When she offered me this portrait I refused to accept it.
"What!" she exclaimed in a piteous voice, which for a moment revealed her carefully concealed want of true refinement, "you refuse my photograph? Then you don't love me any more!"
When a woman says to her lover, "You don't love me any more," she has already ceased to love him.
I knew from this moment that her love was growing cold. She realised that her feeble soul had drawn from me the courage, the boldness necessary to arrive at her goal, and she wanted to be rid of the troublesome creditor. She had been stealing my thoughts while she seemed to scorn them with her contemptuous, "You know nothing about it, my dear!"
This uncultured woman, whose only accomplishment was her fluent French, whose education had been neglected, who had been brought up in the country, who knew nothing of literature or the stage, to whom I had given the first lessons in the correct pronunciation of Swedish, to whom I had explained the secrets of metrics and prosody, treated me as if I were an idiot.
I advised her to select for her second appearance in public, which was to take place shortly, the principal part in the best melodrama on the repertoire. She refused. But a few days later she informed me casually that the idea had occurred to her to choose this particular part. I analysed it for her, sketched the costumes, drew her attention to all the points to be made, showed her how to make her entrances and exits, and pointed out to her the features which should be specially emphasized.
A secret struggle went on between the Baron and myself. He, who stage-managed the performances of the Royal Guards, instructed the play-acting soldiers, fondly imagining himself to be better acquainted with theatrical affairs than I was. Marie valued his so-called hints more highly; accepted him as her authority, scorned my suggestions. Oh! the vileness of his conception of æsthetics! He extolled the commonplace, the vulgar, the banal, because, as he said, it was true nature.
I admitted his arguments as far as modern comedy was concerned, for here the characters are depicted among the thousand details of everyday life. But his theory became impossible when applied, for instance, to English melodrama; great passions cannot be expressed in the same way as the whims and witticisms of a drawing-room conversation.
But this distinction was too subtle for a mediocre brain, which could only generalise and assume that because a certain thing happened in one case, it must infallibly become the rule and happen in all others.
On the day before her appearance Marie showed me her dresses. In spite of my opposition and entreaties she had chosen a dull grey material, most unbecoming to her because it gave her complexion an ashen hue. Her only reply had been a curt repulse and the truly feminine argument—
"But Mrs. X., the great tragedienne, created the part in a grey dress!"
"True, but Mrs. X. is not fair like you! And what suits a dark woman doesn't always suit a fair one."
She had not been able to see my point and had only been angry with me.
I had prophesied a fiasco, and her second appearance really was a dead failure.
The tears, the reproaches, the insults even which followed!
As misfortune would have it, a week later the great actress appeared in the same part, in a special performance, and received cart-loads of flowers.
Of course Marie was furious with me and made me responsible for her failure, simply because I had prophesied it; the grief and disappointment brought her still nearer to the Baron; it drew them together with the sympathy which always unites inferior characters.
I, the man of letters, the playwright, the dramatic critic, at home in all the literatures, through my work and position at the library in correspondence with the finest intellects of the world, I was cast aside like a worn-out garment, treated like an idiot, considered of no more importance than a footman or a dog.
But although her second appearance had been a failure, she was engaged with a pay of 2,400 crowns[1]per annum. She had acquitted herself fairly well, but she had no great career before her. She would never rise above the level of a "useful actress"; she would be cast for small parts, society women, mere dressed-up dolls, and spend her days at the dressmaker's. Three, four, sometimes five different dresses on one and the same evening would swallow up her insufficient pay.
What bitter disappointments, what heart-rending scenes, as she watched her parts grow smaller and smaller, until they consisted of a few sentences only. Her room had the appearance of a dressmaker's workshop, littered with dress materials, patterns and millinery. The mother, the realgrande damewho had left her drawing-rooms, renounced dress and fashion, to devote her life to a lofty ideal of art, had become a bungling seamstress who worked at her sewing machine till midnight, so that she might play before an indifferent bourgeoisie for a few minutes the part of a society woman.
The waste of time behind the scenes during rehearsal, when she stood in the wings for hours waiting for her cue which should bring her before the footlights to say two or three words, developed in her a taste for gossip, for idle talk and risky stories; it killed all honest striving to rise above her condition; the soul was shorn of its wings and was flung to earth, into the gutter.
The disintegrating process went on. She continued to deteriorate, and after her dresses had been remodelled again and again for want of means to buy new ones, she was deprived of even her small parts and degraded to the role of a walker on. Poverty was staring her in the face, and her mother, a modern Cassandra, made life a burden to her; the public, well acquainted with her sensational divorce, and the premature death of her little girl, cried out against the unfaithful wife, the unnatural mother. It was but a question of time and the manager of the theatre would not be able to protect her against the antipathy of the audience; the great actor, her teacher, disowned her and admitted his mistake in believing in her talent.
So much ado, so much unhappiness, to humour a woman who did not know her own mind.
And still matters grew worse, for Marie's mother suddenly died of heart disease, of a broken heart, as it was called, broken with sorrow, caused by her unnatural daughter. Again my honour was involved. I was furious with the injustice of the world, and made a desperate effort to vindicate her honour. I proposed the foundation of a weekly paper, for the discussion of the drama, music, literature and art, and she, thankful now for every effort to help her, gratefully accepted my proposal. In this paper she was to make her début as a critic and writer of feuilletons, and so gradually become acquainted with publishers. She sunk two hundred crowns in the enterprise. I undertook the editorial work and proof-reading. Since I was well aware of my complete incapacity as a business manager, I left her to attend to the sale and advertisements, the proceeds of which she was to share with the manager of her theatre, who was also the proprietor of a news stall.
The first number was set and looked very well indeed. It contained a leader written by one of our rising artists; an original article from a correspondent in Rome; another one from Paris; a critique on a musical performance by a distinguished writer and contributor to one of the first Stockholm papers; a literary review written by myself; a feuilleton and reports on first nights by Marie.
It would have been impossible to improve the arrangements made; the great thing was to publish the first number at the time advertised. Everything was ready, but at the last moment we lacked the necessary funds and credit.
Alas! I had put my fate into the hands of a woman! On the day of the publication she remained calmly in bed and slept till broad daylight.
Convinced that everything was well, I went to town, but everywhere on my way I was greeted with sarcastic smiles.
"Well, where is the wonderful paper to be had?" I was asked the question dozens of times by the numerous people interested in its appearance.
"Everywhere!"
"Or nowhere!"
I went into a newspaper shop.
"We haven't received it yet," said the assistant behind the counter.
I rushed to the printing-office. It had not left the press yet.
A complete failure! We had an angry scene. Her inborn carelessness and ignorance of the publishing trade exonerated her to some extent. She had completely relied on her friend, the theatrical manager.
The two hundred crowns were gone. My time, my honour, the eager thought I had devoted to the scheme, all were wasted.
In this general shipwreck one haunting thought remained: our condition was hopeless.
I proposed that we should die together. What was to become of us? She was quite broken down and I had not the strength to lift her up a second time.
"Let us die," I said to her. "Don't let us degenerate into walking corpses and obstruct the path of the living."
She refused.
What a coward you were, my proud Marie! And how cruel it was of you to make me a witness of the spectacle of your downfall, the laughter and sneers of the onlookers!
I spent the evening at my club, and when I went home that night I was intoxicated.
I went to see her early on the following morning. The alcohol seemed to have made me more clear-sighted. For the first time I noticed the change in her. Her room was untidy, her dress slovenly, her beloved little feet were thrust into a pair of old slippers, the stockings hung in wrinkles round her ankles. What squalor!
Her vocabulary had become enriched by some ugly theatrical slang; her gestures were reminiscent of the street, her eyes looked at me with hatred, an expression of bitterness drew down the corners of her mouth.
She remained stooping over her work, without looking at me, as if she were thinking evil thoughts.
Suddenly, without raising her head, she said hoarsely—
"Do you know, Axel, what a woman is justified in expecting from the man with whom she is on intimate terms, such as we are?"
Thunderstruck, unwilling to trust my ears, I faltered—
"No ... what?"
"What does a woman expect from her lover?"
"Love!"
"And what else?"
"Money!"
The vulgar word saved her from further questioning, and I left her, convinced that I had guessed correctly.
"Prostitute! Prostitute!" I said to myself, stumbling through the streets, the autumnal appearance of which depressed my spirits. We had arrived at the last stage.... All that remained to do was to make payment for pleasures received, to admit the trade without shame.
If she had been poor, at least, suffering from want! But she had just come into her mother's money, the entire furniture of a house, and a number of shares, some of doubtful value, but nevertheless representing two or three thousand crowns; moreover, she was still receiving her pay regularly from the theatre.
I could not understand her attitude ... until suddenly I remembered her landlady and intimate friend.
She was an abominable, elderly woman, with the suspicious manners of a procuress; nobody knew how she lived; she was always in debt, yet always extravagantly and strikingly dressed; somehow she managed to ingratiate herself with people, and she always ended by asking them for a small loan, eternally bewailing her miserable existence. A shady character, who hated me because I saw through her.
Now I suddenly remembered an incident which had happened two or three months ago, but which had not interested me at the time. The woman had extracted a promise from a friend of Marie's to lend her a thousand crowns. The promise had remained a promise. Eventually Marie, giving way to pressure and anxious to save the reputation of her friend, who was badly compromised, guaranteed to find the money, and actually raised the sum. But instead of gratitude she reaped nothing but reproaches from her friend, and when it came to explanations, the old-woman insisted on her perfect innocence and laid the full blame on Marie's shoulders. I had at the time expressed my dislike and distrust of her, and urged Marie to have nothing to do with an individual whose manipulations came very close to blackmail.
But she had exonerated her false friend at the time.... Later on she told a different story altogether, talked of a misunderstanding; in the end the whole incident became "an invention of my evil imagination."
Possibly this woman had suggested to Marie the vile idea of "presenting me with the bill." It must have been so, for the suggestion had not been made easily and was most unlike her. I tried to make myself believe it, hope it.
If she had merely asked me for the money which she had invested in the paper, the money which had been lost through her fault—that would have been female mathematics. Or, if she had insisted on an immediate marriage! But she had no wish to be married, I was sure of that. It was a question of paying for the love, the kisses she had given me. It was payment she demanded.... Supposing I sent her in my bill: for my work according to time and quality, for the waste of brain power, of nerve force, for my heart's blood, my name, my honour, my sufferings; the bill for my career, ruined, perhaps, for ever.
But no, it was her privilege to send in the first bill; I took no exception to that.
I spent my evening at a restaurant, wandered through the streets and pondered the problem of degradation. Why is it so painful to watch a person sink? It must be because there is something unnatural in it, for nature demands personal progress, evolution, and every backward step means the disintegration of force.
The same argument applies to the life of the community where everybody strives to reach the material or spiritual summits. Thence comes the tragic feeling which seizes us in the contemplation of failure, tragic as autumn, sickness and death. This woman, who had not yet reached her thirtieth year, had been young, beautiful, frank, honest, amiable, strong and well-bred; in two short years she had been so degraded, had fallen so low.
For a moment I tried to blame myself; the thought that the fault was mine would have been a comfort to me, for it would have made her shame seem less. But try as I would, I did not succeed, for had I not taught her the cult of the beautiful? the love of high ideals? the longing to do noble acts? While she adopted the vulgarities of her theatrical friends, I had improved, I had acquired the manners and language of fashionable society, I had learned that self-control which keeps emotion in check and is considered the hall-mark of good breeding. I had become chaste in love, anxious to spare modesty, not to offend against beauty and seemliness, for thus only can we forget the brutality of an act which to my mind is much more spiritual than physical.
I was rough sometimes, it is true, but never vulgar. I killed, but never wounded. I called a spade a spade, but never hinted and insinuated; my ideas were my own, prompted by the situations in which I happened to find myself; I never tried to dazzle with the witticisms of musical comedies or comic papers.
I loved cleanliness, purity, beauty in my daily surroundings; I preferred to refuse an invitation to accepting it and appearing badly dressed. I never received her in dressing-gown and slippers; I may not always have been able to offer a guest more than bread and butter and a glass of beer, but there was always a clean table-cloth.
I had not set her a bad example; it was not my fault that she had deteriorated. Her love for me was dead, therefore she did not want to please me any longer. She belonged to the public, it was that fact which had made her the wanton who could calmly present her bill for so many nights of pleasure....
During the next few days I shut myself up in my library. I mourned for my love, my splendid, foolish, divine love. All was over, and the battlefield on which the struggle had raged was silent and still. Two dead and so many wounded to satisfy a woman who was not worth a pair of old shoes! If her passion had at least been roused by the longing for motherhood, if she had been guided by the unrealised instincts which force those unfortunates who are mothers on the streets! But she detested children; in her eyes motherhood was degrading. Unnatural and perverse woman that she was, she debased the maternal instinct to a vulgar pleasure. Her race was doomed to extinction because she was a degenerate, in the process of dissolution; but she concealed this dissolution under high-sounding phrases, proclaimed that it was our duty to live for higher ends, for the good of humanity at large.
I loathed her now, I tried to forget her. I paced the room, up and down, up and down, before the rows of book-shelves, unable to rid myself of the accursed night-mare which haunted me. I had no desire for her, or for her company, for she inspired me with disgust; and yet a deep compassion, an almost paternal tenderness made me feel responsible for her future. I knew that if I left her to her own devices, she would go under, and end either as the mistress of her late husband, or the mistress of all the world.
I was powerless to lift her up, powerless to struggle out of the morass into which we had fallen. I resigned myself to remain tied to her, even if I had to witness and share in her downward course. She was dragging me down with her—life had become a burden to me, I had lost all enthusiasm for my work. The instinct of self-preservation, hope, were dead. I wanted nothing, desired nothing. I had developed into a complete misanthrope; I frequently turned away from the door of my restaurant and, forgoing dinner, returned home, threw myself on my sofa and buried myself under my rugs. There I lay, like a wild beast that has received its death wound, rigid, with an empty brain, unable to think or sleep, waiting for the end.
One day, however, I was sitting in a back room of my restaurant, a private room where lovers meet and shabby coats hide themselves, both afraid of the daylight. All at once a well-known voice woke me from my reverie: a man wished me a good afternoon.
He was an unsuccessful architect, a lost member of our late Bohemia, which was now scattered to all the winds.
"You are still among the living, then?" he said, sitting down opposite me.
"I am ... but what about you?"
"I'm so-so ... off to Paris to-morrow ... some fool left me ten thousand crowns."
"Lucky dog!"
"Unfortunately I have to devour it all by myself...."
"The misfortune is not so great, I know a set of teeth ready to help you."
"Really? Would you care to come?..."
"Only too glad to!"
"Is it a bargain then?"
"It's a bargain."
"To-morrow night, by the six o'clock train, to Paris...."
"And afterwards?..."
"A bullet through the head!"
"The devil! Where did you get this idea from?"
"From your face! Suicide is plainly written on it!"
"Haruspex! Well, pack up and come along!"
When I saw Marie that night I told her the good news. She listened with every appearance of pleasure, wished me a pleasant time, and repeated again and again that it would do me a world of good, would refresh me mentally. In short, she seemed well pleased, and overwhelmed me with affection, which touched me deeply.
We spent the evening together, talking of the days which had gone by. We made no plans, for we had lost faith in the future. Then we parted.... For ever? ... The question was not mooted; we silently agreed to leave it to chance to reunite us or not.
[1]A Swedish crown is equivalent to 1s. 4d.
[1]A Swedish crown is equivalent to 1s. 4d.
The journey really rejuvenated me. It stirred up the memories of my early youth and I felt a mad joy surging in my heart; I wanted to forget the last two years of misery, and not for one single moment did I feel inclined to speak of Marie. The whole tragedy of the divorce was like a repulsive heap of offal, from which I was eager to fly without turning round. I could not help smiling in my sleeve at times, like a fugitive who is firmly resolved not to be taken again; I felt like a debtor who has escaped from his creditors and is hiding in a distant country.
For two weeks I revelled in the Paris theatres, museums and libraries. I received no letters from Marie, and was beginning to hope that she had got over our separation and that everything was well in the best of all possible worlds.
But after a certain time I grew tired of wandering about, and sated with so many new and strong impressions; things began to lose their interest. I stayed in my room and read the papers, oppressed by vague apprehensions, by an inexplicable uneasiness.
The vision of the white woman, the Fata Morgana of the virginal mother began to haunt me and disturbed my peace. The picture of the insolent actress was wiped out of my memory; I remembered only the Baroness, young, beautiful; her fragile body transfigured and clothed with the beauty of the Land of Promise, dreamed of by the ascètes.
I was indulging in those painful and yet delicious dreams when I received a letter from Marie, in which she informed me in heartbreaking words that she was about to become a mother, and implored me to save her from dishonour.
Without a moment's hesitation I packed my portmanteau. I left Paris by the first train for Stockholm. I was going to make her my wife.
I had no doubt about the paternity of the expected baby. I looked upon the result of our irregular relations as a blessing, as the end of our sufferings; but also as a fact which burdened us with a heavy responsibility, which might spell ruin; at the same time, however, it was the starting point into the unknown; something quite new. Moreover, I always had a very high conception of married life; I considered it the only possible form under which two persons of opposite sex could live together. Life together held no terror for me. My love received a fresh stimulus from the fact that Marie was about to become a mother; she arose purified, ennobled, from the mire of our illicit relationship.
On my arrival at Stockholm she received me very ungraciously and accused me of having deceived her. We had a painful scene—but need she have been so surprised after all that had happened during the last twelve months?
She hated matrimony. Her objectionable friend had impressed upon her that a married woman is a slave who works for her husband gratuitously. I detest slaves, and therefore proposed a modernménage, in keeping with our views.
I suggested that we should take three rooms, one for her, one for myself and a common room. We should neither do our own housekeeping, nor have any servants in the house. Dinner should be sent in from a neighbouring restaurant, breakfast and supper be prepared in the kitchen by a daily servant. In this way expenses were easily calculated and the causes for unpleasantness reduced to a minimum.
To avoid every suspicion of living on my wife's dowry, I suggested that it should be settled on her. In the North a man considers himself dishonoured by the acceptance of his wife's dowry, which in civilised countries forms a sort of contribution from the wife, and creates in her the illusion that her husband is not keeping her entirely. To avoid a bad start it is the custom in Germany and Denmark for the wife to furnish the house; this creates the impression on the husband that he is living in his wife's house, and in the latter that she is in her own home, maintaining her husband.
Marie had recently inherited her mother's furniture, articles without any intrinsic value, their only claim to distinction being a certain sentimental merit of old association and an air of antiquity. She proposed that she should furnish the rooms, arguing that it would be absurd to buy furniture for three rooms when she had enough for six. I willingly agreed to her proposal.
There only remained one more point, the main one, the expected baby. We were agreed on the necessity of keeping its birth a secret, and we decided to place it with a reliable nurse until such time as we could adopt it.
The wedding was fixed for the 31st of December. During the remaining two months I strained every nerve to make adequate provision for the future. For this purpose, and knowing that Marie would soon be compelled to renounce her work at the theatre, I renewed my literary efforts. I worked with such ease that at the end of the first month I was able to offer for publication a volume of short stories, which was accepted without difficulty.
Fortune favoured me; I was appointed assistant-librarian with a salary of twelve hundred crowns, and when the collections were transferred from the old building to the new one I received a bonus of six hundred crowns. This was good fortune indeed, and taken together with other favourable omens I began to think that a relentless fate had tired of persecuting me.
The first and foremost magazine in Finland offered me a post on the staff as reviewer at fifty crowns for each article. The official Swedish Journal, published by the Academy, gave me the much-coveted order to write the reviews on art for thirty-five crowns the column. Besides all this I was entrusted with the revision of the classics which were being published at that time.
All this good fortune came to me in those two months, the most fateful months of my whole life.
My short stories appeared almost immediately and were a great success. I was hailed as a master of this particular style; it was said that the book was epoch-making in the literature of Sweden, because it was the first to introduce modern realism.
It was unspeakable happiness to me to lay at the feet of my poor, adored Marie a name which, apart from the titles of a royal secretary, and assistant-librarian, was beginning to be known, with every prospect of a brilliant future.
Some day I should be able to give her a fresh start, to re-open her theatrical career, which for the moment had been interrupted by, perhaps, undeserved misfortune.
Fortune was smiling at us with a tear in the eye....
The banns were published. I packed my belongings and said good-bye to my attic, the witness of many joys and sorrows. I marched into that prison which all fear, but which, perhaps, we had less cause to dread than others, since we had foreseen all dangers, removed all stumbling blocks.... And yet....
What inexpressible happiness it is to be married! To be always near the beloved one, safe from the prying eyes of the fatuous world. It is as if one had regained the home of one's childhood with its sheltering love, a safe port after the storm, a nest which awaits the little ones.
Surrounded by nothing but objects which belonged to her, mementoes and relics of her parents' house, I felt as if I were a shoot grafted on her trunk; the oil paintings of her ancestors deluded me into thinking that I had been adopted by her family, because her ancestors will also be the ancestors of my children. I received everything from her hand; she made me wear her father's watch and chain; my dinner was served on her mother's china; she poured on me a continuous stream of trifling presents, relics of old times, which had belonged to famous warriors celebrated by the poets of her country, a fact which impressed me not a little. She was the benefactress, the generous giver of all these gifts, and I entirely forgot that it was I who had reclaimed her, lifted her out of the mire, made her the wife of a man with brilliant prospects; forgot that she had been an unknown actress, a divorced wife condemned by her sisters, a woman whom very probably I had saved from the worst.
What a happy life we led! We realised the dream of freedom in marriage. No double-bed, no common bed-room, room, no common dressing-room; nothing unseemly degraded the sanctity of our union. Marriage as we understood and realised it was a splendid institution. The tender good-nights, repeated again and again; the joy of wishing each other good-morning, of asking how we had slept, were they not due to the fact that we occupied separate rooms? How delightful were the stolen visits to each other, the courtesy and tenderness which we never forgot! How different compared with the brazen boldness, the more or less graciously endured brutalities which are as a rule inseparable from matrimony.
I got through an amazing amount of work, staying at home by the side of my beloved wife who was sewing tiny garments for the expected baby. What a lot of time I had wasted in rendezvous and idleness in the days gone by!
After a month of the closest companionship Marie was laid up with a premature confinement. We had a tiny daughter, hardly able to draw breath. Without a moment's delay the baby was taken charge of by a nurse whom we knew to be a decent woman, and two days later it passed away as it had come, without pain, from sheer want of vitality, just after it had received private baptism.
The mother received the news with regret, but it was regret not unmingled with relief. A burden of infinite cares and worries had fallen off her shoulders, for well she knew that social prejudice would not have permitted her to keep the prematurely-born infant under our own roof.
After this incident we firmly made up our minds to one thing: No more children! We dreamed of a life together, a life of perfect comradeship, of a man and a woman, loving and supplementing each other, but living their own lives, restlessly straining every nerve to realise their individual ambitions.
Now that every obstacle had been removed, every threatening danger overcome, we began to breathe freely and reconsider our position. I was ostracised by my relations, no meddlesome member of my family threatened the peace of our home, and since the only relative of my wife's who lived on the spot was her aunt, we were spared the frequent calls and visits which so often give rise to serious troubles and trials in a youngménage.
Six weeks later I made the discovery that two intruders had insinuated themselves into my wife's confidence.
One of them was a dog, a King Charles, a blear-eyed little monster, which greeted me with deafening yelping and barking every time I entered the house, just as if I had been a stranger. I always disliked dogs, those protectors of cowards who lack the courage to fight an assailant themselves; but I particularly disliked this dog, because it was a relic of her first marriage, a constant reminder of her late husband.
The first time I protested, and ordered it to lie down, my wife reproached me gently, and made excuses for the little beast, which she called her late daughter's legacy, pretending to be horror-struck at this suddenly revealed strain of cruelty in my disposition.
One day I found traces of the little monster on the drawing-room carpet. I punished it, and she called me a coward who ill-treated dumb creatures.
"But what else could I do, my dear? It's no use arguing with animals; they don't understand our language."
She began to cry, and sobbingly confessed that she could not help being afraid of a cruel man....
And the monster continued to dirty the drawing-room carpet.
I decided to take the trouble to train the dog, and did my utmost to convince her that a little perseverance does wonders with an intelligent animal.
She lost her temper, and for the first time drew my attention to the fact that the carpet belonged to her.
"Take it away, then; I never undertook to live in a pig-sty."
The carpet remained where it was, but the dog was watched more carefully; my remonstrances had some effect.
Nevertheless fresh catastrophes occurred.
In order to keep down our expenditure and save the trouble and expense of a kitchen fire, we decided to have a cold supper in the evening. Entering the kitchen accidentally on one occasion, I was amazed to find a roaring fire and the maid engaged in frying veal cutlets.
"Who are these cutlets for?"
"For the dog, sir."
My wife joined us.
"My dear girl——"
"Excuse me, I paid for them!"
"But I have to be content with a cold supper! I fare worse than your dog.... And I, too, pay."
She paid!
Henceforth the dog was looked upon as a martyr. Marie and a friend, a brand-new friend, adopted the habit of worshipping the beast, which they had decorated with a blue ribbon, behind locked doors. And the dear friend heaved a sigh at the thought of so much human malice incarnate in my detestable person.
An irrepressible hatred for this interloper who was everywhere in my way, took possession of me. My wife, with a down pillow and some blankets, made a bed for it which obstructed my way whenever I wanted to say good-morning or good-night to her. And on every Saturday, the day I looked forward to through a week of toil, counting on a pleasant evening with her alone when, undisturbed, we could talk of the past and make plans for the future, she spent three hours with her friend in the kitchen; the maid made up a blazing fire; the whole place was turned upside down—and why? Because Saturday was the monster's tub-day.
"Don't you think you are treating me heartlessly, cruelly?"
"How dare you call her heartless?" exclaimed the friend. "A gentler soul never breathed. Why, she doesn't even shrink from sacrificing her own and her husband's happiness to a poor forsaken animal!"
Some little time after I sat down to a dinner which was below criticism.
For some time past the food which was sent in daily from a neighbouring restaurant had been steadily deteriorating, but my beloved wife, with her irresistible sweetness, had made me believe that I had grown more fastidious. And I had not doubted her word, for I always took her at her own valuation and looked upon her as the soul of truth and candour.
The fatal dinner was served. There was nothing on the dish but bones and sinews.
"What is this you are putting before me?" I asked the maid.
"I am sorry, sir," she replied, "but I had orders to reserve the best pieces for the dog."
Beware of the woman who has been found out! Her wrath will fall on your head with fourfold strength.
She sat as if struck by lightning, unmasked, shown up as a liar, a cheat even, for she had always insisted that she was paying for the dog's food out of her own pocket. Her pallor and silence made me feel sorry for her. I blushed for her, and hating to see her humiliated, I behaved like a generous conqueror, and tried to console her. I playfully patted her cheek and told her not to mind.
But generosity was not one of her virtues. She burst into a torrent of angry words: My origin was very evident; I had no education, no manners, since I rebuked her before a servant, a stupid girl who had misunderstood her instructions. There was no doubt that I, and I only, was to blame. Hysterics followed, she grew more and more violent, jumped up from her chair, threw herself on the sofa, raved like a maniac, sobbed and screamed that she was dying.
I was sceptical, and remained untouched.
Such a fuss, and all about a dog!
But she continued to scream; it was a frightful scene; a terrible cough shook her frame, which since her confinement had grown even more fragile; I was deceived after all, and sent for the doctor.
He came, examined her heart, felt her pulse, and surlily turned to go; I stopped him on the threshold.
"Well?"
"H'm! nothing at all," he answered, putting on his overcoat.
"Nothing?... But...."
"Nothing whatever.... You ought to know women.... Good day!"
If I had only known then what I know now, if I had known the secret, the remedy for hysteria which I have discovered since! But the only thing which occurred to me at the time was to kiss her eyes and ask her pardon. And that was what I did. She pressed me to her heart, called me her sensible child who should take care of her because she was very delicate, very weak, and would die one day if her little boy had not the sense to avoid scenes.
To make her quite happy I took her dog upon my knees and stroked its back; and for the next half hour I was rewarded with looks full of the tenderest affection and gratitude.
From that day the dog was allowed to do exactly as it liked, and it dirtied the place without shame or restraint. Sometimes it seemed to me that it did it out of revenge. But I controlled my temper.
I waited for a favourable opportunity, for the happy chance which would deliver me from the torture of a life spent in an unclean home....
And the moment arrived. On returning to dinner one day, I found my wife in tears. She was in great distress. Dinner was not ready. The maid was looking for the lost dog.
Hardly able to conceal my joy, I made every effort to comfort my inconsolable wife. But she could not understand my sympathy with her grief, for she realised my inward satisfaction in finding the enemy gone.
"You are delighted, I know you are," she exclaimed. "You find amusement in the misfortunes of your friends. That shows how full of malice you are, and that you don't love me any more."
"My love for you is as great as ever it was, believe me, but I detest your dog."
"If you love me, you must love my dog too!"
"If I didn't love you, I should have struck you before now!"
The effect of my words was startling. To strike a woman! Carried away by her resentment, she reproached me with having turned out her dog, poisoned it.
We went to every police-station, we paid a visit to the knacker, and in the end the disturber of our peace and happiness was recovered. My wife and her friend, regarding me as a poisoner, or at any rate a potential poisoner, celebrated its recovery with great rejoicings.
Henceforth the monster was kept a prisoner in my wife's bedroom; that charming retreat of love, furnished with exquisite taste, was turned into a dog's kennel.
Our small flat became uninhabitable, our home-life full of jars. I ventured to make a remark to the effect, but my wife replied that her room was her own.
Then I started on a merciless crusade. I left her severely alone; and by and by she found my reserve unbearable.
"Why do you never come to say good-morning to me now?"
"Because I can't get near you."
She sulked. I sulked too. For another fortnight I lived in celibacy. Then, tired out, she found herself compelled to make friends. She took the first step, but she hated me for it.
She decided to have the troublesome interloper destroyed. But instead of having it done forthwith, she invited her friend to assist her in the enactment of a farewell farce, entitled "The Last Moments of the Condemned." She went to the length of begging me on her knees to embrace the wretched little brute as a proof that I harboured no ill-will, arguing that dogs might possibly have an immortal soul and that we might meet again in another world. The result was that I gave the dog its life and freedom, an action which found its reward in her gratitude.
At times I fancied that I was living in a lunatic asylum, but one does not stand upon trifles when one is in love.
This scene, "The Last Moments of the Condemned," was renewed every six months during the next three years.
You, reader, who read this plain tale of a man, a woman and a dog, will not deny me your compassion, for my sufferings lasted three times three hundred and sixty-five days of twenty-four hours each. You will perhaps admire me, for I remained alive. If it be true, however, that I am insane, as my wife maintains, blame no one but myself, for I ought to have had the courage to get rid of the dog once and for all.
Marie's friend was an old maid of about forty years, mysterious, full of ideals with which I had lost all sympathy long ago.
She was my wife's consoler. In her arms she wept over my dislike of her dog. She was a ready listener to Marie's abuse of matrimony, the slavery of women.
She was rather reserved and careful not to interfere; anyhow I noticed nothing, for I was completely preoccupied with my work. But I had an idea that she was in the habit of borrowing small sums from my wife. I said nothing until one day I saw her carrying off some of the table silver with the intention of pawning it for her own benefit.
I said a word or two about it to Marie, and gave her to understand that even under the dotal system this sort of comradeship was very unwise. She never dreamed of helping me, her husband and best friend, in this way, although I was in difficulties and worried by debts.
"Since you listen to such proposals from strangers," I said to her, "why not lend me your shares? I could raise money on them."
She objected, arguing that the shares had fallen so low as to be practically valueless and consequently unsaleable. Moreover it was against her principles to transact business with her husband.
"But you don't object to a stranger, who can give you no security whatever, who lives on a pension of seventy-five crowns, per annum! Don't you think it wrong to refuse to help your husband who is trying to make a career, and provision for you when you have spent your own money, not to mention the fact that your interests are identical with his?"
She yielded, and the loan of three thousand five hundred francs, or thereabouts, in doubtful shares, was granted.
From this day onward she looked upon herself as my patroness, and told everybody who cared to listen that she had safeguarded my career by sacrificing her dowry. The fact of my being a well-known writer before I had ever set eyes on her was quite lost sight of. But it was bliss to me to look up to her, to be indebted to her for everything: my life, my future, my happiness.
In our marriage contract I had insisted on settling all her property on herself, partly because her financial affairs were chaos. The Baron owed her money; but instead of paying her in cash, he had guaranteed a loan which she had raised. In spite of all my precautions I was requested by the bank on the morning after our wedding to guarantee the sum. My objections were so much waste of breath; the bank did not look upon my wife as responsible, since by her second marriage she had again legally become a minor. To my great indignation I was compelled to sign the guarantee, to put my signature by the side of that of the Baron.
In my perfect simplicity I had no idea of what I was doing. It merely seemed to me that what every man of the world would have done in my place, was the right thing to do.
One evening, while I was closeted in my room with a friend, the Baron called. It was his first call since our wedding. My predecessor's visit seemed to me in bad taste, to say the least of it; but since he did not mind meeting me, I pretended to be pleased to see him. When I accompanied my friend to the door, however, I did not think it necessary to introduce him. Later on, my wife reproached me for the omission, and called me unmannerly. I accused both her and the Baron of tactlessness.
A violent quarrel ensued, in which she called me a boor. One word led to another, and certain pictures were mentioned which had once belonged to the Baron, but were now decorating my walls. I begged her to send them back to him.
"You cannot return presents without hurting the giver," she exclaimed. "He doesn't dream of returning the presents you gave him, but keeps them as a proof of his friendship and trust."
The pretty word "trust" disarmed me. But my eye fell on a piece of furniture which awakened unpleasant memories.
"Where does this writing-table come from?"
"It was my mother's."
She was speaking the truth, although she omitted to add that it had passed through her first husband's house.
What a strange lack of delicacy, what bad form, how utterly regardless of my honour! Was it done intentionally so as to depreciate me in the eyes of my fellow-men? Had I fallen into a trap set by an unscrupulous woman? I wondered....
Yet I surrendered unconditionally without struggling against her subtle logic, convinced that her aristocratic bringing-up ought to serve me as a guide in all doubtful cases where my education did not suffice. She had a ready answer to everything. The Baron had never bought a single piece of furniture. Everything belonged to her—and since the Baron did not scruple to keep my wife's furniture, I need not scruple to accept all articles which belonged to my own wife.
The last phrase: "Since the Baron did not scruple to keep my wife's furniture," caused me lively satisfaction. Because the pictures which hung in my drawing-room were proofs of a noble trust and evidenced the ideal character of our relationship, they remained where they were; I even carried simplicity to the length of telling all inquisitive callers who cared to know who the giver of those landscapes was.
I never dreamed in those days that it was I, the man belonging to the middle-classes, who possessed tact and delicacy, instincts which are as frequently found amongst the lower strata of society as they are wanting in men and women of the upper ones, where coarse minds are only too often cleverly concealed under a thin layer of veneer. Would that I had known what manner of woman she was in whose hands I had laid my fate!
But I did not know it.
As soon as Marie had got over her confinement, which compelled her to live quietly for a time, she was seized with a craving for excitement. Under the pretext of studying her art, she visited the theatres and went to public entertainments while I stayed at home and worked. Protected by the title of a married woman, she was received in circles which had been closed to the divorced wife. She was anxious that I should accompany her, for she considered the fact of her husband's absence prejudicial to her best interests. But I resisted, and while claiming for myself personal freedom, according to our verbal agreement, I allowed her absolute liberty, and let her go where she pleased.
"But no one ever sets eyes on the husband," she objected.
"People will understand him," I replied.
The husband! The very way in which she pronounced the word conveyed opprobrium; and she fell into the habit of treating me with a certain amount of superciliousness.
During the solitary hours which I spent at home I worked at my ethnographical treatise, which was to be the ladder on which I hoped to climb to promotion at the library. I was in correspondence with all the learned authorities in Paris, Berlin, Petersburg, Irkutsk and Peking, and, seated at my writing-table, I held in my hand the threads of a perfect net of inter-relations which stretched all over the world. Marie did not approve of this work. She would have preferred to see me engaged in writing comedies, and was angry with me. I begged her to await results, and not condemn my work prematurely as waste of time. But she would have none of these Chinese researches which brought in no money. A new Xanthippe, she severely tried my Socratic patience by reiterating that I was frittering away her dowry—her dowry!
My life was a strange mingling of sweetness and bitterness, and one of my greatest worries was Marie's theatrical career. In March it was rumoured that the company of the Royal Theatre would be reduced at the end of May, the period when contracts were renewed. This gave rise to fresh floods of tears during the next three months, in addition to the usual every-day grievances. The house was overrun by all the failures from the Royal Theatre. My soul, broadened and uplifted by the knowledge I had acquired, and the growth and development of my talent, rebelled against the presence of these unfit ones, these incapables who possessed no culture, who were detestable on account of their vanity, their ceaseless flow of banalities, uttered in the slang of the theatre, which they called new truths.
I became so sick of the torture of their tittle-tattle that I begged to be in future excused from my wife's parties. I urged her to cut her connection with those mental lepers, those disqualified ones, whose presence must of necessity depress us and rob us of our courage.
"Aristocrat!" she sneered.
"Aristocrat, if you like, but aristocrat in the true sense of the word," I replied; "for I yearn for the summits of genius, not for the mole-hills of the titled aristocracy. Nevertheless, I suffer all the sorrows of the disinherited."
When I ask myself to-day how I could have lived for years the slave of a woman who treated me disgracefully, who shamelessly robbed me in company of her friends and her dog, I come to the conclusion that it was thanks to my moderation, to my ascetic philosophy of life, which taught me not to be exacting, especially in love. I loved her so much that I irritated her, and more than once she plainly showed me that my passionate temperament bored her. But everything was forgotten and forgiven at those rare moments when she caressed me, when she took my throbbing head into her lap, when her fingers played with my hair. This was happiness unspeakable, and like a fool I stammered out the confession that life without her would be impossible, that my existence hung on a thread which she held in her hand. In this way I fostered a conviction in her that she was a higher being, and the consequence was that she treated me with flattery and blandishments as if I were a spoilt child. She knew that I was in her power, and did not scruple to abuse it.
When the summer came she went into the country and took her maid with her. She moreover persuaded her friend to accompany her, for she was afraid of feeling lonely during the week when my work kept me at the library. It was in vain that I objected, that I reminded her that her friend was not in a position to pay, and that our means were limited; Marie looked upon me as a "spirit of evil," and reproached me with speaking ill of everybody. I gave in eventually, in order to avoid unpleasantness. I gave in—alas! I always gave in.
After a whole week's loneliness I welcomed Saturday as a red-letter day. With a jubilant heart I caught an early train and then set out joyfully for half-an-hour's walk under the scorching sun, carrying bottles and provisions for the week. My blood danced through my veins, my pulse throbbed at the thought of seeing Marie in a few moments; she would come to meet me with open arms, her hair flying in the breeze, her face rosy with the sweet country air. In addition I was hungry and looking forward to a gay little dinner, for I had eaten nothing since my early breakfast. At last the cottage among the fir-trees, close to the lake, came in sight. At the same time I caught a glimpse of Marie and her friend, in light summer dresses, stealing away to the bathing vans. I shouted to them with all the power of my lungs. They could not help hearing me, for they were well within earshot. But they only hastened their footsteps, as if they were running away from me, and disappeared into a bathing van. What did it mean?
The maid appeared as soon as she heard my footsteps in the house; she looked uneasy, afraid.
"Where are the ladies?"
"They have gone to bathe, sir."
"When will dinner be ready?"
"Not before four o'clock, sir. The ladies have only just got up, and I have been busy helping the young lady to dress."
"Did you hear me call?"
"Yes, sir."
... So they had really run away from me, driven from my presence by an uneasy conscience, and, hungry and tired as I was, I had to wait for a couple of hours for my dinner.
What a reception after a week full of hard work and longing! The thought that she had run away from me like a school-girl caught breaking the rules stabbed me like a dagger.
When she returned to the house I was fast asleep on the sofa, and in a very bad temper. She kissed me as if nothing had happened, trying to prevent the storm from breaking. But self-control is not always possible. A hungry stomach has no ears, and a distressed heart is not soothed by deceitful kisses.
"Are you angry?"
"My nerves are on edge, don't irritate me."
"I'm not your cook!"
"I never said you were, but don't prevent the cook we have from doing her work!"
"You forget that Amy, as our paying guest, is entitled to the services of our maid."
"Didn't you hear me calling?"
"No!"
She was telling me lies.... I felt as if my heart would break.
Dinner—my eagerly-looked-for dinner—was a long torture. The afternoon was dismal; Marie wept and inveighed against matrimony, holy matrimony, the only true happiness in the world, crying on the shoulder of her friend, covering her villainous little dog with kisses.
Cruel, false, deceitful—and sentimental!
And so it went on during the whole summer in infinite variety. I spent my Sundays with two imbeciles and a dog. They were trying to make me believe that all our unhappiness was due to my irritable nerves and persuade me to consult a doctor.
I had intended to take my wife for a sail on Sunday morning, but she did not get up before dinner time; after dinner it was too late.
And yet this tender-hearted woman, who tortured me with pin-pricks, cried bitterly one morning because the gardener was killing a rabbit for dinner, and confessed to me in the evening that she had been praying that the poor little beast's sufferings might be short.
Not long ago I saw somewhere a statement made by a psychopathist to the effect that an exaggerated love for animals combined with indifference towards the sufferings of one's fellow-creatures is a symptom of insanity.
Marie could pray for a rabbit and at the same time torment her husband with smiling lips.
On our last Sunday in the country she took me aside, talked in flattering terms of my generosity, appealed to my kind heart and begged me to cancel Miss Amy's debt to us, pleading her very small means.
I consented without discussing the matter, without telling her that I had anticipated the suggestion, foreseen the trick, the inevitable trick. But she, armed to the teeth with arguments, even when she was unopposed, continued—
"If not, I could, if necessary, pay her share for her!"
No doubt she could have done so. But could she have paid for the annoyance and trouble caused by her friend?...
Ah, well—husband and wife must not fall out over trifles.
In the commencement of the new year a general crisis shook the credit of the old country, and the Bank which had issued the shares lent to me by Marie failed. I received notice that the loan would be called in. I was forced to pay cash for the sum I had been compelled to guarantee. It was a heavy blow, but after endless difficulties I came to terms with the creditors, who agreed to a year's respite. It was a terrible year, the worst period of my life.
As soon as things were a little more settled I began to make every effort to extricate myself.
In addition to my work at the library I started a novel on modern morals and customs; filled newspapers and periodicals with essays, and completed my scientific treatise. Marie, at the expiration of her contract with the theatre, was re-engaged for another year, but her pay was reduced to fourteen hundred crowns.... Now I was better off than she, for she had lost her capital in the general smash.
She was in a vile temper, and made me suffer for it. To re-establish the equilibrium, and thinking of nothing but her independence, she attempted to raise a loan, but these attempts proved abortive and only led to unpleasantness. Acting thoughtlessly, despite her good intentions, she did me harm with her efforts to save herself and render my task more easy. I appreciated her good intentions, but I could not help remonstrating.
Always capricious and wayward, she showed unmistakable signs of malice and fresh events disclosed a state of mind which filled me with apprehension.
A fancy-dress ball, for instance, was given at the theatre, and I had her promise not to attend the ball in male attire. She had bound herself by a solemn oath, for I had been very emphatic on the subject. On the morning after the ball I was told that she had not only broken her promise, but that she had gone to supper later on with some of her male friends.
I was angry because she had lied to me, and the thought of the subsequent supper made me feel uneasy.
"Well," she replied, when I expostulated with her, "am I not free to please myself?"
"No, you are a married woman! You bear my name, and we are responsible to each other. Whenever you compromise yourself, you compromise me, and, in fact, you do me a greater injury than you do yourself."
"That means that I am not free?"
"Nobody can be absolutely free in a community where every individual is inextricably mixed up with the fate of others. Supposing I had invited some women friends to supper, what would you have said?"
She insisted that she was free to do as she liked; that she was at liberty, if she felt so inclined, to ruin my reputation; that her freedom was, in fact, absolute. She was a savage; freedom, as she interpreted it, was the rule of an autocrat who trampled the honour and happiness of her fellow creatures into the dust.
This scene, which began with a quarrel, led to floods of tears and ended with hysterics, was followed by another which made me feel even more uneasy, more especially as I was not sufficiently initiated into the secrets of sexual life to deal with its anomalies, which terrified me, like all anomalies which are difficult of explanation.
One evening, when the maid was busy making up Marie's bed for the night, I heard a half-suppressed scream and smothered laughter, as if some one were being tickled. I felt a sudden fear; an inexplicable terror and a wave of passionate anger swept over me; I opened the door quickly and caught Marie, with her hands on the girl's shoulders, in the act of pressing her lips upon her white throat.
"What are you doing," I exclaimed furiously, "are you mad?"
"I am only teasing her," answered Marie cynically. "What has that to do with you?"
"It has everything to do with me! Come here!"
And under four eyes I explained to her the nature of her offence.
But she accused me of a vicious imagination, told me that I was perverted and saw vice everywhere.
It is a fatal thing to catch a woman red-handed. She deluged me with abuse.
In the course of the discussion I reminded her of the love she had confessed to have felt for her cousin, pretty Matilda. With an expression of angelic innocence she replied that she herself had been amazed at the strength of her feelings, as she had never thought it possible for one woman to be so deeply in love with another.
This naïve confession reassured me. I remembered that one evening, at my brother-in-law's, Marie had quite openly spoken of her passionate love for her cousin, without blushing, without being conscious that there was anything at all unusual in her conduct.
But I was angry. I recommended her to beware of fancies which, though harmless to begin with, degenerated only too often into vice and led to disastrous results.
She made some inane reply, treated me like a fool—she loved treating me as if I were the most ignorant of ignoramuses—and finished off by saying that I had been telling her a pack of lies.
What was the use of explaining to her that offences of that sort were legal offences? What was the use of trying to convince her that medical books termed caresses calculated to arouse amorous feelings in others "vicious"?
I, I was the debauchee, steeped in vice. Nothing could persuade her to stop her innocent gambols.
She belonged to that class of unconscious criminals who should be confined in a house of correction and not allowed to be at large.
Towards the end of the spring she introduced a new friend, one of her colleagues, a woman of about thirty, a fellow sufferer, threatened, like Marie herself, with the lapse of her contract, and therefore, in my opinion, worthy of compassion. I was sorry to see this woman, once a celebrated beauty, reduced to such straits. No one knew why her contract was not to be renewed, unless it was because of the engagement of the daughter of a famous actress; one triumph always demands hecatombs of victims.
Nevertheless, I did not like her; she was self-assertive and always gave me the impression of a woman on the look-out for prey. She flattered me, tried to fascinate me, in order, no doubt, to take advantage of me.
Jealous scenes took place occasionally between the old friend and the new one, one abused the other, but I refused to take sides....
Before the summer was over Marie was expecting another baby. Her confinement would take place in February. It came upon us like a bolt from the blue. It was now necessary to strain every effort to make port before the fatal day dawned.
My novel appeared in November. It was an enormous success. Money was plentiful, we were saved!
I had reached the goal. I breathed freely. I had made my way; I was appreciated at last and hailed with acclamations as a master. The years of trouble and black care were over; we were looking forward to the birth of this child with great joy. We christened it in anticipation and bought Christmas presents for it. My wife was happy and proud of her condition, and our intimate friends fell into the habit of asking how "the little chap" was, just as if he had already arrived.
Famous now and content with my success, I determined to rehabilitate Marie and save her ruined career. To achieve this I planned a play in four acts, and offered it to the Royal Theatre. It contained a sympathetic part in which she had every chance of reconquering the public.
On the very day of her confinement I heard that the play was accepted and that she had been cast for the principal part.
Everything was well in the best of all worlds; the broken tie between me and my family was firmly reknitted by the birth of the baby. The good time, the spring-time of my life had arrived. There was bread in the house, and even wine. The mother, the beloved, the adored, was taking new pleasure in life, and had regained all her former beauty. The indifference and neglect with which she had treated her first baby were transformed into the tenderest care for the newborn infant.
Summer had come again. I was in a position to ask for a few months' leave, which I purported spending with my—family in the solitude of one of the green islands on the shores of the Stockholm Archipelago.
I was beginning to reap the harvest of my scientific researches. My treatise was read by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres in the Institut de France. I was elected a member of several foreign scientific societies, and the Imperial Russian Geographical Society conferred its medal upon me.
At the age of thirty I had won an excellent position in the literary and scientific world and a brilliant future lay before me. It was pure happiness to lay my trophies at Marie's feet.... But she was angry with me because I had "disturbed the equilibrium." I had to make myself small to spare her the humiliation of having to look up to her husband. Like the good-natured giant in the fable I allowed her to pull my beard, and as a consequence she presumed on my good-nature. She took a pleasure in belittling me before the servants and before her friends who were on visiting terms with us, especially her women friends. She gave herself airs; raised by me on a pedestal, she posed-as my superior, and the more insignificant I pretended to be, the more she trampled on me. I deliberately fostered in her the delusion that I had to thank her for my fame, which she did not understand and which she apparently thought little of. I took a positive delight in making myself out to be inferior to her. I contented myself with being no more than the husband of a charming woman, and eventually she came to believe that she, and not I, possessed genius. This applied even to the details of everyday life. Being an excellent swimmer myself, for instance, I taught her to swim. In order to encourage her, I simulated nervousness, and the pleasure she took in ridiculing my efforts and talking of her own grand achievements was a constant source of amusement to me.
The days passed; into the worship of my wife as mother a new thought stole and began to haunt me persistently: I was married to a woman of thirty—a critical age, the beginning of a period full of dangers and pitfalls—I could see indications every now and then which made me feel nervous, indications, perhaps not fraught with disaster for the moment, but which carried in them the germ of discord.
After her confinement physical antagonism came to be added to incompatibility of temper; sexual intercourse between us became odious. When her passion was aroused, she behaved like a cynical coquette. Sometimes she took a malicious delight in making me jealous; at other times she let herself go to an alarming extent, possibly, I thought, under pressure of licentious and perverse desires.
One morning we went out in a sailing boat, accompanied by a young fisherman. I took charge of tiller and mainsail, while the lad was attending to the foresail. My wife was sitting near him. The wind dropped and silence reigned in the boat. All at once I noticed that the young fisherman, from under his cap, was casting lewd glances in the direction of my wife's feet.... Her feet? ... Perhaps there was more to be seen; I could not tell from where I sat. I watched her. Her passionate eyes devoured the young man's frame. In order to remind her of my presence I made a sudden gesture, like a dreamer rousing himself from a dream. She pulled herself together with an effort, and, her eyes resting on the huge tops of his boots, she clumsily extricated herself from an awkward position by remarking—
"I wonder whether boots of this sort are expensive?"
What was I to think of such a stupid remark?
To divert her mind from the voluptuous current of her thoughts, I made the lad change places with me under some pretext or other.
I tried to forget this irritating scene; tried to persuade myself that I had been mistaken, although similar scenes were stored up in my memory, recollections of her burning eyes scrutinising the lines of my body underneath my clothes.
A week later my suspicions were re-awakened by an incident which once and for all destroyed all my hopes of ever seeing this perverse woman realise my ideal of motherhood.
One of my friends spent a week-end with us. He made himself very agreeable to her. She rewarded his courtesy by flirting with him outrageously. It grew late; we said good-night to each other and separated. I thought that she had gone to bed.
Half-an-hour later I heard voices on the balcony. I stepped out quickly, and found wife and friend sitting together, drinking liqueurs. I treated the matter as a joke, but on the following morning I reproached her with making me a public laughing-stock.
She laughed, called me a man of prejudices, cursed with a fantastic and vicious imagination ... in fact, deluged me with her whole repertory of futile arguments.
I lost my temper; she had hysterics and played her part so well that I apologised for doing her an injustice. Doing her an injustice—when I considered her conduct absolutely culpable!
Her final words silenced me completely.