"Then came the betrothal, the marriages, and suddenly all that wonderful
starlight and firelight life ended. For a while, the men seemed to drift
away from each other. For a while, we - the 'devoted five,' as our
people called us - seemed to drift away from each other. It was as
though they took back something they had freely given each other to give
to us. It was as though we took back something we had freely given each
other to give to them.
"Then, just as suddenly, they began to drift away from us and back to
each other. Some of the high, worshiping quality in their attitude
toward us disappeared. It was as though we had become less beautiful,
less interesting, less desirable - as if possession had killed some
precious, perishable quality."
"What that quality is I do not know. We are not dumb like stones or
plants, we women. We are not dull like birds or beasts. We do not fade
in a day like flowers. We do not stop like music. We do not go out like
light. What it was that went, or when or how, I do not know. But it was
something that thrilled and enchanted them. It went - and it went
forever."
"It was as though we were toys - new toys - with a secret spring. And if
one found and pressed that spring, something unexpected and something
unbelievably wonderful would happen. They hunted for that spring
untiringly - hunted - and hunted - and hunted. At last they found it.
And after they found it, we no longer interested them. The mystery and
fascination had gone. After all, a toy is only a toy."
"Then came our great trouble - that terrible time of the illicit
hunting. Every man of them making love to some one of you. Every woman
of you making love to some one of them. That was a year of despair for
me. I could see no way out. It seemed to me that you were all drifting
to destruction and that I could not stay you. And then I began to
realize that the root of evil was only one thing idleness. Idle men!
Idle women! And as I wondered what we should do next, Nature took the
matter in her hands. She gave all you women work to do."
Julia paused. Her still gray eyes fixed on faraway things.
"Honey-Boy was born, then Peterkin, then Angela, then Honey-Bunch. And
suddenly everything was right again. But, somehow, the men seemed soon
to exhaust the mystery and fascination of fatherhood just as they had
exhausted the mystery and fascination of husbandhood. They became
restless and irritable. It seemed to me that another danger beset us -
vague, monstrous, looming - but I did not know what. You see they have
the souls of discoverers and explorers and conquerors, these earth-men.
They are creators. Their souls are filled with an eternal unrest. Always
they must attempt one thing more; ever they seek something beyond. They
would stop the sun and the moon in their courses; they would harness the
hurricane; they would chain the everlasting stars. Sea, earth, sky are
but their playgrounds; past, present, future their servants; they lust
to conquer the unexplored areas of space and time. It came to me that
what they needed was work of another kind. One night, when I was lying
awake thinking it over, the idea of the New Camp burst on my mind. Do
you remember how delighted they were when I suggested it to them, how
delighted you were, how gay and jubilant we all were, how, for days and
days, we talked of nothing else? And we were as happy over the idea as
they. For a long time, we thought that we were going to help.