Love's Pilgrimage: A Novel

by Upton Sinclair

So now he went about all day, brooding over this trouble. He would come to Corydon and see her gazing across the valley with a melancholy look upon her features; he would see her, with her sweet face as if suffused with unshed tears. And what was he to do about it? Was he to rebuke her—however gently—and urge her to suppress this yearning? To do that would be to plunge her into abysses of grief. Or was he to come to her, and utter his own love to her, and draw her to him again? He knew that he could do that—he was conceited enough to believe that with his eloquence and his power of soul, he could have wiped Mr. Harding clean out of her thoughts in a few days. But then, when he had done it, he would have to go back to the task of revolutionizing the world’s critical standards; and what would become of Corydon after that? What she needed, he told himself, was a love that was not a will o’ the wisp and a fraud, but a love that was real and unceasing; she needed the love of a man, and not of an artist!

Here were two young people who were in love with each other; and according to the specifications of the moral code, they had their minds made up to sublime renunciation. But then, Thyrsis had a moral code of his own, and in it renunciation was not the only law of life.

It was only when he thought of losing Corydon, that he realized to the full how much he loved her. Then all their consecrations and their pledges would come back to him; he would hold her as the greatest human soul that he had ever met. But it was a strange paradox, that precisely the depth of his love for her made him willing to think of losing her. He loved her for herself, and not for anything she gave him; he wanted her to be happy, he wanted her to grow and achieve, and in order to see her do this he would make any sacrifice in the world. In how many hours of insight had it become clear to him that he himself could never make her happy—that he was not the man to be her husband! Now it seemed as if the time had come for him to prove that he meant what he had said—that he was willing to stand by his vision and to act upon it.

So after one day of especial unhappiness, he made up his mind to a desperate resolve; and at night, when all the household was asleep, he went over to his lonely study and sat down with a pen in his hand, and summoned the spirit of Mr. Harding before him.

“I have concluded to write you a letter,” he began. “You will find it a startling and unusual one. I can only beg you to believe that I have written it after much hesitation, and that it represents most earnest and prayerful thought upon my part.

“Since my return, I have become aware of the situation which has developed between yourself and my wife. Her welfare is dearer to me than anything else in the world; and after thinking it over, I concluded that her welfare required that I should explain to you the relationship which exists between us. It seems unlikely that you could know about it otherwise, for it is a very unusual relationship.

“I suppose there is no need for me to tell you that Corydon is not happy. She never has been happy as my wife, and I fear that she never will be. She is by nature warm-hearted, craving affection and companionship. I, on the other hand, am by nature impersonal and self-absorbed—I am compelled by the exigencies of my work to be abstracted and indifferent to things about me. I perceived this before our marriage, but not clearly enough to save her; it has been her misfortune that I have loved her so dearly that I have been driven to attempt the impossible. I am continuually deceiving myself into the belief that I am succeeding—and I am continually deceiving Corydon in the same way. It has been our habit to talk things out between us frankly; but this is a truth from which we have shrunk instinctively. I have always seen it as the seed of what must grow to be a bitter tragedy.

“The possibility that Corydon might come to love some other man was one that I had not thought of—it was very stupid of me, no doubt. But now it has happened; and I have worked over the problem with all the faculties I possess. A man who was worthy of Corydon’s love would be very apt, under the circumstances, to feel that he must crush his impulses towards her. But when we were married, it was with the agreement that our marriage should be binding upon us only so long as it was for the highest spiritual welfare of both; and by that agreement it is necessary that we should stand at all times. My purpose in writing to you is to let you know that I have no claim upon Corydon which prohibits her from continuing her acquaintance with you; and that if in the course of time it should become clear that Corydon would be happier as your wife than as mine, I should regard it as my duty to step aside. Having said this, I feel that I have done my part. I leave the matter in your hands, with the fullest confidence in your sincerity and good faith.”

Thyrsis wrote this letter, and read it a couple of times. Then he decided to sleep over it; and the next morning he wakened, and read it again—with a shock of surprise. He found it a startling letter. It opened up vistas to his spirit; vistas of loneliness and grief—and then again, vistas of freedom and triumph. If he were to mail it, it would be irrevocable; and it would probably mean that he would lose Corydon. And could he make up his mind to lose her? His swift thoughts flew to their parting; there were tears in his eyes—his love came back to him, as it had when he thought she was dying. But then again, there came a thrill of exultation; the captive lion within him smelt the air of the jungle, and rattled his chains and roared.

Throughout breakfast he was absent-minded and ill at ease; he bid Corydon a farewell which puzzled her by its tenderness, and then started to walk to Bellevue with the letter. Half way in, he stopped. No, he could not do it—it was a piece of madness; but then he started again—he must do it. He found himself pacing up and down before the post office, where for nearly an hour he struggled to screw his courage to the sticking-point. Once he started away, having made up his mind that he would take another day to think the matter over; but after he had walked half a mile or so, he changed his mind and strode back, and dropped the letter in the box.