LITMIR.BIZ

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Has the human soul ever so poignantly expressed its craving for quietude? I fancy I should have been a heart’s friend of that dead man, who, like myself, loved the cool and quiet shadow, and was not allowed to enjoy it in this world. I may not get the calm I desire, but at any rate my existence shall not be turned upside down by mad passion for a woman. As for the social-contract aspect of marriage, I want no better housekeeper than Antoinette; and my dining-table having no guests does not need a lady to grace its foot; I have no a priori craving to add to the population. “If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone,” says Schopenhauer, “would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence? or at any rate not take it upon himself to impose that burden upon it in cold blood?” By bringing children into the world by means of a marriage of convenience I should be imposing the burden of existence upon them in cold blood. I agree with Schopenhauer.

      And the dreadful bond of such a marriage! To have in the closest physical and moral propinquity for one hundred and eighty-six hours out of the week, each hour surcharged with an obligatory exchange of responsibilities, interests, sacrifices of every kind, a being who is not the utter brother of my thoughts and sister of my dreams—no, never! Au grand non, au grand jamais!

      Judith is an incomparable woman, but she is not the utter brother of my thoughts and the sister of my dreams; nor am I of hers.

      But the comradeship she gives me is as food and drink, and my affection fulfils a need in her nature. The delicate adjustment of reciprocals is our sanction. Marriage, were it possible, would indeed be fatal. Our pleasant, free relations, unruffled by storm, are ideal for us both.

      Why, I wonder, did she think her proposal to go away for a change would vex me?

      The idea implies a right of veto which is repugnant to me. Of all the hateful attitudes towards a woman in which a decent man can view himself that of the Turkish bashaw is the most detestable. Women seldom give men credit for this distaste.

      I kissed the white hand of Judith that touched my wrist, and told her not to doubt my understanding. She cried a little.

      “I don’t make your path rougher, Judith?” I whispered.

      She checked her tears and her eyes brightened wonderfully.

      “You? You do nothing but smooth it and level it.”

      “Like a steam-roller,” said I.

      She laughed, sprang to her feet, and carried me off gaily to the kitchen to help her get the tea ready. My assistance consisted in lighting the gas-stove beneath a waterless kettle. After that I sprawled against the dresser and, with my heart in my mouth, watched her cut thin bread-and-butter in a woman’s deliciously clumsy way. Once, as the bright blade went perilously near her palm, I drew in my breath.

      “A man would never dream of doing it like that!” I cried, in rebuke.

      She calmly dropped the wafer on to the plate and handed me the knife and loaf.

      “Do it your way,” she said, with a smile of mock humility.

      I did it my way, and cut my finger.

      “The devil’s in the knife!” I cried. “But that’s the right way.”

      Judith said nothing, but bound up my wound, and, like the well-conducted person of the ballad, went on cutting bread-and-butter. Her smile, however, was provoking.

      “And all this time,” I said, half an hour later, “you haven’t told me where you are going.”

      “Paris. To stay with Delphine Carrere.”

      “I thought you said you wanted solitude.”

      I have met Delphine Carrere—brave femme if ever there was one, and the loyalest soul in the world, the only one of Judith’s early women friends who has totally ignored the fact of the Sacred Cap of Good Repute having been thrown over the windmills (indeed who knows whether dear, golden-hearted Delphine herself could conscientiously write the magic initials S.C.G.R. after her name?); but Delphine has never struck me as a person in whose dwelling one could find conventual seclusion. Judith, however, explained.

      “Delphine will be painting all day, and dissipating all night. I can’t possibly disturb her in her studio, for she has to work tremendously hard—and I’m decidedly not going to dissipate with her. So I shall have my days and nights to my sequestered and meditative self.”

      I said nothing: but all the same I am tolerably certain that Judith, being Judith, will enjoy prodigious merrymaking in Paris. She is absolutely sincere in her intentions—the earth holds no sincerer woman—but she is a self-deceiver. Her about-to-be-sequestered and meditative self was at that moment sitting on the arm of a chair and smoking a cigarette, with undisguised relish of the good things of this life. The blue smoke wreathing itself amid her fair hair resembled, so I told her in the relaxed intellectual frame of mind of the contented man, incense mounting through the nimbus of a saint. She affected solicitude lest the life-blood of my intelligence should be pouring out through my cut finger. No, I am convinced that the recueillement (that beautiful French word for which we have no English equivalent, meaning the gathering of the soul together within itself) of the rue Boissy d’Anglais is the very happiest delusion wherewith Judith has hitherto deluded herself. I am glad, exceedingly glad. Her temperament—I have got reconciled to her affliction—craves the gaiety which London denies her.

      “And when are you going?” I asked.

      “To-morrow.”

      “To-morrow?”

      “Why not? I wired Delphine this morning. I had to go out to get something for lunch (my conviction, it appears, was right), and I thought I might as well take an omnibus to Charing Cross and send a telegram.”

      “But when are you going to pack?”

      “I did that last night. I didn’t get to bed till four this morning. I only made up my mind after you had gone,” she added, in anticipation of a possible question.

      It is better that we are not married. These sudden resolutions would throw my existence out of gear. My moral upheaval would be that of a hen in front of a motor-car. When I go abroad, I like at least a fortnight to think of it. One has to attune one’s mind to new conditions, to map out the pleasant scheme of days, to savour in anticipation the delights that stand there, awaiting one’s tasting, either in the mystery of the unknown or in the welcoming light of familiarity. I love the transition that can be so subtly gradated by the spirit between one scene and another. The man who awakens one fine morning in his London residence, scratches his head, and says, “What shall I do to-day? By Jove! I’ll start for Timbuctoo!” is to me an incomprehensible, incomplete being. He lacks an aesthetic sense.

      I did not dare tell Judith she lacked an aesthetic sense. I might just as well have accused her of stealing silver spoons. I said I should miss her (which I certainly shall), and promised to write to her once a week.

      “And you,” said I, “will have heaps of time to write me the History of a Sequestered and Meditative Self—meanwhile, let us go out somewhere and dine.”

      When I got home, I found a card on my hall-table. “Mr. Sebastian Pasquale.”

      I am sorry I missed Pasquale. I haven’t seen him for two or three years. He is a fascinating youth, a study in reversion. I will ask him to dinner here some day soon. It will be quieter than at the club.

CHAPTER III

       Table of Contents

      May 24th.

      Something has happened. Something fantastic, inconceivable. I am in a condition to be surprised at nothing. If a witch on a broomstick rode in through my open window and

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