A DISCOURSE ON SUICIDE.
One day Mrs. Butler, Dolores, Percy, and several of their friends went
to visit the Latin Quarter--the ancient homes of the Grisettes--a race
rapidly becoming extinct.
"I have always wanted to visit this locality," Dolores said on her way
thither. "It is a phase of Parisian life which has possessed a curious
fascination for me."
"No doubt you have surrounded the Grisettes with a halo of romance,"
answered Percy. "If so, it will vanish utterly as you approach. What
sort of beings do you fancy they are?"
"Physically, lovely sirens: mentally frivolous; morally lax, owing to
their education, no doubt. Just the style of woman to fascinate a
romantic student."
Percy laughed. "That is the prevailing idea," he said; "but it is
wholly unlike the reality, as you will see."
What Dolores saw, were groups of contented looking mothers, tidy
housewives, and comfortable young matrons. Women whose lives were
devoted to their homes and families. Universally neat, and modest in
appearance, but in no case strikingly attractive or beautiful.
"There is every indication here of happy domestic life," Percy said.
"These women make good true consorts, and contented companions. They
exchange their culinary and housekeeping accomplishments, and their
loyalty, for a little affection, protection and support. On the whole,
they lead a very pleasant sort of existence--while it lasts."
"Their position is far more enviable than that of the average wife,"
Dolores responded, "for if they are unhappy in their relations, they can
at least get away; and I have no doubt they receive more devotion and
loyalty than the majority of married women do. The position of the
latter seems to me the more humiliating of the two."
Percy regarded Dolores with a grave expression.
"You are a strange girl," he said. "Yet extreme as you are in your
ideas, there is much truth in what you say. I have very little respect
for the husbands of my acquaintance. And still I believe God meant each
man to possess one mate, and to be true to her in life and death. That
is my ideal of perfect manhood--though an ideal I never expect to
attain. There was a time when I imagined it possible--but now I live for
the pleasure of the hour, and waste no time in theories or in
moralizing. Life is too short. But of one thing I am sure, Miss
King--positively sure." He paused, and she looked up expecting some
serious remark. "And that is--that you are the most charming companion
in the world."
On their way back to the Avenue Josephine, they saw a beautiful girl who
had just shot herself in the breast, being conveyed to the hospital. Her
lovely features were distorted with pain, and her agonizing groans, as
they lifted her from the street where she had fallen, were heartrending
to hear. Later, as they sat in Dolores' parlors, they all fell to
discussing suicide.
"Terrible as it may seem," Dolores said, "I really cannot think it so
great a crime as many do. We are never consulted in regard to coming
into this world. Life is thrust upon us, and if, as in the case of that
poor girl, perhaps, it becomes an insupportable burden, I cannot help
thinking God will forgive the suffering soul that lays the burden down.
I have always felt the greatest sympathy for suicides. It is a cowardly
act, I own, yet it is a cowardice I can comprehend and condone. And I
think God will surely be as sympathetic as a mortal."
"You know Dante's description of the Seventh Circle," suggested Percy,
"and the horrors which await the rash soul of a suicide:
"When departs the fierce soul from the body, by itself
Thence torn asunder, to the seventh Gulf
By Minos doomed, into the wood it falls,
No place assigned, but where so ever
Chance hurled it."
"But that was merely the poetic utterance of a visionary mind," Dolores
answered. "No one in these days believes in a God who could be guilty of
such atrocious punishments for sin or error, as Dante describes; and
then I contend that in many instances suicide is not a crime, it is
merely a cowardly act."
"But laying aside the crime of the act, think what an uncomfortable
position the poor soul may find itself in!" suggested Percy. "To go
where we are not wanted or invited, in this world, is a very
embarrassing situation, you know. And to suddenly thrust yourself,
without an invitation, upon the exclusive society of angels--I must say
I would not have the courage to do it."
"Well, of all things," said Madam Volkenburg, "if any of you ever _do_
commit suicide, never shoot yourselves, or resort to any disgusting or
painful process. I can tell you of a very swift and painless method."
"What is it?" they all asked, in chorus, fascinated, as most of us
always are, by a discussion of the horrible.
All but Dolores. She already knew.
"Oh, it is a swift poison," Madam Volkenburg explained. "My husband, who
was a great experimenter in the chemical world, as you perhaps know,
left a package of it among his possessions. It is a white, brilliant,
crystallized substance, and the smallest particle of it, the moment it
mixes with the saliva of the mouth, and is swallowed, produces instant
death, and there is nothing to indicate poison afterward. It cannot be
detected, and it leaves the body quietly composed as if sudden sleep had
overtaken it."
"Why is it not better known?" some one asked.
"Perhaps it is well known; perhaps many of the sudden deaths by 'heart
disease,' of which we read so often, occur in this way."
"And it will produce, as Madame Volkenburg says, swift and painless
death, at least upon an animal," added Dolores. "When my little dog was
run over by a carriage wheel, and lay crying in terrible pain, and I
knew he must die, I tested the efficacy of this poison upon him. It
ended his agonies instantly."
"And by the way," spoke Madame laughingly, turning to Dolores, "I gave
you enough of the poison to kill ten dogs, or human beings, either; and
you never returned it to me. Since I have heard your views upon suicide
I think I had better take the dangerous drug out of your possession."
"If I were anxious to die, I fancy the absence of that drug would not
prevent me from finding the means of self-destruction," Dolores
answered, lightly. And at that moment refreshments were served, and the
conversation turned upon more agreeable subjects.
At the expiration of a month--the swiftest month of his life, it seemed
to Percy,--he was obliged to cut loose from this pleasant circle, and
visit London and Berlin, on the business which had really brought him
abroad.
He felt a curious depression of spirits as he entered the parlors on the
Avenue Josephine the evening preceding his departure--a depression which
he was hardly able to explain to himself. Only this might be his last
interview with his charming friends, and "last times" are always sad.
Dolores seemed grave, as she welcomed him, and a little later she said,
with a winning frankness, "I never remember to have felt so lonely at
the thought of any other person's departure in my life, Mr. Durand, as I
feel at yours. You have been such an addition to our circle; you are
such a _bon comrade_; just what a brother would be, I fancy. How I shall
miss you!"
"But I am not your brother, you know," Percy said, and he wanted to add,
"And therefore the association has its dangers." He left it unsaid,
however, thinking she would understand his simple assertion.
But she did not. She was a woman with a hobby, which precluded the
thought of marriage. And she was a cold woman by nature. Knowing that
Mr. Durand fully understood and respected her views, she could see no
danger in his companionship. She was very lonely at the thought of his
departure. He was her ideal friend, lost as soon as found.
"It has been a charming month in Bohemia," Percy continued. "I have
thoroughly enjoyed it--it is unlike anything I have ever experienced
before. I have had my fill of conventional society, and I have drained
the cup of reckless pleasures; but this charming mixture of refinement,
_esprit_ and abandon, has been a new element to me."
"_Apropos_ to your reference to a month in Bohemia," said Dolores, "I
believe Mr. Orton has written a poem on Bohemia, which he has kindly
promised to deliver this evening. Mr. Orton, will you favor us now?"
"I was not aware that you were a poet, Mr. Orton," Percy remarked, as
the young man arose, and began to affect the bashful-school-girl air.
"Sir," said the journalist, turning a stern look upon Percy, and
speaking in a sepulchral tone, "I am all that is bad: a newspaper man, a
poet, and--" pointing toward the piano, "the worst remains to be told; I
am a pianist." And then, quickly changing his expression and voice, he
recited in the most admirable manner the following verses:
BOHEMIA.
Bohemia, o'er thy unatlassed borders
How many cross, with half-reluctant feet,
And unformed fears of dangers and disorders.
To find delights, more wholesome and more sweet
Than ever yet were known to the "_elite_."
Herein can dwell no pretence and no seeming;
No stilted pride thrives in this atmosphere,
Which stimulates a tendency to dreaming.
The shores of the ideal world, from here,
Seem sometimes to be tangible and near.
We have no use for formal codes of fashion;
No "Etiquette of Courts" we emulate;
We know it needs sincerity and passion
To carry out the plans of God, or fate;
We do not strive to seem inanimate.
We call no time lost that we give to pleasure;
Life's hurrying river speeds to Death's great sea;
We cast out no vain plummet-line to measure
Imagined depths of that unknown To Be,
But grasp the _Now_, and fill it full of glee.
All creeds have room here, and we all together
Devoutly worship at Art's sacred shrine;
But he who dwells once in thy golden weather,
Bohemia--sweet, lovely land of mine--
Can find no joy outside thy border-line.
"That is just the fear which disturbs my heart, as I am about to cross
the border-line and go back to the common-place world," sighed Percy,
when the applause which succeeded the recitation died away. "I doubt my
ability to enjoy anything, after this delightful experience."
"Well, now," said Homer Orton, "in response to the _encore_ I _ought_ to
have received, I will give you a few verses appropriate to _that_
situation, my dear fellow. If you commit them to memory, they may serve
to help you in those dark hours of mental and spiritual pain which come
to every man--the morning after the club supper. They are called--
PENALTY.
Because of the fullness of what I had,
All that I have seems poor and vain.
If I had not been happy, I were not sad--
Tho' my salt is savorless, why complain?
From the ripe perfection of what was mine,
All that is mine seems worse than naught;
Yet I know, as I sit in the dark, and pine,
No cup could be drained which had not been fraught.
From the throb and thrill of a day that was,
The day that now is seems dull with gloom;
Yet I bear the dullness and darkness, because
'Tis but the reaction of glow and bloom.
From the royal feast that of old was spread,
I am starved on the diet that now is mine;
Yet, I could not turn hungry from water and bread,
If I had not been sated on fruit and wine."
"Speaking of Bohemia," Dolores said, "with all its charms, I do not
believe I am a Bohemian by nature. I am really fond of ceremonies and
imposing forms. I enjoy the most impressive services in divine worship.
Had I been reared in the Roman Church, I would have made one of its most
devout members. I like conventional life, but I do not like the people
I meet in those circles."
"And yet," Percy answered, "it is generally supposed that in exclusive
circles one finds all that is choice."
"But it is a great mistake," continued Dolores. "It may be true that
whatever is choice is always exclusive; but whatever is exclusive is not
always choice. One finds so little variety in the people one meets in
the so-called best society anywhere. They are all after one pattern, and
society does not tolerate individual tastes and ideas, you know. So you
see I am obliged to select my congenial friends as I may, and create a
Bohemia of my own."
"Which immediately becomes a Paradise," her listener answered gallantly.
"Don't," ejaculated Dolores with a pained expression, "it sounds so
like--well, so like other men."
"And am I not like other men?" Percy asked, smiling and secretly
pleased. Nothing flatters a man's vanity more than being told he is not
like other men. "I never imagined myself to be a distinct type."
"But you are; or at least you have seemed so to me. And that is why I
have liked you so well."
"Then you do like me?"
Dolores met his gaze without a blush or tremor, frankly, sweetly.
"I do not think I ever met any man before, whom I so thoroughly liked
and respected," she said. "You are my ideal friend."
"Then, perhaps you will consent to correspond with me occasionally,"
Percy suggested. "I should have gone away not daring to ask the favor,
believing myself only one of the many on whom you bestowed your
hospitality, but for your kind speech."
As he sat in his room that night, Percy puzzled his brains, trying to
analyze Dolores King's manner and words, and state of mind toward him.
"She is either the most perfect actress, or the coldest and most
passionless woman on earth," he said, "incapable of any strong emotion.
Or else--or else--she likes me better than she knows. At all events, it
is fortunate for both, that I am going away."