Upton Sinclair - Love's pilgrimage

It was a life such as might have been lived in the Garden of Eden. They cooked and ate and studied out doors, in a sunny glade when it was cool, and in the shade of a great oak-tree when it was warm. They wandered about in the forest, they bathed naked in the crystal lake—diving from the rocky headland, and afterwards standing upon it and drying themselves in the sun. Corydon was now free to fling away the conventionalities which had hampered her in the city; by way of signalizing her enfranchisement she cut short her hair—that untamed, rebellious hair which had taken so long to dry and to braid and to keep in order!

So they lived, in daily touch with the great heart of Nature. They saw the sun rise on one side of the rocky headland, and set upon the other; they watched the great storms sweep across the lake, and the lightnings stab into the water. Sometimes, at night, the gale would shake their tent until they could not be sure if it was wind or thunder; but the stays held fast, and

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they slept untroubled. And then the storm would pass, and in the morning there would be the lake, sparkling In the sunlight; and the sky, clear as crystal, with the white gulls wheeling about, and grey-blue herons standing near the shore.

There were bass to be caught from the rocky point. "So we must have at least one meal of fish every day," declared Thyrsis.

"I'm willing," said Corydon—"if you'll catch them."

"And then, there are lots of squirrels about."

"Squirrels!" cried she.

"Yes. I can knock one over with a stone now and then—you'll see."

"But, Thyrsis ! To eat them!"

"Did you ever taste one?" he laughed.

"But it's cruel!" she exclaimed; and he thought to himself, How like the little Corydon of old!

"Wait till I've skinned him and fried him in bacon grease," he answered.

And even so it proved. Corydon was troubled by the crisp little toes turned up in the air, but when these had been cut off, she yielded to the allurements of odor and taste. "I'm nothing but a digesting machine nowadays !" she lamented.

To which Thyrsis replied in the words of the village-girl in "Faust," " 'She feeds two when she eats!'

They had been obliged to give up their attempt to live on prunes and turnips. For the doctor had warned them that Corydon must have plenty of "good nourishing food"; and this warning was backed up by all her women acquaintances—and also by Corydon's own inner voices. The appetite that she developed was appalling to them—not only as to quantity but as to quality. She would find herself unable to eat anything

they had in their pantry, and with a craving for the wildest and most impossible things; or she would not know what she wanted—and would travel to the store and gaze about at the provisions, until a sudden illumination came. Sometimes she would be so hungry for it that she could not wait to get home, but would sit down by the road-side and devour the contents of the market-basket. To these cravings she yielded religiously, because she had been told that they represented vital needs of her system. Some one had told her an appalling tale about a pregnant woman who had been possessed by a desire for bananas.; and because she had not gratified it, the baby when born had cried for five weeks—until they had fed it a banana!

These strange experiences lent new interest to their intimacy. They went through all the journey of maternity together. Pretty soon the changes in her body began to be noticeable; and day by day they would watch these. How wonderful it all was, how incredible! Thyrsis would sink upon his knees before her, and clasp his arms about her and laugh "She's going to have a little baby!" And Corydon would blush and protest; she did not like to be teased about it—she was still only half reconciled to it. "I'm only a child myself!" she would cry. "I've no education—nothing! And I'm not fit for it!" Then he would have to comfort her, telling her that life was long, and that the child would be something to study.

They discussed the weighty question of the name which they should give the child. In this, as in other matters, they were without precedents and limitations, and they found that excess of freedom is sometimes an embarrassment. They were impelled towards literary reminiscence; and Thyrsis soon realized tfcat this

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was a matter in which the sensuous temperament would have to have its way. "After all," argued Corydon, "to you a name is a name. If you can call the baby and have it answer, isn't that all you care about?"

"Yes," he assented, "I suppose so; if the name's too unhandy for calling, I can have a nickname."

To Corydon, on the other hand, a name was a vital thing; a child that was lovely under one name might be unendurable under another. She had been reading Ossian, and the poems of the neo-Celtic enthusiasts; so after much pondering and consultation she announced that Cedric and Eileen were the two names from which they would choose.

§ 9. MANY moods of tenderness came to them. He loved to fondle her, to exchange endearments with her. They gave each other foolish names, after the fashion of lovers the world over; and they would go on to modify these names, and add prefixes and suffixes, until the most ingenious philologist could not have figured out where the names had started. They made new words, also; they invented a whole language for use in these times of illumination, and which Thyrsis denoted by the name of "dam-fool talk".

One was always discovering new qualities in Corydon. She had as many moods as the lake by which they lived, and it seemed to him that with each mood her whole personality changed—she would even look like anothe^ being. There was the every-day Corydon, demure, and rather silent; and then there was the Corydon who lived in the arms of Nature—who swam in the water, a sister of the mermaids, and made herself drunken with the sunlight; and then would come a mood of mischief, and laughter would break from her, and her wit would be

such that Thyrsis would sigh for a stenographer. She would make herself a Grecian costume out of a sheet, and dance to music of her own making; or she would put trinkets upon her forehead, and be a gypsy-queen -she could be anything that was wild and exotic and unpremeditated. She had dances for that mood also— she would laugh and caper as merrily as any young witch. But then, again, there would come the Cory don of melancholy and despair; her features would shrink up, her face would become peaked and pitiful, she would seem like a child of ten. Sometimes Thyrsis could laugh her out of such a mood by telling her of her "beady black eyes"; and she did not like to desecrate her eyes.

And now there was a new Corydon—the Corydon who had been chosen of the Lord, the worker of a miracle. This gave new awe to her presence, it set a crown upon her forehead. One morning, in midsummer, they had come out from their bath, and she stood upon the rock in the sunshine; and suddenly he saw her give a start, and stand transfixed, staring in front of her.

"What is it?" he asked.

Her voice thrilled as she whispered, "Thyrsis! It moved!"

"Moved?" he echoed.

"I felt the child move!" she cried.

And so he came and put his hands upon her body, and together they stood waiting, breathless, as if listening for a far-off sound.

"There! There!" she cried. "Did you feel it?"

Yes, he had felt it. And in all his life had he ever felt anything stranger? The first sign of the new life that was to be—the first hail out of the darkness of

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nonentity! And truly, to hear that hail was to be rapt into regions of wonder unspeakable!

It was to be a new human soul; a creature like themselves, with a mind of its own, and a sense of responsibility. It would be a man or a woman, independent, self-creating, and knowing naught about this strange inception. And yet, it would be their life also ; they had caused it—but for them it would never have been! Blindly, unwittingly, following the guidance of some power greater than themselves, they had called it into being. And in some mysterious and incredible way it would share their qualities; it would be a blending of their natures, a symbol of their union, of the strange fire that had blazed up in them and fused them together. Truly, had they not come here to the essence of love, that great blind force which had ruled and guided all things from Time's beginning?