A MUTINOUS MUTINEER.
I respected Rothenburg; he was a man of ideas. Of course, they were
wrong; but, according to his rush-lights, he acted them out. He seemed
to me to have a shallow brain, in a constant state of feverish
agitation. He was a flamboyant rhetorician, a crisp denunciator. It did
one’s soul good to hear him declaim red-hot against kings, priests, and
the intolerable tyranny of public opinion. The rest were shadows.
Rothenburg by comparison was an intellectual Titan.
Even old Mrs. Pritchard, of the parboiled arms, who lived in the
Community cottage with the bare, bald hall, recognised his superiority.
“That there Rottenborough,” she would say, with her arms akimbo, “why
he’s worth the whole lot of ’em.” She was a study in her way, Mrs.
Pritchard—globular and emotional. Rothenburg’s eloquence filled her
eyes with tears. _Why_ she was an anarchist I failed to perceive. She
seemed as much out of place in that cosmopolite crew as a Free Kirk
elder in a chorus of Mænads. She told me they had “convinced” her. If
so, she must have had a mind singularly open to conviction. I gather
rather that she took to anarchy as she might have taken to Primitive
Methodism, the Salvation Army, or any other variety of dithyrambic
religion. There chanced to be no Shakers or Mormons in the field at the
moment, so Mrs. Pritchard fell back upon the allurements of Communism.
She washed for the comrades, a post, you may guess, which almost
amounted to a lady-like sinecure.
When I joined the Community I did so in dead earnest. You may think I
jest, but I assure you seriously that my first intention was to live and
die in the bosom of anarchy. Even the first sight of the ten acres, with
its fringe of natterjacks and its total lack of eglantine, did not damp
my ardour; nor did the dinner at the outset. I reflected that I had
taught a cookery class at the Guild, and that I could find an outlet for
my energies in radical reform of the Communal kitchen. It certainly
afforded a noble chance for the reformer. Meanwhile I said nothing,
though I eat every meal with an increasing undercurrent of distrust as
to its cleanliness.
At night we gathered in the Community hall and decided the future of
Europe. Within, as without, it had anæmic brick walls, slightly inclined
towards jaundice, and under its roof we listened drearily while
Rothenburg settled the map of the twentieth century in unofficial
harangues. Save for his torrent of eloquence I found the hall
depressing. Our Community shared the common mania of the sectary for
placarding its sentiments. Only here “The Lord is my Shepherd” and “God
Bless our Home” gave place to “_Solidarité de la Race Humaine_,” “No
King, no Laws, no Taxes,” “_Das Land für das Volk_,” “_Ubi bene, ibi
Patria_,” and “Free Thought, Free Affection.” I read these legends over
and over till they palled. In another respect also my comrades resembled
the universal schismatic—their interests were confined to a single
range. They were great on altruism; but one saw their eyes glaze over
the moment one diverged from the beaten path of anarchic platitude.
Rothenburg asked me the first day if I knew anything of gardening.
Anything of gardening! I could have told them at a glance that their
cauliflowers were planted three inches too close, while their views on
spring carrots were absurdly elementary. I had been reared in the
country. But I reflected that, even among anarchists, modesty befits a
woman, and I answered that I hoped so.
They wished to set me at first upon light work in the glass-houses; even
those rough working men, I could see (notable mainly for the whiteness
of their faces and the redness of their politics), paid some homage to
my gentility; though they would have denied it themselves, they were
anxious to spare me as much as possible of manual labour. But I would
have none of that. If I joined their clan at all I must join on equal
terms. I am all for the absolute equation of the sexes. I wished to bear
my part in the burdens of the Community.
So I devoted myself with a single mind to intensive culture. I may be
dense, but after close inspection my impression is that intensive
culture, were it not for its name, might readily be confused with
ordinary gardening.
Rothenburg was working on the foundations of a new glass-house. To avoid
Léon, whose province was potatoes, I took a pick and worked by the
Alsatian’s side. He seldom spoke; when he did he left off delving—his
shallow brain had room but for one occupation at a time. It was curious
to see him pause, push his crush-hat from his brow, wipe his narrow
forehead with his shirt-sleeve, stroke the thin yellow hair, and then
give vent to some deep philosophical speculation, which a child of ten
might have considered profound.
On the second day of my task at the trench a sudden thought struck me.
“Rothenburg,” I said, wielding my pick somewhat viciously, “you have
bought this land; how do you manage to hold it?”
He struck work, as usual, and turned the watery blue eyes upon me.
“We hold it, Juliet,” he said—I was officially known to all the
comrades as Juliet—“we hold it”—he paused as if I were drawing a
tooth—“we hold it by trustees. No other way is possible.”
“The English law compels you?”
“My faith, yes; we cannot own it as a Community.”
“And suppose some comrade were to refuse to work, and yet stick to his
rooms. What could you do to get rid of him?”
That was a problem for Rothenburg. He fondled the thin yellow hair till
I thought it would come out; he fingered the shadowy moustache with that
nervous hand till he made me frightened.
“I imagine,” he said at last, after due deliberation, in a very slow
tone, “we would be compelled to call in . . . . the State . . . . to
eject him.” He uttered that hated word with visible effort.
Appello Cæsarem! I dug my pick into the ground more viciously than ever.
But I said nothing. Coercive practices! I saw I was back with my old
friends Aforesaid and This Indenture Witnesseth.
Yet I will do the anarchists the justice to say that none of them seemed
anxious to afford their pet bugbear, the State, the opportunity of
trying this test case. They toiled hard, and inefficiently. In the sweat
of their brow they did very little. None of them could be called a
specialist in gardening. Rothenburg himself had worked as a lady’s
tailor in Paris, he told me, and had flung up a post of fifty francs a
week—“Not bad wages for a working man,” he observed, preening himself,
with the complacency of a willing martyr—to till the soil with
intensive culture. I believe he was really a good tailor spoiled to make
an indifferent gardener. Still, one could not help respecting his
enthusiasm. When I pressed him further on this head, he admitted with
regret that in the present state of the world only a chosen few—“like
you and me, Juliet”—were fit for anarchy. (I felt half inclined to
retort with the last of the Sandemanians, that I was “no that sure of
Juliet.”) However, he thought it was well to begin the experiment; after
all, one should live up to one’s highest ideal.
I glanced around at the sodden field, the bald brick cottages, and had
doubts in my mind whether they did really fulfil my highest ideal.
I worked hard with the rest. A certain sense of honour made me work my
hardest. _Noblesse oblige_; and precisely in proportion as I saw the
comrades would be content to let me shirk some share of my task out of
regard for my gentility, did I feel it incumbent upon me to do my utmost
possible. I wore my cycling suit in the fields, and laboured like a man.
I am not muscularly strong, but I have been well trained, and I honestly
believe I was the most efficient workman in all that little group of
incompetent town toilers.
In my spare time I set about reforming the kitchen. The vegetarian
dishes I had learned at the Guild delighted the souls of the simple
anarchists. My barley cutlets with tomato sauce were voted “heavenly” in
best lip-licking Teutonic; my vermicelli shape received the praise of
“bravissima” from our Neapolitan Luigi. This skill in cookery much
increased my vogue among the men of the Community; while the women were
not sorry to have their task lightened by a little amateur assistance.
If I have not said much here of the women and children ’tis not for want
of appreciation: they were the salt of the settlement. There was no
nonsense of high principles about them: they had followed their husbands
and fathers and brothers to this outland spot as women will do; and they
would have shouted “Vive l’Empereur” as heartily to-morrow as they
shouted “Vive l’Anarchie” when asked to-day. But they loved to applaud
Rothenburg on the war-path of peace, and would have scalped anyone who
doubted the truth of the shibboleths of fraternity.
With the children I made great friends. Dear rough-and-tumble little
things, they oozed with merriment. My rational dress delighted them: so
did Mr. Commissioner, with his white teeth, as soon as they had got over
the first formalities. He suffered them to pull his tail like a lamb. We
played games together at night, in the intervals of reorganising
European affairs and abolishing the capitalist. We romped like tomboys.
My attempts to tell them “Cinderella” and “The Three Bears,” in bad
German, translated by the more knowing into Czech and Yiddish, were not
a complete success; but neither were they a failure, for at any rate
they resulted in happy laughter. Besides I taught them cat’s-cradle, and
cat’s-cradle at least has escaped the curse of Babel.
Still, rocks lay ahead. My Odyssey was not so quickly to bring me into
port. By the end of the week a cloud took shape: I foresaw storms
brewing.
All the comrades were devoted in equal parts to myself and my bicycle.
In the evenings, when work was done, and we had watered the cabbages, I
gave them lessons in turn on the mysterious monster. From the beginning
it occurred to me that most of them were anxious to entice me away from
the common field towards remoter lanes where occasions for private talk
were more easily obtained. But, mindful of my promise not to form
idolatrous attachments, I resisted the temptations of the polyglot
Fausts who would fain have discoursed to me the words of love in many
uncouth languages. It was my policy to keep close to the cottages and
the other women, backed up by that round mountain of Britannic
matronhood, the guileless Mrs. Pritchard. Besides, in the Commissioner,
I had an efficient bodyguard.
On Saturday came the weekly division of profits. We had done well that
week, having sent consignments of early roses and asparagus to Guildford
and London. We declared a dividend, a splendid communal dividend, at the
rate of four shillings per head for adults, and two shillings for
children. I thought this profit magnificent. But just before the
distribution of cash, Rothenburg strolled up to me, as I was dandling a
mottle-armed anarchist. His fingers twitched on the imperceptible
moustache more tremulously than ever. “Juliet,” he said, briefly, “I
want to speak to you.”
He said it in the voice with which our Principal at College was wont to
summon us to her study for the discipline of exhortation. Free anarchist
though I was, I listened and trembled.
“Well, Rothenburg?” I murmured, laying down the baby.
“The question is, do you mean to remain with us?”
“Why, certainly,” I cried, astonished. “Did we not swear eternal
friendship?”
“But—the comrades complain that you take no notice of them.”
“No notice! Absurd! Why, I have taught them how to bicycle.”
“Yes; but that is not everything. Friends should show friendliness. You
hold them at arm’s length. You keep yourself aloof. You have no
_camaraderie_.”
I looked him hard in the face. He blinked his watery eyes. I knew he was
sincere—a good, honest anarchist; but he expected too much of me.
“Rothenburg,” I said firmly, “I call this coercion.”
“No, no; not coercion; but comrades ought to be sociable.”
“’Tis intolerable!” I exclaimed. “What is anarchy for, if we are each to
be forced into talking to one another against our wills? I have done my
week’s work; I have cooked you good food; I have lent you my bicycle;
and still you complain of me. The Banded Despots”—which was our
technical phrase, to wit, for the British Government—“could not do
worse than that, nor as bad as that either. They do not insist that one
should make oneself agreeable. They are amply satisfied if man pays
man’s taxes.”
He twirled the non-existent moustache till he put a visible point on it.
His fingers twitched painfully. “I only tell you what the comrades are
saying,” he replied, in a deprecatory way. “They find that you do not
behave to them like a sister. In one word, they think that you give
yourself the airs of a superior person. You pose as an _aristo_. They
believed when you came that you would amalgamate freely with us. We want
no women who decline to fraternise.”
This was too much for my temper. I broke into open mutiny. “I shall
resign,” I cried. “You are bringing to bear against me the intolerable
tyranny of public opinion. I shall go back to the freedom and comfort of
the Despots.”
His jaw dropped at this resolve. His eye glanced feelingly sideways
towards the bicycle. For a moment I feared Commissioner Lin would pin
him. “No, no,” he cried. “You must not do that. We all like and respect
you. We wish you to remain. But we wish you to be a sister. Give me time
to consider—to communicate with the comrades.”
“Not one moment,” I answered, hardly liking this turn. “Hand me over my
money, and let me go! I have worked for a week, and the labourer is
worthy at least of his travelling expenses. I return to London.”
He hurried back to the group who hung about the door of the Community
cottage, and spoke to them in low tones. Then he came again as envoy.
“All the comrades say, if you will reconsider your decision, they will
no longer insist upon your altering your demeanour.”
“I will _not_ reconsider it,” I replied, growing really frightened, for
I caught Léon’s eye. “I go at once. Give me my money, and let me return
to the world I came from.”
They debated again. Commissioner Lin watched the case in my interest.
Then one of the others approached. It was Léon—Caliban—the man with
the protruding lips. I had my hand on my bicycle, and was ready to mount
it.
“This machine is ours,” he said calmly, putting his face close to mine.
“Whatever any comrade brings into the Community is common property. We
will give you your dividend and let you go; but this you must leave with
us.”
My blood was up. The old Eve within me was roused. The American eagle in
my heart flapped its wings. I remembered how my fathers had fought at
Lexington (they were quite a property to me). “Sir,” I exclaimed, in my
most commanding voice, “you shall not touch my machine. If you venture
to detain it”—I tried to remember the worst phrases I had learnt at
Flor and Fingelman’s—“I will move for a mandamus to compel you to show
cause why you should escape the penalties of præmunire.” What it all
meant I do not know; but I am sure the effect upon Caliban’s mind was
most salutary. I have ever since had a vastly increased respect for the
law of England.
They conferred again for a few minutes, with one eye on the
Commissioner. Then Rothenburg came forward once more as spokesman. “Will
you try it again for one week?” he asked in a really grieved voice. “We
shall be sorry to lose you.”
“Not for one day!” I answered, a furtive gleam in Commissioner Lin’s eye
lending me courage. “Give me what I have earned, and let me go!” I asked
for it with the greater confidence because I felt sure in my own mind I
had done more effective work in the week than any of them.
They paid me, murmuring. I retired to my cubicle, packed my knapsack in
haste, returned to my machine, and laid my hand on it firmly. But within
I was trembling like an Italian greyhound. Then I jumped into the
saddle, and waved my hand to my sworn brothers, with an affectation of
courage. “Messieurs,” I said—and to call them “messieurs” was to
excommunicate myself, to deny _camaraderie_—“Messieurs, you are a mass
of conventions. I wish you the very good morning. Your rules are too
stringent for me. I cannot away with them. I find myself too individual,
too anarchic for the anarchists!”
Then I waved my hand again, and set my face sternly towards
civilisation, despotism, and the flesh-pots of Egypt.
I was weary of dissent, and longed for the catholic church of humanity.
I must go back to London, and be once more a type-writer.