SEVENTH CHAPTER
PAULA BEGINS TO SEE MORE CLEARLY THROUGH MADAME NESTOR'S REVELATIONS,AND WITNESSES A BROADWAY ACCIDENT
In mid-afternoon Paula obeyed an impulse to call upon Madame Nestor. Shewanted to talk with the only human being in New York who could quiteunderstand. Madame's room was west of Eighth Avenue in Forty-fourthStreet--the servant's quarter in a squalid suite, four flights up. Thesingle window opened upon a dim shaft, heavy with emanations from manykitchens. There was not even a closet. Madame's moulted plumage was hungupon the back of the outer and only door. Books were everywhere, on thefloor, in boxes, on the cot.
"My dear Paula, you felt the need of me?... I should have come to you.This does very well for me, but I dislike my poverty to be known, dear.It is not that I am the least proud, but the psychic effects of pity aredepressing."
"Please, Madame Nestor, don't think of me pitying anybody! I did feelthe need of you. The day has been horrible. But first, I want to tellyou that I am very sorry for what I said--when you were in my rooms theother day----"
The elder woman leaned forward and kissed Paula's dress at the shoulder.There was something sweet and mild and devotional in the action,something suggestive of a wise old working-bee pausing an instant tocaress its queen.
"You have been impelled to go to him, Paula?"
"Yes. It came over me quite irresistibly. I could not have beenaltogether myself.... I think I shall leave the city!"
Madame Nestor asked several questions, bringing out all she cared toknow of Paula's experience that day. Her eyes became very bright as shesaid:
"I dare not advise you _not_ to go away. Still, don't you see it--howwonderful was your victory to-day?"
"I can't always defeat him!" Paula cried. "His power comes over me and Imove toward him--just as reptiles must follow a blind impulse startedfrom without. Each time I follow, I must be weaker."
"But, Paula, each time something happens to restore you to yourself,thwarting his purpose, his projections are weakened."
"But if I should go far away?"
"He could only put it in your mind to return."
When Paula remembered the accidents which had preserved her, even whenin the same city with the Destroyer, she could not doubt the salvationin putting a big stretch of the planet's curve between her and thisdynamo.... Certain unfinished thinking could only be cleared through afriend like Madame Nestor.
"This physical consciousness which he has made me feel seemsindescribably more sinister in erect human beings than the matinginstinct in animals and birds," Paula declared with hesitation. "Can itbe that women in general encounter influences--of this kind?"
"It is man's fault that women have broken all seasons," the Madame saidbitterly. "Man has kept woman submerged since the beginning of time.Always eager to serve; and blest--or cursed--with the changeless passionto be _all_ to one man--her most enduring hope to hold the exclusivelove of one man--woman has adapted herself eagerly to become themonogamic answer to man's polygamic nature. Bellingham is but theembodiment of a desire which exists in greater or less degree in everyman. This desire of man has disordered women. We have lost the truemeaning of ourselves--I mean, as a race of women--and have become merelyphysical mates."
"I can hardly believe it--that even women of the streets should ever bedegraded by such a horrible force," Paula said desperately. "And thesweet calm faces of some of the women we know----"
"Behind the mask of innocence, often, is a woman's terrible secret,Paula. For most women obey. Even the growth of the maid is ruthlesslyforced by hot breaths of passion, until motherhood--so often a domestictragedy--leaves the imprint of shame in her arms. The man of unlit soulhas made this low play of passion his art. Woman as a race has fallen,because it is her way to please and obey. Man has taught us to believethat when he comes to our arms, we are at our highest.... And, listen,Paula, certain men of to-day, a step higher in evolution, blame womanbecause she has not suddenly _unlearned_ her training of theages--lessons man has graven in the very bed-rock of her nature. In thenovelty of their new-found austerity, they exclaim: 'Avoid woman. She ispassion rhythmic. It is she who draws us down from our lofty regions ofendeavor.'"
Terrific energy of rebellion stirred Paula's mind. "But the promise isthat woman's time shall come!" she exclaimed. "The Child, Jesus, said tohis Mother, 'Thy time is not yet come,' but it is promised that the heelof woman shall crush the head of the Serpent. We have always borne thesin, the agony, the degradation, but our time must be close at hand! Ithink this is the age--and this the country--of the Rising Woman!"
Madame Nestor arose from the cot and stood before Paula, her eyesshining with emotion.
"Bless you, my beloved girl, my whole heart leaps to sanction that! Ihave symbolized the whole struggle of our race in your personalstruggle--don't you see this, Paula?... Bellingham is the concentrate ofdevourers--and you the evolved woman who overcomes him! My hope for therace lies in you, and your victory to-day has filled my cup withhappiness!... You say you do not dare to pray. I tell you, child,--theGod of women gave you strength to-day. He is close to harken unto yourneed--for you are among the first of the elect to bring in the glory ofthe new day!... The animal in man has depleted the splendid energies ofthe Spirit. Passions of the kind you defeated to-day are overpoweringwomen everywhere at this hour--lesser passions of lesser Bellinghams.Man's course to God has been a crawl through millenniums, instead of aflight through decades, because woman has bowed--obeyed. God is patient,but woman is aroused!... Above the din of wars, the world has heard thewailing of the women; out of the ghostly silence of famine and frombeneath the debris of fallen empires--always the world has heard her cryfor pity--her cry for pity now _become a Voice of Power_! All hertortured centuries have been for this--and the signs are upon us!Woman's demand for knowledge, her clamor for suffrage, her protestagainst eternally paying for man's lust with unblessed babes--all theseare signs! But you, Paula Linster,--and what I know of this day--is themost thrilling sign of all to me!... Ah, woman is evolving; she isaroused! How shall she repay man for brutalizing her so long?"
"By bringing him back to God!" Paula answered.
They wept together and whispered, while the night fell about and coveredthe squalid room.
* * * * *
It was one of her emancipated nights. Paula's spirit poured out over thecity, for her mind was lit with thoughts of the ultimate redemption ofher race. Bellingham could not have found her in his world that hour....Emerging from Broadway to Forty-fourth Street, at eight in the evening,she passed under the hot brilliance of a famous hotel-entrance. As itnever would have occurred to her to do in a less exalted moment, Paulaglanced at a little knot of men standing under the lights. The eyes ofone were roving like an unclean hand over her figure. Suddenlyencountering her look, a bold, eager, challenge stretched itself uponhis face. In the momentary panic, her glance darted to the othersinstinctively for protection--and found three smiling corpses.... Herewere little Bellinghams; here, the sexual drunkenness which has madeMan's course "a crawl through millenniums" to God, instead of a flightthrough decades. What a pitiless revelation!... She clung to her bigIdeal in the West. It came to her for a second like a last and singlehope--that Charter was not like that.... "God is patient and woman isaroused!" she whispered.
And farther up, a little way into Forty-seventh, Paula found a SalvationArmy circle under the torch. A man with a pallid, shrunken face turnedimploring eyes from one to another of the company, exclaiming: "I tellyou, man's first work here below is to save his soul! I pray you--menand women, here to-night--to save your souls!"
Paula tossed her purse upon the big drum, as she passed swiftly. Luckilythere was carfare in her glove, for she had not thought of that. Neverbefore had she felt in such fullness her relation to the race....
A hansom-cab veered about the edge of the Salvation circle, swift enoughto attract her eye. The horse had started before the driver was in theseat. The latter was fat and a
poplectic. It was all he could do toregain his place, so that the reins still dangled. The possibility of acab-horse becoming excited held only humor for the crowd, which partedto let the vehicle by. The horse, feeling his head, started to run justas the driver seized one of the lines and jerked his beast into thecurb. There was an inhuman scream. A strange, boneless effigy of a manwith twisted, waving arms--went down before the plunging horse, sosuddenly swerved.... A hush seemed to have fallen upon the noisyBroadway corner. Paula was not blind in the brief interval whichfollowed, but the world seemed gray and still, like a spectral dawn, orthe unearthly setting of a dream.
"The shaft bored into him, and the horse struck him after he fell," avoice explained.
They lifted him. There was particular dreadfulness in the quantity offluid evenly sheeted on the pavement as from a pail carefullyoverturned. Startling effrontery attached to the thought of man'sheaven-aspiring current swimming like this upon a degraded city road.The horse, now held by the bit, snorted affrightedly at the odor. Theyhad carried the unfortunate to the sidewalk under the lights of atobacco-shop window. The upper part of his head and face was indefinitelike a crushed tin of dark paint. But mouth and nose and chin of theupturned face left an imperishable imprint upon her mind. It wasBellingham.... Paula fled, her lips opening in a sick fashion. It seemedhours before she could reach the sanctuary of her room, where she sobbedin the dark.