Through the Eye of the Needle: A Romance

by William Dean Howells

  XIX

  The talk at Mrs. Strange's table took a far wider range than my meagrenotes would intimate, and we sat so long that it was almost elevenbefore the men joined the ladies in the drawing-room. You will hardlyconceive of remaining two, three, or four hours at dinner, as one oftendoes here, in society; out of society the meals are despatched with arapidity unknown to the Altrurians. Our habit of listening to lectors,especially at the evening repast, and then of reasoning upon what wehave heard, prolongs our stay at the board; but the fondest listener,the greatest talker among us, would be impatient of the delay eked outhere by the great number and the slow procession of the courses served.Yet the poorest American would find his ideal realized rather in thelong-drawn-out gluttony of the society dinner here than in our temperatesimplicity.

  At such a dinner it is very hard to avoid a surfeit, and I have to guardmyself very carefully, lest, in the excitement of the talk, I gorgemyself with everything, in its turn. Even at the best, my overloadedstomach often joins with my conscience in reproaching me for what youwould think a shameful excess at table. Yet, wicked as my riot is, mywaste is worse, and I have to think, with contrition, not only of what Ihave eaten, but of what I have left uneaten, in a city where so manywake and sleep in hunger.

  The ladies made a show of lingering after we joined them in thedrawing-room; but there were furtive glances at the clock, and presentlyher guests began to bid Mrs. Strange good-night. When I came up andoffered her my hand, she would not take it, but murmured, with a kind ofpassion: "Don't go! I mean it! Stay, and tell us about Altruria--mymother and me!"

  I was by no means loath, for I must confess that all I had seen and heardof this lady interested me in her more and more. I felt at home with her,too, as with no other society woman I have met; she seemed to me not onlygood, but very sincere, and very good-hearted, in spite of the world shelived in. Yet I have met so many disappointments here, of the kind thatour civilization wholly fails to prepare us for, that I should not havebeen surprised to find that Mrs. Strange had wished me to stay, not thatshe might hear me talk about Altruria, but that I might hear her talkabout herself. You must understand that the essential vice of a systemwhich concentres a human being's thoughts upon his own interests, fromthe first moment of responsibility, colors and qualifies every motivewith egotism. All egotists are unconscious, for otherwise they would beintolerable to themselves; but some are subtler than others; and as mostwomen have finer natures than most men everywhere, and in America mostwomen have finer minds than most men, their egotism usually takes theform of pose. This is usually obvious, but in some cases it is sodelicately managed that you do not suspect it, unless some other womangives you a hint of it, and even then you cannot be sure of it, seeingthe self-sacrifice, almost to martyrdom, which the _poseuse_ makesfor it. If Mrs. Makely had not suggested that some people attributeda pose to Mrs. Strange, I should certainly never have dreamed of lookingfor it, and I should have been only intensely interested, when she began,as soon as I was left alone with her and her mother:

  "You may not know how unusual I am in asking this favor of you, Mr.Homos; but you might as well learn from me as from others that I amrather unusual in everything. In fact, you can report in Altruria, whenyou get home, that you found at least one woman in America whom fortunehad smiled upon in every way, and who hated her smiling fortune almostas much as she hated herself. I'm quite satisfied," she went on, with asad mockery, "that fortune is a man, and an American; when he has givenyou all the materials for having a good time, he believes that you mustbe happy, because there is nothing to hinder. It isn't that I want to behappy in the greedy way that men think we do, for then I could easily behappy. If you have a soul which is not above buttons, buttons are enough.But if you expect to be of real use, to help on, and to help out, youwill be disappointed. I have not the faith that they say upholds youAltrurians in trying to help out, if I don't see my way out. It seems tome that my reason has some right to satisfaction, and that, if I am awoman grown, I can't be satisfied with the assurances they would giveto little girls--that everything is going on well. Any one can see thatthings are not going on well. There is more and more wretchedness ofevery kind, not hunger of body alone, but hunger of soul. If you escapeone, you suffer the other, because, if you _have_ a soul, you mustlong to help, not for a time, but for all time. I suppose," she asked,abruptly, "that Mrs. Makely has told you something about me?"

  "Something," I admitted.

  "I ask," she went on, "because I don't want to bore you with a statementof my case, if you know it already. Ever since I heard you were in NewYork I have wished to see you, and to talk with you about Altruria; I didnot suppose that there would be any chance at Mrs. Makely's, and therewasn't; and I did not suppose there would be any chance here, unless Icould take courage to do what I have done now. You must excuse it, if itseems as extraordinary a proceeding to you as it really is; I wouldn't atall have you think it is usual for a lady to ask one of her guests tostay after the rest, in order, if you please, to confess herself to him.It's a crime without a name."

  She laughed, not gayly, but humorously, and then went on, speaking alwayswith a feverish eagerness which I find it hard to give you a sense of,for the women here have an intensity quite beyond our experience of thesex at home.

  "But you are a foreigner, and you come from an order of things so utterlyunlike ours that perhaps you will be able to condone my offence. At anyrate, I have risked it." She laughed again, more gayly, and recoveredherself in a cheerfuller and easier mood. "Well, the long and the shortof it is that I have come to the end of my tether. I have tried, as trulyas I believe any woman ever did, to do my share, with money and withwork, to help make life better for those whose life is bad; and thoughone mustn't boast of good works, I may say that I have been prettythorough, and, if I've given up, it's because I see, in our state ofthings, _no_ hope of curing the evil. It's like trying to soak upthe drops of a rainstorm. You do dry up a drop here and there; but theclouds are full of them, and, the first thing you know, you stand, withyour blotting-paper in your hand, in a puddle over your shoe-tops. Thereis nothing but charity, and charity is a failure, except for the moment.If you think of the misery around you, that must remain around you forever and ever, as long as you live, you have your choice--to go mad andbe put into an asylum, or go mad and devote yourself to society."