Possessed Part 3

Once I wrote in my diary:

"I often stand before my mirror at night before I go to bed and admire my own sombre beauty. I let my hair fall in a black cloud over my shoulders, then I braid it slowly with bare arms lifted in graceful poses. I sway my hips like Carmen, I thrust red flowers into my bosom. I move my head languidly, letting my white teeth gleam between red lips. I study my profile with a hand gla.s.s, getting the double reflection. I smile and beckon with my eyes. Yes, I am a beautiful woman--primeval, elemental--I was made for love."

Again I wrote, showing that I half understood the perils that beset me:

"Women are moths, they love to play with fire. They are irresistibly driven--like poor little birds that dash themselves against a lighthouse--towards the burning excitements connected with the allurement of men. They live for admiration. The besetting sin of all women is vanity; _vanity is a woman's consciousness of her power over men._"

And again:

"It is almost impossible for a fascinating woman not to flirt a little--sometimes. For example, she pa.s.ses a man on the street, a distinguished looking man. She does not know him, but their eyes have met in a certain way and she feels that he is attracted by her. She has on a pretty dress with a bunch of violets. She wonders whether this man has turned back to look at her--she is sure he has--she longs to look back. No matter how much culture and breeding she has, _she longs to look back_!"

No wonder that, with such thoughts and inclinations, I was always more or less under temptation with men, who were drawn to me, I suppose, just as I was drawn to them. And I tried to excuse myself in the old way, as here:

"It is certain that some women have strong emotional desires, whereas other women have none at all or scarcely any. This fact has an evident bearing upon the question of women's morality. Some women must be judged more leniently than others. I have wondered if there are similar differences in men. I doubt it!"

Of course I had agitating experiences with men because I half invited them. It seemed as if I could not help it. As I said to myself, I was a moth, I wanted to play with fire.

On the next page I find this:

"Seraphine disapproves of my att.i.tude towards men. She gave me a great talking to last night and said things I would not take from anyone else.

Dear old Seraphine, she is so fine and kind! She says there is nothing in my physical makeup that compels me to be a flirt. I can act more discreetly if I wish to. It is my mental att.i.tude toward romantic things that is wrong. Thousands of women just as pretty as I am never place themselves in situations with men that are almost certain to lead them into temptation. They will not start an emotional episode that may easily, as they know quite well, have a dangerous ending. But I am always ready to start, confident that my self-control will save me from any immediate disaster. And so far it always has."

How earnestly Seraphine sounded her warning. I wrote down her words and promised to heed them: "_Remember, dear, that emotional desire deliberately aroused in 'harmless flirtations' and then deliberately repressed is an offense against womanhood, a menace to the health, and a degradation to the soul._"

_Thursday night._

I am horribly sad tonight--lonely--discouraged. The doctor wants to know about my married life, about my husband. Why was I unhappy? Why is any woman unhappy? Because her love is trampled on, degraded--the spiritual part of it unsatisfied. Women are made for love and without love life means nothing to them. Women are naturally finer than men, they aspire more strongly to what is beautiful and spiritual, but their souls can be coa.r.s.ened, their love can be killed. They can be driven--they have been driven for centuries (through fear of men) into lies and deceits and sensuality or pretence of sensuality.

The great tragedy of the world is sensuality, and it may exist between man and wife just as much as between a man and a paid woman. I don't know whether the Bible condemns sensuality between man and wife, but it ought to. I remember a story by Tolstoy in which the great moralist strips off our mask of hypocrisy and shows the hideous evil that results when a man and a woman degrade the holy sacrament of marriage. That is not love, but a perversion of love. How can G.o.d bless a union in which the wife is expected to conduct herself like a wanton or lose her husband? And she loses him anyway, for sensuality in a man inevitably leads him to promiscuousness. I know this to my sorrow!

Perhaps I am morbid. Perhaps I see life too clearly, know it too well. I do not want to be cynical or bitter. Oh, if only those old days of faith and trust could come back to me! When I think of what I was before I married Julian I see that I was almost like a child in my ignorance of the animal side of man's nature....

_Friday._

Dr. Owen thinks my trouble is sh.e.l.l shock, but he is mistaken. I have taken care of too many sh.e.l.l shock cases not to recognize the symptoms.

Can I ever forget that darling soldier boy from Maryland who mistook me for his mother? "They're coming! They're coming!" he screamed one night; you could hear him all over the hospital. Then he jumped out of bed like a wild man--it took two orderlies and an engineer to get him back under the covers. I can see his poor wasted face when the little doctor came to give him a hypodermic. There he lay panting, groaning: "Oh those guns! Oh those guns! They break my ears!" Then he sprang up again, his eyes starting out of his head: "Look out, there! On the ammunition cart! Look out, Bill! Oh my G.o.d, they've got Bill--my pal! Blown him to h.e.l.l! Oh, oh, oh!" and he put his head down and sobbed like a woman.

That is sh.e.l.l shock. I have nothing like that. I know what I am doing.

There was a storm today with great crashing waves, then everything grew calm under a golden sunset. I take this as a good omen. I feel happier already. The infinite peace of Nature is quieting my soul. I love the sea. I can almost say my prayers to the sea.

_Sat.u.r.day._

The swimming master pays me extravagant compliments every morning when I splash about in the pool. I know my body is beautiful. Thank G.o.d, I have never imprisoned it in corsets.

I love the exercises I do in my room every morning. They bring back the play spirit of my childhood. When I get out of bed I slip into a loose garment, then I lie on the floor and stretch my spine along the carpet--it's wonderful how this exhilarates one. After that I take deep breaths at the open window, raising and lowering my arms--up as I draw my breath in, down as I throw it out. Then I lie down again and lift my legs straight up, the right, the left, then both together. I do this twenty times, resting between changes and taking deep breaths.

I sit cross-legged on the floor with my feet on a red and gold cushion and rotate my waist like an oriental dancer. I stand on my head and hands and curve my body to right and left in graceful flexings. I do this no matter how cold it is. I do not feel the cold, for I am all aglow with health and strength. Then, before my bath, I do dumb-bell exercises in front of the mirror.

I remember dining with my husband one night in a pink lace peignoir--we had been married about three years--and during the dessert, I excused myself and went into my bedroom and, posing before a cheval gla.s.s, I let the peignoir slip off my shoulders, and stood there like a piece of polished marble, rejoicing in my youth and loveliness!

How I hated my husband that night! He had taught me to drink. He had made me sensual. He had not yet a.s.sumed the coa.r.s.e, red-faced brutish aspect that he wore later, but he had a coa.r.s.e, red-faced brutish soul.

Alas! his body was still fine enough to tempt me. And his mind was devilishly clever enough to captivate my fancy. He took away my faith, _even my faith in motherhood_. That was why I chiefly hated him.

For three years my husband disgusted me with his unfaithfulness. No woman was too high or too low, too refined or too ignorant, for his pa.s.sing fancy, if only she had physical attractiveness--just a little physical attractiveness. Anything for variety, shop girl or d.u.c.h.ess, kitchen maid or society leader, they were all the same to Julian. He confessed to me that he once made love to a little auburn-haired _divorcee_ while they were in a mourning carriage going to her sister's funeral. _Et elle s'est laissee faire!_

He was like a hunter following his prey, like an angler fishing, he cared only for the chase, for the capture. That was the man I had married!

What a liar he was! He poisoned my mind with his lies, a.s.suring me that all men were like himself, hypocrites, incapable of being true to one woman. And I believed him. The ghastly part of it is I still believe him. I can't help it. I have suffered too much. I can never have faith in another man, not even in Captain Herrick. That is why I shall never marry again--that is one reason.

_Sunday._

A wonderful day! I strolled along the board walk in my new furs, and met a young mother pushing a baby carriage with two splendid baby boys--one of them sucking at his bottle. Such babies! She let me hold the little fellow and I cuddled him close in my arms and felt his soft cheeks and his warm little chubby hands on my face. How I long for a baby of my own! I have thought--hoped--dreamed--

I went to the movies this evening with some friends and laughed so hard that I thought I would break something in my internal machinery.

When I returned to the hotel I found a letter from Captain Herrick--so manly and affectionate. He loves me! And I love him, more than anything in the world. I feel so well today, so glad to be alive that if Chris were here, I think I would promise him whatever he asked. I long to give myself entirely--_my beauty, my pa.s.sion, everything_--to this man that I love.

And yet--alas!

Am I bold and vain to call myself beautiful?

I find myself in my diary siding strongly with women against men in anything that has to do with emotional affairs, although I like men better than women. My tendency is always to blame the man. This is partly because of the hideous wrong that was done me by my husband and partly because I like to believe that, however blame-worthy women are in the s.e.x struggle and, whatever _faiblesses_ they may be guilty of, the fundamental cause of it all must be found in centuries of men's wickedness and oppression.

I have written about this with much feeling. In one place I say:

"Sometimes I feel as if there were a conspiracy of men--all kinds of men, including the most serious and respectable--against the virtue of attractive women. What a downfall of masculine reputations there would be if women should tell a little of what they know about men! Only a little! But women are silent in the main--through loyalty or through fear."

And again:

"What happens to an attractive woman who is forced to earn her own living? In the business world? In the artistic world? Anywhere? I do not say that men are a pack of wolves, but--I had such a heartbreaking experience, especially in my brief musical career. I might have had a small part in grand opera at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York City, so one particular musical wolf a.s.sured me, if I would show a little sympathy with his desire to a.s.sist me in some of the roles--occasional private rehearsals, and so on. Oh, the beast!... He gave the part to another girl (her voice did not compare with mine) who was less particular, and she made her debut the next season. I went to work at Wanamaker's store!"

And still men pursued me.

I find this entry:

"Roberta took me to dinner yesterday at the Lafayette with her friend Mr. G----, a man of sixty, red-faced, fat and prosperous, the breezy Westerner type. He is giving a grand party at Sherry's and wants me to come. I said I was afraid I couldn't, my real reason being that I have no dress that is nice enough. He said nothing at the time, but kept his eyes on me, and this evening, when I got home, there was a perfectly stunning dinner gown--it must have cost $250.--with a note from Mr.

G---- begging me to accept it as I would a flower, since it meant absolutely nothing to him.