"Not only in my case; in your case, too, and in all others as well. It pa.s.ses off more or less quickly."
"And so love is nothing but intoxication as far as a man is concerned!"
"As far as a woman is concerned too!"
"Nothing but intoxication!"
"Quite so! But there is no reason why one shouldn"t remain friends."
"One need not get married for that!"
"No; and that"s exactly what I meant to point out."
"You? Wasn"t it you who insisted on our marriage?"
"Only because you worried me about it day and night three long years."
"But it was your wish, too!"
"Only because you wished it. Be grateful to me now that you"ve got it!"
"Shall I be grateful because you leave the mother of your children alone with them while you spend your time at the public-house?"
"No, not for that, but because I married you!"
"You really think I ought to be grateful for that?"
"Yes, like all decent people who have got their way!"
"Well, there is no happiness in a marriage like ours. Your family doesn"t acknowledge me!"
"What have you got to do with my family? I haven"t married yours?"
"Because you didn"t think it good enough!"
"But mine was good enough for you. If they had been shoemakers, you wouldn"t mind so much."
"You talk of shoemakers as if they were beneath your notice. Aren"t they human beings like everybody else?"
"Of course they are, but I don"t think you would have run after them."
"All right! Have your own way."
But it was not all right, and it was never again all right. Was it due to the fact of their being married, or was it due to something else?
Mary-Louisa could not help admitting in her heart that the old times had been better times; they had been "jollier" she said.
He did not think that it was only owing to the fact that their marriage had been legalised for he had observed that other marriages, too, were not happy. And the worst of it all was this: when one day he went to see his old friend and Sophy, as he sometimes did, behind his wife"s back, he was told that there was an end to that matter. And they had not been married. So it could not have been marriage which was to blame.
A DUEL
She was plain and therefore the coa.r.s.e young men who don"t know how to appreciate a beautiful soul in an ugly body took no notice of her. But she was wealthy, and she knew that men run after women for the sake of their wealth; whether they do it because all wealth has been created by men and they therefore claim the capital for their s.e.x, or on other grounds, was not quite clear to her. As she was a rich woman, she learned a good many things, and as she distrusted and despised men, she was considered an intellectual young woman.
She had reached the age of twenty. Her mother was still alive, but she had no intention to wait for another five years before she became her own mistress. Therefore she quite suddenly surprised her friends with an announcement of her engagement.
"She is marrying because she wants a husband," said some.
"She is marrying because she wants a footman and her liberty," said others.
"How stupid of her to get married," said the third; "she doesn"t know that she will be even less her own mistress than she is now."
"Don"t be afraid," said the fourth, "she"ll hold her own in spite of her marriage."
What was he like? Who was he? Where had she found him?
He was a young lawyer, rather effeminate in appearance, with broad hips and a shy manner. He was an only son, brought up by his mother and aunt. He had always been very much afraid of girls, and he detested the officers on account of their a.s.surance, and because they were the favourites at all entertainments. That is what he was like.
They were staying at a watering place and met at a dance. He had come late and all the girls" programmes were full. A laughing, triumphant "No!" was flung into his face wherever he asked for a dance, and a movement of the programme brushed him away as if he were a buzzing fly.
Offended and humiliated he left the ball-room and sat down on the verandah to smoke a cigar. The moon threw her light on the lime-trees in the Park and the perfume of the mignonette rose from the flower beds.
He watched the dancing couples through the windows with the impotent yearning of the cripple; the voluptuous rhythm of the waltz thrilled him through and through.
"All alone and lost in dreams?" said a voice suddenly. "Why aren"t you dancing?"
"Why aren"t you?" he replied, looking up.
"Because I am plain and n.o.body asked me to," she answered.
He looked at her. They had known each other for some time, but he had never studied her features. She was exquisitely dressed, and in her eyes lay an expression of infinite pain, the pain of despair and vain revolt against the injustice of nature; he felt a lively sympathy for her.
"I, too, am scorned by everybody," he said. "All the rights belong to the officers. Whenever it is a question of natural selection, right is on the side of the strong and the beautiful. Look at their shoulders and epaulettes...."
"How can you talk like that!"
"I beg your pardon! To have to play a losing game makes a man bitter!
Will you give me a dance?"
"For pity"s sake?"
"Yes! Out of compa.s.sion for me!"
He threw away his cigar.
"Have you ever known what it means to be marked by the hand of fate, and rejected? To be always the last?" he began again, pa.s.sionately.
"I have known all that! But the last do not always remain the last,"