Through the Eye of the Needle: A Romance

  VII

  Well, to get away from these dismal experiences, and come back to ourtravels, with their perpetual novelty, and the constantly varying beautyof the country!

  The human interest of the landscape, that is always the great interest ofit, and I wish I could make you feel it as I have felt it in thiswonderful journey of ours. It is like the New England landscape at times,in its kind of gentle wildness, but where it has been taken back into thehand of man, how different the human interest is! Instead of a rheumaticold farmer, in his clumsy clothes, with some of his gaunt girls to helphim, or perhaps his ageing wife, getting in the hay of one of those sweetmeadows, and looking like so many animated scarecrows at their work; orinstead of some young farmer, on the seat of his clattering mower, ormounted high over his tedder, but as much alone as if there were no oneelse in the neighborhood, silent and dull, or fierce or sullen, as thecase might be, the work is always going on with companies of mowers orreapers, or planters, that chatter like birds or sing like them.

  It is no use my explaining again and again that in a country like this,where everybody works, nobody over works, and that when the few hours ofobligatory labor are passed in the mornings, people need not do anythingunless they choose. Their working-dresses are very simple, but in allsorts of gay colors, like those you saw in the Greek play at Harvard,with straw hats for the men, and fillets of ribbon for the girls, andsandals for both. I speak of girls, for most of the married women are athome gardening, or about the household work, but men of every age work inthe fields. The earth is dear to them because they get their life from itby labor that is not slavery; they come to love it every acre, everyfoot, because they have known it from childhood; and I have seen old men,very old, pottering about the orchards and meadows during the hours ofvoluntary work, and trimming them up here and there, simply because theycould not keep away from the place, or keep their hands off the trees andbushes. Sometimes in the long, tender afternoons, we see far up on somepasture slope, groups of girls scattered about on the grass, with theirsewing, or listening to some one reading. Other times they are giving alittle play, usually a comedy, for life is so happy here that tragedywould not be true to it, with the characters coming and going in a groveof small pines, for the _coulisses_, and using a level of grass for thestage. If we stop, one of the audience comes down to us and invites us tocome up and see the play, which keeps on in spite of the sensation that Ican feel I make among them.

  Everywhere the news of us has gone before us, and there is a universalcuriosity to get a look at Aristides' capitalistic wife, as they call me.I made him translate it, and he explained that the word was merelydescriptive and not characteristic; some people distinguished and calledme American. There was one place where they were having a picnic in thewoods up a hillside, and they asked us to join them, so we turned ourvan into the roadside and followed the procession. It was headed by twoold men playing on pipes, and after these came children singing, and thenall sorts of people, young and old. When we got to an open place in thewoods, where there was a spring, and smooth grass, they built fires, andbegan to get ready for the feast, while some of them did things to amusethe rest. Every one could do something; if you can imagine a party ofartists, it was something like that. I should say the Altrurians hadartists' manners, free, friendly, and easy, with a dash of humor ineverything, and a wonderful willingness to laugh and make laugh.Aristides is always explaining that the artist is their ideal type; thatis, some one who works gladly, and plays as gladly as he works; no onehere is asked to do work that he hates, unless he seems to hate everykind of work. When this happens, the authorities find out something forhim that he had _better_ like, by letting him starve till he works. Thatpicnic lasted the whole afternoon and well into the night, and then thepicnickers went home through the starlight, leading the little ones, orcarrying them when they were too little or too tired. But first they camedown to our van with us, and sang us a serenade after we had disappearedinto it, and then left us, and sent their voices back to us out of thedark.

  One morning at dawn, as we came into a village, we saw nearly the wholepopulation mounting the marble steps of the temple, all the holiday dressof the Voluntaries, which they put on here every afternoon when the workis done. Last of the throng came a procession of children, lookingsomething like a May-Day party, and midway of their line were a young manand a young girl, hand in hand, who parted at the door of the temple, andentered separately. Aristides called out, "Oh, it is a wedding! You arein luck, Eveleth," and then and there I saw my first Altrurian wedding.

  Within, the pillars and the altar and the seats of the elders weregarlanded with flowers, so fresh and fragrant that they seemed to haveblossomed from the marble overnight, and there was a soft murmur ofAltrurian voices that might very well have seemed the hum of bees amongthe blossoms. This subsided, as the young couple, who had paused justinside the temple door, came up the middle side by side, and againseparated and took their places, the youth on the extreme right of theelder, and the maiden on the extreme left of the eldresses, and stoodfacing the congregation, which was also on foot, and joined in the hymnwhich everybody sang. Then one of the eldresses rose and began a sort ofstatement which Aristides translated to me afterwards. She said that theyoung couple whom we saw there had for the third time asked to become manand wife, after having believed for a year that they loved each other,and having statedly come before the marriage authorities and beenquestioned as to the continuance of their affection. She said thatprobably every one present knew that they had been friends fromchildhood, and none would be surprised that they now wished to be unitedfor life. They had been carefully instructed as to the serious nature ofthe marriage bond, and admonished as to the duties they were enteringinto, not only to each other, but to the community. At each successivevisit to the authorities they had been warned, separately and together,against the danger of trusting to anything like a romantic impulse, andthey had faithfully endeavored to act upon this advice, as theytestified. In order to prove the reality of their affection, they hadbeen parted every third month, and had lived during that time indifferent Regions where it was meant they should meet many other youngpeople, so that if they felt any swerving of the heart they might notpersist in an intention which could only bring them final unhappiness. Itseems this is the rule in the case of young lovers, and people usuallymarry very young here, but if they wish to marry later in life the ruleis not enforced so stringently, or not at all. The bride and groom we sawhad both stood these trials, and at each return they had been more andmore sure that they loved each other, and loved no one else. Now theywere here to unite their hands, and to declare the union of their heartsbefore the people.

  Then the eldress sat down and an elder arose, who bade the young peoplecome forward to the centre of the line, where the elders and eldresseswere sitting. He took his place behind them, and once more and for thelast time he conjured them not to persist if they felt any doubt ofthemselves. He warned them that if they entered into the married state,and afterwards repented to the point of seeking divorce, the divorcewould indeed be granted them, but on terms, as they must realize, oflasting grief to themselves through the offence they would commit againstthe commonwealth. They answered that they were sure of themselves, andready to exchange their troth for life and death. Then they joined hands,and declared that they took each other for husband and wife. Thecongregation broke into another hymn and slowly dispersed, leaving thebride and groom with their families, who came up to them and embracedthem, pressing their cheeks against the cheeks of the young pair.

  This ended the solemnity, and then the festivity began, as it ended, witha wedding feast, where people sang and danced and made speeches and dranktoasts, and the fun was kept up till the hours of the Obligatoriesapproached; and then, what do you think? The married pair put off theirwedding garments with the rest and went to work in the fields! Later,I understood, if they wished to take a wedding journey they could freelydo so; but the first thing in their married life
they must honor theAltrurian ideal of work, by which every one must live in order thatevery other may live without overwork. I believe that the marriageceremonial is something like that of the Quakers, but I never saw aQuaker wedding, and I could only compare this with the crazy romps withwhich our house-weddings often end, with throwing of rice and old shoes,and tying ribbons to the bridal carriage and baggage, and following thepair to the train with outbreaks of tiresome hilarity, which make themconspicuous before their fellow-travellers; or with some of our ghastlychurch weddings, in which the religious ceremonial is lost in the socialeffect, and ends with that everlasting thumping march from "Lohengrin,"and the outsiders storming about the bridal pair and the guests with therude curiosity that the fattest policemen at the canopied and carpetedentrance cannot check.