THE KEY TO THE COFFER
Nice, Friday.
ADIEU. This will be a novel without an end, after the
modern fashion, for you surely will write it? If not,
what is the use? And thus the fugitive shadow will
pause an instant and our vain intercourse will have a
realization--oh! very relatively--through the creative
breath of Art.
Without an end--unless Logic imposes a higher duty upon you.
Without an end,--but I have not the cruelty, knowing you
to be devoid of imagination, to let you torture yourself
in the vain pursuit of the resolution of the two or three
perturbations which my thoughtless words forced on your
mind. So I mean to explain the few mysteries--psychological
and otherwise--which might trouble the serenity of your
mornings.
First, why did I leave? Ah! do not ask it of me, I no
longer know why,--but it is irrevocable.
What would you? He captured me. I had to be taken. How
often have I not told you that it was necessary to take me
and by force and ruse to capture my wavering will? There
are such fine strategies that one surrenders, not because
of being at the end of resistance, but because the stroke
is so well played that it gives pleasure. Ah! you believe
women are insensible to Art? At least, this is clear: he
captured me.
We were waltzing. He carried me away. "Carry me where you
will!"--That was the first submission which--mentally--I
made him.
It was toward the hour when the ball's intoxication
commenced to evaporate and left me anticipating of the
pleasures of sleep. He asked me for the honor (see, nothing
premeditated, the honor!) of escorting me home, at the very
moment when, wishing to leave, I feared to leave entranced,
and find myself alone in the night. I accepted and sent him
to call a carriage and await me there. But he discovered
that I was still enjoying myself: he had to wait several
hours. Finally, I fled like Cinderella.
I had asked him to wait for me, and he was waiting.
I fear that all this explains nothing, but the result
is still more inexplicable. After all, I only wish to
vindicate myself of all conspiracy and to convince you
of my perfect innocence. It was he, it might have been
you,--and I believed that it would be you.
Now, is it my fault? The flower belongs to him who plucks
it.
I can now confess to you. Dimly, I loved you.
Ah! that means a great deal! But you did not project
any light on this dim twilight. Yes, attempts, trials,
approaches, and so on, with which to make a treatise on
Analytical Indecision,--and then what? In short, _you_ did
not capture me!
Why did I not coöperate in the matter? Ah! it is not our
feminine habit, and it seems I have already told you that
I had been too badly punished for a first choice to make a
second one. Now, it is the same as in the romances: By the
grace of God! And no responsibility.
(I confess that little was lacking for our enthroning to
be effected, but there are moments when the most reasoned
reserves become unmanageable. But you urge that you held
yourself tranquil until that day, or almost so, arrested
at the first sign, disarmed at the first gesture! Do not
say that I encouraged you, for you are not ignorant of
the fact--you who know women so well--that you must not
rely on our encouragements: they are snares, a manner
of repetition, to find out, with no peril, how it will
take place some day when we shall be disarmed--study the
advances another time and see if a mockery is not lodged in
the corners of the lips; they are preliminary maneuvers,
quite amusing, for even in this child's play we are sure to
conquer without alternatives: if our partner grows bold,
O power of speech! a word puts him in his place; if he
remains cold, we have the consolation that after all we
lose nothing thereby, since the conclusion is impossible.)
Before I was eighteen, I married the man of my choice.
Well! my great love quickly turned to hate. What caused
this change of my sentiments? It would be interesting to
know, but even at this hour I do not know its mechanism.
I believe I was like the children who want a plaything so
much that they cry, stamp their feet, become convulsed with
real griefs; as soon as they hold the toy in their little
hands, they judge it, thinking: "Is this all it is?" What
I had chosen was only this. He loved my flesh and devoured
it like an egoist; he uttered immodest pleasantries and
debased acts beyond which I felt infinity and the possible
unveiling of the ineffable mystery. I thought myself the
very creator of Joy and my pregnant desires, my desires big
with sobs, miscarried, became the travail of a slave. I
knew my destination.
(Imagine! A laughter would seize him afterwards, a
nervous laughter which lasted for minutes, a laugh fit to
scandalize Hell!)
Yes, I knew my destination and I refused to follow it.
Once for all I refused to play the rôle of a bestower of
pleasure and a stimulant. I closed my door for ever.
Well, do you know what followed? This monster loved me and
could not live without wallowing in my body, in the sun of
my eyes. He entreated me, threatened me, turned himself
into a slave and dog. I was deaf. Many times we struggled,
but in addition to the force of my wrists, which are of
iron, I had the force of my will, which is of steel, and I
threw him at my feet, trampled upon him, spat on his sex.
This endured a year, a long and hateful year.
At last, on the anniversary of the first refusal, he
entreated me again, with tears of love in his voice, but
with a certain calm that was quite noble. A revolver was
pointed to his breast. "No, never!" He fell, and I knew
that it was not his fault.
You will find the rest in your memories:
The resolution never again to choose; the resolution to
sacrifice myself, in expiation for the first murder, in the
event of a second and similar occurrence. I think we have
already discussed these two points:
That is all the poison I gave, with an unconscious hand.
(Ah! one day you chilled me so much, in hesitating to
guarantee my future. A clear and spontaneous "yes" would
have thrown me instantly into your arms.)
_Saturday_.
This is the legend of the portrait chamber:
Every man who sleeps in this chamber sees, in the course of
the first night, the portrait of the woman he must love,
reflected in the old greenish mirror. No marriage, no
betrothal, no liaison, no oath withstands it: the magical
image thrusts itself against the will and it is like a
charm.
Could I have told this to you, even laughingly?
Ah! it is not written that the possession will be
reciprocated.
I admit that your moon-madness, in which I recognized
myself, impressed me. For a long time I believed you were
destined to conquer me. The ancient and unreasonable
tradition haunted me like a prophecy. If you had only
known in what a maze of mystery you courted me! For
women willingly curb their caprices under the Fatality
which consecrate them as tragediennes. Just fancy! To be
the chosen of the centuries and of the dim decrees of
necessity! To fall into inevitable arms! To submit to an
exceptional law, purposely made for one! It is this which
enhances feminity for you and gives a value to the sex.
After all, O analytical romancer, you did not know how to
play with anything!
Of course, you will write your novel. Well, I refuse to
read it, for it will be full of painful naïvetés. You will
naturally glorify your intelligence, your sensibility
and your understanding of souls, and also negation,
detachment....
Why, then, did you desire me? What phantom did you pursue,
if nothing exists outside of your imagination? Yet one
should be informed regarding the quality of illusions which
one faces. What an alarm in the harem of shadows, among
the forms you murdered, bluebeard of the ideal! Have you
counted them? I am the seventh, without a doubt, the one
who opens the locked room.... "And they passed their swords
through his body." Thus Life has killed the Dream. Adieu.
P. S. Besides, you should know that he is not a nobody.
Monsieur Renaudeau is going to publish his drama--so
moving, so full of genius. He told me this the other
evening, at the home of the countess. And this despite
you and your gentle contempt, despite you who disparaged
him,--without knowing him! After all cui bono.... After
all, after all!