The Woman Who Vowed Part 9

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.

In the first place I had not remained an unmoved spectator of Neaera's dance. It was very new to me and altogether bewitching. She had a faultless figure--or, if it had a fault, what it took away from the type of ideal beauty it perhaps added to her feminine attractiveness. And so, on returning with Ariston to our bachelor quarters she was the theme of our conversation. Ariston had pa.s.sed through a phase of _tendresse_ for Neaera. Most of his generation who were of Neaera's cla.s.s had experienced her novitiate. Even Chairo had not returned unscathed. We found him at the bath, and after a plunge into the bracing sea water we lounged in our wraps on the couches prepared for that delightful moment.

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."

"That is no discredit," retorted Chairo. "The whole band of priests ought to be consigned to the shades. They are an unmitigated curse----"

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 s.e.xual relations. The evils to be remedied were threefold: To reconcile continence with love; to retain the sanct.i.ty 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 const.i.tuted 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 inst.i.tutions; these last disappear before the races which exercise the higher degree of continence required by the patriarchal or polygamous system; and these last succ.u.mb 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 s.e.xual 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 inst.i.tution 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 sanct.i.ty 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 G.o.d; 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 chast.i.ty 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 inst.i.tution of marriage. Religion, then, seemed to be the only human sentiment that could determine continence, and to some religious inst.i.tution, therefore, it was thought this question must be referred.

What actually happened was this: The const.i.tutional 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 const.i.tution forbidding all laws on the subject of marriage. The same const.i.tution, however, provided that all adults over the age of twenty-five years who had pa.s.sed 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 const.i.tution on the subject of marriage, which would not only restore it to its original inflexibility, but would impose penalties on both s.e.xes 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 s.e.xes 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 s.e.xes 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 s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.s 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.

In the period of reconstruction which followed this civil war, there came to the front in Concord a woman of singular ability, who united the mystic power of the founders of all religions with a personal beauty that made of her the model of the great sculptor of that day--Phocas.

She early developed a faculty for divining thought, which secured for her the wonder and awe of the entire neighborhood; and when upon reaching maturity Phocas took her as his model for a statue of Demeter, she entered into the spirit of his work and the spirit of his work entered into her. The statue was his masterpiece, and was moved from city to city until, coupled as it soon was with the personality of Latona--for so the new priestess styled herself--it became the center of a veritable cult. It drew the minds of men to the old Greek worship of Fertility and Death in the personalities of Demeter and Persephone, so that Fertility became dignified by Death, and Death disarmed by Fertility--both merging, as it were, into a notion of immortality dear to the hopes of men. The golden ear of corn that figured in the radiant tresses of Demeter was shadowed by the death in the dark earth that awaits it, and thus became to them an emblem of the annual resurrection of the spring with its promise of a new after-life for man also.

To Latona the quality of the Greek myth most worthy of commemoration was the spirit of sacrifice, which made of Demeter the Mater Dolorosa of the ancient world. The mother seeking her ravished daughter through all the kingdoms of the world, wresting her at last from the dark G.o.d--but for a season only--and during the season of sorrow and solitude finding compensation in caring for the sick child of a woodman in a forest hut--here was a myth for which Latona could stand and through which she could draw men to learn the lesson of progress and happiness through sacrifice. The long hours she spent with Phocas in the study of these things and the strength of his genius inspired her with a love for the man as well as for his art; but as the thought that she was born to a mission slowly dawned upon her she withdrew from his companionship, as, indeed, from the companionship of her neighbors; performed the tasks she owed the state with punctiliousness, and gathered about her a few women who responded to her exalted ideas. Her love for Phocas, about which all her earthly life centered, became to her the consummate sacrifice that she could make to this new religion that was slowly taking shape in her.

She drew her votaries chiefly from the conventual order that had gathered about the great cathedral on Morningside Heights; for the Christian religion had experienced a great change since the revolution.

The Christian Church, released from the necessity of worldly consideration of wealth, was now sustained by those only who sincerely believed in her principles; and as soon as the city had been rebuilt to suit the new conditions, those who had contributed their leisure to the beautifying of the streets, turned their attention to the neglected foundations on the Heights. They found in the new Christian spirit something of the enthusiasm of the thirteenth century, and ridding the creed of all save the principle of love which Christ had made the foundation of His church, set themselves to embodying this principle with its mystic consequences of sacrifice into gothic arch and deep-stained gla.s.s, upon a scale and design heretofore never accomplished. Abandoning the transitional style at first contemplated, they adopted the general scheme of Chartres; but in lieu of the almost discordant steeples of Chartres they subst.i.tuted a design taken rather from what is left of St. Jean, at Soissons, varying in height and detail, but identical in style, stimulating wonder without shocking it.

The entrance porches of the western facade were inspired by Rheims and Bourges, for there were five of them; the nave and choir towered to the heights of Beauvais; and in the center rose the spire of Salisbury. The lateral steeples flanking the north and south approaches were completed with the same bewildering variety as on the west front, and the apse, where rested the sanctuary, terminated the story with a cl.u.s.ter of chapels that equaled, if not excelled, the _chevet_ of Le Mans; and so every part of this tribute to Christ lifted itself up in adoration to heaven like a flame. It rose from a green sward, and adjoining it, on the north side, was a cloister that in the hush of its seclusion brought back hallowed recollections of a bygone age.

It was from this cloister that Latona drew her following; for Latona, with her thoughts turned to Eleusis and not to Galilee, conceived of a worship which--though sorrow had a part in it--partook also of joy and thanksgiving; sacrifice a.s.suredly, but for the happiness of this world, rather than for its mortification; an after life also, but an after life for which preparation in this world might through the great unselfishness of a few a.s.sure the happiness of the many. So that while sacrifice for the sake of sacrifice had become the underlying principle of the Christian religion, sacrifice for the making of joy became the central idea of the new cult. And Latona, as indeed every mystic, the more she dwelt upon these things, the more she grew to believe in her mission; she began by dreaming dreams and ended by seeing visions; she found that fasting and asceticism contributed to lengthen and strengthen the moments when, losing consciousness of this world, she seemed to find herself in direct communion with the divine. Her body soon showed the traces of her spiritual life; she lost her beauty, but in the place of it came a happiness so radiant that as she walked in the streets to her allotted task it caused men and women to stand and wonder.

Meanwhile, her fame grew apace. But her personality was at first far more impressive than her cult. The one was clear and striking, the other vague and even obscure. At last on a day that afterward became the great festival of the Demetrian calendar, Latona fell into an ecstasy that lasted from the rising of the sun to the setting. She spent it on her knees, in adoration; rigid and motionless, with her hands held out as though upon a cross; none of those about her dared intrude; when darkness came she swooned, and those watching lifted her to her couch.

For a week she lay as it were unconscious. Then she gathered her votaries about her, and for the first time clearly enunciated her gospel to the world. This done, a strange sickness came upon her, she was, as it were, consumed by the fire of her inspiration; she wasted away, and with her dying breath asked that what was left of her be placed in an alembic, the gases into which her body pa.s.sed be burned and the flame, so lit, be never extinguished.

And it was done. The corpse of Latona gave birth to a new vestal fire tended by new vestals, vowed no longer to barrenness, but to fertility and sacrifice.

Her words were preserved by many of her votaries, but their stories varied, as must indeed all such records vary in a world where minds differ as much as inclinations. But the central idea remained and gave rise to a cult which, unsupported by the state or by law, acquired control over the minds of men, much as did the papacy in the eleventh century. Some, as Ariston, believed it to be founded on reason, but dreaded its power and increase; others, as Chairo, regarded it as an unmitigated despotism. The issue was to be fought out--as, indeed, such issues generally are--through the conflict between personal pa.s.sions and political beliefs, each using and abusing the other and out of both emerging, after the appeas.e.m.e.nt to which every struggle eventually tends, into a clearer idea and a popular verdict.

Meanwhile, the followers of Latona had built the temple of Demeter on the old cla.s.sic lines, and the solemn grove about the temple had not detracted from the cathedral close, perhaps because each cult appealed to different temperaments; perhaps, also, because many found that the two cults appealed to the different sides of character and to the different demands of each.

The cult, though unsupported by any law or statute, had acquired extraordinary power in the state. It undertook to summon before its council all persons charged with offenses against Demeter--Demeter standing amongst other things for the purity of domestic life. If the party summoned refused to appear before the council, the matter was referred to the attorney general, who, under the influence of the cult, prosecuted the charge in the criminal courts with the utmost severity; and whether the person accused was convicted or not, a refusal to appear before the council resulted in a social ostracism so complete that few ventured to incur it. If, on the other hand, the party charged appeared before the council, the case was likely to be treated with leniency, and conviction seldom resulted in more than the imposing of some penitential task. Should it, however, appear that the charge was more serious than could be dealt with by the cult, it was referred to the attorney general.

The cult was careful to abstain from any act or teaching which could tend to encourage idolatry or superst.i.tion; thus, the statue of Latona, which had first inspired the Demetrian idea, was not placed in the temple where it might be thought properly to belong, but in the cloister. The temptation to worship it, therefore, was removed. Indeed, it was for the purpose of making the worship of a graven image the more impossible that Latona had asked that her body be consumed and the flame from it perpetuated on the altar. A flame could remain an emblem; it could hardly itself, in our day, ever become an object of worship.

In this way was kept alive the idea that the divine, wherever else it might also exist, exists certainly within each and every one of us, and that by the cultivation of love and usefulness it can be made to prosper and increase in us. For men, the active scope of usefulness lay chiefly in the field of labor; for women, chiefly in the field of fertility--neither field excluding the other--but rather both including all. And so women contributed labor, in so far as labor did not impair their essential function of motherhood, and men contributed continence as the highest male duty in the field of fertility.

The duties of the male, therefore, were grouped into two cla.s.ses, active and pa.s.sive; the former were for the most part exercised in willingness to labor for the commonwealth without too grasping a regard for reward; the latter consisted mainly in continence, carefully itself distinguished from abstention--for it was a cardinal maxim of the Demetrian faith--as old, indeed, as the days of Aristotle--that human happiness could but be attained by conditions that permitted the due exercise of _all_ human functions, each according to its laws. Science therefore came to the rescue of human happiness by determining the laws of human functions; and art completed its work by creating an environment which to the highest degree possible enabled every man and woman to exercise all their functions with wisdom, moderation, and delight, to the best happiness of all and the ultimate advancement of the race.

And although the future of the race was forever present to the priests of the cult, yet were men and women not expected to make any great sacrifice beyond the immediate generations that succeeded them, the inst.i.tution of marriage being carefully maintained because it kept alive the care of the parent, each for its own offspring, thus providing for every generation the protection furnished by paternal pride and maternal solicitude.

The purity of the domestic hearth, its reverential care of offspring, the lifting of motherhood out of the irreligion of caprice into the religion of sacrifice; the exercise in all these matters of the highest, because the most difficult, of all the virtues--moderation--these are the special concerns of the Demetrian cult.

CHAPTER IX

HOW IT MIGHT BE UNDERMINED

The discussion of these matters by Ariston and Chairo elicited an old story which was to receive its sequel in my time and it is important, therefore, to narrate it.

It seems that the year before my arrival among them Neaera had encouraged the addresses of a certain Harmes--a brother of Anna of Ann, and that Harmes was accused by her of having become so ungovernable that it had given rise to a public prosecution. Harmes had been convicted and confined to a farm colony, where he was still serving his term. The incident had given rise to much vexation of spirit, for many felt that Harmes was more sinned against than sinning.

The account Ariston gave of the matter was greatly to Neaera's discredit; according to him, Neaera originally had designs on Chairo, and he seemed willing enough to enjoy her society. Much thrown together, both by politics and journalism, it was not unnatural that their companionship should often extend itself into their hours of leisure.

But Chairo was far too clear-sighted not to perceive the capriciousness and duplicity of his collaborator, and Neaera wasted her efforts upon him.

Of this, however, she could never be convinced and she returned to the charge over and over again. During one of the interludes she happened to meet Harmes and took a liking to the freshness of his youth; he became infatuated with her, and one evening he visited her at her apartment on an occasion when Neaera's mother was absent and she was therefore alone.

It seems the young couple remained together so late into the evening that Neaera on the following day, fearing that a rumor of the visit might reach Chairo to her disadvantage, complained of Harmes's violence.

Harmes, with a devotion to Neaera of which Ariston did not think her worthy, refused to defend himself against the charge. It is probable the matter would have dropped had not some enemies of Neaera taken the matter up, believing that, if prosecuted, Harmes would not refuse to vindicate himself and injure Neaera.

The charge had therefore been brought first before the Demetrian council; and the council, on the same theory as that adopted by Neaera's enemies, and convinced that Neaera would be punished, put the matter into the hands of the attorney general. Harmes's silence, however, only served to vindicate Neaera and convict himself; and the community was still undecided as to which was the culprit and which the victim.

I had an opportunity myself of forming an opinion on the subject, for shortly after my conversation with Ariston and Chairo I received an intimation from Neaera that she would like to see me at the office of the _Liberty_ staff, and upon going there at the hour mentioned I found Neaera busily engaged writing in a room that suggested other things than labor; for it was furnished with more luxury than was usual, and there were richly upholstered divans in it laden with piles of eiderdown pillows; the air, too, was heavy with perfume.

Neaera, however, received me with her brow contracted; she was working at an editorial, and I evidently interrupted the flow of her thought; but the frown very soon pa.s.sed away from her forehead, and standing up a little impatiently she flung her pen down on the table.

"There!" she said, "I am glad you have come; I need rest."

She threw herself on the divan, and I could not help thinking as she lay there that the Greek dress was less open to criticism in the fields and open air than in a closed room. In town the longer mantle was worn which came down to the feet; but the clinging drapery displayed the lines of the figure in a manner to which I felt uncomfortably unaccustomed.

"I sent for you," said she, "to speak to you seriously about this lecture you are to give. Your views may have an important bearing and you ought to know the evils of our system if you are to compare them with the old."

"I am impressed," answered I, "with certain things--such as the absence of poverty, the relative well-being of all; and this seems to me so important that I am inclined perhaps to undervalue the price you pay for them----"

"The price--that is it--the terrible price; we are subjected to a despotism such as you in your times would not for a moment have endured."

"Undoubtedly--in one sense of the word--despotism. But Ariston claims that this despotism, though absolute, applies to only a few hours in the day, whereas in our time there was for the ma.s.s as great a despotism that controlled their entire existence. Some time must be given to the securing of food, clothing, and shelter. The present government claims to furnish this to all with less labor and less compulsion than under our system."

We discussed this question at some length, but I could not help thinking that some other thought was preoccupying Neaera's mind, and presently she stretched her arms over her head and said, "Oh, I am tired of it all!"--then turning on her side she laid her head upon a bare arm, and looking at me, smiled.

It was impossible to mistake her gesture or her smile; it told me that she had not called me to speak of serious things at all; it beckoned me to her side on the divan, and I almost felt myself unconsciously responding to her invitation. But I was aware of danger and refrained.

Nevertheless, I was curious to know whether I was accusing her wrongfully, and I said:

"The thing that puzzles me most about you all is--" I hesitated intentionally, and she helped me.

"What is it?"