, one fateful afternoon, the farmer came with some provisions and their mail. There was a letter from Boston, and Thyrsis opened it and read as follows:
"I have read your ma.n.u.script, "The Hearer of Truth", and I wish to tell you of the very great pleasure it has given me. It is n.o.ble and fine, and amazingly clever as well. I must say frankly that I was astonished at the qualities of maturity and restraint it shows. I think it quite certain that we shall wish to use it as a serial; but before I can say anything definite, the ma.n.u.script will have to be read by my a.s.sociates.
In the meantime I wished to tell you personally how highly I think of your work."
Thyrsis read this, and then, without a word, he pa.s.sed it on to Corydon.
As soon as the farmer"s back was turned, the two fell into each other"s arms, and all but wept. It was victory, beyond all question. The magazine might pay as much as five hundred dollars for the serial rights--and with that start, they would surely be safe. Besides that, it would mean recognition for Thyrsis--the world would have to discuss his work!
Doing pot-boilers was easy after such a triumph as that. They even treated themselves to holidays--they purchased a quart of ice-cream on one day, and hired a boat and went picnicking on another. Thyrsis got out his fiddle once again, and even became so reckless as to inquire about the price of a "practice-clavier" for Corydon. Also he began inquiring as to the cost of houses; when they got the money they would build themselves a little cabin here--a cabin just the size of the tent, but with a room upstairs where Thyrsis could do his work. After that they would be free from all the world--they would never go back to be haunted by the sight of
"Sorrow barricadoed evermore Within the walls of cities."
Section 14. So a month pa.s.sed by; and Thyrsis wrote again to the editor, and was told that they were still discussing the story. And then, after two more weeks, there came another letter; and this was the way it read:
"I am sorry to have to tell you that the decision has been adverse to using your story. My own opinion of it has not changed in the least; but I have been unable to induce my a.s.sociates to view it in the same light.
They seem to be unanimous in the opinion that your work is too radical for us to put to the front. We have a very conservative, fastidious, and sophisticated const.i.tuency; and this is one of the limitations by which we are bound. I am more than sorry that things have turned out so, and I trust I need hardly say that I shall be glad to read anything else that you may have to submit to us."
And there it was! "A conservative, fastidious, and sophisticated const.i.tuency!" Thyrsis believed that he would never forget that phrase while he lived. Could one get up a thing like that anywhere in the world save in Boston?