A Man's World

A swarm of German tourists broke in upon us, and to escape them we went down to lunch. At this second meal with her she told me something of her life. She had been bred to the faith. Her mother, a Frenchwoman, had married an American. Suzanne had been born in New York. But her three uncles had been involved in the Communard revolt of 1871. One had died on the barricade. The other two had been sent to New Caledonia. The younger, living through the horrors of that Penal Colony, had escaped to America and had brought the shattered remnant of his life to his sister's home. He had been the mentor of Suzanne's childhood.

Six months before I encountered her in Paris, she had fallen sick from overwork, and had come to relatives in Southern Prance to regain her strength. Recovered now, she was spending the last month of her vacation sight-seeing in Paris. She asked me where I was stopping, which reminded me that I had not yet secured a place to sleep. I blamed it on her for having taken me off to the cathedral when I should have been looking up a hotel.

"Why waste money on a hotel?" she asked. "If you're going to be here several weeks a pension is lots cheaper."

She told me of the place where she was staying over on the Left Bank. There were vacant rooms. I dashed away to cancel my sailing, to collect my baggage and, before I had time to realize my good fortune, I was installed under the same roof with her. My memory of the next few days is a jumble of Suzanne in the Musée Carnavelet, Suzanne in the Luxembourg, Suzanne in the Place de la Concorde, pointing out where they had guillotined the king, Suzanne under the dome of Les Invalides, denouncing Napoleon and all his ways.

Coming back from Versailles one evening, I asked her if she ever thought of living permanently in France.

"No," she said emphatically. "I love France, but I don't like the French. The men don't know how to treat a woman seriously. They always talk love."

"I envy them the sang froid with which they express their feelings."

Suzanne's eyes shot fire. Displaying all her storm signals, she flared out into a denunciation of such flippancy. This business of telling a woman at first sight that she made your head swim, disgusted her. This continual harping on sex, seemed nasty. "Why can't men and women have decent, straightforward friendships?" she demanded. She liked men, liked their point of view, liked their talk and comradeship. But Frenchmen could not think seriously if a woman was in sight. Friendship was impossible with them.

"It's pretty uncertain with any men, isn't it?" I asked.

"Well. Anyhow American men are better. I've had some delightful men friends at home."

"And did the friendships last?" I insisted.

"Well, no." She was wonderfully honest with herself. "Why is it? It wasn't my fault."

"Probably nobody's fault," I said. "Just the grim old law of nature. You don't blame the sun for rising. You can't blame a man for…"

"Oh, don't you begin it," she interrupted. "I give you fair warning."

We sat glum on opposite seats until the train reached Paris.

"Oh, bother!" she said, as we got out. "What's the use of moping? Let's be friends. Just good friends."

She held out her hand so enticingly I could not help grasping it.

"Honest Injun," she said. "No cheating? Cross your heart to die."

So I was committed to a platonic relation which even at the first I knew to be unstable.

The next morning, as though to prove the firmer basis of our friendship, she told me that she was expecting two comrades, a Mr. and Mrs. Long, who were then in Germany, to arrive in Paris in a few days. They were planning a tramp through Normandy – to take in the cathedrals. Would I join them? We spent the afternoon over a road map of North-western France, plotting an itinerary.

And then, two days before we expected to start, came a telegram from the Longs. They were called home suddenly, were sailing direct from Hamburg.

"Let's go, anyhow," I said. "We can put up the brother and sister game. These French don't know whether American brothers and sisters ought to look alike or not. Anyhow, what does it matter what anybody thinks?"

Well. We had bought our rucksacs. The trip was planned. All its promises of pleasures and adventures had taken hold on both of us. She hesitated. I became eloquent. After a few minutes she broke out – evidently not having listened to me.

"Would you keep your word? – Yes – I believe you would. I'll go if you promise me to – well – not to get sentimental – really treat me like a sister."

"Isn't there any time limit on the promise? Am I to bind myself to a fraternal regard till death us do part? I don't approve of such vows."

"You're either stupid or trying to be funny," she snapped. "You propose that we go alone on a tramping trip. You could make it miserably uncomfortable – spoil it all. I won't start unless you promise not to. That's simple."

"Well," I said. "Give and take. I'll promise not to get sentimental, if you'll promise not to talk socialism. Agreed? We'll draw up a contract – a treaty of peace."

And in spite of her laughing protests that I was a fool, I drew it up in form. Suzanne, Party of the First Part, Arnold, Party of the Second Part, do hereby agree, covenant, and pledge themselves not to talk sentiment nor sociology during the hereinafter to be described trip…

So it was ordained. We started the next morning – by train to St. Germain-en-Laye.

VI

One of my treasures is a worn road map of Northwestern France. Starting from Paris, a line traces our intended course, down the Seine to Rouen, across country to Calais. It is a clear line. I had a ruler to work with, and the map was laid out on the marble top of a table in the little Café de la Rotonde. Also starting from Paris is another line, which shows the path we did follow. It is less dearly drawn, traced for the most part on a book balanced on my knee. Stars mark the places where we stopped, at night. From St. Germain-en-Laye, we doubled back to St. Denis, then a tangent off to Amiens, a new angle to Rheims. It stops abruptly at Moret-sur-Loing.

I can command no literary form to do justice to that Odyssey – it led me unto those high mountains from which one can see the wondrous land of love.

What did we do? I remember hours on end when we trudged along with scarcely a word. I remember running a race with her through the forest of Saint Germain. I remember a noontime under the great elm in the Jardin of a village café. There was delectable omelette and Madame la patronne chattered amiably about her children and chickens and the iniquitous new tax on cider. I remember the wonder of those century old windows at Rheims and Suzanne's talk of the Pucelle. I remember trying to teach her to throw stones and her vexation when I laughingly told her she could never learn to do it like a man. And here and there along our route, I remember little corners of the Elysian Fields where we rested awhile and talked. Suzanne had found me unappreciative of Browning. Often by the wayside she would take a little volume of his verse out of her rucksac and make me listen. The first poem to charm me was "Cleon." It led us far afield into a discussion of the meaning of life and Suzanne – to make more clear Browning's preference for the man who lives over the man who writes about life – read "The Last Ride Together." Her voice faltered once – she realized I think how near it came to the forbidden subject – but she thought better to read on. After that I belonged to Browning.

Those verses seemed written to express our outing. Whether she looked beyond our walk or not I do not know. I did not. What would happen when our pilgrimage was over I did not ask. The present was too dizzyingly joyful to question the future.

At last we came to Moret on the border of the great forest of Fontainebleau. It had been our intention to push on and sleep at Barbizon, but we had loitered by the way, and at the little Hotel de la Palette, they told us the road was too long for an afternoon's comfort. So there we stopped, to stroll away some hours in the forest and get an early start in the morning.

They gave us two garret rooms, for the hotel was crowded with art students and the better part was filled. I recall how the bare walls were covered with sketches and caricatures. There was a particularly bizarre sunset painted on the door between our rooms.

Lunch finished, we started for the forest. We came presently to a hill-top, with an outlook over the ocean of tree-tops, the gray donjon keep of Moret to the north. Suzanne as was her custom, threw herself face down in the long grass. I seem to hold no sharper memory of her than in this pose. I sat beside her, admiring. Suddenly she looked up.

"Tomorrow night Barbizon," she said, "the next day Paris and our jaunt is over."

She looked off down a long vista between the trees. I do not know what she saw there. But no matter which way I looked, I saw a cloud of tiny bits of paper, fluttering into a waste-paper basket.

"And then," I said, "a certain iniquitous treaty of peace will be torn into shreds."

My pipe had burned out before she spoke again. Her words when they did come were utterly foreign to my dreaming.

"Why did you write that kind of a book?"

There was earnest condemnation in her voice. To gain time, I asked.

"You don't like it?"

"Of course not. It's insincere."

I filled my pipe before I took up the challenge.

"You'll have to make your bill of indictment more detailed. What's insincere about it?"

"You know as well as I do."

Never in any of our talks did she give me so vivid an impression of earnestness. With a sudden twist she sat up and faced me.

"It's cynical. There are two parts to the book – exposition and conclusions. The conclusions are pitiable. You suggest a program of reforms in the judicial and penal system. And they are petty – if they were all accepted, it wouldn't solve the problem of crime. You imply one of two things, either that these reforms would solve the problem, which they wouldn't, or that the problem is insoluble, which it isn't."

"Count one," I said. "Pleading deferred."

"And then – this is worse – you know there is no more chance of these reforms being granted under our present system, than of arithmetic being reformed to make two and two five."

"Count two. Not guilty."

"No jury would acquit you on it. But there's a third count – perhaps the worst of all. The book is horribly superficial. Hidden away in your preface you mention the fact that the worst crimes against society are not mentioned in the code. You gently hint that some Wall Street transactions are larcenous, even if they are not illegal. All hidden in your preface!"

"That's entirely unfair," I protested. "You are quarreling with me over a definition. My book deals with the phenomena of the criminal courts. I have no business with what you or the newspapers call crime. If I wanted my work to be scientific I had to get a sharp definition. And I said that crime consists of acts forbidden by the legislature. I pointed out that it is an arbitrary conception, which is always changing. Some things – like kissing your wife on the Sabbath day – are no longer criminal and some things – like these Wall Street transactions – probably will be crimes tomorrow. Your third count is not against me but against the 'Scientific Method.'"

"Tommyrot!" she retorted. "You try to evade a big human truth by a scientific pretext. You know that ninety per cent of the criminal law, just as ninety-nine per cent of the civil law, is an effort to make people recognize property relations which are basically unjust. If our economic relations were right it would eliminate ninety per cent of crime. And justice – socialism – would do more, it would result in healthier, nobler personalities and wipe out the other ten per cent. There's the crux of the problem of crime and you dodge it.

"You have a chapter on prostitution. It's splendid, the best I've seen – where you describe present conditions. But the conclusions are – well – sickening. Do you really think that taking the poor women's finger prints will help? Of course you don't! It's all wrapped up in the great injustice which underlies all life. You come right up to the point – you say that most prostitution comes because the daughters of the poor have no other alternative but the sweatshop – and then you shut your mouth like a fool or a coward.

"Your book might have been wonderful – a big contribution. Oh, why didn't you? It's only half-hearted – insincere!"

I cannot recall my defense. I tried to make her see how we came at the problem from the opposite poles, how her point of departure was an ideal social organization, while I started from the world as it is, how she spoke in terms of the absolute, and I thought only of relative values, how she saw an abiding truth back of life and I believed in an all-pervading change. We fought it out bitterly – with ungloved words – all the afternoon. Neither convinced the other, but I think I persuaded her of my sincerity, almost persuaded her that "narrow" was not the best word to express my outlook – that "different" was juster. The sun was down in the tree-tops when at last she brought the argument to a close.

"We'll never agree. Our points of view are miles apart."

"But that," I said, "need make no difference, so long as we are honest to each other – and to ourselves."

"I'm not sure about that," she said. "I must think it out."

She stretched out on the grass again and began to poke a straw into an ant-hole. I sat back and smoked and blessed the gods who had moulded so perfect a back. Then she looked at her watch and jumped up.

"Do you realize, Suzanne, that you have violated the treaty? You've talked sociology and socialism. Now – I'm free…"

"Oh! Please don't!" she interrupted. "Not now. We must hurry to dinner."

I got up laughing and we walked in silence, between the great trees, in the falling dusk, back to the Hotel de la Palette. The joviality of that troupe of young artists forced us to talk of trivial things. After supper we stood for a moment in the doorway. Behind us was noisy gayety, before us the full moon illumined the gray walls of the citadel, shone enticingly on a quiet reach of the river.

"Come," I said. "Let's go down to the bridge – the water will be gorgeous in this light."

For a moment she hung back reluctantly; then suddenly consented. But in the village, she wasted much time looking for the house where Napoleon had slept in hiding on his return from Elba. When we came at last to the bridge she clambered up on the parapet. I leaned against it beside her. The light on the river was gorgeous. Although there was no wind for us to feel, the great clouds overhead were driven about like rudderless ships in a tempest. For a moment the moon would be hidden, leaving us in utter darkness, the next it would break out, its glory bringing to life all the details of the picturesque old houses by the riverside. Suzanne made one or two barren attempts at conversation. At last I plunged into the real business of the moment.

"Of course," I began, "if you really wish it, I will postpone this till we get to Paris."

There was a perceptible tightening of her muscles – a bracing. But she did not speak.

If I was eloquent that night, persuasive, it was because I did not plead for myself, but for love. It is sometimes said that love is egoistic, subjective, to me it seems the most objective thing in the world. It is – at its grandest – I think, a complete surrender to the ultimate bigness of life. Without love we have nothing to fight for except our little personalities, no better occupation than to magnify our individuality. Love shows us bigger things. At least it was this I tried to tell Suzanne. She had looked on love as a disturbing element in life. I tried to show it to her as the goal, the apotheosis of life.

It seems to me, as I look back on it now, that I was hardly thinking of Suzanne – not at all of my desire for her. I was talking to something further away than she, perhaps to the moon. I was trying desperately to formulate a faith – to give voice to a belief.

And then she laid her hand on mine – and I forgot the moon. I saw only the glory of her face, different from what I had ever seen it. It was paler than usual and dreamy. It seemed surprisingly near to me. When I kissed her, she did not turn away.

Suddenly it rained.

Much of my life has hinged on just such stupid, ludicrous chances. It poured – soaking and cold. It was a serious matter for us. We were traveling light, with nothing but our rucksacs nearer than Paris, no outer clothes except those we wore. Although we ran all the way we were drenched to the skin before we reached the hotel. The rain stopped as abruptly as it had commenced. We were too breathless to talk as we clambered up the stairs to our garret rooms.

After a hard rub, dry underclothes and pajamas, I wrapped myself in a blanket and lit my pipe. Through the thin partition I could hear Suzanne giving directions to the bonne to dry her clothes by the kitchen fire. Then her bed creaked. From the café downstairs came sounds of riotous mirth. Our talk had been so inconclusive.

"Suzanne," I said, knocking on the door between our rooms. "May I come in? Please. It's awfully important."

There was no answer and I opened the door. The moon, having escaped from the clouds, shone in through the mansard window, full on her bed, painting her hair a richer red than usual. I must have been a weird sight, with that blanket wrapped about my shoulders. But she did not smile. I can find no word to name her expression, unless wonder will do. There was a suggestion of the amazed face of a sleepwalker. Instinctively I knew that she would not repulse me. That moment she was mine for the taking. But I did not desire what a man can "take" from a woman. I wanted her to give.

I sat on the foot of the bed and tried to talk her into the mood I hungered for. It was not self-restraint on my part. I was not conscious of passion. What I wanted seemed finer and grander. If she had reached out her hand to me, all my pent up desires would have exploded. If she had tried to send me away, it might have inflamed me. If she had spoken – I do not remember a word. She lay there as one in a dream. There was a strange, dazed look in her eyes, perhaps it was awed expectancy. I did not read it so.

Hoping to wake her, I kissed her hands and her forehead. The great coil of her hair moved in my hands like a thing alive. Its fragrance dizzied me. Fearful of intoxication, I went apart for a moment by the window, looked out at the sinking moon, until my head was clear again. I came back and knelt by her bed.

"Suzanne. What I want is not a thing for the night, not a thing of moonlight and shadows. What I want must be done by day in the great open air – at high noon – for all time and whatever comes after. To-morrow in the blaze of the sun…"

I could not say what was in my heart. The last rays of the moon touched the profile of her face so glowingly that suddenly I wanted to pray.

"Oh, Suzanne, I wish that we believed in a God – we two. So I could pray his blessing on you – on us."

Then I kissed her on the lips and went away.

The hours I spent in my window that night were I suppose the nearest I ever got to Heaven. It seemed that at last my torturing doubts were over, that I had read in the Divine Revelation, that the way, the truth and the light had been made plain to me. For the second time in my life I had the assurance of salvation.

Just as the rim of the sun came up over the eastern hills, I heard her get out of bed, heard the sound of her bare feet coming towards the door. I jumped down from my seat in the window. My dream was fulfilled – she was coming to me in the dawn.

The door opened barely an inch. Her voice seemed like that of a stranger.

"Arnold. Please go down in the kitchen and get my clothes."

I was ready to open my veins for her and she asked me to walk downstairs and bring her a skirt and blouse and shoes.

"Don't stand there like an idiot," the strange voice said. "I want my clothes."

Well – somehow I found the clothes and brought them back. She took them in hastily through the door, closed it in my face – locked it. I think the grating of the bolt in the lock was the thing I first realized clearly. She was afraid I would force myself on her. We were utter strangers, she did not know me at all.

Once in a strike riot I saw a man hit between the eyes with a brick. It must have knocked him senseless at once, but he finished the sentence he was shouting, stooped down to pick up a stone, stopped as though he had thought of something, sat down on the curb in a daze – it must have been a full half minute before he groaned and slumped over inert.

After Suzanne drove the bolt of her door through the dream, I got dressed and sat down dumbly to wait. I heard her moving about her room, heard her putting on her shoes – I remember thinking that as they had been wet, they must be stiff this morning – then she unlocked and opened the door.

"Arnold," she said in that constrained voice I did not know. "I've got to go away – I want to be alone. There's a train for Paris in a few minutes."

I suppose I made some movement as if to follow her.

"No. Don't you come. I've got to think things out by myself. I've got to" – the strained tone in her voice was desperate, almost hysterical – "Let me go alone. I'll write to you – Cook's. I'm…"

She turned without a word of good-bye and I heard her footsteps on the stairs of the still quiet house. And presently, perhaps fifteen minutes, perhaps half an hour, I heard the whistle of a train.

VII

After a while I "came to." I went into her room and looked about it. In her haste to be gone she had forgotten her rucksac, it lay there in plain sight on the tumbled bed. I went downstairs and drank some coffee and paid the bill. I remember a foolish desire to cry when I realized that I must pay for both of us. In all the trip she had scrupulously insisted in attending to her share. With only our two bags for company I went up to Paris. She had taken her baggage from the pension an hour before I arrived, she had left no address. I spent most of my time in the garden of the Tuileries, going every hour or so to Cook's in quest of the letter she had promised. There were times when I hoped she would come back, when it seemed impossible that I should not find her again, sometimes I despaired. But mostly it was just a dull, stunned pain, which was neither hope nor despair. After three days the letter came. It was postmarked Le Havre.

"Dear friend Arnold,

"It has taken me longer than I had thought to be sure of myself. I cannot marry you. It has never been hard for me to say this before. It is hard now. I know how much it will hurt you. And I care more than I ever did before. More, I think, than I ever will care again. For I can imagine no finer way of being loved than your way.

"If it were not for the pain it has cost you – I would be glad of the chance which threw us together in Paris. The days which followed were the most joyous I have ever known – almost the only ones. I have not found life a happy business. Surely you won't, I doubt if anyone does, realize how sad the world seems to me. But somehow, out of the overwhelming misery about us, you helped me to escape awhile, helped me to snatch some of 'the rarely coming spirit of delight.' They were perfect – those never-to-be-forgotten days on the open road.

"I can't – even after all this thinking, and I have thought of nothing else – understand clearly, what happened at Moret. When you began to talk love to me – well – it was the first time in my life, I did not want to run away. We all have our woman's dream hidden somewhere within us. I don't remember what you said to me there on the bridge but suddenly my dream came big. Love seemed something I had always been waiting for. I kept asking myself 'can this at last be love' – and because I did not want to run away I thought it was.

"When you came to my room I was drunk with the dream. That you did not take advantage of my bewilderment – well – that's what I meant when I said I could think of no finer love than what you have given me. I could not have reproached you if you had. God knows what it would have meant. It might have turned the balance, I might have loved you – in a way. But it would not have been you, and it would not have been what you wanted.