Tales of Unrest

by Joseph Conrad

  THE RETURN

  The inner circle train from the City rushed impetuously out of a blackhole and pulled up with a discordant, grinding racket in the smirchedtwilight of a West-End station. A line of doors flew open and a lot ofmen stepped out headlong. They had high hats, healthy pale faces,dark overcoats and shiny boots; they held in their gloved hands thinumbrellas and hastily folded evening papers that resembled stiff, dirtyrags of greenish, pinkish, or whitish colour. Alvan Hervey stepped outwith the rest, a smouldering cigar between his teeth. A disregardedlittle woman in rusty black, with both arms full of parcels, ran alongin distress, bolted suddenly into a third-class compartment and thetrain went on. The slamming of carriage doors burst out sharp andspiteful like a fusillade; an icy draught mingled with acrid fumes sweptthe whole length of the platform and made a tottering old man, wrappedup to his ears in a woollen comforter, stop short in the moving throngto cough violently over his stick. No one spared him a glance.

  Alvan Hervey passed through the ticket gate. Between the bare walls ofa sordid staircase men clambered rapidly; their backs appearedalike--almost as if they had been wearing a uniform; their indifferentfaces were varied but somehow suggested kinship, like the faces of aband of brothers who through prudence, dignity, disgust, or foresightwould resolutely ignore each other; and their eyes, quick or slow; theireyes gazing up the dusty steps; their eyes brown, black, gray, blue, hadall the same stare, concentrated and empty, satisfied and unthinking.

  Outside the big doorway of the street they scattered in all directions,walking away fast from one another with the hurried air of men fleeingfrom something compromising; from familiarity or confidences; fromsomething suspected and concealed--like truth or pestilence. AlvanHervey hesitated, standing alone in the doorway for a moment; thendecided to walk home.

  He strode firmly. A misty rain settled like silvery dust on clothes,on moustaches; wetted the faces, varnished the flagstones, darkened thewalls, dripped from umbrellas. And he moved on in the rain with carelessserenity, with the tranquil ease of someone successful and disdainful,very sure of himself--a man with lots of money and friends. He was tall,well set-up, good-looking and healthy; and his clear pale face had underits commonplace refinement that slight tinge of overbearingbrutality which is given by the possession of only partly difficultaccomplishments; by excelling in games, or in the art of making money;by the easy mastery over animals and over needy men.

  He was going home much earlier than usual, straight from the City andwithout calling at his club. He considered himself well connected, welleducated and intelligent. Who doesn't? But his connections, educationand intelligence were strictly on a par with those of the men with whomhe did business or amused himself. He had married five years ago. At thetime all his acquaintances had said he was very much in love; and he hadsaid so himself, frankly, because it is very well understood that everyman falls in love once in his life--unless his wife dies, when it maybe quite praiseworthy to fall in love again. The girl was healthy,tall, fair, and in his opinion was well connected, well educated andintelligent. She was also intensely bored with her home where, asif packed in a tight box, her individuality--of which she was veryconscious--had no play. She strode like a grenadier, was strong andupright like an obelisk, had a beautiful face, a candid brow, pure eyes,and not a thought of her own in her head. He surrendered quickly to allthose charms, and she appeared to him so unquestionably of the rightsort that he did not hesitate for a moment to declare himself in love.Under the cover of that sacred and poetical fiction he desired hermasterfully, for various reasons; but principally for the satisfactionof having his own way. He was very dull and solemn about it--for noearthly reason, unless to conceal his feelings--which is an eminentlyproper thing to do. Nobody, however, would have been shocked hadhe neglected that duty, for the feeling he experienced really was alonging--a longing stronger and a little more complex no doubt, but nomore reprehensible in its nature than a hungry man's appetite for hisdinner.

  After their marriage they busied themselves, with marked success, inenlarging the circle of their acquaintance. Thirty people knew themby sight; twenty more with smiling demonstrations tolerated theiroccasional presence within hospitable thresholds; at least fifty othersbecame aware of their existence. They moved in their enlarged worldamongst perfectly delightful men and women who feared emotion,enthusiasm, or failure, more than fire, war, or mortal disease; whotolerated only the commonest formulas of commonest thoughts, andrecognized only profitable facts. It was an extremely charming sphere,the abode of all the virtues, where nothing is realized and whereall joys and sorrows are cautiously toned down into pleasures andannoyances. In that serene region, then, where noble sentiments arecultivated in sufficient profusion to conceal the pitiless materialismof thoughts and aspirations Alvan Hervey and his wife spent five yearsof prudent bliss unclouded by any doubt as to the moral propriety oftheir existence. She, to give her individuality fair play, took up allmanner of philanthropic work and became a member of various rescuing andreforming societies patronized or presided over by ladies of title. Hetook an active interest in politics; and having met quite by chance aliterary man--who nevertheless was related to an earl--he was inducedto finance a moribund society paper. It was a semi-political, and whollyscandalous publication, redeemed by excessive dulness; and as it wasutterly faithless, as it contained no new thought, as it never by anychance had a flash of wit, satire, or indignation in its pages, hejudged it respectable enough, at first sight. Afterwards, when it paid,he promptly perceived that upon the whole it was a virtuous undertaking.It paved the way of his ambition; and he enjoyed also the special kindof importance he derived from this connection with what he imagined tobe literature.

  This connection still further enlarged their world. Men who wrote ordrew prettily for the public came at times to their house, and hiseditor came very often. He thought him rather an ass because he had suchbig front teeth (the proper thing is to have small, even teeth) andwore his hair a trifle longer than most men do. However, some dukes weartheir hair long, and the fellow indubitably knew his business. The worstwas that his gravity, though perfectly portentous, could not be trusted.He sat, elegant and bulky, in the drawing-room, the head of hisstick hovering in front of his big teeth, and talked for hours witha thick-lipped smile (he said nothing that could be consideredobjectionable and not quite the thing) talked in an unusual manner--notobviously irritatingly. His forehead was too lofty--unusually so--andunder it there was a straight nose, lost between the hairless cheeks,that in a smooth curve ran into a chin shaped like the end of asnow-shoe. And in this face that resembled the face of a fat andfiendishly knowing baby there glittered a pair of clever, peering,unbelieving black eyes. He wrote verses too. Rather an ass. But the bandof men who trailed at the skirts of his monumental frock-coat seemed toperceive wonderful things in what he said. Alvan Hervey put it downto affectation. Those artist chaps, upon the whole, were so affected.Still, all this was highly proper--very useful to him--and his wifeseemed to like it--as if she also had derived some distinct and secretadvantage from this intellectual connection. She received her mixed anddecorous guests with a kind of tall, ponderous grace, peculiarly her ownand which awakened in the mind of intimidated strangers incongruous andimproper reminiscences of an elephant, a giraffe, a gazelle; of a gothictower--of an overgrown angel. Her Thursdays were becoming famous intheir world; and their world grew steadily, annexing street afterstreet. It included also Somebody's Gardens, a Crescent--a couple ofSquares.

  Thus Alvan Hervey and his wife for five prosperous years lived by theside of one another. In time they came to know each other sufficientlywell for all the practical purposes of such an existence, but they wereno more capable of real intimacy than two animals feeding at the samemanger, under the same roof, in a luxurious stable. His longing wasappeased and became a habit; and she had her desire--the desire to getaway from under the paternal roof, to assert her individuality, to movein her own set (so much smarter than the parental one); to have a
home of her own, and her own share of the world's respect, envy, andapplause. They understood each other warily, tacitly, like a pair ofcautious conspirators in a profitable plot; because they were bothunable to look at a fact, a sentiment, a principle, or a beliefotherwise than in the light of their own dignity, of their ownglorification, of their own advantage. They skimmed over the surfaceof life hand in hand, in a pure and frosty atmosphere--like twoskilful skaters cutting figures on thick ice for the admiration ofthe beholders, and disdainfully ignoring the hidden stream, the streamrestless and dark; the stream of life, profound and unfrozen.

  Alvan Hervey turned twice to the left, once to the right, walked alongtwo sides of a square, in the middle of which groups of tame-lookingtrees stood in respectable captivity behind iron railings, and rang athis door. A parlour-maid opened. A fad of his wife's, this, to have onlywomen servants. That girl, while she took his hat and overcoat, saidsomething which made him look at his watch. It was five o'clock, and hiswife not at home. There was nothing unusual in that. He said, "No; notea," and went upstairs.

  He ascended without footfalls. Brass rods glimmered all up the redcarpet. On the first-floor landing a marble woman, decently covered fromneck to instep with stone draperies, advanced a row of lifeless toesto the edge of the pedestal, and thrust out blindly a rigid white armholding a cluster of lights. He had artistic tastes--at home. Heavycurtains caught back, half concealed dark corners. On the rich, stampedpaper of the walls hung sketches, water-colours, engravings. His tasteswere distinctly artistic. Old church towers peeped above green massesof foliage; the hills were purple, the sands yellow, the seas sunny, theskies blue. A young lady sprawled with dreamy eyes in a moored boat, incompany of a lunch basket, a champagne bottle, and an enamoured man ina blazer. Bare-legged boys flirted sweetly with ragged maidens, slepton stone steps, gambolled with dogs. A pathetically lean girl flattenedagainst a blank wall, turned up expiring eyes and tendered a flower forsale; while, near by, the large photographs of some famous and mutilatedbas-reliefs seemed to represent a massacre turned into stone.

  He looked, of course, at nothing, ascended another flight of stairs andwent straight into the dressing room. A bronze dragon nailed by the tailto a bracket writhed away from the wall in calm convolutions, andheld, between the conventional fury of its jaws, a crude gas flame thatresembled a butterfly. The room was empty, of course; but, as he steppedin, it became filled all at once with a stir of many people; becausethe strips of glass on the doors of wardrobes and his wife's largepier-glass reflected him from head to foot, and multiplied his imageinto a crowd of gentlemanly and slavish imitators, who were dressedexactly like himself; had the same restrained and rare gestures; whomoved when he moved, stood still with him in an obsequious immobility,and had just such appearances of life and feeling as he thought itdignified and safe for any man to manifest. And like real people who areslaves of common thoughts, that are not even their own, they affected ashadowy independence by the superficial variety of their movements. Theymoved together with him; but they either advanced to meet him, or walkedaway from him; they appeared, disappeared; they seemed to dodge behindwalnut furniture, to be seen again, far within the polished panes,stepping about distinct and unreal in the convincing illusion of aroom. And like the men he respected they could be trusted to do nothingindividual, original, or startling--nothing unforeseen and nothingimproper.

  He moved for a time aimlessly in that good company, humming a popularbut refined tune, and thinking vaguely of a business letter from abroad,which had to be answered on the morrow with cautious prevarication.Then, as he walked towards a wardrobe, he saw appearing at his back, inthe high mirror, the corner of his wife's dressing-table, and amongstthe glitter of silver-mounted objects on it, the square white patch ofan envelope. It was such an unusual thing to be seen there that he spunround almost before he realized his surprise; and all the sham menabout him pivoted on their heels; all appeared surprised; and all movedrapidly towards envelopes on dressing-tables.

  He recognized his wife's handwriting and saw that the envelope wasaddressed to himself. He muttered, "How very odd," and felt annoyed.Apart from any odd action being essentially an indecent thing in itself,the fact of his wife indulging in it made it doubly offensive. That sheshould write to him at all, when she knew he would be home for dinner,was perfectly ridiculous; but that she should leave it like this--inevidence for chance discovery--struck him as so outrageous that,thinking of it, he experienced suddenly a staggering sense ofinsecurity, an absurd and bizarre flash of a notion that the house hadmoved a little under his feet. He tore the envelope open, glanced at theletter, and sat down in a chair near by.

  He held the paper before his eyes and looked at half a dozen linesscrawled on the page, while he was stunned by a noise meaninglessand violent, like the clash of gongs or the beating of drums; a greataimless uproar that, in a manner, prevented him from hearing himselfthink and made his mind an absolute blank. This absurd and distractingtumult seemed to ooze out of the written words, to issue from betweenhis very fingers that trembled, holding the paper. And suddenly hedropped the letter as though it had been something hot, or venomous, orfilthy; and rushing to the window with the unreflecting precipitationof a man anxious to raise an alarm of fire or murder, he threw it up andput his head out.

  A chill gust of wind, wandering through the damp and sooty obscurityover the waste of roofs and chimney-pots, touched his face with a clammyflick. He saw an illimitable darkness, in which stood a black jumble ofwalls, and, between them, the many rows of gaslights stretched far awayin long lines, like strung-up beads of fire. A sinister loom as of ahidden conflagration lit up faintly from below the mist, falling upona billowy and motionless sea of tiles and bricks. At the rattle of theopened window the world seemed to leap out of the night and confronthim, while floating up to his ears there came a sound vast and faint;the deep mutter of something immense and alive. It penetrated him witha feeling of dismay and he gasped silently. From the cab-stand in thesquare came distinct hoarse voices and a jeering laugh which soundedominously harsh and cruel. It sounded threatening. He drew his head in,as if before an aimed blow, and flung the window down quickly. He madea few steps, stumbled against a chair, and with a great effort, pulledhimself together to lay hold of a certain thought that was whizzingabout loose in his head.

  He got it at last, after more exertion than he expected; he was flushedand puffed a little as though he had been catching it with his hands,but his mental hold on it was weak, so weak that he judged it necessaryto repeat it aloud--to hear it spoken firmly--in order to insure aperfect measure of possession. But he was unwilling to hear his ownvoice--to hear any sound whatever--owing to a vague belief, shapingitself slowly within him, that solitude and silence are the greatestfelicities of mankind. The next moment it dawned upon him that they areperfectly unattainable--that faces must be seen, words spoken, thoughtsheard. All the words--all the thoughts!

  He said very distinctly, and looking at the carpet, "She's gone."

  It was terrible--not the fact but the words; the words charged with theshadowy might of a meaning, that seemed to possess the tremendous powerto call Fate down upon the earth, like those strange and appalling wordsthat sometimes are heard in sleep. They vibrated round him in a metallicatmosphere, in a space that had the hardness of iron and the resonanceof a bell of bronze. Looking down between the toes of his boots heseemed to listen thoughtfully to the receding wave of sound; to thewave spreading out in a widening circle, embracing streets, roofs,church-steeples, fields--and travelling away, widening endlessly,far, very far, where he could not hear--where he could not imagineanything--where . . .

  "And--with that . . . ass," he said again without stirring in the least.And there was nothing but humiliation. Nothing else. He could derive nomoral solace from any aspect of the situation, which radiated pain onlyon every side. Pain. What kind of pain? It occurred to him that he oughtto be heart-broken; but in an exceedingly short moment he perceived thathis suffering was nothi
ng of so trifling and dignified a kind. It wasaltogether a more serious matter, and partook rather of the natureof those subtle and cruel feelings which are awakened by a kick or ahorse-whipping.

  He felt very sick--physically sick--as though he had bitten throughsomething nauseous. Life, that to a well-ordered mind should be amatter of congratulation, appeared to him, for a second or so, perfectlyintolerable. He picked up the paper at his feet, and sat down with thewish to think it out, to understand why his wife--his wife!--shouldleave him, should throw away respect, comfort, peace, decency, positionthrow away everything for nothing! He set himself to think out thehidden logic of her action--a mental undertaking fit for the leisurehours of a madhouse, though he couldn't see it. And he thought of hiswife in every relation except the only fundamental one. He thoughtof her as a well-bred girl, as a wife, as a cultured person, as themistress of a house, as a lady; but he never for a moment thought of hersimply as a woman.

  Then a fresh wave, a raging wave of humiliation, swept through his mind,and left nothing there but a personal sense of undeserved abasement. Whyshould he be mixed up with such a horrid exposure! It annihilated allthe advantages of his well-ordered past, by a truth effective and unjustlike a calumny--and the past was wasted. Its failure was disclosed--adistinct failure, on his part, to see, to guard, to understand. It couldnot be denied; it could not be explained away, hustled out of sight. Hecould not sit on it and look solemn. Now--if she had only died!

  If she had only died! He was driven to envy such a respectablebereavement, and one so perfectly free from any taint of misfortune thateven his best friend or his best enemy would not have felt the slightestthrill of exultation. No one would have cared. He sought comfort inclinging to the contemplation of the only fact of life that the resoluteefforts of mankind had never failed to disguise in the clatter andglamour of phrases. And nothing lends itself more to lies than death.If she had only died! Certain words would have been said to him in asad tone, and he, with proper fortitude, would have made appropriateanswers. There were precedents for such an occasion. And no one wouldhave cared. If she had only died! The promises, the terrors, the hopesof eternity, are the concern of the corrupt dead; but the obvioussweetness of life belongs to living, healthy men. And life was hisconcern: that sane and gratifying existence untroubled by too much loveor by too much regret. She had interfered with it; she had defaced it.And suddenly it occurred to him he must have been mad to marry. It wastoo much in the nature of giving yourself away, of wearing--if fora moment--your heart on your sleeve. But every one married. Was allmankind mad!

  In the shock of that startling thought he looked up, and saw to theleft, to the right, in front, men sitting far off in chairs and lookingat him with wild eyes--emissaries of a distracted mankind intruding tospy upon his pain and his humiliation. It was not to be borne. He rosequickly, and the others jumped up, too, on all sides. He stood still inthe middle of the room as if discouraged by their vigilance. No escape!He felt something akin to despair. Everybody must know. The servantsmust know to-night. He ground his teeth . . . And he had never noticed,never guessed anything. Every one will know. He thought: "The woman's amonster, but everybody will think me a fool"; and standing still in themidst of severe walnut-wood furniture, he felt such a tempest of anguishwithin him that he seemed to see himself rolling on the carpet, beatinghis head against the wall. He was disgusted with himself, with theloathsome rush of emotion breaking through all the reserves that guardedhis manhood. Something unknown, withering and poisonous, had enteredhis life, passed near him, touched him, and he was deteriorating. He wasappalled. What was it? She was gone. Why? His head was ready to burstwith the endeavour to understand her act and his subtle horror of it.Everything was changed. Why? Only a woman gone, after all; and yet hehad a vision, a vision quick and distinct as a dream: the vision ofeverything he had thought indestructible and safe in the world crashingdown about him, like solid walls do before the fierce breath ofa hurricane. He stared, shaking in every limb, while he felt thedestructive breath, the mysterious breath, the breath of passion, stirthe profound peace of the house. He looked round in fear. Yes. Crime maybe forgiven; uncalculating sacrifice, blind trust, burning faith, otherfollies, may be turned to account; suffering, death itself, may with agrin or a frown be explained away; but passion is the unpardonable andsecret infamy of our hearts, a thing to curse, to hide and to deny; ashameless and forlorn thing that tramples upon the smiling promises,that tears off the placid mask, that strips the body of life. And it hadcome to him! It had laid its unclean hand upon the spotless draperiesof his existence, and he had to face it alone with all the world lookingon. All the world! And he thought that even the bare suspicion ofsuch an adversary within his house carried with it a taint and acondemnation. He put both his hands out as if to ward off the reproachof a defiling truth; and, instantly, the appalled conclave of unrealmen, standing about mutely beyond the clear lustre of mirrors, made athim the same gesture of rejection and horror.

  He glanced vainly here and there, like a man looking in desperationfor a weapon or for a hiding place, and understood at last that he wasdisarmed and cornered by the enemy that, without any squeamishness,would strike so as to lay open his heart. He could get help nowhere,or even take counsel with himself, because in the sudden shock of herdesertion the sentiments which he knew that in fidelity to his bringingup, to his prejudices and his surroundings, he ought to experience, wereso mixed up with the novelty of real feelings, of fundamental feelingsthat know nothing of creed, class, or education, that he was unable todistinguish clearly between what is and what ought to be; between theinexcusable truth and the valid pretences. And he knew instinctivelythat truth would be of no use to him. Some kind of concealment seemed anecessity because one cannot explain. Of course not! Who would listen?One had simply to be without stain and without reproach to keep one'splace in the forefront of life.

  He said to himself, "I must get over it the best I can," and began towalk up and down the room. What next? What ought to be done? He thought:"I will travel--no I won't. I shall face it out." And after that resolvehe was greatly cheered by the reflection that it would be a mute and aneasy part to play, for no one would be likely to converse with him aboutthe abominable conduct of--that woman. He argued to himself thatdecent people--and he knew no others--did not care to talk about suchindelicate affairs. She had gone off--with that unhealthy, fat ass of ajournalist. Why? He had been all a husband ought to be. He had given hera good position--she shared his prospects--he had treated her invariablywith great consideration. He reviewed his conduct with a kind of dismalpride. It had been irreproachable. Then, why? For love? Profanation!There could be no love there. A shameful impulse of passion. Yes,passion. His own wife! Good God! . . . And the indelicate aspect of hisdomestic misfortune struck him with such shame that, next moment, hecaught himself in the act of pondering absurdly over the notion whetherit would not be more dignified for him to induce a general belief thathe had been in the habit of beating his wife. Some fellows do . . . andanything would be better than the filthy fact; for it was clear hehad lived with the root of it for five years--and it was too shameful.Anything! Anything! Brutality . . . But he gave it up directly, andbegan to think of the Divorce Court. It did not present itself to him,notwithstanding his respect for law and usage, as a proper refuge fordignified grief. It appeared rather as an unclean and sinister cavernwhere men and women are haled by adverse fate to writhe ridiculouslyin the presence of uncompromising truth. It should not be allowed. Thatwoman! Five . . . years . . . married five years . . . and never to seeanything. Not to the very last day . . . not till she coolly went off.And he pictured to himself all the people he knew engaged in speculatingas to whether all that time he had been blind, foolish, or infatuated.What a woman! Blind! . . . Not at all. Could a clean-minded man imaginesuch depravity? Evidently not. He drew a free breath. That was theattitude to take; it was dignified enough; it gave him the advantage,and he could not help perceiving that it was moral. He yearnedunaf
fectedly to see morality (in his person) triumphant before theworld. As to her she would be forgotten. Let her be forgotten--buried inoblivion--lost! No one would allude . . . Refined people--and every manand woman he knew could be so described--had, of course, a horror ofsuch topics. Had they? Oh, yes. No one would allude to her . . . in hishearing. He stamped his foot, tore the letter across, then again andagain. The thought of sympathizing friends excited in him a furyof mistrust. He flung down the small bits of paper. They settled,fluttering at his feet, and looked very white on the dark carpet, like ascattered handful of snow-flakes.

  This fit of hot anger was succeeded by a sudden sadness, by thedarkening passage of a thought that ran over the scorched surface of hisheart, like upon a barren plain, and after a fiercer assault of sunrays,the melancholy and cooling shadow of a cloud. He realized that he hadhad a shock--not a violent or rending blow, that can be seen, resisted,returned, forgotten, but a thrust, insidious and penetrating, that hadstirred all those feelings, concealed and cruel, which the arts of thedevil, the fears of mankind--God's infinite compassion, perhaps--keepchained deep down in the inscrutable twilight of our breasts. A darkcurtain seemed to rise before him, and for less than a second he lookedupon the mysterious universe of moral suffering. As a landscape is seencomplete, and vast, and vivid, under a flash of lightning, so hecould see disclosed in a moment all the immensity of pain that can becontained in one short moment of human thought. Then the curtain fellagain, but his rapid vision left in Alvan Hervey's mind a trail ofinvincible sadness, a sense of loss and bitter solitude, as though hehad been robbed and exiled. For a moment he ceased to be a member ofsociety with a position, a career, and a name attached to all this, likea descriptive label of some complicated compound. He was a simple humanbeing removed from the delightful world of crescents and squares. Hestood alone, naked and afraid, like the first man on the first day ofevil. There are in life events, contacts, glimpses, that seem brutallyto bring all the past to a close. There is a shock and a crash, as ofa gate flung to behind one by the perfidious hand of fate. Go and seekanother paradise, fool or sage. There is a moment of dumb dismay, andthe wanderings must begin again; the painful explaining away of facts,the feverish raking up of illusions, the cultivation of a fresh cropof lies in the sweat of one's brow, to sustain life, to make itsupportable, to make it fair, so as to hand intact to another generationof blind wanderers the charming legend of a heartless country, of apromised land, all flowers and blessings . . .

  He came to himself with a slight start, and became aware of anoppressive, crushing desolation. It was only a feeling, it is true,but it produced on him a physical effect, as though his chest hadbeen squeezed in a vice. He perceived himself so extremely forlornand lamentable, and was moved so deeply by the oppressive sorrow, thatanother turn of the screw, he felt, would bring tears out of his eyes.He was deteriorating. Five years of life in common had appeased hislonging. Yes, long-time ago. The first five months did that--but . . .There was the habit--the habit of her person, of her smile, of hergestures, of her voice, of her silence. She had a pure brow andgood hair. How utterly wretched all this was. Good hair and fineeyes--remarkably fine. He was surprised by the number of details thatintruded upon his unwilling memory. He could not help remembering herfootsteps, the rustle of her dress, her way of holding her head, herdecisive manner of saying "Alvan," the quiver of her nostrils when shewas annoyed. All that had been so much his property, so intimately andspecially his! He raged in a mournful, silent way, as he took stockof his losses. He was like a man counting the cost of an unluckyspeculation--irritated, depressed--exasperated with himself and withothers, with the fortunate, with the indifferent, with the callous; yetthe wrong done him appeared so cruel that he would perhaps have droppeda tear over that spoliation if it had not been for his convictionthat men do not weep. Foreigners do; they also kill sometimes in suchcircumstances. And to his horror he felt himself driven to regret almostthat the usages of a society ready to forgive the shooting of a burglarforbade him, under the circumstances, even as much as a thought ofmurder. Nevertheless, he clenched his fists and set his teeth hard.And he was afraid at the same time. He was afraid with that penetratingfaltering fear that seems, in the very middle of a beat, to turn one'sheart into a handful of dust. The contamination of her crime spread out,tainted the universe, tainted himself; woke up all the dormant infamiesof the world; caused a ghastly kind of clairvoyance in which he couldsee the towns and fields of the earth, its sacred places, its templesand its houses, peopled by monsters--by monsters of duplicity, lust, andmurder. She was a monster--he himself was thinking monstrous thoughts. . . and yet he was like other people. How many men and women at thisvery moment were plunged in abominations--meditated crimes. It wasfrightful to think of. He remembered all the streets--the well-to-dostreets he had passed on his way home; all the innumerable houses withclosed doors and curtained windows. Each seemed now an abode of anguishand folly. And his thought, as if appalled, stood still, recalling withdismay the decorous and frightful silence that was like a conspiracy;the grim, impenetrable silence of miles of walls concealing passions,misery, thoughts of crime. Surely he was not the only man; his was notthe only house . . . and yet no one knew--no one guessed. But he knew.He knew with unerring certitude that could not be deceived by thecorrect silence of walls, of closed doors, of curtained windows. He wasbeside himself with a despairing agitation, like a man informed ofa deadly secret--the secret of a calamity threatening the safety ofmankind--the sacredness, the peace of life.

  He caught sight of himself in one of the looking-glasses. It was arelief. The anguish of his feeling had been so powerful that he morethan half expected to see some distorted wild face there, and he waspleasantly surprised to see nothing of the kind. His aspect, at anyrate, would let no one into the secret of his pain. He examined himselfwith attention. His trousers were turned up, and his boots a littlemuddy, but he looked very much as usual. Only his hair was slightlyruffled, and that disorder, somehow, was so suggestive of troublethat he went quickly to the table, and began to use the brushes, in ananxious desire to obliterate the compromising trace, that only vestigeof his emotion. He brushed with care, watching the effect of hissmoothing; and another face, slightly pale and more tense than wasperhaps desirable, peered back at him from the toilet glass. He laid thebrushes down, and was not satisfied. He took them up again and brushed,brushed mechanically--forgot himself in that occupation. The tumult ofhis thoughts ended in a sluggish flow of reflection, such as, after theoutburst of a volcano, the almost imperceptible progress of a streamof lava, creeping languidly over a convulsed land and pitilesslyobliterating any landmark left by the shock of the earthquake. It isa destructive but, by comparison, it is a peaceful phenomenon. AlvanHervey was almost soothed by the deliberate pace of his thoughts. Hismoral landmarks were going one by one, consumed in the fire of hisexperience, buried in hot mud, in ashes. He was cooling--on the surface;but there was enough heat left somewhere to make him slap the brushes onthe table, and turning away, say in a fierce whisper: "I wish him joy. . . Damn the woman."

  He felt himself utterly corrupted by her wickedness, and the mostsignificant symptom of his moral downfall was the bitter, acridsatisfaction with which he recognized it. He, deliberately, swore in histhoughts; he meditated sneers; he shaped in profound silence words ofcynical unbelief, and his most cherished convictions stood revealedfinally as the narrow prejudices of fools. A crowd of shapeless, uncleanthoughts crossed his mind in a stealthy rush, like a band of veiledmalefactors hastening to a crime. He put his hands deep into hispockets. He heard a faint ringing somewhere, and muttered to himself:"I am not the only one . . . not the only one." There was another ring.Front door!

  His heart leaped up into his throat, and forthwith descended as low ashis boots. A call! Who? Why? He wanted to rush out on the landing andshout to the servant: "Not at home! Gone away abroad!" . . . Any excuse.He could not face a visitor. Not this evening. No. To-morrow. . . .Before he could break out of the numbness th
at enveloped him like asheet of lead, he heard far below, as if in the entrails of the earth,a door close heavily. The house vibrated to it more than to a clap ofthunder. He stood still, wishing himself invisible. The room was verychilly. He did not think he would ever feel like that. But people mustbe met--they must be faced--talked to--smiled at. He heard another door,much nearer--the door of the drawing-room--being opened and flung toagain. He imagined for a moment he would faint. How absurd! That kindof thing had to be gone through. A voice spoke. He could not catch thewords. Then the voice spoke again, and footsteps were heard on thefirst floor landing. Hang it all! Was he to hear that voice and thosefootsteps whenever any one spoke or moved? He thought: "This is likebeing haunted--I suppose it will last for a week or so, at least. TillI forget. Forget! Forget!" Someone was coming up the second flight ofstairs. Servant? He listened, then, suddenly, as though an incredible,frightful revelation had been shouted to him from a distance, hebellowed out in the empty room: "What! What!" in such a fiendish toneas to astonish himself. The footsteps stopped outside the door. He stoodopenmouthed, maddened and still, as if in the midst of a catastrophe.The door-handle rattled lightly. It seemed to him that the walls werecoming apart, that the furniture swayed at him; the ceiling slantedqueerly for a moment, a tall wardrobe tried to topple over. He caughthold of something and it was the back of a chair. So he had reeledagainst a chair! Oh! Confound it! He gripped hard.

  The flaming butterfly poised between the jaws of the bronze dragonradiated a glare, a glare that seemed to leap up all at once into acrude, blinding fierceness, and made it difficult for him to distinguishplainly the figure of his wife standing upright with her back to theclosed door. He looked at her and could not detect her breathing. Theharsh and violent light was beating on her, and he was amazed to see herpreserve so well the composure of her upright attitude in that scorchingbrilliance which, to his eyes, enveloped her like a hot and consumingmist. He would not have been surprised if she had vanished in it assuddenly as she had appeared. He stared and listened; listened for somesound, but the silence round him was absolute--as though he had ina moment grown completely deaf as well as dim-eyed. Then his hearingreturned, preternaturally sharp. He heard the patter of a rain-shower onthe window panes behind the lowered blinds, and below, far below, inthe artificial abyss of the square, the deadened roll of wheels and thesplashy trotting of a horse. He heard a groan also--very distinct--inthe room--close to his ear.

  He thought with alarm: "I must have made that noise myself;" and at thesame instant the woman left the door, stepped firmly across the floorbefore him, and sat down in a chair. He knew that step. There was nodoubt about it. She had come back! And he very nearly said aloud"Of course!"--such was his sudden and masterful perception of theindestructible character of her being. Nothing could destroy her--andnothing but his own destruction could keep her away. She was theincarnation of all the short moments which every man spares out of hislife for dreams, for precious dreams that concrete the most cherished,the most profitable of his illusions. He peered at her with inwardtrepidation. She was mysterious, significant, full of obscure meaning--like a symbol. He peered, bending forward, as though he had beendiscovering about her things he had never seen before. Unconsciouslyhe made a step towards her--then another. He saw her arm make an ample,decided movement and he stopped. She had lifted her veil. It was likethe lifting of a vizor.

  The spell was broken. He experienced a shock as though he had beencalled out of a trance by the sudden noise of an explosion. It was evenmore startling and more distinct; it was an infinitely more intimatechange, for he had the sensation of having come into this room only thatvery moment; of having returned from very far; he was made aware thatsome essential part of himself had in a flash returned into hisbody, returned finally from a fierce and lamentable region, from thedwelling-place of unveiled hearts. He woke up to an amazing infinity ofcontempt, to a droll bitterness of wonder, to a disenchanted convictionof safety. He had a glimpse of the irresistible force, and he saw alsothe barrenness of his convictions--of her convictions. It seemed to himthat he could never make a mistake as long as he lived. It was morallyimpossible to go wrong. He was not elated by that certitude; he wasdimly uneasy about its price; there was a chill as of death in thistriumph of sound principles, in this victory snatched under the veryshadow of disaster.

  The last trace of his previous state of mind vanished, as theinstantaneous and elusive trail of a bursting meteor vanishes on theprofound blackness of the sky; it was the faint flicker of a painfulthought, gone as soon as perceived, that nothing but her presence--afterall--had the power to recall him to himself. He stared at her. She satwith her hands on her lap, looking down; and he noticed that her bootswere dirty, her skirts wet and splashed, as though she had been drivenback there by a blind fear through a waste of mud. He was indignant,amazed and shocked, but in a natural, healthy way now; so that hecould control those unprofitable sentiments by the dictates of cautiousself-restraint. The light in the room had no unusual brilliance now; itwas a good light in which he could easily observe the expression of herface. It was that of dull fatigue. And the silence that surrounded themwas the normal silence of any quiet house, hardly disturbed by the faintnoises of a respectable quarter of the town. He was very cool--and itwas quite coolly that he thought how much better it would be if neitherof them ever spoke again. She sat with closed lips, with an air oflassitude in the stony forgetfulness of her pose, but after a moment shelifted her drooping eyelids and met his tense and inquisitive stare bya look that had all the formless eloquence of a cry. It penetrated, itstirred without informing; it was the very essence of anguish strippedof words that can be smiled at, argued away, shouted down, disdained.It was anguish naked and unashamed, the bare pain of existence let looseupon the world in the fleeting unreserve of a look that had in it animmensity of fatigue, the scornful sincerity, the black impudence of anextorted confession. Alvan Hervey was seized with wonder, as though hehad seen something inconceivable; and some obscure part of his beingwas ready to exclaim with him: "I would never have believed it!" butan instantaneous revulsion of wounded susceptibilities checked theunfinished thought.

  He felt full of rancorous indignation against the woman who could looklike this at one. This look probed him; it tampered with him. It wasdangerous to one as would be a hint of unbelief whispered by a priest inthe august decorum of a temple; and at the same time it was impure,it was disturbing, like a cynical consolation muttered in the dark,tainting the sorrow, corroding the thought, poisoning the heart. Hewanted to ask her furiously: "Who do you take me for? How dare you lookat me like this?" He felt himself helpless before the hidden meaning ofthat look; he resented it with pained and futile violence as an injuryso secret that it could never, never be redressed. His wish was to crushher by a single sentence. He was stainless. Opinion was on his side;morality, men and gods were on his side; law, conscience--all the world!She had nothing but that look. And he could only say:

  "How long do you intend to stay here?"

  Her eyes did not waver, her lips remained closed; and for any effectof his words he might have spoken to a dead woman, only that this onebreathed quickly. He was profoundly disappointed by what he had said.It was a great deception, something in the nature of treason. He haddeceived himself. It should have been altogether different--otherwords--another sensation. And before his eyes, so fixed that at timesthey saw nothing, she sat apparently as unconscious as though she hadbeen alone, sending that look of brazen confession straight at him--withan air of staring into empty space. He said significantly:

  "Must I go then?" And he knew he meant nothing of what he implied.

  One of her hands on her lap moved slightly as though his words hadfallen there and she had thrown them off on the floor. But her silenceencouraged him. Possibly it meant remorse--perhaps fear. Was shethunderstruck by his attitude? . . . Her eyelids dropped. He seemed tounderstand ever so much--everything! Very well--but she must be made tosuffer. It was due to him. He understoo
d everything, yet he judged itindispensable to say with an obvious affectation of civility:

  "I don't understand--be so good as to . . ."

  She stood up. For a second he believed she intended to go away, andit was as though someone had jerked a string attached to his heart. Ithurt. He remained open-mouthed and silent. But she made an irresolutestep towards him, and instinctively he moved aside. They stood beforeone another, and the fragments of the torn letter lay between them--attheir feet--like an insurmountable obstacle, like a sign of eternalseparation! Around them three other couples stood still and face toface, as if waiting for a signal to begin some action--a struggle, adispute, or a dance.

  She said: "Don't--Alvan!" and there was something that resembled awarning in the pain of her tone. He narrowed his eyes as if trying topierce her with his gaze. Her voice touched him. He had aspirationsafter magnanimity, generosity, superiority--interrupted, however, byflashes of indignation and anxiety--frightful anxiety to know how farshe had gone. She looked down at the torn paper. Then she looked up, andtheir eyes met again, remained fastened together, like an unbreakablebond, like a clasp of eternal complicity; and the decorous silence, thepervading quietude of the house which enveloped this meeting of theirglances became for a moment inexpressibly vile, for he was afraid shewould say too much and make magnanimity impossible, while behind theprofound mournfulness of her face there was a regret--a regret of thingsdone--the regret of delay--the thought that if she had only turned backa week sooner--a day sooner--only an hour sooner. . . . They were afraidto hear again the sound of their voices; they did not know what theymight say--perhaps something that could not be recalled; and words aremore terrible than facts. But the tricky fatality that lurks in obscureimpulses spoke through Alvan Hervey's lips suddenly; and he heardhis own voice with the excited and sceptical curiosity with which onelistens to actors' voices speaking on the stage in the strain of apoignant situation.

  "If you have forgotten anything . . . of course . . . I . . ."

  Her eyes blazed at him for an instant; her lips trembled--and then shealso became the mouth-piece of the mysterious force forever hoveringnear us; of that perverse inspiration, wandering capricious anduncontrollable, like a gust of wind.

  "What is the good of this, Alvan? . . . You know why I came back. . . .You know that I could not . . ."

  He interrupted her with irritation.

  "Then! what's this?" he asked, pointing downwards at the torn letter.

  "That's a mistake," she said hurriedly, in a muffled voice.

  This answer amazed him. He remained speechless, staring at her. He hadhalf a mind to burst into a laugh. It ended in a smile as involuntary asa grimace of pain.

  "A mistake . . ." he began, slowly, and then found himself unable to sayanother word.

  "Yes . . . it was honest," she said very low, as if speaking to thememory of a feeling in a remote past.

  He exploded.

  "Curse your honesty! . . . Is there any honesty in all this! . . . Whendid you begin to be honest? Why are you here? What are you now? . . .Still honest? . . ."

  He walked at her, raging, as if blind; during these three quick strideshe lost touch of the material world and was whirled interminably througha kind of empty universe made up of nothing but fury and anguish, tillhe came suddenly upon her face--very close to his. He stopped short, andall at once seemed to remember something heard ages ago.

  "You don't know the meaning of the word," he shouted.

  She did not flinch. He perceived with fear that everything around himwas still. She did not move a hair's breadth; his own body did not stir.An imperturbable calm enveloped their two motionless figures, the house,the town, all the world--and the trifling tempest of his feelings. Theviolence of the short tumult within him had been such as could well haveshattered all creation; and yet nothing was changed. He faced his wifein the familiar room in his own house. It had not fallen. And right andleft all the innumerable dwellings, standing shoulder to shoulder,had resisted the shock of his passion, had presented, unmoved, to theloneliness of his trouble, the grim silence of walls, the impenetrableand polished discretion of closed doors and curtained windows.Immobility and silence pressed on him, assailed him, like twoaccomplices of the immovable and mute woman before his eyes. He wassuddenly vanquished. He was shown his impotence. He was soothed by thebreath of a corrupt resignation coming to him through the subtle ironyof the surrounding peace.

  He said with villainous composure:

  "At any rate it isn't enough for me. I want to know more--if you'regoing to stay."

  "There is nothing more to tell," she answered, sadly.

  It struck him as so very true that he did not say anything. She went on:

  "You wouldn't understand. . . ."

  "No?" he said, quietly. He held himself tight not to burst into howlsand imprecations.

  "I tried to be faithful . . ." she began again.

  "And this?" he exclaimed, pointing at the fragments of her letter.

  "This--this is a failure," she said.

  "I should think so," he muttered, bitterly.

  "I tried to be faithful to myself--Alvan--and . . . and honest toyou. . . ."

  "If you had tried to be faithful to me it would have been more to thepurpose," he interrupted, angrily. "I've been faithful to you and youhave spoiled my life--both our lives . . ." Then after a pause theunconquerable preoccupation of self came out, and he raised his voice toask resentfully, "And, pray, for how long have you been making a fool ofme?"

  She seemed horribly shocked by that question. He did not wait for ananswer, but went on moving about all the time; now and then coming up toher, then wandering off restlessly to the other end of the room.

  "I want to know. Everybody knows, I suppose, but myself--and that's yourhonesty!"

  "I have told you there is nothing to know," she said, speakingunsteadily as if in pain. "Nothing of what you suppose. You don'tunderstand me. This letter is the beginning--and the end."

  "The end--this thing has no end," he clamoured, unexpectedly. "Can't youunderstand that? I can . . . The beginning . . ."

  He stopped and looked into her eyes with concentrated intensity, witha desire to see, to penetrate, to understand, that made him positivelyhold his breath till he gasped.

  "By Heavens!" he said, standing perfectly still in a peering attitudeand within less than a foot from her.

  "By Heavens!" he repeated, slowly, and in a tone whose involuntarystrangeness was a complete mystery to himself. "By Heavens--I couldbelieve you--I could believe anything--now!"

  He turned short on his heel and began to walk up and down the room withan air of having disburdened himself of the final pronouncement of hislife--of having said something on which he would not go back, even ifhe could. She remained as if rooted to the carpet. Her eyes followedthe restless movements of the man, who avoided looking at her. Her widestare clung to him, inquiring, wondering and doubtful.

  "But the fellow was forever sticking in here," he burst out,distractedly. "He made love to you, I suppose--and, and . . ." Helowered his voice. "And--you let him."

  "And I let him," she murmured, catching his intonation, so that hervoice sounded unconscious, sounded far off and slavish, like an echo.

  He said twice, "You! You!" violently, then calmed down. "What could yousee in the fellow?" he asked, with unaffected wonder. "An effeminate,fat ass. What could you . . . Weren't you happy? Didn't you have all youwanted? Now--frankly; did I deceive your expectations in any way? Wereyou disappointed with our position--or with our prospects--perhaps? Youknow you couldn't be--they are much better than you could hope for whenyou married me. . . ."

  He forgot himself so far as to gesticulate a little while he went onwith animation:

  "What could you expect from such a fellow? He's an outsider--a rankoutsider. . . . If it hadn't been for my money . . . do you hear? . . .for my money, he wouldn't know where to turn. His people won't haveanything to do with him. The fellow's no class--no class at all
.He's useful, certainly, that's why I . . . I thought you had enoughintelligence to see it. . . . And you . . . No! It's incredible!What did he tell you? Do you care for no one's opinion--is there norestraining influence in the world for you--women? Did you ever give mea thought? I tried to be a good husband. Did I fail? Tell me--what haveI done?"

  Carried away by his feelings he took his head in both his hands andrepeated wildly:

  "What have I done? . . . Tell me! What? . . ."

  "Nothing," she said.

  "Ah! You see . . . you can't . . ." he began, triumphantly, walkingaway; then suddenly, as though he had been flung back at her bysomething invisible he had met, he spun round and shouted withexasperation:

  "What on earth did you expect me to do?"

  Without a word she moved slowly towards the table, and, sitting down,leaned on her elbow, shading her eyes with her hand. All that time heglared at her watchfully as if expecting every moment to find in herdeliberate movements an answer to his question. But he could not readanything, he could gather no hint of her thought. He tried to suppresshis desire to shout, and after waiting awhile, said with incisive scorn:

  "Did you want me to write absurd verses; to sit and look at you forhours--to talk to you about your soul? You ought to have known I wasn'tthat sort. . . . I had something better to do. But if you think I wastotally blind . . ."

  He perceived in a flash that he could remember an infinity ofenlightening occurrences. He could recall ever so many distinctoccasions when he came upon them; he remembered the absurdly interruptedgesture of his fat, white hand, the rapt expression of her face, theglitter of unbelieving eyes; snatches of incomprehensible conversationsnot worth listening to, silences that had meant nothing at the timeand seemed now illuminating like a burst of sunshine. He remembered allthat. He had not been blind. Oh! No! And to know this was an exquisiterelief: it brought back all his composure.

  "I thought it beneath me to suspect you," he said, loftily.

  The sound of that sentence evidently possessed some magical power,because, as soon as he had spoken, he felt wonderfully at ease; anddirectly afterwards he experienced a flash of joyful amazement atthe discovery that he could be inspired to such noble and truthfulutterance. He watched the effect of his words. They caused her to glanceto him quickly over her shoulder. He caught a glimpse of wet eyelashes,of a red cheek with a tear running down swiftly; and then she turnedaway again and sat as before, covering her face with her hands.

  "You ought to be perfectly frank with me," he said, slowly.

  "You know everything," she answered, indistinctly, through her fingers.

  "This letter. . . . Yes . . . but . . ."

  "And I came back," she exclaimed in a stifled voice; "you knoweverything."

  "I am glad of it--for your sake," he said with impressive gravity. Helistened to himself with solemn emotion. It seemed to him that somethinginexpressibly momentous was in progress within the room, that everyword and every gesture had the importance of events preordained fromthe beginning of all things, and summing up in their finality the wholepurpose of creation.

  "For your sake," he repeated.

  Her shoulders shook as though she had been sobbing, and he forgothimself in the contemplation of her hair. Suddenly he gave a start, asif waking up, and asked very gently and not much above a whisper--

  "Have you been meeting him often?"

  "Never!" she cried into the palms of her hands.

  This answer seemed for a moment to take from him the power of speech.His lips moved for some time before any sound came.

  "You preferred to make love here--under my very nose," he said,furiously. He calmed down instantly, and felt regretfully uneasy, asthough he had let himself down in her estimation by that outburst. Sherose, and with her hand on the back of the chair confronted him witheyes that were perfectly dry now. There was a red spot on each of hercheeks.

  "When I made up my mind to go to him--I wrote," she said.

  "But you didn't go to him," he took up in the same tone. "How far didyou go? What made you come back?"

  "I didn't know myself," she murmured. Nothing of her moved but her lips.He fixed her sternly.

  "Did he expect this? Was he waiting for you?" he asked.

  She answered him by an almost imperceptible nod, and he continued tolook at her for a good while without making a sound. Then, at last--

  "And I suppose he is waiting yet?" he asked, quickly.

  Again she seemed to nod at him. For some reason he felt he must know thetime. He consulted his watch gloomily. Half-past seven.

  "Is he?" he muttered, putting the watch in his pocket. He looked up ather, and, as if suddenly overcome by a sense of sinister fun, gave ashort, harsh laugh, directly repressed.

  "No! It's the most unheard! . . ." he mumbled while she stood before himbiting her lower lip, as if plunged in deep thought. He laughed againin one low burst that was as spiteful as an imprecation. He did not knowwhy he felt such an overpowering and sudden distaste for the facts ofexistence--for facts in general--such an immense disgust at the thoughtof all the many days already lived through. He was wearied. Thinkingseemed a labour beyond his strength. He said--

  "You deceived me--now you make a fool of him . . . It's awful! Why?"

  "I deceived myself!" she exclaimed.

  "Oh! Nonsense!" he said, impatiently.

  "I am ready to go if you wish it," she went on, quickly. "It was due toyou--to be told--to know. No! I could not!" she cried, and stood stillwringing her hands stealthily.

  "I am glad you repented before it was too late," he said in a dulltone and looking at his boots. "I am glad . . . some spark of betterfeeling," he muttered, as if to himself. He lifted up his head after amoment of brooding silence. "I am glad to see that there is some senseof decency left in you," he added a little louder. Looking at her heappeared to hesitate, as if estimating the possible consequences of whathe wished to say, and at last blurted out--

  "After all, I loved you. . . ."

  "I did not know," she whispered.

  "Good God!" he cried. "Why do you imagine I married you?"

  The indelicacy of his obtuseness angered her.

  "Ah--why?" she said through her teeth.

  He appeared overcome with horror, and watched her lips intently asthough in fear.

  "I imagined many things," she said, slowly, and paused. He watched,holding his breath. At last she went on musingly, as if thinking aloud,"I tried to understand. I tried honestly. . . . Why? . . . To do theusual thing--I suppose. . . . To please yourself."

  He walked away smartly, and when he came back, close to her, he had aflushed face.

  "You seemed pretty well pleased, too--at the time," he hissed, withscathing fury. "I needn't ask whether you loved me."

  "I know now I was perfectly incapable of such a thing," she said,calmly, "If I had, perhaps you would not have married me."

  "It's very clear I would not have done it if I had known you--as I knowyou now."

  He seemed to see himself proposing to her--ages ago. They were strollingup the slope of a lawn. Groups of people were scattered in sunshine.The shadows of leafy boughs lay still on the short grass. The colouredsunshades far off, passing between trees, resembled deliberate andbrilliant butterflies moving without a flutter. Men smiling amiably,or else very grave, within the impeccable shelter of their black coats,stood by the side of women who, clustered in clear summer toilettes,recalled all the fabulous tales of enchanted gardens where animatedflowers smile at bewitched knights. There was a sumptuous serenity init all, a thin, vibrating excitement, the perfect security, as of aninvincible ignorance, that evoked within him a transcendent belief infelicity as the lot of all mankind, a recklessly picturesque desire toget promptly something for himself only, out of that splendour unmarredby any shadow of a thought. The girl walked by his side across an openspace; no one was near, and suddenly he stood still, as if inspired, andspoke. He remembered looking at her pure eyes, at her candid brow; heremembered glanci
ng about quickly to see if they were being observed,and thinking that nothing could go wrong in a world of so much charm,purity, and distinction. He was proud of it. He was one of its makers,of its possessors, of its guardians, of its extollers. He wanted tograsp it solidly, to get as much gratification as he could out of it;and in view of its incomparable quality, of its unstained atmosphere,of its nearness to the heaven of its choice, this gust of brutal desireseemed the most noble of aspirations. In a second he lived again throughall these moments, and then all the pathos of his failure presenteditself to him with such vividness that there was a suspicion of tears inhis tone when he said almost unthinkingly, "My God! I did love you!"

  She seemed touched by the emotion of his voice. Her lips quivered alittle, and she made one faltering step towards him, putting out herhands in a beseeching gesture, when she perceived, just in time, thatbeing absorbed by the tragedy of his life he had absolutely forgottenher very existence. She stopped, and her outstretched arms fell slowly.He, with his features distorted by the bitterness of his thought, sawneither her movement nor her gesture. He stamped his foot in vexation,rubbed his head--then exploded.

  "What the devil am I to do now?"

  He was still again. She seemed to understand, and moved to the doorfirmly.

  "It's very simple--I'm going," she said aloud.

  At the sound of her voice he gave a start of surprise, looked at herwildly, and asked in a piercing tone--

  "You. . . . Where? To him?"

  "No--alone--good-bye."

  The door-handle rattled under her groping hand as though she had beentrying to get out of some dark place.

  "No--stay!" he cried.

  She heard him faintly. He saw her shoulder touch the lintel of the door.She swayed as if dazed. There was less than a second of suspense whilethey both felt as if poised on the very edge of moral annihilation,ready to fall into some devouring nowhere. Then, almost simultaneously,he shouted, "Come back!" and she let go the handle of the door. Sheturned round in peaceful desperation like one who deliberately hasthrown away the last chance of life; and, for a moment, the room shefaced appeared terrible, and dark, and safe--like a grave.

  He said, very hoarse and abrupt: "It can't end like this. . . . Sitdown;" and while she crossed the room again to the low-backed chairbefore the dressing-table, he opened the door and put his head out tolook and listen. The house was quiet. He came back pacified, and asked--

  "Do you speak the truth?"

  She nodded.

  "You have lived a lie, though," he said, suspiciously.

  "Ah! You made it so easy," she answered.

  "You reproach me--me!"

  "How could I?" she said; "I would have you no other--now."

  "What do you mean by . . ." he began, then checked himself, and withoutwaiting for an answer went on, "I won't ask any questions. Is thisletter the worst of it?"

  She had a nervous movement of her hands.

  "I must have a plain answer," he said, hotly.

  "Then, no! The worst is my coming back."

  There followed a period of dead silence, during which they exchangedsearching glances.

  He said authoritatively--

  "You don't know what you are saying. Your mind is unhinged. You arebeside yourself, or you would not say such things. You can't controlyourself. Even in your remorse . . ." He paused a moment, then said witha doctoral air: "Self-restraint is everything in life, you know. It'shappiness, it's dignity . . . it's everything."

  She was pulling nervously at her handkerchief while he went on watchinganxiously to see the effect of his words. Nothing satisfactory happened.Only, as he began to speak again, she covered her face with both herhands.

  "You see where the want of self-restraint leads to.Pain--humiliation--loss of respect--of friends, of everything thatennobles life, that . . . All kinds of horrors," he concluded, abruptly.

  She made no stir. He looked at her pensively for some time as though hehad been concentrating the melancholy thoughts evoked by the sight ofthat abased woman. His eyes became fixed and dull. He was profoundlypenetrated by the solemnity of the moment; he felt deeply the greatnessof the occasion. And more than ever the walls of his house seemedto enclose the sacredness of ideals to which he was about to offer amagnificent sacrifice. He was the high priest of that temple, the severeguardian of formulas, of rites, of the pure ceremonial concealing theblack doubts of life. And he was not alone. Other men, too--the best ofthem--kept watch and ward by the hearthstones that were the altars ofthat profitable persuasion. He understood confusedly that he was partof an immense and beneficent power, which had a reward ready for everydiscretion. He dwelt within the invincible wisdom of silence; he wasprotected by an indestructible faith that would last forever, that wouldwithstand unshaken all the assaults--the loud execrations of apostates,and the secret weariness of its confessors! He was in league with auniverse of untold advantages. He represented the moral strength of abeautiful reticence that could vanquish all the deplorable crudities oflife--fear, disaster, sin--even death itself. It seemed to him he wason the point of sweeping triumphantly away all the illusory mysteries ofexistence. It was simplicity itself.

  "I hope you see now the folly--the utter folly of wickedness," he beganin a dull, solemn manner. "You must respect the conditions of your lifeor lose all it can give you. All! Everything!"

  He waved his arm once, and three exact replicas of his face, of hisclothes, of his dull severity, of his solemn grief, repeated the widegesture that in its comprehensive sweep indicated an infinity of moralsweetness, embraced the walls, the hangings, the whole house, all thecrowd of houses outside, all the flimsy and inscrutable graves of theliving, with their doors numbered like the doors of prison-cells, and asimpenetrable as the granite of tombstones.

  "Yes! Restraint, duty, fidelity--unswerving fidelity to what is expectedof you. This--only this--secures the reward, the peace. Everything elsewe should labour to subdue--to destroy. It's misfortune; it's disease.It is terrible--terrible. We must not know anything about it--weneedn't. It is our duty to ourselves--to others. You do not live allalone in the world--and if you have no respect for the dignity of life,others have. Life is a serious matter. If you don't conform to thehighest standards you are no one--it's a kind of death. Didn't thisoccur to you? You've only to look round you to see the truth of what Iam saying. Did you live without noticing anything, without understandinganything? From a child you had examples before your eyes--you could seedaily the beauty, the blessings of morality, of principles. . . ."

  His voice rose and fell pompously in a strange chant. His eyes werestill, his stare exalted and sullen; his face was set, was hard, waswoodenly exulting over the grim inspiration that secretly possessed him,seethed within him, lifted him up into a stealthy frenzy of belief. Nowand then he would stretch out his right arm over her head, as it were,and he spoke down at that sinner from a height, and with a sense ofavenging virtue, with a profound and pure joy as though he couldfrom his steep pinnacle see every weighty word strike and hurt like apunishing stone.

  "Rigid principles--adherence to what is right," he finished after apause.

  "What is right?" she said, distinctly, without uncovering her face.

  "Your mind is diseased!" he cried, upright and austere. "Such a questionis rot--utter rot. Look round you--there's your answer, if you only careto see. Nothing that outrages the received beliefs can be right. Yourconscience tells you that. They are the received beliefs because theyare the best, the noblest, the only possible. They survive. . . ."

  He could not help noticing with pleasure the philosophic breadth of hisview, but he could not pause to enjoy it, for his inspiration, the callof august truth, carried him on.

  "You must respect the moral foundations of a society that has madeyou what you are. Be true to it. That's duty--that's honour--that'shonesty."

  He felt a great glow within him, as though he had swallowed somethinghot. He made a step nearer. She sat up and looked at him with an ardourof expe
ctation that stimulated his sense of the supreme importance ofthat moment. And as if forgetting himself he raised his voice very much.

  "'What's right?' you ask me. Think only. What would you have been ifyou had gone off with that infernal vagabond? . . . What would you havebeen? . . . You! My wife! . . ."

  He caught sight of himself in the pier glass, drawn up to his fullheight, and with a face so white that his eyes, at the distance,resembled the black cavities in a skull. He saw himself as if about tolaunch imprecations, with arms uplifted above her bowed head. He wasashamed of that unseemly posture, and put his hands in his pocketshurriedly. She murmured faintly, as if to herself--

  "Ah! What am I now?"

  "As it happens you are still Mrs. Alvan Hervey--uncommonly lucky foryou, let me tell you," he said in a conversational tone. He walked up tothe furthest corner of the room, and, turning back, saw her sitting veryupright, her hands clasped on her lap, and with a lost, unswerving gazeof her eyes which stared unwinking like the eyes of the blind, at thecrude gas flame, blazing and still, between the jaws of the bronzedragon.

  He came up quite close to her, and straddling his legs a little, stoodlooking down at her face for some time without taking his hands out ofhis pockets. He seemed to be turning over in his mind a heap of words,piecing his next speech out of an overpowering abundance of thoughts.

  "You've tried me to the utmost," he said at last; and as soon as he saidthese words he lost his moral footing, and felt himself swept away fromhis pinnacle by a flood of passionate resentment against the bunglingcreature that had come so near to spoiling his life. "Yes; I'vebeen tried more than any man ought to be," he went on with righteousbitterness. "It was unfair. What possessed you to? . . . What possessedyou? . . . Write such a . . . After five years of perfect happiness!'Pon my word, no one would believe. . . . Didn't you feel you couldn't?Because you couldn't . . . it was impossible--you know. Wasn't it?Think. Wasn't it?"

  "It was impossible," she whispered, obediently.

  This submissive assent given with such readiness did not soothe him,did not elate him; it gave him, inexplicably, that sense of terrorwe experience when in the midst of conditions we had learned to thinkabsolutely safe we discover all at once the presence of a near andunsuspected danger. It was impossible, of course! He knew it. She knewit. She confessed it. It was impossible! That man knew it, too--as wellas any one; couldn't help knowing it. And yet those two had been engagedin a conspiracy against his peace--in a criminal enterprise for whichthere could be no sanction of belief within themselves. There could notbe! There could not be! And yet how near to . . . With a short thrillhe saw himself an exiled forlorn figure in a realm of ungovernable,of unrestrained folly. Nothing could be foreseen, foretold--guardedagainst. And the sensation was intolerable, had something of thewithering horror that may be conceived as following upon the utterextinction of all hope. In the flash of thought the dishonouringepisode seemed to disengage itself from everything actual, fromearthly conditions, and even from earthly suffering; it became purely aterrifying knowledge, an annihilating knowledge of a blind and infernalforce. Something desperate and vague, a flicker of an insane desire toabase himself before the mysterious impulses of evil, to ask for mercyin some way, passed through his mind; and then came the idea, thepersuasion, the certitude, that the evil must be forgotten--must beresolutely ignored to make life possible; that the knowledge must bekept out of mind, out of sight, like the knowledge of certain death iskept out of the daily existence of men. He stiffened himself inwardlyfor the effort, and next moment it appeared very easy, amazinglyfeasible, if one only kept strictly to facts, gave one's mind to theirperplexities and not to their meaning. Becoming conscious of a longsilence, he cleared his throat warningly, and said in a steady voice--

  "I am glad you feel this . . . uncommonly glad . . . you felt this intime. For, don't you see . . ." Unexpectedly he hesitated.

  "Yes . . . I see," she murmured.

  "Of course you would," he said, looking at the carpet and speakinglike one who thinks of something else. He lifted his head. "Icannot believe--even after this--even after this--that you arealtogether--altogether . . . other than what I thought you. It seemsimpossible--to me."

  "And to me," she breathed out.

  "Now--yes," he said, "but this morning? And to-morrow? . . . This iswhat . . ."

  He started at the drift of his words and broke off abruptly. Every trainof thought seemed to lead into the hopeless realm of ungovernable folly,to recall the knowledge and the terror of forces that must be ignored.He said rapidly--

  "My position is very painful--difficult . . . I feel . . ."

  He looked at her fixedly with a pained air, as though frightfullyoppressed by a sudden inability to express his pent-up ideas.

  "I am ready to go," she said very low. "I have forfeited everything. . . to learn . . . to learn . . ."

  Her chin fell on her breast; her voice died out in a sigh. He made aslight gesture of impatient assent.

  "Yes! Yes! It's all very well . . . of course. Forfeited--ah! Morallyforfeited--only morally forfeited . . . if I am to believe you . . ."

  She startled him by jumping up.

  "Oh! I believe, I believe," he said, hastily, and she sat down assuddenly as she had got up. He went on gloomily--

  "I've suffered--I suffer now. You can't understand how much. So muchthat when you propose a parting I almost think. . . . But no. There isduty. You've forgotten it; I never did. Before heaven, I never did. Butin a horrid exposure like this the judgment of mankind goes astray--atleast for a time. You see, you and I--at least I feel that--you and Iare one before the world. It is as it should be. The world is right--inthe main--or else it couldn't be--couldn't be--what it is. And we arepart of it. We have our duty to--to our fellow beings who don't want to. . . to . . . er."

  He stammered. She looked up at him with wide eyes, and her lips wereslightly parted. He went on mumbling--

  ". . . Pain. . . . Indignation. . . . Sure to misunderstand. I'vesuffered enough. And if there has been nothing irreparable--as youassure me . . . then . . ."

  "Alvan!" she cried.

  "What?" he said, morosely. He gazed down at her for a moment with asombre stare, as one looks at ruins, at the devastation of some naturaldisaster.

  "Then," he continued after a short pause, "the best thing is . . .the best for us . . . for every one. . . . Yes . . . least pain--mostunselfish. . . ." His voice faltered, and she heard only detached words.". . . Duty. . . . Burden. . . . Ourselves. . . . Silence."

  A moment of perfect stillness ensued.

  "This is an appeal I am making to your conscience," he said, suddenly,in an explanatory tone, "not to add to the wretchedness of all this:to try loyally and help me to live it down somehow. Without anyreservations--you know. Loyally! You can't deny I've been cruellywronged and--after all--my affection deserves . . ." He paused withevident anxiety to hear her speak.

  "I make no reservations," she said, mournfully. "How could I? I foundmyself out and came back to . . ." her eyes flashed scornfully for aninstant ". . . to what--to what you propose. You see . . . I . . . I canbe trusted . . . now."

  He listened to every word with profound attention, and when she ceasedseemed to wait for more.

  "Is that all you've got to say?" he asked.

  She was startled by his tone, and said faintly--

  "I spoke the truth. What more can I say?"

  "Confound it! You might say something human," he burst out. "It isn'tbeing truthful; it's being brazen--if you want to know. Not a wordto show you feel your position, and--and mine. Not a single word ofacknowledgment, or regret--or remorse . . . or . . . something."

  "Words!" she whispered in a tone that irritated him. He stamped hisfoot.

  "This is awful!" he exclaimed. "Words? Yes, words. Words meansomething--yes--they do--for all this infernal affectation. They meansomething to me--to everybody--to you. What the devil did you use toexpress those sentiments--sentiments--pah!--which made you forget me
,duty, shame!" . . . He foamed at the mouth while she stared at him,appalled by this sudden fury. "Did you two talk only with your eyes?" hespluttered savagely. She rose.

  "I can't bear this," she said, trembling from head to foot. "I amgoing."

  They stood facing one another for a moment.

  "Not you," he said, with conscious roughness, and began to walk upand down the room. She remained very still with an air of listeninganxiously to her own heart-beats, then sank down on the chair slowly,and sighed, as if giving up a task beyond her strength.

  "You misunderstand everything I say," he began quietly, "but I preferto think that--just now--you are not accountable for your actions."He stopped again before her. "Your mind is unhinged," he said, withunction. "To go now would be adding crime--yes, crime--to folly. I'llhave no scandal in my life, no matter what's the cost. And why? You aresure to misunderstand me--but I'll tell you. As a matter of duty. Yes.But you're sure to misunderstand me--recklessly. Women always do--theyare too--too narrow-minded."

  He waited for a while, but she made no sound, didn't even look athim; he felt uneasy, painfully uneasy, like a man who suspects heis unreasonably mistrusted. To combat that exasperating sensationhe recommenced talking very fast. The sound of his words excited histhoughts, and in the play of darting thoughts he had glimpses now andthen of the inexpugnable rock of his convictions, towering in solitarygrandeur above the unprofitable waste of errors and passions.

  "For it is self-evident," he went on with anxious vivacity, "it isself-evident that, on the highest ground we haven't the right--no, wehaven't the right to intrude our miseries upon those who--who naturallyexpect better things from us. Every one wishes his own life and the lifearound him to be beautiful and pure. Now, a scandal amongst people ofour position is disastrous for the morality--a fatal influence--don'tyou see--upon the general tone of the class--very important--themost important, I verily believe, in--in the community. I feelthis--profoundly. This is the broad view. In time you'll give me . . .when you become again the woman I loved--and trusted. . . ."

  He stopped short, as though unexpectedly suffocated, then in acompletely changed voice said, "For I did love and trust you"--and againwas silent for a moment. She put her handkerchief to her eyes.

  "You'll give me credit for--for--my motives. It's mainly loyalty to--tothe larger conditions of our life--where you--you! of all women--failed.One doesn't usually talk like this--of course--but in this case you'lladmit . . . And consider--the innocent suffer with the guilty. The worldis pitiless in its judgments. Unfortunately there are always those init who are only too eager to misunderstand. Before you and before myconscience I am guiltless, but any--any disclosure would impair myusefulness in the sphere--in the larger sphere in which I hope soon to. . . I believe you fully shared my views in that matter--I don't wantto say any more . . . on--on that point--but, believe me, trueunselfishness is to bear one's burdens in--in silence. The idealmust--must be preserved--for others, at least. It's clear as daylight.If I've a--a loathsome sore, to gratuitously display it would beabominable--abominable! And often in life--in the highest conceptionof life--outspokenness in certain circumstances is nothing less thancriminal. Temptation, you know, excuses no one. There is no such thingreally if one looks steadily to one's welfare--which is grounded induty. But there are the weak." . . . His tone became ferocious for aninstant . . . "And there are the fools and the envious--especially forpeople in our position. I am guiltless of this terrible--terrible . . .estrangement; but if there has been nothing irreparable." . . .Something gloomy, like a deep shadow passed over his face. . . ."Nothing irreparable--you see even now I am ready to trust youimplicitly--then our duty is clear."

  He looked down. A change came over his expression and straightwayfrom the outward impetus of his loquacity he passed into the dullcontemplation of all the appeasing truths that, not without some wonder,he had so recently been able to discover within himself. During thisprofound and soothing communion with his innermost beliefs he remainedstaring at the carpet, with a portentously solemn face and with a dullvacuity of eyes that seemed to gaze into the blankness of an empty hole.Then, without stirring in the least, he continued:

  "Yes. Perfectly clear. I've been tried to the utmost, and I can'tpretend that, for a time, the old feelings--the old feelings are not.. . ." He sighed. . . . "But I forgive you. . . ."

  She made a slight movement without uncovering her eyes. In his profoundscrutiny of the carpet he noticed nothing. And there was silence,silence within and silence without, as though his words had stilled thebeat and tremor of all the surrounding life, and the house had stoodalone--the only dwelling upon a deserted earth.

  He lifted his head and repeated solemnly:

  "I forgive you . . . from a sense of duty--and in the hope . . ."

  He heard a laugh, and it not only interrupted his words but alsodestroyed the peace of his self-absorption with the vile pain of areality intruding upon the beauty of a dream. He couldn't understandwhence the sound came. He could see, foreshortened, the tear-stained,dolorous face of the woman stretched out, and with her head thrown overthe back of the seat. He thought the piercing noise was a delusion.But another shrill peal followed by a deep sob and succeeded by anothershriek of mirth positively seemed to tear him out from where he stood.He bounded to the door. It was closed. He turned the key and thought:that's no good. . . . "Stop this!" he cried, and perceived with alarmthat he could hardly hear his own voice in the midst of her screaming.He darted back with the idea of stifling that unbearable noise with hishands, but stood still distracted, finding himself as unable to touchher as though she had been on fire. He shouted, "Enough of this!" likemen shout in the tumult of a riot, with a red face and starting eyes;then, as if swept away before another burst of laughter, he disappearedin a flash out of three looking-glasses, vanished suddenly from beforeher. For a time the woman gasped and laughed at no one in the luminousstillness of the empty room.

  He reappeared, striding at her, and with a tumbler of water in his hand.He stammered: "Hysterics--Stop--They will hear--Drink this." She laughedat the ceiling. "Stop this!" he cried. "Ah!"

  He flung the water in her face, putting into the action all the secretbrutality of his spite, yet still felt that it would have beenperfectly excusable--in any one--to send the tumbler after the water. Herestrained himself, but at the same time was so convinced nothing couldstop the horror of those mad shrieks that, when the first sensation ofrelief came, it did not even occur to him to doubt the impression ofhaving become suddenly deaf. When, next moment, he became sure that shewas sitting up, and really very quiet, it was as though everything--men,things, sensations, had come to a rest. He was prepared to be grateful.He could not take his eyes off her, fearing, yet unwilling to admit,the possibility of her beginning again; for, the experience, howevercontemptuously he tried to think of it, had left the bewilderment of amysterious terror. Her face was streaming with water and tears; therewas a wisp of hair on her forehead, another stuck to her cheek; her hatwas on one side, undecorously tilted; her soaked veil resembled a sordidrag festooning her forehead. There was an utter unreserve in her aspect,an abandonment of safeguards, that ugliness of truth which can only bekept out of daily life by unremitting care for appearances. He did notknow why, looking at her, he thought suddenly of to-morrow, and whythe thought called out a deep feeling of unutterable, discouragedweariness--a fear of facing the succession of days. To-morrow! It was asfar as yesterday. Ages elapsed between sunrises--sometimes. He scannedher features like one looks at a forgotten country. They were notdistorted--he recognized landmarks, so to speak; but it was only aresemblance that he could see, not the woman of yesterday--or wasit, perhaps, more than the woman of yesterday? Who could tell? Wasit something new? A new expression--or a new shade of expression?or something deep--an old truth unveiled, a fundamental and hiddentruth--some unnecessary, accursed certitude? He became aware that he wastrembling very much, that he had an empty tumbler in his hand--that timewas passing. Still looking a
t her with lingering mistrust he reachedtowards the table to put the glass down and was startled to feel itapparently go through the wood. He had missed the edge. The surprise,the slight jingling noise of the accident annoyed him beyond expression.He turned to her irritated.

  "What's the meaning of this?" he asked, grimly.

  She passed her hand over her face and made an attempt to get up.

  "You're not going to be absurd again," he said. "'Pon my soul, I did notknow you could forget yourself to that extent." He didn't try to concealhis physical disgust, because he believed it to be a purely moralreprobation of every unreserve, of anything in the nature of a scene."I assure you--it was revolting," he went on. He stared for a moment ather. "Positively degrading," he added with insistence.

  She stood up quickly as if moved by a spring and tottered. He startedforward instinctively. She caught hold of the back of the chairand steadied herself. This arrested him, and they faced each otherwide-eyed, uncertain, and yet coming back slowly to the reality ofthings with relief and wonder, as though just awakened after tossingthrough a long night of fevered dreams.

  "Pray, don't begin again," he said, hurriedly, seeing her open her lips."I deserve some little consideration--and such unaccountable behaviouris painful to me. I expect better things. . . . I have the right. . . ."

  She pressed both her hands to her temples.

  "Oh, nonsense!" he said, sharply. "You are perfectly capable of comingdown to dinner. No one should even suspect; not even the servants. Noone! No one! . . . I am sure you can."

  She dropped her arms; her face twitched. She looked straight into hiseyes and seemed incapable of pronouncing a word. He frowned at her.

  "I--wish--it," he said, tyrannically. "For your own sake also. . . ."He meant to carry that point without any pity. Why didn't she speak?He feared passive resistance. She must. . . . Make her come. His frowndeepened, and he began to think of some effectual violence, when mostunexpectedly she said in a firm voice, "Yes, I can," and clutched thechair-back again. He was relieved, and all at once her attitude ceasedto interest him. The important thing was that their life wouldbegin again with an every-day act--with something that could not bemisunderstood, that, thank God, had no moral meaning, no perplexity--andyet was symbolic of their uninterrupted communion in the past--in allthe future. That morning, at that table, they had breakfast together;and now they would dine. It was all over! What had happened betweencould be forgotten--must be forgotten, like things that can only happenonce--death for instance.

  "I will wait for you," he said, going to the door. He had somedifficulty with it, for he did not remember he had turned the key. Hehated that delay, and his checked impatience to be gone out of theroom made him feel quite ill as, with the consciousness of her presencebehind his back, he fumbled at the lock. He managed it at last; then inthe doorway he glanced over his shoulder to say, "It's rather late--youknow--" and saw her standing where he had left her, with a face white asalabaster and perfectly still, like a woman in a trance.

  He was afraid she would keep him waiting, but without any breathingtime, he hardly knew how, he found himself sitting at table with her.He had made up his mind to eat, to talk, to be natural. It seemed tohim necessary that deception should begin at home. The servants must notknow--must not suspect. This intense desire of secrecy; of secrecy dark,destroying, profound, discreet like a grave, possessed him with thestrength of a hallucination--seemed to spread itself to inanimateobjects that had been the daily companions of his life, affected with ataint of enmity every single thing within the faithful walls that wouldstand forever between the shamelessness of facts and the indignation ofmankind. Even when--as it happened once or twice--both the servants leftthe room together he remained carefully natural, industriously hungry,laboriously at his ease, as though he had wanted to cheat the black oaksideboard, the heavy curtains, the stiff-backed chairs, into thebelief of an unstained happiness. He was mistrustful of his wife'sself-control, unwilling to look at her and reluctant to speak, for itseemed to him inconceivable that she should not betray herself by theslightest movement, by the very first word spoken. Then he thoughtthe silence in the room was becoming dangerous, and so excessive as toproduce the effect of an intolerable uproar. He wanted to end it, as oneis anxious to interrupt an indiscreet confession; but with the memory ofthat laugh upstairs he dared not give her an occasion to open her lips.Presently he heard her voice pronouncing in a calm tone some unimportantremark. He detached his eyes from the centre of his plate and feltexcited as if on the point of looking at a wonder. And nothing could bemore wonderful than her composure. He was looking at the candid eyes,at the pure brow, at what he had seen every evening for years in thatplace; he listened to the voice that for five years he had heard everyday. Perhaps she was a little pale--but a healthy pallor had alwaysbeen for him one of her chief attractions. Perhaps her face was rigidlyset--but that marmoreal impassiveness, that magnificent stolidity, as ofa wonderful statue by some great sculptor working under the curse of thegods; that imposing, unthinking stillness of her features, had till thenmirrored for him the tranquil dignity of a soul of which he had thoughthimself--as a matter of course--the inexpugnable possessor. Those werethe outward signs of her difference from the ignoble herd that feels,suffers, fails, errs--but has no distinct value in the world except as amoral contrast to the prosperity of the elect. He had been proud of herappearance. It had the perfectly proper frankness of perfection--andnow he was shocked to see it unchanged. She looked like this, spoke likethis, exactly like this, a year ago, a month ago--only yesterday whenshe. . . . What went on within made no difference. What did she think?What meant the pallor, the placid face, the candid brow, the pureeyes? What did she think during all these years? What did she thinkyesterday--to-day; what would she think to-morrow? He must find out.. . . And yet how could he get to know? She had been false to him, to thatman, to herself; she was ready to be false--for him. Always false. Shelooked lies, breathed lies, lived lies--would tell lies--always--to theend of life! And he would never know what she meant. Never! Never! Noone could. Impossible to know.

  He dropped his knife and fork, brusquely, as though by the virtue of asudden illumination he had been made aware of poison in his plate, andbecame positive in his mind that he could never swallow another morselof food as long as he lived. The dinner went on in a room that had beensteadily growing, from some cause, hotter than a furnace. He had todrink. He drank time after time, and, at last, recollecting himself,was frightened at the quantity, till he perceived that what he hadbeen drinking was water--out of two different wine glasses; and thediscovered unconsciousness of his actions affected him painfully. He wasdisturbed to find himself in such an unhealthy state of mind. Excess offeeling--excess of feeling; and it was part of his creed that any excessof feeling was unhealthy--morally unprofitable; a taint on practicalmanhood. Her fault. Entirely her fault. Her sinful self-forgetfulnesswas contagious. It made him think thoughts he had never had before;thoughts disintegrating, tormenting, sapping to the very core oflife--like mortal disease; thoughts that bred the fear of air, ofsunshine, of men--like the whispered news of a pestilence.

  The maids served without noise; and to avoid looking at his wife andlooking within himself, he followed with his eyes first one and thenthe other without being able to distinguish between them. They movedsilently about, without one being able to see by what means, fortheir skirts touched the carpet all round; they glided here and there,receded, approached, rigid in black and white, with precise gestures,and no life in their faces, like a pair of marionettes in mourning;and their air of wooden unconcern struck him as unnatural, suspicious,irremediably hostile. That such people's feelings or judgment couldaffect one in any way, had never occurred to him before. He understoodthey had no prospects, no principles--no refinement and no power. Butnow he had become so debased that he could not even attempt to disguisefrom himself his yearning to know the secret thoughts of his servants.Several times he looked up covertly at the faces of those girls.Impo
ssible to know. They changed his plates and utterly ignored hisexistence. What impenetrable duplicity. Women--nothing but women roundhim. Impossible to know. He experienced that heart-probing, fierysense of dangerous loneliness, which sometimes assails the courage ofa solitary adventurer in an unexplored country. The sight of a man'sface--he felt--of any man's face, would have been a profound relief. Onewould know then--something--could understand. . . . He would engage abutler as soon as possible. And then the end of that dinner--whichhad seemed to have been going on for hours--the end came, taking himviolently by surprise, as though he had expected in the natural courseof events to sit at that table for ever and ever.

  But upstairs in the drawing-room he became the victim of a restlessfate, that would, on no account, permit him to sit down. She had sunkon a low easy-chair, and taking up from a small table at her elbow afan with ivory leaves, shaded her face from the fire. The coals glowedwithout a flame; and upon the red glow the vertical bars of the gratestood out at her feet, black and curved, like the charred ribs of aconsumed sacrifice. Far off, a lamp perched on a slim brass rod, burnedunder a wide shade of crimson silk: the centre, within the shadows ofthe large room, of a fiery twilight that had in the warm quality of itstint something delicate, refined and infernal. His soft footfalls andthe subdued beat of the clock on the high mantel-piece answered eachother regularly--as if time and himself, engaged in a measured contest,had been pacing together through the infernal delicacy of twilighttowards a mysterious goal.

  He walked from one end of the room to the other without a pause, like atraveller who, at night, hastens doggedly upon an interminable journey.Now and then he glanced at her. Impossible to know. The gross precisionof that thought expressed to his practical mind something illimitableand infinitely profound, the all-embracing subtlety of a feeling, theeternal origin of his pain. This woman had accepted him, had abandonedhim--had returned to him. And of all this he would never know the truth.Never. Not till death--not after--not on judgment day when all shall bedisclosed, thoughts and deeds, rewards and punishments, but the secretof hearts alone shall return, forever unknown, to the InscrutableCreator of good and evil, to the Master of doubts and impulses.

  He stood still to look at her. Thrown back and with her face turned awayfrom him, she did not stir--as if asleep. What did she think? Whatdid she feel? And in the presence of her perfect stillness, in thebreathless silence, he felt himself insignificant and powerless beforeher, like a prisoner in chains. The fury of his impotence called outsinister images, that faculty of tormenting vision, which in a momentof anguishing sense of wrong induces a man to mutter threats or makea menacing gesture in the solitude of an empty room. But the gust ofpassion passed at once, left him trembling a little, with the wondering,reflective fear of a man who has paused on the very verge of suicide.The serenity of truth and the peace of death can be only secured througha largeness of contempt embracing all the profitable servitudes of life.He found he did not want to know. Better not. It was all over. It wasas if it hadn't been. And it was very necessary for both of them, it wasmorally right, that nobody should know.

  He spoke suddenly, as if concluding a discussion.

  "The best thing for us is to forget all this."

  She started a little and shut the fan with a click.

  "Yes, forgive--and forget," he repeated, as if to himself.

  "I'll never forget," she said in a vibrating voice. "And I'll neverforgive myself. . . ."

  "But I, who have nothing to reproach myself . . ." He began, making astep towards her. She jumped up.

  "I did not come back for your forgiveness," she exclaimed, passionately,as if clamouring against an unjust aspersion.

  He only said "oh!" and became silent. He could not understand thisunprovoked aggressiveness of her attitude, and certainly was veryfar from thinking that an unpremeditated hint of something resemblingemotion in the tone of his last words had caused that uncontrollableburst of sincerity. It completed his bewilderment, but he was not atall angry now. He was as if benumbed by the fascination of theincomprehensible. She stood before him, tall and indistinct, like ablack phantom in the red twilight. At last poignantly uncertain as towhat would happen if he opened his lips, he muttered:

  "But if my love is strong enough . . ." and hesitated.

  He heard something snap loudly in the fiery stillness. She had brokenher fan. Two thin pieces of ivory fell, one after another, without asound, on the thick carpet, and instinctively he stooped to pick themup. While he groped at her feet it occurred to him that the woman therehad in her hands an indispensable gift which nothing else on earth couldgive; and when he stood up he was penetrated by an irresistible beliefin an enigma, by the conviction that within his reach and passing awayfrom him was the very secret of existence--its certitude, immaterial andprecious! She moved to the door, and he followed at her elbow, castingabout for a magic word that would make the enigma clear, that wouldcompel the surrender of the gift. And there is no such word! The enigmais only made clear by sacrifice, and the gift of heaven is in the handsof every man. But they had lived in a world that abhors enigmas, andcares for no gifts but such as can be obtained in the street. She wasnearing the door. He said hurriedly:

  "'Pon my word, I loved you--I love you now."

  She stopped for an almost imperceptible moment to give him an indignantglance, and then moved on. That feminine penetration--so clever andso tainted by the eternal instinct of self-defence, so ready to see anobvious evil in everything it cannot understand--filled her with bitterresentment against both the men who could offer to the spiritual andtragic strife of her feelings nothing but the coarseness of theirabominable materialism. In her anger against her own ineffectualself-deception she found hate enough for them both. What did they want?What more did this one want? And as her husband faced her again,with his hand on the door-handle, she asked herself whether he wasunpardonably stupid, or simply ignoble.

  She said nervously, and very fast:

  "You are deceiving yourself. You never loved me. You wanted a wife--somewoman--any woman that would think, speak, and behave in a certainway--in a way you approved. You loved yourself."

  "You won't believe me?" he asked, slowly.

  "If I had believed you loved me," she began, passionately, then drew ina long breath; and during that pause he heard the steady beat of bloodin his ears. "If I had believed it . . . I would never have come back,"she finished, recklessly.

  He stood looking down as though he had not heard. She waited. After amoment he opened the door, and, on the landing, the sightless woman ofmarble appeared, draped to the chin, thrusting blindly at them a clusterof lights.

  He seemed to have forgotten himself in a meditation so deep that on thepoint of going out she stopped to look at him in surprise. While shehad been speaking he had wandered on the track of the enigma, out of theworld of senses into the region of feeling. What did it matter what shehad done, what she had said, if through the pain of her acts and wordshe had obtained the word of the enigma! There can be no life withoutfaith and love--faith in a human heart, love of a human being! Thattouch of grace, whose help once in life is the privilege of themost undeserving, flung open for him the portals of beyond, and incontemplating there the certitude immaterial and precious he forgotall the meaningless accidents of existence: the bliss of getting, thedelight of enjoying; all the protean and enticing forms of the cupiditythat rules a material world of foolish joys, of contemptible sorrows.Faith!--Love!--the undoubting, clear faith in the truth of a soul--thegreat tenderness, deep as the ocean, serene and eternal, like theinfinite peace of space above the short tempests of the earth. It waswhat he had wanted all his life--but he understood it only then for thefirst time. It was through the pain of losing her that the knowledge hadcome. She had the gift! She had the gift! And in all the world she wasthe only human being that could surrender it to his immense desire.He made a step forward, putting his arms out, as if to take her tohis breast, and, lifting his head, was met by such a look of blankconst
ernation that his arms fell as though they had been struck down bya blow. She started away from him, stumbled over the threshold, andonce on the landing turned, swift and crouching. The train of her gownswished as it flew round her feet. It was an undisguised panic. Shepanted, showing her teeth, and the hate of strength, the disdain ofweakness, the eternal preoccupation of sex came out like a toy demon outof a box.

  "This is odious," she screamed.

  He did not stir; but her look, her agitated movements, the sound of hervoice were like a mist of facts thickening between him and the visionof love and faith. It vanished; and looking at that face triumphant andscornful, at that white face, stealthy and unexpected, as if discoveredstaring from an ambush, he was coming back slowly to the world ofsenses. His first clear thought was: I am married to that woman; and thenext: she will give nothing but what I see. He felt the need not to see.But the memory of the vision, the memory that abides forever within theseer made him say to her with the naive austerity of a convert awed bythe touch of a new creed, "You haven't the gift." He turned his backon her, leaving her completely mystified. And she went upstairs slowly,struggling with a distasteful suspicion of having been confronted bysomething more subtle than herself--more profound than the misunderstoodand tragic contest of her feelings.

  He shut the door of the drawing-room and moved at hazard, alone amongstthe heavy shadows and in the fiery twilight as of an elegant place ofperdition. She hadn't the gift--no one had. . . . He stepped on a bookthat had fallen off one of the crowded little tables. He picked up theslender volume, and holding it, approached the crimson-shaded lamp. Thefiery tint deepened on the cover, and contorted gold letters sprawlingall over it in an intricate maze, came out, gleaming redly. "Thornsand Arabesques." He read it twice, "Thorns and Ar . . . . . . . ." Theother's book of verses. He dropped it at his feet, but did not feel theslightest pang of jealousy or indignation. What did he know? . . . What?. . . The mass of hot coals tumbled down in the grate, and he turned tolook at them . . . Ah! That one was ready to give up everything he hadfor that woman--who did not come--who had not the faith, the love, thecourage to come. What did that man expect, what did he hope, what didhe want? The woman--or the certitude immaterial and precious! The firstunselfish thought he had ever given to any human being was for thatman who had tried to do him a terrible wrong. He was not angry. He wassaddened by an impersonal sorrow, by a vast melancholy as of all mankindlonging for what cannot be attained. He felt his fellowship with everyman--even with that man--especially with that man. What did he thinknow? Had he ceased to wait--and hope? Would he ever cease to wait andhope? Would he understand that the woman, who had no courage, had notthe gift--had not the gift!

  The clock began to strike, and the deep-toned vibration filled theroom as though with the sound of an enormous bell tolling far away. Hecounted the strokes. Twelve. Another day had begun. To-morrow had come;the mysterious and lying to-morrow that lures men, disdainful of loveand faith, on and on through the poignant futilities of life to thefitting reward of a grave. He counted the strokes, and gazing at thegrate seemed to wait for more. Then, as if called out, left the room,walking firmly.

  When outside he heard footsteps in the hall and stood still. A bolt wasshot--then another. They were locking up--shutting out his desire andhis deception from the indignant criticism of a world full of noblegifts for those who proclaim themselves without stain and withoutreproach. He was safe; and on all sides of his dwelling servilefears and servile hopes slept, dreaming of success, behind the severediscretion of doors as impenetrable to the truth within as the graniteof tombstones. A lock snapped--a short chain rattled. Nobody shall know!

  Why was this assurance of safety heavier than a burden of fear, and whythe day that began presented itself obstinately like the last day ofall--like a to-day without a to-morrow? Yet nothing was changed, fornobody would know; and all would go on as before--the getting, theenjoying, the blessing of hunger that is appeased every day; the nobleincentives of unappeasable ambitions. All--all the blessings of life.All--but the certitude immaterial and precious--the certitude of loveand faith. He believed the shadow of it had been with him as long as hecould remember; that invisible presence had ruled his life. And now theshadow had appeared and faded he could not extinguish his longing forthe truth of its substance. His desire of it was naive; it was masterfullike the material aspirations that are the groundwork of existence, but,unlike these, it was unconquerable. It was the subtle despotism ofan idea that suffers no rivals, that is lonely, inconsolable, anddangerous. He went slowly up the stairs. Nobody shall know. The dayswould go on and he would go far--very far. If the idea could not bemastered, fortune could be, man could be--the whole world. He wasdazzled by the greatness of the prospect; the brutality of a practicalinstinct shouted to him that only that which could be had was worthhaving. He lingered on the steps. The lights were out in the hall, anda small yellow flame flitted about down there. He felt a sudden contemptfor himself which braced him up. He went on, but at the door of theirroom and with his arm advanced to open it, he faltered. On the flight ofstairs below the head of the girl who had been locking up appeared. Hisarm fell. He thought, "I'll wait till she is gone"--and stepped backwithin the perpendicular folds of a portiere.

  He saw her come up gradually, as if ascending from a well. At every stepthe feeble flame of the candle swayed before her tired, young face, andthe darkness of the hall seemed to cling to her black skirt, followedher, rising like a silent flood, as though the great night of the worldhad broken through the discreet reserve of walls, of closed doors, ofcurtained windows. It rose over the steps, it leaped up the walls likean angry wave, it flowed over the blue skies, over the yellow sands,over the sunshine of landscapes, and over the pretty pathos of raggedinnocence and of meek starvation. It swallowed up the delicious idyllin a boat and the mutilated immortality of famous bas-reliefs. It flowedfrom outside--it rose higher, in a destructive silence. And, above it,the woman of marble, composed and blind on the high pedestal, seemed toward off the devouring night with a cluster of lights.

  He watched the rising tide of impenetrable gloom with impatience, as ifanxious for the coming of a darkness black enough to conceal a shamefulsurrender. It came nearer. The cluster of lights went out. The girlascended facing him. Behind her the shadow of a colossal woman dancedlightly on the wall. He held his breath while she passed by, noiselessand with heavy eyelids. And on her track the flowing tide of a tenebroussea filled the house, seemed to swirl about his feet, and risingunchecked, closed silently above his head.

  The time had come but he did not open the door. All was still; andinstead of surrendering to the reasonable exigencies of life he steppedout, with a rebelling heart, into the darkness of the house. It was theabode of an impenetrable night; as though indeed the last day had comeand gone, leaving him alone in a darkness that has no to-morrow. Andlooming vaguely below the woman of marble, livid and still like apatient phantom, held out in the night a cluster of extinguished lights.

  His obedient thought traced for him the image of an uninterrupted life,the dignity and the advantages of an uninterrupted success; while hisrebellious heart beat violently within his breast, as if maddened by thedesire of a certitude immaterial and precious--the certitude of love andfaith. What of the night within his dwelling if outside he could findthe sunshine in which men sow, in which men reap! Nobody would know. Thedays, the years would pass, and . . . He remembered that he had lovedher. The years would pass . . . And then he thought of her as we thinkof the dead--in a tender immensity of regret, in a passionate longingfor the return of idealized perfections. He had loved her--he had lovedher--and he never knew the truth . . . The years would pass in theanguish of doubt . . . He remembered her smile, her eyes, her voice, hersilence, as though he had lost her forever. The years would pass andhe would always mistrust her smile, suspect her eyes; he would alwaysmisbelieve her voice, he would never have faith in her silence. She hadno gift--she had no gift! What was she? Who was she? . . . The yearswould p
ass; the memory of this hour would grow faint--and she wouldshare the material serenity of an unblemished life. She had no love andno faith for any one. To give her your thought, your belief, was likewhispering your confession over the edge of the world. Nothing cameback--not even an echo.

  In the pain of that thought was born his conscience; not that fear ofremorse which grows slowly, and slowly decays amongst the complicatedfacts of life, but a Divine wisdom springing full-grown, armed andsevere out of a tried heart, to combat the secret baseness of motives.It came to him in a flash that morality is not a method of happiness.The revelation was terrible. He saw at once that nothing of what he knewmattered in the least. The acts of men and women, success, humiliation,dignity, failure--nothing mattered. It was not a question of more orless pain, of this joy, of that sorrow. It was a question of truth orfalsehood--it was a question of life or death.

  He stood in the revealing night--in the darkness that tries the hearts,in the night useless for the work of men, but in which their gaze,undazzled by the sunshine of covetous days, wanders sometimes as far asthe stars. The perfect stillness around him had something solemn in it,but he felt it was the lying solemnity of a temple devoted to the ritesof a debasing persuasion. The silence within the discreet walls waseloquent of safety but it appeared to him exciting and sinister, likethe discretion of a profitable infamy; it was the prudent peace of aden of coiners--of a house of ill-fame! The years would pass--and nobodywould know. Never! Not till death--not after . . .

  "Never!" he said aloud to the revealing night.

  And he hesitated. The secret of hearts, too terrible for the timid eyesof men, shall return, veiled forever, to the Inscrutable Creator ofgood and evil, to the Master of doubts and impulses. His consciencewas born--he heard its voice, and he hesitated, ignoring the strengthwithin, the fateful power, the secret of his heart! It was an awfulsacrifice to cast all one's life into the flame of a new belief. Hewanted help against himself, against the cruel decree of salvation. Theneed of tacit complicity, where it had never failed him, the habit ofyears affirmed itself. Perhaps she would help . . . He flung the dooropen and rushed in like a fugitive.

  He was in the middle of the room before he could see anything but thedazzling brilliance of the light; and then, as if detached and floatingin it on the level of his eyes, appeared the head of a woman. She hadjumped up when he burst into the room.

  For a moment they contemplated each other as if struck dumb withamazement. Her hair streaming on her shoulders glinted like burnishedgold. He looked into the unfathomable candour of her eyes. Nothingwithin--nothing--nothing.

  He stammered distractedly.

  "I want . . . I want . . . to . . . to . . . know . . ."

  On the candid light of the eyes flitted shadows; shadows of doubt,of suspicion, the ready suspicion of an unquenchable antagonism, thepitiless mistrust of an eternal instinct of defence; the hate, theprofound, frightened hate of an incomprehensible--of an abominableemotion intruding its coarse materialism upon the spiritual and tragiccontest of her feelings.

  "Alvan . . . I won't bear this . . ." She began to pant suddenly, "I'vea right--a right to--to--myself . . ."

  He lifted one arm, and appeared so menacing that she stopped in a frightand shrank back a little.

  He stood with uplifted hand . . . The years would pass--and he wouldhave to live with that unfathomable candour where flit shadows ofsuspicions and hate . . . The years would pass--and he would neverknow--never trust . . . The years would pass without faith andlove. . . .

  "Can you stand it?" he shouted, as though she could have heard all histhoughts.

  He looked menacing. She thought of violence, of danger--and, just foran instant, she doubted whether there were splendours enough on earth topay the price of such a brutal experience. He cried again:

  "Can you stand it?" and glared as if insane. Her eyes blazed, too. Shecould not hear the appalling clamour of his thoughts. She suspectedin him a sudden regret, a fresh fit of jealousy, a dishonest desire ofevasion. She shouted back angrily--

  "Yes!"

  He was shaken where he stood as if by a struggle to break out ofinvisible bonds. She trembled from head to foot.

  "Well, I can't!" He flung both his arms out, as if to push her away,and strode from the room. The door swung to with a click. She made threequick steps towards it and stood still, looking at the white and goldpanels. No sound came from beyond, not a whisper, not a sigh; not evena footstep was heard outside on the thick carpet. It was as though nosooner gone he had suddenly expired--as though he had died there and hisbody had vanished on the instant together with his soul. She listened,with parted lips and irresolute eyes. Then below, far below her, asif in the entrails of the earth, a door slammed heavily; and the quiethouse vibrated to it from roof to foundations, more than to a clap ofthunder.

  He never returned.