He had suffered intensely in the scene with his wife. He did not believe it possible that she retained such power over him. He drew a deep breath of relief that it was over. Her pride would come to the rescue; for he knew that with her tenderness she combined strength, and with her delicacy1, supreme2 energy.
The exaltation of his great victory of yesterday welled within him and drowned the sense of pain. It had been the most momentous3 day of his life. Visions of his Temple with gorgeous dome4 of gold—rising in the sky from its pile of gleaming marble rose before his fancy. He could hear the peal5 of the grand organ, the swell6 of the chorus choir7, and the response from five thousand eager faces before him. He was speaking with inspiration as never before. He was leading not a forlorn hope against overwhelming odds8, but a triumphant9 host of free, godlike men and women to certain victory.
He thought of the love that filled the heart of the woman to whom he was hurrying, that she should do this unheard of thing while yet breathing the breath of the capital of Mammon.
And then there stole over him, as oil on slumbering10 fires, the memory of her kisses, the melting languor11 of her eyes, the odour of her hair, the fever of her creamy flesh, until his senses reeled as drunk with wine. A smile played about his lips; he quickened his pace, lifted his head high, his nostrils12 dilated13 wide; he looked dreamily over the housetops into the sky and saw only the face of a woman.
He was in the grip of superhuman impulses. In the quickened throb14 of his heart and the rush of his blood was the sweep of subconscious15 forces of nature playing their role in the cosmic drama of all sentient16 life, laughing at man’s laws, making and unmaking the history of races and worlds.
He was justifying17 his desires now in his new-found Social philosophy, which he had studied closely since Overman’s suggestion of its scope.
He knew instinctively18 that between these elemental impulses and the Moral Law there was war. He would reconcile them by leading a revolution that should decree a new basis for the Moral Law itself. He would make these very subconscious forces the expression of the highest Moral Law. It suddenly flashed over him that this was the key to the paradox19 of life. He would be the prophet of the new era, and this beautiful woman his comrade in leadership in the Social Revolution it must bring.
His face flushed with the new enthusiasm, and the glorious autumn day about him seemed one with his spirit. The sky was cloudless with fresh breezes sweeping20 over the seas from the south.
When he stepped to the downtown platform his eye wandered up and down Twenty-third Street and Sixth Avenue and lingered on rivers of women, below.
His own drama, his million-dollar gift, the enormous sensation it had made in the morning press, had not produced a ripple21 on this swirling22 tide of flesh. They crowded the windows filled with feathers and hats, elbowed and jostled one another on the pavements, pushed and squeezed and trampled23 each other’s feet and skirts fighting for standing24 room around the Monday bargain counters, oblivious25 of the existence of the spiritual world, church, God, or devil.
Again the ceaseless roar of the city, calm and fierce as the sea, one with its eternity26 of life, stunned27 him with its immensity and its indifference28. He felt himself once more but an atom lost in the surging tides that beat on these stone pavements, worn by the surge of myriads29 dead and waiting for the throb of hosts unborn. What did they care? If he were to drop dead that moment, in the morning of his manhood, with the shout of victory on his lips, they would not lift an eye from their gaze on hat or ribbon to watch his funeral cortege trot30 to the cemetery31. A brief obituary32 and he would be forgotten.
“After all,” he mused33, “Nature will have her way about this old world and its destiny. Self-development is the first law of life, not self-effacement.”
His brow clouded for a moment as he recalled Kate’s strange reserve and shrinking at his morning visit. Would she, womanlike, at the last moment contradict herself and withhold34 the full surrender of life? It was impossible, and yet he felt a vague fear. At any rate, he had burned the bridges behind. His way was clear. He would bring to bear every power he possessed35 to win her, and in the vanity of his powerful manhood he laughed with the certainty of victory.
When he greeted Kate and bent36 to kiss her she drew back, blushed and firmly said:
“No; we have had our moments of madness.”
And the man smiled.
“I mean it,” she said, shaking her head.
“You will change your mind. It’s a woman’s way. Those moments of bliss37, so intense it was pain, when our souls and bodies met in a kiss, have made a new world for you and me.”
“But we will keep ourselves pure and unspotted,” she answered slowly. “All night I fought this battle alone. Our love is a hopeless tragedy.”
“It shall not be so for you, my shining one.”
“There are others,” she said, nervously38 clasping her hands, “whose lives are linked with ours. The face of your wife I saw last night will forever haunt me with its pathos39. I’ve seen your children once—so like you, and yet so like her.”
“Even so. Life has no meaning now except that you are mine and I am yours.”
“But may you not be mine in a nobler way than the cheap surrender to our senses? We can love and suffer and wait. You love me. It is enough.”
“But, Kate, my dear, there can be no middle course between right and wrong, a lie and the truth.”
She fixed40 on him an intense look.
“Have you told her?”
“Yes, and we have separated as man and wife. She leaves for Florida for the winter. She has agreed at my request to secure a divorce, and you and I will marry under the new forms of Social freedom. Our union will be a prophecy of the revolution that shall redeem41 society.”
“You are doing a great wrong,” she protested, her full red lips drawn42 with pain. “When I think of your wife and children, of her tears and reproaches, I am sick with fear.”
“Perfect love will cast out fear. The world is large. The soul is large. Lift up your head and be yourself. You said to me in this room once you were not afraid.”
“Yes; I had not kissed you then, or felt the bliss and agony of your strong arms about me. Now, I am afraid of you”—her voice sank to a tense whisper—“and I am afraid of myself!”
He seized her hand.
“You will take the risk. You are cast in such a mould,” he said, with ringing assurance. “You are the chosen one, my dauntless comrade in a holy crusade. We will call womanhood from enslavement to form, ceremony and tradition, in which the brute43 nature of man has bound her, out and up into her larger self, the mate and equal of man.”
She shook her head, and her hair began to fall in waving ringlets about her forehead, temples and neck.
“I am afraid. I cannot permit this sacrifice on your part. You must break with society, your friends, your father, your past, your wife and children. I must brave the sneers45 of gossip and the tongue of slander46. It will destroy your work and end your career.”
“It will give it grander scope. Back of the dead forms of the age, the living heart of a new life is beating. It will burst its bounds as surely as the dead limbs in that park will in spring put on their shimmering47 satin which Nature is now weaving in her mills beneath the sod. You and I will open the doors of the soul and body to a new and wider life. And, after all, the body is the soul. I know it as I drink the madness of your beauty.”
“I do not fear the world so much, I shrink from striking a woman a mortal blow. I know what it is to love now,” she insisted sadly.
“Ruth and I have grown out of each other’s life. Besides, you do not know her. Beneath her little form are caged powers you have not guessed,” he replied, with a curious smile. “I groan48 and bellow49 in pain until you can hear me a mile. It is my way. She can take her place on the cold slab50 of a surgeon’s table, feel the crash of steel through nerve and muscle and artery51 without a groan. I might rave44, commit suicide or murder in a tempest of passion, but mark my word, she will lift her lithe52 figure erect53 and, with soft, even footstep, go her way.”
He said this with a ring of tender pride, as though she were his child about whom he was boasting.
“I believe you love her still,” Kate said, flushing with a look of surprise.
“You know her love could not live in the fires with which my eyes are consuming you,” he said with intensity54.
She lowered her gaze and glanced uneasily about as though afraid of him.
“Must the strength of manhood be forever throttled55 by the impulses and mistakes of youth? Great changes in society are impending56. You have felt it. The whole world is trembling at their coming. Changes in the forms of marriage must come that shall give scope for our highest development. I ask you to enter with me into this new world as a comrade pioneer and priestess. We will enter into a marriage so free, so spontaneous no chains shall gall57 it; and yet in the breadth of its freedom so sweet, so strong, so harmonious58 it will be a sublime59 revelation to the world.”
“And you think me fit for such priesthood?” she asked. “There are hidden fires beneath this form you deem so fair. I have never known restraint except in the willing slavery of your love. You do not know me—I warn you. I did not know myself until I felt the mad rush of blood from my heart in your arms yesterday. I am afraid of this woman I met for the first time in the wild joy of your kiss.”
“I’m not afraid of you,” he laughed, springing to his feet and striding toward her.
She trembled at his approach, but did not protest except with a helpless look in her violet eyes.
He stood for a moment towering over her, his feet braced60 apart, his big hands fiercely locked, his wide chest heaving with the exultant61 joy of the mastery of her life, his steel-gray eyes sparkling with the insolence62 of strength.
“We were born for one another,” he said, in low, burning tones. “It was for me you were waiting. Lo! I am here, and you are mine. In you I have seen the ideal that haunts every full-grown man’s soul, of comradeship in every work, sympathy with every hope, the glory of a perfect body, and perfect faith with perfect freedom.”
“And you see all this in me?” she asked earnestly.
“Yes. You are my affinity63, nerve answering nerve, thought echoing thought. In our union I see a love so strong, of such utter surrender, of such devotion of intellect, such mystic enthusiasm and physical joy, its waves must break in ecstasy64 on our souls forever.”
She arose with a sigh, looked appealingly at him, and her lips mechanically said:
“It is wrong.”
But the man saw the flash of unutterable love in her eyes and the tender smile about her full lips; and laughing aloud, he took her deliberately65 in his arms.
He kissed a tear from her lashes66. A tremor67 shook her splendid form, she closed her eyes, breathing deeply, slipped her arms around his neck and sighed:
“My darling!”
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1
delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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momentous
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| adj.重要的，重大的 | |
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dome
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| n.圆屋顶，拱顶 | |
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peal
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| n.钟声；v.鸣响 | |
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swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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choir
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| n.唱诗班，唱诗班的席位，合唱团，舞蹈团；v.合唱 | |
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8
odds
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| n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别 | |
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triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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slumbering
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| 微睡，睡眠（slumber的现在分词形式） | |
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languor
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| n.无精力，倦怠 | |
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nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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dilated
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| adj.加宽的，扩大的v.（使某物）扩大，膨胀，张大( dilate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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14
throb
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| v.震颤，颤动；(急速强烈地)跳动，搏动 | |
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15
subconscious
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| n./adj.潜意识(的)，下意识(的) | |
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sentient
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| adj.有知觉的，知悉的；adv.有感觉能力地 | |
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17
justifying
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| 证明…有理( justify的现在分词 )； 为…辩护； 对…作出解释； 为…辩解（或辩护） | |
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18
instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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paradox
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| n.似乎矛盾却正确的说法；自相矛盾的人(物) | |
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20
sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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21
ripple
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| n.涟波，涟漪，波纹，粗钢梳；vt.使...起涟漪，使起波纹； vi.呈波浪状，起伏前进 | |
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22
swirling
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| v.旋转，打旋( swirl的现在分词 ) | |
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23
trampled
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| 踩( trample的过去式和过去分词 )； 践踏； 无视； 侵犯 | |
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24
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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25
oblivious
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| adj.易忘的，遗忘的，忘却的，健忘的 | |
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eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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27
stunned
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| adj. 震惊的，惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词 | |
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indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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myriads
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| n.无数，极大数量( myriad的名词复数 ) | |
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30
trot
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| n.疾走，慢跑；n.老太婆；现成译本；(复数）trots:腹泻（与the 连用）；v.小跑，快步走，赶紧 | |
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31
cemetery
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| n.坟墓，墓地，坟场 | |
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32
obituary
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| n.讣告，死亡公告；adj.死亡的 | |
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33
mused
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| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
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withhold
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| v.拒绝，不给；使停止，阻挡 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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36
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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bliss
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| n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福 | |
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38
nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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39
pathos
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| n.哀婉，悲怆 | |
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40
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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41
redeem
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| v.买回，赎回，挽回，恢复，履行（诺言等） | |
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42
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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44
rave
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| vi.胡言乱语；热衷谈论；n.热情赞扬 | |
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45
sneers
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| 讥笑的表情（言语）( sneer的名词复数 ) | |
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46
slander
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| n./v.诽谤，污蔑 | |
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47
shimmering
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| v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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48
groan
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| vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音 | |
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49
bellow
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| v.吼叫，怒吼；大声发出，大声喝道 | |
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50
slab
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| n.平板，厚的切片；v.切成厚板，以平板盖上 | |
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51
artery
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| n.干线，要道；动脉 | |
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52
lithe
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| adj.(指人、身体)柔软的，易弯的 | |
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53
erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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55
throttled
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| v.扼杀( throttle的过去式和过去分词 )；勒死；使窒息；压制 | |
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impending
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| a.imminent, about to come or happen | |
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57
gall
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| v.使烦恼，使焦躁，难堪；n.磨难 | |
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harmonious
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| adj.和睦的，调和的，和谐的，协调的 | |
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sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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60
braced
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| adj.拉牢的v.支住( brace的过去式和过去分词 )；撑牢；使自己站稳；振作起来 | |
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exultant
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| adj.欢腾的，狂欢的，大喜的 | |
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62
insolence
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| n.傲慢；无礼；厚颜；傲慢的态度 | |
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63
affinity
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| n.亲和力，密切关系 | |
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64
ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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66
lashes
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| n.鞭挞( lash的名词复数 )；鞭子；突然猛烈的一击；急速挥动v.鞭打( lash的第三人称单数 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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67
tremor
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| n.震动，颤动，战栗，兴奋，地震 | |
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