But alas! my ill-luck pursued me. On one of our expeditions we were cut off and surrounded in a field by a patrol of women. Edmund managed to escape, but I was captured and tortured into making a confession of what was going on in the ruined city. I did not see how my confession could do any harm, and I don’t know what happened, but though my friends must have known where I was they made no attempt to rescue me or to communicate with me. I think I should have died rather than confess but for the thought of my wife. My strongest passion then was to see her again. Let that, if excuse is needed, be mine.
XII: THE NUNNERY
As Edmund disappeared through a gap in the hedge I was attacked by a mob of women, screaming at the top of their voices. They talked me into a state of stupefaction and led me dazed in the direction of a great building which I had taken for a factory or workhouse. Here with the leader of my captors I was hustled through a little gate with the mob outside hooting and yelling:
“Man! Man! Man!”
I was flung into a cell and left there to collect my wits, which I found hard of doing, for I was near the limits of my endurance, and I did not see how I could hold out against the numbing influence of such absolute feminism. In the society to which I had been accustomed men, whatever their misdeeds, had always treated women with indulgence, but here the life of a man was one long expiation for the crime of having been born. I had spirit enough left in me to revolt, but my feeling could only express itself in bitter tears. I wept all night without ceasing, and the next day I was so weak and ill that I slept from utter exhaustion.
Bread and water were handed in to me through a hole in the door, but the bread was sour and the water was foul to my taste. Once again I fell a victim to the sense of hallucination, and when at last the door of my cell was opened and a human figure entered I was half-convinced that I was honoured with a visitation by an angel. I fell on my knees and the “angel” called me to my senses by saying:
“Fool, get up.”
I obeyed and my visitor informed me that she was the Medical Superintendent come to inspect me. I was ordered to strip and stand in the middle of the cell while the superintendent walked round me and surveyed me as farmers do with cattle. She prodded my flesh and asked me my age and what illnesses I had had. She sounded my lungs and tested my heart and appeared to be well satisfied. As she scanned my person there came into her eyes a quizzical, humorous look, in which there was a certain kindly pity, so that I was reassured and plucked up courage to ask where I was and what was going to be done with me. I was told that I was in the great nunnery of O, and that my destiny depended upon her report. I asked her to make it a good one and she laughed. I laughed too, for indeed mine was a most ridiculous position, standing there stark naked under her scrutiny. It became necessary for me to cover myself, and when I had done so we still stood there laughing like two sillies. She said:
“You’ll do.”
“For what?”