"You'd better borrow a Century Dictionary," I said.
"That's easy," he said, and actually achieved it, with the clergyman's
aid.
The absorption in which I fought my way through those books may prove
interesting to future generations, who, at Sunday-school age, when the
fable of Adam and Eve was painfully being drummed into me (without any
mention of its application), will be learning to think straight,
acquiring easily in early youth what I failed to learn until after forty.
And think of all the trouble and tragedy that will have been averted. It
is true that I had read some biology at Cambridge, which I had promptly
forgotten; it had not been especially emphasized by my instructors as
related to life--certainly not as related to religion: such incidents as
that of Adam and Eve occupied the religious field exclusively. I had been
compelled to commit to memory, temporarily, the matter in those books;
but what I now began to perceive was that the matter was secondary
compared to the view point of science--and this had been utterly
neglected. As I read, I experienced all the excitement of an
old-fashioned romance, but of a romance of such significance as to touch
the very springs of existence; and above all I was impressed with the
integrity of the scientific method--an integrity commensurate with the
dignity of man--that scorned to quibble to make out a case, to affirm
something that could not be proved.
Little by little I became familiar with the principles of embryonic
evolution, ontogeny, and of biological evolution, phylogeny; realized,
for the first time, my own history and that of the ancestors from whom I
had developed and descended. I, this marvellously complicated being, torn
by desires and despairs, was the result of the union of two microscopic
cells. "All living things come from the egg," such had been Harvey's
dictum. The result was like the tonic of a cold douche. I began to feel
cleansed and purified, as though something sticky-sweet which all my life
had clung to me had been washed away. Yet a question arose, an insistent
question that forever presses itself on the mind of man; how could these
apparently chemical and mechanical processes, which the author of the
book contented himself with recording, account for me? The spermia darts
for the egg, and pierces it; personal history begins. But what mysterious
shaping force is it that repeats in the individual the history of the
race, supervises the orderly division of the cells, by degrees directs
the symmetry, sets aside the skeleton and digestive tract and supervises
the structure?
I took up the second book, that on the philosophy of the organism, to
read in its preface that a much-to-be-honoured British nobleman had
established a foundation of lectures in a Scotch University for
forwarding the study of a Natural Theology. The term possessed me. Unlike
the old theology woven of myths and a fanciful philosophy of the decadent
period of Greece, natural theology was founded on science itself, and
scientists were among those who sought to develop it. Here was a
synthesis that made a powerful appeal, one of the many signs and portents
of a new era of which I was dimly becoming cognizant; and now that I
looked for signs, I found them everywhere, in my young Doctor, in Krebs,
in references in the texts; indications of a new order beginning to make
itself felt in a muddled, chaotic human world, which might--which must
have a parallel with the order that revealed itself in the egg! Might not
both, physical and social, be due to the influence of the same invisible,
experimenting, creating Hand?
My thoughts lingered lovingly on this theology so well named "natural,"
on its conscientiousness, its refusal to affirm what it did not prove, on
its lack of dogmatic dictums and infallible revelations; yet it gave me
the vision of a new sanction whereby man might order his life, a sanction
from which was eliminated fear and superstition and romantic hope, a
sanction whose doctrines--unlike those of the sentimental theology--did
not fly in the face of human instincts and needs. Nor was it a theology
devoid of inspiration and poetry, though poetry might be called its
complement. With all that was beautiful and true in the myths dear to
mankind it did not conflict, annulling only the vicious dogmatism of
literal interpretation. In this connection I remembered something that
Krebs had said--in our talk about poetry and art,--that these were
emotion, religion expressed by the tools reason had evolved. Music, he
had declared, came nearest to the cry of the human soul....
That theology cleared for faith an open road, made of faith a reasonable
thing, yet did not rob it of a sense of high adventure; cleansed it of
the taints of thrift and selfish concern. In this reaffirmation of
vitalism there might be a future, yes, an individual future, yet it was
far from the smug conception of salvation. Here was a faith conferred by
the freedom of truth; a faith that lost and regained itself in life; it
was dynamic in its operation; for, as Lessing said, the searching after
truth, and not its possession, gives happiness to man. In the words of an
American scientist, taken from his book on Heredity, "The evolutionary
idea has forced man to consider the probable future of his own race on
earth and to take measures to control that future, a matter he had
previously left largely to fate."
Here indeed was another sign of the times, to find in a strictly
scientific work a sentence truly religious! As I continued to read these
works, I found them suffused with religion, religion of a kind and
quality I had not imagined. The birthright of the spirit of man was
freedom, freedom to experiment, to determine, to create--to create
himself, to create society in the image of God! Spiritual creation the
function of cooperative man through the coming ages, the task that was to
make him divine. Here indeed was the germ of a new sanction, of a new
motive, of a new religion that strangely harmonized with the concepts of
the old--once the dynamic power of these was revealed.
I had been thinking of my family--of my family in terms of Matthew--and
yet with a growing yearning that embraced them all. I had not informed
Maude of my illness, and I had managed to warn Tom Peters not to do so. I
had simply written her that after the campaign I had gone for a rest to
California; yet in her letters to me, after this information had reached
her, I detected a restrained anxiety and affection that troubled me.
Sequences of words curiously convey meanings and implications that
transcend their literal sense, true thoughts and feelings are difficult
to disguise even in written speech. Could it be possible after all that
had happened that Maude still loved me? I continually put the thought
away from me, but continually it returned to haunt me. Suppose Maude
could not help loving me, in spite of my weaknesses and faults, even as I
loved Nancy in spite of hers? Love is no logical thing.
It was Matthew I wanted, Matthew of whom I thought, and trivial,
long-forgotten incidents of the past kept recurring to me constantly. I
still received his weekly letters; but he did not ask why, since I had
taken a vacation, I had not come over to them. He represented the medium,
the link between Maude and me that no estrangement, no separation could
break.
All this new vision of mine was for him, for the coming generation, the
soil in which it must be sown, the Americans of the future. And who so
well as Matthew, sensitive yet brave, would respond to it? I wished not
only to give him what I had begun to grasp, to study with him, to be his
companion and friend, but to spare him, if possible, some of my own
mistakes and sufferings and punishments. But could I go back? Happy
coincidences of desires and convictions had been so characteristic of
that other self I had been struggling to cast off: I had so easily been
persuaded, when I had had a chance of getting Nancy, that it was the
right thing to do! And now, in my loneliness, was I not growing just as
eager to be convinced that it was my duty to go back to the family which
in the hour of self-sufficiency I had cast off? I had believed in divorce
then--why not now? Well, I still believed in it. I had thought of a union
with Nancy as something that would bring about the "self-realization that
springs from the gratification of a great passion,"--an appealing phrase
I had read somewhere. But, it was at least a favourable symptom that I
was willing now to confess that the "self-realization" had been a
secondary and sentimental consideration, a rosy, self-created halo to
give a moral and religious sanction to my desire. Was I not trying to do
that very thing now? It tortured me to think so; I strove to achieve a
detached consideration of the problem,--to arrive at length at a thought
that seemed illuminating: that the it "wrongness" or "rightness," utility
and happiness of all such unions depend upon whether or not they become a
part of the woof and warp of the social fabric; in other words, whether
the gratification of any particular love by divorce and remarriage does
or does not tend to destroy a portion of that fabric. Nancy certainly
would have been justified in divorce. It did not seem in the retrospect
that I would have been: surely not if, after I had married Nancy, I had
developed this view of life that seemed to me to be the true view. I
should have been powerless to act upon it. But the chances were I should
not have developed it, since it would seem that any salvation for me at
least must come precisely through suffering, through not getting what I
wanted. Was this equivocating?
My mistake had been in marrying Maude instead of Nancy--a mistake largely
due to my saturation with a false idea of life. Would not the attempt to
cut loose from the consequences of that mistake in my individual case
have been futile? But there was a remedy for it--the remedy Krebs had
suggested: I might still prevent my children from making such a mistake,
I might help to create in them what I might have been, and thus find a
solution for myself. My errors would then assume a value.
But the question tortured me: would Maude wish it? Would it be fair to
her if she did not? By my long neglect I had forfeited the right to go.
And would she agree with my point of view if she did permit me to stay? I
had less concern on this score, a feeling that that development of hers,
which once had irritated me, was in the same direction as my own....
I have still strangely to record moments when, in spite of the
aspirations I had achieved, of the redeeming vision I had gained, at the
thought of returning to her I revolted. At such times recollections came
into my mind of those characteristics in her that had seemed most
responsible for my alienation.... That demon I had fed so mightily still
lived. By what right--he seemed to ask--had I nourished him all these
years if now I meant to starve him? Thus sometimes he defied me, took on
Protean guises, blustered, insinuated, cajoled, managed to make me
believe that to starve him would be to starve myself, to sap all there
was of power in me. Let me try and see if I could do it! Again he
whispered, to what purpose had I gained my liberty, if now I renounced
it? I could not live in fetters, even though the fetters should be
self-imposed. I was lonely now, but I would get over that, and life lay
before me still.
Fierce and tenacious, steel in the cruelty of his desires, fearful in the
havoc he had wrought, could he be subdued? Foiled, he tore and rent
me....
One morning I rode up through the shady canon, fragrant with bay, to the
open slopes stained smoky-blue by the wild lilac, where the twisted
madrona grows. As I sat gazing down on tiny headlands jutting out into a
vast ocean my paralyzing indecision came to an end. I turned my horse
down the trail again. I had seen at last that life was bigger than I,
bigger than Maude, bigger than our individual wishes and desires. I felt
as though heavy shackles had been struck from me. As I neared the house I
spied my young doctor in the garden path, his hands in his pockets
watching a humming-bird poised over the poppies. He greeted me with a
look that was not wholly surprise at my early return, that seemed to have
in it something of gladness.
"Strafford," I said, "I've made up my mind to go to Europe."
"I have been thinking for some time, Mr. Paret," he replied, "that a
sea-voyage is just what you need to set you on your feet."
I started eastward the next morning, arriving in New York in time to
catch one of the big liners sailing for Havre. On my way across the
continent I decided to send a cable to Maude at Paris, since it were only
fair to give her an opportunity to reflect upon the manner in which she
would meet the situation. Save for an impatience which at moments I
restrained with difficulty, the moods that succeeded one another as I
journeyed did not differ greatly from those I had experienced in the past
month. I was alternately exalted and depressed; I hoped and doubted and
feared; my courage, my confidence rose and fell. And yet I was aware of
the nascence within me of an element that gave me a stability I had
hitherto lacked: I had made my decision, and I felt the stronger for it.
It was early in March. The annual rush of my countrymen and women for
foreign shores had not as yet begun, the huge steamer was far from
crowded. The faint throbbing of her engines as she glided out on the
North River tide found its echo within me as I leaned on the heavy rail
and watched the towers of the city receding in the mist; they became
blurred and ghostlike, fantastic in the grey distance, sad, appealing
with a strange beauty and power. Once the sight of them, sunlit, standing
forth sharply against the high blue of American skies, had stirred in me
that passion for wealth and power of which they were so marvellously and
uniquely the embodiment. I recalled the bright day of my home-coming with
Maude, when she too had felt that passion drawing me away from her, after
the briefest of possessions.... Well, I had had it, the power. I had
stormed and gained entrance to the citadel itself. I might have lived
here in New York, secure, defiant of a veering public opinion that envied
while it strove to sting. Why was I flinging it all away? Was this a
sudden resolution of mine, forced by events, precipitated by a failure to
achieve what of all things on earth I had most desired? or was it the
inevitable result of the development of the Hugh Paret of earlier days,
who was not meant for that kind of power?
The vibration of the monster ship increased to a strong, electric
pulsation, the water hummed along her sides, she felt the swell of the
open sea. A fine rain began to fall that hid the land--yes, and the life
I was leaving. I made my way across the glistening deck to the saloon
where, my newspapers and periodicals neglected, I sat all the morning
beside a window gazing out at the limited, vignetted zone of waters
around the ship. We were headed for the Old World. The wind rose, the
rain became pelting, mingling with the spume of the whitecaps racing
madly past: within were warmth and luxury, electric lights, open fires,
easy chairs, and men and women reading, conversing as unconcernedly as
though the perils of the deep had ceased to be. In all this I found an
impelling interest; the naive capacity in me for wonder, so long dormant,
had been marvellously opened up once more. I no longer thought of myself
as the important man of affairs; and when in the progress of the voyage I
was accosted by two or three men I had met and by others who had heard of
me it was only to feel amazement at the remoteness I now felt from a
world whose realities were stocks and bonds, railroads and corporations
and the detested new politics so inimical to the smooth conduct of
"business."
It all sounded like a language I had forgotten.
It was not until near the end of the passage that we ran out of the
storm. A morning came when I went on deck to survey spaces of a blue and
white sea swept by the white March sunlight; to discern at length against
the horizon toward which we sped a cloud of the filmiest and most
delicate texture and design. Suddenly I divined that the cloud was
France! Little by little, as I watched, it took on substance. I made out
headlands and cliffs, and then we were coasting beside them. That night I
should be in Paris with Maude. My bag was packed, my steamer trunk
closed. I strayed about the decks, in and out of the saloons, wondering
at the indifference of other passengers who sat reading in steamer-chairs
or wrote last letters to be posted at Havre. I was filled with
impatience, anticipation, yes, with anxiety concerning the adventure that
was now so imminent; with wavering doubts. Had I done the wisest thing
after all? I had the familiar experience that often comes just before
reunion after absence of recalling intimate and forgotten impressions of
those whom I was about to see again the tones of their voices, little
gestures....
How would they receive me?
The great ship had slowed down and was entering the harbour, carefully
threading her way amongst smaller craft, the passengers lining the rails
and gazing at the animated scene, at the quaint and cheerful French city
bathed in sunlight.... I had reached the dock and was making my way
through the hurrying and shifting groups toward the steamer train when I
saw Maude. She was standing a little aside, scanning the faces that
passed her.
I remember how she looked at me, expectantly, yet timidly, almost
fearfully. I kissed her.
"You've come to meet me!" I exclaimed stupidly. "How are the children?"
"They're very well, Hugh. They wanted to come, too, but I thought it
better not."
Her restraint struck me as extraordinary; and while I was thankful for
the relief it brought to a situation which might have been awkward, I was
conscious of resenting it a little. I was impressed and puzzled. As I
walked along the platform beside her she seemed almost a stranger: I had
difficulty in realizing that she was my wife, the mother of my children.
Her eyes were clear, more serious than I recalled them, and her physical
as well as her moral tone seemed to have improved. Her cheeks glowed with
health, and she wore a becoming suit of dark blue.
"Did you have a good trip, Hugh?" she asked.
"Splendid," I said, forgetting the storm. We took our seats in an empty
compartment. Was she glad to see me? She had come all the way from Paris
to meet me! All the embarrassment seemed to be on my side. Was this
composure a controlled one or had she indeed attained to the
self-sufficiency her manner and presence implied? Such were the questions
running through my head.
"You've really liked Paris?" I asked.
"Yes, Hugh, and it's been very good for us all. Of course the boys like
America better, but they've learned many things they wouldn't have
learned at home; they both speak French, and Biddy too. Even I have
improved."
"I'm sure of it," I said.
She flushed.
"And what else have you been doing?"
"Oh, going to galleries. Matthew often goes with me. I think he quite
appreciates the pictures. Sometimes I take him to the theatre, too, the
Francais. Both boys ride in the Bois with a riding master. It's been
rather a restricted life for them, but it won't have hurt them. It's good
discipline. We have little excursions in an automobile on fine days to
Versailles and other places of interest around Paris, and Matthew and I
have learned a lot of history. I have a professor of literature from the
Sorbonne come in three times a week to give me lessons."
"I didn't know you cared for literature."
"I didn't know it either." She smiled. "Matthew loves it. Monsieur
Despard declares he has quite a gift for language."
Maude had already begun Matthew's education!
"You see a few people?" I inquired.
"A few. And they have been very kind to us. The Buffons, whom I met at
Etretat, and some of their friends, mostly educated French people."
The little railway carriage in which we sat rocked with speed as we flew
through the French landscape. I caught glimpses of solid, Norman farm
buildings, of towers and keeps and delicate steeples, and quaint towns;
of bare poplars swaying before the March gusts, of green fields ablaze in
the afternoon sun. I took it all in distractedly. Here was Maude beside
me, but a Maude I had difficulty in recognizing, whom I did not
understand: who talked of a life she had built up for herself and that
seemed to satisfy her; one with which I had nothing to do. I could not
tell how she regarded my re-intrusion. As she continued to talk, a
feeling that was almost desperation grew upon me. I had things to say to
her, things that every moment of this sort of intercourse was making more
difficult. And I felt, if I did not say them now, that perhaps I never
should: that now or never was the appropriate time, and to delay would be
to drift into an impossible situation wherein the chance of an
understanding would be remote.
There was a pause. How little I had anticipated the courage it would take
to do this thing! My blood was hammering.
"Maude," I said abruptly, "I suppose you're wondering why I came over
here."
She sat gazing at me, very still, but there came into her eyes a
frightened look that almost unnerved me. She seemed to wish to speak, to
be unable to. Passively, she let my hand rest on hers.
"I've been thinking a great deal during the last few months," I went on
unsteadily. "And I've changed a good many of my ideas--that is, I've got
new ones, about things I never thought of before. I want to say, first,
that I do not put forth any claim to come back into your life. I know I
have forfeited any claim. I've neglected you, and I've neglected the
children. Our marriage has been on a false basis from the start, and I've
been to blame for it. There is more to be said about the chances for a
successful marriage in these days, but I'm not going to dwell on that
now, or attempt to shoulder off my shortcomings on my bringing up, on the
civilization in which we have lived. You've tried to do your share, and
the failure hasn't been your fault. I want to tell you first of all that
I recognize your right to live your life from now on, independently of
me, if you so desire. You ought to have the children--" I hesitated a
moment. It was the hardest thing I had to say. "I've never troubled
myself about them, I've never taken on any responsibility in regard to
their bringing up."
"Hugh!" she cried.
"Wait--I've got more to tell you, that you ought to know. I shouldn't be
here to-day if Nancy Durrett had consented to--to get a divorce and marry
me. We had agreed to that when this accident happened to Ham, and she
went back to him. I have to tell you that I still love her--I can't say
how much, or define my feelings toward her now. I've given up all idea of
her. I don't think I'd marry her now, even if I had the chance, and you
should decide to live away from me. I don't know. I'm not so sure of
myself as I once was. The fact is, Maude, circumstances have been too
much for me. I've been beaten. And I'm not at all certain that it wasn't
a cowardly thing for me to come back to you at all."
I felt her hand trembling under mine, but I had not the courage to look
at her. I heard her call my name again a little cry, the very poignancy
of pity and distress. It almost unnerved me.
"I knew that you loved her, Hugh," she said. "It was only--only a little
while after you married me that I found it out. I guessed it--women do
guess such things--long before you realized it yourself. You ought to
have married her instead of me. You would have been happier with her."