A Child of the Age (Adams)/Chapter 18
II
I had divided the day off in this way: My books from ten to one; then lunch; then generally somewhere with Rosy till four or five; then two cups of tea and slices of thin bread and butter in the study, with the accompaniment of quiet talk, till talk died away in the inspection and desultory reading of desultory books and newspapers; then, at half-past six, dinner; then either somewhere with Rosy again, or a less desultory reading of less desultory books and newspapers, till, at ten o'clock, bed. The only real work I did was my morning reading. I devoted three hours each day of the week to Homer, Sophocles, Plato, Vergil, Horace, Juvenal, and Dante severally. I do not think I had any definite aim in view then for this study. I was content to do it, as I did all things, and be still.
Walks with Rosy were not successes at first, for she walked both slowly and badly; but I soon grew accustomed to the slowness, and the badness was remedied by occasional rides on the way. I liked to listen to her; and she, if she was in good spirits, indulged me to the top of my bent. The childlike and seemingly endless interest that she took in things amused me. Her whimsical likes and dislikes of people she had never spoken to used once to put me out: now I listened to her expositions of their faults with a curious pleasure. Her alternations of passion and quiet, of tears and laughter were an endless April day, and, though sometimes her unreasonableness made me impatient, and at others I could not help teasing her to see the pretty results, on the whole I found it a real pleasure and comfort to be with her.
One evening, when we were in her favourite position—she between my knees talking to me as I sat in the armchair:
'Rosy,' I said, 'I will tell you what you are.'
'Well,' she said, 'what?' 'You are a loving girl—one who squeezes softly, and kisses, and tries to steal away breath. I will tell you who was your prototype: a certain Shunamite. 'And let her cherish him and lie in thy bosom.' And moreover: 'A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me; he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts.' And; 'I charge you, ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up nor awake my love till he please."'
'Yes,' she said, 'that's me.'
The mild autumn perished in rain-storms and the weather grew colder; bracing and invigorating to me, enervating to her—the veritable traditional winter. At last we had keen frost. She spent most of her time by the fire, generally sitting with her knees gathered up on the hearthrug, reading a book or thinking—heaven knows what about!
My walks were nearly always alone now. Consequently they ceased to be semi-rides and became pure peripatetics. With them came also thought again, to oust its poor substitute of dreaming. The frost continued. We had a little snow. At first I tried to get her to take more exercise; but being out of doors in such weather was only misery to her, and so I let her alone.
'We will go to Italy next winter,' said I one evening, having been for a tramp in the falling snow, changed my clothes, and stopped by and above her (she on the hearthrug, that is). 'To Italy! to Italy! Italy was the dream of my boyhood. I am a real northman. I have the migratory instinct in me. Oh Italy, Italy'
I stopped, and sat down in the easy-chair, and thought about Italy and about my past dream of Italy, and about some one with me in Italy.
At last:
'You must be so cold,' she said.
'Not I!' I answered, with a sudden look to her, 'I'm as warm as a toast. By Jove!' I added, 'I must do something to-night.' (The something being a something in my head that seemed to wish for written expression.) My remark was a sort of outwork designed to stop any advancing objections on Rosy's part.
None came. She sat silent on the hearthrug, with her chin on her up-gathered knees, and her eyes in the fire. I wished her away in bed—the best place for her. I disliked writing with anyone in the room. As I was settling my desk and paper on the table, I suggested it to her.
'What?' she said, looking round at me.
'You seem tired,' I said, bringing a chair to my place. 'Hadn't you better go to bed?'
'… Is it very cold outside?'
'Very. The snow is freezing.'
'How long do you think it will last?'
'The snow?'
'No; the cold.—I do hate it so!'
'How can I tell? I …' (I had begun writing something) 'don't know.'
'Why do you talk in that way?'
'What way?'
Ultimately, after some annoying attempts at interruption, she went off to bed, in an injured frame of mind, and I was left alone with my work. An opening scene of a story had occurred to me, and I was interested in expressing it: a not too unfrequent occurrence at that time, so far unfailingly accompanied by gradual loss of interest as the story proceeded till, quite disgusted, I either burnt or cast it into an ms. drawer of mine, and troubled myself no more about it.
I finished my opening scene in the first heat of emotion, and then, after a pause, re-read what I had done. What seemed to me my grip on, my mastery over the characters I had created, pleased me; not because it was mine, but because it was there, and in harmony with my mood. Then I sat for long thinking. It was early: I was beginning to feel both tired and hungry. Yes, it was impossible for me to sink into mere sensuousness. I had a work to do in the world and I intended to do it. This work would require patient preparation and I was determined that I would give it. I had been unhappy in London: 'Society' was not enough for me. I had been unhappy with Rosy: Love was not enough with me. I had been unhappy with my dreams: My self was not enough for me. I had lived for 'society,' for Love, for myself, and had found that they did not satisfy me. It was time that I lived for something else—for something higher, and broader, and deeper!…
I spent the next three or four days in the same way outwardly as any others, that is to say, did my classics in the mornings; took my 'constitutional' in the afternoons; and read in the evenings; but inwardly I spent them in a different way from any others of my life. I reviewed my past in order that I might see what causes lay there, that were likely to have an influence on my future. I faced all these causes, good or evil, fearlessly, quietly resolved to encourage those that were good, and do all that lay in me to eradicate those that were evil. The one idea that I kept constantly before me was the idea of Strength: I must be Strong.
Rosy looked upon what was already apparent as my new intercourse with her, with a somewhat suspicious eye. I believe she would far sooner have had even the old state of things with her back again. For, if my caprice leaped in evil-humoured moments far away from her; in happy-humoured moments it leaped close to her; whereas, now her line of life and mine seemed parallel; and parallel lines are those which are always the same distance from one another, that is to say, which never meet. Rosy, like the true woman she was (so it appeared to me), was quite ready to offer herself up on the altar of my happiness. It troubled her that now, instead of being, as I ought to have been, capricious, that is to say, selfish, I preserved a uniform cheerfulness of demeanour towards her; was always ready to do her little services; was always ready to prevent her doing me little services. It is true that I had in our happy period of 'lotus-eating,' as I had once called it to myself, devoted myself to her en bloc; but, as she had said, or as I had said, in so devoting myself to her en bloc ('loving' was our term) I was but devoting myself to myself en bloc, and vice versa. Then all the little services had been hers. I had been capricious; I had been selfish; and she had delighted in my capriciousness, in my selfishness—whereas, now!… Now I was the highest sinner that is arraigned by Love, the sinless one! What right had I to the preserving of an uniform cheerfulness of demeanour towards her? What right had I to the perpetual readiness to do her little services, the perpetual readiness to prevent her doing me little services? 'Ah!' thought Rosy, 'that old time was the better time; for if it knew the depth of hell, it knew also the height of heaven; whereas, this new time knows only the dead level of purgatory.'
I remember how I sat one evenings in the after-dinner hour when we were together in the study, observing her and translating her thoughts into my words, somewhat as above: and how at last, smiling at her for a poor dear child, I got up, and went and chucked her under the chin, and in a serious way that made her eyes looking at me brighten up at the anticipation of one of the old erratic hours, the old erratic hours so often full of the golden atmosphere of heaven. And indeed there was a temptation in the air for me to enjoy one of those hours again. Why not? I commenced.
But it soon made itself apparent to me that I had set myself, not to be, but to act.
And Rosy showed that she too perceived, perhaps more clearly than I gave her credit for, that it was not the doer but rather the actor that was wooing her. She was up and away in a pet: I, tickled by the idea of energetic desire in my Rosebud, laughing consumedly, careless how she took it. Then all at once I realised that I had once more been cruel to her: nay, but the word should be stronger, brutal. I was serious at once, and away to her to try and soothe her. And succeeded, and we had, as she said, a happy time again.
Nevertheless her discontent with the new intercourse, as I now called it to myself, and to which I promptly returned, seemed to increase. And at last I found out that the more cheerful and obliging I was, the more uncheerful and disobliging was she, and this discovery having come to a head during the course of a whole evening, erupted in the bedroom in the shape of what is usually (I believe) called a 'scene,' reproaches and tears versus sarcasm and silence. After a few minutes of Tears, Silence betook itself out of the bedroom and the house for a long ramble about the streets, and at last joining itself to Thought in preference to Irritation, with which it had set out, I began to draw a sort of picture of what life would have been with a woman—like Rayne, a strong woman! Rayne had, I felt, been for some time an elevation to me, and now it seemed that she was growing into an ideal. After all, was she not the outward and visible sign of that inward and spiritual Strength which I worshipped? It was right that she should become an ideal to me; she was a strong woman. Then I came back home and the storm flew over in April showery kisses. But this made no difference about the new intercourse which was promptly and unquestioningly persisted in.
Meanwhile she was, I found, apparently in persistent readiness to be suspicious. It occurred to me once or twice that she beheld that there was a woman in the case, and so kept on the look out for proofs. The idea amused me, and once led me to demonstrations of my feeling somewhat in the manner of that factitious chucking under the chin. She seemed to recognise something ungenuine; for she would have nothing to say to me at that rate, and so I determined to do without the demonstrations in future, and did. I do not know if she was happy at this time. She took a greater interest in her household affairs than before, going out shopping with Amelie (the cook) in the mornings, drawing up lists of things, and so on. I was pleased to see this; for it gave her something to do.
In this way it came about in a remarkably short time that we two grew more like acquaintances or friends than lovers. Then I realised this, and was rather troubled by it; for I felt that the reason for it was mine, and that she could not like the present condition of affairs. But what was to be done? An inch with a child like Rosy meant, not an ell, but the whole article. If I suddenly softened, she would take it as a sign of repentance, and that meant trouble of all sorts! At present I was working away at my classics and what composition suggested itself; with occasional fits of disgust, it is true, but avoiding the depths and getting out of the shallows as soon as possible. And I bore these occasional fits with a good deal of philosophy now, ascribing them to some internal derangement, such as of liver, kidneys, or stomach, and as such to be endured in patience and silence. Weather, I found, affected me considerably.
March came round, but a March more like the traditional May. I took long walks each day, ten miles as a rule: once out to Père-Lachaise, to look at Brooke's grave with its 'Thy will be done,' and saw Balzac's bust, and de Morny's tomb (de Morny being a gilded rascal that interested me) and others, and stood and looked thoughtfully over the city that seemed like a great parasite that had driven its claws into the earth. Then there was the Louvre, and the Luxembourg, and, sometimes, theatres in the evenings with Rosy. A quietly happy time for me, made happier as the days stole on and found me still unshaken in my scheme of life.
One evening, Rosy having a headache and not caring to go out anywhere, I went for a ramble about the streets, observing the stirring multitude in a most delightfully philosophic way. The conviction of the general poorness of life was the deepest, but serenely deepest, conviction in me. My view of the matter was that, since I was alive and in certain circumstances, the only thing that was to be done was to make the best of them.
The dawn was breaking as I pulled at the concierge's bell. I was a little tired, mentally and bodily. I came upstairs; let myself in, and went into the study. All at once not only the general poorness, but also the general, and also the particular purposelessness of all life and of my own life came over me. I did not care to go to bed, I did not care to do anything. My eyes fell on my easy-chair: I went and lay back in it, in a state that kept, every now and then, rising to a level, over the edge of which lay disgust, and even despair. At last, I rose, with an impatient curse. Was there never to be an end of this foolery? was I never to have rest, peace, comfort, self-sufficiency, call it what you please,—that spiritual sailing with spread canvas before a full and unvarying wind? Why was it, why? Was it really because the strange shadow of Purposelessness played the perpetual-rising Banquo at Life's feast for me? Or was it that I was one who could not lack the Personal Deity with impunity? I didn't know, I didn't know! I wished that I were dead. I wished that I had never been born. What Personal Deity had I ever had?… My thoughts stood still. I saw a small child go to the bed and slip down on his knees and tell God about it; but then, remembering that He was up in the sky, clasp his two hands together, and look up to Him; and say:
'Dear God, You are a long, long way away from me: right up in the deep, blue sky, farther away than even the sun, perhaps, and the moon and the stars.—But I love You, I love You! because You know everything I think about and everything that I want to do! And I pray that You won't let me die till I am very old and have done all the things I want to do. But please help me to be a great man. Through Jesus Christ our blessed Lord, Amen.'
I threw up my face with my hands behind my head, the sob rising to my lips, the tears to my eyes. 'Oh God, God, why shouldn't I pray to You now? Is there no one to hear me? Is there no one to What? Rayne!—Rayne! you here!' Everything in me stood still. She was looking at me through the curtains. I made a sharp stride and opened them. It was Rosy.
'You startled me,' I said, 'I took you for a ghost.'
'Took me for a—ghost,' she said slowly, advancing slowly, till her eyes were close to mine.
'You called me—Rayne!' she said.
'No;' I said; 'not you—the ghost.'
Fury seemed suddenly to possess her.
'I hate her!' she cried discordantly.
I took her in my arms, in a half-unconscious way that meant quiet.
'Don't be a fool,' I said, 'why did you get up?' She was struggling a little to get free.
I let her go; and, turning, walked away to the hearthrug, and stood collecting my thoughts, I felt her hand touch my arm. I looked aside and down, at her face.
'Don't be un-kind to me,' she said. 'You're not kind to me!'
'Then,' I said unaffectedly; 'I'm sorry.' I turned again, and, putting my hands on her shoulders, looked at her; 'As for that "Don't be a fool," of mine, you mustn't look upon it, or the things I say like it, as unkindness.' The expression of her full, half-dreamy unfathomed eyes was pleading, pleading all but pitiful. I did not know what to do, what to say.
At last:
'Dear girl,' I said seriously; 'I'm afraid you're still in love with me.'
She answered nothing.
'I wish you weren't,' I said. 'If you only knew what folly it is—love, everything! In ten years, you may be a worm-eaten piece of carrion: in less, perhaps. I too. Where do you think you'll be then? Where shall I be? What'll be the good of your having loved me? or of my having loved you?'
'You don't love me,' she murmured, with eyes far away.
'By Love,' I said, 'I don't know if I love you or not! Do you love me? '
She smiled a little.
'Ah!' said I, 'I wish to goodness you didn't then!'
'Why shouldn't I if I like?' she murmured, with eyes still far away and something of a little smile round her lips. I slipped my arm round her shoulders, and led her gently towards the door.
'Come,' I said, 'we have talked enough. Let us go to bed, and sleep. If so be that'
At the door curtains, I turned a little, saying:
'I have forgotten to blow out the candles.'
I went back and blew them out. She waited for me. We went on together, I with my arm round her shoulders as before, through the dark dining-room, and salon just lit with the light from the open door-frame, and into the lighter morning-room, where I said:
'Are you afraid of death. Rosy?'
'No,' she said; 'I'm not afraid of it.'
(We had passed through the curtains into the bedroom, lit with two unshaded candles.)
She said no more, nor did I. And we went on to the bed: where I sat her down, and myself close beside her. Her hands she put together in her lap.
'Would you be afraid to die to-night?' I said softly in her ear, 'Rosy.'
'No,' she said.
'Will you die to-night?' I asked, a little evilly.
'What do you mean?' she said, looking at me. The same expression was still on my face, nor did I change it.
'Will you die with me—to-night?' I said; 'I am ready to die with you; although, my dear, as the saying goes, I don't love you.'
'You are very wicked!' she said, her eyes rounding, 'That would be wrong.'
'No:' (shaking my head a little); 'only tired of it—only tired of it!'
Then I looked at her:
'And so,' I said, ' that would be wrong?'
I took down my hand from her shoulder and stretched out my arms backward and yawned.
'Be it so,' I said, ' That would be wrong!'
I lay awake by her in the dark for a little, thinking about my work, and whether I would go on with it, and whether I would go on with anything. By degrees, my thoughts grew to present occurrences, to to-night's; and then, without thinking whether she was asleep or not, I asked—her, I suppose:
'Why did you get up? '
'Because I wanted to see you.'
I fell into my thoughts again; till at last, 'Ah!' I said to myself, if I were but some some poor, striving, struggling devil in some country town, and she my brave little wife—some poor, striving, struggling devil of a man of letters, with hopes of some day forcing a callous English world to know him as its teacher, and she the brave little wife that believed in me! Ah, why have I not had to strive and struggle? Perhaps I should have become a great man some day, then. Life would have been self-sufficing for me. I have almost a mind—a mind to throw away all these disgust-bearing, despair-bearing golden grains, and go out and struggle and strive again. Surely, I was happier as a boy in London than …' But there was little good in talking in this way now, to-night.—I did not ask myself why. I left the question alone: and dozed; and fell asleep.
I was awakened by being kissed on the lips. I opened my eyes and looked at Rosy. She was a little sleepy, a little languorous, lying with her pretty face deep in the soft pillow, and her escaped hair flowing—brown-gold tresses—round about her head. The sun was on our feet. A little canary she had bought yesterday was singing snatches of song in the morning-room. The idea of her solemn bestowal of that half-awakened kiss made me smile brightly at her. The little canary was singing snatches of song. The sun was on our feet.