Chapter CXXV: Section 11: A few days more passed; and then, one Sundav morning,

Thyrsis’ mother came to him in tears, with a copy of a newspaper “magazine-supplement” in her hand.

“Look at this!” she cried; and Thyrsis stared.

There was a full-page article, with many illustrations, and a headline two inches deep--“Henry Darrell to found Free-Love Colony! Ex-college professor and clergyman buys farm to teach his doctrines.” There was a picture of Darrell, standing upon a ladder and nailing up an announcement of his defiance to the institution of marriage; and there were pictures of his wife and child, and of the farm he had bought, and a long account of the colony which he was organizing, and in which he meant to preach and practice his ideas of “free love”.

Thyrsis was half dazed. “I don’t believe it!” he cried; whereat his mother wrung her hands.

“Not believe it!” she exclaimed. “Why, the paper even gives the price he paid for the place!”

So Thyrsis took the article and went to see Henry Darrell again; and there followed one of the most painful experiences of his life.

He found his friend like a man blasted by a stroke of lightning. His very physical appearance was altered; his voice shook and his eyes were wild, and he paced the room, his whole aspect one cry of agony.

He pointed Thyrsis to a lot of clippings that lay upon the table--the first editorial comments upon this new pronouncement. There was one from an evening paper, which had close upon a million circulation, and had devoted its whole editorial page to a scathing denunciation, in which it was declared that “Prof. Darrell’s morality is that of the higher apes.”

“Think of it!” the man cried. “And the thing will go from one end of the country to the other!”

“But”--gasped Thyrsis, bewildered--“then it is not true?”

“True?” cried Darrell. “True? How can you ask me?”

“But--the colony! What is it to be?”

“There is not going to be any colony. I never dreamed of such a thing!”

“And haven’t you bought any farm?”

“My wife bought a farm, over a year ago--because we wanted to live in the country!”

“But then,” gasped Thyrsis--“how dare they?”

“They dare anything with me!” cried the other. “_Anything!_”

“And have you no redress?”

“Redress? What redress?”

He went on to tell Thyrsis what had happened. He and Mrs. Darrell had gone down to the farm to see about getting it ready, and a woman had come, representing that she wished to write a magazine article about “the country-homes of literary Americans”. Upon this pretext she had secured a photograph of the place, and of Darrell, and of his wife and child. She had even attempted to secure a photograph of his wife’s aged mother, who lived with her, and who was involved in the affair because the money belonged to her. Then the woman had gone away--and a couple of weeks later had come this!

“And I thought they were through with us!” Darrell whispered, with a shudder. “I thought it was all over!”

He sat in a chair, with his face hid in his arms. Thyrsis put his hand upon his shoulder, and the man caught it. “Listen,” he exclaimed. “You can see this thing from the outside, you know the literary world. Do you think that I can ever rise above this? Is there any use in trying?”

“How do you mean?” Thyrsis asked, perplexed.

“I mean--is it worth while for me to go on writing? Can I ever have any influence?”

Thyrsis was shocked at the question--as he had been at the way Darrell took the whole thing. He knew that his friend had money enough to live comfortably; and why should any sort of criticism matter to a man who was economically free?

“Brother,” he said, “you have forgotten your Dante.”

“How do you mean?” asked the other.

“_Segui il tuo corso e lascia dir le gente!_” quoted Thyrsis; and then he added, “You don’t seem to realize that these are newspapers, and nobody really credits them.”

“Ah, but they do!” cried Darrell. “You don’t know what I have been through with! My oldest friends have cut me! Clergymen have refused to sit at table with me! The organization that I gave ten years of my life to founding has gone all to pieces. I have been utterly ruined--I have been wiped out, destroyed!”

“But, my dear man,” Thyrsis argued, “you are setting out to teach a new doctrine, one that is abhorrent to people. And how can you expect to avoid being attacked? It seems to me that either you ought not to have done it, or else been prepared for some of this uproar.”

“But because a man becomes a Socialist, are they to libel him in these foul ways?”

“I don’t mean that. It’s not only that you are a Socialist, but that you have defied their marriage-laws.”

“But I haven’t!” exclaimed Darrel.

“What do you mean?” asked Thyrsis, perplexed.

“I have defied no law--nor even any convention. I have done everything that the world requires.”

Thyrsis stared at him, amazed. “Why, surely,” he gasped, “you and--and Mrs. Darrell--you are not _married?_”

“Married!” exclaimed the other. “We were married here in New York, by a regularly-ordained clergyman!”

Thyrsis could not find words to express his dismay. “I--I had no idea of that!” he gasped. “I thought--”

“You see the lies!” cried the other. “Even _you_ had swallowed them!”

It took Thyrsis some time to adjust himself to this new point of view. He had thought of his friend as a man who had boldly defied the convention of marriage; and instead of that he was apparently a man cowering under the lash of the world’s undeserved rage. But if so--what an amazing and incredible thing was the mesh of slander and falsehood in which he had been entangled!