Read Ebook: The Woman Who Vowed (The Demetrian) by Harding Ellison

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Ebook has 864 lines and 51364 words, and 18 pages

Balbus threw his head back and laughed outrageously.

"What are you laughing at, you goose!" said Neaera.

"Let him laugh and enjoy himself," answered Aunt Tiny quickly, by way of discarding the thought that there could be in his laughter anything disobliging for herself.

And Balbus, taking the cue, said:

"We don't want Aunt Tiny to take you in hand for she is terribly persuasive"--the poor little thing giggled delightedly--"and we want you on our side."

"I don't mean to be on either side," I answered. "I am your guest, and, as such, must confine myself to stating facts; you will have to draw your own conclusions."

"That's right," said Neaera. "All we want are facts; the conclusion will be clear enough. For example, in your time, every man could choose his own occupation."

"And was not subjected to the humiliation of working in a factory because he would not be convenient to the party in control!" flashed out Neaera.

I nodded my head gravely in approval.

"Imagine any of the writers of your day compelled to work in a factory--Emerson, Browning, Longfellow!--and Tennyson--imagine Tennyson working in a factory!"

"Abominable!" responded Balbus. "Abominable and absurd!"

"Wasn't Burns a plough-boy?" said Ariston, "And Shakespeare a play-actor?"

"A second-rate play-actor, too," echoed Lydia First, "and ended by lending money at usurious interest!"

"He chose to be that," retorted Balbus. "What we are fighting for is the right to choose our calling."

"But I have to work at the state factory at the bidding of the state," answered Balbus, "for half of every day."

I could not help comparing his lot with my own in Boston. I had never enjoyed the practice of law; indeed, I had adopted the profession because my father had a practice to hand down to me. And as I sat day after day listening to the often fancied grievances of my clients, their petty ambitions, narrow animosities, and, particularly in divorce cases, to the nasty disputes of their domestic life, I often felt as though my profession converted me into a sort of moral sewer into which every client poured his contribution. Had I really been free when I chose to devote my whole life to so pitiful a business!

"Some part of the day," I answered, thinking aloud, "must, I suppose, be devoted to the securing of food and clothing. In the savage state--in which some people contend liberty is most complete--the whole day is practically devoted to it. In our state it was much the same, except that a few were exempt because they made the many work for them. But only a very few enjoyed the privilege of idleness--or shall we call it 'liberty'?"

"No," answered Neaera, "it is quite unnecessary to confuse things; liberty is one thing and idleness is another. We want the liberty to choose our work--not the license to refuse it."

"Ingenious," retorted Neaera, "but not correct. Can't you see the difference between choosing work and refusing it?"

Neaera did not like to find herself without an answer; so she covered her defeat by taking a flower out of her bosom and throwing it at Ariston, who, picking it up, kissed it and fastened it to a fold of his chiton. Just then a strain, that reminded me of our negro melodies, being wafted to us through the trees, Balbus exclaimed, "Now, Neaera, a dance!"

She sprang up at once and began moving rhythmically to the music. It was a strange and beautiful dance, that had in it some of the quaint movement of a negro breakdown, and yet the gayety and grace of a Lydian measure.

Balbus clapped his hands to accentuate the broken time, and we all joined him; Neaera, stimulated by a murmur of applause, gave a significance to her movements; danced up to Ariston, then flinging her hands out at him in mock aversion, danced away again; next reversing her step danced back to him, and, snatching the flower out of his chiton, tripped triumphantly off, throwing her head up in elation; and to increase Ariston's spite she made as though she would give it to Balbus; but upon his holding out his hand for it, danced away from him, and after raising hopes in others of our group by tentative movements in one direction and another, finally fixed her bright eyes on me, danced hither and thither as though uncertain, and then finally brought it to me, and daintily pressing it to her lips, put it with both hands and a pretty air of resolution into mine.

A TRAGIC DENOUEMENT

Lydia could not disembarrass herself of the feeling of guilt with which she awoke after her interview with Ir?n?. She went to the temple for help and knelt before the story of Demeter's sorrows, which was told in sweeping frescoes on its walls. Chance so happened that she found herself before that part of the story which described the goddess forgetting her own sorrow in her devotion to the sick child of the woodman in his hut. The artist, in the reaction from the Greek method of treating this story which marked the narrative of Ovid as contrasted with that of Homer, had dwelt upon the humble conditions of the poor hut in which the light of Demeter's golden hair shone like a beneficent aureole; and the nascent maternal instinct in Lydia vibrated to the beauty of Demeter's task. Was she to renounce this highest standard of maternity? What though she did love Chairo, was it not this very love which the goddess bade her renounce? And was not the greater the love the nobler the sacrifice?

She returned to the cloister weary with the struggle and strove to forget it by devoting herself to the duties of the hospital. As she cared for a sick child there, the fresco in the temple before which she had that morning kneeled came back to her, and in the memory of that hour and in the love that went out to the child she was nursing she found consolation.

But perhaps she was most influenced by a certain capacity for passive resistance in her, which unconsciously set her upon opposing the inclination to yield, whether to her love for Chairo or to the pleading of the priest. She could refuse to yield to both more easily than decide to yield to either. And so, many days passed in the valley of indecision before she was lifted out of it by an unexpected event.

A novice came to her one morning and bade her go to Ir?n?, who had asked for her. She had not seen Ir?n? since the day they had spoken in the cloister and she had wondered; but something in her had secretly been satisfied. Ir?n? would have challenged her to decide, and this was just what she was not prepared to do.

As she followed the novice to Ir?n?'s rooms the novice had told her that Ir?n? was very ill and had moaned all night, begging for Lydia. Inquiry elicited that Ir?n? was threatened and perhaps was actually suffering from congestion of the brain, and that she had been confined to her rooms ever since she had ministered with Lydia in the temple. When Lydia approached Ir?n?'s rooms a nurse stopped her by saying that Ir?n? had just fallen into a sleep--the first for a fortnight--and must not be awakened. So Lydia remained in the sitting room, peeping occasionally through the curtain that separated it from the room in which Ir?n? slept. For many hours Ir?n? remained motionless, but at last as Lydia stood holding aside the curtain, Ir?n? opened her eyes; her face was flushed; she sprang up in her bed, leaning on one hand, and glared at Lydia with eyes that lacked discourse of reason. Then, suddenly, she seemed to recognize her and a shriek rent the room and sent Lydia staggering back against the nurse who stood behind her. Putting both her hands over her eyes and ears Lydia dropped the curtain between herself and the raving Ir?n?; but no hand could keep her from hearing the words that came through the curtain and pierced her brain:

"Go away! Go away!" shrieked Ir?n?. "You have taken him from me! Stolen him!"

Ir?n?'s shriek sounded to Lydia like the crack of doom. Then came the words, "Stolen him," in the voice of the accusing angel--and as if it were in answer to her own shrinking gesture of protest behind the curtain, she heard Ir?n? shriekingly repeat: "Stolen, yes, stolen!"

The nurse put Lydia into a chair and went to Ir?n?; she found her risen from the bed, and, shrouded in her curtain of blue-black hair, with lunatic eyes, she was advancing slowly to the room where Lydia sat. When Ir?n? saw the nurse she said, in low grave accents, "Not you--not you!" and then with menacing significance added, almost in a whisper, "The other!"

The nurse tried to stop her and urge her back to her bed, but Ir?n? swept her away with a single movement of her arm, and moved to the curtain which separated her from Lydia. But Lydia had by this time recovered control of herself; she knew that a maniac was approaching and she arose to await her. Ir?n? pushed aside the curtain and confronted Lydia standing in the middle of the room, motionless and rigid as though changed to stone.

"Don't stand there, brazen-faced!" shrieked Ir?n?. "Kneel--I say, kneel!"

But Lydia stood her ground unflinchingly.

Then Ir?n? burst into a furious laugh: "Great mother," she began mockingly, and Lydia had to stand and listen while the maniac, with lurid eyes and frantic gesture, recited the most sacred of the prayers to Demeter--the prayer in which daily the vestal repeats her vows; but as the prayer came to a close the light went out of Ir?n?'s eyes, the fury out of her gesture; she slowly bent down upon her knees, and the last words of the prayer were, in a voice sinking to a whisper, addressed to Lydia as though she had been the goddess herself.

When Ir?n?'s voice died away it seemed as though the paroxysm was over; she remained kneeling, with her head bowed upon her breast.

Then Lydia thought to lift her up, and bent down to her. Ir?n? looked up suddenly and shrieked as she recognized Lydia; she frantically waved her hands before her face as though to rid her eyes of the spectacle, and Lydia resumed her erect posture again.

"It hurts here," she said, clutching at her heart. "You'll know," she added, and laughed harshly. "You'll know!" she repeated, and throwing up her hands she clutched the air; then in an agony of paroxysm she whispered again in a faltering voice, "You'll know"--and suddenly sank a huddled heap upon the floor.

Lydia and the nurse ran to her and lifted her back upon the bed, and from that moment Lydia did not leave her side. For many days life hovered on the edge of Ir?n?'s lips, sometimes appearing to take flight altogether, and again returning to reanimate the clay. And Lydia with anguish in her heart bent over her night and day.

At last a crisis came and Ir?n? fell into a profound and restful sleep; the fever left her, and the pulse slowly recovered regularity and strength; she seemed to recognize no one, and it was expected that for some weeks she would probably remain unaware of those around her. Lydia was advised to absent herself, lest to Ir?n?, on recovering her reason, the shock of seeing Lydia prove dangerous; and so, one evening as the sun set, her strength shattered, she returned to her own rooms.

It happened that the following day was the ninth of the Eleusinian festival, on which, if at all, those to whom the mission had been tendered might accept or renounce it. Strange to say, with her waning strength ebbed also the power of passive resistance which had kept Lydia from decision; she surrendered not to the exercise of a controlling will but to the suggesting influence of Ir?n?'s anguish; and on the next day in the temple, to the rage of some and to the deep concern of all, in the procession she wore the yellow veil which announced her as a bride of Demeter.

HOW THE CULT WAS FOUNDED

Before the dramatic climax of the Eleusinian festival, the first incident of which closed the last chapter, and the thrilling sequel of which I shall have later to narrate, I had become, in spite of myself, dragged deeper into the political arena than I wished.

Chairo declined to take Neaera seriously: "'Il y des gens,'" he said, "'qui sont le luxe de la race.' She is a sprite created to awake sentiments which must be satisfied by others; or, perhaps, remain unsatisfied, and thus stimulate the brush of the painter and the pen of the poet. She is an artist herself; utterly without conscience or heart; but contributing greatly to the charm of life, and if not taken in too heavy doses, altogether delightful."

Ariston was more severe! "She is a calculating little minx with her own ends to serve; sometimes those ends are good and she secures a large following by virtue of them; sometimes they are altogether bad, and then she uses the following secured by her good ends to attain the bad. But the worst of it is, she uses what she has of charm remorselessly and has more than once been summoned before the priests of Demeter."

It was no easy matter to understand the working of the priestly system but I gathered this from the discussion: According to Ariston, the cult of Demeter was organized mainly through the influence of the women to accomplish a reform in the marriage system and an intelligent, scientific, and religious regulation of all sexual relations. The evils to be remedied were threefold: To reconcile continence with love; to retain the sanctity of marriage without imposing a life penalty for a single innocent mistake; and to secure, without compulsion, the improvement of the race.

In regard to the first of these three, it was recognized that no one function in the human body contributed so much to the health or malady of the race as this; and that free love, which had constituted one of the planks of the Socialist party, would be fatal to the survival of the community, in consequence of the physical and moral abuses to which incontinence would give rise. The survival of the races which practised continence over those which did not practise it was too clearly recorded in history for its lesson to be neglected. Thus, the promiscuous savage disappears before the savage who exercises the continence, however slight, involved in metronymic institutions; these last disappear before the races which exercise the higher degree of continence required by the patriarchal or polygamous system; and these last succumb in the conflict with those which practise the highest degree of continence, known in our day under the name of monogamy. The lesson of history, then, is that continence is essential to the progress of the race. The problem consists in defining continence.

This could not be done by written laws; the attempt to regulate sexual relations by law had broken down in my own day. Divorce was the attempt of morality to rescue marriage from promiscuousness. The greatest immorality prevailed where divorce was forbidden; in other words, the institution of marriage became a screen for immorality; women took the vow of marriage only the easier to break it, and even those who took it with the sincere intention of being faithful to it, once the bond proved intolerable, finding no moral escape from it adopted the only immoral alternative. Divorce, therefore, was the only escape; and the easier divorce became the more did the sanctity of marriage diminish; so that at last it became impossible to decide which system resulted in more demoralization--the one which maintaining a theoretically indissoluble marriage resulted in secret promiscuousness, or the one which through divorce by making marriage easily dissoluble opened the door wide to the satisfaction of every caprice.

The only force that has ever seemed able to cope with this problem is religion. Religion for centuries filled convents and monasteries with men and women who under a mistaken morality offered love as a sacrifice to God; religion has been the determining factor in the survival of community life; that is to say, those communities which were animated by religion--such as Shakers, and the conventual orders--have relatively prospered, whereas those which were not animated by religion have rapidly disappeared. Religion effectually preserves the chastity of women, even outside of convents--as in Ireland--and has been the main prop of such continence as survived during our time in the institution of marriage. Religion, then, seemed to be the only human sentiment that could determine continence, and to some religious institution, therefore, it was thought this question must be referred.

What actually happened was this: The constitutional convention, which put an end to the old order of things and brought in the new, was controlled by the Socialist faction which believed in free love; a provision, therefore, was inserted in the constitution forbidding all laws on the subject of marriage. The same constitution, however, provided that all adults over the age of twenty-five years who had passed the necessary examinations--female as well as male--should have a vote; and this last gave women a voice in political matters, which they soon exercised with unexpected solidarity. They became a power in the state, and threatened a modification of the constitution on the subject of marriage, which would not only restore it to its original inflexibility, but would impose penalties on both sexes for violation of the marriage vow, such as the world had not up to that time seen or dreamed of. The whole community was aghast at the conflict between the sexes to which this question gave rise, and all the more so, that women had become a fighting power that could no longer be disregarded. The drill introduced into the schools for both sexes had demonstrated that in marksmanship the average woman was quite equal to the average man, and in ability to endure pain she proved altogether superior to him. Already the licentiousness that prevailed in Louisiana and the adjacent States between Louisiana and the Atlantic seaboard had given rise to a civil war; and the women of the North had fought on the side of sexual morality in a manner that opened the eyes of men to the existence of a new and formidable power in the state. The issue upon which Louisiana had undertaken to secede was upon the power of the federal Government to enact penal laws against idleness. Obviously, idleness is, under a Collectivist government, a most dangerous offence. Collectivism cannot survive except upon the theory that all the members of the community furnish their quota of work. It was supposed that this question could be left to state legislation; and during a few generations every state did secure enough work from its citizens to furnish the stipulated amount of produce to the common store. But as dissoluteness prevailed in the South, the Southern States fell more and more behind in their contribution, and their failure was obviously due to the demoralization which attended promiscuity in sexual relations. In the Northern States a certain sense of personal dignity had created a public opinion on the subject, that prevented free love from producing its worst results; habits of industry, too, already existed there, and the creation of state farm colonies--such as existed in our day in Holland--where the unwilling were made to work prevented idleness from prevailing. In the Southern States, the climate lent itself to all the abuses that attend the surrender of self-control; the women never possessed the initiative necessary for defense; the more the men abandoned themselves to pleasure the less they were able either to govern or to tolerate government; and, as a necessary consequence, there was a relaxation of effort in every direction whether political, industrial, or domestic.

Much agitation prevailed in the rest of the Union over the condition of the South; the women, particularly, fearing that the contagion would spread, banded together to form purity leagues, with a view to meet the evil by a system of social ostracism; but before the sexual issue came to a head, the failure of the Southern States to furnish their quota to the common store raised an economic issue easier to handle. The federal Government passed a measure providing that in case any State failed to furnish its quota, the President was to replace the elected governor by one appointed by himself, and the whole penal administration was to pass into federal hands, with power to the federal Government to create pauper colonies and administer them. This aroused the ferocity of the whole Southern people, and it was at this crisis that the women of the North showed their prowess and initiative. They formed regiments which rivaled those of the men in number, and even compared with them in efficiency. The seceding States proved utterly unable to resist the forces of the North, and were soon reduced to unconditional surrender.

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