Upton Sinclair - Love's pilgrimage

Then Thyrsis turned to attack the manuscripts which had been accumulating while he was writing. They were coming more frequently now—apparently Mr. Ardsley liked his work. To Corydon, who had gone to the country with her parents, he wrote that he was getting some money ahead, and so she might join him before long.

This brought him a deluge of letters; and it forced him to another swift descent into the world of reality. "I have told you nothing of my sufferings," wrote Corydon. "At least a score of times I have written you long

letters and then torn them up, saying that your work must not be disturbed. But oh, Thyrsis, I do not think I can stand it much longer! Can you imagine what it means to be shut up in a boarding-house, without one living soul to understand about me?"

She would go on to tell of her griefs and humiliations, her longings and rages and despairs. Then, too, Cedric was not growing as he should. "He is beautiful," she wrote, "and every one loves him. But he makes not the least attempt to sit up, and I am very much worried. I fear that I ought not to go on nursing him—I am too nervous to eat as I should. And then I think of the winter, and that we may still be separated, and I do not see how I am to ctand it. It is as if I were in a prison. I think of you, and I cannot make you real to me."

To all of which Thyrsis could only reply with vague hopes—and then go away for a tramp in the forest, and call to his soul for new courage. He had still troubles enough of his own. For one thing, the fiend in his stomach was not to be exorcised by any spell he knew. It was all very picturesque to portray one's hero as dying of disease; but in reality it was not at all satisfactory. Thyrsis did not die, he merely ate a bowl of bread and milk, and then went about for several hours, feeling as if there were a football blown up inside of him.

He had a touching faith in the medical profession in those days, and whenever there was anything wrong with him, he would turn the problem over to a doctor and his soul would be at rest. In this case the doctor told him that he had dyspepsia—not a very difficult diagnosis—and gave him a bottle full of a red liquid to be taken after meals. To Thyrsis this seemed an

example of the marvels of science, of the adjustment of means to ends; for behold, when he had taken the red liquid, the bread and milk disappeared as if by magic! And he might go on and eat anything else—if there was trouble, he had only to take more of the red liquid! So he plunged into work on a pot-boiler, and wrote Cory-don to be of cheer, that the dawn was breaking.

§ 7. CORYDOX, in the meantime, had received a copy of his play; and he was surprised at the effect it had upon her. "It is marvellous," she wrote; "it is like a blaze of lightning from one end to the other. And yet, much as I rejoice in its power, the main feeling it brought me was of anguish; for it seemed to me as if in this play you had spoken out of your inmost soul. Can it be that you are really chafing against the bond of our love? That you feel that I have hold of you and cling to you; and that you resent it, and shrink from me? Oh Thyrsis, what can I do? Shall I bid you go, and blot the thought of you from my mind? Is that what you truly want? 'A woman will do anything for a. man but renounce him!' Did you not shudder for me when you wrote those words ?

"It is two o'clock in the morning, and so far I have not been able to sleep. I have lain awake with torturing thoughts; and then the baby wakened up, and I had to put him to sleep again—any indisposition of mine always affects him. I am sitting on the floor at the foot of the bed, writing with a candle; and hoping to get myself sufficiently exhausted, so that I shall no longer lie awake.

"Go and find your vision over my corpse, and may God bless you! . . . I wrote that hours ago, and I tried to mean it. I try to tell myself that I will take the

LOVE'S PILGRIMAGE

child and go away, and crush my own hopes and yearnings, and give my life to him. But no—I cannot, I cannot! It is perfectly futile for me to think of that— I crave for life, and I cannot give up. There is that in me that will never yield, that will take no refusal. Sometimes I see myself as a woman of seventy, still seeking my life. Do you not realize that? I feel that I shall never grow old!

"How strange a thing it is, Thyrsis, that you and I, who might do so much with so little chance, should have no chance at all. I read of other poets and their wives —at least they managed to have a hut on some hillside, and they did not absolutely starve.

"I am tired now; perhaps I can sleep. But I will tell you something, Thyrsis—does it sound so very foolish? Not only will I never grow old, but I will never give up your love! Yes, some day you will find out how to seek your vision in spite of the fact that I am your wife!"

§ 8. ANOTHER day, there would be moods of peace, and even of merriment; it was always like putting one's hand into a grab-bag, to open a new letter from Cory-don. In after years he would read them, and strange were the memories they brought!

"My Thyrsis," she wrote: "I have been reading a story of Heine in ZangwilPs "Dreamers of the Ghetto". I did not know about Heine. He loved and married a sweet little woman of the people—Mathilde—who didn't appreciate his writings. I am not only going to love you, but I am going to appreciate your writings ! Some day I am going to be educated—and won't it be fine when I am educated?

''I keep very busy, but I have not so much time as I

had last summer. I live almost all my life in hope—the present is nothing. I think I get more strength by gazing at my baby than in any other way. I wonder if I can ever infuse into him my inspiration and my desire. It is wonderfully exciting to me to think of what a free soul could do, if it possessed my spirit and my dreams. Ah, even you don't know! I smile to myself when I think how surprised you might some day be! Oh, my baby, my baby, surely you will not fail me—little soul that is to be. This is what I say to him, and then I squeeze him in ecstasy, and he coughs up his milk. Dear funny little thing, that is so pleased with a red, white and blue rattle. At present he is grinning at it ecstatically—and he is truly most horribly cunning. His favorite expression is 'Ah-boo, ah-boo'; and is not that just too bright? Everybody tries to spoil him—even a twelve-year-old boy here wanted to kiss him. And wonder of wonders, he has two teeth appearing in his lower gums! Poor me—he bites hard enough as he is."

And then again:

"My Beloved: I am sitting with my candle once more. It is too hot for a lamp. I have been reading 'Paradise Lost', and truly I am astonished that it is so beautiful. Also I have been reading a book about Unitarianism, and I did not know that such things had been written. But I think it is hardly worth while to call one's self a Unitarian. I was thinking that I will go back and read the Bible through. I would not mind, if I knew I did not have to believe it.

"Also', this week, I read 'Paul and Virginia*. Oh, do not write anything to me about our meeting, until you are sure it can be! It breaks my heart.

"Did it ever occur to you that we might embark

LOVE'S PILGRIMAGE

for the tropics? We'd have a hut, and I might learn to raise fruits and vegetables. I sigh for some verdant isle—and I am not joking. We might find some place where steamers came now and then, and some one in New York coul$ attend to your manuscripts.

"To-night I was trying to put my baby to sleep and he wouldn't go, but just lay in my lap and kicked and grinned. I tried to coax him to go to sleep, but if I was the least bit impatient he'd begin to cry. And then he'd grin at me so roguishly, as if to say, 'Let's play before I go to sleep!' Finally I looked right at him and said, 'Now, you have played long enough, and I wish you to be a good boy and g'o to sleep!' And then he laughed, and I put him on his side and he went to sleep! Wasn't that bright for a baby just seven months old?