At which the other smiled gently. "I am working for the truth," he said.
They talked about Thyrsis and his needs. Presumably, he said, he would have money from his new book in the fall, but meantime he wanted to take his family .into the country. He could live on thirty dollars a month; it would be a matter of some two hundred and fifty dollars. Darrell said he would give him this; and Thyrsis sat there, powerless to thank him, his voice trembling, and a mist of tears in his eyes.
He went on to tell his friend of the work that he meant to do. Darrell had said that to him the Civil War was a crime; but Thyrsis did not know what he meant by that. "I believe in my country!" he said. "It has tried for high things—and it will come to them! I know that it can be thrilled and roused, and made to see the shame into which it is fallen."
Darrell pressed his arm, and answered, with a smile, "I won't argue with you about the War; you go ahead and write your book!"
So Thyrsis went home to Corydon, as one who brings
a reprieve to a prisoner under sentence of death. Such a deliverance as it was to them! And such transports of relief and gratitude as they experienced! He sang the praises of Darrell, and of the new friends he had made at Darrell's; also he brought an invitation for Corydon to come with him to an evening reception the next week. They were anxious to meet her, he said; and Corydon was anxious to go.
But, alas, this did not work out according to expectations. Thyrsis discovered now what his wife had meant when she wrote that suffering and humiliation were breaking down her character. She could not bear to meet intellectual people, to take part in the competition of their life. For the most part these were men and women of intense personalities, absorbed in their own ideas, keenly critical, and not very merciful to any sort of weakness. And Corydon was morbidly aware of her own lack of accomplishments, and acutely sensitive as to what others thought about her. A strange figure she must have made in any one's drawing-room—with the old dress she had fixed up, and the lace-collar she had borrowed for the occasion, and the sad face with the large dark eyes. The talk of the company ran to politics ; and Corydon had nothing to say about politics. She could only sit in a corner while Thyrsis talked, and suffer agonies of humiliation.
To make matters worse, there came a literary lion that evening; one of the few modern writers whose books-Corydon knew and loved. But when they were introduced, he scarcely looked at her; he went on talking to an East Side poetess whose opinions were fluent and ready. So Corydon found herself shunted into a corner with an unknown old lady. It was one of Cory-don's peculiarities that she abhorred old ladies; and
this one questioned her about the feeding of infants, and told her that she was ill-equipped for the responsibilities of motherhood!
On her way home she poured out her bitterness to Thyrsis. "I can see exactly how it is," she said. "They all think you've married a pretty face!"
'You haven't given them much chance to think otherwise," he pleaded.
'They don't want any chance," she exclaimed. "They've got it all settled! You are the rising light, which is to astonish the world—and I'm your youthful blunder. I stay at home and take care of the baby, and they all feel sorry for you."
"Do you want them to feel sorry for you?" he asked.
To which Corydon answered, "I don't want them to know about me at all. I want to get away, and stay by myself, and get back my self-respect." And so it was decided that in a couple of weeks more—the first of April—they would shake the dust of the city from their feet. They sent for their tent and other goods, and began inquiring about a place to camp.
§ 11. A FEW days more passed; and then, one Sunday morning, Thyrsis' mother came to him in tears, with a copy of a newspaper "magazine-supplement" in her hand.
"Look at this !" she cried; and Thyrsis stared.
There was a full-page article, with many illustrations, and a headline two inches deep—"Henry Dar-rell to found Free-Love Colony! Ex-college professor and clergyman buys farm to teach his doctrines!" There was a picture of Darrell, standing upon a ladder and nailing up an announcement of his defiance to the
institution of marriage; and there were pictures of his wife and child, and of the farm he had bought, and a long account of the colony which he was organizing, and in which he meant to preach and practice his ideas of "free love".
Thyrsis was half dazed. "I don't believe it!" he cried; whereat his mother wrung her hands.
"Not believe it!" she exclaimed. "Why, the paper even gives the price he paid for the place!"
So Thyrsis took the article and went to see Henry Darrell again; and there followed one of the most painful experiences of his life.
He found his friend like a man blasted by a stroke of lightning. His very physical appearance was altered; his voice shook and his eyes were wild, and he paced the room, his whole aspect one cry of agony.
He pointed Thyrsis to a lot of clippings that lay upon the table —the first editorial comments upon this new pronouncement. There was one from an evening paper, which had close upon a million circulation, and had devoted its whole editorial page to a scathing denunciation, in which it was declared that "Prof. Dar-rell's morality is that of the higher apes."
"Think of it!" the man cried. "And the thing will go from one end of the country to the other!"
"But"—gasped Thyrsis, bewildered—"then it is not true?"
"True?" cried Darrell. "True? How can you ask me?"
"But—the colony! What is it to be?"
"There is not going to be any colony. 1 never dreamed of such a thing!"
"And haven't you bought any farm?"
"My wife bought a farm, over a year ago—because we wanted to live in the country!"
"But then," gasped Thyrsis—"how dare they?"
"They dare anything with me!" cried the other. "Anything!"
"And have you no redress?"
"Redress? What redress?"
He went on to tell Thyrsis what had happened. He and Mrs. Darrell had gone down to the farm to see about getting it ready, and a woman had come, representing that she wished to write a magazine article about "the country-homes of literary Americans". Upon this pretext she had secured a photograph of the place, and of Darrell, and of his wife and child. She had even attempted to secure a photograph of his wife's aged mother, who lived with her, and who was involved in the affair because the money belonged to her. Then the woman had gone away—and a couple of weeks later had come this!
"And I thought they were through with us!" Darrell whispered, with a shudder. "I thought it was all over!"
He sat in a chair, with his face hid in his arms. Thyrsis put his hand upon his shoulder, and the man caught it. "Listen," he exclaimed. "You can see this thing from the outside, you know the literary world. Do you think that I can ever rise above this? Is there any use in trying?"
"How do you mean?" Thyrsis asked, perplexed.
"I mean—is it worth while for me to go on writing? Can I ever have any influence?"
Thyrsis was shocked at the question—as he had been at the way Darrell took the whole thing. He knew that his friend had money enough to live comfortably;
and why should any sort of criticism matter to a man who was economically free?
"Brother," he said, "you have forgotten your Dante."
"How do you mean?" asked the other.
"Segui il tuo corso e lascia dir le gente!" quoted Thyrsis; and then he added, "You don't seem to realize that these are newspapers, and nobody really credits them."
"Ah, but they do!" cried Darrell. "You don't know what I have been through with! My oldest friends hare cut me! Clergymen have refused to sit at table with me! The organization that I gave ten years of my life to founding has gone all to pieces. I have been utterly ruined—I have been wiped out, destroyed!"