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diff --git a/26719.txt b/26719.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1069197 --- /dev/null +++ b/26719.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6517 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of An Anarchist Woman, by Hutchins Hapgood + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: An Anarchist Woman + +Author: Hutchins Hapgood + +Release Date: September 28, 2008 [EBook #26719] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN ANARCHIST WOMAN *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Lybarger, Brian Janes and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + +------------------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Note: | + | | + | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in | + | this text. For a complete list, please see the bottom of | + | this document. | + +------------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + +_An_ +Anarchist Woman + + +_By_ +HUTCHINS HAPGOOD + +_Author of "The Autobiography of a Thief," +"The Spirit of Labor"_ + + +_NEW YORK_ +DUFFIELD & COMPANY +1909 + +COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY +DUFFIELD AND COMPANY + + _"The best government is that which + makes itself superfluous."_ + + GOETHE + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER PAGE + + I. SCHOOL AND FACTORY 1 + + II. DOMESTIC SERVICE 12 + + III. DOMESTIC SERVICE (CONTINUED) 26 + + IV. ADVENTURES IN SEX 48 + + V. MARIE'S SALVATION 65 + + VI. TERRY 73 + + VII. THE MEETING 94 + + VIII. THE ROGUES' GALLERY 120 + + IX. THE SALON 147 + + X. MORE OF THE SALON 186 + + XI. THE END OF THE SALON 217 + + XII. MARIE'S ATTEMPT 239 + + XIII. MARIE'S FAILURE 261 + + XIV. MARIE'S REVOLT 280 + + XV. TERRY'S FINISH 299 + + + + +PREFACE + + +It is possible that in fifty years people now called "anarchists" will +have in America as respectable a place as they now occupy in France. +When we are more accustomed to social thought, we shall not regard those +who radically differ from us, as mad dogs or malevolent idiots. We may, +indeed, still look on them as mistaken, but what now seems to us their +insanity or peculiar atrociousness will vanish with our growing +understanding and experience. When we become less crude in civilisation, +they will seem less crude to us. When, with growing culture, we see +things more nearly as they are, the things we see, including the +anarchists, will seem more sympathetic. + +This book is not an attempt to justify any person or set of persons. It +is not a political or economic pamphlet. It represents an effort to +throw light on what may be called the temperament of revolt; by +portraying the mental life of an individual, and incidentally of more +than one individual, I have hoped to make more clear the natural +history of the anarchist; to show under what conditions, in connection +with what personal qualities, the anarchistic habit of mind arises, and +to point out, suggestively, rather than explicitly, the nature, the +value, and the tragic limitation of the social rebel. + + + + +An Anarchist Woman + +CHAPTER I + +_School and Factory_ + + +When I first met the heroine of this tale, Marie, she was twenty-three +years old, yet had lived enough for a woman of more than twice her age; +indeed, few women of any age ever acquire the amount of mental +experience possessed by this factory hand and servant girl. She had more +completely translated her life into terms of thought than any other +woman of my acquaintance. She had been deeply helped to do this by a man +of strange character, with whom she lived. She had also been deeply +helped by vice and misery. The intensity of her nature showed in her +anaemic body and her large eyes, dark and glowing, but more than all in +the way she had of making everything her own, no matter from what source +it came. Everything she said, or wrote, or did, all fitted into her +personality, had one note, her note. But perhaps the most intense +quality of all was--and is--this never-failing though gracefully +manifested energy, resulting in unity of character and temperament in +expression. To keep everything in tone is a quality of art; it is also a +sign of great, though not always obvious, energy. + +Marie was born in a Chicago slum in 1884. Her mother, half French and +half German, was endowed with cruelty truly international. Her father +was a drunken machinist of German extraction, generally out of a job. +Both the parents beat the little girl, the mother because she was cruel, +the father because he was a beast. + +Her earliest memories are connected with the smoky streets of the West +Side. The smell of the Stock Yards suggests her youth to her, as the +smell of walnuts brings back to the more fortunate country man the rich +beauty of a natural childhood. The beatings she received from her +parents and the joy of her escape to the street--these are the strongest +impressions derived from her tender years. To her the street was +paradise; her home, hell. She knew that when she returned to the house +she would find a mother half crazy with poverty and unhappiness and a +father half crazy with drink; and that, if for no other reason than for +diversion and relief, they would beat her. + +The authorities finally succeeded in forcing the little girl's parents +to send her to school, where she remained only two years. She was not +quite ten years old at the time, and the memories she has of her school +life are only a trifle less unpleasant than those of her home. The last +day in school especially lives in her recollection; and she thus +described it in a letter to me: + +"It was a warm morning toward the end of May, and room seven in the +Pullman School was pervaded with an intense excitement. For soon +examination day would come and the pupils were being prepared for the +occasion. The children fidgeted uneasily in their seats and even the +teacher became nervous and impatient, glancing often at the big clock +which ticked so monotonously and slowly. Soon it would be twelve o'clock +and teacher and pupils would have a respite for a few hours. If only +those stupid children would solve those problems in arithmetic, the most +difficult study, they would not have to stay after school. But it +happened just as the teacher had feared: A dozen children, of whom two +were boys, did not give correct answers. After the school was dismissed +the stupids were ordered to go to the blackboard, and stay there until +they saw the light. + +"Meanwhile the teacher sat at her desk with a despairing look on her +face and the general air of a martyr, as she noticed the futile efforts +of those stupid children. But she was evidently determined not to help +them out of their difficulty. After a while, one of the boys solved the +problem and was dismissed. The other children looked at his work and +quickly copied it before the teacher could erase it from the blackboard. +Not I, however, for I was at the other end of the room and my eyes were +weak. I enviously watched the other children leaving the room, until I +was alone with the teacher. I tried the terrible, senseless problem +again and again and became so confused and nervous that I was on the +verge of tears. All the little knowledge I had of mathematics left me +completely. Finally the teacher lost her patience and showed me how to +get the answer. + +"'You stupid girl!' she said, 'you will never pass the examination.' + +"But I did not care. I ran from the school-house, and on my way home +kept saying to myself: 'I don't have to pass, for I'm going to work next +week, and I'm so glad. Then I'll never, never have to study arithmetic +any more. Oh, how I wish next week were here already.' I was not quite +twelve years old and I would have been working even then if my +prospective employers had not instructed my parents to secure a +certificate showing that I was fourteen years old. + +"The next Monday morning, bright and early, with this new certificate, +which was sworn to by my mother and duly attested by a notary, I +presented myself at the office of Messrs. Hardwin & Co., in South Water +Street. They were wholesale dealers in miscellaneous household supplies, +from bird-seed and flavouring extracts to bluing and lye, the latter the +principal article. Mr. Hardwin, a benevolent looking old gentleman with +a white beard and a skull-cap, glanced at the certificate, and patting +stupid me kindly on the head, hired me for two dollars a week, and sent +me upstairs where I was put to work washing old cans collected from the +ash barrels and alleys of the city. After being cleansed, they were +filled with lye, and new covers sealed on them. Then they were covered +with neat white labels, and packed in cases and delivered to all parts +of the United States. + +"This sort of work was not what I had expected to do. But I was told by +my mother that all people who worked for their living had to start in +that way, and gradually work themselves upwards. So I waited patiently +for the time when I might, perhaps, secure the position of labelling. +Then, too, I thought that great place would bring an increase of salary, +for I had already learned that the lighter the work, the heavier the +pay. + +"About this time the firm received large orders for lye, and all hands +were put to work filling the cans with this corrosive material, for +which purpose rubber gloves were used. As I was the latest addition to +the factory, and the greenest girl in the place, it was easy for the +older and more experienced girls to secure the best gloves for the work. +The old, worn out ones, which were full of holes, fell to me, who was +too young and timid to rebel against these conditions. After a week of +this work my hands were all eaten by the lye and it was torturing agony +to move them in any way. At night my mother used to put salve and +bandages on them, but this treatment was of little avail because the +next day my hands would be covered with that horrible stuff which ate +deeper and deeper, until the pain became unbearable. + +"So, one morning, I went to Mr. Hardwin and begged him, with tears in my +eyes, to let me work at something else until my hands were healed. He +looked at my swollen fingers and said: 'My poor girl, you certainly +shall work at something else. I will give you a nice easy job making +bird-seed boxes.' + +"I was immediately put at my new work, which seemed really delightful to +me, but I was rather lonely, as I was the only girl on that floor. I +made thousands and thousands of those boxes, which were stacked in heaps +upon the shelves above my head. Directly behind me was a great belt, +connected with the cutting machine up-stairs, which all day long cut out +the round pieces of tin needed to cover the cans of lye after they were +filled. This belt as it whirled round and round made a great noise. But +I soon grew quite used to it. I became like a machine myself. All alone +I sat there, day after day, while the great belt whirred out the same +monotonous song. I kept time to its monotony by a few movements of the +hands endlessly repeated, turning out boxes and boxes and boxes, all +alike. I saw, heard, and felt almost nothing. My hands moved +unconsciously and instinctively. At this time, I think, the first +feeling of profound ennui came to me, that feeling which to shake off I +would at a later time do anything, anything, no matter how violent and +extreme it was. Only at noon time when the whistle shrieked did I seem +alive, and then I was dazed and trembling. + +"The great belt then stopped whirring for half an hour and I sat and ate +my frugal meal, listening eagerly to the talk going on about me. +Sometimes the girls made me the butt of their jests, for they were +envious of me, because of my easy job, and hinted that I was not getting +this snap for nothing. All of this I did not in the least understand, +for I was not much more than twelve years old. + +"One morning I was surprised and delighted to see Mr. Hardwin come in +and ask me how my hands were, and if I still suffered much pain. I was +so grateful that tears came to my eyes as I answered. That night I told +my mother what an extremely kind and good man Mr. Hardwin was. He +repeated these visits several mornings in succession, always asking me +how I was getting along, and patting me on the head or shoulder as he +went away. I had been working perhaps two months at this job, when one +morning it happened that I was the first one of the employees to arrive +at the factory. While I was in the dressing-room removing my wraps, a +knock came on the door, and Mr. Hardwin entered. Quickly seizing me in +his arms, he covered my face with kisses, and did not quit until he +heard someone approaching. He left hastily, saying 'Don't tell!' the +only words he uttered during the scene. I was so amazed that I did not +even scream. Nor did I understand, but I did feel troubled and ashamed. +All that morning I was uneasy and nervous, and the following day I +waited outside until some of the girls came, so that I should not have +to go into the factory alone. The day following I received an envelope +with my pay, and was told that my services were no longer required. + +"I got a beating at home as a result of my discharge, but as I soon +found another job, my parents became comparatively kind to me again. +This new work was in a candy factory, where I was both startled and +amazed at the way the beautiful, sweet candies were made. I remained +there about six months, when I was discharged because I had been late +several times in one week. The next job was in a brewery, where I +labelled beer bottles. This was the cleanest and most wholesome place I +ever worked in. We had a whole hour for dinner, and the boys and girls +were all so jolly. Nearly every day after lunch we played on mouth +organs and danced on the smooth floor until the whistle blew for work +again. Oh, there, it was good to work! Three times a day each employee +received a bottle of nice cold beer, which, after several hours of hard +work, tasted lovely. The people there seemed to think it was not evil to +be happy, and I naturally agreed with them against the good people +outside. But one ill-fated day my parents heard that a brewery was an +immoral place for a young girl to work in, and that if I remained there +I might lose my character and reputation. So I was taken away and put to +work in another place and then in another, but I am sure that I never +again found a place that I liked half as well as the dear old bottled +beer shop." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +_Domestic Service_ + + +When Marie was about fifteen years old, her mother took her away from +the factories and put her into domestic service. Factory work was +telling on the girl's health, and the night freedom it involved did not +please her mother. The young woman for some time had felt the charms of +associating with many boys and girls unchaperoned and untrammelled. She +liked the streets at night better than her home. + +"When I got into the street," said Marie, "I felt like a dog let loose." +Of course, she hated to go into domestic service, where the evenings +would no longer be all her own, but her mother was still strong enough +to have her way. + +"At that time," Marie wrote me, "I was a poor, awkward girl, somewhat +stupid, perhaps, but who would not be at my age and in the same +environment? I had received most of my education in the factories and +stores down-town, which was perhaps beneficial to everybody but me. +Even my mother, who in some ways was stupid and hard, noticed that this +sort of education was likely to have what is called a demoralizing +effect on me. So she induced a kind-hearted, philanthropic woman, Mrs. +Belshow, to take me as servant girl. Mrs. Belshow was high in affairs of +the Hull House Settlement Workers, and generously paid my mother one +dollar and a half a week for my services. + +"Mrs. Belshow had a beautiful house. At first these fine surroundings, +to which I was entirely unused, made me more awkward than ever. But soon +I got accustomed to the place and became very serviceable to my +employer. I was lady's maid as well as general housekeeper, and my fine +lady duly appreciated my work, for she never asked me to do service +after half-past nine at night or before half-past five in the morning. +Besides, she allowed me Sunday afternoon free, but only to go to church +or Sunday School. For the honourable lady told me very kindly that she +did not wish to interfere with my religion in any way whatever. This +advice I accepted meekly, as I was greatly in awe of her, though I +should have much preferred to spend my half holiday in my home locality +and to dance there with other stupid boys and girls in Lammer's Hall, +where the entrancing strains of the concertina were to be heard every +Sunday afternoon. The young folks out that way were not strong on +religion; or, if they were, they would receive all the soul's medicine +necessary by attending church in the morning, no doubt thereby feeling +more vigorous and fit for enjoying the dance afterwards. + +"But I, poor stupid, had learned from my mistress that dance-halls were +vile and abominable. Of course, I believed all that Mrs. Belshow told +me. I had not the slightest idea that she did not know everything. Why, +she belonged to Hull House, that big place in Halsted Street, which had +flowers and lace curtains in all the windows, and big looking-glasses +and carpets and silver things on the inside; and many beautiful ladies +who wore grand silk dresses and big hats with feathers came to see my +mistress nearly every day, and they all talked a great deal about the +evils of dance-halls and saloons and theatres. I had always stupidly +thought that those places were very nice, especially the dance-halls, +because I always enjoyed myself there better than anywhere else. I had +never been in a theatre, but I had often been in the saloons to rush the +can for my father, and I had noticed that people seemed to enjoy +themselves there. There were long green tables in the saloons on which +men played pool, and there were books scattered about in which were +jokes and funny pictures. And the men played cards and told stories and +danced and sang and did about anything they wanted to. This seemed to me +good, and I felt sure at the time that if I were a man I should like to +be there, too. + +"But now I learned that these were terrible places, dens of vice and +crime. What vice was, I did not know, but crime meant murdering somebody +or doing something else dreadful. I thought about what I heard the fine +ladies say until my poor little head became quite muddled. Left to +myself, I could not see anything so terrible about these places, but if +these finely dressed ladies said they were terrible, why they must be +so. They knew better than I did. But I wondered dreamily if all terrible +places were as nice as dance-halls. + +"After the novelty of the situation wore away, life became rather +wearisome to me, and I sometimes wished I were again working in the old +factory. I thought of the evenings, when my day's work in the factory +was done and I was walking in the streets with my chums, telling them, +perhaps, of the small girls who worked with me in the factory, and of +the guys who waited for them on Saturday nights and took them to the +show. And one of the girl's guys always used to give her a whole box of +the swellest candy you ever tasted. + +"Dreaming thus one day of all the happy times I had known, I loitered +over my work, as I fear I often did, and was sharply reprimanded by my +mistress, the honourable lady, who wanted to speak to me as soon as +possible on a matter of grave importance. I finished making the bed in a +hurry and went into the presence of Mrs. Belshow, who said to me: + +"'My dear child, how old are you?' + +"'Past fifteen, ma'am.' + +"'Fifteen! H'm, you're quite a big girl for your age. I'm astonished +that you have no more self-respect, or your mother for you! How is it +that she allows you to go about with such short dresses? Why, it is +shameful; I am surprised, for your mother seemed to me a sensible sort +of a woman. I declare, I never would allow my daughter to expose herself +in such a shameless manner, and I certainly will not allow anyone in my +employ to do so. Only the other day my attention was called by some of +my friends to your most careless condition. They said they could not +help noticing it, it was so dreadful. It is this kind of thing which +causes a great part of the vice and immorality with which we are +surrounded. Unless a mother has common decency enough to clothe her +child properly, it seems hopeless for us to accomplish anything. Now, my +dear child, I want you to go home this very night and tell your mother +you must positively have some long dresses, or no self-respecting person +would care to associate with you. And you must try to have at least one +respectable garment by Sunday, for I am ashamed to have you seen going +out of my house in your present condition. Run along now and don't be +home later than ten this evening.' + +"During this long harangue I stood gazing on the floor, blushing +painfully. I wanted to tell my mistress why I had no longer dresses, +but could only stammer 'yes, ma'am' and 'no, ma'am,' and was very glad +to escape from the room as soon as my lady had finished. + +"When my mother heard about the affair, she was very indignant, and +demanded why Mrs. Belshow did not buy the dresses for me. 'For my part,' +she said, 'I have no money to waste on such trash. I'm sure, what you +are wearing now is all right. It's not so short, either, nearly down to +your shoe tops. But I suppose I must get you something, or she will fire +you. I'll give you a dress that'll be long enough all right--one that +goes right down to the floor, and if Mrs. Belshow doesn't like it, +she'll have to lump it. I can't afford to get you new dresses every year +and you not through growing yet. Gee, that Mrs. Belshow must think we're +millionaires!' + +"When I made my appearance the next Sunday morning in a neat long skirt, +the honourable lady praised me very highly, saying that now I looked +like a respectable young woman. 'Why, you actually look pretty, my +child,' she said. 'You must get a nice ribbon for your neck, and then +you will be fine.' This remark made me very happy, for I had been +secretly longing for a dress of this kind. Now, at last, I was a real +grown-up lady. Perhaps I might soon have a fellow, who would take me to +the show, just like the girls in the factory. I thrilled with joy. Later +I looked into the mirror a long while, admiring myself and dreaming of +the afternoon, when I would be free. I decided that I would go to the +dance, and pictured to myself how surprised and envious the other girls +would be, when they saw me looking so fine. I would certainly not miss +one single dance the whole afternoon, for I was sure the boys would be +fascinated and that the swellest among them would see me home in the +evening. + +"These joys made the morning an unforgettable one; but soon it was time +to get ready to go. I went to my room and curled my hair, and then was +more pleased with myself than ever. I really looked pretty! Oh, the joy +of it! I do not need to explain, even to a man. Briefly, I looked +sweller than ever. The only thing needed to complete my toilet were some +bright ribbons to fix in my hair and around my throat. I recollected +having seen some very pretty ribbons in my mistress's scrap-bag which +would do admirably. So I brought the scrap bag from the store room and +dumped the contents on my bed, and soon found just what I wanted--two +beautiful bits of silk. I hastily stitched them together, and was all +ready to go. I could return the silk to the bag the next morning and my +mistress would never know they had been gone. I thought regretfully what +a shame it was to throw such beautiful things into a scrap-bag. + +"Poor, vain little me! I came home later than usual, that +never-to-be-forgotten night!--very tired, but very happy. And I had been +escorted all the way by the grandest young man I had ever known. I lay +awake for a long time, reviewing everything that had happened. I had +never dreamed it was possible to be so happy. It was because I was now a +grown-up lady! I should never forget that all my happiness was due to my +mistress, for it was through her that I had my long dress. I decided to +be more serviceable than ever, not dream and dawdle over my work, and +never to be angry when my mistress scolded me. I would disobey her only +in one thing--about going to Sunday School. At least, I would not go +every week, perhaps every other Sunday, so she would not notice. In the +midst of these good and delightful thoughts I fell asleep, and slept so +soundly that the alarm bell in the clock did not awaken me at the usual +hour. + +"It did awaken Mrs. Belshow, however, who was just about to drop off to +sleep again, when it occurred to her that she had not heard me moving +about as usual, so she went to my room and aroused me in the midst of a +beautiful dream about the handsomest boy you ever saw just as he was +paying me the greatest attention! + +"Jumping out of bed, I was horrified to find it was six o'clock, fully +half an hour late. I rushed about my work, dreading the moment, yet +wishing it were over, when my mistress should summon me for the scolding +I was sure would come, for if there was one thing Mrs. Belshow hated +more than anything else, it was being late. All too soon came the +dreaded moment. Breakfast was scarcely over, when I was requested to go +to my room. That was rather surprising, for, as a rule, I received my +scolding in the lady's room, while I was assisting her to pull on her +stockings or comb her hair. + +"I had scarcely crossed the threshold of my room when my knees knocked +together and I nearly fell over, for there, standing in the centre of +the room, with a piece of silk in her hand and an ominous frown on her +face, stood my mistress. She pointed an accusing finger at me and asked +coldly, 'Where did you get this?' Receiving no answer, she continued, +'Don't tell any lies, now, to add to your other crime.' I stood there, +as if glued to the floor and could only gaze at her dumbly and +appealingly. I tried to speak in vain; but even if I had been able to, +she would not have given me a chance. She brought all her eloquence to +bear upon the stupid girl before her; she wanted to make me see what a +very evil act I had committed. + +"'Oh, how sorry I am!' she cried, 'that this thing has happened. But you +are very fortunate that it has occurred in my house, rather than in +somebody else's, for I know what measures to take to cure you of the +propensity to crime which you have so clearly shown. I shall, of course, +have to send you away immediately; for I could never again trust you in +my home, for although it is only a trifle that you have stolen,--yes, +deliberately stolen,--yet anyone who takes only a pin that belongs to +another, will take more when the opportunity offers. So, in order to +cure you of this tendency, I myself will conduct you to your mother and +impress upon her the necessity of guarding and watching you carefully, +as a possible young criminal. I never should have expected this of you, +for you have quite an honest look. Now, dress yourself quickly and +bundle up whatever belongs to you. I will remain in the room while you +are packing. Are you sure you have taken nothing else which does not +belong to you?' + +"This question loosened my tongue, which hitherto had clung tightly to +the roof of my mouth. Dropping on my knees before my mistress, I +fervently swore that I had taken nothing, that I had not meant to take +anything. I had meant to wear the pieces of silk only once and then put +them back where I had found them. With tears rolling down my face, I +begged her not to tell my mother. + +"'I will work for you all my life without pay,' I cried, 'if you will +only not tell my mother. Indeed, I did not mean to steal, so please +don't tell my mother!' + +"This I urged so vehemently and with such floods of tears that finally +my kind-hearted mistress said: 'My dear child, if you will promise me +faithfully never to do anything like this again, I will not tell your +mother. But let this be a lesson to you; never to take anything again, +not even a pin, that does not belong to you. You can never again say, +with perfect truthfulness, that you have not stolen. I am glad to see +that you have such respect for your mother that you do not want her to +know of this, and for your sake I will not tell her. I have a meeting at +Hull House to attend in half an hour, and before I leave I wish you +would scrub up the kitchen and your room and then you can go.' + +"So saying, the honourable lady left the room quite satisfied with +herself for having (perhaps) rescued another human being from the paths +of vice and crime. I went about my work with a heavy heart. Forgotten +were all the joys of yesterday! Now, just as I was becoming used to my +place, I must leave it. And I must tell my mother some reason for it. +But I could not tell the truth. Ah! yes, I would say that my mistress +was about to close up the house and go South for the winter. That would +be a fine excuse. I had heard and read that many rich people go South +for a time in the cold weather, so surely my mother would not doubt it. +I went away, feeling easier in my mind, and never saw my honourable +mistress again. + +"Many days have passed since then, and I have been serving several +different ladies. I learned a lesson from each one of them; but I shall +never forget what I learned from the kind-hearted, philanthropic Mrs. +Belshow, a prominent settlement worker in a large city. It's a lesson +that Mrs. Belshow will never learn, or could never understand. All of +which shows, perhaps, that I was simple at the time rather than stupid; +for I find that I am still receiving my education--not from books, but +from the way people treat me, and from what I see as I pass through +life." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +_Domestic Service (Continued)_ + + +"Nearly a year had passed," continued Marie, "since I had began to work +at service, and my experiences had not been of the sort that makes one +love one's fellow-creatures. For the most part I had worked for people +who were trying to make a good showing in society and had not the means +to do so. How often during those weary days of drudgery I looked back at +the dear old days when I used to work in the factories! Then I could go +to the dance! Now, it was very difficult, even if my mother had not been +so strongly against it. I could not understand why my mother so sternly +forbade me to go. When I asked her why she objected, the only answer I +received was: 'It is improper for a girl of your age.' 'Why is it +improper?' I asked myself, and could find no answer. So I disobeyed my +mother and danced whenever I had the chance. Whenever I did succeed in +going, my heart almost broke from sheer happiness. Oh, how supremely, +wonderfully joyous I felt! How I forgot everything then--my mother, my +drudgery, everything that made life disagreeable! Whenever the music +started, I felt as if I were floating in the air, I could not feel my +feet touching the floor. All the lights merged into one dazzling glow +and my heart kept time to the rhythm of the music. When the music +stopped, the glorious illumination seemed to go out and leave only a +little straggling light from a few badly smelling kerosene lamps. The +beautiful, fantastic music had been in reality only a harsh horn +accompanied by a concertina or some other stupid instrument jangling +vile music. The young boys and girls were all a common, stupid lot, and +the odour of the stock yards permeated the room. But when the mystical +music begins again, and the dance starts, presto! change, and I am again +floating in rhythmic space and the faces and dim lights have changed +into one glorious central flame. + +"I shall never forget one awful night, when my mother, who had heard +that I was at the dance, came into the hall, and there before all the +boys and girls dragged me out and away to our home. I was so ashamed +that I did not show myself in that dance-hall again for months. I +cannot help thinking my mother was wrong, for I needed some outlet to my +energy. Like many a poor working girl, I had developed into womanhood +early and consequently was full of life. The dance satisfied this life +instinct, which, when that outlet was made difficult, sought some other +way. + +"At that time I had a position as nurse-maid, my duties being to take +care of two beautiful, but spoiled children, who had never received +proper care, because their mother a wealthy woman, was too indolent, to +make any effort in that direction, spending most of her time lying in +bed with some novel in her hand. The house was filled with sensational, +sentimental books. They were to be found in every room, stacked away in +all the corners. + +"At first I attempted to do what I thought was my duty, that is, to keep +the children neat and clean and try to train them to be more gentle and +obedient, but I soon saw that what their mother wanted was for me to +keep them out of her way. My ambition about them faded away, and I +sought only to fulfil my mistress's wishes. I used to take the two +children up into the store-room, in which were all sorts of +miscellaneous things, including stacks and stacks of paper-covered +novels, lock the door, and allow the children absolute liberty, while I +sat down comfortably and examined the books. + +"Here a new life opened before me. I read these novels constantly every +day and half the night, and could hardly wait for the children to have +their breakfast, so eager was I to get at my wonderful stories again. +Even when it was necessary to take the children out for an airing, a +novel was always hidden in my clothes, which I would eagerly devour as +soon as I was out of sight of the house. During the four weeks spent at +this place I read more than forty novels. Even on Sunday, when I was +free, I sprawled out on the bed and read these sensational books. I +thought no more of my beloved dances, for I was living in a new world. +Here I was in a beautiful house, where I did almost nothing but loll in +the easiest chairs and feed my soul on stories about beautiful, innocent +maidens, who were wooed, and after almost insurmountable difficulties, +won by gallant, devoted heroes. + +"But soon I became so absorbed that even the few duties I had, became +very irksome to me, for they interfered somewhat with my reading. Every +morning I had to bathe and dress the little ones, who, not seeing the +necessity for these operations, struggled and screamed and bit and +kicked. I had accepted this daily scene as a matter of course, but every +now and then it rather irritated me. One morning the hubbub was +unusually long and loud, so much so that the noise disturbed the mother, +who was breakfasting and reading in bed. She came to the room in a stew +and asked me what was the matter. When I told her, she angrily said: +'When I engage a nurse girl for my children, I do not expect to hear +them squealing every morning. Remember that, and do not let me hear them +again.' + +"The little boy, who was precocious for his age, heard what his mother +had said, and seeing that he had not been scolded for his ill behaviour, +began to scream and struggle more than ever, and his little sister +imitated him, in a dutiful, feminine way. I then lost my patience, +seized the little boy, dragged him to his mother and said: 'Here's your +boy. Tend to him yourself; I cannot.' + +"I was, of course, told to bundle up my belongings at once and go. I +did not forget to pack away among my things some of the novels, feeling +that since they had all been read by Madame, they were only in the way. +When I said 'good-bye' to the children, Madame came to me and said very +kindly, 'Marie, I'm really sorry this has occurred, for you are one of +the best nurse girls I have ever had, and the children seemed to get +along so nicely with you, too!' I was so surprised at this speech that I +could make no answer and so I lost my chance of remaining, for it is +quite certain she wanted me to stay. But it was fated to be otherwise, +and once more I returned to the home of my parents. + +"My mother was not overjoyed to see me. It was a mystery to her why I +did not keep my jobs longer. I promised to get another place as soon as +possible and begged her to allow me to stay at home the rest of the +week. To this she consented rather grudgingly, and I flew to my beloved +books and read till supper time. I was beginning at it again in the +evening when my mother rudely snatched the book from me saying, that it +was not good for young girls to read such stuff. I begged earnestly to +be allowed to finish just that one story and she finally said that +perhaps I might read it the next day. In the morning I could hardly curb +my impatience; it seemed as though my mother were inventing all sorts of +useless things for me to do, just to keep me from the book. But at last +I was free and, hastening to my room, was soon absorbed in another +world. I was suddenly recalled to this earth by a sharp blow on my head, +and the book was again snatched from me and thrown into the fire and +burned. It seemed that mother had been calling me and that I had been +too much absorbed to hear; that she had finally lost her temper and +decided to punish me. + +"'Don't ever again read such trash as this,' she cried in a rage. 'Have +you any more of them?' + +"'No,' I said, fearing to tell the truth, lest the rest of the books +meet the same fate. + +"She then sent me on an errand. As I left the house I felt uneasy, +thinking that my lie might be discovered. The moment I returned, I saw +by the expression on my mother's face that my fears had been realised. +The storm broke at once. + +"'Oh, what an unfortunate woman I am!' she cried, 'to be treated thus by +my own flesh and blood, by the child that I brought into the world with +so much pain and suffering. O, God, what have I done to deserve this? O +God, what have I done to be cursed with such a child?--so young, yet so +full of lies. What will become of her? Have I not always done my duty by +her and tried to raise her the best I knew how? Why did she not die when +a baby? I like a fool, toiled and moiled for her night and day and this +is my reward.' + +"I had heard these expressions often, for my mother was a hysterical +woman in whom the slightest thing would cause the most violent emotions +which demanded relief in such lamentations. And yet, frequent as they +were, they never failed to arouse in me feelings of shame and +rage--shame that I had caused my mother suffering, and rage that she +reproached herself for having brought me into the world. That expression +of hers never failed to make me wish that I had never been born--born +into this miserable world where I had to toil as a child, and could not +go to dances or even read without receiving a torrent of abuse and an +avalanche of blows. What harm had I done by my reading? True, I had not +heard my mother calling, but how often had I spoken to her without +being heard, when she was engrossed in some newspaper or book! + +"So I remained quiet, when my mother railed at me for my lie, too +ashamed and bitter to make defense or reply. This silence, as usual, +made my mother still more angry and she shouted: 'You ungrateful wretch, +I'll tell your father, and he'll fix you so you won't feel like lying to +your mother for some time to come.' + +"That threat nearly paralysed me with dread, for my father was to me a +strange man whom I had always feared; my mother, when she wanted to +subdue me, only needed to say: 'I'll tell your father.' I remembered the +last time my father had whipped me. I was a big girl at the time, more +than fourteen years old, and working down town. I had to rise very early +in the morning, and it often happened that I would fall asleep again +after my mother had called me. On that particular morning mother had +more difficulty than usual in arousing me, scolding me severely, and I +replied rather impudently, I suppose. She waited till I had got out of +bed and was standing in my bare arms and shoulders over the wash bowl, +and then she told father, who came with a long leather strap, which I +knew well, as it was kept only for one purpose, and beat me so severely +that I carried the marks for a long time. The strap was about two inches +broad, and with this in one hand, whilst he held me firmly with the +other, he belaboured me in such a way that the end of the strap curled +cunningly around my neck and under my arms and about my little breast, +making big welts which swelled at once to about a fourth of an inch in +diameter and were for a few days a most beautiful vivid scarlet in +colour. Then they toned down and new and milder tints came, and finally +there was only a dull sort of green and blue effect. Finally even these +disappeared from my body, but not from me. + +"Now, when I thought of the possible consequences of the lie I had told, +I could feel those marks on my shoulders and arms. And, at my mother's +threat, the thought that I might be beaten again made me flush with +shame. A feeling of rebellion, of vivid revolt, came over me. Why not +resist, why not defend myself? I remembered what a factory girl had once +told me--how she had defended herself against her brother by striking +him with a chair. + +"That is what I will do, I said to myself, trembling with excitement, if +my father tries to beat me again. I am too old to be whipped any more. I +don't care if he kills me, I will do it. Perhaps when I die, and they +see my grave, they'll be sorry. + +"When father came home in the evening, he seemed to sense trouble at +once, for suddenly coming down on the table with his fist, he demanded: +'What in hell is the matter? Here you both are going around with faces +as if you were at a funeral. I'm working hard all day, and when I come +home at night, by God, I don't want to see such faces around me. What in +hell is it, now tell me!' + +"Mother told him, and he said: 'Very well, just wait till I've had +supper, for I'm damned hungry, then we'll have a little understanding +with my lady, who's so mighty high-toned since she worked for those +swells. I'll soon show her, though, she is no better than we are.' + +"When the important task of supper was over he called me to him. I was +trembling in every limb, for I knew that my father was a man of few +words and that he would without delay proceed to action. I managed to +get a chair between him and me. He went to work deliberately, as if he +were a prize-fighter. First, he spat on his hands, and was about to give +me a knock-out-blow, when I, with the courage of desperation, raised the +chair above my head, crying out, 'Father, if you strike me, I'll hit you +with this chair.' He was so astonished at my audacity that his arms fell +to his sides and he gazed at me as if he had lost his senses. I took +advantage of this pause to make for the door, but before I could escape, +he seized me by the arm and hurled me back into the room, and then with +blood-shot eyes and bull-like voice he cursed and cursed. My mother, +fearing the effect of his terrible rage, tried to intercede, but he +pushed her aside, shouting, 'Oh, she's the daughter of her mother all +right, and she'll turn out to be a damned ---- just like you!' + +"He then came up to me, where I was standing really expecting my death, +and to my surprise only pressed his fist gently against my head saying: +'See how easily I could crush you. The next time I hear anything about +you, I will.' Cursing me and mother, he left the house and he took him +to a nearby saloon where he drank himself insensible. Toward morning he +was brought home. Poor man, he just couldn't bear to see long faces +about him, especially after a hard day's work! + +"In a few days I secured another place, this time in a middle-class +family. I remained there nearly a year and was considered by my mistress +a model of willingness, patience, endurance, gentleness, and all the +other slavish virtues. I never spoke except when spoken to and then I +answered so respectfully! The children might kick and abuse me in any +way they chose without any show of resentment from me. This my mistress +noticed and duly commended. 'Those dear children,' she said. 'You know +they do not realise what they are about, and so one ought not to be +harsh to the dear pets.' + +"I gave up reading books and even newspapers; partly I suppose because I +had for the time satiated myself, especially with sentimental and trashy +novels, and had not yet learned to know real literature, and partly +because, in my state of humility, I listened to my mistress when she +said reading took too much time, that it was better to sew, dust, and +the like, when I was not busy with the children. Everything I do, I must +do passionately, it seems, even to being a slave. I gave up dances, too, +and on my days out dutifully visited my parents. I had no friends or +companions and was in all respects what one calls a perfect servant--so +perfect that the friends of my mistress quite envied her the possession +of so useful a slave. + +"I got pleasure out of doing the thing so thoroughly; but yet it would +not have been so interesting to me if it had not been painful, too. I +was enough of a sport to want as much depth of experience, while it +lasted, in that direction as in any other--in spite of, perhaps partly +because of, the pain. And what pain it was, at times! Who knows of the +bitter hatred surging in my heart, of the long nights spent in tears, of +the terrible mental tortures I endured! Sometimes it was as if an iron +hand were squeezing my heart so that I almost died; sometimes as if a +great lump of stone lay on my chest. And my mistress seemed each day +somehow to make the iron hand squeeze tighter and tighter and the stone +weigh heavier and heavier. If she had only known what a deadly hatred I +bore her--a hatred that would not have been so severe if I had not been +so good a servant--had given myself rope, had satisfied my emotions! If +she had understood that my calm, modest bearing was only a mask which +hid a passionate soul keenly alive to the suffering inflicted on me, she +would have hesitated, I think, before she entrusted her precious +darlings to my care. + +"This period of virtuous serving was the severest strain to which my +nature, physical and moral, was ever put. I finally became very ill, and +had to be removed to my mother's house, as completely broken in body as +I had apparently been in spirit. + + * * * * * + +"I sat near the window gazing vacantly at the scene below. All the +morning I had sat there with that empty feeling in my soul. From time to +time my mother spoke to me, but I answered without turning my head. +Since my illness I seemed to have lost all interest in life, and this, +although everybody was kind to me. My mother gave me novels to read and +money to go to the dances. The books I scarcely glanced at, and what I +did read seemed so silly to me! And the dances had lost their charm. I +went once or twice, but the music did not awaken any emotion in me, and +I sat dully in a corner watching, without any desire to join in. And +this, when I was hardly past sixteen years of age! + +"The day before, I had been down town looking for a job in the stores, +for my mother had told me that I might work in the shops or factories +again, if I wished. Although even this assurance failed to interest me, +I had obediently tried to find a position, but oh! how weary I was and +how I longed for some quiet corner where I might sit for ever and ever +and ever without moving. This morning I was wearier than ever, my feet +seemed weighted, and I could hardly drag them across the room. My mother +asked me anxiously, if I were ill. 'No, no,' I said. 'Then my child,' +she replied, 'you must positively find work. You father is getting old +and it would be a shame to have him support a big girl like you--big +enough to make her own living. Don't you want to go back to your last +place? She would be very glad to have you, I am sure.' + +"This last remark aroused me, and I replied that I would never go back, +even if I had to starve. 'Don't worry, mother,' I said, 'I'll go now, +and if I don't find a place, I won't come back.' 'Oh, what a torture it +is to have children,' moaned my mother. 'Don't you know your father +would kill me if you did not return?' + +"Her words fell on heedless ears, for I was already half way down the +stairs. I bought a paper and in it read this advertisement, 'Wanted: a +neat girl to do second work in suburb near Chicago. Apply to No. -- +Wabash Avenue.' Within an hour I presented myself at Mr. Eaton's office, +was engaged by him, received a railroad ticket and instructions how to +go to Kenilworth the following evening. On my way home I made up my mind +to tell nobody where I was going. I packed my few belongings and told my +mother that I had secured a place with a certain Mrs. So-and-so who +lived in Such-and-such a street. I lied to the best of my ability and +satisfied my mother thoroughly. + +"The next morning I went away, and was soon speeding to Kenilworth, +where I was met at the station by my future mistress and her mother, two +extremely aristocratic women, who received me kindly and walked with me +to my new home, instructing me on the way in regard to my duties in the +household. These consisted mainly in being scrupulously neat, answering +the door-bell and waiting on the table. I began at once to work very +willingly and obligingly, and also helped the other girl working in the +household, and everybody was kind to me in return. I did not, however, +take this kindness to heart as I would have done a year or two earlier, +for I had learned to my cost that kindness of this kind was generally +only on the surface. + +"But my new mistress soon proved to be a true gentlewoman, who treated +her servants like human beings. To work for a mistress who did not try +to interfere with my private life or regulate my religion or my morals +was an unusual and pleasing experience for me. This lady was as tolerant +and broad-minded toward her servants as she was toward herself, rather +more so, I think, for cares and age had removed from her desires and +temptations for which she still had sympathy when showing themselves in +younger people. I soon saw, to my astonishment, that things which my +mother and my other employers had told me were evil, and which I had +learned almost to think were so, did not seem evil to this sweet lady. +I remember how kindly and sadly she said to me once, when I had spent +half the night out with a young man: 'Little Marie, it is a sad thing in +life that what seems to us the sweetest and the best, and what indeed is +the sweetest and the best, often leads to our harm and the harm of +others. It would be foolish of me to pretend to know which of your +actions is good and which is bad; but remember that life is very +difficult and hard to lead right, and that you must be careful and +always thoughtful of what is good and what is evil. I myself have never +learned to know for sure what is good or evil, but as I grow older I am +certain that we act always for the one or for the other.' + +"Under these conditions, in the home of such a sweet and tolerant woman, +all the throbbing joy of life and youth awoke again within me. Cut off +from the old scenes and companions, I entered upon a new existence. I +made many friends with the young people in the neighbourhood, and for +the first time felt free and without the opposition of anybody. I had +not written my mother or in any way let her know where I was, and no +disturbing word came from my past. I sang all day at my work, and in +the evening I joined my new companions and together we roamed and +frolicked to our hearts' content. I had many young men friends and could +satisfy my desire to be in their society, talk to, dance with them, +without arousing evil thoughts in others or, consequently, in ourselves. + +"Under these happy influences I grew healthier and more wholesome in +every way. People began to say I was pretty, and indeed I did grow to be +very good-looking. My figure had reached its fullest development and the +rosy bloom of youth and of health was in my cheeks. I was strong and +vigorous, self-reliant and independent, and very happy. I became quite a +favourite and the recognised leader in the mischievous frolics of the +young people. Hardly an evening passed that did not bring a scene of +gaiety. It seemed to me that I had never lived before and that I was +making up for all the pleasures I had not known. There was, indeed, +something heartless and cruel in my happiness, for I never once wrote to +my mother, selfishly fearing to have my present joy disturbed. + +"My fears had good reason, too, it seems, for I had lived in those +pleasant surroundings only a few months when one evening, while I was +enjoying myself at a moon-light picnic, I was approached by a sober, +stern-looking man who drew me away from my friends and asked me my name. +When I had told him, he showed me a newspaper clipping of an article +with the head-lines, 'Mysterious Disappearance of a Young Girl.' For +some moments I stood as if turned to stone, gazing stupidly at the +paper. Then troubled thoughts took possession of me. 'What shall I do? +What will become of me?' I remembered my mother so often saying that if +I ran away I would be put in the House of Correction. At this thought I +shuddered and exclaimed aloud, 'No, no.' The man had been watching me +closely and he asked: 'Is it true,' pointing to the article. I stared at +him, for a moment too absorbed in my inner terror to be very conscious +of him. When he repeated the question, I looked at him with a more +intelligent expression in my eyes, and he, seeing my condition, spoke to +me kindly and persuasively. + +"'Tell me the truth,' he said, 'And I will help and advise you.' So I +told him the whole story, and he reassured me, saying, 'Don't be +afraid, little girl, I have no doubt your mother will forgive you if you +explain to her in the way you have to me. It is hard for children to +understand their parents. I know, for I have children of my own, and +sometimes they think me unkind when I am trying to do my best for them.' +He was kind, but he was firm, too, and said that if I did not write my +mother, he should do so himself. So I at last consented, and as a result +went back to the city: for my mother, my unfortunate, cruel mother, +wanted me for some strange reason, to be near her." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +_Adventures In Sex_ + + +When Marie returned to her home, she found that her father had died. It +made little difference, practical or otherwise, to her or to her mother, +except to make her stay in the house less dangerous, though quite as +irksome, as formerly. Her mother had, of course, reproached her bitterly +for her conduct in running away, and had kept up her complaint so +constantly that Marie could hardly endure her home even for the night +and early morning. So for that reason, as well as for the need of making +her living, Marie went again into service, going quickly from one job to +another in the city. + +And now there came for her a period of wildness, in the ordinary sense +of the word. It was not the simple joys of her Kenilworth experience. +She had returned to her mother's home in a kind of despair. It seemed +to her as if the innocent pleasures of life were not for her. She had +been torn away from her happiness and had been compelled to go back +to conditions she hated. Her passions were strong and her +seventeen-year-old senses were highly developed by premature work and +an irritating and ungenial home. So, in a kind of gloomy intensity, +she let herself go in the ordinary way of unguarded young girlhood. +She gave herself to a young fellow she met in the street one evening, +without joy but with deep seriousness. She did not even explain to him +that it was her first experience. She wanted nothing from him but the +passionate illusion of sex. And she parted from him without tenderness +and without explanations, to take up with other men and boys in the +same spirit of serious recklessness. She had for the time lost hope, +and therefore, of course, care for herself, and her intense and +passionate nature strove to live itself out to the limit: an instinct +for life and at the same time for destruction. + +From this period of her life comes a story which she wrote for me, and +which I quote as being typical of her attitude and as throwing light on +her personality. + +"The Southwest corner of State and Madison Streets is the regular +rendezvous of all sorts of men. They can be seen standing there every +afternoon and evening, gazing at the surging crowd which passes by. One +sees day after day the same faces, and one wonders why they are there, +for what they are looking. Some of these men have brutal, sensual faces; +others are cynical-looking and sneer. These, it seems, nothing can move +or surprise. They have a look which says: 'Oh, I know you, I have met +your kind before. You do not move me, nothing can. I have tried +everything, there is nothing new for me.' And yet they cannot tear +themselves away from this corner, coming day after day and night after +night, hoping against hope for some new adventure. + +"Others stand there like owls, stupidly staring at the rushing tide of +faces. They see nothing, and yet are seemingly hypnotised by the +panorama of life. Here, too, pass the girls with the blond hair and the +painted faces; they ogle the men, and as they cross the street raise +their silken skirts a trifle, showing a bit of gay stocking. Here, too, +is the secret meeting-place of lovers, who clasp hands furtively, +glancing around with stealth. All this is seen by the sensual men, who +glance enviously at the lovers, and by the cynical men whose cold smiles +seem to say: 'Bah! how tiresome! wait, and your silly meetings will not +be so charming!' + +"On my evenings off I had sometimes stopped to gaze at this, to me, +strangely moving sight. I saw in it then what I could not have seen a +few months before; but not as much as I can see now. Then it excited me +with the sense of a possible adventure. Strange, but I never went there +when I was happy, only when I was uncommonly depressed. + +"On a chilly Sunday evening in October I was waiting on this corner to +take a car to the furnished room of a factory girl, named Alice, whom I +knew was out of town. As I was out of a job and did not want to go home, +I had availed myself of her place for a few days. As I was waiting on +this corner, I saw a face in the crowd that attracted me. It was, as I +afterward learned, the face of a club man, who had, on this Sunday +evening, drifted with the crowd and landed at this spot. He, too, had +stopped and gazed around him, idly. Several times he started as if to +move on, but he apparently thought this place as good as any other, and +so remained. He seemed not to know what to do, to be tired of himself. +His face was quite the ordinary American type, clean-cut features, +rather thin and cold, with honest grey eyes, but, in his case, a mouth +rather sensuous and a general air of curiosity and life which interested +me. + +"I was sufficiently interested to allow several cars to pass by, while I +watched him. I noticed by the way he looked at the women who passed that +he was familiar with their kind. Several gay girls tried to attract his +attention, but he turned away, bored. Finally I began to walk away, and +then for the first time his face lighted up with interest. I was +apparently something new. I wore a straw hat, and a thin coat buttoned +tightly about my chest. My thin little face was almost ghastly with +pallor, and it made a strange contrast with my full red lips, which were +almost scarlet, and my big glowing black eyes. He probably saw that I +was poor, dressed as I was at that season. Why is it that for many rich +men a working girl half fed and badly dressed is so much more attractive +than a fine woman of the town or a nice lady? + +"As I passed him, he said, 'Good evening,' in a low and timid tone, as +if he thought I surely would not answer. I think it surprised him when I +looked him full in the face and replied, 'Good evening!' He still +hesitated, until he saw in my face what I knew to be almost an appealing +look. I knew that in the depths of my eyes a smile was lurking, and I +wanted to bring it forth! A moment later, I smiled indeed, when he +stepped forward, lifted his hat, and asked with assurance: 'May I walk +with you? Are you going anywhere?' + +"'Yes, I am going somewhere,' I said, smiling. 'To a meeting place in +Adams Street to hear a lecture.' + +"'Oh, I say, girlie,' he cried, 'You're jollying. That must be a very +dull thing for you, a lecture.' + +"'Sometimes it's funny,' I said. But I did not say much about it, as I +had never yet been to a lecture. I made up for that later in my life! I +of course had no intention of going to this. + +"'Come,' he urged, 'let's go in somewhere and have something to eat and +drink.' + +"'Yes, I will have something, not to eat, though, but let us go where +there are lots of people and lights and all that sort of thing,' I +finished, vaguely. + +"Charley tucked my arm in his and we walked along State Street until we +came to a brilliantly lighted cafe. The place was crowded with +well-dressed men and beautiful women, eating and drinking, chatting and +laughing. Waiters were hastening to and fro. An orchestra was playing +gay music, as we wound our way through the crowd to a table. I was +painfully conscious that my shabby coat and straw hat attracted +attention. Some of the women stared at me with a look of conscious +superiority in their eyes, others with a look of still more galling +pity. Charley, too, I thought, seemed nervous. Perhaps he did not relish +being seen by some possible acquaintance with so dilapidated-looking a +person! + +"But soon I lost consciousness of these things and gave myself up to the +scene and the music. My sense of pleasure seemed to communicate itself +to my companion, who ordered some drinks; I don't know what they were, +but they tasted good--some kind of cordial. I took longer and longer +sips: it was a new and very pleasant flavour. He ordered more of the +same kind and watched me with interest as I drank and looked about me. + +"'Oh,' I said, 'what beautiful women, and how happy they are! look at +that one with the blond hair. Isn't she beautiful, a real dream?' + +"Charley replied in a tone of contempt: 'Yes, she's beautiful, but I +would not envy her, if I were you--neither her happiness nor her good +looks. She needs those looks in her business. Nearly all the women here +belong to her class.' + +"Charles looked at me intently as he said this. Perhaps he thought I +would be angry because he had brought me to such a place. But I watched +the girls with even greater interest and said: 'Ah, but they must be +happy!' + +"Charles shrugged his shoulders and said, with contempt and some pity in +his eyes, 'A queer sort of happiness!' + +"I looked at him rather angrily. He did not seem just to me. + +"'You don't like them,' I said, 'you think they are vile and low. But +you men seem to need them, just the same. Oh! I think they are brave +girls!' + +"Charles looked at me in apparent astonishment. But then a thought +seemed to strike him. He was thinking that I might be one of that class, +for he asked me questions which showed me plainly enough what he was +worrying about. He encouraged me to drink again, and said with a +self-confident laugh, 'you're a cute one but you cannot fool me with any +such tricks.' + +"I paid no attention to his remarks, and did not answer any of his +personal questions. He could find out nothing about me. I would only +smile and say, 'I don't want to know anything about you, why can't you +treat me the same way?' + +"I could see that the less he knew, the more interested he became. He +plied me with drinks, perhaps thinking that the sweet liquor would +loosen my tongue. Soon I began to feel a little queer and the room began +to go round, taking with it the faces of the men and women. After this +dizziness passed, I felt very happy indeed, and smiled at everybody in +the room; and wanted to go and tell them all how much I liked them. But +I did not dare trust my legs, they felt so heavy. I thought I would +like to stay there always, listening to the music and watching the +people. + +"I suppose my happiness heightened my colour, for Charles said, 'what a +beautiful mouth you have, what red lips. One would almost believe they +were painted. How your upper lip lifts when you smile, Marie! Don't you +want to go out now?' + +"'Yes, yes,' I replied, hastily, 'I must go home now.' + +"I sprang from my chair, I made for the door, but he, quickly seizing +his hat, followed me and took my arm. I went very slowly for my feet +seemed weighted. They were inclined to go one way, while I went another. +So when Charles led me I was quite thankful. As we went out into the +street he asked me where I was living, what I did, and if I were +married, all in one breath. This made me laugh merrily, as I assured him +I was not married. I told him I lived away out on the West Side and that +he could see me home, if he wanted; but not to, if it was out of his +way, for I was used to going alone. He eagerly accepted, and we took a +car. + +"I fell dreaming on the way, of all nice things. The days in Kenilworth +came back to me and I smiled to myself and wistfully hoped my present +happiness would last. My companion eagerly devoured me with his eyes, +and asked me many pressing questions. I answered only very vaguely, for +my mind was full of other things. So finally Charles, too, was silent, +and merely watched me. + +"Suddenly I woke to the fact that I was at Alice's room, so I hastily +arose and signalled to the car to stop. Turning to Charles I extended my +hand in a good-bye and said: 'This is where I live.' But he quickly got +off with me saying he would see me to the house. 'I don't like to leave +you alone this time of night,' he said. As we stopped in front of the +dilapidated-looking frame building where I was staying for a few days, +he seemed much embarrassed and not to know what to say. Pointing +upwards, I said, 'that's where I live.' 'Do you live alone?' he asked. +'Yes, now, not always. Good night--Charles,' I answered, mischievously, +but with a real and disturbing feeling taking possession of me. + +"But he seized me by the hand: 'Don't leave me yet, girlie,' he pleaded. +'Think how lonesome I'll be when you are gone!' He drew me to him in +the darkness, and I did not object, why should I? My lips seemed to +prepare themselves and after one long kiss that sad intensity seized me; +and I sighed or sobbed, I don't know which, as we went up the stairs +together. + + * * * * * + +"An hour later, as he was about to descend the stairs, I said: 'Charles, +when will you come again?' + +"'Oh, I can't tell,' he replied 'but it will be soon.' + +"'Well,' I said, 'remember I shall be here only a few days. Alice will +be back within the week. Come Wednesday evening.' + +"But he left with the remark that it might not be possible! I did not +care for him deeply, of course, it was only an adventure, but this stung +me deeply. The light way he took what he wanted and then seemed to want +to have no tie remaining! I felt as he did, too, really, but I did not +want him to feel so! I imagined in what a self-satisfied mood he must +be, how he walked off, with his lighted cigar! He probably wondered what +sort of a girl this was who had given herself so easily? Partly, too, +no doubt, he laid it to his charm and masculine virtue: though he knew +women were weak creatures, he also knew that men were strong! Ah! I +could almost hear him muse aloud, in my imagination. His reveries, +perhaps, would run about like this: + +"'I was rather lucky to happen along this evening! She was certainly +worth while, though pretty weak, I must say. She had fine eyes and, by +jove, what a mouth! She said, "Wednesday." I think I will go, though it +is never good policy to let girls be too sure of you. Besides, how do I +know she isn't playing me some game?' + +"I didn't know as much then as I do now about man's nature, but now I +make no doubt that as the time passed between then and Wednesday +Charles's desire grew: it began with indifference, but ended, I am sure, +with intensity: for men are like that! Their fancy works in the absence, +not in the presence, of the girl. I am sure the girl with the red lips +and the deep dark eyes haunted him more and more as time went on! + +"At the time, I didn't know just why, but I did know that I wanted +nothing more of Charley. He had never been anything but a man to me--he +was a moment in my life, that was all. But I decided to meet him, for +only in that way could I really finish the affair. Otherwise, if I +merely broke the engagement, he could imagine whatever he wanted to +account for it. No, he must be under no illusion. He must know that I +did not want him! + +"I waited for him in front of the house, and on the appointed hour he +arrived, looking very happy and eager. He greeted me with much warmth, +to which I responded coldly. He suggested going inside, but I said: 'No, +I am going away. I have been waiting here to tell you so, in case you +came to-night.' + +"'But,' he exclaimed in an aggrieved tone, 'Did not you ask me to come, +and now you say you are going away. Is that fair to me?' + +"I shrugged my shoulders and said, 'I don't know, but I'm going. +Good-bye,' and I turned from him and started to walk away. His tone +changed to anger, as he said: 'Now, see here, Marie, I won't stand for +any nonsense of this kind. You can't treat me like this, you know. What +right have you to act in this lying way?' + +"I had been walking away and he following, and as he stopped talking, he +took my arm, which I jerked away and impatiently said: 'Well, to be +frank, I don't want you to-night. Whether I have a right to act so, I +don't know or care. Why I asked you to come I don't know, unless it was +because I felt different from what I do now.' + +"Charles adopted a more conciliating tone and asked me when he might +come. His interest in me seemed to grow with my resistance. + +"'I guess you'd better not come at all,' I said, coolly. + +"'But I want to,' he said. 'Do name the night, any night you say.' + +"Then I turned to him with angry eyes, and cried out, 'Oh, how stupid +you are! Don't you understand that I don't want you at all?' + +"I again started to walk away, but he seized my arm and shouted angrily: +'You cannot leave me like this without explaining some things to me. In +the first place, why did you pull me on last Saturday night, and who are +you to turn me down like this?' I answered, with flashing eyes, 'I owe +you no explanation, but I will answer your questions. As to who the girl +is who can dare to turn you down, you know very well she is not what you +think, or you wouldn't so much object to being turned down, as you call +it. As to pulling you on, you were the first to speak or, at any rate, +it was mutual, so you need not demand any explanation. What you really +want to know is why I don't want you now. If I were a man like you, I +suppose I should never even think of explaining to anyone why I happened +to change in feeling toward some persons, but as I'm a woman, it's +different. I must explain!' + +"This speech I have no doubt made him angry, but his pride came to the +rescue and he said with a show of indifference: 'I was angry, it is +true, but only for a moment. It was irritating to me to have a girl like +you show the nerve to throw me down; for I'm not accustomed to associate +with your sort.' + +"At this insolence my face flushed hotly and I opened my mouth to make +some indignant reply, but I thought better of it and only walked away, +laughing softly to myself. As I went away, I heard him mutter, 'What a +cat.' + +"But, I imagine, he didn't forget me so easily. I have no doubt that the +girl with the red lips and deep dark eyes haunted him for a long time. +Who was this girl who had given herself to him once and only once? It is +this kind of a mystery that makes a man dream and dream and curse +himself. + +"Probably for some time, as he joined the crowd at State and Madison +Streets, he hoped to see me as I passed, but all things come to an end +and his passion for me did, no doubt, too. But, in the routine course of +his club life, moments came, perhaps, when he thought of little Marie, +her red lips, deep eyes, and pale, pale face. I doubt if he ever told +this story to any of his boon companions." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +_Marie's Salvation_ + + +On account of the irregularity of her life, Marie lost job after job. +Her relations with her mother, never good, grew worse and worse. Her +profound need of experience, in which the demand of the senses and the +curiosity of the mind were equally represented, impelled her to act +after act of recklessness and abandon. But, as in almost all, perhaps +all, human beings, there was in her soul a need of justification--of +social justification, no matter how few persons constituted the +approving group. + +The feeling that everybody was against her, that she was on the road to +being what the world calls an outcast, gave to her life an element of +sullenness and of despair. Perhaps this added depth to her dissipation, +but it took away from it all quality of joy as well as of peace. If her +sensuality and her despair had been all there was in her, or if these +had constituted her main characteristics, this story would never have +been written. Perhaps another tale might have been told, but it would +have been the story of a submerged class, not prostitutes, white slaves; +and then it would have been the story of a submerged class, not of an +individual temperament. + +What was it that kept Marie in all really essential ways out of this +class of social victims? It was because, in the first place, of the fact +that her nature demanded something better than what the life of the +prostitute afforded. And it was natural that the greater quality of +personality that she possessed should attract the kind of love and +social support needed essentially to justify to herself her instincts. +When she was very young Marie secured the genuine love of two strong and +remarkable personalities; and at a later time, there gathered about +these three, other people who enlarged the group, which gave to each +member of it the social support needed to remove essential despair and +desperate self-disapproval. + +One of these two persons so necessary to Marie's larger life was a woman +whom she had met several years previous to this point in the story. + +This woman was a cook, Katie by name. She was born in Germany, and her +young girlhood was spent in the old country. She had only a rudimentary +education, and even now speaks broken English. But she was endowed with +a healthy, independent nature, a spontaneous wit, and a strong demand to +take care of something and to love. + +As natural as a young dog, she never thought of resisting a normal +impulse. Her life as a girl in Germany was as free and untrammelled as a +happy breeze. She lived in a little garrison town in the South, and the +German soldiers did no essential harm to her and the other young girls +of the place. These things were deemed laws of nature in her community. +What would have been dreadful harm to a young American girl was only an +occasional moment of anxiety to her. It never occurred to her that it +was possible to resist a man. "I had to," she said, very simply, and did +not seem to regret it any more than that she was compelled to eat. She +is also very fond of her food. + +She came to America and worked as cook in private families. She was +capable and strong and was never out of a job. She never took any +"sass" from her mistress; in this respect she was quite up to date among +American "help." + +At the time she first met Marie she had been working for a family +several years, and had reduced her employer to a state of wholesome awe. +She remained, like a queen, in the kitchen, whence she banished all +objectionable intruders. Her mistress had a married daughter, also +living in the house, who at first was wont to give orders to Katie, and +to interfere with her generally. One day Katie drove her out of the +kitchen with a volley of broken English. The daughter complained to the +mother, who took Katie's side. "You don't belong in the kitchen," she +said to her indignant daughter. + +This episode filled Katie with contempt for her mistress. + +"She ought to have taken her daughter's side against me," she said, "you +bet I would have, if I had been in her place." + +The daughter had two young children. It was to take care of them that +Marie came into the household. Marie's mistress liked to stay in bed and +read novels, and this experience is the one described by Marie in an +earlier chapter, how she locked herself and the children in the +store-room and read her mistress's books. + +Katie fell in love with Marie almost at once. She was fifteen years +older than the young girl and as she had never had any children, all the +instinctive love of an unusually instinctive nature seemed to be given +to Marie. She saw that Marie was not practical or energetic, and this +probably intensified the interest felt by the more active and capable +woman. She took the young girl under her wing, and has been, and is, as +entirely devoted to her as mothers sometimes are to their children. + +The German cook was about thirty years old at that time and had never +loved a man, though she had had plenty of temporary and merely +instinctive relations with the other sex. So it was her entire capacity +for love, maternal and other, that she gave to Marie. + +Almost at once Katie began to treat Marie as her ward. She took her side +against her mistress, when the latter scolded the girl on account of her +indolence or slowness. "Marie is so young," she would say, "almost a +child; and we ought to go easy on her." She also looked after Marie's +morals and tried to prevent her being out late at night. This kind of +care had its amusing side, as Katie herself was none too strict about +herself in this regard. + +For instance, Katie fancied the butcher's boy who used to come to the +kitchen every day with meat. He was only sixteen, and quite +inexperienced in the ways of the world. + +"I did him no harm," said Katie. "But I taught him everything there was +to know. My life was so monotonous and I worked so hard then that I had +to have him. I absolutely had to, but I think I did him no harm and he +was certainly my salvation. But I didn't let Marie know anything about +it. She was too young. When she found out, years afterwards, she was +quite cross with me about it." + +This kind of relation existed between Katie and Marie for several years. +About the time the girl went to Kenilworth and had her idyllic +experience, Katie married. Nick was a good sort of a man, easy and +happy, and a sober and constant labourer. Katie had saved some money, in +her careful German way, had even a bank-account of several hundred +dollars. It was not an exciting marriage; neither of them was very young +or very much in love, at least Katie was not, but it was a good +marriage of convenience, so to speak, and it might have lasted if it +had not been, as we shall see, for Marie, and Katie's affection for her. + +When Marie started in on her career of wildness, Katie and Nick, her +husband, had a little home together. Into this home Marie was always +welcomed by Katie, but Nick was not so cordial. They knew about the +girl's looseness, and in their tolerant Southern German way, they did +not so much mind that, and Katie was distinctly sympathetic: Marie was +old enough now, she thought. But Nick did not like the hold the girl had +on Katie's affection. + +"You'll leave me for her, sometime," he would say to his wife, +ominously. Katie would laugh and call him an old fool. She couldn't +foresee the circumstances that would one day realise her husband's +fears. + +It was about this time that Marie met the man who has influenced her +more deeply than anyone else or anything else in her life, who gave her +a social philosophy, though to be sure what would seem to most people a +thoroughly perverse and subversive social philosophy; but by means of +which she had a social background, and a saving justification--was +saved from being a mere outcast. + +Terry, at the time he and Marie met, was about thirty-five years old and +an accomplished and confirmed social rebel. He had worked for many years +at his trade, and was an expert tanner. But, deeply sensitive to the +injustice of organised society, he had quit work and had become what he +called an anarchist. His character was at that time quite formed, while +the young girl's was not. It was he who was to be the most important +factor in the conscious part of her education. But to explain his +influence on Marie, it is necessary to explain him,--his character, and +a part of his previous history. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +_Terry_ + + +Terry is a perfect type of the idealist. We shall see how, in the midst +of what the world calls immorality and sordidness, this quality in him +was ever present; even when it led to harshness to persons or facts. Not +fitting into the world, his attitude toward it, his actions in it, and +his judgment of it, are keen and impassioned, but, not fitting the +actual facts, sometimes unjust and cruel. Tender and sensitive as a +child, his indignation is so uncompromising that it often involves +injustice and wrong. But the beauty in him is often startlingly pure, +and reveals itself in unexpected conditions and environment. I cannot do +better in an attempt to present him and his history than to quote +voluminously from his letters to me, adding only what is necessary for +the sake of clearness. He wrote for me the following poetic outline of +his life:[1] + +"The fate of the immigrant, sprung from peasant stock, is to grow up in +the slums and tenements of the great city. Such a fate was mine. To +exchange the rack-rented but limitless fields of Irish landlordism for +the rickety and equally rack-rented tenements, with the checkerboard +streets, where all must keep moving, is only adding sordidness to spare +sadness. Surely, the birthday's injury is felt in a deep sense by the +poor. But the patient fatalism of the peasant (so fatal to himself) is +equal to every calamity. + +"I came from an exceptionally well-to-do family of tenement-farmers, but +a few generations of prolific birth rate, with the help of successive +famines and successful landlordism, reduced us to the point of eviction. +Enough was saved from the wreck to pay for our passage in a sailing +vessel to America. After being successfully landed, or stranded, on New +York, my father, with the true instinct of the peasant, became a +squatter on the prairies of Goose Island. Here we put up, in the year +1864, a frame shanty of one room, in which the nine of us tried to live. +My father, the only bread-winner, made from seven to eight dollars a +week. Absolute communism in the deepest and most harmonious faithfulness +prevailed. Truly, as Burns says: + + 'We had nae wish, save to be glad, + Nor want but when we thirsted; + We hated naught but to be sad.' + +"I rejoice to say that I never got over this first blessed lesson in +communism; even though it was on a small scale, the family contained the +unity of a Greek tragedy. The heart that throbs with little things may +finally throb for the world. And I learned nothing in these days except +the lessons of the heart. The only necessary thing of which we had +almost enough was bread. The struggle for existence, began on one +continent, has continued on the other, with the surviving members of the +family standing shoulder to shoulder for lack of room. + +"Armed with a throbbing faith in everything but myself, I boldly and +voluntarily entered the arena of commercial activity at the pliable age +of eight. My first job away from home was in a mattress factory. Ah, +that first job! I was a triumphant Archimedes who had found his fulcrum. +I helped move the world, for twelve hours a day and for two dollars a +week. + +"Then and later, I, like all people who possess nothing, found that my +best visions have come to me while at work on something in which I had +wistful faith; and when I lost faith I blindly followed the economists +and philosophers who can never know the mystic power of work over the +worker. And it may be that herein lies the secret of the philosopher's +ignorance and the worker's slavery. A man stands to his job because of +the visions that come to him only when at work. + +"Though I helped move the world, I was not an Atlas, and at last, I grew +tired, for I found the world moved me out of all proportion to my +capacity. Even at an early age, I found that I had not the heart for the +fray. Stamped on my narrow forehead, on my whole being, perhaps, so +clearly that every unsympathetic boss could understand at once, was the +mark of the visionary. My pitiable willingness to work was truly tragic. + +"We were an eccentric family, especially in our peculiar aloofness from +others. We clung desperately to one another long after the necessity was +past. Neither eviction nor commerce could disband us. Only marriage or +death could separate us. Though we were Catholics on the surface, we +were pagans at bottom. I had fed my fill on the fairy tales of Ireland. +Fortunately, these fairy tales were told to me, not read, and told in +such a way that they led me to seek no individual foothold in a world at +war with my heart: they helped to take away what the world calls +personal ambition. They strengthened my natural quality as a dreamer, my +tendency to care only for the welfare of the soul. If I could bring +about no change in this world, it should effect no alteration in me. +This, as I grew older, became a conscious passion with me: not to allow +myself to be affected by the world, or its ideals. Such was, at an early +age, my romantic resolution. Now, as the colour in my hair begins to +match the grey in my eyes, and I look back over the changes of almost +half a century, I detect in the wreck of my life almost a harmony, and +something rises above the ruins. + +"On that frail foundation from fairy land my trembling imagination +rested, even amid the sordid developments of my experience. How often +did I take my youthful oath that the day should never come when I would +out-grow my feeling for all the world! I have been put to the test, +and, I hope, not found wanting. + +"The end of my first ten years of life found me regretfully divesting +myself, one by one, of my beloved folk-lore tales, and reverently +folding them away, in preparation for the fray. I worked, during my +second ten years, as a journeyman tanner and currier; knocked by fate +and the boss from shop to shop and from town to town. I naturally sought +solidarity with my fellows. Class feeling awoke in me, and voluntarily +and enthusiastically I joined the union of my craft. Though I strained +at its narrow confines, I was at one with my class. During the '70's and +'80's the eight hour movement laid me off on several strikes, long and +short. This enforced leisure was not idleness for me, for in these +periods the world of science, art and philosophy shot their stray gleams +into my startled mind, and I found time to ponder on what leisure might +do for the mob. What did it not do for me, and what has it not done for +me since? And I in the very ecstasy of my being was one of this mob. + +"Whole hours, whole nights, I stole from my needed rest to read and +ponder on our human fate. Sundays! Things after a day's labour +incomprehensible to my stunned brain were easily grasped on a glorious +morning of religious leisure. The apathy of my fellows--how well I +understood it when, with nerves unstrung and muscles relaxed, after a +tense twelve hours of toil, I fell asleep over my beloved books! And how +well, too, I understood their amusement--the appeal of the poor man's +club!--when in gay carousal we tried to forget what we were. Even in the +saloon and dance-hall we told tales of the shop! Oh, the irony of it! +Was there no escape from the madness of the mart, no surcease from the +frenzy of the factory or the shibboleth of the shop! + +"Yes! How well I recall the gay transformation in my shop-mates when the +whistle blew on Saturday night. The dullest and most morose showed +intelligence then. The prospect of rest, be it ever so remote--even in +the hereafter--roused them from their lethargy. How alert and cheerful +we were on holidays, even the prolonged holiday of a strike brought its +pinched joys. Quite a number of my ancient comrades of industry looked +forward to the Poor House with a hopefulness born of thwarted toil. The +luckiest ones out of the thousands whom I knew were those few who, +overcome at last, could find some sheltering fireside and keep out of +the way until nature laid them off for good; the living envied the dead. + +"I took part in the famous bread riots of '77, when I had to fly from +the shop, before an infuriated mob armed with sticks, stones, pikes, and +pitchforks. In the same year I saw from a distance the great battle of +the viaduct, when the mob, armed as in the bread riots, faced the +federal troops and were shot down and dispersed. It was about this time, +too, that I stood by as the 'Lehr und Wehr Verein' in their blue blouses +of toil and shouldered rifles strode ominously onward. These men were +the first fruits in America of Bakunin's ideals and work in Europe. +They, too, were put down, by an act of legislature. + +"These proletarian protagonists whipped me into a fury. My father, too, +had his rifle, and when drunk he invoked it, as it hung on the wall, +thus: 'Come down, my sweet rifle, how brightly you shine! What tyrant +dare stifle that sweet voice of thine.' But my father was only a Fenian +revolutionist; and as it was only a step for me from Ireland to +Internationalism, I was soon beyond his creed. + +"We had come to America during war times, with the spirit of revolt +already germinating within us; and although we were against slavery, our +sympathies were with the South. We were natural as well as political +democrats, and even when the mob was in the wrong, I always became one +of it. How finely elemental, how responsive to the best and the worst, +is the mob when the crisis comes! + +"Although my thoughts were forming through my readings and the larger +events about me, the everyday life in the shop was perhaps the deepest +cause of my growing revolt. The atmosphere of the frenzied factory is +well calculated to produce a spirit of sullen and smouldering rebellion +in the minds of its less hardened inmates. From the domineering boss +down to the smallest understrapper, the spirit of the jailer and turnkey +is dominant. Much worse than solitary confinement is it to be sentenced +to ten hours of silence and drudgery. The temptation to speak to the man +at your side is well nigh irresistible. But to speak means to be +marked, to have hurled at you a humiliating reprimand, or, as a last +resort, to be discharged. + +"No lunching between meals is allowed, although it is a well-known fact +that few workers have the appetite at dawn to eat sufficient food to +last them till their cold lunch at noon. From this comes the terrible +habit, among the older toilers, of the eye-opener, a gulp of rot-gut +whiskey, taken to arouse the sleeping stomach and force sufficient food +on it to last till noon. As a convalescent victim of this proletarian +practice I am well aware of its ravages on body and mind. It is the +will-of-the-wisp of false whiskey followed by false hope, leading into +the fogs and bogs of the bourgeois and the quicksands of the capitalist. + +"To be a moment late, means to be docked and to have it rubbed in by an +insult. To take a day off, well--death is taken as an excuse. There is +no such thing in a shop as social equality between boss and men. In my +last position as foreman I had charge of three hundred men. Many of them +were faithful comrades in many a brave strike, where starvation pressed +hard, whence they had emerged with hollow cheeks and undaunted hearts. +I soon came to know them all, personally, intimately, and liked them +all, though I felt most strangely drawn to those who worked for one +dollar a day. They all did their work faithfully, and there was no +complaint from the front office. One day, however, the owner charged me +with treating the hands as if they were my equals. I tried to make him +see the human justification of it, but he would have none of it. He was +a typical boss and also a millionaire banker. + +"It was about this time that I discovered the deepest tonic my nerves +have ever known. The explosion of the Haymarket bomb found a responsive +chord, the vibrations of which will never cease in me, I hope. The +unconscious in me was at last released, and I held my mad balance on the +crater's edge and gazed into it. Hereafter, I was to live on dangerous +ground, at least in thought. No more doubt, no more shuffling now. I +must try the chords of my heart, the sympathy of my soul, in open +rebellion. The iniquities of civilisation had ruined a fine barbarian in +me, and almost made of me a maudlin miscreant, willing to hang upon the +skirts of a false society. The Haymarket bomb made me strip again and +for a nobler fray. + +"Of what avail was it, I reflected, to raise one's voice in the +wilderness of theories? How do any good by a social enthusiasm merely +expressed in theory? Such thin cerebral structures are shattered to +pieces in the ordeal of life. Ah, but this anonymous Avatar, this man +with the bomb! His instinct was right, but how far short it fell, and +must always fall. He had settled the strife within him and become +definite to himself: that was all he had done. I too must settle the +strife within me. I was plunged into prolonged dreams from which I was +aroused by hunger, hunger of many kinds, and driven into my former +haunt, the shop. + +"But now, when I stripped for work in the factory and donned my +vestments of toil, I stood forth without falsehood. I knew, if not what +I was, at least what I wanted, rather what I did not want. I did not +want this, this society! + +"Each morning as I took my place in the shop I had the feeling of my +boyhood--as if I were celebrating a High Mass before the sacrifice of +another day. There was much of the Pontifical in me, for I was a rapt +radical. Each morning on my way to Commercial Calvary I saw another +sacrifice; I overtook small shrivelled forms, children they were, by the +dim dawn. How their immature coughings racked my heart and gave me that +strange tightening of the chest! I could not keep my eyes from the +ground whence came the sound of small telltale splashes, after each +cough. Many times I stopped to hold a child who was vomiting. + +"Here was a woe too deep for tears; and I must look with dry eyes or I +should fail to see. Have you ever noticed the searching dry gaze of the +poor? It is like the seeing, wistful look of a child--which few can bear +without flinching. I had no need to read Dante's imaginary 'Inferno.' I +was living in a real one which made all imagination seem trivial. 'The +short and simple annals of the poor' seems like poetry, but only +superficially, for it is not truth, but a fiction. It is false, for the +annals of the aristocracy are not so long, neither are they so complex. + +"I am not trying to plead for anything. I am trying merely to express. +Prepared for everything, I have forgiven everything, even myself. +Everything that could happen has happened to me, perhaps the worst that +happened did not come from without, but from within. My family came off +safely enough from the fray of the factory. Only two of us were maimed +for life and five claimed for death--out of a family of eleven. That +left half a dozen for the statistician to figure on." + +Terry, a transcendental poet, who worked in the shop for many years, had +quit it some time before he met Marie. The above letter shows, in a +general way, the mood which finally brought about his social self-exile, +so to speak. The letter which follows gives a specific instance of the +kind of experience which disgusted the idealist with the imperfect +world. He had been living against society, had foregathered with +outcasts and had thrown down the gauntlet generally to organised +society, for some years, but he still from time to time worked at some +job or other. An incident happening some years after the meeting with +Marie, which is still to be described, is sufficiently typical of what +finally threw him entirely out from society to be truthfully +illustrative at this point. + +"I was keeping open house for all comers, regardless of law or order, +morality or money. I wished to hurl myself and my theories to the test, +and gauntlet my defiance to a withered world. It was a happy time, +looked back on now as a dream, in which, however, there was an undertone +of nightmare. We had three little rooms up many mild flights of +unbalustered stairs. Our main furniture consisted of mattresses which, +like morning clouds, were rolled away when the sun arose. + +"For the shocking salary of six dollars a week I was collector for the +Prudential Insurance company. One rent day I lacked the necessary four +dollars and a half. I telegraphed my other ego, my dear brother Jim, in +Pittsburg. The same day brought from him a telegraph money-order for +twenty-five dollars, and soon afterward a letter asking me to go to +Pittsburg and help him out. I had always been deemed an expert in the +leather line, especially in locating anything wrong in the various +processes. My brother was a member of a new millionaire leather firm, +which was losing thousands of dollars every week because they were +unable to locate the weakness in the process. Jim wanted me to find the +flaw. + +"It was with the utmost repugnance that I quit my happy slum life, but I +loved Jim, and it was the call of the ancient clan in my blood. When I +arrived in Pittsburg, without a trunk, and with other marks of the +proletarian on me, Mr. Kirkman, the millionaire tanner, showered me with +every luxury--every luxury except that of thought and true emotion. +Never before did I realise so intensely my indifference to what money +can buy. My private office in the shop was stocked with wines and +imported cigarettes: but I was not so well off as in my happy slum. + +"I toiled like a sleepless sisyphus, and one day, in a flash of +intuition, I located and showed the flaw in an obscure process; I was +completely successful. + +"I had put no price on my services. For Jim's sake, I had worked like a +Trojan, physically and mentally, for a month. With unlimited money at my +disposal, I had drawn only twenty dollars altogether, and this I sent to +Marie, to keep the wolf away from the Rogues' Gallery, our flat. + +"When the factory was running smoothly, I told Mr. Kirkman that I would +break in a man for my place. He made me a tempting offer to take full +charge of the shop. I told him I would not be a participant in +exploiting his 'hands,' who were getting only $7 to $8 a week. +Furthermore, I said I would not stand for the discharge of any man for +incompetency. I had never in the shop met any man I could not teach and +learn something from in return; I had never discharged a man, and never +would. The millionaire boss nevertheless continued to urge me to take +the position, and my brother Jim offered me two thousand dollars' worth +of stock at par and a large yearly salary. Well, I suppose, there's no +use of anybody's trying to move me when Jim has failed. + +"I quit Pittsburg with nothing but the price of a ticket to Chicago, +though my brother told me the firm would send me a check for $500 or +$1,000 for my services as an expert. When, with a beating heart, I +returned to my dear Rogues' Gallery, all was change and dispersion. No +more happy times in our little balcony of fellowship, which had +overlooked in its irresponsibility the jarring sects and insects of this +world: the most delightful place in this world to me is a home without a +boss, and this home was for the time gone. The possibility of being +unfair to Marie makes me draw a veil over the cause of the breaking-up +of the Rogues' Gallery. + +"Poor Jim found that the firm would not pay me a cent for my really +brilliant month's work, for the reason that I had refused to be a +conventional boss and had no written or verbal contract or agreement. +Jim therefore resigned, forfeiting fifty dollars of weekly salary and +twenty-five thousand dollars in stock, ten thousand of which he had +offered me to stay. Mr. Kirkman thought all the world of Jim and could +not run the shop without him. Nor could he recover from the blow, for he +loved my brother, as everybody did. Mr. Kirkman died a few weeks +afterward, and after a year or two the firm went into the hands of a +receiver. All this happened because of a few paltry dollars, which I did +not ask for, for which I did not care a damn--and this is business! I +heartily rejoice, if not in Mr. Kirkman's death, at least in the +dispersion of his family and their being forced into our ranks, where +there is some hope for them. + +"My brother Jim was one of the maimed ones in my family. Twenty years +ago, defective machinery and a surgeon's malpractice made one arm +useless. The Pittsburg affair broke up his beautiful home. He and his +whole-souled wife and charming children, into whose eyes it was an +entrancing rapture for me to look, were a family without a boss; they +needed none, for they loved one another perfectly. Jim is dead now, and +the best I can do is to send you his last letter; it has the brevity of +grief: + +"'I have no explanation to offer for my silence, more than a feeling +which possessed me shortly after my arrival here--a desire to be +considered a dead one, and am doing all but the one thing that will make +my wish a reality. I am long tired of the game, and only continue to +play because of the hardships my taking off would cause those who at +present are not able to care for themselves. A way out of it would be to +take them along, but I think if the matter were put before them, they +would decline my proffered service; and take a chance as half-orphans. +You calling up our boyhood days in "Little Hell" makes me question still +further if I have any right to deny those dear to me the delights that +only the young can feel and enjoy. I made a great mistake in coming to +this Ohio town. The chase for dollars which I am performing here seven +days every week is very disgusting to me, and every day only adds to the +pangs. I am out all day selling goods, pleading for trade and collecting +for former weeks' business; and in the evening I must do the necessary +office work. Every day is the same, except Sunday, when I make up the +book-keeping for the whole week and prepare statements and the like, to +begin the usual round on Monday morning. It is a hell of a life and I +wish it were done. I have some consolation in being able to call up at +will those that I love. I have many a waking dream, while tramping the +hills, about the comrades that have added to the joys of my former +existence. Let me hear from you occasionally, because a letter from you +seems to revive some of the old feeling that formerly made life +passable.' + + * * * * * + +"I suppose I shall recover in time from Jim's death. I wish I could have +been with him when he died. During his last half-unconscious moments the +nurse proposed to send for a priest. Jim's soul must have made a last +effort, for raising himself erect, he flung these words: 'I hire no +spiritual nurse,' and then asked his daughter of fourteen to bring him +a volume of Emerson and read to him. When she returned with the book, he +was gone. + +"Of course, the doctor and all the wise ones have diagnosed Jim's case. +But I think he sized up his case in that letter I sent you. He died of +that great loneliness of soul which made of his wasted body a battered +barricade against the stupidity which finally engulphed him. The soul of +social and individual honour and commercial integrity, he had the +misfortune to find few like himself. He yearned for the ideal; and I am +sure he went down with that hope for humanity. Let us trust that there +is an ever increasing number of human beings who have Jim's +malady--'seekers after something in this world, that is there in no +satisfying measure, or not at all.' If this letter seems boisterously +blue, remember it is only the sullen marching of the black sap preceding +the unfurling of the emerald banners of spring, when all things break +into a 'shrill green.'" + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Terry's letter, like Marie's, I give verbatim.--H. H. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +_The Meeting_ + + +The mood of rebellious idealism sometimes expresses itself in actual +anti-social conduct and life. So it was with Terry. He is the most +consistent anarchist I have known, in the sense that he more nearly +rejects, practically, all social institutions and forms of conduct and +morality. He is very sweet, and very gentle, loves children and is +tender to every felt relation. There is a wistful look always in his +eyes. He is tall, thin, and gaunt, his hair is turning grey; but there +is nothing of the let-down of middle age in his nature, always tense, +intense; scrupulously, deeply rebellious. + +Even before his meeting with Marie, his open acts of sympathy with what +is rejected by society had put him more and more in the position of an +outcast. Some of the members of his family had become fairly successful +in the ways of the world. Terry might easily have taken his place in +comfortable bourgeois society. But his temperament and his idealism led +him to the disturbed life of the radical rejector. And he was rejected, +in turn, by all, even by his family. + +Between him and his mother there was perhaps an uncommon bond, but even +she in the end cast him out. He wrote of her: + +"She taught me that I did not belong in this world; she did not know how +deeply she was right. When she crossed my arms over my childish breast +at night and bade me be prepared, she gave me the motive of my life. She +told me I would weep salt tears in this world, and they have run into my +mouth. She loved me, as I never have been loved before or since, even up +to the hour of my social crucifixion: then she basely deserted me. But I +rallied, and the motive she implanted in me remains. Though a child +without any childhood, I had my reason for existence, just the same. +Everything is meaningless and transitory, except to be prepared. And I +finally became prepared for anything and everything. My life was and is +a preparation--for what? For social crucifixion, I suppose, for I belong +to those baffled beings who are compelled to unfold within because there +is no place for them without. I am a remaining product of the slums, +consciously desiring to be there. I know its few heights and many +depths. There have I seen unsurpassed devotion and unbelievable +atrocities, which I would not dare, even if I could, make known. The +truth, how can we stand it, or stand for it? I think a sudden revelation +has wofully unbalanced many a fine mind. Hamlet, revealing himself to +Ophelia, drives distraught one of the sweetest of souls. Fortunately we +never know the whole truth, which may account for man being gregarious. +One cannot help noticing that they who have a hopeless passion for truth +are left largely alone--when nothing worse can be inflicted upon them." + +Terry's experience in the slums was no other than many another's, but +the effect it made upon his great sensibility was far from ordinary. In +another letter, speaking of what he calls his "crucifixion," he wrote: + +"Only great sorrow keeps us close, and that is why, the first night +after one of my deepest quarrels with my mother, I picked out a +five-cent lodging-house, overlooking my home, to pass the night of my +damnation in sight of the lost paradise. I never had any reason, or I +would have lost it. Let me hope that I am guided by something deeper +than that. All my life I have felt the undertone of society; it has +swept me to the depths, which I touched lovingly and fearfully with my +lips. + +"Whenever and wherever I have touched the depths, and it has been +frequent and prolonged, and have seen the proletarian face to face, +naked spiritually and physically, the appeal in his eyes is irresistible +and irrefutable. I must do something for him or else I am lost to +myself. If I should ever let an occasion go by I am sure I never could +recover from the feeling that something irreparable had happened to me. +I should not mind failure, but to fail here and in my own eyes is to be +forever lost and eternally damned. This looks like the religion of my +youth under another guise, but I must find imperishable harmony +somewhere. The apathy of the mass oppresses me into a hopeless +helplessness which may account for my stagnation, my ineffectiveness, my +impotence, my stupidity, my crudeness, and my despair. I have always +felt lop-sided, physically, especially in youth. My awkwardness became, +too, a state of mind at the mercy of any spark of suggestion. My +subjectively big head I tried to compress into a little hat, my +objectively large hands concealed themselves in subjective pockets, my +poor generous feet went the way of the author of _Pilgrim's Progress_. +The result is a lop-sided mind, developed monstrously in certain +sensitive directions, otherwise not at all. A born stumbler in this +world, I naturally lurched up against society--but, as often happens I +have lost the thread of my thought: my thoughts, at the critical moment, +frequently desert me, as my family did; they seem to carry on an +alluring flirtation, and when I think them near they suddenly wave me +from the distance. But, like a lover, I will follow on--follow on to +platonic intercourse with my real mistress, the proletarian. And soul +there is there. I have met as fathomless spirits among the workers as +one will meet with anywhere. Art never has fathomed them, and may never +be able to do so. Often have I stood dumbfounded before some simple +day-labourer with whom I worked. Art does not affect me, as this kind of +grand simplicity in life does. I keep muttering to myself: there must be +a meaning to our lives somewhere, or else we must sunder this social +fabrication and create a meaning; and so my incantations go on +endlessly. + +"The proletarian is that modern sphinx whose thundering interrogative +society will be called upon to answer. You and I know too well that +society hitherto has answered only with belching cannon and vain +vapourings of law, religion, and duty. But the toiling sphinx, who has +time only to ask terrible questions, will some day formulate an +articulate reply to its own question, and then once more we shall see +that our foundations are of sand--sand that will be washed away, by +blood, if need be. Some there are who will weep tears over the sand: the +pleasures and the joy may die, for to me they are cold and false. My joy +cannot find place within the four walls which shut out the misery and +brutality of the world. + +"How be a mouthpiece for the poor? How can art master the +master-problem? They who have nothing much to say, often say it well and +in a popular form; they are unhampered by weighty matters. It takes an +eagle to soar with a heavy weight in its grasp. The human being, rocking +to and fro with his little grief, must give way in depth of meaning to +him who is rocked with the grief of generations past, present, and to +come. It is then that love might rise, love so close to agony that agony +cannot last: the love that will search ceaselessly, in the slums, in the +dives, throughout all life, for the inevitable, and will accept no +alternative and no compromise." + +This was the man who met Marie at a critical time of her life. He was +about thirty-five years old, had experienced much, had become formed, +had rejected society, but not the ideal. Rather, as he dropped the one, +he embraced more fervently the other. He had consorted with thieves, +prostitutes, with all low human types; and for their failures and their +weaknesses, their ideas and their instincts, he felt deep sympathy and +even an aesthetic appreciation. + +Marie, as we have seen, was only seventeen, unformed and wild, full of +youthful passion and social despair, on the verge of what we call +prostitution; reckless, hopeless, with a deep touch of sullenness and +hatred. She was working at the time in the house of one of Terry's +brothers. Katie, too, was employed there; although she lived with Nick, +her husband, she still occupied herself at times with her old +occupation; and, as ever, she watched Marie with a careful eye, rather +vainly so just then, for this girl was as wild as a girl well could be. + +One day Terry paid one of his infrequent visits to his brother's home, +and saw the plump and pretty Marie hanging clothes in the yard. He was +at once attracted to her, and entered into conversation. He was deeply +pleased; so was the girl; and they made an appointment. He soon saw what +her character was, and this was to him an added attraction. + +"I had been looking for a girl like Marie," he said, "for several years. +I had made one or two trials, and they always got me into trouble with +my family. But the other girls did not make good. They were too weak and +conventional and could not stand the pace of life with me. I had early +formed a contempt for the matrimonial relation. Five years I had nursed +my rebellion and waited for a chance to use it. As soon as I met Marie I +felt I had met one of my own kind. It was partly the fierce charm of a +social experiment, the love for the proletarian and the outcast; for I +felt Marie was essentially that. This element of my interest in her +Marie never understood--this unconscious propaganda, as it were. She +thought it was all sex and wanted it so." + +Katie saw that Terry was making up to her beloved Marie, and tried to +prevent their meetings; but in vain; the attraction was too strong. +Katie blackguarded Terry on every occasion, until she finally saw it was +hopeless, and then invited him into her house to meet the girl. There he +began to go frequently and the intimacy grew. Nick warned Terry against +the girl on account of her loose character. "I have often found her," he +said, "misconducting herself with some fellow or other. Why, she does so +with everybody. Only this evening I found her on the front door-step +with young Bladen. She is not the kind for you to be serious about. +Everybody knows how common she is." + +Nick did not understand that an argument of that kind tended only to +confirm Terry in his interest in Marie. Terry answered him laconically: +"That's all right, Nick. When you don't want her, just send her to me." + +Nick, as we have seen, was jealous of Marie, because of Katie's love for +her; so he fomented trouble between the two women. Katie, too, was at +this time more exasperated with the girl's conduct than she had ever +been before; and they had frequent quarrels. As the result of one of +them, Marie went off with Terry to his family flat, where he was living +alone at the time--to "have a fish dinner," telling the relenting Katie +that she would return in the evening. But she stayed there with Terry +all that night, for the first time. In the morning Katie turned up +bright and early, burst into the flat, and reproached Terry so bitterly +that they almost came to blows. But when Marie took Terry's side, Katie, +terribly disappointed and hurt, yet made up her mind that it was +inevitable; and Terry and Marie began to live together. + +How did Marie feel about all this? What was her condition at the time, +and her attitude toward this strange man, so different from every other +she had met? In a long letter to me she has given an account of it all. + +"I wrote you about my adventure with the club man. Well that was only a +single instance of what finally became frequent with me. I had grown so +fearfully tired of the life I was leading in domestic service that the +only problem for me was how to get away from it all. For a time, I had +thought I could get away only by marriage. I was ready to marry anybody +who offered me food and shelter, and I had even thought of prostitution +as a means of escape from domestic drudgery. I had not the slightest +idea of what prostitution in its accepted sense meant. I knew in a vague +way that women sold their bodies to men for money, that they lived +luxurious lives, went to theatres and balls, wore beautiful gowns and +seemed to be gay and happy. I was willing to marry any man who offered +me a home, without the least suspicion that in that way, too, I should +prostitute myself. But no one at that time offered me this means of +escape, so I was quite ready to take the only other way, as I thought, +left to me. + +"About this time I met an old girl-friend whom I had not seen for +several years; she was a domestic servant, too, but was in advance of me +in her recklessness. When I met her again she was in the mood to lose +all the little virtue left to her. She was quite willing to sell +herself: she had done enough for love, she said, marriage was now an +impossibility, and she might as well realise on her commercial value. To +these ideas I agreed, and we arranged to meet in two weeks from that day +and try an experiment. Meanwhile she was to go back to her home, get her +belongings, and tell her parents she had secured a place as a +servant-girl in Chicago. + +"I left my position, and finding things too disagreeable at home where I +continually quarrelled with my mother, I went to visit Kate, until my +friend should return. + +"How my ideas and ideals had changed! When I first began to dislike the +work I was forced to do, I dreamed that some charming fairy would come +and release me: I had been taught such a view of life from the novels of +Bertha M. Clay and E. D. E. N. Southworth. Some rich man, young and +charming, possibly the owner of the factory I was working in, would fall +passionately in love with me, marry me and carry me away to his palace! +Gradually, my ideas came down. I should have been glad to marry a +foreman, then some good mechanic, and finally, some workman, however +humble, whom I would love dearly. And now I was deliberately preparing +for a life of prostitution! + +"It was then, while living with my dear friend Kate, whom I sometimes +helped in the work she did out, that I met my first, my last, my truest +lover and friend, Terry. We met just at the right moment. I was filled +with rebellion at the powers that were crushing me, breaking me, without +realising why, or how, or what I might make of myself, when he came +along and taught me in his own quiet and gentle convincing way how cruel +and unjust is this scheme of things, and pointed out to me the cruelty +and tyranny of my parents and of all society. He showed me that marriage +such as I had contemplated was a bad form of prostitution, and he told +me why. Of course, I did not grasp all the things he told me at once, +but I listened and felt comforted; I began to feel that perhaps I might +amount to something, might have some life of my own, and that my +rebellion was perhaps justifiable. I began to understand why work was so +objectionable to me and why I rebelled against the authority of my +parents. My conceptions of freedom were crude, but I began to feel that +my revolt was just, and was based upon the terrible injustice whereby +the many must toil so that the few may live in splendour. I will not +weary you with all the details of the things I learned at that time from +Terry. To you it might seem very raw and crude, and you no doubt have +read some of the pamphlets written by socialists and anarchists dealing +with the labour question in all of its aspects. But to me these ideas +were quite new and they seemed grand and noble. + +"And Terry revealed to me, too, almost at once, the great inspiring fact +that there is such a thing as beauty of thought--that there is poetry +and art and literature. This, too, of course, came little by little, but +do you wonder I loved a man who showed me a new world and who taught me +I was not bad? He put good books into my hands, and to my grateful joy I +found I liked these books better than the trash I had hitherto read. + +"I felt so much better, after seeing so much of Terry, that I decided to +go to work again. Terry was against this. 'Try it,' he said, 'But I +assure you you don't need to work. I have tried doing without work for +many years, it is much easier than it seems.' Nevertheless I got a job +in a bicycle factory, but I only stayed a few days. It seemed like a +stale existence to me! And besides, I was in love and wanted to be with +Terry all the time. 'By God,' I said to him that night, 'you are right! +I'll never work again.' + +"My friend Gertrude, the girl with whom I had intended to go in the last +reckless experiment, came to Terry's flat to see me, and get me to go +with her. I had thought, after I gave up work, that Terry might offer me +marriage, but he told me quite frankly that it was against his +principles to marry anybody. I was a little hurt and astonished at this, +but as I was very much in love and was already beginning to imbibe his +ideas, it did not matter so very much to me. + +"So, when Gertrude came, I led her to Terry and asked him what he +thought about her plan. He said to us: 'The kind of prostitution you +contemplate is no worse than the kind often called marriage. Selling +your body for a lifetime is perhaps worse than selling it for an hour or +for a day. But the immediate result of this kind of prostitution which +you plan is very terrible practically. It generally leads to frightful +diseases which will waste your bodies and perhaps injure your minds. The +girls you envy are not always as happy, gay, and careless as they seem. +It is part of their business to seem so, but they are not, or only so +for a very short time. Perhaps you will be better off so than in +domestic drudgery. It is a choice of evils, but if you are very brave +and courageous you may perhaps get along without either. But if forced +to one or the other, I recommend prostitution. It may be worse for you +but, as a protest, it is better for society, in the long run.' + +"He pictured to us as truly as he could the life of the street-walker; +he did not seem to think that morally it was worse than any other life +under our social organisation, but he did not make it seem attractive; +nor did he make the life of the domestic servant or factory-girl seem +attractive. He seemed to feel that one might look on prostitution as, +under the circumstances, a grim duty--but it was certainly grim. + +"We were rather incredulous at the picture Terry had drawn of the life +we had resolved to lead. Gertrude turned up her pretty little nose and +said it would not be like that with her. We talked about it all that +day and night; and Gertrude decided to have a try at it, while I was +undecided. I was somewhat piqued at Terry's attitude. I had expected him +to oppose my plan, to do all in his power to prevent it. But I did not +understand him. He knew that if I were determined, nothing would prevent +me, and all he could do was to give us a faithful picture of what such a +life would be. + +"Things were happening of which we were ignorant for a time, but which +helped to settle our immediate problem. I had often been seen going into +Terry's flat, and this was food for gossip. It was said that Terry had +started a bad house, and had done so in the flat belonging to his +family, who were in the country at the time. These stories reached my +mother's ears, and also were told to Terry's mother and sisters, and the +mischief began. I was forbidden ever to cross my mother's threshold +again, and he was requested to leave the home of his virtuous sisters +which he had polluted and contaminated by his debaucheries with that +immoral person, myself." + +Marie omitted, in the above letter, the details of the split with the +two families. It seems that Terry had, on hearing about the "rumours," +gone to his family, then near Chicago, and presented to them his +philosophy of life; also his determination not to give up Marie, and not +to marry her. It was then that the last rung was put in the ladder of +his family crucifixion, as he would call it. It was then that his mother +"basely deserted him;" and Terry left for good, rejecting the money +offered him. + +"I passed them up," he said, scornfully, "and after spending the night +in the lodging-house, I beat my way back to Chicago. I had been gone +several days, and when I got back to the flat, where I went only to get +Marie and clear out for God knows where, I found her gone, and no +apparent way of finding her address. I went to see her mother, and had +an awful scene with her. The violent woman was in hysterics and, after a +long dispute, implored me to find her daughter. 'I'll find her,' I +replied, 'for myself,' and left. + +"Marie afterwards told me that she and Gertrude had gone to see her +mother, when I was in the country with my family, and that her mother +had driven them away. Perhaps, the mother realised the change in the +girl. Perhaps, too, she realised what must happen, if she drove her +away. Yet she did drive her daughter away. From her own point of view, +it was diabolical to do so. Her anger, her exasperation and her outraged +desire to rule drove her to doing what she must have felt was the worst +thing she could do. And she did it in the name of virtue! Perhaps it was +for the best: I believe it was, but she did not and I cannot see where +her spiritual salvation comes in." + +Terry finally found Marie--found her in the midst of a short experiment, +in company with Gertrude, "in one of the social extremes,"--to be plain, +leading the life of a prostitute. + +I ask the reader to pause here and reflect. Pause, before you conclude +that this book is an indecent and immoral book. Reflect before you +conclude that this woman is an immoral woman. I am engaged in telling a +plain tale in such a way that certain social conditions and certain +social considerations and individual truths may be illustrated thereby. +Consequently, I shall not pause, though I ask the reader to do so, in +order to point a moral in any extended way. In return for the readers' +courtesy and tolerance, I will here reassuringly assert that there will +be found in these pages no detailed description of Marie's life during +her few months of prostitution; and nothing whatever, from cover to +cover, of anything that in my judgment is either immoral or indecent. + +Well, Terry found her, and Terry did not try to "reform" her. But he +stood by her, and was more interested, more in love with her than ever. +In addition to his personal interest, he felt an even stronger social +interest in her. To live with a girl like that was unconscious +propaganda. This passion, as he calls it, was now more deeply stirred +than when he first met her. This deeply aroused his imagination and his +keen desire to see what the naked constitution of the soul is, after it +is stripped of all social prestige. + +If Marie had been simply a low, commercial grafter, Terry, the idealist, +would not have been interested. But Terry knew that Marie cared nothing +whatever for money. He regarded her as a social victim and in addition a +vigorous and life-loving personality, an excellent companion for a +life-long protest against things as they are. He saw she had the +capacity for deep and excited interest in truth, an emotional love for +ideated experience. These two human beings were wonderfully fitted to +each other: no wonder they loved! + +Terry, telling me about the girl's experience during the two weeks or so +before he found her, dwelt especially upon how well she was treated. + +"She has a way of getting the interest, almost the deference, of many +people. She and Gertrude were often reduced to the proverbial thirty +cents, but they had little difficulty in getting along. For instance, +one day, almost broke, they went to a restaurant and ordered two cups of +coffee. The negro waiter knew what they were, and offered them a nice +steak, at his expense. Nor did he try to 'ring in,' to make their +acquaintance. He treated them with great respect. They went there +several times afterward, and always found the negro waiter beaming with +the desire to help them for quite disinterested reasons, and he never +tried to meet them outside. Marie always appreciated a thing like that. +She took a delight in thinking about the fine qualities in human +nature." + +Marie is a frank woman, but it is natural that she could never bring +herself to talk about this period of her life with entire openness. She +has, however, written me a letter in which she tells the essential +truth, although clothing it with a certain pathetic attempt to conceal +the one episode in her life about which, to me, she was perhaps +unreasonably reticent. She did not say that she and Gertrude were +separated from Terry for a time, but she wanted to convey the impression +that she and Terry, from the start, struggled along together, which was +essentially, though not literally, true. Continuing her account, from +the time the two families cast her and Terry out, she wrote: + +"So there we were, thrown out into the harsh world, shelterless and +almost moneyless. But we all three put our little capital together, +amounting to about eleven dollars, went down town, and hired a furnished +room. We managed to live a week on this capital, and then Terry pawned +his watch, which gave us five dollars. Gertrude soon disappeared with an +old roue and went out of our lives. Terry and I kept along as best we +could. Kate helped us as much as we would allow her to, and sometimes +paid for our room, and I would sometimes eat at her house. + +"During this period I was in a curious state of mind and body. Living in +the midst of so-called vice, I was at first both attracted and repelled. +Yet my strongest feeling was a hatred of the life I had formerly led, +and I was determined not to go back to it, happen what might. I should +probably have gone much farther than I did, had it not been for my love +for Terry, which made me feel that I did not want to throw myself +entirely away. So I did not know whether to go into the game entirely or +keep out of it. Terry did not try to influence me, but seemed to watch +me, to make me feel that he would stand by me in any event. + +"For a time we were both of us dazed and stunned by our sudden change in +life. The change was much greater for Terry than for me. I don't know +what his thoughts and feelings at that time were. They must have been +terrible. For years he had lived, for the most part with his family, a +quiet, studious life, the life of contemplation; and now he was +suddenly plunged into the roar and din, with an ignorant and +disreputable girl on his hands whom he would not desert. We were +certainly on the verge of destruction. The inevitable would have +happened, for no other choice was left me, and I should have drifted +with the current and Terry would do and could do nothing. + +"Just at the crucial moment, Terry met an old friend who offered him a +political job, organising republican workingmen's clubs, and Terry +accepted it. No one can understand how bitter this was to Terry. To work +for a political organisation was to him great degradation. He did it for +my sake, for the thirty-five dollars a week, so that I could be free to +live as I wanted. I did not realise at the time how much his sensitive +nature suffered, and I took poor advantage of the freedom his money and +character gave me. What an intolerable burden I must have been to him, +and yet he never even intimated a desire to leave me! + +"I had an opportunity now to satisfy my desire for pleasure. Terry put +no obstacles in my way. Yet the cup already tasted bitter. I tried to +deny to myself that this life of pleasure was an illusion, and so I +plunged into the most reckless debaucheries: I really would be ashamed +to tell you of the things I did. I had affairs with all sorts of men, +many of whom I did not know whether I liked or hated--seeking always +excitement, oblivion. I frequented cafes where the women and men of the +town were to be found, and made many acquaintances. Two or three of them +proposed marriage to me. They no doubt wanted to 'save' me, and thought +I was a prostitute. I did not care to disabuse them on the subject: in +fact I don't know whether I was what they called me or not. + +"This life lasted only two or three months, but it seems like so many +years to me. At the end of that time Terry's work was over, and we left +down town and roomed with a respectable radical family. My health had +broken down. I weighed only a hundred pounds, although three months +earlier I had weighed one hundred and forty. My beautiful, healthy body +had wasted away. Ah! how proud I used to be of this body of mine! how I +used to glory in the vigorous, shapely limbs, the well-moulded breasts +and throat. But all this passed away before my youth had passed away." + +Marie here pathetically omits to state the immediate cause of her ill +health--a long and terrible experience in the hospital, the result of +her excesses, during which time Terry was the only one to care for her, +from which place she came broken in health, thin and pale, with large, +dark, sad eyes, looking as she did when I first met her. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +_The Rogues' Gallery_ + + +"My terrible experiences during these months," continued Marie, "had at +least the advantage of bringing me nearer to him who was and is the +inspirer of whatever is worthy or good in me. It helped me to appreciate +him, and surely everything I suffered, everything I may still suffer, is +not too much to pay for that. He has made for me an ideal, and, without +that, life is but a sorry, sorry thing. During those wild months I, of +course, thought little of those things, those wonderful new things which +I had heard of from him, but now, when we were living quietly with our +anarchist friends, and the surroundings were in harmony with the mood +for thought, my interest awakened. I read a great deal and listened +attentively to the talk of the people around me, and slowly my ideas +became more and more clear. + +"It took a long time for me to learn, to really understand what the +others were interested in. I did not dare to ask Terry too many +questions, especially there, where everybody admired him and looked up +to him so. A new shyness came over me when I began to see him in the +light of a philosopher and a poet. He seemed so far above me and I felt +myself so small and unworthy. But it was not long before I really began +to feel a strong interest in all that was said, in all these social +theories, in these ideas about the proletaire, about art and literature; +and I began to read books in a far different spirit from what I used--I +began to see in them truth about life, and to love this truth, whatever +it was. And I loved the freedom of the talk, and, above all, I loved the +feeling that from the highest point of view I was not an outcast, and +that the people who seemed to me the best did not so regard me. It +helped to give me the self-respect which every human being needs, I +think. + +"I thought for a long time that I was very lucky indeed to get admitted +into this atmosphere. And, indeed, I know I _was_ lucky, but there came +a time when, for a while, I was very unhappy, not in the society of the +radicals--I always loved that--but among these particular people, +because they could not, after all, rid themselves of some conservative +prejudices. After a while I began to see that even those enlightened +people really had contempt for what I had been, or for my ignorance, +perhaps for both. + +"This family, with whom we were staying, was supposed to have broad and +liberal ideas, and its members prided themselves on the fact that they +really put their theories into practice. Their home was run on a sort of +communistic basis, and the men and women who lived there were not tied +to each other by any legal bonds, for they believed in freedom of love. +They never made much noise about their ideas, or rather their practice, +and were what you might call refined or cultured anarchists. + +"Terry and I had nothing in a worldly way, and we lived there on +'charity,' so to speak, though that word was, of course, never used. We +did, however, what work there was to be done in the household, trying in +this way to give some compensation in return for a bed to sleep on and +the simple food necessary to keep our bodies alive. + +"Now, after a while, I began to feel crushed, oppressed in this home, +among these cold, cold, refined people, although they were anarchists. +They could not help showing me their contempt: they made me feel +inferior. They never said one word that indicated such a feeling, but I +could feel it by their attitude, by the attitude even of the little +child in the house. They looked upon me much in the same way as my +former mistress used, when I was the servant in the house, except that +they were bound by their theories to give me a nominal respect and to +try charitably to improve my mind and make of me a philosophical +anarchist. + +"It was painful to me to see these people, who were so humane, who could +not bear to see the lowly oppressed, who could not bear to have +injustice done, to see these people pass me by in insulting silence, +look at me with cold, unsympathetic eyes! How it hurt me, not to receive +the word of encouragement from the kind look of people I looked up to! +So I crawled into my shell and did not go about much with the others. I +think I was forgotten by nearly everybody for days at a time. Terry +shared the room with me, and brought me food, as I grew more and more +unable to eat with the cold superior ones. He brought me tobacco, too, +and here it was, sitting all day alone, that I began the cigarette +habit: if it had not been for that, I think I should have gone mad. + +"I never ceased to love Terry, but I had a bitter feeling against him, +too. He was always kind and good to me, but he spent most of his time +with his intellectual friends, and I began to feel that even he was +being 'charitable' to me. So after much misery and despair, I accepted a +proposal of marriage from a friend of my wild days and fled with him to +St. Louis. He took me to the home of his sisters and parents, where I +lived in peace and quiet for three weeks, recovered some of my health +and strength, and was able to review my past and think of my future; and +reflect on my coming marriage. + +"The people I was with now were kind and sympathetic. They did not know +about my past life--only my prospective husband knew--he, of course, +knew all. The others thought I was a poor shop-girl, tired and +overworked. They were refined people, fairly well-to-do, rather +bourgeois, but with good hearts, and so innocent that they believed +everything their son told them, and received me as a daughter and +sister. + +"Perhaps my nature is perverse, I don't know; but as soon as I got a +little rest and peace, I began to think of what I had left and +especially of Terry. It was not only my love for him that called, but +what my life with him had been and would be if I returned--a life that +was not a commonplace life, a life of intelligence and freedom. Already +I was bored by the quiet goodness of the people I was with, and I wanted +'something doing'! + +"I saw Terry again as I had seen him first, with the glamour of ardent +love, the love that overleaps all barriers and, if only for an instant, +stands face to face with love, unhesitating, tumultuous, and triumphant. +The memory of even one perfect moment can never leave us, even if life +be ever so dark and harsh and bitter, there will always be that single +ray of light to illumine the darkness, and keep our steps from utter and +complete stumbling. + +"I thought of Terry day and night, and grew so melancholy that my new +found friends were alarmed and suggested hastening the marriage, in +order to let me go South with my husband. This alarmed me terribly and +I begged that no such step should be taken. With much inward trembling, +I proposed that the marriage should be postponed and that I return to +Chicago. They would not listen to this, and I could see in their honest +faces the deepest amazement and a kind of suspicion. So I took refuge in +tears, pleading ill-health and offering no more suggestions. + +"That same day I wrote Terry a long letter, in which I told him that I +still loved him, could not forget him, but had taken this step in +desperation because I could no longer endure living among these people +in Chicago, his friends, but not mine; that here in St. Louis I had +found a certain measure of peace and quiet which had lately been +disturbed by the realisation that soon I must decide to take a step +which would perhaps separate us two irrevocably, that I longed more than +words could tell to see him, to look into his face. I could never go +back, I wrote, to that life I had been living, because what I had +learned from him of what life is and what makes it worth living, had +made that thing impossible for me. So, I wrote, I could not go back, +and how, without him, could I go forward? So here I was, weak, +perplexed, and I begged him to write me, to advise me what to do. + +"Very soon his reply came--the truest, kindest reply that I could have +received. He too had suffered since I left him, and comprehended only +too well why I had done as I did. Our suffering would help us to gain a +more comprehensive knowledge of life and of each other. And if I still +loved him, I should follow the inclination of my heart and return to +him. We two might start out again, wiser and surer for what had passed. +He assured me of his love, but warned me not to expect too much from +him, that our material comforts would be few, for he was as poor as I, +and however much he might wish to provide better, he knew that, for one +reason or another, he could not. But if I would be content to share his +crust and his love, much happiness and joy might be in store for us. He +finished his letter with a quotation from Browning's 'Lost Leader': + + 'Just for a handful of silver he left us, + Just for a ribbon to tie in his coat.' + +"My hesitation disappeared at once, although it hurt me greatly to +carry out my resolution to return to Chicago. It cost me many a pang to +shock and hurt the dear good people, to seem so ungrateful for all their +love and kindness. But it had to be. I could not do otherwise. I +returned to Chicago two days after receiving the letter, and my lover +and I met and clasped hands and gazed into one another's eyes. We were +reunited, or rather united truly, for the first time, with better +understanding on both sides. + +"Since that day, now six years ago, we have travelled the rough road +together, assisting one another as best we could, often stumbling and +misunderstanding and hurting one another, for we continually tried to +get deeper and deeper into real knowledge, real life, and it is hard to +reconcile all things. Generally to gain much, one must compromise, but +Terry and I did not wish to compromise. His and mine has been a +difficult and dangerous relation, but an interesting one. Very soon +after my return to Chicago, I felt much more at ease, no longer a +stumbling-block in his way; and I gained confidence, strength, and +knowledge. I met many people of the true communistic spirit, and by +social intercourse with them developed in every way. I continued to read +good books and attended lectures on the social problems of the day. So +after a time I became what is called an anarchist, just as Terry was. + +"The reasons my books and companions brought forward for the +justification of anarchism were like meat and drink to me. I was filled +with enthusiasm for the ideas of a freedom which I now think is perhaps +impossible in our society. But I thought that the 'downtrodden,' the +'working classes,' held the fate of the world in their hands, if they +could but realise it. As time passed, my enthusiasm waned, for I began +to see many difficulties in the way of this beautiful idealism. At +times, I even doubted if the 'mob' were worthy of liberty at all. Such +thoughts, however, passed away whenever I saw the crowds of workers +streaming from the factories and stores, and looked upon their loutish, +brutal faces, wherein there was never a gleam of pride, of the joy of +creation, of intelligent effort. Then I would think, surely, surely, +humankind is not meant to be thus. Why, even the little birds, the tiny +little ants, what intelligence they display in their work; little +kittens and dogs playing in the streets, what unrestrained joy is +theirs! Work ought to be a pleasure and a blessing: and it would be so +if we could only choose our labour, if we could create, do those things +for which we are fitted, voluntarily, because of the need within us, for +the outward expression of our life, our hope and joy. So, work would +cease to be the curse it is to-day. + +"And surely if we were free men and women, we would find our place in +the scheme of things, surely each one of us would seek the place suited +to his individual nature, and so perhaps at last everything would be a +part of the harmonious whole. + +"When I think of things as they are and as they might be, I grow dizzy +and sick at heart, that mankind can be so blind, so hopelessly ignorant, +so unspeakably cruel, so weak and cowardly. I am only a novice, I know, +and there is so much for me to know, to learn, to strive for--much that +I, and hundreds and thousands of others, will never reach, for we are +burdened with heavy chains which we cannot break. Yet, there must be +somewhere on this big earth, some little place fitted for me, some +small corner where I must be of some value to myself. + +"To you, no doubt, my sufferings and struggles will seem petty and my +ideas crude and commonplace; but, if so, the pity is all the greater. +After the agony I went through, freedom seemed to me the noblest thing +in the world, and I thought it the solution of everything. Since then my +ideas, perhaps, have become somewhat less 'crude,' but I have never for +a moment lost faith in the thought that freedom is the most essential, +the most necessary condition for us, if we are to endure life." + +It is certainly what Marie calls "crude" to talk of liberty without +careful definition. Absolute freedom is inconceivable. But I am not +interested in presenting an argument: I am interested in the description +of a state of mind, of a section of society, of a certain emotional view +of things. The value, however, of these general ideas is undoubted, in +the spiritual improvement and moral comfort of thousands of people. I +think that Marie and Terry and the other characters that will appear in +this book are decidedly better off for the ideas they hold: that about +these ideas, or rather ideals, perhaps, they have grouped a society in +which they are not outcasts, in which their lives seem from some points +of view justified. And even in my opinion, though I live in different +circumstances, and see greater difficulties in the way of the +realisation of any social ideal than they do, yet I feel that their way +of looking at things is useful to the larger society of men, ultimately. +And, I, like other people, have deep respect for a consistent and +courageous life, based upon a principle or principles which I may not +hold myself. + +The next scene in the life of Marie and Terry took place in what they +called "The Rogues' Gallery." This was during the time that Terry held a +position in the Prudential Insurance Company, whose employ he left, as +we have seen, in order to go to Pittsburg, to find the flaw in the +tannery process, at his brother Jim's request. He hired three little +rooms, and up to the time he went to Pittsburg, he welcomed to his home +everybody who was "against" things. Later on, he became more particular +in his associates--that is to say, he demanded of them something more +than mere disreputability, to use the conventional word. But at that +time he loved everything that the world hated or cast out. That was his +principle of action, his norm of judgment. Seeking the truth with +undivided passion, he rid himself at a later time, at least partially, +of this prejudice, and became quite able to "pass up," as he calls it, +that is reject, a human being even though he might be a thief, a +practical anarchist, a prostitute, or a souteneur. But at the time of +the existence of the Rogues' Gallery he loved everything rejected by +society, without making too nice a use of his natural taste. + +There, in those three little slum rooms, gathered a strange society--a +society held together on the basis of its utter rejection of the larger +society of men. To be an acceptable member of this society, the +individual must in some way be a social rebel--either practically or +theoretically, or both. When Terry saw in some being rejected by society +a spark of thought or of feeling, he was excited and happy. It was +obvious to him, as to all persons who think and have practical contact +with many different kinds of people, that there are in life no heroes +and no villains; it was obvious that in the lowest thief or prostitute +there was that possibility of light and spiritual grace which all true +souls desire. Terry's function was to make them conscious of this; to +organise, so to speak, the outcasts upon a philosophic and aesthetic +basis and so save them to themselves, at least. + +This was his great experiment with Marie, about which a large part of +this book is to be concerned. But this interest, this effort, extended +itself to many other individuals, and whenever Terry could feel himself +in contact with what he felt was essentially human, and, at the same +time, to his sense beautiful, he was filled, as I have said, with that +deep excitement of pleasure, which was both intellectual and moral. I +remember, one day, he said to me: "How often, during the lifetime of the +Rogues' Gallery, did I saunter down State Street with the pleasing +knowledge that I would find some 'low' person, girl or man, whom I knew +I could get at, who would strip himself or herself bare to me in a +spiritual sense, and would be revealed disinterestedly, would have no +axe to grind and no contemptible small ends to gain, and no tradesman's +commercial morality and no grafting conventionality, no moral cant based +on self-interest--some being so near the 'limit' that he was +intellectually and morally fearless and did not need to pose, from whom +some truth could be derived, whose sincerity and power of +straight-seeing was not warped and concealed by any bourgeois ambitions, +by any respectability." + +From time to time Terry would take one of these beings home with him--to +his Rogues' Gallery and to Marie and to the other intimates, mainly more +or less self-conscious anarchists, all or nearly all derelicts of the +labouring class. There they could stay as long as they aesthetically +fitted, could share the communal cigarette, beds, beer, and food. And +Terry and Marie and their friends would talk and read aloud--Terry the +teacher, giving transcendental light into the nature of the good, the +beautiful, and the true. Many an outcast here came first to a pleasing +sense that from some points of view he was not altogether bad, nay, that +he had unexpectedly good points. Many of them to some philosophic +intensity; conversation became a joy, strangely unknown hitherto. The +educational character of this meeting place was marked, but, as I have +said, Terry's indiscriminating passion for the outcasts of the +proletaire limited the intellectual development of his little society. +At a later time, a much more developed society grew around Terry and +Marie, as we shall see, when we get to the Anarchist salon, or the +intellectual drawing room of the Anarchist Proletaire. + +Terry's main effort was, at this time, and for years afterwards, +naturally directed toward Marie's spiritual education. Hitherto Marie +has revealed herself to the reader as a rather commonplace, very +physical, rather lazy, and quite egoistic person, one of many, with no +distinguished characteristics. But she was unusually endowed in some +ways. Eminently plastic, up to a certain point she rapidly assumed forms +suggested by Terry's spiritual touch. She derived from him her interest +in all high things, in philosophy, art and literature, but there always +remained an interesting distinction in the way she reacted to her +education. Terry remained always the rather transcendental philosopher, +with a predominant ethical sense. Marie, as she developed, showed a +deeper and subtler feeling for expression and a surer sensing of human +character, a juster psychology. Her nature is essentially less +beautiful, by far, than that of Terry, but more real, in a way, more +robust, and so constituted that in a long spiritual conflict she would +wear out the finer qualities of her lover. But this is anticipating, +except in so far as it is true that from the start Marie's psychological +vividness showed itself, often, of course, with base and physical +concomitants. In this connection I will quote a letter which well +illustrates this side of her character, and which also shows a contrast +to some of her loftier but more conventional and less true qualities. +She had been attending an anarchists' ball and she wrote: + +"I danced a great deal and felt very happy, without the aid of any +stimulant either. I did not have any feeling of irritation or even +indifference toward anybody, not even toward Rose. I am fascinated by +Rose, and I sometimes think I hate her. I always like to be near her +when there is no one else around. She reveals herself to me then; in +fact quite throws off the mask which all women wear. In order to +encourage her to do this, I apparently throw down my own mask. Oh, how I +gloat over her then, when she shows me a side of her life and betrays +secret thoughts and feelings to me half unconsciously! Sometimes I +succeed in having her do this when there is a third person present, and +the look of hatred which passes across her face when she perceives she +has made a mistake, is a most interesting thing to see. But she +immediately comes to my side and we kiss each other and call each other +'angel girls' and 'darlings.' Thus we play with each other, and it is a +stand-off which is cleverest. She is quite puzzled sometimes by my +frankness about some things, for instance, about her looks. I notice she +compliments me on my looks whenever I am decidedly off colour, when I +wear a green ribbon, or a dowdy dress, or big shoes. But I am honest +with her in these things, and I like to see her look well. The game is +more interesting then. + +"Well, at this ball, I wanted to dance with a certain man, but I did not +wish to ask him myself. So I requested Rose to do so, and she consented, +and I was soon whirling around in his arms. I had felt curious about him +for a long time: I did not know just what the state of my feeling toward +him was. I did not know whether I liked or disliked him, but I had +often experienced a sort of thrilling sensation when he happened to pass +by or touch me, or even when he mentioned my name, which had occurred +only once since I knew him. 'Good evening, Marie,' was all he said. But +the name and the way he said it seemed new, and it kept recurring to me +at unexpected times and always troubled me. When I fancy I hear that +name in his voice I feel sad and lonely, and my heart aches. I see him +often, mostly at our Sunday evening lectures. We are very distant, and I +am often rude to him, not answering when he speaks to me. + +"So when I danced with him the other night, I was agreeably surprised to +find that I did not experience any unusual sensation at all. And I was +relieved, too, for I had a sort of instinctive feeling that he was not +worthy of any strong interest. After the dance was over, we went +down-stairs together and he kissed me. You know, the radicals all kiss +one another freely and it does not mean anything special, as a rule: +often it is done without any feeling at all, just a common habit. But +this time I was astonished to find that the moment he touched me I had +the same thrilling sensation, only more intense, as when I heard him +speak my name. I resisted however, and just then I heard Rose's voice +ring out exultantly, 'Oh, if you knew how crazy Marie is about you, how +she raved when she first met you and so on.' You can imagine how I felt +then. I managed to get away and drank and smoked and danced all the +evening and never looked at him again. When we all went away Rose and I +kissed each other and called each other 'darling girl.' + +"In some moods I would like to be a big, beautiful, heartless woman like +one or two I know. In such moods, how I would make men suffer! I was +talking about this to little Sadie the other day, and she assured me +solemnly that she would do that when she was thirty, but not merely to +make men suffer, but to develop them." + +As Terry continued to read aloud and talk in his Rogues' Gallery, Marie +grew to reflect more and more the results of the reading of good things, +and of the thinking and talking about these things. It shows how some +temperaments are able to connect literature and philosophy with life, +and thereby see their real meaning, quite independently of any merely +conventional culture or education. One of the greatest prejudices of our +time (and of all times) is the belief that intellectual culture, which +is merely the perception in detail of how life and thought is expressed +in form, is peculiarly dependent upon academic or conventional +education. And yet, of course, somewhere or other, the nature capable of +understanding form must come in contact with it, before the meaning of +the whole thing is incorporated into its daily habit. Terry was Marie's +point of contact with form, in its deep relation to life. Marie felt +this and loved him and was grateful, to the depths of her nature, so +different from his, so animal, so unideal, in comparison! She wrote: + +"Terry gave me a new way to express myself, and that, after all, is the +only thing worth living for. And he gave me this new way without trying +to make me give up any other way of self expression, my sensuality, for +example. This sensuality I have sometimes regretted, but not directly +through Terry's influence, except that he has shown me the beauty of +something else. He is a winged thing in comparison with me, but he is +so wonderfully tolerant that he can see beauty in even the baser part +of my nature. Why should I regret what I am, anyway? I believe that the +only purity that means anything is that which results from working one's +nature out harmoniously, not suppressing it. Terry must be a wonderful +man, to have been able to encourage me in many new directions, and to +take away the maiming sting of regret for what I inevitably was and +could not help being. + +"I do not think an ordinary person could have made me see the beauty of +anarchism. I know that the anarchistic ideas are rather shocking, even +at their best, and of course they naturally appeal most to the man with +the hoe, inciting him to rebel, while the man behind the idea is usually +endowed with so much sensitiveness that he shrinks from the rebellion +part of the programme himself; he is not a man of action, only a man of +ideas. It is shameful, some think, to disturb the blissful ignorance of +the man with the hoe, for when the gleam of intelligence shines in his +eye and he is aroused to the knowledge of his degrading position, he is +likely to rebel in the most healthy but brutal manner, so much so that +the aesthetic reformer shrinks back from the consequences of the +propagation of his own ideas. Of course, the brutality of the +proletariat is not nearly so subtle as that of the aristocracy, and it +takes some cleverness to discover that the latter is brutality at all. +It requires time and patience to drive into the thick heads of the +workers that they are downtrodden, and that their oppressors are +worthless parasites. When they finally do awaken to this idea and rebel, +how terribly shocked the world is because these brutes have not the +cleverness or delicacy to be more subtle in their brutalities. + +"In your last letter you wrote of the crudeness of most propagandists of +anarchism, naming Anatole France as one of the rare anarchists who +express themselves otherwise than crudely. He rarely or never, you say, +ever mentions the word 'anarchism,' although much of his writing is +calculated to destroy belief in the value of organised society as it now +exists. Don't you think you are perhaps prejudiced too much against +certain words because of their associations? I know that many words are +objectionable to refined, cultured people because they have been so +long associated with the coarse and brutal mob, the working class, as +the socialists would say. But you must remember that anarchism is +intended to appeal to this 'mob' especially; that its doctrines might +not be needed by refined people who ought to have enough sensibility not +to enjoy 'freedom' unless it is shared by the coarse and brutal workers. +Believe me, there is nothing so degrading as poverty. It makes the slave +more slavish and the brute more brutal. It acts like a goad, spurring +people on to do things which make them seem to themselves and others +lower and lower, until they are truly no longer human beings but +animals. + +"Therefore it is that the propaganda of anarchism is generally crude. It +is true that much good literature is permeated with the ideals of +anarchism, for instance, Shelley, Whitman, Thoreau, and Emerson. Such +reading is excellent as a means of humanising and making anarchists of +refined people, but how could you appeal to the rebellious workers with +such books as these? For instance, my father, do you think he could read +Ibsen or any of the others? Indeed not; but let him go to a meeting +where he can hear Emma Goldman speak, or let him read Jean Grave, or +Bakunin, or some other writer of 'crude' pamphlets, and he might become +interested, he might be able to understand. But since it seems that +truly refined people cannot enjoy the pleasures of freedom without +being, at any rate at times, worried because of the condition of the +'mass,' what is to be done? This objectionable crudity must remain until +there is a demand for something more subtle on the part of the workers +for whom is intended all propaganda. The rich and cultured presumably +have brains which they can use to solve the problems for themselves or +to digest the things written by Anatole France and others. But how do +you suppose that I, for instance, could a few years ago have relished +Anatole France? Wouldn't you think it idiotic for anyone to have given +me such books, at that time, with any expectation of my appreciating +their refined and evanescent anarchism?" + +It must have been a strange sight that of Terry sitting on his +dilapidated bed in the Rogues' Gallery, with his eternal cigarette in +his mouth, talking to Marie and perhaps to some prostitute or +pickpocket! We begin already to see the result on Marie's education: +that will appear complex and manifold, but it is likely that on many a +half-formed creature who afterward passed out of Terry's life, his words +yet made an impression which perhaps in some later darkness revived an +idea which explained and justified his miserable existence. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +_The Salon_ + + +The Rogues' Gallery went the way of all good things: it ceased to exist +when the creative spirit was gone. Terry went to Pittsburg, as we have +seen, to find the flaw in the tanning process, and while he was away +Marie attempted to conduct the academy of anarchism. But she was too +much interested in what is called "life" to make a sustained mental or +moral effort without the inspiring presence of a man whose central +passionate ideas never changed. The personal jealousies which Terry's +philosophic attitude and idealism tended to dissipate became, during his +absence, too strong for the bond uniting the "rogues," and when Terry +returned he found that his little colony had dispersed and that Marie, +unable any longer to pay the rent, was living with her old friend Katie. + +This was, to our idealist, a deep disappointment. On the heels of his +final break in Pittsburg with society came this sign of woman's +weakness. Terry might easily have expected it, but one of the +limitations of an idealist is an insufficient knowledge of realities. To +men of his temperament there is always a distinct shock envolved in +coming face to face with an actuality. Truth is the element of the +idealist, but an abstract truth into which concrete realities seldom +fit. Terry did not, or tried not to, mind, at this time, this continued +sexual freedom, or rather vagaries, of Marie's life; for that fitted +into his scheme of personal freedom: he zealously strove to respect the +private inclinations of every human being. But the least sign, in any of +his acquaintances, of a compromise with the integrity of the soul, of +any essential weakness, met with no tolerance from him. "He passed him +up," on the spot, with a scornful wafture of his hand. That Marie had +yielded to the stress of circumstances, had been unable to hold out in +the Rogues' Gallery, galled the relatively uncompromising, exigent +idealist. If she had resorted to temporary prostitution to hold the +society together he would have admired her. But, instead, she weakly +sought, like any merely conservative woman, the shelter of Katie's roof. +The first seed of the essential discord which finally resulted, at a +much later time, in their relations was planted thus in this deep +irritation of Terry's soul; it did not, however, affect seriously his +love for Marie as a person or his interest in her as a social +experiment. But it tended to make him feel more lonely and to render him +more hopeless of any realisation of the ideal, as he saw it. + +When Terry returned, without a job, and with no intention of trying for +one, and found Marie living with Katie, he had a long talk with the two +women. Katie was still with her husband, Nick, but she was willing to +quit him in order to live with and take care of, her darling Marie. She +proposed to Marie and Terry to hire some rooms and all live together. +She would work as cook in a restaurant and thus support the three of +them. + +To this eager desire of Katie's Terry refused to consent; but he also +refused to work. What was to be done? He was too proud willingly to live +on Katie, and he was principled against labour. Katie wanted the luxury +of her proposed arrangement. She quarrelled with Terry, but he +interested her. Already she began to look on these two as her superior +cultivated ones, aristocrats, with whom it was a joy to live and for +whom it was a pleasure to work. To work for them, especially for Marie, +she would drop her old Nick, good dull man, in a moment. + +An event which happened just at the right moment to decide things, +finally brought about the union of the three. One night Terry was +drinking in a saloon, talking philosophy, and quoting literature. Some +rapid lines from Swinburne had just left his lips when an elderly man, +who had been listening to Terry's talk approached him and said: "You are +the man I'm looking for, won't you have a drink?" + +As he spoke, he flashed a fifty dollar bill over the bar and repeatedly +treated the crowd, all in Terry's honour. + +"Before we separated that night," said Terry, telling me the story, "I +learned that the old guy had fifty thousand dollars and that he would +soon go down and out, for he had all sorts of bad diseases. He knew it +himself, but he was an old sport and he wanted his fling before he died. +He liked me and wanted me to be bar-tender in a saloon he owned. He +lived above the saloon and wanted a housekeeper to take care of the +rooms. So I told Kate here was her chance. The next day Marie, Katie, +and I moved into the rooms, where the old man lived, too, and I began my +work as a bar-tender. + +"I did not regard this job as work: it was really graft, for I had +decided that my old friend, not long for this world, did not need all of +his money and that I might as well turn part of it toward Katie, to help +maintain a common house for us all. So, every night, after the day's +work, I turned the roll that I received behind the bar over to Katie, +who tucked it away in the bank. I don't know whether the old guy knew +about it or not, if he did, he did not care. He died after two or three +months, but Katie had increased her bank account by three or four +hundred dollars." + +Terry is strenuous about this story. He is evidently anxious lest it be +thought that he later became a mere parasite on Katie. He prides himself +on having taught her to steal from an unkind world, but he does not like +the idea that she has slaved for him without any help in return. Katie +did not prove to be a good pupil. She was not naturally "wise," in the +slang sense, but gained what she gained by hard labour. Even while she +was housekeeper for the old guy she felt she earned all the money she +tucked away. + +"I worked hard for the old man," she said, "and I only got about one +hundred and thirty dollars for all my work. I thought I made that much." + +There is a slight difference in the amount received, in Terry's account +and in Katie's, but it is clear that it was not very much. It is +interesting and characteristic that Terry wants it to appear to have +been "graft," while Katie looks upon the money as honest wages, received +in an unconventional way. + +Nick was definitely deserted, and the new "salon" formed, with Terry and +Marie as the bright particular stars and Katie as the happy means of +living, if not in luxury at least in independence. They lived on her +eight or nine dollars a week with the comfortable feeling that there +were several hundred dollars tucked away in the bank, the result of +Katie's savings and Terry's ideas. + +The salon was of a more select and higher order intellectually than had +been the Rogues' Gallery. The people who frequented the three little +slummy rooms on the West Side where Terry, Marie, and Katie lived were +mainly anarchists in theory, and occasionally one or another of them was +so in practice. They mainly consisted of rebellious labourers who had +educated themselves in the philosophy of anarchism.[2] They had ideas +about politics and government and the relation between the sexes. They +were indeed all "free lovers," and quite naturally so; the rebellious +temperament instinctively takes as its object of attack the strongest +convention in society. Anarchism in Europe is mainly political; in +America it is mainly sexual; for the reason that there is less freedom +of expression about sex in America than in Europe: so there is a +stronger protest here against the conventions in this field--as the yoke +is more severely felt. While I was in Italy and France I met a number of +anarchists who on the sex side were not ostentatiously rebellious. They +were like the free sort of conservative people everywhere. But in +political ideas they were more logical, sophisticated, and deeply +revolutionary than is the case with the American anarchists, who, on the +other hand both in their lives and their opinions, are extreme rebels +against sex conventions. It is only another instance of how unreason in +one extreme tends to bring about unreason in the other. Our prudishness, +hypocrisy and stupid conventionality in all sex matters is responsible +for the unbalanced license of many a protesting spirit. + +So there was many an "orgie" in the salon--sexual and alcoholic: and +many wild words were spoken and many wild things done. But these same +extreme people were gentle and sensitive, too, and emotionally +interested in ideas. They went to lectures on all sorts of social +subjects, they read good books of literature and crude books on +politics, they grouped together and enjoyed to a certain extent their +communistic ideas. They published their anarchistic newspapers and they +welcomed into their ranks people who otherwise could have attained to no +consolatory philosophy--who would have had no society and no hope. And +they did not do it for the sake of charity--hollow word!--but from a +feeling of fellowship and love. You, reader, who may think ill of +thieves and prostitutes--too ill of them, perhaps: if you can come to +see that social differences are of slight value in comparison with the +great primal things and the universal qualities of human nature, you +will perhaps be better if not more "virtuous" than before, and may be +kinder, less self-righteous, and do far more good, no matter how +"charitable" you are now inclined to be. You have never been able to +arouse the real interest of the proletariat, for the simple reason that +you have never been really interested in them. But you do arouse their +hatred and their contempt. They ought not, of course, to hate and +despise anything, especially anything that means as well as you do. But +they, though they are anarchists, are human, all too human, sometimes, +like the rest of us. Here are some of the ideas of the salon about you, +about us, let me say, as voiced by Terry and Marie. To begin with, +Terry: about our "culture" he writes: + +"There is not much doubt about the sapping influence of culture. It +seems that narrowness of range means intensity of emotion. This is seen +in the savage, the child, and uncultivated men as well as other animals. +I might even go farther and say we see it in such titans as Balzac and +Wagner, who seek to compress all the arts into their own particular art. +The mind that finds many outlets generally overflows in dissipation of +energy instead of digging a deep single channel of its own. And yet to +focus our feelings to one point may be a dangerous accomplishment. For +instance, the fulminating fire of Swinburne's radium rhymes, while +harmless to himself, may become dangerous through me or some other +'conductor.' Unfortunately, the inability to foretell the ultimate +effect of any given idea produces that form of inhibition called +conservatism, and to this vice people of so-called culture are +especially prone. It takes recklessness to be a social experimentalist +or really to get in touch with humanity. Our careful humanitarians, our +charitable ones, never do, for they stick to their conservatism. How we +do fashion our own fetters, from chains to corsets, and from gods to +governments. Oh, how I wish I were a fine lean satirist!--with a great +black-snake whip of sarcasm to scourge the smug and genial ones, the +self-righteous, charitable, and respectable ones! How I would lay the +lash on corpulent content and fat faith with folds in its belly; chin +and hands[3]; those who try to beat their breast-bone through layers of +fat! Oh, this rotund reverence of morality! 'Meagre minds,' mutters +George Moore, and my gorge rises in stuttering rage to get action on +them. Verily such morality as your ordinary conservative person +professes has an organic basis: it has its seat in those vestiges of +muscles that would still wag our abortive tails, and often do wag our +abortive tongues. + +"To arouse such fat ones to any onward flight it may take the tremendous +impact of a revolution. It may take many upheavals of the seismic soul +of man before the hobgoblins of authority are finally laid in the +valley. + +"How many free spirits have been caught and hampered in the quagmire of +conservatism. Yet they have the homing instinct of all winged things: +they return to the soul and seek to throw off the fat and heavy flesh of +social stupidity. Many great free spirits there have been who possess +this orientation of the race and have brought us tidings of the +promised land. How many thundering spirits have commanded us to march by +the tongued and livid lightning of their prophetic souls, but how few of +us have done so! Why, to me, this world is a halting hell of +hitching-posts and of truculent troughs for belching swineherds. The +universe has no goal that we know of unless Eternity be the aim; let us +then have the modesty of the Cosmos, and no other modesty, and be +content to know our course, and be sure to run it. + +"I have tried for freedom, indeed, everywhere, but I find the 'good +ones' always in my way. How well I know the cost of my attempt! My heavy +heart and my parched and choking throat, they know! I may indeed beat my +breast alone in the darkness in a silent prayer for freedom and hear no +response from the haunting hollows of the night. Such hungry freedom I +had and have; and I could share it only with the outcasts of the world: +the fat and rotund charitable ones would none of it. This freedom is +possessed only by him who is afflicted over much with himself because he +has been crazed by others and made mad by his escape from them. I +suppose I am mad, for to believe myself perfectly sane in a greatly mad +world is surely a subtle species of lunacy. And yet I am compelled to +act towards others as if they were more sane than I. To feel as if one +were eternally in a court-room trial, with lean lunatics for lawyers and +fat philistines for judges, this is life. + +"I am only one of the human victims who studies his own malady because +he likes universal history. The world has thrown me back upon myself and +made me at times what is called mad. After being down-hearted for some +time, I grow superstitious and imagine that some strange and fatal spell +is hanging over us all. Even my own acts and thoughts take on the +futility of nightmare, and Nirvana is very welcome, if I could be sure +of it, but I had rather stay what I am than start life all over again in +some other shape, with a possible creeping recollection of my former +existence. I have at times startled intimations that I lived in vain in +some former unhappy time; so I shall try to postpone the eternal +recurrence as best I may." + +Thus Terry tries not only to reject the laws of "fat" society, but at +times he strives against what he imagines to be the deep laws of the +universe: he tries to stem the tide of fate, and this in the name of +Truth! It shows how far remote from reality is the truth of the +idealist; and yet such an attitude is often forced upon a sensitive +spirit by rough contact with imperfect society. Although Terry is the +most perfect specimen of the anarchists I have known, yet they all have +more or less the quality of idealism so marked in him. + +Marie's letters teem with the spirit of revolt, which of course was the +atmosphere of the salon. With her it is always less ideal, more +personal, more egotistic than with Terry. In one of her letters she told +"how she was led to try to get a job again, in order to buy some pretty +things." A few days' search, however, disgusted her and brought her back +completely to the mood of the salon, and led her deeply to appreciate +_Hedda Gabler_, and to condemn American morality and the "good" people. +Of Hedda she wrote: + +"Her character always did appeal to me, but last night I was in the mood +especially to understand and sympathise with Hedda, to be Hedda, in +fact. For a few hours I was as brave and wonderful in thought and +feeling as she. It was the reaction from my stupid days in hunting a +job. Her disgust with everything, her search for something new and +different, the fascination she felt for saying and doing dangerous and +reckless things--this I could understand so thoroughly! I was in a very +reckless and discontented mood, but I was able to get away from myself +and become Hedda for awhile; and this made me think of what a wonderful +thing it is, what a power Ibsen has, to produce such emotions by merely +stringing a few words together. Why, the very name Hedda, Hedda Gabler! +When Eilert says it, what does it not convey! Terry and I had a long +talk about it, and about literature in general, so the result was that I +became calm, quiet, and reflective--as I love to be, but which I can be +only very seldom. I have an almost continuous craving for something new +and strange, like Hedda. But somehow reading and thinking about her +calmed me. I can find new emotions in books, and this satisfies me for a +time, but they are never vital enough to last me long. It is only +sterile emotions we derive from literature, and so I turn again +restlessly to life. + +"But when I turn to life I find for the most part people who are +unwilling to give themselves up to life, who will not follow out their +moods, or have none. When I am no longer capable of abandoning myself, +why continue? Most people seem to me to be dried up. They look as if +they never felt anything, so expressionless, so automatic are they, as +if they had been wound up to walk and talk, and eat and sleep in +precisely the same way for a certain number of years. This seems to be +the American type. I suppose you have read of the Caruso affair--how he +kissed a woman in Central Park, or wanted to, and the howl it made? The +way they all jumped on him, in the name of morality! And you remember +what happened to Gorky, when he was here? Why, these American stiffs, +what do they mean by morality? Since they are much too cold-blooded for +immortality, what do they know about it? This country is composed of +pie-eating, ice-water drinking, sour-faced business people. If one with +emotions comes to this country, he is of course immoral. If there were +no foreigners here, this country would resemble the North Pole. + +"I'm glad I am not an American in blood, for then I would not be as +interesting to myself as I am now. Sometimes I stand before my mirror +and look at myself for a long, long time; it always surprises me that I +look so commonplace. Surely, something of what I have in me ought to +show in my face. But I know it's there, anyway. I know I'm altogether +different from anyone else, I know it with a kind of fierce joy; not +better, of course, but different. + +"For instance, this regularity and system they talk about! You wrote me +to be more regular and the like of that, if I wanted to sleep better. +You, too, are a typical American! Just imagine me drinking milk to make +me sleep or grow fat! The thought of such a thing makes me shudder. Your +remark about amorous sport being a soporific if performed regularly and +without excitement made me double up with laughter. But I am quite sure +that the performance of such a 'duty' would not induce sleep. I am only +moved to such things by new lovers, and then I desire not sleep but +wakefulness. And then, too, usually such desires come to me at noon, not +at night, and who ever heard of sleeping at noon! + +"As for the other physical exercises that you recommend, I do walk along +muddy, prosaic streets and work in our household until I grow weary and +ask the gods what sins I have committed. My beloved cigarettes, which +are as dear to me as sleep itself, my solace when sleep flies, my +comfort, you would take these away from me! What would I do without +them? I am without them sometimes, when Terry takes some of my tobacco, +and then I am angry at him! The only plan I have is to have enough +tobacco. Otherwise, I have nothing arranged, no plan. You think there is +something fine in having logical arrangements for all things. I have +never felt that way. I am only a poor creature of an hour, of a moment, +and have never had plans. I would love to be where you are now, in +Paris, that home of the planless, the free and joyous and emotional +people." + +What most people think is good, is worth while, is in good taste, the +salon rejected; partly, of course, in the spirit of mere rejection, of +revolt, but based nevertheless on a higher ideal of human love than +obtains in our society. These anarchists are not historians or practical +people and they are not as much interested in what society must be as +in what society ought to be; and because they see that society is not +what it ought to be, because they as unfortunate members of the +labouring class feel that the origin of our society is the root of +injustice, they rebel totally against that society, rejecting the good +with the evil. They passionately believe that the real and radical evil +in our social world is partly kept there by our very justice, by our +very morality, our very religion--kept there not so much by what is +called evil in our society as by what is called good. They see that much +large kindness is prevented by the morality which is expressed in the +idea of private property, that much large virtue is denied by the +institution of marriage, that psychological truth and Christian kindness +at once are not considered by the social court, which looks only to the +law--to the complex, historical law, so often meaningless and unjust to +human feeling, so often based upon special "interests" and ancient +prejudices. + +Their situation, as proletarian interpreters of the working class, +enables them to see whatever is true in this view with peculiar +vividness. For, of course, it is to their interest to see this truth; +for truth is only an impassioned statement of our fundamental needs. + +The salon was composed of the poor and the criminal, and what kept it +together was the human desire to form a society, the norms of judgment +of which should give value to the individual members--the deep need of +justification. + +There were fakirs in the salon, unkind people, unjust people, vicious +people; there were mere "climbers," persons who saw their only chance +for recognition and livelihood in the espousal of anarchistic ideas. But +there were also kind people, relatively just people, and moderate ones, +honest and strenuous with themselves. There were none perfect, as there +are none perfect in any society. We shall see how Terry became disgusted +finally with the anarchists themselves, preferring even insanity and +probable death to them. + +And Marie's letters are full of satire of her companions, of the +perception of their weaknesses and inconsistencies. She never embraces +or rejects them so completely as Terry does, for she sees them more +clearly; therefore she sees them more humorously, understands them +better. Her letters teem with "psychological gossip," so to speak, in +which some of her companions seem portrayed with relative truth. One she +wrote me, while I was seeing something in London, of an anarchist named +Nicoll, who was a friend of William Morris and still edits Morris's old +paper, is full of both appreciation and satire of a number of +"radicals": + +"An old friend of Nicoll's used to talk to me by the hour about him. He, +the friend, an ordinary, rather stupid fellow, once helped poor Nicoll, +got a room for him and gave him money, after he was released from +prison. He felt proud to think that a man like Nicoll would accept +hospitality 'from a poor bloke like me,' as he put it. His friendship +with Nicoll has been the great event of his life. Whenever anything +occurs in the radical movement which recalls ever so slightly the affair +of which Nicoll was the scapegoat, his old friend will say, in his funny +Jewish Cockney, 'That's always the wey, like Nicoll's kise, for +example.' Then he launches forth into eloquent streams of denunciation, +for he does not regard Nicoll as at all insane, but on the contrary, +'the finest man ever downed' by aristocrats like Turner and Kropotkin. + +"This affair has made our friend pessimistic about anarchism, at times, +and inclined to join the socialist party. His life is made miserable by +the ceaseless debate of his mind and soul over which of these two +philosophies is the best one for the race. He, suspiciously, is always +looking for another case like Nicoll's, and is doubtful about all +movements, not only anarchism and socialism, but all which preach +liberty, justice, and the like, such as Theosophy, Single Tax, Sun +Worshippers, Spirit Fruiters, Holy Rollers, Upton Sinclair's Helicot +Colony, and Parker Sercombe's Spencer-Whitman Centre. All these he has +tested and found more or less wanting. Life grows daily more melancholy +for him, as he continues, on account of 'Nicoll's Kise,' to probe +beneath the surface of all the cults and movements which profess +boundless love for humanity, truth, justice and freedom. + +"P. R., whom you have also met in London, has got himself into trouble +by making inflammatory speeches in Germany. When they talked of +arresting him, he immediately claimed American citizenship. But if he +ever turned up in America again they would clap him in jail so quick it +would make his head swim. He, together with McQueen, was arrested here +some years ago for helping start the New Jersey riots, but he skipped +his bonds, to the great disgust of the bondsmen, who were comrades in +the movement. The movement in the whole United States, Canada, Europe, +and Asia was divided into factions over this affair, and very nearly +went to pieces. But it was ridiculous to arrest him in the first place, +for he could not incite a feather to riot. He is one of those flamboyant +wind-bags, with a terrific command of high-sounding phrases, eloquent +gestures, and fine eyes--the kind sixteen-year-old girls admire--to +think I once loved him, or thought I did! He is a big little physical +coward and prides himself on being the realisation of Nietzsche's +Uebermensch. + +"The movement in Chicago is about to resume its usual winter activity by +the opening of the Social Science League this Sunday evening. There are +many cultured people in this city who think the Social Science League is +too crude and vulgar to grace with their presence, therefore it has been +resolved to establish another society of a more exclusive order, in +which may be discussed important questions in a more subdued, rational, +and artistic way. It is especially desired that only the 'artistic' +anarchist be admitted to this new society. The crude element of +anarchism is to be excluded as much as possible, but what cannot be +excluded is to be subdued. If this is impossible, it shall be expelled. +All illustrious lights will speak there. Terry has been invited, but has +refused on democratic grounds, and sticks to that 'bum' society, the S. +S. League. + +"One of the girls who has gone over to the 'swells' is Mary. She is a +factory girl and an important little person, who prides herself on the +amount of culture she possesses, and the famous people she has met and +talked with. I introduced her once to a literary man, but she did not +know he was so, at the time, and only nodded coldly. But when she found +he was the famous Mr. F---- she was angry at me for not putting her +'next' and was much distressed, for here was another famous man whom she +had nearly talked with. + +"Another girl whom I know has done a wonderful thing with a certain man. +He is a great, strong German, who guzzles beer and bullies the other +fellow in his arguments about anarchism. When I first knew him, several +years ago, he was married to a nice non-resistant sort of a girl, whom +he treated awfully bad--without intending to. For he is really generous +and good-hearted, but is firmly imbued with the idea, which he thought +was the beginning of anarchism, that one must be firm and have one's own +way and do all that one wants to do, without allowing any scruple of +conscience or morals or delicacy to interfere; that to be a man and an +anarchist one must never allow a petticoat to come between you and your +desire. So he did what he wanted, regardless of anybody. He was a sort +of brutal Overman; one could not help admiring the kind of barbaric +splendour there was about him. And his poor wife idolised him and would +stand everything from him. + +"Now he is here with another girl. Talk about a change! He has turned +from a lion to a mouse. She is a little bit of a thing, only nineteen, +rather silly and not very attractive. She is pretty in an outward way, +but her features are unlit by any glimmer of feeling or thought, or even +good nature--a slothful, empty sort of prettiness. She makes him walk a +chalk-line, and it is contemptible and ridiculous and pitiful to see +that big man cringe before this poor, pretty, empty little thing. Once +in a while he tears himself away, and a glimmer of his old self returns; +for an hour or two he plays his old role again, but if she finds out +about it, it is very unpleasant for him. It is strange how weak women +can subdue at times these big, husky creatures. But the more they +succeed, the more dissatisfied they grow, until at last they feel +contempt for the man they have subdued. The girl in this case feels that +way about this big, powerful man. If he would assert himself, she would +love him, as she did when she saw how he bullied his wife and all +others. But at bottom we women are pleased, for it is a triumph for our +sex, though we feel a little jealous because not one of us could have +been the lion-tamer, instead of this weak little creature. Terry is wild +about it, and tries to lead the enslaved Hercules into evil ways and +keep him out at night, but all these things have lost their charm for +the big man, who now would rather stay at home with the little girl. +She, however, finds things very tedious, particularly in the day time, +when her big man is at the factory, for she has nothing to do. So she +passes her time at Esther's house. + +"I would go crazy were I in Esther's place. Poor Esther, she doesn't +know what to do, either, for she cannot be always ill. She takes +pleasure in being an invalid, but she can't use this plea for sympathy +all the time, people get tired of it. But Esther is fortunate in having +somebody to whom she can tell all her aches and pains and their history. +She has found a unique occupation, in scrubbing. She starts Monday +mornings and finishes Saturday afternoons, and then on Monday starts +again. I was with her a week, and that's the way she spent the days. +Perhaps she is like Mary Maclain and finds a peculiar inspiration in +this fascinating task. If you were a woman I would write more about +Esther's scrubbing, which is very wonderful, but you probably would not +understand. Jay, her lover, comes home from work every evening, and, +after eating the chaste evening meal of rice and beans, lights his +corncob pipe, settles himself comfortably in his chair and listens +carefully to the description of the aches and pains which have afflicted +Esther that day. These pains continue in spite of all the beautiful +scrubbing. He suggests different remedies until his pipe is finished, +then he calmly retires to his library and reviews a book and reads +several pamphlets, writes an article for '_The Demonstrator_' or '_The +Appeal to Reason_' or some other radical paper and attends to his +voluminous correspondence with the leading radicals of the day. Then he +retires for the night, also Esther, after the farewell scrub of the +dishes, table, and the rest, and the kids, too, go to roost. When I was +there, I also went to bed, though it was only about half past eight. + +"About half past five in the morning a most infernal alarm clock emits a +most hellish noise. Jay and Esther tumble from their couch, light the +lamp, and resume their occupations. After a very chaste breakfast Esther +continues her scrubbing and Jay finishes his correspondence and puts in +the rest of the time until seven o'clock, when his work in the factory +begins, in studying the new language, Esperanto. Oh, I spent a most +charming and delightful week there; I could hardly tear myself away." + +One of Marie's amorous episodes led her to Detroit, with a "fake" +anarchist, of whom there are many. After a week or two of dissipation +and disillusionment, Marie returned, very ill, to the "Salon," where +Terry received her with his usual stoicism, and acted as trained nurse. +Repentant and disgusted, Marie wrote me from her convalescent bed: + +"I am still far from well, but am much better. My illness was caused by +too much dissipation, which I plunged into for relaxation. For some +weeks previously I had got a particularly large dose of my environment. +Terry and I live in surroundings which would kill an ordinary person. +Our little home is not as bad in the summer time. We can have the +windows and doors open, but now in this cold winter we must all live in +one room, a very small room, where there is a stove. The dampness +penetrates right through the walls and the wind comes through the holes +in the window panes. Sundays are the hardest days for me. Then Kate, +queen of the kitchen, is here, and she delights in cooking all sorts of +things on that day, so for the remaining six days our home smells of her +culinary operations--most abominable, this odour of stale cookery! And +what a mess our rooms are in on Monday morning! You wouldn't +comprehend, even if I told you. I have to clean up all this, and I wish +I could fly away every Sunday. At times I get so tired of this way of +living. I hope some day I may find a large barn with a hay loft: I would +immediately abolish Kate and her cookery and would be comfortable for +once in my life. + +"So I ran away, for a time, partly for relief, partly because I was +rather taken with a Detroit anarchist who was visiting us. Though he was +a comrade, he was really a Philistine, which I did not see till +afterwards. I saw only that he was young and lusty and wanted a lark, as +I did, so I went with him on an awful tear, and returned terribly done +up, as you know. + +"I have been lying here in this little room for three weeks. I thought +surely I should die, and I was neither glad nor sorry. It was curious, +this sensation of approaching death. All these days Terry sat opposite +me at a table reading or writing. I could see him distinctly at times, +at other times everything was misty or completely dark, only his voice +reached me from such a long, long distance. He sat there like an +implacable fate, with calm, cold eyes, gazing above and beyond me. +Between two slow heart beats I felt it was almost a duty to call him +and bid him farewell, but some strange sense of shyness held me back. I +tried so hard to think of what I might do, and the most grotesque and +comical things suggested themselves. At one lucid moment I had the +brilliant idea of becoming a jockey! + +"Other ways of passing my life revolved ceaselessly in my brain, and now +at last perhaps I have found it. Now that I am better I am reading +Swinburne aloud, in bed. The sound of my voice carried along with the +music of his matchless rhythms is to me a delight and a wonder. I have +discovered that the Garden of Proserpine should be read only when one is +in a reclining position. Then one's voice conveys more perfectly the +weariness of all things mortal and the sweet delight of rest. I find I +must practice breathing more deeply, if I wish to render the voluptuous, +sinuous lines. Don't you think this is a great ambition, to read +Swinburne well? I am so glad to find something to do, something I love +to do. Perhaps I may escape from all by this. + +"It is now five days since I started to write to you, but I still lie on +my back and dream and have not found my place, and never shall. +Swinburne's never-ceasing, monotonous rhymes have palled upon me. Even +this is sordid, and then, if so, what is the rest?--the daily life +filled with brutish and shallow men and women? When I can no longer +endure poetry and daily life--it is then that I rush into brutal +dissipation, from which I awake sick in mind and body, without hope or +desire for anything but sleep: and then, once more, the Garden of +Proserpine reveals itself to me, or some other thing of beauty. It is an +eternal round. + +"I often think that the only way for me to be in harmony with the scheme +of things would be to go down into the gutter. Some years ago during my +brief period of--prostitution, I suppose--I felt a strange importance. +It was death to me, but something real, too. I was fulfilling a need of +society, a horrible need, but a need. And then, too, all my men friends +often go to these houses. All the nice, intellectual men are to be met +there--men from all ranks of life--men a girl like me could never meet +in any other way. During that brief time, at moments between a sleep and +a drink, I used to have this fancy, which sometimes makes me shudder +now, as I think of it, and yet somehow seems such a fine satisfying +protest--a feeling that some day I would be seen waddling about the +streets of Chicago, known to all the denizens of the under world as +Drunken Mary! I saw myself fat and repulsive, begging nickels from the +passers-by and perhaps strangled at the end by some passing hobo for the +few nickels in my stocking. And am I essentially worse than you, or my +lady, or anyone whom Society protects and honours? To me poet and pimp, +politician, reformer, thief, aristocrat, prostitute are one. Caste and +class distinctions are too subtle for my poor brain and too outrageous +for my heart, which still tries to beat with and for humanity." + +Terry refers only in a line or two, characteristically, to this +adventure and illness of Marie. + +"She is seriously ill, the result of a mad adventure. As I exist for +others when they are in pain, I am her trained nurse. She is now +recovering from the drugs, the debauching, and the raving madness of +sleepless nights. I will give you an account sometime of a strange piece +of magic charlatanism, practiced under the guise of beautiful art!... + +"I think her growing recovery is largely due to the inability to secure +a doctor to christen her disease. I feel rather worn with domestic +drudgery, cooking, laundering, wrestling with disease without and demons +within. Still, as a trained nurse who can go sleepless for three weeks, +I do not look upon myself as a failure." + +Marie's health improved slowly, due in part to the unsanitary conditions +of her home. She wrote: + +"The roof of this miserable shack leaks all the time. The other day the +owner came around in his automobile. I was speechless. It made me mad to +think of that hound, riding in his car which we had paid for. Oh, the +miserable people who live in these two houses: old, decrepit women who +earn their living by washing clothes for others. It would make your +blood boil to see them. And then to see that fat dog in his auto, +accepting money from them and not ever giving them a whole roof in +return. When I saw him I wanted to say so much. I could only choke. Oh, +when you hear of the brutality of the mob, don't believe it. The mob may +indeed, under the impulse of the moment, burn and destroy; but think of +the cold brutality of a judge sitting on his bench and calmly condemning +some poor wretch to be killed, and this with no emotion. How can this +be? The revolutionists in France were the kindest beings, in comparison. +They had personal injuries to avenge, and all they did was to strike off +an enemy's head and that was the end. There was even a chance of being +saved, if the doomed one could find the right expression, some little +sentence that would affect the brutal (?) people. But this could not +happen before a judge! + +"The trouble with the poor is, they have not enough imagination. They +are not refined in their cruelties. They could never invent the Bull +Pen, but would only quickly destroy. It is raining to-day, and I have +been moving about trying to find a dry spot where I can continue writing +without having a large splash come down on my nose. But I guess I'll +have to give it up. Oh, that cursed landlord! I'd like to do something +to him, not so much for myself as for those poor old things, they are +all rheumatic and stiff, but continue to live here because, poor souls, +they think the rent is low. Ye gods, the place is not fit for dogs to +live in, and yet he charges all the way from five dollars up for these +filthy, worm-eaten, rotten holes. And yet the old decrepit inhabitants +of this rich man's house unbend their stiff knees in profound salaams +whenever he appears." + +But in these leaky rooms of Kate's there was often much jollity and +gaiety, when the "Salon" had its sessions, and proletarians of the pale +cast of thought sat and smoked their cigarettes, drank their beer, +kissed their girls, and talked of philosophy and literature and social +evil and possible regeneration. Then they were always happy, whatever +the subject of their talk. Marie wrote me to my villa in Italy: + +"You write of your beautiful gardens and seem quite happy. We too are +well and happy in our little old joint; you are the only one missing to +make our circle complete. But perhaps sometime you can be with us, with +a can on the table and good talk going round, and then I'm sure you will +not miss your Italian garden. Emma Goldman and Berkman have been +visiting Chicago, and we had some jolly good times while they were here. +She is a good fellow, when she is alone with a few choice friends. Then +she lets herself out. The other day we gave a social for these two +celebrated ones. Positively, no police, reporters, or strangers were +admitted. Next day there was a hue and cry in all the papers, dark +conspiracy, and so on! But all we did was to have a great time: +everybody was drunk before morning, and everybody felt kindly toward the +whole world, and would not have cursed even the greatest 'exploiter.' We +finished the evening or rather the morning by an orgy of kissing. It was +quite interesting and innocent. Smith has at last begun to return my +affection. I think he likes me a little now. At least, he calls here +frequently, and he told me once he would like to tear me limb from limb! +This remark made me shudder, not unpleasantly. It must be good to be +torn in that way by such a nice man. + +"The rose-leaves you sent from Italy retained some of their sweet smell. +The rose is my favourite flower, and I like to imagine that perhaps some +day my dust will be soil for roses. Last summer I found a poor little +stillborn thing which had been hastily thrown aside, near a place where +Terry and I were camping. Some poor little 'fleur de mal' which I +covered from sight, in the sand, and marked the place with some stones +and flowers. The next year I found some wild white daisies growing +there. This made a deep impression on me and strengthened my hope that +I, too, might become soil for roses, flowers of love. + +"Henry is a rose, too, in his way. He is getting more picturesque every +day. At the Emma Goldman social he was ornamented with a new straw hat, +which had a very high crown and narrow brim with little black ribbons +for the side. Also, an enormous tie, the ends of which fluttered gaily +and coquettishly in the wind. His curling black locks nearly reached his +shoulders, and he has vowed never again to cut his hair, as a protest +against the conventions of society. I left the social with him, and as +we walked down the street in the morning he was a target for all eyes. +He was talking philosophy and love to me, but this changed to fury. He +flung his arms about, and shouted to the crowd: 'Oh, you monkeys, sheep, +dogs,' and several other kinds of quadrupeds and birds. Henry is a +peculiar man, but he is as sincere as anybody living and is a friend of +that wonderful man, Kropotkin. When Kropotkin was in Chicago some years +ago a reception was given him at Hull House. Poor Henry eagerly hastened +there to see his friend--dressed in unbecoming and informal attire. He +had not seen Kropotkin for years, and so anxious was he to meet him +again that he forgot his raggedness. But the dear, sympathetic +settlement workers were decidedly polite in showing Henry the door. But, +at the psychological moment, Kropotkin appeared, threw his arms around +Henry, kissed him, and carried on like an emigrant who runs across an +exile." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[2] See "The Spirit of Labour," Chapter 4, called "An Anarchist Salon," +for a description of some of the principal members of this society.--H. +H. + +[3] This is worthy of some of the mythological-Christian paintings of +Mantegna, where the vices are being scourged by the indignant +virtues.--H. H. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +_More of the Salon_ + + +"I have been imagining you in Paris," wrote Marie, "having a delightful, +bohemian time. My ideas of Paris are all derived from reading Balzac, +who has certainly created the most delightful, gay and mysterious, sad, +mystic, sordid, everything one could wish in a city of dreams and +realities. + +"When Terry brought me 'Evelyn Innes,' by George Moore, the other day, I +dug into it with zeal and delight, and was surprised and pleased with +his subtle psychology, during the first part of the story; but +psychology can be carried to the point where it becomes +incomprehensible, stupefying and monotonous. I finally grew +indescribably weary of the problems of Evelyn's soul, but I kept on to +the end, and then sank back on my pillow exhausted. I think I shall stop +reading for a while, lest I have literary indigestion. I'll try to be +satisfied for the time with Swinburne and Shelley. Our anarchistic poet +lectured on Shelley, the Poet of Revolution, the other night, and I was +disappointed. He did not do justice to Shelley either as a revolutionary +poet or as a poet of beauty. I think Shelley should be spoken of with a +delicate passion, which our anarchist poet lacks. He tried hard to speak +with fervour, but there is no fire in him, and what is a poet without +fire? Perhaps it was as well, for what's the use in casting pearls +before swine? For the critics in the audience arose and condemned +Shelley because he was a socialist, or because he was not one. Some of +these critics seized upon the word libidinous. Oh! there was their clue! +The lecturer arose like an outraged moralist to repudiate the scandalous +charge of libidinousness. I was so disgusted I vowed I would never go to +another meeting. + +"I have indeed been going to so many 'humanity lectures,' and clubs, +such as the Shelley Club, where the divine anarchist B----misinterprets +the great bard every week to his flock of female admirers, and had been +reading so much Swinburne and other sublime things that recently I have +had a reaction, and there is nothing now at the Salon except Nietzsche. +He is a relief, although I feel that if I were to keep on with him I +should go mad. When I feel my brain begin to turn, I start scrubbing or +some other stupid thing. + +"Though Nietzsche says some very bitter things about women, who have no +place whatever in his scheme of things, except perhaps for the +relaxation of the warriors, yet there is something dignified in his very +denunciation. His attitude toward our sex is so different from that of +Schopenhauer, and many other philosophers. They usually take the 'rag +and a bone and a hank of hair' attitude, and are disgusting. But +Nietzsche warns men that women are dangerous, and danger, in Nietzsche's +philosophy, is a sublime thing. Also, we must become the mothers of his +Overmen. + +"Terry, too, is much interested just now in Nietzsche; quite naturally, +for Terry is one of those 'men of resolute indolence' who will not work +without delight in his labour. He talks a great deal just now of a plan +to seek some cave and there try to become an 'Overman.' I pointed out to +him that that was difficult, for to become an Overman he must of course +'keep holy his highest thought,' without being disturbed by the struggle +for existence, and that, like Zarathustra, he must have an eagle and a +serpent to minister to his wants. And I suggested that I might be his +eagle, for Zarathustra says that woman is still either a cat or a bird +or at best a cow. I prefer to believe that I am a bird, and as such +could minister to my sweet Overman. But Terry wouldn't have it so, and +replied that of course I was a bird, in a way, but he would rather have +me as a pussy, or as a combination of cat, bird, and cow. I thought that +too cruel, so now I am determined to be none of them, but to become an +Overwoman, and so be a fitting relaxation for my warrior, my Overman. +'Tis but a step from the sublime to the ridiculous, and I think, in this +letter, I have made that step." + +Marie's moods are many, and in her next letter she wrote in quite a +different vein: + +"I almost wept when reading your letter about the baby. Perhaps it was +because of the line, 'A little daughter was born to me.' It recalled to +me this Christmas time many years ago when I was a little child and I +heard the story of the little Jesus. 'And unto us a child was born.' How +those words ring in my ears! So vividly come back to me the pity I felt +when I heard the story of the poor little infant born to be crucified. +It always made me cry--out of pity, the pity of it all! And I wonder if +we are not all, all of us, born to be crucified. + +"But I suppose I must congratulate you on assuming the responsibility of +fatherhood for the third time. You might long ago have studied pre-natal +influences and the rights of the unborn. I hope you have not neglected +these sacred duties. It surprised me that you wished for a girl, for not +long ago you expressed the opinion that women were soulless creatures +without memory! Suppose your daughter should not be an exception, how +would you feel then?... You have been very active. As for me, I fear my +only activity will be that of a dreamer. I differ from the dreaming +class only in one respect and that is, in making confidences, which +dreamers never do. They shrivel up into themselves. They usually create +their own sorrows, which have no remedy except the joys they also +invent. They are natural only when alone, and talk well only to +themselves." + +In the same letter she plunges into the gossip of the Salon: + +"I don't blame Scott for his carelessness. The poor fellow has been +suffering terribly because of his wife, who has left him and gone off +with a new love to a new home. Scott has been quite heroic about it, but +he suffers. You know how in our radical society men and women try to +deny that they are jealous, try to give freedom to each other. But +whatever our ideas may be, we cannot control our fundamental instincts, +and poor Scott is now a wounded thing, I can assure you. But he speaks +beautifully of his wife--even packed up her things for her and escorted +her to the new place. + +"Scott came here the other night with your friend the journalist, Fiske, +who has become quite a part of our little society. I am sorry to say +that he is quite sad, too, but for a different reason. The poor fellow +seems to be suffering from lack of literary inspirations. He has a habit +of asking people what shall he write about. He asks Terry, and even me, +and in pity I am trying to write up the old women in our tenement for +him.... + +"I see a good deal of Thompson and his wife Minna. Now that Thompson, +who was a famous radical, is more prosperous, he is growing careful and +conservative. The glory of her husband is reflected in Minna. I don't +call at their home so much as I did, because I made what they call a +break there the other day. I thoughtlessly introduced myself as _Miss +L----_ to someone of his relatives or relatives' friends, after she had +already introduced me as _Mrs. C----_. And Thompson informed me next day +that it was inconvenient to explain such things to conservative people, +and that I ought to be more careful in dealing with the unenlightened +ones. I suppose I ought to think more of the reputation of my friends." + +Marie likes the Jews of the Salon, many of them, very much, but there +are some she doesn't, as the following shows: + +"Things are rather dead in the 'movement,' just now. But there is +something doing among the Jewish radicals, who, you know, are very +important in any radical movement here in Chicago. No wonder things are +lively when the Jews have such a leader as Mr. Kohen, whom one might +believe to be the long wanted Messiah, destined to lead his race into +the promised land, which is evidently Chicago. There was a hot time +about three weeks ago in the Masonic Temple meeting when this modern +prophet demonstrated to us who were not Jews that they (he and his +friends) were the chosen people who would not only liberate themselves +but also us from the yoke of capitalist oppression; and contrary to all +previous rules, they would do this without any consideration of moneys; +all that Mr. Kohen expected in return was due appreciation. I suppose I +ought to be grateful to Mr. Kohen, but somehow I am not. I ought, too, +to be grateful to our Jewish Madonna, Esther, but there again I am not. +Poor girl! she is really the Madonna of the Chicago movement. All the +sorrows and troubles of the Salon rest upon her poor shoulders, and she +silently suffers, sacrifices and redeems. Then there is little Sara, +another chosen one. It is she who is chosen to make men miserable for +the good of their souls. She has been very pensive since the great poet +B---- left, for now she has no one to worry about. I suggested to her +that she might worry about Terry, if she liked, and she said she would +try, with a weary little sigh. It was she who one day explained to me at +great length that all love except sensual love was of a transient +character. If, she said, man swears he loves you, but does not show any +physical interest in you, you can bet that his passion is of that +intangible sort that has the radiant tints but also the evanescence of +dew!... + +"I am going to a ball next Sunday night. It's on the Jewish holiday in +memory of the time when poor Moses led the Jews from Egypt and they had +to eat unleavened bread. All the orthodox Jews will spend the day +praying in the synagogue, without tasting food or drink. They make up +for it the next day, though, you bet. The ball is given every year by +the radical Jews, usually right in the Ghetto, and nearly always the +followers of holy Moses jump on those who no longer follow, and there's +a hot time. Last year the radical Jews, mostly anarchists, had to have +police protection! The police are good for something, after all! What +should we do without them? We would exterminate each other without +delay!" + +Perhaps Marie's temporary "grouch" against the Jews was partly due to +the irruption into her Society of three new and attractive Israelites of +her own sex--an event happening about that time. In one of these +newcomers, Terry, it appears, was somewhat interested, and Marie has +often admitted that her philosophy of freedom is powerless to overcome +her "fundamental emotions." Writing of Miss B---- she said: "She is a +regular little Becky Sharp, very demure and quiet, and proper and +distinguished. All the women hate her, and the men flock about her, for +she is pretty and a free lover, of course. She comes once or twice a +week to our salon, and then Terry is always present, and they get along +famously. She talks of 'the realm of physics,' or 'of biology,' and I +admit it bores me, her voice is so monotonous. She takes evident +pleasure in Terry's society. Perhaps I am a little jealous, but it does +not make me feel any different toward him, and that is the main thing, +the only thing I really care about.... + +"I must admit that I grow tired at times of the 'movement.' Kate says +she has cut it out altogether, and Terry goes to the meetings very +seldom. I dutifully attend the lectures, where they talk about the same +old things in the same old way, and also the socials and visit the +comrades once in a while. But they do get on my nerves sometimes. I +prefer to stay at home, in the inner circle of the salon, reading and +sucking at my cigarette when I have one. I scrub the floor once in a +while, just because of sheer weariness from not doing anything. + +"Terry has been writing an article on 'the general strike,' but did not +finish it. He is like me in lacking energy enough to carry out any plan +or purpose unless great pressure is brought to bear upon him either from +within or without. I am sure that if he continued to feel strongly about +the general strike he would go on to finish it. But he has a great +distrust, really, of the 'labour' movement and of labour leaders. He +believes that all social improvement must come from the workers, but how +many difficulties there are! One of the greatest is the lack of good +leaders. I myself have not much hope for the workers as long as they +remain sheep who are lost without leaders, are dependent and led either +by honest men who know not clearly how, where, or why, or by intelligent +men, whose intelligence usually takes the form of trickery and +self-interest. The intelligent honest ones seem not to be cut out to be +leaders, or successful in any way. Sheep are led or driven most easily +by those who can make the most noise, and they follow as readily over +the precipice as over the road. The slightest thing serves to frighten +and scatter them in all directions, in outward confusion and +helplessness, unless the burly insistent watchers are for ever at their +heels. Leaders of such a herd must often be unscrupulous to have any +success, must use their intelligence for all sorts of devices, often +cruel and unjust, to keep their flocks from wandering: any means +justifies the end, which is the good of the cause. + +"Perhaps it is a good sign that people from the higher walks of life are +beginning to take notice of the workingman's problem, and maybe the +ideal leader will come from above, but even so I doubt if that will help +much. I have a feeling that all movements dependent on leaders must +necessarily fail. Of course, I know that the people of the 'higher life' +fear the stupidity and brutality of the mass of workers, and argue that +leaders are necessary to guide and restrain them. This is only partly +true; there is hardly any doubt about the stupidity of the mob, but they +are not at all so brutal. True, during times of strike they will throw +stones and slug strike-breakers, but they are not nearly as brutal as +the 'scabs,' who are incited, aided, and protected by the employers and +police, and who lack the emotional exaltation which often inspires the +workers to this violence. + +"During the teamsters' strike I witnessed a scene where the strikers +hustled the scabs, overturned several huge wagons loaded with beef, in +the centre of one of the poorest districts of Chicago, where the people +were suffering from want of meat, but the wretches did not even have +sense enough to help themselves from this plentiful store which was left +on the street guarded only by one or two policemen. And there would have +been no danger of arrest, for the policemen could easily have been swept +aside by the rest of the mob. It made me mad. I felt like shouting at +them, 'you fools, why don't you help yourselves?' How differently a +hungry bunch of kids would have acted!" + +Terry, in his very different way, wrote on the same subject: + +"I never knew a sincere, not to say honest, labour leader, from business +agent up. Poor proletaire! forever crucified between two sets of +thieves--one rioting on his rights, the other carousing on his wrongs. +Labour plods while plunder plays, thus runs the world away. But if he +should take it into his thick head to be his own walking delegate some +day!" + +This strange master of the "salon," this poetic interpreter of the +philosophy of the man who has nothing, has, in spite of his pessimisms, +a profound mystic hope. He wrote: + +"That toiling humanity--the labour movement--to me is a thing so vast, +that whatever other movements try to exclude themselves from it, they +must be swallowed up in it. All other things are but the shadows cast +behind or before the ever-marching phalanx of the unconquerable, the +imperishable proletaire. This is the hope which sends its thrill through +us when nothing else can. At the bottom of my heart I know I am living +but for one thing, and my life has been nothing but a preparation for +this. Of and for myself I have accomplished nothing: for to be ever +ready and alert is not accomplishment.... I see a profound hope in the +proletaire, for to him is granted that intense, wistful awareness of his +common lot and life with his fellows. His very crowding in factories +and tenements, salons, unions, and brothels, brings it home to him. Yes, +this very lack of space must remorselessly rub it in, even by dumb, +physical close contact. The friction resulting from ten living in one +room must make one of them phosphorescent--and capable of giving light +to humanity. The tenement houses are harmless boxes of lucifers as long +as none is ignited. The inhabitants are wofully benighted, but they +possess wonderfully the quality of brotherhood, of oneness, hence arises +their wonderful psychology and their aesthetics, so full and overflowing +with pathos, so piercing, it carries one to that borderland where comic +and tragic make marriage. + +"This strange crowding in our consciousness of things that do not seem +to come from us and yet are of us--this clamouring consciousness is what +drives me to despair and makes me feel I have not the form or shadow of +things, though I may have the substance. Yet I am determined to strain +my self-consciousness even to the breaking point; for though I know +madness lies that way, there stands my Ideal, beckoning. I must grasp +this great common thing which comes from all of us, from us crowded +proletarians, and yet is not in any one of us. Together we enjoy and +suffer more than any one of us alone. There is, I believe, something +deeper than the deepest woe: our racial consciousness is there and we +must find it. At moments of great insight we are suddenly made aware of +this, the mysterious unity of the Race, but it is flashed and gone and +we must await another crisis. It is only in moments of sublime sorrow +that the depths of the racial consciousness is heaved up to us. Joy +cannot do this, for joy is narrow and wants us to do away with sorrow; +but sorrow never wants us to do away with joy. Keats always beheld joy +in an external attitude of farewell and this is profoundly and perfectly +mystical and real: joy is swallowed up in something deeper, away down in +the common racial consciousness. We must all strive to be men beyond +essential harm; else, standing blindly before the meaning and destiny of +the race, we should go mad. Most of us try to think, intellectuals; fear +to abandon ourselves to alarming states of feeling where reason is +crowded to the wall. And yet I feel that by abandoning ourselves +completely to mere feeling lies our only hope to find the logic of the +race that no individual reason can master. + +"Let me tell you of something that recently happened to me which shows +how strong this race feeling is, as opposed to merely individual or +family feeling. I heard that my mother was dying. I had become +reconciled long ago, had seen many things more clearly; for if joy is of +the heart, sorrow is of the soul, by which we see. I wonder if woman has +a 'lake' in her heart. I used to think my mother had, and when I called +to see her once more, the old love-longing caught me by the throat. My +presence seemed to help her some, but, though moved, I had passed beyond +the family boundary-line, and was engaged in stripping myself of +everything not belonging to the soul. If I wish to be something more +than myself, I must be prepared to lose all, even myself. And what is my +family and my mother?" + +Terry does not like to use the word "religion." But he certainly belongs +to the type of the religious man. One of the most marked characteristics +of the religious temperament is this abandonment of personal and family +ties, this indifference and often hostility to social law, "this +emotional devotion to something intangible." All the anarchists and +social rebels I have known have, more or less, the religious +temperament, although a large part of their activity is employed in +scoffing at and reviling religion--as they think the God of theology has +been largely responsible for the organisation of social and political +injustice. But the deeply religious spirits have often been hostile to +theology, as well as to all other complicated forms of society. Here are +some religious words: + +"There must be some meaning," wrote Terry, "for all this ancient agony. +Oh, that I might expand my written words into an Epic of the Slums, into +an Iliad of the Proletaire! If an oyster can turn its pain into a pearl, +then, verily, when we have suffered enough, something must arise out of +our torture--else the world has no meaning. On this theory, all my pangs +are still to come. I too will arise out of my sacrificial self and look +back on my former bondage in amaze, even as I now look down on the dizzy +slums where I am and yet am not! It cannot be that I came up out of the +depths for nothing. If I could pierce my heart and write red lines, I +might perhaps tell the truth. But only a High Silence meets me, and I do +not understand. In letting myself down to the bottomless, I discovered I +could not stand it long enough. I am dumbly dissatisfied. I feel like a +diver who has nigh strangled himself to bring up a handful of seaweed, +and so feels he must down again--and again--until he attains somewhere +the holy meaning of Life." + +Terry feels that somehow deep in his life he has been crucified, that +society has nailed him to the cross: + +"I was alone on the cross and with bloodshot, beseeching eyes beheld +the world objectively. Yet I was aware of a harmony beyond me, though +not in me or around me." + +It is this "harmony beyond," this religious sense of "something far more +deeply interfused" which, ever conscious in the idealist's mind, makes +the concrete vision of everyday fact so ugly, leads to anarchism of +feeling profound and constant. + +But in this world, which as a whole the heart rejects--"my heart," said +Terry, "is the last analysis of all things"--the idealist sees things of +beauty which constitute for him the elements of perfection, elements +which in some future state he dreams may be fully realised in a social +whole. + +"I saw a fine thing from the window to-day," Terry wrote, "a thing of +sheer delight, the complete transfiguration of a human being. An Italian +street labourer came into the yard and sprawled on the grass to eat his +own lunch. He was bandy-legged from being coaxed to stand alone too +soon. But he had a most wonderful face; all the mobility which toil had +banished from his form must have sought refuge in his eyes and his +caressing countenance. Catching sight of some children playing 'house,' +he jumped up and in a most charming way offered them all of his cakes +and went back to his luncheon. The children instinctively brought him +back some of the cakes, which he not only refused, but offered them the +rest of his food. They gathered in a semicircle while he spoke to them. +There came something in his face and attitude which I have seen many +'cultured' people vainly attempt. He absolutely was one of them; the +children stood spell-bound, dazed at the sudden transformation of a man +into a child. The imagination that can become one with its object is a +high form of unconscious art and rests upon the heart and the mass +feeling of the race. The ancient folk-lore and ballads must have arisen +from some such fusion as this. How unfair, at least unwise, it is to +judge the individual action of the proletaire, when he is made for +action in the mass." + +This vague philosophy and transcendental ethics pass naturally enough, +at times, into the feeling of violent revolution, where bomb-throwing, +if not advocated, is emotionally sympathetic. + +"Just now," wrote Terry, "there is strong predisposition among the +'reds' to resort to Russian methods. It needs only the occasion, which +must be waited for, and cannot be created. When the 'error' is great +enough, the 'Terror' will surely rise to the occasion. Were it not for +my faith in this, I should be glad to see Humanity lapse back to whence +it came." + +In the idealist there is a growing impatience with the world; in his +attempt to react even against Nature and some of the necessary qualities +of men there is such inevitable failure that no moral revolutionist or +anarchist can indefinitely endure the struggle. He is destroyed by his +fundamental opposition to the world which he seeks to destroy. +Therefore, impatiently, weakly, he sometimes breaks out--with a +bomb--even against his philosophy and his temperament. + +He is led into contradictions. One of them touches upon his feeling of +"class consciousness." Terry at times, as a transcendental moralist, +rises above this feeling, but his special instinct as a "labour" man +often asserts itself against and in contradiction to his passion for the +oneness of the race. In my intimate association with him I sometimes saw +that, much as he liked me, he felt that I was of another "class." In the +work which resulted in my book, _The Spirit of Labour_, I frequently +came in discouraging contact with this "class" distrust of me--in him +and in others. Marie alone seemed free of it, in her relation to me, and +yet she wrote: + +"I think we have a peculiar sympathy for each other, and yet I realise +that in some subtle way there is not that perfect understanding there +ought to be. Just think of what extremes we two come from--how different +our social environment! I know you understand as nearly as is possible +for one of your class, and yet I doubt if you can really sympathise +with the ideas of anarchism which springs naturally from only one +class--the labour class. Do you not hesitate sometimes and doubt that +all men are worthy of the better things of life, the coalheaver as well +as the banker and artist? Even I hesitate sometimes, when I see the +coarseness and ignorance of these poor plodders of earth, and when I +think of all the really great things that slavery has accomplished. But +who knows how much greater things might be, if done freely by free men? +When I remember that these poor plodders have never had a chance, I +relent and feel so sorry and so hopeless. How often Terry and I have +walked along the boulevards, admiring the beautiful homes of the rich. +Oh, it used to make me wild! I felt that I belonged to humanity, and yet +I could only enter these beautiful homes as a servant, an object of +contempt--an object of contempt supposed, moreover, to have morals, and +religion, too!" + +Of "class consciousness," Terry wrote: "Class feeling has always been a +deep problem to me: it emanates from profound depths. This reflection +concerns you. Many of your 'labour' friends here seem to regret that +there were many things they could not tell you; not that they had any +conscious lack of faith in you as an individual; indeed, they had great +faith in you as a person. Their distrust of you was a class distrust; +they dreaded to betray the interests of their class. They felt a +fundamental antagonism, not to you as an individual, but to you as a +member of your class. From their Social Sinai they enunciate the +eleventh commandment, 'Thou shalt not be a Scab!', and the other ten +commandments do not seem to them so important. But you, they think, +cannot feel this commandment as they do, so passionately, so fully. To +them, it is the keynote of solidarity; to you, partly at least, a +principle of division, of separation. + +"No wonder our class--the thinkers among them--rejects the morality of +your class--property morality, and the rest meant only to make property +morality as strong as a law of God. I made at one time the fatal mistake +of the many simple labourers who are organically honest. I spent most of +my best life in seeking a solution of our hard lot from those above me. +After a loss of many feathers and some brave plumage, but no down, I +must in all humility beat my way back to the traditional lost ideals of +our organically incorporated class.... Perhaps the most conscienceless +class who seek to solve the insoluble is the 'cultured' class. But most +of them seem to me like artistic undertakers officiating at the 'wake' +of Life. With their platitudes, their prudery, and their chastity, they +make for death. These languid ones desire to have life served up to them +in many courses. Greed lies at the bottom of their being, and so they +preach content to the masses, though for the workers they have nothing +in their shallow souls but contempt. This cultured leisure class has had +the time and cunning to perpetrate one great and tragic trick. They have +made social falsehoods so complicated that they themselves neither +understand nor wish to understand.... Why is it that in all the great +authors I detect an air of condescension, marking their contempt for +those who make and keep them what they are? With what fine contempt the +'rube' is surveyed by the faker who has plucked him! Must I put these +classic souls of art in the same category? The art for art's sake +people--these make me sick. It is at best an argumentative confusion +springing from the fact that in the perfect work of art there is such a +fusion of form and substance as to resist dissociation and defy +analysis. Perhaps this fact accounts for Tolstoi's contempt for some of +the classic art. It seems to me that most classic art is one of two +things: either it smacks of smug content and over-fed geniality or it is +permeated with a profound pessimism. The philosophers are worse than the +artists; they are the ringleaders of the betrayers of humanity. Art at +least makes the atonement of beauty for its mistakes, but this cannot be +said of philosophy. + +"Herbert Spencer, for instance, who represents the high-water mark of a +philosophy that will not hold water, pours out the vials of his +bottled-up wrath on the poor unfortunates of London who are compelled +'to make a living' by tips in opening the carriage doors or holding the +horses of the wealthy. He had nothing but loathing for the pregnant girl +who tries to break her 'fall' by taking advantage of the 'poor laws.' +For the workingman, who sincerely tries, at least, to settle the +'affairs of State' in the pot-house over a mug of ale, Spencer had +nothing but contempt; but to the parliamentary people who settle the +same 'affairs' over champagne and prostitutes, he played the +lick-spittle.... The recantation of his 'Social Statics' is the worst +case of intellectual cowardice on record.... He went down with final +contempt for the workers who served him, gave him his daily bread, made +his ink, pen, and paper and bound the twenty volumes of his philosophy +of falsehood! May his 'works' rest in oblivion!... + +"In dismissing Spencer, it is worthy of note that the very thing which +made him pause in the righting of social wrongs is the thing which will +cause the Revolution, namely, the complicated nature of social +falsehoods. In recanting his published truth on the land question, he +admitted that, although the legal title to land was obtained by murder +and dispossession of original occupants, the matter was now too +complicated to be dealt with. If this be so, if justice cannot be done +because of the difficulties in the way, then all hail to the simplicity +and elemental justice of a Red Revolution!... + +"Yes, sometimes I feel like the crudest of the revolutionists, although +I call myself a philosophical anarchist. Sometimes the jails seem to +yearn for my reception, and I question my right to be at large. Nothing +but a decreasing cowardice leaves me at liberty. And if I could not do +more for my soul behind the bars than I have done in front of them, then +I am fit only for durance vile. I, who have out-fasted the very flies +till they fled my room, dread but one thing in the life of a +prison--that I should have no time for reflection and repose! but out of +a born anarchist it would make of me a compulsory Socialist, condemned +to work for the State--a veritable dungeon of disgrace. + +"It is not so much that I love life, though as a rule the poor, who are +so close to life, worship it in a way that puts all other things to +scorn. I know nothing that reaches farther up or deeper down than this. +It is only in the gutter that life is truly worshipped. And that is why +I search for my last faith there--in the gutter, whence all faith really +springs. + +"And yet to have faith even in the gutter is an act of deep imagination. +In the rotting rooms beneath me lives a worker with a family of six +girls and one boy. Capitalism has crucified his carcass for fifty years +and now 'laid him off.' He has been looking for work for the last month. +I watch the insanity in his restless, aimless movements, and I feel +desperate enough to try to get him a job. Unfortunately, he does not +drink; so his pipe, ever in his mouth, is the only obstacle between him +and the mad-house, or the poor-house. Every morning at six o'clock, his +sandwich dinner concealed in his pocket, he makes a brave show of +walking away briskly in his hopeless search for work; for there are too +many younger men. His assumed activity is only put on till he turns the +first corner, for he tries to conceal his lameness and decrepitude, +especially from his wife, who strains her gaze after him. Just before +starting off he takes the superfluous precaution to put some +shoe-blacking on his hair which shows white about the temples. He comes +back after a six hours' search, about noon, his neglected dinner still +in his pocket. He has tramped ten or twelve miles with no open shop for +him. He does not blame anyone, but regards it all as an accident that +has happened to him in some unfortunate way. He broods over this till I +can see it in his eyes; but I don't dare say anything to him. He is too +old, and I might only make his trouble worse. If I were a sculptor I +would put him before the world in a material almost as hard and I hope +more enduring than itself. His arms never hang down by his side, but +seem to be set in the position required by his last job, shovelling. It +reminds me of the time, thirty years ago, when I was laid off, and the +madness first got in and crouched behind my eyes.... + +"Yes, I suppose I am mad. It is true that if I cannot have the +intellectual red that heralds the approach of Dawn, then I want the red +light of Terror that ushers in the Night. My feelings have been +clamouring for many years against my cowardly better judgment. I believe +some day they will break loose and throw me, as from a catapult, even up +against the stone wall of atrocity we call Society." + +Thus the idealist becomes frenzied at times at the incredible +difficulties in the way of a total revolt against society, even against +nature. We shall see how the absolute nature of his anarchism led Terry +further and further along the path of rejection, "passing up" one thing +after another, even letting anarchism as a social enthusiasm go by the +board and making his continued relation with a human being, even with +Marie, a practical impossibility. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +_The End of the Salon_ + + +Terry's love for Marie was partly due, as we have seen, to his passion +for social propaganda: that she represented the "social limit" was a +strong charm to him. She, woman-like, always insisted on the personal +relation, and for a long time his interest in her personality as such, +combined with his social enthusiasm, was strong enough to keep the bond +intact. When, however, his social enthusiasm paled, and his merely +individualistic anarchism became stronger, his interest in Marie +weakened. The times grew more frequent with him when he doubted the +social side of anarchism itself--when this social propaganda seemed as +hollow and as unlovely as society itself; and when he saw the weaknesses +and vanities of his associates, how far they were from realising any +ideal. Then, more and more, he was thrown back upon himself, for as his +hope in the new society weakened, his hope in Marie as an embodiment of +it weakened also. + +Marie's sex interests, always freely and boldly expressed, played, at +first, no part in the growing irritability of their relations. Marie's +occasional "affairs" with other men, sometimes taking her away from the +salon for a time, were taken by Terry in silence. Even when he came face +to face with the fact of Marie's absence of restraint in this respect, +lack of delicacy and feeling for him, he did not complain. To do so was +against his principles of personal freedom; and the fling in the face of +society envolved in Marie's conduct pleased him rather than otherwise; +also there was in him a subtle feeling of superiority over other men, in +the fact that he was without physiological jealousy, or if not, that he +could at least control it. + +Even Marie's jealousy of him, whenever he was in the society of another +woman, he took with a patient shrug. Terry's interest in other women was +not a passionate one: in it was always an element of the pale cast of +thought, and Marie had no real cause for jealousy. But Terry tolerantly +took it as a feminine weakness and tried to shield Marie from this +unreasonable unhappiness. On her account he gave up many a desire to +talk intimately with some female comrade. But Marie had no such +tolerance for him. Not only was she quite free with other men and to the +limit, but she often went into a real tantrum of jealousy. One day she +followed Terry all over town, fearing that he had an appointment with a +well-known radical woman. Marie often acknowledged to me her +inconsistency. "But, you know," she would say, "our principles and ideas +do not count much when our fundamental emotions are concerned." + +This was a true remark of Marie's, and I have often had occasion to +perceive the great degree of it throughout the radical world. Men and +women often try in that society to be tolerant; they give one another +free rein sometimes for years, but generally in the end, the resistance +of one or the other weakens; human nature or prejudice, whichever it is, +asserts itself, and tragedy results. This I had occasion to see over and +over again: how nature triumphed over the most resolute idealism and +brought about in the end either ugly passion or pathetic unhappiness. + +As Terry began to doubt his deepest hope, as he began to turn away from +the ideas about which his salon was formed, he saw and felt more +clearly the limitations of Marie's personal character; and her acts +began to hurt him. Perhaps he began to lose faith in both--Marie and the +Salon--at the same time. + +"I am afraid," he wrote, "that the days of the salon are numbered. I am +of the opinion that most of our latter-day radicals are on a par with +our latter-day Christians. They have grown weary, or wary, of their +original purpose. They seem to think Liberty a beautiful goddess who +will never come: they willingly believe in her as long as there is no +danger of or in her 'coming.' How frantically most of the radicals +signal back the 'waiting' reply: the track is not clear for the coming +of Liberty!--and they do not want to have it cleared!... + +"You will be surprised to know that I have dropped the radicals, with +the exception of Thomson, and I fear he too must walk the plank and go +by the board. I am becoming quite implacable toward these intelligent +people, and the salon will soon be void of my presence. The spirit of it +has gone already and cannot be revived. That is why I left my mother's +home--because the spirit of home had gone--and why I must leave the +salon. I cannot submit to being a discordant spirit; therefore I must be +a wandering one. + +"So I must leave Katie and Marie. If I could make a living I would work +for it, as I did when I thought so. But I shall never work--or toil +rather--for sheer subsistence except behind the bars. I am driven to be +a parasite, for honest living there is none. The time is up, and I must +leave. Several years ago I ruined whatever robustness I had by tending +bar so that Katie might knock down some three hundred dollars. At one +meal a day and a place to try to sleep, I think that she and I are about +even; she also thinks so, though she never says so, to me. She is +willing and able to take care of Marie, for she has five hundred dollars +in the bank and a great love for the girl." + +Terry, sometimes terribly frank, is extremely reticent about Marie; and +the account of their misunderstanding comes mainly from her letters: + +"I have had such a bad misunderstanding with Terry, or he with me, I +don't know which it is. My God, but women can be brutal, though! You +ought to read Jack London's 'The Call of the Wild.' You might +substitute women for dogs. Some years ago I was a feast for the dogs +(women), and now I see much of this same fierce brutality in myself, and +poor Terry is feeling it. I have been away with a man, and Terry somehow +feels it much more keenly than ever before. + +"And yet I love Terry: surely if I ever knew what love means, I love him +and have loved him always. Though I am the most brutal person on earth, +I am so without intention, without knowing it even, at times. And I am +so tired that sometimes I have no feeling for anything, not even for +Terry, and he does not understand that. I feel out of harmony with every +one just now. It is hardly indifference, rather a terrible weariness. +Perhaps my recent reading of Nietzsche has helped to give me a feeling +of weary hopelessness. And then, too, the spirit of our salon is gone; I +don't know exactly why. Even Terry has changed very much in his feelings +and ideas. He is not much interested in the things he used to be +absorbed in. He is more cynical, especially of social science, and yet +he seems to me to be making a very science of looking at things +unscientifically. He seems to be holding his emotions in check, is less +impulsive than ever, and is losing much of that delicacy of feeling and +expression which was so admirable in him. + +"I too am growing cynical, and I hate to do so. I should like to accept +people at their apparent value and not always look for motives, as I am +getting more and more to do. I should like to approach everything and +everybody with a perfectly open heart, as a child does, but I find that +I no longer do that, that I am always prejudiced. I am sure that this is +due to Terry's influence, for he more and more excludes everything: +nothing is good enough for him. He passes up one person after another +and he has no joy in life. His personality is so much stronger than mine +that I am like a little thin shadow, weaker than water, and he can +always bring me around to see his way of looking at people and things." + +This note in Marie--protest against Terry's tendency to cut out the +simple joy of life--grew very strong at a later time; now, however, it +was only suggested, and played no important part. + +Indeed, the idea of his leaving her was to her an intolerable thought; +and yet there is many a letter which suggests the approaching +dissolution of the salon and of their relation. They were both, at +times, terribly tired of life: with no strenuous occupation, the word of +Nietzsche and of world pessimism, of excessive individuality, tortured +their nerves and made everything seem of no avail. + +Work takes one away from life, is a buffer between sensitive nerves and +intensest experience. Strong natures who for some reason are dislocated +and therefore do not work, or work only fragmentarily, come too much in +contact with life and often cannot bear it; it burns and palls at once. +So it was with Terry and Marie. Without either work or children, they +were forced into strenuous personal relations with one another and into +a feverish relation with "life." + +"I feel so depressed," she wrote; "so many things have happened this +last year which seemed trivial at the time, but have had big results, +while other things which seemed events have turned out to be only +incidents, and very small ones. Thus, a careless remark of mine +resulted in a quarrel between Terry and me which did not lessen with +time, but grew larger and larger, until now the relations of us two +idyllic lovers are anything but pleasant. And a very serious attack of +love from which I suffered last summer has passed as quickly and lightly +as a breath of wind, while another light love of mine, which came to me +last February, has assumed large proportions simply because I have been +abused for it by Terry, whom no one could ever displace in my heart. I +was bound to defend my lover from the attacks of Terry, whom I had +always regarded as above such a common display of irritation in such +matters. So this other man became a sort of ideal lover in my mind, and +all because of Terry's opposition. This man had wooed me in a great, +glorious, godless fashion. He was a big man in the labour world, and he +flattered me immensely, but I should never have cared for him, if +Terry's nature had not suddenly seemed to weaken.... + +"I have been so uneasy about Terry lately. He has been talking so much +about joining the criminal class. He seems to be losing his interest in +our movement and to be looking for some other way of escape, as he +calls it. He says his liberty is only a figment of his mind, that he has +now reached the time for which he had all along been unconsciously +preparing himself. I am, of course, used to this kind of talk from +Terry. He has been in the depths of despondency often enough, but +nothing ever came of it except a saloon brawl. He would usually seek +Harris; they would break a mirror or a few glasses in some saloon, and +the next day Terry would have a headache, after which he was usually +content to browse around his philosophy in that mild and subtle way of +his, for a week or so. + +"But now Harris is gone, and Terry does not know any other person quite +so strenuous in the fine art of breaking glasses and barroom fixtures in +general, so, finding no vent for his accumulated despondency, he may +possibly do real things. I feel so sadly for him and wish I could help +him. The Lord knows I would be willing to break any amount of glassware +with him, but he has not much confidence in my aim, I guess; women never +can throw straight. In fact, he has little confidence in me in any way +lately, for he never tells me the details of his schemes, but only +throws out dark and terrible hints.... + +"Truly, something may indeed happen this time. He is so anti-social. He +positively won't go out anywhere to meet people, won't go to our picnics +or socials, and in manner is very strange, distant, cold, and polite to +Katie and me. One would think he had been introduced to us just five +minutes before. Perhaps he thinks that Katie and I want him to go to +work--common, vulgar work, I mean, for Katie has lost her job and we are +living in the most economical way, for we don't know when another +desirable job can be found. Now, Terry really ought to know that I +shouldn't have him work for anything in the world. I know that Katie has +not said the least word to him, but he is so terribly sensitive that +perhaps he suspects what she may be thinking. + +"Katie is despondent, too, and nearly makes me crazy talking of her +life, past, present, and future, in the most doleful way. Last night, +after talking to me for two hours about the misery of life, she made the +startling proposal that she and I commit suicide. 'For,' said she, 'I +cannot see anything ahead of me but work, work, like a cart-horse, until +I am dead. I'd rather die now and be done with everything, and you had +better come with me, for you haven't anything, and if I went alone, what +would become of you, such a poor helpless creature; see how thin you +are, I can almost look through your bones! Who would take care of you?' + +"After talking in this strain for what seemed to me hours and hours, +Katie went to bed and to sleep, and then came Terry from his solitary +walk--he usually goes for a walk if there are any indications that Katie +will do any talking--and entertained me by carelessly, carefully hinting +at one of his dark, mysterious plots. Then he, too, went to bed, and I, +too, had forty winks and seventy thousand nightmares." + +But Marie, even in this growing strain, never failed in her love and +admiration for the strange man with whom she lived. On the heels of the +above came the following: + +"Terry is one of those characters who has not lost any of his distinct +individuality. His is a nature which will never become confounded or +obliterated in one's memory. The instantaneous impression of large +soul, sincerity, and truthfulness he made upon me at our first meeting +has never left me. This impression must have been very strong, for +generally these impressions grow weaker, if people live together so +closely as poor people must. All his faults, as well as perhaps his +virtues, come from the fact that he is not at all practical. In spite of +his experience, he does not know the world, and is a dreamer of dreams. +His wild outbursts are the result, I think, of his sedentary life. +Sometimes we two remain at our home for weeks without venturing out, +without hardly speaking to each other, and then suddenly we burst out +into the wildest extravagances of speech!" + +A few days later there was a wilder burst than ever, and Terry left the +salon. Marie wrote: + +"Last week we all had a row, and Terry has not been seen or heard of +since. The last words he uttered were that he should return for his +belongings in a few days. I am dreadfully sorry about it, especially +that we could not have parted good friends. I realise and always shall +be sensible of the great good I had from him and shall always think of +him with the best feeling and greatest respect. The parting has not +been a great surprise to me, for it really has been taking place for a +long time, ever since he withdrew his confidence from me, now months +past, and I have been acting with other men without his knowledge. +Nothing mattered in our relation but mutual confidence, but when that +went, it was, I suppose, only a question of time. And, at the same time +that he withdrew spiritually from me, he seemed to lose his interest in +the movement, and grew more and more solitary and hopeless. + +"I don't know what Terry is doing, or where he has gone, and I am +uneasy. I would not fancy this beautiful bohemian life alone with Katie, +and I don't know what to do." + +"Terry is still away," she wrote a few days later, "and my horizon looks +bleak and lonely. I want to be alone where I can collect my thoughts, +but, even when Katie is out, I cannot think, but sit by the window +staring at the old women hanging up the clothes which everlastingly flap +on the lines tied between the poor old gnarled willow trees. Poor old +trees, their fate has been very like that of the old women. They bear +their burden uncomplainingly, groan dolefully in the wind, and shake +their old palsied heads. Even the sparrows, true hoboes of the air, +disdain to seek shelter in their twisted arms. They will die as they +have lived, withering away. + +"I try to interest myself in household affairs, but that is so stale and +unprofitable. Neither can I read: my thoughts wander away and Terry +intrudes himself constantly on my mind. I may get so desperate that I +will seek a job as a possible remedy: perhaps in that way I could get +tired enough to sleep.... + +"I have been trying to meet Terry, but he is as elusive as any vagrant +sunbeam. I feel it would do me a world of good to have a long +heart-to-heart talk with him. If I could only see him once a week and +have him sympathise with me in a brotherly fashion and hear him say, in +his old way: 'Cheer up, Marie, the worst is yet to come,' I should be +comparatively happy and satisfied." + +Several more days passed, and with the lapse of time Marie's mood grew +blacker. Her next letter to me had a deep note of sorrow and regret and +remorse: + +"Terry has been away since August thirteenth. He came, while I was out, +for his things. I fear it is his farewell visit; for he has not shown +the slightest disposition to meet me and talk things over. I have tried +in every way to see him again, but he has thus far ignored my existence. +I had an idea that we two were made for each other, but I have been an +awful fool. Last February, as you know, I had an affair, if it may be +dignified by even that name, and just for the fun of the thing I went +with this light love to Detroit, and came home ill, as you already know. +I returned to Terry full of love and regret and most properly chastened +by my illness and disappointment; for other men almost always disappoint +me. But I found him positively beastly. The way he abused that poor man +was terrible, and I had to defend him, for I know that Terry was unjust +to him. I begged him to blame me, not the other man, for it was all my +doing, but that only made matters worse. + +"I know that some people can conceal their obnoxious qualities and show +only the sweet and lovely side of themselves. I sometimes like to see +the reverse side of the medal, and I expected Terry, as a student of +humanity and an anarchist, to welcome any phase of character which might +enable him to understand me more completely. + +"I must hesitate in attributing Terry's attitude to jealousy, for I have +had some affairs before, and he never seemed to care about them in the +least; indeed, I often felt piqued, and thought he did not mind because +he did not care about me enough. The following two weeks were, I can +truly say, the most infernal and awful that ever happened to me, and I +wished thousands of times that I might die, and I did come very close to +it. I cannot describe that hellish time or give you any idea of Terry's +conduct during those weeks. He was no longer the calm, philosophical +Terry that you know, but the most terribly cruel thing the mind of man +can conceive. + +"Now, I know these are strong words, and I don't know if you can imagine +Terry that way, or if you can believe me when I say it is so. I have +thought of it so many times, and I have come to the conclusion that +perhaps while I was away, he and Harris had a great debauch together and +that Terry must have taken some dope which unbalanced him for a while." + +I do not think it needs "dope" to explain Terry's conduct. Marie, +perhaps, could not understand the possible cruelty of a disappointed +idealist. When Terry began to see that neither the anarchists nor Marie +would ultimately fit into his scheme of things, when his idealistic hope +began to break against the hard rocks of reality, he was capable, in his +despair, of any hard, desperate, and cruel act. + +Marie continued: + +"During this awful time I did not blame Terry, dope or no dope. I +considered it all coming to me, and even wished it would keep on coming +until it killed. But I made up my mind right then and there that if it +was fated that I should keep in the game, there should be no more +'affairs' for me. And so help me God I have not had any from that +time--six months ago--till the day Terry left me. And that other man's +name has not once passed my lips in Terry's presence, and when it was +mentioned by others when he and I were there, I grew dizzy and sick. + +"In time, these dreadful things were thought of as little as might be, +and Terry and I became excellent, though platonic friends, a novel and +fascinating relation, wherein sex had no part. Night after night have we +sat around this table, discussing books and people, trying to penetrate +the mystery of things strange and new to us. I should rather say that he +talked, and I was his eager listener. Often, after tossing restlessly on +our pillows, when no sleep would come 'to weight our eyelids down,' the +rest of the night would be spent in reciting poetry, the inevitable +cigarette in one hand, the other gesticulating in the most fanciful and +fervid manner. He would recite in passionate whispers--so as not to +awaken Katie--for hours at a time, poems from Shakespeare to Shelley, +and Verlaine to Whitman, poems tender and sweet, bitter and ironical and +revolutionary, just as the mood suited him. His feeling for poetry and +nature seemed to grow as his hope for human society grew less. + +"So our relations were ideally platonic--the kind you read about in +books. Nevertheless, some of the old bitterness remained in Terry's +heart, for at times he became depressed and melancholy and so sensitive +about the least little thing that I was nervous and in hot water all +the time for fear I might inadvertently say or do something to hurt him +or make him angry. I admit I am not as placid as I look, and Katie, too, +is very inflammable, so you can understand how tense the atmosphere was +at times. + +"Not very long ago, at the breakfast table one Sunday morning, I urged +Terry to come to a meeting of the 'radicals,' adding that he was +becoming a regular hermit and that it would do him good to have more +social pleasure. He turned on me savagely, called me a hypocrite, and a +contemptible one at that, and made a few more remarks of the kind. After +a few days of strained politeness on both sides I made bold to ask him +for some explanation--and I have got it coming yet! + +"These are just the facts. I don't go into all the little details of our +many little vulgar rows, about the most trivial things. I am sure, if +Terry writes you about this, that his innate delicacy would never permit +him to go into these sordid details, too many of which I have perhaps +told you. But I am made of rougher stuff than he. I am never quite as +unreasonable as he can be at times, but I am commoner." + +Terry did, indeed, express himself in a much more laconic way about the +quarrel, than Marie. On the day he left, August thirteenth, he wrote me +the following note: + +"The premonition in my last letter is fulfilled: the salon knows me no +more." + +A later talk I had with both Katie and Terry throws light upon the +precipitating cause of Terry's departure on the thirteenth of August. It +was due to Terry's sensitiveness about his money relationship to Katie. +On that morning Terry was asleep on the couch, when Katie got up, made +breakfast, and she and Marie asked Terry to join them. + +"Not me," said he. + +"I think you have been eating on me long enough," rejoined Katie. "It's +time you got out." + +Katie had never allowed herself a remark of this kind before. But she +had not found another job and the three had been on edge for some time. + +The remark brought about the climax so long preparing. + +"I'll go," he replied, "as soon as I have finished this cigarette." + +"In the wordy war that followed," said Terry, "we all three went the +limit in throwing things up to each other. I told Katie that if it had +not been for me and Marie she would not have had anybody to steal for; +that I was eating on her stealings and mine, too. And then I left." + +Although, as we shall see, this was not the end of the relation between +Terry and Marie, it was in reality the sordid end of the idealistic +Salon. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +_Marie's Attempt_ + + +While Marie was trying to find some trace of Terry, the latter was +wandering about the country. + +"I have been tramping about the country," he wrote me, "living most of +the time in the parks. This life, where you 'travel by hand,' crowds out +consecutive meditation, but I like it because I can go away at the first +shadow of uneasiness betrayed on either side. My existence now is so +responsive and irresponsible that it comes very close to my heart. I am +living a life of contrasts: one week I spent with a rare friend who has +many good books and admires me for the thing for which all others +condemn me. Strange, is it not, that the one thing which redeems me in +his far-seeing eyes is what places me beyond redemption in the minds of +others. I have spent some sleepless nights in his fine home, kept awake +by the seductions of social life tugging at my heart-strings. So one +night I stole away from this seduction and slept with some drunken +hoboes in the tall soft grass, where I could have no doubt about being +welcome. I might as well doubt the grass as those pals, who without +question hailed me as an equal. I, having the only swell 'front,' +tackled a mansion, and the Irish servant-girl, to whom I told the truth, +gave me a whole hand-out in a basket, enough for all of us. My brother +hoboes swore I should be the travelling agent of the gang. But a copper +gave me the 'hot foot,' while I was 'pounding my ear' in the woods with +the other 'boes, so I straightened and hiked to the stock yards, where I +feel more at home with the Hibernians. + +"Never have I seen Life more triumphant and rampant, more brimming over +with hope and defiant of all conditions, hygienic and otherwise. I am +rooming with an Irish family whose floor space is limited, so we all +have shake-downs, and in the morning can clear the decks for action with +no bedsteads in the way. I am very 'crummy,' badly flea-bitten, overrun +with bed bugs, somewhat fly-blown, but, redemption of it all, I am free +and always drunk. Still, I am really getting tired of playing the +knock-about comedian and shall soon 'hit the road.' + +"I am willing to do anything for Marie I can, except to love her as I +once did, but never shall again. Even spirits die, and the spirit of the +salon is so dead that it is beyond resurrection." + +Marie, however, would not believe that the spirit of the salon, or at +any rate, as much of that spirit as depended on the relation between her +and Terry, was dead; she was more conscious than Terry of the ups and +downs of the human nerves and heart and the ever-present possibility of +change, and she went to work in a wilful attempt to get back her lover. +Her next letter was a triumphant one: + +"I am a very happy girl to-day, and I must write to tell you so before +the mood vanishes, for I have learned that good moods are very +fleeting.... The cause of my happiness is, of course, that I have at +last met Terry and we have had a long, delightful talk together, and I +hope our misunderstanding is all cleared up. Only, now I am afraid I +shall begin to pine and fret because we cannot be together always, +though reason and philosophy and logic all tell me that the new relation +between us two is the very best, noblest, most ideal--or at least they +try to tell me so. It very nearly approaches the anarchistic standard, +too. + +"There is something fascinating in this new state of affairs. It is just +like falling in love all over again: the clandestine meetings, with the +one little tremulous caress at parting--which is all we are bold enough +to exchange--thrill me; it is the mysterious charm of the first +love-affair! It makes my blood sing and dance. I lie awake the whole +night thinking of our meetings and trying to bring them vividly back to +me. + +"And, do you know, what makes me supremely glad is the feeling that +Terry is going to love me again, that I am going to win him back. He +thinks that love is an enslaving thing and harmful to the soul, but my +dear lovely idealist and dreamer has loved me once and he must love me +again. I am so in love with love and almost as fanatical about it as the +ecstatic artist is about art: love for love's sake, art for art's sake. +I never did--and hope I never shall--get over that feeling of awe at the +mystery and beauty and elusiveness of that great force in life--love. +And I have always felt so sorry for people, sincere people, who told me +honestly that they have felt that wonder-in-spring sensation only once +in all their lives. It made me think that I had at least one thing to be +very thankful for, that I was different from them, that I could +experience the divine flame, and experience it continually. If you knew +how often I have fallen in love with Terry! + +"Poor Terry, I feel so sorry for him, too; he has no place to stay, +though he could stay indefinitely at three or four houses that I know +of, where his friends would feel only too glad to have him. But he says +he does not want again to attach himself to any person, place, or cause, +because the time would come when he should have to break away, and then +he should have to experience death again. So he intends to move about +whenever and wherever the whim suits. But I am sure this life will not +satisfy Terry for long, for there is really very much of the hermit in +him.... + +"I am going to see him again in a few days, so I have the pleasantest +things to dream of. If I am to win Terry back, I must be extremely +careful: one false move would be likely to queer the whole thing. Oh, I +am tremendously happy, for I am sure I shall win my dear Terry back +again!" + +The next letter, written about a month later, has a note of +discouragement, and also a slight suggestion of an effort to steel +herself against possible developments in the future: + +"When I go among the comrades and friends, I must keep such careful +watch over myself. I don't want to show them how I feel about our +separation. The movement had the strongest conviction that I was so +wrapped up in Terry--I was always so frantically jealous of him, you +know--that I would surely die, or go crazy, if I were ever separated +from him. So they are all guessing at present, and don't know just what +to think of me. Apparently I am just the same, in fact some better, for +I laugh and talk more, much more than I ever did. + +"Terry and I have met several times since I wrote you, and I am almost +discouraged, and think at times it would be better for me not to see him +at all. I have to be so careful, and it is awfully hard to control my +impulses to tell him what I feel! But I dare not do that or he would +never see me again, and I hardly think I could stand that. He is so +very cold and friendly; of course, he does kiss me when we meet and at +parting, but in such an indifferent way, and if I allow my lips to +linger or cling to his for just the least part of a second, you ought to +see how abruptly, almost roughly, he turns away. And I must not even +notice it, and it hurts terribly. I don't understand how anyone can be +so dreadfully cold. It makes me thrill all over when I see him bend his +head toward me for the customary kiss, and I close my eyes so that I may +enjoy more intensely that blissful eternity which I expect, and alas! +only one short, perfunctory little peck, and it is all over--before my +eyes are hardly closed. + +"However, hope has not entirely left me. After being so intimate with +Terry for seven years I ought surely to know something of his moods and +disposition; and I do hope and expect that he will in time grow weary of +roaming about and living the way he does now and that he will begin to +yearn for feminine influences and caprices and tyrannies, and I hope, +for mine in particular!... + +"I should be much happier if I did not care for him so much, and I hope +that in time I may have only a strong friendly interest in him. At +times I envy him: he is so care-free, without the slightest +responsibility toward anything or anybody; he can break from old +associations and habits so easily and light-heartedly. I never could +have done that.... + +"I am awfully absent-minded these days; you would laugh at some of the +funny things I do. I ride on the cars miles past my street, and wander +about and forget where I am going. Sometimes I think of things and then +forget I was thinking." + +In another six weeks' time came still more gloomy news: + +"Our meetings are as uncertain, unpremeditated, and unarranged as his +wanderings about the city are. It happened that I was all alone for the +whole of last week, eight precious days of freedom, especially from +Katie and her woes. I love her, as you know, but she does get on my +nerves, at times. So I wrote Terry, asking him to come and visit with me +for several days. It must have been my Jonah day, for the letter reached +him, and he came and stayed here with me for the whole seven days. +During this time we talked a great deal of our life together and of our +life since we have not been together, and with his most calm and +philosophical air he spoke of our circumstances, past and present. It +seemed so pleasant and homelike, so much like the old days, to have dear +Terry here with me, and I felt such lazy content to see and hear him, +that at times I awoke with a start, for I could not keep myself from the +idea that our separation was only a horrid dream. + +"So, when he said things that ought to have hurt me dreadfully, I +positively couldn't feel hurt. Somehow, the sound of his voice was so +pleasing that I missed the sting of some of his pessimistic reflections +about our love; it seemed to me that he spoke of others, surely not of +our two selves! But now, since he has gone, and I have been forced to +think of the things he said, many of the easily accepted but only half +understood reflections on our love have come back to me with all their +sting. And I must now believe that I have passed out from Terry's life +utterly, and that there is no return, nor hope of return. The most I +could possibly hope for is an indifferent friendship, for so he has +willed it, or perhaps fate, rather, has so willed it. 'Dead love can +never return,' he said. And I am now only one of the people he knows! It +is so terrible that I must avoid the blow, must seek an independence of +my own. + +"And I had such high hopes, such dreams of pillowing his dear head on my +bosom, and, alas! he would consider that intolerable. And, upon +reflection, his head would, in fact, rest very uneasily on my scrawny +breast! + +"So I am trying to resign myself and to readjust what is left of my +life. It seems pitiful, though, that my life has been so commonplace all +through. Not one single exception, not one thing that ever happened to +me, or that I ever did, has been different from the experiences of all +the world. My life with Terry, which I surely expected would be +different, would be an exception to the commonplace love affairs of all +people, has now ended the same way as everyone else's. + +"Well, I have had seven years of life, that is perhaps a little more +than some people have, and I ought to be satisfied with that. The +biggest chapter of my life is over and done and closed for ever and I +will try not to look back or think of it too much. And I shall tell you +the same as if I were making some solemn vow, that I will not try any +more to regain the love I have lost." + +This resolution of Marie's seemed to have helped her considerably, for +her later letters are not quite so exclusively concerned with the +unhappy aspect of her relations with Terry. The strong vitality of mind +and temperament which enabled this factory girl and prostitute to adjust +herself to a relatively intellectual and distinguished existence still +stood her in good stead, and enabled her to meet the present deeply +tragic situation step by step and not go under: her youth and vitality +and her love of life triumphed, as we shall see, over even this terrible +rupture; the consolatory philosophy of anarchism, which had educated +her, largely fell away, with the love of the man who had created it for +her. But the work of the social propagandist has been done on Marie: the +woman is a thoroughly self-conscious individual, as capable of leading +her life as only are very few really distinguished personalities. Her +next letter shows again a more general interest, though still largely +concerned with Terry: + +"The other night Terry spoke for the Social Science League on 'The +Lesson of the Haymarket'--referring, as you know, to the hanging of the +anarchists in 1886. _The Saturday Evening Post_ had quite a lengthy +notice about it the day before the lecture, and nearly all the morning +papers spoke of it the day after. The lecture hall was well filled with +people who do not usually attend the S. S. League. And I think these +people, who were not radical, were much shocked and disappointed, for +Terry was not a bit gentle and well-mannered, nor as philosophical as he +nearly always is. I thought his lecture good, though there was something +forced about it. Perhaps because he no longer has so much faith was the +cause of his greater violence. It was as if he was trying to remember +what he had once felt; and that made the expression rougher than if it +had been more spontaneous. I really do not believe that he is, at +bottom, at all violent. But he tried to be so in this lecture. He +advocated assassination and regicide and other most violent and +blood-curdling things. His voice and manner, however, in saying these +terrible things were not at all convincing. When replying to the +critics, he was most violent, and was hissed and shamed, over half of +the audience leaving the hall, very angry and indignant. I thought, for +a while, that a regular free fist-fight would follow, and it very nearly +did, but Terry had a few friends with him, among them a German +hen-pecked anarchist I must write you about, and your friend Jimmy, both +of whom were ready to stand by Terry. + +"Needless to say, Terry was gloriously drunk, and utterly reckless, and +after the meeting was over quite a bunch of us became as drunk as he, +though not quite so gloriously. He was quite helpless toward the small +hours, when our party broke up, and I took Terry home with me, as Katie +was not there, and on the way I had the pleasure of acting as a referee +when he and a stranger, who Terry fancied had insulted him, did really +have a fist-fight; I gathered up their hats and neck-ties and kept out +of the way, ready to call assistance if need be, which fortunately was +not necessary, for they only rolled around in the dirt a little, and +Terry only had his chin smashed slightly by the fall. + +"Drunk as he was, he did not strike the other man, though being stronger +he could have pounded the life out of him; he only tripped him up and +rolled him on the ground. Terry is certainly instinctively and +naturally gentle and chivalrous, and I loved him as much as ever as I +took him home and put him to bed. + +"I am beginning to think I am a genius in taking care of drunken men, +for I have managed in some way to take home and care for quite a number +of them, for instance, Harris, who is the most unmanageable and perverse +creature when drunk. I had an experience taking him home which I would +not dare write you; and I can hardly realise to this day how I even +succeeded in half carrying and half dragging him to our home from away +down town. He certainly was the limit. + +"On Monday the papers were all shrieking for Terry's head--wanted him +deported or persecuted or prosecuted. But Terry has a good many friends +and too much of a reputation as a philosopher; and his friends and his +reputation prevented his becoming a martyr. Two friends, both newspaper +men, managed to eliminate the most objectionable parts of Terry's +terroristic utterances from their respective papers, and Terry's sister, +the lawyer, one sergeant of police, and the ferocious but humane Tim +Quinn did the rest. For the present, therefore, Terry's desire to be +acquainted with the inside of a prison, or otherwise to suffer for the +cause which he still half-heartedly believes in, is frustrated. + +"To me the most important aspect of the lecture was that he prepared it +in our home. So, for another week, we enjoyed one another's company; and +after the lecture he not only went home with me, as I have said, but he +has remained ever since. I am trying not to build up any more hopes on +this, because I know that Terry has been in a particularly reckless +mood, and does not care much where he is. I am sorry that he could not +find a better outlet for his mood than lecturing for the Social Science +League, but that perhaps is a better and more harmless way than getting +in with the criminals, as he has wanted to do so often of late. You may +be sure, however, that his talk on the platform will not be forgotten, +and should anything happen, in any way like the McKinley affair, for +instance, I am sure things would be made very unpleasant for him. So I +hope nothing will happen. + +"Terry is really harmless. He expends all of his energy in desiring and +thinking and talking, and has nothing left over for action. Whenever he +had any scheme in mind I did not like, I used to encourage him to talk +about it, knowing that he thus would be satisfied, without acting. He +lives almost altogether in the head and in the imagination, and is +really a teacher, in his own peculiar way, rather than an actor or +practical man. That is why he takes offence at what seems to me such +little things: they are not little to him, in his scheme of things, +which is not the scheme of the world, and, alas! not even mine, I fear. +He is so terribly alone, and growing more so, and I feel so awfully +sorry for him. + +"Especially since our rupture I have been compelled to be so careful not +to hurt his feelings or trespass on his ideas of right and wrong; for he +imagines he can feel what I am thinking and feeling, even if no words +are said. He says words only conceal thought and do not express it. At +times I feel so oppressed and depressed that I should experience the +keenest ecstasy if I could hurt him in some physical way, use my muscles +on him until I were exhausted. In imagination I sometimes know the +fierce delight and exaltation of my flesh and spirit in hurting this +man whom I love, in hurting him morally and physically--and I feel the +lightness of my heart as the accumulated burden of my repression rolls +away in the wildest, freest sensations. + +"Of course, I have only felt this way at times; and at those times I +know I was very passionate and unreasonable. I had regular fits of +jealousy and anger, but at other times I had a boundless pity for him, +there was something so pathetic about his gestures and his voice when he +told me he knows just how I feel about him, that I could have cried out +with the ache of my heart. It was so terrible to see how he suffered in +his heroic attempt to suffice unto himself, to defy the world. He tries +to think and feel deeper and higher than anyone else, but this is a +terrible, terrible strain. It is all fearfully sad, and sometimes I wish +I had never known him." + +About his speech, Terry wrote: + +"I am one of the by-products that do not pay just now, until some +process comes along and sets the seal of its approval on me. Just now I +am deemed worse than useless, and since my speech on 'The Lesson of the +Haymarket Riot' the authorities are looking for a law that will deport +me. This will suit me, as I will swear that I am a citizen of no man's +land. What I really need is not deportation, but solitary confinement, +for the sake of my meditations. For even with my scant companionship I +feel as if I were a circus animal. I still clutch convulsively to the +idea that thought is the only reality and all expression of it merely a +grading down of what was most high. If I am shut up I must cease talking +and may think about real things, that is, ideal things. That would help +me to put up with the world, which cannot put up with me unless I am in +cold storage. There is a mental peace which passeth all understanding, +and perhaps I might find that peace in prison. I have been insidiously +poisoning my own mind for some time, and unless I can stop this I had +better cease from talking, which does not seem to purge me of my +unconscious pose, and retire to solitude behind the prison bars. There, +undisturbed, I can meditate and often remember peacefully the beautiful +things I have known in literature and nature. Beauty is like rain to the +desert, it is rare, but it vanishes only from the surface of things, and +deep down who knows what secret springs it feeds? As my sands run out, +the remembrance of the brief beauty I have known will break over me like +the pleasant noise of far-off Niagara waters on the stony desert of my +life. + +"I once thought that I could help the mob to organise its own freedom. +But now I see that we are all the mob, that all human beings are alike, +and that all I or anyone can do is to save his own soul, to win his own +freedom, and perhaps to teach others to do the same, not so much through +social propaganda as by digging down to a deeper personal culture. +Though I sometimes think that just now the prison would help me, yet I +also long at times to talk to the crowd. I wish to tell the smug ones +that we waste our lives in holding on to things that in our hearts we +hold contemptible. I wish to tell the mob just why there are thirty +thousand steady men out of work in this city: to do this I may take to +the curbstone." + +After his speech Terry returned to the home of Katie and Marie, as has +been described by Marie, but on no basis of permanence. He thus speaks +of it: + +"You may think that I, too, have 'cashed in' my ideals; for I am back at +the Salon--for how long nobody knows--by special proxy request of +Katie. I will spare myself and you any moralising on my relapse." + +Katie, explaining Terry's return, said: "When he went away, Marie was +sad all the time. She could not eat nor sleep and was looking for her +lover every day. After weeks had passed I said to her: 'When you see +Terry at the Social Science League, bring him home.' 'Do you mean it, +Katie?' asked Marie, her eyes sparkling. She did so, and Terry went +quietly into his room, and the next morning I made coffee as usual and +Terry came out, and it was all right; it might have been all right for +good, if this damned Nietzsche business had not come up." But that is +anticipating. + +It was after Terry's return that the famous miner Haywood, just after +his acquittal from the charge of murder in connection with the Idaho +labour troubles, visited Chicago, and spent most of his time at the +Salon with Terry and Marie and several of their friends. The Salon was +temporarily revived, like the flash in the pan, under Haywood's +stimulating influence. Terry wrote of him: + +"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 mass 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 Mitchell 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 unassuming, so calm, with no heroic bluster 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 passionate 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 sex, and more sex, 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 bum." 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 nobody 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 +passed 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 gods, 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 +Shelley 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.' + +"But alas! to this sordid security, or to the care for it, we are driven +by our need of bread. If Terry and Katie and I had never had this need, +we might have become angels of virtue and insight. But on account of +this we never could really attain freedom; that embittered our souls and +turned us at times viciously against each other." + +Terry's growing jealousy, which seemed to surprise Marie, was a sign of +the weakening of his philosophy, as far as it was social and not purely +individual. It may seem strange that after his real love for her +appeared to pass, his jealousy increased; but this was due to several +causes: if his social interest in her--his propagandist interest--had +continued, her sexual license would have continued to feed his passion +for social protest. But when Marie had ceased to interest him as a +"case," or a "type," or a "victim," the only bond remaining must be that +of the pure individual soul or of the body. Terry's lack of +sensuality--his predominating spiritual and mental character--precluded +any strong tie of the physical kind. So there remained, as a possible +tie, only a close spiritual relation between two individuals, a soul +bond--and this Marie's character and conduct tended to prevent. Terry, +if they were to be together, saw that the deeper personal relation must +exist, now that there was no other--and so he was jealous of any conduct +which showed in Marie a lack of sensibility for the deeper spiritual +life; hence the physiological jealousy, which he had not felt, or had +controlled at one time, showed itself. No doubt his increasing +nervousness was an added reason--nervousness due to the long strain, +physical and mental, which his life and social experiment had involved. + +During these last weeks Marie had another lover, and was especially +careless in not concealing any of its manifestations. She, too, on her +side, was subject to greater and greater strain. Terry's growing +loneliness and austerity, his melancholy and unsociability, his negative +philosophy, all this tended more and more to inhibit her natural young +joy in life and to give it violent expression. The philosophy of +anarchism had increased her natural leaning to the free expression of +her moods and passions, and now, with weakened nervous resources, she +hardly cared to make any effort to restrain what she called her +temperament. + +"Yes, he became my lover," she wrote, "and we disappeared for a few +days. Did you ever read George Moore's Leaves From My Lost Life? In it +is a story called 'The Lovers of Orelay.' My lover and I spent our few +days together in much the same way as did the lovers in the story. We +had our nice secluded cool rooms and beautiful flowers. I threw my +petticoats over the chairs and scattered ribbons and things on the +dressing table just like the girl in the story. And we had nice things +to drink and good cigarettes, and had all our breakfasts and suppers +served in our rooms. The little adventure turned out better than such +things usually do; nothing awkward happened to mar our pleasure in any +way, and I'm glad it happened--and is over and done with. + +"You may think me a very light-headed and heartless and altogether +frivolous person from my actions. But I felt so humiliated and so sorry +and so desperate about Terry that I was ready to embrace any excitement, +just to forget that our great relation had gone. This time it was to get +away from myself, not in the old physically joyous mood--and to get away +from Terry's poisonous philosophy of life. + +"This lover of mine was so joyous, so healthy, so vigorous, so full of +life! He was very different from Terry, and I really needed him as a +kind of tonic. And yet, of course, I did not care for him deeply at all. +In fact, I want never again to have a deep relation to anybody, if this +between Terry and me must go. + +"This profound failure has made me reckless; Terry is sensitive now, and +knows from my manner and face and the way I express myself just how I am +feeling toward any other man. The other day an old lover of mine turned +up in Chicago, and this brought about a scene with Terry. + +"To explain this episode I must go back several years. I once knew a +Swiss boy, a typical Tyrolean. The day I met him in Chicago he had just +arrived from his native land, and seemed so forlorn and lonely and +miserable that my heart went right out to him. He was such a big, +handsome child, too, about twenty years old. He could not understand a +word of English, and no one talked to him, but me, who, as you know, had +parents who spoke German. He was delighted and told me his whole life +story, how he became emancipated and one of the Comrades. His eyes +sparkled so and his cute little blond curls jumped all over his head +with the enthusiasm and joy of having found some one to talk to, that I +was quite content to sit and watch and listen. And he thought me the +most sympathetic person in the world. + +"Had I only known the result of my impulse to say a few words to a +lonely boy! For he did fall in love with me, and in such sturdy +mountaineer fashion that I very nearly had nervous prostration--and he +too--in trying to get away from his strenuous wooing. For he started out +to win me in the same style that he would have used toward one of the +cow-girls in his native Alps. He waylaid me and followed me around +everywhere, just camped on my trail; wanted to carry me away to some +place out West, where there were mountains. The more I discouraged him, +the more lovesick and forlorn he became, until finally he became the +laughing-stock of the 'movement,' and I was chaffed about it +unmercifully. He knew I had a lover, but that was no obstacle; and he +told me several times with fine enthusiasm that he would not object to +sharing his love with another man! He had read something about free +love, and thought he should like to be an Overman and superior to petty +jealousies. + +"Strange to say, my curly-headed Swiss lover did not 'insult' me, as +they call it, though I naturally enough supposed that he wanted to, but +didn't have enough courage. But I was wrong, as I discovered later, when +I grossly insulted him! Perhaps a girl is loved only once in a lifetime +in just that way, perhaps not at all, and I often think I made a mistake +in being so cruel to my boy lover. I might in time have learned to love +him in the right way, but I couldn't at that time, perhaps because I was +so much occupied with Terry, my own lover, and with the movement, which +was new to me and very charming, for I had just discovered it. + +"At times I had an immense pity for the poor boy and would have done +anything to help him feel better. I had not the slightest physical +feeling for him, but I should have been quite willing to indulge him, if +he had asked me. That was part of our philosophy and my kindness. But he +did not ask me, though he often had the opportunity. He was quite +content to be with me and kiss my hands, and beg me to love him a +little. When he saw I did not like to have him kiss me so much, he would +grow so sad and forlorn and tiresome. One day he was at the Salon with +others and annoyed me by hanging about me all the time, until I couldn't +stand it any longer. I called him into another room and told him bluntly +that I would indulge him, if that would help him, only he must for +heaven's sake leave me alone! + +"Now, this was a most indelicate thing for me to do, and I blush as I +write of it, but I was so desperate and possibly a little under the +influence of whiskey--a most convenient and universal excuse--and had +tried all other means of ridding myself of this annoyance, even to +slapping his face and forbidding him to come to the house! When I +slapped him, he simply kissed the hand that smote him, and when I +forbade him to return to the house, he followed me about the streets. +If I told you all the silly and ridiculous things the youth did or all +the mean, brutal things I did to cure him, you would scarcely believe +me. + +"Now when I made that abrupt proposal to him, he blushed to the tip of +his ears, and then grew very angry, and called me an animal and a beast +and said he had loved me because he thought I was different from that; +that he did not want that kind of love from me. After a while his +vehemence and anger turned to tears, and he kissed my hands and sobbed +out his intention of going away. I was repentant and very sweet and kind +to him while he stayed, but soon he did go West and I did not see him +again till a few weeks ago, when, one Saturday night, I found him +waiting for me at our rooms. I was astonished and not too glad to see +him, especially now that Terry is so sensitive. + +"When Terry came home, he looked suspiciously at me and at the poor +Swiss, but though I was quite innocent, I could not turn the poor fellow +away, after he had come so far to see me. But I did not feel at all +friendly to him, and I did not speak to him the next day, especially as +Terry went away for several days, to give me a chance, as he put it, to +enjoy my love. Then I told the Swiss with heat that I never wanted to +see him again, and he went away for good." + +Marie, however, seemed about this time to have lost any sensibility +about Terry's emotion that she may have possessed. Perhaps it was +because, as I have said, she felt that the relation of mutual confidence +was really broken and nothing very much mattered. Anyway, she went so +far in her carelessness that Terry could not help coming in disagreeable +contact with what was growing painful to him, though he would be far +from admitting it. + +Katie, describing these last weeks, said that Terry grew more and more +jealous and inclined to violence. He was very imaginative, and saw in +Marie's eyes "something wrong," as Katie put it. Marie could not be +expressive to Terry after an "affair," and Katie saw that Terry +understood the meaning of this inexpressiveness. Also, when Terry went +away for a day or two, without an explanation, Marie was equally +"imaginative." Both were intensely proud, both intensely interested in +their "individuality." One day Terry went away, without an explanation, +and returned, after a few days, "pleasantly piped," as he put it, sat +down and began to undress. It was dark, and he had no idea that somebody +else was there. But Marie called out harshly, "You can't sleep here." + +"I understood," said Terry. But Katie replied, "That's all right," and +she slept on the couch. + +"This kind of thing," said Katie, "put them further and further apart. +Terry couldn't help feeling the sting there was in it. Marie had done +the same before, but it was in a different spirit. One of the last +scenes was when H---- was visiting us. He and Marie were having coffee +in her room, and Terry was in the other room. Marie and H---- called +Katie to come and have coffee with them. Terry was not invited and this +later brought about a terrible quarrel. + +"But," said Katie, "it was not really jealousy, though that was part of +it, that brought about the last break. They calmed down, but then began +to read Nietzsche again, and I think went daffy over him. Terry tried +the Overman theory on me and Marie. Americans cannot understand German +philosophy." + +Nietzsche's doctrine of the distinguished individual being "beyond good +and evil," a man superior to the morality of society, his hatred of +Christian civilisation and Christian ethics, his love of the big +forcible blonde who takes his right by his strength only, all this was +congenial to Terry's character, and especially so after the weakening of +his social philosophy. The aloofness of the Overman, the individualistic +teachings of Zarathustra, appealed to the anti-social Terry, to the man +who more and more went back to his egotistic personality, to whom more +and more the "communist" Christian anarchists made little appeal, who +more and more became what is called an individualist anarchist, with +whom there is little possibility of relationship, who is essentially +anti-social, whose philosophy is really that of social destruction. This +indeed is the anarchist who lives in the public mind--a destroyer. But +what the public mind does not see is that this destructive anarchist is +the result of a lost hope in anarchistic communism, a lost hope of +radical extension of social love, in absolute solidarity. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +_Marie's Revolt_ + + +"The winners fall by the wayside," wrote Terry, "while the losers must +ever on--hearkening to some high request, hastening toward a nameless +goal. I am loser, for my motives are large and my actions small. In my +desire to embrace the universe I may neglect a comrade. I can be as hard +as my life and as cruel as its finish. I have only an ideal, and +whenever anything or anybody gets in the way of it I am ruthless in +feeling. I must not give up all that I have--what is in my imagination: +I have nothing else." + +Yes, Terry is hard. He "passes up" remorselessly not only the +individual, but all society; but it is the hardness of the idealist, of +the man who is still religious in the sense that he sees a beyond-world +with which to compare this world and find it totally lacking. So, more +and more he "passed up" Marie, found her more and more lacking, more and +more human. The fact of her being a social outcast no longer had its +strong appeal. He became hard and cruel to her through idealism, just as +she had been hard and cruel to him through sensuality and false +philosophy. But her hardness never equalled his fine scorn. + +For a year or two preceding this point in the situation I had been +living in Europe, and had met a good many men and women who had given a +larger part of their lives to the making of a social experiment. Some of +them, discouraged, had returned to a "bourgeois" manner of life, some +even to a "bourgeois" philosophy. Almost all of the anarchists I have +known lost their philosophy and enthusiasm with middle age, and +experience with the actual constitution of things, combined with +disillusion regarding the ideal. Most of them had been hurt or broken by +their attempt, but they all retained a certain something, a certain +remaining dignity of having struggled against the inevitable, and had +acquired insight into some of the deeper things in life, though having +lost some of the childlike simplicity which is a characteristic of the +social rebel. + +I saw a great deal of an old Frenchman, who had known Bakunin, and had +been astute in the dangerous work of the "International" in England and +Germany. An associate of William Morris and the other English anarchists +who at that time called themselves socialists, my friend came in contact +with much that was distinguished in mind and energy; he afterward +carried the propaganda of revolutionary socialism to Germany, where he +was arrested and imprisoned for five years. He is now a handsome, +white-haired, well-preserved old man, with fine simple manners and joy +in simple things, love of children and of long conversations with +friends, good will and peace. He has retained a certain mild contempt +for the "bourgeois," for people who prefer an easy time in this world to +an attempt, even a foolish one, for radical improvement. But he knows +the world now, and I fancy many of his illusions are gone. + +Another of my radical friends is now only thirty-six years old; but +already he is tired and discouraged, socially speaking. He is a +Frenchman, too, with all the easy mental grace and intellectual culture +of his race. Soon after his student days at the Sorbonne, the social +fever of our day, which burns in the blood of all who are sensitive, +took possession of him. Like Terry, he was drawn emotionally to an +interest in the social outcast; like Terry, a girl in that class +interested him, and he took up the cause of the girls, and led an attack +against the _policiers des moeurs_, the special police who attempt to +regulate prostitution in Paris. He spent all the money he had in the +attempt, lost his respectable friends, and, after several years of +fruitless effort, hope left him. When I met him he was living quietly, +in bohemian fashion, drawing a very small salary and devoting himself to +abstract philosophy, to science, and to pessimistic memories of the days +of his social enthusiasm, or what he now calls his social illusions. + +One of the most pathetic social experiments I have known was made by a +young girl, whom I also knew at Paris. She generously determined that +she would have no sex prejudices; and for several years she strove +against the terribly strong social feeling in that regard. Not only +theoretically but practically she persisted in thinking and acting in a +way which the world calls immoral. She wanted to show that a girl could +be good and yet not what the world calls chaste. She did not believe +that sex-relations had anything to do with real morality. In one way, +she has been successful. She is as good now--better--as when she began +her experiment. She is broader and finer and bigger; but she has +suffered. She has been disappointed in her idealism, disappointed in the +way men have met her frank generosity, she has been injured in a worldly +way. Her strongest desires are those of all good women--she deeply wants +the necessary shelter for children and social quiet and pleasure, and +these essentials are denied her because of her idealism. She half feels +this now and is tired and discouraged. + +Another woman who has paid heavily for her "social" interests is in +quite a different position. She is married to a man who is also a social +idealist. He is so emotionally occupied with "society" that nature and +life in its more eternal and necessary aspects touch him lightly. He +hardly realises their existence. She tries to follow him in this +direction; strains her woman's nature, which is a large one, to the +uttermost. It is probable that the loss of his child was due to this +idealistic contempt for old wisdom. Not a moment must be lost, not a +thought devoted to anything but the revolution; this necessitated +social activity, and that exclusively. Where was the opportunity for +the quiet development and care of an infant? The children of the +"radicals" are few, and as a rule do not grow up in the best conditions. +This certainly is a terrible sacrifice entailed upon the social +idealist. + +Writers in France and in Europe generally are much more interested in +radical ideas of society and politics than they are in this country. The +most distinguished among them are from the American point of view +radical, at least. There is hardly a play of note produced in France or +Germany that does not in some way trench upon modern social problems. +Anatole France is a philosophical anarchist, and so is Octave Misbeau. +It is not a disreputable thing to be so in France. An Emma Goldman there +would be an object of respect. The prime minister of France was +generally regarded as an anarchist before he went into office. A man of +the type of Herve would be deemed a madman here. Even a man as little +radical as Jaures would be considered a terrible social danger in +America and could not conceivably have the power he exerts in France, +where they have a respect for ideas as such. + +But, combined with this interest in social things and this willingness +to entertain the most radical ideas, there is a note of pessimism and +disillusionment. Anatole France's work shows this double tendency well. +He reflects the social revolt and lack of respect for the old society in +a most subtle way, but also he mirrors the failing hope of the social +enthusiast. He has a deep sympathy for the social idealist, but nearly +every book suggests the inevitable wreckage of enthusiasm on the rocks +of actuality. + +When, after an absence of several years, I returned from Europe and went +again to Chicago, I found Terry alone, disheartened, and different from +the Terry I had known. Soon I saw that in him had taken place a process +not unlike that which had happened to my friends abroad and which was +reflected in European literature. His letters and Marie's had already +indicated, as we have seen, his social disappointment. But I found him +more bitter even than I had expected; cut off even from the anarchists, +nourishing almost insanely his individuality, full of Nietzsche's +philosophy of egotism, rejecting everything passionately, turning from +his friends, turning from himself. Old society had long been dead for +him and now he had no hope for the new! + +Besides, Marie was not with him: she had revolted and run away. I had +expected to see her in Chicago; she had written me that she would be +there, but when I arrived I learned from Terry and Katie that she had +gone away. During the few weeks preceding my return to Chicago, the +quarrels between the three had grown in poignancy. Terry, unlike some of +the disappointed anarchists I have known, could not settle back into an +easy acceptance of life. With him it was all or nothing. More and more +fiercely he rejected all society, even, as we have seen anarchist +society. Of course, Marie came more and more in the way of this general +anathema. She was young and pleasure-loving, and at last her nature +could no longer stand this general rejection, the absence of the simple +pleasures of life. It was not their quarrels, even when they came to +blows, that determined her action. It was a revolt from the radical +sterility of Terry's philosophy. Katie furnished her with the necessary +money, and she went away to California. There this tired creature, this +civilised product of the slums, this thoughtful prostitute, this +striving human being full of the desire for life and as eager for +excellence as is the moth for the star, went into camp, and there, in +the bosom of nature, her terrible fatigue was well expressed in the +great sense of relief that resulted: a new birth, as it were, a +refreshing reaction from slum life and overstrained mental intensity. +This new birth and this reaction from Terry's philosophy are well +expressed in her letters to Terry and to me. To me she wrote: + +"I have not dared to write you before for fear of your anger toward me +for my abrupt dismissal of our plans of meeting, but I could not help +it. The life instinct in me would not be doomed, but was insistent in +its demands and made me flee from insanity and death. So here I am, far +away from civilisation, from the madding crowd, away up in the +mountains, making a last effort to live the straight free life of +Nature's children, a suckling at the breasts of Mother Earth. And truly +her milk is passing sweet and goes to the head like wine, for I feel +intoxicated with the beauty and joy of all things here in this new, +wonderful world. I did not know that such beauty existed, and my +appreciation of it is so intense that it produces sensations of physical +pain. I live much as the birds do, or at least try to--no thought of the +morrow, or of the past, except when I receive a letter from dear old +Katie or from Terry. Katie asks me if I have found a job yet, and Terry +has some sweet reflections about death or dead things. But I recover in +an amazingly short time from these blows, climb to the mountain-top, +extend my arms to the heavens, and embrace passionately the great, +grand, throbbing stillness. + +"I have been here now a whole month and have not yet wearied of it for a +moment. Each day brings a new, wonderful experience; and each day I feel +a real part of the great wonderful scheme of things. Indeed, I am +becoming a part of nature. I have grown so straight and tall, and so +beautifully thin and supple that I can dart in and out of the stream +without bumping myself against the rocks, can climb steep hills, and let +the winds blow me where they will. I should not be at all surprised to +awaken some morning and find that I had become one of the tall reeds +that sway to and fro along the banks of our mountain stream. + +"In one of my brief periods of returning civilisation, just after +receiving a terrible letter from Terry, I had myself weighed at the +store and post-office of the town not far away from our camp; my weight +was exactly eighty pounds! It seemed to me that I was fading away into +something wild and strange. But I have never felt such physical and +mental well-being since I can remember. I hardly need to eat, but our +camp cook actually forces me to swallow something. He is a German +'radical' of the old school. Frightfully tired of the radical bunch as I +am, I like this simple old man. He is like a part of Nature, has lived +on her bosom all his life, and loves her and no other. We have visitors +at our camp occasionally, and they bring things to eat and drink. When +they are gone, the cook and I live on what is left and get along as best +we may. There are lots of wild fruits and nuts growing about here and +they are delicious. Neither of us has any money nor care for the morrow. + +"After I arrived here, all the bitterness of life vanished. I thought +and felt very beautifully of Terry, and always shall, for I have made an +ideal of him, and his grand, noble head, like a blazing tiger-lily +perched upon a delicate and slender stem, will always be for me the +greatest, most wonderful recollection of all the years. But I have no +longer any desire to be with him, yet I do love and adore him, my own +wonderful, sweet, great Terry!" + +To Terry she wrote: "I am intoxicated by all this beauty and love the +very air and earth. I feel the ecstasy of the aesthetic fanatic. Were I +not disturbed by thoughts of you, I would indeed become another Eve +before the fall, though I have strange desires and my blood beats as in +the veins of married women. But no lovers can quench my fever. All the +tiresome males are far away and I feel new-born and free. The air is +scented with balsam and bey, and a pure crystal stream flows through +this valley between two hills covered with giant redwood trees, and rare +orchids of the most curious shape and colour toss wantonly in the breeze +on the tree and hilltops. Birds and fishes and reptiles disport +themselves in the sunshine, and giant butterflies of the most marvellous +colours flutter so bravely among the ferns and flowers. There are no +tents here in our camp, but we are covered with the fragrant branches of +the spicy pines and nutmeg trees. It is a Paradise, and I think of you +always when I am in the midst of beauty. + +"My trip here included an eighteen-mile walk--in one day--think of that! +I am getting as thin and strong as a greyhound. I don't wear clothes at +all, but when I do, it is the old man's overalls, which I put on to go +to town to get groceries or call for the mail. At night, our old cook +builds a huge fire of redwood logs, and then his tongue loosens and he +quotes poetry by the column or talks of his experience as a preacher, +actor, village schoolmaster, and vagabond. Without a cent he travels all +over California, as strong and rugged as any redwood tree that grows in +this wonderful valley. + +"It is so secluded here that no one would suspect campers were about. +The trail leads down a steep descent. How stately it is between the huge +stems of the trees, along our beautiful creek, cool and clear as +crystal, and filled with trout and other fishes. There I sit in the sun +and allow the water to pour over my shoulders." + +In another letter to Terry she writes: + +"Our sylvan retreat has been somewhat disturbed by the advent of Mrs. +Johns, her children and her dog. Annie is also here, but they will not +remain long, it is too quiet, too lonely, and the nights are too +mysterious and uncanny, strange noises to disturb the slumbers of the +timid. And besides there is nothing to do, no hurry or bustle or +activity. The spirit of repose, of rest, of sweet laziness broods over +this spot, inviting us to dream away the hours among the spicy pine +trees. And for two such active ladies it is very dull here. Even when +they go to town they return disgusted and weary in spirit because of the +slowness of the natives, who are half Spanish, half Mexican. Even the +beautiful trail winding in and out among the mountains does not +compensate them for the dreadful slowness of the natives. I, however, +love this slowness and converse amicably with the natives. And when I am +a little active I go fishing, or climb about, or take a lesson in +Spanish from my old philosopher-cook. I am now learning a little peasant +song, the refrain being, 'Hula, tula, Palomita,' and it does sound so +beautiful that I repeat it over and over. It means, 'Fly, fly, little +dove!' + +"The fishing I do not care for much. It is exciting for a time, but +soon grows a bit too strenuous for my lazy temper. The little stream is +filled with trout; one has flies for bait which have to be kept on the +move continually. Walking and jerking the lines out of the water +continually soon makes my arms and legs tired. I like best of all to lie +in a bed of fragrant leaves, my head in the shade and the rest of me in +the sun, the murmur of the brook in my ears, the skies mirrored in my +eyes, fantastic dreams in my mind--in these you are seldom absent. At +night I sleep as I have never slept--a deep, dreamless slumber. I awake +to a cold plunge in the stream. Oh, it just suits me! I am tired of +people, tired of tears and laughter, of men that 'laugh and weep,' and +'of what may come hereafter, for men that sow to reap.'" + +A letter from Terry came like a dart into her solitude and for a moment +disturbed her mood--her deeply hygienic, fruitful mood. She wrote to +him: + +"Your letter was a dreadful, an overwhelming shock. It aroused passions +in me which I thought were laid to rest. But, after getting very drunk, +I had sense enough to sleep over it, so that this morning I am almost +my new self again. Last night I felt like cursing you with all the +wrath of the earth and heaven. The last three weeks I have been camping +here, caught in the spell of the wonder and beauty of nature. I have +written you the half crazy rhapsodies of a girl intoxicated with the joy +of life and health. Now I do indeed think that life is beautiful and +worth the living. No, I do not worry about you. I am as happy and +care-free as the birds, and live in and for the moment. Everything in +the past is dead. Only when your letter came, these old things of my old +self raised their heads for a little time, but they too shall die +speedily, if I mistake not. Life is too wonderful, too beautiful to be +marred thus by the ends of frayed and worn-out passions, by memories or +regrets of you. I have become happy, healthy, and free, free without +hardness, and in my freedom and joy I have found my love, my beautiful +Terry, whom I may love passionately, tenderly and for ever, the dear +ideal one. Is it not wonderful? I crown myself with flowers and go forth +to meet him every day. I kneel at his feet and caress his dear hands. +For I love him dearly, this very new Terry. Yet, my dear, if you should +come near me, I mean, you, my old poisonous Terry, I would flee from you +as from a pest. I would loath myself and the sun and flowers and all the +other beautiful things of earth. I do not think of you at all, my old +Terry, but I think of you and love and adore you, my new, wonderful +Terry, and I make myself beautiful for you. So, my dear old Terry, I +will leave you to 'lice and liberty,' to your 'hard free life,' and I +will now lave myself with the pure crystal waters and make myself clean +again, and then look on the sun once more and dream again of my own +adorable Terry." + +In this letter, Marie said, by implication, a deep truth about social +revolt. She could never have lived her life without him, this strange, +poetic man. He awoke in this outcast, rather vicious girl, a keen +longing for the excellent, for the pleasures of the intelligence and the +temperament; he gave her an assured sense of her own essential dignity +and worth; defended her against the society that rejected her. This was +a truly Christ-like thing to do, and this she could never forget or do +without. So, in her wilderness, she holds fast to her ideal Terry. But +with this idealist she could not live, practically. The growing +irritation felt by him because of his radical mal-adjustment to this +world rendered him step by step more impossible to live with. Harshness, +injustice, became forced upon him as qualities of his acts. How could he +be fair when he had no understanding of the nature of actuality? It is +probable that no woman can ever get so far away from actuality as a few +rare idealists of the male sex. Marie's relative good sense, her +vitality and love of life, finally rebelled against an idealism so +exquisite that it became cruelty and almost madness. And this is the way +with the world. The world cannot, in the end, endure the idealist, +though it has great need of him. The world can endure a certain amount +of irritation, a certain amount of fundamental revolt, but when that +revolt reaches the point of absolute rejection, the world rebels, the +worm turns. Marie represents the world and the worm. + +Plato said there should be no poets in his Republic. Poets are too +disturbing, they fit into no social organisation, for the truth they see +is larger and often other than the truth of mankind's housekeeping, of +human society. So they are against society. They are for nature, both +God's nature and man's nature, but man's organisation arouses their +passionate hostility. Therefore, said Plato, let us have no poets in our +Republic. But Plato was a poet, and he probably knew that poets, though +inimical to the actual working of any actual society, yet are necessary +to keep alive the deeper ideals of humankind, to arouse perpetually the +instinct for something better than what we have, something deeply +better, something radically better, not the mere improvements, +palliatives, of the practical man and the conservative, bourgeois +reformer. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +_Terry's Finish_ + + +Terry had given Marie life, and she had finally used this vitality to +free herself from him and his too exigent idealism. The result of his +relation to her seems from this point of view pathetically ironical; but +it is only a symbol of the ironical pathos of his relation to society in +general; he and his kind act as a stimulant and a tonic to the society +which rejects and crushes them. The anarchist is in a double sense the +victim of society. He is, in the first place, generally a "labour" +victim, is generally the maimed result of our factory system; and, in +the second place, his philosophy, needed by society, reacts against +himself and turns the world against him. So he is a double victim, a +reiterated social sacrifice. + +When I went to Chicago this last time I found Terry, as I have said, +despondent and disillusioned; and intensely savage in his rejection, not +only of capitalistic society, but apparently of all society. In a way, +he had left his old moorings, the "proletariat" no longer appealed to +him. This mood was not a part of his philosophy: it was an expression of +his disappointment, of his disillusionment. He talked about his own life +and Marie's with an almost brutal frankness. He seemed to take a sad +pleasure in stripping the illusion of human worth and beauty to the bare +bones. In spite of his words, in spite of his previous letters, it +seemed clear to me that Marie had not lost her hold on him entirely, and +that he deeply felt her defection. Through her he had failed socially +and personally. Around her much of his life, intellectual and personal, +had been wound. Lingeringly he talked of her, of her qualities; he +seemed to try to steel himself against all need of human relation; +incidentally he rejected me and other friends, finding us wanting. +Marie, too, was not perfect, and must be "passed up"; but his mind +rested, in spite of himself, on this woman and his life with her. Some +of the things he said and wrote to me about this time indicate his +present mood toward me, Marie, the anarchists, proletariat, and the +world in general. + +A year or two ago he wrote me: "No one, very close to me geographically, +can ever get much out of me. This is a family trait and is too deep for +me. So don't be downcast if we should ever meet again and you should +find me as stoical as some crustacean of the past. Some such +antediluvian feeling animates me to take advantage of your distance and +clamour up out of the depths." + +He did, indeed, "clamour up out of the depths" very eloquently, but when +I saw him in Chicago I found that I had somehow "lost touch," like the +rest of the world, with him. He felt it and wrote me: + +"While you were in Italy, I sent you a letter in which I represented +myself as one clamouring up out of the depths of his being to you who +might understand. Now I sincerely and deeply regret having made this +attempt with you. In the same letter I predicted that your return might +find me back in the depths of my being, where I belong. I regret I did +not stay there when you came along. This feeling is due to no fault of +yours or mine; but points to the fact that I must become still more +exclusive and circumspect." + +Of Marie he wrote: "This attachment between two human beings is in all +circumstances very terrible. The bond between Marie and myself was as +strong as death, and partly so because of our great and essential +differences. The first night we spent together struck one of the deep +things in our discord. I was too nervous and sensitive to touch her that +night, and in the morning she bitterly reproached me. The first book +that really aroused her to the meaning of life was '_Mademoiselle de +Maupin_.' Deeper than this difference was her galling interference in my +affairs which never prompted me to meddle in hers. And her failure to +appreciate or reciprocate my respect for the integrity of her +personality is the hardest blow she can ever give to me. I have the same +fatal charge to make against almost all men; the exceptions are so few +and doubtful that I doubt whether I can ever gain from another that +intense receptive attitude which I am willing to bestow. Fortunately for +me, this illusion that there are such intense perceivers re-creates +itself out of the veriest dust and dross of humanity. Like Shelley's +'Cloud,' my illusion may change, but it cannot die. Now I am in a state +of mind when I am willing to let everything go by default--everything +except my last illusion, that I can never let myself out to anyone. To +Marie--and to you--and one or two others--I have been sorely tempted to +lay myself out--but not even the moon can seduce me to reveal myself. My +dead and buried self is my first and last seduction. This is crazy, of +course, but I am heartily sick of all the 'sense' I know or can know. I +believe, however, that I have lived so close to the 'truth' that its +shadow has been cast over all my life. If, in the last analysis, all is +illusion, I shall stick to the most powerful one--myself. My feeling for +Marie arises largely from the fact that she is an expression of the +irreparable part of my life--of its deepest essence. + +"A year ago to-day, on the thirteenth of August," he wrote, "occurred my +first, last, and only breakaway from the best pal I have ever hoped to +have, Marie. Now that it has passed, I see it in its proper proportions, +just as if it had happened to someone else, but to one as near and dear +to me as myself. I have broken away from the Mob, too. My sympathy for +what is called the People has been worn down to a mere thread that might +easily be broken and turn me against them. When one has been stoned +long enough, one may easily turn into something as hard as stone itself. +I am like the knight of old, turned inside out. I am developing a +coating of internal mail, as so many of the attacks come from within. +But worse than attacks from within or without is the sordid security and +mental inertia of all the people about me: they are strangling me just +as surely as if they put a rope around my neck. By day they hurry on +like ghosts about their business, and by night they gather in the little +tombs of many rooms they call their homes. + +"You may call it madness, this my cutting off of all things. I know that +I have kept off madness a long while now. I have shrunk from 'business' +to social anarchy and pure beings, from these again I have shrunk to +books and poetry, from these again into the solitude of myself where +only I am really at home. Though I have lost my general bearings, I +still stand at the helm of myself. I am going to pieces on the rocks of +the world, but I still inhabit the realm of the soul. + +"When I could no longer see my ideals rise out of my work, I quit that +work; for then the work was no longer an expression of myself. This is +the origin of all modern problems. A man stands to his job because of +the visions that come to him only when at work. He sees in imagery his +own possibilities arise out of the thing on which he is at work, and +easily links himself to his fellows. Thus does the worker make of his +eternal cerebral rehearsals an endless chain of imaged solidarity +binding him in a maze from which he can never think his way out. The +fixed gaze of those who try to grasp the abstract is proof of this. + +"When I could no longer see my ideals arise out of human solidarity, I +quit my fanatical belief in the possibility of a Utopia. So that now I +am not even an anarchist. I am ready to pass it all up." + +When I saw Terry for the last time, and found him in this almost crazy +crisis of extreme individualism, where he hopelessly "passed up" +everything--human society, love and friendship, all the things his warm +and loving Irish heart really desired, I felt that here indeed was a +complete expression of the spirit of revolt. It was so extreme that I +and no one else could follow him in it. It had passed beyond the point +where social rebellion may be useful or stimulating or suggestive +poetically and had reached the sad absurdity of all extreme attitudes. +One lesson Terry's proud and strenuous soul has never learned: that the +deeper and simpler things in social growth we must take on faith. We +cannot demand an ideal reason or justification for all social +organisation, for the ways that human beings have of living together. +The elementary social forms at least must be instinctively and blindly +accepted. To go beyond in one's rejection the anarchism of the social +communist into what is called individualistic anarchism is mere +egotistic madness and has as its only value the possible poetry of a +unified personal expression. Into this it was that Terry fell, and of +course he could find no support for it except in his own soul, which +could not bear the strain. No soul could, for, struggle as we may, we +are largely social and cannot stand alone. Terry's life well shows the +sympathetic source of social rebellion and its justification, but it +also shows the ultimate sterility of its extreme expression. + +The latest word I have about Marie is that she is at work "keeping +house for a respectable family" in San Francisco. Her experience in +camping-out seems to have rendered her normal to, for her, an extreme +degree. Going to work certainly represented as radical a reaction from +Terry and his philosophy as well could be imagined. A friend of mine in +San Francisco writes of her: "She is now to all appearances a good, +respectable girl. She wants to live a new life, is working hard, and is +trying to break away from smoking. Sometimes she feels the restraint +severely, and comes to our house where she knows she can smoke and +express herself. She is in better health, and I think now is in close +enough touch with nature not to want to go back for nourishment to ideas +and the slum." + +The latest word I have from Terry shows him faithful to the +end--faithful to his character and his mood: + +"There is a rumour that Marie has got a job at general housework. This +gave me the blues--after all our life together, this the end! I'd rather +have her do general prostitution, with the chance of having an +occasional rest in the hospital. But perhaps her drudgery will kill her +enthusiasm for 'vita nuova!' + +"I should have answered your letter had I not been suffering from an old +malady of mine which is accompanied by such mental depression that I +could not answer the communication of even a lost soul. I had to seek +surcease in my old remedy of hasheesh and chloroform, which was a change +from suffering to stupidity. But I shall not swell the cosmic chorus of +woe by raising my cracked voice against impending fate. I am more and +more alone, more and more conscious of a growing something that is +keeping me apart from all whom I can possibly avoid." + +Terry is nearing his logical end, while Marie is still struggling for +life, life given her in the beginning by this strange man, whose +influence was then to take it away from her; and from this, like the +world, she rebelled. "Anarchism" she embraced as long as it enhanced her +being; as long as this deeply emotional philosophy added to the fulness +of her life, she saw its meaning and its use; when it finally tended to +sterilise her new existence, its "pragmatic" value was nothing. + +This is the test of all social theory: How It Works Out. In Marie's +case, as in the case of many proletarians, it worked out well, as a +general civilising and consoling philosophy, for a time, but when +carried to an "idealistic" extreme, it tended rapidly towards general +death--from which all live things react. So it was with Marie: she left +her "poisonous" Terry and sought for another vitalising experience. +Goethe said that the best government is that which makes itself +superfluous. Terry's spiritual influence on Marie, important for her in +the beginning as rendering her self-respecting and mentally ambitious, +had become superfluous. But it had been of great value to the girl. So, +too, with our society. The extreme rebellious attitude educates +us--sometimes to the point where rebellion is superfluous. + +THE END + + +_The_ +Autobiography _of a_ Thief + +A true story of the life of a criminal +taken down and edited by Mr. Hapgood. + +_Cloth. 349 pp. $1.25 postpaid._ + +COMMENTS OF THE CRITICS + + "The book as a whole impresses the reader as an accurate + presentation of the thief's personal point of view, a vivid + picture of the society in which he lived and robbed and of + the influences, moral and political, by which he was + surrounded. The story indeed has something of the quality of + Defoe's 'Colonel Jacque'; it is filled with convincing + details."--_New York Evening Post._ + + "To one reader at least--one weary reader of many books + which seem for the most part 'flat, stale and + unprofitable'--this is a book that seems eminently 'worth + while.' Indeed, every word of the book, from cover to cover, + is supremely, vitally interesting. Most novels are tame + beside it, and few recent books of any kind are so rich in + suggestiveness."--_Interior._ + + "What is the value of such an autobiography of a thief as + Mr. Hapgood has given us? It is this. Professional crime is + one of the overprosperous branches of industry in our large + cities. As a nation we are casting around for means to check + it, or, in other words, to divert the activities of the + professional criminals into some other industry in which + these men can satisfy their peculiar talents and at the same + time get a living with less inconvenience to the mass of + citizens. The criminal, being as much a human being as the + rest of us, must be known as he is before we can either + influence him personally or legislate for him effectually. + If we treat him as we would the little girl who stole her + brother's candy mice or as the man who under great stress of + temptation yields to the impulse to steal against his + struggling will, we will fail, for we overlook the very + essence of the matter--his professionalism. It is safe to + say that perusal of Mr. Hapgood's book will help many a + student of criminology to find his way through the current + tangle of statistics, reform plans, analyses of 'graft' and + what not, by the very light of humanity that is in + it."--_Chicago Record-Herald._ + + "The manner and style of 'The Autobiography of a Thief' is + that which attracts even the fastidious lovers of + literature. It is the life-story of a real thief + unmistakably impressive in its force and truth. As a matter + of course, the book is on the hinge of a novel, but it + contains the gem and sparkle of genuineness and its + complication has the flavor of accuracy."--_New Orleans + Item._ + + "It is not only a powerful plea for the reform of abuses in + our penitentiaries, but it is an extraordinary revelation of + the life of a criminal from his birth up, and an explanation + of the conditions which impelled him first to crime and + later to attempted reformation."--_New York Herald._ + + "The truth found in 'The Autobiography of a Thief' is not + only stranger but far more interesting than much of the + present day fiction. The autobiography of 'Light-fingered + Jim' is absorbing, in many pages startling, in its + graphicness.... In spite of its naturalness, daring and + directness, the work has a marked literary style--a finish + that could not have been given by an unexperienced hand. But + this adds to rather than detracts from the charm of the + book."--_Philadelphia Public Ledger._ + + "No more realistic book has been written for a long time + than Hutchins Hapgood's 'The Autobiography of a Thief.' No + books on criminology and no statistics regarding penal + institutions can carry the weight of truth and conviction + which this autobiography conveys."--_Chicago Chronicle._ + + "As a study in sociology it is splendid; as a human story it + will hold attention, every page of it."--_Nashville + American._ + + "It is a clear and graphic insight into the lives of the + lower world and is written with impressive force. It is a + remarkable addition to the literature of the + season."--_Grand Rapids Herald._ + + "An illuminating and truly instructive book, and one of + terrible fascination."--_Christian Endeavor World._ + + "As a contribution to the study of sociology as illustrated + from life and not from mere text-books, the story recorded + by Mr. Hapgood will be welcomed by all philanthropic + people."--_New York Observer._ + + "It is an absorbing story of the making of a criminal, and + is rightly classed by the publishers as a 'human document.' + It is absorbing alike to the reader who reads for the + diversion of reading and to those who are really thoughtful + students of the forces which are working in the life round + about them."--_Brooklyn Life._ + + "Those in whom the sense of human oneness and social + responsibility is strong will be intensely interested in + these genuine experiences and in the naive, if perverted, + viewpoint of a pick-pocket, thief and burglar who has served + three terms in State's prison."--_Booklovers' Library._ + + "It may be that 'Jim' puts things strongly sometimes, but + the spirit of truth at least is plain in every chapter of + the book. That, in general, it is the real thing is the + feeling the reader has after he has finished with 'The + Autobiography of a Thief.' It is not a pleasant book; it is + anything but a book such as the young person should receive + as a birthday gift. It is a book however which the man + anxious to keep track of life in this country should read + and ponder over."--JOSIAH FLYNT, _in the Bookman_. + +DUFFIELD AND COMPANY + +36 EAST 21ST ST. NEW YORK + + * * * * * + +"_The_ Spirit _of_ Labor" + +_$1.25 Net_ + + "A straightforward narrative which has the tremendous + advantage of disclosing more things about the greater life + of Chicago--and more which are not generally known to the + more sheltered classes--than any book of its size ever + written. Those who wish to be written down as loving their + fellow-men should read this volume with care. It is a real + book, and worth anybody's while."--_The Interior, Chicago._ + + "Much of the story is set down in this man's own words, and + the whole is made vividly interesting and really meaningful + by the author's broad understanding and sincerity of + purpose."--_Life, New York._ + + "Mr. Hapgood's portrayal of the American workingman is a + 'moving picture' in two senses of this equivocal phrase. It + is kinetoscopic, first of all, in its lifelikeness and the + convincing reality of the actions it pictures. Then, again, + it is emotionally moving; for the character of Anton, the + big, honest, alert and energetic Chicago laborer, can hardly + fail to arouse in the reader intense admiration, lively + sympathy and not a little amusement free from all cynicism + and class feeling. In 'The Spirit of Labor' we are brought + into living contact with the men and women we meet on the + streets, the great American public with whom every business + man, every pastor and every politician has daily to reckon. + Teamsters, masons, unionists, saloonkeepers, policemen, + wash-women, newsboys, walking delegates, waitresses, ward + heelers, local bosses, anarchists--the procession seems + endless and the medley beyond all hope of disentanglement. + But it is real life and no parade of puppets."--_New York + Tribune._ + + "We cannot doubt, however, that Anton is a true type and + represents a large portion of the men of this land with whom + workers and students in social matters must meet. The book + deals intimately with the questions arising between labor + and capital, and is especially interesting in its analysis + of the Chicago spirit as it relates to these matters."--_The + Christian Advocate, New York._ + + "The story of Anton and his socialistic, anarchistic, and + trade union comrades is a faithful and photographic picture + of aspects of the urban activity of vast multitudes of + industrials combining to assist each one in his fellow in + the struggle for existence and fullness of life. The forces + revealed are full of danger, the temper is ugly, the manners + are always urbane, the judgment not always well informed, + the range of knowledge often limited; but there is wondrous + power, vigor, and the chaotic promise of a better and larger + morality than anything the churches yet have taught, or the + mere book students have ever dreamed. Miss Jane Addams has + discovered this larger morality in seeming coarseness and + evil, and Mr. Hapgood has given us glimpses of it in the + biography of his man of toil and rebellion. The Philistine + needs the Anarchist to wake him, as Hume did Kant, from his + dogmatic slumbers, and the Philistine may (let us hope + rarely) wear cap and gown."--_The Dial, Chicago._ + + +--------------------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Notes: | + | | + | Page 54: woman amended to women | + | Page 97: acount amended to account | + | Page 102: interst amended to interest | + | Page 145: pamplets amended to pamphlets | + | Page 148: envolved _sic_ | + | Page 154: senstive amended to sensitive | + | Page 166: inconsistences amended to inconsistencies | + | Page 172: beause amended to because | + | Page 241: concious amended to conscious | + | | + | Punctuation has been standardised. | + | | + | Where a word is hyphenated and unhyphenated an equal number | + | of times, both versions have been retained: pickpocket/ | + | pick-pocket; upstairs/up-stairs. | + +--------------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of An Anarchist Woman, by Hutchins Hapgood + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN ANARCHIST WOMAN *** + +***** This file should be named 26719.txt or 26719.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/7/1/26719/ + +Produced by Suzanne Lybarger, Brian Janes and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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