X
There were times when I had no doubt that my wife hated me and wished to get rid of me in order to marry again.
Sometimes strange reflections in the expression of her face made me suspect her of having a lover, and her coldness towards me strengthened my suspicion; all of a sudden my smouldering jealousy burst into fierce flames, our marriage was shaken to its very foundations, and hell opened wide at our feet.
My wife declared that she was ill, suffering from some vague disease of the spine or the back, she was uncertain which.
I sent for the family doctor, an old college friend of mine. He diagnosed rheumatic knots on the muscles of the back, and prescribed a course of massage. I had no objection to make, for there seemed to be no doubt of the reality of the disease. As I had no idea of the intimate nature of the treatment, I remained completely absorbed in my literary work, and paid no attention whatever to the progress of the cure. My wife did not appear to be dangerously ill, for she came and went as usual, visited the theatres, never refused an invitation, and was always the last to leave a party.
One evening, at a small gathering of friends, some one suddenly began to bewail the dearth of lady doctors. The speaker maintained that it must be very unpleasant for a woman to undress before a stranger, and, turning to Marie, he said—
“Am I not right? Isn’t it very unpleasant?”
“Oh! a doctor doesn’t count.”
The nature of the treatment was revealed to me by a sudden flash. I noticed an expression of sensuality on Marie’s face, an expression which had puzzled me for some time, and a terrible suspicion gripped my heart. She undressed before a notorious voluptuary! And I had been completely ignorant of it.
When we were alone, I asked her for an explanation.
She described the treatment, apparently quite unconcerned.
“But don’t you mind?”
“Why should I mind?
“You always appeared to me almost prudish in your modesty.”
Two days later the doctor called to see one of the children. Seated in my room, I overheard a more than strange conversation between him and my wife. They were laughing and whispering.
Presently they entered my room, the smile still on their lips. Plunged in sinister speculations, my mind kept wandering from the subject of our conversation; by and by it drifted to women patients.
“You thoroughly understand women’s complaints, don’t you, old boy?” I said.
Marie looked at me. She was furious. There was so much hatred blazing in her eyes that I felt a cold thrill running down my back.
When the doctor had left, she turned on me furiously.
“Prostitute!” I flung the word into her face. It escaped my lips against my will, giving expression to an intuitive flash which I had not had time to analyse. The insult came home to me and oppressed me. My eyes fell on the children, and with a contrite heart I apologised.
But she remained angry, so angry that nothing would soften her.
To make amends for the great injustice which I had done her, and to some extent, also, influenced by her hatred, I conceived the idea of arranging for her a pleasure trip to Finland in the shape of a theatrical tour, extending over several weeks.
I started negotiations with theatrical managers, succeeded in coming to terms, and raised the money.
She went to Finland, where she won patriotic victories and a number of laurel wreaths.
I was left alone with the children. I fell ill. Believing myself to be on the point of death, I sent her a telegram, asking her to return home. As she had fulfilled all her engagements, this did not interfere with business.
On her return I was better; she accused me of having brought her back on false pretences, telegraphed lies, merely to take her away from her relations and her native country....
Soon after her return I noticed a new phase, a phase which filled me with increased uneasiness. Contrary to her former habits, she gave herself to me unreservedly.
What was the reason? I wondered, but I felt no inclination to probe too deeply....
On the next morning and the days which followed she talked of nothing but the pleasant time she had spent in Finland. Carried away for the moment by her memories, she told me that she had made the acquaintance of an engineer on the steamer, an enlightened, up-to-date man, who had convinced her that there was no such thing as sin in the abstract, and that circumstances and destiny alone were responsible for all happenings.
“Certainly, my dear,” I agreed, “but for all that our actions do not fail to draw their consequences after them. I admit that there is no such thing as sin, because there is no personal God; nevertheless we are responsible to those we wrong. There may be no sin in the abstract, but crime will exist as long as there is a Law. We may smile at the theological conception of it, but vengeance or, rather, retribution, remains a fact, and the aggressor never escapes.”
She had grown grave, but pretended not to understand me.
“Only the wicked revenge themselves,” she said at last.
“Agreed; but with so many wicked people in the world, who can be sure that he is dealing with a man brave enough not to retaliate?”
“Fate guides our actions.”
“True; but Fate also guides the dagger of the avenger.”
... At the end of the month she had a miscarriage, sufficient proof, I thought, of her infidelity. And from that moment suspicion grew slowly into certainty and filled my heart with bitterness.
She did her utmost to persuade me that I was “mad,” that my suspicions were but the figments of an overworked brain. And once again she forgave me. To mark our reconciliation I wrote a play containing a splendid part for her, a part which it was impossible to ruin. On the seventeenth of August I handed her the play together with the deed of gift, which conferred on her all the rights. She could do with it what she liked as long as she herself played the part which I had written for her. It was the result of two months’ strenuous work. She accepted it without a word of thanks, a sacrifice due to Her Majesty, the second-rate actress.