III
The result of my attack on the strongholds of the feminists soon made itself felt. The Swiss press attacked me in such a manner that my life in Switzerland became unbearable. The sale of my books was prohibited, and I fled, hunted from town to town, to France.
But my former Paris friends had deserted me. They had become my wife’s allies, and, surrounded and hemmed in like a wild beast, I again changed the arena; almost without means I at last made port in a colony of artists in the neighbourhood of Paris.
Alas! I was caught in a net, and I remained enmeshed for ten miserable months!
The society in which I found myself consisted of young Scandinavian artists, recruited from various professions, some of them of strange origin; but, worse still, there was a number of lady-artists, women without prejudices, completely emancipated and so enamoured with hermaphroditic literature that they believed themselves the equals of man. They tried to conceal their sex as far as possible by adopting certain masculine characteristics; they smoked, drank, played billiards... and made love to each other. They wallowed in the lowest depths of immorality.
As an alternative to utter isolation, we made friends with two of those monstrous women; one of them was a writer, the other an artist.
The writer called on me first, as is customary when one happens to be a well-known author. My wife was jealous at once: she was anxious to win an ally sufficiently enlightened to appreciate my arguments against the unsexed.
But certain events happened which made my henceforth notorious mania break out in irrepressible fury.
The hotel boasted of an album which contained caricatures of all the well-known Scandinavians, sketched by Scandinavian artists. My portrait was amongst them, adorned with a horn cleverly contrived by the manipulation of a lock of hair.
The artist was one of our most intimate friends. I concluded that my wife’s infidelity was an open secret; everybody knew it, everybody except myself. I asked the proprietor of the collection for an explanation.
Marie had taken care to inform him of my mental condition soon after our arrival, and he swore that the decoration of my forehead existed in my imagination only, that there was no trace of it in the sketch, and that I had worked myself into a passion for no reason whatever. I had to be content with this explanation until I was able to obtain more reliable information.
One evening we were sipping our coffee in the hotel garden in the company of an old friend who had just arrived from Sweden. It was still broad daylight, and from where I sat I could watch every expression on Marie’s face. The old man gave us all the latest news. Amongst other names he mentioned that of the doctor who had treated my wife by massage. She did not let the name pass without comment, but interrupted him with a defiant—
“Ah! you know the doctor?”
“Oh yes, he is a very popular man.... I mean to say he enjoys a certain reputation——”
“As a conceited fool,” I interposed.
Marie’s cheeks grew pale; a cynical smile drew up the corners of her mouth, so that her white teeth became visible. The conversation dropped amid a general sense of embarrassment.
When I was left alone with my friend, I begged him to tell me frankly what he knew of those rumours which were giving me so much uneasiness. He swore a solemn oath that he knew nothing. I continued urging him, and at last drew from him the following enigmatical words of comfort—
“Moreover, my dear fellow, if you suspect one man, you may be sure that there are several.”
That was all. But from this day onward Marie, who had been so fond of telling tales, of mentioning the doctor’s name in public, that it sometimes seemed as if she were trying to get accustomed to talk about him without blushing, never again alluded to him.
This discovery impressed me so much that I took the trouble to search my memory for similar evidence. I recollected a play which had appeared at the time of her divorce. It threw light, vague, uncertain light, it is true, but yet sufficient light, on the channel which led up to the source of those rumours.
A play—by the famous Norwegian blue-stocking, the promoter of the “equality-mania,” had fallen into my hands. I had read it without connecting it in the least with my own case. Now, however, I applied it easily, so easily that the blackest suspicions of my wife’s good fame seemed justified.
This was the story of the play—
A photographer (the realism of my writings had won me this designation) had married a girl of doubtful morality. She had been the mistress of a smelter, and funds which she received from her former lover kept her home going. She made herself proficient in her husband’s profession; and while she worked left him to loaf and spend his time in the cafés, drinking with boon companions.
The facts, albeit disguised in this way, must have been plain enough to the publisher; for although the latter knew that Marie was a translator, he did not know that I edited her translations and paid her the proceeds of her work without condition or deduction.
Matters did not improve when the unfortunate photographer discovered that his daughter, whom he idolised, had come into the world prematurely and was not his child at all, that he had been duped by his wife when she had prevailed on him to marry her.
To complete his degradation the deceived husband accepted a large sum from the old lover in lieu of damages.
In this I saw an allusion to Marie’s loan which the Baron had guaranteed; it was the same guarantee which I had been compelled to countersign on our wedding-day.
I could not, at first, see any similitude between the illegitimate birth of the child in the play and my own case, for my little daughter was not born until two years after our marriage.
But I reflected.... What about the child who died?... I was on the right track!... Poor little dead baby!... It had been the cause of our marriage which otherwise might never have taken place.
I knew that my conclusion was not altogether sound, nevertheless I had arrived at a conclusion of some sort. Everything fitted in. Marie had visited the Baron after the divorce, he was on friendly terms with us, the walls of my home were decorated with his pictures, there was the loan, and all the rest of it.
I was determined to act, and laid my plans accordingly. I intended to suggest that Marie should draw up an indictment, or rather a defence, which would clear us both, for both of us had been attacked by the feminists’ man of straw; he, doubtless, had been bribed into undertaking this profitable job.
When Marie entered my room, I received her in the most friendly manner.
“What is the matter?” she asked.
“A very serious thing which concerns us both!” I told her the story of the play, and added that the actor who played the part of the photographer had made up to resemble me.
She reflected, silently, a prey to very evident excitement.
Then I suggested the defence.
“If it is true, tell me; I shall forgive you. If the little one who died was indeed Gustav’s baby, well—you were free at the time; vague promises only bound you to me, and you had never accepted any money from me. As for the hero of the play, he behaved, in my opinion, like a man of heart; he was incapable of ruining the future prospects of his wife and daughter. The money which he accepted on behalf of the child was nothing but a quite legitimate compensation for an injury done to him.”
She listened with great attention; her small soul nibbled at the bait without, however, swallowing it.
To judge from the calm which smoothed her conscience-stricken features, my assertion that she had a right to dispose of her body because she had never taken money from me pleased her. She agreed that the deceived husband was a man of heart. “A noble heart,” she maintained.
The scene ended without my succeeding to draw a confession from her. I showed her the way out of the difficulty; I appealed to her for advice as to the best means of repairing our honour; suggested that we should publish our “defence” in the shape of a novel, and so cleanse ourselves before the world and our children from all those infamies....
I talked for an hour. She sat at my writing-table, playing with my penholder, in a state of intense agitation, without making a sound, only giving vent occasionally to a short exclamation.
I went out for a walk and then played a game of billiards. When I returned, after a couple of hours, I found her still sitting in the same place, motionless, like a statue.
She roused herself when she heard my footsteps.
“You were setting a trap for me!” she exclaimed.
“Not at all! Do you think I want to lose the mother of my children for ever?”
“I consider you capable of anything. You want to be rid of me; you made an attempt some time ago when you introduced a certain friend of yours to me.” She mentioned a name which had never before been mentioned in this connection. “You hoped that I should betray you with him, didn’t you?”
“Who told you that?”
“Helga!”
“Helga?”
She was Marie’s last “friend” before we left Sweden. The revenge of the Lesbian!
“And you believed her?”
“Of course I did.... But I deceived you both, him and you!”
“You mean there was a third?”
“I didn’t say so!”
“But you just confessed it! Since you deceived both of us, you must have deceived me! That is a logical conclusion.”
She fought my arguments desperately, and demanded that I should prove them.
“Prove them!...”
Her treachery, surpassing the lowest depths of degradation of which I held a human heart capable, weighed on me like a crushing load. I bowed my head, I fell on my knees, I whined for mercy.
“You believed in the tittle-tattle of that woman! You believed that I wanted to be rid of you! And yet I have never been anything to you but a true friend, a faithful husband; I can’t live without you! You complained of my jealousy... while I regarded all women who run after me, trying to make love to me, as evil spirits. You believed what that woman said!... Tell me, did you really believe it?”
She was moved to compassion, and, all at once, yielding to a prompting to tell the truth, she confessed that she had never really believed it.
“And you deceived me.... Confess it, I’ll forgive you.... Deliver me from the terrible, pitiless thoughts which torment me.... Confess it....”
She confessed nothing, and merely confined herself to calling my friend a “scoundrel.”
A scoundrel he, my most intimate, my closest friend!
Oh, that I lay before her dead! Life was unbearable....
During dinner she was more than kind to me. When I had gone to bed, she came into my room, and, sitting on the edge of my bed, stroked my hands, kissed my eyes, and at last, shaken to the very foundation of her soul, burst into uncontrollable weeping.
“Don’t cry, darling, tell me what’s the matter; let me comfort you!...”
She stammered unintelligible, disconnected words about my generous heart, my kindness, my forbearance, the great compassion which I extended even to the worst of sinners.
How absurd it all was! I accused her of infidelity, she praised and caressed me.
But the fire had been kindled, and the flames could not be extinguished.
She had deceived me.
I must know the name of my rival!
The following week was one of the darkest of my whole life.
I fought a desperate fight against all those inbred principles which we inherit, or, rather, which we acquire through education. I resolved to open Marie’s letters and make sure how I stood with her. And yet, although I allowed her to open all communications which came for me during my absence, I recoiled from tampering with the sacred law of the inviolability of letters, this most subtle obligation imposed on us by silent agreement between the whole community.
But my desire to know the full truth was stronger than my sense of honour, and a day dawned when the sacred law was forgotten. A letter had arrived; I opened it with trembling fingers; my hands shook as if they were unfolding the death-warrant of my honour.
It was a letter from the adventuress, friend No. 1. The subject of it was my insanity, mockingly, contemptuously discussed; it concluded with a prayer that God might soon deliver “her dear Marie” from her martyrdom by extinguishing the last glimmer of my reason.
I copied the worst passages, re-sealed the envelope, and laid the letter aside, ready to hand it to my wife with the evening mail. When the time came I gave it to her, and sat down by her side to watch her while she read it.
When she came to the part where the writer prayed for my death—at the top of the second page—she burst into shrill laughter.
So my beloved wife saw no other way out of her difficulties than my death. It was her only hope of escape from the consequences of her indiscretions. When I was gone, she would cash my life insurance and receive the pension due to the widow of a famous writer; then she would marry again, perhaps, or remain a gay widow all her life... my beloved wife....
Moriturus sum! I resolved to hasten the catastrophe by a liberal recourse to absinthe, sole source of happiness now, and in the meantime play billiards to calm my excited brain.
A fresh complication confronted me, worse, if possible, than any of the previous ones. The authoress who had pretended to be in love with me made a conquest of Marie, and Marie became so devoted to her that her attachment gave rise to a great deal of gossip. This roused the jealousy of the authoress’s former “inseparable,” a fact which was not calculated to contradict the ugly rumours.
One evening Marie asked me whether I was in love with her friend....
“No, on the contrary! A common tippler! You can’t be serious!”
“I am mad on her,” she replied. “It is strange, isn’t it?... I am afraid of being alone with her!”
“Why?”
“I don’t know! She is so charming... delicious....”
“Indeed....”
In the following week we invited some of our Paris friends, artists, without scruples or prejudices, and their wives.
The men came, but alone; the wives sent apologies, so transparent that they amounted to insults.
Dinner degenerated into perfect orgy. The scandalous conduct of the men revolted me.
They treated Marie’s two friends as if they were prostitutes, and when every one was more or less intoxicated I saw one of the officers present repeatedly kissing my wife.
I waved my billiard cue above their heads and demanded an explanation.
“He’s a friend of my childhood, a relative! Don’t make yourself a laughing-stock, you silly!” replied Marie.
“Moreover, it is a Russian custom to kiss in public, and we are Russian subjects.”
“Rubbish!” exclaimed one of the convives. “A relative? Humbug!”
I nearly committed a murder then. I had every intention to... but the thought of leaving my children without father and mother arrested my arm.
When the company had left I had a scene with Marie.
“Prostitute!”
“Why?”
“Because you submit to being treated like one.”
“Are you jealous?”
“Yes, I am jealous; jealous of my honour, the dignity of my family, the reputation of my wife, the future of my children! It is because of your unworthy conduct that we are ostracised by all decent women. To allow a stranger to kiss you in public! Don’t you realise that you are mad, that you neither see, nor hear, nor understand what you are doing, that you are absolutely devoid of all sense of duty? I shall have you shut up if you don’t mend your ways, and, to begin with, I forbid you to have anything more to do with those two women!”
“It’s all your fault! You egged me on!”
“I wanted to see how far you would go!”
“See how far I would go! What proof have you that the relationship between me and my friends is such as you suspect?”
“What proof! None! But I have your admissions, your slippery tales. And didn’t one of your friends admit that in her own country she would fall into the hands of the law?”
“I thought you denied the existence of vice!”
“I don’t care how your friends amuse themselves so long as their amusements do not interfere with the welfare of my family. From the moment, however, that their ‘peculiarities,’ if you prefer this word, threaten to injure us, they are, as far as we are concerned, criminal acts. True, as a philosopher, I don’t admit the existence of vice, but only of physical or moral defects. And, quite recently, when this unnatural tendency was discussed in the French parliament, all the French physicians of note were of opinion that it was not the province of the law to interfere in these matters, except in cases where the interests of individual citizens were violated.”
I might as well have preached to stone walls. How could I hope to make this woman, who acknowledged no other law but her animal instincts, grasp a philosophical distinction!
To be quite sure of the facts, I wrote to a friend in Paris and asked him to tell me the plain truth.
In his reply, which was very candid, he told me that my wife’s perverse tendencies were no secret in Scandinavia, and that the two Danes were well-known Lesbians in Paris.
We were in debt at our hotel, and had no money; therefore we were unable to move. But the two Danish ladies got into trouble with the peasants, and were compelled to leave.
We had known them for eight months, and an abrupt termination of our friendship was impossible; moreover, they belonged to good families, and were well educated; they had been comrades in trouble, and I resolved to grant them a retreat with honours. A farewell banquet was therefore arranged in the studio of one of the young artists.
At dessert, when every one was more or less gay with the wine which had been drunk, Marie, overcome by her feelings, rose to sing a song of her own composition. It was an imitation of the well-known song in Mignon, and in it she bade farewell to her friend. She sang with fire and genuine feeling, her almond-shaped eyes were full of tears and glowed softly in the reflection of the candle-light; she opened her heart so wide that even I was touched and charmed. There was a candour, an ingenuousness in this woman’s love-song to a woman, so pathetic that it kept all unchaste thoughts at bay. And how strange it was! She had neither the appearance nor the manners of the hermaphrodite; she was essentially woman; loving, tender, mysterious, unfathomable woman.
How different from her was the object of her tenderness! She was a pure Russian type, with masculine features, a hooked nose, a massive chin, yellow eyes and bloated cheeks, a flat chest, crooked fingers—a truly hideous woman—a peasant would not have looked at her.
When she had finished her song Marie sat down by the side of this freak; the latter rose, took Marie’s head in her two hands and kissed her on the lips. That at least was pure and unadulterated sensuality.
I drank with the Russian until she was quite intoxicated; she stumbled, looked at me with large, bewildered eyes, and, sobbing like an imbecile, clutched the wall to support herself. I had never before seen such ugliness in human shape.
The banquet ended with a row in the street. On the following morning the two Danes left.
Marie passed through a terrible crisis; I was genuinely sorry for her; her longing for her friend, her suffering, were unmistakable. It was a genuine instance of unhappy love. She went for solitary walks in the woods, sang love-songs, visited the favourite haunts of her friends, exhibited every symptom of a wounded heart. I began to entertain fears for her sanity. She was unhappy, and I could not console her. She avoided my caresses, pushed me aside when I tried to kiss her. My heart was full of hatred for the woman who had robbed me of my wife’s love. Perfectly unconscious of herself, Marie made no secret of the identity of the person for whom she was mourning. She talked of nothing but her love and her sorrow. It was incredible!
The two friends carried on a brisk correspondence. Infuriated with her indifference to me, I one day seized one of her friend’s letters. It was a genuine love-letter. “My ’darling, my little puss, my clever, delicate, tender, noble-hearted Marie; that coarse husband of yours is but a stupid brute....” and so on. The letter further suggested that she should leave me, and proposed ways and means of escape....
I stood up against my rival, and on the same evening—oh, my God! Marie and I fought in the moonshine. She bit my hands, I dragged her to the river to drown her like a kitten—when suddenly I saw a vision of my children. It brought me to my senses.
I resolved to put an end to myself, but before doing so I determined to write the story of my life.
The first part of the book was finished when the news spread through the village that the Danish ladies had engaged rooms.
I instantly had the trunks packed, and we left for German Switzerland.