jolly to hear these Parisians protesting against the brutal instincts
which urge the male to kill the female if she deceives him, and
preaching indulgence and reason! They're splendid apostles! It is a fine
thing to see the pack of mongrel dogs waxing wrath against the return to
animalism. After outraging life, after having robbed it of its worth,
they surround it with religious worship.... What! That heartless,
dishonorable, meaningless life, the mere physical act of breathing, the
beating of the blood in a scrap of flesh, these are the things which
they hold worthy of respect! They are never done with their niceness
about the flesh: it is a crime to touch it. You may kill the soul if you
like, but the body is sacred...."
"The murderers of the soul are the worst of all: but one crime is no
excuse for another. You know that."
"I know it. Yes. You are right. I did not think what I was saying....
Who knows? I should do it, perhaps."
"No. You are unfair to yourself. You are so kind."
"If I am roused to passion, I am as cruel as the rest. You see how I had
lost control of myself!... But when you see a friend brought to tears,
how can you not hate the person who has caused them? And how can one be
too hard on a woman who leaves her child to run after her lover?"
"Don't talk like that, Christophe. You don't know."
"What! You defend her?"
"I pity her, too."
"I pity those who suffer. Not those who cause suffering."
"Well! Do you think she hasn't suffered too? Do you think she has left
her child and wrecked her life out of lightness of heart? For her life
is wrecked too. I hardly know her, Christophe. I have only seen her a
few times, and that only in passing: she never said a friendly word to
me, she was not in sympathy with me. And yet I know her better than you.
I am sure she is not a bad woman. Poor child! I can guess what she has
had to go through...."
"You.... You whose life is so worthy and so right and sensible!..."
"Yes, Christophe, I. You do not know. You are kind, but you are a man
and, like all men, you are hard, in spite of your kindness--a man hard
and set against everything which is not in and of yourself. You have no
real knowledge of the women who live with you. You love them, after your
fashion; but you never take the trouble to understand them. You are so
easily satisfied with yourselves! You are quite sure that you know
us.... Alas! If you knew how we suffer sometimes when we see, not that
you do not love us, but how you love us, and that that is all we are to
those we love the best! There are moments, Christophe, when we clench
our fists so that the nails dig into our hands to keep ourselves from
crying to you: 'Oh! Do not love us, do not love us! Anything rather than
love us like that!'... Do you know the saying of a poet: 'Even in her
home, among her children, surrounded with sham honors, a woman endures a
scorn a thousand times harder to bear than the most utter misery'? Think
of that, Christophe. They are terrible words."
"What you say has upset me. I don't rightly understand. But I am
beginning to see.... Then, you yourself...."
"I have been through all these torments."
"Is it possible?... But, even so, you will never make me believe that
you would have done the same as that woman."
"I have no child, Christophe. I do not know what I should have done in
her place."
"No. That is impossible. I believe in you. I respect you too much. I
swear that you could not."
"Swear nothing! I have been very near doing what she has done.... It
hurts me to destroy the good idea you had of me. But you must learn to
know us a little if you do not want to be unjust. Yes, I have been
within an ace of just such an act of folly. And you yourself had
something to do with my not going on with it. It was two years ago. I
was going through a period of terrible depression, that seemed to be
eating my life away. I kept on telling myself that I was no use in the
world, that nobody needed me, that even my husband could do without me,
that I had lived for nothing.... I was on the very point of running
away, to do Heaven knows what! I went up to your room.... Do you
remember?... You did not understand why I came. I came to say good-bye
to you.... And then, I don't know what happened, I can't remember
exactly ... but I know that something you said ... (though you had no
idea of it....) ... was like a flash of light to me.... Perhaps it was
not what you said.... Perhaps it was only a matter of opportunity; at
that moment the least thing was enough to make or mar me.... When I left
you I went back to my own room, locked myself in, and wept the whole day
through.... I was better after that: the crisis had passed."
"And now," asked Christophe, "you are sorry?"
"Now?" she said. "Ah! If I had been so mad as to do it I should have
been at the bottom of the Seine long ago. I could not have borne the
shame of it, and the injury I should have done to my poor husband."
"Then you are happy?"
"Yes. As happy as one can be in this life. It is so rare for two people
to understand each other, and respect each other, and know that they are
sure of each other, not merely with a simple lover's belief, which is
often an illusion, but as the result of years passed together, gray,
dull, commonplace years even--especially with the memory of the dangers
through which they have passed together. And as they grow older their
trust grows greater and finer."
She stopped and blushed suddenly.
"Oh, Heavens! How could I tell you that?... What have I done?... Forget
it, Christophe, I beg of you. No one must know."
"You need not be afraid," said Christophe, pressing her hand warmly. "It
shall be sacred to me."
Madame Arnaud was unhappy at what she had said, and turned away for a
moment.
Then she went on:
"I ought not to have told you.... But, you see, I wanted to show you
that even in the closest and best marriages, even for the women ... whom
you respect, Christophe ... there are times, not only of aberration, as
you say, but of real, intolerable suffering, which may drive them to
madness, and wreck at least one life, if not two. You must not be too
hard. Men and women make each other suffer terribly even when they love
each other dearly."
"Must they, then, live alone and apart?"
"That is even worse for us. The life of a woman who has to live alone,
and fight like men (and often against men), is a terrible thing in a
society which is not ready for the idea of it, and is, in a great
measure, hostile to it...."
She stopped again, leaning forward a little, with her eyes fixed on the
fire in the grate; then she went on softly, in a rather hushed tone,
hesitating every now and then, stopping, and then going on:
"And yet it is not our fault when a woman lives like that, she does not
do so from caprice, but because she is forced to do so; she has to earn
her living and learn how to do without a man, since men will have
nothing to do with her if she is poor. She is condemned to solitude
without having any of its advantages, for in France she cannot, like a
man, enjoy her independence, even in the most innocent way, without
provoking scandal: everything is forbidden her. I have a friend who is a
school-mistress in the provinces. If she were shut up in an airless
prison she could not be more lonely and more stifled. The middle-classes
close their doors to women who struggle to earn their living by their
work; they are suspected and contemned; their smallest actions are spied
upon and turned to evil. The masters at the boys' school shun them,
either because they are afraid of the tittle-tattle of the town, or from
a secret hostility, or from shyness, and because they are in the habit
of frequenting cafés and consorting with low women, or because they are
too tired after the day's work and have a dislike, as a result of their
work, for intellectual women. And the women themselves cannot bear each
other, especially if they are compelled to live together in the school.
The head-mistress is often a woman absolutely incapable of understanding
young creatures with a need of affection, who lose heart during the
first few years of such a barren trade and such inhuman solitude; she
leaves them with their secret agony and makes no attempt to help them;
she is inclined to think that they are only vain and haughty. There is
no one to take an interest in them. Having neither fortune nor
influence, they cannot marry. Their hours of work are so many as to
leave them no time in which to create an intellectual life which might
bind them together and give them some comfort. When such an existence is
not supported by an exceptional religious or moral feeling,--(I might
say abnormal and morbid; for such absolute self-sacrifice is not
natural),--it is a living death....--In default of intellectual work,
what resources does charity offer to women? What great disappointments
it holds out for those women who are too sincere to be satisfied with
official or polite charity, philanthropic twaddle, the odious mixture of
frivolity, beneficence, and bureaucracy, the trick of dabbling in
poverty in the intervals of flirtation! And if one of them in disgust
has the incredible audacity to venture out alone among the poor or the
wretched, whose life she only knows by hearsay, think of what she will
see! Sights almost beyond bearing! It is a very hell. What can she do to
help them? She is lost, drowned in such a sea of misfortune. However,
she struggles on, she tries hard to save a few of the poor wretches, she
wears herself out for them, and drowns with them. She is lucky if she
succeeds in saving one or two of them! But who is there to rescue her?
Who ever dreams of going to her aid? For she, too, suffers, both with
her own and the suffering of others: the more faith she gives, the less
she has for herself; all these poor wretches cling desperately to her,
and she has nothing with which to stay herself. No one holds out a hand
to her. And sometimes she is stoned.... You knew, Christophe, the
splendid woman who gave herself to the humblest and most meritorious
charitable work; she took pity on the street prostitutes who had just
been brought to child-bed, the wretched women with whom the Public Aid
would have nothing to do, or who were afraid of the Public Aid; she
tried to cure them physically and morally, to look after them and their
children, to wake in them the mother-feeling, to give them new homes and
a life of honest work. She taxed her strength to the utmost in her grim
labors, so full of disappointment and bitterness--(so few are saved, so
few wish to be saved! And think of all the babies who die! Poor innocent
little babies, condemned in the very hour of their birth!...)--That
Woman who had taken upon herself the sorrows of others, the blameless
creature who of her own free will expiated the crimes of human
selfishness--how do you think she was judged, Christophe? The
evil-minded public accused her of making money out of her work, and even
of making money out of the poor women she protected. She had to leave
the neighborhood, and go away, utterly downhearted....--You cannot
conceive the cruelty of the struggles which independent women have to
maintain against the society of to-day, a conservative, heartless
society, which is dying and expends what little energy it has left in
preventing others from living."
"My dear creature, it is not only the lot of women. We all know these
struggles. And I know the refuge."
"What is it?"
"Art,"
"All very well for you, but not for us. And even among men, how many are
there who can take advantage of it?"
"Look at your friend Cécile. She is happy."
"How do you know? Ah! You have jumped to conclusions! Because she puts a
brave face on it, because she does not stop to think of things that make
her sad, because she conceals them from others, you say that she is
happy! Yes. She is happy to be well and strong, and to be able to fight.
But you know nothing of her struggles. Do you think she was made for
that deceptive life of art? Art! Just think of the poor women who long
for the glory of being able to write or play or sing as the very summit
of happiness! Their lives must be bare indeed, and they must be so hard
pressed that they can find no affection to which to turn! Art! What have
we to do with art, if we have all the rest with it? There is only one
thing in the world which can make a woman forget everything else,
everything else: and that is the child." "And when she has a child, you
see, even that is not enough."
"Yes. Not always.... Women are not very happy. It is difficult to be a
woman. Much more difficult than to be a man. You men never realize that
enough. You can be absorbed in an intellectual passion or some outside
activity. You mutilate yourselves, but you are the happier for it. A
healthy woman cannot do that without suffering for it. It is inhuman to
stifle a part of yourself. When we women are happy in one way, we regret
that we are not happy in another. We have several souls. You men have
but one, a more vigorous soul, which is often brutal and even monstrous.
I admire you. But do not be too selfish. You are very selfish without
knowing it. You hurt us often, without knowing it."
"What are we to do? It is not our fault."
"No, it is not your fault, my dear Christophe. It is not your fault, nor
is it ours. The truth is, you know, that life is not a simple thing.
They say that there we only need to live naturally. But which of us is
natural?"
"True. Nothing is natural in our way of living. Celibacy is not natural.
Nor is marriage. And free love delivers the weak up to the rapaciousness
of the strong. Even our society is not a natural thing: we have
manufactured it. It is said that man is a sociable animal. What
nonsense! He was forced to be so to live. He has made himself sociable
for the purposes of utility, and self-defence, and pleasure, and the
rise to greatness. His necessity has led him to subscribe to certain
compacts. Nature kicks against the constraint and avenges herself.
Nature was not made for us. We try to quell her. It is a struggle, and
it is not surprising that we are often beaten. How are we to win through
it? By being strong."
"By being kind."
"Heavens! To be kind, to pluck off one's armor of selfishness, to
breathe, to love life, light, one's humble work, the little corner of
the earth in which one's roots are spread. And if one cannot have
breadth to try to make up for it in height and depth, like a tree in a
cramped space growing upward to the sun."
"Yes. And first of all to love one another. If a man would feel more
that he is the brother of a woman, and not only her prey, or that she
must be his! If both would shed their vanity and each think a little
less of themselves, and a little more of the other!... We are weak: help
us. Let us not say to those who have fallen: 'I do not know you.' But:
'Courage, friend. We'll pull through.'"
They sat there in silence by the hearth, with the cat between them, all
three still, lost in thought, gazing at the fire It was nearly out; but
a little flame flickered up, and with its wing lightly touched Madame
Arnaud's delicate face, which was suffused with the rosy light of an
inward exaltation which was strange to her. She was amazed at herself
for having been so open. She had never said so much before, and she
would never say so much again.
She laid her hand on Christophe's and said:
"What will you do with the child?"
She had been thinking of that from the outset. She talked and talked and
became another woman, excited and exalted. But she was thinking of that
and that only. With Christophe's first words she had woven a romance in
her heart. She thought of the child left by its mother, of the happiness
of bringing it up, and weaving about its little soul the web of her
dreams and her love. And she thought:
"No. It is wicked of me: I ought not to rejoice in the misfortunes of
others."
But the idea was too strong for her. She went on talking and talking,
and her silent heart was flooded with hope.
Christophe said:
"Yes, of course we have thought it over. Poor child! Both Olivier and I
are incapable of rearing it. It needs a woman's care. I thought perhaps
one of our friends would like to help us...."
Madame Arnaud could hardly breathe.
Christophe said:
"I wanted to talk to you about it. And then Cécile came in just as we
were talking about it. When she heard of our difficulty, when she saw
the child, she was so moved, she seemed so delighted, she said:
'Christophe....'"
Madame Arnaud's heart stopped; she did not hear what else he said: there
was a mist in front of her eyes. She was fain to cry out:
"No, no. Give him to me...."
Christophe went on speaking. She did not hear what he was saying. But
she controlled herself. She thought of what Cécile had told her, and she
thought:
"Her need is greater than mine. I have my dear Arnaud ... and ... and
everything ... and besides, I am older...."
And she smiled and said:
"It is well."
But the flame in the dying fire had flickered out: so too had the rosy
light in her face. And her dear tired face wore only its usual
expression of kindness and resignation.
* * * * *
"My wife has betrayed me."
Olivier was crushed by the weight of that idea. In vain did Christophe
try affectionately to shake him out of his torpor.
"What would you?" he said. "The treachery of a friend is an everyday
evil like illness, or poverty, or fighting the fools. We have to be
armed against it. It is a poor sort of man that cannot bear up against
it."
"That's just what I am. I'm not proud of it ... a poor sort of man: yes:
a man who needs tenderness, and dies if it is taken from him."
"Your life is not finished: there are other people to love."
"I can't believe in any one. There are none who can be friends."
"Olivier!"
"I beg your pardon. I don't doubt you, although there are moments when
I doubt everybody--myself included.... But you are strong: you don't need
anybody: you can do without me."
"So can she--even better."
"You are cruel, Christophe."
"My dear fellow. I'm being brutal to you just to make you lash out. Good
Lord! It is perfectly shameful of you to sacrifice those who love you,
and your life, to a woman who doesn't care for you."
"What do I care for those who love me? I love her."
"Work. Your old interests...."
"... Don't interest me any longer. I'm sick of it all. I seem to have
passed out of life altogether. Everything seems so far away.... I see,
but I don't understand.... And to think that there are men who never
grow tired of winding up their clockwork every day, and doing their dull
work, and their newspaper discussions, and their wretched pursuit of
pleasure, men who can be violently for or against a Government, or a
book, or an actress.... Oh! I feel so old! I feel nothing, neither
hatred, nor rancor against anybody. I'm bored with everything. I feel
that there is nothing in the world.... Write? Why write? Who understands
you? I used to write only for one person: everything that I did was for
her.... There is nothing left: I'm worn out, Christophe, fagged out. I
want to sleep."
"Sleep, then, old fellow. I'll sit by you."
But sleep was the last thing that Olivier could have. Ah! if only a
sufferer could sleep for months until his sorrow is no more and has no
part in his new self; if only he could sleep until he became a new man!
But that gift can never be his: and he would not wish to have it. The
worst suffering of all were to be deprived of suffering. Olivier was
like a man in a fever, feeding on his fever: a real fever which came in
regular waves, being at its height in the evening when the light began
to fade. And the rest of the day it left him shattered, intoxicated by
love, devoured by memory, turning the same thought over and over like an
idiot chewing the same mouthful again and again without being able to
swallow it, with all the forces of his brain paralyzed, grinding slowly
on with the one fixed idea.
He could not, like Christophe, resort to cursing his injuries and
honestly blackguarding the woman who had dealt them. He was more
clear-sighted and just, and he knew that he had his share of the
responsibility, and that he was not the only one to suffer: Jacqueline
also was a victim:--she was his victim. She had trusted herself to him:
how had he dealt with his trust? If he was not strong enough to make her
happy, why had he bound her to himself? She was within her rights in
breaking the ties which chafed her.
"It is not her fault," he thought. "It is mine. I have not loved her
well. And yet I loved her truly. But I did not know how to love since I
did not know how to win her love."
So he blamed himself: and perhaps he was right. But it is not much use
to hold an inquest on the past: if it were all to do again, it would be
just the same, inquiry or no inquiry: and such probing stands in the way
of life. The strong man is he who forgets the injury that has been done
him--and also, alas! that which he has done himself, as soon as he is
sure that he cannot make it good. But no man is strong from reason, but
from passion. Love and passion are like distant relations: they rarely
go together. Olivier loved: he was only strong against himself. In the
passive state into which he had fallen he was an easy prey to every kind
of illness. Influenza, bronchitis, pneumonia, pounced on him. He was ill
for part of the summer. With Madame Arnaud's assistance, Christophe
nursed him devotedly: and they succeeded in checking his illness. But
against his moral illness they could do nothing: and little by little
they were overcome by the depression and utter weariness of his
perpetual melancholy, and were forced to run away from it.
Illness plunges a man into a strange solitude. Men have an instinctive
horror of it. It is as though they were afraid lest it should be
contagious: and at the very least it is boring, and they run away from
it. How few people there are who can forgive the sufferings of others!
It is always the old story of the friends of Job. Eliphaz the Temanite
accuses Job of impatience. Bildad the Shuhite declares that Job's
afflictions are the punishment of his sins. Sophar of Naamath charges
him with presumption. _"Then was kindled the wrath of Elihu, the son
of Barachel the Buzite, of the kindred of Ram: against Job was his wrath
kindled, because he justifieth himself, rather than God."_--Few men
are really sorrowful. Many are called, but few are chosen. Olivier was
one of these. As a misanthrope once observed: "He seemed to like being
maltreated. There is nothing to be gained by playing the part of the
unhappy man. You only make yourself detested."
Olivier could not tell even his most intimate friends what he felt. He
saw that it bored them. Even his friend Christophe lost patience with
such tenacious and importunate grief. He knew that he was clumsy and
awkward in remedying it. If the truth must be told, Christophe, whose
heart was generous, Christophe who had gone through much suffering on
his own account, could not feel the suffering of his friend. Such is the
infirmity of human nature. You may be kind, full of pity, understanding,
and you may have suffered a thousand deaths, but you cannot feel the
pain of your friend if he has but a toothache. If illness goes on for a
long time, there is a temptation to think that the sufferer is
exaggerating his complaint. How much more, then, must this be so when
the illness is invisible and seated in the very depths of the soul! A
man who is outside it all cannot help being irritated by seeing his
friend moaning and groaning about a feeling which does not concern him
in the very least. And in the end he says: by way of appeasing his
conscience:
"What can I do? He won't listen to reason, whatever I say."