Here we found Mademoiselle Gros, already bonneted and shawled. I went
over to the window, where my ears drank in a little comedy of pathetic
explanation and injured silence; humiliating apology and continued
silence, generous proposal of one month's salary, hinted acceptance of
three. From the three months' minimum Ferret would not budge; in the
Countess' soul fear of a new scene fought an attacking battle against
long-entrenched parsimony; fear won--and money passed.
"I will see you have the carriage for the station. The Havre train: you
are returning to your relatives there? Good, I will see you again at
the moment of departure."
"Thank you, Madame la Comtesse. I will take leave now of my
_successor_." And she held out her wizened claw to me.
"Well, I hope she will be," said the Countess. "You will, dear
Mademoiselle, will you not?" she asked, as the door closed upon the
other.
"How, Madame? Mademoiselle Gros' successor?"
"Oh, I don't mean as lady's companion, of course, not as her _official_
successor." (Nervous snigger.) "For that post I must try to find some
one else. It will be difficult: they are all so exacting nowadays, so
unreliable. Oh, it will be difficult. I meant, would you succeed poor
little Gros as my friendly adviser, my confidante?"
"But, Madame, I am so young. A young foreign girl, who knows very
little of the world! I hope always to be your friend; but a confidante,
like Mademoiselle Gros--I don't think I should like to--"
"Mademoiselle, there are many things _I_ do not like, also. Do you
think that I like to be spoken to by my own children as I was in front
of 'a young foreign girl' this morning? I come of an ancient family:
there is still pride in France. The new generation of young girls
is terrible. I would never have dared to speak to my dear mother as
Suzanne and Elise do to theirs; I would have died first--"
"Madame," I interrupted, "do you love your daughters?"
"Love them? of course I do! _At the same time_--" She shrugged her
shoulders and resumed her plaint.
"Ah, it is hard; I fly from trouble, and it comes always my way. I need
peace, and there is always strife. I am so unhappy, so worried, so
alone; I trust no one, I believe nothing they tell me. If our relatives
were to hear of this! But they shall not; not for worlds would I
confide in them. But one must confide in somebody, mustn't one? You,
Mademoiselle, you have seen now the kind of thing I have to bear--I
am only surprised that you have been so long here without seeing an
exhibition like today's. You know now how my daughters treat their
mother--"
"Madame," I interposed, "I know nothing. The whole scene at luncheon
leaves me bewildered. What did happen?"
"Something, I'm sure. Gros must have seen something: not that at bottom
she was reliable, but she could not have invented the whole thing
like that, could she? And I was beginning to have a kind of suspicion
myself, too. But when Suzanne explained, it _seemed_ true, didn't it?
She was never a child for falsehoods. And then I remembered how Gros
hated Monsieur de Fouquier--"
"Why?"
"Oh, she always hated him ever since she's been here. She was always
trying to poison my mind against him: as if she needed to! And as if
a poor creature like that was able to influence me. She hated him so
because he wanted me to part with her, and she knew it. He was always
hoping she would leave."
"Why?" again.
"Because she was always talking against him to me: a vicious circle is
it not? So perhaps what Gros said today was merely out of spite against
him. Still, the very idea is terrible."
"Why--if I may--if you will forgive my asking--why is the idea of
Mademoiselle Suzanne and Monsieur de Fouquier so terrible?"
"I will tell you in a moment. But Elise's manner? What did that mean?
She frightened me; she was so hard and bitter. I do not understand. Ah,
that would be infinitely worse: the idea of him and Elise. Fouquier
one day master of this château, ruler in my house,--ah no, no, there
are limits to what I could endure. Yet there is something with one of
the two: I feel there is something. But which?"
"Why either, Madame? If Mademoiselle Gros' story about Suzanne is all a
lie--"
"It might be a lie. It never does to be too hopeful; I am always
nursing false hopes."
"Well, assume it's a lie, which after what you have told me about
Mademoiselle Gros' spite sounds likely; well, that disposes of Suzanne;
while as to Elise, except for her wild talk, which means nothing except
that she was angry, have you the tiniest reason for suspecting anything
of her?"
"How comforting to hear you talk so! Somehow I feel there may be
nothing in it after all. But if there were, how terrible!"
"Why, Madame?"
"Ah, you don't know. It is de Fouquier."
"He is a cousin--"
"Only a second cousin."
"Because he is poor?"
"There is that, of course: but listen, I will tell you all."
She looked nervously towards the door, and dropped her voice to a
melodramatic whisper. "Listen, Mademoiselle: he is an enemy. There are
other bad points, of course: for instance, he is vicious; you are an
English girl and understand what I mean. That is not important; all men
are more or less like that. Then he is a thief and a cheat. Since my
dear husband died, he has managed all my business affairs; all about
the estates, you know. He has what we call a power-of-attorney, signs
all documents to do with the property, collects all rents and dues,
sees to the leases and the farms and all investments and improvements.
Well, he is a robber. He takes commissions and bribes from the tenants
and dealers; when he invests in the funds he makes a profit for
himself; he falsifies all the documents he puts before me. Do you want
evidence, proof? The tenants all come to me on the sly and tell me of
his tricks. It was long before I discovered, and still longer before I
took my courage in both hands and braved him with his treachery. Oh, I
was prostrate with fear, but I worked myself into a temper and that
helped me, and I told him in one word--Go!"
"And then?"
"Then the worst thing happened, the thing that had always held me back.
He said that if I forced him to leave the château, he would publish
abroad things he knew about my husband, would hold up the family name
to ignominy and scorn, would prove to all the world that my husband
possessed neither honesty nor honour. It was all false, or nearly all;
but I was frightened lest he did know something really dishonourable.
Anyway, I knew he would pretend he did, and so carry out his threat.
Finally I gave in, though he saw the hate in my eyes, he saw that! So
he stayed on. He goes more carefully, that is, he contents himself with
stealing less. It is only because of this hold over me, through my
affection for my dear husband's memory, that he stays. I hate him, and
he hates me."
"Will he always stay?"
"Ah," she replied vaguely, "that's just it. I hope he will die. It is
wicked of me, and I trust that the good God will pardon me. However,
now you understand."
"I am beginning to understand. One thing, though. Surely, Madame, if he
_were_ to marry in the family, then he could have no reason to injure
the family name--"
"Mademoiselle, for a man who has so spoken to enter our family would be
the foulest dishonour." She drew herself up proudly; there was a touch
of real majesty in her poor heroics. Then, subsiding into the customary
worried-dormouse manner, puckering her brows, and poking forward her
anxious nose: "If there is any danger, it must be stopped now--Oh,
what a nightmare! We could easily manage Suzanne, but Elise would be
terrible. We must find out for certain. Neither of them would tell me
anything: I am only their mother! But you, that is different. They will
talk freely to you about today, I feel sure they will, Suzanne for
certain. You will tell me what they say?"
"Oh Madame, it would be unkind to make me promise that. I could not
break their confidences any more than I could yours, could I?" (Much
less so, I realized, as I liked the girls better; knowing that in the
last resort I should be guided by preference rather than reason or even
interest.)
"Then you'll not help me! You will leave me alone after all? Without
husband, or friend, or companion, untrusted by my children" (whimper),
"alone, alone? In the short time since you have come I have tried
to make you happy in your life with us, and you will not do me this
least service? Why even poor Gros, whom I never really liked, told me
all--all she could see."
The last phrase turned me from pity to pertness. "Madame," I said, "I
am not Mademoiselle Gros. I am a friend, not a spy."
"Spy," she repeated, a cold glint in her eyes; and I shrank away from
her, not so much through fear of her anger as through shame at my own
cruelty.
"No, no, Madame," I cried, "I did not really mean that. I only meant
that I am so much friendlier with the girls than Mademoiselle Gros was,
that it will be harder for me to be fair to them as well as to you. But
I sympathize truly with all your troubles and anxieties. I do really,
dear Madame, I do not say it to be polite--and I will always try to
help you, I will help you however I can, I want to repay your many
kindnesses."
"Ah, thank you, thank you," and she squeezed my hand affectionately,
with tears in her eyes. "Now I must see Mademoiselle Gros off."
I followed her out, and went upstairs to my bedroom.
Suzanne was ensconced in my window-seat.
"So you've escaped at last. I ask pardon for installing myself here,
but I knew it was the only place where I should have you to myself.
What has the old dear been saying?"
"A good many things."
"I know. Begging you to be 'on my side, dear Mademoiselle.' Oh, don't
worry, I've not been listening at the door; I've always left that to
Gros, who never got anything but earache for her pains. I know it all
by heart, though. In brief, she wound up by asking you precisely what
I am here to ask you myself: in this delightful family circle of the
aristocracy of France, will you be on _my_ side? You hesitate: did you
hesitate when she asked you?"
"No, I said 'No' straight out. I said it wouldn't be fair to you two
for me to promise that."
"Well, you haven't said 'No' straight out to me. Which means you like
me better."
"You know it. But everybody has been so kind, I would rather not take a
side at all."
"You'll have to, my poor Mademoiselle! You have seen too much. You have
already become more like one of the family in your few months here than
any outsider before. And you are too good a friend not to be worth
trying for."
"Too useful an ally."
"I mean that. Don't be cynical. Because I like you--and I do
enormously--it is not wrong for me to want you to help me, is it?
Suppose there were a bad quarrel between Mamma and me, and you became
mixed up in it, so that you had to choose to side with one or the other
of us, which would it be?"
"I don't think anything like that would arise, and I don't see what I
could _do_ anyway; but my sympathies would be with you."
"Thank you, I am so happy. I didn't want to make you promise. You would
help me, wouldn't you?"
"Perhaps. On one condition, that you told me everything."
"I promise that. But just for fun, I'd like you to tell me beforehand
what you have already guessed on your own: what, for instance, you
thought of the pleasant little incidents at luncheon today. Just for
fun."
"I might say something that would offend you."
"Say whatever you think, I shall like it better."
"It was the suddenness of what happened that took my breath away; I
hadn't time to ask myself what I thought. Then Mademoiselle Gros seemed
so natural that I thought she must be telling the truth: I'm sorry, but
it was difficult to think otherwise, wasn't it?"
"Go on."
"Then you denied it; but even if true I could not understand why your
mother was so tragical. Then, when Elise became so wild and strange, I
had a new doubt--that perhaps it was Elise, and not you, who was fond
of Monsieur de Fouquier--"
Suzanne interrupted with a shriek of laughter: "Oh, no, no, no! that is
a bit too good."
"Why was she so strange in the way she spoke about him, then?", piqued.
"Oh, that is just like her. I forgot of course that before today you
have never seen her as she really is. Why did she speak so wildly?
Simply and solely to shield and protect me; to muddle old Mother, and
to turn her suspicions and anger away from me. She cannot bear to see
Mamma rave at me; it gives her pain, physical pain. It is the way she
loves me. I am not worthy of her, sometimes I wish I was. I let her
kiss me and sacrifice herself for me; but I can't give her what she
wants; I like her, of course, but only as an ordinary sister does. What
happened today was a sham to save me."
"I am glad. Now I know how much she loves you, there can never be any
danger of my going against her because of my promise just now to you.
That is the reason I hesitated--"
"I see. There are gradations. You like Mamma, but would throw her over
for me, whom you like better. You like me, but at a pinch would throw
me over for Elise."
"It is not like that." (It was.) "Anyway, I've done what you asked and
told you what I thought. Now you tell me. Before I can help you, the
first thing I have to know is,--well, the chief thing. Did you--was
what Mademoiselle Gros said true?"
"Perfectly. Poor dear Mamma! It is the hundredth time Emile has held my
hand at table, though the first time we were caught. We embrace each
other whenever we have the opportunity; in his office downstairs, in
the grounds, anywhere. Listen. He loves me. I love him. That is all
that matters. Ah, he is so smart, so _chic_, so courteous, so perfect
a lover! He adores me, worships me, would do anything to please me.
Perhaps I don't love him quite as much as he does me, though that
will come: oh, soon, soon! He buys me presents, beautiful bracelets
and things. I cannot wear them, though, because of Mamma. Oh, but I
love him. The joy of meeting alone in the park, being near together,
embracing, hearing his declarations, loving each other. Oh love! There
is only love! Ah, I see you understand--"
I flushed, chiefly in anger: that she should dare, even unwittingly, to
put de Fouquier in the same place as Robbie.
"What is it?" she asked sharply, "there is something." ("O Lord," I
prayed, "send me a lie to tell her, send swiftly!") To gain time:
"Unless you promise, solemnly, not to be offended. I cannot tell you."
"I promise."
(God gracious; lie to hand.) "Well, if what I am going to say is not
nice--in comparison--for your friend, it is because it is especially
nice for you. I like you very very much, but I don't think Monsieur de
Fouquier is worthy of you."
"Why?" with a touch of curtness which in loyalty to her promise she
strove to hide.
"It is hard to give the reason--"
"Yes, I know, very hard! Because Mother made you promise not to. She
has told you Emile is a thief and a cheat because rents are going down
owing to bad times, accused him of muddling accounts which she doesn't
vaguely comprehend, not any more than I should. She's been repeating to
you all the lies told her by dealers and farmers he doesn't buy carts
and ploughs and stock from, who say he has been bribed by those he does
buy them from. I know all the stories. How dare she poison your mind
with lying slanders!"
"My reason for thinking him unworthy of you is something quite
different. Is he a _good_ man?"
She looked puzzled. Then she gave a vague little laugh. "As good as any
one else, I suppose. What do you mean by 'good?'"
"Clean-living. Is he a pure man?"
Now she laughed uproariously: her voice jarred on me. "Is he a
pure man? My dear Mademoiselle, of course he's not. That's a
what-d'ye-call-it, a contradiction in terms, like saying a white
nigger. Emile is like the others: keeps mistresses, goes to actress'
dressing-rooms, sees cocottes."
"Sees them?" I repeated the silly euphemism mechanically.
"Sleeps with them, possesses them then, if you prefer. Why look so
wretched about it? It doesn't worry me. It is the world." Her candid
pleasure in shocking me, and the more refined delight of superior
worldly-wisdom both failed to annoy me as they should have done: I
could only think of the nightmare foulness itself.
"You say--it doesn't worry you? You can love a man like that?"
"Naturally. Better than any other kind, if there were another kind. The
more women he has loved, the greater is the compliment in choosing me.
If a man is a better schoolmaster the more experience he has had and
the more children he has taught, then a man is a better lover the more
experience he has had and the more women he has loved. That's logic.
Besides, I prefer the man of the world."
"Suzanne!" I cried, calling her by her Christian name for the first
time--a twinkle in her eyes acknowledged the fact; I was too deadly
earnest for her to dare to smile--"Suzanne, is it true? You are not
exaggerating for fun, or to shock me? Do most young girls of our age
believe that? Does your mother know you think like that? Do you realize
how sick and wretched you are making me? Tell me it is not true!"
"It is true, Mary. I suppose there is still a pretence kept up by
mothers, and curés, that young girls don't know how men live; it may
have been so once, but now, my dear, we are in the Second Empire! Maybe
Mamma fondly imagines Elise and I are still in our cradles, and daren't
look at a pair of trousers: she can imagine just what she pleases for
all I care. But I am really sorry I have made you miserable. What is
the good of worrying about it? The world is like that, you must take it
so--"
"I refuse to."
"You'll have to, or else become a nun. A Protestant nun, how funny!
Because all men are the same."
"They are not!" I cried with fury, visualizing Robbie and the Stranger.
"You shall not say it."
"Very well, then, I grant you I know one exception, priests apart, of
course. He is a cousin of ours, on Mother's side, living down in the
Gard, and a Protestant. A ridiculous creature--I don't mean because
he's a Protestant--so ugly and gauche, and overgrown and lanky, with
a pale face all covered with pimples. He blushes whenever you look at
him, and can't look a girl straight in the face. _He_ has never seen a
woman, oh dear no! Does something else though, I expect. At any rate,
all _nice_ men are the same. If it is a fault at all, it is Nature's,
not theirs. It is hardly a reason for hating Emile, that he is normal."
"It would be with me."
"Are you so sure? Suppose you loved a man, passionately, as _you_
would--ah, you colour--and found out that he saw cocottes, would you
fling him over for that?"
"It is a horrible, ridiculous supposition, so I refuse to discuss it.
Englishmen are not like that."
"_Vraiment?_ Your men know how to amuse themselves in Paris, I fancy."
"It is no good your insisting; I will not believe it. But it will haunt
me, I shall never be able to cleanse my mind. Stop."
"Certainly. But as to Emile. Now then, Mary, forget the last ten
minutes' talk, and believe me when I say this: I love him. As much as
you would love a man, for all your different ideas on the other thing.
You accept that?"
"You say so. That is enough for me. My not thinking him worthy of you
makes no difference to what you feel."
"Good. And if a man and a girl love each other, you agree that it is
wrong for any one else to come in between them?"
"Yes, if they truly love."
"Well, we do; passionately. I want nobody to come in between me and
him, and I want your sympathy. I ask for nothing but to be left in
peace. For the present, till I think the right moment has come, you
must help me to keep my secret from Mamma. She will make a lot of fuss
at first, then reconcile herself quickly to the idea, and finally
approve our betrothal. That is, if no one else interferes--"
"Who? Mademoiselle Gros is going, or is gone by now. Some relation,
perhaps, that I haven't met?"
"No-o. There is nobody really. I only said _if_. If--Elise, you
know--she won't exactly take to the idea at first." Suddenly she was
nervous. The moment she spoke of her sister, optimism and boldness
seemed to leave her.
"But you told me she was taking your side in the matter--"
"Yes, because she loves me: but for that very same reason she
might--just at first--be a little jealous of my love for Emile. She
guessed it, but I don't think she was ever quite certain we were lovers
till today: that is why it was so nice of her to defend me as she did,
and that is why she was so bitter. It is funny, I know, for a sister to
be jealous of her sister's lover. At this very moment, for instance,
she is probably locked in her bedroom, lying on the bed, crying her
heart out--"
Crying her heart out.
"However, she will get over that. Poor Elise, my dear good sister!"
She moved to the door. "I am so glad we have had this long talk. You
are a good friend, Mary: you see I have dropped 'Mademoiselle' too. It
will be fun at dinner tonight. Mother will have a face as long as a
pole!"
* * * * * * *
"Crying her heart out" was my burden all the evening. At dinner I had a
whole side of the table to myself, facing a gay over-talkative Suzanne
and an unruffled de Fouquier. The Countess wore an even more harried
expression than usual. Elise's place was empty.
"I do not understand, Madame," reported Gabrielle, her devoted
chambermaid, "but Mademoiselle refuses to come down to dinner, refuses
food, refuses to unlock her door." François confirmed.
From the moment Suzanne had left me I had been prompted to go and
knock at her sister's door, to comfort her if she would let me. But
I was unsure of my reception: she was proud enough to repulse me, to
wish to enjoy her misery alone. As soon as I could slip away after
dinner, I got back to my bedroom. There I tried "Not your business"
and "Meddlesome Mary" and "She doesn't want you" and "You are only
the foreign governess" and "You only want to wallow in her grief."
Conscience was not convinced; instinct triumphed over sophistry and
took me trembling to her door. Here I wavered. Pride shrank anew from a
repulse.
"Mademoiselle," called her voice from within: I knocked,
disingenuously. "Was that you calling?"
"It's six hours I have been waiting for you. Sit down, that settee is
the most comfortable."
She was lying in bed, half-dressed: sore-eyed, haggard. In comparison,
Suzanne had been hilarious, the Countess merely peevish. I knew with
whom I "sided."
"Well," she began, "I suppose they have all been at you. Has Fouquier?"
"No."
"The other two then. Suzanne has confided to you that she loves that
brute?"
"But you knew it?"
"Oh, I guessed, I guessed; but till today like a fool I hoped against
hope. Now it is over. She loves him. She cannot ever again love me,
save in a puny second place. Second place! I do not want it. I will
not have it, I despise it, I trample on it! Love is a game for two,
Mademoiselle; a tragedy for three. There is only love in the world,
and it can never ever be mine. I cannot love or be loved if there is
another."
"But she is your sister! How can you love her as you are saying? You
cannot have the true passion of love for your sister."
"But if I have it, and know I have it, what then? Listen: There is no
woman in the history of the world who ever loved any man more than I
love Suzanne. 'Cannot' so love her, indeed: but I _do_! Every book I
have ever read, every notion that has ever come to me from external
things tells me that love is a passion a woman should feel for a man
only; I look into my heart and find it is not so. I do not explain,
or defend, or even understand. I suppose God fashions us in different
moulds, makes some of us to love one way and some another. Why not? And
why should He, Who, as your Bible says, is Himself Love, why should He
limit this chief thing in His universe to the one narrow relationship
of man and woman? A woman can love her friend more purely, more nobly
than ever any man can; and with the bond of blood in addition, her
heart can hold a love more intimate, more tender than you will find in
all the stories of the sexes. Am I mad to talk so? It is the truth. Do
you understand? Do you see?"
I was slowly learning to accept as true for others emotions my heart
could never feel, my mind with difficulty comprehend.
"I think I see. But how many other sisters are there who feel as you
do? Does she?"
"Ah no! She has never cared, never conceived how I love her. She is
careless, indifferent, does not come to me when I need her: an ordinary
sister. Sometimes the contrast between her insouciance of what I have
felt and my passionate love for her has maddened me. Yet indifference,
coldness, I could have borne for ever, but not that she should love
some one else. Ah, no, no, no! Oh, my little sister, thou art the only
creature I have ever known to love, and thou hast killed me. God made
me to be loveless. He decided this cruelty from the Beginning. I had to
lose her. I keep saying over and over to myself: it had to be, it had
to be--"
"Had it to be _him_?" I was crying, but had to stop her somehow.
"No," with sudden fury. "If she is to have a man, it shall be some one
less vile than he. Have you any conception, Mademoiselle, of what this
man is?"
"No," I replied, which after hearing the Countess' version and then
Suzanne's, was near the truth.
"First of all, he is a scoundrel, who for years has been using his
position here to rob my mother; he must have pocketed hundreds of
thousands of francs of ours. Later we will talk of my plans to get rid
of him, in which I want you to help me: for I am determined to drive
him out of this house. I have known all this, more or less, since I was
twelve, but for different reasons I have never thought it worth a storm
till now--"
"Till he is taking Suzanne from you."
"True. I know his thefts are not the reason, but they are my best
weapon, and at the least a sufficient excuse for his having no handling
of _my_ affairs: I am nearly twenty-one, and his power-of-attorney for
Mamma shall not hold for me. Then, he insults my father's memory and
threatens mother he will make public things to my father's discredit."
"What kind of things?"
"Oh, money-matters, politics; his private life too. Mother is
frightened, whimpers to herself 'I dare not.' Then I happen to know a
few details about this brute's habits, and that even for a man--even
for a man, mark you--he is foul. Not for my own sake, but for her own,
she shall not be sacrificed to this beast. I shall stop it. And you
will help me, because you are fond of Suzanne."
"No, because I am fond of you."
"For both of us, then. Before you came just now I had made up my mind,
crying it out alone, that if ever a man the least bit worthy should
want her, I would stifle my jealousy, sacrifice myself, and wish her
well."
"But, Mademoiselle--you being you, and your love for your sister being
what it is--would you ever admit that any man was the least bit worthy?
I don't think you believe there is any such man in the world."
"Nor is there."
"That is foolishness. There are as many good men in the world as good
women; probably more."
"The foolishness, my poor little English girl, is yours. You simply do
not know. You simply do not know what men are. They are our masters,
and we are their slaves. They gorge themselves on the pleasures of
life, and leave to us the sorrows. With the bourgeoisie and the
peasants it is the same. The girl brings her little _dot_, for him to
spend in the cafés and on gaming and vice; she brings her health for
him to ruin, her self-respect for him to steal, her body for him to
befoul. Her father will sell her to any filthy jaundiced old roué whom
he thinks a good enough 'party'--he would be a good deal more careful
in matching his mares and sows. If there is poverty to be faced or
shame to be suffered, who bears the burden? When in one of the villages
there is an unwedded peasant girl who gives birth to a baby, which of
them ought to suffer, and which does? The girl is turned away from
every honest door, trampled under: the man, who will naturally have
a poor wife of his own, laughs, pays nothing, forgets, and seduces
another. That is the law of the Empire, that is justice, that is
'the way of the world.' Once when I helped a poor drab out of my own
pocket--'Remember your position,' said dear Mamma. Bah! position. Why,
in our class it is worse: we must sit at home and simper and embroider
and maintain the great traditions of the lady of France, while Monsieur
obeys only his pleasure, squanders our wealth, gambles, haunts Paris,
and keeps his woman. We smirk and say nothing. 'Such a happy marriage,'
they say. Ah, their filthy politeness, their ducking and bowing and
fawning, picking up fans, opening doors, kissing our hands:--every
time mine is kissed, which isn't often I assure you, I feel there is a
hole burned in my flesh. Ah their beautiful woman, their adorable sex!
The moment our backs are turned, at once their voices become low and
greasy, they are all winks and leers and sniggers and bawdy tales. It
makes me vomit--"
"Elise!"
"Don't stop me, don't dare! No other French girls are as I am: till now
I never found any human soul whom I could tell what I feel: I must have
my way, and you must listen. Do you deny it--the injustice, the cruelty
and the foulness? Oh why is the world so cruelly made that while women
know how to love, men only know how to lust?"
All through this tirade I was conscious of an instinct within me that
answered to its bitterness, an instinct of sex-hatred for men as men,
a savage half-sadistic hope that women would one day get even, would
triumph, would trample! But as her bitterness waxed, mine waned, and
the remembered male faces of my heart put this evil instinct to flight.
"It is not true. I hate this wickedness with the selfsame horror as
you, but though I know nothing of the world, I know down in my own
soul--I know as I know God, I know as I know myself--that they are not
all like that. God did not make one sex all good, the other all bad. I
know there are men who love as-purely and passionately as we do. You
would believe it if there was one such who loved you. Suppose a man
_did_ love you, then what?"
"Ah, suppose, suppose!" She savagely ripped open her blouse and vest,
caught my hands and placed them on her bare body, on a poor flat cold
bosom. "Ha, ha, ha!" She laughed like a madwoman.
Such is the egotism of the human heart that even in that moment of
purest pity, when I would have given my right hand to help her and ease
her sorrow, even in that moment, and against my will and against a
loathing for myself and my selfishness that accompanied (but could not
stifle) the joy, there coursed through my veins a high triumphal joy
that I was not as she. In an involuntary gesture I threw back my head,
and _my_ bosom heaved with pride; a hundred half-glimpsed notions of
delight tore through my soul.
"Ah, suppose, suppose!" she was mocking, "how I pine for that dear
supposed one.--No, dear, I had but one love, my little sister, and a
man has taken her away. She was not worthy, but I loved her. Now I have
no one, and no one will ever love me. It is cruel and all the universe
is cruel. God is cruel to let the world be so:--oh, I forgot, He is
a Man, and had no daughter, but a Son. Oh my little Suzanne that I
loved--oh no, no, I cannot hear it!"
She broke down utterly, and sobbed as if her heart was breaking. My
arms were around her. Very long I held her, till she had sobbed some of
the misery away.
After a long while she sprang free, dried her eyes, and said in her
calmest every-day voice: "I am hungry."
"Shall I go downstairs and tell them, or ring?"
"Ring; Gabrielle will come. I don't want the others. Before you ring--"
"Yes?"
"Kiss me."