“If you have forgotten anything … of course … I …”
Her eyes blazed at him for an instant; her lips trembled—and then she also became the mouthpiece of the mysterious force forever hovering near us; of that perverse inspiration, wandering capricious and uncontrollable, like a gust of wind.
“What is the good of this, Alvan? … You know why I came back. … You know that I could not …”
He interrupted her with irritation.
“Then! what’s this?” he asked, pointing downwards at the torn letter.
“That’s a mistake,” she said hurriedly, in a muffled voice.
This answer amazed him. He remained speechless, staring at her. He had half a mind to burst into a laugh. It ended in a smile as involuntary as a grimace of pain.
“A mistake …” he began, slowly, and then found himself unable to say another word.
“Yes … it was honest,” she said very low, as if speaking to the memory of a feeling in a remote past.
He exploded.
“Curse your honesty! … Is there any honesty in all this! … When did you begin to be honest? Why are you here? What are you now? … Still honest? …”
He walked at her, raging, as if blind; during these three quick strides he lost touch of the material world and was whirled interminably through a kind of empty universe made up of nothing but fury and anguish, till he came suddenly upon her face—very close to his. He stopped short, and all at once seemed to remember something heard ages ago.
“You don’t know the meaning of the word,” he shouted.
She did not flinch. He perceived with fear that everything around him was still. She did not move a hair’s breadth; his own body did not stir. An imperturbable calm enveloped their two motionless figures, the house, the town, all the world—and the trifling tempest of his feelings. The violence of the short tumult within him had been such as could well have shattered all creation; and yet nothing was changed. He faced his wife in the familiar room in his own house. It had not fallen. And right and left all the innumerable dwellings, standing shoulder to shoulder, had resisted the shock of his passion, had presented, unmoved, to the loneliness of his trouble, the grim silence of walls, the impenetrable and polished discretion of closed doors and curtained windows. Immobility and silence pressed on him, assailed him, like two accomplices of the immovable and mute woman before his eyes. He was suddenly vanquished. He was shown his impotence. He was soothed by the breath of a corrupt resignation coming to him through the subtle irony of the surrounding peace.
He said with villainous composure:
“At any rate it isn’t enough for me. I want to know more—if you’re going to stay.”
“There is nothing more to tell,” she answered, sadly.
It struck him as so very true that he did not say anything. She went on:
“You wouldn’t understand. …”
“No?” he said, quietly. He held himself tight not to burst into howls and imprecations.
“I tried to be faithful …” she began again.
“And this?” he exclaimed, pointing at the fragments of her letter.
“This—this is a failure,” she said.
“I should think so,” he muttered, bitterly.
“I tried to be faithful to myself—Alvan—and … and honest to you. …”
“If you had tried to be faithful to me it would have been more to the purpose,” he interrupted, angrily. “I’ve been faithful to you and you have spoiled my life—both our lives …” Then after a pause the unconquerable preoccupation of self came out, and he raised his voice to ask resentfully, “And, pray, for how long have you been making a fool of me?”
She seemed horribly shocked by that question. He did not wait for an answer, but went on moving about all the time; now and then coming up to her, then wandering off restlessly to the other end of the room.
“I want to know. Everybody knows, I suppose, but myself—and that’s your honesty!”
“I have told you there is nothing to know,” she said, speaking unsteadily as if in pain. “Nothing of what you suppose. You don’t understand me. This letter is the beginning—and the end.”
“The end—this thing has no end,” he clamoured, unexpectedly. “Can’t you understand that? I can … The beginning …”
He stopped and looked into her eyes with concentrated intensity, with a desire to see, to penetrate, to understand, that made him positively hold his breath till he gasped.
“By Heavens!” he said, standing perfectly still in a peering attitude and within less than a foot from her.
“By Heavens!” he repeated, slowly, and in a tone whose involuntary strangeness was a complete mystery to himself. “By Heavens—I could believe you—I could believe anything—now!”
He turned short on his heel and began to walk up and down the room with an air of having disburdened himself of the final pronouncement of his life—of having said something on which he would not go back, even if he could. She remained as if rooted to the carpet. Her eyes followed the restless movements of the man, who avoided looking at her. Her wide stare clung to him, inquiring, wondering and doubtful.
“But the fellow was forever sticking in here,” he burst out, distractedly. “He made love to you, I suppose—and, and …” He lowered his voice. “And—you let him.”
“And I let him,” she murmured, catching his intonation, so that her voice sounded unconscious, sounded far off and slavish, like an echo.
He said twice, “You! You!” violently, then calmed down. “What could you see in the fellow?” he asked, with unaffected wonder. “An effeminate, fat ass. What could you … Weren’t you happy? Didn’t you have all you wanted? Now—frankly; did I deceive your expectations in any way? Were you disappointed with our position—or with our prospects—perhaps? You know you couldn’t be—they are much better than you could hope for when you married me. …”
He forgot himself so far as to gesticulate a little while he went on with animation:
“What could you expect from such a fellow? He’s an outsider—a rank outsider. … If it hadn’t been for my money … do you hear? … for my money, he wouldn’t know where to turn. His people
