“I’ve got a job,” said Matthew, early in June.
Kautilya turned quickly and looked at him with something of apprehension in her gaze. It was a beautiful day. Kautilya had been arranging and cleaning, singing and smiling to herself, and then stopping suddenly and standing with upturned face as though listening to inner or far-off voices. Matthew had been gone all the morning and now returned laden with bundles and with a sheaf of long-stemmed roses, red and white, which Kautilya seized with a low cry and began to drape like cloud and sun upon the table.
Then she hurried to the phonograph and put a record on, singing with its full voice—a flare of strange music, haunting, alluring, loving. It poured out of the room, and Matthew joined in, and their blended voices dropped on the weary, dirty street. The tired stopped and listened. The children danced. Then at last:
“I’ve got a job,” said Matthew; and answering her look and silence with a caress, he added: “I got it myself—it’s just the work of a common laborer. I’m going to dig in the new subway. I shall get four dollars a day.”
“I am glad,” said Kautilya. “Tell me all about it.”
“There is not much, I’ve noticed the ads and today I went out and applied. There was one of Sammy’s gang there. He said I wouldn’t like this—that he could get me on as foreman or timekeeper. I told him I wanted to dig.”
“To dig, that’s it,” said Kautilya. “To get down to reality, Matthew. For us now, life begins. Come, my man, we have played and, oh! such sweet and beautiful play. Now the time of work dawns. We must go about our Father’s business. Let’s talk about it. Let’s stand upon the peaks again where once we stood and survey the kingdoms of this world and plot our way and plan our conquests. Oh, Matthew, Matthew, we are rulers and masters! We start to dig, remaking the world. Too long, too long we have stood motionless in darkness and dross. Up! To the work, in air and sun and heaven. How is our world, and when and where?”
They sat down to a simple lunch and Matthew talked.
“We must dig it out with my shovel and your quick wit. Here in America black folk must help overthrow the rule of the rich by distributing wealth more evenly first among themselves and then in alliance with white labor, to establish democratic control of industry. During the process they must keep step and hold tight hands with the other struggling darker peoples.”
“Difficult—difficult,” mused Kautilya, “for the others have so different a path. In my India, for instance, we must first emancipate ourselves from the subtle and paralyzing misleading of England—which divides our forces, bribes our brains, emphasizes our jealousies, encourages our weaknesses. Then we must learn to rule ourselves politically and to organize our old industry on new modern lines for two objects: our own social uplift and our own defense against Europe and America. Otherwise, Europe and America will continue to enslave us. Can we accomplish this double end in one movement?”
“It is paradoxical, but it must be done,” said Matthew. “Our hope lies in the growing multiplicity and worldwide push of movements like ours; the new dark will to self-assertion. China must achieve united and independent nationhood; Japan must stop aping the West and North and throw her lot definitely with the East and South. Egypt must stop looking north for prestige and tourists’ tips and look south toward the black Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, and South Africa for a new economic synthesis of the tropics.”
“And meantime, Matthew, our very hope of breaking the sinister and fatal power of Europe lies in Europe itself: in its own drear disaster; in negative jealousies, hatreds, and memories; in the positive power of revolutionary Russia, in German Socialism, in French radicalism and English labor. The Power and Will is in the world today. Unending pressure, steadying pull, blow on blow, and the great axis of the world quest will turn from Wealth to Men.”
“The mission of the darker peoples, my Kautilya, of black and brown and yellow, is to raise out of their pain, slavery, and humiliation, a beacon to guide manhood to health and happiness and life and away from the morass of hate, poverty, crime, sickness, monopoly, and the mass-murder called war.”
Kautilya sat with glowing eyes. She looked at Matthew and whispered:
“Day dawns. We must—start.”
Matthew hesitated and faltered. He talked like one exploring the dark:
“I had thought I might dig here in Chicago and that you might write and study, and that we together might live far out somewhere alone with trees and stars and carry on—correspondence with the world; and perhaps—”
“If we only could,” she said softly; and in the instant both knew it was an impossible idyl.
A week went by. There grew a certain stillness and apprehension in the air. The hard heat of July was settling on Chicago. Each morning Matthew put on his overalls and took his dinner-pail and went down into the earth to dig. Each night he came home, bathed, and put on the gorgeous dressing-gown Kautilya had bought him and sat down to the dinner Kautilya had cooked—it was always good, but simple, and he ate enormously. Then there was music, a late stroll beneath the stars, and bed. But always in Kautilya’s eyes, the rapt look burned.
And little things were beginning to happen. At first Matthew’s old popularity in his district had protected him. He always met nods and greetings as he and Kautilya fared forth and back. Then came reaction—the social tribute of the half-submerged to standards of respectability. Here and there a woman sneered, a child yelled, and a policeman was gruff. As weeks went by, Sammy interfered, and active hostility was evident. Jibes multiplied from chance passersby who recognized them; the sneers of policemen were open. Then came the question of money, which never occurred to Kautilya, but drove Matthew mad when he tried to stretch his meager wage beyond the simple food to American Beauty roses and new books and bits of silk and gold.
Tonight as they returned from a silent but sweet stroll a bit earlier than their wont, they met a crowd of children, those children who seem never to have a bedtime. The children stared, laughed, jeered, and then stoned them. Matthew would have rushed upon them to tear their flesh, but Kautilya soothed him, and they came breathless home.
They stood awhile clinging in the dark. Then slowly Matthew took her shoulders in his hand and said:
“We have had the day God owed us, Kautilya, and now at last we must face facts frankly. Here and in this way I cannot protect you, I cannot support you, and neither of us can do the great work which is our dream.”
“It was brave and good of you, Matthew, to speak first when you knew how hard the duty was to me and how weak I am in presence of our love. Yes, we have had the day God owed us—and now, Matthew, the day of our parting dawns. I am going away.”
He knew that she was going to say this, and yet until it was said he kept trying to believe it would not come. Now when it did come it struck upon his ears like doom. The brownness of his face went gray, and his cheeks sagged with sudden age. He looked at her with stricken eyes, and she, sobbing, smiled at him through tears.
“You are a brave man,” she went on steadily. “In this last great deed, I will not fear. I go to greet the ghosts of all my fathers, the Maharajahs of Bwodpur. India calls. The black world summons. I must be about my fathers’ business. Tomorrow, I go. This night, this beautiful night, is ours. Behold the good, sweet moon and the white dripping of the stars. There shall be no fire tonight, save in our twined bodies and in our flaming hearts.”
But he only whispered, “Parted!”
“Courage, my darling,” she said. “Nothing, not even the high Majesty of Death, shall part us for a moment. There is a sense—a beautiful meaning—in which we two can never part. To all time, we are one wedded soul. The day may dawn when in cries and tears of joy we shall feel each other’s arms again. But we must not deceive ourselves. It is possible that now and from this incarnate spirit we part forever. Great currents and waves of forces are rolling down between. It may not lie in human power to breast them. But, Matthew, oh, Matthew, always, always wherever I am and no matter how dark and drear the silence—always I am with you and by your side.”
Matthew was calm again and spoke slowly: “No, we will not deceive each other,” he said; “I know as well as you that we must part. I am ready for the sacrifice, Kautilya. There was a time when I did not know the meaning of sacrifice, when I interpreted it as surrendering an ounce to get a pound, exchanging a sunrise for a summer. But now, I know that if I am asked to give up you forever, and nothing, nothing can come in return, I shall do it quietly and with no outcry. I shall work on, doing the very best I know how. I shall keep strong in body and clear in mind and clean in soul. I shall play the great game of life as we have conceived and dreamed it together, and try to dream it further into fact. But in all that living, working, doing, dear Kautilya, I shall be dead. For without you—there is no life for me.
“I suppose that all this feeling is based on the physical urge of sex between us. I suppose that other contacts, other experiences, might have altered the world for us two. But the magnificent fact of our love remains, whatever its basis or accident. It rises from the ecstasy of our bodies to the communion of saints, the resurrection of the spirit, and the exquisite crucifixion of God. It is the greatest thing in our world. I sacrifice it, when I must, for nobler worlds that others may enjoy.”
“I did not mistake you, Matthew; I knew you would understand. The time is come for infinite wisdom itself to think life out for us. This honeymoon of our high marriage with God alone as priest must end. It was our due. We earned it. But now we must earn a higher, finer thing.”
Then hesitatingly she continued and spoke the yet unspoken word:
“First comes your duty to Sara. Even if you had not miraculously returned to me, you would have been forced to let Sara know by some unanswerable cataclysm that you would no longer follow her leading—either this, or your spiritual death; for you knew it, and you were planning revolt and flight. You were frightened at the thought of poverty and unlovely work; but now that you are free and have known love, you must return to Sara and say:
“ ‘See, I am a laborer: I will not lie and cheat and steal, but I will work in any honest way.’ If it still happens that she wants you, wants the real you, whom she knows now but partially and must in the end know fully a man honest to his own hurt, not greedy for wealth; loving all mankind and rejoicing in the simple things of life—if she wants this man, I—I must let you go. For she is a woman; she has her rights.”
Matthew answered slowly:
“But she will not want me; I grieve to say it in pity, for I suffer with all women. Sara loves no one but herself. She can never love. To her this world-tangle of the races is a lustful scramble for place and power and show. She is mad because she is handicapped in the scramble. She would gladly trample anything beneath her feet, black, white, yellow, if only she could ride in gleaming triumph at the procession’s head. Jealousy, envy, pride, fill the little crevices of her soul. No, she will not want me. But if you will as you have said, hers shall be the choice. She must ask divorce, not I. And even beyond that I will offer her fully and freely my whole self.”
“And in the meantime,” said Kautilya, “there are greater things—greater issues to be tested. We will wait on the high gods to see if maybe they will point the way for us to work together for the emancipation of the world. But if they decide otherwise, then, Matthew—”
“Then,” continued Matthew gently, “we are parted, and forever.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “You and I, apart but eternally one, must walk the long straight path of renunciation in order that the work of the world shall go forward at our hands. We must work. We must work with our hands. We must work with our brains. We must stand before Vishnu; together we will serve.
“For, Matthew, hear my confession. I too face the horror of sacrifice. All is not well in Bwodpur, and each day I hearken for the call of doom across the waters. The old Rajah, my faithful guardian and ruler in my stead, is dead. Tradition, jealousy, intrigue, loom. For of me my people have a right to demand one thing: a Maharajah in Bwodpur, and one—of the blood royal!”
Matthew dropped his hands suddenly. Suddenly he knew that his own proposal of sacrifice was but an empty gesture, for Sara did not want him—would never want him. But Bwodpur wanted—a King!
Kautilya spoke slowly, standing with hanging hands and with face upraised toward the moon.
“We widows of India, even widows who, like me, were never wives, must ever face the flame of Sati. And in living death, I go to meet the Maharajah of Bwodpur.”
“Go with God, for after all it is not merely me you love, but rather the world through me.”
“You are right and wrong, Matthew; I would not love you, did you not signify and typify to me this world and all the burning worlds beyond, the souls of all the living and the dead and of them that are to be. Because of this I love you, you alone. Yet I would love you if there were no world. I shall love you when the world is not.”
She continued, after a space:
“I did not tell you, but yesterday my great and good friend, the Japanese baron whom you have met and dislike because you do not know him, came to see me. He knows always where I am and what I do, for it is written that I must tell him. You do not realize him yet, Matthew. He is civilization—he is the high goal toward which the world blindly gropes; high in birth and perfect in courtesy, filled with wide, deep, and intimate knowledge of the world’s past the world, white, black, brown, and yellow: knowing by personal contact and acquaintanceship the present from kings to coolies. He is a man of lofty ideal without the superstition of religion, a man of decision and action. He is our leader, Matthew, the guide and counselor, the great Prime Minister of the Darker World.
“He brought me information—floods of facts: the great conspiracy of England to re-grip the British mastery of the world at any cost; the titanic struggle behind the scenes in Russia between toil and ignorance defending the walls against organized stupidity and greed in Western Europe and America. He tells me of the armies and navies, of new millionaires in Germany and France, of new Caesarism in Italy, of the failing hells of Poland and dismembered Slavdom. The world is a great ripe cherry, gory, rotten—it must be plucked lest it fall and smash.
“My friend talked long of Asia—of my India, of poor Bwodpur. The Dewan who now rules for me, for all his loyalty and ability and his surrounding of young and able men, is distraught with trouble. It is unheard of that a Maharanee without a Maharajah should rule in Bwodpur. Some will not believe that the old Rajah is dead, but say that, shut up within his castle in High Himalaya, that ancient and unselfish man, who was my King in name, still lives as the reincarnate Buddha—lives and rules, and they would worship him. Around this and other superstitions, the continued and inexplicable absence of the Maharanee, the innovations of schools, health training, roads, and mysterious machinery, the neglect of the old religion, looms the intrigue of the English on every side—money, cheap goods, titles, decorations, hospitality, and magnificent Durbar—oh, all is not well in Bwodpur; even the throes of revolution threaten: Muslim and Hindu are at odds, Buddhist and Christian quarrel. Bwodpur needs me, Matthew, but she needs more than me: she needs a Maharajah.
“Facing all this, Matthew, my man, with level eye and clear brain we must drain the cup before us: if return to India severs me from the western world and you—if the dropping of ocean-wide dreams into the little lake of Bwodpur is my destiny—the will of Vishnu prevail. If your reunion with Sara is the only step toward the real redemption and emancipation of black America, then, Matthew, drain the cup. But after all, the day of decision is not yet. And whatever comes, Love—our love is already eternal.”
Matthew pondered and said:
“The paradox is amazing: the only thing that was able to lift me from cynical selfishness, organized theft and deception, was that finest thing within me—this love and idealization of you. If I had not followed it at every cost, I should have sunk beneath hell. And yet now I am anathema to my people. I am the Sunday School example of one who sold his soul to the devil. I am painted as punished with common labor for following lust and desecrating the home. People who recognize me all but spit upon me in the street. Oh, Kautilya, what shall we do against these forces that are pushing, prying, rending us apart? Is it possible that the great love of a man for a woman—the perfect friendship and communion of two human beings can ever be mere evil?”
They turned toward the room and looked at it. “I cannot keep these things,” he said. “They mean you. They meant you unconsciously before I knew that I should ever see you again. The Chinese rug was the splendid coloring of your skin; the Matisse was the flame of your high spirit; the music was your voice. I am going to move to one simple, bare room where again and unhindered by things, I can see this little place of beauty with you set high in its midst. And I shall picture you still in its midst. I could not bear to see any one of these things without you.”
She hesitated. “I understand, I think, and the rug and picture shall go with me,” she said. “And yet I hate to think of your living barely and crudely without the bits of beauty you have placed about you. Yet perhaps it is well. In my land, you know, men often, in their strong struggle with life, go out and leave life and strip themselves of everything material that could impede or weight the soul, and sit naked and alone before their God. Perhaps, Matthew, it would be well for you to do this. A little space—a little space.”
“How long before—we know?” he said, turning toward her suddenly and taking both her hands.
“I cannot say,” she answered. “Perhaps a few weeks, perhaps a little year. Perhaps until the spirit Vishnu comes down again to earth.”
He shivered and said, “Not so long as that, oh, Radha, not so long! And yet if it must be let it be.”
And so they dismantled the room and packed and baled most of the things therein. At last in full day they went down to the Union Station and walked slowly along toward the gates with clasped hands. A beautiful couple, unusual in their height, in the brownness of their skins, in their joy and absorption in each other.
A porter passed by, stopped, and glanced back. He whispered to another: “That’s him; and that’s the woman.” Then others whispered, porters and passengers. A knot of the curious gathered and stared. But the two did not hurry; they did not notice. Someone even hissed, “Shameless!” and someone else said, “Fool!” and still they walked on and through the gates and to the train. He kissed her lips and kissed her hands, and without tears or words she stepped on the train and looked backward as it moved off. Suddenly he lifted both hands on high, and tears rolled down his cheeks.