The Woman Who Vowed (The Demetrian)

by Ellison Harding

  CHAPTER IV

  ANNA OF ANN

  My place at lunch was by the side of the Mater. I soon guessed that shewas the wife of the patriarchal old man with whom I had been conversing.She had a delicious air of comfortable _embonpoint_, a clear skin, pinkcheeks, and massive white hair. She was already seated when Ariston tookme to her table, and, moving the empty chair a little to help me to myseat, she said, smiling:

  "You are to sit here; I am dreadfully anxious to talk to you; where onearth have you come from now?"

  I sat down by her, and answered:

  "I wish you could explain it to me."

  She looked me in the face and said: "You look just like the rest of us,except, that only our _priests_ shave"; I looked in the direction ofChairo inquiringly. "Oh, yes, Chairo shaves, and a few others who wantto be peculiar; but all of us simple folk----"

  She chuckled a little, and then, bending near me, whispered in my ear:"I have been looking at your trousers!"

  I made a deprecating gesture and smiled; she joined me, but in a laughso brimming over with merriment and so contagious that very soon all thetable had joined but without knowing why. When the Mater had finishedlaughing and the others with her, Ariston said:

  "Well, Mater, now that you've finished laughing, perhaps you will tellus what it's all about?"

  "Indeed, I won't," answered she; and there was almost a wink in herinnocent old eye as she turned to me and said: "It is a secret--isn'tit?--a secret between us two," and she patted my hand as if I had beenher son.

  I promised her with exaggerated solemnity never to reveal it, and shepatted my hand again and added:

  "I see you'll become one of us--one of the Tyringham Colony; we alwayscome together at every harvest time--as indeed do all the othercolonies--only we think our colony is just a little bit nicer than everyother."

  "And so does every other," said Ariston, "think itself better than therest."

  "And so all are happy," answered the Mater convincingly. "But have youmet your neighbor, Anna of Ann?"

  I turned to my right, and saw that Lydia was not the only beautifulwoman at Tyringham. Anna of Ann was of a different type. Her featureswere delicate; the eye was not remarkable; indeed, her glance was veiledand almost disappointing; her nose was ordinary; her skin clear butcolorless; it was assuredly in her mouth, and perhaps in her lowforehead and clustering hair, that her beauty resided; and as she spokethere were little movements of the lips that were bewitching:

  "No, I have not been haymaking with Ariston's group and so we have notspoken," she said. "But I saw you this morning after breakfast,and"--she added archly--"I stared at you with all the others; we weredreadfully rude! But then, there _was_ some excuse for us, wasn'tthere?"

  "Every excuse," I answered reassuringly. "But tell me, what do you dowhen you are not haymaking?"

  "What do you mean; work or play?"

  "What do you work at, and what do you play at?"

  "My work generally consists in attending at the public store; I sell inthe hosiery department at New York."

  "And what do you play at?"

  "Sculpture."

  "She's a great sculptor," volunteered Cleon, nodding at her from theother side of the table.

  "No, I am not," deprecated Anna; "I am not recognized."

  I looked at the Mater inquiringly.

  "By 'recognized,'" said the Mater, "she means the state hasn'trecognized her; that is to say, she has to do her work at the store orwherever else she is assigned during the regular three hours a day. Whenthe state recognizes her--as it is sure to do one of these days--shewill be allowed to devote all her time to sculpture."

  "I don't believe the state will ever recognize her," said Ariston; "sheis a great deal too good. That Sixth is a fool!"

  "Sixth is head of the fine arts department," explained the Mater. "Hisfull name is Sprague Sixth; six generations ago we had a great artistcalled Sprague, who was for twenty years our secretary of the fine arts,and one of his sons has borne his name ever since, until it has become atradition in Massachusetts that we must have a Sprague at the head ofour fine arts. This man Sprague Sixth, whom we call Sixth for short,doesn't believe anybody can be good at art unless he has studied in thestate school. Now Anna did not show any talent until her school dayswere over and she had been assigned to work in the store."

  "And now there is no chance for her," said Ariston ironically.

  "What do you mean," exclaimed Cleon, taking Ariston seriously, "she canbe a great artist, without being recognized?"

  "I am not sure I want to be recognized," said Anna. "If I wererecognized I should have to spend half my day in doing dull things forthe state to please Sixth; whereas, now one half of the day is spent indoing mechanical work at the store; the other half I have fresh for myown work. I am going to ask to be assigned to a factory; for factorywork is still more mechanical than that of the store, and I can then bemore free to think of my own work."

  All this was very strange and illuminating. A sculptor asking to dofactory work!

  "But won't factory work be very hard and brutalizing?" I asked.

  Anna looked at me, puzzled, and Ariston came to her rescue.

  "I don't think," he said, "Anna appreciates your point of view. In yourday all factory work was done purely to make money; the factories wereuncomfortable places, and workmen had to work eight and ten hours a day.Now that most of us have to do some factory work during the year,inventiveness has set to work to make the factory comfortable, and as weall of us have to work for the state and we no longer have to pay thecost of competition, three or four hours a day are all that arenecessary to furnish the whole community with the necessaries andcomforts of life."

  "And so I can give the rest of the day to sculpture," said Anna.

  "Without any anxiety as to whether her sculpture will pay or not," addedAriston.

  "She just has to please herself," said the Mater comfortably.

  "I am dreaming!" said I.

  "No, you're not," said the Mater; and she pinched me till I started.

  Everybody found this very funny--and so I took it as good-naturedly as Icould. But I made up my mind to have a little revenge, so I asked theMater quite loud as soon as they had finished laughing:

  "Tell me, is Lydia the only Demetrian here?"

  All looked shocked except Cleon, who laughed louder than ever, but Annalooked at him severely and said:

  "Cleon, I'm surprised."

  I noticed, too, a smile curl Ariston's lip. The Mater put a warningfinger to her mouth and shook her head reproachfully.

  "You see," I said, with no small satisfaction at the confusion I hadcaused, "I am new to all these things; I have to distinguish fact fromfancy; the sacred from the profane."

  "Of course," said Ariston, "although we have our domestic life in thecities, apart, every family having its own separate home, even there wejostle against one another a great deal more than you used in your time;and here at the colony we are like one large family; we have, therefore,to respect one another's opinions, and I might add--prejudices." Hebowed here at the Mater as though in deference to her cult of Demeter."We wouldn't be happy otherwise; and we have learned that after all, thehighest religion is the highest happiness. And so each of us respectsthe religion of the other; in our heart of hearts we doubtless tax oneanother with superstition, but we never admit it. Every cult,therefore, is tolerated and receives the outward respect of all."

  I could not help wondering whether this was true. Chairo clearlyregarded the cult of Demeter as dangerous and bad; how long then wouldhe tolerate it? Ariston divined my thought, for he added:

  "Of course, I assume that the cult involves no danger to the state; orto individual liberty."

  But the brows of the women darkened and I felt we were on dangerousground, so I asked:

  "And what are you going to do this afternoon?"

  "We are going on with our haymaking."

  "But I thought you worked only three or four hours a day?"
/>
  "Yes, that is all we owe the state; but we often ask to work all day fora season in order to have the whole day to ourselves later. And asharvesting must be done within a given space of time, it suits oureconomy as well as our inclination to work all day at this season andhave October to ourselves. Most of us go hunting all of October, and inNovember we meet again at the Eleusinian festival."

  "Hunting?" I asked; "but where do you hunt?"

  "Almost wherever we want, though, of course, this has to be arranged.Since your time the state has replanted forests on all the high groundleast suited to agriculture, and game is carefully preserved thereduring the whole year except October; which is our open season. Somehunting is done, too, in November and December to suit the convenienceof those who have to work in October; but it is mostly done in October."

  Lunch was by this time over and we adjourned to the veranda for coffeeand a cigar. There we were joined by Chairo and others, and gradually Ibegan to get some notion of the working of their Collectivist State. Butas their explanations left me in considerable bewilderment, and it wasonly when I saw the system in actual operation that I understood it, Ishall not attempt to give an account of our conversations, but ratherdescribe the events that followed, not only for the interest of theevents themselves, but for the light they threw on the problems whichstill remain unsolved for our race.

  Lydia's good-natured reproach at my idleness kindled in me a desire toremove the occasion of it, so I set myself to learn to mow, and in avery few days my muscles accustomed themselves to the work. I soonpicked up a part in their favorite refrains and was able to join intheir music as well as their occupations. My ardor for Lydia cooled whenI felt its hopelessness; and I confess to an admiration for Chairo whichjustified her love for him. Neither of them attempted to disguise theirdesire to be alone with each other, and yet they never moved far fromthe rest of us. Obviously, Lydia had not decided between Chairo andDemeter.

  The Pater told me that she need not decide for another year, though itwas likely that she would do so at the Eleusinian festival in November.This festival, corresponding to our Thanksgiving Day, was held in honorof Demeter and Persephone, the genii of fruitfulness, whether of theearth or of men; and it was generally on some such occasion that vowswere taken or missions renounced.