"Needles and pins, needles and pins,"--the rhyme is obvious, and very
old,--"When a man marries his trouble begins." Marcantonio is an
Italian, and his native language contains no precise equivalent of this
piece of wisdom, with which every English baby is made acquainted as
soon as it can know anything.
The real difficulty seems to be that there are as many different ways of
looking at marriage as there are people in the world. Marriage is
described as being either a holy bond or a social contract. Obviously a
holy bond implies at least a certain modicum of holiness on the part of
the bound; and it is not likely that a single and very simple form of
contract can ever cover the multifarious requirements and exigencies of
a thousand million human beings. A contract, in order to be
satisfactory, must be thoroughly understood and appreciated by the
parties who undertake it, and this seems to be a very unusual case in
the world.
When Marcantonio Carantoni married, he was possessed of very noble and
exalted ideas, totally unformulated, but, as he supposed, only requiring
the seal of experience to define, cement, and consolidate them. He
believed that his wife was to be the stately queen of his household, the
gentle partner of his deeds and thoughts, a loving listener to his
words. He pictured to himself a magnificence of goodness unattainable
for a man alone, but within easy reach of a man and a woman together; he
imagined a broad perfection of human relations which should be a
paradise on earth and an example of beatific possibility to the world.
He dreamed of that kind of happiness, which, as it undoubtedly passes
the bounds of experience, is aptly termed by poets transcendent, and is
regarded by men of the world as a nonsensical fiction. He saw visions in
his sleep, and waking believed them real, for he had a great capacity
for believing in all that was good; and as he was human he found
ceaseless delight in believing in these good things, more especially as
in store for himself. He had always been fond of the pleasant side of
life, and found no difficulty in conceiving of an infinite series of
pleasant situations, culminating in his union with Miss Leonora
Carnethy. He never analysed. Only pessimists analyse, and the best they
can accomplish thereby is to make other men even as themselves, critical
to see the darns in other people's clothes, and learned to spy out
infinitesimal mud-specks upon the garments of saints.
Marcantonio was young. There is a faculty which men acquire from mixing
with the world, which is not pessimism, nor analysis, nor indifference;
it is rather a knowledge of good and evil with a fair appreciation of
their proportion in human affairs. Nothing is more necessary to thought
than the generalising of laws; nothing is more pernicious than the
generalising of humanity into types, the torturing application of the
nineteenth century boot to the feet of all,--men, women, and children
alike. If men are only interesting for what they are, regardless of what
they may be, a day of any one's actual experience must be a thousand
times more interesting than all the fictions that ever were written. If
art consists in the accurate presentation of detail, then the highest
art is the petrifaction of nature, and the wax-works of an anatomical
museum are more artistically beautiful than all the marbles of Phidias
and Praxiteles. True art depends upon an a priori capacity for
distinguishing the beautiful from the ugly, and the grand from the
grotesque; and true knowledge of the world lies in the knowledge of good
and evil, not confounding the noble with the ignoble under one smearing
of mud, nor yet whitewashing the devil into an ill-gotten reputation for
cleanliness. The temptation of Saint Anthony may convey a righteous
moral lesson, but the temptation of Saint Anthony as described by his
namesake's pig would risk being too unsavoury to be wholesome.
But Marcantonio was young, and he troubled himself about none of these
things, supposing everything to be good, beautiful, and enduring,
excepting such things as were evidently bad, inasmuch as they were ugly
and disagreeable.
Now Miss Leonora Carnethy had long been given over to a sort of sleek,
cynic philosophy,--the kind of cynicism that uses lavender water in its
tub. Her dissatisfaction with the world was genuine, but she found means
to alleviate it in the small luxuries and amenities of her daily life.
She and her friends had talked the kernel out of life, or thought that
they had, but the shell was still fresh and well favoured. Leonora
herself was indeed subject to moods and fits of real unhappiness, for
she was far too intelligent a person not to long for something
beautiful, even when she was most convinced that life was ugly. There
were times when she dreamed of an ideal man who should win her, and love
her, and give her all the happiness she had missed. And again she would
dream of the freedom of the earth-bound soul from ills, and cares, and
thorns, and she would enter some silent Roman church and kneel for hours
before a dimly lighted altar, praying for rest, and peace, and
inspiration of holiness. But there was too much poetic feeling in her
religious outpourings. If religion is to be poetic, a very little thing
will destroy its harmony; some careless sacristan chatting with a crony
in the corner of the church, or a couple of thoughtless children
wrangling over a half-penny by the door, or any such little thing,
destroyed instantly the fair illusion that lay as balm upon her
unrestful soul. Religion must be real to every man if it is to stand the
test of reality.
Leonora's views of marriage were therefore more or less subject to her
moods. There were days, indeed, few and far between, when her better
intelligence got the upper hand of the fictitious fabric of so-called
philosophy which she had erected for herself. Then for a brief space she
thought of life very much as Marcantonio did, and she contemplated her
marriage as a noble and worthy career,--for marriage is a career to most
women of the world. But then, again, all her uncertainty returned
twofold upon her, and the only real thing was the dream of love, the
vision of a lover, and the hope of a realised passion. She was so strong
and radiantly human, that from the moment when her mind fell into
abeyance the material beauty of life sprang up in her heart, until,
being disappointed and cast down through not attaining the end of her
passionate dreams, she once more sank into a half-religious, half-poetic
melancholy. Nevertheless, the strongest element in her character was the
desire to be loved, not by every one, but by some one manly man, and
loved with all the strength he had, overwhelmingly. Her studies were a
refuge when she saw how improbable such a piece of sweet fortune was,
and, as might have been expected, they were far from regular and
systematic. She read a great deal, especially of such authors as had a
reputation for being profound rather than clear, and, as her mind had
received no kind of preliminary training, the result was eminently
unsatisfactory to herself. To Marcantonio, who knew more about the
opera than about philosophy, she seemed a miracle of learning, and she
loved to talk with him about theories, generally finding that, in spite
of his ignorance, he made extremely sensible remarks upon them. But he
always tried to lead her to different subjects, for, in spite of his
immense admiration for what he supposed to be her wisdom, he was aware
that it seemed very vague, and that it even occasionally bored him.
Leonora had acquired the unfortunate faculty of deceiving herself, and
when the fit was upon her she saw things obliquely. In spite of the
little prick of conscience that hurt her when she accepted Marcantonio's
offer, she had soon persuaded herself that she loved him, on the
principle that, since her "standard" was so very "high," she could not
possibly have demeaned herself to accepting a man she did not love. It
is a very fine thing to believe that we are so far removed from evil
that we cannot do wrong, and therefore that whatever we do is infallibly
right, no matter how our instincts may cry out against it. It is a most
comforting and comfortable vicious circle which we convert into a crown
of glory for ourselves on the smallest provocation. So when Leonora was
finally married to Marcantonio, she made herself believe that she loved
him, and all her vague theories were temporarily cast aside and trampled
upon in her determination to realise in him all the happiness she had
dreamed of in her ideal.
She had got a husband who did most truly love her, and whose one and
absorbing thought would be her happiness, but he was not exactly what
she had longed for. She mistook his courtesy for coldness, and his
deference for indifference, and since she had persuaded herself that she
loved him she wanted to find him a perfect fiery volcano of love and
jealousy. Marcantonio was nothing of the kind; he was calm, courteous,
and affectionate; he had not the slightest cause for jealousy, and, not
in the least understanding his wife, he was perfectly happy.
Of all tests of true love a honeymoon is the severest, and by every
right of sensible sequence ought to come last of all in the history of
married couples. It is the great destroyer of illusions, and the more
illusions there are the greater the destruction. Two people have seen
each other occasionally, perhaps for an hour every day,--and that is a
great deal in Europe,--during which meetings they have become more or
less deeply enamoured, each of the qualities of the other. People
notoriously behave very differently to the people they love and to the
world at large; but their behaviour to the world at large is the outcome
of their character, whereas their conduct to each other is the result,
or the concomitant, of a passion which may or may not be real, profound,
and good. But each has a great number of characteristics which
practically never appear during those hours of courtship. Suddenly the
two are married, and the lid of Pandora's box is hoisted high with a
vicious jerk that scares the little imps inside to the verge of
distraction, and they fly out incontinent, with an ill savour. If the
lid had been gently raised, the evil spirits would probably have issued
forth stealthily, and one at a time, without any great fuss, and might
not have been noticed. The two condemned ones travel together, eat
together, talk together, until in a single month they have exhausted a
list of bad qualities that should have lasted at least half a dozen
years under ordinary circumstances.
Marcantonio and Leonora travelled for a time, and at last agreed to
spend the remainder of the summer in some quiet seaside place in
Southern Italy. They soon discovered the fallacy of wandering about
Europe with a maid and a quantity of luggage, and they both hoped that
under the clear sky of the south they might find exactly what they
wanted. So they gravitated to Sorrento and hired a villa overhanging the
sea, and Marcantonio suggested vaguely that they might have some one to
stay with them if they found it dull. At this Leonora felt injured. The
idea of his finding life dull in her company!
"How can you possibly suggest such a thing?" she asked, in a hurt tone.
"Not for myself, my dear," said Marcantonio, with an affectionate smile.
"It struck me that you might not find it very amusing. I could never
find it dull where you are, ma bien aimée." And indeed he never did.
Leonora was pacified, as she almost always was when he was particularly
affectionate.
"But, of course," he continued, "you will enjoy the being able to read
and study your favourite books."
"I never want to read them now," said Leonora, who chanced that day to
be not very philosophically disposed. She had been perusing the latest
French impossibility,--she found it rather amusing to be allowed to have
what she liked now that she was married.
"I should be glad if you never read any more philosophy," said
Marcantonio, unwisely saying what was uppermost in his thoughts.
"Really, though," answered Leonora, "I know it all so very superficially
that I feel I must go back and be much more thorough. I think I shall
take a sound course of Voltaire and Hegel, and that sort of thing, this
summer."
Her husband was silent. He began to suspect his wife of being capable of
an occasional contradiction for the mere love of it. Besides, he saw no
particular connection between the two authors she named. But then he
knew very little about them. He looked at Leonora. There was not a trace
of unpleasant expression in her face, and she seemed to have merely made
the remark in the air, without the least intention of being
contradictory or captious. He liked to look at her, she was so fresh and
fair. Neither heat nor cold seemed to touch her delicate white
skin,--her hair was so thick and strong, and her blue eyes so bright.
She was the very incarnation of life. What if her features were not
quite classic in their proportion?
"I am not so beautiful as Diana," she said laughingly one day to
Marcantonio, "but I am sure I am much more alive than she is." He
laughed too, well pleased at the distinction drawn. He was glad that his
sister should be thought cold, and he believed that his wife loved him.
He kissed her hand tenderly.
They had been married two months when they came to stay in Sorrento. It
is a beautiful place. Perhaps in all the orange-scented south there is
none more perfect, more sweet with gardens and soft sea-breath, more
rich in ancient olive-groves, or more tenderly nestled in the breast of
a bountiful nature. A little place it is, backed and flanked by the
volcanic hills, but having before it the glory of the fairest water in
the world. Straight down from the orange gardens the cliffs fall to the
sea, and every villa and village has a descent, winding through caves
and by stairways to its own small sandy cove, where the boats lie in the
sun through the summer's noontide heat, to shoot out at morning and
evening into the coolness of the breezy bay. Among the warm, green fruit
trees the song-birds have their nests, and about the eaves of the
scattered houses the swallows wheel and race in quick, smooth circles.
Far along through the groves echoes the ancient song of the southern
peasant, older than the trees, older than the soil, older than poor old
Pompeii lying off there in the eternal ashes of her gorgeous sins. And
ever the sapphire sea kisses the feet of the cliffs as though wooing the
rocks to come down, and plunge in, and taste how good a thing it is to
be cool and wet all over.
To this place Marcantonio and his wife came at the beginning of July,
having picked up numerous possessions and a few servants in Rome. They
both had a taste for comfort, though they enjoyed the small privations
of travelling for a time. To luxurious people it is pleasant to be
uncomfortable when the fancy takes them, in order that they may the
better enjoy the tint of their purple and the softness of their fine
linen by the contrast. For contrast is the magnifying glass of the
senses.
At sunset they walked side by side in their terraced garden overlooking
the sea. They had travelled all night and had rested all day in
consequence, and now they were refreshed and alive to the magic things
about them.
"How green it is!" said Leonora, stopping to look at the thick trees.
"Yes," answered Marcantonio, "it is very green."
He was thinking of something else, and Leonora's very natural and simple
remark did not divert his thoughts. The cook had arrived with a touch of
the fever, and he was debating whether to send for the doctor at once or
to wait till the next day. For he was very good to his servants, and
took care of them. But Leonora wanted something more enthusiastic.
"But it is so very fresh and green!" she repeated. "Do you not see how
lovely it all is?" She laid her hand on his arm.
"Oui, chérie," said he, getting rid of the cook by an effort, "and green
is the colour of hope." Then it struck him that the saying was rather
commonplace, and he began to realise what she wanted. "It is a perfect
fairyland," he went on, "and we will enjoy it as long as we please. Are
you fond of sailing, my dear?"
"Oh, of all things!" exclaimed Leonora, enthusiastically. "I love the
sea and the beautiful colours, and everything"--
She stopped short and put her arm through his and made him walk again.
She was conscious, perhaps, that she was making an effort,--why, she
could not tell,--and that she had not much to say.
"Marcantoine"--she began. They spoke French together, though she knew
Italian better. She thought his name long, but had not yet decided how
to abbreviate it.
"Yes, what would you say, my dear?" he asked pleasantly.
"I think I could--no--Marcantoine, now that we are married, are you
quite sure that you love me--quite, quite?" Marcantonio's face turned
strangely earnest and quiet. He looked into her eyes as he answered.
"Yes, my very dear wife, I am quite sure. And you, are you sure,
Leonora?"
"How serious you are!" she exclaimed, laughingly. "Well, perhaps I am
not so sure as you are,--but I think I could." Somehow he did not smile;
he took some things so seriously.
Honeymoon conversations are insignificant enough, but it would be well
if they were still more so. They should be limited by an international
law to the phrases contained in the works of M. Ollendorff.
"Is it a fine day, sir?"
"Yes, madam, it is a very fine day, but the baker has the green hat of
the officer."
"Has the baker also the red cow of the general's wife?"
"No, madam, the baker has not the red cow of the general's wife, but the
undertaker has the penknife of the aunt of the good butcher."
It would be hard for the most ill-disposed couple to quarrel if confined
to this simple elegance of dialectics, where truths of the broadest kind
are clothed in the purest and most energetic words. Young married people
are allowed too much latitude when they are turned loose upon a whole
language with a sort of standing order to make conversation. When they
have exhausted a certain fund of stock poetry and enthusiasm, they have
very little to fall back upon, except their personal relation to each
other; and unless they are equally serious or equally frivolous, the
discussion of such matters is apt to get them into trouble.
Like most Italians Marcantonio had difficulty in understanding English
humour. When Leonora said she was not quite sure she loved him, she had
meant it for a jest, and if the jest had a deeper meaning and a
possibility of truth for herself, that was no reason, she thought, why
Marcantonio should consider it no jest at all. She was somewhat annoyed,
and she made up her mind that there must be an element of Philistinism
in his character. She hated and feared Philistines, partly because they
were bores, and partly because she had met one or two of them who had
known vastly more than she did, and who had not scrupled to show it.
But, after all, how could Marcantonio be really like them? He did not
know very much, nor did he pretend to, and he had very good taste and
was altogether very nice,--no, he was not a Philistine; he loved her,
and that was the reason he was serious. All this she thought, springing
from one idea to another, and ending by drawing her arm closer through
his and moving along the terrace by his side.
The sun had set over there in front of them, and the air was cool and
purple with the afterglow. They stood by the wall and looked out
silently, without any further effort at conversation. Talking had been a
failure, probably because they were tired, and for a brief space they
were content to watch the clouds, and to listen to the swift rush of the
swallows and the faint, soft fall of the small waves on the sand far
below them. There they were, linked together, for better for worse, to
meet the joys and the sorrows of life hand in hand; to stand before the
world as representatives of their class, to play a part in public, and
in their homes to be all in all to each other, man and wife.
Man and wife! Ah me! for the greatness and the littleness of the bonds
those names stand for! Is there a man so poor and thin-souled in the
world that he has not dreamed of calling some woman "wife"? Is there any
wretch so mean and miserable in spirit that he has not looked on some
maiden and said, "I would marry her, if I could"? Or has any woman,
beautiful or ugly, fair or dark, straight or crooked, not thought once,
and more than once, that a man would come, and love her, and take her,
and marry her?
But have all the woes and ills of humanity, massed together and piled up
in their dismal weight, ever called forth one half the sorrow that has
ensued from this wedding and being wedded? Alas and alack for the tears
that have fallen thick and fast from women's eyes,--and for the tears
that have stood and burned in the eyes of strong men, good and bad! Who
shall count them, or who shall measure them? Who shall ever tell the
griefs that are beyond words, the sorrows that all earthly language,
wielded by all earthly genius, cannot tell? Will any man make bold to
say that he can describe what pain his neighbour feels? He may tell us
what he does, for he can see it; he may tell us what he thinks, for
perhaps he can guess it; but he cannot tell us what he suffers. The most
he can do is to strike the sad minor chord that in every man's heart
leads to a dirge and a death-song of his own.
A man who tries to tell of great suffering is rebuked. "No human
creature," says the critic, "could suffer as this man describes, and
live. There can therefore be no such suffering in the world." But does
any critic or reader or other intelligent person say, when he reads
about great happiness, "This joy is too much for humanity; there is no
such joy in the world"?
We shrink from suffering, in others as in ourselves, and we turn to
happiness and cannot get enough of it, so that however the tale ends, we
would have made it end yet more joyfully; for so would we do with our
own lives if we could. The strength of half mankind is spent in trying
to remedy mistakes made at the outset, and I suppose that there is not
one man in ten millions who is not striving to make himself happier, in
his own fashion. A man is only happy when he believes himself to be so,
in whatever way the proposition be turned, and no man believes himself
so happy but what he might be happier.
Marcantonio Carantoni was in just such a position. He was more than
contented, for he looked forward to much in the future that he had not
yet attained, and he looked forward to it with certainty. His wife
Leonora was trying hard to be as happy as he, but there had been a
doubt--a cruel, hot little doubt--in her soul from the first. She had
deceived herself--with the best intention--until she could hardly ever
be sure that what she felt was genuine. She had asked questions of her
heart until it was weary of answering them, and would as soon speak
false to her as true.
And here ends the prologue of this story.