Part 18 (1/2)
As he spoke I became suddenly aware that the gas-lights were paling, and glancing towards the window on my left I saw the splendour of the sunrise breaking fresh and clear over the city of diabolical night, where in the sombre eastern sky--
”G.o.d made himself an awful rose of dawn.”
A breath of coolness and purity seemed to waft into the feverish ball-room; a ray of fresh morning sunlight. I looked curiously at the young artist. He seemed transfigured. I could scarcely realise that an hour ago he had been among the rowdiest of the _Comus_ crew, whose shrieks and laughter still rang all around us. Even his duplex costume seemed to have grown subtly symbolical, the diabolical part typical of all that is b.e.s.t.i.a.l and selfish in man, the death-mask speaking silently of renunciation and the peace of the tomb. He went on, after a moment of emotion: ”They say that pity is akin to love, but I am not sure that I ever loved her, for I suppose that love involves pa.s.sion, and I never arrived at that. I only came to feel that I wanted to be with her always, to guard her, to protect her, to work for her, to suffer for her if need be, to give her life something of the joy and sweetness that G.o.d owed her. I felt I wasn't much use in the world, and that would be something to do. And so one day--though not without much mental tossing, for we are curiously, complexly built, and I dreaded ridicule and the long years of comment from unsympathetic strangers--I asked her to be my wife. Her surprise, her agitation, was painful to witness. But she was not incredulous, as before; she had learned to know that I respected her.
”Nevertheless, her immediate impulse was one of refusal.
”'It cannot be,' she said, and her bosom heaved spasmodically.
”I protested that it could and would be, but she shook her head.
”'You are very kind to me! G.o.d bless you!' she said. 'You have always been kind to me. But you do not love me.'
”I a.s.sured her I did, and in that moment I dare say I spoke the truth.
For in that moment of her reluctance and diffidence to s.n.a.t.c.h at proffered joy, when the suggestion of rejection made her appear doubly precious, she seemed to me the most adorable creature in the world.
”But still she shook her head. 'No one can love me,' she said sadly.
”I took her hand in mute protestation, but she withdrew it gently.
”'I cannot be your wife,' she persisted.
”'Why not, Ingeborg?' I asked pa.s.sionately.
”She hesitated, panting and colouring painfully, then--the words are echoing in my brain--she answered softly, '_Jeg kan ikke elske Dem_'
(I cannot love you).
”It was like a shaft of lightning piercing me, rending and illuminating. In my blind conceit the obverse side of the question had never presented itself to me. I had taken it for granted I had only to ask to be jumped at. But now, in one great flash of insight, I seemed to see everything plain.
”'You love Axel Larson!' I cried chokingly, as I thought of all the insults he had heaped upon her in her presence, all the sneers and vile jocosities of which she had been the b.u.t.t behind her back, in return for the care she had lavished upon his comfort, for her pinching to make both ends meet without the money he should have contributed.
”She did not reply. The tears came into her eyes, she let her head droop on her heaving breast. As in those visions that are said to come to the dying, I saw Axel Larson feeding day by day at her board, brutally conscious of her pa.s.sion, yet not deigning even to sacrifice her to it; I saw him ultimately leave the schools and the town to carry his clever brush to the welcome of a wider world, without a word or a thought of thanks for the creature who had wors.h.i.+pped and waited upon him hand and foot; and then I saw her life from day to day unroll its long monotonous folds, all in the same pattern, all drab duty and joyless sacrifice, and hopeless undying love.
”I took her hand again in a pa.s.sion of pity. She understood my sympathy, and the hot tears started from her eyes and rolled down her poor wan cheeks. And in that holy moment I saw into the inner heaven of woman's love, which purifies and atones for the world. The eternal feminine!”
The sentimental young artist ceased, and buried his devil's face in his hands. I looked around and started. We were alone in the abandoned supper-room. The gorgeously grotesque company was seated in a gigantic circle upon the ball-room floor furiously applauding the efforts of two sweetly pretty girls who were performing the celebrated _danse du ventre_.
”The eternal feminine!” I echoed pensively.
THE SILENT SISTERS
They had quarrelled in girlhood, and mutually declared their intention never to speak to each other again, wetting and drying their forefingers to the accompaniment of an ancient childish incantation, and while they lived on the paternal farm they kept their foolish oath with the stubbornness of a slow country stock, despite the alternate coaxing and chastis.e.m.e.nt of their parents, notwithstanding the perpetual everyday contact of their lives, through every vicissitude of season and weather, of sowing and reaping, of sun and shade, of joy and sorrow.
Death and misfortune did not reconcile them, and when their father died and the old farm was sold up, they travelled to London in the same silence, by the same train, in search of similar situations.