To these arguments Corydon would listen and assent. With her intellect she was at one with him, and she strove to make this intellect supreme. But always, deep underneath, was the other side of her being, that had nothing to do with intellect, but was pure primitive impulse--and that pushed and drove in her always, and carried her away the moment that intellect loosened its brake. Corydon was ashamed of this primitive self--she was always repudiating it, always shutting her eyes to it. There was no way to wound her so deeply as to posit its reality and identify it with her. She was always fighting to make her temperament like Thyrsis’; she despised her own temperament utterly, and set up his qualities as her ideal. He was self-contained and masterful; he knew what he wanted and how to get it; he was not dependent upon anyone else, he needed no one’s approval or admiration; he could control his emotions, and destroy those that inconvenienced him. So Corydon must be these things also; she _was_ these things, and no one must gainsay it! And if ever she had felt or wished or said or done anything else--that was all misunderstanding or delusion or accident; she would repudiate it with grief and indignation, and proclaim herself the creature of pure reason that every person ought to be! But then would come something that appealed to her emotions--to her love of beauty, her craving for joy; and there in a flash was the primitive self again. The task of compelling Corydon to economy reminded her husband of a toy which had been popular in his childhood days. The name of it was “Pigs in Clover”; there were five little balls which you had to coax into a narrow entrance, and while you were getting the last one in, the other four were almost certain to roll out. It was a labor of hours to get Corydon to recognize an unpleasant fact; and then--the next day she had forgotten it. There were some things about himself and his life that he could never get her to understand; for instance, his preoccupation with the newspaper--that symbol of all that was hateful in life. Just then was the beginning of the Russian revolution; and to Thyrsis the Russian revolution was like the coming of relief to a shipwrecked mariner. It was a personal thing to him--the overthrow of a horror that pressed upon the life of every human being upon earth. And so each day he hungered for the news, and when the paper came he would pounce upon it. “Now dearest,” he would say, “please don’t disturb me. I want to read.” “All right,” she would answer; and five minutes would pass. Then--“Do you want potatoes for supper, Thyrsis?” “Yes, dear. But I’m reading now.” “All right.” And then another five minutes. “Thyrsis, who was Boadicea?” “I’m reading now, dearest.” “Oh yes.” And then another five minutes. “Thyrsis, do you spell choke with an a?” At which Thyrsis would put down the paper. “Tell me, Corydon--isn’t there something I can do so that you won’t interrupt me?”