usual. He approached Marie while we were playing backgammon, and asked
her to explain the rules of the game to him. I answered as civilly as I
could under the circumstances, and the worthy man returned to his seat,
snubbed. Marie, more sensitive than I, was under the impression that
she ought to make amends for my rudeness; she turned to him with the
first question which came into her mind--
"Do you play billiards?" she said.
"No, madame, or rather, I play badly...."
He rose again, approached a step or two, and offered me a cigar. I
declined.
He turned to Marie. "Won't you smoke, madame?" Fortunately for her, for
the tobacconist and the future of my family, she too declined, but she
refused in a manner which flattered him.
How dared this man offer a lady a cigarette in a restaurant in the
presence of her husband?
Was I a jealous fool? Or was my wife's conduct so scandalous that she
excited the desire of the first-comer?
We had a scene in our room, for I regarded her as a somnambulist whom
it was my duty to awaken. She was walking straight to her doom, without
being in the least aware of it. I gave her an epitome of her sins, old
and new, and minutely criticised her conduct.
Silently, with a pale face and dream-shadowed eyes, she listened until
I had finished. Then she rose and went down-stairs to bed. But this
time--for the first time in my life--I fell so low as to play the spy.
I crept down-stairs, found her bedroom door, and looked through the
keyhole.
The rich glow of the lamp fell on the children's nurse, who sat
opposite the door right in the field of my vision. Marie was pacing the
room excitedly, vehemently denouncing my unfounded suspicions; she
conducted her case as a criminal conducts his defence.
And yet I was innocent, quite innocent, in spite of all my
opportunities to sin....
She produced two glasses of beer, and they drank together. They sat
down, side by side, and Marie looked at her caressingly. Closer and
closer she moved to the girl, put her head on the shoulders of this new
friend, slipped her arm round her waist and kissed her....
Poor Marie! Poor, unhappy woman, who sought comfort far from me, who
alone could set her mind at rest and give her peace. All of a sudden
she drew herself up, listened, and pointed towards the door.
"Some one's there!"
I slipped away.
When I returned to my post of observation I noticed that Marie was
half undressed, exposing her shoulders to the gaze of the girl, who,
however, remained quite unmoved. Then she resumed her defence.
"There can be no doubt that he is mad! I shouldn't be surprised if he
tried to poison me.... I suffer unbearable pains in my inside.... But
no, it's hardly probable ... perhaps I ought to fly to Finland.... What
do you think?... Only it would kill him, for he loves the children...."
What was this, if not the outpourings of an evil conscience?... Stung
with remorse, she was terror-stricken and sought refuge on the bosom
of a woman! She was a perverted child; an unfaithful wife, a criminal;
but, above all, she was an unhappy woman.
I lay awake all night, a prey to my tormenting thoughts. At two o'clock
in the morning I heard her moaning in her sleep. Full of pity, I
knocked on the floor to dispel the visions which terrified her. It was
not the first time that I had done this.
She thanked me on the following morning for having awakened her from
her nightmare. I made much of her, and begged her to tell me, her best
friend, everything.
"Tell you what?... I have nothing to tell."
I should have given her absolution for whatever crime she had confessed
to me at that moment, for my heart was full of compassion. I loved
her with an infinite love, despite of, or perhaps because of, all the
misery she had wrought. She was but an unhappy woman. How could I raise
my hand against her?
But instead of delivering me once and for all from the terrible doubts
which haunted me, she offered me the most strenuous resistance. She had
persuaded herself that I was insane; her instinct of self-preservation
had built up a legend behind which she could shield herself from the
attacks of her anguished conscience.
* * * * *
_Sunwards_.
Not a single ray of sunlight had gladdened the little village of Gersau
on the shore of the Lake of Lucerne for three long weeks, not, in fact,
since the beginning of October, when the Foehn began to blow. There had
been a dead calm; after sunset I had fallen asleep and slept until I
was awakened, in the middle of the night, by the ringing of the church
bells and a noise which mingled with the peculiar rushing sound of
the tempest as it came sweeping across the Alps, flung itself on the
southern shore of the lake, was compressed into the valley and forced
into the streets of our village, where it tore at the signs, shook the
window shutters, rattled the slates and howled through the branches of
trees and shrubs.
The waves of the lake dashed against the dam, foamed over the border
and plashed against the sides of the boats. Handfuls of storm-lashed
sand were flung at our windows; the leaves, torn from their branches,
went dancing and whirling by, the doors of the stoves clattered, the
walls shook. I looked out of the window; the church was lighted up,
and the bells were ringing to awaken those who still slept. In these
parts the Foehn is accounted as full of danger as an earthquake, for
it does not only sweep away the houses, but it tears the mountains to
pieces and flings them into the valleys. Our house was situated at the
base of a mountain which, though only fifteen hundred metres high,
carried on its summit a loose litter of rocks, peculiarly adapted to
stone-throwing on a large scale. The tempest raged for three hours,
then the danger was over; but on the following morning everybody in
the village knew that at Schwyz a rock had fallen on a farmhouse and
carried away the right wing without injury to those who lived in the
left.
After this warm but terrific gale a fog descended on village and lake.
The sky was overcast, but no rain fell; yet there was no sunshine. This
continued for three weeks, and if the outlook had been grey to begin
with, it ended by being black. The beautiful alpine landscape, the
unrivalled restorer of flagging spirits, had lost its potency, for it
was impossible to see further ahead than a hundred yards up the steep
rocks; the heart became heavy as lead and indescribably depressed.
The tourists had turned their faces homewards, the hotels were empty,
November was upon us, sombre and gloomy. The hours dragged on wearily;
one longed for the end of the dreary day and the cheerful light of the
lamps; the dismal sky was grey, the lake was grey, the landscape was
grey.
No wind, no rain, no thunder. Nature, so varied and diversified, had
become monotonous, calm and quiet; so peaceful that an earthquake would
have been a relief.
Wherever the light did not fall, greyness reigned; vision was dimmed,
and drowsiness, akin to laziness, enveloped the soul.
One evening, when I complained to the magistrate of the long absence
of the sun, he answered with the phlegm which characterises the
German-Swiss--
"The sun! You can see the sun all day long on the Hochfluh!"
The Hochfluh was one of the small mountain ranges which surrounded the
valley in which we lived; it was only two hundred metres lower than the
Sulitelma, and consequently a favourite walk of young English tourists.
Being a worshipper of the sun, I decided to make a pilgrimage to my
deity, and early one November morning I set out on my travels.
The inhabitants of Gersau, living at the base of a mountain which, as
I have already mentioned, every now and then transforms itself into
a volcano and rains rocks and stones on the valleys, have from time
immemorial cultivated the habit of preparing themselves for death by
visiting their church three times a day, at morning, noon and evening.
I was not surprised, therefore, to meet the church-goers now, at eight
o'clock in the morning, carrying their Prayer Books in their hands.
Two old women, patiently performing their daily half-mile trudge to
morning prayers, were counting their beads on the highroad. One of them
started the angelic salutation "Ave Maria!" and her companion joined in
the burden "In sæcula sæculorum, Amen." They kept up their monotonous'
mumbling the whole way, and though this counting of beads may not have
done any actual good, it at least prevented any misuse of the tongue;
I could not help thinking of the well-known anecdote of the count who
made his butler whistle whenever he was busy in the wine cellar.
Soon after I had left the old women and the highroad behind, and begun
the ascent, I came upon some sights which were so striking that they
made a lasting impression on me. Close to the first curve of the road
grew a walnut tree, to which were nailed a crucifix and a tablet; the
inscription on the latter informed the passer-by that farmer Seppi,
while busy with the harvest, fell from the tree and was killed. God
have mercy on his soul! Pray for him! Amen!
At the next corner there was a queer little shrine built of whitewashed
bricks, small like a child's dolls'-house. A peep through the railings
disclosed pictures of the Holy Family, painted, perhaps, in the
sixteenth century, and a legend to the effect that criminals on their
way to execution were allowed a few minutes' respite before the shrine
to utter a last prayer. I was, therefore, on the road which led to the
gallows, and a few minutes later I arrived at the place of execution,
a pleasant open spot on the top of an overhanging cliff which jutted
out in the direction of the lake. From this point one had a magnificent
view. To bid farewell to life with a last look at such a picture as
greets the eye from the summit of Pilatus, Buechserhorn or Buergenstock
is quite conceivably a genuine pleasure. Even Voltaire could have felt
none of the repugnance which was excited in him by the idea of being
hanged in secret, a contingency which filled him with such extreme
disgust, that he was quite consistent in accusing Rousseau of a vanity
so great that it would permit him to submit cheerfully to be hanged, if
he could be sure of his name being nailed to the gallows.
In the distance, near the shore, I could dimly discern a faint
outline of a haunted little church, called "Kindlimord" because a
grief-stricken father is said there to have killed his starving child.
I left these four melancholy landmarks behind me in the grey morning
light, and hastened my ascent to those happier heights where the sun
was shining.
Very soon beeches took the place of chestnut and walnut trees. I rested
for a while in a dairy cottage in the company of fine cattle and a
horrible cur, and then entered cloudland. I seemed to be walking in a
dense fog, which grew in density and almost completely blotted out the
landscape. The effort to see made my eyes ache; trees and shrubs loomed
indistinctly through a cloud of smoke; the millions of cobwebs which
festooned the branches were richly studded with raindrops; it looked
as if the old woman of the wood, if there is such a being, had hung up
thousands of lace handkerchiefs to dry.
It was difficult to breathe; the fog hung on my coat, hair, beard and
eyebrows, gave out a stale, sickly smell, and rendered the rocks so
smooth and slippery that I could hardly keep my footing; it darkened
the heart of the wood, where the trunks were quickly swallowed up in a
monotonous grey, which limited the range of vision to a few yards.
I had to climb up through this layer of fog, extending about a thousand
metres upwards, a cold and damp purgatory, before I could reach the
sun; and I struggled on, with sublime faith in the magistrate's word
of honour that the fog would cease before the mountain ceased and grey
space began.
I had no barometer with me, but I felt that I was ascending, that
the fog was growing less dense, and that I was approaching a purer
atmosphere.
A feeling of intoxication seized me--a faint glimmer from above dimly
illuminated the narrow pass, like the first dawn of day shining through
the picture of a landscape painted on a window-blind; the trees stood
out more distinctly, the field of vision increased, the tinkling of
cowbells--from above--fell on my ear. And now, right on the summit,
there hung a golden cloud; a few more steps and the stunted beeches
and brushwood shone and glittered, dazzling splashes of gold, copper,
bronze and silver, wherever a stream of broken sunlight fell on the
faded foliage which was still clinging to the branches. I was standing
in an autumn landscape looking out into a sun-bathed summerland;
through my mind flashed the memory of a sail on the Lake of Mälar; I
remembered how I was sitting in the sunshine, watching the passing of
a black hail-storm no further off than a cable-length to leeward. And
now I, too, stood in the sunlight, gazing at a northern landscape made
up of firs and birch trees, green fields and red cattle, little brown
cottages with old women on the thresholds, knitting socks for father,
who was toiling far down in the canton of Tessin; my eyes rested on
potato fields and lavender bushes, dahlias and marigolds.
The sun dried my hair and coat, and warmed my shivering limbs; I bared
my head before the glowing orb, source and preserver of all there is,
completely indifferent whether I was worshipping unquenchable flames of
burning hydrogen, or the not yet scientifically acknowledged primordial
substance, helium. Was it not the All-Father, who had given birth to
the Cosmos, the Almighty, the Lord of life and death, ice and heat,
summer and winter, dearth and plenty?
My eyes, which had been feasting on summer joy and green fields,
plunged into the gloom of the abyss whence I had climbed. The mantle of
cold and darkness which had been lying on the surface of the lake was
cold and dark no longer; dazzling clouds, like snowy, sunlit piles of
wool, hid from my gaze the twilight and the polluted earth; above them
rose snow-clad peaks, glistening and sparkling, fashioned of condensed
silver fog, a crystallised solution of air and sunlight, drift-ice
on a sea of newly fallen snow. It was a vision of transcendent
beauty, compared to which the cowbell-idyll under the birch trees was
commonplace.
The dead silence was suddenly broken by a sound from below, where
melancholy men and women toiled and trembled in the grey gloom. It was
a splashing sound which approached deliberately; so deliberately that
my eyes unconsciously tried to follow its course under the cloud-cover.
It sounded like a millstream, a brook swollen with rain, a tidal wave.
Then a scream rent the air, loud and wild, as if all the dwellers in
the four cantons were calling for help against Uri-Rotstock; it was
the shrill whistle of the paddle-boat which, penetrating the layer of
clouds, gained in volume in the pure air and was caught up and tossed
from rock to rock by the redundant echo of the Hochfluh.
It was noon! Time to begin my descent through the fog down to the
greyness, the darkness, the damp, the dirt, and wait for another three
weeks, perhaps, for another glimpse of the sun.
VI
After the New Year we left Switzerland and took up our abode in
Germany; we had decided to stay for a while at the lovely shores of the
Lake of Constance.
In Germany, the land of militarism, where the patriarchate is still in
full force, Marie felt completely out of it. No one would listen to
her futile talk about women's rights. Here young girls had just been
forbidden to attend the University lectures; here the dowry of a woman
who marries an officer of the army has to be deposited with the War
Office; here all government appointments are reserved for the man, the
breadwinner of the family.
Marie struggled and fought as if she had been caught in a trap. On her
first attempt to hoodwink me she was severely taken to task by the
women. For the first time in my life I found the fair sex entirely
on my side; henceforth she had to play second fiddle. The friendly
intercourse with the officers braced me; their manners influenced mine;
and after ten years of spiritual emasculation my manhood reasserted
itself.
I let my hair grow as it liked, and abolished the fringe on which
Marie had insisted; my voice, which had grown thin from everlastingly
speaking in soothing tones to a woman, regained its former volume. The
hollows in my cheeks filled out, and although I was now beginning my
fortieth year my whole physique gained in strength and vigour.
I was friendly with all the women in the house, and soon fell into the
habit of taking a very active part in the conversation, while Marie,
poor, unpopular Marie, once again sat in silence.
She began to be afraid of me. One morning, for the first time in the
last six years of our marriage, she appeared fully dressed in my
bedroom before I was up. I could not understand this sudden move, but
we had a stormy scene, during which she admitted that she was jealous
of the girl who came into my room every morning to light the fire in my
stove.
"And I do detest your new ways!" she exclaimed. "I hate this so-called
manliness, and loathe you when you give yourself airs!"
Well, I knew that it had always been the page, the lap-dog, the
weakling, "her child" that she loved. The virago never loves virility
in her husband, however much she may admire it elsewhere.
I became more and more popular with the women. I sought their society;
my whole nature was expanding in the friendly warmth which they
emanated, these true women, who inspired the respectful love, the
genuine devotion which a man only feels for a womanly woman.
* * * * *
We were discussing our return home. But again my old suspicions
tormented me. I shrank from the renewal of old relations with former
friends, some of whom might quite conceivably have been my wife's
lovers. To put an end to my doubts, I determined to cross-examine her,
for my letters to friends in Sweden had been so much waste of paper. I
had been unable to elicit a candid statement.
Everybody pitied the "mother." No one cared whether or not the "father"
would be ruined by the ridicule which threatened to befall him.
An excellent idea occurred to me. I would make use of the resources
of the new science of psychology and thought-reading. I introduced
it into our evening amusements, as if it were a game, employing the
methods of Bishop and his kind. Marie was suspicious. She charged
me with being a spiritualist; laughingly called me a superstitious
free-thinker; overwhelmed me with abuse--in fact, used every means in
her power to divert my attention from practices the danger of which she
apparently anticipated. I pretended to give in, and dropped hypnotism,
but I resolved to make my attack some time when she was off her guard.
The opportunity came one evening when we were sitting alone in the
dining-room, facing each other. I gradually led the conversation to
gymnastics. I succeeded in interesting her so much that she became
excited and, compelled either by my will-power or the association of
ideas which I had aroused in her mind, she mentioned massage. This
suggested the pain caused by the treatment, and remembering her own
experience in this connection she exclaimed--
"Oh yes, the treatment is certainly painful--I can feel the pain now
when I think of----"
She paused. She bowed her head to hide her pallor; her lips moved as
if she were anxious to change the subject; her eyelids flickered. A
terrible silence followed which I prolonged as much as possible. This
was the train of thought which I had set in motion and guided, full
steam on, in the intended direction. In vain she tried to put on the
brake. The abyss lay before her; she could not stop the engine. With a
superhuman effort she broke from the grip of my eyes and rushed out of
the room.
The blow had struck home.
She returned a few minutes later; her face had lost its strained
expression. Under pretence of demonstrating to me the beneficial
effect of massage, she came behind my chair and stroked my head.
Unfortunately the little scene was acted before a mirror. A furtive
glance showed me her pale, terrified face, her troubled eyes which
scrutinised my features ... our searching glances met.
Contrary to her habit she came and sat on my knee, put her arms round
me lovingly and murmured that she was very sleepy.
"What wrong have you committed to-day that you caress me like this?" I
asked.
She hid her face on my shoulder, kissed me and went out of the room,
bidding me good-night.
I am perfectly well aware that this sort of evidence would not satisfy
a jury, but it was sufficient for me, who knew her so well.
And to my thinking the evidence was strengthened by the fact that a
short time ago my brother-in-law had forbidden the doctor his house,
because the latter had made advances to my sister.
* * * * *
I was therefore determined not to return to my own country. At home I
should be compelled to associate daily with men whom I distrusted, and
to escape the ridicule which inevitably falls to the share of the duped
husband, I fled to Vienna.
Alone in my hotel, the vision of the wife I had worshipped haunted
me. Utterly unable to work, I began a correspondence with her. I
wrote her love-letters twice a day. The unknown town affected me like
a cemetery. I moved through the thronging crowd like a phantom. But
after a while my imagination began to people this solitude. I invented
a romantic story for the sole reason of introducing Marie into this
dreary desert, and soon life was pulsing everywhere. I pictured her
as a famous singer, and to lend my dream a semblance of reality and
make of the fine city a more convincing background for her, I made
the acquaintance of the director of the Conservatoire. I, who detested
the theatre, visited the opera or a concert every night. Everything
interested me intensely, because I reported everything to her. No
sooner had I arrived at my hotel than I sat down and gave her a minute
description of Miss So-and-so's performance, drawing comparisons which
were invariably in her own favour.
Her spirit pervaded the picture galleries. I spent an hour before
the Venus of Guido Reni in the Belvedere, because she was so like my
beloved.
In the end my longing grew so irresistible that I packed my box and
returned home as fast as the express could carry me. Surely I was
bewitched; there was no means of escape from her.
I had a royal reception.
My love-letters seemed to have rekindled Marie's love. I ran up the
little garden to meet her. I covered her face with passionate kisses. I
took her little head between my hands.
"Can you really work magic, little witch?"
"What do you mean? Your journey was not an attempt at flight, was it?"
"It was! But you are stronger than I am.... I throw down my arms...."
On my writing-table lay a spray of red roses.
"You do love me a little?"
She was covered with confusion like a young girl--she blushed ... it
was all over with me, my honour, my efforts to break the chains which
bound me, and which I longed for when I was free.
Six months went by; we lived in a wonderful dream: we chirruped
like starlings, we kissed, our love was endless. We played duets
and backgammon. The most beautiful days of the last five years were
surpassed. Spring had returned in the autumn of our lives! And had we
not dreaded the approach of the winter?
* * * * *
I was fast again in her toils. She was convinced that the love philtre
which she had given me to drink had intoxicated me afresh, and relapsed
into her former indifference. She neglected her appearance, and despite
all my remonstrances no longer took the trouble to make the best of
herself. I foresaw that the result would be coldness on both sides, in
spite of ourselves. Even her preference for her own sex reappeared,
more dangerous and more pitiable, for this time she made love to young
girls.
One evening we had invited the commandant and his fourteen-year-old
daughter, cur hostess and her daughter, a girl of fifteen, and a third
girl of about the same age to a quiet little dinner-party, which was to
be followed by a dance.
Towards midnight--to this day I grow hot when I think of it--I saw that
Marie, who had been drinking freely, had gathered the young girls round
her and, looking at them with lascivious eyes, was kissing them on the
lips.
The commandant was watching the scene from a dark corner of the room,
hardly able to control himself. In imagination I saw prison, penal
servitude, a scandal which we could never live down; I made a rush at
the group and broke it up, telling the girls to join in the dancing....
When we were left alone I took Marie to task. We argued and stormed
till daylight. Since she had had more wine than was good for her, she
lost her head and confessed things which I had never even dreamed of.
Beside myself with anger, I repeated all my indictments, all my
suspicions, and added a new charge, in which I did not really believe
myself.
"And this mysterious illness, these headaches from which I suffer...."
"What! You blame me for that too!"
I had not meant what she insinuated; I had merely referred to the
symptoms of cyanide poisoning which I had observed in myself.
All of a sudden a reminiscence flashed into my mind; the thought of
something which at the time had seemed too improbable that it had left
no permanent trace in my memory....
My suspicion was strengthened when I remembered a certain epithet used
in an anonymous letter which I had received a short time after Marie's
divorce. The letter referred to her as "the prostitute of Södertälje."
What did it mean? I had made inquiries which had come to nothing. Was I
on the point of making a fresh discovery?
When the Baron, Marie's first husband, made her acquaintance at
Södertälje, she was half and half engaged to a young officer, a man
with admittedly bad health. Poor Gustav had played the part of a
greenhorn. That accounted for the warm gratitude which she felt for
him even after the divorce; she had confessed at the time that he had
delivered her from dangers ... what dangers she had not mentioned.
But "the prostitute of Södertälje"? I reflected ... the retired life
which the young couple led, without friends, without society; they had
been ostracised by the class to which they belonged.
Had Marie's mother, formerly a governess of middle-class origin, who
had wheedled Marie's father into a marriage with her; who had fled
to Sweden to escape from pressing debts; had she, the widow who so
cleverly contrived to conceal her poverty, stooped to sell her daughter
when they were living at Södertälje?
The old woman, a coquette still at the age of sixty, had always
inspired me with mingled feelings of compassion and dislike; mean,
pleasure-loving, with the manners of an adventuress, a veritable
"man-eater," she regarded every man as her legitimate prey. She had
made me support her sister; she had deceived her first son-in-law, the
Baron, with the story of a dowry swindled out of one of her creditors.
Poor Marie! Her remorse, her unrest, her dark moods were rooted in
that shady past. In putting old events by the side of new ones I had
the key to the quarrels between mother and daughter, brutal quarrels,
frequently verging on violence. I could understand Marie's hitherto
incomprehensible words, "I could kick my mother!"
Had her game been to silence the old woman? Probably; for the latter
had threatened to ruin our lives by confessing "everything."
There could have been no doubt of Marie's dislike for her mother,
to whom the Baron frequently referred as "that old blackguard," an
invective which he justified with the half-truth that she had taught
her daughter all the tricks of coquetry to enable her to catch a
husband.
All these coincidences strengthened my determination to separate from
her. It had to be! There was no alternative. And I left for Copenhagen
to make inquiries into the past of the woman in whose keeping I had
confided my honour.
* * * * *
In meeting my countrymen after several years' absence I found that
they had formed very definite opinions of me; the eager exertions of
Marie and her friends had borne fruit. She was a holy martyr; I was a
madman, whose lunacy consisted in believing himself to be saddled with
an unfaithful wife.
Make inquiries? It was like beating my head against a stone wall.
People listened to what I had to say with a furtive smile and stared at
me as if I were a rare animal. No information was vouchsafed to me; I
was deserted by every one, especially by those who secretly yearned for
my ruin, so that they might rise over my fallen body.
I returned to my prison. Marie met me with evident misgivings; I
learned more from the expression of her face than I had learned during
the whole of my melancholy journey.
For two months I champed upon the bit; then I fled for the fourth time,
in the height of summer, this time to Switzerland. But the chain which
held me was not an iron chain which I might have been able to break;
it was rather an indiarubber cable, elastic and capable of infinite
expansion. The stronger the tension, the more irresistibly I was pulled
back to the starting point.
Once more I returned, to be rewarded with open contempt; she was sure
that another attempt to free myself from her net would kill me, and my
death was her only hope.
I fell ill, severely ill, so that I believed myself to be dying; I
made up my mind to write the whole story of the past. I could see
plainly now that I had been in the power of a vampire. I only wanted to
live long enough to cleanse my name from the filth with which she had
sullied it. I wanted to live long enough to revenge myself; but first
of all I must have proofs of her infidelity.
I hated her now with a hatred more fatal than indifference because it
is the anthithesis of love. I hated her because I loved her.
It was on a Sunday, while we were dining in the summer-arbour, that the
electric fluid which had gathered during the last ten years discharged
itself. I cannot remember my actual motive, but I struck her, for the
first time in my life. I struck her face repeatedly, and when she
tried to defend herself I seized her wrists and forced her on her
knees. She gave a terrified scream. The temporary satisfaction which I
had felt at my action gave way to dismay, for the children, frightened
to death, cried out with fear. It was a horrible moment! It is a crime,
a most unnatural crime, to strike a woman, a mother, in the presence of
her children. It seemed to me that the sun ought to hide his face.... I
felt sick to death.
And yet there was peace in my soul, like the calm after a storm, a
satisfaction such as is only derived from duty done. I regretted my
action, but I felt no remorse. My deed had been as inevitable as cause
and effect.
In the evening I saw her walking in the moonlit garden. I joined her;
I kissed her. She did not object; she burst into tears. We walked for
a few minutes, then she accompanied me to my room and stayed with me
until midnight.
How strange is life! In the afternoon I had struck her. At night she
held me in her arms and kissed me.
What an extraordinary woman she was, to kiss her executioner with
willing lips!
Why had I not known it before? If I had struck her ten years ago I
should now have been the happiest of husbands.
Remember this, my brothers, if ever you are deceived by a woman!
But she had no intention of foregoing her revenge. A few days after
this incident she came into my room, began telling me a long, rambling
story, and after endless digressions gave me to understand that she had
once, only once, been violated; it had happened, she said, while on her
theatrical tour in Finland.
It was true, then!
She implored me not to think that it had happened more than once;
not to suspect her of having had a lover. That meant several times,
several lovers.
"Then it is true that you have deceived me, and in order to deceive
the world, too, you have invented the myth of my insanity. To hide
your crime more completely you meant to torture me to death. You are a
criminal. I have no longer any doubt of it. I shall divorce you!"
She threw herself on her knees, weeping bitterly, and asking me to
forgive her.
"I'll forgive you; nevertheless our marriage must be annulled."
* * * * *
On the following day she was very quiet; on the second day she had
regained her former self-possession; on the third she behaved in every
respect like an innocent woman.
Since she had confessed herself, she was more than innocent; she was a
martyr who treated me with insulting condescension.
She did not realise the consequences of a crime such as she had
committed, and therefore she did not understand my dilemma. If I
continued to live with her, I became a public laughing-stock; on the
other hand, to leave her spelled disaster also; my life was ruined.
Ten years of martyrdom to be paid for with a few blows and a day of
tears. Was it fair?
For the last time I left my home, secretly, for I had not the heart to
say good-bye to the children.
On a beautiful Sunday afternoon I went on board a steamer bound for
Constance. I had decided to visit my friends in France, and there to
write the story of this woman, the true representative of the age of
the unsexed.
At the last moment Marie appeared on the landing-stage, tear-stained,
excited, feverish, yet pretty enough to turn the head of any man. But
I remained cold, callous, silent, and received her treacherous kiss
without returning it.
"Say at least that we are parting friends!"
"Enemies for the short time which remains for me on earth!"
We parted.
The steamer started. I watched her walking along the quay, trying to
draw me back with the magic of her eyes which had held me under their
spell for so many years. She came and went like a forsaken little dog.
I waited for the moment when she would jump into the water; I should
jump after her, and we should drown together. But she turned away and
disappeared in a little side-street, leaving me with a last impression
of her bewitching figure, her little feet, which I had allowed to
trample on me for ten years without a murmur. Only in my writings
perhaps I had occasionally given vent to my feelings, but even there I
had always tried to mislead the reader by concealing her real crimes.
To steel my heart against grief and regret, I went at once into the
saloon. I sat down to dinner, but an aching lump in my throat compelled
me to rise, and I climbed again on deck.
I watched the green hill gliding past, and thought of the little white
cottage with the green shutters which crowned it. My children lived
there, but the home was desolate, they were without protection, without
means.... An icy pang shot through my heart.
I was like the cocoon of the silkworm when the great steam-engine;
slowly reels off the shining thread. At every stroke of the piston I
grew thinner, and as the thread lengthened the cold which chilled me
increased.
I was like an embryo prematurely detached from the umbilical cord. What
a complete and living organism is the family! I had thought so at that
first divorce, from which I had recoiled conscience-stricken. But she,
the adulteress, the murderess, had remained unmoved.
At Constance I caught the train for Basle. What a wretched Sunday
afternoon!
I prayed to God, if God there was, to preserve even my bitterest foes
from such agony.
At Basle I was overwhelmed with an irresistible desire to revisit all
those places in Switzerland where we had stayed together, to gladden my
sad heart with memories of happy hours spent with her and the children.
I stayed for a week in Geneva and some days at Ouchy, hunted by my
misery from hotel to hotel, without peace or rest, like a lost soul,
like the wandering Jew. I spent my nights in tears, haunted by the
little figures of my beloved children; I visited the places they had
visited; I fed "their" seagulls on the Lake of Geneva, a poor, restless
ghost, a miserable phantom.
Every morning I expected a letter from Marie, but no letter came. She
was too clever to furnish her opponent with written evidence. I wrote
to her several times a day, love-letters, forgiving her for all her
crimes--but I never posted them.
Doubtless, my judges, if I had been destined to end my days in a
lunatic asylum, my fate would have come upon me in those hours of
keenest agony and bitterest sorrow.
My power of endurance was exhausted; I wondered whether Marie's
confession had not been a ruse, so as to get rid of me and begin life
all over again with her unknown lover, or, perhaps, to live with her
Danish friend. I saw my children in the hands of a "stepfather" or the
clutches of a "stepmother"; Marie would be quite rich with the proceeds
of my collected works; she would perhaps write the story of my life as
seen through the eyes of the unnatural woman who had come between us.
The instinct of self-preservation stirred within me; I conceived a
cunning plan. The separation from my family paralysed me mentally; I
decided to return to them and stay with them until I had written the
story of Marie's crimes. In this way she would become the unconscious
tool of my revenge, which I could throw away when I had no further use
for it.
With this object in view I sent her a telegram, business-like, free
from all sentimentality; I informed her that my petition for a divorce
had been refused; pretended that I required a power of attorney from
her, and suggested an interview at Romanshorn, on this side of the Lake
of Constance.
* * * * *
I despatched the telegram with a sense of relief. On the following
day I took the train and in due time arrived at the appointed place.
The week of suffering was a thing of the past; my heart was beating
normally, my eyes shone with added lustre; I drew a deep breath at the
sight of the hills on the opposite shore, where my children lived. The
steamer approached the landing stage; my eyes searched for Marie.
Presently I caught sight of her on the deck, her face woe-begone, ten
years older. The sight of her, suddenly grown old, wrung my heart. She
walked with dragging footsteps, her eyelids were red with weeping, her
cheeks hollow and drooping.
At that moment all feeling of hatred and disgust was swamped by pity. I
felt a strong temptation to take her into my arms, but I pulled myself
together, drew myself up and assumed the devil-may-care expression of a
young blood who had come to a tryst. When I looked at her more closely
I discovered in her a strange resemblance to her Danish friend; the
likeness was really extraordinary; she had the same expression, the
same pose, the same gestures, the same way of wearing her hair. Had
she played me this last trick? Had she come to me straight from her
"friend"?
Warned by these details, I recapitulated the part I meant to play.
While I accompanied her to the hotel she was depressed and ill at ease,
but she kept her self-possession. She questioned me very intelligently
on the projected divorce proceedings, and when she found that I
exhibited no trace of grief or emotion, she dropped her woe-begone
aspect and began to treat me, as far as she dared, with a certain
condescension.
During the interview she reminded me so much of her friend that I was
tempted to ask for news of the lady. I was especially struck by a
very tragic pose, a favourite one of her friend's, a pose which was
accompanied by a certain gesture of the hand which rested on the table
... ugh!
I rang for wine. She drank greedily and became sentimental.
I took the opportunity to ask after the little ones. She burst into
tears; she said that she had suffered greatly during the past week;
from morning till night the children had worried her with questions
about their father; she did not see how they could get on without me.
All at once she noticed the absence of my wedding-ring; she became
agitated.
"Your wedding-ring?" she gasped breathlessly.
"I sold it in Geneva. There's no need to ask what I did with the money."
She grew pale.
"Then we are quits. Shall we make a fresh start?"
"Is that what you call fair play? You committed an act fraught with
tragic consequences for the whole family, for through it I am compelled
to doubt the legitimacy of my children. You are guilty of having
tampered with the lineage of a family. You have dishonoured four
people: your three children of doubtful paternity and your husband,
whom your infidelity has made a public laughing-stock. What, on the
other hand, are the consequences of my act?"
She wept. I remained firm. I said that the divorce proceedings must go
on, that I should adopt the children--in the meantime she could remain
in my house, if she liked. Would it not be the free life she had always
been dreaming of? She had always cursed matrimony.
She reflected for a moment. My proposal did not please her.
"I remember you saying you would like the position of a governess in
the house of a widower. Here's the widower for you!"
"Give me time.... We shall see.... But in the meantime do you intend to
live with us?"
"If you ask me to."
"We are waiting for you."
And for the sixth time I returned to my family, but this time firmly
resolved to use the remaining weeks to finish my story....
EPILOGUE
Seated at my writing-table, pen in hand, I fainted; a feverish attack
prostrated me. This very inopportune attack frightened me, for I had
not been seriously ill for fifteen years. It was not fear of death,
oh no. Death held no terrors for me; but I was thirty-nine years old
and at the end of a turbulent career, my last word still unsaid, the
promises of my youth only partly fulfilled, pregnant with plans for the
future. This sudden cutting of the knot was far from pleasing me. For
the last four years I had lived with my family in half-voluntary exile;
I was at the end of my resources, and had settled down in a small town
in Bavaria; I had come into conflict with the law, for one of my books
had been confiscated, and I had been banished from my own country. I
had but one desire left when I was thrown on my sick-bed--the desire
for revenge.
A struggle arose within me; I had not sufficient strength left in me
to call for help. The fever shook me as one shakes a feather bed; it
seized me by the throat and throttled me; it put its foot on my breast
and scorched my brain, so that my eyes started from their sockets. I
was alone with Death, who had crept in by stealth and was attacking me.
But I was unwilling to die; I resisted, and an obstinate fight began.
The tension of my nerves relaxed, the blood coursed through my veins.
My brain twitched like a polypus that has been thrown into vinegar. But
before loner I realised that I must succumb in this dance of death. I
relinquished my hold, fell backwards and submitted to the fatal embrace
of the dread monster.
Immediately an indescribable calm came over me, a voluptuous weakness
composed my limbs, and perfect peace soothed body and soul, which had
lacked all wholesome recreation during so many years of toil.
I fervently desired that it really should be the end. Slowly all will
to live ebbed away. I ceased to observe, to feel, to think. I became
unconscious, and a delicious sensation of blankness filled the void
created by the cessation of the racking pain, the tormenting thoughts,
the secret terrors.
When I regained consciousness I found my wife sitting by my bedside and
gazing at me with terrified eyes.
"What is the matter with you dear?" she said.
"Nothing; I am ill," I replied. "And there are times when illness is
welcome."
"What do you mean? You are jesting!"
"No, it is the end at last ... anyhow, I hope it is."
"Heaven forbid that you should leave us in these straits!" she
exclaimed. "What is to become of us in a strange country, without
friends, without means?"
"There is my life insurance," I said, attempting to console her. "I
know it isn't much, but it is enough to take you home."
She had not thought of this, and she looked a little reassured as she
continued--
"But you cannot lie here like this! I shall send for a doctor."
"No, I won't have a doctor!"
"Why not?"
"Because--I won't!"
The glances which we exchanged spoke volumes.
"I want to die," I said, anxious to put an end to our conversation. "I
am sick of life; the past is a tangled skein which I cannot unravel.
It is time that my eyes closed for ever--that the curtain fell!"
She remained unmoved.
"Your old suspicion ... is it still alive, then?" she asked.
"Yes, still alive. Drive away the spectre, you alone can do it."
She assumed her favourite part of little mother, and gently laid her
soft hand on my burning forehead.
"Does that relieve you?"
"Yes...."
It was a fact. The mere touch of that light hand which rested so
heavily on my life exorcised the evil spirit, the secret trouble which
would not let me rest.
Another and more violent attack of fever followed. My wife rose to make
me some elder tea.
Left by myself I sat up in bed and looked out through the window
opposite. It was a large window in the shape of a triptychon, framed by
wild vine; I saw a part of the landscape surrounded by green leaves;
in the fore-ground the beautiful scarlet fruit of a quince tree rocked
gently among the dark green foliage; apple trees, a little further off,
studded the green grass; still further away the steeple of a small
church rose into the radiant air, behind it a blue spot, the Lake of
Constance, was visible, and far in the background the Tyrol Alps.
We were in the height of summer, and, illuminated by the slanting rays
of the afternoon sun, the whole scene formed a charming picture.
From below rose the twittering of the starlings which sat on the
vine-props in the vineyards, the chirping of the young chickens, the
strident note of the crickets, the tinkling cowbells, clear as crystal.
The loud laughter of my children, the directing voice of my wife, who
was talking to the gardener's wife about my illness, mingled with
these gay sounds of country life.
And as I gazed and listened life seemed good to me, death to be
shunned. I had too many duties to perform, too many debts to pay.
My conscience tortured me, I felt an overpowering need to confess
myself, to ask all men's forgiveness for the wrongs I had committed, to
humiliate myself before some one. I felt guilty, stricken with remorse,
I did not know for what secret crime; I was burning with the desire to
relieve my conscience by a full confession of my fancied culpability.
During this attack of weakness, the result of a sort of innate
despondency, my wife returned carrying a cup in her hand; alluding to
a slight attack of persecutional mania from which I had once suffered,
she tasted the contents before offering it to me.
"You may drink without fear," she said smilingly, "it contains no
poison."
I felt ashamed. I did not know what to say. And to make amends for my
suspicion I emptied the cup at one draught.
The somniferous elder tea, the fragrance of which recalled in me
reminiscences of my own country where the mystic shrub is held sacred
by the people, made me feel so sentimental that I there and then gave
expression to my remorse.
"Listen to me carefully," I said, "for I believe that my days
are numbered. I confess that I have always lived a life of utter
selfishness. I have sacrificed your theatrical career to my literary
ambition.... I will tell you everything now ... only forgive me...."
She tried to calm me, but I interrupted her and continued--
"In compliance with your wishes we married under the dotal system. In
spite of it, however, I have wasted your dowry to cover sums which I
had recklessly guaranteed. My greatest grief now is the fact that you
cannot touch the proceeds of my works. Send for a notary at once, so
that I can settle on you all my nominal or real property. ... Above
everything, promise that you will return to the stage which you gave up
to please me."
She refused to listen any further, treated my confession as a joke,
advised me to go to sleep and rest, and assured me that everything
would come right, and that I was not on the point of death.
I seized her hand, exhausted. I begged her to stay with me until I had
fallen asleep. Grasping her little hand more firmly, I again implored
her to forgive me for all the wrong I had done her. A delicious
drowsiness stole over me and closed my tired eyelids. Under the
radiations of her shining eyes, which expressed infinite tenderness, I
felt as if I were melting away as ice melts in the rays of the sun. Her
cool lips, touching my forehead, seemed to press a seal on it, and I
was plunged into the depths of ineffable bliss.
* * * * *
It was broad daylight when I awoke from my stupor. The rays of the
sun fell on a Utopian landscape. To judge from the matutinal sounds
which rose from below, it must have been above five o'clock. I had
slept soundly during the whole night without dreaming or waking up.
On the little table by my bedside stood the cup which had contained
the elder-tea; the chair on which my wife had been sitting when I fell
asleep was still in its place. I was covered with her cloak; the soft
hairs of the fox skins with which it was lined tickled my chin.
My brain felt as refreshed and rested as if I had slept for the
first time in ten years. I collected my thoughts, which had been
rushing hither and thither in wild disorder, and with this powerful,
well-drilled and disciplined army I prepared to meet those attacks of
morbid remorse which frequently accompany physical weakness.
Looming large, filling my mind completely, were the two ugly blots
which, under guise of a confession, I had revealed to my wife on the
previous day; the two dark blots which had spoiled my life for so many
years.
I resolved to re-examine them at once, to dissect those two "facts"
which up to now I had allowed to pass unchallenged, for I had a vague
presentiment that they were unsound.
"Let me see," I said to myself, "what have I done that I should look
upon myself as a selfish coward, who has sacrificed the artistic career
of his wife to his ambition? Let me see what really happened...."
At the time of our betrothal she was playing very small parts. Her
position in the artistic world had sunk to a very modest one, once
her want of talent, character and originality had made her second
appearance in public a fiasco. She lacked all the essentials which go
to make a successful actress. On the day before our wedding she was
playing the part of a society woman in a very commonplace play; she had
only a dozen words to speak.
For how many tears, how much misery was our marriage made responsible!
It robbed the actress of all charm, and yet she had been so fascinating
as Baroness, divorced from her husband that she might devote her life
entirely to art.
It was true, I was to blame for this deterioration, which, after two
years' weeping over steadily shrinking parts, resulted in her leaving
the stage.
At the very moment when her engagement came to an end I had a success,
an undoubted success, as a novelist. I had already conquered the stage
with small, unimportant plays. Now I was burning to write a play which
would create a sensation; it should be one of those spectacular plays
which delight audiences; my purpose, of course, was to help my wife to
a re-engagement. It was a repugnant task, for one of my most cherished
dreams was the reform of the drama. In writing my new play I sacrificed
my literary faith. But I meant to force my wife on a hostile public,
throw her at their heads with all the means in my power, move heaven
and earth to make her popular. All my efforts were in vain. The public
would have none of the divorced wife who had married a second time; the
manager hastened to cancel a contract which brought him no advantage.
"Well, was that my fault?" I asked myself, voluptuously stretching my
limbs, well satisfied with the result of this first self-examination.
Was there a greater blessing than a good conscience?
With a lighter heart I continued my musing--
A miserable year passed, was wept away, despite the happiness it
brought us in the birth of a little girl.
And all of a sudden my wife had another attack of stage mania, more
violent than the previous one. We besieged the agencies, stormed the
managerial offices, advertised ourselves hugely--but everywhere we
failed, all doors were closed to us, everybody threw cold water on our
schemes.
Disillusioned by the failure of my drama, and on the point of making
a name in science, I had sworn never again to write a play round an
actress, more especially as this sort of work had no attraction for
me. In addition, I was little disposed to break up our home merely to
satisfy a passing whim of my wife's, and therefore I resigned myself to
bearing my share of the incurable sorrow.
But after a time I found the task beyond my strength. I made use of my
connections with a theatre in Finland, and, thanks to my efforts, my
wife was engaged for a number of performances.
I had made a rod for my own back. For a whole month I was widower,
bachelor, head of the family, housekeeper. In compensation my wife,
on her return, brought home with her two large packing-cases full of
wreaths and bouquets.
But she was so happy, so young and so charming, that I took at once
the necessary steps to secure a fresh engagement for her. I knew that
by doing this I was running the risk of having to leave my country,
my friends, my position, my publisher--and for what? For a woman's
whim.... But let that pass! Either a man is in love or he isn't....
Fortunately for me, my correspondent had no room in his company for an
actress without a repertoire.
Was that my fault? At the thought of it I literally rolled over
in my bed with pleasure. What a good thing an occasional little
self-examination is! It unburdens the heart ... it rejuvenated me.
But to proceed. Children were born to us at short intervals.
One--two--three. But again and again her yearning for the stage
returned. One ought to persevere! A new theatre was being opened. Why
not offer the manager a new play with a good part for the leading
actress, a sensational play, dealing with the "woman question" which
loomed so large at the time?
No sooner thought than done. For, as I have already said, either a man
is in love, or he isn't.
The play was produced. It contained a splendid part for the leading
actress, magnificent dresses (of course), a cradle, much moonshine, a
villain; an abject husband in love with his wife (myself), a wife about
to become a mother (a stage novelty), the interior of a convent--and so
on.
The actress had an extraordinary success, but from the literary point
of view the play was a failure, an awful failure ... alas!
She was saved. I was lost, ruined. But in spite of everything, in
spite of the supper which we gave to the manager at a hundred crowns
per head; in spite of a fine of fifty crowns which we had to pay for
illegal cheering, late at night before the agent's office--in spite
of all our efforts, no engagement was offered to her. It was not my
fault. I was blameless in the matter. I was the martyr, the victim.
Nevertheless, in the eyes of her sex I henceforth was a ruffian who
had ruined his wife's career. For years I had suffered remorse on this
account, remorse so bitter that it poisoned my days and robbed my
nights of peace.
How often had the reproach been publicly flung into my face! It was
always I who was guilty!... That things came about in quite a different
way, who cared? ... One career had been ruined, that I admit ... but
which, and by whom?
A horrible thought came into my mind; the idea that posterity might
blame me for this ruined career seemed to me no laughing matter, for
I was defenceless and without a friend capable of stating the facts
undisguised and unmisrepresented.
* * * * *
There remained the spending of her dowry.
I had once been made the subject of a paragraph entitled: "A squanderer
of his wife's fortune." I also, on another occasion, had been charged
with living on my wife's income, a charge which had made me put six
cartridges into my revolver.
Let us examine this charge also, since an investigation has become
desirable, and after due examination let us pronounce sentence.
My wife's dowry consisted of ten thousand crowns in doubtful shares;
I had raised a mortgage on these shares with a bank of mortgages,
amounting to fifty per cent of their face value. Like a bolt from the
blue the general smash came. The shares were so much waste-paper, for
we had omitted to sell them at the right moment. I was consequently
compelled to pay the full amount of my mortgage: fifty per cent of
the face value. Later on my wife received twenty-five per cent of her
claim, this being the proportion which the creditors received after the
bank's failure.
How much did I squander?
Not one penny, in my opinion. The holder of the shares received the
actual value of her unsaleable investments which my personal guarantee
had increased by twenty-five per cent.
Truly I was as innocent in this connection as in the other.
And the anguish, the despair which had more than once driven me to
the verge of suicide! The suspicion, the old distrust, the cruel
doubts, began to torture me afresh. The thought that I nearly died
as a scoundrel almost drove me mad. Worn out with care, overwhelmed
with work, I had never had time to pay much attention to the dark
innuendoes, the veiled allusions. And while I, completely absorbed in
my daily toil, lived unsuspectingly from day to day, slanderous rumours
had been started, which became more and more insistent and definite,
although they had no other foundation than the talk of the envious
and the idle gossip of the cafés. And I, fool that I was, believed
everybody, doubted no one but myself. Ah!...
Was I really never insane, never ill, no degenerate? Was I merely
fooled by a trickster whom I worshipped, whose little embroidery
scissors had cut off Samson's locks when he laid his weary head on
the pillow, worn out by heavy toil, exhausted by care and anxiety on
her account and the children's? Trustful, unsuspicious, I had lost my
honour, my manhood, the will to live, my intellect, my five senses,
and alas! much more even, in this ten years' sleep in the arms of the
sorceress.
Was it possible--the thought filled me with shame--that a crime had
been committed in these fogs in which I had lived for years like a
phantom? An unconscious little crime, caused by a vague desire for
power, by a woman's secret wish to get the better of the man in the
duel called matrimony?
Doubtless I had been a fool! Seduced by a married woman; compelled to
marry her to save her honour and her theatrical career; married under
the dotal system and the condition that each should contribute half of
the expenses, I was ruined after ten years, plundered, for I had borne
the financial burden on my own shoulders entirely.
At this very moment when my wife denounced me as a spendthrift,
incapable of providing the necessities of life; when she represented
me as the squanderer of her so-called fortune; at this very moment she
owed me forty thousand crowns, her share of the expenses, according to
the verbal agreement made on our wedding day.
She was my debtor!
Determined to settle all accounts once and for ever, I jumped out of
bed like a man who has dreamed that he is paralysed, and on awakening
flings away the crutches with which he had walked in his dream. I
dressed quickly and ran down-stairs to confront my wife.
Through the half-open door my enraptured gaze met a charming spectacle.
She lay, stretched out at full length, on her tumbled bed, her lovely
little head buried in the pillow over which the flood of her golden
hair waved and curled; her transparent nightgown had slipped off
her shoulders, and her virginal bosom gleamed white under the lace
insertion; the soft, red-and-white striped coverlet betrayed the
swelling curves of her graceful, fragile body, leaving her bare feet
uncovered--tiny arched feet with rosy toes and transparent flawless
nails--a genuine work of art, perfect, fashioned in flesh after the
model of an antique marble statue: and this was my wife.
Light-hearted and smiling, with an expression of chaste motherliness,
she watched her three little ones as they were climbing and tumbling
about among the flowered down pillows, as if on a heap of newly mown
flowers.
The delightful spectacle softened me. But a whispering doubt in my
heart warned me: "Beware of the she-panther playing with her cubs!"
Disarmed by the majesty of motherhood, I entered her room with
uncertain steps, timid as a schoolboy.
"Ah! You are up already, my dear," she greeted me, surprised, but not
as pleased as one might have expected.
I stammered a confused reply, smothered by the children, who had
climbed on my back when I stooped to kiss their mother.
Was it possible? Could she really be a criminal? I pondered the
question as I went away, subdued by her chaste beauty, the candid smile
of those lips which could surely never have been tainted by a lie. No,
a thousand times no!...
I stole away, convinced of the contrary.
And yet doubt remained, doubt of everything: of my wife's constancy,
my children's legitimate birth, my sanity; doubt which persecuted me,
relentlessly and unremittingly.
It was time to make an end, to arrest the flood of sterile thoughts. If
only I could have absolute certainty! A crime had been committed in
secret, or else I was mad! I must know the truth!
To be a deceived husband! What did I care, as long as I knew it! I
should be the first to laugh at it. Was there a single man in the world
who could be absolutely certain that he was his wife's only lover?...
When I thought of the friends of my youth, now married, I could not
pick out one who was not, to some extent, hoodwinked. Lucky men whom no
doubts tortured! It was silly to be small-minded. Whether one is the
only one, or whether one has a rival, what does it matter? The ridicule
lies in the fact of not knowing it; the main thing is to know all about
it.
Yet if a man were married for a hundred years he would still know
nothing of the true nature of his wife. However deep his knowledge of
humanity, of the whole cosmos, he would never fathom the woman whose
life is bound up with his own life. For this reason the story of poor
Monsieur Bovary is such pleasant reading for all happy husbands....
But as far as I was concerned I wanted the truth. I must have it.
For the sake of revenge? What folly! Revenge on whom? On my favoured
rivals? They did but make use of their prerogative as males! On my
wife? Did I not say one ought not to be small-minded? And to hurt the
mother of my darlings? How could I do it?
But I wanted to know; I wanted to know everything. I determined to
examine my life, carefully, tactfully, scientifically; to make use of
all the resources of psychology: suggestion, thought-reading, mental
torture--none should be neglected; I determined to probe the deepest
depths, not even despising the well-worn, old-fashioned means of
burglary, theft, interception of letters, forged signatures....
I determined to make the most searching investigations.... Was that
monomania, the paroxysm of rage of a lunatic? It is not for me to say.
I appeal to the reader for a verdict after a careful study of my
confession. Perhaps he will find in it elements of the physiology
of love, some light on the pathology of the soul, or even a strange
fragment of the philosophy of crime.
_September_ 1887--_March_ 1888.
* * * * *
CONCLUDING REMARKS OF THE AUTHOR
This is a terrible book, I fully admit it, and I regret that I ever
wrote it.
How did I come to write it?
I had to wash my corpse before it was laid in its coffin.
Four years ago, if I remember rightly, a friend of mine, a writer, a
declared enemy of the indiscretions--of others--said to me one day when
talking about my first marriage--
"Do you know, it would make excellent copy for the sort of novel which
I should like to write."
Certain of my friend's applause, I decided there and then to write it
myself.
"Don't be angry with me, dear old fellow, that I, as the original
owner, make use of my property."
I also remember, it is twelve years ago now, a remark my future
mother-in-law made to me one evening when I was watching her daughter
carrying on a flirtation with a group of young men--
"Wouldn't she make a splendid heroine for a novel?"
"With what title?"
"A passionate woman!"
Happy mother, who died in the nick of time, I have carried out your
suggestion. The novel has been written. I can die in peace.
MS. 1888.
The other day I met again the hero of this novel. I upbraided him for
having induced me to publish the story of his first marriage. He is
married again, father of a sweet little girl, and looks ten years
younger.
"Dear old boy," he said in reply to my reproaches, "the sympathy
which everybody felt for the heroine of the novel, when it was first
published, absolves me. You! may gauge from this fact the great depth
of the love I bore her, for not only did it survive so much brutality,
but it communicated itself even to the reader. This, however, has
not prevented a French academician from denouncing my constancy as
weakness, my steadfast loyalty to my family, including my children,
baseness, in view of my wife's brutality, inconstancy and dishonesty.
I wonder whether this man would consider an insignificant Caserio
superior to an eminent Carnot, simply because the former stabbed the
latter?
"Moreover, this book, which you had wanted to write yourself, is only
the woof of a fabric the richness of which is known only to those of my
countrymen who have followed my literary career as it unfolded itself
side by side with the sorrows of my heart, without suffering to be
influenced. I could have left the battlefield. I remained steadfastly
at my post. I fought against the enemy at home, day and night. Was this
not courage?
"The 'poor, defenceless woman' was backed by the four Scandinavian
kingdoms, where she counted nothing but allies in her war against a
man who was sick, solitary, poor, and threatened with confinement in a
lunatic asylum because his intellect rebelled against the deification
of woman, this penultimate superstition of the free-thinkers.
"The dear souls who conceal their revengeful thoughts under the term
'divine justice' have condemned my 'Confession' in the name of their
Nemesis divina, bringing spurious evidence for their assertion that
I had deceived the husband of Marie's first marriage. Let them read
the scene where the Baron throws his wife into my arms, when I stood
before him with clean hands and confessed to him my guiltless love for
the wife he neglected. Let them remember the important fact that I took
upon my young shoulders the whole burden of our fault, to save his
position in the army and the future of his little girl. Let them then
say whether it is just to punish an act of self-sacrifice by an act of
brutal revenge.
"One must be young and foolish to act as I have acted, I admit that.
But it will not happen again--never again.... But ... enough of it! And
then ... no ... good-bye!"
He walked away quickly, leaving me under the spell of his perfect
honesty.
I never again regretted having published the story of this idealist,
who has now disappeared from literature and the world. But I abandoned
my former intention to write "The Confession of a Foolish Woman,"
because, after all, it goes too much against common-sense to allow a
criminal to give evidence against her victim.
French Original Edition, 1894.
It was the outspoken account of his first marriage, written in
self-defence and as a last testament, for he intended to take his
life as soon as the book was finished. For five years the sealed
manuscript, which was not meant for publication, was in the safe
keeping of a relative. Only in the spring of 1893, under the pressure
of circumstances and after public opinion and the press had attacked
him in the most unjust manner, did he sell the book to a publisher.
"Separated," 1902.
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's The Confession of a Fool, by August Strindberg