But, alas, this did not work out according to expectations. Thyrsis discovered now what his wife had meant when she wrote that suffering and humiliation were breaking down her character. She could not bear to meet intellectual people, to take part in the competition of their life. For the most part these were men and women of intense personalities, absorbed in their own ideas, keenly critical, and not very merciful to any sort of weakness. And Corydon was morbidly aware of her own lack of accomplishments, and acutely sensitive as to what others thought about her. A strange figure she must have made in any one’s drawing-room—with the old dress she had fixed up, and the lace-collar she had borrowed for the occasion, and the sad face with the large dark eyes. The talk of the company ran to politics; and Corydon had nothing to say about politics. She could only sit in a corner while Thyrsis talked, and suffer agonies of humiliation.
To make matters worse, there came a literary lion that evening; one of the few modern writers whose books Corydon knew and loved. But when they were introduced, he scarcely looked at her; he went on talking to an East Side poetess whose opinions were fluent and ready. So Corydon found herself shunted into a corner with an unknown old lady. It was one of Corydon’s peculiarities that she abhorred old ladies; and this one questioned her about the feeding of infants and told her that she was ill-equipped for the responsibilities of motherhood!
On her way home she poured out her bitterness to Thyrsis. “I can see exactly how it is,” she said. “They all think you’ve married a pretty face!”
“You haven’t given them much chance to think otherwise,” he pleaded.
“They don’t want any chance,” she exclaimed. “They’ve got it all settled! You are the rising light, which is to astonish the world—and I’m your youthful blunder. I stay at home and take care of the baby, and they all feel sorry for you.”
“Do you want them to feel sorry for you?” he asked.
To which Corydon answered, “I don’t want them to know about me at all. I want to get away, and stay by myself, and get back my self-respect.” And so it was decided that in a couple of weeks more—the first of April—they would shake the dust of the city from their feet. They sent for their tent and other goods, and began inquiring about a place to camp.
Section 11. A few days more passed; and then, one Sundav morning, Thyrsis’ mother came to him in tears, with a copy of a newspaper “magazine-supplement” in her hand.
“Look at this!” she cried; and Thyrsis stared.
There was a full-page article, with many illustrations, and a headline two inches deep—“Henry Darrell to found Free-Love Colony! Ex-college professor and clergyman buys farm to teach his doctrines.” There was a picture of Darrell, standing upon a ladder and nailing up an announcement of his defiance to the institution of marriage; and there were pictures of his wife and child, and of the farm he had bought, and a long account of the colony which he was organizing, and in which he meant to preach and practice his ideas of “free love”.