NEAERA
Meanwhile I was becoming acquainted with Lydia's family and their
friends. They occupied a building extending from Fifth Avenue to Lenox
Avenue and from 125th Street to 130th Street. It had a large cloistered
court within which was a beautiful garden, consisting of a grove
inclosing a lawn bordered by flowers. It was usual for the inmates of
the building to meet for tea in the grove on the border of the lawn.
They divided themselves into groups, each with his own arrangement of
chairs, hammocks, and tables, which reminded me of some of our _fetes
champetres_. Within the grove were openings for such games as tennis--of
which they had an infinite variety--and also for stages on which they
rehearsed concerts and plays. The hours between five and seven were by
common consent surrendered to social amusements. At seven there was an
adjournment to the swimming bath and gymnasium with which every
building was provided. Eight was the usual hour for dinner, this meal
being usually reserved to the family; and the evening was spent very
much as with us, either at some theater or at home. The dinner party was
a thing almost unknown. In the first place, the principal meal, and the
only one which required much preparation, was in the middle of the day.
The evening meal at eight was never more than our high tea, the object
of this system being to lighten domestic service. In the second place,
the unmarried, who did not live with their families, generally dined
together in the common hall; and if members of a family wished to dine
at the common table they could at any time do so. Members of different
families frequently dined at one another's domestic table but upon terms
of intimacy; the conventional dinner party had become ridiculous, no one
having the means or feeling the necessity to make a display. The more
thrifty and the best managers, who were skillful at dressing food and
chose to apply their leisure to securing exquisite wines, often
entertained; but out of the hospitality that enjoys sharing good things
with others, rather than the pride which seeks to impress a neighbor by
ostentation of wealth.
I learned later that, although the conditions I have described still
prevailed, the state was passing out of the pure Collectivism with which
it started; that numerous factories had been started by private
enterprise, partly to supply things not supplied by the state, partly
because of dissatisfaction at state manufacture. Although private
enterprise could only count on voluntary labor during one-half of every
day it had already assumed vast proportions, had given rise to
considerable private wealth and was modifying the social conditions that
resulted from primitive Collectivism.
I also perceived that although many of the problems of life, such as
pauperism and prostitution, had been solved by the introduction of
Collectivism, nevertheless it had not brought that total disappearance
of ill feeling which prophets of Collectivism had promised us in my
time. On the contrary, I soon discovered that the inmates of every
building were split up into cliques as devoted to gossip as in our day,
the only difference being that they were determined by individual
preference and political divisions and not by poverty or wealth; perhaps
it might be said, that the absence of the wealth standard raised the
level of the social struggle, deciding it by personal excellence and
attractiveness, rather than along conventional lines. Every man and
woman knew that popularity--and even political influence--could be
secured only by these, and this knowledge checked many an angry word and
prompted many an act of kindness. Chaff, too, and even sallies of wit
with a dash of malice in them were borne with more good humor than in
our day; because we all of us love to laugh, and generally the more if
it is at the expense of a neighbor, provided only there be no intention
to wound; so that those who bore banter well were as popular as those
who best could set it going.
And yet there were some very foolish and malicious people among them. I
remember a foolish one particularly, Aunt Tiny they called her. She was
an aunt of Lydia and Cleon. Lydia First, as Lydia's mother was called,
had married twice. Her first husband had not known how to keep her love
and they had separated after her first child was weaned. Then she had
married a second time; her second husband was an excellent man but
inferior to her; he had not been able to impress his personality nor his
name upon the family, and so the children of the second marriage as well
as the child of the first had taken the name of the mother. The second
husband had died some years before the beginning of this story; but a
sister of his--Aunt Tiny--had remained attached to the family. She was
very small and plump; her hair was of a sickly yellow color and so thin
on the top of her head that the scalp was plainly visible; she wore a
perpetual smile of self-satisfaction which expressed the essential
feature of her character; it was impossible for her to entertain the
thought that she was plain or unattractive; her happiness depended, on
the contrary, upon the conviction that no one could resist her charms
did she only decide to exercise them. Age did not dull this keen
self-admiration; on the contrary, as the mirror told her that
lengthening teeth contributed little to an already meaningless mouth, or
wrinkles little to browless eyes, she felt the need of faith in herself
grow the more, and her efforts by seductive glances to elicit from
others the expression of regard so indispensable to her happiness
redoubled.
I first saw her in Lydia's drawing-room. I had found it empty on
entering, but presently there came into it a little body with a hand
stretched up, in her eagerness to be cordial, at the level of her head,
and behind it a smirking face bubbling over with the effort of maidenly
reserve to keep within bounds an overflowing heart.
"Welcome to New York!" she said. "I'm _so_ glad to see you!"
She lisped a little, and as she emphasized the word "_tho_" she shook
her head in a little confiding way, and the smirk deepened into a
nervous grin.
I had been so long in New York that I felt her welcome a little
superfluous, but it was part of the doctrine, which kept her happiness
alive, that New York had not completed a welcome to a stranger until it
had been expressed by her.
I was a little confused by her effusiveness, for I did not wish to
offend an aunt of Lydia's, and yet I felt it impossible to respond in
proper proportion to her advances.
"You must be Aunt Tiny," I said. "I have often heard of you."
I refrained from telling her what I had heard; how she had constituted
one of the favorite types for Ariston's mimicry; how, indeed, Ariston
had gone through the very performance I had just witnessed, in which the
uplifted hand, the smirk, and the lisping "_tho_" had lost nothing in
Ariston's art.
"Dear Lydia!" she exclaimed; and in the pronunciation of the "d" in
"dear" she put exaggerated significance and added a shake of her head.
She wore little corkscrew curls; every time she shook her head the curls
quivered with suppressed agitation.
"Do sit down," she added--with unnecessary emphasis in the "do."
There was nothing to be done but to resign myself; she drew up a chair
quite close to mine and settled down in it as an army might settle down
for a Trojan siege.
"Do tell me--I am dying to know--how did it happen and what do you think
of us? You don't look very different from us; you remind me of Chairo,
and he is thought _very_ handsome"--her head and curls shook again and
she giggled consciously--"_very, very_ handsome!" She giggled still more
and her eyes assumed a coy meaningfulness that increased my discomfort.
I have never been able to understand why this poor little
woman--perfectly innocent of any real ability to harm--should have been
able to cause me so much annoyance; but there was something in her
glance that made me wish to throw things at her.
"And Lydia--isn't Lydia beautiful?" There was something caressing in her
tone as she puckered up her lips and dwelt on the word "beautiful" that
exasperated me again.
"What _do_ you suppose she is going to do? _Is_ she going to accept the
mission or marry Chairo? She is a great flirt, you know; quite a
terrible flirt! But _I_ shouldn't talk of flirting!"--and she giggled
again the same suggestive giggle. "_We_ mustn't be hard on flirts, must
we?"
This appeal to me, as though I were already _particeps criminis_, would
have led me to protest, but she did not allow me the opportunity, for
she continued:
"But she has not been fair to Chairo; a girl ought to know when to make
up her mind"--she became very serious now--"_I_ always knew where to
stop; no man ever had the right to reproach _me_."
I at last could agree with her and I smiled approval. She seemed
delighted.
"I am sure we are going to be great friends, and you will never
misunderstand me, will you?"
I protested that I never would, and was relieved by the entrance of
Lydia First, who suggested our going to tea in the grove.
On our way there as we passed the main entrance a detachment of
militia--some dozen or so--entered, divided into two columns, and stood
at arms while between them passed a woman somewhat more heavily draped
than usual. I asked the meaning of this, and was told that she was a
Demetrian.
"But why the military escort?" asked I.
"Demetrians are always attended by an escort unless they particularly
desire to be spared the honor; many would avoid it but the cult
dispenses with it only as a special favor and for a limited time."
"I cannot see the use of it," lisped Aunt Tiny.
But Lydia First looked sadly at her, and turning to me, said:
"All of us do not understand the importance of upholding the dignity of
the cult. It is the very key-stone of social order and we cannot pay too
much honor to those by whose sacrifice it is preserved."
We were joined at the grove by quite a party; Ariston came later; and
among others I remarked a young girl with bright black eyes who was
described to me as a journalist. It took me some time to become
accustomed to their habit of describing a person's occupation as that
adopted for recreation. The work they did for the state was not regarded
as a matter of particular concern; it was the work they selected for
their leisure hours which marked their character and bent. Neaera had
been first attached to the official journal of the state; but she had
joined Chairo's political party and her work on the journal betrayed her
partisanship, so the state assigned her work in a factory, and she
devoted her leisure therefore to the paper edited by Chairo.
As leader of the opposition Chairo was, by an established tradition,
relieved of all work for the state. Every political party representing a
designated proportion of the voters of the state could elect a certain
number of representatives upon the plan of minority representation, and
the leaders of the opposition were by virtue of such election released
from working for the state. No law had enacted this, but it had become
the rule by the operation of the principle of _noblesse oblige_. The
representatives who neither belonged to the ministry nor were recognized
as leaders of the opposition did not enjoy this privilege, except during
the sessions of the legislature. But it was recognized that the minority
parties in opposition had as much work to do as the party in power, and
public opinion approved the plan which gave to the recognized leaders of
these parties the greatest opportunity possible for exercising
vigilance. The number of these leaders being small, there was no fear
that the plan would give rise to idleness on a scale to be feared, and
the temptation of the government to annoy leaders of the opposition by
the allotment to them of onerous tasks, or that of ascribing such
motives to the government, was thereby eliminated.
So Chairo had his whole time free for the organization of his so-called
Radical party, and he published, with the assistance of his supporters,
a paper entitled _Liberty_, to which Neaera devoted all her spare time.
She was uncommonly pretty, but like all these women, was capable of
sudden changes of face and manner which, until I became accustomed to
it, constantly surprised me; though, indeed, I remember having noticed
it in some of the women of my own day whom we described then as
"advanced." Neaera was already seated at a small tea table with a young
man called Balbus, also a member of the _Liberty_ staff, when we arrived
and was engaged in earnest conversation with him. She looked at me
scrutinizingly when I was presented to her, neither rising nor offering
me her hand, and acknowledged the presentation only by a little
conventional smile. There was something that seemed to me ill-bred in
her keeping her seat when Lydia First and the rest of us arrived; but I
soon discovered that Neaera was a person of no small importance, and
expected attention from others which she did not herself concede. Our
party seated itself about an adjoining table and presently Neaera called
to me:
"Xenos, are you going to lecture at our hall?"
I had been invited by the Pater to lecture on the social, political, and
economic conditions of the twentieth century. He had assumed that such a
lecture would tend to strengthen the conservative and collectivist
government; and Chairo had asked me to lecture at his hall in the hope,
on the contrary, that it could be made to serve his own cause. I had
been told that these lectures were usually followed by an open
discussion, and I knew that it was from this discussion that both
parties hoped to draw arguments to sustain their views respectively.
Fearing, therefore, to become involved in their political animosities I
had not yet decided whether I would lecture or not, so I answered:
"I am not sure; I feel a little the need of understanding your own
conditions better than I do, before undertaking to contrast them with
those of our day."
"We'll undertake to explain our conditions," she said, with an oblique
smile at Balbus, "if you'll let us."
"I could wish for no pleasanter instruction," I answered.
"But I see you have Aunt Tiny," retorted she maliciously.
"Oh, I haven't taken him in hand yet," said Aunt Tiny, taking the
suggestion _au grand serieux_, "but," she added encouragingly, "I will!
I will!"
Balbus threw his head back and laughed outrageously.
"What are you laughing at, you goose!" said Neaera.
"Let him laugh and enjoy himself," answered Aunt Tiny quickly, by way of
discarding the thought that there could be in his laughter anything
disobliging for herself.
And Balbus, taking the cue, said:
"We don't want Aunt Tiny to take you in hand for she is terribly
persuasive"--the poor little thing giggled delightedly--"and we want you
on our side."
"I don't mean to be on either side," I answered. "I am your guest, and,
as such, must confine myself to stating facts; you will have to draw
your own conclusions."
"That's right," said Neaera. "All we want are facts; the conclusion will
be clear enough. For example, in your time, every man could choose his
own occupation."
"Undoubtedly," answered I.
"And was not subjected to the humiliation of working in a factory
because he would not be convenient to the party in control!" flashed out
Neaera.
I nodded my head gravely in approval.
"Imagine any of the writers of your day compelled to work in a
factory--Emerson, Browning, Longfellow!--and Tennyson--imagine Tennyson
working in a factory!"
"Abominable!" responded Balbus. "Abominable and absurd!"
"Wasn't Burns a plough-boy?" said Ariston, "And Shakespeare a
play-actor?"
"A second-rate play-actor, too," echoed Lydia First, "and ended by
lending money at usurious interest!"
"He chose to be that," retorted Balbus. "What we are fighting for is the
right to choose our calling."
"But haven't you chosen yours?" asked I. "Isn't journalism of your
choosing?"
"But I have to work at the state factory at the bidding of the state,"
answered Balbus, "for half of every day."
I could not help comparing his lot with my own in Boston. I had never
enjoyed the practice of law; indeed, I had adopted the profession
because my father had a practice to hand down to me. And as I sat day
after day listening to the often fancied grievances of my clients, their
petty ambitions, narrow animosities, and, particularly in divorce cases,
to the nasty disputes of their domestic life, I often felt as though my
profession converted me into a sort of moral sewer into which every
client poured his contribution. Had I really been free when I chose to
devote my whole life to so pitiful a business!
"Some part of the day," I answered, thinking aloud, "must, I suppose, be
devoted to the securing of food and clothing. In the savage state--in
which some people contend liberty is most complete--the whole day is
practically devoted to it. In our state it was much the same, except
that a few were exempt because they made the many work for them. But
only a very few enjoyed the privilege of idleness--or shall we call it
'liberty'?"
"No," answered Neaera, "it is quite unnecessary to confuse things;
liberty is one thing and idleness is another. We want the liberty to
choose our work--not the license to refuse it."
"Liberty, then," said Ariston, "is _our_ license; and license is other
people's liberty!"
"Ingenious," retorted Neaera, "but not correct. Can't you see the
difference between choosing work and refusing it?"
"Certainly," answered Ariston. "The work I should _choose_ would be
lying on my back and 'thinking delicate thoughts,' like Hecate. The work
I should refuse would be factory work, like _you_."
Neaera did not like to find herself without an answer; so she covered
her defeat by taking a flower out of her bosom and throwing it at
Ariston, who, picking it up, kissed it and fastened it to a fold of his
chiton. Just then a strain, that reminded me of our negro melodies,
being wafted to us through the trees, Balbus exclaimed, "Now, Neaera, a
dance!"
She sprang up at once and began moving rhythmically to the music. It was
a strange and beautiful dance, that had in it some of the quaint
movement of a negro breakdown, and yet the gayety and grace of a Lydian
measure.
Balbus clapped his hands to accentuate the broken time, and we all
joined him; Neaera, stimulated by a murmur of applause, gave a
significance to her movements; danced up to Ariston, then flinging her
hands out at him in mock aversion, danced away again; next reversing her
step danced back to him, and, snatching the flower out of his chiton,
tripped triumphantly off, throwing her head up in elation; and to
increase Ariston's spite she made as though she would give it to Balbus;
but upon his holding out his hand for it, danced away from him, and
after raising hopes in others of our group by tentative movements in one
direction and another, finally fixed her bright eyes on me, danced
hither and thither as though uncertain, and then finally brought it to
me, and daintily pressing it to her lips, put it with both hands and a
pretty air of resolution into mine.