LYDIA TO THE RESCUE
Political offenses, such as the one with which Chairo was charged, were
punished not by confinement in farm colonies but by imprisonment in a
fortress, and had this disadvantage that, whereas the term in the former
case could be diminished by good conduct, in the latter case it was
fixed for a number of years and was generally of inordinate length. This
was the remnant of a code prepared at a time when social crimes were not
much feared, whereas political crimes were regarded as of utmost danger
to the commonwealth. The maximum term of imprisonment was fifty years,
and this for Chairo would be practically equivalent to imprisonment for
life. The irreconcilables clamored for nothing less than this. It was no
small credit to Chairo's character in the community that with so heavy a
sentence impending over him, it occurred to no one--not even his worst
enemies--to ask that special precautions be made to prevent his escape.
That he would keep his parole was never for a moment doubted.
The difficulty attending any conclusion arose from the heterogeneous and
unorganized character of the irreconcilables; they were split up into a
number of factions, agreed only upon one thing--the "full measure of the
law" for Chairo; in every other respect they differed, some demanding
what they called justice, on grounds which they could not explain, but
the reasonableness of which they made a matter of conscience and
morality; others declared themselves to be vindicating "principles"
which, upon examination, turned out to be pure assumptions built upon
prejudice and temper; others professed to be acting as champions of the
cult, too helpless to be able to defend itself, and although willing and
anxious to discuss and explain their attitude, could never be brought to
any other conclusion than the "full measure of the law"--a phrase which
had obtained as complete a mastery over them as the "sleep" of a
hypnotizing doctor over a hypnotic subject.
The third day of the session opened in as great uncertainty as before.
Peleas had not spoken, and was unwilling to speak, until some amendment
could be hit upon which had a reasonable chance of uniting a majority.
The debate was, therefore, left almost entirely in the hands of the
irreconcilables, who vied with one another in the application to Chairo
of epithets that were picturesque and vituperative. Toward the close of
the session, however, an incident occurred that was unexpected and
startling: Arkles arose and asked that the courtesy of the floor be
extended to Lydia Second. Chairo half rose in protest, but Masters, who
sat beside him, whispered a word in his ear and he resumed his seat,
burying his chin in his breast. A loud murmur of excitement filled the
chamber; the motion was put, and it was carried without a dissenting
voice; the house sat wrapt in silence awaiting the entrance of the
speaker. Soon Irene was seen coming down a side aisle, and by her side,
shrouded by a veil, a figure, which all immediately recognized as
Lydia's. When they reached a point half way down the aisle they paused;
Irene said a word to Lydia, and Lydia removed her veil.
I had not seen her since we parted at Tyringham; as I looked at her
preparing herself to speak I experienced a conflict of emotion that
brought beads of perspiration to my forehead; my love for her now
kindled into admiration, the hopelessness of it, the fate of Chairo, an
undoubted admiration for him and yet a jealousy of him that tortured
me, willingness, nay, almost a burning desire to effect Lydia's
happiness at any cost--all these things struggled within me for mastery,
as with compressed lips I sat waiting to hear her speak. She was
obviously suffering from an emotion that made her eyes water and her
throat dry; she lifted her hand to her bosom once or twice in futile
agitation, but mastering herself, she stiffened, and, at last, as it
were by a supreme effort, lifting her head high, began:
"I do not presume, Mr. Speaker and gentlemen of the legislature, to
present myself before you trusting in my strength. I depend rather on my
weakness, for I am a woman, and because I am a woman who has
faltered"--she corrected herself--"who has suffered, you will hear me."
She spoke very low but very distinctly, and there was in the chamber a
silence so complete that she could be heard at the utmost corner of it.
"For him who has joined with me in this misadventure I do not presume to
speak at all. He is a man, and among men, able to hold his own. But you
cannot strike him without striking me, and it is for myself I plead."
Chairo's chin buried itself deeper in his breast, but he controlled the
impulse to protest. Indeed, there was a note in Lydia's voice that
brought a lump into his throat. He could not have protested had he
dared.
Irene had sent for a glass of water; Lydia partook of it, and then,
raising her voice, proceeded:
"Ever since I was restored to my home I have kept silence, because I
felt--and I was so advised--that a moment would come when I should be
better understood than at a time when the public mind was inflamed by
revolution and bloodshed. As to these things, I have cruelly felt the
extent to which I was the occasion of them, but I ask you to consider
whether indeed I was the cause. And I ask you, too, not to confuse the
question raised by the cult of Demeter with those other questions for
which the rebels stood. In these last I have had no share and to them I
shall not again refer. They have no part in the question you have to
decide. To give them a part would be to do me a great wrong.
"And as regards the cult of Demeter, there is no devouter daughter of
the cult than I; and that I should stand to-day, arrayed in the eyes of
some of you against the cult, chokes my utterance and fills my eyes with
tears. Nor should I have had strength to plead my cause with you to-day
had I not come to you leaning on one of Demeter's worthiest votaries."
Here Lydia put her hand on Irene's shoulder, and Irene looked into her
face and smiled.
"For in my heart there is a reverence for Demeter so profound that when
the mission was tendered to me, I felt that a cubit had been added to my
stature; I felt a strength grow in me to make what sacrifice was
needful, and as day passed day the sacrifice grew less and my strength
grew more.
"But oh, fellow-worshippers of Demeter," and she looked here at the part
of the hall where the irreconcilables had grouped themselves, "do not
frown on me when I say that there was also in my heart another
reverence, another strength, of which I was not sufficiently aware; and
in your faith in the cult you serve, do not blind yourself to that other
cult to which, whether we will or no, we are all--yes, all--subject. We
may harden our hearts to it, we may bring it as a sacrifice upon your
altar, but if it has once grown deep enough, it overpowers all the
rest--I am not ashamed to say it here--before you who ask mercy for
Chairo and you who ask for his destruction, I am not ashamed to publish
it to all the world--stronger than reverence for Demeter, stronger than
the unutterable honor of the Demetrian mission--is the love of a woman
for a man."
She paused; there was no applause, but the breathless silence that
reigned bore a higher tribute to the impression made than any spoken
word or gesture.
"And when love came it brought with it a sense of duty to another, so
that I no longer stood merely between Demeter and my love, I stood also
between Demeter and Chairo"--a loud murmur of disapproval greeted these
words. Lydia, however, went bravely on. "But I looked with suspicion
upon an argument that so favored my own inclination, and believing duty
to lie in resistance to inclination rather than in consent to it, I
strangled my love, and with a pride in my own sacrifice that was false
and bad I accepted the mission."
Again a murmur of disapproval filled the hall. This time Lydia
acknowledged it by turning to the corner whence it came.
"Yes, I repeat it--with a pride in my own sacrifice that was false and
bad--for it gave me strength to do a thing that was wrong! What is
heroic in one is vanity in another. And I thank you for that expression
of disapproval that reminds me to distinguish those to whom it is an
ugly hypocrisy. There are women--and may their names be blessed--who,
before their hearts have been kindled by love, bear within them a
capacity for sacrifice and a longing for maternity which makes of them
fitting subjects for the Demetrian mission; but when a woman has once
harbored the young God Eros, when she has by implication, if not by
express promise, sanctioned the harboring of him in another, then the
strength that can disown her love and break that promise is drawn from a
vanity that is foolish, or a conceit that is contemptible; and as I look
back to the day when, after weeks of weakening struggle, I arose from
the bed of torment strangely endowed with a strength that enabled me to
make unmoved my final vows, I see that my strength came not from Demeter
but from self-righteousness and self-conceit. And I make this bitter
confession before you all that the fault may rest where it should, not
upon you, priests and priestesses of Demeter"--and here she looked up at
the gallery where they sat--"not upon him"--and she turned almost
imperceptibly to Chairo--"but upon me."
Her voice sank as she said these words, and there broke from many of us
a murmur of sympathy.
"But these things," she continued in a louder voice, "are of little
importance by the side of what I have yet to say. Pardon me, if I have
had to speak of myself; it is not often--and, indeed, it is distressful
that so private a thing as this should become matter of public concern.
But you have to decide an issue in which the conduct of one least worthy
of your attention has become set up, as it were, before you as the
conduct of all my sex. It is not I that am judged, but all who are
unworthy of the mission--or shall I not rather say--unfitted for it. For
though I am willing--nay, desire--to accept my full share of blame, yet
am I not willing that my sex shall in my person be judged less worthy
than it is. Believe me, that noble as is the mission of Demeter, noble
also is the love of a woman for a man, and though I bow my head as I
confess my unfitness for the one, in vindication of the other I hold my
head erect."
She straightened herself at these words, and her stature helped to give
to this vindication both dignity and strength. There was something
splendid in the gesture, the emphasis, and the inflection with which
these words were said. For the first time Lydia's speech was here
interrupted by applause; it began far away from her and was soon caught
up by others, it swelled through the building, and feelings long pent
up in hushed attention to her now found relief in an expression of
triumphant approval; a few in their excitement rose to their feet, then
more, till all, except Chairo, who remained resolutely seated, stood
wildly gesticulating their admiration for the girl who had the courage
to face them in vindication of a love upon which some had wished to
throw disgrace, but which now she held up to universal honor.
The applause lasted several minutes; if it died away in one corner it
was vociferously renewed in another, and when at last, out of very
weariness, it came to an end, Lydia resumed:
"But all I have said is but a preface to what I have still to say: I
have spoken to you of myself, but what shall I say to you of Chairo? I
have told you of a duty I felt to him, but to every duty is there not a
corresponding right? And if Chairo had rights does he not stand, too,
for the rights of all his sex?"
Once more the chamber rang with renewed applause, and Chairo for the
first time raised his head and looked at Lydia. Now at last she had
lifted the subject to a level which eliminated him. He was no longer the
issue; she was speaking for all men, for the rights universal of
manhood, which the cult had, in his case, ignored and must at last be
vindicated.
"I have told you that by implication, if not by express words, Chairo
had reason to know I loved him; was he to stand by and see the rights I
had given him denied, rights for which he has stood, not for himself
alone, but for all men long before his own became involved? He stands
charged here with sacrilege and with violence. Mr. Speaker, and
gentlemen of the legislature, so far as I am concerned, he is guilty of
neither the one nor the other."
A deep murmur passed through the chamber as Lydia's voice impressively
lowered on these final words.
"Had the woman he snatched from Demeter's sanctuary been indeed fitted
for it, then he would have been guilty of both. But he knew I was not
fitted for it, he knew that I belonged to him, he knew that once I felt
his presence in my room I would consent--_and I consented_."
Chairo, whose eyes had remained riveted on Lydia ever since he raised
them, now lowered them again, and he covered his face with his hands.
That so sacred a thing to him as Lydia and his love for her should be
dragged into a public discussion was cruel to him, but that the story
should be told as Lydia told it, filled his heart with a mixture of
triumph and bitterness he could not endure to show.
"And so, Mr. Speaker, with my confession of consent, the charge against
Chairo of sacrilege and violence falls to the ground. As to those who
against his bidding sought to rescue their leader from his bonds I have
this to say: When there shall have disappeared from the hearts of men
the loyalty, devotion, and sacrifice that prompted an act of violence
forever to be deplored, then let this world and all that is in it
disappear from the constellations of God. They erred, but they erred in
a cause they believed to be righteous, and I protest--I plead the state
is strong enough to grant them pardon.
"Every institution, human and divine, has to pay a price for the
blessings it bestows--_dura lex sed lex_. Eventually, perhaps, wisdom
may so increase among us that the price all pay shall grow less and
less; eventually, the mission may be neither offered to nor accepted by
those unfit for it; perhaps, indeed, the events of last month may
contribute to this wisdom, but to-day, O priests and priestesses of
Demeter, join with me in the prayer to our legislators that they do not,
by visiting on these men too severely the consequences of their errors,
bring discredit upon a cult so precious and so noble as that of the
goddess you serve. Great is Demeter! But great also is Eros. May wisdom
so guide your counsels that Eros, no longer tempted to destroy the
altars of Demeter, may strengthen them and build them up, and so,
through continence and sacrifice, remain for us as beautiful as he is
strong!"
Lydia bowed her head over these words and gave her hand to Irene. We all
sat motionless; not a sound was heard as they slowly turned and
proceeded to leave the chamber. Then, with one accord, we rose, and in a
breathless silence the two women passed out.
We resumed our seats, and for some minutes no one spoke. At last Arkles
moved that, in view of the remarkable and touching words they had just
heard, the joint session adjourn for the day. "For," he added, "neither
I, nor apparently any of my colleagues, are able or willing by any word
of our own to efface or modify the impression they have left upon us."
"You have heard the motion," said the speaker. "In the absence of a
dissenting voice the session will adjourn for the day." Not a voice was
heard; we rose and left the chamber in silence.
CONCLUSION
My narrative has now come to a close: an amnesty bill was passed that
included every person charged, except Neaera, and deprived Chairo of his
political rights until the legislature should by a joint resolution
restore them; the editor arrested for libel was found guilty and
committed to a penal colony.
Lydia married Chairo. And Anna of Ann did not visit on Ariston his
indifference too heavily, but her nuptials were darkened by the absence
of Harmes. Out of a bold and crooked game Neaera had secured this one
small satisfaction.
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