Part 7 (1/2)
”Very much,” she answered, unexpectedly, after the pause.
The Countess was so much pleased that she coloured again. She had never been able to hide what she felt, and she secretly envied people who never blushed.
”I am so glad!” she said. ”I was sure you would like each other.”
”It does not follow that because I like him, he likes me,” answered Cecilia, quietly. ”And even if he does, that is not a reason why we should marry. I may never marry at all.”
”How can you say such things!” cried the Countess, not at all satisfied.
Cecilia shrank a little in her corner of the deep phaeton and instinctively drew the edges of her little silk mantle together over her chest, as if to protect herself from something.
”You know,” she said, almost sharply.
”I shall never understand you,” her mother sighed.
”Give me time to understand myself, mother,” answered the young girl, suddenly unbending. ”I am only eighteen; I have never been into the world, and the mere idea of marrying----”
She stopped short, and her firm lips closed tightly.
”No, I do not understand,” said the Countess. ”The thought of marriage was never disagreeable to me, even when I was quite young. It is the natural object of a woman's life.”
”There are exceptions, surely! There are nuns, for instance.”
”Oh, if you wish to go into a convent----”
”I have no religious vocation,” Cecilia answered gravely. ”Or if I have, it is not of that sort.”
”I am glad to hear it!” The Countess was beginning to lose her temper.
”If you thought you had, you would be quite capable of taking the veil.”
”Yes,” the young girl replied. ”If I wished to be a nun, and if I were sure that I should be a good nun, I would enter a convent at once. But I am not naturally devout, I suppose.”
”In my time,” said the Countess, with emphasis, ”when young girls did not take the veil, they married.”
As an argument, this was weak and lacked logic, and Cecilia felt rather pitiless just then.
”There are only two possible ways of living,” she said; ”either by religion, if you have any, and that is the easier, or by rule.”
”And pray what sort of rule can there be to take the place of religion?”
”Act so that the reason for your actions may be considered a universal law.”
”That is nonsense!” cried the Countess.
”No,” replied Cecilia, unmoved, ”it is Kant's Categorical Imperative.”
”It makes no difference,” retorted her mother. ”It is nonsense.”
Cecilia said nothing, and her expression did not change, for she knew that her mother could not understand her, and she was not at all sure that she understood herself, as she had almost confessed. Seeing that she did not answer, the excellent Countess took the opportunity of telling her that her head had been turned by too much reading, though it was all her poor, dear stepfather's fault, since he had filled her head with ideas. What she meant by ”ideas” was not clear, except that they were of course dangerous in themselves and utterly subversive of social order, and that the main purpose of all education should be to discourage them in the young.