"You'll have to make your bill of indictment more detailed. What's
insincere about it?"
"You know as well as I do."
Never in any of our talks did she give me so vivid an impression of
earnestness. With a sudden twist she sat up and faced me.
"It's cynical. There are two parts to the book--exposition and
conclusions. The conclusions are pitiable. You suggest a program of
reforms in the judicial and penal system. And they are petty--if they
were all accepted, it wouldn't solve the problem of crime. You imply
one of two things, either that these reforms would solve the problem,
which they wouldn't, or that the problem is insoluble, which it isn't."
"Count one," I said. "Pleading deferred."
"And then--this is worse--you know there is no more chance of these
reforms being granted under our present system, than of arithmetic being
reformed to make two and two five."
"Count two. Not guilty."
"No jury would acquit you on it. But there's a third count--perhaps the
worst of all. The book is horribly superficial. Hidden away in your
preface you mention the fact that the worst crimes against society are
not mentioned in the code. You gently hint that some Wall Street
transactions are larcenous, even if they are not illegal. All hidden in
your preface!"
"That's entirely unfair," I protested. "You are quarreling with me over
a definition. My book deals with the phenomena of the criminal courts.
I have no business with what you or the newspapers call crime. If I
wanted my work to be scientific I had to get a sharp definition. And I
said that crime consists of acts forbidden by the legislature. I
pointed out that it is an arbitrary conception, which is always
changing. Some things--like kissing your wife on the Sabbath day--are no
longer criminal and some things--like these Wall Street
transactions--probably will be crimes tomorrow. Your third count is not
against me but against the 'Scientific Method.'"
"Tommyrot!" she retorted. "You try to evade a big human truth by a
scientific pretext. You know that ninety per cent of the criminal law,
just as ninety-nine per cent of the civil law, is an effort to make
people recognize property relations which are basically unjust. If our
economic relations were right it would eliminate ninety per cent of
crime. And justice--socialism--would do more, it would result in
healthier, nobler personalities and wipe out the other ten per cent.
There's the crux of the problem of crime and you dodge it.
"You have a chapter on prostitution. It's splendid, the best I've
seen--where you describe present conditions. But the conclusions
are--well--sickening. Do you really think that taking the poor women's
finger prints will help? Of course you don't! It's all wrapped up in
the great injustice which underlies all life. You come right up to the
point--you say that most prostitution comes because the daughters of the
poor have no other alternative but the sweatshop--and then you shut your
mouth like a fool or a coward.
"Your book might have been wonderful--a big contribution. Oh, why didn't
you? It's only half-hearted--insincere!"
I cannot recall my defense. I tried to make her see how we came at the
problem from the opposite poles, how her point of departure was an ideal
social organization, while I started from the world as it is, how she
spoke in terms of the absolute, and I thought only of relative values,
how she saw an abiding truth back of life and I believed in an
all-pervading change. We fought it out bitterly--with ungloved
words--all the afternoon. Neither convinced the other, but I think I
persuaded her of my sincerity, almost persuaded her that "narrow" was
not the best word to express my outlook--that "different" was juster.
The sun was down in the tree-tops when at last she brought the argument
to a close.
"We'll never agree. Our points of view are miles apart."
"But that," I said, "need make no difference, so long as we are honest
to each other--and to ourselves."
"I'm not sure about that," she said. "I must think it out."
She stretched out on the grass again and began to poke a straw into an
ant-hole. I sat back and smoked and blessed the gods who had moulded so
perfect a back. Then she looked at her watch and jumped up.
"Do you realize, Suzanne, that you have violated the treaty? You've
talked sociology and socialism. Now--I'm free..."
"Oh! Please don't!" she interrupted. "Not now. We must hurry to
dinner."
I got up laughing and we walked in silence, between the great trees, in
the falling dusk, back to the Hotel de la Palette. The joviality of
that troupe of young artists forced us to talk of trivial things. After
supper we stood for a moment in the doorway. Behind us was noisy
gayety, before us the full moon illumined the gray walls of the citadel,
shone enticingly on a quiet reach of the river.
"Come," I said. "Let's go down to the bridge--the water will be
gorgeous in this light."
For a moment she hung back reluctantly; then suddenly consented. But in
the village, she wasted much time looking for the house where Napoleon
had slept in hiding on his return from Elba. When we came at last to
the bridge she clambered up on the parapet. I leaned against it beside
her. The light on the river was gorgeous. Although there was no wind
for us to feel, the great clouds overhead were driven about like
rudderless ships in a tempest. For a moment the moon would be hidden,
leaving us in utter darkness, the next it would break out, its glory
bringing to life all the details of the picturesque old houses by the
riverside. Suzanne made one or two barren attempts at conversation. At
last I plunged into the real business of the moment.
"Of course," I began, "if you really wish it, I will postpone this till
we get to Paris."
There was a perceptible tightening of her muscles--a bracing. But she
did not speak.
If I was eloquent that night, persuasive, it was because I did not plead
for myself, but for love. It is sometimes said that love is egoistic,
subjective, to me it seems the most objective thing in the world. It
is--at its grandest--I think, a complete surrender to the ultimate
bigness of life. Without love we have nothing to fight for except our
little personalities, no better occupation than to magnify our
individuality. Love shows us bigger things. At least it was this I
tried to tell Suzanne. She had looked on love as a disturbing element
in life. I tried to show it to her as the goal, the apotheosis of life.
It seems to me, as I look back on it now, that I was hardly thinking of
Suzanne--not at all of my desire for her. I was talking to something
further away than she, perhaps to the moon. I was trying desperately to
formulate a faith--to give voice to a belief.
And then she laid her hand on mine--and I forgot the moon. I saw only
the glory of her face, different from what I had ever seen it. It was
paler than usual and dreamy. It seemed surprisingly near to me. When I
kissed her, she did not turn away.
Suddenly it rained.
Much of my life has hinged on just such stupid, ludicrous chances. It
poured--soaking and cold. It was a serious matter for us. We were
traveling light, with nothing but our rucksacs nearer than Paris, no
outer clothes except those we wore. Although we ran all the way we were
drenched to the skin before we reached the hotel. The rain stopped as
abruptly as it had commenced. We were too breathless to talk as we
clambered up the stairs to our garret rooms.
After a hard rub, dry underclothes and pajamas, I wrapped myself in a
blanket and lit my pipe. Through the thin partition I could hear
Suzanne giving directions to the bonne to dry her clothes by the kitchen
fire. Then her bed creaked. From the cafe downstairs came sounds of
riotous mirth. Our talk had been so inconclusive.
"Suzanne," I said, knocking on the door between our rooms. "May I come
in? Please. It's awfully important."
There was no answer and I opened the door. The moon, having escaped
from the clouds, shone in through the mansard window, full on her bed,
painting her hair a richer red than usual. I must have been a weird
sight, with that blanket wrapped about my shoulders. But she did not
smile. I can find no word to name her expression, unless wonder will
do. There was a suggestion of the amazed face of a sleepwalker.
Instinctively I knew that she would not repulse me. That moment she was
mine for the taking. But I did not desire what a man can "take" from a
woman. I wanted her to give.
I sat on the foot of the bed and tried to talk her into the mood I
hungered for. It was not self-restraint on my part. I was not
conscious of passion. What I wanted seemed finer and grander. If she
had reached out her hand to me, all my pent up desires would have
exploded. If she had tried to send me away, it might have inflamed me.
If she had spoken--I do not remember a word. She lay there as one in a
dream. There was a strange, dazed look in her eyes, perhaps it was awed
expectancy. I did not read it so.
Hoping to wake her, I kissed her hands and her forehead. The great coil
of her hair moved in my hands like a thing alive. Its fragrance dizzied
me. Fearful of intoxication, I went apart for a moment by the window,
looked out at the sinking moon, until my head was clear again. I came
back and knelt by her bed.
"Suzanne. What I want is not a thing for the night, not a thing of
moonlight and shadows. What I want must be done by day in the great
open air--at high noon--for all time and whatever comes after.
To-morrow in the blaze of the sun...."
I could not say what was in my heart. The last rays of the moon touched
the profile of her face so glowingly that suddenly I wanted to pray.
"Oh, Suzanne, I wish that we believed in a God--we two. So I could pray
his blessing on you--on us."
Then I kissed her on the lips and went away.
The hours I spent in my window that night were I suppose the nearest I
ever got to Heaven. It seemed that at last my torturing doubts were
over, that I had read in the Divine Revelation, that the way, the truth
and the light had been made plain to me. For the second time in my life
I had the assurance of salvation.
Just as the rim of the sun came up over the eastern hills, I heard her
get out of bed, heard the sound of her bare feet coming towards the
door. I jumped down from my seat in the window. My dream was
fulfilled--she was coming to me in the dawn.
The door opened barely an inch. Her voice seemed like that of a
stranger.
"Arnold. Please go down in the kitchen and get my clothes."
I was ready to open my veins for her and she asked me to walk downstairs
and bring her a skirt and blouse and shoes.
"Don't stand there like an idiot," the strange voice said. "I want my
clothes."
Well--somehow I found the clothes and brought them back. She took them
in hastily through the door, closed it in my face--locked it. I think
the grating of the bolt in the lock was the thing I first realized
clearly. She was afraid I would force myself on her. We were utter
strangers, she did not know me at all.
Once in a strike riot I saw a man hit between the eyes with a brick. It
must have knocked him senseless at once, but he finished the sentence he
was shouting, stooped down to pick up a stone, stopped as though he had
thought of something, sat down on the curb in a daze--it must have been
a full half minute before he groaned and slumped over inert.
After Suzanne drove the bolt of her door through the dream, I got
dressed and sat down dumbly to wait. I heard her moving about her room,
heard her putting on her shoes--I remember thinking that as they had
been wet, they must be stiff this morning--then she unlocked and opened
the door.
"Arnold," she said in that constrained voice I did not know. "I've got
to go away--I want to be alone. There's a train for Paris in a few
minutes."