Kitabı oku: «The House of the White Shadows», sayfa 25
"She grew more and more reserved towards me; and still I waited, and still was patient. Not for a moment did I lose sight of my duty.
"But after a long time had passed I began to question myself-I began to doubt whether I had not allowed myself to be deceived. Is it possible, I asked myself, that she married me without loving me? When this torturing doubt arose I thrust it indignantly from me; it was as though I was casting a stain upon her truth and purity."
CHAPTER III
A DISHONOURABLE CONCEALMENT
"I will not recount the continual endeavours I made to win my wife to cheerfulness and a better frame of mind. Sufficient to say that they were unsuccessful, and that many and many a time I gave up the attempt in despair, to renew it again under the influence of false hopes. Unhappy and disheartened, the pursuits in which I had always taken delight afforded me now no pleasure, and though I sought relief in solitude and study, I did not find it. My peace of mind was utterly wrecked. There was, however, in the midst of my wretchedness, one ray of light. In the course of a little while a child would be born to us, and this child might effect what I was unable to accomplish. When my wife pressed her baby to her breast, when it drew life from her bosom, she might be recalled to a sense of duty and of some kind of affection which I was ready to accept in the place of that thorough devoted love which I bore to her, and which I had hoped she would bear to me.
"Considering this matter with as much wisdom as I could bring to my aid, I recognised the desirability of surrounding my wife with signs of pleasant and even joyful life. Gloomy parents are cursed with gloomy children. I would fill my house once more with friends; my wife should move in an atmosphere of cheerfulness; there should be music, laughter, sunny looks, happy voices. These could not fail to influence for good both my wife and our little one soon to be born.
"I called friends around me, and I took special care that there should be many young people among them. Their presence, however, did not at first arouse my wife from her melancholy, and it was not until the man whose name I have already mentioned-M. Gabriel-arrived that I noticed in her any change for the better.
"He came, and I introduced him to my wife, believing them to have been hitherto strangers to each other. I had no reason to believe otherwise when I presented M. Gabriel to her; had they met before, it would have been but honest that one or both should have made me acquainted with the fact. They did not, by direct or indirect word, and I had, therefore, no cause for suspicion.
"Things went on as usual for a week or two after M. Gabriel's arrival, and then I noticed with joy that my wife was beginning to grow more cheerful. My happiness was great. I have been too impatient, I thought, with this young girl. The shock of losing her parents, one after another, under circumstances so distressing, was sufficient to upset a stronger mind than hers. How unwise in me that I should have tormented myself as I had been doing for so many months past! And how unjust to her that, because she was sorrowful and silent, I should have doubted her love for me! But all was well now: comfort had come to her bruised heart, and the book of happiness was not closed to me as I had feared. A terrible weight, a gnawing grief, were lifted from me. For I could imagine no blacker treason than that a woman should deliberately deceive a man into the belief that she loved him, and that she should marry him under such conditions. My wife had not done this; I had wronged her. Most fervently did I thank Heaven that I had discovered my error before it was too late to repair it.
"I saw that my wife took pleasure in M. Gabriel's society, and I made him as free of my house as if it had been his own. He had commissions to execute, pictures to paint.
"'Paint them here,' I said to him, 'you bring happiness to us. I look upon you as though you belonged to my family.'
"In the summer-house was a room which he used as a studio; no artist could have desired a better, and M. Gabriel said he had never been able to paint as well as he was doing in my house. It gladdened me to observe that my wife, who had for a little while been reserved towards M. Gabriel, looked upon him now as a sister might look upon a brother. I encouraged their intimacy, and was grateful to M. Gabriel for accepting my hospitality in the free spirit in which it was tendered. He expressed a wish to paint my wife's portrait, and I readily consented. My wife gave him frequent sittings, sometimes in my company, sometimes alone. And still no word was spoken to acquaint me with the fact that my wife and he had known each other before they met in my house.
"My child was born-a boy. My happiness would have been complete had my wife shown me a little more affection; but again, after the birth of our child, it dawned upon me that she cared very little for me, and that the feelings she entertained for me in no wise resembled those which a loving woman should feel towards a husband who was indefatigable, as indeed I was, in his efforts to promote her happiness. Even then it did not strike me that she was happier in M. Gabriel's society than she was in mine. The truth, however, was now to be made known to me. It reached me through the idle tittle-tattling of one of my guests; of my own prompting I doubt whether I should ever have discovered it. I overheard this lady making some injurious observations respecting my wife; no man's name was mentioned, but I heard enough to cause me to resolve to hear more, and to put an end at once to the utterances of a malicious tongue.
"During my life, in matters of great moment, I have seldom acted upon impulse, and the value of calm deliberation after sudden excitement of feeling has frequently been made apparent to me.
"I sought this lady, and told her that I had overheard the remarks she had made on the previous day; that I was profoundly impressed by them, and intended to know what foundation there was for even a breath of scandal. I had some difficulty in bringing her to the point, but I was determined, and would be satisfied with no evasions.
"'I love my wife, madam,' I said, 'too well to be content with half words and innuendoes, which in their effect are worse than open accusations.'
"'Accusations!' exclaimed the lady. 'Good Heavens! I have brought none.'
"'It is for that reason I complain,' I said; 'accusations can be met, and are by no means so much to be feared as idle words which affect the honour of those who are the subject of them.'
"'I merely repeated,' then said the lady, 'what others have been saying for a long time past.'
"'And what have others been saying for a long time past, madam?' I asked, with an outward calmness which deceived her into the belief that I was not taking the matter seriously to heart.
"'I am sure it is very foolish of them,' said the lady, 'and that there is nothing in it. But people are so mischievous, and place such dreadful constructions upon things! It is, after all, only natural that when, after a long separation, young lovers meet, they should feel a little tender towards each other, even though one of them has got married in the interval. We all go through such foolish experiences, and when we grow as old as you and I are, we laugh at them.'
"'Probably, madam,' I said, still with exceeding calmness; 'but before we can laugh with any genuineness or enjoyment, it is necessary to have some knowledge of the cause of our mirth. When young lovers meet, you said, after a long separation, it is natural they should feel a tenderness towards each other. But we are speaking of my wife.'
"'Yes,' she replied, 'of your wife, and I am sure you are too sensible a man-so much older than that sweet creature! – to make any unnecessary bother about it.'
"She knew well how to plant daggers in my heart.
"'My wife, then, is one of those young lovers? You really must answer me, madam. These are, after all, but foolish experiences.'
"'I am glad you are taking it so sensibly,' she rejoined. 'Yes, your wife is one of the young lovers.'
"'And the other, madam.'
"'Why, who else should it be but M. Gabriel?'
"I did not speak for a few moments. The shock was so severe that I required time to recover some semblance of composure.
"'My mind is much relieved,' I said. 'There is not the slightest foundation for scandal, and I trust that this interview will put an effectual stop to it. My wife and M. Gabriel have not been long acquainted. They met each other for the first time in this house.'
"'Ah,' cried the lady very vivaciously, 'you want to deceive me now; but it is nonsense. Your wife and M. Gabriel have known each other for many years. They were once affianced. Had you not stepped in, there is no knowing what might have occurred. It is much better as it is-I am sure you think so. What can be worse for a young and beautiful creature than to marry a poor and struggling artist? M. Gabriel is very talented, but he is very poor. By the time he is a middle-aged man he may have made his way in the world, and then his little romance will be forgotten-quite forgotten. I dare say you can look back to the time when you were as young as he is, and can recall somebody you were madly in love with, but of whom you never think, except by the merest chance. These things are so common, you see. And now don't let us talk any more about it.'
"I had no desire to exchange another word with the lady on the subject; I allowed her to rest in the belief that I had been acquainted with the whole affair, and did not wish it to get about. She promised me never to speak of it again to her friends in any injurious way, said it was a real pleasure to see what a sensible view I took of the matter, and our interview was at an end.
"I had learnt all. At length, at length my eyes were opened, and the perfidy which had been practised towards me was revealed. All was explained. My wife's constant coldness, her insensibility to the affectionate advances I had made towards her, her pleasure at meeting her lover-the unworthy picture lay before my sight. There was no longer any opportunity for self-deception. Had I not recognised and acknowledged the full extent of the treason, I should have become base in my own esteem. It was not that they had been lovers-that knowledge in itself would have been hard to bear-but that they should have concealed it from me, that they should have met in my presence as strangers, that they should have tacitly agreed to trick me! – for hours I could not think with calmness upon these aspects of the misery which had been forced upon me. For she, my wife, was in the first instance responsible for our marriage; she could have refused me. I was in utter ignorance of a love which, during all these years, had been burning in her heart, and making her life and mine a torture. Had she been honest, had she been true, she would have said to me: 'I love another; how, then, can I accept the love you offer me, and how can you hope for a return? If circumstances compel me to marry you there must be no concealment, no treason. You must take me as I am, and never, never make my coldness the cause of reproach or unhappiness.' Yes, this much she might have said to me when I offered her my name-a name upon which there had hitherto been no stain and no dishonour. I should not have married her; I should have acted as a father towards her; I should have conducted her to the arms of her lover, and into their lives and mine would not have crept this infamy, this blight, this shame which even death cannot efface.
"Of such a nature were my thoughts during the day.
"Then came the resolve to be sure before I took action in the matter. The evidence of my own senses should convince me that in my own house my wife and her lover were playing a base part, were systematically deceiving me and laughing at me.
"Of this man, this friend, whom I had taken to my heart, my horror and disgust were complete. I, whose humane instincts had in my youth been made the sport of my companions, who shrank from inflicting the slightest injury upon the meanest creature that crawled upon the earth, who would not even strip the leaves from a flower, found myself now transformed. Had M. Gabriel been in my presence at any moment during these hours of agonising thought, I should have torn him limb from limb and rejoiced in my cruelty. So little do we know ourselves."
CHAPTER IV
M. GABRIEL IS DISMISSED
"I was up the whole of the night; I did not close my eyes, and when morning broke I had schooled myself to the task before me-to assure myself of the truth and the extent of the shame.
"I kept watch, and did not betray myself to them, and what I saw filled me with amazement at my blindness and credulity. That my wife was not guilty, that she was not faithless to me in the ordinary acceptation of the term, was no palliation of her conduct.
"Steadfastly I kept before me one unalterable resolve. In the eyes of the world the name I bore should not be dishonoured, if by any means it could be prevented. We would keep our shame and our deep unhappiness within our own walls. In the light of this resolve it was impossible that I could challenge M. Gabriel; he must go unpunished by me. My name should not be dragged through the mire, to become a byeword for pity.
"By degrees, upon one excuse and another, I got rid of my visitors, and there remained in the villa only I, my wife and child, and M. Gabriel. Then, in M. Gabriel's studio, I broke in upon the lovers, and found my wife in tears.
"For a moment or two I gazed upon them in silence, and they, who had risen in confusion when I presented myself, confronted me also in silence, waiting for the storm of anger which they expected to burst from me, an outraged husband. They were mistaken; I was outwardly calm.
"'Madam,' I inquired, addressing my wife, 'may I inquire the cause of your tears?'
"She did not reply; M. Gabriel did. 'Let me explain,' he said, but I would not allow him to proceed.
"'I do not need you,' I said, 'to interpose between man and wife. I may presently have something to say to you. Till then, be silent.' Again I addressed my wife, and asked her why she was weeping.
"'They are not the first tears I have shed,' she replied, 'since I entered this unhappy house.'
"'I am aware of it, madam,' I replied; 'yet the house was not an unhappy one before you entered it. Honour, and truth, and faithfulness were its characteristics, and towards no man or woman who has received hospitality within these walls has any kind of treachery been practised by me, its master and your husband. Tears are a sign of grief, and suffering from it, as I perceive you are, I ask you why have you not sought consolation from the man whose name you bear, and whose life since you and he first met has had but one aim-to render you happy.'
"'You cannot comfort me,' she said.
"'Can he?' I asked, pointing to M. Gabriel.
"'You insult me,' she said with great dignity. 'I will leave you. We can speak of this in private.'
"'You will not leave me,' I said, 'and we will not speak of this in private, until after some kind of explanation is afforded me from your own lips and the lips of your friend. In saying I insult you, there is surely a mistaken idea in your mind as to what is due from you to me. M. Gabriel, whom I once called a friend, is here, enjoying my hospitality, of which I trust he has had no reason to complain. I find you in tears by his side, and he, by his attitude, endeavouring to console you. When I ask you, in his presence, why, being in grief, you do not come to me for consolation, you reply that I cannot comfort you. Yet you were accepting comfort from him, who is not your husband. It suggests itself to me that if an insult has been passed it has been passed upon me. I do not, however, receive it as such, for if an insult has been offered to me, M. Gabriel is partly responsible for it, and it is only between equals that such an indignity can be offered.'
"'Equals!' cried M. Gabriel; he understood my words in the sense in which I intended them. 'I am certainly your equal.'
"'It has to be proved,' I retorted. 'I use the term in so far as it affects honour and upright conduct between man and man. You can bring against me no accusation of having failed in those respects in my behaviour towards you. It has to be seen whether I can in truth bring such an accusation against you, and if I can substantiate it by evidence which the commonest mind would not reject, you are not my equal. I see that this plain and honest reasoning disturbs you; it should not without sufficient cause. Something more. If in addition I can prove that you have violated my hospitality, you are not only not my equal, but you have descended to a depth of baseness to describe which I can find no fitting terms.'
"He grew hot at this. 'I decline to be present any longer,' he said, 'at an interview conducted in such a manner.' And he attempted to leave me, but I stood in his way, and would not permit him to pass.
"'From this moment,' I said, 'I discharge myself of all duties towards you as your host. You are no longer my guest, and you will remain at this interview during my pleasure.'
"He made another attempt to leave the room, and as he accompanied it by violence, I seized his arms, and threw him to the ground. He rose, and stood trembling before me.
"'I make no excuse, madam,' I said to my wife, 'for the turn this scene has taken. It is unseemly for men to brawl in presence of a lady, but there are occasions when of two evils the least must be chosen. Should I find myself mistaken, I shall give to M. Gabriel the amplest apology he could desire. Let me recall to your mind the day on which M. Gabriel first entered my gates as my guest. I brought him to you, and presented him to you as a friend whom I esteemed, and whom I wished you also to esteem. You received him as a stranger, and I had no reason to suspect that he and you had been intimate friends, and that you were already well known to each other. You allowed me to remain in ignorance of this fact. Was it honest?'
"'It was not honest,' she replied.
"'It made me happy,' I continued, 'to see, after the lapse of a few days, that you found pleasure in his society, and I regarded him in the light of a brother to you. I trusted him implicitly, and although, madam, you and I have been most unhappy, I had no suspicion that there was any guilt in this, as I believed, newly-formed friendship.'
"'There was no guilt in it,' she said very firmly.
"'I receive your assurance, and believe it in the sense in which you offer it. But in my estimation the word I use is the proper word. In the concealment from me of a fact with which you or he should have hastened to make me acquainted; in the secret confidences necessarily involved in the carrying out of such an intimacy as yours; there was treachery from wife to husband, from friend to friend, and in that treachery there was guilt. By an accident, within the past month, a knowledge has come to me of a shameful scandal which, had I not nipped it in the bud, would have brought open disgrace upon my name and house-but the secret disgrace remains, and you have brought it into my family.'
"'A shameful scandal!' she exclaimed, and her white face grew whiter. 'Who has dared-'
"'The world has dared, madam, the world over whose tongue we have no control. The nature of the intimacy existing between you and M. Gabriel, far exceeding the limits of friendship, has provoked remark and comment from many of your guests, and we who should have been the first to know it, have been the last. From a lady stopping in my house I learnt that you and M. Gabriel were lovers before you and I met-that you were affianced. Madam, had you informed me of this fact you would have spared yourself the deepest unhappiness under which any human being can suffer. For then you and I would not have been bound to each other by a tie which death alone can sever. I have, at all events, the solace which right doing sometimes sheds upon a wounded heart; that solace cannot unhappily be yours. You have erred consciously, and innocent though you proclaim yourself, you have brought shame upon yourself and me. I pity you, but cannot help you further than by the action I intend to take of preventing the occurrence of a deeper shame and a deeper disgrace falling upon me. For M. Gabriel I have no feelings but those of utter abhorrence. I request him to remove himself immediately from my presence and from this house. This evening he will send for his paintings, which shall be delivered to his order. They will be placed in this summer-house. And in your presence madam, I give M. Gabriel the warning that if at any time, or under any circumstances, he intrudes himself within these walls, he will do so at his own peril. The protection which my honour-not safe in your keeping, madam-needs I shall while I live be able to supply.'
"This, in substance, is all that took place while my wife was with us. When she was gone I gave instructions that M. Gabriel's paintings and property should be brought to the summer-house immediately, and I informed him of my intentions regarding them and the room he had used as a study. He replied that I would have to give him a more satisfactory explanation of my conduct. I took no notice of the threat, and I carried out my resolve-which converted the study into a tomb in which my honour was buried. And on the walls of the study I caused to be inscribed the words 'The Grave of Honour.'
"On the evening of that day my wife sent for me, and in the presence of Denise, our faithful servant, heard my resolve with reference to our future life, and acquainted me with her own. The gates would never again be opened to friends. Our life was to be utterly secluded, and she had determined never to quit her rooms unless for exercise in the grounds at such times as I was absent from them.
"'After to-night,' she said, 'I will never open my lips to you, nor, willingly, will I ever again listen to your voice.'
"In this interview I learnt the snare, set by my wife's mother, into which we both had fallen.
"I left my wife, and our new life commenced-a life with hearts shut to love or forgiveness. But I had done my duty, and would bear with strength and resignation the unmerited misfortunes with which I was visited. Not my wife's, I repeat, the fault alone. I should have been wiser, and should have known-apart from any consideration of M. Gabriel-that my habits, my character, my tastes, my age, were entirely unsuitable to the fair girl I had married. I come now to the event which has rendered this record necessary."
