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diff --git a/2165-0.txt b/2165-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..62bf5c6 --- /dev/null +++ b/2165-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1999 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Lifted Veil, by George Eliot + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: The Lifted Veil + +Author: George Eliot + +Release Date: April, 2000 [eBook #2165] +[Most recently updated: March 10, 2022] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: David Price + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFTED VEIL *** + + + + +THE LIFTED VEIL + + + Give me no light, great Heaven, but such as turns + To energy of human fellowship; + No powers beyond the growing heritage + That makes completer manhood. + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +The time of my end approaches. I have lately been subject to attacks of +_angina pectoris_; and in the ordinary course of things, my physician +tells me, I may fairly hope that my life will not be protracted +many months. Unless, then, I am cursed with an exceptional physical +constitution, as I am cursed with an exceptional mental character, I +shall not much longer groan under the wearisome burthen of this earthly +existence. If it were to be otherwise--if I were to live on to the age +most men desire and provide for--I should for once have known whether +the miseries of delusive expectation can outweigh the miseries of true +prevision. For I foresee when I shall die, and everything that will +happen in my last moments. + +Just a month from this day, on September 20, 1850, I shall be sitting +in this chair, in this study, at ten o'clock at night, longing to die, +weary of incessant insight and foresight, without delusions and without +hope. Just as I am watching a tongue of blue flame rising in the fire, +and my lamp is burning low, the horrible contraction will begin at my +chest. I shall only have time to reach the bell, and pull it violently, +before the sense of suffocation will come. No one will answer my bell. +I know why. My two servants are lovers, and will have quarrelled. My +housekeeper will have rushed out of the house in a fury, two hours +before, hoping that Perry will believe she has gone to drown herself. +Perry is alarmed at last, and is gone out after her. The little +scullery-maid is asleep on a bench: she never answers the bell; it does +not wake her. The sense of suffocation increases: my lamp goes out with +a horrible stench: I make a great effort, and snatch at the bell again. +I long for life, and there is no help. I thirsted for the unknown: +the thirst is gone. O God, let me stay with the known, and be weary +of it: I am content. Agony of pain and suffocation--and all the while +the earth, the fields, the pebbly brook at the bottom of the rookery, +the fresh scent after the rain, the light of the morning through my +chamber-window, the warmth of the hearth after the frosty air--will +darkness close over them for ever? + +Darkness--darkness--no pain--nothing but darkness: but I am passing +on and on through the darkness: my thought stays in the darkness, but +always with a sense of moving onward . . . + +Before that time comes, I wish to use my last hours of ease and +strength in telling the strange story of my experience. I have never +fully unbosomed myself to any human being; I have never been encouraged +to trust much in the sympathy of my fellow-men. But we have all a +chance of meeting with some pity, some tenderness, some charity, when +we are dead: it is the living only who cannot be forgiven--the living +only from whom men's indulgence and reverence are held off, like the +rain by the hard east wind. While the heart beats, bruise it--it is +your only opportunity; while the eye can still turn towards you with +moist, timid entreaty, freeze it with an icy unanswering gaze; while +the ear, that delicate messenger to the inmost sanctuary of the soul, +can still take in the tones of kindness, put it off with hard civility, +or sneering compliment, or envious affectation of indifference; while +the creative brain can still throb with the sense of injustice, +with the yearning for brotherly recognition--make haste--oppress it +with your ill-considered judgements, your trivial comparisons, your +careless misrepresentations. The heart will by and by be still--"ubi +saeva indignatio ulterius cor lacerare nequit"; the eye will cease to +entreat; the ear will be deaf; the brain will have ceased from all +wants as well as from all work. Then your charitable speeches may find +vent; then you may remember and pity the toil and the struggle and the +failure; then you may give due honour to the work achieved; then you +may find extenuation for errors, and may consent to bury them. + +That is a trivial schoolboy text; why do I dwell on it? It has little +reference to me, for I shall leave no works behind me for men to +honour. I have no near relatives who will make up, by weeping over my +grave, for the wounds they inflicted on me when I was among them. It is +only the story of my life that will perhaps win a little more sympathy +from strangers when I am dead, than I ever believed it would obtain +from my friends while I was living. + +My childhood perhaps seems happier to me than it really was, by +contrast with all the after-years. For then the curtain of the future +was as impenetrable to me as to other children: I had all their delight +in the present hour, their sweet indefinite hopes for the morrow; and +I had a tender mother: even now, after the dreary lapse of long years, +a slight trace of sensation accompanies the remembrance of her caress +as she held me on her knee--her arms round my little body, her cheek +pressed on mine. I had a complaint of the eyes that made me blind for a +little while, and she kept me on her knee from morning till night. That +unequalled love soon vanished out of my life, and even to my childish +consciousness it was as if that life had become more chill. I rode my +little white pony with the groom by my side as before, but there were +no loving eyes looking at me as I mounted, no glad arms opened to me +when I came back. Perhaps I missed my mother's love more than most +children of seven or eight would have done, to whom the other pleasures +of life remained as before; for I was certainly a very sensitive child. +I remember still the mingled trepidation and delicious excitement with +which I was affected by the tramping of the horses on the pavement +in the echoing stables, by the loud resonance of the groom's voices, +by the booming bark of the dogs as my father's carriage thundered +under the archway of the courtyard, by the din of the gong as it gave +notice of luncheon and dinner. The measured tramp of soldiery which I +sometimes heard--for my father's house lay near a county town where +there were large barracks--made me sob and tremble; and yet when they +were gone past, I longed for them to come back again. + +I fancy my father thought me an odd child, and had little fondness for +me; though he was very careful in fulfilling what he regarded as a +parent's duties. But he was already past the middle of life, and I was +not his only son. My mother had been his second wife, and he was five- +and-forty when he married her. He was a firm, unbending, intensely +orderly man, in root and stem a banker, but with a flourishing graft +of the active landholder, aspiring to county influence: one of those +people who are always like themselves from day to day, who are +uninfluenced by the weather, and neither know melancholy nor high +spirits. I held him in great awe, and appeared more timid and sensitive +in his presence than at other times; a circumstance which, perhaps, +helped to confirm him in the intention to educate me on a different +plan from the prescriptive one with which he had complied in the case +of my elder brother, already a tall youth at Eton. My brother was to +be his representative and successor; he must go to Eton and Oxford, +for the sake of making connexions, of course: my father was not a man +to underrate the bearing of Latin satirists or Greek dramatists on the +attainment of an aristocratic position. But, intrinsically, he had +slight esteem for "those dead but sceptred spirits"; having qualified +himself for forming an independent opinion by reading Potter's +_AEschylus_, and dipping into Francis's _Horace_. To this negative +view he added a positive one, derived from a recent connexion with +mining speculations; namely, that a scientific education was the really +useful training for a younger son. Moreover, it was clear that a shy, +sensitive boy like me was not fit to encounter the rough experience +of a public school. Mr. Letherall had said so very decidedly. Mr. +Letherall was a large man in spectacles, who one day took my small +head between his large hands, and pressed it here and there in an +exploratory, auspicious manner--then placed each of his great thumbs on +my temples, and pushed me a little way from him, and stared at me with +glittering spectacles. The contemplation appeared to displease him, for +he frowned sternly, and said to my father, drawing his thumbs across my +eyebrows-- + +"The deficiency is there, sir--there; and here," he added, touching the +upper sides of my head, "here is the excess. That must be brought out, +sir, and this must be laid to sleep." + +I was in a state of tremor, partly at the vague idea that I was +the object of reprobation, partly in the agitation of my first +hatred--hatred of this big, spectacled man, who pulled my head about as +if he wanted to buy and cheapen it. + +I am not aware how much Mr. Letherall had to do with the system +afterwards adopted towards me, but it was presently clear that private +tutors, natural history, science, and the modern languages, were the +appliances by which the defects of my organization were to be remedied. +I was very stupid about machines, so I was to be greatly occupied +with them; I had no memory for classification, so it was particularly +necessary that I should study systematic zoology and botany; I was +hungry for human deeds and humane motions, so I was to be plentifully +crammed with the mechanical powers, the elementary bodies, and the +phenomena of electricity and magnetism. A better-constituted boy +would certainly have profited under my intelligent tutors, with their +scientific apparatus; and would, doubtless, have found the phenomena +of electricity and magnetism as fascinating as I was, every Thursday, +assured they were. As it was, I could have paired off, for ignorance +of whatever was taught me, with the worst Latin scholar that was ever +turned out of a classical academy. I read Plutarch, and Shakespeare, +and Don Quixote by the sly, and supplied myself in that way with +wandering thoughts, while my tutor was assuring me that "an improved +man, as distinguished from an ignorant one, was a man who knew the +reason why water ran downhill." I had no desire to be this improved +man; I was glad of the running water; I could watch it and listen to it +gurgling among the pebbles, and bathing the bright green water-plants, +by the hour together. I did not want to know _why_ it ran; I had +perfect confidence that there were good reasons for what was so very +beautiful. + +There is no need to dwell on this part of my life. I have said enough +to indicate that my nature was of the sensitive, unpractical order, +and that it grew up in an uncongenial medium, which could never foster +it into happy, healthy development. When I was sixteen I was sent to +Geneva to complete my course of education; and the change was a very +happy one to me, for the first sight of the Alps, with the setting +sun on them, as we descended the Jura, seemed to me like an entrance +into heaven; and the three years of my life there were spent in a +perpetual sense of exaltation, as if from a draught of delicious wine, +at the presence of Nature in all her awful loveliness. You will think, +perhaps, that I must have been a poet, from this early sensibility to +Nature. But my lot was not so happy as that. A poet pours forth his +song and _believes_ in the listening ear and answering soul, to which +his song will be floated sooner or later. But the poet's sensibility +without his voice--the poet's sensibility that finds no vent but in +silent tears on the sunny bank, when the noonday light sparkles on the +water, or in an inward shudder at the sound of harsh human tones, the +sight of a cold human eye--this dumb passion brings with it a fatal +solitude of soul in the society of one's fellow-men. My least solitary +moments were those in which I pushed off in my boat, at evening, +towards the centre of the lake; it seemed to me that the sky, and the +glowing mountain-tops, and the wide blue water, surrounded me with a +cherishing love such as no human face had shed on me since my mother's +love had vanished out of my life. I used to do as Jean Jacques did--lie +down in my boat and let it glide where it would, while I looked up at +the departing glow leaving one mountain-top after the other, as if the +prophet's chariot of fire were passing over them on its way to the home +of light. Then, when the white summits were all sad and corpse-like, +I had to push homeward, for I was under careful surveillance, and was +allowed no late wanderings. This disposition of mine was not favourable +to the formation of intimate friendships among the numerous youths of +my own age who are always to be found studying at Geneva. Yet I made +_one_ such friendship; and, singularly enough, it was with a youth +whose intellectual tendencies were the very reverse of my own. I shall +call him Charles Meunier; his real surname--an English one, for he +was of English extraction--having since become celebrated. He was an +orphan, who lived on a miserable pittance while he pursued the medical +studies for which he had a special genius. Strange! that with my vague +mind, susceptible and unobservant, hating inquiry and given up to +contemplation, I should have been drawn towards a youth whose strongest +passion was science. But the bond was not an intellectual one; it came +from a source that can happily blend the stupid with the brilliant, the +dreamy with the practical: it came from community of feeling. Charles +was poor and ugly, derided by Genevese _gamins_, and not acceptable +in drawing-rooms. I saw that he was isolated, as I was, though from a +different cause, and, stimulated by a sympathetic resentment, I made +timid advances towards him. It is enough to say that there sprang up +as much comradeship between us as our different habits would allow; +and in Charles's rare holidays we went up the Saleve together, or +took the boat to Vevay, while I listened dreamily to the monologues +in which he unfolded his bold conceptions of future experiment and +discovery. I mingled them confusedly in my thought with glimpses of +blue water and delicate floating cloud, with the notes of birds and +the distant glitter of the glacier. He knew quite well that my mind +was half absent, yet he liked to talk to me in this way; for don't we +talk of our hopes and our projects even to dogs and birds, when they +love us? I have mentioned this one friendship because of its connexion +with a strange and terrible scene which I shall have to narrate in my +subsequent life. + +This happier life at Geneva was put an end to by a severe illness, +which is partly a blank to me, partly a time of dimly-remembered +suffering, with the presence of my father by my bed from time to time. +Then came the languid monotony of convalescence, the days gradually +breaking into variety and distinctness as my strength enabled me to +take longer and longer drives. On one of these more vividly remembered +days, my father said to me, as he sat beside my sofa-- + +"When you are quite well enough to travel, Latimer, I shall take you +home with me. The journey will amuse you and do you good, for I shall +go through the Tyrol and Austria, and you will see many new places. Our +neighbours, the Filmores, are come; Alfred will join us at Basle, and +we shall all go together to Vienna, and back by Prague" . . . + +My father was called away before he had finished his sentence, and +he left my mind resting on the word _Prague_, with a strange sense +that a new and wondrous scene was breaking upon me: a city under the +broad sunshine, that seemed to me as if it were the summer sunshine +of a long-past century arrested in its course--unrefreshed for ages +by dews of night, or the rushing rain-cloud; scorching the dusty, +weary, time-eaten grandeur of a people doomed to live on in the stale +repetition of memories, like deposed and superannuated kings in their +regal gold-inwoven tatters. The city looked so thirsty that the broad +river seemed to me a sheet of metal; and the blackened statues, as I +passed under their blank gaze, along the unending bridge, with their +ancient garments and their saintly crowns, seemed to me the real +inhabitants and owners of this place, while the busy, trivial men +and women, hurrying to and fro, were a swarm of ephemeral visitants +infesting it for a day. It is such grim, stony beings as these, I +thought, who are the fathers of ancient faded children, in those tanned +time-fretted dwellings that crowd the steep before me; who pay their +court in the worn and crumbling pomp of the palace which stretches its +monotonous length on the height; who worship wearily in the stifling +air of the churches, urged by no fear or hope, but compelled by their +doom to be ever old and undying, to live on in the rigidity of habit, +as they live on in perpetual midday, without the repose of night or the +new birth of morning. + +A stunning clang of metal suddenly thrilled through me, and I became +conscious of the objects in my room again: one of the fire-irons had +fallen as Pierre opened the door to bring me my draught. My heart was +palpitating violently, and I begged Pierre to leave my draught beside +me; I would take it presently. + +As soon as I was alone again, I began to ask myself whether I had been +sleeping. Was this a dream--this wonderfully distinct vision--minute +in its distinctness down to a patch of rainbow light on the pavement, +transmitted through a coloured lamp in the shape of a star--of a +strange city, quite unfamiliar to my imagination? I had seen no picture +of Prague: it lay in my mind as a mere name, with vaguely-remembered +historical associations--ill-defined memories of imperial grandeur and +religious wars. + +Nothing of this sort had ever occurred in my dreaming experience +before, for I had often been humiliated because my dreams were only +saved from being utterly disjointed and commonplace by the frequent +terrors of nightmare. But I could not believe that I had been asleep, +for I remembered distinctly the gradual breaking-in of the vision +upon me, like the new images in a dissolving view, or the growing +distinctness of the landscape as the sun lifts up the veil of the +morning mist. And while I was conscious of this incipient vision, I +was also conscious that Pierre came to tell my father Mr. Filmore was +waiting for him, and that my father hurried out of the room. No, it was +not a dream; was it--the thought was full of tremulous exultation--was +it the poet's nature in me, hitherto only a troubled yearning +sensibility, now manifesting itself suddenly as spontaneous creation? +Surely it was in this way that Homer saw the plain of Troy, that Dante +saw the abodes of the departed, that Milton saw the earthward flight of +the Tempter. Was it that my illness had wrought some happy change in +my organization--given a firmer tension to my nerves--carried off some +dull obstruction? I had often read of such effects--in works of fiction +at least. Nay; in genuine biographies I had read of the subtilizing +or exalting influence of some diseases on the mental powers. Did +not Novalis feel his inspiration intensified under the progress of +consumption? + +When my mind had dwelt for some time on this blissful idea, it seemed +to me that I might perhaps test it by an exertion of my will. The +vision had begun when my father was speaking of our going to Prague. +I did not for a moment believe it was really a representation of that +city; I believed--I hoped it was a picture that my newly liberated +genius had painted in fiery haste, with the colours snatched from lazy +memory. Suppose I were to fix my mind on some other place--Venice, for +example, which was far more familiar to my imagination than Prague: +perhaps the same sort of result would follow. I concentrated my +thoughts on Venice; I stimulated my imagination with poetic memories, +and strove to feel myself present in Venice, as I had felt myself +present in Prague. But in vain. I was only colouring the Canaletto +engravings that hung in my old bedroom at home; the picture was a +shifting one, my mind wandering uncertainly in search of more vivid +images; I could see no accident of form or shadow without conscious +labour after the necessary conditions. It was all prosaic effort, not +rapt passivity, such as I had experienced half an hour before. I was +discouraged; but I remembered that inspiration was fitful. + +For several days I was in a state of excited expectation, watching for +a recurrence of my new gift. I sent my thoughts ranging over my world +of knowledge, in the hope that they would find some object which would +send a reawakening vibration through my slumbering genius. But no; my +world remained as dim as ever, and that flash of strange light refused +to come again, though I watched for it with palpitating eagerness. + +My father accompanied me every day in a drive, and a gradually +lengthening walk as my powers of walking increased; and one evening he +had agreed to come and fetch me at twelve the next day, that we might +go together to select a musical box, and other purchases rigorously +demanded of a rich Englishman visiting Geneva. He was one of the most +punctual of men and bankers, and I was always nervously anxious to be +quite ready for him at the appointed time. But, to my surprise, at a +quarter past twelve he had not appeared. I felt all the impatience of a +convalescent who has nothing particular to do, and who has just taken +a tonic in the prospect of immediate exercise that would carry off the +stimulus. + +Unable to sit still and reserve my strength, I walked up and down the +room, looking out on the current of the Rhone, just where it leaves the +dark-blue lake; but thinking all the while of the possible causes that +could detain my father. + +Suddenly I was conscious that my father was in the room, but not alone: +there were two persons with him. Strange! I had heard no footstep, I +had not seen the door open; but I saw my father, and at his right hand +our neighbour Mrs. Filmore, whom I remembered very well, though I had +not seen her for five years. She was a commonplace middle-aged woman, +in silk and cashmere; but the lady on the left of my father was not +more than twenty, a tall, slim, willowy figure, with luxuriant blond +hair, arranged in cunning braids and folds that looked almost too +massive for the slight figure and the small-featured, thin-lipped face +they crowned. But the face had not a girlish expression: the features +were sharp, the pale grey eyes at once acute, restless, and sarcastic. +They were fixed on me in half-smiling curiosity, and I felt a painful +sensation as if a sharp wind were cutting me. The pale-green dress, +and the green leaves that seemed to form a border about her pale blond +hair, made me think of a Water-Nixie--for my mind was full of German +lyrics, and this pale, fatal-eyed woman, with the green weeds, looked +like a birth from some cold sedgy stream, the daughter of an aged river. + +"Well, Latimer, you thought me long," my father said . . . + +But while the last word was in my ears, the whole group vanished, and +there was nothing between me and the Chinese printed folding-screen +that stood before the door. I was cold and trembling; I could only +totter forward and throw myself on the sofa. This strange new power had +manifested itself again . . . But _was_ it a power? Might it not rather +be a disease--a sort of intermittent delirium, concentrating my energy +of brain into moments of unhealthy activity, and leaving my saner hours +all the more barren? I felt a dizzy sense of unreality in what my eye +rested on; I grasped the bell convulsively, like one trying to free +himself from nightmare, and rang it twice. Pierre came with a look of +alarm in his face. + +"Monsieur ne se trouve pas bien?" he said anxiously. + +"I'm tired of waiting, Pierre," I said, as distinctly and emphatically +as I could, like a man determined to be sober in spite of wine; "I'm +afraid something has happened to my father--he's usually so punctual. +Run to the Hotel des Bergues and see if he is there." + +Pierre left the room at once, with a soothing "Bien, Monsieur"; and I +felt the better for this scene of simple, waking prose. Seeking to calm +myself still further, I went into my bedroom, adjoining the _salon_, +and opened a case of eau-de-Cologne; took out a bottle; went through +the process of taking out the cork very neatly, and then rubbed the +reviving spirit over my hands and forehead, and under my nostrils, +drawing a new delight from the scent because I had procured it by slow +details of labour, and by no strange sudden madness. Already I had +begun to taste something of the horror that belongs to the lot of a +human being whose nature is not adjusted to simple human conditions. + +Still enjoying the scent, I returned to the salon, but it was not +unoccupied, as it had been before I left it. In front of the Chinese +folding-screen there was my father, with Mrs. Filmore on his right +hand, and on his left--the slim, blond-haired girl, with the keen face +and the keen eyes fixed on me in half-smiling curiosity. + +"Well, Latimer, you thought me long," my father said . . . + +I heard no more, felt no more, till I became conscious that I was lying +with my head low on the sofa, Pierre, and my father by my side. As soon +as I was thoroughly revived, my father left the room, and presently +returned, saying-- + +"I've been to tell the ladies how you are, Latimer. They were waiting +in the next room. We shall put off our shopping expedition to-day." + +Presently he said, "That young lady is Bertha Grant, Mrs. Filmore's +orphan niece. Filmore has adopted her, and she lives with them, so +you will have her for a neighbour when we go home--perhaps for a near +relation; for there is a tenderness between her and Alfred, I suspect, +and I should be gratified by the match, since Filmore means to provide +for her in every way as if she were his daughter. It had not occurred +to me that you knew nothing about her living with the Filmores." + +He made no further allusion to the fact of my having fainted at the +moment of seeing her, and I would not for the world have told him the +reason: I shrank from the idea of disclosing to any one what might be +regarded as a pitiable peculiarity, most of all from betraying it to my +father, who would have suspected my sanity ever after. + +I do not mean to dwell with particularity on the details of my +experience. I have described these two cases at length, because they +had definite, clearly traceable results in my after-lot. + +Shortly after this last occurrence--I think the very next day--I began +to be aware of a phase in my abnormal sensibility, to which, from +the languid and slight nature of my intercourse with others since my +illness, I had not been alive before. This was the obtrusion on my +mind of the mental process going forward in first one person, and +then another, with whom I happened to be in contact: the vagrant, +frivolous ideas and emotions of some uninteresting acquaintance--Mrs. +Filmore, for example--would force themselves on my consciousness like +an importunate, ill-played musical instrument, or the loud activity +of an imprisoned insect. But this unpleasant sensibility was fitful, +and left me moments of rest, when the souls of my companions were once +more shut out from me, and I felt a relief such as silence brings to +wearied nerves. I might have believed this importunate insight to be +merely a diseased activity of the imagination, but that my prevision of +incalculable words and actions proved it to have a fixed relation to +the mental process in other minds. But this superadded consciousness, +wearying and annoying enough when it urged on me the trivial experience +of indifferent people, became an intense pain and grief when it seemed +to be opening to me the souls of those who were in a close relation to +me--when the rational talk, the graceful attentions, the wittily-turned +phrases, and the kindly deeds, which used to make the web of their +characters, were seen as if thrust asunder by a microscopic vision, +that showed all the intermediate frivolities, all the suppressed +egoism, all the struggling chaos of puerilities, meanness, vague +capricious memories, and indolent make-shift thoughts, from which human +words and deeds emerge like leaflets covering a fermenting heap. + +At Basle we were joined by my brother Alfred, now a handsome, +self-confident man of six-and-twenty--a thorough contrast to my +fragile, nervous, ineffectual self. I believe I was held to have a sort +of half-womanish, half-ghostly beauty; for the portrait-painters, +who are thick as weeds at Geneva, had often asked me to sit to them, +and I had been the model of a dying minstrel in a fancy picture. But +I thoroughly disliked my own physique and nothing but the belief that +it was a condition of poetic genius would have reconciled me to it. +That brief hope was quite fled, and I saw in my face now nothing but +the stamp of a morbid organization, framed for passive suffering--too +feeble for the sublime resistance of poetic production. Alfred, from +whom I had been almost constantly separated, and who, in his present +stage of character and appearance, came before me as a perfect +stranger, was bent on being extremely friendly and brother-like to me. +He had the superficial kindness of a good-humoured, self-satisfied +nature, that fears no rivalry, and has encountered no contrarieties. +I am not sure that my disposition was good enough for me to have been +quite free from envy towards him, even if our desires had not clashed, +and if I had been in the healthy human condition which admits of +generous confidence and charitable construction. There must always have +been an antipathy between our natures. As it was, he became in a few +weeks an object of intense hatred to me; and when he entered the room, +still more when he spoke, it was as if a sensation of grating metal had +set my teeth on edge. My diseased consciousness was more intensely and +continually occupied with his thoughts and emotions, than with those of +any other person who came in my way. I was perpetually exasperated with +the petty promptings of his conceit and his love of patronage, with +his self-complacent belief in Bertha Grant's passion for him, with his +half-pitying contempt for me--seen not in the ordinary indications of +intonation and phrase and slight action, which an acute and suspicious +mind is on the watch for, but in all their naked skinless complication. + +For we were rivals, and our desires clashed, though he was not aware +of it. I have said nothing yet of the effect Bertha Grant produced in +me on a nearer acquaintance. That effect was chiefly determined by +the fact that she made the only exception, among all the human beings +about me, to my unhappy gift of insight. About Bertha I was always +in a state of uncertainty: I could watch the expression of her face, +and speculate on its meaning; I could ask for her opinion with the +real interest of ignorance; I could listen for her words and watch +for her smile with hope and fear: she had for me the fascination of +an unravelled destiny. I say it was this fact that chiefly determined +the strong effect she produced on me: for, in the abstract, no womanly +character could seem to have less affinity for that of a shrinking, +romantic, passionate youth than Bertha's. She was keen, sarcastic, +unimaginative, prematurely cynical, remaining critical and unmoved +in the most impressive scenes, inclined to dissect all my favourite +poems, and especially contemptous towards the German lyrics which +were my pet literature at that time. To this moment I am unable to +define my feeling towards her: it was not ordinary boyish admiration, +for she was the very opposite, even to the colour of her hair, of the +ideal woman who still remained to me the type of loveliness; and she +was without that enthusiasm for the great and good, which, even at +the moment of her strongest dominion over me, I should have declared +to be the highest element of character. But there is no tyranny more +complete than that which a self-centred negative nature exercises over +a morbidly sensitive nature perpetually craving sympathy and support. +The most independent people feel the effect of a man's silence in +heightening their value for his opinion--feel an additional triumph in +conquering the reverence of a critic habitually captious and satirical: +no wonder, then, that an enthusiastic self-distrusting youth should +watch and wait before the closed secret of a sarcastic woman's face, as +if it were the shrine of the doubtfully benignant deity who ruled his +destiny. For a young enthusiast is unable to imagine the total negation +in another mind of the emotions which are stirring his own: they may +be feeble, latent, inactive, he thinks, but they are there--they may +be called forth; sometimes, in moments of happy hallucination, he +believes they may be there in all the greater strength because he sees +no outward sign of them. And this effect, as I have intimated, was +heightened to its utmost intensity in me, because Bertha was the only +being who remained for me in the mysterious seclusion of soul that +renders such youthful delusion possible. Doubtless there was another +sort of fascination at work--that subtle physical attraction which +delights in cheating our psychological predictions, and in compelling +the men who paint sylphs, to fall in love with some _bonne et brave +femme_, heavy-heeled and freckled. + +Bertha's behaviour towards me was such as to encourage all my +illusions, to heighten my boyish passion, and make me more and more +dependent on her smiles. Looking back with my present wretched +knowledge, I conclude that her vanity and love of power were intensely +gratified by the belief that I had fainted on first seeing her purely +from the strong impression her person had produced on me. The most +prosaic woman likes to believe herself the object of a violent, a +poetic passion; and without a grain of romance in her, Bertha had that +spirit of intrigue which gave piquancy to the idea that the brother of +the man she meant to marry was dying with love and jealousy for her +sake. That she meant to marry my brother, was what at that time I did +not believe; for though he was assiduous in his attentions to her, and +I knew well enough that both he and my father had made up their minds +to this result, there was not yet an understood engagement--there had +been no explicit declaration; and Bertha habitually, while she flirted +with my brother, and accepted his homage in a way that implied to him a +thorough recognition of its intention, made me believe, by the subtlest +looks and phrases--feminine nothings which could never be quoted +against her--that he was really the object of her secret ridicule; that +she thought him, as I did, a coxcomb, whom she would have pleasure +in disappointing. Me she openly petted in my brother's presence, as +if I were too young and sickly ever to be thought of as a lover; and +that was the view he took of me. But I believe she must inwardly have +delighted in the tremors into which she threw me by the coaxing way in +which she patted my curls, while she laughed at my quotations. Such +caresses were always given in the presence of our friends; for when we +were alone together, she affected a much greater distance towards me, +and now and then took the opportunity, by words or slight actions, to +stimulate my foolish timid hope that she really preferred me. And why +should she not follow her inclination? I was not in so advantageous a +position as my brother, but I had fortune, I was not a year younger +than she was, and she was an heiress, who would soon be of age to +decide for herself. + +The fluctuations of hope and fear, confined to this one channel, made +each day in her presence a delicious torment. There was one deliberate +act of hers which especially helped to intoxicate me. When we were at +Vienna her twentieth birthday occurred, and as she was very fond of +ornaments, we all took the opportunity of the splendid jewellers' shops +in that Teutonic Paris to purchase her a birthday present of jewellery. +Mine, naturally, was the least expensive; it was an opal ring--the opal +was my favourite stone, because it seems to blush and turn pale as if +it had a soul. I told Bertha so when I gave it her, and said that it +was an emblem of the poetic nature, changing with the changing light +of heaven and of woman's eyes. In the evening she appeared elegantly +dressed, and wearing conspicuously all the birthday presents except +mine. I looked eagerly at her fingers, but saw no opal. I had no +opportunity of noticing this to her during the evening; but the next +day, when I found her seated near the window alone, after breakfast, +I said, "You scorn to wear my poor opal. I should have remembered +that you despised poetic natures, and should have given you coral, or +turquoise, or some other opaque unresponsive stone." "Do I despise it?" +she answered, taking hold of a delicate gold chain which she always +wore round her neck and drawing out the end from her bosom with my ring +hanging to it; "it hurts me a little, I can tell you," she said, with +her usual dubious smile, "to wear it in that secret place; and since +your poetical nature is so stupid as to prefer a more public position, +I shall not endure the pain any longer." + +She took off the ring from the chain and put it on her finger, smiling +still, while the blood rushed to my cheeks, and I could not trust +myself to say a word of entreaty that she would keep the ring where it +was before. + +I was completely fooled by this, and for two days shut myself up in my +own room whenever Bertha was absent, that I might intoxicate myself +afresh with the thought of this scene and all it implied. + +I should mention that during these two months--which seemed a long +life to me from the novelty and intensity of the pleasures and pains +I underwent--my diseased anticipation in other people's consciousness +continued to torment me; now it was my father, and now my brother, +now Mrs. Filmore or her husband, and now our German courier, whose +stream of thought rushed upon me like a ringing in the ears not to be +got rid of, though it allowed my own impulses and ideas to continue +their uninterrupted course. It was like a preternaturally heightened +sense of hearing, making audible to one a roar of sound where others +find perfect stillness. The weariness and disgust of this involuntary +intrusion into other souls was counteracted only by my ignorance +of Bertha, and my growing passion for her; a passion enormously +stimulated, if not produced, by that ignorance. She was my oasis of +mystery in the dreary desert of knowledge. I had never allowed my +diseased condition to betray itself, or to drive me into any unusual +speech or action, except once, when, in a moment of peculiar bitterness +against my brother, I had forestalled some words which I knew he was +going to utter--a clever observation, which he had prepared beforehand. +He had occasionally a slightly affected hesitation in his speech, +and when he paused an instant after the second word, my impatience +and jealousy impelled me to continue the speech for him, as if it +were something we had both learned by rote. He coloured and looked +astonished, as well as annoyed; and the words had no sooner escaped +my lips than I felt a shock of alarm lest such an anticipation of +words--very far from being words of course, easy to divine--should +have betrayed me as an exceptional being, a sort of quiet energumen, +whom every one, Bertha above all, would shudder at and avoid. But I +magnified, as usual, the impression any word or deed of mine could +produce on others; for no one gave any sign of having noticed my +interruption as more than a rudeness, to be forgiven me on the score of +my feeble nervous condition. + +While this superadded consciousness of the actual was almost constant +with me, I had never had a recurrence of that distinct prevision which +I have described in relation to my first interview with Bertha; and I +was waiting with eager curiosity to know whether or not my vision of +Prague would prove to have been an instance of the same kind. A few +days after the incident of the opal ring, we were paying one of our +frequent visits to the Lichtenberg Palace. I could never look at many +pictures in succession; for pictures, when they are at all powerful, +affect me so strongly that one or two exhaust all my capability of +contemplation. This morning I had been looking at Giorgione's picture +of the cruel-eyed woman, said to be a likeness of Lucrezia Borgia. I +had stood long alone before it, fascinated by the terrible reality +of that cunning, relentless face, till I felt a strange poisoned +sensation, as if I had long been inhaling a fatal odour, and was just +beginning to be conscious of its effects. Perhaps even then I should +not have moved away, if the rest of the party had not returned to this +room, and announced that they were going to the Belvedere Gallery to +settle a bet which had arisen between my brother and Mr. Filmore about +a portrait. I followed them dreamily, and was hardly alive to what +occurred till they had all gone up to the gallery, leaving me below; +for I refused to come within sight of another picture that day. I made +my way to the Grand Terrace, since it was agreed that we should saunter +in the gardens when the dispute had been decided. I had been sitting +here a short space, vaguely conscious of trim gardens, with a city and +green hills in the distance, when, wishing to avoid the proximity of +the sentinel, I rose and walked down the broad stone steps, intending +to seat myself farther on in the gardens. Just as I reached the +gravel-walk, I felt an arm slipped within mine, and a light hand gently +pressing my wrist. In the same instant a strange intoxicating numbness +passed over me, like the continuance or climax of the sensation I was +still feeling from the gaze of Lucrezia Borgia. The gardens, the summer +sky, the consciousness of Bertha's arm being within mine, all vanished, +and I seemed to be suddenly in darkness, out of which there gradually +broke a dim firelight, and I felt myself sitting in my father's leather +chair in the library at home. I knew the fireplace--the dogs for +the wood-fire--the black marble chimney-piece with the white marble +medallion of the dying Cleopatra in the centre. Intense and hopeless +misery was pressing on my soul; the light became stronger, for Bertha +was entering with a candle in her hand--Bertha, my wife--with cruel +eyes, with green jewels and green leaves on her white ball-dress; every +hateful thought within her present to me . . . "Madman, idiot! why +don't you kill yourself, then?" It was a moment of hell. I saw into +her pitiless soul--saw its barren worldliness, its scorching hate--and +felt it clothe me round like an air I was obliged to breathe. She came +with her candle and stood over me with a bitter smile of contempt; +I saw the great emerald brooch on her bosom, a studded serpent with +diamond eyes. I shuddered--I despised this woman with the barren soul +and mean thoughts; but I felt helpless before her, as if she clutched +my bleeding heart, and would clutch it till the last drop of life-blood +ebbed away. She was my wife, and we hated each other. Gradually the +hearth, the dim library, the candle-light disappeared--seemed to melt +away into a background of light, the green serpent with the diamond +eyes remaining a dark image on the retina. Then I had a sense of my +eyelids quivering, and the living daylight broke in upon me; I saw +gardens, and heard voices; I was seated on the steps of the Belvedere +Terrace, and my friends were round me. + +The tumult of mind into which I was thrown by this hideous vision made +me ill for several days, and prolonged our stay at Vienna. I shuddered +with horror as the scene recurred to me; and it recurred constantly, +with all its minutiae, as if they had been burnt into my memory; and +yet, such is the madness of the human heart under the influence of +its immediate desires, I felt a wild hell-braving joy that Bertha was +to be mine; for the fulfilment of my former prevision concerning her +first appearance before me, left me little hope that this last hideous +glimpse of the future was the mere diseased play of my own mind, and +had no relation to external realities. One thing alone I looked towards +as a possible means of casting doubt on my terrible conviction--the +discovery that my vision of Prague had been false--and Prague was the +next city on our route. + +Meanwhile, I was no sooner in Bertha's society again than I was as +completely under her sway as before. What if I saw into the heart of +Bertha, the matured woman--Bertha, my wife? Bertha, the _girl_, was +a fascinating secret to me still: I trembled under her touch; I felt +the witchery of her presence; I yearned to be assured of her love. +The fear of poison is feeble against the sense of thirst. Nay, I was +just as jealous of my brother as before--just as much irritated by his +small patronizing ways; for my pride, my diseased sensibility, were +there as they had always been, and winced as inevitably under every +offence as my eye winced from an intruding mote. The future, even when +brought within the compass of feeling by a vision that made me shudder, +had still no more than the force of an idea, compared with the force +of present emotion--of my love for Bertha, of my dislike and jealousy +towards my brother. + +It is an old story, that men sell themselves to the tempter, and sign a +bond with their blood, because it is only to take effect at a distant +day; then rush on to snatch the cup their souls thirst after with an +impulse not the less savage because there is a dark shadow beside them +for evermore. There is no short cut, no patent tram-road, to wisdom: +after all the centuries of invention, the soul's path lies through +the thorny wilderness which must be still trodden in solitude, with +bleeding feet, with sobs for help, as it was trodden by them of old +time. + +My mind speculated eagerly on the means by which I should become my +brother's successful rival, for I was still too timid, in my ignorance +of Bertha's actual feeling, to venture on any step that would urge +from her an avowal of it. I thought I should gain confidence even for +this, if my vision of Prague proved to have been veracious; and yet, +the horror of that certitude! Behind the slim girl Bertha, whose words +and looks I watched for, whose touch was bliss, there stood continually +that Bertha with the fuller form, the harder eyes, the more rigid +mouth--with the barren, selfish soul laid bare; no longer a fascinating +secret, but a measured fact, urging itself perpetually on my unwilling +sight. Are you unable to give me your sympathy--you who read this? Are +you unable to imagine this double consciousness at work within me, +flowing on like two parallel streams which never mingle their waters +and blend into a common hue? Yet you must have known something of the +presentiments that spring from an insight at war with passion; and my +visions were only like presentiments intensified to horror. You have +known the powerlessness of ideas before the might of impulse; and my +visions, when once they had passed into memory, were mere ideas--pale +shadows that beckoned in vain, while my hand was grasped by the living +and the loved. + +In after-days I thought with bitter regret that if I had foreseen +something more or something different--if instead of that hideous +vision which poisoned the passion it could not destroy, or if even +along with it I could have had a foreshadowing of that moment when I +looked on my brother's face for the last time, some softening influence +would have been shed over my feeling towards him: pride and hatred +would surely have been subdued into pity, and the record of those +hidden sins would have been shortened. But this is one of the vain +thoughts with which we men flatter ourselves. We try to believe that +the egoism within us would have easily been melted, and that it was +only the narrowness of our knowledge which hemmed in our generosity, +our awe, our human piety, and hindered them from submerging our hard +indifference to the sensations and emotions of our fellows. Our +tenderness and self-renunciation seem strong when our egoism has had +its day--when, after our mean striving for a triumph that is to be +another's loss, the triumph comes suddenly, and we shudder at it, +because it is held out by the chill hand of death. + +Our arrival in Prague happened at night, and I was glad of this, for +it seemed like a deferring of a terribly decisive moment, to be in +the city for hours without seeing it. As we were not to remain long +in Prague, but to go on speedily to Dresden, it was proposed that we +should drive out the next morning and take a general view of the place, +as well as visit some of its specially interesting spots, before the +heat became oppressive--for we were in August, and the season was hot +and dry. But it happened that the ladies were rather late at their +morning toilet, and to my father's politely-repressed but perceptible +annoyance, we were not in the carriage till the morning was far +advanced. I thought with a sense of relief, as we entered the Jews' +quarter, where we were to visit the old synagogue, that we should be +kept in this flat, shut-up part of the city, until we should all be +too tired and too warm to go farther, and so we should return without +seeing more than the streets through which we had already passed. That +would give me another day's suspense--suspense, the only form in which +a fearful spirit knows the solace of hope. But, as I stood under the +blackened, groined arches of that old synagogue, made dimly visible by +the seven thin candles in the sacred lamp, while our Jewish cicerone +reached down the Book of the Law, and read to us in its ancient +tongue--I felt a shuddering impression that this strange building, +with its shrunken lights, this surviving withered remnant of medieval +Judaism, was of a piece with my vision. Those darkened dusty Christian +saints, with their loftier arches and their larger candles, needed the +consolatory scorn with which they might point to a more shrivelled +death-in-life than their own. + +As I expected, when we left the Jews' quarter the elders of our party +wished to return to the hotel. But now, instead of rejoicing in this, +as I had done beforehand, I felt a sudden overpowering impulse to go +on at once to the bridge, and put an end to the suspense I had been +wishing to protract. I declared, with unusual decision, that I would +get out of the carriage and walk on alone; they might return without +me. My father, thinking this merely a sample of my usual "poetic +nonsense," objected that I should only do myself harm by walking in +the heat; but when I persisted, he said angrily that I might follow my +own absurd devices, but that Schmidt (our courier) must go with me. I +assented to this, and set off with Schmidt towards the bridge. I had no +sooner passed from under the archway of the grand old gate leading on +to the bridge, than a trembling seized me, and I turned cold under the +midday sun; yet I went on; I was in search of something--a small detail +which I remembered with special intensity as part of my vision. There +it was--the patch of rainbow light on the pavement transmitted through +a lamp in the shape of a star. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +Before the autumn was at an end, and while the brown leaves still stood +thick on the beeches in our park, my brother and Bertha were engaged to +each other, and it was understood that their marriage was to take place +early in the next spring. In spite of the certainty I had felt from +that moment on the bridge at Prague, that Bertha would one day be my +wife, my constitutional timidity and distrust had continued to benumb +me, and the words in which I had sometimes premeditated a confession of +my love, had died away unuttered. The same conflict had gone on within +me as before--the longing for an assurance of love from Bertha's lips, +the dread lest a word of contempt and denial should fall upon me like a +corrosive acid. What was the conviction of a distant necessity to me? +I trembled under a present glance, I hungered after a present joy, I +was clogged and chilled by a present fear. And so the days passed on: +I witnessed Bertha's engagement and heard her marriage discussed as if +I were under a conscious nightmare--knowing it was a dream that would +vanish, but feeling stifled under the grasp of hard-clutching fingers. + +When I was not in Bertha's presence--and I was with her very often, +for she continued to treat me with a playful patronage that wakened +no jealousy in my brother--I spent my time chiefly in wandering, in +strolling, or taking long rides while the daylight lasted, and then +shutting myself up with my unread books; for books had lost the power +of chaining my attention. My self-consciousness was heightened to that +pitch of intensity in which our own emotions take the form of a drama +which urges itself imperatively on our contemplation, and we begin to +weep, less under the sense of our suffering than at the thought of it. +I felt a sort of pitying anguish over the pathos of my own lot: the +lot of a being finely organized for pain, but with hardly any fibres +that responded to pleasure--to whom the idea of future evil robbed the +present of its joy, and for whom the idea of future good did not still +the uneasiness of a present yearning or a present dread. I went dumbly +through that stage of the poet's suffering, in which he feels the +delicious pang of utterance, and makes an image of his sorrows. + +I was left entirely without remonstrance concerning this dreamy wayward +life: I knew my father's thought about me: "That lad will never be good +for anything in life: he may waste his years in an insignificant way on +the income that falls to him: I shall not trouble myself about a career +for him." + +One mild morning in the beginning of November, it happened that I was +standing outside the portico patting lazy old Caesar, a Newfoundland +almost blind with age, the only dog that ever took any notice of +me--for the very dogs shunned me, and fawned on the happier people +about me--when the groom brought up my brother's horse which was to +carry him to the hunt, and my brother himself appeared at the door, +florid, broad-chested, and self-complacent, feeling what a good-natured +fellow he was not to behave insolently to us all on the strength of his +great advantages. + +"Latimer, old boy," he said to me in a tone of compassionate +cordiality, "what a pity it is you don't have a run with the hounds now +and then! The finest thing in the world for low spirits!" + +"Low spirits!" I thought bitterly, as he rode away; "that is the +sort of phrase with which coarse, narrow natures like yours think to +describe experience of which you can know no more than your horse +knows. It is to such as you that the good of this world falls: ready +dulness, healthy selfishness, good-tempered conceit--these are the keys +to happiness." + +The quick thought came, that my selfishness was even stronger than +his--it was only a suffering selfishness instead of an enjoying one. +But then, again, my exasperating insight into Alfred's self-complacent +soul, his freedom from all the doubts and fears, the unsatisfied +yearnings, the exquisite tortures of sensitiveness, that had made the +web of my life, seemed to absolve me from all bonds towards him. This +man needed no pity, no love; those fine influences would have been as +little felt by him as the delicate white mist is felt by the rock it +caresses. There was no evil in store for _him_: if he was not to marry +Bertha, it would be because he had found a lot pleasanter to himself. + +Mr. Filmore's house lay not more than half a mile beyond our own gates, +and whenever I knew my brother was gone in another direction, I went +there for the chance of finding Bertha at home. Later on in the day +I walked thither. By a rare accident she was alone, and we walked +out in the grounds together, for she seldom went on foot beyond the +trimly-swept gravel-walks. I remember what a beautiful sylph she looked +to me as the low November sun shone on her blond hair, and she tripped +along teasing me with her usual light banter, to which I listened half +fondly, half moodily; it was all the sign Bertha's mysterious inner +self ever made to me. To-day perhaps, the moodiness predominated, for +I had not yet shaken off the access of jealous hate which my brother +had raised in me by his parting patronage. Suddenly I interrupted and +startled her by saying, almost fiercely, "Bertha, how can you love +Alfred?" + +She looked at me with surprise for a moment, but soon her light smile +came again, and she answered sarcastically, "Why do you suppose I love +him?" + +"How can you ask that, Bertha?" + +"What! your wisdom thinks I must love the man I'm going to marry? The +most unpleasant thing in the world. I should quarrel with him; I should +be jealous of him; our _menage_ would be conducted in a very ill-bred +manner. A little quiet contempt contributes greatly to the elegance of +life." + +"Bertha, that is not your real feeling. Why do you delight in trying to +deceive me by inventing such cynical speeches?" + +"I need never take the trouble of invention in order to deceive you, +my small Tasso"--(that was the mocking name she usually gave me). "The +easiest way to deceive a poet is to tell him the truth." + +She was testing the validity of her epigram in a daring way, and for +a moment the shadow of my vision--the Bertha whose soul was no secret +to me--passed between me and the radiant girl, the playful sylph whose +feelings were a fascinating mystery. I suppose I must have shuddered, +or betrayed in some other way my momentary chill of horror. + +"Tasso!" she said, seizing my wrist, and peeping round into my face, +"are you really beginning to discern what a heartless girl I am? Why, +you are not half the poet I thought you were; you are actually capable +of believing the truth about me." + +The shadow passed from between us, and was no longer the object nearest +to me. The girl whose light fingers grasped me, whose elfish charming +face looked into mine--who, I thought, was betraying an interest in my +feelings that she would not have directly avowed,--this warm breathing +presence again possessed my senses and imagination like a returning +siren melody which had been overpowered for an instant by the roar of +threatening waves. It was a moment as delicious to me as the waking +up to a consciousness of youth after a dream of middle age. I forgot +everything but my passion, and said with swimming eyes-- + +"Bertha, shall you love me when we are first married? I wouldn't mind +if you really loved me only for a little while." + +Her look of astonishment, as she loosed my hand and started away from +me, recalled me to a sense of my strange, my criminal indiscretion. + +"Forgive me," I said, hurriedly, as soon as I could speak again; "I did +not know what I was saying." + +"Ah, Tasso's mad fit has come on, I see," she answered quietly, for she +had recovered herself sooner than I had. "Let him go home and keep his +head cool. I must go in, for the sun is setting." + +I left her--full of indignation against myself. I had let slip words +which, if she reflected on them, might rouse in her a suspicion of my +abnormal mental condition--a suspicion which of all things I dreaded. +And besides that, I was ashamed of the apparent baseness I had +committed in uttering them to my brother's betrothed wife. I wandered +home slowly, entering our park through a private gate instead of by +the lodges. As I approached the house, I saw a man dashing off at full +speed from the stable-yard across the park. Had any accident happened +at home? No; perhaps it was only one of my father's peremptory business +errands that required this headlong haste. + +Nevertheless I quickened my pace without any distinct motive, and was +soon at the house. I will not dwell on the scene I found there. My +brother was dead--had been pitched from his horse, and killed on the +spot by a concussion of the brain. + +I went up to the room where he lay, and where my father was seated +beside him with a look of rigid despair. I had shunned my father more +than any one since our return home, for the radical antipathy between +our natures made my insight into his inner self a constant affliction +to me. But now, as I went up to him, and stood beside him in sad +silence, I felt the presence of a new element that blended us as we had +never been blent before. My father had been one of the most successful +men in the money-getting world: he had had no sentimental sufferings, +no illness. The heaviest trouble that had befallen him was the death +of his first wife. But he married my mother soon after; and I remember +he seemed exactly the same, to my keen childish observation, the week +after her death as before. But now, at last, a sorrow had come--the +sorrow of old age, which suffers the more from the crushing of its +pride and its hopes, in proportion as the pride and hope are narrow and +prosaic. His son was to have been married soon--would probably have +stood for the borough at the next election. That son's existence was +the best motive that could be alleged for making new purchases of land +every year to round off the estate. It is a dreary thing to live on +doing the same things year after year, without knowing why we do them. +Perhaps the tragedy of disappointed youth and passion is less piteous +than the tragedy of disappointed age and worldliness. + +As I saw into the desolation of my father's heart, I felt a movement of +deep pity towards him, which was the beginning of a new affection--an +affection that grew and strengthened in spite of the strange bitterness +with which he regarded me in the first month or two after my brother's +death. If it had not been for the softening influence of my compassion +for him--the first deep compassion I had ever felt--I should have been +stung by the perception that my father transferred the inheritance of +an eldest son to me with a mortified sense that fate had compelled him +to the unwelcome course of caring for me as an important being. It was +only in spite of himself that he began to think of me with anxious +regard. There is hardly any neglected child for whom death has made +vacant a more favoured place, who will not understand what I mean. + +Gradually, however, my new deference to his wishes, the effect of that +patience which was born of my pity for him, won upon his affection, +and he began to please himself with the endeavour to make me fill any +brother's place as fully as my feebler personality would admit. I saw +that the prospect which by and by presented itself of my becoming +Bertha's husband was welcome to him, and he even contemplated in +my case what he had not intended in my brother's--that his son and +daughter-in-law should make one household with him. My softened +feelings towards my father made this the happiest time I had known +since childhood;--these last months in which I retained the delicious +illusion of loving Bertha, of longing and doubting and hoping that +she might love me. She behaved with a certain new consciousness and +distance towards me after my brother's death; and I too was under a +double constraint--that of delicacy towards my brother's memory and +of anxiety as to the impression my abrupt words had left on her mind. +But the additional screen this mutual reserve erected between us only +brought me more completely under her power: no matter how empty the +adytum, so that the veil be thick enough. So absolute is our soul's +need of something hidden and uncertain for the maintenance of that +doubt and hope and effort which are the breath of its life, that if +the whole future were laid bare to us beyond to-day, the interest of +all mankind would be bent on the hours that lie between; we should +pant after the uncertainties of our one morning and our one afternoon; +we should rush fiercely to the Exchange for our last possibility of +speculation, of success, of disappointment: we should have a glut of +political prophets foretelling a crisis or a no-crisis within the only +twenty-four hours left open to prophecy. Conceive the condition of the +human mind if all propositions whatsoever were self-evident except one, +which was to become self-evident at the close of a summer's day, but +in the meantime might be the subject of question, of hypothesis, of +debate. Art and philosophy, literature and science, would fasten like +bees on that one proposition which had the honey of probability in it, +and be the more eager because their enjoyment would end with sunset. +Our impulses, our spiritual activities, no more adjust themselves to +the idea of their future nullity, than the beating of our heart, or the +irritability of our muscles. + +Bertha, the slim, fair-haired girl, whose present thoughts and emotions +were an enigma to me amidst the fatiguing obviousness of the other +minds around me, was as absorbing to me as a single unknown to-day--as +a single hypothetic proposition to remain problematic till sunset; and +all the cramped, hemmed-in belief and disbelief, trust and distrust, of +my nature, welled out in this one narrow channel. + +And she made me believe that she loved me. Without ever quitting her +tone of _badinage_ and playful superiority, she intoxicated me with +the sense that I was necessary to her, that she was never at ease, +unless I was near her, submitting to her playful tyranny. It costs +a woman so little effort to beset us in this way! A half-repressed +word, a moment's unexpected silence, even an easy fit of petulance on +our account, will serve us as _hashish_ for a long while. Out of the +subtlest web of scarcely perceptible signs, she set me weaving the +fancy that she had always unconsciously loved me better than Alfred, +but that, with the ignorant fluttered sensibility of a young girl, she +had been imposed on by the charm that lay for her in the distinction +of being admired and chosen by a man who made so brilliant a figure in +the world as my brother. She satirized herself in a very graceful way +for her vanity and ambition. What was it to me that I had the light of +my wretched provision on the fact that now it was I who possessed at +least all but the personal part of my brother's advantages? Our sweet +illusions are half of them conscious illusions, like effects of colour +that we know to be made up of tinsel, broken glass, and rags. + +We were married eighteen months after Alfred's death, one cold, clear +morning in April, when there came hail and sunshine both together; and +Bertha, in her white silk and pale-green leaves, and the pale hues of +her hair and face, looked like the spirit of the morning. My father was +happier than he had thought of being again: my marriage, he felt sure, +would complete the desirable modification of my character, and make me +practical and worldly enough to take my place in society among sane +men. For he delighted in Bertha's tact and acuteness, and felt sure +she would be mistress of me, and make me what she chose: I was only +twenty-one, and madly in love with her. Poor father! He kept that hope +a little while after our first year of marriage, and it was not quite +extinct when paralysis came and saved him from utter disappointment. + +I shall hurry through the rest of my story, not dwelling so much as +I have hitherto done on my inward experience. When people are well +known to each other, they talk rather of what befalls them externally, +leaving their feelings and sentiments to be inferred. + +We lived in a round of visits for some time after our return home, +giving splendid dinner-parties, and making a sensation in our +neighbourhood by the new lustre of our equipage, for my father had +reserved this display of his increased wealth for the period of his +son's marriage; and we gave our acquaintances liberal opportunity for +remarking that it was a pity I made so poor a figure as an heir and a +bridegroom. The nervous fatigue of this existence, the insincerities +and platitudes which I had to live through twice over--through my inner +and outward sense--would have been maddening to me, if I had not had +that sort of intoxicated callousness which came from the delights of a +first passion. A bride and bridegroom, surrounded by all the appliances +of wealth, hurried through the day by the whirl of society, filling +their solitary moments with hastily-snatched caresses, are prepared +for their future life together as the novice is prepared for the +cloister--by experiencing its utmost contrast. + +Through all these crowded excited months, Bertha's inward self remained +shrouded from me, and I still read her thoughts only through the +language of her lips and demeanour: I had still the human interest of +wondering whether what I did and said pleased her, of longing to hear +a word of affection, of giving a delicious exaggeration of meaning to +her smile. But I was conscious of a growing difference in her manner +towards me; sometimes strong enough to be called haughty coldness, +cutting and chilling me as the hail had done that came across the +sunshine on our marriage morning; sometimes only perceptible in the +dexterous avoidance of a _tete-a-tete_ walk or dinner to which I had +been looking forward. I had been deeply pained by this--had even felt +a sort of crushing of the heart, from the sense that my brief day of +happiness was near its setting; but still I remained dependent on +Bertha, eager for the last rays of a bliss that would soon be gone for +ever, hoping and watching for some after-glow more beautiful from the +impending night. + +I remember--how should I not remember?--the time when that dependence +and hope utterly left me, when the sadness I had felt in Bertha's +growing estrangement became a joy that I looked back upon with +longing as a man might look back on the last pains in a paralysed +limb. It was just after the close of my father's last illness, which +had necessarily withdrawn us from society and thrown us more on each +other. It was the evening of father's death. On that evening the veil +which had shrouded Bertha's soul from me--had made me find in her +alone among my fellow-beings the blessed possibility of mystery, and +doubt, and expectation--was first withdrawn. Perhaps it was the first +day since the beginning of my passion for her, in which that passion +was completely neutralized by the presence of an absorbing feeling of +another kind. I had been watching by my father's deathbed: I had been +witnessing the last fitful yearning glance his soul had cast back on +the spent inheritance of life--the last faint consciousness of love he +had gathered from the pressure of my hand. What are all our personal +loves when we have been sharing in that supreme agony? In the first +moments when we come away from the presence of death, every other +relation to the living is merged, to our feeling, in the great relation +of a common nature and a common destiny. + +In that state of mind I joined Bertha in her private sitting-room. She +was seated in a leaning posture on a settee, with her back towards the +door; the great rich coils of her pale blond hair surmounting her small +neck, visible above the back of the settee. I remember, as I closed +the door behind me, a cold tremulousness seizing me, and a vague sense +of being hated and lonely--vague and strong, like a presentiment. I +know how I looked at that moment, for I saw myself in Bertha's thought +as she lifted her cutting grey eyes, and looked at me: a miserable +ghost-seer, surrounded by phantoms in the noonday, trembling under a +breeze when the leaves were still, without appetite for the common +objects of human desires, but pining after the moon-beams. We were +front to front with each other, and judged each other. The terrible +moment of complete illumination had come to me, and I saw that the +darkness had hidden no landscape from me, but only a blank prosaic +wall: from that evening forth, through the sickening years which +followed, I saw all round the narrow room of this woman's soul--saw +petty artifice and mere negation where I had delighted to believe in +coy sensibilities and in wit at war with latent feeling--saw the light +floating vanities of the girl defining themselves into the systematic +coquetry, the scheming selfishness, of the woman--saw repulsion and +antipathy harden into cruel hatred, giving pain only for the sake of +wreaking itself. + +For Bertha too, after her kind, felt the bitterness of disillusion. +She had believed that my wild poet's passion for her would make me her +slave; and that, being her slave, I should execute her will in all +things. With the essential shallowness of a negative, unimaginative +nature, she was unable to conceive the fact that sensibilities were +anything else than weaknesses. She had thought my weaknesses would +put me in her power, and she found them unmanageable forces. Our +positions were reversed. Before marriage she had completely mastered +my imagination, for she was a secret to me; and I created the unknown +thought before which I trembled as if it were hers. But now that her +soul was laid open to me, now that I was compelled to share the privacy +of her motives, to follow all the petty devices that preceded her words +and acts, she found herself powerless with me, except to produce in me +the chill shudder of repulsion-- powerless, because I could be acted +on by no lever within her reach. I was dead to worldly ambitions, to +social vanities, to all the incentives within the compass of her narrow +imagination, and I lived under influences utterly invisible to her. + +She was really pitiable to have such a husband, and so all the world +thought. A graceful, brilliant woman, like Bertha, who smiled on +morning callers, made a figure in ball-rooms, and was capable of that +light repartee which, from such a woman, is accepted as wit, was secure +of carrying off all sympathy from a husband who was sickly, abstracted, +and, as some suspected, crack-brained. Even the servants in our house +gave her the balance of their regard and pity. For there were no +audible quarrels between us; our alienation, our repulsion from each +other, lay within the silence of our own hearts; and if the mistress +went out a great deal, and seemed to dislike the master's society, was +it not natural, poor thing? The master was odd. I was kind and just to +my dependants, but I excited in them a shrinking, half-contemptuous +pity; for this class of men and women are but slightly determined in +their estimate of others by general considerations, or even experience, +of character. They judge of persons as they judge of coins, and value +those who pass current at a high rate. + +After a time I interfered so little with Bertha's habits that it might +seem wonderful how her hatred towards me could grow so intense and +active as it did. But she had begun to suspect, by some involuntary +betrayal of mine, that there was an abnormal power of penetration in +me--that fitfully, at least, I was strangely cognizant of her thoughts +and intentions, and she began to be haunted by a terror of me, which +alternated every now and then with defiance. She meditated continually +how the incubus could be shaken off her life--how she could be freed +from this hateful bond to a being whom she at once despised as an +imbecile, and dreaded as an inquisitor. For a long while she lived in +the hope that my evident wretchedness would drive me to the commission +of suicide; but suicide was not in my nature. I was too completely +swayed by the sense that I was in the grasp of unknown forces, to +believe in my power of self-release. Towards my own destiny I had +become entirely passive; for my one ardent desire had spent itself, and +impulse no longer predominated over knowledge. For this reason I never +thought of taking any steps towards a complete separation, which would +have made our alienation evident to the world. Why should I rush for +help to a new course, when I was only suffering from the consequences +of a deed which had been the act of my intensest will? That would have +been the logic of one who had desires to gratify, and I had no desires. +But Bertha and I lived more and more aloof from each other. The rich +find it easy to live married and apart. + +That course of our life which I have indicated in a few sentences +filled the space of years. So much misery--so slow and hideous a growth +of hatred and sin, may be compressed into a sentence! And men judge +of each other's lives through this summary medium. They epitomize the +experience of their fellow-mortal, and pronounce judgment on him in +neat syntax, and feel themselves wise and virtuous--conquerors over +the temptations they define in well-selected predicates. Seven years +of wretchedness glide glibly over the lips of the man who has never +counted them out in moments of chill disappointment, of head and heart +throbbings, of dread and vain wrestling, of remorse and despair. We +learn _words_ by rote, but not their meaning; _that_ must be paid for +with our life-blood, and printed in the subtle fibres of our nerves. + +But I will hasten to finish my story. Brevity is justified at once to +those who readily understand, and to those who will never understand. + +Some years after my father's death, I was sitting by the dim firelight +in my library one January evening--sitting in the leather chair that +used to be my father's--when Bertha appeared at the door, with a +candle in her hand, and advanced towards me. I knew the ball-dress she +had on--the white ball-dress, with the green jewels, shone upon by +the light of the wax candle which lit up the medallion of the dying +Cleopatra on the mantelpiece. Why did she come to me before going +out? I had not seen her in the library, which was my habitual place, +for months. Why did she stand before me with the candle in her hand, +with her cruel contemptuous eyes fixed on me, and the glittering +serpent, like a familiar demon, on her breast? For a moment I thought +this fulfilment of my vision at Vienna marked some dreadful crisis +in my fate, but I saw nothing in Bertha's mind, as she stood before +me, except scorn for the look of overwhelming misery with which I +sat before her . . . "Fool, idiot, why don't you kill yourself, +then?"--that was her thought. But at length her thoughts reverted to +her errand, and she spoke aloud. The apparently indifferent nature of +the errand seemed to make a ridiculous anticlimax to my prevision and +my agitation. + +"I have had to hire a new maid. Fletcher is going to be married, and +she wants me to ask you to let her husband have the public-house and +farm at Molton. I wish him to have it. You must give the promise now, +because Fletcher is going to-morrow morning--and quickly, because I'm +in a hurry." + +"Very well; you may promise her," I said, indifferently, and Bertha +swept out of the library again. + +I always shrank from the sight of a new person, and all the more when +it was a person whose mental life was likely to weary my reluctant +insight with worldly ignorant trivialities. But I shrank especially +from the sight of this new maid, because her advent had been announced +to me at a moment to which I could not cease to attach some fatality: +I had a vague dread that I should find her mixed up with the dreary +drama of my life--that some new sickening vision would reveal her to +me as an evil genius. When at last I did unavoidably meet her, the +vague dread was changed into definite disgust. She was a tall, wiry, +dark-eyed woman, this Mrs. Archer, with a face handsome enough to +give her coarse hard nature the odious finish of bold, self-confident +coquetry. That was enough to make me avoid her, quite apart from the +contemptuous feeling with which she contemplated me. I seldom saw her; +but I perceived that she rapidly became a favourite with her mistress, +and, after the lapse of eight or nine months, I began to be aware that +there had arisen in Bertha's mind towards this woman a mingled feeling +of fear and dependence, and that this feeling was associated with +ill-defined images of candle-light scenes in her dressing-room, and the +locking-up of something in Bertha's cabinet. My interviews with my wife +had become so brief and so rarely solitary, that I had no opportunity +of perceiving these images in her mind with more definiteness. The +recollections of the past become contracted in the rapidity of thought +till they sometimes bear hardly a more distinct resemblance to the +external reality than the forms of an oriental alphabet to the objects +that suggested them. + +Besides, for the last year or more a modification had been going +forward in my mental condition, and was growing more and more marked. +My insight into the minds of those around me was becoming dimmer +and more fitful, and the ideas that crowded my double consciousness +became less and less dependent on any personal contact. All that was +personal in me seemed to be suffering a gradual death, so that I was +losing the organ through which the personal agitations and projects +of others could affect me. But along with this relief from wearisome +insight, there was a new development of what I concluded--as I have +since found rightly--to be a prevision of external scenes. It was +as if the relation between me and my fellow-men was more and more +deadened, and my relation to what we call the inanimate was quickened +into new life. The more I lived apart from society, and in proportion +as my wretchedness subsided from the violent throb of agonized passion +into the dulness of habitual pain, the more frequent and vivid became +such visions as that I had had of Prague--of strange cities, of sandy +plains, of gigantic ruins, of midnight skies with strange bright +constellations, of mountain-passes, of grassy nooks flecked with the +afternoon sunshine through the boughs: I was in the midst of such +scenes, and in all of them one presence seemed to weigh on me in all +these mighty shapes--the presence of something unknown and pitiless. +For continual suffering had annihilated religious faith within me: +to the utterly miserable--the unloving and the unloved--there is no +religion possible, no worship but a worship of devils. And beyond all +these, and continually recurring, was the vision of my death--the +pangs, the suffocation, the last struggle, when life would be grasped +at in vain. + +Things were in this state near the end of the seventh year. I had +become entirely free from insight, from my abnormal cognizance of any +other consciousness than my own, and instead of intruding involuntarily +into the world of other minds, was living continually in my own +solitary future. Bertha was aware that I was greatly changed. To my +surprise she had of late seemed to seek opportunities of remaining +in my society, and had cultivated that kind of distant yet familiar +talk which is customary between a husband and wife who live in polite +and irrevocable alienation. I bore this with languid submission, and +without feeling enough interest in her motives to be roused into keen +observation; yet I could not help perceiving something triumphant and +excited in her carriage and the expression of her face--something too +subtle to express itself in words or tones, but giving one the idea +that she lived in a state of expectation or hopeful suspense. My chief +feeling was satisfaction that her inner self was once more shut out +from me; and I almost revelled for the moment in the absent melancholy +that made me answer her at cross purposes, and betray utter ignorance +of what she had been saying. I remember well the look and the smile +with which she one day said, after a mistake of this kind on my part: +"I used to think you were a clairvoyant, and that was the reason why +you were so bitter against other clairvoyants, wanting to keep your +monopoly; but I see now you have become rather duller than the rest of +the world." + +I said nothing in reply. It occurred to me that her recent obtrusion +of herself upon me might have been prompted by the wish to test my +power of detecting some of her secrets; but I let the thought drop +again at once: her motives and her deeds had no interest for me, and +whatever pleasures she might be seeking, I had no wish to baulk her. +There was still pity in my soul for every living thing, and Bertha was +living--was surrounded with possibilities of misery. + +Just at this time there occurred an event which roused me somewhat from +my inertia, and gave me an interest in the passing moment that I had +thought impossible for me. It was a visit from Charles Meunier, who had +written me word that he was coming to England for relaxation from too +strenuous labour, and would like to see me. Meunier had now a European +reputation; but his letter to me expressed that keen remembrance of +an early regard, an early debt of sympathy, which is inseparable from +nobility of character: and I too felt as if his presence would be to me +like a transient resurrection into a happier pre-existence. + +He came, and as far as possible, I renewed our old pleasure of making +_tete-a-tete_ excursions, though, instead of mountains and glacers +and the wide blue lake, we had to content ourselves with mere slopes +and ponds and artificial plantations. The years had changed us both, +but with what different result! Meunier was now a brilliant figure +in society, to whom elegant women pretended to listen, and whose +acquaintance was boasted of by noblemen ambitious of brains. He +repressed with the utmost delicacy all betrayal of the shock which +I am sure he must have received from our meeting, or of a desire to +penetrate into my condition and circumstances, and sought by the +utmost exertion of his charming social powers to make our reunion +agreeable. Bertha was much struck by the unexpected fascinations of a +visitor whom she had expected to find presentable only on the score of +his celebrity, and put forth all her coquetries and accomplishments. +Apparently she succeeded in attracting his admiration, for his +manner towards her was attentive and flattering. The effect of his +presence on me was so benignant, especially in those renewals of our +old _tete-a-tete_ wanderings, when he poured forth to me wonderful +narratives of his professional experience, that more than once, when +his talk turned on the psychological relations of disease, the thought +crossed my mind that, if his stay with me were long enough, I might +possibly bring myself to tell this man the secrets of my lot. Might +there not lie some remedy for me, too, in his science? Might there +not at least lie some comprehension and sympathy ready for me in his +large and susceptible mind? But the thought only flickered feebly now +and then, and died out before it could become a wish. The horror I had +of again breaking in on the privacy of another soul, made me, by an +irrational instinct, draw the shroud of concealment more closely around +my own, as we automatically perform the gesture we feel to be wanting +in another. + +When Meunier's visit was approaching its conclusion, there happened +an event which caused some excitement in our household, owing to +the surprisingly strong effect it appeared to produce on Bertha--on +Bertha, the self-possessed, who usually seemed inaccessible to feminine +agitations, and did even her hate in a self-restrained hygienic manner. +This event was the sudden severe illness of her maid, Mrs. Archer. +I have reserved to this moment the mention of a circumstance which +had forced itself on my notice shortly before Meunier's arrival, +namely, that there had been some quarrel between Bertha and this +maid, apparently during a visit to a distant family, in which she had +accompanied her mistress. I had overheard Archer speaking in a tone of +bitter insolence, which I should have thought an adequate reason for +immediate dismissal. No dismissal followed; on the contrary, Bertha +seemed to be silently putting up with personal inconveniences from +the exhibitions of this woman's temper. I was the more astonished to +observe that her illness seemed a cause of strong solicitude to Bertha; +that she was at the bedside night and day, and would allow no one else +to officiate as head-nurse. It happened that our family doctor was +out on a holiday, an accident which made Meunier's presence in the +house doubly welcome, and he apparently entered into the case with an +interest which seemed so much stronger than the ordinary professional +feeling, that one day when he had fallen into a long fit of silence +after visiting her, I said to him-- + +"Is this a very peculiar case of disease, Meunier?" + +"No," he answered, "it is an attack of peritonitis, which will be +fatal, but which does not differ physically from many other cases that +have come under my observation. But I'll tell you what I have on my +mind. I want to make an experiment on this woman, if you will give me +permission. It can do her no harm--will give her no pain--for I shall +not make it until life is extinct to all purposes of sensation. I want +to try the effect of transfusing blood into her arteries after the +heart has ceased to beat for some minutes. I have tried the experiment +again and again with animals that have died of this disease, with +astounding results, and I want to try it on a human subject. I have the +small tubes necessary, in a case I have with me, and the rest of the +apparatus could be prepared readily. I should use my own blood--take +it from my own arm. This woman won't live through the night, I'm +convinced, and I want you to promise me your assistance in making the +experiment. I can't do without another hand, but it would perhaps not +be well to call in a medical assistant from among your provincial +doctors. A disagreeable foolish version of the thing might get abroad." + +"Have you spoken to my wife on the subject?" I said, "because she +appears to be peculiarly sensitive about this woman: she has been a +favourite maid." + +"To tell you the truth," said Meunier, "I don't want her to know about +it. There are always insuperable difficulties with women in these +matters, and the effect on the supposed dead body may be startling. You +and I will sit up together, and be in readiness. When certain symptoms +appear I shall take you in, and at the right moment we must manage to +get every one else out of the room." + +I need not give our farther conversation on the subject. He entered +very fully into the details, and overcame my repulsion from them, by +exciting in me a mingled awe and curiosity concerning the possible +results of his experiment. + +We prepared everything, and he instructed me in my part as assistant. +He had not told Bertha of his absolute conviction that Archer would not +survive through the night, and endeavoured to persuade her to leave the +patient and take a night's rest. But she was obstinate, suspecting the +fact that death was at hand, and supposing that he wished merely to +save her nerves. She refused to leave the sick-room. Meunier and I sat +up together in the library, he making frequent visits to the sick-room, +and returning with the information that the case was taking precisely +the course he expected. Once he said to me, "Can you imagine any cause +of ill-feeling this woman has against her mistress, who is so devoted +to her?" + +"I think there was some misunderstanding between them before her +illness. Why do you ask?" + +"Because I have observed for the last five or six hours--since, I +fancy, she has lost all hope of recovery--there seems a strange +prompting in her to say something which pain and failing strength +forbid her to utter; and there is a look of hideous meaning in her +eyes, which she turns continually towards her mistress. In this disease +the mind often remains singularly clear to the last." + +"I am not surprised at an indication of malevolent feeling in her," +I said. "She is a woman who has always inspired me with distrust and +dislike, but she managed to insinuate herself into her mistress's +favour." He was silent after this, looking at the fire with an air of +absorption, till he went upstairs again. He stayed away longer than +usual, and on returning, said to me quietly, "Come now." + +I followed him to the chamber where death was hovering. The dark +hangings of the large bed made a background that gave a strong relief +to Bertha's pale face as I entered. She started forward as she saw me +enter, and then looked at Meunier with an expression of angry inquiry; +but he lifted up his hand as if to impose silence, while he fixed his +glance on the dying woman and felt her pulse. The face was pinched +and ghastly, a cold perspiration was on the forehead, and the eyelids +were lowered so as to conceal the large dark eyes. After a minute or +two, Meunier walked round to the other side of the bed where Bertha +stood, and with his usual air of gentle politeness towards her begged +her to leave the patient under our care--everything should be done for +her--she was no longer in a state to be conscious of an affectionate +presence. Bertha was hesitating, apparently almost willing to believe +his assurance and to comply. She looked round at the ghastly dying +face, as if to read the confirmation of that assurance, when for a +moment the lowered eyelids were raised again, and it seemed as if the +eyes were looking towards Bertha, but blankly. A shudder passed through +Bertha's frame, and she returned to her station near the pillow, +tacitly implying that she would not leave the room. + +The eyelids were lifted no more. Once I looked at Bertha as she watched +the face of the dying one. She wore a rich _peignoir_, and her blond +hair was half covered by a lace cap: in her attire she was, as always, +an elegant woman, fit to figure in a picture of modern aristocratic +life: but I asked myself how that face of hers could ever have seemed +to me the face of a woman born of woman, with memories of childhood, +capable of pain, needing to be fondled? The features at that moment +seemed so preternaturally sharp, the eyes were so hard and eager--she +looked like a cruel immortal, finding her spiritual feast in the +agonies of a dying race. For across those hard features there came +something like a flash when the last hour had been breathed out, and +we all felt that the dark veil had completely fallen. What secret was +there between Bertha and this woman? I turned my eyes from her with a +horrible dread lest my insight should return, and I should be obliged +to see what had been breeding about two unloving women's hearts. I felt +that Bertha had been watching for the moment of death as the sealing of +her secret: I thanked Heaven it could remain sealed for me. + +Meunier said quietly, "She is gone." He then gave his arm to Bertha, +and she submitted to be led out of the room. + +I suppose it was at her order that two female attendants came into +the room, and dismissed the younger one who had been present before. +When they entered, Meunier had already opened the artery in the long +thin neck that lay rigid on the pillow, and I dismissed them, ordering +them to remain at a distance till we rang: the doctor, I said, had an +operation to perform--he was not sure about the death. For the next +twenty minutes I forgot everything but Meunier and the experiment in +which he was so absorbed, that I think his senses would have been +closed against all sounds or sights which had no relation to it. It +was my task at first to keep up the artificial respiration in the body +after the transfusion had been effected, but presently Meunier relieved +me, and I could see the wondrous slow return of life; the breast began +to heave, the inspirations became stronger, the eyelids quivered, +and the soul seemed to have returned beneath them. The artificial +respiration was withdrawn: still the breathing continued, and there was +a movement of the lips. + +Just then I heard the handle of the door moving: I suppose Bertha had +heard from the women that they had been dismissed: probably a vague +fear had arisen in her mind, for she entered with a look of alarm. She +came to the foot of the bed and gave a stifled cry. + +The dead woman's eyes were wide open, and met hers in full +recognition-- the recognition of hate. With a sudden strong effort, the +hand that Bertha had thought for ever still was pointed towards her, +and the haggard face moved. The gasping eager voice said-- + +"You mean to poison your husband . . . the poison is in the black +cabinet . . . I got it for you . . . you laughed at me, and told lies +about me behind my back, to make me disgusting . . . because you were +jealous . . . are you sorry . . . now?" + +The lips continued to murmur, but the sounds were no longer distinct. +Soon there was no sound--only a slight movement: the flame had leaped +out, and was being extinguished the faster. The wretched woman's +heart-strings had been set to hatred and vengeance; the spirit of +life had swept the chords for an instant, and was gone again for ever. +Great God! Is this what it is to live again . . . to wake up with our +unstilled thirst upon us, with our unuttered curses rising to our lips, +with our muscles ready to act out their half-committed sins? + +Bertha stood pale at the foot of the bed, quivering and helpless, +despairing of devices, like a cunning animal whose hiding-places are +surrounded by swift-advancing flame. Even Meunier looked paralysed; +life for that moment ceased to be a scientific problem to him. As for +me, this scene seemed of one texture with the rest of my existence: +horror was my familiar, and this new revelation was only like an old +pain recurring with new circumstances. + + * * * * * + +Since then Bertha and I have lived apart--she in her own neighbourhood, +the mistress of half our wealth, I as a wanderer in foreign countries, +until I came to this Devonshire nest to die. Bertha lives pitied and +admired; for what had I against that charming woman, whom every one but +myself could have been happy with? There had been no witness of the +scene in the dying room except Meunier, and while Meunier lived his +lips were sealed by a promise to me. + +Once or twice, weary of wandering, I rested in a favourite spot, and my +heart went out towards the men and women and children whose faces were +becoming familiar to me; but I was driven away again in terror at the +approach of my old insight--driven away to live continually with the +one Unknown Presence revealed and yet hidden by the moving curtain of +the earth and sky. Till at last disease took hold of me and forced me +to rest here--forced me to live in dependence on my servants. And then +the curse of insight--of my double consciousness, came again, and has +never left me. I know all their narrow thoughts, their feeble regard, +their half-wearied pity. + + * * * * * + +It is the 20th of September, 1850. I know these figures I have just +written, as if they were a long familiar inscription. I have seen them +on this page in my desk unnumbered times, when the scene of my dying +struggle has opened upon me . . . + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFTED VEIL *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, +and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following +the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use +of the Project Gutenberg trademark. 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