I cannot now trace the slow or swift flitting by of phantasmal events,
... wild ghosts of days or weeks that drifted past, and brought me
gradually and finally to a time when I found myself wandering, numb and
stricken and sick at heart, by the shores of a lake in Switzerland,--a
small lake, densely blue, with apparently a thought in its depths such
as is reflected in a child's earnest eye. I gazed down at the clear and
glistening water almost unseeingly,--the snow-peaked mountains
surrounding it were too high for the lifting of my aching
sight,--loftiness, purity, and radiance were unbearable to my mind,
crushed as it was beneath a weight of dismal wreckage and ruin. What a
fool was I ever to have believed that in this world there could be such
a thing as happiness! Misery stared me in the face,--life-long
misery,--and no escape but death. Misery!--it was the word which like a
hellish groan, had been uttered by the three dreadful phantoms that had
once, in an evil vision, disturbed my rest. What had I done, I demanded
indignantly of myself, to deserve this wretchedness which no wealth
could cure?--why was fate so unjust? Like all my kind, I was unable to
discern the small yet strong links of the chain I had myself wrought,
and which bound me to my own undoing,--I blamed fate, or rather
God,--and talked of injustice, merely because _I_ personally suffered,
never realizing that what I considered unjust was but the equitable
measuring forth of that Eternal Law which is carried out with as
mathematical an exactitude as the movement of the planets,
notwithstanding man's pigmy efforts to impede its fulfilment. The light
wind blowing down from the snow peaks above me ruffled the placidity of
the little lake by which I aimlessly strolled,--I watched the tiny
ripples break over its surface like the lines of laughter on a human
face, and wondered morosely whether it was deep enough to drown in! For
what was the use of living on,--knowing what I knew! Knowing that she
whom I had loved, and whom I loved still in a way that was hateful to
myself, was a thing viler and more shameless in character than the
veriest poor drab of the street who sells herself for current
coin,--that the lovely body and angel-face were but an attractive
disguise for the soul of a harpy,--a vulture of vice, ... my God!--an
irrepressible cry escaped me as my thoughts went on and on in the
never-ending circle and problem of incurable, unspeakable despair,--and
I threw myself down on a shelving bank of grass that sloped towards the
lake and covered my face in a paroxysm of tearless agony.
Still inexorable thought worked in my brain, and forced me to consider
my position. Was she,--was Sibyl--more to blame than I myself for all
the strange havoc wrought? I had married her of my own free will and
choice,--and she had told me beforehand--"I am a contaminated creature,
trained to perfection in the lax morals and prurient literature of my
day." Well,--and so it had proved! My own blood burned with shame as I
reflected how ample and convincing were the proofs!--and, starting up
from my recumbent posture I paced up and down again restlessly in a
fever of self-contempt and disgust. What could I do with a woman such as
she to whom I was now bound for life? Reform her? She would laugh me to
scorn for the attempt. Reform myself? She would sneer at me for an
effeminate milksop. Besides, was not I as willing to be degraded as she
was to degrade me?--a very victim to my brute passions? Tortured and
maddened by my feelings I roamed about wildly, and started as if a
pistol-shot had been fired near me when the plash of oars sounded on the
silence and the keel of a small boat grated on the shore, the boatman
within it respectfully begging me in mellifluous French to employ him
for an hour. I assented, and in a minute or two was out on the lake in
the middle of the red glow of sunset which turned the snow-summits to
points of flame, and the waters to the hue of ruby wine. I think the man
who rowed me saw that I was in no very pleasant humour, for he preserved
a discreet silence,--and I, pulling my hat partly over my eyes, lay back
in the stern, still busy with my wretched musings. Only a month
married!--and yet,--a sickening satiety had taken the place of the
so-called 'deathless' lover's passion. There were moments even, when my
wife's matchless physical beauty appeared hideous to me. I knew her as
she was,--and no exterior charm could ever again cover for me the
revolting nature within. And what puzzled me from dawn to dusk was her
polished, specious hypocrisy,--her amazing aptitude for lies! To look at
her,--to hear her speak,--one would have deemed her a very saint of
purity,--a delicate creature whom a coarse word would startle and
offend,--a very incarnation of the sweetest and most gracious
womanhood,--all heart and feeling and sympathy. Everyone thought thus of
her,--and never was there a greater error. Heart she had none; that fact
was borne in upon me two days after our marriage while we were in Paris,
for there a telegram reached us announcing her mother's death. The
paralysed Countess of Elton had, it appeared, expired suddenly on our
wedding-day, or rather our wedding night,--but the Earl had deemed it
best to wait forty-eight hours before interrupting our hymeneal
happiness with the melancholy tidings. He followed his telegram by a
brief letter to his daughter, in which the concluding lines were
these--"As you are a bride and are travelling abroad, I should advise
you by no means to go into mourning. Under the circumstances it is
really not necessary."
And Sibyl had readily accepted his suggestion, keeping generally however
to white and pale mauve colourings in her numerous and wonderful
toilettes, in order not to outrage the proprieties too openly in the
opinions of persons known to her, whom she might possibly meet casually
in the foreign towns we visited. No word of regret passed her lips, and
no tears were shed for her mother's loss. She only said,
"What a good thing her sufferings are over!"