STORY OF THE UNFORTUNATE MAN, FROM WHICH MAY BE GATHERED WHETHER OR NO
HE HAS BEEN JUSTLY SO ENTITLED.
It appeared that the unfortunate man had had for a wife one of those
natures, anomalously vicious, which would almost tempt a metaphysical
lover of our species to doubt whether the human form be, in all cases,
conclusive evidence of humanity, whether, sometimes, it may not be a
kind of unpledged and indifferent tabernacle, and whether, once for all
to crush the saying of Thrasea, (an unaccountable one, considering that
he himself was so good a man) that "he who hates vice, hates humanity,"
it should not, in self-defense, be held for a reasonable maxim, that
none but the good are human.
Goneril was young, in person lithe and straight, too straight, indeed,
for a woman, a complexion naturally rosy, and which would have been
charmingly so, but for a certain hardness and bakedness, like that of
the glazed colors on stone-ware. Her hair was of a deep, rich chestnut,
but worn in close, short curls all round her head. Her Indian figure was
not without its impairing effect on her bust, while her mouth would have
been pretty but for a trace of moustache. Upon the whole, aided by the
resources of the toilet, her appearance at distance was such, that some
might have thought her, if anything, rather beautiful, though of a style
of beauty rather peculiar and cactus-like.
It was happy for Goneril that her more striking peculiarities were less
of the person than of temper and taste. One hardly knows how to reveal,
that, while having a natural antipathy to such things as the breast of
chicken, or custard, or peach, or grape, Goneril could yet in private
make a satisfactory lunch on hard crackers and brawn of ham. She liked
lemons, and the only kind of candy she loved were little dried sticks of
blue clay, secretly carried in her pocket. Withal she had hard, steady
health like a squaw's, with as firm a spirit and resolution. Some other
points about her were likewise such as pertain to the women of savage
life. Lithe though she was, she loved supineness, but upon occasion
could endure like a stoic. She was taciturn, too. From early morning
till about three o'clock in the afternoon she would seldom speak--it
taking that time to thaw her, by all accounts, into but talking terms
with humanity. During the interval she did little but look, and keep
looking out of her large, metallic eyes, which her enemies called cold
as a cuttle-fish's, but which by her were esteemed gazelle-like; for
Goneril was not without vanity. Those who thought they best knew her,
often wondered what happiness such a being could take in life, not
considering the happiness which is to be had by some natures in the very
easy way of simply causing pain to those around them. Those who suffered
from Goneril's strange nature, might, with one of those hyberboles to
which the resentful incline, have pronounced her some kind of toad; but
her worst slanderers could never, with any show of justice, have accused
her of being a toady. In a large sense she possessed the virtue of
independence of mind. Goneril held it flattery to hint praise even of
the absent, and even if merited; but honesty, to fling people's imputed
faults into their faces. This was thought malice, but it certainly was
not passion. Passion is human. Like an icicle-dagger, Goneril at once
stabbed and froze; so at least they said; and when she saw frankness and
innocence tyrannized into sad nervousness under her spell, according to
the same authority, inly she chewed her blue clay, and you could mark
that she chuckled. These peculiarities were strange and unpleasing; but
another was alleged, one really incomprehensible. In company she had a
strange way of touching, as by accident, the arm or hand of comely young
men, and seemed to reap a secret delight from it, but whether from the
humane satisfaction of having given the evil-touch, as it is called, or
whether it was something else in her, not equally wonderful, but quite
as deplorable, remained an enigma.
Needless to say what distress was the unfortunate man's, when, engaged
in conversation with company, he would suddenly perceive his Goneril
bestowing her mysterious touches, especially in such cases where the
strangeness of the thing seemed to strike upon the touched person,
notwithstanding good-breeding forbade his proposing the mystery, on the
spot, as a subject of discussion for the company. In these cases, too,
the unfortunate man could never endure so much as to look upon the
touched young gentleman afterwards, fearful of the mortification of
meeting in his countenance some kind of more or less quizzingly-knowing
expression. He would shudderingly shun the young gentleman. So that
here, to the husband, Goneril's touch had the dread operation of the
heathen taboo. Now Goneril brooked no chiding. So, at favorable times,
he, in a wary manner, and not indelicately, would venture in private
interviews gently to make distant allusions to this questionable
propensity. She divined him. But, in her cold loveless way, said it was
witless to be telling one's dreams, especially foolish ones; but if the
unfortunate man liked connubially to rejoice his soul with such
chimeras, much connubial joy might they give him. All this was sad--a
touching case--but all might, perhaps, have been borne by the
unfortunate man--conscientiously mindful of his vow--for better or for
worse--to love and cherish his dear Goneril so long as kind heaven might
spare her to him--but when, after all that had happened, the devil of
jealousy entered her, a calm, clayey, cakey devil, for none other could
possess her, and the object of that deranged jealousy, her own child, a
little girl of seven, her father's consolation and pet; when he saw
Goneril artfully torment the little innocent, and then play the maternal
hypocrite with it, the unfortunate man's patient long-suffering gave
way. Knowing that she would neither confess nor amend, and might,
possibly, become even worse than she was, he thought it but duty as a
father, to withdraw the child from her; but, loving it as he did, he
could not do so without accompanying it into domestic exile himself.
Which, hard though it was, he did. Whereupon the whole female
neighborhood, who till now had little enough admired dame Goneril, broke
out in indignation against a husband, who, without assigning a cause,
could deliberately abandon the wife of his bosom, and sharpen the sting
to her, too, by depriving her of the solace of retaining her offspring.
To all this, self-respect, with Christian charity towards Goneril, long
kept the unfortunate man dumb. And well had it been had he continued so;
for when, driven to desperation, he hinted something of the truth of the
case, not a soul would credit it; while for Goneril, she pronounced all
he said to be a malicious invention. Ere long, at the suggestion of some
woman's-rights women, the injured wife began a suit, and, thanks to able
counsel and accommodating testimony, succeeded in such a way, as not
only to recover custody of the child, but to get such a settlement
awarded upon a separation, as to make penniless the unfortunate man (so
he averred), besides, through the legal sympathy she enlisted, effecting
a judicial blasting of his private reputation. What made it yet more
lamentable was, that the unfortunate man, thinking that, before the
court, his wisest plan, as well as the most Christian besides, being, as
he deemed, not at variance with the truth of the matter, would be to put
forth the plea of the mental derangement of Goneril, which done, he
could, with less of mortification to himself, and odium to her, reveal
in self-defense those eccentricities which had led to his retirement
from the joys of wedlock, had much ado in the end to prevent this charge
of derangement from fatally recoiling upon himself--especially, when,
among other things, he alleged her mysterious teachings. In vain did his
counsel, striving to make out the derangement to be where, in fact, if
anywhere, it was, urge that, to hold otherwise, to hold that such a
being as Goneril was sane, this was constructively a libel upon
womankind. Libel be it. And all ended by the unfortunate man's
subsequently getting wind of Goneril's intention to procure him to be
permanently committed for a lunatic. Upon which he fled, and was now an
innocent outcast, wandering forlorn in the great valley of the
Mississippi, with a weed on his hat for the loss of his Goneril; for he
had lately seen by the papers that she was dead, and thought it but
proper to comply with the prescribed form of mourning in such cases. For
some days past he had been trying to get money enough to return to his
child, and was but now started with inadequate funds.
Now all of this, from the beginning, the good merchant could not but
consider rather hard for the unfortunate man.