第19章

Thief, coward, blackguard, they are stamped upon his face, but UNDERthe face, under the evil outside? Is there no remnant of manhood--nothing tender, nothing, true? A woman has crept to the cross to kiss him: no evidence in his favour, my Lord? Love is blind-aye, to our faults.Heaven help us all; Love's eyes would be sore indeed if it were not so.But for the good that is in us her eyes are keen.You, crucified blackguard, stand forth.A hundred witnesses have given their evidence against you.Are there none to give evidence for him? A woman, great Judge, who loved him.Let her speak.

But I am wandering far from Hyde Park and its show of girls.

They passed and re-passed me, laughing, smiling, talking.Their eyes were bright with merry thoughts; their voices soft and musical.

They were pleased, and they wanted to please.Some were married, some had evidently reasonable expectations of being married; the rest hoped to be.And we, myself, and some ten thousand other young men.I repeat it--myself and some ten thousand other young men; for who among us ever thinks of himself but as a young man? It is the world that ages, not we.The children cease their playing and grow grave, the lasses' eyes are dimmer.The hills are a little steeper, the milestones, surely, further apart.The songs the young men sing are less merry than the songs we used to sing.The days have grown a little colder, the wind a little keener.The wine has lost its flavour somewhat; the new humour is not like the old.The other boys are becoming dull and prosy; but we are not changed.It is the world that is growing old.Therefore, I brave your thoughtless laughter, youthful Reader, and repeat that we, myself and some ten thousand other young men, walked among these sweet girls; and, using our boyish eyes, were fascinated, charmed, and captivated.How delightful to spend our lives with them, to do little services for them that would call up these bright smiles.How pleasant to jest with them, and hear their flute-like laughter, to console them and read their grateful eyes.Really life is a pleasant thing, and the idea of marriage undoubtedly originated in the brain of a kindly Providence.

We smiled back at them, and we made way for them; we rose from our chairs with a polite, "Allow me, miss," "Don't mention it, I prefer standing." "It is a delightful evening, is it not?" And perhaps--for what harm was there?--we dropped into conversation with these chance fellow-passengers upon the stream of life.There were those among us--bold daring spirits--who even went to the length of mild flirtation.Some of us knew some of them, and in such happy case there followed interchange of pretty pleasantries.Your English middle-class young man and woman are not adepts at the game of flirtation.I will confess that our methods were, perhaps, elephantine, that we may have grown a trifle noisy as the evening wore on.But we meant no evil; we did but our best to enjoy ourselves, to give enjoyment, to make the too brief time, pass gaily.

And then my thoughts travelled to small homes in distant suburbs, and these bright lads and lasses round me came to look older and more careworn.But what of that? Are not old faces sweet when looked at by old eyes a little dimmed by love, and are not care and toil but the parents of peace and joy?

But as I drew nearer, I saw that many of the faces were seared with sour and angry looks, and the voices that rose round me sounded surly and captious.The pretty compliment and praise had changed to sneers and scoldings.The dimpled smile had wrinkled to a frown.

There seemed so little desire to please, so great a determination not to be pleased.

And the flirtations! Ah me, they had forgotten how to flirt! Oh, the pity of it! All the jests were bitter, all the little services were given grudgingly.The air seemed to have grown chilly.Adarkness had come over all things.

And then I awoke to reality, and found I had been sitting in my chair longer than I had intended.The band-stand was empty, the sun had set; I rose and made my way home through the scattered crowd.

Nature is so callous.The Dame irritates one at times by her devotion to her one idea, the propagation of the species.

"Multiply and be fruitful; let my world be ever more and more peopled."For this she trains and fashions her young girls, models them with cunning hand, paints them with her wonderful red and white, crowns them with her glorious hair, teaches them to smile and laugh, trains their voices into music, sends them out into the world to captivate, to enslave us.

"See how beautiful she is, my lad," says the cunning old woman.

"Take her; build your little nest with her in your pretty suburb;work for her and live for her; enable her to keep the little ones that I will send."And to her, old hundred-breasted Artemis whispers, "Is he not a bonny lad? See how he loves you, how devoted he is to you! He will work for you and make you happy; he will build your home for you.

You will be the mother of his children."

So we take each other by the hand, full of hope and love, and from that hour Mother Nature has done with us.Let the wrinkles come;let our voices grow harsh; let the fire she lighted in our hearts die out; let the foolish selfishness we both thought we had put behind us for ever creep back to us, bringing unkindness and indifference, angry thoughts and cruel words into our lives.What cares she? She has caught us, and chained us to her work.She is our universal mother-in-law.She has done the match-making; for the rest, she leaves it to ourselves.We can love or we can fight; it is all one to her, confound her.