Through the Eye of the Needle: A Romance

by William Dean Howells

  XIV

  The scene has changed again, Dolly, and six months have elapsed withoutyour knowing it. Aristides and I long ago completed the tour of thecapitals which the Thrall incident interrupted, and we have been settledfor many months in the Maritime Capital, where it has been decided we hadbetter fill out the first two years of my husband's repatriation. I havebecome more and more thoroughly naturalized, and if I am not yet aperfect Altrurian, it is not for not loving better and better the bestAltrurian of them all, and not for not admiring and revering thiswonderful civilization.

  During the Obligatories of the forenoons I do my housework with my ownhands, and as my mother lives with us we have long talks together, andtry to make each other believe that the American conditions were a sortof nightmare from which we have happily awakened. You see how terriblyfrank I am, my dear, but if I were not, I could not make you understandhow I feel. My heart aches for you, there, and the more because I knowthat you do not want to live differently, that you are proud of youreconomic and social illogicality, and that you think America is the bestcountry under the sun! I can never persuade you, but if you could onlycome here, once, and see for yourselves! Seeing would be believing, andbelieving would be the wish never to go away, but to be at home herealways.

  I can imagine your laughing at me and asking Mr. Makely whether the_Little Sally_ has ever returned to Altruria, and how I can account forthe captain's failure to keep his word. I confess that is a sore pointwith me. It is now more than a year since she sailed, and, of course, wehave not had a sign or whisper from her. I could almost wish that thecrew were willing to stay away, but I am afraid it is the captain who iskeeping them. It has become almost a mania with me, and every morning,the first thing when I wake, I go for my before-breakfast walk along themarble terrace that overlooks the sea, and scan the empty rounding forthe recreant ship. I do not want to think so badly of human nature, as Imust if the _Little Sally_ never comes back, and I am sure you will notblame me if I should like her to bring me some word from you. I know thatif she ever reached Boston you got my letters and presents, and that youhave been writing me as faithfully as I have been writing you, and what asheaf of letters from you there will be if her masts ever piercethe horizon! To tell the truth, I do long for a little American news! Doyou still keep on murdering and divorcing, and drowning, and burning, andmommicking, and maiming people by sea and land? Has there been any warsince I left? Is the financial panic as great as ever, and is there asmuch hunger and cold? I know that whatever your crimes and calamitiesare, your heroism and martyrdom, your wild generosity and self-devotion,are equal to them.

  It is no use to pretend that in little over a year I can have becomeaccustomed to the eventlessness of life in Altruria. I go on for a goodmany days together and do not miss the exciting incidents you have inAmerica, and then suddenly I am wolfishly hungry for the old sensations,just as now and then I _want meat_, though I know I should loathe thesight and smell of it if I came within reach of it. You would laugh, Idare say, at the Altrurian papers, and what they print for news. Most ofthe space is taken up with poetry, and character study in the form offiction, and scientific inquiry of every kind. But now and then there isa report of the production of a new play in one of the capitals; or anaccount of an open-air pastoral in one of the communes; or the progressof some public work, like the extension of the National Colonnade; or thewonderful liberation of some section from malaria; or the story of somegood man or woman's life, ended at the patriarchal age they reach here.They also print selected passages of capitalistic history, from theearliest to the latest times, showing how in war and pestilence andneedless disaster the world outside Altruria remains essentially the samethat it was at the beginning of civilization, with some slight changesthrough the changes of human nature for the better in its slow approachesto the Altrurian ideal. In noting these changes the writers get some sadamusement out of the fact that the capitalistic world believes humannature cannot be changed, though cannibalism and slavery and polygamyhave all been extirpated in the so-called Christian countries, and thesethings were once human nature, which is always changing, while brutenature remains the same. Now and then they touch very guardedly on thatslavery, worse than war, worse than any sin or shame conceivable to theAltrurians, in which uncounted myriads of women are held and bought andsold, and they have to note that in this the capitalistic world iswithout the hope of better things. You know what I mean, Dolly; everygood woman knows the little she cannot help knowing; but if you had everinquired into that horror, as I once felt obliged to do, you would thinkit the blackest horror of the state of things where it must always existas long as there are riches and poverty. Now, when so many things inAmerica seem bad dreams, I cannot take refuge in thinking that a baddream; the reality was so deeply burnt into my brain by the words ofsome of the slaves; and when I think of it I want to grovel on the groundwith my mouth in the dust. But I know this can only distress you, for youcannot get away from the fact as I have got away from it; that there itis in the next street, perhaps in the next house, and that any night whenyou leave your home with your husband, you may meet it at the first stepfrom your door.

  You can very well imagine what a godsend the reports of Aristides and thediscussions of them have been to our papers. They were always taken downstenographically, and they were printed like dialogue, so that at alittle distance you would take them at first for murder trials or divorcecases, but when you look closer, you find them questions and answersabout the state of things in America. There are often humorous passages,for the Altrurians are inextinguishably amused by our illogicality, andwhat they call the perpetual _non sequiturs_ of our lives and laws. Inthe discussions they frequently burlesque these, but as they present themthey seem really beyond the wildest burlesque. Perhaps you will besurprised to know that a nation of working-people like these feel morecompassion than admiration for our working-people. They pity them, butthey blame them more than they blame the idle rich for the existingcondition of things in America. They ask why, if the American workmenare in the immense majority, they do not vote a true and just state, andwhy they go on striking and starving their families instead; they cannotdistinguish in principle between the confederations of labor and thecombinations of capital, between the trusts and the trades-unions, andthey condemn even more severely the oppressions and abuses of the unions.My husband tries to explain that the unions are merely provisional, andare a temporary means of enabling the employees to stand up against thetyranny of the employers, but they always come back and ask him if theworkmen have not most of the votes, and if they have, why they do notprotect themselves peacefully instead of organizing themselves infighting shape, and making a warfare of industry.

  There is not often anything so much like news in the Altrurian papers asthe grounding of the Thrall yacht on the coast of the Seventh Region, andthe incident has been treated and discussed in every possible phase bythe editors and their correspondents. They have been very frank about it,as they are about everything in Altruria, and they have not concealedtheir anxieties about their unwelcome guests. They got on without muchtrouble in the case of the few sailors of the _Little Sally_, but thecrew of the _Saraband_ is so large that it is a different matter. In thefirst place, they do not like the application of force, even in the mildelectrical form in which they employ it, and they fear that the effectwith themselves will be bad, however good it is for their guests.Besides, they dread the influence which a number of people, invested withthe charm of strangeness, may have with the young men and especially theyoung girls of the neighborhood. The hardest thing the Altrurians have tograpple with is feminine curiosity, and the play of this about thestrangers is what they seek the most anxiously to control. Of course, youwill think it funny, and I must say that it seemed so to me at first, butI have come to think it is serious. The Altrurian girls are cultivatedand refined, but as they have worked all their lives with their handsthey cannot imagine the difference that work makes in Americans; that itcoarsens and classe
s them, especially if they have been in immediatecontact with rich people, and been degraded or brutalized by theknowledge of the contempt in which labor is held among us by those whoare not compelled to it. Some of my Altrurian friends have talked it overwith me, and I could take their point of view, though secretly I couldnot keep my poor American feelings from being hurt when they said that tohave a large number of people from the capitalistic world thrown upontheir hands was very much as it would be with us if we had the samenumber of Indians, with all their tribal customs and ideals, thrown uponour hands. They say they will not shirk their duty in the matter, andwill study it carefully; but all the same, they wish the incident had nothappened.

  XV

  I am glad that I was called away from the disagreeable point I left in mylast, and that I have got back temporarily to the scene of theAltrurianization of Mr. Thrall and his family. So far as it has gone itis perfect, if I may speak from the witness of happiness in thoseconcerned, except perhaps Mrs. Thrall; she is as yet only partiallyreconstructed, but even she has moments of forgetting her lost grandeurand of really enjoying herself in her work. She is an excellenthousekeeper, and she has become so much interested in making the marqueea simple home for her family that she is rather proud of showing it offas the effect of her unaided efforts. She was allowed to cater to themfrom the canned meats brought ashore from the yacht as long as they wouldstand it, but the wholesome open-air conditions have worked a wonderfulchange in them, and neither Mr. Thrall nor Lord and Lady Moors now haveany taste for such dishes. Here Mrs. Thrall's old-time skill as anexcellent vegetable cook, when she was the wife of a young mechanic, hascome into play, and she believes that she sets the best table in thewhole neighborhood, with fruits and many sorts of succulents and theeverlasting and ever-pervading mushrooms.

  As the Altrurians do not wish to annoy their involuntary guests, or tointerfere with their way of life where they do not consider it immoral,their control has ended with setting them to work for a living. Theyhave not asked them to the communal refectory, but, as long as they havebeen content to serve each other, have allowed them their private table.Of course, their adaptation to their new way of life has proceeded moreslowly than it otherwise would, but with the exception of Mrs. Thrallthey are very intelligent people, and I have been charmed in talking thesituation over with them. The trouble has not been so great with theship's people, as was feared. Such of these as have imagined their stayhere permanent, or wished it to be so, have been received into theneighboring communes, and have taken the first steps towardsnaturalization; those who look forward to getting away some time, orexpress the wish for it, are allowed to live in a community of their own,where they are not molested as long as they work in the three hours ofthe Obligatoires. Naturally, they are kept out of mischief, but aftertheir first instruction in the ideas of public property and theimpossibility of enriching themselves at the expense of any one else,they have behaved very well. The greatest trouble they ever gave was intrapping and killing the wild things for food; but when they were toldthat this must not be done, and taught to recognize the vast range ofedible fungi, they took not unwillingly to mushrooms and the rankertubers and roots, from which, with unlimited eggs, cheese, milk, andshell-fish, they have constructed a diet of which they do not complain.

  This brings me rather tangentially to Monsieur Anatole, who has become afanatical Altrurian, and has even had to be restrained in some of hisenthusiastic plans for the compulsory naturalization of his fellowcastaways. His value as a scientist has been cordially recognized, andhis gifts as an artist in the exquisite water-color studies of ediblefungi has won his notice in the capital of the Seventh Regional wherethey have been shown at the spring water-color exhibition. He has printedseveral poems in the _Regional Gazette_, villanelles, rondeaux, andtriolets, with accompanying versions of the French, into Altrurian by oneof the first Altrurian poets. This is a widow of about Monsieur Anatole'sown age; and the literary friendship between them has ripened intosomething much more serious. In fact they are engaged to be married. Isuppose you will laugh at this, Dolly, and at first I confess that therewas enough of the old American in me to be shocked at the idea of aFrench _chef_ marrying an Altrurian lady who could trace her descent tothe first Altrurian president of the Commonwealth, and who is universallyloved and honored. I could not help letting something of the kind escapeme by accident, to a friend, and presently Mrs. Chrysostom was sent tointerview me on the subject, and to learn just how the case appeared tome. This put me on my honor, and I was obliged to say how it would appearin America, though every moment I grew more and more ashamed of myselfand my native country, where we pretend that labor is honorable, and arealways heaping dishonor on it. I told how certain of our girls andmatrons had married their coachmen and riding-masters and put themselvesat odds with society, and I confessed that marrying a cook would beregarded as worse, if possible.

  Mrs. Chrysostom was accompanied by a lady in her second youth, verygraceful, very charmingly dressed, and with an expression of winningintelligence, whom she named to me simply as Cecilia, in the Altrurianfashion. She apparently knew no English, and at first Mrs. Chrysostomtranslated each of her questions and my answers. When I had got through,this lady began to question me herself in Altrurian, which I owned tounderstanding a little. She said:

  "You know Anatole?"

  "Yes, certainly, and I like him, as I think every one must who knowshim."

  "He is a skillful _chef_?"

  "Mr. Thrall would not have paid him ten thousand dollars a year if he hadnot been."

  "You have seen some of his water-colors?"

  "Yes. They are exquisite. He is unquestionably an artist of rare talent."

  "And it is known to you that he is a man of scientific attainments?"

  "That is something I cannot judge of so well as Aristides; but _he_ saysM. Anatole is learned beyond any man he knows in edible fungi."

  "As an adoptive Altrurian, and knowing the American ideas from our pointof view, should you respect their ideas of social inequality?"

  "Not the least in the world. I understand as well as you do that theirideas must prevail wherever one works for a living and another does not.hose ideas are practically as much accepted in America as they are inEurope, but I have fully renounced them."

  You see, Dolly, how far I have gone!

  The unknown, who could be pretty easily imagined, rose up and gave me herhand. "If you are in the Region on the third of May you must come to ourwedding."

  The same afternoon I had a long talk with Mr. Thrall, whom I found atwork replanting a strawberry-patch during the Voluntaries. He rose up atthe sound of my voice, and after an old man's dim moment for getting mementally in focus, he brightened into a genial smile, and said, "Oh, Mrs.Homos! I am glad to see you."

  I told him to go on with his planting, and I offered to get down on myknees beside him and help, but he gallantly handed me to a seat in theshade beside his daughter's flower-bed, and it was there that we had along talk about conditions in America and Altruria, and how he felt aboutthe great change in his life.

  "Well, I can truly say," he answered much more at length than I shallreport, "that I have never been so happy since the first days of myboyhood. All care has dropped from me; I don't feel myself rich, and Idon't feel myself poor in this perfect safety from want. The only thingthat gives me any regret is that my present state has not been the effectof my own will and deed. If I am now following the greatest and truest ofall counsels it has not been because I have sold all and given to thepoor, but because my money has been mercifully taken from me, and I havebeen released from its responsibilities in a state of things where thereis no money."

  "But, Mr. Thrall," I said, "don't you ever feel that you have a duty tothe immense fortune which you have left in America, and which must bedisposed of somehow when people are satisfied that you are not going toreturn and dispose of it yourself?"

  "No, none. I was long ago satisfied that I could really do no good withit. Perha
ps if I had had more faith in it I might have done some goodwith it, but I believe that I never did anything but harm, even when Iseemed to be helping the most, for I was aiding in the perpetuation of astate of things essentially wrong. Now, if I never go back--and I neverwish to go back--let the law dispose of it as seems best to theauthorities. I have no kith or kin, and my wife has none, so there is noone to feel aggrieved by its application to public objects."

  "And how do you imagine it will be disposed of?"

  "Oh, I suppose for charitable and educational purposes. Of course a gooddeal of it will go in graft; but that cannot be helped."

  "But if you could now dispose of it according to your clearest ideas ofjustice, and if you were forced to make the disposition yourself, whatwould you do with it?"

  "Well, that is something I have been thinking of, and as nearly as I canmake out, I ought to go into the records of my prosperity and ascertainjust how and when I made my money. Then I ought to seek out as fully aspossible the workmen who helped me make it by their labor. Their wages,which, were always the highest, were never a fair share, though I forcedmyself to think differently, and it should be my duty to inquire for themand pay them each a fair share, or, if they are dead, then their childrenor their next of kin. But even when I had done this I should not be surethat I had not done them more harm than good."

  How often I had heard poor Mr. Strange say things like this, and heardof other rich men saying them, after lives of what is called beneficence!Mr. Thrall drew a deep sigh, and cast a longing look at hisstrawberry-bed. I laughed, and said, "You are anxious to get back to yourplants, and I won't keep you. I wonder if Mrs. Thrall could see me if Icalled; or Lady Moors?"

  He said he was sure they would, and I took my way over to the marquee. Iwas a little surprised to be met at the door by Lord Moors' man Robert.He told me he was very sorry, but her ladyship was helping his lordshipat a little job on the roads, which they were doing quite in theVoluntaries, with the hope of having the National Colonnade extended to agiven point; the ladies were helping the gentlemen get the place inshape. He was still sorrier, but I not so much, that Mrs. Thrall waslying down and would like to be excused; she was rather tired fromputting away the luncheon things.

  He asked me if I would not sit down, and he offered me one of thecamp-stools at the door of the marquee, and I did sit down for a moment,while he flitted about the interior doing various little things. At lastI said, "How is this, Robert? I thought you had been assigned to a placein the communal refectory. You're not here on the old terms?"

  He came out and stood respectfully holding a dusting-cloth in his hand."Thank you, not exactly, ma'am. But the fact is, ma'am, that the communalmonitors have allowed me to come back here a few hours in the afternoon,on what I may call terms of my own."

  "I don't understand. But won't you sit down, Robert?"

  "Thank you, if it is the same to you, ma'am, I would rather stand whileI'm here. In the refectory, of course, it's different."

  "But about your own terms?"

  "Thanks. You see, ma'am, I've thought all along it was a bit awkward forthem here, they not being so much used to looking after things, and Iasked leave to come and help now and then. Of course, they said thatI could not be allowed to serve for hire in Altruria; and one thing ledto another, and I said it would really be a favor to me, and I didn'texpect money for my work, for I did not suppose I should ever be where Icould use it again, but if they would let me come here and do it for--"

  Robert stopped and blushed and looked down, and I took the word, "Forlove?"

  "Well, ma'am, that's what they called it."

  Dolly, it made the tears come into my eyes, and I said very solemnly,"Robert, do you know, I believe you are the sweetest soul even in thisand flowing with milk and honey?"

  "Oh, you mustn't say that, ma'am. There's Mr. Thrall and his lordship andher ladyship. I'm sure they would do the like for me if I needed theirhelp. And there are the Altrurians, you know."

  "But they are used to it, Robert, and--Robert! Be frank with me! What doyou think of Altruria?"

  "Quite frank, ma'am, as if you were not connected with it, as you are?"

  "Quite frank."

  "Well, ma'am, if you are sure you wouldn't mind it, or consider it out ofthe way for me, I should say it was--rum."

  "_Rum_? Don't you think it is beautiful here, to see people living foreach other instead of living _on_ each other, and the whole nation likeone family, and the country a paradise?"

  "Well, that's just it, ma'am, if you won't mind my saying so. That's whatI mean by rum."

  "Won't you explain?"

  "It doesn't seem _real_. Every night when I go to sleep, and think thatthere isn't a thief or a policeman on the whole continent, and only a fewharmless homicides, as you call them, that wouldn't hurt a fly, and not aperson hungry or cold, and no poor and no rich, and no servants and nomasters, and no soldiers, and no--disreputable characters, it seems as ifI was going to wake up in the morning and find myself on the _Saraband_and it all a dream here."

  "Yes, Robert," I had to own, "that was the way with me, too, for a longwhile. And even now I have dreams about America and the way matters arethere, and I wake myself weeping for fear Altruria _isn't_ true. Robert!You must be honest with me! When you are awake, and it's broad day, andyou see how happy every one is here, either working or playing, and thewhole land without an ugly place in it, and the lovely villages and themagnificent towns, and everything, does it still seem--rum?"

  "It's like that, ma'am, at times. I don't say at all times."

  "And you don't believe that the rest of the world--England andAmerica--will ever be rum, too?"

  "I don't see how they can. You see the poor are against it as well as therich. Everybody wants to have something of his own, and the trouble seemsto come from that. I don't suppose it was brought about in a day,Altruria wasn't, ma'am?"

  "No, it was whole centuries coming."

  "That was what I understood from that Mr. Chrysostom--Cyril, he wants meto call him, but I can't quite make up my mouth to it--who speaksEnglish, and says he has been in England. He was telling me about it, oneday when we were drying the dishes at the refectory together. He saysthey used to have wars and trusts and trades-unions here in the old days,just as we do now in civilized countries."

  "And you don't consider Altruria civilized?"

  "Well, not in just that sense of the word, ma'am. You wouldn't callheaven civilized?"

  "Well, not in just that sense of the word. Robert."

  "You see, it's rum here, because, though everything seems to go so right,it's against human nature."

  "The Altrurians say it isn't."

  "I hope I don't differ from you, ma'am, but what would people--the bestpeople--at home say? They would say it wasn't reasonable; they would sayit wasn't even possible. That's what makes me think it's a dream--thatit's rum. Begging your pardon, ma'am."

  "Oh, I quite understand, Robert. Then you don't believe a camel can evergo through the eye of a needle?"

  "I don't quite see how, ma'am."

  "But you are proof of as great a miracle, Robert."

  "Beg your pardon, ma'am?"

  "Some day I will explain. But is there nothing that can make you believeAltruria is true here, and that it can be true anywhere?"

  "I have been thinking a good deal about that, ma'am. One doesn't quitelike to go about in a dream, or think one is dreaming, and I have got tosaying to myself that if some ship was to come here from England orAmerica, or even from Germany, and we could compare our feelings with thefeelings of people who were fresh to it, we might somehow get to believethat it was real."

  "Yes," I had to own. "We need fresh proofs from time to time. There was aship that sailed from here something over a year ago, and the captainpromised his crew to let them bring her back, but at times I am afraidthat was part of the dream, too, and that we're all something I amdreaming about."

  "Just so, ma'am," Robert said, and I came away downheart
ed enough, thoughhe called after me, "Mrs. Thrall will be very sorry, ma'am."

  Back in the Maritime Capital, and oh, Dolly, Dolly, Dolly! They havesighted the _Little Sally_ from the terrace! How happy I am! There willbe letters from you, and I shall hear all that has happened in America,and I shall never again doubt that Altruria is real! I don't know how Ishall get these letters of mine back to you, but somehow it can bemanaged. Perhaps the _Saraband's_ crew will like to take the _LittleSally_ home again; perhaps when Mr. Thrall knows the ship is here he willwant to buy it and go back to his money in America and the misery of it!Do you believe he will? Should I like to remind my husband of his promiseto take me home on a visit? Oh, my heart misgives me! I wonder if thecaptain of the _Little Sally_ has brought his wife and children with him,and is going to settle among us, or whether he has just let his men havethe vessel, and they have come to Altruria without him? I dare not askanything, I dare not think anything!

  THE END