 CHAPTER XVII Constance and the Real It is our own notion of the first and only fair, yet embodied in a substance, yet dissolving again into a sort of imagination. It is beyond me. Newman. Callista. Martin sat by the fire. Once he shivered a little and coughed suddenly, and Constance looked at him with terror. It was an evil night of sleet and icy winds. He had come to her lodging cold, wet, and exhausted, but with that invulnerable radiance of his untouched by these outward disabilities, the watcher looked at him with sympathy, with envy almost comprehending the haste and ardour of the escaping spirit, hotfoot for the real. Martin now shone for him with a simple light, the more noticeable amongst the cloudy personalities of the town. He was assured in his possession of something to which this comfortable, wage-earning horde had never attained, something which even Phoebe lit by her selfless passion, even Constance, with her eager peering, could not see. The source of this splendour was not far to seek. The shrine of the cup stood upon the table between them. Its doors were closed, a heavy covering of tooled leather shrouded the jewelled angels and winged animals, and the mystical plates that went about them from an inquisitive world. Even thus disguised as it were, in travelling dress, it seemed alien, as any pilgrim angel amongst the nobads tensed, from the busy, shabby civic life into which it had been thrust. So remote and starry a thing might be actual in the city of Cyrus. It was impossibly fantastic in cheap lodgings near Notting Hill. Yet it stood there as it had stood upon its altar, defying the competition of material things whilst meeting them on their own plane, a tangible link between two worlds. The spasmodic thunder of the motor omnibuses on the main road, the rattle of the lighter traffic, the crescendo of the postman as he came, house by house, down the street. These sounds, broken at intervals by those sudden, hateful, inexplicable cries which puncture the London night, had but thrown into a greater relief the deep silence in which the grails dwelt apart, ringed in by its invulnerable reality. She had exclaimed when Martin stood with it in the doorway, Oh, not here, not here, there's no place for it in this world, he had answered. This world is its home. No, no, the pure earth, the clean country, perhaps, but not this foul city. This foul city, said Martin, is many worlds, not one. It lies fold upon fold, and white folds are hidden amongst the rest. And where there is one mind left that can love it, it has a resting place. Can you find such a lover, such a safe guardian here? It was the watcher who answered this question, crying out in her mind humbly and urgently, placing himself down before the exile of eternity, clamouring for the control of his friend's human forces that therewith he might serve, even from the deeps of the dream, the idea which he loved. Now they sat, as it were, by consent, in silence. Martin's words, the watcher's answer, had loosed activities too urgent to find issue in speech. Once glanced perpetually from him, to her other guest, and back again, trying hard to orient her mind amongst these incredible inventors. She knew now the reason of his coming, knew, resented and opposed it with the whole strength of her will. She was beset by emotions, alive with them, each by turns claimed dominion, announcing itself as the accredited agent of that self which sat shrouded within. They grouped themselves, as it seemed to her, into two camps. The army of human things spread very widely, terrible with the banners of life and over against it a little company, most strange of aspect, to which as yet she could not give a name. From the camp of humanity that sad, vague longing for the warm touch of common life, for respect, protection, the peaceful domination of a crude or stronger will, which had tugged so cruelly at her heart in the moment of Phoebe's sudden exhibition of normal and irrational love, it urged on her the joyous necessity of a descent to the sweet and trustful intimacies of the earth, to no fierce appeasement of instinctive passions, but rather to the gentler commerce, the domestic pieties of mutual help, it whispered, they so lease, woe to the lonesome, and glossed this bitter warning with the reminder of the years that she had missed. It suggested to her, as no mean objective, the completing as far as might be upon this human plane of a life that was clearly incomplete. She foresaw the careful forging, the consolidation of friendships of the human social link. She saw Andrew through the long years coming to her for the understanding which she could never return, Muriel taking an affection that she would not repay. She conceived of herself giving and spending, a center of selfless activities, accepting on every hand love, obligation, duty in the sacred name of life, and of life herself as rewarding the faithful initiate with new and mysterious gifts. She saw also the one blot upon this prospect, Vera, and decided that she too must become the object of a wholesome but not inconvenient interest, material for the builder's hands. All her late adventures had but seemed to endorse the propriety of these emotions, their vast opportunities, the finality of the experience on which they converged. They broke it to her, as it were, that the little things of life were taken collectively, worthwhile for the little animals which life had bred, that the amenities of camp life mean more to the private soldier than the far-off idea for which the war was waged. This powerful attack was met by other forces whose action she would have resisted had she dared. Their battle was set against the claims of individuality, against all the tossing banners of the senses, however cunningly disguised. They came like auxiliaries from overseas, born on a strong tide, cold and pure, that seemed to have risen in the soundless deeps, and as a great ship coming by canals into the heart of fertile country, where the watery path runs fine between the serviceable mangled fields will bring landsmen certain tidings of the hidden sea, a hint of far-off adventure lurking in the tarry-ropes. So with the intrusion of this company from unseen immensities, Constance felt upon her face the chill spray of the formless ocean beyond time. She knew but too well whence came these urgent powers, once she had been shut with them in the chapel of the fells, and they had poured forth upon her, overwhelming her judgment and her will. Then she had fled their arms, though she could not escape their remembrance. They had followed her. They were not to be eluded, they pursued, they caressed, they held torches, from which a new radiance was cast on the army of life, so that its ranks took another proportion, its very standards shown with strange tints. The centre, it seemed, of their influence, its symbol was that enshrined chalice, which Martin, leaving the dream, must leave behind. Its coming had brought close to her this terrible yet adorable world, it threatened to impose that world in its unknown obligations upon her mind. She was determined to refuse its presence. She would not permit her life to be deflected by an accidental encounter with Orelik, whose very meaning she did not understand, whose legend her intelligence refused. Her unrest was accentuated by the watcher's distress, possessed by the vision of an unimaginable beauty, feeling close upon him the very benediction of that idea which he had ignorantly pursued through eternity with such utter unsuccessful success, he yet clung to the friend whom he loved. With an odd touch of human feeling he now desired for her the happiness which she had chosen, rather than that tranquility which his reason would have accorded to her. She was bent clearly on tasting it to the full, this tangle of love and death, this terrible combination of intimate union and utter loneliness. When she was set upon it, even to his own despite, he would help her, and yet there was the one love, the one will, the beautiful, the adored, the unattained, only to be reached by him now in so far as he could drag her with him on the way. But she did not wish to go, she would not lend herself to his adventure, and she too, as he dimly discerned it, had her rights. The watcher began to taste something of man's awful choice between his neighbor and his god. When the silence had lasted a little while, Martin said to her, Suppose you talk to me about it. It, she replied. The problem that is pulling you apart, air it a little, it is a splendid opportunity you know, because I am going to die, confessors I think should always be dying men. Detached, she corrected him. Am I not? You are a lover, she said, and a fanatic, which is the same thing. You will show no mercy because you are convinced, but I am not, and I don't wish to be. Your lodger is. But there is another side to my life, a real, warm, actual side, and I want to live it. You would think it commonplace, foolish, unworthy, but it's alive. It means that I matter to another human being. It means that one is not alone. I have tried solitude, I can't bear it, and you would drive me back to loneliness for this. You would not be lonely. I should, along with invisible things, the most terrible solitude of all. And now I am nearly happy. That may be. I've got a friend, a stupid, ordinary friend who is kind, and another, a foolish woman who is lonely, who I can help. It is something to lean on, and something to do, something solid in life. Oh, I know it seems absurdly vague and scrappy. I know that it will go when we are dead. But I want it now, all the same. Well, why not? I don't know, she said, but I'm afraid. I think that when the white light is poured on it, everything will change. There will be a shifting of values and deepening of shadows, a lighting up of hidden things, and I should not be able to go on. And yet, surely my little satisfactions are innocent and reasonable on their own plane? May not my heart know what loyalty, gentleness, and gratitude mean? Since I gave my body the privileges of womanhood, that's over, but my life is not over. It goes on, and there are all the subtler senses to be fed, the delicate joys of action and intercourse to be tasted, the savouries of the emotional feast. I suppose they seem incomplete and unimportant, but they are important to me. They are small. You would find that a bigger love would answer best. She understood him and exclaimed, Don't make me take it, I can't. You do not know. I will not have it, I am not worthy. No one is worthy, was I? I think you must have been, because you love it, but I don't think that I love it, and I know that I don't want it. You don't know that, you can't, because you don't know it, he said, and you never will know it until you care a bit. It's worth your while too, just for the beauty, the intense, the incredible romance, why this, the discovery of it, and you've got to discover, you know, to do your own hunting from the first, it's the most splendid, the most thrilling, the greatest adventure in the whole world. It's the one love affair that never wears out, it's ecstasy on ecstasy, the world remade for you, fiat looks, fresh every morning, and new things gleaming in the ray, how dull not to have it in your universe, the dream and the discipline, the everlasting rapture, and the never-ending quest. She caught for an instant his excitement, trembled under it, she had a glimpse as he spoke of that high romance, that splendid passion. Morton's phrases played upon her nerves as music might, she blushed and breathed quicker, because they were beautiful and exalted her. She heard behind them the wild, solemn and exultant song with which the ages moved to their destiny beneath the hand of love. Then the walls of the room ran back into perspective and caught her as in a vice, the piercing music faded, the sullen noises of reality returned. She said to herself, don't be a fool. And to Morton, no, it's no good, I dare not. It is too overwhelming, against my will, against my belief, it crushes me. It is, said Morton, very inconvenient, and that is what you really mean. You are afraid of it, afraid of being deflected, of hitching your wagon to a star and being dragged perforce up stony hills. Don't be a coward. I am not, but I can't react to this. That inhabitant of yours can, will, it is his chance. Do you owe him no duty? That's dreadful too, here he is too strong for me. He is pushing, eager, he divides things ahead of me, and I am confused in clouds. Won't you help me out? Tell me, explain. Enter the atmosphere of reality. You will get your explanations there. That is all I ask you to do. And all that he asks, you are stifling him with your frittered emotions, your little inconsequent loves and hates. Get into the clearer air, the purer light, and from there, love life as much as you will. That is impossible, she said. This is a strong thing, a terrible thing, pulling. But the other, the thing I really want, is pulling back. They are both life, I suppose. They should both be part of it. But they can't be for me. I am sure of that. Just not to be quite so sure, answered Martin. And to trust life a little when you cannot see your way. There is a cosmic economy, you know, as well as a political one. The angels have their reserves. Here is your opportunity, a unique one, a very mighty thing. Take your talisman, live from that center, love from it. Throw down the barriers, merge yourself in this. Well quarrel with it, because you do not see how it is going to fit. The wind that bloweth where it listeth never fits in. As well quarrel with that, because you do not see how you are going to extract from it the oxygen that you need. You can't get it in any other way, you know, and you can't get the real except in its rare perpetration of the dream. And the word was made flesh, and it dwelt upon us. And we said, how very inconvenient, how disturbing, how hopelessly incompatible with practical life. Well, it is, she said obstinately. It makes a cleavage. You cannot blend it with the rest. Without a cleavage, it is plated right through the very essence, the actualization of life. But earth's got to be in it, in human life, I think. That's the whole point, the miracle of the link, the only place where earth is sanctified and safe. And how, she asked, is your link to be kept safe in the flux and tangle of the dream? Now when we come to the concrete, am I to preserve your relic of reality here as it should be kept? Where is the altar, the solitude, the adoration? I am glad you put that one essential last. As for the rest, they matter nothing. It pleased me, whilst I could, to make things orderly and appropriate, to evoke again the atmosphere of the age that had loved it best. But of course the whole world, more than the world all being, is just a sanctuary for this. His eyes were upon the shrine. They seemed to look through and beyond it into the very eyes of the beloved, as if he had already begun to make his farewell to the dear, visible sign of his joy, and passed in imagination to the secret moment of rapture, the extinguished torch, the silent embrace. They said in a meditative voice, considering as it were from far off her curious case, how odd it must seem to the angels. There you are, you, the clean and glorious soul of you, imprisoned, fettered, peeping out, and you, who might break the fetters, might escape to the sunshine, the splendor, the dalliance for which you were made, are held back because you have persuaded to yourself that your fetters are delightful, educative, even necessary toys. Ah, she exclaimed the pretty words, they make me restless, they remind me of the bars, but if I am imprisoned, it's in a strong and cunning fortress. How can one slip the fetters? How can one escape? If you are honest, you will know when the hour strikes for it. Which goes out by his own gate, it is always just wide enough to let one through. Impossible to prophecy anything more than that. Yield yourself to love, don't shirk it, that is all. You are on the very verge of waking, you know, you have fear and amazement, and that is the initiatory touch, the peep through the bars. But awe is for those who only look upon the mysteries. There is a rapture within and satisfaction of every desire, a place of refreshment, of light, and of peace. The watcher cried in her heart, torn between this fierce, all-satisfying love, the appeasement of his torments, the end of knowledge, the unknown object of his quest, and the troubled, demyred woman bent still on feeling her way by the touch of material things along that pathway to reality, which he discerned, straight and shining before him. Martin Rose. Well, you have got to do it, he said. You found the cup, and you recognized it, you and your lodger. You are the only efficient guardian, merely because, in spite of yourself, you know. But can you trust me with it? Anything might happen. You were so last on a veiling wriggle under his hand. Yes, and if it does, it is all right. Don't you want to tell me what to do? No. Why should I know best? I have finished my trust. I hand it on, now it is yours. You hold the key, not for me to dictate. As he was leaving her, she ran before him, barred the door. I am afraid, she said, to be alone with it. Oh, how wise the people were who invented rites and priesthoods to shelter them a little and stand between. I cannot endure the light, the power, shot in the room with it, day after day, alone with the real. It is too strong, I dare not. The rites and the priests, he answered, are no good, once one cares. Then no shelter avails. I fear it! So gentle, he said, and so passionate, his feet amongst the lilies, his head girded with the thorn. Humble yet omnipotent, desirous and elusive, the most intimate of mysteries, the most mysterious of intimists, a servant of his servants, drinking with them the loving cup of pain, transcendent personality, self-limited to the small powers of your soul. Is it this that you fear? The watcher cried, No, it is this that I seek, that I love. She put her hand over her eyes, then desperately, as if she feared to share his piercing vision, would draw across his only windows the heavy curtain of the flesh, that by this action she blinded herself also, did not weigh with her. She was at a moment in which too great a darkness seemed less terrible than an excess of light. The blessed dimness shut her in, soothed her, it lulled for an instant the torments of her unavailing thought. Only Martin's last words echoed, phrase by phrase, in her empty heart, each sentence struck sharp and clear, leaving a little hammer mark upon the soul. She trembled, sick with apprehension of that which she could not see, but she was faintly conscious of strong and tender hands, as it were that held her, and of her own helplessness within them, a weakness that was peace. The meshes of the will were close about her, she divined them, they were plated into the amazing patterns which she could not understand. They clasped her crumbling body firmly, linking it with the furthest fringe of things, the darkness thickened, and the silence. Far away, as in a dream, she heard the sound of a soft closing door. Then, within her mind, she felt the gentle movement of the watcher, he said, Dear child, poor little one, have no fear. Do not resist. I am your friend, I desire your happiness, but without the idea, happiness is impossible in a world that contains both love and death. She stayed yet a little longer in the darkness, hesitating on the verge of the new life. When she looked up, she was alone with the grail. CHAPTER XVIII THE MISTRESS OF NOVICES O rash one pause, and learn my name, I know not love, nor hate, nor Ruth, I am that heart of frost or flame which burns with one desire the truth. Thou shalt indeed be lifted up on wings like mine, twixt sea and sky, but canst thou drink with me my cup, and canst thou be baptised as I? The cup I drink can only rouse the thirst its lakes not, like the sea, and lo, my own baptismal brows must be their own Gethsemane, W. H. Malak, the Vale of the Temple. During the ensuing days Constance perceived with astonishment the unchanged demeanor of visible things, like most neophytes of the mysteries she had vaguely expected them to react to the incredible conditions in which, with her, they were now placed. For the second time, in her experience, the walls of the world had been broken, once they had given way before the assault of a supersensual curiosity, now they were dissolved by the presence of a relic, a symbol. Wherein, unimaginably, personality and idea were brought to a point, and pierced as a flaming sword the barriers of time and space. A terrible and starry perfection dwelt with her now, yet such was the stubborn quality of the dream that the shabby room, the shabby daily life, were, much as usual, the long exhausting hours of work, the cheap and hasty lunch, two poached eggs in a penny roll eaten amidst the perennial crumbs and cocoa stains of a thriving tea-shop, the homeward tramp through the sodden streets, the grate which smoked persistently since the northerly winds had set in, the pile of mending with which she could never keep up. All these things were still there in the forefront of her consciousness. The strange light which shone in her home did not alter their values. They appeared insensible to its rays. Even Vera, as recalcitrant to spiritual forces as the least animate of things, seemed unaware of any change in her environment. The snowy season had added a chronic cold in the head to her usual disabilities, and she took full advantage of this weakness in pressing her claims upon attention and indulgence. She spoke greedily and persistently of Christmas, and mentioned the exact profit in food and toys which the landlady's children usually extracted from this celebration of holy poverty. I've used five hankies today, as well as all the times I did without, and hundreds of sniffling. Billy had a little gun last Christmas, one you can hurt with when it shoots. Tanta, can't I have a little gun? What would you do with it? Hit things! Billy hit a puppy, and it bled. That was cruel. Don't care, said Vera. I want to hit things, and cats and sparrows. Do let me have a gun, and try to shoot? We will see. All I know about seeing, cried Vera, stormily, the toys you see about are the ones that never come. I want to shoot. I want to hit things like a boy. Say I'll have a gun, or else I'll suck paint off my soldiers and be sick when you isn't here. Santa Claus, said Constance, with authority, brings whatever he likes. People have to take what they get, and say thank you, else he does not come at all, another year. Vera muttered rebelliously. Billy says there ain't no Santa Claus. Nevertheless, she was half convinced, and retreated. The watcher, contemplating the scene, said, strange, yet I suppose that this also has its place in the idea. Constance exclaimed, Yes, but where, but how? Where is the beauty, the love, and the law? I want a link, a guide, he answered. Is it not here? It was, but because she could not apprehend it, it exasperated her. She stood, as it seemed, outside the true field of its power, perceiving the light, dazed by it indeed, but untouched by those chemical rays whose fringe reached the watcher, were received by him with so humble a thankfulness, he said to her with disappointment, I had thought that it would have made you very happy that the real might have solved the discords of the dream. But since it does not, I think you at best leave it alone. From the depths of her spirit another voice replied, I cannot. Far better, he said, it is not for you, it does not belong to your world. I see that now. I had forgotten it. The stir and effervescence of this life are against an understanding of its quietness. You must wait for the settlement of death. It belongs to us, it calls us, it awaits our knowledge. You cannot cope with it from the midst of the dream. The inner voice answered, if we cannot, why is it here? Some of you may. To do so you must leave all else, I think, and go away, as Martin did, into a secret place where there can be no scattering of your love. But you hate solitude and this is a solitary's affair. So leave it alone, until you die. Learn to the life that you wished for, for which your body was built. That is best. Try your own recipe, be happy with the other little creatures. I wish you to be happy. In this too there may be some secret elixir, some syrup of truth. I will help you. You shall forge links and join with the others as that man and woman did who looked at each other with so quiet and strange a joy. You will put the difficulties away. I see them where you cannot. I am determined to undertake your life. She listened to him with astonishment, for he seemed at this moment almost human. He had moved far from his old attitude of arrogance, impatience, curiosity. He spoke as some generous parent, some indulgent friend might speak to a weaker comrade. You a dear and petted child, forbidding for very kindness's sake, the austere and honourable quest, and offering in its place the pleasant valleys, with all that they held of homely, dulcet life. He was for the hills. He longed for them, and she knew it, but because of his friendship he would forego them, yet a little. He was on her side in this, for her immediate happiness, for all the human cares and pleasures that she loved. It was the irony of the situation that this eagerness, this sympathy in him, provoked in Constance's mind no gratitude, but rather a stubborn opposition, an unwilling opposition which, though it hurt her, she could not suppress. It was forced on her by that inner-inhabitant of hers, the tiresome on accommodating thing whose waking moments she had learned to dread. In the presence of the cup this dweller of the innermost kept, as it seemed, incessant vigil. It too loved reverenced life, fertile, strenuous life, but loved it as a pilgrim loves the highway, not as an animal desires its lair. Where she, with the watcher's approval, would have lingered, it was for a forward march with her, it could not tell her, could only cry, on, on, where the watcher now said, rest, enjoy, be passive, do not seek to understand. No use, she said to him then, to try to understand that I cannot, but I feel the pressure nonetheless. Is not your normal chance of pain, love, death, and loneliness enough for you? he answered. Must you share our torment, too? I can never rest until I know the idea in its fullness, because it is my end. I have but a forced option, to suffer or to understand. I think that is what you mean by heaven and hell, but why add this burden to your own, poor, blinded little prisoner of the dust? prisoner within the dream, said the imperious voice again, but when the dream is over, what? Time enough for that, observed the watcher. Here you are conditioned by it, it is the will. Since you cannot annihilate your selfhood, it is best to accept its limitations, live, run, to and fro, enjoy your toys. The urgent voice replied, too late. I have been set upon the road. I will help you to turn back. Once, said the voice, you were for my liberation, you saw its possibility and urged on me its joy. You mocked at her blindness, condemned her transitory toys. I did not love her, then. It is a short-sighted love. You taught it, said the watcher. Tossed between these combatants, Constance found but little enjoyment in the position in which she was placed, whilst they fought, the cup reigned in its silence, and she recognized in it the true arbiter of her fate. She had taken it grudgingly, determined, if she might, to defend herself against its assault. Now there began to happen to her one of the most disconcerting of all experiences, the steady pressure of an influence which is purer than oneself. Then she realized that it is vain to desire to sit in darkness, once one has assumed the guardianship of a great light. That light pierced the doors which hid its material symbol. It grew unawares upon her consciousness. She began to understand something of the mood of those old mystics who imagined in the flaming chalice the utmost secret of their love. The interests, the values of temporal life, slid from her as she gazed at it so softly that she knew not they had gone. Her will, her vision, were chained upon this point where she looked on the eternal self-renewing of that creative agony which is the only fruitfulness. From its midst, as from the midst of a furnace, a voice cried to its mate, and there was that within her which answered the call, through the window of the grail, through the sad colors, the cloudy, faulty glass she now gazed upon that ocean of reality, that soundless sea whose waves had teased and buffeted her blinded soul. She withgathered to a contemplation of that still activity, she felt the searching tide of that inexorable yet compassionate love. She was of it and within it, saw in the mental light that bathed it the tiny and various flotilla of life, as it moved upon the quiet bosom of eternity, the very foundations of its being submerged and supported in these mighty and unsuspected deeps. All the pageant of creation was shown to her then, as in a picture, the beautiful, the cruel, the sublime, the obscene. She saw the plants in their still and lovely acts of worship, the vivid marvels of dappled beasts and glancing birds, soft fur and sharp talons, clash and encounter, hatred and joy. Life bred them, cast them forth, and claimed their dust. She saw the teeming poor, maimed bodies, stifled spirits, blinded eyes, patiently, stubbornly, starving and breeding the cross-bearers of the race. She saw their rare brethren, the toilers of the spirit, enduring all anguish that they might give birth to, an idea. She saw the wise and the foolish, the dreamer and the worker, the creedless and the credulous, critic, fanatic, artist, those who went log over taff rail and sextant in hand, and those who voyaged without reckoning, sailing because they must. She saw also the crowded, aimless vessels behind them, drifting inert before the kindly breeze. Seen thus, the thing had an amazing aspect of simplicity and air amidst all its fussiness, the trimming of canvas, the eccentricities of the helm, of moving towards one inevitable end, one wind filled all the sails, though each wide-swinging compass might give it a different name. To be faithful to their chosen course was plainly the one duty of these navigators, to steer by their sealed instructions, each one of them, however bizarre the evolutions which those secret papers might ordain. In the terror, wonder, and majesty of that voyage, each sailing spirit on exploration bent, yet homeward bound, courage was seen as the supreme virtue of the seaman, the demands of the individual, the mean and peevish cry for pleasure, self-expression, for smooth waters favoring tides, sank to nothingness. She looked deeper, considering her own life, her own path upon that sea. She studied it dispassionately, glancing backwards as it were upon her wake. She saw it began with daring and high courage, the setting forth upon the crest of an erratic wave which had carried her far into the deep. Then she saw the long and solitary days in the rough waters, the constant effort, the monotony, the fatigue. And then the twisted course which she had tried to snatch at a chance of smoother going, when she had disguised her flag that she might range with companion ships and leave her isolated voyage. In the cold, pure light of the cup, in the great vision of the measureless spaces, these natural and human actions, these concealments, adjustments, little tackings to and fro in search of concerts, comforts, change, suddenly took on an unendurable aspect of meanness to choose your course and forsake it. She saw this as the unforgivable sin. She had called life her goddess. She had dared to take rank as a worshipper at that trine. Yet her behavior toward life had been against all the canons of divine courtesy. Honesty, says Richard Rohl, is mestres of the novices. It was honesty who now stood before this postulant and her scourge was in her hand, she said to herself. I knew when I took it that something would happen, but this that I should have to pay now, so cruelly, so late. What now, said the watcher, are you not satisfied yet? No, I can't go on being comfortable and dishonest. It shames me. I have got to go straight. Straight? No concealments. Tell the past. Well, what then? Is that also a grief? It is hell. It's final. It cuts me off. Then don't do it. I must, she exclaimed. It's my way, my path. I have got to go on. I can't bear this accusing light. It is too pure, too cold, but it burns me. But how strange an idea, he said, that you should mind showing the other little creatures the actions of your past. Mere things that you have done, impulses of the mind and movements of the body. These surely have no importance once they are complete. Yesterday's dinner is digested now. It does not count anymore. It reveals the taste that chose it, I suppose, and I am different because I ate it. My makeup has changed. But people know you, see you, said the water. Does a description of the processes that you have passed through alter that result? She answered sadly, it does, for some of them. And that is why one has to tell. But these actions of the past, these things that made you, they are in the idea, they are aspects of the real. So why fear to reveal them? At the utmost, you do but reveal the making of your soul. I don't wish to reveal it. Then do as you wish, keep silence and be happy. No, I must not. You shall. He opposed her, flung against her determination, his strange and lawless will. She fought under it with a sense of wild triumph, and thus meeting him, setting at last the purest flame of her humanity, its justice, dignity and truth against the contemptuous love which counted these things as nothing if by chance they jeopardized her present ease. She was going to give up that ease, to give up everything in existence that she cared for. She was in the act of expelling from her life all friendship, dainty pleasure, social joy, the one way of escape from the hateful, sordid round. In this exalted moment, she was glad. Nothing counted now, nothing at all against the supreme necessity of orienting herself to that cold, adorable and all compelling light. The watcher said to her, how strong you are today, and how foolish. Why should you wreck your little peace for that which you can neither see nor know? It was the obstinate dweller of the innermost who answered, blind obedience is as much my business as loving vision is yours. I cannot understand you, he said again, nor the meaning of this thing which you would do. Time is a dream and your passage through it is illusion. All that exists is you within your now. Where then is the importance of your past? One may have done things in it that the world thinks wrong. Wrong? What is wrong? Said the watcher. She turned from him to the shrine again as if she would extort from it some consolation, a promise that should carry her through the bitter waters toward which she was set. But the light for her was cold, inexorable. It called her on, but only that she might share an inheritance of pain. As the Red Cross called the crusader to the plague-stricken ship, the parched desert, shipwreck, misery and thirst, but gave no certain promise of the holy city at the end. When she was out in the street and the door was shut on her, when she waited for the blue and orange omnibus which went once in ten minutes to the corner of the terrace in which the Vinces lived, there came on her the natural revolt against the destiny which seemed so determined to wreck her temporal content, whilst offering no eternal compensation. It was Sunday afternoon. The streets seemed stagnant. A respectable unwee brooded about the shuttered shops. It was that awful hour in which the city ceases her courtship of visible things to discover that she knows no fairer love to take their place. Constance felt herself to be doomed, just such a condition, to a perpetual wandering and silence broken only by the muffin bell, down gray and muddy roads, between blank walls and prosperous houses which sheltered happy people from the world. She did not want to do it. It was forced on her. As Sunday as forced on an unwilling population in the interest of an ideal which she could not accept. She reviewed the situation, looking for some mitigating circumstance, some opportunity of an honorable compromise with fate. She began to reassure herself remembering Muriel's liberal point of view, that openness of mind which was ready to receive all things, even at the cost of retaining none. Her insistence on the true dignity of womanhood, the importance of individual concepts of life, Muriel, who loathed conventional standards of morality, would feel bound to pretend a certain sympathy, or at least to say that she understood. All then might be well, courage and honesty vindicated at a trifling cost. These considerations upheld her during the journey, and she rang the bell with alacrity, almost with cheerfulness when she arrived. Muriel received her graciously. She was alone and sad as usual upon the floor by the white-tiled hearth where a small wood fire was burning. Her slightened, charming figure composed well against the Persian rugs, the pale, unbroken surface of the wall. Her wheat-colored hair, shown and flickered, as if it were infected by the spirit of the flames. Constance, big and solid, heavily and plainly dressed, determined upon a hateful sincerity, depressed and very tired, was conscious of the absurdity of her encounter with this dear and pretty thing, this adorable butterfly, which she was about to place upon the judgment seat. I am so glad, said Muriel, as she entered, that you came in this afternoon. You have saved me from writing you a note, and in the stress of this terrible season, one is always grateful for that, is not the tyranny of Christmas one of the least desirable legacies bequeathed to us by our ancestors over beliefs? Constance, obsessed by her horrible errand, full of fear now that the moment was so nearly come, longed only for immediate opportunity of speech. He also wished to kiss Muriel before it was forever too late. Instead she sat down and replied vaguely and calmly, it is a busy time. One does not regret the expenditure of energy, for energy is always beautiful in some way. One feels that. And the celebration of a birth, a fatherless birth, seen in the light of our modern concepts, it might well be the typical feast of womanhood. Yes, said Constance eagerly, yes it might, I'm so glad you think that, I felt sure. But the acquisitive faculty of man has seized on it, continued Muriel, and there it's poison lies, it has become a festival of greed, of our most materialistic instincts, our intellect may revolt, but tradition addresses itself to the subliminal mind, and there meets a too willing response. Is it not degrading? Do you know that I, yes, even I, have felt forced to send away six hampers and several dozen picture postcards this year. Constance refused to be deflected. I wanted to see you if I could before Christmas came, she said, to tell you something that I Muriel interrupted again. I hoped that perhaps you would come to us for Christmas, she observed, unless you were engaged to other friends. In fact, I was going to write to you tonight, I haven't mentioned it to Andrew yet, but I know that he will be pleased too. He was telling me that you lived in a furnished room and I felt sure you would find a certain difficulty in getting your meals at such a time. Here we shall, of course, make no changes in our menu. I could not stoop to that, I should not witch Felix to associate ethical ideas with alterations in his diet, and there's no reason why this digestion should be upset because he is celebrating under an allegory the emergence of his spiritual powers into conscious life. You must only expect our usual simple fare, but better a dinner of herbs than a drunken landlady after all. It's very kind, said Constance, rather breathlessly, but I'm afraid I could not come, you see, there's Vera. Of course, that was one reason why I invited you. The children will amuse one another, and besides, I am anxious to see her, an adopted child is always an interesting experiment. One obtains the results of pure theory unthwarted by that terrible parental instinct, which seems to militate against all educational reform. Constance answered, I cannot bring her to this house, it is unthinkable. Once I intended that you should never know of her existence even, I wished to divide my life to keep her apart, but now I feel, before we go any further, I should like you to understand, to know the truth. Vera is not an adopted child, she is my daughter. I came here today determined to tell you that. Oh, do you mean, have you been married? No. Vera looked at her, first with great surprise, and then, to her own intense annoyance, with an uncontrollable horror. In her attitude toward both sin and religion, she had always exhibited that breadth of mind, which is the prerogative of well-read and experience. Now she remembered, for the first time after ten years of this intellectual freedom, that her father had been an archdeacon of the established church. Memory, in its most sardonic mood, reminded her of much that she had said in the interval concerning the pure nature of maternity and the unimportance of the sexual tie. But this did not mitigate the dreadfulness of a visitor worse and intimate who confessed to the possession of an illegitimate child. Constance went on speaking. She seemed to be talking about it, explaining her point of view, but unconventional opinions on such a subject are only decent in those who have never put them into practice. Muriel did not listen. She was thinking hard, trying to square her natural feelings of propriety with her official theories of life. They refused to adjust themselves, those violent and irrational prejudices which she recognized as arising from the subliminal mind as representing with a painful accuracy the Victorian ancestors whom she despised took charge of her consciousness. They said very plainly that it was impossible for Mrs. Vince to continue Miss Tyrell's acquaintance. Presently without looking at her visitor, she stretched her hand towards the bell. Constance got up and went away. End of Chapter 18 Chapter 19 OF THE COLUMN OF DUST BY EVILIN UNDERHILL The slipper-box recording is in the public domain. Recording by Josh Middledorf. Chapter 19 CONSTANCE, ANDRU, AND THE TRUTH TRUTH, I CRIED, THOUGH THE HEAVENS CRUSHED ME FOR FOLLOWING HER, NO FALSEHOOD, THOUGH A WHOLE CELESTIAL LUBBERLAND WERE THE PRICE OF APOSTASY CARLYLE, SARTOROS ARTIS. IN THE EVENING, ANDRU CAME TO HER. SHE LOOKED AT HIM AS HE ENTERED, SURPRISED THAT HE SHOULD SO QUICKLY HAVE UNDERTAKEN THIS EMBARRASSING VIVET OF FAIRWELL. SHE SAID TO HIM AT ONCE, MIRIEL HAS TOLD YOU, I SUPPOSE. YES, YES, SHE TOLD ME AT DINNER TIME, REPLAYED ANDRU, AT DESERT. SO I THOUGHT I'D JUST COME ROUND TO SAY, I'M SO AWFULLY SORRY IT'S HAPPENED, DON'T YOU KNOW. YOU MUST HAVE HAD A BEASTLY TEN MINUTES OF IT, NO NOTION, THAT YOU MEANT TO CONFIDE IN HER IN THAT WAY. VERY FINE OF YOU, OF COURSE, VERY STRAIGHT, ONE ADMIRES IT, BUT A GIRL LIKE MIRIEL, ALL NOTIONS AND NO KNOWLEDGE, SO TO SPEAK, WELL, ONE HARD THEY EXPECTS HER TO TAKE A TOLARAN VIEW OF THESE THINGS. I THOUGHT, I HOPE perhaps SHE WAS SO UNCONVENTIONAL. Well, yes, that's just where it is, said Andrew. Just where people are apt to make a mistake. She talks like that, but at the bottom she is the usual thing. Wish now that I had warned you, I never thought of it, really as a matter of fact, she's just wrapped up in the boy. An intelligent mother, that's her idea, and that is all she means, though, mind you, she doesn't know it, when things contrive somehow to forget the rest. In theory, she thinks it doesn't matter because she has always lived in a comfortable married sort of world. But when the thing is forced on her notice and not quite in order, well, don't you know, he became red and embarrassed. Yes, I see it now, but I had to tell her. I'll quite realize your feeling, Christmas and still, it's a pity. But you were not shocked. Her wreck, it seemed, was not the total loss that she had feared. Well, said Andrew, in a way if you'll forgive my saying so, one guest, don't you know, little niece and so on, so papa, quite a natural idea mind you, and in my opinion quite a justifiable deception. So much better for the child if you can keep it up. But shocked, that's hardly a man's feeling. Very sorry for your sake, of course, hate to think of it. Can't bear to see a woman badly treated and left in the lurch, like cruelty to animals makes one sick. It's a beastly shame the way some cats behave and one has no hold over them, worse luck. Poor girl, poor Constance. She said very quickly, don't pity me. I was not badly treated. But he thrust the subject on one side, through his determination as well as delicacy in the action. Constance perceived that could she but rest at this point she might preserve not only his friendship, but that more precious asset is respect. Nevertheless she insisted, please, make no mistake it was my own fault. I did it. The girls get infatuated, said Andrew, and then they lose their heads, ignorant of the world, very properly so, of course. They don't know what's before them by job. I often wonder that more of them don't get into a mess. I was not infatuated. Eh? He was astonished. It was altogether different from that, and I am going to make you see it. I won't foster pathetic illusions that you be kind to me. This is not a confession, either, for there's nothing in it of which I am ashamed. You shall understand, and then you can sympathize, or leave me, as you please. He expostulated. Only gives you pain making it all up like this and makes no difference, really, these things, old stories between friends, far away. Between friends, she said, there has already been too much concealment, and it isn't an old story, it is I, myself. Not your real self, replied Andrew, soothingly. My realest self. My real, hungry, active self that longed to live. Don't you know, can't you imagine what it is to have powers and ache to use them vacant and see your chances of legitimate satisfaction of life grow hourly less? Listen, I come of middle-class intellectuals of the sterile class, I with this body. She stood up before him, deep-buzzomed, the perfect maternal type, and he thought of Muriel, eager, nervous, narrow-hipped. When I was 27, she said, I could read in six languages, and yet I hadn't lived. I wanted life, I was proficient in the higher mathematics, but I knew nothing. I wanted to know. Can't you realize the fate of such women as I am, whole sound women, perfectly matured creatures, penned, cooped up, wasted? Yes, it's rough luck, said Andrew slowly, when girls don't get their chance. A wholesome woman wants a husband. The words were kindly meant. He was all for excusing her, but they disclosed instantly the ground upon which she faced him, that foundation of mutual contempt on which the relation of the sexes is raised. They lit antagonisms. He ceased to be Andrew, the friend whom she would enlighten, comfort and keep. He became man, who dared judge the vital womanhood which life had placed at his mercy, and who should now, she was determined, hear her case. Something took charge, spoke. Constance, amazed, saw her life unroll before her as she defended it, and suddenly perceived a nobility where once she had only supposed a mistake. And if no man needs us, she said, what would you have us do? Read French novels? Write the right of all living tissue, the right of all conscious flesh, to dip myself into life, deep in, to touch the ground, stir the muddy depths, if I chose. I did it, and paid for it. I don't regret it. Love? This has nothing to do with love. I had machinery at my disposal, the powers of an expert, creative powers. I chose to use them, and there's the result. She held up the washed and faded frock that she had been patching. Nothing very grand was it, she said. I know that. Don't blame me. Blame the accursed and artificial world. What man of my own class, what being on the upward grade would have done that which I asked? Would you? No. You would have talked about chivalry and left me to find a child. Anyhow, I made her, and it's the soundest, solidest, humanist bit of work that I ever did. I'm justified now. My body is ready for death, because I have handed on the torch. It hurt, too, and so I was sure that it was right. She shall be saved in child-bearing. Paul knew something when he said that. She stopped, rather breathless. She wondered what had driven her to this astounding candor. Andrew was gazing at her, trying plainly to extract some indurable meaning from her words. His first sympathy was crossed by a crescent anxiety. When she paused, he said to her, why in God's name didn't you marry the man? I suppose he wanted to marry you? No. She was herself again. More blaggard he. What was he? I don't know, said Constance slowly. I never knew his name. Never knew his name? Great heavens! Is that unforgivable? But how could you? Oh, because I longed for life, she said, for something actual and aboriginal. Something that one could not alter about it. I was sick of thin theories and diluted dreams. I had been book-fed too long. I wanted to get down to the processes of creation, to take my turn. He said again, miserably. How could you do it? I could, just because I had to, because the pressure of life was too great. First I was inquisitive, and then I was on fire. I don't know what happened. On one side it still seems beautiful, though the lining was hideous enough. I wanted the great spaces of the world. I saw them there, stretched out, waiting. I went toward them and found the dust heap. Andrew writhed. Why, he said, why have you got to tell me all this? I don't know. It's a sort of honesty, I think. You represent the human side. You are it. I must explain to them, clear it up before I go on. He resented the necessity, thought her selfish, curious how women loved the confessional. Poor devil of priests. He pitted them. But he was in for it now. He braced himself and she went on. The father of my child was a man, just that. I don't know any more. I went down into the crowd because I wanted the intense, uncivilized thing. But he threw open the gates of life and I saw the workings of it for a moment. I entered into that part of my inheritance. Anyhow I didn't know then about the other part. What other part said Andrew in a dull uninterested voice? The thing behind. The real. This seems to be a real God knows. Amazement and chivalry, compassion and disgust fought in his slow mind. He was deeply unhappy. The loss of an ideal is a serious matter for practical men. He still wished to be very kind, very friendly. One does not turn on a woman when she is confessed to incredible, even to horrible acts. The past after all was past. But he did not look at Constance at all. She saw it. She saw his wretchedness. She came up to him, put her hands on his shoulders, her first familiarity of touch. It was a dominant action and coming at this moment he found it both astonishing and unfair. Oh yes, she said, I am going to touch you with my body at least. That is different. I know you think me soiled, tainted. A little better than... He stopped her and denied it too clumsily. Oh yes you do, she said. Poor Andrew, how little you understand it all. About as much, I suppose, as a breeder of white rabbits understands the evolution of the cherubim. One has got to work out one's own way, you know, and life, your physical life and all material of that. Nothing more. But need you have done this? What else, she asked. What else was I to do? Vince answered almost sharply, I don't see that. Don't see that at all. Nowadays there are so many opportunities for educated women, useful careers open to them, and so on, very different from what it was in my poor old father's Then there was some excuse, I don't say you need have sat at home doing fancy work all day. Single women do a lot of good. Oh, a lot, she said bitterly, paint and scribble and cosy the imperfect games to distract their attention and make them forget. But I know what I'm for, what life is for. I'm ready. I am here. Look straight at the big thing, the element of it. The living, teeming world. Is not the gift of life great and holy? What else counts? And isn't this potting question of our individual rights in poor and mean? What do I care who my child's father may be? What does he do in it? Starts the machinery which ends in birth, his part is over then and I'm left in charge of the race. Haven't we got them? Do we not stand side by side with God and share the very pangs of creation? It's all very well talking like this, he answered, claiming your rights and the law of nature and all that. I've read these notions in books though I never met anyone who acted on them in this sort of way before. But there's more than you in it, there's the poor little kid. One thinks a bit of her, don't you know? No name and so on. No getting over these things. It's bound to crop up later on. Yes, she said gravely, I know it. I owe her a great debt. Vera, the price of truth. Oh, I counted the cost. I had no illusions. But even at that price I would know. As she spoke she remembered another voice which had once cried in her mind she would know and recognized a fellow victim of indomitable curiosity. And even then with that you still think it was well, a right sort of thing to do? Sure it was. From the place where I was then, she insisted. And that's the point. You see, I only knew that edge of reality and I had to live up to my vision. I lived the whole of my animal life in that part of my duty. That's all. To eat and not to reproduce. To take life but not give it. Is that fair? Where I did go wrong was in not walking straight on from that point. Not accepting my portion, giving myself up to my job. I didn't care enough. I don't now and so I tried to be happy instead of thorough. I looked on the path that I had picked for myself it was. But that did not matter of course and then quite slowly I left off being honest attending to my responsibilities. You came and Muriel and the rest I was lonely and I wanted you all so much but the honest thing, the big fact of my life was Vera. Just so said Andrew cheering up a little. But big facts are poor company. Living alone reporting an illegitimate child that is what my big fact meant in the concrete. Nothing more. Women need little things as well. You remember the evening at the play where you were so kind and deferential and gave me sweets I couldn't bear it that night going back to the squalid solitude that I had made. It was then I determined that I would keep you somehow you and Muriel and the others. I wanted her. Far more than I have ever wanted you. I could not forego her. The pleasure of her presence or refinement and the pretty life to dip into now and then. So I took advantage of your ignorance kept quiet. I knew that the child would divide us once I let her. That she would grow up like a barrier to shut me from friendship and joy. Yes, said Andrew somehow. Odd thing if you think it first Muriel and I and Felix coming between us. Now you and I and this little kid. We always seemed to split upon the child. It's always the key of the situation. I could have stood all Muriel's rot indulged it liked it laughed at it if I hadn't seen it being worked out on the boy. And you this affair of yours pays the price really don't you know she represents it always before one impossible to forget Constance replied Truths have to become incarnate before they count at least for solid folks like you and me. He had been speaking to her with the toucher of the old confidence but he caught the note of cleverness in her answer and remembered that in their new relation it was clearly out of place. Oh come my dear little girl he said kindly his tone was too kind an intimation that the angel had come to earth to muddy earth and might be treated without ceremony by those who still choose to handle her. She said well that is it it was good of you to come now you'd better go home it's quite early no matter she stood up before him plainly leaving his dismissal he rose and took his hat when shall I see you again he asked easily you won't now why on earth not said Andrew don't be foolish I rather fancy you might try something of this kind you mustn't imagine that I that it makes any difference between us Muriel well that goes without saying can't expect a woman to take a broad line of things above all with her female friends there's the boy to think of but you and I are old enough to take care of ourselves aren't we yes she answered we are and to know what we want I wanted two things your respect and my own I couldn't have both it seems he reassured her you're mistaken quite afraid I might have spoken hastily one was surprised just at first don't you know you mustn't take any notice I know she said you're very sorry for me and you're going to be horribly charitable about it and never mind me of the past you will condescend to come to my home though I may not enter yours and you think that is worthwhile why a curate could do as much go do you hear I won't have you I can bear solitude yes I mean to but no more compromise I've been left alive for a bit all these years and I never knew how dead I was she stopped and laughed at him oh and if only you knew why I did it she said why I told you had to be honest if you knew the rest of the tale how mad how wildly mad you'd think me Andrew replied well you are a bit cranky today any objection in coming why the devil should you mind if I come my affections have still their independence they shan't accept outdoor relief he did not understand this and therefore resented it he was confused for the interview had not taken the course which his illusions had led him to expect there had been something pathetic almost respectable and his idea of Constance's fall from virtue and in the little girl a possible link between them and had looked forward to his own broad-minded act of kindness to an enduring connection which should be faintly flavored by a natural gratitude on her side a tolerant comprehension upon his but it was all very different from this she did not want him it was she after all who usurped the prerogative of virtue and cast him off a disappointing woman in this respect he had once thought her an exception to her sex nevertheless as he went down the long flight of stairs he said to himself damn if I don't send that poor little kid a jolly Christmas present all the same as for Constance once he had gone her high courage left her quickly it was one thing to burn your boats when they have brought you to the invasion of a desirable country another to destroy them when they have cast you upon the arid shores of no man's land she had obeyed orders blindly no more came in this ghastly moment when she knew herself solitary in the world cut off by her own honesty from her kind the cup gave to her no comfortable light she sat huddled before it before the closed doors of the shrine in the empty and hideous room she hated that triumphant chalice which had brought her to this miserable past hated it as children hate in their gusty wrath the masters whom they are impelled to obey the watcher within whispered words of affection and grief but he was a spiritual thing she could not touch him it is only at the end of our education that we can learn to find our comfort in a voice End of Chapter 19 Chapter 20 of A Column of Dust by Evelyn Underhill this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain recording by Josh Middledorf Chapter 20 How Constance Kept Christmas est-vous couvert de blessure mortelle que l'amour vous embrasse et vous voilà sauvée You covered with mortal wounds Love will kiss you and you will be saved On Christmas Eve Constance returned late from the bookshop to find Mrs. Reed sitting before the fire with Vera rolled in blankets in her arms Helen said I came in after supper to see whether you would want me at the shop tomorrow morning Mr. Lampton had not decided when I left my child was awake I heard her crying so I could not help going in to see whether there was anything I could do sometimes you know a little drink of water will send them off to sleep but she seemed so restless that at last I got her up and stayed a little while to comfort her Constance unpinned her hat took off the cheap fur and ready-made coat of grey tweed went to the mirror and patted her hair into place Half past ten she said what a day I'm sorry you have to wait so long no we need not go tomorrow all the arrears are cleared off at last I've been doing up parcels ever since we closed you're free till Monday now let me take Vera back to bed you must be tired out she's far too heavy to nurse for more than a few minutes at a time I don't think she's very well Constance parted the blankets and looked at the child more carefully Vera slept with her head sunk forward her mouth open her face had an odd and waxen pallor there were brownish shadows under her eyes every now and then she gasped for breath and curious twitchings ran along her limbs at once the watcher stirred eagerly and whispered the child is very sick perhaps she will die you will be free to live Helen said let me keep the little thing for the present I'm not overtired she's sleeping now she likes the warmth if we move her she may wake again she replaced the blanket with infinite gentleness brooding over her burden with that profound and impersonal love which comes naturally to those who have been disciplined in the service of the weak she looked in spite of her uncomfortable attitude utterly contented and utterly at rest Constance felt herself cast out from the magic ring which was made easily and naturally as Giotto's circle by the women's arms about the suffering child she, the mother whose sublime opportunity was here knelted Helen's side agitated and helpless confused and horrible emotions fancies, fears chased each other through her mind I'm glad that I came tonight said Helen it's so terrible to be alone when anything one loves is ill you will let me stay now won't you you may want some help later on oh I can't do that it may mean sitting up all night with her and you've had a hard day you need rest Helen answered I've had nothing real to do since October and I like it I like to feel that I am useful it takes the loneliness away I can do something perhaps to ease the child a little you see I'm used to nursing I shall know exactly what to do they're much the same old men and little children please let me stay I'm so fond of little girls towards midnight Vera left her sleep and broke into bitter moanings there was no longer any doubt as to the grave nature of her malady as Christmas bells began Constance made up the fire set about the heating of blankets the boiling of water and entered upon a night of struggle and suspense Helen had gone out in search of a doctor she was alone with the three mighty forces which disputed dominion over her life there was first the hidden cup it rained in its austere silence sequestered from the troubled plane of human endeavor surveying it it gave her no help contrasted with the actual griefs the harsh problems of life and death which she felt clamorous about her it seemed unreal an incredible thing there was the child in her arms appealing at this moment all that she had of responsibility and protectiveness of simple natural love there was the watcher in her mind vividly conscious of an approaching crisis he thought it was clear to govern her weakness to save her from the worst consequences of ideals which he found quixotic even insane his attitude was marked by an affectionate vigilance he was like a kindly guardian determined on the social salvation of some young bewildered creature who is ready in spite of prudent councils to sacrifice his happiness to some wild notion of honor or truth all his super sensual powers of discernment concentrated now upon her service he perceived in Vera the one tangible obstacle for that full and pleasant life which she desired and he would help her to attain he saw her chance at hand his chance to act for her to straighten the tangle of her life that incomprehensible past which militated as it seemed in this mad world against all pleasurable intercourse could be shut down annihilated by the friendly hand of death the child was desperately ill the water for whom physical symptoms had no meaning yet discerned unerringly the loosening of the ties which bound her little spirit to the dust as a life she was without value ugly, evil and abortive thing he felt that it was reasonable clearly implicit in the will that the imperfect should be swept from this teeming world in order that the perfect might have air and food and space the watcher was unaware of any reason why the principles of natural selection should be applied in the jungle but neglected in the home eye to eye with him Constance saw it too her freedom the disappearance of many embarrassments social and financial of the dreary and difficult future from which there was no other escape then the emergence of new opportunities a fresh lease of that life those chances of free action which she loved she saw the kaleidoscope abruptly shaken and new and glittering pictures made with this one bit of ugly glass eliminated from the scheme then she realized with horror the prospect which she had been contemplating the prospect of her own child's death she could not help but contemplate its possibility for the watcher with authority held this picture perpetually before her mind he said to her why be disturbed all is well death is acting in your interest you do not love this child no she replied no I don't I want to if only I could then since you do not love where is your reason for clutching why keep and cherish that which you do not even need in this you are more foolish than your fellow creatures surely it were best to let her go I cannot you do not understand death is the one thing in which we may never acquiesce we are bound to fight it keep it at bay human life is sacred how absurd your illusions are said the watcher human life what do you mean by life the crawling dust is this sacred if you mean the spirit which it imprisons that cannot die it can only emigrate and what is the difference between one side of the veil both in the idea she answered perhaps that may be true I do not know but I must go on must keep her as long as I can she is a bit of my life my bit of life given into my care I've got to save her I know it is unreasonable but I must even as a life she is not worth saving imperfect she will never grow never be beautiful never transmit the idea it was true she knew it where then he said is the value of this distorted thing of its little scamper through the dream it must have a value somehow somewhere each of us counts how convinced you are of its importance yet each one of you at a touch an incident may crumble to the dust and another soul will come snatch your dust for its clothing linger a little while and then away this is your destiny so why not accelerate the process help the will imperfect misbegotten things embarrass life confuse it tell them from the dream she answered perhaps but I can't have a hand in it I must not interfere I may bring forth but I dare not undertake to destroy to permit a destruction that I can by any possibility prevent that is beyond my province and life's we can only hand on he disdained to answer her his will as she felt was already active in this matter even whilst he disputed with her he was pressing the child's spirit from existence forcing it as it were into the shadowy dimension beyond the confines of the dream it came to this if she were passive Vera would die she had but to acquiesce and the issue was already decided if she would save her it could only be at the sword's point all her will, all her strength infecting that little feeble body and fighting in it and for it against the oblique charity of her friend she was appalled by the strength which he brought to bear on her defences at his coming he had desired nothing but an extension of his own powers an appeasement of his own curiosity these she could meet on their own level combat if she chose then vaguely he had shifted his centre of interest her comfort, her joy had been objects at least of sympathy if not of care these he had discussed desired but could hardly influence now suddenly he saw action ahead of him he intended a definite outcome of the situation in which they were placed and she was face to face with the strength of an immortal spirit which has at last found something to serve and to love he said to her incessantly leave it to me let me have my way be passive and I will direct your life let the child die let her be pressed from the dream she impedes you it is better that she should go then you will be free to make links with other creatures to reconstruct existence as you choose this also in the light of the idea is but foolishness nevertheless since it is that which you have chosen you shall have it but you must, you shall be thorough fulfil the essentials of your dream she listened bewildered veer removed sobbed I am very badly hurt in my inside she turned to the child seeking vainly and desperately to mitigate her pain she wanted to do it and had to and the human act of ministration at once drove the inhuman influence away veer's mouth was drawn down in the sad grimace of anguish she whimpered feebly each time that she tried to breathe her knees were drawn up under her flannel at nightgown making queer angles beneath its shabby folds it was disease in its most macabre least lovely aspect violently intrusive deliberately grotesque there was nothing poetic nothing to relieve the ugliness of this ill-staged encounter with death but Constance perceived no squalor in the picture concentrated upon the duel which she was so suddenly compelled to fight she forgot the intense fatigue of a body which had been employed in arduous labor for many hours now forgot the hesitations and confusions of a spirit which was called to save at all costs the one impediment to its own liberty and ease she was there confronted by a human need and ended strength arose in her she knew not whence to fight for this dreadful little life as she worked the inward voice spoke words of encouragement she hardly heard them as soldiers in the ecstasy of battle or unconscious of the commands which they obey but in the midst of her labours the ringing out of fomentations the arranging of pillows to keep the weight of blankets she became aware presently of a change in the room in the air of it these determined acts of menial service had as it seemed introduced her automatically to a new dimension where she found her senses to be adjusted to the rhythm of a more extended life on this suddenly revealed plane of being all the old objects of her perception had their place but they were no longer quite natural quite earthly the walls and furniture the hasty litter of bath and kettle towels, pillows, rugs the fire which burned like an arted vision in the unsubstantial great were thin, strange and shadowy yet the life which they decked seemed profoundly, amazingly real as once before in the adventure of the tree she had penetrated appearance and stood suddenly surrounded by truths these truths she observed were sparsely distributed they were four in number herself and Vera the watcher and the grail these things hung actual in the abyss of being they were at once veiled and supported by the webby matter of the dream which shook and trembled incessantly about them the misty earth the papery houses the shrine and the hearth these were there only that they might demonstrate or conceal the thing which mattered the choice which she must now make the adjustment of her soul her immortal reality to the three companions who went with her on this way suddenly the will of the watcher suddenly he put the thing before her with remorseless logic saying since appearance movement change the life and death of the body but illusion why fight to avert the meaningless but inevitable sequence of things check this absurd impulse whilst yet there is time let be do not take sides do not trouble can you not trust me to create for you that terrible fatigue which is the mother of fatalism was creeping over her she had done what she could Vera dozed now among her pillows Constance's hands were idle her tired brain at the mercy of her friend it would be a desperate business as she saw this battle a battle in which she must meet and conquer the insidious council as well as the assertive will where she wondered where the light and strength which the cup might have shed upon her in this crisis what was in her heart which blinded her now to that pure radiance shut her ears to the cry of that love but she knew even whilst she complained cried prayed for the reason of her loneliness this was her hour and she must meet it alone she had been flung as it were into the crucible the fire and the water must do their work her will must stand free unsuade between good and evil make its choice the evil voice disguised as friendship cried in her ears the divine voice was silent it waited to pronounce judgment on the issue of the day yet she was not wholly solitary she had at her hand an auxiliary the strongest of auxiliaries a weak thing for which she must fight she and Vera stood together in this struggle it was impossible to separate their interests she saw it saw them side by side two human souls poised amongst the powers of the air she forgot the combat forgot her own power of choice her whole consciousness was merged in that of the child which stood at the very boundary of life and death this was a mother's business the moment of encounter perhaps for which that mother had been made Constance at this hour forgot all else she did not want heaven or earth life or love she was gone she was not there she ceased to count love divine love the selfless passion for imperfect things came upon her she perceived herself to be greatly blessed in suffering struggling for this to give oneself for the unworthy that in this world of infinite gradation was the only thing worth doing was it not the very pivot of creation the secret of the grail mysteriously found herself initiated into its fraternity sharing from far off in that ecstasy of pain measured by this standard her wretched little sacrifice her baby struggles seemed contemptible but as light fell on them helped them, lent them its own splendor it gave them as it were a consecration this circumstance did not make her happy nothing to smooth the path that she must tread she did not want that asked for no personal reward she was on the right side of this eternal battle she knew it and that was enough she understood now why all nightliness all honor the pure quest of perfection had ever centered in the grail she seized and adored and acknowledged it as the only thing that mattered the lolly the quixotry the humanity of the cross its transcendent chivalry its joy and anguish shamed her in her own quixotic fight with death for the useless life which would but spoil her own she drew near it and there found her lost maternity her selfless love the sun rose hard and frosty upon Christmas day its rays pierced red and level between the houses and lit the chill streets where the lamps of the night offered to it the faint and evil opposition of artificial things it shone into Constance's room where there was no visible preparation for the honoring of the feast the doctor had come and gone leaving a verdict which obliterated all memory of times and seasons the suspense was in the air Vera's state was declared to be critical the very forces of disease it seemed were on the side of the watcher works must be joined to faith if she were to be saved already the faint scent of drugs the piteous makeshifts of a nursing which is conducted of necessity on the most frugal plan had made their invasion the place was littered with evidences of night yet even here in this unlikely corner upon this shabby stage the crib was set the birth of love was honored the light of the cup shone now white and ardent on a lodging which had become a shrine wherein under an image the essence of its worship was preserved it was companioned by that antique symbol of incarnate divinity the very selfless mother wholly concentrated on the well-being of her child but as she brooded over her daughter tended her Constance knew that she had but entered on the first phase of a relentless struggle something indeed she had conquered once for all she had dismantled the hard citadel of self but the watcher was not defeated he remained at large and active he did not submit to her decision he combatted it still in the spirit of that civilization which exterminates savage tribes for their own good he declared war the war of the wisest on his friend in the cold street a belated singer dragging his way back toward the grateful paganism of home hurled at the irresponsive houses the first stanza of a Christmas hymn Christians awake salute the happy born where on the savior of the world was born rise to adore the mystery of love dear me did not know they understood it said the watcher end of chapter 20