MADAME MOROZOFF-SMITH.
The Academy at Perfection City was not a pretentious building in
anything but in name. It was a plain wooden house, almost square, having
a window on three sides and a door on the fourth, facing south. Inside
there were several rough benches, two tables, an iron stove, and a large
easy chair, with a small desk beside it, upon which stood a pair of
candles. There were no curtains and no carpets, absolutely no attempts
at beautifying the place. But the board-floor was clean.
Olive dressed herself in a flutter of expectation for her first visit to
this abode of wisdom.
“I expect everybody will be there, because they’ll all want to see you,
little woman,” said her husband, who, tired as he was after his day’s
work, changed his earth-stained clothes for a fresh suit. Olive wore a
white dress with lavender ribbons, and looked as fresh as a daisy as she
tripped along daintily holding up her skirts. She wore the nattiest of
boots over the neatest of feet, altogether a bright and unexpected sight
upon the glum-looking prairie. It was a quarter of a mile to the
Academy, down a road hardly more than a cart-track, and across a dry
gully where there were no stepping stones.
As Ezra had predicted, everybody had turned out to welcome the new
bride. Uncle David met her at the door.
“Wal, little girl,” he said, “we’re all a-looking out for you. Here’s
Sister Mary Winkle, you’ve seen her, and this is her husband, Brother
Wright.”
Olive shook hands with a dark, broad-shouldered man who spoke in snaps
as if he had been a dog. He had glittering white teeth.
“We’ve been looking to have your husband back,” he said.
“I’m sure you’re very kind,” murmured Olive conventionally.
“We needed him for the ploughing,” snapped Wright.
“Oh indeed!” said Olive less cordially.
“This is the busy time of the year.”
“All times a-year is the busy time in my ’pinion and ’sperience,” said
Uncle David smiling comprehensively, “but most everyone spares time one
way or ’nother to get married if they have a mind that way. Come along
an’ see Brother and Sister Dummy. That ain’t their name, but we call ’em
so, they’re deaf and mostly dumb now. They’re real good folks too.”
A sad-eyed red-haired man shook hands with her, and a sad-eyed woman
kissed her. They put into her hand a slip of paper on which was written
a message of welcome.
“They can talk a little, but they can’t hear one mite, and they don’t
like to talk, because they can’t tell when they are whispering and when
they are yelling, and it makes strangers jump to hear them sometimes.”
Olive felt drawn towards this poor silent pair, but did not know how to
express her sympathy. There were others in the room, but before she had
time to speak to them the door opened and Madame Morozoff-Smith entered,
and from that moment she seemed to see no one else. Madame was a
remarkable looking woman. She was tall, large and fair, with keen grey
eyes, full red lips, and a mass of pale gold hair rising over a forehead
that was broad and smooth. A woman of indeterminate age with an air of
youthfulness and command about her. She was dressed in a dark dress and
wore a bright bunch of ribbons in her hair. It looked at first sight
like a rose, only roses don’t grow on the prairie in the month of May.
She came straight to where Olive was standing. She gave one the
impression of floating, for although a large woman, she walked so
lightly as to make no noticeable sound on the wooden floor. Taking
Olive’s two hands in her warm large grasp, she kissed her on the
forehead murmuring “Welcome,” and then stepping back she said in a clear
voice that vibrated through the room:
“Ah! now I understand that hurried courtship and swift marriage. I see
what it was in Brother Ezra’s case. It was love at first sight. You are
very pretty. I suppose, however, you know that very well. It is a secret
seldom kept from young girls.”
Olive was so startled by this unexpected address that she blushed to the
roots of her black hair. Ezra stood looking down at his little wife
smiling with pleasure. He was delighted to think that Madame found her
so pretty. He had indeed thought her beautiful from the first moment
when his eyes had rested on her, but then he loved her, and it was but
natural that in his eyes she should be lovely. Madame, however, judged
her unprejudiced, and yet if his delighted heart had room for one
regret, it was that Madame’s praise had been so very public. If she had
only whispered it softly to him in that wonderful voice of hers, which
had often caught up his inmost thoughts and clothed them in words of
eloquence, how much more precious would the tribute have been. He
dismissed the half-formed regret as unworthy, and took himself to task
for not exulting at this moment. The meeting of Madame and Olive was an
event in his life. Olive, his sweet little rose-bud of a wife, on the
one hand, and Madame, his venerated, nay his worshipped, friend, on the
other. The one, the companion of his heart: the other, the guide of his
mind who embodied in herself all that he held highest in the
possibilities of womanhood, his true and noble-hearted friend, his
inspired leader. How blest was the portion of him who stood that night
the husband of the one, the disciple of the other! Ezra’s dark eyes
shone with joy, and his square chin quivered with the smiles that lurked
about his lips. He was not a handsome man, perhaps, but there was
something grand in the large full forehead, strong eyebrows, and deep
dark eyes. His massive frame bespoke strength, which in itself has
always a great attraction for women.
When Madame had addressed those words to the new sister all the members
of the Community had scanned her narrowly, for the opinion of their
leader had immense weight with the Pioneers. The men looked at Olive
with increased admiration, and the women with envy. Only Uncle David
appeared disappointed and wiped his face many times with his red
pocket-handkerchief saying, “Wal, wal, now,” in a tone of earnest
reproof.
After this bewildering introduction in which her vanity had been not a
little excited, Olive received a salutary check from the words of
Brother Wright.
“Before beginning to read my paper,” said he, “I should like to say a
few words to the new sister who has come among us. We expect soon to be
having new members join us so fast that perhaps we shall not be able to
specially mark the entrance of each. But in this case there are peculiar
reasons for exhortation. Sister Olive has not joined under ordinary
circumstances. She did not, like the rest of us, feel a call to the
higher life: she only came out of personal affection for one of the
members of the Community.”
Olive looked with a shy glance towards her husband, who took her hand in
his for a moment, while Uncle David, who sat at the end of the room near
Madame, said in a loud voice:
“Quite right, quite right, couldn’t ha’ had a better reason.”
“Therefore it becomes our duty to impress upon our new sister the
principles which have been active in forming this Community,” said
Brother Wright, without paying any heed to Uncle David’s interruption.
“Perfection City has been founded to teach the world how to live. The
old civilization has been tried and found wanting. It is time for a new
one. Perfection City is the beginning of a new era. We are the Pioneers
of a new world. We shall show the old and worn-out world how to banish
evil from life. We cannot perhaps banish all physical evil, and for a
time at least there may be sickness even among us, but we shall at once
set about freeing ourselves from all the other troubles of life. There
is nobody in Perfection City who will get rich, and nobody will ever be
poor. We are all alike, and we shall none of us envy our neighbours his
belongings, simply because everything belongs to all. The lesson we have
to teach is the grandest the world ever saw, and when men know what it
is, I foresee a future before Perfection City greater than that of any
other city of the world. Rome lasted a good long while, but Rome didn’t
possess the vital spark of life: Rome wasn’t communistic, therefore Rome
fell. Perfection City won’t fall like that, but will go on teaching the
world after we, its founders, are all dead. But our memories will live
for the great things that we taught and through our example have made
possible.”
Brother Wright stopped for a few seconds, and Uncle David said
admiringly,
“You have a fine command of words, Brother Wright, and you have a way of
making things sound uncommon grand. It always does me good to hear you
talk of the grand future of our City; but we’ll have to get up some
houses, and bigger ones, ’fore folks ’ull believe us.”
Uncle David was as simple as a child, or some of his hearers might have
suspected a sarcasm in his words.
“Rome wasn’t built in a day, as I’ve heard say,” remarked Brother Green,
with a strong English accent, “and I shall be glad if our little village
ever grows to half its power and honour.”
“Brother Green, I should refuse to have anything to say to the founding
of another city like Rome,” interrupted Brother Wright with
decisiveness.
“It seems to me,” said Ezra in a shy hesitating manner, “that what we
are here for is to demonstrate, if we can, how a better life can be
lived here than is possible in the older communities, where
circumstances are too strong and too hampering for people to rise above
them. The older civilization has done much, it has raised our race to a
high standard. What we want to do is to carry on that work, and above
all to bring everyone within reach of the best that life has to offer.
The older civilization has left so many stranded ones, who have lost
their strength in the wild struggle; while we hope to bring all along
equally and give to each a share of happiness. As usual, my friends,
when I try to express my ideas I find that someone else has already put
them into incomparably finer language than I can ever command. It has
been so again. I find that our great poet, Walt Whitman, has said better
than I can what I feel. May I quote him to you?
‘Have the elder races halted?
Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the seas?
We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson,
Pioneers! O pioneers!’”
Ezra sat down after reciting his verse, and his wife looked at him with
glowing eyes. He had not said much, but his words had seemed to her so
much fuller of thought and feeling than the easy monotonous flow from
Brother Wright. That individual himself had not received Ezra’s remarks
with quite so much delight. It was Brother Wright’s nature to see fight
and contradiction in all things, even the most pacific. His eyes would
flash and his black beard bristle in argument, almost as if he were a
dog preparing to fight, and if one might be permitted to liken any
Pioneer to one of the canine species, the bull-dog would undoubtedly be
the variety most nearly resembling Brother Wright.
“I don’t see that we need be beholden to anyone, poet or otherwise,” he
said sharply, “for our opinions or sentiments. We have found them for
ourselves, just as we have founded our City. It is our work, both
opinions and practice.”
“I think,” said Madame, rising and speaking with a deep clear voice,
which a slight foreign accent seemed to render only the more attractive,
“I think I see better than they do themselves where our two brothers
agree. Brother Ezra, with that diffidence which strong natures often
exhibit, thought he found in the lines of another man his own ideas more
succinctly embodied than they would have been in his own words. Brother
Ezra should not doubt his powers. Speech comes slowly to those who most
deeply think, but he should consider how much we benefit by his words
and how grateful we are to him for them. Brother Wright, it seems to me
that you, perhaps, do not sufficiently appreciate the efforts of others
who have gone before us on this road. We are not the first who have been
discontented with the actual order of things, nor are we the first who
have striven to make life brighter and easier. In all ages there have
been those penetrated with these thoughts, and in different ways men,
and women too, have striven earnestly, devotedly, to realize these
ideas. Some indeed have imagined they had found a solution of all doubts
and difficulties, and have in perfect good faith and self-satisfaction
buried themselves in convents and monasteries and have ‘roll’d the psalm
to wintry skies,’ and have ‘built them fanes of fruitless prayer.’ We
have come to different conclusions by following a different road. We do
not shut ourselves out of the world, rather we endeavour to raise it by
showing a living example of what may be done now, in this age, by human
beings such as we are. But if we are to succeed we must not reject the
experience, nor fail to profit by the example, of others who have gone
before us and felt earnestly on this subject.”
Madame paused for a moment, and her keen glance rested upon the small
assembly. Each individual seemed to feel that she was looking at him or
at her. Certainly each member was looking intently at her. She seldom
made speeches to them; she only interposed her observations, as on this
occasion, between the speakers; but the last word usually remained with
her.
“Brother Wright, will you now read us your paper, as the evening is
passing and we are all anxious to hear it. What is the title and
subject?”
“The Ultimate Perfection of Being is the title,” said Brother Wright,
“and I think that pretty well sums up the subject also.”
So apparently thought the audience, which resigned itself to a severe
mental excursion into the unknown regions of Brother Wright’s
imaginative metaphysics. Some of them fell out very soon, finding the
road harder to follow than they had foreseen; but Brother Wright kept
sturdily on, unheeding the signs of weakness and disaffection as
betrayed by movings of feet and stifled yawns.
Olive, not being able to understand what Brother Wright was saying,
employed herself in watching Madame, who sat motionless beside her
table, resting her head upon her supple white hand. At her feet lay what
seemed to be a large brown rug, but was in fact her dog Balthasar, a
blood-hound, who always stayed with her and was as gentle as a lamb,
notwithstanding his name and breed.
“Brother Green! That’s the second time you’ve snored,” suddenly
exclaimed Brother Wright in the midst of his reading. Everybody was wide
awake in an instant. Madame hid a smile with her hand, but not before
Olive had noticed it.
“Brother Green is perhaps tired. His work is very hard,” said Madame.
“Well, the fact is I had to put a new point to the ploughshare this
morning before I went to fetch my load of iron, and I began work before
daybreak. I am very tired.”
Brother Green was the blacksmith of Perfection City, an industrious
hard-working man who thought life would show him a fairer side on the
prairie than it had ever done in the far-away village in Sussex where he
was born.
“I think that it might be better to have our gatherings rather shorter
now,” said Madame softly. “The workers in our little hive are all tired.
I wish I could do more of the labour that is needed. I would gladly——”
Madame was interrupted by a sharp rap on the table, a signal from
Brother Huntley that he wanted to speak. He was the deaf and dumb man.
She instantly rose and bowed to him with singular graciousness. Madame’s
manner towards the deaf brethren was all that was exquisite. Huntley
stood up and began in a voice almost inaudible which rose by sudden
degrees to the intensity of a steam-whistle.
“I want to know when we’re going to get our corn planted? We’re
behindhand; most other folk’s corn is in already.”
“As usual, Brother Huntley has something practical to say,” observed
Madame.
“He didn’t know we were discussing quite another subject, else his
remark would have been rude and irrelevant,” said Wright, vexed at this
cutting into his paper on the ultimate perfection of his and everybody’s
being.
“I think it would be very useful to see what we can do about the corn,”
said the blacksmith. “If we are late the chances are there’ll be another
drought in July, and our crop won’t be first-class.”
“Is anyone’s land ready for planting?” inquired Madame.
“None as I know of, except Brother Dummy’s,” said Uncle David. “He’s
more forward nor anybody: always first in work.”
“Of course, poor deaf creature! he can’t do anything but dumbly work
like a——” began Brother Wright.
“My land is ready for planting,” burst in Brother Huntley with a scream.
“Then it shall be planted to-morrow,” cried Madame. “I’ll go myself.”
“You!” exclaimed Olive.
“Certainly, child. Don’t you think I can work as well as any other
woman?”
She rapidly wrote a few words on a slip of paper and passed it to
Brother Huntley, who read it, nodded with satisfaction, and said: “Five
o’clock in the morning!” in a voice so low that no one knew he was
speaking.
“I suppose he begins work about six?” said Madame.
“No, he don’t, he’s mighty spry,” said old Mrs. Ruby, who lived near the
Huntleys. “I hear him a-movin’ off with his plough every morning at five
by the clock. He’s terrible sot on his work.”
“Then I shall be there ready to go to work at five o’clock in the
morning, and I shall begin by going to bed now, so as to be able to give
a good day’s work. Good-night, friends all.”
She rose, included them all in a sweeping salute and left the room as
lightly as she had entered. Balthasar rose and slowly followed her.
When Madame left the room the meeting broke up. No one felt inclined to
linger when she was gone. It was from her they drew their interest in
each other, as well as their belief in themselves and in Perfection
City. She possessed the secret of influencing people without seeming to
do so. The thought that she was going out on the land at five in the
morning to plant corn made everyone ten times more eager to work than
heretofore.
Wright and his independent spouse, Mary Winkle, were infected by her
example as they went home.
“Now, Wright, don’t you go and do any more essaying till the crop is in.
I think people oughtn’t to write except in winter time,” said Mary
Winkle with firmness.
“I never believed in nothing but manual work. Why, if I did, I should be
still slaving away on that farm out in Illinois, instead of joining a
community here where one can follow the bent of his higher nature, to
the advantage of his neighbours as well as of himself,” said Wright.
“Well, let that be,” said Mary hastily, recognising her own words and
oft-expressed opinions, but not quite knowing what to do with them—a
predicament not unexampled among theoretical philosophers, “but see and
be out on the land to-morrow as early as anyone. Are you ready for the
planting? Because I’ll go out and plant if you are.”
“No, my drills won’t be ready for the planting till day after
to-morrow.”
“Then I’ll go and plant on Brother Dummy’s piece along with Madame.”
“You’d better not. You’re not fit for such work. You’ll get sick and not
be able to cook me any supper when I come home.”
“No, I shan’t get sick. I ain’t going to let any person beat me at work,
when I set my mind to it, and she in her long skirts too! I’ll show her
the advantage of the reformed dress anyhow.”
Thus the Wright and Winkle pair on their way home.
“And will she really plant corn?” asked Olive in some curiosity.
“Certainly she will. Madame never despised work.”
“Oh! I don’t despise work, but she seems such a fine lady to go out on
the land and plant corn just like a negro woman.”
“That is one of the things our life here is intended to show, dearie,
that no one is too grand for any honest work that he or she is
physically capable of performing.”