DESIGNS ON ANNA OF ANN
My stay at the Pater's farm was altogether delightful, for most of the
day was spent in shooting. October was the only month open to all; but
one permit was given to every ten inhabitants during November, and as
there were forty-four, including the Pater's family, on the farm, it was
easy to spare one to me. The Pater's younger son Phaines had another; he
was not only a keen sportsman but an agreeable companion, and we killed
much game, great and small. During a period of twenty years the shooting
of bear had been prohibited, and now, with the extension of forests,
bear had increased so as to be extremely plentiful. Deer, elk, caribou,
moose, wild boar, and such destructive animals as lynxes, foxes, and
wild cats, furnished all that a sportsman could ask in the way of
variety. As the amount of game we killed far exceeded the consuming
power of the neighborhood we daily telephoned to the County Supply
Department for instructions where to ship it, and we received our pay
therefor.
During the winter, country people took their principal meal in the
evening, the morning and midday hours being the pleasantest for being in
the open air. The farm hands and we sportsmen took our luncheon with us
and came home prepared for a large meal. Those who prepared the meal
preferred to spend the dark hours from four to seven in the preparation
of it, and to be free during the earlier part of the day.
The evening passed pleasantly. Every large farmhouse--and there were few
small ones, except such as were, so to speak, dependent upon the
large--had a room with a stage, specially applied to music and
theatrical performances; it could also be used for such indoor games as
squash or badminton. In this room those who wanted to practice music,
etc., would assemble, and here they would occasionally give
performances. When these farms sent their inmates to the city for a few
months in the winter, hospitality was gladly extended them for the
variety of performances which they could furnish; and by this exchange
of population, the city people going to the country to harvest in the
summer, and the farmers going to the city for amusement and instruction
during the winter, monotony of life was eliminated.
One day when I was returning from a day's sport with Phaines, a buck
packed on each of our horses, we were talking of marriage, and I asked
him whether he did not intend to marry.
"I want to marry very much," said he.
I looked at him inquiringly.
"I have asked Anna of Ann a dozen times to marry me and she won't,"
continued he. "I can't see why she won't, either; she doesn't seem to
care for anyone else; she might as well marry me, and then she could
give all her time to that art of hers she is so devoted to."
"But she would have to work some part of the day at the farm, wouldn't
she?"
"No; we are quite well enough off to let her give all her time to her
art if she wanted to. It's this way: we have to furnish so much butter,
or its equivalent in eggs, poultry, stock, etc., to the state for the
amount of land we cultivate; then we have to support our farm hands,
that is to say, either we have to give to each wages out of the surplus
produce of the farm, over and above what we pay the state as rent, or we
have to furnish the state extra produce for every farm hand we have.
Well, our hands prefer the former of these plans. The amount we give
each farm hand depends on the amount of the surplus; every one of us is
interested in making this surplus as large as possible. In this way we
really have a great deal more than we can spend, and I could easily
afford, out of my share of the surplus, to support Anna, so that she
need not work at all."
"You are very prosperous then?"
"Yes, and why shouldn't we be? Now that we get grain at what it really
costs instead of paying middlemen and speculators, railroad
stockholders, elevators, etc., etc., everything is half the price it
used to be. Then we need never fear that no one will buy our produce.
The Supply Department can always tell us just where what we have is
needed, and pays us for it on the spot. It does the transportation; and
so the state needn't ask us an exorbitant rent, and can always pay us a
remunerative price for our surplus."
"But you don't suppose Anna of Ann would be induced to marry you just
because you could support her, do you?"
"She's a fool if she doesn't, as she apparently does not care for any
one else."
* * * * *
That night after dinner most of the party adjourned to the music room,
so I took a chair near the Mater who was knitting by the big fire in
the hall.
A benign smile lightened up her dear old round face as she made room for
me to get close to the fire. I was curious to know what she thought of
Anna, and said to her:
"Phaines tells me he wants to marry Anna of Ann."
"Isn't she foolish now not to marry him?" answered the Mater, putting
down her work. "I am so fond of her, and Phaines and she would make an
ideal couple. She could work all day at the art she is fond of and both
ought to be as happy, all the year long, as larks in the spring."
"I have sometimes thought," said I, wishing to draw the Mater out, "that
Anna looked sad."
"Well, she is a genius, and all geniuses look sad sometimes. It seems as
though somebody has to be sad in order that others may be happy. Now, I
am glad I am a plain farmer's wife and don't have to be sad. And yet,"
she added, taking up her knitting again, "I love to look at sad things.
Have you ever seen Anna's statue of Bacchus?"
I had seen it and wondered at it until it was explained to me that the
better Greek notion of Bacchus as the god of enthusiasm had been
restored to the Dionysan cult. Then I perceived that Anna had given to
the wine god something of the discontent that lends charm to the statues
of Antinoues.
"Anna's thought doubtless is," said I, "that the highest enthusiasm
springs from a sense of an unsatisfied need."
"Well, I like to look at it but I don't care to think about it. I like
just to toast my toes by the fire these long winter evenings and know
that our storehouse is full and our boys happy. But I do wish Anna would
marry Phaines."
Assuredly, thought I, man is a variable thing--constructed upon lines so
different that it is surprising one variety of man can at all understand
the other. And yet, in view of the variety of occupations in which man
must engage if he wants to satisfy his complex needs, how fortunate that
the Mater could be happy only on her farm, and Anna happy only in her
studio! And for the Mater and Phaines the question of marriage with Anna
was one that could tarry for its solution year after year; while for
Anna, her love for Ariston tormented her life, intruded into her art,
saddened and inspired it.
I was interested, however, to discover that she had escaped from the
thraldom of it for the time at any rate; for on the next day, when I
peeped into her studio early in the morning, she no longer threw a cloth
over her clay, but, on the contrary, beckoned me in.
And I saw dimly growing out of a gigantic mass of clay the noble
lineaments of an old man with shaggy projecting eyebrows and a beard
that rivalled that of the Moses of Michael Angelo.
"It is only the bust," she said. She looked very lovely as with
suppressed excitement she explained to me her thought, and her eyes
usually dim grew bright. "It is to be a colossal figure, standing; I
think there is something in it that is going to be suggested by the
Creator of the Sixtine chapel as he stands creating Eve; but then, too,
I see in the clay before me something more kindly, reminding me rather
of Prospero; and yet he is to be triumphant; I think one arm will be
lifted, half in joy and half in benediction, but his brow will be
thoughtful and sad."
"And you have got rid of Ariston altogether?" asked I.
She blushed and pouted a little.
"You must never speak to me of Ariston again. I am glad to be free from
him, in this at any rate--and it is your Tithonus that has rescued me.
If I were to put a legend to this sculpture--of course, I won't--but if
I were to do so, it should be 'Me only, cruel immortality consumes.'"
"And yet this would express only a small part of the whole thing."
"And that is why no legend should ever be attached to sculpture;
sculpture must tell her own story in her own way--legends belong to
literature. Sculpture must owe nothing to any other art than her own."
She was looking critically at the bust now, as though I were not in the
room, but presently becoming conscious of my existence again, she added:
"I value this legend because it started me on a new line of thought
unhaunted by the old."
For days Anna was so gay that I began to wonder whether Ariston had not
lost his opportunity, and I wondered so all the more when I saw little
advances to Anna on his part unresponded to. One evening when he had
felt himself discouraged by her, he said to me:
"I don't think Anna will ever care for anything but her art. I asked her
to show me what she is doing and she refused--a little curtly, I
thought."
"My dear Ariston," answered I, "do you suppose Anna is going to fall
into your arms the moment you open them to her? You have treated her
for years as though she did not exist, and now you are disappointed
because at a first lordly approach she does not at once fall trembling
at your feet."
"Am I really such a coxcomb as that?" asked Ariston.
"Don't take me too seriously," said I. "All I mean to suggest is that if
Anna is worth winning she is worth wooing; she is absorbed in her
work--her life is quite filled with it--and if you want her life to be
filled with you, you must take some little trouble and exercise some
little patience."
Ariston laughed good humoredly, and asked me how Lydia was doing. I had
seen little of her. We met at meal-time, but so many sat down to every
meal that I seldom found myself near her. I knew that she heard daily
from Chairo and wrote daily to him, but more than this no one knew.
Ariston explained to me that the forces marshalled in opposition to one
another were now fairly organized, but that it was impossible to tell
with whom the victory would rest. The leader of the government, Peleas,
was not a big man; on the contrary, many charged him with being narrow.
He was bitterly opposed to the amnesty bill; regarded Chairo as a
firebrand who must be suppressed, and asked, if blood could deluge the
streets of New York one day and amnesty be voted to those responsible
therefor the next, what security could the community hope for in the
future? Would not such action serve to encourage all discontent to take
the shape of riot and revolt?
There was, of course, much truth in his view. The Demetrian council had
met, but their decision was kept absolutely secret. Irene had now
altogether recovered and was expected to direct the Demetrian forces in
the legislature; she would not, however, take the floor; it was
considered that their spokesman ought to be a man. Ariston was
disqualified by the fact that he was acting for Chairo; so they decided
on an extremely judicious, though not very eloquent speaker, by name
Arkles. Ariston returned to New York the next day.