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The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig, a novel by David Graham Phillips |
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Chapter 23. What The Moon Saw And Did |
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_ CHAPTER XXIII. WHAT THE MOON SAW AND DID Physical condition is no doubt the dominant factor in human thought and action. State of soul is, as Doctor Schulze has observed, simply the egotistic human vanity for state of body. If the health of the human race were better, if sickness, the latent and the revealed together, were not all but universal, human relations would be wonderfully softened, sweetened and simplified. Indigestion, with its various ramifications, is alone responsible for most of the crimes, catastrophes and cruelties, public and private discord; for it tinges human thought and vision with pessimistic black or bloody red or envious green or degenerate yellow instead of the normal, serene and invigorating white. All the world's great public disturbers have been diseased. As for private life, its bad of all degrees could, as to its deep-lying, originating causes, be better diagnosed by physician than by psychologist. Margaret, being in perfect physical condition, was deeply depressed for only a short time after the immediate cause of her mood ceased to be active. An hour after Joshua had revealed himself in thunder and lightning, and had gone, she was almost serene again, her hopefulness of healthy youth and her sense of humor in the ascendent. Their stay in the woods was drawing to an end. Soon they would be off for Lenox, for her Uncle Dan's, where there would be many people about and small, perhaps no, opportunity for direct and quick action and result. She reviewed her conduct and felt that she had no reason to reproach herself for not having made an earlier beginning in what she now saw should have been her tactics with her "wild man." How could she, inexpert, foresee what was mockingly obvious to hindsight? Only by experiment and failure is the art of success learned. Her original plan had been the best possible, taking into account her lack of knowledge of male nature and the very misleading indications of his real character she had got from him. In her position would not almost any one have decided that the right way to move him was by holding him at respectful distance and by indirect talk, with the inevitable drift of events doing the principal work--gradually awakening him to the responsibilities and privileges which his entry into a higher social station implied? But no time must now be lost; the new way, which experience had revealed, must be taken forthwith and traveled by forced marches. Before they left the woods she must have led him through all the gradations of domestic climate between their present frosty if kindly winter, and summer, or, at least, a very balmy spring. From what she knew of his temperament she guessed that once she began to thaw he would forthwith whirl her into July. She must be prepared to accept that, however--repellent though the thought was--she assured herself it was most repellent. She prided herself on her skill at catching and checking herself in self-deception; but it somehow did not occur to her to contrast her rather listless previous planning with the energy and interest she at once put into this project for supreme martyrdom, as she regarded it. When he came back that evening she was ready. But not he; he stalked in, sulking and blustering, tired, ignoring her, doing all the talking himself, and departing for bed as soon as dinner was over. She felt as if he had repulsed her, though, in fact, her overtures were wholly internal and could not, by any chance, have impressed him. Bitter against him and dreading the open humiliation she would have to endure before she could make one so self-absorbed see what she was about, she put out her light early, with intent to rise when he did and be at breakfast before he could finish. She lay awake until nearly dawn, then fell into a deep sleep. When she woke it was noon; she felt so greatly refreshed that her high good humor would not suffer her to be deeply resentful against him for this second failure. "No matter," reflected she. "He might have suspected me if I'd done anything so revolutionary as appear at breakfast. I'll make my beginning at lunch." She was now striving, with some success, to think of him as a tyrant whom she, luckless martyr, must cajole. "I'm going the way of all the married women," thought she. "They soon find there's no honorable way to get their rights from their masters, find they simply have to degrade themselves." Yes, he was forcing her to degrade herself, to simulate affection when the reverse was in her heart. Well, she would make him pay dearly for it--some day. Meanwhile she must gain her point. "If I don't, I'd better not have married. To be Mrs. is something, but not much if I'm the creature of his whims." She put off lunch nearly an hour; but he did not come, did not reappear until dinner was waiting. "I've been over to town," he explained, "doing a lot of telegraphing that was necessary." He was in vast spirits, delighted with himself, volubly boastful, so full of animal health and life and of joy in the prospect of food and sleep that mental worries were as foreign to him as to the wild geese flying overhead. He snuffed the air in which the odor of cooking was mingled deliciously with the odor of the pines. "If they don't hurry up dinner," said he, "I'll rush in and eat off the stove. We used to at home sometimes. It's great fun." She smiled tolerantly. "I've missed you," said she, and she was telling herself that this statement of a literal truth was the quintessence of hypocritical cajolery. "You might have taken me along." He gave her a puzzled look. "Oh," said he finally, "you've been thinking over what I said." This was disconcerting; but she contrived to smile with winning frankness. "Yes," replied she. "I've been very wrong, I see." She felt proud of the adroitness of this--an exact truth, yet wholly misleading. His expression told her that he was congratulating himself on his wisdom and success in having given her a sharp talking to; that he was thinking it had brought her to her senses, had restored her respect for him, had opened the way for her love for him to begin to show itself--that love which he so firmly believed in, egotist that he was! Could anything be more infuriating? Yet--after all, what difference did it make, so long as he yielded? And once she had him enthralled, then--ah, yes--THEN! Meanwhile she must remember that the first principle of successful deception is self- deception, and must try to convince herself that she was what she was pretending to be. Dinner was served, and he fell to like a harvest hand. As he had the habit, when he was very hungry, of stuffing his mouth far too full for speech, she was free to carry out her little program of encouraging talk and action. As she advanced from hesitating compliment to flattery, to admiring glances, to lingering look, she marveled at her facility. "I suppose ages and ages of dreadful necessity have made it second nature to every woman, even the best of us," reflected she. If he weren't a handsome, superior man she might be finding it more difficult; also, no doubt the surroundings, so romantic, so fitting as background for his ruggedness, were helping her to dexterity and even enthusiasm. It was amusing, how she deceived herself--for the harmless self- deceptions of us chronic mummers are always amusing. The fact was, this melting and inviting mood had far more of nature and sincerity in it than there had been in her icy aloofness. Icy aloofness, except in the heroines of aristocratic novels, is a state of mind compatible only with extreme stupidity or with some one of those organic diseases that sour the disposition. Never had she been in such health as in that camp, never so buoyant, never had merely being alive been so deliciously intoxicating; the scratch he had made on her throat had healed in twenty-four hours, had all but disappeared in seventy-two. Never had she known to such a degree what a delight a body can be, the sense of its eagerness to bring to the mind all the glorious pleasures of the senses. Whatever disinclination she had toward him was altogether a prompting of class education; now that she had let down the bars and released feeling she was in heart glad he was there with her, glad he was "such a MAN of a man." The guides made a huge fire down by the shore, and left them alone. They sat by it until nearly ten o'clock, he talking incessantly; her overtures had roused in him the desire to please, and, instead of the usual monologue of egotism and rant, he poured out poetry, eloquence, sense and humorous shrewdness. Had he been far less the unusual, the great man, she would still have listened with a sense of delight, for in her mood that night his penetrating voice, which, in other moods, she found as insupportable as a needle-pointed goad, harmonized with the great, starry sky and the mysterious, eerie shadows of forest and mountain and lake close round their huge, bright fire. As they rose to go in, up came the moon. A broad, benevolent, encouraging face, the face of a matchmaker. Craig put his arm round Margaret. She trembled and thrilled. "Do you know what that moon's saying?" asked he. In his voice was that exquisite tone that enabled him to make even commonplaces lift great audiences to their feet to cheer him wildly. She lifted soft, shining eyes to his. "What?" she inquired under her breath. She had forgotten her schemes, her resentments, her make-believe of every kind. "What--Joshua?" she repeated. "It's saying: 'Hurry up, you silly children, down there! Don't you know that life is a minute and youth a second?'" And now both his arms were round her and one of her hands lay upon his shoulder. "Life a minute--youth a second," she murmured. "Do you think I'd scratch you horribly if I kissed you--Rita?" She lowered her eyes but not her face. "You might try--Josh." _ |
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