The Daughters of Danaus Part 56

One could not rely on them. They had enthusiasm--Oh, but enthusiasm _a faire peur_, but presently "_un monsieur avec des moustaches seduisantes_" approaches, and then "_Phui, c'est tout fini!_" There was something of fatality in the affair. The instinct was terrible; a demoniacal possession. It was for women a veritable curse, a disease. M.

Jouffroy had p.r.o.nounced views on the subject. He regarded the maternal instinct as the scourge of genius. It was, for women, the devil's truncheon, his rod of empire. This "reproductive rage" held them--in spite of all their fine intuitions and astonishing ability--after all on the animal plane; cut them off from the little band of those who could break up new ground in human knowledge, and explore new heights of Art and Nature.

"I speak to you thus, Madame, not because I think little of your s.e.x, but because I grudge them to the monster who will not spare us even one!"

Hadria worked with sufficient energy to please even Jouffroy. Her heart was in it, and her progress rapid. Everything was organized, in her life, for the one object. At the School of Music, she was in an atmosphere of work, everyone being bent on the same goal, each detail arranged to further the students in their efforts. It was like walking on a pavement after struggling uphill on loose sand; like breathing sea-breezes after inhaling a polluted atmosphere.

In old days, Hadria used to be haunted by a singular recurrent nightmare: that she was toiling up a steep mountain made of hard slippery rock, the summit always receding as she advanced. Behind her was a vast precipice down which she must fall if she lost her footing; and always, she saw hands without bodies attached to them placing stones in the path, so that they rolled down and had to be evaded at the peril of her life. And each time, after one set of stones was evaded, and she thought there would be a time of respite, another batch was set rolling, amid thin, scarcely audible laughter, which came on the storm-wind that blew precipice-wards across the mountain; and invariably she awoke just as a final avalanche of cruel stones had sent her reeling over the hideous verge.

One is disposed to make light of the sufferings gone through in a dream, though it would trouble most of us to explain why, since the agony of mind is often as extreme as possibly could be endured in actual life.

From the day of her arrival in Paris, Hadria was never again tormented with this nightmare.

Composition went on rapidly now. Soon there was a little pile of new work for M. Jouffroy's inspection. He was delighted, criticizing severely, but always encouraging to fresh efforts. As for the publishing, that was a different matter. In spite of M. Jouffroy's recommendation, publishers could not venture on anything of a character so unpopular. The music had merit, but it was eccentric. M. Jouffroy was angry. He declared that he would play something of Madame's at the next Chatelet concert. There would be opposition, but he would carry his point. And he did. But the audience received it very coldly. Although Hadria had expected such a reception, she felt a chill run through her, and a sinking of the heart. It was like a cold word that rebuffs an offer of sympathy, or an appeal for it. It sent her back into depths of loneliness, and reminded her how cut off she was from the great majority of her fellows, after all. And then Guy de Maupa.s.sant's dreadful "Solitude" came to her memory. There is no way (the hero of the sketch a.s.serts) by which a man can break the eternal loneliness to which he is foredoomed. He cannot convey to others his real impressions or emotion, try as he may. By a series of a.s.sertions, hard to deny, the hero arrives at a terrible conclusion amounting to this: Art, affection, are in vain; we know not what we say, nor whom we love.

Jouffroy came out of the theatre, snorting and ruffled.

"But they are imbeciles, all!"

Hadria thought that perhaps _she_ was the "imbecile"; it was a possibility to be counted with, but she dared not say so to the irate Jouffroy.

He was particularly angry, because the audience had confirmed his own fear that only very slowly would the quality of the music be recognized by even the more cultivated public. It had invaded fresh territory, he said, added to the range of expression, and was meanwhile a new language to casual listeners. It was rebel music, offensive to the orthodox.

Hubert had always said that "it was out of the question," and he appeared to have been right.

"_Bah, ce ne sont que des moutons!_" exclaimed Jouffroy. If the work had been poorer, less original, there would not have been this trouble. Was there not some other method by which Madame could earn what was necessary, _en attendent_?

In one of Professor Fortescue's letters, he had reminded Hadria of his eagerness to help her. Yet, what could he do? He had influence in the world of science, but Hadria could not produce anything scientific! She bethought her of trying to write light descriptive articles, of a kind depending not so much on literary skill as on subject and epistolary freshness of touch. These she sent to the Professor, not without reluctance, knowing how overburdened he already was with work and with applications for help and advice. He approved of her idea, and advised the articles being sent the round of the magazines and papers.

Through his influence, one of the shorter articles was accepted, and Hadria felt encouraged. Her day was now very full. The new art was laborious, severely simple in character, though she studiously made her articles. Her acquaintances had multiplied very rapidly of late, and although this brought into her experience much that was pleasant and interesting, the demands of an enlarging circle swallowed an astonishing number of hours. An element of trouble had begun to come into the life that had been so full of serenity, as well as of regular and strenuous work. Hadria was already feeling the effects of anxiety and hurry. She had not come with untried powers to the fray. The reserve forces had long ago been sapped, in the early struggles, beginning in her girlhood and continuing at increasing pressure ever since. There was only enough nerve-force to enable one to live from hand to mouth.

Expenditure of this force having been so often in excess of income, economy had become imperative. Yet, economy was difficult. M. Jouffroy was always spurring her to work, to throw over everything for this object; letters from England incessantly urged a very different course; friends in Paris pressed her to visit them, to accompany them hither and thither, to join musical parties, to compose little songs (some bagatelle in celebration of a birthday or wedding), to drive to the further end of the town to play to this person or that who had heard of Madame's great talent. Hadria was glad to do anything she could to express her grat.i.tude for the kindness she had received on all hands, but, alas! there were only a certain number of hours in the day, and only a certain number of years in one's life, and art was long.

Moreover, nerves were awkward things to play with.

Insidiously, treacherously, difficulties crept up. Even here, where she seemed so free, the peculiar claims that are made, by common consent, on a woman's time and strength began to weave their tiny cords around her.

She took warning, and put an end to any voluntary increase of her circle, but the step had been taken a little too late. The mischief was done. To give pain or offence for the sake of an hour or two, more or less, seemed cruel and selfish, yet Hadria often longed for the privilege that every man enjoys, of quietly pursuing his work without giving either.

A disastrous sense of hurry and fatigue began to oppress her. This was becoming serious. She must make a stand. Yet her attempts at explanation were generally taken as polite excuses for neglecting those who had been kind and cordial.

Jouffroy taxed her with looking tired. One must not be tired. One must arrange the time so as to secure ample rest and recreation after the real work was over. Women were so foolish in that way. They did everything feverishly. They imagined themselves to have inexhaustible nerves.

Hadria hinted that it was perhaps others who demanded of them what was possible only to inexhaustible nerves.

True; towards women, people behaved as idiots. How was it possible to produce one's best, if repose were lacking? Serenity was necessary for all production.

As well expect water perpetually agitated to freeze, as expect the crystals of the mind to produce themselves under the influence of incessant disturbance.

Work? Yes. Work never harmed any man or woman. It was hara.s.sment that killed. Work of the mind, of the artistic powers, that was a tonic to the whole being. But little distractions, irregular duties, worries, uncertainties--Jouffroy shook his head ominously. And not only to the artist were they fatal. It was these that drew such deep lines on the faces of women still young. It was these that destroyed ability and hope, and killed G.o.d only knew how many of His good gifts! Poverty: that could be endured with all its difficulties, if that were the one anxiety. It was never the _one_ but the mult.i.tude of troubles that destroyed. Serenity there must be. A man knew that, and insisted on having it. Friends were no true friends if they robbed one of it. For him, he had a poor opinion of that which people called affection, regard. As for _l'amour_, that was the supreme egotism. The affections were simply a means to "make oneself paid." Affection! Bah! One did not offer it for nothing, _bien sur_! It was through this insufferable pretext that one arrived at governing others. "_Comment?_ Your presence can give me happiness, and you will not remain always beside me? It is nothing to you how I suffer? To me whom you love you refuse this small demand?" Jouffroy opened his eyes, with a scornful glare. "It is in _that_ fashion, I promise you, that one can rule!"

"Ah, monsieur," said Hadria, "you are a keen observer. How I wish you could live a woman's life for a short time. You are wise now, but after _that_----"

"Madame, I have sinned in my day, perhaps to merit purgatorial fires; but, without false modesty, I do not think that I have justly incurred the penalty you propose to me."

Hadria laughed. "It would be a strange piece of poetic justice," she said, "if all the men who have sinned beyond forgiveness in this incarnation, should be doomed to appear in the next, as well-brought-up women."

Jouffroy smiled.

"Fancy some conquering hero reappearing in ringlets and mittens, as one's maiden aunt."

Jouffroy grinned. "_Ce serait dur!_"

"_Ah, mon Dieu!_" cried Madame Vauchelet, "if men had to endure in the next world that which they have made women suffer in this--that would be an atrocious justice!"

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

Stubbornly Hadria sent her packets to the publishers; the publishers as firmly returned them. She had two sets flying now, like tennis b.a.l.l.s, she wrote to Miss Du Prel: one set across the Channel. The publishers, she feared, played the best game, but she had the English quality of not knowing when she was beaten. Valeria had succeeded in finding a place for two of the articles. This was encouraging, but funds were running alarmingly low.

The _apartement_ would have either to be given up, or to be taken on for another term, at the end of the week. A decision must be made. Hadria was dismayed to find her strength beginning to fail. That made the thought of the future alarming. With health and vigour nothing seemed impossible, but without that----

It seemed absurd that there should be so much difficulty about earning a living. Other women had done it. Valeria had always made light of the matter--when she had the theory of the sovereignty of the will to support.

Another couple of articles which seemed to their creator to possess popular qualities were sent off.

But after a weary delay, they shared the fate of their predecessors.

Hadria now moved into a smaller suite of rooms, parting regretfully with Therese, and flinging herself once more on the mercy of a landlady. This time M. Thillard had discovered the lodging for her; a shabby, but sunny little house, kept by a motherly woman with a reputation for perfect honesty. Expenses were thus kept down, but unhappily very little was coming in to meet them. It was impossible to pull through the year at this rate. But, of course, there was daily hope of something turning up.

The arrival of the post was always an exciting moment. At last Hadria wrote to ask Algitha to try and sell for her a spray of diamonds, worth about eighty pounds.

Time must be gained, at all hazards. Algitha tried everywhere, and enquired in all directions, but could not get more than five-and-twenty pounds for it. She felt anxious about her sister, and thought of coming over to Paris to see her, in order to talk over some matters that could no longer be kept out of sight.

Algitha had wished to give Hadria an opportunity for work and rest, and to avoid recurrence of worry; but it was no longer possible or fair to conceal the fact that there were troubles looming ahead, at Dunaghee.

Their father had suffered several severe losses through some bank failures; and now that wretched company in which he had always had such faith appeared to be shaky, and if that were also to smash, the state of affairs would be desperate. Their father, in his optimistic fashion, still believed that the company would pull through. Of course all this anxiety was telling seriously on their mother. And, alas! she had been fretting very much about Hadria. After Algitha's misdeed, this second blow struck hard.

One must act on one's own convictions and not on those of somebody else, however beloved that other person might be, but truly the penalty of daring to take an independent line of action was almost unbearably severe. It really seemed, at times, as if there were nothing for it but to fold one's hands and do exactly as one was bid. Algitha was beginning to wonder whether her own revolt was about to be expiated by a life-long remorse!

"Ah, if mother had only not sacrificed herself for us, how infinitely grateful I should feel to her now! What sympathy there might have been between us all! If she had but given herself a chance, how she might have helped us, and what a friend she might have been to us, and we to her! But she would not."

Algitha said that her mother evidently felt Hadria's departure as a disgrace to the family. It was pathetic to hear her trying to answer people's casual questions about her, so as to conceal the facts without telling an untruth. Hadria was overwhelmed by this letter. Her first impulse was to pack up and go straight to Dunaghee. But as Algitha was there now, this seemed useless, at any rate for the present. And ought she after all to abandon her project, for which so much had been risked, so much pain inflicted? The question that she and Algitha thought they had decided long ago, began to beat again at the door of her conscience and her pity. Her reason still a.s.serted that the suffering which people entail upon themselves, through a frustrated desire to force their own law of conduct on others, must be borne by themselves, as the penalty of their own tyrannous instinct and of their own narrow thought. It was utterly unfair to thrust that natural penalty of prejudice and of self-neglect on to the shoulders of others. Why should they be protected from the appointed punishment, by the offering of another life on the altar of their prejudice? Why should such a sacrifice be made in order to gratify their tyrannical desire to dictate? It was not fair, it was not reasonable.

Yet this conclusion of the intellect did not prevent the pain of pity and compunction, nor an inconsequent sense of guilt.

Meanwhile it would be best, perhaps, to await Algitha's arrival, when affairs might be in a less uncertain state. All decision must be postponed till then. "Try and come soon," she wrote to her sister.

To add to the anxieties of the moment, little Martha seemed to lose in energy since coming to the new abode, and Hadria began to fear that the house was not quite healthy. It was very cheap, and the landlady was honest, but if it had this serious drawback, another move, with probably another drawback, seemed to threaten. This was particularly troublesome, for who could tell how long it would be possible to remain in Paris?

Hadria thought of the doctrine of the sovereignty of the will, and of all the grand and n.o.ble things that the Preposterous Society had said about it, not to mention Emerson and others--and she smiled.

However, she worked on, putting aside her anxieties, as far as was possible. She would not fail for lack of will, at any rate. But it was a hard struggle. Martha had to be very carefully watched just now.

Happily, after a few anxious days, she began to recover her fresh colour and her high spirits. The move would not be necessary, after all. Hadria had become more and more attached to the child, whose lovable qualities developed with her growth. She was becoming singularly like her unhappy mother, in feature and in colouring. Her eyes were large and blue and sweet, with a little touch of pathos in them that Hadria could not bear to see. It seemed almost like the after-glow of the mother's suffering.