Love's Pilgrimage: A Novel

by Upton Sinclair

But he could not bring much comfort to his soul by that method. The seriousness of it remained. The publishing-house was one of the largest and most prosperous in the country; and if they were fools, how many more fools might there not be among those who stood between him and the public? And if so, what would he do?

Section 6. So these two began their life under the shadow of a cloud. At the very first hour, when they should have been all rapture, there had come into the chamber of their hearts this grisly spectre—that was to haunt them for so many years!

But they clenched their hands grimly, and put the thought aside, and moved their worldly goods to the two tiny rooms. When they had got their trunks in, there was no place to sit save on the beds; and though Corydon had cast away all superfluities for this pilgrimage, still it was a puzzle to know where to put things.

But what of that—they were together at last! What an ecstasy it was to be actually unpacking, and to be mingling their effects! A kind of symbol it was of their spiritual union, so that the most commonplace things became touched with meaning. Thyrsis thrilled when the other brought in an armful of books to him—all this wealth was to be added to his store! He owned no books himself, save a few text-books, and some volumes of poetry that he knew by heart. Other books he had borrowed all his life from libraries; and he often thought with wonder that there were people who would pay a dollar or two for a book which they did not mean to read but once!

Also there were a hundred trifles which came from Corydon’s trunk, and which whispered of the intimacies of her life; the pictures she put upon her bureau, the sachet-bags that went into the drawer, the clothing she hung behind the door. It disturbed him strangely to realize how close she was to be to him from now on.

And then, the excursion to the corner-grocery, and the delight of the plunge into housekeeping! A pound of butter, and some salt and pepper, and a bunch of celery; a box of “chipped beef”, and a dozen eggs, and a quart of potatoes; and then to the baker’s, for rolls and sponge-cakes—did ever a grocer and a baker sell such ecstasies before? They carried it all home, and while Corydon scrubbed the celery in the bath-room, Thyrsis got out his chafing-dish and set the beef and eggs to sizzling, and they sat and sniffed the delicious odors, and meantime munched at rolls and butter, because they were so hungry they could not wait.

What an Elysian festivity they made of it! And then to think that they would have three such picnics every day! To be sure, the purchases had taken one half of Thyrsis’ remaining capital; but then, was it not just that spice of danger that gave the keen edge to their delight? What was it that made the sense of snugness and intimacy in their little retreat, save the knowledge of a cold and hostile world outside?

The next morning Thyrsis took his manuscript to another publisher, and then they went at their work. Corydon laughed aloud with delight as they began the German—for what were all its terrors now, when she had Thyrsis for a dictionary! They fairly romped through the books. In the weeks that followed they read “Werther” and “Wilhelm Meister” and “Wahlverwandschaften”; they read “Undine” and “Peter Schlemil” and the “Leben eines Taugenichts”; they read Heine’s poems, and Auerbach’s and Freitag’s novels, and Wieland’s “Oberon”—is there anybody in Germany who still reads Wieland’s “Oberon?” Surely there must somewhere be young couples who delight in “Der Trompeter von Sekkingen,” and laugh with delight over “der Kater Hidigeigei!”

Also they went at music. Corydon had been taught to play as many “pieces” as the average American young lady; but Thyrsis had tried to persuade her to a new and desperate emprise—he insisted that there was nothing to music until one had learned to read it at sight. So now, every day when their landlady had gone out, he moved his music-stand into the little parlor, and they went at the task. Thyrsis proposed to achieve it by a tour de force—the way to read German was to read it, and the way to read music was to read music. He would set up a piece they had never seen before, and they would begin; and he would pound out the time with his foot, and make Corydon keep up with him—even though she was only able to get one or two notes in each bar, still she must keep up with him. At first this was agony to her—she wanted to linger and get some semblance of the music; but Thyrsis would scold and exhort and shout, and pound out the time.

And so, to Corydon’s own amazement, it was not many weeks before she found that she was actually reading music, that they were playing it together. In this way they learned Haydn’s and Mozart’s sonatas, they even adventured Beethoven’s trios, with the second violin left out. Then Thyrsis subscribed to a music-library, and would come home twice a week with an armful of new stuff, good and bad. And whenever in all their struggles with it they were able to achieve anything that really moved them as music, what a rapture it brought them!