"Yes--failure," he repeated, and put more emphasis than before on the word. "It"s no good beating about the bush.--And do you realise what it--what failure means for us, Louise?"
"Oh, no," she said again, vaguely trying to ward off what she foresaw was coming. "And why talk about it to-night? You are tired. Things will seem different in the morning. Shut your eyes again, and lie quite still."
But, the ice once broken, he felt the need of speaking--of speaking out relentlessly all that was in him. And, as he talked, he found it impossible to keep still; he paced the room. He was very pale and very voluble, and made a clean breast of everything that troubled him; not so much, however, with the idea of confessing it to her, as of easing his own mind. And now, again, he let her see into his real self, and, unlike the previous occasion, it was here more than a glimpse that she caught. He was distressingly frank with her. She heard now, for the first time, of the foolish ambitions with which he had begun his studies in Leipzig; heard of their gradual subsidence, and his humble acceptance of his inferiority, as well as of his present fear that, when his time came to an end, he would have nothing to show for it--and under the influence of what had just happened, this fear grew more vivid. It was one thing, he made clear to her, and unpleasant enough at best, to have to find yourself to rights as a mediocrity, when you had hoped with all your heart that you were something more. But what if, having staked everything on it, you should discover that you had mistaken your calling altogether?
"To-night, you see, I think I should have been a better chimney-sweep.
The real something that makes the musician--even the genuinely musical outsider--is wanting in me. I"ve learnt to see that, by degrees, though I don"t know in the least what it is.--But even suppose I were mistaken--who could tell me that I was? One"s friends are only too glad to avoid giving a downright opinion, and then, too, which of them would one care to trust? I believe in the end I shall go straight to Schwarz, and get him to tell me what he thinks of me--whether I"m making a fool of myself or not."
"Oh, I wouldn"t do that," Louise said quickly.
It was the first time she had interrupted him. She had sat and followed his restless movements with a look of apprehension. A certain board in the floor creaked when he trod on it, and she found herself listening, each time, for the creaking of this board. She was sorry for him, but she could not attach the importance he did to his a.s.sumed want of success, nor was she able to subdue the feeling of distaste with which his doubtings inspired her. It was so necessary, too, this outpouring; she had never felt curious about the side of his nature which was not the lover"s side. Tonight, it became clear to her that she would have preferred to remain in ignorance of it. And besides, what he said was so palpable, so undeniable, that she could not understand his dragging the matter to the surface: she had never thought of him but as one of the many honest workers, who swell the majority, and are not destined to rise above the crowd. She had not dreamed of his considering himself in another light, and it was painful to her now, to find that he had done so. To put an end to such embarra.s.sing confidences, she went over to him, and, with her hands on his shoulders, her face upturned, said all the consoling words she could think of, to make him forget. They had never yet failed in their effect. But to-night too much was at work in Maurice, for him to be influenced by them. He kissed her, and touched her cheek with his hand, then began anew; and she moved away, with a slight impatience, which she did not try to conceal.
"You brood too much, Maurice ... and you exaggerate things, too. What if every one took himself so seriously?--and talked of failure because on a single occasion he didn"t do himself justice?"
"It"s more than that with me, dear.--But it"s a bad habit, I know--not that I really mean to take myself too seriously; but all my life I have been forced to worry about things, and to turn them over."
"It"s unhealthy always to be looking into yourself. Let things go more, and they"ll carry you with them."
He took her hands. "What wise-sounding words! And I"m in the wrong, I know, as usual. But, in this case, it"s impossible not to worry. What happened this evening seems a trifle to you, and no doubt would to every one else, too. But I had made a kind of touchstone of it; it was to help to decide the future--that hideously uncertain future of ours!
I believe now, as far as I"m concerned, I don"t care whether I ever come to anything or not. Of course, I should rather have been a success--we all would!--but caring for you has swallowed up the ridiculous notions I once had. For your sake--it"s you I torment myself about. WHAT is to become of us?"
"If that"s all, Maurice! Something will turn up, I"m sure it will. Have a little patience, and faith in luck ... or fate ... or whatever you like to call it."
"That"s a woman"s way of looking at things."
He was conscious of speaking somewhat unkindly; but he was hurt by her lack of sympathy. Instead, however, of smoothing things over, he was impelled, by an unconquerable impulse, to disclose himself still further. "Besides, that"s not all," he said, and avoided her eyes.
"There"s something else, and I may just as well make a clean breast of it. It"s not only that the future is every bit as shadowy to-night as it has always been: I haven"t advanced it by an inch. But I feel to-night that if I could have been what I once hoped to be--no, how shall I put it? You know, dear, from the very beginning there has been something wrong, a kind of barrier between us hasn"t there? How often I"ve tried to find out what it is! Well, to-night I seem to know. If I were not such an out-and-out mediocrity, if I had really been able to achieve something, you would care for me--yes, that"s it!--as you can"t possibly care now. You would have to; you wouldn"t be able to help yourself."
Her first impulsive denial died on her lips; as he continued to speak, she seemed to feel in his words an intention to wound her, or, at least, to accuse her of want of love. When she spoke, it was in a cool voice, as though she were on her guard against being touched too deeply.
"That has nothing whatever to do with it," she said. "It"s you yourself, Maurice, I care for--not what you can or can"t do."
But these words added fuel to his despondency. "Yes, that"s just it,"
he answered. "For you, I"m in two parts, and one of them means nothing to you. I"ve felt it, often enough, though I"ve never spoken of it till to-night. Only one side of me really matters to you. But if I"d been able to accomplish what I once intended--to make a name for myself, or something of that sort--then it would all have been different. I could have forced you to be interested in every single thing I did--not only in the me that loves you, but in every jot of my outside life as well."
Louise did not reply: she had a moment of genuine despondency. The staunch tenderness she had been resolved to feel for him this evening, collapsed and shrivelled up; for the morbid self-probing in which he was indulging made her see him with other eyes. What he said belonged to that category of things which are too true to be put into words: why could not he, like every one else, let them rest, and act as if they did not exist? It was as clear as day: if he were different, the whole story of their relations would be different, too. But as he could not change his nature, what was the use of talking about it, and of turning out to her gaze, traits of mind with which she could not possibly sympathise? Standing, a long white figure, beside the piano, she let her arms hang weakly at her sides. She did not try to reason with him again, or even to comfort him; she let him go on and on, always in the same strain, till her nerves suddenly rebelled at the needless irritation.
"Oh, WHY must you be like this to-night?" she broke in on him. "Why try to destroy such happiness as we have? Can you never be content?"
From the way in which he seized upon these words, it seemed as if he had only been waiting for her to say them. "Such happiness as we have!"
he repeated. "There!--listen!--you yourself admit it. Admit all I"ve been saying.--And do you think I can realise that, and be happy? No, I"ve suffered under it from the first day. Oh, why, loving you as I do, could I not have been different?--more worthy of you. Why couldn"t I, too, be one of those favoured mortals ...? Listen to me," he said lowering his voice, and speaking rapidly. "Let me make another confession. Do you know why to-night is doubly hard to bear? It"s because--yes, because I know you must be forced--and not to-night only, but often--to compare me what I am and what I can do--with ... with ...
you know who I mean. It"s inevitable--the comparison must be thrust on you every day of your life. But does that, do you think, make it any the easier for me?"
As the gist of what he was trying to say was borne in upon her, Louise winced. Her face lost its tired expression, and grew hard. "You are breaking your word," she said, in a tone she had never before used to him. "You promised me once, the past should never be mentioned between us."
"I"m not blind, Louise," he went on, as though she had not spoken. "Nor am I in a mood to-night to make myself any illusions. The remembrance of what he was--he was never doubtful of himself, was he?--must always--HAS always stood between us, while I have racked my brains to discover what it was. To-night it came over me like a flash that it was he--that he ... he spoiled you utterly for anyone else; made it impossible for you to care for anyone who wasn"t made of the same stuff as he was. It would never have occurred to him, would it, to torment you and make you suffer for his own failure? For the very good reason that he never was a failure. Oh, I haven"t the least doubt what a sorry figure I must cut beside him!"
The unhappy words came out slowly, and seemed to linger in the air.
Louise did not break the pause that followed, and by her silence, a.s.sented to what he said. She still stood motionless beside the piano.
"Or tell me," Maurice cried abruptly, with a ray of hope; "tell me the truth about it all, for once. Was it mere exaggeration, or was he really worth so much more than all the rest of us? Of course he could play--I know that--but so can many a fool. But all the other part of it--his incredible talent, or luck in everything he touched--was it just report, or was it really something else?--Tell me."
"He was a genius," she answered, very coldly and distinctly; and her voice warned him once more that he was trespa.s.sing on ground to which he had no right. But he was too excited to take the warning.
"A genius!" he echoed. "He was a genius! Yes, what did I tell you? Your very words imply a comparison as you say them. For I?--what am I? A miserable bungler, a wretched dilettant--or have you another word for it? Oh, never mind--don"t be afraid to say it!--I"m not sensitive tonight. I can bear to hear your real opinion of me; for it could not possibly be lower than my own. Let us get at the truth for once, by all means!--But what I want to know," he cried a moment later, "is, why one should be given so much and the other so little. To one all the talents and all your love; and the other unhappy wretch remains an outsider his whole life long. When you speak in that tone about him, I could wish with all my heart that he had been no better than I am. It would give me pleasure to know that he, too, had only been a dabbling amateur--the victim of a pitiable wish to be what he hadn"t the talent for."
He could not face her amazement; he stared at the yellow globe of the lamp till his eyes smarted.
"It no doubt seems despicable to you," he went on, "but I can"t help it. I hate him for the way he was able to absorb you. He"s my worst enemy, for he has made it impossible for you--the woman I love--to love me wholly in return.--Of course, you can"t--you WON"T understand.
You"re only aghast at what you think my littleness. Of all I"ve gone through, you know nothing, and don"t want to know. But with him, it was different; you had no difficulty in understanding him. He had the power over you. Look!--at this very moment, you are siding, not with me, but with him. All my struggling and striving counts for nothing.--Oh, if I could only understand you!" He moved to and fro in his agitation. "Why is a woman so impossible? Does nothing matter to her but tangible success? Do care and consideration carry no weight? Even matched against the blackguardly egoism of what you call genius?--Or will you tell me that he considered you? Didn"t he treat you from beginning to end like the scoundrel he was?"
She raised hostile eyes. "You have no right to say that," she said in a small, icy voice, which seemed to put him at an infinite distance from her. "You are not able to judge him. You didn"t know him as ... as I did."
With the last words a deeper note came into her voice, and this was all Maurice heard. A frenzied fear seized him.
"Louise!" he cried violently. "You care for him still!"
She started, and raised her arms, as if to ward off a blow. "I don"t ... I don"t ... G.o.d knows I don"t! I hate him--you know I do!" She had clapped both hands to her face, and held them there. When she looked up again, she was able to speak as quietly as before. "But do you want to make me hate you, too? Do you think it gives me a higher opinion of you, to hear you talk like that about some one I once cared for? How can I find it anything but ungenerous?--Yes, you are right, he WAS different--in every way. He didn"t know what it meant to be envious of anyone. He was as different from you as day from night."
Maurice was hurt to the quick. "Now I know your real opinion of me!
Till now you have been considerate enough to hide it. But to-night I have heard it from your own lips. You despise me!"
"Well, you drove me to say it," she burst out, wounded in her turn. "I should never have said it of my own accord--never! Oh, how ungenerous you are! It"s not the first time you"ve goaded me into saying something, and then turned round on me for it. You seem to enjoy finding out things you can feel hurt by.--But have I ever complained?
Did I not take you just as you were, and love you--yes, love you! I knew you couldn"t be different--that it wasn"t your fault if you were faint-hearted and ... and--But you?--what do you do? You talk as if you worship the ground I walk on: but you can"t let me alone. You are always trying to change me--to make me what you think I ought to be."
Her words came in haste, stumbling one over the other, as it became plain to her how deeply this grievance, expressed now for the first time, had eaten into her soul. "You"ve never said to yourself, she"s what she is because it"s her nature to be. You want to remake my nature and correct it. You are always believing something is wrong. You knew very well, long ago, that the best part of me had belonged to some one else. You swore it didn"t matter. But to-night, because there"s absolutely nothing else you can cavil at, you drag it up again--in spite of your promises. I have always been frank with you. Do you thank me for it? No, it"s been my old fault of giving everything, when it would have been wiser to keep something back, or at least to pretend to. I might have taken a lesson from you, in parsimonious reserve. For there"s a part of you, you couldn"t give away--not if you lived with a person for a hundred years."
Of all she said, the last words stung him most.
"Yes, and why?" he cried. "Ask yourself why I You are unjust, as only a woman can be. You say there"s a part of me you don"t know. If that"s true, what does it mean? It means you don"t want to know it. You don"t want it even to exist. You want everything to belong to you. You don"t care for me well enough to be interested in that side of my life which has nothing to do with you. Your love isn"t strong enough for that."
"Love!--need we talk about love?" Her face was so unhappy that it seemed to have grown years older. "Love is something quite different.
It takes everything just as it is. You have never really loved me.".
"I have never really loved you?"
He repeated the words after her, as if he did not understand them, and with his right hand grasped the table; the ground seemed to be slipping from under his feet. But Louise did not offer to retract what she had said, and Maurice had a moment of bewilderment: there, not three yards from him, sat the woman who was the centre of his life; Louise sat there, and with all appearance of believing it, could cast doubts on his love for her. At the thought of it, he was exasperated.
"I not love you!"
His voice was rough, had escaped control. "You have only to lift your finger, and I"ll throw myself from that window on to the pavement."
Louise sat as if turned to stone.
"Don"t you hear?" he cried more loudly. "Look up! ... tell me to do it!"
Still she did not move.
"Louise, Louise!" he implored, throwing himself down before her. "Speak to me! Don"t you hear me?--Louise!"