PAULA BEGINS TO SEE MORE CLEARLY THROUGH MADAME NESTOR'S REVELATIONS,
AND WITNESSES A BROADWAY ACCIDENT
In mid-afternoon Paula obeyed an impulse to call upon Madame Nestor. She
wanted to talk with the only human being in New York who could quite
understand. Madame's room was west of Eighth Avenue in Forty-fourth
Street--the servant's quarter in a squalid suite, four flights up. The
single window opened upon a dim shaft, heavy with emanations from many
kitchens. There was not even a closet. Madame's moulted plumage was hung
upon the back of the outer and only door. Books were everywhere, on the
floor, in boxes, on the cot.
"My dear Paula, you felt the need of me?... I should have come to you.
This does very well for me, but I dislike my poverty to be known, dear.
It is not that I am the least proud, but the psychic effects of pity are
depressing."
"Please, Madame Nestor, don't think of me pitying anybody! I did feel
the need of you. The day has been horrible. But first, I want to tell
you that I am very sorry for what I said--when you were in my rooms the
other day----"
The elder woman leaned forward and kissed Paula's dress at the shoulder.
There was something sweet and mild and devotional in the action,
something suggestive of a wise old working-bee pausing an instant to
caress its queen.
"You have been impelled to go to him, Paula?"
"Yes. It came over me quite irresistibly. I could not have been
altogether myself.... I think I shall leave the city!"
Madame Nestor asked several questions, bringing out all she cared to
know of Paula's experience that day. Her eyes became very bright as she
said:
"I dare not advise you _not_ to go away. Still, don't you see it--how
wonderful was your victory to-day?"
"I can't always defeat him!" Paula cried. "His power comes over me and I
move toward him--just as reptiles must follow a blind impulse started
from without. Each time I follow, I must be weaker."
"But, Paula, each time something happens to restore you to yourself,
thwarting his purpose, his projections are weakened."
"But if I should go far away?"
"He could only put it in your mind to return."
When Paula remembered the accidents which had preserved her, even when
in the same city with the Destroyer, she could not doubt the salvation
in putting a big stretch of the planet's curve between her and this
dynamo.... Certain unfinished thinking could only be cleared through a
friend like Madame Nestor.
"This physical consciousness which he has made me feel seems
indescribably more sinister in erect human beings than the mating
instinct in animals and birds," Paula declared with hesitation. "Can it
be that women in general encounter influences--of this kind?"
"It is man's fault that women have broken all seasons," the Madame said
bitterly. "Man has kept woman submerged since the beginning of time.
Always eager to serve; and blest--or cursed--with the changeless passion
to be _all_ to one man--her most enduring hope to hold the exclusive
love of one man--woman has adapted herself eagerly to become the
monogamic answer to man's polygamic nature. Bellingham is but the
embodiment of a desire which exists in greater or less degree in every
man. This desire of man has disordered women. We have lost the true
meaning of ourselves--I mean, as a race of women--and have become merely
physical mates."
"I can hardly believe it--that even women of the streets should ever be
degraded by such a horrible force," Paula said desperately. "And the
sweet calm faces of some of the women we know----"
"Behind the mask of innocence, often, is a woman's terrible secret,
Paula. For most women obey. Even the growth of the maid is ruthlessly
forced by hot breaths of passion, until motherhood--so often a domestic
tragedy--leaves the imprint of shame in her arms. The man of unlit soul
has made this low play of passion his art. Woman as a race has fallen,
because it is her way to please and obey. Man has taught us to believe
that when he comes to our arms, we are at our highest.... And, listen,
Paula, certain men of to-day, a step higher in evolution, blame woman
because she has not suddenly _unlearned_ her training of the
ages--lessons man has graven in the very bed-rock of her nature. In the
novelty of their new-found austerity, they exclaim: 'Avoid woman. She is
passion rhythmic. It is she who draws us down from our lofty regions of
endeavor.'"
Terrific energy of rebellion stirred Paula's mind. "But the promise is
that woman's time shall come!" she exclaimed. "The Child, Jesus, said to
his Mother, 'Thy time is not yet come,' but it is promised that the heel
of woman shall crush the head of the Serpent. We have always borne the
sin, the agony, the degradation, but our time must be close at hand! I
think this is the age--and this the country--of the Rising Woman!"
Madame Nestor arose from the cot and stood before Paula, her eyes
shining with emotion.
"Bless you, my beloved girl, my whole heart leaps to sanction that! I
have symbolized the whole struggle of our race in your personal
struggle--don't you see this, Paula?... Bellingham is the concentrate of
devourers--and you the evolved woman who overcomes him! My hope for the
race lies in you, and your victory to-day has filled my cup with
happiness!... You say you do not dare to pray. I tell you, child,--the
God of women gave you strength to-day. He is close to harken unto your
need--for you are among the first of the elect to bring in the glory of
the new day!... The animal in man has depleted the splendid energies of
the Spirit. Passions of the kind you defeated to-day are overpowering
women everywhere at this hour--lesser passions of lesser Bellinghams.
Man's course to God has been a crawl through millenniums, instead of a
flight through decades, because woman has bowed--obeyed. God is patient,
but woman is aroused!... Above the din of wars, the world has heard the
wailing of the women; out of the ghostly silence of famine and from
beneath the debris of fallen empires--always the world has heard her cry
for pity--her cry for pity now _become a Voice of Power_! All her
tortured centuries have been for this--and the signs are upon us!
Woman's demand for knowledge, her clamor for suffrage, her protest
against eternally paying for man's lust with unblessed babes--all these
are signs! But you, Paula Linster,--and what I know of this day--is the
most thrilling sign of all to me!... Ah, woman is evolving; she is
aroused! How shall she repay man for brutalizing her so long?"
"By bringing him back to God!" Paula answered.
They wept together and whispered, while the night fell about and covered
the squalid room.
* * * * *
It was one of her emancipated nights. Paula's spirit poured out over the
city, for her mind was lit with thoughts of the ultimate redemption of
her race. Bellingham could not have found her in his world that hour....
Emerging from Broadway to Forty-fourth Street, at eight in the evening,
she passed under the hot brilliance of a famous hotel-entrance. As it
never would have occurred to her to do in a less exalted moment, Paula
glanced at a little knot of men standing under the lights. The eyes of
one were roving like an unclean hand over her figure. Suddenly
encountering her look, a bold, eager, challenge stretched itself upon
his face. In the momentary panic, her glance darted to the others
instinctively for protection--and found three smiling corpses.... Here
were little Bellinghams; here, the sexual drunkenness which has made
Man's course "a crawl through millenniums" to God, instead of a flight
through decades. What a pitiless revelation!... She clung to her big
Ideal in the West. It came to her for a second like a last and single
hope--that Charter was not like that.... "God is patient and woman is
aroused!" she whispered.
And farther up, a little way into Forty-seventh, Paula found a Salvation
Army circle under the torch. A man with a pallid, shrunken face turned
imploring eyes from one to another of the company, exclaiming: "I tell
you, man's first work here below is to save his soul! I pray you--men
and women, here to-night--to save your souls!"
Paula tossed her purse upon the big drum, as she passed swiftly. Luckily
there was carfare in her glove, for she had not thought of that. Never
before had she felt in such fullness her relation to the race....
A hansom-cab veered about the edge of the Salvation circle, swift enough
to attract her eye. The horse had started before the driver was in the
seat. The latter was fat and apoplectic. It was all he could do to
regain his place, so that the reins still dangled. The possibility of a
cab-horse becoming excited held only humor for the crowd, which parted
to let the vehicle by. The horse, feeling his head, started to run just
as the driver seized one of the lines and jerked his beast into the
curb. There was an inhuman scream. A strange, boneless effigy of a man
with twisted, waving arms--went down before the plunging horse, so
suddenly swerved.... A hush seemed to have fallen upon the noisy
Broadway corner. Paula was not blind in the brief interval which
followed, but the world seemed gray and still, like a spectral dawn, or
the unearthly setting of a dream.
"The shaft bored into him, and the horse struck him after he fell," a
voice explained.
They lifted him. There was particular dreadfulness in the quantity of
fluid evenly sheeted on the pavement as from a pail carefully
overturned. Startling effrontery attached to the thought of man's
heaven-aspiring current swimming like this upon a degraded city road.
The horse, now held by the bit, snorted affrightedly at the odor. They
had carried the unfortunate to the sidewalk under the lights of a
tobacco-shop window. The upper part of his head and face was indefinite
like a crushed tin of dark paint. But mouth and nose and chin of the
upturned face left an imperishable imprint upon her mind. It was
Bellingham.... Paula fled, her lips opening in a sick fashion. It seemed
hours before she could reach the sanctuary of her room, where she sobbed
in the dark.