I retraced my footsteps and plunged into the heart of the forest; the soughing of the wind in the branches deepened with the growing size of the trees. In the very depth of despair I sobbed aloud, the tears raining down my cheeks; like a wild stag I trampled on the fungi and toadstools, tore up the young plants, dashed myself against the trees. What did I want? I didn't know myself. My pulses throbbed, an inexpressible longing to see her again came over me. She, whom I loved too deeply for desire, had taken possession of my soul. And now that everything was at an end, I longed to die, for life without her was impossible.
But, with the cunning of a madman, I decided to get some satisfaction out of my death by contracting pneumonia, or a similar fatal disease; for in that case, I argued, I should have to be in bed for some time; I could see her again and could kiss her hand in saying good-bye for ever.
Comforted by this sudden thought, I turned my steps towards the coast; it was not difficult to find it, I had but to be guided by the roar of the breakers, which led me across the wood.
The coast was precipitous and the water deep, everything as it should be. With careful attention, which betrayed nothing of my sinister purpose, I undressed myself; I hid my clothes in a plantation of alder trees and pushed my watch into a hole in the rock. The wind was cold; at this time of the year, in October, the temperature of the water could be but a few degrees above freezing-point. I took a run over the rocks and threw myself headlong into the water, aiming at a cleft between two gigantic waves. I felt as if I had fallen into red-hot lava. But I rose quickly to the surface, dragging up with me pieces of seaweed which I had glimpsed at the bottom, and the tiny vesicles of which were scratching my legs. I swam out into the open sea, breasting the huge waves, greeted by the laughter of the sea gulls and the cawing of the crows. When my strength began to fail, I turned and swam back to the cliff.
Now the moment of greatest importance had arrived. According to all instructions given to bathers, the real danger consists in remaining too long out of the water in a state of nudity. I sat down on the rock which was most fully exposed to the wind, and allowed the October gale to lash my bare back. My muscles, my chest immediately contracted, as if the instinct of self-preservation would protect the vital organs at any price. But I was unable to remain on the same spot, and, seizing the branch of an alder tree, I climbed to its top. The tree swayed with the convulsive, uncontrollable movements of my muscles. In this way I succeeded in remaining in the same place for some time. The icy air scorched my skin like a red-hot iron.
At last I was convinced that I had attained my end, and hastily dressed myself.
In the meantime night had fallen. When I re-entered the wood it was quite dark. Terror seized me; I knocked my head against the lower branches of the trees, and was obliged to feel my way along. Suddenly, under the influence of my frantic fear, my senses became so acute that I could tell the variety of the trees which surrounded me by the rustling of their branches. What depth there was in the bass of the Scotch firs, with their firm and closely-set needles, forming, as it were, gigantic guitars; the tall and more pliable stems of the pines gave a higher note; their sibilant fife resembled the hissing of a thousand snakes; the dry rustling of the branches of the birch trees recalled to me memories of my childhood, with its mingled griefs and pleasures; the rustling of the dead leaves clinging to the branches of the oaks sounded like the rustling of paper; the muttering of the junipers was almost like the whispering voices of women, telling each other secrets. The gale tore off the branch of an alder tree, and it crashed to the ground with a hollow thud. I could have distinguished a pine cone from the cone of a Scotch fir by the sound it made in falling; my sense of smell detected the proximity of a mushroom, and the nerves of my large toe seemed to feel whether it trod on soil, clubmoss or maidenhair.
Guided by the acuteness of my sensations, I came to the enclosure of the graveyard, and walked up the wooden steps. I felt a momentary pleasure in the sound of the weeping willow lashing the tombstones which they overhung. At last, stiff with cold, shaking at every unexpected noise, I reached the village and walked past the houses, which shone feebly in the dark, to the hotel.
As soon as I had arrived in my room I sent off a telegram to the Baron, informing him of my sudden illness and enforced landing. Then I drew up for him a full statement of my mental condition, mentioning my former attacks, and asking him to keep the matter quiet. I gave him to understand that my illness was caused by the conduct of my unfaithful love, whose publicly announced engagement had robbed me of all hope.
I went to bed exhausted, certain of having contracted a fatal fever. Then I rang for the servant and asked her to send for a doctor. On her reply that no doctor was available, I begged her to send for a clergyman, so that I could make my last wishes known to him.
And from that moment I was prepared to die or go out of my mind.
The clergyman appeared almost immediately. He was a man about thirty, and looked like a farm laborer in Sunday clothes. Red-haired and freckled, with a half-vacant look in his eyes, he did not inspire me with sympathy; for a long time I could find no words, for I did not know what to say to this man, who possessed neither education, the wisdom of age, nor a knowledge of the human heart.
He remained standing in the centre of the room, self-conscious, like a provincial in the presence of the inhabitant of a large city, until I motioned him to take a chair.
Then he began his cross-examination.
"You have sent for me, sir? You are in trouble?"
"Yes."
"There is no happiness but in Jesus."
Although I was hankering after quite another sort of happiness, I did not contradict him, and the evangelist rambled on, uninterruptedly, monotonously, verbosely. The old tenets of the catechism lulled me gently to sleep, and the presence of a human being entering into spiritual relationship with my soul gave me new strength.
But the preacher, suddenly doubting my sincerity, interrupted his discourse with a question—
"Do you hold the true faith?"
"No," I replied, "but go on speaking, your words are doing me good...."
And he returned to his work.
The monotonous sound of his voice, the radiations from his eyes, the warmth which emanated from his body, affected me like a magnetic fluid. In half-an-hour's time I was fast asleep.
When I awoke, the mesmerist had gone; the servant brought me a sleeping-draught, with strict injunctions from the chemist to be careful, as the bottle contained sufficient poison to kill a man. Needless to say, as soon as she had turned her back, I drank the whole contents of the flask at a gulp. Then, firmly determined to die, I buried myself under the blankets, and sleep was not long in coming.
When I opened my eyes on the following morning I was not in the least surprised to find my room flooded by the rays of a brilliant sun, for my sleep had been visited by bright and rosy dreams.
"I dream, therefore I exist," I said to myself. I felt my body all over, so as to discern the height of the fever, or the presence of any signs of pneumonia. But, in spite of my firm resolution to bring about a crisis, my condition was fairly normal. My brain, although a little stupefied, functioned easily, no longer under the high pressure of the previous day, and twelve hours' sleep had fully restored the vigor which, thanks to bodily exercises of all descriptions, practised since my early youth, I usually enjoyed.
... A telegram was handed me. My friends were informing me that they would arrive by the two o'clock boat.
I was overwhelmed with shame. What was I to say? What attitude was I to adopt?... I reflected....
My reawakened manhood rebelled against humiliating resolutions; after a hasty review of the circumstances, I decided to remain at the hotel until I had completely recovered, and continue my journey by the next steamer. In this way honour would be saved, and the visit from my friends would be but one more leave-taking—the very last.
When I remembered what had occurred on the previous day, I hated myself. That I, the strong-minded, the sceptic, should have committed such absurdities! And that clergyman's visit! How was I to explain that? It was true, I had only sent for him in his official capacity, and, as far as I was concerned, he had but acted as a hypnotist! But to outsiders it was bound to look like a conversion. Monstrous confessions would very likely be hinted at, a criminal's last avowal of his crime on his deathbed. What a pretty topic for the villagers who stood in close communication with the town! What a treat for the porters!
A trip abroad, undertaken at once, was the only way out of this unbearable situation. Like a castaway, I spent the morning in walking up and down before the verandah, watching the barometer, studying the time-tables. Time passed fairly rapidly. The steamer appeared at the mouth of the estuary before I had made up my mind whether to walk to the landing-stage or remain at the hotel. As I had no desire to be stared at by an inquisitive crowd, I at last went to my room.
A few minutes later I heard the voice of the Baroness: she was making inquiries of the landlady about my health. I went out to meet her, and she almost kissed me before the eyes of all the by-standers. With a heart full to overflowing, she deplored my illness, which she regarded as the result of overwork, and advised me to return to town, and put off my journey until the spring.
She was beautiful to-day. In her closely-fitting fur coat, with its long and supple hairs, she looked like a llama. The sea-breezes had brought the blood to her cheeks, and in her eyes, magnified by the excitement of her visit, I could read an expression of infinite tenderness. In vain I begged her not to alarm herself on my account, and assured her that I had almost fully recovered. She found that I looked like a corpse, declared me unfit for work, and treated me like a child. And how sweetly she played the part of a mother! The tone of her voice was a caress; she playfully used terms of endearment; she wrapped her shawl around me; at table she spread my dinner-napkin over my knees, poured out some wine for me, looked after me in every way. I wondered why she did not thus devote herself to her child rather than to the man who was all the time striving to hide his passion, which threatened to defy all control.
In this disguise of the sick child, it seemed to me that I was like the wolf who, after having devoured the grandmother, lies down on her bed waiting for Little Red Riding-hood, that he may devour her also.
I blushed before this unsophisticated and sincere husband, who overwhelmed me with kindness, asked for no explanations. And yet I was not at fault. I obstinately hardened my heart, and received all the attentions which the Baroness showered on me with an almost insulting indifference.
At dessert, when the time for the return journey had come, the Baron proposed that I should return with them. He offered me a room in his house which, he said, was waiting to receive me. I am glad to say that my answer was a decided refusal. Terrified at this dangerous playing with fire, I was firm in my decision. I would stay here for a week to recover entirely, and then return to town to my old attic.
In spite of all their objections, I persisted. Strange; as soon as I pulled myself together and made a determined stand, the Baroness became almost hostile to me. The more I vacillated and humored her whims, the fonder she seemed of me, the more she praised my wisdom, my amiability. She swayed and bewildered me, but as soon as I opposed her seriously, she turned her back on me and treated me with dislike, almost with rudeness.
While we were discussing the Baron's proposal to live under one roof, she drew a glowing picture of such an arrangement, dwelling on the pleasantness of being able to see one another at any time without a previous invitation.
"But, my dear Baroness," I objected, "what would people say if you were to receive a bachelor into your youngménage?"
"What does it matter what people say?"
"But your mother, your aunt? Moreover, my man's pride rebels against a measure which is only permissible in the case of a minor."
"Bother your man's pride! Do you think it manly to perish without opening your lips?"
"Yes, it behooves a man to be strong."
She grew angry, and refused to admit that a man's case differed from that of a woman. Her woman's logic confused my brain. I turned to the Baron, whose answering smile showed plainly what a small opinion he had of female brain-power.
About six o'clock the steamer weighed anchor and bore my friends away. I returned to the hotel alone.
It was a splendid evening. The sun had set in an orange-coloured sky, white stripes were lying on the deep blue water, a coppery moon was rising behind the Scotch firs.
I was sitting at a table in the dining-room, lost in thought, now mournful, now serene, and did not notice the landlady until she stood close by me.
"The lady who's just left is your sister, isn't she?" she asked.
"Not at all."
"Isn't she? How strangely you resemble one another! I should have sworn that you are brother and sister."
I was not in the mood to continue such a conversation, but it left me in a ferment of thoughts.
Had my constant intercourse with the Baroness affected the expression of her features? Or had the expression of her face influenced mine during this six months' union of our souls? Had the instinctive desire to please one another at any price been the cause of an unconscious selection of gestures and expressions, suppressing the less pleasing in favour of the more seductive? It was not at all unthinkable that a blending of our souls had taken place, and that we no longer belonged to ourselves. Destiny, or rather instinct, had played its fateful, inevitable part; the ball had been set rolling, overthrowing and destroying everything that barred its way: honour, reason, happiness, loyalty, wisdom, virtue!
... And this guilelessness to propose to receive under her roof an ardent young man, a man of the age when the passions are so strong that control is often almost impossible! Was she vicious, or had love obscured her reason? Vicious! No, a thousand times no! I appreciated her candid ways, her gaiety, her sincerity, her motherly tenderness. That she was eccentric, that her mind was badly balanced, she had herself acknowledged in speaking of her faults—but vicious? No! Even the little tricks which she occasionally resorted to in order to cheer me up were much more the tricks of a mature woman who amuses herself by teasing and bewildering a timid youth, and then laughs at his confusion, than those of a coquette whose object it is to excite a man's passions.
But I must exorcise the demon, and continue to mislead my friends. I sat down at the writing-table and wrote a letter on the hackneyed subject of my unhappy love affair. I added two impassioned poems entitled "To Her"—poems which could be understood in two ways. It was open to the Baroness to be annoyed.
Letter and poems remained unanswered; perhaps the trick had grown threadbare, perhaps the subject was no longer found interesting.
The calm and tranquil days which followed hastened my recovery. The surrounding landscape seemed to have adopted the favourite colours of the adored woman. The wood, in which I had spent hours of purgatory, now smiled on me. Never in my morning rambles did I find as much as the shadow even of a painful memory lurking in its deep recesses, where I had fought with all the demons of the human heart. Her visit, and the certainty that I should see her again, had given me back life and reason.
Knowing from experience that nobody who returns unexpectedly is quite welcome, it was not without a feeling of constraint, not without misgivings, that I called on the Baroness as soon as I was back in town.
In the front garden everything proclaimed the winter; the trees were bare, the garden seats had been removed; there were gaps in the fence where the gates had been; the wind was playing with the withered leaves on the paths; the cellar holes were stuffed with straw.
I found it difficult to breathe in the close atmosphere of the drawing-room, heated by a tiled stove. Fixed to the walls, the stoves had the appearance of sheets suspended from the ceiling, large and white. The double-windows hung in their hinges, every chink was pasted over with paper; the space between the inner and outer windows was filled with snow-white cotton wool, giving the large room the appearance of a death-chamber. In imagination I endeavoured to strip it of its semi-fashionable furniture, and recall its former aspect of rough homeliness. In those days the walls had been bare, the floor plain deal; the memory of the black dinings table, which could boast of no cover and with its eight legs resembled a huge spider, called up the severe faces of my father and stepmother.
The Baroness received me cordially, but her melancholy face betrayed grief. Both uncle and father-in-law were there, playing cards with the Baron in an adjoining room. I shook hands with the players, and then returned with the Baroness into the drawing-room. She sat down in an arm-chair underneath the lamp and took up some crochet work. Taciturn, morose, not at all pretty, she left the conversation entirely to me, and since she made no replies, it soon degenerated into a monologue.
I watched her from my chimney comer as she sat with drooping head, bending over her work. Profoundly mysterious, lost in thought, she seemed at times oblivious of my presence. I wondered whether I had called at an inconvenient time, or whether my return to town had really created the unfavourable impression which I had half anticipated. All at once my eyes, travelling round the room, were arrested by a display of her ankles underneath the tablecloth. I beheld her finely-shaped calf, clothed in a white stocking; a gaily embroidered garter belted that charming muscle which turns a man's brain because it stimulates his imagination and tempts him to the construction of the whole of the remaining form. Her arched foot with its high instep was dressed in a Cinderella's slipper.
At the time I took it for an accident, but later on I learned that a woman is always conscious of being looked at when she exhibits more than her ankles. Fascinated by the sight I changed the conversation, and aptly turned it on the subject of my supposed love affair.
She drew herself up, turned towards me, and glanced at me sharply.
"You can at least pride yourself on being a faithful lover!"
My eyes remained riveted on the spot underneath the tablecloth, where the snowy stocking shone below the cherry-coloured ribbon. With an effort I pulled myself together; we looked at each other; her pupils shone large in the lamplight.
"Unfortunately I can!" I replied dryly.
The sound of the falling cards and the exclamations of the players accompanied this brief passage of arms.
A painful silence ensued. She resumed her crochet work, and with a quick movement allowed the skirts to drop over her ankles. The spell was broken. My eyes were gazing at a listless woman, badly dressed. Before another quarter of an hour had gone by I took my leave, pretending that I did not feel well.
As soon as I arrived in my attic I brought out my play, which I had resolved to re-write. Hard work would help me to get over this hopeless love, otherwise bound to end in a crime from which inclination, instinct, cowardice and education made me shrink. And once more I decided to break off these fatal relations.
An unexpected incident came to my assistance: two days later the cataloguing of a library, belonging to a collector who lived at some distance from the town, was offered to me.
And thus I came to pitch my tent in a spacious room, lined with books up to the ceiling, of an old manor house dating from the seventeenth century. Sitting there, I could let my imagination travel through all the epochs of my country's history. The whole Swedish literature was represented, from the old prints of the fifteenth century to the latest publications. I gave myself up to my work, eager to find forgetfulness—and I succeeded. A week had elapsed and I had never once missed my friends. On Saturday, the day on which the Baroness generally was "at home," an orderly brought me an invitation from the Baron, full of friendly rebuke for having kept away from them so long. I was half-pleased, half-sorry to find myself able to send an amiable refusal in reply, regretting that my time was no longer my own.
When a second week had gone by another orderly, in full dress, brought me another communication; this time it came from the Baroness. It was a rather curt request to call and see her husband, who, she said, was laid up with a cold. She begged me to let them have news of me. It was impossible to make further excuses, and so I went.
The Baroness did not look well, and the slightly indisposed Baron seemed bored. He was in bed, and I was asked to go and see him. The sight of this Holy of Holies, which I had been spared up to now, excited my instinctive repugnance; this sharing of a common room by a married couple, this perpetual presence of a witness on the thousand occasions which demand privacy, revolted me. The large bed which the Baron occupied, brazenly proclaimed the intimacy of their union; the heap of pillows, piled up by the side of the sick man, boldly marked the wife's place. The dressing-table, the wash-stands, the towels, everything struck me as being unclean, and I had to make myself blind to overcome my disgust.
After a few words at the foot end of the bed, the Baroness invited me to take a glass of liqueur in the drawing-room, and, as if she had divined them, she gave expression to my thoughts as soon as we were alone. In short, disjointed sentences she poured out her heart to me.
"Isn't it wretched?"
"What?"
"You know what I mean.... A woman's existence: without an object in life, without a future, without occupation. It's killing me!"
"But your child, Baroness! It will soon be time to begin her education.... And she may have brothers and sisters...."
"I will have no more children! Am I in the world for the sole purpose of being a nurse?"
"Not a nurse, but a mother in the highest meaning of the word, equal to her task."
"Mother or housekeeper! Thank you! One can hire a housekeeper! It's easier. And then? How am I to occupy myself? I have two maids, excellent substitutes. No! I want to live...."
"Go on the stage?"
"Yes!"
"But that's out of the question!"
"I know that only too well! And it irritates me, makes me stupid ... kills me!"
"What about a literary career? It's not in such bad repute as the stage!"
"The dramatic art is, in my opinion, the highest of all arts. Come what may, I shall never cease to regret the fact that I have missed my vocation. And what have I got in exchange?... A disappointment!"
The Baron called to us, and we returned to his bedside.
"What was she talking about?" he asked me.
"We were talking about the theatre," I replied.
"She's crazy!"
"Not as crazy as you think," retorted the Baroness, and left the room, slamming the door.
"She doesn't sleep at night," began the husband, growing confidential.
"No?"
"She plays the piano, she lies on the sofa, or, rather, she chooses the hours of the night to do her accounts. For heaven's sake, my dear young sage, tell me what I'm to do to put an end to this madness!"
"Perhaps if she had a large family?" I ventured.
He pulled a face, then he tried to look unconcerned.
"She was very ill after her first baby was born ... and the doctor has warned her ... and moreover, children cost so much.... You understand?"
I understood, and I took care not to refer again to the subject. I was too young at the time to know that it is the patient who orders the doctor what to prescribe for her.
Presently the Baroness returned with her little girl, and began to put her to bed in her small iron cot. But the little one refused to be undressed, and began to scream. After a few futile attempts to calm her, her mother threatened her with the rod.
I cannot bear to see a child being punished without losing my temper. I remembered on one such occasion raising my hand against my own father. I allowed my anger to get the better of me, and interfered.
"Allow me," I said ... "but do you think that a child cries without a reason?"
"She's naughty."
"Then there's some cause for it. Perhaps she's sleepy, and our presence and the lamplight irritate her."
She agreed, taken aback, and, perhaps, conscious that her shrewish conduct had produced an unfavourable impression on me.
This glimpse of her home life cured me for some weeks of my love, and I must confess that the scene with the rod had contributed more than anything else to my disillusion.
The autumn dragged on monotonously and Christmas drew near. The arrival of a newly-married couple from Finland, friends of the Baroness, brought a little more life in our relationship, which had lost much of its charm. Thanks to the Baroness, I received numerous invitations, and presented myself in evening dress at suppers, dinners and occasionally even at a dance.
While moving in this, her world, which in my opinion lacked dignity, I could not help noticing that the Baroness, under cover of an exaggerated candour, paid a great deal of attention to the young men, watching me furtively all the while, however, to see the effect of her conduct on me. Irritated and disgusted by her brazen flirtations, which I considered bad form, I responded by a callouse indifference. It hurt me that the woman whom I adored should behave like a vulgar coquette.
She always seemed to be enjoying herself immensely, and prolonged the parties till the small hours of the morning; I became the more and more convinced that she was discontented and bored with her home life; that her longing for an artistic career was dictated by a petty vanity, a desire to be seen and enjoy herself. Vivacious, full of exuberant spirits, of a restless disposition, she possessed the art to shine; she was always the centre of a crowd, more in consequence of a certain gift to attract people than because of her natural charms. Her great vitality, her nervous excitability, compelled the most refractory to listen to her, to pay homage to her. And I also noticed that as soon as her nervous force was exhausted, the spell was broken, and she was left sitting alone and unnoticed in a quiet corner. Ambitious, yearning for power, perhaps heartless, she took care that the men paid her every attention; the society of women had no attraction for her.
Doubtless, she had made up her mind to see me at her feet, doting, vanquished, sighing. One day, after an evening of triumph, she told one of her friends that I was head over ears in love with her. When I called at her friend's house a short time afterwards, I stupidly remarked that I had hoped to meet the Baroness.
"Oh, indeed!" laughed the lady of the house, "you haven't come to see me then! How unkind of you!"
"Well, I haven't. To tell you the truth, I'm here by appointment."
"A tryst, then!"
"You may call it so, if you like! Anyhow, you'll give me credit for having put in a prompt appearance!"
The meeting had indeed been arranged by the Baroness. I had but carried out her instructions in calling. She had given me away to save her own skin.
I paid her out by spoiling a number of parties for her, for my absence robbed her of the enjoyment which she drew from the contemplation of my sufferings. But I had to pay a heavy penalty! Watching the houses to which I knew her to be invited, I plunged the dagger into my heart, trembling with jealous rage whenever I saw her, in the arms of a partner, gliding past the windows in her blue silk dress, with her sunny curls rising and falling in the quick movements of the dance, with her charming figure, on the tiniest feet in the world.
We had navigated the cape of the New Year and spring was approaching. We had spent the winter in gay festivities, in intimate companionship, the three of us. But it had all been very dreary: we had quarrelled and become reconciled, fought battles and made armistices, teased one another and become the best of friends again. I had stayed away and had come back.
Now March was near, a fateful month in the countries of the north, because passion becomes all-powerful and the destinies of lovers are fulfilled: vows are broken, the ties of honour, of family, of friendship are set side.
The Baron was on duty early in the month, and invited me to spend a day with him at the guard-house. I accepted his invitation. A son of the people, a descendant of the middle-classes, cannot but be impressed by the insignia of the highest power in the land. At the side of my friend I walked along the passage, continually saluted by passing officers; I listened to the rattling of the swords; the "Who goes there?" of the sentinels, the beating of the drums. We arrived at the guard-room. The military decorations of the room stirred my imagination; the portraits of the great generals filled me with reverence; the colours taken at Lützen and Leipzic, the new flags, the bust of the reigning king, the helmets, the resplendent breast-pieces, the plans of battles, all these roused in me that feeling of uneasiness which the lower classes feel in contemplating the symbols of the ruling powers. And in his impressive surroundings the personality of the captain became more imposing; I kept close to his side in case any unpleasantness should arise.
As we entered a lieutenant rose and saluted, standing, and I, too, felt myself the superior of these lieutenants, the sworn foes of the sons of the people, and the authors' rivals in the favour of the ladies.
A soldier brought us a bowl of punch, and we lighted our cigars. The Baron, anxious to amuse me, showed me the Golden Book of the regiment, an artistic collection of sketches, water paintings and drawings, all of them representing distinguished officers, who had during the last twenty years belonged to the Royal Guards; portraits of the men who had been the envy and admiration of my school friends, whom they had aped in their boyish games. It tickled my middle-class instincts to see all those favourites of fortune caricatured in this book, and counting on the applause of the democratic Baron, I indulged in little sallies at the expense of those disarmed rivals. But the boundary-line of the Baron's democratic sympathies differed from mine, and he resented my sallies; the spirit of caste prevailed: he turned the leaves more quickly, and did not stop until he came to a large drawing representing the insurrection of 1868.
"Look at this!" he said, with a sarcastic smile, "how we charged into that mob!"
"Did you take part in it?"
"Didn't I! I was on duty that day, and my orders were to protect the stand opposite the monument which the mob was attacking. A stone hit my helmet. I was Serving out the cartridges, when a royal messenger on horseback arrived and stopped my little band from firing. But I remained proof-butt and target for the stones thrown by the crowd. That's all I ever got for my democratic sympathies."
And after a pause he continued, still laughing and trying to catch my eye—
"You remember the occasion?"
"Perfectly," I said; "I was walking in the procession of the students." But I did not mention the fact that I was one of that special mob on which he had been so anxious to fire. My sense of justice had been outraged because that particular stand had been reserved for a favoured few and denied to the people on a public festival. I had been on the side of the attacking party, and had not forgotten the stones which I had flung at the soldiers.
The moment I heard him pronounce the word "mob" with aristocratic disdain, I remembered and understood my feeling of discomfort in entering the enemy's fortress, and the sudden change which had come over my friend's features at my sarcasms depressed me. The hatred of race, the hatred of caste, tradition, rose between us like an insurmountable barrier, and as I regarded him sitting there, the sword between his knees—a sword of honour, the hilt of which was ornamented with the name and crown of the royal giver—I felt strongly that our friendship was but an artificial one, the work of a woman, who constituted the only link between us. The haughty tone of his voice, the expression of his face, seemed more and more in harmony with his surroundings and took him further and further away from me. To bridge over the gulf which separated us, I changed the conversation and inquired after his wife and little daughter. Instantly his brow cleared, his features relaxed and resumed their normal expression of good-nature. Seeing him look at me with the benevolent eyes of the ogre caressing Tom Thumb, I made bold to pull three hairs out of the ogre's beard.
"Cousin Matilda is expected at Easter, isn't she?" I asked.
"She is."
"I shall make love to her."
He emptied his glass. "You can try," he sneered, with a murderous scowl.
"Try? Is it possible that her affections are otherwise engaged?"
"Not ... that I know of! But ... I think I may say that.... Well, you can try!"
And with a tone of deepest conviction—
"You may be sure to get your money's worth!"
This sneering remark was an insult, and roused my desire to defy him. If I made love to that other woman, it might not only save me from my criminal passion, but it would also give satisfaction to the Baroness, whose legitimate feelings had been outraged.
It had grown dark. I rose to go home. The captain accompanied me past the sentinels. We shook hands at the barrier gate, which he slammed after me as if he wanted to challenge me.
Spring had come. The snow had melted, the streets were free from ice. Half-starved children were selling little bunches of liverwort in the streets. The windows of the flower-shops glowed with azaleas, rhododendron and other early blossoms; golden oranges gleamed in the greengrocers' shops; lobsters, radishes and cauliflower appeared on the costers' barrows. Under the North Bridge the waves reflected the rays of the sun. On the quays the steamers were being newly rigged and painted in sea-green and scarlet. The men who had grown weak in the winter darkness, recovered in the sunlight. Woe to the weakling when love gives free play to the long-restrained passions!
The pretty little she-devil had arrived, and was staying with the Baroness.
I paid her a great deal of attention. She had apparently been informed of my designs, and consequently she amused herself with me. We had been playing a duet, and she was leaning against my left arm with her right shoulder. The Baroness noticed it and winced. The Baron glared at me with jealous rage. At one moment he was jealous of his wife, at the next he accused me of flirting with the cousin. Whenever he left his wife, to whisper in a corner to Matilda, and I started a conversation with the Baroness, he lost his temper and interrupted our conversation with an irrelevant question. I answered him with a sarcastic smile, and sometimes I took no notice whatever of him.
One evening we were all having supper in the strictest family circle. The mother of the Baroness was present. She had grown fond of me, and with the prevision frequently met with in old women, suspected that something was going on behind the scenes.
Following an impulse of motherly love, dreading some unknown danger, she seized my hands, and holding me with her eyes said gravely—
"I'm sure that you're a man of honour. I don't know what's going on in this house. But promise me that you will watch over my daughter, my only child, and if ever anything should happen ... which must not happen, promise that you will come to me and tell me everything."
"I promise," I answered, and kissed her hand in the Russian fashion, for she had been married to a Russian for many years and had been left a widow not very long ago.
And I shall keep my promise!
We were dancing on the edge of a crater. The Baroness had grown pale, emaciated, plain. The Baron was jealous, rude and insolent. If I stayed away for a day or two, he sent for me; received me with open arms and tried to explain everything by a misunderstanding, while in reality we understood each other only too well.
The Lord knows what was going on in this house!
One evening the charming Matilda had retired into her bedroom to try on a ball dress. The Baron quietly disappeared soon after, leaving me alone with his wife. After half-an-hour had gone by, I asked what had become of her husband?
"He's playing lady's maid to Matilda," she replied.
I understood. Presently, evidently regretting her words, she added—
"There's no harm in it; they're relations. One shouldn't be too ready to think evil!"
Then she changed her tone.
"Are you jealous?"
"Are you?"
"Perhaps I shall be by and by."
"God grant that you will be soon! It's the wish of a true friend."
The Baron returned, and with him the girl, dressed in a pale green evening dress, cut very low.
I pretended to be dazzled by her appearance, and screening my eyes with both my hands, exclaimed—
"Don't you know that it's dangerous to look at you?"
"Isn't she lovely?" asked the Baroness in a strange voice.
After a short time the couple withdrew, and for the second time we were left by ourselves.
"Why are you so unkind to me these days?" she asked, with tears in her voice, gazing at me wistfully, with the eyes of an ill-treated dog.
"I?... I had no idea that...."
"You've changed towards me; I wonder why.... If I'm to blame in any way...."
She pushed her chair closer to mine, looked at me with luminous eyes, trembled and ... I jumped up.
"The Baron's absence is really extraordinary, don't you think so? This confidence on his part is insulting!"
"What d'you mean?"
"It's not right of him to leave his wife alone with a young man and shut himself up with a girl....
"You're right, it's an insult to me.... But your manners!..."
"Never mind my manners! It's hateful! I shall despise you if you won't be more jealous of your dignity.... What are those two doing?"
"He's interested in Matilda's ball dress!" she answered, with an innocent face and a fleeting smile. "What do you want me to do?"
"A man doesn't assist a woman at her toilet unless there are certain relations between them."
"She is a child, he says, and looks upon him as a father."
"I should never allow any children to play 'papa and mamma,' much less grown-up people."
The Baroness rose, went out of the room and returned with her husband.
We spent the rest of the evening in making experiments with animal magnetism. I made a few passes over her forehead, and she acknowledged that it calmed her nerves. But all of a sudden, just as she was going into a trance, she shook herself, started to her feet, and looked at me with troubled eyes.
"Let me go!" she exclaimed; "I won't! You are bewitching me!"
"It's your turn now to try your magnetic powers," I said, and I submitted to the same treatment to which I had subjected her.
I sat with half-closed eyes; there was deep silence on the other side of the piano; my glances strayed to the legs and the lyre-shaped pedal of the instrument and ... I thought I must be dreaming, and sprang up from my chair. At the same moment the Baron appeared from behind the piano and offered me a glass of punch. The four of us raised our glasses. The Baron looked at his wife—
"Drink to your reconciliation with Matilda," he pleaded.
"Your health, little witch!" exclaimed the Baroness with a smile, and turning to me she added—
"I must tell you we quarrelled about you!"
For a moment I did not know how to reply. Then I asked her to explain her words.
"No, no! no explanation!" answered a chorus of voices.
"That's a pity," I replied; "in my opinion we've been playing 'hide-and-seek' far too long."
The rest of the evening passed amid general constraint.
"Well, I don't care!" I muttered on my way home, searching my conscience.
What was the meaning of all this? Was it nothing but the innocent whim of a fantastic mind? Two women quarrelling over a man! They must be jealous, then. Was the Baroness mad that she gave herself away in such a manner? I did not think so. I felt sure there was something else at the bottom of it.
"Whatisgoing on in this house?" I asked myself, brooding over the strange scene which had startled me in the evening, the very improbability of which made me hesitate to believe that I had seen anything really wrong.
This senseless jealousy, the apprehension of the old mother, the love of the Baroness, stimulated by the spring air, all this confused my mind, seethed and fermented in my brain, and after spending a sleepless night, I decided for a second time not to see her again, and so prevent the threatening calamity.
With this intention I arose in the morning and wrote her a sensible, candid and humble letter; in carefully chosen language I protested against an excessive abuse of friendship; firmly, without any explanation, I asked for forgiveness of my sins, blamed myself for having caused ill-feeling between relatives, and goodness knows what else I said!
The result was that I met the Baroness, as if by accident, on leaving the library at my usual time. She stopped me on the North Bridge, and we walked together through one of the avenues leading to Charles XII Square. Almost with tears in her eyes she entreated me to come back, not to ask for explanations, but just to be one of them again as in the old days.
She was charming this morning. But I loved her too dearly to compromise her.
"Leave me! You are ruining your reputation," I said, watching the passers-by, whose curious glances embarrassed us. "Go home at once, or I shall leave you standing here!"
She looked at me with eyes so full of misery that I longed to kneel down before her, kiss her feet and ask her forgiveness.
But instead I turned my back on her and hastily disappeared down a side street.
After dinner I went home to my attic, glowing with the satisfaction of a duty done, but with a broken heart. Her eyes haunted me.
A short rest gave me back my determination. I rose and looked at the almanac which hung on the wall. It was the thirteenth of March. "Beware the Ides of March!" These famous words, which Shakespeare quotes in hisJulius Cæsar, sounded in my ears as the servant entered, bringing me a note from the Baron.
In it he begged me to spend a lonely evening with him, saying that his wife was not well and that Matilda was going out.
I had not the nerve to refuse, and so I went.
The Baroness, more dead than alive, met me in the drawing-room, pressed my hand against her heart and thanked me warmly for having resolved not to rob her of a friend, a brother, for the sake of a mere nothing, a misunderstanding.
"I really think she's going out of her mind," laughed the Baron, releasing me from her hands.
"Iammad, I know, mad with joy that our friend has come back to us after he had decided to leave us for ever."
And she burst into tears.
"She's been suffering a great deal," explained her husband, disconcerted by this scene.
And, indeed, she looked as if she were in a high fever. A sombre fire burned in her eyes, which seemed to take up half of the little face; her cheeks were of a greenish pallor. The sight of her hurt me. Her frail body was shaken by fits of coughing.
Her uncle and father-in-law arrived unexpectedly. The fuel in the great stove was replenished, and we sat down before the fire, without lighting the lamps, to enjoy the cosy hour of the gathering twilight.
She took a seat by my side, while the three men began to talk politics.
I saw her eyes shine through the dusk, I felt the warmth which radiated from her body.
Her skirts brushed against me, she leaned over to say something meant for me alone, and attacked me with a whispered question—
"Do you believe in love?"
"No!"
My "no" struck her like a blow, for I had at the same time jumped up and changed my seat.
She must be mad, I thought; and afraid of a scene I suggested that we should have the lamps lighted.
During supper uncle and father-in-law discussed cousin Matilda to their heart's content, praising her domesticity, her skill in needlework. The Baron, who had drunk several glasses of punch, burst out into extravagant eulogies and deplored, with alcoholic tears, the unkind treatment to which the "dear child" was subjected at home. But when apparently in the very depth of sympathetic sorrow, he suddenly pulled out his watch and prepared to leave us, as if called away by the stern voice of duty.
"You must excuse me, gentlemen," he said, "but I have promised Baby to meet her and see her home. Don't let me disturb you, I shall be back in an hour."
The old Baron, his father, vainly tried to detain him; his artful son insisted on keeping his word and slipped away, after having extracted a promise from me to await his return.
We remained at table for another quarter of an hour and then went into the drawing-room; the two old gentlemen soon left us and retired to the uncle's room, which the nephew had fitted up for him a little while ago.
I cursed fate for having caught me in a trap which I had done my utmost to avoid. I steeled my throbbing heart; proudly, as a cock raises his comb, I raised my head; my hair bristled like the hair of a sheep dog, and I determined to crush at the outset any attempt to create a tearful or amorous scene.
Leaning against the stove I smoked my cigar, silent, cold and stiff, awaiting events.
The Baroness was the first to speak.
"Why do you hate me?"
"I don't hate you."
"Remember how you treated me only this morning!"
"Please, don't speak of it!"
The unaccustomed rudeness of my replies, for which there was no adequate reason, was a strategical error. She saw through me and changed her tactics.
"You wanted to run away from me," she continued. "Shall I tell you why I suddenly went to Mariafred?"
"Probably for the same reason for which I decided to go to Paris."
"Then ... it's clear," she said.
"And now?"
I expected a scene. But she remained calm and regarded me mournfully. I had to break the silence which was fraught with more danger than any words could possibly contain.
"Now that you know my secret," I said, "let me give you a word of warning. If you want me to come here occasionally, you mustn't ever lose your head. My love for you is of such an exalted nature, that I could live contentedly at your side, without any other wish but to see you. If you should ever forget your duty, if you should betray by as much as a look the secret which lies locked in our hearts, then I shall confess everything to your husband, come what will!"
Carried away by my words, full of enthusiasm, she raised her eyes to heaven.
"I swear it to you!... How strong and good you are!... How I admire you! Oh! but I'm ashamed! I should like to surpass your honesty ... shall I tell Gustav everything?"
"If you like ... but then we shall never meet again. After all, it's not his business. The feelings which animate my heart are not criminal; and even if he knew everything, would it be in his power to kill my love! No! That I love the woman of my choice is my own affair as long as my passion does not infringe the rights of another. However, do as you please. I am prepared for anything!"
"No, no! He must know nothing; and since he permits himself every licence——"
"There I don't agree with you! The cases are not identical. If he chooses to degrade himself, so much the worse for him. But that's no reason why——"
"No, no!..."
The ecstasy was over. We had come back to earth.
"No! No!" I repeated. "And don't you agree that it's beautiful, new, almost unique—to love, to tell one another of it.... Nothing else!"
"It's as beautiful as a romance," she cried, clapping her hands like a child.
"But it doesn't generally happen like that in fiction!"
"And how good it is to remain honest!"
"The only thing to do!"
"And we shall always meet as before, without fear——"
"And without reproach——"
"And without misunderstandings! And you are sure that Matilda is nothing——"
"Oh! hush!"
The door opened. How commonplace! The two old gentlemen crossed the drawing-room carrying a dark lantern.
"Notice how life is a medley of petty troubles and divine moments!" I said to her; "notice how reality differs from fiction. Could I dare to draw a scene like this in a novel or a drama without being accused of being humdrum? Just think—a confession of love without kisses, genuflexions or protestations, terminated by the appearance of two old men throwing the light of a dark lantern on the lovers! And yet therein lies the secret of Shakespeare's greatness, who shows us Julius Cæsar in dressing-gown and slippers, starting from his sleep at night, frightened by childish dreams."
The bell rang. The Baron and pretty Matilda were returning home. As he had a guilty conscience, he overwhelmed us with amiability. And I, eager to show myself in my new part, told him a barefaced lie.
"I've been quarrelling with the Baroness for the last hour!"
He gave us a scrutinising look, full of vindictiveness, and scenting the air like a hound, seemed to catch the wrong scent.
What unparalleled guilelessness it argues to believe that there could be love without passion! There was danger even in the secret which existed between us. It was like a child conceived in secrecy, it grew and strove to see the light.
Our longing to meet and compare notes increased; we yearned to live again through the last year in which we had been trying to deceive one another. We resorted to all kinds of trickery. I introduced the Baroness to my sister, who, having married the head-master of a school, a man with an old, aristocratic name, in a way belonged to her set.
We often met by appointment; our meetings were harmless to begin with, but after a while passion sprang up and desire awoke.
In the first days following our mutual confession, she gave me a packet of letters, written partly before, partly after the thirteenth of March. These letters, into which she had poured all her sorrow, all her love, had never been intended to reach me.
"Monday."MY DEAR FRIEND,"I am longing to see you, to-day as always. I want to thank you for listening to me yesterday without that sarcastic smile with which it is now your rule to regard me! I turn to you trustfully, at a moment when I am in dire need of your friendship, and you cover your face with a mask. Why? Is it necessary that you should disguise your feelings? You have yourself admitted in one of your letters that it is a mask. I hope it is, I can see it is, and yet it hurts me, for it makes me think that I have committed a fault of some sort ... and I wonder: What is he thinking of me?"I am jealous of your friendship; I am afraid that some day you might despise me. Tell me that it will never happen! You must be good and loyal to me. You must forget that I am a woman—don't I only too often forget it myself!"I was not angry with you for what you said yesterday, but it surprised and pained me. Do you really believe me capable of wanting to excite my husband's jealousy for the sake of taking a mean revenge? Think of the danger to which I should expose myself if I attempted to win him back through jealousy! What should I gain? His anger would fall upon your head, and we should for ever be separated! And what would become of me without you, who are dearer to me than life!"I love you with a sister's tenderness, not with the whims of a coquette.... It is true that I have known moments when I longed, when it would have been heaven, to take your head into my hands, to look deep into your dear eyes, so full of wisdom; and I am sure I should have kissed you on your forehead, but never in your life would you have received a purer kiss."I am not responsible for my affectionate temperament, and if you were a woman, I should love you just as much, provided that I could respect a woman as highly as I respect you...."Your opinion of Matilda makes me very happy. One has to be a woman to be pleased about such a thing. But what am I to do? Think of my position in case everybody sided with her! And I am to blame for whatever happens. I encouraged this flirtation because I considered it no more serious than a child's game. Feeling sure of his affection, I allowed my husband perfect liberty. The consequences have proved my error....
"Monday.
"MY DEAR FRIEND,
"I am longing to see you, to-day as always. I want to thank you for listening to me yesterday without that sarcastic smile with which it is now your rule to regard me! I turn to you trustfully, at a moment when I am in dire need of your friendship, and you cover your face with a mask. Why? Is it necessary that you should disguise your feelings? You have yourself admitted in one of your letters that it is a mask. I hope it is, I can see it is, and yet it hurts me, for it makes me think that I have committed a fault of some sort ... and I wonder: What is he thinking of me?
"I am jealous of your friendship; I am afraid that some day you might despise me. Tell me that it will never happen! You must be good and loyal to me. You must forget that I am a woman—don't I only too often forget it myself!
"I was not angry with you for what you said yesterday, but it surprised and pained me. Do you really believe me capable of wanting to excite my husband's jealousy for the sake of taking a mean revenge? Think of the danger to which I should expose myself if I attempted to win him back through jealousy! What should I gain? His anger would fall upon your head, and we should for ever be separated! And what would become of me without you, who are dearer to me than life!
"I love you with a sister's tenderness, not with the whims of a coquette.... It is true that I have known moments when I longed, when it would have been heaven, to take your head into my hands, to look deep into your dear eyes, so full of wisdom; and I am sure I should have kissed you on your forehead, but never in your life would you have received a purer kiss.
"I am not responsible for my affectionate temperament, and if you were a woman, I should love you just as much, provided that I could respect a woman as highly as I respect you....
"Your opinion of Matilda makes me very happy. One has to be a woman to be pleased about such a thing. But what am I to do? Think of my position in case everybody sided with her! And I am to blame for whatever happens. I encouraged this flirtation because I considered it no more serious than a child's game. Feeling sure of his affection, I allowed my husband perfect liberty. The consequences have proved my error....
"Wednesday."He is in love with her and has told me so. The matter has surpassed all limits, and I have laughed at it. ... Think: after seeing you to the door, he came back to me, took my hands, looked into my face—I trembled, for my conscience was not clear—and said entreatingly: 'Don't be angry with me, Marie! I love Matilda!' What was I to do? Should I cry or laugh? And he confessed this to me, to me who am tormented by remorse, forced to love you from afar, hopelessly! Oh, these stupid ideas of honour! How senseless they are! Let him indulge his passion! You are my dear love, and my woman's heart shall never get the better of me and make me forget my duties as a wife and mother. But ... notice the conflicting double nature of my feelings ... I love you both, and I could never live without him, the brave, honest friend of my heart ... nor without you either.""Friday."At last you have lifted the veil which for so long has hidden the secret of my heart. And you don't despise me! Merciful God! You even love me. You have spoken the words which you had determined to leave for ever unspoken. You love me! And I am a guilty woman, a criminal, because I love you in return. May God forgive me! For I love him too, and could not bear the thought of leaving him."How strange it is!... To be loved! Loved tenderly! By him and by you! I feel so happy, so calm, that my love cannot possibly be a crime! Surely I should feel remorse if it were—or am I so hardened?"How ashamed I am of myself! It was I who had to speak the first word of love. My husband is here, he puts his arms round me, and I let him kiss me. Am I sincere? Yes! Why did he not take care of me while there was yet time?"The whole is like a novel. What will be the end? Will the heroine die? Will the hero marry another? Will they be separated? And will the end be satisfactory from a moral point of view?"If I were with you at this moment, I should kiss your brow with the same devotion with which the devotee kisses the crucifix, and I should put from me all baseness, all artificiality....
"Wednesday.
"He is in love with her and has told me so. The matter has surpassed all limits, and I have laughed at it. ... Think: after seeing you to the door, he came back to me, took my hands, looked into my face—I trembled, for my conscience was not clear—and said entreatingly: 'Don't be angry with me, Marie! I love Matilda!' What was I to do? Should I cry or laugh? And he confessed this to me, to me who am tormented by remorse, forced to love you from afar, hopelessly! Oh, these stupid ideas of honour! How senseless they are! Let him indulge his passion! You are my dear love, and my woman's heart shall never get the better of me and make me forget my duties as a wife and mother. But ... notice the conflicting double nature of my feelings ... I love you both, and I could never live without him, the brave, honest friend of my heart ... nor without you either."
"Friday.
"At last you have lifted the veil which for so long has hidden the secret of my heart. And you don't despise me! Merciful God! You even love me. You have spoken the words which you had determined to leave for ever unspoken. You love me! And I am a guilty woman, a criminal, because I love you in return. May God forgive me! For I love him too, and could not bear the thought of leaving him.
"How strange it is!... To be loved! Loved tenderly! By him and by you! I feel so happy, so calm, that my love cannot possibly be a crime! Surely I should feel remorse if it were—or am I so hardened?
"How ashamed I am of myself! It was I who had to speak the first word of love. My husband is here, he puts his arms round me, and I let him kiss me. Am I sincere? Yes! Why did he not take care of me while there was yet time?
"The whole is like a novel. What will be the end? Will the heroine die? Will the hero marry another? Will they be separated? And will the end be satisfactory from a moral point of view?
"If I were with you at this moment, I should kiss your brow with the same devotion with which the devotee kisses the crucifix, and I should put from me all baseness, all artificiality....
Was this hypocrisy, or did I deceive myself? Were they nothing but passion, these semi-religious ecstasies? No, not passion only. The desire of propagation has become more complicated, and even with the lower animals moral characteristics are transmitted through sexual love. Therefore love affects both body and soul, and one is nothing without the other. If it were but passion, why should she prefer a delicate, nervous, sickly youth to a giant like him? If it were only the love of the soul, why this longing to kiss me, why this admiration for my small feet, my well-shaped hands and nails, my intellectual forehead, my abundant hair? Or were those hallucinations caused by the intoxication of her senses, excited by her husband's excesses? Or did she feel instinctively that an ardent youth like me would make her far more happy than the inert mass which she called her husband? She was no longer jealous of his body, therefore she had ceased looking upon him in the light of a lover. But she was jealous of my person, and therefore she was in love with me!...
One day, when visiting my sister, the Baroness was seized with an attack of hysterics. She threw herself on the sofa and burst into tears, infuriated with the disgraceful conduct of her husband, who was spending the evening with Matilda at a regimental ball.
In a passionate outburst she threw her arms round me and kissed me on the forehead. I returned kiss for kiss. She called me by endearing names.
The bond between us was growing stronger and my passion was increasing.
In the course of the evening I recited Longfellow's "Excelsior" to her. Genuinely touched by this beautiful poem, I fixed my eyes on her, and as if she were hypnotised, her face reflected every shade of feeling expressed on my own. She had the appearance of an ecstatic, of a seer.
After supper her maid called for her with a cab to take her home. I meant to come no further with her than the street, but she insisted on my getting into the cab, and in spite of my protestations she ordered her maid to sit on the box, by the side of the driver. As soon as I was alone with her I took her in my arms, silently, without a word. I felt her delicate body thrill and yield under my kisses. But I shrank from crime—and left her at her door, unhurt, ashamed of herself and, perhaps, also a little angry.
I no longer had any doubts now; I saw clearly. She was trying to tempt me. It was she who had given the first kiss, she who had taken the initiative in everything. From this moment I was going to play the part of the tempter, for, although a man of firm principles on the point of honour, I was by no means a Joseph.
On the following day we met at the National Museum.
How I adored her as I saw her coming up the marble staircase, under the gilded ceiling, as I watched her little feet tripping over the flags of variegated stucco, her aristocratic figure clothed in a black velvet costume, trimmed with military braid. I hurried to meet her and, like a page, bent my knees before her. Her beauty, which had blossomed under my kisses, was striking. The rich blood in her veins shone through her transparent cheeks: this statue, almost the statue of an old maid, had quickened under my caresses, and grown warm at the fire of life. Pygmalion had breathed on the marble and held a goddess in his arms.
We sat down before a statue of Psyche, acquired in the Thirty Years' War. I kissed her cheeks, her eyes, her lips, and she received my kisses with a rapturous smile. I played the tempter, employing all the sophisms of the orator, all the arts of the poet.
"I entreat you," I said, "leave your polluted house; don't consent any longer to live this life of three—or you'll force me to despise you. Return to your mother, devote yourself to art; in a year you will be able to appear before the footlights. Then you will be free to live your own life."
She added fuel to the fire; I became more and more incensed and warmed to my subject. I deluged her with a flood of words, the object of which was to extract a promise from her to tell her husband everything, for then, I argued, we should no longer be responsible for the consequences.
"But supposing things end badly for us?" she interposed.
"Even if we should lose everything! I could no longer love you if I could no longer respect both of us. Are you a coward? Do you crave the reward and refuse to bring the sacrifice? Be as noble as you are beautiful, dare the fatal leap, even at the risk of perishing! Let everything be lost save our honour! If we go on like this, we shall both be guilty in a very short time, for my love is like lightning, which will strike you! I love you as the sun loves the dew—to drink it. Therefore, quick to the scaffold! Sacrifice your head so that you may keep your hands clean! Don't imagine that I could ever debase myself and be content to share you with a third, never, never!"
She feigned resistance, but in reality she threw a grain of powder into the open flames. She complained of her husband and hinted at things, the very thought of which made my blood boil.
He, the numskull, poor as myself, without prospects, indulged in the luxury of two mistresses, while I, the man of talent, the aristocrat of the future, sighed and writhed under the torture of my unsatisfied longings.
But all of a sudden she veered round and tried to calm my excited nerves by reminding me of our agreement to be brother and sister.
"No, not that dangerous game of brother and sister! Let us be man and woman, lover and beloved! This alone is worthy of ourselves! I adore you! I adore everything belonging to you, body and soul, your golden hair and your straightforwardness, the smallest feet that ever wore shoes in Sweden, your candour, your eyes which shine in the dusk, your bewitching smile, your white stocking and your cherry-coloured garter....
"What?"
"Yes, my lovely princess, I have seen everything! And now I want to kiss your throat and the dimples on your shoulders; I will smother you with my kisses, strangle you between my arms as with a necklet. My love for you fills me with the strength of a god. Did you think me delicate? I was an imaginary invalid, or, rather, I pretended to be ill! Beware of the sick lion! Don't come near his den or he will kill you with his caresses! Down with the dishonest mask! I want you and I will have you! I've wanted you from the first moment I set eyes on you! The story of Selma, the Finlander, is nothing but a fairy tale ... the friendship of our dear Baron a lie ... he loathes me, the man of the middle-classes, the provincial, thedéclassé, as I loathe him, the aristocrat!"
This avalanche of revelations excited her very little, for it told her nothing new: she had been aware of it without my avowal.
And we separated with the firm resolution not to meet again until she had told her husband everything.
I spent the evening at home, anxious and uneasy, waiting for telegrams from the seat of war. To distract my thoughts, I emptied a sack containing old books and papers on the floor, and sat down among this litter to examine and classify it. But I found it impossible to concentrate my thoughts on my task; I stretched myself out at full length, resting the back of my head on my hands and, my eyes fixed with a hypnotic stare on the candles burning in the old chandelier, I lost myself in a reverie. I was longing for her kisses, and thinking out plans of making her my own. As she was sensitive and strange, I felt that the utmost delicacy would be necessary, that I must allow matters to arrange themselves; that a single clumsy movement would spoil everything.
I lighted a cigarette and imagined that I was lying in a meadow; it amused me to view my little room from below. Everything seemed new to me. The sofa, the witness of many pleasant hours, brought me back to my dreams of love, which, however, were quickly paralysed by the fear that happiness would be wrecked on the rocks of my uncompromising principles.
Analysing the thought which had checked my ardour, I discovered in it a great deal of cowardice, fear of the consequences, a little sympathy with the man who stood in danger of being betrayed, a little disgust with the unclean pell-mell; a little genuine respect for the woman whom I could not bear to see degrading herself; a little pity with the daughter, a mere nothing of compassion with the mother of my beloved, in case of a scandal; and quite in the background of my miserable heart a vague presentiment of the difficulty I should find later on, if ever I should wish to sever our connection.
"No," I said to myself, "all or nothing! She must be mine alone, and for ever!"
While I was thus musing, there came a gentle tapping at my door, and almost simultaneously a lovely head appeared in the opening, flooding my attic with sunshine, and with its roguish smile drawing me away from my papers into the arms of my beloved. After a hailstorm of kisses on her lips, which were fresh with the cold outside, I asked—
"Well, what has he decided to do?"
"Nothing! I haven't told him yet!"
"Then you are lost! Flee, unhappy woman!"
And keeping firm hold of her, I took off her close-fitting fur coat, removed her beaded hat and drew her to the fire. Then she found words.
"I hadn't the courage.... I wanted to see you once again before the catastrophe, for God knows, he may decide to divorce me...."
I closed her lips with mine, pushed a little table to her seat and brought from my cupboard a bottle of good wine and two glasses. By the side of them I set a basket with roses and two lighted candles, arranging everything in the manner of an altar. For a footstool I gave her a priceless old edition of Hans Sachs, bound in calf, furnished with gold locks and ornamented with a portrait of Luther. I had borrowed the book from the Royal Library.
I poured out some wine. I gathered a rose and fastened it in the golden thicket of her hair. My lips touched the glass raised to drink to her health, to our love. I knelt down before her and worshipped her.
"How beautiful you are!"
For the first time she saw me as a lover. She was delighted. She took my head between her hands, kissed it and smoothed with her fingers the tangled strains of my unruly hair.
Her beauty filled me with respect. I looked at her with veneration, as one looks at the statue of a saint. She was enchanted to see me without the hated mask; my words intoxicated her, and she was filled with delirious joy when she found that my love for her was at once tender, respectful and full of ardour.
I kissed her shoes, blackening my lips; I embraced her knees without touching the hem of her dress; I loved her just as she was, fully dressed, chaste as an angel, as if she had been born clothed, with wings outside her dress.
Suddenly the tears came into my eyes, I could not have said why.
"Are you crying?" she asked. "What is the matter?"
"I don't know. I'm too happy, that's all."
"You, capable of tears! You, the man of iron!"
"Alas! I know tears only too well!"
Being a woman of experience, she imagined that she possessed the secret remedy for my secret sorrow.
She rose from the sofa and pretended to be interested in the papers scattered about on the floor.
"You seemed to be stretched out on the grass when I came in," she said, smiling archly. "What fun to make hay in the middle of the winter!"
She sat down on a pile of papers; I threw myself down beside her. Another hailstorm of kisses, the goddess stooped towards me, ready to surrender.
Gradually I drew her closer to me, holding her captive with my lips, so as not to give her time to break the spell my eyes had cast over her, and free herself. We sat on the "grass" like lovers, yielding to our passion like fully dressed angels, and rose up content, happy, without remorse, like angels who have not fallen.
Love is inventive! We had sinned without sinning, yielded without surrendering. How precious is the love of a woman of experience! She is merciful to the young apprentice; she finds her pleasure in giving, not in receiving....
Suddenly she recovered her senses, remembered the claims of reality and prepared to go.
"Until to-morrow, then!"
"Until to-morrow!"