"Do you want any special poem?"
"Read several, and then get to 'Listen Beloved,' there is a point in it
I want to discuss with you."
She took the book and settled herself with her back to the window, a
little behind me.
"Come forward, please. It is more comfortable to listen when one can see
the reader."
She rose reluctantly, and pulled her chair nearer me and the fire, then
she began. She chose those poems the least sensuous, and the more
abstract. I watched her all the time. She read "Rutland Gate," and her
voice showed how she sympathized with the man. Then she read "Atavism,"
and her little highly bred face looked savage! I realized with a quiver
of delight that she is the most passionate creature,--of course she is,
with that father and mother! Wait until I have awakened her enough, and
she will break through all the barriers of convention and reserve, and
pride.
Ah! That will be a moment!
"Now read 'Listen Beloved.'"
She turned the pages, found it, and began, and when she reached the two
verses which had so interested me, she looked up for a second, and her
lovely eyes were misty and far away. Then she went on and finished,
letting the book drop in her lap.
"That accords with your theory of reincarnation, that souls meet again
and again?"
"Yes."
"In one of the books I got upon the subject it said all marriages were
karmic debts or rewards. I wonder what our marriage is, don't you?
Perhaps we were two enemies who injured each other, and now have to
make up by being of use, each to each."
"Probably," she was looking down.
"Do you ever have that strange feeling that you are searching for
something all the time, something of the soul, that you are
unsatisfied?"
"Yes, often."
"Read those last verses again."
Her voice is the most beautiful I have ever heard, modulated,
expressive, filled with vibrant vitality and feeling, but this is the
first time she has read anything appertaining to love. I could hear that
she was restraining all emphasis, and trying to give the sensuous
passionate words a commonplace cold interpretation. Never before has she
read so monotonously. I knew, ("sensed" is the modern word), that this
was because she probably felt and understood every line and did not want
to let me see it. Suddenly I found myself becoming suffused with
emotion.
Why all the delay, the fencing, the fighting, to obtain this desired
thing! This woman--my mate!
That she is my mate I know. My mate because my love is not based upon
the senses alone, but is founded upon reverence and respect. I
hope--believe--I _am certain_ that we shall one day realize the truth of
the words:
"When some strong-souls shall conquer their division,
And two shall be as one eternally!
Finding at last upon each others breasts
Unutterable calm and infinite rest."
For me, that means love, not the mere gratifying of the hunting
instinct, not the mere primitive passion for the longed for body, but a
union of the souls, which can be satisfied, having soared beyond the
laws of change.
What is it which causes unrest? Obviously because something is wanting
upon one of the planes on which we love, and so that part which is
unsatisfied, unconsciously struggles to have its hunger assuaged
elsewhere.
There is no aspect of mind, body and soul in me, which I feel would find
no counterpart in Alathea. If I reached out to any height spiritually,
she could go as high, or higher. The cleverest working of the brain I
could hope to manifest would find a complete comprehension in her. And
as for the body! Any student of physiognomy can see that those delicate
little nostrils show passion, and that cupid's bow of a mouth will
delight in kisses!
Oh! My loved one, do not make we wait too long!
* * * * *
Ye Gods! What a state of exaltation I was in when I wrote those lines
last night! But they are the truth, even if I now laugh at my expansion!
I wonder how many men are romantic underneath like I am and ashamed to
show it?
When Alathea had finished the verses for the second time, she again
dropped the book in her lap.
"What is your conception of love?" I asked casually.
"As I shall always have to crush it out of my life from now onward I
would rather not contemplate what my conception of it might have been."
"Why must you crush it out?" I asked blandly. "Your fidelity to me was
not part of the bargain, fidelity has to do with the sex relationships,
which do not concern us. One would not ask a secretary to become a nun,
on account of one. One would only ask her to behave decently, so as not
to shock the world's idea of the situation she was supposed to be
filling."
Her face grew subtle, a look came into the eyes which might have come
into George's or mine. I suddenly realized how well she really knows the
world from the hard school the circumstances of her life have caused her
to learn in.
"Then I may take a lover, some day, should I desire to?" she asked a
little cynically.
"Certainly, if you tell me about it and don't deceive me, or make me
look ridiculous. The bargain would be too unfair to you at your age
otherwise."
She looked straight into my eye now and hers were a little fierce.
"And you--shall you take a mistress?"