“Me?”
“Entirely! Do you know what he thinks of you?”
“No.”
“He thinks you – let me begin by telling you this – very, very sympathetic, and a dear little mother to your boys. But he thinks also that you are incapable of growing very fond of anyone; he thinks you a woman without passion, and melancholy for no reason, except for weariness. He thinks you weary yourself!”
She looked at him quite alarmed, and saw him laughing mischievously.
“Never in my life am I weary!” she said, and laughed, too, with full conviction.
“Of course not!” he replied.
“How can
you
know?” she asked.
“I feel it!” he answered. “And, what is more, I know that the base of your character is not melancholy, not dark, but enthusiasm and light.”
“I am not so sure of that myself,” she scarcely murmured, heavy, with that weakness within her; happy, that he should estimate her so exactly. “And do you, too,” she continued, very airily, “think I am incapable of loving anyone very much?”
“Now that is a matter which I am not competent to judge,” he said, with such frankness that his whole countenance suddenly grew younger, and the crease disappeared from his forehead. “I cannot tell that!”
“You seem to know a great deal about me!”
“I have seen you so often already.”
“Barely four times.”
“That is often.”
She laughed brightly.
“Is that a compliment?”
“It is meant for one,” he replied. “You do not know how much it means to me to see you.”
How much it meant to him to see her! And she felt herself so small, so weak, and him so great, so perfect. With what decision he spoke, how certain he seemed of it all! It almost saddened her that it meant so much to him to see her a single time. He placed her too high; she did not wish to be placed so high.
And that delicate fragile something hung between
them again, as it had hung between them at dinner. Then it had been broken by one ill-chosen word. Oh, that it might not be broken now!
“And now let us talk about
you
!” she said, with affected frivolousness. “Do you know that you take all sorts of pains to understand me, and that I know nothing of you? That cannot be fair.”
“If you knew how much I have given you already! I give myself to you entirely; from others I always conceal myself.”
“Why?”
“Because I am afraid of the others!”
“
You
afraid?”
“Yes. You think that I do not look as if I could feel afraid? I have something …”
He hesitated.
“Well?” she asked.
“I have something that is very dear to me, and about which I am very anxious, lest any should touch it.”
“And that is?”
“My soul. I am not afraid of your touching it, for you would not hurt it. On the contrary, I know it is very safe with you.”
She would have liked once more, mechanically, to reproach him with his strangeness: she could not. But he guessed her thoughts.
“You think me a very odd person, do you not? But how can I be otherwise with you?”
She felt her love expanding within her heart, widening it to its full capacity within her. Her love was as a domain, in which he wandered.
“I do not understand you yet; I do not know you yet!” she said softly. “I do not see you yet …”
“Would you be in any way interested to know me, to see me?”
“Surely.”
“Let me tell you then; I should like to do so, it would be a great joy to me.”
“I am listening to you most attentively.”
“One question beforehand: You cannot endure an athlete?”
“On the contrary, I do not mind the display and development of strength so long as it is not too near to me. Just as I like to hear a storm, when I am safely within doors. And I can look at acrobats with great pleasure.”
He laughed quietly.
“Nevertheless you held my particular predilection in great aversion?”
“Why should you think that?”
“I felt it.”
“You feel everything,” she said, almost in alarm. “You are a dangerous person.”
“So many think that. Shall I tell you why you took a special aversion in my case?”
“Yes.”
“Because you did not understand it in me; even though you may perhaps have observed that physical exercise is one of my strong passions.”
“I do not understand you at all.”
“I think you are right … But do not let me talk so much of myself; I prefer to talk of you.”
“And I of you. So be gallant to me for the first time in our acquaintance, and speak … of yourself.”
He bowed, with a smile.
“You will not think me tiresome?”
“Not at all. You were telling me of yourself. You were speaking of your love of exercise …”
“Ah! Yes … Can you understand that there are in me two distinct individuals?”
“Two distinct …”
“Yes. My soul, my real self; and then … there remains the other.”
“And what is that other?”
“Something ugly, something common, something grossly primitive. In one word, the brute.”
She shrugged her shoulders lightly.
“How dark you paint yourself. The same thing is more or less true of everybody.”
“Yes, but it troubles me more than I can tell you. I suffer; the lower hurts my soul, the higher, more than the whole world hurts it. Now do you know why I feel such a sense of security when I am with you? It is because I do not feel the brute that is in me … Let me
go on a little longer, let me shrive myself; it does me good to tell you this. You thought I had only seen you four times? But I saw you often formerly, in the theatre, in the street, everywhere. There was always something strange for me when I saw you in the midst of accidental surroundings. And always, when I looked at you, I felt as if I were lifted to something more beautiful. I cannot express myself more clearly. There is something in your face, in your eyes, in your movements, I do not know what, but something better than in other people, something that addressed itself, most eloquendy, to my soul only. All this is so subtle and so strange … But you are no doubt thinking again that I am going too far, are you not? Or that I am raving?”
“Certainly, I never should have thought you such an idealist, such a
sensitivist
,” said Cecile softly.
“Have I leave to speak to you like this?”
“Why not?” she asked, to escape the necessity of replying directly.
“You might possibly fear lest I should compromise you …”
“I do not fear that for an instant!” she replied, haughtily, as in utter contempt of the world.
They were silent for a moment. That delicate, fragile thing, that might so easily break, still hung between them, thin, like a gossamer between them, lightly joining them together. An atmosphere of embarrassment hovered about them. They felt that the words which
had passed between them were full of significance. Cecile waited for him to continue; but as he was silent she boldly took up the conversation:
“On the contrary, I value it highly that you have spoken to me like this. You were right; you have indeed given me much of yourself. I wish to assure you of my sympathy. I believe I understand you better now that I see you better.”
“I want very much to ask you something,” he said, “but I dare not.”
She smiled to encourage him.
“No, really I dare not,” he repeated.
“Shall I guess?” Cecile asked, jestingly.
“Yes; what do you think it is?”
She glanced round the room until her eye rested on the little table covered with books.
“The loan of Emerson’s
Essays
?” she hazarded.
But Quaerts shook his head and laughed.
“No, thank you,” he said. “I have bought the volume long ago. No, no; it is a much greater favour than the loan of a book.”
“Be bold then, and ask it,” Cecile went on jestingly.
“I dare not,” he said again. “I should not know how to put my request into words.”
She looked at him earnestly, into his eyes gazing steadily upon her, and then she said:
“I know what you want to ask me, but I will not say it.
You
must do that: so seek your words.”
“If you know, will you permit me then to say it?”
“Yes, for if my surmise is correct, it is nothing that you may not ask.”
“And yet it would be a great favour … But let me warn you beforehand that I look upon myself as someone of a much lower order than you.”
A shadow passed across her face, her mouth had a little contraction of pain, and she pressed him, a little unnerved:
“I beg you, ask. Just ask me simply.”
“It is a wish, then, that sympathy were sealed between you and me. Would you allow me to come to you when I am unhappy? I always feel so happy in your presence, so soothed, so different from the state of ordinary life, for with you I live only my better, my true self – you know what I mean.”
Everything melted again within her into weakness and heaviness; he placed her upon too high a pedestal; she was happy, because of what he asked her, but sad that he felt himself less than she.
“Very well,” she said, nevertheless, with a clear voice. “It is as you wish.”
And she gave him her hand, her beautiful, long, white hand, where on one white finger gleamed the sparks of jewels, white and blue. A moment, very reverently, he pressed her finger-tips between his own.
“Thank you,” he said in a hushed voice, a voice that was a little broken.
“Are you often unhappy?” asked Cecile.
“Always …” he replied, almost humbly, and as though embarrassed at having to confess it. “I do not know what it means, only that it has always been so. And yet from my childhood I have enjoyed much that people call happiness. But yet, yet … I suffer through myself. It is I who do myself the most hurt. And after that the world … and I must always hide myself. To the world I only show the individual who rides and fences and hunts, who goes into society and is dangerous for young married women …”
He laughed with his bad, low laugh, looking aslant into her eyes; she remained calmly gazing at him.
“Beyond that I give them nothing. I hate them; I have nothing in common with them, thank God!”
“You are too proud,” said Cecile. “Each of those people has his own sorrow, just as you have; the one suffers a little more coarsely; but they all suffer. And in that they all resemble yourself.”
“Each taken by himself, perhaps! But that is not how I take them; I take them in the lump, and I hate them. Do not you?”
“No,” she said calmly. “I do not believe I am capable of hating.”
“You are strong within yourself. You are sufficient to yourself.”
“No, no, not that, really not; but you … you are unjust towards the world.”
“Possibly: why does it always give me pain? Alone with you I forget that it exists, the outside world. Do you understand now why I was so sorry to see you at Mrs Hoze’s? You seemed to me to have lowered yourself. And it was because … because of this peculiarity I saw in you that I did not seek your acquaintance earlier. This acquaintance was fatally bound to come, and so I waited …”
Fate, what would it bring her? thought Cecile. But she could not think deeply; she seemed to herself to be dreaming of beautiful and subtle things which did not exist for other people, which only floated between them two.
There was no longer need to look upon them as illusions, it was as if she had overtaken the future! One short moment only did this endure as happiness; then again she felt pain, on account of his reverence.
He was gone and she was alone, waiting for the children. She neglected to ring for the lamp to be lighted, and the twilight of the late afternoon darkened in the room. She sat motionless, and looked out before her at the withered trees.
“Why should I not be happy?” she thought. “He is happy with me; he is himself with me only; he cannot be so among other people. Why then can
I
not be happy?”
She felt pain; her soul suffered, it seemed to her for the first time. This, perhaps, was because now for the first time her soul had not been itself but another. It seemed to her that another woman must have spoken to him, to Quaerts, just now.
An exalted woman: a woman of illusions – the woman, in fact, he saw in her, and not the woman she was: lowly, a woman of love. Ah, she had had to restrain herself not to ask him: “Why do you speak to me like that? Why do you raise up your beautiful thoughts to me? Why do you not rather let them drip down upon me? For see, I do not stand so high as you think; and see, I am at your feet, and my eyes seek you above me.”
Should she have told him that she deceived him? Should she have asked him: “How is it that I lower myself when I mix with other people? What then do
you see in me? I am only a woman, a woman of feebleness and dreams. I have come to love you, I do not know why.”
Should she have opened his eyes and said to him: “Look upon your own soul in a mirror; look upon yourself and see how you are a god walking upon the earth: a god who knows everything because he feels it, feels it because he knows it …” Everything? … No … not everything; for he deceived himself, this god, and thought to find an equal in her, who was but his creature. Should she have declared all this, at the cost of her modesty and his happiness? For this happiness – she felt perfectly assured – lay in seeing her in the way that he saw her.
“With me he is happy!” she thought. “And sympathy is sealed between us … It was not friendship, nor did he speak of love; he called it simply sympathy … With me he feels only his real self, and not that other … the brute that is in him … the brute …”
Then there came drifting over her a gloom as of gathering clouds, and she shuddered before that which suddenly rolled through her: a broad stream of blackness, as though its waters were filled with mud, which bubbled up in troubled rings, growing larger and larger. She took fear before this stream, and tried not to see it; but it sullied all her landscapes – so bright before, with their horizons of light – now with a sky of ink smeared above, like filthy night.
“How high he thinks, how noble his thoughts are!” Cecile still forced herself to imagine, in spite of …