I went to consult my sister Claudia. The blow was a heavy one for her
also; but I was surprised to find that she did not share my contempt
for the person whom I considered responsible for all this trouble.
"Ideala is no common character herself," Claudia argued; "and it isn't
likely that a common character would fascinate her as this man has
done."
"Will you speak to her, Claudia, and see what your influence will do?"
"It is no use my speaking to her," she answered, disconsolately.
"Ideala is a much cleverer woman than I am. She would make me laugh at
my own advice in five minutes. And, besides, if she be infatuated, as
you say she is, she will be only too glad to be allowed to talk about
him, and that will strengthen her feeling for him. No. She has chosen
you for her confidant, and you had better talk to her yourself--and may
you succeed!" she added, laying her head on the table beside which she
was sitting, and giving way to a burst of grief.
I tried to comfort her, but I had little hope myself, and I could not
speak at all confidently.
"I believe," Claudia said, before we parted, "that there is nothing for
her now but a choice of two evils. If she gives him up she will never
care for anything again, and if she does not, she will have done an
unjustifiable thing; and life after that for such a woman as Ideala
would be like one of those fairy gifts which were bestowed subject to
some burdensome condition that made the good of them null and void."
I did not meet Ideala again until the evening, and then I was not sorry
to see that her manner was less serene. It was just possible that she
had been thinking over what I had said, and that some of the doubts I
had suggested were beginning to disturb her perfect security.
After dinner she brought the conversation round to those social laws
which govern our lives arbitrarily. I did not see what she was driving
at, neither did the good old Bishop, who was one of the party, nor a
lawyer who was also present.
"You want to know something," said the latter. "What is it? You must
state your case clearly."
"I want to know if a thing can be legally right and morally wrong,"
Ideala answered.
"Of course not," the Bishop rashly asserted.
"That depends," the lawyer said, cautiously.
"If I signed a contract," Ideala explained, "and found out afterwards
that those who induced me to become a party to it had kept me in
ignorance of the most important clause in it, so that I really did not
know to what I was committing myself, would you call that a moral
contract?"
"I should say that people had not dealt uprightly with you," the Bishop
answered; "but there might be nothing in the clause to which you could
object."
"But suppose there _was_ something in the clause to which I very
strongly objected, something of which my conscience disapproved,
something that was repugnant to my whole moral nature; and suppose I
was forced by the law to fulfil it nevertheless, should you say that
was a moral contract? Should you not say that in acting against my
conscience I acted immorally?"
We all fell into the trap, and looked an encouraging assent.
"And in that case," she continued, "I suppose my duty would be to evade
the law, and act on my conscience?"
The Bishop looked puzzled.
"I should only be doing what the early martyrs had to do," she added.
"That is true," he rejoined, with evident relief.
"But I don't see what particular contract you are thinking of," said
the lawyer.
"The marriage contract," Ideala answered, calmly.
This announcement created a sensation.
The lawyer laughed: the Bishop looked grave.
"Oh, but you cannot describe marriage in that way," he declared, with
emphasis.
"Humph!" the lawyer observed, meditatively. "I am afraid I must beg to
differ from your Lordship. Many women might describe their marriages in
that way with perfect accuracy."
"Marriages are made in heaven!" the Bishop ejaculated, feebly.
"Let us hope that some are, dear Bishop." Claudia sweetly observed, and
all the married people in the room looked "Amen" at her.
"I think an ideal of marriage should be fixed by law, and lectures
given in all the colleges to teach it," Ideala went on; "and a standard
of excellence ought to be set up for people to attain to before they
could be allowed to marry. They should be obliged to pass examinations
on the subject, and fit themselves for the perfect state by a perfect
life. It should be made a reward for merit, and a goal towards which
goodness only could carry us. Then marriages might seem to have been
made in heaven, and the blessing of God would sanctify a happy union,
instead of being impiously pronounced in order to ratify a business
transaction, or sanction the indulgence of a passing fancy. But only
the love that lasts can sanctify marriage, and a marriage without such
love is an immoral contract."
"Marriage an immoral contract!" the Bishop exclaimed. "O dear! O dear!
This is not right, you know; this is not at all right. I must make a
note of this--I really must. You are in the habit of saying things of
this sort, my dear. I remember you said something like it once before;
and really it is not a subject to joke about. Such an idea is quite
pernicious; it must not be allowed to spread--even as a joke. I wish,
my dear, you had not promulgated it, even in that spirit. You have--ah
--a knack of making things seem plausible, and of giving weight to
opinions by the way you express them, although the opinions themselves
are quite erroneous, as on the present occasion. Some of your ideas are
so very mistaken, you know; and you really ought to leave these matters
to those who understand them, and can judge. It is very dangerous to
discuss such subjects, especially--ah--when you know nothing about
them, and--ah--cannot judge. I really must preach a sermon on the
subject. Let me see. Next Sunday--ah, yes; next Sunday, if you will
kindly come and hear me."
We all thanked him as enthusiastically as we could.
Later, I found Ideala alone in one of the conservatories. She took my
arm affectionately, and we walked up and down for a time in silence.
She was smiling and happy; so happy, indeed, that I found it hard to
say anything to disturb her. For a moment I felt almost as she did
about the step she proposed to take. There had been little joy in her
life, and she had borne her cross long and bravely; what wonder that
she should rebel at last, and claim her reward?
"Do you remember how you used to talk about the women of the nineteenth
century, Ideala," I said at last, "and describe the power for good
which they never use, and rail at them as artificial, milliner-made,
man-hunting, self-indulgent _animals?_"
"I know," she answered; "and now you would say I am worse than any of
them? I used to have big ideas about woman and her mission; but I
always looked at the question broadly, as it affects the whole world;
now my vision is narrowed, and I see it only with regard to one
individual. But I am sure that is the right way to look at it. I think
every woman will have to answer for one man's soul, and it seems to me
that the noblest thing a woman can do is to devote her life to that
soul first of all--to raise it if it be low, to help it to peace if
peace be lacking, and to gather all the sunshine there is in the world
for it; and, after that, if her opportunities and powers allow her to
help others also, she should do what she can for them. I do not know
all the places which it is legitimate for women to fill in the world,
but it seems to me that they are many and various, and that the great
object in life for a woman is to help. To be a Pericles I see that a
man must have an Aspasia. Was Aspasia vile? some said so--yet she did a
nobler work, and was finer in her fall, if she fell, than many good
women in all the glory of uprightness are. And was she impure? then it
is strange that her mind was not corrupting in its influence. And was
she low? then whence came her power to raise others? It seems to me
that it only rests with ourselves to make any position in life, which
circumstances render it expedient for us to occupy, desirable."
"And you propose to be an Aspasia to this modern Pericles?"
"If you like to put it so. The cases are not dissimilar, as there was
an obstacle in the way of their marriage also."
"The law was the obstacle."
"Yes; another of those laws which are more honoured in the breach than
in the observance. They might not marry because she came from Miletus!
and Lorrimer may not marry me because I came out of the house of
bondage. Unwise laws make immoral nations."
"But you have gone about this business in such an extraordinary way,
Ideala," I said. "You seem to have tried to make it appear as bad for
yourself as you can. Why did you not leave your husband when Lorrimer
advised you to?"
"If I had gone then I should have been obliged to live somewhere else--
a long way from Lorrimer; and I might never have seen him again."
"And do you mean to say you decided to endure a life that had become
hateful to you in every way, simply for the sake of seeing this
gentleman occasionally?"
"Yes. Ah! you do not know how good he is, nor how he raises me! I never
knew the sort of creature I was until he told me. He said once, when we
quarrelled, that I was fanciful, sentimental, lackadaisical,
hysterical, and in an unhealthy state of mind, and yet--"
I made a gesture of impatience, and she stopped.
"But, Ideala," I asked her, after a little pause, "have you never felt
that what you are doing is wrong?"
"I cannot say that exactly," she answered. "I knew that certain social
conventions forbade the thing--at least I began to acknowledge this to
myself after a time. At first, you know, I thought of nothing. I was
wholly absorbed in my desire to see him; that excluded every other
consideration. Do you know what it is to be sure that a thing is wrong,
and yet not to be able to feel it so--to have your reason acknowledge
what your conscience does not confirm?"
I made no answer, and we were silent for a little; then she spoke
again:
"One day when I was in Japan," she said, "I was living up in the hills
at Hakone, a village on a lake three thousand feet above the level of
the sea. The Mayor of the village was entertaining me, and whenever I
went out he sent his son and several of his retainers as an escort,
that I might not be subject to annoyance or insult from strangers. One
day I was crossing the hills by a mountain-path there is between Hakone
and Mianoshita, and after I passed Ashynoyou, where the sulphur springs
are, I found myself in a dense fog. I could not see anything distinctly
three yards in front of me. Kashywaya and the other men never walked
with me; they used to hover about me, leaving me to all intents and
purposes alone if I preferred it. The Japanese are very delicate in
some things; it was weeks before I knew that I had a guard of honour at
all. On that particular day I lost sight of them altogether, but I
could hear them calling to each other through the fog; and I sat down
feeling very wretched and lonely. I thought how all the beauty of life
had been spoiled for me; how, past, present, and to come, it was all a
blank; and I wished in my heart that I might die, and know no more.
And, do you know, just at that moment the fog beneath me parted, and I
saw the sea, sapphire blue and dotted with boats, and the sand a streak
of silver, and the green earth, and a low horizon of shining clouds,
and over all the sun! Dear Lord in heaven! how glad a sight it was!"
She pressed her handkerchief to her eyes. "And I was wandering," she
continued, "in some such mental mist, lost and despairing, when
Lorrimer came into my life, and changed everything for me in a moment,
like the sun. Would you have me believe that he was sent to me then
only for an evil purpose? That the good God, in whom I scarcely
believed until in His mercy He allowed me to feel love for one of His
creatures, and to realise through it the Divine love of which it is
surely the foreshadowing--would you have me believe myself degraded by
love so sent? Would you have me turn from it and call it sin, when I
feel that God Himself is the giver?"
I was silent, not knowing how to answer her.
Presently I asked: "But why not have a legal separation, a divorce,
from your husband now?"
"I cannot," she answered, sadly. "At one time I had written proof of
his turpitude, but I could not make up my mind to use it then, and I
destroyed it eventually; so that now my word would be the only evidence
against him, and that would not do, I suppose, although you all know,
better than I do, I fancy, what his life has been."
Other people had by this time come into the conservatory, and we were
therefore obliged to change the subject.
In the days that followed every one seemed to become conscious of some
impending trouble. We were all depressed, and one by one our party left
us, until at last only Ideala remained, for we had not the heart to ask
other guests, even if it had been expedient, and, under the
circumstances, Claudia did not consider it so.
Ideala spent much of her time in writing to Lorrimer. Some of these
letters were never sent. I fancy she wrote exactly as she felt, and
often feared when she had done so that she had been too frank. How
these two ever came to such an understanding I am at a loss to imagine,
and I have searched in vain for any clue to the mystery. Only one thing
is plain to me, that when at last Ideala understood her feeling for
Lorrimer, she cherished it. After she found that her husband had broken
every tie, disregarded every obligation, legal and moral, that bound
her to him, she seems to have considered herself free. But I feel quite
sure she had not acknowledged this, even to herself, when she returned
to Lorrimer, and that simply because she had not contemplated the
possibility of being asked to take any decided step. When the time
came, however, she apparently never questioned her right to act on this
fancied freedom. The circumstances under which they had met were
probably responsible for a great deal. The whole of their acquaintance
had had something unusual about it, which would naturally predispose
their minds to further unaccustomed issues when any question of right
or expediency arose. The restrictions which men and women have seen fit
to place upon their intercourse with each other are the outcome of ages
of experience, and they who disregard them bring upon themselves the
troubles against which those same restrictions, irksome at times as
they must be, are the only adequate defence.
One letter I have here shows something of the strength and tenderness
of Ideala's devotion; and I venture to think that, even under the
circumstances, it must be good for a man to have been loved once in
his life like that. The letter begins abruptly--"Oh, the delight of
being able to write to you," she says, "without fear and without
constraint. If it were possible to step from the dreary oppression of
the northern midnight into the full blaze of the southern noon, the
transition would not be greater than is the sense of rest and relief
that has come to me after the weary days which are over. Do you know,
I never believed that any one person could be so much to another as
you are to me; that any one could be so happy as I am! I think I am
_too_ happy. But, dear, I want you! I want you always; but most of all
when anything good or beautiful moves me; I feel nearer to you then,
and I know you would understand. Every good thought, every worthy
aspiration, everything that is best in me, and every possibility of
better things, seems due to your influence, and makes me crave for
your presence. You have been the one thing wanting to me my whole life
long. I believe that no soul is perfect alone, and that each of us
must have a partner-soul _somewhere,_ kept apart from us--by false
marriages, perhaps, or distance, or death, but still to be ours, if
not in this state, then in some other, when both are perfect enough to
make the union possible. We are not all fit for that love which is the
beginning of heaven, and can have no end. [Transcriber's Note: Lengthy
footnote relocated to chapter end.] Does this seem fanciful to you? It
would comfort me if we were ever separated. _If_--I cannot tell you
how it makes my heart sink just to look at that word, although I know
it does not suggest anything that is possible in our case. What power
would take you from me now, when there is no one else in the whole
wide world for me _but_ you? and always you! and only you! You, with
your ready sympathy and perfect refinement; your wit, your rapid
changes, your ideality, your kindness, your cruelty, and the terrible
discontent which makes you untrue to yourself. You are my world. But
unless I can be to you what you are to me, you will always be one of
the lonely ones. Tell me, again, that my absence makes a blank in your
life. You did not write the word, you only left a space, and do you
know how I filled it at first? 'It was such a _relief_ when you left
off coming,' I read, and I raged at you.
"I have heard it said lately that you are fickle, but these people do
not understand you. You are true to your ideal, but the women you have
hitherto known were only so many imperfect realisations of it, and so
you went from one to the other, always searching, but never satisfied.
And you have it in you to be so much happier or so much more miserable
than other men--I should have trembled for you if your hopes had never
been realised.
"But what _would_ satisfy you? I often long to be that mummy you
have in the Great Hospital, the one with the short nose and thick lips.
When you looked at me spirit and flesh would grow one with delight, and
I should come to life, and grow round and soft and warm again, and talk
to you of Thebes, and you would be enchanted with me--you could not
help it then. I should be so old, so very old, and genuine!
"Dear, how I laugh at my fears now, or rather, how I bless them. If I
had never known the horror of doubt, how could I have known what
certainty is? And I did doubt you; I dare acknowledge it now. I wonder
if you can understand what the shame of that doubt was? When I thought
your absence and your silence were intentional slights, I knew how they
felt when 'they called on the rocks to cover them, and I wished--oh,
_how_ I wished!--that a thousand years had passed, and my spirit
could be at the place where we met, and see the pillars broken, and.
the ivy climbing over the ruins, and the lizards at home amongst them,
and the shameless sunlight making bare the spot where we stood.
"It was as if I had been punished for some awful unknown sin, and when
I seemed to be dying, and I dared not write to you, and all hope of
ever knowing the truth had departed, I used to exclaim in my misery:
'Verily, Lord, if Thy servant sinned she hath suffered! for the anguish
of death has been doubled, and the punishment of the lost has begun
while yet the tortured mind can make its lament and moan with the
tortured body!'
"But all that bitter past only enhances the present.
"I wonder where you will be to-day. I believe you are always in that
room of yours. You only leave it to walk to the station with me, after
which you go back to it, and work there till it is dark; and then you
rest, waiting for the daylight, and when it comes you go to work again.
I cannot fancy you anywhere else. I should not like to realise that you
have an existence of which I can know nothing, a life through which I
cannot follow you, even in imagination.
"But sometimes you come to me, and then how glad I am! You come to me
and kiss me, and it is night and I am dreaming, and not ashamed.
"Yes, the days do drag on slowly, for after all I am never quite happy,
never at peace even, never for a moment, except when I am with you. I
am sorry I feel so, for it seems ungrateful in the face of all the
kindness and care that is being lavished on me by my friends. One lady
here has seven children--another instance of the unequal distribution
of the good things of this world. She has lent me one of them to
comfort me because I am jealous. He sleeps in my room, and is a fair-
haired boy, with eyes that remind me of you. Will he also, when he
grows up, have 'the conscience of a saint among his warring senses'? I
hope not, I should think when sense and conscience are equally
delicate, and apt to thrill simultaneously, life must be a burden.
Would such a state of things account for moods that vary perpetually, I
wonder?"
Here she breaks off, and I think these last reflections account for the
fact that the letter was never sent.
[Relocated Footnote: This passage might have been taken from Plato
verbatim, but Ideala had not read Plato at the time it was written.
The inborn passionate longing of the human soul for perfect
companionship doubtless accounts for the coincidence, which also shows
how deep-rooted and widely spread the hope of eventually obtaining
the desired companionship is. Some will maintain that the desire for
such a possibility has created the belief in it, but others claim to
have met their partner-souls, and to have become united by a bond so
perfect that even distance cannot sever it, there being some
inexplicable means of communication between the two, which enables
each to know what befalls the other wherever they may be. The idea
might probably be traced back to that account of Adam which describes
him as androgynous, or a higher union of man and woman--a union of all
the attributes of either, which, to punish Adam for a grievous fault,
was subsequently sundered into the contrast between man and woman,
leaving each lonely, imperfect, and vainly longing for the other.]