PAGE 4
Corinna
by
She began to write. One day she attempted verse. She succeeded. The lines were of equal length and the last words rhymed. A great light dawned on her: she was a poetess. One thing more remained: she wanted ideas; well she could take them from Corinna.
In this way quite a number of poems originated.
But they had also to be bestowed on the world, and this could not be done unless they were printed. One day she sent a poem entitled Sappho and signed Corinna to the Illustrated Newspaper. With a beating heart she went out to post the letter herself, and as it dropped into the pillarbox, she prayed softly to “God.”
A trying fortnight ensued. She ate nothing, hardly closed her eyes, and spent her days in solitude.
When Saturday came and the paper was delivered, she trembled as if she were fever-stricken, and when she found that her verses were neither printed nor mentioned in “Letters to Correspondents,” she almost broke down.
On the following Saturday, when she could count on an answer with some certainty, she slipped the paper into her pocket without unfolding it, and went into the woods. When she had arrived at a secluded spot and made sure that no one was watching her, she unfolded the paper and hastily glanced at the contents. One poem only was printed, entitled Bellman’s-day. She turned to “Letters to Correspondents.” Her first glance at the small print made her start violently. Her fingers clutched the paper, rolled it into a ball and flung it into the underwood. Then she stared, fascinated, at the ball of white, glimmering through the green undergrowth. For the first time in her life she had received an insult. She was completely unnerved. This unknown journalist had dared what nobody had dared before: he had been rude to her. She had come out from behind her trenches into the arena where high birth counts for nothing, but where victory belongs to that wonderful natural endowment which we call talent, and before which all powers bow when it can no longer be denied. But the unknown had also offended the woman in her, for he had said:
“The Corinna of 1807 would have cooked dinners and rocked cradles if she had lived after 1870. But you are no Corinna.”
For the first time she had heard the voice of the enemy, the arch-enemy, man. Cook dinners and rock cradles! They should see!
She went home. She felt so crushed that her muscles hardly obeyed her relaxed nerves.
When she had gone a little way, she suddenly turned round and retraced her footsteps. Supposing anybody found that paper! It would give her away.
She returned to the spot, and breaking off a hazel switch, dragged the paper out from where it lay and carefully smoothed it. Then she raised a piece of turf, hid the paper underneath and rolled a stone on the top. It was a hope that lay buried there, and also a proof–of what? That she had committed a crime? She felt that she had. She had done a wrong, she had shown herself naked before the other sex.
From this day on a struggle went on in her heart. Ambition and fear of publicity strove within her, and she was unable to come to a decision.
In the following autumn her father died. As he had been addicted to gambling, and more often lost than won, he left debts behind him. But in smart society these things are of no account. There was no necessity for Helena to earn her living in a shop, for a hitherto unknown aunt came forward and offered her a home.
But her father’s death wrought a complete change in her position. No more salutes; the officers of the regiment nodded to her in a friendly fashion, the lieutenants asked her to dance. She saw plainly that the respect shown to her had not been shown to her personally, but merely to her rank. She felt degraded and a lively sympathy for all subalterns was born in her; she even felt a sort of hatred for all those who enjoyed her former privileges. Side by side with this feeling grew up a yearning for personal appreciation, a desire to win a position surpassing all others, although it might not figure in the Army list.