XI
It was on the first of May. All the necessary documents had been signed. Her departure was fixed for the day after to-morrow. She came to me and threw her arms round me.
“Now I belong to you alone; take me!”
As we had never discussed marriage, I did not quite understand what she meant, and we sat in my little attic, sad and thoughtful. Everything was permitted to us now, but temptation had diminished. She accused me of indifference, and I proved the contrary to her. Thereupon she accused me of sensuality.
Adoration, incense it was what she wanted!
She had hysterics, and complained that I no longer loved her. Already!...
After half-an-hour of flattery and blandishments she grew calmer, but she was not really herself until she had reduced me to tears of despair. Then she made a fuss of me.
The more humble I was, the more I knelt before her, small and miserable, the more she loved me. She hated strength and manliness in me; to win her love I had to pretend to be wretched, so that she could pose as the stronger, play “little mother” and console me.
We had supper in my room; she laid the table and prepared the meal. After supper I claimed the rights of a lover, and she made no resistance.
How wonderful is the rejuvenating power of love! A young girl lay in my arms, trembling, and brutality was transformed into tenderness. Surely the animal had no part in this union of souls! Alas! is it ever possible to say where the spiritual ends and the animal begins?
Reassured on the question of her health, she gave herself to me whole-heartedly; she was radiant with joy, content and happy; her beauty shone out; her eyes sparkled. My poor attic had become a temple, a sumptuous palace; I lighted the broken chandelier, my reading lamp, all the candles, to illuminate our happiness, the joy of living, the only thing which makes our miserable lives endurable.
For these moments of rapture accompany us on our thorny pilgrimage through life; the memory of these fleeting hours helps us to live, and outlive our former selves.
“Don’t speak ill of love,” I said to her. “Worship nature in all her forces; honour God, who compels us to be happy in spite of ourselves!”
She made no reply, for she was happy. Her yearning was stilled; my kisses had driven the warm blood through her beating heart into her cheeks; the flame of the candle was mirrored in her eyes moist with tears; the rainbow tints of her veins appeared more vivid, like the plumage of the birds in the springtime. She looked like a girl of sixteen, so delicate, so pure were her contours; the dainty head with its masses of golden hair, half-buried in the cushions, might have been a child’s.
Thus she reclined on my sofa, like a goddess, allowing me to worship her, while she regarded me with furtive glances, half shamefaced, half provoking.
How chaste in her abandonment is the beloved woman when she surrenders herself to the caresses of her lover! And man, though her superior mentally, is only happy when he has won the woman who is his true mate. My former flirtations, my love affairs with women of a lower class, appeared to me like crimes, like a sin against the race. The white skin, the perfect feet, the delicate hands, were they signs of degeneration? Were they not rather on a par with the glossy skin of the wild beast, its slim, sinewy legs, which show hardly any muscle? The beauty of a woman is the sum total of characteristics which are worthy of transmission through the agency of the man who can appreciate them. This woman had been pushed aside by her husband; therefore she no longer belonged to him, for she had ceased to please him. He could see no beauty in her, and it was left to me to achieve the blossoming of a flower, the rare loveliness of which the seer, the elect only, could perceive.
Midnight was striking. From the barracks close by came the “Who goes there?” of the relieving guards. It was time to part.
I accompanied my beloved on her way home, and, as we were walking along side by side, I tried to kindle in her the fire of my enthusiasm, my new hopes; I startled her with the plans which her kisses had ripened in me. She came closer, as if to find strength in contact with me, and I gave her back tenfold what I had received from her.
When we had arrived at the high railings she noticed that she had forgotten her key. How annoying! But, bent on showing her my mettle by penetrating into the lion’s den, I climbed the railings, dashed across the courtyard and knocked at the front door, prepared for a stormy reception from the Baron. My throbbing heart was thrilled by the thought of fighting my rival before her eyes. The favoured lover was transformed into a hero! But, luckily, it was only a servant who came to open the door, and we said good-night to each other formally, calmly, with the maid, who had not taken the trouble to respond to our “Good-evening,” looking on in contemptuous silence.
Henceforth she felt sure of my love, and so she abused it.
She came to see me to-day. She could not find words enough to praise her husband. Deeply affected by Matilda’s departure, he had succumbed to his wife’s pressure, and made her a promise to save appearances by accompanying her to the station, for, she argued, if both he and I were to see her off, her departure would not have the appearance of flight. Moreover, she told me that the Baron, no longer angry with me, had consented to receive me at his house, and, in order to put a stop to the rumours, show himself during the next few days about the town in my company.
I appreciated the generosity of this big, ingenuous child, with the honest heart, and, out of consideration for him, I demurred.
“We’re not going to disgrace him like that. Never!”
“Remember that it is a question of my child’s honour.”
“Doesn’t his honour count for something?”
But she laughed at the idea of considering other people’s honour. Looked upon me as eccentric.
“But that beats everything! You’re making me a by-word, you’re degrading us all! It’s folly! It’s unworthy!” I exclaimed.
She cried; and, after she had sobbed for an hour and overwhelmed me with reproaches, I succumbed to the irresistible weapon of her tears, and consented to do her bidding. But I cursed the despot, I cursed the falling crystal drops which increased tenfold the power of her glances.
She was stronger than both her husband and myself. She was leading us by the nose into disgrace! Why did she want this reconciliation? Was she afraid of a war to the knife between me and the Baron? Did she dread possible disclosures?...
... What a punishment she had inflicted on me by compelling me to revisit this dreary house! But, cruel egoist that she was, she had no sympathy with another’s terrors. I have had to promise her, on my oath, to deny the whole story of the illicit relationship which existed between the Baron and her cousin, so as to stop all slander. I went to this last meeting with slow steps and a sinking heart.
The little garden smiled at me with its blossoming cherry trees, its sweet-scented daffodils. The shrubbery, where her marvellous beauty had bewitched me, was bursting into leaf; the turned-up flower-beds looked like black shrouds spread out on the lawn; I pictured the forsaken little girl wandering about there alone, looked after by a servant, and learning her lessons; I pictured her growing up, awakening to the facts of life, and being told one day that her mother had deserted her.
I mounted the stairs of the fatal house, which was built against a sand quarry, and called up the memories of my childhood. Friendship, family, love, all had been jeopardised, and, in spite of our efforts to comply with the law of the land, crime had stained its threshold.
Who was to blame?
The Baroness opened the folding doors and secretly kissed me between the wings. I could not suppress a momentary feeling of loathing, and indignantly pushed her aside. It reminded me of the servants’ flirtations at the back door, and filled me with disgust. Behind the door! Slut! without pride, without dignity!
She pretended that I was reluctant to enter the drawing-room, and asked me in a loud voice to come in, at the very moment when, embarrassed by the humiliating situation in which I found myself, I hesitated, and was on the point of retracing my footsteps. A flash from her eyes, and my hesitation was gone; paralysed by her self-command, I gave in.
Everything in the drawing-room pointed to the breaking up of the household. Underlinen, dresses, petticoats were scattered all over the furniture. The writing-table was littered with a pile of stockings, a short time ago the delight of my eyes, to-day an abomination. She came and went, counted and folded up, brazenly, shamelessly.
“Had I corrupted her in so short a time?” I asked myself, gazing at this exhibition of a respectable woman’s underclothing.
She examined one piece after another, and put on one side everything which needed repairing; she noticed that on one garment the tapes were missing; she laid it aside with perfect unconcern.
I seemed to be present at an execution; I felt sick with misery, while she listened absent-mindedly to my futile conversation about unimportant details. I was waiting for the Baron, who had locked himself into the dining-room and was writing letters.
At last the door opened; I started apprehensively, but it was only the little girl who came in, puzzled to know the reason of all this upset. She ran up to me, accompanied by her mother’s spaniel, and held up her forehead to be kissed. I blushed. I felt angry, and turned to the Baroness.
“You might at least have spared me this!”
But she did not understand what I meant.
“Mamma is going away, darling, but she’ll soon be back and bring you lots of toys.”
The little dog begged for a caress—he, too!
A little later the Baron appeared.
He walked up to me, broken, crushed, and pressed my hand, unable to utter a word. I honoured his evident grief by a respectful silence, and he withdrew again.
The dusk was beginning to gather in the corners of the room. The maid lighted the lamps without seeming to notice my presence. Supper was announced. I wanted to go. But the Baron added his pressing invitation to that of the Baroness, and in so touching and sincere a manner that I accepted and stayed.
And we sat down to supper, the three of us, as in the old days. It was a solemn moment. We talked of all that had happened, and with moist eyes asked one another the question: “Who is to blame?” Nobody, destiny, a series of incidents, paltry in themselves, a number of forces. We shook hands, clinked our glasses together and spoke of our undying friendship exactly as in the days gone by. The Baroness alone kept up her spirits. She made the programme for the following day: the meeting at the railway station, the walks through the town, and we agreed to everything.
At last I rose to go. The Baron accompanied us into the drawing-room. There he laid the hand of the Baroness into mine and said, with choking voice—
“Be her friend. My part is played out. Take care of her, guard her from the wickedness of the world, cultivate her talent: you are better able to do it than I, a poor soldier. God protect you!”
He left us; the door closed behind him, and we were alone.
Was he sincere at that moment? I thought so at the time, and I should like to think so still. He was of a sentimental nature, and, in his way, fond of us; doubtless, the thought of seeing the mother of his child in the hands of an enemy would have been painful to him.
It is possible that later on, under adverse influence, he boasted of having fooled us. But such a thing would really have been foreign to his character—and is it not a well-known fact that no one likes to admit having been duped?
It was six o’clock at night. I was pacing the large hall of the Central Station. The train for Copenhagen would leave at six-fifteen, and neither the Baron nor the Baroness had appeared.
I felt like the spectator of the last act of a terrible tragedy, I was longing wildly for the end. Another quarter of an hour and there would be peace. My nerves, disordered by these successive crises, required rest, and the coming night would restore some of the nerve force which I had used up and squandered for the love of a woman.
She arrived at the last moment, in a cab, drawn by a mare which the driver was leading by the bridle.
Always careless and always too late!
She rushed towards me like a lunatic.
“The traitor! He has broken his word! He’s not coming!” she exclaimed so loudly that she attracted the attention of the passers-by.
It was certainly unfortunate, but I could not help respecting him for it.
“He’s quite right. He has common-sense on his side,” I said, seized with a spirit of contradiction.
“Be quick! Take a ticket for Copenhagen, or I shall stay here!” she ordered.
“No! If I went with you it would look like an elopement. All Stockholm would talk about it to-morrow.”
“I don’t care.... Make haste!”
“No! I won’t!”
But I could not help pitying her at the moment, and the situation was becoming unbearable. A quarrel, a lover’s quarrel was inevitable.
She knew it instinctively, and, seizing my hands, she implored me with her eyes; the ice melted; the sorceress won; I wavered... I succumbed....
“To Katrineholm then!”
“Very well, if you’d rather.”
She was having her luggage registered.
Everything was lost, including honour, and I had before me the prospect of a painful journey.
The train moved out of the station. We were alone in a first-class compartment. The Baron’s non-appearance had depressed us. It was an unforeseen danger and a bad omen. An uneasy silence reigned in the carriage; one of us had to break it. She was the one to speak.
“Axel, you don’t love me any more!”
“Perhaps not,” I replied, worn out by a month of chaos.
“And I have sacrificed everything to you!”
“Sacrificed everything?... To your love, perhaps, but not to me. And have I not sacrificed my life to you? You are angry with Gustav and you’re venting your anger on me... be reasonable.”
Tears, tears! What a wedding tour! I steeled my nerves, put on my armour. I became indifferent, impenetrable.
“Restrain your emotions! From to-day you must use your common-sense. Weep, weep until the source of your tears is dry, but then lift up your head. You are a foolish woman, and I have honoured you as a queen, as a ruler! I have done your bidding because I thought myself the weaker of the two! Unfortunately! Don’t make me despise you. Don’t ever try to blame me alone for what has happened. I admired Gustav’s shrewdness last night. He has realised that the great events in life have always more than one cause. Who is to blame? You? I? He? She? The threatening ruin, your passion for the stage, your internal trouble, the inheritance from your thrice-married grandfather? Your mother’s hatred of bearing children which is the cause of your vacillating disposition? The idleness of your husband, whose profession left him too much leisure? My instincts? The instincts of the man who has risen from the lower classes? My accidental meeting with your Finnish friend who brought us together? An endless number of motives, a few of which only are known to us. Don’t debase yourself before the mob who will unanimously condemn you to-morrow; don’t believe, like those poor in spirit, that you can solve such an intricate problem by taking neither the crime nor the criminal seriously!... And, moreover, have I seduced you? Be candid with yourself, with me, while we’re here alone, without witnesses.”
But she would not be candid.
She could not, for candour is not a woman’s characteristic.
She knew herself to be an accomplice in crime; she was tortured by remorse. She had but one thought, to ease her conscience by throwing the whole blame on me.
I left her to herself, and wrapped myself in a callous silence.
Night fell. I opened the window and leaned against the door, gazing at the quickly-passing black Scotch firs, behind which the pale moon was rising. Then a lake passed, surrounded by birch trees; a brook bordered by alders; cornfields, meadows, and then Scotch firs again, a long stretch of them. A mad desire to throw myself out of the carriage seized me; a desire to escape from this prison where I was watched by an enemy, kept spell-bound by a witch. But the anxiety for her future oppressed me like a nightmare; I felt responsible for her, who was a stranger to me, for her unborn children, for the support of her mother, her aunt, her whole family, for centuries to come.
I should make it my business to procure for her success on the stage; I should bear all her sorrows, her disappointments, her failures, so that one day she could throw me in the dust like a squeezed-out lemon—me, my whole life, my brain, the marrow of my spine, my life-blood; all in exchange for the love which I gave her, and which she accepted and called “sacrificing herself to me.” Delusions of love! hypnotism of passion!
She sat without moving until ten o’clock, sulking. One more hour and we should have to say good-bye.
All at once, with a word of apology, she put her two feet on the cushioned seat, pretending to be worn out with fatigue. Her languid glances, her tears had left me unmoved; I had kept my head, my strength of purpose in spite of her fallacious logic. Now everything collapsed. I beheld her adorable boots, a tiny piece of her stocking.
Down on your knees, Sampson! Put your head in her lap, press your cheeks against her knees, ask her to forgive you for the cruel words with which you have lashed her—and which she didn’t even understand! Slave! Coward! You lie in the dust before a stocking, you, who thought yourself strong enough to conquer a world! And she, she only loves you when you debase yourself; she buys you cheaply at the price of a few moments of gratified passion, for she has nothing to lose.
The engine whistled; the train glided into the station; I had to leave her. She kissed me with motherly affection, made the sign of the cross on my forehead—although she was a Protestant—commended me to the Lord, begged me to take care of myself, and not to give way to fretting.
The train steamed out into the night, choking me with its bituminous smoke.
I breathed—at last—the cool evening air, and enjoyed my freedom. Alas! but for a moment. No sooner had I arrived at the village inn than I broke down. I loved her, yes, I loved her, just as I had seen her at the moment of parting; for that moment recalled to me the first sweet days of our friendship, when she was the lovely, womanly tender mother, who spoiled and caressed me as if I had been a little child.
And yet I loved her ardently, desired to make this stormy woman my wife.
I asked for writing material, and wrote her a letter in which I told her that I would pray to God for her happiness.
Her last embrace had led me back to God, and, under the influence of her parting kiss, still fresh on my lips, I denied the new faith, which teaches the progress of humanity.
The first stage in the downfall of a man had been reached; the others were sure to follow—to utter degradation, to the verge of insanity.