Part 12 (1/2)
”Haywood has the stern pioneer pride of the West. There is a mighty simplicity about him. He is Walt Whitman's works bound in flesh and blood. He is a man of few words, and of instinctive psychic force, and is the big blond beast of Nietzsche. He knows just what he is doing and why, and has a great influence on the crowd: the mob went wild at his mere presence, and after his brief speech he came absolutely to be one of them. The swaying ma.s.s becomes, at his touch, in close contact with their instinctive leader. He is too much in touch with the people to agree with narrow trades-union policies. At a secret meeting in this city with Mitch.e.l.l and Gompers he hinted that the Western Federation of Miners would amalgamate with the American Federation of Labour on the ground of no trade agreements and the open shop, and warned them that no man and no organisation was strong enough to stand in the way of this development. The Socialist party made him a big offer, but he replied that the Labour movement was big enough for him.”
Of Haywood, Marie wrote: ”He is a giant in size, but as gentle as the most delicate woman. He has only one eye, but that a very good one which does not miss things. He has been made into a regular hero by the people here, but he is the most modest man I have ever met. He is sincere and una.s.suming, so calm, with no heroic bl.u.s.ter about him. His voice is quiet and gentle. We had a blow-out for him, and all those present were very discreet. We all forgot our years and our troubles and we showed him a good time. I hardly think that even you, with all your democracy, could have stood for all the things that happened. Haywood is a big, good-natured boy, but quite sentimental, too. I think he liked me pretty well. I am sure he could have won many much more attractive girls than I, but somehow he took to me right from the start. I was introduced to him along with a whole bunch of girls, all good-lookers, too, but I sat back quietly and was the only one who did not say nice things to the hero.”
CHAPTER XIII
_Marie's Failure_
Though Terry was back in what was formerly the Salon, and though the old spirit seemed at times to be still alive, yet it was more in appearance than in reality. It is difficult to regain an emotional atmosphere once lost; and it is especially difficult to live by the gospel of freedom, when once the eloquence of that gospel is no longer deeply felt. Then there is nothing left to take its place--no prosaic sense of duty, no steady habit, no enduring interest in work. As these two human beings drifted further and further apart from their common love and their common interest, the idealistic man became more self-centred, more unsocial, more fiercely individual, and the emotional and sensual woman became more self-indulgent, more hostile to any philosophy--anarchism such as Terry's, with its blighting idealism--which limited her simple joy in life and in mere existence.
So their quarrels became more brutal, more abrupt. Both intensely nervous, both highly individualised, their characters conflicted with the intensity of two real and opposing forces. A tragic aspect of it all was that it was due to Terry's teaching that Marie attained to the highly individualised character which was destined to rebel against the finally sterilising influence of her master. Even physical violence became part of their life, and words that were worse than blows. The strong bond which still lingered held them for a time together, notwithstanding what was becoming the brutality of their relations. One day Marie called Terry to his coffee and he refused. A quarrel followed, in the course of which she hit Terry on the head with a pitcher, and the resulting blood was smeared over them both. When calm came again she said to him:
”Terry, how can we live together?”
”Ain't we living together? Doesn't this prove it?” he replied, grimly.
And this man would use violence in return--and this was the delicate idealist, the idealist whose love for Marie had at one time been part and parcel of his high dreams for humanity and perfection, a part of his propaganda, a part of his hope: during which period he had been scrupulous not to use force of any kind, spiritual or physical, on the girl whom he doubly loved--the girl whom he held in his arms every night for years with a pa.s.sionate tenderness due to his feeling of her physical fragility and her social unhappiness, rather than to any other instinct.
”Marie,” he said, ”did not fully understand the character of my love for her. She loved me intellectually and sensually, but not with the soul.
She wanted my ideas, and s.e.x, and more s.e.x, but not the invisible reality, the harmony of our spirits. From the day that I fully understood this, my confidence in her and in all things seemed to go.
She felt that I had withdrawn something from her, and it made her harder. She began cruelly to fling the amours that I had tolerated as long as I hoped for the spiritual best in my face. It was a kind of revenge on her part.”
Practical troubles, too, lent their disturbing element to the little remaining harmony of the three.
”We shall probably be forced to leave our rooms in a short time,” wrote Marie. ”Our landlord has asked us to leave, without giving any other reasons than that he wanted a smaller family in these most desirable rooms! Terry is indignant, for we have been quiet and orderly, and Katie has always paid the rent in advance. We shall certainly stay until the police come and carry us out and our household goods with us.
”It is true that we have had unusual difficulty in paying the rent and in getting enough to eat and smoke; and this has not added to our good-nature. You have no doubt read about the 'money stringency' in this country. Times are indeed very hard, thousands of men are out of a job, and the so-called criminals are very much in evidence. For a long time Katie could not find work to do and could not get any of her money from the bank, so that things looked very 'bohemian' around here for a while.
She could not get anything to do in her own line, and finally had to go out to 'service.' But this she could not stand more than a week, for Katie has fine qualities and is used to a certain amount of freedom, so she couldn't stand the slavishness of the servant life, though she had good wages and nice things to eat, which Katie likes very much.
”When Katie started in on this venture she had the proverbial thirty cents, which she divided up with me--Terry had not returned from his wanderings at that time--and I recklessly squandered ten cents of this going to and returning from the Social Science League. In a day or two there was nothing edible in our house but salt, so I squandered my remaining nickel for bread. I made that loaf last me nearly four days: I ate only when I was ravenously hungry, so that it would taste good, for I hate rye bread. I slept a good deal of the time. I suffered terribly, though, when my tobacco gave out, and I spent most of my time and energy hunting old stumps, and I found several very good ones in the unswept corners and under the beds. I even picked some out of the ashcan. These I carefully collected, picked out the tobacco and rolled it in fresh papers, as carefully as any professional hobo.”
When Katie was temporarily hard up, that naturally put Terry and Marie ”on the b.u.m.” But they remained ”true blue” and did not go to work, Marie being willing to put up with all sorts of discomfort rather than try for a job. She continued:
”It is a strange thing that n.o.body came to our house during these six days. But on the sixth day, Terry came, and then I had a good square meal, and he even left me carfare and some of the horrible stuff he calls tobacco. Two more days elapsed before Katie returned. Until then I lived on that square meal. I had ten cents from Terry, but I was sick of rye bread. On the day that Katie returned, in fact only a few hours before, I was foolish enough to visit an anarchist friend, Marna. I was awfully lonely and thought a little change would do me good. So I went to Marna, but got there a little too late for supper. I must admit I was hungry. I hinted to Marna that I was, said I'd been in town all day, and things like that, but she did not catch on and I was stubborn and wouldn't ask. Stephen was there, and for a moment I thought I might eat.
He had not had his supper, and he said that if Marna was not too tired to cook, he would go and buy a steak. I tell you, the thought of that steak was awfully nice and I had to put my handkerchief to my mouth to keep the water from flowing over. I offered to cook it for him, but he pa.s.sed it up. I made one more desperate bluff and asked him if he would get some beer for us! And I reached for my purse, and for one wild moment I thought sure he had called my bluff and would really take my only nickel, my carfare home. I nearly fell over with suspense, but in the nick of time he went out, refusing my money. And I even taunted him, asked him if he thought it was tainted!
”When the beer came, I drank most of it. Beer is a great filler, but of course it went straight to my head and feet--that is, my head got light and my feet heavy. But I managed to navigate to the street car and so on home, where I found Katie, a cheerful fire and a delicious smell of cookery and coffee.
”Now, I must make you a confession. During these six days I had some thoughts of working, the only thing I could think of being a job as a waitress. But when a vision of ham and pert females and more impertinent males came to me my courage oozed away, and I did not even try. I don't think I'll ever work again. Did you ever read Yeats' story 'Where There is Nothing?'
”I love Marna, as you know, but when she talks to me about 'work,'
'health,' and the like, I feel like becoming even more solitary than I am. She says I am not ambitious! Ye G.o.ds, I think I am ever so much more ambitious than she! I am more ambitious to live in these little squalid rooms than in the mansions of the rich. My kind of happiness--I mean ideally--is not Marna's kind; and I am sure now that if I ever find it, it will be in the slums. Here I can sit and muse, undisturbed by the ambition of the world. Blake comes to me as an indulgent father to his tired and fretful child and sings to me his sunflower song. If I were in a castle I don't think even Blake could soothe my restless spirit.
”But, unfortunately, even in the slums one needs to eat. Without warning I tumble from my air castles because some horrible monster gnaws at me, and will not let me be, however much I try to ignore him. That mean, sneaking thing is hunger. And because I am only mortal, and because the will to live is stronger than I, I must eat my bread. I often cry when I think of this contemptible weakness. I have often tried to overcome this annoying healthiness of my body. How can people be gourmands? Even Sh.e.l.ley and Keats had to eat. What a repulsive word 'eat' is! I would I could eat my heart and drink my tears. The world is what it is because we must eat. See the whole universe eating and eating itself, over and over! If it were not for this fearful necessity, Terry and I should not, perhaps, have failed in our high attempt!
”'The chief thing,' said Oscar Wilde, 'that makes life a failure, from the artistic point of view, is the thing which lends to life its sordid security.'