Part 13 (1/2)
Your letter was such a shock to me that I could not answer it immediately, as I should have wished to do. For that reason I sent you the brief telegram in reply, the words of which, I am sorry to say, I must now repeat: ”I know nothing about the matter.” Lillie has never spoken a word to me, or made the least allusion in my presence, which could cause me to suspect such a thing. I think I can truly say that I never heard her p.r.o.nounce the name of Director Schlegel.
My first idea was that my cousin had gone out of her mind, and I was astonished that you--being a medical man--should not have come to the same conclusion. But on mature consideration (I have thought of nothing but Lillie for the last two days) I have changed my opinion. I think I am beginning to understand what has happened, but I beg you to remember that I alone am responsible for what I am going to say. I am only dealing with suppositions, nothing more.
Lillie has not broken her marriage vows. Any suspicion of betrayal is impossible, having regard to her upright and loyal nature. If to you, and to everybody else, she appeared to be perfectly happy in her married life, it was because she really was so. I implore you to believe this.
Lillie, who never told even a conventional falsehood, who watched over her children like an old-fas.h.i.+oned mother, careful of what they read and what plays they saw, how could she have carried on, unknown to you and to them, an intrigue with another man? Impossible, impossible, dear Professor! I do not say that your ears played you false as to the words she spoke, but you must have put a wrong interpretation upon them.
Not once, but thousands of times, Lillie has spoken to me about you. She loved and honoured you. You were her ideal as man, husband, and father.
She was proud of you. Having no personal vanity or ambition, like so many good women, her pride and hopes were all centred in you.
She used literally to become eloquent on the subject of your operations; and I need hardly remind you how carefully she followed your work. She studied Latin in order to understand your scientific books, while, in spite of her natural repulsion from the sight of such things, she attended your anatomy cla.s.ses and demonstrations.
When Lillie said, ”I love Schlegel, and have loved him for years,” her words did not mean ”And all that time my love for you was extinct.”
No, Lillie cared for Schlegel and for you too. The whole question is so simple, and at the same time so complicated.
Probably you are saying to yourself: ”A woman must love one man or the other.” With some show of reason, you will argue: ”In leaving my house, at any rate, she proved at the moment that Schlegel alone claimed her affection.”
Nevertheless I maintain that you are wrong.
Lillie showed every sign of a sane, well-balanced nature. Well, her famous equability and calm deceived us all. Behind this serene exterior was concealed the most feminine of all feminine qualities--a fanciful, visionary imagination.
Do you or I know anything about her first girlish dreams? Have you--in spite of your happy life together--ever really understood her innermost soul? Forgive my doubts, but I do not think you have. When a man possesses a woman as completely as you possessed Lillie, he thinks himself quite safe. You never knew a moment's doubt, or supposed it possible that, having you, she could wish for anything else. You believed that you fulfilled all her requirements.
How do you know that for years past Lillie has not felt some longings and deficiencies in her inner life of which she was barely conscious, or which she did not understand?
You are not only a clever and capable man; you are kind, and an entertaining companion; in short, you have many good qualities which Lillie exalted to the skies. But your nature is not very poetical. You are, in fact, rather prosaic, and only believe what you see. Your judgments and views are not hasty, but just and decisive.
Now contrast all this with Lillie's immense indulgence. Whence did she derive this if not from a sympathetic understanding of things which we do not possess? You remember how we used to laugh when she defended some criminal who was quite beyond defence and apology! Something intense and far-seeking came into her expression on those occasions, and her heart prompted some line of argument which reason could not support.
She stood all alone in her sympathy, facing us, cold and sceptical people.
But how she must have suffered!
Then recollect the pleasure it gave her to discuss religious and philosophical questions. She was not ”religious” in the common acceptation of the word. But she liked to get to the bottom of things, and to use her imagination. We others were indifferent, or frankly bored, by such matters.
And Lillie, who was so gentle and lacking in self-a.s.sertion, gave way to us.
Recall, too, her pa.s.sion for flowers. She felt a physical pang to see cut flowers with their stalks out of water. Once I saw her buy up the whole stock-in-trade of a flower-girl, because the poor things wanted water. Neither you nor your children have any love of flowers. You, as a doctor, are inclined to think it unhealthy to have plants in your rooms; consequently there were none, and Lillie never grumbled about it.
Lillie did not care for modern music. Cesar Franck bored her, and Wagner gave her a headache. Her favourite instrument was an old harpsichord, on which she played Mozart, while her daughters thundered out Liszt and Rubinstein upon a concert grand, and you, dear Professor, when in a good humour, strode about the house whistling horribly out of tune.
Finally, Lillie liked quiet, musical speech, and she was surrounded by people who talked at the top of their voices.
”Absurd trifles,” I can hear you saying. Perhaps. But they explain the fact that although she was happy in a way, she still had many aspirations which were not only unsatisfied, but which, without meaning it unkindly, you daily managed to crush.
Lillie never blamed others. When she found that you did not understand the things she cared for, she immediately tried to think she was in the wrong, and her well-balanced nature helped her to conquer her own predilections.
She was happy because she willed to be happy. Once and for all she had made up her mind that she was the luckiest woman in existence; happy in every respect; and she was deeply grateful to you.
But in the depths of her heart--so deeply buried that perhaps it never rose to the surface even in the form of a dream--lay that secret something which led to the present misfortune.