hurried departure on the day after her home-coming struck me as very extraordinary; but, as it was none of my business, I made no comment. Three days passed, then the Baron wrote asking me to call. He appeared to be restless, very nervous and strange. He told me that the Baroness would be back almost immediately.
"Indeed!" I exclaimed, more astonished than I cared to show.
"Yes! … her nerves are upset, the climate doesn't suit her. She has written me an unintelligible letter which frightens me. I have never been able to understand her whims … she gets all sorts of fantastic ideas into her head. Just at present she imagines that you are angry with her!"
"I!"
"It's too absurd!" he continued, "but don't take any notice of it when she returns; she's ashamed of her moods; she's proud, and if she thought you disapproved of her, she would only commit fresh follies."
"It has come at last," I said to myself; "the catastrophe is imminent!" And from that moment my thoughts were bent on flight, for I had no desire to figure as the hero of a romance of passion.
I refused the next invitation, making excuses which were badly invented and wrongly understood. The result was a call from the Baron; he asked me what I meant by my unfriendly conduct? I did not know what explanation to give, and he took advantage of my embarrassment and exacted a promise from me to join them in an excursion.
I found the Baroness looking ill and worn out; only the black eyes in the livid face seemed alive and shone with unnatural brilliancy. I was very reserved, spoke in indifferent tones and said as little as possible.
On leaving the steamer, we went to a famous hotel where the Baron had arranged to meet his uncle. The supper, which was served in the open, was anything but gay. Before us spread the sinister lake, shut in by gloomy mountains; above our heads waved the branches of the lime trees, the blackened trunks of which were over a hundred years old.
We talked commonplaces, but our conversation was dull and soon languished. I fancied that I could feel the after-effects of a quarrel between my hosts, which had not yet been patched up and was on the verge of a fresh outbreak. I ardently desired to avoid the storm, but, unfortunately, uncle and nephew left the table to discuss business matters. Now the mine would explode!
As soon as we were alone the Baroness leaned toward me and said excitedly—
"Do you know that Gustav is angry with me for coming back unexpectedly?"
"I know nothing about it."
"Then you don't know that he'd been building on meeting my charming cousin on his free Sundays?"
"My dear Baroness," I exclaimed, interrupting her, "if you want to bring charges against your husband, hadn't you better do it in his presence?"
… What had I done? It was brutal, this harsh, uncompromising rebuke, flung into the face of a disloyal wife in defence of a member of my own sex.
"How dare you!" she cried, amazed, changing colour. "You're insulting me!"
"Yes, Baroness, I am insulting you."
All was over between us, for ever.
As soon as her husband returned she hastened towards him, as if she were seeking protection from an enemy. The Baron noticed that something was wrong, but he could not understand her excitement.
I left them at the landing-stage, pretending that I had to pay a visit at one of the neighbouring villas.
I don't know how I got back to town. My legs seemed to carry a lifeless body; the vital node was cut, I was a corpse walking along the streets.
Alone! I was alone again, without friends, without a family, without anything to worship. It was impossible for me to recreate God. The statue of the Madonna had fallen down; woman had shown herself behind the beautiful image, woman, treacherous, faithless, with sharp claws! When she attempted to make me her confidant, she was taking the first step towards breaking her marriage vows; at that moment the hatred of her sex was born in me. She had insulted the man and the sex in me, and I took the part of her husband against her. Not that I flattered myself with being a virtuous man, but in love man is never a thief, he only takes what is given to him. It is woman who steals and sells herself. The only time when she gives unselfishly is when she betrays her husband. The prostitute sells herself, the young wife sells herself; the faithless wife only gives to her lover that which she has stolen from her husband.
But I had not desired this woman in any other way than as a friend. Protected from me by her child, I had always seen her invested with the insignia of motherhood. Always seeing her at the side of her husband, I had never felt the slightest temptation to indulge in pleasures which are gross in themselves, and ennobled only by entire and exclusive possession.
I returned to my room annihilated, completely crushed, more lonely than ever, for I had dropped my Bohemian friends from the very outset of my relations with the Baroness.
IV
I occupied in those days a fairly large attic with two windows which looked on the new harbour, the bay and the rocky heights of the southern suburbs. Before the windows, on the roof, I had managed to create a garden of tiny dimensions. Bengal roses, azaleas and geraniums provided me in their turn with flowers for the secret cult of my Madonna with the child. It had become a daily habit with me to pull down the blinds towards the evening, arrange my flower-pots in a semicircle, and place the picture of the Baroness, with the lamplight full on it, amongst them. She was represented on this portrait as a young mother, with somewhat severe, but deliciously pure features, her delicate head crowned with a wealth of golden hair. She wore a light dress which reached up to her chin and was finished off with a pleated frill; her little daughter, dressed in white, was standing on a table by the side of her, gazing at the beholder with pensive eyes. How many letters "to my friends" had I not written before this portrait and sent off on the following morning addressed to the Baron! These letters were at that time the only channel into which I could pour my literary aspirations, and my inmost soul was laid bare in them.
To open a career for the erratic, artistic soul of the Baroness, I had tried to encourage her to seek an outlet for her poetic imagination in literary work. I had provided her with the masterpieces of all literatures, had taught her the first principles of literary composition by furnishing endless summaries, commentaries and analyses, to which I added advice and practical illustrations. She had been only moderately interested, for she doubted her literary talent from the outset. I told her that every educated person possessed the ability to write at least a letter, and was therefore a poet or author in posse. But it was all in vain; the passion for the stage had taken firm hold of her obstinate brain. She insisted that she was a born elocutionist, and, because her rank prevented her from following her inclination and going on the stage (an ardently desired contingency), she posed as a martyr, heedless of the disastrous consequences which threatened to overtake her home life. Her husband sympathised with my benevolent efforts, undertaken in the hope of saving the domestic peace of the family from shipwreck. He was grateful, although he had not the courage to take an active and personal interest in the matter. The Baroness's opposition notwithstanding, I had continued my efforts and urged her in every letter to break the fateful spell which held her, and make an effort to write a poem, a drama, or a novel.
"Your life has been an eventful one," I said to her in one of my letters; "why not make use of your own experience?" And, quoting from Börne, I added, "Take paper and pen and be candid, and you are bound to become
