Part 9 (1/2)
”I must take my risks,” said Hadria.
”I doubt if you know what risks there are.”
”Then I must find out,” she answered.
”One plays with fire so recklessly before one has been burnt.”
Hadria was silent. The words sounded ominous.
”Will can do so much,” she said at length. ”Do you believe in the power of the human will to break the back of circ.u.mstance?”
”Oh, yes; but the effort expended in breaking its back sometimes leaves one p.r.o.ne, with a victory that arrives ironically too late. However I don't wish to discourage you. There is no doubt that human will has triumphed over everything--but death.”
Again the sound of the pony's hoofs sounded through the silence, in a cheerful trot upon the white roads. They were traversing an open, breezy country, chequered with wooded hollows, where generally a village sought shelter from the winds. And these patches of foliage were golden and red in the meditative autumn suns.h.i.+ne, which seemed as if it were a little sad at the thought of parting with the old earth for the coming winter.
”I think the impossible lesson to learn would be renouncement,” said Hadria. ”I cannot conceive how anyone could say to himself, while he had longings and life still in him, 'I will give up this that I might have learnt; I will stop short here where I might press forward; I will allow this or that to curtail me and rob me of my possible experience.'”
”Well, I confess that has been my feeling too, though I admire the spirit that can renounce.”
”Admire? Oh, yes, perhaps; though I am not so sure that the submissive nature has not been too much glorified--in theory. n.o.body pays much attention to it in practice, by the way.”
Miss Du Prel laughed. ”What an observant young woman you are.”
”Renunciation is always preached to girls, you know,” said Hadria--”preached to them when as yet they have nothing more than a rattle and a rag-doll to renounce. And later, when they set about the business of their life, and resign their liberty, their talents, their health, their opportunity, their beauty (if they have it), then people gradually fall away from the despoiled and obedient being, and flock round the still unchastened creature who retains what the G.o.ds have given her, and asks for more.”
”I fear you are indeed a still unchastened creature!”
”Certainly; there is no encouragement to chasten oneself. People don't stand by the docile members of Society. They commend their saints, but they drink to their sinners.”
Miss Du Prel smiled.
”It is true,” she admitted. ”A woman must not renounce too much if she desires to retain her influence.”
”_Pas trop de zele_,” Hadria quoted.
”There is something truly unmanageable about you, my dear!” cried Valeria, much amused. ”Well, I too have had just that sort of instinct, just that imperious demand, just that impatience of restraint. I too regarded myself and my powers as mine to use as I would, responsible only to my own conscience. I decided to have freedom though the heavens should fall. I was unfitted by temperament to face the world, but I was equally unfitted to pay the price for protection--the blackmail that society levies on a woman: surrender of body and of soul. What could one expect, in such a case, but disaster? I often envy now the simple-minded woman who pays her price and has her reward--such as it is.”
”Ah! such as it is!” echoed Hadria.
”Who was it said, the other day, that she thought a wise woman always took things as they were, and made the best of them?”
”Some dull spirit.”
”And yet a practical spirit.”
”I am quite sure,” said Hadria, ”that the stokers of h.e.l.l are practical spirits.”
”Your mother must have had her work cut out for her when she undertook to bring you up,” exclaimed Miss Du Prel.
”So she always insinuates,” replied Hadria demurely.