Read Ebook: The Woman Who Vowed (The Demetrian) by Harding Ellison
Font size:
Background color:
Text color:
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page
Ebook has 864 lines and 51364 words, and 18 pages
ed to speak to me, Lydia."
"And you have been avoiding me," said Lydia.
"Yes," answered Ir?n?. "You have a matter to decide regarding which you have already guessed I am not altogether unconcerned."
Lydia lowered her voice as she said: "You still love Chairo?"
Ir?n? answered in a voice still lower, but firm, "I do."
For a few minutes they paced the cloister. Lydia was trying to decide how to confess her own secret, but she did not find the words. At last Ir?n? said:
"When the mission of Demeter was first tendered to me I was eighteen, and, although I had often preferred certain of my playmates to others, I had not known love. The honor of the mission made a great impression, and as it slowly came upon me that I was chosen to make of myself a sacrifice, the beauty of it filled my heart with happiness. It hardly occurred to me possible to refuse the mission; I was absorbed by one single desire--to make myself worthy of it. I thought very little about the sacrifice itself. I had the legend of Eros and Psyche in my mind; one day I should hear heavenly music and be approached as it were by an unknown god. And passing from the pagan to the Christian myth, I saw the Immaculate Conception of Murillo--that of the young maiden at the Prado in Madrid--and I felt lifted into the ecstasy of a mystic motherhood. So until I accepted the mission at the Eleusinian festival I lived in a rapture--the days passing in the studies and ministrations of our novitiate, the nights in dreamless sleep. But once the vows taken and the bridal night fixed, there came upon me a revulsion as it were from the outside and took control of my entire being so as to make me understand what the ancients meant when they described certain persons as 'possessed by an evil spirit.' The thought of the approaching crisis was a pure horror to me. I lost my appetite and sleep; or, if I slept, it was to dream a nightmare. Neither our priest nor priestess could console me, the legend of Eros and Psyche became abominable, the Immaculate Conception absurd, and, believe me, Lydia, nothing but pride kept me to my word. It was a bad pride, the pride that could not look forward to the humiliation of refusing a sacrifice I had once accepted. That pride held me in a vice and accomplished what religion itself would never have accomplished."
Ir?n? paused--and Lydia passed her arm around Ir?n?'s waist as they continued to pace the solitary cloister, whispering "Go on" in Ir?n?'s ear.
"You know the rest," continued Ir?n?. "The unknown god came to me in my terror and converted my terror into love; and as I look back at it now I am struck by two things: One, how unaccountable and unfounded the terror was; the other, how little my pride would have sufficed to overcome it had the terror been enforced by love."
Lydia looked at Ir?n? askance.
"I mean," said Ir?n?, "love for some one else!"
A sigh broke from Lydia. This was what she had been waiting for.
"And you think," said Lydia, "that a woman should not accept the mission if she already loves?"
Lydia felt a burden taken from her--the burden of doubt as well as the burden of sacrifice. But suddenly she remembered that Ir?n? in advising the refusal of the mission was making a sacrifice of her own love, and she said very low in Ir?n?'s ear:
"I know," answered Ir?n?, "and this is all the greater reason for refusing. Had you loved a lesser man you might have doubted the trueness of your love, but having loved Chairo once you can never cease to love him. I speak who know"; and Ir?n? turned on Lydia a look of immortal sorrow.
But the tumult of emotion in Lydia's heart could no longer be restrained. Her own great love for Chairo, her inability to sacrifice it, contrasted with the dignity of Ir?n?'s renunciation, started a torrent of tears. She fell on Ir?n?'s neck and sobbed there. Ir?n?'s strong heart beat against her's as they stood in close embrace under the cloister, and calmed Lydia. She slowly disengaged herself, and looking into Ir?n?'s face, said:
"And so you tell me to refuse the mission?"
"You cannot do otherwise."
Then Lydia kissed Ir?n? and withdrew.
Lydia went to her chamber and sat in the window seat, looking across the lawn to the temple of Demeter.
What did it all mean? She had felt the beauty of the mission; had glowed at the thought of sacrifice; had taken pride in it. But such was the strength of her love for Chairo that so long as he was in her mind the mission seemed a sacrilege and her heart had responded to Ir?n?'s advice with a bound of gratitude and delight. And yet now as she looked at the white columns of the temple at which she would never again be worthy to minister, an unutterable sadness came over her, as though she were parting from the dearest and most precious thing in her existence.
She was unwilling to mingle that night with the other novices, and retired without seeing them. The night was filled with conflicting dreams and she woke up next morning with the guilty conviction that she had committed a crime.
NEAERA
I learned later that, although the conditions I have described still prevailed, the state was passing out of the pure Collectivism with which it started; that numerous factories had been started by private enterprise, partly to supply things not supplied by the state, partly because of dissatisfaction at state manufacture. Although private enterprise could only count on voluntary labor during one-half of every day it had already assumed vast proportions, had given rise to considerable private wealth and was modifying the social conditions that resulted from primitive Collectivism.
I also perceived that although many of the problems of life, such as pauperism and prostitution, had been solved by the introduction of Collectivism, nevertheless it had not brought that total disappearance of ill feeling which prophets of Collectivism had promised us in my time. On the contrary, I soon discovered that the inmates of every building were split up into cliques as devoted to gossip as in our day, the only difference being that they were determined by individual preference and political divisions and not by poverty or wealth; perhaps it might be said, that the absence of the wealth standard raised the level of the social struggle, deciding it by personal excellence and attractiveness, rather than along conventional lines. Every man and woman knew that popularity--and even political influence--could be secured only by these, and this knowledge checked many an angry word and prompted many an act of kindness. Chaff, too, and even sallies of wit with a dash of malice in them were borne with more good humor than in our day; because we all of us love to laugh, and generally the more if it is at the expense of a neighbor, provided only there be no intention to wound; so that those who bore banter well were as popular as those who best could set it going.
And yet there were some very foolish and malicious people among them. I remember a foolish one particularly, Aunt Tiny they called her. She was an aunt of Lydia and Cleon. Lydia First, as Lydia's mother was called, had married twice. Her first husband had not known how to keep her love and they had separated after her first child was weaned. Then she had married a second time; her second husband was an excellent man but inferior to her; he had not been able to impress his personality nor his name upon the family, and so the children of the second marriage as well as the child of the first had taken the name of the mother. The second husband had died some years before the beginning of this story; but a sister of his--Aunt Tiny--had remained attached to the family. She was very small and plump; her hair was of a sickly yellow color and so thin on the top of her head that the scalp was plainly visible; she wore a perpetual smile of self-satisfaction which expressed the essential feature of her character; it was impossible for her to entertain the thought that she was plain or unattractive; her happiness depended, on the contrary, upon the conviction that no one could resist her charms did she only decide to exercise them. Age did not dull this keen self-admiration; on the contrary, as the mirror told her that lengthening teeth contributed little to an already meaningless mouth, or wrinkles little to browless eyes, she felt the need of faith in herself grow the more, and her efforts by seductive glances to elicit from others the expression of regard so indispensable to her happiness redoubled.
I first saw her in Lydia's drawing-room. I had found it empty on entering, but presently there came into it a little body with a hand stretched up, in her eagerness to be cordial, at the level of her head, and behind it a smirking face bubbling over with the effort of maidenly reserve to keep within bounds an overflowing heart.
I had been so long in New York that I felt her welcome a little superfluous, but it was part of the doctrine, which kept her happiness alive, that New York had not completed a welcome to a stranger until it had been expressed by her.
I was a little confused by her effusiveness, for I did not wish to offend an aunt of Lydia's, and yet I felt it impossible to respond in proper proportion to her advances.
"You must be Aunt Tiny," I said. "I have often heard of you."
"Dear Lydia!" she exclaimed; and in the pronunciation of the "d" in "dear" she put exaggerated significance and added a shake of her head. She wore little corkscrew curls; every time she shook her head the curls quivered with suppressed agitation.
"Do sit down," she added--with unnecessary emphasis in the "do."
There was nothing to be done but to resign myself; she drew up a chair quite close to mine and settled down in it as an army might settle down for a Trojan siege.
I have never been able to understand why this poor little woman--perfectly innocent of any real ability to harm--should have been able to cause me so much annoyance; but there was something in her glance that made me wish to throw things at her.
"And Lydia--isn't Lydia beautiful?" There was something caressing in her tone as she puckered up her lips and dwelt on the word "beautiful" that exasperated me again.
I at last could agree with her and I smiled approval. She seemed delighted.
"I am sure we are going to be great friends, and you will never misunderstand me, will you?"
I protested that I never would, and was relieved by the entrance of Lydia First, who suggested our going to tea in the grove.
On our way there as we passed the main entrance a detachment of militia--some dozen or so--entered, divided into two columns, and stood at arms while between them passed a woman somewhat more heavily draped than usual. I asked the meaning of this, and was told that she was a Demetrian.
"Demetrians are always attended by an escort unless they particularly desire to be spared the honor; many would avoid it but the cult dispenses with it only as a special favor and for a limited time."
"I cannot see the use of it," lisped Aunt Tiny.
But Lydia First looked sadly at her, and turning to me, said:
"All of us do not understand the importance of upholding the dignity of the cult. It is the very key-stone of social order and we cannot pay too much honor to those by whose sacrifice it is preserved."
We were joined at the grove by quite a party; Ariston came later; and among others I remarked a young girl with bright black eyes who was described to me as a journalist. It took me some time to become accustomed to their habit of describing a person's occupation as that adopted for recreation. The work they did for the state was not regarded as a matter of particular concern; it was the work they selected for their leisure hours which marked their character and bent. Neaera had been first attached to the official journal of the state; but she had joined Chairo's political party and her work on the journal betrayed her partisanship, so the state assigned her work in a factory, and she devoted her leisure therefore to the paper edited by Chairo.
"Xenos, are you going to lecture at our hall?"
I had been invited by the Pater to lecture on the social, political, and economic conditions of the twentieth century. He had assumed that such a lecture would tend to strengthen the conservative and collectivist government; and Chairo had asked me to lecture at his hall in the hope, on the contrary, that it could be made to serve his own cause. I had been told that these lectures were usually followed by an open discussion, and I knew that it was from this discussion that both parties hoped to draw arguments to sustain their views respectively. Fearing, therefore, to become involved in their political animosities I had not yet decided whether I would lecture or not, so I answered:
"I am not sure; I feel a little the need of understanding your own conditions better than I do, before undertaking to contrast them with those of our day."
"We'll undertake to explain our conditions," she said, with an oblique smile at Balbus, "if you'll let us."
"I could wish for no pleasanter instruction," I answered.
"But I see you have Aunt Tiny," retorted she maliciously.
Balbus threw his head back and laughed outrageously.
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page