They were in the hands of Nature, who had brought them thus far, who
had had her will with them so utterly. And now her purpose was to be
revealed to them--now they were to know the wherefore of all that
they had done. They were like two children, travelling through a
dark valley; they walked hand in hand, lifting their eyes to the
mountain-tops, and seeking the first signs of the coming light.

Section 6. Outside, whenever they opened the window, they could hear
the noise of the busy city; and it seemed so strange that
street-cars should jangle on, and news-boys shout, and tired men
hurry home to their dinners--while such a thing as this was
preparing. Thyrsis gave utterance to the thought; and the doctor,
who was in the room, smiled and responded, "It happens twice every
second in the world!"

This was the house-physician, who was to take charge of the case; a
young man, handsome and rather dapper. He went about his work with
an air of its being an old story to him--an air which was at once
reassuring and disturbing. The two sat and watched him, while he
made his preparations.

He had two white-gowned nurses with him, and he spoke to them for
the most part in nods. One of them was elderly and grey-haired, and
apparently his main reliance; the other was young and pretty, and
her heart went out to Corydon. She sat by the bedside and confided
to her that she was a pupil, and that this was only her third
"case".

"Will it hurt me much?" the girl asked, weakly.

And then suddenly, before there was time for an answer, she turned
white, and clutched Thyrsis' hand with a low cry.

"What's the matter?" he whispered.

Her fingers closed upon his convulsively, and she started up, crying
aloud.

The doctor was standing by the window, opening a case of
instruments. He did not even turn.

"Doctor!" Thyrsis cried, in alarm.

He put the case down and came toward the bed. "I guess there is
nothing wrong," he said, with a slight smile. He laid his hand upon
the shuddering girl.

"It is all right," he said, "I shall examine her in a few moments."

He turned away, while Thyrsis and the young nurse held Corydon's
hand and whispered to her soothingly.

She sank back and lay tossing from side to side, moaning; and
meantime the doctor went quietly on, arranging his basins and
bottles, and giving his orders. Then finally he came and made his
examination.

"She is doing very well," he said, "and now, Miss Mary, I have an
engagement for the theatre for this evening. I think there will be
no need of me for some hours."

Thyrsis started, aghast. "Doctor!" he cried.

"What is it?" asked the other.

"Something might happen!" he exclaimed.

"I shall be only two or three blocks away," was the reply--"They
will send for me if there is need."

"But this pain!" cried Thyrsis, excitedly. "What is she to do?"

The man stood by the bedside, washing his hands. "You cannot have a
child-birth without pain," he said. "These are merely false pains,
as we call them; the real birth-pains may not come for hours--perhaps
not until morning. There are membranes which have to be broken, and
muscles which have to be stretched--and there is no way of doing it
but this way."

He stood with his hand on the doorknob. "Do not be worried," he
said. "Whatever happens, the attendant will know what to do."

"The theatre!" It seemed so strange! To be sure, it was
unreasonable--if a man had several cases each week to attend to, he
could not be expected to suffer with each one. But at least he need
not have mentioned the theatre! It gave one such a strange feeling
of isolation!

Section 7. However, he was gone, and Thyrsis turned to Corydon, who
lay moaning feebly. It was like a knife cutting her, she said; she
could not bear to lie down, and when she tried to sit up she could
not endure the weight of her own body. She found it helped her for
Thyrsis to support her, and so he sat beside her, holding her
tightly, while she wrestled with her task. The nurse fanned her
brow, on which the sweat stood in drops.

Thyrsis' position strained every muscle in his body; it made each
minute seem an hour. But he clung there, till his head reeled.
Anything to help her--anything, if only he could have helped her!

But there was no help; she was gone alone into the silent chamber of
pain, where there comes no company, no friend, no love. His spirit
cried out to her, but she heard him not--she was alone, alone! Is
there any solitude that the desert or the ocean knows, that is like
the solitude of suffering?

It would come over her in spasms, and Thyrsis could feel her body
quiver; it would be all he could do to hold her. And minute after
minute, hour after hour, it was the same, without a moment's
respite--until she broke into sobbing, crying that she could not
bear it, that she could not bear it! She clutched wildly at Thyrsis'
hand, and her arms shook like a leaf.

He ran in fright for the elder nurse, who had left the room. She
came and questioned Corydon, and shook her head. "There is nothing
to be done," she said.

"But something is wrong!" Thyrsis cried. He had been reading a book,
and his mind was full of images of all sorts of accidents and
horrors, of monstrosities and "false presentations." "You must send
for the doctor," he repeated, "I know there _must_ be something
wrong!"

"I will send for the doctor if you wish," was the reply. "But you
must order it. The birth has not yet begun, you know--when it does
the character of the pains will change altogether, and she will
know. Meantime there is nothing whatever for the doctor to do."

"He might give her an opiate!" Thyrsis exclaimed.

"If he did," said the woman, "that would stop the birth. And it must
come."

So they turned once more to the task. Thyrsis bore it until it
seemed to him that his body was on fire; then he asked the nurse to
take his place. He reeled as he tried to walk to the sofa; he flung
himself down and lay panting. Outside he could still hear the busy
sounds of the street--the world was going on its way, unknowing,
unheeding. There came a chorus of merry laughter to him--his soul
was black with revolt.

He went back to his post, biting his lips together.

She was only a child--she was too tender; it was monstrous, he
cried. Why, she was being torn to pieces! She writhed and quivered,
until he thought she was in convulsions. And then, little by little,
all this faded from his thoughts; he had his own pain to bear. He
must hold her just so, with the grip of a wrestler; his arms ached,
and his temples throbbed, and he fought with himself and whispered
to himself--he would stay there until he dropped.

Would the doctor never come? It was preposterous for him to leave
her like this. The time passed on; he was wild with impatience, and
suddenly Corydon sank back and burst into tears. He could stand it
no more, and sent for the nurse again.

"You must send for the doctor!" he cried.

"He has just come in," the woman answered; "I heard him close the
door."

The doctor entered the room, softly. He was perfectly groomed, clad
in evening-dress, and with his gloves and his silk hat in his hand.
Thyrsis hated him at that moment--hated him with the fury of some
tortured beast. He was only an assistant; and were not assistants
notoriously careless? Why had the great surgeon himself not come to
see to it?

"How does she bear it?" he said, to the nurse; and he took off his
overcoat and coat, and rolled up his sleeves, while she reported
progress. Then he felt Corydon's pulse, and after washing his hands,
made another examination. Thyrsis watched him with his heart in his
mouth.

He rose without saying anything.

"Has it presented?" the nurse asked.

"Not yet," he said, and turned to look at the temperature of the
room.

It was so, then--there was nothing to be done! Thyrsis was dazed--he
could hardly believe it. He had never dreamed it could be anything
like this.

"How long is this to last, doctor?" he cried. "She is suffering so
horribly!"

"I fear it will be until morning," he said--"it is a question of the
rigidity of certain muscles. But you need not be alarmed, she is
doing very well."

He spoke a few words to the patient, and then turned towards the
door. "I shall sleep in the next room," he said to his assistant;
"you may call me at any time."

Section 8. So the two went apart again; and the leaden-footed hours
crept by, and the girl still wrestled with the fiend. The young
nurse was asleep on the couch, and the elder sat dozing in her
chair; the two were alone--all alone! One of the window-shades was
raised, and Thyrsis could see far over the tops of the buildings.
Somewhere out there was another single light, where perhaps some
other soul counted the fiery pulses of torture. A death--or another
birth, perhaps! The doctor had said it happened twice every second!

Thyrsis was unskilled in pain, and perhaps he bore it ill; he feared
that the nurses thought so too--that Corydon called too often for
something, or cried out too much in mere aimless misery.

But the time sped on, and at last a faint streak of day appeared in
the sky, and the shadows began to pale in the room. Thyrsis started,
realizing that it was morning. He had given up the morning, as a
thing that would never come again. He insisted upon sending for the
doctor, who came, striving not to yawn, but to look pleased. Once
more he shook his head; there was nothing to do.

The street began to waken. The milkman came, his cans rattling; now
and then he shouted to his horse, or whistled, or banged upon a
gate. Then the sun came streaming into the room. The newsboys began
to call--the young nurse woke up and began to straighten her hair.
The elder nurse also opened her eyes, but did not stir; she seemed
to challenge anyone to assert that she had ever been asleep.

"Perhaps, Miss Mary," ventured the young nurse, timidly, "we had
best prepare the patient."

Corydon seemed to rest a little easier now, and they carried her and
laid her on the couch. They made the bed, with many sheets and with
elaborate care; and then they brought her back and dressed her,
putting a short gown upon her, and drawing long white bags over her
limbs. Ah, how white she was, and what fearful lines of suffering
had been graven into her forehead!

She lay in a kind of stupor, and Thyrsis, exhausted, began to doze.
He knew not how long a time had passed--it had been an hour, perhaps
two, when suddenly he opened his eyes and sat up with a bound
galvanized into life by a cry from Corydon. She had started forward,
grasping around her wildly, uttering a series of rising screams. He
clutched her hand, and stared around the room in fright.

They were alone. He leaped up; but the nurse ran into the room at
the same instant. She gazed at the girl, whose face had flushed
suddenly purple; she came to her, and took her hand.

"You feel some pain?" she asked.

Corydon could not speak, but she nodded; a moment later she sunk
back with a gasp.

"A kind of bearing-down pain?" said the nurse. "Different from the
other?"

Corydon gasped her assent again.

"That is the birth," the nurse said. "The doctor will be here in a
moment."

Again the horrible spasm seized the girl, and brought her to a
sitting posture; again her hand clutched Thyrsis' with a grip like
death, and again the veins on her forehead leaped out. Like the
surging of an ocean billow, it seemed to sweep over her; and then
suddenly she screamed, and sank back upon the pillow.

Thyrsis was wild with alarm; but the doctor entered, placid as ever.
"So they've come?" he said.

Nothing seemed to disturb him. He was like a being out of another
region. He took off his coat and bared his arms; he put on a long
white apron, and washed his hands elaborately again, and then once
more examined his patient. His face was opposite to Thyrsis, and the
latter watched his expression, breathless with dread. But the doctor
only said, "Ah, yes."

He turned to Corydon. "These pains that you feel," he said, "are
from the compressing of the womb. Don't let them frighten
you--everything is just as it should be. You will find that you can
help at each pang by holding your breath; just as soon as you cry
out, it releases the diaphragm, and the pressure stops, and the pain
passes. You must bear each one just as long as you can. I don't want
you to faint, of course--but the longer the pressure lasts, the
sooner it will all be over."

The girl was staring at him with her wild eyes--she looked like a
hunted creature in a trap. It sounded all so very simple--but the
horror of it drove Thyrsis mad. Ah, God, it was monstrous--it was
superhuman--it was a thing beyond all thinking! It wrung all his
soul, it shook him as the tempest shakes a leaf--the sight of this
awful agony.

It was like the sudden closing of a battle; the shock of squadrons, the
locking of warriors in a grip of death. There was no longer time for
words now, no longer time for a glance about him; the spasms came, one
after another, relentless, unceasing, inevitable--each trooping upon the
heels of the last; they were uncounted--uncountable--piling upon one
another like waves upon the sea, like the gusts of a raging storm. And
this girl, this child, that he had watched over so hungrily, that was
so tender and so sensitive--it was like wild horses tearing her apart!
The agony would flame up in her, he would see her body turn rigid,
her face flush scarlet, her teeth become set and her gums fleshed. The
muscles would stand out in her cheeks, the perspiration start upon
her forehead. She would grip Thyrsis' hand until all the might of
both his arms was not enough to match her.

On the other side of the bed knelt the young nurse, wrestling with
the other hand; and Thyrsis could see her face flush too, each
time--until at last a cry seem to tear its way from the girl's
throat, and would sink back, faint and white.

It was a new aspect of life to Thyrsis, a new revelation of being;
it was pain such as he had never dreamed it was horror the like of
which was unknown in his philosophy. All the suffering of the night
was nothing to a minute of this; it came upon her with the rush of a
flood of waters--it seized her--instant, insistent, relentless as
the sweep of the planets. Thyrsis had been all unprepared for it; he
cried out for time to think--to realize it. But there was no time
to think or to realize it. The thing was here--now! It glared into
his eyes like a fiend of hell; it was fiery, sharp as steel--and it
had to be seized with the naked hands!

The pangs came, each one worse than the last. They built themselves
up in his soul in a symphony of terror; they lifted him out of
himself, they swept him away beyond all control, like a leaf in the
autumn wind. He had never known such a sensation before--his soul
seemed whirled into pieces. His feeling was apart from his action;
he could not control his thoughts; he was going mad! He loved her
so--she was so beautiful; and to see her thus, in the grip of
horror!

He tried to get hold of himself again--he talked to himself, pinning
his attention on the task of his hands. Perhaps maybe it was his
fancy--it did not really hurt her so! Maybe--

He spoke to her, calling to her, in between the crises. She turned
her eyes upon him, looking unutterable agony; she could not speak.
And then again came the spasm, and she reared herself to meet it.
She seemed to loom before his eyes; she was no longer human, but in
her agony transfigured. She was the suffering of being, made flesh;
a figure epic, colossal, worthy of an Angelo; the mighty mother
herself, the earth-mother, from whose womb have come the races!

And then--"Perhaps she would be more comfortable with another
pillow," said the doctor, and the spell was broken.

Corydon shook her head with swift impatience. This was her conflict,
the gesture seemed to say. They had only to let her alone--she had
no words to spare for them.

"How long does this last?" Thyrsis asked, his voice trembling. The
doctor made a motion to him to be silent--evidently he did not wish
Corydon to hear the answer to that question.

Section 9. For the girl's soul was rising within her; perhaps from
the deeps of things there came comfort to her, from the everlasting,
universal motherhood of life. Nature must have told her that this at
least was pain to some purpose; something was being accomplished.
And she shut her jaws together again, and closed with it--driving,
driving, with all the power of her being. A feeling of awe stole
over Thyrsis as he watched her--a feeling the like of which he had
never known in his life before. She was a creature consecrated, made
holy by suffering; she was the sacredness of life incarnate, a thing
godlike, beyond earth. It came as a revelation, changing the whole
aspect of life to him. It was hard to realize--that woman, woman who
endured this, was the same being that he had met in the world all
his life--laughing and talking, careless and commonplace. This--this
was woman's _fate_! It was the thing for which woman was made, and
the lowest, meanest of them might have to bear it! He swore vows of
reverence and knighthood; he fell upon his knees before her,
weeping, his soul white-hot with awe. Ah what should he do that he
might be worthy to live upon the earth with a woman?

And this was no mere fine emotion; there was no room for imagination
in it--the reality exceeded all imagination. Overwhelming it was,
furious, relentless; his thoughts strove to roam, but it seized him
by the hair and dragged him back. Here--_here!_

She was wrung and shaken with her agony, her eyes shut, her face
uplifted, her muscles turned to stone. And the minutes dragged out
into hours--there was no end to it--there was no end to it! There
was no meaning--it was only naked, staring terror. It beat him up
again and again; he would sink back exhausted, thinking that he
could feel no more; but it dragged him up once more--to agony
without respite! The caverns of horror were rent open; they split
before his eyes--deeper, deeper--in vistas and abysses from which he
shrunk appalled. Here dwelt the furies, despair and madness--here
dwelt the demon-forces of being, grisly phantoms which come not into
the light of day. Their hands were upon him, their claws were in his
flesh; and over their chasms he shuddered--he scented the smoke of
that seething pit of life, whose top the centuries have sealed, and
into which no mortal thing may gaze and live.

Life--life--here was life, he felt. What had he known of it before
this?--the rest was pageantry and sham. Beauty, pleasure, love--here
they were in the making of them--here they were in the real truth of
them! Raw, naked, hideous it was; and it was the source of all
things else! His being rose in one titan throb of rebellion. It was
monstrous--it was unthinkable! He wanted no such life--he had no
right to it! Let there be an end of it! No life that ever was could
be worth such a price as this! It was a cheat, a horror--there
could be no justice in such a thing! There could be no God in it--it
was oppression, it was wrong! He thought of the millions that
swarmed on the earth--they had all come from this! And it was
happening every hour--every second! He saw it, the whole of it--the
age-long agony, the universal birth-pang of being. And he hated it,
hated it with a wild, raging hatred--he would have annihilated it
with one sweep of his arm.

And yet--there was no way to annihilate it! It was here--it was
inevitable. And it was everlasting--it was an everlasting delusion,
an everlasting madness. It was a Snare!

Yes, he came back to the thought--that was the image for it! It
mattered not how much you might cry out, you were in it, and it held
you! It held you as it held Corydon, in throb after throb of
torment. She moaned, she choked, she tossed from side to side; but
it held her. It seemed to him that the storm of her agony beat upon
her like the tempest upon a mountain pine-tree.

Section 10. The doctor's hands were red with blood now, like a
butcher's. He bent over his work, his lips set. Now and then he
would speak to the young nurse, whom he was teaching; and his words
would break the spell of Thyrsis' nightmare.

"You can see the head now," he said once, turning to the boy.

And Thyrsis looked; through the horrible gaping showed a little
patch, the size of a dollar--purplish black, palpitating, starting
forward when the crises shook the mother. "And that is a head!" he
whispered, half aloud.

"But how can it ever get out?" he cried suddenly with wildness.

"It will get out," the doctor answered, smiling. "Wait--you will
see."

"But the baby will be dead!" he panted.

"It is very much alive," replied the other. "I can hear its heart
beating plainly."

All the while Thyrsis had never really believed in the child--it was
too strange an idea. He could think only of the woman, and of her
endless agony. Every minute seemed a life-time to him--the long
morning had come and gone, and still she lay in her torment. He was
sick in body, and sick in soul; she had exerted the strength of a
dozen men, it seemed to him.

But now her strength was failing her, he was certain; her moans were
becoming more frequent, her protests more vehement. The veins stood
out on the doctor's forehead as he worked with her--muscular, like a
pugilist. Gigantic, he seemed to Thyrsis--terrible as fate. Time and
again the girl screamed, in sudden agony; he would toil on, his lips
set. Once it was too much even for him--her cries had become
incessant, and he nodded to the nurse, who took a bottle from the
table, and wetting a cloth with it, held it to Corydon's face. Then
she shouted aloud, again and again--wildly, and more wildly,
laughing hysterically; she began flinging her arms about--and then
calling to Thyrsis, as her eyes closed, murmuring broken sentences
of love, "babbling o' green fields." It was too much for the
boy--there was a choking in his throat, and he rushed from the room
and sank down upon a chair in the hall, crying like a child.

After a while he rose up. He paced the hall, talking to himself. He
could not go on acting in this way--he must be a man. Others had
borne this--he would bear it too; he would get himself together. It
would all be over before long, and then how he would be ashamed of
himself!

He went back. "It is the chloroform that makes her do that," said
the young nurse, soothingly. "She is out of pain when she cries out
so."

Corydon was coming back from her stupor; the strife began again. She
cried out for its end, she could bear no more. "Help me! Help me!"
she moaned.

The head was the size of a saucer now--but each time that she
screamed it would go back. Thyrsis stood up to get the strength to
grip her hand; her face stared up into the air, looking like the
face of a wolf. And still there was no end--no end!

There was an hour more of that--the room seemed to Thyrsis to reel.
Corydon was crying, moaning that she wished to die. There was now in
sight a huge, bulging object--black, monstrous--rimmed with a band
of bleeding, straining flesh, tight like the top of a drum. The
doctor was bent over, toiling, breathless.

"No more! No more!" screamed the girl. "Oh, my God! my God!"

And the doctor answered her, panting: "Once more! once more! Now!
now!" And so on, for minute after minute; luring her on, pleading
with her, promising her, lying to her--"Once more! Once more! This
will be the last!" He called to her, he rallied her; he signalled to
Thyrsis to help him--to inspire her, to goad her to new endurance.

And then another titan effort, and suddenly--incredibly--there burst
upon Thyrsis' sight an apparition. Sick at heart, numb with horror,
dazed--he scarcely knew what it was. It happened so swiftly that he
had hardly time to see; but something leaped forth something
enormous, supernatural! It came--it came--there seemed never to be
an end to it! He started to his feet, staring, crying out; and at
the same moment the doctor lifted the thing aloft, with a cry of
exultation. He held it dangling by one leg. Great God! It was a man!

A man! A thing with the head of a man, the body of a man, the legs
and arms, the face of a man! A thing hideous--impish--demoniac! A
thing purple and dripping with blood--ghastly--unthinkable--
monstrous--a spectre of nightmare dreams!

And suddenly the doctor lifted his hand and smote it; and the mouth
of the thing opened, and there came forth a purplish froth--and then
a cry! It was a sound like a tin-pan beaten--a sound that was itself
a living presence, an apparition; a thing superhuman, out of another
world--like the wailing of a lost spirit, terrifying to every sense!
With Thyrsis it was like the falling down of towers within him--his
whole being collapsed, and he sunk down upon the bed, sobbing,
choking, convulsed.

Section 11. When he looked up again the elder nurse had the baby in
her arms; and there was a wan smile on Corydon's face.

The doctor's hand was in the ghastly wound, and he was talking to
the young nurse, giving her instruction, in a strange, monotonous
tone. "The placenta," he was saying, "often has to be removed; we do
it by twisting it round and round--very gently, of course. Then it
comes--so!"

There came a rush of blood, and Thyrsis turned away his head.

"Give me the basin," said the doctor. "There!--And now the next
thing is to see that the uterus contracts immediately. We assist it
by compressing the walls, thus. It must be tightly bandaged."

Thyrsis had turned to see the child. He looked at it, and clenched
his hands to control his emotions. Yes, it was a man! it was a man!
Not a monster, not a demon--a baby!

His boy! himself! God, what a ghastly thing to realize! It had his
forehead, it had his nose! It was a caricature of himself! A
caricature grotesque and impish, and yet one that no human being
could mistake--a caricature by the hand of a master!

And it was a living thing! It had power of motion--it twisted and
writhed, it bent its arms and legs! It winked its eyelids, it opened
and shut its mouth, it breathed and made sounds! And it had feeling,
too! It had cried out when it was struck!

Gently, with one finger, he touched it; and the contact with its
flesh sent a shudder through every nerve of him. His child! His
child! And a living child! A creature that would go on; that would
eat and sleep and grow, that would learn to make sounds, and to
understand things! That would come to think and to will! That would
be a man!

"Is it--is it all right?" he asked the nurse, in a trembling
whisper.

"It's a magnificent boy," she said. And then she struck a match, and
held the light in front of its eyes; and the eyes turned to follow
the light. "He sees!" she said.

Yes, he could see! And Thyrsis had already heard that he could
speak! What could it not do--this marvellous object! It was Nature's
supreme miracle--it was the answer to all the riddles, the solution
of all the mysteries! It was a vindication of the subterfuges, a
reward for the sacrifices, a balm for the pain! It was the thing for
which all the rest had been, it was the crown and consummation of
their love--it was Life's supreme shout of triumph and exultation!

The nurse was holding the child up before Corydon; and she was
gazing at it, she was feeding her eyes upon it. And oh, the smile
that came upon her face--the ineffable smile! The pride, and the
relief, and the beatific happiness! This thing she had done--it was
her act of creation! Her battle that had been fought, her victory
that had been won; and now they brought her the crown and the
guerdon! To Thyrsis there came suddenly the words of Jesus: "A woman
when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour hath come; but
as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more
the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world." And he sunk
down beside the bed, and caught the woman's hand in his, and began
to sob softly to himself.

Section 12. Later on he went into the street. Evening was come
again--for twenty-two hours that siege had lasted! And the boy had
eaten nothing since noon of the day before, and he was weak and
dizzy.

But how strange the world seemed to him all at once! Peopled with
phantom creatures, that came he knew not whence, and went he knew
not whither! Creatures of awe and horror, who came out of chaos,
and went back into annihilation! Who were flung here and there by
cosmic forces, played with by tragic destinies! And all of them
without any sense of the perpetual marvel of their own being! They
ate and dressed and slept, they laughed and played and worked, they
hated and loved and got and spent, with no thought of the wonder of
their lightest breath, with no sense of the terrors that ringed them
about--the storms that swept them hither and thither, the million
miracles that were wrought for them every instant of their lives!

He went into a restaurant, and sat down; and in the seat beside him,
close at his elbow, was a man. He was a fat man--eating roast pork,
and apple-sauce, and mashed potatoes, and bread. And Thyrsis looked
at him with wondering eyes. "Man," he imagined himself saying, "do
you know how you came into this world? A thing impish, demoniac--purple
and dripping with blood--a spectre of nightmare dreams?"

"W-what?" the man gasped.

"And you know nothing of the pain that it cost! You have no sense of
the strangeness of it! You never think what your coming meant to
some woman!"

And then--in the seat opposite was a woman; and Thyrsis watched her.

"You!" he thought, "a woman! Can it be that you know what you are?
The fate that you play with--the power that dwells in you! To
create new life, that may be handed down through endless ages!"

Thyrsis did not say these things; they were what he wanted to
say--what he thought that he ought to say. But then he reminded
himself that these things were forbidden; these mighty facts of
child-birth, of life-creation--they might not be spoken about! They
must be kept hidden, veiled with mystery--if one wished to refer to
them, he must employ metaphors and polite evasions.

And as Thyrsis sat and thought about this, he clenched his hands.
Some day the world would hear about it--some day the world would
think about it! Some day people would behold life--would realize
what it was and what it meant. They did not realize it now--else
how could it be that women, who bore the race with so much pain and
sorrow, should be drudges and slaves, or the ornaments and
playthings of men? Else how could it be that life, which cost such a
fearful price, should be so cheap upon the earth? For every man that
lived and walked alive, some woman had had to bear this agony; and
yet men were pent up in mines and sweatshops, they were ground up in
accidents in factories and mills--nay, worse than that, were dressed
up in gaudy uniforms, and armed with rifles and machine-guns, and
marched out to slaughter each other by tens and hundreds of
thousands!

So, as he walked the streets that night, Thyrsis made a vow. Some
day he would put before the world this vision that had come to him,
some day he would blast men's souls with it. He would shake them
with this horror, he would thrill them with this sense of the
infinite preciousness and holiness of life! He would drive it into
them like a barbed arrow--that never afterwards in all their lives
would they be rid of. Never afterwards would they dare to mock,
never afterwards would they be able to rest until these things had
been done away with, until these horrors had been driven from the
earth.






PART II

Love's Captivity

BOOK VIII

THE CAPTIVE BOUND





_They sat with the twilight shadows about them. Memories too
poignant assailed them, and her hand trembled as it lay upon his
arm.

"How strange it was!" she whispered. "Have we kept the faith?"

"Who knows?" he answered; and in a low voice he read--

   "And long the way appears, which seem'd so short
        To the less practised eye of sanguine youth;
            And high the mountain-tops, in cloudy air,
        The mountain-tops where is the throne of Truth,
            Tops in life's morning-sun so bright and bare!"_

Section 1. This was a golden hour in Thyrsis' life. The gates of
wonder were flung open, and all things were touched with a new and
mystic glow. He scarcely realized it at the time; for once he was
too much moved to think about his own emotions, the artist was
altogether lost in the man. Even the room in which he lodged was
relieved of its sordidness; it was a thing that men had made, and so
a part of the mystery of becoming. He yearned for some one to whom
he could impart his great emotion; but because of the loneliness of
his life he could find no one but the keeper of his lodging-house.
Even she became a human thing to him, because of her interest in the
great tidings. If all the world loved a lover, it loved yet more one
through whom the supreme purpose of love had been accomplished.

Thyrsis went each day to the hospital, to watch the new miracle
unfolding itself; to see the Child asserting its existence as a
being with a life of its own. He could never tire of watching it; he
watched it asleep, with the faint heaving of its body, and the soft,
warm odor that clung to it; he watched its awakenings--the opening
of its eyes, and the sucking movements that it made perpetually with
its lips. They had dressed it up now, and hid some of its
strangeness; but each morning the nurse would undress it, and give
it a bath; and then he marvelled at the short crooked legs, and the
tiny red hands that clutched incessantly at the air, and the strange
prehensile feet, that carried one back to distant ages, hinting at
the secrets of Nature's workshop. Sometimes they would permit him to
hold this mystic creature in his arms--after much exhortation, and
assurance that his left arm was properly placed at the back of its
head. One found out in this way what a serious business life really
was.

Corydon lay back among her pillows and smiled at these things. Most
wonderful it was to him to see how swiftly she recovered from her
ordeal, how hourly the flush of health seemed to steal back into her
cheeks. He became ashamed of the memory of his convulsive anguish
and his blind rebellions. He saw now that her pain had not been as
other pain; it was a constructive pain, a part of the task of her
life. It was a battle in which she had fought and conquered; and now
she sat, throned in her triumphal chariot, acclaimed by the plaudits
of a multitude of hopes and joys unseen.

There came the miracle of the milk. Incessantly the Child's lips
moved, and its hands groped out; it was an embodied demand for new
experience--for life, it knew not what. But Nature knew, and had
timed the event to this hour. And Thyrsis watched the phenomenon,
marvelling--as one marvels at the feat of engineers, who tunnel from
opposite sides of a mountain, and meet in the centre without the
error of an inch.

It was in accordance with the impression which Corydon made upon
him, as a dispenser of abundance, a goddess of fruitfulness, that
there should have been more milk than the Child needed. The balance
had to be drawn off with a little vacuum-pump; and Thyrsis would
watch the tiny jets as they sprayed upon the glass bulb. The milk
was rich and golden-hued; he tasted it, with mingled wonder and
shuddering.

These procedures filled the room with a warm, luscious odor, as of a
dairy; they were eminently domestic procedures, such as in fancy he
had been wont to tease her about. But he had few jests at
present--he was in the inner chambers of the temple of life, and
hushed and stilled with awe. The things that he had witnessed in
that room were never to be forgotten; each hour he pledged himself
anew, to the uttermost limits of his life. The voice of skeptic
reason was altogether silent in him now. And also he was interested
to observe that all protest was ended in Corydon; the impulses of
motherhood had now undisputed sway in her.

Section 2. BUT even in such an hour of consecration, the sordid
world outside would not leave him unmolested. It was as if the black
clouds had parted for a moment, while the sunlight poured through;
and now again they rolled together. The great surgeon, who had told
Thyrsis that he would wait for his money, professed now to have
forgotten his agreement. Perhaps he had really forgotten it--who
could tell, with the many things he had upon his mind? At any rate,
Corydon found herself suddenly confronted with a bill, which she was
powerless to pay; with white cheeks and trembling lips she told
Thyrsis about it--and so came more worry and humiliation. The very
food that she ate became tasteless to her, because she felt she had
no right to it; and in a few days she was begging Thyrsis to take
her away.

So he helped to carry her downstairs, and back to her parents' home;
and then he returned to his own lonely room, and sat for hours in
the bitter cold, with his teeth set tightly, and the nails dug into
the palms of his hands. It so happened that just then the editor was
beginning to change his mind about "The Hearer of Truth"; and so he
had new agonies of anxiety and disappointment.

Again he might not come to see Corydon; and this led to a great
misfortune. For she could not do without him now, her craving for
him was an obsession; and so she left her bed too soon, and climbed
the stairs to his room. Again and again she did this, in spite of
his protests; and when, a little later, the doctors found that she
had what they called "womb-trouble", they attributed it to this.
Perhaps it was not really so, but Corydon believed it, and through
all the years she laid upon it the blame for innumerable headaches
and backaches. Thus an episode that might have been soon forgotten,
stayed with her, as the symbol of all the agonies of which her life
was made.

She would come, bringing the baby with her; and they would lay it
upon the bed, and then sit and talk, for hours upon hours, wrestling
with their problems. Later on, when Corydon was able, they would go
to the park, craving the fresh air. But in midwinter there were few
days when they could sit upon a bench for long; and so they would
walk and walk, until Corydon was exhausted, and he would have to
help her back to the room.

Thyrsis in these days was like a wild animal in a cage; pacing back
and forth and testing every corner of his prison. But they never
thought of giving up; never in all their lives did that possibility
come into their discourse. And doggedly, blindly, they kept on with
their studies. Corydon mastered new lists of German words, and they
read Freitag's "Verlorene Handscrift" together, and von Scheffel's
"Ekkehard", and even attempted "Iphigenie auf Tauris"--though in
truth they found it difficult to detach themselves to quite that
extent from the world of every-day. It is not an easy matter to
experience the pure _katharsis_ of tragedy, with a baby in the room
who has to be nursed every hour or two, and who is liable to awaken
at any moment and make some demand.

He was such an intricate and complicated baby, with so many things
to be understood--belly-bands and diapers and irrational length of
skirts. Sometimes, when Corydon was quite exhausted, the attending
to these matters fell to Thyrsis, who became for the time a most
domestic poet. He once sent an editorial-room into roars of
merriment by offering to review a book upon the feeding of infants.
But he told himself that even the hilarious editors had been infants
once upon a time; and he had divined that there were secrets about
life to be learned, and great art-works to be dreamed, even amid
belly-bands and diapers. Also, Thyrsis would brave a great deal of
ridicule in order to be paid a dollar for the reading of a book that
he really wanted to read. For books that one wanted to read came so
seldom; and dollars were so difficult to earn!

It seemed as if the task grew harder every week. He went without
cuffs, and wore old and frayed collars, and washed his solitary
necktie until it was threadbare, and lived upon prunes and crackers,
and gave up the gas-stove in his room--and still he could scarcely
manage to get together the weekly rent. He studied the magazines in
the libraries, and racked his wits for new ideas to interest their
editors. He haunted editorial-rooms until his presence became a
burden, and he brought new agonies and humiliations upon himself. He
would part from Corydon in the afternoon, and shut himself in his
room; and sitting in bed to keep warm, he would work until midnight
at some new variety of pot-boiler. After which he would go out to
walk and clear his brain--and even then, exhausted as he was, his
vision would come to him again, wonderful and soul-shaking. So he
would walk on, and go back to write until nearly dawn at something
he really loved.

Section 3. It was so that he wrote his poem, "Caradrion". It was out
of thoughts of Corydon, and of the tears which they shed in each
other's presence, that this poem was made. Thyrsis had a fondness
for burrowing into strange old books, in which one found the
primitive wonder of the soul of man, first awakening to the mystery
of life. Such a book was Physiologus, with his tales of strange
beasts and magic jewels. "There is a bird called Caradrion", Thyrsis
had read.... "And if the sick man can be healed, Caradrion goes to
him, and touches him upon the mouth, and takes his sickness from
him; and so the man is made well." And out of this hint he had
fashioned the legend of the two children who had grown up together
in "the little cot, fringed round with tender green"; one of them
Cedric, and one Eileen--for he had given the names that Corydon
preferred.

They grew "unto the days of love", so the story ran--

   "And Cedric bent above her, stooping light,
    To press a kiss upon her tender cheek.
    And said, 'Eileen, I love thee; yea I love,
    And loved thee ever, thou my soul's delight.'

So time sped on, until there came

   "To Cedric once a strange unlovely thought,
    That haunted him and would not let him be.
    'Eileen,' he said, 'there is a thing called death,
    Of which men speak with trembling at the lips;
    And I have thought how it would be with me
    If I should never gaze upon thee more.'"

So Cedric went to find out about these matters; he sought a
witch--"the haggard woman, held in awe."

   "He found her crouching by a caldron fire;
    Far gleams of light fled through the vault away.
    And tongues of darkness flickered on the wall.
    Then Cedric said, 'I seek the fate to know'.
    And the witch laughed, and gazed on him and sang:

   'Fashioned in the shadow-land,
        Out into darkness hurled;
    Trusted to the Storm-wind's hand,
        By the Passion-tempest whirled!
            Ever straining,
            Never gaining,
            Never keeping,
                Young or old!
            Whither going
            Never knowing,
            Wherefore weeping,
                Never told!
    Rising, falling, disappearing,
    Seeking, calling, hating, fearing;
    Blasted by the lightning shock,
    Trampled in the earthquake rock;
    Were I man I would not plead
    In the roll of fate to read!'

   "Then Cedric shuddered, but he said again,
    'I seek the fate,' and the witch waved her hand;
    And straight a peal of thunder shook the ground,
    And clanged and battered on the cavern walls,
    Like some huge boulder leaping down the cliff.
    And blinding light flashed out, and seething fire
    Shattered the seamy crags and heaving floor."

And so in a vision of terror Cedric saw the little vale, and the cot
"fringed round with tender green"; and upon the lawn he saw Eileen,
lying as one dead.

   "And Cedric sprang, and cried, 'My love! Eileen!'
    And on the instant came a thunder-crash
    Like to the sound of old primeval days,
    Of mountain-heaving shock and earthquake roar,
    Of whirling planets shattered in the dark."

And so, half wild with grief and despair, Cedric wandered forth into
the world; and after great suffering, the birds took pity upon him,
and gave him advice--that he should seek Caradrion.

   "'Caradrion?' cried Cedric, starting up,
    'Speak swiftly, ere too late, where dwelleth he?'
    'Ah, that I know not,' spake the little voice,
    'Yet keep thy courage, seek thou out the stork,
    The ancient stork that saw from earliest days,
    Sitting in primal contemplation lost,
    Sphinx-like, seraphic, and oracular,
    Watching the strange procession of men's dreams.'"

But the stork was cruel and would not heed him, and led Cedric a
weary chase through the marshes and the brakes. But Cedric pursued,
and finally seized the bird by the throat, and forced the secret
from him--

       "'Fare southward still,
    Fronting the sun's midnoon, all-piercing shaft,
    Unto the land where daylight burns as fire;
    Where the rank earth in choking vapor steams,
    And fierce luxurious vegetation reeks.
    So shalt thou come upon a seamГЁd rock,
    Towering to meet the sun's fierce-flashing might,
    Baring its granite forehead to the sky.
    There on its summit, in a cavern deep,
    Dwells what thou seekest, half a bird, half man,
    Caradrion, the consecrate to pain.'"

Then came the long journey and the search for the seamГЁd rock.

   "'Twas night; and vapors, curling, choked the ground,
    And the rock writhed like flesh of one in pain.
    But Cedric mounted up to find the cave,
    Crying aloud: 'I seek Caradrion.'
    And so, till from the cavern depth a voice:
    'Come not, except to sorrow thou be born.'
    And Cedric, panting, stretched his shrunken arms:
    'Another's sorrow would I change to joy,
    And mine own joy to sorrow; help thou me.'
    To which the voice, sunk low, replied: 'Come thou.'
    And Cedric came, unfearing, in the dark,
    And saw in gloomy night a form in pain,
    With wings stretched wide, and beating faint and fast.
    'Art thou Caradrion?' he murmured swift,
    And echo gave reply, 'Caradrion'."

So Cedric told of his errand, and pleaded for help; he heard the
answer of the voice:

   "'Yea, I can save her, if thou be a soul
    That can dare pain and face the rage of fate;
    A soul that feareth not to look on death.'
    'Speak on,' said Cedric, shaking, and he spoke:
    'This is my law, that am Caradrion,
    Whose way is sorrow and whose end is death;
    That by my pain some fleeting grace I win,
    Some joy unto another I can give.
    Far through this world of woe I seek, and find
    Some soul crushed utterly, and steeped in pain;
    And when it sleeps, I stoop on silent wing,
    And with a kiss take all its woe away--
    Take it for mine, and then into this cave
    Return alone, the blessing's price to pay.'
    Then up sprang Cedric. 'Nay,' he,' cried, 'then swift,
    Ere life be gone!' But once more spake the voice:
    'Nay, boy, my race is run, my power is spent;
    This hope alone I give thee, as thou wilt;
    Whoso stands by and sees my heart-throb cease,
    Who tastes its blood, my power and form are his,
    And forth he fares in solitary flight,
    Caradrion, the consecrate to pain.
    And so my word is said; now hide thee far
    In the cave's night, and wrestle there in prayer.'
    But Cedric said, 'My prayer is done; I wait.'
    So in the cave the hours of night sped by,
    And sounds came forth as when a woman fights
    In savage pain a life from hers to free."

Then in the dawn a dark shadow flew from the cave, and sped across
the blue, and came to the little vale, where Eileen lay dying, as he
had seen her in the vision in the "haggard woman's" cavern.

   "Then Cedric sprang, and cried, 'My love! Eileen!'
    And Eileen heard him not; nor knew he wept.--
    For mighty sorrow burst from out his heart,
    And flooded all his being, and he sunk,
    And moaned: 'Eileen, I love thee! Yea, I love,
    And loved thee ever; and I can not think
    That I shall never gaze upon thee more.
    My life for thine--ah, that were naught to give,
    Meant not the gift to see thee nevermore!
    Never to hear thy voice. Nay, nay, Eileen,
    Gaze on me, speak to me, give me but one word,
    And I will go and never more return.'
    But Eileen answered not; he touched her hand,
    And she felt nothing. Then he whispered, low,
    'Oh, may God keep thee--for it must be done--
    Guard thee, and bless thee, thou my soul's delight!
    And when thou waken'st, wilt thou think of me,
    Of Cedric, him that loved thee, oh so true?
    Nay, for they said thou shouldst no sorrow know,
    And that would be a sorrow, yea, it would.
    And must thou then forget me, thou my love?
    And canst not give me but one single word,
    To tell me that I do not die in vain?
    Gaze at me, Eileen, see, thy love is here,
    Here as of old, above thee stooping light,
    To press a kiss upon thy tender lips.--
    Ah, I can kiss thee--kiss thee, my Eileen,
    Kiss as of yore, with all my passion's woe!'
    And as he spoke he pressed her to his heart,
    Long, long, with yearning, and he felt the leap
    Of molten metal through his throbbing veins;
    His eyes shot fire, and anguish racked his limbs,
    And he fell back, and reeled, and clutched his brow.
    An instant only gazed he on her face,
    And saw new life within her gray cheek leap,
    And her dark eyelids tremble. Then with moan,
    And fearful struggle, swift he fled away,
    That she might nothing of his strife perceive.
    And then, reminded of his gift of flight,
    He started from the earth, and beat aloft,
    Each sweep of his great wings a torture-stroke
    Upon his fainting heart. And thus away,
    With languid flight he moved, and Eileen, raised
    In new-born joy from off her couch of pain,
    Saw a strange bird into the distance fade."

And so Cedric went back to the seamГЁd rock, and there he heard a
voice calling, "I seek Caradrion!" And as before he answered,