shopping; and he would ask her to bring out the afternoon paper. It
would be the day of the October massacre, for instance; and he be on
fire for the next batch of news. He would explain this to her; he would
tell her again and again--whatever else she forgot, she must remember
the afternoon paper. He would walk out to meet her, burning with
impatience; and he would ask for the paper, and see a blank look come
over her face.
Then, of course, he would scold. He had certain phrases--“How perfectly
unspeakable! Perfectly paralyzing!” How she hated these phrases!
“I had so many things to get!” she would exclaim.
“But only one thing for me, Corydon!”
“Everything is for you--just as much as for myself! All these
groceries--look at the bundles! I haven’t had a single moment--”
“But how many moments does it take to buy a newspaper?”
“But Thyrsis--”
“And how many times would I have to tell you? Have I got to go into town
myself, just for the sake of a newspaper?”
“I tell you I tried my very best to remember it--”
“But what’s the matter with you? Is your mind getting weak?”
And then like as not Corydon would burst into tears. “Oh, I think you
are a brute!” she would cry. “A perfect brute!”
Or else, perhaps, she would grow angry, and they would rail at each
other, exchanging recriminations.
“I think I have burdens enough in my life,” he would exclaim. “I’ve a
right to some help from you.”
“You have no sense of proportion!” she would answer. “You are
impossible! You would drive any saint to distraction.”
“Perhaps so. But I can’t drive you anywhere, and I’m sick of trying.”
“Oh, if you only weren’t such a talker! You talk--talk--talk!”
And all the while they did this, what grief was in the depths of them!
And afterwards, what ghastly wounds in Corydon’s soul, that had to be
bound up and tended and healed! The pity of it; the shame of it--that
they should be able to descend to such sordidness! That their love,
which they had planned as a noble temple, should turn out an ugly hovel!
“Oh Thyrsis!” the girl would cry. “The idea that you should think less
of my soul than of an old newspaper!”
“But that is not so, dearest,” he would answer. He would try to explain
to her how much the newspaper had meant to him, and just why his
annoyance had got the better of him. So they would rehearse the scene
over again; and like as not their irritation would sweep over them, and
before they realized it they would find themselves disputing once more.
Thyrsis would be making a desperate attempt to bring her to a
realization of his difficulties; he would be in the midst of pouring out
some eloquence, when she would interrupt him.
“But Thyrsis, wait a moment--you do not understand!”
“I am speaking!” he would say.
“But, Thyrsis--”
“I am speaking!” He would not be interrupted.
But then would come a time when they sat down together and talked all
this out, perceiving it as one more aspect of the disharmony of their
temperaments. It no fault of either of them, they would agree; it was
just that they were different. Thyrsis had a simile that he used--“It’s
a marriage between a butterfly and a hippopotamus. You don’t blame the
butterfly because it can’t get down into the water and snort; and on the
other hand, when the hippopotamus tries to flap his wings and flit about
among the flowers, he doesn’t make a success of it.”
There would be times when he took Corydon’s point of view entirely. She
was beautiful and good; her naïveté and guilelessness were the essence
of her charm and how preposterous it was to expect her to think about
newspapers, or to be familiar with the price of beefsteaks! As for
him--he was a blundering creature, dull and pragmatical; he was a great
spiny monster that she had drawn up from the ocean-depths. She would cut
off his spines, but at once they grew out again; she could do nothing
with him at all!
But then she would protest--“It’s not so bad as that, Thyrsis. You have
your work.”
“Yes, that’s it,” he would answer. “My work! I’m just a
thinking-machine. I’m fit for nothing else. And here I am--married!”
He would say that, and he would mean it; he would try to act upon the
conviction. Of course Corydon’s nature was a thing more lovely than his;
and, of course, it ought to have its way, to grow in freedom and joy.
But alas--there was “the economic screw”! His qualities--hateful though
they might be--were the product of stern conditions; they were the
qualities which had to dominate in their lives, if they were to survive
in the grim struggle for life.