Part 16 (1/2)
The two women looked at each other, the one with a hard stare of brazen effrontery, the other with an expression of terror and disgust.
”Ay!” went on the elder with a voice which, breaking through its usual false ring, was full of malice and bitterness. ”Ay! you cream-faced beauty, you are shocked are you? Of course you are right. One should not kill except for the good of the Society, other private killing is objectionable. I know all that. But wait until you have gone through what I have, and see what you will be then....” Changing back to her old light tone she continued, ”Ah, Mary! it was the same old story with me as with the rest. A warm temperament”--and she laughed as she made this cool confession--”a warm temperament, a man, and a baby, that's all--and a little tragedy mixed up with it that won't be worth your while to hear about now.”
Mary had never liked this woman, she now began to conceive an intense dislike for her. Susan would never have converted her to the cause, though she was the very person to win over girls naturally flighty and wicked. But Mary concealed her dislike as much as possible, for she was interested in drawing out this strange being, so wicked, so like a female Mephistopheles, so different in every way to her own ideal, her mistress, Catherine King.
”Did you have such a thing as a conscience when you were a little girl, Sister Susan?” she inquired.
”I don't know--not much of a one anyhow. I never had the fight you had; and yet your conscience still raises his head now and then. You are full of pities, and scruples, and trashy sentiment. I'll tell you what it is.
Mary; I know what you want; I know what will soon make you happier, what will altogether knock on the head that nasty, teasing conscience of yours. Would you like to know what it is?”
”I wish you _would_ tell me the cure; but time is the only one. It is not conscience though, it is cowardice.”
”Indeed! I should not have taken you for a coward,” Susan observed.
”But I am. It can be nothing else than cowardice. I know it is my duty--I know it is for the good of the world that I should do certain things. Of course I will do those things when I am ordered to do so.
But, oh! how I shall s.h.i.+rk that horrible duty! How I shall suffer! I sometimes think I shall go mad when the time comes.”
”Nonsense. I've heard young medical students talk like that. Yet see how soon they get hardened into chopping and probing away into our quivering anatomies. No! You go and try my patent cure for conscience--never known to fail, cures pain at the heart, prevents softening--testimonials from Mrs. Jezebel, several empresses of Rome, and many of the n.o.bility and gentry. Try it, Mary!”
”Well, what is it?” asked the girl, laughing in spite of her melancholy frame of mind.
”_A regular bad man_,” replied the other fiercely--”that's my prescription, my dear. You've got a pretty face enough, so the drug can be easily 'presented,' as the doctors say. It's not a difficult medicine to procure. It is not even unpleasant to the taste at first--on the contrary; but it rather upsets you when it's working its effect and purging the morbid secretion conscience out of you. Go and get one, one of your haw-haw club dandies; get him to fall in love with you, as they will for a time. It's easy to make him do that--work on his vanity, that's all. Flatter him--you'll catch any man like that. Talk about woman's vanity--it's nothing to a man's. Then you must fall in love with him--you may find that difficult, but it is necessary, else the medicine won't work. Now after a period more or less long--after babies, coolness, insult, desertion--after your hero proves but a mean, heartless cad after all--after all this, the devil of a bit of conscience you'll find left in you, I'll guarantee.”
Mary looked at Susan, wondering at this strange nature, feeling a great antipathy, yet not unmixed with pity, for the vain, wicked, hardened creature by her side.
At last she said,
”I often wonder what you were like when you were a child, Susan.”
Susan seemed buried in thought, and did not reply for a few minutes.
”You want to know how my antecedents developed the charming being, Susan Riley? I don't suppose my nature was what some people would call a good one to begin with; but, child--for you are a child to me--you have suffered nothing to what I have. Your life at Brixton was an unhappy one, there ends your suffering; my life as a child, too, was no merry one. But it was what happened afterwards. It was _a man_ that completed my education and finished my conscience. Ah, what a bringing up was mine! I, full of animal life, high-spirited, was kept down by my parents as few children have been. They, both father and mother, were religious monomaniacs, cruel, selfish, hard Puritans of the severest school. And what fools they were too! Just think of it! My father thought that any person who did not exactly believe in his own narrow views, must be altogether a child of sin--capable of any possible crime. So my brother, who would not play the hypocrite enough, was so mistrusted by my father, that when my cousin, a pretty girl, came to our house to tea, as she often did, he was not permitted to escort her home afterwards. No! a man-servant, a sneaking hypocrite, was sent with her instead--that man seduced my sister, and, I believe, my cousin also. My brother was driven to the dogs, of course, by the judicious treatment of his parents. I will tell you what happened to him some day. Ha! there's an education to drive religion out of you. How I hated the very name of it! How I hated my father and mother, and all the sneaking, sickly crew that surrounded them! Anyhow, my dear parents died broken-hearted at their children's behaviour; that was one consolation for us anyhow.”
Neither spoke for some time, then Mary asked, ”Do you think, Susan, that after I have once removed a child I shall be different, will this feeling of horror go away then? Oh! it is awful, Susan. I believe even you would pity me if you knew. My life is now like one long night-mare.
In the day-time I wish that it was night-time again, that I might be asleep; and in the night it is no better and I wish it was day again; and I always wish that I was dead. I would kill myself were it not for my dear mistress. Are many of the sisters like this? Shall I go mad do you think, Susan?”
Susan replied, ”It is the first step that costs, as we used to translate some sentence in the French exercise book when I was at school. I can't give you the original, I've forgotten my French, and piano, and other accomplishments now; but it means that when you have killed your first baby you will feel better: that is the experience of all Nihilists. All have the horrors, more or less, at first. They think that as soon as they have done the deed some frightful bogie, some maddening remorse worse than anything imaginable before, will jump up and seize them. It is the dread of this bogie that does all the mischief. Now, as soon as they have done the deed, they are so agreeably surprised to find that this dreaded bogie does _not_ come, that a delightful reaction sets in.
You should see how mad some of them get with joy. As soon as you have killed your first baby, or boy, or man, your horrors will go. You will experience immediate relief. It's like having a tooth out.”
”I see what you mean. It sounds natural enough, too,” said Mary, musingly.
”Of course; and at last you'll become a jovial body like me, and you'll come to like your duties and take a relish in blood for its own sake.”
Mary shuddered perceptibly, and said, ”I shall never come to that I hope--that is, I fear.”
”Don't be afraid of speaking out, my dear! I'm not thin-skinned--besides, I take pride in being cruel. I can hate. It would be well for you if you could. You will always suffer somewhat. You will have to keep a picture of your duty always before you, between you and the sight of the blood. You will have to work yourself up to blind enthusiasm every time you have work to do. I wouldn't wonder if you have to take to opium. It is not a bad temporary conscience-duller. But look how much more convenient my state of mind is. I don't require winding up. I have no scruples. I enjoy my work.”
”And I loathe it,” exclaimed the girl. ”It is all a matter of temperament I suppose, Susan.”
”I suppose it is,” Susan continued. ”Do you know, I have observed that most voluptuous women are cruel as well. It is a curious fact, Mary. I sometimes think that my nature is chiefly made up of these two n.o.ble qualities. My man used to call me Faustina. Now you are all made up of cold duties, and so you will suffer. Hot pa.s.sions are better for the Nihilists.”