people, who seem to have not one thought, not one feeling, in common,
and yet who seem to live so calmly side by side, in this vast house
where they need never meet except at meals, or when the presence of
strangers isolates them. I am wholly unable to talk with the Baron, who
ignores me with the most punctilious deference. He never enters the
library, and, in the drawing-room, is never without a newspaper, of
which he rarely turns the pages. With the Baroness I can always talk; I
can even, what is rare with me, listen. For a woman, her ideas are
surprisingly well informed: quotations, of course, but arranged with a
personal sense of decoration. She can discuss general questions broadly,
with a rare frankness, a kind of eager sincerity. What does the Baron
think, I wonder, behind that screen of the newspaper, if, as he sits
motionless, he is listening, as I cannot but believe, to every word that
is said? I often look at the newspaper, hoping to see it at least
quiver, if not drop to the floor, and the man leap out of his ambush.
The Baroness interests me a little more every day, and this interest is
oddly balanced by my equal difficulty in looking or in not looking at
her. When she is talking with me she invariably arranges herself so as
to be on my left; often she leans her head on her left hand, as if to
shield even what remains unseen. How horribly she must suffer from this
living mask, under which she is condemned to exist! How long, I wonder,
has she worn it, and shall I ever know the cause? Is she always
conscious of its presence, of the eyes that seek to avoid it, and
return, despite themselves, stealthily? I can conceive no more exquisite
torture. Or yes, there is one. Suppose this woman, in whom I can
distinguish a quite unusual force and energy of emotion, were to fall in
love again: she is at the age of lasting passions, and what could be
more natural in her? That would be a tragedy which I hardly like to
think of; the more so, as I can easily conceive how powerful must have
been her attraction before the time of this accident. There is something
almost magnetic in her nature, and I can see that the Kahns, for
instance, are attracted by her to the point of hardly seeing her as she
is, of forgetting to look at her with their own eyes.
* * * * *
May 15.--The dinner-parties which women in society condemn themselves to
the task of giving become less and less intelligible to me as I see them
from so close a point of view. How little pleasure they seem to give to
any except very young or very old people! It is a kind of slavery: penal
servitude with hard labour. I am sure neither of the Eckensteins gets
the slightest personal pleasure out of these big dinners which they are
so constantly giving. I am equally sure that the people who accept their
invitations would generally rather not come; that they accept them
largely because it is difficult to write and say I will not come; partly
out of a vague hope, almost invariably deceived, that they will meet
some delightful new person; partly out of the mere social necessity of
killing time. I have never seen so much before of a London season, and I
shall be glad when it is over.
* * * * *
August 10.--They have taken a house for the summer down here in this
remote part of my own county, Cornwall; there is fishing for the Baron,
and golf not far off, and boating, I suppose. The heat in London was
becoming intolerable; my old headaches began to come back; and I was
only too glad to say yes when the Baroness asked me, almost
hesitatingly, if I would come with them. Here I have nothing to do; we
walk on the cliffs, drive across Cornwall and back again, sit under the
trees on this lawn, from which one can hear the sea, not quite knowing
if it is the sound of the sea or of the trees. In short, one is idle,
and in the open air. I am well again already; only, inexpressibly lazy.
The Baroness and I are thrown together so much, by the mere loneliness
of the place, and the determined absence of the Baron, that we are
getting to know one another better. In driving and walking she
invariably keeps on my left; for which I am grateful to her. She is a
good walker, and cares for the sea, I think, as much as I do.
Is it chiefly the influence of the place, the weather, the homeliness
and familiarity of the old manor-house, where we sit and walk in the
garden, as in a grassy opening in the midst of a wood? That, and the
stillness and unconfined space on the cliffs, where one can sit silent
for so long, until only intimate words come; all that, I am sure, has
had its influence on both of us, certainly on me. The Baroness has begun
to question me about myself, and I, who hate confidences, find myself
telling her what I have told no one.
I have told her about Clare, about my thoughts, my ideas, my sensations,
all that I have up to now only confessed to my journal. How is it that
she draws my secrets out of me, and how is it that I feel a pleasure in
telling them to her?
* * * * *
August 15.--To-day we drove to the Lizard, and sat for an hour on that
high peak of rocks which goes down into the sea at this last southerly
edge of England. The sea was steel-blue, almost motionless except where
it made a little circle of foam around each rock, and it seemed to
stretch endlessly, as if it flowed over all the rest of the world. Ships
were going by, with sails and black smoke, with a great haste to be
somewhere. We sat silent for a time, and then she began to tell me about
herself; little confidences of no moment, only they seemed to be
hesitating on the verge of some fuller confidence. At first I thought
she was going to tell me all; but the wind began to get chill, and the
sun faded out behind clouds, and her mood changed, and she got up, and
we went back to the carriage.
* * * * *
August 20.--At last I know the whole story, or as much of it as I am
likely to know. Last night, after dinner, we were sitting alone in the
garden, in a corner where the trees darken the grass; she sat with her
hand half covering her face, in that attitude which is habitual with
her, though only the right side of her face was visible, and the long
silence became more and more intimate until at last she spoke. She began
to tell me of herself, and first of her childhood among the Bohemian
woods, her escapes from the army of governesses and tutors, her dreams
in the depths of the forest, the 'Buch der Lieder' read by moonlight and
thrust under the pillow as she fell asleep: in short, a very pretty,
very German, sentimental education. Then the young English tutor, with
his tragic beauty, his Byronic sighs; she pities, admires, falls in love
with him; their meetings, declarations; they plot a romantic elopement,
but the coachman turns traitor; the Byronic gentleman is dismissed, and
the girl sent to her cousins in Vienna, where she begins to see the
world, and to dream more worldly dreams. The Baron presents himself,
with his title, his money, his serious reputation; the parents implore
her to accept him, and she accepts him, in order that she may accomplish
a social duty. By this time she has made innumerable friends, Vienna is
the world to her, she cannot exist without people, excitement,
admiration; and when the Baron, who hunts during half the year, takes
her away to his castle, and leaves her there, from morning to night, day
after day for months together, she lives the life of a prisoner, alone
with her books and her more and more discontented thoughts. Time passes,
and the husband whom she has never loved becomes a polite stranger, then
an unwelcome guest. He sees indifference passing into aversion, and
makes no attempt to arrest the course of things. It is enough if she is
submissive, and his pride does not so much as dream of a revolt.
Meanwhile there are neighbours, hunting friends who come to the castle,
and among them is a young Frenchman. She told me simply, quietly, as if
she were telling me the story of some one else, how this man had
gradually attracted her, how delicately and perseveringly he had made
love to her, and how his presence rendered the tedium of her life less
insupportable. She loved him, she believed that he loved her, and a new
happiness came into her life. One day the husband, who had appeared to
suspect nothing, came back unexpectedly. She had been playing the piano,
her lover was seated just behind her, and as she rose from the piano and
flung herself passionately into his arms, she saw, over his shoulder,
the reflection of her husband's face in the mirror. He had opened the
door while she was playing, and stood motionless, holding the door half
open, with his eyes fixed upon them. Before she could make a movement
the door had closed silently. It did not open again. The lover left the
castle hastily, meeting no one on the way. Hours passed, and she sat
watching the door, quiet with terror. At last she could bear it no
longer, and she went straight to her husband's apartments. The painters
had been at work, and their tools, paints, brushes, and bottles were
still lying about. Her husband was seated at his writing-table. As she
entered the room he put down the pen, turned to her calmly and said: 'I
am writing to ask Xavier to dinner, but you will have to fix the date. I
have a little surprise for him.' He rose, took three steps towards her,
with a look of inexpressibly sarcastic malignity, and, stooping rapidly,
picked up a bottle from the floor, and flung the contents in her face.
She shrieked in agony as the vitriol burnt into her like liquid fire,
and she rolled over at his feet, shrieking.
When, after months of suffering, the bandages were at last taken off,
and she could resume her place at the table, she found, on coming
downstairs to dinner, one guest awaiting her with her husband. It was
her lover. She had not seen him, no word from him had reached her, since
the accident. During dinner the Baron was cheerful, almost gay; he
related amusing stories, turning from one to the other with an air of
cordiality, and affecting not to notice that neither spoke more than a
few words. Soon after dinner, the guest excused himself. A few days
afterwards it was reported that he had left the neighbourhood.
* * * * *
August 21.--I lay awake last night for several hours, unable to get this
horrible story out of my head. I thought these were things that no
longer happened, or only in Russia, perhaps; I thought we were at least
so far civilised. It is the meanness of the revenge that horrifies me
most in its atrocity. And that these two people, after that moment's
revelation of the one to the other, should have gone on living together,
under the same roof: it is incredible. There, I suppose, is
civilisation, the hypocrisy of our conventions, which, if they cannot
suppress the brute in the human animal, are prompt to cloak the thing
once done, to pretend that it never was done, never could have been
done.
Now, when I sit at table between that man and woman, I scarcely know
whether I am judge, witness, or accuser. What had been instinctive in my
distrust of the man has become a mental revulsion not less intense than
the physical revulsion which I must always feel towards the woman. Only,
towards her, I have a new feeling, a kind of sympathetic confidence,
mingled with pity; and it pleases me that she has confidence in me. It
would give me pleasure if I could aid her, in some way that I cannot
even conjecture, to avenge herself on that diabolical tyrant, her
husband.
* * * * *
September 25.--As I look back over these pages it seems to me that I
have lost the habit of writing down my thoughts about general questions,
which my once wholly personal preoccupations brought constantly before
me. How a journal changes with one's life, if it is really, as mine is,
the confidant of one's moods, the secret witness of one's growth or
decay! I suppose it is that, as I accustom myself to look for my
interest outside the circle of my own brain, I become less personal,
less sick with myself. My old terrors, my old preoccupations, have
loosened their hold on me, I think; my brain is getting more quiescent,
more conventional. If only the nerves do not break out again, as I find
it so easy to realise their doing; if I can avoid excitement, that is,
keep myself as I am now, an interested spectator of other people's
lives, with no too eager interests of my own: that will at last set me
wholly to rights. And, certainly, this divine Cornish air, half salt,
half honey, will have done something for me, in helping to cure me of a
too narrow, London philosophy.
* * * * *
August 3.--It is almost exactly a year since I have written anything in
my journal, which I find where I left it, forgotten in the corner of a
drawer in the Cornish manor-house, to which we have gone back again this
summer. I am glad to be here again, but, all the same, it is not quite
as it was last year. The Baroness and I are better friends than ever. I
am more accustomed to her, she is kindness itself. Ah yes, that is it.
Her kindness begins to become fatiguing; I would prefer a little
liberty. Why is it that good people forge chains with their kindness,
adding link to link with the best intentions in the world, until one is
tripped up and weighed down and held by the fetters of innumerable
favours? To break so much as a link is held to be ingratitude. But one's
liberty, then, is there anything comparable in the price one pays, and
in the utmost one can receive in place of it?
Is it that a woman is unable to conceive of the fatigue of kindness? How
incomprehensible to them must be that marvellous sentence in 'Adolphe':
'Je me reposais, pour ainsi dire, dans l'indifference des autres, de la
fatigue de son amour.' And, even if it is not love, the heaviest of all
burdens when it comes unasked, there is still a fatiguing weight in that
affectionate vigilance which is one long appeal for gratitude, in that
sleepless solicitude which 'prevents,' in both senses of the word, all
one's goings. I am beginning to find this with the Baroness, who would
replace Providence for me, but with a more continual intervention.
* * * * *
August 18.--O this intolerable demand on one's gratitude, this assumed
right of all the world to receive back favour for favour, to be paid for
giving! Must there be a market for kindness, and balances to weigh
charity by the pound weight? I am not sure that the conventional
estimation of gratitude as one of the main virtues, of gratitude in all
circumstances and for all favours received, has not a profoundly
bourgeois origin. I have never been able clearly to recognise the
necessity, or even the possibility, of gratitude towards any one for
whom I have not a feeling of personal affection, quite apart from any
exchange of benefits. The conferring of what is called a favour,
materially, and the prompt return of a delicate sentiment, gratitude,
seems to me a kind of commercialism of the mind, a mere business
transaction, in which an honest exchange is not always either possible
or needful. The demand for gratitude in return for a gift comes largely
from the respect which most people have for money; from the idea that
money is the most 'serious' thing in the world, the symbol of a physical
necessity, but a thing having no real existence in itself, no real
importance to the mind which refuses to realise its existence. Only the
miser really possesses it in itself, in any significant way; for the
miser is an idealist, the poet of gold. To all others it is a kind of
mathematics, and a synonym for being 'respected.' You may say it is
necessary, almost as necessary as breathing, and I will not deny it.
Only I will deny that any one can be actively grateful for the power of
breathing. He cannot conceive of himself without that power. To
conceive of oneself without money, that is to say, without the means of
going on living, is at once to conceive of the right, the mere human
right, to assistance. And when, instead of money, it is some unasked,
necessary or unnecessary, gift which is laid before us, to be taken
whether we choose or not, what more have we to do than to take it,
silently, without thanks, without complaint, as we would pick up an
apple that has dropped to us over an orchard hedge? I say all that to
myself, and believe it, and yet some irrational obligation weighs upon
me, whenever I think of breaking away from this woman and her affection.
* * * * *
October 25.--Can it be possible, or am I falling into the most absurd of
misapprehensions? What has happened, that I should seem to-day to be
conscious of what I had not even dreamt of yesterday? Nothing has
happened; she, her husband, and I have sat in our usual places at the
table and in the garden; not a word different from our usual words has
passed between us; and yet ... Why is it that no man can ever be
friends with any woman? It is the woman, usually, who puts the question.
And she, I am certain that she never wanted to be anything but my
friend. Then she wanted to be my only friend; she wanted to make my mind
her possession. I see it step by step, now that I think back. Then what
we call nature came in to trouble the balance. She is a healthy, normal
woman; she has all the natural affections. Why is it that tenderness in
women must always take the fever? For there is no doubt about it, none.
Once you have seen a certain look in a woman's eyes, once a certain
thrill has come into her fingers, there is no mistaking. I have seen
that look in her eyes, I can still feel the thrill of her fingers, as
her hand touched mine, and seemed to forget to let go.
* * * * *
October 26.--I awoke this morning in a cold sweat. I had been dreaming
of Clare, I heard her footstep coming along the corridor, the door
opened, I knew it was she, but she was veiled, and when she called my
name her voice sounded far away, as if the veil muffled it; and I put
up my hand to lift her veil, and she prayed me not to lift it, but I
would not listen to her, and when I saw her face it was Clare, but with
the cheek and eyelid of the Baroness. One of us shrieked, and I awoke
trembling.
It is still early morning, but I have no mind to sleep again, and
perhaps dream. I must try to put these ugly thoughts out of my head, and
here is a morning which should help me, if anything in nature could. Is
it that some sense, which other people have is lacking in me? I have
never found that peace in nature of which I have heard so often, and
which, on such a morning as this, when the light begins to glow softly
over the world, and the wind comes in salt from the sea, and the leaves
rustle as if at an imperceptible caress, should come to me as simple as
to trees. There is a physical delight in it, certainly; but it goes no
deeper than the skin of my forehead.
I remember, when I first met the Baroness, thinking how cruel, how
ironical, it would be, if she were to fall in love again. I remember
also, when I first knew her story, wishing that I could help her: yes,
here it is written down, last August: 'if I could aid her, in some way
that I cannot even conjecture, to avenge herself on that diabolical
tyrant, her husband.' I certainly saw no connection between the two
things, nor any relation of myself to either of them. And yet, see how
both have come together, and how strangely I stand between them,
touching both.
The notion seems to me, at present, incredible; and yet, why? Yet more
improbable things have happened, and who am I, or who is she, after all,
that, in the malice of nature, no such idea should enter into a woman's
head?
I wrote here, not so long ago, 'I am more accustomed to her.' Shall I
ever be able to say more than that? And it is terrible to be able to say
no more than that.
I suppose, if I loved her, I should notice nothing. Is it that pity
would come in to take up all the room? But I have never had any gift for
pity; and then, all conjecture is idle, for I certainly do not love
her.
* * * * *
October 28.--Is it possible that I could have been mistaken, or is she
conscious that she has betrayed her secret, and now hides it away again?
To-day she has seemed really, not affectedly indifferent. Do I
altogether wish that it were so? Have I not got used to being looked
after not quite as a stranger, to a kindness on which it has seemed to
me that I could always rely? Is there not something I should find myself
missing, if it were taken away from me?
* * * * *
October 29.--We are to go back to London in a day or two. It rains every
day, and almost all day long. Every one stays indoors, and we seem
always to find ourselves in different rooms. After dinner the Baron
looks up sometimes from his newspaper; the talk is quite formal, because
he joins in it. Can she have shown him some sign of encouragement, or is
it he? And is she keeping back something, or am I wrong in all that I
have conjectured? Nothing is as it was. I shall be glad when we are back
in London.
* * * * *
November 2.--We are back in London. I hardly see her now. For nearly a
week she has avoided me, and I am astonished to find myself, I can
hardly say piqued, and yet there is a little pique in it too. It is so
evident to me that she is playing a part, but the part is well played,
and I feel oddly disquieted. I hate change, uncertainty, that kind of
uneasiness which women used to cause me, but which I have so long given
up feeling. I miss the old freedom of her talk, her confidences to me,
her faculty for taking an interest in one's ideas, one's personal
sensations. How odd that this should have come to mean so much more to
me than I knew! And there is something else that I miss, in her new
reserve, now that it comes suddenly up between us as a barrier. I used
to wish for just such a barrier. And now it annoys me to find it there.
It is only restlessness on my part, I know, but it surprises me to find
that I am capable of so near an approach to, after all, some kind of
feeling. I thought I had buried all that quite securely, years ago.
* * * * *
November 5.--To-day I have heard news of Clare for the first time during
all these years since she went away. And it is not as I fancied; she is
not happy, not even well off; she has been seen in poor lodgings at the
seaside, and alone. Has the man, the turgid fop and brute, whom I
criticised her and all her sex for caring about, left her, then? It
looks like it. Could one imagine, on his part, anything else? I knew him
so much better than she did! But I am horribly sorry; I do not want to
see her again, but I should like, if I could, to help her. I wonder if
she will write to me. I shall take it as a compliment if she writes.
* * * * *
November 7.--She has written, and the letter has reached me here, after
a little delay. She must think I am not going to write. She wants to see
me, and it will perhaps be better for me to see her. She is in London;
it would be kinder if I called; and heaven knows there is no danger. Her
letter is full of dignity; she knows me and there are no tears in it;
the regrets are duly temperate; she does not even ask to be forgiven. 'I
am in trouble: you once cared for me: I have not forgotten that you can
be kind: will you help me?' That is the substance of her letter. I will
write to her to-night, and say that I will come and see her.
1 A.M.--Shall I never understand women? will nothing ever teach me
wisdom? I was foolish enough to think that the Baroness would help me,
that I could be open with her, as I have been till now. I had no secrets
from her in regard to Clare, and she knows how much all that is in the
past. I showed her the letter. She read it in silence, with her hand
over her eyes. Then, not raising her head, she said, in a voice that
seemed her ordinary voice: 'You will go and see her?' 'I think it would
be best,' I said. She lifted her head suddenly, clenched the paper in
her hand, and flung it on the carpet at my feet. For a moment I was too
startled even to move. Her face was convulsed with rage; her face was
terrible, more terrible than I have ever seen it. The scar seemed to
whiten, the blood rushed to her other cheek and made her forehead
purple; her eyes glowed. I stooped to pick up the letter, and began to
smooth it out on my knee. I fixed my eyes on it, so as not to see her;
and she knew why I did not look at her. She seemed to make a great
effort to recover her self-control, and I saw her fingers clutch a fold
of her skirt and clench tightly upon it. 'You want to see her?' she
said, still in a low voice; and I said, what was quite the truth: 'No, I
do not want to see her, I only want to help her, and I think it would be
kinder, as well as more satisfactory, to go than to write.' 'I
understand,' she said coldly; 'you want to see her again. I understand
your feeling.' I was annoyed at her misinterpretation, and said nothing.
'You still care for her,' she said, 'I can see it, it is useless for you
to deny it; you want to go back to her. Well, she is free now: go back
to her.' I was going to protest, but she rose, and held up her hand to
silence me. Tears were in her eyes, the anger was gone, she could hardly
speak. 'Yes,' she said, 'go and see her; I will not keep you from her;
if you still love her, there is nothing else to be done. I understand, I
understand.' And she sank back in the chair again, with her hands over
her face, weeping big tears.
When I saw her suffering, I was sorry, and I knelt down beside her and
took away one of her hands from before her face, and kissed the hand
still wet with tears. I assured her that Clare was nothing to me now,
and I convinced her of my sincerity. She dried her eyes, smiled sadly,
and said, 'Then you promise me you will not go and see her.' 'But no, I
said, 'I have told you that it is best to go and see her; but you know
the whole reason why I mean to do so.' She turned rigid in an instant,
and I should have had to go through the whole scene over again, if I had
not had the cowardice to say, 'I promise that I will not see her.' She
begged me to show her the letter that I wrote. Why should I refuse?