important particulars, the fungi he has discovered
being among those highly decorative and extremely
poisonous-looking sorts which flourish in the deep
woods and offer themselves almost inexhaustibly in
places near the ruins of the old capitalistic cities,
where hardly any other foods will grow. Anatole
is very proud of his success, and at more than one
Communal Assembly has lectured upon his discoveries
and treated of their preparation for the table, with
sketches of them as he found them growing, colored
after nature by his own hand. He has himself become
a fanatical vegetarian, having, he confesses, always
had a secret loathing for the meats he stooped to
direct the cooking of among the French and American
bourgeoisie in the days which he already looks back
upon as among the most benighted of his history.
XIV
The scene has changed again, Dolly, and six months
have elapsed without your knowing it. Aristides
and I long ago completed the tour of the capitals
which the Thrall incident interrupted, and we have
been settled for many months in the Maritime Capital,
where it has been decided we had better fill out the
first two years of my husband’s repatriation.
I have become more and more thoroughly naturalized,
and if I am not yet a perfect Altrurian, it is not
for not loving better and better the best Altrurian
of them all, and not for not admiring and revering
this wonderful civilization.
During the Obligatories of the forenoons I do my housework
with my own hands, and as my mother lives with us
we have long talks together, and try to make each
other believe that the American conditions were a sort
of nightmare from which we have happily awakened.
You see how terribly frank I am, my dear, but if I
were not, I could not make you understand how I feel.
My heart aches for you, there, and the more because
I know that you do not want to live differently, that
you are proud of your economic and social illogicality,
and that you think America is the best country under
the sun! I can never persuade you, but if you
could only come here, once, and see for yourselves!
Seeing would be believing, and believing would be
the wish never to go away, but to be at home here
always.
I can imagine your laughing at me and asking Mr. Makely
whether the Little Sally has ever returned
to Altruria, and how I can account for the captain’s
failure to keep his word. I confess that is a
sore point with me. It is now more than a year
since she sailed, and, of course, we have not had
a sign or whisper from her. I could almost wish
that the crew were willing to stay away, but I am
afraid it is the captain who is keeping them.
It has become almost a mania with me, and every morning,
the first thing when I wake, I go for my before-breakfast
walk along the marble terrace that overlooks the sea,
and scan the empty rounding for the recreant ship.
I do not want to think so badly of human nature, as
Copyrights
Through the Eye of the Needle from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
