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THE LIBRARY 

OF 
THE UNIVERSITY 

OF CALIFORNIA 
LOS ANGELES 



THE CHASM 



THE CHASM 

A NOVEL BY 
GEORGE CRAM COOK 



"/ love those -who sacrifice themselves to 
the earth, that the earth may be one day 
the Superman s" 

SO SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA 



"Come shoulder to shoulder ere earth 
grows older! The Cause spreads over 
land and sea." 

THE VOICE OF TOIL 



NEW YORK 

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



Copyright, IQII, by 
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 



All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign 
languages, including the Scandinavian 




February, 




Til 



PARTI 



MOLINE 



THE nine-fifteen train was speeding toward Mo- 
line on the Mississippi. At the window of one 
of the Pullman staterooms, a girl, lifting her 
eyes from her book, looked out across black, fall- 
plowed furrows, russet plains cut with barbed-wire 
fences, wet fields full of broken and withered corn 
stalks tramped by cattle. The sky was covered with 
gray, amorphous cloud. 

"How dismal this country is," said the girl. 

"We should have stayed in Italy till May at least," 
answered her middle-aged mother in the chair oppo 
site. 

The girl s tightened lips marked her inward de 
nial. 

"You must learn, Marion, to find your sunshine in 
your own soul," preached the lady. "Roman palaz- 
zo or desert island are all one to me." 

"If you mean that first palazzo we tried to exist 
in give me the island." 

"Some day you will learn to make yourself inde- 



-fo;-.-;pr- 
.1 di < w-.4 -> *.^v^i 



2 THE CHASM 

pendent of the external world and be complete in 
yourself," the other continued, not to be diverted 
by frivolous exaggerations. 

"You have to depend on external dressmakers, 
though. And what about food, Mama?" 

"The day may come when we learn to nourish 
our bodies spiritually," the mother maintained. 

Marion reopened her book Fogazzaro s "II 
Santo" printed in Italian and privately bound in 
hand-tooled crimson levant. On the title-page, in 
Russian-looking script was written the name of Ma 
rion Moulton and that of Feodor de Hohenfels. 

As soon as her mother became immersed in her 
new thought pamphlet, the girl let her head sink 
back and closed her eyelids. 

The Italian maid on the other side of the room 
laid down her needlework and brought a small 
cushion. 

"You re very thoughtful," said Marion, speaking 
Italian. 

"If the signorina would let me take off that great 
hat?" suggested Mathilde. "The cinders do not 
come in any more." Brown veil and green velvet hat 
removed, the girl s red-gold hair showed circlewise 
around her head in a massive coil like a garland or a 
crown. Without taking off her long brown gloves, 
she had slipped her right hand free to turn the leaves 
of her book. For ring, so soft it could be molded to 
her finger, she wore a thick band of gold, from 
which, in gypsy setting, the highest point of light in 
her color scheme, gleamed a vivid yellow diamond. 

"What does the word abaco mean, Mathilde?" 
asked Marion. She suspected it of being an abacus. 



THE CHASM 3 

Of course she must know what an abacus was, only 
she found she didn t. Mathilde also had to con 
vince herself of her ignorance and was looking the 
word up in an Italian dictionary when she was inter 
rupted by a knock at the stateroom door. The por 
ter gave her a card, which she handed to Marion. 

"George Pearson," she read. 

Asked to come in, a correctly attired young man 
with thin brown hair, aquiline nose and narrow chin 
greeted the ladies effusively. "We d begun to think 
you were never coming back," he said, seating him 
self. "To think of my being on the same train! I 
didn t see you get on. The conductor asked me if I 
knew you were on board. Not that I m in the habit 
of talking to conductors, but this one used to know 

me when I was a small boy, so of course " He 

stopped, judging he had said enough to justify the 
intimacy of the trainman. 

Marion did not look very sympathetic, and Mr. 
Pearson concluded he must be careful not to offend 
her presumable new standards of exclusiveness ac 
quired in her recent contact with the European aris 
tocracy. 

"How is Lady Diotima, George?" 

"Lady Diotima? Oh, yes, that s what you used 
to call my mother. Why, she s well, thank you. 
She will want to see you right away." 

"I have strange tales for her sympathetic ears." 

"I d like to hear a little of that, myself," the young 
man suggested, glancing at Mrs. Moulton, and then 
at his watch. "I want you folks to take lunch with 
me. They have a new diner a beauty, finished in 
mission style." 



4 THE CHASM 

"They re waiting lunch for us at home," Marion 
explained. "Won t papa be cross by two?" she 
added to her mother. 

"Thank you, though, George," said Mrs. Moul- 
ton. 

"Don t let us keep you from your lunch," put in 
Marion. 

"Why-uh, there s no hurry. I m awfully anxious 
to find out if some things I ve heard are true." 

"I am going to take just a peep at that mission 
car," announced Mrs. Moulton. 

"Mother!" Marion remonstrated, but Mrs. 
Moulton was undeterred and left. 

"Your mother is a brick," said George enthusias 
tically. "Quickest person. She knew I wanted to 
ask you some things." 

"Naturally since you said so. But did she know 
I wanted you to ask them?" 

"Why, don t you? Seems to me I have pretty 
near a right to, Marion." 

"Do you believe much in rights of that sort? 
If you want me to do anything, make me want to." 

"What kind of a moral standard is that doing 
only what you want to?" demanded George, looking 
severe. 

"That is all we do anyway. One way is to do 
things honestly because we want to. The other 
is to find some lofty moral ground for doing the 
very same things." 

"What becomes of the will-power of a person 
who does only what he wants to?" 

"Is there such a person? Well, I should say 



THE CHASM 5 

strength is developed by doing things rather than 
by not doing them." 

"Are those European ideas?" demanded George. 

"Not particularly. They are Marionian ideas. 
Your mother shares them." 

"Oh, mother! It s all talk with her. She acts 
just like everybody else. I m afraid you wouldn t." 

"I haven t the faintest desire to ! Do you suppose 
I would be guilty of acting just like anybody else 
by cut and dried formulas rules of propriety 
with never a guiding emotion of my own never 
one spontaneous yes or no out of my own heart 
a clockwork dummy wound up to do the proper 
thing?" 

"Why, who in the world are you talking about, 
Marion? You don t mean my mother, do you?" 

"Your mother, you idiot! Bless your heart, no! 
I mean about everybody but her. She is a live per 
son in the midst of a lot of social automata." 

Mr. Pearson rose abruptly. "I don t think I care 
to ask you, Miss Moulton, about your reported en 
gagement to that foreigner, since you consider me 
an idiot!" 

"I didn t suppose you were really one !" 

"I never had a girl call me that in my life. I 
don t propose to give any girl the chance to do it 
twice." 

"Don t be a baby, George ! Sit down here. Must 
I really explain that we feminine mortals call no 
one but our intimates idiots?" 

"I would prefer to be excluded from that select 
circle." 



6 THE CHASM 

"That s clever!" She smiled at him winningly, 
but her unflattering surprise at his cleverness irri 
tated him still more and he refused to relax. "Oh, 
well," she said, settling herself in her chair and pre 
paring to dismiss him from her thoughts. 

"If those are European ideas and manners of 
yours, young lady, I think you d better stay in Mo- 
line and lose a little polish." He threw loose the 
curtain. Looking out of the corner of his eye to 
see how Marion was taking his departure, he had 
the misfortune to collide with Mrs. Moulton return 
ing from her peep at the mission car. 

"It didn t take you long, Marion," commented 
Mrs. Moulton, resuming her chair. 

"No, I was abominably rude to him and he didn t 
know it. Then I made amends by being nice and 
he thought I was insulting him. All he can hear is 
words. Mr. G. Pearson shows me what a dungeon 
Moline would be to me. Oh, I hate papa every 
time I think of it!" 

"Marion!" 

"And I think about it all the time. Even when I m 
asleep some of my mind still burns with the humilia 
tion of that cablegram." 

"It would have worked out all right if you hadn t 
insisted on leaving. You gave Feodor no chance 
to forgive you." 

"I can t bear to be forgiven. I won t be. If papa 
won t write and apologize I shall contrive somehow 
to make my own living. I will have nothing more 
to do with papa never in my life !" 

"If you would leave it to me everything would 
work out all right. I have been sending the right in- 



THE CHASM 7 

fluence into your father s mind every night and 
morning since we left Rome." 

The girl picked up an alligator hand-purse, 
glanced at a miniature watch set in the leather and 
realized that in another half hour she would be 
facing her father. The tension of her nerves grew 
painful. A stop in East Moline seemed prolonged 
wantonly. When the air-brake fell in Moline she 
reached the station platform and located the driver 
of the motor-car before her mother and Mathilde 
appeared. 

The driver, Eldridge, affected by her tense atmos 
phere, sent his machine recklessly through the dingy 
brick business section crowded with workingmen, 
past the great factories, up the hill on the high 
power, between the terra cotta pillars at the gate of 
Hillcrest, along the curving driveway, past the con 
servatory and under the archway of the porte 
cochere where the heavy car skidded a little on the 
concrete flags and stopped. 

A footman in livery and white gloves opened the 
door the end of their five thousand mile journey 
the door of "Dave" Moulton, plow manufacturer, 
the great man of Moline. 

Mr. Moulton was just coming downstairs as they 
entered a big, slow-moving man of fifty with well- 
trimmed, reddish brown beard and florid cheeks. 
He was unconsciously chewing the end of a thick, 
unlighted cigar. His high forehead was a little 
flushed and moist, his blue eyes keen behind rimless 
gold spectacles. "I m glad to see you, Anne," he 
said. His voice was deep and convincing. He evi 
dently wished to have no more made of this than if 



8 THE CHASM 

his wife had been away only a day. He returned 
her kiss perfunctorily and turned to Marion. "How 
are you, daughter?" he said, extending his hand. 

"I don t feel like shaking hands with you," she 
said. 

His hand drew back abruptly, his lips and eyes 
ominously hardening. "Oh, is that the way you 
feel?" He turned toward the library as though 
there were nothing more to be said. 

The girl matched his effect of indifference by 
giving Mathilde some directions in Italian; and 
then, without looking at her father, she crossed to 
the foot of the stairs. Having expected some invol 
untary word or sign indicating her desire not to let 
her first greeting go unmodified, he gave her a 
curious look as he saw her sticking to it. "Oh, 
Marion!" he called. 

She stopped and looked back. 

"We ll have to fight it out you and I," he said 
incisively. "It will be better if we do it at once." 

She decided it was too much like an order and 
went on, followed by Mathilde. "I shall be in the 
library a few minutes before lunch," she said. 

"I suppose I am to await your pleasure there," 
he remarked. 

"If you choose," she answered, as she disap 
peared. 

He felt that he had lost the key to her mind. 
"That seems to be a high and mighty daughter of 
yours, Mrs. Moulton," he observed. "I find the 
Illinois legislature somewhat easier to control." 

He was not in the library when Marion came 



THE CHASM 9 

down. Rather than sit face to face with him at 
table she decided to have luncheon in her own 
rooms, and telephoned her Lady Diotima to come 
quick and keep her company. "There is war," she 
announced. "I m blue and lonesome and dying to 
see you. I need your moral support. I ll tell you 
my troubles and I ll even let you give me advice." 

"Will you promise to follow it if it s exactly what 
you think yourself?" Mrs. Pearson demanded. "Oh, 
I can t wait to see you, Marion. I ll be over in 
stantly." 

Half an hour later the Lady Diotima, coming 
into the large, book-lined room which Marion called 
her "lair," set her eyes of unfaded blue upon a 
physically radiant creature, fresh from her bath, in 
a silvery-looking negligee revealing white rondures 
of throat and shoulder. For a moment the girl s 
face glowed with welcome in the sumptuous light of 
a drift-wood fire, and then she flew into the woman s 
arms and hugged her. "Oh, Diotima, you are worth 
all the rest of America!" she crooned. "I would 
perish here if it weren t for you ! Do you still love 
me?" 

"Against my conscience yes, you vagabond! You 
deserve nothing of the sort. I ve been shamefully 
neglected left here to age and ossify with never a 
letter from Rome and all sorts of fascinating 
rumors unverified." 

"What has age to do with your young soul? 
I won t waste breath apologizing. You know the 
Marionian psychology too well to expect a letter 
when you ought to have it." She put her arm around 



10 THE CHASM 

Lady Diotima s shoulder, intending to take off her 
mink stole, but forgot and let her hand linger strok 
ing the smooth fur. 

"Eat, child," commanded Mrs. Pearson, tossing 
her muff on the window-seat and taking off her 
toque. "You must be famished." 

"I am," admitted Marion, and seated herself at a 
little table set with chafing dish and charcoal-heated 
samovar. The dark green curtain behind her was in 
shadow, the girl in firelight. One white, high-heeled 
slipper was outlined in startling beauty on the dark, 
highly polished floor that almost mirrored it. Lady 
Diotima watched the girl s graceful, leisurely hands 
as she drew a cup of tea and balanced across it a 
spoon containing a lump of sugar which she satu 
rated with brandy from a flask cased in silver filigree, 
and ignited with a gold-handled alcohol lighter. 
Mathilde carefully set for the visitor this cup over 
which the blue and fragrant flame danced as with 
feet that rose and fell. "That s your flame-fairy," 
explained Marion. "Isn t he nice this chilly day?" 

"Charming as he is, I m no salamander," pro 
tested the lady. "He ll have to die before I drink 
him." 

"Oh, he doesn t die. He reincarnates himself in 
the tea." 

The Lady Diotima looked dreamily at the flame, 
then thoughtfully at Marion, who glanced at Ma 
thilde and told her she would not be needed. 

"You speak Italian unconsciously!" Mrs. Pear 
son commented with a little note of envy. 

"Yes, isn t that nice? I have even accomplished 
the feat of dreaming in Italian." 



THE CHASM 11 

"I suppose you ve forgotten you learned your first 
Italian phrases from my phonograph?" 

"Could I ever forget that mournful invalid who 
always wanted a bed or a cab or a room or a doctor 
and for twenty-six lessons refused to eat one single 

bite? Which reminds me " Uncovering the 

chafing dish, she served herself with creamed sweet 
breads. 

The flame-fairy having danced himself and his 
sugar pedestal away, Lady Diotima turned so she 
could see the fireplace and the play of light on the 
bronze replica of Rodin s "The Thinker" who sat 
in silent power above the tiers of books, and musing 
sipped her tea. 

Twice in the six years of their intimacy she had 
turned the current of the girl s life. 

When Marion was seventeen her awakened na 
ture, under her mother s influence, had thrown it 
self ardently into one of the modern cults of spirit 
ual mysticism. Being a rebel by nature the girl had 
delighted in that revolt against "orthodoxy." She 
had attempted to convert Mrs. Pearson and had 
given her some of the wonderful literature of her 
cult. Mrs. Pearson began skillfully to preach the 
beauty of accurate thinking, with the result that the 
girl, fired with the passion for study, had tutors to 
prepare her for college and became a Vassar grind. 

Contact with scholarly women developed a habit 
of mind that freed her from the spell of the esoteric, 
but two years of safe, sane Vassar began to make her 
dull. Then the Lady Diotima, named by Marion 
after that wise woman who was the teacher of 
Socrates, cried down mere intellect and preached 



12 THE CHASM 

life; disparaged knowledge and taught power. To be 
a social, an intellectual, even a political force a 
power behind the throne to have influence through 
charm to modernize the role of Madame Re- 
camier the ideal of the old French salon all this 
the Lady Diotima preached. 

The two of them tried it in Washington one win 
ter but not two. Not men, but soulless "interests" 
being there the real power, there was in Washington 
no significant role for a woman, however gifted with 
beauty or brains or charm. Wealth did count, but 
not for its esthetic use, the only use that Marion 
knew or cared for. 

"My face is set toward Europe," then said Mar 
ion. 

Mr. Pearson s health failing, Lady Diotima did 
not make the European campaign, and now, as she 
drank her tea she was keen for history. 

"Marion Moulton," she broke out, "do you in 
tend to tell me of your own free will and accord 
whether you are engaged? It s your last chance." 

"How unflattering!" said Marion, buttering a 
French roll. 

"Stupid! Your last chance to tell except under 
torture." 

"Unfortunately I m not thanks to my tactful 
papa." 

"Do tell what happened." 

"From the beginning?" 

"No, the end first. I couldn t stand the suspense. 
And before you tell the end tell me if it is the end." 

"Papa again. If I can make him do what he 
should " 



THE CHASM 13 

"Ah-hem! Financially?" 

"No, confound him! That s what he thought! 
That s what he took for granted. That s what he 
cabled to Feodor right out of a blue sky that 
insulting assumption. And now you too ! I thought 
you would take it for granted that I had brains 
enough to tell the difference between a man and a 
fortune hunter!" 

"Well, well, Marion, we all know European 
marriage customs." 

"The mistake you both make is in assuming that 
Feodor de Hohenfels is a creature of custom. I 
know him and I know myself and I flatter myself 
I can afford not to be jealous of my own dot." 

"What made your father send this cablegram?" 

"I didn t consider it necessary to beat about the 
bush with him. I wrote him that De Hohenfels had 
made me a proposal of marriage and I intended to 
accept it. I told him what kind of a man De Hohen 
fels was brilliant, talented, a daring steeple-chaser, 
good-looking, influential, estates in Russia, winter 
residence in Rome a quaint old Palazzo and gar 
den, and above all I didn t tell papa this a man 
who had just about outlived his enthusiasms when 
he met me." 

"And naturally they revived," said Lady Diotima 
dryly. "Very good incense. What form is his re 
vived ambition going to take?" 

"That doesn t particularly matter. I m told he 
is a wonderful stylist in Russian. He could be emi 
nent in musical criticism. He has the position and 
the brains to make himself a leader of the younger 
nobility. He is a candidate for the new Duma and 



14 THE CHASM 

may become a power for progress in Russia." 
"He certainly sounds wonderful," said Mrs. Pear 
son, trying to decide how much allowance should be 
made for Marion s friendly and imaginative vision. 
If the half were true she saw the futility of her son 
George s hopes of Marion. 

"I didn t like him a bit the night I first met him," 
Marion confided. "You see, mama and I started 
wrong in Rome. Mama met one of her old friends 
whom she considered most patrician. She had mar 
ried an Italian. I was foolish enough to believe in 
the lady and let her plan a reception for us. We had 
everything wrong wrong place, wrong people, 
people invited whom the most patrician person 
imagined she knew, or her husband knew and he 
was a joke, and oh, it was awful ! so awful the 
swagger people came for a lark and De Hohenfels 
put them up to that. Of course I became aware of 
his attitude as soon as he was introduced. Maybe I 
didn t know the ropes of Roman society, but I 
knew how to deal with a man who accepted my hos 
pitality for the purpose of making fun of it. He 
thought he was doing it so subtly! He was nice and 
frank when I cornered him, and you should have 
seen him make amends. He told everybody the 
Titian American was a social treasure. They who 
came to scoff remained et cetera, and I was not 
butchered to make a Roman holiday. Little Marion 
became the thing, was invited everywhere, and a 
month later, with the guidance of Feodor s mother, 
the Countess Xenia, and her brother Prince Razin- 
sky, we gave a ball oh, beautifully right. You 



THE CHASM 15 

couldn t have thrown a cat without hitting an ambas 
sador or a prince or a duchess those funny Roman 
nobles, ruined in land speculation, who come with 
splendid carriages and empty stomachs." 

"Well, talk about luck!" exclaimed Lady Dioti- 
ma. "But you started to tell me about your father s 
cablegram." 

"In my letter to papa I came square out about 
my dot. I wanted a big one and asked how big he 
would make it. I simply said it was the custom in 
Europe, and a girl marrying in Europe ought to do 
it right." 

"In Rome as the Russians do," Mrs. Pearson 
suggested sympathetically. 

"Exactly. What does papa do but send a cable 
gram to mama, and get Feodor s address; and the 
next thing I suppose the first time Fedya realized 
there was such a person as papa came this message 
saying: Do not care to purchase European title for 
my daughter. Much obliged for offer. 

"How did the count take that?" 

"How could he? It made him furious!" 

"Did it make him break things off with you?" 

"Nonsense, Diotima. I simply couldn t stand it. 
It was such a hopeless, crude, horrible, uncalled-for 
piece of impertinence! If you only knew how in 
congruous that message and that man!" 

"But what happened? What did you say? What 
did you do?" 

"I couldn t say anything. I was dazed and 
more humiliated more than I shall ever allow my 
self to be again!" 



16 THE CHASM 

"Was the man angry with you?" 

"With me no. He wanted me to marry him 
that day to show papa." 

"Well, that was correct. Really I m glad you 
didn t, but why didn t you? Your father would 
have respected both of you for that. Now you have 
apparently confirmed his suspicions." 

"It won t take me long to disabuse his mind of 
that particular delusion." 

"But how did you leave things, Marion? What 
understanding have you with De Hohenfels?" 

"None. I simply fled. Mother and I left Rome 
that night." 

"Well Marion Moulton! You certainly did lose 
your head. Do you know what you are here for?" 

"To make papa take it back!" said the girl 
grimly. 



II 

MRS. MOULTON interrupted Lady Dioti- 
ma s visit with the information that Mar 
ion s father was alone in the library. 

"Did he send for me?" the girl demanded. 

"No. He didn t even mention your name all 
through luncheon, but I know from the quality of 

the thought-force he radiated that Would you 

like it, Mrs. Pearson, if you hadn t seen your son 
for over a year and he refused even to shake hands 
with you?" 

"I am told that even pugilists shake hands be 
fore they fight," agreed Lady Diotima. 

"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Marion impatiently. "I 
do often bow to custom and treat people hypocriti 
cally but not papa. And not you, Lady Diotima. 
Whenever I feel like quarrelling with you I intend 
to do it." She rose abruptly. "I might as well see 
him and have it over," she said, and called Mathilde. 
After promising Mrs. Pearson to come to see her 
next day, Marion dressed for the afternoon and 
went down to her father s study. 

As she entered, Mr. Moulton appeared to be ab 
sorbed in the pages of "The Iron Age." 

"Am I interrupting you?" she inquired. 

17 



18 THE CHASM 

"Oh, come in." 

She seated herself without hurry in the big leather 
chair on the opposite side of her father s wide, or 
derly table. "I suppose we might as well have it 
out," she said. 

"Good! Well, what is it we are to quarrel 
about?" 

Marion found it difficult to avoid liking him. 
"As if you didn t know perfectly!" 

"You forget. I am not the mind-reading member 
of the family." 

"You know you sent an insulting cablegram to 
Feodor de Hohenfels and that he and I were on the 
point of engaging ourselves to marry." 

"You didn t did you?" 

"He would have married me that day, but I 
wished first to have him receive from you a letter of 
apology. I came home to ask you to write it. Will 
you do it?" 

"Suppose I will not?" 

"There s no use going into that until it is certain 
you will not." 

"I hope I shall not find it necessary." 

"What, in your opinion, will make it unneces 
sary?" 

"Your own decision that I acted wisely." 

"Wisely! You acted without the slightest knowl 
edge of facts, persons, or circumstances. You blazed 
away with your eyes shut. You were governed by 
a provincial prejudice against the European nobility 
some platitude you read in a funny paper when you 
were a boy. If you did things like that in your busi 
ness you d be bankrupt in a week. You took it for 



THE CHASM 19 

granted I was a fool. I know what kind of a man a 
man is. And yet you five thousand miles away 
you over-rule my judgment in a case where I have 
all the facts and you haven t one 1" 

"That s a good many charges to answer all at 
once, Marion. At least it brought you home with 
out the gentleman and that was what I wanted." 

"Why did you want to play the devil with my 
life?" 

"In the first place an American girl is a fool to 
marry into nations that have a lower ideal of women 
than her own." 

"Sheer provincial ignorance, I tell you. I have 
studied exactly what role a woman can play here 
and abroad. In America an ornament, in Europe 
a power. I prefer to be a power." 

"You do? I m glad to hear it. That is exactly 
what I hoped. I respect your preference. You 
want power. You are running to the ends of the 
earth for it. You don t know exactly what it is yet, 
but you want it. You think of it as social, intellec 
tual, political. As a matter of fact, in the modern 
world these are merely the shadows of power. The 
real power is industrial." 

"Industrial power doesn t happen to appeal to me 
personally. I suppose it s a good foundation, but 
need I concern" myself about it?" 

Letting his finger slip from the page it had been 
marking, he thoughtfully broke into a tray the long 
ash from his cigar, and swung his chair to face her 
squarely. "Do you know," he asked, "what is hap 
pening here in the shops and offices of Moline and 
Rock Island in all these miles of factories that you 



20 THE CHASM 

have looked at all your life and never seen? It s a 
fascinating, big, slow battle between various sets of 
powerful, determined men. Do you know what it 
means? It means that in a few years one man will 
control the plow manufacturing business of the 
United States. Every furrow that is turned across 
eight million farms will send its share of tribute in 
to him. Men in mines, steel-mills, shops, men on 
railroads and on farms, will depend on him for work 
and life. Millions of men will collaborate in pour 
ing in to him a stream of wealth so great the imagi 
nation cannot conceive it. If I can, I am going to 
be that man. If I am well, in the natural course 
of events that stream of wealth will flow to you. 
You Marion Moulton! A young lady who has 
decided that in America there is no power to be had. 
She is looking for it in Europe, in Rome, a city 
whose chief industries are a wax bead factory for 
peasant s rosaries and the business of manufactur 
ing saints relics out of mutton bones." 

11 What a view of eternal Rome I" Marion ex 
claimed. "Oh, in spite of your narrowness, your 
blindness to everything in life but business, you do 
make me feel how big and real your power is and 
may become. I suppose it s too bad I m not a man. 
But I m not. You don t want me to remain unmar 
ried and go to work in your office, do you?" 

"I want you to realize your position. Did they 
say nobility imposes obligation? That motto has 
died. The motto that is alive to-day is this : Owner 
ship imposes obligation. Your marriage is not, as 
you seem to suppose, a thing that concerns you alone. 
It is of direct concern to thousands." 



THE CHASM 21 

"Just for curiosity, Papa, whom do you want 
me to marry?" 

"You ought to know I have no intention of trying 
to dictate to you. If you did decide to carry out 
your original intention of marrying George Pearson, 
I should make no objection." 

"When I did think of doing that, you said George 
didn t have brains enough to be a corporal of in 
dustry." 

"I was doubtful about George s having the head 
to carry on a great industry, but it has recently de 
veloped that Dick Pearson, supposed to be in poor 
health and thinking only of retiring from business, 
has really been putting through some tremendous 
deals in lumber. The rise in timber lands is going 
to make his holdings simply colossal. The Pearson 
interests are now so secure that " He hesitated. 

"That your respect for George s brain power has 
increased?" Marion suggested innocently. 

He scrutinized her, making sure she was con 
scious of her irony. "He will have advisers and 
managers. The Pearsons are going to have vast 
capital to invest in other lines than lumber. The 
plow industry is attractive. If that capital should 
back up United States Plow we could ultimately ab 
sorb our competitors. We may do it single-handed. 
But any young person looking for power should 
consider attentively a proposition that would result 
in one of the great fortunes of the modern world." 

"Don t you see your inconsistency?" said Marion. 
"You attribute a mercenary motive to De Hohen- 
fels, reproach him for it, and in the next breath you 
advise me to marry George Pearson for his money 1" 



22 THE CHASM 

"One of these propositions is to your disadvant 
age, the other to your advantage. I advise you ac 
cordingly." 

"Assuming that there s no sort of advantage but 
the economic. No, Papa. You can make business 
your own God if you like, but you can t make it 
mine." 

"You are not in a position to assume ethical supe 
riority in this matter. As a matter of fact you have 
no moral right to throw away the immense resources 
that may be yours on any little foreign landowner." 

"Feodor de Hohenfels is not little in any sense 
of the word." 

"Economically he is exactly that. He owns some 
farms in Russia. Perhaps he employs a villageful 
of muzhiks who scratch the ground with wooden 
plows. What does it amount to? He naturally 
will have the prejudices and mental limitations of 
his medieval, land-holding class." 

Marion smiled. " Mental limitations sounds 
funny, Papa, in connection with the gentleman you 
are talking about without knowing anything about 
him. A man has certain aspects besides the eco 
nomic. This man is not exactly a pauper at that. 
There are several million roubles worth of timber 
lands, for instance, that make him decidedly richer 
than I am, for at present I have nothing. Of course 
if you re going to throw in all the plows and farms 
and mines and things in America that you may own 
some day " 

The thrust angered Dave Moulton. "The twenty- 
five odd million dollars worth of them I do at pres 
ent own I may feel compelled to place beyond the 



THE CHASM 28 

reach of Mr. de Hohenfels. Possibly if he is given 
to understand this, the problem will solve itself." 

"There you go again!" exclaimed Marion, spring 
ing to her feet. "I d rather earn my living by my 
own hands than be in a position where anyone in 
this world can take the right to talk to me like that !" 

"Don t be a fool, Marion." 

"If it s fool or slave, I prefer to be fool!" 

"You needn t be either." 

"I needn t? Oh, no ! All I have to do is let you 
decide such little matters as whom I shall marry and 
whom not!" 

"You are mistaken. Marry whom you please. If 
the man happens to be one I don t want in control 
of the United States Plow Company he shan t con 
trol it that s all." 

"The Count de Hohenfels does not happen to be 
consumed with a burning passion for the United 
States Plow Company. It s very doubtful if he 
knows there is such a thing. It s that assumption 
of yours which has caused all the trouble, and I m 
simply asking you to straighten things out again by 
a letter to him." 

"Doesn t know there is such a thing, eh? Do you 
know we send over a million dollars worth of agri 
cultural machinery a year through the port of Riga? 
You ll find he has read a little something about us 
in Bradstreet s." 

"What s the use of making that statement? All 
there is to the whole question is that you insulted us. 
I want to know whether or not you are going to be 
decent and write that letter?" 

"A letter of apology?" 



24, THE CHASM 

"Exactly." 

"Which would result in the gentleman s taking 
the next steamer for America?" 

"I don t know how it would result. I do know 
you owe him that reparation. You owe it to me. 
Can t you see it doesn t put me in a very good light 
your taking it for granted that the only reason a 
man would want to marry me is for your money?" 

"Being married for money is a distinct danger of 
any girl in your position especially when she de 
velops an affair with a man of a notoriously money 
marrying class. The newspapers are full of how 
such marriages turn out." 

"The newspapers I Papa, are you going to write 
that letter?" 

"Not to-day." 

"When are you going to write it?" 

"When you tell me you d rather have that letter 
written than inherit control of the United States 
Plow Company." 

"Well, I ll tell you that right now!" blazed Mar 
ion. "Please write the letter." She went rapidly to 
the door. 

"Just a moment," said Mr. Moulton. "I do not 
intend to accept a decision of such magnitude made 
by you on the spur of the moment and in the heat 
of argument. I will accept no decision one way or 

the other for " He glanced at the calendar on 

his desk. "This is Tuesday the twentieth. A fort 
night is none too much. You may give me your an 
swer on April third, two weeks from to-day." 

"I should very much like to see the letter before 
you send it," said Marion, and out she walked. 



Ill 

NEVER in her life having felt the lack of it, 
wealth meant little to Miss Moulton. To 
have every luxury, to do whatever one pleased 
without reckoning the cost, seemed simply the nor 
mal state of things. She had no conception of the 
thing she was ready to throw away; and yet before 
she reached the end of the hall as she left her father s 
study, she stopped with a pang. "Fedya!" She 
voiced the name involuntarily. "I can t let you 
marry me without a penny!" she thought. Walking 
slowly on, she turned absent-mindedly into the con 
servatory. 

From the west, blown clear of cloud by a north 
west wind, the low sun was sending red lances and 
arrows of light through fronds of palm. In front of 
a dark green wall of ferns a bed of orchids blazed 
fantastic, over rich a sense impression of so 
violent beauty as to draw the attention of the girl 
even with her life-problem burning in her thoughts ! 
She remembered a certain rustic seat and passed 
down a tessellated aisle between fragrant walls of 
verdure and bloom that rose from shining jardi 
nieres and trailed from hanging baskets. From that 
artificial splendor of sumptuous nooks and graceful 
bowers she entered a place of massive rocks and moss 

25 



26 THE CHASM 

run wild and great ferns growing. There was the 
tinkle and gurgle of a rivulet, a rustic bridge, a pool 
of Japanese pond-lilies. 

With a welcome sense of seclusion she dropped 
upon the rustic seat to think things out. She was 
wondering whether among her dabblings of art and 
knowledge there was anything substantial enough to 
make a living for her. Hearing a curious swish near 
a high rock of an island in the pond, she looked and 
to her amazement beheld there, knee-deep among 
the lilies, a man in shirt-sleeves and hip-boots. He 
was stooping over and carefully touching with a 
brush the center of certain blossoms. 

"Where in the world did you come from?" the 
girl exclaimed. 

The man straightened up hastily and stared at her. 
"Excuse me for having a better right to the ques 
tion," he said. "I ve been here two hours on this 
job." 

"Oh," said the girl, her curiosity satisfied. "You re 
one of the gardeners." 

"That s all," said the man. Smiling privately at 
his elimination in her mind from the category of 
human beings, he resumed his occupation. 

Something in his tone modified her preconception 
of him as simply a specimen of the genus gardener, 
but she did not wish to think about him. She tried 
to get back her interrupted train of thought, but 
found herself mechanically watching the movements 
of the gardener and his brush. The result was a 
slight irritation that he should be doing it. 

"Why are you doing that?" she demanded, not 
really thinking of what she was saying. 



THE CHASM 27 

"To cross-fertilize the flowers," he answered with 
out looking up. 

She felt that she had displayed her ignorance, 
and social inferior though he was, she did not care 
to leave that impression on the man. She gave the 
subject her full consideration for a moment, grop 
ing among shadowy recollections of freshman bot 
any. "Have you ever looked at the pollen through 
a microscope ?" Her malicious hope was that he had 
not. 

"Oh, yes," he answered in a matter of course tone. 

Her failure to make him feel ignorant roused her 
interest. The glance he gave her seemed to be one 
of lessening hostility. He drew a pocket lens from 
his corduroys, and bent down with it looking at 
various flowers. She noticed his fine wavy brown 
hair and fair complexion slightly tanned by his arti 
ficial summer under glass. 

"Here s a grain of pollen on the tip of this pistil," 
he said. "It s likely to open and send a little liquid 
filament down to the eggs of the flower. Would you 
care to watch it?" 

"Not having any hip-boots at hand, I think I 
won t," she answered, wondering how a man in his 
station had managed to acquire such diction. 

He took a knife, cut the stem of the gorgeous lily, 
brought it ashore to her, and offered her the lens. 

She hesitated an instant, then took the flower and 
looked. The young man went back to his work 
without waiting for her comment, so she was free to 
forget him and lose herself in contemplation of the 
wonderful structure and still more wonderful func-. 
tion of that minute, amorous grain of living dust. 



28 THE CHASM 

She watched it with real interest. When she lowered 
the lens she looked at the whole flower with a new 
wonder a sudden realization of the depth and 
beauty of sex in the life of the world. "What a 
pity the stem is cut!" she thought. "That wonder 
ful event will do no good." 

With a start she remembered the presence of the 
gardener, felt that he was looking, glanced quickly 
to read his expression, and to her surprise encount 
ered an inadvertent look of sympathetic understand 
ing. For a purely human instant it disarmed her 
and drew a like look to her eyes. But what right 
had he to understand? "Very interesting, I m sure," 
she said coldly. 

He turned without answering and bent over the 
next lily, but she saw a curious little smile. What 
sort of man was he anyhow with his rough hands 
and scholar s speech? Her eye went back to the 
lily. 

"Tell me," she said, "do women ever do this sort 
of work?" 

"Gardening? My mother has slaved at it all her 
life." 

She dismissed her half-formed idea that he might 
be a man of good family reduced to working his way 
through college. "It seems to me I have heard of 
girls fitting themselves as horticulturalists in a col 
lege founded by Lady Warwick," she mused. "How 
decent a living could one make at it anyway?" 

"At gardening?" He looked at her and smiled. 
"If you think of going into the business, you d better 
put in plenty of capital and hire me." 



THE CHASM 29 

She did not respond to his humor, but as he started 
to laugh she noticed with approval his excellent, clean 
teeth. "I wished to know what one could do with 
out capital by one s own work." 

"Starve," said the gardener. 

"Indeed? You do not look emaciated. How 
much do you earn a month?" 

"I get fifty and board." 

The girl s eyebrows lifted at the meagerness of the 
wage. Her own personal yearly expenses were sup 
posed to be limited to twenty thousand a year. "Are 
you the head gardener?" she pursued. 

"No. He draws a hundred." 

"And you think that I, for instance, couldn t aspire 
to fifty?" 

"It takes physical strength," said the man eyeing 
her sceptically. 

That made little impression on her, for she felt 
that she had it. 

"It also takes patience," he added "an ox-like 
physical endurance such as nothing in your life can 
possibly have given you." , 

"Oh, as to that !" she said, waving it aside. "If 
others acquire it, I could." 

He thought a moment. "My father and mother 
have slaved at truck-farming all their lives, Miss 
Moulton they and their children often sixteen 
hours a day and sometimes in emergencies twenty 
hours. They have produced pretty near enough to 
feed Moline, and they haven t cleared fifty a month 
year in, year out, for the whole family. Of course a 
job like this after a technical course and some 



SO THE CHASM 

years experience you might get a hundred raising 
useless things for rich people to look at once or 
twice a year." 

Her expression hardened with dislike of his tone. 

"You gardening!" he repeated, not at all worry 
ing about the effect of his words on her. "It s as 
though a nightingale who could fill the heart of the 
night with fire should want to live in a hen-house 
and lay eggs for somebody s breakfast." 

Her mind drew from the speaker to the poetic 
phrase. His voice s indisputable knowledge of how 
to give it the value of truthful music affected her 
only unconsciously. 

"What gives you that romantic idea as to the 
heart of the night?" she said, her disparaging tone 
not successfully concealing the pleasure the romantic 
idea gave her. 

"The things open to you! Your boundless free 
dom for development. Some who have that have 
nothing to develop; but it s evident that " 

"I have no freedom whatever!" she exclaimed 
bitterly. "I was thinking of that very thing when I 
came in here !" 

Seeing his interest in her exclamation, she pulled 
up, wondering how she had come to drift so far 
into things personal. Her unconscious feeling that 
her social superiority was too obviously secure to 
bother thinking about or demonstrating was there 
to reassure her. The man went carelessly on in his 
tone of dispassionate analysis. "Of course you 
haven t much sense yet," he said, " but doubt 
less that s inexperience." 



THE CHASM 31 

For a moment Miss Moulton was too astonished 
to answer. "I admit that what I am doing just now 
shows lack of good sense," said she, scathingly. 

"In talking to me?" smiled the gardener, straight 
ening up. "Oh, no, that s sensible." 

"I think," said she with an air of finality, "that 
there is a little too much ego in your cosmos." 

"On the contrary to reverse your quotation of 
Kipling most everyone you meet has so much cos 
mos in his ego that the ego is all squeezed out." 

What arrested her was the fact that that very 
thought, turned that very way, might have come 
from Feodor de Hohenfels! "One thing would 
be interesting to know," she said. "Did you borrow 
that egoistic pose from someone you ve heard or 
from something you ve read?" 

"Neither. Oh, I have read Max Stirner and 
found him in possession of a few distorted frag 
ments of my philosophy. But it isn t an egoistic 
pose, Miss Moulton. It s real egoism." 

The surprise of this turn and his smile as he said 
it were too much for her. She had to smile back. 

"I have simply accepted myself," he explained. 
"Most people accept instead some fool ideal and 
then belittle themselves for differing therefrom. I 
reflect that nature has been twenty or a hundred mil 
lion years or so at the job of making me as I am. I m 
not egotist enough to frame up some ideal concep 
tion of what I should be and imagine that shadow 
of my brain superior to nature s actual achievement 
in me." 

She was silent following and weighing the idea. 



32 THE CHASM 

"Yes," she decided. "It s strange, but this man does 
think like Feodor." And then she asked, "Have 
you read Bernard Shaw?" 

"Some," he answered. 

"Did you learn that trick of turning things inside 
out from him?" 

"It seems hard for you to conceive that a man can 
be his own thinker." 

She looked at him with the sudden respect of a 
stung child for a bee. 

"Your question," he said, "entitles me to ask if 
you think when Shaw turns an old idea inside out 
that he s wantonly twisting that he knows to be true 
into something clever and different?" 

"My dear Mr. " began Marion. 

"Bradfield." 

"Thank you. Anyone who knows that a man may 
say a thing wittily and nevertheless believe what he 
says will not debate the banal question of Mr. Shaw s 
sincerity. Which do you prefer, Mr. Bradfield: 
Shall I imitate you and tell you plainly that I am an 
intelligent person, or shall I pay you the compliment 
of supposing you able to perceive it?" 

"Hoist with my own petard!" chuckled Mr. Brad- 
field. "I believe there s no one else in Moline who 
could have come back at me outegotizing the egoist." 

She found herself not resenting his putting him 
self with her in a class from which the rest of Moline 
was somewhat naturally excluded. Feeling that she 
might find clarification in the atmosphere of this re 
markable individual, she had a sudden instinctive im 
pulse to test and seize and use his thinking power as 
a tool for her own purposes very much as her fam- 



THE CHASM S3 

ily was using his power of muscular labor. "I m 
into this too deep to back out now," was the way she 
put it to herself. "If you are as clear-headed a 

person as you think you are " she began. 

"Please come up out of that pond and sit down here 
and tell me why you said I have no sense. If you 
can prove it " 

He came ashore. "Any one with the enormous 
economic power that will be yours to talk of gar 
dening for a living!" he scoffed. 

"Suppose I find the price I must pay for that 
power too high?" 

"Well it must be a staggering price 1" 

"Do you think slavery too high a price?" 

"Slavery!" he echoed. "You don t know what it 
means! Go ask my mother what it is!" After a 
moment he added: "Your father s conditions are 
nothing to the thing you want to put your neck into." 

"My father s conditions!" Marion gasped. "How 
did you what makes you say that?" 

"An obvious inference from slavery as the price 
of economic power." 

"Do you call that obvious? It strikes me as un 
canny. Sit down. How much more do you infer?" 

"More would be guessing." He glanced at the 
low sun, sat down, and turned down the tops of his 
boots. "Still was it some little point of honor a 
difficulty you could have smoothed out in a minute if 
it was not for what your friends call your high 
spirit ?" 

Marion sat back abruptly. That letter she had 
come to America to have written was that so all- 
important? Incidentally Bradfield no longer re- 



34 THE CHASM 

minded her of Feodor. The Russian prized that 
same high spirit more than anything else. It was 
that in her which had attracted him and fired him 
with the passion of conquest. "I was high-handed 
with papa," she thought. "And what did I gain 
by it? Why don t I steer straight for the big thing?" 
Completely absorbed in viewing the whole affair of 
De Hohenfels and her father from this sudden new 
angle, she rose and started toward the bridge. 

Looking after her, Bradfield the gardener 
thought she was going to leave without another 
word; but remembering him, she turned and, not 
really letting go the new threads of her thought, she 
murmured, "That suggests things. Thank you. I 
wish to think them out." So she walked on slowly 
out of the gardener s sight. 



IV 

MARION showed a desire after dinner that 
evening to talk again with her father on the 
subject of the letter to De Hohenfels. Mr. 
Moulton saw with satisfaction that it must mean 
modification sooner than he had hoped of her 
demand, but he felt it necessary to maintain his reso 
lution to accept no answer before the specified time; 
and Marion had to resign herself to a fortnight of 
unsettledness. She chafed at what she felt to be the 
sheer tyranny of the unnecessary delay, characteriz 
ing it as springing from a senseless, old-fashioned 
habit of parental rigidity toward children. 

The letters to Feodor which she began were 
necessarily so unsatisfactory that they all went into 
the fire. 

Everything at Hillcrest irritated her. When it 
occurred to her the second morning after her arri 
val to go to the conservatory and talk again with 
Bradfield, her knowledge that her father would 
neither understand nor sympathize was anything but 
a deterrent. And when she began to think of Brad- 
field, whom she had left so brusquely, she became 
really curious. He was an unusual phenomenon she 
wished to understand. She decided to get him talk 
ing, hear his history, explore his range, and find his 

35 



36 THE CHASM 

limits, which were still quite vague to her. She felt 
that very likely her first surprise at finding an intel 
lectual man in his station had caused her to overesti 
mate him. On her way to the conservatory, for the 
satisfaction of her own, not her father s, sense of 
decorum, she considered pretty carefully the tone she 
ought to adopt. To treat him simply as a gardener, 
she felt, would be absurd, since merely as a gardener 
he had practically no interest for her. About right, 
she decided, would be that nuance of conduct she 
had been taught to observe with governesses and 
tutors and middle-class people of culture, not ser 
vants, who for any reason mingle with the family 
yet are paid for being there. 

When Bradfield, however, looked up at her, re 
turning her greeting, from his kneeling posture be 
fore a velvet slope of moss he was creating on a bare 
spot among the rocks, a sudden spirit of mischief 
somewhat disarranged Miss Moulton s predeter 
mined program. 

"Sir Oracle," she said in a tone of amiable mock 
ery, "I think perhaps you did me a service the other 
day, and for all I know I may now be seeking more 
wisdom." 

"What shall I enlighten you about?" he inquired, 
straightening up on his knees. 

"I haven t just decided. You disapprove of gar 
dening, so of course I have dropped that. As I re 
member it your alternative was to fill the heart of 
the night with fire. The idea appeals to me re 
markably. I m sure I should like nothing better. 
But on reflection I find myself just a little uncertain 
how it is done." 



THE CHASM 37 

"Of course I couldn t be explicit for you," he said, 
taking another square of moss from his basket. 

"Be so for you then. How would you go about 
filling it?" 

He took the question seriously thinking for a 
moment. 

"I suppose I would have to go about it mainly 
with pen and ink I mean a typewriter. But mean j 
while I would study, think, travel, observe. I would 
get my philosophy down to unshakeable bedrock. I 
would stiffen it with multitudes of exactly gauged 
facts. Above all I would become personally ac 
quainted with the men in every land who are fight 
ing for freedom find out what they want done 
and help them do it." For a moment he was ab 
sorbed in the vision of what his life would be if he 
had her opportunity. The ring in his voice as he 
spoke of the fight for freedom must have stirred 
something deep in her, for he heard her saying self- 
unconsciously: 

"My version of that feeling seems narrower but 
more definite to rouse and guide the ambition of a 
gifted man adrift on life : to waken him into a power 
for the liberalization, not of every land, but of one 
belated country Russia." 

"The liberalization of Russia?" said Bradfield 
dubiously. 

"Yes. To transform it into a free government." 

"Like ours?" 

Her mind busy with his trend, she seated herself 
sidewise on the rustic bench and turned looking over 
the back of it to talk to him the whole graceful 
process the flower of long training become uncon- 



38 THE CHASM 

scious. "I suppose you think liberalizing Russia as 
much too big as gardening is too small," she said. 

"No. I am thinking it wouldn t be worth while." 

She repeated that phrase in amazement. 

"You see only the outward form, not the substance 
of modern tyranny," he explained, going on with his 
work. "The men in your father s mills and the 
men who are not allowed to work in them are op 
pressed with the real oppression, which is economic. 
The people of Russia would be practically no better 
off under a republic if all the sources of wealth re 
mained as now both in Russia and America, in the 
hands of a few." 

"You don t know Russia, my friend, or you would 
not talk like that." 

"I know America, though, and you do not." 

"Don t you think that rather arrogant? I have 
lived most of my life in America. I ve kept my eyes 
open and have thought some. How comes it that 
you know America and I do not?" 

"Because you ve not had to know it. I have. You 
and your friends have tabooed the subject of the 
people s misery. You live like the uncaring gods of 
Epicurus in places like this." The fernery was 
full of gorgeous glooms and gleams, ripplings and 
tinklings of sound and light. "You never see the 
unbeautiful homes of the workmen who make this 
beauty possible," he said. "If you did, you d think 
their squalor good enough. Where they are con 
cerned you are afflicted with the myopia of your 
class, whose dominance is based on systematic injus 
tice to mine." 

"I simply don t believe it," said Marion. 



THE CHASM 39 

"Shall I tell you why you don t?" said he, forget 
ting moss. "Because the class philosophy you have 
breathed since babyhood is full of lies born of your 
class-interests the self-interest of profit-taking men 
and dividend-spending women. Dividends are holy 
things not to be cut no matter how much or how 
wide-spread suffering it costs to maintain them. You 
bourgeois have believed your own lies about this 
condition until you have lost the power of seeing 
straight in anything. The foggy, new religions you 
go wild over prove the decadence of your intellect. 
You affect looking down on intellect it is so dead 
against you. Whatever you deal with you show 
yourselves muddleheads. We workers see things 
straight. We have to. Economic pressure imposes 
the habit on us. We are up against hard facts that 
can t be Christian-scienced out of existence. Nietz 
sche talks about the splendid tension of the human 
spirit resulting from the effort of Europe to throw 
off the yoke of ecclesiasticism. That tension s noth 
ing to ours our effort to throw off the yoke of eco 
nomic slavery. There s the real splendor of the 
human spirit in our time. You will see it burst out 
before you die." He rose from his knees and came 
toward her. She had a little sense of his having 
dramatically assumed the role of protagonist of his 
class, yet neither that nor the fact that he was ad 
dressing an audience of one in cadences approaching 
those of public speaking seemed odd enough to her 
to spoil his effect. "We who have borne the burden 
of the world," he said, " did you think we would 
not grow strong? When we had to think ourselves 
out of your false view of life or perish, did you sup- 



40 THE CHASM 

pose we wouldn t learn to think? We were forced to 
forge intellectual weapons for your overthrow or 
be ground down out of existence. Naturally we 
forged them. We ve come free of your lies with 
a burning love of truth; we ve survived your injus 
tice with a burning love of justice. On truth and 
justice and the brotherhood we have learned in 
misery we will build a world a thousand times better 
than yours even for you whom we shall overthrow ! 
On our foundation you shall see a human civilization 
lift into more than Athenian beauty and perfection! 
For the first time since the communes of savagery 
the economic basis of life shall be right and with 
our power enlarged from stone axe to steam-ham 
mer. . . . Our power, mind you. Not Dave Moul- 
ton s, and not yours!" 

"You are really a poet, Mr. Bradfield," said the 
girl, so little affected by the substance of his speech 
that she was free to admire the passionate vigor of 
his expression. 

"And if I am ! Do you think so little of the poets 
as to oppose our vision to fact?" 

"I naturally can t help seeing that you overlook 
some large facts," said Marion calmly. "If it was 
n t for my father s factories, for instance, the men 
there whom you think so oppressed would not have 
the work they have nor draw the thousands of dol 
lars they get for doing it." 

"Do you know your father sells a plow costing 
him seven and a half for labor and material, for 
thirty-five dollars? Do you know he has crushed 
the unions which stand for a little better pay, a little 



THE CHASM 41 

better hours, a little better life for all these working- 
men? Do you know these workingmen receive less 
than one-fifth the value of their labor?" 

"I don t know just what proportion of the total 
value they receive. Did these workmen buy the steel 
and wood to make the plows of?" 

"No, the steel was mined and made, the wood cut 
and sawed by other workers who received only a 
fraction of the value they created out of the natural 
earth." 

"Why didn t your workers organize the United 
States Plow Company themselves? Why did they 
leave that to my father and grandfather?" 

"The time was not then ripe. They had not 
learned to work together in great factories. They 
know how now. Your grandfather did perform a 
service to society. Was it so great that society 
should give him and his heirs forever despotic power 
over its labor and life? Only a tiny fraction of the 
human energy of brain and muscle that built these 
factories and constructed this machinery was his. 
The savage who first used fire, perhaps a thousand 
centuries ago, helped him to make his plow. Archi 
tects and wage-workers built the factories; inventors, 
designers, and wage-workers made the machinery. 
Thousands of men have been forced to content them 
selves with a pittance for creating the wealth with 
which the Moultons bought factories." 

She was certain the Moultons ought to have the 
factories, but could not lay hold of a good reason 
why. "How far back do you go with that?" she 
asked. "To the Norman Conquest?" 



42 THE CHASM 

"I could go back to a much older war fought with 
flint-tipped arrows and stone celts. The Moulton 
of that time was a war-chief, who, instead of din 
ing on a captive, set him to work and dined through 
out the year on the fruits of that work. Slavery, 
serfdom, wage-work the last method of living off 
the labor of other men is an improvement on all 
others from the point of view of the exploiters." 
He laughed, and went back to his basket of moss. 

"You seem to be equipped with a very elaborate 
perversion of the true relations between labor and 
capital." 

"That s funny," he said. "Don t you really see 
that the economic interest of your class inclines you 
to look on relations very advantageous to capital 
and very disadvantageous to labor as true ? My 
economic interest and that of my class makes me 
brand these same relations as rotten." 

"Let me point out that there is such a thing as ab 
stract truth what the French call the true truth 
which is neither your point of view nor mine, but 
simply true." 

"Into the blue !" he exclaimed. "A truth different 
from what L think, and from what you think, and 
from what every other human being thinks existing 
in no brain where does it exist? What good is it 
anyhow? In reality there is only you and me and 
what facts force us to believe. That is the true truth." 

She weighed that a moment. "You may be right 
about that," she said. "Suppose you are also right 
about slavery, serfdom and wage-work. Do you 
think you can overthrow these laws of life the law 
of stronger and weaker which, according to your 



THE CHASM 43 

own view of history, has been working among men 
since the age of stone?" 

"Not permanently. The present system has tem 
porarily set that law aside since a stupid man with 
capital is at present much more than a match eco 
nomically for a keen-minded man without it. But 
my analysis of history shows me that the same eco 
nomic laws that have made the slave a serf and the 
serf a wage-worker are going to make the wage- 
worker his own boss." 

"Then what will make him work?" 

"What makes your father work?" 

"He s an unusual man." 

"Well, I ll grant that. He happens to be. But 
suppose just usual men, the workers, owned all the 
factories in common. Can you imagine them stand 
ing outside the closed doors of their own factories 
suffering, perhaps dying, for lack of the things their 
factories can produce? No. All there is to it is 
this : At present, ignorant, narrow and small-souled 
as the view of your class is, you have the power to 
enforce it. You capitalist plutocrats had to over 
throw the feudal aristocrats to get the power you 
have. Very well. As you overthrew them, we social 
democrats will overthrow you." 

"Oh," said Marion. "Are you a socialist?" She 
looked at him curiously. "I m not sure I ever saw a 
real live one before." 

"I ll not be the last one you see." 

"Very likely not. I understand socialism is grow 
ing. But do you really imagine, Mr. Bradfield, that 
in Europe the landed aristocracy has no power?" 

"Only in so far as the aristocrats are capitalists. 



44 THE CHASM 

Aristocracy is a survival like the vermiform appen 
dix. That s why you doom yourself to futility when 
you attempt to galvanize your Russian." 

"How many European nobles have the honor to 
be acquainted with you, Mr. Bradfield? Do you 
realize what a cock-sure theorizer you are? It hap 
pens that the brain of the Russian nobleman I was 
thinking of glows with magnificent life. His mind 
is like a bed of orchids." 

Bradfield was evidently impressed for a moment, 
and then his eyes narrowed keenly. "Why does he 
need so much rousing, and guiding, and waking?" he 
asked. "Did you say he was adrift on life? Why is 
he adrift? The Russian revolutionists are not drift 
ing. Neither are the rulers. They are real they 
stand for something vital, they know what they 
are doing. But your landed young gentleman who 
is to liberalize the Russian Government ! The peas 
ants of the mir on his estate will make new Russia 
not he." 

"I ve heard that prophecy is a risky business," she 
said, not caring to discuss De Hohenfels with Brad- 
field. 

"What is his attitude toward the Russian lower 
classes ?" pursued Bradfield. 

"I suppose he considers most of them ignorant and 
fanatical." 

"Risky it may be, but I think I can make a pretty 
fair forecast of his fate, and yours if you marry him. 
I do not think you and he will fill the heart of the 
night with fire. You will certainly not liberalize 
Russia, and if you did it would do no good. The 
Russian revolution, the rising of peasant and worker 



THE CHASM 45 

whose interests are antagonistic to yours with 
that new-found, passionate religion they call Solid 
arity, they will sweep you away like chaff!" 

"How very exultant the idea makes you," said she, 
smiling. "Well, you are interesting, Mr. Bradfield. 
You really are an amazing gardener." His expres 
sion hardened in a reaction against her patronizing 
tone. "But do you know," she added quickly, "I 
can t see such a vast difference between your rhap 
sodies and those of the new religionists you are so 
scornful of." 

"They may be alike in fervor. The difference is 
that mine are based on close analysis of human his 
tory, on economic science, on real psychology. Theirs 
are based on wind. If you can t see the differ 
ence !" 

"It must be because I belong to a muddle-headed 
class, Mr. Bradfield. Do let it be my class ! It is so 
much more comforting to blame the others for it!" 

"It is your class. You are the most intelligent 
member of it I have ever met. You are the only 
bourgeois person I know that I like." 

"Thank you. It happens, however, that I am not 
a bourgeois person. The phrase sets my teeth on 
edge." 

He looked at her thoughtfully. "I see," he said. 
"The class feeling of the aristocracy. But consider 
the angle from which I look. Aristocrat and bour 
geois are alike exploiters of us. Now we begin tak 
ing the reins of the world from you, you are uniting 
against us like you and your Russian. In a few 
years you will be one class." 

"Wrong," she said, exulting because he was 



46 THE CHASM 

wrong. "I hated all that was bourgeois in ethics 
and wall-paper, literature and hair-dressing years 
before I came in contact with the aristocracy." 
She expected Bradfield to catch the little turn and 
smile back at it; but he was busy with a new idea of 
his own. Till then he had taken for granted an im 
passable chasm between them. 

"You hate the bourgeois instinctively?" he pon 
dered. "Why is that? And you talk of gardening 
of earning your own living. Is it something 
deeper than I thought in you? Is it possible that 
some day you will be coming to us?" 

"What do you mean?" 

"I wouldn t think so if you were the ordinary 
brainless society girl. You think. You feel. You re 
big enough to rise above your class ethics or you 
wouldn t be talking to me. In spite of your wealth 
why, you have even felt in a pale way the lack 
of economic freedom! I think you should be com 
ing to us toward democracy, instead of away from 
it. Believe me only on our side will you find the 
kind of life you crave the spirit you love!" 

"Just what kind of life and spirit do you take 
that to be, Mr. Bradfield?" 

"The life of useful work and the spirit of com 
radeship." 

"Awhile ago you were scornful because I wanted 
to find useful work." 

"Yes, at the present degrading price of human 
labor power, someone else taking the greater part of 
the value of your labor. That will not be so when 
we workers adjust the work and wealth of the 
world to our own needs." 



THE CHASM 47 

"Are you talking of your grandchildren?" she in 
quired. "And comradeship ! Have you the spirit of 
comradeship toward us whom you regard as your 
enemies?" 

"No, not now. How can we? But there are very 
few of you fewer all the time as wealth concen 
trates. Out of eighty millions in this country not 
quarter of a million. One in four hundred. But 
you own everything. You hold everything we must 
have to work with to live. You own our working 
power mental and manual. We have to sell it to 
you or starve. You own us. You use us solely for 
your benefit, not ours. We have to fight you. After 
we have taken away your power to rob us we will 
have no reason to exclude you from comradeship." 

"You have your narrowness," she said. "Do you 
imagine that we the people you now exclude do 
you really think we know nothing of comradeship?" 

"Not for us. Not for three hundred and ninety- 
nine four hundredths of the people in America." 

"You are wrong," said the girl. She looked him 
full in the eyes but met there the glint of a conviction 
stronger than her own. "How shall I make you feel 
it?" she exclaimed. An unaccountably vivid desire 
to shake his grip on that hostile conviction became 
momentarily the most essential thing in the world. 
She was leaning unconsciously toward him, exerting 
all the personal attraction of her serious eyes and 
earnest voice. Suddenly she held out her hand to 
him. He looked surprised, took her hand uncer 
tainly, and through his eyes she saw his grip on his 
idea relax his attention wavering toward the charm 
of her gesture and the delicate, nervous shock of 



48 THE CHASM 

her smooth hand in his. "You are one man in a 
thousand, Mr. Bradfield," she said warmly. u You 
have plenty of ability. Lift yourself out of the class 
in which you happen to have been born." 

He dropped her hand abruptly. "On a ladder of 
my own people s faces!" he cried with scorn. "No, 
I prefer to help lift the class in which I was born!" 

She drew back. "What folly to look at it so!" 
she exclaimed, vexed with his rude repulse of an ad 
vance she felt to be magnanimous. "Well then 
stay down!" 

"No!" said he. "I will come up with the other 
nine hundred and ninety-nine!" 

"Try it and see!" 

"We are not merely trying we are doing it." 

"A little too unselfish of you for this world as it 
is," she said, wishing she could lay hold of some 
thing that would really cut. 

"This world, Miss Moulton, shall not remain as it 
is. We are not content with a mere mournful, in 
active, poetic wish that we might grasp this sorry 
scheme of things entire ! We will grasp it. We will 
shatter it to bits. We will remold it nearer to the 
heart s desire !" 

"You seem very sure of your ability to do a very 
big thing." 

"As individuals we could not do it. As a class we 
can." 

"A whole class of heaven-stormers?" 

"Not at all. Our energy is not directed impo- 
tently against God. We have discovered that he is 
not the responsible party. And you needn t worry 
about our being too unselfish. To labor for the 



THE CHASM 49 

super-enrichment of you owners that s rank unsel 
fishness. What unites us is self-preservation. We 
are true to our class because we have solved for our 
selves the problem of alter and ego. We know 
towards whom and what we must act egotistically 
and where to use our altruism. Light like ours burns 
only as a torch in the open night. We ve seen too 
many labor leaders use their torch for the illumina 
tion of some private bushel. They take place and 
pelf and subtler bribes seats at a banquet the 
privilege of speaking to exquisite women like you. 
And their souls go out!" 

"You re not absurd enough to suppose I am trying 
to bribe you with my companionship !" She laughed. 

"Not consciously. But do you suppose the class- 
soul the social group of which you are one compo 
nent molecule does not use you and daily work 
through you in a thousand ways you do not under 
stand?" 

She had a glimpse of his vision. Since he dropped 
her hand she had tried to hurt him, to make him feel 
foolish, to shake his faith in his ideas. Whether 
they were true or not did not concern her so much 
as her desire to loosen his grip, to weaken him with 
self doubt. Each utterance had been a conscious 
thrust of her will seeking to break his. He had dealt 
with these hostile volitions merely as ideas, uncon 
scious of the easily adequate action of his own resist 
ing will. She gave it up. "It s a little uncanny," she 
said. "For a moment then I felt that I was not just 
plain me as I comfortably supposed, but the tip 
of a social tentacle stretched out here to you the 
tentacle of another octopus." 



50 THE CHASM 

"Your octopus very small and quick and open- 
eyed," he said, his fancy kindling from hers. "Mine 
gigantic and slow and blind. Yours draining three- 
quarters of the blood of mine. Mine painfully 
aware of that weakening drain and slowly opening 
its long-closed eyes to see!" 

A slight shudder ran through her. "No," she 
said, after a moment. "I refuse to believe the 
beautiful world we live in is based upon any such 
hideous struggle. These social octopuses are not 
real. Awhile ago you said yourself: There is only 
you and me and what we believe. 

"You and me and the other yous and mes, 
A while ago I merely denied concreteness to an ab 
stract idea. But these classes, of which you and I 
are at present tentacle tips, are concrete groups of 
human individuals. The class has no existence in 
dependent of its component members. But the mem 
bers are grouped in certain economic and social rela 
tions to each other. A generation dies away atom 
by atom, and the new generation takes its place atom 
by atom, maintaining the old relations. These re 
lations, changing slowly, are the growing structure 
of the social organism." 

"The social organism! You were claiming two 
two distinct and hostile organisms your class and 
mine. Which is it one organism or two?" She 
thought she had him. 

"A half-split ameba may be regarded as one or 
ganism or two," he said. "Likewise a society split 
into classes. When our class has absorbed yours 
there will be no doubt about social solidarity." 



THE CHASM 51 

"And suppose we object to absorption so vigorous 
ly that you fail?" 

"We are the immense majority. What shall stop 
us?" 

"Possibly the immense majority s immense stupid- 
ity." 

"The nail on the head. But events are teachers 
that reach even the deaf. Stupid or not, I think 
our desire for the wealth we create will finally prove 
stronger and better based than your desire for It." 

"Please, sir, I m sorry," said she, tired of seri 
ousness, "but I didn t know I had a desire for the 
wealth you create." 

"No," he answered, refusing to follow her make- 
believe that she was a schoolchild answering her 
teacher. "You ve accepted your dividends as un 
thinkingly as you accept the philosophy that justi 
fies them. How much do you spend a year?" 

"Do you know that s an awfully impertinent ques 
tion?" " 

"You didn t think so the other day when you 
asked it of me. And just now the question seems 
pertinent to the argument." 

"I m not arguing. It s you. I ve never thought 
about these things you insist upon talking about. I 
hate arguments anyway." She felt like crying. 

"You re not the only one, Miss Moulton. It s a 
peculiarity that appears whenever a defender of the 
existing industrial system tries to meet the socialist 
argument. They never meet it. They evade it. 
They misstate it. They talk about something else. 
You have done splendidly." 



52 THE CHASM 

"The idea of your patronizing me!" she ex 
claimed. 

"You began by patronizing me !" he retorted. 

"Aren t you hateful to me!" she protested. And 
then, mentally criticizing her tone, she grew con 
scious of the fact that she had become almost incap 
able of treating this ungentle man in any other way 
than as an equal. "I am going," she said abruptly. 
As soon as she spoke she looked furtively to see if 
he would be sorry. 

"Just one more light on the bourgeoisie before 
you go," he said. 

She looked at him resentfully. "So full of your 
own precious ideas, you don t care whether I go or 
not!" she thought. She had noticed the lily he had 
cut for her two days before lying withered on the 
seat. 

"You hate bourgeois ethics and wallpaper and 
literature, Miss Moulton," he went on, "but you 
forget to hate the thing that shapes its hateful ideals 
and tastes. The way it gets its living. There is the 
root of all its sordid soul and all its ugly evil. Not 
money itself, as the Christians superficially thought, 
but the way you private owners of the world s 
wealth-creating machinery suck profit from the over 
worked and joyless lives of men, women, and chil 
dren who have to work for you or starve." 

"I guess you re hopeless," thought Marion. The 
question "Have you ever been in love?" formed it 
self in her mind, but she suppressed it, rose, and 
started across the bridge. Bradfield rose and stood 
looking after her from among the rocks and ferns. 

"Goodbye, Mr. Bradfield," she called back. 



THE CHASM 53 

"Goodbye, Miss Moulton." His tone had finally 
changed and very much. 

She stopped and looked back. "Oh," said she 
with an air of surprise, "are you really human?" 
He was puzzled a sight that delighted her soul, 
and she laughed. 

"I don t know what you mean," he said, bluntly. 

She stopped. "If you don t understand, you 
should have the grace to think it your fault, not 
mine." 

"But it isn t," he said. 

"Isn t it? Think it over." 

"Think over the intentionally obscure expression 
of some perfectly simple idea !" 

"You analytic wretch!" thought she. "How you 
do refuse to play!" she exclaimed. "I was going 
to wish that sometime we might meet and contrive to 
talk something else besides socialism, but " 

"I ll talk anything on earth," he interrupted. 
Then as an after-thought, with a secret thrill at his 
own boldness, but saying it anyway, he added, 
" if it is with you!" 

"Oh, did you know you were with me? I thought 
you were conversing merely with a social tentacle. 
I feel like coming back, now you ve stopped arguing 
and admitted my personal existence. But be care 
ful. Perhaps you are being bribed!" 

She went at once, afraid if she gave him the chance 
that he would pick loose or break the subtle little 
knots with which she had momentarily enmeshed 
him. 



THE virtues of the absent Feodor?" inquired 
Lady Diotima, breaking into Marion s rev 
erie one evening before the Pearson hearth- 
fire. 

The girl started. "No," she answered. "I was 
thinking about a man I ve been seeing lately." 

"So soon?" 

"Oh, I wasn t thinking of him that wayl" Her 
disclaimer instantly striking her as unnecessary, 
Marion blushed; then menaced her hostess. "I ve 
half a mind not to tell you a thing about this re 
markable man who interests, bores, charms and ir 
ritates all in the same breath!" 

"Who is he?" 

"Give him one detail, and presto he has filled in! 
And his grip on ideas is disconcerting. He s al 
ways abnormally right at least he carries it off." 

"I evidently am not acquainted with him." 

"He knows what you re going to say, and why it 
isn t so that is, why he thinks it isn t. He knows 
what you ve done, and what you re going to do, and 
why it s why he thinks it s foolish. He loves to 
tell you it s foolish. Unfortunately his reasons are 
formidable unless you re just trifling; then you 
can fluster him some." 

54 



THE CHASM 55 

"Marion, does this supernatural male being live 
in Moline?" 

"Yes. He has read out of the way authors you 
intended to read and haven t Max Stirner, Nietz 
sche, Stendhal, and that sort. He s so absorbed in 
his ideas that " 

"That?" 

"That to impress him with one s personality is 
an achievement." 

"So you took the trouble to achieve. I suppose I 
must be patient until you make up your tyrannical 
mind to tell me who he is." 

"He is one of our gardeners!" 

"Marion Moulton!" 

"His name is Walt Bradfield!" 

"One of your gardeners!" 

"His father and mother are ignorant Moline 
truck-farmers." 

Lady Diotima was speechless. 

"He is a socialist." 

"Does he eat with his knife?" 

"I suppose so. I began by patronizing him. Be 
fore we get through he promises to scatter most of 
my cherished convictions to the four winds!" 

"Is he scrubbed?" 

"Well, yes. But his hands feel like nutmeg grat 
ers." 

"Feel?" 

"The one I shook did," said Marion, laughing. 
"His teeth are good and clean and his hair is nice. 
His shirt is generally unbuttoned at the neck per 
haps to show his fine throat. And you should hear 
his vocabulary! Western vowels and r s, of course, 



56 THE CHASM 

and sometimes too bookish showing where his cul 
ture comes from but I was astonished. He s given 
me a new perspective. My quarrel with papa, for 
instance. I m going to withdraw my demand about 
that letter, and see if I can t reconcile him to my 
marriage with Fedya." 

"Marion: did you talk to this gardener about your 
marriage?" 

"Oh, yes," Marion answered, reveling in Mrs. 
Pearson s consternation. 

"What would Hohenfels think of that?" 

"I don t know," said Marion, thoughtfully. "Of 
course, Diotima, I didn t go into the personal side 
of my affair with Fedya. Our talk was political. 
Fedya is inclined to be a little leonine. But," she 
added pointedly, "if I wanted to talk intimately with 
the gardener, and then let other people s cut and 
dried opinions scare me out, Fedya would be scorn 
ful." 

Lady Diotima winced a little and changed her 
tone. "Oh, of course, if he really is such an excep 
tional man. Does he intend to remain a gardener? 
How old is he?" 

"Perhaps twenty-six. I believe he intends to 
write." 

"By the way," said Mrs. Pearson, "George told 
me he met you on the train last week. A little 
rough on him, weren t you?" 

"No, Lady Diotima. In pure affection I called 
him an idiot, and he couldn t conceive the word as 
kindly meant. It s too bad he and I have such a 
different set of values. I should dearly love to have 
you for a mother-in-law." 



THE CHASM 57 

"Are you sure your values and those of De Hohen- 
fels will not turn out still more different?" 

"It is curious really," said Marion. "Feodor 
and Bradfield are diametrically opposed in many of 
their ideas. And yet Feodor and Bradfield and I 
have passed beyond certain limitations which all 
three of us regard as harmful to life. George still 
thinks them essential." 

"I know," said George s mother. "But he is not 
so narrow as his father, and he s more intelligent 
except about business. I did use to hope you would 
take him and broaden him." 

"After your failure to broaden Mr. Pearson? 

"I admit I was thinking of George s welfare more 
than yours. But now I m beginning to think you have 
turned your back too completely on convention." 

"Because I talked with the gardener? I talked 
with an intelligent man of unusual power. It s stupid 
not to know when to ignore convention, and it s 
cowardly not to ignore it when it ought to be ignored. 
Do you think George could turn me back into the 
strait and narrow path?" 

"Perhaps not," sighed Mrs. Pearson. "A born 
rebel like you any attempt to turn you back would 
only drive you farther on." 

"Especially if anyone went at it the way George 
would. He would get behind and push, not lead 
and lure." 

"Would Feodor lead and lure?" 

"He d enjoy making you think the thing he ob 
jected to was decadent your instinct perverted by 
some herd opinion your will weakened by too much 
subservient inhibition of impulse." 



58 THE CHASM 

"And Bradfield?" asked Lady Diotima curiously. 

"Bradfield? If possible he d startle you with 
the real simplicity of the matter. He d bring you 
and your problem into focus just for his own in 
tellectual gratification; and not really care a rap 
what you decided. He wouldn t think you headed 
for perdition either way." 

"What a tremendous opinion you have of the 
man, Marion!" 

"Yes, I have. I d like to have you meet him and 
see why." 

"Would you bring him to call?" asked Mrs. Pear 
son, amused and looking keenly at the girl. 

Marion hesitated. Bradfield in corduroys fertil 
izing lilies and laying moss was one thing, but Brad- 
field in Lady Diotima s drawing room 

"Bring him to dinner," said Mrs. Pearson grave 
ly. "I should love to see him putting sugar and 
cream in his bouillon." 

"But I shouldn t," said Marion, her protective 
instinct awaking. "We ll do it some other way. 
Come over some morning, and we ll talk to him at 
his work." 

The too veracious image of the gardener putting 
sugar in his bouillon somehow made Marion ask her 
self again, somewhat irrelevantly, whether she was 
not rating even his intellectual power too high. It 
was an absurdly little thing, and yet typical of a lot 
of little things whose aggregate she was accustomed 
to associate with human excellence of whatever kind. 

She had hastily read up a little on socialism, and 
in one of her later talks with Walt Bradfield attacked 
it for the purpose of drawing out his ideas fully. 



59 

In Europe socialism was a factor to be reckoned 
with, and she knew she ought to understand it. She 
had as yet heard nothing of that story of his own 
mind which she had promised herself. But the day 
after her talk with Mrs. Pearson, intending direct 
dispassionate study of him, she went into the con 
servatory to make Bradfield talk about himself. 

He was not there. Irrationally, his absence when 
she had come to look for him affected her almost 
as a rudeness. She quickly dismissed that. He 
was where his work called him of course. Very 
likely he had picked the strawberries she had had 
for breakfast. But she found other things to foster 
the unflattering suspicion that she was less interest^ 
ing to him than he to her. One of their conserva 
tory conversations had revealed the fact that her 
own a priori disdain of him as a "servant" when 
they first met had been perfectly matched on his part 
by an a priori disdain of her as a "parasite woman." 
Until then she had supposed the superiority of the 
upper classes to be a thing conceded by the lower. 
That it was not that the opposite was firmly be 
lieved not only by Bradfield, but as he assured her 
by great numbers of working people was to her 
startling, portentous of impending social change and 
overthrow. The acquaintance of Marion and Brad- 
field had caused each of them to make of the other 
an exception in their general view of each other s 
classes; but the initial prejudice, merely instilled into 
her, had been ground into him, and she did not know 
to what extent it had yielded to personal liking. The 
withered yellow stem of the lily she had loved and 
wondered at had fallen into a crack in the rustic 



60 THE CHASM 

seat. She had left it there beside him, under his 
eye, within reach of his hand not intentionally 
certainly not for him and yet men much more im 
portant than he would have treasured it. She con 
vinced herself that she didn t want him to be senti 
mental about her; but the necessity for self-directed 
argument about it made her wonder if she were not 
thinking too much about him. 

She went back that morning to "II Santo" and 
finished it; and that afternoon played bridge at 
Miss Cowperthwaite s. That evening she went to 
a bridge party in Rock Island. That night she went 
to bed sick of bridge but with endless hours of it 
looming upon her from all quarters of Moline, 
Davenport, and Rock Island. Human conversation 
was at a low ebb among the ladies of the three 
cities. 

Next morning the Gildersleeve boys came over 
in their car and for two hours talked golf in which 
fine game their listener was not wildly interested. 
This experience gave Miss Moulton more respect 
for Walt Bradfield s taste in hobbies. Another after 
noon of bridge; a dinner party with George Pear 
son beside her, and Marion was ripe for rebellion. 
George s interest in her had revived on hearing 
from his mother that she was not actually engaged 
to the foreigner, and he had contrived to see her 
every two or three days, heralding his visits with 
boxes of candy and armfuls of cut roses. 

"George isn t very poikilodoros," she mused, after 
one of Mr. Pearson s prolonged evening calls. 
"Bradfield would bring other gifts his own mind 
news of big world-wide problems interest in things 



THE CHASM 61 

I want to be interested in. I shall shock Lady Dio- 
tima by telling her that the big things are as im 
portant as the little things. It s nonsense not to 
make the most of Bradfield s existence in this dreary 
time. I shall flirt with him if I feel like it. At 
least I shall hale him forth from his hiding-place 
and tell him how I hate bridge." 



VI 

MARION reached the conservatory next morn 
ing by nine o clock. It was a bright day and 
warm for March. Bradfield was in the long 
part of the building consulting a thermometer and 
adjusting a mechanism that opened a row of sash 
in the roof. He returned Miss Moulton s greeting, 
and either not assuming or not wishing to appear to 
assume she had come there to talk with him, he 
turned his attention back to the ventilator-lifter. Sup 
posing that diffidence was not a permissible explana 
tion of conduct in a professed egoist, she promptly 
misinterpreted. 

"Is your time too valuable to waste talking to me 
this morning, Mr. Bradfield?" she inquired. 

"My time doesn t belong to me, Miss Moulton, 
but I will steal as much of it as you have any use 
for." 

"That would seem to oblige me to say important 
things to justify the theft. Important things are 
what I don t want to say. I d better wait till you re 
off duty." 

"I have next Sunday off," he suggested tentative- 

l y- 

In spite of the fact that she admired and liked 
some of the "big things" about him, she found her- 

62 



THE CHASM 63 

self incapable of imagining herself receiving Mr. 
Bradfield as a caller. 

"The Roughers and Finishers of the Republic 
Steel Company will give a masked ball Saturday," 
he said doubtfully. "You wouldn t care to see the 
working class enjoy itself, would you? No, you 
wouldn t. They don t know how very well. Not 
enough practice. I wish you could hear Gilroy s 
socialist talk in Draper Hall to-morrow night." 

"I hear enough of that from you," said Marion, 
smiling. "You couldn t let me watch you work 
a while, could you? Haven t you something to do 
while we talk that I could sit and watch?" 

"Why yes," he said. "Someone has to putter 
around near this thermometer this kind of a day, 
opening windows and turning off steam. Just be 
fore you came in I saw how a thermostat could be 
put on here with a rod controlling a valve that would 
automatically shut off steam and turn the windows 
open this way as the temperature started to rise. 
Like an incubator. It would hold the atmosphere of 
the conservatory at any temperature you like." 

"Isn t that idea valuable?" she asked. "Why 
don t you work it out and patent it?" 

"Perhaps I might make a little something that 
way." 

"A little something? I should think a successful 
device like that good enough to put in all conser 
vatories would mean thousands." 

"To the capitalist who floated it and put it on the 
market. To the inventor a few dollars." 

"Oh dear!" said Marion. "I wasn t going to 
give you a chance to say capitalist or working 



64 THE CHASM 

class to me to-day and you ve got them both in 
already." 

"What shall I talk about?" he asked, laughing. 

"Yourself. You are an enigma I wish to under 
stand. But first won t you bring that bench over 
here for me?" He brought it. "Now tell me where 
you got your vocabulary," she commanded, seating 
herself. 

"I had four whole years of grammar school," he 
said, deciding that "vocabulary" meant education. 
"Trucking then cut school to five months a year, 
but I studied evenings with my older sister, and 
made high school at fifteen. Then I discovered the 
public library. The money I had for clothes went 
into books of poetry. A student of Augustana Col 
lege worked for my father summers, and I pumped 
him of what he knew while we hoed cabbages. He 
showed me how to study the parts of plants, and I 
devoured his text-books nights. Time being limited, 
I had to learn to get the cream of a book in an hour 
or so, and books being expensive, I had to manage to 
carry the good of them away in my head. I spent 
so much time reading I failed to advance out of the 
D class. My father thought I was wasting time, and 
so the next year I had to work in the new green 
house we had built. My English teacher, a lovely 
woman, was indignant at my being taken out of 
school. She had me call on her, and loaned me her 
own beautiful books Ruskin, Morris, Vernon Lee, 
Keats, Dante. We read together, and I wrote 
verses to her." 

"Dare I ask how old she was?" 

"To me she was ageless and deathless." 



THE CHASM 65 

"That s nice of you," nodded Marion approving 
ly. "I think she accounts for you nearly. Is she 
still in the high school?" 

"No, she is teaching in Seattle. She sometimes 
writes. She praised the style of my books, but she 
wasn t modern enough to understand them." 

"Oh, you have already written books? Where 
can I get hold of them? Am I modern enough ? 
But if you outgrew her what gave you the ideas 
she couldn t understand?" 

"First, Haeckel. He taught me the real history 
and nature of organic life. His savage truth was 
more inspiring than Alice s gentle fiction." 

"So you called her Alice," thought Marion. 

He was reddening beneath his tan, and went on 
rapidly. "As soon as I was clear of the confusing 
idea of a monarchic interferer in the self-evolving 
universe, all that was religious in me and it was a 
lot poured itself into a passionate adoration of 
life itself life as the pressure of the universe has 
thrust it up out of lifelessness into ever intenser es 
sence and ever finer forms. After monism, social 
ism was bound to come somehow especially after 
I went to work in the U. S. Plow Company black 
smith shop. The only men there who did anything 
worthy to be called thinking were socialists. It 
came to me in one magnificent rush from the lips 
of a little wizened street-sweeper in the park by the 
depot. In him first I saw the splendor of impas 
sioned public speech. His grammar was bad, but he 
had a wealth of fresh and purposeful thoughts 
thoughts like the gleam of swords. He was talking 
to a crowd of workingmen, some of them socialists. 



66 THE CHASM 

They had a table lit with a gasoline torch and were 
selling their little red five cent books. I bought 
the Communist Manifesto. We got into a sizzling 
argument after the speech, and a dozen of us went 
over to a saloon and sat there till they turned us 
out at two in the morning. That was Romance and 
knightly quest and I was drinking soda water then 
too. Till then I had come in touch with intellectual 
energy only in the quietness and solitude of reading. 
Here was intellect in battle I My brain glowed with 
it. Everything was a poem. These were magnifi 
cent men. I was intoxicated with high discourse 
and the leaping play of wits. Of course the social 
ists demolished the others all except one anarchist 
who set up nothing much himself and threw his force 
into a brilliant attack from the rear, as it were, 
while the socialists were faced the other way against 
the muddleheads." 

"Here is where I demand a definition," said Mar 
ion. "Is muddlehead synonymous with non-social 
ist, non-revolutionist, or what?" 

"There are overlappings," conceded Bradfield. 
"Your father is no muddlehead. He knows his class 
interest and acts accordingly. Haeckel is no mud 
dlehead in biology. Neither was Mendel, the Cath 
olic abbe. There are socialists who are clear in 
economics and muddleheads in religion." 

"Who are the non-muddleheads in religion? 
Those who have none?" 

"In religion, I think most of the non-muddleheads 
are what I d call dynamist monists." 

"Sometimes pronounced moonists by the uncon 
verted?" she suggested gravely. 



THE CHASM 67 

"The unconverted are the moonists," he coun 
tered. "Am I boring you with this history of my 
mind?" 

"No. The personal part is exactly what I wanted. 
But " holding up a warning finger "not too much 
socialism." 

"But it is precisely socialism the crowning, syn 
thesizing science of the evolutionary philosophy 
socialism with its riddle-reading analysis of human 
history, which gives me the key to all that is hap 
pening in the life around me. Thanks to it, and the 
sciences that lie back of it, I am better entitled than 
Browning s Ben Ezra to cry, I see the whole de 
sign! I see the people about me who lack its light 
stumbling in a blind maze a welter and confusion 
of facts they cannot understand. Things happen to 
them that fill their hearts with misdirected bitter 
ness. Befogging ideas conceal the real source of 
their misery the loaded dice with which the em 
ploying classes play this game of life." 

"So you do propose to turn the bitterness of the 
working people against their employers!" 

"No. Against their loaded dice. We will take 
the dice away without bitterness." 

"Do you imagine that little process will not result 
in bitterness?" 

"Then let it. Would you have us not disarm a 
burglar simply because he might be embittered?" 

"You have things upside down with a vengeance! 
You propose to take their property away from cer 
tain people, and then you have the effrontery to call 
those people burglars!" 

"The burglar s gun is his property all right, but 



68 THE CHASM 

what use does he make of it? So with natural re 
sources and socially created machinery. When it is 
finally beaten into the nation s thick head that it 
must in order to have anything of decent life 
the nation is going to take that gun away from cer 
tain people. Miss Moulton: who ought to own 
those factories the men who every day put all their 
vital energy into the use of them or you?" 

"There s no particular reason for my owning 
them. But if my father chooses to give them to me 
he may not, by the way do you expect me to say 
No, thank you ?" 

"You d be a fool if you did under the present 
system. But what do you think of the system, real 
ly? And the thousands of men who work there, 
every man with a vote, creating an average value 
of ten dollars a day apiece, and getting less than 
two? What do you think of them for voting year 
after year to present your father and you with eight 
out of every ten dollars they make?" 

"Is it quite so simple as that?" 

"Essentially. There s much muddying of waters 
to keep the workers from seeing it. Fortunately 
the wage-system is only a passing mal-adjustment 
in the age-long evolutionary process. It s only a 
little over a hundred years old the state of col 
lective toil by the many and private ownership of 
the necessary machinery by the few. As it came, 
it will pass and good riddance ! Knowing this, we 
are able to work without bitterness against the bit 
ter injustice of it. In place of the bloody, futile out 
breaks my class contented itself with in the past, we 
analyze society, discover its laws, work in harmony 



THE CHASM 69 

with them. We throw our force in the direction 
humanity must move. Everything groups and re 
lates itself. Facts string themselves ordinately as 
beads on the sound generalizations of our philos 
ophy." 

"Your own mind does happen to work that way 
with facts. I was trying to express it to Lady Dio- 
tima a friend of mine I would like you to meet. I 
imagine, though, that your mind would work just 
the same way whatever your philosophy." 

"You imagine wrong." 

"So?" said she, resolving to crush him for once. 
"Haeckel hasn t the socialist philosophy, has he?" 

"No." 

"Do not his facts string themselves on the lines 
of sound generalizations?" 

"His biologic facts do, because his biologic gen 
eralizations are sound. His sociologic facts remain 
to him a welter and confusion. So would mine if I 
did not have the socialist philosophy. Take any 
other social philosophy, and the beads break the 
string." 

She thought hard for a moment. It was too easy 
for him. "I can t argue with youl" she exclaimed. 
"I swore I wouldn t do it to-day. I wanted to get 
acquainted with you. When you argue with me on 
these subjects it s like a strong man holding the 
wrists of a child. It s a thing you ve trained your 
self in for years. You ought to be ashamed of your 
self!" 

"For self-defense?" he remonstrated. 

"I won t argue whether it s self-defense. It isn t, 
but you d beat me out of that, too. .You are the most 



70 THE CHASM 

disputatious person I ever met. Did you ever hear 
Emerson s saying, The gods do not argue ?" 

"I wouldn t either, if I were a god," chuckled 
Bradfield. "What I said would go whether it was 
so or not. We have to make people see things in 
spite of inclination, false education, prejudice. That 
takes argument." 

"You even argue about arguing." 

"Self-defense," he reiterated. "I m not feeling 
argumentative." 

"I hope I never see you when you are," she 
laughed. "Shall I tell you something? Yes, I will. 
You are so egotistic already that nothing can make 
you worse. I came in here looking for you the other 
day, and was disappointed." 

He drew a deep breath and held it while he looked 
her in the eyes. 

"Well?" she said blithely. "Aren t you going to 
say you are honored or charmed or somethinged?" 

"I m somethinged, all right," said he. "But there 
seems to be something the matter with my vocal 
cords." 

"I knew you d be fun if I could once get you off 
your hobby!" 

"I think perhaps I m safer on it." Tolerant 
amusement at himself was his tone not perfectly 
sustained. 

"I being one of the national burglars?" she sug 
gested. 

"You as national burglar are not especially dan 
gerous to me personally." 

"But how about being bribed with my companion- 



THE CHASM 71 

ship? Is your alarm for your integrity so great that 
you wish to avoid my society?" 

"By no means." 

"Is that all you intend to say about it? How un- 
flatteringly moderate!" 

"Well, that shows my self-control. My real feel 
ings are not a bit moderate. I d give a leg or two 
to know you well, Miss Moulton, but it doesn t look 
probable that I ll have the chance." 

"Now that is what I call being adequate to the 
occasion!" 

"And I refuse to let myself get started wanting 
things I can t get. It s a waste of energy." 

"You are economical!" she said unsympathetical- 
ly. "As for me Moline drives me mad! I can t 
tell you how unspeakably I hate bridge." 

He looked blank and she laughed. 

"You don t even know what it is! Happy man!" 

"Oh," he said awkwardly "bridge whist. Of 
course I ve heard of it." 

"They play it morning, noon and night but not 
for money. Perish the immoral thought! Think 
of the inanity a gambling game without stakes 
firing at a target with blank cartridges! I could 
have stood a little of it. As it is, I m desperate. I 
feel like doing something perfectly devilish some 
thing they will disapprove of in me as much as I 
disapprove of their assassinating half my waking 
hours. Do you know that pet phrase of harum 
scarum French artists and writers epater les 
bourgeois ?" 

"I don t know French." 



72 THE CHASM 

"You know the word bourgeois. The other means 
to spat. The idea is to horrify them, scandalize 
them, do something to shock their deadly sense of 
propriety." 

"May I offer you any assistance I may be able to 
render in epateing the bourgeois?" he said, with ser 
ious lips and dancing eyes. 

There was a flash in her eyes which looked like 
yes, and he added quickly : 

"Shall we go for a long ride Sunday in a speed 
boat I have the use of?" 

"Oh, I d like to!" she exclaimed. 

"Why don t you? The boss wants me to gather 
some moss maybe to prove I m not a rolling stone. 
That means some beautiful places I could show 
you." 

She sat a moment thinking. "That would be sim 
ply fine but I m afraid it would hardly do. We 
can t do all the things we d like to, you know," she 
added, taking refuge in a tone of superior knowl 
edge of the world. "Mrs. Grundy is still a little 
too strong for us." 

He looked at her as though something he had 
expected had developed, and said quietly, "So you 
dasn\ epater the bourgeois!" 

"You realize very well that kind of lack of free 
dom common in your own class, Mr. Bradfield," she 
said, hating to see her courage sink in his estima 
tion, "but I wonder if freedom isn t scarcer than you 
think in ours?" 

"It s a condition indeed pitiable!" he said. "The 
university sociologists ought to investigate it." 

"Of course you wouldn t understand," she said, 



THE CHASM 73 

feeling that lie was definitely placing her in the very 
bourgeoisie with which she claimed to have no sym 
pathy. "It s a thing I can t explain. Such things 
come to be a matter of instinct." 

"But I do understand," he said. "It happens to 
be one of the things I understand best. The expla-, 
nation, which you are unable to give, is that when it 
comes to action you find you are a member of your 
class and must obey its ethics." 

"Is it really no more than class ethics?" 

He wouldn t answer it. 

She saw it was undeniable. It had been too much 
of her to see it herself. She had unconsciously tak 
en it for granted when she weighed right and wrong, 
what to do, what not, that her standard was simply 
of humanity practically universal, because if there 
were people to whom it did not apply they were of 
lower orders and did not count. But she had imagi 
nation enough to see now how strange that whole 
standard must look from the outside to one who 
honestly felt her class to be almost unnecessary, its 
vital function in the world almost outgrown, its 
destiny as a class to sink to parasitic rank, and then 
be sloughed. That vision seemed to shake the 
stable world. "Is everything I have unconsciously 
felt as right and wrong every act that says Do me 
and Don t do me is it all class ethics?" 

"I wouldn t go as far as that," said Bradfield. 
"There is common ground way down deeper than 
most folks ever get much deeper than is claimed 
by those whose interest it is to obscure the chasm. A 
lot oh, an awful lot is of class." 

For a moment the undeniable fact of social dis- 



74 THE CHASM 

union filled her with sadness and a sense of loneli 
ness as though she were isolated on some far pin 
nacle. It gave her a yearning to bridge all gaps 
to draw the severed and warring factions of the 
world together. Then the practical side of her 
mind took hold. "If that is what the world is," she 
said, "I cannot change it. That part of my right 
and wrong which is of class is still right and wrong 
for me." 

"You have this moment become thoroughly class- 
conscious," said Bradfield. "I predict that from 
now on you will progressively cease to be a muddle- 
head." 

"Thank you, kind prophet, for your kind proph 
ecy. It seems to me that I have just now felt some 
thing much wider than class-consciousness. It seemed 
cosmic. But you ll admit that it s all pretty far 
afield from a certain launch-ride. I want to go. 
Would you care to invite Mrs. Pearson?" 

"Why yes. If you want her." 

"I ve been wanting to have her talk with you, you 
know," said Marion, but then she pondered. The 
mossy places were good enough excuse for anybody. 
Lady Diotima would go as her guest, but hardly if 
she realized clearly that she would be Bradfield s. 
Was Bradfield a man who would at all expand in 
the presence of a chaperone? Bradfield and chaper- 
onage did not seem to belong in the same boat. And 
Lady Diotima as friend Marion feared she would 
be too keen for signs of ignorance of the unwritten 
edicts of her class and pounce with joy on any little 
gaucherie betraying plebeian breeding. The girl felt 
just then that if Lady Diotima tried that with Brad- 



THE CHASM 75 

field she would get the worst of it, but still "Per 
haps I don t want her," she said. "But if I want her, 
and if she has no engagement, and if she ll go then 
we ll gather moss." 

As she left him that day she had the feeling that 
between them there had begun a shifting of spiritual 
hegemony as though weight had moved from her 
side of their balance to his as though the ideal of 
freedom to which he looked inward had gained on 
her waning ideal of caste. The meeting of their 
eyes at parting sent a delicate thrill through her a 
sensation as of breathing sudden perfume: but she 
turned her mind from that at once, and made believe 
to herself that no such thing had happened. 



VII 

THE trim, maroon-colored launch "Nancy" lay 
ready to be stepped into alongside the boat- 
house wharf on a hot Sunday morning the last 
of March. The brass would take no higher polish,- 
woodwork could be no cleaner, and Walt Bradfield 
in his Sunday clothes was looking nervously up the 
street to the south for a motor car bringing Miss 
Moulton and Mrs. Pearson. To his surprise Mar 
ion arrived alone, coming on foot along the white 
boulevard through the raw little trees of the new 
park by the river. 

"I telephoned Mrs. Pearson not to stop for me at 
Hillcrest," she said, joining Bradfield beside the 
launch. "I didn t realize how hot it was. Shall I 
get in? That canopy looks good after the mockery 
of those absurd trees." 

He held the launch from rocking as she stepped 
in and seated herself on the shaded side. 

"I couldn t persuade myself you were really com 
ing," he said. 

"I was afraid after I started that Mrs. Pearson 
would get here first. What would you have done?" 

"I m not half as much afraid of Mrs. Pearson as 
I am of you." 

She looked up the street perhaps to avoid that 

76 



THE CHASM 77 

faint thrill of meeting eyes. "There she is now!" she 
exclaimed, seeing the Pearson car. "I was just in 
time." 

Walt turned to see, mentally preparing for battle 
with Mrs. Pearson. "No one but the driver in that 
car," he said. 

The chauffeur stopped his machine, saw Miss 
Moulton in the launch, and brought her a note. She 
skimmed it. 

"Please tell Mrs. Pearson I m very sorry," she 
said. She looked out thoughtfully across Sylvan 
water as the chauffeur went back to his car. She 
lifted the note from her lap and read it again, then 
tore it absent-mindedly across. She looked back 
along the shadeless boulevard. Walt watched her 
curiously, brightening finally as he saw her look of 
determination. "Well, she s not coming," said 
Marion, dropping overboard the fragments of 
crested note-paper. "We might as well start." 

He cast off with alacrity, climbed in, and took his 
place at the engine. She looked at the slowly wide 
ning strip of water between launch and landing. "Can 
you see Class-Ethics prostrate on that wharf?" she 
asked. 

They laughed together the laugh of people who 
have little jokes that other people cannot under 
stand. 

"Who s that with Walt Bradfield?" asked a 
launch-owner of Joe the boat-keeper. 

"Looks like the Moulton girl that used to go out 
with George Pearson," Joe responded. "Guess she 
wouldn t be going out with Walt, though." 

"Marion Moulton? A thirty millionairess! I 



78 THE CHASM 

should say not. She s going to marry some foreign 
prince. But that s sure a high-toned girl." 

"Prob ly hired Walt to take her some place," Joe 
conjectured. 

The launch sped away from the dingy wooden 
landing, Bradfield watching and listening to the en 
gine while he steered with the tiller-lever a handle 
set in the line that ran outside the low rail. "It 
seems too good to be true," he said. 

"Good things do happen sometimes. I am escap 
ing some people who ll eat half the afternoon and 
talk about it the other half. Poor mother! I told 
her I was going on an all afternoon launch-party. 
If she could see the party!" 

"Would it epater her, too?" 

"She might pretend not. She s a new thoughtist, 
but you can t tell just when she s going to be an old 
thoughtist. The party might strike her as some 
what unchaperoned." His expression gave rise to 
an amusing doubt. "Do you know what a chaperone 
is, oh man of Eden?" 

"I ve read of it," he answered. 

"It!" she exclaimed joyfully. 

"It s an institution above my social level and be 
low yours," he explained. 

She reluctantly gave up the hope of that delightful 
piece of ignorance in him. "No," she said, " not 
below my social level." 

"But below you" He liked that even better. 

"To-day it is in the collapse of our friend on the 
wharf. You see you are giving me the egotism. 
By the way, is there some place we can get dinner? 
Not that I m hungry, Mr. Bradfield. Nothing so 



THE CHASM 79 

indelicate, I assure you, but still we can t eat moss, 
you know." 

"I don t know any place good enough for you." 

"Some woodsy, farmy place? Where would you 
take me if I were Alice?" Her eyes were mischiev 
ous at the name. 

"Spinnyville," he said, brightening, but not en 
couraging her to tease him about his former love. 

Deciding to stop on their way down to the island 
where they were to get the moss, they rounded the 
head of the government island, went through the new 
lock, and ran down along a rocky shore. The flaw 
less glades of the golf-links, laid out through rugged 
woods, were already green with spring. On their 
right the tree-lined streets of Davenport climbed 
from river to bluff churches and residences half 
emerging from a russet haze of buds. Down-stream, 
beneath a span of the big bridge they saw miles of 
blue water bounded by willow-covered shores and 
towheads putting on new gold. Above the south 
western hills were piled slow masses of white cloud. 

As they ran down past the cities and the islands 
they talked of one of his books. He had given her 
two of them, small cloth-bound volumes of about 
seventy pages each. She had yet to read "Social 
Evolution," but had finished "Organic Evolution" 
the night before. It was not the cold, scientific 
treatise the title had led her to expect. She found 
in it the work of a poet who had based his work on 
cold, scientific treatises, but he himself had visualized 
the million centuries of life and written the history 
thereof with passion. This writing gave her a new 
feeling toward the world she lived in, a new feeling 



80 THE CHASM 

toward herself. Life was much more marvelous 
than she had supposed, but less mysterious. While 
she was under the spell of the book, "soul" ceased to 
be a thing apart. It was a function of living mat 
ter. But instead of making soul less beautiful, the 
intimacy made living matter more so. Instead of 
ceasing to exist, the most exquisite spirituality be 
came a glorious phase of material life. Inorganic 
matter itself was no longer the inert stuff it had 
seemed. It was polarized energy each atom a 
point where complex forces crystallize each mole 
cule a balancing and interlocking of such atoms into 
substance. Matter, as Bradfield made her conceive 
it, was as spiritual as her own old notion of spirit. 
These forces her mother decried as "earth-forces" 
played through the farthest stars of deepest heaven; 
but not more wonderfully than through the nearest 
grain of earthly dust. The dust itself was force. 
And spirit conceived as a something that can float 
free of matter was more material than spirit as a 
function of matter. A function cannot float away, 
and floating is a material process. 

When Marion had read the passage on the nature 
of "soul" which Bradfield had inserted in his account 
of the first trace of nerve-tissue in the Platodaria she 
found herself indulging in a curious speculation. 
Would a man who felt soul and body to be so indis 
soluble a unity feel as he touched a woman s lips that 
it was her soul he touched? And would there be 

therefore in his kiss an exaltation ? At this point 

she checked that train of thought, and turned her 
mind forcibly back to the life-story of her Platodari- 
an ancestors. But trains of thought so checked in con- 



THE CHASM 81 

sciousness are inclined to complete themselves sub 
consciously, and after she had turned off her elec 
tric reading lamp, her head sunk in her pillow and 
her conscious soul in sleep, she dreamed she kissed 
Walt Bradfield on the lips, and was trying to explain 
to him that she had made a mistake, but it was the 
fault of his book. 

As he sat opposite her in the launch this morning, 
a casual glance at his lips suddenly and for the first 
time brought the memory of that dream of the night 
into her consciousness. Mr. Bradfield was talking, 
but suddenly lost hold of his idea. He looked at 
Marion closely, but contrary to her custom her eyes 
would not meet his. He wondered what could have 
made her of a sudden so astonishingly beautiful. 
That problem he soon solved. The answer was 
simply that she was blushing, and there was no sun 
set cloud that could compete with the fleeting rose 
hue of her skin. But why was she blushing? Being 
unable to solve that, Walt asked her. 

"I m not," she protested. 

He insisted that he had eyes fortunately. 

"Well, then, it s sunburn. I sunburn very easily. 
I freckle, too isn t that dreadful? What is that 
stone house over there?" 

"That stone house over there is a pretext for a 
highly undesirable change of subject." 

"Oh," said Marion. "There is a canal lock ! And 
there s the mouth of a river! That must be the 
Hennepin canal. Evidently that s the lock-keeper s 
house." 

"Nothing I was saying could have caused it," said 
Bradfield, reasoning aloud. "Consequently it was 



83 THE CHASM 

something you thought of just then. What was it 
you thought of?" 

"Are you acquainted with the lock-keeper?" The 
cross purpose conversation amused her and gave her 
time to realize that it was no such criminal thing, 
after all, to have dreamed of kissing a man. 

"Well, I see you re a secretive person likewise a 
stubborn," he observed. "But you can t deprive 
me of the satisfaction of having seen it. It was 
somewhat the loveliest thing I have ever beheld." 

"If that s so, I shall have to cultivate it." 

"Have mercy! You are sufficiently disturbing 
normally." He noticed that his hand was trembling, 
and laughed. 

"What are you laughing at?" she demanded. 

"People who won t tell things don t get things 
told them." 

"It s bad manners to laugh and not tell why." 

"Not half so tantalizing as to blush and not tell 
why. But I ll tell if you will." 

She declined hastily. 

"Ah ha !" he exclaimed. "That proves you know 
why you blushed." 

"But you don t!" she exulted. "And that isn t 
half. You aren t going to." 

"You re doing it again!" he exclaimed. "Good 
God!" 

She gave a start. "That last remark led me to 
suppose the engine was about to explode !" 

"The engine isn t!" 

She could not keep the laughter out of her eyes; 
and when he saw it his whole soul laughed, a spasm 
of silent, joyous laughter, flooding his nerves in spite 



THE CHASM 83 

of the protest of reason. The happiness in that 
was much too keen. Reason said: "Don t do that, 
Walt. Don t let yourself fall in love with the 
Countess de Hohenfels." And reason would prob 
ably have been obeyed had it not been for certain 
charming little intimations that the not-yet Countess 
de Hohenfels was letting herself fall in love with 
him or doing it without her permission. He form 
ulated no hopes, but the possibility made her fear 
fully attractive to him. 

"You are fun, Walt Bradfield," she said. "What 
reader of those deep books of yours would guess how 
you can laugh?" 

He noticed the engine igniting irregularly, stood 
up and leaned over it, reduced the flow of gasoline : 
and when he reseated himself, it was beside her. 

"Doesn t this make the boat trim badly?" she 
suggested. 

"The boat doesn t mind," he said. "Do you?" 

"I wouldn t let a mere boat outdo me in indif 
ference," said she, her eyes fairly crinkling. 

He acknowledged the hit with a laugh. "It isn t 
indifference, though." 

"Indeed!" She drew herselT up and faced him. 

"Not on the part of the boat. My sitting over 
here really does throw it a little off its balance." 

"Supersensitive boat!" she scoffed. 

"It never blushes, though. Oh, Lord!" He pulled 
sharply on the tiller-lever. The boat swung to the 
left, away from a rocky islet. He looked anxiously 
at the shore and at the water alongside them and for 
a moment held his breath. 

"What s wrong?" exclaimed Marion. 



84 THE CHASM 

"We just sidled over the middle of a wing-dam," 
he answered with a sigh of relief. "Fortunately 
there was water enough." He looked back, noticing 
the part of the dam which they had crossed. In 
turning the boat down-stream again the easing of the 
rudder drew his arm along the gunwale past her. 
He did not think of it as being around her, his mind 
still being on the wing-dam; but a subtle and lovely 
sensation stole through him, a faint fragrance from 
her garments or her hair, a delicate knowledge of 
her nearness caroling in his nerves. As she turned 
to look at the island, her face was toward him and 
her elbow rested lightly on his arm. His sleeve 
seemed sentient of the touch. 

"Look at that cunning cabin!" she exclaimed. 
"Lew Anderson s the blacksmith on Second 
Avenue. Built it himself. This is his boat we just 
missed sinking." He was finding articulation dif 
ficult. 

"Would we have sunk?" she asked. 
"Oh, we d have got her off and run ashore be 
fore she filled." 

"Wouldn t that have been exciting?" 
He forgot to answer, and she looked at him as 
though to see what he was thinking. 
, "I am looking at those Rossetti lips of yours," he 
said. He intended to speak the words lightly, but 
his voice played him the trick of expressing his real 
instead of his make-believe emotion. His real emo 
tion made her turn away with a quick, deep intake of 
breath. Her shoulders drew up a little with the 
memory of her dream and the feeling of the danger 
of its coming true. She seemed to have eaten of the 



THE CHASM 85 

lotus, and the energy necessary to move or speak or 
think had dissolved under the influence of that in 
sidious flower. The vital electricity which stores 
and restores itself in living nerves and is wont at a 
motor thought to pour itself into paths leading to 
muscular action seemed to have flowed away into 
the blood that throbbed in her temples and flushed 
her cheeks. 

Walt too had eaten of the flower of enervation. 
The vital electricity whose total was his soul was 
raying with unknown spirituo-bodily forces. There 
seemed to be a glorified form of gravitation drawing 
them close enough to kiss. She succeeded in turning 
her face away only by overcoming an exquisite force 
operating in the opposite direction. He had never 
known anything so adorable as that ardent, dream 
like bending of her head. 

She had let Feodor kiss her once when they found 
themselves secluded for a moment among the great 
evergreens of the Pincio with a solemn sunset flam 
ing down behind the dome of St. Peter s; but that 
had been a voluntary act of hers, a reasonable thing 
she deliberately decided to do and did, because she 
loved Fedya and he was dying to kiss her. In that 
her own nature had played no such part as now, 
when against reason and will she wanted to kiss Walt 
Bradfield a desire forming itself into an idea as 
definite as an act. 

U I mustn t, I mustn t!" she told herself, and rose 
intending to sit on the other side of the launch. 

Before he knew it he had caught her hand, but it 
seemed to her it was not so much by her hand he 
drew her as by an exquisite invisible net enveloping 



86 THE CHASM 

and drawing her whole body. "I mustn t !" she said 
aloud and drew away her hand. Her voice, vibrat 
ing with unfamiliar emotion, did not seem her own. 
She steadied herself by taking hold of a rod that 
supported the canvas roof. "Are you sure you know 
where this boat is running?" she asked. 

He had, in fact, forgotten there was such a thing 
as a boat racing twenty-five miles an hour down a 
river full of just submerged wing-dams. He turned 
with a start to the indispensable business of piloting, 
and that turning of his attention seemed to free her 
a little from the overmastering spell. 

She seated herself on the opposite side of the 
launch, not looking at him, leaning forward on her 
elbow, staring out with troubled, unseeing eyes across 
the gray, steel-colored water. The thought of Feo- 
dor was linked with a pang at her disloyalty. Till 
now, since she loved Feodor and did not love Brad- 
field, she had felt perfectly free to enjoy the com 
panionship of the working-class thinker. Now she 
began to see that she had formulated the case too 
simply. Love and non-love were not the two dis 
tinct, easily distinguishable things she had assumed 
them to be. The lovely languor that had stolen 
through her was telling every fiber that Walt Brad- 
field s kiss would be sweeter than the one on the 
Pincian hill. The knowledge was painful. It upset 
everything. She did not want it to be so. Did it 
mean that she loved Bradfield? A thousand mem- 
ories of Feodor said no. The main ideas and pur 
poses of her life were obscured and threatened by 
this inexplicable allurement. Old feelings rose to 
defend themselves against the vivid new invader: 



THE CHASM 87 

but the mental pain of the conflict was mingled with 
a sweetness beyond violets, gleam of stars, or sound 
of exquisite chords. 

The man s intoxicating impulse to fold her and 
hold her and tell her he loved her, having been 
thwarted in that instant when she made him realize 
the necessity of piloting, all his good reasons for not 
making love to her came flashing back upon his mind. 
He looked at her nervously for signs of reaction. 
One instant he feared that what kept her from look 
ing at him was anger: and the next he hoped it was 
self-distrust. He was eager to know; but he quickly 
rejected, when it formed itself in his mind, the ques 
tion "Are you angry?" It was too likely to convey 
the suggestion that she ought to be. The only other 
question worth asking he judged impolitic. If she 
was not asking herself whether she loved him, there 
was no use in his asking. And if she was asking 
herself, then whatever answer she formed in her 
own mind was likely to be more favorable than any 
she would voice for him. And after all, he reflected, 
what difference would it make how near loving him 
she was at this moment? Her class feeling would 
keep her from marrying him. Of that he was cer 
tain. His own class feeling had hitherto helped 
him to regard a marriage with her not only as im 
possible, uut even as unwise from the point of view 
of his own intellectual and spiritual ambitions. 

She was wondering whether she would dare tell De 
Hohenfels. She tried to persuade herself there was 
nothing to tell. Nothing had really happened. But 
how would he take it if he knew she wanted some 
thing to happen? It surely would not do to tell him 



88 THE CHASM 

such a thing in a letter, but she resolved that some 
kind of letter should be mailed to him that very 
night in spite of her earlier conclusion that she 
could not write until she had talked with her father. 
As she sat looking across the slate-colored waves she 
was deciding to go to her father that evening and 
insist on his listening to what she had to say. Then 
she would write to Fedya. 

Into her consciousness, interrupting her train of 
thought, stole the lovely sensation that filled her 
lungs each time she breathed. It was like the scent 
of clover in the sun. She remembered the look of 
Bradfield s clear, sun-browned skin, the slight rosi- 
ness that showed through it, the suggestion of pure, 
abounding blood and outdoor health. Was it the 
magnetism of health in that tiller of the earth, that 
breather of pure air, which so affected her? She 
glanced at him. It surprised her somehow to see 
that he was absorbed in thought, not looking at her, 
apparently not aware of her presence. She remem 
bered the lily he had not taken as a souvenir of her. 
He sighed, as though reaching some undesired but 
accepted conclusion, then looked at her. Their eyes 
met. He smiled a little, in a manner that kept her 
from looking away, a tender amusement that took 
her into his confidence and compelled the gift of 
hers. "Don t you think we had better talk social 
ism?" he said. 

Her face lit up with understanding and sympathy. 
She liked his frank acceptance of the fact that they 
were attracted, his readiness not to make too much 
of it, his ability to take a human, not merely a mas- 



THE CHASM 89 

culine, view of the sex duel. "Socialism?" she said. 
"Well, yes. Or why not try dynamist monism?" 

Their attention was drawn by a far-off rumble. 

"Just look at that storm ahead of us!" he ex 
claimed. "Why, there s the Buffalo station! We ve 
passed Spinnyville." He looked around. 

"I think you are rather an absent-minded pilot," 
she observed. 

"It does look like it to-day." He drew the rud 
der over and the speed-boat wheeled, leaning to star 
board and turning almost in her own length. He 
headed up the river, got his bearings, then looked 
back at the clouds which stretched from south to 
northwest as far as the eye could reach. "Funny I 
didn t notice that," he muttered. There was a 
flicker of lightning reddening the cloud. He quick 
ly pulled out his watch and looked at it until he heard 
the thunder. "About eighteen seconds," he said. 
"Over three and a half miles." 

"Isn t that fun?" she said. "Just how do you get 
that?" 

"Eleven hundred feet a second." He was trying 
to judge the speed of the storm from its appearance. 

"Can we make Spinnyville?" she asked. 

"Easily. One minute s run. But possibly this 

will be an all day rain " He looked at her 

tailored suit. 

"Could we make Moline?" 

"We could make the lower end of Rock Island in 
seventeen or eighteen minutes, leave the launch there, 
and go home on the car." 

"Will the storm give us eighteen minutes?" 



90 THE CHASM 

"If it has just our speed, we are ten or twelve 
minutes ahead of it now, and of course we d hold 
that lead. I don t think it can be traveling enough 
faster than we to cut the lead to nothing." 

"A race with a storm ! Try it !" 

He advanced the spark to the last notch, showed 
her how to steer and where to hold, looked over the 
connections on his coils, tightened a screw here and 
there, filled up his oil-cups, and once more took 
charge of the tiller-lever. The boat was at top 
most speed, rushing under the drive of sixty horse 
power. "There goes Spinnyville!" he said, pointing 
back over the stern quarter to a country inn. The 
rapidity with which it receded gave her a sense of 
security. The storm rampant looked motionless; 
but Bradfield saw it had grown much higher. 

"Goodbye Spinnyville I" she called. "Oh dear I 
I suppose I ll have to dine with Aunt Farnsworth 
after all!" 

"Will you eat with me^-some place in Rock Is 
land?" he asked, hesitatingly. 

Marion considered. "Where, for instance?" 

He was at a loss. The only place he could think 
of Jane s Lightning Lunch did not strike him as 
particularly appropriate. "Where would I take 
you," he asked, "if I were Feodor?" 

She smiled at his tit-for-tat, but the question 
bothered her. She did not know the extent of that 
fifty dollar a month purse of his; she was reluctant 
about suggesting an expensive place and unwilling to 
go to a cheap one. She was perfectly certain poor 
Bradfield had never in his life ordered a dinner a 
la carte and was bound to make a botch of it. The 



THE CHASM 91 

question made them both uncomfortably class-con 
scious. She saw he would attribute a refusal solely 
to her sense of his social inferiority. "You would 
take me to The Harms," she answered finally. 

He was silent, trying to understand her hesita 
tion, uncertain now whether he ought to ask her to 
go with him. 

"There s the island with the cabin!" she said, 
looking ahead. 

A stab of lightning behind them lit up their faces, 
and shortly afterward the sound broke on them 
much louder than before. Bradfield took out his 
watch and caught the exact time of the next peal. 
"That doesn t look very good," said he after a 
moment. "That was only a couple of miles away." 
He looked back. "That s all it is, too," he said. 
He saw a white, contorted fringe of cloud blown out 
before the black body of the tempest. 

"Can t you figure the speed from the two flashes?" 
she asked. 

Seeing that the method of calculating distance by 
sound had caught her fancy, he took a pencil and en 
velope. She leaned over looking at his figures. "Ac 
cording to that," he said, "it s making two miles to 
our one. It will beat us all hollow." 

"Perhaps the first thunder you timed came from 
farther back in the storm." 

"Yes, but look at the thing. It must be coming 
fifty miles an hour!" 

The storm-clouds had gained enormously on them 
even while they were playing with their figures. 
When they passed the wing-dam they had run over 
coming down and cleared the head of the island, 



92 THE CHASM 

they saw a great, black arm of cloud above the Iowa 
hills not half a mile away, and farther back a falling 
wall of rain. Walt pulled the rudder square across 
the stern, made the launch whirl, and headed back 
down-stream. "We ve got to get out of that!" he ex 
claimed. "Us to the cabin!" 

From cloud to earth or from earth to cloud there 
leapt a blinding blade of light, a shocking crash of 
sound. It fell half way up the hill and split a mas 
sive oak-tree into three great gleaming splinters. 
One fragment of the trunk shot off like a chip from 
an axe, and two large limbs sank down not wholly 
severed. Marion gripped the edge of the seat and 
turned pale. Bradfield s nerves were shaken. An 
icy wind came rushing up the river piling up waves 
and tearing off their tops. The canvas roof filled 
and nearly knocked the boat over. 

He was too anxious to get ashore quickly. Rather 
than turn broadside to the wind by running around 
the wing-dam which lay between them and the island 
landing he headed straight across it holding as nearly 
as he could on the point he had gone over it before. 
When they reached it the launch struck and stopped 
with a crash that threw them forward against the 
bulkhead. Trembling with the futile driving of the 
propeller, the boat began to swing down-stream. 
Bradfield picked himself up, and instinctively threw 
off the power. "Are you hurt?" he shouted. 

"No," she called, though she really did not know 
whether she was or not. "What shall I do?" 

"Sit still I" 

The water was coming through the stove-in bot 
tom, and the rising waves slapped in as the current 



THE CHASM 93 

swung the stern down-stream. Keel and wheel cleared 
the dam, but the bow, now pointing up-stream, stuck 
fast on the rock. Bradfield reversed the engine, 
threw in the switch, and rocked the flywheel. The 
engine started backing, but the bow was somehow 
wedged or impaled on a point of rock. He retarded 
the spark and opened the throttle for more power, 
but in vain. "Get clear to the stern 1" he called to 
Marion. 

She obeyed, wetting her feet in the water that now 
covered the bottom of the boat, but the shifting of 
her weight did not free the bow. Leaving the pro 
peller backing, Bradfield jumped up on the bow 
deck, lowered himself knee deep in the water, got 
foothold on the rocks of the dam, and with all his 
strength pulled up on the painter. She came free 
with a jerk that made him lose his balance and left 
him on the dam. He threw himself after the back 
ing boat, caught a precarious hold with his right arm 
over the bow and clung there half submerged in the 
icy water. "Can you help me up?" he shouted. 

Marion ran forward and climbed up on the little 
bow deck. The wind nearly swept her off, but she 
caught herself and kneeling grasped his left arm with 
both hands and pulled him up till he got his weight 
on the deck. He scrambled up and darted for the 
engine. The launch was backing in a circle, her rud 
der jammed sidewise: and the water was almost 
up to the base of the cylinders. A little more and 
there would be no power to run her ashore before 
she sank. He started her ahead, headed her toward 
shore, then turned and helped Marion down from 
the wind-swept deck. "We re all right I" he cried. 



94 THE CHASM 

"We ll make it!" He shivered with the chill of his 
watersoaked garments. 

Great drops of rain came driving slant-wise : the 
lightning flashed on the hills. The boat grounded 
eight or ten feet from dry land. He jumped over 
board and waded ashore with the painter, but could 
not get the bow in far enough for Marion to make 
it. He came back into the water and put up his arms 
for her. 

"Come!" he said. 

She leaned down to him quickly, her arms about 
his neck. He took her, meeting her expected weight 
and the unexpected pressure of the wind blowing her 
damp skirt tight against him and sweeping wet ten 
drils of her hair across his eyes. As he turned with 
her and waded swiftly through the water, his pur 
pose of getting her ashore dry-shod could not keep 
out all joy of even such fulfilment of his desire to 
have her in his arms. Too incidental to be real ful 
filment, too brief to be then quite realized, it was a 
thing to dream back to afterward. 

"Run!" he commanded as she gained her balance 
on the shore. "To the cabin!" 

"What are you going to do?" she demanded. 

"Get the boat in. She s going to sink!" He 

| found two round barkless limbs, placed one under the 

bow, another on the shore, and pulled on the painter. 

"Let me help," she said, seizing the rope. 

Together they dragged the boat in, the cold 
rain beating in their faces, and then they ran for the 
cabin. 



VIII 

SAFE inside, with the cabin door shut against 
rain, wind and lightning, Marion wilted into a 
chair near the deal table, leaned over with her 
face between her hands, and shivering uncontrolla 
bly, began to cry. 

Walt looked at her helplessly. Her response had 
been so quick and adequate when he had called on 
her in their danger that he had no idea she had been 
undergoing a strain such as this reaction indicated. 
"I m awfully sorry," he said, sitting down beside 
her. 

She straightened up, and caught a glimpse of the 
solicitude in his face. "How perfectly silly of me!" 
she exclaimed. She laughed hysterically, then reso 
lutely controlling herself she took off her soiled 
gloves and dripping hat. 

"You ve earned the right to be a little silly," said 
Walt, speaking quietly. "I never would have got 
back into that boat if it hadn t been for you. And 
with your skirts the wind came near taking you 
into the river." 

The little cabin was lit weirdly by three quick 
angry flashes. Then broke the thunder like a whole 
sea overhead. 

95 



96 THE CHASM 

Marion shrank from it. "I had no idea I was 
such a baby!" 

His hand moved with protective impulse to her 
shoulder. She leaned closer as she would have to 
Lady Diotima, with a sense of refuge from the 
threatening river, the rain, and the sudden, sweep 
ing cold. The broad soft coils of her hair lay 
beautiful against his cheek. He breathed its fra 
grance. The sweetness that suffused them was love 
lier because not sought. For her, not thinking of it 
then, it made her refuge more complete. But in a 
few moments it became the main thing, a dear com 
pulsion weaving its fairy meshes round their souls, 
drawing them close and warm amid the rattling of 
the water-covered window, the pouring of the rain 
upon the roof. The idea that she ought not to leave 
his arm around her did not lead to action. Inaction 
was too sweet. She let the idea dissolve, closed her 
eyes happily, and settled herself better like a child 
that is content. 

Then she knew that if she stayed there another 
moment their lips would meet. Something powerful 
within her said "Stay!" She started to pretend to 
herself that it wasn t so; then broke abruptly from 
the grasp of self deception, breathing the name of 
Feodor, and rose as one drowsy, unwillingly awak 
ing. 

"How are we ever going to get home?" she asked, 
going to the window. 

Walt had risen with the impulse to follow her. 
For a moment he could not speak. She turned and 
looked at him. "A fisherman s house-boat," he said, 
pointing to the Iowa shore. "We will signal him to 



THE CHASM 97 

take us off. Perhaps we can get a farmer to drive 
us in to the street-car." 

"Suppose the storm doesn t stop? If we were left 
here all night it would epater Moline a little more 
than I bargained for." 

"Moline mustn t know." 

"My father would. Oh, really, it would be 
dreadful!" 

"It isn t likely to last till dark. We must have 
a fire." 

"You must be frozen," she said. 

He glanced at her wet shoes. He started a fire 
in the stone fire-place, and piled it high with logs. 
The wind rushing overhead soon made the flame 
roar in the chimney. From a locker he produced 
glasses, a bottle of whiskey and one of chalybeate 
water. "Here s something we need," he said. 

He found no argument about it, as he would have 
with Alice. Marion took the whiskey as a matter 
of course. "Well," she said, smiling. "Things 
look better I" She set down the empty glass and 
moved nearer the fire. "You haven t a cigarette 
there in your friend s locker, have you?" 

"Makin s." 

She nodded. He handed her a big sack of tobacco 
and an orange booklet of Riz La Croix papers. 
Looking with the eyes of the average American, 
Bradfield had hitherto regarded girls smoking as an 
indication of moral depravity; but as he watched 
Marion roll her cigarette the cachet of refinement 
on every movement of her graceful, efficient hands 
he decided that in this opinion he had been a muddle- 
headed provincial. He thought of the soothing effect 



98 THE CHASM 

of tobacco on the nerves of this girl who was just 
emerging from a condition of hysteria; and then he 
rejected that excuse and all excuses as unnecessary. 
If she wanted to smoke that was reason enough for 
her, and for him. He fished out a cob-pipe of Lew 
Anderson s and filled it, and placed a tin box full of 
matches near her. She tried to light one on the sole 
of her shoe but it was too wet. 

"You must take those off," he said. "Here are a 
pair of Lew s slippers for you just the right size." 

"The antique jest shall be forgiven you," she an 
swered, lighting her cigarette, " for the sake of 
your sensible suggestion." Whereupon, undoing their 
corded silk laces, she drew off her high tan shoes. 
He noticed a delicate monogram, two M s in brown 
silk above her ankle. He placed a box before the 
fire for her to rest her feet on, then set her shoes 
and coat and hat to dry. 

"How about yourself?" she said. "You must be 
wet to the skin." 

"With your gracious permission," he answered, 
"I shall now retire to the dressing-room alias be 
hind the cupboard." He suited the action to the 
word, opening the cupboard door for additional 
screened space, and reappearing after a few min 
utes in Lew Anderson s corduroys, blue flannel shirt, 
and felt moccasins. 

As she sat before the mounting flame, Marion had 
been contrasting this forthright solution of the wet 
clothes question with George Pearson s. George 
would never have dreamed of having either of them 
do anything but sit all afternoon in discomfort. She 



THE CHASM 99 

reflected that in his own environment Walt dealt with 
things with firmness and certainty. Difficulties arose 
only when he approached hers. 

Thinking of the girl s fearless, first-hand attitude 
toward things, the typical attitude Nietzsche called 
"value-creating," Bradfield went on to wonder how 
far present master-ethics, the life-expression of men 
and women economically secure and free, would re 
semble the ethics of the masterless and slaveless 
future. Slave-ethics the product of poverty and 
economic oppression would surely disappear. As 
he came from behind the cupboard absorbed in this, 
he suddenly became aware that Marion s wide eyes 
were interestedly fixed on his. She was leaning back 
luxuriously, the firelight making her hair a glory of 
gleaming lights and luring shadows. 

"What were you thinking about so intently?" she 
asked. 

When he told her, she raised her fair hands in 
despair. "That soulful gaze!" she cried. "That 
rapt expression! I supposed of course you were 
thinking of me ! To think that I cannot compete 
with the ethics of dynamist monism !" 

"It was the thought of you which led me to the 
thought of that," he explained. 

"I refuse to be appeased. The thought of that 
should have led you to the thought of me." 

"Fair lady, I have sinned against you," said he. 
humbly. "What shall my penance be?" 

"Your penance? Let me see. Your offense was 
being guilty of prose. You are condemned to im 
provise a poem in praise of me." 



100 THE CHASM 

"De Bergerac improvised a ballade while fighting 
a duel," said Walt. "I will improvise this poem 
while I roast potatoes." He went and got the po 
tatoes and buried them thoughtfully in the hot ashes. 

" No fair!" she said. "You are making it up 
beforehand." 

"I have to arrange my rhymes," he protested. 
"The poem doesn t have to be done till the potatoes 
are." He put two bottles of beer out in the rain to 
cool, caught a. kettleful of water for coffee, swung 
it on the crane, and proceeded to set the table with 
tin plates, knives, forks and cups. Then he cut 
pieces of cheese to toast on square crackers, got out 
a gridiron, sliced some ham, and began broiling it 
over the wood coals. 

"I hope the poem is as good as that smells," she 
said. 

"This poem must be seen to be appreciated." 

"Is it done already? What is it a visible poem?" 

"One more line." He poked a potato. He turned 
the ham, then kneeling and holding the gridiron so 
as not to burn his hands, he recited: 

"Music of infinite waters descending, 
Ardors of lightning that gleam in our sky, 
Richer the music and gleam of my blending 
Intricate runes with the meaningful cry 
Of opulent Love in his subtlety lending 
Name to his secret of ardor unending." 

"It has a noble sound," said Marion. 

He made no comment, being absorbed in the prob 
lem of not burning the ham. 

"But my dear poet!" she broke out. "Am I sup 
posed to understand that poem?" 



THE CHASM 101 

"My occupations clash. If I stop to get my poem 
appreciated, my dinner will spoil." He hastened to 
get the dinner on. They sat down together. 

"I m sure this beats Spinnyville," she said. "I 
never enjoyed anything so in my life. What cook 
ever prepared a dinner and a poem at the same 
time or what poet? But really I couldn t under 
stand it hearing it just once. Won t you repeat it?" 

He reveled in the opportunity. 

"The music is beautiful," she said, "but this poem 
was to be in praise of me. I m not in it at all. The 
idea of leaving me out of my very own poem !" 

"You are everything in it. Let me write it for 
you." He wrote it, and watched her read it. "The 
guarded treasure of the runes," he said, "is Mar 
ion." He spoke the name lingeringly, loving the 
sound of it. 

She saw her name in the initial letters. "You 
lovely thing!" she exclaimed, and hugged it. Her 
delight was to him the fitting pay for poet s work. 
She read it again. "It is lovely," she said, " the 
lovelier for being unlockable without the key." 

"It gave me the chance to call you Marion once 
anyhow in a hidden way." 

"Why not do it in an unhidden way?" she said. 
As soon as she had so spoken, however, she thought 
of one good reason why not. Feodor! And then, 
in spite of all her leanings and acceptings and broad- 
enings, all the old other sphere of ideas in her grew 
uncomfortable at the thought of being Marion to 
her father s gardener. 

He read that like a book. "Don t be afraid," he 
said. "I shall not call you that." 



102 THE CHASM 

That made her ashamed of her narrowness. 
"Here is a man of intellect," she thought, " a poet, 
a soul full of beauty and passion!" 

It seemed strange to her that she should want to 
kiss a man, yet balk at having him call her by her 
name. But so it was. 



IX 

MRS. MOULTON was alarmed about Marion 
when the storm first broke over Moline, 
but hoped the launch party would by that 
time be safe in the Camanche club house. Since 
thinking evil things brings evil, it was her duty 
to believe them safe. Since nothing is but think 
ing makes it so, thinking of the party as not 
being at Camanche would very likely cause them not 
to be there. Her visualization of them there 
in the grill room became so distinct that she 
could feel her astral self at Camanche seeing 
eight people, among them Marion, sitting at a cer 
tain table. Had anyone suggested to her that this 
vision might possibly be the optical memory of a 
party she had there chaperoned two years before, 
her will to believe the alluringly mysterious astral 
doctrine would have scorned the suggestion as ema 
nating from the critical, that is from the Mephisto- 
phelian, spirit "the spirit that ever denies." Yield 
ing to this spirit would be evil because it would 
project from her mind a powerfully injurious 
thought-force. 

When Mrs. F arnsworth, Mr. Moulton s sister, 
their guest at dinner, inquired for Marion, Mrs. 

103 



104. THE CHASM 

Moulton replied that she had gone with a launch- 
party to Camanche. 

Mr. Farnsworth conjectured that the storm would 
compel them to leave their launch up there and re 
turn by train. 

"I hope they got there before the storm struck," 
said Mr. Moulton. 

A certain mysterious intonation in his wife s as 
surance that they had reached Camanche led him 
to suspect astral information. As soon as dinner 
was over he succeeded, in spite of the storm, in get 
ting the steward at Camanche by telephone. Then 
he called Mrs. Moulton from her guests. "No 
launch party has reached Camanche to-day," said 
he abruptly. 

Her real alarm made him relent. 

"And none was expected there," he added. "Now, 
Anne, don t get rattled, but tell me what you do real 
ly know about this launch party. Whose party was 
it?" 

She had to explain that Marion, due at the river 
at ten-thirty, and not leaving the house till quarter 
to eleven, had departed hurriedly without giving her 
any details. 

"How did she go?" 

"On foot." 

"Why didn t she take her electric?" 

"I cannot say." She knew David imagined he 
had shattered one of her intuitions against a stone 
wall of fact, and resented the air of arrogant, in 
cisive efficiency he always assumed on such occasions. 
If anything did happen to Marion it would be his 



THE CHASM 105 

fault for creating all this malicious thought-mag 
netism. 

Mr. Moulton sent for one of the drivers and 
directed him to take Miss Moulton s electric down 
to the boat-landing. She might be there with no 
way to get home through the rain. If she was not 
there, the driver was to find out and report at once 
what party she went with and which way they had 
gone. 

Twenty minutes later, Mr. Moulton was informed 
by the driver, Eldridge, that it must have been Miss 
Moulton who had gone out alone with Walt Brad- 
field. About eleven o clock they had gone through 
the lock, and so down the river, in Lew Anderson s 
launch "Nancy." 

"Bradfield?" repeated Mr. Moulton, trying to 
place the gentleman. 

"He works here, sir," said the chauffeur, expect 
ing to produce a sensation. "Sits beside me in the 
servants dining-room. He s one of the gardeners." 

"Oh, yes," said Mr. Moulton, " that plan of 
my daughter s. I didn t know she was doing that 
to-day. That s all, Eldridge." 

Eldridge turned to go, but hesitated an instant at 
the door with the idea that he was to be told to keep 
this matter quiet. 

"Was there something else?" inquired Mr. Moul 
ton. 

"No, sir," replied Eldridge, getting out. "I 
wonder if that old fox did know about that Brad- 
field deal?" he speculated. 

Mr. Moulton sank back in his chair, irritation and 



106 THE CHASM 

perplexity in his soul. "What is that girl up to?" 
thought he. He looked out at the still driving rain 
and swaying tree-tops. He was divided between con 
cern for Marion s safety in the storm, and his effort 
to understand her motive in making a companion of 
a servant. Stories of refined women infatuated with 
strapping grooms and coachmen rose repulsively in 
his mind. He did not accept that explanation; but 
it remained in the background of his thoughts ready 
to reassert itself. 

The affair looked worse to him when he found 
the girl had never mentioned Bradfield to her 
mother. Mrs. Moulton s amazement when she 
heard Marion had gone in a launch with the gar 
dener made it impossible for her to bring the kindly 
side of her philosophy to bear. "Earth-forces" was 
her formulation of the same suspicion that had arisen 
in her husband. For her, once started along that 
path of thought, the very occupation of the man was 
symbolic. Was he not a digger in the earth? And 
Marion had gone with him upon the water. The af 
fair was of earth and water, unsanctified of fire and 
air. 

Mr. Moulton was tormented with the impulse to 
do something. Either the launch had swamped, or 
it had not. If it had, he wanted to know it. If it 
had not, Marion and her companion must now be 
some place under shelter waiting for the storm to 
stop. He did not care to have them wait. He 
finally sent down the river a big launch with a closed 
cabin and a searchlight to find the "Nancy" and 
bring Marion home. 

This launch left Moline about four o clock manned 



THE CHASM 107 

by two old rivermen in charge of McChesney, 
a confidential agent in the detective service of the 
Plow Company. The rain stopped while they were 
searching. Near dark they located the stove-in 
"Nancy" on the shore of Round Island; but they 
found the log-cabin there empty. The old fisher 
man in the house-boat on the Iowa shore told Mc 
Chesney that when he came out after the storm to 
look at his nets, he had seen a couple on the island 
waving a shirt on an oar. He had taken them off, 
and they had started to walk to town. 

The fisherman had told them they might make 
it by dark: but they had to pick their way along the 
edges of muddy roads, finally took to the gravel and 
ties of the railroad track; and as night fell, the elec 
tric lights of Davenport sprang up white out of the 
blackness of the eastern horizon. They came to a 
railroad bridge beneath which in the gloom a rain- 
swollen torrent ominously thundered. They stopped 
a moment, standing close together. The cold wind 
and the tumult of that unfriendly elemental force 
made the warmth and nearness of each other more 
precious. 

"You don t suppose the bridge is out, do you?" 
said Marion, peering ahead. "No, I can see the 
shine on the rails." She clasped Walt s hand, and 
welcomed the support of his arm around her as 
they crossed, stepping from tie to tie. 

He was seized with a wild happiness, a piercing 
realization of the present moment, an intense feeling 
of his identity and hers. The two of them crossing 
that bridge in the black night were to him the only 
man and woman in the world. When they felt the 



108 THE CHASM 

gravel once more underfoot she would have drawn 
away. 

"A man, a woman, and Nature which made us!" 
he exclaimed. "There are no classes. There is no 
town. There is nothing but you and me and the 
night." 

His feeling swept her like a poem creating a new 
mood. The thunder of waters behind them seemed 
no more a hostile voice, but the voice of great har 
monious forces at work through eons and eons creat 
ing and maintaining man. She leaned and pressed 
her cheek against his shoulder; then, sighing, with 
drew her hand and walked alone. "For me," she 
said, "there is town. There is Hillcrest, and in it 
another man and woman. They are worrying about 
me. They love me, in a way, not wisely, not 
trustfully, not realizing I must find or make my own 
path through life. They do not understand me: 
they have no sympathy for the things that I, being 
I, must seek and find. They will attack me to-night. 
I will have to defend myself. If he had his way, 
my father would reduce the real me to pulp." 

The great tenderness then filling Walt turned into 
the channel of regret that she too should be subject 
to all the influences that shape our modern world and 
shape it wrong. "Shall I go in and help you de 
fend yourself?" he asked. 

"No. The best you could hope would be to de 
fend yourself. After you left I should have my own 
fight just the same or worse." 

They caught the suburban car where it crossed 
the railroad at the lower end of Davenport. Three- 
quarters of an hour later, they got off in Moline at 



THE CHASM 109 

an electric-lighted corner where the streets were 
thickly lined with workingmen s small frame houses, 
their paint grimed with soot from the factories. 
Back on the bluff towered Hillcrest, its four stories 
marked by half a dozen brilliant windows. Well to 
the right and left of it stood other great houses, each 
aloof on its own spacious eminence as the castles 
of robber barons stood on the hills of Rhineland. 

Walt and Marion ascended the hill, walking 
alongside a heavy terra-cotta retaining wall, from 
the top of which leafless, brittle-looking vines trailed 
downward. Between the base of the wall and the 
concrete sidewalk stood a row of low shrubs which 
Walt himself had planted. The return to use-and- 
wont, to Hillcrest, the end of his day with her, af 
fected him gloomily. "I have a wretched premoni 
tion I am not going to see you very much any more," 
he said. 

She had the same unpleasant feeling, but would 
not admit it. "I should think a monist like you 
would regard premonitions as superstitious." 

"I did yesterday. Imagination was reason- 
guided, a light I turned at will upon the world. 
Therein lay my power. To-day that monism of 
mine is split by war of reason and desire and rea 
son has the worst of it." 

"Is that a reproach of me?" 

"An analysis of me. I can no longer distinguish 
between the thing I desire and the thing that is true. 
I am no better than a bourgeois." 

"That is humility!" she laughed. "But really, 
Walt, a little humility won t hurt you a bit." 

He stopped abruptly. Once more, as on the dark 



110 THE CHASM 

bridge in the thunder of waters, there were no 
classes. She was woman to him, and he was man. 
An overpowering feeling of worship swept through 
him. "I could kneel here at your feet for that!" 
he breathed. "In fact I must!" 

"Oh, no!" she exclaimed. "No!" She caught 
hold of his arms to keep him from doing it. "It will 
make me cry if you do that!" 

"No ! Don t take it that way. I will be nice and 
quiet about it. It s a thing I have to do." He made 
her feel it as impulse and compulsion of the depths 
of life in him, and then he knelt as though it were 
an act of mere deliberate resolve. She found a 
beauty and richness in that union, in one act, of 
simple conscious will and some uncomprehended 
depth of feeling. The depth, and nothing of quiet 
ness, was in his voice when he stretched out his arms 
to her with the cry, "I worship you!" 

She swayed back breathless, leaning against the 
wall, knowing clearly that this was something more 
than merely physical allurement. His cry which 
she thought no woman in the world could have heard 
unmoved and its echo in her were of the spirit, or 
more truly, of the whole and single being which man 
is. It felt like a great love. The great desire of 
, all that day, thwarted but stronger inwardly for 
1 every thwarting, retreating only to advance through 
some new path of feeling, seized and subdued her. 
Not indirectly nor as an accident, not with manner 
unpurposive, she bent and kissed him in the mood 
of answered prayer. 

He rose. A beam from an arc-lamp through the 
young buds showed her his face. In his arms she 



THE CHASM 111 

whispered: "I shouldn t have done it. I don t know 
why I did. I seemed to have to. It was too big 
for me, Walt." 

"It was star-high above my hope!" he said. 

"It s a pity to say it, but you mustn t, mustn t make 
too much of it. I must go in. I need to be alone 
and think." She saw a question forming in his eyes 
and did not dare listen. "Come!" she said, and 
using all her will power moved on up the hill. She 
looked down and up the walk. Fortunately no 
one ! They turned in through the gate of Hillcrest 
and neared the door. 

"Don t let this be the end of things between us!" 
he pleaded. "It has grown too strong to break." 

"I m utterly at sea," said Marion. 



X 

SHE would have liked nothing so much as to slip 
upstairs to her lair, there to get her balance and 
find out a little where she stood : but her mother 
heard her come in, and hastened to see if it was she. 

"Hello, Mother!" said the girl with rather arti 
ficial cheerfulness. "Did you think I was drowned?" 

"I knew you were not," said Mrs. Moulton in her 
tone of occult knowledge. "But I did not know why 
you had slipped off as you did to spend the day with 
one of the men-servants." 

Mr. Moulton came into the reception-hall, and 
looked searchingly at his daughter. 

"You word it very badly," said the girl to her 
mother. "Good evening, Papa. I hope you have 
not been worrying about me. It wasn t necessary." 

"I differ with you," he said. 

"There s a searching party down the river looking 
for you now," said Mrs. Moulton. 

"Such a fuss!" exclaimed Marion in scornful resig 
nation. 

"Where were you during the storm?" asked Mr. 
Moulton. 

"In front of a fire getting dry. We had an ac 
cident with the launch, and had to walk home. I 



THE CHASM 113 

would like to get these muddy boots off if you d just 
as soon." 

"Just a moment, please," said Mr. Moulton. 
"Have you any objection to telling where this fire 
was?" 

"I wouldn t have the slightest objection to telling 
everything that happened to-day were it not for 
the tone you and mama have adopted. You seem 
to take it for granted that I am guilty of something. 
If you wish to make a criminal court out of this, go 
ahead, and I ll act accordingly." She took off her 
hat and gloves frank battle preparations. "I real 
ly ought to have a lawyer to take advantage of tech 
nical points," she said scathingly. "I believe, first 
of all, I have a right to know the exact crime for 
which I am to be tried." 

"There s considerable bluff to that, Marion," said 
Mr. Moulton. "You spent the day alone with Brad- 
field the gardener you have avoided saying just 
where." He paused a moment. "What are you up 
to?" 

"I am not up to anything. I went launch-riding 
with Mr. Bradfield because I like him." She waited 
a moment. "Is that sufficient?" 

"Hardly." 

"It should be." 

"Why did you say nothing to your mother about 
Mister Bradfield?" 

"The subject did not happen to come up. I told 
Mrs. Pearson all about it. She was going with us 
to-day, and hurt her knee at the last minute. It s 
absurd to think of Bradfield as a servant. He is a 



114, THE CHASM 

thinker and writer. I have read one of his books. 
He is much the most interesting man in Moline." 

"How did you come to discover all this?" in 
quired Mrs. Moulton. 

"I began talking with him about the Japanese 
lilies in the conservatory." 

"Well, that part of it sounds all right," said Mr. 
Moulton, relieved of his darkest suspicions. "But 
Marion, you must be more careful of appearances. 
The thing looks bad. Don t do it, my girl, don t do 
this sort of thing." 

"If the thing had happened with George Pearson, 
not a word would be said about it. Why then when 
it is Walt Bradfield a man more intelligent and 
worth while?" 

"Look here," said Mr. Moulton. "Eldridge the 
driver knows you went with this man who in his eyes 
certainly is simply a fellow servant of his, and he is 
all ready to start some talk that will make your hair 
stand on end. If this Bradfield doesn t show a 
damned sight more decency and good sense than he s 
at all likely to in answering Eldridge s questions, 
there ll be a scandal over this affair. You must not 
let it go any farther. You ve got to drop Bradfield !" 

"I shan t do it!" blazed Marion, and then she 
thought it better to be a little more conciliating. "It 
isn t necessary, Papa. Mr. Bradfield may be relied 
on for both decency and good sense." 

An automobile came up and stopped outside the 
door, but they were too absorbed to notice it. 

"You seem to be completely under the man s in 
fluence!" exclaimed Moulton. "I d like to know 
how you reconcile your apparently limitless admira- 



THE CHASM 115 

tion for this gardener with your interest in the 
Count de Hohenfels." 

She had not herself reconciled those two things. 
If she had only had time to think things out to 
find just how far reconciliation was possible ! "That 
is a matter that must be decided by my own con 
science," was all she could find to say. 

Mr. Moulton was really astonished. He had ex 
pected an indignant disclaimer of anything more than 
friendship for Bradfield. 

"Is the trial over?" said Marion patiently. 

"I sometimes think you love rebellion for its own 
sake!" said he bitterly. 

"Do you ever love authority for its own sake?" 
she asked, thinking of his rigid adherence to the time 
he had set for further discussion of the letter to 
De Hohenfels. 

The doorbell rang. A servant turned on the porch 
light, and through the plate-glass of the door Mr. 
Moulton saw a clean-cut gentleman with dark, close 
ly trimmed beard taking out a card-case, the move 
ment displaying white waistcoat and sable-lined over 
coat. 

There was an exclamation of astonishment from 
Mrs. Moulton. Marion turned, but the caller had 
stepped back so as not to see what was going on in 
side. 

"De Hohenfels!" exclaimed Mrs. Moulton. 
"Marion, it s De Hohenfels!" 

"De Hohenfels?" echoed Mr. Moulton. He 
looked at Marion. 

She stood there dazed and speechless. 



XI 

JUST look at you!" exclaimed Mrs. Moulton, 
almost as upset as Marion by De Hohenfels s 
unexpected arrival. "You can t let him see 
you like that!" 

"Mother, are you sure it s Fedya? Did he see 
you? Where is that footman? Oh, please let me 
get away, and open the door yourself!" She fled up 
stairs. "Why didn t he telephone?" she thought. 
"When did he get here? What will papa say to 
him? Oh, dear, I must dress! Where is Mathilde?" 

Suppressing misgivings as to propriety, Mrs. 
Moulton did open the door herself. The Count 
de Hohenfels thanked her for her kind informality, 
but became formal himself on the presentation of 
Mr. Moulton, who briefly acknowledged the intro 
duction. The footman, arriving to open the door, 
deferentially relieved the visitor of his stick, hat, 
and the beautiful warm coat, to get the fur for which 
nomad hunters on snow-shoes had lain for days half- 
frozen by the holes of the sables on Siberian steppes. 

"Won t you come in?" said Mrs. Moulton, turn 
ing a key that lighted up the nearest reception room. 
"Marion has just gone to dress; I m afraid she ll 
keep you waiting awhile. Why didn t you let us 
know you were coming?" 

116 



THE CHASM 117 

"Things were a little vague," replied De Hohen- 
fels, whose thoughts were then vigorously centered 
on Marion s father. Starting to follow his hostess, 
he glanced back to see if her husband were coming 
too. Mr. Moulton showing no such intention, De 
Hohenfels stopped and faced him. Having come 
to beard the lion in his den, the sight of the lion 
impelled him to immediate bearding. "Do not care 
to purchase European title for my daughter" was 
rankling. 

"Allow me to acknowledge your cablegram," he 
said, speaking with the precision of an ambassador. 
"I decided to answer it in person. I wish to explain 
first that my family makes its daughters independent 
of their husbands at marriage in order that the sor 
did bond of money-asking and money-giving may 
play no part in their wedded lives. Should you be 
unable or unwilling to do this for your daughter, I 
am neither. If Miss Moulton does me the honor 
to accept my offer of marriage, I shall be happy to 
endow her in her own right with the half of my 
estate which is not exactly the smallest in Russia." 

"Very noble of you," said Moulton, wishing to 
throw the gentleman off the track of his apparently 
premeditated speech. 

"Not at all. The satisfaction of making this an 
swer to your polite communication is in itself worth 
half of any man s estate." 

"Especially when the said half-estate, magnani 
mously deeded out of the family one day, comes 
back by marriage the next ! I believe, also, that in 
Europe a man is the guardian of his wife s estate 
and the administrator of her property." 



118 THE CHASM 

"Not in Russia. There exists there the absolute 
independence of a married woman with regard to 
her property. But you miss the point. My proposal 
effectually destroys the accusation of your cablegram 
that the title of De Hohenfels is for sale." 

"Your proposal may also be regarded as a grandt 
stand play of half the De Hohenfels estate now for 
all of the Moulton estate later." 

"Mr. Moulton, you are at liberty to do anything 
you like with your estate except accuse me of im 
proper motives in regard to it. Men accustomed to 
wealth take it for granted. With me it is a means, 
not an end. I am perfectly willing to throw away 
a forest and never see it again for the sake of let 
us say a felicitous revenge. You apparently are 
ready to spoil your own life and your daughter s 
for fear somebody other than yourself will enjoy the 
use of your money after you are dead." 

"I am a creator of wealth, young man; and, by 
your account, you are a spender of it. That may 
account for certain differences in our points of view." 

"My peasants and my land create my wealth. 
Your factories and your workmen create yours. Not 
so vast a difference, I think. We had better not go 
into the subject of political economy, however, since 
Mrs. Moulton has been kind enough to suggest that 
I follow her. At my hotel I have documents neces 
sary to make the transfer of property I mentioned." 
Suppressing a gleam of malicious satisfaction, which 
showed his feeling that he had the best of it, De 
Hohenfels bowed and followed Mrs. Moulton into 
the reception room. 



THE CHASM 119 

"Clever!" was Moulton s verdict as he turned 
toward his study. He began to wonder if the man 
could be interested in the administration of industry, 
and whether he would live in America. Considering 
the Bradfield affair, perhaps it was just as well the 
foreigner had arrived. And still, Mr. Moulton 
thought it worth while to consider whether there 
was any way of playing De Hohenfels and Bradfield 
against each other for the elimination of both and 
the advantage of George Pearson. 

A few minutes after the coming of De Hohenfels 
to Hillcrest, there sounded through its spacious 
rooms, with their hard-wood floors and lofty ceilings, 
the opening of Chopin s Nocturne in G Major. De 
Hohenfels was playing for Mrs. Moulton, though 
she was wont to express disdain of "intellectual musi 
cians who spoil the soul-impression by analysis." 
Since he nevertheless played with all the intelligence, 
as well as with all the power and taste, which he 
possessed, it may be surmised that there in the Hill- 
crest music room Count Feodor was not playing sole 
ly for Mrs. Moulton. 

The first phrase of the famous Nocturne, rising 
and repeated in the tonic, he rendered like a ques 
tion the descending answer faltering a little to a 
tentative solution in the subdominant minor. Re- 
arising there, the question was answered in the tonic; 
but there the eager fairies, knowing another answer, 
seized the theme, swept it through flitting chords of 
C and F, B flat and E flat to D flat, transmuted it 
to esoteric E flat minor, filled it with dew and moon 
beams on the borderland of flats and sharps, brought 



120 THE CHASM 

it back as far as F, then gave it to A minor and the 
gods. 

The Olympians said it in their language and sent 
it back through a thunder of warring sevenths to E 
minor and friendly C major. There a new move 
ment rocked like a boating song in big slow waves. 
The yearning question and answer broke out again, 
developed as before as far as E flat minor, but this 
time, avoiding the Olympian confusion on the border 
land of sharps and-flats, the melody sailed smoothly 
on around the circle of the keys, working through the 
antipodal key, there solving the mystery of the iden 
tity of G flat and F sharp which binds the two hemi 
spheres of the keys into a sphere, and finally, from 
the other side of the world of music, it emerged 
Magellan-like in the vassal chords of G and the 
harbor song. 

After enchanted minors the common chords came 
as the richest change of all, as man, enriched by 
creative experience, at last emerges into understand 
ing of his own real and earth-born soul to find it 
more wondrous than all his mythic gods and heavens. 

The recurring question and response hinted of 
final answer, the music moved toward some climax 
not to be divined. Gathering energy and meaning, it 
swept through B flat, E flat, across F sharp, and 
moved with deepening bass through clear and lumi 
nous chords of B and E and A, dropping a sharp at 
every beat, and then there came, in lieu of the ex 
pected D, a chord of stars, the Pleiades, a B flat, E 
and G, and far below, a mystery and a thunder 
called C sharp. 



THE CHASM 

The distant phrases intensified Marion s feeling of 
the importance of life. That pattern of beautiful 
sound which sadness had woven in the soul of Chopin 
made more poignant her sense of crisis and unpre- 
paredness. She was afraid of Feodor not only of 
his judgment of this day of hers with Walt, but 
habitually lest she should fail to satisfy his instinct 
and intelligence of beauty. Manners, language, 
ideas, dress, all things expressing personality, were 
subject of his art-criticism, and she felt that the prize 
of his approval was a great one. 

With Walt she had begun to accept her whole 
nature, as he accepted his, allowing it spontaneous 
play; with the return of Feodor, she tried to regain 
her old attitude of selecting, rejecting, developing 
favored impulses. 

She came down to the room where he was playing, 
white irises chained to her corsage in a flower-clasp 
of Roman gold, her red-gold hair done high in a 
Russian coiffure, the kakoshnik, with which she had 
once delighted his soul in Rome. 

Mrs. Moulton saw in the girl s eyes a troubled 
look that made her hope she was regretting her af 
fair with Bradfield. There was imperfectly con 
cealed constraint in her greeting to De Hohenfels. 
Mrs. Moulton left them, and went to tell her hus 
band he had better drop his opposition to the for 
eigner. Her chief objection to Count Feodor, un 
acknowledged even to herself, had been that if she 
would only wait a few years Dave Moulton s daugh 
ter could probably aspire higher. It would be very 
fine to feel spiritually superior to the mere title of 



THE CHASM 

a son-in-law who was a duke. But if it was to be 
Count Feodor or a gardener ! 

Count Feeder s attention was on Marion as pic 
ture. "It is impossible to retain a mental image 
equal to you," he said. 

"I can t believe it s you," she said. "Here it 
seems unreal. Why didn t you let me know you 
were coming?" 

"Didn t you know I would have to come after 
you?" He folded her hands in his, close to his 
breast, and drew her toward him. She stepped back 
hastily, and flushed as she realized the idea that 
made her do it. He accounted for it superficially. 
She realized then how it would wound him if he 
ever knew. She had shrunk from him because the 
kiss of another man was on her lips. 

"Tell me," said he, "do you still love me?" 

She hesitated. 

"You do not!" he exclaimed. "I never doubted 
that till now. I thought of every other reason why 
you left Rome." 

"Oh, I do. I do love you. But " 

She found herself unable to tell him of Walt. 
Mentally she made the excuse that she must wait 
till she herself understood how such contradictory 
emotions could exist together in her. "The humilia 
tion of that cablegram," said she lamely uncom 
fortable with the consciousness of her evasion. 

"How can you be so illogical? I thought by next 
morning you would realize you were not responsible 
for the acts of your father. The next morning you 
were gone without a word, without a line! Not a 



THE CHASM 123 

line from Genoa, not a line from Gibraltar! I had 
to take your majordomo s word for it that you had 
gone to America. I wasn t certain till to-night that 
you would be here in Moline." 

"I felt then that I couldn t face you again until 
you had been atoned to in some way. I came home 
to make my father apologize to you." 

"Make him apologize!" he protested. "That 
would be a superficial, an empty, atonement. I have 
already done better than that." 

"What?" she asked eagerly. 

"Forced him to see that he was wrong." 

"You did!" she cried, exulting. "How did you 
doit?" 

He told her of the proposal he had made to Mr. 
Moulton. 

"You endow me! Oh, what a shame!" She 
turned away from him, sank into a chair, and stared 
before her. "Yes," she said. "You have your re 
venge. But it isn t fair! It isn t fair to you. You 
had your sister Vanya s dot to pay. And it isn t fair 
to me. No; that s impossible, Feodor. We may be 
barbarians in some ways, but we re hardly so low as 
marriage by purchase." 

"You re confused. The price of a purchased 
bride goes not to her but to her family." 

"Well!" she blazed. "If the price goes to the 
woman herself what do you call that?" 

He shrugged his shoulders. "American marriage. 1 

She knitted her brows trying to see in that any 
thing more than a mot of his. 

"Surely," said he, "it is better that a woman 



THE CHASM 

should be made independent by her husband once and 
for all and in her own right than to have it doled out 
to her in the form of support." 

"How terribly financial a thing marriage is!" ex 
claimed Marion. "Americans like my father think 
the dot makes marriage mercenary. Europeans like 
you think a dotless marriage mercenary. And what 
I never saw until this moment is that both of you 
are right!" 

"Do you think me mercenary?" he asked irritably. 

"No. I know you are not. You have had too 
many things in your life more interesting than the 
pursuit of money." 

"Are you mercenary?" 

"No. I haven t had to be. I ve taken wealth for 
granted." 

"Exactly. Just as you should do." 

"But our being unmercenary makes my point the 
stronger. We desire to marry, and unmercenary 
though we are, complication after complication 
arises about money; and there doesn t seem to be any 
possible arrangement that isn t degrading or unfair 
to someone." 

"What has started you along this line? It is 
necessary to settle matters at the beginning that s 
all. After that, the question of money will cause us 
no more trouble than it always has." 

She could not help looking through Walt s eyes 
at the idea that they should have wealth without 
trouble or thought or any service to the society which 
gave them luxury and culture. She remembered 
Bradfield s "you have accepted the profits as unthink 
ingly as you accept the philosophy that justifies 



THE CHASM 125 

them." She thought of a certain vast, one-story, old 
brick building in Moline where, from dawn till dusk 
in Rembrandtesque gloom, lit by the weird, red lights 
of forges, men with black, sweat-streaked faces and 
uncanny forearms held and hammered red plow 
shares on the ringing anvils. Money was a thing 
they had to think about and give their whole lives 
for! "Do your peasants plow with wooden plows, 
Feodor?" she asked abruptly. 

"Hardly. Why do you ask?" 

"I thought probably my father was speaking meta 
phorically." 

"Oh, has he been investigating my estates?" 

"I think not." 

"It is hard to get them to use American labor-sav 
ing machinery." 

"Why?" 

"They are slaves of tradition." 

"Why do they say they don t want to use it?" 

"They? Oh, various pretexts." 

"For instance?" 

"That it robs too many of work. That they have 
to have larger holdings of land first. So they dream 
of nationalizing the land after overthrowing the 
monarchy." 

"That is not being slaves of tradition." 

"Well no, the social revolutionists are not. They 
would make muzhiks of us all. But where have you 
acquired such an interest in this?" 

"I was thinking how easily wealth comes to some, 
how hard to others. Tell me, if you were a muzhik, 
would you not work for nationalization of the land ?" 

"What I d do if a muzhik is too unimportant for 



126 THE CHASM 

discussion. Being what I am, I shall do everything 
in my power to prevent the annihilation of present 
Russian society. It s bad enough in some ways, but 
as a whole it is on the highest level of individual 
culture in Europe. Old culture that of the west 
in a new soul that of the upper-class Russian, not 
too remote from barbaric vigor there, perhaps, lies 
the highest possibility for human development. The 
muzhik to cultivate the soil, and we ourselves. But 
strange as it may seem, my dear Marion, I really 
can t get my mind on those impersonal subjects. I 
am disturbed by your unwillingness to back me up 
in the position I have taken with Mr. Moulton. Un 
less we carry things through on the basis I have pro 
posed, he will take advantage of the failure to im 
pute insincerity to me. If you are so anxious that 
atonement be made to me, don t you see that this is 
the one way that really does atone? Don t you see 
how strong this makes your position with him? Go 
and tell him you and I are going to marry next 
week." 

"Oh, no!" she exclaimed, startled by the vividness 
of the idea. 

"Two weeks, then. Three. The point is say 
nothing more about settlement, dower, or anything 
of the kind. Ignore the subject. If he broaches it, 
tell him it s quite immaterial." 

"That would be delicious!" Her eyes were 
radiant. 

"Good! Do it now!" 

"Oh, Feodor!" She sank back despondent. "It s 
as though you were marrying a beggar from the 
streets of Rome!" 



THE CHASM 12T 

"Nonsense ! Suppose I were an American. 
There d be no question of dower. I am able to take 
care of you. If you love me you should be willing 
to give me the happiness of doing it to say noth 
ing of the fiendish satisfaction it will give me to spike, 
the guns of your skeptical pater. Run along and 
tell him, and come back to me. Or shall we go hand 
in hand and say, Bless us, our father! 

It was alluring. It was easier to do it than not. 
She was trembling on the verge of consent. The 
thought of the cabin and the launch, the bridge, the 
concrete walk, came over her like a pang. To forget 
all that before the day was done 1 It would be dese 
cration. She shook her head. "Not today, Fedya. 
I can t say yes to that today. That doesn t mean 
I will tomorrow. No, there are some things I must 
think out." 



XII 

WHEN Mrs. Moulton came in after confer 
ence with her husband and asked Count 
Feodor to stay at Hillcrest while he was in 
Moline, the European, betraying no surprise, and 
welcoming the indication of a favorable impression 
produced on Mr. Moulton, accepted the invitation. 
He came up next morning in a motor-car with his 
English valet, who unpacked the trunks in a suite 
more luxurious than Hohenfels had known in the 
manor-houses of Russia. From his windows the 
foreign visitor looked across to the heights of sub 
urban Davenport; and in the valley saw the river, 
wide as the Volga at Samara, flowing around the 
nobly wooded government island. There the arsenal 
alined its giant yellow stone gables beneath the 
towering flag-staff flying the flag with aristocratic 
blue field, its patrician white striped with a color 
Hohenfels would have omitted, symbolic of one 
blood in the veins of all men loved by slaves and 
serfs and democrats from the days of the labor 
unions of imperial Rome. 

In the expanse of woods and water and citied hills 
the ugliest and most interesting area was the long 
crescent of massive brick factory buildings which 

128 



THE CHASM 129 

lined the Moline water front. Among groups of 
cylindrical sheet-iron smoke-stacks and tall brick 
chimneys with soot-blackened tops, the names of plow 
and wagon and implement and carriage companies 
stood above the horizontal roof-lines in black or 
gilded metal letters twice the height of a man. 

After luncheon with Marion and Mrs. Moulton, 
Count Feodor went with them in their car to the 
golf-links and met a number of society people at the 
club-house on the island. 

When Mr. Moulton, who had lunched at the 
Manufacturers with some eastern business men, 
drove home late in the afternoon, he saw the Pearson 
car near the door and met Mrs. Pearson coming out. 

"Not a soul homel" said she, after Mr. Moulton 
had returned her greeting. "I came to carry Marion 
off to dinner." 

"Come in, won t you?" said Moulton. "Marion 
may not go to dinner with you but she will be anxious 
to have you meet her latest acquisition." 

"Yes, she asked me to come over and talk with 
him," said Lady Diotima, turning back with Moul 
ton to the house and concluding that Marion must 
have confided in her father as to Bradfield. 

"The gentleman arrived last night," said Moul 
ton. "I believe my wife has already domesticated 
him." 

"Last night!" echoed Mrs. Pearson. "Why whom 
do you mean?" 

"Feodor, Count de Hohenfels," said Moulton 
with a grimace. 

"You don t mean it! Hm! So he came. Did 
you talk with him?" 



130 THE CHASM 

"A little. By the way: whom did you think I 
meant by Marion s latest?" 

"Oh, a Mr. Bradfield," said Lady Diotima, as 
though the subject were not worth pursuing. 

"I learned of that yesterday," said he. "What 
do you think of it?" 

"She has probably formed an exaggerated idea 
of his talent, judgment, and so on, simply because in 
that kind of man one expects nothing at all." 

"Sound!" exclaimed Moulton. He offered her a 
chair. "Tell me," he began, seating himself near 
her. "I ve a hazy kind of notion. Is there any pos 
sibility of getting these two acquisitions to elimi 
nate each other?" 

"Like the two snakes that began at each other s 
tails and swallowed till they both vanished?" She 
laughed. 

"The analogy would discredit the idea," he said, 
refusing to think the snakes amusing. "But serious 
ly: women have a talent for such things. Marion 
has already confided in you. Her mother and I 
found out about Bradfield only by accident. I wish 
you would feel your way in the matter." 

"I don t want Marion to cast me in the role of 
designing mama," observed Lady Diotima. "If I 
am to lose her as a daughter-in-law, I don t care to 
lose her as a friend too. Whatever influence I have 
with her is as a chum. However: ask her to bring 
Count de Hohenfels to dinner to-night. In any case 
I wish to meet him, and George is in Minneapolis." 

Lady Diotima s scientific observations at her din 
ner-table that evening led her to believe that Count 
Feodor had Marion. She herself liked him. In 



THE CHASM 131 

the conversation there was a sprinkling of smart 
epigrams, a light tone of graceful false sentiment 
that made no pretense of being genuine, and not too 
great earnestness about anything a kind of talk 
Mrs. Pearson pined for and seldom attained. The 
guest followed her lead happily. His easy dignity, 
his not quite blase air, his assured tone of man of 
the world, were qualities whose absence in Bradfield, 
as Marion recognized, would have meant a con 
strained party had he been in the Russian gentle 
man s place. 

While Hohenfels and Mr. Pearson, over their 
cigars, were discussing certain grand-ducal timber 
speculations as the real cause of the Russo-Japanese 
war, Lady Diotima, alone with Marion upstairs, in 
nocently inquired if the Count had met her friend 
Mr. Bradfield. 

"No," said Marion, non-committally. The ques 
tion being not unexpected, she betrayed nothing of 
her state of soul. 

"Aren t you going to arrange a meeting?" asked 
Mrs. Pearson smiling. 

"Goodness!" said the girl. "Your question sug 
gests the duello." 

"Do you suppose your philosopher will take it 
philosophically?" 

This pierced Marion s armor. "Don t joke about 
it!" she exclaimed. 

"Dear me! I didn t suppose it was serious." 

"I lay awake half the night thinking about it." 

"I don t see why Mr. Bradfield s disappointment 
should bother you so much. You seem quite uncon 
cerned about George." 



132 THE CHASM 

"I am not worrying about Mr. Bradfield s feel 
ings. He is capable of taking care of them himself. 
It s my own." 

"Is it possible? Do you mean to say you like him 
better than your Russian?" 

"You can call me as weak and worthless as you 
like, but I don t know. I begin to think myself in 
capable of real love. I thought I loved Fedya I 
think so yet. Yes, it must be that I do. And yet, 
if I do how can it be that this other man attracts me 
so?" 

"Has the other man made love to you?" 

Marion looked at her reproachfully for asking, 
but Lady Diotima was unabashed. 

"An enterprising person," she observed. 

Marion rose to go downstairs. "Perhaps I was 
the enterprising one. I don t know. My likes and 
dislikes have always been positive. I imagined I 
understood myself. Evidently I do not. It s a 
wretched condition to be in." 

"Have you seen Bradfield since the Count s ar 
rival?" 

"No, I don t know what to tell him." 

"See him, and probably things will clear up. Only 
for heaven s sake don t marry him. Even if you 
cared for them both equally as individuals though 
I can t believe you do you ought not to hesitate 
when life with one leads into the central current to 
world capitals St. Petersburg, Rome and life with 
the other leads nowhere. But you don t have to 
marry either of them." 

"No," said Marion. "I don t have to marry at 
all. But I think I shall." 



THE CHASM 133 

"Does that mean one of these two?" 

"I do know that these two are different to me from 
other men the kind of difference a girl expects to 
find and is expected to find in only one." 

As they came down and Marion caught sight of 
Fedya, immaculate, at ease, as he sat talking in the 
library, the idea of really marrying anyone else was 
suddenly painful to her. They left early; and as they 
rode homeward in the seat behind the driver, Count 
Feodor, had he known how she then felt, would have 
prospered. 

On the corner of Sixteenth Street and Third Ave 
nue their attention was attracted by a crowd of work- 
ingmen. A man standing above the crowd in the 
light of a gasoline torch was speaking. 

"A political meeting?" asked De Hohenfels. 
"Would you mind stopping?" 

The driver stopped on the edge of the crowd. A 
score of men turned to see what the "buzz-wagon" 
was doing there. Occupants of automobiles were 
not usually interested in such meetings. The speaker 
turned to look at them, and Marion repressed an ex 
clamation of astonishment. It was Walt Bradfield. 

When he recognized Marion in her lace automo 
bile veil and saw the man in evening dress beside her, 
he lost the thread of his discourse. He turned away 
quickly, groped for his connections, found them, but 
spoke uncertainly. "Life is too easy," he said, "for 
those who now own the sources of wealth that is, 
the sources of life." 

Half a dozen men looked toward the richly 
dressed occupants of the motor car. 

"A socialist?" queried De Hohenfels. 



134 

"Hand those plutocrats something, Walt," said 
one of the speaker s comrades. 

"Labor bought with wealth produces more 
wealth," continued Bradfield. "The possessors of 
labor-buying wealth call the golden stream which 
our bought labor pours into their laps the reward 
of brains ! Wake up, you workingmen ! That gold 
en stream is the reward of their ownership of your 
productive power their power to buy your labor in 
a labor market in which supply exceeds demand. If 
it is brains* that is being rewarded why does this 
same ownership enrich imbeciles, children, degener 
ates? 

"The present fight of the Illinois manufacturers 
against the simplest and most obvious demands for 
the protection of laborers at their work confirms the 
old principle that no ruling class can be convinced by 
reasoning. Only the force of circumstances, the de 
velopment of society, the awakened intelligence of 
the oppressed workers can drive them into sense and 
submission." 

"Does your father know he is to be driven into 
submission to his workmen?" inquired Count Feodor. 

"Really they are getting too raw ! They have 
come to rely too implicitly on working-class stupidity. 
Day before yesterday the Illinois Legislature voted 
on the Curran bill. If passed, it would compel prop 
er ventilation of rooms where girls and pregnant 
women must now inhale poisonous sulphuric and 
alkaline gases. It would compel the shielding of 
machinery to safeguard factory employees from 
avoidable accidents. They keep it out of the papers, 
but in this state women like your own mothers have 



THE CHASM 135 

been mangled by unprotected shafting and belting, 
and the shafting and belting that did it is unprotected 
yet. Take a look through the window there in the 
next block at the exposed cog-wheels in the black 
smith shop of the United States Plow Company. 
Look at their paint shop on the fourth floor, full of 
fiercely burning materials, crowded with workers, 
and without a fire-escape. The company cannot af 
ford fire-escapes. It is fighting the Curran bill to 
save the expense of fire-escapes. Money spent for 
fire-escapes cannot go into dividends." 

"Is such a thing possible?" demanded Marion un 
der her breath. 

De Hohenfels shrugged his shoulders. 

"The Illinois Federation of Labor had a lobby at 
Springfield working for this bill. Did you read in 
yesterday s papers what happened? The legislature 
killed it. They killed it in slave obedience to letters 
written by members of the Illinois Manufacturers 
Association, who claimed that the bill gave arbitrary 
power to the state factory board to demand the re 
construction of buildings and readjustment of ma 
chinery. What frightful tyranny that would be ! 
What sort of power to make and enforce such de 
mands shall be exercised by the state if not arbitrary 
power ? What is unarbitrary power? The state 
exerts arbitrary power to prevent and punish other 
forms of murder murders which do not happen to 
be profitable to the manufacturers of Illinois. The 
Manufacturers Association of Illinois is aghast at 
the despotic restriction of the right of respectable 
employers to increase their profits by mangling wo 
men, poisoning girls, and burning men!" 



136 THE CHASM 

Bradfield made this point with savage earnestness. 
There was a sharp, quick burst of applause from the 
crowd, and then silence to hear what he would say 
next. 

"My father fought that bill," said Marion grimly. 
She had not suspected in the gentle Bradfield any 
such fighting power as now rang in his voice. For a 
moment she saw the whole profit-system and the 
social structure built upon it through his eyes. 

"Women s sympathies make them liable to be 
carried away by this sort of appeal," observed De 
Hohenfels. 

"They ought to be carried away! They ought to 
make men stop this kind of thing! I see why we 
ought to vote!" 

"Don t you see, you workmen of Moline," cried 
Bradfield, "that if, instead of a voiceless lobby there 
at Springfield, you had your own elected representa 
tives on the floor of that house there with the right 
to speak and the burning will to speak we could 
make the bought slaves on that floor and the masters 
in their palaces writhe beneath the knout of ouc 
criticism? Don t you know that our voices there, 
speaking as I am speaking here, would shame the 
State of Illinois into an approach to civilization?" 

"It s about time the unions found tndt out," said 
one workingman to another near the motor car. 

When Bradfield closed his speech, he called for 
questions, and briefly answered half a dozen stock 
objections to socialism. 

"He has it all cut-and-dried," observed De 
Hohenfels. 

"Do you call that cut-and-dried?" exclaimed Mar- 



THE CHASM 137 

ion. "It seems to me I never in my life till now have 
heard the voice of intense conviction!" 

"Well, perhaps when he was dealing with new 
facts. But these glib answers he has them by heart. 
I d like to ask him a question to make him think, 
but " 

"Go ahead," said Marion. 

"Wouldn t it draw too much attention for you?" 

"I don t mind in the least." She sat back, leaving 
it to him to speak or not. 

"Is there any other question?" called Bradfield. 

"Suppose you socialists get power," said De 
Hohenfels in a clear, incisive voice with British ac 
cent. "Suppose you really work out your theories in 
practise. What will then prevent the degeneration 
of men?" 

"There is nothing in capitalism to prevent it," re 
plied Bradfield. "Slums, starvation, overwork, un 
derpay these cause degeneration, and these we will 
remove." 

"You miss the point. Hard conditions have de 
veloped all the virile strength that has ever existed. 
You propose to remove the source of human 
strength." 

"Have hard conditions developed your strength?" 
demanded Bradfield. The workingmen laughed, and 
De Hohenfels wished he had kept out of it. 

"What discipline I have had is not to the point," 
he said. "This is not a personal question." 

"Then generalize it. Either thqre is no strength 
in what are called the upper classes, or they have 
developed their strength under easy conditions. You 
can take your choice." 



138 THE CHASM 

"It is a well-known fact," said the Russian, prefer 
ring not to choose, "that the elimination of the unfifc 
in the struggle for existence has been the chief cause 
of all race improvement. Socialism proposes to 
make existence so easy for all that even the most 
unfit shall survive and breed. Even sincere socialists 
admit this. You should read Jack London s War 
of the Classes. 

"I have," said Bradfield. "Jack s wrong for 
once. The same conditions that now eliminate the 
least fit also reduce the vitality of the most fit. The 
crushing process that destroys the weak half de 
stroys the strong. It stunts the life of all!" 

"You are going counter to the whole science of 
biology." 

"No, I am refusing to confuse biology and so 
ciology." 

"Who, may I ask, is your authority for your half- 
destruction of the strong?" 

"I am." 

De Hohenfels had suspected as much, but did not 
imagine the man would dare avow that authority as 
sufficient. "You will have to pardon me," said the 
aristocrat, "for declining to accept your ex cathedra 
statement, and for continuing to believe with the 
rest of the thinking world that the survivors of a 
severe struggle will be stronger than the survivors 
of no struggle at all." He turned to the chauffeur, 
wishing to end the argument with that, but Brad- 
field forestalled him. 

"A hundred men have malarial fever in Missis 
sippi," he said. "Three die. Ninety-seven crawl 
around for years half-men living half-lives. You 



THE CHASM 139 

would retain the swamp for the sake of killing the 
three." 

"That case is too special to base a theory on." 
"If you care to listen I ll give you fifty cases 
parallel. On second thought I won t grant your 
principle even in biology. The same species of pine 
that they make masts of where the tree has enough 
warmth and moisture, grows one inch high and has 
only three leaves in the hard conditions near the 
limits of vegetation. Take a human case from Jack 
London whom you cite his People of the Abyss. 
A million people half-starve in the dark, dirty, 
crowded rooms of London tenements. Many die of 
starvation, many of tuberculosis. What of the sur 
vivors of those hard conditions? Undersized, spir 
itless human wrecks!" 

"The real survivors of that struggle you will find 
in the West End of London." 

"In these days! Too few to count." 
"In my counting those few are worth all the rest." 
"You are at liberty to count crazily if it amuses 
you. We prefer to give the millions who are now 
starved and frozen and stifled into unfitness the 
chance to nourish and warm themselves*into fitness. 
My proposition stands. Humanity can afford to 
let more of the unfit survive for the sake of the 
heightened splendor of life in all the fit. Observe, 
by the way, that in this connection unfit means 
simply unadapted to the present ignoble money 
game. Through this sieve you lose some of the 
finest souls of earth. Leisure is good especially 
that leisure we shall earn with a moderate amount 
of healthful, socially useful work. You should have 



140 THE CHASM 

more faith in men, my friend, than to believe it is 
good for you to loaf and invite your soul but bad 
for the other fellow." 

"And you should have less faith in men. The 
fact that you are talking here on the street instead 
of in the Illinois Legislature proves that to the hilt. 
Why don t your workingmen elect you? They are 
worth nothing but scorn! Go on, driver." 

"They will some day," called Bradfield. 

"Ye didn t exactly eat him alive," shouted a work- 
ingman beside the car to De Hohenfels. 

As the big gray-green car moved off beneath the 
electric light, the speaker of the evening had a 
glimpse of Marion Moulton looking back at him. 



XIII 

THOUGH De Hohenfels had "nothing but 
scorn" for the socialist speaker s ideals, he 
was impressed by the man s decided person 
ality and undecadent will. As the car glided up 
toward Hillcrest, Marion, intently balancing her 
impressions of the two men she had just seen in 
conflict, detected a note of unconscious envy in the 
nobleman s musing question: "Where does he get 
that passion?" 

"From being in close touch with a vital, wide 
spread movement?" she suggested. "Did you feel 
his intimate relation with the crowd?" 

The explanation did not appeal to Feodor. "Do 
you suppose he is a student of that college we saw 
this afternoon?" 

"No," she answered. "He has had no education." 

"Oh, so you know about him? Evidently a local 
celebrity." 

"His parents are ignorant peasants. His name is 
Bradfield." 

She was about to add that she knew him person 
ally, but De Hohenfels at once became interested in 
accounting for intelligence from such a source. He 
thought the man must be regarded biologically as a 

141 



THE CHASM 

"sport." His faith in heredity, natural in an aris 
tocrat, had been increased by study of the pedigrees 
of blooded horses he had ridden at Tsarskoye-Selo 
and Rome. "Such a man s children are likely to 
inherit the ox-like qualities of their grand-parents," 
he observed. 

Marion looked away abruptly. For the first time 
she thought of Bradfield as the possible father of 
her own children, and De Hohenfels s suggestion 
made her shrink. 

The idea of the brotherhood of man latent in the 
street-speaker s arguments, and the fear Marion 
would feel that he himself had rushed in and got 
the worst of it at the hands of a workingman, 
stirred De Hohenfels to an eloquent exposition of 
his own biologic-aristocratic philosophy. He was 
in full swing when they reached Hillcrest, and con 
trary to his custom, was so obviously interested in 
what he was saying, that he hardly stopped while he 
and Marion were transferring themselves from the 
car to their favorite fireplace. It was his own esoteric 
doctrine, cherished the more because really under 
stood by only a few recondite spirits, that some one 
small class or section of the present race of man is 
destined to sever itself from the mass and develop 
into the higher race. He foresaw races of men 
existing on earth alongside the supermen as various 
ape tribes exist alongside men. He scoffed at the 
idea of a feeling of brotherhood toward these hos 
tile lower races, and took for touchstone of moral 
value the question, "Will this retard or further the 
coming of the higher race?" 

Marion stimulated his idea by saying that what 



THE CHASM 143 

she had read concerning the superman had appealed 
to her imagination but not to her reason. 

"What you have readl" protested Count Feodor. 
"My idea has nothing in common with the prevalent 
loose habit of calling mere superior individuals su 
permen. The herd have the word and are goring it to 
death. The real idea never dawns on them. There 
is no reason for the existence of any such term except 
to designate a not-yet-existing but possible genus 
differing from man as genus Homo differs from 
genus Simia. If the male of one and the female of 
the other group can habitually reproduce, there is 
no generic difference. If their offspring can also 
reproduce, there is no specific difference." 

"Would you mind putting that a little less tech 
nically?" said Marion, her forehead wrinkling and 
then relaxing as she smiled. 

"What I am driving at is this. Even a specific 
difference, producing hybrid and infertile offspring, 
is sufficient, as with horse and ass, to sunder two 
species forever. There is no more brotherhood, 5 
no more race-unity." 

"I saw two Madagascar wild men," said she, af 
ter some silent thinking. "Their keeper called them 
Houvres. Their skulls were very small and sloped 
to a point like a pyramid. I was told the bone was 
three times as thick as ours, and their spines seemed 
to run straight to the top of their heads. I do not 
think their brains could be one quarter the size of 
ours. Their eyes looked human, but their mouths! 
They are cannibals. Do you suppose they are be 
yond the boundary line of our species? I hope 
they are !" 



144 THE CHASM 

He looked at her approvingly. "That would be 
most interesting to know," he said, narrowing his 
lids in thought. "If it were demonstrated that 
their unions with highly developed Europeans could 
not produce grandchildren it would dispose biologi 
cally of sentimental talk about the brotherhood of 
man." 

"But we all come from the same ancestors," 
she objected. 

"Yes. From that one branch of the apes the 
Pithecanthropus which differentiated itself from 
all the others." 

"I see," said Marion. "You have a precedent 
for your idea." 

"A precedent? I have thirty. Every race in our 
ancestry back to the plant cytode< offers a prece 
dent." She sat for a moment taking that in. "There 
is no doubt in my mind," he said, "that the existing 
varieties of men constitute what biologists call incipi 
ent species. Whether these, or some of these, are 
to become permanent that is the most important 
question that can be asked concerning man." He 
rose energetically from his chair, stood with his back 
to the fire, and spoke with a curious blending of care 
fulness and passion. "The amphibian could not keep 
the ascending section of his race from becoming 
monotremes. The monotreme had to project out of 
his tribe the marsupial. The marsupial had to let 
the placentalia split away and upward. The pla- 
centals could not hold down or drag back that branch 
of themselves who became primates. The primitive 
primate could not maintain brotherhood with the 
aspiring prosimae. Destiny forced the prosimian 



THE CHASM 145 

to bring forth his superior, the simian; and all the 
ape-tribes could not league together and stop the rise 
of us the superape ! But man with his democ 
racy, his socialism, his brotherhood, his doctrine of 
equality, his power of creating an omnipotent majori 
ty out of weak, inferior individuals this race may 
thwart destiny, sterilize itself, abort, and not bring 
forth the superman!" 

"Is that what Bradfield s movement really 
means?" exclaimed Marion. "I had no idea there 
was so much real reason to believe we actually will 
develop a higher race. Why if that is so, Fedya, 
that rule of the lower bringing forth the higher, 
then that is the reason for the existence of man. 
If our race does not give birth to a higher, all hu 
manity will have existed in vainl" 

"And we will be the first to fail the first in a 
hundred million years." 

"The first traitors to the universe! But tell me, 
Fedya really your idea is wonderful have we any 
thing to indicate what the new race will be like?" 

"Only speculation." 

"But speculate!" 

He went and sat in his chair, pushed down its 
back with his shoulders, and half reclined. "One 
surmises that intellectually the superman will look 
as from air-ships seeing easily all the relations of 
multitudinous things minutely known. That de 
scendant of ours will draw steadily on such sources 
of power and knowledge as now open fitfully to 
trance psychics. He will know the psychology of 
superman, and man, of ape, and fish, and worm, and 
even what the sleeping rocks do dream of. He 



146 THE CHASM 

will know the laws of eugenics Mendelian laws, 
and apply them to his own breeding. He will exer 
cise self-government, not be governed either by tsars 
or by majorities. The unconscious development by 
which we have groped and stumbled part way out 
of darkness he will replace with clear and conscious 
development. He will rapidly shape his race into 
a race yet higher, training his children into powers 
more perfect than his own. He will know he is not 
descended from gods or god-like men who fell. But 
he, child of the worm, is father of the gods! The 
gods were man s deep dream of what man is to 
be." 

"It takes my breath, your vision!" said Marion, 
low. "I feel the immense past and future! A 
child was always wonderful but now! Think of 
it! A link in the cha-in of life from worm to god!" 

"He will be greater in will, in courage, in psychic 
power," dreamed De Hohenfels, " able to con 
trol men as men do dogs or the dog kind of men." 

"The idea is glorious!" she said. "You give your 
superman a superhuman mind and will. But why 
is he so ruthless, so cold? He will know, he will 
know! Is there no superhuman heart?" 

"He is certainly no sentimentalist, no non-resister, 
no sympathizer with inferiority." 

"No," she agreed, "but I see I will have to have 
a superman of my own. My superman is going to 
be a greater lover and friend than any man has 
been. He is going to love supermen, and men, and 
animals " 

"And superwomen," interposed Fedya. 



THE CHASM 147 

"He d be a superfool if he didn t!" she retorted, 
her eyes becoming joyous. 

"His love can be no sweeter to him than mine to 
me!" he said with sudden ardor. 

She gave him her hand quickly and pressed his, 
but turned away her face and held him back from 
kissing. "Over there, over there!" she commanded, 
pointing to his chair. 

"That sweet, sure pride of yours in feminine in- 
dispensability that woman-knowledge of your 
own value is simply ravishing!" he protested. 

"You will now state the objection I saw in your 
eyes to my warm-hearted superman." 

"My head is too full of a cold-hearted woman." 

"You know I m not. It s too bad you have to 
go and spoil a good talk. You interrupted a most 
poetic remark I was about to make and now I can t 
remember it." 

He gave a shrug and sat down. "How," he asked, 
resuming his wonted, faintly ironic tone, "is this 
amiable being of yours to dominate, to subdue, per 
haps in scornful mercy to prevent the birth of, the 
hordes of men who threaten his existence?" 

She could not say. He made her feel she was 
too facile with her warm-hearted superman. Ruth- 
lessness, coldness, were traits essential to any domi 
nant race or class which was to develop into a dis 
tinct new species. According to Fedya, this was 
the unconscious aspiration of every aristocracy the 
instinctive motive of its effort to differentiate itself 
from the mass. "The instinct of the mass," he said, 
"is to drag back and reabsorb all such aspiring life. 



148 THE CHASM 

In the past, I admit, the mass of mankind has been 
successful. Somewhere, somewhen, mankind will 
be overcome. The lords of war, Alexander, Csesar, 
Napoleon, failed. The lords of wealth may not. 
The intense and successful effort to draw the bulk 
of the life-sustaining wealth of the world into the 
power of a tiny social fraction may be, at bottom, 
a concentration of racial energy, destined to create 
a special environment, mold the new race, and 
force a chosen people of nature across the chasm 
sundering species from species, superman from 
man!" 

She gave an exclamation of comprehension. This 
vaster vision of Feodor s was it the other side, 
the cosmic import, of that class-struggle seen nar 
rowly by Bradfield? Was this the issue underlying 
all man s battles raging yesterday, today, tomor 
row, and only to be settled in future geologic time? 
If so, in her recent sympathy with Bradfield s ideas 
had she been guilty of disloyalty not merely to her 
class, but also to the highest hope and possibility 
of man? "Feodor:" she said, "is this tendency of 
every race to fork and send one branch upward the 
real cause of that class struggle preached by the so 
cialists?" 

"I should say that struggle is a phase of the fork 
ing; process yes." 

Then his aim their aim with their immense 
numerical superiority to wrest control of the 
wealth producing forces from us ?" 

"Is the same old instinct of the mass its latest, 
strongest, most dangerous expression." 

"But from their point of view or say from the 



THE CHASM 149 

point of view of humanity as a whole isn t their 
attempt to reabsorb us the effort of the organism 
called mankind to preserve its unity?" 

"Yes. Exactly. Thereby preventing the upward 
movement of the new and highest branch of the 
tree of life. Socialism is reactionary in that it blocks 
the progress of the most powerful few toward 
greater power. If the socialistic tendency prevails, 
if humanity retains its unity, real progress will be 
checked and the new race will not be born." 

"But if we prevail ?" 

"Then the pain and strain and misery of the 
laboring world are only pangs of the birth of the 
higher race of which humanity is destined to be 
the mother!" 

They sat awhile in silence, thinking. The idea the 
man had somewhat coldly formed by study and con 
structive thought tended to take on, in the warm 
imagination of the girl, the splendor of a new and 
vital myth. Here in the human future loomed a 
new Messiah, not one to save a little nation in bat 
tle, nor yet to save mankind in some mystic, spiritual 
way by sacrificing himself, but one for whom human 
ity must sacrifice itself, as parent for child, a Son of 
Man whom Mankind must either destroy in its own 
womb or bring to birth ! Marion sighed. "Fedya," 
she said, "if I looked through your eyes too much I 
would be terribly sad. I do not think my mind 
could bear that vast and tragic vision. I wonder if 
it is really true." 

"What makes you doubt it?" 

"If it was a question of myself and those hor 
rible Houvres they are ages behind us they do 



150 THE CHASM 

seem another species. But I do not feel even an in 
cipient race difference between myself and say 
Bradfield. In his youth my great-grandfather Moul- 
ton was nothing but a common blacksmith. Aren t 
you afraid to marry such a plebeian?" 

"You plebeian! You have every mark of the 
blood! That astonished me when I first saw you 
in Rome. You can t tell where it flows. Every 
where in Europe it has been mixed with Dravidian, 
Pelasgian, oh, all sorts of baser strains of con 
quered peoples. For instance, some think not a 
trace of Aryan blood remains In Greece. It died 
out there under too much light. That blacksmith of 
yours may have carried the old blood in unusual 
purity." 

"Then so may Bradfield." 

"Bradfield?" he said, looking at her curiously. 
"No. He s composite orthocephalic." 

"Can you tell so accurately?" 

"Not accurately. I know the pure types and can 
sometimes guess their intermixtures." 

"But if the blood flows everywhere " 

"It generally flows near the top or toward it." 

She was inclined to believe it. "How about your 
people, Feodor?" she asked. "How do you come 
to have a German name?" 

"An ancestor of an ancient German family of 
knightly rank taken prisoner in the reign of Ivan 
the Terrible settled in Courland." 

"And is all the rest of you Russian? Oh, of 
course, the Countess Xenia that makes you half 
Polish, doesn t it? How about your father? Tell 



THE CHASM 151 

me about him, Fedya. I am not even sure of his 
name." 

"Lyof Alexievitch." 

"What kind of a man was he?" 

"Typically a liberal. A university student in the 
days leading to the Emancipation. Court influence 
and a railway concession. Lucky thing, for he d lost 
money in a paper mill. He was close to Alexander 
II in the movement for the constitution in 8 1. A 
great orator in his generation, but tastes have 
changed. I couldn t abide his carefully balanced 
politico-moral harangues." He looked at Marion 
for explanation of her smile. 

"Were they anything like the messages of our 
strenuous President?" 

"Very much. His model was Gladstone. He was 
forever standing on some oratorical teterboard and 
deprecating reaction on the one hand and revolu 
tion on the other. In the reaction after the assassin 
ation of Alexander he lost all influence, lived on 
his estates, and spent the winters in Rome. He 
hoped to return to power in 94 when Nicholas 
came in, but when he found the young Tsar blowing 
hot and cold with every wind he gave it up, sold the 
St. Petersburg house, and bought the Palazzo 
Zuccari." 

"So that is how you came to live in Rome." 

"A year ago last February when the Tsar gave 
out the Duma manifesto and announced his indomi 
table will to rule through the representatives of the 
people, my father hailed it as the fulfilment of his 
old dream of constitutional Russia. Had he lived 



152 THE CHASM 

he would have had himself elected. Just before his 
death, he made me promise I would stand. I am 
doing it now. The elections are going on this 
month. Am I not an enthusiastic candidate?" See 
ing she did not quite like his tone, he added, "I 
might have taken some interest, but after the Mos 
cow revolution was safely suppressed, the Tsar be 
gan to talk about his indomitable will to bear the 
burden of government all alone. I thought then he 
was going to throw over the Duma altogether. I m 
glad I did think it, for that is what sent me to 
Rome and you!" 

He held out his hand for hers. She gave it ab 
sent-mindedly, thinking that if she married him she 
would have to get him to take that Duma more 
seriously. Just now she wanted more light on the 
working of heredity in the Hohenfels family. She 
thought of Fedya s Catholic uncle, Prince Razinsky, 
a cynical little man she had met at her ball in Rome; 
and then De Hohenfels, though somewhat bored, 
had to tell her about his grandfather, Alexis Feo- 
dorovitch, who, it seemed, had amounted to little 
in the army, never sought court favor, married a 
beautiful girl of uninfluential family, was something 
of a musician and poet, and fond of country life. 
The father of Alexis was Feodor de Hohenfels, a 
general of the Napoleonic wars, who wore many 
stars and crosses and medals, married the Princess 
Sarmatoff, one of the great dames of the period, 
stood high with Alexander I, and became Governor- 
General of Courland. He was a typical bureaucrat, 
orthodox, intolerant, bigoted, cruel to his peasants. 

Marion could not find what she was looking for 



THE CHASM 153 

some unifying thread of character, tendency, or tem 
perament in the various generations. Of course she 
was following only a single thread of the complex 
web of Fedya s ancestry, but as far as it went the 
history seemed to show that each man was chiefly 
a product of his time a result of its dominant ideas 
woven into the soul of each in the formative period 
of youth. She could discern no definite Hohenfels 
type nor anything justifying in the least the idea of 
a tendency toward a distinct and higher variety of 
the human species, and yet Marion went to bed that 
night with two powerful impressions one that Walt 
Bradfield s children might be like his parents rather 
than like him, the other that the child of Count 
Feodor, descending from the master class of eastern 
Europe, would be likely to begin life higher in the 
scale. 

And through her soul as she sank asleep was 
filtering that overpowering lonely myth dynamic 
as the myths that have given birth to world-religions 
the vision of mankind as a female, parthenogeni- 
tal, big with the embryonic daughter-race that shall 
replace us as the mistress of the earth! 



XIV 

EARLY next morning when Marion, half 
awake, began to pick up the threads of yes 
terday, she felt vaguely as though she had 
drifted into some conspiracy against the human race. 
She found herself in recoil against the Hohenfelsian 
interpretation of life. It affected too profoundly 
her feeling toward the mass of people in the world. 
It changed things too much. It made the dear old 
earth too wild and strange a theater for too vast a 
drama. Rising to close her window, she saw the sol 
emn sunrise and felt homesick for her simple old 
view of things as they are things unlit by the weird 
light that shines back on them from an immense 
and vividly imagined future. That actually exist 
ing man there spading the garden beds beneath the 
gorgeous, silent sky she started, seeing that the 
man was Walt. Her heart went out to him. For 
the moment he was representative of the race of 
men. At that dull work! Last night his face and 
gestures were expressive of intellectual energy, his 
eyes alert and lit, his voice ringing with conviction. 
Now his slow, steady movements as he cut and 
turned the crumbling soil, seemed to spring from a 

154 



THE CHASM 155 

totally different temperament. Was this the tem 
perament he had inherited and might transmit? 
Or were the temperaments of the digger of the 
earth and of the man of intellect after all formable 
and transformable products of their occupations? 
What would he have to say concerning the powerful 
new impression she had received from Feodor? 
Could the magnificent religious idea of the higher 
race survive his criticism? She dressed without call 
ing Mathilde, and went down to him; but in his 
presence lost hold of the things she wanted to talk 
about. She was embarrassed to begin with because 
she did not know how to address him. 

He answered her "good morning" with the same 
non-committal greeting, and came over to the edge 
of the concrete driveway along which she was walk 
ing. "You re up early," he said, starting to spade 
up a new bed. 

"Yes, I saw you here from my window." 

He glanced up at it unconsciously, showing that 
he knew where it was. "This is about the only time 
of day you " He left it unsaid. 

She hastened to break the silence. "I was im 
pressed by your speech last night. It s a shame the 
employers do not do all those things of their own 
free will without legislation compelling them. It s 
simply barbarous. Personally they seem like good, 
kind men. I cannot understand their attitude." 

"I can," he said, but evidently did not care to go 
into the subject. 

"I did not know you were a public speaker." This 
too failed, and she became uncomfortably aware of 
the banality of her remarks. "I suppose you know 



156 THE CHASM 

that was the Count de Hohenfels?" she said, trying 
to get to reality. "How did he impress you?" 

"As being pleasantly situated." 

"You aren t in a very good humor this morning. 
I think Count de Hohenfels admired you very 
much." 

"I had the honor last night of dining with his 
valet. James informs me that the Count has with 
him fifty-six shirts and he himself fourteen." 

"And from that you conclude?" She spoke cold- 

] y- , 

"That the Count is four times as good a man." 

"I think you are horrid," she said, looking him 
reproachfully in the eyes. "I did not expect it of 
you." 

"Did you expect of me the pettily amiable hypoc 
risy of pretending not to be jealous?" 

"Oh," said she, readjusting her ideas. She re 
garded him thoughtfully, her expression changing. 
"What an utterly frank thing you are 1" 

"Why not?" he said, unflattered. 

"I wish I knew what to tell you. I could do it 
now." 

"Don t you really know?" 

"I thought I did last night." 

"And now you like me again?" 

"Yes. Miserable jellyfish that I am!" 

"Nonsense! Why don t you accept facts?" 

"What facts?" 

"The big one. That you are in love with both 
of us." 

"But that is dreadful!" she gasped, shivering at 
his simplicity and directness. 



THE CHASM 157 

"Dreadful or not, you can t do anything till you 
face it. Stop muddling yourself by denying what s 
so." 

"But what shall I do?" she pleaded. 

He was tempted to take advantage of her mo 
mentary helpless reliance on his judgment, but felt 
instinctively that he could really gain nothing except 
through clearness and truth. It was these in him 
which made her rely on him, and confused though 
she was, he knew she would instantly sense any de 
parture from them in him. "Before you try to 
decide what to do," he said, "you must unsnarl your 
ideas." 

"That s what I have been trying to do. How is 
it to be done?" 

"In the first place you must accept your nature 
as it is and stop condemning it for not conforming 
to ideal preconceptions." 

"I m not aware of having any." 

"They are woven right into your thinking. A 
minute ago I stated the fact, and your thought-pro 
cess was: That cannot be true, for that is dreadful 
and I am not dreadful. 

"Well, I m not," she said defiantly, and then see 
ing him ready to give it up, she forced herself to 
follow his reasoning. "Yes I see what you mean. 
I am not dreadful is an ideal preconception. You 
want me to look at the bare facts, and " 

"And nothing else," he insisted. 

"It is hard when the facts are one s own heart." 

"I think I know the circle you have been mov 
ing in, and worrying over. The other night with 
me you loved me! Oh, you did!" He paused, 



158 THE CHASM 

repressing the emotion which had involuntarily 
found voice. "If I don t look out I can t think 
clearly either. Here : the fact that you actually 
are in love with two men calls for revision of your 
traditional theory that a girl can love but one. 
You have been trying to revise the fact. It is a 
false assumption that if one love is true the other 
must be false. They are both true." 

"Both true? But what then?" 

"The fact first," he insisted. "Is it the fact?" 

"It does seem to explain things. Yes, I suppose 
it really is the fact. But if they are both true," 
she said, in the tone of one thinking aloud, "then 
one, though true, must be disregarded." 

He realized which one would be disregarded, 
and groped for some way to hold her. 

"And that leaves everything just where it was 
to begin with," she concluded. 

"Not quite. You have accepted in your own 
mind the fact that your love for me too is true. 

"I see I have been too completely off my guard," 
she said. "I seemed to be using your mind to 
think with as though it were my own. It won t be 
a bit magnanimous of you if you " 

"If I ?" 

"I didn t realize just where that impersonal, scien 
tific method of yours was leading." 

"What s the trouble? Have you realized you 
ought to tell De Hohenfels the real state of things?" 

She was silent. She felt she had been trapped 
into a fatal conclusion. It would be unfair to Feo- 
dor not to tell him, and if she told him that she loved 
"the son of ignorant peasants," expecting him to 



THE CHASM 159 

admit such a man to the equality of rivalry, she 
felt he would simply decline such competition and 
withdraw. For, if anything, the class instinct of the 
Russian aristocracy, implanted in the boy Feodor by 
social transmission, had gained intensity by the far- 
reaching philosophic and poetic ideas which he him 
self had woven into it or, as he himself would say, 
had found in it. In him class instinct was reinforced 
by visioned biologic destiny. Seeing no honorable 
way to avoid losing him, the pain of it taught the girl 
better than she had ever known it how much she 
wanted him. Her desperation turned her against 
Walt. Just then she felt, however unfairly, that he 
was to blame for coming between her and Feodor, 
for leading her with his seemingly disinterested 
logic into this position. "I never should have made 
that admission even to myself!" she broke out. "You 
took advantage of my openness to force me into 
it." 

"I did nothing of the kind," he retorted, defend 
ing himself, but feeling that his cause, hopeless to 
him always, except for a few wild, exalted moments, 
was lost. "There was no taking advantage about 
it. As for forcing you into it it was your own 
honesty that did that." 

She gave a little gasp of dismay at the sight of 
Count Feodor strolling from the front of the house, 
and looking curiously at her and Bradfield. Check 
ing her first impulse to go toward him so as to avert 
a meeting between the two men, she waved her hand 
to him as a signal for him to join her. "We have 
been talking about your speech," she said signifi 
cantly to Walt. 



160 

"You are making a bad beginning," he warned 
her. "If you can t be frank with him about this !" 

"Please leave that to me!" She spoke low and 
sharply. "This is certainly not the time to tell him 
anything about you and me." 

"That may be. But I doubt if you ever do tell 
him." 

"Good morning, Fedya," called Marion, raising 
her voice a little. 

Count Feodor returned her greeting, throwing 
away his cigarette, and doffing his cap. His newly 
pressed English-looking clothes, svelte footgear in 
nocent of wrinkle, and immaculate colored linen 
were in striking contrast with Walt s russet shirt and 
thick-soled shoes bent up at the toes. 

"This is Mr. Bradfield," said Marion. 

Hohenfels stared, not conceiving that Marion 
could be intending to place a gardener with whom 
she happened to be talking on the footing of social 
equality implied by an introduction. 

"After last night an introduction seems belated," 
said Marion, trying to fill the awkward pause. 

"Oh," said De Hohenfels. "You are the street- 
speaker. I didn t recognize you. In the torchlight, 
you know, you really looked quite fierce." 

"I doubt if even a Nietzschian could look fierce 
making garden," observed Bradfield, and resumed 
his spading. 

It was startling to Hohenfels to hear himself so 
characterized by a man so dressed, so working. "I 
doubt if a Nietzschian would be making garden," 
he observed, not concealing his lack of high regard 
for that ancient occupation. 



THE CHASM 161 

"I think he would if it was make garden or not 
eat," said Bradfield with cheerful conviction. 

Marion saw that Fedya was irritated at his fail 
ure to think of some effective repartee. "Speaking 
of not eating," said she, "suppose we see if we 
can get some breakfast." She turned toward the 
house. 

"Oh, very well," said the Count. "Do you work 
here regularly, Mr. Bradfield?" 

"Yes," said Walt. He was thinking how sym 
bolic it was that he was once more to see Marion 
going away with De Hohenfels. 

"Then, no doubt, I will have the pleasure of more 
discussion of Nietzschianity. But I was thinking 
what confidence you must have in Mr. Moulton s 
magnanimity to agitate against his interests while 
in his employ." 

Was it a threat? Walt was warm and chanced it. 
"Possibly no one has taken upon himself the role of 
informer!" His hostile look square into the eyes of 
De Hohenfels left no room for doubt as to his mean 
ing. 

"That is a very singular thing for you to say," 
said Marion, looking back at him. 

"Whatever you may mean by that, Mr. Brad- 
field," said Hohenfels, turning to go, "it sounds 
awfully Nietzschian." 

As Marion and he went in she told him that she 
had hitherto found Bradfield interesting and agree 
able, but did not like him so well since he made those 
bitter remarks. 

"Why didn t you tell me he worked here and you 
knew him?" 



162 THE CHASM 

"I started to last night, but just then you began 
philosophizing about him." 

He remembered turning the conversation, but it 
seemed curious. 

Irritated by the gardener s conviction that it was 
accident and circumstance and not anything inherent 
in character which relieved the aristocrat from the 
necessity of digging for a living, Count Feodor had 
in fact made his remark about Mr. Moulton in or 
der to make Bradfield fear the loss of his job. He 
had laid hold of the idea only because the gardener 
was getting the best of their swift exchange of intel 
lectual pistol shots, and he did not fancy leaving the 
field in defeat protected by Marion. 

He saw it would now have a bad effect to let her 
know the man had any sort of justification for his 
cutting remarks. For one thing, it would give her 
too high an opinion of his penetration. It was easier 
to let her go on thinking no such idea as Bradfield 
accused him of had ever crossed his mind, than to 
try to make her see that even if he really should 
speak to Mr. Moulton about his gardener s political 
agitation, there would be no element of baseness or 
treason in the act. He was not a comrade of Brad- 
field, and he would not be playing the informer for 
pay. But it was fortunate for him that he did not try 
to justify himself along this line, for the girl would 
have thought it a poor business to use such a weapon 
against a workingman. 

He spent the morning at the piano, weaving on its 
strings incessant, shifting, complex webs of beauty so 
unearthly that, felt through them, the present world 
became at times to Marion no whit less wonderful 



THE CHASM 163 

than that distant, unknown future which veiled the 
far-off goal of man. Outside on the garden beds 
Walt listened and dug. 

At luncheon, Mr. Moulton, warming up a little, 
and Count Feodor found points of contact; and 
Moulton invited him to call at his office any time he 
cared to go through the shops. Finding that Marion 
was going to some reception, De Hohenfels went 
down that afternoon, and was escorted through the 
magnificent establishment of the United States Plow 
Company by the company s salaried inventor, an 
expert mechanic whose labor-saving improvements- 
were already saving the company scores of 
thousands of dollars annually in wages. He was a 
quiet, modest fellow. The company owned the 
patents on all his improvements. De Hohenfels 
found he was perfectly satisfied with this arrange 
ment. He had the power to endow machinery with 
human-seeming intelligence, but did not use it him 
self in considering his own economic status. "How 
indispensable to us are brainy fools!" the Russian 
gentleman philosophized. 

Mr. Moulton met Mrs. Pearson downtown. Their 
brief conversation as she sat in her automobile along 
side the curb, sufficed to alarm him as to the serious 
ness of Marion s affair with Bradfield. In the Lady 
Diotima s opinion, his son-in-law was going to be 
either Walt Bradfield or Feodor de Hohenfels, and 
the logical thing for him was to do what he could 
to make it the gentleman and not the gardener. 

Moulton thereupon went out of his way to pick 
up De Hohenfels at the plow works; and as they 
came whizzing into the Hillcrest grounds before din- 



164 THE CHASM 

ner, Bradfield looked up from the fresh black earth 
he had been all day spading, and saw his employer 
and the foreign visitor together. The Count nodded 
to him as the machine went by, and a moment later 
Walt saw Mr. Moulton look back at him. 

About half past seven, after Eldridge had gone 
around with the car which was to take Marion, Mrs. 
Moulton and De Hohenfels to a performance of 
"You Never Can Tell" in Davenport, Bradfield re^ 
ceived a summons to Mr. Moulton s study. 

The employer sized him up with interest. "I un 
derstand," said he, "that last night at a street meet 
ing you made an incendiary speech against the Illi 
nois Manufacturers Association." 

"If it is incendiary to tell the facts about the de 
feat of the Curran bill, I did." 

"The facts as you understand them," corrected 
Mr. Moulton. 

"The facts." He might have argued the point, 
but was too deeply interested in the source of Mr. 
Moulton s information. 

"We ll pass that point, seeing you do not care to 
substantiate your claim to absolute knowledge of 
the facts. You also indulged in some perfervid rhet 
oric on the subject." 

"Did De Hohenfels call it perfervid rhetoric ?" 
inquired Walt. 

Mr. Moulton did not attempt to conceal his in 
terest in this question. 

"I believe my informant called it hot air, " he 
observed after a moment s reflection. 

Walt looked at Mr. Moulton keenly, and set 
the remark down as an extremely clever attempt to 



THE CHASM 165 

throw him off the track. De Hohenfels had cer 
tainly never said "hot air." 

"Do you think of giving up your job here with 
me?" asked Mr. Moulton. 

"No, sir." 

"I have certain reasons for wishing not to make 
a martyr of you, but you cannot work here and go 
on talking as you did last night." 

"Very well," said Bradfield. 

"Does that mean you give up the job?" 

"As long as I hold the job I won t speak." 

"That sounds as though you didn t expect to hold 
the job long." 

"I haven t said anything about quitting." 

"Let us be perfectly aboveboard, Bradfield. Do 
you intend to stay here merely until the next time you 
want to speak?" 

"I m not looking that far ahead just now, Mr. 
Moulton. That would be a natural thing to do 
if I could get other work." 

"I ve said all I wish to this time," said Mr. 
Moulton after a moment s thought. "That s all, 
Bradfield." 

"May I ask if it was the Count de Hohenfels who 
told you about my speech last night?" 

"As a general thing I do not discuss the sources 
of such information. I see no reason for departing 
from my custom in this case." 

Whether or not Moulton deliberately produced 
such an impression, Walt went out with the case 
against De Hohenfels proved to his own satisfac 
tion. It made him angry that a man small enough 
to use such a weapon should, as a matter of course, 



166 THE CHASM 

be constantly at dinners, theaters, and in drawing- 
rooms with Marion, while he, a decent man, was, 
equally as a matter of course, spading the garden and 
eating with the foreigner s valet. 

At the sound of Walt s footsteps leaving Mr. 
Moulton s study, De Hohenfels, waiting for Marion 
to come down, looked out the door of the library. 
Walt saw him and stopped. 

"Good evening, Mr. Bradfield," said De Hohen 
fels. "It is an unexpected pleasure to meet you in 
the house." 

There was a footstep and rustle on the stairs be 
hind Walt, but he had no eyes or ears just then for 
anything but De Hohenfels. "I m here," he said, 
"because some informer has really done his dirty 
work about my speech last night. I don t mind telling 
you that I think it was you." 

"You think wrong," said De Hohenfels coldly. 
"If Mr. Moulton has discharged you he is well rid 
of an insolent servant." 

"Not like that, Feodor!" exclaimed Marion, 
speaking from the stairs. She came down as quickly 
as her trailing gown, which she held through an open 
ing in her opera cloak, would permit. "Mr. Brad- 
field, I am surprised that you should make an accus 
ation like that. What earthly reason have you for 
saying such a thing?" 

"This morning you heard Count Hohenfels try 
to scare me with a veiled threat that he would tell 
Mr. Moulton about my speech. This afternoon he 
came in from downtown with Mr. Moulton. They 
both looked at me, exchanged some remark, and 
went into the house together. This evening Mr. 



THE CHASM 167 

Moulton calls me up, and tells me to drop my speak 
ing or my job. He refers to my perfervid rhetoric 
a stilted phrase that has a peculiarly Hohenfelsian 
sound." 

"Be careful how you use that name, young man!" 
said De Hohenfels. 

Walt laughed. 

"Feodor," said Marion, impressed by Walt s 
statement of the case, "this isn t so, is it?" 

"It is not. Mr. Bradfield and his speech are not 
of so much importance as he imagines. I have not 
been thinking of it or of him." 

Mr. Moulton came to the door of his study, evi 
dently very much interested in the conversation, 
which was not being carried on in low tones. It 
happened that Marion did not see her father, though 
both Bradfield and Hohenfels did. "Is that enough 
for you, Mr. Bradfield?" she demanded. 

Walt was a little shaken by the Russian s expres 
sion when he saw Moulton. He did not look like a 
man caught in a lie. "I asked Mr. Moulton if his 
informant was De Hohenfels," said Walt, "and in 
stead of denying it he very plainly evaded the ques 
tion." 

"You were somewhat hasty in your conclusion, 
Mr. Bradfield," said Moulton suavely. Marion 
looked at her father. "Since there appears to be 
need for it, I will state for Mr. Bradfield s benefit 
that my informant was a private detective employed 
here in Moline to keep an eye on labor agitators." 

"Of course!" said Marion to Walt. In her eyes 
was a world of reproach and disappointment. 

"That gives me the worst of it," said Walt. He 



168 THE CHASM 

turned to Mr. Moulton. "I wish you had had the 
fairness to say that five minutes ago when you were 
asking me to be perfectly aboveboard!" 

"I think we needn t wait for your next speech to 
sever our present relations," said Mr. Moulton. 

"I agree with you," replied Bradfield. 

"Shall we go, Fedya?" said Marion. She turned 
and went toward the door. De Hohenfels bowed 
to Bradfield, and followed her, but his silent irony 
was lost on Walt, for all that Walt could see was 
Marion in her beauty and her splendor disappearing 
from his life. 



PART TWO 



PART II 

RUSSIA 
I 

MARION felt it deeply when she found she 
would not see Bradfield again before her 
wedding. He had left Hillcrest the night 
of his discharge. Another interview with him might 
be hard, but she felt she ought not to let all the 
splendid threads between them tear apart with no 
effort to save and bind them into an enduring friend 
ship. There were things in Bradfield she needed 
things she felt she would not soon find elsewhere. 
She wanted to make him feel better about that un 
fortunate mistake of his to admit that her father 
had not been fair to keep the thought of that 
last scene from clouding his whole memory of her. 
But somehow, for several days her time was so 
crowded and she did not know just where to reach 
him, and when she finally found out his address she 
found out also that he had gone to Chicago in search 
of employment. It was too late. 

The wedding was hastened by a telegram from 
Zhergan in Courland, forwarded by cablegram from 
Rome, announcing the election of De Hohenfels. 

171 



172 THE CHASM 

The Duma was to assemble in St. Petersburg by the 
end of April, and it was necessary for Marion and 
Feodor to spend at least a few days in Rome. At 
the wedding reception the ladies of the three cities 
read approvingly the cablegrams from Russian rela 
tives, aristocrats, and dignitaries, and feasted their 
wealth-loving imaginations on rumors of princely 
gifts title-deeds to ancestral estates in the Baltic 
Government of Courland, stock in the Moscow-Kieff- 
Vorones Railroad. They debated in low voices 
whether these unlooked-for accompaniments of the 
international marriage could be worth as much as 
that cool million represented by a single entry on a 
certain stock-book and a single ornate piece of paper 
certifying that "Marion, Countess de Hohenfels, is 
the owner of 10,000 shares of the capital stock of 
the United States Plow Company." 

For, of course, Dave Moulton, finding the pair 
could do very well without his financial assistance, 
gave it to them. 

Ignoring popular superstition, Count Feodor and 
his new Countess sailed on the Moltke for Genoa 
on Friday the I3th of April, and arrived with 
out mishap at Rome. They were received by Feo- 
dor s mother and her brother, Prince Razinsky, who 
was some sort of dignitary at the Vatican. He ad 
vised Marion to join the Greek Church in Russia on 
the ground of good form, smiled at the idea that 
one s private convictions should have anything to 
do with such a matter, and assured her that Feodor s 
failure to conform had hurt him in St. Petersburg, 
and would continue to do so. 

The Countess Xenia was glad to see her son de- 



THE CHASM 173 

voted to such solid subjects as economics and politics. 
He had armed himself in New York with works he 
thought would be advantageous to him in the com 
ing debates in the Duma. He and Marion had 
studied together in their room-like cabin on ship 
board, but the lessons she made him give her in 
Russian pronunciation were so much more personal 
and delightful, so much more conducive to kisses as 
they watched each other s lips pronouncing words, 
that they did not go very deeply into the "dismal 
science," as they still called it. At that time he 
thought her as fascinating as the Duchess di Calli- 
gnano, with whom in Rome two years before he had 
had a sumptuous amour. 

In Rome, gay with Easter and with spring, the 
Count and Countess did not receive formally, nor 
drive on the Pincio, nor appear at the Del Valle 
Theater, and saw only a few of their intimate 
friends. Marion sub-let her rented palazzo, and 
arranged other things left at loose ends. 

Feodor translated letters from Ilyitch Kronberg, 
describing the Zhergan election. Kronberg, who 
leased a brickfield from De Hohenfels, hoped his 
landlord would accept his services as political man 
ager in place of certain cash. The manager had 
been unable to learn whether his candidate was Con 
servative, Octoberist, or Constitutional Democrat, 
but Baron Medin of a neighboring estate having 
come out as a government candidate, the resource 
ful Kronberg put up his man under the non-commit 
tal name of Progressive, and that was enough for 
the people. They elected De Hohenfels because 
they hated the Government. 



174. THE CHASM 

The Socialists had expressed their opinion of the 
Tsar s Duma by voting for August Rumpe s cow. 
Count Feodor was not flattered to find he had 
beaten that political antagonist by only a few votes, 
and Baron Medin was furious. The vote for the 
cow was duly included in Kronberg s report. Marion 
laughed and said she would like to know these vil 
lagers of Zhergan. Fedya explained that there had 
been disturbances. Seventy-five thousand troops had 
forced out the popular revolutionary officials in 
Courland and re-established the government of the 
Tsar, and the country was now theoretically paci 
fied. If it proved to be so in fact, they could go 
there when the summer became too unpleasant in St. 
Petersburg. 

On the 2d of May, the Count and Countess 
started for St. Petersburg via Berlin. The Duma 
was to open April 27th. On May 4th they had their 
morning coffee on the Nord Express in the suburbs 
of Berlin, rode all day through agricultural Ger 
many, crossed the frontier at Eydtkuhnen, full of 
German uniforms and surrounded by broad low for 
tifications, and reached the Customs Hall at Vierz- 
bolovo after dark on Friday, April 2ist. Marion 
informed Fedya that since their wedding was on 
April loth they had been married only eleven days. 
Fedya thereupon gallantly forgave the Orthodox 
Church its antiquated calendar for the sake of the 
thirteen days it added to their honeymoon. 

The ex-American s passport was registered and 
stamped with a notice that she could not leave Rus 
sia without a police permit, or if her stay exceeded 



THE CHASM 175 

six months, without a Russian passport. It did not 
seem possible that these facts could ever become 
important to her. 

Leaving the frontier in a wide, mahogany-pan 
eled railway carriage lighted by scores of wax- 
candles, they were served with glasses of tea and 
vodka by uniformed, dignified servants whose grav 
ity was intentionally upset by the Countess practising 
her Russian upon them. All the night, with the red 
wood-sparks from the locomotive flying past the 
windows in the darkness, the train pushed into the 
unseen. In the weirdness of dawn the bride looked 
out upon a moorland of endless heather. Later she 
saw tracts of silver birches, patches of oats, Scotch 
firs, and occasionally little gray wood-shingled izbas 
huts not to be distinguished from stables the 
homes of Polish peasants. Them she saw at stations 
standing amid acres of wood cut and piled for loco 
motive fuel. They wore sackcloth or sheepskins; 
their shoes were of rope wound round their feet; 
they had unkempt hair, flat features, mournful eyes 
a sad, careworn, hungry-looking people. 

On the wooded banks of a river they came in 
sight of st eples and gilded cupolas, red-tiled roofs, 
and the gi iy walls of a fortress. From the station 
they looked up the narrow dirty streets of the city 
of Vilna, where palaces of Polish nobles stood side 
by side with arched gateways leading into dreadful 
courts formed by blistered, rotting walls that hid the 
dens and cellars of the Jewish poor. On the plat 
form moved Jews with quick, cunning eyes, greasy 
black curls, brass ear-rings and long kaftans. Two 



176 THE CHASM 

pretty, fair-haired girls in red blouses giggled and 
flirted with three or four soldiers in white caps 
and tunics. 

After luncheon they passed, at Gatchina, a summer 
palace of the imperial family. Truck farms and 
villages became numerous, and then they saw far- 
off towers and clustered domes of white and gold and 
green and blue. St. Petersburg rose somewhat un 
impressively from the flat Ingrian plain. 

When they pulled into the great, plain, lead-col 
ored station, the Count and Countess, instead of 
joining the crowd pouring from the train, remained 
in their railway carriage while Fedya s valet went to 
locate a certain coachman. A liveried chauffeur, di 
rected by a train-guard, came to their carriage, and 
respectfully addressed the Count. De Hohenfels 
shook his head and dismissed the man with a curt 
message in Russian. 

"My sister wants us to come to her house," he ex 
plained to Marion. "I can t stand her husband, M. 
Kokoreff. He s Assistant Minister of the Interior. 
His father kept a vodka-shop and became a million 
aire collecting, or rather not collecting, the revenue 
on vodka. You d think now that this Monsieur Ko 
koreff, who has quadrupled the paternal millions by 
lending wheat and money to peasants at one hundred 
and fifty per cent., was the only simon-pure patrician 
in Russia. He is insatiable. He throws government 
favor to a certain bank, and they give him bank- 
stock; he secures exemption from taxation for an in 
dustrial company and becomes a stock-holder." 

"Was it money she married him for?" asked Mar 
ion. 



THE CHASM 177 

"And power. He stands high with the administra 
tive clique the lick-spittle!" 

Marion shuddered, remembering her talk with 
her father about power. "Will you go to see your 
sister?" she asked. 

"Oh, I ll see her. She ll call on you. If you will 
be good enough to return her first visit after that 
we can drop the Kokoreffs." 

In the line of droshkies in the station yard De Ho- 
henfels s valet located a big coachman in a padded 
gown of dark blue drawn in by a narrow silk waist- 
belt. Feodor assisted Marion into a dark blue 
droshky drawn by a troika of black Orloffs, and they 
drove down the league-long, crowded Nevsky Pros 
pect toward the gilded spire of the Admiralty Build 
ing. They passed the Annitshkoff palace and the 
four bronze horse-tamers at the ends of the granite 
bridge over the Fontanka Canal half full of broken 
blocks of ice confined between massive granite quays. 
The American had a glimpse of Admiralty Square 
a mile long, quarter of a mile wide, surrounded by 
immense palaces, churches, and administrative build 
ings. 

They took a suite at the Hotel d Europe, hiring 
their own maids and lackeys, butler and coachman, 
and took part in the post-Easter festivities of the 
capital. Soon after their arrival they were enter 
tained at the American Embassy, and were included 
in an informal reception only two hundred guests, 
and court costume not required at the Winter Pal 
ace, the lodging of six thousand of the Tsar s re 
tainers. 

Until that very week, the Tsar had not been in 



178 THE CHASM 

St. Petersburg for fifteen months not since Bloody 
Sunday, when masses of shivering, half-famished 
workingmen, still retaining faith in the "Little 
Father," paid for their faith with their lives on the 
stones of Admiralty Square, and dying beneath the 
bullets of the "Little Father s" soldiers, quenched 
forever with their blood the old futile faith of Rus 
sia, and began the revolution. 

The Tsar s guests at the small reception were 
mostly of a class seldom seen in those large pink and 
white halls enameled in imitation of marble. There 
were men of letters, savants, professional men, many 
of them members of the Cadet or Constitutional 
Democrat party of the Duma which was to assemble 
on the following day. Very likely the Tsar thought 
a taste of the imperial hospitality would tend to take 
the edge off their opposition to his government. 

Marion met half a dozen people of note a 
famous orator and his wife, the editor of the chief 
organ of the constitutional democrats, the univer 
sity professor who had organized the influential 
Union of Unions, his wife, the leader of the Russian 
woman suffragists, a celebrated old chemist and his 
daughter, the Minister of Ways of Communication 
Prince and civil engineer, and a rising novelist, not 
yet significant or outspoken enough to be banished 
from St. Petersburg. 

When the new Countess was presented to the 
Tsaritsa, a woman with large features, waist too 
obviously laced, and a habit of looking at the floor 
when talking with anyone, the imperial lady asked 
her a perfunctory question about the higher educa 
tion of women in the United States. The Countess s 



THE CHASM 179 

answer led to a less perfunctory question about Vas- 
sar, and the next moment the American was called 
upon to defend her belief that the spirit of a place 
could be at once exclusive and democratic. 

"Democratic!" sniffed a lady of honor, as though 
the word were a bad odor. 

But people so seldom expressed an opinion differ 
ent from that of the Empress that she found it rather 
refreshing at least in an American. She encour 
aged Marion to tell of her own little group of ten 
"spirits" at Vassar from which the non-congenial 
were excluded by mere natural lack of affinity, and 
in which the congenial were not excluded by any ques 
tion of birth or wealth. The Vassarite told how she 
had brought a neighboring patriarchal nature-lover, 
and man of letters down from the seclusion of his 
hills to the frivolity of a dress-suit and an April hop. 
"He was the center of attraction," said Marion, 
"and in his droll, quiet, keen way the gayest of the 
gay. The girls filled up his dance program till he 
had to split dances, quarreled over his cutting 
a dance, and made such a fuss over him that the 
youngsters from Yale and Harvard were quite 
eclipsed. One disconsolate said he was going to give 
up football, study the spots on birds eggs, and grow 
a white beard." 

Liking Marion s way of talking to her as though 
she were a human being, the Tsaritsa considered the 
desirability of having the fresh and honest mind of 
this young woman in her entourage. Then remem 
bering something she had heard, she asked whether 
the Count de Hohenfels was still inclined to be in 
transigent in his attitude toward the Church. 



180 THE CHASM 

Upon the American s unsatisfactory answer, the 
Tsaritsa sighed and "conged" her not so cordially 
as the tone of the rest of their conversation would 
have warranted. So Marion lost her chance of be 
coming an intimate of the Tsaritsa a lady of honor 
in the hardened and cynical circle of the Russian 
court. 

The next day, before the opening of the Duma, 
Count Feodor had a college friend at luncheon, a 
M. Hertzenstein, who was a fine, scholarly man, 
somewhat devoid of humor, but an authority on 
agrarian questions, and well-informed as to the 
programs and tendencies of the various parties 
among the deputies. Marion saw how much valuable 
information Fedya was acquiring with small expendi 
ture of labor. They discussed particularly the prob 
able demands of the Labor Group. Hertzenstein 
said the muzhiks undoubtedly had to have more land, 
and pointed out that they could not buy it because 
existing prices and methods of farming left most of 
them in arrears for taxes at the end of every year. 
They talked of the self-educated Kurneen, a clerk in 
the Moscow branch of the Standard Oil Company, 
who had displayed such sanity, tact, and skill in or 
ganization that he had enrolled over a million in his 
Peasants Union with seven or eight million sym 
pathizers. 

"How this would interest Walt!" thought Mar 
ion. She made up her mind to send a letter to his 
Moline address telling him of Russia and the 
things she had wanted to say to him before she left. 

She had to resign herself to staying home inactive 
while Feodor and Hertzenstein departed for the 



THE CHASM 181 

Winter Palace to take part in the formal opening of 
Russia s first Parliament. 

The men found twenty thousand motionless white- 
tuniced soldiers of the Tsar massed about the palace. 

Inside, they found the deputies assembled on the 
left of the throne room, everyone standing, the 
black frock-coats of professional men and country 
gentlemen mingling with the dark gray cloaks of 
brown-faced, bearded peasants. The black-coated 
men talked in low, serious tones; the men in cloaks 
talked little, but watched everything with earnest, 
questioning eyes. 

Up the middle of the hall to the throne ran a nar 
row lane left for the Tsar and his cortege, and on 
the right of the hall, beyond that social chasm, was a 
throng of men in scarlet coats and gold braid, their 
breasts covered with jeweled stars and medals and 
crosses honorary generals and admirals, councilors 
of state, ministers, senators, heads of administrative 
departments among them many a flabby face and 
watery eye and sensual mouth. There was laughter 
among them the laughter of arrogant power, as 
they exchanged loud flippancies calculated to show 
that they, the inmost circle of the great bureaucracy, 
were no whit disturbed by all the revolutionary activ 
ity which had finally forced the Tsar into this farce 
of popular government. There was close relationship 
between the motionless, white-tuniced, still obedient 
masses of peasants and workingmen alined as sol 
diers outside the walls and the insolent mirth of the 
rulers of Russia within. 

De Hohenfels flushed as he looked at the two par 
ties and took his place among the people s deputies. 



182 THE CHASM 

There were not six men of his wealth and rank in 
the whole Duma. What was he doing there among 
peasants? He caught sight of Kokoreff with his 
monocle and his superior stare directed across the 
chasm; and Kokoreff, the grafting sycophant, the 
son of a brandy-seller, gave him a commiserating 
smile. De Hohenfels felt it a shame to him to re 
linquish power in Russia to such hands as Kokoreff s. 
And yet, to pay the price for power that Kokoreff 
paid would be more shame ! 

On the other hand the Duma, the people whose 
function it was to be fleeced what part had he with 
them? He felt himself to be in the old inconsistent 
position of his father that position forced upon 
him from the grave. Being in that hall at all, he was 
doomed to the paternal teterboard, between official 
goatdom on his right and popular sheepdom on his 
left. It seemed to put his esthetic immoralism out 
of joint. He had the pain of a man with an ideal 
which does not fit the facts. With his philosophy he 
had no logical ground for despising the scarlet- 
coated hogs and hypocrites of the bureaucracy. They 
were the actual "Overmen" of Russia, but not ex 
actly "arrows of longing" toward a higher race. 

There was a blare of trumpets. The Tsar en 
tered, accompanied by gorgeous court chamberlains 
and popes. They walked solemnly down the narrow 
lane, and reaching the throne, went through an 
elaborate religious ceremony. The insignificance of 
all ritual was made more glaring here by the men 
tally made contrast with the significant words which 
should have been spoken. After fifteen months of 
revolution had shaken Russia, ritual was all the Tsar 



THE CHASM 183 

had to lay before those thinking university men, law 
yers, civil engineers, and toilers. After the weari 
some ceremony, the Tsar read his three-minute 
speech from the throne. Presumably lest he should 
forget it, he had carefully written down the state 
ment that he loved his people and trusted in God. 
That was all. Not a word that meant anything 
nothing about the land needed by the peasants 
nothing about amnesty for men still held in prison 
for criminal beliefs such as that Russia should have 
a Duma, an uncensored press, and freedom of 
speech. 

"The kind-hearted Tsar loves his people," said 
De Hohenfels softly to Hertzenstein, "but he has a 
little way of expressing his affection with rifle-bullets, 
and this causes him to be cruelly misunderstood. It 
is very touching these lonely sorrows of the great !" 

"May God bless Me and you !" said the Tsar, end 
ing his weighty suggestions to his Parliament. 

Officialdom cheered the wise words of the Ruler. 

The Duma clapped no hand, raised no voice, mur 
mured no approving word. 

"Good for the Duma!" said De Hohenfels, tak 
ing in the expression of as many faces as he could 
see. Their silence drew his sympathy as much as 
the noise of the claqueurs in scarlet repelled it. 

The Tsar marched majestically down the lane and 
out, followed by officialdom. The deputies filed out 
in sullen silence, and went on board the steamer 
which was to take them to the Tauride Palace. On 
the way up the Neva they passed beneath the walls of 
the Central Prison. From many a window waved 
the hands of men and women whose agitation 



184. THE CHASM 

through the years had made the Duma possible. 
Their cheers rang out between the stone walls and 
the boat. 

And so, sneered at by the bureaucrats, treated as 
meaningless by the Tsar, cheered by the prisoners, 
opened Russia s first Parliament. 

Telling Marion about it at dinner, De Hohenfels 
repeated the epigram he had made about the Tsar, 
and described the first session in the Tauride Palace 
where the President, Muromsev, had appointed a 
committee representing all parties to frame a reply 
to the "God bless us" throne speech. 

"The Duma is composed of abler men than the 
bureaucracy," said Count Feodor. "It is not in na 
ture that men so stupid should rule the world for 
ever. With the revolutionary nation behind it there 
is a possibility that the now legally powerless Duma 
will repeat the course of the States-General under the 
French monarchy and take the whole power of the 
state into its own hands." 

"Wouldn t that be splendid!" cried Marion. 

"I m not so sure. The trouble is a movement 
like that once started doesn t know where to stop." 

"Do you mean they may go on to socialism?" 

"Yes. Not that these deputies are socialists con 
sciously. But it s in the air. Things drift that way. 
For instance these peasants eight or ten million of 
them calmly proposing to expropriate the land for 
themselves ! They think all they have to do is state 
their case and all the rest of the world will agree 
with them that the use of the land is a natural right 
which we landlords have cheated them out of! The 
Cadets with forty per cent, of the deputies against 



THE CHASM 185 

the Peasants thirty-five will insist on their paying 
for the land, but even at that ! We don t want to 
sell. Why can t they limit their demand to the ex 
propriation of the Crown land?" 

Having taken a box for the remainder of the 
season, they went to the opera that evening. It was 
a resplendent audience; and Marion could see she 
was an object of particular interest to many occu 
pants of the boxes. The book of the piece "Life 
for the Tsar" was irritating to Fedya by reason of 
its antiquated patriotic clap-trap; and his humor 
was not improved by the visit of M. Kokoreff after 
the first act. He went to the Kokoreff box to see his 
sister Vanya. There he had to listen to her re 
proaches for his neglect of her, and found no way to 
avoid accepting an invitation to a dinner she was de 
termined to give for him and his bride. The As 
sistant Minister exerted himself to be agreeable to 
Marion, telling her her appearance was making a 
most favorable impression, and that everyone was 
talking of the high opinion the Tsaritsa had ex 
pressed of the new American Countess. Kokoreff had 
never expected his brother-in-law, devoid of official 
influence, to accomplish any such master-stroke as a 
marriage with a sixty million rouble American in 
dustry. 

After the second act, Fedya came back bubbling at 
a meeting with two of his old companions of the 
Jockey Club, whom he introduced. They were whole- 
souled, good-natured fellows, popular in St. Peters 
burg, laughing heartily over things that were not 
very funny. They said "thou" to De Hohenfels, he 
called them Mitya and Volodya, and decided that 



186 THE CHASM 

what he needed was the old care-free, unthinking 
companionship of men. He had been narrowing him 
self too exclusively to the society of one woman. 

Marion liked these well-fed, happy animals, but 
when the four went after the opera to "The Bear," 
the most swagger of the big Petersburg cafes, she 
knew the three men would have had a better time 
without her. The need of women friends came over 
her keenly. That night in the darkness she felt 
the immensity of Russia stretching eastward one 
quarter of the way around the world so far that 
in order to look straight toward Vladivostok she 
must look down at an angle of forty-five degrees in 
to the earth. And in all that immensity not one girl 
or woman who cared for her! She cried with loneli 
ness and homesickness. 

When Fedya had gone next afternoon to the Tau- 
ride Palace, and his sister Vanya came to call, Mar 
ion disregarded his desire not to become intimate 
with the Kokoreffs and received Vanya as a sister 
indeed, and one in need. Unfortunately, with the 
best will in the world, Madame Kokoreff and the 
Countess Marion found little in common. The Rus 
sian lady cared nothing for books, pictures, music, or 
politics, and was very anxious to have her brother s 
wife come under the influence of Father John of 
Kronstadt in order that he might instruct her in the 
doctrines of the Orthodox Church. Like her uncle 
Prince Razinsky she laid stress on the social advan 
tages of conformity, though, unlike him, she would 
not admit that as her only reason for devotion. So 
cial advancement being in her mind the great end of 
existence, it seemed to her criminal and suicidal not 



THE CHASM 187 

to do the things that led to it. Marion saw, unwill 
ingly, before Madame Kokoreff took her departure, 
that Feodor s sister did not have in her soul either 
the need or the capacity for friendship. 

All six of the grandes dames Marion met at Ma 
dame Kokoreff s dinner were dominated by the same 
ideals. Tchin, official rank, not so much for its own 
sake as for the standing it gave one in society, was a 
passion and a longing that left no room in them for 
much enthusiasm for anything else. Their friend 
ships were calculated accordingly. Fedya said that 
was true only of "the administrative set"; but after 
half a dozen excursions into a more fashionable, 
frivolous, and wealth-displaying crowd, that too 
proved unalluring. The American girl, her spiritual 
antenna? out and active, and all doors at that time 
open to her, failed, during their ten weeks stay in 
the capital, to find in all its high society one genuine 
friend. 

The critical spirit, though it did her husband no 
harm in Rome, and would have helped him in Paris, 
really isolated him, she began to see, in St. Peters 
burg. She herself at that time shared to some ex 
tent his spirit. Bringing together in her mind re 
marks he dropped at various times, she found that De 
Hohenfels scorned the Tsar for his superstition and 
his pretense that he knew nothing of the terrible 
things done in his name, the bureaucrats for their 
sycophancy, militarism for its artificial ranking of 
natural inferiors above natural superiors, the gilded 
youth of St. Petersburg for their lack of esthetic and 
intellectual development, the scholars of the univer 
sity for their supineness, atrophied life-instincts, and 



188 THE CHASM 

ignorance of joy, the Christian anarchists for their 
sentimentalism and their unnatural doctrine of non- 
resistance, and the revolutionists for their futile sac 
rifice of self for the abstraction they called "the 
Cause." Did he realize that he was in accord with 
no one, saying yes to nothing but his own far-off, 
gigantic dream of a race unborn? 



II. 

MARION S hope of a political career for 
Fedya ended early in fact on the third day 
of the Duma, when the committee of thirty- 
three brought in its reply to the Tsar. The Cadets 
had yielded to practically the entire revolutionary 
program of the meek and lowly peasants, demanding 
not only the rights of free speech, press, and assem 
bly promised by the Tsar in his October manifesto, 
but also amnesty, responsible ministry, universal 
suffrage, the abolition of the upper house, and ex 
propriation of all property in land. 

The Progressive Party, consisting of De Hohen- 
fels, had hitherto been torn by internal dissensions, 
but now its sympathies swung abruptly from the 
center to the extreme right of the Duma. Even 
there there were only eleven deputies who did not 
endorse the committee s reply to the Tsar. The elev 
en, including De Hohenfels, left the Chamber, and 
the reply was adopted unanimously. After refusing 
to vote for the reply because of its demand for 
the expropriation of land, and refusing to vote 
against it because such a vote would be a vote for the 
Tsar, De Hohenfels came home disgusted. 

On that day the Countess saw just why her hus 
band s inability to join any real and definite move- 

189 



190 THE CHASM 

ment doomed him to futility in the Russia of their 
time. He was neither for autocracy nor for democ 
racy, and in Russia no third thing was possible. She 
lay awake a long time that night thinking about it. 
She remembered how fine she had once thought his 
idea that the Russian upper class should "hold the 
people in check," not by filling their heads with out 
worn religious superstition and hocus pocus, but by 
sheer strength of intellect and will deriving their 
power not from subservience to an autocrat backed 
by an army, but from their own individual souls 
the natural supremacy of the finer breed. How thin 
and unreal that idea appeared in contact with actual 
conditions ! 

She tried to remember just what Bradfield had 
said predicting De Hohenfels s political failure. At 
the time she had attached no importance to his 
prophecy it seemed such a snap judgment, based on 
so few facts. Apparently Walt had grasped their real 
significance. She could not remount to the exact 
ground on which he had based his idea, but she 
knew it was substantially correct. He had seen at 
once what only the event could convince her of 
that Fedya s position as an anti-bureaucratic wealthy 
landowner prevented his alliance with either of 
the two great hostile forces of Russian life. 

She did not yet understand her own satisfaction in 
the action of the Duma. To feel so gave her a sense 
of disloyalty to Fedya s interest, but she could not 
help it. Perhaps it was merely because she had 
grown up in a republic. Perhaps her feeling lay 
deeper in that profound discontent which had arisen 
in her before her marriage when her quarrel with her 



THE CHASM 191 

father made her feel keenly for the first time that she 
was of necessity a dependent human being her 
only choice being dependence on father or husband. 
The one escape from that lay in productive, income- 
producing work of her own, and Bradfield had 
warned her back from that as being under present 
conditions a degrading slavery of toil, the fruits of 
which must flow to other hands. It was probably this 
in her the approaching revolt of the Woman 
which gave her sympathy with that other world-re 
volt of the Worker. The reply of the Duma to 
the Tsar was one of its thousand voices. 

Fedya s first enthusiasm as a teacher of Russian 
phonetics having waned, Marion hired as tutor a 
student of philology recommended by one of the 
university lecturers. Vasili Pososhkov was a pale 
shy youth with spiritual forehead, bad teeth, and an 
uncanny facility in mastering languages. Through 
cold and hunger and poverty in St. Petersburg he 
clung with demonic persistence to his university 
career. He came every morning at eleven, treated 
the Countess with formality, did his work thoroughly 
and without enthusiasm, and she had set him down as 
a dry-as-dust sort of person. 

One day they finished reading Tolstoi s Sunday- 
school story about the peasant Ivan Shcherbakof, 
entitled "Neglect a Fire and It Spreads." 

"And if anyone ever did him any harm, he made 
no attempt to retaliate," repeated Vasili Pososhkov, 
and tossed the book contemptuously on the table. 
"What supine rot!" He spoke defiantly. "The peas 
ants have had about enough of being walked on!" 
he announced. "Why don t you read Gorky and hear 



192 THE CHASM 

the voice of a Russia that no longer intends to turn 
the other cheek to its enslavers the Russia that is 
sick of letting itself be harmed without retaliation 1" 

"My dear fellow," said Marion, "I intend to 
read Gorky. In fact I have already read some of his 
things in English. He is tremendous." 

"Then how can you stand Neglect a Fire ?" 

"I m learning Russian." 

"If you understood Gorky I wouldn t read that 
Tolstoi rot if I found it in Chinese!" 

The Countess protested her innocence of the crime 
of endorsing the non-resistance theory of Tolstoi s 
Christian anarchism, but the humdrum Vasili Pososh- 
kov once ablaze could not be quenched until he had 
voiced the profound and passionate faith of proleta 
rian Russia in Gorky and the coming social revolu 
tion which would never come so long as people 
were so morally dense as not to be ashamed of own 
ing copies of "Neglect a Fire." 

"Vasili Pososhkov, have you a sense of humor?" 

"No, Madame Countess. There has been nothing 
in my life to give me one." 

That gave Madame Countess a thrill of insight 
into the youth s life, but her sympathy did not deter 
her from delivering the message she had for him. 
"You must learn to laugh especially at trifles. If 
that kind and brave old man is foolish smile at him. 
Save your energy. One can even read Neglect a 
Fire without destroying the social revolution. To 
morrow we will read Gorky." 

Gorky (Bitter) gave her a desire to see the life 
of the workers of St. Petersburg. The first saint s 
day that closed the University and the factories she 



THE CHASM 193 

took a motor car, a driver, and Vasili Pososhkov, 
and went to the Vibourg suburb. They traversed 
miles of slightly sandy driveways winding through 
the greening woods and budding alder thickets of the 
island parks of Petersburg; passing villas, palaces, 
gardens, casinos; skirting granite quays of the Neva 
arms; crossing bridges from woodland to woodland 
of silver birch and solemn fir; sweeping around dim 
forest-mirroring lakelets. From that spacious play 
ground of the rich, used by some of them for a few 
weeks of the year, they emerged on the north bank 
into a dismal city of gaunt factories, packed and filthy 
tenements, damp cellars below the river level where 
a dozen or more men, women and children lodged in 
a single room. Sometimes that room was flooded 
when a hard wind blew a certain way from the sea. 
Recognizing the responsibility of society as a whole 
for the welfare of these its cellar-dwelling members, 
the authorities met it by having a cannon fired when 
the flood was coming. The cellar-dwellers were ac 
cordingly not drowned, but merely rendered home 
less till the waters went down and they could bail 
their apartments. 

Vasili Pososhkov regretted that she could not see 
those warrens of the poor when the Arctic circle 
spilled its cold down through St. Petersburg, or when 
the summer stench arose from the low lagoons. She 
heard him talk with the maimed, the sick, the starv 
ing; she saw men dying of consumption on straw pal 
lets on damp and sunless floors, a lunatic lodged 
in a room among young children, a woman raving 
perhaps in typhoid no one knew. Vasili Pososhkov, 
coldly explaining everything, held her mind to grew- 



194 THE CHASM 

some details that bit into her soul. She could not 
stand it. She grew sick. She had to leave. 

"One should cultivate a sense of humor," said 
Vasili Pososhkov. 

She could not see the grim humor of that. 

In the motor car again, the young Russian renewed 
his attack. 

"Tolstoi knows these conditions and wishes to 
change them," he said, "yet he is so darkened by his 
upperclass mind and his Christianity that he has 
dared to call economic reform nonsense, and to 
preach resignation blind to the blazing fact that 
the one hope of the world lies in the successful rebel 
lion of the class that is now pushed down into that 
hell!" 

The things she had seen were working too deeply 
in her soul to permit of argument then. 

On the way back across the spacious islands held 
netted in the branching Neva, he told her how they, 
the proletarians, working for the sake of their own 
life, and not for other people s profits, would line the 
woodland drives of all those forty islands with league 
on league of neat sweet cottages, cleaned and warmed 
and lighted by the power of the rushing waters. 

"I hope you do it soon!" she exclaimed. "You or 
somebody. All I fear is that you won t." 

That started him on the real weakness of the class 
whose power, embodied in rifle bullets, maintained 
the island parks and the Vibourg suburb. According 
to him their intellects were atrophying. Their in 
comes came to them with little exertion of mind or 
body. Their political power was maintained with 
little more mental effort than it took to command 



THE CHASM 195 

"Fire!" Justification in their own minds for the 
present scheme of things was furnished by political 
economists, editors, philosophers, novelists, who 
"had to live" and therefore wrote and taught the 
things that led them upward in the existing social 
order. He pointed out the inefficiency of the mili 
tary and naval officers in the war, instancing the 
childish panic that made them fire on the English 
fishing boats in the North Sea taking them for 
Japanese torpedo boats which were ten thousand 
miles away. He asked her to read a few state papers 
of the leading bureaucrats for proof that they were 
not masters of any language. "With a private in 
come of sixty-six million roubles a year and the Rus 
sian army the Tsar needs no brains and has none 1" 

"I think you are mistaken about that," said Mar 
ion. "I have heard he is not so ignorant as he seems 
about things that are happening." 

"Then so much the worse for him," he exclaimed. 
"Is deliberate, open-eyed brutality to rule us forever? 
They pride themselves on strong will-power. It is 
shown chiefly in their ability to overcome the weak 
ness which makes an unhardened human being 
loath to order the destruction by rifle fire of a crowd 
of unarmed men and women coming to tell their 
rulers they are perishing of cold and hunger." 

Marion could not really judge at that time, but 
felt that Pososhkov underestimated the power of the 
enemy. 

That night she talked to Count Feodor of that 
damning contrast the island parks and the Vibourg 
suburb. 

He replied that he could practically match the con- 



196 THE CHASM 

trast in every great city of the modern world 
including New York. In St. Petersburg there was 
no truckling attempt to hide or deny it. In his 
opinion the true attitude of the aristocracy of all 
time was expressed by Beatrice when Dante won 
dered if she were not made unhappy by compassion 
for the souls she saw in burning hell. She answered: 
"God in his mercy has made me such that the fire 
of this burning does not touch me." 

If the price of the island parks was all that human 
misery, he felt that this very fact gave their beauty 
added elements of costliness and terror. This idea 
struck him as so profound, so true to the nature of 
the universe in which we live, that he resolved to 
embody it in a tone-poem called "The Islands of the 
Neva." 

He sought themes expressive of the despair of the 
starving dwellers of the mainland and treatment 
suggestive of the weakness, ebbing vitality, and 
broken spirit, which kept those wretches from revolt. 
He had no difficulty with the contrasted movements 
full of the joy of life, the sense of power, the pride 
of mastery over the world, the exuberance of soul 
that overflowed in love of beauty and magnificence. 

His inspiration here was his conception of Peter 
the Great the physical, intellectual, and moral 
giant whose will had created immense and massive 
St. Petersburg there amid insalubrious marshes 
where no spontaneous city of men could have arisen. 
De Hohenfels strove for strange and Brobdignagian 
harmonies and movements to glorify the unnature, 
the monstrosity of that creation. He remembered all 
he had ever heard or seen or read of Peter the 



THE CHASM 197 

life-size, wax-portrait model of him in the Palace of 
the Hermitage sitting in his own chair, dressed in 
the very clothes he wore, grasping the very sword he 
had wrested from the ruined king of Poland beside 
him the yellow war-horse he had ridden at Poltava 
the day he founded Russia upon the ruins of Sweden. 
Feodor, the musician, in his own imagination became 
Peter, ruining Poland, ruining Sweden, transforming 
the Neva-marshes, transforming the Muscovite Rus 
sia that had been into the European Russia that he 
willed to be. 

That destruction and assimilation of nations was 
to De Hohenfels s imagination only a vast develop 
ment of the primitive vital theme the capture and 
destruction and assimilation of one living thing by 
another the theme announced in minute notes by 
the musician Nature when the first animal cellsturned 
from inorganic food and began to suck in, break 
down, and absorb the living tissue of their organic 
fellows. In the last analysis it was the imaginative 
emotion aroused in him by the whole of life as he 
conceived it which he was striving to express in 
music. He voiced indifferently the tragic hopeless 
ness of helpless victims, and he voiced well the vic 
tor s power and joy of power, but he felt he was fail 
ing to make his music express the peculiar relation he 
wished it to between this hopelessness and this joy. 
The originality and the thrill of his first conception 
did not seem to work out in musical form. 

He was playing over all he had written one morn 
ing when Marion and Vasili Pososhkov were work 
ing in a neighboring room. They stopped to listen, 
the tutor s interest heightened by her remark that it 



198 THE CHASM 

was her husband s own composition he was working 
on. 

"Magnificent!" said Pososhkov when De Hohen- 
fels played what he called the Peter music. 

Marion had been deeply impressed not only by 
the music but also by Fedya s profound and poetic 
verbal interpretations of it. Believing Vasili would 
be similarly affected, she outlined the composer s 
original conception the seminal idea of the work 
and some of the branching ideas that had since put 
forth. 

"That s what he thinks he s doing, is it?" grunted 
Pososhkov. "Glorifying Bloody Sunday! The noble 
battle! Well, the music s all right. Fortunately 
he can t narrow that universal language to his mean 
ing. The dream of Peter nothing! Do you know 
what those big, weird chords are really? That s the 
giant Labor waking from his strange old sleep. And 
that exultant part? Democracy triumphant the 
voice of new Russia. And that doleful stuff? The 
miserable Russia which has been including a wax 
work Tsar and his stuffed horse!" 

"Don t you make a mistake in considering such 
conceptions dead while they still have life enough 
in a human mind to produce art like this?" 

"It is good music because he is a good musician 
in spite of his false social conceptions. It is good 
because it happens to express our true ones." 

"How can the same piece of music express these 
opposite conceptions?" 

"The musician s conceptions arouse in him cer 
tain feelings which he expresses. But in me these 
very feelings are associated with opposite concep- 



THE CHASM 199 

tions. He says that is Tsar Peter s joy of power. 
It s nothing of the kind. It s anybody s joy of power. 
I like it, not because Tsar Peter had it, but because 
the Russian people are going to have it." 

She admitted he had the best of that, and they 
went back to their Russian grammar, Vasili Pososh- 
kov deciding that the American Countess had a 
penetrative intellect and a fair spirit. 

When she repeated the young tutor s various 
comments to Fedya, he made the point that his 
own philosophy and Count Tolstoi s being diametric 
opposites, Pososhkov could have no real ground for 
rejecting both. 

She hurled that at Pososhkov next morning. The 
linguist seemed puzzled, but did admit that the two 
philosophies really were opposites. Marion then 
insisted that he must choose between them, and 
when he declined, accused him of being unwilling to 
admit defeat. 

"But what exactly is the main question upon which 
Count Hohenfels and Count Tolstoi take opposite 
sides?" 

Marion thought in its broadest form it was the 
question of egoism vs. altruism. 

Pososhkov preferred to define it as the actual 
practice of the world (mainly egoistic) vs. the Chris 
tian theory of altruism. "The present practise of 
living off the labor of others means island parks for 
you and Vibourg tenements for your neighbor. It is 
not reconcilable with the theory love your neighbor 
as yourself. Your husband escapes this contradic 
tion by accepting the world s actual practise and 
throwing away the hypocritical pretense of altruism. 



200 THE CHASM 

Count Tolstoi tries to escape it in the other direction 
by accepting the Christian ideal and throwing 
away the world s practise. What he actually does 
is personally half to renounce the fruits of capital 
ism. He still owns Yasnaya Polyana, but thinks he 
makes that all right by dressing as though 
he didn t." 

"But does he think so? Doesn t he himself feel 

that as an inconsistency that exposes him to ridicule ?" 

"Whether he feels it or not, it is true," said Po- 

soshkov. "He tries to escape the contradiction and 

fails." 

"Well," said she, with a gleam of approaching tri 
umph, "I admit your point against Tolstoi. But I 
noticed you said my husband does escape the contra 
diction." 

"Yes, his position is logical." 
"Then why don t you accept it?" 
"Because there is an infinitely better one." 
"Better than one that is perfectly logical?" 
"Certainly. Ours is not only logical, but right. 
Your husband s is logical and rotten. It means 
Vibourg tenements. The whole miserable problem 
disappears with the system of private ownership of 
the sources of life. Owning Russia in common, new 
Russia thereby establishes work and reward on a 
basis that antiquates both the worldly practise of ex 
ploiting others, and the Christian theory of allowing 
others to exploit us." 

But the next day, having thought this over, Mari 
on forced Pososhkov to retreat from his poor 
opinion of Tolstoi s altruism for Tolstoi. "I can 



THE CHASM 201 

see now," he said after listening to her, "that in 
men of Tolstoi s class altruism, non-retaliation, is 
not socially noxious. Altruism in him does no 
harm. But don t let him preach it to us. I know 
in every fiber of my being that altruism, submission, 
meekness, on the part of our class means leaving 
practically all social wealth and power in the hands 
of the few whose use of it makes such a world as 
we have. That is socially noxious. The selfish self- 
assertive desire of the poor, the workers, to hold 
enough of wealth to maintain life well is socially 
valuable. The selfish desire of the rich for wealth 
beyond what is necessary to maintain life well is bad 
for the common life. Improvement in our society is 
furthered only by altruists among the rich and ego 
ists among the poor. It is retarded by the egoist 
rich who own the earth and the altruist poor who 
let them own it." 

Marion did not care to go into it with Vasili Po- 
soshkov, but back in her own mind, unanswered, 
was the question whether the concentration of wealth 
he considered socially noxious might not be the 
world s unconscious preparation for the mighty work 
of molding the beyond-man. 

In succeeding days she saw wider applications of 
Pososhkov s method of attacking the egoist-altruist 
problem. She laid hold of tools of thought that 
were new to her. She had never realized that a posi 
tion could be "logical and rotten." She had thought 
the maxim "Of two evils choose neither" a witty im 
possibility. And this new thinking of hers tended to 
reduce the ascendency Fedya had established over 



202 THE CHASM 

her mind in th e blaze of intellectual and artistic 
power in him when he first conceived "The Islands 
of the Neva." 

His musical enthusiasm had begun to wane even 
before he was drawn off by his appointment on a 
commission sent by the Duma to investigate the 
massacre of the Jews in Bialostok. In that town he 
helped to gather, sift, and analyze a mass of testi 
mony proving that the butchery of unarmed men by 
armed, organized, and carefully directed mobs, the 
raping of women, the killing of children, was done 
with the connivance of the police and local military 
authorities, that some of the police were eye-witness 
es of some of the murders and made no attempt to 
stop them, that women fugitives escaping the mob 
were denied refuge at police headquarters, being told 
by the chief of police that what they were getting 
they deserved because of the socialist agitation 
among the Jews. The commission found that the 
Anti-Semitic newspaper editor whose paper had care 
fully manufactured sentiment against the Jews had 
been given free rein by the Governor-General of 
Grodno, that this editor and his son had organized 
the bands of so-called Black Hundreds which were 
led and directed by prominent citizens of Bialostok. 
The Governor-General had refused the Jews permis 
sion to arm themselves in self-defense, and one band 
who did arm themselves were overpowered and dis 
armed by police and soldiers, who then left them to 
the mercy of the Black Hundreds. The commission 
found that the editor was acting with the approval 
of the St. Petersburg authorities. 

The Minister of the Interior published a report 



THE CHASM 203 

on the causes of the massacre which the Duma s 
commission proved to be wholly at variance with 
the facts. The final report of the commission placed 
the responsibility for the massacre upon the Central 
Government itself. 

To the Duma s specific charge of direct complicity 
in the wholesale murders of Bialostok the only an 
swer of the Government was a manifesto of the Tsar 
stating in general terms that riot, sedition, and rebel 
lion were rife throughout the Empire, that seventy 
thousand lives had already been sacrificed, and that 
this condition had been brought about solely through 
the dirty work (skernoye dyelo] of the revolution 
ists. 

Upon De Hohenfels s return from Bialostok, M. 
Kokoreff came to him and told him that as his 
brother-in-law he wanted to warn him that he would 
find it seriously to his personal disadvantage if he 
did not use his influence with his colleagues to secure 
a more "conservative" report. 

Count Feodor replied that if Kokoreff wished to 
indulge himself in the pastime of arranging mas 
sacres, to go ahead, but not to expect people of dif 
ferent tastes to help him avert publicity. 

Kokoreff said significantly that even for certain 
unofficial acts he had the sanction of his chief. This 
should have overwhelmed De Hohenfels, but to 
Kokoreff s horror, when the report appeared, he 
found himself quoted to that effect. He saved his 
official head only by swearing he had never made the 
remark. 

De Hohenfels was protected by a theoretical im 
munity from arrest enjoyed by members of the 



204 THE CHASM 

Duma, but "the Tsar s promises" had become a 
proverb. Scores of men who had accepted as made 
in good faith the ukase granting the right of free 
speech and had used the right had been instantly 
seized and subjected to terrible treatment by the 
police. Of them and their agents, after Bialostok, 
Marion began to live in fear. 

De Hohenfels s work with the commission having 
brought him into closer touch with his colleagues, he 
again attended the sessions of the Duma. Things 
there were coming to a head. The peasant deputies 
had reached almost the limit of their patience with 
mere speech-making. Pressure had been brought 
constantly to bear on them by their constituents who, 
in twenty thousand letters and telegrams, wanted to 
know why they had not secured the land. By the 
middle of July, after the Tsar s manifesto, which, 
the peasants noticed, said nothing about the land, 
committees of muzhiks from all over Russia came 
pouring into St. Petersburg "to find out what was 
the matter with their deputies." 

Commenting on this, Vasili Pososhkov said to 
Marion that it showed how really representative the 
parliament of new Russia would be "when decay 
ing, capitalistic autocracy is over and done with and 
the stench of it gone from the earth!" 

Their spines stiffened by the knowledge that there 
were ten million peasants behind them, the Labor 
Group prepared an appeal to the people stating that 
the Duma was an impotent body, that it could do 
nothing but talk, and that the only way to secure any 
change whatever in conditions was for the people 



THE CHASM 205 

themselves to rise en masse and overturn the existing 
Government. 

That Saturday afternoon, July 2ist, the Consti 
tutional Democrats who had made the long speech 
es the peasants were weary of hearing proposed, 
instead of this appeal, a statement to the people ex 
plaining why they could do nothing, but omitting the 
Peasants revolutionary call to arms. 

Monday morning, the time set for the debate be 
tween the Peasants with their appeal and the Cadets 
with their statement, De Hohenfels went as usual to 
the Tauride Palace. He found the building full of 
troops, crowds of excited deputies in the corridors, 
and on the locked door of the assembly room a man 
ifesto of Nicholas dissolving the Duma. 

In the corridor, Hertzenstein, who, as chairman, 
had signed the report of the Bialostok commission, 
met De Hohenfels and took him to one side. "I am 
going to Finland this afternoon," said he. "In fact 
most of us are. I don t know whether you will be 
with us in what we may decide to do from across 
the border but take my advice and get out of St. 
Petersburg. Better get out of Russia. And do it 
to-day." 

De Hohenfels thought him unduly alarmed, but 
had no intention of remaining in St. Petersburg 
through the summer, and went home to talk it over 
with Marion and decide where they were to go. He 
hesitated about going to his estate in Central Rus 
sia, where martial law prevailed, or to Zhergan. Ten 
days before they had shot eight revolutionists in 
Riga, forty miles from there. However, he had a 



206 THE CHASM 

letter from Churisnok, his overseer, saying that the 
commandant of the Zhergan garrison had estab 
lished his headquarters at the manor-house; and that, 
he reflected, would assure a guard for himself and 
Marion. 

On his way home in a hired droshky from the 
Tauride Palace, De Hohenfels secured a copy of 
the official Gazette of that morning, and turned to 
the Tsar s manifesto, which he had not stopped to 
read through at the Palace. He read the manifesto, 
and then, to his amazement, discovered a brief no 
tice of the death of Deputy Hertzenstein, killed by 
persons unknown in front of his apartment in Vasili 
Ostrov, Fifth Line. The notice did not specify the 
hour, but it must have been in type two or three 
hours; and having talked with Hertzenstein not 
a quarter of an hour before, De Hohenfels knew it 
must be incorrect. 

When he came in, Marion was writing Russian at 
a big table with grammar and dictionary at her el 
bow, getting ready for Vasili Pososhkov at eleven. 

"There s some Russian for you," said Feodor, 
handing her the paper with the Tsar s manifesto. 
"The Duma is dissolved." 

"Dissolved!" She took the paper. "Isn t that un 
expected? Doesn t that leave everything unsettled 
and undone?" 

"Of course. That s what the Government wants. 
Most of the deputies are going to Finland. They 
may direct the rising of all Russia from across the 
border." 

"Are you going with them?" Her eyes lighted 
with the hope that he was. 



THE CHASM 207 

"No. But what we should decide at once is where 
we ourselves are going for the summer. St. Peters 
burg is no place even aside from politics." 

They were approaching a decision in favor of 
Zhergan, when the footman brought Count Feodor 
the card of the editor Kovalevsky. 

Being ushered in, and assured he could speak 
freely before Marion, the newspaper man said he 
had only a moment. He was not a member of the 
Duma, but had been actively aiding it, and he was 
going to take the first train for Vibourg across the 
Finnish border. He had been told by some of the 
deputies that De Hohenfels had gone home, and 
passing the Hotel d Europe, he had thought it well 
to come up and tell him of certain things that were 
happening. "Did you hear about Hertzenstein?" he 
asked. 

"His death?" said De Hohenfels. 

"His death!" exclaimed Marion, turning pale. 

"It isn t true," said De Hohenfels hastily. "I 
talked with him myself not over an hour ago, and 
this paper must have gone to press three or four 
hours ago." He reached for the Gazette, and turned 
to the notice. 

"I know nothing about what s in the paper," 
said Kovalevsky. "I saw Hertzenstein s dead body 
at his lodgings half an hour ago. His wife is hyster 
ical. The concierge saw him shot to death by four 
rough-looking fellows with army revolvers. They 
were waiting at his door and opened fire as he got 
out of his cab. After he fell they took time to fire 
into his body as it lay on the curb. They kept off 
passers-by at the point of their pistols, and escaped. 



208 THE CHASM 

Since last night there have been no city police on 
duty, not even at crossings, within three blocks of 
that house." 

"How horrible!" exclaimed Marion. 

"Here s the real horror," said Fedya, pointing 
to the notice in the paper. "The official Gazette 
printed the notice of Hertzenstein s death three 
hours before it took place." 

Kovalevsky glanced at the notice without sur 
prise. "This was evidently released about one edi 
tion too soon," said he. "I don t wish to alarm the 
Countess, but you also did good work at Bialostok, 
Count de Hohenfels, and the moral of this story for 
you is get out of St. Petersburg." 



Ill- 

TRAVELING unattended, the Count and 
Countess de Hohenfels reached Pskov at nine 
that evening with sunset still reddening the 
northwest, and five hours later, in the dawn, looked 
from the swaying windows of their sleeping-car 
stateroom to find the train following a swift, cold 
stream through a warm and winding valley from 
which rose rolling uplands belted with firwoods. 
Outlined against the russet sky appeared half-ruined 
walls with round-arched windows and crenelated tur 
rets mournful as unburied skeletons masonic 
bones of a social structure that had passed away, fill 
ing the soul with sudden knowledge that our own 
crowded and busy epoch will fall silent and fore 
shorten to a moment of immense antiquity. 

They spent an hour in Riga a large and busy 
city of electric cars, automobiles, public gardens with 
electric-lighted band-stands, and solid business blocks 
like those of Hamburg. After a surfeit of Mus 
covite domes, Marion was glad to look once more 
on the architecture of western Europe in the Gothic 
Peterskirche. They drove past the old Rathhaus of 
Hanseatic times, and two minutes later, with the 
imaginative shock of suddenly contrasted ages, they 

209 



210 THE CHASM 

found themselves looking at a steamer from New 
York. 

On a track across the broad paved street from the 
quay, close to the wall of a five-story stone ware 
house, stood a string of dumpy little white freight- 
cars bound for Irkutsk in Siberia four or five thou 
sand miles inland, and on those cars, with a cry of 
joy, followed by an unexpected choke, Marion Moul- 
ton that was discovered a row of bright new farm 
machinery from Moline. The trouble was it stood 
just that same way on the cars alongside the Third 
Avenue warehouse. That warehouse beneath the 
windowed walls of which she had walked in the days 
of slates and short skirts it was there this minute ! 
She kept her face away so Fedya did not see the sil 
ver drops beneath her veil. 

Two hours ride on a slow train brought them to 
Mitau, a quiet town as large as Moline and Rock 
Island. Above it loomed the massive castle of Biren, 
Duke of Courland, a cousin of the Von Hohenfels 
of his time, a paramour of the Empress of Russia, 
and the host of the realmless Louis XVIII of 
France. Mitau was full of black-eyed, high-cheek- 
boned Cossacks and Polish infantrymen Catholic 
Slavs brought here to stamp out the revolution of 
the Lutheran Letts while Lettish soldiers were shoot 
ing the striking workmen of Poland. 

It was only twenty-five versts from Mitau to 
Zhergan, and had it not been for rumors of "Broth 
ers of the Woods" in the Hohenfels forest, the 
Count would have had his coachman meet them at 
Mitau. They went on a passenger-coach trailed be^ 
hind short, dingy-white, flat-cars whose heavy wood^ 



THE CHASM 

en floors were scurfed by the butts of pine-logs till 
they looked like hempen mats. After the first ten 
versts the roughly built spur of the railway ran 
through their own property. 

The logging cars were shunted to a siding in the 
forest, and the engine, emerging into fields of oats 
and potatoes and open pastures full of cattle and 
grazing ponies, drew the coach and some empty 
"goods-trucks," as Fedya called them, to a little 
slate-colored railway station in the outskirts of Zher- 
gan a town whose five thousand people were most 
ly liberated Hohenfels serfs living now by agricul 
ture, lumbering, and the rural industries. 

They were met by broadly smiling footman and 
coachman in livery, who called Fedya "little father." 
He called them little David and little Ilya, little 
David being something over six feet high. They got 
into a cumbrous gala coach which lumbered out of 
the village, past Kronberg s brickyard, along a 
country road between brown hayfields to a large 
group of stone and wooden farm buildings, beyond 
which they came through a shady, English-looking 
park to the manor. It was a large white wooden 
house with colonnades and terraces and gravel walks 
not wholly free from weeds, and reminded Marion 
of the Georgia home of the college chum she called 
"my glorious Barbara." To the east, in front of an 
orchard, were the brown shelter tents of a platoon of 
Russian soldiers. 

A score of houseservants were lined up in the 
manner of the preceding generation to receive the 
"barin" and his bride, and "Feodor Lefyevitch," 
greeting them by their diminutive names, found him- 



THE CHASM 

self drawn back into the patronizing, patriarchal 
manner of his father "Lef Alexievitch." He drew 
the line, however, at their kissing his hand. 

Yury Churisnok, a Great-Russian muzhik risen by 
virtue of success as a rent-collector to the long coat 
of the overseer, performed the important social func 
tion of introducing the Commandant Count Tschu- 
litsky to his master. 

The Countess acknowledged the introduction of 
the army officer in Russian, but that gentleman, 
noting her accent, had sufficient lack of tact to an 
swer in French as much as to say, "I see you don t 
speak Russian." Marion gave him a look he did not 
understand. The Adjutant, Captain Sikorsky, a 
plump, fine-looking man with blue eyes and brown 
moustache, spoke Russian and complimented the 
Countess on hers, thereby winning a look of real 
interest as she wondered whether he had been keen 
enough to understand her displeasure with Tschu- 
litsky. Sikorsky said something to De Hohenfels 
about the inconvenience of finding uninvited guests 
in possession of one s house. 

Feodor replied that on the contrary it was any 
thing but an inconvenience there in the country to be 
assured of the society of men of one s own class. 

Tschulitsky drew attention to the obvious prac 
tical benefit of a guard for the premises, at which 
Sikorsky, raising his eyebrows, looked at the Coun 
tess as much as to say, "Well, there s no help for it !" 

As Feodor and Marion walked through the old- 
fashioned rooms with their inlaid floors, ceilings six 
teen feet high, and heavy Victorian furniture, he 



THE CHASM 213 

observed that no doubt she would want to modern 
ize her house. He used the special phrase "sobst- 
venny dom," emphasizing her ownership. 

"Oh, no, Fedya ! Don t try to make a reality out 
of that legal fiction." 

"As you please. I was only trying to make you 
feel at home." 

"I know," she said, and did not explain that bring 
ing up that idea in that way had the opposite effect. 
"The old nurse is a dear," she said, "and that jolly 
Davuidka. The affection they have for you is charm 
ing. How much better it is to have cordial human be 
ings for servants than expressionless automata of 
the English pattern. I can t tell you how glad I am 
to get away from St. Petersburg to these people who 
are of the soil." 

He said he was afraid she would soon find limits 
to the charm of the peasant class, and in the days 
that followed she had to admit that he was right. In 
the first place she found the "affection" she had no 
ticed confined to a few old Russian retainers among 
the houseservants. Most of the hired agricultural 
laborers at the farm, and the numerous tenants, sons 
of liberated Hohenfels serfs, were Letts, and she 
could not speak their language. There was an In 
filtration of muzhiks from Kovno, but though she 
talked with them, they were suspicious of her friendly 
advances. For a while the chief impression was one 
of immense unconquerable stupidity in them, but one 
morning two muzhiks she knew passed outside the 
window of the dairy where she was talking to a 
woman churning, and one of them was criticizing 



214 THE CHASM 

Count Feodor s attitude on the land question in the 
Duma as not representing the desire of the people 
who elected him. 

"Don t you know no landlord can understand any 
thing?" demanded the other. 

"So they think us stupid," mused Marion, and 
wondered if the stupidity she saw in them could be a 
mask behind which they concealed their real thoughts 
and feelings from "the landlords." From her win 
dow she sometimes heard the soldiers laughing, turn 
ing proverbs against each other, speaking with voices 
expressive of shrewdness and humor, but when an 
officer was near, or when she herself tried to talk 
with them the mask ! They did not consciously put 
it on. It was instinct. 

The Baron and Baroness Krushcaln and their sev 
enteen-year-old daughter called to pay their respects 
to the new Countess. They were provincial people 
and not very interesting to Marion. Baron Von 
Wikkerstrom and Police Intendant Bratavzinsky 
were other important neighbors whose calls had to 
be returned by Count Feodor. Yan Sarin, the fore 
man of the smithy on the estate, was a manly, in 
telligent-looking fellow, who, Marion felt, could 
have helped her get in touch with the people, but 
he was a Lett. So was the plump, rosy mail-carrier 
who brought their mail from town. She was reluct 
ant to take up Lettish in addition to Russian, espe 
cially since she thought the language had no import 
ant literature to reward her for the labor of learn 
ing it, but finally took as tutor one of the housemaids. 
The girl was uneducated and not so much a teacher 
as a passive, and indifferent, living dictionary. 



THE CHASM 215 

Count Tschulitsky said he could not understand 
why anyone should wish to know Lettish, and when 
she answered, "Because one wishes to know the 
Letts," he seemed inclined to regard her as a dan 
gerous character. Sikorsky remarked afterward to 
the Countess that Tschulitsky looked upon the 
Letts Inability to speak Russian as a kind of treason. 

The Captain suggested as tutor the village dress 
maker, who spoke Lettish, though she was of a 
Russian family now impoverished. She had been 
educated in France and St. Petersburg. Sikorsky had 
attempted to make her acquaintance. He said she 
was a touchy, bad-tempered individual, possibly em 
bittered by misfortune, but no doubt intelligent 
enough to teach. Moreover if study of the people 
was the idea, the Countess might find a short cut 
through this Sonya Demidoff s knowledge of them. 

Marion drove over that afternoon to the Zhergan 
dressmaking establishment, located in one wing of a 
two : story brick building. It had one display win 
dow exhibiting three pathetic bonnets, a trayful of 
artificial flowers, and half a dozen bolts of ribbon. A 
bell jangled alarmingly above her head as she pushed 
open the street door. There was no one in the un- 
carpeted, littered-up shop; but low sounds as of 
things being hastily set to rights came from behind a 
partition of unpainted dressed lumber, in a certain 
crack of which, unobserved by the visitor, there was 
one small knot-hole covered, as it happened, on the 
inside, by a framed lithograph which could be noise 
lessly drawn aside. The shop was nearly filled by a 
pine table covered with paper patterns and half-cut 
garments, two chairs, and a Singer sewing machine 



216 THE CHASM 

made in the American Company s factory in Podolsk 
by low-waged Russian workers. The manufacturer s 
name, CVIHFEP, in Russian characters, was cast in 
the metal. 

The door in the partition was unbolted and 
opened, a young woman in a black and white checked 
gingham waist and short walking skirt came through 
it, saw the fashionable customer in her fine linen suit, 
and accompanied her Russian salutation with a frank 
look out of clear blue eyes. Expecting to see a some 
what sour, old-maidish individual, the Countess was 
agreeably surprised. "Are you Sonya Demidoff?" 
she asked. 

"Yes. What can I do for you?" The absence of 
any conventionally respectful form of address was 
not noticeable thanks to a peculiar friendliness of 
tone. 

Marion gave an order for a large number of rough 
towels and cotton sheets and pillow-cases much need 
ed at the manor in the row of one-roomed cottages 
called the servants wing. The fine embroidered bed- 
linen, of which there was an enormous quantity, was 
used only on the beds of the gentlefolks, and ac 
cording to Anna Churisnok, the housekeeper, it 
would have been a sure sign of family degeneracy 
had there not been enough of it to last a year with 
out a washing. 

The dressmaker hesitated about accepting the 
Countess s order, but said finally that she would send 
to Mitau for the goods in a day or two. 

"It would be only fair if I advanced the money 
for the goods," said Marion. 

"More than fair," answered Sonya Demidoff, 



THE CHASM 217 

smiling. "But as I think you guessed, it would save 
my friends the trouble of lending it to me. So you 
may if you will." 

Marion nodded. 

"Let us see how much it will be," said the dress 
maker. She sat down and began to figure. After a 
moment she looked up, with a shade of surprise, at 
Marion still standing, and then at the other chair. 

The lady accepted the suggestion and seated her 
self. 

"About a hundred and seventy-five roubles." 

Marion opened her silver-linked purse with the 
arms of De Hohenfels on one side of it, and laid out 
two hundred roubles in clean new notes. 

"What a remarkable purse !" the dressmaker mur 
mured. 

"It is handsome," admitted Marion, turning it to 
view. 

"It has money in it! Most abnormal!" 

Marion was inclined to view talk about money as 
in poor taste, but Sonya Demidoff broke into such 
care-free, unmalicious laughter that the lady with the 
abnormal purse could not resist its contagion. She 
wondered what had given Sikorsky the impression 
that this creature was sour or bad-tempered. "I be 
lieve I forgot to mention my name," she said. "I am 
the Countess de Hohenfels." 

"You could be no one else," said Sonya Demidoff, 
wondering if the Countess attached much importance 
to the title. To find out she observed : "I suppose you 
know I am the Princess Demidoff." 

Marion s eyes opened wide. "Really?" she 
gasped. 



218 THE CHASM 

The Princess Demidoff smiled. "Is that so won 
derful? You will find stranger things than that in 
Russia." 

"Goodness!" exclaimed Marion, smiling. "I hope 
I haven t inadvertently failed in the respect due to 
one of your rank!" 

"No, since you have not failed in the respect due 
the village dressmaker." 

"I see. Were you always so democratic?" 

"No. I had to free myself of many unrealities." 

"Are social distinctions unrealities?" 

"Not yet. But they have no weight with me. In 
dividual distinctions are all that count." 

"I find the class distinction very sharp in Russia. 
I know one barin who believes there is even the be 
ginning of a biologic difference between his class and 
the muzhik indicated by a totally different set of 
instincts." 

"Such superstition! Do you not know about the 
jus primee noctls?" 

The Countess confessed her ignorance, and Sonya 
Demidoff opened her eyes by explaining how that in 
stitution and the polygamous tendency of the male 
aristocrats had sent their blood through the entire 
European population in every two or three genera 
tions during all the long centuries of feudalism. "The 
different instincts are consequently the result of dif 
ferent economic and social conditions," said Sonya. 
"The same blood flows in the muzhik and the Tsar, 
and of the two give me the muzhik." 

"Of two evils choose neither," murmured Marion. 

"The muzhik is not an evil. He has been made 
muzhikavatwi (boorish), but the root of the word is 



THE CHASM 219 

muzh (a man). Did you live in St. Petersburg this 
summer and not learn the caliber of such muzhiks as 
Anakin, Jilkin, Aladin, Kurneen? But be more care 
ful how you agree with strangers that the Tsar is 
an evil. I am not a police spy, but if I were and 
you do not know who is I would talk to you just 
as I m talking now even to this very warning." 

The American caught a glimpse of the nature of 
that great net of treachery and countertreachery 
whose meshes run through the whole of Russian so 
ciety. "How do you know / am not?" demanded 
she. 

"People engage in that dirty business for profit 
at first, and finally from perverted pride in their skill 
as liars. But you are a rich American." 

"I will be more discreet. But my instinct for 
people is quite untrustworthy if you are in any dis 
creditable business." 

"That s sweet!" exclaimed Sonya, smiling. 

"I am looking for a tutor in Lettish," said Mari 
on. "Will you accept me as a pupil?" 

"Lettish? I am doubtful. I have never thought 
of it as a language to be studied. My knowledge of 
it has been picked up instinctively." 

"It would probably be impossible to find anyone 
of whom that is not true." 

"No, the Letts are cultivating their language. 
There are poems, novels, romances. There is a Let 
tish literary society in Mitau. German philologians 
have made exhaustive studies of the grammar and 
phonology. You could find masters of the subject in 
Mitau." 

"I want you," said Marion. "You know how to 



220 THE CHASM 

study language. You would enjoy analyzing your in 
stinctive knowledge of this one." 

The dressmaker asked for a day or two to con 
sider. 

That night Marion asked Feodor how the Prin 
cess Demidoff came to be keeping a little shop in 
Zhergan. 

"She s the daughter of a Siberian exile," he ex 
plained. "Prince Ivan Demidoff s estates were confis 
cated, and he was sentenced to fifteen years labor in 
the mines for circulating high treasonable literature 
condemning the government censorship of books. 
The girl s stepmother went back to her family. De 
midoff was a fine fellow. I heard him speak once 
when I was in the University. He was perfectly 
right about the censorship. I hold his view exactly." 

"The view he is in Siberia for holding!" 

"The same. I didn t print my view. Demidoff was 
one of the self-sacrificing fools. What good has his 
ruining himself done for the freedom of the press? 
Absolutely none!" 

The next day Marion was back at the dressmak 
er s, her sympathy stirred by Sonya s history, her lik 
ing for the girl increased by reflection upon what she 
had seen of her. She was invited into the room behind 
the partition to have a cup of tea from Sonya s samo 
var. This room kitchen, dining-room, bedroom, 
and salon was considerably larger than the shop, 
had a thick carpet on the floor, heavy curtains, semi- 
ornamental iron lattices across the windows looking 
into a side street, and what with the bed, the long 
divans, and some upholstered chairs, was capable of 
seating fifteen or twenty persons. 



THE CHASM 

U I see you are looking at my books," remarked 
Sonya. "Those are for the benefit of the police, who 
occasionally pay me a little visit when they think I d 
rather not see them. You are sitting on my forbidden 
library enough to send me to Siberia. If there s 

anything you d like to smuggle home with you " 

She showed how the divan opened, revealing a secret 
chest full of books and pamphlets, and watched her 
visitor s expression. 

"I would like to take all your books home with 
me," said Marion, " and also their owner." Judg 
ing from the girl s pleased expression that the idea 
appealed to her, the Countess made her an offer of a 
permanent position at a good salary as tutor of Let 
tish and Russian, making it plain that she was desired 
even more as a companion than as a teacher. 

Sonya thanked her, but declined, and being pressed 
for her reason, answered: "Here I am free. Here 
my friends come and go as they like." 

"You can be equally free at the manor. I would 
love to have your friends come there." 

Sonya shook her head and remained firm, not 
choosing, however, to explain that her friends would 
not love to go there. 

"I haven t one girl friend in Russia 1" said Marion 
disconsolately. "I thought you and I could be but 
you don t seem to feel that way." 

"Because I won t give up my independence? My 
dear, that s absurd! You appeal to me strongly. I 
like you. I will probably love you. Come as often 
as you will every morning and I will talk Lettish 
to you while I sew." 

They drifted into a language lesson that afternoon 



222 THE CHASM 

over their tea. Sonya gave the words "glass," "lem 
on," "sugar," "spoon," and so on, as she used each 
object. She pointed to herself and said "I" to 
Marion and said "you," and by actions taught such 
phrases as "I rise from my chair," "I walk," "I roll 
a cigarette," "Will you roll yourself a cigarette?" 
and "Havea match." It was a game that called out 
the most pleasurable play of invention and imitation. 
Words of any language but Lettish were barred. 

They were laughing over Sonya s imitation 
"sneeze," when the bell over the shop door set up its 
violent jangle. Sonya sprang up, closed the divan 
book chest, ran to the lithograph on the partition, 
drew it back from the peep-hole, and saw the in 
tersecting head-line and fate-line of a man s hand. 

She started back in alarm, stood one instant, then 
snatched a lead pencil from her hair and jabbed it 
viciously through the knot-hole. There was a yowl 
from beyond the partition, and also an unobstructed 
view through the peep-hole. Sonya availed herself 
of it, and then opened the door. "I might have 
known that was one of your small boy tricks!" said 
she. 

"Sonya, you devil, you ve crucified me!" called a 
cheerful barytone. "I shall die of lead poisoning. 
Why the mischief do you have such sharp pencils? 
I always suspected you of being a remarkable woman, 

but now " The speaker stopped short in the 

doorway as he caught sight of the elegant visitor 
within. 

The elegant visitor was making a heroic struggle 
not to laugh in the young man s face. 

"Countess de Hohenfels," said Sonya in her state- 



THE CHASM 

liest manner, "allow me to present Professor Alex 
ander Bratavzinsky, Doctor of Philosophy, instructor 
of the youth of Zhergan, nephew of the eminent 
magistrate A. Bratavzinsky, Police Intendant of 
Mitau." 

"Bahl" said Bratavzinsky. "Give me some tea." 

"According to the most recent usage in polite so 
ciety, Sasha," said Sonya didactically, "the proper 
formula to use in acknowledging an introduction to 
a lady is not Bah! " 

"In polite society young women no longer per 
forate callers with lead-pencils, nor introduce them 
with allusions to their disreputable relatives. I am 
happy to meet you, Countess de Hohenfels, and trust 
you will overlook these little provincialisms of our 
hostess." 

"Her methods seem effective," observed Marion. 

"I consider them too pointed," maintained Bratav 
zinsky, glancing at his hand. "Sonya, do I get tea 
or do I not?" 

"Not unless you go knock on Dr. Grenning s door, 
and ask him to join us." 

"All right," mumbled Bratavzinsky. He glanced 
with lazy regret at the back wall. Grenning s rooms 
being on the other side of it, he could easily have 
been summoned by certain taps the "talk of the 
walls" used in prison. The status of the Countess 
de Hohenfels was sufficiently defined. She was well 
enough known to let her see the use of the peep 
hole, but Sonya did not care to have her hear the 
signals through the wall. 

Unlocking a door into a corridor, Bratavzinsky 
went out, returning after several minutes. "That 



THE CHASM 

Grenning insisted on taking my blood," he com 
plained. "He s putting it still alive on slides in his 
new high-power microscope and exhibiting it." 

"To whom?" asked Sonya. 

"Nachman Kaminsky and Trina Ronke. He wants 
you and your friend to come in and look at it. I 
assure you it s very superior blood. It has all kinds 
of astonishing things in it." 

"How interesting!" said Marion, ready to go. 

"Ask him to bring the microscope and Kaminsky 
in here," said Sonya, " where we can all have tea 
while he tells us about phagocytes and things." 

"How about Trina?" 

"Her too of course. Isn t it lucky I stabbed 
you?" 

Bratavzinsky went out posing as a martyr to cold 
blooded scientific curiosity. 

"Trina Ronke is the mayor s daughter," explained 
Sonya. Through subtle intimation understood of 
women Marion knew that Sonya did not like Trina. 

Bratavzinsky came back presently with Grenning 
and Kaminsky carrying the microscope and its ac 
cessories. 

"Where s Trina?" asked Sonya. 

"She couldn t stay," explained Dr. Grenning. He 
was a man of more than middle height with well- 
trimmed beard parted in the middle, gray eyes, 
slightly stooping shoulders, large hands, a peculiar 
swing in walking, and a rich bass voice which he 
seemed inclined to use as little as possible. He was 
the only physician in Zhergan, and did an enormous 
amount of work for very little pay. 

Nachman Kaminsky was the Jewish notary who 



THE CHASM 

had his office across the corridor a small man with 
beautiful eyelashes, hands and voice. He had ob 
tained a costly legal education in St. Petersburg, 
found himself excluded from practice by a new rul 
ing against the Jews, and was reduced to writing 
letters and drawing contracts for illiterate people 
of his blood. He also ran a sort of school for Jew 
ish children. His father was one of the leading 
rabbis of Riga, but Nachman was an atheist. 

When the microscope was set up and Marion was 
looking into it, Kaminsky began to act as barker for 
the show, announcing "the blue blood of Bratavzin- 
sky now on exhibition! On the coverslip of this 
microscope, ladies and gentlemen, you now behold 
thousands of living animal cells. Among the red 
corpuscles which look like copecks but unfortunately 
are not, you will observe big white corpuscles. Those 
are the police of the body, the military caste in blood 
society. The large one near the center of the field 
is Police Intendant of the Carotid Artery." 

"I protest!" said Bratavzinsky. "I won t have 
any police intendant in my blood. And I appeal to 
Grenning. Have I got any carotid artery in the mid 
dle of my hand?" 

"No, but don t interrupt Kaminsky s eloquence 
with mere facts." 

"I am assured by that eminent bloodist, Dr. Ferdi 
nand Grenning, that the red corpuscles of human 
blood are entirely without nucleus, while a percentage 
of the red corpuscles of equus asinus have a nucleus. 
Since the specimen of blood before you does contain 
a percentage of nucleated red cells, we are forced, 
however unwillingly, to the conclusion that the living 



226 THE CHASM 

specimen from which this blood is taken is a donkey." 

"I wouldn t have to take a microscope, Kaminsky," 
observed Sasha judicially, "to find that out about 
you." 

"Neat!" said Grenning, chuckling. 

Marion looked up at Bratavzinsky and laughec) 
appreciatively, her eyes brimming with fun. 

"Lovely!" said Sonya, and gave him a glass of 
tea. 

"Annihilated!" groaned Kaminsky. "And by 
Sasha! Grenning: get me some cyanide of potas 
sium." 

Grenning spoke to Marion. "Here is a wet slide 
with some of Bratavzinsky s blood that ought to 
show tubercular germs." 

"What s that?" demanded Bratavzinsky. 

"I ve just put them in," said Grenning. "I m 
hoping they re still alive in spite of a little stain. 
Perhaps we can find white cells eating them." Look 
ing into the instrument, he slowly turned the thumb 
screws. "Good luck," he said. "In the upper right- 
hand corner perhaps you can see that white cell 
starting to suck in a germ just a little pink line." 

Marion looked and saw it with awe and wonder 
at that revelation of the cryptic process. It remind 
ed her of the emotion she had felt in looking 
through Walt Bradfield s lens at the marriage of 
pollen and pistil in the Hillcrest conservatory. 

"I call that a battle worth fighting," said Gren 
ning. "There is a military caste worth having. If 
these co-operative citizens of the blood should 
imitate our present society, the white cells would be 
sucking the substance from the red." 



THE CHASM 

"That s a beauty, Grenning," said Kaminsky. 

Marion looked up from the lens and met the 
steady eyes of Grenning. "Even bacteriology!" 
she murmured. 

"So you understand." 

She was perceiving Fedya s failure to read all the 
minute notes in the score of the musician nature. 
He had ears only for the primitive vital theme an 
nounced in the individual animal cell absorbing the 
protoplasm of its organic fellows. The later theme 
of infinite richness developed in the social cell he 
had failed to find. 



IV 

IN Sonya s circle, Marion found what she had 
vainly looked for in the high society of St. 
Petersburg. She recognized among these free- 
souled people a bond like that between her ten 
"spirits" at Vassar an interest in things of the 
mind and a comradeship which frequently exist in 
youths of college age, but do not frequently survive 
the atmosphere and conditions of modern bourgeois 
society. She knew, however, that she was not 
quite of this group, that they had other standards 
and aspirations than hers. Things were understood 
between them which she did not understand. She 
was half conscious of her desire to make them stop 
looking upon her as an outsider. 

Thanks to the hour of Lettish every morning, she 
and Sonya grew to be close friends in spite of the 
fact that Sonya would not spend the night at the 
manor or even accept an invitation to dinner. 

Sometimes at Sonya s she encountered Trina 
Ronke, a heavy, brown-haired girl whose mouth 
often drooped abnormally at the corners, and who 
gave the impression of being too acutely aware of 
the Countess s rank to accept her as a human being. 

Fritz Dumpe, the plump and rosy mail-carrier, 
whom Marion rechristened Dumpling, would stop 

228 



THE CHASM 

and joke with Sonya, and tell the news, and talk 
Lettish with the Countess. She soon progressed 
enough to stop every day or two as she drove by 
the smithy and talk with Yan Sarin, the foreman, 
whose fine, hard face a sculptor would have wished 
to reproduce in bronze. He reminded Marion of a 
certain frescoed figure of Michael Angelo s in the 
Sistine Chapel. She took pleasure in saying things 
like this about Sarin to Captain Sikorsky, who was 
pink and white and soft and too obviously trying to 
impress her with his graces. 

One day the American was struck by a curious 
exclamation of Sonya s. They were talking of mar 
riage, and something Sonya said caused Marion to 
ask if she did not intend to marry. 

"Marry in Russia !" the girl exclaimed. "Bring 
a child into Russia 1" 

Marion did not feel the full force of that. She 
said she herself wanted children, but later, in an 
other year or two. 

The only one of the Zhergan group to set foot 
in the manor was Nachman Kaminsky. He came 
to see Count Feodor on behalf of a poor Jewish 
family who owed rent on a one-roomed cabin. The 
Count tried to refer him to Churisnok, but Kamin 
sky explained that this was an appeal from Churis- 
nok s already announced intention to evict. De 
Hohenfels said since he could not manage the whole 
estate at all times it would be illogical to interfere 
in one isolated case. Finally he took refuge in the 
fact that he was not the owner of the estate. It 
belonged to the Countess. 

Kaminsky went to the Countess. She explained 



230 THE CHASM 

that her ownership was merely nominal. She could 
not overrule Churisnok without recognizing the 
reality of her title. 

His mind full of the misery of that sick woman, 
those hungry children, that man legally excluded 
from nearly every occupation, Kaminsky was dis 
gusted with the shifting of responsibility back and 
forth between the Count and Countess. He told her 
so, and took pleasure in describing the condition 
of scores of people on her estate. He told her of 
miserable hovels, unfit for the housing of cattle, 
for which she was drawing rent from human beings. 
He told her of an old Lett and his wife who had 
just sold their last cow to pay the rent, of families 
so poor they could afford but one wooden spoon 
though a wooden spoon cost only three copecks 
of babies born and wrapped in newspapers the 
only clothes their mothers could get for them. 

She stopped him by giving him the money to give 
his clients to pay Churisnok to return to her; but she 
knew well enough how far solving the rent-problem 
for one family for two months was from solving the 
problem of five hundred impoverished tenant fami 
lies paying rent twelve times a year. Ownership 
of the Zhergan estate became repugnant to her on 
new grounds. 

She went to Fedya and told him she wished to 
transfer the property back to him, but he would not 
consent, giving as his reason the opinion her father 
would necessarily have of that. 

Count Feodor was growing bored and discon 
tented. His imaginative emotion, capable of being 
stirred by whatever he could interpret as tending up 



THE CHASM 231 

beyond life s present level, was finding little food 
in the life of Russia as revolution and anti-revolu 
tion were revealing it. St. Petersburg had given 
up fish on account of the masses of soldiers bodies 
thrown into the sea after the betrayal of the revolu 
tionary design of the troops in Kronstadt and Svea- 
bourg. 

One day Marion said to him : "We, with no neces 
sary work, are almost as badly off as the muzhiks 
with too much. We grow blue and aimless because 
there is nothing we have to do. The way we spend 
our hours has no relation to the food we eat, the 
clothes we wear, the rooms we live in. I am be 
ginning to believe there must be such a relation if 
our souls are not to be vague and our lives unreal." 

He asked her if she had been reading too much 
Tolstoi lately, and averred that for his part he had 
long since passed the point where the industry of 
the ditch-diggers shamed him. 

She said no more, but contrasted the zest, cheer 
fulness and interest in things which filled the group 
at Sonya s with the boredom of Hohenfels, Tschulit- 
sky, and Sikorsky. Hohenfels was reading a great 
deal but not creatively, not selectively, not in the 
light of any purpose of his own. He was falling 
into the vice of the reading idler. For lack of 
anything better he spent most of his evenings at 
cards with the officers, generally winning from 
Tschulitsky and losing to Sikorsky. There was a 
different lieutenant in command of the headquarters 
guard each week, but Tschulitsky and Sikorsky they 
had always with them. 

Knowing Dr. Grenning would be a more inter- 



THE CHASM 

esting companion for her husband, Marion wrote 
him a note inviting him to dinner. She was sur 
prised and hurt at Grenning s answer, received next 
day, in which he regretted that certain circumstances 
made it impossible for him to accept an invitation to 
the manor. 

A day or so later she met him as he was coming 
from his office to the street in front of Sonya s. She 
bowed coldly to him, and was going on in, but he 
stopped her and begged her not to interpret his 
refusing her dinner invitation as an indication of 
lack of regard. 

"I am not overeasily offended," said she, "but it 
happens I never before received so singular a note 
of regret." 

"There are people with whom a man chooses to 
avoid even such small insincerities as pleading a 
previous engagement when he has none," said Gren- 
ning. "You will not be offended at my taking you 
for such a person." 

"No, Dr. Grenning, that won t quite do," said 
Marion. "In such matters one must give either con 
ventional excuses or real reasons, and you did 
neither." 

"Well, you are right. It s not just in my line, 
but I should have written a polite prevarication." 

"Why is it impossible to you to accept an invita 
tion to my house?" She spoke impatiently. 

"Don t you really know?" 

"I do not." 

"It is because I do not care to break bread with 
professional murderers." His gray eyes were 
square on hers. 



THE CHASM 233 

She returned his look for a moment, but it be 
came uncomfortable and she looked away. His 
opinion that his remark was justified was stronger 
than hers that it was not. "I suppose you mean 
Tschulitsky and Sikorsky." 

"The same." 

"Are they really, Doctor? Tschulitsky s a boor, 
and Sikorsky a an agreeable fellow, but " 

"But they are professional murderers." 

"Have they ever done anything but their duty?" 

"Perhaps not. It s their duty that s not to our 
taste." 

"So it s the military profession you object to 
not these men personally." 

"The distinction is unreal. You can t divide a 
man from his function. The agreeable Sikorsky last 
October ordered young Juraw taken from his bed 
at night a boy of sixteen and had him shot in the 
street for refusing to tell where his brother Martin, 
the revolutionary leader, was. Tschulitsky ordered 
his Cossacks to take my friend Chelms, the finest 
soul in Russia, out of his schoolroom and shoot him. 
It was done in front of Chelms s pupils." 

"Abominable!" exclaimed Marion. "But there 
must have been some reason, Doctor. Your friend 
must have been a revolutionist." 

"Oh!" said Grenning with a sardonic smile. "I 
had almost forgotten I was talking with the Countess 
de Hohenfels. For the same crime your soldiers 
will have to kill thirty million Russians. However, 
they have gone at the job cheerfully. Perhaps they 
will succeed. At least they will destroy all those 
who are capable of leading Russia out of hell." 



THE CHASM 

For the first time Marion saw clearly the nature 
of the gulf that separated her from the Zhergan 
"spirits." Her first thought was that if they were 
active revolutionists it might be well for her to be a 
little more discreet about cultivating their acquaint 
ance. 

"If you have any curiosity to see how and for what 
things men are killed in Russia," added Grenning, 
"just repeat my remarks to Tschulitsky or to the 
amiable Sikorsky." 

"You don t mean ?" 

"I would join Chelms." 

"For a remark made to me privately? Without 
a trial?" 

Grenning laughed. "Since last October," he said, 
"fifty thousand people have been killed by sword 
expeditions in Courland, Esthonia, and Livonia 
not half of them in armed resistance. Think how 
much time it would take to try all these groups and 
individuals accused by spies of treason! Why 
bother with trials when everybody was guilty? It 
was this whole people that rose. We elected our 
own revolutionary officers in every town and city 
and village in these provinces. The Tsar s govern 
ment did not exist. The Baltic Republic was a fact. 
Did you know this?" 

"No. I heard there were agrarian disorders." 

"Agrarian disorders that seized and administered 
cities of a third of a million people. It is a wonder 
ful thing the modern suppression of news! But 
tell me: are my real reasons real enough to win 
your forgiveness for refusing to dine with the of 
ficers?" 



THE CHASM 235 

She thought a moment. "They are so real, Dr. 
Grenning, that henceforth I too shall decline to dine 
with them." 

Before he knew it he had caught her hands in his 
and pressed them. "Don t tell them why," warned 
he. He turned quickly, and without looking back, 
went down the street, his head bent forward, his 
shoulders stooping a little, a peculiar swing in his 
walk. 



THE Countess lunched in her own rooms after 
her talk with Grenning and invited Count 
Feodor to dine there with her, Weary of 
Tschulitsky, he did: and that evening she succeeded 
in reviving his interest in "The Islands of the Neva." 
The officers had to content themselves with a three- 
handed card game. 

Sikorsky, who had been feeling his way toward an 
intrigue with the Countess, at first attributed her 
retreat to her rooms to her dislike of Tschulitsky; 
but her frigid manner next morning when he con 
trived to meet her on the terrace, discouraged him. 
That night when De Hohenfels absented himself for 
the second time from the card game, the Adjutant 
observed to Tschulitsky that it was plain they had 
overstayed their welcome. He began to talk about 
the three blooming daughters of Mayor Ronke, sug 
gesting that under certain circumstances the house 
of Ronke, in spite of inferior service and cuisine, 
might be a pleasanter residence than the manor. 

The idea took root in Tschulitsky s mind. He re 
membered some official business that took him next 
morning to the Mayor s house in town. 

Before Count Feodor was out of bed the forester 
236 



THE CHASM 237 

of the estate, Robert Guibet, came in from his cabin 
in the forest, insisted on seeing the barin at once, 
and being admitted to De Hohenfels s bedroom, re 
ported that the night before, cutting through the 
woods from the village of Medin, he had come upon 
the camp of an armed band of fifty or sixty Brothers 
of the Woods not more than five versts from the 
manor. 

De Hohenfels dressed and went to Tschulitsky s 
room, but found he had already gone to town. When 
he came back, about eleven o clock, Count Feodor 
told him of the forester s report, and took it for 
granted that the commandant would immediately 
send an expedition to clean out the revolutionists. 

Looking from their windows after luncheon, 
Count Feodor and Marion saw that the tents of 
the headquarters guard were struck, their army 
wagons loaded, and the men formed in heavy march 
ing order. 

"Are they going to attack the revolutionists now?" 
exclaimed Marion. 

De Hohenfels supposed so. 

Presently the horses of the officers and of their 
orderlies were brought around from the stable. 

"Is Tschulitsky going himself?" wondered De 
Hohenfels. His interest was aroused to the point 
of going down to find out. As he went out on the 
terrace he turned and saw Sikorsky coming out of 
the house. 

"The Commandant has decided we should not 
impose longer on your hospitality, Count," said 
Sikorsky. "We are transferring headquarters to 
town. Please express my regret to the Countess 



238 THE CHASM 

that I have not had the opportunity of seeing her 
lately even to thank her for our entertainment." 

"Tschulitsky might have had the decency to say 
he was going," said Hohenfels, scowling. 

"The decision was reached very unexpectedly only 
an hour ago." 

"That is since I told him of that band here in the 
woods at our door!" exclaimed Hohenfels. 

Tschulitsky came out of the house booted and 
spurred and followed by an orderly. 

"Aren t you going to leave a guard for these 
premises, Tschulitsky?" demanded De Hohenfels. 

"No." 

"Then you should have given me notice. I could 
have had one sent from Mitau. In view of the 
particular danger you know threatens this point your, 
withdrawing the guard to-day looks like deliberate 
violation of your duty to protect life and property." 

"What are you going to do about it?" demanded 
Tschulitsky. "Come on, Sikorsky." 

"Fortunately the telegraph is working between 
here and Mitau," said Hohenfels, as the officers 
mounted. 

Sikorsky narrowed his eyes, wondering how much 
influence Hohenfels had in Mitau, and looked dis 
approvingly at Tschulitsky. 

Seeing the troops move off toward town, Marion s 
pleasure at being rid of the professional murderers 
was mingled with apprehension. She wanted to see 
Grenning, thinking he might be in communication 
with the band in the woods and be able to tell her 
whether there was danger to the manor. Not wish 
ing to leave Fedya out there, she asked him to drive 



THE CHASM 239 

in town with her. He had her leave him at the tele 
graph office. 

"It will be impossible to get any sort of protec 
tion to-night," he said as she left him. "You d bet 
ter invite yourself to spend the night with the Prin 
cess Demidoff." 

"And how about you?" 

"I may stay at the inn. There are half a dozen 
officers there. I m told it s a jolly crowd." 

"I may " began Marion, starting to say she 
might find out there was no danger to the manor, "I 
may stay with Sonya." 

She sent Davuidka with the droshky to the inn 
stable. As she walked toward Grenning s she was 
considering whether to see him first, or Sonya, when 
she perceived the girl in the act of locking her shop- 
door from the outside. 

"Are you going to be gone long?" called Marion. 

"Well, well!" said Sonya, looking around. "No. 
In fact I m not going at all." She unlocked the 
door. "Come in," she said. "I was just starting 
for the manor to see you." 

"Actually?" exclaimed Marion, following her in. 

"I want you to stay here with me to-night," said 
the girl. "Will you? Your accommodations will be 
primitive, but " 

"Nonsense ! It will be a lark. But what makes 
you want me to stay with you to-night?" 

"I have my own mysterious reasons," smiled 
Sonya. 

"Won t to-morrow night do as well?" 

"Oh, you can stay then, too." 

"Won t you let me drive you out to the manor 



240 THE CHASM 

and spend to-night with me there?" asked Marion, 
watching Sonya s expression. 

"I can t really I can t. Besides you practically 
accepted my invitation, and now I going to hold you 
to it." 

"I want to tell you something," said Marion. "It 
may make a difference in your unwillingness to come 
to the manor. The officers left there this after 
noon." 

"They did!" exclaimed Sonya. "Where did they 
go?" 

"Tschulitsky moved his headquarters into town. 
I don t know where. He took his guard with him 
leaving us very much at the mercy of our Brothers 
of the Woods." 

"Won t Tschulitsky be at the manor to-night?" 
demanded Sonya. 

"That seems to disarrange some plans," thought 
Marion. "He is already here in Zhergan," she re 
peated. 

"Take off your things," said Sonya. "Excuse me 
a minute. I want to ask Dr. Grenning to take sup 
per with us." She unlocked the door into the corri 
dor, and went quickly to Grenning s. 

Marion sat down, her eyes fixed thoughtfully on 
the floor. "She has gone to tell Grenning that 
Tschulitsky is not to be at the manor to-night," she 
meditated. "She was going out especially to get me 
away from there to-night. They hate Tschulitsky. 
And there are fifty or sixty of them as many as the 
headquarters guard." Her conclusion was that per 
haps the withdrawal of Tschulitsky and his guard 
which had so alarmed them might be the very thing 



THE CHASM 241 

to save the manor from an attack which would other 
wise have been made. 

Sonya came back. 

"Did the Doctor accept your invitation to sup 
per?" asked Marion. 

Sonya looked guilty. 

"You never asked him!" thought Marion. "You 
were too deeply interested in telling him about 
Tschulitsky. But I am all wrong unless Dr. 
Grenning goes out very soon to get word to the 
brethren." She listened for his footsteps in the 
corridor. 

"I had made up my mind to no more sewing to 
day and hate to go back to it," said Sonya. "Shall 
we do some Lettish?" 

Marion agreed, but hearing a door open and 
close and someone passing along the corridor, she 
jumped up, went to the door and looked out. It was 
Grenning. 

"How are you, Doctor?" she called. 

He stopped uncertainly, returned her greeting, and 
was going on. 

"Are you in a great hurry?" asked Marion sweet- 

ly. 

"Why, yes, I am rather." 

"But we ll have you here with us at supper, won t 
we?" 

"Why-uh, you ll be here, will you? I think I ll 
be back by then, in which case I shall be charmed." 

"Don t let me keep you from your patient she 
said. He saw the door close slowly, narrowing to a 
crack, pausing an instant, and then concealing her 
smiling eyes and mouth. 



THE CHASM 

"She knows too much," thought he, as he turned 
toward the street. "I have altogether too much of 
an impulse to confide in her. But I hope and think 
she will not tell." 

Of course Marion stayed at Sonya s that night. 
Grenning was there for supper and the evening. She 
told him as though she did not know he knew it of 
the withdrawal of the guard from the manor, and 
asked him if he thought there was any danger of 
attack. 

"I think not," he said in the tone of one who has 
no special knowledge. He seemed disturbed prob 
ably at the idea of her possessing information lead 
ing her to ask that question. 

The rest of the evening they talked of books, 
people, philosophies. Marion told them in some de 
tail of her friend Walt Bradfield, his writing, and his 
agitation among the workingmen of Moline. Sonya 
and Grenning found it hard to understand why the 
American workingmen with their universal and equal 
male suffrage the lack of which so handicapped 
their European fellows did not control the govern 
ment, and through it the industrial life of the United 
States. 

The next morning, in Sonya s bed, Marion woke 
from a dreadful dream that Walt Bradfield had 
shot himself! Because he could not get work ? 
because of her marriage ? because she had not 
written ? She could not make it out, but somehow 
it seemed to be her fault. Then she slept again and 
woke with a new terror filling her mind the feeling 
that the manor had been burned in the night that 
something terrible had happened to Fedya. As her 



THE CHASM 243 

thoughts cleared, it struck her as strange and rash 
that she should have come straight to these revolu 
tionists, personal friends though they were, and told 
them of the unprotected situation of her own home 
which lay exposed to the attack of an armed band 
not one hour s march away. She felt as Grenning 
had felt about her the day before that she had 
altogether too much of an impulse to confide in 
them. If her surmise was correct, these friends of 
hers knew of perhaps had planned an attack on 
her house for the purpose of capturing Tschulitsky. 
To be sure they were going to get her away from 
there, but how about Fedya ? What if the activity of 
these friends of hers had resulted in his death in 
that attack? She rose and began to dress. 

"So early?" murmured Sonya, more than half 
asleep. 

"I m worried about Fedya. I must make sure he 
stayed at the inn last night." 

Sonya reached under her pillow, and looked at a 
little black watch. "He ll be sound asleep," she 
said, but Marion kept on dressing. "Dear me!" ex 
claimed Sonya, jumping up. "You really must wait 
till I get you some tea I mean coffee. I got some 
especially for your breakfast." 

Marion finished dressing, waited reluctantly a 
few minutes for coffee, then hastened on foot in the 
early morning to the Zhergan Inn. She had to 
rouse a man sleeping on a bench in his stocking feet, 
who had to rouse the innkeeper, who escorted her 
to the room of the Count de Hohenfels. That gen 
tleman, having kept it up with the jolly crowd of 
officers until a very short time before, was most un- 



244 THE CHASM 

appreciative of his lady s flattering solicitude. She 
quickly left him to resume his slumbers, and went 
back to Sonya s in a frame of mind considerably less 
tender and self-reproachful. 

Of course that other dream about Walt was 
equally baseless. Still it was absurd not to know 
whether he was alive or not, and this time she really 
did sit down and write to him. 

"Are you angry with me," she wrote, "for the 
way I left Moline without saying goodbye? I 
wanted to see you truly I did. I hated to leave 
things so badly as they were that night. I never 
dreamed as I went out the door of Hillcrest of not 
seeing you again and saying goodbye, and telling 
you how much I think of you." The letter ex 
pressed her desire for his friendship always, told of 
her sympathy with phases of Russian life which she 
never would have understood had it not been for 
her acquaintance with him, described the group of 
friends she had found and asked for his criticism of 
that doctrine of the higher race which so appealed 
to her religious sense. "Does not the finest flower 
of human life," she wrote, " its superhuman issue 
demand at last a divided humanity? Must not 
root and trunk of the racial tree exist for the sake 
of blossoming above? The blossoming not for its 
own sake, but to bear and send up vigorously above 
the rest one favored shoot, tip of the tree of life, 
to attain the stage of evolution next above the human 
and there branch richly out. The idea that humanity 
by sacrifice of what is lower to what is higher in 
itself should create superhumanity lays hold of me 
with a power I cannot describe. To me the super- 



THE CHASM 245 

race looms like a new Messiah, not dreadful, not 
hostile, not destined to destroy us. It is not coming 
to save humanity by sacrificing itself. For it human 
ity must sacrifice itself, as parent does for child a 
daughter-race which we, the mother-race, must bear 
and nurse." 

After addressing her letter to Walt in Moline, 
hoping his people would forward it, she became 
absorbed for the rest of the morning in Sonya s for 
bidden library. Some of the propaganda consisted 
of what struck her as rather mechanical applications 
of revolutionary and materialist theories, but some 
of it was based on illuminating study of things as 
they are, and through this she had glimpses of the 
whole design broad and splendid outlines of the 
freer, finer society which the workers, learning and 
following their own real interests, ought to develop 
along definite lines out of the present society based 
on wage-labor. She wondered if there was any way 
of reconciling that with the letter she had written 
to Walt. Her own non-proletarian interests and 
point of view prevented her embracing that prole 
tarian philosophy for herself, but she did not see 
how its validity for the proletarians could be denied. 
Passing into their power the world would without 
question become a place more favorable for their 
development the development of all but the chosen 
few. She began to feel vaguely, but could not, or 
did not want to, think out a flaw somewhere in the 
theory that the chosen few, the present ruling class, 
could breed from themselves a higher race. 

While she sat reading and thinking Trina Ronke 
came in. She was returning a book which she had 



246 THE CHASM 

smuggled home, and selected another. As she went 
out through the shop with it, she asked Sonya if it 
was safe to have the Countess know of the library. 

"Why?" Sonya asked. 

"She might tell her husband." 

"Do you think the Count de Hohenfels would 
run and tell the police about my books?" said Sonya, 
laughing, but Trina Ronke shook her head, saying 
you couldn t tell about these aristocrats. If anything 
came up making it important to destroy her there 
was the means! 

Sonya said nothing. Secretly she felt there was 
more risk in Trina s possession of that knowledge. 

About noon Davuidka . brought the Countess a 
note from the Inn. The awakened Feodor asked 
her to take lunch with him there. At table in his 
own rooms he showed her a letter from the Gover 
nor-General at Mitau written with flattering prompt 
itude in answer to his telegram. The letter stated 
that orders had been issued the Commandant at 
Zhergan immediately to capture the revolutionary 
band located on the Hohenfels estate. 

"In Courland, at least," commented Count Feo 
dor, "one can still conjure a little with the name De 
Hohenfels." 

"Tschulitsky will have to eat dirt!" gloated Mar 
ion. 

"He has already. He called this morning. Very 
respectful. Requested me to send for Robert Guibet 
to act as guide tonight. They will surround the 
gang in the middle of the night." 

He suggested that until the marauders were cap- 



THE CHASM 

tured they had better not return to the manor, so 
Marion went back after luncheon to Sonya s. 

After her first exultation over the idea of hum 
bling Tschulitsky, she began to realize what the or 
ders from Mitau meant. The killing, wounding, and 
capturing of fifty men was not in itself a pleasant 
thing to contemplate, and it was still less pleasant 
to Marion when she realized that in that district it 
would mean the final triumph of the atrocious gov 
ernment of the Tsar over the Baltic Republic the 
triumph of men like Tschulitsky and Sikorsky, who 
shot intellectual men and heroic boys without trial, 
over men like Grenning, Kaminsky, and the clear- 
eyed Yan Sarin, who were working against terrific 
odds, for liberty and democracy, for freedom of 
speech and press, for better houses, better wages, 
and better life. 

"The manor will be safer after the revolutionists 
are destroyed," she thought. It was that considera 
tion which had caused Feodor the landlord to take 
such prompt and effective steps for their destruc 
tion, and it was that which had caused her instinctive 
ly to approve those steps. But as she walked along 
the dusty August streets, catching an occasional 
phrase of Lettish in the treble voices of children 
playing, it seemed to her no admirable thing to help 
the Tsar crush down the Lettish people because a 
band of revolutionists might possibly burn down 
one s house. She probably would not have seen that 
this was what she and Feodor were doing had it not 
been for Sonya s books. And on second thought it 
occurred to her that she had not heard of any manor 



248 THE CHASM 

houses being burned when the revolutionists were in 
control of the country. Arms had been taken forci 
bly by an armed party from the Hohenfels manor 
itself, but the house was certainly not burned. Yawn 
ing foundations of small houses were visible in and 
around Zhergan, but they had belonged to revolu 
tionists and had been burned by troops of the Tsar. 
She had heard of the burning of a house in the 
neighboring village of Benen by revolutionists, and 
of the shooting of a man and two women among 
those who lived in it, but Grenning and Sonya had 
told her that those three had been tried by the Zher 
gan local and condemned as spies whose informa 
tion to the government troops had led to the burning 
of several houses and the summary shooting of many 
men. Marion sighed, and without reaching any con 
clusion, went back to Sonya s books. 

Sasha Bratavzinsky came in at four o clock for 
tea from Sonya s samovar. Finding the Countess 
preoccupied, he talked cheerful nonsense to Sonya. 

Nachman Kaminsky came in looking gloomy. 

Marion asked him how the Jewish family was 
getting along. 

"Your money paid the rent for them. It gave 
the woman a chance to die under a roof. She was 
buried Sunday." 

"Is it that that makes you so blue, Nachman?" 
asked Sonya. 

"No." He relapsed into silence. 

Bratavzinsky talked awhile, but could not resist 
the depressing atmosphere, and ran out of subjects. 

"Where s Grenning?" asked Kaminsky. 



THE CHASM 249 

"He ll probably be in for a glass of tea," said 
Sonya. "I wish he would come I" 

"I have news," said Kaminsky. "I ve been keep 
ing it to myself on your account, Countess de Hohen- 
fels, but I have decided I want you to hear it. I 
want you to know how the officers of the detective 
division of the police examine a witness. Yan Kenim 
is a man who helped govern the city of Riga last 
summer when it was in the hands of the people. I 
have known him since boyhood. Six days ago he 
was arrested in Riga and taken to the station of the 
detective division. Night before last he was ex 
amined. The officers who did it are Gregus, Mik- 
heyev, Zimmermann, Davus, and Petrov. There 
were two others whom I shall not name. They read 
to Kenim a long list of crimes allegedly committed 
by him, and demanded a confession, if not of all, then 
at least of a part of these. Kenim denied his guilt. 
First they struck blows. Then they undressed him, 
threw him on a bench, tied him to it, gagged his 
mouth with a rag, and two police officers began 
first with rubber whips, then with wire whips. When 
his back became swollen they covered it with a wet 
rag and kept on. When he fainted, they poured cold 
water on him, and as soon as he regained conscious 
ness, began again. Then they untied him, and threw 
sharp pieces of salt on the floor. Two of them raised 
him about five feet from the floor and hurled him 
down on the salt. This was " 

"Oh!" groaned Marion, white and trembling. 
"What is the use of this?" 

"If Kenim and thousands more can endure the 



250 THE CHASM 

reality of these things," said Kaminsky, "you can en 
dure the telling of them! I am sick of the com 
fortable ignorance of the leisure class. You don t 
want to know. But I want to tell you that you, every 
one of you, who maintain and profit by the estab 
lished order have each your share in the torture of 
Keniml" 

"I do nothing to maintain the established order!" 
cried Marion. 

"To do nothing is to maintain the established 
order." 

She had no reply. 

Kaminsky walked across the room, sat down and 
paid no further attention to anybody. 

"What men do they treat like this?" Marion 
asked. "Not every prisoner?" 

"Every revolutionist from whose agony they can 
hope to wring a confession of guilt or the name of a 
comrade," said Bratavzinsky. "I know of tortures 
much worse than this of Kenim." 

"If they capture this band in our forest," said 
Marion, " will they torture them?" 

"Well rather!" Bratavzinsky answered. He was 
going to say more, but caught an angry warning look 
from Kaminsky, and realized he had no business ad 
mitting knowledge of that band. 

"Do you people know anything about these Broth 
ers of the Woods?" asked Marion. 

Kaminsky looked at her. "We do not," he said, 
positively. "Why do you ask?" 

"Because I have been told they are thieves and 
murderers, and if they are not, I want to know it." 

Kaminsky and Bratavzinsky sat keen and silent, 



THE CHASM 251 

but Sonya broke out. "Thieves and murderers!" 
she cried. "The very spies that go among them to 
betray them they try to dissuade from that work. 
They kill them only when they will not stop." 

"Anyone can see," said Bratavzinsky, "that some 
where now there must be in hiding thousands of rev 
olutionists known by the authorities to be such." 

"There is no need for me to hesitate," said Mar 
ion. "Whatever you people choose to deny or ad 
mit, I know that if these men are thieves and 
murderers you have no interest in them. If they 
are revolutionists well, I happen to know that 
Tschulitsky has information of a band of fifty in 
camp two versts east of the railroad in our forest. 
He has orders from Mitau to send a force in there 
and capture them to-night." 

A needle falling on the carpet would have sounded 
loud while Sonya, Sasha, and Kaminsky were realiz 
ing that the Countess de Hohenfels had made her 
self a revolutionary spy. 



VI 

KAMINSKY was the first to speak. He asked 
Bratavzinsky if he had seen the recent ad 
dress of the rector of the St. Petersburg Uni 
versity urging all poor students to "let science and 
sedition alone" and go in for manual training. "He 
refers to the glorious battle against the revolution 
ists and calls it a battle for truth and right. 

Marion looked at him curiously, smiled to her 
self, and rose. "There s nothing like discretion," 
she said. She took her hat and put it on before the 
mirror. "I have some things to buy, Sonya. I ll 
be back in time for supper." The bell over the 
street door jangled behind her. 

"It s a quarter to five," said Sonya. "We can 
reach Martin Mitrevitz by six. Who is going?" 

"Is Grenning in there?" Kaminsky asked. He 
rapped on the wall. There was an answering rap 
and presently Grenning came in. 

They told him the news. His eyes brightened 
when he heard what Marion had done. 

"Kaminsky treated her as though she were a gov 
ernment detective," said Sonya. 

"The rest of you are too confiding by half!" pro 
tested Kaminsky. "Grenning talks to a woman and 
thinks he s converted her to the revolution, when all 

252 



THE CHASM 253 

he s really done is convert her to Grenning. Trina 
Ronke has no more business in your local than her 
father. She has her cap set now for Sikorsky the 
man who shot young Juraw, and she knows it. And 
now Sonya and Bratavzinsky have let the Countess 
de Hohenfels see our connection with Martin Mitre- 
vitz ! Suppose she has a change of heart!" 

"After she has once come square out?" said Gren 
ning. "Kaminsky: she has been leaning our way 
ever since she came. It s from deep down and of 
old and by temperament with her." 

"How are we going to get word to Martin Mitre- 
vitz?" asked Bratavzinsky. 

"I have decided to have a sick-call in that direc 
tion," said Grenning. 

"See Yan Smika," suggested Kaminsky, " the 
forester of the Medin estate. He will know just 
where they are." 

The physician went to the stable, harnessed his 
horse, and drove out to the cabin of Yan Smika, 
whom he found getting ready to cook supper. When 
he heard of the intended attack on Mitrevitz, the 
forester put half a loaf of black bread in his pocket 
and took down his rifle. 

"I will tell Mitrevitz in twenty minutes," he said. 

"Do you think you ll have use for that?" asked 
Grenning, nodding toward the rifle. 

"There s a three-quarter moon. White coats 
show well." 

A new idea struck Grenning. "I believe I will go 
with you to Mitrevitz," he said. 

He and Smika crossed the road into the Hohen 
fels forest, walked in silence between the thick-set 



254 THE CHASM 

pillars of the pines, and crossed the railroad which 
ran eastward from Zhergan then turned southwest, 
so forming a giant figure seven through the forest. 

The revolutionary militia lay near a spring two 
versts east of the curve. They had no tents or 
military uniforms, and their rifles were of many 
kinds. The forester and the physician were stopped 
by an outpost, one of whom knew Smika and let them 
pass without any military formalities. 

Martin Mitrevitz, a lean, bronzed man with sev 
eral weeks beard, dressed as a workingman, asked 
them to share his supper, such as it was. They de 
clined, knowing provisions were scarce in the camp. 

"We ll get away at once," said Mitrevitz, when 
he heard of the intended night attack. 

Smika and he agreed that the troops would have 
to come out from Zhergan on the wagon road past 
the Hohenfels manor, turn to their left on the rail 
road, follow it eastward until it swung south, and 
then through the woods to the camp. 

On the back of a letter Grenning drew lines repre 
senting the wagon road, the railroad, and the camp. 
"They will come up the railroad in column, won t 
they?" he asked. 

"No other way." 

Grenning put lines on the railroad representing 
infantry in column. "Instead of finding you, as they 
expect, here in camp seven versts from town and un 
prepared," he said, "suppose they found you here 
four versts from town like this?" 

"They would die," said Mitrevitz, his eye kindling 
with the idea of the enfilading lines alongside the 
track. "But we will lie here, still closer to town. 



THE CHASM 255 

where there is a clearing to shoot across. Here 
they will not have begun to move with caution. This 
will repay us for not getting Tschulitsky. I am sorry 
for these men, but for us to-night they are tools of 
the Tsar, not men." 

At eight o clock when Grenning got back to Zher- 
gan after his sick-call at Yan Smika s, he found a 
man waiting nervously in his office and had to hasten 
out with him to attend a woman in labor. He looked 
in at Sonya s a moment. She and Marion sat near 
the table reading by a bright, well-shaded lamp. 

Sonya rose and came close to him near the door. 
"What?" said she, speaking almost inaudibly. 

"You ll hear firing to-night," he answered. Then 
he raised his voice. "You look so cozy here reading 
I wish I could stay." 

"We wish so too," said Marion. "Don t we, 
Sonya?" 

"Indeed," said the girl absently. "Why couldn t 
they get away?" she demanded, whispering. 

"They prefer to lie in ambush," he answered, also 
whispering, and then gave a warning glance over 
his shoulder to remind her that he had an outsider 
somewhere there in the hall beyond the half-opened 
door. 

"Do you share Kaminsky s distrust of me, Sonya?" 
said Marion, after Grenning had gone. 

"No." After a moment Sonya inclined her head 
back toward the door Grenning had just gone out 
of. "Neither does he. But wouldn t you rather not 
know anything definite about us?" 

"Only this: whether those men in the woods are 
warned and can escape." 



256 THE CHASM 

"Yes, they have been warned." The girl glanced 
at the alarm clock on her dresser, sat down, and 
tried to resume her reading. Several times she was 
on the point of telling Marion what Grenning had 
said, but did not. 

She did not keep her light burning after ten for 
fear of drawing the attention of the police. Thanks 
to the iron gratings of the windows they were able 
to let the cool night air into the room. They could 
see the moonlit silver birches in the yard of the 
Lutheran church on the other side of the wide, dusty 
street. The lights had gone out of the windows, 
and the streets were deserted save for an occasional 
pair of lovers in the shadow of a doorway. 

Marion was dropping off to sleep, when Sonya, 
who had remained sitting near the window, called to 
her in a low, excited voice "Look here!" 

Marion sprang to the window and saw, coming 
down the street, in a cloud of dust, so silently she 
would not have known they were passing, the Rus 
sian rotnis which Feeder s influence had started on 
their night march against the revolutionists^ 

"Uncanny!" Marion whispered. "All those men, 
and hardly a sound!" 

"Not the clink of a scabbard!" whispered Sonya. 
"I m glad the Brothers know! Thanks to you!" 
She put her arm around Marion and hugged her. 

"I think there will be some profanity when they 
reach that camp," Marion said. She chuckled hap 
pily at the thought of having averted the tragedy. 

Sonya s conscience hurt her a little for leaving 
Marion in ignorance of the ambush. "How many 
of those men are making their last march?" she 



THE CHASM 257 

thought as the last man passed from sight beyond the 
corner of the shop. 

There was a chill in the night air, but the soldiers 
did not wear the white coats Smika had said would 
show well, and Captain Byeletsky had made the men 
blue their rifle barrels that afternoon lest the glint 
of them should be seen in the woods from the 
enemy s camp. 

With Robert Guibet knowing every tree in the 
woods, Byeletsky expected to close in on that camp 
from all sides and get every man. The main thing 
he feared was that the rifle of some revolutionary 
sympathizer among his own men would go off acci 
dentally near the camp. He halted his force on the 
road outside the town, called the sergeants of his 
two companies together, and gave them orders to 
shoot in his tracks anyone to whom this accident 
happened. The sergeants told the men. 

The column left the wagon road and turned east 
ward upon the railroad track. Reaching the edge 
of the forest, Byeletsky sent out flankers to move 
through the woods parallel with the railroad abreast 
of his advance guard. 

This was a thing Mitrevitz had not foreseen. He 
and his comrades lying concealed behind trees and 
in shadow on the edge of the clearing in an open 
irregular line would not be seen by the small advance 
guard moving along the track, but these four ad 
vancing figures out fifty and a hundred arshin to the 
right and left they must infallibly run into the lines 
of his ambush. How keep them from giving the 
alarm and time for those two hundred men to de 
ploy against his fifty? 



258 THE CHASM 

Mitrevitz picked two men, explained the danger 
to them, and told them each to take one of those 
men, keep square in front of him, and when he 
entered the shadow, stop him and kill him if he at 
tempted to cry out or discharge his piece. Then, 
only two or three hundred arshin ahead of the 
enemy s advance guard Mitrevitz crossed the track 
on his belly, and gave similar orders to two men 
on the other side. It looked desperate to Mitre 
vitz. He had done all he could, but it was almost 
too much to expect to stop all four of those men in 
silence. 

The advance guard thought themselves too far 
from the enemy to be very alert. The ensign in 
command was talking in low tones to the forest 
guard Robert Guibet as the dozen men swung along 
between the two lines of the ambush. The four 
flankers, trying not to drop behind, did not slacken 
their pace as they approached the edge of the 
clearing. 

Mitrevitz, his nerves tense, saw the inner flanker 
on his side was coming straight for him. "Lie still !" 
he whispered to the man he had detailed to stop this 
Russian. "I ll take him." He waited till the soldier 
entered the shadow of the pines. He sprang up, 
pointing his revolver at the man s eyes. "Not a 
sound!" he hissed, in Russian. 

The soldier gave a gasp of terror. "Don t shoot!" 
he whispered, not realizing that Mitrevitz could not 
shoot without giving the alarm "I m with you ! 
I m a Social-Democrat for the revolution!" 

His mind acting with lightning-like rapidity under 
strain, Mitrevitz seemed to read the man s SQ.U!, 



THE CHASM 259 

believed him, and paying no more attention to him, 
listened with torturing intensity for the shot or 
shout he feared. To his left, where the outer flank 
er had come upon the line, he heard a sickening 
groan just one. "Whether necessary or not, God 
knows!" thought Mitrevitz, but that man s death 
did not occupy another second of his thought. 

The advance guard had not stopped. They were 
fifty, a hundred feet beyond the ambush. On the 
other side of the track, behind the revolutionary 
line, he saw a Russian move through a lighted space 
parallel with the track. It was the inner flanker on 
that side. He" must have closed in far enough to 
miss the line, and they had let him go. 

"Good work!" thought Mitrevitz. "How about 
number four?" There was no sound or movement 
in that direction. The advance guard marched 
farther and farther into harmlessness; and the main 
body of the Russians was in sight. From the front, 
at that distance, the two companies in column of 
fours looked like a single dark object. One would 
have taken it for a team and wagon. Mitrevitz 
could hear the deep breathing of the nervous men 
around him. It was a racking wait till they could 
see the individual forms, and then the faces of the 
Russians in the moonlight. 

In the silent night, a rifle flamed and roared on the 
black edge of the clearing one shot followed in 
stantly by two a dozen thirty visible to the Rus 
sians as the blazing arc of a circle of which they were 
the center and scores of bullets drawing the short 
and deadly radii ! Men pitched, whirled, stumbled, 
went down groaning. The column melted down in 



260 THE CHASM 

blood and anguish on the track. From front to rear 
they were raked and hit by a fire they could not 
return. To get them out of that focus of slaughter 
Byeletsky tried to make them execute right and left 
front into line of squads, but their instinct, far older 
than modern firearms, far older than military disci 
pline, was to huddle together for mutual protection. 
When the leaden logic of the 3<>3o s forced them to 
see the helpless, hopeless doom of that, the surviv 
ors bolted from that litter of warm corpses and 
writhing human forms in a wild rush for shelter. 

With the melting away of their definite living 
target on the track, the revolutionists slackened their 
fire, and in the lull heard Mitrevitz shouting, "For 
ward in line !" He was afraid not to go forward lest 
the Russians, unpursued, should reform, advance in 
line, and sweep his still numerically inferior force 
out of existence. 

The Russians, an organization no longer, did not 
await the charge of their enemies. There were men 
who had stood the test of Mukden in that crowd of 
individuals running through the woods toward Zher- 
gan. Mitrevitz did not dare pursue them beyond 
the forest, for fear of reinforcements especially 
the Cossacks. 

Seeing the main body scattered, the Russian ad 
vance guard, whose carelessness had caused the 
disaster, did not attempt to return through the revo 
lutionary force. Guided by Robert Guibet through 
the woods to the road from Medin, they reached 
town unharmed. 

The Brothers of the Woods, whose return from 
that pursuit was the beginning of their own flight 



THE CHASM 261 

from the neighborhood, saw fifty or sixty dead and 
wounded Russians on the track and in the ditches 
where stricken men had reeled. Other wounded 
men had been able to reach the woods, and had 
fallen there. Some died there alone. Some had faint 
ed with pain or loss of blood and were to regain con 
sciousness in solitude, or with what grim sense of 
companionship a man unable to move and feeling 
the life ebb out of him may have in hearing the 
groans of comrades in agony. 



VII 

THREE quarters of an hour after they saw the 
troops go by, Sonya left the window and 
went to Marion s bed. "Marion!" 

The sleeper started, opened her eyes, recognized 
her friend, and smiled happily at being called Mar 
ion. 

"Listen!" 

There was the far-off, ominous roar of many rifles 
a sound nearly as horrible in its significance as 
any that vibrates in the air of man s still horrible 
planet. 

"What does it mean?" said Marion tensely. 
"Have they caught the revolutionists?" 

"I hope for once the revolutionists have caught 
them." 

"Fifty of them?" She got up, slipped on a dress 
ing gown, and went to the window. Sonya had not 
undressed. "That sounds as though it were at the 
manor," said Marion. 

"The night is still. It is probably in the forest." 

A mounted orderly came galloping up the street 
from the direction of Mayor Ronke s, Tschulitsky s 
new headquarters, and disappeared in the direction 
of the firing. 

After about ten minutes the fire slackened and 
262 



THE CHASM 263 

ceased. A little later it began again, more scat 
tering, but louder. Marion shivered. 

A drummer at the barracks near the central prison 
began beating the long roll ; a bugler blew first call 
over and over, and then assembly; the more distant 
call of the Cossacks came from the northwest quar 
ter; the night air carried hoarse shouts of command 
weirdly over the town. Somewhere in the distance a 
door slammed. Lights appeared in windows that 
had been dark. There was a murmur of wondering 
voices here and there as sleepers woke and called 
to each other to know what was wrong. 

The mounted orderly came tearing back from the 
southeast, and five minutes later a rotni of Cos 
sacks a hundred strong galloped through Zhergan 
hurling a great cloud of dust high into the quiet 
moonlight air. 

"Why didn t the Brothers get away while they 
could?" exclaimed Marion, shuddering at the power 
of that living, catapultic projectile of men and 
horses. 

"The Cossacks can t go through the woods like 
that," said Sonya, to reassure herself no less than 
Marion. 

A few minutes later a company of infantry went 
by in double time, some of the men choking and 
coughing as they breathed the dust raised by the Cos 
sacks. 

"Why do they need so many?" exclaimed Marion. 
"Is the revolutionary force larger than I said?" 

Sonya shook her head. "They made an ambush." 

"An ambush," repeated Marion thoughtfully. She 
realized then that all those drums and bugles in the 



264 THE CHASM 

night, that roar of many rifles, that rush of men and 
horses, were all the result of one brief sentence spo 
ken by her in this same room seven hours before. 

The muffled pounding of the feet of the infantry 
men died away in the distance. There were no more 
audible indications of what was going on among the 
three or four hundred men who had left Zhergan. 
The minutes of waiting with strained attention were 
long. Thirty of them passed with no sound from 
beyond the town. Sonya and Marion found them 
selves shivering with cold and excitement. They lay 
down still listening, grew drowsy, fell asleep. 

They were roused and terrified by someone in the 
corridor kicking violently on their door, and a harsh 
voice calling, "Dr. Grenning!" 

"That s a Cossack!" exclaimed Sonya under her 
breath. "What if they ve come for Grenning?" 

"Why should they?" whispered Marion. 

"He carried your information to the Brothers." 

They heard a match strike in the corridor. Boot 
ed feet moved heavily on the flag-stones. Outside 
the window they heard the hard breathing of horses, 
the swish of their tails, the champ of bits and stamp 
of hoofs as the animals bit and kicked at the mosqui 
toes drawing their blood. 

"If somebody doesn t open some door in this 
house I ll break them down!" roared the man in 
the hall. 

"I wonder if Grenning is in there?" whispered 
Marion. 

"I hope not." 

"What shall we do?" 



THE CHASM 265 

"If they ve come to arrest him and find him not 
here they ll say that proves " 

"He can prove he s been with a patient." 

"What chance will he have to prove anything? 
They may take him out and shoot him against the 
wall of his own office." 

A door on the other side of the corridor opened 
and the women heard Kaminsky demanding, 
"What s this racket?" They could see by the gleam 
of light along the crack under the door that Kamin 
sky had a light. 

"Are you Dr. Grenning?" 

"No. That s the Doctor s door over there with 
his card on it. Can t you read?" 

"Can t you see I m a jigit?" retorted the Cossack, 
scorning the suggestion that he could be guilty of so 
unwarriorlike a habit. 

"What do you want with Dr. Grenning?" in 
quired Kaminsky. His manner made the Cossack 
take him for some kind of civil authority, so he 
adopted a tone of friendly superiority. 

"I don t want him at all. The Cossacks wouldn t 
be such fools as let a few Lettish cattle shoot them 
to pieces. It s the soldiers. They re spilled all 
over the woods. I ve brought a horse for this doc 
tor to go and cut off their arms and legs. Much 
good they ll be after that!" 

"They want him as a doctor!" rejoiced Sonya. 

Marion drew a long breath. 

Relieved of the same fear that had upset Sonya 
and Marion, Kaminsky read the Cossack the notice 
the doctor had thumb-tacked to his door giving the 



266 THE CHASM 

address at which he could be found. "Did they 
catch the Letts that did the shooting?" Kaminsky 
inquired. 

"The soldiers? Of course not. They ll let them 
go till daylight. By then they ll be in as many 
different izbas as there are men. They ll hide their 
guns in haystacks, and then how are you going to 
tell who was out?" 

"You might shoot them all," Kaminsky suggested. 

"We will if we get the word," said the Cossack. 
"There s no nonsense about us." He rode off, lead 
ing the horse he had brought for the doctor. 

"I wish the Cossacks had been shot instead of 
those peaceable-minded Russian conscripts," said 
Marion to Sonya. 

Army wagons half-filled with hay were rumbling 
and rattling through the streets on their way out to 
bring in the wounded and the dead. 

At quarter to one, Grenning came on horseback 
with the Cossack, who stayed outside with the horses. 
The doctor went into his office, packed a suit-case 
full of bandages, splints, cotton, and gauze, and got 
ready his instruments, needles, thread, antiseptics, 
ether cans and hood, hypo tablets and syringe. While 
doing this, he heard Sonya s rap through the wall, 
and went to her door. It was held ajar. 

"Ferdinand," whispered Sonya, "I was fright 
ened when the Cossacks came for you, and " 

"I didn t know you knew how to be frightened," 
he said as she hesitated. 

"We were wondering what to do, and I told Mar 
ion it was you who carried word to the Brothers. 
She gave us that information to save the Brothers, 



THE CHASM 267 

and I think she blames us for using it to destroy the 
Russians. She wants to speak to you. I wanted you 
to understand everything." 

"Thanks, Sonya. She can t expect us to stop with 
half-way measures." 

Sonya yielded her place at the door to Marion. 

"Are there many wounded?" began the Countess 
abruptly. 

"The Cossack says a hundred. It seems the two 
companies walked into a trap and lost over half their 
men." 

"Of course your knowledge of that trap comes 
only from the Cossack!" Her eyes attacked his, but 
he displayed no qualms. "Do you imagine for an 
instant that I am ashamed of my share in the trap?" 
he demanded. 

She did not pursue the question. "Is there hospital 
room for so many?" she asked. 

"Probably the army surgeon will secure a building 
for temporary hospital." 

"What I wanted to say was if there s anything 
money can buy that the Government fails to furnish, 
get it. I will pay." 

"I understand." 

She looked at him, trying to make out why he was 
not wholly sympathetic. He could not be enthusias 
tic over her salving a conscience that from his point 
of view needed no salve. 

"Have no fear," he said. "There will be plenty 
the Government fails to furnish." 

"You will need nurses," she said. "Get them. And 
tell me shall I come myself tonight? Can I help?" 

"Have you had hospital experience?" She judged 



268 THE CHASM 

from his expression that he hoped she had, but she 
said no. "Don t come," he said, and looked toward 
the outer door. 

"Don t you feel a curious justice in your going to 
help these men?" 

"Justice!" he exclaimed. "Lord!" He dropped 
his voice still lower. "All that s worrying me is aid 
and comfort to the enemy. He thought a mo 
ment, then went on. "Today when he saw he would 
have the Russians in his power the leader of the 
Brothers said to me, I am sorry for these men, but 
tonight they are tools of the Tsar, not men. 

"That is more human than the professional sol 
dier." 

"It was our business to deal with them as tools of 
the Tsar," said Grenning. "We did it. It now 
seems to be my business to deal with them as men. 
But don t delude yourself by thinking I do it to make 
amends. There are none to make." 

"Don t let me keep you from these men who are 
suffering. I wish I could Jook at it as cold-bloodedly 
as you seem to. I can t take so easily the thought 
that if it hadn t been for me these men would not 
have been killed and wounded." 

"Better men would have been. Yes and tor 
tured ! But you re wrong if you think me cold-blood 
ed, Countess Marion. I have just come from the 
birth of a child a thing of unceasing marvel. As 
I came away it struck me as a ghastly absurdity that 
you brave, tender women should bear mankind in ag 
ony to have them destroyed in war. But you and 
I cannot escape war. It is here. We can sulk . 
we can criticize the ungentle, uncouth fighters, or < 



THE CHASM 269 

we can take sides. The best we can do is fight on 
the side whose triumph means the end of war. Yes, 
and the end of the horrors of peace ! You re on that 
side today. Don t leave it not for wealth, and not 
for love!" 

Something warm and beautiful seemed to flow into 
Marion s soul a sense of rising to a higher spiritual 
level a vision or a feeling of practical idealism, 
of sacrifice approved by reason, of faith that burned 
not in spite of, but as a result of critical intelligence 
a faith that stands the test ! "I m glad you re alive, 
Dr. Grenning!" she exclaimed. "I m oh so glad 
the Cossacks came for you as a physician!" She 
wished him good luck and Godspeed as he hastened 
out with his instruments and rode away to his night 
of toil. 

She lay awake a long while thinking of the things 
he had said. There was something about him that 
stirred her enthusiasm, made her believe in him and 
in the cause he placed above wealth and love. 

The quiet of the town was not yet broken by the 
noises of returning troops and wagons. The room 
and the house were still. In that stillness Marion 
heard a strange involuntary whisper. Whether 
from troubled sleep or feverish wakefulness in 
either case from her subconscious soul came Son- 
ya s whispered words "He loves her!" 



VIII 

AT dawn, Tschulitsky set out with Cossacks, in 
fantry, and machine guns. Captain Byeletsky 
had reported the force he met as not less than 
two hundred. The troops spent a hard day scouting 
through the forest, but found no enemy. The revo 
lutionists had scattered or circled Zhergan. The sol 
diers came back to town after dark, exhausted for 
nothing. 

Marion returned with Feodor to the manor, but 
finding it lonely there after growing used to the com 
panionship of her friends in town, she sent Davuidka 
to bring Sonya and Grenning out to dinner. 

Grenning had been up all the night before, had 
worked all day, and was going to bed; but he came. 
He was tempted to take a hypo, of morphine, but 
finally decided the Countess would have to make 
allowances. 

The evening was the best De Hohenfels had spent 
since coming from St. Petersburg. After the society 
of the army officers, it was an inspiration to him to 
talk with people of mental range and power. Son- 
ya s self-certainty, her independence, the impression 
she gave of thinking more than she expressed, his 
feeling that she understood him better than he un- 

270 



THE CHASM 271 

derstood her, gave her mystery, and attracted him. 
He did most of the talking, being stimulated by 
brief comments of Grenning showing comprehension 
but not agreement. After they had gone, Feodor 
commented on Grenning s taciturnity, and asked if 
he and Sonya were lovers. 

Marion thought of Sonya s whisper, though by 
day it did not have the enormous significance it had 
presented to her nocturnal soul. "Perhaps she is in 
love with him," she answered. "It s hard to tell 
about them. They seem more like comrades than 
lovers, but " 

"I noticed they both look at things from the 
socialist angle. Do you suppose there is a social- 
democratic way of being in love?" 

She smiled, then considered it seriously. "I had 
not thought of it," she said, "but perhaps there is. 
The bourgeois world has certainly failed to create 
any way of love of its own. Its love, like its poetry, 
has had to ape the forms of the past. It has imi 
tated the love of feudal chivalry, or finding that false 
for itself has turned to cynical disbelief and dis 
regard of love." 

"And what was the feudal way of love?" asked 
Count Feodor, more interested than he usually was 
in Marion s ideas. 

"The feudal way was to capture a woman, domi 
nate her, set her on a narrow pedestal from which 
she must not move then worship her. It was idola 
trous because the dominator was worshiping a thing 
of his own making." 

"You will change the nature of man before you do 
away with domination." 



272 THE CHASM 

"Willingly," she said. "Fortunately it is chang 
ing all the time. In the coming way of love there will 
be no domination, no pedestal, no making and so no 
smashing of idols, no forming and so no losing of 
illusions. We shall love truthfully with realism. 
Love between man and woman shall be love between 
comrades and equals. Yes, I have convinced myself 
there is a social-democratic way of love." 

Feodor de Hohenfels listened with disapproval. 
"Then goodbye glamour, mystery and lure!" he 
cried. "Goodbye the Dionysian intoxication the di 
vine madness there was in all great deeds and art and 
love ! Put out the fire of spring there ll be nothing 
in men s souls for it to kindle ! Your social-demo 
cratic way of love is drabbest English Puritanism!" 

"Do you feel any of that in Sonya Demidoff ?" 

"No. I didn t feel it. Is it there?" 

"Not any drab English Puritanism. But what I 
was describing is there. She will love a man as a 
comrade, not as an overmasterer. She will play 
mouse to no cat-passion of capture. If your Diony 
sian intoxication is incompatible with sex-equality, 
the men of the future will have to contrive some way 
to get along without it." 

"It dies in marriage anyhow," he said gloomily. 

"And the love of comrades does not!" was all 
she said, but she was deeply hurt, could not longer 
conceal from herself her feeling that her marriage 
was a mistake, and her heart turned aching to the 
thought of that other "true" love which she had 
chosen to erase from her life. "Walt s love would 
not have died," she thought. 

Count Feodor thought regretfully of Rome and 



THE CHASM 273 

the Duchess di Callignano, who wrought with the 
sex-lure like an artist on the souls of men. If to be 
untouched with modern spirit would enable a woman 
to retain glamour and mystery, Di Callignano would 
retain hers forever. 

Next day Feodor and Marion had no time to con 
sider the problem of how they were to live together 
without love. Soon after breakfast sixteen Cos 
sacks rode up the gravel driveway to the manor, 
and their ensign informed De Hohenfels that it was 
his duty to escort him to the Town-House. 

A court-martial was sitting to determine the cause 
of the recent disaster. The court could not really 
succeed in this without finding that had it not been 
for the torture of Yan Kenim in Riga Saturday night 
there would have been no revolutionary ambush 
Tuesday at Zhergan. De Hohenfels asked in what 
capacity he was sent for, but the ensign could not 
say. 

They found the Town-House full of soldiers, some 
under arms, some with side-arms sentries, order 
lies, and guards. Robert Guibet the forester was 
sitting on a bench in the hall-way under guard. He 
had been imprisoned the night of the ambush. Two 
private soldiers were also prisoners. Captain Bye 
letsky and Ensign Khlopov, the commander of the 
advance guard, were waiting in the anteroom under 
arrest. The Cossack ensign requested De Hohen 
fels to be seated in the same room, and sat with his 
prisoner or witness. The Count had to wait there 
during a lengthy examination of Byeletsky, Khlopov, 
and others. 

Byeletsky was let off with a reprimand. He was 



274 THE CHASM 

allowed to show that Ensign Khlopov was in a posi 
tion to ascertain the presence of the ambush and had 
failed to do so. 

Khlopov explained that he had flankers out prop 
erly, but they had failed to give any signal when they 
came upon the enemy s line. He had not yet thrown 
forward a point, but the point would have been on 
the track and would not have discovered the ambush. 
He said he was relying largely on Robert Guibet. 
He gave the names of the four flankers. The court- 
martial recommended that Ensign Khlopov be dis 
honorably dismissed from the service. The recom 
mendation was finally carried out, and Khlopov shot 
himself. 

Of the four flankers, one the Social-Democrat 
spared by Mitrevitz was missing, and one had been 
found dead in the woods with a bayonet wound 
through his throat. The third, the soldier Kazyol, 
was drawn by Sikorsky into the admission that as he 
approached the edge of the clearing he had closed 
in to less than the prescribed distance from the ad 
vance guard. This trifling failure to follow in 
structions had caused him to miss the revolutionary 
line. He was sentenced to five years in one of the 
Siberian disciplinary regiments. When he heard 
this sentence, he begged to be shot, but his plea was 
not granted. 

Dutloff, the fourth flanker, was hazy in his testi 
mony. He remembered walking from the clearing 
into the shadow, and the next thing he knew was 
that he was on his back under the trees alone, with 
a terrible pain in his head. His head was bruised 
and swollen. He claimed he had heard nothing of 



THE CHASM 275 

the battle. The court decided that he must have 
had some opportunity to give the alarm, and had 
failed to do so. He was adjudged guilty of neglect 
of duty through cowardice and sentenced to be shot 
next day at sunrise in presence of the garrison. 

Robert Guibet was brought in and accused of 
treacherously leading the expedition into ambush. 
He said he had last seen the revolutionists in their 
camp at eight o clock in the evening, and had no 
reason to suppose they were not still there at eleven. 
Tschulitsky was presiding, and no one called atten 
tion to the fact that he had sent no scouts of his 
own to find out the exact position and movements of 
the enemy. He brought out the fact that the forest 
er had full knowledge of the expedition by two in 
the afternoon. The court decided that if six hours 
later he was near enough to the camp of the revolu 
tionists to see it, he was there for no good purpose. 
He was sentenced to be shot next day at sunrise 
unless in the meantime he should decide to confess 
his guilt and name his accomplices particularly 
what orders or messages he had received from his 
master the Count de Hohenfels. 

The Count de Hohenfels was summoned. In the 
small room where the court sat, he found four of 
ficers sitting stiffly in full uniform along the farther 
side of a long table, and a Jewish soldier at the 
end of the table writing and fussing with open and 
folded documents. De Hohenfels recognized Com 
mandant Tschulitsky and Captain Sikorsky. The 
others were infantry captains and Tschulitsky s 
clerk. 

Without making a formal charge, Tschulitsky 



276 THE CHASM 

pointed out that outside the military authorities the 
Count de Hohenfels and his forester were the only 
persons in Zhergan who had official knowledge of 
the expedition. This knowledge had evidently 
reached the revolutionists. How? 

De Hohenfels replied that he did not know. 

He was asked to produce the letter he had re 
ceived from the Governor-General. He found it in 
his pocket, glanced over it and dropped it on the 
table. He was irritated by having been kept wait 
ing so long. "It would be well for you to reflect, 
Commandant," he observed, "that, as this letter 
shows, the Governor-General knows you had to be 
forced into this expedition. If you start any ab 
surd proceedings against me or against Robert 
Guibet I will see to it that a court-martial sits in 
this case with rank enough to determine why the 
Commandant of Zhergan had to be compelled to 
undertake this expedition, and what relation his re 
fusal to attack the revolutionists on Monday bears 
to the failure of the attack he was ordered to make 
on Tuesday." 

Tschulitsky turned white and red with fear and 
anger. He saw that this unexpected view of the 
case looked infernally plausible, and Sikorsky was 
making him violent signals to keep cool. The Com 
mandant could think of no decent-looking way to 
drop De Hohenfels then and there. Sikorsky came 
to his rescue. "It was too clearly to the interest 
of the Count de Hohenfels to have this band of 
marauders on his estate exterminated," said the ad 
jutant politely, "to permit anyone to suppose that 
he intentionally put them in possession of informa- 



THE CHASM 277 

tion as to the Government s plans. There remains, 
however, the possibility of his having been indis 
creet. I suggest that the Count be asked to tell this 
court exactly what persons he talked to concerning 
I this expedition." Tschulitsky put the question di 
rectly. 

"Only to Robert Guibet," said De Hohenfels. 

"What did you tell him?" asked Tschulitsky. 

"Tuesday noon I ordered him to keep watch of 
the band as long as possible to make sure they had 
not left their camp, but to go to you not later than 
nine o clock and guide whomever you designated to 
the camp." 

"That accounts for Guibet being there at eight," 
remarked Sikorsky. 

"Did you tell Guibet the camp was to be at 
tacked?" asked Tschulitsky. 

"No. Still, not being a fool, he understood that." 

"Did you tell him not to talk about it?" 

"No. I was sure he would not." 

"What made you sure?" 

"I know his character. He is sensible, truthful, 
and loyal." 

"Loyal to whom?" 

"To me." 

"And to the Tsar?" 

"Guibet is a simple man. I have never heard him 
express his sentiments concerning the Tsar. He is 
untainted by revolutionary ideas." 

Sikorsky leaned over and whispered something 
to Tschulitsky. "One more question," said the 
Commandant. "Whom else did you talk to concern 
ing the expedition?" 



278 THE CHASM 

"To no one." De Hohenfels did not think of 
his wife as some one "else." 

"Did you show this letter to anyone or tell anyone 
of its contents?" 

De Hohenfels remembered the table in his room 
at the Zhergan Inn where Marion had read the 
Governor-General s letter. Was it possible their dis 
cussion had been overheard by some servant listen 
ing outside their door? Should he qualify his state 
ment now by saying, "I showed it to no one but 
the Countess de Hohenfels"? 

"I demand that the Count de Hohenfels be 
sworn," said Sikorsky suddenly. 

A scornful little smile stirred the corners of De 
Hohenfels s mouth at the idea that if he thought it 
right to deceive these unfriendly inquisitors he would 
be deterred by an oath, not given freely by himself, 
but compulsorily administered by them. He would 
have been reluctant to violate his own word, but their 
oath it was nothing to him. 

They administered the oath. 

"Count de Hohenfels :" said Tschulitsky solemnly, 
"did you or did you not show or speak of the Gover 
nor-General s letter to any person whatsoever?" 

"I did not." 

Tschulitsky and Sikorsky conferred together. 
Tschulitsky asked the captains if they had any ques 
tions. De Hohenfels was escorted out by the Cos 
sack ensign, and kept in the anteroom until Tschulit- 
sky s clerk brought him a written notice stating it 
was the order of the court-martial that the Count 
de Hohenfels should not at present leave the vicinity 
of Zhergan without permission from the military 



THE CHASM 279 

authorities. He was then allowed to leave the 
Town-House. 

Next morning, a few minutes after sunrise, the 
soldier Dutloff was shot in presence of the garrison 
at the brickyard. The sound of the volley that 
killed him was plainly audible at the manor-house. 
The soldier Kazyol was placed guarded and in 
irons on the morning train for Mitau en route to 
Siberia to a life worse feared by the Russian sol 
diers than the seven hells. The sentence against 
Robert Guibet was not revoked, but execution was 
suspended, and the forester held in prison, to be 
used as a witness in case the detective division of the 
police could find sufficient evidence against De 
Hohenfels to convince the Governor-General, now 
friendly to him, of his guilt. For Tschulitsky and 
Sikorsky had placed the affair in the hands of the 
secret police. Starting with the known fact that 
Guibet and De Hohenfels had the disastrous knowl 
edge which had finally reached the revolutionists, the 
detectives set themselves to find out if anyone in the 
town, soldier or civilian, man or woman, had shared 
that knowledge. 



IX 

ON the Friday following the execution of Dut- 
loff, Yan Smika, the forester of the Medin 
estate, was arrested in his cabin by a party 
of Cossacks from Zhergan and sent to Riga for 
examination by the detective division. 

The revolutionary parties in Zhergan did not 
hear of this arrest until Monday morning, when 
Kaminsky received word through the Jewish agent 
of a firm of grain-buyers in Riga that Smika had 
been recognized on the night of the battle by a gov 
ernment spy who fought under Mitrevitz. 

Kaminsky went immediately to Grenning s office. 
"This brings it only one step from you," he said to 
Grenning. "You must get away now while you 
can." 

Grenning shook his head. "I was nominated 
night before last by the Social-Democrats for the 
second Duma," he said. "I wanted to see you yes 
terday. The authorities have given us only three 
weeks notice, and I hear Medin has been at work 
for a couple of months. But if you Social-Revolu 
tionists will deign to vote, and vote with us, we can 
take the seat away from De Hohenfels." 

"What does the Duma amount to?" scoffed 
280 



THE CHASM 281 

Kaminsky. "In Moscow they ve put fifteen promi 
nent lawyers in jail to keep them from running as 
opposition candidates." 

"I don t think De Hohenfels will allow that in 
Zhergan," said Grenning. "He d be ashamed to 
have the Countess know he d won that way himself, 
and he won t let Medin do it." 

"And suppose meanwhile Smika caves in?" 

"Your news shows they didn t arrest him for 
carrying information to Mitrevitz. Smika shouldn t 
have fought with the Brothers that night, or having 
done it, he should have stayed with them. But think 
of that traitor with Mitrewitz! Do you know who 
it is?" 

"Yes. Mitrevitz has been notified. The man will 
be killed. But that will not release Smika. And if 
Smika weakens under torture it s you next!" 

Grenning thought a while. "In the first place," he 
said, "I have faith in Smika." 

Kaminsky made a gesture of impatience. 

"In the second place, they will not be pressing 
Smika for information they don t suspect him of 
having." 

"Nonsense! They will press him for all the in 
formation he has and a lot he has not." 

"Even so if I am elected to the Duma, I be 
come exempt from arrest." 

"Theoretically." 

Grenning laughed and thought of Kaminsky s un 
warranted distrust of the Countess de Hohenfels. 
"Nachman: you are der Geist der stets verneint. 
It s probably due to your habit of calling yourself 
an atheist. Why don t you drop that nineteenth cen- 



282 THE CHASM 

tury negative denial of God and affirm the mod 
ern positive the oneness of the world?" 

"What s the difference?" grunted Kaminsky. 

"Of mental habit. I call the scepticism which 
cannot accept a truth no better than the credulity 
which accepts a falsehood." 

"You ll observe I can agree it s better to affirm 
your own proposition than deny its opposite, and 
nevertheless maintain you d better get out of Zher- 
gan." 

"I m not saying there s no risk," said Grenning. 
"But in my opinion it s worth running. We can win 
this election in Zhergan. The Socialist parties can 
return thirty or forty per cent, of the delegates of the 
next Duma. If we had foreseen last spring the tem 
per of those peasant deputies we would never have 
boycotted the elections then. If we d had our dele 
gates there with them we would have made that weak 
Vibourg Manifesto a call to arms that would have 
aroused the Russian nation, not in a dozen times and 
places and unco-ordinated movements, but as one 



man." 



"That has undoubtedly been our weakness," said 
Kaminsky. He had no idea then that leaders of his 
own party like Eugene Phillipovitch Azef were tools 
of the Tsar who were intentionally disco-ordinating 
the revolutionary movements and scattering the revo 
lutionary strength. 

"Will you get your people to vote for me?" asked 
Grenning. 

"If you re still here to vote for." Seeing he could 
not influence Grenning directly, Kaminsky left him, 
and went in to Sonya s. 



THE CHASM 283 

The Countess de Hohenfels was there, but since 
the others told her everything sooner or later any 
how, Kaminsky did not think it worth while to keep 
from her the news of Smika s arrest. 

"Do they know about Grenning?" was Sonya s 
quick question. 

"Apparently not. Not yet." 

"He and Smika went together." 

"But Smika stayed that night and fought. It was 
then he was seen. Now, because they ve arrested 
him for taking part in the fight, and not for carry 
ing information, Grenning thinks they won t examine 
him along the line that leads to him. The police are 
not that dense. The main thing they are after is 
how Mitrevitz learned of the expedition. In Smika 
they have a man who joined the band that night. 
They won t need an abacus to calculate that the in 
formation probably came to camp with him. And 
if so who gave it to him? Grenning can say what 
he likes he lies square in the path of that investi 
gation." 

"How about the rest of us?" said Marion. She 
saw the power of the Russian State working in 
toward her from both sides the side of Feodor, 
from whom she received the information the side 
of the Brothers, to whom she had sent it. 

"Smika does not know about us," said Sonya. 

"He won t listen to me," said Kaminsky. "I wish 
you d try to get him away from Zhergan." 

"He d pay more attention to you, Marion," said 
Sonya. 

Marion colored. "I think not," she said. "Is 
Smika a man so likely to betray Grenning?" 



284. THE CHASM 

"Smika isn t," answered Kaminsky. "But the 

thing they turn Smika into 1" He shrugged his 

shoulders. 

Marion s face grew gray and her fingers clenched. 
"lhate Russia!" 

"Not Russia!" Sonya protested. 

"The horror that calls itself Russia ! The Tsar 
and all the tens of thousands of horrible small 
tsars ! I cannot stand this country. I must get away 
from it to some place where men have a right to 
think and read and speak and breathe and not smell 
blood!" 

"What is Ferdinand s argument for not leaving?" 
asked Sonya. 

"He has the parliamentary bee in his bonnet, and 
that s all he can hear. He has just been nominated 
for the Duma." 

"Then he will run against Count Feodor!" Mar 
ion exclaimed. 

"If he stays," supplemented Kaminsky. "You will 
be doing a good piece of electioneering if you get 
him to go." 

"Electioneering!" cried Marion. She gave Ka 
minsky a wrathful look. "I hope he stays and 
wins!" 

"So?" said Kaminsky, hastily revising his ideas. 

Sonya looked away. 

"I m not thinking of the men personally," Mar 
ion explained, forcibly. "No anti-democrat like 
Count Feodor can do anything of value in the Duma, 
and Grenning perhaps he can." 

"And perhaps no one can," said Kaminsky. 
"But!" He held out his hand to Marion. They 



285 

looked each other in the eye, and for the first time 
she liked him. "I did not know you," he said. "I 
used just the wrong argument. But for Grenning s 
sake, for ours, no, for the cause that is above us all 
since you are a woman who can look impersonally 
get Grenning away. We can t afford to risk him 
for the sake of a seat in the Duma. If it was any 
thing vital, I wouldn t grudge him." 

"I will try it," Marion responded, rising. "Though 
if you could not get him to go, there is little chance 
that I can. Is he in his office ?" 

She went in, accepted the Doctor s invitation to 
be seated, and in her talk with him repeated the 
arguments of Kaminsky. At one point, as plainly as 
though he had done his thinking aloud, she saw him 
pause and half-shut his eyes as the idea of "election 
eering" crossed his mind; and then, with equal clear 
ness, she saw him dismiss the idea as being out of 
keeping with his conception of her character. His 
faith in her gave her a thrill of pleasure. But when 
she asked him if he would go, he asked "Where?" 

"Out of Russia?" she suggested, uncertainly. She 
added half to herself, "That is where I am going." 
Realizing the personal interpretation he might give 
to that, she looked quickly at him, but saw he did not 
give it. 

"I am not going out of Russia while there is a 
chance of overthrowing the bureaucracy," he said 
positively. "For the present they have kicked the 
fire of revolt pretty well to pieces here, and in Mos 
cow, and at Sveabourg, but we must be ready for the 
new flame. There is still Poland, the Caucasus, the 
Black Sea Fleet, the other troops around St. Peters- 



286 THE CHASM 

burg. The Baltic Republic must be ready to rise 
again with them. Everywhere the plans of a revolu 
tionary state are being steadily elaborated. The 
Duma is important because the deputies from all 
over Russia will be in a position to make the rising 
of distant districts simultaneous." 

"I did not really expect to influence your decision," 
said she. "I tried it only to satisfy Sonya and Ka- 
minsky. It may sound disloyal to my husband, but 
you will understand why I wish you and not him to 
win this election. His position is such that he can 
not throw his strength unreservedly to either side in 
the Russian struggle and you can. And I hope you 
overthrow the Tsar. You Russians have suffered so 
from tyranny that you love and value freedom more 
than we Americans." 

"You Americans? Aren t you a Russian subject?" 

"The law considers me one. But it has struck me 
lately as queer that, whether she desires it or not, 
marriage should automatically change a woman s 
nationality to that of her husband. I do not feel 
myself a Russian, and of all things in the world the 
thing I am least willing to be is a subject of the 
Tsar." 

"We are not willing either! You speak as though 
the Americans believe themselves free. If so, they 
are easily fooled ruled as they are by the most un 
mitigated industrial oligarchy in the world. The 
peoples of Russia have at least the advantage of 
knowing they are not free." 

"If you overthrow this government which has sur 
vived out of the dark ages," conceded Marion, 
"America will have to learn democracy from you. 



THE CHASM 287 

You and Sarin and Sonya and the rest have more 
faith in democracy and are profounder democrats 
than any Americans I know except one." 

"Walt Bradfield?" said Grenning. 

"Oh, do you remember his name?" Her face light 
ed up. 

"I would like to know him," the Doctor said, wist 
fully. "He must be a wonderful man to be loved by 
you." 

"I didn t tell you that!" she exclaimed. "What 
gave you that idea?" 

"You said he was your friend," hedging. 

"Oh," she said, subsiding. "I wrote to him two 
weeks ago." She paused, seeming to listen. "Per 
haps he is just this very moment receiving my let 
ter." She turned her watch and looked at it. "I 
dreamed he was dead. That night I told you about 
him I dreamed it. I told him of you and Sonya and 
Russia." 

"Be careful what you write," he warned. "The 
authorities may think it worth while to read your 
letters these days." 

Marion rose to go. "I have a personal reason 
for desiring your election, Doctor. If Count Feodor 
is defeated, I think I will be able to get him to live in 
Rome." 

"Rome?" he said. "I will be sorry to see you go." 
He sat looking intently before him. "I might as 
well speak out," he said. "I will regret it if I let you 
go without speaking. I do not think you will be 
satisfied with life in Rome. It will be a dilettant 
life without real significance and you know what 
significance is. You know Russia needs this revolu- 



288 THE CHASM 

tion as a man smothering needs air. It s a need 
greater than religion, keener than the yearning of 
wife for husband as compelling as the love of 
mother for child. This need of the nation comes 
into the individual s mind sometimes seemingly 
against a man s or woman s will and when it comes 
it dominates action. Often it comes in the form of 
an impulse you find yourself obeying." 

"You are describing my particular case," said 
Marion, intensely interested, " the way I began to 
tell about the expedition." 

"Most of us began in some such way you when 
you heard of Kenim, Sonya when they sent her father 
to Siberia, Bratavzinsky when his uncle cynically 
condemned an innocent man to death, I when they 
shot Chelms. Kaminsky thinks the Cause above all 
such personal considerations. To him these are un 
worthy reasons; but most of us come to the cause, 
not as an abstraction, but through the burning need 
of revolution which we find unmistakably in some 
particular case that comes home to us, and then we 
see it everywhere. And when it does come, we grow 
quiet and definite and unshakable and proceed to do 
the thing we have to." 

"I know you are describing a real thing truly," 
said she. "But isn t it like madness such involun 
tary obedience to an idea?" 

"Yes, it is like madness and like genius. It is 
the yearning and the struggle for sanity in a nation 
driven mad." 

Marion sat down again. All that she knew of 
Russia a thousand hitherto unrelated facts 
seemed suddenly to regroup themselves and come 



THE CHASM 289 

into focus. "Am I deserting if I go to Rome?" 
she asked. 

"Not by the mere act of going to Rome. Not by 
going anywhere. This is a world-struggle. It is 
more acute in Russia because here oppression is at its 
worst and in an antiquated form. You spoke awhile 
ago as though it were here only as though it did 
not exist in America. To think that is not to be 
deserting. It is to have not yet enlisted. Countess 
Marion: I hold you capable of the only vital conver 
sion left in the world that which finds one an active 
or passive supporter of established, powerful, unjust 
tyranny, political and economic, and makes one a 
fighter for freedom. This conversion sets you 
cleanly over from the retarding to the advancing 
party of mankind from the world-party of rulers, 
financiers and magnates who hold the life of the 
world in their enslaving grip, to the Promethean 
world-party which means to tear those strangling 
fingers from the world s throat and give the instinc 
tive brotherhood of man a chance to grow into actual- 
ity." 

"The instinctive brotherhood?" she repeated. To 
her now it sounded like a true word though it op 
posed her theory that the brotherhood of all would 
thwart the loftiest development of the few. Her own 
instinct, her own actions of late did not square with 
that theory. What was the matter with it? In the 
light of her Russian experience, Grenning seemed to 
be defining truly the great real issue of the modern 
world. She had a keen feeling of its importance and 
seriousness. But Feodor? She knew his life, his 
training, his philosophy, made him incapable of that 



290 THE CHASM 

vital conversion. "There are things that hold me 
back," she said. 

"As to Rome," he said, retracting, "I spoke hasti 
ly from personal disappointment. I was hoping 
to see you this winter in St. Petersburg. As for de 
serting you might as well go to Rome. You will 
not stay there. Or if you do, you will find the battle 
there. Wherever you go you will find it the same 
battle setting the souls of men on flame!" 

"I have a large job of spiritual stock-taking on my 
hands," said Marion. "A fine lot of unsolved prob 
lems I ve accumulated. I ve been shirking and put 
ting them off. I am indebted to you for a keen de 
sire to attack them. We must see each other again 
for a good talk before one or both of us leave Zher- 
gan." 

As she left Grenning s office, she met Trina Ronke 
coming in, and received a look of surprise and re 
sentment in return for her greeting. "What s the 
matter with that individual ?" she thought. "Can she 
imagine I have robbed her of Grenning s affection?" 

Stopping a moment to tell Sonya and Kaminsky 
that she had not shaken Grenning s resolution, she 
then went by the inn stable, where she told Davuidka 
to drive home without her; and walking slowly home 
ward in the autumn sunshine, past the brickyard and 
the smithy and the fields where women, children, and 
men were at work digging and sacking potatoes, she 
thought deeply of her life. 

She thought of her old desire, awakened by Lady 
Diotima, for social and political power, and knew 
she had missed it by her marriage with Feodor. But 
that desire had been linked with the supposition that 



THE CHASM 291 

a woman could obtain and use such power benefi 
cently. When she had come to know upon what 
sordid considerations real "influence" in Washington 
depended, she knew she could not attain it and re 
main anything she wanted to be. And power in St. 
Petersburg! It was power of darkness, and the 
hearts of those who grasped it petrified ! Was there 
any power in the world which could coexist with 
love? With eyes that had seen Russia she looked 
back on her father s conception of power control 
of industry the power of which political power was 
but the shadow. She remembered the defeat of the 
Curran bill, and Bradfield s burning revelation of 
the manufacturers motives which had made her 
want to vote, and Fedya s cold comment 
"Women s sympathies are too easily carried away 
by such appeals." 

Was power that did not crush and grind man 
kind impossible? If leaders of the new democ 
racy like Grenning, Sonya, Sarin, and Bradfield at 
tained political power would they make the same 
narrow selfish use of it the ruling class made now? 
Her feeling was that they would not but why? 
What was to prevent it? She made a mental note 
to ask Grenning about direct legislation the ma 
chinery of the new democracy. Then she re mem- 
bered those peasant deputies whose parliamentary 
course had been shaped by the eight million peas 
ants behind them, and Vasili Pososhkov s theory 
that collective ownership, aligning the self-interest 
of every individual with the common good, would 
resolve the undeniable discord now sounding be 
tween self and society, and with the discord its re- 



292 THE CHASM 

flex in men s minds the apparent antithesis be 
tween socialism and individualism. Less definite 
but more weighty than all else with her was her 
own realization in herself of a new order of mo 
tives and passions the same order she felt in the 
souls of all those in whom the social consciousness 
had dawned. Through this she felt that she un 
derstood the new spirit, the new kind of govern 
ment, dawning among the peoples of the world. 
She felt the bitter need of it. 

But Feodor? She had grown accustomed to 
keeping her thoughts from him, but was determined 
that things should not go on so. Their conversa 
tion had grown narrower through avoidance of sub 
jects on which they knew there was between them 
a fundamental disagreement. His atmosphere of 
cold disapproval, usually unspoken, was slowly 
freezing all her affection for him. Her high opin 
ion of his esthetic judgment had at first made her 
dread his disapproval even in the least of things. 
When she read it in his manner it had then given 
her a feeling of her own deficiency. Little by little, 
she was forced to feel that the deficiency lay rather 
in him. He disapproved of and excluded too 
much, he said "no" to too wide and splendid a part 
of life, he loved too few things, persons, ideas, and 
those he loved he did not love enough. It seemed 
some other, dreamier self within her which mental 
ly repeated the words, "He did not love enough," 
as though she were reading the epitaph of a dead 
marriage. 

"How could he," she thought, "when his heart 



THE CHASM 293 

grew up in that icy upper Russian world that is 
based on the crushing of men?" 

He was indeed a Hyperborean a dweller be 
yond the cold. But the woman needed love. She 
had to have love or wither. She did not solve that 
problem as she walked home through the autumn 
sunshine, nor did she find it solved when she awoke 
at dawn, hearing the mournful song of a swallow, 
and feeling the pathos of all far-off things cities 
remote, and days gone by, and faces she no longer 
saw. 



X 

THE days were shorter, the nights colder, the 
intense labor of the harvest nearly over 
in the region round Zhergan. The Count 
and Countess de Hohenfels and Baron Medin were 
the only upperclass residents of the district remain 
ing in the melancholy country, and they of course 
were staying only on account of the September elec 
tion. Baron Medin argued privately with De Ho 
henfels that as a landowner he could not afford to 
divide the anti-socialist strength in the face of a 
Lettish population honeycombed with socialism. 

De Hohenfels smiled. "Considering your small 
vote this spring, Medin, I don t see how there can 
be any argument as to which anti-socialist candidate 
should withdraw." 

"There are two arguments. First: the new re 
strictions of the suffrage will disqualify at least half 
of those who voted for you this spring." 

"Restrictions made in violation of the guarantee 
in the Tsar s original ukase," observed De Hohen 
fels. 

"The restrictions are now part of the law. The 
second point is that much of your remaining 
strength is this time going to Grenning." A third 
point that the Government was preparing to use 

294 



THE CHASM 295 

intimidation Medin did not think it necessary to 
state. 

De Hohenfels had no exact information as to 
how things were going, but his desire to retain his 
seat being aroused by the activity of the Govern 
ment on the one hand, and of the Socialists on the 
other, he began to give some time, thought, and 
energy to the campaign. 

About a week before the election, Marion, glanc 
ing at her morning s mail, carelessly tore open the 
return envelop of a Chicago manufacturing firm. 
From it she drew forth a fat letter from Walt 
Bradfield. She ran off quickly with it to her own 
room. 

It was dated Chicago, Sept. 22d. "Dear Count 
ess Marion," he wrote. "You ask if I am angry 
with you because you left Moline without saying 
goodbye and without telling me how much you think 
of me. How long do you think anger could with 
stand that question? My answer is that I am fatalist 
enough to know that all that happened had to hap 
pen. All I need to relieve my mind of about that 
night and morning is this: Count Hohenfels did not 
do what I accused him of, but he thought of doing 
it, and in your eyes my great crime was thinking he 
thought of it. 

"You say you have a thousand things to ask and 
tell. There may be an opportunity sooner than 
you think. Yes, I have fallen in love a couple of 
times, but have been too busy to do it thoroughly. 
It s taboo now, I suppose, but I hate taboos, and the 
fact is you spoiled me a little for others or them 
for me. 



THE CHASM 

"As to that glorious vision of yours the higher 
race I see it must be serviceable to the Countess 
de Hohenfels in that it will help her to view with 
indifference (as a thing necessary and ultimately 
productive of the highest good) the needless suf 
fering and degradation of almost the whole of her 
own kind the only beings she ever expects to see. 
If you and Count Feodor were naturally callous 
people you probably wouldn t need that philosophic 
protection against pity. Your doctrine is an appar 
ently well-based substitute for the old idea that God 
has damned the bulk of the race to hell. For God 
substitute Nature, and for hell race stagnation and 
decay, and you have your comforting new formula. 
Comforting because it relieves you of responsibility 
for conditions from which you profit. It is Nature 
at work! The elect, the chosen few of Nature 
(pretty shallowly identified, I must say, with the 
present ruling class) are to carry life on up into 
the earthly heaven of superhumanity. 

"That s clever! It could be made to sweep the 
bourgeois world like Christian Science or New 
Thought if only it didn t take so much real imag 
ination and so thorough a comprehension of the big 
results of biology. I concede at once that all the 
races of our ancestry have split as you expect ours 
to. Put on top of all biologic precedent the allure 
ment of the old messianic idea transfer your re 
ligious emotions from a supernatural to a natural 
Messiah reasonably to be expected in the future and 
appealing to the most profound instinct of all true 
lovers of men the desire for a finer race and I 
do not wonder you have yielded to this charm! 



THE CHASM 297 

"The Count de Hohenfels and you, however, 
seem to have overlooked the fact that the various 
ape-tribes, for instance, had no steamships and rail 
roads to bring them together, create among them 
like ways of life and work and thought, and insure 
the blending of the blood of all. Thanks to a knit- 
together world the many branches of mankind must 
have not many fates, but one. Humanity cannot 
split as simianity did into lower and higher. There 
will be no groups left isolated in special environ 
ments. 

"The Count s idea is worth forming and re 
jecting because it brings into clear light the fact 
that in not branching into distinct species mankind 
makes a new departure in the history of racial 
growth. Man must transform not a part, but the 
whole of his kind into the higher race!" 

"Oh, I love that, Walt!" said Marion, half 
aloud. "There s inspiration of a wider, warmer 
kind in that!" 

She sat a moment loving that, before she went 
on. "If the Count is looking for the final cleavage 
to occur, not between different nations or races, but 
within the highest existing races through gradual 
widening of the gap between higher and lower 
classes, tell him to leave that gap to Socialism 
and sex-attraction ! Europe is not exactly getting 
ready for Hindoo caste. 

"Our race is one, by the test of Fertility, and as 
one it must attain or fail of the heaven of super- 
humanity. In a thousand years the blood of the 
basest must blend with yours. Better not block 
social progress that will make his children less 



298 THE CHASM 

base! A single pair doubling thirty times would 
have over a billion living descendants. After the 
human net is woven through thirty generations, 
knotting every ancestral thread to every other, you 
and your worst enemy, if the blood of both of you 
endures at all, will both be the very great grand 
parents of every individual alive! 

"We cannot say that free men and women es 
pecially women will never find some way to breed 
men only from the best. To be the best may be 
the chief incentive of that time. But it is certainly 
not from our society of narrow individuals or from 
the present necessarily selfish and slavish age that 
a conscious tendency toward a higher race can rise. 
That time may not come till Capitalism and Social 
ism are both outgrown and dim as ancient Egypt. 

"Having thus wantonly deprived you of the com 
fort of your new religion (for of course you are 
crushed!) I feel I should make some slight amends 
by confessing that you were not altogether wrong 
about that automatic sash-lifter for regulating the 
temperature of conservatories. It is on the market, 
and thanks to some friends I made in Chicago, I 
was not entirely robbed. In fact I am now ex 
tracting royalty from the sweat of the men who are 
actually making the device. 

"You ask for an account of my doings. First, 
I have not shot myself. Before I lifted myself out 
of the class in which I happened to have been born 
I worked in a Chicago greenhouse, did a little 
speaking, and have had two or three articles in 
Socialist and semi-Socialist magazines, and a pros- 



THE CHASM 299 

pect of some money from them for articles from 
abroad. They would like to know, for instance, 
why the revolution in Russia is going so badly. It 
looked like a sure thing. If I were there as a 
magazine writer let s see, which is more respect 
able I shall also be examining the field for the 
introduction of the automatic sash-lifter and since 
it is in one sense my own sash-lifter, I may prefer 
to regard myself as a manufacturer rather than a 
mere commercial traveler. I shall select which 
ever social status will best enable me to visit you 
in your Zhergan." 

"Zhergan!" exclaimed Marion, and her thoughts 
flashed. "Here! Walt here in Zhergan! What 
will Fedya oh, this isn t Turkey! But we won t 
be here in Zhergan! What a shame to come all 
the way from America When is he coming?" She 
glanced on hastily, finding the sentence "I am leav 
ing next week expect to land in Hamburg. On 
the map I locate Zhergan near Riga." She looked 
at the date. "Next week," she repeated. "Not 
over a week behind the letter if he comes straight 
through. But will he?" How much was there to 
his elaborate intention of coming to Europe and 
Russia anyway irrespective of her letter? Would 
he stop in Hamburg for business, in Berlin for. 
sight-seeing? It would be only decent if he did not 
rush straight through. But unless he did he 
would not reach Zhergan before they left. They 
were going the day after the election. If she wrote 
to him at Hamburg but what could she tell him? 
She did not yet know where she and Fedya were 



300 THE CHASM 

going. To St. Petersburg only if he were elected. 
And if to Rome she and Bradfield might not meet 
at all. 

She laid the letter on her lap and gazed out un 
seeing across the sere and black-ribbed fields. 
"Walt!" Pictures: the island cabin in wood-fire 
light; the launch and the lightning; the white lights 
of Davenport; the Hillcrest wall and the uphill 
concrete walk. Tones: the rain on rattling win 
dows; music of infinite waters descending; the roar 
of that torrent; the sound of his voice saying, 
"Don t let this be the end of things between us 
it has grown too strong to break!" She had not 
heard again that sincerity of passion in a human 
voice. 

She rose suddenly, walked through the room and 
back, forbidding her mind ever to remember again 
those great emotional experiences whose record 
must likewise still exist in the memory of the man 
with whom she had shared them. Only if these 
were ignored and made as though they did not exist 
could she and that man have the friendship she de 
sired. She looked at the letter, asking herself, "Can 
I show it to Fedya?" She sat down and carefully 
reread it with that in view. 

"Why didn t he have the sense to observe the 
taboo he recognized?" she sighed, and put the letter 
in her waist without deciding. She wanted Fedya 
to see the criticism of the doctrine of superhuman- 
ity. He might have some convincing reply. It 
would be best to copy that and burn the original. 
As she went about her affairs she began systematic- 



THE CHASM 301 

ally to reduce Walt s visit to its true importance. 
To see a friend or not important of course, but 
not so world-changing as it seemed in her first sur 
prise. 

"O Fedya," said she at luncheon, "do you re 
member Walt Bradfield?" 

"Not pleasantly." 

"Of course he was wrong that night. But you 
did hint, Feodor. It has occurred to me lately that 
he took his medicine pretty well. I have a letter 
from him. He is in Hamburg, or perhaps by now 
in Riga. He has an invention, a conservatory de 
vice, that has made money, and he wants to intro 
duce it in Russia." 

Count Feodor merely sniffed. 

"He is coming here," she said. "Of course we 
may be gone, but if not I shall receive him." 

The Count shrugged his shoulders. "One so 
cialist more or less !" 

"I copied the philosophical part of his letter," 
she said, pushing it over to him. "I would like 
your criticism of it." 

"Sorry you had to take the trouble copying. 
Perhaps the original was illegible." 

She looked away, shaking her head over the im 
possibility of meeting insinuations which were per 
haps not insinuations, and then she turned back. 
"Are you criticizing me for not submitting my entire 
correspondence to your censorship?" 

"How absurd!" 

"Then don t say things that sound spiteful!" 

"Will you pardon me for reading?" He be- 



302 THE CHASM 

came interested at the first sentence. u . . . For hell 
read race-degeneration, " he read, half aloud. "He 
has it straight. Did you write him all this?" 

"Just a hint." 

"Now let s see " He finished reading. 

"What pleasure he takes in the idea of the basest 
mingling his blood with the bestl" said the Count, 
tossing the sheet on the table. 

"No, Feodor," said she gently. "What pleases 
him is his proof of our interest in having the basest 
be less base." Expecting his answer to the main 
argument, she saw an uneasy look in his face. Self- 
doubt? She was surprised. 

"I never said the higher race is a certainty. It 
is a possibility and undeniably it is in the power of 
the mob to thwart it if they find out their power. 
I never said the herd would not triumph. I say it 
is a pity if they do." 

"But who are the herd? Who are the herd s 
superiors?" 

"It would take somewhat too long to enumerate." 
His tone was an orphic one that usually overawed 
her, but she had lost her old feeling that not to see 
what he saw was proof of deficient perception. 

"I wanted you to meet Bradfield s objection that 
the existing class of rulers and owners, say in Rus 
sia, does not at all coincide with the human material 
that should be selected to form a higher breed. 
What line excludes the numerous men like your 
brother-in-law and includes men like Grenning?" 

"So you want to include Grenning?" 

That being mere evasion of defeat, she pressed 
him no further. 



THE CHASM 303 

He gave her a hostile look and rose. "I hear 
you and he are wonderfully thick," he said. 

She did not feel like speaking, she was so sorry 
and ashamed for him, and Count Feodor left the 
room, the weakness of his great dream mercilessly 
bare, missing the opportunity to give it heroic fare-/ 
well. 



XI 

THREE or four days before the election the 
Zhergan police and Tschulitsky s Cossacks 
broke up a meeting addressed by Grenning, 
threatened him with arrest, and roughly dispersed 
the crowd. The faces of some of the peasants were 
cut with whips, and a woman was badly trampled. 

In private De Hohenfels expressed scorn of such 
tactics, but it made him angry when Marion asked 
him why he did not protest publicly. She had come 
,to regard such a protest as a psychic improbability 
in any man of his class. This idea of hers irritated 
him, and yet, as a matter of fact, he had lived so 
long in the habit of concealing dangerous opinions 
that he had come to regard anything else as a use 
less and foolish sacrifice of self. From his point of 
view, therefore, Marion was criticizing him for act 
ing wisely, and admiring Grenning, who had come 
out with a scathing protest, for acting foolishly. 

"If all men had your wisdom," she said to him, 
"the present Russian Government would endure to 
the end of the world." 

He reproached her for getting her head full of 
the ideas of his political opponents. 

She reminded him that she was entitled to her 
own political opinions. 

"Herd-opinions!" he scoffed. 
304 



THE CHASM 305 

"Opinions leading to resolute action. We really 
should make good and sure of manhood before as 
piring to supermanhood." 

One word leading to another, she told him she 
did not sympathize with his desire to return to the 
Duma. 

"May I ask if it is Baron Medin with whom you 
desire to replace me in the Duma?" 

"Don t be nasty, Feodor." 

"If you had any respect for my wishes, you d 
quit those daily visits to the Social-Democratic 
headquarters." 

"I do not go to Sonya Demidoff s because it is 
the Social-Democratic headquarters if it is. I go 
there because she and her friends are all that make 
life in Russia supportable." 

"So I supposed. Particularly her friends." 

"I m sick of your insinuations. If you have any 
thing to say, say it like a man. If not, keep still." 

"How delicately you put things!" 

"I ve heard too many bitter things put delicately. 
Since we are to leave Zhergan next week, I shall 
make the most of Sonya in the meantime." 

"And her friends?" 

"And her friends." 

"Your frankness is astonishing." 

"Not unless it is wilfully misunderstood. Lack of 
frankness is spoiling our life, Fedya." 

"Lack of consideration for my wishes has some 
thing to do with the spoiling." 

"There is nothing I would not do," she said with 
a sudden appeal to him in her eyes and voice, " if 
you asked it in the spirit of love." 



306 THE CHASM 

"Said spirit to be turned on at will like a gas-jet? 
You say and do things that make such a spirit im 
possible, and then make my not having it an excuse 
for the things you do." 

"What things do I do? I hold certain opinions. 
I see certain people. These things need no excuse." 

They went their ways without reconciliation, but 
Marion did not go that day or the next to Sonya s. 
She kept looking for a letter or telegram from 
Walt. She thought by now he must be in Europe. 
The third morning she mentioned to her husband 
the fact that she had not been to the dressmaker s. 

"Wonderful!" he said. 

She rang for a page. "Ironic comment is the 
only reward for sacrificing one s wishes to yours," 
she said. 

"Must there be a reward ?" 

"Do you think observing your wishes such a vir 
tue as to be its own reward? I do not. She told 
the page to have Davuidka bring around the car 
riage. "I am going to Sonya s," she said, and went 
to put on her coat and hat. 

It was the day before election. Marion had al 
most given up hope of Walt s coming in time. If 
he did not let her know where to reach him, the best 
she could do was to let him come to Zhergan and 
leave there a letter telling him where she and Fedya 
had gone. Her thoughts turning to Sonya, who 
was about to drop out of her life, she began to get 
the blues. It was a shame she had sacrificed for 
no result these last two days. It might well be 
that Grenning would now be too busy with the elec 
tion to have the farewell talk she had planned. 



THE CHASM 307 

As her carriage passed the brickyard and came 
in sight of the railway station, Davuidka called, 
"The soldiers!" and pointed with his whip to a line 
of white tunics and bayonets. They were drawn up 
in front of the passenger coach of the train about to 
leave for Mitau. 

As the Hohenfels droshky came closer, a man 
with his wrists handcuffed was pushed into one of 
the compartments. Before the door was shut on 
him, he turned to look back at someone in the 
crowd. Marion saw that it was Grenning. His 
face was white and grim, his head held as though 
the blow of a rifle-butt on the side of it would not 
have made his neck bend. 

Marion ordered Davuidka to turn back to the 
station gate. He obeyed mechanically, and then, 
too late for any possible effect, voiced his protest: 
"Better keep away from there, little mistress 1" 

She did not even hear him. She sprang from 
the carriage and hastened through the station with 
the feeling that somehow she must put a stop to 
that. There were forty or fifty people kept back 
from the train by the wall of soldiers. In the 
crowd she caught sight of Sonya, and started toward 
her. Sonya ran to meet her. "I want money," 
she said, under her breath. "Have you money? 
Quick if you have I must get a ticket for Riga." 

Marion reached for her purse. 

"Don t give it to her," said a man s voice at Mar 
ion s elbow. She gave a start, then saw it was 
Kaminsky. "Sonya : they ll spot you if you rush off 
on this train. You have no permit. You haven t 
even closed your shop." 



THE CHASM 

"You close it." 

Kaminsky turned to Marion. "Don t give her 
money till after this train goes," he urged. 

"She is judge of her own acts," said Marion, and 
opened her purse. 

Kaminsky shook his head, his eyes on Marion s. 
"They ll get her sure if you do!" warned he. The 
train-guard closed the last compartment, signaled 
the engineer, and the train started. A look of re 
lief came into Kaminsky s eyes, and into Sonya s a 
look of sheer despair. As the coach glided by, they 
looked, but could not see Grenning. At the window 
of his compartment sat soldiers. Sonya gave them 
a look of hatred. "If only everyone hadn t been 
at work!" groaned she. 

"You can go tonight, Sonya," said Kaminsky. 
"It is ever so much better. I will go with you. 
Zhergan is getting too hot. I promise you I will do 
all man can do in Riga for Grenning. But it can t 
be done in an hour, nor a day. You and I must 
disappear from the knowledge of the police. Gren 
ning may have to tell them about us." 

"He never will!" cried Sonya. 

"We will get permits to go to Odessa, but in 
Mitau our official existence ends pointing toward 
Odessa. Another man and woman will arrive in Riga 
late tonight." 

"How about me?" asked Marion. 

"Leave Russia." 

"Grenning will never tell them about us," insisted 
Sonya. 

"Grenning won t," said Kaminsky. 

Sonya writhed. 



THE CHASM 309 

"Sikorsky is looking at us," warned Kaminsky. 
"He will know Grenning is our only business at this 
train." 

To Sikorsky personally the three were two wo 
men who had resisted his charms, and a Jew the 
despised race. 

"Can you come to Sonya s?" asked Kaminsky. 

"Yes. Come both of you in my carriage." 

"Not all three. Take Sonya. I ll join you." 
He turned and walked away. 

The two went out and got into the carriage. "Can 
it be they have arrested Grenning merely to prevent 
his election?" asked Marion hopefully as they 
drove away from the station. She spoke French so 
Davuidka could not understand. 

Sonya shook her head. 

"What do you hope to do in Riga, Sonya? I 
know you must go for your own sake, but what 
have you planned?" 

"I must get poison to him." 

Her quietness was uncanny, suggesting to Marion 
that the shock of seeing the arrest and the thought 
of what it meant had unbalanced her. How could 
a normal mind accept that terrible conclusion as in 
evitable? Was Kaminsky s talk of doing some 
thing in Riga meant only to lessen Sonya s despair? 

"He may not know enough to take poison when 
they finish." 

The horror deepened for Marion, but she gave 
up the idea of madness in Sonya. But what hope 
lessness! She remembered Prince Demidoff. His 
daughter had hoped too long in vain. 

They left the carriage at the inn stable. As they 



310 THE CHASM 

drove up, the hostler was saying to a well-to-do 
muzhik, "Vote for him anyway." When they saw 
Sonya, the two men gave her a look of comprehen 
sion and sympathy. 

As they walked to Sonya s, Marion tried to get 
the girl to think of what she was to do with her 
books and things. That only made her think of 
Grenning s books and instruments there in his rooms 
unused. The police had locked and sealed the 
doors and taken the keys. 

At the shop they met Fritz Dumpe with Sonya s 
mail. "Oh our mail!" exclaimed Marion. "Let 
me see the mail for the manor!" The postman 
found it and handed it to her. She ran it over. 
Nothing! 

The mail-carrier wanted to know about Gren- 
ning. "If Mitrevitz only knew!" he exclaimed. 
"Mitrevitz would stop the train and take Gren- 
ning off." 

Sonya s eyes lit up, but only for an instant. There 
was no possible way to let Mitrevitz know. Dumpe 
gave her her mail. "You might as well take Ka- 
minsky s too," he said. "No use leaving it lie around. 
There s a letter from Riga came this morning. 
The censor doesn t get a chance to read Kaminsky s 
letters." He gave a wink. The limit he had 
placed on the otherwise unlimited power of the 
censor was pure joy to him. 

"Comrade Dumpe," said Marion, "does the cen 
sor ever hold out letters for the manor?" 

"I never thought to see. I can find out. He 
didn t use to. Does it matter much, I mean?" 

"I m expecting nothing political," said Marion. 



THE CHASM 311 

"I was just wondering yes, find out if any letter 
for me has not been delivered. I don t think any 
thing can ever darken the world for you, Comrade 
Dumpe," she ended, glancing at Sonya. At "com 
rade" as a substitute for the "master" disguised in 
"Mr.," the Countess had sometimes smiled as a 
piece of make-believe a pretense that the visioned 
future was already here; but addressing the mail- 
carrier, she found no other form of speech that 
sounded right. 

Comrade Dumpe admitted he liked being alive. 

When Kaminsky came, Marion gave him the let 
ter from Riga, and waited to see if it threw any 
light on the arrest. 

Kaminsky tore it open, and sat down to read it. 
It was in familiar cipher. The others watched his 
expression. "Smika is a maniac," he said. "Some 
where in the ruins they learned of Grenning." 

"In the ruins of Grenning will they learn of us?" 
thought Marion. 

"Why didn t your man telegraph?" Sonya de 
manded passionately. 

Kaminsky shook his head. "The night operator 
here is against us. Listen to this. It s from our 
man in the detective division of the Riga police. 
I can t stay here much longer. If I did, I d turn 
monster like Gregus and Davus. I make an ex 
cuse to be away from the torture chamber, and then 
find a horrible fascination drawing me to it. I un 
derstand now how the autocracy can get men to do 
this work. They come to crave it. 

Sonya sprang up, gave Kaminsky a look of bitter 
ness, and went out into the shop. 



312 THE CHASM 

"I think she understands," said Kaminsky. "It 
hits too hard now. Do you understand?" 

"Understand! Absolutely not." 

"You ought to. This is good propaganda. He 
read: The shock on the nerves of a man who tears 
out another s finger-nail and feels his victim quiver 
is intense. This intense sensation soon becomes an 
object of desire. I understand the cat with the 
mouse. I understand the tortures inflicted by sav 
ages. I understand Gregus and Davus and Zim- 
mermann. The trade of Gregus has reshaped him 
in a way I do not care to be reshaped. The sight 
of someone s agony is all that gives him sexual grati 
fication. He awaits the hour of torture as a normal 
youth awaits a night with a woman. For women 
he cares nothing. Davus is still one step from that. 
He rushed from the torture chamber to wreak his 
lust upon the women of the town. I think probably 
the savages who gave no sign of pain under torture 
so acted in order to deprive their enemies of actual 
physical gratification. Gregus and Davus and Zim- 
mermann are not so robbed of their delight by mod 
ern victims. There are screams of horror that go 
to the marrow of whomsoever hears. 

"Is there no one to kill these men?" said Marion 
hoarsely. Something that had been soft in her soul 
seemed to harden into steel. 

"Yes," Kaminsky answered, significantly. "Or 
better the men who set these at this work. Do 
you blame the Social Revolutionists for looking 
coldly on a parliament called by this government? 
Do you blame us for grasping terrorism as a 
weapon?" 



THE CHASM 313 

"I blame you for nothing! I could kill these men 
with my own hands ! I blame the civilized world 
for permitting such a regime as this to remain on 
earth!" 

"Permitting it! The financiers of the civilized 
world maintain it! The wages of Gregus are paid 
with the money of New York bondbuyers." 

"Yes," thought Marion bitterly, "and Feodor de 
Hohenfels maintains it!" 

Sonya came and stood in the doorway. "Nach- 
man," she said, passionately, "the thing to think 
about today is Grenning on his way to the claws of 
Gregus!" 

"As though I were not here shaping a force for 
his deliverance!" thought Kaminsky resentfully; but 
instead of defending himself, he preferred to let 
Marion suspect him of lukewarmness, knowing with 
quick instinct that if she did not place too much 
faith in him she would feel more powerfully the im 
pulse to act herself. She looked at him expectantly, 
and he kept silent. 

"What are you going to do?" she asked. 

"I will not know till I get to Riga and see." 

"Why can t your police confederate contrive 
Grenning s escape?" 

"I don t know. But he would have contrived 
Smika s if he had had the power." 

"He can carry poison," said Sonya, softly. 
"Poison is beautiful, unruining death!" 

"Sonya, why do you think of the last resort first?" 
cried Marion. "Kaminsky, can these insane beasts 
be bought?" 

"Undoubtedly they can," replied the Jew. "Only 



THE CHASM 

what of the buyer? His offer is a confession of 
complicity. What is to prevent their seizing him?" 

Marion looked at him with a decreasing opinion 
of his courage and resourcefulness. "Some way 
must be found!" she said. "What time does your 
train go tonight?" 

"Seven o clock." 

"We are going anyhow day after tomorrow," 
she mused. 

"Day after tomorrow is long enough to make the 
Grenning you knew a maimed old man!" cried 
Sonya. "Come to Riga tonight." 

"I may have to, to get the money," said Marion. 
She saw the situation calling for the sacrifice of her 
last chance of being in Zhergan when Walt ar 
rived. "How much do you think it will take, Ka- 
minsky?" 

"I do not know. We have never had enough 
money to try it." 

"Five thousand roubles? Ten thousand? Twen 
ty-five?" 

"Really I ve no idea. Terrible things are done 
for much less than five thousand. But the larger 
the sum the greater temptation and surer result." 

"Could I give you a check on Riga?" 

"A check! To establish my connection with you, 
and yours with me, make me declare my presence 
officially in Riga, and " 

"No, no," she interrupted. "I see it won t do." 
She wondered what excuse she could give Feodor. 
Well, he would have to think what he would. "I ll 
go tonight," she said, and rose. 



THE CHASM 315 

"Much the best," said Kaminsky. "They can 
not lay hands on you so easily in a large city. Riga 
is a door from Russia. If necessary we can slip 
you through on an emigrant ship." 

Sonya came and clung to Marion and sobbed 
convulsively. 

"You of all people, Sonya !" 

Sonya tried in vain to stop. "I could stand 
everything till I began to hope!" 

All that day at home Marion was tense with feel 
ing of danger and uncertainty. At luncheon she 
could not eat. In her mind ideas independent of 
her will were blazing, leading to others, passing. 
"It thought" within her as one says "it rains." 
She no longer felt free as of old to choose her way. 
Her way was being marked for her by things, 
events, outside herself. She had to follow the 
marks. She noticed the visible beat of her pulse in two 
places on her wrist. She nodded to the servants 
to withdraw. 

"Did you hear about Grenning?" She spoke with 
a calmness that both surprised and reassured her. 

"Kronberg came and told me," replied Count 
Feodor. 

"Are you going to do anything?" 

"I?" 

"I thought you might wish to use your influence 
to keep a man like that from being tortured." 

"I fail to see " He paused. 

She waited. 

"No," he said. "I have no reason to suppose 
him innocent of the charge against him. If I 



316 THE CHASM 

thought it was merely pity for the man which moved 
you " 

"What then?" 

He smiled. "I should then preach a sermon on the 
morbid psychology of pity." 

She was anything but amused. "What is the 
charge against Grenning?" 

"Being a spy. Giving secret information to Mi- 
trevitz. Apparently it s about the thing Sikorsky 
wanted to accuse me of." He said this nonchalant 
ly; then suddenly looked keenly at Marion. He 
leaned abruptly forward, his elbow on the table, 
palm up, forefinger pointing toward her, and opened 
his lips to speak then checked his fierce question, 
sat back, and was thinking hard. 

"I am going to Riga tonight," she said. 

"What for?" 

"To free Grenning." 

He tried to beat down her eyes with his. She 
paid no attention, and went on, "I may have to stay 
for a time in Riga. I can rejoin you from there 
in " She started to say St. Petersburg, but re 
membered that that city was located in Russia. "If 
Bradfield comes here before you leave, I wish you 
would tell him to come to see me in Riga. I will 
have to send you my Riga address tomorrow." 

"Is this an avowal of your liaison?" demanded 
Count Feodor. 

"No since I have none." 

"The information Grenning is accused of furnish 
ing was contained in the Governor General s letter 
which I read to you. Where did Grenning get it? 



THE CHASM 317 

Did you tell him about that intended night attack?" 

"If I had, it would imply no liaison." 

"Why then should you tell him?" 

She gave a gesture of impatience. U I may as 
well tell you. I did not give that or any other in 
formation to Grenning. He is no spy. That in 
formation crossed the chasm from government to 
revolutionist when it passed from you to me. It 
reached Mitrevitz through mel" 

"What treachery!" He spoke with loathing. "A 
spy in one s own bed!" 

"Treachery! To what? The Russian govern 
ment? I hate and despise it! My motive when I 
did it was merely to save Mitrevitz and his men 
from its horrible tortures. Since then I have ad 
vanced. I would do it now to help destroy your 
hateful government." 

"I am not a supporter of the government." 

"What childish folly! You are! You fight the 
only forces that can end it. And it supports you 
your property, your title. For all you have ever 
done or will do the bureaucracy would go on un 
changed forever. You profit by the grinding of the 
people which it decrees and bloodily enforces. In 
music you try to exalt existing economic misery as 
something beautiful!" 

"Don t go into esthetics. You know nothing 
about it. In all you say about this business you show 
yourself morally obtuse. That act of yours was 
treachery to me!" 

"How unconsciously and completely you identify 
your interest with that of the government ! Don t 



318 THE CHASM 

say treachery to me I A .man who sends govern 
ment troops against the revolutionists is a traitor 
to the Russian people!" 

"And I took you for a natural aristocrat! You 
are simply crazy with your democratic rot!" 

"One must be a block of wood to remain sane in 
Russia." 

"Do you realize that I swore to Sikorsky that I 
had revealed the government plans to no one? 
What do you suppose will happen when what you 
have done comes out?" 

"Is that all you can think of that you may be 
caught in a lie a lie you were proud of when 
what I have done comes out?" 

He saw scorn deepening in her eyes, and turned 
red. "Do you expect to go on living with me?" he 
demanded. 

"I have been wondering. I had not made up my 
mind. But " 

"Yes, but ! You hate the government, and 
however falsely, you identify me with it. The in 
ference is obvious." 

"I do not hate you. I made up my mind this 
morning to be guilty of no more well-intentioned 
deceit toward you. I meant to tell you that I no 
longer have any respect for any Russian who is not 
a revolutionist. But now a man whose wife may 

be given into the hands of insane human beasts 

And you think only of some inconvenience to your 
self! One can approve the egotism of a large na 
ture. But this! You have a very much smaller 
soul than I thought possible !" 

"That is too much! Insults like these are unfor- 



THE CHASM 319 

givable. Our living together is out of the question." 
She sat quiet a moment, wondering that the final 
knowledge of the death of love should be so pain 
less. "I thank you really for deciding. I give 
you credit for at least not pretending to feel things 
you do not." 

"I find I have no talent for husbandhood," he 
said, relieved of his fear of heroics. "Approach 
and capture charm. Possession cloys." 

"Possession? Yes, that is your antique error! 
Oh, I am glad we have no baby!" She rose quickly, 
left the room, ran upstairs, and locked her door, 
before she broke down. 



XII 

NEXT morning the Countess de Hohenfels s 
slumber was broken by the unaccustomed 
clink of iron-shod hoofs on paving-stones, the 
rumble of wheels, the melancholy chant of city 
street cries. She knew it could not be Chicago; 
she was afraid it was St. Petersburg; and then link 
ing the life of to-day with that of yesterday, she 
made out the large hotel room in which she lay 
alone, and murmured "Riga!" Riga, she knew, 
was more strange and terrible than St. Petersburg, 
but why? "Grenning!" Somewhere in this city lay 
Grenning. Already Gregus must have laid eyes on 
him eyes of terrible lust! That was the over- 
towering, difficult, immediate thing to free Gren 
ning! She looked at her watch. It was too early 
to do anything, but her desire for action, her feeling 
that an unforeseen emergency might arise at any 
time, forced her to rise and begin dressing. 

The events of the night before crowded through 
her mind her departure alone driven for the last 
time by Davuidka the lights of Feyda s manor far 
in the night last seen from her car window the 
railway journey with Sonya, tense to the breaking 
point, and Kaminsky, watching everyone without 
showing it her open farewell to the two, acted for 

320 



THE CHASM 321 

the benefit of detectives in Mitau. There the revo 
lutionists were to help Sonya and Kaminsky change 
their names, passports, destinations, clothes, pro 
fessions, personalities. They would leave Mitau a 
third-guild leather-merchant and his wife. They 
must be now in Riga in rooms over a German 
bookseller s in the Kaufstrasse. Marion wanted to 
rejoin Sonya as soon as possible. Sonya had urged 
her to leave them what money she could and get 
away from Russia at once, but the girl was under 
terrible strain, was likely to go all to pieces if they 
failed to save Grenning, and Marion definitely de 
clined to leave the best friend she had in Russia 
like that. She was going to stay till Grenning was 
free or all hope gone. The Countess de Hohen- 
fels was to exist just long enough to get her money 
from the Riga bank. She had written from Zher- 
gan that she would call personally this morning. 
As soon as she had that money the Countess would 
disappear. 

She was sorry for Walt- and for herself after 
his long journey from America. He would try to 
trace her and would lose the trail. There seemed 
to be no help for it. The nets were being drawn 
too tight to risk exposure a single unnecessary hour. 
The hotel people might already be asking how it 
happened that the Countess de Hohenfels came in 
in the night alone. Wishing now that she had 
learned to use it better, she took from beneath the 
bed and put into her handbag her automatic pistol. 
Fedya had given it to her. The thought of Fedya, 
the memory of the first days of their marriage, swept 
her soul. She stood still, thinking; then slowly 



322 THE CHASM 

shook her head. The thought of him had nothing 
for her but deadening of heart. It was over! 

Her soul had been arctic yesterday afternoon in 
that final, formal conference in which Count Feo- 
dor discussed the question of divorce. He assured 
her that under ordinary circumstances he would of 
course think of nothing but of allowing her to ob 
tain it though the Russian law would not in that 
case permit him to remarry. "Not that I wish to 
remarry," he explained, " at least till after I have 
lived the best of life. But the time will come when 
there should be an heir to the name of Hohenfels. 
Of course legitimization is possible, but since you 
will not live in Russia, and will therefore not be 
subject to the restrictions of the Russian law " 

"Of course," she had answered. "Obtain the di 
vorce yourself." 

"Thank you. Is there any reason for delay in 
the matter?" 

"I have none." It did not seem real to her 
the iron tone between her and the man who had been 
her lover and her husband. 

She had impressed even herself as a person with 
out emotion. Mayor Ronke had come at her re 
quest to the manor/ She empowered him to act as 
her advocate in the suit to be brought in Mitau, in 
structing him not to contest. Through him she com 
pleted arrangements for the transfer to the Count 
de Hohenfels of the Zhergan estate and her Kieff- 
Vorones stock, and the Mayor, dazed by the magni 
tude of his realized and prospective fees, sent her 
her police permit to leave Zhergan and the pass 
port entitling her to leave Russia. She was dubious, 



THE CHASM 323 

in view of her known friendship with Grenning, 
whether the national and Riga authorities would 
permit her to leave. She was not at all sure that 
Tschulitsky and Sikorsky, connecting her flight with 
Grenning s arrest, would not today be taking steps 

through the detective division She shuddered, 

opened her handbag, made sure again of the readi 
ness of the pistol. 

She met no obstacles, after her coffee and rolls, 
in paying her hotel bill, conveying the impression 
that she was leaving that day for America, and get 
ting away in a cab for the Bank of Riga. Watch 
ing the sidewalk crowds it struck her that Brad- 
field might this very day be passing through Riga 
on his way to Zhergan; and as soon as she began to 
look for him several men at a distance resembled 
him. 

At the bank, a distinguished-looking polyglot 
gentleman with frock-coat and monocle received her 
with formal hospitality in a room with semiparti- 
tions of hard wood a room carefully unsuggestive 
of bookkeeping. After waiting a few minutes in 
trepidation lest they should require inconvenient 
identification, the Countess learned that they had re 
ceived her letter. She made out a check for the 
exact amount that stood to her credit in the house 
nearly thirty thousand roubles. 

The bank-clerk asked in what form she desired 
the money, noted her reply on a small piece of paper, 
touched a button, and with no word spoken, handed 
check and note to a uniformed bank messenger, and 
made a polite remark about the weather. In a few 
minutes the messenger returned with a few gold and 



324 THE CHASM 

silver coins, stacked on a little green felt mat on a 
salver, and three packets of bank-notes ten one 
thousand rouble notes, the rest in hundreds the 
largest denomination the men for whom the money 
was intended might be willing to accept. 

Noting her dismay at the bulk of the packets, the 
clerk observed it was quite a sum to carry person 
ally. 

She explained that she was about to make a visit 
to America whereat the financial gentleman looked 
surprised. "We can furnish you with American cur 
rency," he said. 

She mentioned obligations to be met before she 
sailed, put the Russian money in her handbag, and 
left the bank uneasy. No one appeared to be fol 
lowing her, but instead of driving to her rendezvous 
in the Kaufstrasse she went to the warehouse of the 
United States Plow Company, leaving her cab in 
front of the office. 

Introducing herself to her father s Riga agent, 
and incidentally saying things that convinced him 
she was really the president s daughter, she ar 
ranged to have her trunks and boxes coming from 
Zhergan received and held subject to her order. 
The American gave her sailing lists of the steamers 
out of Riga. She noticed that there were none after 
November, the gulf being ice-bound in mid-winter. 
On the pretense of wishing to see it, she went 
through the warehouse. Recognizing a young man 
she had known by sight in Moline, she felt like hug 
ging him. She asked him his name, and inadvertent 
ly left him full of visions of romantic promotion. 
She gave him the money to pay off the cabman 



THE CHASM 325 

in front of the office after awhile and went out 
on the other side of the great warehouse. 

On foot, suit case in one hand, in the other the 
handbag whose loss would be fatal, she found the 
crowded Kaufstrasse, and the number, and the near 
sighted German bookseller s, and climbed to a not 
very elegant third-story furnished flat. Sonya was 
there waiting. Marion held her in her arms. She 
would hardly have recognized her. Poor Sonya ! It 
was not wholly the artificial changes that disguised 
and aged her. Thoughts that came in the nigh t 
must have been dreadful to her. 

Kaminsky had not yet returned from an interview 
with his informant of the detective division the 
revolutionary spy in the third section of the Riga 
police, from whom he expected to learn just what 
could be done for Grenning. 

Sonya had already been out and located the prison 
in which Grenning was confined. It stood in a small, 
irregular, cobble-stoned plaza. The narrow, pre- 
Russian streets that led to it ran up-hill, and from it 
there was a distant glimpse of the Dwina sliding 
to the gulf. It was a long, gray-plastered, three- 
story building with iron-shuttered windows, not much 
different from the surrounding buildings except that 
its walls bore no crudely frescoed pictures of boots, 
keys, clothing, or other objects for sale. From the 
front the only places Sonya could see into were a 
wide doorway opening into a corridor paved with 
square brown bricks or tiles, and beside this a small 
uncarpeted business office with roller-top desks, low 
pilastered wooden railings with gates, and two or 
three black horsehair sofas somewhat humpy and 



THE CHASM 

worn through in spots to dingy once-white canvas. 
There was an ikon in one corner, and a gilt-framed, 
fly-specked lithograph of Tsar Nicholas II on the 
unpapered wall. 

There were buildings or blind walls across the 
streets and alleys which, at one time, had led past 
the rear of that tragic, commonplace-looking struc 
ture, in some dim cell of which sat Ferdinand Gren- 
ning, still a high-souled, unmutilated man with sur 
geon s fingers still sound and flexible. Walking past 
casuflly, her eyes taking in everything with the in 
tensity of fever, went Sonya Demidoff, who loved 
that man, and knew her native land as a place unfit 
for the mating of man and woman. 

Sonya going to answer a knock at the door of the 
apartment, Marion instinctively caught up her 
handbag, thinking how useless her pistol would be 
shut away with the money inside the bag. The 
tradesman Sonya permitted to walk in past her 
looked at Marion with a grunt of satisfaction. "I 
see you got it," said he, nodding at the handbag, 
and she finally realized it was Kaminsky. 

He told them there were fifteen revolutionists be 
sides Grenning and Smika being held in the central 
prison and in the station of the detective division for 
trial by a field court-martial which might not sit for 
several weeks. It was illegal extension of the powers 
of the field court-martial, but seeking legal redress 
was futile. The third section would have ample 
time in which to secure "confessions." He did not 
tell the women that Grenning had already been tak 
en to look at the glaring, cowering wreck of the 
forester Smika in order that a vivid picture of what 



THE CHASM 327 

was in store for him might be working on his mind. 

"What s to be done for Grenning?" demanded 
Sonya. 

"We thought of two things," said Kaminsky. 
"Comrade M. will be in charge of the station next 
Wednesday night. If he ordered the warder and 
turnkey to release Grenning there is no way to keep 
Thursday morning s investigation from locating re 
sponsibility." 

"Let M. do it and leave Russia with us," Marion 
urged. 

Kaminsky shook his head. "He is much too valu 
able where he is." He looked at Marion. "No one 
man among us" he said, "need expect to have the 
interests of many sacrificed for him. Let me do 
Grenning justice he would not have it." 

Sonya and Marion exchanged a glance recogniz 
ing the predominance of the Cause. "I do not see 
that he s of much value if he can t keep men from 
being tortured," said Marion unreasonably. 

"Do you remember he let us know of Smika s ar 
rest? And when Smika told of Grenning, Grenning 
was warned by M. through me." 

"Is that warning to be made a reason for doing 
nothing for Grenning?" flashed Sonya. 

"No, Sonya. M. will try the other thing we 
thought of. It s this: the first chance he gets he s 
going to let Davus know there s ten thousand roubles 
for the escape of Grenning non-political source 
personal interest of a wealthy noblewoman. Davus 
is chief would investigate himself. M. will mere 
ly mention as a piece of gossip that this offer has 
been made to him. Davus may look it up himself. 



328 THE CHASM 

The drawback is someone has to be named finally 
as the person who will pay the money, and if Davus 
double-crosses " 

"Tell M. to name me," said Sonya. "I am here 
for just that thing." 

"Not exactly," said Kaminsky. "If that has to 
be done I ll do it with every precaution. We 
might be able to leave the money in a stipulated 
place. The whole thing depends on how Davus re 
acts. You mustn t expect the very first thing we try 
to succeed, Sonya. You must be patient. It may be 
two or three days before M. can find the right time 
and place to speak to Davus." He turned to Marion. 
"Are you going to sail?" 

"Why no," she answered. "We settled that last 
night." 

"Are you sure you don t want to? Do you realize 
the risk?" 

"I realize. I can t leave." 

"All right. In that case a woman, an English 
governess out of a place, will sail to-day for London 
as Countess de Hohenfels. We pay her passage and 
five hundred roubles in consideration of risk of ar 
rest. Give me the money, your passport, etc., and 
I ll bring you hers. No, I ll bring new papers and 
you ll not risk being found ignorant of your own 
history. You are Miss Baker, fresh from England, 
looking for a governess s place. Make yourself 
older, not so good-looking." 

Marion gave him the money and papers. 

"You understand the advantage," he said. "The 
police mark you down out of the country and won t 



THE CHASM 329 

look for you here if Grenning if in any way 
through your husband, through anyone in Zher- 
gan they trace to you that message warning 
Mitrevitz." 

He went to close the bargain with the English 
woman and came back at noon with Miss Baker s 
English passport, registered and stamped with the 
regular notice that she could not leave Russia with 
out a police permit. He also had the police permit 
signed but undated, and proper papers for Sonya, 
Grenning, and himself though he said he himself 
would not leave the country unless some new de 
velopments made his stay too risky. 

An event next morning made Marion think it 
risky enough as it was. She was playing the un 
wonted role of housemaid, cleaning her room after 
breakfast, when she heard Sonya and Kaminsky 
talking with some men in the front room. She looked 
in, and nearly dropped at the sight of two police 
officers, questioning Sonya and Kaminsky and mak 
ing notes of their replies. "Traced from Zhergan !" 
thought she. "They ve established our connection 
with Grenning." 

"And you?" demanded one of the officers, glaring 
at her. 

"I don t understand," she said. 

"She doesn t speak much Russian," said Sonya. 

"The Englishwoman?" asked the other officer. 

"Yes," said Kaminsky. "The roomer." 

Marion saw a gleam of hope. 

"They ll want to see your passport," said Sonya 
in French. 



THE CHASM 

Going to get it, Marion had a moment to recover, 
to hide her thirty thousand roubles, and throw her 
self into her part. 

At the close of their domiciliary visit the officers 
informed the leather merchant that he was fined 
one hundred roubles for taking up residence without 
permit. Kaminsky protested that the party who sub 
let him the apartment told him he would make every 
thing straight with the authorities. Finally yielding 
the principle sullenly in the face of mysterious 
threats, he made the officers think he could not scrape 
up one hundred roubles between himself and his 
wife, and appealed to their roomer, Miss Baker, to 
advance them enough to make up the fine. The of 
ficers pocketed it and departed, satisfied they had 
secured all the traffic would bear. 

As soon as they were gone Marion nearly col 
lapsed. 

"They might have caught us at a worse time," 
said Kaminsky consolingly. "These petty grafters 
are not the ones we have to look out for. They con 
sider us dry for the present. It was a little hard on 
you, Countess Marion, because you didn t know 
their brand. You ll have more confidence next 
time." 

They scanned the evening paper for indication 
whether the sham Countess de Hohenfels had been 
intercepted at the dock. 

"Here!" exclaimed Sonya, catching the name 
Countess de Hohenfels. They found it was a dis 
patch from Mitau announcing that Count Feodor de 
Hohenfels had filed a petition for divorce from the 
Countess Marion, his American wife, and that the 



THE CHASM 331 

case would be heard at an early date before the Mag 
istrate Intendant Bratavzinsky. Count Feodor, the 
dispatch added, was being detained, until after the 
hearing, from an important journey to Rome. 

"What an inconvenience!" murmured Marion. 

Sonya came and put her arm around her. "You 
didn t tell me this," she said reproachfully. "Have 
I been too full of my own fear and grief?" 

"How could you help it?" answered Marion, 
shuddering. "I am not so much in need of sym 
pathy now for this the mere legal forms. The 
real end of things was when love flickered and went 
out." 

To Kaminsky, who would have allowed neither 
Russian state nor church to sanction or dissolve a 
marriage of his, Marion s view of it was so much a 
platitude that he took refuge from it in the election 
reports. 

"Here s a dispatch from Zhergan," he said, and 
read: "The judges of election threw out the votes 
of Dr. Ferdinand Grenning, Social-Democrat, issu 
ing a statement that he had furnished secret informa 
tion to a band of outlaws and marauders guilty of 
armed resistance to the authority of Holy Russia." 

"But he hasn t been tried!" cried Marion. "How 
can those election judges say that?" 

"The odd thing about it is that for once their 
statement happens to be true," said Kaminsky. 

"Outlaws and marauders isn t true." 

"Marauders isn t. Baron Medin, Conservative, 
was declared elected, he having a majority of the 
legal votes." 

"That s why Count Hohenfels is going to Rome," 



THE CHASM 

said Marion, adding mentally " and Callignano." 
She found no pang of jealousy in the thought. 

"Grenning is legally a member of the Duma," 
mused Kaminsky. "Unless we buy his way out, it 
will be a member of the imperial Duma here in 
Riga that they " 

"It doesn t say he had a majority," objected Son- 
ya. 

"They would not otherwise have bothered to 
throw out his vote." 

"Oh!" cried Sonya. "Just one more day! If 
Smika had held out another day Ferdinand would 
have been protected by uncontested Duma member 
ship!" 

"Do you think that would have stopped them, 
Sonya? Don t break your heart about that!" 

"And here we are doing nothing!" cried Sonya. 
"We ought not to rely on M. He does nothing 
because of his idea it s wrong to single out one man 
and do anything for him!" 

"Only when doing something for one will hurt 
the others. M. is doing what he can. I didn t tell 
you because it came to nothing, but yesterday he ap 
proached the officer who will be in charge of the 
station tonight. He let him know there was ten 
thousand roubles for the escape of a prisoner, think 
ing this particular officer, who has not yet acquired 
a taste for torture, would consider ten thousand 
worth more than his job. The man did, too. He 
would have been ours but for his fear that M. was a 
government spotter." 

"The revolutionary police spy feared as a govern 
ment spotter!" thought Marion, seeing more clear- 



THE CHASM 333 

ly the great net of treachery and countertreachery 
whose meshes run through Russia. 

Kaminsky found out that evening that the ostensi 
ble Countess de Hohenfels had not been prevented 
from sailing. But two days later, on Sunday, they 
learned from Sasha Bratavzinsky, just from Zher- 
gan, by how narrow a margin she had got through. 
Yan Sarin, informed of it by the Zhergan day opera 
tor, had sent Sasha to tell Kaminsky of a cipher tel 
egram sent to the Riga police that morning calling 
on them to arrest the Countess de Hohenfels. Riga 
had replied that the Countess had sailed for Lon 
don Thursday. Sarin supposed she had, but for 
Kaminsky s sake and Sonya s, wanted them to know 
just how much the police knew. Bratavzinsky was 
astonished when he found Marion still with them. 

"What made them call for the Countess s arrest, 
Sasha?" asked Kaminsky. 

Sasha glanced at the Countess. "The testimony 
in the divorce case yesterday in Mitau. I suppose 
you know about it." 

"No," said Marion, her lips setting firmly. "How 
should we? Was that in the papers too? What 
was it?" 

"I didn t see it in the papers, but the divorce was 
granted by that unspeakable uncle of mine on the 
ground of improper relations with Dr. Grenning. 
Sikorsky and the Zhergan detectives jumped at a 
political connection." 

A hard light came into Marion s eyes. "So he did 
that 1" she exclaimed. "He never told me there d be 
such a charge as that. I left it to him, taking it for 
granted he d be decent." 



834 THE CHASM 

"Give the devil his due," said Kaminsky quietly. 
"There had to be such a charge if there was to be 
a decree. Everybody understands that." 

"I didn t understand it !" blazed Marion. "Count 
Feodor knew I didn t. My people won t understand 
it." 

"Need they hear the details?" 

"What possible evidence could he present?" she 
demanded of Bratavzinsky. 

"Trina Ronke testified to seeing you come out of 
the doctor s office one day and she gave the thing 
the proper color." 

"The little beast!" exclaimed Marion. "Her 
father in charge of my case did he let that testi 
mony of hers stand?" 

"Did you instruct him to contest the case?" asked 
Kaminsky. 

"I did not know it would be such a case !" 

"What s the difference, Marion?" said Sonya. 
"The whole thing is of that dreadful shackled 
world we re out of. If chains are cut or broken, 
what s the difference?" 

"Even in your own Russian circle, Countess Mar 
ion," said Kaminsky, "since they have to have di 
vorce, and since they will not leave it to the people 
who best know whether it s necessary, this kind of 
testimony is simply a legal necessity and is so under 
stood. Of course with your double standard the 
men of your class don t suffer and it s usually the 
woman who gets the divorce. Outside of high so 
ciety most thinking people no longer bother with the 
law at all. The serious thing in this case is the 
political significance they attach to your connection 



THE CHASM 335 

with Grenning. Count Hohenfels should have wait 
ed till you were out of the country." 

"He may have heard she sailed," said Sonya. 

"And he may have been in such a hurry to get to 
Rome, he didn t care!" retorted Marion. 

She sat down and wrote a letter to her father, 
though she dared not mail it till after she was out 
of Russia. The real facts would set her straight 
with him at least, though she could hear his inevita 
ble "I told you so." 

Imbued as she was with the ideas of her American 
training, she could not accept the point of view of 
Sonya and Kaminsky. They discounted the crude 
complication forced by the antiquated divorce law 
into the delicate human problem. Her it embittered 
beyond all possibility of future reconciliation with 
the man who had accused her falsely before the 
world. 






XIII 

SHAKING snow from their hats, Sonya and 
Marion came into their apartment after lunch 
eon; and Kaminsky, stretched out on a lounge, 
woke up, looked at his watch, and growled because 
he had been asleep. They paid no attention to him. 

"Snowing?" he said, looking at their coats. "I ve 
had no lunch." He went to the window. "Say, I 
meant to tell you last night. Bratavzinsky threw me 
off. M. told me yesterday. Might interest you." 

"Well, out with it," said Sonya. 

"They ve got an American in the station." 

"An American?" 

"Yes. They arrested him yesterday day before 
yesterday." 

"What for?" asked Marion, stopping. 

"They read some letter of his saying he was go 
ing to write up the Russian revolution for some 
American socialist magazine." 

"What!" gasped Marion, dropping her coat. 
"What is his name?" 

Kaminsky had not asked. 

"But I have a friend coming ! He wrote that very 
thing in a letter to me. Was this man s name Brad- 
field? WaltBradfield?" 

"Didn t hear his name." 
336 



THE CHASM 337 

"Your gardener!" exclaimed Sonya. 

"What a thing to arrest a man for!" cried Mar 
ion. "They must have read his letter to me. How 
long have they had this man? Where did he come 
from?" 

"Saturday s steamer from Hamburg." 

"But Hamburg is where Bradfield landed from 
America last week! Oh, it s he! Kaminsky, what 
will they do to him? What can they do to him?" 

"They probably expect to change his mind as to 
the desirability of studying contemporary Russian 
history in Russia." 

"I am going to the American consul," said Mar 
ion. 

"You are an Englishwoman," objected Kaminsky. 

"I am Dave Moulton s daughter!" Her eyes 
flashed with pleasure, picturing the energy she would 
put into that consul. She went to the mirror and 
rubbed energetically at Miss Baker s make-up. 

"Don t you realize you can t possibly appear in 
your real character in Riga?" demanded Kaminsky, 
thoroughly awake. "Do you think the business 
we re in here is some fool girl s masquerade? You ll 
upset everything. If the police learn you re in Riga 
it s sheer madness!" 

Marion stopped and thought. "The consul is not 
going to compare the time I see him with the time 
I officially sailed. What s more, I ll tell him I m 
incognito for personal reasons. He probably knows 
about this wretched divorce. He ll keep still. There 
isn t one chance in a hundred that the discrepancy 
will ever come to anybody s attention. If it does, 
somebody s memory for dates is poor. I can t afford 



338 THE CHASM 

to throw away the influence of my relation to one of 
the most important American interests in Riga. My 
father could have this consul removed if he wanted 
to. It won t take me an hour." 

Kaminsky argued in vain. She restored her youth 
and good looks, took a cab to the consul s office, saw 
him, charmed him, convinced him of her relation 
to Moulton of U. S. Plow, informed him that she 
was strictly incognito in Riga, swore him to secrecy 
concerning her and her interest in the Bradfield case, 
made him call in one of the best lawyers in the city 
to be paid through the office of the Plow Company 
and sent the two of them personally to the detective 
station to secure Walt Bradfield s immediate release. 
Having arranged it, she departed charging them to 
bring Mr. Bradfield back with them to the consulate. 
There would be a man there to take charge of him. 

Ten minutes at the U. S. Plow Company office and 
she had the attorney s fee provided for and the ser 
vices of the Moline youth, Mr. Benson, at her dis 
posal. She sent him to the consulate to meet Brad- 
field and take him to the warehouse. "I ll send a 
man here," she said " a Jewish leather merchant 
he doesn t speak English. Turn Mr. Bradfield over 
to him. Send them out the other side of the build 
ing to shake these vile Russian detectives that 
watch everybody." 

She returned to appease Kaminsky, assure him 
there was no harm done, and coax him to go to the 
Plow Company office. When the time came he went, 
coerced by her threat to go back herself, but told 
her it would have been a thousand times better for 
them all if it were the real, and not a sham Countess 



THE CHASM 339 

de Hohenfels who had steamed out of the Gulf of 
Riga. 

"If you could only do that for Ferdinand!" sighed 
Sonya, as Kaminsky went out. 

Marion clasped the girl s hands. "I wish I could 1 
How I wish I could! I d give up anything, Sonya. 
I d give up seeing Walt. I d give it up forever! 
Do you grudge my seeing him? I don t want to turn 
bitter at my age. It seems to me now he s my only 
chance of not hating the world. I had forgotten 
how much I ought to see him till I heard he was 
here in prison. Sonya, my heart has been simply 
frozen all these months! Frozen, frozen!" She 
stood a moment silent by the window. "Walt s com 
ing! Walt s coming!" whispered some hidden joy 
within her that would not, could not, kill itself be 
cause another woman s joy was in danger of dreadful 
death. 

"I should think so 1" muttered Sonya. "That man 
of ice!" Her thoughts snapped back to Grenning. 
It hurt. If it were only Grenning who was to walk 
out of that grim building! It did not seem fair. 
"They wouldn t torture Bradfield if he did stay!" 
cried she, the words wrung out of her. 

Marion winced. "I feel utterly selfish," she said, 
and sat down searching her conscience. How was it 
she had suddenly laid hold of so much power to save 
Walt when she had so little for Grenning? She ex 
plained it point by point to herself, and proved it, 
and yet felt wretched. Her father s name was magic 
with the consul; theoretically the consul should have 
taken up the case of an arrested American anyway. 
Walt s case was trivial beside Grenning s in the eyes 



340 THE CHASM 

of the Russian authorities. Though she filled the 
cables with appeals to her father, he would not 
touch the Grenning case. Kaminsky had said lawyers 
for Grenning would be futile. "Sonya!" she de 
manded, "is there anything I can do for Ferdinand 
beyond furnishing money?" 

"I wish you had waited a day or two, and some 
how perhaps they couldn t. But M. in there might 
have arranged the mistake of sending Ferdinand out 
as Bradfield. Afterwards they d have had to let 
Bradfield go just the same." 

"Unless they held him for conspiring to release 
Grenning. But it s too late now, Sonya. Walt must 
be out by now." 

An hour later Kaminsky returned from the ware 
house. Marion sprang up radiant as she heard him 
coming, but he was alone. 

"Where s Bradfield?" she said, turning pale. 

"The consul couldn t get action on the case till to 
morrow," grunted Kaminsky. "So your Mr. Benson 
said. Profitable time I ve had sitting there." 

"What s the matter with that consul?" demanded 
Marion. "Do you think he intends to act tomor 
row?" 

"Yes. I heard your lawyer telephoning the Plow 
Company to make sure he d get his fee. They told 
him you were really Moulton s daughter. Your 
man will come out fast enough." 

Sonya looked eagerly at Marion. "Sonya wants 
to know if Comrade M. could cause a mistake that 
would let Grenning out in place of Bradfield." 

Kaminsky gave thought to it: "Grenning doesn t 



THE CHASM 341 

speak English. How could he pass for an Ameri 
can? The consul would have to be in the plan." 

"But no!" cried Sonya. "Let M. not make the 
release till after the consul is gone." 

Kaminsky shook his head. "I ll ask M. tonight," 
he said. "He may be willing to try it. We have 
other things, Sonya. Davus may want that ten thou- 1 
sand." 

Davus, as Kaminsky found when he went to M s 
that night, did want it. At first when M. told his 
chief of the wealthy noblewoman, Davus said, "Take 
her money. You fail to secure Grenning s escape. 
What then ? Has she influence enough to hurt you ?" 

The detective said he didn t care to risk it. 

"She evidently hasn t enough to get orders in here 
to release him." 

"She may be handicapped by not wanting her in 
terest in the prisoner known," surmised M. "I won t 
risk taking her money and making her desperate." 

"I will," said Davus. "Who is she?" 

M. replied that he had not heard her name, and 
had difficulty in withholding the name of his inform 
ant on the ground that he himself would get the 
blame for any double cross. The incident did not 
improve his standing with Davus. 

M. told Kaminsky he would make no more at 
tempts of that nature for Grenning or anyone else. 
He was hurting the confidence of the men of the divi 
sion in him. He also declined to try to substitute 
Grenning for the American. "Their cells lie pretty 
well for it," he said, "but it s a good deal too com 
plicated to put through." 



THE CHASM 

"Oh, here!" exclaimed Kaminsky, impatient with 
himself. "The proper man to offer these bribes is 
Grenning himself. That implicates nobody; he has 
nothing to lose." 

"Why didn t you say that last week?" 

"Let Grenning get the turnkey and the warder. 
Their jobs are not valuable like those of the officers. 
They can leave right after Grenning. He can tell 
them he has friends who can get them out of Russia 
if they wish." 

"It looks good," said Mitiukhin. "All I have to 
do is get the money to him. When can you get it?" 

"I ll have it here in three-quarters of an hour." 

"I ll go with you and bring it myself. I am 
armed." 

M. had the dress and manners of a Germanized 
commercial traveler, though his speech at times was 
a little too scholarly. Kaminsky took him to the 
Kaufstrasse flat, where Marion and Sonya were 
waiting on edge. 

"Did Davus consent?" asked Sonya, as soon as she 
learned who M. was. 

"No." 

"Then Marion and I have thought of a way. Get 
the money to Grenning. Let him buy the guards." 

Kaminsky and his companion exchanged a glance, 
laughed, explained that they had the same idea, and 
whether it was telepathy or coincidence they took it 
as a good omen. With low voices, gas turned down, 
and curtains drawn, they worked out that night 
everything they could think of Grenning s disguise 
by shaving as soon as he reached Kaminsky s room, 



THE CHASM 343 

his pseudonym, his passport, their steamer tickets 
each of them had something to do next day. As 
Marion placed the ten thousand roubles for Gren- 
ning in the hands of M. she realized as never before 
the meaning of money. The sweat and weariness 
and pain of glistening forearms at red forges in 
Moline the endurable torture, spread across years, 
of muscles aching and stiffening under an ever accel 
erated pace of work this was the price of one man s 
rescue in Riga from concentrated hours of soul- 
destroying, body-breaking anguish ! 

As M. took that money they all felt that Grenning 
would sail for London Wednesday noon with Sonya 
and the Countess. 

Marion went to the door with the detective. "I 
want to ask about Bradfield," she said, " the 
American arrested Saturday. Have you seen him?" 

"Yes. Stubborn chap." 

"What did he do?" 

"Refused to take the hint and leave Russia." 

"Do the police require that? Surely they have no 
legal right " She saw the man of the third sec 
tion smile at her naivete. "What did the consul say 
to that?" she asked. 

"Said there was powerful pressure on him to get 
the man in. Seems funny an American socialist 
writer. We hadn t heard of the Socialist Republic 
taking control in the United States. The police told 
the consul the man was free to go as soon as he made 
up his mind to leave Russia." 

"But do they refuse to liberate him anyway, un 
conditionally, whether he agrees to leave or not?" 



344 THE CHASM 

"No, not if the consul insists. It would make un 
necessary trouble to refuse. But ." He stopped. 

"This man s a friend of mine, Comrade M. I in 
fluenced the consul who knows my father could 
crush him. Tell me what Bradfield had better do." 

"He d better leave. You can have him released 
tomorrow if you like, but he can do nothing now in 
Russia! He s spotted. He ll never send any arti 
cles out of Russia, and he ll never take any out 
neither in manuscript nor in his head." 

"Would they kill him?" 

"Someone will somewhere, and the police will be 
mystified. They ll never be able to discover who did 
it. Or he may be arrested some place and get shot 
attempting to escape. There are numerous ways." 

Marion remembered the fate of Hertzenstein. 
"Bradfield must go with us," she said. "Let him tell 
them he ll go on the London steamer Wednesday. 
Will you tell him I ask him to go? Tell him I m 
going Wednesday." She began to color beneath 
M. s penetrating look. 

"No," said M. "I d rather not risk being seen 
talking to him. My English is none too good. He 
wouldn t believe anything a police officer told him 
anyway." 

"But then you ll flick him a note, won t you an 
unsigned little note? Won t you please?" 

M. consented reluctantly, and Marion flew to 
write it before he could change his mind. "Don t 
say anything the police shouldn t see. Tell him to 
swallow the confounded thing as soon as he reads it. 
Tell him not to recognize you at the dock." 

To facilitate the swallowing process she borrowed 



THE CHASM 345 

one of Sonya s needle-pointed pencils and wrote her 
missive on half a cigarette paper. 

"You can do nothing in Russia now they have you 
spotted," she wrote. "They read your letter about 
the superman. What do you suppose they made of 
it? Tell them you ll go. Take the K. and F. 
steamer for London Wednesday noon. Marion 
sailed for London last week. Do not recognize any 
one you know at the dock. Wait till the ship is at 
sea. Swallow this paper. I ve chewed up the other 
half to see what it s like. That makes this a philo- 
pena. I mustn t sign this, but remember the Nancy." 

M. put the tiny scrap of paper in his pocketbook, 
made sure of the packet of bank-notes, and took his 
leave. 

Next morning, choosing a moment when none of 
his colleagues or subordinates were there, he came 
down the corridor between the cells of Grenning 
and Bradfield, laid his hand carelessly on the hori 
zontal iron bar across the bottom of the American s 
window, let fall the folded flick of paper almost con- 
cealable beneath a long thumbnail, and tapping 
swiftly three or four times on the bar to draw the 
prisoner s attention to the paper, stepped across 
to the nearly opposite cell of Grenning. Bradfield, 
picking up the note, intently sized up the message- 
bearer. M. slipped the packet of bank-notes to 
Grenning. "Buy the turnkey and warder," he said 
in an undertone. "Go out about quarter past twelve 
tonight. Go straight down the hill. Meet Kamin- 
sky disguised as a leather merchant. Got it?" 

"Yes," whispered Grenning. 

The officer, having stopped only three or four 



THE CHASM 

seconds, went on through the brick-floored corridor, 
the eyes of prisoners staring at him sullenly through 
their little windows. 

Gratitude and love swept Grenning. The Coun 
tess Marion what liberality! Kaminsky and per 
haps great-hearted Sonya here in Riga risking for 
him the same horrible fate that threatened him! 
What greater love could man or woman show? 

Bradfield picked open his minute missive. As M. 
had said, he was not disposed to trust anything that 
came from a Russian police officer. In two days he 
had come to hate them as he had never hated a 
human being. The tiny handwriting on the crum 
pled paper gave him no clew. The query about the 
effect of the superman on the police suggested Count 
de Hohenfels to him, and the statement: "Marion 
sailed for London last week," who else in Russia 
could have written that? "But why so friendly, so 
familiar, De Hohenfels? Why want me to go to 
London if Marion is there? I ve chewed up the 
other half to see what it s like, " read he. " That 
makes this a philopena. " That was pure Marion to 
him and "remember the Nancy !" It was she ! He 
did remember the Nancy with a thrill. He went 
back and started to read the note through as Mar 
ion s. It could be her hand, writing as small as 
this. This time he accounted for "Marion sailed for 
London" as a precaution to throw off possible police 
readers. Why was the Countess de Hohenfels 
forced to such mysterious secrecy? "If she really is 
the writer of this she did not sail for London last 
week," he thought. "But the note tells me to. De 
Hohenfels would like nothing better than to send me 



THE CHASM 347 

off to London if she was here. But that philopena ! 
He hasn t playfulness enough to invent that. She 
might have told him in a general way about our 
launch-ride but the name Nancy!" "Recognize no 
one at the dock." Who could there be to recog 
nize? Herself. It looked as though she herself 
was going on this ship Wednesday. He formed a 
dozen theories, none of which he could disprove 
or verify. He wanted to speak to the police officer 
who had given him the note. He tried to attract the 
attention of the prisoner across the corridor to 
whom the officer had spoken. Once he caught his 
eye and whispered: "Can you speak English?" 

Grenning shook his head, laid his finger on his 
lips, and drew back from his window. 

At noon the turnkey unlocked the door of Gren- 
ning s cell to admit an attendant with a prison din 
ner. The attendant came out. The turnkey closed 
and locked the door, and was going on. 

"Wait," said Grenning in a low voice. 

The man gave a start, looked around and shook 
his head. 

"I have something that means big money to you." 

"Forbidden." The man went on. 

Twenty minutes later he reopened the door, and 
the waiter took away the bread and soup almost un 
touched. The turnkey was slow about locking the 
door. "Why don t you eat?" he asked. 

"I expect to get something worth eating tonight. 
Look!" He showed a bulky roll of bank-notes, held 
them to the light, and counted them back one by one 
so the 100-100-100 struck the turnkey s astonished 
eyes. 



THE CHASM 

"Bozhe moil In the name of Christ! Where 
did you get that?" He looked around guiltily, saw a 
prisoner peering out of his cell on the other side, 
moved his body to cut off the man s view, and whis 
pered, "That s only the American. He under 
stands nothing." He looked longingly at the money. 
"Why didn t they get that when they searched you?" 

"Well, they didn t. If you report it you get noth 
ing. Otherwise you can get all this for yourself." 

"All that ? How much is that ?" 

"Two thousand roubles." 

"What do you want?" 

"See that this door and the corridor door are un 
locked just after midnight." 

"Yes, and have them find you gone and the door 
unlocked at two!" 

"You can lock it again before two. What s more, 
you can be out of Riga before two. How long 
would it take you to save two thousand roubles on 
this job?" 

"I never would. I never saw that much money 
in my life. It must pay to be a revolutionist." 

"Yes, it pays the best of all. It gives a man 
friends such as no other man has." 

"When do I get that?" 

"When you unlock the door. Is it a bargain?" 

"Sst! Yes. Here s the waiter!" 

Grenning sat down on his blanket on the floor, 
momentarily unnerved in his relief from the strain. 
He had still to get the warder who would come on at 
four o clock that afternoon. 

Soon after three, the American consul and the 



THE CHASM 349 

Riga lawyer hired for Walt drove up to the station. 
A few minutes later and Walt was taken from his 
cell to the office. There being no charge against 
him, the consul, the lawyer, and the police came to 
an agreement very quickly when Walt announced his 
intention of sailing next day for London. They very 
affably turned over to him his passport, most of 
his other papers, his money, an order on the custom 
house for his much searched trunk, and made out 
his police permit to leave Russia. 

Walt drew a deep breath as he left the office with 
the consul and attorney. "What ghastly tyrants life 
can turn men into!" he moralized. "I wonder how 
those hell-hounds would check me up if I didn t go 
to-morrow?" 

The consul looked alarmed. "But " 

"Oh, I m going," said Walt, with the mental res 
ervation: "Unless things turn out very different than 
I think." 

"Don t worry about their checking you up," said 
the consul. "They d do it eighteen ways. This isn t 
America by a long shot. Everybody has to be ac 
counted for everywhere. The police can let you drop 
and are sure to pick you up again the first place 
you go." 

Walt looked at the consul s cab, into which the 
Riga lawyer had already climbed. 

"Where to now?" inquired the consul. 

"To a bathtub if I can make some cabman un 
derstand." 

The consul laughed and hailed a cab for him. 
"Benson of the U. S. Plow Company was waiting 



350 THE CHASM 

for you yesterday at the consulate," he said. "He 
speaks German and Russian. You d better look him 
up and make him steer you around." , 

Walt assented, and with twenty hours of freedom 
to spend in Russia, drove first to the Plow Company 
office and inquired for Benson. 

"The Countess de Hohenfels had a man here 
waiting for you yesterday," Benson told him. "She 
forgot to leave us her address. I ve no idea where 
to reach her." 

Counting on her note to insure Walt s sailing on 
her ship next day, Marion had renounced as too 
dangerous the attempt to see him sooner. 

Half an hour after Walt left the prison, the 
warder who would be on duty between midnight and 
two came down Grenning s corridor on his first 
round. He stopped and looked into each of the 
occupied cells. Hearing how brief a time he paused 
at each door, Grenning was nervous with the realiza 
tion that he would have no time for leading up. He 
was close to the grating when the warder looked in 
so close the man threw his hand to his revolver. 

"Do you want to make three thousand roubles?" 
asked Grenning tensely. 

"Shut up." The man came close, and peered past 
the prisoner into his cell. 

"I have to pass you tonight as I go out," said 
Grenning. "It will be worth three thousand roubles 
to you if you fail to see me." 

"Don t talk to me, I tell you. It s against thfr 
rules." 

"One breaks a rule or two for three thousand 



THE CHASM 351 

roubles. Pay attention to what I told you and you 
get in your hand thirty hundred-rouble notes." 

"Are you crazy just thinking about things? 
Wait till they happen!" 

"I don t intend to wait," said Grenning, resisting 
the paralyzing image of cruelty and fear the warder 
was trying to force upon him. "I m going out to 
night. Look, man!" He pulled out his roll of bills. 

"So. You have real money in there? It goes to 
the office." 

"Where you get not one rouble of it. Keep still 
and agree and it s yours right now." 

In vain ! The warder said he had a wife and two 
children in Riga. 

Grenning told him he could go abroad and have 
them follow. 

"No. If I let a prisoner escape and went myself, 
the woman and my son and my daughter would never 
leave Riga alive." 

Grenning promised him they would within 
twenty-four hours. "You re crazy, man!" he ex 
claimed. "Here s a chance for you to make more 
for your family than you could save in a lifetime. By 
doing what? Something bad? No. By saving a 
human being from this hell on earth." 

"You wouldn t be here if God didn t want you 
here. You can t buy God off no matter how much 
you got." 

"Are you sure God isn t trying to get me out of 
here through you?" 

"God trying? No. I report what I see to the 
office." 



352 THE CHASM 

Grenning raised his offer to eight thousand rou 
bles and showed them. 

"I don t care if it s eighty thousand! You won t 
have it long!" His footsteps died away down the 
corridor. Then the prisoner heard low voices and 
heavy, hateful steps returning. The warder was 
bringing the officer in charge and brutal guards the 
prisoner knew would not be gentle. 

"The Countess s money gone!" was Grenning s 
first thought, and then despair swept his soul. All 
the thinking, planning, co-operating of his comrades, 
their wary approach, their love and sacrifice, wiped 
out in a moment, leaving him to suffer worse than 
death through a blockhead s incorruptible fidelity 
to the cause of hell ! 



XIV 

COMING to their apartment after supper in 
a Kaufstrasse cafe with Sonya and Marion, 
Kaminsky found a man waiting for him with 
a crushing message from M. that Grenning had lost 
his ten thousand roubles and his best chance of 
escape. They could not bear to look at Sonya. 

"As far as the money is concerned," said Marion, 
finally, "if it will do any good we can still spare 
another ten thousand." 

Unable to endure an hour without some definite 
plan, Sonya made Kaminsky set out with her for 
M. s to try to form some new idea. Marion offered 
to go with them, but Kaminsky said two were al 
ready too many. On the way Sonya stopped to buy 
her vial of poison. 

Marion was left alone to realize that she and Son 
ya and Grenning would not sail next day and that 
her note to Walt would not only send him off on 
that ship alone, but would set him looking in vain for 
her in London. She knew he had left the station, 
but did not know where he had gone. "Why didn t 
I have the nerve to keep in touch with him as I 
wanted to !" she exclaimed. "I ve missed my chance 
to see him!" To send a message to him at the dock 
where the detectives would be watching to see 

353 



354 

whether he got off would immediately direct their 
suspicion against anyone who communicated with 
him. 

She put on her hat and coat, turned out the gas, 
locked the apartment, went down to an apothecary s 
where there was a closed telephone booth, called up 
the American consul at his residence, and asked if 
he could tell where Mr. Bradfield went that after 
noon. 

"Oh, yes," answered the consul, "is that " 

"You recognize my voice, I see," interrupted 
Marion with significant quickness. 

"Excuse me. Yes, I do, of course. It s not easy 
to forget." 

"Thank you so much for your interest. Could you 
tell me where the gentleman went? Or where he 
intended to stop?" 

"I think he was going to some hotel. I told him 
about Mr. Benson waiting for him yesterday, and 
when he left me he was going to look up Benson at 
the Plow Company s office. Benson might tell you 
where he is now. If you ll hold the wire a sec 
ond " In a moment he gave her Benson s num 
ber. 

"Thank you so much," she murmured. 

She got Mr. Benson. 

"Mr. Bradfield?" he repeated, answering her. 
"Yes. Who is that?" 

"I prefer not to say just now. You are a poor 
guesser, Mr. Benson." 

"Oh, of course," said Benson. "Excuse me. Yes, 
Mr. Bradfield is here with me. We got to talking 



THE CHASM 355 

Moline and Russia. He is going to stay with me 
tonight. He leaves for London tomorrow." 

"Yes. Will you call him to the phone?" 

Mr. Benson did. 

"Hello !" came Bradfield s hearty, open voice. 

"Walt," said Marion. 

"Yes?" He was all hushed attention. 

"Can you find 534 Kaufstrasse, third floor, right- 
hand apartment?" 

"Yes." 

"Come. Try not to be followed. Do you under 
stand?" 

"Yes." 

"Goodbye." 

She went back along the brightly-lighted side 
walk, covered with trampled snow, crowded with 
middle-class shoppers, to her room. She changed 
Miss Baker s clothes, removed Miss Baker s years. 
Walt was real. His one word yes thrice spoken 
what depths it stirred! 

Alone in the German-Russian apartment with its 
ugly, ornate gas-fixtures, its blue and white porcelain 
stove, its pious ikon in the corner, she listened for- 
Walt s step, and heard instead the mournful sirens 
and dim bells of steamers, the hum and chug and 
rumble of tram and motor and train far off, the 
chink and grind and murmur of hoof and wheel and 
voice, the thousand tremors and reverberations not 
definable but blending in one faint throbbing roar 
the sound of Riga. The modern Baltic city, meshed 
in tyrannous authority a daily woven web of fear 
and lies and violence, of insane cruelties and pangs 



356 THE CHASM 

and bitter deaths was suddenly as strange to her 
as Sidon. Through that city of Moloch of spies 
who might track him to her and drag her to worse 
than death came Walt. 

At his knock she called softly, and heard his an 
swer before she unlocked her door. She drew him 
in quickly, her hands on his arms leaned and 
looked past him down the stairs, not noting how the 
life in him intensified at the touch of her and the re 
membered fragrance of her hair. 

"Shut in Elysium!" The phrase flashed, while his 
eyes etched on his glowing mind her coronal of red- 
gold hair, the tendrils of it gleaming on her white 
neck, behind her ear, the undulation of her noble 
figure as she bent to lock the world out. Her hands 
trembled when she turned and pressed his. He read 
her eyes of welcome full of reviving memories. He 
looked at her firm, rich lips, which had once met his 
the day they had eaten of the lotus and even as 
then his thought of her love for De Hohenfels was 
an invisible barrier shutting her away. The golden 
mist half-lifted at her tense question: "Were you fol 
lowed?" 

"Yes. I shouldn t have noticed it if it hadn t been 
for your telephone, but there were two of them sit 
ting in a cab opposite Benson s out there in the 
cold. I was surprised. Why am I so important to 
them? They drove after me, and when I got a cab, 
kept right behind. When I stopped and got out, 
they did too. I lost them doubling through a 
crowded department store." 

"You must go on that ship tomorrow." 

"Are you going on it?" 



THE CHASM 357 

"I was. I can t." 

"When are you going?" 

"A week a month. It can t be long." She 
shuddered with the horrible, absorbing thought dom 
inating those days. 

"What queer thing has hold of you?" he asked. 

"Russia almost." 

He had an uncanny feeling of terrible, vague dan 
ger threatening her. He looked at her critically. 
"You don t use cocaine, do you?" 

"Why no. Do I seem so strange as that? Walt, 
Walt, I am so glad to see you ! I thought tonight I 
had missed you. You don t know, you don t know!" 

He drew in his breath and held it as though her 
words had fragrance. 

"Your mind is so clean so free from you ve 
never had your soul screwed out of shape by lust of 
blood. I need you so your comradeship the 
warm interpretation of the world you can help me 
make." 

He felt, but read it as illusion of his own desire, 
that she needed most his arms around her and 
long kisses. He could not gauge the loneliness, the 
bitterness, the fear, from which he was refuge. He 
looked away to keep himself from being drawn 
depth below depth by the look in her eyes. He had 
thought she would know she must not use her power 
to make love ache in him. She turned slowly and 
seated herself on the lounge. 

"How do you expect me to go?" he demanded. 

"They will kill you if you don t." 

"If that s all," he said, smiling and sitting down 
beside her, "I think I will manage to go." 



358 THE CHASM 

"I want you to wait for me in London or Paris. 
Will you?" 

"I must find out first whether you ought not to 
go. What are you doing here writing unsigned 
notes wording them so the hell-hounds of police 
will think you re in London staying in this place 
where men are killed for I don t know what ! Why 
are you here in this queer flat in this murderous 
city?" He looked around the room for signs of 
Count Hohenfels, and saw her pistol lying on the 
table. 

"It s a long story," said she, with a quick sigh. 
She leaned toward him and lowered her voice. "The 
heart of it is that five weeks ago I gave a small 
party of revolutionaries a warning that resulted in a 
military disaster to some troops of the Tsar." 

"You did! The Countess de Hohenfels!" 

"Ssh! Don t use that name! I am Miss Baker. 
I am here to get a man out of the prison where you 
were the man who carried that warning one of 
my best friends threatened with torture unspeak 
able!" 

He clenched his hands. "For carrying the secret 

you sent ! Then If they get you !" He saw her 

lips shut tight and her eyes turn steel. He had the 
maddening picture of her cherishable body writhing 
beneath the hands of fiends. He looked at her pistol. 
"London is no place for me until you re there." He 
spoke with finality. 

She saw it was useless now to try to make him go. 
She had not meant to let him know so much. Ignor 
ant of the country, the language marked and 
tracked by the police he would be more trouble to 



359 

them in their enterprise than he was worth. Yet her 
unreasonable soul rejoiced that he was there. 

"Do you have to stay here?" he asked. 

She nodded. 

"What is it friendship for this man?" 

"That too." 

"Were you drawn into all this accidentally?" 

"Yes." 

"Then you re not yourself a revolutionist on 
principle?" 

"I ve hardly stopped to realize it, but I am yes ! 
With my whole soul 1 I d die I d be tortured if 
that could destroy this Russian despotism!" 

He gazed at her, stirred, disquieted, convinced. 
There was a terrible fire behind her eyes. Too far 
down that road ! But who, capable of magnifi 
cence, is not capable of madness too? "I ve called 
myself a revolutionist," he said. "Henceforth I 
think I ll save the word for the reality." 

She laid her hand quickly on his, her eyes soften 
ing, her tense soul unclosing a little in the sweetness 
of being near him. "I seem unreal beside some men 
and women here," she said. "Of me such as I am 
you were the beginning. Walt: after you, as I 
went on, I kept on looking at things from my own 
old point of view, and Count Feodor s but then, 
just for fun with myself, because I liked pretending 
to be you, I d shift the angle and look at things from 
yours. A dangerous game, sir! From yours I could 
read men and women who from mine would have 
been meaningless scrawls. I could account for the 
hollowness and falseness of high society: I could see 
through the self-deceptions and hypocrisies of ruling 



360 THE CHASM 

classes the dreadful governments they maintain 
with a disgusting pretense that it is for the people s 
good that they kee*p them down. 

"You ve traveled far," he said, his half-closed 
eyes looking afar at his new picture of her mind. 

"Had you not touched my eyes, dear man," she 
said, leaning close to him, "I would have been blind 
for life like the rest to our utter and eternal dis 
regard for the life and welfare and liberty of the 
millions who are and must ever be of our own blood 
and nature, but who are without the little trained-in 
traits of our own class ! Those would have been the 
all-important things to me not the big human 
things !" 

It moved him deeply to hear her the most desir 
able woman he knew in mind, in will, in bodily love 
liness, voicing out of her own experience and heart 
one phrase of his own belief. His left hand was shut 
tight, a result of his determination not to put it 
around her as she sat beside him. He still thought 
clearly but with an effort like that of a man re