I had thought of everything, taken all my precautions. I would not have
a Parisian, because Parisian women alarm me. I would not have a rich
wife because she might be too exacting and extravagant. I also
dreaded family ties, that terrible network of homely affections, which
monopolizes, imprisons, dwarfs and stifles. My wife was the realization
of my fondest dreams. I said to myself: "She will owe me everything."
[Illustration: p091-102]
What pleasure to educate this simple mind to the contemplation of
beauty, to initiate this pure soul to my enthusiasms and hopes, to give
life, in short, to this statue! The fact is she had the air of a
statue, with her great serious calm eyes, her regular Greek profile, her
features, which although rather too marked and severe, were softened by
the rose-tinted bloom of youth and the shadow of the waving hair. Added
to all this was a faint provincial accent that was my especial joy, an
accent to which with closed eyes, I listened as a recollection of happy
childhood, the echo of a tranquil life in some far away, utterly unknown
nook. And to think that now, this accent has become unbearable to me!
But in those days, I had faith. I loved, I was happy, and disposed to
be still more so. Full of ardour for my work, I had as soon as I was
married begun a new poem, and in the evening I read to her the verses
of the day. I wished to make her enter completely into my existence. The
first time or two, she said to me: "Very pretty," and I was grateful
to her for this childish approbation, hoping that in time she would
comprehend better what was the very breath of my life.
Poor creature! How I must have bored her! After having read her my
verses, I explained them to her, seeking in her beautiful astonished
eyes the hoped-for gleam of light, ever fancying I should surprise it.
[Illustration: p095-106]
I obliged her to give me her opinion and I passed over all that was
foolish to retain only what a chance inspiration might contain of good.
I so longed to make of her my true help mate, the real artist's wife!
But no! She could not understand. In vain did I read to her the great
poets, choosing the strongest, the tenderest,--the golden rhymes of the
love poems fell upon her ear as coldly and tediously as a hailstorm.
Once I remember, we were reading _la Nuit d'Octobre_; she interrupted
me, to ask for something more serious! I tried then to explain to her
that there is nothing in the world more serious than poetry, which is
the very essence of life, floating above it like a glory of light,
in the % vibrations of which words and thoughts are elevated and
transfigured. Oh! what a disdainful smile passed over her pretty mouth
and what condescension in her glance! As though a child or a madman had
spoken to her.
What have I not thus wasted of strength and useless eloquence! Nothing
was of any use. I stumbled perpetually against what she called good
sense, reason, that eternal excuse of dried up hearts and narrow minds.
And it was not only poetry that bored her. Before our marriage, I had
believed her to be a musician. She seemed to understand the pieces
she played, aided by the underlinings of her teacher. Scarcely was she
married when she closed her piano, and gave up her music.
[Illustration: p099-110]
Can there be anything more melancholy than this abandonment by the young
wife of all that had pleased in the young girl? The reply given, the
part ended, the actress quits her costume. It was all done with a view
to marriage; a surface of petty accomplishments, of pretty smiles, and
fleeting elegance. With her the change was instantaneous. At first I
hoped that the taste I could not give her, an artistic intelligence and
love of the beautiful, would come to her in spite of herself, through
the medium of this wonderful Paris, with its unconscious refining
influence on eyes and mind. But what can be done with a woman who does
not know how to open a book, to look at a picture, who is always bored
and refuses to see anything? I soon understood that I must resign myself
to have by my side nothing but a housewife, active and economical,
indeed very economical. According to Proudhon, a woman, nothing more. I
could have shaped my course accordingly; so many artists are in the same
plight! But this modest rôle was not enough for her.
Little by little, slyly, silently, she managed to get rid of all my
friends. We had not made any difference in our talk because of * her
presence. We talked as we always had done in the past, but she never
understood the irony or the fantasy of our artistic exaggerations, of
our wild axioms, or paradoxes, in which-an idea is travestied only to
figure more brilliantly. It only irritated and puzzled her. Seated in
a quiet corner of the drawing-room, she listened and said nothing,
planning all the while how she should eliminate one by one those who
so much shocked her. Notwithstanding the seeming friendliness of the
welcome, there could already be felt in my rooms that thin current
of cold air, which warns that the door is open and that it is time to
leave.
My friends once gone, she replaced them by her own. I found myself
surrounded by an absurd set of worthies, strangers to art, who hated
poetry and scorned it because "it made no money." On purpose the names
of fashionable writers who manufacture plays and novels by the dozen
were cited before me, with the remark: "So and so makes a great deal of
money!"
Make money! this is the all-important point for these creatures, and
I had the pain of seeing my wife think with them. In this fatal
atmosphere, her provincial habits, her mean and narrow views were made
still more odious by an incredible stinginess.
Fifteen thousand francs (six hundred pounds) a year! It seemed to me
that with this income we could live without fear of the morrow. Not
at all! She was always grumbling, talking of economy, reform, good
investments. As she overpowered me with these dull details, I felt all
desire and taste for work ebb away from me. Sometimes she came to
my table and scornfully turned over the scattered half-written
pages:--"Only that!" she would say, counting the hours lost upon the
insignificant little lines. Ah I if I had listened to her, my glorious
title of poet, which it has taken me so many years to win, would be now
dragged through the black mire of sensational literature. And when
I think that to this selfsame woman I had at first opened my heart,
confided all my dreams; and when I think that the contempt she now
shows me because I do not make money dates from the first days of our
marriage; I am indeed ashamed, both of myself and of her.
I make no money! That explains everything, the reproach of her glance,
her admiration for fruitful commonplaces, culminating in the steps she
took but lately to obtain for me I don't know what post in a government
office.
At this, however, I resisted. No defence remains to me but this, a force
of inertia, which yields to no assault, to no persuasion. She may speak
for hours, freeze me with her chilliest smile, my thought ever escapes
her, will always escape her. And we have come to this! Married and
condemned to live together, leagues of distance separate us; and we are
both too weary, too utterly discouraged, to care to make one step that
might draw us together. It is horrible!
[Illustration: p108-119]
[Illustration: p111-122]