He had been told everything, and she called herself guilty, for he had wept. He had wept scalding tears! Was it simplicity or artfulness on his part? Doubtless both. Love and delusion are inseparable, and it is difficult to know ourselves as we really are.
But he was not angry with us, and did not insist on separating us, on condition that we should respect his good name.
"He is more noble and generous than we are," she said in her letter, "and he still loves both of us."
What a milksop! He consented to receive in his house a man who had kissed his wife; he believed us to be sexless, able to live side by side, like brother and sister.
It was an insult to my manhood; henceforth he had ceased to exist for me.
I stayed at home, a prey to the bitterest disappointment. I had tasted the apple, and it had been snatched from me. My imperious love had repented; she was suffering from remorse; she overwhelmed me with reproaches—she, the temptress! A fiendish idea flashed through my mind. Had I been too reserved? Did she want to break with me because I had been too timid? Since the thought of the crime from which I shrank had not seemed to disturb her, her passion must be stronger than mine.... But come back to me once more, my love, and I will teach you better.
At ten o'clock I received a letter from the Baron, in which he said that his wife was seriously ill.
My reply was a request to be left in peace. "I have been long enough the cause of unpleasantness between you; forget me, as I will forget you."
Towards noon a second letter arrived:
"Let us once more revive our old friendship. I have always respected you, and, in spite of your error, I am convinced that you have behaved like a man of honour. Let us bury the past. Come back to me as a brother, and the matter will be forgotten."
The pathetic simplicity, the perfect confidence of the man touched me; in my reply I mentioned my misgivings, and begged him not to play with fire, but leave me in future unmolested.
At three o'clock in the afternoon I received a last communication: the Baroness was dying; the doctor had just left her; she had asked for me. The Baron entreated me not to refuse her request, and I went. Poor me!
I entered. The room smelt of chloroform. The Baron received me with great agitation and tears in his eyes.
"What's the matter?" I asked, with the calmness of a doctor.
"I don't know. But she has been at death's door."
"And the doctor, what did he say?"
"He shook his head and said it was not a case for him."
"Has he given her a prescription?"
"No."
He took me into the dining-room, which had been transformed into a sick-room. She was lying on a couch, stiff, haggard; her hair was falling over her shoulders, her eyes glowed like red-hot coals. She moved her hand, and her husband put it into mine. Then he returned into the drawing-room and left us by ourselves. My heart remained unmoved; I did not trust my eyes; the unusual spectacle roused my suspicions.
"Do you know that I nearly died?"
"Yes."
"And you don't feel sorry?"
"Oh yes!"
"You are not moved, you have no look of sympathy, no look of commiseration."
"You have your husband!"
"Hasn't he himself brought us together?"
"What are you suffering from?"
"I'm very ill. I shall have to consult a specialist."
"Oh!"
"I'm afraid! It's terrible! If you knew how I have suffered!... Put your hand on my head ... it does me good.... Now smile at me ... your smile fills me with new life!..."
"The Baron—-"
"You are going? You are leaving me?"
"What can I do for you?"
She began to cry.
"You surely can't want me to play the lover here, close to your child, your husband?"
"You are a monster! A man without a heart! A——"
"Good-bye, Baroness!"
I went. The Baron accompanied me through the drawing-room, but, quick though he was, he could not prevent me from catching sight of a woman's skirt disappearing through one of the other doors.
This awakened the suspicion in me that the whole had been a farce.
The Baron closed the door behind me with a bang which echoed through the staircase, and gave me the impression that I had been kicked out.
I felt sure that I had not been mistaken. I had assisted at thedénoûmentof a sentimental play with a double plot.
This mysterious illness, what was it? Hysteria? No. Science has given it the name of "nymphomania"; freely translated it means, the desire of a woman for children, moderated and disguised by time and the conventions, but suddenly breaking out with irresistible force.
This woman, always living in a state of semi-celibacy, unwilling to take upon herself the burden of motherhood, and yet dissatisfied with the incompleteness of her married life, was driven into the arms of a lover, to the commission of a crime, and, at the very moment when she thought that her lover was incontestably hers, he slipped through her fingers, and he, too, left her unsatisfied.
How miserable a mistake was matrimony! How pitiful a passion was love!
When I had finished my analysis I had come to the conclusion that the unsatisfactory nature of their relationship had driven both husband and wife to seek happiness elsewhere. The disappointment at my flight had brought the Baroness back into the arms of her husband, whose love had received a fresh stimulus, and who would henceforth strive to make her more happy.
They were reconciled, and everything was at an end.
Exit the devil.
The curtain falls.
No, it was not at an end.
She visited me again in my room, and I drew from her a full confession, brutal in its candour.
In the first year of her marriage she knew nothing of the ecstasies of love. After her baby was born, her husband grew indifferent to her, and their relations became strained.
"Then you've never been happy with this man with the physique of a giant?"
"Never ... sometimes perhaps ... hardly ever."
"And now?"
She blushed.
"The doctor has advised him not to go on sinning against nature."
She sank back on the sofa and hid her face in her hands.
Excited by these intimate confessions, I made an attempt to put my arms round her. She offered no resistance, she trembled and breathed heavily, but suddenly she felt remorse and repulsed me.
Strange enigma which was beginning to provoke me!
What did she want from me? Everything! But she shrank from the real crime, the illegitimate child.
I took her in my arms and kissed her, I tried to rouse her passion. She freed herself and left me, but, I thought, a shade less disappointed than before.
And now, what?
Confess to the husband? It has been done.
Give him details?... There are no details to give.
She continued to visit me.
And whenever she came, she sat down on the sofa on the plea of fatigue.
I was ashamed of my timidity; furious at my humiliation; afraid that she might think me a fool; conflicting emotions wore away my self-control, and the day came when I watched her from my window, walking away slowly, until she was hidden by the turn of the street. I sighed heavily.
The son of the people had carried off the white skin, the plebeian had won the aristocrat, the swineherd had mated with the princess! But he had paid a heavy price.
A storm was brewing. All sorts of rumours circulated in the town. The fair fame of the Baroness had suffered.
Her mother asked me to call on her. I went.
"Is it true that you are in love with my daughter?"
"It is true."
"And are you not ashamed?"
"I glory in it."
"She has told me that she loves you."
"I was aware of that.... I am sorry for you. I regret the possible consequences, but what am I to do? No doubt it is a deplorable business, but we are not guilty, neither she nor I. When we discovered our danger, we warned the Baron. Wasn't that acting correctly?"
"I'm not complaining of your conduct now, but I must protect the honour of my daughter, of her child, of the family! Surely you don't want to ruin us?"
The poor old woman cried bitterly. She had put all her eggs in one basket: the aristocratic alliance of her daughter, which was to rehabilitate her own family. She roused my compassion, and I succumbed to her sorrow.
"Command me," I said; "I will do whatever you wish."
"Leave this place, go away from here, I implore you."
"I will do so, but on one condition."
"And that is?"
"That you will ask Miss Matilda to return to her family."
"Is that an accusation?"
"More than that, a denunciation. For I believe I'm right in saying that her presence at the Baron's house is not conducive to happiness."
"I agree with you. Oh, that girl! I shall tell her what I think of her! But you, you will leave to-morrow?"
"To-night, if you like."
At this stage the Baroness appeared, and unceremoniously interrupted our conversation.
"You must stay! You shall stay!" she said imperatively. "Matilda must go!"
"Why?" asked her mother, in amazement.
"Because I mean to have a divorce. Gustav has treated me like an abandoned woman before Matilda's stepfather. I shall prove to them that they're mistaken."
What a heartrending scene! Is there a surgical operation so painful as the tearing asunder of family ties? All passions are let loose, all uncleanness hidden in the depth of the soul stands revealed.
The Baroness took me apart and repeated to me the contents of a letter from her husband to Matilda: abuse of us, and an assurance of his undying love for the girl, in terms which proved that he had deceived us from the very beginning.
The ball has now gained the volume of a rock; it goes on rolling, and crushes alike the innocent and the guilty.
In spite of all the coming and going a settlement seemed as far off as ever.
Fresh misfortunes happened. The bank did not pay the ordinary yearly dividend; ruin was menacing.
The threatening poverty was made the pretext for the divorce, for the Baron could no longer maintain his family. For appearances' sake he asked his colonel whether his wife's proposed theatrical career would in any way interfere with his own. The colonel gave him to understand that if his wife went on the stage, he would have to leave the service. A splendid opportunity for abusing aristocratic prejudices!
During all this time the Baroness, under medical treatment for some internal trouble, continued to live at her husband's house, although they were now practically separated. She was always in pain, irritable and despondent, and I found it impossible to rouse her from her deep depression; my strenuous effort to inspire her with some of my youthful confidence was wasted. In vain I drew for her glowing pictures of the career of an artist, the independent life in a home of her own, a home like mine, where she would enjoy freedom of body and soul. She listened to me without replying; the stream of my words seemed to galvanise her like a magnetic current, without penetrating to her consciousness.
An agreement between the two parties had been arrived at at last. It was decided that after all legal formalities had been complied with, the Baroness should proceed to Copenhagen, where an uncle of hers was living. The Swedish consul at Copenhagen would communicate with her on her supposed flight from her husband's house, and she would inform him of her wish to have her marriage annulled. After that she would be free to make her own plans for the future, and return to Stockholm. Her dowry would remain in the possession of her husband, as well as all the furniture, with the exception of a very few things; the little girl would continue to live with her father, unless the latter contracted a second marriage, but the Baroness would have the right to see her child whenever she wished.
The financial question gave rise to a violent scene. To save the remnants of a fortune which had almost disappeared, the father of the Baroness had made a will in which he left everything to his daughter. Her scheming mother had obtained possession of the inheritance, and was paying her son-in-law a certain percentage. Since such a procedure was illegal, the Baron insisted that the will should now come into force. The old mother-in-law, furious at the reduction of her income, denounced her son-in-law to her brother, Matilda's father, as the girl's lover. The storm burst. The colonel threatened to cashier the Baron; a lawsuit was impending.
Now, the Baroness left no stone unturned to save the father of her child. And to clear him I was made the scapegoat.
I was prevailed upon to write a letter to Matilda's father, in which I took the sins of everybody and the responsibility for all the mischief on my own shoulders, called God to witness that the Baron and the girl were innocent, and asked the offended father to forgive me for all the crimes I had committed—I, the only penitent one!
It was a beautiful action and a good one, and the Baroness loved me for it as a woman loves a man who has allowed her to trample on his honour, his self-respect, his good name.
In spite of my resolution not to be mixed up in these unsavoury family matters, I had been unable to steer clear of them.
The mother-in-law paid me many visits, and, always appealing to my love for her daughter, tried to incite me against the Baron, but in vain; I took my orders from no one but the Baroness. Moreover, on this point I sided with the father. As he was taking charge of the child, the dowry, imaginary or otherwise, belonged undoubtedly to him.
Oh, this month of April! What a springtime of love! The beloved woman on the sick-bed, intolerable meetings at which the two families washed their dirty linen, which I certainly never had the least desire to come into contact with; tears; rudeness; a chaos which brought to light everything base that had hitherto been hidden under the veneer of education.
That comes of raising a nest of hornets about one's ears!...
No wonder that love suffered under such conditions. Where is the charm of a woman who is always worn out with contention, whose conversation bristles with legal terms?
Again and again I attempted to instil into her my thoughts of consolation and hope, even though they were often anything but spontaneous, for I had come to the end of my nerve-power; and she accepted everything, sucked my brain dry, consumed my heart. In exchange she looked upon me as a dustbin, into which she threw all her rubbish, all her grief, all her troubles, all her cares.
In this hell I lived my life, dragged on my misery, worked for a bare sufficiency. When she came to see me of an evening and found me working, she sulked; and it was not until I had wasted a couple of hours with tears and kisses that I succeeded in convincing her of my love.
She conceived love as never-ending admiration, a servile readiness to please, unceasing sacrifice.
I was crushed down by my heavy responsibility. I could see the moment not very far off when misery, or the birth of a child, would force me into a premature marriage. She had claimed but three thousand francs for one year, with which she intended to defray the costs of her artistic training. I had no faith in her dramatic career. Her pronunciation still betrayed her Finnish descent, and her features were too irregular for the stage. To keep her from brooding I made her repeat poetry. I constituted myself her teacher. But she was too much occupied with her disappointments, and when, after a rehearsal, she had to admit that her progress was very small, she was inconsolable.
How dreary our love was! Instead of being the source from which flowed strength to cope with our difficulties, it was a prolonged torture.
Joy was no sooner born than it was slain, and we parted, dissatisfied, robbed of the greatest happiness life has to give. A poor phantom was our love!
But my monogamic nature recoiled from change. Our love, sad as it was, was yet the source from which sprang exquisite spiritual joys, and my inextinguishable longing was the guarantee for its endurance.
It was on the first of May. All the necessary documents had been signed. Her departure was fixed for the day after to-morrow. She came to me and threw her arms round me.
"Now I belong to you alone; take me!"
As we had never discussed marriage, I did not quite understand what she meant, and we sat in my little attic, sad and thoughtful. Everything was permitted to us now, but temptation had diminished. She accused me of indifference, and I proved the contrary to her. Thereupon she accused me of sensuality.
Adoration, incense it was what she wanted!
She had hysterics, and complained that I no longer loved her. Already!...
After half-an-hour of flattery and blandishments she grew calmer, but she was not really herself until she had reduced me to tears of despair. Then she made a fuss of me.
The more humble I was, the more I knelt before her, small and miserable, the more she loved me. She hated strength and manliness in me; to win her love I had to pretend to be wretched, so that she could pose as the stronger, play "little mother" and console me.
We had supper in my room; she laid the table and prepared the meal. After supper I claimed the rights of a lover, and she made no resistance.
How wonderful is the rejuvenating power of love! A young girl lay in my arms, trembling, and brutality was transformed into tenderness. Surely the animal had no part in this union of souls! Alas! is it ever possible to say where the spiritual ends and the animal begins?
Reassured on the question of her health, she gave herself to me whole-heartedly; she was radiant with joy, content and happy; her beauty shone out; her eyes sparkled. My poor attic had become a temple, a sumptuous palace; I lighted the broken chandelier, my reading lamp, all the candles, to illuminate our happiness, the joy of living, the only thing which makes our miserable lives endurable.
For these moments of rapture accompany us on our thorny pilgrimage through life; the memory of these fleeting hours helps us to live, and outlive our former selves.
"Don't speak ill of love," I said to her. "Worship nature in all her forces; honour God, who compels us to be happy in spite of ourselves!"
She made no reply, for she was happy. Her yearning was stilled; my kisses had driven the warm blood through her beating heart into her cheeks; the flame of the candle was mirrored in her eyes moist with tears; the rainbow tints of her veins appeared more vivid, like the plumage of the birds in the springtime. She looked like a girl of sixteen, so delicate, so pure were her contours; the dainty head with its masses of golden hair, half-buried in the cushions, might have been a child's.
Thus she reclined on my sofa, like a goddess, allowing me to worship her, while she regarded me with furtive glances, half shamefaced, half provoking.
How chaste in her abandonment is the beloved woman when she surrenders herself to the caresses of her lover! And man, though her superior mentally, is only happy when he has won the woman who is his true mate. My former flirtations, my love affairs with women of a lower class, appeared to me like crimes, like a sin against the race. The white skin, the perfect feet, the delicate hands, were they signs of degeneration? Were they not rather on a par with the glossy skin of the wild beast, its slim, sinewy legs, which show hardly any muscle? The beauty of a woman is the sum total of characteristics which are worthy of transmission through the agency of the man who can appreciate them. This woman had been pushed aside by her husband; therefore she no longer belonged to him, for she had ceased to please him. He could see no beauty in her, and it was left to me to achieve the blossoming of a flower, the rare loveliness of which the seer, the elect only, could perceive.
Midnight was striking. From the barracks close by came the "Who goes there?" of the relieving guards. It was time to part.
I accompanied my beloved on her way home, and, as we were walking along side by side, I tried to kindle in her the fire of my enthusiasm, my new hopes; I startled her with the plans which her kisses had ripened in me. She came closer, as if to find strength in contact with me, and I gave her back tenfold what I had received from her.
When we had arrived at the high railings she noticed that she had forgotten her key. How annoying! But, bent on showing her my mettle by penetrating into the lion's den, I climbed the railings, dashed across the courtyard and knocked at the front door, prepared for a stormy reception from the Baron. My throbbing heart was thrilled by the thought of fighting my rival before her eyes. The favoured lover was transformed into a hero! But, luckily, it was only a servant who came to open the door, and we said good-night to each other formally, calmly, with the maid, who had not taken the trouble to respond to our "Good-evening," looking on in contemptuous silence.
Henceforth she felt sure of my love, and so she abused it.
She came to see me to-day. She could not find words enough to praise her husband. Deeply affected by Matilda's departure, he had succumbed to his wife's pressure, and made her a promise to save appearances by accompanying her to the station, for, she argued, if both he and I were to see her off, her departure would not have the appearance of flight. Moreover, she told me that the Baron, no longer angry with me, had consented to receive me at his house, and, in order to put a stop to the rumours, show himself during the next few days about the town in my company.
I appreciated the generosity of this big, ingenuous child, with the honest heart, and, out of consideration for him, I demurred.
"We're not going to disgrace him like that. Never!"
"Remember that it is a question of my child's honour."
"Doesn't his honour count for something?"
But she laughed at the idea of considering other people's honour. Looked upon me as eccentric.
"But that beats everything! You're making me a by-word, you're degrading us all! It's folly! It's unworthy!" I exclaimed.
She cried; and, after she had sobbed for an hour and overwhelmed me with reproaches, I succumbed to the irresistible weapon of her tears, and consented to do her bidding. But I cursed the despot, I cursed the falling crystal drops which increased tenfold the power of her glances.
She was stronger than both her husband and myself. She was leading us by the nose into disgrace! Why did she want this reconciliation? Was she afraid of a war to the knife between me and the Baron? Did she dread possible disclosures?...
... What a punishment she had inflicted on me by compelling me to revisit this dreary house! But, cruel egoist that she was, she had no sympathy with another's terrors. I have had to promise her, on my oath, to deny the whole story of the illicit relationship which existed between the Baron and her cousin, so as to stop all slander. I went to this last meeting with slow steps and a sinking heart.
The little garden smiled at me with its blossoming cherry trees, its sweet-scented daffodils. The shrubbery, where her marvellous beauty had bewitched me, was bursting into leaf; the turned-up flower-beds looked like black shrouds spread out on the lawn; I pictured the forsaken little girl wandering about there alone, looked after by a servant, and learning her lessons; I pictured her growing up, awakening to the facts of life, and being told one day that her mother had deserted her.
I mounted the stairs of the fatal house, which was built against a sand quarry, and called up the memories of my childhood. Friendship, family, love, all had been jeopardised, and, in spite of our efforts to comply with the law of the land, crime had stained its threshold.
Who was to blame?
The Baroness opened the folding doors and secretly kissed me between the wings. I could not suppress a momentary feeling of loathing, and indignantly pushed her aside. It reminded me of the servants' flirtations at the back door, and filled me with disgust. Behind the door! Slut! without pride, without dignity!
She pretended that I was reluctant to enter the drawing-room, and asked me in a loud voice to come in, at the very moment when, embarrassed by the humiliating situation in which I found myself, I hesitated, and was on the point of retracing my footsteps. A flash from her eyes, and my hesitation was gone; paralysed by her self-command, I gave in.
Everything in the drawing-room pointed to the breaking up of the household. Underlinen, dresses, petticoats were scattered all over the furniture. The writing-table was littered with a pile of stockings, a short time ago the delight of my eyes, to-day an abomination. She came and went, counted and folded up, brazenly, shamelessly.
"Had I corrupted her in so short a time?" I asked myself, gazing at this exhibition of a respectable woman's underclothing.
She examined one piece after another, and put on one side everything which needed repairing; she noticed that on one garment the tapes were missing; she laid it aside with perfect unconcern.
I seemed to be present at an execution; I felt sick with misery, while she listened absent-mindedly to my futile conversation about unimportant details. I was waiting for the Baron, who had locked himself into the dining-room and was writing letters.
At last the door opened; I started apprehensively, but it was only the little girl who came in, puzzled to know the reason of all this upset. She ran up to me, accompanied by her mother's spaniel, and held up her forehead to be kissed. I blushed. I felt angry, and turned to the Baroness.
"You might at least have spared me this!"
But she did not understand what I meant.
"Mamma is going away, darling, but she'll soon be back and bring you lots of toys."
The little dog begged for a caress—he, too!
A little later the Baron appeared.
He walked up to me, broken, crushed, and pressed my hand, unable to utter a word. I honoured his evident grief by a respectful silence, and he withdrew again.
The dusk was beginning to gather in the corners of the room. The maid lighted the lamps without seeming to notice my presence. Supper was announced. I wanted to go. But the Baron added his pressing invitation to that of the Baroness, and in so touching and sincere a manner that I accepted and stayed.
And we sat down to supper, the three of us, as in the old days. It was a solemn moment. We talked of all that had happened, and with moist eyes asked one another the question: "Who is to blame?" Nobody, destiny, a series of incidents, paltry in themselves, a number of forces. We shook hands, clinked our glasses together and spoke of our undying friendship exactly as in the days gone by. The Baroness alone kept up her spirits. She made the programme for the following day: the meeting at the railway station, the walks through the town, and we agreed to everything.
At last I rose to go. The Baron accompanied us into the drawing-room. There he laid the hand of the Baroness into mine and said, with choking voice—
"Be her friend. My part is played out. Take care of her, guard her from the wickedness of the world, cultivate her talent: you are better able to do it than I, a poor soldier. God protect you!"
He left us; the door closed behind him, and we were alone.
Was he sincere at that moment? I thought so at the time, and I should like to think so still. He was of a sentimental nature, and, in his way, fond of us; doubtless, the thought of seeing the mother of his child in the hands of an enemy would have been painful to him.
It is possible that later on, under adverse influence, he boasted of having fooled us. But such a thing would really have been foreign to his character—and is it not a well-known fact that no one likes to admit having been duped?
It was six o'clock at night. I was pacing the large hall of the Central Station. The train for Copenhagen would leave at six-fifteen, and neither the Baron nor the Baroness had appeared.
I felt like the spectator of the last act of a terrible tragedy, I was longing wildly for the end. Another quarter of an hour and there would be peace. My nerves, disordered by these successive crises, required rest, and the coming night would restore some of the nerve force which I had used up and squandered for the love of a woman.
She arrived at the last moment, in a cab, drawn by a mare which the driver was leading by the bridle.
Always careless and always too late!
She rushed towards me like a lunatic.
"The traitor! He has broken his word! He's not coming!" she exclaimed so loudly that she attracted the attention of the passers-by.
It was certainly unfortunate, but I could not help respecting him for it.
"He's quite right. He has common-sense on his side," I said, seized with a spirit of contradiction.
"Be quick! Take a ticket for Copenhagen, or I shall stay here!" she ordered.
"No! If I went with you it would look like an elopement. All Stockholm would talk about it to-morrow."
"I don't care.... Make haste!"
"No! I won't!"
But I could not help pitying her at the moment, and the situation was becoming unbearable. A quarrel, a lover's quarrel was inevitable.
She knew it instinctively, and, seizing my hands, she implored me with her eyes; the ice melted; the sorceress won; I wavered ... I succumbed....
"To Katrineholm then!"
"Very well, if you'd rather."
She was having her luggage registered.
Everything was lost, including honour, and I had before me the prospect of a painful journey.
The train moved out of the station. We were alone in a first-class compartment. The Baron's non-appearance had depressed us. It was an unforeseen danger and a bad omen. An uneasy silence reigned in the carriage; one of us had to break it. She was the one to speak.
"Axel, you don't love me any more!"
"Perhaps not," I replied, worn out by a month of chaos.
"And I have sacrificed everything to you!"
"Sacrificed everything?... To your love, perhaps, but not to me. And have I not sacrificed my life to you? You are angry with Gustav and you're venting your anger on me ... be reasonable."
Tears, tears! What a wedding tour! I steeled my nerves, put on my armour. I became indifferent, impenetrable.
"Restrain your emotions! From to-day you must use your common-sense. Weep, weep until the source of your tears is dry, but then lift up your head. You are a foolish woman, and I have honoured you as a queen, as a ruler! I have done your bidding because I thought myself the weaker of the two! Unfortunately! Don't make me despise you. Don't ever try to blame me alone for what has happened. I admired Gustav's shrewdness last night. He has realised that the great events in life have always more than one cause. Who is to blame? You? I? He? She? The threatening ruin, your passion for the stage, your internal trouble, the inheritance from your thrice-married grandfather? Your mother's hatred of bearing children which is the cause of your vacillating disposition? The idleness of your husband, whose profession left him too much leisure? My instincts? The instincts of the man who has risen from the lower classes? My accidental meeting with your Finnish friend who brought us together? An endless number of motives, a few of which only are known to us. Don't debase yourself before the mob who will unanimously condemn you to-morrow; don't believe, like those poor in spirit, that you can solve such an intricate problem by taking neither the crime nor the criminal seriously!... And, moreover, have I seduced you? Be candid with yourself, with me, while we're here alone, without witnesses."
But she would not be candid.
She could not, for candour is not a woman's characteristic.
She knew herself to be an accomplice in crime; she was tortured by remorse. She had but one thought, to ease her conscience by throwing the whole blame on me.
I left her to herself, and wrapped myself in a callous silence.
Night fell. I opened the window and leaned against the door, gazing at the quickly-passing black Scotch firs, behind which the pale moon was rising. Then a lake passed, surrounded by birch trees; a brook bordered by alders; cornfields, meadows, and then Scotch firs again, a long stretch of them. A mad desire to throw myself out of the carriage seized me; a desire to escape from this prison where I was watched by an enemy, kept spell-bound by a witch. But the anxiety for her future oppressed me like a nightmare; I felt responsible for her, who was a stranger to me, for her unborn children, for the support of her mother, her aunt, her whole family, for centuries to come.
I should make it my business to procure for her success on the stage; I should bear all her sorrows, her disappointments, her failures, so that one day she could throw me in the dust like a squeezed-out lemon—me, my whole life, my brain, the marrow of my spine, my life-blood; all in exchange for the love which I gave her, and which she accepted and called "sacrificing herself to me." Delusions of love! hypnotism of passion!
She sat without moving until ten o'clock, sulking. One more hour and we should have to say good-bye.
All at once, with a word of apology, she put her two feet on the cushioned seat, pretending to be worn out with fatigue. Her languid glances, her tears had left me unmoved; I had kept my head, my strength of purpose in spite of her fallacious logic. Now everything collapsed. I beheld her adorable boots, a tiny piece of her stocking.
Down on your knees, Sampson! Put your head in her lap, press your cheeks against her knees, ask her to forgive you for the cruel words with which you have lashed her—and which she didn't even understand! Slave! Coward! You lie in the dust before a stocking, you, who thought yourself strong enough to conquer a world! And she, she only loves you when you debase yourself; she buys you cheaply at the price of a few moments of gratified passion, for she has nothing to lose.
The engine whistled; the train glided into the station; I had to leave her. She kissed me with motherly affection, made the sign of the cross on my forehead—although she was a Protestant—commended me to the Lord, begged me to take care of myself, and not to give way to fretting.
The train steamed out into the night, choking me with its bituminous smoke.
I breathed—at last—the cool evening air, and enjoyed my freedom. Alas! but for a moment. No sooner had I arrived at the village inn than I broke down. I loved her, yes, I loved her, just as I had seen her at the moment of parting; for that moment recalled to me the first sweet days of our friendship, when she was the lovely, womanly tender mother, who spoiled and caressed me as if I had been a little child.
And yet I loved her ardently, desired to make this stormy woman my wife.
I asked for writing material, and wrote her a letter in which I told her that I would pray to God for her happiness.
Her last embrace had led me back to God, and, under the influence of her parting kiss, still fresh on my lips, I denied the new faith, which teaches the progress of humanity.
The first stage in the downfall of a man had been reached; the others were sure to follow—to utter degradation, to the verge of insanity.
On the day after our departure the whole town knew that Baroness X had eloped with one of the librarians of the Royal Library.
This was only what was to be expected, to be dreaded! After all my efforts to save her good name, we had forgotten everything in a moment of weakness.
She had spoiled all our plans, and all that remained for me to do was to take the responsibility on my own shoulders and grapple to the best of my ability with the consequences which threatened to ruin her theatrical career; there was only one theatre where she could possibly appear, and loose morals were not likely to increase her chances of an engagement at the Royal Theatre.
On the morning after my return I made an excuse to call on the chief librarian, who was slightly unwell and unable to go out. The sole object of my visit was the establishment of an alibi. After leaving him I strolled through the main streets and thoroughfares and arrived at my office at the usual hour. I spent the evening at the Press Club, and deliberately set the rumour afloat that there was but one reason for the divorce, and that was the Baroness's determination to enter the theatrical profession. I maintained that husband and wife were on the best of terms, and that their separation was but the inevitable result of class prejudice.
If I had only known what harm I was doing myself by spreading these rumours and proclaiming her innocence! ... But no, I should not have acted otherwise.
The papers scrambled eagerly for the smart society scandal, but the public scoffed at this irresistible love of art, a more or less doubtful phenomenon always, but more especially when the stage is concerned. The women in particular were sceptical, and the forsaken child remained an ugly fact which nothing could explain away.
In the meantime I received a letter—a perfect howl of anguish—from Copenhagen. Tortured by remorse, by a yearning for her deserted child, she asked me to come to her at once, complaining bitterly of her relatives who, she asserted, were making her life one long drawn-out agony. She charged them with having suppressed, in collusion with her husband, an important document, which was essential for the final decision in the case.
I refused to leave town, but wrote a few angry lines to the Baron. His reply was so insolent that it led to a complete rupture between us.
One or two telegrams passed, and peace was re-established. The document was found, and the proceedings went on.
I spent my evenings in writing long letters to her, giving her minute instructions how to comport herself in the circumstances. These letters were intended to cheer and encourage her. I advised her to work, to study her art, to visit the theatres. In my anxiety to supplement her income, I urged her to write on anything which she found interesting, and undertook to get her articles accepted by a first-class paper.
No answer. I had every reason to believe that her independent spirit resented my well-meant interference.
A week passed; a week full of care, unrest and hard work. Then, early one morning, before I was up, I received a letter from Copenhagen.
The tone of her letter was calm and serene; she seemed unable to hide a certain pride on account of the quarrel between the Baron and myself. (She was in a fair position to form an opinion, since she had received the respective letters from both of us.) She found the "duel" not without style, and admired my pluck. "It is a pity," she concluded her letter, "that two men like you and the Baron should not be friends." Further on she gave me a detailed account of what she was doing to while away the time. She was evidently enjoying herself; she had made her way into second-rate artistic circles, a fact which I did not like. She described an evening spent at some assembly-rooms in the company of a number of young men, who paid her a great deal of attention; she had made the conquest of a musician, a youth who had sacrificed his family to his art. "What a strange similarity between our two cases!" she remarked. Then followed a detailed biography of the interesting martyr and the request not to be jealous.
"What did she mean?" I wondered, taken aback by the half-sarcastic, half-familiar tone of her letter, which appeared to be written between two entertainments.
Was it possible that this coldly voluptuous madonna belonged to the class of born wantons, that she was a coquette, a cocotte?
I sat down at once and indited a furious scolding; I painted her picture as she then appeared to me. I called her Madame Bovary; I entreated her to break the spell which was leading her to a precipice.
In reply, "as a proof of her absolute faith in me," she sent me the letters which the young enthusiast had written to her. Love letters!
The same old use of the term friendship, the inexplicable sympathy of the souls, and the whole list of the trite and to us both so familiar words: brother and sister, little mother, playmates, and so on, cloaks and covers under which lovers are wont to hide, to abandon themselves ultimately to their passions.
What was I to think? Was she mentally deranged?
Was she an unconscious criminal who remembered nothing of the terrible experience of the last two months, when the hearts of three people were on fire for her? And I who had been made to play the part of a Cinderella, a scape-goat, a man of straw, I was toiling to remove all obstacles from her way to the irregular life of the theatre.
A fresh blow! To see the woman whom I adored wallow in the gutter.
My soul was filled with unspeakable compassion, I had a foreboding of the fate which awaited her, perverse woman that she was, and vowed to lift her up, to strengthen and support her, to do everything in my power to shield her from a fatal catastrophe.
Jealous! That vulgar word invented by a woman in order to mislead the man she has deceived or means to deceive. The hoodwinked husband shows his anger, and the word jealous is flung in his face. Jealous husband—husband betrayed! And there are women who look upon jealousy as synonymous with impotence, so that the betrayed husband can only shut his eyes, powerless in the face of such accusations.
She returned after a fortnight, pretty, fresh, in high spirits, and full of bright memories, for she had thoroughly enjoyed herself. She was wearing a new dress with touches of brilliant colouring, which struck me as vulgar. I was puzzled. The woman who used to dress so simply, so quietly, with such exquisite taste, was adopting a colour scheme which was positively garish.
Our meeting was colder than either of us had expected; there was a constrained silence at first, followed by a sudden outburst.
The flatteries of her new friends had turned her head; she gave herself airs, teased me, made fun of me. She spread her gorgeous dress over my old sofa, to hide its shabbiness. Her old power over me reasserted itself, and for a moment I forgot all resentment in a passionate kiss; nevertheless, a slight feeling of anger remained at the bottom of my heart, and presently found vent in a torrent of reproaches. Subdued by my impetuosity, which contrasted so strangely with her own indolent nature, she took refuge in tears.
"How can you be so absurd as to imagine that I was flirting with that young man?" she sobbed. "I promise you never to write to him again, although I'm sure he'll think it rude of me."
Rude! One of her favourite catchwords! A man pays her attention, in other words makes advances to her, and she listens politely, for fear of being rude. What a woman!
But fate was against me. I was lying at her feet, her beautiful little feet, encased in tiny shoes. She was wearing black silk stockings, which added to my confusion; her leg was a little fuller than it had been; the black legs in a cloud of petticoats were the legs of a she-devil.
Her constant fear of motherhood irritated me; I lied to her; I told her that she had nothing to fear from me; that I knew how to cheat nature. I repeated my assurances until I finished by believing in them myself, and in the end succeeded in setting her mind at ease by promising to be responsible for all consequences.
She was living with her mother and aunt in the second story of a house in one of the main thoroughfares. As she threatened to visit me in my own room if they prevented me from seeing her, I was allowed to call. But the thought of the supervision of these two old women, whom I knew to be watching us through the keyhole all the time, was almost beyond bearing.
The divorced husband and wife were beginning to realise how much they had lost. The Baroness, once a respected married woman, mistress of an aristocratic establishment, had returned to the conditions of her childhood. She was under the control of her mother, almost a prisoner in one room, kept by two old women, who were themselves in needy circumstances. The mother never lost an opportunity of reminding her of her careful bringing up and how she had been fitted to take an honourable social position, and the daughter remembered the happy days following her release from the parental yoke. Bitter words were spoken on both sides, tears and insults were all too frequent, and I had to pay for them when I called in the evening ... to visit a prisoner under the eyes of a warder and witness.
When the strain of these painful meetings became unbearable, we ventured to meet two or three times in the park. But we only jumped from the frying-pan into the fire, for now we were exposed to the contemptuous stare of the crowd. We hated the spring sunshine which illuminated our misery. We missed the darkness, we longed for the winter, which made it easier for us to hide our shame. Alas! the summer was coming with its long nights, which know no darkness.
Our former friends dropped us, one after the other. Even my sister, intimidated by the now universal gossip, grew suspicious and estranged when the ex-baroness, at a little supper party, tried to keep up her spirits by taking too much wine, became intoxicated, proposed a toast, smoked cigarettes, and generally behaved in a way which excited the disgust of the women and the contempt of the men.
"That woman's a common prostitute!" said a respectable married man and father of a family to my brother-in-law, and the latter took the first chance to repeat the remark to me.
When on the following Sunday evening we arrived at my sister's house, where we had been invited to supper, the servant informed us, to our consternation, that her master and mistress were out.
We spent the evening in my room, a prey to anger and despair, seeking comfort in the thought of suicide. I pulled down the blinds to shut out the daylight, and we sat together in misery, waiting for night and darkness, before we ventured out again into the street. But the summer sun did not set until late, and at eight o'clock we both felt hungry. Neither of us had any money, and there was nothing to eat or drink in the cupboard. These moments were some of the most wretched moments of my life, and gave me a foretaste of misery to come. Reproaches, cold kisses, floods of tears, remorse, disgust.
I tried to persuade her to go home and have supper with her mother, but she was afraid of the daylight; moreover, her heart sank at the thought of the necessary explanation. She had eaten nothing since two o'clock, and the melancholy prospect of going to bed supperless aroused the wild beast hunger in her.
She had grown up in a wealthy home, and had been used to every kind of luxury; she had no idea what poverty meant, and consequently she was completely unstrung. I, who had been familiar with hunger from childhood, suffered torture to see her in such a desperate position. I ransacked my cupboard, but could find nothing; I searched the drawers of my writing-table, and there, amongst all sorts of keep-sakes, faded flowers, old love-letters, discoloured ribbons, I found two sweets which I had kept in remembrance of a funeral. I offered them to her just as they were, wrapped in black paper and tinfoil. A distressing banquet indeed, these sweets in their mourning dress!
Depressed, humiliated, apprehensive, I raged and thundered furiously against all respectable women whose doors were closed to us, who would have none of us.
"Why this hostility and contempt? Had we committed a crime? Surely not; it was but a question of a straightforward divorce; we were complying with all the rules and requirements of the law."
"We have been behaving too correctly," she said, trying to comfort herself. "The world is but a pack of knaves. It winks at open, shameless adultery, but condemns divorce. A high standard of morality indeed!"
We were agreed on the subject. But the facts remained. The crime continued to hang over our heads, which drooped under its weight.
I felt like a boy who has robbed a bird's nest. The mother had flown away, the little ones lay prostrate, chirping plaintively, bereft of the protecting warmth of the mother's wings.
And the father? He was left desolate in the ruined home. I pictured him of a Sunday evening, an evening like this, when the family assembles round the fire-place, alone in the drawing-room, with the silenced piano; alone in the dining-room, eating his solitary dinner; alone always....
"Oh, no, nothing of the kind!" she interrupted my musings; "you are quite mistaken! You would be much more likely to find him lounging on the comfortable sofa at Matilde's brother-in-law's; he has had a good dinner with plenty of wine, and is gently squeezing the hand of my poor, dear, libelled little cousin, laughing at the outrageous stories told of his wife's ill-conduct—his wife, who refused to countenance his infidelity. And both of them, surrounded and upheld by the sympathy and applause of this hypocritical world, are eager to throw the first stone at us."
Her words set me thinking, and after a while I expressed the opinion that the Baron had led us by the nose; that he had schemed to rid himself of a troublesome wife, so as to be able to marry again, and had managed to secure her dowry, in spite of the law.
She became indignant at once.
"You have no right to say anything against him! It was all my fault!"
"Why have I no right to say anything against him? Is his person sacred?"
One might almost have thought so, for whenever I attacked him she took his part.
Was it the freemasonry of caste which prompted her to stand up for him? Or were there secrets in her life which made her fear his enmity? I could not solve the riddle, nor discover the reason of her loyalty to him, which no disloyalty on his part could shake.
The sun set at last, and we parted. I slept the sleep of the famished; I dreamed that I was making desperate efforts to wing my way heavenwards, with a millstone round my neck.
Misfortune dogged our footsteps. We approached one of the theatrical managers with the request to give us a date for her first appearance. He replied that he could not, in his official position, have anything to do with a runaway wife.
We left no stone unturned, but all our efforts were doomed to failure. A year hence her resources would be exhausted, and she would be thrown on the street. It was my business, the business of the poor Bohemian, to save her from that fate.
To avoid every possibility of a misunderstanding, she called on an old friend of hers, a former tragedienne, whom up to quite recently she had constantly met in society, and who had cringed like a dog before the "golden-haired Baroness," her "little fairy."
The great actress, a notoriously unfaithful wife, grown grey in vice at the side of her husband, received the honest sinner with insults and closed her door to her.
We had tried everything!
There remained nothing but revenge.
"Very well," I said to her, "why not try writing? Write a play, get it produced at this very theatre? Why descend when there is a possibility of rising? Put your foot on that old woman! With one stride rise far above her head! Show off this lying, hypocritical, vicious society, which opens its houses to prostitutes, but closes them to a divorced wife. It's good stuff for a play."
But she was one of those soft natures, very susceptible, very easily impressed, but unable to strike back.
"No, no revenge!"
And cowardly and revengeful at the same time, she left vengeance to God; it came to the same thing in the end, but it put the responsibility on a man of straw.
But I persevered, and at last fortune favoured me. I had an order from a publisher to edit an illustrated book for children.
"Write the text," I suggested; "you will be paid a hundred francs for it."
I supplied her with reference books; I made her believe that she had done the work unaided, and she pocketed the hundred francs. But I paid a heavy penalty. The publisher stipulated that my name, which had come before the public as that of a playwright, should appear on the title-page. It was literary prostitution, and my enemies, who had predicted my incapacity of distinguishing myself in literature, triumphed.
After that I persuaded her to write an article for one of the morning papers. She acquitted herself fairly well. The article was accepted, but the paper made no payment.
I wore myself out in trying to raise a sovereign, and, succeeding after endless efforts, I handed it over to her with the white lie that it represented her remuneration from the paper.
Poor Marie! She was delighted to give her small earnings to her old mother, who supplemented her income by letting furnished apartments.
The old ladies began to look upon me as their saviour; copies of translations, unanimously rejected by theatrical managers in bygone days, appeared from drawers, where they had long lain forgotten. I was credited with the wondrous capacity to effect their acceptance, and burdened with futile commissions which interfered with my work and caused me no end of trouble. I had to fall back on my small savings because I wasted my time and used up my nervous energy; I could only afford one meal a day, and reverted to my old habit of going to bed without supper.
Encouraged by her few little successes, Marie undertook to write a play in five acts. I seemed to have sown into her soul all the sterile seed of my poetic inspirations. In this virgin soil it germinated and grew, while I remained unproductive, like a flower which shakes out its seed and withers. My soul was lacerated, sick to death. The influence of that little female brain, so different from the brain of a man, disturbed and disordered the mechanism of my thoughts. I was at a loss to understand why I thought so highly of her literary gifts, why I kept on urging her to write, for with the exception of her letters to me, which were mostly personal and frequently quite commonplace, I had no proof that she could write at all. She had become my living poem; she had taken the place of my vanished talent. Her personality was grafted on mine and was dominating it. I existed only through her; I, the mother-root, led an underground life, nourishing this tree which was growing sunwards and promising wonderful blossoms. I delighted in its marvellous beauty, never dreaming that the day would come when the offshoot would separate from the exhausted trunk, to bloom and dazzle independently, proud of the borrowed splendour.
The first act of her play was finished. I read it. Under the spell of my hallucination I found it perfect; I loudly expressed by sincere admiration and heartily congratulated the author. She was herself astonished at her talent, and I prophesied for her a brilliant future. But all of a sudden our plans were changed. Marie's mother remembered a friend, an artist, a very wealthy woman with a fine estate, and, what was of greater importance still, closely in touch with one of our leading actors whose wife was the rival and sworn enemy of the great tragedienne, Marie's former friend.
The artist, a spinster, vouched for the high moral standard of this couple, and they expressed themselves ready to undertake the guidance and supervision of Marie's studies until her first appearance in public. Marie was invited to stay for a fortnight with her mother's friend to discuss the matter. There she was to meet the great actor and his wife who, to fill her cup of happiness, had used their influence with the manager of the theatre on her behalf with very satisfactory results. His former reported refusal was thereby entirely contradicted, and turned out to have been a fabrication of her mother's, invented for the sole purpose of keeping her daughter off the stage.
Marie's future appeared to be safe. I could breathe freely, sleep undisturbed, work.
She stayed away for a fortnight. To judge from her scanty letters she was anything but dull. Her new friends, to whom she had given proofs of her talent, had told her that she would do well on the stage.
On her return she engaged rooms in a farmhouse and arranged with the farmer's wife to board her. She was free of her warders now, and we could spend unchaperoned week-ends together. Life was smiling at us, a little sadly, it is true, for a certain melancholy, the effect of her divorce, always remained. But in the country the burden of convention weighs less heavily than in town, and the summer sun soon dispelled the gloom which hung over our lives.
Her appearance under the patronage of the two famous actors was announced in the autumn and put a stop to all gossip. I did not like the part chosen for her. It was a small character-part in an old-fashioned play. But her teacher and patron counted on the sympathy of the audience and the effect of a good scene, in which she refused an aristocratic suitor who saw in her a rare ornament for his drawing-room, and declared that in her eyes the noble heart of the poor young man was infinitely more precious than all the wealth and title of the nobleman.
As I was dismissed from my post as her teacher, I was able to devote all my time and attention to my scientific studies, and the writing of a paper destined for some academy or other. This was necessary in order to prove myself a man of letters and efficient librarian. With ardent zeal I gave myself up to ethnographical research in connection with the farthest East. It acted like opium on my brain, which was exhausted by the struggles, cares and pains I had undergone. Inspired by the ambition to show myself worthy of my beloved, whose future appeared in the rosiest hues, I achieved wonders of industry; I shut myself up in the vaults of the Royal Castle from morning till night; I suffered from the damp and icy atmosphere without a complaint; I defied poverty and need.
Marie's appearance in public was postponed by the death of her little daughter, who died of brain fever; another month of tears, reproaches and remorse followed.
"It is a judgment on you," declared the child's grand-mother, glad to thrust the poisoned dagger into the heart of the daughter-in-law whom she hated because she had brought dishonour on her name.
Marie was broken-hearted, and spent day and night at the bedside of the dying child, under the roof of her former husband, chaperoned by her late mother-in-law. The father was overcome with grief at the death of his only child, and, bowed down with sorrow, he longed to meet again the friend of former days, the witness of the past. One evening, a few days after the little girl's funeral, my landlady informed me that the Baron had called and had left a message to the effect that he hoped to see me at his house.
Considering the unusual circumstances which had led up to the breach, I wanted anything but a reconciliation. I sent him a polite refusal.
A quarter of an hour had hardly elapsed when Marie herself appeared, dressed in deep mourning, her eyes full of tears, and begged me to comply with the request of the inconsolable Baron.
I found this mission in abominable taste. I rated her soundly, and pointed out to her how ambiguous and unjustifiable in the eyes of the world such a situation would be. She upbraided me with my prejudices, implored me, appealed to my generous disposition, and ended by overruling all my objections; I agreed to the indelicate proposal.
I had sworn never again to enter the house in which the drama had been enacted. But the widower had removed. He had taken rooms not far from us; I was glad to be spared a renewed visit to the old place, and accompanied the divorced wife on her visit to her late husband.
The mourning, the evident grief, the grave and gloomy appearance of the house all combined to rob our meeting of any trace of strangeness or embarrassment. The habit of seeing these two people together was a bar to any feeling of jealousy on my part, and the tactful and cordial bearing of the Baron helped to reassure me completely.
We dined together, we drank and played cards just as in the old days.
On the following day we met in my room; on a third evening at Marie's, who was now living in the house of an old lady. We fell into our former habits, and Marie was happy to see us together. It comforted her, and since we had ourselves under perfect control nobody was offended or aggrieved. The Baron looked upon us as being secretly engaged, his love for Marie seemed to be dead. Sometimes he even talked of his unhappy love-affair, for Matilda was carefully watched by her father and out of his reach.... Marie teased and comforted him alternately, and he made no secret, now, of his true feelings.
At parting their intimacy was more marked, but instead of rousing my jealousy it merely excited my disgust.
One day Marie told me that she had been to see the Baron, and stayed to have dinner with him; she justified her visit by saying that she had to talk to him on urgent business in connection with her daughter's estate which the Baron inherited.
I objected to this want of taste; in fact, I told her that her conduct was downright indecent. She burst out laughing, teasingly reminded me of my former railings against prejudice, and in the end I joined in her laughter. It was ridiculous, it was unusual, but it was good form to laugh at everything, and a splendid thing to see virtue rewarded.
After that she visited the Baron whenever she pleased, and I believe he helped her to study her part.
Up to now we had had no quarrels, for any jealousy I might have felt disappeared as soon as I got used to the state of things, and I never quite lost the old illusion that they were husband and wife. But one evening Marie came to see me alone. On helping her to remove her cloak I noticed that her dress was somewhat deranged. It roused my suspicions. She sat down on the sofa opposite the looking-glass, talking volubly all the time. Her conversation struck me as forced, she cast furtive glances at her reflection and stealthily tried to smooth her hair.
A horrible thought flashed into my mind. Unable to control my agitation, I exclaimed—
"Where have you been?"
"With Gustav."
"What did you do there?"
She started, but quickly suppressing her emotion, she replied—
"I was studying my part."
"It's a lie!"
She made an angry exclamation; she accused me of being absurdly jealous, deluged me with explanations. I wavered, and as we were invited out that evening I had to postpone all further investigation.
Thinking of this incident to-day, I would swear a solemn oath that she committed bigamy in those days, to say the least of it. But at that time I was completely deceived by her trickery. What had happened?... Probably this—
She had dined alone with the Baron; they had had coffee and liqueurs; she was seized with that after-dinner lassitude; the Baron advised her to lie down on the sofa and rest awhile, a proposal which did not displease her ... and the rest followed as a matter of course. Solitude, complete confidence, old memories, increased temptation, and the lonely man succumbed. Why deny themselves, as long as no one knew? She was her own mistress, since she had never taken money from her lover, and to break a promise—what is that to a woman! Perhaps she already regretted his loss; perhaps she had come to the conclusion that he understood her needs better than I; perhaps, now that her curiosity was satisfied, she yearned again for the stronger man; for in the struggle for the love of a woman the sensitive and delicate lover, may he be never so ardent, is always beaten by the athlete.
It was more than probable that she gave herself to him, more especially as she was free from responsibility and her woman's heart pitied the lonely man. Had I been in the place of the offended husband should I have acted otherwise? I hardly think so.
But since the beloved lips never tired of using the sublime words "honour," "decency," "morality," I refused to harbour any suspicions.
For these reasons a woman will always get the better of her lover, if he be a man of honour. He flatters himself that he is the only one, because he wants' to be the only one, and the wish is father to the thought.
To-day Marie's loyalty seems to me in the highest degree improbable, incredible, impossible.
It was also a significant fact that the Baron, when we were alone together, always manifested a lively interest in other women; and one evening, after dining with him at a restaurant, he went so far as to ask me for certain addresses. Doubtless this was done in order to deceive me.
Another thing which struck me was his attitude towards Marie; he treated her with a somewhat contemptuous courtesy; she behaved like a cocotte, and her passion for me seemed to be more and more on the wane.
At last Marie appeared before the footlights. She was a success for many and complex reasons. Firstly, everybody was curious to see a baroness on the stage; secondly, the middle-classes were sympathetic because they delighted in the blow dealt to aristocratic prestige by this divorce; the bachelors, the sexless, the enemies of matrimonial slavery, lavished flowers on her; not to forget the friends and relations of the great actor, who were interested in her because he had been her teacher and was bringing her out.
After the performance the Baron asked both of us, and the old lady with whom Marie was living, to supper.
Everybody was charmed with the result and intoxicated with the success. I was displeased with Marie's appearance because she had not removed her make-up, and her hair was still dressed as she had worn it on the stage. She was no longer the virginal mother with whom I had fallen in love, but an actress with insolent gestures, bad manners, boastful, overbearing, behaving with a kind of offensive foppishness.
In her imagination she had scaled the highest summits of art, and she dismissed all my remarks, my suggestions, with a shrug of her shoulders or a condescending, "My dear, you know nothing about it."
The Baron wore a look of dejection, like an unhappy lover. But for my presence he would have kissed her. Under the influence of an incredible quantity of Madeira he opened his heart to us, and regretted that art, the divine, should claim so many cruel sacrifices. The press—which had been well managed—confirmed her success, and an engagement seemed likely to follow.
Two photographers fought for the honour of being permitted to photograph the debutante. A successful little magazine sold the portrait of the new star, together with her biography.
What struck me most in looking at these new portraits was the fact that not one of them resembled the old one in my possession. Was it possible that her character, the expression of her face, could have changed in so short a time, in a year? Or was she a different woman when she reflected the love, the tenderness, the compassion which my eyes radiated as soon as I looked at her? The expression of her face on these portraits was vulgar, hard and insolent, every feature expressed a cruel coquetry, a challenge. One pose in particular disgusted me. She was represented leaning over the back of a low chair in such a manner that the beholder could see her bosom, which was only partly hidden by a fan resting against the upper part of her dress. Her eyes seemed riveted on the eyes of an invisible person, not myself, for my love, coupled with respect and tenderness, never caressed her with the shameless sensuality which roused in her the passion of a wanton. The photograph reminded me of those obscene pictures which are furtively offered to the passers-by at the doors of low coffee-houses under cover of the night.