As July sped along she realized that she must balance her accounts, for
Marvin would surely come. She was going to refuse him because life is
explosive; because the struggle for existence is too intense; because in
order to live men must immerse themselves in the immediate task; because
food will be harder and harder to come at; because when deprived of it
men are like Eskimo dogs, killing each other to secure the fresh blood
and red warm meat; and finally because even when they have enough to eat
they will go to war to get selfish luxuries.
Perhaps when her lover arrived he would stay three or four days and
argue the case. If so, she would be as steady as niton, which lasts
three or four days and is radiant all the time. Though it refuses to
unite with anything, it can be reduced to a rosy solid, colder than the
coldest ice, but cheerful.
So she dwelt on the joys of earth. Each night she lifted the earth,
threw it into space, and watched it come home to her. She saw its
whiteness take on colors. She saw it draw near with cracking and crying
of thunder till it yielded the impression that she willed—hues that do
not blind, sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.
It swam into her ken all misty green, bedashed with mosses and herbs and
trees, the lowliest forms of living lightning. By day they eat the rock
and breathe what we cannot breathe, by night they laugh and whisper and
breathe like us. She saw their marriage flowers, and loved them with a
sacred love.
All among the green roved the red of animals, seen roseate through its
veils of hyaline restraint and organized in batteries, ready to fly,
swim, dive into fire, ride on the curled clouds, or run upon the sharp
winds of the north. It moved in lines of living force around some pole
called home. Here was a hive, encircled with brief honey-seeking
flights. Here was a nest, encircled for ten thousand miles with flash of
wings. And here was a polar point beside the sea, a slender peninsula
encrusted with clays, a city of towers, the work of wonderful males.
From it sprang rootlets of lightning over all the earth, freighted with
friendliness.
And whether on land or sea, men often worked as one. They were fierce
and dangerous creatures, and she did not intend to increase their
numbers, but she could not help thrilling at their loyalties. They slew
their enemies on the slightest provocation, but what they did for their
friends was simply glorious. They stood by each other with contempt of
death.