Mysticism -- Fiction; Supernatural -- Fiction; Virginia -- Fiction
They were a married pair, a little above forty, perhaps, the mark of the
city upon them. They had quick and nervous bodies, thin, lined faces,
eyes well apart, burning deep and very steady, lips tending to
compression. They seemed tired--about them breathed something of
soldiers after a long day's march through hostile elements. This was
bivouac, this was rest! At first they were too tired, there was almost
resentment. "O God, _how_ can you be still and ageless?" This changed,
little by little, at Sweet Rocket. The overtension disappeared. They
were left taut, collected, wary--workers worthy of praise in a dangerous
world.
At the supper table that evening Curtin made out more and more of their
life. They had come yesterday, a little before their set time, and Anna
Darcy had the start of him in acquaintanceship. Intellectual radicals
certainly, members of some group in action, probably of more groups than
one, jack of all agitations and master of one. He could hear them
speaking, in halls, and under open sky, and he could see the face of the
throng to which they spoke. They would be speaking of Soviet Russia, of
Guild Socialism, of Employer and Employed and the Course of Labor that
did never yet run smooth. There were causes, not so apparently economic,
for which also they would work. He heard them speaking for the Suffrage
Amendment and likewise for the release of Conscientious Objectors. They
belonged here, they belonged there. The one, he was later told, was
Associate Editor of a Journal that was making the step from liberalism
of the left to communism of the right. The woman was an admirable
violinist. He knew that they lived on little and gave much of that
little away. They lived where it was possible to live in one big room
and three small rooms. They had a son who was doing well at a school
they liked in the country. To look at them was to see how hard they
worked, and to look into their eyes was to see the beacon that set them
and kept them at work. They also had vision of Oneness.
Though in talking Linden and Marget used in a much less marked degree
the terminology used by the newcomers, it seemed to present no
difficulties to them. They seemed to understand these guests, as they
understood those others who had come to Sweet Rocket this October, to
understand and to travel with them. Curtin thought: "They sympathize. It
does not occur to them to say, 'Do something else, take another road!'"
He thought: "That is their strength. They utterly share."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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