Robert Orange Part 36

"You must be very sad, often," said Sara, coldly.

"Yes, often," answered Brigit. "And I was so happy during the short time we were together that now it seems no part of my life--no part of it. I say this because I wish you to know that nothing can make us love each other less--that all this misery and separation--which may last as long as we live--has made no difference and can make no difference to us. And if I never see him again, or speak to him again, he will always be certain that I am his--unalterably, for ever his."

"You are little more than a child. You have a great career before you--who can say what may happen in the future? Women without careers change their minds--their tastes. These things are out of one's own control, and in your case----"

"My mind may change, but my soul cannot. I may dance, I may amuse myself, I may have friends. Make no mistake. I can tell you all that is in me. I find life beautiful. The theatre enchants me. I could work there all day. I have no illusions about it--the paint, the machinery, the box-office, the advertis.e.m.e.nts--the vulgarity are familiar enough to me. But I find a box-office, and machinery, and vulgarity everywhere, though they are called by other names."

Sara coloured and looked away.

"I am getting stronger now," continued Brigit. "I can lift up my head and see the world as it is. I like it--yes, with all its griefs and its horrors--I like it. When one is ill or sentimental one hates it, because it wasn't made for the sick, and it was not created us a playground for lovers. One may love--yes, but one must work. I intend to love and work at the same time."

"Many find that these two occupations clash! There is a time in love--just as there is a period in life--when it seems enough in itself.

It is independent of circ.u.mstances and persons. O, but that time soon pa.s.ses! As you learn more, you look for more. And work is no cure for dissatisfaction. If you can live through it you will just be a machine with one refrain--'I know nothing! I have nothing! I am nothing!'"

The two young girls did not look at each other. Brigit could recognise an agitation of the soul in the imperceptible sadness of the voice, and she guessed poor Sara's secret.

"Yes," she said quietly. "I must suffer all that. How can you be sure that I have not suffered it already? At any rate, I hope this confidence will increase your kindness toward me."

"I have no kindness toward you--none at all," said Sara. "I have no kindness toward any living creature. I should like to die and come to an end. I wasn't born to put up with make-shifts. Other women may be resigned to that paltry way of existing. If they can't have what they want, they will take what they don't want; they will take what they hate, and grin--yes, they will grin and bear it. And after a little while, because they become gradually drunk with suffering, they begin to think they are n.o.ble. They are not n.o.ble. They are fools, fools, fools!"

"I shan't accept make-shifts," answered Brigit. "I intend to keep all my ideals, but they are all unfinished at present. I have just the outlines and beginnings of them--nothing else."

"I am not talking about ideals. I am speaking of realities. I don't want to be happy, but I do wish to be one of four things: either perfectly alive, or perfectly, utterly dead; either a pure spirit, or a faultless animal. This dead-and-alive, body-and-soul mixture which pa.s.ses for a well-disciplined human being is loathsome to me. It is a tissue of lies and hypocrisies."

"Perhaps I should have that feeling, too, if I had no faith in G.o.d. He a.s.sumed humanity--not despising it."

"You know I do not believe that splendid story--so it doesn't help me.

I compare life as I feel it with life as it is, and the inequality fills me with disgust. The example of Christ is too sublime. He was human only in His sufferings. He bore our burdens and He shared our agonies. He was deceived, despised, rejected: the first torture and the firstfruits of His Pa.s.sion was the treachery of a disciple. When I am sorrowful and wretched, He seems Real to me and vivid. But when I am well and wildly happy, He seems far away and unreal--an invisible G.o.d, watching mortals with a certain contempt. Now the Pagans had a Divinity for every mood, so they never felt depressed or lowered in their own self-esteem. We have a G.o.d for two moods only,--great sorrow, and great exaltation. For the rest we have to beat our b.r.e.a.s.t.s and call ourselves miserable sinners. All the good people I know enjoy spiritual peace only--without any fear of remorse--when they are tired out or moaning with physical pain. I don't say this to shock you; I should like to have a religion if I could be convinced of it without fasting, without long illnesses, and without abandoning all hope of earthly, common joys. Most Christians take a middle way, I know; they prattle about their immortal souls, and behave as though they had nothing but bodies. I can't take part in such a gross farce."

Brigit sighed deeply, and did not reply at once.

"It is all very hard, I know," she answered; "but from the lowest abyss one can still see the sky overhead. People's hearts are touched by the spectacle of sin or the spectacle of suffering. Our Lord could not sin, therefore He reached our sympathies by His Death and Sorrows. Of course, if this life here were all, and this world were the only one, and we were animals with less beauty than many of the inanimate things in nature, and as much intelligence at best as the bees and birds and ants--then the Pagan way might be quite admirable. But this isn't the case, and so--and so----"

Sara laughed.

"We are a grotesque compromise between G.o.ds and creatures," she said; "those of us who find this out get a little impatient with the false position. You are less sentimental than I am. You take what I call the hard view. It is too frigid for me. But I am making you late. All good luck to-night!"

She waved her hand, and, returning to her own room, realised that she had missed the object of her conversation. The attempt to excite Brigit's jealousy had failed.

Nothing is so infectious as despair. Brigit sat quivering under the echo of Sara's last words: "You take what I call the hard view." Was it, then, such an easy matter to bury love in perpetual silence, to let nature yield to fate, to stifle every human craving? The mention of Robert's name and the news that he looked ill and careworn had stirred all the unshed tears in her heart; she could not think, she could not move, she could but realise that she had no right to be with him. And sorrow seemed her province. There, surely, she and he might meet, join hands, and speak once more face to face. She had not written to him since that parting at Miraflores. But she would write now. This was her letter--

MY DEAREST LIFE--You are my dearest and you are my life--so let me say it now, even if I never say it again. I could be glad (if any gladness were left in me) at your grief for Lord Reckage's death, because it gives me an excuse for breaking my word and writing to you. This is selfish, but n.o.body knows how much I have suffered, or how much I suffer daily, hourly. I try to believe that it would have been worse if we had never owned our love, never met again after our first meeting. Darling, I can't be sure. Sometimes I wish I had been born quite numb. I dare not complain, and yet it is impossible to feel contented. Always, always there is a dreadful pain in my heart. Every moment is occupied, for when I am not working, I sleep, and when I wake, I work. I would rather spend one perfect day with you and die, than live on without you. This is the truth. If I had any choice that would be my choice. But I know you want me to be courageous, and I myself want you to see that a woman's love can be as strong as a man's. Women are supposed to make men weak--they are supposed to be chains and hindrances. This shan't be said of me. You wouldn't say it: you wouldn't think it: yet in history I find that while a few have been saved by women, more have been ruined by them. And where the women have saved the men they loved, it has been done by great renunciations and sacrifices--not at all by selfishness and joys. When I can remember this (I forget it too easily), I can almost persuade myself that I don't long to see you, to hear your voice, to be with you again on the boat--going on and on toward Miraflores. But I never persuade myself of this entirely--never, never. I do long to see you, Robert: I do want to be with you. I envy the servant in your lodgings, and the friends you meet. And I--who love you so dearly--may not go near you. I am going to act to-night--as if I were not acting all day, every day! I haven't said one word about you. But you couldn't be so wretched as I am, because _you_ have yourself, _you_ know what you are doing, saying, and thinking. Now if I could cease altogether and become, say, your hand or your foot, no one would expect you to renounce me. I might be useful, and it would certainly be no scandal if I accompanied you everywhere! I won't say any more.

BRIGIT.

She addressed an envelope and sealed the letter within it. Then, with tears streaming down her cheeks, she read her part for the comedy that evening. When Esther entered with her dressing-gown, she held up her hands in dismay.

"O Madame," said she, "I thought you were going to play an amusing piece!"

"It will be very amusing," said Brigit, "but this is the way to rehea.r.s.e it."

CHAPTER XXVII

The Marquis of Castrillon, meanwhile, was pirouetting sublimely before the long mirror in his dressing-room, while his valet, a sour-faced individual, looked on in great but gloomy interest. The Marquis was superbly dressed in a Louis Seize costume--an exact reproduction of the one worn by that monarch on his wedding-day--and he presented a very fine figure. In features, expression, colouring, and manner it would have been difficult to find, or imagine, a more fascinating puppet. An unsurpa.s.sable actor of n.o.ble parts, he seemed created to play the hero in deeds, the poet in thoughts, the lover on all occasions. Confident of his attractions, he appeared quite free from vanity: each fresh att.i.tude became him better than the last: no light could do less than show the cla.s.sic beauty of his head and body. When he laughed, one could admire his magnificent teeth; when he looked grave, one could enjoy the splendid serenity of his brow and the pa.s.sion in his deep brown eyes. It was said that his legs alone would have made the plainest man a dangerous rival, that his well-cut mouth would have made a monster irresistible.

"So you don't think," said he, as he executed a final bow and kicked off his shoes because a buckle stuck into his instep--"so you don't think, Isidore, that Her Imperial Highness loves me?"

"I know she doesn't," replied his man. "I am not going to say that I see more than I see."

"It may be that she cannot love," said the Marquis, "and I don't think less of her on that account. These sentimental girls become very monotonous and sickening. The women whom men love the longest are prim, stand-off women. Have you noticed that, Isidore?"

"No, I haven't noticed that. I haven't noticed much love lasting long for any kind of person."

"There's something in your stupidity which refreshes me. I have a strong notion to marry Her Imperial Highness. I could make her happy."

"Not you."

"I tell you I could. She has the oddest effect upon me. No other woman has ever affected me in such a way. I feel when I am with her as though we were well matched. If I were a King, I would make her my Queen. I might love others, but I should always say, 'Remember the Queen. The Queen must be remembered, and honoured, and obeyed in all things.'

Sometimes I see myself--with her--at a kind of Versailles: every one standing up as we enter: Her Majesty very pale and tall and wonderful in a blue velvet robe and pearls, I would adore her with a pa.s.sion as constant as it was respectful. I should ask in return _une amitie la plus tendre_. Isidore, she is an angel. The sweetness of her soul is in her face--in the very sound of her voice. I am a little too material to be so sublime in my sentiments as M. de Hausee, but I could be unusually faithful to that charming, beautiful creature. Isn't there a crease under my left arm? Hold the gla.s.s for me."

Isidore held the gla.s.s while Castrillon, with knit brows, studied the back view of his coat.

"The coat is perfect," said Isidore; "you have no heart or you would never find fault with such a back."

"Would you call me heartless?"

"I couldn't call you anything else," replied the valet, bluntly.

"Then why have you been with me, cat-fish, ever since I was born?"

The Marquis had a stock of names for his servant, none of which he employed unless he felt in a good humour. Owl-pig, hog-mouse, ape-dog, rat-weasel, and cat-fish were the highest expressions of his amiability toward the man who had been his ill-tempered, dishonest, impudent, and treacherous attendant all the years of his life.

"You know, mule-viper," he continued, "that no one else would keep you for five minutes. You are a liar, a thief, and a traitor. Yet I endure you. I agree that I must be either heartless or an idiot to put up with such a rogue."

Isidore grew livid, muttered blasphemies under his breath, and put pink cotton-wool in the toes of his master's dancing-shoes. Castrillon then kicked him into the adjoining room and resumed his gymnastic exercises.

At the end of half an hour, the man re-entered carrying a note fastidiously between his left thumb and forefinger.

"Is that for me?" asked the Marquis, who was in the act of turning a double somersault with much agility.

"It is for Monsieur."

"Then read it aloud while I stand on my head."

Isidore tore it open and began to read as follows:--