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Paris, Three Months Later.
It is three months since I wrote this diary, three lonely months since I said good-bye to Christopher, or rather wrote good-bye, for I should never have had the courage to leave him, if I had tried to give him my reasons—face to face. I have never seen him or heard from him since that terrible night at Dr. Leroy's when the evil cloud was lifted from my soul and I knew and remembered—everything!
I have never heard from Seraphine. They do not even know where I am, they must not know—that is part of my plan, but it is frightfully hard. I pray for strength to be reconciled to my life of loneliness and to find comfort in good works; but the strength has not come to me. Every day I think of Christopher and the separation from him grows harder and harder. Life is not worth living.
∵
I am perfectly sane and normal, just as I was before my hallucinations. No more voices, or fears, or wickeddreams. Sometimes I wish I could dream of Christopher; but I never do, I never dream of anything. I suppose I should be grateful for that and glad that my cure is so complete. Oh, dear!
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I wear myself out at the dispensary for poor French children and try my best to smile and be cheerful and to interest myself in their pitiful needs and sorrows; but my heart is not in this work and my smiles are forced. Many nights I cry myself to sleep.
And yet I did right. I go over it all in my mind and I see that I did right. There was nothing else for me to do. I had to decide for both of us, and I decided. I thought of those dreadful things that I did, and—meant to do—those things that neither Christopher nor I can possibly forget ... how could Christopher ever have confidence in me as his wife? How could we ever be happy together with those memories between us?
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I try to remember the exact words that I wrote to my lover that morning when I went away. I hope I did not make him suffer too much. But of course he suffered—he must have. I told him we could not see each other any more, or write to each other, or—anything. I knew I would have been too weak to resist the call of my love and he would have been too fine, too chivalrous, to let me go. He would have said: “You are cured now, dear” (which I really am) “andthere is no reason why we should not be married—” which is true, except that he would always have had the fear, deep down in his heart, that I might relapse into what I had been. How could a high-minded man like Chris bear the thought that the woman he loved, the woman who was to be the mother of his children, had acted like a wanton? He could not bear it. It is evident that I did right.
And yet—
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I often wonder what another woman would have done in my place. She loves a man as I loved Christopher—as I love him still. She is proud, she has always been admired, she cannot bear the thought of being pitied. And suddenly she learns that she has disgraced herself, she has violated the sacred traditions of modesty that restrain all women. She has acted like an abandoned woman towards the man she worships. God! It is true she has done this without knowing it, without being responsible for it, but she has done it, and that ineffaceable memory will always shame her, if she becomes his wife. Day after day she will read it in his eyes, in his reticencies, in his efforts to be cheerful—she will know that he remembers—what she was!
NO! She could not bear it, no woman with any pride could bear it.
Pride!
What is pride? Is it a good thing or a bad thing? Would I be a finer woman if I could endure this humiliation and gracefully accept forgiveness? I suppose some women would take it all simply, like a grateful patient cured of an illness. Alas! that is not my nature.
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How little we know ourselves! We all wear masks of one kind or another that hide our true personalities even from ourselves. How will a woman act in sudden peril? In a moral crisis? In the face of shattering disgrace? Let the most beautiful wife and mother realize that some painful chapter in her life is to be opened to the world—what price will she not pay to avert this scandal?
Julian had a friend who on a certain night stood before a locked door with an officer of the law. His wife was on the other side of that door—with a companion in dishonor. The husband was armed. He was absolutely within his rights. They broke down the door.And then—
Not one of those tragic three could have told in advance what would happen when that door crashed in. As a matter of fact the woman alone was calm—coldly calm.
“Yes,” she said, “I am guilty. Now shoot! Why don't you shoot? You are afraid to shoot!”
Which was true.
The husband was afraid; and the lover was more afraid; it was the erring wife who cut the best figure. But who could have foreseen this dénouement?
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After all I only did those abominable things because I was ill—when I was not myself; whereas now I am well, and the evil has passed from me. Besides, I only showed that wicked side of my nature to Christopher, through my love; it is inconceivable that I could ever have acted that way with another man. Christopher knows that. He knows there is no possible doubt about that. How much difference does this knowledge make to him—I wonder.
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I am going to leave Paris. I am too unhappy here. It seems there is a great need for nurses at Lourdes—that strange miracle place where pilgrims go to be healed—and I have volunteered for service. If the sick are really cured by miracles I don't see why they need nurses; but never mind that. It will give me a change and I may see some unfortunate men and women who are worse off than I am. Oh, if God would only work a miracle so that I can have Christopher and make him happy! But that can never be. Why not? Why do I say that after what has happened to me? Was it not a miracle that saved me from those hideous evils? Then why not other miracles?
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At Lourdes. Two Weeks Later.
Speaking of miracles, I am living among them. I am working in theBureau de Constatationswhere themiraculés—those who are supposed to have been miraculously healed—are questioned and examined bydoctors, Catholics, Protestants, Agnostics, Atheists, who come from all over the world to investigate these cures from the standpoint of a religion or pure science. What sights I have seen! Men and women of all ages and walks of life testifying that the waters of the sacred grotto have freed them from this or that malady, from tumors, lameness, deafness, blindness, tuberculosis, nervous trouble and numerous other afflictions. By thousands and tens of thousands these unfortunates crowd here from the four corners of the earth, an endless procession of believers, and every year sees scores of the incurable cured, instantly cured—even the sceptical admit this, although they interpret the facts differently. Some say it is auto-suggestion, others speak of mass hypnotism, others regard it as a scientific phenomenon not yet understood like the operation of the X-rays. And many wise men are satisfied with the simple explanation that it is the work of God, manifested today for those who have faith exactly as in Bible times.
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I was stabbed with poignant memories this afternoon when a tall black-bearded peasant told the doctors that his father, who accompanied him, and who had been insane, a violent neurasthenic, shut up in an asylum for four years, had been restored by the blessed waters to perfect health and had shown no abnormality of body or mind for eight years. These statements were verified by scientists and doctors.
Eight years! If I really believe in the permanentrecovery of this poor man, as the doctors do, why am I doubtful about my own permanent recovery? The answer is that I am not doubtful for myself, but for Christopher. He might reason like this, he might say to himself—he is so loyal that he would die rather than say it to me: “I know Penelope has been restored to her normal condition of mind, but that normal condition includes a strong inherited and developed tendency towards—certain things,”—my cheeks burn with shame as I write this. “How do I know that this tendency in her, even if she remains herself, will not make trouble again—for both of us?”
How could Christopher be sure about this?
He could not be sure!
So I did right to leave him.
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Lourdes. A Week Later.
Today, with a multitude of the afflicted, I bathed in thepiscine, a long trough filled with holy water from the grotto. The water was cold and not very clean (for hours it had received bodies carrying every disease known to man), but as I lay there, wrapped in a soaking apron and immersed to the head, I felt an indescribable peace possessing my soul. Was it the two priests who held my hands and encouraged me with kindly eyes? Was it the shouts and rejoicings, the continual prayers of pilgrims all about me? Or was it a sudden overwhelming sense of my own unworthiness, of my ingratitude and lack of faith and a rush of new desire to begin my life all over again, to forget my selfish repining? Whatever it was I know that as I arose from the bath and bowed before the statue of the Blessed Virgin, I was caught by a spiritual fervor that seemed to lift me in breathless ecstasy.
A young woman who was blind stood beside me, splashing water from a hand basin upon her reddened, sightless eyelids, and praying desperately. Together with her I prayed as I never had prayed, crying thewords aloud, over and over again, as she did, while tears poured down my cheeks:
“Oh, Marie, conçue sans péché, priez pour nous qui avons recours à vous!”
As I came away and started back to theBureau, walking slowly under the blazing Pyrenees sun, I knew that an extraordinary change had taken place in me. I was not the same woman any more. I would never again be the same woman. I was like the child I knew about that had been miraculously cured of infantile paralysis; or like the widow I had spoken to who had been miraculously cured of a fistula in the arm that had been five times vainly operated upon; or like the old woman I had seen who had been miraculously cured of an “incurable” tumor that had caused her untold suffering for twenty-two years. I was amiraculée, like these others, hundreds of others, one more case that would be carefully noted down by skeptical investigators on their neatly ruled sheets,if only the mysteries of a sick soul could be revealed!
Suddenly a great burst of singing drew my attention to the open space beyond the gleaming white church with its sharp-pointed towers, and I drew nearer, pushing my way through a dense multitude gathered to witness the procession of pilgrims and the Blessing of the Sick. In all the world there is no such sight as this, nothing that can stir the human soul so deeply. Inside the concourse, fringing the great crowds, lay the afflicted—on litters, on reclining chairs, on blankets spread over the ground; standing and kneeling, men, women and children from all lands and of all stations,pallid-faced, emaciated, suffering, dying, brought here to supplicate for help when all other help has failed them.
“Seigneur, nous vous adorons!” chanted a priest with golden voice and ten thousand tongues responded:
“Seigneur, nous vous adorons!”
“Jesus, Fils de Marie, ayez pitie de nous!” came the inspired cry.
“Jesus, Fils de Marie, ayez pitie de nous!” crashed the answer.
“Hosanna! Hosanna au Fils de David!”
“Hosanna! Hosanna au Fils de David!” thundered the multitude, and the calm hills resounded.
It was an immense, an indescribable moment, not to be resisted. I felt myself literally in the presence of God, and choking, almost dying with emotion, I waited for what was to come.
Suddenly at the far end of the crowd a great shouting started and spread like a powder-train, with a violent clapping of hands.
“A miracle! A miracle!” the cries proclaimed.
They told me afterwards that five miraculous cures were accomplished at this moment, but I knew nothing about it. My eyes were closed. I had fallen to my knees in the dust and was sobbing my heart out, not in grief but in joy, forI knewthat all was well with me now and would be in the days to come. I knew that Christopher would be restored to me, and that I would be allowed to make him happy. There would be no more doubt or fear in either of us—only love.I knew this!
As I knelt there filled with a spirit of infinite faith and serenity, it seemed as if, above the tumult of the crowd, I heard my name spoken gently—“Penelope!”
I knew, of course, that it could not be a real voice, for I was a stranger here, yet there was nothing disturbing to me in this illusion. It came rather like a comforting benediction, as if some higher part of me had inwardly expressed approval of my prayerful aspirations, and had confirmed my belief that Christopher would be restored to me.
“Penelope!” the voice spoke again, this time with unmistakable distinctness, and now I opened my eyes and saw Seraphine standing before me.
“Seraphine! Where did you come from? I thought you were in America—in New York.”
Smiling tenderly she helped me to my feet and led me away from the multitude.
“Let us go where we can talk quietly,” she said.
“We will go to the hospice, where I am staying,” I replied, not marvelling very much, but more than ever filled with the knowledge that God was guiding and protecting me.
“This has been a wonderful day for me, Seraphine,” I told her when we came to my room, “the most wonderful day in my whole life.”
“I know, dear,” she answered calmly, as if nothing could surprise her either.
Then I explained everything that had happened—why I had left America so suddenly, why I had felt that I must never see Christopher again.
“But you don't feel that way any more?” she askedme with a look of strange understanding in her deep eyes.
“No,” said I, “everything is changed now. My fears are gone. I see that I must count upon Christopher to have the same faith and courage that I have in my own heart. Why should I expect to bear the whole burden of our future? He must bear his part of it. The responsibility goes with the love, doesn't it? I saw that this afternoon—it came to me like a flash when the procession passed. Isn't it wonderful?”
“Dear child, the working of God's love for His children is always wonderful. This is a place of miracles”—she paused as if searching into my soul—“and the greatest miracle is yet to come.”
I felt the color flooding to my cheeks.
“What do you mean?”
“I must go back a little, Penelope, and tell you something important. You haven't asked about Captain Herrick.”
“Is he—is he well?” I stammered.
She shook her head ominously.
“No. He is far from well. You did not realize, dear, what an effect that letter of yours would have upon him. It was a mortal blow.”
I tried to speak, but I could not; my bosom rose and fell with quick little gasping breaths, as if I was suffocating.
“There was no particular illness,” my friend continued, “just a general fading away, a slow discouragement. He had no interest in anything, and about amonth ago Doctor Owen told me the poor fellow would not live long unless we could find you.”
“Oh, if I had only known! If I had dreamed that he would care so—so much,” I sobbed. “How—how did you find me?”
Seraphine answered with that far-away, mystic look in her eyes: “It was your mother, dear—she told me we must go to Lourdes, she said it quite distinctly, she said we must sail that very week, or it would be too late—and we did sail.”
I stared at her with widening, frightened eyes.
“Seraphine! You don't mean that—that Christopher is—here?” I cried.
The clairvoyant bowed her head slowly.
“He is here, at the hotel, but he is very ill. He took cold on the ship and—it got worse. He has pneumonia.”
“Oh!” I breathed. I could feel my lips go white.
“The doctor is with him now, and a trained nurse. I left them to search for you. I knew I should find you—somewhere.”
I rose quickly and caught my companion's arm.
“Come! We must go to him.”
“No! You cannot see him until tomorrow. This is the night of the crisis.”
“Please!” I begged.
“No! You must wait here. I will send you word.” Then she left me.
Hour after hour I waited at the hospice, knowing that Seraphine would keep her promise and send me some message. At about nine o'clock a little boy camewith a note saying that I must come at once. Christopher was worse.
As we hurried through the square, the whole place was ablaze with lights, the church itself outlined fantastically in electric fires, while great crowds of chanting pilgrims moved in slow procession, each man or woman carrying a torch or lantern or shaded candle and all lifting their voices in that everlasting cry of faith and worship:
Ave, Ave, Ave, Maria!Ave, Ave, Ave, Maria!
Ave, Ave, Ave, Maria!Ave, Ave, Ave, Maria!
Until the day of my death I shall hear that thunderous chorus sounding in my ears whenever memory turns back my thoughts to this fateful night.
Seraphine met me at the door of the chamber where Christopher lay, feverish and delirious. A French doctor, with pointed beard, watched by the patient gravely, while a sad-eyed nurse held his poor feet huddled in her arms in an effort to give them warmth. Already the life forces were departing from my beloved.
The doctor motioned me silently to a chair, but I came forward and sat on the bed, and bending over my dear one, I called to him fondly:
“Chris! It's Penelope! Oh, my dear, my dear! Don't you know me?” I pleaded.
But there was no answer, no recognition.
An hour passed, two hours and still there was no indication that my dear Christopher realized that I was near him, bending over him, praying for him. He turned uneasily in his fever and now and then criedout with a great effort in his delirium; but he never spoke my name or made any reference to his love for me. It was heartbreaking to be there beside him and yet to feel myself so far away from him.
At about eleven the doctor saw that a change was coming and warned me that there would be a lucid interval which would precede the final crisis.
“Within an hour we shall know what to expect,” he said. “Either your friend will begin to improve—his heart action will be stronger, his breathing easier, or—he will sink into a state of coma and—” the doctor finished his sentence with an ominous gesture. “You must have courage, dear lady. The balance of his life may be turned by you—either way. It will be a shock for him to see you here, a great shock. I cannot tell how that shock may affect him. It may save him, it may destroy him. No man of science in my place would take the responsibility of saying to you that you must or must not show yourself to this man at this moment. You must take the responsibility for yourself—and for him.”
“I understand, doctor,” I said. “I will take the responsibility.”
Again we waited in anguished silence, and soon the change came just as the doctor said it would. Christopher's eyes opened naturally and I saw that the glassy stare had gone out of them. He knew where he was, he knew what he was saying, he would recognize me, if he saw me; but I drew back into the shadows of the room where I could watch him without being seen. I wanted to think what I must do.
Christopher beckoned Seraphine and the doctor to come close to him.
“I want you to write something for me,” he said in weak tones but quite distinctly to Seraphine. “I may not come out of this. I—I don't care very much whether I do or not, but—get some paper—please—and a pencil. The most important thing is about my money—all that I have—everything in the world, understand? I—I leave it all to the only woman I have ever loved—or ever could love—Penelope Wells.”
When he had said this he settled back on the pillow and breathed heavily but with a certain sense of relief, as if his mind was now at rest. I bit my lip until my teeth cut into it to keep myself from crying out.
“You are both witnesses to this—to what I have said—you've written it down?” he looked at Seraphine and the doctor who nodded gravely.
“You must find Penelope and tell her that—that she made a mistake to go away. I understand why she did it, but it was a mistake. Tell her I said that we all of us have a whole lot to be sorry for and we must not only ask to be forgiven, but we must be glad to accept the forgiveness of others for—for whatever we have done that is wrong, and we must believe that they are sincere in forgiving us. Tell her that I would have been glad to—to forgive her for—for everything.”
His strength was evidently failing and the doctor told him that he had better not try to talk any more. But Christopher smiled in that quaint brave way that I knew so well and lifted his thin white hands in protest.
“Just one thing more—please. It won't make any particular difference, doc, and I want to say it. I want you to be sure to tell her this—write it down. Tell her two things. One is that there isn't any argument about my loving her because I am dying for her—now—that's a fact. There isn't anything else I want to live for if I can't have Penelope. The other thing is that—” He paused as a violent spasm of coughing shook his wasted body, and again the doctor told him to be quiet, but he gave no heed.
“The other thing is—be sure to tell her this—that I would sooner have lived with Penelope—I don't care how many devils she was possessed with—than with all the saints in the calendar. I loved her—” He struggled to raise himself and then lifting his voice in a supreme effort, “I loved her good or bad. I—I couldn't help loving her. There—that's all. Let me sign it.”
This was too much for me. As I saw my dear love tracing his name with painful strokes, I could control myself no longer and rushed out of the darkness to him, feeling that I must cry out wildly against his leaving me. I must fight the grim shadows that were enveloping him. I must keep him for myself by the fierce power of my love.
Just then a great glare from the torches filled the chamber and Christopher's eyes met mine. I stood speechless, choked with emotion, and as I tried to force my will against these obstacles of weakness, the cry of the pilgrims resounded from the streets below, a vast soul-stirring cry:
“Hosanna! hosanna au fils de David!”
At this I fell on my knees by the bedside and buried my face in my hands. I realized suddenly that it was not for me to dispute God's will even for this life that was so dear to me, even for our great love. Once more I must fight my selfish pride and yield everything into God's keeping for better or for worse. But with all my soul I prayed, not daring to look up: “Dear God, save him! Give him back to me.”
Then I felt Christopher's hand on my head, resting there lovingly.
“Penelope!” he said.
“Chris!”
Down in the street the lines of fire swept past in a molten sea while the roar of worshipping voices came up to me:
“Hosanna! hosanna au fils de David!”
And still I prayed, with my head buried in my arms: “Save him! Dear God, save him and give him back to me!”
And God did.
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Two Years Later.
A woman who has been saved, as I have been, from a fate worse than death must be grateful, and ready to show her gratitude by helping others, especially other women. I have a message of hope for those who have heard the Voices, for those who have gone down into the Black Valley, where I was—they can come back into the sunshine of happiness. The powers of Light are stronger than the powers of Darkness, and Love conquers Fear always in those who cleanse their souls of evil.
And I have a warning for thousands and tens of thousands of women who have not yet glimpsed the Gates of Despair, but are drifting towards them and will surely pass through them, as I did, unless they understand the perils that surround and beset their lives.
With my husband's assistance and approval, I have selected from my diary parts that bear on the emotional problems of women today. Christopher says I have told the truth about women that nobody tells, and he wants me to make it known, so that others, beingenlightened, may avoid the mistakes I made and be spared the consequences of these mistakes. Dear Chris! His judgment encourages me, and yet—
How fully shall I speak, so that my words may do good, not harm?
I can only have faith in my honesty of purpose, and hold to my belief that, in spite of my limitations, I have a message to deliver that will be helpful. Yes, I must deliver this message. God will not allow so sincere a motive to fail. Perhaps the reason for all my sufferings and mistakes, the reason for my existence was that I should deliver this message.
Soon after my deliverance from evil, Seraphine cast my horoscope (I wonder why she never did this before?), and now much that was previously inexplicable in my life is made clear to me. She says that astrology is not a cheap form of trickery, but a recognized field of knowledge and investigation.
From the earliest times wise men have emphasized the influence of the stars upon human lives—for good or ill. I like to believe this. It gives one a broader and more charitable view of one's fellow creatures, of their sins and weaknesses, to realize the presence about us of these vast and mysterious forces.
My horoscope, with its queer phraseology, reads:
“Your Neptune is in evil aspect to your Venus, which makes you attract men almost irresistibly.”
This was the case, Seraphine says, with Georges Sand, George Eliot and various women in history who were the favorites of kings, although some of them had little beauty. They were dowered, however, with this terrific magnetism for the opposite sex.
I remember, even as a school girl, how the boys used to fight over me, while they scarcely noticed prettier and brighter girls. I never understood this, any more than they did, for I was rather indifferent to them. There was one girl in our set who attracted the boys as much as I did, but she was also drawn to them. When this girl was about eighteen her father began to receive anonymous notes telling of his daughter's escapades and warning him to guard her more carefully. Finally there came an open scandal when the girl ran away with a married man. At the time I thought myself a better and stronger character than she, since I resisted temptation, but my horoscope shows that I had “in beneficent aspect” certain planets that were “evilly aspected” for my friend, and this made her temptations greater than mine.
Seraphine says that the horoscope, wisely used, is like an automobile light in the darkness—it reveals dangers in the road that may be avoided. “The stars incline, but do not compel,” she always tells her clients and assures them that, by power of the will, we can overcome any influence of the stars, strengthening the good and weakening the evil aspects. That is a blessed thought.
When I was a trained nurse I received many confidences from women and some confessions of an intimate nature. At one time I took care of a married woman in Washington, a neurasthenic case, and this woman told me that she had several times tried to kill herself because of a curse that seemed to be hanging over her. Twice, following an irresistible impulse, she had left her husband with another man for whom she had no particular affection. It was a kind of recurrent madness which she did not understand except thatshe was positive that it had something to do with the phases of the moon.During about ten days of the month when the moon was “dark,” she was perfectly normal, but when a new moon appeared she was conscious of a vague uneasiness that increased and finally became acute when the moon was full, this being her time of peril.
Venus in conjunction with Mars, Seraphine says, brings love at first sight, but in evil aspect to Mars it makes one liable to sex-excesses.
She says that a good Neptune in the 5th house, the house of Romance, or in the 7th house, the house of Marriage, brings an ideal and spiritual attachment; but in evil aspect in either of these houses it brings an immoral relationship or a marriage to one who is morally or physically deformed. This was the condition in my own horoscope and certainly poor Julian was deformed morally.
What a strange and fascinating light all this throws upon human behavior! How it clears up mysterious infatuations and explains incredible follies! Seraphineknows a woman of fifty—she is a grandmother and a most estimable person—who has always had and still has this power of attracting men violently to her. On one occasion this woman was in a railway station in New York, waiting for her son, when a fine looking man approached her and, lifting his hat, asked if she could direct him to the train that would soon leave for Chicago. She told him in her well-bred way, and he left her; but a few minutes later he returned and said with intense feeling that he had never believed in love at first sight, but now he did. He was compelled to believe in it now.
When she drew back he told her that he was a widower, a man of means, living in the West, that he could give her the best references and—the point was that his infatuation for her was so great that he begged her to consider whether she would be willing to marry him. He would do everything in his power to make her happy, but declared that he could not and would not try to live without her another day.
Knowing her horoscope the woman did not get angry at this presumption, but gently declined the offer, and begged the man to leave her. He bowed and withdrew, but came back once again after she had joined her son and explained to the astonished young man his hopes and aspirations toward the mother. Whereupon, as the woman still refused, he finally left, to all appearances broken-hearted.
I have had one experience of this sort myself that shows how even the noblest man may suddenly suffer an infatuation capable of sweeping him on to disaster.It was at the time of my husband's death—during days when he lay half conscious in the hospital following his automobile accident. A distinguished clergyman, Dr. B——, who had known Julian slightly, visited him here and in this way made my acquaintance. And he fell violently in love with me.
For months during my early widowhood he saw me almost every day and wrote me impassioned letters, declaring that I was the only woman in the world for him, I was his true mate, he could not live without me, he was ready to give up everything for me, to go away with me to some distant city—any city—and begin life all over again.
This clergyman was a man of fifty, a brilliant preacher, widely honored and loved, who had never in his life, he assured me, committed any deliberately sinful act such as this would be, for he was married to a fine woman who had been his faithful companion for many years and had borne him two children—two boys. All this he was ready to renounce for me—reputation, honor, duty. He said it was fate. His desire for me was too strong to be resisted. The sin, the disgrace, the pain that he would cause—none of these could keep back this man of God from his evil purpose.
In many pages of my diary (written sincerely at the time) I present the conventional view of sex offences, the comforting view to women.
But—
When I search deep into my soul with an honest desire to find the truth, I am not sure that women are as blameless in the sex struggle with men as I would like to believe. Very often they are less pursued than pursuing. Every man of the world can recall the cases where women have played the rôle of temptress, using their charms against unwilling victims, notably husbands of other women.I am afraid the rule is that women are disloyal to other women where there is any serious emotional conflict.
The editor of a popular magazine told me once about a prize contest that they had for the best essay on a woman's sex solidarity union—they called it the W.S.S.U. The idea was that if women would stand together against men they could get anything in the world they wanted—equal rights and privileges, equal wages, fair treatment in every department of life; and do away with evils of ignorance and poverty, child labor evils, prostitution evils. We could have an ideal world if women, using their sex power, would only stand together against men.
Hundreds of letters were received from women, who thought this a wonderful idea; but they all agreed that it was impossible to carry it out, because women would never be loyal to one another.
That is true; I know it, and every woman knows it—women are disloyal to other women whenever it becomes a question of men. They might agree on a W.S.S.U. program, but they would never stick to it, poor things, because every blessed one of them whowas at all good looking would be ready to go over to the opposition at the first favorable opportunity. Only the homely women would be loyal!
In all my troubles I kept at least to the form of religious belief, although I missed the substance, namely, that any life can be made happy, even glorious, if it is founded on purity of soul and unselfish love and service. I was selfish—even in my love; therefore I brought upon myself the fruits of selfishness which are ill health, inefficiency and unhappiness.The beauty of a selfish woman fades quickly.
Once I wrote this in my diary:
“Alas, how soon love passes! Ten or fifteen years and the best of it is gone. After that the dregs! A woman of thirty! Ugh! I shall be thirty next year. A woman of forty! No wrinkles at forty, says the beauty advertisement, but that is a lie. A woman of forty is a pitiful, tragic figure, especially if she is a little beautiful. No man wants her any more.”
I was mistaken. The beauty of unselfish love never passes. There are sisters of charity whose faces are exquisitely beautiful at fifty. Seraphine is forty-five and her face shines with heavenly radiance. Her skin is as smooth as a girl's and free from lines because she thinks good thoughts and does kind acts. The greatest beauty tonic in the world is the habit of kindness.
In one place I find this:
“Women are naturally religious, especially womenwith a strong sex nature; they believe in God, in spiritual mysteries; they are deeply stirred by religious music and by the ritual of worship; they love the architectural impressiveness of a church, the stained glass windows far up among majestic arches, the candles, the incense, the far-away chanting.
“I was brought up an Episcopalian, but when I am tired or discouraged I often go into St. Patrick's Cathedral—it is so beautiful—and say my prayers there. At any hour I find others praying, men and women—they come in off Fifth Avenue quite naturally and cross themselves and bow to the Altar and kneel straight up—they don't just lean forward the way we do. I love to imitate them—cross myself and go down on one knee and dip my fingers in the font of Holy Water as I come away.Sometimes I wish I was a Catholic and could confess my sins. It might help me.
“I do not think religion keeps women back very much from doing what they want to do or have resolved to do in love affairs. It is a comfort, an emotional satisfaction rather than a restraint. They come tripping in on their high heels with all their smiles and finery, and they trip out again, unchanged in their sentimental natures. A woman will go to church in the afternoon and flirt with another woman's husband in the evening. She will respond devoutly after the Commandments 'Lord have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law,' even though she knows that her heart is inclined to break one of these laws.”
This is true in the main, although I believe now thatwomen, because they are highly emotional, are sincere for the moment when they kneel down to say their prayers and confess their sins, even if they half know that they may continue in wrong-doing. I suppose women are less logical here than men who will often stay away from church entirely when they are breaking the moral law and when they know that they intend to go on breaking it. I am sure it is better, however, for men and women to go to church, even at the risk of a little hypocrisy, than not to go at all.
I suppose we must admit that there are many women, in all classes of society—not mercenary women—who extend to men a certain measure of sex complaisance and feel no deep regret for this behavior, so long as things go well.
Once I wrote in my diary:
“Of course women will not admit sex indiscretions—wild horses could not drag the truth out of them. The attractive ones, those who have had emotional experiences with men, will hide them, following the feminine free masonry of centuries. And unattractive women will call high heaven to witness that nothing of that sort has ever happened to them. They have always found men respectful and considerate.”
I asked Julian about this one day when he was in a penitential mood and he said:
“Of course you are right, the indiscretions of women are numerous, inevitable; but it is the fault of men.The evidence is all about us. Any woman may ascertain this from her husband, her father, her grandfather, or her great-grandfather, if she can persuade one of these gentlemen to be honest with her.”
The ghastly truth is—this is the truth that has filled the world with tears—that the average full-blooded male citizen is polygamous in his instinct and to some extent in his practice.
Every reasonably attractive woman who has been called upon to face the facts of life knows that men are impelled towards women by a force of desire that they call over-powering. It is not over-powering, as thousands of clean-minded men have proved, it is no more over-powering than the desire to gamble or the desire to take drugs; it can be conquered as these other desires have been conquered; but centuries of wayward living under relaxed standards (the double standard) have made men believe that it is over-powering and they act accordingly. And women yield on one pretense or another, smilingly or tearfully—how can they resist the dominant will of half the human race?
I find this in my diary heavily underscored:
“How can the same act be a sin for half the race and not a sin for the other half? For centuries men have proclaimed that women must not give themselves to men, but men may give themselves to women. Is there any greater absurdity? Wine may mix with water, but water must not mix with wine.”
If these sex-complaisant women were really filled with remorse, burdened with a sense of shame, we should all know it. Their eyes, their voices, their dailylives would reveal it. Could a million women be in physical pain, say from starvation, without all the world knowing it? Is pain of the soul less torturing than pain of the body? The fact is that these women are not in spiritual pain. They regard what they have done (often regretfully) as a result of impossible conditions in the world today, a world controlled by men.
I can speak about these things with a certain authority, since, for years, I sympathized with the self-indulgent point of view, in fact I lived in an artistic and Bohemianmilieuwhere many of my friends followed the line of least resistance. I may even confess that I might have gone with the current, had I not seen the harm and unhappiness that resulted.It does not pay to be self-indulgent.
The suspicion that many women are disingenuous in regard to these irregularities of conduct was forced upon me some years ago in a conversation with Kendall Brown, who, for all his eccentricities, is a keen observer of life.
I give the conversation at some length just as I wrote it down in my diary:
“Kendall insists that women like me—he calls me a Class A woman which makes me furious for I'm afraid I am one—are never really on the level in sentimental affairs. If we were on the level, he says, we would not make such a fuss about the grand conspiracy of men against our virtue. There would be no point toit, for our virtue would never be in any danger unless we half-wished it to be. He says that the three great sins mentioned in the Bible and in all religions are killing, stealing and sex offences. Now, the attitude of the human race toward these sins, as established by centuries of habit, makes it almost impossible for the average citizen, man or woman, to either kill or steal. 'Isn't that true?' he asked.
“I agreed that the thought of stealing is so abhorrent to me that I could not imagine any temptation strong enough to make me a thief. I might have some reserves about killing, however, in fact I have once or twice felt a sympathy for ... well, no!
“'All right,' he went on. 'Now, if women were on the level in guarding their virtue and always had been, just as they are on the level in regard to stealing, don't you see that it would be utterly impossible for any man under any circumstances (barring violence which does not happen once in ten thousand times) to have his way with a woman? This habit of virtue would be so deeply ground into you women, into the very depth of your being, that nothing could overcome it. But as we look about us and observe women in all classes of society, we see that there is no such condition, no such habit, which proves that women are not and never have been on the level. What do you say to that, speaking as a pretty woman?'
“I did not say anything, I was so indignant—speechless—at his impertinence, and while I was searching for some answer to this outrageous statement, my poet friend proceeded:
“'You know how strong habits are, Penelope, all habits. Take smoking, or drinking cocktails, or even coffee. I swore off coffee six weeks ago. During the first week I was nearly crazy for it—had headaches, felt rotten, but I stuck it out. In the second week it was much easier for me not to take coffee. At the end of a month the habit was established and now I have no more craving for coffee. If I leave it alone for six months the chances are that nothing will ever make me drink coffee again, especially if I hypnotize myself with the idea that coffee is bad for my heart action, that I'm a nice little hero to have cut it out and that now I am going to live to be over ninety. You see?
“'Now then, the drift of all this is that the habit of virtue in women if it really was an on-the-level habit that they believed in with all their souls and would fight for with all their strength, would be utterly and absolutely unbreakable—no man could overcome it. The only reason why men in all times and in all lands have overcome women's virtue is because women themselves have never attached the importance to it that they pretend to attach. That isn't a very gallant speech, but it is true.'”
As I said, I became angry at Kendall's accusations and refused to continue the discussion, but if I were to answer the poet now, after my wider experience of life, especially after my sufferings, I should feel obliged to acknowledge that he struck a hard blow at feminine complacency. The trouble with women is that there is an increasing tendency among them, especially amongthose who live in cities full of pleasures and excitements, to compromise with evil, to go as near the danger line as possible, so long as they do not cross it. And this cowardly, dallying virtue is almost no virtue at all. There was a time when women prayed sincerely: “Lead us not into temptation”; now it seems as if they pray to be led into temptation, with just this reservation:that they may come out of it unscathed. Demi-vierges!
I have watched many attractive women treading the primrose path and I have seen that it always leads them to unhappiness. Not that they are disgraced or openly degraded—life goes on with many of them very much as before, but gradually their faces change, their souls change. They could have done so much better; they could have been useful, respected and self-respecting figures in the worldthrough loving service.After all, life is very short and the only things that really matter are the things that happen in our own souls.No one can fail in life who does not fail inside, and no one can succeed in life who only succeeds outside.I learned that from Dr. Leroy.
In telling the truth about my life and my innermost feelings I must quote passages from my diary that were written in a light and often flippant spirit, that being my mood at the time; but the lesson is there just the same and in many instances tears follow close behindthe laughter. Furthermore, I thank God that my regeneration has not taken away my sense of humor. One of the great troubles with neurasthenic women is that they do not laugh enough.
I wrote the following about a year after my husband's death:
“We women are irrational creatures. Our emotions control us, and these emotions change from day to day, from hour to hour. We never know how we will act under any given circumstances—that may depend upon some man.”
The truth is that the attraction which draws a man and a woman together in what they call platonic friendship always has something of the physical in it—on one side or the other. Or on both sides. Women will not admit this, but it is true. They talk about the intellectual bond that joins them to a man—what a precious interchange of thoughts! Or the spiritual bond—such a soulful and inspiring companionship—nothing else, my dear! I used to talk that way myself about Jimsy Brooks before my husband died. He was my unchangeable rock of defense whenever the subject of platonic friendship came up. Other men might fail and falter, make fools of themselves, seek opportunities for—nonsense, but Jimsy was Old Reliability. I could tell him everything, even my troubles with Julian, I could trust him entirely. Alas!
One day I received this warning from Seraphine: “My beloved Penelope, you are riding for a fall! I have had you in mind constantly since you told me of your new friendship with Mr. R——. I know youintend to be truly platonic and I can see you smiling as you recall your many years' friendship with Jim Brooks to prove that such a thing is possible. But, my dear, take warning in time. While it has apparently worked out in that case, I am certain it is only the thought of losing 'even that that he has' which has prevented Jimsy from telling you of his love long ago. Your new playmate may cause you many heartaches before the game is played out. Think it over.”
Dear old Seraphine! How well she knows the human soul! A month later I wrote this in my diary:
“Seraphine was right. My bubble has vanished into thin air. Jimsy Brooks has declared his love for me and a wonderful thing has gone out of my life forever. I had always felt so perfectly safe with Jimsy. When I think of the all-day picnics that we two used to go on together and the outrageous things I have done, I blush all over.
“I remember our trip to Bear Mountain and the sparkling stream that beckoned me into its depths. I wanted to wade in it, to sit on one of the smooth round stones in the middle and in general to behave like a child. All of which I did, for there was only Jimsy to see and he didn't matter in the least. He never so much as glanced at my bare feet and legs when I splashed through the ripples with my dress pinned up!
“I remember how I kissed his hand where a fish barb had torn it.... 'Kiss it, make it well,' and all the while I must have been hurting him cruelly. Godknows I did not mean to, I would not have hurt him for the world.
“This sort of thing is all very well from a woman's angle, but is it well for a man? Jimsy says no, and when I remember the expression in his eyes, I am afraid I must agree with him. I had thought of him more as I would think of a girl chum, only infinitely more desirable, for he had the power of reallydoingthings for me—he was a cross between a nice old friendly dog that would fetch and carry at my bidding and a powerful protector who could (and did) stand between me and unpleasant happenings.
“Jimsy has gone out of my life and left a terrible loneliness. He says that some day, when he has learned resignation, he will come back and we can take up the threads of our friendship just where we have laid them down ... but that can never be, you cannot build up a new friendship on the ashes of an old one. Poor Jim Brooks! I shall never forget what a wonderful thing he was in my life. And now that I have learned my lesson, my new platonic friend Mr. R—— can take his professed platonic friendship elsewhere. I am through, henceforth all men are acquaintances ... or lovers!”