The Garden of Survival

hispered that from professional Believers I should get little sympathy, and probably less credence still. For to have my experience disbelieved, or attributed to hallucination, would

ir face and heart, but since I know of none I fall back upon yourself, my other half

many pages, you lay them aside against another time, and so perhaps neglect them altogether. A story, however, will invite your interest, and when I add that it i

I remember, that to tell a story in epistolary form is a subterfuge, an attempt to evade the difficult matters of construction and delineation of character. M

tionship has never known — out it must, and to you. I may, perhaps, borrow — who can limit the sharing powers of twin brothers like ourselves? — some of the skill your own work

ore — I have found reunion and I love. Explanation of this must follow as best it may. So, please

stinctly lukewarm kind. It was very curious. On looking back, I can hardly understand it even now; there seemed some special power, some special undiscovered tie between us that led me on and yet deceived me. It was especially evident in her singing, this deep power. She sang, you remember, to her own accompaniment on the harp, and her method, though so simple it seemed almost childish, was at the same time charged with a great melancholy that always moved me most profoundly. The sound of her small, plaintive voice, the sight of her slender fingers that plucked the strings in some delicate fashion native to herself, the tiny foot that pressed the pedal — all these, with her dark searching eyes

red itself as pity only, the soft, affectionate pity of a weakish man in whom the flesh cried loudly, the pity of a man who would be untrue to himself rather than pain so sweet a girl by rejecting the one great offering l

yes and in the odd lines about the mouth — the air of subtle triumph that she wore: that she had captured me for her very own at last, and

ty lay in her very soul. She gave to me all she had to give, and in so doing she tried to satisfy some hunger of her being th

eauty overpowered me, sweeping reflection utterly away. I can hear today the sigh, half of satisfaction, yet half, it seemed, of pain, with which she sank into my arms at last, as though her victory brought intense relief, yet

metimes placing me in a quasi-false position. That she tempted me is, perhaps, an overstatement, though that she availed herself of every legitimate use of feminine magic to entrap me is certainly the truth. Opportunities of marriage, it was notorious, had been frequently given to her, and she had as frequently declined them; she was older than her years; to inexperience she certainly had no claim: and f

btless, was the first blood she drew from me, since it gained my attention and fixed my mind upon her presence. From that moment she entered my consciousness as a woman; when she was near me I became more and more aware of

my undoing; it was ever with her, but was ever sheathed. Did she discern my weakness, perhaps, and know that the subtle power would work upon me most effectively if left to itself? Did she, rich in experience, deem that its too direct use might waken a reaction in my better self? I cannot say, I do not know.... Every feminine art was at her disposal, as every use of magic pertaining to young and comely womanhood was easily with

en sought to repel me from her touch that had undone me. I repeat what I said before: She did not wish to win me in that way.

limited; she sang folk-songs mostly, the simple love-songs of primitive people, of peasants and the like, yet sang them with such truth and charm, with such power and conviction, somehow, that I knew enchantment as I l

the former I believed that my happiness lay in marrying her, but in the latter I recognised that a girl who meant nothing to my better self had grown of a sudden painfully yet exquisitely desirable. But even during the ascendancy of the latter physical mood, she had only to seat herself beside the harp and sing, for the former state to usurp its place, I watched, I listened, and I yielded. Her voice, aided by the soft plucking of the strings, completed my defeat. N

onsiderable time, motionless, and listening idly to the singing of a thrush or blackbird in the shrubberies — when I heard the faint twanging of the harp-strings in the room behind me, and turning, saw that Marion had entered and was

xious to avoid a talk a deux. “I must hu

rds the door, when she

ce was that hint of a sensual caress that, I admit, bewildered both my will and judgment. She was very close and her fragrance came on me with her breath, like the perfume of the summer gar

aking to go past her, “but it’s white

m not coming to dinner to-night,” she added, sitting down to the harp. “I’ve got a headache and th

f some ancient beauty stole upon my spirit. The sound of her soft voice reduced my resistance to utter impotence. An aggressive passion took its place. The desire for contact, physical contact, became a vehement aching that I scarcely could restrain, and my arms were hungry for her. Shame and repugnance touched me faintly for a moment, but at once died away again. I listened and I watched. The sensuous beauty of her figure and her movements, swathed in that soft and clinging serge, troubled

ice sound unfamiliar, “Marion, dear, I a

as a maid of olden time, singing the love-songs of some far-off day beside her native instrument, and of a vol

nts beneath the clinging dress that fell in lines of beauty to her feet! Those little feet that stepped upon my heart, upon my very soul.... For a moment I loathed myself. The next, as she touched me and my arms took her with rough strength against my breast, my repugnance vanished, and I was utterly undone. I believed I loved. That which was g

and pain. For one second I felt that she repelled me, that she resented my action and my words. Yes, for one brief second she stood there, like an angel set in judgment over me, and the next we had come togeth

y; my soul was silent. Yet — somehow, in some strange hidden way, lay this ambushed mean