Upton Sinclair - Love's pilgrimage

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of being, made flesh; a figure epic, colossal, worthy of an Angelo; the mighty mother herself, the earth-mother, from whose womb have come the races!

And then—"Perhaps she would be more comfortable with another pillow," said the doctor, and the spell was broken.

Corydon shook her head with swift impatience. This was her conflict, the gesture seemed to say. They had only to let her alone—she had no words to spare for them.

"How long does this last?" Thyrsis asked, his voice trembling. The doctor made a motion to him to be silent—evidently he did not wish Corydon to hear the answer to that question.

§ 9. FOR the girl's soul was rising within her; perhaps from the deeps of things there came comfort to her, from the everlasting, universal motherhood of life. Nature must have told her that this at least was pain to some purpose; something was being accomplished. And she shut her jaws together again, and closed with it—driving, driving, with all the power of her being. A feeling of awe stole over Thyrsis as he watched her —a feeling the like of which he had never known in his life before. She was a creature consecrated, made holy by suffering; she was the sacredness of life incarnate, a thing godlike, beyond earth. It came as a revelation, changing the whole aspect of life to him. It was hard to realize—that woman, woman who endured this, was the same being that he had met in the world all his life—laughing and talking, careless and commonplace. This—this was woman's fate! It was the thing for which woman was made, and the lowest, meanest of them might have to bear it! He swore vows

of reverence and knighthood; he fell upon his knees before her, weeping, his soul white-hot with awe. Ah, what should he do that he might be worthy to live upon the earth with a woman?

And this was no mere fine emotion; there was no room for imagination in it—the reality exceeded all imagination. Overwhelming it was, furious, relentless; his thoughts strove to roam, but it seized him by the hair and dragged him back. Here— here!

She was wrung and shaken with her agony, her eyes shut, her face uplifted, her muscles turned to stone. And the minutes dragged out into hours—there was no end to it—there was no end to it! There was no meaning—it was only naked, staring terror. It beat him up again and again; he would sink back exhausted, thinking that he could feel no more; but it dragged him up once more—to agony without respite! The caverns of horror were rent open; they split before his eyes—deeper, deeper—in vistas and abysses from which he shrunk appalled. Here dwelt the furies, despair and madness—here dwelt the demon-forces of being, grisly phantoms which come not into the light of day. Their hands were upon him, their claws were in his flesh; and over their chasms he shuddered—he scented the smoke of that seething pit of life, whose top the centuries have sealed, and into which no mortal thing may gaze and live.

Life—life-—here was life, he felt. What had he known of it before this?—the rest was pageantry and sham. Beauty, pleasure, love—here they were in the making of them—here they were in the real truth of them! Raw, naked, hideous it was; and it was the source of all things else! His being rose in one titan throb of rebellion. It was monstrous—it was unthink-

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able! He wanted no such life—he had no right to it! Let there be an end of it! No life that ever was could be worth such a price as this! It was a cheat, a horror —there could be no justice in such a thing! There could be no God in it—it was oppression, it was wrong! He thought of the millions that swarmed on the earth -they had all come from this! And it was happening every hour—every second! He saw it, the whole of it —the age-long agony, the universal birth-pang of being. And he hated it, hated it with a wild, raging hatred—he would have annihilated it with one sweep of his arm.

And yet—there was no way to annihilate it! It was here—it was inevitable. And it was everlasting—it was an everlasting delusion, an everlasting madness. It was a Snare!

Yes, he came back to the thought—that was the image for it! It mattered not how much you might cry out, you were in it, and it held you! It held you as it held Corydon, in throb after throb of torment. She moaned, she choked, she tossed from side to side; but it held her. It seemed to him that the storm of her agony beat upon her like the tempest upon a mountain pine-tree.

§ 10. THE doctor's hands were red with blood now, like a butcher's. He bent over his work, his lips set. Now and then he would speak to the young nurse, whom he was teaching; and his words would break the spell of Thyrsis' nightmare.

"You can see the head now," he said once, turning to the boy.

And Thyrsis looked; through the horrible gaping wound showed a little patch, the size of a dollar—

purplish black, palpitating, starting forward when the crises shook the mother. "And that is a head!" he whispered, half aloud.

"But how can it ever get out?" he cried suddenly, with wildness.

"It will get out," the doctor answered, smiling. "Wait—you will see."

"But the baby will be dead!" he panted.

"It is very much alive," replied the other. "I can hear its heart beating plainly."

All the while Thyrsis had never really believed in the child—it was too strange an idea. He could think only of the woman, and of her endless agony. Every minute seemed a life-time to him—the long morning had come and gone, and still she lay in her tormeni:. He was sick in body, and sick in soul; she had exerted the strength of a dozen men, it seemed to him.

But now her strength was failing her, he was certain ; her moans were becoming more frequent, her protests more vehement. The veins stood out on the doctor's forehead as he worked with her—muscular, like a pugilist. Gigantic, he seemed to Thyrsis—terrible as fate. Time and again the girl screamed, in sudden agony; he would toil on, his lips set. Once it was too much even for him—her cries had become incessant, and he nodded to the nurse, who took a bottle from the table, and wetting a cloth with it, held it to Corydon's face. Then she shouted aloud, again and again— wildly, and more wildly, laughing hysterically; she began flinging her arms about—and then calling to Thyrsis, as her eyes closed, murmuring broken sentences of love, "babbling o' green fields." It was too much for the boy—there was a choking in his throat, and he

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rushed from the room and sank down upon a chair in the hall, crying like a child.

After a while he rose up. He paced the hall, talking to himself. He could not go on acting in this way —he must be a man. Others had borne this—he would bear it too; he would get himself together. It would all be over before long, and then how he would be ashamed of himself!

He went back. "It is the chloroform that makes her do that," said the young nurse, soothingly. "She is out of pain when she cries out so."

Corydon was coming back from her stupor; the strife began again. She cried out for its end, she could bear no more. "Help me! Help me!" she moaned.

The head was the size of a saucer now—but each time that she screamed it would go back. Thyrsis stood up to get the strength to grip her hand; her face stared up into the air, looking like the face of a wolf. And still there was no end—no end!

There was an hour more of that—the room seemed to Thyrsis to reel. Corydon was crying, moaning that she wished to die. There was now in sight a huge, bulging object—black, monstrous—rimmed with a band of bleeding, straining flesh, tight like the top of a drum. The doctor was bent over, toiling, breathless.

"No more! No more!" screamed the girl. "Oh, my God! my God!"