Verena went into town with her in the horse-car--she was staying in
Charles Street for a few days--and that evening she startled Olive by
breaking out into a reflexion very similar to the whimsical falterings
of which she herself had been conscious while they sat in Mr. Burrage's
pretty rooms, but against which she had now violently reacted.
"It would be very nice to do that always--just to take men as they are,
and not to have to think about their badness. It would be very nice not
to have so many questions, but to think they were all comfortably
answered, so that one could sit there on an old Spanish leather chair,
with the curtains drawn and keeping out the cold, the darkness, all the
big, terrible, cruel world--sit there and listen for ever to Schubert
and Mendelssohn. _They_ didn't care anything about female suffrage! And
I didn't feel the want of a vote to-day at all, did you?" Verena
inquired, ending, as she always ended in these few speculations, with an
appeal to Olive.
This young lady thought it necessary to give her a very firm answer. "I
always feel it--everywhere--night and day. I feel it _here_"; and Olive
laid her hand solemnly on her heart. "I feel it as a deep, unforgettable
wrong; I feel it as one feels a stain that is on one's honour."
Verena gave a clear laugh, and after that a soft sigh, and then said,
"Do you know, Olive, I sometimes wonder whether, if it wasn't for you, I
should feel it so very much!"
"My own friend," Olive replied, "you have never yet said anything to me
which expressed so clearly the closeness and sanctity of our union."
"You do keep me up," Verena went on. "You are my conscience."
"I should like to be able to say that you are my form--my envelope. But
you are too beautiful for that!" So Olive returned her friend's
compliment; and later she said that, of course, it would be far easier
to give up everything and draw the curtains to and pass one's life in an
artificial atmosphere, with rose-coloured lamps. It would be far easier
to abandon the struggle, to leave all the unhappy women of the world to
their immemorial misery, to lay down one's burden, close one's eyes to
the whole dark picture, and, in short, simply expire. To this Verena
objected that it would not be easy for her to expire at all; that such
an idea was darker than anything the world contained; that she had not
done with life yet, and that she didn't mean to allow her
responsibilities to crush her. And then the two young women concluded,
as they had concluded before, by finding themselves completely,
inspiringly in agreement, full of the purpose to live indeed, and with
high success; to become great, in order not to be obscure, and powerful,
in order not to be useless. Olive had often declared before that her
conception of life was as something sublime or as nothing at all. The
world was full of evil, but she was glad to have been born before it had
been swept away, while it was still there to face, to give one a task
and a reward. When the great reforms should be consummated, when the day
of justice should have dawned, would not life perhaps be rather poor and
pale? She had never pretended to deny that the hope of fame, of the very
highest distinction, was one of her strongest incitements; and she held
that the most effective way of protesting against the state of bondage
of women was for an individual member of the sex to become illustrious.
A person who might have overheard some of the talk of this possibly
infatuated pair would have been touched by their extreme familiarity
with the idea of earthly glory. Verena had not invented it, but she had
taken it eagerly from her friend, and she returned it with interest. To
Olive it appeared that just this partnership of their two minds--each of
them, by itself, lacking an important group of facets--made an organic
whole which, for the work in hand, could not fail to be brilliantly
effective. Verena was often far more irresponsive than she liked to see
her; but the happy thing in her composition was that, after a short
contact with the divine idea--Olive was always trying to flash it at
her, like a jewel in an uncovered case--she kindled, flamed up, took the
words from her friend's less persuasive lips, resolved herself into a
magical voice, became again the pure young sibyl. Then Olive perceived
how fatally, without Verena's tender notes, her crusade would lack
sweetness, what the Catholics call unction; and, on the other hand, how
weak Verena would be on the statistical and logical side if she herself
should not bring up the rear. Together, in short, they would be
complete, they would have everything, and together they would triumph.