The Nature of a Crime

wished him⁠—I won’t say dead⁠—but no more there. Yet you have tried too⁠—and I suppose this answer to the riddle is simply the answer to the whole riddle of our life. We have tried to play a supremely difficult game simply because it sanctified our love. For, after all, sanctification arises from difficulties. Well, we have made our way very strait and we have so narrowed the door of entrance that it has vanished altogether. We have never had any hope of a solution that could have satisfied us. If we had cared to break the rules of the game, I suppose we could have done it easily enough⁠—and we could have done it the more easily since neither you nor I ever subscribed to those rules. If we have not it was, I think, simply because we sought the difficulty which sanctifies.⁠ ⁠… Has it been a very imbecile proceeding? I am most uncertain. For it is not a thing to be very proud of⁠—to be able to say that for a whole lifetime, one has abstained from that which one most desired. On the other hand, we have won a curious and difficult game. Well⁠—there it is⁠—and there is your legacy. I do not think that there is anything else for me to write about. You will see that, in my will, I have left everything I possess to⁠—Edward Burden. This is not because I wish to make him reparation, and it’s not because I wish to avoid scandal: it is simply because it may show him⁠—one very simple thing. It will show him how very nearly I might have made things come right. I have been balancing my accounts very carefully, and I find that, reckoning things reasonably against myself, Edward Burden will have a five-pound note with which to buy himself a mourning-ring.

The being forced to attend to my accounts will make him gasp a good deal. It will certainly shake his belief in all accepted reputations⁠—for he will look on the faces of many men each “as solid as the Bank of England,” and he will think: “I wonder if you are like⁠—?” His whole world will crumble⁠—not because I have been dishonest, since he is coldblooded enough to believe that all men may be dishonest. But he will tremble because I have been able to be so wildly dishonest and yet to be so successfully respectable. He won’t even dare to “expose” me, since, if he did that, half of the shares which he will inherit from me would suffer an eclipse of disreputability, would tumble to nothingness in value⁠—and would damage his poor pocket. He will have to have my estate set down at a high figure; he will have to be congratulated on his fortunate inheritance, and he will have, sedulously, to compound my felony.

You will wonder how I can be capable of this final cruelty⁠—the most cruel thing that, perhaps, ever one man did to another. I will tell you why it is: it is because I hate all the Edward Burdens of the world⁠—because, being the eternal Haves of the world, they have made their idiotic rules of the game. And you and I suffer: you and I, the eternal Have Nots. And we suffer, not because their rules bind us, but because, being the finer spirits, we are forced to set ourselves rules that are still more strict in order that, in all things, we may be the truly gallant.

But why do I write: “You will wonder how I can be capable of this.” You will have understood⁠—you who understand everything.

Eight in the morning.⁠—Well: now we part. I am going to register the parcel containing all these letters to you. We part: and it is as if you were dropping back⁠—the lost Eurydice of the world⁠—into an utter blackness. For, in a minute, you will be no more than part of my past. Well then: good night.

VIII

You will have got the telegram I sent you long before you got the parcel of letters: you will have got the note I wrote you by the same post as the letters themselves. If I have taken these three days to myself before again writing to you it has been because I have needed to recover my power of thinking. Now, in a way, I have recovered it⁠—and it is only fair to say that I have devoted all my thoughts to how the new situation affects you⁠—and you in your relations to me.

It places me in your hands⁠—let that be written first and foremost. You have to decree my life or my death. For I take it that now we can never get back again into our old position: I have spoken, you have heard me speak. The singular unity, the silence of our old life is done with for good. There is perhaps no reason why this should not be so: silence is no necessary part of our relationship. But it has seemed to make a rather exquisite bond between us.

It must, if I am to continue to live⁠—it must be replaced by some other bond. In our silence we have seemed to speak in all sorts of strange ways: we have perhaps read each other’s thoughts. I have seen words form themselves upon your lips. But now you must⁠—there is no way out of it⁠—you must write to me. You must write to me fully: all your thoughts. You must, as I have done, find the means of speech⁠—or I can no longer live.⁠ ⁠…

I am reprieved!

I don’t know if, in my note to you, I explained exactly what had happened. It was in this way. I was anxious to be done with my world very early and, as soon as eight o’clock struck, I set out for the post-office at the corner to register that parcel of letters for you. Till the task was accomplished⁠—the last I was to perform on earth⁠—I noticed nothing: