of philosophy; a woman solaces herself with religion.”
“I can do neither,” she replied, changing her attitude with an exaggerated shaking down of skirts. “If I could, I shouldn’t want to go away.”
“Go away?” I echud.
“Yes. You mustn’t be vexed with me. I haven’t got a cook—”
“No one would have thought it, from the luncheon you gave me, my dear.”
The alcoholized domestic, by the way, was sent out, bag and baggage, last evening, when she was sober enough to walk.
“And so it is a convenient opportunity,” Judith continued, ignoring my compliment—and rightly so; for as soon as it had been uttered, I was struck by an uneasy conviction that she had herself disturbed the French caterers in the Tottenham Court Road from their Sabbath repose in order to provide me with food.
“I can shut up the flat without any fuss. I am never happy at the beginning of a London season. I know I’m silly,” she went on, hurriedly. “If I could stand your dreadful Marcus Aurelius I might be wiser—I don’t mind the rest of the year; but in the season everybody is in town—people I used to know and mix with—I meet them in the streets and they cut me and it—hurts—and so I want to get away somewhere by myself. When I get sick of solitude I’ll come back.”
One of her quick, graceful movements brought her to her knees by my side. She caught my hand.
“For pity’s sake, Marcus, say that you understand why it is.”
I said, “I have been a blatant egoist all the afternoon, Judith. I didn’t guess. Of course I understand.”
“If you didn’t, it would be impossible for us.”
“Have no doubt,” said I, softly, and I kissed her hand.
I came into her life when she counted it as over and done with—at eight and twenty—and was patiently undergoing premature interment in a small pension in Rome. How long her patience would have lasted I cannot say. If circumstances had been different, what would have happened? is the most futile of speculations. What did happen was the drifting together of us two bits of flotsam and our keeping together for the simple reason that there were no forces urging us apart. She was past all care for social sanctions, her sacred cap of good repute having been flung over the windmills long before; and I, friendless unit in a world of shadows, why should I have rejected the one warm hand that was held out to me? As I said to her this afternoon, Why should the bon Dieu disapprove? I pay him the compliment of presuming that he is a broad-minded deity.
When my fortune came, she remarked, “I am glad I am not free. If I were, you would want to marry me, and that would be fatal.”
The divine, sound sense of the dear woman! Honour would compel the offer. Its acceptance would bring disaster.
Marriage has two aspects. The one, a social contract, a quid of protection, maintenance, position and what not, for a quo of the various services that may be conveniently epitomized in the phrase de mensa et thoro. The other, the only possible existence for two beings whose passionate, mutual attraction demands the perfect fusion of their two existences into a common life. Now to this passionate attraction I have never become, and, having no temperament (thank Heaven!), shall never become, a party. Before the turbulence therein involved I stand affrighted as I do before London or the deep sea. I once read an epitaph in a German churchyard: “I will awake, O Christ, when thou callest me; but let me sleep awhile, for I am very weary.” Has the human soul ever so poignantly expressed its craving for quietude? I fancy I should have been a heart’s friend of that dead man, who, like myself, loved the cool and quiet shadow, and was not allowed to enjoy it in this world. I may not get the calm I desire, but at any rate my existence shall not be turned upside down by mad passion for a woman. As for the social-contract aspect of marriage, I want no better housekeeper than Antoinette; and my dining-table having no guests does not need a lady to grace its foot; I have no a priori craving to add to the population. “If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone,” says Schopenhauer, “would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence? or at any rate not take it upon himself to impose that burden upon it in cold blood?” By bringing children into the world by means of a marriage of convenience I should be imposing the burden of existence upon them in cold blood. I agree with Schopenhauer.
And the dreadful bond of such a marriage! To have in the closest physical and moral propinquity for one hundred and eighty-six hours out of the week, each hour surcharged with an obligatory exchange of responsibilities, interests, sacrifices of every kind, a being who is not the utter brother of my thoughts and sister of my dreams—no, never! Au grand non, au grand jamais!
Judith is an incomparable woman, but she is not the utter brother of my thoughts and the sister of my dreams; nor am I of hers.
But the comradeship she gives me is as food and drink, and my affection fulfils a need in her nature. The delicate adjustment of reciprocals is our sanction. Marriage, were it possible, would indeed be fatal. Our pleasant, free relations, unruffled by storm, are ideal for us both.
Why, I wonder, did she think her proposal to go away for a change would vex me?
The idea implies a right of veto which is repugnant to me. Of all the hateful attitudes towards a woman in which a decent man can view himself that of the Turkish bashaw is the most detestable. Women seldom give men credit for this distaste.
I kissed the white hand of Judith that touched my wrist, and told her not to doubt my understanding. She cried a little.
“I don’t make your path rougher, Judith?” I whispered.
She checked her tears and her eyes brightened wonderfully.
“You? You do nothing but smooth it and level it.”
“Like a steam-roller,” said I.
She laughed, sprang to her feet, and carried me off gaily to the kitchen to help her get the tea ready. My assistance consisted in lighting the gas-stove beneath a waterless kettle. After that I sprawled against the dresser and, with my heart in my mouth, watched her cut thin bread-and-butter in a woman’s deliciously clumsy way. Once, as the bright blade went perilously near her palm, I drew in my breath.
“A man would never dream of doing it like that!” I cried, in rebuke.
She calmly dropped the wafer on to the plate and handed me the knife and loaf.
“Do it your way,” she said, with a smile of mock humility.
I did it my way, and cut my finger.
“The devil’s in the knife!” I cried. “But that’s the right way.”
Judith said nothing, but bound up my wound, and, like the well-conducted person of the ballad, went on cutting bread-and-butter. Her smile, however, was provoking.
“And all this time,” I said, half an hour later, “you haven’t told me where you are going.”
“Paris. To stay with Delphine Carrere.”
“I thought you said you wanted solitude.”
