XIII

THE CITY

Over the city the Spring cast its subtle spell. The skies had a more fleeting blue and softer clouds and more golden sun. Here and there on a window-sill a new red geranium plant was set out to touch the stone walls with the green earth's glory. The salt breath of the sea, wandering up the dusty avenues, called the children of men to new adventures—hinted of far countries across the world, of men going down to the sea in ships, of traffic and merchandise in fairer climes, of dripping forest gloom and glittering peaks, of liquid-lisping brooks and the green scenery of the open earth.

Restlessness seized the hearts of men and the works of men. From the almshouses and the jails emerged the vagrants, stopped overnight to meet their cronies in dives and saloons, and next day took the freight to the blooming West, or tramped by foot the dust of the roads that leave the city and go ribboning over the shoulder and horizon of the world. Windows were flung open, and the fresh sweet air came in to make the babies laugh and the women wistful and the men lazy. Factories droned with machines that seemed to grate against their iron fate. And of a night, now, the parks, the byways, and the waterside were the haunts of young lovers—stealing out together, arms round each other's waists—the future of the world in their trembling hands.

The air was full of the rumor of great things. Now, perchance, human nature at last was going to reveal itself, the love and hope and comradeliness and joy tucked away so deep in its interlinings. Now, possibly, the streets were going to be full of singing, and the housetops were going to rejoice with the mellower stars. Anything was possible. Did not earth set an example, showing how out of a hard dead crust and a forlorn and dry breast she could pour her new oceans of million-glorious life? If the dead tree could blossom and put forth green leaves, what dead soul need despair?

Swinging and swaying and gliding, the great white Sound liner came up on the morning and swept her flag-flapped way down the shining river. Her glad whistle released her buoyant joy to the city, and the little tugs and the ferries answered with their barks and their toots. Up she came, triple-decked, her screw swirling in the green salt water, her smoke curling lustrous in the low-hung sun. She passed Blackwells Island, she swung easily beneath the great span of the Fifty-ninth Street bridge, and gave "good-morning" to the lower city.

On a side-deck, leaning over the rail, stood a man and a woman. The man was strong, tan-faced, his eyes bright with fresh power. The woman was rosy-cheeked and exquisite in her new beauty. For the miracle of Spring which changed the earth had changed Myra and Joe. They too had put forth power and life, blossom and new green leaves. They had gone to the earth to be remade; they had given themselves over to the great physician, Nature; they had surrendered to the soil and the sun and the air. Earth had absorbed them, infolded them, and breathed anew in their spirits her warmth, her joy, her powerful peace. They had run bare-headed in the sun; they had climbed, panting, the jutting mountainside; they had taken the winds of the world on the topmost peak; they had romped in the woods and played in the meadow. And then, too, they had fed well, and rested much, and been content with the generous world.

And in that health and peace of nature at last to Joe had come the great awakening of his life. The mental stock-taking he had begun on the day when Lissner had spoken to him, reached there its climax; the confusion cleared; the chaos took wonderful new shape.

And he was amazed to see how he had changed and grown. He looked back on the man who had gone down to West Tenth Street as on a callow and ignorant youth, enthusiastic, but crude and untried. Back through those past months he went with the search-light of introspection, and then at last he knew. He had gone down to Greenwich Village crammed with theories; he had set to work as if he were a sheltered scientist in a quiet laboratory, where an experiment could be carried through, and there suddenly he had been confronted with Facts! Facts! those queer unbudgable things! Facts in a fierce stampede that engulfed and swept him along and put all his dreams to a galloping test, a test wherein he had even forgotten his dreams.

He had gone the way of all reformers, first the explosive arousal, then the theory, then the test.

He went over the Greenwich Village experience with Myra:

"Why," he laughed, "I expected to do great things. Whereas, look, I have done nothing. This strike ends in a little bettering, and a few people read my paper. It's just a little stir, hardly a dent—a few atoms set into motion. How slow! how slow! Patience! That's the word I've learned! It will take worlds of time; it will take a multitude striving; it will take unnumbered forces—education, health-work, eugenics, town-planning, the rise of women, philanthropy, law—a thousand thousand dawning powers. Oh, we are only at the faint beginnings of things!"

And he thought of the books he had read, and the theories of which he had been so sure.

"But," he exclaimed, "was my diagnosis correct? Did I really know the human muddle? Has any man really mapped out civilization? It's so huge, complex, varied—so many disorganized forces—who can classify it—label it? It's bigger than our thought about it. We lay hands on only a few wisps of it! Life! Life itself—not our interpretation—is the great outworking force!"

And then again.

"We see certain tendencies and believe they will advance unhindered, but there may be other tendencies to counteract, change, even defeat these. No future can be predicted! And yet I was so sure of the future—so sure of what we are to build—that future which we keep modifying so persistently the moment it hits To-day."

In short, he had reached his social manhood—which meant to him, not dogma, but the willingness to arise every morning ready to reshape his course, prepared for any adventure, receptive, open-minded, and all willing to render his very life for what seemed good to do. Scientific reverence this, the willingness to experiment, to try, to test, and then, if the test failed, to grope for a new line of outlet, the readiness to reverse all he believed in in the face of a new and contradictory fact. He was a new Joe Blaine.

And so the spirit that sprang from those dead girls became a creative power, a patient, living strength.

And so in the blaze of new morning, in the beginnings of a new life, Joe and Myra leaned over the rail of the boat, coming back, coming back to the ramparts and heights of the great World City. They saw full in the glory of the morning sun those tiers on tiers of towers rising to their lonely pinnacle. Beneath them harbor craft scurried about in the bright waters; above them rose the Big Brothers of the city looking out toward the sea. It seemed some vision builded of no human hands. It seemed winged and uplifted toward the skies, an immensity of power and beauty. It seemed to float on measureless waters, a magic metropolis, setting sail for the Arabian Nights.

Tears came into Joe's eyes. He held Myra's hand fast.

"Are you glad to get back?"

"Yes, glad, Joe."

"No more peace, no more green earth, Myra."

"I know it, Joe."

"Even our honeymoon—that can't be repeated, can it?"

"No," she said, sadly, "I guess it cannot."

"And this means work, hardship, danger, injustice—all the troubles of mankind."

She pressed his hand.

"Yet you're glad, Myra!"

"I am."

"Tell me why."

"Because," she mused, "it's the beginning of our real life together."

"How so real?"

Myra's eyes were suffused with tears.

"The common life—the life of people—the daily toil—the pangs and the struggles. I'm hungry for it all!"

He could have kissed her for the words.

"We'll do, Myra," he cried, "we'll do. Do you know what I see this morning?"

"What?"

"A new city! My old city, but all new."

"It's you that is new, Joe."

"And that's why I see the new city—a vision I shall see until some larger vision replaces it. Shall I tell you about it?"

"Tell me."

"It is the city of five million comrades. They toil all day with one another; they create all of beauty and use that men may need; they exchange these things with each other; they go home at night to gardens and simple houses, they find happy women there and sunburnt, laughing children. Their evenings are given over to the best play—play with others, play with masses, or play at home. They have time for study, time for art, yet time for one another. Each loosens in himself and gives to the world his sublime possibilities. A city of toiling comrades, of sparkling homes, of wondrous art, and joyous festival. That is the city I see before me!" He paused. "And to the coming of that city I dedicate my life."

She sighed.

"It's too bright, too good for human nature."

"Not for human nature," he whispered. "If only we are patient. If only we are content to add our one stone to its rising walls."

She pressed his hand again.

"Joe," she murmured, "what do you think you'll be doing a year from now?"

"I don't know," he smiled. "Perhaps editing—perhaps working with a strike—perhaps something else. But whatever it is, it will be some new adventure—some new adventure!"

So they entered that city hand in hand, the future all before them. And they found neither that City of the Future nor a City of Degradation, but a very human city full of very human people.

THE END