CHAPTER X.PRACTICAL COMMUNISM.
A day or two after Ezra had laid his commands upon his wife, as we saw in the last chapter, he came home in the evening to find her in floods of tears. Her eyelids were all red with weeping, and she broke out afresh on seeing him.
“What’s the matter?” asked Ezra, in much concern. “What has happened?”
“My poor flowers, my pretty balsams!” sobbed Olive.
“Has the calf got into your garden and spoiled your flowers, my poor child?” he said tenderly.
“No, it wasn’t the calf, but they are all gone. Mary Winkle took them all.”
“Oh!” said Ezra with a slight shock of surprise.
“Yes, she has cleared the whole garden. She came to-day while I was out at Mrs. Huntley’s.”
“How do you know it is she who has taken them?”
“Napoleon Pompey told me he saw her pick them.”
“Depend upon it, he is lying,” said Ezra withemphasis. “Negroes are as mischievous as monkeys, and——”
“No, he didn’t do anything to the flowers,” interrupted Olive. “He was as pleased with them almost as I was myself, and worked ever so hard to help keep down the weeds. Besides, I went to Mary Winkle and saw them.”
“Oh!” said Ezra helplessly. He wished it had been the calf or Napoleon Pompey or anybody or anything rather than Mary Winkle. He braced himself for what was coming.
“She told me she did it with a purpose. She said I was getting more individualistic in my leanings every day, and that time was not curing me at all, that I was selfishly proud of my flowers. It isn’t one bit true,” sobbed Olive, with quivering chin. “I gave heaps of them away. I gathered a bunch for Mrs. Huntley just as I was going this morning.”
Ezra groaned. “I know you did, dear,” he said.
“She said I gloated over them and rejoiced because nobody else had any. I didn’t. I only loved them because I had tended them and reared them, and I knew them and watched for their buds. She said they didn’t belong to me, but to the Community, and that she took them on behalf of the general weal. Those are all grand words for nasty mean jealousy and covetousness,” said Olive passionately. “I hate Mary Winkle and I hate the Community.”
“Oh, Olive, Olive!” cried Ezra with a gesture ofentreaty. “Don’t say that, dear. It strikes me to the heart. Think of me, dear.”
“My pretty flowers!” she said with a drooping of her mouth that betokened fresh tears.
“I am so sorry, oh, more sorry than I can say,” said Ezra. “Mary Winkle has done wrong, and has administered a lesson in a cruel, brutal way.”
“She has no business to give me lessons at all, and I won’t take them from her,” cried Olive passionately. “I hate being the one to be always taught. They think themselves so superior and are always stooping to raise me. Let them raise themselves first. I can see where Mary Winkle needs teaching and correction as plainly as anybody. She is only communistic in regard to things she doesn’t really care about.”
“No, no Ollie, darling. It is really a deep conviction with us all, although in this case most unkindly illustrated,” said Ezra gently.
“I know you think so in all honesty, but it isn’t so in reality. Nobody is nor can be communistic about what they love, if it is real love. If they are communistic about a thing it is because they don’t really care.”
Ezra knew by the pang of jealousy in his own heart that this was an insurmountable truth his little wife was hurling forth in her anger.
“Mary Winkle isn’t communistic. I’m not clever and able to say wise things and use long words that amaze people like Brother Wright, but for all that Ican see some things clearly enough. Mary Winkle isn’t any more communistic than I am, only we love different things.”
“I think you mistake,” said Ezra.
“No, I don’t mistake one bit. Let Mary Winkle, if she is communistic in all the moods and tenses, lump her child with the two little Carpenters and draw lots to take one of the three for her own. Would that satisfy her heart, although the precious principles would be right enough? Of course not, because her heart would step in and claim its own by the divine right of love. I should be thoroughly communistic on the score of these children. I shouldn’t mind to draw lots as to whether Willette or Nelly or Johnny Carpenter was going to come to live with me. One would do as well as another, and I could be thoroughly communistic, because I don’t love any of them very deeply. My little flowers I did love. It wasn’t that I had worked for them and grudged the fruit of my labour. I would work in a turnip field and let anyone who liked have the turnips, nasty, watery, pulpy things, but I loved those flowers and tended them and they were mine. I don’t care about the philosophy of the question. You will perhaps some day see what I mean, Ezra, and understand me. I know you don’t now. You think me a silly child.”
In his own heart he thought he understood more clearly than he liked to confess, that Olive was speaking more than philosophy, she was announcing stubbornfacts. However, he strove his utmost to soothe her feelings, for he could see that if an attitude of strife and hostility were once set up between her and Mary Winkle, it would not only affect his wife’s happiness but might have very serious results upon the future of Perfection City. There were only a very few of them, and if the experiment was to succeed it could only do so through unity, while strife and internal dissensions would certainly destroy it without giving it a chance. This point was fruitful of deep meditation, and occasioned heart-searchings to Ezra. It indeed augured ill for the future, not only of Perfection City, but of all those other cities of their imagination which should spring from this mother plant, if the personal feelings of a couple of good women were potent enough to wreck the scheme. Surely, in the dozen or so choice spirits who now formed the entire population of that City, there could be none of those latent forces making for destruction which would have to be reckoned with in the future and larger experiments in communism they were leading up to. If it was so difficult to soothe ruffled feelings in Perfection City now, and to compose a quarrel about some wretched little balsams, what would happen when, in a larger Perfection City, deeper cause of dispute arose between numbers of persons? Ezra’s mind recoiled aghast at the answer which rose up in his mind in reply to that question. There would have to be some strong, some overwhelming central power,a despot in short. Was this then the goal which they were to reach after toiling along a hard and stony road of personal effort? A despotism or a monasticism, in either case tyranny and subjection. Surely, oh surely, there must be some other solution which his mind, disturbed by the sight of his little wife’s distress, had unaccountably failed to formulate. He would go to Madame and would seek guidance from her illumined mind.
Olive, spent by her emotions, had gone to sleep quite early, so Ezra sallied forth to seek counsel where he was used to find it. Madame would be sure to be still up—though it was late by prairie hours, after nine o’clock—as he knew by experience, for in his bachelor days he had often spent long evenings in discussion and talk with her. Since his marriage, however, he had never gone alone in the evening to talk with Madame. Happy in his own love, he had felt no need of other companionship, and now as he walked along to her house, he began to wonder if she had noticed the sudden cessation of the evening talks, and also to wonder if she had missed them. It was thoughtless never to have gone near her during all these weeks. It was selfish, seeing how kind, how always sympathetic she had been to him for so many months, during the time when he felt lonely and full of undefined longings, before his heart had found complete rest in Olive’s love and above all in his love for her. Ezra thinking of these things was smitten with remorse,and made a resolution to go and see Madame of an evening sometimes and to bring Olive with him. Meantime he walked along and in a few moments knocked at the familiar door. Madame opened it herself, with Balthasar in close attendance. The latter, on satisfying himself that it was a person of friendly intentions who claimed admittance, walked back to the spot where he had been lying, and resumed the thread of his interrupted slumbers.
“Brother Ezra, this is indeed a most unexpected visit. I hope it is not because there is anything wrong in your little home,” said Madame gravely.
Ezra felt much embarrassed. He could hardly say there was nothing the matter, and still less could he apologise for having forgotten during all these happy weeks to come to see her. He did the best thing under the circumstances. He ignored Madame’s remark and question, and plunged boldly into the business which had brought him.
She listened gravely without making any observation, but occasionally the faintest shadow of a smile fluttered around her lips. Ezra watched her face somewhat anxiously. In the old days, he had been used to read her face when they talked together, and to catch the meaning of her words from the mobile and everchanging expression of her clear blue eyes. But to-day, somehow, as he looked, he felt he had lost the power to read. The face was now a mask which seemed to conceal the real woman underneath, and yet it wasthe same fair smooth brow, the same sharply defined eyebrows, and, beneath, the same eyes. No, the eyes were not the same. They no longer looked clear and full at Ezra, but were often averted in a strange and uncertain manner, as if seeking to hide or to flee. At least such was the curious impression they produced upon him, as he sat looking at her and telling of the mighty wave of wrath that had surged up about that handful of balsam blossoms.
“It is a most singular cause of division, and one I could almost laugh at, except for the very real passions of anger and of hatred it has aroused,” he said in conclusion.
“One often sees terrible bursts of anger and fury in immature minds,” observed Madame in the preamble of her answer. “Young children and people of weak intellect frequently exhibit the most pitiable extremes of fury over trifling causes.”
Ezra was not quite certain to what she referred. If to Olive, then she was mistaken in considering her a child. He recalled very vividly what she had said about communism in what one loves, and he was not at all prepared to admit that her arguments were those of a person of weak intellect.
“I don’t think this is a case for ‘criticism-cure’ in the Assembly, do you?” she said.
“No, certainly not,” replied Ezra, who was keenly alive to the possibility of his wife’s blazing up into uncompromisingcriticism herself, if they attempted to apply the famous “cure” upon her.
“Criticism-cure” existed rather in theory than in practice in Perfection City, but it was held that if a brother or a sister should be guilty of any offence against the common weal, it would be an edifying experience to summon him or her to the Assembly, and let all the members tell him or her exactly what each one thought of the conduct in question. In theory this was supposed to work admirably, and to be a weapon capable of reducing to reason the most refractory member of the Community, but when Ezra remembered it and imagined for a moment its possible effects on Olive, he foresaw a whole train of deplorable results. Suppose she defended herself, she could say sharp rankling things with a surprising amount of unanswerable truth in them, or suppose she didn’t defend herself, but took the scolding silently. Her eyes would get bigger and bigger with tears which would roll over her cheeks, and her sweet little chin would quiver, and she would look imploringly at him. He couldn’t stand that, he knew, but would rush up and take her in his arms, and carry her off out from the midst of the carping, criticising brethren, and he would call her sweet pet and darling, and say she was right and they were horrid brutes to scold her, and he would be very angry and would be quite capable of knocking Brother Wright down, if he, as was likely, had been savage with the little pet. No, criticism-cureshould not be applied to Olive. And Ezra, arguing thence into wider fields, began to feel some doubts as to the value of that remarkable weapon as a means of eradicating the naturally evil tendencies of the human heart. Theories which had seemed sound and complete in the abstract had a curious habit of ringing false when he imagined himself as applying them to Olive. It was very curious, but they did not seem to fit her, or was it possible that the theories themselves were wrong? No, he dismissed that thought as entailing too much mental demolition and carting away of rubbish. Of one thing only was he sure, the “criticism-cure” was not to be tried on his little wife.
“I think it is a case for petting rather than for punishing,” remarked Madame, after an interval during which they had both been severally following out the ramifications of their own reflections.
Ezra jumped at this idea. He was of that opinion too, as he impartially observed. Indeed he was always of opinion that Olive required petting.
“Yes, I think I understand the case,” continued Madame. “The flowers were a toy, doubly prized now they are gone. What is wanted is to provide a new and more attractive toy, so that the baby-mind will lightly forget the old grief.”
Ezra did not quite like this way of referring to Olive, but he had called in Madame’s aid, and he had no choice but to listen to the physician’s diagnosis and prescription regarding the case in question. Madamemeanwhile looked at him half pityingly, having apparently overcome her eyes’ desire to avoid his glance.
“Poor Ezra!” she said softly. “You are mated to a child, petulant, wilful, hard to manage, and very bewitching. You will find that you cannot in this case work by the light of pure reason. You must bring yourself down to her level and try to see with her eyes, to take delight in the petty trifles that interest her. ’Tis weary work! The task of Sisyphus was none the less severe because it produced no tangible good.”
She was silent, and Ezra began to repent that he had sought counsel from so exalted a source, since it was delivered to him with such a liberal seasoning of the bitter salt of implied reproof.
“I think that I can apply a remedy in this instance,” resumed Madame. “I know a woman’s mind as well as most people, and I know too the vain weaknesses of a silly girl—perhaps the knowledge comes from a memory, or perhaps from a shattered hope, who knows? At all events, dear friend and brother, it will serve you now.”
She left him to go into the small inner apartment which was her bedroom, and came out again in a few moments carrying a small gold bracelet of curious workmanship, an Oriental trinket.
“Here is a little trifle I happen to have by me. Do you think this toy would dry the little one’s tears?”
She handed the bracelet to Ezra, who, though ignorant enough on such matters, did not fail to recognise the flash of diamonds in the jewel.
“This is a very valuable piece of jewellery,” he said. “You must not give it away.”
“I don’t value such things except for the power of making someone happy,” replied Madame. “Take it, dear friend, and think that I speak truly when I say I would gladly give all I possess to ease your mind of trouble and make your path in life a pleasant one. And the child-wife may like it. Now, go to her. Good-night! You look tired and harassed.”
She gently put her hand upon his forehead as if to smooth out wrinkles, and left the room.
As Ezra walked home with the diamond bracelet in his pocket, he seemed to feel her cool soft touch still, and the thought came into his mind that Olive never petted him. No, it was he who always petted her. Well, she was very sweet and pretty, and he hoped the bracelet would comfort her.
There was no doubt about that. Olive danced for joy when she saw the trinket. She put it on her smooth little wrist and flashed it about in the sunshine. Her eyes rivalled the diamonds for brightness.
“Do you like it, Ollie?”
“Like it! Why, it’s too lovely for anything, and Madame is just a darling, and she is kind. Just fancy giving me a diamond bracelet! A thing I never dreamtof ever owning. And how shall I ever thank her?”
Olive was skipping with joy. Suddenly she stopped short.
“Ezra, is this mine, or is it a community-bracelet?”
“It is yours, child.”
“Mary Winkle can’t come and take it away for the good of my soul, can she?”
“No, certainly not. We are allowed to hold private property in such personal trifles, as you know quite well. Besides, Sister Mary would not wish to take from you what you particularly prized.”
“Oh, of that I am not at all so sure. If your principles allowed it, I would not give much for Sister Mary’s self-restraint in the matter. She might want the bracelet for herself or for Willette, for what I know. I shall tell her the bracelet is mine even by community-law.”
Olive began to skip again.
“You are an intractable little mortal, for all you look so soft and yielding,” said Ezra. He could not help smiling at her pretty kittenish ways, but he was filled with a sort of amazement to perceive how impossible it was to change the trend of her mind. Had she been an angular woman, all bones, like Mary Winkle, it would not have seemed so strange. Olive brought her frollicking to a conclusion and lookedwisely at her husband, shaking her pretty little head at him.
“No, no, Ezra. It is not that, but you are trying to stuff me into a wrong-shaped mould, and I don’t fit. As if any mortal woman ever could care for a community-bracelet!”
She danced away to put her treasure in some safe place, and Ezra went off to his work, wondering in his own mind if there was something radically antagonistic to communism in the female nature. If there was any such fundamental incompatibility of temperament, then farewell to all ideas of a successful issue to their experiment. Absolute equality between men and women in position, power, and influence was the key-note of their theories, but what would become of these theories if it should appear that the female mind refused to accept the first and greatest postulate upon which they were all founded?