Women are curious. It seems as if they are forced to listen to men when
they begin to lay before them what they term their hearts. Mostly it is
the animal in them. They wish to propagate.
He went on as if I had not interrupted him. “Magdalen, I wonder if you
know that the love of a man such as I am, is different from other kinds.
We never select from personal advantage. It is more the man. The spirit
of a beast. We want. We want physically. I have thought of you a great
deal. And I can’t understand what it is in you that makes me look at you
differently from the women I have been thrown with, but the difference
is there. I don’t believe that you belong to the people you pretend you
do. There is something behind. You eat differently. Your fingers are
different. Your skin is different. You are beautiful. The people with
whom I have always gone are only beautiful in their youth. They have the
bloom and that is all. It soon dies. It may be the conditions
surrounding them that causes this sort of thing. Tell me where you came
from? Why are you here?”
“I won’t tell you that. I am here. That is enough. Misfortune has placed
me here. I like it. I am going to stay.”
“Then you love me. Is that the reason you stay?” He shook with emotion
and walked up and down in the dark in front of me.
I was terribly attracted. He was a brute, but he was a man after all. He
had been unfortunate. And yet I don’t think that exactly covers what I
mean. I never asked him from where he had come, or by what fatality he
had sunk so low. Bill was the dregs.
“May I kiss you?” he asked.
Peter, I could not—I could not! And yet I knew in the end it would
happen. I knew as I looked at this creature that to him I would be in
name a wife. I trembled with fear. I hated it dreadfully. Every fiber in
my body recoiled from any sort of personal contact with him. I wondered
whether I would bear him children. I wondered whether he would beat me
tomorrow or the day after. I knew he would. He did. Not then, but soon.
It was queer, Peter, that after it happened—I mean after I took up life
with him. Although he beat me, he did not kill the thing in me that you
did. He always wept, when he got sober, and his contrition was
wonderful. Unfortunately this did not deter him from beating me later. I
think underneath that even though I thought about it all the time I
loved him. How do you suppose that came about? I don’t know. Some people
say a woman loves but once. Yet, here I was loving two distinct persons.
And those persons so diametrically opposed.
It did happen. He kissed me. It was in the park in exactly the same
place he had asked me before. He did not ask me. He took me in his arms.
I struggled. I fought. I knew it was the end. I anticipated it was
coming. I didn’t go with him into the park for weeks and weeks; yet he
asked me to go innumerable times. At last I consented. I saw the end. It
was written with fiery fingers on the wall. You know just like the words
in the Bible. Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin! I don’t suppose my words I saw
meant the same thing. I don’t know what the Bible words mean; but I knew
the words I saw. They were burnt into my brain.
Bill kissed me. He kissed me again and again. The animal came up in him.
It was fearful and yet it was to me a wonderful experience. Eventually,
I, being a woman, lay quietly in his arms. I could smell his dirty
body—the sweat of years was upon it. His clothes were unkempt. His shirt
was open at the neck and he looked precisely what he was—a thug.
I was close to my revenge. And yet, I was not getting precisely what I
started out to get. I had failed again, Peter. I failed. I loved this
thing—this thug. Why do you suppose that happened? I awoke to him. It
must have been that unconquerable force—Nature. You know I hate dirt. I
have always hated dirt. I mean immorality. And yet here I was an honest
woman, a woman of instinct, doing this thing.
Bill kissed me as I say. Then he breathed a sigh. It came from his soul.
If he had a soul, which I doubt. “Come, get up. It is late. We will go
home.”
I got up from the seat. He controlled me. I could not refuse. I wanted
to. I wanted to run. I thought death was better than this thing I was
going into with my eyes open. I knew Bill. He took my hand in his. We
walked silently through the park. I went easily. There was no drawback
on my part.
Down into the streets, from one evil-smelling way to another, through an
alley, fetid with decayed dirt that lay in masses, then into another
long row of old houses. This was called a street. It was silent. There
was no sign of life anywhere. A rat ran across the gutter in front of us
occasionally. I held to him with fear. Bill plodded on. He knew where he
was. I was in a mist. My mind wouldn’t work. If it had, I should have
screamed.
How far I went I don’t know. We stopped. Bill dragged me into a place.
It was dark. I stumbled up one stairway, then up another. It must have
been the top of the house, before Bill kicked a door open. He lit a
light. I don’t know what kind of light it was; but it struggled to
dispel the gloom.
I can’t tell you of this room. I’ve lived in it a long time. I’ve
suffered in it. But I have been loved for myself. I did not fail there.
I have known real love. It has paid me from that standpoint. When I die
I will have known something most women miss. I had no children. In this
I was fortunate.
My story is nearly finished, Peter. Bill, as I said, went to the
penitentiary. I think it was my fault. I wished for something. He
couldn’t get it. We had nothing. He went to get it for me and got
caught. Bill never failed me.
I left the country after Bill died. I am living in Paris. I am getting
old. I am tired. But I don’t regret. I have had my revenge.
I sit all day in the sun. I am always in my garden. I never go out. I
have no reason to go. The outside does not attract me.
Goodbye, Peter. It is finished. And I would not have had it otherwise.