their rank. She called all civilians “fishes,” poorly-clad people
“rascals,” and the very poor “the mob.”
The ladies, however, were altogether outside this scale. Her father,
who occupied a position above all men, and who was saluted respectfully
wherever he went, always stood up before a lady, regardless of her age,
kissed the hands of those he knew, and was at the beck and call of every
pretty woman. The result of this was that very early in life she became
very firmly convinced of the superiority of her own sex, and accustomed
herself to look upon a man as a lower being.
Whenever she went out on horseback, a groom invariably rode behind
her. When she stopped to admire the landscape, he stopped too. He was
her shadow. But she had no idea what he looked like, or whether he was
young or old. If she had been asked about his sex, she would not have
known how to reply; it had never occurred to her that the shadow could
have a sex; when, in mounting, she placed her little riding-boot in
his hand, she remained quite indifferent, and even occasionally raised
her habit a little as if nobody were present.
These inbred conceptions of the surpassing importance of rank
influenced her whole life. She found it impossible to make friends
with the daughters of a major or a captain, because their fathers were
her father’s social inferiors. Once a lieutenant asked her for a dance.
To punish him for his impudence, she refused to talk to him in the
intervals. But when she heard later on that her partner had been one
of the royal princes, she was inconsolable. She who knew every order
and title, and the rank of every officer, had failed to recognise a
prince! It was too terrible!
She was beautiful, but pride gave her features a certain rigidity
which scared her admirers away. The thought of marriage had never
occurred to her. The young men were not fully qualified, and those to
whose social position there was no objection, were too old. If she,
the daughter of a general, had married a captain, then a major’s wife
would have taken precedence of her. Such a degradation would have
killed her. Moreover, she had no wish to be a man’s chattel, or an
ornament for his drawing-room. She was accustomed to command,
accustomed to be obeyed; she could obey no man. The freedom and
independence of a man’s life appealed to her; it had fostered in her a
loathing for all womanly occupations.
Her sexual instinct awoke late. As she belonged to an old family which
on her father’s side, had squandered its strength in a soulless
militarism, drink and dissipation, and on her mother’s had suppressed
fertility to prevent the splitting up of property, Nature seemed to
have hesitated about her sex at the eleventh hour; or perhaps had
lacked strength to determine on the continuation of the race. Her
figure possessed none of those essentially feminine characteristics,
which Nature requires for her purposes, and she scorned to hide her
defects by artificial means.
The few women friends she had, found her cold and indifferent towards
everything connected with the sex problem. She treated it with
contempt, considered the relationship between the sexes disgusting,
and could not understand how a woman could give herself to a man. In
her opinion Nature was unclean; to wear clean underlinen, starched
petticoats and stockings without holes was to be virtuous; poor was
merely another term for dirt and vice.
Every summer she spent with her father on their estate in the country.
She was no great lover of the country. Nature made her feel small; she
found the woods uncanny, the lake made her shudder, there was danger
hidden in the tall meadow-grass. She regarded the peasants as cunning
and rather filthy beasts. They had so many children, and she had no
doubt that both boys and girls were full of vice. Nevertheless they
were always invited to the manor house on Midsummer day and on the
general’s birthday, to play the part of the chorus of grand opera,
that is to say, to cheer and dance, and look like the figures in a
painting.
It was springtime. Helena, on her thoroughbred mare, had penetrated
into the depths of the country. She felt tired and dismounted; she
fastened her mare to a birchtree which grew near an enclosure. Then
she strolled along by the side of a ditch and began to gather wild
orchids. The air was soft and balmy, steam was rising from the ground.
She could hear the frogs jumping into the ditch which was half-full of
water.
All at once the mare neighed and, stretching her slender neck over the
fence, drew in the air with wide-open nostrils.
“Alice!” she called out, “be quiet, old girl!”
And she continued to gather the modest flowers which so cleverly hide
their secrets behind the prettiest and neatest curtains that for all
the world look like printed calico.
But the mare neighed again. From behind the hazel bushes on the other
side of the enclosure came an answer, a second neighing, deeper and
fuller. The swampy ground of the enclosure shook, powerful hoofs
scattered the stones, to right and left and a black stallion appeared
at full gallop. The tense neck carried a magnificent head, the muscles
lay like ropes under the glossy skin. As he caught sight of the mare,
his eyes began to flash. He stopped and stretched out his neck as if
he were going to yawn, raised his upper lip and showed his teeth. Then
he galloped across the grass and approached the railings.
Helena picked up her skirt and ran to her mare; she raised her hand to
seize the bridle, but the mare broke away and took the fence. Then the
wooing began.
She stood at the fence and called, but the excited mare paid no heed.
Inside the enclosure the horses chased one another; the situation was
a critical one. The breath of the stallion came like smoke from his
nostrils and white foam flecked his shoulders.
Helena longed to escape, for the scene filled her with horror. She had
never witnessed the raging of a natural instinct in a living body.
This uncontrolled outbreak terrified her.
She wanted to run after her mare and drag her away by force, but she
was afraid of the savage stallion. She wanted to call for help, but
she was loath to attract other eyewitnesses. She turned her back to
the scene and decided to wait.
The sound of horses’ hoofs came from the direction of the highroad; a
carriage appeared in sight.
There was no escape; although she was ashamed to stay where she was,
it was too late now to run away, for the horses were slowing down and
the carriage stopped a few yards in front of her.
“How beautiful!” exclaimed one of the occupants of the carriage, a
lady, and raised her golden lorgnette so as to get a better view of
the spectacle.
“But why are we stopping?” retorted the other, irritably. “Drive on!”
“Don’t you think it beautiful?” asked the elder lady.
The coachman’s smile was lost in his great beard, as he urged the
horses on.
“You are such a prude, my dear Milly,” said the first voice. “To me
this kind of thing is like a thunderstorm, or a heavy sea....”
Helena could hear no more. She felt crushed with vexation, shame and
horror.
A farm labourer came shuffling along the highroad. Helena ran to meet
him, so as to prevent him from witnessing the scene, and at the same
time ask his help. But he was already too near.
“I believe it’s the miller’s black stallion,” he said gravely. “In
that case it will be better to wait until it’s all over, for he won’t
brook interference. If the lady will leave it to me, I will bring her
mare home later on.”
Glad to have done with the matter, Helena hurried away.
When she arrived home, she was ill.
She refused to ride her mare again, for in her eyes the beast had
become unclean.
This pretty adventure had a greater influence on Helena’s psychic
development than might have been expected. The brutal outbreak of a
natural instinct, the undisguised exhibition of which in the community
of men is punished with a term of imprisonment, haunted her as if she
had been present at an execution. It distressed her during the day and
disturbed her dreams at night. It increased her fear of nature and
made her give up her former amazon’s life. She remained at home and
gave herself up to study.
The house boasted a library. But as misfortune would have it, no
additions had been made since her grandfather’s death. All books were
therefore a generation too old, and Helena found antiquated ideals.
The first book which fell into her hands was Madame de Staël’s _Corinna_
The way in which the volume lay on the shelf indicated that it had
served a special purpose. Bound in green and gold, a little shabby at
the edges, full of marginal notes and underlined passages, the work of
her late mother, it became a bridge, as it were, between mother and
daughter, which enabled the now grown-up daughter to make the
acquaintance of the dead mother. These pencil notes were the story
of a soul. Displeasure with the prose of life and the brutality of
nature, had inflamed the writer’s imagination and inspired it to
construct a dreamworld in which the souls dwelled, disincarnate. It
was essentially an aristocratic world, this dreamworld, for it
required financial independence from its denizens, so that the soul
might be fed with thoughts. This brain-fever, called romance, was
therefore the gospel of the wealthy, and became absurd and pitiful as
soon as it penetrated to the lower classes.
Corinna became Helena’s ideal: the divinely inspired poetess who like
the nun of the middle-ages, had vowed a vow of chastity, so that she
might lead a life of purity, who was, of course, admired by a brilliant
throng, rose to immeasurable heights above the heads of the petty
every-day mortals. It was the old ideal all over again, transposed:
salutes, standing at attention, rolling of drums, the first place
everywhere. Helena was quite ignorant of the fact that Madame de Staël
outlived the Corinna ideal, and did not become a real influence until
she came out of her dreamworld into the world of facts.
She ceased to take an interest in everyday affairs, she communed with
herself and brooded over her ego. The inheritance which her mother had
left her in posthumous notes began to germinate. She identified herself
with both Corinna and her mother, and spent much time in meditating on
her mission in life. That nature had intended her to become a mother
and do her share in the propagation of the human race, she refused to
admit her mission was to explain to humanity what Madame de Staël’s
Corinna had thought fifty years ago; but she imagined the thoughts were
her own, striving to find expression.
She began to write. One day she attempted verse. She succeeded. The
lines were of equal length and the last words rhymed. A great light
dawned on her: she was a poetess. One thing more remained: she wanted
ideas; well she could take them from _Corinna_.
In this way quite a number of poems originated.
But they had also to be bestowed on the world, and this could not be
done unless they were printed. One day she sent a poem entitled
_Sappho_ and signed _Corinna_ to the _Illustrated Newspaper_. With a
beating heart she went out to post the letter herself, and as it
dropped into the pillarbox, she prayed softly to “God.”
A trying fortnight ensued. She ate nothing, hardly closed her eyes,
and spent her days in solitude.
When Saturday came and the paper was delivered, she trembled as if she
were fever-stricken, and when she found that her verses were neither
printed nor mentioned in “Letters to Correspondents,” she almost broke
down.
On the following Saturday, when she could count on an answer with some
certainty, she slipped the paper into her pocket without unfolding it,
and went into the woods. When she had arrived at a secluded spot and
made sure that no one was watching her, she unfolded the paper and
hastily glanced at the contents. One poem only was printed, entitled
_Bellman’s-day_. She turned to “Letters to Correspondents.” Her first
glance at the small print made her start violently. Her fingers
clutched the paper, rolled it into a ball and flung it into the
underwood. Then she stared, fascinated, at the ball of white,
glimmering through the green undergrowth. For the first time in her
life she had received an insult. She was completely unnerved. This
unknown journalist had dared what nobody had dared before: he had been
rude to her. She had come out from behind her trenches into the arena
where high birth counts for nothing, but where victory belongs to that
wonderful natural endowment which we call talent, and before which all
powers bow when it can no longer be denied. But the unknown had also
offended the woman in her, for he had said:
“The Corinna of 1807 would have cooked dinners and rocked cradles if
she had lived after 1870. But you are no Corinna.”
For the first time she had heard the voice of the enemy, the
arch-enemy, man. Cook dinners and rock cradles! They should see!
She went home. She felt so crushed that her muscles hardly obeyed her
relaxed nerves.
When she had gone a little way, she suddenly turned round and retraced
her footsteps. Supposing anybody found that paper! It would give her
away.
She returned to the spot, and breaking off a hazel switch, dragged the
paper out from where it lay and carefully smoothed it. Then she raised
a piece of turf, hid the paper underneath and rolled a stone on the
top. It was a hope that lay buried there, and also a proof--of what?
That she had committed a crime? She felt that she had. She had done a
wrong, she had shown herself naked before the other sex.
From this day on a struggle went on in her heart. Ambition and fear of
publicity strove within her, and she was unable to come to a decision.
In the following autumn her father died. As he had been addicted to
gambling, and more often lost than won, he left debts behind him. But
in smart society these things are of no account. There was no
necessity for Helena to earn her living in a shop, for a hitherto
unknown aunt came forward and offered her a home.
But her father’s death wrought a complete change in her position. No
more salutes; the officers of the regiment nodded to her in a friendly
fashion, the lieutenants asked her to dance. She saw plainly that the
respect shown to her had not been shown to her personally, but merely
to her rank. She felt degraded and a lively sympathy for all subalterns
was born in her; she even felt a sort of hatred for all those who
enjoyed her former privileges. Side by side with this feeling grew up
a yearning for personal appreciation, a desire to win a position
surpassing all others, although it might not figure in the Army list.
She longed to distinguish herself, to win fame, and, (why not?) to
rule. She possessed one talent which she had cultivated to some
extent, although she had never risen above the average; she played the
piano. She began to study harmony and talked of the sonata in G minor
and the symphony in F major as if she had written them herself. And
forthwith she began to patronise musicians.
Six months after her father’s death, the post of a lady-in-waiting was
offered to her. She accepted it. The rolling of drums and military
salutes recommenced, and Helena gradually lost her sympathy with
subalterns. But the mind is as inconstant as fortune, and fresh
experiences again brought about a change of her views.
She discovered one day, and the day was not long in coming, that she
was nothing but a servant. She was sitting in the Park with the
Duchess. The Duchess was crocheting.
“I consider those blue stockings perfectly idiotic,” said the Duchess.
Helena turned pale; she stared at her mistress.
“I don’t,” she replied.
“I didn’t ask your opinion,” replied the Duchess, letting her ball of
wool roll into the dust.
Helena’s knees trembled; her future, her position passed away before
her eyes like a flash of lightning. She went to pick up the wool. It
seemed to her that her back was breaking as she stooped, and her
cheeks flamed when the Duchess took the ball without a word of thanks.
“You are not angry?” asked the Duchess, staring impertinently at her
victim.
“Oh, no, Your Royal Highness,” was Helena’s untruthful reply.
“They say that you are a blue-stocking yourself,” continued the
Duchess. “Is it true?”
Helena had a feeling as if she were standing nude before her tormentor
and made no reply.
For the second time the ball rolled into the dust. Helena pretended
not to notice it, and bit her lips to hold back the angry tears which
were welling up in her eyes. “Pick up my wool, please,” said the
Duchess.
Helena drew herself up, looked the autocrat full in the face and said:
“I won’t.”
And with these words she turned and fled. The sand gritted under her
feet, and little clouds of dust followed in the wake of her train. She
almost ran down the stone steps and disappeared.
Her career at court was ended; but a sting remained. Helena was made
to feel what it means to be in disgrace, and above all things what it
means to throw up one’s post. Society does not approve of changes and
nobody would believe that she had voluntarily renounced the sunshine
of the court. No doubt she had been sent away. Yes, it must be so, she
had been sent away. Never before had she felt so humiliated, so
insulted. It seemed to her that she had lost caste; her relations
treated her with coldness, as if they were afraid that her disgrace
might be infectious; her former friends gave her the cold shoulder
when they met her, and limited their conversation to a minimum.
On the other hand, as she stooped from her former height, the
middle-classes received her with open arms. It was true, at first
their friendliness offended her more than the coldness of her own
class, but in the end she preferred being first down below to being
last up above. She joined a group of Government officials and
professors who hailed her with acclamations. Animated by the
superstitious awe with which the middle classes regard everybody
connected with the court, they at once began to pay her homage. She
became their chosen leader and hastened to form a regiment. A number
of young professors enlisted at once and she arranged lectures for
women. Old academic rubbish was brought out from the lumber-room,
dusted and sold for new wares. In a dining-room, denuded of its
furniture, lectures on Plato and Aristotle were given to an audience
which unfortunately held no key to this shrine of wisdom.
Helena, in conquering these pseudo-mysteries felt the intellectual
superior of the ignorant aristocracy. This feeling gave her an
assurance which impressed people. The men worshipped her beauty and
aloofness; but she never felt in the least moved in their company. She
accepted their homage as a tribute due to women and found it
impossible to respect these lackeys who jumped up and stood at
attention whenever she passed.
But in the long run her position as an unmarried woman failed to
satisfy her, and she noted with envious eyes the freedom enjoyed by
her married sisters. They were at liberty to go wherever they liked,
talk to whom they liked, and always had a footman in their husband to
meet them and accompany them on their way home. In addition, married
women had a better social position, and a great deal more influence.
With what condescension for instance, they treated the spinsters! But
whenever she thought of getting married, the incident with her mare
flashed into her mind and terror made her ill.
In the second year the wife of a professor from Upsala, who combined
with her official position great personal charm, appeared on the
scene. Helena’s star paled; all her worshippers left her to worship
the new sun. As she no longer possessed her former social position,
and the savour of the court had vanished like the scent on a
handkerchief, she was beaten in the fight. One single vassal remained
faithful to her, a lecturer on ethics, who had hitherto not dared to
push himself forward. His attentions were well received, for the
severity of his ethics filled her with unlimited confidence. He wooed
her so assiduously that people began to gossip; Helena, however, took
no notice, she was above that.
One evening, after a lecture on “The Ethical Moment in Conjugal Love”
or “Marriage as a Manifestation of Absolute Identity,” for which the
lecturer received nothing but his expenses and a grateful pressure of
hands, they were sitting in the denuded dining-room on their
uncomfortable cane chairs, discussing the subject.
“You mean to say then,” said Helena, “that marriage is a relationship
of co-existence between two identical Egos?”
“I mean what I said already in my lecture, that only if there exists
such a relationship between two congruous identities, _being_ can
conflow into _becoming_ of higher potentiality.”
“What do you mean by _becoming?_” asked Helena, blushing.
“The post-existence of two egos in a new ego.”
“What? You mean that the continuity of the ego, which through the
cohabitation of two analogous beings will necessarily incorporate
itself into a becoming....”
“No, my dear lady, I only meant to say that marriage, in profane
parlance, can only produce a new spiritual ego, which cannot be
differentiated as to sex, when there is compatibility of souls. I mean
to say that the new being born under those conditions will be a
conglomerate of male and female; a new creature to whom both will have
yielded their personality, a unity in multiplicity, to use a
well-known term, an _‘hommefemme.’_ The man will cease to be man, the
woman will cease to be woman.”
“That is the union of souls!” exclaimed Helena, glad to have
successfullly navigated the dangerous cliffs.
“It is the harmony of souls of which Plato speaks. It is true marriage
as I have sometimes visualised it in my dreams, but which,
unfortunately, I shall hardly be able to realise in actuality.”
Helena stared at the ceiling and whispered:
“Why shouldn’t you, one of the elect, realise this dream?”
“Because she to whom my soul is drawn with irresistible longing does
not believe in--h’m--love.”
“You cannot be sure of that.”
“Even if she did, she would always be tormented by the suspicion that
the feeling was not sincere. Moreover, there is no woman in the world
who would fall in love with me, no, not one.”
“Yes, there is,” said Helena, gazing into his glass eye. (He had a
glass eye, but it was so well made, it was impossible to detect it.)
“Are you sure?”
“Quite sure,” replied Helena. “For you are different to other men. You
realise what spiritual love means, the love of the souls!”
“Even if the woman did exist, I could never marry her.”
“Why not?”
“Share a room with her!”
“That needn’t be the case. Madame de Staël merely lived in the same
house as her husband.”
“Did she?”
“What interesting topic are you two discussing?” asked the professor’s
wife, coming out of the drawing-room.
“We were talking of _Laocoon_,” answered Helena, rising, from her
chair. She was offended by the note of condescension in the lady’s
voice. And she made up her mind.
A week later her engagement to the lecturer was publicly announced.
They decided to be married in the autumn and take up their abode at
Upsala.
A brilliant banquet, in celebration of the close of his bachelor life,
was given to the lecturer on ethics. A great deal of wine had been
consumed and the only artist the town boasted, the professor of
drawing at the Cathedral School, had depicted in bold outlines the
victim’s career up to date. It was the great feature of the whole
entertainment. Ethics was a subject of teaching and a milch cow, like
many others, and need not necessarily influence either the life of the
community, or the life of the individual. The lecturer had not been a
saint, but had had his adventures like everybody else; these were
public property, for he had had no reason to keep them dark. With a
careless smile he watched his career, pictured in chalk and colours,
accompanied by witty verses, unfolding itself before his eyes, but
when at last his approaching bliss was portrayed in simple but
powerful sketches, he became deeply embarrassed, and the thought “If
Helena were to see that!” flashed like lightning through his brain.