Jennie Gerhardt. Theodore Dreiser
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by the one common road, yet there is that ridiculous tendency to close the eyes and turn away the head as if there were something unclean in the method of nature. “Conceived in iniquity and born in sin,” is the unnatural interpretation put upon the process by the extreme religionist, and the world, by its silence, gives assent to a judgement so marvelously warped.
Surely there is something radically wrong in this attitude. The teachings of philosophy and the deductions of biology should find more practical application in the daily reasoning of man. No process is vile, no condition unnatural. The accidental variation from a given social practice does not make a sin. It is the indifference to duty entailed, the ignorance of the highest wisdom which would care and make provision for the happiness of every creature conceived, that is either contemptible or pitiable. No poor little earthling, caught in the enormous grip of chance, and so swerved from the established customs of men, could possibly be guilty of that depth of vileness which the attitude of the world would seem to predicate so inevitably.
And yet Jennie, no conscious wisher of evil, was now to witness the unjust interpretation of that wonder of nature, which, but for the intervention of death, or the possible changing of an opinion of a man, might have been consecrated and hallowed as one of the ideal functions of life. Although herself unable to distinguish the separateness of this from every other normal process of life, yet was she made to feel, by the actions of all about her, that degradation was her portion, and sin the foundation as well as the condition of her state. Almost, not quite, was the affection, the consideration, the care—which afterward the world would demand of her for her child—now sought to be extinguished in her. Almost, not quite, was the budding and essential love looked upon as evil. She must contemn herself, contemn that which in the more approved limits of society is of all things the most sacred and holy.
As yet, we are dwelling in a most brutal order of society, against the pompous and loud-mouthed blusterings of which the temperate and tender voice of sympathy seems both futile and vain. Although able to look about him, and in the vast ordaining of nature read a wondrous plea for closer fellowship, yet, in the teeth of all the winds of circumstance, and between the giant legs of chance, struts little man—the indifference, the non-understanding, the selfishness of whom make his playground too often a field of despair. Winds to whisper that it is with the sum and not the minute individual of life that nature is concerned; waters to teach that of her bounty no man may be honestly deprived. All the beauty, the sweetness, the light poured forth with so lavish a hand that all may see the lesson of eternal generosity, and yet, unseeing man, narrowly drawing himself up in judgement, still seizes his brother by the throat, exacts the last tittle of form or custom and, finding him unable or unwilling to comply, drags him helpless and complaining to the gibbets and the jails.
Jennie, no unwilling but only a helpless victim, was now within the purview of this same unreasoning element of society, the judgers of those who do not judge, the blamers of those who do not blame. Although it was neither the gibbet nor the jail of a few hundred years before, there was that, in the ignorance and immobility of the human beings about her, which made it impossible for them to see anything but a vile and premeditated infraction of the social code, the punishment of which was ostracism. All she could do now was to withdraw and hide away, to shun the piercing and scornful gaze of men, to bear all in silence and, at the proper time, go hence a marked example of the result of evil-doing.
Heaven be praised for this truth, however—that in the natural innocence of the good heart is neither understanding of the petty prejudices of society, nor room for cavilling against fate. Although a mark for the wit and a butt for the scorn of men, such a heart is so allied with the larger perception of things that it cannot see. Not with weeping or self-berating, therefore, was her heart now filled. Not with selfish regrets as a vain remorse. Sorrow there was, it is true, but only a mellow phase of it, a vague uncertainty and wonder, which would sometimes cause her eyes to fill with tears.
You have heard the wood-dove calling in the lone stillness of the summertime, you have found the unheeded brooklet singing and babbling where no ear comes to hear. Under dead leaves and snowbanks the delicate arbutus unfolds its simple blossom, answering some heavenly call for color. So, too, this other flower of womanhood.
Jennie was left alone, but like the wood-dove she was a voice of sweetness in the summertime. Going about her household duties, she was content to await without murmur the fulfillment of that process for which, after all, she was but the sacrificial implement. When her duties were lightest, she was content to sit in quiet meditation, the marvel of life holding her as in a trance. When she was heaviest pressed to aid her mother, she would sometimes find herself quietly singing, the pleasure of work lifting her out of herself. Always she was content to face the future with an earnest desire to struggle and make amends.
To those who cannot understand this attitude in one not sheltered by the conventions, not housed in comfort and protected by the love and care of a husband, it must be explained again that we are not dealing with the ordinary temperament. The latter—the customary small nature, even when buoyed by communal advice and assistance—is apt to see in a situation of this kind only terror and danger. Nature is unkind to permit the minor type of woman to bear a child at all. The larger natures in their maturity welcome motherhood, see in it the immense possibilities of racial fulfillment, find joy and satisfaction in being the handmaiden of so immense a purpose or direction.
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