Part 8

It was, of course, imperative that the proceedings should be conducted with secrecy, and the meeting was arranged to take place on the outskirts of a distant town, to which it was necessary to make a long night journey by rail. In the early dawn of a cold morning in March, the four men met in the cemetery of a famous monastery, that stands perched on a crag, overlooking the neighbouring city, and a wide vale stretching away for miles towards the distant hills. A pack of cards was produced, and, with a tombstone as a table, the adversaries played one hand at _écarté_. The game went evenly enough, and rather slowly, till the brother marked four against his opponent’s three. It was then the latter’s deal; he turned up the king and made the point, winning the game. A line was drawn, the distance measured, the pistols placed in the duellists’ hands, and the two friends retired a few yards, holding their loaded rifles ready for use. The word was given, and the brother stood calmly awaiting his fate. The soldier slowly raised his pistol to a point in line with the other’s head, and, from a distance of a few inches, put a bullet through his brain, the unfortunate man falling dead without uttering a sound or making a movement.

The officer obtained a month’s leave and fled across the border into Switzerland, but, before the month was up, public excitement over the affair had waned, and the gossips were busy with a new scandal. Their outraged sense of propriety had been appeased by the sacrifice of the dead, and the novel and piquant circumstances which accompanied it. As for the intrigue which had led to the duel, that, of course, went on the same as ever, only rather more so.

XVIII

THE GENTLE ART OF VEERING WITH THE WIND

To-day I received a letter from you. I have read it twice, and, though it contains eight pages of closely written lines, there is not one word in it that would show that I am any more to you than the merest acquaintance. For weeks I have anxiously awaited this letter; plans, of the utmost importance to me, depended upon the answer you would give to a question I had put; and my whole future, at least that future which deals with a man’s ambitions, would, in all probability, be influenced by your reply. I asked you--well, never mind what--and you, being entirely free to write what you mean and what you wish, say that it is a point on which you cannot offer advice; but you tell me that you have given up reading and taken to gardening, as you find it is better for you! Have you ever read the story of Zadig? If you have, you will perhaps remember how his wife, Azora, railed against the newly made widow whom she found gardening. I have no prejudices of that kind, and, in my case, no one’s nose is in danger of the razor; but still I think I may not unreasonably feel somewhat aggrieved.

Do not believe that I could ever wish to remind you of what you have forgotten, or wish to forget. I only want to know what is real and what is counterfeit, and you alone can tell me. I may ask this, may I not? It is not that I may presume to judge you, or from any wish to gratify an impertinent curiosity, but that I may be saved from imagining what is not, and, while torturing myself, possibly even distress you. I find it hard to reconcile this letter of yours with others I have received, and if that sounds to you but a confession of my stupidity, I would rather admit my want of intelligence and crave your indulgence, than stand convicted of putting two and two together and making of them twenty-two. If you tell me there is no question of indulgence, but that quite regular verbs have different moods, that present and past tenses are irreconcilable, and, of the future, no man knoweth--I shall have my answer.

You do not write under the influence of winter. I cannot charge myself with any offence against you. Nay, God knows that all my thoughts and all my efforts are but to do you honour. If I have misread your earlier letters, if I have been unduly elated by such kind words as you have sent me, it is the simplest thing in the world to undeceive me and show me the error of my ways. Are you only _souffrante_, and may I disregard the chilling atmosphere of your present missive, remembering the tender sympathy of voice, of eye, of hand, in the rapturous days of a cherished past?

It seems as natural to some people to love to-day, and to be almost strangers to-morrow, as that we should revel in a flood of light when the moon is full, and grope in darkness when the goddess of night is no longer visible. The temperament that makes this possible is fortunately rare, so much so that it creates an interest in the observer. I have never seen it in man, but I have in woman; and one realises that then it is better to be a spectator than an actor in what is never a farce, and may easily develop into tragedy. Imagine such a woman of very unusual personal attractions: great beauty of face and figure united to a high intelligence and extreme charm of manner; witty, ambitious, courageous, full of high thoughts and endowed with all the advantages that wealth can add to personal gifts. Deep in a nature that is strangely complex, and capable of the most opposite extremes, suppose there is implanted, amongst many other feelings, a passionate yearning to be understood, and to be loved with a love that would shrink from nothing to prove the greatness of its devotion. Here you have a being capable of what seem the strangest contradictions, and not the least startling of these may be a rare, but absolute and passionate, self-abandonment, under the influence of certain circumstances which strongly appeal to the senses. Overcome by intoxication of sound, colour, and magnetism, every moral and conventional muscle suddenly relaxes, and, the violence of the forces released, is wild and uncontrolled, because of the firm determination by which they are habitually bound. To-morrow, in the cold grey light of day, the slow-working mind of man is absolutely bewildered by what he sees and hears. He comes, dominated by an exalted passion, enthralled by a vision of ecstasy through which he sees, imperfectly, the people about him, only “men as trees walking”; reserving his thoughts and perceptions of surrounding objects till he shall again gaze upon that face which seems to him to have opened the door of life with the key of a boundless love. Still dazed by the memories of last night, he enters the presence of his beloved, and experiences a shock, such as a swimmer might feel, if floating, half-entranced, in some tropic sea, he suddenly hit against an iceberg.

Sometimes, even, influenced by surroundings, maddened by the whisperings of a southern night, passed in a place where she breathes an atmosphere impregnated with the romance of centuries, the lonely soul of the woman, hungering for sympathy and communion, will seize a pen and write, “Come to me; I want you, for you understand; come, and I will give you happiness.” Before the letter has been gone one day, on a journey that may take it to the ends of the earth, the writer’s mood has changed, and she has forgotten her summons as completely as though it had never been written. When the missive reaches its destination, the recipient will be wise to curb his impetuosity, and realise that his opportunity is long since dead and buried.

The bewildering phases of such a nature as I have here imagined are nothing to us. To you it may even seem inexcusable that I should allude to a character with which you have no sympathy, an abnormal growth which sounds rather fantastic than real. It is the _argumentum ad absurdum_, and has its value. This strange perversity which, by reason of its startling contradictions, seems almost inhuman, and if, in rare instances, met with, can only excite feelings of curiosity or repugnance--this is the extreme case. The application of the moral will come nearer home to us, if we make the changes from passionate love to cold indifference a little less marked, the intervals between the moods a little longer. It is well to know one’s own mind, not because wavering and change hurt the fickle, but because some stupid person may suffer by the purchase of experience; may take it to heart, and may do himself an injury. It is well to know one’s own heart, and what it can give; lest another put too high a value on the prize and lose all in trying to win it. It is well to know our own weakness, and at once recognise that we shall be guided by it; lest another think it is strength, and make, for our sakes, sacrifices that only frighten and perhaps even annoy us, especially when they are made in the absurd belief that they will please us.

If you can give the extreme of happiness, do not forget that you can also cause an infinity of pain. No one can blame you for declining to accord favours; and if that refusal gives pain, there is no help for it. There can be little sympathy for those who seek the battle and then complain of their wounds. Such hurts do not rankle, and quickly heal. But it is different when a woman gives love of her own free will, uninfluenced by any consideration beyond her inclination, and then takes it back, also without other cause than caprice. It is difficult to use any other word--either it was a caprice to say she gave what never was given, or it is a caprice to take it back. A confession of thoughtlessness in estimating the character of her own feelings, or of weakness and inability to resist any opposing influence, is a poor pretext for a sudden withering of the tendrils of affection. Such a confession is an indifferent consolation to the heart which realises its loss, but cannot appreciate the situation. Do not mistake me; it is so hard to be absolutely candid and fair in considering our own cases. We are not less likely to make mistakes in matters of sentiment than in the purely practical affairs of life. If we think we love, and then become certain that we have made a mistake, the only safe and kind course is to confess the error; but if we deliberately seek love and give it, much protesting and much exacting, how shall we then deny it? Would one say, “If you asked me, I would go down into hell with you, now,” and then, ere twelve months had passed, for no crime but enforced absence, speak or write, to that other, almost as a stranger?

There was Peter, I know; but even he was not altogether satisfied with himself, and, besides denying his Lord, he stands convicted of physical cowardice.

XIX

A REJOINDER

Thank you. Before my last letter could reach you, _vous m’aviez donné affreusement à penser_, and this is what occurs to me:--

“Of all the lover’s sorrows, next to that Of Love by Love forbidden, is the voice Of Friendship turning harsh in Love’s reproof, And overmuch of counsel--whereby Love Grows stubborn, and recoiling unsupprest Within, devours the heart within the breast.”

I dare say it is as well. I am beginning to recognise the real attractions of what I may call a “surprise letter.” I have had several lately. It is perhaps the irony of fate that, just after I had mildly hinted to you that the phases of the moods of the feminine mind were sometimes rather bewildering, you should write to me the sort of letter which, had it been sent by me to a man I called my friend, I should richly deserve death at his hands. There are certainly few things more thoroughly enjoyable than to take up a letter that you see comes from--well, let us say from a very dear friend--to dally a little over the opening, in the mingled desire and hesitation to read the contents; feverish desire to know that all is well, to hear some word of affectionate regard--hesitation lest the news be bad, the letter cold; and then to find such a missive as you have sent to me.

To begin with, there is a page and a half on which you have poured out the vials of your wrath. I was quite hot before I had read half of it, and my ears even were burning before I came to a page in which you told me how greatly you were enjoying yourself. And then, at the end, there was another page and a half, every word of which seemed to strike me in the face like a blow. I suppose you introduced the middle section that I might meditate on the difference between your circumstances and mine, and duly appreciate the full weight of your displeasure. Well, yes, I have done so; and, as God only knows when I shall see you again, I must write one or two of the many words it is in my heart to say to you.

I am a very unworthy person; I have deeply offended you; and you have felt it necessary to tell me gently how ill my conduct looks to you. You leave me to infer that there are offences which cannot be tolerated, and that it would not be difficult to dispense with my acquaintance. I humbly accept this verdict, and as it is absolutely just and right that the prisoner should first be condemned without hearing, and then suffered to state his case, and say anything he pleases in mitigation of sentence, I will try not to weary you by any reference to ancient history, but simply confine myself to the charge.

Now, what is my crime? You asked me a question; I am sure you have long ago forgotten what it was, and I need not remind you; but I, like an idiot, thought you really wanted an answer, and that it was my bounden duty to find a means of sending it. The question gave me infinite pleasure, and, again like an idiot, I thought the answer I longed to send would be welcome. I could not send it in the ordinary way, as you will admit, and, a sudden thought striking me that there was a safe and easy means of transmission, I acted on it, and your letter is the result. You tell me your pride is wounded, your trust in my word gone, and your conscience scandalised. It is useless for me now to express regret. I have been convicted, and I am only pleading in mitigation of sentence. Well, mine was a deliberate sin. I had to decide whether I would answer you or not, and, though I disliked the means, I thought the end would justify them. To me they did not then, and do not now, seem very objectionable; and it certainly did not occur to me that I could thereby wound the most sensitive feelings. Of course I was an imbecile, and ought to have realised that a question like that was only a phrase, with no serious meaning. I gave a promise, you say, and have broken it. It is a pity. I had rather have sinned in any other way, for I have my pride too, and it asserts itself chiefly in the keeping of promises, rather than the gift of them. As to the conscience, I deeply sympathise. An offended conscience must be a very inconvenient, not to say unpleasant, companion. But you were greatly enjoying yourself (you impress that upon me, so you will not be offended if I mention it), therefore I conclude your conscience was satisfied by the uncompromising expression of your sense of my misdeeds. Might I ask which way your conscience was looking when you wrote this letter to me, or does it feel no call to speak on my behalf? I would rather my hand were palsied than write such a letter to any one, and you know that I have forfeited your favour in trying to do your will. I think your quarrel was rather with your conscience than with me; but it is well to keep friends with those of one’s own household.

Truly it is an evil thing to stake one’s happiness upon the value of _x_ in an indeterminate equation. It is possible to regard the unknown quantity with philosophy; it is like the unattainable. The mischief all comes with what looks like solution, but proves in the end to be drawn from false premises. Lines can be straight, and figures may be square, but sentient beings are less reliable, and therefore more interesting--as studies. The pity is that we sometimes get too close, in our desire to examine minutely what looks most beautiful and most attractive. Then proximity destroys the powers of critical judgment, and, from appearances, we draw conclusions which are utterly unreliable, because our own intelligence is obscured by the interference of our senses. We have to count with quantities that not only have no original fixed value, but vary from day to day, and even from hour to hour.

You will say that if I can liken you to an algebraic sign, speak of you as a “quantity” and “an indeterminate equation,” it cannot matter much whether you write to me in terms of hate or love. If, however, you consider where you are and where I am, and if, when this lies in your hand, you are on good terms with your pride and your conscience, you may be able to spare, from the abundance you lavish on them, a grain of sympathy for me in my loneliness. Is it a crime for the humble worshipper to seek to assure the deity of his unaltered devotion? It used not to be so; and though the temple has infinite attractions for me, the tavern none, I could say with the Persian--

“And this I know: whether the one True Light Kindle to love, or Wrath-consume me quite, One Flash of It within the Tavern caught Better than in the Temple lost outright.”

Life is too short, and too full of storm and stress, to induce any one to stake it on a proved uncertainty, however attractive. It is better never to take ship at all than to be constantly meeting disaster on the shoals and rocks of the loveliest summer sea. Of the end of such a venture there is no uncertainty. The bravest craft that ever left port will be reduced to a few rotting timbers, while the sea smiles anew on what is but a picturesque effect.

XX

OF IMPORTUNITY

I must unburden myself to you, because I may do so without offence, without shocking you beyond forgiveness; for I feel that if my letter were to another, I should either have to use such self-control that I should gain no relief for my injured feelings, or else the other would think I had gone mad, and blot my name out of the book of her correspondents--two r’s, please. You see I am in an evil mood, the bad tense of the evil mood; so I may as well begin in the green leaf what is sure to come in the brown. Besides, you are partly to blame! Is not that like a man? You supplied me with the fruit of this knowledge which has set my teeth on edge, but it is also true that you gave it in furtherance of my request and to oblige me. I fancy that was the case with Eve. Adam probably sent her up a tree (the expression has lasted to our own time), looked the other way, and pretended he had forgotten all about it when the obliging lady came down and tendered the result of her painful efforts. It is bad enough to climb with your clothes on, as I saw the other day, when I induced a friend to swarm up a fern-tree by telling him I did not believe he could do it. But this is all beside the mark;--what has roused my ire is a parcel of new books, kindly selected by you to cheer my solitude. As they came direct from the bookseller, I do not know whether you have read them, but they are very new indeed, and, from what you say, I think you must at least have wrestled with some of them. Very recent publications, like many of these, are rather a rarity here, and, as I was particularly busy, I lent some of them to friends who are always hungering for new literature. Now I am rather sorry, though I washed my hands of the transaction by saying that I would not take the responsibility of recommending anything, but they were at liberty to take what they liked. In due time the volumes were returned, without comment, but with the pages cut. I did not think anything of that at the time, the realities of the moment interested me a great deal more than any book could; but now I have read some of the batch, and I am suffering from an earnest desire to meet the authors and “have it out with them.” As however, that is not in my power, I am going to victimise you. There is one story, of a kind that is now common enough, that is specially aggravating. If you have read it you will know which I refer to; if not, I won’t tell you. It is written by a woman, and discourses in a very peculiar fashion on the ways of men. That is of no particular moment, for the writer has either a very indifferent knowledge of men, or she is not to be congratulated on her male friends, or she has had some very unfortunate personal experiences, and judges the species by some repulsive individuals. It was a man who said that women do not possess the sentiment of justice, and he might, if he had wished to be fair, have added that it is comparatively rare in men. Men have written many unkind and untrue things about women as a sex, but they cannot have harmed them much, since their influence over the beings, derisively styled “Lords of Creation” is certainly on the increase, especially in new countries like America.

What, however, is rather strange is that, in the book I speak of, there are two women--joint-heroines, as it were--held up for the reader’s admiration, but described as perfectly odious creatures. The story, however, is practically confined to the life and character of one of these ladies, and the exact position of the other, in relation to her friend, is not altogether clear, nor of any concern as regards my point. Let me then speak of the one woman as the heroine; it is to her I wish to apply the epithet odious. The writer, I take it, is very pleased and satisfied with the lady of her creation, and, whilst she never loses an opportunity of enlarging on the very objectionable characteristics of all men of birth and education, she evidently means the reader to understand that she has drawn and coloured the picture of a very perfect and altogether captivating woman. A young, beautiful, intelligent, highly educated, perfectly dressed woman, surrounded by every luxury that great wealth and good taste can secure, may easily be captivating, and it might be counted something less than a crime that a number of admirers should be anxious to marry her. When it comes to character it is different; and even though the spectacle of a woman with fewer attractions than I have named, and a disposition that left something to be desired, enslaving men of renown, is not unknown to history, it seems a little unusual to design a heroine as the very embodiment of selfishness, and then exhibit her as the perfect woman. The life that is shown to us is chiefly that of a girl,--old enough, and independent and intelligent enough, to know perfectly what she was doing,--constantly allowing, or alluring, men to make love to her; and then, when they wished to marry her, telling them in language which, if not considerate, was certainly plain, how deeply insulted she felt. If they wasted years and years, or lost their useless, sinful lives altogether, over her, that was a matter of such absolute indifference that it never gave her a second thought or a moment of regret. She did not avoid men altogether; on the contrary, she seemed rather fond of their society, as she had only one woman friend, and is described as giving them all ample opportunities of declaring their passionate admiration for her beauty and intelligence. The lovers were many and varied; coming from the peerage, the squirearchy, the army, the Church, and other sources; but they all met with the same fate, and each in turn received a special lecture on the vice and amazing effrontery of his proposal.