Thus the idealist becomes frenzied at times at the incredible difficulties in the way of a total revolt against society, even against nature. We shall see how the absolute nature of his anarchism led Terry further and further along the path of rejection, "passing up" one thing after another, even letting anarchism as a social enthusiasm go by the board and making his continued relation with a human being, even with Marie, a practical impossibility.
CHAPTER XI
The End of the Salon
Terry's love for Marie was partly due, as we have seen, to his passion for social propaganda: that she represented the "social limit" was a strong charm to him. She, woman-like, always insisted on the personal relation, and for a long time his interest in her personality as such, combined with his social enthusiasm, was strong enough to keep the bond intact. When, however, his social enthusiasm paled, and his merely individualistic anarchism became stronger, his interest in Marie weakened. The times grew more frequent with him when he doubted the social side of anarchism itself—when this social propaganda seemed as hollow and as unlovely as society itself; and when he saw the weaknesses and vanities of his associates, how far they were from realising any ideal. Then, more and more, he was thrown back upon himself, for as his hope in the new society weakened, his hope in Marie as an embodiment of it weakened also.
Marie's sex interests, always freely and boldly expressed, played, at first, no part in the growing irritability of their relations. Marie's occasional "affairs" with other men, sometimes taking her away from the salon for a time, were taken by Terry in silence. Even when he came face to face with the fact of Marie's absence of restraint in this respect, lack of delicacy and feeling for him, he did not complain. To do so was against his principles of personal freedom; and the fling in the face of society envolved in Marie's conduct pleased him rather than otherwise; also there was in him a subtle feeling of superiority over other men, in the fact that he was without physiological jealousy, or if not, that he could at least control it.
Even Marie's jealousy of him, whenever he was in the society of another woman, he took with a patient shrug. Terry's interest in other women was not a passionate one: in it was always an element of the pale cast of thought, and Marie had no real cause for jealousy. But Terry tolerantly took it as a feminine weakness and tried to shield Marie from this unreasonable unhappiness. On her account he gave up many a desire to talk intimately with some female comrade. But Marie had no such tolerance for him. Not only was she quite free with other men and to the limit, but she often went into a real tantrum of jealousy. One day she followed Terry all over town, fearing that he had an appointment with a well-known radical woman. Marie often acknowledged to me her inconsistency. "But, you know," she would say, "our principles and ideas do not count much when our fundamental emotions are concerned."
This was a true remark of Marie's, and I have often had occasion to perceive the great degree of it throughout the radical world. Men and women often try in that society to be tolerant; they give one another free rein sometimes for years, but generally in the end, the resistance of one or the other weakens; human nature or prejudice, whichever it is, asserts itself, and tragedy results. This I had occasion to see over and over again: how nature triumphed over the most resolute idealism and brought about in the end either ugly passion or pathetic unhappiness.
As Terry began to doubt his deepest hope, as he began to turn away from the ideas about which his salon was formed, he saw and felt more clearly the limitations of Marie's personal character; and her acts began to hurt him. Perhaps he began to lose faith in both—Marie and the Salon—at the same time.