Without Dogma Part 25

And finally Aniela had to remain.

It is now three o'clock in the morning. It is already growing light; but lanterns are still flitting across the yard near the stables, where they are busy with Naughty Boy.

My aunt, when wishing us good-night, announced that she intended to remain a day longer at Warsaw; whereupon I said that I had left some papers at Ploszow, and would go and fetch them, and see Aniela home at the same time. We shall be alone, and I will hesitate no longer. The blood rushes to my heart at the thought that I shall travel, though only a short distance, with the dear love close to my heart, and listen to her confession that she loves me as much as I love her.

The sky is clouded, and it has begun to rain. A few hours only divide me from the moment when a new life is to begin for me. Of course I do not sleep; I could not sleep now for anything in the world. There is no heaviness on my eyelids,--I write, and recall memories. I still seem to feel the pressure of her hand on mine. I made that soul, educated, developed it, and prepared it for love. I am like the head of an army, who has foreseen all chances, arranged and calculated everything, and does not sleep on the eve of the day that will decide his fate. But Aniela sleeps peacefully on the other side of the house; and even her dreams plead for me, for my love. When I think of this, all my nerves are vibrating.

In that ocean of trouble, evil, foolishness, uncertainties, and doubts we call life, there is one thing worth living for, as certain and as strong as--nay, stronger than--death; and that is love. Beyond it there is nothingness.

6 June.

I went with Aniela, and am even now asking myself, "Have I gone mad?"

I did not hold her close to my heart, did not hear an avowal of love.

I was spurned without a moment's hesitation; all her modesty risen in arms, she reduced me to a mere nothing. What is it? Am I a fool without brains, or has she no heart? What am I fighting against? What are the obstacles in my way? Why does she spurn me? My head is in such a chaotic state that I can neither think, write, nor reason. I only repeat to myself, over and over again, "What is it that bars my way?"

7 June.

I have made an enormous mistake somewhere; there is something in Aniela I have not observed or taken into account. For two days I have tried to understand what has happened to me, but my head was in such a whirl that I could not think. Now I am collecting my thoughts, pulling myself together to look the situation in the face. It would be clear enough if Aniela were guarded by a strong love for her husband. I could understand then the offended modesty and indignation with which a being, so meek and sweet-tempered usually, spurned me from her feet.

But I cannot even suppose such a thing. I have still enough brains left to know that it is a mistake to see things too black, as it is a mistake to see them too rose-colored. Where should her love for Kromitzki have come from? She married him without love. In the short time they lived together, he deceived her and sold the land so dear to both of those women, and injured her mother's health. They have no child; besides, a child does not teach a woman to love her husband; it only teaches her to take him into account; it makes her safer,--that is to say, it strengthens the union of hands, not of hearts. Aniela besides does not belong to that kind of women to whom love comes suddenly, as a revelation after marriage; women like that pine more after their husbands, or more readily take a lover. I speak of all this in such a matter of fact way that it hurts me; but why should I spare myself? Finally, I am convinced she has no feeling even approaching to love for Kromitzki,--what is more, does not even respect him; she does not permit herself to despise him, that is all.

I consider that as proved, otherwise I should be blind.

Then if her heart at the moment of my return was a _tabula rasa_ I must have contrived to write something on it, I who managed this in other conditions, and was more bent on it than I ever was on anything in my life, who worked upon her feelings of friendship, touched the chords of pity and memories of the past, not neglecting anything, considering every trifle, and moreover am possessed of the power a strong, earnest feeling gives. I take myself by the shoulders: "Man, whatever you may be, you are not a provincial lion, that considers himself irresistible to any woman chance throws in his way; have you not deluded yourself into the belief that she loves you?"

What speaks in favor of its being a delusion?

At the first glance, her resistance.

But I never supposed for a moment that she would not resist. I fancy to myself any other married woman, desperately in love with another man; can one suppose she would not resist and struggle against it and the loved one, until her strength gave way? Resistance is not the outcome of love, but since those two forces can exist side by side like two birds in a nest, one does not exclude the other.

I write this diary not only because it has become my second nature, my pa.s.sion, not only because it gives an outlet for my pent-up feelings, but still more because it gives me a clear view and keeps account of all that is pa.s.sing. I read over again the pages where I have written down my and Aniela's history from the time of my arrival at Ploszow.

I have taken note of well-nigh every glance, every smile and tear, caught every tremor of her heart; and no! I do not deceive myself, the a.n.a.lysis is not wrong! Hers were the tears, the words, the glances and smiles of a woman--maybe unhappy--but not indifferent. I must have influenced her, made an impression upon her. I am not blind; it tears my heart day after day to see how her face is getting smaller, the hands more transparent--and it makes my hair stand on end to think she is paying out her life in this struggle. But all these are invincible proofs. Her heart, her thoughts belong to me. For that very reason she is unhappy--perhaps even more unhappy than I.

I read over what I wrote a moment ago,--that I did not even suppose she would not resist. I thought so soon after my return to Ploszow, but lately and when she was at Warsaw I fancied that I saw signs of yielding. I was wrong. She did not give way in the least, showed no sign of pity; my words to which she would not even listen seemed blasphemy to her. I saw in her eyes sparks of anger and resentment; she tore away her hands I covered with kisses, and the words: "You insult me!" were continually on her lips. Her energy daunted me the more as I had least expected such an explosion of wrath. Ah me! She threatened to leave the carriage and go on foot in the pelting rain to Ploszow. The word "divorce" acted upon her as a red-hot iron. I obtained nothing, nothing, nothing with all my eloquence and audacity; neither my entreaties nor my love moved her; she took everything as an insult to her womanhood, spurned my love and trampled on it. To-day when I see her so meek and sweet-tempered it seems like a horrid dream, and I can scarcely believe that it is the same woman. I cannot hide it from myself; I have met with a defeat so complete and decisive that if I had the strength, or anything else to live for I ought to go away at once.

Supposing she does love me, what good can it be to me if that feeling is to remain for ever imprisoned within her own heart, and never show itself--either in word or deed? I might as well be loved by Greek Helen, Cleopatra, Beatrice, or Mary Stuart. Such must be the feeling which does not desire anything, exact anything, and is sufficient unto itself. Maybe her heart belongs to me, but it is a faint heart, incapable of any action.

Possibly she poses before herself as a lofty soul, sacrificing her love upon the altar of duty--and pleases herself in that pose. It is a satisfaction worth doing something for. Be it so! Sacrifice me; but if you think you sacrifice much in immolating your feeling, and feed your duty upon it, you are mistaken. I cannot, I cannot either think or write calmly.

8 June.

A coquette is like a usurer, giving very little and exacting upon it a high percentage. To-day, as I am growing more composed and can think again, I must render Aniela justice; she never encouraged me or exacted anything. What I mistook for a touch of coquetry at Warsaw was mere joyfulness of a youthful spirit that had shaken itself momentarily free from all trouble. All that has happened was brought on by me. I made mistake after mistake, and it is all my fault.

To know something, and to make it a matter of calculation are two different things. We account to ourselves for unknown factors which act upon the soul of a given individual, but in dealing with the same we generally take ourselves as a point of issue. This happened to me.

I knew, or at least was conscious of the fact, that Aniela and I are as different from each other as if we were the inhabitants of two separate planets, but I did not always remember it. Involuntarily I counted upon her acting in a certain position as I should have acted.

In spite of the consciousness that we two are the most dissimilar beings under the sun, as opposite as the poles, I note it down with a certain surprise, and seem not able to get used to the thought. And yet it is true. I am a thousand times more like Laura Davis than Aniela.

And now I begin to understand why I failed.

The rock I split against is the want of that which has vanished within me, thereby freeing my thoughts, but bringing instead of it the mortal disease that has become my tragedy; it is the catechismal simplicity of the soul.

Now I can account for it clearly, perhaps not quite satisfactorily, for I am of so complex a disposition as to have lost the very instinct of simplicity. "I hear thy voice, but I see thee not." My spiritual sight suffers from Daltonian disease and cannot distinguish colors.

I cannot even understand how any one can accept a principle, however hallowed by ages, without looking at it from both sides, pulling it to pieces, into shreds and atoms, until it crumbles into dust and cannot be put together any more.

Aniela cannot understand that a principle once considered good, hallowed by religion, as well as by public opinion, could be considered otherwise than as a sacred duty.

It does not matter to me whether she is conscious of it, or it is instinctive impulse reasoned out by her intelligence, or merely acquired; it is enough that it has entered her very nature.

I had a glimpse of it the other day when I spoke about Pani Korytzka's divorce suit: "You can prove everything, and yet when one does wrong conscience tells us: 'It is wrong, it is wrong!'" I did not then attach the importance to these words that belonged to them. In Aniela there is no wavering, no doubt whatever. Her soul winnows the chaff from the grain with such precision that there can be no question about its purity. She does not try to find her own norma, but takes it ready-made from religion, general moral principles, and clings to them so strongly that they become her very own, for they permeate her system. The simpler the differential quality of good and evil, the more absolute and merciless it grows. In this ethical code there are no extenuating circ.u.mstances. As according to it the wife belongs to her husband, she who gives herself to another does wrong. There are no discussions, no considerations, or reflections,--there is the right hand for the righteous, the left for the sinners, G.o.d's mercy above all,--but nothing between, no intermediate place.

It is the code of the honest villager, so simple that people like me do not understand it. It seems to us that human life and human souls are too complex to find room in it. Unfortunately we have not found anything to replace it, and consequently we flutter here and there like stray birds, in loneliness and alarm.

The greater part of our women still hold fast to that code. Even those who occasionally stray from it do not permit themselves a momentary doubt as to its truth and sacredness. Where it begins, reasoning leaves off.

The poets erroneously represent woman as an enigma, a living Sphinx.

Man is a hundred times more of an enigma and a Sphinx. A healthy woman that is not hysterical may be either good or bad, strong or weak, but she has more spiritual simplicity than man. Forever and all times the Ten Commandments are enough for her, whether she live according to their tenets, or through human frailty set them aside.

The female soul is so dogmatic that I have known a woman whose very atheism took the form of religion.

It is strange that this code of the honest villager does not exclude in women either keen intelligence, a subtle mind, or loftiness of ideas. Their soul seems to have something of the humming-bird which flits in and out the thickest shrubs, without getting entangled in their branches, or touching a single leaf.

This may be said especially in regard to Aniela. The greatest subtility of feeling and thought goes hand in hand with the utmost simplicity of moral ideas. Her Ten Commandments are the same as the village girls', with the exception that those of the latter are wrought on coa.r.s.e linen, and hers on a web as fine as lace. Why do I discuss this question? Simply because it is a question of my happiness, almost my life; for I feel that with all my complex and intricate philosophy of love, I cannot get over the Ten Commandments.

And how can I conquer them, since I do not even believe in that philosophy, while Aniela's faith in her principles is calm and unshaken?

Only the lips that have been drinking at the fountain of doubt opine that a forbidden kiss is not a sin. A religious woman may be carried away, as a tree is swept away by a hurricane, by forbidden love, but she will never acknowledge it.

Shall I ever be able to carry off Aniela? It is possible that my present state of despondency and discouragement is only a pa.s.sing one, and to-morrow I shall feel more hopeful,--to-day all seems impossible.

I wrote once in this same diary that in certain families they inoculate their children with modesty as they inoculate for small-pox.

The rule which says the wife shall belong to the husband, and in which Aniela believes so firmly, is strengthened by that modesty, so knitted into her being, so worked into the system, that I could sooner fancy Aniela cold and lifeless than baring her bosom in my presence.

And I can still delude myself with the idea that I may expect anything from her! It is simple idiocy!

What am I to do then? Go away?

No; I shall not go away. I will not, and cannot.

I will remain, and since my love is idiotic, I will do as idiots do.

Enough of systems, calculations, forethought! Let things take their own way. My former ways did not lead to anything.

9 June.

She is not a bit happier than I am. What I saw to-day confirmed my suspicion that she is fighting a heavy battle, with nothing to help her except the truth of her own faith and convictions.