Chapter LXXI: Section 5: But these thoughts were for himself; he did not whisper them

to Corydon. However people might despise him, they did not blame her, and there was no need of this bitterness in her cup. Corydon was beautiful--ah God, how beautiful she looked, lying there in the snowy bed, with the snowy lace about her neck and arms! How like the very goddess of motherhood she looked, a halo of light about her forehead. She, too, must have flowers, to whisper to her of hope and joy; and so he had brought her three pitiful little pinks, which he had purchased from a lame girl upon the corner. The tears started into Corydon’s eyes as she saw these--for she knew that he had gone without a part of his dinner in order to bring them to her.

Everybody had come to love her already, he could see. How gentle and kind they were to her; and how skillfully they did everything for her! His heart was full of thankfulness that he had been able to bring her to this haven of refuge. And resolutely he put aside all thoughts of his own humiliation--he swept his mind clear of everything else, and went with her to face this new and supreme experience of her life.

“You will stay with me?” she had pleaded; and he had promised that he would stay. She could not bear to have him out of her sight at all, and so they made him a bed upon the couch, and he spent the night there; and through the next day he sat with her and read to her. But now and then he would know that her thoughts had wandered, and he would look at her and see her eyes wide with fear. “Oh, Thyrsis,” she would whisper, “I’m only a child; and I’m not fit to be a mother!”

He would try to comfort her and soothe her. But in truth, he too was full of fears and anxieties. He had felt the dome-like shape within her abdomen, which they said was the head of the child; and he could not conceive how it was ever to be got out. But they told him that the thing had happened before. There was nothing for either of them to do but to wait.

They were in the hands of Nature, who had brought them thus far, who had had her will with them so utterly. And now her purpose was to be revealed to them--now they were to know the wherefore of all that they had done. They were like two children, travelling through a dark valley; they walked hand in hand, lifting their eyes to the mountain-tops, and seeking the first signs of the coming light.