called away. For a whole week Anna remained shut up in her room except
for meal-times. She slipped back into consciousness of herself, into her
old habits, the old life from which she had thought she had broken away,
from which we never break away. In vain did she close her eyes to what
she had done. Every day anxiety made further inroads into her heart, and
finally took possession of it. On the following Sunday she refused once
more to go to church. But the Sunday after that she went, and never
omitted it again. She was conquered, but not submissive. God was the
enemy,--an enemy from whose power she could not free herself. She went
to Him with the sullen anger of a slave who is forced into obedience.
During service her face showed nothing but cold hostility: but in the
depths of her soul the whole of her religious life was a fierce, dumbly
exasperated struggle against the Master whose reproaches persecuted her.
She pretended not to hear. She had to hear: and bitterly, savagely, with
clenched teeth, hard eyes, and a deep frowning furrow in her forehead,
she would argue with God. She thought of Christophe with hatred. She
could not forgive him for having delivered her for one moment from the
prison of her soul, only to let her fall back into it again, to be the
prey of its tormentors. She could not sleep; day and night she went over
and over the same torturing thoughts: she did not complain: she went on
obstinately doing her household work and all her other duties, and
throughout maintaining the unyielding and obstinate character of her
will in her daily life, the various tasks of which she fulfilled with
the regularity of a machine. She grew thin, and seemed to be a prey to
some internal malady. Braun questioned her fondly and anxiously: he
wanted to sound her. She repulsed him angrily. The greater her remorse
grew for what she had done to him, the more harshly she spoke to him.
Christophe had determined not to return. He wore himself out. He took
long runs and violent exercise, rowed, walked, climbed mountains.
Nothing was able to quench the fire in him.
He was more the victim of passion than an ordinary man. It is the
necessity of the nature of men of genius. Even the most chaste, like
Beethoven and Bürchner, must always be in love: every human capacity is
raised to a higher degree in them, and as, in them, every human capacity
is seized on by their imagination, their minds are a prey to a continual
succession of passions. Most often they are only transitory fires: one
destroys another, and all are absorbed by the great blaze of the
creative spirit. But if the heat of the furnace ceases to fill the soul,
then the soul is left defenseless against the passions without which it
cannot live: it must have passion, it creates passion: and the passions
will devour the soul ...--and then, besides the bitter desire that
harrows the flesh, there is the need of tenderness which drives a man
who is weary and disillusioned of life into the mothering arms of the
comforter, woman. A great man is more of a child than a lesser man: more
than any other, he needs to confide in a woman, to lay his head in the
soft hands of the beloved, in the folds of the lap of her gown.
But Christophe could not understand.... He did not believe in the
inevitability of passion--the idiotic cult of the romantics. He believed
that a man can and must fight with all the force of his will.... His
will! Where was it? Not a trace of it was left. He was possessed. He was
stung by the barbs of memory, day and night. The scent of Anna's body
was with him everywhere. He was like a dismantled hulk, rolling
rudderless, at the mercy of the winds. In vain did he try to escape, he
strove mightily, wore himself out in the attempt: he always found
himself brought back to the same place, and he shouted to the wind:
"Break me, break me, then! What do you want of me?"
Feverishly he probed into himself. Why, why this woman?... Why did he
love her? It was not for her qualities of heart or mind. There were any
number of better and more intelligent women. It was not for her body. He
had had other mistresses more acceptable to his senses. What was
it?...--"We love because we love."--Yes, but there is a reason, even if
it be beyond ordinary human reason. Madness? That means nothing. Why
this madness?
Because there is a hidden soul, blind forces, demons, which every one of
us bears imprisoned in himself. Our every effort, since the first
existence of humanity, has been directed towards the building up against
this inward sea of the dykes of our reason and our religions. But a
storm arises (and the richest souls are the most subject to storms), the
dykes are broken, the demons have free play, they find themselves in the
presence of other souls uptorn by similar powers.... They hurl
themselves at each other. Hatred or love? A frenzy of mutual
destruction?--Passion is the soul of prey.
The sea has burst its bounds. Who shall turn it back into its bed? Then
must a man appeal to a mightier than himself. To Neptune, the God of the
tides.
* * * * *
After a fortnight of vain efforts to escape, Christophe returned to
Anna. He could not live away from her. He was stifled.
And yet he went on struggling. On the evening of his return, they found
excuses for not meeting and not dining together: at night they locked
their doors in fear and dread.--But love was stronger than they. In the
middle of the night she came creeping barefooted, and knocked at his
door. She wept silently. He felt the tears coursing down her cheeks. She
tried to control herself, but her anguish was too much for her and she
sobbed. Under the frightful burden of her grief Christophe forgot his
own: he tried to calm her and gave her tender, comfortable words. She
moaned:
"I am so unhappy. I wish I were dead...."
Her plaint pierced his heart. He tried to kiss her. She repulsed him:
"I hate you!... Why did you ever come?"
She wrenched herself away from him. She turned her back on him and shook
with rage and grief. She hated him mortally. Christophe lay still,
appalled. In the silence Anna heard his choking breathing: she turned
suddenly and flung her arms round his neck:
"Poor Christophe!" she said. "I have made you suffer...."
For the first time he heard pity in her voice.
"Forgive me," she said.
He said:
"We must forgive each other."
She raised herself as though she found it hard to breathe. She sat
there, with bowed back, overwhelmed, and said:
"I am ruined.... It is God's will, He has betrayed me.... What can I do
against Him?"
She stayed for a long time like that, then lay down again and did not
stir. A faint light proclaimed the dawn. In the half-light he saw her
sorrowful face so near his. He murmured:
"The day."
She made no movement.
He said:
"So be it. What does it matter?"
She opened her eyes and left him with an expression of utter weariness.
She sat for a moment looking down at the floor. In a dull, colorless
voice she said:
"I thought of killing him last night."
He gave a start of terror:
"Anna!" he said.
She was staring gloomily at the window.
"Anna!" he said again. "In God's name!... Not him!... He is the best of
us!..."
She echoed;
"Not him. Very well."
They looked at each other.
They had known it for a long time. They had known where the only way out
lay. They could not bear to live a lie. And they had never even
considered the possibility of eloping together. They knew perfectly well
that that would not solve the problem: for the bitterest suffering came
not from the external Obstacles that held them apart, but in themselves,
in their different souls. It was as impossible for them to live together
as to live apart. They were driven into a corner.
From that moment on they never touched each other: the shadow of death
was upon them: they were sacred to each other.
But they put off appointing a time for their decision. They kept on
saying: "To-morrow, to-morrow..." And they turned their eyes away from
their to-morrow, Christophe's mighty soul had Wild spasms Of revolt: he
would not consent to his defeat: he despised suicide, and he could not
resign himself to such a pitiful and abrupt conclusion of his splendid
life. As for Anna, how could she, unless she were forced, accept the
idea of a death which must lead to eternal death? But ruthless necessity
was at their heels, and the circle was slowly narrowing about them.
* * * * *
That morning, for the first time since the betrayal, Christophe was left
alone with Braun. Until then he had succeeded in avoiding him. He found
it intolerable to be with him. He had to make an excuse to avoid eating
at the same table: the food stuck in his throat. To shake the man's
hand, to eat his bread, to give the kiss of Judas!... Most odious for
him to think of was not the contempt he had for himself so much as the
agony of suffering that Braun must endure if he should come to know....
The idea of it crucified him. He knew, only too well that poor Braun
would never avenge himself, that perhaps he would not even have the
strength to hate them: but what an utter wreck of all his life!... How
would he regard him! Christophe felt that he could not face the reproach
in his eyes.--And it was inevitable that sooner or later Braun would be
warned. Did he not already suspect something? Seeing him again after his
fortnight's absence Christophe was struck by the change in him: Braun
was not the same man. His gaiety had disappeared, or there was something
forced in it. At meals he would stealthily glance at Anna, who talked
not at all, ate not at all, and seemed to be burning away like the oil
in a lamp. With timid, touching kindness he tried to look after her: she
rejected his attentions harshly: then he bent his head over his plate
and relapsed into silence. Anna could bear it no longer, and flung her
napkin on the table in the middle of the meal and left the room. The two
men finished their dinner in silence, or pretended to do so, for they
ate nothing: they dared not raise their eyes. When they had finished,
Christophe was on the point of going when Braun suddenly clasped his arm
with both hands and said:
"Christophe!"
Christophe looked at him uneasily.
"Christophe," said Braun again--(his voice was shaking),--"do you know
what's the matter with her?"
Christophe stood transfixed: for a moment or two he could find nothing
to say. Braun stood looking at him timidly: very quickly he begged
his pardon:
"You see a good deal of her, she trusts you...."
Christophe was very near taking Braun's hands and kissing them and
begging his forgiveness. Braun saw Christophe's downcast expression,
and, at once, he was terrified, and refused to see: he cast him a
beseeching look and stammered hurriedly and gasped:
"No, no. You know nothing? Nothing?"
Christophe was overwhelmed and said:
"No."
Oh! the bitterness of not being able to lay bare his offense, to humble
himself, since to do so would be to break the heart of the man he had
wronged! Oh! the bitterness of being unable to tell the truth, when he
could see in the eyes of the man asking him for it, that he could not,
would not know the truth!...
"Thanks, thank you. I thank you...." said Braun.
He stayed with his hands plucking at Christophe's sleeve as though there
was something else he wished to ask, and yet dared not, avoiding his
eyes. Then he let go, sighed, and went away.
Christophe was appalled by this new lie. He hastened to Anna. Stammering
in his excitement, he told her what had happened. Anna listened gloomily
and said:
"Oh, well. He knows. What does it matter?"
"How can you talk like that?" cried Christophe. "It is horrible! I will
not have him suffer, whatever it may cost us, whatever it may cost."
Anna grew angry.
"And what if he does suffer? Don't I have to suffer? Let him suffer
too!"
They said bitter things to each other. He accused her of loving only
herself. She reproached him with thinking more of her husband than of
herself.
But a moment later, when he told her that he could not go on living like
that, and that he would go and tell the whole story to Braun, then she
cried out on him for his selfishness, declaring that she did not care a
bit about Christophe's conscience, but was quite determined that Braun
should never know.
In spite of her hard words she was thinking as much of Braun as of
Christophe. Though she had no real affection for her husband she was
fond of him. She had a religious respect for social ties and the duties
they involve. Perhaps she did not think that it was the duty of a wife
to be kind and to love her husband: but she did think that she was
compelled scrupulously to fulfil her household duties and to remain
faithful. It seemed to her ignoble to fail in that object as she herself
had done.
And even more surely than Christophe she knew that Braun must know
everything very soon. It was something to her credit that she concealed
the fact from Christophe, either because she did not wish to add to his
troubles or more probably because of her pride.
Secluded though the Braun household was, secret though the tragedy might
remain that was being enacted there, some hint of it had trickled away
to the outer world.
In that town it was impossible for any one to flatter himself that the
facts of his life were hidden. This was strangely true. No one ever
looked at anybody in the streets: the doors and shutters of the houses
were closed. But there were mirrors fastened in the corners of the
windows: and as one passed the houses one could hear the faint creaking
of the Venetian shutters being pushed open and shut again. Nobody took
any notice of anybody else: everything and everybody were apparently
ignored: but it was not long before one perceived that not a single
word, not a single gesture had been unobserved: whatever one did,
whatever one said, whatever one saw, whatever one ate was known at once:
even what one thought was known, or, at least, everybody pretended to
know. One was surrounded by a universal, mysterious watchfulness.
Servants, tradespeople, relations, friends, people who were neither
friends nor enemies, passing strangers, all by tacit agreement shared in
this instinctive espionage, the scattered elements of which were
gathered to a head no one knew how. Not only were one's actions
observed, but they probed into one's inmost heart. In that town no man
had the right to keep the secrets of his conscience, and everybody had
the right to rummage amongst his intimate thoughts, and, if they were
offensive to public opinion, to call him to account. The invisible
despotism of the collective mind dominated the individual: all his life
he remained like a child in a state of tutelage: he could call nothing
his own: he belonged to the town.
It was enough for Anna to have stayed away from church two Sundays
running to arouse suspicion. As a rule no one seemed to notice her
presence at service: she lived outside the life of the place, and the
town seemed to have forgotten her existence.--On the evening of the
first Sunday when she had stayed away her absence was known to everybody
and docketed in their memory. On the following Sunday not one of the
pious people following the blessed words in their Bibles or on the
minister's lips seemed to be distracted from their solemn attention: not
one of them had failed to notice as they entered, and to verify as they
left, the fact that Anna's place was empty. Next day Anna began to
receive visits from women she had not seen for many months: they came on
various pretexts, some fearing that she was ill, others assuming a new
interest in her affairs, her husband, her house: some of them showed a
singularly intimate knowledge of the doings of her household: not one of
them--(with clumsy ingenuity)--made any allusion to her absence from
church on two Sundays running. Anna said that she was unwell and
declared that she was very busy. Her visitors listened attentively and
applauded her: Anna knew that they did not believe a word she said.
Their eyes wandered round the room, prying, taking notes, docketing.
They did not for a moment drop their cold affability or their noisy
affected chatter: but their eyes revealed the indiscreet curiosity which
was devouring them. Two or three with exaggerated indifference inquired
after M. Krafft.
A few days later--(during Christophe's absence),--the minister came
himself. He was a handsome, good-natured creature, splendidly healthy,
affable, with that imperturbable tranquillity which comes to a man from
the consciousness of being in sole possession of the truth, the whole
truth. He inquired anxiously after the health of the members of his
flock, politely and absently listened to the excuses she gave him, which
he had not asked for, accepted a cup of tea, made a mild joke or two,
expressed his opinion on the subject of drink that the wine referred to
in the Bible was not alcoholic liquor, produced several quotations, told
a story, and, as he was leaving, made a dark allusion to the danger of
bad company, to certain excursions in the country, to the spirit of
impiety, to the impurity of dancing, and the filthy lusts of the flesh.
He seemed to be addressing his remarks to the age in general and not to
Anna. He stopped for a moment, coughed, got up, bade Anna give his
respectful compliments to M. Braun, made a joke in Latin, bowed, and
took his leave.--Anna was left frozen by his allusion. Was it an
allusion? How could he have known about her excursion with Christophe?
They had not met a soul of their acquaintance that day. But was not
everything known in the town? The musician with the remarkable face and
the young woman in black who had danced at the inn had attracted much
attention: their descriptions had been spread abroad; and, as the story
was bandied from mouth to mouth, it had reached the town where the
watchful malice of the gossips had not failed to recognize Anna. No
doubt it amounted as yet to no more than a suspicion, but it was
singularly attractive, and it was augmented by information supplied by
Anna's maid. Public curiosity had been a-tip-toe, waiting for them to
compromise each other, spying on them with a thousand invisible eyes.
The silent crafty people of the town were creeping close upon them, like
a cat lying in wait for a mouse.
In spite of the danger Anna would in all probability not have given in:
perhaps her consciousness of such cowardly hostility would have driven
her to some desperate act of provocation if she had not herself been
possessed by the Pharisaic spirit of the society which was so
antagonistic to her. Her education had subjugated her nature. It was in
vain that she condemned the tyranny and meanness of public opinion: she
respected it: she subscribed to its decrees even when they were directed
against herself: if they had come into conflict with her conscience, she
would have sacrificed her conscience. She despised the town: but she
could not have borne the town to despise herself.
Now the time was coming when the public scandal would be afforded an
opportunity of discharging itself. The carnival was coming on.
* * * * *
In that city, the carnival had preserved up to the time of the events
narrated in this history--(it has changed since then)--a character of
archaic license and roughness. Faithfully in accordance with its origin,
by which it had been a relaxation for the profligacy of the human mind
subjugated, wilfully or involuntarily, by reason, it nowhere reached
such a pitch of audacity as in the periods and countries in which custom
and law, the guardians of reason, weighed most heavily upon the people.
The town in which Anna lived was therefore one of its most chosen
regions. The more moral stringency paralyzed action and gagged speech,
the bolder did action become and speech the more untrammeled during
those few days. Everything that was secreted away in the lower depths of
the soul, jealousy, secret hate, lewd curiosity, the malicious instincts
inherent in the social animal, would burst forth with all the vehemence
and joy of revenge. Every man had the right to go out into the streets,
and, prudently masked, to nail to the pillory, in full view of the
public gaze, the object of his detestation, to lay before all and sundry
all that he had found out by a year of patient industry, his whole hoard
of scandalous secrets gathered drop by drop. One man would display them
on the cars. Another would carry a transparent lantern on which were
pasted in writings and drawings the secret history of the town. Another
would go so far as to wear a mask in imitation of his enemy, made so
easily recognizable that the very gutter-snipes would point him out by
name. Slanderous newspapers would appear during the three days. Even the
very best people would craftily take part in the game of _Pasquino_. No
control was exercised except over political allusions,--such coarse
liberty of speech having on more than one occasion produced fierce
conflict between the authorities of the town and the representatives of
foreign countries. But there was nothing to protect the citizens against
the citizens, and this cloud of public insult, constantly hanging over
their heads, did not a little help to maintain the apparently impeccable
morality on which the town prided itself.
Anna felt the weight of that dread--which was quite unjustified. She had
very little reason to be afraid. She occupied too small a place in the
opinion of the town for any one to think of attacking her. But in the
absolute isolation in which of her own choice she lived, in her state of
exhaustion and nervous excitement brought on by several weeks of
sleepless nights and moral suffering, her imagination was apt to welcome
the most unreasoning terrors. She exaggerated the animosity of those who
did not like her. She told herself that suspicion was on her track: the
veriest trifle was enough to ruin her: and there was nothing to assure
her that it was not already an accomplished fact. It would mean insult,
pitiless exposure, her heart laid bare to the mockery of the passers-by:
dishonor so cruel that Anna was near dying of shame at the very thought
of it. She called to mind how, a few years before, a girl, who had been
the victim of such persecution, had had to fly the country with her
family.... And she could do nothing, nothing to defend herself, nothing
to prevent it, nothing even to find out if it was going to happen. The
suspense was even more maddening than the certainty. Anna looked
desperately about her like an animal at bay. In her own house she knew
that she was hemmed in.
* * * * *
Anna's servant was a woman of over forty: her name was Bäbi: she was
tall and strong: her face was narrow and bony round her brow and
temples, wide and long in the lower part, fleshy under the jaw, roughly
pear-shaped: she had a perpetual smile and eyes that pierced like
gimlets, sunken, as though they had been sucked in, beneath red eyelids
with colorless lashes. She never put off her expression of coquettish
gaiety: she was always delighted with her superiors, always of their
opinion, worrying about their health with tender interest: smiling when
they gave her orders: smiling when they scolded her. Braun believed that
she was unshakably devoted. Her gushing manner was strongly in contrast
with Anna's coldness. However, she was like her in many things: like her
she spoke little and dressed in a severe neat style: like her she was
very pious, and went to service with her, scrupulously fulfilling all
her religious duties and nicely attending to her household tasks: she
was clean, methodical, and her morals and her kitchen were beyond
reproach. In a word she was an exemplary servant and the perfect type of
domestic foe. Anna's feminine instinct was hardly ever wrong in her
divination of the secret thoughts of women, and she had no illusions
about her. They detested each other, knew it, and never let it appear.
On the night of Christophe's return, when Anna, torn by her desire and
her emotion, went to him once more in spite of her resolve never to see
him again, she walked stealthily, groping along the wall in the
darkness: just as she reached Christophe's door, instead of the ordinary
cold smooth polished floor, she felt a warm dust softly crunching under
her bare feet. She stooped, touched it with her hands, and understood: a
thin layer of ashes had been spread for the space of a few yards across
the passage. Without knowing it Bäbi had happed on the old device
employed in the days of the old Breton songs by Frocin the dwarf to
catch Tristan on his way to Yseult: so true it is that a limited number
of types, good and bad, serve for all ages. A remarkable piece of
evidence in favor of the wise economy of the universe!--Anna did not
hesitate; she did not stop or turn, but went on in a sort of
contemptuous bravado: she went to Christophe, told him nothing, in spite
of her uneasiness: but when she returned she took the stove brush and
carefully effaced every trace of her footsteps in the ashes, after she
had crossed over them.--When Anna and Bäbi met next day it was with the
usual coldness and the accustomed smile.