A TRAGIC DENOUEMENT
Lydia could not disembarrass herself of the feeling of guilt with which
she awoke after her interview with Irene. She went to the temple for
help and knelt before the story of Demeter's sorrows, which was told in
sweeping frescoes on its walls. Chance so happened that she found
herself before that part of the story which described the goddess
forgetting her own sorrow in her devotion to the sick child of the
woodman in his hut. The artist, in the reaction from the Greek method of
treating this story which marked the narrative of Ovid as contrasted
with that of Homer, had dwelt upon the humble conditions of the poor hut
in which the light of Demeter's golden hair shone like a beneficent
aureole; and the nascent maternal instinct in Lydia vibrated to the
beauty of Demeter's task. Was she to renounce this highest standard of
maternity? What though she did love Chairo, was it not this very love
which the goddess bade her renounce? And was not the greater the love
the nobler the sacrifice?
She returned to the cloister weary with the struggle and strove to
forget it by devoting herself to the duties of the hospital. As she
cared for a sick child there, the fresco in the temple before which she
had that morning kneeled came back to her, and in the memory of that
hour and in the love that went out to the child she was nursing she
found consolation.
But perhaps she was most influenced by a certain capacity for passive
resistance in her, which unconsciously set her upon opposing the
inclination to yield, whether to her love for Chairo or to the pleading
of the priest. She could refuse to yield to both more easily than decide
to yield to either. And so, many days passed in the valley of indecision
before she was lifted out of it by an unexpected event.
A novice came to her one morning and bade her go to Irene, who had asked
for her. She had not seen Irene since the day they had spoken in the
cloister and she had wondered; but something in her had secretly been
satisfied. Irene would have challenged her to decide, and this was just
what she was not prepared to do.
As she followed the novice to Irene's rooms the novice had told her that
Irene was very ill and had moaned all night, begging for Lydia. Inquiry
elicited that Irene was threatened and perhaps was actually suffering
from congestion of the brain, and that she had been confined to her
rooms ever since she had ministered with Lydia in the temple. When Lydia
approached Irene's rooms a nurse stopped her by saying that Irene had
just fallen into a sleep--the first for a fortnight--and must not be
awakened. So Lydia remained in the sitting room, peeping occasionally
through the curtain that separated it from the room in which Irene
slept. For many hours Irene remained motionless, but at last as Lydia
stood holding aside the curtain, Irene opened her eyes; her face was
flushed; she sprang up in her bed, leaning on one hand, and glared at
Lydia with eyes that lacked discourse of reason. Then, suddenly, she
seemed to recognize her and a shriek rent the room and sent Lydia
staggering back against the nurse who stood behind her. Putting both her
hands over her eyes and ears Lydia dropped the curtain between herself
and the raving Irene; but no hand could keep her from hearing the words
that came through the curtain and pierced her brain:
"Go away! Go away!" shrieked Irene. "You have taken him from me! Stolen
him!"
Irene's shriek sounded to Lydia like the crack of doom. Then came the
words, "Stolen him," in the voice of the accusing angel--and as if it
were in answer to her own shrinking gesture of protest behind the
curtain, she heard Irene shriekingly repeat: "Stolen, yes, stolen!"
The nurse put Lydia into a chair and went to Irene; she found her risen
from the bed, and, shrouded in her curtain of blue-black hair, with
lunatic eyes, she was advancing slowly to the room where Lydia sat. When
Irene saw the nurse she said, in low grave accents, "Not you--not you!"
and then with menacing significance added, almost in a whisper, "The
other!"
The nurse tried to stop her and urge her back to her bed, but Irene
swept her away with a single movement of her arm, and moved to the
curtain which separated her from Lydia. But Lydia had by this time
recovered control of herself; she knew that a maniac was approaching and
she arose to await her. Irene pushed aside the curtain and confronted
Lydia standing in the middle of the room, motionless and rigid as though
changed to stone.
"Don't stand there, brazen-faced!" shrieked Irene. "Kneel--I say,
kneel!"
But Lydia stood her ground unflinchingly.
Then Irene burst into a furious laugh: "Great mother," she began
mockingly, and Lydia had to stand and listen while the maniac, with
lurid eyes and frantic gesture, recited the most sacred of the prayers
to Demeter--the prayer in which daily the vestal repeats her vows; but
as the prayer came to a close the light went out of Irene's eyes, the
fury out of her gesture; she slowly bent down upon her knees, and the
last words of the prayer were, in a voice sinking to a whisper,
addressed to Lydia as though she had been the goddess herself.
When Irene's voice died away it seemed as though the paroxysm was over;
she remained kneeling, with her head bowed upon her breast.
Then Lydia thought to lift her up, and bent down to her. Irene looked up
suddenly and shrieked as she recognized Lydia; she frantically waved her
hands before her face as though to rid her eyes of the spectacle, and
Lydia resumed her erect posture again.
By this time the nurse had returned to the room and tried to lead Irene
away. At first she succeeded, but suddenly Irene swept her away, and
confronted Lydia again:
"It hurts here," she said, clutching at her heart. "You'll know," she
added, and laughed harshly. "You'll know!" she repeated, and throwing up
her hands she clutched the air; then in an agony of paroxysm she
whispered again in a faltering voice, "You'll know"--and suddenly sank a
huddled heap upon the floor.
Lydia and the nurse ran to her and lifted her back upon the bed, and
from that moment Lydia did not leave her side. For many days life
hovered on the edge of Irene's lips, sometimes appearing to take flight
altogether, and again returning to reanimate the clay. And Lydia with
anguish in her heart bent over her night and day.
At last a crisis came and Irene fell into a profound and restful sleep;
the fever left her, and the pulse slowly recovered regularity and
strength; she seemed to recognize no one, and it was expected that for
some weeks she would probably remain unaware of those around her. Lydia
was advised to absent herself, lest to Irene, on recovering her reason,
the shock of seeing Lydia prove dangerous; and so, one evening as the
sun set, her strength shattered, she returned to her own rooms.
It happened that the following day was the ninth of the Eleusinian
festival, on which, if at all, those to whom the mission had been
tendered might accept or renounce it. Strange to say, with her waning
strength ebbed also the power of passive resistance which had kept Lydia
from decision; she surrendered not to the exercise of a controlling will
but to the suggesting influence of Irene's anguish; and on the next day
in the temple, to the rage of some and to the deep concern of all, in
the procession she wore the yellow veil which announced her as a bride
of Demeter.