Broken Necks/The Man with One Wife
I
Moments come into every man’s life when the consciousness of sin penetrates his sophistication and causes him to suffer. Hardened though he be, cynical of the moral standards of his fellow-men, into the innermost solitude of his being the nausea of guilt still manages to creep. And then, for the moment, he stands face to face with himself and knows himself as the gods he has denied and foresworn know him.
Thus Ezra Gimmil sat in the thirty-seventh year of his life staring out of the window of his home at the mountain which, like an eternal guardian, shut out the world from Provo, the city of his birth. He was a tall, gaunt man; a headstrong, cynically abandoned man. Yet, as he sat before the window gazing out upon the serene mountain, upon the lazy streets that stretched themselves under the afternoon sun, upon the low roofs and the quiet order of Provo, the torment which seeks men out, who crudely fancy they have hidden themselves from God, came into his heart.
He thought, while he sat as motionless as some awkwardly carven image, of his father and his father’s father, and of his mothers, plump and gentle women. All had been pious, law-abiding. The name Gimmil had been one of the prides of Provo. And now, here he was, Ezra Gimmil, a pariah among the righteous, an affliction in the thought of the godly.
In the midst of his thinking the door opened and a woman of twenty-five entered. Her hair was black and her face full. Her figure was strong and undulant. She stood regarding him for a space and, with a deep, curious laugh, moved toward him.
"Why so sad, Ezra?" she asked.
The sound of her voice fell across his emotion like a whip. He brought himself slowly to his feet. Here was the cause of his disgrace, here the reason for the disfavor that had overtaken the name of Gimmil. She it was who had caused him to deny the teachings of God, to fly in the face of his townspeople. Were it not for her and the insidious spell she exercised over him, he would have married Martha Dale and Eva Dale. Yes, he could have taken to himself Martha and Eva and Ruth and Mary, all of them beautiful and pious women who would have helped him to live properly in the eyes of God and of his fellow men, who would have reflected righteousness and glory upon his name, and by whom he would have had children, twenty-thirty children, as the Prophet of the Mormons had ordained.
She it was, standing now before him, who had placed her plump arms about his neck and in exchange for a sterile kiss caused him to sell his soul to the Devil. A hardened, malignant, headstrong sinner, Ezra Gimmil, yet as he stared at her he hated her and hated himself. He saw himself as the contemptible renegade whose name was fast becoming a byword in Utah.
"Get away!" he cried out to her. "Get away and leave me be!"
The woman who was his wife only smiled at him. She knew these periodic tempers of his. Slowly she continued to approach him. How much longer she would be able to hold him in the coils of her passion she could not tell. But, womanlike, she managed to smile most when thinking most bitterly. With tender, cautious strength she pulled him back into the chair.
"What is it, husband?" she asked softly. "Do you no longer love me? Do I no longer make recompense for the frowns of your neighbors?"
Her arms once more encircled him and upon his lips she fastened hers. Closing his eyes and his senses to the power of the woman, Ezra murmured, as in desperation:
"My father was a good man in the eyes of his God and his people. He had twelve wives. His father, who was among the first to come to Provo, had fourteen wives. And I, who bear their name, live in sin with one wife, live in defiance of all that is holy and pure."
Slowly, with eyes flashing, Ezra’s wife removed her lips from his. She, too, was a Mormon and, like her husband, given to sudden outbreaks of conscience. Well she knew the emotions which the Elders of the Church entertained toward her husband, the manner in which the Apostles raised their eyes in scorn and prayer when he passed. Was it worth while, after all, this life of defiance? Would not, as the Elders preached, retribution, terrible and complete, overtake both of them?
Miami Gimmil sighed and straightened her body. As long as her husband spoke not of this thing, no thought of it came to disturb her. But seeing him lost in the torments which God sends to sinners, Miami, too, felt the still, small voice of conscience speaking faintly and divinely in her soul of souls. Silently she fell to her knees before her husband.
"Go," she whispered brokenly. "It is your...your duty."
Her head fell into the lap of Ezra Gimmil and she wept.
Here, in order to understand and appreciate the sinister convolutions of Ezra Gimmil’s thought, one must understand and appreciate the first great principle of all great egoists and sinners—no man to himself can long remain vile. Thus, although he had opened his heart for the moment to the consciousness of sin, Ezra Gimmil was not stirred out of the ways of evil by the shock. He had, during this moment of spiritual illumination, seen to the bottom of his being. With tortured senses he had observed his transgressions as if with the eyes of God Himself. But of so coarse a fiber is the soul of man, of so virile a substance the natural evil, once it comes uppermost, that it can, with the agility of a duck’s back, shed the holiest of waters and the purest of thoughts.
Conscious of his returning weakness, aware of his renunciation of God and purity, Ezra Gimmil slowly gave himself over to the unhallowed tumult beginning to stir in his bosom. He felt, as he had on the day of his wedding in the Temple of Provo, the insidious lure of Miami. For a moment there circled in the back of his thought the vision of Elder Dale and his thirty-seven daughters. But he put this last effort of his fading virtue from him. An expression of unholy rapture lighted his narrow, evil eyes. His lips parted in a wild laugh. Truly, as he stood inanimate for an instant, facing his one wife, he was Ezra Gimmil as the elect of Provo deemed him, a man possessed by the Evil One, immune to the Gospels, oblivious to the laws of decency and righteousness.
"Miami," he cried aloud, "come, I have love for you. And only you. What does it matter, the obloquy of the world? I shall brook no other’s trespassing upon our home. Let them cast me out. We shall go forth together, sinners in truth, but with the light of freedom in our hearts. What are the laws of God and of man compared to the laws of the heart? Miami, my own, tell me you do not wish for any wifely companions?"
A curious, abandoned note came into his voice, a wilder gleam into his eye. He raised his gaunt arm and shook it at the mountain that guarded the city of his birth, at the Temple wherein his fathers had worshipped.
"Miami," he cried, "we will live as one, you and I. And there shall be no other."
For a space Miami Gimmil shuddered before the violent sacrilege of her husband. Into her heart crept a dread. What manner of demon was this, her Ezra, to defy God and his people? What ominous retribution would overtake him? And her? Dared she continue?
Suddenly all that was female in her made answer. With a joyous cry she threw herself into her husband’s arms.
It was at this significant instant that Elder Brigham Dale passed the front windows of the home of Ezra Gimmil. Elder Dale was a man advanced in years, white-bearded and with the stateliness which long virtue and long worship of the true God alone can give a man. He was short and heavy through the chest and stomach. But his legs were still firm and his eyes clear and vigorous.
Thus, passing the windows of Ezra Gimmil’s home at this particular instant, he was able to see that which sent a shock into the depths of his being. There before him, shamelessly embraced in each other’s arms, standing in the same light which shone upon the Temple, were the wanton Miami and the apostate Ezra.
Thirty-seven daughters had Elder Dale, each of them a plump and gentle maiden. And nine wives had Elder Dale, each of them a pious and wondrous helpmate. The youngest of his daughters was six, the eldest of them thirty ; two of them were betrothed and two of them were married and thirty-three of them waited to be taken by good Mormons.
Raising his eyes the Elder murmured a prayer, which in his anger and horror he was unable to complete. He had known the father of Ezra Gimmil. He had known the wives of his father. All of them pious, scrupulous Mormons. And he, himself, had reared thirty-seven daughters. Ingrate, renegade, servant of Satan! Elder Dale shook his fist at the two embraced figures. Overpowered by his emotions, he dashed up the steps of Ezra Gimmil’s home and burst into the room wherein the couple still stood. His first words separated the twain like some blow delivered from on high.
"Monogamist!" he shouted in his deep voice. "For this have we and our fathers led you into the true ways of God! For this! To be betrayed by you! To watch you flaunt your evil in our faces! To abide with you whilst you disown the fruits of our work! Where are your wives? Where are your pledges to the Apostles? Answer me, monogamist!"
Miami, at the sound of the booming voice of the Elder, slipped coweringly toward the opposite wall. In her face shame burned and her eyes were filled with terror. In this moment the teachings of her childhood, the holy things learned at her mother’s knee, rushed to the surface, and raising her eyes she waited for God to strike.
As the Elder continued to speak, she stole a glance at her husband. Ezra was standing with his head thrown back, his lips drawn back in a snarl. She watched the Elder approach him slowly. She heard the Elder talking now in a calmer voice, an appealing voice.
"Ezra Gimmil, the Apostles of the Temple have appointed me to speak with you. Are you of a mood to listen?"
Indeed, for one so outraged and violent but a moment before, a curious change had come over the Elder. It had, moreover, its affect upon the apostate.
Shaking his head slowly, Ezra Gimmil answered,
"What speech can there be between us, Elder? You see me as I am, as I wish to be. What more can I say?"
There was a note of sorrow in the voice of Ezra Gimmil, which the Elder was quick to hear.
"Come with me to the Temple," the Elder went on more calmly than before; "and we shall see what is to be seen. Better than that, come with me to my home. Provo has not abandoned you, my son, though you have abandoned it in your soul. Provo still remembers your father and his father. None fought so valiantly for the Saints, none worked so faithfully as they. Your sisters themselves will speak for that. Come with me to my home, Ezra, my son, and I will show you to my daughters. I am not one to condemn in sudden anger the waywardness of youth."
A cloud came upon Ezra Gimmil’s features. He continued to shake his head.
"No," he answered, "it cannot be. It will not avail for me to look upon your daughters."
II
The home of Elder Brigham Dale was divided into nine houses. Therein, in peace and humanly orchestrated harmony, lived his extensive issue. In the heart of the town of Provo were two stores which the Elder owned. He was, because of his good works and his reputed wealth, a man of power in the place, and for six years he had held a council seat. His thirty-seven daughters were indeed as so many fair monuments to his piety.
But together with the blessings which had been given him had been meted out his proper allotment of hardships. As may be easily inferred, the problems of thirty-seven daughters, with thirty-three of them yet to be given in wedlock, were not among the least of his declining years. Thus it was that his thoughts had of late centered about Ezra Gimmil. Could this strange renegade be won back into the faith of his fathers, a faith which he had not publicly renounced, he could be induced to take from the Dale home at least ten daughters.
Elder Gimmil had surrounded himself with twelve wives. That his son should find content with one in the face of the revelation of God and the laws of Holy Church was something which Elder Dale, with all his deep learning, could not understand. Rightfully he laid it to the ramified evil which had taken root in the soul and body of Ezra Gimmil.
After his futile visit in the Gimmil home the Elder, inspired by a lifelong virtue as well as an economic necessity—for his wealth under the strain of thirty-seven daughters was not now what it had once been—called a meeting of the Apostles in the Temple. Before the men who assembled, all venerable, all wise, and all virtuous Mormons, Elder Dale set forth the dangers which such a man as Ezra Gimmil introduced into the life of Provo. This was before the days when the tentes of faith began to weaken, when the youths of Provo, thirsting for adventure, began to slip quietly from the town, when the satraps of the government at Washington began to pry into the divinities of the great Creed.
But in laying before the assemblage in the Temple the facts and inferences and dangers, Elder Dale urged above all things caution. He had carefully meditated upon the matter. To drive Ezra Gimmil from his home and from the soil which his fathers had tilled and built upon would be a simple business. But in driving him forth would he not drive forth also the potential husband of his ten daughters? Few young men there were in Provo as wealthy at their age as Ezra Gimmil. His inheritance had been large. He had no brothers. Therefore, caution, urged Elder Dale. Prayers and meditation, faith and cajolery. Let them summon before them the woman Miami first and talk with her. Let them do all that could be done before taking violent measures to rid the town of its Devil’s adherent.
Thus it came about that during the month which followed this assemblage the name of Ezra Gimmil was to be heard continually in the prayer of the righteous of Provo. Courtesy and kindness were shown to him everywhere. The Elders themselves bought heavily of his grain, which filled to bursting the three great barns behind his home. Yet these maneuvers fell insensibly upon the apostate. Since the day he had opened his heart to the torments of a consciousness of sin Ezra Gimmil had closely watched himself. There was in him the stubbornness which is to be noted in the characters of great sinners as well as in those of great saints, both of whom are identically of the stuff of martyrdom.
At night he often lay awake, scowling into the darkness. He had no precepts of God or man to excuse his weakness. Yet there was something within him greater than all the human and divine dictates he had been taught by his fathers to reverence. It was the voice of his flesh crying out against the voices of godliness and virtue. And this voice alone he would follow, let it lead him into the seventh perdition. He was a man and able to march upon Hell like a man—if only Miami would remain at his side. Let the Devil claim them both...
It was after the services in the Temple one March evening that Elder Dale finally spoke the word of doom. He had waited long. He had done all that could be done. He had fought to the last moment. He leaped now into the pulpit and raising his arm above the heads of the congregation, burst forth in a booming voice:
"Brethren of God, children of the Latter Day Saints, hearken! I am to speak to you of that which all of you know. There is in our midst one who has foresworn the God of his fathers, one who has turned upon the laws of the land into which he was born. His name is Ezra Gimmil, son of Rufus Gimmil. We of the Temple have spoken with him and prayed for him. But the light of God will not enter a soul overshadowed by the breath of evil. For five years has Ezra Gimmil continued to live in flagrant monogamy with a wanton named Miami. For five years has this woman, with her eyes and her kisses, her words and her body, lured this man to continue to live in sin with her alone, to deny to the sisters of his Church the sanctity of his home. Inhospitable and abandoned, I denounce him as a menace to the morals of our Provo and a danger to the youth of our Church. Such an example of depravity is bound, if countenanced, to have an effect upon the immature among us. All kindness has failed. There remains but one thing, brethren ..."
Through the gloomy streets of Provo, overshadowed by the guardian mountain which shut it off from the world, moved a silent procession. Fifty men there were in the procession, recruited from the most respectable and pious of the Temple’s congregation. They moved through the dark streets without a murmur. In their midst five of them carried a long rough timber.
Ezra Gimmil, raising his eyes from a book he was reading, stared out of the window into the darkness. He had caught the sound of the tread of many feet. Instinct, which is the companion of evil no less than of virtue, had shot a message into his brain.
He darted to the window and peered out.
Silence and the night—but beyond, the slowly moving shadows of many figures.
They were coming after him.
Without a murmur Ezra Gimmil sped swiftly to the second floor of his home. In her bed, weary with the duties of her home, lay his wife Miami. He shook her and awakened her.
"Our time is come," he whispered fiercely. "For our sins we are to be ridden out of Provo upon a rail at the hands of the Elders. Do you come with me?"
A terrified light shone from Miami’s eyes. She rose and dressed. Noiselessly the two rushed down the stairs, slipped out of the back door, and scurried in the darkness toward the mountain. Beyond the mountain ran the stage coach. Ezra Gimmil had filled his pockets with coin. All else, his home, his animals and his lands, he had left behind.
The fifty Elders of the Temple, bearing the long, rough timber found the home empty and cried out in wrath, sending their curses after the sinners who had fled.
III
In the city of Chicago, whither Ezra Gimmil and his wife Miami finally made their way, there was little to recall to their thought the harrowing experiences of their life in Provo. Here, Ezra Gimmil, with the same grimness which had characterized his defiance of his people, plunged himself into the activity about him. Within two months he had obtained a foremanship in a grain elevator on the river. He worked from 7 in the morning until 5 in the afternoon, and each day he returned to the home his wife Miami kept for him, five little rooms in a huge building full of strange and heathen people.
But contentment did not come to him. Even as he had sat tormented one afternoon in the home of his fathers in Provo, did he sit now night after night, nursing the true torments of one who has been separated from land and people and God.
Each night Miami, too, sensing more and more the griefs which were consuming their happiness and parting them, spoke hopefully to her husband:
"It is not too late, Ezra. Here, even in the land of the heathen, we may retrieve the favor of God. You can repent. See, I wish it, my husband. Come, let us look about us and find for our home at least two other wives. And I will write to the elders of Provo what you have done and they will forgive."
But Ezra Gimmil, looking into the eyes of the woman for whom he had lost his earthly wealth and his divine soul, only shook his head.
"I cannot," he said. "There is something within me that forbids. I was born dedicated to the Devil. I cannot fly against my destiny. In sin we have lived. In sin we must die. There is no retracing our ways."
And because he was at heart a pious and reverent man, there was for Ezra Gimmil no consolation in the fact that the heathen among whom he worked and lived deemed him a worthy and righteous man. Nay, there was sin in his soul and he knew it. And so he lived and died—and went to Hell.