He breathed more freely.
“And yet I should never have imagined....”
“How’s that? I have only been practising your own theory of love.”
“Ye—es, but....”
“Well, but what?”
“This is quite another thing. Of primitive elemental simplicity he has
nothing at all.”
“It is true. In that point, and in that point only, has my practice
departed from your theory. But I think good art is not unfrequently
preferable to problematical simplicity.”
“Yes, no doubt. And, moreover....”
“Pray continue.”
“I myself have ended by abandoning that theory of mine. My experience
with Helena exploded it definitely. I have radically changed my
attitude; now I am without any conviction at all on the subject.”
“But I imagined that the fallen edifice of your theory was to be
restored by the aid of kitchen-maids.”
“Vain hopes! They have proved impracticable, even to myself. My
experiments in that quarter only completed the ruin of the theory.”
“Well, then, what are you going to do about it?”
“I am seeking love.”
“Oh, dear! _Et tu!_ And it was to you I came on purpose to get a rest
from it. There must be some fatality about all this—the atmosphere is
vitiated everywhere.... Stephen, have mercy, have mercy!”
He smiled compassionately.
“So soon as that? Janka, how soon you get tired!”
We went to a _café_, where we saw Gina sitting along with Radlowski at
one of the tables. There were none vacant, so we joined them at theirs,
and I introduced the men to each other. Wiazewski objects to artists;
but he must have been pleased with this one, whose exterior is that of a
typical “gentleman.” I was in exceedingly good spirits, and set about
flirting with the painter. He was now much changed from what he was when
I saw him last. His eyes are not bright any more, and he looks a good
deal older. We fell to talking upon speculative subjects, and I strove
to be original and sparkling. Radlowski’s eyes were fixed steadfastly on
my face all the while.
“Well, I see you are far more of a woman than I had ever thought you.”
My answer to these words of Stephen’s was only a look, but a look of
triumph. At last it had come—this, the hardest of all victories to
win!... Unfortunately, it came too late....
“In a few years,” he added, “when all your faculties are duly balanced,
you will be an exceptional being. Perhaps a model ‘Woman of the
Future.’”
“Oh, anything but that. I take no interest except in what goes on within
me. If I am at all elated, it is not on account of what is there, but of
the fact that these forces are incessantly in conflict with my will. I
am proud of my imperfections which turn to perfections, of my ideas
which treat one another with mutual contempt, of my instincts, so
strongly opposed to my logic; of my atavistic tendencies, which it is a
finer and more momentous work to unearth and to note down than to put
into practice. I am proud of the eternal Becoming, teeming with riches,
dazzling with the wildest hues, deafening with harsh discordancies,
rushing on, moving hither and thither, turning in spiral ascension, or
even spinning round. Yes, I am proud that this Becoming still goes on. I
prefer a hundred times the ‘Transitional Woman’ to the ‘Woman of the
Future’: for she who is transitional promises ever so much more than the
other, when perfect, can fulfil.
“Neither you,” I said, turning to Gina, “with your quasi-Pantheistic
theory of love; nor Madame Wildenhoff, with her volatile and almost
man-like eroticism; nor Idalia, nor Martha—none of you is, any more than
I am, a woman of the future; you are full of exaggerated theories, of
crotchets, of false notions, of atavistic trends and extreme views. Yet
I prefer you to that free and happy woman of our dreams, in whom desire,
conscious and in perfect equilibrium, will not, however intense it may
be, trespass beyond the limits of its possibility to be satisfied. Yes!
You I prefer to the most perfect of standards, to the very best of
patterns, to the wisest and most consistent of—Philistines!”
Gina said gloomily:
“Then what is it all for—this ghastly struggle, this agony of Becoming?”
“For the glory of the last specimens of our species. We are tending
towards this goal: that the abstract type of Woman may perish as soon as
it is realized, even as the abstract type of Man perished also. Having
attained that level, we shall, together with Man, begin to evolve in the
wider sphere of our common humanity. The struggle and the war of the
elements which make up our nature will still continue in a new Becoming,
but no longer in the narrow space of womanhood, which leaves us too
little room to breathe.”
“All the same,” said Stephen, in conclusion, “our descendants will envy
us very, very much, since we live in the days of the Last Woman.”
“Let us hope that the present period may endure for some time; say,
until the gorilla is extinct.”
Stephen’s feeling of mediæval worship for woman was shocked at my words:
“Women and gorillas named together!” he sighed.
Whilst we were going home, after taking leave of Gina and Radlowski, he
said, hesitatingly and in some confusion:
“Janka, do not make a pastime of that Imszanski any more: he is not
worth playing with.”
“Well said, but?...”
“Hear me out, Janka. Till the present moment, I was not aware that I
loved you and you alone.... May I hope, or is it quite out of the
question?”
“Good God, Stephen! pray don’t think of proposing! I got a proposal only
the other day. There must be something in the air—infection—the approach
of spring! At any rate, I am not in a consenting mood now; so let me
be.”