Читать книгу Man of Strife - Grove Wilson - Страница 9

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AS Bruce walked home, the wind seemed less boisterous. His mother’s influence lingered, robbing the elements of their power to harass. He was reflecting, his imagination lulled to rest.... He had seemed like a baby to her. He seemed so to himself. There was nothing upon which he could fasten and say, This I know. Nothing. Once he had known—how many things! At twenty he had solved all of life’s problems; could check them off with demonstrations, Q.E.D., glibly. Even the purpose of life had appeared rationally obvious. He had drunk at Carlyle’s fountain: The answer was work. He was prepared for that. He was determined to evidence his existence without having read Schopenhauer; he was ready to be ruthless though ignorant of Nietzsche. He had eliminated miracles and God before he opened Hume. He was colossal in the ignorant egotism of twenty.

All of those things which he had known so thoroughly had slipped from him. As he neared thirty, it was tragic to discover that his ignorance increased. He could prove nothing. The winds had blown away the froth. The hard, bitter, unanswerable rocks shone in a strange light. Century after century the waves of men washed up against them, broke and disappeared and the rocks remained unsolved. He, in his turn, was beating upon them. The superfluous luggage of twenty was torn away. Only the shreds of a half-formed philosophy clung to him; these, too, must go. Then in utter nakedness he would sprawl on that destroying shore, seeking to catch, above the roar of the breakers, the echo of that anthem which the stars sang when the world was young.

Thus he reflected, being still a child, too recently from his mother’s arms for independent thought. He was still a sophomore—that is to say, still incapable of thinking. Not incapable of suffering: even the midge may have its pain. But he was old enough to feel the nakedness thus imaged; he was approaching self-consciousness.

Beneath this strain of semi-lucid reflection, ran an irritation, slowly forcing itself into recognition. At first he could not guess its source. Then he realized: He was nearing home—and Cora. At one time he had traveled many miles, in great eagerness, to be near her. Once, when, after their marriage, they had been briefly separated, he had sworn that, having her back, he would never let her out of his arms. Never. Not for an instant. Without her he was empty. She fulfilled him, made his existence rational. Why? She was a beatific source whence he drew meaning, a coalescence that knitted him into an entity. Without her he fell apart, broke away bit by bit, became worthless débris. She was celestial, impelling him upward, forcing a triumph over feet of clay. Yes, there had been such a time.

Whence the change? Who had plucked the wings from that seraphic creature? Who had opened his eyes—or were they now blinded? The time had come when he could think dispassionately of her as a mildly pretty woman, with large brown eyes and a weak chin. And she? What did she now think of him? What had she formerly thought? Had she, too, passed through the awakening fires? Was that searing baptism inevitably part of marriage? Once there had been suggestions that she expected great things of him—vague, but great. He grew hot at the thought that he had, certainly, yielded no greatness. He had lighted no torch to throw an obscuring shadow around his feet of clay: They must be rankly apparent, those primordial hoofs. She would fasten her eyes on them and sign herself to resignation.

Hell! It was he, then, who had shattered the glory, plucked the wings, immured an angel. Hell and corruption! He was the black spot in the midst of his sunshine. The thing he had been hating was his own shadow. Eternal damns! Naturally, she had remained unchanged. He had grown coarse and indifferent. No longer inclined to see beauty, blindness had crept upon him. Good God, how could she endure him! He must regenerate himself. Go back, go back—no, step ahead, do something, be something. A life of devotion was not too much to compensate her for so hideous a betrayal.

He stood still, facing the wind that swept down Sixteenth Street, overwhelmed by a sense of his failure. His humiliation enveloped him, permeated him, filled him. It did not matter that he laid no finger upon tangible evidence of baseness, that he called to mind no act of infidelity or harshness. His self-aversion drove him to pile cruelty upon indifference, stupidity upon grossness. He saw himself vile, shameful, atrocious, sinister, hellish! He cringed beneath the blows he dealt himself, but he endured them. He was a flagellant, and his blood must pay for his sins.

It would be absurd to call him insincere. His sincerity was rampant. Every husband, touched with imagination, will understand this. It is the ordeal through which men pass in an effort to regain a lost paradise. Not once but often, not in youth only but in maturity, do they seek thus to exorcise the masculine devils.

Whence comes it? It is the unconscious humility of the father before the mother, a deep admission that man is less in the scheme of the universe than woman. It is weakness paying tribute to strength; it is vanity yielding to selfishness; it is the devoured supplicating the devourer.

Bruce understood none of this. Hence his conviction of sin and his bitter self-laceration. He stumbled forward, exhausted by the passionate turmoil. He quickened his steps, he broke into a run. He was in senseless haste to throw himself at her feet, to weep out his entreaties, his assurances, to rekindle the flame, to re-establish the glory.

He found Cora in the Morris chair, reading. She had taken down her hair and it hung down her shoulders in two long plaits, one over either breast. She had undressed and a bath robe covered her nightgown. Her ankles were bare, her feet thrust into bedroom slippers. She looked up at him.

“Is your mother worse?”

“No. Cora, I——”

“You look terrible.... You’ve been a long time.”

“I ran in my rush to get here.... Cora——”

“Where’ve you been? Surely not there—all this time.”

“Every minute. Though I may have been some time on the way home. I don’t know. You see, I got to thinking——”

“Of course. You can think of everything under the sun except me. I can sit up half the night here alone, and keep busy waiting for you, while you gallivant around the streets. It doesn’t matter. ... I’m going to bed. You better go, too—from the way you look....”

Thus have women, from the beginning of time, dashed the high hopes of men. Embracing within themselves the ends of all things mortal, they are blind to the flashes of an infinity that lies without them. Do not look to them for an hierarchy that ends in an Oversoul. The Marys bear sons, but it is from the sons that the revelation comes, it is they who are laid upon the cross, it is upon their brows that the drops of blood appear, from their hearts that the prayer for mercy rises. Man in his soul is unmated. In his ideals and in his aspirations, mean and slime-coated though they are, he is without female companionship. When he sets out for the mountain top, whence to view all the wonders of the world, he must understand that the companion of his bed will remain at home....