It was not a strict and definite promise I had given. But still it was
a yielding from tender-heartedness that I deplore, though without
self-reproach. He who chooses the high, unbeaten tracks should have
overcome all tender-heartedness that leads to half measures. What is
counted as virtue in the faithful member of the herd, is vice in the
seceder. But I knew, how immediately beyond the safe confederacy of the
group, skulked the wolf of fanaticism. I knew how difficult it is to
keep one's balance upon the steep, lonely paths of originality, how
easily the pathfinder, overwhelmed by the giddy sense of unbounded
freedom, falls down into gulfs of fanaticism, hysteria, bigotry and
madness.
Who shall always know how to find the exact medium between bold
consistency and reckless extravagance?
The tendency toward self-sacrifice is an instinct, like all others,
beautiful and useful when it remains in harmony with all our other
instincts, and helps along in the common battle for Christ, who has
given them to us. But this instinct can be perverted and run wild into
asceticism and a passion for self-mortification, as hunger into
gluttony and thirst into drunkenness.
I knew that heroic consistency must lead me to unite myself openly with
the being who had re-awakened in me the highest, holiest and most
blessed emotions - and this meant declaring an open feud against
society. For without doubt I should have the whole world against me, my
own children included. I should lose my position, be expelled from my
circle. I should have to brave poverty too. My mother was still living
and I myself had nothing save the high salary which I would lose. And
to live on Lucia or my mother remained absolutely beyond consideration.
I did not fear all this so much for itself, as for the danger of
fanatic self-torture I saw in it. For above all, in the arbitrary
breaking of the bonds between myself and my children there lay a
refined torture, and I also knew that Lucia's suffering would not let
me rest a day, no matter how firm my conviction might be that I had
done right. I should feel remorse just as well then as I should if I
did not do what I deemed right. Two consciences would always be at war
in me, whether I turned to the right or to the left.
And then - what would my conflict with the world signify, powerless as
I was? Should I convince anyone by my action that it is right to break
a mock union, to clear an untrue life, to assert our true sentiments
and feelings, to pursue the things eternal and the pure blessedness,
and to remain true to Christ in the face of the world?
It would merely be said: "There's another fallen into the bog," and I
should disappear like a stone in the mire.
I do not want to excuse; I only want to explain. To make it clear how
it was possible that I, after this first vigorous wrench at my fetters,
nevertheless for many years still led an irresolute double life,
apparently the same happy pater-familias and prosperous man of the
world, hiding my real, true life in the little seaport town and
restricting it to the hours that I spent together with her, who had
awakened it and who kept it alive.
When I went to get my boat and was starting the night before for
E------, my son Guido, a sport-loving youngster of fourteen, asked
whether he might accompany me. In my sense of guiltlessness I would
perhaps have raised no objection, but his mother immediately
interposed, with quick intuition guessing at the object of my journey
and by a clever pretence thwarted his plan.
Elsje was awaiting me at the station and we had a long conversation, in
which I for the first time experienced what a blessing it is to be able
to give oneself freely, to show oneself as one likes best to be, to
hold back nothing for fear of being misunderstood, even though one
expresses oneself as always, with but the same limited means, toward a
human being having the same limited comprehensive faculty as all men.
For here was the infinite love with its magic interpretive power, that
completes the defective, and from a few faltering phrases is able to
erect a lofty structure of sympathy and understanding, because the
beautiful plan in both speaker and listener has from the very beginning
been designed by a higher wisdom, and no intellectual material is made
use of and applied but must be in harmony with this fixed plan.
"I have spoken about us at home, Elsje."
"With whom?"
"With her whom the world calls my wife, the mother of my children."
"What is her name?"
"Lucia."
After I had spoken this, I have nevertheless quite frequently forgotten
myself and spoken of "my wife." But Elsje never, not a single time.
"What did you say about me?"
"May I tell you quite frankly, Elsje? And will you tell me just as
frankly whether what I said was right?"
"Yes," said Elsje, shyly and softly.
"I said that I had met a woman of whom, at first sight and after two
brief encounters, I could say that she would give me the great love
which was still wanting in my life. Was that rightly said, Elsje?"
"Yes," I heard a whisper beside me. Arm in arm we wandered through the
dark lonely streets of the little town which was going to rest. The
confidential pressure of her arm in mine was a never experienced joy.
"It was not quite understood, Elsje. It was taken for self-delusion and
the entire case treated as a common gallant adventure. That's not
surprising and it will appear that way to everyone. We must resign
ourselves to that."
"Of course!" said Elsje.
"But I had a difficult half hour, for Lucia begged me not to see you
again."
"Poor Lucia - does she care for you very much?"
"Certainly - and I told her that nothing was taken away from my
affection for her. But she wouldn't hear of that -"
"Of course!" said Elsje again. "I shouldn't accept that either. Why
should she?"
"Look, look," thought I smilingly; "even the rivals among women yet
ever conspire together."
"I thought it might be a consolation. But I seem to be mistaken in
that. I remained firm, though I told her that nothing would hold me
back from Elsje."
"Oh, if I am only worthy of it! If only I am worthy of it!"
"That is fear of responsibility, Elsje. That we both have. But it is a
weakness."
"And did Lucia yield?"
"She first asked whether it could remain a spirit friendship. I refused
to promise that." Elsie remained silent.
"Do you think that was right, Elsie?"
She nodded.
"Then she yielded, but on one condition."
"What?"
"That before the world I would remain her husband. That everything
would be secret."
"Oh!" cried Elsie vehemently with anger and surprise. "Then she never
really cared for you either. Never!" And then indignantly: "You didn't
promise that though, did you?"
There I stood, poor sinner, and hadn't a word to say. And I felt while
seeking to defend myself that by nature a man always remains a sophist.
"Dear Elsie! remember that this consideration for a proud woman like
Lucia is of much greater import than the sacrifice for us. Consider how
much I have grieved her. Consider how few women would so nobly forgive
this to their husbands. Consider that after all the past makes it my
duty to care for her and my children. Disgrace is a very dreadful thing
for them, something much more dreadful than you can probably
comprehend."
"I consider just that a disgrace," said Elsie, illogically, but to the
point, "to want to keep up a lie before the world."
"Consider then, Elsie, what it would mean for me. I should not see my
children again. They would not want to recognize me. I should bring a
terrible sorrow upon them, and I am very fond of them."
"Would none of them try to understand it, to forgive it?" asked Elsie.
"Not one of them, I fear. Even were it only on account of their mother,
whom they adore. And remember that, beside my children, I should also
lose my position. My wife ? I mean Lucia is wealthy, but I am not ?"
"Would your health suffer if you were poorer?" asked Elsie, with naive
directness and perfect sobriety, though the question almost sounded
ironical to me. In a very impolitic fashion I had again reserved my
weakest argument for the last.
"Not that! Not that! ? but perhaps I am too much spoilt ? I should have
the whole world against me ? and I don't know if all that ?"
I felt that I was going wrong, thus I would end by myself casting a
doubt upon the self-sacrificing power of my love. Elsie helped me out
of it.
"May I now speak quite frankly with you too? Yes? Then listen! I am so
dazed, so overwhelmed by the greatness of that which I receive from
you, so suddenly and so bewilderingly, that you must not expect me at
once to judge rightly. It seems ridiculous to me that I should not be
satisfied with the least that you would offer me, now that I am getting
so infinitely much more than I ever could have hoped for or expected.
Though I never saw you again after this night, yet I should be
eternally grateful to you. But forgive me if in your difficulty I judge
too much according to my own feelings. Your grief for your children -
that I can comprehend. But all the rest I don't understand; it is
strange to me, contrary to my nature. Of the world and of the money I
should not think - I don't know these things and have not experienced
their power. I only know that I should like to be with you always and
should like to confess it openly before all the world. And if I were in
Lucia's place, and really cared for you, I wouldn't want for one moment
to bind you, cost what it would to me. I shouldn't be able to bear it,
that you lived beside me and were looked upon as my husband and
secretly cared for another, I should think that much more terrible than
all the sorrows of a divorce."
"Lucia would never agree to a divorce. That is a matter of religion
with her. A Catholic marriage is indissoluble."
"And are you, yourself, also a Catholic, devoutly Catholic?"
"Lucia says that I have no religion whatever."
Elsje looked at me anxiously.
"Is that so? And I had just hoped to learn so much from you concerning
that. It occupies me all day long. Even now I have a hundred questions
ready, for you. I had put all my trust in you."
"In what faith were you brought up, Elsie?
"Brought up? I wasn't brought up. I must make another confession to you?"
I saw that she hesitated and was troubled. I began to fear some
unpleasant secret or other.
"Speak without fear, Elsie. It is safe with me. Trust me."
"That I would like to, but see, I know you are a distinguished man of
noble birth."
"That signifies nothing, Elsje - I am not so proud of that."