There are happy marriages, whatever novelists say. There are married couples who love each other, and live happily together to the end of their days. The conditions of this happiness, the circumstances of this harmony may not always, perhaps, be such as one solely interested in the aesthetic aspects of society might advocate. But what can we do? For many centimes there is no virtue but the loftiest minds have commended it to the world with arguments as attractive in form as they have been sublime in purport. And have they changed us? What is the history of the past if not the history of to-day?
There are happy unions. There are unions middling happy. And there are unhappy unions. "I alone know where my shoe pinches," said a celebrated American, when congratulated upon his happy home. Men or women, great numbers can say the same, for Providence seems not to have cared to shoe us all according to our measurements. Our subsequent behaviour is the important thing. Advice on this point is not lacking, which is not surprising, since we have expressly entrusted to a corps of celibates the direction of domestic life, and the instruction of man and wife separately in the most secret details of a relation which, by his very profession, the instructor cannot practically know.
The authority of this advice being all that gives it interest, each takes as much of it as he sees fit, and goes on doing what he pleases. One cries out and the other is silent. One philosophically resigns himself to limping all the way to the grave. Another prefers amputation and the hope of comparative comfort with a wooden leg. Who is right and who is wrong? Let him decide who has attained certainty in such matters. As for me, all I dare affirm is that it is easier to theorize than to prove, considering the variety of the problems and the complexity of the psychology in which their solution might be found.
Let me, by way of example, briefly sketch the history, as simple as it is true, of the happiest couple I have ever known. I will admit that it is not a tale proper for publication in a Manual of Morals. Rarely do bare facts, unembellished by fiction, authentically illustrate precepts which we are more inclined to advocate than to follow. The sole merit of this tale is that it is true, from first to last. I leave out nothing and add nothing. I knew the people. I kept them in sight all along the hard road that led them from crime to perfect conjugal felicity. I am not attempting to prove any theory. I am telling what I have known and seen.
Adèle was a handsome girl according to country esthetics. Large, strong, of brilliant colouring, with a mop of tangled red hair and iron-gray eyes which never dropped before those of any man. She helped her father, Girard the fishmonger, to carry on his business. In a lamentable old broken-down cart, behind a small, knock-kneed horse, who knew no gait but a walk, Girard would set out at nightfall for Luçon, the large town, and come back in time to sell his fish before midday. Immediately upon arrival, the fishmonger, his wife and their children, each loaded with a basket of shell fish, mullet, sole, and whiting, packed under sticky seaweed, would disperse over the village, the outlying hamlets, the farms, and peddle their wares.
This trade entails much travelling about and seeing many people. Bold, and pleasant to the eye, Adèle was welcomed everywhere. No speech or behaviour from the country lads was likely to fluster her. Peasants, who are no more obtuse than city men, have long since recognized the value in business of an agreeable young person to attract trade. Any country inn that wants to prosper must first adorn itself with a pretty servant. There is everywhere a demand for beauty. For lack of anything better, men will philosophically fall back upon ugliness. Life takes upon itself to accommodate almost everybody.
Adèle, not being one of those young women who are only chosen when there is scarcity, early became the blessing of her family. The fish in her basket seemed to leap of its own accord into the frying pan, although the pretty wheedler took pride in selling it at a high price. Any chance meeting on the road furnished occasion for selling her wares. Often a kiss was added as a premium. Occasionally something more. What she lost or what she won at this game would to-day be hard to reckon. On Sunday, at the fair, she exhibited herself in fine attire and ornaments: these were her profit. Her name ran from mouth to mouth accompanied by tales to which public malice did not always need to add lies: this was her loss. But far from being disturbed by the "chronique scandaleuse" she insolently gloried in it, declaring that the hard-favoured meddlers would have been altogether too happy had she found a chance to talk scandal about them.
"When they are done tattling, they will stop," she used to say.
Which proved true. So that one day, when there was nothing else that Adèle could do to astonish people, the report spread that she was about to become the legitimate wife of Hippolyte Morin, the shoemaker. I must add that the event was accepted by all as a decent ending to a tempestuous youth.
"He will certainly beat her," thought the women, when they saw Morin's infatuation.
"He will not make a troublesome husband," said the men, as they looked at the sallow and weakly though choleric shoemaker.
Public approval was therefore unanimous. The circumstances of the marriage were simple. Girard owed Morin 500 francs, and could not even manage to pay the interest on them. Seeing his creditor prowling with smouldering eyes about the stalwart Adèle, he had proposed to him to marry the girl and give a receipted bill, and the shoemaker, overjoyed at the thought of possessing such a marvel all to himself, had gladly closed the bargain. As for Adèle, she had said yes without difficulty, as she had to so many others. Hippolyte owned land. He was a good match.
They had a fine wedding, and for a full half year happiness appeared to reign in the new establishment. Six months of fidelity were surely, for Adèle, a sufficient concession toMonsieur le Maire'sinjunctions. Presently lovers reappeared, to Morin's lively displeasure. Adèle was thrashed, as the public had foreseen. The muscular young swains none the less made game of the husband, at best a puny adversary, as public opinion had equally foretold. The worst of it was that the unaccommodating shoemaker had a way of watching his rivals with a vicious eye, while drawing the sharp blade of his knife across the whetstone. No one in a village is afraid of kicks and blows. But no one likes the thought of steel coming into play. And so, when the belief was established that Morin would some day "do something desperate," the ardour of the followers began to abate. They gradually dropped away, and it was Adèle's turn to experience the fiercest resentment against her sullen lord.
Three years passed in quarrels, in hourly battles. There were no children. Grass does not grow on the high road, as Michelet observes. One morning the news ran that Morin was seriously ill, then that he was dead. On the day before, he had been playing bowls without any sign of ill health. The doctor who had been sent for, shook his head gravely, and asked to speak to Adèle in private. At the end of the interview the bystanders noticed that Adèle kept out of sight, while the doctor, without a word, poured the contents of the soup tureen into a jug, and carried it away in his gig. That evening, two gendarmes came to arrest "Hippolyte Morin's wife," accused of poisoning her husband. Conversations in the village were not dull that evening.
The inquiry was brief. Bits of the blue shards of cantharides floating among the bread and potatoes in the soup permitted no denial. Adèle confessed that passing under an ash tree, and seeing some of those insects lying dead in the grass, she picked them up, "to play a joke on her husband." Later on, after she had been instructed by her lawyer, she said that the aphrodisiacal properties attributed to the beetle gave the obvious reason for the matrimonial "joke." But it being proved that her extra-*conjugal resources in that line were rather calculated to foster a desire to rid herself of an inconvenient husband, the story gained small credence. Morin, who had not consented to die, was the only witness for the defence.
"Of course it was a joke," he repeated, stupidly. "The proof of it is that she had told me."
"And you deliberately took the poison?"
"As long as it was a joke, of course I did, your Honour."
The jury, which readily absolves husbands for a too prompt use of the revolver in the direction of their wives, always shows itself resolutely hostile to women who attempt to rid themselves of their legitimate master. Two years' imprisonment were considered by the representatives of social order a just retribution for Adèle, as well as a practical incentive to virtue in the home.
Morin returned to his shoes, grieving over his long separation from Adèle.
"All that was our own affair," he said. "What business was it of the judge's?"
And many shared his opinion. A lot of noise about a "joke!" Adèle was too good hearted a girl to have aroused any deep hatreds. As long as Morin defended her, why should others hurl obloquy? Husbands looking at their wives, and wives at their husbands, mostly refrained from comment. Morin, furthermore, sure, now, of his wife's fidelity for at least two years, poured himself out in eulogies of the great Adèle, and declared that he had often been in the wrong.
"To whom did she ever do any harm?" he would ask everyone that came along.
"Not to me!" "Not to me!" all would answer.
The man had received the gift of a lofty philosophy or rather, he had a dim feeling that from all this "fuss" a great good might result from his wife and for himself.
"When she comes back," he would say, "it will not be as it was before."
"Surely," replied the others, "a little bad luck gives one a lot of sense!"
"Two years, that is not so much," answered Morin, who was counting the days.
Meanwhile Adèle was silently sewing shirts, and vaguely dreaming. It would never have occurred to her to complain. She even found a certain contentment in this quiet after the agitations of her youth. She tranquilly awaited the release which would take her back to her friendly village, and to that good Morin who loved her, and whom she loved, too, in spite of all "the judges had done to cross them," as she said after her trial. From the very first day, Morin placed to the account of the prisoner all the money permitted by the regulations. But she rarely touched it, and when, on his visits, he urged her to spend it:
"I need nothing," she would say. "Keep it for yourself, my man. You must not be ailing when I come out of jail."
And this allusion to the past made them both laugh in great good humour.
Finally the day of liberation came. Morin, as you would know, was on the spot to fetch his wife. They flew to each other's arms, laughing aloud, for lack of words to express their joy. It was Sunday. Adèle and her husband reached home just as mass was over. In a twinkling they were surrounded by the crowd, and acclaimed like conquerors. There was mutual embracing and shedding of happy tears, and asking of a thousand absurd questions from sheer need to talk and show how glad they were to see one another again. Upon arrival at her house Adèle found the table spread; at this, twenty guests sat down to celebrate her return with proper ceremony. A grand feast, which lasted until daylight. At dessert, friends came in, and merest acquaintances, too, swept along by the current of universal sympathy. Bottle after bottle was emptied. There was a great clinking of glasses. The women kissed Morin, and the men Adèle. Never in their lives was there a more wonderful day.
And yet, from that time forward, good days followed one another without break. Adèle remained gay, easy, and approachable, quick in the uptake of broad jests, but Morin had her heart, and never was word or deed charged to her account which could have given umbrage to the most suspicious husband. Her spouse, proud of his conquest, tasted the joys of a well-earned happiness.
They were during forty years the model of a perfect match. How many of the people around them, with an irreproachable past, could boast an advantage so rare?
They were not good. They were not bad. They had neither virtues nor faults of their own from never having done or said anything except in conformity with what others were doing or saying. Never had it entered their minds to desire anything on their own initiative. Nothing had ever made them reflect upon themselves, and take a decision according to an idea, whether good or bad, that was the result of their own individuality rather than "established opinions."
He had been born into the cork business. She had seen the light of day in the Elbeuf cloth trade. The arrest of a lawyer, unable to return several millions to the people whom he had deprived of them, united their parents in a common expression of indignation against impecunious embezzlers. In court, under the eyes of the Christ who bids us forgive, and amidst the encouragements of avenging law, cork and wool came together to destroy the unfortunate lawyer whose activities were proclaimed criminal because lacking the success which would have made his reputation for integrity. The cork merchant and the cloth merchant, both of them noisy about their small losses, conceived a "high" mutual "esteem," which subsequent acquaintance converted into "friendship."
The heir to corks was twenty-three years old.
"A good sort of boy," said his father.
He was, as a matter of fact, soft, flabby, and spiritless.
The cloth heiress had just completed her twentieth year.
"The sweetest child!" bleated her mother.
The truth being that the girl's inertia took the impulsion of any movement near her.
They were married after magnificent promises on both sides of the house. It later appeared that the manufacturer of corks was on the verge of failure, and that the cloth business had long since gone into the hands of a partner. As the fraud was reciprocal, there could be no reproaches on either side. They remained "good friends," and from the remnants of past splendour collected a small capital with which to set up the young couple in the linen draper's business at Caen.
The two young people, who were equally well fitted to manufacture butter or deal in building stone, by scrupulously adhering to the rules and regulations established for them, made a decent income from their business. Their parents died, rather fortunately, before becoming a burden and after inculcating into them those principles of public and private morals which would enable them to reach the end of their career without disaster. They had two daughters whom they married off, one into "ribbons," the other into "hardware," while they themselves died, as they had lived, in "linen."
"Colourless lives," some will remark.
Not everyone can write Hamlet, or discover the laws of universal gravitation. The present order of nature stands upon a foundation of passive beings, whence, from some combination of century-old heredities, springs, now and then, the miracle of genius. What surprises for us, could we examine the authentic genealogies of Shakespeare and Newton, and see from what an accumulation of weaknesses their strength emerged!
Theprocessusof any human life is, in truth, not less a marvel. Only, from our low level we instinctively look toward the heights. And there is no denying that the psychology of St. Francis of Assisi is more interesting than that of the ordinary mortal. Still, if one examines closely, one finds that the "great man" is not different in substance from the little man: the principal difference is that in the two cases the forces are differently related. Infinite are the transitional types between the two extremes, and all are worthy of analysis as human samples capable of furnishing, according to circumstances of time and place, acts which would remove them from common mediocrity.
What events would have been necessary to raise our two linen drapers into the light of glory I cannot say. I should like to believe that a great tragedy, public or private, might have called forth some act of sublime devotion on their part, and made them illustrious in history. But I will not conceal that nothing in their speech or actions ever authorized such a hope.
I speak of them because I met them on my path in life. I found it entertaining to observe them as curious specimens of the class of human beings whose passive mentality is close to that of beasts of burden, and who yet are fairly remarkably individualized in the deep recesses of their inner life. Cattle have, without any doubt, ideas at the back of their heads, as is proved when we see the drove by tacit agreement divide among themselves the task of watching all points of the horizon, while with half-shut eyes they ruminate in the fields where nothing now threatens them—which performance is a reminder of the days when the great carnivorous enemies might at any time unexpectedly come down upon them. Still, they know but one law, the goad that drives them to the plow or to the shambles. Bovine man taking his part, with or without reflection, in a more complex life, develops, in addition, despite the weight of his mental inertia, a considerable capacity for emotion, for personal activity outside of the rules of action imposed upon him by society, whether through its laws or its customs.
The two linen drapers of Caen, seen in the street, had the commonplace appearance of the millions who make up the ordinary stock of humanity, which is, in fact, what they represented. The chief trouble with professional psychologists is that, the better to classify them, they insist that men are all alike. It is not surprising that salient points in character should be the first to strike the observer. The deep-seated traits of "indeterminate" personalities are, however, worthy of analysis, being, by the way of hereditary combinations, the productive source of characterized energies.
Who will not have concluded from the social passivity of this couple, stupefied with "linen," that a corresponding somnolence prevailed among their inward activities? Yet these two amorphous creatures, who had unresistingly taken the imprint of surrounding wills, lived a life of their own, remote from the public eye, and felt seething in the depth of their being intense, at times even violent, passions, which made both the charm and the torment of their days.
Buying and selling linen had become like a physiological function of their organs. Eating, drinking, sleeping, and dealing in linen, were all on the same level in their minds. Both man and wife instinctively loved money, "because one needs it in order to be honest," they used to say, "honesty," to them, meaning keeping out of prison—but neither had even the moderate initiative which would have increased their chances of becoming rich. After reaching a medium degree of success in their business, they stood still, evenly balanced between indifference and cupidity. Outside of laws and customs, the opinion of the trade kept them straight, like a steel corset. They went to church because "it is customary." They even gave to the poor if someone were looking, as do so many other charitable Christians. Then, when the doors were closed, and their "young ladies" safely bestowed in the Convent of Mercy, where they had been placed for the sake of "fine connections, useful in the future," they could finally devote themselves to each other.
I said that they were neither good nor bad, meaning that they were as incapable of useless malice as of disinterestedness. But the fact that a moral tendency is not expressed in action does not make the tendency any better. In deference to the requirements of law and "social propriety" the pair lived indissolubly united. There was no breaking of marriage vows. The model wife was really a figure too far from esthetic to inspire a temptation of a guilty thought in even the most abandoned of men. Besides, all her activities were centred, conformably with the precepts of the Church and the Code, upon her "legitimate spouse." As for the faithful husband, he at all times abstained from "sin," whether temporary or permanent, for the peremptory reason that the "crime" was forbidden by law, as well as doctrinally "condemned by morality." Thus held in check by external barriers, there remained for two souls so virtuous nothing but to be absorbed in each other, and to seek in the intimate contact of their respective susceptibilities the satisfaction of an ideal compatible with their natures. This satisfaction was not denied them. It was not to be found in love. They found it in a powerfully concentrated hatred. When it is the dominant emotion of a life, execration, in a heart convulsed with impotence, may afford the full amount of violent sensation by which an inferior order of humanity is reduced to replacing the joys of love.
Husband and wife hated each other voluptuously, hated each other with a crafty ferocity always on the alert to inflict more exquisite wounds. And for what reason? They had perhaps never attempted to disentangle it. A mutual disgust had come upon them in the very first days of their marriage, upon discovering the double deception of the non-existent marriage portions. Later on, it is true, they both resorted to identical methods for decoying sons-in-law; they had none the less taken pleasure, from the beginning, in secretly calling each other thieves. As, furthermore, each had a very lively sense of the other's inferiority, they mutually despised each other for the conspicuous inertia which succeeded only in holding its own in the business, by the balance of irresolution in their will.
If they could have found the courage occasionally to discharge the overflow of wrath that gathered in the depths of their mean souls! But the effort involved with giving free course to the mounting flood of a repressed detestation was outside of their possibilities. All they had capacity for was silently forcing back the desire to insult which contorted their lips, thus aggravating the repressed rage whose seething constituted the bitter zest of life. A passion too mighty for their weakness, impotent to control it.
Unable to expend in speech the accumulating strength of their hatred, they found in secret acts of aggression the only remaining outlet. How much more satisfying than idle words was the joy of injuring each other—outside of business, of course. When thus employed, they knew what the object was of their living! They felt in those moments the power of the bond that united them in the only passion for the satisfaction of which they were necessary to each other.
The details of the petty warfare with which they opened hostilities would fill a volume. There was, at the beginning, a series of light skirmishes in which the first thrusts might have seemed due to chance, had not the one who received them recognized them as hurts he would have liked to deal. The kitchen furnished excellent occasions for feminine attack. Too much salt or pepper, tainted meat, cold soups, were common occurrences during the early days. It would happen on this particular day that Madame was not hungry, while Monsieur had a good appetite owing to the more than frugal preceding meal. Monsieur was not, however, defenceless. Madame had a "delicate chest," and dreaded draughts above everything. But she was obliged to get used to them and resign herself to coughing, for by incredible ill luck there was always a door that would not close, or a broken window pane, which obliged her to live in a perpetual whirlwind. To balance matters, when caught in a shower, Monsieur would find his umbrella broken and come home chilled through. Each cared to excel in the game. They invented a thousand complicated traps requiring careful preparation. One night, Madame, alone in bed, had her legs scalded by the stopper suddenly coming out of the hot water bottle. Monsieur regretted the "accident," for he had to do double work in the shop while Madame uncomplainingly awaited recovery. A short time after, Monsieur, jumping out of bed, cut his foot on a piece of glass. It was his turn to limp.
So they continued, vying with each other, and increasing in efficiency. Madame seemed to have a weakness for the elder of her two daughters. Monsieur preferred the younger. A fine battlefield, where each could stab the other through the innocent victim. The two marriages afforded occasions for subtle persecution, which ended in the common regret of feeling so good a weapon slip from the tormentors' hand.
Left alone, face to face, the two, having exhausted their whole arsenal of perfidy, stared at each other in the stupor of a paroxysm of hatred that made them powerless to renew their warfare. What was to be done? Something must be thought of. Madame was the first to hit upon it. Monsieur, suddenly taken with a violent colic, passed in one night from life to death. At the last moment he had a suspicion. A smell of matches was exhaled from the decoction he had been taking. He blew out the candle, and saw phosphorescence in the glass. In the same moment death throes convulsed him with excruciating pain. He could only point out to his wife the damning evidence, with a single word, accompanied by hideous laughter.
"The guillotine! the guillotine!"
He died repeating it. Mad with terror, Madame fainted. She never regained consciousness. The terrifying name of the engine of death fluttered on her lips with her last breath.
The tragic beauty of this ending excited the admiration of the entire town.
"How they loved each other!" people said. "Such a well-assorted couple!"
The question of love and marriage has manifestly the most obsessing interest for humankind. Presumably dissatisfied with the actual experiences of life, men, women, old people and young, seek in fiction, in dreams, the unattainable or the unattained. Life passes. Those among us who, on the brink of the grave, question themselves honestly, recognize that more chances of happiness were offered them than they, fickle or wavering, made shift to grasp.
Our excellent ancestors of the "lower" animal order have a fixed period for the joys of love, and even in monogamy, as I demonstrated in the story of my pigeons, do not pride themselves upon a "virtue" beyond their power. The chief feature of the "higher perfection" to which we aspire, in word if not in deed, seems to be that we are condemned by it to an hypocrisy born of discrepancy between the ideal and our ability to realize it. Marriage, when considered aside from its doctrinal aspect, is found to be a fairly effectual pledge against the straying of the imagination which is the forerunner of human weakness. To protect the weak, that is to say the woman and child, against the caprice of the strong, is assuredly the duty of society. But who will claim that marriage, as the law has instituted it, and as custom practises it, performs that office, and does not oftener than not result in the triumph, whether just or unjust, of man? Have we not heard, in the discussion of the divorce law, one of the chiefs of the "advanced" party lending his eloquence to the furtherance of the doctrine of indissoluble marriage, while a famous radical argued that there was no equality between the adultery of the husband and that of the wife, when viewed as a conjugal misdemeanour justifying final separation?
The mistake lies in regarding as immutable, and acting upon it as such, a thing that is, in fact, the most unstable and variable in the world, viz.: the human being, in perpetual process of change. To ensure the durability of a union for that lightning flash which we pompously term "all time," the parallel development of two beings would be necessary, two beings whom differing heredities in most cases predispose to the most fatal divergences. One must admit that the chance of it is small.
I discussed this topic, only a few days ago, with a charming woman, made famous throughout Europe by her art, who has with the greatest dignity practiced that free bounteousness of self which men audaciously claim as their exclusive prerogative. She ingenuously maintained that the act which men consider of no consequence when practised by themselves has no importance either in the case of woman, except in the event of maternity.
"And," she said, "men take advantage of this iniquitous law of nature, adding to it a corresponding social injustice which leaves us no choice except between 'honour' and liberty. Fortunately life is mightier than words, and women who are not by nature slaves will always have the resource that masculine vanity has so foolishly made attractive by making of it forbidden fruit."
"You assert, then," I suggested with a certain timidity, "that all women worthy of the name either do or should deceive their husbands?"
"Oh, my assertion is merely that most women if deceived by their husbands have the right to give back what they get. As for those who are unfaithful to a faithful husband, I see no reason for your refusing them the initiative you grant to the man who goes out on pleasure bent while his chaste wife sits at home spinning her wool, and wiping her children's noses."
"That is practically what I said; that any woman with self-respect——"
"—has the same rights as the man without self-respect——"
"—and should use them——?"
"—and may use them to suit herself without the least shadow of remorse."
"Complete liberty, then, for each to be unfaithful to the other."
"Proclaim this maxim or not, the world has not waited for you to formulate it before putting it into practice."
"You think, then, that in reality most women are unfaithful to their husbands?"
"I think that in reality most men are unfaithful to their wives—and their mistresses, too, as soon as the wife or mistress expects anything from duty, even though unwritten duty, instead of the free attraction of sentiment or of the flesh. I believe that most women who are unfaithful to their husbands are unfaithful to their lovers under the same circumstances, that is to say as soon as the lover imposes himself by the rights of—morally—a husband, if the combination of words is admissible. Worse than that! As fast as odious habit changes lover into husband, and mistress into wife, the actual husband, who was the lover in the first days of marriage, and the actual wife, who was the legitimatized mistress upon leaving the church door, regain the ascendency."
"Too late."
"Not always. Stop and think. Women more or less deceive their lovers with their husbands. That is classic in happy homes."
"So one hears. But how can one be sure?"
"How many cases I might quote to bear me out! Shall I tell you a case I have recently known?"
"Pray do."
"Very well. Last month in an Italian city——"
"Florence, naturally, I notice that you frequently go there."
"Yes, Florence. A friend of mine, a painter, went there to live three years ago, with his wife, a woman who would not perhaps be called beautiful, but who is really full of charm and grace. When my travels bring me in their neighbourhood I never miss an occasion to see them, for we are very old friends. He and I, you see, were young together for six months. He tells me everything, and I tell him many things. Philip, we will call him that, if you like, made a love match which, as it happened, was excellent from a worldly standpoint, too. They were the most utterly devoted couple for nearly four years. That is a long while. Eighteen months ago, on one of those journeys to Florence which you have noticed, I easily detected that Philip's wife had a lover. A young fellow, an Italian noble with a great name and a slender purse, beautiful as a young wild animal crouching for game—well dressed, though not as quietly as could be, with a pretty talent for sculpture, which he had the good sense never to mention. Their art had brought the two men together, and Alice—we will take the chances of calling Philip's wife by that name—had, I do not know exactly how, come under a new attraction, the strength of which increased as time, through the monotony of habit, blunted the formerly supreme charm of her husband.
"On his side, Philip had gradually returned to studio 'affairs,' giving as an excuse his research after forms, attitudes, and colours, during that relaxing of the body which follows the strain of the model's pose, and is like life after death. He confessed all this to me without reserve, obviously satisfied that his wife, whose 'angelic sweetness' and 'tact' he could not sufficiently praise—was willing to leave him a free field for his fancies.
"'I still love her!' he said, in all sincerity. 'But I have to think of my painting, do I not?'
"Giovanni, naturally, had a great admiration for Philip's talent, and made no secret of it. As for Alice, she regarded her husband as nothing less than a genius. When Philip was dissatisfied with his work he was frankly unbearable. He indulged in grumbling and complaining and bursts of anger, followed by long periods of depression. If, on the other hand, he had succeeded in satisfying himself, it was worse still, for then one had to endure the recital of the entire performance, down to the least trifling detail of composition or execution. At first one might listen with pleasure, or at least benevolence. But the wearisome repetition from morning until night finally became tedious, even exasperating, when Philip, with a childish insistence, invited replies, denials, the better to confound his opponent. The docile Giovanni and the sincerely admiring Alice lent themselves resignedly to these gymnastic exercises of patience, but when days and days had been spent in the occupation, both, exhausted by their efforts, must have longed in body and soul for a distraction more or less in accordance with current social customs. As might have been expected, they found it in each other, and from that moment peace descended upon the happy home.
"When I discovered the affair between Alice and Giovanni in the course of a visit to Fiesole, where I came upon them suddenly in such a state of blind absorption that they did not even raise their eyes at the sound of my footsteps, I judged that passion was at flood tide. They did not even trouble to conceal themselves, so that had I not been careful, I should not have escaped the annoyance of an encounter, the revelations of which could hardly have been blinked. I took the course of going often to see Philip at his studio, where he had an important piece of work under way, and I was able to leave town without disturbing the happy quietude of all concerned.
"On my return the following year it seemed to me at first that nothing had changed in the arrangement of which I had the secret. Still, Philip seemed to me less absorbed in his art. I often caught him with his eyes obstinately fixed upon his wife, who, while avoiding them, seemed troubled by the obsession of his gaze. Did he suspect something? I did not long entertain this idea, for he talked to me with such warmth about Alice, that I could not restrain an exclamation of surprise.
"'God forgive me, Philip,' I cried. 'You are in love! And with your wife! What has happened?'
"'Nothing' he said. 'I have never ceased to love her.'
"And one confidence leading to another, I learned that a flirtation by every rule was going on between the two. For a year they had been living in separate apartments. At first the doors had been on the latch, but later they had definitely been locked. One day, for no particular reason, Philip had wondered why, and found no answer. Alice, when questioned, had had nothing to say, but 'Not now—later,' which could not fill the function of reasons. That another should have won the heart which belonged to him could never have occurred to Philip. But as his mind and senses became insistent, sentiment woke up, too. So that the inconstant husband began a definite siege of the unfaithful wife.
"Alice appeared to be flattered by the homage, but held back by a sense of duty toward her lover. As for Giovanni, confident in the stability of his dominion, he was entertained by the performance in which his vanity saw nothing but an innocent game started by Alice for the sake of keeping him on the alert. It was Philip, and no longer Giovanni, who filled Alice's drawing room with flowers. Giovanni amusingly called my attention to this detail, with the fine confidence of a man sure of his power. He was, after all, fond of Philip, and pitied him for his wasted pains.
"I went to spend six months in Rome, and on my way back to Paris, stopped for a week in Florence. I was convinced at once and beyond a doubt that the legitimate betrayal had been consummated, and that the blind lover Giovanni was being cynically duped. Alice had become her husband's mistress. I must add, that though the factors were inverted, the sum of happiness appeared the same. Contentment continued to reign in Philip's household, as it had not ceased to do since his wedding day, thanks to the three successive combinations. I even judged that this time there was a chance of it becoming a settled condition, for Philip no longer bored us with his pictures, being completely absorbed in the business of making himself agreeable to his wife, for whom the pleasure of the conjugal affair was enhanced by the delicately perverse spice of the secret connected with Giovanni. The value of his conquest rose appreciably in Giovanni's eyes at sight of Philip in love, and he peacefully admired as his achievement the perfect contentment of the household. He was even beginning to cast his eyes about him, and I was not too greatly surprised when I saw him disposed to make love to me. Everybody's destiny was sealed. The divorce between Giovanni and Alice which, I suppose, already existed in fact, would soon be formally acknowledged.
"I was in the habit of going at nightfall to sit in the Loggia dei Lanzi to see all Florence pass on its way home, for has not the Piazza della Signoria for centuries and centuries been the town's general meeting ground? I have made curious observations there. After a glance at the Perseus, I used to go and sit on the upper one of the steps that make seats like those of an amphitheatre against the long back wall, and there, hidden in the shadow, screened from view by the famous group of the Rape of the Sabines, gaze about me, dream, and wait for chance to send an inspiration or a friendly face to tear me from my thoughts.
"One evening I had lingered in my hiding place. Darkness had come. Ammanati's Neptune and Gian Bologna's Cosimo peopled the night with motionless ghosts. Suddenly two shapes rose under the arches, a man and a woman with arms entwined. They glided whispering toward the Sabine voluptuously struggling in the arms of her new master, and there, out of sight of the rare passers, but fully in my sight, clasped each other in a long embrace. Finally I saw their faces. They were Philip and Alice, who, driven from home by Giovanni's presence, had come to hide in the public square and make love.
"'Giovanni must have been surprised,' Philip was saying, 'at not finding us in. But really, he is too indiscreet.'
"'Do you know what you ought to do?' asked Alice, after a silence, 'You ought to advise him to take a little journey to Rome—or elsewhere.'
"'A good idea. I will do so.'
"Two weeks later Giovanni came to see me in Paris, and made amorous proposals to me. I still have to laugh when I think of his discomfited face at the sweeping courtesy I made him. It happened only three days ago. What do you say to my story?"
"I should have to know the end of it."
"Nothing ever ends. Everything keeps on."
"Well, it is an exception, that is all I can say."
"I admit it. But out of what are rules made, if you please? Is it not out of exceptions when there are enough of them? I bring my contribution. You ought in return to tell me some fine story of absolute monogamic fidelity."
"Such things exist."
"Assuredly. I know a case. Never were two mortals more unhappy. Their whole life was one prolonged battle."
"From which you conclude——?"
"That we are all exceptions, my dear friend, and that we all establish our great intangible laws only for other people, reserving the right to take or to leave as much of them for ourselves as we choose. Good luck. Good-bye!"
I again met the charming woman to whom I owe the story of the Florentine love affairs just related.
"What news of Don Giovanni?" I asked.
"I saw him yesterday, by chance. He confessed that he did not know the reason of his exile. I gently insinuated that the husband might have something to do with it. The idea made him laugh, and he answered: 'Anything is likelier than that!' which made me laugh in my turn."
"All blind, then?"
"And the result: Peace and happiness."
"And clear vision?"
"Clear vision would simply mean tragedy, because of each one regarding his own infidelities as unimportant, only to reach the unexpected conclusion that those of his partner are unforgivable crimes. Not logical, but very human."
"And do you not think that conjugal fidelity is human, too?"
"Excuse me, I expressly told you that I had once seen a case of it."
"And might one hear the story of this solitary case?"
"An uneventful drama. Nothing is less romantic than virtue. You must be aware of that."
"But does happiness lie in romance?"
"That I cannot say. Possibly, because the reality will never equal the dream. At all events, my faithful pair were the most unhappy mortals I have ever known."
"Do tell me about them."
"Oh, it is very simple. You know that I was brought up in England, near the little town of Dorking. I still have friends there whom I visit occasionally, when I want a change from Italy. Surrey is a picturesque region, where lazy rivers wind their way to the sea between green banks, through wide, fertile valleys at the foot of wooded hills. Everywhere woods and streams, and ravines crested with yews and ancient oaks. Pale, misty skies spread a mother-of-pearl canopy over the wide expanses of thick grass. It is a fox hunting country, and I humbly confess that there are to my mind few pleasures in life equal to the wild intoxication of a mad, aimless gallop, in which, what with hedges and ditches, rivers and precipices, one risks breaking one's neck a hundred times a day. You will from current pictures of it get a fairly good idea of the sport. It is a headlong rush to get—one does not clearly know where. Nothing stops one, nothing furnishes a sufficient reason for turning back. Onward, and still onward! The horses themselves are infected with the general madness. Accidents make no difference. A fallen horse scrambles to his feet again, an unseated rider gets back into the saddle. Some are carried home on stretchers. At night the fallen are counted. In three curt words their friends sympathize with them for having to wait three weeks before going at it again.
"A few years ago, in one of these hunting tumults, I stopped to get my breath after a long gallop on my cob. I was on a wide heath overlooking the valley that ends at the red spires of Dorking. A silvery river, whose name I forget, and a sprinkling of pools set patches of sky in the vast stretch of flowering green. At the horizon a tower is seen, famous in the district, a memorial of the whimsey of a pious personage, who had himself buried there head downward so as to find himself standing upright on the day of the resurrection, when, it seems, the world will be upside down.
"I stood wondering at this ingenuous monument of human simplicity, when I heard behind me the noise of frantic galloping. Before I could move or cry out, a hunter and a maddened horse burst from the wood, within gunshot, and plunged headlong down the steep bank that ended abruptly at the gaping pit of an old quarry. What filled me with unspeakable horror was that the rider was desperately spurring and lashing his horse, who would have been unable anyhow to stop himself in his dizzy descent toward death. In the twinkling of an eye the ground appeared to swallow them both. Nothing was to be seen but heaven and earth smiling at each other with the imperturbable smile of things that never end.
"I finally regained the use of my senses. I jumped from my saddle, and I know not how, reached the bottom of the quarry. The horse had been killed outright. In a red pool lay a gasping, shattered man. It was an old friend of mine, who had been kind to me in my early days in Dorking. I called him. He opened his eyes.
"'What!' he cried, 'it is not over?'
"I questioned him in vain.
"'It is not over! It is not over!' he repeated in vain despair, 'I shall have to go through with it again!'
"Not knowing what to do or say, I climbed to the top of the bank and called for help. A farmer hastened to the spot. With infinite care, the wounded man was lifted into a cart. By some miracle he had escaped without mortal injury. Two months later he was in full convalescence. He suspected before long that I had witnessed his leap, and my embarrassment when he questioned me about our encounter at the bottom of the quarry only confirmed him in his idea. One day, he could no longer keep from speaking.
"'You do not believe it was an accident, do you?' he said, looking me squarely in the eyes.
"'What do you mean?' I asked, avoiding the question.
"'I mean that I must have passed close by you on my way to the quarry.'
"'Yes,' I said, with a sudden resolve to tell the truth.
"'You know my secret. I am sure, my dear child, that you will keep it. Death would not take me. I shall go on living. But since there is now one human being before whom I can pour out the overflow of my misery, and since that one is yourself, for whom I have so long felt the warmest friendship, I will tell you all.'
"'Some other day. Later on.'
"'No, let me speak. In the first place, let me reassure you, there is no crime in my life.'
"'What an idea!'
"'No, I am merely unhappy. And my unhappiness is of a kind for which there is no help. It seems to you that I have everything, does it not? Wealth, a happy family life, beloved children. My wife, I am sure, seems to you——'
"'The best in the world.'
"'Doubtless. And yet, she exactly is the cause of my wretchedness. She loves me, and I hate her. It is horrible.'
"'Oh, come. You do not hate your wife. That is impossible.'
"'I repeat it. I hate her. I loved her when I married her. I was in love at that time, for she was very beautiful. She has been a faithful wife, and a good mother. What have I to complain of, except that she mechanically has confined herself to the narrow performance of her duties, and while doing it, has allowed us to become strangers? Is she above or beneath me? What does it matter? We are not on the same mental plane. I have by my side an inert, submissive creature, with an exasperating sorrow in her eyes, for although she has never formulated any complaint, she naturally holds me responsible for the misunderstanding which has never been expressed in words. You look at me as if you did not understand. You think me mad, probably. Shall I be more explicit? Very well, I no longer love her. There you have it in a nutshell. Gradually, habit and her flatly commonplace mind made her indifferent to me. There is no sense in blaming her. Be the fault hers or mine, I was estranged from her. What remedy was there for the brutal fact? I had loved her, and I loved her no longer. We cannot love by order of the sheriff or of the Bible. It is as if you should reproach me with having white hair instead of blond, as I once had. What have you to say to it?'
"'Nothing at all, my dear and unhappy friend. If you wish me to speak frankly, the idea had occurred to me that the lack of pleasure you took in your excellent wife might come from the possibly unconscious pleasure you took in someone else.'
"'Your imagination anticipates the facts. As you suspect, I have not finished my story. Since you call for an immediate confession, let me tell you, that having been strictly brought up in the discipline of the Church, I came to marriage with the perfect purity required by Christian morality. Let me also tell you that, for whatever reason you choose—ignorance of the strategy of intrigue, or timidity, or fear of losing my self-respect—I have remained guiltless of the least departure from the strictest marriage laws. I no longer loved my wife, but I was her husband, her faithful husband. You will readily guess at the wretched lapses into weakness confessed in that statement, followed by a reaction of shame, and even of repulsion, which in spite of my best efforts I could not disguise.
"'I thought of going on a long journey. A year or two in India might, or so I supposed, have brought me back to the woman from whom proximity was daily separating me more widely. But she, not understanding this, raised the most serious of all objections: the children needed my oversight.
"'Take us with you,' she stupidly suggested.
"'The die was cast. We remained where we were: chained together, each horribly distressing the other, and, with each spasm of pain, deepening our own hurt and that of our companion in irons. She, unfailingly angelic, and I, unbalanced, full of whims, and doubtless unbearable. Who knows? If it had been possible to her nature, a clap of thunder might have scattered the contrary electric currents between us, and have restored peace. But no. We were enemies always on the point of grappling, with never the relief of a word or a gesture of battle. My nerves were on the point of giving way, when the inevitable romance came into my life.'
"'You are still far from strong. Do not tell me any more to-day.'
"'Nay, chance has forced this confession. Let us go through with it to the end. After this, we will never refer to it again. The romance you have guessed at was connected with a lovable and light-hearted girl. She was a little intoxicated with her own youth, and full of the exquisite charm which illusion had once lent to the woman I married, and in which she was to me so lamentably lacking now. What shall I say? I loved and was loved. Our passion was an ideal one, very sweet, very pure, carrying with it no remorse. Were I to tell you the story of it, it might even seem childish to you. It contained, however, the two happiest years of my life. Two years that passed like a flash. Two years of silent delight, ending one day in a definite avowal. No sooner had we uttered the words, than fear of the sin we glimpsed assailed us, and we fell back aghast into the depths of despair. Our only kiss was the kiss of eternal farewell.
"'I was left more broken and bleeding by the horrible fall than when you found me on the stones of the quarry. She went away, and if I am to tell the whole miserable truth, she has found comfort, she is married to a boor, who, they say, makes her happy. Why should I care to appear better than I am? I often regret the imbecile heroism prompting me, when to save that shallow creature I made myself into the victim of an atrocious fate. I spared her, and consequently am dying, while she, in the arms of her hod carrier——Do not misjudge me. I have suffered. She had sworn to love me forever. She is happy, and I—I who could have taken her and broken her and made of the eventual harm to her an overwhelming joy, while it lasted, have not even the right to proclaim her unworthy of my foolish pity. I curse her, and I love her still.
"'And my wife, my blameless wife, who guessed everything, I am sure, and forgave it, either from incapacity to resent an outrage, or from insulting pity for me, my wife to whom I owe this double disillusion in love, who unwittingly tortures me, and whom I equally torture, I execrate her, I hate her with all the intensity of my misery. Had I yielded to the moment's temptation I might have returned to her sated with happiness, or disenchanted, or remorseful.
"'In my deepest misery I shall never forgive her the look of silent anguish wherewith she stabs me. I shall never forgive her resignation, the quiet submission which, together with her interest in her duties, makes our tormented life bearable to her. She is not unaware, you may be sure, that I have a hundred times thought of seeking oblivion in death. She was no more taken in than you were by the accident on Dunley Hill. She will never betray it by a word. She offers herself as a sacrifice, and this magnanimity which fills me with despair constantly aggravates the intolerable anguish of our daily association. I no longer love the woman who loves me; I still love the one who loves me no longer. I have committed no sin, I am even blameless. Will you deny that if I had given myself cause for remorse I might also have suffered less, might have even had chances of happiness?'"
With a far-away look in her eyes, the narrator ended her story abruptly.
"And what did you answer?" I questioned.
"I answered that pain wears itself out no less than joy, that it is our nature to regret the things that might have been, because they are so different from reality. I answered that patience to live is the greatest among the virtues."
I, too, have known the joys of travel! I, too, have left the easy slopes of home for the steep ascents of foreign lands! Like many another simpleton, sated with the familiar, I have enthusiastically crossed frontiers in search of that something or other which might give me unexpected sensations.
After being tossed and jolted and bruised in the hard sleeping cars, I have fallen into the hands of porters, or "traegers" or "facchini," who bewildered me with their violent pantomime accompanied by anti-French sounds, obliged me to follow them by going off with my wraps and bags, and after an extortionate charge flung me on to the sympathetically dejected cushions of the hotel omnibus, amid strange companions. Next, a hideous rattling of iron and window glass, while a gold-laced individual asks me simultaneously in three different languages to account for my presence here, and say how I mean to spend my time, telling me in the same breath the great advantage there would be in doing something quite different from what I intend to do. Presently the torture changes. A gigantic porter in an imperial great coat transfers me to silent automata in black broadcloth and white tie, who hand people and luggage from one to the next as far as the elevator. Nothing more remains but to answer the chambermaid's investigations as to my habits and tastes, my theory of existence, while by an error of the hall boy my luggage is scattered in neighbouring rooms, and I am burdened with someone else's. All is finally straightened out. Alone, at last!
Then comes a discreet knock at my door. It is the interpreter, the guide, the cicerone, the indispensable man, who with touching obsequiousness places his universal knowledge at my disposal for to-day, to-morrow, or all time. Here follows a long enumeration of what custom imposes upon the stranger. There is no question of breaking away from tradition. There stand the monuments, and here are the roads leading to them. One may begin the round by one or another. My liberty is limited to the order in which I shall see them. The rest does not concern me. Here is such and such a picture, there stands such and such a piece of statuary. We shall cross the street or the square where such and such an event took place. A date, the year, and month, and day, are supposed to stamp the facts on my memory. Why did the men of the past choose this precise spot to make history? I have no time to inquire, for in three turns of the wheel I am in another and still more memorable place, where other dates and other names are dextrously driven into the quick of my memory. Galleries follow upon galleries, trips to rivers, to mountains. A glimpse of a cool garden tempts me. How sweet to rest there for a while, and dream! But where is one to find the time, when interpreter and coachman are growing impatient because there is no more than time to go to the Carthusian monastery, and get back before nightfall?
The interminable road unfolds before me while I delve into my Baedeker for the history of the monastery. Suddenly the coachman stops, points with his whip at the horizon, and makes an emphatic, incomprehensible speech. A battle was fought there in the time of the Risorgimento. His little cousin's brother-in-law was wounded there, not mortally, though his corporal had his leg cut off. How should one not be proud of such memories? My guide says that his father was fond of telling that he had seen it all from the top of a tower. He begins another version of the story, which is interrupted by our arrival at the monastery, and taken up again on the return journey. Next day in the train I shall have leisure to think over all these things, if the complete confusion in my memory leaves me capacity for anything but stupefaction.
When we try to get at the reason for these extraordinary performances, people offer different explanations. This one will call it "taking a holiday." The other will say that he has had an unhappy love affair and needs distraction. For the most part, people will confess that they are trying to forget something—their wife, their children, their business. All seem tormented by the same desire for novelty. What they are seeking from men and monuments and places in foreign lands is something not yet seen, a fresh enjoyment, a virgin impression which shall draw them outside the circle of outworn sensations. It is something to rouse a happy wonder, and fulfil a hope of pleasure that always keeps ahead of any pleasure experienced. Do they find it? Everyone must answer for himself. Many probably never ask themselves the question, lest they be obliged to confess a weary disappointment.
Before this procession of churches, statues, and pictures, where shall we stop, what shall we try to retain? How shall we disentangle the significance of things, the meaning and power and expressiveness of which can only be grasped by deep study? It would be too simple, if one need merely open one's eyes in order to understand. The work of art speaks, but we must know its language. Not only is time wanting, knowledge of the need of knowledge is wanting in most passers by, who will never do anything but pass by. Their pride is satisfied when they can say: "I have seen." That is the most definite part of their harvest of pleasure. It is apparently a conscientious scruple that obliges them to go out of their way to obtain it.
"I am going to Rome," said a young Englishman to Miss Harriet Martineau, "oh, just so as to be able to say that I have been there."
"Why don't you say so without going?" was the simple reply.
It is upon Italy particularly that the crowd hurls itself. Wherever you may go in that classic land, you will be surrounded by an ever-rising flood of the natives of every known continent, all seeking under new skies for self-renewal. Silent, tired, their eyes straining at invisible things, they file past with their shawls and veils and parasols, levelling field glasses, marking maps, asking senseless questions, and emitting exclamations expressive of an equal admiration for everything they see. I have always pitied these poor people, dragged from their native land by a force which their simple minds are unable to analyze. They will never express their disappointment, most of them will never realize it. But I feel it for them, and I pity their wasted effort.
It was a consolation to me to find one day that there are people who turn homeward satisfied, with the object of their desires attained, and the happiness secured of having seen and felt what it is granted only to a chosen few to see and feel.
I was quite alone on the platform of the bell tower of Torcello, from which the entire Venetian lagoon is visible at a glance. Sea, air, and sky, all luminous and transparent, melted into one another, building a vast dome of light. In the distance, bluish spots—islands, or perhaps clouds—what cared I for names! Do clouds have names? Boats loaded with fruit and vegetables streaked the bright mirror of the sea, and alone reminded one of the reality of the earth. Not a sound. The desert calm of sky and sea imposes silence. The lagoon has no song.
I stood there, as if transfixed in the crystal of the universe, admiring without reflection, when lo!—a group of Germans arriving, led by the fever-shaken cicerone whose aid I had a little earlier refused. Here was his chance for revenge. Immediately, without preamble, he gathers his audience in a circle, and begins to "exhibit" the horizon. With outstretched arms he throws at every point of the compass names, and names, and then more names. From the top of the peaceful tower fly sonorous sounds to the spots where his imperious gesture firmly fastens them. Mountain, island, tower, village, indentations of the coast line, everything has its turn, visible objects and objects that might be visible. Men, women, and children, all Germany hangs upon the lips of the voluble showman. At each name, as if at a military command, all glances follow the pointing finger and take an anxious plunge into space. For one must be sure to see the designated spot. Otherwise what is the good of coming? But as soon as the eyes are settling down to feed upon the sight just announced, a new command drags them all in another direction. That blue line, that white gleam have a name, a history—this is the name, and here is the history. Now let us go on to the next thing.
These people, marvellously disciplined, listen in admiring attitudes. A student is taking notes, so as to impart his learning when he gets home. But the end is not yet. The cicerone, suddenly silent, one hand shielding his eyes, appears hypnotized by something at the horizon. The attitude, the fixed stare, particularly the silence, keep the spectators in suspense. The man has drawn from his pocket a battered opera glass which, possibly, in the last century, contributed to the delight of some noble dame at the Fenice. Its lenses acquire from being dextrously rubbed with an accurately proportioned mixture of saliva and tobacco, and then dried with a handkerchief reminiscent of fish fried in oil, and of polenta, the unique property of making infinitely small objects at the horizon visible—objects smaller than any other optical instrument could enable one to see. The man brandishes the apparatus.
"To-day Giambolo is visible," he says. "I am going to show you Giambolo."
Everyone exclaims joyously: "What! Is it possible? He is going to show us Giambolo!"
And the man on the bell tower of Torcello is as good as his word. Pushing aside the German field glasses with a scornful gesture, he thrusts his precious instrument upon the group.
"Do you see, just above the horizon line, something white that seems to move in a burst of light? Half close your eyes, in order to see farther. By an uncommon piece of luck Giambolo is visible to-day. You cannot help seeing it. I can even see it with my naked eye. But of course I know where to look for it."
The rigid German, ankylosed at his glass, suddenly straightens up.
"Yes, yes, I saw it very well. It is all white, and there is something shining."
"That is it," answers the man of Torcello, satisfied.
Then everyone took his turn. The women all saw it at the very first glance; they even gave detailed descriptions of it. The student alone could not see Giambolo. He confessed it with genuine humiliation, and was looked upon with pitying disdain by all the others.
"What is it like?" he asked of everyone. And everyone gave his own description. There was a slight vapour at the top. A streak at the right, said some, some said at the left; there was nothing of the kind, according to thepater familiaswho had had the distinction of being the first to see Giambolo.
The unfortunate student tried again and again, and went on exclaiming in despair: "I can see nothing! I can see nothing!"
The Italian shrugged his shoulders with a placid smile, the meaning of which obviously was that some people had not the gift.
"But," cried the exasperated youth, "what is Giambolo, will you tell me? Is there any such thing, really, as Giambolo?"
A unanimous cry of horror went up at this blasphemy. How could one see a thing that did not exist? When half a dozen human beings have in good faith seen Giambolo and are willing to swear before God that they have, no further discussion is possible.
"Then tell me what it is, since you have seen it."
With a gesture the Italian checked all forthcoming answers.
"Giambolo is Giambolo," he pronounced, with imposing solemnity. "One cannot, unless one is mad, argue about it. Only, it is not granted to everyone to see it."
There was evidently on the bell tower of Torcello no one bereft of reason, for silence followed this speech, and no one seemed inclined to dispute a settled fact. Groaning under the weight of his shame, the unfortunate young man who had not seen Giambolo gave the signal for moving on, and the descent was made in the contented repose of mind that attends the happy accomplishment of an act above the common.
On the lowest step, the good Torcellian reaped in his discreetly outstretched cap an abundant harvest of silver coins. It is hardly possible to be niggardly with those who have shown one Giambolo.
A few days later, on the roof of the Milan Cathedral, amid the thick forest of statues which makes the place surprising, I saw a mustachioed guide hurling at the marble multitude augmented by a flock of Cook's tourists the names of the snowy summits composing the Alpine range along the horizon. The memory of Torcello was so recent that I could not but be struck by the identity of the scene. The same motions, same accent, same voluble emphasis. The session was near its end. I was about to pass on, when the man, after a moment's silent scrutiny, drew forth an opera glass through which perhaps, in her day, Malibran was seen at the Scala; he signified by a gesture that he had a supplementary communication to make. All Cook's flock drew near, grave, anxious, open mouthed. Oh, surprise! Like the man of Torcello, the Milanese had caught sight of something not usually to be seen. With an authoritative gesture he called upon the elements to deliver up their mystery, and extending a finger with infallible accuracy toward a point known only to himself, cast upon the wind a name the sonorous vibrations of which spread through space. Was it an illusion? It seemed to me that the name was Giambolo.
Still Giambolo! Giambolo, visible from all heights. And the same scene was enacted as on the lagoon at Venice.
The magical glass passed from hand to hand; exclamations of joy and surprise followed one another. Everybody wished to see and saw Giambolo. They exchanged their impressions.
"Did you see the little puff of vapour?"
"Something white."
"Yes—blue."
"No—gray."
"That is it! You have seen it!"
And there was inexpressible delight. Only a few silent individuals showed by their dejected attitude the humiliation they felt at not being sure of what they had seen, or whether they had seen it. But no one took any notice of this in the tumult of commentary.
I looked at the happy group. Laughing faces, bright eyes, all the weariness of travel wiped out. Some of the women grew quiet, the more consciously to taste their joy. The men, more communicative, exchanged opinions. They had seen Giambolo, and could not get over the wonder of it.
They had not come to Italy in vain. Which opinion was shared by the excellent Lombardy guide, weighing in his palm the money accruing to him from the sight of Giambolo.
A week had passed without any notable event other than meeting everywhere those pilgrim bands who spoil all pleasure in beautiful things by the obsession of their ready-made admirations. From the outer rotunda of the convent in Assisi I was letting my gaze wander over the plain of Umbria, all the world in sight being an expanse of billowing greenness. As if through a trap door a man sprang up at my side, then two, then ten, then what seemed a thousand, for the platform on which I had a moment before been walking alone under the sky was turned into a clamorous ant hill.
Voices on all sides exclaimed: "Here it is! Here is the place from which we can see. Over there, there, the towers of Perugia. And the railway!"
"What! The railway that brought us?"
"Yes, really!"
"How strange!"
"Can you tell me, sir," said a fat man, puffing, "the name of yonder village?"
"No, sir."
"Ah, and that other one?"
"No, sir."
There was a cry. Everyone rushed in the direction whence it came. I feared that someone had fallen over the parapet. Not at all, it was the call of the cicerone who had something to impart. As soon as he had obtained silence:
"Ladies and gentlemen," he began in ringing tones, "the day is exceptionally favourable to show you, far away, beyond Perugia, something which few travellers have had the good fortune to see from here."
The greasy opera glass came into sight, wrapped in a red handkerchief together with cigarettes and divers odds and ends. The entire audience was aquiver with suspense, keen to the point of anguish.
"You shall now see," he cried.
I fled. But I had finally begun to see the philosophy of the phenomenon. In a word, Giambolo was a reality, since it was the thing that all these people came in search of. What exactly was it? There was no advantage in knowing, since, if Giambolo were within reach, all joy in it would be lost. Giambolo stands for that which cannot be grasped. Giambolo stands for the beyond—it is the door leading from the known to the Infinite.
We leave our country, our home and friends, all to whom we give the best of ourselves, all for whom we spend ourselves, and we go to foreign lands in quest of that fascinating Giambolo which we do not find at home, where strangers sometimes come in search of it. We wear ourselves out in the quest. When we reach home again, we claim to have seen it. Sometimes we are not sure of having done so. A monument, a statue, a picture is too close. We can always, taking the word of fame, make believe to discover what we in reality do not. But if we succeed in deceiving others, it is harder in good faith to delude ourselves. Whereas, from a height, through the blurred glass of faith, the little white light, beyond the edge of the visible world, by which we are enabled sincerely to see what we do not see brings us the surest realization of human hope.
And, kind readers, if any one of you ever has any doubts, even though you sit in your armchair at home, follow the advice of the guide on the Venetian lagoon: "Half close your eyes——" and you will see Giambolo.