The Price of Things.
by Elinor Glyn.
FOREWORD
I wrote this book in Paris in the winter of 1917-18--in the midst of bombs, and raids, and death. Everyone was keyed up to a strange pitch, and only primitive instincts seemed to stand out distinctly.
Life appeared brutal, and our very fashion of speaking, the words we used, the way we looked at things, was more realistic--coa.r.s.er--than in times of peace, when civilization can re-a.s.sert itself again. This is why the story shocks some readers. I quite understand that it might do so; but I deem it the duty of writers to make a faithful picture of each phase of the era they are living in, that posterity may be correctly informed about things, and get the atmosphere of epochs.
The story is, so to speak, rough hewn. But it shows the danger of breaking laws, and interfering with fate--whether the laws be of G.o.d or of Man.
It is also a psychological study of the instincts of two women, which the strenuous times brought to the surface. "Amaryllis," with all her breeding and gentleness, reacting to nature"s call in her fierce fidelity to the father of her child--and "Harietta," becoming in herself the epitome of the age-old prost.i.tute.
I advise those who are rebuffed by plain words, and a ruthless a.n.a.lysis of the result of actions, not to read a single page.
[Signature: Elinor Glyn]
THE PRICE OF THINGS
CHAPTER I
"If one consciously and deliberately desires happiness on this plane,"
said the Russian, "one must have sufficient strength of will to banish all thought. The moment that one begins to probe the meaning of things, one has opened Pandora"s box and it may be many lives before one discovers hope lying at the bottom of it."
"What do you mean by thought? How can one not think?" Amaryllis Ardayre"s large grey eyes opened in a puzzled way. She was on her honeymoon in Paris at a party at the Russian Emba.s.sy, and until now had accepted things and not speculated about them. She had lived in the country and was as good as gold.
She was accepting her honeymoon with her accustomed calm, although it was not causing her any of the thrills which Elsie Goldmore, her school friend, had a.s.sured her she should discover therein.
Honeymoons! Heavens! But perhaps it was because Sir John was dull. He looked dull, she thought, as he stood there talking to the Amba.s.sador. A fine figure of an Englishman but--yes--dull. The Russian, on the contrary, was not dull. He was huge and ugly and rough-hewn--his eyes were yellowish-green and slanted upwards and his face was frankly Calmuck. But you knew that you were talking to a personality--to one who had probably a number of unknown possibilities about him tucked away somewhere.
John had none of these. One could be certain of exactly what he would do on any given occasion--and it would always be his duty. The Russian was observing this charming English bride critically; she was such a perfect specimen of that estimable race--well-shaped, refined and healthy. Chock full of temperament too, he reflected--when she should discover herself.
Temperament and romance and even pa.s.sion, and there were shrewdness and commonsense as well.
"An agreeable task for a man to undertake her education," and he wished that he had time.
Amaryllis Ardayre asked again:
"How can one not think? I am always thinking."
He smiled indulgently.
"Oh! no, you are not--you only imagine that you are. You have questioned nothing--you do right generally because you have a nice character and have been well brought up, not from any conscious determination to uplift the soul. Yes--is it not so?"
She was startled.
"Perhaps."
"Do you ever ask yourself what things mean? What we are--where we are going? What is the end of it all? No--you are happy; you live from day to day--and yet you cannot be a very young ego, your eyes are too wise--you have had many incarnations. It is merely that in this one life the note of awakening has not yet been struck. You certainly must have needed sleep."
"Many lives? You believe in that theory?"
She was not accustomed to discuss unorthodox subjects. She was interested.
"But of course--how else could there be justice? We draw the reflex of every evil action and of every good one, but sometimes not until the next incarnation, that is why the heedless ones cannot grasp the truth--they see no visible result of either good or evil--evil, in fact, seems generally to win if there is a balance either way."
"Why are we not allowed memory then, so that we might profit by our lessons?"
"We should in that case improve from self-interest and not have our faults eliminated by suffering. We are given no conscious memory of our last life, so we go on fighting for whatever desire still holds us until its achievement brings such overwhelming pain that the desire is no more."
"Why do you say that for happiness we must banish thought--that seems a paradox."
She was a little disturbed.
"I said if one _consciously_ and deliberately desired happiness, one must banish thought to bring oneself back to the condition of hundreds of people who are happy; many of them are even elementals without souls at all. They are permitted happiness so that they may become so attached to the earth plane that they willingly return and gradually obtain a soul.
But no one who is allowed to think is allowed any continued happiness; there would be no progress. If so, we should remain as brutes."
"Then how cruel of you to suggest to me to think. I want to be happy--perhaps I do not want to obtain a soul."
"That was born long ago--my words may have awakened it once more, but the sleep was not deep."
Amaryllis Ardayre looked at the crowds pa.s.sing and re-pa.s.sing in those stately rooms.
"Tell me, who is that woman over there?" she asked. "The very pretty one with the fair hair in jade green--she looks radiantly happy."
"And is--she is frankly an animal--exquisitely preserved, d.a.m.nably selfish, completely devoid of intellect, sugar manners, the senses of a harem houri--and the tenacity of a rat."
"You are severe."
"Not at all. Harietta Boleski is a product of that most astonishing nation across the Atlantic--none other could produce her. It is the hothouse of the world as regards remarkable types. Here for immediate ancestry we have a mother, from heaven knows what European refuse heap, arrived in an immigrant ship--father of the "pore white trash" of the south--result: Harietta, fine points, beautiful, quite a lady for ordinary purposes. The absence of soul is strikingly apparent to any ordinary observer, but one only discovers the vulgarity of spirit if one is a student of evolution--or chances to catch her when irritated with her modiste or her maid. Other nations cannot produce such beings. Women with the attributes of Harietta, were they European, would have surface vulgarity showing--and so be out of the running, or they would have real pa.s.sion which would be their undoing--pa.s.sion is glorious--it is aroused by something beyond the physical. Observe her nostril! There is simple, delightful animal sensuality for you! Look also at the convex curve below the underlip--she will bite off the cherry whether it is hers by right or another"s, and devour it without a backward thought."
"Boleski--that is a Russian name, is it not?"
"No, Polish--she secured our Stanisla.s.s, a great man in his country--last year in Berlin, having divorced a no longer required, but worthy German husband who had held some post in the American Consulate there."
"Is that old man standing obediently beside her your Stanisla.s.s?--he looks quite cowed."
"A sad sight, is it not? Stanisla.s.s, though, is not old, barely forty. He had a _beguin_ for her. She put his intelligence to sleep and bamboozled his judgment with a continuous appeal to the senses; she has vampired him now. Cloying all his will with her sugared caprices, she makes him scenes and so keeps him in subjection. He was one of the Council de l"Empire for Poland; the aims of his country were his earnest work, but now ambition is no more. He is tired, he has ceased to struggle; she rules and eats his soul as she has eaten the souls of others. Shall I present her to you? As a type, she is worthy of your attention."
"It sounds as if she had the evil eye, as the Italians say," Amaryllis shuddered.
"Only for men. She is really an amiable creature--women like her. She is so frankly simple, since for her there are never two issues--only to be allowed her own desires--a riot of extravagance, the first place--and some one to gratify certain instincts without too many refinements when the mood takes her. For the rest, she is kind and good-natured and "jolly," as you English say, and has no notion that she is a road to h.e.l.l. But they are mostly dead, her other spider mates, and cannot tell of it."
"I am much interested. I should like to talk to her. You say that she is happy?"