BOILED CABBAGE

Perhaps you understand such things better than I. As for myself—really I admit myself unable to fathom the why and the wherefore of such simple natural phenomena as the transformation that takes place in things when they experience chemical and electrical interference. All I know is that they change, and I am satisfied. Like all natural phenomena, it exists, and I do not know how to figure out the why. The change which takes place can be sensed, it can be felt, smelled, or seen. Why is it that a head of cabbage, fresh from stalk or stall, is so different an entity after the simple process of boiling? We are aware of the difference through several senses, but chiefly by assault and battery on our sense of smell. Is the art of cooking some improved or retrograded science of alchemy? None but an alchemist of high degree could assume the audacity to convert a raw potato into pommes de terre au gratin. Any kitchen scullion could tell both you and me a great deal about salads and other such matters. Our chef accomplishes miracles, but I venture to say that he has never yet essayed to account for the marvel. The chemist can tell us all about the ingredients and chemical properties of cabbage; but can he give me the reason for the cabbage law? Can he tell me why a potato gets soft and an egg hard when boiled?

An acorn falls; it takes root. Lo! an oak. The contact of the acorn with earth, the sun’s rays, the gentle rain, the tempered wind, the dew, and that indefinable essence of life—these combine to uprear another oak-tree in the forest. I have heard no grumbling in the woods; the forest is content. The other trees make neither comment, cavil, nor complaint. Acorn was. Earth is. The young oak is.

And so, when a human entity is attracted here to the sun, the rain, the wind, and the multifold unseen and impalpable forces and influences that make for growth, and which we call life, we realize a like phenomenon. There was one. Now there be twain.

My befuddled brain puzzles wearily with the mystery. Yet mystery on mystery. Why is it that society persists in multiplying mystery? For is it not a certainty, while the sapling in the forest meets a welcome, the newcomer into society requires credentials? Neither the cook nor the alchemist from whom the cook is descended can help us here. It’s all well enough to understand that cabbage becomes acceptable by being boiled. The like process will not operate kindly in the matter of babies.

No, clearly the alchemist nor his cousin, the wizard, can help us in this dilemma. The magician has but to say “Presto, change!” or some equally potent phrase, and the thing’s done in a jiffy. If he omits the formula the change refuses to occur. While in magic also the change is visible (if the operator be apt), the distinction which society imposes is quite beyond the discernment of the senses, even the most common.

“You are a bastard.” This is said to me with a fine scorn that is designed to convince me that in comparison with others there is a vital defect in me. I am under standard. In commerce I should be classed as “seconds.” My worth to society is below par. My own observation convinces me that the classification of inferiority imposed upon me lacks validity. I am well-knit. My carriage and demeanor unexceptionable; my muscles are well developed and supple. Stately, well proportioned; clean-cut features. I am accounted no mean antagonist, and can “hold my own” in debate on most topics. My mirror (one of the best makes) reflects, without reflecting upon, my comeliness; and lays some emphasis upon even white teeth, virile hair, and a complexion not too tawny to hide the crimson flood that flows freely through my veins.

“Seconds!” Nay, nay! Not so. Without the whispered cue, even society would rank me as an “A Number One” article.

I have heard a woman declare that she would give some of her thousands for some of my hair. Another craved my complexion. A third envied me a voice, which, in her ecstatic admiration she averred to be most melodious.

There’s nothing of the “slouch” in me. You should see me at work. Ah! I love my work, and because of the joy I have in it I easily excel those who feel it a drudgery to perform one-half my stent. Yet I am a bastard. “Presto, change!” was not said over the union of my parents; and I am neither an accident nor a child of convenience. My father did not seek my mother to supply the need of a housekeeper, nor did my mother crave a home.

My mother is the woman of my own choice. While I was still in the very blood of my father I felt her presence. I intoxicated him with a passion he could not withstand. How I longed for her—my mother—to receive me. In her blood was floating about that which would complete me. How deftly I schemed and contrived my father’s introduction to her. And his execution of my impulse was perfect. How I compelled him to caress and fondle the sweet mother of my choice! When he kissed her lips it was I that kissed her. His arms about her were the arms that were to become my arms. It was I who made his heart palpitate with joy when she was near, or even in his thoughts, and I brought her to his thoughts when she was far away. I would not let him give place to any other thought than thoughts of her—my mother.

People said that he was mad. Yes, with a divine madness. And it was I who had made him so.

And how restless was that complement of me that my mother’s blood held in suspense when it compelled her to realize that the comely youth who was to father me held in his being the corresponding atom of me!

The blushes that suffused her beauteous face were responses all to my allurements. I went to her brain, and she could think but of him. Her eyes had vision for none but for him. Yes, I caused her pain, much pain, but not more than was good for her. For her pain brought compensating pleasure that put all pain and thought of pain to rout. Waking and dreaming, she knew me, and all that I would be to her, and she knew naught else but me—and the youth who carried me in his rushing tide of life.

Not for myself alone was I enlisted in the choice of my parents, but more because of all the future generations that were pent up within my womb while I was floating inchoate in the blood that coursed through the hearts of my mother and my father.

And of that conjunction of the me in my father, and of that in my mother that longed for me, I became unified. Such love as interflowed betwixt them twain was the soul struggling to be born, to be properly born and beautifully expressed. My parents loved, and I am the fruit of love. Their love was perfect, and my birth was perfect, and I am perfect. I am the child of Love, and I am Love.

Yet I am a bastard, for no hocus-pocus incantation was chanted over the nuptials from which I issue. No wizard, no priest, no magistrate, had lot or parcel in my borning. Hence I am greater than Magic, greater than the Church, greater than State. I am the incarnation of harmony, the essence of happiness, the product of nature. And you, unhappy children of chance, unwelcome and dreaded in your coming, how I pity you! I look into your tired faces, racked bodies, clouded brains, and loveless natures, and do not marvel to find you true to your father’s superstitions. No, I do not despise you, nor will I deny you the benefit of my love. I love you, for I am the child of Love. Such am I, the bastard.