§ ii
Claudine came out the next morning, prepared for the excursion she made every fine morning while Andrée practised and Edna sat in the room with her, driven by her sister’s industry to the study of Italian. She had with her two volumes of philosophers and a note book and fountain pen, for the studying she did, copying out and commenting upon the passages that impressed her, getting what comfort and peace of mind she could from them.
She put up her dark green sunshade and started off across the lawn, very trim and elegant in starched white; she looked remarkably young, her calm and serious face hadn’t a line, a wrinkle, her coppery hair was as bright and heavy as it had ever been, she was straight, her outlines neat and clear. She had never been supple; there had always been a sort of woodenness about her small body, but it had a charm all its own; it gave her a peculiarly “ladylike” air of being not quite human.
She left the grounds and entered upon the highway, inches deep in clean white dust, and she heard no footsteps behind her, no sound until an anxious voice said over her shoulder:
“I’ve brought those little plants and things for you to look at. I was afraid I wouldn’t be there when you got back. I’m leaving at noon for two or three days and they’d be withered by the time I got back.”
It was the nice little beast, coatless, in riding breeches and puttees. He proffered a small tin case, and she took it from him with a smile.
“Can’t I carry your books and things to wherever you’re going?” he asked.
She hesitated a moment, and then said, “Yes, thank you!” and they went on, side by side, Mr. Stephens gallantly holding the parasol very high over her head.
He glanced down at the books.
“Marcus Aurelius and Nietzsche!” he said. “That’s a queer combination!”
“Do you know them?” she asked, in surprise.
“Oh, yes! I’ve read about everything you could think of. I used to read things like this a lot. But not any more. They’re not real enough.”
“Some people have found them very real nourishment for the mind,” she said lightly. She couldn’t take this person seriously.
“I haven’t any use for mind without body,” he answered. “That’s what I like about Christianity. It’s so solid and material—”
“But it’s just the spirituality that is so admirable in it!” she protested.
“Not for me, it isn’t. What appeals to me about it is the human, natural, unspiritual part. Tells you to do this and that, instead of thinking this and that. It’s what you do, not what you feel, that counts there. I’ve never thought Christ cared whether people believed in Him or not. My idea is that He sort of had an idea that He’d help people by a few practical ideas on how to make the world a decent place to live in. If you behave in this way, He says, you can all be more or less happy. You see,” he went on, “I’m a Socialist.”
“Oh, mercy!” said Claudine, rather shocked.
“Yes, I’m a Socialist. And the way I see it, to be a good Socialist, you’ve got to be either an atheist or a Christian. If you’re an atheist, and you think this world is all there’s going to be, then you feel so d—— doggone sorry for the people who aren’t getting anything out of it, that you’d do all you possibly could to help them. I used to be an atheist. I was working in a factory when I was about eighteen, and when I’d see those kids starting in—boys, children really—and knew they’d never get even a fair living out of a whole life’s work, I guess I was a kind of Anarchist too. I thought the best thing they could do was to grab what they could, to try to wipe out the—hogs that kept all the good things away from them. But then, one day, I thought I’d read the New Testament, along with a lot of other stuff I had in hand. And, Gosh!... it was like a—a lamp being lighted in a dark room. Right away I felt that it was right. That He’d got hold of the right idea of how to run the world. I’d always hated the idea that we were a lot of fighting animals, all struggling to get food. Evolution didn’t suit me altogether. It was too darned unfair to the beginners, you know, the cave men and those fellows who just opened the way for us. Well, I thought after I’d read about Christ, this living’s just a job, and here’s the way to do it. And after it’s done, we’ll get a rest. We need it. Why, hang it all! Even a baby a year old has had a hard life, trying to get adjusted.... I don’t believe in all this stuff about a whole lot of future lives, and keeping on developing. No, sir! This life is enough; it’s hard enough, and we learn enough. I guess we deserve peace after this, and I guess we’ll get it. Is this where you always stay?”
“Yes,” said Claudine. “But I wish you’d sit down and talk a little. I like to hear you.”
“I talk too much,” he said, seriously. “Somehow I’m always so full of stuff I want to say that I kind of spill over. And—d’ye know—somehow it seems—valuable—the stuff I want to say. Not particularly because it’s me, but because it’s—human nature.”
“It’s really very interesting,” said Claudine, blandly.
He laughed.
“Do you know,” he went on, “ten years ago the idea of anyone like you—a lady—saying she liked to hear me, even agreeing to listen to me—would have seemed like a pipe dream. I used to think that if I ever got a chance to talk to your sort, I’d give ’em a piece of my mind. But when I got to know more about ’em, why, I saw nothing could be done that way. No, sir; you can’t make people understand by talking. They’ve got to see—and feel. If you ever saw or felt what life was really like, you wouldn’t be satisfied to—”
He stopped abruptly.
“I didn’t mean to talk that way to you,” he said. “It’s rude. And you’re so kind and nice.”
“But I want you to! I want to hear what you think! I shouldn’t be satisfied to what?”
“Well ... to take everything and give nothing.”
“But do you imagine that I give nothing? I have three children.”
“That’s nothing. I’ll be frank, if you really want.... What I mean is, you don’t count. You don’t try to help. You just try to make life bearable for yourself. Don’t you see? Even with your children. You don’t teach them to serve. You just tell them to live decently.”
“Even that is something—in a world like this,” she said, with a little smile.
He shook his head.
“Not to me! Better to forget your own life—even your own decency—a little....”
“But—since you have so clear an idea of the scheme of things—what would you like people like me—myself for instance—to do?”
“I guess it’s too late for you to do much,” he said, gravely. “All you could do would be to learn to understand.”
“Perhaps I do.”
“You couldn’t. No one understands—really—by intuition. You’ve got to know, through experience—either inside or outside yourself. And I guess you—”
“Do go on! I’m not easily offended.”
“Well, I guess you’ve felt, instead of experiencing. It’s altogether different.”
“I wonder what experience you would countenance?” she asked. “Do you consider that the mother of three children, a woman who has lost both her parents, who has lived nearly forty years, is still without experience?”
He made an extraordinary answer.
“Your soul’s all right,” he said. “It’s your heart that’s undeveloped.”
“Heavens!” she thought. “Is the queer little creature trying to make love to me?”
But he went on.
“The great thing in the world is compassion.”
Then he stopped short and pulled out of a breeches’ pocket a gold cigarette case.
“Isn’t it a beauty?” he asked. “I paid what lots of people I know could live on for months and months for this.”
“But—” she began, bewildered.
“I suppose you’re wondering what a fellow with views like mine is doing with a toy like that. Well, in the first place, it isn’t a dead loss. After I’ve used it a few years more, I’ll sell it or pawn it for quite a lot. It’s solid gold, you know; one of the best I could buy. Isn’t it a beauty?”
“Yes, it is!” she agreed, terribly touched by his naïve pride. “It is—a beauty!”
What an extraordinary conversation this was, she and this freckled young man, sitting facing each other on great sun-warmed rocks in the little glade which she had for weeks looked upon as her especial domain! She had certainly never met anything at all like him before, no one so absurd and so honest and so touching.
“But I was going to tell you why I had this thing,” he continued. “It’s because I think everyone’s got a right to a few pet follies. Now, some people think a Socialist can’t consistently have a balance in the bank. Well, my idea is this.... I’ve been able to grab for myself my share in the good things in the world. And that’s what I want to see every other fellow do. Not grab, if you could get it any other way, but generally you can’t. I want everyone to get a share. And a chance. I’ve got mine, and I’m going to help other people to get theirs.”
“But how did you get yours?” she asked, with an irresistible curiosity. She knew that he wouldn’t resent any sort of question.
“Fought for it. Fought for it like a devil. You see, I’d made a little invention—an improvement for a certain type of printing press. I’ll explain it all some other time. Well, of course, the fellows on top wanted to take it.... I won’t go into that either just now. But, anyway, I knew. I knew the profit it would make, and I made up my mind that a good part of that profit was coming my way. So I grabbed my share. It’s what everyone ought to have; a decent share in the profit of his work. It was a good kind of grabbing.... And now I’m able to do what I’d like to see every other fellow in the world able to do—work hard, at some kind of useful, manual work until he’s thirty, and then play for three or four years, before he settles down to work his brain. Brains aren’t much good until they’ve had those two things—manual work and play.”
“What is your brain going to do?”
“Write. I’ve got it in me.... But I’ve got off the track. I was showing you that cigarette case because I wanted to ask you if you could imagine what it was like to be an outcast, to have money enough to buy things like that, and to see how they’re begrudged to you. Every time I used to go in to buy things I’d earned enough money to buy, I was made to feel that. My money was good enough, but I wasn’t. If you could have seen the swell English tailor I bought my clothes from! He hated me for being able to get them. Because I’m ‘common.’ Well, as a matter of fact, I’m really very uncommon—darned uncommon.... The point I’m making is, that all the fine, good things in the world are put aside for a few people. Everybody knows it. All the shop people know it. They don’t want outsiders to get any of their choice things. They’re like watch-dogs—fool watch-dogs, starving to death while they watch other people’s meat.... When I was younger and doing more reading and thinking, I used to think the best way to bring about the changes I hoped to see was for the people on top to be awakened. They’ve got the money, the leisure, the power, the education, I thought.... But I learned pretty soon it would never come that way. They haven’t got either brains or compassion enough. They’ve used all their privileges to corrupt, not to enlighten. And not through wickedness or diplomacy, mind you, but from stupidity.”
He pulled out his watch.
“Oh!” he said. “I’ve got to go! Are you all right?”
“Perfectly, thank you!” she answered, smiling. “Only a little confused by all you’ve been telling me.”
It was not his words, however, that remained in her memory after he had gone. They meant little to her. It was the curious vitality and force of the man, his candour, his innocence, his baffling air of certainty. She thought of his activities, his ideas, his tireless flow of talk, and the woods, usually so full of interest and charm for her, were suddenly blank. The mystery and wonder she had seen in the smallest plant were suddenly nothing at all in comparison to the wonder of a human being.
She became uneasily doubtful of her philosophic attitude toward her fellows, her great desire to escape them.
“He’s ...” she thought, with half a smile. “He’s a breath of life in all this stagnation.... A breath of life!”