MORE extracts from the lady’s journal:
“I can never begin an entry in my journal without having that frightful
scene come between me and these pages. Oh, it was terrible,--terrible
beyond all comprehension! I cannot believe, after thinking it over and
over during these weeks that have passed since it occurred, that it was
the fear of death that so terrified me, and, I know, made an old woman
of me. No, it could not have been that. It was the fear of going with
that awful condemnation upon me. Was it just? Was it true?
“He seems to have recovered at last from the alarming depression that
followed his outbreak, and this gives me leisure to think, leisure to
recall many circumstances that in my blindness, my incredible blindness
and stupidity, I had overlooked. I take into account the fearful strain
under which he had suffered so long. He is a delicate, finely organized
man, and has had more to do and to bear than a dozen strong men would
have done and borne so well and patiently.
“There was his anxiety on the score of my recovery. Then there were the
endless duties of waiting on me, of thinking of the thousands of little
things that had to be thought of and done, and that he never forgot nor
neglected. He has done my cooking, my washing,--everything that was hard
and distasteful for a man to do. Then there was his constant anxiety
on account of the snow; and it has been growing daily all through the
winter with the increasing dangers and discomforts; and besides his
anxiety was the hard physical labor--far too heavy for him--that he
has been compelled to do in order to keep our hut from being buried and
ourselves from being smothered. And, last, there has been the constant
wearing upon him of a close imprisonment with me, for whom I know he now
must have a most intense dislike.
“I am satisfied, too, that he has anxieties concealed from me. That they
are associated with something upon which the back door opens, I have no
doubt. There are several reasons for my thinking so. I am so nearly well
now that I could get about and be helpful to him if he would only make
me a crutch, as I have often begged him to do; but he has always put
me off, saying that it was too early for a crutch, that my desire to
be useful would give me a serious setback through making me overdo,
and that the main thing for us both to consider was the return of my
strength as quickly as possible, and our escape on snow-shoes that he
would make as soon as I should be able to walk. It has all sounded very
plausible, but it seems to me that common-sense would suggest that I
take a little exercise. In spite of my having regained my flesh, I am
as weak as an infant. Knowing that he is a good physician, I doubt his
sincerity about the crutch. I believe the solemn truth is that he fears
I would try to invade his cherished secret if I were able to be about.
“I know that he keeps the provisions in the place into which the back
door opens, and that this fact seems to give him a sufficient excuse for
going there so often,--especially as he does the cooking there; and that
is another strange circumstance. For weeks after I was first brought to
the hut he prepared the food on the broad hearth here; but after a while
he did that in the rear apartment, explaining that the odors from the
cooking were not good for me, and that it was uncomfortable for him
to cook before an open fireplace. I protested that I did not mind the
odors, and he replied that I would at least consider his comfort.
“Another thing: He has not eaten with me for a long, long time. His
original plan was to prepare my meal, wait on me until I had finished,
and then have his own at the little table in the chimney-corner. I did
not observe for some time that he had quit eating in that way, and that
he took his meals in the rear apartment. He always speaks of it as an
‘apartment,’ and not as a room. I wonder why. I have been sitting up for
a long time now, and do not require his assistance after he has brought
me my food. It would be much pleasanter if he would sit at the little
table and eat with me. Is his dislike of me so deep that he cannot eat
with me? With all my sense, I have permitted this condition of affairs
to come about! And we both are sufferers by it.
“It is no wonder, with all these things troubling him, that he has
changed so much since I came. He is as scrupulously neat as ever, and he
makes this poor little hut shine, but he has changed remarkably since I
came. It has been so gradual that I didn’t observe it until my blindness
was no longer sufficient to keep me from seeing it. He was slender and
evidently not strong when I came, but he has become a shadow, and his
gaunt cheeks and hollow eyes are distressing to me. When he comes in now
from fighting the snow,--for we must not be buried by it, and must
have light and air, and the top of the chimney must be kept clear,--his
weakness and exhaustion, though he tries so hard to conceal them, are
terrible to see.
“And now a great fear has come to me. It is that at any moment he may
break down and die. I wish I had not written that, I wish I had never
thought of it. Oh, if my father would only come! What can be keeping
him? Do I not know that he loves me better than anything else in the
world? Am I not all that he has to love and cling to? I cannot, cannot,
understand it. Dr. Malbone says it is unreasonable for me to expect my
father, and that if he should make the effort to reach me now it would
be at too great a risk to his own life. He tries to assure me that my
father will be governed entirely by the advice of the people who know
the mountains, and that they will restrain him from making any such
attempt, as they would not dare to make it themselves. All that may be
true, but it is difficult for me to believe it. If I could only get a
word from him, it would give me greater strength to bear the horrors of
my situation. But why should I complain, when Dr. Malbone bears it all
so patiently, so sweetly, so cheerfully?
“Still, that awful picture of murder comes between me and these pages
unceasingly. I think I can understand now why men sometimes kill women.
Why should men and women be so different? Why should it be impossible
for them to comprehend each other? It was Murder that I saw standing
before me--both the horrible picture of murder as he painted it, with
me as the murderess--me as the murderess!--and Murder in the flesh as he
stood ready to strangle me. Oh, the incredible ferocity of the man, the
terrible, wild savagery of him, the awful dark and nether side of
his strangely complex character! All along I had taken him for a
pusillanimous milksop, a baby, an old woman, a weak nobody; and at once
he dropped his outer shell and stood forth a Man,--terrible, savage,
brutal, overwhelming, splendid, wonderful! What is my judgment worth
after this? And I was so proud of my understanding of men!
“Why didn’t he kill me? It was my cry that checked him; but why should
it? Was it my appeal for help that brought him to his senses? I think
so. It touched that within him which had been so keenly alert, so
unrelaxingly vigilant, ever since I had come under his care. But what
did he mean by the howl of the she-wolf? And what did he mean by saying
that the wolves had come down? Several times since that terrible scene
he has waked me in the night with groans, and with crying out in his
sleep, ‘The she-wolf?’ These things have a meaning, I know. Why does
he explain nothing? And why have I permitted an estrangement between us
that makes it impossible for me to seek his confidence? Is it too late
now?
“Oh, the terrible moments, the interminable hours, that passed after he
had left the hut by the rear door! Every second, at first, I expected
him to return and kill me. Would he have a rifle, a revolver, a knife,
or a bludgeon, or would he come with those terrible long fingers hooked
like claws to fasten upon my throat? And yet, somehow, I felt safe; I
felt that his old watchfulness and solicitude had returned.
“As soon as I could overcome the half-stupor into which his outburst had
thrown me I dragged myself to the rear door, intending to barricade
it against him. The effort was exceedingly painful and exhausting, and
brought me great suffering for a week afterward. But my sufferings of
mind and spirit were so much greater that I could bear those of the
flesh. When I had crawled to the door and was trying to drag a box
against it, I heard something that stopped me. I am not certain that it
was anything real. There was a loud singing in my ears from the awful
fright that I had suffered, and what I heard may have been that, made
seemingly coherent by my over-strained imagination. What I heard sounded
like the distant, smothered, awful strains of Saint-Saens’s ‘Dance of
Death’ played on the violin. But wild and terrible as it sounded, it
came as a pledge of my safety. Murder cannot come with music.
“I drew myself away and with great effort clambered upon the bed, where
I lay a long time in complete exhaustion. Time had no meaning for me.
A dull, massive, intangible weight seemed to be crushing me, and I
longed--oh, how I longed!--for human sympathy.
“The hut was dark when he returned. We had been very saving with the
candles, for Dr. Malbone explained that they were running low; so in
the evenings we generally had only the fire-light. There seemed to be a
generous supply of fire-wood in the rear apartment, and some of it was
a pitchy pine that gave out a fine blaze. When he returned the fire
had burned out. I felt no fear when I heard him enter. I knew by the
unsteadiness of his movements that he was weak and ill, but the first
sound of his voice as he called me anxiously was perfectly reassuring.
“‘I am lying on the bed,’ I answered.
“He groped to the bedside and there he knelt, and buried his face in his
hands upon the coverlet. And then--I say it merely as his due, merely
as the simple truth--he did the manliest thing that a man ever did. He
raised his head and in dignified humility said,--
“‘I have done the most cowardly, the most brutal thing that a man can
do. Will you forgive me? Can you forgive me?
“I put out my hand to stop him, for it was terrible that a man should be
so humble and broken; but he took my hand in both of his and held it.
“‘Will you? Can you? he pleaded.
“It was the only time that his touch had been other than the cold and
perfunctory one of the physician, and--I feel no shame in writing it--it
was the first time in my life that the touch of a man’s hand had been so
comforting. For a moment his hand seemed to have been thrust through the
wall that hitherto had separated us so completely.
“‘You were not the one to blame,’ I said. ‘I alone was the guilty one.’
“‘No, no!’ he protested, warmly. ‘What provocation under heaven could
excuse such conduct as mine?’
“‘I will forgive you,’ I said, ‘upon one condition.’
“‘And that-------’
“‘You forgive me in turn.’
“Very slowly, as soon as I had said that, the pressure with which he had
been holding my hand began to relax. What did that mean, and why did he
remain silent, and why did a pain come stealing into my heart? Could not
he be as generous as I? Had I overrated him, after all?
“‘It was terrible!’ he half whispered. ‘By every obligation resting upon
a man, I should have been kind to you. You were my guest as well as my
patient. You were crippled and helpless, and unable to defend yourself.
You were a woman, looking to every man, by the right of your sex, for
comfort and protection. I was a man, owing to you, because you were
a woman, all the comfort and protection that every man owes to every
woman. All of these obligations I trampled under foot.’
“Why did he put that sting into our reconciliation? Had he not done it
so innocently, so unintentionally, it would not have hurt so much. I
withdrew my hand from his very slowly; he made no effort to retain it.
He did not again ask me to forgive him, and he did not offer me his
forgiveness. The breach in the wall was closed, and the barrier stood
intact and impregnable between us.
“Presently he rose and made a fire, and prepared me something to eat;
but I had no appetite. Then he found that I had a fever, and he was much
distressed. There was just one comforting touch of sympathy when he said
to me,--
“‘You were sobbing all the time I was making the fire and preparing your
supper. I promise not to frighten nor distress you again.’
“How did he know I had been sobbing, when I had taken so much pains
to conceal it And yet I might have known that his watchfulness upon
my welfare is so keen, so unrelaxing, that nothing affecting me can be
hidden from him.
“I was confined to bed a week, and suffered greatly both in mind and
body. I had hurt my crippled leg, and that made my physician very
anxious. During all this time it had not occurred to me, so sodden with
selfishness is my nature, that he had suffered a very serious nervous
shock from his outburst of mad passion, and that only by a mighty effort
was he holding up to put me again on the road to recovery. A realization
of the truth came when my ill turn had passed. He had hardly placed me
comfortably on a chair when a ghastly pallor made a death’s-head of his
face, and he reeled to the bed and fell fainting upon it, still having
the thoughtfulness to say, as he reeled,--
“‘I am--a little--tired--and sleepy. I--am perfectly--well. Have
no--uneasiness.’
“Except for his slight, short breathing, he lay for hours as one dead;
and then I realized more fully than ever the weight of the awful burden
that my presence has laid upon him. I know that I am killing him. O God!
is there nothing that I can do to help him, to make it easier for him?
What have I done that this horrible curse should have come upon me?
“The most wonderful of all the strange things that I have seen and
learned in this terrible imprisonment is that his kindness toward me
has not suffered the slightest change. He is still the soul of
thoughtfulness, watchfulness, unselfishness, and yet he has denounced me
to my face as a----
“Another thing I have found: All the training that I have had in
cleverness goes for nothing here. He always avoids the beginning of any
conversation on subjects other than those that lie immediately near us.
It therefore requires a great effort on my part--and I think I deserve
some praise for it--to draw him into discussions of general matters.
In these discussions he never advances an opinion if he suspects that I
have an opposite one, and never opposes nor contradicts me; but I cannot
help feeling that his views are so much broader and deeper than mine,
so much wiser, so much more charitable, so much nearer to what he calls
‘the great heart of humanity,’ as to make me seem shallow and mean. Am I
really so? I try not to be.
“With indescribable tact and delicacy, he holds me at an infinite
distance, and I have been unable to find any way to bridge the vast
gulf.... After all, why should I try? If he despises me, I cannot help
it. This miserable position in which I am placed will be at an end some
time; and when I am again free, and in my own world, I will show him the
gratitude that I feel. Will he let me?...
“What is there so repulsive about me? Why should I be treated as a
viper? And why is it that of all the men I have known--men whom I could
handle as putty--this obscure backwoods doctor sets himself wholly apart
from me, remains utterly impregnable, shames and humiliates me with a
veiled pity, and feels not the slightest touch of the power that I
know myself to have? Is my face ugly? Are my manners crude? Is my voice
repellent? Where are my resources of womanly tact that I have used
successfully in the past? Why is it that I fail utterly to impress
him as having a single admirable trait, a single grace of appearance,
manner, or character?
“It is hard to bear all this. I try to be brave and strong and cheerful,
as he always is; but it is human nature to resent his treatment, and it
is cruel of him to keep me in such a position. It is the first time in
my life that I have been at a disadvantage.
“I imagine that he has suffered some great sorrow. Indeed, he said so
in his outburst. His distrust of me seems to indicate its character. He
probably gave some heartless woman his whole love, his whole soul, and
she laughed at him and cast him off. That would go hard with a man of
his kind. There can be no other explanation; and now I am the sufferer
for that woman’s sin: he thinks that all women are like her.
“I will write this vow, so that I may turn to it often and strengthen my
purpose by reading it:
“I will make this man like me. I will tear down the wall that he has
built between us. I will employ every resource to bring him to my feet.
I will make him appreciate me. I will make him need me. I will make him
want me.
“That is my vow.”
Thus end, again for the present, these extracts from the lady’s journal.