For the next day, and the next day, and the next day, Clarinda sat in a stupor. She revolved the death of her father about in her mind with such rapidity, that she sensed nothing of it. A new and curious development grasped her, and she could not understand what the development portended, or in what direction it was leading.
The preparations for the funeral, the long discussions with her mother as to the proper thing to do did not move her. It was a thing apart. Everything was mechanical. All passed over her head without stirring an emotion.
When a lucid moment came to her and she examined herself, she could not decide if she had been cruel or kind in hastening the end of the parent she had adored. She tried to talk to Peter about it, but Peter would not listen to her. Yet out of it, she could not, even though she tried, force one iota of pity for the old man. It appeared to her to be a peculiar cataclysm.
She asked herself over and over again, why had she thought of killing the child? It was in no way responsible for anything. Yet she could have done it and felt no more sorrow than she felt at the death of her father. To her the child did not represent youth, it represented a term of years. It was old enough to die. It had life, and her great desire was to crush something that had life. She had not done it at the moment because it came to her in a flash, that the child was too young to appreciate the condition under which she suffered. It would not have sensed the words she would have said to it, before she would have crushed its life out. It struck her from this point of view that it would have been a useless sacrifice. It would have been just as useless to kill Peter, for then he would have been dead and removed from any further suffering. This would not have been wise, for it was her purpose that he should feel, where she could see, the degradation to which he had reduced her, so she let him live.
Peter left her in her solitude. It was only broken by the coming and going of her mother from time to time. She never asked for the child. In a vague way she knew it was being taken care of by its numerous nurses and its attendant physician, but in her heart she hated it, for it represented to her something terrible.
Peter, however, sought it out and looked after its material comforts. Peter was afraid to leave it alone. He was frightened at the outcome of his trial of strength with Clarinda. He could see the look on her face as he had entered the room after the sudden death of her father and the expression with which she looked at the child as it cooed up at her from the floor. He could not make out why he had followed her, or what force had compelled him to leave her father’s house in the midst of the turmoil of the death. For some unknown reason he had slipped away to his own home with fear grasping his heart, for he presaged a new disaster. Why, he could not tell.
Day followed day with him even as it followed with Clarinda, and the time of the funeral was upon them. Mechanically they went to the house, and they sat about for some hours before the company came to pay the last rites to the owner.
Clarinda’s mother sat in proper gloomy silence. Her great body heaved at intervals with emotion. A tear at times stole down her face. She blew her nose, making a noise that appeared painful to Clarinda, and over her face was hung a heavy black veil that hid her entirely from the gaze of the people, who gradually filed in and took seats in prescribed limits. Clarinda thought her mother looked like a lump. She sat quite near the flower-covered casket that held the body of the old man, and it was black, with silver handles.
Candles gave a fitful light and the tiny blaze they bore swung here and there like imprisoned souls, that longed to be free. Tiny trails of smoke went from them into the air, and the smoke melted away in the mass of flowers which decorated the mantels and the casket.
Clarinda like her mother was covered with a veil. She looked through it, and it came back to her vividly the last time a crowd of people had been gathered in this same place. It had been decorated as now, except an altar stood where the casket was now. It was swept as then with a soft breeze when the doors to the hall were opened. Almost the same people were here now as were here then. A musician presided at the organ before and the soft tones filled the hall then as now. The only difference was that the song was changed. Instead of “O Perfect Love,” it played now, “Nearer, My God, to Thee.” As then, now a small voice sang in the offing and the sweet, gentle tones filled the hall even as before.
Then, there were smiles and tones of laughter and now only suppressed polite moanings. Sorrow instead of joy, tears instead of laughter. None of the guests weaved his way across the polished floors. They sat stiff, immovable. Instead of a bridegroom, an undertaker slipped noiselessly about the place, like some gnome, or bird of ill omen. The priest was still. He stood beside the coffin and in a few moments read in subdued tones from his rubric and his face was drawn and somber. There was none of the lightsomeness of the other occasion when he had married the man to Clarinda, who sat stiff and stolid beside her.
Peter looked about furtively. He saw the mother of Clarinda and wondered why she should be so grief-stricken. He had known her as a person who delighted in the Church and believed perfectly in its history and its manifold benefits. He knew she prayed each night that she might be taken up into heaven and stand upon the right hand of the Throne of Power. He could not understand how with her belief she could not have rejoiced at the death of this person. To him it was a wonderful release. The fight was done. The struggle to hold on to the meagre possessions that this one had accumulated was over. He had succeeded.
To him the atmosphere was bad. The paid pall-bearers were bad, they seemed an incongruous note in the place, he disliked them. He hoped in his heart that when he should become as the one in the box, that some of his friends would carry him out of his house and place him in the hearse. Peter did not fear death. He liked to dwell upon it. He liked to try to reason exactly what it meant to him, for he looked upon it as a release. He believed nothing and feared nothing. Peter scoffed at religion and it amused him to discover that the symbols of the church were the same as those to which the Egyptians bowed thousands of years ago.
They left the house, and they came back again. The dirt had fallen with a hollow sound over the bones of the old man. They ate. The flowers had disappeared from the hall. The servants resumed their same tones of servility and nature reasserted itself and life went on as before.
Clarinda and he went back to their own house. Peter lit a cigarette, and stretched himself. Clarinda sat upon the divan, and didn’t think of anything. Time went by her without notice.
Peter blew the smoke from his cigarette into the air, and it curled in fantastic waves about his head and sank away into nothingness. His mind was almost as much a blank as Clarinda’s. He could not think, things had happened so rapidly that his head was in a whirl and he saw the future darkly.
The maid came into the room and asked quietly whether they desired anything, but received no response from either of them. She went out as quietly as she had come, and she shook her head as she closed the door behind her. Under her breath she said as if to herself:
“I’ve seen many just like these. It is the end. They will separate. It is bad, and she so beautiful.”
The sun gradually went down and the dark came into the room. The things about them grew indistinct and the shadows died. The wind came up outside and sighed around the building. They did not move. Clarinda felt the strain. Peter grew nervous and moved his feet about on the rug as if to relieve the tension. Clarinda did not move from the position which she took when she first sank upon the divan. Her hands hung listlessly by her side and her head was sunk back upon one of the big cushions. Hour after hour they sat. Peter suddenly sprang from the divan and screamed, but Clarinda did not move. She seemed not to hear him. Peter arose from his seat and paced up and down the room. His step was nervous, excited and the perspiration gathered upon his forehead. He wiped it away with his hand. His face became pale and haggard and he stumbled over the rugs. It was only with an intense effort that he saved himself from falling. In an agonized voice he spoke. He was incoherent. He spoke rapidly and his words tumbled over each other and he wiped his forehead again as he stopped in front of her.
“For God’s sake speak!” he exclaimed. “I am going mad. I can’t stand the strain. Say something! It is horrible!”
“I’ve nothing to say,” Clarinda answered quietly.
“You’re a murderess!” he said with a trembling voice. He lost control of his speech. He kept on talking but he did not know what he said. Again he wiped his forehead with his open hand. It was wet.
“Stop!” exclaimed Clarinda. “You don’t know what you say. Someone might hear you. There are servants in the house.”
“I don’t care. I shall scream it from the housetops. I want everyone to know I’ve married a murderess.” Peter sank hopelessly back upon the divan.
Clarinda put out her hand and placed it upon his arm. Her touch made him shiver. He drew away from her.
“You’re a philosopher, but you’re a liar. You teach, but you fear your own teaching. You fight and when you lose, you weep. You destroy and you give nothing in return.” Clarinda stopped and took her hand from his arm and let it hang as it had hung since she had first sat down upon coming into the house. Peter trembled under her touch and trembled more when he lost the feel of her hand upon his arm.
“Put your hand back!” he demanded. Clarinda put her hand back and her face broke into a weary smile. She even allowed herself to pity him in his fear.
“What do you fear, Peter?” she asked. “Where is your philosophy?” Her voice was full of sarcasm. “You needn’t fear me. I am not going to do you any harm. You needn’t fear for the child. I’m not going to do it any harm. That would be useless. If I should do you harm, you would be finished. You told me that when you should die you would be finished. I don’t want you to die, I want you to live. I want you to see your other woman, the kind you wanted to marry. The sort you dreamed of in your idle moments, in your office, where you built air castles and forgot the human factor.”
“I shall divorce you!” he broke in.
“Oh, no, you won’t. I won’t let you. You’ve no grounds. I believe one has to have grounds for that sort of thing. But you shall have relief. I am going away for a long time. Months and months, perhaps years. But you will not forget me, Peter.”
“Where are you going?” he asked with a tone of relief in his voice. “When?” he added.
“Are you anxious for me to go?” she asked. Peter nodded his head in assent. Again he wiped his forehead with his hand, but in his eyes there came a look of relief. He even looked at her. She seemed different. She seemed to him to have expanded, her figure was different, her face was more beautiful and her eyes had a strange look in them.
“Where are you going?” he asked again.
“In a few days I am going. Where I don’t know. Europe I suppose. All broken, unhappy women go to Europe. They say they forget there. It must be the lights, the chairs on the boulevards. I may go to California. I may not. It makes no difference. You will tell lies about me and you will say the strain I have been under has been too great, that you are sorry that I’ve gone, and that you intend to join me in the fall or spring. But you do not. You will shake your head and look for sympathy and probably you will get it. You will lie manfully, Peter.” Clarinda laughed. Peter wiped his forehead with his hand. It was wet.
“I shall be divorced!” he repeated.
“Because my health is broken with the strain. No, you won’t, Peter. You won’t be divorced. If you do I shall kill you. If you besmirch my good name—” Clarinda’s voice rose in anger. “I shall come back. It is easy to kill. It amounts to nothing. You should know, for you killed the thing that loved you. You killed a trust. It is worse to kill that than anything else. I didn’t die, I couldn’t die. More is the pity.”
“Clarinda!” Peter exclaimed.
“Listen, I have it all arranged. Tomorrow, or the day after. We shall go back to Father’s house. The lawyer will be there, he will read the will. Father’s things will be given to those whom he wished. You will sit there with a crease in your forehead and will look wise. You will acquiesce and wonder why he did not leave you more. Inside your heart will be hurt. You will not say anything, you will smile, and pretend to be very much surprised that he has left you anything at all. You will draw upon your philosophy, and maybe you will be comforted. I doubt that very much. It will end in a farce. Mother will groan, and feel hurt. I—I shall not care. After this is done I shall go away to Europe or California or some other place and you, Peter, will meet me next fall or spring. You will lie.”
“Clarinda!” Peter could not understand. He could not believe the person who talked was Clarinda. He looked at her as if to reassure his mind that it was really she. He could not think. His mind was in a turmoil. “The baby?” he asked.
“That is yours, you will raise it, you will lie to it, you will tell it of its mother, her beauty, her cleanness of spirit. You will lie to it as you have lied all your life. You will tell it that you are going to take it to its mother, and when it gets old enough you will lie to it again. You will blame me. But you will not tell the child the truth. You’ve not the fearlessness to do that. You will not tell it that this thing was your fault, you will not tell it that the greatest failure in your life was of your own making, you have not the temerity.”
“I shall tell the child,” he answered.
“Oh no you won’t. I know you, Peter. Even better than you know yourself. You are a coward, Peter, a wonderful coward. This part is finished, this chapter is done. You may as well go. It is of no avail to talk more. I will go with you to my mother’s tomorrow and we will listen to the will. Another farce. Goodbye, Peter. Would you like to kiss me goodbye? You might think of it afterwards, Peter. It might do you good.”
Peter arose from the divan. He looked at her squarely in the face. A shiver went down his back. He said nothing but walked to the door and opening it quietly as one does on the dead, he walked from the room and closed it even as gently behind him.
Clarinda listened to his footfall and it gradually grew more and more indistinct and then died out. A silence fell in the place. The dark became impenetrable, there was no sound. Clarinda gave a great sigh and leaned back among the cushions and closed her eyes.
In the morning at nine, Clarinda’s maid came into her room. Quietly she threw open the blinds and drew down the windows. She went from one place to another and picked up the various articles of clothing Clarinda had dropped upon the floor, a stocking, a pair of shoes, a skirt. When she had finished she turned towards the bed and saw Clarinda sitting up among the covers. Her hair streamed down about her shoulders and her eyes blazed like two great stars. Dark circles were under each of them, as if painted. The maid was startled. She came over to the side of the bed.
“Madame has not slept. Will Madame have a bath?” she asked with hesitation.
“No,” answered Clarinda shortly.
“Shall the nurse bring the child?”
“No,” she answered.
It had been the custom to bring the baby into the room in the morning. Clarinda always took it in her arms and would place it so it might play among the covers. It amused her. She always looked upon it as a phenomenon. She could not conceive this vital thing that scrabbled about, crawling from here to there was part of her flesh and blood, that she had brought it into the world. When she looked at it, she could not imagine it would grow into a man’s estate and be a power for good or evil, as the fates might carve out for it, that it should be a force. It was called Peter.
“Will Madame dress?” asked the maid.
“What time is it?”
“Nine o’clock, Madame.” The maid watched Clarinda carefully, as if she feared something. “Will you have your coffee now?”
“No,” answered Clarinda.
She rose from the bed and the maid threw a garment of light filmy stuff about her. Clarinda advanced to the middle of the floor. The maid thought she wavered as she stood, as if she were uncertain of herself. She walked quickly towards her but Clarinda felt her approach and sank into a chair.
“I must talk,” Clarinda said quickly. “Say something! Do something! Don’t walk about the place so aimlessly. It doesn’t matter what you say—say something!”
“You suffer, Madame,” the maid said quickly. “You have not slept. Have you some terrible trouble?” said the maid stopping as if at a loss. Clarinda turned her burning eyes upon her. “I don’t know what to say. I know nothing, but I pity you, Madame, your eyes are so bright they scare me.” The maid trembled. “You suffer.”
“Yes, I suffer. I suffer horribly.” Clarinda wrung her hands in despair. They dropped listlessly over the edge of the chair.
“From what, Madame? Why should you suffer? You have everything.”
“I must talk. I’ve no one to talk to.” Clarinda wept as she spoke and the great tears fell down her cheeks.
“Ah! Madame, I pity you, tell me. I will be discreet. I promise! I swear! It might do you good. It might spare you something. I might be able to help.”
Clarinda arose and walked about the room. She went hastily from one end to the other. Her arms beat the air. Occasionally she brushed the tears from her cheeks. Her eyes were bright as they had been, like two burning stars.
“Listen, Tizzia!” she commanded.
“I am listening, Madame.”
Clarinda increased her pace. She almost ran from one end of the place to the other. The filmy garment she wore trailed behind her in the wind she made. Her feet were bare and she spoke so rapidly she was almost incoherent.
“Can you imagine, to what a condition I have fallen? I, Clarinda! It can’t be true. It must be a horrible dream. He said I killed my father, the person I adored. It is not true. It is impossible. I loved him and I don’t believe he is dead. I didn’t go to his funeral. Peter says I killed him. Tizzia, I hate Peter!” and she turned and looked into the frightened face of the maid.
“Madame!” she exclaimed.
“Hush! I am talking. At last I can speak. Yes, I hate him. No one has ever hated as I hate. I even hate the child. He, Peter, said I would have killed it. I would have. I knew this house meant disaster. The others who lived in it met disaster. The man died and his wife and his children are in the world—starving. I knew it meant disaster. I begged Peter not to bring me here.”
“You will be divorced, Madame?”
Clarinda straightened herself up. Her figure seemed to add height. She laughed aloud. The tones of her voice rattled in her throat, and with a struggle she regained herself.
“No,” she said slowly, each word gathering strength, “I will not be divorced.”
“Probably Madame will go away,” Tizzia answered timidly.
“Did you ever hate, Tizzia? Did you ever hate? Hate so that murder entered your heart, so that it became an obsession?”
“God forbid!” exclaimed Tizzia with fright in her voice.
“That is not so bad. Murder is not so bad. For the thing you kill, dies. It stops. Think of me, my position. It is more terrible than if I had been murdered. I cannot die. I must live. Instead of being dead. I must go to my father’s house. I must sit and listen to his will. I must appear broken and distraught. I must do these things, and in my heart I shall fear none of them. I am glad he is dead. I am glad I saw him die. Did you ever see anyone die? It is wonderful. You should have seen his frightened old face. You should have seen his hands, the blood going from them, drying up. The veins stood out, and they seemed to pulsate. His face was first white, but when I spoke to him, it grew gray. His eyes lost their luster. His old body wrapped in a great cover shrank from me. It cried out for pity. I did not pity. I was amused. He was so pathetic, so frightened, then he gave a great convulsion and he dropped limp, and he was still. His body gradually slipped down and down until it lay a huddled mass of nothing on the floor. I laughed.” Clarinda’s voice stuck in her throat. A convulsion passed over her face, and she was fast becoming hysterical. She stopped.
“You must calm yourself, Madame. It is necessary. Mr. Thorbald will come. It would be bad for him to see you like this.”
“He will not come. He does not dare. He is afraid. He is a coward, Tizzia. Mr. Thorbald lies.” Clarinda clenched her hands. They pained her.
“Madame must collect herself. Madame doesn’t know what she says. It is terrible to hear, Madame!” Tizzia exclaimed quickly. Her face had become ashen with fear.
“I know what I say, Tizzia. I know only too well. I suffer so. I can’t understand why this should have come to me. I’ve tried so hard to do the things I thought were right. I’ve failed. He told me I had failed. He was right. I have failed miserably.”
A gong rang downstairs and the sound reverberated throughout the house. It struck Clarinda’s ear as if it would break the drums. Clarinda shivered.
“I must go,” she said. “I must enter the car with Peter. I must get out of the house and sit beside him. I must show sympathetic interest. They will force me to listen and be impressed with the things they say. I will do it. I will finish the story. I shall not weep.”
Hastily with the aid of the maid, Clarinda dressed herself, and did it with meticulous care. She charged the maid with lack of attention, and time after time, she took her hair down and had it re-arranged as often. It never suited her. After she had finished and had looked into the glass that hung from the ceiling to the floor, she went from the room out upon the landing, and on down the stairs to the hall, where Peter was waiting for her. He turned his eyes towards her as he heard her come. He was filled with apprehension, and a slight tremor shook his body, his heart stood still. Clarinda bowed to him as she passed, but said nothing. He likewise did not speak but with a slight bow he opened the door for her to pass out. The footman at the car, that stood at the bottom of the steps, held the door open and they entered.
At a sign from Peter the car moved slowly out of the garden, and then went more rapidly down the street. In a few moments it drew up in front of the house of her late father. Again the footman opened the door and offered his arm to aid her but she paid no attention to him, and quickly went into the house.
In the library to the right of the main entrance she found her mother sitting in gloomy silence. Clarinda spoke to her and found herself a seat some distance from her where she sat in a deep shadow. There was no sound. Peter sought to sit close to her, but Clarinda turned her eyes upon him and he went away and sat quite near her mother. Clarinda was alone in her portion of the room. She seemed to be set apart, as if she had nothing to do with the affair.
At a large table especially arranged sat a man, clothed in black like an undertaker. His head was large, his forehead protruded, and upon his nose rested a pair of glasses over which he looked. His air was pompous, and he seemed oppressed with his knowledge. To Clarinda he looked foolish. Before him upon the table lay a mass of papers, documents of parchment, and upon the floor propped up by the legs of his chair, stood portentous bags of leather with silver clasps. Impressive bits of red string lay among the documents. Clarinda looked at him, for he amused her. He looked so false, so pretentious, so unnecessary. She watched him move. He was being paid for his pantomime, and his pay would be in proportion to the bulge of his forehead.
After he had bowed to all those present, and spoken to each by his proper name, he cleared his throat. Then he wiped his forehead with a huge white handkerchief, which he placed on the table beside him. It looked like a mountain with peaks and turrets of intense white. To Clarinda it seemed part of his pretensions.
Accordingly, having duly impressed his hearers, he picked up a thick document, which was folded many times. Carefully he pressed out each crease. With slow precision he arose from the chair he occupied, and looked at the company over his glasses and read.
For a long time his voice went on monotonously. There was no inflection; he might have been reading to a court. He only stopped now and then to glance at Clarinda’s mother, at Peter, or at Clarinda. It seemed to Clarinda he would never finish, as if he would go on forever. Eventually the final sheet of the document was turned and he stopped as if he were an actor and waited for applause. When it did not come, he appeared disappointed.
Clarinda gathered nothing from the reading of the will. Peter smiled at the amount he received, and he was pleased. Peter loved money. Clarinda’s mother knew equally as much as Clarinda. She was entirely in the dark. They both knew they had been left something, but neither knew just how much or what.
“A wonderful will,” said the lawyer. “Fair, comprehensive, unbreakable.”
Clarinda arose from her chair. She walked over to the table and picked up the will from among the other papers.
“What do I have under this will?” she asked.
“Your father has treated you magnificently,” the lawyer replied.
“I didn’t ask that,” she said tersely.
The man picked up the will, quickly turned over a few of the pages. “You will find,” he said, reading carefully with the same lack of intonations, “under paragraph one, section A, page five and upon the subsequent page. ‘I hereby leave and bequeath to my beloved daughter the sum of three hundred thousand dollars, free of all tax.’ In section B, page six, paragraph five, you will find that this sum of money has been left in trust. You are to be free of any control of this money, and at your death, should you leave any children, they shall come into your share when they shall have attained the age of thirty-five. A fine proviso,” he added. “Per capita and not per stirpes. This refers to your mother’s portion.”
“Why that?” asked Clarinda.
He did not answer Clarinda’s question. “You will find that this money is free from any supervision by your husband and the increment thereof shall be paid to you by your said trustees.” He added again, “A fine proviso.”
“Who are the trustees?” asked Clarinda.
“I have the honor of being one of them, and the Safety and Guarantee Trust Company is the other.”
“Is Peter’s left in trust?” she asked.
“Oh no,” he replied, with a look of astonishment. “Men as a rule do not need trustees. They have more experience.”
“I just wanted to know.” Clarinda’s voice carried a peculiar tone. The lawyer looked at her searchingly. Peter turned his eyes towards her. Her mother sat in the same gloom and the same lack of understanding of what was taking place. Her mind only grasped the idea that in some way she was provided for, that this will had made her independent. Through her mind fled visions of what she would do, she even thought she would like to travel.
“That is all?” asked Clarinda, as she moved away from the table after laying the will upon it.
“I believe so,” answered the lawyer. Apparently not quite certain of himself. Clarinda’s manner broke in upon his usual method of carrying forward proceedings of the kind. He was upset, he could not exactly define why.
Clarinda bowed to him and nodded her head to her mother. She went out of the room and left them still sitting. Her mother was nonplussed. Peter did not go after her.
Clarinda entered the car, and ordered the driver to take her back home.
As the car left the front of the house, after the reading of the will, it went down the roadway to the street. At the lodge gates stood the old keeper who had been there many years. He it was who smiled and swept the clean gravel with his cap the day she had been married. He bowed again in the same way and his hat touched the clean gravel again as she went by. He smiled again, but now his smile seemed to be more sinister; it carried, as Clarinda looked at him, more terrible futility with it than it had at the former time.
Clarinda trembled as she huddled back in her seat of the car. She tried to blot him out from her mind, but his old face clung. He gave her more occasion for thought, but soon he was gone. The car went rapidly on its way, and it was only a few moments until it stopped in front of the place Peter called home.
Clarinda got out of the car and went hurriedly into the house, straight through the hall. She saw nothing, not even the servants who stood clustered about. They winked at one another and nodded their heads knowingly. In some manner they sensed with that peculiar intuition which hangs about servants that they were on the brink of a tragedy, the household, like many they had seen before, was disrupted—gone. Already they were turning over in their minds the finding of service elsewhere. Truthfully they hated the thought of the new applications they would have to file. It bothered them. The door boy, the man in buttons who handed the silver tray for the cards of the visitors, the housekeeper, all of them even to the scullery maid, were disgruntled. They liked the place. The stealings were easy and there was very little work to do.
Mrs. Caws stood close to the entrance like a bird of prey. She watched with eager eyes everything that happened. She, too, thought of the next place where she could get employment, and a smile crossed her lips. It was bitter, hard, and seemed full of anticipation. She loved disaster to come to such as Clarinda and Peter. It pleased her that people of the kind that Clarinda and Peter represented should go down from their great estate. She, in her narrow soul hated the rich, although it was from the rich that she was able to live.
Clarinda did not see her any more than she had seen the rest of them. She hastened to her room and after she had entered she closed the door tightly behind her. Then quickly she rang the bell that stood upon a table near the divan. The maid entered, her face was drawn, there were evidences of tears upon it, her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were red.
“Madame, did you ring?” she asked.
Clarinda nodded her head. Presently she sat down upon the divan. Carefully she placed herself in its corner and tucked her body into the cushions and after removing her hat, she laid her head wearily back. A sigh left her lips, and it was so deep that it seemed to come from the depths of her heart. Her face was set, there was no sign of weakening. A bitter look had come into her eyes. The usual beautiful blue of them had died. They had become gray. A deep—dark gray.
After a long period of silence she said shortly as if speaking to herself, “That is over.”
“What is over, Madame?”
“Tizzia,” she continued, “after I am gone—after all this horrible life that I’ve had to lead is over, I want you to think of me, not as you see me now, but as you knew me when you first came into this place. When you do think of me, you must not forget that I feared the place. I don’t know why, but I did fear it.”
“Yes, Madame,” answered Tizzia. “I shall be happy to do so. You are going away?” she ventured timidly.
Clarinda looked at her as if appraising her, as if trying to decide whether she asked questions from interest in her, or only from the spirit of inquisitiveness. The maid stood in front of her. Her whole being to Clarinda seemed to betoken sorrow at her condition, and it gave Clarinda confidence.
“You know,” Clarinda went on. She spoke slowly thinking deeply of every word she uttered. “I don’t trust you. I don’t know if your apparent interest is from curiosity or just from the liking you have for other people’s sorrows.”
“Ah, Madame! I am sorry you said that!” she broke in quickly. “I don’t want your confidence—unless Madame feels I am not just curious. I sympathize with you, Madame, deeply. I’ve seen something of life, too, Madame, I, too, am a woman. I—”
Clarinda arose from the divan, and she strode about the room. She took great steps, as if in their length she could find relief.
Presently, she spoke quickly, not stopping her march. “I don’t care. I don’t care if you listen to me from curiosity or from real sympathy. I must talk to someone. It might as well be you. I’ve no one in the world to turn to. You don’t know the desperateness of such a situation. The meanest people in the world usually have someone. Sit down there!” she commanded.
“I would rather stand, please, Madame.”
“Sit down!”
Tizzia sat down. She placed her body upon the extreme edge of the chair. Clarinda still walked. She spoke loudly, without intermittence, and her words fell over one another, yet she appeared to think of each word as she uttered it. The maid listened and followed as best she could. At times the maid wept. At other times she trembled with fear, then again she thought Clarinda would drop from exhaustion. It seemed to her that she ran instead of walked from one end of the room to the other.
“I’ve thought it all out, Tizzia! I’ve thought it all out! Last night I didn’t sleep. I walked this room and my bedroom all night. I heard you come along the hall. I waited for you to come. It seemed to me as if it were years—years and years! You would be surprised how long it is from daylight to daylight, when you are waiting for some one. The hours are so long. The time goes so slowly. I don’t know how I lived through those hours. It was terrible, but it is over, it is gone! I’ve done my duty today. I’ve heard the will read, I am rich. I am under the domination of a little man and a great Trust Company.” Clarinda laughed. “I’ve three hundred thousand dollars, and when my mother dies, I shall have hundreds of thousands more. After I am dead, it goes to the child. He will be rich. Isn’t that splendid for him?” Clarinda’s voice rang with bitter sarcasm. For a moment she stopped in her march and stood in front of Tizzia. “Are you listening, Tizzia?” she asked. Tizzia nodded her head in assent.
“I am going away. Yes, Tizzia, I am going away. I am going to know an entirely different life. I am going to have lovers. I shall sell myself to the highest bidder—to some man who will buy my body with his filthy dollars. I shall find out whether this creature, man, places more value upon a woman whom he actually buys at so much per pound, than upon the woman who comes to him with love in her heart. Yes, I shall know the world! I shall know. I shall go away.” Clarinda’s eyes narrowed. She went on slowly. Tizzia did not move from the edge of her chair.
“Peter, the lovely, gracious, Peter—the successful Peter, the Peter whom my father patted upon the back and told how wonderful he was—wonderful, because he could filch a few more dollars than another man. He shall know how I am doing. He shall be told, by me, of every step I take. He shall feel the degradation to which I shall fall—he, this lovely Peter, thinks because I am a woman—I shall weaken. He thinks no woman can stand up against the force projected by man. This wonderful person thinks that I being a woman should sue for pity, that in the end, I will come back to him, grovel at his feet and ask him to give me respectability. Men think this sort of thing because a woman has borne him a child. Poor, foolish creature! I am going to destroy myself not with a knife, nor a pistol, nor with poison. But I am going to destroy myself—kill all those finer things which are of me. I am going to the dregs. I shall suffer. O! I shall suffer miserably. I hate the touch of men, Tizzia! But I am going to teach myself to bear it.”
Clarinda stopped as if for breath. She still walked up and down the room at a furious pace.
“O! Madame, you can’t! You don’t know what you say,” Tizzia broke in, and there were tears in her voice.
“O, yes, I do. I know exactly what I say. More’s the pity,” Clarinda answered quickly. “Can you imagine me in a brothel? It is laughable. But I am going. I am going to have a lover. I want a lover. I’ve always wanted a lover. When I married I thought that was what I was getting. I did not. But now I shall have one. It will be wonderful to give oneself to a lover—a man! Probably I shall get one who has committed a great crime. We shall always live in fear of the police. Probably he may have killed some one for a lot of money. When I meet him he will have great piles of bills, and we will sneak out at night and spend it—always in fear. He will beat me. He will get drunk and be brutal. But he will be a man! And after all it may happen I shall learn to love him.” Clarinda laughed. Her laugh scared Tizzia, even more than her words. Tizzia did not believe she meant what she said. But when she laughed she thought it might be true. That she would do as she said.
Clarinda continued: “And this man—this criminal with whom I shall live, to whom I shall give my body, he will probably desert me when I am getting the least bit old. I will feel this age coming upon me, then I shall paint my face. I will fight age. I shall learn how it is done. Every year that comes upon me will make me suffer more—for I know men only love youth. They hate age. They want only the young. But that will be a long way off. I am only twenty-three! It might happen that this lover of mine, kills me in one of his drunken fits. What a glorious heritage to leave Peter’s boy. His mother killed in a brothel by a criminal, a murderer. What a headline for the newspapers. Mrs. Clarinda Thorbald, the wife of Mr. Peter Thorbald the successful banker, murdered in a brothel. I hope it happens. It would be a glorious end to a great career. O, it is wonderful!”
Clarinda walked over to the window, and said nothing further. She appeared to have talked herself out. A great calm descended upon her. Tizzia arose from her chair. She did not know what to do. She stood uncertainly in the middle of the room. Clarinda heard her as she moved. She turned.
“You will pack my things, Tizzia. Put all my jewelry in the bags. It is foolish to go without anything. That is quixotic. I must take my money, too. It is easier to get a lover with money than without.”
“You will change your mind about the rest, Madame. You are too good to do the horrible things you say. Madame is excited. When you have thought the matter over you will think again.”
Clarinda looked at Tizzia. “How little you know me,” she said. Her voice was weary. Tizzia could barely hear what she said. “How little everybody knows me. How different it might have been if Peter had known me. I regret Peter, for once I loved him. He was the one great thing in my life, but he has died.”
“The child, Madame?”
“It belongs to Peter. I only brought it into the world. It is only my flesh and blood. It amounts to nothing. I wish it joy. I hate it! I could have loved it madly. But that, too, is dead.”
Tizzia went into the other room. She left Clarinda and began to put the things she wanted into the various bags. Lovingly she took down from the closets the many dresses Clarinda had loved. With delicate touch she folded each garment and placed it in the great trunks. She rang a bell and ordered more trunks brought into the room. The man who brought them ventured to ask what they were for. Was Madame going away? Tizzia did not answer. She wept incessantly. The tears fell from her cheeks and spotted the delicate fabrics.
Clarinda left alone threw herself down upon the divan. Time went by. The clock ticked as if nothing was taking place—as if the old life was just the same, as if happiness had not left the house.
Finally speaking to herself, she said: “It must come. Why not now?”
She arose from the divan, went out of the door leading to the rooms in which Peter lived. Quietly she opened the door. Over at a table she saw Peter. He was writing. His head was bent and he was absorbed in his task. His pen flew with rapidity. He did not hear her come in, nor did he hear the door close behind her. She spoke and Peter jumped from his seat. His face was pale, drawn, distorted. His brow she saw was covered with perspiration. As he moved, he wiped his forehead with his hand. He stood and stared at her.
Clarinda stood upon the opposite side of the table. She looked down upon him. As he jumped from his seat, he stood as if paralyzed. He did not seem able to move.
“Goodbye, Peter.” There was extreme sorrow in her voice. It quavered and trembled as she spoke.
“You are going?” he asked timidly.
“Yes, it is done. I have failed you. I am sorry. It was so full of promise, Peter. Our life could have been happy. But I have failed.”
“You cannot! You cannot!” His hands shook. The tears fell down his cheeks unresisted by him. His knees weakened under him. He fell back into his chair and buried his head in his hands upon the table. His great body shook with intense grief, and Clarinda pitied him, but her mind did not change.
“I am going, Peter. I am going away now, today. The maid is packing for me. Goodbye Peter.”
Peter moaned. “No—no—no! I can’t bear it! You can’t go! I won’t let you! It is impossible!”
“It is done, Peter.”
Clarinda turned and went slowly towards the door. Her hand fell gently upon the knob. Quietly she opened it. As Peter saw her go, he sprang from his chair. He held his arms outstretched towards her. The door came open slowly. Quietly Clarinda passed from the room, and the door closed softly behind her.
Peter screamed in his anguish. His soul was torn and he fell inert upon the floor. The dark took him, and his eyes closed.
STAGE THREE
Dear Peter:
I knew it would come. But I wished to put it off until the chance for a change was impossible. I’ve waited years for the time. I had planned in my mind how I should do this thing I am about to do, with infinite care. Each step was watched and taken even as the blind walk, even when I left the house I intended to do this thing.
I wonder if you have ever read, “The Woman in White”? And if in the reading you remember Count Fosco? You know he is the only fat villain in any book. One thing he did I want to draw to your mind. It is the most trivial thing in the whole book. You know, if you have read the book, that after he was discovered and the things he had done were set before him in all their hideousness, he sat down and wrote his confessions. They covered innumerable sheets. The description by Collins of how he gradually became buried in the pages is wonderfully drawn. You could see him, Fosco, with the perspiration pouring down his fat face, and his hand holding the pen flying over the sheets. I shall be Fosco buried in sheets. That will, however, be my only likeness to him, for I do not consider myself a villain. I am merely a woman.
Let’s see. This is a very difficult task. I do not know where to begin. Shall I start at this end? Or shall I take it up from the time I left the house? Our house. I was horribly alone. You will never understand how poignantly alone I was; but that is neither here nor there.
I’ve decided, even in the writing of these first lines where I shall begin. I am going to start with the now and go back. That is I mean to, but I do not promise to keep it up. It is a long story—a miserable history. I’ve sought for breaks in it, but I’ve discovered none. Remember, Peter, I am not sorry. I feel precisely as I did about the whole matter, as I did the day I walked from the house. I’ve not relented, even at this late date. I am not sorry; I do not regret. I repeat this statement in order that it may be impressed clearly upon your mind. I don’t want you to think I am pleading for pity. I am not. I neither crave your sympathy nor your change of feeling. I hope you get this point exactly.
How time flies. You are sixty-two. I am forty-eight. We are both going down the hill, and we are going down alone. It might have been otherwise. The boy is twenty-three. I saw him when he was fifteen. I saw him again when he was twenty, and again when he was twenty-one. I went where he was out of idle curiosity. I wanted to see what this thing of my flesh and blood had grown into. I was pleased and I was not. I thought he ought to have looked better. I wondered what he would have been under my influence, and had had the advantage of a mother’s love. My friends tell me that a boy needs this sort of thing to lift him over the hard places. Curiously enough I didn’t want to speak to him. I didn’t long to hold him in my arms, nor did I feel any desire to have him know me. I wonder whether that is normal. Most mothers, I suppose, would have gone to him and taken him in their arms, and begged him in a melodramatic way for his love. I desired no such thing. It may be that my life has been confused. I don’t know. However, that is neither here nor there. When I left you he was buried. I always looked upon him as a disgrace. He was not in my mind purely born. He was my stigma. So, he is of me and not of me. I will speak of him no more.
I look back upon my life as a series of developments. First, my youth—full of hope, gay, protected, luxurious, a timid child with no conception of life, a thing raised untutored, pushed into a willing marriage. I wanted to marry you. It was a consuming desire upon my part. I hoped so and I loved so. I thought you were wonderful. It gave me a thrill when you came home. I looked upon you as a super-man—unconquerable. Then gradually the veil was rent asunder. You did the tearing and you did it thoroughly. You destroyed me. I, however, felt it come and I tried hard to fight it out. My aim was to conquer the thing so that you and I, Peter, should lead an ideal existence—that we should have children, that love should radiate about us, like a glorious sun, on a glorious summer day. You killed this. You wanted money, success—futile, necessary money.
Remember, Peter, I don’t blame you for all the misfortune, as I may have been equally at fault. I couldn’t advance as rapidly as you did. I suppose it arose from the fact that I wanted you and not the world. I wanted children, and I wanted a home. I wanted to be separated from the frivolities of life. I wanted the burden of your happiness.
It may have been my fault in that I wanted to have you believe that in me and in me alone was the lodestar of all your hopes. In the development of that part of me, with no end of thought, I failed. I’ve always failed. I can’t understand why, but the fact remains.
I remember—it was a long time ago, many, many years. With what perturbation I was filled that first time you went away without kissing me goodbye. That was a tiny omission, but it was an interstice. Then I knew it came out of the blue. I knew I was slipping, that outside things were grasping you, and I sensed this thing clearly. Then I fought—I fought to recover, but although I fought I lost. I lost more and more. Each losing infinitely small. I mean each slip towards the disintegration; but to me these slips were monumental. I developed. I passed in a few short moments into another stage.
My second stage. I wonder as I write this whether you will read it and whether if you do you will be able to understand what I want to convey to you. Sometimes as I read what I write I think I may have missed the point.
In my second stage, I awoke from a poor bedraggled, dispirited woman. I became mad. I lost all sense of proportion. I magnified things you had done to me into things without proper ratios. I even had the temerity to gloat while my Father died. This was a curious experience. I looked back upon it with wonder. I can’t understand exactly how it could have happened. I can’t exactly define my frame of mind. It must have arisen because I blamed him, even as much as I did you, for the condition in which I found myself.
Of course, my Mother was a negligible quantity in my life. And from the things I have learned concerning her since her death, her sorrow over the tragedies that surrounded her life were but passing affairs which did not seem in any way to approach her. She seemed to sense nothing except her material side. Everything was cast from her as a snake sheds its skin. From her I received life and from her I got nothing except life.
It was different in the case of my Father. He loved me, and I know now as I look back that he adored me. His one ambition in life was to make existence for me as free from all source of worry as the human can. But he failed, and he failed because his perspective was bad. He didn’t understand the longings of a real woman. He knew the world from a man’s point of view. There he stopped. He knew nothing of it from a love’s point of view. He loved, but he loved materially. I asked him once whether he loved Mother as much as when he married her. He could not answer. He knew his love had left her and centered about his own success, which meant money and position—the flattery of men.
I am hastening these two developments because I want to tell you of the third stage of my life—the third development, and what it has cost me, how I arrived at this stage at which I find myself and what if anything I have gained by my conduct towards you.
There is a curious thing comes to my mind. It may not strike you exactly as it does me. But I am going to mention it for the reason that it interests me. You, Peter, even today, are the only thing in life as far as I am concerned, and it took the greatest amount of determination to withstand the temptation which assailed me.
Many times in the past twenty-odd years I have gotten out of my bed with the firm determination to come back to you. To say that probably after all I was wrong, that I laid too much stress upon the condition in which I found myself. You know, or probably you have not thought it out—that once a woman gives herself to a man, once she has borne him children, her whole heart, her whole life is wrapped up in the one experience. Women are not like men. They are monogamous. There is barely a woman in the world who has given herself to one man, and afterwards goes through a divorce court or leaves him, that at times she does not feel within herself an urge that is nearly unconquerable to go back to that man. Women re-marry and they live in what is supposed to be contentment, but in their hearts there is no contentment.
You will never know the tugs I have had or the strength I have used to carry out this thing to its bitter end, but I was certain to do this.
Eight years after I had gone from the house, I stood for hours outside the wall. I looked through the bars of the gate. I looked upon the garden. There was a light in the room in which you had placed the divan—the dear old divan, with the soft light burning behind it. I stood for hours on a clear night. The moon shone through the trees, and I could see the flowers. I could even make out the fountain around which we had walked and you had told me of what you had done during the day. This only happened once—a walk such as this. What joy that walk gave me. I feel it even now. The great door was open. The light beckoned to me. It invited me to come. It seemed to say, “Enter, and you will be forgiven. Love waits for you.” I shook with fear. For I was afraid that I might weaken.
I walked furiously up and down the pavement. My eyes were pinned upon that light, and except for the light that fled through the front doors everything else was dark. Nowhere was there a single light except in that one room. I thought I could see you in it. I wondered whether you were happy. I didn’t believe you were. Somehow I saw you much changed. You were gray. Your shoulders were not full. You seemed to me to be stooped. I wondered if I went in how you would greet me. I was afraid.
It was late when I left. Midnight. The light still burned. It struck me as curious. I wondered why this was so. After I went away, I knew I had made a mistake. I should have gone in to you. I should have walked up to that little room and sat myself down upon the divan, and if you were not there I should have waited. I believe now and I believed then that you would have taken me in your arms and comforted me. You would not have berated me. You didn’t know how lonely I had been. But, Peter, I failed you. You told me so.
I left as I say, at midnight. I walked past my father’s house. Some one was laughing in there. New people. People who had children. Life. The lights were all lit. It looked so gay. I believe I wept. A man came out upon the porch. I could see him from the lodge gates. He put out his hand as if to see if it rained. He did not see the moon. I thought that so funny. He went back again, closed the door and after sometime the lights began to go down one by one, and finally the house became dark. It was so peaceful. And I was so unhappy. So lacking in peace.
I thought of all that I had done in that old house. I saw my early life again. I felt its happiness creep over me. I felt my father at my side. I saw him stand by me. I could almost feel the grasp of his hand. His breath fanned my cheek. And it seemed to me he whispered in my ear. He said with such depth in his voice, “I forgive you Clarinda. I pity you. Go back.” The thing became so vivid to me, that I turned and ran. I don’t know how far I ran; but I ran until a man stopped me. He said, “Why do you run? Are you scared? Has anything happened to you?”
I fled from him. I ran further until I was nearly dropping with exhaustion, then I stopped. I was far from your house. Far down in the city. It was terrible to me. Then I walked rapidly. It was getting late. A bell in a tower near by struck two.
I have never been back since. That happened years ago. But even although it happened years ago, it is as fresh in my mind as if it took place yesterday. I conquered myself. I didn’t go back to you. My second development had taken place. My second stage had been gone through with. I was different. I was no more the Clarinda you married. My old self had died. You would not have loved me any more. It would have been impossible.
It is night, Peter. Good-night.
C.
Dear Peter:
I am continuing the letter I wrote you sometime ago. Of course, I am sending you these as a compilation. They are not in series; for if I should do that you would lose the trend. Probably you would become bored and when these letters came from time to time, you might throw them in the waste basket. It is impossible for me to judge your frame of mind from this distance after all these years. I cannot judge into what you have developed.
However, the first part is finished and the second part is also done with. This is the third part. The drawing of the thing to a conclusion—a finishing of it all. And after this is done, I shall sit down by my window and look out upon the passing world and wonder how long I shall live. How soon I shall have peace—a thing I have never had, or ever known.
I remember the day I left. It was cruel. You recollect the sky. The sun did not shine. The flowers in the garden as I went seemed to tuck their heads down under their leaves as if seeking protection from the cold. It was not cold. It was raining. It was warm.
I entered the car. I closed the door by myself. It appeared to me as if some one was closing me in some place, just as if I were being penned in a great prison, from which I should never come out. I shivered, Peter.
The last face I saw was that of Tizzia who stood at one of the windows. The tears were running down her face. Frantically she waved her hand to me, and then she was gone. It was all gone—the house, you and my happiness.
I wonder if Tizzia told you of my last conversation with her—the threats I made of the things I should do. I often think of that conversation and the stress I was under at the time. Funny as it may appear to you I did those things. I went forth from you—from all the things I thought were right and good.
You should have seen the man. I met him a short time after I left. His name was Bill—Slippery Bill, he was called. A vicious man. A drunkard of the most horrible kind. His mind was a morass of immorality. His sense of humor was beating a woman. He had killed one person, and when he was drunk he bragged to me and described how his victim had moaned and begged. He loved to tell me of the thing he killed. Of course, it was a woman. He was just a man—a coward.
Bill was a thief—a second-story man. One who lies in wait until a house is empty and then goes in safely. When he would steal he would come to me in the hovel we lived in and throw the things he had got on the table, and gloat on them, and brag about the ease with which he did this sort of thing. After that he would get drunk. For days and weeks he was in this condition. He amused me. He was so futile. His operations so foolish. With half the effort he could have made a good living.
Bill hated work. He wanted to live in what he called ease. Poor foolish Bill! He feared everything. The crack of a twig, the sound of the wind, a strange footstep. It was always the law coming for him. The police! He even feared me and sometimes in his frenzy of fear he would beat me. He thought I might betray him. It amused me. His fear was queer. I laughed at it when he was gone on one of his missions.
I met this creature not long after I had gone from you. I went down into the depths of shame and poverty. I lived in one tiny room. Around me was a host of queer furtive people who lived from day to day—seeking always something that might keep them until the morrow. It was sad, but it was interesting. I went to their haunts. I soon became known to them. I even acquired their furtive habits. I appeared to be seeking like they, the things that would keep me until the next day. Sometimes even in their extreme poverty they laughed. I would pretend that I had a good night. That I had seen some man who gave me part of what he had and I would give to them. A dollar now and then. Once I gave a poor old man, who had lived in his horrors for years, a five-dollar bill. You should have seen him. He became my shadow. There was no thankfulness in his manner. He thought he could get more. I found him in my room, going through my things. He found nothing. I took care of that. I cursed him for his temerity. He shrank out of the place, but he came back, for he hoped.
I came across Bill only four weeks after I left you. It was a short time after I took the miserable room in this quarter of this city. What city doesn’t make any difference. But it was not so far from you that I couldn’t watch you and what you did.
You should have seen the dive—dirt, ill-smelling, horrible. A ragged crew came and went. I entered, and I was poorly dressed—that is I had on the kind of finery of the people of the class I tried to identify myself with. I looked the part. I sat at one of the broken-down tables—filthy with stale beer and smeared with old pieces of cheese. Oh, how it smelt!
Bill was standing at the bar. He was partially drunk. He turned, as I sat down, and he saw me. A curious light went over his face, and I knew here was the man! The man who should teach me whether men loved women from their pound value or from love.
Drunkenly he walked over to the table and leaned his great bony knuckles upon it. He didn’t take off his hat. He looked at me. Even though I was dressed so badly, I was beautiful.
He spoke to me, I nodded my head. He ordered a glass of beer for me. He drank a concoction which he called whiskey. He was terribly dirty. Then he sat down. I looked at him. Rarely have I seen such a repulsive creature as he was. A great head covered with long shaggy hair, that curled in a mass. His eyes were blue—a deep blue. In them one could see the depths of depravity he had sunk to. His mouth was weak and sloppy, but his chin, covered with a few days’ beard, was strong. He looked brutal. And, Peter, he was brutal.
“Where are you from?” he asked.
“Nowhere,” I replied. I drank a little of the beer. He swallowed the drink he had before him at a gulp. He appeared to throw it down his throat. I noticed that none of the muscles either contracted or expanded with the effort.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“No one,” I replied.
“Where do you live?” he persisted.
I turned from him and arose from the table and left him staring after me. I knew he would follow. He did. We went out of the place together.
“My wife is dead,” he said.
“Well?” I answered.
“I want another.”
We stood outside of the door upon the pavement. In the light that came through the dirty windows. I moved away from him.
That was the beginning of the life I led with him. It was a curious sort of thing. He began to love me. He sought me out everywhere I went. There were many others. But Bill interested me more than any other man I met.
You should have heard him the night we walked together down one of the poorest streets in the city. He turned every few moments and looked back. He always walked near the walls of the buildings, for he told me that he was afraid. He knew he was suspected for all kinds of crimes.
He called me Magdalen. Bill had a slice of poetry in his make-up, and he reasoned well. He told me he loved me. He would even go straight for me. He would never drink again. He got drunk that night. I wouldn’t go with him. Bill was a liar like most men.
A long time went by. We met every night—in all kinds of places. All of them as dirty as the first. It ended by my going with him.
It happened one night we walked to the park. It was late. All the grog shops had closed. It was long after one o’clock. We sat upon a bench together. Bill was sober. He had washed. It was dreadfully dark. It was curious the feeling of disgust I had for the man; yet for some unaccountable reason I was attracted to him. I listened to him as he spoke. I compared his protestations with yours. His were stronger. Bill was only the offspring of the gutter. After a while as he went on he thrilled me. When he unbended his crooked figure and shook the mass of hair on his head, I wondered at the man. Women, Peter, are curious—even more curious than men. Underneath they love the cave man. They like strength and brutality. In this part of my life when I see with what insane cruelty this class of people beat and bruise their women, I wonder at them. But they do not leave—they weep, but they stay.
You should have heard him as he stood before me and looked at me the best he could in the dark. I could see his eyes flash.
I remember each word he spoke, as if it were yesterday. Yet Bill has been dead years and years, and he died in jail.
“You are different, Magdalen. I don’t understand you. I don’t care about that. I only know you came into my life. You are here. The first night I saw you, although I was drunk, I knew you were my woman. I don’t care where you came from, nor who you are. I love you, Magdalen. I would do anything for you. How long it has been since you came into this part of the world, makes no difference to me. I don’t know if you have ever loved before. I suppose you have. All women love at sometime. You don’t know what real love means. I love you—I want you. I am going to have you. It is funny, I never spoke to any women as I do to you. You seem to make me different. I’ve lost my strength; it has died in me. If you were like the rest I should take you. I would not ask. I would make you do as I want. But I cannot. That is the thing I don’t understand. I am afraid of you. Why?”
I whispered, “Yes, Bill.”
Women are curious. It seems as if they are forced to listen to men when they begin to lay before them what they term their hearts. Mostly it is the animal in them. They wish to propagate.
He went on as if I had not interrupted him. “Magdalen, I wonder if you know that the love of a man such as I am, is different from other kinds. We never select from personal advantage. It is more the man. The spirit of a beast. We want. We want physically. I have thought of you a great deal. And I can’t understand what it is in you that makes me look at you differently from the women I have been thrown with, but the difference is there. I don’t believe that you belong to the people you pretend you do. There is something behind. You eat differently. Your fingers are different. Your skin is different. You are beautiful. The people with whom I have always gone are only beautiful in their youth. They have the bloom and that is all. It soon dies. It may be the conditions surrounding them that causes this sort of thing. Tell me where you came from? Why are you here?”
“I won’t tell you that. I am here. That is enough. Misfortune has placed me here. I like it. I am going to stay.”
“Then you love me. Is that the reason you stay?” He shook with emotion and walked up and down in the dark in front of me.
I was terribly attracted. He was a brute, but he was a man after all. He had been unfortunate. And yet I don’t think that exactly covers what I mean. I never asked him from where he had come, or by what fatality he had sunk so low. Bill was the dregs.
“May I kiss you?” he asked.
Peter, I could not—I could not! And yet I knew in the end it would happen. I knew as I looked at this creature that to him I would be in name a wife. I trembled with fear. I hated it dreadfully. Every fiber in my body recoiled from any sort of personal contact with him. I wondered whether I would bear him children. I wondered whether he would beat me tomorrow or the day after. I knew he would. He did. Not then, but soon. It was queer, Peter, that after it happened—I mean after I took up life with him. Although he beat me, he did not kill the thing in me that you did. He always wept, when he got sober, and his contrition was wonderful. Unfortunately this did not deter him from beating me later. I think underneath that even though I thought about it all the time I loved him. How do you suppose that came about? I don’t know. Some people say a woman loves but once. Yet, here I was loving two distinct persons. And those persons so diametrically opposed.
It did happen. He kissed me. It was in the park in exactly the same place he had asked me before. He did not ask me. He took me in his arms. I struggled. I fought. I knew it was the end. I anticipated it was coming. I didn’t go with him into the park for weeks and weeks; yet he asked me to go innumerable times. At last I consented. I saw the end. It was written with fiery fingers on the wall. You know just like the words in the Bible. Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin! I don’t suppose my words I saw meant the same thing. I don’t know what the Bible words mean; but I knew the words I saw. They were burnt into my brain.
Bill kissed me. He kissed me again and again. The animal came up in him. It was fearful and yet it was to me a wonderful experience. Eventually, I, being a woman, lay quietly in his arms. I could smell his dirty body—the sweat of years was upon it. His clothes were unkempt. His shirt was open at the neck and he looked precisely what he was—a thug.
I was close to my revenge. And yet, I was not getting precisely what I started out to get. I had failed again, Peter. I failed. I loved this thing—this thug. Why do you suppose that happened? I awoke to him. It must have been that unconquerable force—Nature. You know I hate dirt. I have always hated dirt. I mean immorality. And yet here I was an honest woman, a woman of instinct, doing this thing.
Bill kissed me as I say. Then he breathed a sigh. It came from his soul. If he had a soul, which I doubt. “Come, get up. It is late. We will go home.”
I got up from the seat. He controlled me. I could not refuse. I wanted to. I wanted to run. I thought death was better than this thing I was going into with my eyes open. I knew Bill. He took my hand in his. We walked silently through the park. I went easily. There was no drawback on my part.
Down into the streets, from one evil-smelling way to another, through an alley, fetid with decayed dirt that lay in masses, then into another long row of old houses. This was called a street. It was silent. There was no sign of life anywhere. A rat ran across the gutter in front of us occasionally. I held to him with fear. Bill plodded on. He knew where he was. I was in a mist. My mind wouldn’t work. If it had, I should have screamed.
How far I went I don’t know. We stopped. Bill dragged me into a place. It was dark. I stumbled up one stairway, then up another. It must have been the top of the house, before Bill kicked a door open. He lit a light. I don’t know what kind of light it was; but it struggled to dispel the gloom.
I can’t tell you of this room. I’ve lived in it a long time. I’ve suffered in it. But I have been loved for myself. I did not fail there. I have known real love. It has paid me from that standpoint. When I die I will have known something most women miss. I had no children. In this I was fortunate.
My story is nearly finished, Peter. Bill, as I said, went to the penitentiary. I think it was my fault. I wished for something. He couldn’t get it. We had nothing. He went to get it for me and got caught. Bill never failed me.
I left the country after Bill died. I am living in Paris. I am getting old. I am tired. But I don’t regret. I have had my revenge.
I sit all day in the sun. I am always in my garden. I never go out. I have no reason to go. The outside does not attract me.
Goodbye, Peter. It is finished. And I would not have had it otherwise.
C.